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

[Reinhardt]

i'm confused... why there is one grace before magrit, another after him and third one at the castle gate? there is literally ONE enemy between first and last.

Because of the rule they have in place where bosses always have a site of grace after you defeat them. Even if it looks silly if the boss happens to be in an area like the one Margit is in they still need to follow the rule.

except there is one more grace just few meters away and there is absolutely nothing between "after boss" grace and that one.

 

[Elttharion]

i'm confused... why there is one grace before magrit, another after him and third one at the castle gate? there is literally ONE enemy between first and last.

Remember Ds3?

 

[Hell Swarm]

i'm confused... why there is one grace before magrit, another after him and third one at the castle gate? there is literally ONE enemy between first and last.

Remember Ds3?

DLC has another one of these.

 

[Lyric Suite]

i'm confused... why there is one grace before magrit, another after him and third one at the castle gate? there is literally ONE enemy between first and last.

Because of the rule they have in place where bosses always have a site of grace after you defeat them. Even if it looks silly if the boss happens to be in an area like the one Margit is in they still need to follow the rule.

except there is one more grace just few meters away and there is absolutely nothing between "after boss" grace and that one.

The boss graces are special. They must always appear in the arena. My guess is that somebody designed the area without Margit in mind then decided to put him there but didn't feel the grace next to Stormveil should be removed because it makes more sense logically that Stormveil should have a grace near the gate.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

The bit in DS3 was for the same reason, you had a long trek until that boss, and most beginning and ending parts of leveles were marked by a bonfire.

 

[Strange Fellow]

I've completed a few mines, caves and catacombs at this point, and sadly the improvements to the open world does not appear to have reached these locations. They're just as boring as in the main game. I think there are fewer of them in the DLC, even accounting for the smaller size of the map, so I was hoping that some more effort was put into each one, but no, it's mostly the same reused textures and enemies. Sad!

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

The art direction here is through the roof. That climbing of the dragon peaks where you see the eldritch finger monuments below in the distance is absolutely breathtaking and eerie. Somehow it evoked on me similar feelings to seeing the navigator ship remains in ALIEN.

Next time I want a Miyazaki + Ridley Scott coop.

You mean Giger. Ridley Scott wasn't responsible for the look of Alien.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

I've completed a few mines, caves and catacombs at this point, and sadly the improvements to the open world does not appear to have reached these locations. They're just as boring as in the main game. I think there are fewer of them in the DLC, even accounting for the smaller size of the map, so I was hoping that some more effort was put into each one, but no, it's mostly the same reused textures and enemies. Sad!

Nah, they feel way more handcrafted and intricately designed in the expansion. In the base game they felt proc gen like the Chalice Dungeons from Bloodborne.

 

[HumanTotemPole]

After playing some more feeling NG Haligtree. Damage bassboost, presumably need to stack blessings and new talismans to mitigate.

Areas explored so far lack Haligtree's visual interest/thoughtful verticality though. Don't see what others do in the presentation. Cerulean coast gets big props but all I'm getting is Weeping Peninsula palette swap. Brutal ground cover (gravestone or foliage) pop in as well, the base game would never.

Soldiering on. Lest I lose interest hope things pep up a bit.

 

[Hell Swarm]

RL1 DLC is a shit show. You're always just under the damage you need to kill enemies. It's really frustrating.

 

[Stoned Ape]

 

[Bloodeyes]

I'm bored with the thorns. They're an amazing noob slayer but get hard countered by your opponent actually having a brain.

I'm thinking I'll respec to fth/int and use the staff of the great beyond. If I do that I can add something like wrath of gold to the build to punish people who rush me when I do the thorns. I'd lose around 15% damage on my thorns if I do this, and a small amound of melee damage as well. The versatility is probably worth it.

Against skilled players I'm getting a lot more mileage out of my Fire Knight's Greatsword. No kidding right? It has a neutral R1 into R1 true combo and dumb AR when flame art infused. But doing melee with no poise and negations in the low 20s is a long way from optimal. As is using an ultra greatsword without a viable offhand weapon. So this build should keep casting as its primary mode of attack.

 

[Damned Registrations]

i'm confused... why there is one grace before magrit, another after him and third one at the castle gate? there is literally ONE enemy between first and last.

Because of the rule they have in place where bosses always have a site of grace after you defeat them. Even if it looks silly if the boss happens to be in an area like the one Margit is in they still need to follow the rule.

except there is one more grace just few meters away and there is absolutely nothing between "after boss" grace and that one.

The boss graces are special. They must always appear in the arena. My guess is that somebody designed the area without Margit in mind then decided to put him there but didn't feel the grace next to Stormveil should be removed because it makes more sense logically that Stormveil should have a grace near the gate.

Isn't the last grace outside the castle, I.E. you can get there without fighting the boss?

Anyways I find it funny people are cool with this but have shit flinging tantrums over DS3 doing literally the exact same thing.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Wing stance on Milady is ridiculous. R1 stunlocks shit and R2 launches you like a rocket and does insane damage.

 

[Talby]

i'm confused... why there is one grace before magrit, another after him and third one at the castle gate? there is literally ONE enemy between first and last.

Because of the rule they have in place where bosses always have a site of grace after you defeat them. Even if it looks silly if the boss happens to be in an area like the one Margit is in they still need to follow the rule.

I wish they would walk this back. The only moment in Elden Ring I had that was similar to the feeling of being lost in the depths/blighttown was exploring the sewers under Leyndell, and that was only because I'd forgotten you can just teleport to any grace anytime you want. Fucking Sen's Fortress had one bonfire, and it was hidden.

 

[MasPingon]

i'm confused... why there is one grace before magrit, another after him and third one at the castle gate? there is literally ONE enemy between first and last.

Because of the rule they have in place where bosses always have a site of grace after you defeat them. Even if it looks silly if the boss happens to be in an area like the one Margit is in they still need to follow the rule.

I wish they would walk this back. The only moment in Elden Ring I had that was similar to the feeling of being lost in the depths/blighttown was exploring the sewers under Leyndell, and that was only because I'd forgotten you can just teleport to any grace anytime you want. Fucking Sen's Fortress had one bonfire, and it was hidden.

Entire access to Abyssal Woods and Abyssal Woods iteself is a big "where the fuck am I/I want to go home" experience. Loved the earie feeling about it.

 

[abija]

Since the build could use the spell anyway, had to do it:

last boss scarlet flower

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAy0roztMuQ

 

[MasPingon]

I love the art style of Shadow of Eldtree:

Spoiler

 

[Ravielsk]

The environmental storytelling is good enough that watching lore videos would cheapen it. Finding the

spoilers

Shaman Village

and suddenly understanding how the DLC world's and a major character's backstory, several item descriptions, some ghost dialogue, and a few enemy types all tie together is just great.

I would honestly take everything in the DLC with a massive truck load of salt. After fucking around a bit with it, its painfully obvious the DLC is yet again unfinished and the result of hasty rewrites and cuts. For example the Gloom eyed queen was clearly meant to be part of the DLC but was unceremoniously cut out. Marika's past was also on the docket and was directly advertised in the story trailer but was again almost entirely cut. The Shaman village is more like a chapter 9 of a 10 chapter book, but we lack the prior 8 chapters.
There are also scenes in the trailer showing Miquella lifting the veil over the shadow lands and there are unused lines for his Radhan cutscene.

There are entire areas of the game that were obviously cut down in importance. For example The Scaduview area in the released game is a worthless chunk of land with a bowl and some blessings and nothing else. Yet it features several unique assets, is guarded by an optional boss and the bowl has its own unique icon on the map despite again not having anything of importance tied to it. The same goes for the Suppressing Pillar and the abyssal woods which despite housing what is essentially a complete lore bomb of a boss with his own unique cutscene is yet again pretty much irrelevant to the actual plot of the game(unless you count learning again that frenzy flame=bad as relevance).

What I am getting at is that the DLC is essentially another lore hole that is not worth diving into because too much was omitted to form a coherent plot and what is there is so vague that its effectively telling several mutually exclusive stories all of which could be equally true yet there is no way to even approximate which are closer or further from the truth. The finest example of this being people assuming Marika was somehow justified in what she did in the shadow lands because of the Shaman village and the Jar saints, yet you could very easily make the argument for the reverse if you just assume the events played out in reverse(for which there is an equal amount of evidence).

 

[Reinhardt]

scarlet shit is annoying btw

 

[Hell Swarm]

The environmental storytelling is good enough that watching lore videos would cheapen it. Finding the

spoilers

Shaman Village

and suddenly understanding how the DLC world's and a major character's backstory, several item descriptions, some ghost dialogue, and a few enemy types all tie together is just great.

I would honestly take everything in the DLC with a massive truck load of salt. After fucking around a bit with its painfully obvious the DLC is yet again unfinished and the result of hasty rewrites and cuts. For example the The Gloom eyed queen was clearly meant to be part of the DLC but was unceremoniously cut out. Marika's past was also on the docket and was directly advertised in the story trailer but was again almost entirely cut. The Shaman village is more like a chapter 9 of a 10 chapter book, but we lack the prior 8 chapters.
There are also scenes in the trailer showing Miquella lifting the veil over the shadow lands and there are unused lines for his Radhan cutscene.

There are entire areas of the game that were obviously cut down in importance. For example The Scaduview area in the released game is a worthless chunk of land with a bowl and some blessings and nothing else. Yet it features several unique assets, is guarded by an optional boss and the bowl has its own unique icon on the map despite again not having anything of importance tied to it. The same goes for the suppressing Suppressing Pillar and the abyssal woods which despite housing what is essentially a complete lore bomb of a boss with his own unique cutscene is yet again pretty much irrelevant to the actual plot of the game(unless you count learning again that frenzy flame=bad as relevance).

What I am getting at is that the DLC is essentially another lore hole that is not worth diving into because too much was omitted to form a coherent plot and what is there is so vague that its effectively telling several mutually exclusive stories all of which could be equally true yet there is no way to even approximate which are closer to further from the truth. The finest example of this being people assuming Marika was somehow justified in what she did in the shadow lands because of the Shaman village and the Jar saints, yet you could very easily make the argument for the reverse if you just assume the events played out in reverse(for which there is an equal amount of evidence).

Welcome to From games. Is this your first time? Never get invested in From lore. It all changes at the last moment based on which post-it notes get read from a random pile they shove on an interns desk

The worst bit is Patches still doesn't have a quest line fully fleshed out. He does literally nothing and ends up where he started.

 

[Ravielsk]

Is this your first time?

No, I am one of the few here on codex bringing up all the cut content and hasty edits.

My posts on the matter

What does cut content have to do with the finished game? Why is the story a mess?

Because in development, especially when making open world titles, you cannot make the game level by level sequentially. You need to have the whole thing planned out in advance before you sit your team down to make a game. So when making level one you already have to be thinking about how it will slot in with level 10 even though you are nowhere near making that level. Same goes for scripting and writing, you need to code and write level one in a way that does not conflict with future additions into the game.
You do this because once you inevitably have to change and cut some things for whatever reason you want to maintain coherency of both the game and the story.

Problem is that Souls games after DS1 have not been doing this whatsoever. Meaning that say DS3 was developed with the ability to make bonfires and alter the state of levels through something called rituals but then the rituals and bonfire making were cut and so was everything pertaining to them but the game has already been made mostly with those mechanics and story beats in mind and nobody bothered to patch up those holes. The result in an incomprehensible story that may just as well not exist because its essentially skipping around like a broken record.

Bloodborne is even worse as that game had massive changes done just a few months before release and most were for the worse. For example in the released game the entire area of Old Yharnam and old hunter Djura make absolutely no sense. Because the entire point of that area is to signal to the player that "the beasts are people". Problem is that literary no one is hiding this or pretending to not know this in the released product. Why? Well because the original plan was that the city would become gradually more beast infested as the game went(aka the moon presence got closer) and discovering the secret behind the curse of the beast was meant to be a major chunk of the story. But then it and all the directly related NPCs were cut but everything else was more or less untouched. The result is a game that has to pretend to not know what is real and what is a dream because that is the only way for things to even pretend to make sense.

Not convinced about bonfires in DS3. I could sit down for 30 minutes and rearrange the bonfires in a way that'd be a noticeable improvement over the OG (in fact people have done this in various mods, it's not that hard).

Bonfires placing as a mechanic is just the tip of the iceberg which we sadly do not know the full extent of. The main issue is that in combination with the rituals mechanic(which was mostly a sort of time travel mechanic) bonfires add major lore implications about the state of the world and the players role in it. Whether it would make the game better or worse is a whole other discussion which I am not looking to start.

At the very least I would assume that it would certainly tie up most of the lose narrative ends that compose DS3(such the angelic knights, lothric civil war, the twin princess, Oceiros and well a lot more).

Can you elaborate?

Not a whole lot but I will try. Based on what Lance McDonald uncovered the game was supposed to have ritual mechanics that would alter the skybox of the level to change the state of the world. Ranging from different time of day to basically summoning a swarm of dragons. All of this seems to have been in some way connected with the bonfire mechanic that would have used enemies as sort of tributes or gates for these altered states. Some of it might have been wholly meant for PVP or simple aesthetic purposes and some may have been just developers experimenting but it was clearly meant to be a core part of the game otherwise they would not have bothered highlighting it in the gameplay reveal trailer and to use it internally in presentations.

I believe that it was supposed to be a time travel mechanic of sorts for three reasons:
A. They reused that exact concept in the Ringed city DLC which is what From tends to do with cut content
B. There is a screenshot from an early build where the unused ceremony dragon skybox is in full effect and the dancer of boreal valley is present as a friendly NPC

The image in question

C. This is exactly how its used with Untended Graves area which is just the starting area but with a different time of day flag triggered and canonically acts as your character traveling back in time. As can be seen from the dialog with the hand maiden.

The dialog in question

Oh thou'rt... Oh, no, 'tisn't anything Ashen One. <--- her recognising the player
I am but a humble handmaiden of the shrine.
Weapons, armor, trinkets, and spells...
I've lots of little things to ease the burden of a weary traveller.
...And yes, I'm Undead, too, but not so charitable as to give my goods away.
Ashen One, fetch souls, and bring them to me.
As is thy wont, no?"

Put all together with all the lose and seemingly out of nowhere things in the game (angelic knights, lothric civil war, the twin princess, Oceiros, Profaned capital etc.) its kind of obvious that these things were meant to be far more spread out perhaps mainly through different eras as that would neatly give the developers space to flesh them out without needing to make whole new levels.

ER and the latest DLC are however doubly obnoxious in this regard because in the past you "could"(really you shouldn't but you could) justify the cuts as simply not having a place to put them into or not having enough time to flesh them out. This is not the case with ER, From had plenty of time and plenty of space to put NPCs and item into and just did not.

Its one thing to not directly slot the DLC area into the open world, that is a understandable compromise(that other games seemingly do not have to make but whatever) but advertising one thing just months before release and then going back on it entirely without so much as a peep is just a new level of shit from them.

 

[Reinhardt]

Patches

oh, right. i forgot. nigga promised me to open shop.

 

[Hell Swarm]

advertising one thing just months before release and then going back on it entirely without so much as a peep is just a new level of shit from them.

Dark souls 2 says Hi.

From are a lot like Games Workshop. They have a general style people like but ultimately fail to pull out the full potential. They stagnate and rehash what comes before but worse over and over. Until you're left with a super popular product surrounded by fanboys but it's not of a quality you would have bought into in it's current state. I suppose that sums up most of modern media as well but I think you get the point.

 

[Odoryuk]

Just please don't make up a better unexistent version of the DLC that has nothing to do with reality in your head and then run all over the internet stating it was a fact and you were robbed