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

hanselthecaretaker

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That is....ok that's funny.
Being told animals in this game deserve respect while a giant crab brutally fillets the player is when it hit me they might actually have a sense of humor.


In other news, Zulie and Co. hard at work dissecting the latest in FROM jank -


It’s actually pretty ironic these games have a recurring joke character named Patches.
 

CriticalGaming

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In other news, Zulie and Co. hard at work dissecting the latest in FROM jank -


It’s actually pretty ironic these games have a recurring joke character named Patches.
I generally don't mind the bit of jank that occurs with FromSoft games, however there is soo much on display in ER that i can't help but wonder if they should have delayed the game again. This is probably the first FromSoft game that has such crazy poor balancing that I can't possibly understand how they released the game like this. From enemies being overtuned to fairly serious degrees, to weapon skills being a giant fuckfest.

I don't get it, maybe it is just a case of them biting off more than they could chew? But they always release jank and most of the time they don't give a shit to fix it. Hell DS1 was fixedby modders because From couldn't be bothered to deal with it.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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Aha! (No not the 80’s band even though I’ve always like hearing that one song, especially in MGSV) -


It’s almost like my YouTube feed tapped into my conscience because I was just thinking about looking this up and there it already was.

Companion clip -
 
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EvilRoy

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Beat the fire giant. I really love how honest they designed the giant fights to be. The iron giants have their little dance where you chop at their angles and then they just start smacking the ground with their spear like its a shovel and they're trying to chase away something they can't see that just bit them. And the fire giant acts like a 1950s housewife that sees a mouse - bashing at it with a serving plate and trying to shoo it away.
 

Dalisclock

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I think FromSoft agrees because every new game they make doing pvp a bigger pain in the ass. Now you cannot get invaded playing solo, and they've designed it to be as unfair to the invader as possible which I suppose is the trade off for trying to fuck with someone's co-op fun. I would have rather they just left out invasions entirely but are probably keeping it around because for whatever reason there is a community for it.

However with ER's bullshit build possibilities, I doubt PvP sticks around very long. And the fact that an entire area is basically locked away for offline players, or when the game's servers go down is pretty bullshit.
What i find kind of interesting is that there's not really a justification for it anymore, much like the Fog gates. In the Souls games(as I'm sure you already know), it was justified as various worlds are overlapping with each other, each character is the chosen hero of their world but the worlds can intersect and thus you can get invasions and co-op. Solarie and Lautrec kinda introduce you to those in Dark Souls 1 and that's enough. ER it's basically there because it's a series tradition at this point.

Kinda like the Fog Gates made sense in Demons Souls because of the Demon Fog or whatever it was called, but after that it's just there because it's always been there.

I'm not saying it's bad or anything but these games try to tie the lore and mechanics together, at least at first anyway. There's probably some other stuff that slips my mind right now that also fits this.
 

Brokencontroller

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What i find kind of interesting is that there's not really a justification for it anymore, much like the Fog gates. In the Souls games(as I'm sure you already know), it was justified as various worlds are overlapping with each other, each character is the chosen hero of their world but the worlds can intersect and thus you can get invasions and co-op. Solarie and Lautrec kinda introduce you to those in Dark Souls 1 and that's enough. ER it's basically there because it's a series tradition at this point.

Kinda like the Fog Gates made sense in Demons Souls because of the Demon Fog or whatever it was called, but after that it's just there because it's always been there.

I'm not saying it's bad or anything but these games try to tie the lore and mechanics together, at least at first anyway. There's probably some other stuff that slips my mind right now that also fits this.
To be fair the fog gates as really only used to block off boss arenas and the serve that purpose as good as anything else. The fog used to i think just help load times but that isnt needed anymore so it has been demoted to just boss doors.
 
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CriticalGaming

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What i find kind of interesting is that there's not really a justification for it anymore, much like the Fog gates. In the Souls games(as I'm sure you already know), it was justified as various worlds are overlapping with each other, each character is the chosen hero of their world but the worlds can intersect and thus you can get invasions and co-op. Solarie and Lautrec kinda introduce you to those in Dark Souls 1 and that's enough. ER it's basically there because it's a series tradition at this point.

Kinda like the Fog Gates made sense in Demons Souls because of the Demon Fog or whatever it was called, but after that it's just there because it's always been there.

I'm not saying it's bad or anything but these games try to tie the lore and mechanics together, at least at first anyway. There's probably some other stuff that slips my mind right now that also fits this.
I think From is keeping pvp around as some sort of habit or expectation. But it's clear if you look at the builds in the game, ER is not build with pvp in mind. Because nearly any decent build will one-shot a player and what's the point of pvp in that case? The duel basically boils down to who gets hit first. Which alone creates an inbalance.

And they've already done nerfs to many of the weapons in the game, but I think nerfing them any further to try and make pvp fair would then ruin the power in the pve portion of the game which is the most important part. Some of the nerfs already flat out ruined some weapons for the whole game. The Sword of Night and Flame is useless in every situation now because of how gimped they shot the damage down. Luckily Hoarfrost stomp is still very good, and while it's slower than before slightly the frost build up alone is enough to remain useful.

But that means that hoarfrost is brutal in pvp, corpse piler is insane, moonveil is still powerful as fuck, there is so much shit in the game that it's clear that they never considered pvp an option. Because of the power of builds, I think that is why pvp can only be done on a 2v1 situation at best. You can't be invaded unless you are co-oping because they didn't want random invaders going into people's game and ruining their exploration. Frankly I think they should have just left it out entirely but whatever.
 
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EvilRoy

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I think From is keeping pvp around as some sort of habit or expectation. But it's clear if you look at the builds in the game, ER is not build with pvp in mind. Because nearly any decent build will one-shot a player and what's the point of pvp in that case? The duel basically boils down to who gets hit first. Which alone creates an inbalance.

And they've already done nerfs to many of the weapons in the game, but I think nerfing them any further to try and make pvp fair would then ruin the power in the pve portion of the game which is the most important part. Some of the nerfs already flat out ruined some weapons for the whole game. The Sword of Night and Flame is useless in every situation now because of how gimped they shot the damage down. Luckily Hoarfrost stomp is still very good, and while it's slower than before slightly the frost build up alone is enough to remain useful.

But that means that hoarfrost is brutal in pvp, corpse piler is insane, moonveil is still powerful as fuck, there is so much shit in the game that it's clear that they never considered pvp an option. Because of the power of builds, I think that is why pvp can only be done on a 2v1 situation at best. You can't be invaded unless you are co-oping because they didn't want random invaders going into people's game and ruining their exploration. Frankly I think they should have just left it out entirely but whatever.
I don't mind duels, thats opt in so everybody is prepped for the fight, but invading is actually starting to annoy me now that I'm helping my buddy in coop. I don't really have a good pvp build, but as you said that doesn't matter - you just need one of the way too good abilities to deal with them. So now I have a permanent slot dedicated to the madness eye-laser spell that stunlocks and kills most invaders almost instantly because protection against madness is actually kind of hard to come by and it outranges almost every weapon arte. Every invasion turns into an annoying game of hiding, waiting to see the red guy, and then stalking him until he is in a position where he won't be able to escape my eyebeams. It was kind of funny at first, but now I'm really tired of this dance. The worst part is, half the time we were just walking to another site of grace to prep for a boss or something, so its not even like there's a threat of lost progress anymore. Its just an annoying loss of time and potential need to re-set up our coop game.
 

CriticalGaming

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I don't mind duels, thats opt in so everybody is prepped for the fight, but invading is actually starting to annoy me now that I'm helping my buddy in coop. I don't really have a good pvp build, but as you said that doesn't matter - you just need one of the way too good abilities to deal with them. So now I have a permanent slot dedicated to the madness eye-laser spell that stunlocks and kills most invaders almost instantly because protection against madness is actually kind of hard to come by and it outranges almost every weapon arte. Every invasion turns into an annoying game of hiding, waiting to see the red guy, and then stalking him until he is in a position where he won't be able to escape my eyebeams. It was kind of funny at first, but now I'm really tired of this dance. The worst part is, half the time we were just walking to another site of grace to prep for a boss or something, so its not even like there's a threat of lost progress anymore. Its just an annoying loss of time and potential need to re-set up our coop game.
It's annoying as an invader too because you know you are not going into a fair fight nor are you usually going into fight people who even want to deal with your ass right now.

I've only done it for the quest that requires me to invade three times and while I'm there I like to run straight towards the "victim" and murder him so fast it confuses his co-op partner. and if i fail, i dont care. I never fight that hard, I just run up and weapon art, and if you dodge or counter it, then im dead.
 

Elijin

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Pvp exists because once the pve players have had their fill they move on. The pvpers will stay for 10 times longer, having a right old time without any new content.

Why ignore that base??
 

CriticalGaming

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Pvp exists because once the pve players have had their fill they move on. The pvpers will stay for 10 times longer, having a right old time without any new content.
That is true in mmo's but I don't think it has any baring on Dark Souls games since people mod them, do challenge runs, do NG+'s. Besides why would they give a shit how long you play? It's a single player game with no microtransaction economy. So long as you buy the game and don't return it, why would they care how long you played?
 

Elijin

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I'm not going to attempt to explain the value of customer loyalty and player base longevity to someone who buys a new game each week amd treats them like a task to be completed and moved on from.
 
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CriticalGaming

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I'm not going to attempt to explain the value of customer loyalty and player base longevity to someone who buys a new game each week amd treats them like a task to be completed and moved on from.
My seat is mildly warm, is this a burn? This feels like a burn.
 

Phoenixmgs

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Is your Return/Enter key broken lol? Really though, I guess I haven’t played many of these “every other game” that has strafing without lock-on recently because nothing stands out. At least nothing that can be put in the same genre as a Souls game, which automatically changes the requirements of a lock-on system.
What game with sword and shield combat that isn't a Souls game doesn't have your movement change when you put up the shield? Whether Dragon's Dogma, Skryim, God of War, etc. I don't really get what they are talking about in the article. Soft lock to me is the game "locking" your character's attacks to the enemy you're pressing towards, not anything to do with the camera itself. If any enemy is behind me, I can just press backward and attack and my character will attack them and I can move the camera during the attack if I need to myself. That's how I play like any melee game whether Prince of Persia SOT (I think the 1st game I played without needing lock-on), Bayonetta, God of War, Batman games, etc. I've always been against the game doing anything for me that's contextual whether moving the camera trying to help or deciding if I pressed Circle to take cover or roll in Uncharted. I realize solutions were needed before dual-stick controls obviously.