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

[rusty_shackleford]

I mean, the game has a STAGGERING amount of UNIQUE-LOOKING landscapes, places, spots, buildings and areas.
It doesn't even just have "a lot of them", you could argue that is pretty much UNMATCHED in the amount it offers for a single player title. I can hardly think of anything below Rockstar-tier budget that comes even close (and this still towers over the average Rockstar game for the variety of gameplay situations).
It also has a very interesting landscape to navigate in general, with plenty of unmarked and cleverly hidden place, subtle and less subtle visual cues to draw your attention in the right place organically, etc.

But sure, let's fucking go into full weaponized autism and scream "Travesty!" about a few similar-looking ruins and churches every now and then.

"a few similar-looking ruins every now and then" is just hilarious. Every area has multiple (3-4) ruins and they all look exactly the same even though the areas themselves are distinct enough. Not only are they mechanically and functionally the same - find a hole in the ground that either has a chest or a boss and a chest - but they're visually identical. Do you really not think that it detracts from the game when some ruins in Mountaintops of the Giants, a region that's been cut off from the mainland for ages, looks exactly the same as the first bogstandard ruins you encounter in Limgrave?

That's bordering on delusion. But I guess it's just easier to use silly catchphrases like "weaponized autism" than try to defend a point.

 

[ADL]

Whoever designed the mandatory godskin duo fight can suck the shit out of my asshole. Half of the optional bosses are just as bad. From Software's games took a sharp turn being challenging but fair to straight up creating the most artificial difficulty levels of bullshit known to man to uphold their reputation of being ~soooooooooooooo hard~.

There's no tactics behind the fight. There's no interesting mechanics. They both just charge at you in a shitty boss arena and if you manage to kill one, they just resurrect and charge at you again until you defeat their shared health pool.

I ended up installing a trainer because no one wants to even co-op that shit and I died with infinite health on. Don't ask me how that works but second try I got through it.

I knew the second Dark Souls 1 became a megahit that people would focus on the ~most difficult game evarrrrrrr~ moniker it was getting rather than the design decisions that made it for the most part challenging but fair. Once you get yourself into the mindset of playing these games cautiously, they're not that difficult so the only way to uphold that reputation of being difficult is to ramp up the bullshit. I blame the subhuman fanbase for the state of some of these Elden Ring bosses. I feel bad for anyone on consoles that can't bypass this bullshit the way I did.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Whoever designed the mandatory godskin duo fight can suck the shit out of my asshole. Half of the optional bosses are just as bad. From Software's games took a sharp turn being challenging but fair to straight up creating the most artificial difficulty levels of bullshit known to man to uphold their reputation of being ~soooooooooooooo hard~.

There's no tactics behind the fight. There's no interesting mechanics. They both just charge at you in a shitty boss arena and if you manage to kill one, they just resurrect and charge at you again until you defeat their shared health pool.

I ended up installing a trainer because no one wants to even co-op that shit and I died with infinite health on. Don't ask me how that works but second try I got through it.

I knew the second Dark Souls 1 became a megahit that people would focus on the ~most difficult game evarrrrrrr~ moniker it was getting rather than the design decisions that made it for the most part challenging but fair. Once you get yourself into the mindset of playing these games cautiously, they're not that difficult so the only way to uphold that reputation of being difficult is to ramp up the bullshit. I blame the subhuman fanbase for the state of some of these Elden Ring bosses. I feel bad for anyone on consoles that can't bypass this bullshit the way I did.

You can bypass it on consoles - the cheat is called +10 Mimic

 

[Agame]

Looking forward to the obligatory "akshully guys, Skyrim is superior to Elden Ring because..."

And yea I do think its quite a bit closer than anyone here would care to admit.

 

[Eyestabber]

Once you get yourself into the mindset of playing these games cautiously, they're not that difficult so the only way to uphold that reputation of being difficult is to ramp up the bullshit. I blame the subhuman fanbase for the state of some of these Elden Ring bosses.

It's pretty obvious the game is Dark Souls 4 and DS became a parody of itself at this point. I blame DS 3 mostly, DS 2 brought a lot of "cheap" level design, but enemy patterns were fundamentally simple. DS 3 started the trend of blenders and spastic movesets and Elden Ring took everything to a ridiculous extreme. Combat doesn't feel like a "fight" anymore, it feels very, VERY gamey, like every single enemy is going for a "HAHA, GOTCHA!!! You think you're good because you played DS1-3? You aren't! Eat shit, hahahahahahah" moment, instead of presenting a fair challenge and all that. It's no longer intuitive, everything now works via pure trial and error. Big guy slammed his weapon into the ground? It might be an opening, but he might also just pull "I AM HELICOPTER-MAN!!! BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR" and hit you 5 times during a single stunlock. WAY too many enemies attempt to roll-catch you, WAY too many attacks can't be blocked unless you give up your "turn", WAY too many enemies have instant punish moves and the non-stop attacking feels INCREDIBLY cheap since the player is constricted by stamina at all times, while enemies just scoff at the notion of attacking 2-4 times and then stopping.

Has anyone else seen that thing in the poison castle with many limbs and whatnot? Similar to a grafted scion, but doesn't wield any weapons? That thing has a 6 gorillion hits combo with near perfect tracking. How tf is anyone supposed to melee that? Insanely cheap.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Once you get yourself into the mindset of playing these games cautiously, they're not that difficult so the only way to uphold that reputation of being difficult is to ramp up the bullshit. I blame the subhuman fanbase for the state of some of these Elden Ring bosses.

It's pretty obvious the game is Dark Souls 4 and DS became a parody of itself at this point. I blame DS 3 mostly, DS 2 brought a lot of "cheap" level design, but enemy patterns were fundamentally simple. DS 3 started the trend of blenders and spastic movesets and Elden Ring took everything to a ridiculous extreme. Combat doesn't feel like a "fight" anymore, it feels very, VERY gamey, like every single enemy is going for a "HAHA, GOTCHA!!! You think you're good because you played DS1-3? You aren't! Eat shit, hahahahahahah" moment, instead of presenting a fair challenge and all that. It's no longer intuitive, everything now works via pure trial and error. Big guy slammed his weapon into the ground? It might be an opening, but he might also just pull "I AM HELICOPTER-MAN!!! BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR" and hit you 5 times during a single stunlock. WAY too many enemies attempt to roll-catch you, WAY too many attacks can't be blocked unless you give up your "turn", WAY too many enemies have instant punish moves and the non-stop attacking feels INCREDIBLY cheap since the player is constricted by stamina at all times, while enemies just scoff at the notion of attacking 2-4 times and then stopping.

Has anyone else seen that thing in the poison castle with many limbs and whatnot? Similar to a grafted scion, but doesn't wield any weapons? That thing has a 6 gorillion hits combo with near perfect tracking. How tf is anyone supposed to melee that? Insanely cheap.

Here's a fun tidbit for you - in the 2nd Haligtree area there's a long hallway with 4-5 of these in a straight line. Fun eh? They 2-3 shot a 50 vitality character no problem.

 

[perfectslumbers]

Has anyone else seen that thing in the poison castle with many limbs and whatnot?

Revenant, the hardest enemy in the game. Worst moment of my Elden Ring playthrough was when I stepped through a fog gate and found a boss version

 

[Wunderbar]

I fucking hate those weapon-less grafted scions and their gorillion-hit combos.

 

[Tyranicon]

When I replay the game I think I will stick to the following autistic house rule:

At the beginning, I may only use the first tier of upgrade items (smithing stones and glovewort) - so regular weapons can only go up to +3 while boss weapons and spirit ashes only to +1. Unlocking the use of the next tier requires the defeat of a Remembrance-dropping boss. So after killing 8 and 9 of the said bosses I will be able to reach the maximum upgrades for smithing stones and somber/grave/ghost glovewort respectively.

This probably is very close to how you're supposed to be playing the game. IIRC, there are

Spoiler

15

remembrance bosses that you meet throughout the game, although some of the endgame bosses are clustered closer together.

Also, I believe spirit ashes>weapons when it comes to impact on a fight. I kept my moonveil at +5 for most of the game and then finally maxed out at +10 for the endgame bosses. I did notice a good damage boost, but not as significant as mimic tear actually soloing the bosses by itself. I tested mimic a few times just for a giggle but then had to suicide out of the fight cause the boss got trashed. Even Oleg was very helpful.

Mimic got way better at this game than I ever did.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Yeah, I consider the Mimic a straight up cheat - especially with busted moonveil. But after Malenia I just didn't give a shit anymore.

 

[mediocrepoet]

New patch.

https://www.bandainamcoent.com/news/elden-ring-patch-notes-v1-03

Spoiler

Major Changes Included in the Latest Update
Additional Elements Added

• Added a function to record an icon and the name of an NPC on the map when you encounter that NPC.
• Added NPC Jar-Bairn.
• Added new quest phases for the following NPCs: Diallos/ Nepheli Loux/ Kenneth Haight/ Gatekeeper Gostoc.
• Added some summonable NPCs in multiple situations.
• Increased the number of patterns of objects player can imitate when using Mimic’s Veil.
• Added night background music for some open field area.

Bug Fixed

• Fixed a bug that prevented summoned NPCs from taking damage in some boss battles.
• Fixed a bug that sometime prevented the player from obtaining item after boss battle.
• Fixed a bug that causes dialogue to be skipped when talking to NPCs and using custom key configurations.
• Fixed a bug that causes the player to freeze when riding.
• Fixed a bug that causes arcane to scale incorrectly for some weapons.
• In situation where the player cannot obtain more than 2 talisman pouches, added talisman pouch to Twin Maiden Husks shop line up.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the user from warping to sites of grace from the map at the end of the game.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the player from moving to the next area after the battle with the Fire Giant.
• Fixed a bug which causes some weapons to have incorrect scaling after strengthening.
• Fixed a bug which causes some weapons to not use stat scaling.
• Fixed hang-ups in certain occasions.
• Fixed a bug which incorrectly displays multiplayer area boundary when playing online.
• Fixed a bug that allows player to activate Erdtree Greatshield’s weapon skill without absorbing an attack using a special combination of item and incantation.
• Fixed a bug which causes Fire’s Deadly Sin incantation to have different effect.
• Fixed a bug with the Ash of War, Determination and Royal Knight's Resolve, where the damage buff will also apply to other weapons without that skill.
• Adjusted the visual effect of Unseen Form spell.
• Deleted the Ragged armor set from the game which was mistakenly obtainable in previous patch.
• Fixed a bug that causes some hostile NPCs to drop Furlcalling Finger Remedy.
• Fixed a bug that causes incorrect sound effect to play in some situations.
• Fixed a bug which causes visual animation and hitboxes to not be displayed correctly on some maps.
• Fixed bugs which causes incorrect visual and behavior for some enemies.
• Fixed a bug that causes incorrect stat parameter for some armor.
• Text fixes.
• Other performance improvement and bug fixes.

Balance Changes

• Increased the drop rate of Smithing Stone for some enemies.
• Added Smithing Stone to some early game shop line up.
• Increased shield’s effectiveness.
• Increased the damage for all offensive cracked pot items.
• Increased the damage for the following items: Spark Aromatic/Poison Spraymist.
• Increased the effect duration for the following items: Uplifting Aromatic/ Ironjar Aromatic.
• Increased HP healing for Torrent when using the following items: Rowa Raisin/ Sweet Raisin/ Frozen Raisin
• Reduced FP consumption and increased the damage of the following sorceries: Glintstone Cometshard/ Comet/ Night Comet
• Increased the damage of the following sorceries: Gravity Well/ Collapsing Stars/ Crystal Barrage
• Decreased FP consumption of the following sorceries: Star Shower/ Rock Blaster/ Gavel of Haima/ Founding Rain of Stars/ Stars of Ruin/Greatblade Phalanx/Magic Downpour/ Loretta’s Greatbow/ Loretta’s Mastery/ Carian Greatsword/ Carian Piercer/ Shard Spiral
• Raised projectile speed and range of Great Glintstone Shard
• Decreased Ash of War, Hoarfrost Stomp's damage and increase cast time.
• Increased Ash of War, Bloody Slash's self-inflict damage while slightly lowering the damage and increasing the cast time.
• Decreased weapon skill, Sword of Night and Flame’s damage.
• Increased FP consumption and lower duration of Ash of War, Barricade Shield.
• Changed FP consumption timing of Ash of War, Prelate’s Charge.
• Decreased the damage of spirit summoned when using the item Mimic Tear Ash and changed the spirit’s behavior pattern.
• Other enemy and weapon balance changes

The version number of this update shown at the lower right corner of the Title Screen will be as follows:

• App Ver. 1.03
• Regulation Ver. 1.03.1

Online play requires the player to apply this update.

 

[Wunderbar]

They are adding whole new NPCs and questlines with patches. This is the first time Fromsoft are doing something like this.

Who knows how much content was cut.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Actually, it seems like this is probably a good patch per the notes anyway. Increasing shard drops, fixing some of the bugs and exploits, nerfing mimic tear, etc. Many of the things people complained about other than systemic design choices that are impossible to fix on a released game (e.g. copy and paste dungeons).

 

[mediocrepoet]

They are adding whole new NPCs and questlines with patches. This is the first time Fromsoft are doing something like this.

Who knows how much content was cut.

Well, some of the NPCs cited are ones that people had mentioned have their quests sort of abruptly cut off, so this may be more of a Day "one" patch sort of deal. It wasn't cut, but it wasn't finished on release either.

 

[perfectslumbers]

THIS PATCH IS AMAZING I'm so happy they added the cut content quests. This should also unlock the datamined age of absolute ending

 

[Jackpot]

Just got to Malenia.
You know, a boss that healed on hit could have been fun and interesting if she had a smaller amount of health but also healed a lot on hit. Would really be about not getting hit!
But her giant health pool, ability to be staggered easily, and fast as fuck attacks means its better to just keep attacking through her attacks and do as much damage as possible regardless of if you get hit.
Which sucks as a boss fight.

 

[Lithium Flower]

Lmao holy shit a day 1 patch 2.5 weeks late. Can't tell whether the community will be elated or upset by this.

I already killed Gostoc, so that's a shame. I guess that's something to do in second playthrough/NG+. Don't mind if it locks me out of Age of Absolute tho because you better believe I'm Duskborning this bitch up /dab

Lack of unique night music in places like Caelid I definitely noticed so that's a super welcome change on top of all the rebalancing.

 

[Frank Capicoli]

Nerfing bloody slash but leaving Moonveil untouched huh? I see how it is Fromsoft.

 

[Lithium Flower]

if anything moonveil needs a buff because its current form does not accurately represent the superiority of japanese blades over their plebeian western counterparts aha

 

[mediocrepoet]

They've added smithing stones to some of the merchants as well. I saw increased drop rate, but didn't notice the change in merchant inventory in the notes...

EDIT: Unless it's on the very next line of course. Skimming skill 100

 

[Lithium Flower]

...should I just restart now? 145 hours. 145+ hours more. I could find the time! I could quit my job. I could stop wasting precious sec- I mean, uh, minutes or hours or whatever on hygiene. Smegma Ring, o Smegma Ring, accept your Smegma Lord!

The Lord of the many and the meek.

 

[flabbyjack]

lol @ Hoarfrost nerf

 

[Silva]

New patch.

https://www.bandainamcoent.com/news/elden-ring-patch-notes-v1-03

Spoiler

Major Changes Included in the Latest Update
Additional Elements Added

• Added a function to record an icon and the name of an NPC on the map when you encounter that NPC.
• Added NPC Jar-Bairn.
• Added new quest phases for the following NPCs: Diallos/ Nepheli Loux/ Kenneth Haight/ Gatekeeper Gostoc.
• Added some summonable NPCs in multiple situations.
• Increased the number of patterns of objects player can imitate when using Mimic’s Veil.
• Added night background music for some open field area.

Bug Fixed

• Fixed a bug that prevented summoned NPCs from taking damage in some boss battles.
• Fixed a bug that sometime prevented the player from obtaining item after boss battle.
• Fixed a bug that causes dialogue to be skipped when talking to NPCs and using custom key configurations.
• Fixed a bug that causes the player to freeze when riding.
• Fixed a bug that causes arcane to scale incorrectly for some weapons.
• In situation where the player cannot obtain more than 2 talisman pouches, added talisman pouch to Twin Maiden Husks shop line up.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the user from warping to sites of grace from the map at the end of the game.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the player from moving to the next area after the battle with the Fire Giant.
• Fixed a bug which causes some weapons to have incorrect scaling after strengthening.
• Fixed a bug which causes some weapons to not use stat scaling.
• Fixed hang-ups in certain occasions.
• Fixed a bug which incorrectly displays multiplayer area boundary when playing online.
• Fixed a bug that allows player to activate Erdtree Greatshield’s weapon skill without absorbing an attack using a special combination of item and incantation.
• Fixed a bug which causes Fire’s Deadly Sin incantation to have different effect.
• Fixed a bug with the Ash of War, Determination and Royal Knight's Resolve, where the damage buff will also apply to other weapons without that skill.
• Adjusted the visual effect of Unseen Form spell.
• Deleted the Ragged armor set from the game which was mistakenly obtainable in previous patch.
• Fixed a bug that causes some hostile NPCs to drop Furlcalling Finger Remedy.
• Fixed a bug that causes incorrect sound effect to play in some situations.
• Fixed a bug which causes visual animation and hitboxes to not be displayed correctly on some maps.
• Fixed bugs which causes incorrect visual and behavior for some enemies.
• Fixed a bug that causes incorrect stat parameter for some armor.
• Text fixes.
• Other performance improvement and bug fixes.

Balance Changes

• Increased the drop rate of Smithing Stone for some enemies.
• Added Smithing Stone to some early game shop line up.
• Increased shield’s effectiveness.
• Increased the damage for all offensive cracked pot items.
• Increased the damage for the following items: Spark Aromatic/Poison Spraymist.
• Increased the effect duration for the following items: Uplifting Aromatic/ Ironjar Aromatic.
• Increased HP healing for Torrent when using the following items: Rowa Raisin/ Sweet Raisin/ Frozen Raisin
• Reduced FP consumption and increased the damage of the following sorceries: Glintstone Cometshard/ Comet/ Night Comet
• Increased the damage of the following sorceries: Gravity Well/ Collapsing Stars/ Crystal Barrage
• Decreased FP consumption of the following sorceries: Star Shower/ Rock Blaster/ Gavel of Haima/ Founding Rain of Stars/ Stars of Ruin/Greatblade Phalanx/Magic Downpour/ Loretta’s Greatbow/ Loretta’s Mastery/ Carian Greatsword/ Carian Piercer/ Shard Spiral
• Raised projectile speed and range of Great Glintstone Shard
• Decreased Ash of War, Hoarfrost Stomp's damage and increase cast time.
• Increased Ash of War, Bloody Slash's self-inflict damage while slightly lowering the damage and increasing the cast time.
• Decreased weapon skill, Sword of Night and Flame’s damage.
• Increased FP consumption and lower duration of Ash of War, Barricade Shield.
• Changed FP consumption timing of Ash of War, Prelate’s Charge.
• Decreased the damage of spirit summoned when using the item Mimic Tear Ash and changed the spirit’s behavior pattern.
• Other enemy and weapon balance changes

The version number of this update shown at the lower right corner of the Title Screen will be as follows:

• App Ver. 1.03
• Regulation Ver. 1.03.1

Online play requires the player to apply this update.

I'm back faggots. Let's play. :D

 

[Kruno]

They need to nerf a hell of a lot more than that.

 

[Lutte]

Nerfing bloody slash but leaving Moonveil untouched huh? I see how it is Fromsoft.

They never nerfed the sellsword twinblade build in DS3, they were never that smart when it comes to balancing.

Pontiff right eye : quickly reach +10% attack power with dual blade spam. Old Wolf Curved Sword : same, +10%. Carthus Beacon: Same, +15%.
Let me tell you, the twinblades already have more damage potential than the average weapon being quick to attack with decent base damage, this build propels them to godhood.