The Shattered Elden Ring Thread: Tarnished Edition - (Shadow of the Erdtree p. 85)

[Dalisclock]

Those damn Italian bats. Are they gonna kill you or make you a nice spagetti?

Just kidding they gonna kill you.

I suspected it might be a trap and I jumped in anyway. I barely survived. I think these are supposed to be the FROM version of Sirens?

I mean, with these games sometimes the nice dude is just waiting to shove a knife into your back and the big scary dude is amicable enough. In this case, the scary looking bats singing opera are just trying to lure you in to gank you. Too bad because I would have liked to attend their concert. I would have given them some runes as a donation if they had not tried to kill me. Just put a little pot there for donations. Are runes a physical thing? Or do they exist as an intangible form of credit that people have an invisible reader for? Quick, someone get Vaati on the phone! We need a lore answer, STAT!

 

[EvilRoy]

Ohhhh, I actually meant the ashes summons, the ones that let you summon a monster or a couple of soldier ghosts or somesuch. I've used them for a few lesser bosses (like Erdtree Avatars or Black Knife Assassins), but not for big dogs like Godrick and Rennala.

Human-wise, I have been co-oping with my flatmate & his brother, but mostly just for exploration.

Ah I misunderstood. Yeah my frustration with useless coop summons aside, ash summons can be helpful for field bosses/great enemies particularly when they start coming in multiples but honestly I never really found them that useful for the big bosses because they so often have those massive attacks that basically just splatter the average summon in a hit or two and a lot of them don't even allow summons anyway. I actually only just found out - those weird stone pillars that people put "try finger but hole" messages in front of are actually indicators of when you're allowed to ash summon. I never put it together but its just a little detail on top of the HUD arch looking icon to add a physical reality to the limitations of ash summons in the game. That's a neat detail.

I do think its cool that you can set up co-op with people you know now. I don't know if that was a thing in Bloodborne, but the addition of an ability to play with your friends exclusively if that's what you want is great, and I really didn't expect it to happen in a Souls game. A buddy of mine bought DS1 way after the servers emptied out so he and I would leave summon signs at remote locations to play together, and having that actually endorsed is really cool.

 

[Terminal Blue]

So, I'm pretty much just starting out now, playing as a wretch and trying to go in pretty blind (not much wikiing, although it's been tough to resist a little). Very, very impressed with the experience so far.

I generally feel like if any game existed that justified open world gameplay, it was Dark Souls. There was always that great thing about Dark Soul's world where if you saw a big building in the skybox somewhere, you would end up going there at some point. But this had the side effect that all the areas of the world that weren't the big linear castles you were fighting through looked like a Kerbal Space Program planet surface. There was never any sense of a cohesive or naturalistic world into which these locations fit, which I get was thematically appropriate but also kind of boring. Elden Ring adding an explorable world around the big locations actually makes that sense of exploration much more interesting for me. If you see a big building, you can not only go there but you can pick how and when to go there and you might find some other stuff on the way. I enjoy that a lot.

I do think its cool that you can set up co-op with people you know now. I don't know if that was a thing in Bloodborne, but the addition of an ability to play with your friends exclusively if that's what you want is great, and I really didn't expect it to happen in a Souls game.

They slowly added it in throughout the Souls series. DS2 had a system where you could choose a particular god, and people who picked the same god would be favoured by the game's matchmaking system, which made it a bit easier to co-op with specific people. Both bloodborne and DS3 had options that let you co-op with friends using a password system.

 

[Silvanus]

Ah I misunderstood. Yeah my frustration with useless coop summons aside, ash summons can be helpful for field bosses/great enemies particularly when they start coming in multiples but honestly I never really found them that useful for the big bosses because they so often have those massive attacks that basically just splatter the average summon in a hit or two and a lot of them don't even allow summons anyway. I actually only just found out - those weird stone pillars that people put "try finger but hole" messages in front of are actually indicators of when you're allowed to ash summon. I never put it together but its just a little detail on top of the HUD arch looking icon to add a physical reality to the limitations of ash summons in the game. That's a neat detail.

Oh that's what those mean!! I had no idea of that either, but I knew they must mean something.

I do think its cool that you can set up co-op with people you know now. I don't know if that was a thing in Bloodborne, but the addition of an ability to play with your friends exclusively if that's what you want is great, and I really didn't expect it to happen in a Souls game. A buddy of mine bought DS1 way after the servers emptied out so he and I would leave summon signs at remote locations to play together, and having that actually endorsed is really cool.

This was possible in DS3 via the password settings; I did my NG+ DS3 playthrough co-oping with a mate that way.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I suspected it might be a trap and I jumped in anyway. I barely survived. I think these are supposed to be the FROM version of Sirens?

I mean, with these games sometimes the nice dude is just waiting to shove a knife into your back and the big scary dude is amicable enough. In this case, the scary looking bats singing opera are just trying to lure you in to gank you. Too bad because I would have liked to attend their concert. I would have given them some runes as a donation if they had not tried to kill me. Just put a little pot there for donations. Are runes a physical thing? Or do they exist as an intangible form of credit that people have an invisible reader for? Quick, someone get Vaati on the phone! We need a lore answer, STAT!

I didn’t quite realize where it was coming from at first when I dropped off a cliff and hacked them up. Then later after dying to the tree I approached from a different angle and could see the “leader” singing. Felt kinda bad, but was glad it respawned because its music was too pleasant to lose. I’m guessing sooner or later we’ll find out from Vaati that they’re actually vampire bats, Miyazaki style.

 

[CriticalGaming]

When i wrote my impressions of Elden Ring i brought up the 40 second rule of open world games. The idea that the player must find something interesting every 40-60seconds in order to keep an open world game compelling enough for the player to see it through. Luke Stephens is the Youtube who I learned about that rule from and he does long from critiques of games that i happen to quite enjoy on my long drives to and from work.

He posted a video about the 40-second rule as it per tains to Elden Ring. If you recall, i felt like Elden Ring fail this general rule because I found i was running around doing a lot of nothing as i hunted around the map. The flaw with the 40-second rule is that every player is going to find other things interesting. After a while crafting mats stop being interesting and end up ignored by the player usually. So early in a playthrough more things on a map are interesting to players, but as playthroughs continue and the player assigns different value to things from playing the game those points of interests stop being points of interest.


Turns out (at least early) Elden Ring does technically pass the 40 second rule with flying colors. It skews pretty heavily as different areas have different density of interest points. So some sections you find different things very quickly, and others you'll sometimes be running over a minute before something might catch the eye.

I feel like Luke was very generous with his markers of time, because he marked every time he stopped exploring as a point, even if it meant stopping to look at the view which is fine, but it isn't something I would count because the view is only captivating once. Every other time you pass through you will not stop to look at the view each time. Samething with crafting mats, you might pick them up for a while but eventually you stop giving a shit and soon every crafting mat just gets picked up if you happen to walk too close or whatever. I've never once gone out of my way to grab a flower. Hell I beat the game without crafting anything because it's all useless imo.

Any the video is short and it's a neat explaination of the rule, so if you are interested give it a quick watch.

 

[Dalisclock]

So earlier I was wondering if I was ready to take on Stormviel castle. So after a little bit more exploring and grabbing cookbooks and such, I finally committed myself to running up and trying out Margit and.....he went down in 1 go with me barely breaking a sweat(I had a nice upgraded weapon and some bros rolling with me so, yeah, that's also part of it). So the answer to my question is: Yes, I was ready to take him on. A bit over leveled(Level 40 or so), really. Of course, now I have the entire castle to go before reaching the main boss but at least I've got my foot in the door, so to speak.

And I will say, it's a good looking castle up close. Well designed too, since it can only be attacked along an narrow, easily defended path and a tunnel. Like someone who actually studied castle design made this one. It does really remind me of Lothric castle from DS3, though maybe not quite as big(to be fair, lothric castle I think was like 25% of the base game).

So having taken down margit so far I feel like I'm gonna reach godrick and get stomped because I'm feeling heady and proud and then it'll be a rough hour or so of trying to beat his ass and finish the region. After which I guess I go north or east, I'm not sure right now.

 

[BrawlMan]

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[The Rogue Wolf]

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Wow, that is the fastest I've ever started hating someone in a video. Smarmy asshat + "you're just bad at the game" = I stopped the video less than ten seconds in.

 

[Gordon_4]

@Gordon_4

Thomas the Tank Engine is in Elden Ring now

A new mod keeps the long-running tradition alive.

www.pcgamer.com

Glad to see some things don’t change

 

[BrawlMan]

Wow, that is the fastest I've ever started hating someone in a video. Smarmy asshat + "you're just bad at the game" = I stopped the video less than ten seconds in.

Okay.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

So earlier I was wondering if I was ready to take on Stormviel castle. So after a little bit more exploring and grabbing cookbooks and such, I finally committed myself to running up and trying out Margit and.....he went down in 1 go with me barely breaking a sweat(I had a nice upgraded weapon and some bros rolling with me so, yeah, that's also part of it). So the answer to my question is: Yes, I was ready to take him on. A bit over leveled(Level 40 or so), really. Of course, now I have the entire castle to go before reaching the main boss but at least I've got my foot in the door, so to speak.

And I will say, it's a good looking castle up close. Well designed too, since it can only be attacked along an narrow, easily defended path and a tunnel. Like someone who actually studied castle design made this one. It does really remind me of Lothric castle from DS3, though maybe not quite as big(to be fair, lothric castle I think was like 25% of the base game).

So having taken down margit so far I feel like I'm gonna reach godrick and get stomped because I'm feeling heady and proud and then it'll be a rough hour or so of trying to beat his ass and finish the region. After which I guess I go north or east, I'm not sure right now.

Im not much ahead of you level-wise and just beat Godrick the other night. IIRC you’re doing something of a DEX/INT build? Not sure if you picked up any sorcery gear yet, or what your specific levels look like, but let’s just say if you’ve been prioritizing those two he shouldn’t be much trouble. Although, I personally spent quite a bit of time in Caelid to benefit my sorcery focus which ended up wonderfully in my favor after my melee strategy fell literally a hair short, heart pounding like a kettle drum.

If you do decide to make a detour to Caelid in the meantime, it isn’t much of an issue as a looting run, especially with Torrent. Basically just dismounting for the few odd buildings with shinies to grab. I didn’t fight any bosses there because I didn’t see the point yet.

 

[Dalisclock]

Im not much ahead of you level-wise and just beat Godrick the other night. IIRC you’re doing something of a DEX/INT build? Not sure if you picked up any sorcery gear yet, or what your specific levels look like, but let’s just say if you’ve been prioritizing those two he shouldn’t be much trouble. Although, I personally spent quite a bit of time in Caelid to benefit my sorcery focus which ended up wonderfully in my favor after my melee strategy fell literally a hair short, heart pounding like a kettle drum.

If you do decide to make a detour to Caelid in the meantime, it isn’t much of an issue as a looting run, especially with Torrent. Basically just dismounting for the few odd buildings with shinies to grab. I didn’t fight any bosses there because I didn’t see the point yet.

Correct DEX/STR with some INT as well. I also put on some faith to buy some of the FAITH spells. I'm probably gonna start looking for weapons to use the INT stat pretty soon since most of what I've found have been STR/DEX based. Also been putting points into mind so raise my FP since the spirit ashes give me room to plan.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

When i wrote my impressions of Elden Ring i brought up the 40 second rule of open world games. The idea that the player must find something interesting every 40-60seconds in order to keep an open world game compelling enough for the player to see it through. Luke Stephens is the Youtube who I learned about that rule from and he does long from critiques of games that i happen to quite enjoy on my long drives to and from work.

He posted a video about the 40-second rule as it per tains to Elden Ring. If you recall, i felt like Elden Ring fail this general rule because I found i was running around doing a lot of nothing as i hunted around the map. The flaw with the 40-second rule is that every player is going to find other things interesting. After a while crafting mats stop being interesting and end up ignored by the player usually. So early in a playthrough more things on a map are interesting to players, but as playthroughs continue and the player assigns different value to things from playing the game those points of interests stop being points of interest.


Turns out (at least early) Elden Ring does technically pass the 40 second rule with flying colors. It skews pretty heavily as different areas have different density of interest points. So some sections you find different things very quickly, and others you'll sometimes be running over a minute before something might catch the eye.

I feel like Luke was very generous with his markers of time, because he marked every time he stopped exploring as a point, even if it meant stopping to look at the view which is fine, but it isn't something I would count because the view is only captivating once. Every other time you pass through you will not stop to look at the view each time. Samething with crafting mats, you might pick them up for a while but eventually you stop giving a shit and soon every crafting mat just gets picked up if you happen to walk too close or whatever. I've never once gone out of my way to grab a flower. Hell I beat the game without crafting anything because it's all useless imo.

Any the video is short and it's a neat explaination of the rule, so if you are interested give it a quick watch.

Does he do this series for every open world game? I only saw one for RDR2 where he basically said it was “allowed” to get away with breaking the rule based on blending its thematics with the world design. Like, it would break the sense that you were roaming a frontier if some random shit kept popping up every 40 seconds or so, since the world speaks for itself so well.

The case with Elden Ring is certainly different, because its primarily a character building game. Most of what you do revolves around that, with combat giving experience and loot, the environment giving loot via exploration, and crafting giving consumable help for those who might need it. I’ve used quite a few for curing rot and poison in some areas, and some weapon grease here and there. Maybe some like yourself will skip it completely, but you gotta admit the game makes it easy as hell to get stuff. As in there’s enough stuff around that as long they’re not just fast traveling everywhere most people should have a good stock of a lot just by tapping Triangle when running across it. IMO it works for a game like this vs having to grind souls for consumables on top of everything else, then track down an overpriced vendor for them.

 

[EvilRoy]

Just killed a guy on top of a volcano. I really appreciated all the "Throw Elden Ring" messages pointed at the lava but the boss fucking got me on that one. I don't think I found I have a phobia, but if there's a word for hating/being disgusted by something so much you have to kill it and burn everything around it then I seem to have found that. Anyway I feel better after a sleep, and I guess it was kind of a gimmick fight anyway.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Does he do this series for every open world game? I only saw one for RDR2 where he basically said it was “allowed” to get away with breaking the rule based on blending its thematics with the world design. Like, it would break the sense that you were roaming a frontier if some random shit kept popping up every 40 seconds or so, since the world speaks for itself so well.

The case with Elden Ring is certainly different, because its primarily a character building game. Most of what you do revolves around that, with combat giving experience and loot, the environment giving loot via exploration, and crafting giving consumable help for those who might need it. I’ve used quite a few for curing rot and poison in some areas, and some weapon grease here and there. Maybe some like yourself will skip it completely, but you gotta admit the game makes it easy as hell to get stuff. As in there’s enough stuff around that as long they’re not just fast traveling everywhere most people should have a good stock of a lot just by tapping Triangle when running across it. IMO it works for a game like this vs having to grind souls for consumables on top of everything else, then track down an overpriced vendor for them.

He doesn't do it with every open world game. He just did a series on the new Assassin's Creed Trilogy and The Witcher 3 so he learned about this game dev rule and tested it. Since Elden Ring is a big new open world from a studio not known for open worlds, I'm sure he just thought it would be a fun test. There are flaws with the test as I mentioned so it's kind of meant to be taken with a grain of salt tbh.

 

[Dalisclock]

Managed to find my way through Stormveil. I do really appreciate the Souls Level design in the castle, with the paths, lifts, ladders(what a thrill....), and man, it feels really big. Obviously I opted to us the side path rather then the suicide rush through the main gate(and later seeing how there's a bunch of ballista and barricades I can totally see why the "safe" side passage is preferable, even if slower). Pretty sure that shady guy who directed me to the passage locked me in the cell with the fuck knight and keeps stealing my runes.

I got to godrick, tried him once as a summon and died midway through the fight. And then I decided to go to bed, because I have work today. I did poke around a bit near godrick and found a path down that leads to what looks like an entire bottom part of the castle shrouded in creepy mist, so I'm sure that leads to fucktown or something. So classic souls.

As a side note, doing the "safe" path into the castle allowed me a beautiful view of the castle's battle damage from some long forgotten bombardment and what I find most interesting is that a number of those impacts could have only come from the sea, so at one point there must have been a fleet out there lobbing fireballs or something from way down in the ocean. Possibly related, if you look way out to sea from the western edge of....I think the Weeping peninsula, you can see a bunch of wrecked ships out in the ocean where you can't get to them. I wonder if they're related. I'd love to know what's going on with some of the shit in the world. It also either didn't happen too long ago because there look like there have been few if no attempts to repair the big gaping holes in the west side of the castle, but they did construct platforms to move around outside so apparently they've thought about it.

The castle itself reminds me of boletaria from Demon Souls but the whole idea of an attack from the sea feels like the giant war from Dark Souls 2, notably in the forest of Fallen giants and the giant memories, so that's cool.

I'm also pretty sure I see the chapel of anticipation west of the castle which isn't connected to anything so I wonder how I ended up in the starter dungeon a bit further south after dying to the giant spider creep in the intro.

 

[SilentPony]

Fuck me, 27hours in and I just found out there's a Hub you're supposed to unlock called Roundtable whatever where NPCs, shops and trainers are. And guess where it is? Go past the Armored Knight Boss who kicks your ass, through a field of footmen and archers, lay siege of a gate, storm the gate, beat a giant, then travel through the land of wizard giants, lay siege to another gate, fight a fuck me running boss, and finally this little whimsical ***** is like "Oh yeah, now you can unlock another basic area of the game that should have been introduced 20 hours ago." Fuck Elden Ring! This isn't good game design if I have to blindly stumble into basic mechanics. I spent like 3 hours, using a valuable key I only had one of, to unlock and explore this grave zone with a spiked NASCAR monster that one-hit kills everything, only to get to the end, find a tree dog boss monster, get a full charged up R2 attack with flame damage on it and...67 damage. Barely and I mean barely noticeable on the health bar.
"Oh no" said the game, "This boss is for WAY later, didn't you know that? Guess you need to die, lose your bloodechoes and go randomly stumble into another dungeon zone. Maybe THAT one will be the right level. Or not! That's what we've decided to call the "fun" part of this experience."

 

[Brokencontroller]

Fuck me, 27hours in and I just found out there's a Hub you're supposed to unlock called Roundtable whatever where NPCs, shops and trainers are. And guess where it is? Go past the Armored Knight Boss who kicks your ass, through a field of footmen and archers, lay siege of a gate, storm the gate, beat a giant, then travel through the land of wizard giants, lay siege to another gate, fight a fuck me running boss, and finally this little whimsical ***** is like "Oh yeah, now you can unlock another basic area of the game that should have been introduced 20 hours ago." Fuck Elden Ring! This isn't good game design if I have to blindly stumble into basic mechanics. I spent like 3 hours, using a valuable key I only had one of, to unlock and explore this grave zone with a spiked NASCAR monster that one-hit kills everything, only to get to the end, find a tree dog boss monster, get a full charged up R2 attack with flame damage on it and...67 damage. Barely and I mean barely noticeable on the health bar.
"Oh no" said the game, "This boss is for WAY later, didn't you know that? Guess you need to die, lose your bloodechoes and go randomly stumble into another dungeon zone. Maybe THAT one will be the right level. Or not! That's what we've decided to call the "fun" part of this experience."

Tell us how you really feel.

The roundtable is brought up once you unlock 5 grace sites on the overworld

 

[SilentPony]

Tell us how you really feel.

The roundtable is brought up once you unlock 5 grace sites on the overworld

Um no? I looked it up and its mentioned after 12, and unlocked after defeating bosses. Also its another one of those "the dungeon grace sites and dungeon bosses don't count towards your total" game mechanics where not only do you not know there's a hidden mechanic that needs to be unlocked, there's a hidden restriction within the hidden unlock.