The Shattered Elden Ring Thread: Tarnished Edition - (Shadow of the Erdtree p. 85)
- Thread starter hanselthecaretaker
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I can see that (I play melee primarily). I'd say Placidusax was worse. That second phase, as he constantly teleports away and creates AOEs in front of him, necessitating a loooong run around to get close... is clearly harder for melee than anyone else.
Lot of complaints about Melina basically being MIA most the game. And GoW delivering lore better via the talking head, which I can agree with.
I didnt think he was bad because he would charge at you so even if he vanished, he would come after you directly making him less of a chase.
Even within the confines of their presentation being more lore then story. So much of the lore is repeated. Apparently when MArtin spent that whopping two days to contribute whatever, Miyazaki handed him the themes.... so of course you got the identical Dark Souls themes. Except couched in a bunch of human nobles (despite their powersets) essentially rather then a walking pile of skulls and some spider women and whatever else.
Its funny, cause in keeping with the "you are not special" idea. It'd make complete sense if Melina was constantly absent cause she was off hedging her bets with unreknowned Tarnished #2-500. But they play up that you are the only one, in contrast to prior Souls (so don't even ask wtf is meant to be going on with Summons)
Okay so how do you beat the flying limgrave dragon? I figured he'd be a tough one, so I saved him until I was several levels higher than starting. And Im trying him now.
Its not bad. Big open arena, just keep your distance, run in on the horse, hit him once or twice, run away, rinse and repeat. But three times in a row now he's pulled the same bullshit move. I get him down to half health, he roars, and takes to the air. And then he just flies away, and his health bar goes away. At first I thought I was supposed to follow him. Like oh neat, chase the dragon down.
But no, he just leaves the arena, disappears in the air and respawns at the lake within a minute with full health.
Like is this a trick/puzzle boss? There some random weapon I get after giving a random NPC a random glove I found in a random potato that one-shot kills this dragon?
Its not bad. Big open arena, just keep your distance, run in on the horse, hit him once or twice, run away, rinse and repeat. But three times in a row now he's pulled the same bullshit move. I get him down to half health, he roars, and takes to the air. And then he just flies away, and his health bar goes away. At first I thought I was supposed to follow him. Like oh neat, chase the dragon down.
But no, he just leaves the arena, disappears in the air and respawns at the lake within a minute with full health.
Like is this a trick/puzzle boss? There some random weapon I get after giving a random NPC a random glove I found in a random potato that one-shot kills this dragon?
And we are donion rings.
I've been at the final boss for ages but I stopped playing so I could study up for a job interview. I think that kind of made the last fight worse because I totally lost my momentum and a bit of my mad gamer skillz had left me thanks to my aging wizened hands just not retaining muscle memory like they used to. Or I was just tired.
Overall I think it was a really solid game. I would never make the claim that this game is Dark Souls 4. The combat is way different, and the pacing and priorities are clearly adjusted. Frankly I would be more likely to call the game a child of DS3 and Skyrim, with a great big world and lots to do but way more focus on satisfying and varied combat rather than individual hyper-intense bossfights ala DS3 or mounds of npc quests ala Skyrim. I don't think that's bad though. As much as I love the DS games, I can recognize that there's only so much you can really do with that kind of game - stuff like the ash summons, majorly wildcard build variations, and major bossfights that include quirks are fun and interesting departures that probably wouldn't mesh well with the DS formula. Its like the Bed of Chaos fight - nobody really defends that because whether or not you agree that a puzzle/quirk boss can be fun, DS1 was not set up such that having a boss like that makes sense or plays well. Elden Ring made a departure where you can have bosses like Rennala, Radahn, the Godskin Duo or Melania where there are some specific mechanics at play, and it doesn't feel nearly as out of place, nor does it become unsatisfying or outright annoying. The inclusion of mounted enemies and mounted bossfights was also pretty cool, and it made the whole situation feel a lot more dynamic. You get to move quickly and hit hard, which is usually not an option in this type of game.
I'm very impressed by the variety of options you have for builds. Certainly some things are just better than others, but the instant you include things like Legendary Arms or Ash Summons you've basically committed to a tier list. I think that's fine though, since they included the ability to farm or earn the ability to purchase different upgrade stone/ghost flowers so there's really no reason to feel like you are trapped with one or another option because "its the one you committed to" by using up all your materials. I do wish they would have done a better job distributing different weapons throughout the game progression though. For story reasons it makes sense that most stuff you find in Hogwarts, or rotten Hogwarts, is magic style, but even in Limgrave I was frustrated early on by how much shit I couldn't use because I went STR instead of DEX. As things progress and you get more drops though, the options open up pretty quickly. I ended up pushing some points into DEX/FAI and was able to use a lot of weapons by the midpoint of the game. By no means was every item drop useful, but fundamentally it wasn't any worse than any sort of class/specialization-based game that has item drops. My only complaint is how much the game pushes you to have a varied build. That might be on purpose to force players into a position where they can adapt more readily to a given boss, but I still think its silly how many colossal weapons need a notable FAI/DEX investment to use properly. Or alternatively, how many DEX weapons seemed to also need INT for no reason.
The lore is pretty deep and interesting, and the stories you can choose to engage in were pretty worthwhile from what I played. You can choose to ally or oppose the whole black knife crew, and the active storytelling as part of those questlines is pretty cool since both sides are clearly fucking around a little bit, although you are still limited to a lot of "finding out stuff that happened" rather than taking a direct hand in guiding those stories. The game not having a traditional story is a fairly common complaint I've seen, but personally, I take no issue with environmental backward-facing storytelling. There are a lot of clues that indicate the whole civil war really didn't happen long ago - something along the lines half a year based on what I was seeing - but so much of the big stuff has already happened and we aren't really part of it. We showed up with the pizza and the room was already on fire basically. I don't really want to actually leave that sort of storytelling in Fromsoft games, mostly because everybody else tells stories in the present and half of them suck. Using a lore-based approach free's us from the potential of the story just being shit, although in exchange it does really shift the onus onto the player to figure out what is going on, which I understand some people might find exhausting. That said, there is definitely a bit too much leaning into the same Fromsoft themes, although I did notice in ER that the tone of the themes is very different from previous Fromsoft games. Usually "burn it all down" or "take the money and run" are presented as the more positive positions, but in ER the endings are really more about picking a path forward out of different personal values and the "fuck everything" choice is shown as being the less cool option. I was a little annoyed by the fact that I accidentally neutered the final boss by choosing a specific weapon. I realized afterwards that for story reasons the weapon I used would be extremely effective, but at the time I was just like "whoa did that chunk off like a quarter of its health almost?" so the lore definitely did get between me and a good fight at least once.
Ultimately I'm most impressed with the game progression, which does something that I don't think an Elder Scrolls game would have the rocks to do. Or maybe I'm attributing positive intention to something that was more of a concession due to time/resource limitations. I felt the game played like a pyramid. You start out, and you have three or four major landmasses with a huge amount of stuff to explore and do. You proceed forward past the first story gate and the game tightens up. At least three areas open up to you, although they have reduced in size and scope from the first portion of the game. Then we get to the endgame and things tighten substantially. I loved that because it felt like the game let me see the world and have my fun, and then it began the slow process of funneling me towards the final encounter, picking up momentum and gravity the whole way. Big story elements happen, stakes get raised, and fewer places are available to you to progress. Contrast Elder Scrolls/Fallout games where the game remains enormous from start to finish, and then you sort of step out of the world to fight the final boss. Lots of content, but no sense of progression to the final encounter and no reason to feel any differently about it than any other fight. Skyrim in particular was bad for this, but a lot of Fallout games have the same problem.
So yeah. Good game. Lots of hours. Gonna play something easy for a while. Something with way less investment. Core Keeper looks fun.
I've been at the final boss for ages but I stopped playing so I could study up for a job interview. I think that kind of made the last fight worse because I totally lost my momentum and a bit of my mad gamer skillz had left me thanks to my aging wizened hands just not retaining muscle memory like they used to. Or I was just tired.
Overall I think it was a really solid game. I would never make the claim that this game is Dark Souls 4. The combat is way different, and the pacing and priorities are clearly adjusted. Frankly I would be more likely to call the game a child of DS3 and Skyrim, with a great big world and lots to do but way more focus on satisfying and varied combat rather than individual hyper-intense bossfights ala DS3 or mounds of npc quests ala Skyrim. I don't think that's bad though. As much as I love the DS games, I can recognize that there's only so much you can really do with that kind of game - stuff like the ash summons, majorly wildcard build variations, and major bossfights that include quirks are fun and interesting departures that probably wouldn't mesh well with the DS formula. Its like the Bed of Chaos fight - nobody really defends that because whether or not you agree that a puzzle/quirk boss can be fun, DS1 was not set up such that having a boss like that makes sense or plays well. Elden Ring made a departure where you can have bosses like Rennala, Radahn, the Godskin Duo or Melania where there are some specific mechanics at play, and it doesn't feel nearly as out of place, nor does it become unsatisfying or outright annoying. The inclusion of mounted enemies and mounted bossfights was also pretty cool, and it made the whole situation feel a lot more dynamic. You get to move quickly and hit hard, which is usually not an option in this type of game.
I'm very impressed by the variety of options you have for builds. Certainly some things are just better than others, but the instant you include things like Legendary Arms or Ash Summons you've basically committed to a tier list. I think that's fine though, since they included the ability to farm or earn the ability to purchase different upgrade stone/ghost flowers so there's really no reason to feel like you are trapped with one or another option because "its the one you committed to" by using up all your materials. I do wish they would have done a better job distributing different weapons throughout the game progression though. For story reasons it makes sense that most stuff you find in Hogwarts, or rotten Hogwarts, is magic style, but even in Limgrave I was frustrated early on by how much shit I couldn't use because I went STR instead of DEX. As things progress and you get more drops though, the options open up pretty quickly. I ended up pushing some points into DEX/FAI and was able to use a lot of weapons by the midpoint of the game. By no means was every item drop useful, but fundamentally it wasn't any worse than any sort of class/specialization-based game that has item drops. My only complaint is how much the game pushes you to have a varied build. That might be on purpose to force players into a position where they can adapt more readily to a given boss, but I still think its silly how many colossal weapons need a notable FAI/DEX investment to use properly. Or alternatively, how many DEX weapons seemed to also need INT for no reason.
The lore is pretty deep and interesting, and the stories you can choose to engage in were pretty worthwhile from what I played. You can choose to ally or oppose the whole black knife crew, and the active storytelling as part of those questlines is pretty cool since both sides are clearly fucking around a little bit, although you are still limited to a lot of "finding out stuff that happened" rather than taking a direct hand in guiding those stories. The game not having a traditional story is a fairly common complaint I've seen, but personally, I take no issue with environmental backward-facing storytelling. There are a lot of clues that indicate the whole civil war really didn't happen long ago - something along the lines half a year based on what I was seeing - but so much of the big stuff has already happened and we aren't really part of it. We showed up with the pizza and the room was already on fire basically. I don't really want to actually leave that sort of storytelling in Fromsoft games, mostly because everybody else tells stories in the present and half of them suck. Using a lore-based approach free's us from the potential of the story just being shit, although in exchange it does really shift the onus onto the player to figure out what is going on, which I understand some people might find exhausting. That said, there is definitely a bit too much leaning into the same Fromsoft themes, although I did notice in ER that the tone of the themes is very different from previous Fromsoft games. Usually "burn it all down" or "take the money and run" are presented as the more positive positions, but in ER the endings are really more about picking a path forward out of different personal values and the "fuck everything" choice is shown as being the less cool option. I was a little annoyed by the fact that I accidentally neutered the final boss by choosing a specific weapon. I realized afterwards that for story reasons the weapon I used would be extremely effective, but at the time I was just like "whoa did that chunk off like a quarter of its health almost?" so the lore definitely did get between me and a good fight at least once.
Ultimately I'm most impressed with the game progression, which does something that I don't think an Elder Scrolls game would have the rocks to do. Or maybe I'm attributing positive intention to something that was more of a concession due to time/resource limitations. I felt the game played like a pyramid. You start out, and you have three or four major landmasses with a huge amount of stuff to explore and do. You proceed forward past the first story gate and the game tightens up. At least three areas open up to you, although they have reduced in size and scope from the first portion of the game. Then we get to the endgame and things tighten substantially. I loved that because it felt like the game let me see the world and have my fun, and then it began the slow process of funneling me towards the final encounter, picking up momentum and gravity the whole way. Big story elements happen, stakes get raised, and fewer places are available to you to progress. Contrast Elder Scrolls/Fallout games where the game remains enormous from start to finish, and then you sort of step out of the world to fight the final boss. Lots of content, but no sense of progression to the final encounter and no reason to feel any differently about it than any other fight. Skyrim in particular was bad for this, but a lot of Fallout games have the same problem.
So yeah. Good game. Lots of hours. Gonna play something easy for a while. Something with way less investment. Core Keeper looks fun.
I mean the tricky strategy is get him near the land squirts, shoot them with poison arrows a couple times (or poison whatever) and they explode like tactical nukes. The other one is there's some way to do the jumping heavy attack off your horse that I have not managed to replicate on PS4 at least.
What you're describing usually occurs because they''ve exited their designated boundary, but generally they just pop back at wherever with their health remaining. Unless you're resting in between, or spending too much time before getting back on him maybe.
Sounds like you might be dragging him out of his boundaries and this causes him to reset and reappear. You need to stay tight on the dragons otherwise they can end up somewhere they shouldnt be which causes this reset.
I think it's more or less limited to the marshy ground he appeared on, and leaving for higher ground anywhere can reset the encounter as the game counts it as retreating.
Finally beat Malenia! Goddamn, she's definitely among the hardest FromSoft bosses. I personally had more trouble with Orphan of Kos, but that's certainly partly down to the Ash summon (I used Kristoff). Refrained from Ash summoning summoning almost all major bosses, including Mogh and Radagon, but it was pretty essential to get a little breathing room with Malenia.
What build were you using. Because i found her rather meltable with my frost/bleed build and killed her in three or four tries. But i was also melting shit by endgame.
Probably because Malenia was too busy "winning" her fight against Radahn while it happened.
Or it's because Miquella secretly charmed Mohg and is simply using him as part of some elaborate keikaku to power himself up so we can fight him in the inevitable dream world DLC as a cool boss...or something.
Dex, Str & Vit had most of my points, but they were very spread-out (except for arcane). Used Bloodhound's Fang with the finesse skill on it, and Dragonice just for the very start of phase 2.
I'm sure min/max-ing makes stuff a bit easier, but I always wanted the widest variety of stuff I could use.
What level were you?
Don’t you mean you were bloody freezing shit? I keed, but actually that’s my current melee combo too.
I've been holding out for a souls game where status effects are actually useful outside of PvP, and I feel like Elden Ring actually succeeded.
In fact, balance considerations aside, I feel like Elden Ring comes pretty close to solving a problem that has always been there in Dark Souls, which is the lack of variety in the combat system leading to homogenous playstyles. You can start up a new dark souls game as a knife wielding bandit or a sorcerer, but 60 levels in you're probably going to be a knight. Everyone is a knight.
Part of that is that the combat system seems more dynamic. In Elden Ring I very quickly found that it's generally more rewarding to use a wider variety of attacks rather than just R1 spamming when compared to Dark Souls 3, because heavier attacks are rewarded with staggers and critical hits. I've also found myself using a wider variety of defences (jumping and blocking) instead of just dodge rolling everything. But what I think is really clever is how the status effects work against the normal flow by allowing you to R1 spam, but only making it worthwhile if you're aggressive enough to trigger the effect. Relying on bleed or other status effects is a choice which impacts how you play, and it's a really viable choice.
I've seen a lot of people complaining that using magic bypasses the whole flow of combat, but frankly it always has and I think that's by design. People aren't going to git gud if they don't keep playing, and if murdering bosses with lasers lets people keep playing who might otherwise get frustrated and quit, I think it's served its purpose.