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Elden Ring is finally real

When I started that video I thought that person was going to kill Last Boss in two hits. Even they barely eked it out. That second phase is a Key & Peele sketch of a modern Souls boss.

I honestly don’t think I can do this. I’ve found every Blessing and Revered Ash, only to still get torn to shreds once the second phase starts. The flashing lights and effects are not great on my eyes, either.
I give up.
 
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Please spoiler the boss's name, just in case.

Also, for both of the times I beat the boss, I absolutely summoned and got carried by other players with tank builds. I don't give nearly enough of a fuck to slam my head against the wall for hours or days on end for what I suspect would be limited benefit; I'm just not that good at these games and certainly not that patient right now. Engage in some jolly co-operation to get it down, get the remembrance, and call it done. That's why the system exists!

After ~42 hours in the DLC on my first character (int) and ~37 on my second (faith), I'm still considering a run with the third to play with all the new physical weapon types, but I'm going back and forth. But this is also how I felt before starting the faith run, so we'll see how I feel in a few days.
 
I changed my post to not give away the surprise of the boss.


I also beat the boss! I actually had the items and the build to go full turtle, er, dog and cheese out a win with my long forgotten Mimic Tear and an NPC friend. Not a sign of a well designed fight when the majority of people have to use the same strategy to prevail.

This DLC was neat, but it also doubled down on nearly everything I didn’t like about the main game. I wish there more mini dungeons. There’s only about ten in the whole map.
 
I actually like what they did with the mini dungeons. There are fewer, but each of them is longer and higher in design quality than many of the ones from the base game, which often felt kind of perfunctory. I feel like any more and they would have stretched them too thin again. If anything I wish the base game were more like the DLC with mini dungeons, fewer and higher quality.
 
I could have used maybe... one or two more little ones, just tucked into some of the more open spots, like the Jagged Peak or Cerulean Coast. But in general, yeah, I prefer not having quite so many variations on catacombs and caves, and I feel like a number of areas (like Bonny Village or the long river path down to the Cerulean Coast) serve a similiar purpose without being discrete "dungeon" areas. And I liked the forges better than the mines.
 
I agree that the frequent mini-dungeons in the base game became repetitive, but some of the areas in Erdtree felt a bit empty without them. The conundrum of open world game design.
 
So, I have now 1v1'd the final boss of the DLC using a purpose-built Faith tank character.
Ya'll ever hear about shields? Turns out, they're pretty good. I'm by no means someone who even approaches what "good" looks like when it comes to From Software games, so I think a greatshield build like this will lessen a ton of the difficulty. Especially so if you're using like, any of the additional tools the game expects you to use (i.e. Spirit Ashes and NPC summons) like you really should be. No way I would have ever tried doing this 1v1 if I hadn't won this fight the Regular ways on two different characters already.
Somewhat counter-intuitively, a holy spear like Siluria's Tree here is the best raw damage weapon to take against this fight. For the whole fight, Radahn has 20 Piercing Negation, and 40 everything else Negation except for Holy. Phase two gets the 40 Negation, but Phase one has 0 Holy Negation. Also, I switched from Morgott's Great Rune to Malenia's to counter-act the chip damage my own astronomical Holy Negation while blocking was letting through.
 
I know I'm late to the party because I'm not getting around to them until my third run, but the new weapon classes are pretty rad (I did try out perfumes on my other builds, but that's about it).

Light greatsword: I really like the Milady, it's just fun and smooth and comfortable to use. Wing Stance is kind of a requirement; I suppose they wanted to make it available to other weapon classes too, but it feels like it's 100% meant to go on the milady. Anyway, most of the attacks true combo into each other in really fun natural-seeming ways and it's nice and fast. And I'm using it with a heavy infusion on my str build, which I have to imagine is probably sub-standard, but it still does pretty great damage! The only drawback is it doesn't stun very well.

Beast claws are pretty neat, but a little finnicky. They do good damage and surprisingly good poise damage, but the moveset has you sliding and jumping all over the place and more than once I've yeeted myself off a cliff accidentally, and you have to be careful not to get locked into a combo animation while an opponent is ready to counter you (v common in the dlc). Also slightly more likely to end up sliding around the side of an enemy and attacking nothing? But they're pretty satisfying, and bleed buildup never hurt anyone, even if it feels pretty slow and most enemies die before it procs (which I guess isn't a new or uncommon issue with bleed weapons).

The Dryleaf arts are fun. Again, they do excellent damage and it's just kinda fun to spin and kick and jump. One weird complaint I have is that using it in my full heavy bullgoat armor and greatjar helm actually makes the moves a little hard to parse so I might slim down to slightly lighter armor at some point just so I get the "feel" better. Dunno if they have bad poise-break (which would make sense tbh) or if I was just fighting a knight that was particularly hard to stagger, but the attacks did feel light.

Great katana: I just don't like this one. It feels as slow as a colossal weapon, but with an awkward and unpredictable moveset that I find hard to get the hang of. I do like the overhead stance's heavy attack a lot, but other than that I'm just not a fan so far.

I suppose I should pick up the backhand blades and try those out, people seem to like them a lot. I got the throwing dagger but no thanks.

But the real jewel is going to be the thrusting shield. Can't wait to pick that up.
 
Backhand blades are a blast.

I didn't love the throwing dagger, but I had some fun with heavier Smithscript weapons. Being able to chuck a giant hammer is a hoot.
 
Paul le Fou said:
Wing Stance is kind of a requirement; I suppose they wanted to make it available to other weapon classes too, but it feels like it's 100% meant to go on the milady. Anyway, most of the attacks true combo into each other in really fun natural-seeming ways and it's nice and fast. And I'm using it with a heavy infusion on my str build, which I have to imagine is probably sub-standard, but it still does pretty great damage! The only drawback is it doesn't stun very well.
Click to expand...

Wing Stance absolutely was 100% made for Milady because it's actually the only weapon that can use it. It's currently exclusive to the weapon class, but the only other light greatswords in the game are somber weapons.

Poise damage is mediocre on Milady (or was prior to 1.13... I played through the DLC with it before that so I'm not sure how it is now), but the stance damage is actually really good. And the quick multihit moveset is good for preventing boss poise from recovering.
 
Regulus said:
Wing Stance absolutely was 100% made for Milady because it's actually the only weapon that can use it. It's currently exclusive to the weapon class
Click to expand...
Weird. I wonder why they bothered making it a separate thing, then. Several of the other new weapons (dryleaf arts, beast claws) are in the same situation, but they start with their unique weapon ashes equipped.
 
I think they made it separate so you can put different ashes on it if you want, and made it a separate piece of loot so you might not find it right away. I didn't; I didn't explore that little area until quite a long time after getting (and using) Milady to good effect. I actually put the big Dancing Lion frost stomp on it initially and it worked quite well.
 
Was anyone able to get into the Nightreign network test? Any thoughts on it? I'm hearing it's pretty good but also a game that seems most comfortable to people who are in the roguelike kinds of spaces already.
 
I got in. Played it for an hour today and disliked it so much that I deleted the test app after that. My experience will not be everyone's experience, but for me playing Elden Ring (or any Souls game/Bloodborne) is about exploration and deliberate action. Nightreign, on the other hand, is about doing everything as fast as possible with no time to look at the items you're finding. It just felt bad, and the added pressure of the Fortnite-esque ring herding you towards a zone boss didn't help. The whole thing kinda felt like someone's weird mod. That's not to say it's badly put together or anything -- it's like one of those mods that the creator spent three years working on and polishing. But whatever crowd they were aiming for, I'm not in it and I won't be buying it in May.

Also, I think it will be very hard to play this game with two other randos unless all three of you happen to already be very good and/or very familiar with the maps. In the two attempts I did my team was getting split up constantly, and the game really doesn't make it easy to know where they are once that happens. It's even worse when you think about how vertical the Elden Ring landscape is. But if you've got two friends who you can get in a call with while you play? That's probably going to be a much better time.
 
The speed and pressure are things that everyone comments on and it's my #1 worry about the game. I think I can separate it enough from base ER and Souls in my mind to appreciate it for what it is - I like AC6 and Sekiro too - but we shall see. The relative lack of builds and planning out my characters is the other thing I like about souls games, and that's not present here either. But I do like roguelikes and action games OK, and I've heard other good things about how it holds together for what it is.

But I will probably look for people I know to play with rather than randos.
 
On the one hand, Elden Ring is my jam and my jelly. On the other, I'm usually disinterested in roguelikes. If a game is described in terms of "runs", I'm likely not playing it. The exception is when there is a narrative loop providing a reason for why you need to go again - games like Hades, Returnal, Deathloop. It's nice that individual characters have stories but I'm not sold on Fortnitereign's loop. It's an odd concept for Elden Ring, like turning The Legend of Zelda into an extraction game. Going to wait on this one to see if it sticks in the landing.
 
I had the opportunity to give Elden Ring a try this weekend for a solid afternoon. I am not a Souls game enjoyer typically, but I have a friend who is and he told me ER has less of the type of game play where you just have to retry a boss until you pass. I was able to enjoy the game for a while without getting stuck too bad. I think I was doing a good job of following the designer's intent. I started with a Sam because it looked cool. I did the tutorial. I skipped the gold dude on a horse and found the little church ruin. I went into a little forest and found a little cave and beat the boss of it and got a thing that reduces fire damage and that fight only took maybe 5 or 6 tries. I snuck around the camp in front of the gate and backstabbed some dudes and ran away. I went to the round table place and talked to folks and then warped back. In the next area I died when something jumped on my head, but just ran past everything after that and finally made it to what i assume is the first real boss.

After a dozen or so tries, I could get it to about half health on a good run and even got it down to about 1/4 health once. I summoned the wizard helper and in the next 10 or so tries, I got him to like one hit point left once, but most runs, the helper guy would die too quickly, but it was getting me reliably to the 2nd half of the fight and after a few more tries, I beat it.

I tried running around the castle some and found a back entrance, fought some birds and died to a big dude who laughed at me. So I left and rode around on horse and found I was pretty good at horse combat and decided to try fighting the gold horse guy. I hit him once and got turned to paste. At that point I had run out of time to play. I did find it fun and not completely frustrating. Riding around on the horse was fun.
 
It sounds like you made some solid progress. Beating that first boss is a real challenge. Note that there is a lot more to explore in the first area and further south, which will make you a lot stronger before taking on the castle, if you do decide to try again.
 
Riding around on the horse when you get whomped by something is key to my enjoyment of Elden Ring. Dark Souls and others you get trapped in the same loop until you can progress, and I get sick of it.

Going south is the "early level up zone" for sure. More tips for the start, if you want them: Samurai is a great class to start with, but if you can upgrade to a 100% physical block shield, then shields and guard counters are also super useful. The wolves you receive with the summoning bell are really really useful, as is the jellyfish summon you may have gotten near the castle. And upgrading your weapons is very key; don't be afraid to spend smithing stones on a weapon you like using. And if you're feeling brave, there's a very large dragon to the east, in the northern part of Caelid, who will drop a LOT of runes if you kill it, which you can do fairly easily using anything that inflicts Bleed status (like your starting sword). Run past enemies, get back around its tail, and wail away until it dies. It won't attack you.
 
I got to play again this weekend some. I went south and crossed the southern bridge. In that area, I got the map and then visited several things on the map. I also got the map for the area a bit east of the starting area and visited a few landmarks in that zone also.
I went inside a couple of different caves and fought 3 minor bosses. I fought a bear. That one was pretty tough and took several tries. I had to really concentrate on spacing and staying close. I fought two big guys that I think are demi-humans in the game, but i summoned a helper who pretty much solo'd them while i took care of adds. I smartly walked past the warp and found my way to the island. I fought a guy standing on a pile of gold in a mine. His attacks were more sweeping but slow and I did a good job of staying out of his reach and then rushing in for a quick hit. The mine was harder than the boss. My attacks would clank of the miners backpacks i think. My katana's first R1 strike is a top right to bottom left swipe and it always clanks and then the miners retaliate. So i just ignored them and ran around snatching loot.

With better gear and more levels, I took another try at the castle. I got back to the locked door, but this time i opened it and then rolled back out and got the big guy hung up on the open door and cheese'd him. From there, i ran right past the next grace and frantically used all my flasks to try to barely survive but wound up on a tower balcony that looked like a deadend. I turned around and had to use some arrows to kill some guards at range but found the grace. I got past some birds and found the wizard guy i had summoned against the gate boss. I died after leaving that church, so on the 2nd try I ran for it again and got lost and the guy chasing me cut me down. Third try i pull the big knight onto the roof, then circle around so he's not chasing me and avoid the next big guy by going on some wood balcony. i had to sprint past a big guy in a dining room and then sprint through a coutyard full of barricades and enemies. I felt like i handled that area well. I went around barriers or rolled through with a dog snapping at my heels. I got caught by the dog right in front of a giant guy and rolled for my life, barely making it to the grace and boss door.

The final boss of the castle took me fewer tries than the gate guy. I could reliably get him to the 2nd phase, but the addition of the fire kept killing me, especially the grab move, but once I figured out how to dodge that one, it was just a matter of time. Honestly, i still hadn't figured out some of the attacks. The time i won was just the time he didn't use the moves that would have killed me.

So I made it to the 2nd zone and went back to the round table and got my quest to go kill more bosses. I explored the new zone some and helped a blind girl. I went inside a mages tower and fought a red guy who killed me twice. I'm not playing online because I'm not going to pay 10 bucks a month for the privilege of seeing notes people left on the ground. So this red guy wasn't a human invader and I like that they included some NPC invaders for people like me. I got that wizard on the 3rd try. Looks like the tower goes up more, but i need something to put on a pedestal to go further. And that's where i stopped.

I'm really surprised that I made this much progress and had fun while doing it. I did not have this experience with Dark Souls 1 or Bloodborne at all. I like that the map encourages me to go look for stuff without spelling it out. like the game doesn't give you a map key, but when you explore some, you find a thing and then see a similar shape on the map and now I know how to get more things that will make me stronger. I'm glad I at least decided to dip me toes in this pool, even if i decide to stay in the shallow end.
 
I don’t think I’ve touched this since I beat an Xbox controller into not working anymore because Renalla’s second form kept spamming her goddamn moon laser thing. I want to say they patched that out since then?

I am not an emotionally healthy person.
 
nataeryn said:
I'm really surprised that I made this much progress and had fun while doing it. I did not have this experience with Dark Souls 1 or Bloodborne at all. I like that the map encourages me to go look for stuff without spelling it out. like the game doesn't give you a map key, but when you explore some, you find a thing and then see a similar shape on the map and now I know how to get more things that will make me stronger. I'm glad I at least decided to dip me toes in this pool, even if i decide to stay in the shallow end.
Click to expand...
This seems to me a common occurrence. Lots of people who bounced off earlier games find they're able to get into Elden Ring much better, and enjoy it a lot more. (Many of them then double back and play the older games with new appreciation, but I'm getting ahead of myself.) It's generally a lot kinder about giving you lots more options than the previous games, in more ways than one, even if it's not necessarily easier.
 
Picked Nightreign up on impulse. May have been a mistake to choose Elden Ring as my first game in this...well, whatever this genre is called. Feel very much like a fish out of water, and the quality of the rando players is wildly inconsistent. Feels like a game that's probably more fun if you have friends to play with.
 
Nightreign is not really like other Souls stuff in that regard. Those tend to be extremely (or entirely) solo-focused, with multiplayer as an element you can generally turn off or go without (or which is really only there as a threat to you).
 
It's the speed that gets me. There's no time to stop and smell the roses. I was finally able to beat the first boss last night with two randos who knew what they were doing, and I just followed them around. I'm starting to get a handle on the gameplay loop but I have to go to an almost speed runners mentality to make any kind of appreciable contribution to the run. It's interesting, just different than how I normally play Soulslikes...or any game for that matter.
 
Yeah that's what I mean. That's the precise opposite of how Elden Ring works; I've been iffy on it. It looks fun in itself to me, but I haven't gotten it yet. "Multiplayer timed roguelite Elden Ring" is way far out of the wheelhouse I know. What are you playing on?
 
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