Elden Ring

[Tech614]

At first yeah everything was about "MOST OP BUILD EVAR!!!" spam and everyone linking videos to Sword of Night and Flame and Mimic Tear.

But now the dust has settled a bit and people are doing NG+ you realise there was A LOT of shit ignored/not fully sussed out yet.

Like sword of Milos, magma blade, bubble staff weapons. Theres a lot of strong builds/weapons people completely ignored and theres still a lot to discover

Mimic Tear hiding Tiche is still pretty hilarious since that gal is OP as hell. Admittedly I didn't even realize how dumb she was until fucking around with her on NG+. She makes pre nerf mimic look like a gimp little boy, 2 moves that hard knock down a lot of bosses, a huge DoT that reduces max HP and an ability that does 10% boss hp damage regardless of how much health they have. FP cost kind of irrelevant if you just use 0 fp cost flask, chick is broken AF and no one realized it because mimic was the hot topic.

Probably tons of OP builds not even widely discovered yet.

[Devilyaki]

The patch nerfed my tank build :/. Take stam loss now was nice while it lasted to just poke stuff to death.

[Fencers]

I'd rather 10 options that receive a fairly similar amount of care and balance, rather than 100 where 15 are OPAF, 20 feel balanced, and the rest is trash either to use or statistically.

10 or 100 are the same thing though. 2 out of 10 builds I like is the same as 2 out of 100 I don't like.

There is no way to know what options players might want to take that engage them. Fewer options are a slimmer margin for the players.

But immense variation in power between options that have similar accessibility and costs feels like less deliberate design and more like oversights to me

.
Or it could be exactly deliberate. We won't know unless they detailed their thought process per the supposed imbalance. We do know the developers said they wanted to provide differing entry points they thought were fun into the Elden Ring and this style of game.

It very well could be the developers wanted Rivers of Blood to be a very powerful tool with some investigation. Not every player will necessarily notice this either- I didn't think this was an "OP" weapon till recently. I thought it was trash, honestly.

I didn't know perfumes were so powerful either till recently. Also thought those were trash not worth bothering with at all.

Millions that play this game do not do so with the same perspective as each other. There was a video and thread on the ER forum recently where a guy talked about playing a "meta build" with dual katanas and his struggles vs. his girlfriend who had played through the whole game using just a long sword.

Not every player is going to pick up Rivers of Blood and put it all together. Not every player is going to understand how to power stance a staff to one-shot 99% of the bosses. Those things do have a barrier to entry of some kind and may very well be the developers (historically this is true so we have a good basis for the assumption here) intent that X or Y in combination is powerful if you manage to understand why as a player.

I didn't even know some of these things that are "OP" existed till weeks later myself! I was using a Halbread with the rush-down skill and I thought I was the most OP thing in the game. It hadn't even occurred to me that some things were "difficult"- I am just an average skilled player but I don't follow guides, builds, or any mechanics explanations. Do you know what shocked me recently? That stats have soft and hard caps. I was just pumping away into Strength and Vigor not even noticing.

To even have noticed this would require a player to read the rule book, so to speak, that exists out-of-game. That is a barrier.

As long as there is even a single instance the game supports SL1 naked man punching the Elden Beast to death and SL700 mage lasering that same monster from across the map- the game has ultimate width. I don't know how a developer would go about topping such a feat as it is literally existent that the least and maximum can achieve the same thing either through skill or happenstance.

To use that game again because I love it dammit, the choice between which gun and then mod to use in Doom Eternal is far more compelling than any I made in Elden Ring because they all feel useful.

That's what Doom Eternal is going for and succeeds spectacularly so. Just a different style of design. Though it is possible to go through much of DE with just the missile upgrade machine gun even on Nightmare- because I did it.

Using the Super Shotgun was so difficult for me at Nightmare difficulty, I never had time to hook and shoot the damn thing. I just needed to move and hope the bees found a flower. LOL

I've seen people play DE at a truly god-like level. So it is obvious there is a higher form of play possible but that game does still allow one within the width provided the option to succeed at even the most challenging content with basic armaments and no particularly god-like ability other than hardheadedness.

That is width. Doom Eternal does strive for it too. Because it is excellent game design- nearly flawless actually. I could write a book on that game.

[yasiru]

Everything having the same theoretical performance sounds boring to you? Sounds like a surefire way to encourage me to experiment and have fun with different builds while knowing I'm not artificially limiting myself due to something being weaksauce. Unless you want to argue that different looking attacks, different attack speeds, different damage numbers popping up on a bar don't actually make something FEEL different. Then we have nothing to talk about.

1 attack that does 100 damage but can only swing every 10 seconds feels vastly different than getting to attack once every second for 10 damage.

Yet there is probably not a single game in existence that has a weapon system like you describe, at least that I am aware of. What would be the point of exploring, leveling, and finding new equipment? By your logic the wretch's starting club should be just as powerful as say rivers of blood. Yes, that would be boring and would also lessen the thrill of finding new, better gear. Just think of what you are saying, everything being the same is boring? You bet it is.

[Zenfoldor]

Instead of continuing with Gigachad on ng+, I actually started a fresh new character last night. In NG+ I tend to feel overpowered right away, and my time with Melania has really made me "git gud" so I think starting over outside of the ng+ system is probably the most fun I'm going to have right now. I'm making a paladin this time.

One reason is I do want at least 1 character still on ng when the dlc releases.

[BeepBoo]

Yet there is probably not a single game in existence that has a weapon system like you describe, at least that I am aware of. What would be the point of exploring, leveling, and finding new equipment? By your logic the wretch's starting club should be just as powerful as say rivers of blood. Yes, that would be boring and would also lessen the thrill of finding new, better gear. Just think of what you are saying, everything being the same is boring? You bet it is.

Again, being the same in terms of performance doesn't actually mean things are the same. There's an entire plethora of other factors besides just raw numbers.

The excitement of finding new stuff is that it more closely meshes with what you're interested in playing. You already get progression in the game via just leveling shit up. Finding new stuff and getting to experiment with it is exciting enough for me in it's own right. It doesn't have to also outclass the stuff I'm using from a numbers standpoint.

GEAR based progression is fucking stupid in any game I play. I like character based progression where gear is just a facilitator to style/gameplay.

[Jastall]

10 or 100 are the same thing though. 2 out of 10 builds I like is the same as 2 out of 100 I don't like.

There is no way to know what options players might want to take that engage them. Fewer options are a slimmer margin for the players.

.
Or it could be exactly deliberate. We won't know unless they detailed their thought process per the supposed imbalance. We do know the developers said they wanted to provide differing entry points they thought were fun into the Elden Ring and this style of game.

It very well could be the developers wanted Rivers of Blood to be a very powerful tool with some investigation. Not every player will necessarily notice this either- I didn't think this was an "OP" weapon till recently. I thought it was trash, honestly.

I didn't know perfumes were so powerful either till recently. Also thought those were trash not worth bothering with at all.

Millions that play this game do not do so with the same perspective as each other. There was a video and thread on the ER forum recently where a guy talked about playing a "meta build" with dual katanas and his struggles vs. his girlfriend who had played through the whole game using just a long sword.

Not every player is going to pick up Rivers of Blood and put it all together. Not every player is going to understand how to power stance a staff to one-shot 99% of the bosses. Those things do have a barrier to entry of some kind and may very well be the developers (historically this is true so we have a good basis for the assumption here) intent that X or Y in combination is powerful if you manage to understand why as a player.

I didn't even know some of these things that are "OP" existed till weeks later myself! I was using a Halbread with the rush-down skill and I thought I was the most OP thing in the game. It hadn't even occurred to me that some things were "difficult"- I am just an average skilled player but I don't follow guides, builds, or any mechanics explanations. Do you know what shocked me recently? That stats have soft and hard caps. I was just pumping away into Strength and Vigor not even noticing.

To even have noticed this would require a player to read the rule book, so to speak, that exists out-of-game. That is a barrier.

As long as there is even a single instance the game supports SL1 naked man punching the Elden Beast to death and SL700 mage lasering that same monster from across the map- the game has ultimate width. I don't know how a developer would go about topping such a feat as it is literally existent that the least and maximum can achieve the same thing either through skill or happenstance.

That's what Doom Eternal is going for and succeeds spectacularly so. Just a different style of design. Though it is possible to go through much of DE with just the missile upgrade machine gun even on Nightmare- because I did it.

Using the Super Shotgun was so difficult for me at Nightmare difficulty, I never had time to hook and shoot the damn thing. I just needed to move and hope the bees found a flower. LOL

I've seen people play DE at a truly god-like level. So it is obvious there is a higher form of play possible but that game does still allow one within the width provided the option to succeed at even the most challenging content with basic armaments and no particularly god-like ability other than hardheadedness.

That is width. Doom Eternal does strive for it too. Because it is excellent game design- nearly flawless actually. I could write a book on that game.

It's an online world tho. You play without guides and such which is definitely commendable, but I daresay a majority do not and to some extent the game I feel IS designed around that- yes yes in theory you're supposed to just discover and piece the lore together and all that jazz, in practice hundreds of thousands if not millions of players look up Vaatividya for the lore and hit the wiki or other youtubers for OP builds or how to complete obtuse quests.

I personally I found out how OP Tiche was by mistake however. I leveled her up a bit and then went to fight Placidusax (Melania has defeated me for now). Holy smokes that chick is OPAF. She deals a considerable amount of damage, dodges most things and reduces enemy max health and on the big dragon boy that is a LOT of health. I oneshot him while barely even trying, she's incredibly strong. I'll not use her anymore, definitely feels like cheesing to do so.

[minteK917]

Except if you level the club... its still good lol? There is no weapon you start with that you cannot finish the game with.... The power of most special weapons comes from their weapon arts. Infact if you buff something like the club and give it one of the good weapon art, it can be better then most weapons youll pick up because you can enchant it. Most unique weapons cannot be enchanted.

[Gutler]

Had the weirdest Flame giant fight today got it to second phase and as soon as the cutscene ended the flame giant just died instantly.

[Fencers]

I daresay a majority do not

Not at all. At best, 50/50 I would guess based on the previous market research I have done for other games and media. Most consumers do not visit forums, guides, review sites, and the like. A relatively small percentage of consumers seek out additional information after the purchase of a game or similar media products. We have run the studies for years- most do not look up information online after purchase.

It wouldn't matter if the majority do look things up online, however. That is not anything a game can account for without explicitly having the means to do so within the gameplay expression. Games such as Simulacra and The Secret World have done so, but the majority of games made absolutely do not and have no way of expressing out-of-game elements within the gameplay.

I personally I found out how OP Tiche was by mistake however. I leveled her up a bit and then went to fight Placidusax (Melania has defeated me for now). Holy smokes that chick is OPAF.

I had no idea this summons was powerful until right now! Cool. I will try it out sometime.

You found this out through the gameplay. The reward for doing so is a very good summons apparently. I passed it up because I thought it was crap. I got no reward for figuring out what you just did.

She deals a considerable amount of damage, dodges most things and reduces enemy max health and on the big dragon boy that is a LOT of health.

Holy shit? Wow. This is blowing my mind. After Mimic Tear, I thought all the summons were just fodder.

[Verdugo]

Had the weirdest Flame giant fight today got it to second phase and as soon as the cutscene ended the flame giant just died instantly.

Best fire giant instakill glitch of all time. 20k bleed proc? Sounds normal
all you have to do is get him into phase 2 with a frostbite or bleed proc and it will do his entire healthbar instead. Works on all bosses with a cutscene transition I think? Its too precise to be worth it except maybe with swarm of flies. Will test more soon

[Jastall]

Not at all. At best, 50/50 I would guess based on the previous market research I have done for other games and media. Most consumers do not visit forums, guides, review sites, and the like. A relatively small percentage of consumers seek out additional information after the purchase of a game or similar media products. We have run the studies for years- most do not look up information online after purchase.

It wouldn't matter if the majority do look things up online, however. That is not anything a game can account for without explicitly having the means to do so within the gameplay expression. Games such as Simulacra and The Secret World have done so, but the majority of games made absolutely do not and have no way of expressing out-of-game elements within the gameplay.

I had no idea this summons was powerful until right now! Cool. I will try it out sometime.

You found this out through the gameplay. The reward for doing so is a very good summons apparently. I passed it up because I thought it was crap. I got no reward for figuring out what you just did.

Holy shit? Wow. This is blowing my mind. After Mimic Tear, I thought all the summons were just fodder.

Should have clarified, the majority that actually comes close to completing the game, rather than picking it up because it's what people are talking about and leaving halfway through or earlier. According to Steam 33% of players have beaten Godskin Duo, 22% Placidusax, and I haven't done it yet but game completion I think hovers around 26%. Still great stats considering how long/hard (snicker) the game is and that it's barely been out two months mind you. But perhaps you're right, it's kind of impossible to know how many looked up info for this particular game. Albeit I'm quite certain most people who found Placidusax looked him up, he's really out of the way, same for Fortissax.

And Mimic Tear is very powerful but hardly the only great summon. Tiche is the best I've tried but Banished Knight Oleg is also a tank and extremely aggressive. Omenkiller Rollo does a lot of damage as well and dies hard but has slow-ish attacks so Malenia dodged him a lot.

[xmirrors]

LobosJr did a summons only run. My favorite:

https://www.twitch.tv/lobosjr/clip/S...L9PWdkRTDwnDv9

[Fencers]

Should have clarified, the majority that actually comes close to completing the game, rather than picking it up because it's what people are talking about and leaving halfway through or earlier. According to Steam 33% of players have beaten Godskin Duo, 22% Placidusax, and I haven't done it yet but game completion I think hovers around 26%. Still great stats considering how long/hard (snicker) the game is and that it's barely been out two months mind you. But perhaps you're right, it's kind of impossible to know how many looked up info for this particular game. Albeit I'm quite certain most people who found Placidusax looked him up, he's really out of the way, same for Fortissax.

There are a lot of factors that can skew that perception. The PC platform, Steam users specifically, reporting of that %, and correlation of what those achievements would be in relation to how the players look up information.

You're also posting on a forum. Which is already a niche, but posting on a forum's subsection to another niche game. You are what we would call a 'vanguard consumer'. A very tiny fraction of users/consumers of the total market is likely engaging with other 1%-ers such as yourself. There is an inherent perception you/we are operating under in these threads and forums.

Most consumers don't watch game-related live streams or youtube videos. It's like 30% overall of the VG consumer market depending on how you want to divvy it up. Even fewer watch for specific games outside of the monoliths of Roblox/Call of Duty/Minecraft. They are more likely to watch video personalities such as Pewdiepie or Mr. Beast- who are like the only top 10 video game YTers in the world.

And Mimic Tear is very powerful but hardly the only great summon. Tiche is the best I've tried but Banished Knight Oleg is also a tank and extremely aggressive. Omenkiller Rollo does a lot of damage as well and dies hard but has slow-ish attacks so Malenia dodged him a lot.

Didn't even know any of this! Not sure I even found Rollo or never noticed if I have.

[Gutler]

Hmmm makes sense i was powerstancing bleed rapiers.

[Gref]

When you start NG+ you have all the locations on your map visible. It is actually making it difficult for me to navigate. I am like did I go that place already? Is there a way to disable it? I just want to start with a clean map again. If not I guess the only way is to put a green marker after each place you visit.

And I want to get all 7 endings but I just cannot stop following Ranni. I am afraid I will just have 7x Ranni endings.

[RobertoCarlos]

Mimic Tear hiding Tiche is still pretty hilarious since that gal is OP as hell. Admittedly I didn't even realize how dumb she was until fucking around with her on NG+. She makes pre nerf mimic look like a gimp little boy, 2 moves that hard knock down a lot of bosses, a huge DoT that reduces max HP and an ability that does 10% boss hp damage regardless of how much health they have. FP cost kind of irrelevant if you just use 0 fp cost flask, chick is broken AF and no one realized it because mimic was the hot topic.

Probably tons of OP builds not even widely discovered yet.

Yeah and Dungeater summon starting to get some love too because he one strong boi.

If the AI on Tiche wasnt so good at dodging and could also avoid grabs he'd give tiche a run for her money. Especially if running a bleed build

[Devilyaki]

Had the weirdest Flame giant fight today got it to second phase and as soon as the cutscene ended the flame giant just died instantly.

It’s a bug with the new update, if the boss has two phases and you go into the second with a dot on it, the boss will die..

[Zenfoldor]

I actually think Mimic is still by far the best summon. Mainly because it can be made to be very useful in every fight. It has a skill cap, and can be gamed. Tiche is just very strong with her gravity spell type mechanic and movement ability. But mimic can be gamed because of one reason alone. They program mimic ai(each instance) off the equipped weapon and it stays using that weapon and weapon art while intelligently changing tactics based off the equipped weapon(basically a npc phantom you can outfit yourself). You can create synergy, you can create a meatshield, you can create a dps, you can create a healer, you can create a behemouth with impossible health. You can create with mimic, and there are strategies there that are yet unplumbed. Tiche is the knights of the round here, but she isn't the meta imo. I started with her on Melania, but on my kill, I had a highly customized Mimic that helped me stunlock using power stance, so mimic is still better imo(even on ng).

Now, it isn't as good if you just throw it out. It requires a great deal of planning to be at its best. Tiche is generally much better than an unplanned mimic I find, and unplanned mimics have bad movement(all mimics have this, to an extent compared to tiche) and tend to die fast(ai with each weapon/shield may be incredible or basically guard npc terrible, and many combos are pretty mediocre), but once you learn to game it, there is a whole world there. Nothing in the game can't be beat with either one, but yes, mimic is old hat but very powerful when properly implemented. Playing around with mimic behavior has been one of the more satisfying things I've done in the game. I also just love the idea of customizing this advantage to the extreme, instead of tiche which is basically just a really good cooldown which you have only some control over.

I started over after Melania, no ng+ for now, but I am thinking of doing a black flame incantation build after all the buffs, or either pure str. Very excited over the latest patch. After starting over, I thought it was Ranni you meet at the first church, but it's actually Renna. I guess that is the only time you see her in the game?

Also, honestly, until this playthrough, I always through Melina and Melania were the same person, and it was just a really cool twist that she was your guide, but apparently they are completely different characters. That turns Melina into a much more tragic figure.

Finally, I saw that the big flower Melania incantation got a huge buff and has complete hyper armor during the cast now. That one might be good.

[RobertoCarlos]

I actually think Mimic is still by far the best summon. Mainly because it can be made to be very useful in every fight. It has a skill cap, and can be gamed. Tiche is just very strong with her gravity spell type mechanic and movement ability. But mimic can be gamed because of one reason alone. They program mimic ai(each instance) off the equipped weapon and it stays using that weapon and weapon art while intelligently changing tactics based off the equipped weapon(basically a npc phantom you can outfit yourself). You can create synergy, you can create a meatshield, you can create a dps, you can create a healer, you can create a behemouth with impossible health. You can create with mimic, and there are strategies there that are yet unplumbed. Tiche is the knights of the round here, but she isn't the meta imo. I started with her on Melania, but on my kill, I had a highly customized Mimic that helped me stunlock using power stance, so mimic is still better imo(even on ng).

Now, it isn't as good if you just throw it out. It requires a great deal of planning to be at its best. Tiche is generally much better than an unplanned mimic I find, and unplanned mimics have bad movement(all mimics have this, to an extent compared to tiche) and tend to die fast(ai with each weapon/shield may be incredible or basically guard npc terrible, and many combos are pretty mediocre), but once you learn to game it, there is a whole world there. Nothing in the game can't be beat with either one, but yes, mimic is old hat but very powerful when properly implemented. Playing around with mimic behavior has been one of the more satisfying things I've done in the game. I also just love the idea of customizing this advantage to the extreme, instead of tiche which is basically just a really good cooldown which you have only some control over.

I started over after Melania, no ng+ for now, but I am thinking of doing a black flame incantation build after all the buffs, or either pure str. Very excited over the latest patch. After starting over, I thought it was Ranni you meet at the first church, but it's actually Renna. I guess that is the only time you see her in the game?

Also, honestly, until this playthrough, I always through Melina and Melania were the same person, and it was just a really cool twist that she was your guide, but apparently they are completely different characters. That turns Melina into a much more tragic figure.

Finally, I saw that the big flower Melania incantation got a huge buff and has complete hyper armor during the cast now. That one might be good.

Ranni calls herself renna at the start because she's either confused or doesn't trust you yet. Renna was her former master who was a snow witch and ranni took on her likeness and even her name at times.

She has 4 arms at that time so it may be a radagon/Marika thing where they are one in the same but it's unclear fully. Because when you do the frenzy flame route and tell her who she is she calls you a detective and tells you to piss off so I'm leaning towards she was just bullshitting you as the new tarnished on the block with no clear agenda and she has a lot to hide by stealing a fragment of the rune of death