Played through most of Stormveil Castle over the course of the night, wow. What a fantastically designed area. I explored for about four hours, although admittedly I was dying a lot, and I'm sure I've still missed great chunks of it for example there's an underground bit you can drop down to off the main courtyard where a fuckoff great big worm dragon thing attacks you, and I'll be going back later when I'm a bit 'arder for those knights.

That said, I can really echo the sentiments some of you had in the last thread that it really does just feel like another Souls game. The thing that stands out to me is that it's not just a matter of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", it's that literally, nothing at all has changed about the mechanics at any point in a decade. There's things that are broke that I wish they would fix, but nope. It has to play exactly like it has done since Demon's Souls or the nerds will kick off I suppose.

It's just basic things that it grates on me I found myself getting annoyed at way back in Souls 1.0. "Durr buit soulds games are totally fair", except you know, when they're not. The fiddly angle for backstabs, that never come out when you need them the most. The bollocks fucking camera targeting thing that always betrays you when you have a big pack of enemies to navigate. The way it cheats and lets enemy attacks clip through walls while yours can't, so you're never sure if you're actually safe taking cover. They way they fucking love a good cheap instant death from getting nudged off the edge of a tiny walkway.

Little things. But things that they really could have ironed out by this point.

You picked a pretty uninteresting image m8. Feel like I'm on /art/.

I, for one, don't even own an Elden Ring

>>25504

It's interesting in that it's nothing to do with the game, but it's by the artist the robbed the entire art style for the game off of. I chose that one because it even has the same colour scheme as the Steam menu background for the game.

You'll learn to like it in time, like you have done with Skinny Scarlett Moffatt, and Gurning Greta.

I've put in 30 hours so far which is surprising since the only other game that holds my attention is FFXIV (which is an MMO)
I'm only level 42 and going DEX/INT. I'm mostly blind but did look up a few things to make it a bit more enjoyable, basically how to get certain upgrade material for runes so I can test out more weapons.

While I agree what others have said and that it's basically a souls game with a few extra bits, I deeply enjoy these types of games and the open world map being huge filled with dungeons, mini-bosses and other things really will keep me playing for quite some time.

I'm actually dreading starting new playthroughs with different builds just because of the sheer size of the world and how long those playthroughs may take. I'm just the type of person who has to do everything, not just skip over things.

I firmly believe that this is a game that was worth the money I paid for it, something which is rare these days.

I play for four hours. Get frustrated at bullshit design (dog statue boss that also has four imps in the room which can cause bleed and attack from range). Turn it off, vow never to return. Next day I'm back in it. I am looking at the odd walkthrough to see where certain keys are, as I just don't have the patience to spend 70 hours stumbling about. So far my highlight has been Morne Castle, where the beastmen servants are rising up against the human oppressors. It's not a huge area, and the reward for beating it is shit, but it felt like an authentic living breathing event that takes place in the world.

>>25507

Yeah Souls games are weird in that so far, they're the only game that has ever really scratched my RPG numbers and loot itch, while avoiding the usual pitfalls that stop such games being good action/adventure games in their own right.

In something like Skybliviwind etc, the world and exploration is great, but the RPG mechanics feel half baked and far too easily cheesed, which spoils the gameplay. In MMOs or Diablos or what have you, the core gameplay might feels satisfying, but they tend to really cheapen the RPG mechanics. Somehow the Soulslike series manages to fit them together properly.

Somebody really needs to give From Soft the license to Castlevania, I swear to god. Just literally have them remake Symphony of the Night as a Soulslke game. Fucking. Hnnggh. Come on. It all fits. It's the most obviously perfect idea since getting CA to make Warhammer games.

>>25506
Who says I like them.

I'm incredibly disappointed in the performance (and to a lesser extent, visuals) on PS5. I'm typically a PC gamer, but I've been blown away with what the PS5 can do up until now. But Elden Ring on PS5 is so choppy that I'm finding it too distracting.

It's particularly jarring coming immediately from the Demons Souls Remake to this, because it feels like a huge step down (and being a cross-gen game, it is I suppose) in both fidelity and performance. Supposedly the best thing to do is install the PS4 version, but fuck that, I'll just return it and hope my 2080S can handle it on PC.

Enjoy what you enjoy, but I am amazed that FromSoftware have released the same game every few years since 2008 and people are alright with that. If I were a committed Soulshead I probably wouldn't be saying that, but the similarities are remarkable.

>>25512
There are some nasty performance issues on the PC as it stands, although I'm sure you're already aware of that. It's got a weird stutter currently every 5 minutes or so where the framerate will just tank, speed up really quickly, tank again, then speed up really quickly again over the course of about 5 seconds.
It's not so much a dealbreaker for me but it can be incredibly irritating if you're engaged in combat whilst it's doing it.

>>25512
>>25514

It's something to do with DX12 and the way it dynamically streams content, according to the DigitalFoundry eggheads. I'm running it on a NVME SSD on a computer with some decent DDR4, and these issues have been infrequent for me, but they are there nevertheless. I don't know how consoles work nowadays but considering they still have much less memory to work with than your average mid-range gaming PC (albeit probably faster spec), they must also use some sort of streaming.

The DS remake is on a different engine entirely from what I'm aware of, it wasn't a From Soft in-house production.

>>25513

To be fair it's only because somehow, they just so happen to have stumbled on the gaming equivalent of lasagne, it's an easy recipe that offers a lot of people's favourite flavours. It never gets old, and it's got just the right balance of juicy meat, tangy sauce, and decadent cheese that you'll never turn it down. It helps that they do have excellent artists and level designers too, so it's not a smart price lasagne either, but the fancy Taste the Difference one.

Obviously there's loads of YouTube videos by wankers going on at length about how Mr Miyagi is an unparalleled genius who has transcended game design and redefined gaming as we know it, and they're obviously talking bollocks. There were a couple of clever touches that put the series where it is today, but it's not without its flaws. Frankly it's just the kind of success that happens completely by accident once in a generation, and they're milking it while it's in, so fair play to them.

>>25512
So I managed to give it a go on Steam and its much better. I maintain the 60fps cap constantly. Here is my PC for reference. The first game on PS5 I've had to return, which is a real shame because when done right (DSR, Ghost of Tsushima) it can produce stunning games.

>>25502
I've restarted so many times as I can't decide on a build. If I go down the magic route, I kick myself for being squishy and having shit melee DPS. But then when I focus on melee I miss the magic that makes certain boss battles trivial. I feel gimped if I build into a jack of all trades, especially as there are spells which require 60 INT which is wild.

>>25517
I've settled on strength (because I'm hoping for a Fume Ultragreat Sword like thing) and I'll slum it with one of the D-scaling Knight Sword things that work OK until then.

But honestly, this feels like From finally embraced cheese (dare I call it an easy mode?) except when it counts. You can use YakulTorrent to fight through most environment bosses with patience and escape from random encounters with a bit of practice, in dungeon encounters you can summon your guardian of choice if you struggle but you always have the dungeon start Grace to return to and try again. I'm aware there's a separate discussion about accessibility, I have no idea how to solve that.

I think I found the farming zone, where there're herds of animals, fields of flowers, and yards of rocky bits (there's the four legged bell ringing ting that I have no idea what it's for). I found an opera singing... person there and promptly (another major convenience) portalled to the nearest grace to spend my acquired runes.

It has the right kind of atmosphere where like the previous games, so I turned off online everything, but I think this is the game that would work best like a Deep Rock Galactic where once in a while you throw out the edge lord dark brooding bleak darkness and truly engage in jolly co-operation!

I was a bit disappointed with Elden Ring initially. The open world didn't feel as curated or as carefully done as the typical small-scale/indoor areas that From are known for, and I thought I was going to be overwhelmed with the scale of the map. The starting area is also not the most impressive, and I think the lag didn't help form a good impression. But the more I play, and I am 80+ hours in, the more I love it.

Those indoor, highly designed and detailed areas are absolutely still in the game, and they are excellent. They just come a bit later, or are found underground, in caves, etc.

There is a giant variety in weapons/spells/options for playstyle, the pvp/multiplayer component is the best its been, the bosses are tough, the fashion is top tier, the waifu is good, the story is interesting, there is near unlimited things to do and stumble on, I am obsessed.

My only real complaint, now that I'm about 40 hours in and I've uncovered a lot more of the map, is that it could perhaps do with a bit more direction. The traditional "we ain't gonna tell you nothing" of a From game kind of becomes a weak point in such an open game. It's fine when I want to aimlessly wander and explore, but when I actually feel like progressing the "story" I do feel a bit lost, and I don't think I should really have to resort to Google. I got to a big locked door at the Arcane University (I don't remember it's name but that's what I'm calling it) and my only pointer as to what I'm meant to do is a vague hint from an NPC I don't remember where I found, so I can't even go speak to them again and see if they give a better clue. There's a couple of lifts and shortcuts I don't know if I'll ever unlock without looking it up, because the game is so vast you could just entirely miss whatever dungeon the key item is in. I'm sure people would hate to have a traditional "quest log" or whatever, but I dunno, there could be something more concrete so you know if you are at least making progress. Like I say I don't mind having to figure things out by myself, but what I dislike is where I wanted around for four hours and don't know if I'm actually going in the right direction or wasting my time completely.

I'd also like to get my hands on some nicer armour, it's been nearly 40 hours and I'm still in my starter stuff. In the other soulses you typically found a set per area at least. Not necessarily upgrades, but things that looked nicer or had different properties etc. All I've had in this are drops off the human soldiers, and I don't like them much.

>>25520
Was it the magic barrier preventing you from getting into the academy? There should be a corpse just outside with a map showing where the key is located. Very easily missed, but pretty important.

>>25521

FFS. I knew it would be something like that. Cheers m62.

On the plus side my misguided wanderings ended up getting me into some shenanigans where I got in a teleporter to a floating island in the sky, and found the spooky loli witch, who I can tell I'm going to start seeing profiles for on f-list.

I can never tell if I'm not meant to be in the area I'm in yet, or if the boss is genuinely meant to be that hard.

>>25525

That sounds like inappropriate workplace behaviour.

>>25526
Mirth.

Remember when we used to say that?

>>25525

I reasoned fairly early on that, since it a Souls game, every area will be like that, therefore functionally it doesn't make much difference either way. Case in point is how Margit and Godrick seem to be such a massive early game filter for a lot of people.

I'll just give a boss a few goes and judge it based on if I'm doing an okay amount of damage, and if it's a predictable enough boss that I can chip it down if not. Usually if I abandon a boss I'll find a similar one later that doesn't give me as much trouble, and then come back to find it easier than I'd thought before.

I am feeling that some of the bosses are a bit overtuned. The Souls vets need a challenge I suppose, but I've come across a couple where I'm a but stumped how you're even supposed to get an attack in edgeways, as a melee character at least. The easy ones I don't mind, they're a welcome break a lot of the time, but some of them are definitely bullshit. Still- It's significantly alleviated by the fact there's no frustrating runback for most of them, so I suppose they made the bosses harder to compensate since you can just repeatedly bash your head against it til you figure out the gimmick.

Also damn, I didn't realise throwing weapons could be so good. I resorted to using some kukris to cheese a couple of giant bat things that were giving me trouble and they cut them down in about five hits. I didn't notice they have S level dex scaling, so I bought 200 of them and that's going to be my cheese crutch from now on.

Have some posts gone missing or was I hallucinating? I could swear there was a post about the birds I was going to respond to when I got home from work.

Anyway I've noticed a few people finding the birds to be their arch-nemesis, and I'm here to tell you: Guard counter. It's a technique I don't even remember using in previous Soulses (was it even in them?) but is coming in very handy for certain enemies.

I've ended up changing to a lighter armour set just so I can afford to equip a shield as well as multiple weapons, and choose which one I'm using on the fly depending on the situation. Sword/sword, sword shield, halberd shield and two handed halberd.

The birds drop their talons as a sword too, and it's ace.

>>25525

Stormveil castle kept spanking me so I went and explored Limgrave for about 10 hours. I think that's how the game is pushing you to play it, and I've found enough useful incantations, items and weapons just by chance that it's felt rewarding enough (even if I don't use them). I've got ideas to try for future builds and all just from random ashes and things I've found.

>>25531

>guard counter

I love that mechanic, also the way you can stance-break most enemies now. I've also found one of the attacks on the birds is relatively easy to parry if you're so inclined.

>>25531
Some posts got deleted because I made atrocious spelling mistakes

> Guard counter. It's a technique I don't even remember using in previous Soulses (was it even in them?)

It's a new one in Elden Ring. Along with not using stamina while running out of combat, more reliable backstabs, blessedly short boss runs (so far) and what feels like more generous iframes when rolling the game feels a little more relaxed compared to previous Soulses. Of course, From made up for that with some enemies telegraphing their attacks and then just hesitating enough to shake out of that relaxed state.

Fire bird I still don't have a good handle on, but plain bird and bomber birds are down to nuisance level. You can head shot the bombers with a bow (and possibly a thrown weapon) to make them drop the barrels. Their first attack is almost always the simple front swipe which is easily blocked and guard countered.

The real enemy in Stormvale is the map. I'm shite at directions at the best of times and I just don't know where to go next in that place.

>>25534
Maybe I'm just a bit thick, but the map is also incredibly useful. I don't mean that it lets you find your way or the obvious observation points and map markers, but very useful dungeons. If it's not blank, it's probably something worth looking at.

I'm disappointed the dogs no longer teleport.
Just isn't a Fromsoft game without teleporting dogs.

I've gone a full Strength/Vigor type build with a greatsword, and I liked the idea of it more than I like how it performs.

>>25537
Strength builds seem to be unviable (at least for me) for DS3 and ER. Most enemies are just too fast, both in terms of attacks and in movement. By the time you've swung your big fuck off sword, you've lost 75% of your health to an enemy combo and then you miss them as they roll away.

>>25537
>>25538

I started off that way because it was how I liked playing in the old ones; but I never found the proper Claymore I like (the one that has a slash as well as a thrust attack) so I scrapped it and started leaning into dex when I found a naginata and those bird talon swords.

I'm still a full melee build with no magic ability and only consumable throwing weapons for range, though, so I've found leaning on your summons is sometimes a necessity to keep the boss busy while you hammer them. I got the wolves levelled up and they seem to be the best, they don't do a lot of damage but the frequency of their attacks helps break the boss' poise. I wrecked Moon Queen Renamon's second phase in one cycle this way, though I'm probably quite over-levelled too.

Also don't miss the fact you can get that lass you gave you the jellyfish to become a blacksmith but for summons. She levels them up the same way you level weapons up, but you have to get her to Firelink Camelot first.

I will say it seems to be pretty vital to have more than one weapon option too; because some enemies will just hard counter you if you only have a big slow weapon, but go down easily if you just go aggressive with a fast one, and vice versa.

Why is this game so popular?

I had never heard of it, it looks like a slightly more Nintendo/fantasy Skyrim. I'm not being difficult, just don't get the appeal.

>>25540
It's a spiritual successor to Dark Souls, a game which more or less created a subgenre of action RPGs and is widely considered to be one of the best/most influential games of all time. It's not like Skyrim much, other than being high fantasy and open world. Skyrim has a lot of talking and NPCs, Elden Ring has very little of this. More focus on the combat. While Skyrim's combat is mediocre, Elden Ring's is pretty good and challenging. It is a lot like a Zelda game, albeit with less puzzle elements. Explore the field, do a dungeon or a cave or a castle, explore more. To be honest, having played both games for many hours, I would rather play Skyrim as it is less stressful, Elden Ring's bosses have really filtered me. Oh, also George R R Martin was involved in the world building for Elden Ring. Not sure what he did, as it feels very much like Dark Souls world building, but I think the fact he worked on it is a big selling point to many people.

>>25540
It's a Fromsoftware game and they make very interesting fun RPG games. In fact, they invented this genre more or less. They are now called Soulslikes, because FromSoftware made the Dark Souls series, the progenitor of which is called Demon Souls which they also made, which coined the term.

There is also Bloodborne and Sekiro, by the same developer, that are highly critically acclaimed for their engaging gameplay loop.

The aim is to throw yourself at tough enemies until you figure out how to beat them, for which you are rewarded either better gear or a new area or a piece of lore. It embodies the spirt of DnD where you choose a class and there is no set path, choices you make will lock you of certain pieces of gear or lore encouraging multiple playthroughs and experimenting with different builds.

The game itself, the combat, is well done and extremely rewarding and the main draw. It also has PVP vs other players. Some people focus purely on this, and don't bother with the story.

>>25540

It's more or less what Shadow of the Colossus would have been if it had "normal" enemies too. It's an adventure game in the truest sense, taking place in a very artful, mysterious, surrealist kind of setting, and the way it's designed is an antidote to the increasing tedium of Ubisoft style open-worlds.

Despite the strong emphasis on combat, it's actually what I think of as an eRPG- the E stands for exploration. It does trace it's heritage back to Zelda, just like the first Souls, but also the same way a game like Symphony of the Night does. Compared to Skyrim, the difference is that you're very much figuring out the route yourself, you are journeying into uncharted territory, and you're putting the pieces together yourself as you discover more.

As for the involvement of GRR Martin, I get the impression that he wrote all the "lore" of the pre-apocalypse (the shattering) world, then the From Soft lot took that, and made their usual after-the-end setting out of it. I'm not a GRR fanboy, I've never even read GoT, but I think it actually works out pretty well.

The trouble with Dark Soul' "lore" is that it always felt to me like a JJ Abrams style mystery box. It was mysterious and vague about the past, but in truth there wasn't any real substance behind it all; all the mumbo-jumbo about the flame and the dark was just fancy sounding set-up for the game mechanics. It makes a difference, I think, that this one seems to have a more concrete history, which makes it more compelling to dig up the clues about what happened.

>>25541
>>25542
>>25543

Thanks, three very helpful posts. I absolutely love Skyrim but I'm not sure on the Elden Ring art style. Not being a hater, but there's something to do with that and the style of boss I've seen from watching some playthroughs. It's the same kind of style as with Resident Evil games, a bit weird to me and they just look a bit like they just get to make special life bars etc for them. I like that even with hard bosses on Skyrim, they maintain true to the physics of the world, just stronger etc.

Nobody really cares for me rambling now so I'll stop but thanks for the helpful insights. Had no idea it was about Dark Souls.

>>25544

It's very much as Souls game in all but name, yeah.

In fairness one of the strengths of this series has always been that the enemies pretty much play by the same rules as you. Their attacks have the same wind-up as yours, the same move sets, and the same windows for punishment.

Bosses are the only exception, and they do get pretty cheesy in this one, granted. Dark Souls 1 bosses feel pretty quaint compared to the ones in DS3 and this, where they realised series veterans can easily handle bosses with 3 or 4 telegraphed moves by now; so now they all leap around like crackheads and come at you with ridiculous flurries of four attacks chained together.

Art style is a matter of taste, but it's true what people have been saying that if you've never got into Souls-likes, this is probably the best entry point you'll find. It's not easier, but it is more forgiving in some ways, and you have a lot more freedom from the start, so if you don't like bosses you can effectively ignore them and still get a good 40+ hours of playing in, and by then you'll probably find you have an appetite for the challenge.

I CAN'T STOP FUCKING RE-ROLLING. WHY CAN'T I DECIDE ON A BUILD? ARGGH.

>>25546
>>25547

>>25546
I think I made about 10 characters since release, playing with each for 1-6 hours. Got bored of a quality build, STR build was unviable, lower level incantations are not very good, not enough decent weapons early game to make a Wretch starter fun, etc. When I was doing the STR build I stumbled upon the chest that sends you to Caelid, and then stumbled on the magic gravity katana. It required 18 INT, I had 8. Restarted as an Astrologer, to do my whole build around the katana.

>>25548
Reminds me of the hours spent in Baldurs Gate trying to get maximum rolls.

I've just gotten into the Capital, whatever it's called. Looks like a breathtaking location.

I feel like the game is starting to rely on bullshit a little bit though. I'm quite high level now, and I'm getting the mechanics down well enough that I know the best approach for most enemies. So now all it can throw at me to reliably cause deaths is having enemies sneakily hidden to jump out at you, attacks that will near enough one-shot you if you didn't anticipate them, etc.

I dread to see the state of the bosses coming up after this. The Tree-Guardian on the way in was bullshit enough, I had the patter of fighting him down nicely and I could whittle him down to his last sliver of health with no problem, but it still took about ten tries because every time I did he'd use his bullshit lightning attack, which I couldn't seem to avoid, that insta-killed my horse and sometimes me along with it.

Then you die trying to fumble through the "Do you want to use an estus flask to revive hoars" message and end up chucking my controller at the screen.

>>25553

Update: Absolutely hard stuck on Godfrey. Just tried it about 20 times and can't even get past a quarter of his health bar. Annoyingly I can see it being very easy on a ranged character, but I'm not one of those.

I just can't get in close to make an attack, he's slow as fuck and telegraphs his attacks, but when he DOES attack, it's a chain of anywhere between 3 to 6 blows and you'll use all your stamina dodging or blocking, then get one hit in that leaves you wide open to an immediate follow-up that can kill you in one combo if you're unlucky with which way it goes.

No NPC summons either, and he kills my ashes immediately. Fuck sake.

>>25549
I don't know what you call a strength build. I've got a few points in dex to wield a certain bow, a misguided point in int (forgot you need an item to cast), and a few points in vigor. The rest is strength and endurance so I can eventually wield a Great Sword or Grafted Sword without having to be a rolling raisin. I still use a 100 phys block shield and a Morning Star +5, for now.

I don't find enemies to be to hyperactive. Some times standing back with an occaional roll into the enemy is the correct approach, or learning when the last combo hit comes so you can jump in. Much like summons can trivialise boss encounters, doing the right kind of damage via grease or weapon art also helps a lot.

>>25554
Did you upgrade your ashes? I use the skelly lancers and as long as I distract the bosses while they resurrect they are nigh unkillable.

>>25554

Well somehow got the cunt after about another dozen tries, something about the timing of his attacks just wasn't clicking for me, but once I got it he was fairly simple actually. Weird that.

Margit 2: Marg Harder was a breeze in comparison, only took about five goes. Mind you, nowhere near as frustrating when you're expecting something bullshit, so that lets you keep your cool better I suppose.

>>25555
I should have specified, strength builds with maces and morning stars seem fine, but when I try use BIG weapons I don't do very well. Maybe it's a sort of Monster Hunter thing where you time your dodges perfectly to set up the big buildup for the swing, but when you walk into a room with 4 fast moving goblins who can each whittle your health down in 2 seconds, my big fuck off Guts sword is not very useful. This could be bias, I've never really liked any big weapons in From games, they always look cool but (for me at least) not very effective.

Man's got dat drip now lads. Turns out I missed one of the best looking sets in an area I forgot to go back and explore about 30 hours ago.

Wonder how much dry cleaning is in the lands between.

>>25558Having finally reached 40STR I thought I'd play around a bit and decided to try a Greatsword (attached), easing myself into it with Cuckoo's Evergaol. It was alright but not being a stats guru I was both a little disappointed by the damage output and unsure how to fix it. The flow is there, either keeping my distance or rolling through/into attacks to get a hit in (I've not played Monster Hunter but your description sounds spot on), but it didn't grab me like it did in DS3. Maybe I just need to do it some more to get a proper feel for the range of the thing.

Range really is what will make or break this play style for me because that's how I'd normally control groups of enemies, keeping them at arms length and being able to stance break smaller enemies every hit. If that sort of control doesn't work then the slow attacks just leave you wide open.

I might just stick to the morning star until I find something I can 1H with more bleed and leave the big sticks for big and slow bosses. I kind of wish the game had saveable armour sets. Give it a 5-10s animation to switch so it's not hot-swappable but if I don't have to do the menuing and consult my notebook to remember what to wear that would be lovely.

>>25561
SHEEEEEEEESH

(A good day to you Sir!)

>>25563

Most weapons don't get their "good" scaling until like +10 or +15 in some cases. You'll suddenly see the favoured attribute go up a notch. So then the heavy attribute would make it A tier.

Honestly though most of the damage is just from upgrading the fuck out of it. One of my minor gripes with Soulslikes is that when you commit to upgrading a weapon, you're basically going to be stuck using that weapon for the rest of the game unless you do a shitload of grinding to upgrade a different one. It doesn't exactly encourage trying out different builds.

>>25561
Get that shiny helmet fner fner.

>>25565
> One of my minor gripes with Soulslikes is that when you commit to upgrading a weapon, you're basically going to be stuck using that weapon for the rest of the game unless you do a shitload of grinding to upgrade a different one.

This is another way Elden Ring is made more comfortable, stones are cheap to come by in mining dungeons so you can upgrade almost any weapon you want to try to a reasonable level. The rarity does force you to specialise eventually, I suppose, but the distinction between Smithing Stones (basic weapons) and Sombre Stones ("Special Weapons") means you can trial the play style in a powerful way until you find That One Weapon that embodies it and upgrade the fudge out of it. Basic weapons need basic better stones, special weapons need the special stones, you cannot upgrade your basic weapon into needing special stones.

>>25563

I see you talking about a morning star and raise you a more-ning star.

The bleed buildup will probably be less even though it has a higher base stat because the swings are marginally slower, but it's a gigantic morningstar so I can forgive it.

>>25566

I find they're still a bit too rare in the early game, which is when (as a new player, at least) you're going to want to try things out. You also don't get the ability to buy them until a good few hours in, and that's if you even happen to go to the right place. IIRC you could buy upgrade materials from the word go in older Soulses, so that seems like a strange decision.

In general there's just a few things like that about the game that irk me. Stuff where I would have wasted a lot of time and just overall not enjoyed it as much if I didn't just look it up. I know it wants you to do multiple play-throughs and everything, but fuck that, I've already put nearly 100 hours in, and it's only because I'm recently single maidenless that I've even had the time to do that.

I think I'm starting to close in on the endgame now anyway. I've got a few underground bits left, and no doubt a bunch of side-bosses left to mop up, but my current active pursuit is trying to get the second half of the Haligtree medallion from Castle Sol. Fuck me it's rough. Lucky I found the Mimic Tear summon a little bit ago, and it's fucking brilliant, so I'm gonna have another crack when I've given that a few levels.

I've finally reached the Altus Plateau after finally figuring out how the that the two Dectus parts don't need to be joined, you just need both in your inventory. Now I can't tell if I spend too much time faffing around leaving me hopelessly overlevelled or if the early enemies are supposed to give you a false sense of security. The only guys giving me trouble so far are the double Tree Sentinels, I just dodged those and the death status Cthulu worm spewing people. Everything else dies in 1-3 hits.

On a positive note, though, I got fed up with the Crucible Knight and, for the first time ever, deliberately went online and summoned another player to help out. If invasions weren't a thing I could really get used to this jolly cooperation.

>>25572

You don't even need the medallions, there's a cave you can go through instead. Actually one of the best dungeons in the game and probably one of my most memorable parts playing it. It's quite hard, or was at the time I did it, took me the better part of a whole evening after work, and felt truly exhilarating when you finally emerge at the other side. Worth going back for (and you do get a lot of smiting stones out of it.)

Like you though I was quite strong by the time I reached the capital, though. I think the leveling/difficulty curve seems to go a bit wonky from that point of the game to be honest, probably just due to the fact you can get so strong just exploring the world. There's a point of enemy toughness where the only way to keep the challenge, is to either make the enemies HP sponges, or to make them absurdly strong, and the design philosophy of being hard from the very start of the game means they reach that ceiling when there's still about a third of the game left to go.

Other Souls games could control it a lot more tightly with their more linear design, but the problem with this one is there's just too much game.

>>25573
Is the cave the one which ends with the Magma Wyrm? I’d been there before but the elevator up didn’t work at the time so I assumed it was a short cut I had to unlock. Turns out it was just bugged and all I had to do was try again…

Speaking of strange things, I think the only way Radahn could look any more ridiculous would be by making him wear an actual clown nose. That poor horse. Particularly compared to how disciplined the Crucible Knight fight that precedes it is, Radahn’s fight feels like pure mayhem.

Still doing spoiler tags are we? Catch up lads, I know none of you have girlfriends either.

Just beat Castle Sol, which you need to do to get the second half of the haligtree medallion and open the last map area at the very top. That boss is rock fucking solid, good grief. I'm not ashamed to say I resorted to re-speccing my character to take advantage of frostbite damage and the notoriously broken hoarfrost stomp ash of war. The ice spear one is really useful as well, poise breaks the big knight cunts in a couple of hits so you can get a critical in on them.

Not sure I can get my head around the way this game scales things sometimes though honestly. I'm still mostly dex, but I swapped my spare points from strength to int. When I added up the numbers, though, the cold affinity would have still given me higher overall damage than keen even without swapping to dex/int. I was considering doing something similar earlier on with bleed and arcane instead (to be an edgelord "blood knight" type of character) but it came out much lower. It all seems a bit arbitrary, but maybe I'm just thick or missing something.

Frost feels like it suits my dude's fashion though, so I think I'll be pouring my points into int for a bit now, and a bit more mind so I can actually have some FP to use spamming this utterly broken-tier ability. I just don't want my stats to end up feeling too spread out.

>>25553
> The Tree-Guardian on the way in was bullshit enough

I gave up fighting him on Torrent and beat him on foot instead which made dodging much easier and more reliable. It still took a few tries to get the patterns down, but once dismounted it was just that much easier.

My current nemesis in the captial are the human looking guys shooting fire arrows from a crossbow and occasionally doing a triple shot (there was at least one of them was in Raya Lucaria Academy) which one-shots me. It's not that they're difficult, but when I do fuck up that just makes it that much more irritating. At least I have enough health now that, from full, a hug from the iron maiden dreidels doesn't quite kill me.

>>25575

Actually you know what I will just say it: Weapon arts in general feel very cheap. It's free magic I'm not entitled to, I'm not (up til this point) a magic character, but when I can just spam these abilities with very little investment and they work wonders, why not. So far as I can tell, apart from the "affinity" you can use to set the weapon's scaling, the ability itself scales with your weapon, not your character stats.

Sure it's more limited than a proper mage, but you don't really need variety, you just need one or two good spammable ones. I just beat several bosses by essentially standing there chugging blue powerade and firing ice out of the end of my spear. It's not that I dislike being able to do that, but it's pretty annoying how much more optimal it seems to be to just stand and spam a powerful ability, than to play "properly".

I hate to play in a cheesy way by just slapping some cheap spells on a character who has otherwise never touched a sorcery, so I have respec'd into being more of a spellblade now, and it's very fun. But still.

>>25576

>My current nemesis in the captial are the human looking guys shooting fire arrows from a crossbow

Those guys are proper bastards if you don't spot them. A shield with decent elemental defence can soak up their arrows pretty well though luckily.

How many times are we supposed to fight Margit? First boss, then he appeared in the battle ground area outside the capital and I guess I found his third incarnation just now after defeating Godfrey's golden ghost. All this purely by accident, mind, at first I got Ringed City vibes from the capital but it's just Stormvale x 10 when comes to keeping me confused what path leads where.

>>25567
I found the more-ningstar finally and was slightly disappointed that it doesn't use somber stones for upgrading, but I'll see if I can bump it to +15 and then give it a go. It's half tempting to 1H it if I can get my endurance high enough.

As an aside, for a game that doesn't let you look straight up it sure likes to hang enemies from the ceiling and the "ooh, he was hiding right behind the door" mechanic is also getting a bit tedious, particularly with grappling enemies.

>>25575
> Catch up lads, I know none of you have girlfriends either.
Maidenless.

>>25578

Three times I think, if you even run into the one on the outskirts, which I suspect many will miss.

Unless he comes back again again as the final boss to surprise me, I think you're done with him after you get his remembrance.

Yay, everyone's favourite is in the game! I found another heroe's tomb (not the one by the start) complete with multiple chariots and it has curse death spewing basilisks.

Latest patch nerfed Hoarfrost Stomp, Bloody Slash, and Mimic Tear Ash. Which were all pretty OP, Hoarfrost Stomp in particular being the go to weapon art for no hit runners.

>>25581

Yeah I had a feeling they did. Noticed this morning it's not quite as devastating as it had been, and to tell you the truth I'm glad, it was hard not to just crutch on it. It still serves a good purpose as an AOE for big packs, and it still staggers most enemies, letting your get a few safe hits in. They left ice spear alone though, so I'm still cheesing cunts with that.

They also seem to have added map markers for NPCs, I thought I was just being Mandella effected when I noticed.

Christ lads. They're really spoiling me letting me be this edgy and a furry.

Other games are really going to have a lot to live up to in future.

>>25502
Fashion Souls is ablaze with the gear you can get, and given From games are mostly skill based you can get away with any gear if you're so inclined. I still love the strength based "hit them when it counts" playstyle, but this game was clearly not made for it. You can get away with it early on, but later the bosses feel like Bloodbourne bosses on Adderall.

Some of the bosses feel like bullshit in a way I've not seen before (or maybe I'm getting old). The twin Valient Gargoyles for example are a nice throw back to DS1, but the near instant poison inflicting DoT field? It feels more like a WoW DPS check than a proper From challenge.

I'm inclined to agree that strength builds, particularly those capitalising on "ultra great" weapons, are a dead end (call it hard core mode). That's all I know, so I might try a Dex build without bleed and light roll. I finished DS1 in almost full Havel gear, I miss that play style. Elden Ring invites me to try this play style and then tells me "Nope!". Flurry, flurry long enough that a mid-roll can't dodge, then jump back and careen around the arena. DS2 (for all it's faults) made it clear that shields were not wanted, Blood Bourne pioneered the aggressive playstyle, Sekiro made it explicit that you had to get in there. I guess Elden Ring tries to ease you in, with respecs, to that style.

>>25584
The gargoyle fight nearly broke me. The constant poison attacks that does stupid damage and builds up posion if you stand in it, combined with both of them being overly aggressive and in your face despite the camera only really showing their legs drove me up the wall.

I play solo and use ashes where I feel fights are made more for co-op play but even then this fight felt unfair.

It wouldn't have been so bad if the poison field didn't do damage but just had poison build up so you could actually get a few hits in, or if they both did damage to each other since they were always on top of you. The twin demon prince fight in DS3 was much more fairer and enjoyable, they'd take turns to slash at you while the other would just shoot you with ranged attacks, then they'd switch places after a bit etc

>>25585
> It wouldn't have been so bad if the poison field didn't do damage but just had poison build up so you could actually get a few hits in, or if they both did damage to each other since they were always on top of you.

It's that kind of thing that just feels cheap, it's the long delay a heavy attack incurs v.s. the time it takes them to lay down a poison field. If you don't get rid of the first gargoyole before the second lands you're basically screwed unless you're some sort of camera god.

Getting a bit bored of it now towards the endgame. Might just rush through the last few bosses to the end and have done with it, then I can just watch youtubers without worrying about spoilers. I think I've explored the vast majority of the map anyway.

It's the same story with most of the Souls-like games for me I think. It keeps me gripped when there's exploration and novelty, but past a certain point I get weary of that whole "explore a bit at a time and then die because of a particular enemy or ambush and then repeat the whole process step by step to incrementally get a bit further (while making sure to be prepared for whatever got you last time), until it happens again" loop. Some of the side-dungeons in the late game areas are really bad for this, where I'll try it three or four times and then just think "fuck it, whatever is in here probably isn't worth the hassle anyway" and leave.

Got my money's worth though I suppose, I haven't binge played a game like this since... Jesus, probably one of the Mass Effects.

I don't think I'm all that close to the end having just made it to the Forbidden Lands but I'm getting a little fed up as well and probably should take a little break from the game. There's only so many times I can come across another Ulcerated Tree Spirit, or yet another iteration of an Erdtree Burial Watchdog (particularly when they start appearing as normal enemies in side dungeons) before exploration gets a bit samey.

>>25590

Really picks up when you get to the Haligtree to be fair.

I think it just suffers from a bit of an anticlimactic lull after the Capital, having you get all that way, fight Morgott, then just dumping you out into a largely empty and boring snow shithole with a massive difficulty spike.

I think you were supposed to get the message "It gets harder here, piss off and do those side dungeons you haven't done yet", but unlike with Margit early on, there's no boss to steamroll you and hammer the point home.

For my taste, this game is too big. I can appreciate for some people the size of it basically means more of a good thing, but for me I find it overwhelming and at certain points tedious.

They've done a fantastic job in so many ways; the environments, the magic system, VA, weapons, etc. are all as diverse and interesting as they've ever been, but I can't help but prefer the linearity of Dark Souls 3/Bloodborne. I knew where I stood with that game. You start at the bottom of a castle and you make your way to the top, fighting (generally) increasingly harder baddies. Elden Ring seems to have me spending hours doing nothing in particular and driving absolutely none of the narrative or progression. Again, for some people this may be exactly what they wanted, but for me I'm finding it hard to be motivated to load it up.

(I also think the game/world is almost MMO-esque in its size, I think it would be a lot more tolerable if they leaned more into that with more online features / made it not quite as shit, but good luck with that).

>>25592
I love the openess in the beginning, including the "fuck you" moments dropped in if you go just the wrong way. I got dropped into the crystal dungeon trying to dodge that dragon, spent entirely too long chasing after my runes going towards the boss of that, in hindsight, pathetic dungeon. I like meeting a new bosses challenge, learning the move set, learning what areas hurt, when lock-on becomes a liability. But doing so again and again? I wasn't joking about Tree Spirits or Watchdogs. The dungeons all have very well designed challenges that make getting to the end increasingly more interesting but if the end boss is dark blade, tree spirit, or watchdog then the thing that's supposed to make passing the time easier to level up becomes a chore.

I found my second magma worm, sure the arena is different and as such how you fight it differs. Yet It's basically a Magma Tree Spirit that hasn't gone mad yet (great story-wise, sucks for gameplay). And the story so far is now, explicitly, I'm a murder hobo Lunk head. It seems arbitrary which people I can talk to, weird as that is to say, but I still don't get why the character is "kill on sight". It almost feels like a war parabel I don't get.

It did sound a bit too good, didn't it? This does not, in fact, make you immune to fall damage. It just negates all damage from falls which are otherwise non-lethal and consumes stamina instead.

>>25595

I saw some fanboys defending it because it says fall damage not fall death. So duuuuh, they couldn't have made it any clearer.

The fanbase for these games can be really quite irritating sometimes.

Anyway I finally beat Malenia, Sword of Miquela (FFFFFF) this morning. Weird one that, because it seems like I just got lucky and had the chance to berzerk her down before she used any of the bullshit moves, rather than really changing my approach or adapting my strategy. Then I moved onto Fire Giant, who took a couple of goes but was pretty easy, and Farum Azula, where I beat the Godskin Duo first try, even when they took me by surprise and half my flasks were empty.

The bosses really are a bit hit and miss this game. I've never been a big fan of boss fights in any game, they're generally something I grit my teeth and push through rather than look forward to. But these ones are all over the place in terms of difficulty, and the really hard ones only are either because you can't get anywhere near to attack them, or because they have some straight up button reading, animation cancelling cheat moves.

>>25596
I saw a video where one of the later bosses, think it was one of the Godskin Apostles, would cast his projectile the exact moment the player presses the button to heal. And one where as soon as the player starts casting, all three enemies they were fighting roll in tandem. I never got that far, but it definitely looks like the late game enemies are total bullshit.

I finished the Volcano Manor (I was "so kind, so uncompromising") which gifted me the best talisman, yet: Crepus's Vial. It is so much less tedious to sneak up on enemies if you can just sprint up to them instead of having to crouch walk. Also found out what the "poop knight" is all about and just need one more Thing to feed him to get his ending as an option, according to the wiki.

I'm at the Fire Giant now as the picture might suggest and got to phase two before calling it a day. I really need to stop playing this until the early AM.

>> 25596
Agreed on the boss fights. I generally like them as a kind new extended puzzle, but some of them seriously cross the line from difficult to tedious. The Full-Grown Fallingstar Beast fight really takes the cake for me so far in terms of mindless repetition to whittle it down.

>>25598

Black Knife armour does the same thing as that talisman. Surprisingly big help. If I'm not mistaken that also seems let you sneak up on some enemies that would otherwise automatically notice you (like the bigger knights seem to.)

Actually come to think of it, the stealth works far better in this game than in many games with much bigger focus on stealth mechanics. You don't need an icon or meter, you can tell from their body language if they're aware of you, and it's not an all or nothing where if one enemy notices you suddenly the entire area knows where you are- unless it's a guy with a horn, so he alerts them all. And if you do accidentally aggro them you can almost always run away and hide to reset.

Compare it to something like Deus Ex, Far Cry, or how it was in Cyberpunk, it's pretty impressive that they made it work so seamlessly, when it's not even a big part of the gameplay.

>>25596 Follow up:

Faram Azula gave me a bit of trouble towards the end, there's a Tree Sentinel in front of the door to Malekith- Wait, no Maliketh, big difference, who both cost me quite a few attempts. Then I got to the last bit of the game and beat both SIR GIDEON OFNIR, THE AAALLL KNOWING! and Godfrey on my first try. Actually a bit of a let down. I don't even think I'm especailly over-levelled or anything, I'm at 150 and that's what people seem to agree is "endgame" level.

I called it a night after a couple of tries on the final boss anyway. Need to finish this game now though so I can get on with my life, I've wasted the better part of a month on it, christ.

Finished the game this morning. Went with the Ranni ending, so I am no longer maidenless. Good end.

Overall this was the best game I've played in probably at least five or six years, it's certainly a long time since something engrossed me like this. It's not without it's flaws though. Biggest one I'd say is that the difficulty curve or the balancing (two sides of the same coin probably) is really off in a lot of places.

Some bosses just seem to nullify certain builds, while on the other hand there's also a lot of stuff you can find that just trivialises many of them. I've noticed a lot of complaints seem to be coming from people determined to run a completely one-dimensional caveman strength build, that hits things with big sword and literally nothing else; and in that case I think it's fair to say it's the player's fault rather than the game for not at least attempting to diversify their build a little bit. But by the same token, I spent much of the latter third of the game literally just braindead spamming Ice Spear while my summon tanked the boss, and it's as though the game simply had no answer for that. It worked on nearly everything.

So yeah, far from From Soft's best work in terms of tightness and refinement. But frankly, who cares, it was a cracking adventure, absolutely vast and enthralling, and very refreshing to have a game that's just a good game without all the typical AAA industry bullshit that normally comes with it these days.

Now I can move on to real life's final boss: The property market.

>>25503
>for example there's an underground bit you can drop down to off the main courtyard where a fuckoff great big worm dragon thing attacks you

Well, fudge, I hadn't noticed that one. Found it eventually and it sent me on another re-exploration tangent of the Chapel of Anticipation and finally discovering the Four Belfries... which I already had the keys for except the one you loot in situ.

Technically I'm working through the Haligtree but I think I've reached the procrastination phase (scared by CFA) of mopping up neat thinks I may have missed. Some quests are already not going to happen (sorry Patches) but locations and dungeons are still out there.

>>25601
Fuck those bubble blowers.

>>25602

You can't handle the doot.

>>25603
Doot doot. Take your disconnected heads and shove them.

For a boss that's basically called "placid dragon" they sure aren't very placid, with one of the worst boss runs.

>>25605

I can't remember how it's actually spelled, but whenever my brain can't be arsed figuring a word out it goes to the next nearest thing, so I was calling him Dragune Placideaux and pronouncing it in an over the top French voice.

Procrastionation complete. I checked the wiki to see if I missed any graces, managed to fuck up the Jar Bairn questline, fed the final deathroot, got all remembrances. I'm sure I missed an area here or there and once again the boss soul weapons are a bit meh (for melee characters) so I skipped the mausoleums but after 160hrs I thought it might be time to NG+. I'm one of those people that moaned about STR being a bit shit in this game and I stand by that, but since Mrs Death Stranding letes you respec so easily (it's honestly a good system, I expected to get a pile of runes but instead it shows your original build and then lets you ratched up the stats until it matches your current level) so I respecced into a RoB/Uchigatana dex/arc bleed build, did it the meme way and beat the Elden Beast.

The ending honestly felt like a damp squib. It's not like previous games had grand fireworks for the endings, but in this instance the endings weren't about what the player but what we did for characters in the game which which clashes quite harshly with From's quest system and story telling: I'm not really invested enough in any of them to care who takes the throne. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but "this guy you accidentally helped now is special!" wasn't it.

>>25608

This is part of why I think the criticism of the questlines in this game is totally fair.

Fromsoft simps defend it as being obscure and therefore rewarding, but the fact is there's just really no meat on the bones here. Even the most involved of the questlines has maybe a dozen or so lines of dialogue. You're never making "decisions" on who to help and who to ignore, you don't have any attachment or investment in any of them, hell I wouldn't even know their names if I hadn't looked them all up on the wiki later. It was just "that guy with the hat", "that chick from the castle".

There may as well have been an ending for prawn guy or turtle pope.

>>25609
Prawn guy as an anti poop knight ending would've been neat. Not a nice person, but one you might meet down the pub.

I dipped my hand into online play after learning that you can't get invaded unless you use that item or play co-op with another player. I can see blood stains, read messages, yet still play in peace that no Giant Dad equivalent is going to invade, hile the window to invade before boss fights is tiny. Two steps forward, one step back. I can play online and request help, but I don't have to play hollow while playing just to avoid unwanted PvP.

That's such a marked changed that I now (on my second play through) enable online play by default, I don't worry about invasions but for areas or bosses I need help (trying a caster magic build) I can take advantage of the feature.

SHADDER ERT ERDTREE TRAILER'S ART

I repeat: SHADDER ERT ERDTREE TRAILER'S ART

Speculation, gentlemen?

>>26320
It looks interesting enough to make me want to finish the base game. I only really explored Limgrave, Caelid, and the Weeping Peninsula (?). Couldn't beat the king who sticks a dragon head on his arm. It just seems incredibly hard compared to the Souls games and I'm just plain bad at it.