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

[Lutte]

Guys, you know what i always wanted in those games?

Fighting a giant boss in a tiny room with fucked up propotions where you can't tell what's attacking, which side the fucking head is when you stagger him, where you don't know if you are dodging attacks or just rolling like a retard for the fuck of it.

Peak game design:

This is the first of many, have fun, it's one of the most copy pasted bosses.

 

[The Decline]

Guys, you know what i always wanted in those games?

Fighting a giant boss in a tiny room with fucked up propotions where you can't tell what's attacking, which side the fucking head is when you stagger him, where you don't know if you are dodging attacks or just rolling like a retard for the fuck of it.

Peak game design:

Use frost or fire and don't lock on.

 

[Zurbo]

I also thought Elphael was great, and didn't mind the reuse too much because it had stellar encounter design. But, you gotta admit, think of even the last levels of DS3.. they had more unique encounters than this. The DS3 equivalent of Elphael would be Archdragon Peak, as an optional but end game sort of area. Its level design was garbage, but in terms of enemy types it felt fresher than what ER has to offer.

I would also ditch the entirety of Caelid. This would also make some of the enemy types of Elphael feel fresher because you wouldn't have met so many projectile flinging crustaceans before going there, and let's get real, Caelid doesn't have a single truly unique area to explore, its Forts are the most simplistic and boring, Redmane is garbage and the only real piece of content to do there is Radahn and the Commander in the swamp.

I also really liked Haligtree despite some irritating moments. Especially the first part which looked like a tree village. Felt refreshing after going through N castles and palaces.
And Caelid seemed like some MMO location. With Radahn at its end as a raid boss.

 

[Villagkouras]

I would throw the crystalian in the trash list, they're obnoxious because there's three of them ( in certain instances ) BUT, if you remove the gank, they're individually weak sauce with a very limited moveset, so either way, you can't really fix this, it's garbage all the way down.
Crucible Knight is top tier and its tells are very clear, what is your issue with it? It was one of the most enjoyable boss fights for me, along with the assassins.

Attacks all the time and has too much defense to trade hits and too much poise to stagger. It was a nightmare with a slow weapon. With parrying shield I had little damage, with dual greatswords I couldn't land a hit. Also, one of the bosses that had input reading (another issue I forgot to mention earlier). I had PTSD when I saw one approaching.

Crystalines, I don't know, I liked them the first time because after the initial despair (how I deal with with this?), the relief was memorable.

The Assassins were fine too, I agree.

I often see people state this like the way ER does it was routine for other souls games. DS1 reused asylum twice, and put a few taurus and capra demon in the rushed garbage lava area, while ER throws you more asylum demons than a single hand can count, reuses Margit, reuses Godrick, reuses Astel (core story bosses. Astel, ffs, destroyed the eternal city) and so on..
No, this isn't what we came to expect from FS at all. This is a trillion times worse.

I laughed so hard when I saw Astel in the mine. I expected a lot of reuse after I realised how massive this game is. Dark Souls is much much smaller, if you think proportionally it's not that different. Only DS2 had minimal amount of reuse.

I also thought Elphael was great, and didn't mind the reuse too much because it had stellar encounter design. But, you gotta admit, think of even the last levels of DS3.. they had more unique encounters than this. The DS3 equivalent of Elphael would be Archdragon Peak, as an optional but end game sort of area. Its level design was garbage, but in terms of enemy types it felt fresher than what ER has to offer.

Yes, it had fresh enemies, cannot disagree with that. But levels are much more important than enemies for me. This is just a matter of personal taste.

I would also ditch the entirety of Caelid. This would also make some of the enemy types of Elphael feel fresher because you wouldn't have met so many projectile flinging crustaceans before going there, and let's get real, Caelid doesn't have a single truly unique area to explore, its Forts are the most simplistic and boring, Redmane is garbage and the only real piece of content to do there is Radahn and the Commander in the swamp.

This game needed someone to tell them when to stop.

I would keep Caelid for its atmosphere. Redmane + Gael + Faroth as one, Sellia which I found interesting, keep the Swamp, add a smaller dragon area and you have 50% smaller area which I think you would appreciate more. It also had the best Divine Tower, outside and inside.

 

[Sukhāvatī]

His AI also bugs out quite a lot, and just freezes in place.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

So how much of Dark Souls 2 ended up in Elden Ring? I know Twin blades make a come back, but anything else?

 

[Great Deceiver]

This is the first of many, have fun, it's one of the most copy pasted bosses.

What's even better is that they mostly stuck him in arenas that much too small for his size and moveset. The first time I fought him, he constantly jumped over me, got stuck in the walls or simply his attacks missed me completely probably because they got fucked up by the level design. In the end, I just hacked him to pieces, just tanking the rare occasion when he actually did manage to land a hit. This is shovelware design.

The worst area to fight him was the scarlet rot swamp just before Malenia, where you only have a little edge to balance yourself, but it's against a wall so the camera goes extra crazy. Corrupted tree spirit was the most reused boss in the entire game I think, except for the Asylum Demon farters, which reach ludicrous levels. I must have fought 10 or 15 of them, didn't count.

So how much of Dark Souls 2 ended up in Elden Ring? I know Twin blades make a come back, but anything else?

Powerstancing is the biggest takeaway, and also if you count the prerelease build of DS2 that was shown, torches/light sources being important in some pitch-black areas. Incidentally, there's an item Elden Ring borrowed straight from Dragon's Dogma - the lantern. Although it's simplified (no need to refill with oil) I definitely saw it as a direct nod, including the way you strap it to your belt instead of having to dedicate a hand to it.

If only From would also implement something similar to the way you fight big enemies in that game. How do people still think it's cool to hack away at the ankles of giant bosses that make the camera spaz out?

 

[Lutte]

The worst area to fight him was the scarlet rot swamp just before Malenia, where you only have a little edge to balance yourself, but it's against a wall so the camera goes extra crazy. Corrupted tree spirit was the most reused boss in the entire game I think, except for the Asylum Demon farters, which reach ludicrous levels. I must have fought 10 or 15 of them, didn't count.

No, there is another area that is worse than that, not because of camera issue this time, but because.. there's fucking two of them and you're likely to aggro both while fighting. It's in the capital after it turns to ashes when you enter it from the forbidden lands.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Well, fuck that then. Glad I missed it.

Do you at least get 2 Golden Orbs after beating them?

 

[Ghulgothas]

Is the Carian Knight sword any good? I know one of the builds I want to play with is a Mage Knight kitted out in full Carian regalia, but I dunno if that swords a good investment when the estoc and Dark Moon Greatsword are available.

 

[Lutte]

I wouldn't know, I'm not ashamed to say, I walked, saw the other tree spirit pop up, bugged out.

 

[Ysaye]

Is the Carian Knight sword any good? I know one of the builds I want to play with is a Mage Knight kitted out in full Carian regalia, but I dunno if that swords a good investment when the estoc and Dark Moon Greatsword are available.

I am using the Carian Knight sword with my "pure" mage build (ie. I have been gunning for the Int hard cap), and it is pretty good as a utility weapon, low attribute requirements, fast animation and little cost stamina wise, plus it has one of the magic greatsword attacks as it's in built weapon art L2 attack, which can be situationally useful as well. My main 'weapon" though is the swift glintstone shard, which is super fast and cheap.

I think though that if I was going to play more a hybrid role, I would tempted more by the crystal sword which scales better and has even better attacks, or the DMGS. I would also in hindsight if I was doing that cultivate a blunt weapon as well, because as a mage you will want to beat a number of the crystallian foes to get some of the good spells, and the three on one battles would clearly be much easier with one.

 

[perfectslumbers]

Elden Ring has really improved my view of DS2 and DS3 in retrospect, at least they aren't open world

 

[Lyric Suite]

Meh, Margaret was a let down this time around:



I wasn't even trying since i expected to die on my first couple attempts (i suicided myself so i didn't have to record the intro, that's why there are runes in there), but instead he went down like a bitch.

Ho well, moving on to Stormveil!

 

[mediocrepoet]

I would throw the crystalian in the trash list, they're obnoxious because there's three of them ( in certain instances ) BUT, if you remove the gank, they're individually weak sauce with a very limited moveset, so either way, you can't really fix this, it's garbage all the way down.
Crucible Knight is top tier and its tells are very clear, what is your issue with it? It was one of the most enjoyable boss fights for me, along with the assassins.

Attacks all the time and has too much defense to trade hits and too much poise to stagger. It was a nightmare with a slow weapon. With parrying shield I had little damage, with dual greatswords I couldn't land a hit. Also, one of the bosses that had input reading (another issue I forgot to mention earlier). I had PTSD when I saw one approaching.

Crystalines, I don't know, I liked them the first time because after the initial despair (how I deal with with this?), the relief was memorable.

Eh, you can stagger crucible knights and crystalians are weak to certain damage types and laughably weak to certain weapon arts.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Elden Ring has really improved my view of DS2 and DS3 in retrospect, at least they aren't open world

DS3 is probably still my least favourite Souls game, but Elden Ring is a serious contender.

It is debatable whether the strong point of DS3 (bosses) is better than Elden Ring's strong points (exploration, variety and discovery), simply because ER has so much repetition. ER made me question the strengths of Souls in general - I no longer think combat is one of its strong suits. It hasn't been for a long time and in my opinion needs a revamp, badly. Sekiro was a step in the right direction but then it's another kind of game altogether. ER itself introduced a cool element with guard counters (I think the best mechanical contribution to the entire series), but it simply isn't enough and designing enemies around roll spam leads to annoying gimmicks.

The weak points of DS3 (low-effort fanservice areas and NPCs recycled from previous games, extreme linearity, boring levels with few exceptions) aren't as bad as ER's (spazzy helicopter fights, ludicrous levels of copypasta in both areas and enemies, mostly boring and formulaic open world).

However, this strictly analytical perspective doesn't paint a full picture as I still had much more fun in my first 40 hours of ER than I had with the entirety of DS3, and I consider ER a good game despite all its flaws. I can only hope From doesn't dismiss valid criticism and can refine some aspects to make the sequel better in important areas (tighter, smaller world and more varied combat scenarios). However, given the game's incredible success and how conservative From is in regards to design, I think that's a hard thing to achieve.

 

[Tyranicon]

Meh, Margaret was a let down this time around

Watching someone else play gracefully. Meanwhile, me just face tanking everything on ng+ because of overleveling.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Meh, Margaret was a let down this time around

Watching someone else play gracefully. Meanwhile, me just face tanking everything on ng+ because of overleveling.

This is true for NG even, it's never been easier to just grind away and overcome challenges through sheer brute force than in this game. Any significant challenge is self-imposed at this point. Perhaps this is part of why ER is so popular. I honestly didn't think I was a better player by the end of the game, and that's always a bad sign. The game didn't force me to get better at all.

 

[Lutte]

Elden Ring has really improved my view of DS2 and DS3 in retrospect, at least they aren't open world

DS3 is probably still my least favourite Souls game, but Elden Ring is a serious contender.

I'll sum my own feelings like this : while I felt severely disappointed by the shitshow that was DS3 level and encounter design, wide open areas, infinite swamp work etc, I liked the bosses enough to do multiple pseudo speedruns (ie not competitive levels but really focusing on running from boss to boss not paying attention to anything else) of the game.

While, after the patch fixed arcane scaling in Elden Ring, a part of me was feeling "I'd like to try this" another part of me just can't even bear the thought of inflicting that game onto myself once more.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Elden Ring has really improved my view of DS2 and DS3 in retrospect, at least they aren't open world

DS3 is probably still my least favourite Souls game, but Elden Ring is a serious contender.

I'll sum my own feelings like this : while I felt severely disappointed by the shitshow that was DS3 level and encounter design, wide open areas, infinite swamp work etc, I liked the bosses enough to do multiple pseudo speedruns (ie not competitive levels but really focusing on running from boss to boss not paying attention to anything else) of the game.

While, after the patch fixed arcane scaling in Elden Ring, a part of me was feeling "I'd like to try this" another part of me just can't even bear the thought of inflicting that game onto myself once more.

After the patch I loaded my game up, upgraded rivers of blood to +10, respecced to 70 arcane and went to test the weapon at Zamor ruins against those frostbite mobs. Came out massively underwhelmed and confirmed Moonveil is still much better, didn't touch it again.

 

[Lutte]

Elden Ring has really improved my view of DS2 and DS3 in retrospect, at least they aren't open world

DS3 is probably still my least favourite Souls game, but Elden Ring is a serious contender.

I'll sum my own feelings like this : while I felt severely disappointed by the shitshow that was DS3 level and encounter design, wide open areas, infinite swamp work etc, I liked the bosses enough to do multiple pseudo speedruns (ie not competitive levels but really focusing on running from boss to boss not paying attention to anything else) of the game.

While, after the patch fixed arcane scaling in Elden Ring, a part of me was feeling "I'd like to try this" another part of me just can't even bear the thought of inflicting that game onto myself once more.

After the patch I loaded my game up, upgraded rivers of blood to +10, respecced to 70 arcane and went to test the weapon at Zamor ruins against those frostbite mobs. Came out massively underwhelmed and confirmed Moonveil is still much better, didn't touch it again.

It was just about the idea of having fun with other builds (and there's more than river of blood to an arcane setup, plus the fun rot spells etc). I mean, it's something I've done with all souls games. In the case of DS2, I ran the entire game once with pretty much any viable build or weapon setup you can imagine viable. Ultra greatswords, katanas, rapiers, sorcerer, dark magic, lightning spear spammer, I've done it all.

Elden Ring? eh, uh, no.

 

[Tyranicon]

This is true for NG even, it's never been easier to just grind away and overcome challenges through sheer brute force than in this game. Any significant challenge is self-imposed at this point. Perhaps this is part of why ER is so popular. I honestly didn't think I was a better player by the end of the game, and that's always a bad sign. The game didn't force me to get better at all.

Using less-optimized weapons/spells, and not running spirit ashes is probably the way to go.

Also, apparently Mally's Black Blade is one of the worst weapons in the game? I don't think it's that bad....

 

[perfectslumbers]

I no longer think combat is one of its strong suits.

I agree with everything you said, but I think the combat in Elden Ring is great, maybe the best out of any action RPG I've played, the issue is the enemies. Most action games give the player a wide variety of flashy moves and combos to pull off, the Souls games give you simple movesets but the fun is in the enemy design and placement. Elden Ring has the worst bosses, the most samey enemies, and the least amount of handcrafted enemy placements in the series. I think the combat would still be great if that wasn't the case.

While, after the patch fixed arcane scaling in Elden Ring, a part of me was feeling "I'd like to try this" another part of me just can't even bear the thought of inflicting that game onto myself once more.

Same, it's a shame since Elden Ring has so much more weapon and spell variety than the other games, but is terrible to replay.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Ok, wtf. I'm doing some co-op in Stormveil, and three times i get summoned to help against that guy inside the room you get locked into, and all three times i can't hit him or hurt him, but he can hurt me. I could kill regular mobs fine in all three instances but not that guy.

What gives? Known bug?

 

[HumanTotemPole]

Is the Carian Knight sword any good? I know one of the builds I want to play with is a Mage Knight kitted out in full Carian regalia, but I dunno if that swords a good investment when the estoc and Dark Moon Greatsword are available.

I am using the Carian Knight sword with my "pure" mage build (ie. I have been gunning for the Int hard cap), and it is pretty good as a utility weapon, low attribute requirements, fast animation and little cost stamina wise, plus it has one of the magic greatsword attacks as it's in built weapon art L2 attack, which can be situationally useful as well.

Agree with this, used it for a while myself. Best used as a utility pick early/mid game. It uses somber stones - easier, cheaper upgrades before you start getting miner's bells. Other options available later on.