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

[Silva]

After watching a YT vid explaining all the lore and endings, I came to find it pretty interesting. And seeing the early trailers again that show some blacksmith dude breaking the ring..

Spoiler

..it's possible to notice it'd actually Marika/Radagon doing it. The person back and hair changes subtly, sometimes red (Radagon) sometimes blond (Marika).

But why did they fuse again?

 

[Kruno]

 

[Funposter]

Thought I did pretty well to get through Malenia in less than 10 tries, then realised she has a second form which promptly one-shotted me with a diving AOE attack.

I really think that I'm about done with this game. I'm torn between trying to finish off the "bonus" bosses (Mohg, Malenia) or just rushing through to the end of the game since I haven't gone through Farum Azula yet. Took a while for the fatigue to set in, but it's hitting hard.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

honestly I don't see what GGRM is doing in this game

It's the same old vague shit from Dark Souls. If you tell me this is just same ol' FromSoft writer doing it I would still believe it

 

[Wunderbar]

I think it's worse than the usual old vague shit from Dark Souls, because ER is way more vague and less coherent.

 

[curds]

Maybe unpopular opinion, but I think the hardest Fromsoft bosses are in Sekiro. No summons, no main weapons besides a katana, everything is a duel.

Doesn't strike me as a controversial take at all. Much more difficult encounters because of how limited your options are. Rigid and grueling are the words that come to mind.

Sekiro is the only From game that came out since Demon's Souls, which I've played, where the "git gud" meme actually applies, and is the only way to play the game, which is incidentally why it didn't appeal to me as much as Souls. RPGs are my games of choice, not pure action games.

I suspect someone who is less fond of From's games in general will be starting to get really fatigued by now and would just plough through to the end

I adore most of From's games, and I'm getting fatigued. And I'm only 40 hours in. That said, I have a low tolerance to long games.

I have accepted that I will be using whatever cheese is available to me. I am not that hardcore and I would rather experience the content than waste my time and nerves over perceived "proper" ways to play. I do love From but I am not a masochist and the game's design offers me these tools so...

The "proper" way to play is to use those tools. Don't listen to the memeing. If that wasn't the way it was designed to be played, the tools wouldn't be there in the first place.

honestly I don't see what GGRM is doing in this game

It's the same old vague shit from Dark Souls. If you tell me this is just same ol' FromSoft writer doing it I would still believe it

GRRM's name being attached to the product is without doubt purely a marketing thing. The world and lore he is credited with creating is so not his style, and is so From's style.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

The "proper" way to play is to use those tools. Don't listen to the memeing. If that wasn't the way it was designed to be played, the tools wouldn't be there in the first place.

Yeah the average mob and bosses in ER is basically cheesy that I don't feel ashamed using Spirits, bows, bombs, and magic. Otherwise I will dodge roll, 2 hit with sword, evade 4 patterns of attack just to get 2 hit in again,

 

[curds]

Yeah the average mob and bosses in ER is basically cheesy that I don't feel ashamed using Spirits, bows, bombs, and magic.

The idea that one would feel ashamed of using these things in the first place is bizarre to me. Miyazaki himself has stated that difficulty is not the point of these games, the "Prepare to Die" motto was a marketing ploy by Bandai. I don't see why making it more difficult for yourself is considered the "correct" way to play by a very large portion of the players. You rarely hear of people intentionally gimping themselves in Wizardry, Gothic or any other difficult RPGs.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

The idea that one would feel ashamed of using these things in the first place is bizarre to me. Miyazaki himself has stated that difficulty is not the point of these games, the "Prepare to Die" motto was a marketing ploy by Bandai. I don't see why making it more difficult for yourself is considered the "correct" way to play by a very large portion of the players. You rarely hear of people intentionally gimping themselves in Wizardry, Gothic or any other difficult RPGs.

Honestly for DS1 and DS2 I felt like most enemy is designed for you to fight in melee. Most of them do not responds well to player abusing ranged combat + magic. Playing both games all melee "feels right". Enemy has clear break and window you are supposed to use against them.

ER tho is just annoying that you have to cheese dodge roll + get few small attacks if you are fully using melee. It's culmination of FormSoft melee combat philosophy taken to the very extreme.

 

[Ivan]

I don't know if anyone watches LobosJr streams, but he was stuck on Malenia for 8 hours.... I am not kidding.

I'm stuck on Malenia. I think she might be the list thing on my to-do list before I roll credits.

 

[Frank Capicoli]

80 hours in and guessing only around 75% done. The fatigue is setting in hard now.

 

[Lutte]

After watching a YT vid explaining all the lore and endings, I came to find it pretty interesting. And seeing the early trailers again that show some blacksmith dude breaking the ring..

Spoiler

..it's possible to notice it'd actually Marika/Radagon doing it. The person back and hair changes subtly, sometimes red (Radagon) sometimes blond (Marika).

But why did they fuse again?

Spoiler

If you finished the game it's told in plain text in queen marika's weapon (which you can read the description from or get it through the elden beast remembrance), the hammer. She broke the ring, and Radagon, her other aspect, tried to repair it.
It's unclear when exactly they fused back into a single being, just as it's unclear as to when they split (there's a decent amount of background info about Marika's origins, so I'd guess she was the original personality and form, while Radagon just suddenly appeared one day as a hero and nobody knows anything about his distant past, that makes me think he's something that was split from her, like a reverse adam/eve where eve was split from adam) but since Marika was punished by the great will to become a mindless puppet it isn't rocket science to guess the great will had something to do with it.
Another thing that points to this direction is that the first way to get to know about the truth behind Radagon is a developer message in front of Radagon's statue encouraging you to use Law of Regression. When you do, the statue of Radagon turns into Marika. I don't think it's a coincidence that it's a spell called Regression that turns the statue back into Marika, Marika is the original one.

 

[Funposter]

honestly I don't see what GGRM is doing in this game

It's the same old vague shit from Dark Souls. If you tell me this is just same ol' FromSoft writer doing it I would still believe it

it's the usual dark souls stuff but now all of the names are really similar

 

[d1r]

honestly I don't see what GGRM is doing in this game

It's the same old vague shit from Dark Souls. If you tell me this is just same ol' FromSoft writer doing it I would still believe it

Purely PR.

 

[SumDrunkGuy]

Bros who have beaten the game already, does the game shunt you on to NG+ automatically or can you choose to remain in NG like in Dark Souls 2/3?

Anybody who has beaten this thing already is a depressed virgin. Fuck 'em.

 

[Curratum]

Level 8X, never even set foot in the capital, already have a +10 mimic, after I found the bell bearing for ghost glovewort up to +6, then got it to +10 with my own materials I found while exploring.

Game over, boys! :D

 

[Haplo]

Guess I'm too old for that DS3+ bullshit. No wonder that I stopped playing DS3 soon after the Nameless King.
Gave up on beating Godfric for now. Guess I'll need something better then a +2 Greatsword to beat him... and maybe a couple rune levels more too (currently 27).
The funny thing is that axe NPC you can summon there was way more durable then my char

...really wanted to get to the Troll's Golden Sword though. I need a colossal sword with vertical moveset.. and grafted just looks TOO silly.
Oh well, looked it up and there's a hidden path to Lilurnia. Might try to charge trough it on Torrent. Though I guess that won't be easy. Met some silly archer dude shooting glowing blue giant arrows that left me with a tiny sliver of health after 1 shot...

 

[Curratum]

This sentiment doesn't actually stand the test of time. After a while, you know this mine will net you another crystalian boss, or this catacomb will have another cat dog or similar, this tree's going to have the putrid pus of man like spazzy or the asylum demon reskin etc.

Also every "area" has that repetitive pattern of always having : dragon, catacombs, mines, erdtree defender (the putrid tree or asylum demon), hero tomb with its inane chariot waiting game shit, a tower with a dumb puzzle (find the three spirits around and r1 them, or jump into it) etc.

The loot is cool but the charm is gone. It's far more formulaic than the fanboys give it credit for and the only thing it has going for it over ubisoft formula is the quality of souls combat and the variety of loot.

Agree on all of that, yet I don't mind it because I'm an exploration and sightseeing fag and just the visual design keeps me going, paired with the enjoyable combat like you said.

 

[Curratum]

Good grief, ganked valiant gargoyles so fast, first one was dead by the time the second one arrived.

+10 mimic is indestructible and has estus. It draws aggro, it spams frost stomp, it's just insane.

 

[Lord of Riva]

So the last boss was way harder for me than Malenia.

I'm guessing because I was unable to Stagger him.

But I've finally done it:

Spoiler

 

[Lyric Suite]

For fuck's sake, just because i was complaining about shields, the LB button on my controller is giving out. Thanks, Microsoft.

 

[perfectslumbers]

Purely PR.

One of the bosses is a gay pedophile who kidnapped a little boy. GRR definitely had some impact.

 

[Curratum]

For fuck's sake, just because i was complaining about shields, the LB button on my controller is giving out. Thanks, Microsoft.

Join the glorious mouse and keyboard master race, Lyric! Played every From game on PC using M+K and it's been a buttery smooth, amazing experience once you build some muscle memory (2-3 hours).

 

[Lutte]

For fuck's sake, just because i was complaining about shields, the LB button on my controller is giving out. Thanks, Microsoft.

It's a well known issue with xbone controllers, mine also did this, they all do this eventually if you play a lot of games that use the bumper buttons it's a design issue on those stupid bumpers, this is why I replaced it with a ps4 controller and later an 8bitdo pro controller, which is like the ps4 but even better (has a removabe lithium battery you can replace with nimh AA after the lithium battery has aged and doesn't hold a charge. I greatly despise non removeable batteries like on the dual shock).

 

[Lyric Suite]

Any good controller that has the same stick configuration as the Xbox one?

I bought a couple of replicas of 360 controllers from Amazon and i got stick drift on both within a couple of months each. I wish i could buy the original. That lastest ages. As a matter of fact i can't even buy an original Xbox One controller anymore. The only Microsoft controller that's available on Amazon is the Elite series. The fuck is that doesn't Microsoft make consoles anymore lmao.