Elden Ring

[Nag]

I don't even know if I'll need the thing again either (Sentry Torch)... if those stupid invisible assassin's turn out to be a one off you have to wonder why bother?

[radiofloyd]

Done some more stuff.

 

Spoiler

Finished Ranni’s questline in the Moonlit Alter and explored that area. Didn’t bother with Chlorena’s Rise or whatever it’s called. Can’t be arsed finding three invisible turtles running around. The Gaol boss here is quite hard so I left it for now.

 

I finished Nephali and Kenneth Haig’s questlines, I had already done everything except rest at a specific bonfire which is another example of how lame the quests in this game are.

 

With that being done, I continued on the main path. I activated Morgott’s Great Rune and reached the Forbidden Lands.

 

Game is currently sitting on a 7 or a 8 for me. It might be From’s worst game.

[OCH]

You will likely find the Margit/Mohg/Morgott connection you were looking for with that Rune @radiofloyd

 

On 24/06/2022 at 15:27, Nag said:

I don't even know if I'll need the thing again either (Sentry Torch)... if those stupid invisible assassin's turn out to be a one off you have to wonder why bother?

I must admit, I have about 4 or 5 torches and stopped using any of them completely after buying the lantern. There is that one and the Beast torch that I got after the dungeon they are required for.

 

Spoiler

Ash summons will still fight invisible enemies. Even if you can't see them.

Meanwhile, the Ghost torch I found the most worthless. That one is purposely there to be a weapon

[Nag]

I think I'm about ready for the final stretch in this, Malenia, Blade of Miquella was vanquished today... had three or four attempts with my mimic but that just adds up to free health for her so summoned in a couple of randoms and absolutely curbstomped her first attempt.

 

I've done all the collecting I can be bothered to do and I won't be save scumming for the different endings so I'll not be going for the Platinum (although a new game plus might not be out of the question at some point) so I'll be mainlining the last few bosses now until end game. Hopefully see the ending over the next few days.

[OCH]

Well you've beaten the Super Boss of the game, kudos. @Nag

 

Add it in spoilers obviously, but what ending are you going for?

[Nag]

2 hours ago, OCH said:

Add it in spoilers obviously, but what ending are you going for?

 

Spoiler

I'll finish Ranni's quest... I think that locks into an ending.

 

[OCH]

That's cool. One of the good/unique endings.

Spoiler

An FYI, here is only one ending you are "locked"* into though. That isn't it.

 

*You have to jump through hoops to get out of it.

 

[DisturbedSwan]

Congrats on beating Malenia @Nag it's a pretty easy fight with a couple of folks who know what they're doing and won't 'feed' her to speak. 

 

Not long left now, the rest of the bosses are relatively straightforward, especially so with summons.

[radiofloyd]

I’m actually looking forward to there being a “hard” boss. The difficulty of this game is just all over the place.

[one-armed dwarf]

It has lots of hard bosses, but it's just it's either incredibly hard (without summons) or laid back easy (with summons). It's way beyond all the other From games with that imo but the tools to reduce difficulty are also way stronger in this

 

Melania is up there as maybe one of the generation's hardest bosses in a SP game, imo. But they don't really design the bosses to account for multiple targets (cause it would just be hell for 1v1), so they just made the 1v1 approach extremely difficult like a challenge run and expect everyone to use summons I guess.

 

I will say that 1v1-ing melania is a dopamine hit like crazy, when you read and figure the whole fight out. Couldn't do it a 2nd time sadly

[radiofloyd]

I mean, ash summons are a part of the game. You pretty much get a new one nearly every play session. So I feel like the game’s difficulty should be balanced for that.

 

Summoning real people is kind of hidden behind items and menus, I don’t think I’ve even seen a summon sign on the ground in my whole playthrough (although I guess it was the same in Dark Souls with humanity). But I can understand the game not being balanced for that.

The game has had a couple of difficulty spikes but for the most part it’s been piss simple. But how do you balance a game as big as Elden Ring I guess… And would it be fun if a game this big was harder?

 

I mean the game has a lot of problems anyway. Difficulty is fairly down the list I guess.

[Nag]

9 minutes ago, radiofloyd said:

I don’t think I’ve even seen a summon sign on the ground in my whole playthrough

 

You won't unless you use that finger thing... there's been a few times I've tried summoning in the minor dungeons and there was no-one there at all... the ground was literally covered in gold summoning tiles at the entrance to the Melenia fight.🤣

[one-armed dwarf]

In terms of difficulty I definitely agree it is balanced that way, but mechanically I think it is not. If the game was mechanically designed that it fights are generally supposed to be between a summon assisted character and a boss it would have trouble scaling down into different playstyles. That limit imo creates this issue. They tried something here with all the ambigious combo strings to make it really difficult for solo players but that has its own issues, but I guess my point is people can seek out an incredibly difficult game that way

 

Really this is probably the big problem. I think summons were designed as a sort of diegetic difficulty modifier, basically a 'in world' easy/normal mode. But beyond that there are so many ways to achieve power creep here that the only way they could capture that old souls feel is if every boss in the game dynamically adjusted their power level to yours. Which would then hurt the feeling of progress players would have and so not really capture that old souls feel much at all, it would feel unfair and cheap.

 

Really I think Elden Ring is less about difficulty in the classic FROM sense and more about exploring. For me I wish the exploring was a bit more satisfying on that BOTW level cause that game has a similar thing in how you explore purely to power through a final boss fight. ERII won't be a trademark FROM game in its difficulty experience either, but hopefully the exploring is a bit more rich and less 'MMO-zone' like (imo)

[OCH]

I actually think they are trying to phase out player summons/invasions. When you have access to Ash Summons as well as NPC's for certain fights. It seems like From saying, "try this instead". Which has been fine for me, offline as I am. 

I've seen a lot of discourse on how PVP isn't really catered to in this. That having a knock-on effect to player summons. Couple that with it's complete absence in Sekiro.  I wouldn't be surprised if the entire mechanic is absent from the next Soulsborneiroring.

[Nag]

The ash summons are the only reason I've put as many hours in to this as I have... having some kind've distraction to help take away the constant (sometime bullshit amount) of aggression these bosses show, especially being able to cover insane distances in the blink of an eye is why I didn't bin this off weeks ago. Maliketh, The Black Blade is newest boss to be an annoying twat...

 

And I don't give a fuck if ash summons are considered easy mode or not.😊

[one-armed dwarf]

I also beat most of the game with them @Nag, no judgement. 

 

I mean, I beat games with cheat engine these days 🤣

(in fact I used cheat engine to beat those three crystal fuckers in this, no time for being honest)

 

Just saying tho that there is a hard mode as well, sort of, if ppl are finding it too easy

[Nag]

Yeah... but I also know you're probably more capable than most at beating these solo with how you are at fighting games.

 

I've no problem admitting I summoned other players for Bloodborne too... it's what made that game so much more enjoyable.

[one-armed dwarf]

You don't know how fake my fighting game skill is, then

 

A certain flying hair bitch playing asshole on here will testify to that I suppose  

 

(I just want to add though, because I think forums make this ambiguous sometimes, none of what I'm saying is trying to pass judgement or lord 'the correct way to play' over people. Actually this week's hot topic is more in line with what I think games need to do with regard to difficulty, lots of ways to just let the player do what they want)

[Nag]

You're a god at Devil May Cry.... can't fake that.👍

[DisturbedSwan]

I’ve summoned folks for every Souls game I’ve played (apart from Sekiro obvs.), one of my favourite aspects of the game, all chipping away at a boss and then finally defeating them. There’s a sense of camaraderie to it that I love, in previous games I’d go back and help other folks out with that boss for awhile before moving on as well, it’s satisfying to know you helped someone out of a jam.

 

For most of the game in this they’re largely redundant as the bosses get too much health that the summon isn’t really effective, which is why I used ash summons instead right up until the end of the game. I was never compelled to go back and help folks in this either as I just wanted to get the game over with.