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

[Efe]

who made the longest "lore video" for above image?

 

[Lyric Suite]

I don't know if it's a translation thing, but the problem with the "lore" in FromSoft games is that the writing isn't actually that subtle once you know what the NPC or the text is saying.

In fact, one thing i noticed about those games is that Miyazaki isn't actually trying to make them intentionally obtuse. Yes, he wants you to piece things out from clues and stuff like that but a lot of the time he doesn't try to be cryptic on purpose just to fuck with the player. And sometimes you can miss out on how obvious the writing is if you automatically assume there's an "hidden" meaning to everything. When i played Elden Ring the first time, i tried to "read" some hidden meaning into the things those prostrate ghosts are saying. Eventually, i just realized all they are doing is spell out some game mechanics or things the game wants the player to know ("merchant, ho merchant where are you?" Five seconds later you meet a merchant, shit like that). They aren't there to add to the mystery, they are there to make it easy for new players to not miss out things they would need.

So basically when the game does tell you something, it's blatant and obvious. All the mystery and confusion stems from what the game DOESN'T tell you, at least not in so many words. That's where looking for visuals clues or indirect connections becomes necessary, assuming Miyazaki actually deigned to leave any.

The basic impression i got is that Miyazaki isn't a deep writer and isn't even trying to be. He is a "gaming" writer for a lack of a better word. What he writes is intended purely to entertain or fascinate the player there's probably not a whole lot that is actually coherent in the "lore".

 

[9ted6]

The basic impression i got is that Miyazaki isn't a deep writer and isn't even trying to be. He is a "gaming" writer for a lack of a better word. What he writes is intended purely to entertain or fascinate the player there's probably not a whole lot that is actually coherent in the "lore".

With any game that doesn't give you lore in a straightforward way, there'll always be people in its fanbase who read way too deeply into it and make mountains out of speculations, fixating on little details and ultimately making it way more complicated and confusing than it needs or is meant to be.

The premise of FNAF is just creepy Chuck E Cheese animatronics coming to life, that's it, but there's so much probably literally autistic obsession over its supposed lore and those players make the game seem like it has a giant expanded universe of a dozen novels' worth of storytelling.

Dark Souls isn't as extreme an example, it's just similar, and what's a fairly simple and understandable story gets muddied when people make hourlong videos discussing a single item description. Shit's not that deep.

With all that said I do think DS1 had objectively better storytelling and lore than the sequels. It was more sensible, more coherent, and it was delivered better. There's a charm to the NPCs the sequels lack. Some parts of them are needlessly cryptic or nonsensical for the sake of being weird, and their stories invalidate the first game's and turn what was more of a theme of determination and uncertainty into a theme of cyclical futility.

 

[Ezekiel]

40 dollars next few weeks. If it wasn't Dark Souls IV, if they had gone with a new setting and dropped retarded dodge-roll, I would jump at it. Wondering how much longer I'll have to wait if I don't get it now. Didn't think it would take 20 months to drop only 20 dollars.

 

[Multidirectional]

Wondering how much longer I'll have to wait if I don't get it now.

And if you get it, you will be wondering "how much longer until this fucking tedious game is finally over?"

 

[Ezekiel]

https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Armor

Gotta say, I don't care for any of this armor. At least in Sekiro his clothes were tailored. Character creation is shit. They all look so awkward. I remember spending so much time in the Souls games trying hopelessly to look good. Plate set was my favorite in Demon's Souls. Back then women and men had unique armor. Plate set, fluted set, leather set, they all had one design for men and one for women, allowing women to look more feminine.

I wonder if they couldn't deform clothes based on the character's proportions, so that it actually conforms to them instead of looking so weird.

 

[Nathir]

Is there any DLC planned for this?

It was announced last february. Here is all we know:

And that's it. As you can see, it is one large image which displays ambiguous things, so it's typical FromSoft stuff.

This expansion is going to be From's Magnum Opus. I feel it in my bones.

 

[Dadd]

Fuck this trash game

 

[Ezekiel]

Opened Dark Souls II for the first time in years. Have 290 hours and 99 hours in Scholar rerelease. Couldn't get into it anymore.

Too annoyed at the godawful character creation and tiny head on my character. Why the fuck would I want to make my own character with these crummy tools when the devs have the ability to make attractive characters with full access to the tools? These people should be forced to take anatomy classes. The hair that you choose from is laughably bad.

I also tried attacking with one of the face buttons, after playing so much Zelda over the last few months. Feels weird using the shoulders now, with camera so close that there is no other way. Don't think this was the intent of modern controller designers more than twenty-five years ago.

Yeah, will keep waiting for lower prices on Elden Ring.

 

[Abu Antar]

Am I a c*** if I sell the game after getting it free on here? I've beaten it once, and I'm fairly close to beating it a second time. I just don't see myself ever playing this or any From action rpg ever again. The frustration is to much. It's not the games, it's me. Reflexes are worse than ever, and my poor eyesight is showing its true face.

This time, I basically looked up everything that was missable, and wowee can you miss much on a first run. There is a great difference on playing easy mode (mage with summons), versus playing in git gud mode, barrel rolling two handing sword/hammer solo.

 

[Nathir]

Opened Dark Souls II for the first time in years. Have 290 hours and 99 hours in Scholar rerelease. Couldn't get into it anymore.

Too annoyed at the godawful character creation and tiny head on my character. Why the fuck would I want to make my own character with these crummy tools when the devs have the ability to make attractive characters with full access to the tools? These people should be forced to take anatomy classes. The hair that you choose from is laughably bad.

I also tried attacking with one of the face buttons, after playing so much Zelda over the last few months. Feels weird using the shoulders now, with camera so close that there is no other way. Don't think this was the intent of modern controller designers more than twenty-five years ago.

Yeah, will keep waiting for lower prices on Elden Ring.

Maybe there will be a price drop before the DLC drops... Which should be in 6 months max. Maybe...

 

[mediocrepoet]

Am I a c*** if I sell the game after getting it free on here?

I wouldn't judge. Not like that was your intent or that you didn't give it a fair try. Should probably ask whoever you got it from imo.

 

[Abu Antar]

Am I a c*** if I sell the game after getting it free on here?

I wouldn't judge. Not like that was your intent or that you didn't give it a fair try. Should probably ask whoever you got it from imo.

She's not active anymore. I think I'll do it once run 2 is done.

 

[Child of Malkav]

This expansion is going to be From's Magnum Opus. I feel it in my bones.

Oh yeah totally, can't wait to fight Godwyn of all things. And ride along with Miquella (not sure if this website is on some kind of watchlist). Just like the ringed city DLC they added a....new Gwyn family member....
How these people manage to focus on the most uninteresting aspects of their games is something that's definitely beyond me.
They could have gotten a DLC about the Blood Star, Rot God, Formless Mother, Great Will itself not an avatar of it, Dark Moon, Frenzy Flame, Dragon Lord etc.
Maybe visit a Nox alien city on another planet and fight Astel like monstrosities, or go underwater in some ancient civilization ruins and fight aquatic or cthulhu type enemies (adding back swimming, diving and water combat from Sekiro) or...climb to the top of the erdtree and find Goldmask playing cards with the Great Will and you fight the Great WIll and shove Goldmask all the way down or something IDK but do something cool. All this lore and they focus on the fish man. Unreal.

 

[9ted6]

This expansion is going to be From's Magnum Opus. I feel it in my bones.

Oh yeah totally, can't wait to fight Godwyn of all things. And ride along with Miquella (not sure if this website is on some kind of watchlist). Just like the ringed city DLC they added a....new Gwyn family member....
How these people manage to focus on the most uninteresting aspects of their games is something that's definitely beyond me.
They could have gotten a DLC about the Blood Star, Rot God, Formless Mother, Great Will itself not an avatar of it, Dark Moon, Frenzy Flame, Dragon Lord etc.
Maybe visit a Nox alien city on another planet and fight Astel like monstrosities, or go underwater in some ancient civilization ruins and fight aquatic or cthulhu type enemies (adding back swimming, diving and water combat from Sekiro) or...climb to the top of the erdtree and find Goldmask playing cards with the Great Will and you fight the Great WIll and shove Goldmask all the way down or something IDK but do something cool. All this lore and they focus on the fish man. Unreal.

You're not wrong but this is the game where a major villain's literally just "Dude who eats poop" and a major supporting character's just "Twink", don't get your hopes too high for interesting writing or characters.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

In general I was sad that the bosses were so easy, because their movesets and the flow of combat felt much better than Elden Ring bosses, who I felt often had these weird, unnatural delays on their attacks just to bait out rolling and dodging. In contrast, DS1 bosses felt more natural, and when I got hit I felt like it was 110% my own fault.

This essentially is the biggest difference of old vs nu-Souls (which culminate in Elden Ring).

Demon and Dark Souls 1 + 2 (somewhat, the newer the worse the problem is), in general when fighting anything, the information are fair and you are rewarded for being observant. Elden Ring bosses are just unfun shits with those delay and much more reflex twitch finger based

n the one hand, the level design is absolutely amazing. I also think the difficulty in the normal content is way higher - more ambushes, awkward arenas and such. The mobs themselves might often be easier than in ER, but in practice actually playing the game, DS1 felt much, much harder for me. This is in part due to encounter design, but also very much due to how many mobs you have to deal with between bonfires - and how the level-design demands more skill to figure out (meaning you stay longer in areas).

This is also notable change in design principle from older (From Demon Souls) to the newer games.

 

[9ted6]

Can't forget the overreliance on bosses doing long spinning attacks with huge hitboxes and next to no windup time.

 

[Bloodeyes]

I must say its kind of impressive that the PvP is still as active as it is. I can only speak as a PlayStation user, but nearly two years in I still get invasions at whatever rune level I want to and whatever time I want to. Sure I have to spam the fingers for a bit before I do but that's been the case for quite a while. PvP activity hasn't noticeably changed for me in the last 6 months or however long I've been doing it.

Invasions are harder now because I'm more likely to be invading a somewhat experienced group rather than hapless new players. But there are still hapless new players and they aren't even that rare. I've been playing other stuff lately and came back to invasions after a month or so. I got activity at RL 1 +2, 32 +5, 60 +12 (best level atm), 90 +17 as well as at duelist meta and above (not recommended but active enough).

My hobby of trying to kill groups of jolly cooperators has lasted far longer than I thought it would, despite the game getting no meaningful content updates in this time.

 

[Damned Registrations]

The basic impression i got is that Miyazaki isn't a deep writer and isn't even trying to be. He is a "gaming" writer for a lack of a better word. What he writes is intended purely to entertain or fascinate the player there's probably not a whole lot that is actually coherent in the "lore".

I don't know whether to attribute it to Miyazaki or not, but there is a lot more coherent lore behind things than one might expect. Not even hinted at, just outright unavailable to the player- things like internal names of enemies, or features of faces hidden underneath helmets that indicate a soldier is part of this faction or that. Yeah, you can grasp at straws and go too far with this stuff, but for example the rune bears have the same sort of eyes as the player attains when using dragon hearts, and dropped dragon hearts during the network test. That implies there was some sort of actual intention there, because they could have just as easily not given them special eyes which nobody will ever notice in a real playthrough. There's plenty of minor detail stuff like that which implies they thought about the background of the world and then implemented the logical conclusions of that background, rather than just slapdashing everything together without concern for major plotholes. The ants will attack their riders if dismounted, for example, indicating some sort of mind control. The gargoyles are actually two flesh bodies melded together, with a seam running all the way from the face to the legs. The cleanrot knights have insectile wings, implying a relation to the wingless pest knights that are also found in the rot infested areas.

 

[Abu Antar]

I've hit a rock wall with the Beast Clergyman. I reached the second phase three out of 12 times. Time to do all side stuff that I know of. Grind, grind, grind.

 

[Grunker]

I've hit a rock wall with the Beast Clergyman. I reached the second phase three out of 12 times. Time to do all side stuff that I know of. Grind, grind, grind.

At that point in the game I was pretty invincible, but he gave me trouble.

I do think both Melania and Elden Beast are way harder than him though

 

[Abu Antar]

I've hit a rock wall with the Beast Clergyman. I reached the second phase three out of 12 times. Time to do all side stuff that I know of. Grind, grind, grind.

At that point in the game I was pretty invincible, but he gave me trouble.

I do think both Melania and Elden Beast are way harder than him though

It's more me than him. I still haven't fought Melania or the Elden Beast in this run. I'm going to pump up dexterity, and endurance a couple of levels more, to have some better armor options. I'll probably go from light load to medium load, too.

 

[FreshCorpse]

I've hit a rock wall with the Beast Clergyman. I reached the second phase three out of 12 times. Time to do all side stuff that I know of. Grind, grind, grind.

I accidentally killed this guy with two (or three) summons. The only time I ever summoned randos (though I periodically put my summon sign down and did get summoned a bit).

I was having trouble with the mounted knight outside, summoned some signs (two or three? don't remember) for help with it because I didn't think of it as particularly significant and wanted to try out summon pools which I had finally figured out the point of. They utterly smash horsey boy, mostly before I realise that they've loaded into my instance.

They then wait at the yellow mist for me to enter the boss with them. Knowing it's rude not to kill the boss when you have summons, I enter, watch the cutscence (which must have outed me as a total noob lol). Upon entering the boss they then panic and scatter but largely tank aggro off me (a faith caster) and I absolutely wreck the guy with absurd faith shit I had in my loadout but that I don't usually get to use against aggressive mobs. Fully charged ancient dragon lightning hits, fully charged black fireballs, Ekzyke's Breath, etc - I'm just dumping my blue bar into this guy and he absolutely melts.

Great day for the parish tbh.

I know that some players run with summons pretty much at all times. When I've been summoned by randoms it's often been a party of 2-4 just going through content. I did most of Siofra as someone's summon before I'd done any of it myself. Probably one of the better ways to grind as you can't lose souls as a summon. That might be a fun way to replay the game actually. I know some bosses are rebalanced for co-op but mostly you steamroller things in a group because you have so many tactical options and usually someone's pet strategy works really well.

 

[Nathir]

This expansion is going to be From's Magnum Opus. I feel it in my bones.

Oh yeah totally, can't wait to fight Godwyn of all things. And ride along with Miquella (not sure if this website is on some kind of watchlist). Just like the ringed city DLC they added a....new Gwyn family member....
How these people manage to focus on the most uninteresting aspects of their games is something that's definitely beyond me.
They could have gotten a DLC about the Blood Star, Rot God, Formless Mother, Great Will itself not an avatar of it, Dark Moon, Frenzy Flame, Dragon Lord etc.
Maybe visit a Nox alien city on another planet and fight Astel like monstrosities, or go underwater in some ancient civilization ruins and fight aquatic or cthulhu type enemies (adding back swimming, diving and water combat from Sekiro) or...climb to the top of the erdtree and find Goldmask playing cards with the Great Will and you fight the Great WIll and shove Goldmask all the way down or something IDK but do something cool. All this lore and they focus on the fish man. Unreal.

1. You don't know anything about the expansion.

2. It being about Godwynn or Miquella or whatever else doesn't mean it will be inherently bad/good/boring/interesting.

 

[Nathir]

In general I was sad that the bosses were so easy, because their movesets and the flow of combat felt much better than Elden Ring bosses, who I felt often had these weird, unnatural delays on their attacks just to bait out rolling and dodging. In contrast, DS1 bosses felt more natural, and when I got hit I felt like it was 110% my own fault.

This essentially is the biggest difference of old vs nu-Souls (which culminate in Elden Ring).

Demon and Dark Souls 1 + 2 (somewhat, the newer the worse the problem is), in general when fighting anything, the information are fair and you are rewarded for being observant. Elden Ring bosses are just unfun shits with those delay and much more reflex twitch finger based

n the one hand, the level design is absolutely amazing. I also think the difficulty in the normal content is way higher - more ambushes, awkward arenas and such. The mobs themselves might often be easier than in ER, but in practice actually playing the game, DS1 felt much, much harder for me. This is in part due to encounter design, but also very much due to how many mobs you have to deal with between bonfires - and how the level-design demands more skill to figure out (meaning you stay longer in areas).

This is also notable change in design principle from older (From Demon Souls) to the newer games.

Very subjective opinion, and also a skill issue.