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

[The Decline]

I'm taking my time and playing the game in smaller chunks. The map getting larger as you explore is a great, "holy shit there's more?!?" moment.

 

[ElectricOtter]

Jesus, I'm putting this game on pause. I can't deal with this.

The absolute worst soulsborne boss / camera fight that I just had to suffer through... I made it to the castle, and the same enemy is reused there, again... Like, why would you do that? Why? It's an absolute clusterfuck, and I ran into it at random, back to back twice in an hour.

remember when i told u that u sucked last night and u didnt listen and still kept banging ur head with ur shit build and ur n00by armour?

i stand by it ^.^

 

[Joyvankek]

On PC this game is saved only by interesting world and bosses. Otherwise is one of the worst ports I've ever seen on PC.
It's clear they don't give a fuck about PC player base.
Most of the difficulty I found so far is more about camera jumping and that retarded console aim lock than anything else. It's even more "fun" when you are dealing with mages that are spamming merrily at you with magic bolts, while you have to take some punishment just to lock on them and return some fire.
Then you will get pwnd by them spamming their book smash attack, so frontal attack is out of question, and I need to lure them out one by one.
Which make it even more fun when after spending 20 minutes doing that, I enter boss area, and I instantly get 2 attacks, and I can block only one by rolling around like drunk russian on village's weeding. Cause attack are timed one after another so I will get some dmg no matter what, even if I spam roll constantly, trying to find the best timing to use it.
Then if I will manage to survive somehow, I just spam my own spell. If I can even lock on.
To top it off the faster the bosses are, the more "drunken soviet" experience you will have, since the camera will be all over the place, because I can't just have proper aiming with mouse and keyboard, just this retarded console aim bot that will lose lock on, on them constantly, it's even worse if boss have some skill to disappear/teleport.

Still I guess I have some masochist in me, cause I am still playing it despite it all. It will be my first and the last time that I bought anything from these gook, perverted, yellow niggers.

 

[Lutte]

Mages are the easiest enemies in the game, even the mage shardbearer boss is a cakewalk compared to other shardbearers, wtf are you talking about? They have no poise, get interrupted or stunned easily, spells are the most predictable attack (compared to how melee users keep on changing patterns from "I am very slowly going to hit you" "this time my hit will happen in 0.2 seconds!) and hence the easiest to dodge, and a majority of the spells don't even need to be dodged, you only need to keep sprinting away.

Why do you harp about locking on? there is no need for lockon. Maybe if you play with keyboard and mouse? the advantage of dual analog is that you have precise movement of the character independently from the camera, I don't lock on while fighting random mooks (or against very large bosses because the camera gets suicidal).
[edit] ah, you're playing a mage yourself, nevermind..well, get a melee weapon with decent base stats and get into the fray.

 

[Joyvankek]

Maybe if you play with keyboard and mouse?

That's exactly on what I am playing. It's PC, I should be covered if I want to play like that, since you know, it's a fucking default.
Dunno, I have easier time with fucking dragons than when I have room full of those bastards, but yeah, I can just run around and they wont be able to hit me, but as I already told you, I won't be able to hit them back as well, since locking is pain in the ass.
I purchased this only because I heard that they optimized this for M+K, and I won't be buying controller for one game.

I am running with decent dagger, the one that stacks bleeding, and have dexterity for anything else that use that one. That's how I usually deal with bosses that are too fast for magic casting.

 

[Lutte]

It's PC, I should be covered if I want to play like that

Uh.. no? next thing you know you'll be saying racing simulators should be as playable on a keyboard. Just because it's on a pc doesn't mean it can't use peripherals.

I still remember 1990s when PC gamers actually bought racing wheels, joysticks (ye good olde sidewinder), Microsoft even had a gamepad of their own... then retardation happened with PCMASTERRACE memes and now somehow if it's not a keyboard it's haram, behaving like the console peasants who think everything should be playable on a gamepad the modern pc loser wants everything to be given to the keyboard god.

 

[Talby]

Hardest boss in the game for me.

 

[perfectslumbers]

Something still not clear to me is the overarching themes. Like, Light x Darkness in DS1 (or Men x Gods if you will), Mind x Beast in Bloodborne, etc. What are the forces at play here?

It's chaos and order. This game takes place in the Moorcock verse and the pc is an eternal champion

 

[Funposter]

I've turned a corner on item crafting and I now realise how heavily the player is incentivized to use it. There's a reason that bosses are all so susceptible to Bleed, Poison and Rot, and that you can easily collect the cookbooks required for; Poison Arrows, Bolts and Darts, Blood Arrows, Bolts and Grease within Limgrave. Furthermore, the cookbooks for Rot Arrows and Bolts, and Rot Grease are obtainable within Caelid if the player is brave enough to explore it. There are just so many bosses and encounters that seem totally obnoxious until you start utilizing these things and realise that, 1. they're available to all players regardless of build and, 2. items can be crafted on the fly, mid-encounter if the player can find a safe spot. You're supposed to be building up a huge supply of beast bones, poisonblooms, bloodroses etc. so that when you think they might come in handy, you can make immediate use of them without needing to grind for runes to purchase them from a merchant.

This encounter below was the one that finally that broke me and made me start experimenting with all of the different status ailments to see if there was an easy way to cheese it, since it seemed like I did so little damage with my normal setup. Bleed didn't really work too well (reduced damage output for the eventual big chunk didn't feel like I was out-DPSing my normal weapon) but a combo of Rot Bolts and Poison Darts did the trick. I feel silly not for doing this earlier.

Spoiler

In short, buy cookbooks and make sure to kill some sheep and pick some flowers in the overworld every now and then so that you have enough material to make items on the fly and test whether or not the boss you're having trouble with can be cheesed easily.

 

[thelegend]

https://www.ign.com/articles/elden-ring-george-rr-martin-very-happy-with-reviews

 

[thelegend]

Of course, almost all the credit should go to Hidetaka Miyazaki and his astonishing team of games designers who have been laboring on this game for half a decade or more, determined to create the best videogame ever. I am honored to have met them and worked with them, and to have have played a part, however small, in creating this fantastic world and making ELDEN RING the landmark megahit that it is.
https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2022/02/28/grab-for-the-ring/

 

[Ivan]

Move aside Shrouded Castle, Deeproot Depths is now my best friend

also, just when I thought the world map was huge enough, I got a new hitman quest from Volc Manor that has my target in some uncovered portion of the map

 

[Ivan]

I'm taking my time and playing the game in smaller chunks. The map getting larger as you explore is a great, "holy shit there's more?!?" moment.

this feeling has persisted for me at the 50+ hour mark. JESUS CHRIST is this FromSoftware's epic

 

[Suicidal]

I'm still at around the 15 hour mark cause I don't have time to play, and I'm enjoying it a lot.

Running around looking for stuff to find has never been more fun in a From game, IMO. Right now I'm obsessively sweeping every corner of Godrick's castle like an unpaid janitor and keep finding new hidden shit and seems like I only explored less than half of Limgrave, cause from watching some people on Twitch I saw them entering the castle with like a +5 flask, while mine is still at +0.

The main thing I dislike is that after playing Sekiro and Nioh 2, going back to the classic Dark Souls combat of attack-roll-attack-roll is very jarring. I don't like this system but kinda accepted that it's From's comfort zone. At least they added jumping and jumping attacks and equippable weapon skills, so it's slightly more fun than before. The enemy and boss design is great however, except for some optional dungeon bosses which feel more like an upscaled trash mob with a lifebar and music than a boss.

Also maybe I'm a weirdo, but I kinda miss getting randomly invaded like in the Souls games. I've been running the castle around with the taunter's tongue activated almost all the time but am yet to be invaded.

Anyway, this is probably the first AAA mainstream-ish game in a very very long while that I'm actually greatly enjoying and it feels like it was worth the hype. What the fuck is everyone else doing? Where are all the great western AAA games at? They're in the gutter, that's where. Western AAA devs are too busy sucking dick and inventing more genders and pronouns or implementing mobile game mechanics or NFT bullshit instead of making something fun.

 

[HumanTotemPole]

Some musing on enemy attacks in Fromsoft games over time.

The last 2 Soulslikes I played before Elden Ring were DS1 (again) and Hellpoint. Both have a 'classic' souls approach to enemy attacks with heavy commitment, consistent timings and limited combos. Very stark contrast compared to Elden Ring. Lot of variable swing timings, long combos, low commitment whereas the player is mostly playing by DS1 rules. Also more emphasis on enemies killing the player outright rather than health management as time has moved on. The DS1 Skeleton Beasts are almost unique in that game because of that lethal forward bite flurry combo. Seems like every 2nd Elden Ring enemy has a similar combo in their moveset. Either that or they can repeatedly KAMEHAMEHA a weapon art or other "special" attack.

It isn't a bad thing as such. The unpredictability and lethality make things more exciting but I do miss the old style 'dance' sometimes. I suppose that's why there's a market for more Hellpoints and Ashens out there.

As an aside, is there a slightly longer delay before blocking works than the DS games? Feel like I'm getting caught and punished a lot more in ER when guard dropping to manage stamina during an enemy attack combo. It may just be that the combos are even faster than DS3 but I'm not sure, it seems more difficult to "catch" individual attacks with a shield block as well.

 

[HumanTotemPole]

The main thing I dislike is that after playing Sekiro and Nioh 2, going back to the classic Dark Souls combat of attack-roll-attack-roll is very jarring. I don't like this system but kinda accepted that it's From's comfort zone. At least they added jumping and jumping attacks and equippable weapon skills, so it's slightly more fun than before.

You see I never could warm to the combat in Sekiro despite finishing it, just never naturally clicked for me. But then again I'm probably the type of Souls player Sekiro felt specifically designed to mess with. Didn't have the same problem with Nioh though, looking forward to 2 when I get round to it.

 

[Mystary!]

So what's the verdict on the spirit summons? As cheesy as NPC phantoms in Dark Souls?
I discovered them while struggling with Grave Warden Duelist. Figured I'd try them out.
Proceeded to backstab the shit out of him. Instant regret!

 

[mediocrepoet]

The main thing I dislike is that after playing Sekiro and Nioh 2, going back to the classic Dark Souls combat of attack-roll-attack-roll is very jarring. I don't like this system but kinda accepted that it's From's comfort zone. At least they added jumping and jumping attacks and equippable weapon skills, so it's slightly more fun than before.

You see I never could warm to the combat in Sekiro despite finishing it, just never naturally clicked for me. But then again I'm probably the type of Souls player Sekiro felt specifically designed to mess with. Didn't have the same problem with Nioh though, looking forward to 2 when I get round to it.

I agree, I didn't finish Sekiro or even come close. I just bounced off of it hard, it was missing pretty much everything I like about From's games and replaced it with some sort of rhythm game bullshit. I'm notoriously awful at rhythm games.

EDIT: Just realized I didn't complete my thought -- By contrast, Elden Ring has everything I like about From's games (and a LOT of it) and combined it with a refinement of open world games which I also enjoy. I like it far more than I expected to but not as much as the reviewers who were crowing about how it's a landmark 13/10 game.

The other thing that I find surprising is that because of the combination of From's general gameplay elements (multiple builds, many weapons, rewarding exploration, interesting enemies), open world stuff (even more sequence breaking, approach situations as you think is appropriate), and more straightforward storytelling and more NPCs, Elden Ring is the first of From's games that I've played that feels more or less like a "true" RPG akin to the Elder Scrolls series as opposed to a dungeon crawl ARPG.

 

[Suicidal]

The main thing I dislike is that after playing Sekiro and Nioh 2, going back to the classic Dark Souls combat of attack-roll-attack-roll is very jarring. I don't like this system but kinda accepted that it's From's comfort zone. At least they added jumping and jumping attacks and equippable weapon skills, so it's slightly more fun than before.

You see I never could warm to the combat in Sekiro despite finishing it, just never naturally clicked for me. But then again I'm probably the type of Souls player Sekiro felt specifically designed to mess with. Didn't have the same problem with Nioh though, looking forward to 2 when I get round to it.

Maybe it's cause the combat in Nioh feels like Souls combat on steroids with some slasher game elements (like the ability to do super long combos), while Sekiro's feels like something completely different. Personally, I liked both for different reasons, but prefer Nioh's combat due to the mechanical complexity. Sekiro's combat is actually very simple, but I liked the aggressive, fast reaction and flashy playstyle it enforced.

 

[Cyberarmy]

So what's the verdict on the spirit summons? As cheesy as NPC phantoms in Dark Souls?
I discovered them while struggling with Grave Warden Duelist. Figured I'd try them out.
Proceeded to backstab the shit out of him. Instant regret!

some of them really can hold agro with their massive HP pool, jellyfish is nearly 1000 HP I think. And some later summons are just, pure damagers. Especially dual wielding knight.(Oleg?)

 

[Cyberarmy]

also, just when I thought the world map was huge enough, I got a new hitman quest from Volc Manor that has my target in some uncovered portion of the map

There is also a huge underworld map area

Edit:

I'm loving the game! Perhaps one of best games I've played for a long time.

But being this HUGE (and some bosses acting like a gatekeeper)comes with another problem. Elden Ring won't be much replayable unlike other Souls games. After learning the map, enemies and items all other Souls games were easly finishable under 10 hours but I cannot imagine finishing this one under 30 hours

 

[Shrimp]

Some musing on enemy attacks in Fromsoft games over time.

The last 2 Soulslikes I played before Elden Ring were DS1 (again) and Hellpoint. Both have a 'classic' souls approach to enemy attacks with heavy commitment, consistent timings and limited combos. Very stark contrast compared to Elden Ring. Lot of variable swing timings, long combos, low commitment whereas the player is mostly playing by DS1 rules. Also more emphasis on enemies killing the player outright rather than health management as time has moved on. The DS1 Skeleton Beasts are almost unique in that game because of that lethal forward bite flurry combo. Seems like every 2nd Elden Ring enemy has a similar combo in their moveset. Either that or they can repeatedly KAMEHAMEHA a weapon art or other "special" attack.

It isn't a bad thing as such. The unpredictability and lethality make things more exciting but I do miss the old style 'dance' sometimes. I suppose that's why there's a market for more Hellpoints and Ashens out there.

As an aside, is there a slightly longer delay before blocking works than the DS games? Feel like I'm getting caught and punished a lot more in ER when guard dropping to manage stamina during an enemy attack combo. It may just be that the combos are even faster than DS3 but I'm not sure, it seems more difficult to "catch" individual attacks with a shield block as well.

DS1 had enemies that for the most part had slow attacks with short combos with some recovery time to let the player get hits in. Aggressive (by DS1 standards) enemies like the skeletal beasts or Manus stood out because they were fast paced compared to most other things in the game. A boss like Artorias stood out from the crowd because he started powering up in the middle of the fight and did somersaults with his sword. Ornstein & Smough was one of the most iconic encounters because it was a double boss fight with an entire second phase.
DS2 couldn't copy these monsters 1:1 since the players were starting to get used to the roll-based combat. To shake things up some enemy combos became longer while others started getting delayed attacks where they'd stand still for a while before unleashing their killer combo. This was most likely to specifically punish players for rolling early and instead make them memorise the enemies' attack patterns.
DS3 came after Bloodborne which was made to be an even faster-paced game where the player was expected to be as aggressive as the beasts they were up against. Unfortunately this is where FROM lost their marbles and decided to go all-in on the spectacle and presentation. Screaming beasts made out of unused Bloodborne assets flailing around while doing their 10 hit combo. Loud choirs chanting during the boss fights as the boss spits fire everywhere while spinning 720 degrees mid air. Almost every boss starts powering up in the middle of the fight, something only a select few bosses had done in the previous titles.

You could argue it was the natural evolution of Souls combat to avoid keep things from getting stale, but I think they just overdid it towards the end of the series. Elden Ring has both influences from DS3 and Sekiro (mostly through the game systems like jumping, remembrances instead of boss souls, customising skills) but the one thing I like is that Elden Ring at least has varying difficulties and paces for a lot of the encounters you come across. The bosses found at the end of the small side dungeons are typically something you can beat on your first (and if not, then second) attempt which does provide me with some sort of feeling of a power scale between the different bosses I see. Unfortunately you still have bosses with bullshit delayed 10 hit 360 degree combos with no recovery time, but so far it feels like those are reserved for the major story encounters.
With that being said, now that I think I'm somewhere in the mid-game I'm starting to see a worrying trend that an increasing amount of side(?) bosses basically just are "here's the dude you fought earlier except now there's two of them." I hope this won't keep up for the second half of the game...

 

[Morgoth]

ELDEN RING HAS MADE TODD HOWARD OBSOLETE

I'll never look at open world games the same way again.

Spoiler

Also, after clearing the castle in the most southern peninsula and delivering the letter to the warden, I returned to Irena (?) at her camp and found her slain. Wtf? did I do something wrong or is that scripted?

 

[Wunderbar]

ELDEN RING HAS MADE TODD HOWARD OBSOLETE

I'll never look at open world games the same way again.

Spoiler

Also, after clearing the castle in the most southern peninsula and delivering the letter to the warden, I returned to Irena (?) at her camp and found her slain. Wtf? did I do something wrong or is that scripted?

it's scripted, it happens as soon as you give him the letter even if you defeated that boss beforehand.

 

[Seigneur Locklear]

who have been laboring on this game for half a decade or more

Pfttththahahaha. Ctrl+c and ctrl+v took 5+ years?