Elden Ring, and its consequences, have been a disaster for the Souls genre.

How the FUCK do I reach the fucking Graveguard mask. I have played this game for a decade and I've specifically spent like 100 hours in Forbidden Woods farming and I can still never remember how to do it.

>>1836394 >ER normalized using magic Using magic was always normal: back in the OG Souls games, even just one attunement slot opened up a ton of utility, and more serious investments into offensive magic offered nothing but pain if you didn't already know how to manage stamina and spacing well. What isn't normal (and was introduced with DS3 and ER) is using magic while there's no need to attune carefully since FP is fungible, one blue flask trivially refills your blue bar in less time than a melee fighter can refill his green bar with the best buffs available, and there's a checkpoint every 10 feet so you never run the risk of running out. >Part of the reason why FS games are cool to me is their challenging combat that demands the player to adapt to the enemy's moveset and counter and play accordingly. Magic mostly eliminates all that by staying back and spamming shit from a safe distance. The focus on the movesets is how Elden Ring got made in the first place, the old games were far more interested in encounter and level design (which nowadays casuals decry as "ganks" and "runbacks" respectively). Magic being ranged was not an issue back then, because almost all serious fights happened in ways and places that stopped you from kiting at max lock on range to your heart's content, the much less flexible cast limits encouraged you to take risks to get the most out of your attunement slots, and every single spell you used on an enemy was a spell you wouldn't have for the boss at the end of the area. Magic being ranged is an "issue" nowadays because you can and will run past 99% of encounters, then blow your entire FP load on the remaining 1% while also having near complete freedom to set the terms of those few engagements: notice how ridiculous enemy gap closers have gotten in Elden Ring, and how little that stopped magic from cheesing them (while almost completely invalidating spacing as a consideration). >>1837557 Poise damage would either be worthless or gamebreaking depending on the new values, there's no wiggle room between "equip Star Fists then stunlock everything forever" and "occasionally get an interrupt so tiny you might be able to chug one flask at best" aka the current state of sleep on most enemies. The combat is just fucked as a system, you try to improve one thing and ten more preexisting issues become even more noticeable.

I'm curious what weapons anons have used in Bloodborne. I did a run about a week ago where I did a STR build and rushed to get the Amygdalan Arm and the Beastcutter (and I picked up the gatlin gun while I was at it). I also used the cannon as a secondary firearm. I was surprised how viable they were after a bit of experimentation. Despite being disappointed with them before on other runs I finally figured how to get the most usage out of them. Just don't transform them. Use them as a greathammer and hammer respectively to fight with and you'll have a much better experience. Only trick them into whip mode if you need crowd control or a bit of distance, or in the Arm's case if you need to switch damage type. The arm was generally better than the Beastcutter except when it comes to elemental damage since the arm can't be buffed. I'm now doing a Beasthunter Saif run, which despite it being a good weapon is kind of boring. I'm not sure if I'm going to continue with it or not. It's just a more agile version of the Cleaver/Spear. Even if I continue I'll probably drop it but I'll have to pick a good SKL alternative because I'm already 30 levels in and there's no respec.

>>1865237 I lost interest and decided to try a "fist" run, after a bit I realized THAT wasn't going to happen. Even in the broad sense of what I was considering there's just no way to bridge the gap reasonably. Either cheese BSB an then figure out how to make it through the first two levels of the first Pthumeru dungeon to get the root chalice to get an early Beastclaw OR beat Amelia to access the Nightmare and then somehow punch Rapehorse to death and then get Fist of Gratia. Both seem just kind of retarded and unfun. I did seem to discover a new version of the Daddy G skip by accident though.

>Tarnished DLC got delayed on all platforms because the switch is to shit to run it properly I just want those new armor sets on PC, why do I have to wait.

>>1875557 What new armor sets does it have?

>>1882391 Two sets for the additional starting classes one of which is basically modified Mirrah Knight set

>>1436073 Rally really only shines as a mechanic if you use a high rally weapon like the axe alongside the guidance rune. Transform attacks will top you off no matter how much damage you took, you can almost trade hits with the enemies like a havelmonster. With any other setup I forget that rally is even there because it's too weak to influence strategy.

What's the closest to a Bloodborne build you can do in ER? Vulgar Militia polearm?

>>1883857 W H E E L Alternately you can equip Giant Crusher and a straight sword in your right hand slots and pretend you have a Kirkhammer. For full Yharnamite mode: beast repellent torch + rickety shield + celebrant rake.

>>1883857 Bloodhound Step on Butchering Knife.

Kind of interesting on how frenzy is handled in Bloodborne as compared to Elden Ring, lore wise. In BB it seems to be the result of too much information overwhelming the mind. Where as in ER it's expressly evil and the insanity is a feature not a bug. >>1884406 I think the putrescent guillotine has a similar move set to the transformed beasthunter saif.

>>1883857 Ghiza wheel is the funny pizza cutter, as mentioned. Greataxes in general have the closest thing to a bloodborne moveset. So one of those and then use a crossbow in the offhand for your gun.

>>1887170 One downside to Ghiza wheel compared to the Whirligig Saw is that the wheel can't be buffed or infused, so you're "stuck" with bleed.

>>1884934 I see frenzy as the rotting of the mind via sources of infected information. Meanwhile Frenzy is a god manipulating emotions & instincts of animals

>>1909527 Fug I completely forgot to add frenzy is for BB and Frenzy is for Elden Ring

How many anons here have played Wo Long? I've played it through a couple of times. First time wa befor the DLC released the second time I played it and kind of fucked myself because I tried to play the DLC missions in chronological order rather than being reasonable and playing at the correct level scaling. I need to try again at some point and I need to try to play it "correctly" rather than grabbing a hammer or axe and blasting around like it's s gunlance in Monster Hunter.

>>1935239 >not grabbing a hammer or axe and blasting around like it's s gunlance in Monster Hunter.

mh, very schizo, but thinking of the zanzibart stuff, it occurred to me that we could see it as each boss in it of itself and to itself being a main character, and them having a power of friendship/narrative(mostly narrative) end of the game moment vs you, their final boss, how off the deep end am i?

>>1946063 Anon WHAT?

>>1946063 I know a guy who unironcally argues that Midra and Nadaya prove the Zanzibart meme right and are an unironic example of such.

>>1949876 Is he a redditor?

>>1949992 Opposite actually, tradcath cuckchan /pol/ack. He really didn't like Elden Ring for a lot of reasons (mostly related to a seething hatred of open world games) and he especially did not like the DLC design choices. The argument is roughly "We never see or hear of Nanaya prior to her mention so it might as well not be there at all in the first place, and is solely there to generate sympathy on the player's part. Literally, it is the caricature made fun of with the Zanzibart forgive me meme" I think he's just dense as a bag of rocks, personally. She's in the big Portrait with Midra (implying a relationship between the two), you find her corpse beforehand on a mostly mandatory path, and the item description of the torch on her corpse tells who she is. I think he just sucks at interpreting (or even noticing in the first place) environmental storytelling, and doesn't consider item descriptions a form of storytelling, instead thinking of it as useless fluff.

>>1950007 I mean I also have some issues with Elden Ring. I thought the open world was going to be one of them but it ended up not being none. More to the reverse actually. >I think he's just dense as a bag of rocks, personally. She's in the big Portrait with Midra (implying a relationship between the two), you find her corpse beforehand on a mostly mandatory path, and the item description of the torch on her corpse tells who she is. I think he just sucks at interpreting (or even noticing in the first place) environmental storytelling, and doesn't consider item descriptions a form of storytelling, instead thinking of it as useless fluff. Well there's also the issue where From comes up with a scenario and characters and then cuts 90% of what they were going to be and you have these sort of mysterious orphaned story elements that I can see how some people think "came out of nowhere". They did it no less than 3 or 4 times in Bloodborne alone. And while these can make for so memorable moments they can give you a what the fuck was that kind of feeling.

>>1950007 >He really didn't like Elden Ring for a lot of reasons (mostly related to a seething hatred of open world games) So did people here, until they revised history to larp that they always liked it.

>>1950608 My official position on the matter is that I just tend to not like open world games for a variety of reasons and that I didn't think that the Souls formula really needed the addition of open world. I prefer the interconnected style of world that most of them have or the mission based format that Nioh uses or rather used, fucking Nioh 3. After having took the time Elden ring I've modified my position slightly. I now think that an open world exploration based souls game could actually be quite fun. I look forward to maybe playing one someday. As opposed what ever the fuck Elden Ring did.

>>1950608 I guess I'm an oddball amongst shitlords since I don't hate open world games and never really understood the intense hatred some people have for them. World scale and moments of peace can help greatly in setting the mood for a game. Dragon's Dogma 2 is one of the few that I hate precisely because it doesn't give you a moment of rest and drops an enemy on you every 30 steps. No idea where you get this idea about revised history from though. Hell, I fucking love the scadutree fragments since they actually encourage exploration and not just bum-rushing through the DLC. But a lot of people hate them for that exact reason. My only complaint is once you get all 50 to get the max blessing level you should be freely able to adjust the scaling at any site of grace, to prevent the DLC from getting outscaled in NG+ runs. My first run of the DLC was on a 300+ char at NG+4 and it was hellish compared to my friends' playthroughs at NG or NG+. I really liked it but a lot of people will just not get to experience that. >Well there's also the issue where From comes up with a scenario and characters and then cuts 90% of what they were going to be and you have these sort of mysterious orphaned story elements that I can see how some people think "came out of nowhere". Yeah. I get that. Never really found it an issue though outside of DS3 where you fight the real big bad halfway through the game and find out later he's the one that wrecked a lot of the current world. Kind of liked how DS3 Convergence added a lot more gravity to the Pontiff and made him a greater shadow over the plot, eventually having him be the semi-final boss and the final lord's ashes you have to get. To your point though. It never disappointed me because it's kind of like reading history or archaeology, only being able to find fragments and having to piece things together yourself from the item descriptions and such. It's why I don't like big lorefag jewtubers like VaatiVidya so much since I find it fun to see the different tellings of the story people come up with on their own, and all these big guys do is make people think there's only one absolute, correct interpretation of the events and not a mystery to piece together. At least there are some people who even make such content, stitching together their own elaborate theories from what can be found. I think the funniest I saw was someone connecting Domnhall to Seath in DS1 and how they were both co-conspirators in the uprising against the gods (as told about in the occult infusion and some related items). Big throughlines being the Avelyn's markings and the markings on the crystal knight's armor being similar to markings on Domnhall's equipment.

>>1953840 >Hell, I fucking love the scadutree fragments I do too. It a repurposing of how Sekiro did leveling. >>1953840 >I guess I'm an oddball amongst shitlords since I don't hate open world games and never really understood the intense hatred some people have for them. It really depends on the game for me. One of my favorite games of all time, Terraria, is open world and I don't think there's any other way it could have been done. When it comes to RPG's though I prefer the classic method of exploring and progressing the story to gradually open up the world map.

>>1953840 >Hell, I fucking love the scadutree fragments since they actually encourage exploration and not just bum-rushing through the DLC. They encourage exploration the first time you play through the DLC, afterwards they're just busywork. It doesn't help that you get enough fragments for something like 70% of the max bonuses just by running around, before you even need to fight a single boss.

How's the multiplayer activity in ER these days? Thinking about doing one Dried Finger run before the GOTY Edition drops in mid-2026...

The expansion for Nightreign didn't include weapons for the DLC and is getting review bombed (partly) because of it. Not a whole lot of content for the asking price, and it seems a lot of people are seeing it as a bit of a cash grab. Which Nightreign already felt like.

>>1973844 Multiplayer has never been particularly lively outside coliseums and before they opened fight clubs. It's really just the result of fundamental game design choices that are pretty significantly baked in and can't be changed.

I don't think I'm going to beat the DLC final boss. He's the only thing left, and I can't muster the motivation to boot the game up just to get pounded into the fucking dirt another dozen or so times. Pretty good DLC up until then, though. Some great fights and areas, lot of fun weapons. Does suffer from a lot of the same problems the base game does, but that's just how Elden Ring goes. >>1953840 Agreed on the fragments and lore. It was quite fun to go in totally blind and piece things together. Did Marika ascend to godhood the same way Miquella's trying to? Cutting off pieces of herself until she can use the divine gate? Or is this some janky, dangerous method he's using due to a lack of Greater Will assistance? And how did Miquella's actions in the base game lead to this?