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

[cvv]

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)

Got this feeling in about 20 hours in, then the game throws the Crucible Knight at me who just shits in my mouth and laughs repeatedly.

 

[Tacgnol]

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)

Yeah, I've been killing most bosses in one or two attempts, but the game likes to throw a curveball my way to remind me of my place every once in a while. I must have spent about 3 hours straight on Radahn last night before I killed him.

I played a bit earlier and hit a similar wall with a certain pair of Gargoyles (much much tougher than the similar fight in DS1).

 

[Brickfrog]

The radahn fight is an all timer

His horse is fukn hilarious

 

[toro]

Rune and smithing stone poverty is one of the two things that I genuinely don't like about ER. The other one being the ability to teleport not just between bonfires but from anywhere, just by opening your map and clicking. Unbelievable decline. Even Witcher 3 allowed teleporting only between signposts.

Funny thing. After 40+ hours into the game I'm still looking for homeward bone in my inventory. It's hardwired into my brain.

 

[toro]

Finished the game. 50 hours, level 145. Did every optional zone (but skipped a lot of small dungeons/runes, and skipped the quest line for 2 of the endings) and got what I presume is every great rune, although the game is huge so some may be hidden.

It was a very good game, although it has lots of annoying issues. I'd say it's not as good as DS or DS, but miles better than DS2 and DS3. Haven't played Bloodborne.

I really liked the story and lore and quests this time around, they were much more in depth than the previous games. I particularly really liked the many different religious factions and their differing interpretations of the gods of the world. All dependent upon each factions morality and perspective. It reminds me a lot of the Abrahamic religions and their many different sects. I also really liked some of the characters, well, Ranni and Melina at least were great and much more interesting than previous From maidens.

The games level design was amazing from beginning to end, at least the second best behind Demons Souls. The enemy design was a bit better than DS3 overall, but still had lots of the STUPID ROLL CATCHING DELAY ESTUS PUNISHING HYPER MOBILE FLAILING BULLSHIT TWENTY HIT COMBO. The game also has a surprising amount of one shots and unavoidable attacks, which I never really experienced in a from game (and I normally don't level my health much.) One endgame boss had an attack that was one hitting me at 60 vigor.

The open world was fun at first. It worked well as downtime and preparation before the big dungeons in the early/midgame. However the last few areas were annoying. They felt like giant gauntlets of enemies, which would've been fine if it didn't last for 20 hours of the game. I said that they were good earlier but I take it back, I was so damn sick of the constant enemy spam through linear paths that I just ended up rushing through the final two areas. Cliffracers on steroids.

The boss variety also fell off lategame, leaving mostly super fast paced anime fights with little else. I've been waiting for a long time but I don't think From will ever release another game as deliberate and thoughtful and atmospheric as Dark Souls.

Sorcery is totally fucking garbage lategame. I had to abandon it and only used the Moonveil Katana, where the weapon art did the damage and stagger of 5 spells and used the same fp as 5.

Also I encountered a boss that will likely be completely impossible to beat with a shield/blocking build. Which is unfortunate, From Soft despises shieldchads.

Anyway, I hope From Soft's next game explores some new territory and isn't Dark Souls 5, even if Dark Souls 5 would likely still be fun.

Middle-ground review. I like it. Kudos to you

 

[Curratum]

How are you fuckers clearing the game in 50 hours?

I'm at 33 hours and I'm level 40, I think, and have only explored maybe 25-30% of the map...

 

[deem]

I have just reached...

Spoiler

...the underworld.

 

[perfectslumbers]

How are you fuckers clearing the game in 50 hours?

There's something seriously wrong with me, I beat The Witcher 3 in 50 hours, i beat WotR in 50 hours, I beat DS3 in 20 hours.

 

[Curratum]

How are you fuckers clearing the game in 50 hours?

There's something seriously wrong with me, I beat The Witcher 3 in 50 hours, i beat WotR in 50 hours, I beat DS3 in 20 hours.

Took 120 hours for W3 + the expacks. DS3 was 45 hours for me, I think, and I was rushing it because I had taken 2 days off work and with the wife and kid with the in-laws so I could slam the desk and curse all I wanted. DS1 took me 60 hours first time. DS2 with xpacks - something like 80.

I guess I am pretty mediocre at the games and there's always SOME grinding involved, both for xp and for item drops, but still...

Speaking of which, I need to farm a bunch more soldiers to get the new tabard that looks like Godrick's but is from the mage guild :D

 

[Ivan]

Love that there isn't a journal. If you really want to engage with the world, you're gonna have to takes notes. The only downside is that sometimes NPCs don't repeat the essential bits of info you need. E.G. I know Ranni asked me to get SOMETHING from the crash site, been there, but forgot/don't know what she needed.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Lul, took me 10 minutes to figure out how to two hand my club. Fuck.

 

[Curratum]

Lul, took me 10 minutes to figure out how to two hand my club. Fuck.

I had to replay the tutorial to see the prompt again because I missed it first time, tried every button on the keyboard and it's fucking E + mouse click.

 

[HumanTotemPole]

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

The crack lion in the courtyard is surely the most obnoxious fight in Stormveil, both main bosses and tree spirit included.

 

[Curratum]

Side note: Sorry for constantly replying, often back to back, in here.

I am surrounded by agents of decline who not only never played but also actively refuse to play From games despite my recommendations, and my only friend who does and who has Elden ring is busy fucking around in Lost Ark, waiting for them to fix the game before he plays, so I have literally nobody to talk about this with apart from you.



HumanTotemPole

I have zero tolerance for this type of hyper-speed, retarded-hitbox sort of thing in those games, so I just um... glitched it in that door and poked it until it died.

Spoiler

 

[ERYFKRAD]

How are you fuckers clearing the game in 50 hours?

There's something seriously wrong with me, I beat The Witcher 3 in 50 hours, i beat WotR in 50 hours, I beat DS3 in 20 hours.

Username does NOT check out bro.

 

[Silva]

Question for my fellow lorefags:

Is this nonsense demographics explained somewhere? I mean, there are lots of castles with noble NPCs around (Irina ans her father, that Kenneth Haite fella) and their troops and convoys, etc. but not enough actual serfs or common folk to be seen. Only in the very start of the game there are what appears to be some groups of serfs digging the ground searching for something, but that's it. Where are their homes? Their villages? Etc.

One possible explanation: the villages were all destroyed by the Shattering and these serfs are actually insane, just like Hollows from DS. Another possibility: they come from another dimensional realm or something, since this is the Lands Between.

Anyway, the game is slowly growing on me the more I advance the main quest, but there are some holes like this that makes it a less organic and believable setting than DS1, Bloodborne or even Sekiro. From never needed that shitty justification "because it's fantasy!" for their games but I see my brain resorting to it now and then as I play this. I hope it goes away as I advance the plot and regions.

 

[deem]

I hate how 1-hand/2-hand swap works now.

 

[Brickfrog]

Holding down triangle sucks

 

[Jinn]

Question for my fellow lorefags:

Is this nonsense demographics explained somewhere? I mean, there are lots of castles with noble NPCs around (Irina ans her father, that Kenneth Haite fella) and their troops and convoys, etc. but not enough actual serfs or common folk to be seen. Only in the very start of the game there are what appears to be some groups of serfs digging the ground searching for something, but that's it. Where are their homes? Their villages? Etc.

One possible explanation: the villages were all destroyed by the Shattering and these serfs are actually insane, just like Hollows from DS. Another possibility: they come from another dimensional realm or something, since this is the Lands Between.

Anyway, the game is slowly growing on me the more I advance the main quest, but there are some holes like this that makes it a less organic and believable setting than DS1, Bloodborne or even Sekiro.

There have been a couple instances where being referred to as Tarnished has gone hand in hand with being lower class and a serf. The fact that a lot of lower level enemies are "lower lords" leads me to believe most of the lower class in this land were simply servants - perhaps even Tarnished - which gives it even more of a divine aura.

 

[Kruno]

Lul, took me 10 minutes to figure out how to two hand my club. Fuck.

ok boomer

 

[HeatEXTEND]

How are you fuckers clearing the game in 50 hours?

There's something seriously wrong with me, I beat The Witcher 3 in 50 hours, i beat WotR in 50 hours, I beat DS3 in 20 hours.

Username does NOT check out bro.

He probably sleep-plays, those are just the hours of gameplay he was awake for.

 

[Curratum]

Thanks for locking me in a dungeon you can't get out of, From...

This shit isn't fixed in today's patch either...

 

[Lutte]

Don't bother. I don't think there's even been a single game made that at least attempted to realistically simulate a medieval city and its surroundings. They just slap a castle in the middle of nowhere and forget everything about the fields, the farmers, the villages. Kingdom Come: Deliverance was the only one I remember even trying to do so.

BG2 abstracted that away (you can't explore everything the world considers to exist) but it was there, there were times you were confronted to it (like managing the peasants during the De'Arnise Keep quests) and the main city felt pretty immersive with its various neighborhoods which each had the sort of function you'd expect from a mid/large sized city that relies on trade to survive. The docks, the marketplace, the poorfag dwellings and noble quarters, everything's in there. Even the Keep has its own servant quarters, I mean, obviously medieval peons didn't take a car to drive to work for their noble.
Heck, Athkatla is on top of a river that ends up in the sea, it's one of the most important thing to large city in a preindustrialized world and yet the most often overlooked : people need to get their water from somewhere. A well can only go so far, that works for little villages but larger cities must absolutely sit on top of water flows. The historically biggest cities in my country are all crossed by rivers. If you make a big ass medieval city and it's not crossed by water flows you've made a fantastically retarded thing.

It's popular to hate on BG2 on the codex but it did a lot of things right and I'm still yearning for a RPG that is as immersive as it was in terms of city scale.

 

[Ivan]

lol

 

[perfectslumbers]

Is this nonsense demographics explained somewhere? I mean, there are lots of castles with noble NPCs around (Irina ans her father, that Kenneth Haite fella) and their troops and convoys, etc. but not enough actual serfs or common folk to be seen. Only in the very start of the game there are what appears to be some groups of serfs digging the ground searching for something, but that's it. Where are their homes? Their villages? Etc.

Everyone's immortal so I'm not sure having an army of peasants tilling the fields is necessary. Eating does exist though since you can craft food, and you see wildlife eating. I assume that the wildlife isn't immortal but perhaps I'm wrong, not sure what species get immortality from the erdtree and which ones don't. The question is whether someone cursed with immortality in Elden Ring can starve to death or not. If not then I doubt the same medieval power structures that formed in real life would be formed in The Lands Betwixt.

There are villages throughout the game but none that would be capable of sustaining the cities and castles.