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

hanselthecaretaker

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Yeah, I'm aware of the Mimic Tear; can't wait to get it, but like you said: there's a very large and angry man on a tiny horse standing in my way, and I don't think all the points I put into my diplomacy stat are going to get me by him.
Have you killed any dragons? Rotten Breath is available at the dragon cathedral in Caelid. Radahn is, as you might’ve guessed already, very weak to rot. Probably the easiest way to kill him if your summons are keeping him busy. You do need 15 Faith and 12 Arcane points though, and the dragon communion seal will give it a boost.

Easier source of rot to obtain might be the Rotten Stray ashes, found in some ruins in north Sellia. Look for rotten dogs. Hopefully you have some Grave Gloveworts to level it up a bit.
 

Dalisclock

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Rivers of Blood is what I used tbh, and it was the only time the game was fun for me. It took me way too late into my playthrough to find it and I'd been used Moonveil at the beginning. Moonveil is too slow for some of the faster fuckers like Maleketh, but Rivers in combination with Mimic Tear also having Rivers....well that destroyed even Malenia without much effort.

IIRC everything has been nerfed into the ground and the game is back to being hell on earth. One of the many reasons why I'll never play ER ever again.
You can't even get RoB until you're near the end of the game anyway. I suspect that's intentional
 
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Xprimentyl

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Have you killed any dragons? Rotten Breath is available at the dragon cathedral in Caelid. Radahn is, as you might’ve guessed already, very weak to rot. Probably the easiest way to kill him if your summons are keeping him busy. You do need 15 Faith and 12 Arcane points though, and the dragon communion seal will give it a boost.

Easier source of rot to obtain might be the Rotten Stray ashes, found in some ruins in north Sellia. Look for rotten dogs. Hopefully you have some Grave Gloveworts to level it up a bit.
I've killed a couple of dragons, but not the one in Caelid to gain the rot breath. I might check him out, but I don't think I have the damage to make the fight manageable. I do have the rotten stray ashes, though. I upgraded him a bit (I think he's +3 right now,) but he hasn't been a much of a help given as a singular summon, when he takes all the aggro, he takes all the damage, and usually dies before bestowing the rot status effect. Push comes to shove, I'll try at least...
 

hanselthecaretaker

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I've killed a couple of dragons, but not the one in Caelid to gain the rot breath. I might check him out, but I don't think I have the damage to make the fight manageable. I do have the rotten stray ashes, though. I upgraded him a bit (I think he's +3 right now,) but he hasn't been a much of a help given as a singular summon, when he takes all the aggro, he takes all the damage, and usually dies before bestowing the rot status effect. Push comes to shove, I'll try at least...
Any dragon heart will do, but it’s only available in the Caelid dragon shop. There’s a more potent version called Ekzykes’s Decay where killing that specific dragon is required, but the nice thing about Rotten Breath is it can be used on Torrent. Should be pretty good doing drive by’s with that and the Rotten Strays doing their thing, especially with Radahn distracted by the other summons.
 
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Xprimentyl

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Any dragon heart will do, but it’s only available in the Caelid dragon shop. There’s a more potent version called Ekzykes’s Decay where killing that specific dragon is required, but the nice thing about Rotten Breath is it can be used on Torrent. Should be pretty good doing drive by’s with that and the Rotten Strays doing their thing, especially with Radahn distracted by the other summons.
OoooOOOoh, that sounds sexy! I'll swing by the Caelid shop and pick that sucker up...

*Realizing I probably don't have the stats to use the Rotten Breath*

...after I hunt down those Larval Tears.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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OoooOOOoh, that sounds sexy! I'll swing by the Caelid shop and pick that sucker up...

*Realizing I probably don't have the stats to use the Rotten Breath*

...after I hunt down those Larval Tears.
I played around with a pure dragon build for a while and it was really fun. The animation of stuff they spew out is, well yeah it’s pretty damn sexy.
 
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hanselthecaretaker

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I wasn't prepared; you own me a new pair of underwear. Got my first larval tear, though.
Yeah…maybe I should’ve mentioned they sometimes live up to their name by tearing you a new one. And people think they mean “tear” like the stuff rivers are made of. lol


For an insightful idea of what a dragon build might look like earlier on -
 
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hanselthecaretaker

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Barring the still-possible DLC, I’d rather see a spiritual successor to Bloodborne than any more Elden Ring games.
 

09philj

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Barring the still-possible DLC, I’d rather see a spiritual successor to Bloodborne than any more Elden Ring games.
I'd like whatever they make next to inherit the approachability that made Elden Ring a game I could actually finish, with obvious paths forward and lots of opportunities to do short side content.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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I'd like whatever they make next to inherit the approachability that made Elden Ring a game I could actually finish, with obvious paths forward and lots of opportunities to do short side content.
It’s quite possible they may do this with the upcoming Armored Core, but I’m not sure on how the open world format would fit since I’ve never really played any of those. I suppose mechs would be faster than Torrent if nothing else.
 
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09philj

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It’s quite possibly they may do this with the upcoming Armored Core, but I’m not sure on how the open world format would fit since I’ve never really played any of those.
It's going to have the same mission based structure as previous Armored Core games, IE choose a mission and get plopped into a map where you have to complete some objective. Its closer to the visceral thrills of a combat flight simulator like Ace Combat than the slower more methodical combat of From's action RPG series. I'm not sure whether it will lean more towards the very open maps and insanely fast movement of Armored Core 4 and For Answer, or include some of the more intricate and claustrophobic design from earlier titles.
 

sXeth

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Barring the still-possible DLC, I’d rather see a spiritual successor to Bloodborne than any more Elden Ring games.

Yeah I'm sure the channel/website that built itself and has probably 99.98% of its audience from a series is going to be objective about a series.


I think at this point, Souls (and lets not pretend Elden Ring is anything but Souls-but-oversized with a different coat of paint and we paid GRRM to have a 2 week vacation near our office) has prettymuch pushed past its novelty point. And I will maintain my opinion that they are generally good, but also flawed games. And they seem unwilling to innovate out of their box at all (other then Sekiro if we count that) or polish off rougher edges (indeed, often seeming to view their obtuse/clunkier mechanics as some kind of strength or even worse, "narrative" element.


Given we've had 7-9 of these things in 10 years or so I think they've prettymuch peaked and plateau'd. Certainly the open world formula went completely against one of their main strengths, which was tight and focused pacing and level design (although the level design being fair was only particularly interesting in DS1 and maybe Bloodborne).



Armoured Core is a ... well, wait and see approach. FROM made Armored Core before, but like many studios, when you set 12 or 15 years or whatever apart, its basically none of the same people involved. The one Miyazaki was involved with was the bad one that closed the coffin lid on the series for over a decade. And nothing about Souls, or Bloodeborne, or Sekiro, or ER is any promise of being able to make a good mech shooter/simulator game. The best I can say to "hype" it is that at least its something that isn't currently oversatured (with Titanfall 3 being recently reported as cancelled, Mechwarrior having vanished into obscure niche and microtransaction hell, and Heavy Gear is probably in some AAA publishers dustbin as an IP somewhere), and that they'll likely have a better budget then they did in the original days.
 
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09philj

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The one Miyazaki was involved with was the bad one that closed the coffin lid on the series for over a decade.
No, that was Armored Core V. Miyazaki directed Armored Core 4 and Armored Core: For Answer, which are series high points. In any case directing duties have been handed off to Masaru Yamamura, who was a senior designer on Sekiro.
 
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hanselthecaretaker

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Nothing can stop Elden Ring! Nothing!

The bottom line basically -
These huge sales figures aren’t just success stories for the companies involved, but also a sign to other publishers that maybe the people buying and playing games are getting tired of this obsession with fleecing us at every turn, and of stripping the heart out of games in a desperate attempt to prologue (…prolong? God Kotaku have you ever heard of an editor, or are you using AI for that now?) our time spent with them. I get that companies know a live service game can potentially make more money than a regular one—look at FIFA, which has made billions off digital card sales on top of its retail profits—but it’s not guaranteed. Not every game has to do this. We don’t have the time or money for it.
 

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Despite or maybe because of my bitching about various ER mechanics and the critical circle-jerking over this game, I am mulling over starting a new ER game, lol. This is the cycle of FromSoftware self-punishment.

I just keep wondering... am I the weird one that thinks so much of this game is broken when it's so beloved? Also I'm kind of not really into anything else right now on my PS5.

If I do start another game I think it's going to be faith-heavy. I can't deal with all the horrible melee, I'm gonna need to do some magic.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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Despite or maybe because of my bitching about various ER mechanics and the critical circle-jerking over this game, I am mulling over starting a new ER game, lol. This is the cycle of FromSoftware self-punishment.

I just keep wondering... am I the weird one that thinks so much of this game is broken when it's so beloved? Also I'm kind of not really into anything else right now on my PS5.

If I do start another game I think it's going to be faith-heavy. I can't deal with all the horrible melee, I'm gonna need to do some magic.

I just last night watched an older but still pretty good critique regarding the “why” of ER’s typical boss designs -

I think that’s what happens when you’re seven games deep into a particular formula. Not that prior games’ bosses weren't cinematically presented in their own right, but is it even possible to keep some of the most highly anticipated aspects fresh, and in a new, very expansive setting no less? It seems with ER people’s biggest obstacle might often just be time and patience to hunt all the stuff down and figure out how to build. I guess that’s where Fextralife enters the picture as a blessed time save.
 
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Old_Hunter_77

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It seems with ER people’s biggest obstacle might often just be time and patience to hunt all the stuff down and figure out how to build. I guess that’s where Fextralife enters the picture as a blessed time save.
Well that's kind of where my biggest criticism of ER comes in: playing the meta.
People talk about how great the exploration is, but I am guessing that more players are more like me than not- the exploration grows weary very quickly when everything kicks your ass at every turn, and the things you explore are cut 'n' paste or reward you with things not relevant to your build but you don't know unless you invest an enormous amount of time and energy to find that out.

So we look up stuff on the internet and that is in direct contradiction to immersion and exploration. So while game reviewers qvetch on and on about maps with icons and handholding, at least I can play those games without internet research. And while internet research has always been a component of FromSoftware, the big open world and wildly flying around bosses of ER just make that more of a necessity.
And I get that there is a fun part about it, it's like the D&D nerd shit about stats and items and whatever. But these two things: research prep and immersive exploration: are polar opposite intentions.
 
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