Elden Ring

[Jastall]

Just a note, classes don't mean much in the end.

By choosing a class at the start all you are effectively doing is choosing starting equipment and level.

However, there isn't anything to stop a Warrior class from going full mage or a Confessor class wearing heavy armor, a great shield, and swinging a colossal weapon.

The best starting class for a player unsure of what they want to build toward is the Wretch. Starts at level 1 with all stats equal. So one can be more flexible in the early game.

Whereas choosing Samurai to start might mean you have to wait a lot longer to use X or Y weapon/spell compared to the Wretch that has a lot more choice early on.

In the end, a Warrior, Confessor, Prisoner, Astrologer, etc. They don't play any differently from each other or have anything special about them at all.

The stats aren't ever higher/lower than the others either. A Samurai and Confessor can have the same amount of Dexterity or Vigor, for example.

Eh, a new player starting with a Wretch will get their ass kicked by damn near anything tho. It's going to be somewhat demoralizing, IMO they're way better off starting with something newbie friendly (Samurai, Confessor, Warrior, Vagabond IMO) so that they can get some decent stats and gear to start with.

Wretch is more a class for seasoned players who want to fine-tune their early build than for noobs (or be that guy on Youtube who beats Malenia at level 1). And even then your starting class is made entirely redundant the moment you finish Raya Lucaria.

[CostinR]

Yeah, I wish I'd known to do this when I tried the first Dark Souls, they just toss you in the deep end and don't teach you how classes work at all. I'll be figuring it out soon.

The best starting class for new players if Samurai: You get a great tool kit with a katana and a longbow, the shield is bad but you don't really need it and there's replacements available pretty quickly.

Check out some early game guides too, they'll help out a lot to get going.

Samurai also has a Uchigatana, and you can find another one to duel wield pretty early on: Duel Wielding Katanas is incredibly powerful.

[RobertoCarlos]

Eh, a new player starting with a Wretch will get their ass kicked by damn near anything tho. It's going to be somewhat demoralizing, IMO they're way better off starting with something newbie friendly (Samurai, Confessor, Warrior, Vagabond IMO) so that they can get some decent stats and gear to start with.

Wretch is more a class for seasoned players who want to fine-tune their early build than for noobs (or be that guy on Youtube who beats Malenia at level 1). And even then your starting class is made entirely redundant the moment you finish Raya Lucaria.

Yeah exactly.

For an experienced player it doesnt mean jack all because the way leveling works you'll level up your chosen stats easily enough regardless of class.

But someone new to the style will find a massive difference between starting with a samurai which starts with one of the best dex scaling weapons in the game or vegabond which actually has decent armor vs some classes which starting weapons suck.

And finding early upgrades is easy when you know the map and where you can find great weapons in chests. But playing it naturally with no idea it could realistically be 10+ hours before you find an upgrade.

And before people bring up merchants/people who sell weapons. One of the big differences between being experienced and looking back on my early days. It took me longer than it should have to realise souls/runes means fuck all. When you're fresh you think 1-5k souls/runes is a lot and you should save them for leveling which is what most experienced gamers would assume as being the end all, your character level. But in reality its your weapon level so nevermind buying a weapon that could trivialize the content and making farming easier. I could be level 20!!!!!1

[znowstorm]

100hrs in up to the end of the snowy mountains (fire giant). Great exploration and dungeons. Story and Bossing pretty lackluster up to this point. First main boss was great. Greater runes all being depleted also sucks. Hundred weapons you don't really have a reason to ever equip.

First 50hrs I thought this was the second coming. Since then I've been impressed with lots of little things but the big moments have all been misses.

[Bernardhargrave]

It's a nice game for me.

[Zenfoldor]

100hrs in up to the end of the snowy mountains (fire giant). Great exploration and dungeons. Story and Bossing pretty lackluster up to this point. First main boss was great. Greater runes all being depleted also sucks. Hundred weapons you don't really have a reason to ever equip.

First 50hrs I thought this was the second coming. Since then I've been impressed with lots of little things but the big moments have all been misses.

The weapons are actually great, because they allow you to play in different ways. Honestly, just because you want to stick to one or two, isn't a commentary on the game as much as it is your playstyle through the game.

Beat it once with the most OP weapon one can find and never play it again. If that was my mindset, I might think more than 1 weapon in the game was useless too. That mindset really negates the possibility of playing with different builds or just having a versatile setup for a single playthrough.

Reality is that I've tried a great deal of weapons, and settled on powerstancing +10 Wing of Astel and +25 Scavenger's Curved Sword, along with a Carian Shield when necessary and Lusat's +10 for spells. I don't get listing the very existence of multiple weapon options(which are basically varying builds in this game) as a negative about the game. This is an rpg really, a game like Sekiro can use 1 weapon, but the variety of playstyles granted by the weapons in Elden Ring is one of its greatest strengths/features as an rpg. It's been highly lauded because it allows for vastly different playstyles. There is even now a pacifist playthrough with no direct damage done by the player.

As far as the quality of the boss fights, I do tend to disagree. I particularly liked Fire Giant. I would imagine this varies greatly based on build, for example, fire giant is particularly hard for magic users due to his resistances, but a melee player might never realize this.

Last thing, you don't like greater runes being depleted. That is a mechanic from dark souls, embers in DS3, becoming enkindled. They are a buff that is ostensibly rare to collect which expires on death. The mechanic is slightly expanded in elden ring and untied from pvp(thankfully), but it's very similar in concept, a reliable buff for an ostensibly rare collectible.

You want the equipped great rune to stay active constantly? How would that work, just have the buff all the time, or should the game balance not change, and the great rune being active just be a "feel good" for the player? That would actually be a nerf, because if they rebalanced to assume it was always active, there would be no temporary buff then(and thus it would be similar to removing the runes entirely, unless they didn't re-balance and just made the whole game easier by giving one an always-on great rune).

I think I get it, but I don't want a nerf by removing the consumable requirement from great runes, but at the same time, I don't want the game to be easier by allowing an always-on great rune, without rebalancing to account for that extra power.

[Fencers]

Eh, a new player starting with a Wretch will get their ass kicked by damn near anything tho.

I don't think you are any better or tougher at level 9 as a Samurai with 12 vigor than a Wretch at level 1 with 10 vigor.

One can get their ass kicked at any level and with any stat loadout. Early levels zoom by as well. You need a pittance of runes to level early game.

Even at level 230 with heavy armor, 60 vigor and 50 strength I can get trashed by regular soldiers or birds if I play sloppy.

The nature of the game is such that defensive attributes have a very small incremental effect on your overall survivability. Positional play and effective item use overcome 20-30 levels worth of stats easily. I'm not pulling that number out of thin air either, I was about 20-25 stat levels below another character and taking the same total hits to die but doing 3x more damage.

That is precisely why people can beat the game at level one bare-fisted. That is only possible because the statistical advantage afforded by gear and levels is slight compared to good play.

Using good play to overcome challenges is a major aspect of the design as well. One might fairly say that is the entire purpose of how From designed the game.

I stand behind the Wretch as a good starter class. Flexible build options early game, and in line with the gameplay metaphors that are the reason for the game to exist as such.

- - - Updated - - -

Hundred weapons you don't really have a reason to ever equip.

Highly dependant in playstyle. As the gameplay is expressed, the weapon variety and scope is one the strongest game mechanics in any currently released game.

Have to go back to Vagrant Story or From's own games to get this kind of weapon viability and gameplay expression. Maybe Die by the Sword, Tarkov, Weapon Lord.

This is not easy gameplay expression to find comparable to Elden Ring.

"I don't have a use for this item." Is different from that item not having a design function. What you feel about it is your business, play as you enjoy.

Though that is a faulty statement if speaking about the game design or gameplay.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

So Mabye I’m just missing something but I’m 40 hours in and so far these feels like Mabye the worse souls game and I keep waiting for a spike in quality that doesn’t seem to be coming.

The open world feels like it was built to either be trivialized by the horse or just a huge pain in the ass on foot with no inbetween any where.

Invasions being funnelled into co-op players and with seemingly no match making turns plying with friends into a massive hassle as invaders are constant and every single one seems to be players with far to much health to kill and full heals as well as having one shoting weapons or magic.

Not being able to upgrade armour makes increasing defences a pain as finding better armour is rare and you seemingly have to just stack VIT which is less levels to put into using different weapons or spells.

Souls seem incredibly stingy and prices for every thing overly high.

Lore seems non existent even for a souls game with most item descriptions so far saying next to nothing and no NPC has had any thing to add other then a turtle in a pope hat.

There are huge stability issues with 1/2 of every summon ending in a connection error and crashes in some areas making them inaccessible.

While some additions like ashes of war are great and bosses are good like in every souls game they are seemingly heavily let down by poor design choices.

[omeomorfismo]

I hope they mess with the enemy health/damage/reward balance. It feels like for the first half of the game they did a good job, and then towards the end whoever gave a shit about that... stopped giving a shit about it. In a dungeon where you fight 2 Erdtree Burial Watchdogs, the final boss has like 1500 health. The Watchdogs have triple that. It feels like every dungeon boss has "why is it always weak foe?" messages plastered everywhere, and I agree with them.

The hardest enemies in this game (besides Malenia/Radagon/Beast) are overworld enemies that give like 4k runes when killed (i.e. absolutely never worth it). I feel like the game would have been even better if they had 3 devs take a quick pass on enemy health (particularly dungeon boss health, which is pathetically low in the endgame) and rewards from overworld enemies.

As it is, the "most correct" way to play is just sprinting from boss to boss, dodging enemies because fighting them is a waste of your time. That may have worked fine as a way to play previous games, but in a game focused on exploration, it's a huge clash with the game's design.

(I personally don't play like this, but most of my friends have adopted this philosophy, especially in later areas. Whenever I complain about a certain overworld enemy, their response is "lolol why are you fighting overworld enemies? are you bad?". That seems like a design problem.)

Edit: One other minor gripe with overworld enemies while I'm on the topic - it would be nice if there was an 'enemy defeated' for each enemy that doesn't respawn once killed in the overworld. Early on, that's the case, but later there are entire sections of enemies that never respawn. Maybe they thought it would get tedious happening over and over (and they're probably right), but it'd be nice to know that "hey, this wasn't a waste of my time because this section will be easier" by some way other than just attempting to respawn them.

? elden beast has like 22k hp
plus radagon with 13k...

[dlld]

Eh, a new player starting with a Wretch will get their ass kicked by damn near anything tho. It's going to be somewhat demoralizing, IMO they're way better off starting with something newbie friendly (Samurai, Confessor, Warrior, Vagabond IMO) so that they can get some decent stats and gear to start with.

Wretch is more a class for seasoned players who want to fine-tune their early build than for noobs (or be that guy on Youtube who beats Malenia at level 1). And even then your starting class is made entirely redundant the moment you finish Raya Lucaria.

I started as a wretch and it was my first souls game, the difficulty of it seems a bit exaggerated, i quickly got some soldier gear from the limgrave soldiers by just sneak and backstabbing them and the club isn't a terrible weapon.

[Wrecktangle]

Have to go back to Vagrant Story of From's own games to get this kind of weapon viability and gameplay expression. Maybe Die by the Sword, Tarkov, Weapon Lord.

What do you mean Vagrant story of From's own games? I do love me some weapon lord though, what a throwback.

I started as a wretch and it was my first souls game, the difficulty of it seems a bit exaggerated, i quickly got some soldier gear from the limgrave soldiers by just sneak and backstabbing them and the club isn't a terrible weapon.

If you don't farm that gear though or buy a set at the merchants, you don't really find a set of armor as a wretch for a decently long time, and while armor isn't the end all/be all, having an empty slot makes the damage calculations hurt a lot more.

I'm a souls vet; platinumed most of them, even beat Sekiro's final boss first attempt blind; but when I started as a Wretch (in this game, no issues in any of the others starting this way) I was struggling way more than I anticipated. I rerolled to a Confessor and practically steamrolled the game up until Godrick (went a little too soon). Even Margit went down in maybe 4 - 5 attempts at very low level.

[dlld]

What do you mean Vagrant story of From's own games? I do love me some weapon lord though, what a throwback.



If you don't farm that gear though or buy a set at the merchants, you don't really find a set of armor as a wretch for a decently long time, and while armor isn't the end all/be all, having an empty slot makes the damage calculations hurt a lot more.

I'm a souls vet; platinumed most of them, even beat Sekiro's final boss first attempt blind; but when I started as a Wretch (in this game, no issues in any of the others starting this way) I was struggling way more than I anticipated. I rerolled to a Confessor and practically steamrolled the game up until Godrick (went a little too soon). Even Margit went down in maybe 4 - 5 attempts at very low level.

I had difficulty with margit so I unequipped my gear for more iframes with a light dodge as I kept getting hit by the delayed attacks like a milisecond after my iframes ran out, killed him like that which convinced me to stick to lightweight dodge for almost the rest of the game which meant a good portion of it was spent with empty armor slots as I was using a rather heavy weapon the golden halberd, what eventually got me to put on some armor was to beef up the tankiness of my mimic so it could tank malenia for me for which I used the veteran set a buttload of grinded points into stamina and atleast two trinkets that boosted my weight cap to be able to medium roll.

[Fencers]

What do you mean Vagrant story of From's own games? I do love me some weapon lord though, what a throwback.

Games where weapon type and usage have complex interaction in the gameplay. Rather than direct or modal effects such as Mortal Shell or Jedi Fallen Order.

[infinitemeridian]

I just find most of the weapons pretty boring. You can only get the same exact straight sword, greatsword, spear, etc. so many times, even when it does have a cool weapon art behind it. Yes, some numbers change, maybe one slight tweak in the range / moveset, but it's nothing special.

They really should have kept the Bloodborne model. A much MUCH more limited selection of weapons, where every single one is unique and has more moves and combos. The Whirligig Saw is infinitely more interesting than anything in Elden Ring, even the Ghiza Wheel ripoff which is just a drastically inferior version. At the very least, it makes weapons more rewarding and they could add more types of rewards that are universal.

Not to mention that armor is pretty much worthless outside of cosmetics in this game - I know it's always been like that, but it would have been interesting to have armor upgrades like DS1 or set bonuses / passives on armor. Some of them have stat boosts, but that's pretty much it. Poise is worthless unless you're wearing the most heavy armor so that's not even a factor either.

[Wrecktangle]

Games where weapon type and usage have complex interaction in the gameplay. Rather than direct or modal effects such as Mortal Shell or Jedi Fallen Order.

Ah okay, gotcha. Makes sense then.

Not to mention that armor is pretty much worthless outside of cosmetics in this game - I know it's always been like that, but it would have been interesting to have armor upgrades like DS1 or set bonuses / passives on armor. Some of them have stat boosts, but that's pretty much it. Poise is worthless unless you're wearing the most heavy armor so that's not even a factor either.

I actually can't stand set bonuses in games like this. I already get annoyed that certain items buff certain builds/spells forcing me to choose for more optimal damage/utility or fashion. I want to look good while I play the game. Granted I choose fashion over function in these games so I wear what I want, but I'm definitely leaving damage on the table and it feels bad.

[Fencers]

I just find most of the weapons pretty boring. You can only get the same exact straight sword, greatsword, spear, etc. so many times, even when it does have a cool weapon art behind it. Yes, some numbers change, maybe one slight tweak in the range / moveset, but it's nothing special.

From a design POV, it doesn't have to be special. The weapons just need to have a different set of interactions and collisions. One distinctive interaction in each of 100 weapons is the same as one weapon having 100 distinctive interactions.

It's just a matter of how a game designer wants to build out the set of rules that govern the gameplay dynamic; this is what we mean by verticality in design. Such as Skeiro and Bloodborne, which are narrower in combat width but have a more vertical design.

Not to mention that armor is pretty much worthless outside of cosmetics in this game - I know it's always been like that, but it would have been interesting to have armor upgrades like DS1 or set bonuses / passives on armor. Some of them have stat boosts, but that's pretty much it. Poise is worthless unless you're wearing the most heavy armor so that's not even a factor either.

This isn't entirely true in terms of PVE resistances or overall PVP effectiveness.

Some PVE encounters & areas are easier based on armor resistance. In PVP it seems differences in damage type opposition (especially 100+ PVP) play more of a factor than in PVE. Especially the poise breaking. I haven't been able to work out the math yet for armor and resistance thresholds in PVP, but it seems there are breakpoints and damage mitigation layering that kick in after X % of damage type resistances.

Dueling with friends and family, I can see noticeably easier/harder poise breaking & damage application opportunities versus my husband in Black Raptor gear, brother-in-law wearing Carian Knight armor, or a friend wearing mage robes.

Again, I haven't worked out the math, but going from Banished Knight set to Fire Prelate set had a noticeable effect on how I dueled mechanically and the damage I could resist relative to other sets I was using like Lionel or Tree Sentinel. I am pretty certain this is consistent through the varying armor weights the damage throughput of using a Strike weapon vs. a Bull Goat and Snow Witch set are pretty notable compared to like a Blaidd set that you can pretty much rushdown vs. any damage type.

[dope_danny]

So people inspecting the models have noticed that any living, none undead model can have a malformed face matching the dead fiji mermaid state of the golden lineage sprouting from their backs, most commonly in the crabs.



It makes you wonder if the lineage isn't a royal bloodline but more a ironic chosen undead situation and the trees gone from picking a few over time to post shattering sprouting anything and everything like a virus trying to make replacements and they are all coming out wrong?

Maybe thats the reason a lot of life has become infertile and why some like the land octopi need to consume human blood to gestate their young?

[Zenfoldor]

Beat the Elden Beast last night. Such a great fight. Rhadragon before it(that music, lol) isn't bad, but serves to greatly reduce resources.

There is an exploit where you can clear Rhadragon with cheese and then fight the beast with full health. This was my chosen method. If anyone is having trouble or just doesn't like that they stacked two bosses back to back to end the game, until they patch it you can simply beat Rhadragon(just to see his fight), die, then restart fight skip cutscene, immediately run up to Rhadragon's right hand side just in front of him. If done right, he will take about 3 steps but won't finish his walking animation. If you don't move and hit him with magic(non-magic attacks break him free) without poise breaking him(just do it slowly), you can just cast until he's down.

Another way to play this game better on ps5 is to use save scum. Right before the fight with Rhadragon, make sure you have your dumplings for mimic(if that still works?), holy damage protection buffs, and some rune arcs. Just get all your consumables, even the rare weird ones, and save your game, upload your game to cloud storage(need ps+), then play. After 3-4 attempts, close game and redownload your save so you don't run out all of your consumables on one boss. That way you can have them everytime without farming!

You can also go into the back of your PS5 and tell it not to automatically download updates and not to sync game saves, so(I assume) even if they patch, your copy can stay offline until you beat that one. That was my plan until I finally beat it on like the 20th try.

If anyone ever says "You cheat" or "you save scummed" then just hand them the controller and tell them to show you how its done, and usually they know they suck so they won't even try to use your cheat or scum, they will just give up that argument. Most people couldn't beat this game using a game genie, much less cheesing stuff within the game's design. As much as the game has "cheated" me in granted a nice, organic way, I feel no shame over save scumming or cheesing Rhadragon to decouple the Elden Beast.

Some games you play. Some games you solve. I solved Elden Ring. Like the NASA room in Apollo 13, I solved it. 120 hours level 135, never grinded 1 level. 9999999999999999999/10 and I'm starting a new game now.

[Jastall]

I just find most of the weapons pretty boring. You can only get the same exact straight sword, greatsword, spear, etc. so many times, even when it does have a cool weapon art behind it. Yes, some numbers change, maybe one slight tweak in the range / moveset, but it's nothing special.

They really should have kept the Bloodborne model. A much MUCH more limited selection of weapons, where every single one is unique and has more moves and combos. The Whirligig Saw is infinitely more interesting than anything in Elden Ring, even the Ghiza Wheel ripoff which is just a drastically inferior version. At the very least, it makes weapons more rewarding and they could add more types of rewards that are universal.

Not to mention that armor is pretty much worthless outside of cosmetics in this game - I know it's always been like that, but it would have been interesting to have armor upgrades like DS1 or set bonuses / passives on armor. Some of them have stat boosts, but that's pretty much it. Poise is worthless unless you're wearing the most heavy armor so that's not even a factor either.

The scarcity of upgrade materials hardly helps. I wanna try new weapons but that means sinking loads of runes into buying the mats and upgrading, especially for non-unique weapons that I slap an Ash one. Getting a shiny new weapon doesn't mean much when it's unupgraded and testing it as it is feels pointless, my +18 claymore or +8 Moonveil and Carian Sword are just no fair comparison points.

And yeah, starting to get at the second half of the game and enemies often deal so much damage and stagger that it doesn't feel like armor is that worthwhile anyway. It's been a constant in the series since after DS1 where Poise was arguably too powerful, now it's virtually worthless outside of maybe PvP but I care about PvP in this game about as much as I care about it in WoW, meaning not one bit.

Still, the exploration remains so good that my annoyances with the game don't overly dent my fun. I'm still not finished with Leyndell (seriously this place is massive jeez) but I'm doing Ranni's questline which brings me to all sorts of exotic places to murder and pillage my way through. The underground and the capital really are my favorite places in this game... at least the underground that ain't the Lake of Rot. I suppose you'd have to physically restrain Miyazaki to stop him from putting a poison swamp in his game.

[RobertoCarlos]

Thats pretty unfair to say scarcity of resources and complain about the cost of them.

Which is it? Scarcity or are they expensive? Because the earlier upgrades are cheap its not till the final stones that the cost ramps up and if you're doing the tunnels they are quite generous with raw resources found in the game.

Bloodborne has like 3-4 final level stone upgrades with DLC. Elden ring has been very generous imo with weapon upgrade resources.