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From Software Elden Ring - From Software's new game with writing by GRRM
- Thread starter HoboForEternity
- Start date
I got the ash of war for haglitree soldiers. It is said they dont even know their lord basically put jihad Bombs inside them. I thought miquella is one of the more benevolent/ mentally stable deity in the series, turned out he is just as crazy as everyone else.
IMHO, Miquella feels a lot like Griffith. Described to have eternal youth and androgynous looks (from St Trina's sword : "St. Trina is an enigmatic figure. Some say she is a comely young girl, others are sure he is a boy."), charms all the people he meets, has a singular obsession and would put aside anything else to achieve it, his powers are even related to obsession with dreams.
Benevolent my arse.
It's too bad a huge amount of the cut content was related to him, particularly the part about his identity as St Trina and dreams you'd capture or invade.
Still a possibility for DLC content, he's not dead, he's slumbering.
Manjuice Nutella
Arcane
You often get one shotted even in regular NG later on. I have no idea how something like NG+2 would work, probably just 0 mistakes allowed.
Wunderbar
Arcane
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2015
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- 8,825
Lyric Suite
Converting to Islam
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2006
- Messages
- 58,301
Well, killed the Gargyoles lul. Uploading video as we speak.
Should i go back to Ranni to hand over the knife before proceeding through the Deeproot Depths and meet Fia?
Should i go back to Ranni to hand over the knife before proceeding through the Deeproot Depths and meet Fia?
Lyric Suite
Converting to Islam
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2006
- Messages
- 58,301
There you go, watch me run around in a panic for 14 minutes lmao:
Had to burn through a few Rune Arcs as i was tired of getting one shotted by random RNG bullshit.
Had to burn through a few Rune Arcs as i was tired of getting one shotted by random RNG bullshit.
Child of Malkav
Erudite
The proper way to fight these bosses:
perfectslumbers
Arbiter
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2021
- Messages
- 1,202
Nah I've been to ng+4 and it was fine with 60 vigor, as long as you don't wear talismans that reduce armour reduction and don't run around in rags. It makes RL1 tough though since 2/3rds through the game you get one tapped by every enemy, this can be solved with the talisman that increases defense at max hp, hp boosting gear/talismans, and rune arcs though.
Andnjord
Arcane
Don't think I've seen you ever looking that scared during a boss fight even when there was only one gargoyle left.
Lyric Suite
Converting to Islam
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- Mar 23, 2006
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- 58,301
Don't think I've seen you ever looking that scared during a boss fight even when there was only one gargoyle left.
It's because i had no idea what his move set was. I faced him only a couple of times so i had to make sure i understood what he was doing before going on the offensive.
I also had to be sure not to run into rocks again lmao.
Monstrous Bat
Cipher
- Joined
- Dec 30, 2011
- Messages
- 638
Finished the game at level 170. I'll preface this by saying that this is the first single-player game I played that made me wanting more even after 100 hours. This may sound like a dazzling endorsement and it probably is, but I do have my rather big share of gripes with the game:
- Too much copypasted content. I thought a lot about this during my playthrough, and now I believe it is an inherent problem with the open world formula. There's only so much content a studio can realistically put into a single game, and in the attempt to create a massive game world, they invariably resort to copypasting a lot of stuff. The reason why copypasting is so cancerous is that not only does it make the player yawn the third of fourth time they fight the same boss, but that it also retroactively cheapens the FIRST encounter. It undermines the mysterious nature of the game world, making it feel artificial, even formularic. I've always had the belief that open world is inherently bad design and Elden Ring reaffirms this.
- It doesn't have level scaling, which is good. Unfortunately it does have area scaling, which is very nearly as bad. Nothing ruins the sense of progression like discovering that fucking skeleton in Mountaintops of the Giants has like 10 times the stat of the same monster in Limgrave. Worst offender is the Dragonbarrow, where every monster has about 2.5 times the stat as their brethens in Caelid - literally a fucking street across.
- The narrative kinda jumps the shark after Mountaintops of the Giants. Whereas the story made at least some sense up to this point, after this they kind of stopped even trying. You do a thing, get teleported to some place for some reason, do another thing, get teleported again for no reason, then fight some bosses who seem to have no tangible motivation. The closer you get to the end, the less sense the story makes. From's story had always been vague, but usually not so vague as to be incomprehensible. This sucks because the storytelling is actually quite decent for the first half of the game.
- Boss design is a stepdown compared to Sekiro and even DS3. Humanoid bosses spam 360 degree attacks and do nonsensical cancels, while monstrous bosses block your camera and can't be locked on. It's amazing that, in a game with so many bosses, there are maybe two I would consider as being as good as Midir.
- The game also suffers from pretty much all the itemization issues of earlier games, such as upgrade material discoraging you from trying out new stuff, and things you acquire early on overshadowing cool and rare tools you get later in the game.
Despite all the issues, however, I enjoyed most of my 150 hours in the game. I think it did a lot of things very well:
- The game balance, I think, is actually very, very well done. From unapolegetically filled the game with a vast array of (often very frustrating) challenges, but also provided you with the tools you need to overcome them. More than any of its predecessors, Elden Ring encourages you to think and examine your options. There are a lot of things in the game that, at first glance, appear to be straight-up bad design; but then - sometimes after painstakingly bruteforcing your way through the obstacle - you look more closely at your options and realize you had the right tools all along. The instakill chariots in tombs are obnoxious, but there's a craftable item that allows you to facetank a hit from them. Losing runes from dying is infuriating, but there are many options - some renewable - that let you circumvent this mechanic. There's an area that is literally crawling with dozens of basilisks, but there's an item that makes them leave you alone. And although I complained earlier about the bosses being badly designed, it should be noted that there are always ways - many ways - to beat them; all you need is to find the right tools. And when you do figure out the right tools to deal with a problem, it feels enormously satisfying. Such a design philosophy was almost unseen in modern AAA games, but Elden Ring embraced it. I think this is also why so many people felt frustrated by the game - From's previous games allowed, and even encouraged, players to overcome challenges by persisting and keep banging their heads on the obstacle until they master it, but Elden Ring punishes you much harder for adopting this approach. This is, perhaps, why the game is so divisive for people who are familiar with From's games, but personally I loved it.
- The level design of legacy dungeons. This had always been From's forte, but I think Elden Ring was on par with, if not better than, any of its predecessors. I loved pretty much all of the legacy dungeons, from Stormveil to Leyndell, from the underworld to the Haligtree, every single of them. Only Farum Azula was somewhat weak and even then it's not that bad. Massive, mysterious levels filled with secrets wonderful and horrifying, these dungeons are stunning visually and gameplay-wise. I think Elden Ring is, to this date, the best AAA RPG to capture the the feeling of epic fantasy adventure, with its vast range of strange and gorgeous environments. Even some of the mini-dungeons were good; I liked all of the Hero's Graves, and I laughed my ass off when I realized From took the oldest trick of DOS-era dungeon crawler and put it in a fucking AAA open world RPG released in 2022. Hard to not respect that.
- The open world has some good things about it. First off, it's not that large. It's still large - too large - but it's closer to the scale of Might and Magic 6-8, where it's still realistically conceivable to explore everything, than actual massive behemoths like the Elder Scrolls or BotW. Secondly, it's less of a huge open field and more of a series of very loosely connected levels of uneven design quality. I still don't like it, but I hate it less than I do most of the open world games on the market. My favorite open world region is Mount Gelmir because, ironically, it's neither very large nor very open. (I loved the underworlds, but I wouldn't even consider them open world.)
- Vast array of character builds. With so many weapons, spells and ashes available, trying out stuff is a lot of fun. Really happy that they reintroduced power stance, too.
Overall, I found Elden Ring a very enjoyable and challenging game, and would say it's on par with if not better than any of the souls games. I'd still rate it below Sekiro, though these games are such polar opposites it feels a bit silly to compare them. One thing that is undeniable is that it's Dark Souls 4 in all but name, so if you had played another souls recently you could get burned out rather quickly. And no, it will not be as fun as your first souls. A souls veteran coming in expecting something groundbreaking will be disappointed. On the other hand, if you want a solid, challenging RPG with a lot of content, then Elden Ring is a pretty decent pick.
- Too much copypasted content. I thought a lot about this during my playthrough, and now I believe it is an inherent problem with the open world formula. There's only so much content a studio can realistically put into a single game, and in the attempt to create a massive game world, they invariably resort to copypasting a lot of stuff. The reason why copypasting is so cancerous is that not only does it make the player yawn the third of fourth time they fight the same boss, but that it also retroactively cheapens the FIRST encounter. It undermines the mysterious nature of the game world, making it feel artificial, even formularic. I've always had the belief that open world is inherently bad design and Elden Ring reaffirms this.
- It doesn't have level scaling, which is good. Unfortunately it does have area scaling, which is very nearly as bad. Nothing ruins the sense of progression like discovering that fucking skeleton in Mountaintops of the Giants has like 10 times the stat of the same monster in Limgrave. Worst offender is the Dragonbarrow, where every monster has about 2.5 times the stat as their brethens in Caelid - literally a fucking street across.
- The narrative kinda jumps the shark after Mountaintops of the Giants. Whereas the story made at least some sense up to this point, after this they kind of stopped even trying. You do a thing, get teleported to some place for some reason, do another thing, get teleported again for no reason, then fight some bosses who seem to have no tangible motivation. The closer you get to the end, the less sense the story makes. From's story had always been vague, but usually not so vague as to be incomprehensible. This sucks because the storytelling is actually quite decent for the first half of the game.
- Boss design is a stepdown compared to Sekiro and even DS3. Humanoid bosses spam 360 degree attacks and do nonsensical cancels, while monstrous bosses block your camera and can't be locked on. It's amazing that, in a game with so many bosses, there are maybe two I would consider as being as good as Midir.
- The game also suffers from pretty much all the itemization issues of earlier games, such as upgrade material discoraging you from trying out new stuff, and things you acquire early on overshadowing cool and rare tools you get later in the game.
Despite all the issues, however, I enjoyed most of my 150 hours in the game. I think it did a lot of things very well:
- The game balance, I think, is actually very, very well done. From unapolegetically filled the game with a vast array of (often very frustrating) challenges, but also provided you with the tools you need to overcome them. More than any of its predecessors, Elden Ring encourages you to think and examine your options. There are a lot of things in the game that, at first glance, appear to be straight-up bad design; but then - sometimes after painstakingly bruteforcing your way through the obstacle - you look more closely at your options and realize you had the right tools all along. The instakill chariots in tombs are obnoxious, but there's a craftable item that allows you to facetank a hit from them. Losing runes from dying is infuriating, but there are many options - some renewable - that let you circumvent this mechanic. There's an area that is literally crawling with dozens of basilisks, but there's an item that makes them leave you alone. And although I complained earlier about the bosses being badly designed, it should be noted that there are always ways - many ways - to beat them; all you need is to find the right tools. And when you do figure out the right tools to deal with a problem, it feels enormously satisfying. Such a design philosophy was almost unseen in modern AAA games, but Elden Ring embraced it. I think this is also why so many people felt frustrated by the game - From's previous games allowed, and even encouraged, players to overcome challenges by persisting and keep banging their heads on the obstacle until they master it, but Elden Ring punishes you much harder for adopting this approach. This is, perhaps, why the game is so divisive for people who are familiar with From's games, but personally I loved it.
- The level design of legacy dungeons. This had always been From's forte, but I think Elden Ring was on par with, if not better than, any of its predecessors. I loved pretty much all of the legacy dungeons, from Stormveil to Leyndell, from the underworld to the Haligtree, every single of them. Only Farum Azula was somewhat weak and even then it's not that bad. Massive, mysterious levels filled with secrets wonderful and horrifying, these dungeons are stunning visually and gameplay-wise. I think Elden Ring is, to this date, the best AAA RPG to capture the the feeling of epic fantasy adventure, with its vast range of strange and gorgeous environments. Even some of the mini-dungeons were good; I liked all of the Hero's Graves, and I laughed my ass off when I realized From took the oldest trick of DOS-era dungeon crawler and put it in a fucking AAA open world RPG released in 2022. Hard to not respect that.
- The open world has some good things about it. First off, it's not that large. It's still large - too large - but it's closer to the scale of Might and Magic 6-8, where it's still realistically conceivable to explore everything, than actual massive behemoths like the Elder Scrolls or BotW. Secondly, it's less of a huge open field and more of a series of very loosely connected levels of uneven design quality. I still don't like it, but I hate it less than I do most of the open world games on the market. My favorite open world region is Mount Gelmir because, ironically, it's neither very large nor very open. (I loved the underworlds, but I wouldn't even consider them open world.)
- Vast array of character builds. With so many weapons, spells and ashes available, trying out stuff is a lot of fun. Really happy that they reintroduced power stance, too.
Overall, I found Elden Ring a very enjoyable and challenging game, and would say it's on par with if not better than any of the souls games. I'd still rate it below Sekiro, though these games are such polar opposites it feels a bit silly to compare them. One thing that is undeniable is that it's Dark Souls 4 in all but name, so if you had played another souls recently you could get burned out rather quickly. And no, it will not be as fun as your first souls. A souls veteran coming in expecting something groundbreaking will be disappointed. On the other hand, if you want a solid, challenging RPG with a lot of content, then Elden Ring is a pretty decent pick.
Lim-Dûl
Self-Ejected
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2022
- Messages
- 388
Regarding reused bosses, it could have been done much more tastefully, by only reusing bosses that could reasonably exist in multiples in the lore. They reused bosses without enough discrimination, frequently reusing bosses that felt they were supposed to be unique. Still, reusing bosses, no matter how tastefully done, and no matter how much sense it makes sense in the lore, is usually less desirable than unique bosses, since you likely don't learn anything new and interesting about the setting, and they bring to mind boring things like budget and time constraints that the developers were facing, when you encounter the same boss multiple times.
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Lyric Suite
Converting to Islam
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2006
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- 58,301
They could have added a few things to the bosses.
They did for regular mooks. The knights in Liurinia have those glintstone pebbles. The ones in Altus have those holy attacks. The giants of every area have different attacks etc but for bosses they didn't do anything like that.
It's not much, but at least it would have been something.
I personally would favor a Scholars of the First Sin style DLC that would retouch on the base game but i doubt they'll go that way.
Most likely, they will add another open area with a legacy dungeon at the end of it.
They did for regular mooks. The knights in Liurinia have those glintstone pebbles. The ones in Altus have those holy attacks. The giants of every area have different attacks etc but for bosses they didn't do anything like that.
It's not much, but at least it would have been something.
I personally would favor a Scholars of the First Sin style DLC that would retouch on the base game but i doubt they'll go that way.
Most likely, they will add another open area with a legacy dungeon at the end of it.
Lyric Suite
Converting to Islam
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- Mar 23, 2006
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- 58,301
BTW, am i the only one who doesn't mind all the delayed attacks, roll catching shit and stuff like that?
Seems to me for a game that is basically based on dodging there isn't much else they can do to up the challenge for the player. No matter how wayward the move set is finger memory eventually always wins so i don't see it as much of a big deal as some people make it out to be.
The only thing that bothers me so far is that parry isn't as much of a thing on bosses as it used to be. On DS3, i basically did Gundyr mostly by parrying his attacks, and i enjoyed this mix up between rolling and parrying, even though i'm still mostly a roll-fu guy.
Here i haven't found a single boss where it was worth trying to land a parry, and then all the multiple boss fights just compound on the issue, as well as the fact some bosses required you to parry them more than once to stagger them from what i heard which to me kinda makes not want to try it.
I suppose the addition of jumping attacks probably has something to do with it as well.
Seems to me for a game that is basically based on dodging there isn't much else they can do to up the challenge for the player. No matter how wayward the move set is finger memory eventually always wins so i don't see it as much of a big deal as some people make it out to be.
The only thing that bothers me so far is that parry isn't as much of a thing on bosses as it used to be. On DS3, i basically did Gundyr mostly by parrying his attacks, and i enjoyed this mix up between rolling and parrying, even though i'm still mostly a roll-fu guy.
Here i haven't found a single boss where it was worth trying to land a parry, and then all the multiple boss fights just compound on the issue, as well as the fact some bosses required you to parry them more than once to stagger them from what i heard which to me kinda makes not want to try it.
I suppose the addition of jumping attacks probably has something to do with it as well.
What tool are you using for parries? I don't want to spoiler anything for the SL1 run I'm playing, but many "strong" bosses can be easily parried to death with a buckler or a small shield. But if you're using a medium shield... yeah, that's definitely not worth it. The best thing about parries is that the parry frames of the buckler, Golden Parry, and Thops's Barrier are insanely reliable: at least with Margit, the Crucible Knight, and the Bell Bearing Hunter, you can always start the parry at the moment you see the weapon swing towards you and you're guaranteed to deflect the attack.
Having to hit more parries to stagger the boss is a needed change, otherwise those fights would be over in a matter of seconds. Keep in mind that ripostes will usually send the enemy flying to the ground, which allows you to sneak in a charged R2. This not only adds a bit more damage, but will also stance-break the boss after a couple of parries, giving you a free riposte (for example, even with a relatively small weapon like a straight sword, you only need 2 charged R2s and a jumping R2 to empty Margit's poise).
IMHO, parrying is the most powerful tool during fights with multiple bosses. Those bosses can always be riposted after a single parry, and the critical hit animation gives you a window to deal a good chunk of damage while being completely invulnerable. Moreover, the knockback animation of critical hits will usually give you enough time to parry the other enemy while the first one is still on the ground, basically turning the fight into two separate 1-on-1.
Lyric Suite
Converting to Islam
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- Mar 23, 2006
- Messages
- 58,301
Mmmh, seems i was doing it wrong and i judged the game unfairly. I need to try this.
Elwro
Arcane
No. I don't mind them at all, too... They make the game a little bit less predictable for a Souls veteran...
dacencora
Guest
Yeah well it makes it pretty tough for a souls newbie lol. Those fuckers keep predicting where my rolls end. It’s pretty fun though.
Elwro
Arcane
It's interesting because souls veterans will *also* be surprised. The tracking is slightly different than, say, in DS2...
The problem, for me, is that dodging boss attacks often becomes a matter of rote memorization. Every boss has a complex moveset with weird ass delays, and there's no way to intuit these, you can only practice, practice, practice until you just know their attacks by heart. And while this was also a thing you needed to do in earlier Souls games, now it feels as if it's the only thing you're doing.
Lyric Suite
Converting to Islam
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- Mar 23, 2006
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Lmao, the fat guy in the divine tower in Liurnia.
Surprised the floor wasn't littered with "plump sort ahead" messages.
I've now come to the opinion that even by keeping to a lower level bleed has sort of trivalized this game a bit. Bleed proc did over a 1000 damage to this guy, it's a bit absurd. The whole flurry of attacks plus bleed went around 1900 damage.
By contrast, my occult halbert did so little damage it felt like i was just tickling the guy.
Surprised the floor wasn't littered with "plump sort ahead" messages.
I've now come to the opinion that even by keeping to a lower level bleed has sort of trivalized this game a bit. Bleed proc did over a 1000 damage to this guy, it's a bit absurd. The whole flurry of attacks plus bleed went around 1900 damage.
By contrast, my occult halbert did so little damage it felt like i was just tickling the guy.
I know that in the endgame one of the areas will undergo a big change, but at what exact moment does this change happen? When you do the thing before you get moved to the next area, or after you beat the boss in that area and you get moved back for the big reveal?
When you do the thing. But you don't have to do the thing if you're not ready yet. I delayed it for a long time my first time because of reasons.
EDIT: This is wrong, it's when you beat the boss. Thank Andnjord for the correction below.
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