Elden Ring

[OCH]

5 minutes ago, one-armed dwarf said:

Just so you know, you fought the nerfed version. So it doesn't count, only me and mfnick had the real unadulterated experience

 

Which is to say, it fucking sucked 🤣

I can believe that. Which reminds me of when I fought vanilla DS 2's Ancient Dragon. The worst boss they've ever made. Not even one that was a broken mess mechanically, like Bed of Chaos. Every attack was overpowered (especially his infamous arena covering aerial AOE) and his HP bar was the largest in the game.

[Maf]

Think I'm messing up a bunch of NPC quests. Everyone who I've talked to is either missing or dead lol. Not a good sign. Even the pot head guy from the reveal trailer who you can hit out the ground. Well I both wasn't strong enough and didn't have any club/blunt type weapons so left it. He's gone now, too. 

 

I did fine a Uchigatana or something which was a massive step up from the sword I had. But then about 10 minutes later I found a Moonveil sword which is just like the Uchigatana except it scales with INT. I cheated and blew through a bunch of rune tokens for the 3 levels I needed to wield it, then a blew a bit more and some sombre stones to level it up. 

 

It's all right? lol

 

Least I've got kind of a good weapon now. But it will be back to levelling up mind for the minute. I think I'll see much greater benefit by getting to throw more rocks at people from across the screen.

 

Oh, I also got to the tower to awaken Golddick's sign. It says it raises all attributes. Not sure what that means, don't think anything changed for me. 

 

I found myself in Cali very briefly where I beat a boss named Putrid something and decided that was enough for me. So I went and finally crossed the southern bridge which is where on the way I noticed all my NPC's have vanished. There was this girl on the other side of the bridge. I said yes to her quest. Came back after doing some shit. She's dead too 🤨

 

I'm like the grim reaper, man, if I visit upon you you're totally fucked 

[mmmark]

Pot boy is elsewhere for you

[OCH]

7 hours ago, Maf said:

Well I both wasn't strong enough and didn't have any club/blunt type weapons so left it. He's gone now, too. 

🤨

Soulsborne NPC rule 101: keep doing something until the game tells you to stop.

 

Most of the time that thing being, exhaust their dialogue. Pot Boy asks you to hit him. Keep hitting him until something happens. It doesn't matter what weapon you've got. I had an axe at the time.

 

Dead or Insane, Maf. That is the two typical fates for NPC's in Soulsborne too. Bloodborne's Doll I think is the only main exception to the rule. Bridge Girl will be relevant later.

[one-armed dwarf]

Don't understand the 'all my npcs have vanished' stuff. NPCs will go away to do things, and usually tell you about that if you exhaust the NPC dialogues (as I said, talk to them 3 times usually)

[Maf]

But I either didn't understand what they were talking about or don't remember what they said. Like I talked to the wolf guy and he was talking about a traitor. I was like Ok. Now he's gone and I'm like god speed star wolf I hope your traitor doesn't kill you. 

 

I do exhaust the dialogue. This isn't my first Souls' game lol. But just because they talk don't mean I get it. 

 

I'm sure they're not all dead but some of them are definitely corpses. 

EDIT: I finally figured out the invisible guy yesterday and he said oh I'll be at a cave on the coast.

 

It's like man you know how many costs there are? If I see ya, I see ya. 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

Yeah the wolf guy traitor thing I also didn't find, he said he was nearby or something but I didnt find the dude. I still completed the over-arching quest he was a part of, because the quests in Elden Ring are designed fairly flexible. That wolf dude, and lots of other guys in the game, they have quests that interact with other quests. You'll inevitably fuck up a step and meet someone earlier and skip things (like for instance, what if you already killed the traitor guy before meeting Guts the furry). So what they seem to do is consider the step 'complete' if you skip it.

 

That said I didn't learn what was fully going on with the wolf dude, cause I skipped so many steps I think. Basically you don't need to do everything to see the NPC quests to their completion, you'll just miss out on lore but not rewards or areas to explore.

 

 

[OCH]

I did figure out the Wolf guy thing on my own. He mentions the traitor is nearby. I looked to the nearest points of interest on the map and made an educated guess. Which ended up being right.

 

For me, the issue with NPC's in Elden Ring, comes down to how vast this game is. Some I simply haven't met. One of the caves I cleared out, I got a needle and tailoring stuff. Which a character name attached. Although I have no idea who that is or where they are? By the same token, a friend of mine said he encountered a Sorcerer early on, that went back to Roundtable. I've not seen anyone like that??  

 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

Sorceror spoilers

 

Spoiler

Rogier, who you can find in the church in Stormveil before beating up Godrick

 

Plot spoilers

 

Spoiler

His quest goes into stuff about 'Those who live in death', but I think you can pick up and progress this quest without doing his stuff. He has the biggest lore dumps for this part of the story though, and explains to you what the face is underneath stormveil

 

 

[OCH]

Ta!

 

Wolf Guy spoilers

 

Spoiler

Try the nearest Evergaol to Mistwood. In the south of Limgrave. Don't forget to touch the summon sign.

 

[Maf]

My problem with NPCs and quests is I'm I've talked to that guy in the church and he isn't back at base and I killed the evergoal thing but wolf man didn't say anything. 

 

I'm really in two minds about how they do quests in these games 

[one-armed dwarf]

He should be on the balcony, having a wee bit of a sitdown 

 

Spoiler

FOREVER

 

[Maf]

Oh the guy I talked too wasn't on a balcony he was in the church

Spoiler

The only sorcerer I found was hiding behind a big plant and pot head dude. She said she was a rogue sorcerer and do I want to learn from her. I was desperate for new spells so I went all Dr Strange and was like "Teach me". 15 minutes later I found a spell book that if i give to a spell vendor will have new spells. But I didn't give it to the rogue one because maybe it will be better if i give it to a legit sorcerer. 

 

I dunno man the quests in this game are a pain in the ass. 

[one-armed dwarf]

The book tells you what spells you are going to learn from it

[Maf]

In theory I like the quests in these games and the set up. But in practice I find it annoying. I think if you're the type of fan that gets really in to the lore, plan on doing multiple playthroughs, is happy with the experimentation an figuring it all out then it is really good. And in theory I respect it and like it too.

 

But in practice it's a pain because I'm not that fan and never going to do that. So if i fuck it up it's done and maybe I miss a really cool weapon or spell I'll never see. And I won't even know how I got it wrong, if it did go wrong, what I was meant to do etc. 

 

I  don't think it's an element they should compromise on. I like the way they are and for the right people it's really cool. Just my own take and the way I play these games it's aggravatingly vague 

 

EDIT: Not even aggravating. Just bewildering.

[one-armed dwarf]

In reality, even if you hit every beat on a first playthrough a bunch of shit isn't going to make a lot of sense anyway. It's only on repeat that the NPC dialogue from the starting zones makes sense cause maybe it's directly referencing a very late game optional plot twist. Like in bloodborne there's reams of text describing the Healing church, but all that text hits differently on playthrough 2 and especially after the DLC.

 

Honestly tho, if you aren't the type of fan who cares about the lore stuff there's zero reason to not just google these things imo and check fextralife for the big quests. Even the lore hunters don't spend all day scraping the map, stuff like this is handled by the community at large and then they just tell each other where to go to find this stuff. yes having to look it up on google sucks though. But you can't completely fuck yourself out of any of the content in this game so long as you check it out before (late game spoilers which include the name of a rando boss you have to fight)

 

Spoiler

doing the thing after beating a boss called 'Fire Giant'

 

and if you leave it later than that you're in the endgame stretch anyway, so might as well wrap the main thing up at that point and move on.

 

The specific examples being given on this page are pretty weird tho, like not hitting the pot guy a few times cause you dont have a club. IMO, people should read item descriptions whether or not they care about the lore cause it also contains mechanical stuff like the spells in a spell book. Or whether a piece of armour improves a certain style of offense. Stuff like that isn't hidden. The stuff that is hidden no longer gates your access to later steps to unlock the mechanically interesting weapons, locations, boss fights and different endings. Also the NPCs in the hall update their dialogue over time as you find stuff, and Gideon gives hints for things. I think as Souls go it's the least opaque for that stuff in spite of the sheer scale of it, which can make some stuff really hard to resolve (the priest quest, but to be honest there's not a lot of interesting content in his aside from some lore). But it's the only one of these I think I've played where I've not messed something up that meant I couldn't get something. Like how you cant get blades of mercy in Bloodborne without doing some insanely obscure shit, very annoying that was

 

Real obscure shit is what shiny just mentioned in the Bloodborne thread about how to activate its DLC, where you 

Spoiler

get a destroyed eyeball in the hunter's dream and get grabbed by an Amygdala outside Odeon Church. The game does not communicate that in anyway, wtf

 

The balcony Im talking about is in the roundtable hold. It's just up the stairs.

 

[Maf]

Usually I do look stuff up on the first playthroughs and it makes me dissatisfied. So in this game I've decided to play it however I play it and whatever happens, happens. I want to embrace the game and be braver with my choices instead of running to Google all the time. 

 

If I decide I want to get the Platinum then I'll look it all up but for now I just want to experience the game as normally as possible. 

 

The problem with guides is it's almost like drug dependency. You give up and go I'll just look this up. Then you think well I looked that up I might as well look this up. Next thing you know you're reading your way through the game and it's like man I'm soft. 

 

But I don't want to do that for ER. I want to play this game as properly as I can and live with the consequences. Even if that means at the end of the game I'm like yo everyone's dead. 

 

EDIT: For the pot guy he says something like "if you're strong enough". As I had no points in strength I didn't think I would be. I was also worried about hitting him too much and he dies. 

 

The reason I thought I might need a blunt weapons is well. In my logic it was like golf. Can't play golf with a sword 

[one-armed dwarf]

9 minutes ago, Maf said:

For the pot guy he says something like "if you're strong enough". As I had no points in strength I didn't think I would be. I was also worried about hitting him too much and he dies. 

lmao

 

Well, the pot guy is dead now thanks to your cowardice. He rotted away in that hole and is an undead pot, a pot who lives in death.

 

Between this and your stomping of the proletariat in Stormveil you really are playing the cunt in this playthrough. I think it's less that you have an issue with NPC quest design and more you are a bit of a NPC racist

[Maf]

All I'm saying is that all lives matter not just NPCS 

[radiofloyd]

Found a really cool area on a diversion from the Bellum Highway (obviously anyone ahead of me will have been here already):

 

Spoiler

Below the Bellum Church, I followed a path that led through caves and up through ladders and eventually let to a boss fight with a dragon, Wyrm Maker Makar. He was the first dragon I’ve actually fought in the game, but it was an easy fight and he dropped a cool sword that does fire damage. That led to a new area called the Altus Plateau. Really cool area. I cleared out a ruins area and catacombs underneath it that gave me a bunch of perfume stuff. I’m looking forward to exploring this area but for now back to the Bellum Highway.