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

[Old Hans]

I thought mini dungeons were ok. Most of them had some sort of unique gimmick that made playing through them fun at least once. They could have had more varied enemies and more unique bosses. Eg. how about a dungeon that gets filled up with water/lava/rot/poison and you are under time pressure to complete it. Or the boss room is altered. Eg. floor has spike traps forcing you to move more. Some of the bosses were also completely recycled (wolf of radagon, tree spirit worm etc.). They could have at least randomized enemies in NG+.

yea I feel like the crypts, mines and caves can be a leading cause of burn out. started feeling like I did after playing too much Oblivion and seeing my 40th Ayleid Ruin

 

[Bigg Boss]

Most of them had some sort of unique gimmick that made playing through them fun at least once.

I don't remember that at all. The only "unique gimmick" I remember were the ones with shadow enemies that you had to lead into light. I guess there was the spike wheel things. Those were just annoying.

I agree with everything else you said tho.

Edit

Fuck I think I missed some of the divine towers on my first playthrough. How tf did I manage that?

You rushed due to all these guys making you feel like you had to do things a certain way.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Good video.

 

[SumDrunkGuy]

Most of them had some sort of unique gimmick that made playing through them fun at least once.

I don't remember that at all. The only "unique gimmick" I remember were the ones with shadow enemies that you had to lead into light. I guess there was the spike wheel things. Those were just annoying.

I agree with everything else you said tho.

Edit

Fuck I think I missed some of the divine towers on my first playthrough. How tf did I manage that?

You rushed due to all these guys making you feel like you had to do things a certain way.

Fuck no. I rushed because I was overpowered and was pretty much smashing everything except for the final few bosses. Game started getting boring. Also I was anxious to get duplicates of certain weapons like the Ruin Sword.

If I was trying to cheese the game like a little bitch I wouldn't have been using two colossal swords. I would have used katanas and other gay shit.

 

[Kjaska]

The worst bosses were them weird cat things that had like 5 frames of animation

I thought that at first as well.

Then I encountered the Ulcerated Turd Spirit. Twice.

 

[ELEXmakesMeHard]

Ulcerated Sperg Spirit is 100% the most annoying boss type. They're just too big, and often in cramped spaces, while sperging out. Too chaotic, often hard to tell what's going on. Feels like I'm YOLO'ing them much of the time.

 

[Lyric Suite]

The things i do for you guys:

 

[Old Hans]

The things i do for you guys:

they have another one these boss battles? with three this time? cooooooome onnnnnnnnnn

 

[perfectslumbers]

https://www.nexusmods.com/eldenring/mods/541 Mod that rebalances the entire game, pretty early in development but it looks very promising. Gonna go back to Elden Ring and try it with this

Here's the entire list of changes https://docs.google.com/document/d/...-GOdpIS-_QEBpeLHY/edit#heading=h.qzabx1f5zaia

 

[throwaway69420]

Game done. Level 1, no armor, no online. (Subtract 40 hours of playtime for idling)

I rate it a 6/10. Here's my rant, allow me to shout at the sky in rage like Radahn:

Great, massive amount of content, player builds and control is best yet, beautiful world and aesthetic, but every single combat encounter whether it's trash mobs, bosses, open world or dungeon, is awful. Worst of the series BY FAR. Perfect tracking enemy attacks (I've seen attacks where an enemy bursts forward in a straight line make literal 90 degree right-angle turns on a dime, Melania in this case if you're wondering), massive invisible hitboxes, and THE single worst aspect of this game...

EVERY attack animation is a feint that looks and feels unnatural to react to without having memorized when the actual swing comes out. Weirdly slow wind-up>slight bit of movement to make players dodge, thinking the attack is coming>2-frame swing a quarter of a second later to punish you for behaving like a rational player>YOU DIED. There is nothing you can do, your brain cannot send the nervous impulse to your fingers to press the dodge button before you will get hit by these insanely fast swings. This turns EVERY SINGLE COMBAT ENCOUNTER into trial-and-error memorization. I am going to wring the neck of the next FromSoft cocksucker that says this game, and any game following Elden Ring's combat design philosophy, takes skill, or that there is nothing wrong with their fake difficulty 'gotcha' philosophy dogshit design. There is nothing skillful about repeating bosses until you memorize their intentionally obtuse move timings. Anyone can do it. It's not fun, engaging, rewarding, skillful, or special.

Most people won't understand what I'm talking about, because as I've realized from my first playthrough, at level 1, is that From Soft designed this game around people leveling up to ignore their bad game design. If you played through this game normally, hitting over level 100 by endgame, do a level 1 playthrough, or I personally feel you really are not qualified to discuss whether the encounters were good or not when you weren't really experiencing their core design in the first place.

Also, I tried to play without a guide but this game is fucking miserable without one and I reneged on this about halfway through. Items are placed totally without thought throughout the world, and proper in-game hints and indicators of where content is tucked away are hit-and-miss AT BEST. Bell bearings are probably the best example of this. Also, caves and catacombs are so well tucked away it's like From didn't want players to experience the content. For any new player in the future, I will be recommending a 100% non-spoiler guide or at least a fully-marked map on their second monitor. I feel the game is actually worse without a guide, UNLESS you are committed to 120+ hours of 100% exploring the map, which will require you to spend hours running around and not doing anything engaging while you search for content to partake in.

For the shit combat design, which is the bread and butter of these games, I subtract 3 points, and for the fact that in a game about exploration, the act of exploring is not fun nor are the items placed logically in a way you can naturally find them without combing the entire map, takes away another point. There is so much good left in the game however, that it deserves higher than a break-even 5/10 and so it lands on the aforementioned 6/10. A solid, good game, but NOT great.

Also Millicent best girl, Ranni a shit.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

A good spot to farm runes mid-game: just north of Sellia there is a grace bonfire in a shack, with a trader next to it. The plateau in front of it has those mutated rotten dogs, each one dropping 1800 runes, at least 7-8 of them near the shack. And once you get their patterns down, they are pretty easy to farm safely.

 

[Bigg Boss]

Game done. Level 1, no armor, no online. (Subtract 40 hours of playtime for idling)

I rate it a 6/10. Here's my rant, allow me to shout at the sky in rage like Radahn:

Great, massive amount of content, player builds and control is best yet, beautiful world and aesthetic, but every single combat encounter whether it's trash mobs, bosses, open world or dungeon, is awful. Worst of the series BY FAR. Perfect tracking enemy attacks (I've seen attacks where an enemy bursts forward in a straight line make literal 90 degree right-angle turns on a dime, Melania in this case if you're wondering), massive invisible hitboxes, and THE single worst aspect of this game...

EVERY attack animation is a feint that looks and feels unnatural to react to without having memorized when the actual swing comes out. Weirdly slow wind-up>slight bit of movement to make players dodge, thinking the attack is coming>2-frame swing a quarter of a second later to punish you for behaving like a rational player>YOU DIED. There is nothing you can do, your brain cannot send the nervous impulse to your fingers to press the dodge button before you will get hit by these insanely fast swings. This turns EVERY SINGLE COMBAT ENCOUNTER into trial-and-error memorization. I am going to wring the neck of the next FromSoft cocksucker that says this game, and any game following Elden Ring's combat design philosophy, takes skill, or that there is nothing wrong with their fake difficulty 'gotcha' philosophy dogshit design. There is nothing skillful about repeating bosses until you memorize their intentionally obtuse move timings. Anyone can do it. It's not fun, engaging, rewarding, skillful, or special.

Most people won't understand what I'm talking about, because as I've realized from my first playthrough, at level 1, is that From Soft designed this game around people leveling up to ignore their bad game design. If you played through this game normally, hitting over level 100 by endgame, do a level 1 playthrough, or I personally feel you really are not qualified to discuss whether the encounters were good or not when you weren't really experiencing their core design in the first place.

Also, I tried to play without a guide but this game is fucking miserable without one and I reneged on this about halfway through. Items are placed totally without thought throughout the world, and proper in-game hints and indicators of where content is tucked away are hit-and-miss AT BEST. Bell bearings are probably the best example of this. Also, caves and catacombs are so well tucked away it's like From didn't want players to experience the content. For any new player in the future, I will be recommending a 100% non-spoiler guide or at least a fully-marked map on their second monitor. I feel the game is actually worse without a guide, UNLESS you are committed to 120+ hours of 100% exploring the map, which will require you to spend hours running around and not doing anything engaging while you search for content to partake in.

For the shit combat design, which is the bread and butter of these games, I subtract 3 points, and for the fact that in a game about exploration, the act of exploring is not fun nor are the items placed logically in a way you can naturally find them without combing the entire map, takes away another point. There is so much good left in the game however, that it deserves higher than a break-even 5/10 and so it lands on the aforementioned 6/10. A solid, good game, but NOT great.

Also Millicent best girl, Ranni a shit.

Jesus Christ.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

... but every single combat encounter whether it's trash mobs, bosses, open world or dungeon, is awful. Worst of the series BY FAR. Perfect tracking enemy attacks (I've seen attacks where an enemy bursts forward in a straight line make literal 90 degree right-angle turns on a dime, Melania in this case if you're wondering), massive invisible hitboxes, and THE single worst aspect of this game...

EVERY attack animation is a feint that looks and feels unnatural to react to without having memorized when the actual swing comes out. Weirdly slow wind-up>slight bit of movement to make players dodge, thinking the attack is coming>2-frame swing a quarter of a second later to punish you for behaving like a rational player>YOU DIED. There is nothing you can do, your brain cannot send the nervous impulse to your fingers to press the dodge button before you will get hit by these insanely fast swings. This turns EVERY SINGLE COMBAT ENCOUNTER into trial-and-error memorization. I am going to wring the neck of the next FromSoft cocksucker that says this game, and any game following Elden Ring's combat design philosophy, takes skill, or that there is nothing wrong with their fake difficulty 'gotcha' philosophy dogshit design. There is nothing skillful about repeating bosses until you memorize their intentionally obtuse move timings. Anyone can do it. It's not fun, engaging, rewarding, skillful, or special.

I've been saying this for weeks.

Really trash combat by good aRPG combat standards. Sad that FS abandoned good combat principles for the sake of contrived difficulty.

 

[ELEXmakesMeHard]

Any idea what caused the death of Goldmask? Maybe he just lost his reason to live once he'd created the Mending Rune of Perfect Order, and collapsed. Otherwise, maybe killed by Gideon Ofnir.

 

[Strange Fellow]

If you played through this game normally, hitting over level 100 by endgame, do a level 1 playthrough, or I personally feel you really are not qualified to discuss whether the encounters were good or not when you weren't really experiencing their core design in the first place.

lol

 

[Lyric Suite]

The things i do for you guys:

they have another one these boss battles? with three this time? cooooooome onnnnnnnnnn

I think once they introduced the ash mechanics they figured they'd design some bosses to be impossible without them.

Little did they know some assholes out there would try to solo them for e-peen cred lul.

 

[SumDrunkGuy]

Game done. Level 1, no armor, no online. (Subtract 40 hours of playtime for idling)

I rate it a 6/10. Here's my rant, allow me to shout at the sky in rage like Radahn:

Great, massive amount of content, player builds and control is best yet, beautiful world and aesthetic, but every single combat encounter whether it's trash mobs, bosses, open world or dungeon, is awful. Worst of the series BY FAR. Perfect tracking enemy attacks (I've seen attacks where an enemy bursts forward in a straight line make literal 90 degree right-angle turns on a dime, Melania in this case if you're wondering), massive invisible hitboxes, and THE single worst aspect of this game...

EVERY attack animation is a feint that looks and feels unnatural to react to without having memorized when the actual swing comes out. Weirdly slow wind-up>slight bit of movement to make players dodge, thinking the attack is coming>2-frame swing a quarter of a second later to punish you for behaving like a rational player>YOU DIED. There is nothing you can do, your brain cannot send the nervous impulse to your fingers to press the dodge button before you will get hit by these insanely fast swings. This turns EVERY SINGLE COMBAT ENCOUNTER into trial-and-error memorization. I am going to wring the neck of the next FromSoft cocksucker that says this game, and any game following Elden Ring's combat design philosophy, takes skill, or that there is nothing wrong with their fake difficulty 'gotcha' philosophy dogshit design. There is nothing skillful about repeating bosses until you memorize their intentionally obtuse move timings. Anyone can do it. It's not fun, engaging, rewarding, skillful, or special.

Most people won't understand what I'm talking about, because as I've realized from my first playthrough, at level 1, is that From Soft designed this game around people leveling up to ignore their bad game design. If you played through this game normally, hitting over level 100 by endgame, do a level 1 playthrough, or I personally feel you really are not qualified to discuss whether the encounters were good or not when you weren't really experiencing their core design in the first place.

Also, I tried to play without a guide but this game is fucking miserable without one and I reneged on this about halfway through. Items are placed totally without thought throughout the world, and proper in-game hints and indicators of where content is tucked away are hit-and-miss AT BEST. Bell bearings are probably the best example of this. Also, caves and catacombs are so well tucked away it's like From didn't want players to experience the content. For any new player in the future, I will be recommending a 100% non-spoiler guide or at least a fully-marked map on their second monitor. I feel the game is actually worse without a guide, UNLESS you are committed to 120+ hours of 100% exploring the map, which will require you to spend hours running around and not doing anything engaging while you search for content to partake in.

For the shit combat design, which is the bread and butter of these games, I subtract 3 points, and for the fact that in a game about exploration, the act of exploring is not fun nor are the items placed logically in a way you can naturally find them without combing the entire map, takes away another point. There is so much good left in the game however, that it deserves higher than a break-even 5/10 and so it lands on the aforementioned 6/10. A solid, good game, but NOT great.

Also Millicent best girl, Ranni a shit.

I am completely unimpressed. The only thing this proves is you're a pathetic loser with no life. Congratulations!

 

[perfectslumbers]

I am completely unimpressed. The only thing this proves is you're a pathetic loser with no life. Congratulations!

Elden Ring shills when someone is bad at the game "Lol, git gud bro. You say you don't like the game but you clearly just don't have the skill required to enjoy all the complex movesets!"

Elden Ring shills when someone is good at the game "What a pathetic no life loser. Maybe you'd enjoy the game if you lighten up and use some summons!"

 

[Kjaska]

Game done. Level 1, no armor, no online. (Subtract 40 hours of playtime for idling)

I rate it a 6/10. Here's my rant, allow me to shout at the sky in rage like Radahn:

Great, massive amount of content, player builds and control is best yet, beautiful world and aesthetic, but every single combat encounter whether it's trash mobs, bosses, open world or dungeon, is awful. Worst of the series BY FAR. Perfect tracking enemy attacks (I've seen attacks where an enemy bursts forward in a straight line make literal 90 degree right-angle turns on a dime, Melania in this case if you're wondering), massive invisible hitboxes, and THE single worst aspect of this game...

EVERY attack animation is a feint that looks and feels unnatural to react to without having memorized when the actual swing comes out. Weirdly slow wind-up>slight bit of movement to make players dodge, thinking the attack is coming>2-frame swing a quarter of a second later to punish you for behaving like a rational player>YOU DIED. There is nothing you can do, your brain cannot send the nervous impulse to your fingers to press the dodge button before you will get hit by these insanely fast swings. This turns EVERY SINGLE COMBAT ENCOUNTER into trial-and-error memorization. I am going to wring the neck of the next FromSoft cocksucker that says this game, and any game following Elden Ring's combat design philosophy, takes skill, or that there is nothing wrong with their fake difficulty 'gotcha' philosophy dogshit design. There is nothing skillful about repeating bosses until you memorize their intentionally obtuse move timings. Anyone can do it. It's not fun, engaging, rewarding, skillful, or special.

Most people won't understand what I'm talking about, because as I've realized from my first playthrough, at level 1, is that From Soft designed this game around people leveling up to ignore their bad game design. If you played through this game normally, hitting over level 100 by endgame, do a level 1 playthrough, or I personally feel you really are not qualified to discuss whether the encounters were good or not when you weren't really experiencing their core design in the first place.

Also, I tried to play without a guide but this game is fucking miserable without one and I reneged on this about halfway through. Items are placed totally without thought throughout the world, and proper in-game hints and indicators of where content is tucked away are hit-and-miss AT BEST. Bell bearings are probably the best example of this. Also, caves and catacombs are so well tucked away it's like From didn't want players to experience the content. For any new player in the future, I will be recommending a 100% non-spoiler guide or at least a fully-marked map on their second monitor. I feel the game is actually worse without a guide, UNLESS you are committed to 120+ hours of 100% exploring the map, which will require you to spend hours running around and not doing anything engaging while you search for content to partake in.

For the shit combat design, which is the bread and butter of these games, I subtract 3 points, and for the fact that in a game about exploration, the act of exploring is not fun nor are the items placed logically in a way you can naturally find them without combing the entire map, takes away another point. There is so much good left in the game however, that it deserves higher than a break-even 5/10 and so it lands on the aforementioned 6/10. A solid, good game, but NOT great.

Also Millicent best girl, Ranni a shit.

I think you're an autistic masochist to play the game the way you did it, but I must agree with most of your arguments. Especially the unnatural movesets of the enemies are what made me mald the most. It just feels so cheap and instantly takes you out of the game. You're not thinking about the boss, your character, the story or the environment anymore. You're just thinking of the faggot ass nigger cunt that decided to implement this moveset.

Ranni is better than Millicent, because she doesn't cuck herself for "m'lady Malenia", plays 4D chess against the Greater Will and its vassals, has 4 hands and has a much better resolution to her quest.

 

[Kjaska]

Any idea what caused the death of Goldmask? Maybe he just lost his reason to live once he'd created the Mending Rune of Perfect Order, and collapsed. Otherwise, maybe killed by Gideon Ofnir.

FroSo's quest design.

 

[Ysaye]

The things i do for you guys:

I have had no issues with Cats, rotten tree spirits, Crucible knights...but the three putrid crystalians drove me a bit crazy - the number of times I was trying to do something before the spear one stuck his spear in my face and then the mage one started doing his next set of wide range spray and then I had scarlet rot *sigh*...... What I learnt was that Mists of Nokron or whatever that AOE spell though is good against them if you can just keep them rounded up in the centre.

 

[Kjaska]

The things i do for you guys:

they have another one these boss battles? with three this time? cooooooome onnnnnnnnnn

There is also an area with three Ulcerated Turd Spirits as well.

 

[SumDrunkGuy]

I am completely unimpressed. The only thing this proves is you're a pathetic loser with no life. Congratulations!

Elden Ring shills when someone is bad at the game "Lol, git gud bro. You say you don't like the game but you clearly just don't have the skill required to enjoy all the complex movesets!"

Elden Ring shills when someone is good at the game "What a pathetic no life loser. Maybe you'd enjoy the game if you lighten up and use some summons!"

I've posted my skillz son. My skillz are scary.

 

[Andnjord]

Welp, Malenia drove me to break my vow and for the first time since the abortive trial against Draconic Tree Sentinel (we got ganked by an invader then I got gud), I swallowed my pride, used a Furlcalling Finger Remedy and summoned two bros. THEN I procedeed to die two more times before succeeding, death by Waterfowl obviously. That was dumb, because by that point I had learned to avoid it quite reliably, or at least to only take minimal damage from it. The third and winning try was actually kinda hilarious, we were all spamming Swarm of Flies (really strong spell, shame I only discovered it now) and the constant bleed procs kept stunlocking her into MOAR swarms of flies, Bleed still OP even without a build for it. Bitch got humiliated and I don't even feel bad about it.

As penance though, I spent the next hour sunbroing in front of her. Out of the dozen or so attempts, only two succeeded; the amount of times I saw a host get gibbed by her Blooming orbital nuke (the one she starts the second phase with) or walk around with less than a 1000 hp was really shocking to me. But penance was had nonetheless, now onto the final bosses. At least she's supposed to be the strongest boss in the game, so it should be easier now, right? Right?

 

[Lutte]

now onto the final bosses. At least she's supposed to be the strongest boss in the game, so it should be easier now, right? Right?

I felt the end bosses were significantly easier, BUT.
After playing the game on multiple NG+ runs, I have a much more mixed opinion on the Elden Beast. It can get far, far more retarded than Malenia, depending on his combos, it's all about RNG, and how fast you burn him, on my first run, I staggered him many times, did good damage and I had good RNG (Elden Beast is the boss with the biggest variety of moveset in this game, RNG really, really matters in this fight because some moves are so much worse than others). On my last run, I was running with a more moderate build, my damage was average and I had RNG that gave me attack combos that are impossible to avoid. You read that right, impossible to avoid.

He's got a spell that is a tracking orb that no amount of sprinting away or dodging can stop from occasionally doing chip damage to you and slight staggers. Slight staggers that will stop you from dodging at the right timings when you need it, because that spell lingers for a long while and the boss can continue to attack you WHILE that tracking orb is moving around. Genius! Might run very close to low stamina while fleeing from the orb too. and some of Elden Beast's attacks are among the fastest of the game, he has two variants to his ranged sword swings, one of the variants is extremely fast. Some of those combos can throw so much shit on the screen that it is hard to see what he's going to do next too. And chasing him while he constantly runs away from you gets really tiresome.

I once got triple comboed. The tracking orb, the AoE circles you need to jump over (which I failed to jump because the tracking orb hit me) before an explosion occurs, and then his fastest sword swings when he came back down. Whoever designed this is worse than satan's butthole.

-666/10. Dumbest thing ever made by Fromsoft.