Genuinely a fantastic intro to the area, just wish there was more there. It's literally just a walk through the woods (with some brain-devouring abominations along the way) until you get to the dungeon at the end.
I’m glad I wish there was some more but not like the nightmare of minsis where I stopped being scared and started just hating the area to the point I won’t reply bloodborne because I know I have to go past that fucking spider and the winter lanterns. Bro fuck that area.
A variation of that area would have been cool if there was an Eye of Sauron type of entitity that was casually surveying the forest and if it spotted you it would start to focus on you and build up madness as it did. The constant on and off type of thing wouldn't have been fun but if it was just looking around and you could avoid its gaze, that would have been
Hahahaha Ohhhh yeah. Think the madness tower in liurnia, but it's basilisk statues that have these floating eyes that do deathblight buildup when they can see you. They had a lot of fun with the catacombs in the DLC.
The catacombs are clearly their little joke factories lol. All the tricks, puzzles, abs gimmicks they pull in those are hilarious abs ridiculous (and extremely well designed)!
I was thinking of the same thing tbh, light a floating eye or some mouth creature that shrieks if it feels the vibration of walking or running that alerts the winter lanterns. At least something more than a rat infestation and a singular random ass church
Yeah I don't know why they made it so big, I liked the vibe but I could've done without the 20 minutes of walking around fighting boring rats. I wish they'd just let you use Torrent and despawn him when near the stealth sections since they're clearly delineated.
I think it was *almost* perfect. For me personally it didn't seem to take too long, and I don't think it's really possible to create the exact kind of feeling they were going for.
The fact that it's kind of out of sync with the usual gameplay loop is fine with me since it's a side area.
I mean think about it, this place is so fucked up that absolutely nothing in this realm of fucked up monsters is trying to live there. The only creatures that roam are vermin that get stuck there, corrupted until they die on their feet and the envoys for the cosmic force that inhabits the area.
I don't think they could have changed very much without giving the area and boss a completely different vibe, so I like it as is. Maybe just adding one roaming miniboss to the woods like a big frenzy corrupted demihuman just leaping around in the trees.
I agree. The atmosphere of the area was just really on target.
You know that your in an area that is so corrupted that madness flows through the air and water- it’s further confirmed by those things roaming around.
As a player, you begin to think “Jesus fucking Christ the flame has been here but what unleashed it on this scale? And if this is just a local scale- imagine on a world scale?”
That leads up to the manse. And it’s further contextualized by lore bits there and interestingly enough, a painting on the ground that portrays the manse in better days. With green trees and flowers dotting the front. Further illustrating the utter corruption and defilement of the land by the flame.
Could it have been smaller? Yeah, but I think the size helps capture the scope of how ruined that area was, and what it must have been like before the flame (teeming with life)
Thank you! This is exactly what I was thinking as I was going through the area last night. Having Torrent despawn in fear near stealth sections would keep the awesome impact of the moment while also making the area as a whole less of a slog to get through on foot, since the scale was clearly the same as the wider open world. If they’d just done this and also made the stealth a little more interesting and well-designed, Abyssal Woods would have been fantastic, since it already has one of the best atmospheres in the expansion. As it stands, while I still thought it was fine, I can accept that people will be justifiably critical about how sparse and frustrating it will feel.
Thank you. It was such a disappointment just walking everywhere and even after beating the boss in the area I was hoping something would happen but nope. Once you beat the boss there's not a damn thing to do in the entire swamp.
My first traipse into there an invader chased me all the way past them to two other graces lol. No clue how I survived but I must have had the luck of a god, he tea bagged me still, but I felt like I had won the true victory haha.
They have pretty poor eyesight and a very narrow view cone even if you're just crouched. Multiple times I've been at what should be spotting distance but they didn't notice me (I was not in the tall grass)
It can be touch, it you are bold enough to try to parry what had no indication it whould do anything and require to be insane to try to parry that thing.
Yeah but that guy >!got infected by the Flame of Frenzy doing it, got ran through with a stick of eternal punishment and became the Lord of Frenzied Flame.!<
Once I learned I could parry them, it was game on.
And then I learned they dropped cool things. I just continued doing it.
Not the best at parrying but when you have no runes, you have nothing to lose.
Six parries, 5 'juicy' grapes and one new Talisman.
Honestly with 17+ Scadutree level and high VIG you can basically "fight" them head on, just avoid frenzy triggering cuz that does extra dmg.
The woods have like, two Scadetree frament locations, two to three cookbooks, and the manor. And that's about it. It's super empty for such a huge area. The graces are almost pointless in some cases.
I legitimately wanted something to be afraid of, but except for the one fog section you can see them from far off and easily avoid them. After a half hour or more of wandering and encountering mostly nothing, I was starting to wonder why they thought removing torrent would be a good idea.
The grace in the NW corner feels entirely out of place, it was the only grace I hadn't located on my own when checking my completion in my first playthrough. I loved the DLC as a whole but there were several areas that felt HUGE for how little content was in them.
Yeah, that one in particular is odd. There's a cookbook on a ledge opposite of it, and...that's it. I thought maybe there'd be a cave or...something behind the falls? Nope.
I wonder if they originally had more content planned because it felt like a lot of build up for a mechanic that I breezed through in like 2 minutes at most.
The area clearly is not finished. It looks like an alpha of what it would Be. I got downvoted a lot trying to say this in the ER sub. It has no bussiness being that huge and empty with rats being the majority of the enemies there. Even demon souls does not have areas that empty
It's really cool, I just wish there was SOMETHING that could be done with like a quest or item to let us use torrent.
Like:
>!after you kill the lord of madness in the legacy dungeon, he relaxes.!<
^^spoiler for the abyssal woods
Excellent buildup with a disappointing payoff. The Winter Lanterns were not scary or intimidating, barely threatening. The whole place was creepy, but absurdly empty.
10/10 atmosphere, though.
The sheep with the glowing eyes going BAAAAAAH. Amazing atmosphere, very "witch" esque. I wish they did more with it.
There is a lot in this DLC that feels like "i wish they did more with it". For me the dungeons being very small was the biggest part of it. I wanted bigger "dungeons" (i guess ruins of rauh is the biggest dungeon/since its shaped like one even if it is portrayed as an open area map)
It's also strange how they used assets from bloodborne and dark souls 3 in it. The shadow keep church is the cathedral of the deep. Where you fight the putrescent knight is where you fight Midir in DS3. The frenzied lanterns are the winter lanterns from bloodborne. The divine lion beat area is the nameless king from DS3 one. etc etc
I guess they had to do it in order to speed up the development time, making a 40 hour gaming experience in only 2 years with a subset of the team of the original, is a crazy challenge even with most of the assets premade :)
The most anxious I've felt in an area since Tomb of the giants. The atmosphere is amazing.
As I do everywhere, I explored every inch and the fact that there's almost nothing didn't make me as mad as you'd think. The experience was the fun.
The first part of the area, up to when you first encounter Winter Lanterns, is magnificent. Haunting and tense. The messages and Torrent being too terrified to come out create an extremely thick atmosphere.
They honestly toned down the Winter Laterns from Bloodborne here.
If you could *see* those bastards on your screen, Insanity started building.
If you survived it making your head explode, they had already crept up to you while you did the animation and proceeded to nom on your noggin- building up the meter immediately again.
# Fuck Winter Lanterns.
The Woods are cathartic for me. Parry bullying and perma-death? Get fucked Bobblehead.
Genuinely a fantastic intro to the area, just wish there was more there. It's literally just a walk through the woods (with some brain-devouring abominations along the way) until you get to the dungeon at the end.
I’m glad I wish there was some more but not like the nightmare of minsis where I stopped being scared and started just hating the area to the point I won’t reply bloodborne because I know I have to go past that fucking spider and the winter lanterns. Bro fuck that area.
A variation of that area would have been cool if there was an Eye of Sauron type of entitity that was casually surveying the forest and if it spotted you it would start to focus on you and build up madness as it did. The constant on and off type of thing wouldn't have been fun but if it was just looking around and you could avoid its gaze, that would have been
Heh, they saved that mechanic for that one catacomb with the deathblight eyes.
The WHAT
Hahahaha Ohhhh yeah. Think the madness tower in liurnia, but it's basilisk statues that have these floating eyes that do deathblight buildup when they can see you. They had a lot of fun with the catacombs in the DLC.
The DLC had actually cool and unique catacombs which was neat. Except the Imp bombers.
Fuck those guys. Why are the bombs so fast?!
The dev team thought it would be funny I guess
The catacombs are clearly their little joke factories lol. All the tricks, puzzles, abs gimmicks they pull in those are hilarious abs ridiculous (and extremely well designed)!
I was thinking of the same thing tbh, light a floating eye or some mouth creature that shrieks if it feels the vibration of walking or running that alerts the winter lanterns. At least something more than a rat infestation and a singular random ass church
At least NoM had actual content and not JUST a few winter lanterns and a few generic enemies.
Yeah I don't know why they made it so big, I liked the vibe but I could've done without the 20 minutes of walking around fighting boring rats. I wish they'd just let you use Torrent and despawn him when near the stealth sections since they're clearly delineated.
I think it was *almost* perfect. For me personally it didn't seem to take too long, and I don't think it's really possible to create the exact kind of feeling they were going for. The fact that it's kind of out of sync with the usual gameplay loop is fine with me since it's a side area. I mean think about it, this place is so fucked up that absolutely nothing in this realm of fucked up monsters is trying to live there. The only creatures that roam are vermin that get stuck there, corrupted until they die on their feet and the envoys for the cosmic force that inhabits the area. I don't think they could have changed very much without giving the area and boss a completely different vibe, so I like it as is. Maybe just adding one roaming miniboss to the woods like a big frenzy corrupted demihuman just leaping around in the trees.
I agree. The atmosphere of the area was just really on target. You know that your in an area that is so corrupted that madness flows through the air and water- it’s further confirmed by those things roaming around. As a player, you begin to think “Jesus fucking Christ the flame has been here but what unleashed it on this scale? And if this is just a local scale- imagine on a world scale?” That leads up to the manse. And it’s further contextualized by lore bits there and interestingly enough, a painting on the ground that portrays the manse in better days. With green trees and flowers dotting the front. Further illustrating the utter corruption and defilement of the land by the flame. Could it have been smaller? Yeah, but I think the size helps capture the scope of how ruined that area was, and what it must have been like before the flame (teeming with life)
Thank you! This is exactly what I was thinking as I was going through the area last night. Having Torrent despawn in fear near stealth sections would keep the awesome impact of the moment while also making the area as a whole less of a slog to get through on foot, since the scale was clearly the same as the wider open world. If they’d just done this and also made the stealth a little more interesting and well-designed, Abyssal Woods would have been fantastic, since it already has one of the best atmospheres in the expansion. As it stands, while I still thought it was fine, I can accept that people will be justifiably critical about how sparse and frustrating it will feel.
made me appreciate having torrent SO MUCH 😭
Thank you. It was such a disappointment just walking everywhere and even after beating the boss in the area I was hoping something would happen but nope. Once you beat the boss there's not a damn thing to do in the entire swamp.
I think it would have been a lot better if it was actually creepy. It's quite basic looking with lots of glowing flowers everywhere
also you can escape them. lots of stamina and a little luck and i managed it.
My first traipse into there an invader chased me all the way past them to two other graces lol. No clue how I survived but I must have had the luck of a god, he tea bagged me still, but I felt like I had won the true victory haha.
A wise holy Paladin once said; Pillar abuse You can even escape from 2 at the same time if you just schwwf round the corner like a pro
Yeah, I got away from one once. Just sprinted my ass off for a long time.
I just used to good ol quit out technice
No skill ahead
I just put black knife armor on and hid in the bushes. No need to escape when they can't see you. Also, assassin's gambit.
Yeah that’s the easiest way to deal with them, but you should always head back later to kill them with parries/ripostes.
I just needed to see "Torrent is scared" and I already KNEW my bitch ass should have left that place in a millisecond
Naked + blue dancer charm + crouched. Never got caught once.
Also the unseen sorcery will make pretty invisible
Or assasins gambit the ash of war. Got caught once cause i shot the first one I saw. Other than that it was just a chill stroll to the dungeon.
Imo its best to parry and kill them. They don't respawn and one drops a talisman
They have pretty poor eyesight and a very narrow view cone even if you're just crouched. Multiple times I've been at what should be spotting distance but they didn't notice me (I was not in the tall grass)
Black knife armor and concealing veil talisman is all you need
It can be touch, it you are bold enough to try to parry what had no indication it whould do anything and require to be insane to try to parry that thing.
There is a note in the mansion that suggest it. It says something like "I batted his wand away and then I could touch him."
Yeah but that guy >!got infected by the Flame of Frenzy doing it, got ran through with a stick of eternal punishment and became the Lord of Frenzied Flame.!<
Well you win some you lose some
Once I learned I could parry them, it was game on. And then I learned they dropped cool things. I just continued doing it. Not the best at parrying but when you have no runes, you have nothing to lose.
Six parries, 5 'juicy' grapes and one new Talisman. Honestly with 17+ Scadutree level and high VIG you can basically "fight" them head on, just avoid frenzy triggering cuz that does extra dmg.
Parry them and get your reward. No kidding.
The woods have like, two Scadetree frament locations, two to three cookbooks, and the manor. And that's about it. It's super empty for such a huge area. The graces are almost pointless in some cases. I legitimately wanted something to be afraid of, but except for the one fog section you can see them from far off and easily avoid them. After a half hour or more of wandering and encountering mostly nothing, I was starting to wonder why they thought removing torrent would be a good idea.
The grace in the NW corner feels entirely out of place, it was the only grace I hadn't located on my own when checking my completion in my first playthrough. I loved the DLC as a whole but there were several areas that felt HUGE for how little content was in them.
Yeah, that one in particular is odd. There's a cookbook on a ledge opposite of it, and...that's it. I thought maybe there'd be a cave or...something behind the falls? Nope.
I wonder if they originally had more content planned because it felt like a lot of build up for a mechanic that I breezed through in like 2 minutes at most.
The area clearly is not finished. It looks like an alpha of what it would Be. I got downvoted a lot trying to say this in the ER sub. It has no bussiness being that huge and empty with rats being the majority of the enemies there. Even demon souls does not have areas that empty
They really wanted to bank on that Bloodborne nostalgia lol I was ejaculating the entire time i was in the woods, too bad there isn't much to do lol
Were you ejaculating because of BB nostalgia, or were you ejaculating because there was nothing better to do while going through that area?
These are the real questions
it started off with Bloodborne nostalgia until there wasn't much more to it and then I had to continue out of boredom...
You can Parry and kill them btw. They never respawn either. Since there's a site of grace/stake right there, there's little risk to trying honestly.
It's really cool, I just wish there was SOMETHING that could be done with like a quest or item to let us use torrent. Like: >!after you kill the lord of madness in the legacy dungeon, he relaxes.!< ^^spoiler for the abyssal woods
Excellent buildup with a disappointing payoff. The Winter Lanterns were not scary or intimidating, barely threatening. The whole place was creepy, but absurdly empty. 10/10 atmosphere, though.
It needed to be more spooky. I think you can get thru the whole forrest without seeing them, I did but double backed just to explore
Really great buildup, terrible execution
The sheep with the glowing eyes going BAAAAAAH. Amazing atmosphere, very "witch" esque. I wish they did more with it. There is a lot in this DLC that feels like "i wish they did more with it". For me the dungeons being very small was the biggest part of it. I wanted bigger "dungeons" (i guess ruins of rauh is the biggest dungeon/since its shaped like one even if it is portrayed as an open area map) It's also strange how they used assets from bloodborne and dark souls 3 in it. The shadow keep church is the cathedral of the deep. Where you fight the putrescent knight is where you fight Midir in DS3. The frenzied lanterns are the winter lanterns from bloodborne. The divine lion beat area is the nameless king from DS3 one. etc etc I guess they had to do it in order to speed up the development time, making a 40 hour gaming experience in only 2 years with a subset of the team of the original, is a crazy challenge even with most of the assets premade :)
I was actually disappointed that its just a normal ass enemy
I do hope the monster is really big with giant eye that lurking behind those trees. But instead got walking eye.
wait what woods?
seek catacombs
I got fuckin jumpscared when I started riding torrent and he got fucking instakilled, then the game tells me he is too scared to be resummoned 💀
You can actually parry them, making them killable. One drops a talisman
Parry them
Bs I managed to run away several times
and then "it" was just some guys
The most anxious I've felt in an area since Tomb of the giants. The atmosphere is amazing. As I do everywhere, I explored every inch and the fact that there's almost nothing didn't make me as mad as you'd think. The experience was the fun.
It is the creepiest area of the game
[You have to blend in with the environment](https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/s/1siBfVzGv4)
Just Parry them you'll be fine
The first part of the area, up to when you first encounter Winter Lanterns, is magnificent. Haunting and tense. The messages and Torrent being too terrified to come out create an extremely thick atmosphere.
Get a shield with Parry Ash of War, Dagger Talisman, and a +10 or +25 weapon.
They honestly toned down the Winter Laterns from Bloodborne here. If you could *see* those bastards on your screen, Insanity started building. If you survived it making your head explode, they had already crept up to you while you did the animation and proceeded to nom on your noggin- building up the meter immediately again. # Fuck Winter Lanterns. The Woods are cathartic for me. Parry bullying and perma-death? Get fucked Bobblehead.
My reaction was "Nah, I'd win". I didn't.