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

[mediocrepoet]

Other one I'd say is somwhat bad is Mt Gelmir being a lower difficulty than Leyndell, I always feel like the normal human reaction once reaching Altus Plateau is to go to the Capital, not go on another detour through a new area before tackling the big shiny city on a hill considering how long you've already been playing by that point.

There are a few different ways to get ported directly from Liurnia directly into various parts of Mt. Gelmir, so if it was the more intuitive difficulty curve, you'd probably be screwed if you took one of them. I think it's also why the Full Grown Fallingstar Beast is tougher than anything in Altus Plateau because chances are you're going in the "hard way" if you're encountering it.

 

[Andnjord]

There are a few different ways to get ported directly from Liurnia directly into various parts of Mt. Gelmir,

Oh, I know of the iron maiden at the bottom of Raya Lucaria, what are the other ones?

 

[mediocrepoet]

There are a few different ways to get ported directly from Liurnia directly into various parts of Mt. Gelmir,

Oh, I know of the iron maiden at the bottom of Raya Lucaria, what are the other ones?

Just one other one. I guess I should've said a couple rather than a few. Whatever.

Spoiler

It's kind of finicky, but basically if you have the full Rold(?) medallion to activate that first lift from Liurnia into Altus and then use it to cross into Altus for the first time (including not killing the magma wyrm boss), Rya will be at the top of the lift and port you directly into Volcano Manor. You might have to have the full medallion before giving her her necklace back, I'm not sure on that point, but definitely if you kill the wyrm boss she despawns even if you don't leave his boss room into Altus.

 

[Andnjord]

There are a few different ways to get ported directly from Liurnia directly into various parts of Mt. Gelmir,

Oh, I know of the iron maiden at the bottom of Raya Lucaria, what are the other ones?

Just one other one. I guess I should've said a couple rather than a few. Whatever.

Spoiler

It's kind of finicky, but basically if you have the full Rold(?) medallion to activate that first lift from Liurnia into Altus and then use it to cross into Altus for the first time (including not killing the magma wyrm boss), Rya will be at the top of the lift and port you directly into Volcano Manor. You might have to have the full medallion before giving her her necklace back, I'm not sure on that point, but definitely if you kill the wyrm boss she despawns even if you don't leave his boss room into Altus.

I'm an idiot since that's exactly how I got into the manor with Manlius Maximus.
I didn't have the full medalion when giving her her medalion back, that much I can say.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I'm an idiot since that's exactly how I got into the manor with Manlius Maximus.
I didn't have the full medalion when giving her her medalion back, that much I can say.

It's a good thing you didn't spoil yourself on the super secret things you already knew.
Honestly, the game's so freaking big, it's easy to forget bits here and there even if you've done them more than once.

 

[Bigg Boss]

Ok timeout: Someone explain the donut please hahaha.

 

[Dhaze]

Still, what's with so many people here pushing through Caelid/Dragonbarrow even when it's obvious they're getting one-shot by every rat in the area?

You can't say that in good faith. Because the player is not getting one-shot by every rat in the area; that's the entire point.

If you're transported to Caelid via the chest in Dragon-Burnt ruins while at very low level, barely after starting the game? You can easily fight your way through Sellia, Town Of Sorcery, and the dual Nox boss, and the whole area around the Church Of The Plague, then kill Battlemage Hugues after a little detour in Dragonbarrow, then come back down and kill everything in the Street Of Sages Ruins, before pushing westward to the top Fort Gael and ending teleported in front of Castle Redmane.

I did all that. And during that whole expedition, I died less than ten times, and nothing managed to one-shot me aside from Redmane Knights and the bladed lions whose exact name I don't know (also Rot Hounds, but they were bugged; they would one-shot literally anyone since their attacks caused full damage every single frame).

Yes, the Nox sisters are a pushover, ever heard the concept of a mini-boss?

I have. Has FromSoft ever heard of not slapping a boss bar onto what should really be just a couple of mobs in a room?

If the devs keep that up while making a potential Elden Ring 2, I fully expect to stumble, at one point, on a guy called THE TERRIBLE SANDWICH-MAKER with his own boss bar.

Also, Cmdr O'Neil? Rape you with your own dick, really?

When, like me, you get there at level 20 and it's your first time going through Elden Ring? Yeah, I'd say so. He was considerably more of a threat than anything in the surrounding area.

Hey, Theodorix has some really damaging attacks, I'm talking 80% of your health with 60 vigor + 50% DR. But yeah, Death Rite Birds have a far more threatening moveset than the drakes, that's not a pacing issue, it's a difference of difficulty type. By that point you should know which one is hard and which one isn't.

The Death Rite Bird I encountered in the Consecrated Snowfield was the first Death Rite Bird I ever met. I had zero idea what its moveset might be.

 

[Andnjord]

I have. Has FromSoft ever heard of not slapping a boss bar onto what should really be just a couple of mobs in a room?

If the devs keep that up while making a potential Elden Ring 2, I fully expect to stumble, at one point, on a guy called THE TERRIBLE SANDWICH-MAKER with his own boss bar.

Aight, that's a fair point, I guess it stems from our ingrained habit from the previous Souls games where a health bar at the bottom of the screen meant a serious boss fight, which is probably the superior option. I mean, we already have MAP PUMPKIN HEAD, so we're no too far off.

The Death Rite Bird I encountered in the Consecrated Snowfield was the first Death Rite Bird I ever met. I had zero idea what its moveset might be.

Ok, that's rough, you got unlucky you never met one before but what's wrong having enemies with varied difficulty in a similar area? Do you want whole areas with flatened difficulty?

When, like me, you get there at level 20 and it's your first time going through Elden Ring? Yeah, I'd say so. He was considerably more of a threat than anything in the surrounding area.

Again, O'Neil is a serious boss with all the bells and whistles, he's critical to a specific ending but just standing in his own area as an optional boss so you can just make a note to come back later and he's not more damaging than the surrounding cleanrot knights.

You can't say that in good faith. Because the player is not getting one-shot by every rat in the area; that's the entire point...

One shotting might have been overstating it a little, but two options:
-Either you're complaining that the pacing is messed up because there's a harder area next to an easier one that you got transported in through an obvious trap, in which case why not go back and complete the easier one first as soon as possible, vowing to come back later and claim your revenge, follow the path of least resistance? Did you complain that in New Vegas it was possible to go North from Goodsprings and that it was a negative against it?
-Or you beat the entire area dieing less than 10 times, in which case, what are you complaining about?

 

[Andnjord]

Eh, it should be pretty easy to bonk trough.

Well, the castle gate fight can be a bit brutal. Those respawning spastic grafted abominations at the bottom are annoying. And Malenia, of course

Or the double spear cleanrot knights in that cramped room. Or the Lake of Rot 2.0 with those little shits inside. Or the two triple crystalians fight. Or the Ulcerated Tree inside the Lake of Rot. Or the church filled with kindreds of rot shooting shit from every side.

The Bonk! might pull me through, but I kinda got traumatised by that area before.

 

[Dhaze]

Ok, that's rough, you got unlucky you never met one before but what's wrong having enemies with varied difficulty in a similar area? Do you want whole areas with flatened difficulty?

Flattened? Depends. Flattened as in having become flat? No. As in flatter? Yes.

One shotting might have been overstating it a little, but two options:
-Either you're complaining that the pacing is messed up because there's a harder area next to an easier one that you got transported in through an obvious trap, in which case why not go back and complete the easier one first as soon as possible, vowing to come back later and claim your revenge, follow the path of least resistance? Did you complain that in New Vegas it was possible to go North from Goodsprings and that it was a negative against it?
-Or you beat the entire area dieing less than 10 times, in which case, what are you complaining about?

I'm not complaining about either of those things. I bemoan the fact that From made an open-world game, complete with all the problems inherent to the genre, and added a few of their own making.

Also, let's be clear that traveling from Goodsprings straight towards New Vegas is in no way comparable to anything that happens in Elden Ring.
Deathclaws in Fallout are arguably the threat, and seeing them is enough to tell you that the path you're treading has the stench of death about it. There's no equivalent to them in Elden Ring. In fact it's much worse in Elden Ring since most enemies find themselves copy-pasted in almost every area of the game, usually without any visual difference whatsoever, giving not a hint as to their threat level. Meanwhile, if you see a Deathclaw in Fallout, you know there's no fooling around in that area.
On top of that, marching northward from Goodsprings is something you do yourself, whereas being teleported halway across the world is something Elden Ring does to you. Those are two fundamentally different situations. It's easy to question the sagacity of your own actions; it's harder to question the developers' intentions.

My initial post on the subject was in answer to Lambach, who said, "I never know whether I'm getting my ass kicked because I suck at the game or because I'm severely under-leveled and under-equipped." It's a sentiment I see being echoed a lot, and it's not exactly something that happened with previous titles (though the start of DS1 was borderline on that front).

Lots of players (most new to the franchise/style) often have no fucking clue where they're supposed to be. One minute they're steamrolling a boss, then fifty meters further they're getting bitch-slapped to hell by a knight next to the road. They've not really gone off the beaten path, yet they're finding Smithing Stone[6] when they don't even have a Smithing Stone[3]. They're getting transported to the other side of the world, and wonder if they should be there, since it's quicker to get to this place than inside Stormveil Castle.

They're searching for a logical progression through the game—and I don't think there is one. Strangely enough, it invites comparison to King's Bounty: The Legend, or Armored Princess.

It was a small problem in previous titles. From the Road Of Sacrifices, you could go to Farron's Keep, or to the Cathedral Of The Deep; and whichever you explored first would see you be a little overleveled for the other. But in Elden Ring, you can easily find yourself almost anywhere at almost anytime, and the inconsistency in difficulty and items found does almost nothing to help you know if you're supposed to be here or there.

In the end, Elden Ring feels extremely disjointed. I've replayed the previous titles a frankly shameful amount of times, yet right now, rather than wanting to replay Elden Ring, I want to want to replay that game. But I can't find that desire. Because I'll have to trudge through vast zones of copy-pasted content, with 80% of the world being uninteresting beyond the first playthrough, and one encounter being challenging then the next being piss-easy no matter where I go. So I'm playing Hot Shots Golf on my PS1.

I don't know. Open-world games are really not my thing, even with the FromSoft stamp they frustrate me as much as bring me joy.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Just one other one. I guess I should've said a couple rather than a few. Whatever.

Spoiler

It's kind of finicky, but basically if you have the full Rold(?) medallion to activate that first lift from Liurnia into Altus and then use it to cross into Altus for the first time (including not killing the magma wyrm boss), Rya will be at the top of the lift and port you directly into Volcano Manor. You might have to have the full medallion before giving her her necklace back, I'm not sure on that point, but definitely if you kill the wyrm boss she despawns even if you don't leave his boss room into Altus.

If you reach the Altus Plateau by ascending the tunnel and killing Magma Wyrm Makar, you can find Rya at the Erdtree Gazing Hill site of grace and be transported to Volcano Manor. This probably requires having previously met Rya in Liurnia, obtained her necklace from Blackguard Big Boggart, and received an invitation from her. Technically not transportation directly from Liurnia, but neither is meeting Rya at the top of the lift, and this is only a short distance from the Ruin-Strewn Precipice entrance to the Altus Plateau.

 

[Haplo]

Eh, it should be pretty easy to bonk trough.

Well, the castle gate fight can be a bit brutal. Those respawning spastic grafted abominations at the bottom are annoying. And Malenia, of course

Or the double spear cleanrot knights in that cramped room. Or the Lake of Rot 2.0 with those little shits inside. Or the two triple crystalians fight. Or the Ulcerated Tree inside the Lake of Rot. Or the church filled with kindreds of rot shooting shit from every side.

The Bonk! might pull me through, but I kinda got traumatised by that area before.

The knights cannot withstand the force of the bonk! The first triple crystallian fight was easy too - I bonked! each of them before the others awoke (so it was actually 3 very short single fights).
Had more trouble with the 2nd group - untill a helpful poster suggested that you can withdraw a little to fight them 1 by one... and it was a moment of enlightement... such deep tactics never crossed my mind before!

Kindreds of rot... I guess you need to be a little careful, but if you are, I don't think they are really dangerous. Up close they are no match for the bonk!

Believe in the power of Bonk!, Brother! Trust the Bonk! Let it guide you!

 

[Bloodeyes]

So I just tested something. I took Mustache Man and respecced him into STR/FTH from pure faith.

As pure faith, using a flame art banished knight's greatsword (60 faith, 17 STR)
Physical: 224 + 15

Fire: 224 + 140

Total: 605

I then went and giant hunted a couple capital knights to get a feel for it. 2 giant hunts = 1 dead knight.

I then respecced him into STR/FTH (50 FTH, 50 STR) and changed the sword to heavy.
STR/Faith:

Phys: 268 + 222 = 490

With Order's blade + 166 = 656

I then killed a few capital knights and they died in 2 giant hunts.
The STR/FTH option has marginal endurance (would need a charm to wear his old armour and had to use only one weapon instead of 2). It has a 30 in mind instead of a 40 so it would also need more blue flasks. It can do a tiny, not even noticeable amount more damage but needs to maintain a buff which lasts 80 seconds to do this.

What's the fuckin point in the STR/FTH build? The only actual advantage I can think of is having more weapons to choose from but it's a hell of a price to pay for losing so much DR, FP and stamina, as well as a little casting power as well.

 

[mediocrepoet]

As pure faith, using a flame art banished knight's greatsword (60 faith, 17 STR)


I then respecced him into STR/FTH (50 FTH, 50 STR) and changed the sword to heavy.

...

What's the fuckin point in the STR/FTH build? The only actual advantage I can think of is having more weapons to choose from but it's a hell of a price to pay for losing so much DR, FP and stamina, as well as a little casting power as well.

To summarize, you put a pure faith scaling ash on a sword and it did a certain amount of damage with 60 faith. You then put a pure strength scaling ash on that same weapon with 50 strength, and now you're bitching that you lost too much by putting 50 points in faith that are doing nothing with that weapon as speced.

I dunno, try using something that scales with both strength and faith and see what happens. It might surprise you, but when you use both stats instead of just one, it works better. Using weapons that are appropriate for your build is some next level reasoning, I know.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Nigga I said I changed the sword to heavy. You even bolded it. Heavy sword = STR scaling. Buff = FTH scaling.

Ok. What you're doing is awesome. My mistake.

 

[NJClaw]

What's the fuckin point in the STR/FTH build? The only actual advantage I can think of is having more weapons to choose from but it's a hell of a price to pay for losing so much DR, FP and stamina, as well as a little casting power as well.

Making such a specific and narrow comparison and drawing conclusions from it doesn't look too useful.

Looking at damage numbers, you have a +18 weapon. A +18 Fire Banished Knight's Greatsword with 50 Strength and 50 Faith has 585 Attack Power, 627 when two-handed. You get slightly more two-handed damage and slightly less one-handed damage, BUT you can use the Fingerprint Stone Shield. And that's a big but if I've ever seen one.

Also, 50/50 is a completely arbitrary breakpoint. You could go 50/30 and the damage wouldn't chance. Or 60/30 and you would get 603/642. A similar damage total (better when two-handed) for a comparable stat investment.

Even more important, different weapons yield different results. A mostly-faith (22/78) +10 Blasphemous Blade has a 743/771 AP, while a more balanced (50/50) one has 785/823. Different stat allocations make sense with different weapons.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Nigga I said I changed the sword to heavy. You even bolded it. Heavy sword = STR scaling. Buff = FTH scaling.

Ok. What you're doing is awesome. My mistake.

I wish anyone other than you had responded because I'm actually trying to figure this shit out and looking for good information that is lacking in the sources I've been using. Why don't you go make more videos of yourself owning easy bosses or something and let someone helpful respond.

I completed the game on strength/faith and it was the easiest time I had. I answered your question and you double down on how the shit you're complaining isn't working is the answer rather than trying what I already know to be superior. Only a moron doesn't at least consider the advice given when they know their approach is lacking.

Like what sort of dumb shit asks for advice, gets it and then is like, no, what I'm doing addresses this even though it sucks and I'm trying to make it better.

In conclusion, go fuck yourself, I won't bother replying to you any further as we can both agree it's a waste of both of our time.

 

[Bloodeyes]

What's the fuckin point in the STR/FTH build? The only actual advantage I can think of is having more weapons to choose from but it's a hell of a price to pay for losing so much DR, FP and stamina, as well as a little casting power as well.

Making such a specific and narrow comparison and drawing conclusions from it doesn't look too useful.

Looking at damage numbers, you have a +18 weapon. A +18 Fire Banished Knight's Greatsword with 50 Strength and 50 Faith has 585 Attack Power, 627 when two-handed. You get slightly more two-handed damage and slightly less one-handed damage, BUT you can use the Fingerprint Stone Shield. And that's a big but if I've ever seen one.

That looks like a pretty awesome shield. The problem for for would be I couldn't wield it with these stats because I had to basically dump endurance to achieve them. I think the takeaway from this experiment, at least for me, is that the attribute point costs are not worth the investment for a mixed build. Losing so much in other areas to achieve two high stats just isn't worth it to me. It's a massive investment and the gains in attack power don't seem practically significant.

On the advice of another poster who is now ignoring me I tried a mixed scaling weapon, the magma wym's scalsword +7, the best STR/FTH weapon I have on that save. It gives

229 + 159 physical and 149 + 102 fire damage. That's 639 damage, not a practically significant difference from the greatsword I used for my first test, plus I like the look and move of the greatsword and can change its scaling and L2 at will. I had to kill a boss to get the scalesword and it takes two stats to use. I got the greatsword off a random enemy. It's not even a unique weapon.

I'm trying to see the value in mixed builds because I think they should be a lot better in melee than a pure casting stat build, given the buy in cost. They only seem a little better and for my purposes they are actually worse because I like giant hunt and being able to cast spells and wear clothes.

Pure faith gives me melee damage that is comparable to high stat hybrids with physical and an overall much more functional character due to having over 30 points to spend on other stats. This seems like it really, really shouldn't be the case. I should have to sacrifice melee effectiveness to go all in on a casting stat but I don't really. It's basically the same. My real question is what fundamental mechanic am I missing here? I know I must be wrong about this but I just can't see how or why. Because if I'm right then this game makes no sense at all.

 

[Dhaze]

So I just tested something. I took Mustache Man and respecced him into STR/FTH from pure faith.

As pure faith, using a flame art banished knight's greatsword (60 faith, 17 STR)
Physical: 224 + 15

Fire: 224 + 140

Total: 605

I then went and giant hunted a couple capital knights to get a feel for it. 2 giant hunts = 1 dead knight.

I then respecced him into STR/FTH (50 FTH, 50 STR) and changed the sword to heavy.
STR/Faith:

Phys: 268 + 222 = 490

With Order's blade + 166 = 656

I then killed a few capital knights and they died in 2 giant hunts.
The STR/FTH option has marginal endurance (would need a charm to wear his old armour and had to use only one weapon instead of 2). It has a 30 in mind instead of a 40 so it would also need more blue flasks. It can do a tiny, not even noticeable amount more damage but needs to maintain a buff which lasts 80 seconds to do this.

The biggest problem I see here is that is one test. Only one. By its lonesome, it doesn't mean much, if anything.

Also, you don't stipulate the damage you did with Giant Hunt, only the number of its uses required to kill an enemy. Two uses could mean the exact amount of damage required to kill, or it could mean overkill by hundreds of HP. It probably isn't the case for these particular circumstances, but keep that in mind nonetheless.

On top of that, I'm fairly certain Order's Blade adds Holy damage. And if by 'capital knights' you do in fact mean Leyndell Knights, everything points to them having good Holy resistances, so that probably skews the number in clear disfavor of your 50/50 Str/Fai test.

What's the fuckin point in the STR/FTH build? The only actual advantage I can think of is having more weapons to choose from but it's a hell of a price to pay for losing so much DR, FP and stamina, as well as a little casting power as well.

50 Strength is huge. That allows one-handing the Axe Of Godfrey, meaning you can use it with a shield, and that right there is a whole playstyle.

 

[NJClaw]

I edited my earlier post while you were replying:

Also, 50/50 is a completely arbitrary breakpoint. You could go 50/30 and the damage wouldn't chance. Or 60/30 and you would get 603/642. A similar damage total (better when two-handed) for a comparable stat investment.

Even more important, different weapons yield different results. A mostly-faith (22/78) +10 Blasphemous Blade has a 743/771 AP, while a more balanced (50/50) one has 785/823. Different stat allocations make sense with different weapons.

A 50/50 build doesn't make sense in your specific case, but (for example) for the Blasphemous Blade it's better than a build completely skewed towards Faith. Even with a lower stat total (80, the same as your first build), with 22/58 you get 726/754, while with 40/40 you get 740/779.

It depends on a lot of factors, mainly what spells and weapons you want to use, but "split stats are never worth it" is just plain false. It's probably a smaller niche than all-strength or all-faith builds, but still something worth considering.

 

[Bloodeyes]

The biggest problem I see here is that is one test. Only one. By its lonesome, it doesn't mean much, if anything.

True. I think I shouldn't need to conduct a whole study just to know what my stats do, but that seems to be the case. Someone should just be able to say "No, idiot of course dumping all your other stats into STR gives you a noticeable increase in damage because..."

I could run dozens of trials and spend a day on this, then dust off Jamovi and run statistical comparisons to see if there is a statistically significant difference in damage. But when we're talking about basically crippling my character to achieve this STR score shouldn't the difference be so practically significant and noticeable that no such test are needed? I should just hit something and say "wow, I'm weaker at everything else but my damage is much more". But I can't actually feel the difference and if I have to look for it then it seems like not enough of a difference to make a difference.

 

[Bloodeyes]

Even more important, different weapons yield different results. A mostly-faith (22/78) +10 Blasphemous Blade has a 743/771 AP, while a more balanced (50/50) one has 785/823. Different stat allocations make sense with different weapons.

A 50/50 build doesn't make sense in your specific case, but (for example) for the Blasphemous Blade it's better than a build completely skewed towards Faith. Even with a lower stat total (80, the same as your first build), with 22/58 you get 726/754, while with 40/40 you get 740/779.
[/QUOTE]

Can you link the resource you're using to find these numbers? It sounds like something I really, really need to reach better conclusions, or even ask better questions. I hate statistical obfuscation in RPGs with a burning passion!

 

[NJClaw]

Can you link the resource you're using to find these numbers? It sounds like something I really, really need to reach better conclusions, or even ask better questions. I hate statistical obfuscation in RPGs with a burning passion!

https://eldenring.negator13.com/calculator

But you need to realize you're going in with a lot of wrong assumptions. Thinking that putting more points in your "casting stat" (faith) should somehow give you a weaker melee impact than using the stat called "strength" is just an empty semantic exercise that leads nowhere in these games. Strength isn't the "damage stat", it's the stat that allows you to wield Strength weapons.

I mean, even Strength can be a casting stat with the Clawmark Seal.

 

[Bloodeyes]

Can you link the resource you're using to find these numbers? It sounds like something I really, really need to reach better conclusions, or even ask better questions. I hate statistical obfuscation in RPGs with a burning passion!

https://eldenring.negator13.com/calculator

But you need to realize you're going in with a lot of wrong assumptions. Thinking that putting more points in your "casting stat" (faith) should somehow give you a weaker melee impact than using the stat called "strength" is just an empty semantic exercise that leads nowhere in these games.

I mean, even Strength can be a casting stat with the Clawmark Seal.

I've looked at the clawmark seal and it is listed here as having slightly worse incant scaling than pure faith seals. 318 at 80 FTH/80 STR to the Erdtree seal's 359 at 80 FTH. I call it a casting stat because no spells I have seen have STR prereqs, incants have FTH prereqs. I can cast incants off other stats but need the FTH to qualify for them. 50 FTH to qualify for all of them except the ones that need INT or ARC too.

STR lets me use weapons, but it doesn't let me use them significantly better. The weapons that it qualifies me for don't seem (on paper or in practice) better for me than the ones I'd need a ton of physical stats for. A bastard sword needs 16 STR. A claymore only need 16 STR and 12 DEX. Those weapons should only be good in the early game and should be discarded as soon as I clear my first proper dungeon and get something that's all special and glowy and shit. That's how RPGs work.

But the question of if these cheap to use, freely available weapons are even worse than the ones you fight a boss ten times to get or do a "quest" for is so complicated that nobody with expertise in the matter can give a definitive answer. Felt differences are slight. Statistical software and build calculators are needed to project a difference of 10-15% in AR when maxed out. Or you could just say fuck it and keep using the greatsword. It shouldn't be this way. I'm extremely frustrated!

Yet I seem to be the only person who things this. My favorite straight swords are all ranked F on rankedboost, while absolute dogshit somber using weapons with slow as suicide L2s like the Regalia of Eochid get Cs. WTF? There is clearly something I'm missing. Something big. Or everyone else who plays this game is just insane. Or am I insane? I think I must be.

 

[Dhaze]

A claymore only need 16 STR and 12 DEX. Those weapons should only be good in the early game and should be discarded as soon as I clear my first proper dungeon and get something that's all special and glowy and shit. That's how RPGs work.

That is never how any of the Souls games have worked. Never.

For all the shit I give to Miyazaki on various subjects, I'll forever be thankful for his decision on that particular one. He always wanted for the player to be able to find a piece of equipment, at any point in the game, and use it and keep using it throughout the rest of the game.

By essence, that design means no one weapon should so massively outclass another as to make the later seem like garbage by comparison (save for joke weapons, like the Broken Sword or Laddle). Hence why the Rusty And Chipped Claymore Left In A Ditch For Five Decades is not terribly inferior to the Brilliant And Sanguine Greatspear Of Cushara The Libatious Pikebearer.