Elden Ring

[Bunglo]

Hope you all have your preloads ready. We almost there boys 

[Vilham]

Think I will be getting this and putting a pause on HZD FW tbh, not enjoying it much and this no doubt will be amazing.

[FMPONE]

My first hour or two of this game consisted of walking around the pretty open world, not making much progress, and dying a lot

Impressed by some of the design aspects already.

Spoiler

It seems like they throw a boss at you that, I presume, if you are skilled enough, allows you to skip the tutorial section? If so, I think that’s an elegant way of exposing people to dying and allowing skilled players to bypass the tutorial entirely. 

 

[Bunglo]

3 hours ago, FMPONE said:

  Reveal hidden contents

It seems like they throw a boss at you that, I presume, if you are skilled enough, allows you to skip the tutorial section? If so, I think that’s an elegant way of exposing people to dying and allowing skilled players to bypass the tutorial entirely. 

 

 

Spoiler

Yeah, you can completely bypass any of the tutorials they have setup for players. I know a few of done so without realizing it. One of the things I like about From game, you figure out how to play the game by playing the game.

 

I played just under 5 hours yesterday doing a bit of co-op with a friend of mine who's never played a souls game before.

I won't be playing anything else for awhile.

[Bunglo]

There is issues with stuttering and performance for many folks. I can't say I've really experienced it too much, though my friend says he's been noticing it here and there. He's also on a lower spec system.

 

[FMPONE]

I finally feel like I understand the appeal of the game. Had a brutal learning curve as a first time Soul's player, but got my horsey and rode around grinding mobs, and even just that core gameplay loop is definitely a blast.

[AlexM]

I've only played this game Friday night and Saturday and I already have like 17 hours on the game

 

A few companies in Japan gave their employees the day off. I can't find the same article but the other one had a quote that went something like "you're not getting any work done talking about the game all day anyways, may as well have the day off"

https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/japanese-company-gives-staff-holiday-to-play-elden-ring-3169758

[FMPONE]

I really have no words for this game, it’s easily the best adventure game I’ve ever played and maybe the most addictive experience I’ve had since Oblivion. Shockingly good

[AlexM]

Definitely, I'm 40 hours in now and that's across maybe 5 play sessions. What feels like an hour passing is more like 4-5 hours.

[FMPONE]

7 hours ago, AlexM said:

Definitely, I'm 40 hours in now and that's across maybe 5 play sessions. What feels like an hour passing is more like 4-5 hours.

After tonight's session I hit 36.5 hours.

I will say that this is maybe the best fundamental combat loop, exploration, etc I've ever played. With that being said, the game's grind is starting to wear on me. It's frustrating to still run into enemies or bosses that one shot me at level 67.

Ultimately this game demands an insane, unbelievable commitment and, much like an MMO, I'm starting to resent the level of time commitment it demands. As a result of not being able to beat the first story boss (Grafted guy), it seems like I'm waffling on how much more I want to spend playing this with little to no story reward. I feel like I've seen the dungeon variations it has to offer, seen the different environments, seen the different enemy types, seen the ridiculously huge world. I have a good sense of their design choices and really have a lot of respect for what they're doing, they provide players a fucking ton of gameplay value. But there is a repetition factor there at this point that makes me doubt I will ever actually finish the damn game. I don't even understand how they created something this huge.

[AlexM]

You're level 67 and haven't beaten Godrick? There's a lot of mechanics that haven't unlocked in the game f that's the case.

What kind of build do you have?

Edited March 4, 2022 by AlexM

[FMPONE]

4 minutes ago, AlexM said:

You're level 67 and haven't beaten Godrick? There's a lot of mechanics that haven't unlocked in the game f that's the case.

What kind of build do you have?

I’ve basically been trying to boost strength and upgrade my weapon as much as possible, but I didn’t realize upgrading the starting sword would be such a waste of time. Wish I had saved my upgrade stones and used them on a better blade. I tried upgrading my wolf summon a lot. I’ve gotten pretty close to beating him (maybe 30% of his health remaining?) but I did basically no damage on his second form, tbf I haven’t tried many times though. I will probably have to take a bit of a break from the game because I’m finding it to be too big of a distraction from my mapping in my free time, but when I get back to it I’ll try to beat him.

[AlexM]

Interesting, I beat him around level 25-30 with few upgrades but took maybe 25 tries. I wore the fire charm for his second mode and had my physik set to gradual HP + shield. Are you trying to do it alone?

Also I didn't realize you could upgrade spirits! I don't think I've found that yet. Will have to look into that tonight.

As for upgrading the weapon, the good thing with Elden ring is you aren't locked in. If you have the whetstone you can change the specialty at a lost whateveritscalled. What is the starting weapon you have?

[FMPONE]

6 hours ago, AlexM said:

Interesting, I beat him around level 25-30 with few upgrades but took maybe 25 tries. I wore the fire charm for his second mode and had my physik set to gradual HP + shield. Are you trying to do it alone?

Also I didn't realize you could upgrade spirits! I don't think I've found that yet. Will have to look into that tonight.

As for upgrading the weapon, the good thing with Elden ring is you aren't locked in. If you have the whetstone you can change the specialty at a lost whateveritscalled. What is the starting weapon you have?

I managed to beat Godrick tonight, I think part of it was psychologically not even bothering to try him again after getting pwned a few times, it actually wasn't bad, beat him on my 3rd try I think (but my level is obviously crazy high, so it makes sense).

Also, wtf I had no idea you could reverse the item upgrades? I have the samurai sword. it's pretty cool but I've upgraded it to +10 and although bloody slash is awesome, it's a rock bottom low starting point type of item

Upgrading spirits makes a difference, for sure, but it's not as crazy as I would have hoped. The upgraded wolfs have won me a few fights for sure.

I'm also instituting strict limits on how much I can play this game, because holy shit it's too amazingly addictive. It's all consuming for me this week.

[AlexM]

On 3/4/2022 at 9:45 PM, FMPONE said:

I managed to beat Godrick tonight, I think part of it was psychologically not even bothering to try him again after getting pwned a few times, it actually wasn't bad, beat him on my 3rd try I think (but my level is obviously crazy high, so it makes sense).

Also, wtf I had no idea you could reverse the item upgrades? I have the samurai sword. it's pretty cool but I've upgraded it to +10 and although bloody slash is awesome, it's a rock bottom low starting point type of item

Upgrading spirits makes a difference, for sure, but it's not as crazy as I would have hoped. The upgraded wolfs have won me a few fights for sure.

I'm also instituting strict limits on how much I can play this game, because holy shit it's too amazingly addictive. It's all consuming for me this week.

I'm still using the starting estoc although I JUST switched to a blood type katana and it's doing about double the damage at +4 that the estoc does at +10 (although it's somber upgrades so not directly comparable). I need to shop around and try some more stuff.

Spoiler

One weird thing that happend last night. I've been stuck on a certain boss for about 3-4 nights now, every time after a few tries I go elsewhere to level up etc. Well something I did must have affected the world state because after beating some bosses elsewhere the boss I was stuck on disappeared and was replaced with... some kind of festival. wat?