The Shadow Of The Erdtree DLC for Elden Ring is still floating around Mixed in the bloody annals of Steam user review consensus. As Nic wrote earlier this week, some of the negative feedback has to do with the expansion’s difficulty, which is certainly worth hearing after years of hearing from well-meaning players that I only give low ratings because I can’t press the buttons in the right order.
Just like publishers Bandai Namco sweetly observedstruggling players may be forgetting that you can raise your overall power level by collecting Scadutree Fragments, a collectible system designed to provide a tough challenge even for end-game players while still providing the opportunity to effectively balance expansion through exploration. The downside to this, as several people have pointed out, is that some players don’t want to hunt down collectibles before they can take down bosses.
To save the situation and reconcile the conflicting parties, modders, especially Sereenaty, whose Normalized DLC damage mod (thanks, VG247) adjusts the damage dealt and taken in DLC areas to be more consistent with the base game, theoretically eliminating the need for Scadutree fragments. As the modder sums up: “If you’re tired of throwing your entire build into the Trash just because you don’t like collectibles, this mod is for you.” The mod also replaces most of the game’s Scadutree fragments with runebows, although you’ll apparently still get a few fragments from enemy drops.
Aside from my schadenfreude about internet bullshit raised by self-quotes, I don’t have a magical disappearing goat in this particular Elden horse race. I haven’t played Shadow Of The Erdtree yet, partly because many people on Treehouse already play it, and partly because I’m more interested in psychedelic bee products these days. Still, I’m interested in how searching for Fragments in Erdtree is a task you must undertake if you want to make progress, and how it differs from the experience of leveling up your character by collecting runes. If you play, I’d be interested to know whether you feel compelled to look for them, or whether discovering them happens as part of the routine exploration that is the main thrill of every From Software game for Me.
People who don’t want to modify Erdtree and don’t want to get impaled and roasted by any enemy should definitely check out our guides section. Ollie, Kiera and Jeremy have created a list of all 50 Scadutree fragments and their locations. They also highly recommend fighting the Erdtree bosses in this order. Forget about modders – the authors of guides are real masters in their field. They give gud just to make sure that we get gud in turn.
