All things Elden Ring

[Craig H]

Not to brag, but it took me two tries to beat the Fire Giant I think. He wasn't that bad.

[Kevin Wilson]

58 minutes ago, Craig H said:

Not to brag, but it took me two tries to beat the Fire Giant I think. He wasn't that bad.

You are also probably super OP by now haha not to mention a master of your build, nothing should give you serious trouble going forward except maybe Maliketh and the final boss, just depending on your build. I had no issues with Maliketh, maybe died two or three times, but the final boss it took some practice.

[Craig H]

Oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!

 

[John E. Dynamite]

Alright. The game is done. Close enough to 100% to be happy with. Think I got all the bosses knocked out, save for maybe one or two I left in an unfinished catacomb.

The game is too big. I really think they could have cut an entire continent's worth of content and they would have been better for it. There were separate moments in Liurnia, Altus and especially the snow areas where it felt like I was stuck in a loop. Just no need for all that copy & pasting. And the obtuseness of the sidequests and certain mechanics are still dumb but that's a problem Fromsoft doesn't want to ever fix so at this point it is what it is. The open world was a blessing and a curse. Being able to put a marker on the map and return to an area when you were ready is the difficulty solution the series has always been looking for, especially given how subjective any given area's difficulty can be depending on your build. But stumbling across a really cool area you missed only to find you're melting everything it in because you're 40 levels too high always stunk. Still a beyond brilliant game, but a notch below Bloodborne in my book.

The endgame bosses were what I hoped they would be. Malenia was really fun, probably took me about two dozen tries. It was the only point in the game where I immediately realized I needed to re-spec (lord knows they give you enough Larval Tears). So I played the menu game and slowly started to figure out a buncha neat stuff, like how STR is a way better stat than DEX or how really really good the Brass Shield is, or how I'd been sleeping on the Comet and Gravity Well spells for the whole game (not that they helped with Malenia) or how abusable the infinite FP physik is. After having gone 80 hours basing my game around the Death's Poker ashes and sorcery I would up dropping proper weapons completely and beat the endgame bosses right-handing my Lusat's Scepter like a goof while hiding behind a Brass Shield with the very good Barricade Shield ashes. The run where I beat her was a trainwreck. Popped a crab but completely forgot to Rune Arc or anything else. Tische got wiped out Phase 1 and I completely botched my big Comet Azur Phase 2 opening purely out of unfamiliarity with its icon. But the stuff that worked continued to work, which was staying at medium range to keep her offensive AI indecisive, shielding through one part of Waterfowl before dodging towards her, and a nonstop barrage of fully-charged Spiral Shard with Godfrey's Icon buffing them. I probably only saw her second phase less than 10 times and I wish I could get back in there and fight her again and again.

Elden Beast was all about loading way up on Holy Damage negation through buffs, equip and the Erdtree Shield. I hadn't crafted a liver the entire game but those Holyproof Livers were crucial. Once again I didn't even bother with a proper weapon. Comet for Radagon, Spiral and Loretta's Mastery for the big stardog. Spacing, spacing, spacing. Learning when to shield. Rolling into the big sword projectiles. Fully charged everything. Eating crab, hon.

[A.M.B.]

Edit: I hate pasting from notes on this board, sorry for the weird text guys. 

Guess I’ll post this here since its kinda the catch all Souls thread at this point.

Currently playing Lies of P and am amazed at the lack of praise I’ve seen about it and how it didn’t manage to get any awards last year. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I’m actually liking it more than Elden Ring in ways. The big thing is the difficulty curve is much more well balanced because of the linearity. And it actually feels refreshing to have a linear game where when a boss comes I have to face up and beat it with skill. I was worried at the start it might be too linear, with really simple levels and a boss that you’re stuck on for hours and nothing else to do. But the more I play the more these criticisms go away when they give you bigger areas and some easier bosses in between the big skill checks. Maybe I’m just thrown off cause Bloodborne hits you in the face with the first level being basically the best designed one in the game and they don’t progressively get bigger or better. Here the levels get bigger and more complex little by little. With Elden Ring I was either underpowered or overpowered and it was also so hard to find the right balance of difficulty. And as I replay it more it’s just kinda hard to not go get all the upgrade material and become OP at the start. Lies of P brings me back to Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 that had the best bosses in the series, and a perfect distribution of upgrade materials where I never had to wonder if my weapon is the right level or if I need to explore more. I’m worried the Souls’ series will continue to focus on bigger worlds and faster enemies when more linearity and slowing things down could really benefit them. 

 

I just beat Elden Ring again to get ready for the DLC and I focused on soloing every boss. Spirit ashes really impacted the quality of the boss fights and I wanted to beat everything through skill, but even then there is just always some element of cheese I ended up using. The envoy long horn absolutely melted every large enemy in seconds which makes a lot of the bosses completely forgettable, but like, what else am I supposed to do? Not use a weapon that’s not even the most broken one in the game? Malenia should be this triumphant feeling of soloing the hardest Souls boss ever, instead I just felt like I got the RNG I needed. Just don’t use your one OP attack and let me get lucky enough for more than one of my Burn o Flame pillars to hit you, and it’s cake. It felt way more about luck than skill.

 

My opinions have really changed on Elden Ring when I’ve replayed DS3 and now Lies of P. I’m kinda worried the DLC will just be too much for me. I’m already a super high level so I’m worried exploration won’t be as fun since I’m not looking for material to develop a build, which is the best part of the game to me. Smithing stones are one of the main points of exploration to me and won’t be necessary here. And I honestly didn’t love most of the end game bosses and am worried we’re gonna get more of them, overtuned and way too fast. But we’ll see. FromSoft hasn’t let me down before.

 

Anyway Lies of P is so great. There’s a couple times I had to pinch myself and realize I wasn’t playing a game actually developed by FromSoft. Calling it a Souls-like will scare people off I think, because Souls likes usually suck and are completely missing the atmosphere of a proper Souls game. In that sense Lies of P isn’t a Souls-like, it’s just a Souls game. The story is great and they don’t insist on being cryptic with the major beats just because that’s what Miyazaki would do. The atmosphere and aesthetic of the world is so unique. Feels more Bioshock than Bloodborne to me. And ultimately the weapon and combat system is just fantastic. The mixing of handles and blades to fit your stats is awesome, and the combat feels like a perfect mix of weighty but not clunky. I’ve actually never been a parry guy, and I love that Souls games have builds that lend themselves to your play style so if you don’t have great reaction time like me, you can get by the games with never parrying. I couldn’t get into Sekiro because of the emphasis on parrying and how it all felt too chaotic for me, but in Lies of P, while parrying is basically necessary to really beat the hard bosses, I had enough other options to always keep me thinking and getting creative. I’m maybe 75% thru now, and maybe I’ll change my mind and say everything’s too overtuned when I get to raging at the end game bosses, but god damn is this game giving me that boss slaying high that only FromSoft has done before. 

 

My minor criticisms right now would be that build variety doesn’t feel too robust besides the 3 basic offense stats, and that the game could use just a few more split paths, like Bloodborne has 2 paths/bosses at a time you can choose from, there’s always just one way to go here. But yeah, I came to write a couple thoughts and it turned into an essay. Get this game. It’s fantastic and my 2023 GOTY (haven’t played Balders gate yet). Also apparently they’ve hinted the next game will take its lore from the Wizard of Oz which sounds like the coolest thing ever. Going to the Emerald City and Flying Monkey boss fights? Take my money now.I

Edited March 8 by A.M.B.

[Death From Above]

Honestly I think "Elden Ring might be too large" is a pretty legit critique. When I first played it I commented several times that you could put Dark Souls 1, 2, 3, and Bloodborne in their entirety inside it and still have room left over. On one hand, I am in awe it actually exists and I don't understand quite how they held my attention for all of that. But on the other as much as I think it's a masterpiece I find it much more difficult to think about replaying it casually than those other games just because of the sheer scale of the damn thing. Like, I've played DS 1-3 enough that I can rip those out really quickly, but Elden Ring? Not a chance by comparison so I've pretty much had it shelved for a while waiting for the DLC when I'll really dive back in for probably like another 100 hours.

[Craig H]

I'm afraid to even try Elden Ring again. Unlike Celeste, which is one of the hardest platformers I've ever played but also one of the best games I've played, I don't know if I would have the patience or skill to do it all over again in Elden Ring or play the DLC. If the DLC were released closer to when I was still playing it, then sure, but since then my muscle memory has switched over to so many other games.

And honestly, I'm ok leaving things as they were. I did it all, kinda brute forcing it half the time, I got the, uh, bad, uh, fire eyes ending, I killed Malenia, I thought the game was amazing, and yeah...It's almost like reading a really good book that was also really long. Happy to have had the journey, not really interested in reliving it. Well, unless the DLC is that huge where it's almost like a sequel.

I would definitely go back for an Elden Ring 2 though just because you'd be starting over fresh.