Elden Ring

[mfnick]

I finally found somewhere else to go apart from Caelid. Did some work then went back to that double boss…. Who was no longer there. Instead there was a new huge motherfucker to fight called Radahn. Thankfully although he’s intimidating to start with he wasn’t that hard after a few runs learning his attacks. Easier than that double boss that for sure. I did spam the fuck out of AI summons it gives you in that fight though and I have zero shame. Doing it without them would be a monumental task. 
 

[Maf]

Why shame in using game mechanics? They wouldn’t keep designing games this way if they didn’t want you to use the systems. Or building exploits in to their games. They want you to experiment, find the fun, to play smarter not harder. They don’t spend all the time making huge chunks of the game for nobody to use it. 
 

It reminds me of this meme I see online

 

 

Not exactly the same but in principle 

[shinymcshine]

Flipping heck @Maf they wrote a cartoon strip about you vs The Evil Within !!

[one-armed dwarf]

1 hour ago, Maf said:

Why shame in using game mechanics? They wouldn’t keep designing games this way if they didn’t want you to use the systems. Or building exploits in to their games. They want you to experiment, find the fun, to play smarter not harder. They don’t spend all the time making huge chunks of the game for nobody to use it. 

No shame in using the game's tools. With Elden Ring though I think they go a step further into designing the game that it's hard not to use them.

 

I know it's repeating what I said already, but it feels like the game is balanced around use of summons WRT expected player skill level. But not necessarily designed around it, cause bosses just aggro to whatever is hitting them the most often in the most recent amount of time

 

Again, absolutely no skill-shame here. I beat about half of the bosses doing exactly this. But mostly cause they are just way beyond anything in the other games with how tricky and ambiguous their combo strings and openings are. It's just a way more technical game all of a sudden if you're a melee player. 

 

Which overall, the main point is that it can be frustrating to 1v1, or unsatisfying to go solo. IMO. Because for me it didn't really feel like i was playing smarter at all tbh, it just felt like a way to avoid the mechanics and interactions that would happen otherwise cause I wasn't good enough to do it that way. So it can be pretty unsatisfying

 

I know this isn't specifically what you're talking about with the comic, but it's the first game where I've been like 'fuck it, summon a guy' not cause I wanted to but cause I felt like I had no choice. If you eventually startup the game yourself you might see what I'm saying.

 

Elden Ring is very different to Dark Souls and Bloodborne in this regard. Going solo is now a really hardcore approach in this game, it wasn't in the old ones

 

Again just talking about my subjective experience here, but I've seen lots of others say the same thing on this

 

edit to mfnick's post, that's actually the only boss that does feel designed around summons. No fucking way that dude was designed for 1v1 lol. But I feel he is an exception, more of a set piece

[OCH]

12 minutes ago, one-armed dwarf said:

Elden Ring is very different to Dark Souls and Bloodborne in this regard. Going solo is now a really hardcore approach in this game, it wasn't in the old ones

Agreed. I've mostly used the summons on bosses/enemies groups that have a ridiculous level of aggro. It isn't what I'm used to, coming from DeS, Dark 1 & 2. Maybe if I'd gotten further with Dark 3 or Bloodborne I might be more equipped for the speed of encounters in this game. It is quite jarring, coming from DeS remake. Wherein the only aggressive enemy was Flamelurker... 

[mfnick]

53 minutes ago, one-armed dwarf said:

No fucking way that dude was designed for 1v1 lol. But I feel he is an exception, more of a set piece

Yea absolutely. Especially with some of the characters it has you summon. 
 

Agreed with this game being more built around them though. In particular using the ash summons to take away aggro. You’re manoeuvrability and skill set in comparison to bosses is just way out of whack. Unless you’re one of those god like psycho players I can’t imagine beating most of these bosses without at least having those. 

[Maf]

I dont’ want to speculate too hard because I haven’t played it at all. But I wonder if the intent is for players to use more of this stuff. I know when I play Souls’ games and the like I never use fire paper, I never touched beast pellets, fuck in Bloodbourne I never even really used the gun except to chip out the last bit of an enemy.

 

Maybe they’re trying to force these other systems/items/mechanics in to use because they don’t like that players ( like me for example. A very average player) haven’t been using them. 

[mfnick]

I still don’t use any of that shit lol. Scared I’ll need it later. I’m a item hoarder and always will be thanks to the 16-64bit era fucking me over so much if I didn’t. It’s only the ash summons which feel essential & they’re governed by areas and a meter so safe to use. 

[OCH]

I tend to have a character with a couple of utility spells (normally one for offence and/or healing) and a couple of weapon types. Beyond that, I don't really use items or buffs. There's still a bunch of item crafting stuff in Elden Ring, I'll likely never use as I don't play like that. Even the glowing pebbles are redundant in this game, thanks to the lantern.

[one-armed dwarf]

I use items a lot, but it gets to a point where I have to back my save up into another folder cause I use it up ten times faster than I can farm it. Have no shame in this either, it just sucks to farm this stuff. Particularly rot arrows, farming the ingredients for rot arrows is like fishing for uranium in chernobyl reactor 4

 

I think they wanted to make a game that was more approachable, which it is, but doesn't feel watered down and not difficult. But the way they design some of the fights feels like an overcorrection. It's largely a time investment thing cause Souls is less about skill than it is about encounter knowledge. It took me 10-12 hours to learn to 1v1 the hardest boss in the game. It would also take a long time to learn the 2nd, 3rd and 4th hardest bosses for someone like me. Even margit took forever. So I just focused on learning 1 and summoned for the rest. But it doesn't feel balanced in a satisfying way that it has to be like that. Maybe if you've got superior pattern recognition and stuff you can hack that stuff out faster.

 

Anyway tho the next fights Id like to learn are 

Spoiler

morgott and commander niall. Morgott im currently chewing on atm, or he's chewing me up at least. It's margit 2.0, literally. Really tough fight to read imo, and one I gave up on NG

 

[DisturbedSwan]

 

[Maf]

16 hours ago, shinymcshine said:

Flipping heck @Maf they wrote a cartoon strip about you vs The Evil Within !!

In fairness it wasn’t the plan, it just happened as I was playing, incentivised when I checked and saw there was a trophy for completing without upgrades.

 

Unless there’s trophies in Elden Ring for not using magic, summons, items. Trophies for only using 1 weapon, etc. Why restrict yourself. 
 

I say from a Dark Souls perspective. Still not played ER 

[one-armed dwarf]

Without trying to be dismissive, people put restrictions like that on themselves cause they might find it fun. Some people like magic, others find it boring and want melee. It's about finding the most fun playstyle for some people, not just passing the boss

 

Especially for NG+, or rebuilds on a fresh save

 

(In fact trophies are a far worse reason to do any of that, than because someone wants to find a new playstyle to get more out of the game)

 

Also it can kinda go back to tabletop RPG stuff, where you want to roleplay a specific style. Whatever your imagined canon for your character is. Right now I'm trying to play a sort of dragon sorceror. He worships dragons, I guess, and uses dragon gauntlets. So I get the big powerful ranged magic attacks but my melee is shit, so there's some interesting limits to mess around with as well as obvious strengths. Uses mage armour so hes squishy as well

[Maf]

No, I agree with that I wasn’t trying to say that. I was saying play how you want. If you only want to do a soul level 1 run or something then do that. I did Evil Within with no upgrades to see how far I could get, incentivised when I realised there was a trophy. So it was a meta challenge I set myself just to see how far I could get.

 

But I’m also saying don’t restrict yourself if the game is making you miserable or whatever. 
 

Play how you want, is what I’m saying. There’s no wrong way

[DisturbedSwan]

Missus was on a meeting last night so managed to squeeze another session in.

 

More procrastinating in Limgrave happened lol, went around to each of the Evergaol's I'd avoided up til' now and defeated the bosses at each of these (only one that gave me a slight bit of trouble was the Knight). Then went and explored a dungeon I'd left when I was starting out and defeated the boss there and then I thought it was finally time for Stormveil Castle. 

 

Made my way here and boom, ran into the first story boss in Margit. Took me about 3 tries solo (with Ash summons) I think, hilariously easy really and then made my way into the Castle proper and had a little explore here before calling it a day. A short but sweet session with a few more bosses in the bag. 

[one-armed dwarf]

I think it's a relatively tiny minority of players who are restricting themselves out of a sense of pride, or whatever. It's almost always imo people playing the game the way they would like based on the fact they liked it in DeS and DkS, but finding it harder in Elden Ring because of how encounters are designed and the progression requirements for a lot of them, which can be ambiguous. From what I've seen tho there's a lot of frustration from STR players. Who to follow from my earlier point want to play the Guts archetype, cause why not. They find this game incredibly punishing to that playstyle. 

 

There's no 'wrong' way to play but if you like a particular playstyle it might be at more of a disadvantage in Elden Ring than the other game, and it can suck if your preferred playstyle also means signing up to Tarnished must die difficulty, if that isn't particularly what you want. Like, summoning for some of these players doesn't fix the issue of dissatisfaction/misery if they want to feel the back and forth, but cant keep up with what the game is asking for.

 

I'm sorry I kinda said the same thing 5 times in 5 different ways there, but it's hard to get across to someone who's not played why this game is different. A combination of more technical fights, waaay more freedom to explore and grind and way more tools. It's a big change so the old games don't really give you much of an idea what to expect here

[OCH]

1 hour ago, one-armed dwarf said:

From what I've seen tho there's a lot of frustration from STR players. Who to follow from my earlier point want to play the Guts archetype, cause why not. They find this game incredibly punishing to that playstyle. 

I've definitely seen that. It's why I went for a Red Mage build. I could have gone for full magic build as I have in past souls games. But that is a miserable experience for the first few hours of many Souls games. I'm told the mage build - Arcane - is particularly guilty of this in Bloodborne.

This game, it would have taken longer I think to Git Gud as a mage. Although I've already noticed a lot more spells given to you from the offset.

A friend at work plays through Souls (Since DeS) as the Depraved Class. He hasn't mentioned how he's getting on with this game, in that regard, since he bought it on Monday. Not well, I'd imagine.

[DisturbedSwan]

Huge congrats to From on the 12 million copies sold, hugely deserved. One of the best studios in the World and with the genius that is Hidetaka Miyazaki at the wheel. Looks likely to be a franchise now from that Bamco press release as well.

 

In the whole solo-summoning-ash summoning debate. Pretty much all the bosses I've encountered so far (only 1 story, the rest optional/dungeon bosses) have been an absolute breeze with the assistance of Ash summons (my Godrick Soldiers +2 in particular).

 

The only one that gave me problems is the one at Castle Morne and I found that significantly more difficult weirdly with human summons than with your Ash summons, the bosses health bar went up a crazy amount and he'd pretty much one shot me in a matter of seconds whereas it seems with the ash summons their health pool is still the 'solo' health bar but you've also got the ash summons for assistance and to take aggro away from the boss (key for me playing as a Mage).

 

It's just way more effective, ever since that bad experience of summoning in real people with that boss at Castle Morne I've not human summoned again as it just feels like a waste of time now, which is completely different to previous games when a human summon would give you a big advantage (particularly if you had two).

[radiofloyd]

34 hours now, my character is level 48. Currently using a Heavy Crescent Moon Axe +5. I changed my armor set to the Raya Lucarian set as it has a fancier name and the surcoat looks nice. Story wise (not really a spoiler):

 

Spoiler

I’m looking for a glimstone key.

 

[OCH]

By random chance, I found a secret quest. I have part 1 of 2 of a thing. Directed into a catacomb in search of part 2. Ultimately killed one of those Hound knights and got a ash summon instead of the thing I was actually looking for.

 

Sigh, given the directions, it looks like this is a questline for Later in the game. So back to regular adventure. Just entered the Weeping Peninsula and killed an obnoxious archer, who almost snagged me when I grabbed the map.  Bleed is so OP in this game. I doubt it will be too much longer before they nerf it.