Elden Ring

[hellhamster]

Yeah the story is set up well for more DLC.

I'm personally interested in Miquella's story with Mohg. Why Mohg was feeding him blood and couldnt make a bond. Hes clearly not dead and is slumbering in that cocoon.

Plus the other gods/giants/mistbegotten where messing around long before the Elder beast/star fell bringing the greater will into the lands between

The DLC possibilities are literally endless. There is so much unexplored and untapped potential, lorewise. Fromsoft can expand on any of the Outer Gods and make it a worthwhile story to delve into. They can even go to the pre-Greater Will/Eternal Cities/Numen pre-calamity era before aliens went Armageddon on them. Or they can do something with the present tense, like how did Farum Azula come to be? It's supposed to work as a safe haven for Marika's shadow to hide Destined Death, but still it's pretty unexplained what all these dragons have got to do with it.

If they do something, I have 20 euros on the middle of the ocean where all the Divine Towers meet.

But because they can, it doesn't mean that they will. I'm still mega salty that they didn't do anything with Sekiro when they could have deep-dived into Genichiro and Tomoe. They were probably too busy with Elden Ring.

I wanna see how they develop Astel's gang of aliens personally. While I was reading the fextralife wiki, one player comment was pretty interesting. He mentions that the rememberances are tied to colors resembling Outer Gods. For example, anything resembling the Greater Will is golden, while the outer space/moon aliens have the same color as Rennala. There are even some like the Ancestral Spirits that have a color unique to them, implying they weren't tied to any Outer Gods, but were possibly the original gods of the Lands Between.

There's just so much, I think we haven't even scratched the surface yet.

[omeomorfismo]

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.

scarcity? i can literally make a +24 weapon in like what? 2 minutes? i could even respec and doing it in like 15 seconds with the last boss weapon with the giant aoe

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Just beat the infamous Malenia. My takeaway from it is that her signature move, Waterfowl Dance, DOES have a surefire way to avoid it - outrun the first two sets of slashes, roll towards her for the third, and roll away from her for the final slash.

HOWEVER, I feel like it's the kind of move that needs certain limitations for it not to feel unavoidable. For example, if she uses it when in close proximity, there's no feasible way for you to outrun the first two sets. You only get about three seconds of warning when she leaps up in the air, and that's not enough time to get the distance you need to properly avoid it.

Additionally, although I only saw it happen once, it's entirely possible for her to use Waterfowl Dance twice in a row, and potentially even more than that. This is also problematic, as by the time she finishes the first one, chances are she's already closed the distance between you and has now left you unable to avoid the second one.

If they ever patch her fight, they NEED to make it so that she only uses this attack when the player is at least a certain distance away from her, because otherwise, it simply can't be dealt with.

Additionally, since I used spirit summons, I noticed during the fight that she can literally sidestep projectile attacks that are coming from BEHIND HER that she's FACING AWAY from. That's honestly kind of BS

i dont know if is doable without bloodhound dash, but with it it isnt so difficult to learn no hit the waterflow dance, just timing the first 2 chained dash for the first flurry and then wait her sprint and dash for the other 2 flurries. the biggest problem at best is just that there isnt a consistent moment when she do it, so you cant properly learn the pattern....

[Fencers]

Fighting 3 tree spirits at the same time is some grade-A bullshit.

[BeepBoo]

I started a new character with the intent of going magic this time around... and are you fucking kidding me? This game is an entirely different experience with fucking OP assed magic. Margit? First try with basically no dodging and only FP potions. Godrick? Same shit. Open world clearing? Glintstone arc says every enemy or group of enemies is a joke.

What the fuck is wrong with fromsoft? Where is the balance?

[RobertoCarlos]

I started a new character with the intent of going magic this time around... and are you fucking kidding me? This game is an entirely different experience with fucking OP assed magic. Margit? First try with basically no dodging and only FP potions. Godrick? Same shit. Open world clearing? Glintstone arc says every enemy or group of enemies is a joke.

What the fuck is wrong with fromsoft? Where is the balance?

Wait till you get comet azur/ no fp cost wondrous physick

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Fighting 3 tree spirits at the same time is some grade-A bullshit.

The millicent quest where you fight a tree with higher than normal health in a scarlet rot lake was interesting

[omeomorfismo]

Fighting 3 tree spirits at the same time is some grade-A bullshit.

why are you fighting them? there is literally just a talisman and plenty of space and time to pull the 2° and 3° spirit that you can just run to pick up it

[Tech614]

What the fuck is wrong with fromsoft? Where is the balance?

Well Demon's Souls, Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2 all have magic abilities that straight up 1 shot any boss in those games so... Nothing new with magic being cheesy in their games mate, if anything it's no where near as OP as in their previous games even while still being crazy strong.

[hellhamster]

I started a new character with the intent of going magic this time around... and are you fucking kidding me? This game is an entirely different experience with fucking OP assed magic. Margit? First try with basically no dodging and only FP potions. Godrick? Same shit. Open world clearing? Glintstone arc says every enemy or group of enemies is a joke.

What the fuck is wrong with fromsoft? Where is the balance?

Magic was always OP in the Souls games. For example, you could blow the fuck out of any boss in DS2 with Climax in one or two hits.

[BeepBoo]

Well Demon's Souls, Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2 all have magic abilities that straight up 1 shot any boss in those games so... Nothing new with magic being cheesy in their games mate, if anything it's no where near as OP as in their previous games even while still being crazy strong.

I'm more talking about the relative power magic seems to have over melee. Even if it's not "as powerful" as the ultimate cheese builds in previous games, melee (specifically 2 handing chunky weapons) got WAY weaker, so magic feels incredibly ridiculous by comparison.

Magic was always OP in the Souls games. For example, you could blow the fuck out of any boss in DS2 with Climax in one or two hits.

Yes, but melee wasn't always utter dogshit. It is now, so the fact that magic still gets to be faceroll while melee seems to be hardmode is kinda infuriating to someone like me who typically hates magic.

[Tech614]

I'm more talking about the relative power magic seems to have over melee. Even if it's not "as powerful" as the ultimate cheese builds in previous games, melee (specifically 2 handing chunky weapons) got WAY weaker, so magic feels incredibly ridiculous by comparison.

It's the same as it's always been. There are powerful melee builds and powerful magic builds. The magic builds are just easier to play and more mindless, again like it's always been. Magic also has an easier start just like it does in every Souls game except Dark Souls 3 that has early game magic issues. There wasn't some big change in design philosophy here it plays like all 4 Souls games did and is just the evolution off of that.

[Fencers]

why are you fighting them? there is literally just a talisman and plenty of space and time to pull the 2° and 3° spirit that you can just run to pick up it

For fun. Also, I want to fight and get everything for the sake of it.

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The millicent quest where you fight a tree with higher than normal health in a scarlet rot lake was interesting

What? I did not encounter this. Wow.

[BeepBoo]

It's the same as it's always been. There are powerful melee builds and powerful magic builds.

Again, the discrepancy between "powerful" melee builds and "just fine" melee builds in the past wasn't as big as it is now. Now it seems like there's only a few strong melee builds that all revolve around some cheese or status effects like bleed/frost. Normal large whack and roll builds are utter trash tier, whereas before they were the status quo experience.

plays like all 4 Souls games did

It absolutely doesn't. I've harped on this before, so I won't go through the whole rant, but from boss design, to boss attack tracking, to input delay (which people now speculate is related to input scanning to alter enemy behavior), to dodge being on key up, to big weapon animations being slowed way down and also not being properly rewarding on the damage front for how risky they are... especially versus other cheesy things like bleed or frost... normal melee builds are just pathetic and only get more pathetic the bigger and clunkier your weapon.

I never had any issue being a 2h colossal sword user before, and my first play-through was hell, to the point where I gave up and started using fucking stupid mimic tear and/or sleazy co-op.

[Tech614]

Again, the discrepancy between "powerful" melee builds and "just fine" melee builds in the past wasn't as big as it is now.

It absolutely was. You're just choosing to try to assume it wasn't. My man talking about balance issues being new in a From Software game do you even know what pre nerf butterfly shield did in Dark Souls 1? LOL.

Your whole post comes off as a salt mine because you don't remember game mechanics from years ago but if you really think Elden Ring is some far away design philosophy from Souls then I question if you even played them. Or you just like the sound of your own hyperbole so much you can't help but keep spamming it.

[RobertoCarlos]

For fun. Also, I want to fight and get everything for the sake of it.

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What? I did not encounter this. Wow.

Yeah if you do her quest up to the prayer room site of grace in haligtree she stays in that room till you clear the tree mini boss just before the drainage site of grace she'll move there and you can fight with her against her sisters or you can fight her with her sisters and you get the stronger chain attack talisman and the stronger incantation talisman for letting gowry know and killing him

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It absolutely was. You're just choosing to try to assume it wasn't. My man talking about balance issues being new in a From Software game do you even know what pre nerf butterfly shield did in Dark Souls 1? LOL.

Your whole post comes off as a salt mine because you don't remember game mechanics from years ago but if you really think Elden Ring is some far away design philosophy from Souls then I question if you even played them. Or you just like the sound of your own hyperbole so much you can't help but keep spamming it.

Melee isn't as strong because bosses have less downtime between attacks post bloodborne/sekiro. So you never really get time to chain attack with a big weapon. The ranged aspect of magic is stronger than ever because of this and you can even combine that with torrent

[BeepBoo]

It absolutely was. You're just choosing to try to assume it wasn't. My man talking about balance issues being new in a From Software game do you even know what pre nerf butterfly shield did in Dark Souls 1? LOL.

Your whole post comes off as a salt mine because you don't remember game mechanics from years ago but if you really think Elden Ring is some far away design philosophy from Souls then I question if you even played them. Or you just like the sound of your own hyperbole so much you can't help but keep spamming it.

Stop attempting to invalidate my experiences in all these games like I don't know wtf I'm talking about. I do.

Point blank, in past games, I could go pure strength builds and be just fine in terms of effectiveness and have little to no issues on bosses. Again, even if something cheesy made it EASIER or one shot stuff, that's besides the point. I could STILL manage to kill any and every boss in the game with my glass cannon strength builds within a few attempts. I can no longer do that, and I know the reasons why.

So... what is your point exactly? That I should have to change my build style and desires to evolve with the game? Fuck that noise.

If I could do it in EVERY PAST GAME, it should be viable and not a complete pain in the ass in this one. As it stands, playing that way and that style in this game makes it artificially harder for... absolutely no rhyme or reason.

[Tech614]

Melee isn't as strong because bosses have less downtime between attacks post bloodborne/sekiro. So you never really get time to chain attack with a big weapon. The ranged aspect of magic is stronger than ever because of this and you can even combine that with torrent

If anything outside of a few outliers, Elden Ring has way less aggro bosses in DS3/Bloodborne so not really. Elden Ring makes heavy use of delay animations on attacks like Sekiro or Orphan of Kos did, that's not really aggressive bosses though and there are still plenty of windows to attack almost anything and a ton of attacks that can simply be avoided just by jumping leading directly into a jumping attack. Maliketh is the only thing close to a typical bloodborne boss in Elden Ring if I'm being completely honest.

Again magic is more mindless but this has always been the case. Playing from range will naturally always be easier then having to learn punish windows in melee. This is true in every single Dark Souls game and Demon's Souls. This didn't magically(pun intended) become a thing with Elden Ring and someone spouting hyperbole that it did tells me they either never tried magic in those games, never played those games or have a bad memory.

[Jastall]

Again, the discrepancy between "powerful" melee builds and "just fine" melee builds in the past wasn't as big as it is now. Now it seems like there's only a few strong melee builds that all revolve around some cheese or status effects like bleed/frost. Normal large whack and roll builds are utter trash tier, whereas before they were the status quo experience.


It absolutely doesn't. I've harped on this before, so I won't go through the whole rant, but from boss design, to boss attack tracking, to input delay (which people now speculate is related to input scanning to alter enemy behavior), to dodge being on key up, to big weapon animations being slowed way down and also not being properly rewarding on the damage front for how risky they are... especially versus other cheesy things like bleed or frost... normal melee builds are just pathetic and only get more pathetic the bigger and clunkier your weapon.

I never had any issue being a 2h colossal sword user before, and my first play-through was hell, to the point where I gave up and started using fucking stupid mimic tear and/or sleazy co-op.

The enemies, and bosses in particular, really do seem designed with countering melee in mind, at least most of them are. Most hardly even react to the player using magic, some will dodge spells like Pebble but they're nowhere as reactive as they are when the player is in melee with them where they're use their full arsenal of moves.

I've heard nightmares of fighting Ulcerated Tree Spirit in close quarters. I got to the one in the Mountaintop of the Giants catacomb. ezgame oneshot by just staying at range and bombarding it, and I'm not even using the patented OP shit like 0 FP cost physic+laser beam. But being in melee with this guy looks like an exercise in complete frustration and camera nightmares. Thanks but no thanks, I'll fight big mobs the hard way when From learns to implement a less shit camera.

Same for Morgott. He's a well designed boss with highly varied attacks and timers, going from slow to fast in an instant. A fairly hard learning experience for melee... or stay at range and all he'll do is throw super telegraphed spears and sometimes close in half-heartedly.

Again, it's not necessarily the balance that I'm throwing into question. Some builds being more powerful than others in an RPG is hardly breaking news. But the combat AI and design seems laser focused on dunking melee players with a variety of fuck-yous like double Crucibles, while ranged attacks are hardly punished at all except by the fastest enemies. With bows sucking completely and utterly (why even have them in the game if you're so determined on making them useless in most situations, From?) that means magic is the default easy mode, but it doesn't feel that satisfying which is why I went more battlemage type even if it's clearly a lot less efficient. But at least it means that when I'm done fighting the controls and camera, I can switch to safer casting.

[korijenkins]

Started running into the tedious duo boss fights. Duo gargoyles weren't so bad since the second one isn't active at first but the poison and heavy attack spam was still annoying. Duo Tree Sentinel was a nice bit of jousting I suppose, although they make the Draconic one that comes later look easy.

Duo Crucible Knights, tho? Man, fuck that fight. I ended up killing them by running around like a coward for 5 minutes easily, firing a few glintstone pebbles at them and then running ad nauseum. One was left and I could finally enjoy the fight, except I played super defensively since dying meant wasting 5+ more minutes poking the spear one to death again, and deciding to come back later meant running the basilisk+chariot oneshot gauntlet again and screw that.

Armor looks cool at least. But what an unfun, tedious fight. Seems it's the classic From Soft approach of "this enemy if fun to fight as a duel and clearly designed as such. But what if there were two??" Answer is, it's harder but higher difficulty does not equal higher quality.

A major issue with this game and a reason I view anyone giving it a straight up 10/10 as a total hack is the range in quality of the boss fights. Some are comically easy to the point of not being fun. Others are "hard" in that they cram in so much bullshit with windows to attack/pot that are miniscule and sometimes don't even happen, and a few really well-designed ones.

The boss fights are basically either easy jokes, stupid mechanics being spammed to prevent you from doing anything, duo fights that shouldn't exist because they end up becoming spamfests by the bosses, or well-designed fights. I enjoyed Astel, Elden Beast, Godrick, Malenia (to an extent). Absolutely hated every duo fight and and Maliketh.

A major issue with the fights as well is how easy they immediately become as soon as you give the dumb AI something else to focus on. Summon 5 shield skeletons, fight instantly over because you can just nuke without repercussion. It's a sign of a poor fight design imo.

[omeomorfismo]

I'm more talking about the relative power magic seems to have over melee. Even if it's not "as powerful" as the ultimate cheese builds in previous games, melee (specifically 2 handing chunky weapons) got WAY weaker, so magic feels incredibly ridiculous by comparison.


Yes, but melee wasn't always utter dogshit. It is now, so the fact that magic still gets to be faceroll while melee seems to be hardmode is kinda infuriating to someone like me who typically hates magic.

thats not something balanceable, ranged would be always superior, thats not something that could ever change...

[RobertoCarlos]

If anything outside of a few outliers, Elden Ring has way less aggro bosses in DS3/Bloodborne so not really. Elden Ring makes heavy use of delay animations on attacks like Sekiro or Orphan of Kos did, that's not really aggressive bosses though and there are still plenty of windows to attack almost anything and a ton of attacks that can simply be avoided just by jumping leading directly into a jumping attack. Maliketh is the only thing close to a typical bloodborne boss in Elden Ring if I'm being completely honest.

Again magic is more mindless but this has always been the case. Playing from range will naturally always be easier then having to learn punish windows in melee. This is true in every single Dark Souls game and Demon's Souls. This didn't magically(pun intended) become a thing with Elden Ring and someone spouting hyperbole that it did tells me they either never tried magic in those games, never played those games or have a bad memory.

You look at the cheese melee builds and 90% of them are weapon art/Ashes of war spam to stagger. It does feel like 100% melee isn't as viable as in the past and you need to work in some ranged or a summon into the build by design