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

[Lyric Suite]

BTW, i will say one thing. While the removal of covenants hurts me (as badly designed as many of them were i still loved the concept), the co-op staff is allowing me to do something i rarely did in previous souls games, which is help out people in dungeons.

In all previous souls games i got very few connections unless i dropped the summon sign right in front of the boss fog. Here i must have clocked more than ten hours of gameplay just guiding people around Stormveil (got a real kick out of showing them secret paths they didn't know about).

 

[Lyric Suite]

Ho, so i completed both sides of Luria and i'm now clearing the lake part, and it's clear now what their plan was for dealing with the traditional Souls NPC/quest system and the game being so much larger: just add new ones every area.

On one level this is good and it shows that they put real effort, but the effect of encountering an NPC you didn't see for 50 hours and basically forgot about is still jarring. Maybe it would have been better have a smaller number of NPCs and have them appear more often.

 

[Strange Fellow]

I've already 100%ed that shit. I loved Nioh. I wish I could play it again......for the first time.

This is everything I've played. Someone give me recs:

https://steamcommunity.com/id/derungrund/games/?tab=all

Hellpoint?

 

[Multidirectional]

This is everything I've played. Someone give me recs:

https://steamcommunity.com/id/derungrund/games/?tab=all

Doesn't look like you played DMC V yet.

 

[Lutte]

Finishing the round of NG+ by bullying a certain cunt, I can't say I felt it, the nerf of mimic.

I wonder how much of the power of the things you find are intended, and how much the game wacky stuff is accidental.

Ho, so i completed both sides of Luria and i'm now clearing the lake part, and it's clear now what their plan was for dealing with the traditional Souls NPC/quest system and the game being so much larger: just add new ones every area.

On one level this is good and it shows that they put real effort, but the effect of encountering an NPC you didn't see for 50 hours and basically forgot about is still jarring. Maybe it would have been better have a smaller number of NPCs and have them appear more often.

Some quests I refuse to believe people could find in a natural manner. A certain NPC goes through this routing : you find him in Limgrave first, then Caelid, then... Liurnia. I missed him in my first playthrough because of this fucked up order and it was painful when I saw the solid reward you get for doing the whole questline. I, like most people, saw a little of caelid, thought this should be put off for later, and only returned after doing a lot of Liurnia content. When I went back to Caelid and met this NPC, there was no reason for me to scour Liurnia's map again.

Did Fromsoft expect us to do Caelid first before visiting Liurnia or something? the order of meeting that guy makes no sense.

 

[Silva]

That's it, I'm dropping this for good. I realized I'm still in Leyndell and I'm already forcing myself to play. Didn't like the (DS3) mechanics, didn't like the spastic enemies that get samey and repetitive fast, didn't like the vanilla fantasy aesthetics and didn't like this world design.

This is worst than DS3 for me, because for all this game's pros (like legacy dungeons) it has a flaw that's simply game-killer for me: it's quality time ratio is really low. I must be around 60-70 hours in it but the really good time must be less than half that. The game forces you to spend too much time wandering through its boring, flacid open world for it's own good. For all DS3 flaws in the end I found it's corridor levels mode fun than this. Oh, and if DS3 has linear world design, Elden Ring has linear enemy design, because every enemy behave the same and require the same patterns to defeat - enter, attack once or twice, dodge helicopter or delayed attack, repeat. After a time enemies really feel like different skins over the same bot, and this is the worst curse a combat-based game could commit.

Tl;DR: this game is shit. Ghost of Tsushima was better than this, and Tsushima is a Ubiworld game. Enough said.

Is this your first playthrough? Once you're through Leyndell you're close to the end, particularly if you don't care about which ending you get. Just a few short areas to go if you ignore the open world & side content. The last few bosses are worth fighting.

Thanks for the info but I'm really not enjoying this gameplay, nor this lore and universe (which usually makes me endure crap gameplays just to see how it all ends), so I can't see myself enduring more hours of this. Maybe in the future after I empty all my cup with this formula I come back, I don't know.

 

[Efe]

if you mean alexander, he tells you outright or implies where hes going all the time?

 

[Lutte]

if you mean alexander, he tells you outright or implies where hes going all the time?

No, not when you talk to him in Caelid. I checked up videos to make sure I didn't hallucinate this and somehow just forgot about it.


He is too self absorbed in proving himself and then whining about not being strong enough yet.

He does tell you about going to the festival when you meet him first, and he does tell you in Liurnia what he will do next, but in Caelid he's just going full retard.

 

[NJClaw]

The noble garments actually say everybody is losing their minds and living "immortal, pointless lives".

Interesting, but which garment? I tried looking it up but couldn't find it.

I don't think he was referring to this one, but still:

Spoiler

Those undead-looking creatures are, indeed, undead. The only way I can explain the difference with the "true" undead who rise from graves is that these "fake" ones were alive when Godwyn died and the rune of death "broke" or something.

 

[Silva]

Yep that's the one I referred to. But I'm sure there's another item that explicitly cites "insanity" too.

 

[Lutte]

Yep that's the one I referred to. But I'm sure there's another item that explicitly cites "insanity" too.

I don't feel like this item implies insanity for all, it also explicitely mentions them as being undead.
Yeah, there's other items that talk of insanity in this game, but they tend to be related to the Frenzied Flame.

 

[Gromlintroid]

I'm at Mountaintop Of The Giants, and completely missed that Alexander NPC the entire game.

 

[NJClaw]

Yep that's the one I referred to. But I'm sure there's another item that explicitly cites "insanity" too.

I don't feel like this item implies insanity for all, it also explicitely mentions them as being undead.
Yeah, there's other items that talk of insanity in this game, but they tend to be related to the Frenzied Flame.

There's also this one, but it still isn't what I was looking for:

Spoiler

 

[Olinser]

Yep that's the one I referred to. But I'm sure there's another item that explicitly cites "insanity" too.

I don't feel like this item implies insanity for all, it also explicitely mentions them as being undead.
Yeah, there's other items that talk of insanity in this game, but they tend to be related to the Frenzied Flame.

There's also this one, but it still isn't what I was looking for:

Spoiler

Pretty much the only 'commoners' you can find are the crazy giggling dancing ladies in Altus. Unless you consider the various soldiers to be the commoners.

 

[NJClaw]

Pretty much the only 'commoners' you can find are the crazy giggling dancing ladies in Altus. Unless you consider the various soldiers to be the commoners.

This enemy is literally called commoner:

and he drops the altered version of that item.

 

[Silva]

There are also commoners digging the ground in various biomes.

 

[mediocrepoet]

if you mean alexander, he tells you outright or implies where hes going all the time?

No, not when you talk to him in Caelid. I checked up videos to make sure I didn't hallucinate this and somehow just forgot about it.


He is too self absorbed in proving himself and then whining about not being strong enough yet.

He does tell you about going to the festival when you meet him first, and he does tell you in Liurnia what he will do next, but in Caelid he's just going full retard.

Most/all of the quests in this game seem to forgive you for missing a step or two and hitting the next one. I've been playing blind and only looking at wiki things after I've completed the content at least once. I didn't find this NPC in Liurnia and didn't know he went there. I did, however, find him in Mt. Gelmir, which the wiki says is the next step in his journey after Liurnia, so clearly not finding him there didn't break his questline.

 

[Silva]

Yep that's the one I referred to. But I'm sure there's another item that explicitly cites "insanity" too.

I don't feel like this item implies insanity for all, it also explicitely mentions them as being undead.
Yeah, there's other items that talk of insanity in this game, but they tend to be related to the Frenzied Flame.

Don't think so as I didn't found any mention of frenzied flame and yet stumbled across mentions of insanity. I would open my inventory to see what item is it but I already uninstalled the game. If I find it in the wiki I post it here.

Also important: by this game lore, undead are different from the ones in Souls. While in that series they really resembled mindless empty shells ala Walking Dead zombies, here they seem to be either A. crazy after so many years of idleness (see the Aristocrat set) or B. living some sort of alien lives related to death (Those Who Live in Death).

 

[NJClaw]

Also important: by this game lore, undead are different from the ones in Souls. While in that series they really resembled mindless empty shells ala Walking Dead zombies, here they seem to be either A. crazy after so many years of idleness (see the Aristocrat set) or B. living some sort of alien lives related to death (Those Who Live in Death).

The difference between the two should be that those who live in death have been touched and awakened by deathroot, at least according to the Skeletal Bandit Ashes:

These are the spirits of bandits who live in Death, and will continue to rise again until properly finished off.
After the night of the plot, Deathroot appeared in the Lands Between, and Those Who Live in Death soon followed.

and the Skeletal Militiaman Ashes:

These are the spirits of militiamen who live in Death, and will continue to rise again until properly finished off.
This is the grotesque fate of those who come into contact with Deathroot.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

iT cAn'T bE DoNe

 

[Lyric Suite]

I thought the first step for Alexander is in Limgrave, where you have to spank him to get him out of the ditch he is in.

 

[Silva]

Here, another indicative of insanity, in the Commoners Headband . Still not the one I had.

"A headband with the cloth removed.
Standard wear for commoners of the Lands Between.

Only, there are no commoners remaining with their wits about them."

 

[mediocrepoet]

Here, another indicative of insanity, in the Commoners Headband . Still not the one I had.

"A headband with the cloth removed.
Standard wear for commoners of the Lands Between.

Only, there are no commoners remaining with their wits about them."

This seems familiar somehow. As if I've seen it before... perhaps on this very page. Perplexing.

 

[Silva]

Oops sorry. I'm on a shitty cellphone and overlooked NJClaw post.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Finished the game. Took me a while, definitely burned out around the Mountaintops of the Giants, and had to slowly force myself through the endgame areas. My overall opinion is in-line with Silva - the average content quality is very low for a Souls game. Even the dungeons proper have this problem, where they're big and architecturally complex, but have very repetitive and unimaginative encounter design, with almost no unique enemy types.

If I were to sum this game up in a single phrase, it would be "style over substance". It is absolutely gorgeous - From artists carrying as usual - and a lot of enemies and areas are cool and make for a great spectacle. They also don't play very well, and are often annoying and confusing to fight. See the final boss, all the dragons, Maliketh, the list is very long. Will write up some more detailed thoughts later.

I would like to say that, contrary to the opinion of many, I don't really think they overdid it with the endgame bosses. Malenia is honestly a pretty good boss that is fun to fight, that was then shat on with the addition of that one attack we all know. But both Mohg and Godfrey are imo really fun and difficult in a good way.