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

[Ravielsk]

Often leaving plot lines in the game files but removed from the main game.

You are underselling it. From does not even bother removing plot lines from the main game they just leave them there and then just never follow up on them. For that follow up players had to dig into the network test and "alpha"(although that is retarded term to use when the version mechanically and topographically 80% overlaps with the final release but whatever) versions to make sense of the bullshit.

That is why I brought up Old Yharnam. In the released game that entire area present a literal plothole as you the player and the player character are outright told and shown that the beasts are Yharnam citizens turned into beasts. Its self evidently public knowledge yet the old town is for some reason hidden, sealed and there is a guy raging dropping this publicly know fact on you like you did not know it from the start. That whole place is a literal left over from a different version of the script From simply left there and never bothered to line up with the rest of the game.

Or DS3, like Silva mentioned, that kept all the references to Sulivan messing around the world but removed the dialog and features that would elaborate on what he was trying to do. The result is that Sulivan went from the main bad to a random dude who randomly sent out his knights to harass the Ashen one for no particular reason. Or a civil war in Lothric that clearly caused its downfall being little more than a footnote in the lore because why would the most recent events be documented or talked about at all, right?

 

[Ravielsk]

From the game, it is evident that the shamans were seen as lower breed

No such statement was made as far as I know and even if it was it would again contradict the story trailers premise of "seduction and betrayal". Who could a "lower breed" Marika seduce or betray to gain godhood if her people were used as fodder for jar saints to a point to where they went extinct?

 

[Ravielsk]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the "unpatched" version very tough to get and wasn't it limited to a single console, meaning it was an unfinished version of the game, meaning that's the last minute changes that can be ignored?

1.0 version is any console version on the disc, you just turn off the internet and install it from the disc. The day 1 patch basically added nothing critical to beating the game. It reshuffled enemies, stats, items and changed the lore but the game was perfectly beatable and finished.

 

[Odoryuk]

From the game, it is evident that the shamans were seen as lower breed

No such statement was made as far as I know and even if it was it would again contradict the story trailers premise of "seduction and betrayal". Who could a "lower breed" Marika seduce or betray to gain godhood if her people were used as fodder for jar saints to a point to where they went extinct?

Whip bestrewn with rotting, misshapen teeth. Filthy and seething with disease, the teeth are embedded in the whip and dose the victim with deadly poison upon each strike. As the wounds ripen they grow inflamed and ooze pus. The flesh of shamans was said to meld harmoniously with others.

You get this whip in the Whipping Hut near the Bonny Village (the same village you get the gesture to access the shaman village, so the connection is direct and apparent), where there's also a ghost that says that the only good thing a shaman can do is to get into the jar, nothing more. Can't find the exact dialogue, but it made me feel that shamans were treated very badly, nothing more than a jar fodder.

 

[MasPingon]

Ravielsk But that's not the point of Old Yharnam. Old Yharnam was a memorial of Church of Blood past crimes against humanity. It was first district which citizens were treated by the Old Blood and when it turned out Fauchi Ouchi do not work as they said, where beast holocaust took place. Later abondoned and locked, those entities that survived were left on their own without any help(blood) or compassion(elimination). The last boss is symbolic in that context, it's a Blood Starved Beast at the dephs of this god forsaken place.

 

[Ravielsk]

You get this whip in the Whipping Hut near the Bonny Village (the same village you get the gesture to access the shaman village, so the connection is direct and apparent), where there's also a ghost that says that the only good thing a shaman can do is to get into the jar, nothing more. Can't find the exact dialogue, but it made me feel that shamans were treated very badly, nothing more as a jar fodder.

Yes, and? I never claimed the shamans were never treated badly, that is not even the point I was making. Hell, to even be called shamans, they had to do... well shamanism and they had to do it for an extended period of time to be called that. So obviously they could not have been jar fodder from the start.

The point is there is no definite proof either way on the order the events played out. We only know the shamans got shafted at the end but why or when exactly is never explored. I lean towards the idea that it happened after Marika's ascension because if it was before then I simply see no way how she could achieve anything if she was seen as "Jar meat".

 

[Ravielsk]

@Ravielsk But that's not the point of Old Yharnam. Old Yharnam was a memorial of Church of Blood past crimes against humanity. It was first district which citizens were treated by the Old Blood and when it turned out Ouchi Fauchi do not work as they said, where beast holocaust took place. Later abondoned and locked, those entities that survived were left on their own without any help(blood) or compassion(elimination). The last boss is symbolic in that context, it's a Blood Starved Beast at the dephs of this god forsaken place.

That is quite literary true of the entirety of Yharnam. The whole city is overrun specifically because everyone was using the blood. The Old Yharnam is simply the first place where it reached a critical point but that is entirely besides the point.

My entire point hinges on the fact that Djura for some reason feels the need to inform the player, explicitly and with bated breath of a fact that at this point in the timeline is public knowledge. He is the center piece of the whole area screaming at you from a tower right as you enter but then once you get to him he essentially shares with you the equivalent of "did you know steam used to be water". Which is just incredibly silly unless you assume that he was literary camping that one spot for... well we do not have a timeline but its safe to assume that it would have to be at least several years for him to be so detached from the rest of the world to think he is dropping some truth bomb on you.

But then when you take into consideration the original opening of the game where you were not told jack about the nature of the hunt and were actually chasing after your friend Laurence and were actually looking to learn more about blood ministration it all starts to make sense. In the context of that opening Djura is actually revealing to you something you did not necessarily know.

 

[MasPingon]

@Ravielsk But that's not the point of Old Yharnam. Old Yharnam was a memorial of Church of Blood past crimes against humanity. It was first district which citizens were treated by the Old Blood and when it turned out Ouchi Fauchi do not work as they said, where beast holocaust took place. Later abondoned and locked, those entities that survived were left on their own without any help(blood) or compassion(elimination). The last boss is symbolic in that context, it's a Blood Starved Beast at the dephs of this god forsaken place.

That is quite literary true of the entirety of Yharnam. The whole city is overrun specifically because everyone was using the blood. The Old Yharnam is simply the first place where it reached a critical point but that is entirely besides the point.

My entire point hinges on the fact that Djura for some reason feels the need to inform the player, explicitly and with bated breath of a fact that at this point in the timeline is public knowledge. He is the center piece of the whole area screaming at you from a tower right as you enter but then once you get to him he essentially shares with you the equivalent of "did you know steam used to be water". Which is just incredibly silly unless you assume that he was literary camping that one spot for... well we do not have a timeline but its safe to assume that it would have to be at least several years for him to be so detached from the rest of the world to think he is dropping some truth bomb on you.

But then when you take into consideration the original opening of the game where you were not told jack about the nature of the hunt and were actually chasing after your friend Laurence and were actually looking to learn more about blood ministration it all starts to make sense. In the context of that opening Djura is actually revealing to you something you did not necessarily know.

Telling the truth I never liked that part with Djura, it always seemed a little off and over the top to me if you compare it to the rest of the game, so I didn't pay much attention to him, the more that this encounter is so short. I just can't stop associate that encounter with this scene:

Still it worked somehow, he seemed to be this idealistic, eccentric loner shouting his truth at you. Other then that I always treated him more like a turret obstacle then an actual NPC. I get your point, I just think this is not important in a grand scheme.

 

[Raghar]

Actually I just noticed when I watched streamer. She's called maiden of TWO fingers. Does it mean that GRR Martin imagined girl masturbating with two fingers and created a whole order of maidens of two fingers?

 

[lametta]

Hi guys!

 

[Wasteland]

Hi guys!

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Every SoulsRingBorneKiro game has the same plot:

-A speshul power is discovered (The first flame, the old blood, dragon blood, the elden ring)
-The people who discover it become kings or gods with the power
-A golden age is created
-The gods/kings become corrupt, Bad Things happen, monsters appear (undead, beasts, dragon plague, etc)
-The effort to defeat the monsters only makes the problem worse
-The land falls into ruin
-PLOT TWIST: the Speshul Power caused the Bad Things!*
-The player appears as a final agent of fate
-The fallen gods have to be killed, and the player either escapes the cycle or restarts it.

*For those who aren't aware, the Undead Plague is caused by the First Flame burning your humanity away until you become Hollow, and Vaatividya is a stupid moron.

 

[HumanTotemPole]

Not a total bust in the art direction department:

Spoiler

Tremendous. A vista straight out of classic fantasy art

 

[Turn_BASED]

I went and emulated demons souls after finishing the DLC, it was the most visceral gaming whiplash I’ve ever experienced. What went so wrong over the years?

 

[Frank Capicoli]

What went so wrong over the years?

Dark Souls III happened.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

What went so wrong over the years?

Arguably Bloodborne. While that game was great, the effort to make DS combat faster and more twitchy almost certainly was the result of Bloodborne's popularity.

Personally what I miss is the inventive multiplayer mechanics of DS1. Getting invaded at the worst times, battling through the forest covenant (and then joining it), becoming an invader who only invades the 'bad' invaders, etc. It was all really innovative for the time and none of the later games expanded on it. Instead they relegated PvP mostly to gank squads or formalized dueling, which is fun but basically segregated from the main gameplay.

 

[Raghar]

Do you remember how ghost attacked trough the walls? That was interesting part, especially if you had half HP just to be able to hit them.

 

[Ezekiel]

I'm so tired of how defensive these games are now on the part of the player. Get one hit, then defend, defend, defend, defend.

 

[Crayll]

What went so wrong over the years?

Arguably Bloodborne. While that game was great, the effort to make DS combat faster and more twitchy almost certainly was the result of Bloodborne's popularity.

Personally what I miss is the inventive multiplayer mechanics of DS1. Getting invaded at the worst times, battling through the forest covenant (and then joining it), becoming an invader who only invades the 'bad' invaders, etc. It was all really innovative for the time and none of the later games expanded on it. Instead they relegated PvP mostly to gank squads or formalized dueling, which is fun but basically segregated from the main gameplay.

For as phoned-in as DS3 was, I thought they did a good job building on DS1's multiplayer. Invading as a Mound Maker in a high-traffic area was some of the most PVP fun I've had since the original PC release of DS1. Makes the decline in ER's multiplayer mechanics even more baffling.

I'm so tired of how defensive these games are now on the part of the player. Get one hit, then defend, defend, defend, defend.

The deflecting hardtear was added to help this problem. Guard counters come out way quicker than roll -> light attack on most weapons and poise break much faster, meaning you can play more proactively. With the proper timing you can do perfect blocks with most weapons, no shield required.

 

[gabel]

They simply got too successful and started catering to the lowest common denominator in all aspects.
Getting invaded when you don't want to, basically having to carefully crawl through hand-crafted dungeons all the time with tight encounter-design and environmental challenges is not what the plebs want. They want an open world you can traverse brainlessly on your mount, inconsequential "dungeons", "consentual" PvP and abusing systems to break spastic bosses so they can feel like gaming-gods.
It took longer than usual, but around the time of Bloodborne and DS3, the signs were there. Happened to everything successful ever. Just sad to see it happen to something you adored.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Everyone who complains about this game has a similar build and playstyle:

-2-handed weapons
-No Shield
-No parry
-No guard counter
-Dodgeroll only
-No spells
-No items/pots/buffs
-No status effects
-No spirit ashes
-No Co-op or NPCs
-No ranged weapons
-Mid vigor (or lower)
-Mid or light armor
-Low SL/Never grinds
-No physik
-Use ashes of war, but never the 'broken' (i.e. good) ones

When anyone points out alternate tactics, the haters insist that ignoring 90% of the game's system is the "intended" way to play.



I really don't know what else to say. If you choose to play the game with a self-imposed challenge build because it's the only way you can have fun, great. But I don't think it's reasonable to expect different builds to all be equally viable. That's Skyrim talk.

 

[gabel]

You're retarded.
I always preferred Greatshields and had to step out of my comfort zone for the SL1 runs. The rolling 2-handed retards are the ones praising the game.
And none of that has anything to do with the degenerate design of ER whatsoever.

 

[Frank Capicoli]

Everyone who complains about this game has a similar build and playstyle:

I've tried all these different builds and it still doesn't change that Elden Rang largely misses the mojo that captured me with things like Shadow Tower or Demons Souls did.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Just because I could easily win fights by holding up a giant shield and poking shit with a rapier while watching my green bar go up and down doesn't mean they're good fights. Everyone defending ER's combat has no experience playing anything with actual decent combat with multiple viable options and variety in challenges and playstyles.

 

[gabel]

We're just maidenless, guess we better take the two fingers.
This game is just degenerate crap in every way.