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

[Elttharion]

Get her to waterfowl off a cliff and call it a day.

You cant, unfortunately, as there are invisible walls in that arena.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Get her to waterfowl off a cliff and call it a day.

You cant, unfortunately, as there are invisible walls in that arena.

That's some bullshit.

I was all ready for, "Bon voyage, ma petite!"

 

[Caim]

Get her to waterfowl off a cliff and call it a day.

You cant, unfortunately, as there are invisible walls in that arena.

That's some bullshit.

I was all ready for, "Bon voyage, ma petite!"

DS1 confirmed to be better than Elden Ring.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Get her to waterfowl off a cliff and call it a day.

Reminds me of my first true boss fight in my first playthrough of Dark Souls, when the Taurus Demon jumped backwards off the tower-bridge into oblivion.

 

[Villagkouras]

Hello all and happy new year.

During the past couple of months I'm replaying this after playing this when it released. This gap made me forget some things and I'm enjoying it as much as I did in my first playthrough. Sometimes even more, as I'm better than then (I haven't used a summon this time and I'm better in creating a build that I like) and I don't have the need to finish it quickly to avoid any FOMO or spoilers. Playing this behemoth without any urgency makes even late game areas much more enjoyable. I think I should keep this mindset in future releases.

Anyway, I'm in the endgame and I'm about to enter the DLC which I haven't touched yet.

So, what do you guys think about the DLC? At first I thought the community found it great, but now I see a bit of scepticism about it. I know it's supposed to be difficult, but my main concern are dungeons, level design and exploration than bosses. I'd take a great level with a subpar boss (Cathedral of the Deep, for example) than the opposite every time. Am I going to be disappointed?

 

[Odoryuk]

So, what do you guys think about the DLC? At first I thought the community found it great, but now I see a bit of scepticism about it. I know it's supposed to be difficult, but my main concern are dungeons, level design and exploration than bosses. I'd take a great level with a subpar boss (Cathedral of the Deep, for example) than the opposite every time. Am I going to be disappointed?

The DLC is like a more focused, more refined base game, it's peak Elden Ring

 

[NJClaw]

So, what do you guys think about the DLC? At first I thought the community found it great, but now I see a bit of scepticism about it. I know it's supposed to be difficult, but my main concern are dungeons, level design and exploration than bosses. I'd take a great level with a subpar boss (Cathedral of the Deep, for example) than the opposite every time. Am I going to be disappointed?

The DLC is a weird beast. It's definitely more of the same, but at the same time it's very different from the base game. It's clearly Elden Ring, but everything feels slightly off.

The good:
- It looks beautiful. The atmosphere is stunning for the most part.
- The overworld areas are interconnected in interesting ways. It's almost as if the world map is sort of a dungeon in and of itself. Exploring and finding ways to reach remote points of the map feels great.
- Compared to the base game, the side dungeons are WAY more unique and thought out. I'd say the worst side dungeon in the DLC is still better than the best ones in the main game.
- There are a lot of interesting new items. A lot of weapons, ashes of war and pieces of equipment to try.
- The Deflecting Hardtear deserves a special mention: it forces you to rest every 5 minutes, but it basically allows you to play Sekiro in Elden Ring. You can get it first thing as soon as you start the DLC (or even sooner with Cheat Engine).
- Most new enemies and bosses are spectacular and fun to fight.
- The NPCs are great, if you care about them.

The bad:
- The expansion is way too big for its own good (1): there aren't nearly enough enemies and points of interest to populate it fully, so there are huge empty areas where you just have to run (or, worse, walk...) around and take in the scenery. This is fine if done once in a game with the Ash Lake, not if it happens constantly.
- The expansion is way too big for its own good (2): there aren't nearly enough "rewards" for your exploration. Most of the time, when you see a shiny item, you'll be picking up useless crafting materials, even more useless runes, or EVEN more useless cookbooks.
- The expansion is way too big for its own good (3): seriously, I can't stress enough how true this is. More than half of the world map is basically empty.
- The legacy dungeons are a huge letdown. Two of them (the "big" ones) range from passable to quite good, but the rest (the minor ones)... the rest are an insult to the player and should have never been added to the game in their current state. Truly the lowest point of the series.
- A dreadful sense of unfinishedness permeates many main bosses' presentations. Their mechanics are fine and the fights are fun (some of them even amazing), but... everything around them just hasn't been finished. You either find them at the end of useless empty areas or the arena for the encounter is a pathetic undefined room. I can't believe I'm saying this, but... some main bosses clearly needed a cutscene and it feels wrong fighting them without one.
- The final boss is AIDS

Finally, if you care about replayability, the system they added to increase your character's stats kinda makes it weird. You have a bunch of items scattered around the world and you need to find them. It works great during your first playthrough, but it quickly becomes draining the second time around if you don't remember where those items are, because you'll have to pick up everything and most of the loot is useless trash.

All things considered, even considering its many shortcomings, I'd say everyone should give it a try.

 

[Lyric Suite]

The items may be useless but i recommend reading all the item descriptions. I felt that was the main reward for discovering them. The side story with the Hornsent, the Shamans etc was far more interesting than the main plot.

 

[Lutte]

- The overworld areas are interconnected in interesting ways. It's almost as if the world map is sort of a dungeon in and of itself. Exploring and finding ways to reach remote points of the map feels great.

It feels random, you mean. Quite a few times I tried to get to an area and was like "dude, I circled around all that shit, there's still no entrance, what the fuck" only to stumble purely RANDOMLY upon its entrance in an unrelated spot (like, for eg, that fucking ladder in the shadow keep). Exploration is NOT rewarding. If you think some place might be interesting to explore you shouldn't even think of trying find access points. Just let it happen "naturally" by which I mean when you naturally hit obvious paths the game pushes you to take which are not intuitive in any way whatsoever.

The in game map is borderline unreadable at times because of the way verticality is used as a way to block you from advancing further in map areas and it's not well represented in the map visuals at all.

- Compared to the base game, the side dungeons are WAY more unique and thought out. I'd say the worst side dungeon in the DLC is still better than the best ones in the main game.

But then none of the main dungeons equal the greatness of something like Leyndell/Leyndell sewers. Some parts were so fking bad (the whole northern shadow keep library segment) I'd even wonder if this was even made by from softdicks.

- The NPCs are great, if you care about them.

It's essentially Miquella's simps vs disillusioned simps. I was not particularly caring for this flavor of conflict.

. I felt that was the main reward for discovering them. The side story with the Hornsent, the Shamans etc was far more interesting than the main plot.

Like soylent green (IS PEOPLE!!11) it's more about shock value than having something to say. What happened to the shaman/jar'd people is just like Martyrs (2008) and other retadred media for "I am very smart" people. Add to that the nippon-jin constant that is kegare as they can't help themselves but add this to everything they produce. Why does ER even have something like the Lake of Rot? Answer 1/ Because Memeazaki thinks his games need dirt swamps and he'll justify them post development 2/ Because they hold legitimate meaning to a fictional world story

1/ of course

 

[NJClaw]

It feels random, you mean. Quite a few times I tried to get to an area and was like "dude, I circled around all that shit, there's still no entrance, what the fuck" only to stumble purely RANDOMLY upon its entrance in an unrelated spot (like, for eg, that fucking ladder in the shadow keep). Exploration is NOT rewarding. If you think some place might be interesting to explore you shouldn't even think of trying find access points. Just let it happen "naturally" by which I mean when you naturally hit obvious paths the game pushes you to take which are not intuitive in any way whatsoever.

The in game map is borderline unreadable at times because of the way verticality is used as a way to block you from advancing further in map areas and it's not well represented in the map visuals at all.

I enjoyed both the verticality of the world and the unreadable map. Some connections are random, but most of them are very hard to miss.

But yeah, that ladder is incredibly dumb. Can't argue with that.

But then none of the main dungeons equal the greatness of something like Leyndell/Leyndell sewers. Some parts were so fking bad (the whole northern shadow keep library segment) I'd even wonder if this was even made by from softdicks.

Yeah, I mentioned that. The three "small" legacy dungeons (the two forts and Midra's Manse) are pathetic. Of the three "big" ones, Belurat and Shadow Keep are passable with some good sections, while Enir-Ilim just doesn't have enough content in it (it's a pity, because it's a cool-looking area and there are a couple of fun fights). if you're willing to stretch the definition, I'd also consider Rauh Base an acceptable legacy dungeon of sorts (not exceptional though). Nothing even remotely comparable to Leyndell, or even Stormveil Castle for that matter.

I don't remember anything particularly outrageous about the library, but I haven't played the game in a while, so maybe I'm forgetting something.

It's essentially Miquella's simps vs disillusioned simps. I was not particularly caring for this flavor of conflict.

It's definitely a matter of taste, but I liked most of them. Count Ymir, Queelign, Hornsent, Igon, Moore, Leda, Freyja, Ansbach, St. Trina, and Thiollier are all good in my book. But maybe the unending emptiness you face in the expansion just made me enjoy every bit of interaction more than I should have.

 

[Lutte]

I don't remember anything particularly outrageous about the library, but I haven't played the game in a while, so maybe I'm forgetting something.

It's a very, very large level devoid of any interesting encounters. It's bad not because it has "outrageous" content but because it has no content. I've had more interesting experiences in fucking open world maps (like Rauh's ancient ruins and the ruins filled with murderous kindreds of rot) than this. It's a level that would have belonged in Dark Souls 3 main game, because even the worst parts of legacy dungeons in ER didn't feel so disappointing. Ironically, DS3 had great DLC levels. I shit on DS3 often but Ariandel is chef's kiss man.

This DLC instead of taking the strengths of ER and eliminating the weaknesses did the opposite. It amplified the bad and didn't bring the goods.

 

[Jason Liang]

I started Elden Ring last weekend, just killed Margit on the bridge.

But I find it hard to find the motivation to continue. Like, Elden Ring is much better than Ghosts of Sushima, since it has fantasy and magic and much better variety of enemies, but it is also not so different from Ghosts of Sushima, really empty world, you're just roaming around looking for places to get power ups. Rinse, repeat. Not as repetitive as Ghosts of Sushima but still repetitive.

Anyway, it's a good game but still disappointed so far. First, I expected a much better story. This is definitely below CP2077/ Witcher 3's story. Its disjointed plot barely exists just like, and in fact really reminds me of Path of Exile. Second, the game is both too easy and too difficult - the challenge is out of whack. Like, it's only difficult because you can only take 2 or 3 hits so you basically are always playing a glass cannon build, so you die a lot. But it's not difficult if you always play glass cannons anyway and are used to it. The game is way too monty haul - power ups everywhere, as you as you get like Ashes of War Sacred Blade or Reduvia you just steam roll. Also, leveling up doesn't really matter, it's all about finding upgrade stones for your weapons.

Finally, the magic system is really disappointing. Yes, there are hundreds of spells, but there's nothing you haven't seen a hundred times over in other games - fireballs, buffs, healing, area control. This is a poor magic system, reminds me (in a bad sense) of Pillars of Eternity, in fact Pillars' magic system is probably better. Terrible compared to Path of Exile.

Elden Ring I can't but feel is just Path of Exile 1 with better graphics, similar mechanics, but worse systems (like magic and crafting). It's a step up from say Demon Souls since it's actually a full world rpg and not just a dungeon crawler, but it falls well short of being one of the rpg greats.

 

[Max Damage]

ER is pretty much Souls formula spread too thin over length it wasn't made for, the worst part is just how boring most of it is. Could've been salvaged with better level design, combat, and not cutting costs on making actual living hubs and stuff to do besides fighting copypasted mobs and bosses.

 

[NJClaw]

making actual living hubs and stuff to do besides fighting

Eewww

 

[ERYFKRAD]

making actual living hubs and stuff to do besides fighting

Eewww

I see your inner Italian recoils at having stuff to do.

 

[Odoryuk]

making actual living hubs and stuff to do besides fighting

Disgusting

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

I don't like discussing this game with anyone. The haters are just retarded, and the people who worship it are fucking annoying and/or retarded. Very few level headed takes in regards to Elden Ring. I prefer not engaging in convo about it. Sad it's the most discussed Soulsborne game because it's the least interesting to talk about.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

ER is pretty much Souls formula spread too thin over length it wasn't made for, the worst part is just how boring most of it is. Could've been salvaged with better level design, combat, and not cutting costs on making actual living hubs and stuff to do besides fighting copypasted mobs and bosses.

Elden Ring consists of a substantial number of well-designed, atmospheric "legacy dungeons" and underground areas interspersed among Open World environments filled with micro-dungeons. If it had been half the length, via reducing the size of the Open World and eliminating many micro-dungeons, there wouldn't be any need to improve the level design of the remainder.

 

[Gahbreeil]

I had to give up on Elden Ring at the Pumpkin Heads. I stumbled into the wrong area with too much gold on me and the strength to go on left me. Still, the only playable Soulslike so far for me. I defeated three bosses in 21.4 hours. Awesome setting somehow ruined by the monsters. No need for this much horrific that there's a cartman spewing fire out of a cauldron in my opinion.

Bosses

Margit, Ancestor Spirit, Godrick

 

[Hagashager]

I am finding myself not enjoying Shadows of the Erdtree as much as the base game.

It feels like a typical DLC expansion that doesn't gel with the base game.

The "Scadutree Blessings" are a dogshit idea. They're exactly the kind of disjointed, bolted on appendage I thought they would be.

Moreoever, both the setting and story feel too disconnected from the base game too. It's obvious Fromsoft tried to fit all the bio-diversity of the base game into a landmass roughly half its size. It makes everything feel small and artificial. Even more than base Lands Between, this is not a world societies live in, it's a game space.

The emphasis on Miquella and his ambitions are almost totally divorced from the broader Elden Lord plot. He's a glorified Rune-Bearer like anyone else, there is virtually nothing to him or his narrative that is anymore connected to Marika than, say, Rikard. That he's an entire DLC plot feels weird.

The difficulty, even with Scadutree Blessings, are jacked. Common mooks will take off half your health at 60 Vigor, and any soldier can bring you into sudden death. Bosses are just glass-cannon affairs no matter your stats. The game world is also janky. Even as a open-air dungeon, the paths aren't sign posted well enough to feel intuitive. You'll spend A LOT of time climbing tiny ledges that do not look like the main path at all and then stumvle into a plot critical location without warning.

The best part of the game are weapons and spells. I got the Staff of Great Beyond, and this giant hammer that hits harder than anhthing in base game. It makes me want to just start a NG+ with it.

 

[SayMyName]

brought back full powerstancing from DS2, not the diet soda version of it.

DS2 powerstancing only gave you a single neutral l1 string and l2 attack (no special running, jumping or rolling attacks), required x1.5 stats to even powerstance the weapons and a continuous hold of the button to activate it. People have massive nostalgia goggles for it, when it was by far the worst paired weapon system in the entire franchise. In ER i just find two longswords and pair them from level 1.

The only thing DS2 did right is giving left-hand weapon full moveset, but it's a separate thing entirely.

Thats exactly what I try to argue every single time ds2 fans shill ds2 powerstance as godsend. Not only not having movement/non-neutral attacks was awful, but they were generally awful bar very few movesets (like the curved swords). If Elden Ring had DS2 powerstance nobody would use them.

Regardless, I generally believe Dark Souls 3/elden Ring did dual weapons right with paired weapons and the obsession with powerstance is baffling.
Paired weapons
- Have their unique, special weapon arts using dual weapons.
- They keep only 1 slot locked, and can be buffed both without swapping nonsense, just by keeping them in the right slot
- They can be 1 handed, and used with anything in the other slot while mixed up with the other hand weapon

The best dual weapons are paired weapons in Dark souls 3/Elden Ring. Having heavy attack for left hand is cool but again I would rather have movement offhand attacks than heavy attacks of your left hand weapon, especially because ashes of war are more important. Alternatively, having the offhand attack be an attack unique of its own and that is fast and light, but still works like the right hand R2, in the sense that it can be delayed and become a more powerful attack.

If there's any change I would like to see in whatever spiritual successor with new IP Elden Ring gets eventually, that would be replacing shield poke into either a shield bash or shield parry (L1 + R1 w/ shield) or kick (L1 + R1 w/ 2handed weapon) when you don't have a thrusting weapon.

Otherwise, Elden Ring is already in a great spot in terms of evolving the formula meaningfully and gameplay wise, we are pretty much at the stage where they can add new weapons, enemies and levels to the template without meaningful gameoplay changes because the base is very solid. Nightreign is essentially Elden Ring with 2 Ashes of War slots, and while it will certainly feel different due to the weird JRPG tier flashy abilities, how it actually deviates from the main game is in its progression, level design and traversal. I can see From testing with the weapon weight limit too, they are probably thinking elden Ring still did not incentivize players enough to fill all 6 weapon slots, and I wouldn't be surprised if light, medium and fat roll get streamlined to depend entirely on talismans and armor equipped, with Endurance requirements or maybe a direct stamina regen tradeoff, but that's speculation

 

[SayMyName]

ER is pretty much Souls formula spread too thin over length it wasn't made for, the worst part is just how boring most of it is. Could've been salvaged with better level design, combat, and not cutting costs on making actual living hubs and stuff to do besides fighting copypasted mobs and bosses.

Skyrimfags still pushing for muh hubs 3 years after release

 

[Jason Liang]

So... I beat Godrick a few days ago, and have explored much of Limuria, Caelid, Altus Plateau (outside of the capital) and Mt. Gelmir (got to Volcano Manor). I found Bloody Heltrice (actually on my own, did not consult the wiki), and it's pretty nice for NPC invasions and other "duel" fights, but for most bosses, the easiest strategy seems to be just plinking away with Serpent Bow while my doggo bites the boss. I see that this game has a ton of Sword-porn/ Weapon-porn but actual easy mode is Bow?

Anyway, I guess now it's open world and my choice to go after the Limuria boss, Caelid boss or the Mt. Gelmir boss? Also, since enemies are giving a lot more runes in Mt. Gelmir, I expect them to be tougher, but... no? I would assume that the Volcano Manor boss would be more difficult than either the Caelid or Limuria boss but it seems Mt. Gelmir is an easier region?

Also, both Mt. Gelmir and Altus Plateau seem much, much smaller than the first three regions? I feel like climbing the mountain was not done very well, compared to say, Death Stranding or even The Prophet from Neverwinter Nights.

 

[d1r]

ER is pretty much Souls formula spread too thin over length it wasn't made for, the worst part is just how boring most of it is. Could've been salvaged with better level design, combat, and not cutting costs on making actual living hubs and stuff to do besides fighting copypasted mobs and bosses.

Elden Ring consists of a substantial number of well-designed, atmospheric "legacy dungeons" and underground areas interspersed among Open World environments filled with micro-dungeons. If it had been half the length, via reducing the size of the Open World and eliminating many micro-dungeons, there wouldn't be any need to improve the level design of the remainder.

How about we completely get rid of fucking open world?
Fuck Open world, and the absolute horrible consequences it has brought to many game series.

 

[SayMyName]

ER is pretty much Souls formula spread too thin over length it wasn't made for, the worst part is just how boring most of it is. Could've been salvaged with better level design, combat, and not cutting costs on making actual living hubs and stuff to do besides fighting copypasted mobs and bosses.

Elden Ring consists of a substantial number of well-designed, atmospheric "legacy dungeons" and underground areas interspersed among Open World environments filled with micro-dungeons. If it had been half the length, via reducing the size of the Open World and eliminating many micro-dungeons, there wouldn't be any need to improve the level design of the remainder.

Size has nothing to do with how good a dungeon is. There's many smaller dungeons that are either unique or great, and a lot of them have a bunch of gimmicks that make them differ. Not all of them are as interesting, but a good half of the minor dungeons are every bit as unique as, say, Farum Azula, which has some verticality but mostly stands out just for being visually stunning and a few encounters.

Micro dungeons are also great ways to give access to major loot without keeping a structure of only legacy dungeons or overworld, which would make the while feel even more disconnected.

I would say Elden Ring strikes a great balance, and it's ALWAYS damned if you do, damned if you don't when it comes to level design.

ER is pretty much Souls formula spread too thin over length it wasn't made for, the worst part is just how boring most of it is. Could've been salvaged with better level design, combat, and not cutting costs on making actual living hubs and stuff to do besides fighting copypasted mobs and bosses.

Elden Ring consists of a substantial number of well-designed, atmospheric "legacy dungeons" and underground areas interspersed among Open World environments filled with micro-dungeons. If it had been half the length, via reducing the size of the Open World and eliminating many micro-dungeons, there wouldn't be any need to improve the level design of the remainder.

How about we completely get rid of fucking open world?
Fuck Open world, and the absolute horrible consequences it has brought to many game series.

Many hate Dark souls second half (despite having fantastic levels, better than any in the first half, like Painted World and Duke Archive) because muh connected world, but then you ask some and the best Dark Souls levels are enclosed and more similar to Demon's Souls stages.
Many hated Mountaintops being an atmospheric "open world corridor" of mostly rocky mountains directing the player towards Fire Giant and 2 legacy dungeon, called it barren on content despite having a mausoleum that bombs you while fighting a side boss and a town of invisible assassins.
So Shadow of the Erdtree made all content concentrated to a large section of dense levels, a bunch of minor dungeons around it and leading to quests, and a large connecting area where you kinda ride through pretty fast, and that is vast but quick to traverse, many didn't like it either and were quick to ignore the extra gameplay density.

Dark Souls 3 is literally back to back dungeons, but the result is hit and miss, with absolutely great but also shit levels and pretty much everyone agrees several minor and major dungeons in Elden Ring are superior to especially ds2 and ds3 levels. I think it's never as simplistic as having a perfect formula and claiming develòopers should do something to get everything right. Irithyll Dungeon + Profaned Capital are technically a mega dungeon connected through multiple routes and multi-layered, but design wise it fails at feeling so because, in my opinion, there's technical physical limitations to mashing everything so close and getting a coherent and functional design, and in that sense, the open world actually helps the design of these mega dungeons