Elden Ring - From Software + George RR Martin

Rajaah

Rajaah

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Seananigans said:
Yeah man I think they primarily incentivized exploration with... the shadowtree fragments you despise and apparently didn't bother to explore to find despite acknowledging their power and usefulness.

You seem to be in the demographic that cannot ever be pleased by game design.

FWIW I don't think I've ever revisited a DLC area in a FromSoft game on subsequent playthroughs, and I'm not sure I will with ER either. They tend to be areas that are awesome to explore once, and then I'm happy to shelf them away while the main game is replayable quite a bit. I don't see anything inherently "bad design" about that result. It's there if I ever want to go see it again, it's purely optional.
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I found the DLCs to be some of the best content in all of these games and usually do revisit each DLC on subsequent playthroughs (might skip Sunken King and Iron King DLCs in future Souls 2, and Ringed City in future Souls 3, though).

Old Hunters, Artorias of the Abyss, Ashes of Ariandel are all awesome, some of the best content from their respective games, or at least the most memorable. Ivory King in Souls 2 is IMO the best zone in that entire game. The Souls 2 DLCs are definitely the most hit or miss, with some total junk like Frozen Outskirts and Cave of the Dead.

REALLY wish Demon Souls had gotten its 6th Archstone DLC officially. With the remake, or added to it a year later, would have been great. Was supposed to be a frozen northern land full of giants. Well, it's the greatest what-if in modern gaming for me. We can probably see most of the elements of the 6th Archstone in other areas in later games though (Frozen Eleum Loyce, Painted World of Ariamis, Mountaintop of the Giants, etc).
 
Phazael

Phazael

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nu_11 said:
Midra is the best and most fair fight in the DLC. This piece completely invalidates everything in your wall of text.
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Spinning around for three minutes straight, chipping constantly, adding madness, and shitting out rando AEs to make roll dodge specious is not a fair fight. Unless you use and ash/summon, he will do that constantly leaving zero openings to counter or even heal. Even Radahn 2.0 gives you windows to heal and attack. This piece of shit is the ultimate expression of the "hyperagro when do I get to do something" issue with much of the expansion. If you want a boss to require summons or ash (there have been bosses like this before that were good) for the bulk of the community to get past, then you can't pull this "get gud" shit and expect to sell the game to more than the 2% of the player base who can do these sorts of fights. The only thing I can say is at least he is optional.
 
Phazael

Phazael

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Rajaah said:
I found the DLCs to be some of the best content in all of these games and usually do revisit each DLC on subsequent playthroughs (might skip Sunken King and Iron King DLCs in future Souls 2, and Ringed City in future Souls 3, though).

Old Hunters, Artorias of the Abyss, Ashes of Ariandel are all awesome, some of the best content from their respective games, or at least the most memorable. Ivory King in Souls 2 is IMO the best zone in that entire game. The Souls 2 DLCs are definitely the most hit or miss, with some total junk like Frozen Outskirts and Cave of the Dead.

REALLY wish Demon Souls had gotten its 6th Archstone DLC officially. With the remake, or added to it a year later, would have been great. Was supposed to be a frozen northern land full of giants. Well, it's the greatest what-if in modern gaming for me. We can probably see most of the elements of the 6th Archstone in other areas in later games though (Frozen Eleum Loyce, Painted World of Ariamis, Mountaintop of the Giants, etc).
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The snow zone in the DS2 DLC is what that 6th Archstone was going to be.

Doing a replay, I dont think the shards are a hinderance. You really only need around 12-14 to be decently set for the endgame and you can get most of that just unlocking graces. Initially, before I understood where to look it sucked a little, but now you can spend an hour with minimal risk and be at 4/4 at least, which is plenty for the earlier content.
 
Seananigans

Seananigans

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Phazael said:
I dropped him in one on my caster run, knowing nothing about him or even expecting him there. Just stuffed him again in one attempt with my finger shield/ruins gs build. Would have been even easier if I had the stats for a bleed spear of some kind. I don't get how people are having issues with this guy. He mostly is just a faster Erd Tree Sentinel with a grav projectile added for chip damage. You can literally guard counter him for the first half of the fight then use a longer reach weapon art (or spear poke) for the second phase. His biggest trick is he runs away before most normal attacks can retaliate during his charge, which there are numerous ways to deal with. I guess people just really hate ever using a shield?
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Yeah you've chosen two specific playstyles that are not at all like a third playstyle that is common.

I'd say try the DLC bosses as a non-shield melee character and re-evaluate.
 
Rajaah

Rajaah

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kroenen said:
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Anyone know what he's using at 1:20 to easily deflect all of Radahn's attacks? Can't tell if it's a shield parry or a shield special ability, due to the gold sparkles.

Phazael said:
The snow zone in the DS2 DLC is what that 6th Archstone was going to be.
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That's what they say. It's definitely a bit different though. Almost no giants (there is a woodland area that's easily-missable that does have giants, at least) since in DS2 giants are basically extinct while in Demon they were thriving up north. Or maybe they would have been near-extinct when the player arrived there, expecting them to still be thriving, with the goal being to find out what happened. I think Mountaintop of the Giants with all the frozen giant corpses might also be related to the 6th Archstone.

Wonder what the 3 bosses would have been, and what the 3 level sections would have been. The Grand Cathedral is definitely 6-3. Maybe the Eleum Loyce castle is 6-2 and the woods / Frigid Outskirts would have been 6-1. Cat boss, double cat boss, Ivory King.
 
Bald Brah

Bald Brah

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Radahn - I used pre-nerf lightning perfume, piece of cake. Took 2 tries.

Leda battle royale - mimic plus I had the old knight and the Trina guy on my side. Takers flames would hit 2 or 3 of them at once and keep me completely healed. Trivial fight with blasphemous blade.

Midra - had a very tough time with him. Left and came back with like 15 scadus and lion's claw smack down ensued.

Bayle - melted with pre- nerf lightning perfume. Super simple, 1st attempt. Forgot to summon igon it went by so fast.

Messmer - tried him a lot with like 6 scadu fragments and just couldn't do much dmg. Came back with 12 or so and lions claw smushed him to a pulp. Used the summons sign here so that guy will help you in the big invasion.

Commander Gaius - died a lot trying to take him on in the field. Finally found the corner on the castle wall to the left that he gets stuck on and pinned him there and lion's clawed to death.

Finger Mother - super easy with blasphemous blade, seemed weak to fire dmg like most finger monsters.

Putrescent Knight - killed 1st try with blasphemous blade. He went down pretty quick. This was like the third boss I tried before messmer and company.

Scadutree Avatar - he killed me a lot but it was not a difficult fight once I learned his moves. You can jump over his thorns and smack him in the head with blasphemous blade for ridiculous damage. Like more than half his health bar if you hit him with the sword and weapon art at the same time in the head. Also you get a free critical between phases, use that and he starts the next phase at 75% health.

Priest guy with the Uzi Spear before Nightmare Woods - this guy was a joke with blasphemous blade like most minibosses. Just line the adds up between you and him and roast them all.

Golden Hippo - lions claw easy peasy

Dancing Lion - lions claw easy peasant

Cerrilean Coast Death Bird - missed this one?

Romina - weak to fire, blasphemous blade melts her fast.

Rellana - lions claw pancakes her

Cerrilean Coast Tibia Guy - takers flame spam, dead in seconds.

I didn't use a shield on anything and usually ran lions claw on the bleed morning star from the caravan chest in Altus. With either a flame or heavy whetstone depending on the boss resistances.

Blasphemous blade is always paired with sword of milos and I usually run white mask for enhanced attacks when blood loss is near.
 
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zignor 4

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I don't think I've ever equipped a shield in Elden Ring. If my hands are moving, something sharp is in them. Except for when I put on the penis robe.
 
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Phazael

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Seananigans said:
Yeah you've chosen two specific playstyles that are not at all like a third playstyle that is common.

I'd say try the DLC bosses as a non-shield melee character and re-evaluate.
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I would say over the spam of the series, shield based and caster playstyles have consistently been more popular. And I am seeing a lot of bitching about the bosses when anyone can pick up a shield and make things much easier. Its not like I am saying Parry or GTFO (though there is a subset of those edge lords), but the accessibility that put ER into phenom status is going to be severely compromised if this DLC is the future direction of things, where encounters require specific playstyles on main progression bosses.

Said it before, if I wanted to play Twitchborne or Seikero, I would play those games.
 
Thregin

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Just finished the Dlc, 10/10 experience.
2-handing dark moon greatsword(ranni weapon), and using mimic on bosses for all of it. And that combo pretty much breezed through everything but radahn.
I'm aware there's quite a few OP builds in the game and i don't know how DM GS rates to em all but I used a normal katana/uchigatana when ER first came out and compared to that the range DM GS provides trivializes quite a lot of stuff.
 
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Seananigans

Seananigans

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Phazael said:
I would say over the spam of the series, shield based and caster playstyles have consistently been more popular. And I am seeing a lot of bitching about the bosses when anyone can pick up a shield and make things much easier. Its not like I am saying Parry or GTFO (though there is a subset of those edge lords), but the accessibility that put ER into phenom status is going to be severely compromised if this DLC is the future direction of things, where encounters require specific playstyles on main progression bosses.

Said it before, if I wanted to play Twitchborne or Seikero, I would play those games.
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It really is not all that tough to get through ER or SOTE with melee and dodge rolling.
 
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Yaamean

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kroenen said:
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Nice, think with my aversion to parrying I may not have too tough a time, though some of his attacks will probably be super quick to react.

Just beat the Dancing Lion but was away for the last 10 days, so haven't hopped back on to try and progress.

More content in ER is always a good thing IMO.
 
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Bald Brah

Bald Brah

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Yaamean said:
Nice, think with my aversion to parrying I may not have too tough a time, though some of his attacks will probably be super quick to react.

Just beat the Dancing Lion but was away for the last 10 days, so haven't hopped back on to try and progress.

More content in ER is always a good thing IMO.
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I just beat the one with the death frog adds. Going through some spoilers for content I had missed. Ridiculously easy at scadu 19. With a couple buffs takers flames was hitting him for 25% of its health.
 
Araxen

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This is crazy that this game is coming into the mainstream.



This video is very Elden Ringish.
 
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Rajaah

Rajaah

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Araxen said:
This is crazy that this game is coming into the mainstream.



This video is very Elden Ringish.
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I can kinda see it but it isn't particularly overt or anything.

Wouldn't mind if the next big Fromsoft project had a similar aesthetic to this video, with a lot of black/silver and oppressive grey. Would be as distinctive as ER's color scheme, in a different way.
 
Seananigans

Seananigans

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Bunch of disjointed nonsense, I’ll bet 80%+ of it is AI.

AI will fit into the music video industry very well, given their penchant for disjointed nonsense.
 
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Bloodrocuted

Bloodrocuted

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Golden parry, if it works like it used to it increases your iframes for parrying. Think if I fight Radahn again on NG+2 I'm going to give that a go. I've also seen someone use a knife without GP and still hit every parry to kill him...now that was impressive.

Ah yes here it is:

 
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