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

[perfectslumbers]

 

[deem]

Item discovery seems to increase at night.

 

[Curratum]

Only funny because true. Even in minor dungeons and the overworld, I'm starting to get a little fed up with the "Pus of man" level of random "trash mods" that don't even give any meaningful soul drops.

 

[sebas]

The PC version is running worse than it did after today's patch. According to reviewers, each patch has made it worse than their review copies.

Yeah, I refunded it. There's no point in playing it now, with these frame drops, at full price.

 

[cvv]

it's supposed to enhance immershun and feelz

I agree with the concept of "empty" immersive game world, but how could "immersion" be an important aspect in a game like this, where everything respawn as soon as you turn your back?

Open world is definitely a better fit for storyfag games like Witcher 3 or Kingdom Come but it can add immersion (or reduce gamey-iness) even in the kind of aRPGs FromSoft makes.

One of the best things in Souls is the feeling when you stand atop a tower, spy something in the distance and look fwd to finally discover that. In the traditional Souls design tho this is limited, in ER you have it in spades.

 

[HumanTotemPole]

Where's all the souls and farming spots, bro?

I mean, goddamn, a full set in a merchant inventory is something like 12-15k souls and I'm not spending that shit on fashion, I need it to level up. Killing overworld mobs gives you fuckall and bosses barely give you enough to level up even after killing 2-3 minibosses.

Wish there was a decent farming spot so you can at least grind out the extra souls you need to buy some designer lingerie in this game.

Type "elden ring ball farm" into a search engine. Very boring but very effective.

 

[Brickfrog]

Item discovery seems to increase at night.

Did you hear this somewhere or is this a personal observation?

 

[Brickfrog]

it's supposed to enhance immershun and feelz

I agree with the concept of "empty" immersive game world, but how could "immersion" be an important aspect in a game like this, where everything respawn as soon as you turn your back?

Open world is definitely a better fit for storyfag games like Witcher 3 or Kingdom Come but it can add immersion (or reduce gamey-iness) even in the kind of aRPGs FromSoft makes.

One of the best things in Souls is the feeling when you stand atop a tower, spy something in the distance and look fwd to finally discover that. In the traditional Souls design tho this is limited, in ER you have it in spades.

The verticality and open world really enhance these aspects of the game.

 

[Ivan]

favorite new non-boss enemies:

Perfumers (see Shrouded Castle)

Wormfaces (cute tall buggers in Atlas P)

Valkyries (see Shrouded Castle or Deeproot D)

 

[Shrimp]

Since the exploration and open world aspect of the game was brought up a couple of pages ago, allow me to provide an example by sharing my personal experiences from when I went to play the game today:

I had reached the point in the game where I felt there were so many different locations I could visit, previously visited locations I hadn't fully explored, bosses I could fight, NPC questlines I could pursue etc. that I had started compiling a list of them all since it was becoming difficult to keep track.
I decided to pick up a random loose thread by going for an NPC questline I had almost forgotten about. Some guy in a shack in Caelid wanted me to travel into the swamp area to locate an Alloyed Needle for him. While exploring the swamp I found a scripted NPC invasion and a new boss which ended up dropping the needle. I gave the guy in the shack the needle and he told me to come back later while handing me a note telling me some magic seals in a nearby city could be broken by lighting some braziers in the towers. While exploring the settlement I found some spells and other useful items like the stone keys.
After finding all the torches and removing the seals I had two new paths open up inside the city. One led me to a boss fight which gave me a sickle and a strong-looking staff (feels like there's a ton of INT weapons in this game btw) while the other path led me to a bonfire and a completely new area of the Caelid region that I hadn't previously been in.
While exploring this area I found the ruins of a church with an NPC inside that I hadn't seen before. I continued exploring and found one of those serpent statues that point in the direction of a nearby dungeon. Looking at the map it turned out that dungeon actually was located inside a previous boss arena which takes place in a giant desert, so I went there to unlock the dungeon site of grace so that I could return to it later. I went back to the aforementioned church ruins and continued exploring the surrounding area.
I found a tower with a miniboss and a new spell inside it and further down the path I found what I recognised to be one of the night-exclusive open world bosses. Unfortunately I didn't get to fight that one since I died to falling damage when I tried jumping down the cliffside to face it.
I returned to the guy in the shack since I figured that some time had passed like he had requested, and he gave me the needle I'd found for him and told me to bring it to the NPC in the church ruins. I went back to her and gave it to her and she rewarded me with a DEX boosting talisman and told me she'd move on, meaning I'll probably see her somewhere else in the future. I went back to the guy in the shack (again) and he had become a merchant teaching new magic spells. As a side note he also gave me some lore about a specific type of creature which makes sense considering a location I find them in in a completely different area of the game.

Basically what this means that in my pursuit of what I initially assumed was a single request by an NPC I ended up coming across

• an NPC invasion
• 3 boss fights
• a dungeon (that I have yet to explore)
  
• new equipment
• a handful of new spells looted from the overworld
  
• a merchant selling new spells
• an NPC that I most likely will encounter again meaning their story isn't even finished

The game definitely awards you for exploring if you are willing to venture out into the unknown. Yeah, the dungeon I had discovered is almost guaranteed to have one of three specific tile sets and the boss is very likely to just be a different variant of those cat statues, but doe that honestly matter at this point? The exploration and adventure probably took me hours of playtime and that was all within a single sub-area in a region. The journey is half the fun.

 

[Kruno]

Don't you get creamed blocking with a two-handed weapon?

Blocks with 2 handed weapons in previous games were meme. In Elden Ring you block with a Colossal weapon in order to retaliate, aka more damage! You need to pick what attacks to block, because it is an offensive tool for us Ultra Greatsword users. I went back to the Zwei, it really is an S-class weapon.

 

[Curratum]

Don't you get creamed blocking with a two-handed weapon?

Blocks with 2 handed weapons in previous games were meme. In Elden Ring you block with a Colossal weapon in order to retaliate, aka more damage! You need to pick what attacks to block, because it is an offensive tool for us Ultra Greatsword users. I went back to the Zwei, it really is an S-class weapon.

I was looking at the Zwei for a while but I hadn't put any points in equip load, just pumping up health, STR and DEX, so I went with a katana. Then an hour later I found the equip load talisman that allows me to carry the Zwei without fatrolling, but I had already spent all my materials on the katana

 

[Suicidal]

The PC version is running worse than it did after today's patch. According to reviewers, each patch has made it worse than their review copies.

For me it started randomly crashing after like an hour of play. I read some suggestions to verify game files through steam and I did it and it said that some crucial files were missing/corrupted and re-donwloaded them. Hopefully it will help.

 

[Shrimp]

Another example from yesterday, but this one's a bit spoilery so I'll mark it as such just in case:

Spoiler

After fighting Radahn I went looking for a meteor crash site in an area I had previously been in. Ended up in Nokron, a completely different part of the underground area. This area also had its own torches, hidden treasures and ancestor spirit boss.
After looking around I found this new area had its own sub-area that had me descending further down through an ancient cathedral. I found an item that an NPC had been asking for a long time ago, so I went back to her to hand it over. She left the area which opened up a previously sealed off portal which took me to a different underground area. I'd previously been in this area as well, but I had noticed that when certain parts of the map were not accessible to me at the time. This is where I ended up. In this new area I was sent on a quest to find and kill a shade. I was rewarded with a key which description implied it could be used to open the locked chest in the Raya Lucaria boss' room. So it did, and I got some weird ring from it. I went back to where I fought the shade and took an elevator even further down into the earth and arrived in a hellscape even more inhospitable than Caelid: a boiling lake inflicting Rot when you traversed through it. In this area I found a boss and some alien-looking dude that dropped a legendary sword. At the opposite side of the lake there was a huge temple and a coffin I could place myself in to descend even further down (at this point I might as well have popped out on the other side of the globe) which landed me in a boss arena where I fought something that might as well have been a Great One from Bloodborne

Spoiler

After killing it an elevator opened up which took me to a new part of the Liurnia region where I found two more bosses and some ruins with the same NPC who had originally sent me on a quest to fetch an item in Nokron. Based on the events that happened here and what was said by the NPCs at various stages of this journey I'm like 99% sure this unlocks some optional or secret ending at the end of the game, but I'm not even close to reaching that point so I won't know for a long time.

 

[Kruno]

Don't you get creamed blocking with a two-handed weapon?

Blocks with 2 handed weapons in previous games were meme. In Elden Ring you block with a Colossal weapon in order to retaliate, aka more damage! You need to pick what attacks to block, because it is an offensive tool for us Ultra Greatsword users. I went back to the Zwei, it really is an S-class weapon.

I was looking at the Zwei for a while but I hadn't put any points in equip load, just pumping up health, STR and DEX, so I went with a katana. Then an hour later I found the equip load talisman that allows me to carry the Zwei without fatrolling, but I had already spent all my materials on the katana

I have been playing with the other weapons but it is really hard to move away from the Zwei. Its reach is amazing, stagger isn't as strong as some others, but it makes up for it in being more versatile. I find it really good in group fights and solo fights, just make sure you do not R1 dogs and small creatures while they are to your character's right hand side. You can single hand it to stab R2 and swipe R1.

FromSoftware gives you the best UGS at the start of the game, accessible before you even fight the first boss. I am not sure if they are intentionally trolling us?

 

[deem]

Did you hear this somewhere or is this a personal observation?

My observation. I tried to get the Godrick Knight set and items seem to drop more frequently at night.

Question. How do you remove map markers?

 

[Smocaine]

can't figure out how to spoiler a video link, doesn't seem to work nicely but anyway, here are your post-Bloodborne bosses, bro

https://imgur.com/a/PTCLGIw

How do you remove map markers?

go to the map marker and add a marker of the same type on top of it

 

[Shrimp]

Don't you get creamed blocking with a two-handed weapon?

Blocks with 2 handed weapons in previous games were meme. In Elden Ring you block with a Colossal weapon in order to retaliate, aka more damage! You need to pick what attacks to block, because it is an offensive tool for us Ultra Greatsword users. I went back to the Zwei, it really is an S-class weapon.

I was looking at the Zwei for a while but I hadn't put any points in equip load, just pumping up health, STR and DEX, so I went with a katana. Then an hour later I found the equip load talisman that allows me to carry the Zwei without fatrolling, but I had already spent all my materials on the katana

I have been playing with the other weapons but it is really hard to move away from the Zwei. Its reach is amazing, stagger isn't as strong as some others, but it makes up for it in being more versatile. I find it really good in group fights and solo fights, just make sure you do not R1 dogs and small creatures while they are to your character's right hand side.

Same for me except with the Bloodhound's Fang. The game really throws 2 handed weapons at you in Limgrave and I'd wager a lot of people end up committing to whichever one they initially ended up settling with. Weapon upgrade materials are very scarce - especially early on - which certainly doesn't help either.
I've tried so many other weapons but I keep returning to the Bloodhound one. Good damage, good reach and range, can be infused, has innate bleed build-up and a cool evasive weapon art. It's a bit of a shame that it's a unique weaopn which means I don't get to play around with alternate ashes of war, but it's a small price to pay. Every weapon I've tried just didn't compare to it.

 

[Lutte]

Yeah, the dungeon I had discovered is almost guaranteed to have one of three specific tile sets and the boss is very likely to just be a different variant of those cat statues, but doe that honestly matter at this point? The exploration and adventure probably took me hours of playtime and that was all within a single sub-area in a region. The journey is half the fun.

It's actually one of the cooler dungeons mechanically.
I also thought the boss was cool, but then the game threw me the same boss again as an open encounter in lyndell and I'm starting to get fatigued of this copy pasta garbage.

 

[Brickfrog]

The holy halberd that drops off the first tree sentinel has served me very well

Having holy damage from the start probably makes life a little too easy in some areas.

 

[Shrimp]

can't figure out how to spoiler a video link, doesn't seem to work nicely but anyway, here are your post-Bloodborne bosses, bro

https://imgur.com/a/PTCLGIw

How do you remove map markers?

go to the map marker and add a marker of the same type on top of it

Bloodborne was praised for its fast-paced and aggressive combat so of course the inept people in charge of decision making think this means people want fast and aggressive bosses in every future instalment without considering what it was that made that type of combat work in that specific game. So far I have found that ER has a wider variety in what type of bosses you run into in terms of speed and aggressiveness, but the most egregious ones are still in league with DS3 style bosses where you have enemies moving at Bloodborne speed while the player character is the Dark Souls 1 chosen undead with some new equipment.

 

[madrigal]

Where's all the souls and farming spots, bro?

Chamber outside the plaza at Redmane castle. Just outside the door there is five easy guards that only take a few hits but are worth 300 runes each. They are manning flamethrowers facing the wrong way so easy to kill. About 30 seconds for 1500 runes. Repeat til you get enough.

 

[Curratum]

can't figure out how to spoiler a video link, doesn't seem to work nicely but anyway, here are your post-Bloodborne bosses, bro

https://imgur.com/a/PTCLGIw

How do you remove map markers?

go to the map marker and add a marker of the same type on top of it

Bloodborne was praised for its fast-paced and aggressive combat so of course the inept people in charge of decision making think this means people want fast and aggressive bosses in every future instalment without considering what it was that made that type of combat work in that specific game. So far I have found that ER has a wider variety in what type of bosses you run into in terms of speed and aggressiveness, but the most egregious ones are still in league with DS3 style bosses where you have enemies moving at Bloodborne speed while the player character is the Dark Souls 1 chosen undead with some new equipment.

Very much this. As I said earlier, I'm getting real tired of out-and-about trash mobs on the open world that are almost on par with DS3's "pus of man" enemy bullshit.

Both big bosses in Stormveil castle had movesets that focus on annoying delays in windups, gravity-defying air hang-time and overly flashy and obscuring attacks that make it more painful that it should be to fight them. I'm fighting the visuals and camera as much as I'm fighting the bosses.

Nothing beats the tree spirit and its clone in Stormveil's bottom level, whatever that might be called, didn't even see the name there and just ran past it.

Also, hopw roewur ne

Spoiler

 

[Shrimp]

Yeah, the dungeon I had discovered is almost guaranteed to have one of three specific tile sets and the boss is very likely to just be a different variant of those cat statues, but doe that honestly matter at this point? The exploration and adventure probably took me hours of playtime and that was all within a single sub-area in a region. The journey is half the fun.

It's actually one of the cooler dungeons mechanically.
I also thought the boss was cool, but then the game threw me the same boss again as an open encounter in lyndell and I'm starting to get fatigued of this copy pasta garbage.

There's definitely a point where the reusing of bosses will become too much and some of the battle content will begin to feel oversaturated, but that's when you have to remember that bosses aren't the only thing the game has to offer.
It might sound like I'm trying to justify the copypasting of bosses (which I'm not) but I just don't feel like it matters that much in the grand scheme of things. Over the years I just ended up growing to loathe the Souls playerbase's obsession with bosses and how the games were treated as if they only existed to serve as a boss rush for various builds. Exploration and discovery have been a core part of the Souls games since the very first instalment, and those elements are still present while continuing to deliver a solid experience.

 

[Ivan]

also, super happy that the game can still throw challenging enemies/areas my way once I've long felt that I was stomping my way through encounters for the last few hours (~hours 40-50)