Elden Ring

[Maf]

I name all my Souls characters Helpme

 

Thanks @DisturbedSwan rocks be making this easy mode. I can’t imagine trying to do some of these fights properly 

[one-armed dwarf]

Well I mean Rad Dan proper is just a mush fest of summons anyway, then they nerfed the shit out of it for some reason but it's still the same deal. 

 

On my replaythrough, I'm finding that the stretch from Liurna to caelid kinda really lacks good fights. I was having some fun doing the powerstance fists build against magrit and godrick but it turns into a mess of forgettable nonsense in the middle part. Part of it is knowing the game better now, but the interactions with bosses aren't as interesting, in terms of where you have to stand and how to resolve some stuff. Feels like more than half of them are literally just regular enemies with more HP

 

it does pick up again though, but they save all the big interesting bosses for way later when people are tired from their playthrough and looking to the home stretch. Badly distributed imo, should have put some more in the mid part of the game. Make the mid game slump a bit more interesting and the end game less of a burnout with how much is going on in those fights

[Maf]

No opinion on the pacing of the bosses yet but overall think this game could be condensed. Especially the area north of Stormveil. I don’t like it at all and feel like I’ve spent half the game there. 
 

One of the things I was thinking about with the move to open world is how much of that puzzle box design aspect does the game lose. Quite a lot but what it makes up for is standing high up and looking around for landmarks where to go next. Or seeing where you already were. It’s this game’s equivalent of character development to see where you were and where you are.

 

The linear games did this too but this does it better.

 

As much as I play this game nonstop I still can’t break the like it/love it barrier. It’s really good but even the way this game mixes it up (Which is very little. It’s more the same just expanded) is not enough to get me to love a Souls game. 

 

I’ve liked every souls game I’ve played but haven’t loved any of them. Even Dark Souls 1 and Bloodbourne which are my favourites of the series still wouldn’t crack a top 40 for me. I like them for real. At least their first halves. It’s the exploration and discovery aspect I’ve always liked most about this series and Elden Ring might do it better than any of the previous games. Trades off the puzzle box design for an increased sense of mystery, but it does it really well and it’s winning me over. At this rate it’ll probably end up being my #1 Souls game. Even though I still don’t love it and there are a few things I would like to see done different or better. 

 

First of which is this game is a tiny bit Assassin’s Creed-y formulaic. This tower always gives the same reward, and these forts and dungeons are all pre-fab, and it gets a bit predictable in some ways. I think if it were condensed you could still have all the high points, cut some of the fat, and spent more time handcrafting these side bits and pieces instead of plunking another fort here or another church there.

 

Although to be fair the main content and a lot of this map and things to do in it are some of the most amazing stuff I’ve seen in an open world game. Just this side stuff is a little repetitive and gets obvious. 

 

Also rebranding and moving to and open world is all well and good. But I think they still should have changed things like music, animations, weapons, enemies, etc. Still waiting for the bosses to bait me with the sword and their delayed attacks. So much of that stuff carries over and stops the game feeling new.

 

The big thing I would like to have seen more from this game is a change to the combat. It doesn’t need to be Sekiro but a bit more mobility, options, manoeuvres would be nice. Every time someone calls out this series as “fair” I always thought that was wrong and bullshit and ER is maybe the most wrong and bullshit so far. It’s why I have no shame with these rocks. You want to fuck me like that well I’m gonna fuck you like this. 

 

But people love the combat and boss fights in these games so maybe this genre or experience is never going to be for me no amount how much it slices up and changes the balance of combat/exploring as long as the combat is what it is. All though increased exploring has helped a great deal. 

I really like this game, don’t get me wrong. It’s like a super strong 8.5 for me but revised map, new look and animations, and maybe fiddle with the player’s side of the combat a bit more so it actually felt fair I think this game would have been an easy 10. 
 

Also put more things that scale with INT you tight bastards. It’s like they knew it was the easy mode so as penalty you can’t use the cool shit

[one-armed dwarf]

Tbh, our perspectives on the combat are gonna be different if you're sticking to a keep away mage build. Bu as much as it tilts me, this game is in another realm to the other Souls game in how much it manages to get out of seemingly limited combat. It is super impressive, even if subjectively it's taken the series into a direction where I find the amount of work it takes to figure an encounter out a bit draining.

 

I think Elden Ring has maybe the best enemy hitboxes I've seen in a single player game. There's stuff I've figured out with some enemies in terms of where I can position myself, spacing, how fast I can recover from an attack, how quick the enemy's follow up can get at me. The way you can study the encounters and the safety of some interactions and the way the AI responds to where you are trigger similar synapses to a fighting game, just without the psychological element. But it has the labbing aspect of it. It's got footsies, you got to think in neutral a bit more with these guys, it's not just taking your turn when they finish up. They get all that out of a framework that barely feels evolved from 2009's Demon's Souls, but you look at what they have and it's like why would they need to evolve that framework.  The biggest takeaway I have from it is how it follows from Sekiro, which it's emphasis on punishing and reading enemies, but it makes it less linear and directed. eg, kikiri counter in Sekiro, they just tell you when to do it while in Elden Ring it's much more about the player discovery.

 

The trade off though is that stuff is really hard to learn, and summons are the band aid. They aren't a good band aid, they should have made the summons feel a bit more active I think. But I don't think they will or should try to change the Souls formula with its combat into something it's not, they should explore different ideas like that in stuff like Bloodborne (still sort of a Souls game) and Sekiro (most definitely not one)

 

There's a boss fight in this game that might be one of the best fights I've seen in a game this and last generation. At the same time, it has one or two things that make it completely awful. A game of many extremes, this is

 

Also the video I posted on the other page with my cool skeleton summoning axe scales with INT (and STR and DEX). Tons of INT stuff

[Maf]

I didn’t know mage was going to be as easy as it is. I haven’t looked up builds or anything for this game at all.

 

But seeing what this game does I’m glad I got it easy because it’s like all the old Souls games to me in terms of combat but “worse”. 
 

Worse in quotes because these games have always been so anti-player I find it boring. It’s hard but I’m just being taken advantage of instead of tested. You’re not pushing me you’re tricking me. I don’t respect it. It’s why walking in to a brand new game I still know what to look for and how to do this because it’s the same bait the roll, delay attacks, abuse the I-frame shit.

 

Elden Ring absolutely advances the combat, but only by making it more anti-player then ever. That’s why with that Margit fight and the way it was swapping combo patterns mid combo I was like uh-huh. I get what this is.

 

Again that’s why I put worse in quotes. Because if people are in to this then hey, they’ve raised the bar. For me it’s like oh we’re not even pretending this game isn’t bullshit anymore I see. 
 

You say it’s like fighting games, to me it’s like a platformer, particularly Megaman pattern recognition style bosses platformer. Stand in the right spot. They do this, you do that. Shoot 2 times, jump, duck, shoot 2 times, move to the next spot. Except now they can change attack patterns while mid attack pattern and it’s like Ok, game lol. But I’m still stuck moving like Megaman, huh. 
 

That’s why I wish they had played around more with the player side of the combat. 
 

The only way it’s like a fighting game to me is when the enemy is super passive for ages and as soon as you time your heal or attack, then they move because the computer read the input. That’s some Street Fighter 2 AI shit.

[one-armed dwarf]

I dunno if I follow what you mean by anti player, like if the game is cheating or something.  Reason I invoke FG or you megaman or whatever is it takes it all back to how you approach the cunt, or how you read his openings and acknowledge where he can extend stuff. I don't think that's anti player as such, I think it's forcing players who want to play up close to have to develop a bigger and deeper mental stack of their own options, frame advantage, resources and what the boss can do with it. There is a logic to the branching combos and switchups. Learning which of margit's combos dont have a follow up, eg frame advantage to keep with the FG analogy. Reason why godrick is such a pushover, guy has no strategy and just goes unga

 

But, it takes a lot to figure it out. i still stand by what I said back when that I'm not actually a big fan of what they are turning the fighting into in these games. I prefer Bloodborne, super aggressive and punishing in parts but manageable. You can quickly progress and feel like you've earned your victories, and I find Elden lacks any real kind of catharsis at either end. Either you study the fuck out of the fights and learn all the things I mentioned and if you're like me you will feel fatigued by what it takes to get there. or you summon and fling rocks, which wont' always feel satisfying. 

 

 

I think they did give players' new stuff tho. The weapon art system is where people are supposed to find their player expression. If you equip multiple weapons, well that's multiple ashes you can bring in, some with dodges, some with attacks. Some have attacks that can adjust your own hurtbox, therefore doubling as a kinda dodge (see clip)

 

 

Also jumping on/off horse has iframes, so that's another dodge for open worlds fights. You can shoot arrows while jumping, etc

 

You can't get too crazy with a game like this tho, give the player too much power and either you end up with fights where the boss can't keep up or vice versa the boss is more of a nightmare than ever, to make up for it. The reason Sekiro gets the most praise for its boss fights is how limited its player expression is imo, which is why I didnt like that game. But every fight is surgically designed to the player's limited set of tools. I think for better or worse Elden Ring found a decent middle ground here, but I might find it too hard

edit Monday morning edit,

10 hours ago, Maf said:

The only way it’s like a fighting game to me is when the enemy is super passive for ages and as soon as you time your heal or attack, then they move because the computer read the input. That’s some Street Fighter 2 AI shit.

 

I think actually it doesn't work like this tbh, within a certain proximity and amount of time it's pretty likely that a boss will start to do some shit and the range lets them punish from really far. I think 80 percent of the time it's not input reading at all tbh. There's a couple of cases where it absolutely is (Sekiro does this with a certain boss to the point you can bait it out) but a lot of the time it's just player misjudgements I think. Healing has to happen in the same instances where you could punish a boss, retreating to heal hasn't been as much a thing.

[Maf]

Anti-player is when the designers know what a player will do, so they design to take advantage of it. Examples are things falling from the ceiling, jumping from around corners, reading button inputs, attacks tracking player movement, throwing a boulder down the stairs, etc.

 

Some of it is fun, even the trolls you have to laugh at and go ok you got me. 
 

But 10 years of bosses going oooh, I’m going to attack. Oooh, I’m going to attack. Oooh, now I attack. Because they know players are going to roll.

 

Except now they’ve made the combos even longer. The delays have never been slower but the strikes have never been faster. Switching combos based on what you did and where you stood, etc. Bosses have never covered more ground. And the only way to get good at them is to be as robotic as they are. 

 

This is where I find these games a piss take. It can be fun, sometimes. But for me it’s had it’s day and just dialling it up isn’t new it’s just worse. But thankfully and what is fun is building in bullshit on either side. It’s like oh you want to fly across the screen and poison me to death? Watch me stand just outside your zone and whiff punish with rocks all day. 

 

I did notice in this game though there’s a lot less bosses falling off the side of the map. That was fun too, where’s that?

[regemond]

Turns out I'm dumb. Rose and I decided to start with a Hero character. Enemies are hard-hitting bastards and I thought glass cannon might be the way to go. Right now it feels as though we're all glass, no cannon, though.

 

We finally made our way to Margit (after being super-proud of ourselves for beating some speedy werewolf bastard in a little cave) and have had our asses handed to us time after time after time. So we went for a little wander. Headed back to the main starting area, and explored some catacombs.

 

We discovered a new little bastard who made us bleed, but we also discovered that shields vastly reduce fire damage. We found a new mini boss, too. A 

Spoiler

sword-wielding, fire-breathing watchdog.

 

Our pup summons helped to keep it distracted long enough to do decent damage. Fucker can suck our figurative balls.

 

Oh and we finally went to the roundtable. I'd suggested avoiding this because I thought it's where the weird woman gives you a cuddle, but @RoboticMonk3y gave us the heads up it's a nice little side hub. So we're there at the minute.

 

It's frustrating as all hell, but I'm still of the mindset that it's incredibly rewarding when you beat a tough enemy.

[DisturbedSwan]

So I think I'm about 55-60 hours in now. 

 

Made a lot of progress at the weekend, fought and beat a whole bunch of bosses mainly around Liurnia and eventually made my way to the Altus Plateau. 

 

Raya Lucaria was the big highlight for me, an incredibly well designed 'legacy' dungeon that felt like a mix of Latria from DeS remake and Bloodborne. A really dark, Gothic, magical maze of an environment with some cool enemies and plenty of verticality to explore all its nooks and crannies. It just felt like a real tangible place of study with books strewn all over the floors, myriad library rooms and educational materials with magic scholars dotted about the place waiting for you to take down (or sneak by).

 

I thought the boss battle at the end was really cool as well, an interesting puzzle fight where you have to manage the boss and a load of other little minions. Running around trying to figure out which of her minions is powering her up so you can take them down and in the process take her down and leave her vulnerable to your attacks. I thought it was over but then Phase 2 starts, I won't spoil what happens but it's properly bonkers and I was like WTF at some of her attacks and stuff during that phase. Luckily I still had some ash summons left (Demi Humans +3) which took some of the aggro so I could beat her on my second try. 

 

I didn't really know where to go next so thought I'd continue North and see what I can find and where I can get to. So I ended up taking the ravine up from the lake in Liurnia which eventually led me to a dead end (or so I thought). After a bit of exploring I realised there was a hidden winding path which meandered all the way up the mountain and eventually led to a boss battle, and the Altus Plateau at the top which seems like another new area (please stop, game). I really enjoyed making my way up here, the carrot on the end of the stick being 'ooo what's up here?' was really convincing and the reward of reaching this new, huge, cool area at the end was worth it. 

 

Double backed on myself after this and headed back to Liurnia to do a bit more exploring. Eventually stumbled into Carian Manor and it's strangely tough weird sentient hand enemies. This was nowhere near as big as Raya Lucaria but still a cool place to explore, I found it much tougher though with the enemies mentioned above, I just couldn't quite get a handle on their actions and didn't have time to fire up any of my effective spells. Made my way round eventually though and to the underwhelming boss fight at the end. Then a bit more exploring around the area surrounding it, talking to Ranni up a tower and her minions before not really knowing where to go again after that. 

 

So Liurnia is pretty much done now in my mind, I've not seen any spots on the map that I've left unexplored so that'll be it for me. I had a brief sojourn to Caelid a bit before my excursion to Caria Manor to try to find where Maf got that staff (and spell), managed to find it after getting hopelessly lost on a poison lake and then skedaddled the hell out of there.

 

I think my thoughts overall on this so far are still quite similar to @Maf, I possibly think maybe a little less of it than him. I still have big issues with it overall, I still feel bored by it when I'm not in a legacy dungeon or fighting a boss really and even then I've found almost all the bosses quite underwhelming in terms of design and challenge. The first two were basically the Corrupted Monk from Sekiro without as much intelligence to it, but the third 'main' boss at Lucaria was really cool and interesting in the way I had to tackle it. 

 

So yeah, still very much a mixed bag for me overall which is a shame, I'm not exactly excited about the prospect of having to explore a whole new vast region next either but at least I feel I've got a handle on the game and the map now. I feel like I'm about to enter 'act 2' so to speak and for things to ramp up significantly. Not to go all MF Nick but I think this game is bloated, it doesn't need to be anywhere near as big as it is and I don't get much from the open world itself other than some amazing vistas, everything I love about the game is everything classically Souls like the legacy dungeons and the ilk. I've probably still got another 60-100 hours to go so my opinion may change but this game is still a huge disappointment to me so far and my least favourite SoulsBorneIroRing title. 

 

I would recommend not taking on Stormveil for the moment @regemond and having a good ol' explore of Limgrave and the place across the bridge to the South before returning much later.

 

Some pics below:

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

[Maf]

10 hours ago, one-armed dwarf said:

I think actually it doesn't work like this tbh, within a certain proximity and amount of time it's pretty likely that a boss will start to do some shit and the range lets them punish from really far. I think 80 percent of the time it's not input reading at all tbh. There's a couple of cases where it absolutely is (Sekiro does this with a certain boss to the point you can bait it out) but a lot of the time it's just player misjudgements I think. Healing has to happen in the same instances where you could punish a boss, retreating to heal hasn't been as much a thing.

 

I don't think it's reading inputs all the time. Proximity is a much bigger factor in these fights in triggering the AI to do stuff. In Elden Ring even more so. A couple of paces can be the difference between a boss doing a 3 hit combo or 4 hit combo (Up to like, 11 lol).

 

But Margit for example again there's definitely cheating there. Margit will walk left to right for a bit the same as you and as soon as you press square or cast a spell boom. Throwing daggers. Cheating bastard. 

 

Same with some of the assassin bosses and the like that can move the entire room to get you as soon as you press a button. They really don't like the player making distance. Like you said you have to make them whiff or be stuck in an animation then heal instead of attack. But they enforce the lesson by cheating a bit.

 

And it's always been that way as far as I remember. Smough and Ornstein were the same where you find a place to heal and then they rush you. It is what it is, and like all aspects of the game it's just ramped up. 

 

Sometimes it's just playing like shit, though 

[Maf]

This is what I love about this series combat. Is the mad shit people come up with like this lol 

 

Spoiler

 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

The way to fight that back would be fire with fire, hit him with a frenzy debuff and make his eyes explode faster

 

Spoiler

frenzy in this is literally, people's eyes are exploding out of devoutness to some bullshit, and it comes out as fire and their eyeballs burst and turn into mushy grapes. Just expedite the process along

 

edit Blakey talking there about the first 2 bosses, I think people underrate how much is going on in the margit fight. It's pretty mechanics dense I think. If you smoke it with a level 50 build you might miss out on what his kit is

[Maf]

I'll never be smart enough to come up with something on the level as that, but I'm inspired now and should definitely start messing with weapon arts and stuff. I really been just throwing rocks at people for like 30 hours. I want to find some crazy shit. 

 

Need to get all stats to at least 20 I think so I can use the stuff I got. 

[radiofloyd]

Beat the main boss in Caelid tonight, got my third great rune. Beat him on my fourth or fifth try I think, fun fight. Feels like the difficulty was pitched right. The main bosses have all been fun so far. Haven’t scratched the surface of Caelid though, a lot to explore tomorrow!

[OCH]

I like how each of the towers to power up the runes has had a different flavour to it. Liurnia is no different. Nice how the recent side quest tied into it too. There was a reminder on the bridge that my 522HP might not be enough. Regardless of how hard I can hit. It makes little difference if you hit something for 730, if their next hit is a OHKO. I was able to run away and complete the tower anyway. I'll return here ..later.

 

I think I'm all done here, Great Rune-wise. I think I'm returning to Altus Plateau from here. I've beaten the main bosses and tree guardians of most places (aside from the latter in Caelid). Mapping out the area earlier, I've got about four points of interest to head towards back on the plateau. I've had enough of caves, catacombs and overworld bosses in the starting three areas. Time to move on with the plot, I guess.

[Whiskey_chaser]

I finally beat Alecto - Black Knife Ringleader last night. What an absolute **** of a fight. First time i've actually hit a wall in this game, as she's pretty much immune to any status effect (my build focuses on bleed damage and scarlet rot) and she was one of the most aggressive enemies i've come across with two attacks that are really hard to dodge and could almost kill me outright. Doesn't help that I had zero defence for a foe that's supposed to be an easy fight if you parry.

Even so, it took a great rune, the meat buff for damage boost, 12 flasks, some tight talisman management and It came down to me having to take the last quarter of her health bar when one hit could have finished me.

[one-armed dwarf]

Actually a pretty good video breaking down what's going on in that 'first' boss fight.

 

 

Again ymmv depending on the level you attempt this dude at, but if you aren't OP and aren't just cutting massive chunks of health off with no effort it's a very real fight, more real than gargoyles or fr gascoigne or any of those. It's basically an exercise in punishing the habits people have developed in past games to carelessly get around/ignore mechanics, and force people to think harder about spacing and positioning than those earlier games did.

 

Or you get OP and kill it with summons and rocks lol, which the video also points out as valid

 

What's weird is you dont even see a boss nearly as difficult as this for maybe another 50 hours, and it's Rhadan (pre patch at least).

[Maf]

Had to use my first Ash of War in a boss fight. The boss is invisible and kept backstabbing me for 80%. Even though he is in the water I couldn’t find his movements so the summon made for a good distraction and sign post. 

[Maf]

I was just going to check on a NPC quest that hasn’t progressed at all since the start of the game and ah-ha

 

Spoiler

That answers that. 
 

I’m also an idiot. I decided I was going to use the fire and ice sword because it sounds cool. Ended up putting 5 points in to STR to use it. I forgot it’s Faith that I need so I wasted 5 levels for nothing. 
 

I then decided to level up 2 other INT weapons I have, whether I can use them or not, and none of them are better than the Moonveil katana I’m already using. Technically the Axe hits harder on the physical side but weaker on the magic side, and the fire and ice sword I can’t use anyway. And all the other INT weapons are clearly not going to be as good.

 

Magic might be easy mode but it’s also kind of boring mode. Even the Astrologer outfit I started the game with has higher magic defence than every other magic armour I found along the way. 
 

I think if I end up playing this again for the Platinum which is likely, this game is really good. Then I’ll go STR and FTH. They have all the coolest shit by far. At least of what I’ve found so far. 
 

Reverse a few steps. I’m glad I found that new place to go because before I was at the Volcano Manor and even the fucking dogs there do 30% damage per hit. 
 

Ay, ay, ay

[mfnick]

Beat another major boss last night, 

Spoiler

Fire Giant.

That was a lot easier than expected thankfully after that cunt Nial. Only 3 tries. 

Opened up yet another new area. This just keeps going and going. It’s really starting to outstay it’s welcome with me now. I’ll keep chipping away at it for the foreseeable but its just going on and on and not in a good way IMO. Least the new area has some visual spectacle even if it is a bit rough looking at the same time.