The Shattered Elden Ring Thread: Tarnished Edition - (Shadow of the Erdtree p. 85)
- Thread starter hanselthecaretaker
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On that front I'll agree. ER clearly took some pointers from BOTW but thankfully that wasn't one of them.
Yeah, it was at the Lakes that it really dawned on me that ER is personally a good example of the old saying, “Getting lost in a good book” in game form. I think it’s what likely has been creating a bit of a divide, because a lot of people are probably playing merely with the goal of checking another game off their playlist, let alone another FROM game. And when it keeps going and going, and going (and they keep dying and dying and dying), those not completely on board will naturally fall off this wagon.
On one hand there is a lot that Elden Ring does to reduce frustration. The shitload of graces, and the stakes of Marika near bosses is fantastic. The lack of a durability issue. The ability to do combat on horseback as well as resummon should the horse die with no real penalty. The map.
On the surface Elden Ring wants you to succeed and it does try to help, to an extent. However there is far too much the game expects you to adapt to without really showing you want the deal really is. For example the speed of the enemies will fuck you up no matter what and usually you have to die a few times before you've seen enough to start actually being able to fight them. The importance of Weapon Arts is incredibility understated to the player.
Weapon arts are the keys to most builds in the game and you absolutely need to work this shit out in order to get through it. Playing ER like just Dark Souls 4 will be a massive and unnessecary struggle for people. Once you realize how strong weapon arts are, and start to build around one you like, you'll have a much better time........Or just play a mage, whatever.
Every time I start a FROM game I pretty much commit myself to the idea that I'm gonna be deep in said game for a month or so. I think even Dark Souls took me like 50 or more hours to beat(plus the DLC) so that's the benchmark. And knowing it was an open world that's fucking huge is like "Yeah, I'm not finishing this anytime soon" so I clear my calander for the time being.
The downside of that is I can't just play FROM games over and over again. I've beaten each game(Except Demons Souls, which I've been like 1 level of and that was 1-1) once and when I'm done I'm pretty much ready to move onto something else(normally something a bit shorter). I'll play Demons Souls through when I'm able to get a PS5 so I can play the remake, because of course the damn remake is on the hardest piece of currently in production gaming hardware to acquire and thus continues to be the most difficult souls game to even get to play. Good Job, Sony *Slow Clap*.
Then again you have people like Yathzee who' has apparently played Dark Souls through like how many fucking times because it's his comfort game but never played the DLC for DS3 or Bloodborne because he apparently didn't care enough to go back to them which is fine. I guess I'd rather play new content then revisit the old content for the X time and Souls games really don't have new content if you went and explored everything you could before the end. Granted, by the time I finish a FROM game I've normally visited every area unless they're clearly not worth the bother and finished off most of the bosses unless they're straight up Bullshit like the invisible Tiger duo from DS2(or like a bunch of bosses from DS2, really).
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If you don't count my first playthrough struggling for 30 hours as a pure melee build that I gave up on because it's fucking impossible. My second attempt file i got every possible boss and achievement available in a single run of the game, (every legendary weapon, magic, talisman, and summon ashes. Plus every "great enemy felled" boss) I killed the final boss after 55 hours. However that is using a guide to make sure I completed as much of the game in a single run as possible to minimize replay requirements for the platinum.
I think it's nice that people who just want to fuck around and roam, can sink dozens of hours into the game without actually getting anything done. But for me I can't stand it.
I feel that with the size of Elden Ring (it is a lot bigger than you think), even those who love exploring are going to get bored of it before actually finishing the game. You'll reach a threshold where you'll go, "Alright fuck this, where is the main shit to do, let's move this along." And the path you take will stop being a roam and start being a b-line stright through the ending. Where that point lands depends on the player of course. But over time you realize that no matter what you discover, it's all going to be the same. Oh a new cave with enemies and a boss oh joy that's not the same as every other thing i've discovered so far.
I think ER could have really used some dungeons that were strictly puzzle based, or platforming challenges (because we can jump now), in order to give players a break from the non-stop combat.
K alright I been mostly patient with these games and the expected bosses so far. That said, the triplet putrid crystalian boss lot in sellia crystal tunnel? Even with the wiki open, following all the tips and in jolly co-operation?
FUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck right off mate.
FUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck right off mate.
HHAHAHAHA Yeah those guys suck! Do you have Mimic Tear? Best advice is use Mimic Tear and run around until it pulls their aggro, kill the caster first, then spear guy and it's over after that.
Also are you using any weapon arts?
I do not have any such mimic tear! Nor have I found any.
Am switching between various weapons currently: Frost axe, for the sweet weapon art, now rendered useless. Uchigatana with a blood slash weapon art I only just added so haven't been able to experiment with yet, temporarily a Heavy Battle Hammer for the required bludgeoning of their initial unspoken shields except I gotta 2-hand it as a bit underleveled, and a Digger Staff for all those useful sorcery needs that now have seemingly minimal effect so it's presently sidelined. Haven't even managed the task of just taking out the mage during a summoning yet, as am fairly confident once that one falls, the rest should be less trouble. But goddamn. No defense against scarlet rot neither.
Haha no, I wish I saw it before going down there too. I only even thought of rainbow stones because I started trying to intuitively mentally map the area but the grade changes fucked with me, so I started marking areas with arrows but they kept despawning. Then when I went to make more arrows I saw I had a recipe for "rainbow stone arrows" which is when I realized I could just be dropping these fuckers on the ground instead of going through the extra four steps and wasting a bunch of thin bones.
Strike weapons can kind of help against those guys, but honestly if you have a weapon that does decent damage and has reasonable reach that you're comfortable with just smack them over and over for a while. The shields account for something like 1/5th of their overall health and they break no matter what weapon you use to hit them. Also don't try to take them on face to face - they basically don't stagger until after the shield breaks and all their attacks are super spammy but the saving grace is their turnspeed is just as shit as their walking speed so you just run around them in circles and backstab over and over. I made it through by abusing backstab I-frames to avoid damage from the caster and the ring toss guy and just walked away from the spear guy.I do not have any such mimic tear! Nor have I found any.
Ugh. The only way I managed to beat those bloody tigers as melee was to roll straight into their attacks. Everything else failed. I think it was legit the first Souls boss I ever had to learn that with vs like, you know, avoiding them because the tigers simply said fuck all that bs. They kinda taught me that it might not always be best relying on instinct in a FROM game.
George R.R. Martin Debunks a Weird Rumor about Him & Elden Ring
George R R Martin has debunked a weird rumor / theory about the creation of Elden Ring that involves characters with G, R, and M names.
www.escapistmagazine.com
Ah thanks, yeah I've been definitely trying to take advantage of the backstab I-frames for this encounter as much as possible, and their slower turning does provide a false comfort somewhat which can be seen by how quickly cooperative players are insta-killed, yet even with a shield up they can insta-kill with a couple of hits or get the scarlet rot to finish the job either way. I decided to walk away and level up strength a bit more first, plus collecting some more ingredients for the alleviating of scarlet rot too, as it's quite likely I bumbled into this area underleveled and unprepared. Will return with the fattest, meanest fucking hammer for these irksome folk in due time.
Funny, that’s essentially what cnet said about the size -
Elden Ring Is a Much Bigger Game Than You Think It Is
If you want to get the most out of FromSoftware's latest open world action-RPG, make sure you have lots of free time.
www.cnet.com
It’s completely true that mileage will vary, and a lot of people will be discouraged by the scale of it among other things, but OTOH the *exploration is pointless and I can’t stand it* mindset probably isn’t going to track equally for a lot of people either. IIRC you took similar issue with GoW 2018 and that was a much smaller, tighter designed game by all standards. Which is fine of course, but whether with that or ER a lot of people enjoy more breadth and freedom of approach as this review points out -
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Elden Ring is a sprawling fantasy epic so good I don’t want it to end
A mix of Dark Souls and Breath of the Wild.
In the old games sure, everything is more condensed and there’s less of, well, everything. But likewise it also means more retreaded, well, everything from a replayability standpoint. FROM’s intent here was always to design the penultimate Souls game and that’s exactly what they did. At its core is character building, where combat and (yup) exploration play vital roles in facilitating that, and the lore stuff is pretty much icing on the cake. People who like this kind of thing will be finding new shit for years considering that’s already the case with other Souls games. I’m not sure what else they could’ve added without just making it a different kind of game when the ER wiki dwarfs anything prior in terms of unique content. Maybe a few puzzle dungeons would’ve been cool, but after finding the solution either through brain’ing/wiki’ing, the value is lost on further playthrough’s and becomes a hindrance to the core design.
It’s easy and convenient to get around considering the amount of play space, whether horse riding or fast travel. Though not sure more platforming would’ve necessarily fit as well here next to say, Sekiro. As it is the Devine Tower in Caelid is about as platforming as one could reasonably hope for the game’s mechanics, and there’s probably other stuff involving the horse. I’ve had to do some tricky jumps to reach a shiny or two myself.
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I don't remember taking issue with GoW's world at all.
This is where i disagree entirely. This is not the penultimate Souls game. I wouldn't even call it a Souls game any more than Nioh is a souls game.
1. Souls games are in the level design, the atmosphere, the gradual escalation of events building to a final battle. Every souls game thus far builds you towards fighting the legend. Gwen, Soul of Cinder, German or moonster, Isshin. In ER while there are some great level designs in a few select areas like Stormveil Castle, the rest of the levels are nothing garbage, a linear cave, a linear catacomb, a vertical tower, nothing weaving nothing interconnected just....stuff. And getting to the end of the game and fighting who you are fighting just comes out of left field, no build up (or one so fucking obscure that only Vityavidya knows) and it doesnt work.
2. Souls games also have very tight combat focused on stamina management and control over your reactions to what a monster is doing. In ER the combat is about weapon arts straight up. You are expected to build yoru character around a specific set of skills and gear youself to maximize build potential. Effectively melt the enemies before they kill you (see the clip I posted last page with just fighting a single late game knight. There is no tactic nothing you can do from a souls combat perspective). In fact a lot of enemy behavior feels like it's trying to train the player out of the reflexes of Souls games. Rolling away with often get you punished because you are not supposed to rely on rolling as your escape plan.
Elden Ring is an open world game with a Dark Souls feeling to it, which is an illusion and once you stop playing the game like a Souls game and start playing it like Elden Ring, it gets a LOT easier to play.
The same could be said for any puzzle game really. But often times the first playthrough is the most valuable one. And Dark Souls already played with the idea of puzzle dungeons in Darks Souls 2 DLC where you hit switches to move platforms around. Admittedly there is some of this in a couple of catacombs, but it would have been nice to find areas that had rewards not barred by dealing with combat. Even the mazey puzzley catacombs end in a boss fight and are litered with enemies. I would have liked to see more dungeons with traps, and switches and hidden walls to get to a nice treasure at the end. Especially since the combat can be very taxing, it would be nice for some repreive from it in a few places.
Think about an island you could only get two by juggling those jumpy wind currents over a big lake? Or tight climbing challenges on small cliff edges to reach a treasure at the top? They could have done stuff and i think that's what bothers me the most. They've been more creative in the past. Hell even the enemy and boss designs here are fucking boring. Where are the crazy mashes of bodies? The giant hideous monsters? For the vast majority of the game you fight humanoids and dragons and nothing more. The craziest monster-like bosses are the first two in Mergit and Godfrey, and they are so similar that they might as well be the same fucking thing.
I dare you go look up every boss in the game and count how many are humaniod or dragons. It's fucking like all but two or three.
None of this is to say it isn't a good game, it's still a very good game. But i think there is something about it that has people overlooking some obvious and glaring things about the game that make it not as great as it seems on the surface.
I wish you'd stop pretending that because you didn't get your head around the content, its impossible.
I finished the entire game as a melee build, 10focus,10int,10faith. The weapon ashes I ran were parry and shield bash.
You sucked at the combat and that's fine. Stop presenting as some unwinnable dps race cause of it.
And yes I watched your clip of a guy who threw himself at a mob, without ever learning or adjusting his tactics. A mob that brutally punishes panic spamming roll back. He's not unfightable or undodgable, he's just a design choice to punish "spam roll for distance". A design choice that pops up frequently in ER.
I finished the entire game as a melee build, 10focus,10int,10faith. The weapon ashes I ran were parry and shield bash.
You sucked at the combat and that's fine. Stop presenting as some unwinnable dps race cause of it.
And yes I watched your clip of a guy who threw himself at a mob, without ever learning or adjusting his tactics. A mob that brutally punishes panic spamming roll back. He's not unfightable or undodgable, he's just a design choice to punish "spam roll for distance". A design choice that pops up frequently in ER.
And there are people who beat the game at level 1. There are people beating the entire game in 27 minutes. There are plenty of people who are flat out good at this game.
What's your point?
Other people being good, does not negate the experience i had with the game. I even said that once i got my build together the game became very easy.
Never have i said that the difficulty is fundamentally flawed. I've merely argued that the design choices present in ER make it a worse game, imo, than nearly every other souls game. I've completed the game, and am almost finished with NG+ I will get the platinum for the game so clearly I'm plenty good at the combat.
I can complete the game and defeat the hardest challenges (at least natural ones in the game and not community self-imposed ones) and still criticise the problems I feel combat has and the game itself has.
Because you repeatedly say souls combat is gone, melee only isnt viable, and the game is purely about spamming ashes of war.
You present those things as absolutes and deviations from the souls formula. But its not. You just werent good enough at the basics, and need to stop spouting about how the basics were impossible and only xyz is doable.
You present those things as absolutes and deviations from the souls formula. But its not. You just werent good enough at the basics, and need to stop spouting about how the basics were impossible and only xyz is doable.