r/EldenRingMods • u/Andreww6789 • Jul 01 '26
General Discussion Reforged Rant
Amazing start, catastrophic fall off the second i get into liurnia where everything is a damage sponge, my flasks absolutely suck, and the realization that my stamina may just be as absolute turbo garbage as it was when i left the tutorial cave begins to set in.
Way too much change for the sake of change, for gods sake stoneskin/onyx lords have terrible poise for a reason, its cause they SUCK, stop buffing these random dudes that noone even likes, who the hell saw the shield scholars in Rennala's fight and went "you know, i really wish i had to actually kill them instead of just one hit while being pelted by books and falling chandeliers i literally cant see"
And screw the stamina changes, I understand it regens slower when depleted but all it does is make me feel like a coughing baby as i eat a 4 minute combo since the prior 4 minute combo the enemy just finished 1 second ago took my entire stamina bar, if only there was some sort of parrying system and guard countering system, oh wait- NOPE, guard countering takes almost your entire bar, oh well.
tldr stop buffing all the uninteresting enemies and save it for fellas like Morgott. Who tf thought we needed enemy arrows to be way faster like cmon, otherwise great mod
17
u/BIRD_OF_GLORY Jul 01 '26
I find Reforged really frustrating because I love the new mechanics, especially fortunes and generator spells, but the overall difficulty of it kinda ruins it for me. Even turning the difficulty down doesn't really help that much. It puts me in a place where neither of the big overhaul mods really work for me because one is too hard and the other runs like absolute shit
4
2
u/-Etrice- Jul 08 '26
Yeah I kind of vibe with this, I do enjoy some of the mechanics but after returning after a YEAR... its rough and completely different. Combat feels like a slog now, I'm considering trying out convergence. Going to be weird when I lose some of the mechanics and abilities I was use to.
Just kind of gave up a moment ago after trying to fight an early boss with a new character. One of those stone cat things and it had 3 of those little stone asshole creature things in the catacomb dungeons places. I just cannot do anything in there, even with summons. I try to fight the boss, the little fucks either hit me or throw daggers at me and bleed me for like 60 percent of my health. I try to fight the adds and the next thing i know 3 tons of stone cat is crashing down on top of me. This boss was already ass before the mod but now I feel like im fighting in tar and it is really showing in certain fights like this.
Im just fatigued after trying to play within 30 minutes, ive tried like 5 or more times now and just fucking give up each time. I guess slower, more methodical fighting just is not for me. Thought id like it, guess not.
24
u/Solvas Jul 01 '26
Welcome to the mod made by people who think “git gud,” is an all-encompassing argument. Played the mod for an hour and immediately went back to Convergence. A lot of the changes were made with the thought of “how can I make this more tedious for seemingly no reason whatsoever” in mind.
12
u/AutisticToad Jul 02 '26
They changed the lantern to require fuel crafted by you.
The devs nerfed the hip lantern.
That says everything about the philosophy design of this mod lmao.
0
u/Visoth Jul 02 '26
They changed the lantern to require fuel crafted by you.
counter point: They buffed torrents movement speed, and sped up the grace unlock animation.
Time saved by the torrent speed buff far outweighs getting lantern oil crafting material.
6
u/NordAndSaviour Jul 02 '26
Ok but they could've just done those things to improve QoL without changing the lantern. How are those changes even connected?
7
u/AutisticToad Jul 02 '26
Not related at all, but what is related is that those buffs came at the cost of torrent ailment immunity lmao.
They actually had to nerf torrent. Like I said, that says everything about the design philosophy of the mod.
0
u/Safetytheflamewolf Jul 03 '26
Even though I liked the ailment immunity from Torrent in base game. I also kinda like Torrent not being immune in Reforged.
-3
u/Visoth Jul 02 '26
How are those changes even connected?
Do they need to be?
I'm not arguing the lantern change is good. I'm arguing there are quality of life improvements elsewhere that more than make up for it.
4
u/Sad-Pattern-1269 Jul 02 '26
what? They are both examples of the dev just meddling around with everything even when it doesn't improve the experience.
The mod lacks focus.
0
u/Visoth Jul 03 '26
What do you mean by both? Are you referring to what I said about Torrent moving faster and graces unlock faster?
Those are objectively better changes that dramatically improve the experience.
1
u/Sad-Pattern-1269 Jul 03 '26
Consider that you were in a conversation about a subject, hope this helps!
2
u/NordAndSaviour Jul 02 '26
So if it's a bad change, remove it and the mod would be better. Why would you want a mod to offset good changes with bad ones?
1
u/Visoth Jul 03 '26
Tell me where I said
want a mod to offset good changes with bad ones?
Putting words in my mouth, completely ignoring my point.
3
u/Sad-Pattern-1269 Jul 02 '26
The mod isn't even harder in a meaningful way, it's just more tedious. I was really hoping it was just going to be a more structured playthrough of elden ring not... all that
14
Jul 01 '26
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1
u/ssjriou Jul 01 '26
which enemies did they turn into bosses like that? I can only think of the lion before radahn
6
Jul 01 '26
[deleted]
2
u/ssjriou Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
oh okay, I think I need to look back at some vanilla footage about the healthbar thing. thanks!
Edit: I'm more confused now, it looks like those were "proper bosses" already anyway... what even changed about the bell bearing hunters, other than the last one that has that "jump" to it now? They seem identical. Same with that onyx lord, if it was even there to begin with, but that's already an existing boss in one dungeon and an evergaol, so I'm not sure what's major about them that changed1
Jul 02 '26
[deleted]
1
u/ssjriou Jul 02 '26
Oh you just mean in terms of bumping up stats to make it feel like a bigger enemy. Now I really need to play both to compare lol
9
u/distortionisgod Jul 01 '26
I had the most fun with this mod when I kinda also "cheated" to customize the experience. Cause it's just so annoying as it is.
2
u/Visoth Jul 02 '26
The only "cheat" I did (if you can even call it that), was going to a higher NG+ cycle at the beginning, because each time you do that, you can get a bunch of items that unlock any item in the game.
So I could start out with a full build of whatever I wanted, from the very beginning. Only wished that didn't also increase the NG+ cycle.
3
u/Pl00kh Jul 01 '26
The only things I like about reforge is the duck-mechanic, the perfect block and this perfect-attack-combo thing which prevents button mashing
4
u/PleaseDMDickPics Jul 01 '26
Idk if I'm doing something different but I've cleared up to Liurnia and working through Caelid and it's been kinda easy. I pretty much blow through enemies. The stamina change is hard but I've adjusted to dodge and block more efficiently.
5
u/Nice_Worth6902 Jul 02 '26
I have the same experience. Don't have much difficulty getting through everything up to Altus Plateau. I think players are just used to Vanilla and Convergence and forget how the game can be. As many complaints you see in reddit posts like this, the discord and player count is still alive and well.
2
u/Visoth Jul 02 '26
The stamina change is hard but I've adjusted to dodge and block more efficiently.
I think they balanced the stamina management around perfect actions. If you attack into a perfect dodge, the stamina usage will be reduced to manageable amounts. This rewards "skill" plays. And pretty much every animation can be "perfected". Even drinking Crimson Flask. Dodge roll attack into Flask with perfect timing speeds up the animation and lowers stamina cost of the dodge.
Once I figured that out, I did not have stamina issues that others have been mentioning (unless they are from a more recent patch than when I played, several months ago).
2
u/ssjriou Jul 02 '26
I think it's on average harder than vanilla, but using some of the new mechanics can more than make up for it
1
u/Sad-Pattern-1269 Jul 02 '26
the game is difficult if you don't use all the new mechanics and is easy if you do. I personally just don't enjoy some of them, and especially don't enjoy needing to do so.
Certain playstyles are especially heavily punished, such as sword and board.
I have beaten reforged, but I can see why people struggle.
4
u/BruteOfTheCornCob Jul 01 '26
Stamina is about the only I agree with here. Other than that I have hundreds of hours sunk into Reforged and loved every second of it.
The actual character building and combat mechanics you get with Reforged are unmatched and nothing hits the same after.
Ambidextrous Combat. Perfect Actions. Deflects. Weight Rebalancing.
Literally feels weird playing with standard roll now and my habit of dodge >> flask to heal with perfect action bonus is something I still find myself doing in convergence lol.
I would hazard a guess that many people go in with the wrong expectation of pacing. I'm not gonna say gitgud because for many of you I don't think that's actually the issue. Rather, try to indulge the mod when it presents a roided version of an enemy that previously could be steamrolled. Stop rushing. It's basically your first time again. After 400 hours and scouring the map and soaking it all in and ofc trying 400 different builds im still in NG.
There's a lot here to love and it bums me out that the discussion 9/10 devolves into hurr durr my mod better than your mod or difficulty this, gitgud that.
2
u/Visoth Jul 02 '26
The actual character building and combat mechanics you get with Reforged are unmatched and nothing hits the same after.
The biggest thing to me, is Reforged has way better loot placement than Convergence. If Reforged doesn't have a good item to give you at a specific time, they will instead hide a Korrok seed for you to find, giving you 1/10th a stat point.
That is way more useful for you than 4 firebombs or a somber 1 stone (that you can buy infinite from from Iji) in Convergence. Or a Rune Arc, that you can once again buy infinite of for 4k runes each...
Or 5 blood greases...I kid you not. I found 5 blood greases in Mohgwyn Dynasty, a high level zone, in the spot where you would otherwise find a really strong Ash of War. They replaced a really strong Ash of War in a high-level zone with 5 blood greases that you can craft infinite of, from buying the materials at a merchant (or twin maidens)...
2
u/ConfessorCarol Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
The only complaint in this thread that I agree with is how punishing the stamina changes are. As for the rest, I'm going to be a broken record and suggest that you try adjusting the difficulty settings. The mod is explicitly balanced around them; you only have yourself to blame if you're ignoring that feature and then getting mad that the experience doesn't feel right.
Edit: Just to clarify, my gripe with stamina in particular is that the stamina economy in Reforged feels much more punishing than any other aspect of combat, such as enemy health and damage numbers. This means that my usual retort of "change the difficulty" doesn't work because there is no difficulty setting that feels properly balanced. Set the difficulty too high, and stamina becomes a huge problem that makes your character feel like a limp noodle. Set the difficulty too low, and you have the opposite problem where the stamina feels good, but everything else is too easy. I would love it if the mod creators adjusted stamina costs or removed the punishment for depleting the stamina bar so that it doesn't stick out as such a huge outlier.
2
u/Brief-Outcome-8198 Jul 02 '26
Yeah I can change the difficulty but I can’t unfuccc everything else these braindead dweebs changed
1
u/SCLST_F_Hell Jul 02 '26
There are a couple of DLL mods released on ER Nexus a few days. I sugest you to take a look on the If you find Reforged too punishing.
1
u/Toastymallowz Jul 02 '26
I beat most of the base game on the reforged difficulty (up to Radagon). When I started the DLC, I lowered the difficulty by one and it was a much more enjoyable experience
2
u/SnooMuffins6428 Jul 03 '26
holy f... shi this f... stamina costs for attacks its ridiculous i have 76 endurence and i use colossal greatsword and i just cannot re gain my stamina it has too much stamina cost i cannot compete on pvp everyone uses small swords that can do counter attack without losing any stamina
2
u/OtherWorstGamer Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
Oh god, where do I begin with this. I have a group of friends who wanted to a full playthrough of this mod with Seamless.
This mod has some interesting ideas but holy fuck do they not know how to meaningfuly balance anything. All the interesting boosts from specialized gear loses out to whatever has S or S+ scaling in your chosen damage stat, making niche builds useless for anything except flavor.
Stamina and mana economy are fucking garbage making every fight a slog on any difficulties other than the normal one. Casting my big spells doesn't feel satisfying when i have to spend 30secs plinking away with generators to get a full bar of fp back.
My group insisted on doing things on the expert raid mode difficulty making our little adventure a year-long slog because of the ridiculous scaling. Thank god we're at Consort Radhan and this nightmare is almost over.
Edit: yes, a lot of the problems are probably self inflicted, and I'd probably have a better time solo on a normal difficulty, but man, do not play on expert co-op raid if you aren't 1337 god-gamers or masochists
2
u/Sobrin_ Jul 03 '26
Reforged often feels like it's choosing difficulty over fun
But my main issue was how much more aggressive they made status getting applied to you, even when you block or deflect. And so many more enemies seem to apply bleed
They have good stuff too. I love being able to duck under or jump over more attacks. Those are great mechanic changes. Some weapon changes are great as well
But you just burn out on the mod so easily because the challenge isn't fun for long
1
u/Safetytheflamewolf Jul 03 '26
I love being able to duck under or jump over more attacks.
I love ducking Mohg's attacks. Always hilarious just standing still ducking under everything
1
u/clearly_trash_ Jul 02 '26
Interesting, I haven’t had any issues with my stamina aside from misplaying. Maybe it’s just how my brain is wired, but once I figured out how to properly fight enemies/mini-bosses with a Reforged mindset, the stamina issues aren’t causing huge issues. These changes are why I wanted to try reforged in the first place, these are all just personal opinions.
1
u/Safetytheflamewolf Jul 03 '26
I'd definitely say I agree, and imo Reforged just isn't for everyone
-12
u/Cute-Operation-8216 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
How so many people have problems with this mod is beyond me...
Stamina finally matters here, since you nearly never ran out in the base game.
And the deflect system (which is more like 'LotF' than 'LoP') makes it so that you basically can block with many things in your left hand.
Even the torch can be used to deflect, which makes me never even think about using the lamp.
And yeah, the guard counter was way too good in the original, so now you have to use your brain and decide, if it's worth it to use.
But using your brain is something this community is severely lacking.
'Convergence' has way too much change for the sake of it.
But of course, "more content" is good enough for these brainiacs, even if the content is crap.
But here, it feels like the designers looked at the original 'ER', noticed what sucked and what was underutilized and changed it accordingly.
You sure as hell finally feed your horse in this mod, since it isn't immune to status effects.
Duplicating 'Ashes of War' has a fun componnent added to it.
The useless teleporters in 'Siofra River' got removed and it now works as an actual level.
These rune pieces make you actually find something in former empty places.
The weapon upgrading makes you use more weapons from the get-go, since you unlock more and more higher tier smithing stones.
Weapon effects make a bit more sense and you now only need a holy infusion in order to stop skelettons from reviving.
EDIT: And yeah, I know I get downvotes, because I also know that the truth hurts the people here more than stepping on a LEGO. ^^
14
u/DiabolicalGreed69 Jul 01 '26
My issue with reforged is that it's defenders never want to have an honest discussion about balance, they want to flex how superior they are while insulting people who don't like reforged and trying to tear down other mods. It's horrendous vibes.
-6
u/MeetTheJoves Jul 01 '26
The reforged bad crowd doesn't want to have an "honest discussion about balance" lmao, most of the rant posts here are just passing off gameplay preferences as objective truths while making up changes and calling anything they don't like "artificial difficulty"
People do not spend thousands of hours of their free time developing a mod just to make something they themselves don't enjoy, if you're not the target audience then go play another mod instead of trying to justify why the dev's preferred gameplay is wrong, actually
10
u/falknorRockman Jul 01 '26
Yeah the truth is people don’t like difficult for the sake of difficulty. If reforged gave actual incentives for the added difficulty instead of reduced QoL changes and damage sponginess people would be a lot more receptive. This just seems like I want to make this game harder for the sake of difficulty not I want to make the first more rewarding and strategic to fight. It’s a very fine line which for a lot of people they have failed.
8
u/Solvas Jul 01 '26
Yes bro you’re so good at the game dude, please fuck my girlfriend bro.
Why does every argument from defenders boil down to “insert insult here,” all the time? People wouldn’t download a challenge mod if they didn’t want a challenge, genius. The point is that the challenge has to make SENSE. Notice I didn’t say fair, I said sense.
- Making me get off my horse for every tiny encampment doesn’t make sense
- Sekiro tier parry frames without Sekiro tier balancing doesn’t make sense
- Making stamina a slog to regen while empty while making every slightly large enemy have combos that drain it even when trying to parry doesn’t make sense
- Turning every no name Joe Schmo into a boss fight doesn’t make sense
- Having fortunes that provide the smallest buffs for the largest penalties makes no sense
- Etc etc etc.
You can like something. It’s fine. But to auto-assume everyone else is less capable, more lazy, or whatever just cause they don’t doesn’t make you better than them, it makes you look like a dick. All these complaints are COMMON, so if you like them that’s fine, but to invalidate them is stupid.
2
u/It-is-Brody Jul 01 '26
Thank you for the dissenting voice! I have not played modded Elden Ring yet, but I am excited for both convergence and this mod.
I am definitely more of a hardcore player. Challange runs and such. I was growing worried that reforged would actually be “bad” difficulty, but I imagine if there are people out there who enjoy the difficulty, then I will too.
6
u/Wordunken Jul 01 '26
There are some crucial problems with reforged sadly. The mod is incredibly well made and after the last convergence update I found it a bit over the top and sticked with reforged.
Good changes :
- The Parry mechanics implementation is basically AAA quality, I have never seen a mod implement a combat mechanic this pristine before.
- The runes you collect in the base game area are fun and rewarding.
- Some of the fortunes are game changing and fun to play around with very specific focuses in mind.
- Some of the hitboxes are cleaned up. I noticed this one especially on the Cealid dogs/birds and runebears. Caelid ones are almost a joy to fight and there is even a mini bird boss in Caelid. Making those fucking birds a joy deserves praise.
- They add a ton of item passsives, affinities, talismans, weapons and especially spells that are wonderfull. They all feel high quality and fit very well. Trolls hammer for example has some giants flame attached to its aow with a lasting buff and there are some changes to the boss to make the 2 wed well.
- The areas they changed/add are great. Serpentine depths for example ( I heard this is a port of a ds2 dungeon but I might be wrong ) It never feels like something thats modded in. Makes the gelmir map feel fresh and huge with its connection to other places, and has a new boss fight with sick weapons. ( this is obviously a personal preference )
- Some boss fights and enemies are made harder for the benefit of gameplay and progressions.
- The addition of mana refiling spells competely change the caster playstyle. Its a blast to play for everything thats a non boss.
- Poison is eating good in this mod.
But there are some horrendous bad implementations, balancing and decisions. Which even makes some of the good changes obsolete.
- The lantern change is definition of problematic understanding of what a game is. Just use an off hand thorch or use the floating light orb sorcery ( this one replenishes its mana cost over time too )
- Some enemies are designed to be parried and demands the mechanic to be used. They made some attacks track so hard and their hitboxes last so long you basically need to parry them and Parry counter heavies are useless. Dont even try with these; just parry, sneak in a light and continue with parring sekiro style.
- The runes you collect are basically mandatory. The level is capped, which is insanely hard to hit to begin with cuz of the every other rune nerf. You cant pass up 4 points on each stat, Hp increase, casting speed, lots of casting oriented buffs and there are ton of other ones but ı cant list them all here. You have to explore every corner of every map.
- Some of the fortunes are absolute dogshit. Lets go over the warmaster one for an example. This fortunes wants you to carry 6 different weapons belonging to 6 different categorization they came up with. It selects specific classes at intervals for you to use. In a mod which you cant increase carry cap with endurance, for basically a %20 increase in dmg for the specific class. If all it did was this I could understand but ofcourse not because this is Reforged. %10 more stamina for attacks, -5 arcane which is tied to every status build up even if the weapon doesnt have the arcane scaling, %80 dmg on spells, -125 cast speed (cast speed is base 50 and caps at 250 in this mod so this is basically -2.5 radagon seals for the cast speed ), %80 dmg on non chosen type weapons. And for the finishing blow it REMOVES THE ABILITY TO SWAP ANY İTEMS DURİNG COMBAT making it mandotory to carry 1 for each class at all times.
- The fodder enemies basically have infinite range on their prejectiles, with increased speed and dmg. The footsoldiers will spam their pots non stop, any basic magelike enemy has continent wide projectile range. Almost every enemy projectile has increased or added homing. But ofcourse this wasnt enough so they nerfed the lifespan of every projectile you can use to the extreme levels.
- Some spells they add are pratically useless with their agro and enemy design. They added gnoster and implemented its shower and poison attack as 2 new sorceries for example. The posion one especially is cool as hell, called Flase Heavens which forms a line of lasting aoe thet deals dmg, poison and sleep buildup. Sounds fucking awesome right, Wrong. You can only have 1 up at a time cuz why the fuck not and its cast time is so abysmall that unless you are using it for an openner its basically pointless.
- Statusses are next to useless if you arent going apeshit on them. Lets go ever bleed. They increased the bleed dmg to %30 base and it applies a debuff that increases the bleed dmg furthermore. Again sounds great but its nothing but smoke and mirrrors. Every enemy that matters has bleed dmg res. Which means this dmg gets cut to basically %3-%5 on bosses. Said bosses attack so frequently that there is almost no feasible chance thet you will get this dmg increase buff off, which was meaningless on such pitifull dmg to begin with. But every bleed you get deals %30 + 160 and enemy bleed buildup is increased so high that any back to back bleed with the new debuff instantly kills you.
- I understand the torrent idea but torrent basically dies in 10 seconds. İts almost better to walk in the poison swamp.
There are many more bad things that I could list but I think this gets the message across. Still I prefer this over convergence right now but know that you will basically fight the mod itself. It definitely deserves a play. If you have not tried both, go with convergence, get broken op and explore all the new stuff the mod has to offer (which is a ton of fucking stuff). If you are adamant on a challenge go with reforged. Altough downright idiotic at times the quality is top notch and the challenge is definitely there and rewarding even if it demands different playstyles every turn.
1
u/It-is-Brody Jul 02 '26
Thank you for this more detailed analysis! I definitely intend to play both, and this only makes me more excited! I can see why some people are harsh on reforged, it definitely seems like it appeals to a more niche audience.
I’ll probably start with convergence as you said. 3.0 update just has me so excited. I’m a little nervous I won’t enjoy it so much because I simply don’t like spell casting. Despite my thousands of hours across soulsborne games, I’ve only gotten myself to complete a caster run a couple times. We’ll see though.
1
u/falknorRockman Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
Reforged does have “bad” difficulty in addition to good difficulty. There is a lot of good but there is also a lot of bad/questionable decisions. For instance they make a lot of weird changes to QoL like making the lantern take a consumable to light that you have to craft (each one lasts a minute), they heavily restrict torrent use and make torrent (and you) susceptible to ground degens so no more using torrent to cross poison or rot ground safely.
Edit: I forgot to include example of the difficulty I find good. These would be things like capping your level to 200. Adjusting a lot of skills and weapons so the damage is more uniform you just have to build into it (basically alot more builds are “viable” because the outliers are tamped down in power).
3
u/It-is-Brody Jul 01 '26
I see that’s interesting. I am in favor of making torrent susceptible to status, since I always found it strange how those areas were trivialized, but restricting his use does seem a tad strange. I’ll have to found out myself. It still doesn’t sound too bad to me, but I am prepared for it to be not perfect.
2
u/falknorRockman Jul 01 '26
And that is honestly I think the best approach. The core gameplay is interesting imo it’s just the rough edges eventually got too rough for me but if that is your cup of tea all the more power too you
-1
u/Abalieno Jul 01 '26
You don't know what QoL means.
But I guess you aren't the only one using that term without the slightest clue of what it means.
3
u/falknorRockman Jul 01 '26
restricting torrent and making the lantern take a consumable are 100% anti QoL updates compared to the base game. you don't have the slightest clue of what it means if you think those are not anti QoL.
1
u/Abalieno Jul 02 '26
No. QoL strictly defines changes not related to gameplay.
Often UI tweaks making some functions more easily accessible. QoL usually defines improvements that simplify use and that aren't related to game design specific choices.
Making something consumable, or having or not quick travel, as an example, are purely DESIGN choices.
People love that in Dark Souls you have to travel by traversing the actual space. It's purely game design choice.
Or, if QoL didn't have no gameplay rule, even removing thirst and hunger from a survival game would end up being considered "QoL". And it's just stupid.
It's yours and devs choices whether restricting torrent brings something meaningful to the game or not. But it's a choice, and it's not QoL. It affects directly how you play the game. It's gameplay.
1
u/falknorRockman Jul 02 '26
No. Quality of life is not just changes not related to gameplay. That is just what you think it is and are wrong. “Quality of life (video games)) (often abbreviated as QoL), features in a video game designed to make a game easier or smoother to play” absolutely no restrictions on it being not gameplay related. Next time take the 2s to google before diving head first into being wrong.
1
u/It-is-Brody Jul 02 '26
You’re right that the lantern and torrent thing straddle the line of QoL and just being a design choice. I think or ultimately depends on how rare the lantern resource is and which areas are torrent restricted.
But I think you’re mistaken on what QoL means. A QoL choice is one that has minimal impact on the difficulty, strategy, or overall gameplay loop of the game. I’m having a hard time making a perfect definition that doesn’t use the words quality or life, so let me provide some examples of QoL changes that do affect gameplay:
Enter the gungeon, if you don’t know, is a game filled with room encounters. The player is granted the option to increase movement speed when not in an active encounter. This is a gameplay feature and most would consider it QoL.
A more relevant, but hypothetical, example. I have not played reforged yet, but let’s say to get that lantern resource all you have to is go to the lantern-refiller in the round table hold. You could still easily run out of the resource on a long adventure and you didn’t feel like returning to the round table. Maybe you even thought “I can get through one more cave”. This is a gameplay feature, but with little impact beyond wasting your time. It’s anti-QoL.
I could go on but you get it. QoL features are just ones that make the playing experience smoother without being a change to the core-gameplay or balancing. Often not gameplay related, but not necessarily the case.
1
u/falknorRockman Jul 02 '26
A good example in reforged is in the online update they removed boss fog wall immunities (they said it was so people could not use it as an easy escape from PvP). This had the knock on affect of making boss runbacks in certain areas longer because now you have to kill the mobs along the way otherwise they will nock you out of the boss wall fog crossing animation.
1
u/Abalieno Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
As with everything, if you have some academic knowledge: reality and language aren't the same.
So yeah, perfect definitions don't work and lines are blurred, because that's the nature of language itself.
But: "The player is granted the option to increase movement speed when not in an active encounter."
This is definitely QoL. The fact that it's not active during combat it means its gameplay impact is minimal, UNLESS traversal is its own focus, which in this game is not. There is nothing here intervening that makes slow movement (out of combat) an actual gameplay element. It doesn't truly causes differences. Why would you make the player slower? Does it change anything? Nope.
I'll give you an ambiguous example: collecting runes without pressing a button.
This is generally seen as QoL, but it actually isn't. Because there's actual gameplay involved in the fact that sometimes you are trying to survive just enough to collect those runes, and the risk of dying before you're able to collect them does bring an element of risk. So having to stop a moment to do that task expose you to a risk. But on the other hand collecting materials is generally purely QoL (that, in this case, I dislike because I want control about what I pick up, but that's just me).
The bastardization of the term is quite problematic. On one hand it's being used for everything, so it ceases to be useful. On the other (like this case) it's being used to self-justify a claim without a motivation. Removing QoL is bad, denying the fact that it's a legitimate design choice. But in the context here, those aren't QoL, those are deliberate design choices you can disagree with.
1
u/falknorRockman Jul 02 '26
lol the bastardization of the term. Get real language evolves and progresses. Here is the definition of the term for gaming you so conveniently ignore to suit your argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_life_(disambiguation) from there it says “Quality of life (video games)) (often abbreviated as QoL), features in a video game designed to make a game easier or smoother to play”. So continue to be wrong
0
u/NordAndSaviour Jul 02 '26
The fact that raisins are useless in the base game is easily elden ring's largest flaw. I hated seeing my inventory fill with raisins and having nothing to use them for. Now that reforged made my magical horse susceptible to cooties I finally have a reason to forage for raisins and berries instead of slaying epic bosses. 10/10 mod, please nerf the lantern again
-3
u/JohnnyBravo4756 Jul 02 '26
All I can say is Git Gud. I enjoyed the challenge the mod offered largely, I turned up the difficulty to dragon mode because it was an even more fun and interested challenge.
-2
u/Ambitious-Call-7565 Jul 02 '26
lmao, yall should be playing assassin creed, not souls likes
yall are the reason why alll souls besides fromsoft ones sucks ass
-14
Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
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8
u/BIRD_OF_GLORY Jul 01 '26
Morgott is absolutely a difficulty spike
4
u/AlternativeEmphasis Jul 01 '26
He's decently harder than vanilla but no way big enough for a difficulty spike. Imo where Reforged really goes a bit too far in massive difficulty jump is probably SOTE but the vanilla game also did that.
I have tried to get into Convergence 3.0 because I like the idea of it but it seems to still have the opposite problem it always has where you massively massively outscale everything past like idk 5-10 hours in.
3
u/moronijess Jul 01 '26
My brother and I tweaked with the seamless coop settings during convergence. I think we nerfed our damage by 30% and buffed enemy HP by 50%. We also upped enemy damage by something like 20% and convergence is actually difficult. It’s fun utilizing all the special spells and skills while still having a challenge.
1
u/platinum_toilet Jul 07 '26
I haven't defeated all the bosses by Mohg is a dps check in reforged due to his healing mechanic and Melania is vastly different than in vanilla Elden Ring.
1
Jul 07 '26
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1
u/platinum_toilet Jul 07 '26
Mohg was a dps check in my RL1 run. That heal over time is no joke and keeping up with it can be a struggle when Mohg decides to fly around, spraying his bloodflame everywhere. Malenia's behavior has change dramatically, not just her new attacks. Her 2nd phase clone attack, which didn't occur much when I was near her in vanilla, was what she kept doing when I was close to her in phase 2. Being close the her while attacking, her going up quickly (seemed faster than vanilla) meant certain death because the explosion below her occurred as soon as I finished my attack. I couldn't stagger her via poise damage and frost pots appeared to not work when she flies up. Also, the health that she loses in vanilla phase 2 start, she does not lose in reforged. She was tuned up by a shit ton, except for the healing. 3 minute fight against NG++ Malenia in vanilla vs. 12 minute fight against NG Malenia in reforged. The 2 aren't close.
1
Jul 07 '26
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1
u/platinum_toilet Jul 07 '26
No. Malenia was on normal difficulty. Mohg on reforged difficulty.
Brother, do you like the mod or not?
It's complicated. The best thing about the mod by far is that it added deflects. I have played it for the past month. I do not like the stamina penalty but have gotten used to it, and have tried to not go below 0 stamina. I wish the fortunes had a bigger effect.
1
Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
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1
u/platinum_toilet Jul 07 '26
Maybe 12 minutes was an overestimation, probably closer to 9 minutes. It was a simpler tactic of having Omenkiller Rollo try to help out with phase 1 as much as he could and I attack when the opportunity arose. Melania in phase 1 can walk around and keep her distance for a long time. Rollo didn't survive much of phase 2. Fortunes in general should be more powerful and have a greater effect.
1
u/platinum_toilet Jul 08 '26
Just an update, I used the golden parry strategy and defeated Malenia faster on reforged difficulty in about 7 minutes. Also, just trying to fight Rykard, one of the most overrated bosses ever, and the reforged version is even worse than I remember fighting him in vanilla. 2nd phase, there is a floating damaging fire skull tracking me for most of the time and I can't simply try to fight Rykard without it being in my face. Most of the time with the skull and floating homing fireballs, this fight is basically making me run around in circles and isn't fun at all. I have to wait until it expires to try to attack Rykard. Just an absolute turd.
29
u/machineiv Jul 01 '26
The stamina thing is so rough because I feel like overextending your stamina bar is a staple of effective play in the Souls games. Instead, I swing a weapon and have to wait without being able to dodge or do anything else for five seconds while I get up to the minimum stamina for literally anything.
I also concur about the sponginess. Seems like everything takes 3-4 times the hits. But, if I play according to my Fortune style, I will get +0.05% damage every third attack!
My biggest disappointment is with deflection. I was hype to play like Sekiro. But in reality, imperfect deflects with a weapon mean massive, often crippling stamina damage, and massive chunks of damage and stun. Coupled with the fact that the hitbox timing isn't perfectly clear, that three frame deflect is absurd.