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

[Skinwalker]

Whatever you mean by "mastered"

SL1, no equipment, no spells, no rolling, no consumables, final destination

Says who? I played as a pyromancer in my first playthrough of DS3. Well, I started as a Deprived, but discovered the Pyromancer in Undead Village and after that wielded a sword in one hand and fireballs in the left. And I foolishly played with mouse and keyboard, because of how deeply anti-consoletard I was at that time, lul.

The only parts of the game that felt punishingly difficult at that time was 1. Iudex Gundyr (tutorial boss), until I figured out that I need to have patience and play it slow and careful, and 2. Twin Princes (penultimate boss) because I relied too much on pyromancy and the "teleports behind you" guy was throwing off my aim.

I had played DS1 prior to that, but abandoned it somewhere in Lost Izalith. It may have been the infamous Bed of Chaos boss battle, but this is already pretty far into the game, and I wouldn't have played as much as that if I found it punishingly difficult most of the time. Of course, I had later returned to DS1 remastered and played the whole game to the end. With a basic greatsword, iirc.

Get gut, scrub, lol.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

The only parts of the game that felt punishingly difficult at that time was 1. Iudex Gundyr (tutorial boss), until I figured out that I need to have patience and play it slow and careful

That's funny. I've always had an easier time being super aggressive towards him. The longer you let the fight go on the tougher he gets. I usually have him almost dead by the time he does his transformation.

 

[Skinwalker]

From are so lazy they can't even animate character's mouths when they talk

 

[Lyric Suite]

Here's the thing though, if you're new to these games and try to follow the advices of tryhards here that spent literal years playing these games, you will be very frustrated and I very doubt that the games will stick with you.

The "advice" we are giving is aimed at making sure new comers to this series actually get to enjoy the game instead of being frustrated and bored all the time. Care bears don't understand that telling novices never to improve is a sure way for them to stop playing as they'll never get to derive any enjoyment from the game. Being perpetually stuck at a low skill level, being forced to bypass the challenge using summons or cheese means their experience with the game will ALWAYS be one of frustration and disappointment. Every boss will feel impossible, and the need to use summons at every turn will make them wonder after a while why they are even bothering playing the game if the only way to get through it is to use cheese.

When i played DS1 the first time i was a complete n00b and total scrub. I never, ever used summons, not once, because i understood rightaway doing so would have deprived me of the enjoyment of the game. There is NOTHING comparable to the feeling you get when you finally prevail against a boss in a game like this. The whole "gitting gut" meme exists because unlike some other action games, you CAN get good in a FromSoft game, and when you do the feeling is underscribable.

Now, yes, Elden Ring is a special case since many bossess are designed to be challening for Souls veterans. I'm also not opposed in principle to having those means to bypass bosses as a last resort (if you are hopelessly stuck there's nothing wrong with bypassing the boss and try again in a second playthrough. That's the logic FromSoft is using in the first place). But if you are just going through the entire game relying only on cheese, never improving, never mastering the combat, you might as well not bother.

 

[Lyric Suite]

BTW, another good argument for starting with Dark Souls 1, aside for the game being easier, is also that it's just better over all. But hey.

 

[Lyric Suite]

But those elements never mesh together to form a 'whole' that can be called pretty. The cardinal sin of playing a beth game: noticing an NPC's face. You know what setting would heavily benefit from having both men and women wear burqas? It's TES. You just don't want to look at a person's face in a TES game, whether it's Morrowind, Oblivion or Skyrim. You don't.

And From are so lazy they can't even animate character's mouths when they talk. It's like a fucking PS1 game up in here.

Lmao, does anybody actually give a fuck?

I didn't even notice until you brought it up just now.

 

[Odoryuk]

But if you are just going through the entire game relying only on cheese, never improving, never mastering the combat, you might as well not bother.

No one in the thread actually suggested that. Summoning early ashes in ER is not a cheese in the slightest.

 

[Stoned Ape]

BTW, another good argument for starting with Dark Souls 1, aside for the game being easier, is also that it's just better over all. But hey.

If I drop a game before I finish it, I very rarely pick it back up afterwards. I'm not sure why, but I lose all enthusiasm with the thought of playing it again. For that reason I'm going to stick with this unless I lose any will to continue. I might try DS1 if I find the remainder of the experience enjoyable.

I cleared the academy without summons (although I hated the Redwolf fight, not so much for the fight itself but for having to slowly lure and clear all the sorcerers on the way to the 8 or so times it took me to beat) I wish they'd put in a lost grace point in that room to the left before the mutt.

Took me a couple of goes to beat the magic swordsman in the following area, but beat the main boss first try (I had no idea how to break her shield but got lucky when I coincidentally killed a bunch of the crawling mages and she just dropped onto the ground). Her second phase was incredibly easy, didn't really have to try to beat her at all just kept close and hit her until she died.

After that I finished exploring the lake areas and most of western Lunaria (got squashed by some giant hands in the manor to the north-west the first time I met them but had no problem after that until I met the the ghost knight which took me about half-a-dozen attempts to kill) before deciding to take a break.

I feel like I'm winning these boss fights through brute force and heavy armour as much as I am through skill. My programmed muscle memory from other action games is so strong that I keep hitting X or A instead of RB/RT at the worst possible times but I don't want to change the input config because I think that will end up messing me up even worse in the long run. During boss fights I get frustrated with myself and the game in equal measure. I'm not really having a lot of fun in combat with them, but I am enjoying working out the best way to fight groups of normal enemies (unless I have to beat the same group multiple times in a row in order to fight a boss I keep losing at).

I think I might just not be psychologically suited to enjoying the gameplay flow of these boss fights. I have an anger management problem that is generally triggered by playing games that make me lose my temper, so it isn't really healthy for me to do so. It also means I have to take breaks if I lose a boss fight a couple of times because I get tilted and play like a 3 year old with a tantrum.

Anyway, I really enjoy the ER world and exploring it. I think the art design is fantastic and it's a pleasure to see how creative the design team have been. The level design is also exceptional. I'll keep trying to beat the bosses without summons and see if I actually feel like I'm improving but at the moment that's not really the case and I'm unsure if I really will.

 

[Val Doom]

I cleared the academy without summons (although I hated the Redwolf fight, not so much for the fight itself but for having to slowly lure and clear all the sorcerers on the way to the 8 or so times it took me to beat) I wish they'd put in a lost grace point in that room to the left before the mutt.

Yeah, that's a sure-fire way of making things as tedious as possible. You don't need to clear all enemies on the way to the boss, just run through them if you already killed them once already

 

[Lyric Suite]

But if you are just going through the entire game relying only on cheese, never improving, never mastering the combat, you might as well not bother.

No one in the thread actually suggested that. Summoning early ashes in ER is not a cheese in the slightest.

My problem is that you guys didn't even bother explaining how to beat those knights the proper way. You just went straight to "use summons bro, just level up bro", assuring essentially that he learns nothing.

You didn't explain to him that the easiest way to do the knights is with backstabs:



Their attacks are so slow you can actually just circle around them with ease. The only problem is the stomp thingy, buit then you can just bait their jump attack to get an easy backstab from afar, which once you get down the timing is always the safest way.

You also didn't explain the bouncy shield + guard counters, which works well with the dual wielding version:



And of course there's the parry way, which granted, it's probably too advanced for a novice but it's an option:



But no, first answer to everything is always "use summons bro", or "just outlevel the content bro".

And if he can't get through those knights, imagine him trying to kill the Grafted Scion on the lower level lmao.

For the record, i think spirit ashes are perfectly legitimate to use against regular mooks, but since the complaint was "those guys can't be done wtf", the first answer should have been to explain HOW they can be done (easily to boot), and leave the ashes as an option in case he just can't do it for the time being (but at least he tried). Ashes as a first solution is a trap anyway because summons aren't an easy win. You can still get wrecked if you don't know what you are doing. Summons can cheese a boss because the AI can't handle more than two opponents, but it's not guaranteed the AI isn't going to go after you at any point during the fight and most low level summons can't win the fight for you as well.

 

[Damned Registrations]

never mastering the combat, you might as well not bother.

Honestly, mastering FS's combat (especially souls series) is mostly about memorizing which grunts and twitches every single enemy in the game makes so you can time your parry/dodge perfectly. I'm sure that's satisfying to some people, but it's not something I think is worth pursuing.

Improving general competence, by understanding things like the mechanics of poise, blocking, ailments, counter hits and so forth- sure, that's satisfying and worthwhile, and will make the game more engaging while making it easier as well.

But getting to the point you can no-hit a boss because you've learned it so well is dumb- the combat isn't deep or balanced enough to warrant that, unlike in something like Monster Hunter or a fighting game. Reducing the game to a QTE by memorizing everything the enemies do is retarded. Lategame and most multi enemy bosses in ER in particular absolutely deserve to be gang-banged with summons, and I say this as someone who stubbornly soloed through everything except Malenia. A lot of these fights are just straight up bad- forcing you to backpedal for more than half the fight while waiting for a particular attack to punish, rather than actually engaging with the boss actively. The biggest thing many of them have going for them is spectacle if you let them sit around and use all their coolest moves.

Also note that people that are 'good' at the game (challenge runners and such) generally cheese through the combat anyways- they just do it by stacking so many temporary buffs the fight is over in 10 seconds before the boss can even use 90% of it's moveset. Explain to me how that is any more satisfying than tag teaming a boss you actually have to chip away at and pay attention to for a couple minutes.

 

[Lyric Suite]

never mastering the combat, you might as well not bother.

Honestly, mastering FS's combat (especially souls series) is mostly about memorizing which grunts and twitches every single enemy in the game makes so you can time your parry/dodge perfectly. I'm sure that's satisfying to some people, but it's not something I think is worth pursuing.

That's what scrubs with low visual/spatial IQs believe.

Improving general competence, by understanding things like the mechanics of poise, blocking, ailments, counter hits and so forth- sure, that's satisfying and worthwhile, and will make the game more engaging while making it easier as well.

That's part of the equation too, but nothing of that was explained either.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Go play Osu! Lyric Suite , it's clearly your true calling.

 

[Odoryuk]

My problem is that you guys didn't even bother explaining how to beat those knights

That's something that you have to learn by yourself, and when you don't die from one hit, it's easier. No one suggested to use ashes on ordinary enemies, only on bosses who get less agressive and this helps to learn their moveset easier.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Go play Osu! Lyric Suite , it's clearly your true calling.

It's actually not. I hate those kind of games, and that shit has nothing to do with how FromSoft games work.

I'm fairly convinced that people who argue beating bosses in FromSoft games is only a matter of repeating things by rote is a cope people who can't actually see through the patterns invented to make themselves feel better about their ineptitude. You are trying to pretend the reason you can't beat the boss is because you didn't spend hours doing the same shit over and over like those imaginary autists you have set up as a strawman in your head.

In reality, the truth is that the pattern is confusing you and you can't understand what you are supposed to do to avoid getting hit. But once you understand, the boss actually becomes easy and you are left wondering what was even supposed to be so hard about it. That's literally Dark Souls 101.

 

[Hell Swarm]

I hate all the retards in this thread with the fire of a thousand suns.

Newbie. You should play the game you want to play. If Elden ring is where you want to start then go for it. It's hard but the challenge is not impossible. Embrace the frustration because the sense of achievement when you beat a boss you struggled with is extremely satisfying.

First time through you want to lean into a melee build with ranged support. Having to engage the bosses at close range forces you to learn them and get the most out of the experience. There's tools that let you 1 shot bosses and nuke them from half the arena away. It can spoil a great experience if you lean into magic too heavily or start stacking 15 buffs to become completely broken. Find your favourite melee weapon, maybe a shield and defintely a bow to pull aggro. Then get rolling!

Elden ring is balanced around weapon arts and spirit ashes. Many of the bosses are designed around having a summon active to take some of the heat off you. The previous games lack summons and you shouldn't use player summons on your first play through. These are YOUR victories, achieve them yourself the first time. You will be glad you did when you reach the credits.

Leave this thread and don't return until you finish the game. Don't engage with the community, don't check wikis, don't do any sort of internet engagement. From games are best played blind and any kind of spoilers will give a lesser experience. Just enjoy the ride and fuck retards like Lyric who are determined to spoil your fun by forcing his solution on you rather than discovering your own. It's your adventure, don't let little queer boys with tiny dicks having to use From games to prop their egos up spoil it for you.

 

[Damned Registrations]

In reality, the truth is that the pattern is confusing you and you can't understand what you are supposed to do to avoid getting hit.

Yes, because it's intentionally designed that way, with retarded things like enemies hovering in the air at the last 1/4 of their jump arc or ridiculous tracking that goes from 20 degrees per second to 2000 for 10 frames at some completely arbitrary point in an overly long windup animation.

I've played plenty of other games like this. Nioh, Monster Hunter, Stranger in Paradise, Bayonetta, DMC... these games don't have this problem that is unique to FS games where the attacks are so often nonsensical bullshit. Other games punish you for spamming dodge rolls or holding block; FS games punish you for dodging when it's intuitive because 'haha gotcha!' is their modus operandi and blocking a wimpy skeleton with a torch can be more difficult and deadly than a 20 foot tall iron golem.

From games are best played blind and any kind of spoilers will give a lesser experience.

I agree with this sentiment for the most part, but they also tend to have some really esoteric mechanics players are unlikely to understand without help, even among core gameplay elements like how blocking works or what things impact staggering. There are plenty of people who go through the entire game without realizing that shield hardness is even a mechanic, or under mistaken assumptions about how damage, upgrades, armour, weapon types and types of attack influence poise or status ailments. I still have no idea what the critical stat on weapons actually means beyond 'more crit = more crit damage' and a vague sense that it's not a linear scale nor tied directly to weapon damage. I wouldn't have any idea how to predict the damage if you just threw some numbers at me and asked me to extrapolate. For all the tutorials in FS games, they're pretty vague about the important shit, and mostly spend a lot of time telling you that you can move the camera and all your buttons actually do stuff.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Yes, because it's intentionally designed that way, with retarded things like enemies hovering in the air at the last 1/4 of their jump arc or ridiculous tracking that goes from 20 degrees per second to 2000 for 10 frames at some completely arbitrary point in an overly long windup animation.

I've played plenty of other games like this. Nioh, Monster Hunter, Stranger in Paradise, Bayonetta, DMC... these games don't have this problem that is unique to FS games where the attacks are so often nonsensical bullshit. Other games punish you for spamming dodge rolls or holding block; FS games punish you for dodging when it's intuitive because 'haha gotcha!' is their modus operandi and blocking a wimpy skeleton with a torch can be more difficult and deadly than a 20 foot tall iron golem.

I agree but this is only a problem in ER that was started by DkS3. The other FS games don't have this retardation.

 

[Hell Swarm]

how blocking works

You hold R1 and face an enemy to block as much damage as your shield blocks. It's not a complex mechanic and lock on makes it auto face the right way.

they're pretty vague about the important shit

None of this is important. You need to know how to use menus, how to move, how to roll and how to attack. Everything else is effectively extra.

Yes, because it's intentionally designed that way, with retarded things like enemies hovering in the air at the last 1/4 of their jump arc or ridiculous tracking that goes from 20 degrees per second to 2000 for 10 frames at some completely arbitrary point in an overly long windup animation.

I've played plenty of other games like this. Nioh, Monster Hunter, Stranger in Paradise, Bayonetta, DMC... these games don't have this problem that is unique to FS games where the attacks are so often nonsensical bullshit. Other games punish you for spamming dodge rolls or holding block; FS games punish you for dodging when it's intuitive because 'haha gotcha!' is their modus operandi and blocking a wimpy skeleton with a torch can be more difficult and deadly than a 20 foot tall iron golem.

I agree but this is only a problem in ER that was started by DkS3. The other FS games don't have this retardation.

Ivory king in Dark souls 2 has a lot of this bullshit too. I want to say Arti does too but he has other dumb issues.

 

[Damned Registrations]

The other FS games don't have this retardation.

For the iframe baiting yeah; it still has lots of dumb 'lulz we killed you because you weren't spoiled' moments. Again, torch hollows, and various other things anyone can think of from the earlier FS games I won't say because it'd be a spoiler. But the basic spirit of it was there.

Everything else is effectively extra.

Doesn't feel so extra when you get bled to death by attacks hitting you for zero damage or try to stagger enemies faster by using a great hammer only to find it does a worse job than a rapier.

 

[Hell Swarm]

The other FS games don't have this retardation.

For the iframe baiting yeah; it still has lots of dumb 'lulz we killed you because you weren't spoiled' moments. Again, torch hollows, and various other things anyone can think of from the earlier FS games I won't say because it'd be a spoiler. But the basic spirit of it was there.

Everything else is effectively extra.

Doesn't feel so extra when you get bled to death by attacks hitting you for zero damage or try to stagger enemies faster by using a great hammer only to find it does a worse job than a rapier.

You get hit by a bleed weapon. You see the blood drop bar go up. You understand what's happening or it teaches you when it procs for the first time. And then you understand bleed exists, it hurts like hell and you should change your strategy for those enemies. Which is the core loop of the from games.

 

[Damned Registrations]

You understand what's happening

Or you don't, manage to kill or avoid the enemy next time, and get fucked over by another enemy dealing status effects you tried to block later on. Seriously, would it have been so hard for them to add 'status effects ignore blocking' in a tip somewhere? Or explain what guard boost is doing, so you could know that the difference between 20 and 30 is half the difference between 60 and 70? Or explain that poise recovers between hits at different, completely arbitrary rates for different enemies, with different, completely arbitrary delays before that recovery begins after the most recent hit?

Did you figure out that kicking in DS1 ignores the poise mechanic entirely, allowing you to stagger havel with a single kick but not a bird demon after hundreds? That seems like something a person would be unlikely to learn on their own. How about how split damage works? Unless you're specifically testing these things, there's no reason you'd arrive at the correct answer. You could just as easily think enemies just got a lot tankier after you found your new cool weapon with elemental damage or they happen to resist that element. You might think a lot of spells are totally useless because you didn't know dex improved casting speed, but only for specific spells in a specific way. I never realized enemies won't dodge the 'invisible' spells because I assumed it was just a silly pvp thing and never tried testing it on the handful of enemies that dodge ranged attacks. I think I tried it on an enemy with a shield and he seemed to block them just fine. Hey, that talisman that improves guard counters... does it help stagger enemies more easily? What about the one that improves counter attacks? Are guard counters counter attacks? Why won't my twin daggers with 80 bleed proc bleed on this enemy after 4 hits even though my bleed spear does? Does that mean bleed buildup is linked to weapon damage?

The game is frankly full of details like this. It doesn't make it terrible, but I certainly wouldn't say learning these things from outside the game ruins the experience. If anything, it helps make more options viable to try, instead of just being too unreliable to bother upgrading a weapon or investing stats to test.

 

[Odoryuk]

I agree but this is only a problem in ER that was started by DkS3. The other FS games don't have this retardation.

I see someone never played Bloodborne

Did you figure out that kicking in DS1 ignores the poise mechanic entirely, allowing you to stagger havel with a single kick but not a bird demon after hundreds? That seems like something a person would be unlikely to learn on their own

In my first playthrough I really quickly realised that there's "player" types of enemies, that are built the same way as the player's character, and they act slightly different in combat.

 

[Child of Malkav]

I see someone never played Bloodborne

Sorry, PC master race here.
In BB the player gets a dash, a gun parry (auto correcting to gun party), a rallying mechanic, all of these to have the player keep up with the overall increase in speed and aggression. Same thing with Sekiro. The player gets unique tools to keep up and eventually outgun the opposition.
In DkS3 you get none of the above.
In ER you get none of the above. Sure, you do get cheesing methods but I don't think they count in this context.

 

[Child of Malkav]

For the iframe baiting yeah; it still has lots of dumb 'lulz we killed you because you weren't spoiled' moments. Again, torch hollows, and various other things anyone can think of from the earlier FS games I won't say because it'd be a spoiler. But the basic spirit of it was there.

I meant that that the other FS games didn't have moments of bosses floating in the air trying to strike you from orbit, AoEs all over the arena, infinite combos, jumping all over the place etc. That's ER's signature and it got here after DkS3 wanted to be BB but without all the good parts, but increased the speed instead.