Elden Ring - From Software + George RR Martin

Tananthalas · Mar 10, 2022

I haven't played a game I enjoy this much since Everquest or Gothic or Morrowind or BG2. This a revival of the best parts of old school mentality wrapped in a modern wrapper and it is everything I ever wanted. 90 hours in I have beaten Godrick the Grafted in the storyline. That's it. Just running around like an asshole having an absolute blast.

ronne · Mar 10, 2022

Curious what outcomes the rest of you have gotten for NPCs? I feel like I did some of it right, but most of it is just kinda left hanging:

Spirit tuning chick has some weird extra dialogue I assume about dung eater? But I murdered him dead and nothing changed. Now her and the blacksmith seem to be just resigned their fates to burn to death in the round table, despite her trying to convince him to leave?

Fia I didn't kill after she tries to merc you with all her ghosts, instead I got a mega hug? Eventually I stumbled upon the cursemark thing she was looking for and gave it to her, which let me fight a lich dragon i've never heard of? Then she went to bed with Gowdyns corpse and just lays there now forever I guess?

I assume D's brother is the naked guy that it prompts to give his armor to but I never did cause I like that armor, so he's still just sitting down there underground.

The preacher dude from the round table is on some kind of weird holy journey with a naked dude that stands and points at things lol. I really couldn't give a shit about him though so I haven't been paying much attention when I run in to him.

Ranni I think I did all the way through? The dickbag sorcerer dude just wound up dead randomly though, not really sure why, and Blaidd went crazy by the end and attacked me though I'm not sure if you can prevent that? But I got the key to that locked chest in the academy from her and put the magic ring on her body so I think she's officially my waifu now. The magic greatsword she gave me is pretty sick too.

Millicent definitely ended but I'm not sure if I did it right? She travels around a lot and talks to you and eventually you find her a golden fake arm in some castle so she can fight again, then there's a summon sign at the battle site of one of those stupid shitty eldtree serpents and you can either invade her or go help her kill 4 invaders (sisters?). After we killed them all though she just decided to....die? And pulled out the needle that was keeping the mega aids from killing her and died on the spot. I got to trade the needle with the giant flower that Melenia turns in to but I've no idea what the item it gave me is for, something with the frenzied flame which is I assume just the same old chaos ending souls games always have?

Nepheli seems to just dead end so I must have missed something. She just sits in the basement forever whining that Gideon was mean to her. Way later on it prompted me to give her some hawk ashes I had picked up someplace and that changed her dialogue, but she's been stuck there ever since.

Same for that noble Kennith dude that wanted me to retake a fort. I did, and now he jsut sits on top of it wondering who he can find to rule it?

The crippled albinauric girl, Lenna or whatever? I found her really, really big sister eventually in the snowfields and was able to summon her shade in front it and she like resurrected her giant ass sister and was pretty happy? Most importantly she gave me one of the +10 dragon smithing shards.

Alexender went out like a true chad and challenged me to a duel in the floating sky ruins near the end of the game. He dropped a key item though that I can't seem to find anything to do with? Nothing in jarburg reacts to me having it, and the colossal jar god doesn't say anything either so dunno what to do with it. He gives a baller talisman though that adds attack power to weapon arts.

Bruuce · Mar 10, 2022

I did one full playthrough and prob like halfway through my 2nd and have no idea what 90% of what or who you're talking about lol

Punko · Mar 10, 2022

Yaamean said:
Agreed, it took me like 75+ tries if I were to guess, and I'm at 32 vigor, can't imagine trying him with any lower as pretty much everything will kill you in 1-2 hits.

The run up to him started getting old as well, wish you could just have a checkpoint once you make it to his melee stage.

I killed him with 14 vigor, 5 of which from great rune being active.

With enough DPS the fight is pretty short, and I managed to keep him on the summons most of the time.

Guessing not having to enter melee range helps a lot.

Punko · Mar 10, 2022

ronne said:
1) Fia I didn't kill after she tries to merc you with all her ghosts, instead I got a mega hug? Eventually I stumbled upon the cursemark thing she was looking for and gave it to her, which let me fight a lich dragon i've never heard of? Then she went to bed with Gowdyns corpse and just lays there now forever I guess?

2) Ranni I think I did all the way through? The dickbag sorcerer dude just wound up dead randomly though, not really sure why, and Blaidd went crazy by the end and attacked me though I'm not sure if you can prevent that? But I got the key to that locked chest in the academy from her and put the magic ring on her body so I think she's officially my waifu now. The magic greatsword she gave me is pretty sick too.

3) Nepheli seems to just dead end so I must have missed something. She just sits in the basement forever whining that Gideon was mean to her. Way later on it prompted me to give her some hawk ashes I had picked up someplace and that changed her dialogue, but she's been stuck there ever since.
[/spoiler]

1) she dies, i got the message you can now summon her for the final fight

2) the sorcerer is a fucked up dude, Blaidd is actually a traitor who killed the sorcerer in my game. If you check the lore from his helmet it mentions him being an assassin planted to kill Ranni. One of the other NPC sidequests has you infiltrate Ranni's crew, which seems to be the option that lets you actually ally with Blaidd

3) I lost her, her father told me I should summon her whenever, also have 1-2 quests for which I need her, but it is what it is

jooka · Mar 10, 2022

I haven’t finished a first run yet and just saw someone has done a 2 hour zero death run already.

Bruuce · Mar 10, 2022

jooka said:
I haven’t finished a first run yet and just saw someone has done a 2 hour zero death run already.

Miss the 59min speedrun posted earlier?

jooka · Mar 10, 2022

Was that zero deaths tho?

Punko · Mar 10, 2022

Break said:
Respecced from Str/Faith to Int for Comet Azur today and it's everything they said it was. I just 1 shot Loretta, didn't even realize it was her until she was in her death animation, viva la ray of death.

I went from being very careful before taking a fog door to diving straight into that shit.

Super Saiyan for the win. My build isn't even finished, I want to squeeze every bit of OP out of that shit.

Punko · Mar 10, 2022

ronne said:
Anyone had good luck with coop summons for bosses anywhere in particular at endgame? I'm running pretty low on arcs and would prefer to just grind bosses as a sunbro than farm rats or whatever.

At no point ever did I get a coop summon which was worth the increase in boss' hp.

ronne · Mar 10, 2022

Punko said:
At no point ever did I get a coop summon which was worth the increase in boss' hp.

Heh the people that usually summon me are in desperate need of help more often than not. Probably like 75% of the time I end up basically soloing bosses while they run around casting glinstone pebbles and other useless shit.

ronne · Mar 10, 2022

Punko said:
1) she dies, i got the message you can now summon her for the final fight

2) the sorcerer is a fucked up dude, Blaidd is actually a traitor who killed the sorcerer in my game. If you check the lore from his helmet it mentions him being an assassin planted to kill Ranni. One of the other NPC sidequests has you infiltrate Ranni's crew, which seems to be the option that lets you actually ally with Blaidd

3) I lost her, her father told me I should summon her whenever, also have 1-2 quests for which I need her, but it is what it is

Yea Rogier sent me to Ranni initially, and you meet up with Blaidd in a couple places, then he joins you for the Radahn fight. I don't think her was a traitor in mine, it sounded like he went insane because the fingers created him to be Ranni's guardian, but also he was a creation of the fingers so when she decided to fight the natural order or whatever he was compelled by the fingers to try and murder her

Chris · Mar 10, 2022

Tananthalas said:
This a revival of the best parts of old school mentality wrapped in a modern wrapper and it is everything I ever wanted.

Yeah I think it's that if you are going to have people ressurect with minimal penalty, you need to crank up the difficulty.

Old school games would have you do long dungeons or even rerun the entire game before throwing some bullshit at you to kill you.

Modern games have you res just before where you died and are also retard easy.

This seems like the perfect mix.

Phazael · Mar 10, 2022

So I took time off since the wife is out of town to play this more. 16 hours later, I got Godrick down and am back cleaning stuff I missed or skipped before that point. I have not pulled an all nighter for a game in years. This may be the best action game I have ever played. Couple nitpicks I have at this point:

1) Relentless Agro Bosses with infinite Poise- One or two Dancer types is fine, but this game is just wall to wall with hyperagro boss enemies that require twitch, luck, and grinding mostly due to the camera making you guess. I hope the rest of the game has more methodical boss fights

2) Related, but does every fucking enemy including mindless undead and rats have to feint constantly and move cancel? The mid jump target changes Godrick was making (when I largely could not see him due to camera) were worse than anything in DS3. It just feels too much like Bloodblorne, with all the twitch demand and constant change ups from even trash mobs. I am not asking for Demons Souls monsters, but ffs can we not have ever fucking mob be a hyper agro fake out spas on crack cocaine?

3) They turned the rot swamp dials up to 11 in this one. No one likes that shit. Its tedious, frustrating, and annoying. It makes people skip the zones instead of get into the environment.

Those gripes aside, its clearly the best FROM game made.

Tuco · Mar 10, 2022

cyrusreij · Mar 10, 2022

ronne said:
Curious what outcomes the rest of you have gotten for NPCs? I feel like I did some of it right, but most of it is just kinda left hanging:

Spirit tuning chick has some weird extra dialogue I assume about dung eater? But I murdered him dead and nothing changed. Now her and the blacksmith seem to be just resigned their fates to burn to death in the round table, despite her trying to convince him to leave?

Fia I didn't kill after she tries to merc you with all her ghosts, instead I got a mega hug? Eventually I stumbled upon the cursemark thing she was looking for and gave it to her, which let me fight a lich dragon i've never heard of? Then she went to bed with Gowdyns corpse and just lays there now forever I guess?

I assume D's brother is the naked guy that it prompts to give his armor to but I never did cause I like that armor, so he's still just sitting down there underground.

The preacher dude from the round table is on some kind of weird holy journey with a naked dude that stands and points at things lol. I really couldn't give a shit about him though so I haven't been paying much attention when I run in to him.

Ranni I think I did all the way through? The dickbag sorcerer dude just wound up dead randomly though, not really sure why, and Blaidd went crazy by the end and attacked me though I'm not sure if you can prevent that? But I got the key to that locked chest in the academy from her and put the magic ring on her body so I think she's officially my waifu now. The magic greatsword she gave me is pretty sick too.

Millicent definitely ended but I'm not sure if I did it right? She travels around a lot and talks to you and eventually you find her a golden fake arm in some castle so she can fight again, then there's a summon sign at the battle site of one of those stupid shitty eldtree serpents and you can either invade her or go help her kill 4 invaders (sisters?). After we killed them all though she just decided to....die? And pulled out the needle that was keeping the mega aids from killing her and died on the spot. I got to trade the needle with the giant flower that Melenia turns in to but I've no idea what the item it gave me is for, something with the frenzied flame which is I assume just the same old chaos ending souls games always have?

Nepheli seems to just dead end so I must have missed something. She just sits in the basement forever whining that Gideon was mean to her. Way later on it prompted me to give her some hawk ashes I had picked up someplace and that changed her dialogue, but she's been stuck there ever since.

Same for that noble Kennith dude that wanted me to retake a fort. I did, and now he jsut sits on top of it wondering who he can find to rule it?

The crippled albinauric girl, Lenna or whatever? I found her really, really big sister eventually in the snowfields and was able to summon her shade in front it and she like resurrected her giant ass sister and was pretty happy? Most importantly she gave me one of the +10 dragon smithing shards.

Alexender went out like a true chad and challenged me to a duel in the floating sky ruins near the end of the game. He dropped a key item though that I can't seem to find anything to do with? Nothing in jarburg reacts to me having it, and the colossal jar god doesn't say anything either so dunno what to do with it. He gives a baller talisman though that adds attack power to weapon arts.

Fia dies to produce that Rune. If you give the armor to D's brother, he dons it and avenges his brother by descrating her corpse. If you don't do the invasion, he kills her instead. Either way, she dead.

Preacher guy and Goldmask lead to a big lore reveal and an alternate "good" ending.

Ranni went as planned. Poor Blaidd was forced to turn on her, and ganks that asshole Seluvis. Iji winds up getting killed by some of the remaining Black Knife Assassins that Ranni used to kill Godwyn. So all of her followers are now dead.

I have no idea what is supposed to happen to Nepheli if you don't turn her into a doll. She just kind of mopes about from everything I have read.

Millicent's questline gives you the needle back, which you can use to cancel the Frenzy Flame Chaos Ending if you don't want to go through with it. Although if you do all of Hyetta's questline (blind girl), and do Castle Mourne, Hyetta will actually replace Melina if you go the Frenzy Flame route, as Melina abandons you.

Rajaah · Mar 10, 2022

Not Elden Ring but yeah damn son

I think I finally get why people like PVP in From games so much, you can do pretty much anything with it.

Rajaah · Mar 10, 2022

Tuco said:
I'll have to try that out.

OP summons are kind of acceptable to me in ER, more so than spells/items, because when I contemplate doing a "hard mode" playthrough of ER, not using summons is probably first on everybody's list. So this summon being available, and accessible somewhat early on, is kind of a nice secret to help carry players who don't live for anger and frustration.

I like when summons give a needed assist during a fight (like the poison jellyfish distracting mobs, or the +7 mimic adding a lot of DPS). I will say that the +10 mimic is a bit too powerful and I feel like it's gimped a few fights. Was at +7 for ages and just got +10 in the endgame and yeah, it's better than summoning another player a lot of the time.

Haven't tried the BKT yet but if it's even more OP, it could trivialize NG+ even. I'll probably put some levels on it just in case there's a boss I can't be arsed with and want to see melt (like Radahn).

Khalan said:
So stopped at the final boss to go back and complete all the side quests I missed.

I've sunk abotu 85 hours into it so I do LIKE the game, its fun and a great souls game but I feel like improvements to some basic shit would go a long way.

That was my experience, stopped at the final boss (or what I thought was the final boss, was actually 3rd to last fight) and went back exploring the world and murdering bosses/dungeons I was supposed to find ages ago.

Most of the stuff I missed was in Limgrave, weirdly enough. I guess I wasn't thorough early on.

It could use some basic QOL improvements for sure and has some annoying stuff like ground messages getting priority, but overall I do think this is the best game of the 2020's so far.

Rajaah · Mar 10, 2022

Hateyou said:
I’ve actually enjoyed that aspect of it. I’ve been texting a couple friends about things while we play and it’s fucking wild how different the game has been compared to each other. This shit is so open and so big all three of us went completely different directions and fought different shit. Eventually, yeah we will all have done everything but it’s been fun telling each other shit we’ve ran into that the others haven’t even seen.

This game is like the ultimate evolution of Zelda 1 and Dragon Warrior 1. Morrowind and Fallout 3 were big steps along the way, Elden Ring is the final form (maybe).

Those two NES games had like zero structure, and it was amazing for a kid with an imagination. You were only limited by whether or not you could handle the enemies in a given area since you could go anywhere from the start. Different players would have different experiences.

Unfortunately the sequels to both games made things quite a bit more linear, but for those very first games, you could go anywhere from the very beginning and it was great.

Rajaah · Mar 10, 2022

TJT said:
I liked the Glintstone key "quest" for its simplicity and elegance. Here's a map that looks like a character drew it poorly, but it was still just enough information to go find it if you fiddle with it a bit. Overall I think From quests are frustrating because you can just fail them and some of them take true autism to discover the next steps.

Rajaah still missed it somehow though lol. Despite the map being right at the gate.

Like, how would you organically discover how to get Blaidd off of his tower howling unless you autistically backtracked for no reason?

Lots of people missed it, dick! I totally agree though, the quest was good, especially the drawn map. There's another point where you get a drawn map that shows you where 3 seals are, and that was pretty cool too. One of the 3 seals is inside of a rock that disappears when you hit it, which had me stumped for literally 20 minutes or so.

On another note, I'm thinking maybe the DLC will have a fight with Miquella? I feel like Miquella is the only big major figure this game builds up that you don't fight or even see. I also think Malenia was supposed to be a DLC boss, so maybe DLC1 was Malenia / the consecrated snowfield / the tree and DLC2 was ??? / Miquella. Then DLC1 just got blended into the main game instead. Is there any particular part of the overworld that's empty and looks interesting ingame? The entire edge of the Mountaintops zone is pretty much blank map, western side of it in particular looks like it could be a new area.

Elden Ring - From Software + George RR Martin

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