From Software Elden Ring - From Software's new game with writing by GRRM

[Tyrr]

Went back to some locations I still didn't clear 100% the first time. And finally found the way to reach the second level of the Fortified Manor in the capital.

WTF! I didn't even noticed it from the flow below. Well played Fromsoft (they did it again).

 

[perfectslumbers]

Knowing journalists, I very much doubt ANY of them reached the end of elden ring period.

Tbh you see this in players too. The reception of RPGS tends to depend almost entirely on the first 10 or 15 hours

Do I remember correctly it had an impact on weapon speed in Bloodborne? Or am I just to much in love in that game?

It did not, you are just madly in love with Bloodborne friend

 

[Curratum]

Internet says not just Malenia, but Radahn is also optional. Explains all the 10s :D

 

[Brickfrog]

Internet says not just Malenia, but Radahn is also optional. Explains all the 10s :D

I suspected as much lol. Radahn really does not come off as optional.

Like everyone else, it wasn't until way after I got to the capital that I thought "wait, did killing radahn 20 hours ago even help me get here?"

 

[Shrimp]

Internet says not just Malenia, but Radahn is also optional. Explains all the 10s :D

The game has far more optional content than you might think at first. I think you

Spoiler

only need two runes to proceed into the capital meaning that you can just kill two of the pre-Altus shardbearers (Godric, Renalla, Mhog and Radahn) and move into the capital where you can progress through the story.

 

[Lutte]

Internet says not just Malenia, but Radahn is also optional. Explains all the 10s :D

I suspected as much lol. Radahn really does not come off as optional.

Well, it's optional if you go for the vanilla ending but

Spoiler

one of the greatest sidequest, leading you to a long journey across awesome areas, one goal of which is to get a fingerslayer blade to cut off the Great Will's influence over the world requires killing Radahn, and you get a new ending not involving sitting on the retard throne to become the next Great Will puppet

 

[perfectslumbers]

I just want a marry Melina ending, is that too much to ask? Fuck the ring

 

[Brickfrog]

Yeah I figure just about everyone kills radahn for all of the benefits it entails. It's kind of funny to me that he's entirely optional because I know I'm far from the only person who assumed he was a required kill by the time they found him lol

 

[Lutte]

Yeah I figure just about everyone kills radahn for all of the benefits it entails. It's kind of funny to me that he's entirely optional because I know I'm far from the only person who assumed he was a required kill by the time they found him lol

I might misremember, but I thought Gideon makes it very clear that you can immediately continue onto the main quest after

Spoiler

defeating Rennala in Raya academy

.

 

[Shrimp]

Internet says not just Malenia, but Radahn is also optional. Explains all the 10s :D

I suspected as much lol. Radahn really does not come off as optional.

Well, it's optional if you go for the vanilla ending but

Spoiler

one of the greatest sidequest, leading you to a long journey across awesome areas, one goal of which is to get a fingerslayer blade to cut off the Great Will's influence over the world requires killing Radahn, and you get a new ending not involving sitting on the retard throne to become the next Great Will puppet

Spoiler

I do wonder what's up with that tbh
if you give Ranni the fingerslayer blade you find her in a cave where she has slain a pair of fingers, but if you so choose you can still return to the Roundtable hold and communicate (by proxy) with the fingers there and essentially continue obeying them if you so desire. While it serves as proof that the blade at the very least can slay them, what does Ranni achieve by only killing one of them if there still are multiple of them?
That being said I haven't seen the ending cutscene if you side her with her, so I don't know if it's stated there or if it's implied that she/you will continue to seek out and slay the remaining ones to ensure there are no vassals of the Greater Will left

 

[Brickfrog]

Yeah I figure just about everyone kills radahn for all of the benefits it entails. It's kind of funny to me that he's entirely optional because I know I'm far from the only person who assumed he was a required kill by the time they found him lol

I might misremember, but I thought Gideon makes it very clear that you can immediately continue onto the main quest after

Spoiler

defeating Rennala in Raya academy

.

He does! Im just so hardwired from years of gaming that i assume a big boss in a castle must be a necessary story kill.

I know a few other people in here made the same assumption lol

 

[Shrimp]

Yeah I figure just about everyone kills radahn for all of the benefits it entails. It's kind of funny to me that he's entirely optional because I know I'm far from the only person who assumed he was a required kill by the time they found him lol

I think most players who had already played a previous Souls game just went in with the assumption they'd have to kill all of the Lord boss equivalents at some point, so when a path opened up to Radahn it seemed like the natural route to take.

 

[Brickfrog]

Yeah I figure just about everyone kills radahn for all of the benefits it entails. It's kind of funny to me that he's entirely optional because I know I'm far from the only person who assumed he was a required kill by the time they found him lol

I think most players who had already played a previous Souls game just went in with the assumption they'd have to kill all of the Lord boss equivalents at some point, so when a path opened up to Radahn it seemed like the natural route to take.

Exactly

 

[perfectslumbers]

I think most players who had already played a previous Souls game just went in with the assumption they'd have to kill all of the Lord boss equivalents at some point, so when a path opened up to Radahn it seemed like the natural route to take.

Also becoming elden lord and reforging the elden ring is weird when you have 3 out of 7 runes

I was hoping this game would have an ending for finding every single rune but that does not seem to be the case.

 

[Lutte]

Spoiler

I do wonder what's up with that tbh
if you give Ranni the fingerslayer blade you find her in a cave where she has slain a pair of fingers, but if you so choose you can still return to the Roundtable hold and communicate (by proxy) with the fingers there and essentially continue obeying them if you so desire. While it serves as proof that the blade at the very least can slay them, what does Ranni achieve by only killing one of them if there still are multiple of them?
That being said I haven't seen the ending cutscene if you side her with her, so I don't know if it's stated there or if it's implied that she/you will continue to seek out and slay the remaining ones to ensure there are no vassals of the Greater Will left

Spoiler

The rules of the world of Elden Ring are strange in a way that makes me think it's the part influenced by GRRM but basically an Empyrean can only ascend to full godhood with the help of a """consort""" and never just on their own. This is what Mohg is doing with Miquella by the way. He's trying to make Miquella ascend to have him as his puppet god while working for the sake of the Formless Mother outer god.
In Ranni's ending, you fulfill the role of the one who leads her to achieve true power, after which I guess she would enact her full plans, though it's not openly stated.
Also, the two fingers she killed are not a random one, they were her own two fingers. Demi gods were assigned their own two fingers to monitor and control them. She destroyed her mortal shell and put her soul in a doll to avoid the Greater Will influence.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Biggest annoyance with this game: the fact that pushing down on the left joy stick makes you crouch. I'll be running away from some enemy, and accidentally push it and go into stealth, which makes me run slower. The crouch animation isn't that different than the run animation too, so sometimes it's hard to tell if you are crouching or not. Plus, if you push it while you are on your horse, you dismount.

I looked for another key to bind it to, but there really wasn't anything convenient. They should at least disable having it dismount you from your horse. I poppped off my horse like 4 times during that big dragon fight.

 

[Curratum]

Honestly, I'm all over wikis and guides. Multiple steps in Ranni's quest is fucking unintelligible without those and I'd much rather enjoy all those cool places and bosses and gameplay than fuck myself over my "gamer pride" and skip half the game.

 

[Lutte]

I think most players who had already played a previous Souls game just went in with the assumption they'd have to kill all of the Lord boss equivalents at some point, so when a path opened up to Radahn it seemed like the natural route to take.

Also becoming elden lord and reforging the elden ring is weird when you have 3 out of 7 runes

I was hoping this game would have an ending for finding every single rune but that does not seem to be the case.

Spoiler

It was never implied all runes were necessary for the functioning of the ring (the ring is like the structure that maintains together the reality of the lands between, chosing which rune sits within is like chosing the Laws that govern the world's physics and metaphysics). After all, Marika herself decided not to put the rune of death in the ring, and let it sit in the hands of her half brother. Then the rune of death was stolen so that demi gods could be killed. There's a faction in the game that wants the rune back in the elden ring btw.

 

[Tacgnol]

Biggest annoyance with this game: the fact that pushing down on the left joy stick makes you crouch. I'll be running away from some enemy, and accidentally push it and go into stealth, which makes me run slower. The crouch animation isn't that different than the run animation too, so sometimes it's hard to tell if you are crouching or not. Plus, if you push it while you are on your horse, you dismount.

I looked for another key to bind it to, but there really wasn't anything convenient. They should at least disable having it dismount you from your horse. I poppped off my horse like 4 times during that big dragon fight.

Just remove the binding and press x on the keyboard when you need to sneak (which is almost never).

My QOL improved significantly.

 

[Eyestabber]

Started this yesterday. Currently lvl 44, rocking a Quality Claymore build with lots of survivability and a shield. A build can't get more basic than that. I just beat the mage lady, 2nd Lord of Cinder/Great Soul/whatever they are called now. I'm enjoying it so far, this is MUCH better than Dark Souls 3. Lots of stuff are improved, lots of stuff took a turn for the worse. I'm noticing the difficulty being pretty uneven. Godrick's bodyguard almost made me ragequit in frustration, and then I later beat Godrick himself 1st try. Mage lady was also piss easy. Not sure how I feel about the introduction of "Skyrim caves", but it is what it is. My weapon is currently at +10 and I don't have any major "I wish I knew this earlier" regrets. I went into the game fairly well informed.

Does the fights against giant blenders become significantly worse later on?

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Honestly, I'm all over wikis and guides. Multiple steps in Ranni's quest is fucking unintelligible without those and I'd much rather enjoy all those cool places and bosses and gameplay than fuck myself over my "gamer pride" and skip half the game.

I was going to do a blind first playthrough, but then I realized how fucking big the game is and started looking at a map. If I only end up playing it through once, I want to do as much as possible my first time through.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Biggest annoyance with this game: the fact that pushing down on the left joy stick makes you crouch. I'll be running away from some enemy, and accidentally push it and go into stealth, which makes me run slower. The crouch animation isn't that different than the run animation too, so sometimes it's hard to tell if you are crouching or not. Plus, if you push it while you are on your horse, you dismount.

I looked for another key to bind it to, but there really wasn't anything convenient. They should at least disable having it dismount you from your horse. I poppped off my horse like 4 times during that big dragon fight.

Just remove the binding and press x on the keyboard when you need to sneak (which is almost never).

My QOL improved significantly.

I didn't know you could remove bindings.

 

[Removal]

It's a good game, but it really should have been cut down a bit scope/size wise. The last few open world areas of the game after the capitol city are a slog to get through between reskinned/hp tank enemies and copied bosses

 

[cvv]

Honestly, I'm all over wikis and guides. Multiple steps in Ranni's quest is fucking unintelligible without those and I'd much rather enjoy all those cool places and bosses and gameplay than fuck myself over my "gamer pride" and skip half the game.

There's no gamer pride in Souls when it comes to quests. FS designs quests as community efforts, i.e. many are unlikely to be solved by a solo player, let alone in the first run.

Take the Blaidd quest - he tells you "meet me at X", you arrive at X and he's not there. Normally, most people would stop right there, never ever finishing the quest. Turns out Blaidd is in a completely different place but you must literally run all over the map the size of Soviet Russia looking for him. He actually hollers at you when you get close but you have to be really close.

So I have absolutely zero qualms about reading guides. The way NPCs move around this huge map - it was already bad enough in the previous FS games, way smaller and way more linear - without any hints makes it nearly impossible for you to figure most of them out.

P.S.: I actually very much dislike this philosophy, I prefer to solve quests myself, not to rely on sheer luck or guides. Sadge.

 

[Lutte]

The hp bloat was annoying, but I liked the latter areas a lot more than the capital. Particularly the place that leads to Malenia. They feel less like a walking simulation than the capital did. The capital's sewers were good from a gameplay POV though, but I never enjoyed going through sewers in any game.