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

[Hell Swarm]

I agree with Hell Swarm about the drop rates. I've probably spent a full week of my life farming the Aristocrat Headband for different characters. Its hell and I'm never doing it again.

It's so fucking sad. You guys playing Elden Ring like some kind of Diablo/looting grindfest? I would have never thought of that. I thought some of you are just intellectually disabled, but it seems there is more serious background of your condition. Damn, if I knew it before I wouldn't even get mad reading some comments. Can we somehow help you?

Objective : Obtain cool fire sword called Magma blade
How to achieve in game : Kill the same enemy until it drops
Options : Grind the enemy or can't use the weapon you want or cheat and risk online banning

Gee whiz!

It's a valid mechanic common to a lot of RPGs. In some of them, it's the ONLY mechanic they have, namely Diablo clones, MMOs and the like.

Loot games generally have much deeper RPG elements than From games to.

But we get it, you're autistic and you love grinding out 1% drops in From games. Same way you love the broken camera, bad hit boxes and constantly reused enemies with no depth.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Loot games generally have much deeper RPG elements than From games to.

Doesn't make up for the forced grinding, not by a long shot.

Also, some of them can go a bit on the "deeper" end with the mechanics to the point it becomes irritating. Path of Exile is a case in point.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Loot games generally have much deeper RPG elements than From games to.

Doesn't make up for the forced grinding, not by a long shot.

Also, some of them can go a bit on the "deeper" end with the mechanics to the point it becomes irritating. Path of Exile is a case in point.

I have a secret for you Lyric.

The truth

From software games are grinding games. Either you grind exploration to find the exploitable builds or you grind the bosses to overcome their movesets. Souls games have always been grinding games and it's where their reputation comes from.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Aside for the bad and false arguments (no grinding whatsoever is required in any of the Souls games. None), you must have never played those games if you think Souls is even remotely comparable to that. I quit WoW forever after a month of raiding. It wasn't even the raiding but the whole pre-raid grind. Every fucking week i had to do that shit just to get to the raid, and then i had to do the raid. Fuuuuck that bullshit.

More recently i was forced to quit Path of Exile because i couldn't sustain map drops, even after picking all the right nodes. Farming in Dark Souls is a very minor thing compared to that. Most of the time, there's not even a real reason to do it, and if there is it's a short lived affair.

 

[Hell Swarm]

"It's not grinding if you keep throwing yourself at a boss until you win"

Fuck off Lyric. When you die you're going into the abyss because neither heaven nor hell wants someone as retarded as you.

 

[abija]

From software games are grinding games. Either you grind exploration to find the exploitable builds or you grind the bosses to overcome their movesets.

Quoted for mental gymnastics epicness.

 

[Lyric Suite]

The very definition of sophistry if there ever was one.

By that definition, all games are grinding. Why? Because you play them, and that's grinding.

 

[abija]

Why would you stop at games? Learning, problem solving, discovery, everything is grinding.

 

[Hell Swarm]

From software games are grinding games. Either you grind exploration to find the exploitable builds or you grind the bosses to overcome their movesets.

Quoted for mental gymnastics epicness.

Guess you're too dumb to understand the concept of grinding upgrade material in souls games. Or do you consider killing mobs to get drops to be quality game play?

Case in point : There are 3 Large titianite shards before you get into Sen's fortreess unless you grind them from slimes and leeches (also known as From fanboys). If you want a +10 weapon because you're struggling against a boss your options are to grind to get the shards or to grind against the boss until you learn it's move set. Which is literally grinding VS grinding.

 

[Lyric Suite]

There's of course a simple solution to the issue and it's the reason why FromSoft's implementation of randomized loot is among the best: you don't have to engage in it. There's a billion of other gear you can use. "But muh Halo Syche". Fuck the Halo Syche.

"It's among the best to have to farm a weapon in a poison swamp or wait until you reach end game to get it". Brilliant Lyric, you never fail to post the dumbest shit.

Thorn sorceries scale off faith and arcane. There are 3 staffs that use faith as a modifier and 1 of them is dropped from a unique enemy in volcano manor with 11% drop rate and the other is a specific type of fire monk with a 2% drop rate. The final one is a fixed drop but has vastly higher stat requirements to the point where using a mixed staff is pointless as you would already have the stats to use a normal intelligence based one.

We could question why From thinks putting faith buiilds spells on an item they can't really use and then requiring 3 stats to make them remotely effect is is a good idea. But then we have to question what From actually think is a good idea. Elden ring being as shallow as a puddle has multiple faith types with unique casting weapons to improve the damage. Instead of fleshing these out and giving you unique builds they're more or less the same 3 spells and often the unique equipment clashes with the build.

Lets take a look at a Madness build. Something new and unique to Elden ring so you would expect it to be reasonably fleshed out since it's got it's own ending.

Base game has one weapon that does Madness. Vyke's spear has an E scaling on strength, this is basically as bad as scaling can get.. But wait! The scared seal also scales off Str, Dex, Int and Faith.. So your madness build gets a near useless buff from strength. But your spells require faith and the only decent scaling is off of Faith so why the fuck does the only weapon option in the base game clash with your primary damage stat? But wait the DLC gave us the frenzy perfume bottle so throwing magic dust is... oh that's dex too. Because faith wouldn't make any sense.

Actually I was joking. The vast majority of the game is immune to madness and every boss is. So your awesome new status and magic type is completely worthless compared to using the basic fire magic which is easier to get, uses all of the same buffs but has better spells and can be built around using almost any weapon with the right ashes of war. But hey.. Madness ending right? This is how bad From's design is. They create a specific ending for a build and give it 5 items and 5(6) spells. It has a built in balancing mechanic of self damage if you abuse it and it's seal is hidden behind a NPC quest line and multiple obscure invasions.. But it's just utterly worthless.

Madness is designed around the lore first and foremost, and the functionality is then derived from there. This is one of the absolute best things that i like about FromSoft, the way everything is integrated into the world, including the multiplayer. When i first encountered the concept of invasions in Dark Souls 1 i was left wondering why nobody else ever did it this way. It's just so damn cool (one of my main gripes about Elden Ring is the lack of covenants for instance).

The fact madness only works on tarnished creates a certain unique "identity" for whoever decides to go this route. Without those kind of distinctions madness would just be a yellow version of bleed or frost and how fucking boring would that be? If all status effects worked in the same way there would be no point in having any of them to begin with, just have one and be done with it. "Builds" shouldn't just be reduced to doing the same exact thing just in different colors.

There's also more to certain specializations than a status proc. While madness is motly a PvP thing, it's still remarkably strong in PvE. Madness spells are powerful even without the proc. The laser eye beam is the best sniping tool in the game and the other spells are no slouch either. Also, madness has the best buff in the game, but you have to be "mad" to use it, see? You would also have to "mad" to pursue this path which is why it's so well hidden. The journey the player has to go through to follow this path sort of mirrors the concept within the game itself.

 

[Hell Swarm]

The laser eye beam is the best sniping tool in the game a

That would be a bow.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

You farm to get the Halo scythe, I farm on Dark souls 2 to get the desert sorceress gear set. We are not the same.

 

[Lyric Suite]

You farm on Dark Souls 2 to get the desert sorceress set. I farm on Dark Souls 2 to get the desert sorceress set so i can give it to Rosabeth. We are not the same.

 

[Silverfish]

Try to grind a week on a sinlge weapon in Diablo or an MMO without which you cannot even progress the game.

Grinding in Diablo.

Playing an MMO at all.

Imagine how cool it would be for different merchants to find rare and exotic weapons as you advance the game. How much more rewarding finding a merchant would be if they held something other than mushrooms, bolts and 1 set of armour already well below your stats.

Pretty damning that the coolest vendor I ever found in ER was the guy who sells the lantern.

Would you lay the same criticism to Dark Souls? Because that had random drops too, but no "mushrooms".

ER came out eleven years after Dark Souls. From had time to iron out the kinks.

Aside for the bad and false arguments (no grinding whatsoever is required in any of the Souls games. None)

Pure bladestone and DS1 titanite chunks say hello.

 

[Hell Swarm]

You farm to get the Halo scythe, I farm on Dark souls 2 to get the desert sorceress gear set. We are not the same.

You farm on Dark Souls 2 to get the desert sorceress set. I farm on Dark Souls 2 to get the desert sorceress set so i can give it to Rosabeth. We are not the same.

You're both neckbeards with no sexual experience and sore wrists using reddit memes. You're the exact same type of person.

Pretty damning that the coolest vendor I ever found in ER was the guy who sells the lantern.

Best item in elden ring without a doubt.

Pure bladestone and DS1 titanite chunks say hello.

I don't know where you would find the original wiki pre-AOTA DLC but I'd love to see the numbers for drops again. They were not wanting you to max your weapon out.

 

[Lyric Suite]

ER came out eleven years after Dark Souls. From had time to iron out the kinks.

But there are no kinks. They have a system of fixed, handplaced loot with some random drops to spice things up a little bit and not make every play feel exactly the same as the other in terms of exploration and loot progression. None of the gear that is locked behind a loot table (which is relatively small all considered) is fundamental or necessary to progress through the game, and they have a whole mechanic in place to help you edge your bets which also adds a bit of extra strategy to begin with. I don't see what the big deal is.

 

[Doktor Best]

The very definition of sophistry if there ever was one.

By that definition, all games are grinding. Why? Because you play them, and that's grinding.

Well to be fair people in the chess community refer to daily puzzles and going huge in match volume as grinding out rating or skill.

But yeah in the context of rpg its pretty clear what grinding means and learning boss moves or exploration is just not that.

Its also curious how Fromsoft games are accused of grind when people beat them with characters equipped with a wooden spoon and a pair of underpants over his head while codex darling Nioh2, which is much more grindheavy, gets off the hook so easily.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Its also curious how Fromsoft games are accused of grind when people beat them with characters equipped with a wooden spoon and a pair of underpants over his head while codex darling Nioh2, which is much more grindheavy, gets off the hook so easily.

I've not played Nioh2 so I can't comment but Dark souls has multiple grinds in it. The example of large titanite shards or green titanite shards pre-Sens is exclusively a grind if you want to level up your weapon. You either get lucky in 1 play through only crystal lizards dropping them or you have to farm enemies for them. There's no way around it.

Being able to beat the game naked with no weapons isn't an argument there isn't a grind.

Elden ring is especially bad where it does turn exploration into a grind. I have to explore to find the various bellbarings or collecting stuff from the mines/catacombs. The side content is so samey and pointless it is a grind and I'm doing it only for upgrades. Like my current play through a good few hours of it has been just getting flask and upgrade material. It's not something I enjoy or want to do but it's a necessary grind to "level up" my character so my healing works at all.

 

[Multidirectional]

Its also curious how Fromsoft games are accused of grind when people beat them with characters equipped with a wooden spoon and a pair of underpants over his head while codex darling Nioh2, which is much more grindheavy, gets off the hook so easily.

What do you mean by "grindheavy"? The way I understand game requiring you to grind is when you actually have to stop your progress and stay in same place farming for items or level-ups or you will have a bad time if you don't. This has not been my experience with Nioh 2 for 500+ hours I put into it, most of that time rushing my characters to highest difficulty. Or do you mean something different by that?

 

[Lyric Suite]

I'd say farming would be a more appropriate word.

Nioh does solve the issue with the Diablo system to a degree by virtue of being a combat game. Sure you are doing the same maps and killing the same monsters over and over to loot or craft better gear but at least there's actual gameplay involved doing so. It's not the same as in killing Baal five million times. Not to say there isn't something enjoyable about a straight up race between your stats and those of the monsters, and all the theorycrafting that goes with it but once you get to the end game is becomes overbearing. You have to spend hours to make minute progress i just can't deal with that shit anymore, and what makes it worse is that the "journey" is far too forgiving for far too long. Path of Exile was a cake walk all the way up to you start getting your first yellow maps. That's a shit ton of gametime you are basically sleep walking through, and the "story" certainly isn't good enough to entertain you through hundreds of hours of piss easy gameplay you have to wade through to get to the actual challenge, which, when it comes, it halts your progress to a grind.

 

[Silverfish]

None of the gear that is locked behind a loot table (which is relatively small all considered) is fundamental or necessary to progress through the game

So I don't need to farm rare upgrade materials in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, but do need to farm for weapons with 2% more damage in Nioh and Diablo. Makes sense.

 

[Multidirectional]

I don't even think loot system in Diablo II and Nioh is the same. It might look it on the surface level, but there aren't any of these "omg must have" items that can completely change the build. Equipment is never as strong as uniques in DII, let alone the runewords. Bonuses from loot aren't super powerful and builds are more about stacking multiples of the same small bonus until it becomes more significant. And tempering system + inheritable effects make it so there's never any real reason to farm for equipment drops.

 

[Lyric Suite]

None of the gear that is locked behind a loot table (which is relatively small all considered) is fundamental or necessary to progress through the game

So I don't need to farm rare upgrade materials in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, but do need to farm for weapons with 2% more damage in Nioh and Diablo. Makes sense.

Absolutely. Have you even played Diablo? That 2% is the difference between surviving or getting one shot at the highest level. The line you have to ride in those games towards the end is extremely thin.

As for farming upgrade materials, meh. Mostly you only did it because you had to upgrade armor, which was of dubious value. Given there was only a limited number of Titanite Slabs you had enough material to just upgrade the few weapons you ended up using. If you farmed to just upgrade ALL the gear in the game following some kind of completist autism you are a retard.

Not that there's anything wrong with farming in principle. Some people even like to do it (or they wouldn't play shit like MMOs). It's just the extend of it, the time it takes to get what you need, and the necessity of it that sets Diablo far, far apart from Souls.

In all my time in playing Souls, i don't even remember a time where i had to farm something for more than 30 minutes. Like, ever. That's a far cry with spending a week raiding in an MMO just to have a chance to get an item that is actually mandatory to progress to the next raid. It's not even remotely the same shit. Farming in Souls is mild, kiddie stuff by comparison. They even made it easier with the Bell Bearing thing.

 

[Silverfish]

Absolutely. Have you even played Diablo?

Yes, but I've never farmed. I just go through the difficulties until the numbers needed to progress get silly, then I move on.

As for farming upgrade materials, meh. Mostly you only did it because you had to upgrade armor

Or because you can't actually buy titanite chunks in DS1, meaning that you'll have to farm just to upgrade your primary weapon.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Absolutely. Have you even played Diablo? That 2% is the difference between surviving or getting one shot at the highest level. The line you have to ride in those games towards the end is extremely thin.

I've played a hell of a lot of Diablo 2. You just admitted the same thing applies to Dark souls. Farming better equipment or upgrade material is life or death in a lot of games.

That's a far cry with spending a week raiding in an MMO just to have a chance to get an item that is actually mandatory to progress to the next raid.

"This other game does something worse so it's okay when From does something shitty" is not an argument.