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

[hanselthecaretaker]

Its an interesting thesis, though again, a questionable conclusion.


Running the numbers for giggles.

Far Cry 5 (the last "Ubisoft formula" game I played), apparently has 20 Outposts total.
Elden Ring has 56 dungeons as best I could find (https://www.ign.com/wikis/elden-ring/Dungeons)
- Both have points of interest besides these heavily designed encounters that I'm going to disregard for simplicity sake


Now in terms of fatigue (or the point of "I can't be bothered with this anymore"), theres some more interesting nuance.

Far Cry obviously suffers in enemy variety. As the video notes, part of the issues with the Ubisoft formula is theres like 17 things other then the main gameplay with hunting, fishing, crafting, darts, apparently cockfighting comes up in one of them, et al. (I can attest to this from Watch Dogs 2 apparently deciding to moonlight as a RC car puzzle game for most of its open world content)


However, Far Cry tends to not have unique loot so much as just finding cash money for its gun shop/upgrade system (such as it is). It doesn't at the endpoint, waste your time in the Outpost, until you hit the point where you've locked in your weapons. Because its not an RPG (maybe I should've pulled a modern AC, but I haven't played Odyssey or Valhalla) the weapon upgrades are pretty quick and not exclusive in any way.


Elden Ring does have unique loot. Almost to a fault. Now, this does guarantee you will find "something" in a given dungeon. However, the excitement is going to dull out once you get yet another Spirit Ash or weapon/talisman that is unsuited for your character (spoilers, if you're not an Sorcereror/Spellblade type, alot). Even if these were all equally viable and usable (again, they're not, but thats expected), Elden Ring also relies on upgrade materials that are limited to match up any new finds to your current levels. The upgrade materials do become mostly unlimited (Save for the very last), available for rune purchase, but the final 3 tiers of key items for this are all found in the penultimate mandatory story dungeon, which is inaccessible until reachng said point in the story, open world be damned.


Which brings to a question of context or motivation. Your motivation for clearing outposts in FC5 is to unlock the story progression more then anything. Its not astoundingly logical, but it works. Your motivation in Elden Ring is... to get loot for the most part. The random dungeon bosses typically give out a piddling amount of runes as actual levels go. Contextually speaking, you don't get any clues to what the loot is (other then Catacombs will mostly provide Spirit Ashes). Two of the best early game weapons are just found in empty rooms down staircases in open world ruins (the laziest of the aforementioned points of interest) without so much as an elite enemy camped on the entrance. You simultaneously learn to expect nothing of note from ER's dungeons, whilst also making doing every last one of them almost mandatory if you are trying to find a solid bit of gear without using a wiki.


Of course loot isn't everything, we have world building to go on as well... and Far Cry 5 gets something of an easy pass here. The real-world setting means we have a full context for why you might want to control a fuel depot, or a marina, or any number of structures. And why liberating these is important to defeating the big bad. Elden Ring.... has oppurtunities to develop stories and lore to a location. It doesn't take the oppurtunity often. Highroad Cave and Gaol Cave are counter-examples, but most of the dungeons are faceless arrangements of reused tiles, and even their 1-2 unique pieces of loots item description rarely presents anything to do with the location. Even in those two examples, the Blue Dancer charm has nothing to do with the collapsed divine bridge, and of our 3 loot items for Gaol cave, the only connected one is the very basic shield thats actually prisoner stocks.

It would be neat if there was an in-game way of letting the player know which areas housed what loot. It could be tied to the Roundtable where you could search the map for different weapons. Maybe have it cost something like stonesword keys so it couldn’t be abused. Or each weapon type acquired in the field gave you a key to help find others. Find clues off of dead bodies, idk. Something, anything that incentivizes keeping the player’s attention on the game itself vs another bloody wiki.

 

[FakeSympathy]

After 176 hours, I finally achieved 100% on the game. This is the first souls game where I got the completion rating.

And it was all thanks to how easy it was to get these achievements. When I say "easy", I don't mean the bosses were easy or collecting stuff was quick; In fact, some bosses were hair-pulling difficult, legendary stuff took forever to find, and there were areas where it required some clever platforming. What I mean by "easy" is that almost every achievements can be done in a single playthrough, save for the ending ones.

And you know what, for the first time in many, many years of gaming, I truly felt these achievements were.... well, achievements. Unlike some games where they give you achievements for doing random/silly things or even for no reason at all, the achievements in ER were very rewarding, as they made me explore areas that I haven't even considered before.

Take getting to Malenia for example; To even get to her, you first need to collect both parts of the medallion from a creepy village under an arc and a fort located high in the mountain, travel through a long stretch of a snowfield, solve the village puzzle, go through giant tree while trying not to fall to your death, and make it to the deepest part of a city filled with some of the most dangerous enemies in the game. And all the area you will visit have some sort of lore and reasoning behind their current state.

And Malenia is a boss for just one achievement. Along the way, you will find places where they have the talismans and spirit ashes for the achievements.

Getting the ending achievements was fun too. Technically, you only need to play up to NG+3 for the four different ending achievements, but I decided to put efforts into getting the other two achievement-less endings as well. And guess what? I felt the journey for those two endings were rewarding as well. Granted, those two endings aren't too significant or impactful compared to Age of Stars or Frenzied Flames ending, but the areas I had to go through and the loots I found along the way were really great.

I can finally stop thinking about this game, and give it a rest at least for a while. Here's hoping for some dlcs

 

[CriticalGaming]

I can finally stop thinking about this game, and give it a rest at least for a while.

Congrats!

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Dataminer reveals cut Elden Ring questline

Lance McDonald has discovered a lost NPC and a long quest involving sleep and dreams.

www.pcgamer.com

 

[CriticalGaming]

Dataminer reveals cut Elden Ring questline

Lance McDonald has discovered a lost NPC and a long quest involving sleep and dreams.

www.pcgamer.com

Cut? Or Bugged and not appearing like other one's were?

 

[sXeth]

Dataminer reveals cut Elden Ring questline

Lance McDonald has discovered a lost NPC and a long quest involving sleep and dreams.

www.pcgamer.com

The Dream Monk and Asimi the Mimic have both been datamined out.

There's Nephelis quest that was accidentally partially left in and then restored (with heavy quotations, more like bandaged over).

Patches' final encounter provides no resolution or reward of any kind, so also probably had a cut..

Diallos was another Nepheli situation, though he gets a more involved patch-addition.

Frenzied Flame seems to have been highly abbreviated, particularly in its introduction in Weeping Peninsula. To the point where the quests don't even chain together properly.

Yura, and the Dragon Cult appear to have had some kind of questline that drops off a cliff after Agheel. Your future interactions with Yura then stem currently ingame from spotting red summon signs in randomish locations. Which will reward you with the item to counter Mohg's annoying attack but never actually carry into any direction that would ever send you Mohgs way. Its actually odd cause we never got much establishment of anything for the Blue phantoms (and the reds get more from the Recusant side)

There would appear to be something with arenas, as there are 3 inaccessible but fully modelled ones including lifts in the game. Two of these have unique encounters (Recusant Heinricks who drops the duelist finger and the Great Jar)

Potentially an entire Rot ending was left on the cutting floor. Or perhaps shifted to DLC content. Godfry becomes nothing more then a spell vendor (with a whopping 3 spells and only one Faith-rot spell). The Lake of Rot and the Lost Cloister seem mostly to have been repurposed and shoved in as areas in Rannis quest with little significance, before warping you back to the same sort of caves as Ranni's line takes in for the AStel fight.

 

[CriticalGaming]

The Dream Monk and Asimi the Mimic have both been datamined out.

There's Nephelis quest that was accidentally partially left in and then restored (with heavy quotations, more like bandaged over).

Patches' final encounter provides no resolution or reward of any kind, so also probably had a cut..

Diallos was another Nepheli situation, though he gets a more involved patch-addition.

Frenzied Flame seems to have been highly abbreviated, particularly in its introduction in Weeping Peninsula. To the point where the quests don't even chain together properly.

Yura, and the Dragon Cult appear to have had some kind of questline that drops off a cliff after Agheel. Your future interactions with Yura then stem currently ingame from spotting red summon signs in randomish locations. Which will reward you with the item to counter Mohg's annoying attack but never actually carry into any direction that would ever send you Mohgs way. Its actually odd cause we never got much establishment of anything for the Blue phantoms (and the reds get more from the Recusant side)

There would appear to be something with arenas, as there are 3 inaccessible but fully modelled ones including lifts in the game. Two of these have unique encounters (Recusant Heinricks who drops the duelist finger and the Great Jar)

Potentially an entire Rot ending was left on the cutting floor. Or perhaps shifted to DLC content. Godfry becomes nothing more then a spell vendor (with a whopping 3 spells and only one Faith-rot spell). The Lake of Rot and the Lost Cloister seem mostly to have been repurposed and shoved in as areas in Rannis quest with little significance, before warping you back to the same sort of caves as Ranni's line takes in for the AStel fight.

Imagine if they had just cut some of the redundant open world crap instead.

 

[sXeth]

Imagine if they had just cut some of the redundant open world crap instead.

Yeah the whole Underground section feels mostly disjointed and like "Well, we made the assets, better work them in somewhere"

Siofra and Nokron mostly hold together. But then there's a random jump to Deeproot with the coffin. Deeproot is fine its got its lore shenanigans, and Fia/Godwyns whole thing going on (and fits much more clearly if you access it by descending through Leyndell).

Then theres another random coffin that shunts you back to caves for Rannis quest (even though to actually continue you have to have warped back to her, dropped off the Fingerslayer blade, which gives you a portal there regardless). You take a swing through Nokstella (which has no box and is the home of the Nox, who made the Silver Tears, so maybe its part of that dropped quest). You can ignore Nokstella entirely if you arne't bothered with a couple of loot bits, and move on to the next bit, another side interaction with Ranni, and Baleful Shadow if oyu've kept up.

Then you go down to the Lake of Rot, an area you'd expect to be associated with Malenia or Godfry, but neither has any involvement here. ITs a pretty brief tour, nothing of note but a random Dragonknight of Nokstella, Certainly nothing explaining why the rots down here in such amounts. Into the Lost Cloister, where a bunch of the Pests/Kindred of Rot are... just hanging around, without context. Then there's a 3rd coffin warp that takes you back into normallish caves, where you go fight Astel, a boss who has nothing to do with rot. And possibly nothing to do with Ranni other then his kind may be responsible for Sorcery power the same way Elden Beast brought holy power to the planet. Then an elevator sends you up to Carians private plateau. Like are we meant to beleive the Carians traipsed down through a giant cave and 2 ruined cities to visit their seasonal home?


Where if you excise the areas that seem related to potentially cut content out.

Ranni sends you into Siofra/Nokron, you get the Fingerslayer. Return to her. She sends you through the portal to Ainsel. You discover her body. Then go remove Astel who's blocking the Dark Moon lift. Astel's still a giant space flea from nowhere, but there aren't 3 areas of unreleated items that are full of implication that they should matter and a bunch of disjointed coffing teleports with no apparent explanation.

 

[Dalisclock]

Imagine if they had just cut some of the redundant open world crap instead.

To be fair, this is a typical FROM problem where the ambition is amazing and constantly runs afoul of resources and time so we get wierd bits of stuff that was only partially implemented. DS2 also had a huge problem here, the other games a bit less so. And the of course shows in the late game areas the most. Dark Souls 3 had a lot of interesting stuff cut out or moved around(Evil Pope was supposed to be the final boss at one point apparently) though it's far less noticeable there then in DS2.

Still, it's obnoxious they keep doing this

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

To be fair, this is a typical FROM problem where the ambition is amazing and constantly runs afoul of resources and time so we get wierd bits of stuff that was only partially implemented. DS2 also had a huge problem here, the other games a bit less so. And the of course shows in the late game areas the most. Dark Souls 3 had a lot of interesting stuff cut out or moved area though it's far less noticeable there then in DS2.

Still, it's obnoxious they keep doing this

Like Kojima, I think Miyazaki could use a project manager or some oversight to keep things reigned in a bit more tightly.

 

[sXeth]

To be fair, this is a typical FROM problem where the ambition is amazing and constantly runs afoul of resources and time so we get wierd bits of stuff that was only partially implemented. DS2 also had a huge problem here, the other games a bit less so. And the of course shows in the late game areas the most. Dark Souls 3 had a lot of interesting stuff cut out or moved around(Evil Pope was supposed to be the final boss at one point apparently) though it's far less noticeable there then in DS2.

Still, it's obnoxious they keep doing this

Yeah its kind of weird that they keep leaving the fragments in though.

Like how do you not notice you shipped a game with an entire area still full of placeholder enemeis (Lost Izalith in Dark Souls 1, dev acknowledged). And maybe cut it out and settle for an abruptly short road to the Bed of Chaos.

Kind of a similar thing in ER. Whoever was in charge of removing cut quests just doesn't seem to have actually had a list of the quest relevant items. Like did someone knock one napkin pinned to the corkboard off before they went in and cut stuff so they overlooked that. How else do you launch with 5 NPCs whose questlines were removed and have to slop them back in there.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Yeah its kind of weird that they keep leaving the fragments in though.

Like how do you not notice you shipped a game with an entire area still full of placeholder enemeis (Lost Izalith in Dark Souls 1, dev acknowledged). And maybe cut it out and settle for an abruptly short road to the Bed of Chaos.

Kind of a similar thing in ER. Whoever was in charge of removing cut quests just doesn't seem to have actually had a list of the quest relevant items. Like did someone knock one napkin pinned to the corkboard off before they went in and cut stuff so they overlooked that. How else do you launch with 5 NPCs whose questlines were removed and have to slop them back in there.

That's why I hate how big the world is, so much vast emptiness, when it could have been a smaller map more dense with things to do and people to meet. Though in a way it's not "dark souls" to have a lot of people to talk do and quests to do really. Miyazaki makes bleak worlds and bleak worlds are empty, it's kind of his thing.

But at the same time, this isn't a fucking Souls game so why did he treat it like one? You can have the foundation of Souls combat without the Souls atmosphere and limitations. Create a full blown open world rpg while maintaining the combat that people love. Make quests that send you to the various side areas with unique enemies that have specific rewards contained within.

I feel like the design document didn't get much further than "open world Dark Souls". Because once they had this big fucking map, they really didn't know what to do with it except stick Dark Souls levels in it randomly and smaller Chalice Dungeon like areas.

For me the game is a huge wasted potential. It's a good game, I can't deny that the game is still good, but it should and could have been so much more. Too much cut content, replaced with empty nothing content. Too much copy pasting, if you can't fill the world, then make the world smalller. Unfair difficulty OR buggy AI. IT's one or the other and maybe a bit of both. Even people praising the game are pointing out unfair bullshit that the game has due to either the bosses bugging out or the animation cycle not being paced correctly. On the flip side, the easy-mode stuff is too easy. Ash Summons should not be able to do 80% or more of the work for you. At the same time it's very clear that their AI needs an upgrade because the AI simply can't handle more than the 1 player to fight against, and that destroys a ton of the difficulty alone.

It's very weird to say that a game is too hard and too easy at the same fucking time.

 

[sXeth]

That's why I hate how big the world is, so much vast emptiness, when it could have been a smaller map more dense with things to do and people to meet. Though in a way it's not "dark souls" to have a lot of people to talk do and quests to do really. Miyazaki makes bleak worlds and bleak worlds are empty, it's kind of his thing.

But at the same time, this isn't a fucking Souls game so why did he treat it like one? You can have the foundation of Souls combat without the Souls atmosphere and limitations. Create a full blown open world rpg while maintaining the combat that people love. Make quests that send you to the various side areas with unique enemies that have specific rewards contained within.

I feel like the design document didn't get much further than "open world Dark Souls". Because once they had this big fucking map, they really didn't know what to do with it except stick Dark Souls levels in it randomly and smaller Chalice Dungeon like areas.

For me the game is a huge wasted potential. It's a good game, I can't deny that the game is still good, but it should and could have been so much more. Too much cut content, replaced with empty nothing content. Too much copy pasting, if you can't fill the world, then make the world smalller. Unfair difficulty OR buggy AI. IT's one or the other and maybe a bit of both. Even people praising the game are pointing out unfair bullshit that the game has due to either the bosses bugging out or the animation cycle not being paced correctly. On the flip side, the easy-mode stuff is too easy. Ash Summons should not be able to do 80% or more of the work for you. At the same time it's very clear that their AI needs an upgrade because the AI simply can't handle more than the 1 player to fight against, and that destroys a ton of the difficulty alone.

It's very weird to say that a game is too hard and too easy at the same fucking time.

Yeah, from actual testing. The AI just targets whoever hit it last. no concern for the amounts. When co-opping with sorcerors my regular thing is literally throwing bone darts that do like, 11 damage at the boss in between mages hitting it for 1000s so it will ignore them. (the exception to this being that drinking a flask will auto-trigger attacks (often specific ones, which is its own exploitable behaviour).


I have a vague recollection that this was not the case in prior Souls too. Like I remember being threatened as the caster in co-op. So it might be an attempt to counterbalance that if they ignored the piddling damage, the 3 wolves or whatever would still fill up the new stagger metre. A strange mechanic to add in general. Its a carryover/copy from Monster Hunter, but in those games you build up stagger almost entirely on specific limb targets or headshots and unique combos. A level of mechanical density that is not present in this game (the couple of gimmicky Golems/Troll designs aside)

 

[EvilRoy]

The thing I generally noted with the Catacombs was that they never really coalesce into the final exam. You have the teleporter gimmick dungeon, the illusory wall dungeon, the elevator under the elevator dungeon, the ride-the-guillotine dungeon.

To take a comparison, there is usually the final dungeon in Zelda where you have to use all the gadgets, and sometimes in tandem, after you beat the 7-8 individual gimmicks (which don't often use more then their specific dungeon item).

And they never seem to get there. The Mountaintop Catacomb is certainly longer then any other one. But its all elevator under elevator gimmick. No illusion walls, no teleporters, the guillotines are there but dont get used as lifts (and then you fight an unexplained scarlet rot tree spirit, which drops seeds that aren't even usable anymore if you've explored, but thats its own aside)

I think the one in the capital was probably supposed to be the last one you encounter, which doesn't really end in a 'final exam' but was definitely what I considered to be the most clever of the different catacomb puzzles. As much as I think a final hurrah, prove you learned it all, kind of ending dungeon can be very fun I don't think it really works in a system where you can just totally miss some of the catacombs and make the last part of the

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I think the one in the capital was probably supposed to be the last one you encounter, which doesn't really end in a 'final exam' but was definitely what I considered to be the most clever of the different catacomb puzzles. As much as I think a final hurrah, prove you learned it all, kind of ending dungeon can be very fun I don't think it really works in a system where you can just totally miss some of the catacombs and make the last part of the

Hmm, was this meant to be an incomplete thought…because it kinda fits lol.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Yeah, from actual testing. The AI just targets whoever hit it last. no concern for the amounts. When co-opping with sorcerors my regular thing is literally throwing bone darts that do like, 11 damage at the boss in between mages hitting it for 1000s so it will ignore them. (the exception to this being that drinking a flask will auto-trigger attacks (often specific ones, which is its own exploitable behaviour).


I have a vague recollection that this was not the case in prior Souls too. Like I remember being threatened as the caster in co-op. So it might be an attempt to counterbalance that if they ignored the piddling damage, the 3 wolves or whatever would still fill up the new stagger metre. A strange mechanic to add in general. Its a carryover/copy from Monster Hunter, but in those games you build up stagger almost entirely on specific limb targets or headshots and unique combos. A level of mechanical density that is not present in this game (the couple of gimmicky Golems/Troll designs aside)

Souls combat in general has always broken when the player co-op's with someone else. The AI has never been able to handle it because the biggest threat of a lot of bosses and enemies is that their unrelenting attacks are always on you, so you must find windows to deal safe damage back at them. However there is no window when the boss is not attacking you, you are free to beat the shit out of it until it turns an attack against you or does an aoe of some kind.

In ER there are some bosses who's AI break when you are just by yourself. If you charge ragadan right when you start the fight and hug his right (your left) side. He'll literally stop and stand there, not moving, not attacking, nothing. Then if you let him sit like that for a minute the AI will break entirely and you can beat his ass and he will never move, allowing you to fight the elden beast without having to juggle your resourses from the first part of the fight. GG EZ.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Souls combat in general has always broken when the player co-op's with someone else. The AI has never been able to handle it because the biggest threat of a lot of bosses and enemies is that their unrelenting attacks are always on you, so you must find windows to deal safe damage back at them. However there is no window when the boss is not attacking you, you are free to beat the shit out of it until it turns an attack against you or does an aoe of some kind.

In ER there are some bosses who's AI break when you are just by yourself. If you charge ragadan right when you start the fight and hug his right (your left) side. He'll literally stop and stand there, not moving, not attacking, nothing. Then if you let him sit like that for a minute the AI will break entirely and you can beat his ass and he will never move, allowing you to fight the elden beast without having to juggle your resourses from the first part of the fight. GG EZ.

I had this happen with the ulcerated tree spirit in the small room at the bottom of the starting area. Not even half its life bar was gone before it kinda just said fuggit lol. OTOH, in terms of boss AI handling multiple threats, usually for me they just stomp them out quickly before moving back to me. The skeletal militia men have some staying power since they revive if not killed when downed, which by that time the boss often returns focus to me. I’ve only used spirit summons other than Radahn though. The scripted companions there at least lasted long enough that he was never really focused on me completely.

 

[sXeth]

So apparently they fixed Patches quest in the patch today.

By which he just goes back to his original cave, says the exact same dialogue and fights you again. With one new line where he recognizees you and surrenders, giving you his gesture if you spare him)

 

[CriticalGaming]

So apparently they fixed Patches quest in the patch today.

By which he just goes back to his original cave, says the exact same dialogue and fights you again. With one new line where he recognizees you and surrenders, giving you his gesture if you spare him)

oh boy just what i was missing in my life. lol

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

So apparently they fixed Patches quest in the patch today.

By which he just goes back to his original cave, says the exact same dialogue and fights you again. With one new line where he recognizees you and surrenders, giving you his gesture if you spare him)

oh boy just what i was missing in my life. lol

Instead of a numerical bump they should’ve just called this one the Patches patch.