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

[Lutte]

Maybe I have some, but am not counting them as uniques. I've cleared pretty much every dungeon in Limgrave and the majority of them in Liurnia, and a couple in Caelid.

You definitely have some uniques, they're the weapons whose weapon arts can't be changed and are upgraded by the Somber smithing stones path rather than the regular stones. They go to +10 instead of +25, but each level is more of an upgrade than the regular weapons.
Not all are good, but most uniques are better than their non unique counterparts. The bleeding uniques for a bleed build for eg are just insane.

 

[Curratum]

Maybe I have some, but am not counting them as uniques. I've cleared pretty much every dungeon in Limgrave and the majority of them in Liurnia, and a couple in Caelid.

You definitely have some uniques, they're the weapons whose weapon arts can't be changed and are upgraded by the Somber smithing stones path rather than the regular stones. They go to +10 instead of +25, but each level is more of an upgrade than the regular weapons.
Not all are good, but most uniques are better than their non unique counterparts. The bleeding uniques for a bleed build for eg are just insane.

Then maybe I don't... :D

I have a ton of somber stones of all sorts of power levels but never used a single one on any weapon.

 

[Egosphere]

couldn't resist, decided to watch the radahn fight on youtube. wtf is even going on there? insta-kill from 1km away and then an unstoppable whirlwind when up close?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Have any of you tried using vkd3d on windows?
It's a drop-in replacement for d3d12 using vulkan. It should theoretically work just fine on windows.
From the most recent release notes:

Workaround quirky API usage in Elden Ring. Removes many kinds of stutter and chug when traversing the scenery

https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/releases/tag/v2.6

Place the d3d12.dll in the same folder as the exe to give it a try.

 

[Doktor Best]

Finally whacked the fucker. The worst story boss so far.

The fight was so RNG I managed to do that with 8 out of 10 gulps of estus unused, simply because I got lucky. Lv 50, Lordsword greatsword +13.

I wonder why, of all bosses, Radahn was the only one who got a fancy pre-rendered cutscene before the fight?

To fuck with you and Curratum so much that you make angry rant posts. Its an effort to maintain Fromsoftgames=hardcore reputation.

 

[Lutte]

Lutte, just out of curiosity, what weapon arts you using mate?

Did 1/4th of the game with the Uchigatana's weapon art, unsheathe, moved onto one that does a close the gap while spining around move ( I don't remember the name, it's a DEX art ) till the last third of the game, then moved onto the Moonveil katana and never looked back.

Unsheathe, which is also in Moonveil but upgraded with added magic range attack on top of the melee move, is OP. R1 does a close the gap which I used all the time on random mooks and bosses that move around too much, and the R2 does a lot of stagger damage. On top of that, moonveil adds a magic arc that goes beyond your sword reach and does a ton of damage.

 

[Kruno]

I don't use weapon arts, they were useless in DS3 and still probably shit because wind-up time.

 

[cvv]

They changed how armor works from DS3. Previously it was:

DAMAGE RECEIVED = (DAMAGE - RAW MITIGATION) * %MITIGATION

DAMAGE - damage dealt by monster to you
RAW MITIGATION - raw number by which damage will be negated. It is your lvl * armor piece (so 4 max for 4 pieces)
% MITIGATION - self explanatory.

Now:

RAW MITIGATION only cares about your lvl. There is no multiplier to lvl points defense you get.

Which means that % mitigation is more important and that you don't need all 4 pieces to get any kind of good damage reduction.

If this is accurate then it means split damage is unchanged from DS3? Meaning split damage weps and elemental affinities are once again utterly useless?

 

[Lutte]

I don't use weapon arts, they were useless in DS3 and still probably shit because wind-up time.

Lol no. A katana's weapon art is faster than a lot of STR weapons basic r1 and unsheathe r2 does enough stagger damage that I got four criticals on the end boss. You're fucked if you don't use weapon arts in the end game, enemies are too tanky.

The weapon arts in this game are absolutely crucial and not using them will lead you to uninstall.exe.

 

[perfectslumbers]

I don't use weapon arts, they were useless in DS3 and still probably shit because wind-up time.

They're fucking broken. Sword of Night and Flame weapon art will do 3000 to 4000 damage at point blank range lategame. Much more effective than sticking your face in a bosses ass and whacking them 8 times for the same damage.

If this is accurate then it means split damage is unchanged from DS3? Meaning split damage weps and elemental affinities are once again utterly useless?

Split damage is strong, the armor formula is the same but the weapons numbers are much better from my experience.

 

[Silva]

I know what you mean. It's annoying me aswell. In Demon Souls you visit specific locations, where everyone is hostile to you. A castle, a swamp, a tower, a shrine and some mines. In Dark Souls you travel to Lordran. Lordran is completely fucked up and it was not a land where humans lived. But gods. The only humans are other undead. All the kingdoms that are named in item descriptions exist outside of Lordran. And their knights traveled to Lordran.

In Elden Ring you have this land that is just comprised of wildlife and ruins. Is there a story reason for this? Maybe, I don't know. But then you have locations like castle Morne, where the castle is under siege by monsters. And except for the NPC commander the defending soldiers attack you on sight, even if you just kill the monsters. You are clearly on good terms with the commander and the soldiers will keep attacking you. Does everyone just hate Tarnished so much? The guy in charge of castle Haight (?) talks like he is the rightful ruler of Limgrave. You kill the invaders in his castle and afterwards there is nobody at the castle but Haight himself. No servants or anything. Why would this even be important for him? Looking at the land there are no cities, no people but Godrick soldiers on the road etc. No signs of a functional society, even if characters behave like it. Redmane castle is supposed to host some kind of an event but there is no effort put into making it look like it. The castle is just empty, populated with soldiers. All you get are a few NPCs.

It just feels weird to me. They made it open world, but it doesn't feel like a real world at all. Maybe it's story related idk.

From doesn’t know how to make an organic world with actual characters. Or maybe Miyazaki just does not want to. It’s the same old “the world has gone to shit” setting over and over again. I’m wandering this open world with ruined towns and signs that someone used to live in these places. But there is no sign that these people did anything. You see a house. You walk inside. There is no bed, no clothing chest, nothing at all indicating that someone used to live there. It’s so empty. I’m galloping around on my super jump horse but there is really no where to go. There’s nothing to do but fight. Could have a broader conversation about how video game designers don’t know how to write or structure adventures so they’re stuck with just combat systems and graphics.

Gonna give Returnal a try. A Plague Tale looks good, too.

You know that old saying "Show, don't tell" ? My guess is that open-worlds, by principle, must show more than corridor-worlds. And while Elden do some showing (the troops going up and down those roads in Limgrave, for ex) it's just not minimally enough to maintain the illusion of an organic world. From's worldbuilding in previous games smartly relied in a heavy dose of "Tell, don't show". Black Tarkus from Berenike, Big Hat Logan from Vinhein, Straid of Olaphis, Lucatiel of Mirrah, Cornix from the Great Swamp, etc. all had believable stories that relied on describing to the player what their lands are like, but you never get to see or walk upon those lands. All the game gives you to back that up is a vast horizons of implied lands when you're looking out from the skeleton cemetary in Firelink Shrine or from Majula out to the sea. But Elden Ring weirdly discarded with this, instead opting to focus all their lore in this big island the game takes place in. And it's worldbuilding suffers for it.

Damn, I would love to hear more about where the Prisoner comes from and the kind of crime he did for using such a mask, or the Vagabond, or the Astrologer etc. the same way a pyromancer in DS1 is hinted at coming from a big swamp of primitive magic and customs.

 

[Lutte]

If this is accurate then it means split damage is unchanged from DS3? Meaning split damage weps and elemental affinities are once again utterly useless?

Split damage is strong, the armor formula is the same but the weapons numbers are much better from my experience.

I have a max upgraded Uchigatana and the Moonveil which does split damage. I used to run a pure dex build, and now I'm pure INT. Moonveil does more damage than the Uchi, while also adding range to the weapon, and the ranged part of the weapon art does more efficient damage than any mage spell to boot.
I now added a random magic weapon art to the uchi to make it scale more with int and use both in power stance, though I mostly use the moon's weapon arts, doing L1s procs decent amount of bleed when it's needed (I spam power stance L1 when enemies like dragons are staggered because it does a lot more damage than doing the critical, it doesn't work on enemies that get up too fast from the critical though)

 

[Shrimp]

I'm starting to get really annoyed with the upgrade material system.
I've been using a special weapon (the ones that require somber stones) and the only reason I have a +10 is because I happened to stumble upon an optional late game boss and his area that technically is accessible very early on in the game. If it wasn't because of the one upgrade material I found in there that allowed me to upgrade my weapon from +9 to +10 I'd still be using a +9 even though I could go and end the game in a couple of hours if I wanted to. However, I'm currently exploring what I believe is an optional part of a late game map since I like to scour through the maps to uncover as much as possible.
Up until now I hadn't found any of the stones required to upgrade a regular weapon from +24 to +25, but in the final stages of the area I'm currently in I just randomly stumbled across four of those items in the span of like an hour. Similarly I also found a place that give me two Great Ghost Gloveworts (the item needed to upgrade spirit summons from +9 to +10) at once.
In DS1 and DS2 you could get Titanite Slabs during the mid-game if you already knew where to look for them since they were spread out across the game, although obviously a majority of them were placed towards the later stages. While I don't doubt that people eventually will discover more ways to get final upgrade materials in Elden Ring (like how I managed to find the +10 somber stone that I think can be accessed just after Godric) I'm still feeling frustrated that so far the only ones I've found at all were just casually strewn in the final stages of this game. It feels like a cheap way to artificially gate people from getting upgrades early in the game, especially in subsequent playthroughs if you are mad enough to do one of those. The upgrade material scarcity is also a part of the reason why I've reluctantly been using the same tiny pool of weapons throughout the entire game. Ashes of War being fully customisable is great for experimentation, but it feels pointless if you're still stuck with the choice of using an almost fully upgraded weapon vs using a mid-tier weapon solely because the item that unlocks the required upgrade material in the Roundstable Hold isn't even located in an area you can access.

Has anyone else who has beat the game (or is close to) had similar experiences? Again, I won't rule out the possibility that I've missed some final stage materials at some point, but I still feel like the game tries very hard to gatekeep you from actually upgrading your weapon completely.

 

[Lutte]

Shrimp: I had the same experience, ultimately I decided to hold onto my somber stones until I made the decision of which I liked the most along the unique weapons I had looted after playing for a good amount of time, while using my basic stones on my class weapon.

It is, by the way, easier to upgrade a few other uniques to +9 I found out, than weapons of the basic upgrade path.

 

[perfectslumbers]

Has anyone else who has beat the game (or is close to) had similar experiences?

Yeah they do the DS3 thing where you won't end up with a fully upgraded weapon until you're at the most lategame of lategame areas. Most of the ones I found were literally in the games final dungeon, really annoying.

 

[Shrimp]

It is, by the way, easier to upgrade a few other uniques to +9 I found out, than weapons of the basic upgrade path.

I noticed this as well, by late-mid game I had enough stones to easily make multiple +7 or +8 somber weapons while it would've been a struggle (and very costly since I'd have to buy the stones) to even get something like a +10 or +15 regular weapon.

 

[Lutte]

Has anyone else who has beat the game (or is close to) had similar experiences?

Yeah they do the DS3 thing where you won't end up with a fully upgraded weapon until you're at the most lategame of lategame areas. Most of the ones I found were literally in the games final dungeon, really annoying.

DS3 allows you to sequence break very, very early and enemies aren't as bad to skip as some of the late game areas of ER though (I shudder to imagine a low level character trying to survive the occasional greatbow hit or eagle jumping you)
From that POV, it's one of the only thing that DS3 does better, there's no real way of sequence breaking into the late game in ER, and even if you could, you'd have to be a god of autism to successfully pull it off.

 

[Talby]

I'm over 80 hours in and I only just found

Spoiler

The Flask of Wondrous Physick. I've been kiling those tree guys and collecting the crystal tears and had no idea what they were for.

 

[Tacgnol]

Have any of you tried using vkd3d on windows?
It's a drop-in replacement for d3d12 using vulkan. It should theoretically work just fine on windows.
From the most recent release notes:

Workaround quirky API usage in Elden Ring. Removes many kinds of stutter and chug when traversing the scenery

https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/releases/tag/v2.6

Place the d3d12.dll in the same folder as the exe to give it a try.

Thanks, this was what I was looking for. I'll give it a go later.

 

[Silva]

I'm over 80 hours in and I only just found

Spoiler

The Flask of Wondrous Physick. I've been kiling those tree guys and collecting the crystal tears and had no idea what they were for.

Found this superfluous mechanical padding, in my opinion. Totally unnecessary.

 

[Cromwell]

there's no real way of sequence breaking into the late game in ER

now that you mention it, is there a way around the great elevator? I need two whatevers to activate it and have only one of them, I dont know where the second is. But Some NPC Near the academy spoke of a cowards way through the sewers? I dont know what that means, so is there a way up there on the map without using the elevator?

 

[perfectslumbers]

now that you mention it, is there a way around the great elevator? I need two whatevers to activate it and have only one of them, I dont know where the second is. But Some NPC Near the academy spoke of a cowards way through the sewers? I dont know what that means, so is there a way up there on the map without using the elevator?

You know how all the tunnels are marked with little black circles with a red border? One of those tunnels in Liurnia bypasses it

 

[Shrimp]

there's no real way of sequence breaking into the late game in ER

now that you mention it, is there a way around the great elevator? I need two whatevers to activate it and have only one of them, I dont know where the second is. But Some NPC Near the academy spoke of a cowards way through the sewers? I dont know what that means, so is there a way up there on the map without using the elevator?

Spoiler

There are actually three ways to get up there and the elevator is only one of them. The NPC you mentioned talks about the second route which is essentially by climbing the mountain. Patches tells you about the third option which is getting abducted by an Iron Virgin in the Academy

 

[Tacgnol]

Re: the elevator

Spoiler

I didn't even realise there was an elevator, I found it after already getting to the plateau via the mines/mountains. More interesting to take that route anyway imo as there is a boss en route.

 

[Perkel]

If this is accurate then it means split damage is unchanged from DS3? Meaning split damage weps and elemental affinities are once again utterly useless?

It is from my testing so idk if this is accurate because i only cared about armor pieces additional bonus to RAW mitigation that used to exist in DS3 which caused you to take a lot of damage just by not wearing all armor pieces you could.

As far as PVE elemental damage provided you pick right one absolutely smashes. Holy damage vs death element monsters utterly annihilates them.

PVP i didn't try much