As a result, Bandai Namco and FromSoftware have worked together to bring out a very big update for the Elden Ring expansion Shadow of the Erdtree Night Reign mode. The patch 1.03.1 is available now, and it has a lot of new features for the players who have been visiting the Forsaken Hollows. There are new contents in ‘Deep of Night,’ changes to balance, massive bug fixes, and new features. Moreover, the people behind the game have expressed their gratitude to the ‘Nightfarers’ for being patient, probably to neutralize any negative reactions from the community who had overheard such conversations among themselves.
Now the question is, what is actually in this package? The official patch notes are quite lengthy, but the ‘Deep of Night’ content for the Forsaken Hollows region is the main emphasis. This suggests that new trials will be presented, and possibly new environmental hazards or character modifications will be there for those endgame dungeons. There are features that have been added and even some are not listed in the notes. The game’s balance is always a major concern because it can change the situation by adjusting weapons, spells, or even the enemies’ behavior thus creating a new gaming meta. And last but not least, there is bug fixing. The team in charge of fixing bugs will never take a break.
This is where the situation takes a twist and human emotions start to show. The announcement made on the official ELDEN RING Twitter account was just the starting gun. The reactions? They create a very messy scene full of excitement, confusion, and even explicit demands. It is a classic FromSoftware community situation.
First of all, some players are overjoyed. One user, ‘DeAdSHot_ZA’ in particular stated his happiness through the comment: “Huge list of fixes. Appreciate the communication and turnaround on fixes for the game!” That is a really good indication to begin with. The community is definitely aware of the efforts made by the developers.
However, shortly afterwards … the demands and criticisms started to pour in and they were very detailed. One of the issues that caused major disagreement was the non-availability of the new weapons or spells from the DLC. This topic keeps coming up in many replies. ‘nemesis_40’ very succinctly remarked, “Still no dlc weapons…”. ‘sneaky_snakeV’ took a more ironic approach: “ohhhh no new weapons or spells how refreshing…..”. And ‘Neth36651811’ merely asked, “Weapons when?”. It is without doubt that a section of the community has been waiting to be given new weapons for testing with in this update, but their expectation has not been fulfilled.
The discussion surrounding class balance has also become a dramatically charged one. The Revenant class seems to be quite controversial. ‘odd_hs’ quite bluntly said, “Rev still dogshit, thank you fromsoft.” ‘LexiK1tty’ gently cried, “Pls feed us revenants a little buff or two the undertakers have fully taken over 💔”. And ‘GamerUnderworld’ posted a graph which looked sad and stated, “No Rev buff even when her pick rate dropped to almost zero… you guys need to start working on her 😭.” So, it seems that the Revenant players are feeling abandoned and watching the other classes getting buffed is contributing to their irritation.
The discussion about the boss fights with the new boss Heolstor’s moves seemed to be part of the ‘Deep of Night’ content. A few players have already shown their unhappiness with the support given and the replies were misleading about how it was to be accessed. User ‘_C_O_N_C_E_P_T’ asked “Anyone else not able to get any new Heolstor moves? Just did a solo run… Is this only in groups?” This sparked a lot of comments, where players like ‘117Mute’ and ‘Yorimia_Scarlet’ were talking about how to play, with ‘117Mute’ suggesting that completing a solo expedition would guarantee the new stuff. The Souls community is known for such thorough on-ground discovery.
Others were not so specific when talking about their concerns regarding the game’s underlying structure. ‘Stormandreas_’ provided a very detailed analysis: “Still no new map or POIs for existing nightlords? 80% of the Bosses don’t use literally anything from the DLC… We need maps that utilize all 6 different POIs and their variations.” Here, the gamers are saying that it is not enough to just open up new areas for the merger of the DLC content with the core game loops; it has to be done on a deeper level.
And there are always those pesky bugs waiting to be fixed and players’ quality-of-life requests. ‘Lian_Belli’ mentioned a bug that stopped the use of the DLC equipment in the menus. The game is also available on PlayStation and Xbox.
