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

[Silva]

And the people who like Elden Ring are not the ones who like Dark Souls, unless they're NPCs.

TO be fair, I do like ER. At times. When I went to Fort Mourne, that was nice. A giant golem shoots arrows at you from afar, you have to sneak around and thin the mob before fighting the miniboss. There's some exploration and jumping around and then you get to the proper boss. The castle after Margit is also excellent. Vertical and horizontal exploration, multiple routes, you can go infiltrating or storming the gates. I found an NPC, then jumped down into some sewers to fight a miniboss and got the start of the previously mentioned NPC's quest. This is the good part.

The bad part is that getting to these areas means dealing with the open world. Sure I could kill a boss like Margit at level 1, but have fun fighting him for 2 days because you skipped the open world content and you only have a shitty +2 weapon.

One of the worst moments for me so far was when I discovered an elevator somewhere in the eastern part of Limgrave that took me down. Initially, I thought I landed in some cool ass dungeon. Underground, but the sky was full of stars and there were these weird looking stone people around. For a moment it felt like something straight out of Lovecraft. Then I cleared the surrounding area and realized that no, this is not the cool ass dungeon I was expecting but another part of the open world and I was running around it all I was thinking was "Why am I doing this? Why am I fighting those crabs from DS3? Why am I fighting the barbarians from DS3's Ashes just reskinned as ghosts? Why do they have homing missiles? Why are the rats I've been fighting since DS1 here? Why is their plague skin texture fitting for what looks to be a magical realm? And why the fuck am I running around lighting random obelisks?

While playing the soulsborne games and Sekiro I've felt joy, anger, frustration, excitement but never boredom. ER makes me feel bored at times.

I understand that at the end of Liurnia there's another well designed dungeon, but here's the problem - the whole experience feels like a work week. Exploring the open world is Monday to Friday just so I can then enjoy the weekend at it's end.

This is the best summary of the game I've read so far. It reflects exactly my experience, and the reason I dropped it with 30h out of boredom.

I think it's simply harder to make open-worlds as meaningful interaction-wise as corridor worlds. With DS1 and BB I felt like every step and every corner presented a meaningful decision or situation that made the experience tense and addictive. But here shit is spread too thin, and so it feels... boring, lost of times. From should have made the world and content smaller and, consequentially, denser.

I'm sure I'll come back to it eventually and like it, but the experience already have been marred, and nowhere near what BB or DS1 gave me already. Im sure I'll rate it above DS3 but that's it.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

 

[Ramnozack]

Beat Radahn, took about 4 tries, not as hard as you guys made it out to be, although I didn't even try to engage that thing in melee so. I just blasted him with rock sling and dodged those insane attacks of his. That fucking move where he turns himself into a meteor is such bullshit.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I'm having choice paralysis, I want to use all the weapons and my cup runneth over. Vaguely Dex/Faith right now, got bored of the Uchi and decided to try something different. Apparently dex/faith is supposed to use scythes and spears.

-Guardian Swordspear -- It's pretty fast and has nice sweeping attacks but the pokes are hard to access (backstep and dashing only). Jumping r1 is an overhead chop but the jumping r2 is a sweep which doesn't even make sense. I want to see someone jump up and swing a spear like this IRL. With Keen it becomes pure dex and has killer scaling but with Sacred it gets even more damage from Holy and loses most physical scaling, making the high-ish stat reqs feel like a waste. Also boo on a dex weapon that requires 17 Str.

-Knight's Greatsword -- I've mained a GS in every game so far so I feel like trying something different, but I'm still undecided. This one has the fast 2H R1 swings that I like but the charge r2 is an overhead instead of a stab and the jumping R2 is a sweep instead of an overhead. Which GS has fast R1 swings, jumping R2 helmsplitter, and charging R2 poke (and isn't Int based)?

I wish this game had let you learn and equip all individual weapon moves instead of locking you to a moveset for each weapon. Yes the ashes let you change the special but there's no good reason why I shouldn't be able to swing any spear overhead or stab with any sword.

-Twinblade -- Way different from what I usually use in these games. Seems like a meme weapon and the HP bloat in this game is real so I'm worried the damage will fall off too much. I do like the idea of playing a quickstepping buzzsaw though.

-Treespear -- 22 dex, it would have to be worth it, very slow with no sweeps that I saw, pure poking.

-Winged scythe -- The jumping attack is gud? I'd need to upgrade it for a real comparison.

I may have to cave and go back to Uchi or a straightsword because everything else is too slow and I like my shield.

 

[Curratum]

Game is rapidly turning into "Here, fight this boss again, but now the terrain is shit, you snag on everything, and the boss clips through everything and hits you anyway".

 

[Silva]

Is there a point in keeping under the 30% weight threshold this time?

 

[Jermu]

-Winged scythe -- The jumping attack is gud? I'd need to upgrade it for a real comparison.

Played most of game with Winged Scythe + shield and it was a good choice. For more ranged and stronger option I would advice for Halo Scythe but that requires some farming.

 

[Curratum]

Just fought my sixth boss in a row who was a simple drag-drop reuse. I am sorry but this is just too much.
This is not the "some bosses are reused", I'm just playing the same content over again, but the open world in the late areas is duller and blander to even look at, and feels way more sparse and underdetailed.

 

[hackncrazy]

Fun fact: after I finished the game and kept playing (didn't go to NG+ yet), I started having fun again going to the bosses that I left behind. Maybe I was a little burned out of getting new area after new area. Now that I know where everything is, I'll probably keep playing to fight bosses endlessly and so on.

Also, it never stops to amaze me how amazingly beautiful are the fights against Mohg.

 

[hackncrazy]

Is there a point in keeping under the 30% weight threshold this time?

<30% means light load? My guess is that you might entered quickly in the i-frames state or even have a few more i-frames to save your ass. But probably that's about it.

 

[toro]

Some things I learned today:
- weapon arts are actually combos (left click + right click),
- best armor in the game is veteran something (79 poise and mid rolling),
- secret dragons from the last area don't drop anything (gravel stones. wtf!?),
- ancient stones are only found in the last area (at least 3 somber, more regular),
- dual wielding is insane (1600+ damage with an unoptimized build),
- pvp is retarded (cause everything dies in two hits or one full weapon art),
- most players are retarded (i've spent two hours trying to help people with Foreskin Duo and Beastman Clergy but the success rate was something like 2 wins in 20 tries. i think we killed more invaders than bosses),
- because of the reused assets the game is as enticing as a dead corpse (i think this is the one souls game that will lose all its charm in the fastest way. i have no doubts about it)
- i don't want to chop dragons ankles anymore (please make it stop),
- das2 is more memorable than elden ring.

 

[hackncrazy]

I'm watching some speedruns on my second screen and the way that Icerind Hatchet destroy bosses with the Stomp is not even funny. I bet my ass that this is getting massively nerfed soon.

 

[Silva]

Is there a point in keeping under the 30% weight threshold this time?

<30% means light load? My guess is that you might entered quickly in the i-frames state or even have a few more i-frames to save your ass. But probably that's about it.

This is not what it seems, but I could be wrong. It looks to be exactly like DS3, where light weight only gave a faster animation but didnt change I-frames, stamina recovery or nothing else, making light armor basically useless, and the game turned into armor parade.

DS1 and DS2 were so much better than this, with weight load atually affecting number of I-frames and stamina recovery (and I think DS1 actually had a 50% threshold?). Don't know why they (apparently) sticked to DS3 system.

 

[Ramnozack]

 

[Endemic]

#2 on Steam right now, nice.

 

[Silva]

Hearing the final boss theme on YT and it's awesome. It's the main title theme but extended and nuanced. I love this kinda shit where the ending points to the beginning and such.

Oh, and how the second part begins same notes as...

Spoiler

Gwyn's theme

 

[Wunderbar]

 

[Belegarsson]

That music in the Ancestor Spirit boss fight...

 

[Funposter]

Well I finally 100%'d the game and I feel disgusting. Profile says 79hrs 46mins but Steam says 90 hours. This is the first time I've really no-lifed a game since Kingdom Come: Deliverance came out, and I was unemployed when that happened, so at least I had an excuse to be spending nearly 8 hours a day on it. I might write up a sort of proper review of the game a little bit later today as I continue to gather my thoughts on it and the monster that FromSoft have created, but my main takeaway from the whole experience is that I enjoyed myself, while simultaneously, never wanting to touch the game ever again.

 

[Removal]

I don't know what they were thinking with the final boss fight . The start up is amazing, sound track is on point, boss doesn't pull bullshit moves. Then he turns into a From patented giant monster that not only wrecks your camera and you spend the fight hacking at ankles when he's not flying around the arena vomiting projectiles at you

 

[ADL]

I picked up an Xbox Elite Controller today and it makes a huge difference and highly recommend using any controller with backpaddles. Maybe I'm just a retard who doesn't hold controllers correctly but after getting used to the Steam Controller I'd never touch one without backpaddles again. The Elite's 4 backpaddles are fully programmable via Steam Input so you can do things like the paddles holding Y+L1/R1 for 1H/2H, sprinting on the back of the controller so sprint+jump+attack doesn't require hand gymnastics.

I love the Steam Controller but there's only two backpaddles and the trackpad isn't ideal for third person games.

 

[Lithium Flower]

I'm curious what your opinion will be when you meet some of the more bullshit encounters like the various nobles (mostly the infinite rolly boy), Radahn himself, Malenia, the continuous copy pasta, the snipers..

87 hours, cleaned up a few dungeons in Caelid, Fort Gael, and met Radahn.

And I must say, I finally understand where the Elder Scrolls comparisons are coming from...

Because like in modded Skyrim, I just gave that hunk AIDS. It was pretty cool.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Is there a point in keeping under the 30% weight threshold this time?

<30% means light load? My guess is that you might entered quickly in the i-frames state or even have a few more i-frames to save your ass. But probably that's about it.

I miss the "shit's gotten real" moments in DS1 and DS2 where I'm having a huge amount of trouble with a boss, so I strip down to the lightest armor I own and end up destroying it ninja style. One of my all time greatest gaming memories was fighting Ornstein & Smough on NG+4 to get a final achievement to 100% DS1 and hitting a brick wall. I was dying repeatedly. I completely re-spec'd my build to be a light armor user + wood grain ring, went in and completely destroyed them with no summons. Backflipping in DS1 was cheesy, yes, but holy shit. I felt untouchable after getting beat down over and over.

 

[Lutte]

This is not what it seems, but I could be wrong. It looks to be exactly like DS3, where light weight only gave a faster animation but didnt change I-frames, stamina recovery or nothing else, making light armor basically useless, and the game turned into armor parade.

DS1 and DS2 were so much better than this, with weight load atually affecting number of I-frames and stamina recovery (and I think DS1 actually had a 50% threshold?). Don't know why they (apparently) sticked to DS3 system.

Plus, this game has the quickstep and bloodhound step weapon arts if you really, really want an improved roll somehow. I still prefer using damage arts, but it's an option and it's much better than trying to get under mid equip load (it takes a great amount of stamina or wasting a talisman slot to get under midload if you equip anything but power stanced daggers, I tried using light armor but I just couldn't get under mid load with two katanas and a scepter equipped so I thought fuck it)

 

[Ivan]

Well I finally 100%'d the game and I feel disgusting. Profile says 79hrs 46mins but Steam says 90 hours. This is the first time I've really no-lifed a game since Kingdom Come: Deliverance came out, and I was unemployed when that happened, so at least I had an excuse to be spending nearly 8 hours a day on it. I might write up a sort of proper review of the game a little bit later today as I continue to gather my thoughts on it and the monster that FromSoft have created, but my main takeaway from the whole experience is that I enjoyed myself, while simultaneously, never wanting to touch the game ever again.

see ya in the critique thread. I think I'm about to tap out myself. Bested the Elden Beast, but Manelia man...not sure I'm even enjoying the fight lol