New Elden Ring patch will make those early DLC hours a lot easier

By Carli Velocci June 27, 2024

One of Shadow of the Erdtree's bosses, Divine Beast Dancing Lion. — FromSoftware

A lot of people have been having trouble with Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, due to both general FromSoftware game difficulty and changes made to the leveling system once you get to the DLC area. A tiny patch issued Wednesday aims to help with that.

Calibration Update 1.12.2 tweaks two things regarding the Scadutree Blessing, a DLC-exclusive blessing that allows you to deal and take more damage as you upgrade it. The patch increases attack and damage negation for the first half of the upgrade tree, with the second half being “more gradual.” It also increased the blessing’s final level, so players who max it out will benefit more.

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The Scadutree Blessing, according to a post from publisher Bandai Namco, is one of the key things players are missing with Shadow of the Erdtree. To use the blessing, you have to collect Scadutree Fragments, which are scattered throughout the Land of Shadow. The base game featured a more standard leveling system, while the DLC is focused more on attack power as a way to balance players at different skill levels.

FromSoftware and Bandai Namco issuing a patch seemingly in response to player feedback to make the game less difficult seems almost like a joke. However, while the point of Elden Ring‘s level design is to have you be defeated by bosses, forcing you to go back out into the world and explore, the patch should remove some of the frustration in those earlier hours — as long as you remember to use Scadutree Blessing and upgrade it, of course.

In smaller news, Calibration Update 1.12.2 notes that a bug where ray tracing being automatically on is contributing to some of the frame rate issues PC players have been experiencing. You can disable it by going into the game’s Graphics Settings and setting ray tracing to off.

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Contributor, Games

Carli is a technology, culture, and games editor and journalist. They were the Gaming Lead and Copy Chief at Windows Central…

Gaming

Elden Ring’s pre-Shadow of the Erdtree patch makes its final boss much easier

An Elden Ring player sits on their horse and looks out at a castle ahead.

Publisher Bandai Namco has released the patch notes for the big pre-Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree update, and while a lot of the changes were expected, it features some small but exciting additions.

The most noteworthy change in version 1.12, buried in the "New inventory features" section, is the new ability to summon your steed Torrent in the final boss battle. Without spoiling anything, not only does the final battle come right after another equally difficult boss, but you'll need to do a lot of sprinting to avoid its attacks. Being able to use your trusty steed will make this a lot easier. And, quite frankly, you'll need all the help you can get when it comes to most boss battles.

Gaming

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is already wiping the floor with me

Elden Ring gameplay

Elden Ring was unanimously 2022’s Game of the Year. While many other fantastic games were released throughout the year, Elden Ring shut down all competition when it dropped in early March. It swept at awards shows and even landed a Game of the Year spot here on Digital Trends. It was the undisputed champ. Two years later, it’s now getting the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion. If a DLC ever had a chance at winning the top prize at The Game Awards, it could be this one.

Ahead of its June 21 release, I spent three hours with a hands-on preview of Shadow of the Erdtree. While it doesn’t offer anything drastically different from the base game, it’s still more of the same Elden Ring you love. It has an excellent atmosphere, fun exploration, and difficult bosses. More of the same isn’t a bad thing when that “same” is as beloved as this.
Return to the Lands Between
For those looking to pop in right on June 21, Bandai Namco clarified that players will need to have already beaten the bosses Starscourage Radahn and Mohg, Lord of Blood in order to access the expansion. Additionally, there are over 100 new weapons, some of which are not found in the base game.

Gaming

The best Elden Ring mods

Multiple players look out over a landscape with the Elden Ring co-op mod.

It was thanks to modders that the original PC port of Dark Souls reached a stable and respectable state. Once the technical wrinkles were ironed out, modders turned to expanding and improving the game in numerous ways to keep the game feeling fresh. Years later, those same talented modders have moved on to the latest and largest FromSoftware title, Elden Ring. After having had plenty of time to learn the game, there are tons of mods out there that can not only fix nagging issues in the game,but add entirely new ways to play. Here are some of the best mods out there for Elden Ring.
How to mod Elden Ring
Since Elden Ring is available on PC, that's where modding scene is most popular. However, if this is your first time modding a game, it might sound a little confusing. Thankfully, the process is very simple, and even this tutorial video can show you the basics of modding your game in under three minutes.
Seamless Co-op

Elden Ring uses a more advanced form of the summoning systems from the Dark Souls series, but still has limitations, most notably being partners being forced out of your game after every boss or death. The Seamless Co-op mod aims to make the entire game playable with a partner without any interruptions when players die, bosses are beaten, and no fog walls. It is still being worked on, but already works very well.
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