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

[deem]

Dark Souls 2 before and after Scholar of the First Sin. It ruined art.

FIFY

 

[Seigneur Locklear]

Wait, what!? Everywhere I read says killing Radahn is a prerequisite for Ranni showing up in Ranni's Rise. How did you finish her quest before Caelid?

It is, because you need the star to nuke the Mistwood obviously. I basically just killed the magma drake and rushed Radahn to continue on with the questline, like I said I was scared shitless of the zone lol, I'd usually play late in the night.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Haha, i just spend a solid hour trying to help people kill the sentinel, but 99% of the times the host got himself killed because of that pesky shield slam.

It's sad there are no covenants in this game, but being a sunbro is as fun as ever.

 

[Curratum]

Wow, I just reached Crumbling F. A. and am so far OWNING it. I'm using the game's most overpowered technique - running past everything to the next bonfire. It's working absolutely great so far!

 

[Eyestabber]

Haha, i just spend a solid hour trying to help people kill the sentinel, but 99% of the times the host got himself killed because of that pesky shield slam.

I get the feeling Coop is nerfed a bit. HP bloat on enemies is too severe, to the point where having a dude not pulling his weight in a fight becomes highly detrimental. I prefer sticking to a single summon, and taking a guy showing non-starter gear.

Yes, unlike the original DS1, DS2 was never removed from sales, only delisted, ie you won't see it if you search it in the search bar of steam, but if you have the link, you can buy it.

SOFTS is a permanent reminder that From are NOT "good guys". They shamelessly re-released a game and decided to split the community for fuck all reason. People who bought DS2 (like I did) got a pretty lousy discount for SOFTS and that was that.

Wow, I just reached Crumbling F. A. and am so far OWNING it. I'm using the game's most overpowered technique - running past everything to the next bonfire. It's working absolutely great so far!

I've been using that since Limgrave. The risk-to-reward ratio of fighting in this game is UTTERLY fucked. Yet another reason why ER PUNISHES you for exploring.

 

[Caim]

Found the secret path in Stormveil Castle leading up to the secret boss/big enemy fight and found the at the bottom. Gotta wonder what's up with that thing.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

Is Elden Ring an RPG

It's like Skyrim without nude mods

 

[Sunri]

How do you guys manage to get to level 100+? I thought getting 40k+ runes to level up was getting super grindy. Do enemies start giving 5k souls a pop later on? Bosses usually give a lot but still. I got to level 60 something and respawning enemies were giving less than 2k each.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNwmYIlF7M0 1 shoot 13k you don't need to wait for death animation, you just run from bone fire to to ledge

 

[Curratum]

It's the full Elden Ring map, but only the parts that have level design and traditional gameplay highlighted, to give some perspective on scale and scope.

Spoiler

Just the area where you fight the

Spoiler

fire giant

is as large as the entirety of the capital city and Stormveil castle in terms of surface area on the map...

 

[deem]

Found the secret path in Stormveil Castle leading up to the secret boss/big enemy fight and found the at the bottom. Gotta wonder what's up with that thing.

I have not been there but I think I know what you are referring to. I saw a pre-release footage of that area on YT.

 

[Shrimp]

It's the full Elden Ring map, but only the parts that have level design and traditional gameplay highlighted, to give some perspective on scale and scope.

Spoiler

Just the area where you fight the

Spoiler

fire giant

is as large as the entirety of the capital city and Stormveil castle in terms of surface area on the map...

You forgot an area north of the snowy zone

 

[ADL]

That map is missing the secret zone too.

Spoiler

Mogwyn's Palace

 

[Curratum]

That map is missing the hidden zone too

Spoiler

Mogwyn's Palace

As well as the entirety of the underground locations, which are generally tighter designs compared to the overworld.

 

[Silva]

Who is the narrator of the intro? The way the guy goes wild in the "and GOFNIR THE ALL-KNOWING" part makes me wonder if it isn't himself, you know, for that little self promotion.

 

[Curratum]

Who is the narrator of the intro? The way the guy goes wild in the "and GOFNIR THE ALL-KNOWING" part makes me wonder if it isn't himself, you know, for that little self promotion.

Oh no! Reading this made me re-watch the intro and I realized I saw the "ever-brilliant Goldmask" on a bridge outside Leyndell, but he wouldn't interact with me, so I just hit him and he disappeared into glittery dust. Didn't even realize he was someone important enough to be featured in the intro! :D

As for the Sir Gideon Ofnir the all-knowing, I'm pretty sure that's the dude who greets you in Roundtable and then spends his time in the library, reading.

 

[Curratum]

I just read the wiki info on endings available so far. I mean, I'm like 2 steps away from the final boss and I still have no more of an idea about the game's story, plot or deeper lore than I did when I started it.

Characters, motivations and events are still a haze. Even DS1 was less opaque than this. I need to just watch some "LORE VIDYAS" online to see what's up.

 

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

SOFTS is a permanent reminder that From are NOT "good guys". They shamelessly re-released a game and decided to split the community for fuck all reason. People who bought DS2 (like I did) got a pretty lousy discount for SOFTS and that was that.

Not to mention they pulled the same stunt with DS Remastered, killed PTDE's servers ahead of DS3's launch and now killed all remaining PC servers ahead of ER's launch (using RCE as an excuse despite knowing about it for a much longer time).

 

[ADL]

SOFTS would have been justifiable if they reimplemented the lighting system they gutted at the final hour but it's 2022 and we're still waiting on a mod to do that sometime in 2023 but just selling it as a DX9-DX11 upgrade on PC with changed (overwhelmingly worse) enemy placement at a $24.99 upgrade price was bullshit.
Never forget what they took away from you.

 

[Ghulgothas]

Done with Radahn. SL - 82 with a +7 Bloodhound Fang, now more than ever am I convinced that the horse is a trap for certain bosses. Think I'm gonna push through the underground and Mt. Gelmir before I force my way through the Capital. Wonder if that dungeon has another hidden bypass to the last few overworld zones like Stormveil did.

The total absence of covenants is mind-boggling for me. You'd expect the Volcano Manor and the Blood Dynasty to be invasion-centric, but the former ceases after 4 scripted invasions and the latter is just a glorified shortcut. Shame since the open-world seems like the perfect fit for organic covenant-on-covenant action, wonder if this games equivalent of the DSII Iron Keep bridge has been established yet.

Dunno if I want to commit to a sorcery-knight or a chaos incanter next run. Was thinking about fucking around with fist-weapons for the laughs.

 

[Eyestabber]

before I force my way through the Capital

PSA: everyone should head to the capital as soon as they are able (kill 2 shardbearers)!!! Leyndell is full of goodies just laying around, no fighting needed. They have trees with 2 golden seeds each! Go there ASAP.

Oh, and Godfrey is doable at SL 65 or so.

 

[Lutte]

SOFTS is a permanent reminder that From are NOT "good guys". They shamelessly re-released a game and decided to split the community for fuck all reason. People who bought DS2 (like I did) got a pretty lousy discount for SOFTS and that was that..

I could tolerate it if the changes were positive, but the biggest problem about SOTFS is that it's just a cluster of random changes for the sake of change + LOLPREPARETODIEEVENMORE marketing.

Here's some examples of the major changes (cutting down the more random and unimportant from a big compiled list) :
General Section
- new enemy type added to multiple areas : Invisible Hollows Invisible Hollows | Dark Souls 2 Wiki (fextralife.com)
- DS2 had some cool ng+ content that added quite a decent amount of surprise ambushes, npc invasions and the like.. well, SOTFS thought it wasn't enough so it did things like remix the placement of mimics.
Forest of the Fallen Giants
- +1 Ogre
- single heide knight in FOFG replaced by a hollow ambush + firebomber (remember, it's the first area of the game you traverse after tutorial zone)
- more hollows in general (keeping with the SOTFS theme of "more is always better" despite DS2 already featuring quite a decent, but acceptable amount of group ambushes)
- archer added to defend the firebomber
- two more armored turtles
- One of the earliest estus shard moved from an easily accessible chest to the pursuer area
- +1 Syan Knight
- +1 turtle before the pursuer
- Added drop down 4 hollows ambush
- Skeletons added to basement under Soldier's Rest bonfire
- three turtles instead of one nearby
- added npc invasion
Heide
- A ton of heide knights added to the area. Go full on agro ape shit and assist the big poise dudes if you kill the area boss. They now respawn whereas they did not before.
- Dragon added before the old dragonslayer boss ie the ornstein clone (???????????????)
- +1 syan knight
- added basilisks and hollows
No Man's Warth
- Added numbers of varangians, hollows and dogs
- Weapon durability damaging barrels added
- Shadow enemies that used to exist only as an addition to the area boss fight in NG+ are also now present on the map in NG
Lost Bastille
- addition of royal soldiers, four archers, shadow enemy
- pursuer invasions, plural
- some dogs removed
- more explosive mummies
Sinner's Rise
- Added flexile sentry
- Heide Knight
- Using a bonfire ascetic now causes NG+ version of the boss to appear with the two pyromancers instead of a more powerful regular version of the boss
Shaded Woods
- Added forest grotesques, gyrm warrior, falconers, dogs, ogre, syan knights, cloaked enemies, removal of some of the lion warriors, removal of the giant basilisk
Brightstone Cove Tseldora
- Added falconers, pig, torch hollow replaced by hammer, added spiders (some just passively watching you, some aggressive), added spider ambush right at the fog gate of the first area boss, added lizard, added NPC invader, more hollows, three more torch hollows in the area filled with spiders before spider boss
Huntsman Copse
- Thief type hollows drop down ambush
- More hollows in general
- Added giant basilisk
- Added syan knight
- Added skeleton ambush behind you when you go to pick up an item, more skeletons present in the map in general
- Skeleton Lords boss fight changed : they summon more skeletons, but less bonewheels (why? the original fight wasn't hard, bonewheels weren't as violent to handle as in ds1, SOTFS as a whole tries to be tryhard edgier than the vanilla game but makes an easy boss fight even easier)
Harvest Valley
- Crawlers from Tseldora first boss fight added to the area, more skeletons, four desert sorceresses added, one of the bonfire rooms has a ton of poison jars added to it, 3 more lizards
Earthen Peak
- still more poison jars, manakins changed to throw poison knives when they do backflips, more manakins added to the area, added ambushes, two desert sorceresses removed while one has been moved from a spot to another, addition of a grave warden, crawling enemies added
Iron Keep
- Three more NPC invasions
- a lot of katana wielding knights added, aggro range massively extended
- one less turtle
- added fire spitting statue
Belfry Sol
- added ballistas, four are now aiming at the centre of the area
Gutter
- Added syan knights, torch hollows, weapon degrading jars, heide knights, acid spitting bugs, explosive mummy replaced one of the dogs
- added npc invader
The Black Gulch
- added npc invader
- blocked the path toward the second bonfire with a petrified statue
Drangleic castle
- added cloaked enemies, a ton more syan knights, dark stalker, manakins, old knights, gargoyle
- removed heide knight
- fixed royal knight spawn spam (one of the few possible improvements)
Shrine of Amana
- more archdrake, water creatures, mages, old knights, syan knights, added three pyromancers
- added dragonrider (as in, like the boss in Heide)
Undead Crypt
- less mages, more syan knights
- more rocks and bells to block your path to the bonfire
- added dragonrider ( AGAIN )
- The Bell Hollow now has two more hollows trying to ring the aggro alarm bell after you kill him
Aldia's Keep
- added basilisks, mimics, ogres, mages,
Dragon Aerie
- Added priest, corrosive explosive mummies ambushes
- new npc invasion
Dragon Aerie
- Dragon warriors are now honorabru and won't gang on you if you fight stuff one on one without trying to run past the group

I mean seriously, what the fuck.

I really want the world to know, when I say DS2 is one of the greatest souls game, I never, ever mean SOTFS.

 

[Andnjord]

Finaly got some time to sink into this baby, I've managed to consciously avoid all spoilers and videos (except for a few early trailer) so I'm going in raw, wish me luck bros

 

[deem]

SOFTS would have been justifiable if they reimplemented the lighting system they gutted at the final hour but it's 2022 and we're still waiting on a mod to do that sometime in 2023 but just selling it as a DX9-DX11 upgrade on PC with changed (overwhelmingly worse) enemy placement at a $24.99 upgrade price was bullshit.
Never forget what they took away from you.

The lighting is not the only thing downgraded. This video breaks down the changes made to the game relative to the pre-release footage.

 

[NJClaw]

How do you guys manage to get to level 100+? I thought getting 40k+ runes to level up was getting super grindy. Do enemies start giving 5k souls a pop later on? Bosses usually give a lot but still. I got to level 60 something and respawning enemies were giving less than 2k each.

By scouring basically 100% of the map and never losing my runes to a double-death, I reached level 140 while going through the first part of the area after the capital. I've never spent time farming, but I've killed basically every enemy I encountered.

 

[Curratum]

I've eaten rune pop items worth at least half a million. Later on you get items worth 10-50k a pop.