I'm unsure how to feel about this multiplayer focus From software has been on lately.

>>1086307 >I'm unsure how to feel about this multiplayer focus From software has been on lately. This is another Team B's project and there is also an interview from the director that stated the studio is not drifting away from the more traditional-type games >The Nintendo Switch 2 version of Elden Ring (3) was also announced, and we still intend to actively develop single player-focused games such as this that embrace our more traditional style. https://www.nintendo.com/us/whatsnew/creators-voice-the-duskbloods-part-1/

>Duskbloods >Soulsborne Just because From is making it doesn't mean it's a Soulsborne.

From was never good and Dark Souls is overrated trash.

Anyone try BB PC?

>Not making fromsoft do a soulslike metroidvania with Nintendo characters >It's just the same old shit we've getting since 2009 Sasuga, keikaku san

>>1086330 I don't give a shit if you don't like Dark Souls, but don't forget that half of Fromsoft games have been fantasy oriented like King's Field, and the other half has been Sci-Fi with Armored Core. With other unique things sprinkled in as well like Otogi or Metal Wolf Chaos. There is bound to be 1 game from them that you'll like, simply based on the Sheer amount of shit they've output over the years.

>>1086303 >multiplayer switch 2 exclusive Bleh. >>1086330 >Dark Souls is overrated trash. The games are well made in comparison to most of triple gAAAy. That said, soulshit is stale as fuck to me now and I wish they would do something else for a bit.

>>1086330 This isn't the LOL thread.

>>1086330 >I only know them for Souls games

>From announces 2 new Souls adjacent games this year alone WHERE THE FUCK IS MY SEKIRO 2?

>>1086492 Activision holds the rights.

>>1086507 You mean Microsoft

>>1086507 Aren't they just the Publisher for the international market? From directly released it in Hinomoto. I thought the whole point was for Fromsoft to have "Teschu at home"? >>1086508 Anon WHAT? Where is this idea that Sekiro is an XBox exclusive or something? You're not the first that I've heard say something like that.

>>1086511 Microsoft/Xbox purchased Activision who published Sekiro.

>>1086513 Oh that's right. They were still just the publisher though.

Does anyone have all the softcaps for the other Souls games? I roughly know Bloodborne which are 25 and 50 all across the board except for stamina which is like 40 and "magic" effectively has no softcap. I'm trying to manage my build in Elden Ring and I don't know what the fuck I'm, doing. Not knowing what the fuck I'm doing has been my default and constant state through out the entirety of my Elden Ring experience.

Why God why did they not keep Sekiro's edge gravity mechanic for Elden Ring. I have fallen off the Haligtree like 50 times already.

Nobeta game counts? Jokes aside, is there a good soul game I could coop play with my nephews?

>>1086544 I don't know the details of Demon Souls or Ds1, but I can explain Elden Ring for you at least. Can also explain DS2 but it's... confusing. So Elden Ring softcaps go like so >Vigor caps at 40 and 60 <40 is bare minimum, go up to 60 if you're aiming for above RL125 or are playing a melee build. >Mind caps at 40 and 60 <FP per level is very wank and there's a huge spike from level 50-52 and then it tapers down, being a major gain until 60 where it bottoms out. >Endurance caps at 25 and 60 for Equip load and 15, 30, and 50 for stamina. >STR caps at 60 <Level to 40 if you're a wanker who only two-hands your weapon and are minmaxing. <You can level STR to 99 and 2-hand for an effective 160ish STR, which is a big boost but is very much meme tier and only done when overleveling. >Dex caps are 60 and 80 (80 is hard cap) <Casting speed caps from dex are 45 and 60 IIRC >INT is catalyst-specific, though relevant caps are 60 for the crystalian staff and 80 for Rennala's staff >FTH is catalyst specific. Main caps are 50 (Dryleaf), 60(godskin), and 80(erdtree) depending on catalyst of choice. <For melee infusions INT and FTH cap out at 80. >ARC caps are 60 and 80

I still don't get it, will I be able to play Duskbloods on my own or do i need to play online with other people? I hate human interaction.

>>1086928 They said you can either play by yourself or with two other people, but not with just one other person.

>>1086928 Sorry, I re-read your post, I thought you were talking about Nightreign, another online game. In Nightreign it's either solo or with two other people, in Duskbloods it appears to be online only, so go buy that Nintendo Online Pass or whatever it's called.

>>1086937 >online only, so go buy that Nintendo Online Pass or whatever it's called. Do they really expect Soul fans to come rushing and buy the Switch 2 cause of a new title?

>>1086939 It worked for PlayStation 4 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

>>1086942 On 8chan no less!

>>1086942 well at least this one is online so once it dies it'll die forever unlike bloodborne.

>>1086939 >>1086942 >>1086943 Bloodborne was an actual Souls game though. More than that it was a sort of stealth Demon's Souls sequel/spiritual successor. And it's got a totally different aesthetic than the other Souls games and with different gameplay design. Bloodborne was just something special. These two multiplayer Souls games they announced don't strike me as having a lot of staying potential. Multiplayer in Souls has always been one of the aspects that have had the most potential in theory but in practice has been largely a disappointment. And it's been the most controversial across the various sub sections of the player base. I have a feeling that Nightreign will do better than Duskbloods. Because NR is a) directly connected to a very popular game, b) co-op only (co-op ers have a far larger potential pool of players than pvp only games), & c) not exclusive to a system that that doesn't really mesh well with the standard Souls playerbase - not to mention unreleased, too expensive, and already has controversies surrounding it. Even then I don't think Nightreign can possibly be that good unless they add something to it to make it less ephemeral. Either a single player exploration campaign or a way for it to "plug into" Elden Ring in some way.

>>1086921 >Jokes aside, is there a good soul game I could coop play with my nephews? Nioh. Nioh is actually really co-op friendly. Presumably Nioh 2 is as well.

>>1086921 >Jokes aside, is there a good soul game I could coop play with my nephews? Elden Ring seamless Co-Op mod?

I sometimes wish that LoP had a co-op option. I think it would be a pretty fun game with a friend.

>>1086303 Duskbloods looks like gimmicky shit. The T-Rex transformation is retarded.

>>1086981 Maybe they'll reuse the setting and some of the character models in a real Souls game. A (not)Cainhurst game would be great.

>>1086939 >Do they really expect Soul fans to come rushing and buy the Switch 2 cause of a new title? >>1086942 >It worked for PlayStation 4 Suddenly memories are flooding back from the times they called PS4 a "Bloodborne machine" since that was the only title they'd buy the system to play. I also recall the entirety of Twitch showed stream thumbnails of the Bloodborne loading screens since the load times were absolute shit.

>>1086996 Every time I see a soyjak, my sheer disgust at it removes any ability to find it funny.

>>1086956 I think it's not the multiplayer aspect alone that'll put a damper on Duskblood's success. It's the fact that it's a Hunt Showdown game but souls and they didn't make that crystal clear from square 1. There's a lot of people out there right now genuinely thinking this is going to be a Bloodborne 2. Hell even I did since PvPvE describes every single souls game multiplayer, before reading the interviews and seeing that "yeah, it is indeed just Hunt Showdown but souls". Idiots online go on and on that "muh PVP is what drives souls popularity", forgetting it's just one aspect of the games and the journey itself alongside co-op is another key part of things. By the same measure I do think Nightrein is going to be more popular and have more staying power than people think it will, but I don't expect it to be on par with Elden Ring success wise and neither does Fromsoftware. Duskbloods reminds me of the vibe Code Vein's earlier promo material gave more than anything Bloodborne related. Could've easily made one think the game would've had a more gothic tone. I also want to hug the loli/shota. >>1087047 Yeah, I don't get why they became popular, as I find them similarly insufferable and it takes an extremely high-quality one to get any non-annoyance reaction out of me. A friend of mine has the theory their popularity derives from something related to political cartoons, mockery through ugliness and exaggeration.

Fromsoft is intentionally testing the waters of the two extremes of souls multiplayer: Nightreign is the coop crowd, the people who don't care about the original design philosophy of a lonely struggle to overcome adversity, souls coop has always existed as crutch to give struggling players the help they need to overcome the boss that is blocking their progression through the game. How ever this has overtime mutated into a crowd of people trying to treat souls as a coop game because the option exists and they want to play it as such, look no further than the seamless coop mod that seeks to create a 100% coop version of the game by removing all the intentional boundaries to coop: the removal of coop fogwalls, letting summons persist after a boss defeat, ect. Duskblood is the pvp crowd, the people who treat the game's 'pve' content as more an obstacle to reach their end goal, be that a specific soul level, access to high population areas, official and unofficial designated arenas, or specific weapons, equipment, ect. pvp in souls was originally intended as a hostile means to an end, a way to compete for resource be it resources specific to the game: humanity, body form, ember, ect. Or a bounty of souls. This how ever has overtime mutated into a group of dedicated pvpers, those who treat the game almost like a fighting game than the intended hybrid online singleplayer experience, whether that be spending the majority of their time inside an arena, or seeking more dynamic or hostile experiences through invasions. These two communities have grown to such a degree that they heavily impact development and at this point are almost intentionally designed to be at odds with each other with the introduction of invasion forced match making with coop in most recent games. Both communities have a different idea of what they want future souls games to be and so now we conveniently have two games exploring these specific facets of souls games. Make no mistake that this is intentional, and that both game's successes or failures will influence future souls games online components. Are you team Nightreign or team Duskblood?

>>1087117 Can I be for both? What made the souls games unique to me wasn't the basic bitch invaders themselves. It was all the wackier covenants throughout the series that pitted players with or against each other. Forest Invaders turning into full on brawls, Mad co-op phantoms being true wildcards, Rats defending their nest with all sorts of Indiana Jones traps, Boss fights being players with unique benefits on their side, Pilgrims of Dark Invasions and the chaos that can ensue, oddball things like that. Elden Ring having none of that was a massive disappointment to me and one of the few things I really dislike about the game. Playing Souls like it's the world's shittiest 3D fighter is not what I think of when it comes to what makes Souls PVP shine, either. It's the odd interactions that extend from it and creative approaches to invasions. Not some net-decking metamancer coming in and kicking a guy into the dirt, throwing some dung, and leaving.

>>1087117 >Are you team Nightreign or team Duskblood? Actually I'm team Nito/Rat King/Hodrick/Mirror Knight. >>1087125 100% agree with what you wrote here anon. You actually get it. I wish more Souls players did. If all players want is to reduce multiplayer to a standard pve & pvp experience then what Tecmo did with Nioh 1 has anything that From has ever done totally beat. Where Souls games multiplayer shine, conceptually, is how it interacts with the single player experience. What I'd like to see is them combine what they did in Demon's Souls with what they tried to do with Bloodborne (if they had actually completed the covenant system and not left it bare bones and half finished.)

>>1087117 That actually makes a lot of sense

>>1087117 Kind of seemed apparent ever since they moved ds2 arenas out of covenants and into a hub world activity for all, all while watering down covenant incentives.

>>1086303 >Switch 2 exclusive >P&PvE Why is FROM releasing TWO gimmick one off games with emphasis on multiplayer instead of any new single player games?

>>1087182 See >>1087117 also these aren't made by the A team, but by the B&C team to test teh waters, while the A team is working on the next game, whether that will be another Souls game, an Armored Core game or something completely new.

>>1087206 That doesn't excuse two at the same time back to back with one being an exclusive. It's a waste of resources.

>>1087211 It's not a waste if line go up.

>>1087117 This line of thought actually adds up.

>>1087211 >It's a waste of resources. Not really. They'll reuse concepts and mechanics and possibly even assets in their next real Souls game.

Anyone else feel like Elden Ring should have just ended at Leyendel? It was even beginning to drag at Altus. I really feel like the lift should have just dropped you at Leyendel and the whole post Morgott sequence abbreviated.

>>1087393 If you look at the newest Nightreign videos I'm actually really looking forward to what they'll add to a mainline game. Duchess https://yewtu.be/embed/3wvBA-wqEag? IronEye https://yewtu.be/embed/2wQ4uE_TPdE?

>>1087400 Going back to the open world after finishing Leyndell just feels terrible both due to the facts that Leyndell is an amazing dungeon, and that the fact that the open world feels like shit.

>>1087463 I have just discovered that Maliketh is complete cancer. It's like fighting Nameless Paarl the Sword Saint. I feel I judged Laxasia too harshly.

>>1087466 Maliketh and a secret boss both completely invalidate certain builds, which is bullshit. The secret boss also cheats and does not follow the gameplay rules established by the game. THAT is cancer.

>>1087400 cute.

>>1087466 Did you get the parry-McGuffin for his fight? Hated that stupid mutt until it finally clicked.

>>1087478 >Secret Boss Which one? the only real secret boss I can think of in vanilla is the one in the eye of the storm but the only boss I can think of that "cheats" is the rotussy who was kinda too heavily advertised to really count as a secret, and even then there isn't really much in terms of rule breakage there, that boss just has unexpected stat values due to being lifted from unused parts of another game.

>>1087493 Malenia. She randomly decides to recover all of her poise and goes immune to knockback/knockdown/poise/stagger/mini-stagger, etc. Shit's infuriating when you have a big slow weapon and she decides to pull her bullshit poise refill and takes 75% of your health because you committed to a big slow hit that would have been guaranteed to connect and to knock her down on her ass had she not cheated. I'd argue that she's also one of the worst bosses in the series, given that her Waterfowl Dance is something you MOSTLY either have to master to cheese to get through, whereas pretty much every other Souls game bosses can be fumbled or powered through. It forces you to approach the fight in a very un-RPGish way, and that's quite contrary to what the series has been about.

I still think Nioh2 was the apex of the genre and as time goes on i'm more and more confident nothing will trump it.

>>1087449 This movement is what I wanted in Elden meme so badly.

>>1087496 I would kill for another Nioh game that is just Nioh 2 with living weapon, or at least Nioh 2 with a choice between LW and YS.

I finally beat death dog. I don't know how, it felt like it completely by accident. I would trigger the phase transition and depending on where I was and what move he decided to start with I was either getting him down to an inch of HP or at worst he would basically spawn kill me. The only thing I changed was that I threw on the Royal Remains to try and counter the destined death debuff. On my actual successful attempt it basically took about a minute from fog wall to boss down. Which has been my overall experience with ER bosses. Either they two slap you after you walk in the arena or you chain poise break them 3 times in a row and it's over. Rahdan was the only one that gave a different experience.

>>1087494 I get the archer from war-dead catacombs solely to knockdown cheese her stupid ass. If boss is going to cheese then I will too >Shit's infuriating when you have a big slow weapon Jump bonk spam (watching green bar)

>>1087630 I'm kind of running an (unintentionally) glass cannon SRT/FTH build with a colossal weapon. It's pretty painful when the boss is apeshit but if I can get all ticks of damage from Golden Land to hit it just fucks. Nothing can stand against it.

I brought Mr. Know-It-All that Albinaric woman he keeps talking about. He was super surprised to see her. If I beat the final boss(es) I can still leave the Tree and go to the DLC right? As long as I don't choose an ending right?

>>1087623 That's basically how it went from me my first time around. I just timed his transition so he was one hit from a stagger. Hit him as soon as the cinematic ended, staggered his ass, charged a heavy, and he was at like 10% health. >>1087709 Correct. >>1087623 >or you chain poise break them 3 times in a row and it's over Stagger sucks. The whole game revolves around the mechanic and it makes the combat flow feel worse than DS1 and DS2.

>>1087716 I certainly like the stagger system more than R1 Souls 3's combat, and it's really good on paper as a way to encourage you not to just mindlessly R1 mash without taking away the ability to do said R1 mashing entirely (or nerfing it into the dirt), but it could use some work. Mainly you need to nerf the stagger of jump heavies and jump lights, and buff the stagger of R2s and fully charged R2s, especially for lighter weapons. I'd also change it so parries dealt stagger damage equal to a fully charged colossal R2 in such a system, and increase the base stagger resist of enemies to be closer to the amounts when one co-op phantom is around. Throwing it out entirely would be stupid. >>1087639 Consider the Sacred Butchering Knife. It restores a flat amount of HP on every hit, and every single projectile from golden land counts as a separate hit, alongside the two activation hits and the WoG explosion. It's almost as much as landing a prayerful strike in exchange for a bit less damage compared to an ultra bonking stick. Also costs less stamina to use.

>>1086956 >was >was >was Say it again. Say "was" again, coont. I triple dog dare you. I'll hoont ye 'til ye do. It STILL is.

>>1087742 How stable is it? I've got a pretty beefy rig and Bloodborne is the only souls game I haven't beaten or played yet. Also how hard is it to get the DLC working alongside the main game?

>>1087744 >How stable is it? The entire game has been complete-able for months now, and now it's very stable with some possible minor hiccups in a couple places. >Also how hard is it to get the DLC working alongside the main game? Piss easy. Go for it, it's fucking awesome. I never caved it to snoy so I never experienced it either. Until now. It's fucking incredible.

>>1087744 Depends of your setup but it definitely needs something beefy In my case, the emulator often crashed randomly or even managed to hard-crash my computer (Ryzen 7 2nd, RTX 2060 and 16GB DDR4 RAM) twice during January 2025. A bit too often for my tastes so I stopped playing it before beating the spider in the lake.

>>1087749 BEE FEE PEE SHEE AHHHHHHHHHH >>1087739 >Consider the Sacred Butchering Knife. I'm trying to stick to colossals. I've got the erdtree big bonk and the big doot to max level and also a backup watchdog staff as well. The biggest issue I'm having at the moment is length. The space dragon really likes to go running off and I'm not sure if it worth it to try and out holy him through brute force. I would consider it if I didn't have to fight RAD DUDE first every time but I like having a little bit of leeway. I'm basically just running in and racing him for a stagger. It's pretty much the same technique I used for Genichiro before the 3 phases of Isshin. If I keep having problems I'll certainly consider the "knife" though.

>>1087739 Wait does that healing effect on every hit thing work by putting Golden Land on the Greatstars too?

>>1087253 Line go up is at risk because of Nintendo's greed.

>>1087870 YEAH IT DOES! OH YEAH!

>>1087117 Don't forget the third crowd who plays the games offline to face the dangers completely alone, overcoming them in quiet struggles and personal victories. It's incredibly rewarding.

>>1087972 That's how I play these things. I do enjoy reading the stupid meme messages though. I really think Nioh's bloody grave system is the best middle ground between solo Souls and full online invasions.

>>1087974 >I do enjoy reading the stupid meme messages though

>>1088050 >Go inside Gwyneveres chambers >Chest ahead Never fails to make me smile

>>1088057 >try two-handing

>>1088057 >>1088114 I think my favorite one was before that little side kitchen in Irithyll >woman required ahead

The Scarlet Thot is destroying my asshole in phase 2.

>>1086303 >Souls thread >posted game isn't a soulsborne ebin

>>1087972 >Don't forget the third crowd who plays the games offline to face the dangers completely alone, overcoming them in quiet struggles and personal victories. No, that was just because I didn't have Xbox Gold on my 360 when I played the game this was before it got a PC release,

Imagine Miyazaki shows up at your house and offers you some design input into a special edition of Sekiro but with online.multiplayer functionality added but with the caveat that what ever it is it can't disrupt the singly player experience as everyone is familiar with already. Anons what are your suggestions?

>>1088370 >added but with the caveat that what ever it is it can't disrupt the singly player experience as everyone is familiar with already. Anons what are your suggestions? Simple, in the Main Menu of the game you have Single Player(the base game) and Multi-Player that has a variety of multiplayer modes, from capture the flag, 1v1 duels, team death-match, last man standing and so on. Load-outs can be pre-established before a match, or you have a certain amount of currency used to buy skills and power-ups either before the match or before each round.

>>1088370 Kick him in the balls for Elden Shart.

>>1088371 Yeah, something like that seems like the best approach. Only other thing I can think of is a time trials like thing for navigating levels and stealth challenges. Maybe even make some unique bonus levels or modifications of existing levels or sections of them specifically for this time trial like mode, kind of like those time trial bonus modes in the Batman Arkham games.

>>1088409 I have recently watched The Electric Underground's video on the Demon Souls Demake, yes I am shilling his channel and I have never really thought on what remakes could add without ruining the game, so I really liked his answer of just creating separate modes so that there is extra content and even if it's shit, it won't tarnish the base game. So yes, adding seperate Multiplayer mode, separate challenge missions, time trial modes. galleries, interviews, artwork stuff that once upon a time would come with the base game, even for licensed shovelware, but I guess the average IGN reviewer would not appreciate such stuff, because unless it's the main game, it's considered to be "lesser stuff" than the main game, and as such something that should be discarded.

>>1088442 I don't mind remakes as long as they're substantiality different. For as much shit as people rightfully give to Ratchet & Clank 2016, it's largely an original game outside of some level design. Demon Souls PS4 is just Demon Souls with worse art direction.

>>1088445 >Demon Souls PS4 is just Demon Souls with worse art direction. If you watch the video, it's more than just that, they changed the animations(for the worse), changed the way the camera behaves, boss arenas, boss behaviors, hitboxes, and even changed some wall meshes, making previous basic moving strategies now lead into death, not because they wanted to correct an exploit, but because in the base game it was a flat wall and they wanted to make the wall "better" by adding extra stuff to it. https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Ze2aSUJmh5s[Embed] As for me, I prefer when they remake bad games or the black sheep in the series, especially older ones(Ys Oath in Felghana, Fire Emblem Echoes) because it gives them a second chance to be good. Maybe they had some good ideas, but didn't have enough time to implement them, or the technology wasn't there, or they weren't experienced enough, and the end product was bad, but now they have what it takes to truly make the game shine. Worse case scenario it gets another bad remake, that replaces another bad game, still much better than a bad remake overwriting a good game(Silent Hill 2, Resident Evil 4, Demon Souls). Those are good games, they don't need remakes, because they are good on their own, unlike bad games which I think could use one. Now if your reaction is "Oh, but I once got fooled by them, why should I buy the same game again?", yeah because I am sure you bought ファイアーエムブレム外伝 on the Famicon and because of how shitty it was, you didn't get Fire Emblem Echoes 25 years later.

>>1088371 >>1088409 >>1088442 I'm always a fan personally of the chalice dungeon method. Sekiro already has a "gravestone" in the form of the temple's Buddha idol. It would be quite fun to co-op, compete, or pvp in an extra dimensional mish-mash of the base game's assets, or even brand new assets. As far as rewards go that wouldn't affect, or at lease substantially effect, the base game the obvious thing would just be more outfits for Wolf or even for other NPCs. Gold, EXP, or consumables probably wouldn't count as altering the base game since you can farm those anyway. Maybe a stretch would be getting lazulite from end layer bosses or something. The other thing I've considered would be something like a "friendly ghost mode" where you can invade but only as an insubstantial specter, like the ghosts you see randomly running around in regular Souls online That final free DLC update already added in a soapstone messages with a short recording to guide players, this would basically just be the same but with direct control. Actual co-op would be largely ruled out because it would certainly break Sekiro's combat loop. The only even hypothetical way would be a Possession Ninjutsu that works like puppeteer but with a second player on tap to directly control the enemy. This would definitly break the game but no more so than what Puppeteer already does so it's technically not violating the rules of the thought experiment.

>>1088535 >As far as rewards go that wouldn't affect, or at lease substantially effect, the base game I think anon used "it can't disrupt the single player experience" as a way of saying no invasions/no forcing multiplayer into the existing game loop so it would probably be fine to add stuff like new ninjutsu into a chalice dungeon equivalent, especially since those were underutilised in the original game. Maybe just something that allows using the 'special' ninjutsu types on enemies other than just the lizards, if we are keeping strictly to no new content.

>>1088607 If the devs are afraid that introducing new ninjutsu, prosthetics or weapon arts could break the original game's balance, then all you need to do is make them work only in the DLC area/dungeons and make those areas revolve around the new tools the player can use. The game will give the player a separate currency to spend on the new skills, akin to how Elden Ring had the stat upgrades that only worked in the DLC area.

How I finally beat Malenia:

>>1088964 Troll Roar is a really good Ash of War a lot of people overlook. It's also somewhat good at PVP as a surprise finisher tool since people don't use it much, and the follow-up has near infinite hyperarmor.

>>1088965 Well I looked into the numbers a bit and I realized it does a lot of poise damage that combined with the fact that if she's in a neutral stance she gets knocked down. The utter surprise that the trolls hammer was a fire weapon was just the cherry on top. Like Malekith it was STILL a luck based battle. If she starts spamming waterfowl you're basically dead, especially if she's point blank. Ironically enough despite her being THE Scarlet Rot boss I never found that to be a major problem. If it proced that just meant that I'd die half a second earlier then I was going to already. I didn't even worry about trying to mitigate build up or bringing any kind of cure for it. I would have liked to have used the great club but she's just a bit too holy resistant and mobile for that to be viable. Maybe if I'd had more HP and armor I could have done it. But I still managed to use a colossal weapon and I's not like I haven't swapped it out before.

>>1088970 >If she starts spamming waterfowl chuck a frost pot into her face during the startup

Finally chased down the Elden Beast and teleported to the DLC. I'm going to take a break from ER since the DLC is less a DLC and more of a mini sequel. I'm a little annoyed that the one weapon that I'm super interested from the DLC is available form the very beginning and not gated 20 hours in or something. Had I known that I would have rushed it more than a week ago, just after I beat Mohg. >>1089012 I absolutely did not even bother with the pot crafting nonsense. I barley crafted at all. Mostly because I didn't want to have to farm for materials in a game that's already content padded. On top of that some consumables ALSO have a FP cost. It's fucking magic but with extra steps. If it hadn't been for that I would have probably tried the perfumer stuff, which looked kind of neat.

>>1089083 >perfumer stuff Check out the ER Reforged mod for a future playthrough. Couldn't be arsed to do another run after completing the DLC once, but ERR made it fun again.

Now that I've fully completed the main game I feel like I can finally discuss the things it does right and the things it does wrong. And it feels like there's a lot of things that it swings and misses at. Oddly my biggest complaint going into it was the open world but I've modified my opinion on that. I still don't like open worlds in a Souls game or really most open world games in general but as far as they go ER's was better than a lot of them. Mountaintop of the Giants excepted though. That whole area is total ass. Should not have been in the finished game. >>1089154 If I ever do a future playthrough, which at the moment I'm not terribly certain that I will, it would have to be a dragon communion run. I'm not stated at all for it so I've not been able to experiment with it at all. It looks like it's pretty easy to get into it early as well from the very start.

>>1089083 >>1089154 Different strokes for different folks I guess. Elden Ring is my most played souls game (even if I excluded time spent in mods) and I liked the base game enough to not only replay it several times but bring one of my characters all the way to 301+ in the first eight months or so I played the game. Then again I really like spellcasters and co-op and the summoning pool system was a HUGE boon to the latter. Spellcasting in ER is also a massive improvement over past souls games and offers a ton more spell variety and thus moveset variety compared to other souls games. As for mods. I will second Elden Ring Reforged, though I found the Archery challenges to be very bullshit, it's very good for a remixed run. I'd say do the DLC first though, as I played it before the DLC came out and I'm sure the mod maker has done some funny stuff with the DLC content too. On co-op though, I actually started taking screenshots of every host I successfully helped and have 100+ of those at this point. 80+ of which are from the 300+ NG+5 character. Also if you've beaten the game, may I suggest finishing the game, then doing the DLC in NG+, it actually ups the difficulty quite a bit depending on the cycle you start it on. Schadutree fragment blessings also carry over into NG+ so you won't get that challenge from finishing the DLC and repeating it in NG+.

At some point, several dozen hours in, I came to the conclusion that Elden Ring is actually 2 good games that has the misfortune of being forced together and so drag each other down leaving the whole thing a bit uneaven. >>1089163 >Also if you've beaten the game, may I suggest finishing the game, then doing the DLC in NG+, it actually ups the difficulty quite a bit depending on the cycle you start it on. I've never been big on doing NG+ in these sort of games, with the exception of Nioh and in the future LoP. I'd be more inclined to do it if Leyendell wasn't gated behind 2 shardbearers or if the shard bearers were easier to get to. I'm guessing Godwyn and Rahdan are the two easiest to get to. Maybe Rykard if you go in the back entrance. There's also the thing that the DLC needs you to be more or less at endgame to access the door, unlike previous Souls games. Totally unnessicarialy thistime because of the skedaddletree fragments too. Like in DS3 you only have to fight 2 tutorial bosses and an easy other than the gank Crystal Sage to access buttfuck alley. BB is about the same where all you have to fight is Cleric Beast, Daddy G, and Sexy Cleric Beast. In elden ring you have to fight Chicxulub and NIHIL NIHIL NIHIL to go to Miquella's Nut Shack.

>>1089332 You can get to Mohg right after killing Godrick through becoming a bloody finger. All you need to do is go to Altus plateu after that and then beat Radahn and Mohg. Not very easy for a brand new character, but for a NG+ run it's incredibly easy.

>>1089342 It annoyingly overwrites your dragon eyes though. I don't know why the game just doesn't let you choose which of your eldritch STDs that you want to show from Fia's mirror.

>>1089342 >Altus plateu Did you mean to say Liurnia? Since you can do Varre's sidequest, by invading 3 people and get some Maiden blood, to teleport to Mohg and kill him. Then go straight to Caelid, use the teleporters to activate the festival and defeat Radahn. You then teleport back to Mohg and start the DLC.

>invade at level 25 on seamless >nothing but people in starting gear and imp heads with bloodhound's fang, reduvia, and katanas >hmm, maybe i need to go higher >40 >mostly still people in starting gear and imp heads >65 >mostly the same >80 >finally some armor variety, but the weapon variety is still the same It's such a different experience than vanilla, where every invasion no matter the level is people with cheated DLC gear and consumables. Even with unfinished builds, some invasions are so one-sided that I end up not using my flask at all and treat myself as a miniboss to be beaten.

>>1089431 No, you have to set foot on Altus Plateau to trigger the Radahn Festival. Otherwise the castle will be in the pre-festival state. >>1089572 Interesting, when I did a seamless run with friends we turned invasions off since it got added halfway through our playthrough. Good to see we weren't the only ones doing a more standard playthrough lol.

>>1089766 I think there's about 3 ways to do it but taking the Dectus to Altus is the most no nonsense way of getting it to trigger.

I love SOTE's open world. It feels like a spiritual successor to DS1's interconnected world. It's amazing.

>>1092194 It was one of the few times I got DLC day one.

nah, ill wait until something comes out thats not online slop.

SOOOOOOUUUUUUUULSSSSS THREAAAAAAAD, BABYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

>>1092194 The little I saw of it looked better than the base game's OW. Things are closer together it seems.

Just the other day I saw something odd mentioned about the upcoming LoP DLC. According to the lead developer you can enter the DLC somewhere "just about Chapter 9". So either some point through Chapter 8 or early Chapter 9 I guess. That's the Swamp and Return to Krat Station respectively. But what's long been assumed, and I think even data mined, to be the DLC door is at the beginning of Chapter 5, Malum District. It's kind of a head scratcher. Maybe he's talking about when you'll be the appropriate level to take it on?

>>1090355 Speaking of nonsense triggers, I learned that Rya does, in fact, offer to teleport you to Volcano Manor if you enter Altus from the ruin-strewn precipice instead of the Dectus lift. If you enter via the latter, she's easily visible on the lift platform; but if you go the other way, she's hidden in a building off to the side that you'd have no reason to enter. It's weird.

>>1094962 >hidden in a building off to the side that you'd have no reason to enter. Ah yes, the Elden Ring experience.

wheres erg at

>>1092194 While my opinion is closer to "like" than "love", I think it's an improvement on the open world design of the Lands Between. The design philosophy of the Land of Shadow is generally more consistent. The Lands Between is full of both wide, open areas and dead ends that don't really direct or reward the player's attention consistently enough. A good example of this is the outer rim of Consecrated Snowfield, which contains: >the mine with the second Astel >the waygate to Mohgwyn Dynasty Mausoleum >an NPC invasion with a unique armor set >some ruins with several Eye of Yelough spawns >a walking mausoleum and the church with Latenna >a death rite bird Only the least worthwhile content in this area - the ruins and the church - is visible from a distance. The mine has a small path leading to it, but it's below the horizon so it's difficult to see. Even after I'd intuited how the Lands Between is designed and how I'm expected to explore it as a player, I often found myself asking >Is this it? Am I missing something? while doing so. The Land of Shadow is so much more tight in this regard. Even if all I got was a cookbook, it was much easier to both find and fully explore the DLC's open world. One, because the signposting is better: each dungeon type is clearly signposted by cages, coffins, etc., scadutree fragments are consistently found at specific locations that are visible from a distance, and so on. Two, because the physical shape of the open world is just better-designed for directing the player's attention. The DLC also did a better job with what I'd call high concept open world areas, even though the finger ruins and forbidden woods suck.

New character revealed for Nightreign if anyone cares. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSB2Tf_KLzk

>>1097008 Neat

>>1097008 Taller than your average player character and being able to do leaps is very good. I also like that he's drinking, it makes me wonder if they will give players more gestures. I don't like the earthbending though, I think it looks silly. The first character that I'm actually hyped for in Nightreign, but still not interested in the game itself. All those features just makes me hyped for the future, but not now.

>rellana's cameo + alexander's shard + lightning nagakiba I love doing thousands of damage in a split second with glorious Nipponese steel.

I lack new games to try currently, tell me your favorite souls like!

>>1098607 Salt and Sanctuary is a fun 2d one, even if the graphics are kinda ass.

>>1098607 Demon's Souls is still the best imo. I love its atmosphere, art direction, OST, locations and experimental mechanics.

>invading on seamless >encounter two guys in starting gear summoning Blaidd to fight the bloodhound knight >I start fighting Blaidd >they just let me kill him while sitting down to watch >I cheer, they cheer >sever out Wholesome things are happening on seamless. I'm having a lot of fun playing a dick-ass thief build with a parrying dagger, the netcode is so much more consistent that it's actually possible to parry with it.

>load up DS2 >make new char >cheatengine adp to optimal amount ahh, splendind. its kino time.

>>1096499 The DLC was the peak map layout.

>>1105186 I wish more open world games would follow a similar design philosophy with their maps. It was really one of the DLC's strong points.

>>1105186 >>1105262 It being more densely compacted and layered is what helped it overall.

>>1106554 An anon in one of the previous threads likened it to Hallownest from Hollow Knight. An open world game where you descend progressively deeper into the world is a fun idea.

>>1106773 It had all the best interconnected elements of Dark souls but in an open world.

Why play a massive open world game with virtually no noteworthy npcs, story, interactivity with elements of the map (there is nothing to do besides kill enemies), copy pasted bosses (sometimes dozens of times), and the only thing it has riding for it is the gameplay itself. Halo CE LASO is by and far a harder challenge than anything in the souls genre so despite the dickriding about it being hard (even though the game is much easier to cheese) it's still not harder than a game that is decades older than it and a much more dated ai

>>1106905 I really do hope open world games start to actually incorporate 3D space and trying to be a bit more interconnected going forward, rather than just going for a large, flat map. That and actually filling the map with worthwhile shit would solve a lot of the problems open world games have.

>>1106971 You mean games like Elden Ring have. There is plenty of shit to do in games like Oblivion and Morrowind besides just killing shit. Fuck even in Far Cry 3 there is more shit to do

>>1107052 Someone should make Miyazaki play FNV.

>>1106971 Yep.

>>1107073 Bare minimum he should play Lies of P. What would be ideal to me is if a souls like had the level of writing that Mass Effect/New Vegas had that way progressing in the story would be so much more rewarding

>>1106554 >>1106971 The main problem with the verticality that Elden Ring has is that it lacks the grapple and the edge gravity that Sekiro had. Also Torrent must have oil soaked hooves because he's slippery a shit. >>1107052 Like what am I going to do in a Souls game, talk to the "zombies"? It's a fucking apocalypse. Killing anyone at first site like it's you first day in Rust is the most logical shit for anyone. Anyone who isn't braindead on their feet is completely insane and 9/10th of the time they aren't the nice kind of crazy like Solaire is either. Like in Elden Ring the literal first person you meet is trying to groom you into being a serial killer and sigh you up for a blood cult. It's why everyone loves Patches. At least he's consistent and reliable.

>>1107181 >The main problem with the verticality that Elden Ring has is that it lacks the grapple and the edge gravity that Sekiro had. Also Torrent must have oil soaked hooves because he's slippery a shit Mistakes were clearly made.

>>1107132 > if a souls like had the level of writing that Mass Effect/New Vegas Yep I'm keeping you filtered. >>1107181 Nightreign they added vaulting and some other moves, so expect to see that in the next mainline title.

>>1107181 ME3 was an apocalypse sir and New Vegas was post apocalypse, the same setting as Elden Meme. Bringing that shit up is just an excuse to have as few noteworthy NPCs as possible

This reminds me of the guy who got filtered by the NPC questlines a few threads back.

>>1107263 Even sadder than getting filtered by the attack helicopter in ACVI. The NPCs literally tell you where they're going.

>>1107220 Exactly, you're not actually interested in a story that is actually worth your time reading into of a massive open world game. Most elden ring players from my own experience skip the cutscenes too. At that rate, why not just play a party based MMO solo?

>>1107201 I would have really enjoyed the Haligtree if the game had Sekiro moment mechanics. As it stands I fell off the damn thing dodging bubbles like 50 times. >>1107226 Souls aren't just regular apocalypses. They are some full on Clark Ashton Smith Yondo/Zothique dying earth shit. And Lies of P is hardly more interactive with NPCs than most Souls. Outside of the "Firelink Shrine/Nexus/Majula" area you can make friends with a grand total of 2 stalkers instead of having to fight them. Most of the surviving stalkers are just traumatized barely more than kids. But your only choice is to avoid them or kill them. Like why can't I spare Robber Weasel? She's just trying to mug you for food. Even assholes like the Black Rabbits aren't pure evil. The only stalker that absolutely deserves a shanking is Alidoro.

>>1100608 Video source with sound, to remind the refugees that you can indeed do that here.

>>1107263 He bitched for a long time and even tried saying older games weren't as obtuse. >>1107339 I have a feeling he doesn't know much about souls shit.

>>1107339 >I would have really enjoyed the Haligtree if the game had Sekiro moment mechanics. As it stands I fell off the damn thing dodging bubbles like 50 times. Never had that problem myself, but I can sympathize regardless. >>1107346 Crazy that cuckchan still has no sound for video on most boards.

>>1107425 >Never had that problem myself, but I can sympathize regardless. Well I can be rather clumsy. I suffered a lot at Itsukushima Shrine in Nioh.

>>1107455 The bubbles on those branches were kind of bullshit, so I can't really blame you for struggling.

>>1107474 I died more on falling then I did fighting.

>>1107398 The only thing that sets souls likes apart from the rest of the bunch is that souls likes have no auto save function and you can only save your progress/level up at bonfires. The game being hard doesn't even factor into the equation >>1107339 Clark Ashton Smith Yondo/Zothique. Books you probably never read and gameplay in the game =/= story

>>1107495 You have no idea of the souls games do you?

>>1107529 Ok so how was I wrong then retard lol. Name one functional difference between souls likes and other rpgs other than what I described. There is nothing special about that game mechanic

Not a surprise we got cancer from cuckchan.

>>1107474 The actual projectile bubbles were fine. But what killed me were when they didn't have a clear path but were still aggroed and just spawned bubbles directly on top of you. Like every couple of seconds. >>1107495 >Clark Ashton Smith Yondo/Zothique. Books you probably never read Oh OK you're actually retarded. Here go spend a few days reading and stop trying to get a fight out of the anons who's board you're bunkering on: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/

>>1107339 >And Lies of P is hardly more interactive with NPCs than most Souls. It's more descriptive than any souls game made by Fromsoft when distance traveled is factored in

>>1107625 Again you absolute retard gameplay =/= story

What a fucking sperg.

>>1107739 The real sperg is the person comparing apples and oranges and trying to say that because a short story is mostly action based means that gameplay itself is a story

Ignoring that retard, anyone playing Demon's Souls or BB emulated?

>>1107589 We've been getting their STDs for some years, now. >>1107625 >The actual projectile bubbles were fine. But what killed me were when they didn't have a clear path but were still aggroed and just spawned bubbles directly on top of you. Like every couple of seconds. I just snipe them with Lorreta's Greatbow if I'm on NG.

>>1107914 >I just snipe them with Lorreta's Greatbow if I'm on NG. I just started using me trusty holy club, once I identified where they were all located.

You can make an action heavy game with noteworthy story in it. Using the one medium out there that gives the audience a ton of agency and utilizing none of that so you can instead have virtually no exposition to you while you spam the space bar and try not to die from boredom is complete bullshit.

>>1107924 Whatever works. Elden Ring's ability to let the player choose how to handle situations is one of the things I like about the game.

>>1107948 Pretty much all open world games do besides garbage like GTA5

Elden meme causes the funniest meltdowns.

>>1107948 It pretty much became my all purpose tool for the game and it's really surprising how well that actually worked. I only ever had to change if I was dealing with something that was too holy resistant. Which after a little experimentation I settled on the Watchdog Staff, which game me basically the same experience but with magic instead of holy projectiles and minus the AOE start up blast. And those two were my entire repertoire until the last 5% of the game where I added in the Troll's Hammer as well. Appropriately which I got in the exact same cave as the Great club.

>>1108113 >is Lies of P good? Yes.

>>1108113 >is Lies of P good? Yes. Don't let the parry timings put you off if you try it. If you

>>1108113 >is Lies of P good? It's the only souls like I have ever completed. It's about a 7 or 7.5/10 for me. Saying this however I am likely to never play it again

>>1108113 >is Lies of P good? No

>>1107181 >Like what am I going to do in a Souls game, talk to the "zombies"? so you are a chosen one? why should i take you any more seriously than people who love skyrim?

>>1098607 Forcing myself to sit down and finish Nioh this time. I don't know if it's because of Sekiro but Tachibana Muneshige was way easier than I remember.

>>1108832 I don't remember if they nerfed him in some later patch or not.

>>1089083 Sleep pots wreck those godskin shitters

>>1107346 Thanks. I'm aware you have sound here, I just didn't have the original on hand. >>1107181 This is what I don't understand about the complaint that there are no traditional RPG towns in FromSoft: it isn't appropriate to the games, whether you look at it from a diegetic or meta perspective. Diegetically, every game world they've created is inherently hostile: Boletaria is full of soul-starved humans defending the kingdom; Lordran, Dragnleic, and Lothric are full of hollows; Yharnam is self-explanatory; and the Lands Between littered with the skeletons of fallen civilizations being picked over by the Tarnished, who were specifically called back to pillage other people's runes and great runes and kill the Elden Beast. You're an invasive species. From a meta perspective, adding traditional RPG towns, NPCs, etc. would just homogenize the games. I don't want to go to a fucking town and talk to NPCs like it's Skyrim or The Witcher. I like that FromSoft NPCs have the (the illusion of) agency; they have their own stories, and the player character merely intersects with them. I like that even minor characters (like the undead merchants in DS1, Ornifex in DS2, or Gostoc and Pidia in ER) have charming idiosyncrasies. More importantly, FromSoft's games clearly do not need traditional NPCs for worldbuilding; item descriptions work better for their specific structure. I don't understand this obsession that people have with taking away the things that make these games unique. This is far from the only example. If you've ever watched Joseph "the town is making him stupid" Anderson's Elden Ring review, he makes a bunch of stupid, homogenizing suggestions that directly undermine FromSoft's design philosophy, like labeling areas on Elden Ring's map with non-diegetic level ranges. And then there's the people who want traditional difficulty options, a pause button, and the removal of invasions. These inclusions and decisions are a core part of the games' identities and overarching design philosophy. I'll never understand how FromSoft games have the biggest cottage industry of people "analyzing" the games, yet shit like this is so common.

>>1107811 Nice art. I did like 3 Bloodborne playthroughs back in January when the emulation became more stable. Pure Skill, pure Arcane, STR/ARC. I'd play Demon's Souls again, but I don't think there's a build I'd want to do and I don't want to just go through the game without one in mind since it's so short.

>>1108873 I've remembered that but I used the sleep arrow girl and sleep grease to the same effect. >>1109253 Sekiro is really the only odd one out. Even then you are shinobi of uncertain alliance that's been called to Ashina castle defacto current (but in function previous) Lord to deal with the other faction. Even then the Ashina samurai stop auto aggroing on you after the infiltration and invasion gets under way later and prioritizes the Ministry forces. So all in all it sort of makes sense. Not sure why the Nightjar are being such assholes though. I thought they were directly subordinate to Isshin? >>1109287 You should try a bloodtinge build.

>>1109336 I forgot, it was 3 1/2 because my 4th build was a Bloodtinge build that immediately rushed reiterpallasch I have no idea why you have to beat the Witch of Hemwick before the carriage spawns, it was annoying as fuck and chikage. It was a little underwhelming, although I didn't do the reiterpallasch and cannon combo. At that point, I didn't have enough gas to finish a 4th playthrough, otherwise I'd try bloodletter. Next time.

>>1109376 Have you tried some of the more niche weapons like the wheel or beast claw or stake driver?

>>1109414 Wheel was my 2nd playthrough back on console, great weapon. I also threw it onto my STR/ARC build, although I was mostly using the amygdala arm (which is great, I don't know why it had a bad reputation). Beast claw is one of the few weapons I've simply never touched because it's locked behind a lot of progression with using chalice dungeon glyphs. I've also never touched the stake driver, because I usually forget to kill Djura and he doesn't deserve to die. I intended to use it at one point, maybe next time.

>>1109462 >I usually forget to kill Djura and he doesn't deserve to die. I intended to use it at one point, maybe next time. No if you make friends with him he gives you his badge and you can just buy it. The only thing not killing him locks you out of is his armor set. >because it's locked behind a lot of progression I kind of thought the same thing and dismissed it for a playthrough but then I realized that you can get the off brand version from false dep-th chalice glyphs. Just look some up online and you can get it way earlier than Lower Loran.

anyone wants to do an elden ring fight club these days

is fromsoft running out of ideas?

>>1113589 >is the studio that is producing two overlapping projects, recently produced a DLC they didn't plan to make, produced a sequel in an IP that people thought they abandoned, and produced a random VR game running out of ideas No, and Miyazaki hasn't even dipped into his reserve of self-indulgent passion projects (the traditional JRPG and the Escaflowne-inspired game he's mentioned). The way I see it, Nightreign and Duskbloods are an opportunity for FromSoft to experiment with new mechanics while revisiting and refining older ones, which is welcome because Elden Ring's multiplayer system fucking sucked. I don't really see them as "running out of ideas", especially considering Nightreign seems to be the new director's autistic passion project.

>>1113589 Considering that Elden Ring is just Dark Souls 3 but in an open world I would say that they have, yes. Name one thing they added to Elden Ring compared to the other souls games they have created that is actually innovative to the genre. I'll wait.

>>1113909 Ah yes, look into old archaic ideas which they abandoned instead of fresh ones that will make the games better. Now this is the play

>>1114247 Mounted combat, proper jumping, interchangeable weapon arts, streamlined stagger mechanic, a world map, invader teleporting, new way of handling dual wielding, tons of new spells - ashes and movesets, new way of handling character progression in the DLC, passive/active poise hybrid system, spirit summons.

>>1114247 FromSoft's thing is iterating, not innovating. They've barely innovated at all since Demon's Souls, specifically the concept of multiplayer connectivity in a 3D ARPG. Even Dark Souls' interconnected world is not innovative, it's simply a 3D Metroidvania. They're like the antithesis to Game Freak, who just come up with new concepts and abandon them in the next game: the underground, following Pokemon, difficulty modes, the PWT, meaningful version differences, Mega Evolutions, Z-moves, "What if the Pokemon were, like, big", or Terastallization what a dog shit name for a mechanic in a children's game. FromSoft is more like >weapons have different stat scalings and movesets >okay, now weapons have a special move too >okay, now you can change the special move on some weapons too >okay, now here's pre-made builds that are specifically designed around a restricted moveset with more special moves Elden Ring is not an innovative game. Most of its gameplay mechanics iterate on existing ones from Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro, while its broader design takes cues from modern open world video games, but recontextualizes them in a way that (mostly) works for a FromSoft game. People like FromSoft because they're consistently good at what they do, not because they innovate. The underlying design philosophy of their games is fundamentally solid, respects players, and hasn't changed in 15 years because it has been successful for that entire time. If you want to see what "innovation" for the sake of innovation can do to a game, the past decade of fighting games gives you every example you'd ever need. Calling Elden Ring "just Dark Souls 3 but in an open world" is outing yourself as a retard.

>>1114503 None of those things are innovative to gaming

>>1114503 I honestly wouldn't consider any of these innovative, they're all iterative. The closest is spirit ash summons, but they're also just an iteration on how FromSoft designs difficulty (the retard-proof, choose-your-own-adventure system). These are all good features, though.

>>1114521 You said "innovative to the genre", not to gaming as a whole. We're talking about Souls games here.

>>1114504 >while its broader design takes cues from modern open world video games Yeah I can see that. The open world serves no purpose just lie most modern open world games

>>1114536 I chose my words poorly but that's what I actually meant

>>1114563 Alright then, these features might not seem very innovative in isolation but when you put them all together they become something totally unique. It's not just about what they're called it's about how they're designed, I've never played a game with mounted combat like ER before, have you?

>>1114652 Mount And Blade did a better job with mounted combat where physics was king. I don't see any point in playing Elden Ring ever again as there is nothing to do in it besides smash monsters skulls in/move onto the next objective which could take hours of riding and ignoring combat to get to. You haven't provided me one good reason to play ER over a game like DS3

>b-but what about all the NEW spells and weapons you can find Which you can't even use because you aren't proficient at them kek. It's either you aimlessly wonder for dozens of hours finding things you can actually use, or you resort to immersion breaking guides to get what you want

I love thread IDs so much

I'm hoping that the multiplayer focus is an excuse for them to allocate more resources to improving their netcode. Their online tech needs work to be acceptable in the modern day, and I'm betting that there are people at Fromsoft who want to re-introduce AC's emphasis on pvp in the next title.

>>1098607 I second Salt and Sacrifice. Enotria The last Song was a recent one I liked a lot, too. Spaghetti Souls but with Sekiro parries as the main defensive focus. Worth a pirate at least. >>1115428 Damnit I can hear it

>>1113909 >especially considering Nightreign seems to be the new director's autistic passion project. Do you really believe this...?

Ok, I'm gonna give it ONE more try...what am I in for?

>>1114776 I don't remember any double-jumping horses in M&B that turn on a dime, whether or not you think it's better isn't really relevant.

Wanted to test file size limit. Needed to kill Godfrey at low level for a meme talisman slot, and decided to do it damageless. >>1115855 I shouldn't have said passion project, it just seems like he's passionate about the project based on that interview. I don't really have high expectations for it, personally. It'll probably be "okay".

>>1117447 That's fair but if I cared about the double jump I'd play rua

Oh did the guy who got filtered by the Millicent questlines and spergs about how Elden meme is Dark souls 3 show up again?

>>1118214 Why have any questlines at all when the story itself is steaming dogshit not worth delving into is the question

I'm wheezing.

>try to invade in base ER for 10 minutes >nothing >try to invade on seamless with the same character >nonstop instant invasions against groups of different people lol

I'm getting frequent invasions in the base game, what's your rune/weapon level?

>Hitler has died >Nigger has died >Faggot has died >Kike has died I love seamless players >>1118340 It's great. My only complaint is that it's too easy. 20-40 and 168 were my sweet spots for base game invasions, but I feel like 60-90 is great in seamless because of the lack of downscaled password phantoms obliterating 90% of your HP with one attack. Normally that's where downscaling doesn't work at all.

>>1118455 Then go play AC: Shadows, nobody is stopping you.

>>1118578 You know you want to, ever since you saw that zesty image of Yasuke you've been having funny feelings.

>losing open world invasion next to a walking mausoleum >deliberately move the fight under it >BONG... >BONG... >BONG... >it squishes them to death

>>1118374 >My only complaint is that it's too easy Pretty much. Seamless is great for meme builds, specially since Godrick's Rune allows for extreme amounts of build variety at lower levels.

>>1118679 You know there is poster IDs right? We can see that you're repeatedly posting bait post after bait post

>>1118741 You aren't doing a very good job

>>1118809 I like it because it extends the games run time, it's also mostly optional.

>>1118902 Nah, it's a good size the way it is. Any bigger would be overkill.

>>1118968 Nah, 100ish hour playtime is the sweetspot.

>>1118677 I feel dirty using Godrick's, even the soreseal is enough. It's a shame that great runes are ultimately pretty boring. That said, I do have ideas for how to use them on meme builds. >30% HP from Morgott's great rune on my hyper mode build that's just 60 VIG, royal remains armor, twinbird kite shield, blue- and red-feathered branchswords, and crab >even more healing on my regeneration build from Rykard's great rune The issue is that the regeneration build is already too mean for seamless. It's great for bleeding password phantoms dry in the base game, and since regeneration scales so poorly there's no reason to level the build more for seamless.

>>1117626 The limit is 50mb 🤔

>this is bait >respond to it anyway >>1119030 Individual file size limit is 32 for some reason

>>1119046 I have a weak spot for good bait

>>1119068 So you want a map that is twice as big and run around twice as long on horseback to do the same amount of content we got in Elden Ring? Brilliant.

>>1119025 The best thing about Godrick's outside of just minmaxing is being able to use things that would be pretty much impossible otherwise. Being able to make a functional death magic build below level 100 is crazy.

>>1119046 >32mb Sounds good, I'll probably play later just to post webms

love how this is on pc now so i can just mod all the weapons/armor i want at the beginning

The dinosaur guy is an old man

I kind of wish that From had been brave and just not included conventional magic in Elden Ring. >>1113589 No but they're running up to the very limit on the whole "boss delay attack to rollcatch" thing. Lies seems to have slipped over that edge and that's why it doesn't overly matter if you git gud with perfect blocking or nor. Except for Laxasia.

>>1118693 I've seen this in multiple /vg/ refugee threads so far, it's pretty funny to see the local thread schizos show up and try their samefagging routines on a board with fucking IDs. More evidence that all schizos are low IQ

>>1120257 Wait till you see OUR schizos.

>>1120280 We've had guys going crazy for years.

We have IDs here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jQ3S2JzA9s funny they emphasize the female characters will look more feminine

>>1086303 If you played Elden Ring to completion you're a they/them type A

You guys gonna play Lords of the Fallen?

>falling for the ol' spicy grace >>1121263 You mean 3? If it's better than LotF2, probably. I enjoyed 2, especially the level design and art direction, but the gameplay was rough around the edges.

>>1121263 Probably not, I'm a fan of multiplayer and I like to have good netcode in my games. The LotF devs just use the default unreal engine stuff and it's horrible. It's at least 10 times worse than actual souls games, it really soured me on their games.

>>1119171 Since it's on PC now I really like someone to do some vanilla-ish mods for it like expanding Cainhurst, Hemwick, and Forbidden Woods or have a Mensis mode where you'r constantly having to play hide and seek with frenzy towers and winter lanterns.

>>1116775 the level design in this game was so garbage i couldn't be bothered to finish it. just long winding paths packed to the brim with the same five intentionally annoying enemy types the whole way through the generally aggravating design philosophy feels like an exaggerated dark souls 2

>>1116775 It's nice that they're still putting that much effort into it, but I don't think this trash game can be fixed.

oh I didnt even realize this was made by ci games that explains so much

>>1118340 If you have ever picked up a weapon or upgraded it higher than what's "expected" for your character level it kind of screws up the match making. If so you're only real option at that point is to level up.

>>1127954 The issues with Elden Ring's multiplayer system go far beyond the +7 banished knight's halberd and Rogier's rapier, somber smithing stones, or the 20-30 free levels from Greyoll messing with the level and weapon level matchmaking. The core issue is that invasions are exclusively predicated on co-op, and no one does co-op. And unlike Bloodborne there are no dedicated PvP areas even though Mohgwyn Dynasty Mausoleum was likely intended to be a PvP area. >the majority of players who would want to do password co-op, the easiest form of co-op to coordinate, use seamless >random co-op is difficult to coordinate due to Elden Ring's open world design, and is only consistent at low levels >random boss co-op is more common than random dungeon co-op Trying to do random co-op is the ultimate blackpill on Elden Ring's mulitplayer system. Even at the "right" level and upgrade level, you can sit there with your thumb up your ass for 10, 20, or even 30 minutes at a time without a fucking summon. It was never a sustainable system, it only worked because ER is popular enough to have a consistent ~30,000 players. It's easier to find invasions in DSR or LotF2 than it is ER, even though they have a fraction of a fraction of ER's concurrent players. They really should have kept DS3's ember system and restricted solo invasions to dungeons to help populate the multiplayer pool.

>>1129753 >They really should have kept DS3's ember system They SO should have. It would have fully justified all the optional bosses. You could kept them around until you needed to top off your great rune before going through a difficult area or fighting a real boss. >co-op not working right Well yeah. The whole system was designed for Demon's Souls, a much smaller and much more linear game. And they've never attempted to really overhaul it even though they absolutely need to for a huge open world game like Elden Ring. >>1129753 >and restricted solo invasions to dungeons Or done some gravelording/Rat King/Old Monk kind of stuff.

>>1127280 >the generally aggravating design philosophy feels like an exaggerated dark souls 2 This is also why I stopped playing lol. Still going to check out the new update once its done downloading.

>>1121263 I have no desire to play it.

Code Vein's Cathedral of Blood is the best level in a soulslike and you can't prove me wrong.

>invading on seamless >run into two retards who both have 300 ping and Reduvia >one of them has an active great rune, heavy armor, and ~1,600 HP at roughly level 50 >realize this is a losing battle as I'm drowning in desynced blood blades >except this is Bestial Sanctum >lure them outside >intentionally get low and pretend I'm out of flasks >trick the player with the great rune into hitting the black blade gargoyle >it immediately one-shots him >get in a teabag before dodging friendly fire from the gargoyle >the other player runs inside and desperately tries to fight me off >as I'm about to finish him off, the gargoyle roars through the crack in the doors and kills him I love it when a plan comes together

>>1131427 >Code Vein's Cathedral of Blood It's like a kid downloaded a model of a cathedral and started copypasting parts of it hundreds of times over to create a maze.

>>1119385 I really hope the t-rex stuff isn't a one off and the entire character's theme is that he's a a kind of vintage, bone wars-esque paleontologist transforming into all sorts of different dinosaurs for his attacks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxH6iRd2k4k >another Soulslike that doesn't understand why people like Soulslikes I'm reserving judgment until I see non-trailer gameplay, but this trailer doesn't inspire confidence

>>1116775 >shared progression coop I wonder if some of their employees played dark souls/elden ring with those seamless coop mods and decided >Yeah, you know what, that's pretty good, let's bolt it onto our game Also, free friend pass is cool, but feels like a weird flex

>>1133278 >why people like Soulslikes the boss fights?

>>1133278 >FPS It's not a soulslike at all

>>1133750 In a word, the presentation. Atmosphere, art direction, setting, characters, enemies and bosses, music, sound design, and tone. The gameplay is important too, but the presentation is more important. Autism warning. Although people usually cite the term "elegance" from that interview with the anecdote about Dark Souls' undead dragon design, I think the other word used, "dignity", better embodies what distinguishes the games. I don't look at games like Lords of the Fallen (2014), Code Vein, Mortal Shell, or Covenant and feel that they understand this concept at all. It isn't just the presentation, it's that they don't have an identity. They're imitations, conceptually and thematically. I think Lords of the Fallen (2023) and Lies of P are the only two Souls-like I've played that feel like they have a distinct identity - even if they're inspired by Dark Souls and Bloodborne respectively. I can't speak for Salt & Sanctuary or The Surge, but I know they have their fans. Even though FromSoft loves to iterate on similar concepts and themes, they're at the best when they do so with a clear idea of what they want to do: DeS, DS1, Bloodborne, Sekiro, Elden Ring. They're at their worst when they're imitating themselves: DS2, DS3. I don't think it's a coincidence that DS2 and DS3 are the only two FromSoft games I'd describe as cynical; DS2 because it is self-aware about its perceived difficulty and imitating Gwyn with Vendrick, and DS3 because it is self-aware about being a sequel that Miyazaki didn't want to develop. The cynicism of DS3 is at least represented in its presentation, though. My point is that their best games have a distinct, sincere identity. Games like DS1, Bloodborne, and even Elden Ring have something to say, and the creative choices that determine how they say it are exceptional for an industry as cynical and pandering as gaming. I'll stop myself from going into how good Bloodborne is in this regard. To tl;dr, just look at what people continue to discuss about FromSoft games after all this time. It's not the gameplay. It's Gwyn's sacrifice and the undead curse, the fat officials, the Prison of Hope, Ash Lake, Shrine of Amana, Archdragon Peak, the overarching story of DS3's DLCs, Bloodborne's setting and narrative, the stories of the demigods, the metaphysics of Elden Ring's universe, even small stuff like the living jars, the humor of the games. I think Micolash is a good example. On your first playthrough of Bloodborne, you shed a lot of blood, sweat, and tears getting to the Nightmare of Mensis, a literal nightmare realm filled with horrors beyond your comprehension. Yet the game is completely unafraid to have the penultimate boss of the game be fucking Scooby-Doo chase sequence with a single, unarmed retard - and it's presented with complete sincerity. I think that one of the reasons that people dislike The One Reborn is because it's exactly what a lesser developer would have done instead of Micolash. A gross, generic flesh-monster without a clear identity or purpose. (Unfortunately we got both.) This is why I'm skeptical about Nightreign, because it's the first time in a long time that a FromSoft game has so clearly lacked an identity and purpose. >>1134063 The developers themselves call it an "FPS Souls-like"

>>1116775 I hate that I feel like I can no longer play Single Player games on my own time, I just want to play what they released, not what the game become after casuals that run past enemies complained about >Changed movement and combat That's a huge fucking red flag for me, what about people that enjojed the game? Well fuck them, we need casual money to fund the sequel >VERSION 2.0 plastered on the cover Wow, I want to buy the game that says 'WHAT WE RELEASED WAS SHITTY BUT TRUST US THIS TIME' Just fills me with confidence this game is good. I'm downloading it on Gamepass, if I don;t have the option to update manually and it downloads the latest version I'll just wait until I can buy physical for $5-10

>>1135158 >This is why I'm skeptical about Nightreign I am too but I think they are just using it as an excuse to experiment and make some extra money while getting corporate off their back and developing a flavor of the month genera game. All of the new shit in Nightreign and Duskbloods will get repurposed in the future for an actual Souls game, I'm certain. >The One Reborn I'm not even entirely sure what purpose he serves in the story or from a gameplay POV. He's really too weak for being at that stage of the game to be a real threat. I think he's just a fill in because Micolash's quest line was cut, which had you apparently interacting with himto do something for him until the ritual triggers and he goes mad and drags both of you into the nightmare. Instead we just got the unexplained boss fight. That same exact thing apparently happened again with Maria. Apparently with Master Wilhelm too only even his boss fight was removed or never finished as well. Apparently the actual boss before Mico was going to be the giant spider but they couldn't get it to work properly or something. Which is why it was turned into more of a stage hazard that's killable. The Brain was also going to be a boss fight apparently too.

>>1135158 They call it a Soulslike because that's a popular and they hope to sell more copies because of it, just like PoE2 the game is nothing like a Souls game, these sleazebags just want to cash in on ignorant normalfags.

>>1135883 >because that's a popular genre*

>>1086303 >Soulsborne games You mean games from FROMSOFT or soulslikes in general? Because Lords of the Fallen just got a final 2.0 update that overhauled animations, UI, coop, added a friendpass plus some other stuff. It no longer feels like shit to play. I am having fun.

Broken audio, so you can't hear the giant's victory roar >>1135449 >All of the new shit in Nightreign and Duskbloods will get repurposed in the future for an actual Souls game, I'm certain. This is my cope as well. As someone who has loved the multiplayer aspect of FromSoft games since Demon's Souls, I hope that whatever lessons they learn with Nighreign and Duskbloods are integrated into the next "real" game. As for Bloodborne, I don't know much about its cut content beyond the obvious stuff like the Lake of Mud and Master Willem's "boss fight", so that's interesting. The giant spider is so forgettable that I didn't know what you were talking about for a second.

>>1135158 What do you mean? Nightreign has an extremely clear and set in stone identity and purpose, which are "low effort cashgrab made to squeeze as much money as humanly possible out of a fanbase with more good will than sense"

>>1136566 >Nightreign has an extremely clear and set in stone identity and purpose And that is "coop Souls game"

Anyway, just bought Mortal Shell complete for like $4. Can't be bad for that price, right?

>>1136566 Except it's a $40 spin-off with no pretensions about what it is. If you want a low-effort cash-grab, that's the content in the Switch 2 edition that players on other platforms will need to pay for. The narrative re: Nightreign makes no sense to me, personally.

did any of the generals like /erg/ migrate here yet?

>>1088350 That severed harpy... the blade of Miquella

>>1136714 The generals that migrated are the ones that are inherently social* (MMOs, fighting games) or primarily populated by addicts (porn games, gacha, and TCGs). I am perfectly happy with nu-/dsg/ and /erg/ not migrating, as far as I can tell. * - schizo

>>1135449 The thing with Micolash is that they swapped his character around like 10 times during development so it's no wonder that what's left of him is a mess that makes no sense, at one point he was even your friend alongside Laurence Reading all the leftovers of the original story it seems pretty apparent that Sony wanted a more traditional story and character as opposed to the souls style

>>1136817 I don't think I ever went to /dsg/ but I liked dropping in and hanging out on /erg/ sometimes. I hope they make it over eventually.

>>1086330 Nah, dark souls 1 is still one of the best arpg dungeon crawlers Other games in the genre have worse combat. They are mostly button mash games

Game feels much better now. Went from a 6/10 to a 7/10 on my book. Still has the same core issues that I hope will be fixed on the third game.

>>1133466 Game had seamless co op since launch. Could play the entire thing from start to finish without constant summoning and load screens. Problem was, majority of the progression, gear, upgrades was only for the host. Super retarded. They fixed it now along with some of the shitty animations, like lamp flaying. Before, you had to equip your lamp, lock on to a target and click again to pull platforms and split souls. Now you just press a button. Same thing with the janky jump. You had to sprint before jumping which sucked because the level design and platforming isnt very good. The levels and controls killed you more often than the monsters.

>>1136714 erg here 👋👋👋

>>1137429 >The level and controls killed you more often than the enemies So, dark souls basically.

>>1137104 I saw that there was a 2.0 update recently. I'm surprised they're still supporting it, considering the sequel is in active development. Did they improve the weapon animations at all? I liked some weapon classes, but the animations of any weapon class without range were awful. I think that's the only thing that would get me to play the game again, although I've defended it a lot.

>>1137454 anyone else make it or are they probably just waiting longer to see what the situation is?

>>1139120 i hope not

>>1136566 >"low effort cashgrab made to squeeze as much money as humanly possible out of a fanbase with more good will than sense" That is the identity and purpose of the corporate project to develop and release the game, not of the game itself.

I really hope solo-Nightreign is fun. I'm not terribly optimistic. But I do love roguelites and an Elden Ring roguelite could simply be immense fun. But I've got no interest in squadding up with randoms or keep some group together. I'm really excited for Diskbloods 2. Granted that we know less of it and it's not due until next year. But it kind of seems like it might resemble Fate/Another WC3 custom game. Maybe that's putting a lot of weight on the word "might", but if true then I'd be very excited for the game.

>>1136566 That's just every game in exisstence, yes even the free ones. But also if they actually cared about squeezing as much money as possible they wouldn't have made it a Switch 2 exclusive (doesn't matter if timed or full) to begin with.

>>1146097 Is this a skit?

>>1146684 Nope. update devlog.

>>1146097 Based

>>1146097 The devs are so desperate to make people like this soulless clone of a game, if I were them I would be ashamed for not having a single original thought in my head.

>>1147027 Compared to the average of "Souls-likes" as a genre nu-LotF is actually pretty good, not like anyone else is going around being a fount of originality anyways. It and Lies of P are probably at the front of the pack. (Nioh, the new DnF game etc are in a different sub-category, since they have stuff like tiered rng loot and mission instancing which changes the gameplay loop) I pirated the game back in 1.5 and it was an enjoyable experience even if no one is going to call it a masterpiece. Having catalysts bound to a modifier key stuck with me as an interesting difference from From's way of doing it since I usually play spellsword type characters for my first playthroughs and it changed gameplay considerations a bit, though It was probably just them bolting casting onto the system they already had for the Soul Reaver 2 Lamp.

>finally encounter twinks on seamless >DLC gear, frost pots, rot pots, hefty rock pots, uplifting aromatics, great runes, the whole nine yards >try fighting >get a backstab >a lightning-infused dagger with the dagger talisman only does 1/4th of their HP >a single mistake gets me rotted or rock potted for 90% of my HP (I don't even have rot boluses) It would be a shame if you fell for the oldest trick in the book. And I thought I was being mean changing from keen to lightning.

>>1148390 >twinks That just looks like hacked stats. Also, you can alter the Seamless config text file to display player level and ping instead of just their name.

>>1148390 >>a lightning-infused dagger with the dagger talisman only does 1/4th of their HP 🤔

>>1149325 >>1149340 Considering I'm level 30 and can therefore invade up to 53, more than 1,600 HP is entirely possible if they CE'd in 4 talisman pouches too. I don't really know why you'd want to play the game like this, but you can. >you can alter the Seamless config file Thanks, I keep forgetting to do this - mostly for the ping.

Malenia's rotussy

>>1148390 >I don't even have rot boluses It's fine. Nobody does.

>>1136552 >This is my cope as well. It's not even cope/hope, it the historic pattern. Every new Sous game reuses underdeveloped or cut concepts from the previous game(s). There's a LOT of Bloodborne in DS3, for example, if you start looking around. And there's some Bloodborne in Sekiro and a bit in Elden Ring even.

>>1086319 Armored Core is Soulsborne don't you know

>>1156078 I'm aware, but I don't know whether the neglect of multiplayer features in Elden Ring was intentional or an unintentional result of development constraints. There's an argument to be made that (re)using DS3's multiplayer system would have caused complaints from new players. Hell, players already complain about invasions even though they consent to them by co-op'ing - and invaders have never been more disadvantaged. So when I say cope, it's because I still don't know whether these multiplayer refinements will be rolled into FromSoft's next "real" game. Hopefully they will. I'm a much bigger fan of Dark Souls, but Sekiro (Elden Ring) than I am Dark Souls but Bloodborne (DS3).

I hope we end up staying here, 4chan sucks. Is Duskbloods coming to PC ever? I'm probably going to get Nightreign when it comes out and idk what it even is.

>>1161862 I think it's highly probable. FromSoft owns the IP and, more importantly, it would be a poor financial decision to permanently restrict a game like Duskbloods to a "casual" platform which has had no intersection with FromSoft's consumer base with the exception of Dark Souls Remastered. The strategy is probably to generate strong initial interest in the Switch 2 and announce a multi-platform release 1-2 years from now, after the Switch 2 release. It's a mutually beneficial strategy: Nintendo got their "Bloodborne 2 is on Switch 2" marketing moment I'm not saying this is accurate, but it's undeniably the popular perception and FromSoft gets sales on other platforms. In other words, it's just Monster Hunter Rise again.

>>1159469 The complaints about invasions comes from this massive influx of Elden Ring bandwagoners that never even touched the series before. Novel and unorthodox features like invasions don't sit well with the normalfag crowd, they won't stop complaining until everything is sanitized and boring. It appears that FS is now attempting to split up these audiences with multiple games focusing on different things instead of rolling it all into one big game. I really hope this isn't the case.

>>1164494 THAT'S WHY THEY ARE THE GOAT!!!

>>1155647 Malenia poster? do you have many pics of her?

So I finally got around to playing Elden Ring the last few days and honestly I started getting bored in Limgrave. Also got annoyed with how many times I'd see something interesting, go there and kill everything and get no rewards, probably happened a dozen times the first two days of playing. Anyway, the open world meme needs to die BUT once I did Stormveil it got fun and interesting again and then Liurnia I found alot more interesting and aesthetically pleasing too. I'm alot more excited to play the newest Armored Core next. It feels like faith builds were really catered to in this game.

>>1159469 100% intentional. As fun as invading and PvP is, it's a very small part of the community that brings more trouble than it's worth.

>>1166211 >brings more trouble than it's worth For who? Casuals? Shareholders? Attitudes like this is why modern games suck ass, everything will be homogenized into the same awful corporate slop.

>>1166321 >For who? For Fromsoftware developers. They still have to design their games around it. I hope they will keep that shit only in multiplayer games like Nightreign and The Duskbloods. Keep that shit away from singleplayer games for now.

>>1166600 It would be a shame to rob a game series of a feature that has been a core part of the formula for 16 years just because you like Sekiro. I don't think Fromsoft would have been nearly as successful if it wasn't for their novel take on multiplayer, I hope that doesn't stop now.

So… Looks like this is the place. Any other /erg/ or /souls/ peeps made it over? Guess this board had a fairly healthy place for this stuff already but there’ll be no more dedicated Elden Ring General which I guess I’m fine with. Feels strange not to see any shitposting.

>>1168279 I was in /erg/ a long time ago, I think this is it. Very eerie how some gens are somewhat active like xivg or osg (on sharty), and others almost gone completely

What do we think about the biggest mod for elden ring, convergence? Anyone played that?

>>1165001 Hybrid builds thrive in Elden Ring. The game's length lends itself to more diverse stat distributions. While there is an internal logic to how extrinsic rewards are distributed throughout the open world, it isn't always consistent. The better rewards are typically in dungeons and mini-dungeons, but there's also a lot of worthwhile ones in the open world - specifically ashes of war from scarabs, which can at least be seen from a distance. Eventually you get a feel for it, at which point it's easier to explore the open world without wanting to kill yourself. The real meat of the game is still the dungeons and bosses, however. >>1163461 I think the great irony of FromSoft games is that we've basically come full circle from Dark Souls. Dark Souls was so popular because it defied the industry's obsession with "casualization" in the wake of the Wii's success. It proved that gamers wanted good games that didn't hold their hands. Yet now the Internet is flooded with idiots on Twitter, Reddit, and 4chan :^) and self-styled critics on YouTube who demand that the games sand down every rough corner. They demand difficulty modes and a pause button, they bitch about invasions, they complain that there are no suggest level ranges for areas, and you could fill a fucking book with all the lies and misconceptions about Elden Ring boss design. At best, they're well-intentioned and don't know what they want; at worst, they want to rot the games from the inside out. I'm glad that Miyazaki has said he doesn't really read feedback.

>>1159469 I think it was mostly a time constraint thing. Remember that PvP arenas weren't implemented for MONTHS after release. And clearly many characters and questlines were reshuffled and cut, even going right up to the last minute. I have a feeling that Volcano Manor was originally going to be an alternate Roundtable Hold for an anti Erdtree faction. Even that one trailer was structured in a way that seemed to indicate that. But then it just ended up being just a sidequest area. From in their best of times has trouble on the follow through, (See DeS broken archstone, the second half of DS1, Bloodborne's unfinished nature, Dragonrot and the giant straw doll in Sekiro) so I imagine trying to manage an open world that's got a larger map size than all of their previous games put together probably stressed them to near their breaking point. >>1168279 > but there’ll be no more dedicated Elden Ring General In a sense any Souls thread here is going to be an Elden Ring general until the next real Fromsoft Souls game comes out. >>1165001 >So I finally got around to playing Elden Ring the last few days and honestly I started getting bored in Limgrave That was my first impression too and that's why I stopped that playthrough and didn't go back to it until recently. I finally got to the point to where that I would just switch between setting myself in exploration mode or Souls mode depending on what I felt like on a given day ant that's how I got through it. An actual game that used the Souls engine but with gameplay modified for just open world (or classic interconnected world) ruin exploration would be something I actually love to play. Just remove the Souls part of it. I don't mean the difficulty, or save system, or movement or anything like that, I'm talking about the Souls structure as codified by Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 1. The truth is the Souls structure intrudes upon the open world and the open world dilutes the normal Souls formula structure and they both go together like peanut butter and water. Sekiro made a great action game out of the Souls formula by stripping out the aspects didn't need to be there and would interfere with an action game. I wish they had been as brave with Elden Ring. Once again though time constraints and breaking points. >>1161862

>>1169811 >The truth is the Souls structure intrudes upon the open world and the open world dilutes the normal Souls formula structure and they both go together like peanut butter and water Yeah, this is how I feel as well. Elden Ring is like two great games slapped together into something that's less than the sum of its parts. One minute it's a 10/10 masterpiece, the next it's a 7/10 slog. It really strains the limits of the FromSoft concept of you, the player, being responsible for curating your experience. It isn't possible on a first playthrough, and on subsequent ones it feels like you're picking through mountains of rice to find the meat and vegetables in the stir fry.

>>1169801 I found out that Elden Ring, far more than any other Souls game or Souls like, is basically Wiki Souls. If you want to have a non frustrating time open up dextralife plot out your build, equipment, fashion, etc. find out where every item is and start matching you map beacons to their interactive maps and don't worry about the other places if you don't want to go to them. That's what I did. You can kinda do it even semi spoiler free if you want. >>1169859 Yeah there are really amazing vistas that you can take in and it really feels like you're exploring a destroyed civilization, and then the game makes you go do Souls stuff. Or the reverse you're wanting to play a Souls game and do some dungeon running and then oh damnit the item/NPC/whatever is on the other side of the map and underground and you have to teleport around and then you get one tapped by something sniping you on the field. Then you do that several more times and your playtime for that evening has run its course and you've only managed 10% of what you would have ben able to do in a regular Souls game. And not because it was actually difficult, just time consuming.

>>1169978 The openness of Elden Ring is a double-edged sword. On one hand, I hate the process of leafing through the Wik and picking and choosing conteni; on the other, it's an immense amount of freedom to play the game the way you want. I value it much more whenever I revisit DS3 and Bloodborne, which are so much more linear. You can start or even finish a lot of builds and still have so much more content to play through. At this point, I treat the side content like chalice dungeons. I do it if I feel like it. Coincidentally, I just went and beat Mohg at 50 +5/2 so I could try the stupid INT katana from the DLC. I never get tired of this fight.

>>1168279 Board Owner just deletes lowest denominator stuff in the catalog and shit that's off topic as far as I can tell

>>1166977 >pvpfags still thinking their barely used feature is what actually sells games known for their PvE lol

>>1169801 I just remembered about the entire "drama" about pause in elden ring

>>1174111 Why shouldn't Elden Ring have a pause menu?

>>1174724 Because it's a multiplayer game, why should it have a pause feature? To give players another reason to opt out of multiplayer? That would be really stupid.

>>1086303 why didnt they just call it bloodborne 2 instead?

>>1174985 There are no multiplayer features when you are not invaded and have no summons. That's when you should be allowed to pause.

>>1175146 Playing offline shouldn't be advantageous over playing with others, there are no good reasons to have a pause feature.

>>1174724 Why should it?

>>1168279 These are threads for all the soulsborne games and major soulslike games.

>>1168279 I made it. see if anyone else does.

fsg turned into /souls/ before 4chan died so i wonder if it was someone from here

What's the best ending for Elden Ring?

>>1175146 There are enemy patrols, time-sensitive effects like Buffs or Poison or waiting for status to go down.

>>1174985 Good thing it already has a pause function then

>>1177274 So does Sekiro and no one complains about that

>>1175001 because that would be insulting

>>1175001 Because Bloodborne as an IP is still stuck in Sony jail and they can't do anything to free it

>Still no steed customizations/armors in ER Massively missed opportunity

Claymore or Hollowslayer /v/?

>lose friend >run away >point down >kill self It brings a tear to my eye. I learned that the 2nd hit of the star-lined sword's L2 roll-catches out of anything with level 2 hit stun (GS, CGS, GH, GA, whips), fun weapon. >>1180904 The cash-grab edition that's launching with the Switch 2 looks like it unironically includes horse armor DLC.

>>1180972 Claymore

>>1086330 I wish the containment site was still open, you people are fucking unbearable.

>>1177273 I typically side with Gwyndeldorf

>>1177273 Goldmask if you really, really want to believe the Order can be salvaged, Ranni otherwise.

>>1182849 >if you really, really want to believe the Order can be salvaged Everything we see of it in-game is a total shit-show though. To the point that even when people praise its past, it almost sounds like people are just mythologizing some kind of fictional past that was likely way more shit in reality. Or maybe I'm just a pessimist.

>>1181976 >The cash-grab edition that's launching with the Switch 2 looks like it unironically includes horse armor DLC. Hope Fromsoft makes said DLC available for everyone afterwards, depending on how much effort they actually put into them

>>1182849 >>1184196 Goldmask is the Robute Guilliman of Elden Ring. He believes in the fundamentals of the Golden Order, or at least what the GO is advertised as being, but he sees Marika/Radagon as flawed humans instead of gods. Which is completely correct as it turns out. His ending revokes any kind of middle management between any envoy God or Demigod and the Greater Will. It seems too like maybe he's made direct contact with the GW as well. Note that how his mending rune looks like it could be part of the Elden Ring, unlike Fia's or Dung Eater's runes. And he didne gestate it he discovered it.

>>1184549 They already said the DLC is coming to other systems.

>>1174724 Just find yourself a nice, peaceful corner to rest at. It's an open world game, there's plenty of them.

>>1184589 >Goldmask is the Robute Guilliman of Elden Ring. Does he have a knife ear GF?

>>1187173 Just his cuck bf, sadly.

>>1102671 Just kill Maughlin then cheese Dragonrider, same thing.

>>1187320 Lord of Frenzied Flame

I was blind to the existence of powerstances but now I am enlightened and roleplaying as a blender

Someone please go tell the gooks that I'm going to need some puppet bullshit in my life very soon.

Also I know that some of you 4gentlemen played this game so post your fashion and weapon autism.

>>1184589 >but he sees Marika/Radagon as flawed humans instead of gods. Which is completely correct as it turns out. His ending revokes any kind of middle management between any envoy God or Demigod and the Greater Will. This is wrong and misses the point entirely. It's a mundane and simplistic view at best First of all, there's no middle management. The Golden Order doesn't answer to the Greater Will, it answers to Marika and Marika only, with the Greater Will generally disintersted in what kind of Order is established and in particular having long abandoned the Lands Between Second, The mending rune of Perfect Order is a rune of trascendental ideology. It conjoins the fate of Crucible-touched, Numen descendants and revived Sun Realm spirits/souls alike. While the other 3 Order endings reshape the metaphysics of the Lands Between to establish the Old Order of Erdtree burial and Blessed dew sap creation again , the Age of Duskborn where people instead Live again in Death instead of having their soul turn to a catalyst or the multiplication of Omen wraiths through horns as current system of "management" of Life and Death, the Age of Order manages to conjoin those Souls. The whole point of the line you are referring to is that there will be no Goddess like Marika enforcing conversions and to impose her own system like the Erdtree belief was forced and spread through wars and mantained. This is why Goldmask journeys through the sites where the Golden Order committed its most heinous atrocities. His ability to understand the cipher language can make his gaze at the nature of how the Elden Ring connect Soul, and realize something Miriel remarks upon, that the Order can embrace its flaws like TwliD to reform

>>1115855 >>especially considering Nightreign seems to be the new director's autistic passion project. >Do you really believe this...? Why wouldn't it be true exactly? If From were cynical, they would simply make 12 Elden Rings in a row. Instead they are testing with some cool concepts while waiting for a mainline new game in a new world that will surely come, but when times are mature.

>>1177273 The only "bad" ending in Elden Ring is Lord of Frenzy, and by "bad" it means you are cynical enough that you think the creation of Life itself is a mistake. All endings are valid and are a matter pf point of view/roleplaying more than getting a worse or better ending. You are Lord no matter what, establishing an equally valid system

Did not realize the sploders near straids cell were cool shit

Maybe they will get it right the third time. Even with all the updates and changes, it still just a decent game. Too many core and design problems.

>>1190521 Considering all their political baiting, I doubt it.

>>1190521 >motion captured animations >boss roster is mostly dudes in armor swinging slow weapons >half the game is meant to be traversed in some monotone drab blue filter universe spamming shitty mobs at you It's fundamentally shit a true Dark Souls 2 successor

>>1190521 They got it right the second time, new LotF was a completely different team than the original. The original devs went on to make the Surge games (and Atlas Fallen which I have not played)

>>1190864 >Half Nah is more like 99%. Umbral world gives you more souls, loot, it is required to clear roadblocks and progress. There is no incentive to stay in the better looking and more chill normal world. Very bad idea and I hope they get rid of it completely for the next one. >>1190914 I really liked The Surge 1. Haven't play 2. Atlas Fallen I did play a month ago and it was obviously incomplete. The game peaks in the first map. Fun co op, rewarding exploration, fun skill system. Problem is, they give you all the weapons (there are only 3 in the entire game) and all the mechanics in the beginning. There is a total of 4 open world maps. After you clear the first, is just repetition till the end with the same handful of reused enemies and it gets jankier, more buggy in the later maps. Enemies with dodge moves can glitch through terrain and stay there immune to damage. Last 2 maps shifts focus towards aerial combat when the majority of skills are for ground enemies. It goes from a 8/10 to a 4/10 really fucking fast. Unsurprisingly, game bombed.

>>1191983 I only played Surge 2 and I couldn't stomach the damage spongey enemies everywhere. Felt like such a slog to kill any regular enemy I ended up just running past them. In Souls they take 2~3 hits to die if your weapon is upgraded accodingly to the area, why couldn't they copy that?

>>1192569 >>1191983 Just like Umbral in LotF, The Surge is dragged down by the shitty and purely arcadey armor/limb system. It's unfun garbage busywork with no real bearing to your attack hitboxes or that changed your strategy. Most of these Soulslikes just go for some garbage gimmicks and miss the fun and dynamicity of Souls game design. Funnily enough Bloodborne/Dark Souls 3 added locational damage zones for melee hitboxes with unique hitstun effect and none of those clones carried it over except Nioh

>>1192934 Locational damage is great in theory but you can only have that in either FPS where you can finely aim stuff or with big enough enemies. The Scythe headshot was quite unique in the game itself, wish more weapons did stuff like that. Low attacks on feet could make enemies move slower or something, but it's all very difficult to implement in a meaningful way if the foes die quick - so the Surge 'fixed' it with damage sponges and the outcome is just not as fun as straight up simple damage numbers.

New soulslike, announced. Riven Crown. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuWUA8-seUE Looks barely functional.

>still getting people in starting gear in Limgrave and Liurnia at level 60 on Seamless I don't understand how these people play the game. I assume half of them are killing Greyoll for tens of thousands of runes at the beginning of the game, but it still doesn't explain it. >>1197530 Buttery smooth, cinematic 5 frames per second.

>>1197530 I wish indies just did low poly stuff, it's not just because Unreal has all the graphical effects ever that you should keep them on.

>>1195761 >Locational damage is great in theory but you can only have that in either FPS where you can finely aim stuff or with big enough enemies. >The Scythe headshot was quite unique in the game itself, wish more weapons did stuff like that. It wasn't unique at all, all weapons have locational damage. https://youtu.be/daNqJVzHPdQ?si=qnfvH4xyCP3lc1Jj It's the enemy design that needs to make it possible, which would have been beter than the dogshit limb system of Surge games. All you need is to hit the boss weakpoint before any hurtbox

>>1197771 >I don't understand how these people play the game It's quite simple >seamless makes the game piss easy >no reason to care about builds or gear or anything >also no reason to constantly take breaks and visit merchants because a single coop session allows you to steamroll multiple dungeons uninterrupted These people are probably progressing that far in a few hours, because both them and the phantoms can teleport and use torrent and don't need to waste time resummoning.

New trailer for weapon changes in Archthrones: https://youtu.be/ft74u8Ggkoc?si=Lbz9cVDn1_gQimQO Also trailer about rings, builds, counter and other changes. And aother weapon change trailer https://youtu.be/TS0YENHz_Cg?si=GQiGo310a-lRniHN It seems the project is very solid and the combat is becoming a mix of Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring

Excuse me gentlemen, but I still can't see the appeal of souls games aside from "it's so le epic difficult!!!". I mean, they had good stories and aesthetics, but they weren't made for those purposes. I find it very cheap that the entire franchise if you can call it that centers around difficulty as the foundation. It seems to me like they weren't good at coming up with ideas. >u just say this because ur bad Nope. I got platinum in Bloodborne and I beat the first Dark Souls. I just think a game being based on difficulty is pretty gay and lacks creativity. The souls franchise could be so much more if those damn Japs didn't appeal to the loud segment of gamers on the internet who think difficulty should be the core of what a game is about.

>>1205356 Skill issue

>>1205356 Souls games aren't really hard. They just encourage exploration and experimentation by withholding information from the player. Mario is more skill-intensive than any Souls game.

>>1205482 >Souls games aren't really hard. They really aren't. I don't really understand people who have trouble with these games. Isn't reality hard enough?

>>1198759 i tested this mod a while back looks good but feels like it's 100% designed for people who ng7+ and complain about babby difficulty fuck killing any starter mob in less than 4 hits

>>1205356 The games aren't "based on difficulty" or even very difficult. You just keep repeating this over and over without any actual elaboration on how or why this is true.

>>1135158 Hollow Knight was another soulslike that had a good sense of identity and it fell prey to the same copycat syndrome so now we have dozens of absolute trash Hollowlikes coming out. Nine Sols is actually good though and maybe has the best actual story of any Souls inspired game? Blasphemous was also solid but I think they lost the plot with the sequel when they stopped working with their lead artist over their stupid desire to prevent the game from being sold in Russia. The sequel feels like, well, a bad clone that tries to be more playable but misses the appeal of the original.

>>1210960 Hollow Knight is in no way a souls like just because it has a cryptic story, depressing setting and losing something on death that you can recover if you walk back to the same spot. It has none of the elements that make Souls-likes actual Souls-likes and instead it's just a really solid metroidvania.

>>1205482 They start you off very basic and you have to learn the mechanics of the specific game while you die over and over again. Enemies are overpowered with strong defenses. I'd say that's hard, yes. >>1210508 I just explained it to the other guy but they are pretty much the opposite of games that empower you to kick ass. And the fanbase is all about how hard games are so epic. Again we have to question WHAT else the games bring to the table besides difficulty.

I like the movement in the new multiplayer games.

>>1212705 Enemies in Souls die in 2~3 hits, they have very weak defenses in fact.

>>1205356 >>1212705 Any game that lets you freely level can't truly be hard because you can level to the point you can overwhelm anything. Souls games aren't hard, they're unforgiving. In an era where lots of games will give you a "Golly Gee! Are you sure you want to die? Shall I unlock SUPER GUIDE MODE for you?" a game that flat out gives you a YOU DIED/死/Freed From This Mortal Coil feels hard but it's not really.

>>1205356 >>1212705 Souls games aren't hard because you literally can't lose, death is priced into the game loop and not a loss condition.

>>1212705 What enemies were you having a problem with in Bloodborne? For example there's nothing in Central Yharnam (that you're actually meant to fight) that are really difficult. The difficulty comes in from them mobbing you. This is generally true in every Souls game by the way. The "difficult" enemies in CY are >the two scourge beasts on the bridge Meant to encourage you to go around the long way instead of rush Cleric Beast. Even then scourge beasts aren't that hard on their own but these particular two share aggro and it's impossible to pull one without pulling the other. >Big Pig Meant to force you to take the bowling ball bridge instead of sneak around back. Pigs are actually pretty easy as long as you close distance and don't give them time to do their charge. Once you know to Try Fist, but hole they're a joke. Boss version in the chalices are different because they have immediate, and infinite aggro Even then they're not that bad as long as you are the right level. >Executioner This one's genuinely difficult, because it's over leveled for the location. It's also in a dead end back alley and it's clear that it's placed there as a "hey you don't have to fight everything" indicator.

>>1214843 >>1215867 >>1215946 >>1216120 >>1216369 Alright so for the most part, you all are saying "it isn't hard but it's hard" that's what I get from your posts. A game that starts you off very weak against tough enemies and makes you work from the ground up, is a hard game. Also, souls games have a reputation for being hard and that is why it attracts those types of gamers. On youtube and reddit, they openly admit this. Now as I levelled up and got experience the games got easier, but it took dedication to reach that point. Unlike other games where you can jump right in and smash enemies. It is interesting how other websites love the thrill of the challenge souls games provide, while you guys deny that and say they are easy. If you were making a game would you use difficulty as the main theme of the game? No, that would be outrageous.

I'd much prefer another short, easy(easier) dungeon crawl like demons souls than another 80 hour elden ring nightmare. Holy fuck. I'm never reinstalling that game ever again. It's great when you can finish a game in a weekend and move on with your life but still have some mysteries and weird mechanics left to uncover when you play again, it's a lot like the silent hill trilogy actually. Come to think of it, didn't the same thing that happened to survival horror also happen to souls? evolving the action at the expense of all else? And everyone just let it slide, again, and rewarded the devs with even more sales? how do good videogames even exist in this world

I've heard m&k is the definite way to play these games now so that you don't have to fight the camera while trying to roll. How many of you play on M&k?

>>1216629 both are fine, you can use the cameera and attack in Souls games with either

>>1216629 if you use mouse and keyboard use a mouse with side buttons

>>1216629 stop locking onto the enemy and you'll be able to use the camera just fine

>>1086330 almost got it. demon's souls and dark souls were kino, shifting focus to combat and milking the fuck out of the rollslop boss fights was their mistake. they also had something going with sekiro but it seems abandoned now never played nightrein but i hope this multiplayer thing they're trying feels better to play but i'm not holding my breath

>>1216629 My first playthrough of Dark Souls was with M+KB and I personally prefer to play on controller, with claw grip. I think controller is more comfortable, even so. >>1216369 Central Yharnam is definitely the most difficult tutorial level in any FromSoft game. My belief is that it's so unforgiving because, like Margit, it's designed to bitch slap the Dark Souls out of the player's mentality. My favorite example is the big procession of Yharnamites at the beginning; it's one of the only instances I can think of in any FromSoft game where progressing through the level carefully makes it more difficult. If you play aggressively, you can take out 2-3 smaller groups of Yharnamites before they join the big group at the bonfire. A lot of the difficulty comes from the way blood vials work, however. I agree with all of your points, though. Even though I feel like I have a good understanding of Central Yharnam's level design, I don't know what purpose of the executioner is. Some suggest that he's there to teach the player how to parry, but the risk:reward for parrying him doesn't incentivize doing so. I don't know whether he's there to be ignored.

>>1216436 >"it isn't hard but it's hard" Ninja Gaiden for the NES is hard. Ghost n Goblins is hard. Ikari Warriors is hard. Souls isn't hard. It's challenging to a degree, depending on several factors but it's not hard. It can be unforgiving, compared to other commonly known games but that's not the same as hard. >>1216436 >but it took dedication to reach that point. No more than any other RPG. >>1217547 >Central Yharnam is definitely the most difficult tutorial level in any FromSoft game. My belief is that it's so unforgiving because, like Margit, it's designed to bitch slap the Dark Souls out of the player's mentality. And that it certainly does. Cathederal Ward feels easier than Central Yharnam, despite having enemies that more challenging. And I think it's all down to density. That first run up the street in Central is just shear hell until you stop playing like Dark Souls and start playing like Bloodborne. The game wants you to be fast and aggressive. It even gives you instability frames in your dodge to encourage you to rally back health instead of rolling through everything. >I don't know what purpose of the executioner is. I'm not certain either. My guess is that he's a leftover from an earlier build or something. Usually when an OoP enemy exist for lore reasons it's to point to indicate something. Like the blue goobers in the Woods are probably Fake Isofka's previous experiments. The only executioners are in Hemwick and at the beginning of Forbidden Woods and guarding the way to the door to Unseen Village. Maybe it's just a classic Miyazaki joke.

>>1086307 I can deal with the multiplayer shit by ignoring it, it's the fucking Nintendo exclusive I can't ignore because I have no choice BUT to ignore it

>>1086317 > that stated the studio is not drifting away from the more traditional-type games That's the type of shit you say when you are drifting away from more traditional games because the publisher won't let you if they don't have as big of a finacial ceiling All they can fucking think is "Imagine if ELDEN RING was a MULTIPLAYER game with MICROTRANSACTIONS" JUST IMAGINE! But ER is a massive success because it AINT that

>>1218647 >But ER is a massive success because it AINT that Yeah...BUT JUST IMAGINE!

>>1216436 >A game that starts you off very weak against tough enemies First off, no FromSoft game does this. >Demon's Souls Starts you off against Boletarian soldiers, who are weak, and one or two blue-eyed knights who are relatively stronger - but whom you've been taught how to fight in the tutorial. >Dark Souls 1, 2, 3 Each Dark Souls game starts you off against naked and poorly equipped hollows, with the occasional optional strong enemy (black knight, Heide knight, winged knight). Only the Lothric knights in DS3 are difficult and difficulty to avoid. >Bloodborne Every strong enemy is optional in Central Yharnam, and like Demon's Souls your taught how to fight the most common strong enemy (scourge beasts) in the tutorial. >Elden Ring Intentionally kills you in the tutorial and lets you kill yourself fighting the Tree Sentinel to 1.) let you know that death is inevitable and 2.) incentivize you to do something else. Basically, the Tree Sentinel is just three Firelink Shrine skeletons in a trench coat. Other than that, it's the same shit as every other game: mostly weak enemies (wolves, imps, nobles, soldiers, demi-humans, etc.), with the occasional strong enemy (knights, sellswords, and rune bears). >unironically citing "YouTube and Reddit" You're not even appealing to authority, you're appealing to stupidity. You don't seem to understand the way that FromSoft designs difficulty at all. There is no standard difficulty. Instead, there's an implicit agreement between the developer and the player that lets you determine what difficulty is right for you. The better you understand the game, the better you can curate your preferred experience. It's a bell curve. The people who are praising the "challenge" of FromSoft games are at either end of the bell curve. They're either new players who struggle because they're ignorant, or experienced players who play with self-imposed restrictions. People who claim that the game is easy are most often semi-experienced players who understand the games' mechanics and how to exploit them, or experienced players who don't necessarily play with self-imposed restrictions, but understand how FromSoft designs difficulty. tl;dr two things can be true at once. The games are both easy and hard, depending on how you play them (or if you learn to play them at all).

>>1216514 The survival horror aspect of demon's souls really sets it apart. There is a hefty level of resource management with the grasses and total carry limits that actually requires you to put stuff in the hub stash and consider each area you're going for to know if you need to bring anything important.

>>1086956 I was surprised by how utterly identical Nightrein is. I swear it wouldn't take them more than a week to alter enemy textures a bit to pretend it's not entirely identical but there we are.

>>1219406 >with the grasses Let's not pretend that the resource management in Demon's Souls doesn't go to shit the second you either realize you can farm grass from 1-2 (or even 1-1) or encounter Patches in 2-2 or 4-2. I love the game, but it has some serious issues with resource management that don't feel good to mitigate with self-imposed restrictions. The dungeon crawling is great, however. >>1219430 It isn't pretending to be anything but a spin-off "set in the Elden Ring universe", though. I'd prefer that they reuse assets as is rather than arbitrarily retexture things. And I typically appreciate how good they are about giving a new coat of paint to or otherwise improving reused assets from game to game.

>>1219144 good drawing bro

>>1086354 i run BB @ 576p on a 1050ti. it basically ends up looking like a ps2 de-make with the low res + a lot of the effects disabled/some level geo removed, but I don't mind it. i leave it on 30fps for consistency, it dips occasionally but no more than the original un-patched game.

Demon's Souls is the only game in the series that I can honestly say felt meanspirited.

>>1219144 Did you draw that just for me? Also your first line says it all "no FromSoft game does this" when Bloodborne was NOTORIOUS for doing exactly that lmao. Dark Souls too, to a far lesser degree. This is the first time I have seen such an analysis, while all the other websites say "I love this because it's so hard bro!!!". The only thing left to do here is play some other Souls games, maybe, and see if you are correct.

>>1219874 ty >>1220581 Yes. >The only thing left to do is play some other Souls games In terms of how easy you can make each Souls game, I think the order is: Dark Souls > Demon's Souls > Elden Ring > Bloodborne with chalice dungeon glyphs > Dark Souls 2 > Dark Souls 3 => Bloodborne. But that's just my opinion. DS1 and DeS are very easy to make easy, because knowledge is power in those games. This is true of Elden Ring as well, but it's more like esoteric mechanical knowledge - multiplicative modifiers, stance damage, good weapons, spells, and skills, etc. - which is more difficult to learn through regular gameplay. DS1, in contrast, is really just a series of knowledge checks. That said, you can easily make Bloodborne and Elden Ring very difficult for yourself by refusing to learn or engage with the mechanics. Elden Ring seems to attract a lot of people who do this deliberately, for whatever reason.

>>1219144 Additionally >Sekiro The basic Ashina soliders are easy and all of the mini bosses are optional until you get to the chained Ogre, which it the game encouraging you to go check out Hirata Estate and clear the lower level for the fire barrel (and the axe). Chained Ogre isn't even all that hard, it's more of a geography problem than a boss difficulty problem. Additionally Sekiro gives you a lot of options of how you wish to approach enemies and minibosses and very often the ability to delete half their health in a stealth attack before the battle starts. Even though it's probably the most challenging Souls (sorta) game you still have the option of exploring and increasing your defense and flask before you are forced to fight many mandatory bosses. If take the time to actually parry then it will completely change your entire experience and since that's the main focus of the game it really funnels you into that by the time you reach Genchiro. >>1220581 >when Bloodborne was NOTORIOUS for doing exactly that lmao Are you talking about the werewolf in the clinic? That's practically a scripted death. >>1221484 >That said, you can easily make Bloodborne and Elden Ring very difficult for yourself by refusing to learn or engage with the mechanics. And Sekiro too. >Bloodborne If you decide to be very stubborn and decide it is just another Dark Souls but with a different aesthetic you can really cause your self a hard time. Then again if you're Dark Souls mindset you'll probably level strength and pick the axe which is going to set you up for an easy modo playthrough.

>>1087400 Yes

I love finding people in Seamless who are just doing completely different things on opposite ends of the world >spawn in next to some guy fighting the troll knight in Carian Manor >let him finish before dueling him >teleport to the next player >for whatever reason he's just sitting next to a brazier in an empty Redmane Castle, where it's snowing, weirdly >fight to death Kino

Why do people talk about the delayed attacks meme? What could they have done to fix it, to really hammer it into people that perhaps rolling isn't always the best solution, or that bosses will change their attacks dependant on player position? Should they have made the stance meter visible? Added Sekiro's perilous warning system for attacks you need to jump or strafe?

>>1222079 They shouldn't do anything Low IQ retards deserve to suffer and get filtered

>>1222079 >Added Sekiro's perilous warning system for attacks you need to jump or strafe? Yes I would say this. Lies does the delayed attack thing and that game feels a lot like Sekiro in a Bloodborne wrapper and the fury attacks desperately need an audio or visual cue as well. >>1222204 Not doing anything just leads people to bypassing the intended flow of combat. It doesn't actually filter anyone but what it does is make the combat feel jank and battles unsatisfying because people fight bosses in the most back ally ghetto way possible instead of the way you designed it. Actually having a filter boss early on is another way to go but most devs don't want to do this because they're scared that it will make people drop their game, give it a bad review, and maybe refund it.

>>1086923 Even as a dedicated caster there's very little reason to ever go above 28 mind.

>>1222279 >Not doing anything just leads people to bypassing the intended flow of combat. It doesn't actually filter anyone but what it does is make the combat feel jank and battles unsatisfying because people fight bosses in the most back ally ghetto way possible instead of the way you designed it. Who gives a shit, though

>>1222482 Why bother designing it or programming it if it just leads players to cheesing the boss fight?

>>1222495 Why bother designing and programming it and then ruin it because of subhumans who would never adapt or learn the game. You want to put a jump indicator? Every single attack in Elden Ring is jumpable into some direction. I can do easy "no rolls" through no junmping for basically any boss in RL1 by simply correctly placing myself. Elden Ring is not Sekiro and retards that want to play it like one were never going to understand it, because it'sn pure hitbox combat and a refinement of Souls. If you want to play rock-paper-scissor there's plenty Souls knockoff that take Sekiro mechanics

>>1222827 >and a refinement of Souls. I'm not sure I'd call it a refinement. I pretty much just damaged raced through every boss in the game and, as I tend to do, forgot to block or jump most of the time.

>>1222079 >delayed attacks They tried to teach people with Margit, not to mention the dozens of other enemies and bosses who will consistently roll-catch the player if they spam roll. There's nothing to fix. Do I need to "fix" my stove because I get burned when I touch it? >position-dependent attacks To be honest, anyone who doesn't intuitively understand this is retarded. >Should they have made the stance meter visible? No. I think it would take the tension out of combat. There's something deeply satisfying about gambling on whether a charged R2, jumping R2, or L2 will break the boss' stance. To me, this would be equivalent to adding a visible HP bar or stagger, knockdown, stun, etc. meters in Monster Hunter. It doesn't improve the game in any substantial way and results in metagaming. >perilous warning system Perhaps. I think it's poorly communicated to the player just how effective strafing, jumping, and even ducking attacks is. I personally don't think that perilous warnings are the solution. Even though I don't like tutorials, I think it should have been directly explained through a tutorial like the ones for stance-breaking, guard-breaking, or stealth attacks since it's unintuitive.

>>1223093 >No. I think it would take the tension out of combat. There's something deeply satisfying about gambling on whether a charged R2, jumping R2, or L2 will break the boss' stance. I don't think it would have mattered either way for me because I started counting the number of attacks I needed to break opponents and even eventually looked up poise tables just to confirm if I was doing it optimally. Since it was charged R2s from colossal hammers the answer is YES, yes I was doing it optimally most of the time. I did the thing I do where I intuitively over optimize my self into easy mode in a game.