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

[Riddler]

have yet to find any armor or new weapons despite exploring fully like 5 different caves and killing a bunch of bosses

But if you are at storms gate you should at the very least have found the great sword? No?

 

[randir14]

Finally beat Margit, I ended up spamming the claymore's weapon skill as he was distracted by wolf summons. I wonder how many people new to Souls games will reach him and drop the game out of frustration without realizing they can just go around the castle and explore more of the world.

 

[DemonKing]

I wonder how many people new to Souls games will reach him and drop the game out of frustration without realizing they can just go around the castle and explore more of the world.

There was a guy in another forum who got a Steam refund after running into the Tree Sentinel straight out of the first gate because it was atrocious design to put that right at the beginning when the player has no chance to beat him...

 

[Steezus]

Finally beat Margit, I ended up spamming the claymore's weapon skill as he was distracted by wolf summons. I wonder how many people new to Souls games will reach him and drop the game out of frustration without realizing they can just go around the castle and explore more of the world.

If you're too stupid to realize that you can go different places in an open world game, then it might be for the best to get a refund.

 

[SumDrunkGuy]

Early game boss spoilers ahead but this shit needs to be brought to light. Forgive the camera placement because I was using my knees.

Spoiler

you're supposed to summon for that boss, it's literally how they designed the encounter. any time there's an npc summon right in front of the entrance it means the encounter is designed with the npc in mind.

I will absolutely NOT do that! Summoning is for mouth breathing cowards.

 

[Devastator]

I probably belong to a small minority, because I dropped the game due to boredom. My main criticism is probably that on the surface it feels like an open-world game from Ubisoft. I played for four hours, beat a few bosses in some dungeons, upgraded my weapon to +2, but it all seemed so... directionless and pointless?

I greatly fault the atmosphere, which is one of my favorite aspects of Dark Souls 3 (death and decay everywhere) and Bloodborne (beautiful locations with omnipresent horror). In Elden Ring everything is so colorful and alive, sadly. The mount makes it even worse for me. I loved how focused DS3 & BB were, they always felt like playing a Swiss watch as you carefully explored the convoluted environments. ER just has this over-the-top world where I am bouncing around the rooftops on My Little Pony.

While the combat seems good, one thing I really did not like was the insane amount of initial stamina. Not only can you roll or spam attacks for quite a while, but the stamina actually recharges with little delay and at great speed. It almost feels like you start the game with 50 endurance and a built-in Cloranthy ring.

I can't say that the game is bad. Plus, it's been praised almost everywhere I look. Unfortunately, I can't be bothered with it. Even DS1 with all its clumsiness would appeal to me much, much more right now.

 

[Dr1f7]

I don't have a problem with this. In fact I think it's pretty cool. Makes for a nice challenge if you're good enough, otherwise you can go level up somewhere else and come back later. I think it's one of the better usages of an open world env rather than concentric difficulty circles(starting area easy->move further away slightly harder->move even further away->a bit more harder than the previous circle and so on). Also, I didn't read it that the game recommends you fight that guy immediately, rather it's a quest compass for the main quest. The game tells you where to go to progress the plot, not that you should do so immediately.

meh I've never really considered memorizing the specific boss' simon-says pattern so I can get in 200 swings to kill the overlevelled fuck 'challenging', just tedious.
on a similar line, dying because it's impossible to tell if an enemy, that's in the beginner area, is meant for a level 100 character or a level 1 character isn't particularly fun to me, again just tedious. I'd be ok with a little bit of that but really in the starter area I've counted at least 10 instances of this which is way too frequent

 

[Funposter]

My thoughts after 5 hours: it's alright, not amazing but holding my attention.

My main criticism is probably that on the surface it feels like an open-world game from Ubisoft. I played for four hours, beat a few bosses in some dungeons, upgraded my weapon to +2, but it all seemed so... directionless and pointless?

This is where I'm at right now. I think the only reason I'm sticking with it is because I haven't played a new release video game in a long time.

 

[HumanTotemPole]

Here we go lads, blind as a bat.

Fingers crossed money well spent.

 

[SumDrunkGuy]

• have yet to find any armor or new weapons despite exploring fully like 5 different caves and killing a bunch of bosses

Damn. I think you're just really unlucky bro. I accumulated a full set of armor and greatsword from the first enemy camp you encounter. I must of had good dice. Granted it took me a few runs to get all of it.

 

[razvedchiki]

are there any quests/towns with npcs? or you just twitch around?

 

[Curratum]

are there any quests/towns with npcs? or you just twitch around?

There are a bunch. However, one of them is literally a tree in the wild, so good luck going sufficiently close by so you trigger the dialogue :D

 

[razvedchiki]

so its just like dork souls but the map is open?

 

[hackncrazy]

My thoughts after 5 hours: it's alright, not amazing but holding my attention.

My main criticism is probably that on the surface it feels like an open-world game from Ubisoft. I played for four hours, beat a few bosses in some dungeons, upgraded my weapon to +2, but it all seemed so... directionless and pointless?

This is where I'm at right now. I think the only reason I'm sticking with it is because I haven't played a new release video game in a long time.

I think it depends on what you're expecting of the game. I've seen some complaints similar to yours, but in that case the guy said he was disappointed because he cleared a dungeon and got a shitty item like a rune or something. He said that he thinks it's a crime for a game to design a dungeon like these and not compensate the player for the effort of beating.

In my case, I always played souls games for combat and exploration. So if ER has 500 dungeons with the only compensation being a boss to fight, I'd be totally ok with it. I was never into open world games so I have no idea how they're used to award the player in these situations.

Also, for the difficulty I think the game is, so far (post Margit) pretty much at the level of the other souls, but couldn't hold my laughter when a friend of mine said that the game is too easy and that he beat Margit first try....with summons.

 

[jungl]

This best thing is you decide where to go next not the game. A few level ups here and there upgrade your equipment and you can go practically anywhere early on. Game is a less linear slog then previous titles. Everybody will have their own personal wacky journey.

 

[Dr1f7]

• have yet to find any armor or new weapons despite exploring fully like 5 different caves and killing a bunch of bosses

Damn. I think you're just really unlucky bro. I accumulated a full set of armor and greatsword from the first enemy camp you encounter. I must of had good dice. Granted it took me a few runs to get all of it.

it's just a random drop? damn lol I've killed so many of those soldier dudes and nothing's dropped :/
I might just have to suck it up and buy gear from the merchant dude

been running around naked with a damn club for hours

 

[Curratum]

Has anyone got to / unlocked the hub / Firelink / Majula area?

 

[SumDrunkGuy]

The bloodstains seem to be broken for me. Any time I touch one I never see the ghost.

 

[Shrimp]

Okay, I need someone to spoil me on something here since I don't know if I've missed out on something important.

I opened a chest with a trap and

Spoiler

got teleported to a large balcony arena with nothing but a giant.
Since the giant had somewhere around 10 to 15000 health (based on how much of its health bar a riposte did) and the fact that it frequently used an attack where it charged in a long straight line I assumed you were supposed to kill it by making it fall off the edge of the arena, but after some time it felt like there was an invisible barrier preventing it from falling off. As a side note it had a tendency to some times clip into the fence surrounding the sides of the arena which meant I some times couldn't even hit it. Very clunky fight.

The giant ended up pushing me off the edge with an explosion and during the You Died screen it somehow ended up jumping off a while after I had been knocked off. I assumed it would just respawn since I was already dead at that point, but when I respawned the giant was gone.

There was no loot anywhere on the ground, so I want to know if this enemy was meant to drop anything important that I have now seemingly might have missed out on.

I know there's a chest inside the arena, but I'm more interested in knowing if the giant dropped anything important.

 

[thelegend]

According to this thread, this solution seems to be working for a lot of pcs-

 

[gerey]

Anyway, my take is that the difficulty is comparable to previous titles, even open-world encounters can be a challenge if approached unprepared. I'd argue that the game really isn't directionless, the first NPC you meet outright tells you where you need to go, it's just that people have gotten so used to games holding their hands and (not so) subtly telling them where to go that most people have no idea how to handle an open world that doesn't hold you by the hand.

Concerning gameplay, I like that the game isn't drowning me in items like some previous Souls games did, as well as the inclusion of crafting so you don't have to slog your way back to a merchant every time you run out of arrows. Summons and war ashes are good additions that give the player even more freedom in choosing their playstyle.

I understand why some people feel underwhelmed by the game, the Demons/Dark Souls formula is getting a tad stale after having played through so many games, and there's little From, or another developer, can do to make it feel fresh again.

Aside from fairly inexcusable technical hiccups the game feels like a very polished affair, though more of an incremental improvement over what was there before instead of the evolutionary leap everyone was hoping.

 

[Jinn]

According to this thread, this solution seems to be working for a lot of pcs-

Hey, thanks a lot for this! Surprisingly helps a lot! I did everything there except disabling steam overlay and got a big performance boost. Went and tested it out in the area with the Tree Sentinel fight and the stutter was still there, but barely anything at all.

I understand why some people feel underwhelmed by the game, the Demons/Dark Souls formula is getting a tad stale after having played through so many games, and there's little From, or another developer, can do to make it feel fresh again.

At this point, I think it would be a near impossibility for From to create anything that would satisfy certain people. Such is the decadence of our hobby, I suppose. Personally, I can't put this game down. Extremely happy I took a day off work for release.

Also, I think some people need to give the game an opportunity to show what it's made of still. It is very slowly unveiling more and more as I go on. I'm about 14 hours in and I still feel like I'm just peeling off the top layer.

 

[Puukko]

Please tell me what level you guys beat Margit at. Because I definitely went in underleveled and without any weapon upgrades and spent over 4 hours in there. Absolutely pointless but damn satisfying in the end when I finally pulled it off. Those 12k runes put me from lvl 13 to 19. If you consider the average Souls boss generally amounts to 2-3 levels...

 

[Shrimp]

Has anyone tried actually using bows yet? How are they in this game?
Being able to craft your own arrows instead of having to purchase them with souls sounds like a huge advantage, but if bows/crossbows still only exist to help you pull single enemies from afar that's definitely a bit of a disappointment.

 

[Jenkem]

Please tell me what level you guys beat Margit at. Because I definitely went in underleveled and without any weapon upgrades and spent over 4 hours in there. Absolutely pointless but damn satisfying in the end when I finally pulled it off. Those 12k runes put me from lvl 13 to 19. If you consider the average Souls boss generally amounts to 2-3 levels...

19 or so iirc, jellyfish summon helps a lot too