Ashes of Ariandel Review (Dark Souls 3 DLC) 

Vaati mentioned it was likely planned to just be one big dlc

@@paynesyler6428 so does Joe in his Ringed City review

What about when she moves again after going invisible? She doesn't create a second snow trail that I saw. Sometimes it seemed inconsistent even the first time though. Even if she moved behind you, the trail would look like she went sideways.

Joseph Anderson The second time I'm pretty sure there's no tell, but it takes her out of the "grab" attack.

It still works the same. Just pay close attention to it and you should be able to see it just fine. Small kicks of snow mean she's going to a side, big kick means she's jumping behind you. Also her attacks are preset, only affected by you attacking her, so you can easily punish her when ever she does this. I once managed to make her just turn around and never attack during the first phase, since she cannot do anything until she does the attack or you hit her. It was quite amusing.

Joseph Anderson in the first phase you can always find her; in her third, she always does 2 ice attacks, and then the massive dark attack. After each ice attack, she gives the same dodge tell that she does in phase 1 (if dodges right or left, you'll see a puft of ice to the left or right of her, if she jumps, youll see a big puft, then if you turn around youll see her footsteps). The strategy is to go to her after each ice attack, see the tell, find her charging he dark attack, and punish her.

So in phase 3 you're never meant to "catch" her while doing her ice attacks? I don't know how I feel about that. My knee jerk reaction is that it should be consistent with phase 1. Explains why she would always Matrix Dodge out of every attack when I found her though. In the first phase I think the problem is that when she moves after going invisible (two movements), there's no tell that I saw. In phase 3 you can follow her with each jump between ice attacks but it's still not something I'd call consistent. One direction in an arena that big could mean a lot of places. There's an example in the video that shows that. I guess that's just part of the fight since you can still dodge her big magic attack even if you don't find her. I thought the sound was meant to be a reliable indicator but I guess not. Hm. I'll have to think about the boss some more now.

There is always money to be earned. Time however is limited.

this was my favorite boss mechanic, and it's only so out of left field because dark souls so rarely flirts with the environment in such a detailed way :^(

@sokyu no she is very fair, I see no issues personally.

@sokyu no I actually used a dagger on my first run, and stunlocked her for a bit, greatsword is a good idea too.

I agree with you on a lot of points. One thing that did struck me is that you didn't even read the description for the Grave Tenders weapon as he drops it as soon as you beat him. Blocking while attacking is part of the weapon's mechanic, not the bosses. One more thing I think you should have taken into account is how much lore did the DLC's bring. You not reading the description and also saying you don't buy into it (the lore) is really negative since this is a review, not an analysis. When reviewing a game as a whole you NEED to take it's story and lore into account, as some people literally play these games for the lore. Tho in the end, I think it would have just been worse for the DLC's score as it has the least amount of "lore points" out of all the DLC's. My personal ranking on the DLC's lore, and this is taking into account NPC, overall story, presentation and so on is: DS - Meme of the Abyss: 5 Lore points; 15% The DLC for Dark Souls 1 revealed a big part of the settings history and also introduced us to one of the bigger characters in the lore, Artorias, as he is mentioned in DS3's lore, and probably the most important character for DS2's lore, Manus, who was also very important in 1 and I'd argue 3 too. DS2: Sunken, Old Iron and Ivory Meme - 8 Lore points; 30$ I decided to bundle all of the 3 DLC's as a single expansion because to unlock a very important item, while mechanically and gameplay wise boring, lore wise it's probably up there with the Lordvesel and Kiln. Vendric's Crown is insane and I'm really sad they didn't mention it in 3, as it literally stops the curse of the undead. The individual bosses, NPC's, their backgrounds and stories are great and literally fix the lore for some of the base game bosses. BB - The Meme Hunters: 8 Lore points; 20$ This one is biased so I won't talk about it much. I just really love Bloodborne and everything about it. DS3 - Memes of Ariandel: 3 Lore points; 20$ There are so many cool little references and little lore bits you can find while scouring such a small area that I think it's size is why it has 3 LP. There is not a single part of the DLC it'd call a "site seeing spot". There is always something about the story you can figure out by stopping and looking at your surroundings, which is great, but Bloodborne did this while also being quite longer and larger, for the same price. I initially wanted to give it 4 LP, but the sheer amount of unanswered questions it asks is staggering, it's almost forcing you to buy the next DLC just to MAYBE understand some of the lore just in this DLC, which I (x)Doubt it will since AoA is it's own realm. Just for reference, my LP scores for the core games are: DS - 8; DS2 - 4, BB - 10, DS3 - 8. Wow this is fun I can see why you do it.

> One thing that did struck me is that you didn't even read the description for the Grave Tenders weapon as he drops it as soon as you beat him. Blocking while attacking is part of the weapon's mechanic, not the bosses. I don't think this really matters. This explanation basically means "it's intentional". Of course it's intentional. That doesn't change that it's weird and hasn't been seen before in the series--someone being able to block in mid-air--whether it's tied to a weapon or a boss or anything really. > When reviewing a game as a whole you NEED to take it's story and lore into account, as some people literally play these games for the lore. I disagree. This is the same as the PvP. I'm not interested in these things in the series, and this video is one in a long string of stuff I've done on Souls. I didn't bring up the lore and story in the other games, so it's balanced that I didn't look at it in this one. I briefly addressed it at the end of the video for that reason. > Wow this is fun I can see why you do it. Yeah it can get interesting to think about things and make comparisons!

The video was sent to me in a direct message and its process is deeply flawed, as I told the creator in a reply to said message. It's also important to consider the source which is, unfortunately, highly biased. If you scroll down to his comments in this video you'll see that he claimed completion times on all of the DLC content. He says that, even while taking his time and dying only a couple of times, that he was able to complete Artorias of the Abyss in 50 minutes, and Ashes in 2 hours. Immediately you can see those numbers are completely off by opening up this video (in which he didn't die and it still took him longer for Artorias). I don't know why he would bend the truth to make a point, but it's enough to show he's not going into this experiment in a fair way. Unfortunately you can see proof of that immediately after watching the video. He is far more... leisurely, let's say... in the Ashes run--you may also note, right at the beginning, that he begins these pauses by showing his equipment in Ashes but not in Artorias. This continues on with how much more efficient his path is through the Royal Wood forest compared to Ashes. He is far more familiar with where the enemy packs are, which places to avoid because they're "dead-ends"--which he told me was an intentional choice to avoid said areas for a bewildering reason. Already you can see that this test isn't fair since he is far more thorough in Ashes--or far more favorably, he is simply less familiar with it since it is the newest content in the series. It's very understandable when viewed that way. This is all without saying that I'd argue his level is way too low in Dark Souls 3. Ashes in endgame content and should be run with a character of at least 100 if you are testing it _how FROM intended it to be run_. You can argue that it's not balanced properly for that level--and you may very well be right--but soul levels are not equal throughout the games. FROM warns you should have completed all of the base game before heading to Ashes which, without any farming, put me around level 100. I don't know what the equivalent of that would be in Artorias so it's possible that number is off to. Then we have to consider how much content should be worth since Ashes makes you fight a lot more groups of enemies. Some of them have way more health despite being single encounters. And I don't mean this to discredit him I mean it literally as a question: how do you weigh that as new content? Pasting a lot of enemies down surely shouldn't count as literal extra minutes onto playtime, nor should giant enemies with double the HP as in the previous DLC. Same goes for giving content weights to the boss encounters. How do you measure the "Try, Fail, Learn, Try Again" cycle that you have when you come to a new boss? (Also seen in the video that he DESTROYS Artorias because of this familiarity, and struggles far more on Friede) This is a *significant* part of Dark Souls, and Ashes has half of this compared to Artorias no matter how you look at it. How do you measure the puzzle mechanics in the DaS2 DLC, or how Ariandel is more straightforward in layout compared to Artorias and... I think you see my point, this is very difficult to measure. I know this because I've been thinking about how to do it pretty much non-stop since so many people told me to kill myself after making this video. As for your assessment, I'm not sure if I agree with your final numbers but for the sake of argument let's say we do. Ashes at 2.5 and 2 bosses still puts it as the lowest content in any of the DLC for the price, which is something you seem to also believe with your opening paragraphs. Bumping the levels from 1.5 to 2.5 isn't that big of a difference from what I've said in the video. And going from 1.5 to 2 bosses is an even smaller increase even though I vehemently disagree that Gravetender is "worth" just as much as Friede. I think 2 levels in Ariandel might be more accurate, and I'm really interested to see how the comparisons will settle on when there's a better way to judge them. Imagine if Township was just as littered with easy fodder enemies as the Ariandel Settlement, as an good example to follow.

> We don't need to look at the precise time when the outcome was so clear - Ashes ending up half an hour longer is more than enough to nip any thoughts of it being half the content in the bud. You don't understand how a fair test works. The outcome may only be this "clear" *because* of these differences in his method for each game. Are you familiar with speedrunning and how seconds literally do matter when the goal times are so tight? All of these little moments--ignoring an optional path because he knows it leads to a dead-end, while being especially thorough in the other game. Even if this only makes a few minutes of difference each way, when the time measured is so small that matters a *lot*. Take battling normal enemies. Let's say he should 30 levels higher and that makes it so he can kill most things several seconds faster. Take that time saved and multiply it by every enemy in the DLC. That is a HUGE amount of time when you're comparing minutes and seconds. And these are only two factors out of several that I noticed after only watching part of the video. He admitted to me that he didn't explore every area in Artorias if he already knew there was nothing important there. That alone invalidates the entire exercise, even with all of the other inconsistencies I brought up in the last comment. Like without a single word of exaggeration the experiment isn't fair *just from that*. > Your level ceases to make much of a difference once you have a decent chunk of health and a maxed out weapon. This isn't true. It's especially not true if the stats difference from extra levels would make things die in fewer hits. Compare how many times he has to attack the stone giants in Royal Wood to how many hits it takes to kill the half giants around the tower in Ashes for a very clear demonstration of this. > Now think about how the Dark Souls 2 DLC makes you fight enemies taken from the base game, sometimes big damage sponges - like the copypasted Flexiles and Covetous in Ivory King and the numerous giants - and sometimes in groups - like the Sir Alonne gauntlet. The only time this happens in Ashes is with the three crabs which aren't placed as progress blockers unlike these other examples. Without doing an overall comparison of unique enemy types, animations, new attacks, etc, etc, these comparisons aren't worth much. That's what makes this so difficult. There's a long stretch in Ashes where all you do is kill enemies pretending to be dead on the floor. And then go through a town area crammed with even more of them. Imagine if a DLC had a gigantic blob enemy that sat in the middle of an area and took X minutes of time to kill. Would that count as X minutes of real, worthwhile content? Because if so, FROM should start doing that to make their games feel like they're worth more money. That's what you're arguing is all that matters right now by pointing to deeply flawed runs of the game as evidence. Because Ashes has that blob. It's just split into dozens of individual pieces on the floor before the Settlement. The heart of the matter is tied to that: this is so difficult to measure, yet so many more people agree with the idea that Ashes was overpriced and were left with a "Wait, that's it?" feeling when they were done. Maybe the reasons are that, despite the higher amount of actual enemies in the game compared to Artorias, that the areas are less substantial underneath them. And that there was less to struggle against because of the lower number of bosses. Your arguments do nothing to disprove that experience as valid. The struggle is a huge part of Souls. > I agree with your disagreement that Gravetender is worth as much as Friede. I also disagree equally vehemently that Friede is only worth as much as copypasting Aava and painting Smelter Demon blue, or that making and copying Aava is worth 3 Gravetenders but... well that was your assessment. When did I say that Friede is worth as much as copypasting Avaa or Smelter Demon 2.0? I ranked those as half an encounter, but Friede as a full one. Unless you mean adding them together to equal 1 would mean Friede is equal to both? So that would mean we need to use more decimals. But then I'd say some fights in the other DLC are worth way more than just 1 if we're going to go that far... so, sure, I agree that Friede is worth more than two rehashed fights from the DaS 2 DLC, but that's opening a big can of worms that, ultimately, I think would make an even less favorable comparison for Ashes when it comes to boss quality vs price. Also please remember that the Gravetender NPC is just a regular dude with a unique weapon, just like a ton of NPC battles in the series. The wolf is the new-ish content which, like Avaa, is copy and pasted twice elsewhere in the DLC and feels like a regular enemy in those encounters. Not to mention how similar it is to the normal wolf enemies that are all over the place. > I think when it comes to content THAT lazy - which doesn't involve ANY new designs - it would be reasonable to throw the trilogy a token 0.5 for all three. But copy and pasting tons of the same enemy to make multiple-based encounters, dramatically increasing the amount of time it takes to get through them, is different? How? I like the multiple-based fights. I like some of the repeated bosses in the series too. I don't understand how you can say it should be lesser content for one DLC but pure new stuff in the other? That's why I tried to be consistent with giving the bosses that I felt were rehashes 0.5. > Then you can keep the Gravetender at 0.5 if you really think it's that bad, though you may want to account for the fact that the boss is meant to be fought as a duo in phase 2 - becoming dynamic in a similar way as Elana does - and your skill as a player and build led to that not happening in the intended fashion - like how someone could near trivialize Elana if Velstadt never shows up. This gets dangerously subjective fast. Imagine someone playing a super tank build and finding Sir Alonne to be a throwaway boss. Well first off I don't think it's even possible to kill Elana that quickly if you're the appropriate level, which I was when I fought Gravetender both times. And yeah like you said this is so subjective that I don't know why you brought it up. Imagine how long it would take someone to get through Ashes if they used a bow and hundreds of arrows to slowly chip and cheese their way through every battle with multiples. For them it might be the longest DLC of all. Which adds even more support to how meticulous you'd have to be with measuring them, and that the video example you're upholding is broken. > I'm glad there's a recognition that measuring content is very nuanced and you can surely see how from some perspectives Ashes is absolutely fine. When I play through all these DLC today my completion times end up similar. I quite literally go through a similar amount of content. You asked how larger groups of enemies should be measured - another question is how difficult sections that wall you should be measured as content. Think about how Frigid Outskirts could waste hours of someone's time for what amounts to one new enemy design and a copied boss. How OIK walls you with levers to open doors in tight corridors with enemies, or statues that revive enemies. How you have to run a hell gauntlet to fight a base game boss painted blue. Ashes has much less of this than previous DLC. That's why it ends up shorter than them on a first playthrough but when you go back and don't get progress-blocked like that it's actually similar. Okay good! See, this is really good. After saying this, why are you eager to throw all these considerations away though and only go by one guy's playthrough vs playthrough? There's more to content in the game than how long it takes you to run through it after you already know what you're doing and where you're going. > How do we measure this? What's it "worth" to get stuck for half an hour trying to clear the same room over and over because the designers crammed five dangerous enemies into its small space? It's just five enemies that are the same enemies as elsewhere. It's just one room. You may blaze through it in 30 seconds on subsequent playthroughs. It gets extremely, I'd argue cripplingly subjective when you start breaking it down to a level like - How much HP is an enemy "allowed" to have before it doesn't "count"? How many enemies are the designers allowed to use in one place before they don't "count"? How many times can they reuse the same enemy. I don't think this leads to a good, or a fair place. Which is exactly why I did it the way I did in the video. And mentioned twice that it's hard to measure. Your first playthrough is the most valuable for this sort of thing. I vividly remember my first time through all of the DLC because I enjoy it so much. And Ashes was unsubstantial in every area except for the fight against Friede. Yet a few really... passionate... people seem so hellbent on proving this wrong without having any surefire way to accurately measure the content themselves, even while most of them agree it is shorter than it should be for the price. And why are people doing that? Because I put .5 instead of a 2? Or because they disagree about my opinion on one boss and feel compelled to call me retard/idiot/false/grossunfair/faggot/asshole/worthlessshit/lying/shill/killyourself? I don't know. But here we are anyway.

I won't attempt to take up any more of your time - I think these below were ultimately the most important points. I really appreciate you taking the time to respond. You've given me more to think about and I'm looking forward to your ultimate take on the matter. > Okay good! See, this is really good. After saying this, why are you eager to throw all these considerations away though and only go by one guy's playthrough vs playthrough? There's more to content in the game than how long it takes you to run through it after you already know what you're doing and where you're going. Well it's because there's plenty of stuff in these comparisons that -is- objective -- objectively new and unique content that From went through the whole design process for and put into the game specifically for the DLC in question. How people then receive it - how they feel about it - is ultimately a related but separate matter. If someone says that every single enemy in expansion X was "insubstantial" to them because "personal reason Y" then well, it's still new and unique enemies. It's still content that From created and delivered for the asking price. That type of content is really the only content we can reliably measure objectively because people's experiences and opinions when they go through the games can differ so wildly based on highly subjective factors. Or at least it's SOME content we can measure objectively, which is really important. It can still be totally fair to state that an experience was lackluster or disappointing in some way in a review but then _how_ you state that has to be really important. My takeaway is that Ashes is less deprived of content, moreso delivered content that failed to feel sufficiently satisfying to a lot of people for varied but largely similar reasons. I think this is a really important difference though. > Your first playthrough is the most valuable for this sort of thing. I vividly remember my first time through all of the DLC because I enjoy it so much. And Ashes was unsubstantial in every area except for the fight against Friede. Yet a few really... passionate... people seem so hellbent on proving this wrong without having any surefire way to accurately measure the content themselves, even while most of them agree it is shorter than it should be for the price. That's just it though. It was an unsubstantial experience for you. You brand an area like the snowfield unsubstantial and counting for less content than the royal wood despite it 1) Being new instead of a base game half-rehash, 2) Having many more _and_ much more varied enemies. It being unsubstantial is something subjectively perceived (I'm sure it's obvious that I disagree - I felt that I got more mechanical "substance" out of all the dynamic battles across that snowfield than I do fighting the same two enemies over and over in the Wood) and separate from the objectively measurable content therein. Saying the snowfield's content felt unsubstantial to you personally and explaining why is one thing. But saying the snowfield had less content straight up... that's really quite another. When people who, subjectively, didn't find it insubstantial see these assessments it's quite understandable that they wish to point to all the ways in which From objectively delivered just as or close to as much content as they did in Artorias. Because in many ways they really did and whether that was good enough for any individual player depends heavily on subjective factors. Valuing combat or exploration. Caring about lore or not. Pure unquantifiable preference as to the quality of various enemies or bosses. We may lack one flawless measuring stick but we still have several very important ones and I think that's the key.

Yeah, nameless king is the biggest offender here imo. King of the Storm phase is really easy after a couple of tries, it does not even drain much healing at all, but it always is a waste of time.

Just beat Friede at level 61 and +7 twinblades. The first 2 phases were fine, it's the crazy long combo and high damage in the third phase that hindered me. It's like "Ok, finally im here i can learn her combos" and then 2 combos later ur dead and you don't even know what happened.

I just really didn't like how they essentially make you play bloodborne with dark souls mechanics in the Friede fight. Some of her dodges just feel like the game is saying "you get to hit her when the rng lets you" and i can't help but think the fight would have been much better if you weren't stuck with your goofy ass rolls. Otherwise, she is probably my favourite boss in the series despite my small gripes.

@@TheBigLime111 her 3rd phase could be a separate boss on her own. It changes up the fight so much. Maybe they should've made her fight a 2 parter with father and her. Then another fight with her suped up form later on.

​​@@ablebodied175 yeah someone on Reddit suggested this as well. Also with Nameless King they should just let you fight him immediately after killing King of the Storms. It makes more sense honestly since it seemed weird he just revives from the dead everytime until you killed NK.

Exactly these games are as long or short as you want them to be, I see people complaining its too short but they played at SL120 and summoned for the whole DLC, any area in any DS game can be completed in minutes.

yeah I saw him in the video killing wolves win 1 hit with a straight sword and I knew he was way overleveled for the DLC. Dark Souls does not have innate difficulty adjusting system but you should put the challenge by yourself if you want to fully enjoy the game. I recommend going through this DLC with SL70 with around +6 upgraded weapon and you wouldnt complain about its difficulty or the length.

clickpwn well in this case I heard (from other gamers, I didn't look it up) that From Soft recommended SL 80 for the DLC. So I can't really blame any gamers who play AoA overpowered. Still, it makes sense to me that you'd tackle the DLC on a first run (not NG+) and around the level in which you encounter the portal for the DLC (in this case Cathedral of the Deep, which is the first third of DS3)

7 years later it's still true. First playthrough, laughing at myself for how much I'm hating this experience, cos I know I'm over-leveled. I'll hang on for the Sister Friede fight cos it's the thing we all have to complain about re: this game.

I think some of the bonfires were too close together. And the conspiracy theorist in me wonders if they fluffed the numbers to make the area look more substantial. That shortcut in the house before the second forest area was totally superfluous too. What the hell was that locked door about?

It's for lore reasons. Remember that the painter girl is actually initially locked in the attic. We only get to her after killing Vilhelm and pulling the lever to open a secret staircase. It wouldn't make a lot of sense if the door was open because the painter would've been free to move wherever she pleases.

Writing on Games Hey man, I am a subscriber to your channel. Can you also make a video about this DLC. I really appreciate your opinion on games especially Dark Souls.

Yep but there's no jump from the balcony to the other side to open it, haha. It's two short falls right? No higher than the table she's on. If it's meant to keep her trapped then it shouldn't work.

Yeah, I think it's going to remain somewhat of an inconsistency in that sense. I think they wanted to have you naturally progress after finding her, so they made sure you're have a clear exit from the room. Otherwise they could've added a ladder outside of the Cathedral prior to fighting Vilhelm and had us climb it to the other side of the door or something akin to that.

Kaiser Willy artorias of the abyss is actually smaller than ashes... it just has more boss fights.

@@tehCostHD Honestly, Id rather have a good 10 minute Dark Souls boss fight than another 45 minutes of the standard exploration.

Grey Bayles damn 3 years later but yeah can’t say I disagree... I do wish ashes had one more good boss fight but oh well ringed city sure made up for it

@@greybayles7955 actually I really like dark souls' exploration, I'd take the 45 minutes please. Also considering that ds3 does have a problem of spam dodging on boss fights, would you flip the coin on whether it's a good spam boss or a boring one?

I didn't like the lore, because it added in even more questions instead of answering or bringing light to the mysteries presented by the main game of DaS3. I really hope the next DLC doesn't do the same thing of raising even more questions.

Well, the ringed city was absolutely epic

In my opinion, Sekiro had the worst DLC, maybe this comment wont aged well

Just another black & white mickey Mouse it doesn’t even have dlc

@@glctcthnkr8059 Thats why it is the worst

High Voltage Yea, he has very different mechanics

Please. Stop with the bullshit. The "second phase" you define is barely a phase at all. And the final phase when he loses his legs is nothing unique, since it literally recycles the exact same moves from the legless zombies in the sewers of Yharnam and the swampy area of Forbidden Woods. They have the same "crawl at you one hand at a time" move and the same "vomit" move. Lawrence is a garbage boss.

brightsuperstition They're still phases, whether you like them or not. Knowing the difference between phase 1 and 2 is quite crucial when you're fighting the boss on higher New Game cycles. In a lot of action games like these, like Kingdom Hearts and Metal Gear Rising, the only difference between a phase is couple of new moves and slightly changed boss AI. The difference isn't always a big one.

I don't like the new dlc but I love yer comment.

Joacim Torneus Spot on comment. And to add to the Greatwolf, it's a new boss but the same wolf encountered through the first area, if you fight it off successfully it enters the boss fight with less health and a bloodied face.

Good one, also he did not mention of DLC weapons being unique for the most part and multiplayer. Which explains why he does not know that the Gravetender can block midair.

"the giant wolf is a brand new enemy." LMFAO. It literally rehashes the same bite moves from the Pontiff Beast (which rehashed the same bite moves from Watchdog of the Old Lord) and also copied the same "imma run at you" and "sweeping ice breath" attacks from Vordt. "brand new" enemy? My ass!

Also, LMFAOing at "the Friede fight probably contains well in excess of 20". Yeah, over half of which they ripped straight from gehrman, lady mariaand Priscilla. SUCH ORIGINALITY. MUCH INNOVASHUN.

I think Friede certainly took me longer than 1% of my time haha. Maybe my own fault for being naked with just the starting weapon but yknow

I thought it was fine, Friede needed something to be harder than the other DS3 bosses and it never felt unfair

You new around here huh? Dark Souls doesn't sell itself on anything. Dark Souls is whatever you interpret it to be. Many would disagree and say that game isn't fair at all and they aren't wrong for saying so, it's an opinion. As a Dark Souls veteran(Played and Beat ALL games in the series at max NG+ cycle) I can tell you that Friede's 3rd Phase was not all that difficult. All of her moves are ridiculously telegraphed and easy to dodge as long as you are paying attention.

that was the best fight in the series, possibly tied with slave knight Gael. it was done super well and was epic af. it was super fulfilling to beat and gave you that "oh thank god, I did it" feeling. i loved it

After an endurance test? 2nd phase is an endurance test? Father Ariandel is so squishy and exploitable you can stick to his ass and just outdamage the heal.

she is honestly pretty easy imo

agreed

While I do appreciate a lot of the analysis Joe does for these videos, he definitely does get into a mode of... frustration, maybe? Where he'll call out something as "unfair" or badly designed when it's a bit of a stretch, and he simply just never fully understood the intent of the situation or how to handle it. Of course, from that angle, he'd likely blame the game for not communicating it crystal clear rather than evaluate his own reasons for misunderstanding.

dilsency plus you can backstab her for i frames....

tehCostHD I would rather die than backstab a boss

Me too :')

I didn't use the weapon. I don't try every weapon I pick up. I don't think most people do? Maybe I'm the odd one there. It wasn't really criticism that he can block like that just an observation. It breaks established rules but isn't necessarily a bad thing when the bonfire is so close.

Gotcha it just sounded like an uneducated criticism and I was disappointed because I like how well you articulate and back up your reviews for the most part

No it's good. Thank you for telling me. I think it's a shame they put cool weapons like that at the end when you've pretty much done everything already. I know you can NG+ but that isn't quite the same as doing a fresh run, leveling up with a weapon. I guess it's a balancing act between having rewards and adding PvP options. Plus end game bosses have their own soul weapons, but usually they're variations on existing types. Not really creative ones like that. I found a few more that I also had no interest in trying since I was already set in my build and killed every boss.

yeah that's kinda a problem with souls games in general I think. Especially Dark Souls

All his attack animations which also block incoming attacks show his shield raised as he attacks. It doesn't break established rules any more than someone poking with a spear or rapier from behind a shield does.

same

I would argue that the sister boss fight is better than any boss individually in the artorias's dlc , but there is 4 of them lol

The gravetender is a fucking NPC. They didn't even bother giving him unique armor. They gave us a guy with no pants, Chain Armor and a Dark Mask. And the greatwolf is just a mixture of the moves that includes the bites of the Pontiff Beast and the running attacks and ice breath of Vordt. If anything, Joseph Anderson is being REALLY generous with the Gravetender/Greatwolf boss here. I wouldn't even give it a 1.5. I'd give it a 1.2 or a 1.1. It's one of the worst bosses in the series. It's even worse because it's a DLC boss.

Thats not how video games work, they can't just take 'moves' from completely different enemies with different animation rigging and apply it to something else. Even if they are similar 'types' of moves they were clearly made for the greatwolf from scratch. The greatwolf has a unique moveset, and NPC also has a unique moveset, which is a hell of a lot more than the Dark Souls 2 DLC bosses have. The Dark Souls 2 ".5" bosses consist of: A boss from the base game but blue. A room with 3 NPCs, they have no unique movesets. One is a new boss but you just fight them twice. Even if you don't like the fight the way he is ranking them is completely unequal. There's no reason that the gravetender and greatwolf fight should count as half a boss, it's totally new content.

I would agree with you if the wolf wasn't thrown at you as a regular enemy twice earlier in the DLC. It felt like a normal fight. And then it's not changed enough for a boss later. Imagine if the two Ogres in the starting area of Dark Souls 2 were given a health boost and an arena to fight in later on, with boss health bars. And maybe one extra move. Would that count as a whole boss to you? If so, then we'll have to agree to disagree. If we do follow that then we should probably bump up the Crown DLCs up to 3 bossesl, which I heavily disagree with doing. Same for Cleric Beast 2.0 in Old Hunters. Wanting to count different phases as separate fights isn't something you want to do if you're trying to argue that Ashes has a lot of content. Other bosses in the DLC have phase changes as well. Some of them are just as significant than Phase 1 and 3 of Friede.

Look at it this way then. Let's look at what the actual new, unique content actually is here. For Ivory King they made one enemy design. Just one. They then copy and pasted it twice with one extra move on one of them (Zallen's healing buff). You give this 1.5 points for new, unique content. For Ariandel they made one new enemy design. They then used that enemy design three times throughout, once with an extra move. I think I just described the same situation from a "what new content is there?" standpoint. But you gave this 0.5 points. Not even a full point, even though the Greatwolf itself is as new a design as Aava is. It's less challenging mainly due to lower health and damage but it's still equally new. Can you really not agree that something is wrong with that? That scoring just can't be fair. The situation is similar. It's one new, unique enemy design used thrice. The wolf coming out to hunt you early in the level is like how Pursuer comes out to attack you in the Forest level in DS2. Nobody calls the Pursuer 0.5 of a boss as far as I'm aware. It's technically optional in the same way, too. I think this is all an issue of context and difficulty obfuscating the quantitative facts. The wolf is both relatively easy and its "copies" are placed before the boss fight itself which all comes together to make it feels less like a "proper" boss. Things got even worse because with your build and your ability you were able to burst down the NPC quickly, so the designed duo dynamic (the NPC will start using soul arrow and he gets a magic buff on his sword if it drags on) never happened. I can sympathize with this sentiment. It makes me understand why some people feel it's unworthy of the boss status. I'll also agree From should have balanced it differently. A major health and damage buff on greatwolf once it's alone. Speeding up when going redeyes mode. Ensuring Gravetender always survives for phase 2 with scripted dodges or something. But when it's a question of judging the amount of new content on an objective and quantitative level it is still just as much a new boss design as Aava is, especially when you consider the combination dynamics which are similar to how the Elana fight uses already existing enemies in a new context. The real difference is balancing, not amount of content. Sorry for plastering even more paragraphs on this page. I'm just really interested in this discussion because the reception of Ariandel has both fascinated and confused me.

I can understand where you're coming from, Joacim. The key differences for me is that the wolf feels like a regular enemy in those first two fights, whereas The Pursuer is clearly a boss. And Avaa quite literally is a boss. It isn't quite clear cut but that's where I draw the line, supported heavily by two facts: 1) It's another wolf/dog thing. Third in the series. 2) There are other wolves in the DLC. The giant one is not significantly different enough for me to see it as unique content. Ultimately, even if you were right--and I'm sorry but I still disagree, but I see why you think the way that you do--2 bosses is still really poor value for money when the DLC is $15 and comes up short against all of the other packs. You could even bump the levels up to 2 as well, and it would still be a poor comparison.

*shrug* I wouldn't say it's "unfair" he didn't mention something he potentially hasn't experienced or has no reason to (maybe he doesn't like PvP?). If people are even slightly interested in DS3 PvP they knew about this ages ago and have already gotten it. I feel like this is more for people who are interested solely in the SP portion of things and the video makes that pretty clear. As for you second point, I never knew that! That is super cool. Dang man, every time you think you know everything about these dang games something new always pops up.

chickmcjr He is doing critique on the content of the dlc though, leaving out a major part of it is why I think it is unfair. Even if it is content he does not play, it is still content for the game and the dlc on a whole. For the record, I overall agree with what he says and I would gladly recommend his videos to others because they are well made and he makes some very good comments. Oh and you can actually make Friede a lot easier especially her long combos with one tiny addition to your characters kit, a high stability shield (( a kite shield as an example )). Dark Souls has always encouraged players to change equipment and weapons depending on what they are facing, they have been doing this since Kings Field 1, but people overall are used to picking one path and one setup so they easily end up in situations where their kit may be more a handicap then a benefit.

Having to try and outdamage the heal is a compromise, not a solution as such.

The arena's far worse than the one in 2, which wasn't DLC at all.

@Zefie: I know, right? So many idiots here defending the new DLC arena, yet all I have to do is pop into DamnNoHtml's channel or some other PvP channel and see just how poorly designed and cancerous the new arena is.

I 100% agree, maybe Gael is cooler in some peoples eyes. I find her 100% fair and such a badass fight, and the lore behind the 3 sisters is cool too.

He's talking about the length of the fight rather than the number of foes I guess.

Well he always complained about the grab attacks in the series.

Hey thanks for the comment. You disagreed without insulting me. I appreciate that. > I'd argue each of the 5 sub areas is more like a half of a proper area, so 2.5 areas isn't that bad in my opinion. Similarly I'd say the gravetender counts for half a boss but Friede counts for 2, so again 2.5 isn't that bed. I strongly disagree that the cathedral and frozen river before Gravetender are large enough to be .5 levels. And the other three aren't big enough on their own to be considered a whole 1 on their own. I could be convinced that the areas should add up to 2 instead of 1.5, but I'd have to spend a lot of time studying all of the DLC to see if the others should be increased as well. Old Hunters is gigantic compared to Ashes. If Ashes is 2, then maybe that should 4. It's really hard to measure. I also disagree that Friede should count as 2 because of the phase changes. Other DLC bosses have phase changes that are just as significant. It would make the comparison even less favorable to some of the others. > You made a mention about the grab attack of the human flies being given priority and I'm a little surprised you didn't know that's how grab attacks have worked across all these games. An uninterruptible, slow windup into a fast attack which locks you in place when you get it. That being said I did feel it was a little too quick. Yep, and my criticism of it has been consistent through all of the old games too. I brought it up in my Bloodborne video at least twice if I remember right. > One last thing, you failed to talk about the arena which greatly improves upon the multiplayer experience by making it just simply faster and you also neglected to mention the weapons. All of the DLC weapons have unique weapon arts and while some are just lame (millwood axe, earth shaker) others like the follower's saber, Friede's scythe, Valorheart, and the follower's javelin make the game much more interesting. This is balanced out because I didn't bring them up for the other DLC either. No mention of the PvP stuff or the weapons--which is an especially big feature of Old Hunters.

Joseph Anderson Wow, I'm surprised this comment got noticed. I still enjoyed the video and I'm glad you made it. I can see what you mean by there only being 2 full areas when added together. This DLC was exceptionally short for me, but I think the PvP makes it worthwhile. It also seems unfair to ignore the weapons and multiplayer in these DLC's but I see why you aren't interested in starting that now. Also I wrote about your thoughts on grab attacks because I thought you didn't understand them for some reason. I kind of agree that they are often a little bullshit-y. If the hitboxes on them were more consistent I'd appreciate the extra diversity in enemy attacks more but as it stands I find that they often kill pacing during boss fights by completely stripping the player of control excluding the early escape button mashing.

I don't really regret paying $15 for the whole DLC, the arena alone has provided me with hours of fun. I didn't really like that my only options before were to invade somebody who was minding their own business, be summoned into an "honorable duel" or take part in a fight club (which I wasn't very fond of, I would have killed the host for giggles.) Even better now that the idiots who did nothing but run away for the whole match until it timed out are kind of lower in numbers than when the DLC first came out. Also I feel like a lot of the things this guy is complaining about in his review are all non-issues. I personally never once got grabbed by the flies that inflict bleed because I actually pay attention to NPC movement but also I had zero issue with the 3 part boss battle, I beat it on my second try alone. I was mildly over-leveled when I went to the painted world so I got through it pretty quickly but even that content I'd be $10 for easy, add the arena to that (which I would have paid another full $10 for honestly) and there's your $15 value. Jo also mentions that this content could have easily been a chopped up part of the base game that they intended to sell as DLC. I strongly disagree, I feel like the DLC had a lot of thought put into it before it was released. Devs have often started development on DLC far before base games are released (you'd be daft to believe otherwise) so yeah, maybe some of the assets were already there unused, but the DLC introduced a few things we're not used to as players of DS3. When I first entered the painted world, I cautiously moved forward into the open space expecting to be hit by some kind of huge beast or to be overwhelmed by enemies in every direction, not particularly strong enemies but an overwhelming number of weak, dumb enemies that in large numbers could be dangerous. Instead I took a flying spear to the face. I was hit with some torch fire, all the while another enemy was rushing me with his shield. What was this? Three types of enemies with different attacks, working in unison with a strategy, to take me down. They did take me down, they succeeded because I had no idea it was coming. I had to learn something new in order to efficiently dispatch and survive these enemies. That's clearly something that was a complete non issue pre-DLC. I never had to think about what strategy the NPCs were going to use in unison. What I was used to was "Okay all the dumb enemies are going to come whack at me all at once. I'll just dodge them and lay the smackdown." I only hope that in the future DLC I'll be pleasently surprised again by how much thought is put into the experience of playing through it.

eh make that 5 and then maybe.

EdgarAllen Poetato i think that the multiplayer shouldve at least come with the game already. Just not worth the 15$ i beat it in less then 12 hours

Jack Gill it’s 24 minutes long man

You might like this poll about how long it took most people: www.strawpoll.me/11508444/r

It's how he chose to do it. Your opinion about his review system doesn't matter and is pointless. Your paragraph on this and not, you know, the rest of the video that lists a bunch of what he saw as negatives with potential fixes, is pretty telling about your lack of anything meaningful to add to the discussion.

He said it was either that or it was just cut content from the base game.

I don't think reducing my comparison to "how many times the terrain changes" is fair. But I do understand it is hard to pin down exactly how much content is in the DLC. Consider that playtimes, while initially a better source of hard numbers, doesn't account for player skill or a desire to explore every area. It would need to be a big survey with the same people playing all of the DLC in the same way. And even then, skill can be inconsistent. Some people struggle on different bosses and enemies. So I went with a summary of each DLC, and put a number on what I thought felt right for "one level". The half points are consistent in terms of rules, but even if you swing them to a full point either way, the content in Ashes is still so lacking in comparison that it's still a functional demonstration that it's overpriced.

"Your paragraph on this and not, you know, the rest of the video that lists a bunch of what he saw as negatives with potential fixes, is pretty telling about your lack of anything meaningful to add to the discussion." There is no requirement for comments to themselves be a comprehensive review of the entire video they respond to.

Because it’s a good change from the mid levels of ds3 of course it’s going to be fun to play compared to 90% of the areas in that game

Gravetender was such an... odd boss lmao

I've never spoken about PvP in my videos on this series. That could get messy with comparisons. Artorias had PvP content too. Old Hunters added a lot of trick weapons. Not sure if there were "extras" like that in the DaS2 packs but then they're also the best value imo.

1 anime fight is not worth 15 bucks bruh. Souls fanboys just don't play many action games i guess.

@@thebuddah1253 Nah bro played alot and this fight alone is better than alot of them. The level is still rly good just nto souls standard good which is still above any shitty action game youve played.

​@@raafeyalikhan4400pressing roll at the right time. Yah a great boss. So much variance.

​​@@thebuddah1253 Damn it must be really difficult being so bad at a game that you have to hate on people for liking it lmao. I was naive once too now I've beaten every thing from demon souls to elden ring. You'll mature don't worry

@@jm0112 I assure you I'm better at these games than you. Play a game that's actually hard like ninja gaiden. Pressing roll at the right time isn't skill.

> 1.5 levels? Wow, that's crazy! The first snowy area + the millwood knights is 1 area (governed by 1 bonfire) which is way bigger than the reskinned darkroot garden, It really isn't. I don't see how you could possibly think that. Using bonfires as a metric might be what's confusing you. The size of areas tied to a bonfire can vary wildly. > the 2nd area is the corvian town (governed by 1 bonfire) See again, the town is really small but it looks like you're going by bonfire = level. > and the 3rd area is the mountain area and inside the chapel (again, governed by 1 bonfire). The .5 is the depths, that's 3.5 levels. Same thing here. If you're going to count small areas and routes linking between them like that as valid for comparison then you're opening up a lot more of them to be added for the earlier DLC packs. > The bosses, again, 1.5? The optional fight has a giant wolf and an npc with a new weapon, that's 1 complete new fight (whether you enjoyed it or not), and the mandatory boss has 3 phases, 2 phases of which are very different, I would even count that as 2 bosses, but 1 just for technicality, so it should be a total of at least 2 bosses. The wolf is not unique, as you know from playing the DLC. It and the NPC are recycled like the other bosses I pointed out in the video. However, this is near irrelevant if you want to open the can of worms that is phases = boss fights. Many of the other DLC bosses have different phases. Going that route would make the comparison of Ashes to the others even less favorable. > Furthermore I replayed all the DLCs this week (having completed them multiple times, meaning I know where I"m going, got all the items, and didn't die more than a couple of times) and my findings on length are as follows: AotA = 50m, Crown1 = 1h40m, Crown2 = 2h, Crown3= 2h20, BB = 2.5h, and AoA = 2h. So the length is on the average side and not short at all. I beat Ashes in under three hours on my *first* time through so I think you might be a bit slow. It's cool like I said in the video it is harder to properly measure. The kicker here is that, even if you're right, it's at most 2 levels and 2 bosses for $15, which is still grossly outmatched by the previous content.

I wasn't going by bonfire, but added it as an extra guide. I honestly can't believe you can count AotA areas as 3 but AoA only as 1.5. Have you played AotA lately? The garden is tiny AND a reskin, the township is a medium size and the abyss, again, is tiny. If I was slow as you suggest, then was 50m for AotA also slow? That would make it even smaller, or perhaps I did it "incorrectly" (though I grabbed every time and killed every boss)? I highly recommend you play that DLC again, and the rest. And don't forget, you get better with each game you play, so if AotA happened to take you a very long time the first time, it won't now, because you're a much better Souls player than when you first started. Many people are going off skewed memories and this analysis further enforces a wrong viewpoint on the length and size of the areas of the DLC compared to previous entries.

I went through most of it for some of the footage I used in the video. I don't understand how you're saying the things you're saying if you just replayed it. I agree the abyss is the smallest area of the three but to call it tiny, and then go on to say the minuscule parts of Ashes are substantial, isn't something I can follow. It would make perfect sense you'd be faster at the DLC you're presumably more familiar with, compared to the one that's barely a month old. Btw, speedrun pace for the AotA DLC, using multiple glitches and skipping almost all of the content and killing every boss in seconds, still clocks in around 12-14 minutes or so. So you killing everything the normal way, getting all the items, while dying a couple of times, in 50 minutes without those glitches is really impressive. You should consider speedrunning.

I think hes' trying to position himself as a pro-consumer game reviewer, to these guys content per dollar is king, it matters little the quality of content, only the total amount (which he was wrong about anyway). Alot of the new channels position themselves this way to appeal to modern audience who values these things more. People don't want to feel 'ripped off' and I guess this type of reviews really appeal to that demographic.

Ashes is bigger than Artorias, and way bigger than any DS2 DLC which were tiny in comparison. You're correct here. Anybody that plays these 2 back to back would realize this.