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

[EvilRoy]

I found a couple of the paintings but not the locations in the paintings. Which I think gets you something.

I haven't found any locations for paintings I have either, but I have found ghosts staring at landscapes which I assume are paintings that can be located.

You can collect those? I’m just took a screenshot of one because it looked cool lol.

They're specifically slightly glowing paintings you can interact with and frustratingly they can be fairly obvious or completely hidden - also sometimes a painting really looks collectable but just isn't. It's lead to me rubbing my face on most paintings in a building if I'm not certain.

 

[Dalisclock]

Gonna leave this here.

Spoiler alert: JSS liked it.

 

[Brokencontroller]

So i have to get this off my chest. The open world in this game is absolutely a pointless. A big expanse of nothing where enemies are not worth fighting (except world bosses) and you spend most of the time running around trying to find a dungeon, grace, or evergaol.

It is the worst kind of open world because it is an openness that doesnt need to be there. The crafting materials are dumb busy work to craft nothing of interest.

I think at the very least the compass should have pointed the player to the nearest thing of interest insread of having them run their face along the cliffs hoping to find a cave or mine or some shit. Nevermind the large number of these mines have reused bosses or even worst regular enemies simply boosted to boss level most of the time. Which makes getting to the end kind of a wet fart.

Many of the dungeons feel like the chalice system from Bloodborne except static in the open world.

I dont know but after 30 hours running around i feel like ive only done about 15 hours of actual content and the rest ive just been running around hoping to find something to do. Maybe if the overworld enemies had a purpose or were at very least worth fighting but the vast majority of them are not so you just ride by on the horse and not actually engage in the content.

Why cant i craft weapons or spells using the materials? Why would i waste time gathering and crafting a consumable that gets waste because i got one shotted by a boss or enemy that is 40 levels higher than me because i missed the obviously hidden 50 other easy bosses in the game up till this point.

When elden ring clicks and you are exploring a castle or dungeon it is as great as any souls game before it. But i feel like that is surrounded by an assload of downtime in an open world that didnt need to exist.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

So i have to get this off my chest. The open world in this game is absolutely a pointless. A big expanse of nothing where enemies are not worth fighting (except world bosses) and you spend most of the time running around trying to find a dungeon, grace, or evergaol.

It is the worst kind of open world because it is an openness that doesnt need to be there. The crafting materials are dumb busy work to craft nothing of interest.

I think at the very least the compass should have pointed the player to the nearest thing of interest insread of having them run their face along the cliffs hoping to find a cave or mine or some shit. Nevermind the large number of these mines have reused bosses or even worst regular enemies simply boosted to boss level most of the time. Which makes getting to the end kind of a wet fart.

Many of the dungeons feel like the chalice system from Bloodborne except static in the open world.

I dont know but after 30 hours running around i feel like ive only done about 15 hours of actual content and the rest ive just been running around hoping to find something to do. Maybe if the overworld enemies had a purpose or were at very least worth fighting but the vast majority of them are not so you just ride by on the horse and not actually engage in the content.

Why cant i craft weapons or spells using the materials? Why would i waste time gathering and crafting a consumable that gets waste because i got one shotted by a boss or enemy that is 40 levels higher than me because i missed the obviously hidden 50 other easy bosses in the game up till this point.

When elden ring clicks and you are exploring a castle or dungeon it is as great as any souls game before it. But i feel like that is surrounded by an assload of downtime in an open world that didnt need to exist.

Ah, there it is!

Given the insane praise for this game, I am expecting a backlash in a couple of months or so (I think Jack and Yahtz were making fun of this in a stream). And my guess is the open world would be a target (similarly happening with Horizon: FW, where it came out, got praised to high-heaven, then Elden Ring came out, and now it seems critics are turning on Horizon).
Especially if some other game comes out that is more linear and focused, reviewers will be all, "doesn't have the bloat and aimlessness of Elden Ring" or whatever.

So I appreciate your take on this (I don't agree or disagree, I haven't played it and don't plan to for a while).

 

[BrawlMan]

Especially if some other game comes out that is more linear and focused, reviewers will be all, "doesn't have the bloat and aimlessness of Elden Ring" or whatever.

This is nothing new when it's been a problem since the late 6th generation and early to mid 7th generation. I remember when a lot of the so-called "professionals" were hating on games for either not being Call Of Duty, being too linear, or not being open world enough. They were full of crap back then and they are still full of crap now. We already know most gamers aren't going to listennto them, and a lot of the ones on YouTube are going to call them out on it. You have IGN being upset that Streets of Rage 4 is an arcade style brawler and does not have RPG elements, or claims "it does nothing new for the series". All of that's an obvious and big lie. The fact that he didn't think it would do well, speaks volumes of how stupid and out of depth they actually are. They are that oblivious and stupid.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

So i have to get this off my chest. The open world in this game is absolutely a pointless. A big expanse of nothing where enemies are not worth fighting (except world bosses) and you spend most of the time running around trying to find a dungeon, grace, or evergaol.

It is the worst kind of open world because it is an openness that doesnt need to be there. The crafting materials are dumb busy work to craft nothing of interest.

I think at the very least the compass should have pointed the player to the nearest thing of interest insread of having them run their face along the cliffs hoping to find a cave or mine or some shit. Nevermind the large number of these mines have reused bosses or even worst regular enemies simply boosted to boss level most of the time. Which makes getting to the end kind of a wet fart.

Many of the dungeons feel like the chalice system from Bloodborne except static in the open world.

I dont know but after 30 hours running around i feel like ive only done about 15 hours of actual content and the rest ive just been running around hoping to find something to do. Maybe if the overworld enemies had a purpose or were at very least worth fighting but the vast majority of them are not so you just ride by on the horse and not actually engage in the content.

Why cant i craft weapons or spells using the materials? Why would i waste time gathering and crafting a consumable that gets waste because i got one shotted by a boss or enemy that is 40 levels higher than me because i missed the obviously hidden 50 other easy bosses in the game up till this point.

When elden ring clicks and you are exploring a castle or dungeon it is as great as any souls game before it. But i feel like that is surrounded by an assload of downtime in an open world that didnt need to exist.[/spoiler]

I think mileage varies here though. People either fall into a camp of wanting more freedom of approach and exploration or wanting more tightness of design, and it was always going to be impossible to please both. So they of course compromised and tried to do both anyways.

I’m too early in to really give a complete assessment of it all (10 hours and only now fighting Margit), but a lot of people have been agreeing with these sentiments -

Spoiler

But then again they probably also generally like open world design. There are also a lot of recycled enemies in FROM’s previous games, but that might feel different because they’re usually consigned to certain areas for lore reasons. I’m also getting the impression I won’t need to grind in this setting because there is enough different random stuff to do and find vs in the SoulsBorne games you’re often relying on a specific farming run to get a leg up because everything is tied to soul currency (needed for leveling, purchasing consumables, ammo, etc.).

 

[Dalisclock]

Ah, there it is!

Given the insane praise for this game, I am expecting a backlash in a couple of months or so (I think Jack and Yahtz were making fun of this in a stream). And my guess is the open world would be a target (similarly happening with Horizon: FW, where it came out, got praised to high-heaven, then Elden Ring came out, and now it seems critics are turning on Horizon).
Especially if some other game comes out that is more linear and focused, reviewers will be all, "doesn't have the bloat and aimlessness of Elden Ring" or whatever.

So I appreciate your take on this (I don't agree or disagree, I haven't played it and don't plan to for a while).

It is the way of things. First the hype and the praise, then those die down and the backlash begins before we move onto something else.

Me, I expected Open World Dark Souls and it sounds like that's what the game is so I'm probably gonna like it when I get to play it(after I finish earthbound).

 

[CriticalGaming]

I think mileage varies here though. People either fall into a camp of wanting more freedom of approach and exploration or wanting more tightness of design, and it was always going to be impossible to please both. So they of course compromised and tried to do both anyways.

I’m too early in to really give a complete assessment of it all (10 hours and only now fighting Margit), but a lot of people have been agreeing with these sentiments -

Spoiler

But then again they probably also generally like open world design. There are also a lot of recycled enemies in FROM’s previous games, but that might feel different because they’re usually consigned to certain areas for lore reasons. I’m also getting the impression I won’t need to grind in this setting because there is enough different random stuff to do and find vs in the SoulsBorne games you’re often relying on a specific farming run to get a leg up because everything is tied to soul currency (needed for leveling, purchasing consumables, ammo, etc.).

I disagree with the accessability idea for this game. Because while there are a few annoying things that are no longer present like that reddit post mentions, things like no gear damage, and fast travel for free (which every souls game had so long as you were at a bonfire). There are definitely things that are nice QoL things. But due to the practically zero guidance in these games, I feel like Elden Ring is the hardest game that FromSoft has ever done (next to Sekiro if you can't deal with parrying combat).

I agree that the open world is simply too large and too empty with very little of value for the most part. I am also just running by almost everything on horseback because I'm such a high level that the runes gained from enemies is fucking useless. I don't need to deal with an annoying pack of lobsters for 1200 runes which amounts to less than 5% of a level. Especially since how easy it is to just be stun locked and die. It's not worth the hassle most of the time. If I'm going to deal with enemies I prefer to do it in a cave or dungeon where I know I'm working towards a boss with a tangible reward at the end of it.

I think Elden Ring will end up being Infinitly more enjoyable once people have fully mapped all the interesting areas and players can follow a guide to avoid the hours of roaming around and dying to random shit.

 

[BrawlMan]

Elden Ring - Zero Punctuation - The Escapist

This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee Croshaw reviews Elden Ring from FromSoftware, the epic open-world Dark Souls years in the making.

www.escapistmagazine.com

 

[BrawlMan]

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[CriticalGaming]

I wanna add something else to the problems of the open world thing. Now this isn't really the fault of the game but more of an issue that becomes the bi-product of the way i feel like the average player tackles open world games.

I think its safe to say and a lot of people have sunk a lot of hours into Limgrave (the first map zone of the game) a zone that can almost be an entire game by itself. And people are exploring the shit out of it, myself included. But what happens after that. If the average person is anything like me, then the game starts to overstay it's welcome. To the point where I step into a new zone, look at the map, and go, "Oh fuck I gotta run around all this now." And fatigue wears in and I personally start to rush towards the endgame to see the credits roll.

It's a problem in general I think with open world in which they are exciting and fun to explore at first, but unless the content within the world is engaging at frequent, players eventually start to skip.

A critque channel on Youtube named Luke Stevens spoke about open world design and the rate of engagement players must encounter while they explore. He analysed two open world games The Witcher 3 and Assassin's Creed Odyssey (which was the latest game at the time). And he explained that in order for an open world to hold a player's interest that player must come across SOMETHING every 60 seconds. It doesn't matter what this something is, could be a puzzle, a dungeon, a boss, random npc event, whatever. Basically if you hold a direction and run in a straight line for 60 seconds you should encounter something interesting.

Elden Ring fails this test. While you certainly might find a roaming animal, or generic enemy, within that 60 seconds, these are not engagiing things themselves. You should find ruins, dungeons, caves, bosses, items or something of note that is different the the rest of the scenery around you. Generic enemies are part of the rest of the scenary around you and therefore, imo, do not count. Especially when generic enemies stop becoming interesting very quickly due to their lack of reward and extreme danger to fight. Hell I think normal monster gangbangs have killed me more than bosses in the game so far. That and falling.

It's sad to me because I do think that Elden Ring is the best game that Fromsoft has made to date. But it's held back by a extremely oversized open-world that just didn't need to be this massive. If you cut back the world by 35% then i think ER would be a 10/10. For me the extreme downtime and lack of direction (outside of directly main story direction) brings it down to an 8/10 imo. I spend so much time fucking bored trying to find something to do or collect that it ruins the moments when I'm actually fighting a boss or getting a new item.

 

[Brokencontroller]

. I’m also getting the impression I won’t need to grind in this setting because there is enough different random stuff to do and find vs in the SoulsBorne games you’re often relying on a specific farming run to get a leg up because everything is tied to soul currency (needed for leveling, purchasing consumables, ammo, etc.).

I wouldnt bet on this because im pretty deep into the game and am clearing area 4 and bosses are only giving around 6000 runes per kill which means i need 5 bosses for 1 level. And normal mobs on the map are only giving maybe 250 which is nothing. Big story bosses give more runes but at this point it isnt a level either.

I think once you hit a certain character level, then leveling up stops being important and instead it is about leveling up your weapons. Because ive gained far more power from a single weapon level than i can with 5 character levels.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I wouldnt bet on this because im pretty deep into the game and am clearing area 4 and bosses are only giving around 6000 runes per kill which means i need 5 bosses for 1 level. And normal mobs on the map are only giving maybe 250 which is nothing. Big story bosses give more runes but at this point it isnt a level either.

I think once you hit a certain character level, then leveling up stops being important and instead it is about leveling up your weapons. Because ive gained far more power from a single weapon level than i can with 5 character levels.

But at the same time there are already a few videos like this where people are leveling like crazy -


There are similar tips for getting all the smithing stones you’ll ever need very quickly. I have a feeling these things will be patched out soon or at least toned down though as they kinda break the game. It’s insane how quickly people find this crap out.

 

[CriticalGaming]

But at the same time there are already a few videos like this where people are leveling like crazy -


There are similar tips for getting all the smithing stones you’ll ever need very quickly. I have a feeling these things will be patched out soon or at least toned down though as they kinda break the game. It’s insane how quickly people find this crap out.

I saw this video and the rune count on the thumbnail is extremely misleading and clickbaity. Each kill of those boulders gets you 2k runes, and you have to reset after doing two of them. Great. That means 4k runes per reset unless you get the super versions at night which are rare spawn verisons which drop 5x the normal runes for the mob.

Here's the thing. That's not a lot of runes, nor is it a good farming route because 4k rune means 1 level every four or five resets, and that increases pretty quickly. Not worth the time or effort imo. Especially since post 50, levels are pretty meaningless for your overall power gain.

 

[Dalisclock]

Since I haven't started the game yet(and won't until next week at earliest), how is the map segmented? Since it's open world, I know Limgrave(?) is where you get dumped once you leave the starting area(like a little mini-dungeon of sorts) and then there are other harder areas, but Limgrave is apparently the first big area. Now, are you locked into Limgrave by a chokepoint and you need to do Stormgrave Castle(I think that's the name) to progress or can you go anywhere at the risk of getting stomped flat? I understand there are dungeons you have to do eventually to beat the game and Storm Grave is the first, so I guess my question is, how OPEN in the map? BOTW Open or you need to pass one of the big Dungeons to break through to a new region? Or something else?

I'm trying to avoid looking too much at the game, because I'm trying to avoid spoilers for the most part.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Since I haven't started the game yet(and won't until next week at earliest), how is the map segmented? Since it's open world, I know Limgrave(?) is where you get dumped once you leave the starting area(like a little mini-dungeon of sorts) and then there are other harder areas, but Limgrave is apparently the first big area. Now, are you locked into Limgrave by a chokepoint and you need to do Stormgrave Castle(I think that's the name) to progress or can you go anywhere at the risk of getting stomped flat? I understand there are dungeons you have to do eventually to beat the game and Storm Grave is the first, so I guess my question is, how OPEN in the map? BOTW Open or you need to pass one of the big Dungeons to break through to a new region? Or something else?

I'm trying to avoid looking too much at the game, because I'm trying to avoid spoilers for the most part.

You can run literally to Ganon if you want.

Wait did you mean Elden Ring.

You can run all the way to the final boss area if you want and you are good enough to survive. There are no checkpoints.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

You can run literally to Ganon if you want.

Wait did you mean Elden Ring.

You can run all the way to the final boss area if you want and you are good enough to survive. There are no checkpoints.

The dude in the Roundtable wants you to “prove yourself”, something something fingers, so even if the whole map is mostly available there are still story implications that will prevent certain critical encounters. I wonder who this game’s Kingseeker Frampt will be.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

 

[CriticalGaming]

I have reached the clicking point. My character is strong, and I've got my act together for the most part to the point where I'm killing three or more bosses per evening. And I'm really really liking the game now.

The open world part still irritates me, but once I've beaten the game, I'll wait for some good walkthroughs to roll out before trying to 100% the game on NG+ for the platinum.

 

[Brokencontroller]

I have reached the clicking point. My character is strong, and I've got my act together for the most part to the point where I'm killing three or more bosses per evening. And I'm really really liking the game now.

The open world part still irritates me, but once I've beaten the game, I'll wait for some good walkthroughs to roll out before trying to 100% the game on NG+ for the platinum.

I will say that one thing that feels great in this game is getting your ass kicked by a boss, going away to do other shit before you break a controller, then coming back in a few hours and embarassing the boss that stomped you. That feels really good to do.

You can become hugely powerful without realizing it until youve gone back to a boss and realize that now you rip out huge chunks of its hp in one hit.

I stumbled across a boss that i literally killed in three hits.