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

[Riddler]

I don't think so. Planning a weird route to best suit your build's needs have always been a fun part of DS for me and something I utterly missed in DS3. The open world feels like a natural step in that direction. I just think they overdid it in terms of size. And it's not just lategame. Take Liurnia, for instance. The ruined town before the academy is MASSIVE and full of nothing but trash mobs. Did it REALLY have to be that big?

That may be the case, shove the entire game's content into an area the size of limgrave+Liurnia and more clearly signal the intended difficulty level of things (rather than just having the same mobs be green, red, yellow) and it might be the best of two worlds. I hope they can find some sort of middle ground because I found for example DS3 to be too linear and claustrophobic.

 

[Lutte]

I hope they can find some sort of middle ground because I found for example DS3 to be too linear and claustrophobic.

This wasn't caused by map layout but by making everything look like a shade of brown shit and grey. No matter where you go, it's always like home.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

OH YEAH, the one that takes you into the mines, so you can have some fun getting shredded by homing micro missiles. That one?

Yeah, lots of learning experiences rolled into one that.

 

[Jackpot]

I played through all the previous souls games without summoning anyone because it felt cheap to me, but I don't have that issue at all with ashes in this game.
You aren't getting help from other people, you are making use of a game mechanic that is really obviously meant to be used, considering how many ashes are rewards for exploring/killing bosses.
I can kind of see it being cheap if you only use the mimic, but there are so many ashes not using them at all seems obstinate.

I mean, yeah, it can 'feel cheap', but so can doing a hundred jump attacks in a row, or using some OP weapon that staggers an enemy in two hits and pumps out damage quickly at a range.
Hell, using great runes at all feels cheap to me. I just use what I have fun with.

 

[Volrath]

+25 uchigatana with ~45 DEX and a +5 DEX talisman. Damage to bosses is still piss-poor compared to just using weapon arts. The entire game is just not fucking made to be played as a melee character and it's infuriating.

There is no getting good, there is just rolling around and spamming weapon arts at bosses. It's a little sad to see that From's games culminating in this, but it is what it is.

I wonder how many hours it will take for people to wake up from the honeymoon period.

I'll let you know, just started playing it seriously since yesterday.

So far it's pretty fucking impressive.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

How do you craft a balanced experience when the expected power level of the player can vary so dramatically? The answer is that you can't.

I bet if from software implemented level scaling most of their fans would say it's a breakthrough in game design.

 

[Ramnozack]

Dark Moon, one of the end of the world spells : 1261 damage, super slow to cast, easy to interrupt, super slow projectile, humongous cost of fp - bar was full before spell was cast.

Dark Moon Greatsword
1649 damage, moderately fast, not as AoE though obviously, can BE CAST AN INFINITE AMOUNT OF TIME AS LONG AS THE BUFF IS UP, buff cost a low amount of FP, can stagger enemies very quickly when used in melee range (though, I know, some of the people playing mages just don't ever want to be in melee).

Since my character can use Dark Moon you know my INT levels are through the roof, yet spells are absolute garbage, I guarantee it. If you use spells over Dark Moon Greatsword, Moonveil and the plenty other cool pointy toys, you just don't get video games.

Dark moon gives the target a ~30 magic absorb debuff, that’s why you cast it.

 

[deem]

I played through all the previous souls games without summoning anyone because it felt cheap to me, but I don't have that issue at all with ashes in this game.
You aren't getting help from other people, you are making use of a game mechanic that is really obviously meant to be used, considering how many ashes are rewards for exploring/killing bosses.
I can kind of see it being cheap if you only use the mimic, but there are so many ashes not using them at all seems obstinate.

I mean, yeah, it can 'feel cheap', but so can doing a hundred jump attacks in a row, or using some OP weapon that staggers an enemy in two hits and pumps out damage quickly at a range.
Hell, using great runes at all feels cheap to me. I just use what I have fun with.

The game has been out for less than a month and the conversation already devolved into repeating the same pedestrian takes over and over.

I bet if from software implemented level scaling most of their fans would say it's a breakthrough in game design.

There has been nothing but criticism of the open world mechanics in this thread. Read other posts first before chiming in with your imbecilic remarks.

 

[NJClaw]

The Godskin duo

I just wish everyone would just never mention these bosses ever again, so that I could simply forget they exist. The fat guy could very well be the worst enemy in gaming history.

I honestly don't get the fuss with these guys, I still had a ton of flasks left when I killed them. Ashes summon distracts one whilst you focus the other down. Gang up on second. Repeat when they respawn.

I thought the Crucible Knight duo boss fight was much worse, even with the mimic tear that took a couple of attempts.

I don't hate the godskin fatso because he's too hard or anything, I still managed to defeat the duo on my second attempt without summoning. It's just that, with a medium-speed weapon, there's very little you can do against him apart from waiting for his two moves that actually give you enough time to retaliate without getting hit in return. 95% of the time you're either running away to avoid the AoE and rolling move or blocking through infinite thrusts combos. I think he's just terribly designed.

I enjoyed more the crucible knight duo, again without summoning, simply because their moveset has much bigger and more frequent openings. You can just deal with the sword one while paying attention to the ranged attacks of the other one.

There has been nothing but criticism of the open world mechanics in this thread. Read other posts first before chiming in with your imbecilic remarks.

You're not following the rusty containment protocol. Either mock him for shilling for Fallout 76 and Larian or ignore him.

 

[Tacgnol]

95% of the time you're either running away to avoid the AoE and rolling move or blocking through infinite thrusts combos.

That is, unfortunately, many of the bosses. The input reading makes it a lot more frustrating.

 

[NJClaw]

95% of the time you're either running away to avoid the AoE and rolling move or blocking through infinite thrusts combos.

That is, unfortunately, many of the bosses. The input reading makes it a lot more frustrating.

I still haven't finished the game, but I must be pretty close and I haven't found anything that comes even remotely close to the godskin fatso in this regard. But maybe I'm just biased against fat people.

In any case, it's pretty hilarious to see them hurl their fireballs at the same exact time whenever I try to sip. Miyazaki-Maxie feud confirmed.

 

[perfectslumbers]

n any case, it's pretty hilarious to see them hurl their fireballs at the same exact time whenever I try to sip.

They did this with some of the harder bosses in the old games (Fume Knight, Gwyn, Smelter Demon, Artorias) but since DS3 nearly every enemy in the game has an estus punish attack

They also do this with spellcasts and using items. Some enemies input read spell casts and dodge them (rock sling is great because it has a delay so it hits them after the dodge,) and most enemies will use the estus punish move when you initiate a spellcast to close in on you.

 

[Mortmal]

Nah, but srsly, invasions are currently plagued with faggots running a human centipede of summons. Same shit as with DS3.

Tbf, I play Souls games exclusively offline and will do the same with Elden Ring, once I get around to it. I just don't see the appeal of PvP with Souls' combat system and summoning other players to help you out (primarily with bosses) always felt sort of like cheating to me.

You have your own summons , and its more efficient to upgrade , use them and solo the boss than summon real people anyway. Did 90% of the bosses solo, not by choice, but even online it was impossible to get summons, while getting sumoned for those hard fights is instant.

 

[Tacgnol]

n any case, it's pretty hilarious to see them hurl their fireballs at the same exact time whenever I try to sip.

They did this with some of the harder bosses in the old games (Fume Knight, Gwyn, Smelter Demon, Artorias) but since DS3 nearly every enemy in the game has an estus punish attack

They also do this with spellcasts and using items. Some enemies input read spell casts and dodge them (rock sling is great because it has a delay so it hits them after the dodge,) and most enemies will use the estus punish move when you initiate a spellcast to close in on you.

You can allegedly bait/trick some of the enemies with the input reading, though I never found a situation I could use it to my advantage.

 

[Brickfrog]

Malenia down. Time to wrap it up.

 

[Curratum]

On final boss.

Chasing an enemy with a bazillion HP who just teleports out when you get close and get 3 melee attacks in, then spams ranged / AoE attacks and repeats everything all over again - surely, the pinnacle of From boss design in the highest rated game of all time on OpenCritic (tm).

 

[Shrimp]

Not really sure what their goal was when they only gave it a single target lock point. I think I spent the entire fight playing without targetting since otherwise I'd be staring at the sky instead of the actual boss.

 

[Tacgnol]

Not really sure what their goal was when they only gave it a single target lock point. I think I spent the entire fight playing without targetting since otherwise I'd be staring at the sky instead of the actual boss.

I found it much easier to not use lock on for the final boss. It was just too disorientating with the movement and the bosses size made it hard to miss anyways.

 

[Great Deceiver]

perfectslumbers
IMHO STR heavy look like utter garbage, they get completely outclassed by power stancing anything from the dex types (or int/faith scaling but dex-style).

You would expect ultra great swords to stagger much faster, but it's not happening, maybe one hit less on average than power stancing weapons when you do jump attacks on either builds. On the other hand, bleed man.. ooooh sweet bleed. Even if a bleed UGS existed you could never apply that much in the time frame of l1 spams.

By making bleed work on every fucking thing (maybe one or two things aren't vulnerable? I haven't noticed) and be so effective, they made non-bleed weapons look thoroughly unappealing.

For me, switching from a GS/UGS 75STR build to a moonveil/75INT build, the most striking bullshit re: stagger is that moonveil's fucking weapon art, which is the most OP thing I've seen in the entire game so far, staggers everything in 3 hits - jumping attacks at least make you more vulnerable so there's a tradeoff, but spamming a ranged weapon art and getting the same results (and much more damage in the process) is just silly.

 

[Frank Capicoli]

I see you're still being snippy for no reason. Keep being butthurt at random things online I guess. Doesn't affect me, faggot.

Ah how typical of your people, talk shit then cry when it gets handed back. Some things never change.

 

[Brickfrog]

I definitely haven't felt weak playing a str/faith two hander build. It took me all the way through malenia so far.

I actually respecced back into a str/faith build from a 70int moonveil katana build for malenia because I felt like it wasn't taking great advantage of her low poise.

I would recommend against UGS's tho. Theyr just too slow. The holy halberd you get from the first tree sentinel did the job for me.

 

[Tacgnol]

Regular greatswords felt fine to me. Heavy Gargoyle Greatsword with high strength did me fine from late midgame to the end.

 

[Frank Capicoli]

Speaking of Malenia has anybody tried blocking her bullshit combo with an upgraded greatshield + block talisman items? Is it set as an unblockable aoe? Does it delete stamina too fast to survive it? Or can it actually work for str builds?

 

[Great Deceiver]

For me, the regular greatsword moveset just feels right, so I sword and boarded for almost 80 hours with one of the very earlygame weapons: the Lordsworn's Greatsword. I just got bored towards the end plus the hp bloat was annoying, so I decided to switch it up to moonveil. I don't like roll spam either, so it's possible I might switch back.

 

[Brickfrog]

Speaking of Malenia has anybody tried blocking her bullshit combo with an upgraded greatshield + block talisman items? Is it set as an unblockable aoe? Does it delete stamina too fast to survive it? Or can it actually work for str builds?

I just learned to dodge roll it with a high poise med roll build to soak up the stray hits.

From what iv heard it can be blocked with a sufficiently big and enchanted shield. but I'm not sure that keeping the enchantment up and whittling away at her health with a one handed weapon is better strategy than just facerushing with a high dps two-hander and learning the dodge timing.

She still heals on block sadly