Elden Ring Discussion Thread

how good/bad?

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

https://steamdb.info/app/1245620/graphs/

Wow, down almost 100k players in a day!

Hey, you don't get to say that about a game that has absolutely no chance of dying in a hurry very often.

670k concurrency as a huge downward trend for 'mixed' reviews mostly focusing on performance is an interesting combination of facts.

Still over 600k




I think i will wait it out for the next week maybe till the performance gets better.

Also i think i will get my ass beaten like no tomorrow since i'm not that experienced into this type of combat with i-frames, guess since it's open world i can to some extent grind it out.

I like Skyrim and the old Gothic so it scratches my itch in that regard with these dungeon/mines indoor zones as well as nice looking overworld.

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TreeOfDead wrote:

how good/bad?

The current overwhelming part of bad reviews that gives it mixed is the bad performance of the console port even on good rigs. Best what can be done is play it less than 2 hours on Steam (while testing various performance workarounds) and if it's a slideshow getting a refund.

I'm not really into the difficulty of Souls games either. I only really loved Demons Souls and that's because it was my first AND it had a very different healing system that allowed for stocking up. I am very much not a fan of limited flasks but I understand that's part of the inherent challenge.

What I AM into is finding a nice comfy grind and offsetting my shitty player skill with character power. This doesn't work very well with Souls games *but* there is definitely wiggle room. For example, I found one side boss the first night and it promptly shat on my face repeatedly. Came back last night after getting some levels and gear (and some very crucial skills involving targets that aren't me) and I made a mockery of it. Like I said, I don't expect that for the game's real bosses, but give me a chance to zen out on a beach looking for a sword for hours on end farming souls/runes near a save point and I'm happy.

Older Souls games did have that BUT always with the issue of knowing I was doing so even with a likely unbeatable boss just around the corner. With Elden Ring I can wander about looking for grind spots, merchants, treasure, materials...and that boss blocking story progression can be literally miles away. It's lovely.

And running into a world area boss is great. One minute you're just traipsing along, picking flowers and creeping past ruins, the next the music changes entirely, the boss' name appears and you're like oh...fuck. The game has just so many oh fucks. I'm there for all of them.

I also LOVE how organically creative you can get. I was killing some wolves, mostly for runes/souls, and didn't notice what they were dropping. Turns out they were bones. Then I looked at my crafting list, and saw they could be made into darts. Suddenly I had 40 of the suckers. There was a patrol down the road that had turned me into a smear on the cobblestones a few times. Since you can target from quite a ways away, I decided to see how much damage these silly darts did. Amusingly, quite a lot. I was able to pick most of the patrol off with these darts, and cleaned up the rest with melee. That was just so much fun.

__

As for the combat, I realised what it reminds me of. It feels REALLY close to Dragon's Dogma in terms of reactivity and weight/speed of attacks. Not as clunky as most Souls game but not as floaty as, say, a musou. Sword and board in Elden Ring feels fluid and graceful, whereas in older Souls games I found that style very much a game of picking your moments. You can happily spam a mook with your pissant long sword and make short work of them. Of course, if you fail to do so they'll remind you they're only a mook if you don't let them hit back. Or blow a horn to bring friends. Or break your block.

But catch him with a backstab and it's a quick fight indeed. Miss and it's a whole other story.

You can get into really big trouble really quickly on Elden Ring, if you try to go around and explore the map off the beaten path early on. I don't recommend you do that, but if you do, be sure to pre-apply some vasoline, you'll need it. You should at least clear the first castle before you explore too much, and even then, I'd clear the first area first, and not go into the 2nd area immediately. The 3rd area up in the top right corner, you want to avoid that place until you got nowhere else to go.

For build, I ended up going with big armor, big shield, big weapon, the big dick trifecta. Big shield is as good as its ever been because of the new counter mechanics, you can hit-stun, and stance break stuff really easily.

Int mages suck in this, ironically I've gotten more faith attack spells, holy/lightning/fire all scale with faith, and you also got dragon magic that scales with faith + arcane. Int does get dark magic, they just call it gravity in this. But faith just has a way more useful selection of spells.

If you're gonna make a dedicated mage, I'd say go with faith + arcane, and use the dragon magic.

There's not a huge difference between mid roll and fast roll in this, so medium equip load is plenty good enough. Better armor and bigger shield with medium equip load is objectively better than lighter armor and no shield with light equip load.

Jump has i-frames. Probably obvious to some but still -- a little FYI.

I love my jellyfish friend.

I scored some handy upgrade materials exploring the first area and found a familiar face or two, one of which I farmed for a while (as did a lot of other people, going by the ghosts). Level 30 something and I'm still using my starter gear for the most part.

I'm also strangely addicted to leaving messages now. I've never really done that with other Souls games but with an open world, it's fun to leave messages in unusual places to see how many respond.

Battle Arts are really cool. I dig their flexibility, both in terms of being able to equip them to a variety of base weapon types ('no skill' on shield is a must unless you reaaaaally love parrying) and the way they can modify which stats a weapon taps. I specced a bit too aggressively into strength, so I favour 'heavy' Battle Arts. So far the attack buff warcry is my staple, but again that's just me shoring up my lack of player skill with slightly bigger numbers. :)

If I unlock a grace (save point/bonfire), I am more than happy to spend my runes/souls and then die around it finding new things. Can always just teleport back to safer areas with no real loss, and usually with a new items and points of interest in my kit.

well, the Launch hype kinda disappeared after playing for an hour on PC.

I think I'm kinda addicted to Lost Ark right now, because I'd rather log in to LA than start Elden Ring.
Also the stuttering on PC is really annoying and I hope they push out a fix in the coming weeks. I assume it has something to do with their "Easy Anticheat" implementation, thats pretty controversal on its own.

Anyway, vacation is here and maybe I can get myself to give it a real go now^^

I know BamCo say they're onto it but I really wish they'd landed the plane better for PC players.

I'm still baffled how it could have gone so poorly and yet has kept well over half a million steam players concurrently. Maybe there are just that many beastly rigs with 3080s out there...or maybe it's erratic. No idea.

24 hours now and I almost finished the first story dungeon last night. Damn I really like that place. Reminds me of Boletaria so much. But that first real boss? Fuck. Fuuuuck. Off to grind/explore some more.

BUT, and this has to be said, I am not marathoning the game by any means. Most of the time since its release, the GF has been playing Arceus on the telly. I play a handful of hours after dinner. I love every second of it but I am no rush to exhaust Elden Ring. Even though I KNOW it's fucking huge and will last me several hundred hours, easy.

It is not 'compulsive' the way PoE or an MMO might be. It's a living world in its own capsule, always there, frozen and waiting to be turned on. So I completely get why people might be more likely to log into their Favourite Online Timekiller -- FOMO, impetus, habit. I don't think it'd ever be a 'habit' to play Elden Ring. It's more like a decision to enjoy something vast in bite-sized chunks, at your own pace. And when it gets too much, you take a break. Unlike PoE or an MMO, I never feel like I'm not completely in control of how much, and how well, I enjoy Elden Ring.

And when it comes to gaming, that's a really good thing.

Now also joined this adventure.

Needs in addition to newest graphics card drivers, 12_0 and above DX12 feature set an actual windows 10 build (21H2) or people will see the often referred white screen of death on game launch if they have not updated W10 in years.


Anyways. I got my ass beaten as expected when starting as the naked level 1 guy with clab in addition having problem developing muscle memory with KB+M controls.

I died a bunch to that giant sword wielding dog/rat boss that jumps around (north of the early vendor) but if felt nice once he fall down. I think i was level one there.

Did things a bit out of order here. Grinded some basic life and str increases, retried a sub boss that gave me shit a while back...killed him, got his sword. Needed 5 more dex to wield it. Found a simple grind in Caelum. Activated sword and went back and utterly shredded the first real boss. Weapon arts can make a HUGE difference.

Now I've found a 1.4k rune mob near a Grace in Caelum and I'm happily farming his arse. Of course if I mess up he kills me very quickly but proximity to Grace is always the key.

Currently level 54.

And as with PoE, when I level up and have nothing to lose, then I set out and try new things. Difference being with ER new things are actually interesting and awesome.

This really is the easiest Souls game to enjoy for someone who isn't all about the hardcore precision of a typical Souls game.

Oh, and the magic system is exemplary. It's almost as if they're consciously compensating for how janky and subpar magic has been in Souls games so far. A lot of melee players find themselves morphing into casters as the game throws a bunch of spells and arts at them.

My second char will definitely be a caster.

Update here.
Beat also the first real boss (including a few more minibosses and mr horse guy) and he made me realize i learned nothing before in how to properly time i-frames.
I was still melee but guess underleveled with zdps weapons at level 14 and missing like half the i-frame opportunities.

I ended up grinding some giants for more vigor and endurance and little more strength for a better weapon. Beat him at lvl 25,now at 27.

I'm currently not specialized and more in width than depth since i still can't decide which weapon to go for longterm. So i'm speccing dex,str,vigor, endurance.
Dex is also nice for heal spell i guess and i like like horse combat so less chance to get knocked down is nice as well.