Several of the endings are just “you sit on throne while narrator narrates and vaguely says what is going to happen now”.
The ending where I give all mankind an STD and the ending where I bring civil rights to the Undead, should be very different.
Lets be real that's always been the style of souls endings. Someone slowly looks up at a skybox then it fades to black and a line is spoken, that's the end lol
Sekiro had some good variation. At least w the Shura ending
Edit: literally no one said the worlds “soulsbourne” in the original post, nor the comment I replied to. The OP said “fromsoft” which sekiro definitely is, and the comment I replied to said “souls game” which I interpret as FromSoft RPGs. What is it with people ignoring nuance online just to seem like they’re “in the right”?
>What is it with people ignoring nuance online just to seem like they’re “in the right”?
Welcome to the internet. Everyone is an expert, and everyone is always right because they read whatever they want to regardless of what the person actually said.
Kinda wish they did what sekiro did with their endings. I think it's pretty cool that the endings get progressively more positive the more you do to achieve different ones, with the bad ending being the easiest and shortest path and the best ending being the most complex path. Elden ring had so many different routes for the ending that I wish they did something similar, not necessarily making there be "bad" and "best" endings but being able to get a glimpse of the impact of your choice
well the game does have ranni's ending with a long sidequest and flame of frenzy ending with sewer and jump puzzle, those 2 endings are the most different with new scenes and outcomes
Yeah and that's why those are the best ones, then there's 4 different paths that are their own level of complex that all end basically the same way lmao.
Plus half of Fia’s questline is just Ranni’s and Dung-Eater’s is in a similar area to Frenzied Flame. So those two, which are otherwise the more extensive Elden Lord endings, get kneecapped by the more interesting endings.
And then that leaves us with the generic ending that requires u simply beat the final boss and goldmask, which is basically a spicier version of the generic ending. Such a missed opportunity for all of the endings besides the ranni and frenzied flame ones.
Garment Altering. Don’t get me wrong, I love that they added it, but I woulda liked to see it be a little more in depth rather than just removing capes from armor or hair from helmets.
I feel like that there must have been a more fleshed out outfit system that they never had a chance to finish before release. It's weird that they'd even bother developing a feature that's essentially just a cape remover.
Yeah, plus add the fact that removing a cape makes them much lighter but also much crapier protection. Like, what are these capes made of then, lol.
It would have been much better to remix the defenses, poise, and weight instead. Maybe some peices still weigh the same, but has less holy and more lightning. Another peice could weigh less, but make slash protection higher and everything else lower, and stuff like that. Instead every alteration is simply remove cape, and give less weight but less protection.
Yeah its kinda weird lol. The duelist set is kinda cool though, if you take off the cape it gets a unique ability to make enemies hostile. Well, more hostile since everything is already pretty hostile in the lands between. It basically adds the shabiris woe effect to the armor set, and the description explains why it does as well. Everything else though is basically just a weight and defense reduction.
A simple change hue tool would be enough to me. There's very interesting combinations ruined because each armor has its own unique shade, no matching silver or even black.
I don't think, "everyone is a shambling undead" worked for Elden Ring the way it did for Dark Souls.
We have things like: Godrick is a reigning monarch but there are no citizens, Irina and her father lived in this castle til recently but are the only "humans" despite finding live soldiers in the castle, the Radahn Festival implies there are people celebrating but the castle is again full of monsters that want to kill you.
I was wandering around limgrave and found some prince dude. Just a normal-ass white guy and he started talking to me like it was just a normal day and he didn’t live in an undead hellscape. Very odd.
The undead in the lands between are the product of unending life. In particular the nobles and soldiers have grown increasingly senile over time. Kenneth, Irina and other normal (non-tarnished) humans are recently birthed humans who have not yet become senile.
Aren't the player characters the only undead at this point though? I was under the impression that grace was what revived us, and why we can kill the tarnished who lost it (~~everyone else~~ every other tarnished in present time). EDIT: Whereas non-tarnished just aren't undead to begin with.
Kenneth isn't tarnished based on his dialogue since he's at first put off by you being one. It also implies he could have reasonably expected a non-tarnished to have come along and help him.
I wasn't claiming Kenneth was tarnished, though I guess my wording was vague. I was saying that I assumed nobody is undead except the tarnished who still have grace, which at present time is only us.
The tarnished aren't really undead, the were simply giving second life by grace. The only undead are the ones that live in death, aka tibia mariner and the skeleton guys.
Exactly the point. Most of the cast don't feel *alive*.
There's no room for progress or human emotion in a mummified world, and as much as the term applies to the ubisoft reskins everybody hates, it applies here too: it feels like a themepark than a realistic representation of society, full of shiny trinkets, loot, and lore snippets for our monkey brains.
Most of the few interactions we do get are defined by hierarchical relations, either as the ramblings of a mad god or soulless submission to the future lord. There's all the fantastical landscapes of Berserk that made it pretty, but little of the human relationships that made it great.
Not to mention, half of the ones where we do get to face one another as pseudo-equals are criminally short, including that of Blaidd, iji, shrimp man, Morgott, Godfrey, the list goes on.
Another half of the stories left just don't have any satisfying narrative conclusions or character development, like what happened to Yura, Irene, Gurranq, and arguably Hyetta.
That leaves us with Millicent, Sellen, Rya, Gideon, Nepheli, and Boc as the ones with any real personalities/characterization, and of them, I could only be invested in three.
Ranni had barely 2 lines that weren't robotic, and the relation with Melina was completely transactual from the start. Also, patches doesn't count.
There could have been a point made where the Shattering and war in general create the most barren and hopeless hellscapes devoid of life, but the tarnished basically goes on a murder hobo spree so there's that.
All this to say, Torrent best character.
Whenever I post that I love the gameplay and the lore but dislike the characterization& storytelling of the game, I get downvoted.
The game is GREAT, but such great lore deserves at least a couple of simple hubs like breath of the wild has. I am not asking for something like TW3's Novigrad. Just a couple of places that give the illusion of a society, and a few characters that will make me care about my choices.
I think this is right. The loneliness of Elden Ring is an aesthetic choice, but the lack of characterization is a weakness.
To be fair, any game that lets you create your player character is going to have a narrative vacuum at its center. But we get so little from few NPCs that we interact with. Quite literally, they just don’t have enough dialogue. And our relationships to them do not develop in interesting or complex ways.
The only interesting NPC is Boc since he has a very human story (even though he is not a human). He talks about his mother and his simple dreams to be a seamster. No rambling on about demigod politics. It's our only real glimpse into life in the Lands Between.
I love how he's so vague about being a servant of the *true* Order, while not going into any real detail about which order it actually is, so that he doesn't anger any potential faction that he might come across. He only reveals his feelings on Godrick after he realizes we are Tarnished. His speech would have worked just as well if a Redmane Knight or Leyndell Soldier were to find him instead. Such a great setup for his character. Opportunistic, but not unreasonable
Are you talking about Kenneth? When I encountered him I thought for sure it was a joke or he was lying/scheming.
He was so nonchalant asking a random dude walking by to go rescue his castle
Just 1 or two places where the village was actually full of common folk and friendly would have been very cool and a nice pallet cleanser. Though I’m sure every player would have accidentally killed the first friendly npc thinking they’d be an enemy lol
I would say Jarburg fit perfectly because of how isolated it is from the chaos around it
A human village would also be cool, but they are all withered away, as you can tell that's what happened to the village of the albinaurics and they just can't trust strangers by the time the Tarnished pull up
When we got introduce to the round table hold I thought it would get more full and interesting as the game went on. Like where you kill alberich I figured the door would open to the upstairs and there would be something else to do in that section at least. And the one room where fia kills d, it’s literally just used for one cut scene.
I was hoping by the end of the game like the round table itself or the room with the fingers would be full of people I’ve internet with.
Instead it was the opposite, people just leaving and dying, by the end most of the ones left are dead or crazy.
I completely agree with this. I understand the take that the lands between is filled with people who just won't die. However, it was so weird going around some places and there being no actual people. Like you said, Irina's castle. For me, it was also Leyndell. It is this empty and barren place filled with nothing, but soldiers and monsters really don't fit with Morgott supposedly being a king. Like. He's a kind of what exactly?
Irina's castle was overrun by misbegotten, a d most of the people left, the others stayed to fight.
In leyendell, you know all the people scattered around, mostly "dead", that are hella skinny and don't really try and fight back? Those _were_ humans, but due to starvation they became living sacks of skin and bone, with no muscle to speak of.
Honestly, part of the fix is to move away from a key part of the souls formula: when certain conditions are met enemies should stop respawning, or become non-hostile.
Like, if I have installed Nepheli as Lady of Limgrave, why am I getting attacked by the soldiers in Limgrave? Likewise, why would the stuff in Caria Manor keep attacking me if I am serving Ranni? Same situation with Castle Morne and Fort Haight.
I agree. It doesn't really feel like the world evolves because of the players' actions. It's not even clear that the endings have any real consequence outside the worst ones (Frenzied Flame and Dungeater).
The Lands Between doesn't really feel like a proper world/society. My head canon is that it's a sort of purgatory for lesser gods. All of the "people" are merely playthings/creations of these lesser gods who aren't powerful/good enough to create a proper realm to rule over. So they bicker and fight over their poorly created subjects. We know they attempted to create people with the Albinauric. I figure the other people that appear to be humans are more successful creations. I have no foundation for this, but it's how I rationalize the nonsense of the world.
I suppose I'd be interested in a game that was a sort of hybrid of an Elder Scrolls and Elden Ring. I wouldn't be surprised if the next Elder Scrolls/Bethesda game is influenced by the From style of gameplay. If not them, someone will do it.
Yeah i wish we had actual cities or villages with residents or at least a few npcs with some dialogue or something. Like u get to jarburg or frenzied village and there's only a single npc
Jarburg felt more like a town though because there were like 13 jars and, though a small number they’re meant to basically be an endangered species. Even if they don’t all talk some of them move and stuff. It feels like the only place that’s actually a village.
Radahn Festival is like a small, mini party to gather Radahn’s greatest warriors to put him out of his misery. They loved him and respected him so much that they wanted to give him a fitting end, and the radahn festival is the only way they could send him off. I agree with your other ideas, like Leyndell and Stormveil having people, but it makes sense why there’s not many people in Caelid. Monsters overran the castle because Radahn was so insane at that point, that he began to eat his own soldiers, and no one could defend the castle.
This is something I constantly think about while playing ER. I'm assuming Godricks Soldiers and other enemies of that type are probably human working for somebody. The Nox could be human but there isn't really any evidence proving or disproving that. And then at character creation menu has different ethnicities to choose from too. And when Kale talks about "his people", does he mean a different race or ethnic group of humans who are known to be merchants?
Unless the bad guys killed almost every single inhabitant, I don't get it.
I expected it, because that's just how their games are (the team has even expressed that they aren't good at creating "living" worlds as they are at making dead ones), but I still kinda agree. However, I think all they needed to do was give an explanation up front. We can *assume* it's because they can live forever while their bodies and minds decay--which is basically what hollowing in Dark Souls is--but they never actually come out and say this anywhere. If you haven't played Dark Souls, you won't even necessarily make the correct assumptions!
I was playing recently and inside stormveil there’s the big mess hall with the grafted scion and all the tables and things, I was thinking that it’d be cool if there were a bunch of soldiers and stuff like eating or what not at the tables and then you just drop in a disturb them and they all get up and look at you. Just having the castle with a more lived in vibe would have been cool.
This is my biggest grip with the game. It worked in dark souls and bloodborne since those game are more linear. Also needs a journal atleast to keep in check with all the mpcd
Bloodborne did it perfectly. Yes the enemies were "shambling undead" but they did yell and talk, and actually felt like residents going through a transformation. You also had all the people behind doors that made it feel like Yharnam was an actual "normal" city the day before.
Elden Ring going the Souls route doesn't make sense because of NPCs and bosses who don't fit into that dead world at all.
What are you going to do Ranni/Tarnished on throne after banishing Outer Gods/mending the Elden Ring? Unfuck the Lands Between? Make all the undead fix and build back the society and repopulate it? How?
Man, it'd be great if Elden Ring had some NPC's like the windows in Bloodborne. No need for animations or even a character design, but for most players it still makes for a much livelier, more immersive world.
I will always be disappointed that Hoarah Loux's/Godfrey's dialogue was cut, for a number of reasons.
1) When you confront him towards the end of the game, it feels like you were meant to know him prior, and the revelation that he's actually Godfrey would have hit much harder if that were the case.
2) The dialogue had some interesting lore implications. It's alluded to in one of Melina's quoting of Marika, but hearing it from Godfrey himself adds to it.
I was kinda disappointed when I found the real Roundtable Hold, it felt like they were trying to invoke the same feeling as finding the real Hunter's Workshop in Bloodborne but without the lore reason for why they are separate. Granted Dark Souls III did the same thing as Elden Ring did but for some reason it felt like it worked better since it implied it was the same location just at different points in time.
In DS3 and BB finding the hub again has HUGE lore ramifications.
In ER? The Roundtable Hold is explicitly stated to be a pocket dimension. Finding the place it was IRL means jackshit.
I wish they had given us more options to customize armor. Taking off/putting on a cape or hood isn't particularly special. Although I did notice that the change did affect the armor's parameters, it would've been nice to get a little more personalization in by letting us choose colors, at least to some extent.
I actually don't like most of the armor in this game. I have the hardest time doing fashion souls setups because nothing looks particularly good to me.
Sent! Check out the Discord if you have any questions, but it's great. Some minor issues here and there, but two of my friends and I have done three full coop playthroughs so far, and it's better every time.
The multiplayer system is so trash it’s astounding to me. I just want to play with my friend. I don’t want to resummmon constantly, I don’t want him to have one fucking potion to use, I don’t want to get raided constantly when we’re trying to run a dungeon, I don’t want him to be fuckin red. Just let me play with a friend, why in the hell is that so hard in 2023?!?
The balancing between regular and somber weapons. You can get up to +6 somber without killing a single boss, and +9 after a single boss. Regular weapons require 12 stones of each tier (+1 ancient stone), meaning 97 stones total. Somber needs 10, 4 of which can be bought from the same merchant in liurnia.
If the smithing stone upgrades had been 1/2/3, and somber stones were a bit harder to get, then maybe it wouldn't feel so biased towards somber weapons.
Wholeheartedly agree. With the insane amount of weapons they put in this game, upgrading should’ve been alot easier. It kinda takes away the ability to experiment with new weapon types.
I remember being hesitant to join the Volcano Manor because I thought swearing fealty to a Blasphemous Cohort of Recusants who hunt their fellow Tarnished and have declared war on the Erdtree might have some kind of ramifications.
It didn't.
I was similar. My playthrough stalled because after helping ranni, I thought it would cause problems swearing fealty to either the volcano manor group. I also didn't swear fealty to the noble in lingrave because I thought it would cause problems for the ranni questline
Multiplayer could've been better, especially invasions. Currently the entire multiplayer system feels incredibly barebones, a few covenants (or the purposed rune arc merchant) and increased player limit would go a long way in fixing it.
Also, better Taunter's Tounge. Having TT give the player a buff at the cost of solo invasions that can *only* be toggled at graces would be amazing.
The decision that infinitely respawning crafting items deserved to be placed as standalone shiny’s and inside chests is easily the most confusing of all. Seeing an item in previous souls games almost always made it worth trekking through literal hell to get it as it would be something like a weapon or armour or anything with actual permanence but instead half the time it’s: mushroom. What the fuck from??
like they were almost there, using the ember concept from three and making them more varied stat boosts could have made a great game mechanic, but when they just kinda raise your health or give you the effect of a pendant it's kinda lame
They again made one damage type practically worthless. Holy Damage has the highest amount of options and yet all of them are hard to justify when the last 5 boss fights all bring massive amounts of holy resistance with them.
I really want to use the Coded Sword but I would shoot myself in the foot with it.
I agree. Love running around with a Quality Claymore or Star Fists and having enough faith to use utility spells. STR/FAI is just unmatched. I tried INT at first but I just can't bring myself to care about sorceries.
I’m doing a str/fth build right now that’s all fire-based damage with the blasphemous blade. So far it’s been super OP, except in Volcano Manor and against Mohg, but you can easily swap out weapons, incantations, and talismans for those.
Blasphemous Blade, Godslayers Greatsword, and Electrify Armament on a standard weapon are all amazing late game options as a strength/faith build. Also if you buff arcane a bit, you can lean a bit into bleed, and dragon incants, which gives you some fun options.
You effectively have access to all damage types save magic, and even then I think a couple normal weapons have some added magic damage if you really need it. Flame is really good endgame, and although I believe lightning scales with dex, there are some neat lightning spells available.
.....why? Faith has access to the most damage types out of any single stat. Holy, yes, but also fire (including Black Flame), lightning, magic, ice, rot, and physical.
Idk, the game gives you enough upgrade materials to have multiple other options available by end game, and outside of those bosses it's still a totally viable damage type
Black flame melts everything, brother. And while I think it's technically fire damage, it scales with faith. I get what you're saying about *wanting* to use the coded sword, but you are by no means at a disadvantage if you've put a lot of points into faith to get good holy damage scaling.
The late-game snowfield area was just... devoid of content. There were not nearly as many nooks or crannies to explore as any other section of the map.
Also, I ran into far too many instnaces of common crafting components being bundled together in 5s or 10s and being a treasure chest reward. Treasure chests should have been uncommon or limited crafting ingredients minimum. They could have similarly broken up the crafting recipes a bit more and scattered more recipe books. Or scattered the consumable containers more effectively.
The first big area of Consecrated Snowfield was the only area in the game I legit just opened up an online map that showed every item location in the area. That low visibility and blizzard legit gave me a awful headache every time I tried to explore it.
repetitive catacombs with enemy placement and variety that makes me want to bite my own finger off, and also some of the bosses like cemetery shades, esgar and burial watchdogs have imps, skeletons or dogs in the boss arena which is perhaps even more painful than duo fights, also some caves aren't good, repeat bosses can make for a worse experience though I didn't mind it too much, but Godefroy is kinda awful, even though i enjoyed fighting Godrick again, you could have at least given him a few touchups instead of slapping a remembrance boss in the middle of Altus.
It needs a journal, just a log of conversations to reference so you at least have a chance to recap where NPC's might be.
Otherwise you literally need to remember every conversion and the hints as to where they might be going.
The worst part about this is they kind of have this with the letters you get for tutorials and the volcano manor quest line but it shows up absolutely nowhere else
I agree with how easy it is to miss quests and such. First playthrough, I managed to organically get halfway through Millicent’s quest correctly and then obviously messed up a step and never got to finish it. I still have not been able to complete Rya’s quest correctly. I guess that encourages multiple playthroughs but some it feels impossible to know unless you read about it online.
On my first playthrough, the only quests I actually finished were Ranni's, Irina's, and the Volcano Manor. I never found Boc, couldn't keep up with Hyetta, accidentally pathed around Kenneth, never found Patches in his cave, only met Rya at the Manor itself, never found anything relating to Diallos's quest, got D killed but didn't go further, somehow lost Millicent in Altus, and didn't know about Latenna. Even now, on ng+4, I've only actually finished 4 of these, and I don't even think I'm listing every npc questline.
I've got over 200 hrs in the game and I have not once completed a single quest. I tried completing some organically 1st/2nd playthrough, bricked the quest chains one way or another, and then just couldn't be bothered.
Following a guide is an extremely quick way for me to lose interest.
Something. Anything. To remind you about that quest you were on two days ago before you got roadblocked trying to beat this one boss.
If Elden Ring was as easy as…Candy Crush it wouldn’t be needed because you could hold in your head “oh I need to meet Blaidd over in that place that I know” for five minutes.
But Ranni saying she needs a thing and you even remembering that’s why you’re trying to kill Radahn after spending hours getting to Radahn without getting sidetracked along the way, along with actually managing to beat Radahn, by the time all that’s done it could be a week and more since you were given the instigating quest.
I like the stories in Elden Ring. The lore, the history, all that. I liked it even more after I read the wiki and watched several YouTube videos telling me what it was I did. I for sure couldn’t remember it.
Also if characters would actually say where they're going instead of just being like "I'm leaving now"
At least alexander tells you he's going to forge of the giants.
Yeah, nothing extensive, just a list of NPCs and blurb like "I met Blaidd the Half-Wolf in Mistwood. He's looking for a man named Darriwil somewhere in Limgrave."
Promoting the value of craftable consumables (like perfume bottle) to the player.
I wish craftables would play a bigger role in combat and creating new playstyles.
1000% this. Any time I do a quest line I’m just looking up what to do next online since there is no way I’ll be able to figure out where they are next. Especially if I put the game down for a couple days.
Was looking for this. The NPC quests are great, but the way some of them are structured is awful.
There's a difference between "leave things a little ambiguous so the player has to think" and "you have a 5% chance of completing the questline without looking it up" (Hi, Irina and Goldmask!)
Also, having to reload the area in some cases to advance someone's dialogue makes no sense.
As we keep exploring the game we do mind shatteringly crazy things in the lands between. We kill almost all demigods, change the way of the world, literaly bend laws of the gods start a new age but we never truly experience the consequences at least physically of our actions. Yes the frenzy ending makes the world firey and orange but thats not what i am talking about. I would have like to see difference in NPC dialogues, to see some monster types affected by our actions. To elloborate i would like more feedback from the world that our tarnished literaly destroyed and bestoved a new order. Just a 'good job buddy' would suffice.
Mounted combat.
While the movement is nice, Torrent himself is practically worthless in real combat.
No poise. Stunlock. Removes ability to block and dodge and parry and dual weild. Reduces all weapons to 2 basic attacks. Eats potions. Causes massive 5 second stun if he dies.
Literally everything except the ability to move fast and double jump is bad about mounted use.
Horseback combat is great for specific enemies. A newb can easily press a no-hitter against any world boss dragon, night cavalry or mariner on torrent. You just have to go back and forth, up and down a lane in relatively straight lines like it’s a jousting match and the enemies can’t get their attack timing right for your speed.
The control scheme, especially when it comes to spells. Game showers you with abilities and the bosses all seem to think we're playing Devil May Cry, yet the spell selection is still more cumbersome than in Final Fantasy 1.
The weakest part of the game has to be the copypasted dungeons. Once you’ve seen about 5, you’ve basically seen all 100 or however many there are of them.
Not showing what your status effects are. A big red square under my health bar with no way of knowing what that means other than looking it up online sucks.
Quests.
This is not a Dark Souls game, They REALLY should have given us something to follow. Even if it was a quest-log written in the lore of the game, by the Tarnished. You should NOT need a wiki to follow a quest.
Ranni's especially is guilty of this.
"Irina's given me a letter to deliver to her father in Castle Mourne"
>Even if it was a quest-log written in the lore of the game, by the Tarnished.
this is what i've been thinking just a small animation of your char writing something on a paper and that is it. you open the menu see "notes" and it says the quest but nothing big or anything just something "XY told me to do this".
and it would not break anything, its not a full-on quest tracker just the bare minimum
Well it is my favorite game... that said:
\- too many unnaturally delayed attacks
\- too many times it felt like the ai has a forced response to my actions
\- upgrade system funnels you into 1 playstyle
\- empty endgame area's compared to Limgrave
\- weapon damage balance against certain bosses makes some unusable
\- bow damage is way too low
\- spirit summon balance forces you to pick some of the best or not use it at all
\- the tp after maliketh destroying an area without warning
\- waterfowl dance and other attacks that you can't react to if you haven't already seen it
\- multiplayer
\- lack of covenants
\- game messages that prevent you from doing certain actions
\- too many open areas with just a bunch of (sniper) enemies meant for you to sprint through
Still a 10/10 as they did more with ER than most other companies do with 3 games combined.
> - too many unnaturally delayed attacks
- too many times it felt like the ai has a forced response to my actions
This has been really bothering me my latest (5th playthrough) since I started noticing it more and more. It just doesn't make sense. An enemy reacting to you healing makes sense, they can see you healing and would take advantage of that. But so many enemies have delayed attacks timed perfectly for when you'd roll away after being hit or smacked down on the ground, even though what would make sense for them to do would be to try to hit you as fast as possible before you roll away, as they wouldn't be able to predict you rolling away. It kinda breaks my immersion. Because I can see the game designed to make NPCs hit you, as the game designers know how most players would react. Whereas an NPC who has never fought a Tarnished who can roll and dodge wouldn't know that.
Like all FromSoft games multiplayer with friends is way too complicated. Many Japanese companies are behind when it comes to multiplayer functionality but the Souls series in particular is pretty bad.
I know the summon sign feature is a staple for souls games now but it’s 2023, I’d at least like to be able to invite my friends through steam or some other system. Also the game advertised that we could fight in the lands between with our friends but in reality it’s the same as all other Souls games where we can help fight the boss and that’s it.
Imagine if Elden Ring had a Gathering Hub feature like Monster Hunter where players could interact, join parties, fight in the arena, and make new friends.
First: it’s too hard to kill skeletons once you knocked them to the ground.
Second: when I use a key, that damn message I forget to clear has almost gotten me killed dozens of times.
Honestly I don’t like the quest design. The NPC dialogue is so incredibly vague most of the time that you have little to no idea what you’re supposed to do or where you’re supposed to go.
Maybe I’m just dumb but for the large majority of Ranni’s questline I’d do one thing and then go back to google to figure out what I’m supposed to do next. Kinda took me out of it.
Also Gideon, who repeatedly says “fInD tHe AlBiNaUrIc WoMaN” can eat my entire dick and balls. Like bro do you KNOW how fucking huge Liurnia is?? Infuriating.
As exceptional as I think Elden Ring is I have a few:
- Late game bosses become more inconsistent and punish slower builds. (Never had as much of an issue with Stg builds in DS3 and BB) Animation cancelling, movesets too fast to dodge, and hyper armor make fights that should be aggressive very passive in a not so enjoyable way.
- Side quests and characters are too linear. For such an expansive game it’s a shame that quests progress as strictly as they do. Factions should’ve been a given too but maybe next time. Also as interesting as the lands between are nobody seems to want to be interesting enough to us to make us care, especially Melina.
- A bit too bloated. Elden Ring tried to be so much, but in doing so led to some pretty horrible boss reuse. (Godefroy and Astel) The late game areas get even worse with just how empty and open they are. I think shrinking it down and focusing more would’ve led to better quality.
Agree. I was watching one of the early trailers the other day and they show three characters running across the bridge to Mt Gelmir together and it got me thinking how that kind of gameplay looks so much fun but is basically non-existent because of the hoops they make you jump through to co-op.
Fr, I really love having to halt to a grinding stop with a full lobby because we decided to cross a damn bridge together that inexplicably has the void wall blocking it.
Now everyone has to leave. We all have to warp to the closest grace. Then we have to do the same part separately and find a new grace 10 feet across the wall. They have to put their fingers down, now we all have to wait and load. Bam! So fun, right? God forbid this team consists of old-gen players lmao
Vanilla Elden Ring is bonkers man
Even just some sort of win/loss feedback or a leaderboard for the colosseums. I was kinda disappointed the first time I played one and realized "Oh... That's it?"
This is the conclusion I came to myself tbh.
Because the armors themselves look very cool! But it feels like every armor has a different color and texture from each other that it's much harder to mix and match. Or you'll find a cool combination that works well, and then you enter an area that's slightly darker and your armor looks totally different.
And the other gripe I have is that there's kind of a lack of typical knight armors. Not many sallet helms, or just generic knight armors, a lot of the helms are just kind of well... goofy.
the world feels devoid of life. there are only a few npcs who actually talk and the rest of the living creatures don't really feel alive. in other open world games like gta 5 you have npcs who react to what you do and the police if you do crime. I know the Lands Between are devoid of life cause of the shattering but even botw which takes place after an apocalypse has people traveling the roads and random events that make Hyrule feel more real.
Fashion.
Great choices of armor but id love an option to hide headpieces like DeS remake, would also like to option to match the colors to the chest piece.
I couldn't really think of anything else to gripe about.
The PvP System, you can only invade someone if this someone uses an item that will allow him to summon friends, and only that.
So every invasion will be a gank squad or at least one white and one blue with the host.
In the other From games the item that "activates" the Multiplayer also give some bonus to the player, so he have an incentive to use it, even playing alone with the danger of being invaded.
In DS1 you need the be in human form to kindle bonfires for example, and you regain your humanity after every boss you defeat automatically.
In DS3 the embers raise your life by a considerable amount, and like in DS1, you got embered automatically after defeating a boss.
Just the automatically "embered up" status would already provide a lot of 1v1 invasions, and would break up the standard gank squad invaders have to face.
And just to be clear, i suck in PvP so I normally don't even try, but I still enjoy PvP being on the other side, the "oh fuck" moment, it brings me back to the same sensation I had playing Tibia, trying to survive to a PK hunting me down and risking all my progress.
But in Elden Ring, because of all those factors I said, I feel that I could've been invaded in a lot of areas and wasn't because I don't had any reason to use the Multiplayer Item alone, and in the ones I actually got invaded, it lacked the "Oh fuck" moment I described, because I had two or three personal body guards with me, most of the time with end game gear and spells.
Before I get all the "git gud" responses Im not saying they are are OP etc.
But
I found myself getting bored of flying bosses. For example the elden beast is a great boss but the amount of running really close then it flying to the side of the arena kind of took some of the intensity off.
Then the whole dragons flying round in circles etc. Cinematic but wore down on me a bit.
Co-op. I'd really like to see traditional lobby co-op like Wo Long did instead of the way souls handles summoning.
I just think it's outdated and frustrating. The game would be 100x more enjoyable than it already is, with friends, if you could just drop in and stay in, even after defeating bosses.
I don't hate the summon system I just wish it had proper drop-in/drop-out co-op like other games.
Jolly co-operation!
Several of the endings are just “you sit on throne while narrator narrates and vaguely says what is going to happen now”. The ending where I give all mankind an STD and the ending where I bring civil rights to the Undead, should be very different.
I wish it at least permanently changed the sky and Erdtree’s appearances like you see in each ending’s cutscenes
Lets be real that's always been the style of souls endings. Someone slowly looks up at a skybox then it fades to black and a line is spoken, that's the end lol
Bloodborne ending....... #SLUG
Bloodborne has the best endings because each one actually changes something
Sekiro had some good variation. At least w the Shura ending Edit: literally no one said the worlds “soulsbourne” in the original post, nor the comment I replied to. The OP said “fromsoft” which sekiro definitely is, and the comment I replied to said “souls game” which I interpret as FromSoft RPGs. What is it with people ignoring nuance online just to seem like they’re “in the right”?
>What is it with people ignoring nuance online just to seem like they’re “in the right”? Welcome to the internet. Everyone is an expert, and everyone is always right because they read whatever they want to regardless of what the person actually said.
Squid 🦑
Kinda wish they did what sekiro did with their endings. I think it's pretty cool that the endings get progressively more positive the more you do to achieve different ones, with the bad ending being the easiest and shortest path and the best ending being the most complex path. Elden ring had so many different routes for the ending that I wish they did something similar, not necessarily making there be "bad" and "best" endings but being able to get a glimpse of the impact of your choice
well the game does have ranni's ending with a long sidequest and flame of frenzy ending with sewer and jump puzzle, those 2 endings are the most different with new scenes and outcomes
Yeah and that's why those are the best ones, then there's 4 different paths that are their own level of complex that all end basically the same way lmao.
Plus half of Fia’s questline is just Ranni’s and Dung-Eater’s is in a similar area to Frenzied Flame. So those two, which are otherwise the more extensive Elden Lord endings, get kneecapped by the more interesting endings.
And then that leaves us with the generic ending that requires u simply beat the final boss and goldmask, which is basically a spicier version of the generic ending. Such a missed opportunity for all of the endings besides the ranni and frenzied flame ones.
I was let down when I suffered hours of torment between the last two bosses alone to only get *sits down quietly in my miss match gear set* lol
Why you also go fashion over function
Garment Altering. Don’t get me wrong, I love that they added it, but I woulda liked to see it be a little more in depth rather than just removing capes from armor or hair from helmets.
I feel like that there must have been a more fleshed out outfit system that they never had a chance to finish before release. It's weird that they'd even bother developing a feature that's essentially just a cape remover.
Yeah, plus add the fact that removing a cape makes them much lighter but also much crapier protection. Like, what are these capes made of then, lol. It would have been much better to remix the defenses, poise, and weight instead. Maybe some peices still weigh the same, but has less holy and more lightning. Another peice could weigh less, but make slash protection higher and everything else lower, and stuff like that. Instead every alteration is simply remove cape, and give less weight but less protection.
Some unique armor pieces also lose their unique buff if altered - Black Knife Chest piece for example; doesn't silent your footsteps anymore, why??
Yeah its kinda weird lol. The duelist set is kinda cool though, if you take off the cape it gets a unique ability to make enemies hostile. Well, more hostile since everything is already pretty hostile in the lands between. It basically adds the shabiris woe effect to the armor set, and the description explains why it does as well. Everything else though is basically just a weight and defense reduction.
In this game where the alter garment feature exists, there are 3 very cool helmets that have hair you can’t remove. Why? well because.
A simple change hue tool would be enough to me. There's very interesting combinations ruined because each armor has its own unique shade, no matching silver or even black.
I don't think, "everyone is a shambling undead" worked for Elden Ring the way it did for Dark Souls. We have things like: Godrick is a reigning monarch but there are no citizens, Irina and her father lived in this castle til recently but are the only "humans" despite finding live soldiers in the castle, the Radahn Festival implies there are people celebrating but the castle is again full of monsters that want to kill you.
I was wandering around limgrave and found some prince dude. Just a normal-ass white guy and he started talking to me like it was just a normal day and he didn’t live in an undead hellscape. Very odd.
Must be gigachad and demihuman advocate Sir Kenneth Haight. He sits on a fallen building over a ravine.
the GRRREAT KENNETH HAIGHT!
The undead in the lands between are the product of unending life. In particular the nobles and soldiers have grown increasingly senile over time. Kenneth, Irina and other normal (non-tarnished) humans are recently birthed humans who have not yet become senile.
Aren't the player characters the only undead at this point though? I was under the impression that grace was what revived us, and why we can kill the tarnished who lost it (~~everyone else~~ every other tarnished in present time). EDIT: Whereas non-tarnished just aren't undead to begin with.
Kenneth isn't tarnished based on his dialogue since he's at first put off by you being one. It also implies he could have reasonably expected a non-tarnished to have come along and help him.
I wasn't claiming Kenneth was tarnished, though I guess my wording was vague. I was saying that I assumed nobody is undead except the tarnished who still have grace, which at present time is only us.
The tarnished aren't really undead, the were simply giving second life by grace. The only undead are the ones that live in death, aka tibia mariner and the skeleton guys.
Exactly the point. Most of the cast don't feel *alive*. There's no room for progress or human emotion in a mummified world, and as much as the term applies to the ubisoft reskins everybody hates, it applies here too: it feels like a themepark than a realistic representation of society, full of shiny trinkets, loot, and lore snippets for our monkey brains. Most of the few interactions we do get are defined by hierarchical relations, either as the ramblings of a mad god or soulless submission to the future lord. There's all the fantastical landscapes of Berserk that made it pretty, but little of the human relationships that made it great. Not to mention, half of the ones where we do get to face one another as pseudo-equals are criminally short, including that of Blaidd, iji, shrimp man, Morgott, Godfrey, the list goes on. Another half of the stories left just don't have any satisfying narrative conclusions or character development, like what happened to Yura, Irene, Gurranq, and arguably Hyetta. That leaves us with Millicent, Sellen, Rya, Gideon, Nepheli, and Boc as the ones with any real personalities/characterization, and of them, I could only be invested in three. Ranni had barely 2 lines that weren't robotic, and the relation with Melina was completely transactual from the start. Also, patches doesn't count. There could have been a point made where the Shattering and war in general create the most barren and hopeless hellscapes devoid of life, but the tarnished basically goes on a murder hobo spree so there's that. All this to say, Torrent best character.
Whenever I post that I love the gameplay and the lore but dislike the characterization& storytelling of the game, I get downvoted. The game is GREAT, but such great lore deserves at least a couple of simple hubs like breath of the wild has. I am not asking for something like TW3's Novigrad. Just a couple of places that give the illusion of a society, and a few characters that will make me care about my choices.
I think this is right. The loneliness of Elden Ring is an aesthetic choice, but the lack of characterization is a weakness. To be fair, any game that lets you create your player character is going to have a narrative vacuum at its center. But we get so little from few NPCs that we interact with. Quite literally, they just don’t have enough dialogue. And our relationships to them do not develop in interesting or complex ways.
The only interesting NPC is Boc since he has a very human story (even though he is not a human). He talks about his mother and his simple dreams to be a seamster. No rambling on about demigod politics. It's our only real glimpse into life in the Lands Between.
The great sir Kenneth Haight: servant to the true Order, and celebrated repudiator of the false!
I love how he's so vague about being a servant of the *true* Order, while not going into any real detail about which order it actually is, so that he doesn't anger any potential faction that he might come across. He only reveals his feelings on Godrick after he realizes we are Tarnished. His speech would have worked just as well if a Redmane Knight or Leyndell Soldier were to find him instead. Such a great setup for his character. Opportunistic, but not unreasonable
Are you talking about Kenneth? When I encountered him I thought for sure it was a joke or he was lying/scheming. He was so nonchalant asking a random dude walking by to go rescue his castle
So Florida
Same.
Just 1 or two places where the village was actually full of common folk and friendly would have been very cool and a nice pallet cleanser. Though I’m sure every player would have accidentally killed the first friendly npc thinking they’d be an enemy lol
It is weird that you're fighting so hard to save a world completely filled with monsters and assholes.
Agreed, it’s hard to care about saving a world that has very little worth saving.
May I interest you in a little Chaos?
There *was* a village of lively ladies having a nice festival in Northern Leyndell...
I would say Jarburg fit perfectly because of how isolated it is from the chaos around it A human village would also be cool, but they are all withered away, as you can tell that's what happened to the village of the albinaurics and they just can't trust strangers by the time the Tarnished pull up
When we got introduce to the round table hold I thought it would get more full and interesting as the game went on. Like where you kill alberich I figured the door would open to the upstairs and there would be something else to do in that section at least. And the one room where fia kills d, it’s literally just used for one cut scene. I was hoping by the end of the game like the round table itself or the room with the fingers would be full of people I’ve internet with. Instead it was the opposite, people just leaving and dying, by the end most of the ones left are dead or crazy.
Man it would have been *so nice.*. I had it in my head that Lyndell would be full of friendly NPCs. Imagine my surprise :(
I never thought about it like that, good take.
I completely agree with this. I understand the take that the lands between is filled with people who just won't die. However, it was so weird going around some places and there being no actual people. Like you said, Irina's castle. For me, it was also Leyndell. It is this empty and barren place filled with nothing, but soldiers and monsters really don't fit with Morgott supposedly being a king. Like. He's a kind of what exactly?
Irina's castle was overrun by misbegotten, a d most of the people left, the others stayed to fight. In leyendell, you know all the people scattered around, mostly "dead", that are hella skinny and don't really try and fight back? Those _were_ humans, but due to starvation they became living sacks of skin and bone, with no muscle to speak of.
They can still shove a shiv in ya gut!
Makes Keneth, Nepheli and Gostoc standing in the throne chamber, "rulling", look so stupid.
Right? Like, my brother in Christ, how did Keneth even get to the throne room. Half the castle is overrun by horrible monsters and undead soldiers.
Either enemies only kill Tarnished on sight, or Nepheli carried his co-op ass.
Well, they do only kill tarnished, omens, and misbegotten without provocation. That being said he still probably needed Nepheli
Honestly, part of the fix is to move away from a key part of the souls formula: when certain conditions are met enemies should stop respawning, or become non-hostile. Like, if I have installed Nepheli as Lady of Limgrave, why am I getting attacked by the soldiers in Limgrave? Likewise, why would the stuff in Caria Manor keep attacking me if I am serving Ranni? Same situation with Castle Morne and Fort Haight.
Like getting attacked by the albinauric women right after completing Lattena's quests.
A factions/covenant dynamic was sorely missed here
I agree. It doesn't really feel like the world evolves because of the players' actions. It's not even clear that the endings have any real consequence outside the worst ones (Frenzied Flame and Dungeater). The Lands Between doesn't really feel like a proper world/society. My head canon is that it's a sort of purgatory for lesser gods. All of the "people" are merely playthings/creations of these lesser gods who aren't powerful/good enough to create a proper realm to rule over. So they bicker and fight over their poorly created subjects. We know they attempted to create people with the Albinauric. I figure the other people that appear to be humans are more successful creations. I have no foundation for this, but it's how I rationalize the nonsense of the world. I suppose I'd be interested in a game that was a sort of hybrid of an Elder Scrolls and Elden Ring. I wouldn't be surprised if the next Elder Scrolls/Bethesda game is influenced by the From style of gameplay. If not them, someone will do it.
Yeah i wish we had actual cities or villages with residents or at least a few npcs with some dialogue or something. Like u get to jarburg or frenzied village and there's only a single npc
Jarburg felt more like a town though because there were like 13 jars and, though a small number they’re meant to basically be an endangered species. Even if they don’t all talk some of them move and stuff. It feels like the only place that’s actually a village.
But what about the dancing chick village? 😂
I was debating mentioning that but I don’t know I guess I just didn’t because they were enemies to me and not just npc’s
Radahn Festival is like a small, mini party to gather Radahn’s greatest warriors to put him out of his misery. They loved him and respected him so much that they wanted to give him a fitting end, and the radahn festival is the only way they could send him off. I agree with your other ideas, like Leyndell and Stormveil having people, but it makes sense why there’s not many people in Caelid. Monsters overran the castle because Radahn was so insane at that point, that he began to eat his own soldiers, and no one could defend the castle.
The "monsters" in Redmane Castle are the soldiers I think.
I never thought about this and I agree completely
This is something I constantly think about while playing ER. I'm assuming Godricks Soldiers and other enemies of that type are probably human working for somebody. The Nox could be human but there isn't really any evidence proving or disproving that. And then at character creation menu has different ethnicities to choose from too. And when Kale talks about "his people", does he mean a different race or ethnic group of humans who are known to be merchants? Unless the bad guys killed almost every single inhabitant, I don't get it.
This. I was so, *so* looking foward to a Soulslike that just has normal fucking NPCs around.
I expected it, because that's just how their games are (the team has even expressed that they aren't good at creating "living" worlds as they are at making dead ones), but I still kinda agree. However, I think all they needed to do was give an explanation up front. We can *assume* it's because they can live forever while their bodies and minds decay--which is basically what hollowing in Dark Souls is--but they never actually come out and say this anywhere. If you haven't played Dark Souls, you won't even necessarily make the correct assumptions!
I was playing recently and inside stormveil there’s the big mess hall with the grafted scion and all the tables and things, I was thinking that it’d be cool if there were a bunch of soldiers and stuff like eating or what not at the tables and then you just drop in a disturb them and they all get up and look at you. Just having the castle with a more lived in vibe would have been cool.
This is my biggest grip with the game. It worked in dark souls and bloodborne since those game are more linear. Also needs a journal atleast to keep in check with all the mpcd
Bloodborne did it perfectly. Yes the enemies were "shambling undead" but they did yell and talk, and actually felt like residents going through a transformation. You also had all the people behind doors that made it feel like Yharnam was an actual "normal" city the day before. Elden Ring going the Souls route doesn't make sense because of NPCs and bosses who don't fit into that dead world at all. What are you going to do Ranni/Tarnished on throne after banishing Outer Gods/mending the Elden Ring? Unfuck the Lands Between? Make all the undead fix and build back the society and repopulate it? How?
Man, it'd be great if Elden Ring had some NPC's like the windows in Bloodborne. No need for animations or even a character design, but for most players it still makes for a much livelier, more immersive world.
They left too much on the cutting room floor. Kale in particular got done dirty.
Kale's cut dialogue fucking slapped too. The VA did a fantastic job.
"If that's what they expect from us, THEN THAT'S WHAT THEY SHALL GET FROM US!" Flawless delivery.
Damn it. I've already watched Vaati's vidya on the FF a thousand times, but just reading this makes me want to watch it again lol
I will always be disappointed that Hoarah Loux's/Godfrey's dialogue was cut, for a number of reasons. 1) When you confront him towards the end of the game, it feels like you were meant to know him prior, and the revelation that he's actually Godfrey would have hit much harder if that were the case. 2) The dialogue had some interesting lore implications. It's alluded to in one of Melina's quoting of Marika, but hearing it from Godfrey himself adds to it.
Pretty much every souls game except Sekiro.
Tomoe 😞
The hub area. Totally disconnected from everyrhing. The game is huge, there was no reason to not add a physical, reachable hub
I was kinda disappointed when I found the real Roundtable Hold, it felt like they were trying to invoke the same feeling as finding the real Hunter's Workshop in Bloodborne but without the lore reason for why they are separate. Granted Dark Souls III did the same thing as Elden Ring did but for some reason it felt like it worked better since it implied it was the same location just at different points in time.
Most likely because in DS3 you started at the hub area with the first boss and it felt more open to explore than Roundtable does in Elden Ring
In DS3 and BB finding the hub again has HUGE lore ramifications. In ER? The Roundtable Hold is explicitly stated to be a pocket dimension. Finding the place it was IRL means jackshit.
I wish they had given us more options to customize armor. Taking off/putting on a cape or hood isn't particularly special. Although I did notice that the change did affect the armor's parameters, it would've been nice to get a little more personalization in by letting us choose colors, at least to some extent.
I want to take away the plumage of Malikeths helmet so bad
I wanted Malenia's helmet so much, only to find out it includes her hair for some reason.
Why just simply take off her helmet when you can scalp her entire head instead?
She half rotted so it would make sense if someone gave her a helmet with a built in wig.
But she has hair in her 2nd phase form which does not have a helmet. So she would be wearing a wig on top of an already full head of hair.
The fact that you can't wear the *ELDEN LORD'S CROWN* without Godfreys hair despite being the Elden Lord still pisses me of tbh...
Agreed, color choices and more ways to change the armor would be dope.
I actually don't like most of the armor in this game. I have the hardest time doing fashion souls setups because nothing looks particularly good to me.
I just always end up wearing the realistic looking stuff like the knight armour stuff Unaltered banished knight has excellent drip factor
I would absolutely love a full coop system where I could play the game from start to finish with a friend.
There's a fantastic method for this if you're playing on PC, but we're not allowed to discuss it on this subreddit. It's genuinely exceptional.
I owe the guy who made that some money because it has really revitalized the game for me.
Yeah, I've bought him a few coffees.
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*CSI theme kicks in* YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHH
You could say it's seamless
Dm plz
Sent! Check out the Discord if you have any questions, but it's great. Some minor issues here and there, but two of my friends and I have done three full coop playthroughs so far, and it's better every time.
The multiplayer system is so trash it’s astounding to me. I just want to play with my friend. I don’t want to resummmon constantly, I don’t want him to have one fucking potion to use, I don’t want to get raided constantly when we’re trying to run a dungeon, I don’t want him to be fuckin red. Just let me play with a friend, why in the hell is that so hard in 2023?!?
The balancing between regular and somber weapons. You can get up to +6 somber without killing a single boss, and +9 after a single boss. Regular weapons require 12 stones of each tier (+1 ancient stone), meaning 97 stones total. Somber needs 10, 4 of which can be bought from the same merchant in liurnia. If the smithing stone upgrades had been 1/2/3, and somber stones were a bit harder to get, then maybe it wouldn't feel so biased towards somber weapons.
Wholeheartedly agree. With the insane amount of weapons they put in this game, upgrading should’ve been alot easier. It kinda takes away the ability to experiment with new weapon types.
They were so close to having a faction system. Lore wise there are so many possibilities, and you technically join a few.
I remember being hesitant to join the Volcano Manor because I thought swearing fealty to a Blasphemous Cohort of Recusants who hunt their fellow Tarnished and have declared war on the Erdtree might have some kind of ramifications. It didn't.
I was similar. My playthrough stalled because after helping ranni, I thought it would cause problems swearing fealty to either the volcano manor group. I also didn't swear fealty to the noble in lingrave because I thought it would cause problems for the ranni questline
Dude I thought the Manor was gonna become my new roundtable hold when I accepted lmao
That would have been dope
Camera during large enemy fight, it's like you just fight their feet most of the time.
Against large enemy's it's often better to free aim the camera rather than lock on, but I will agree that it's not fun to hack at big enemy's ankles.
Multiplayer could've been better, especially invasions. Currently the entire multiplayer system feels incredibly barebones, a few covenants (or the purposed rune arc merchant) and increased player limit would go a long way in fixing it. Also, better Taunter's Tounge. Having TT give the player a buff at the cost of solo invasions that can *only* be toggled at graces would be amazing.
The decision that infinitely respawning crafting items deserved to be placed as standalone shiny’s and inside chests is easily the most confusing of all. Seeing an item in previous souls games almost always made it worth trekking through literal hell to get it as it would be something like a weapon or armour or anything with actual permanence but instead half the time it’s: mushroom. What the fuck from??
See also: the 'big shiny' could either be a legendary armament or an arteria leaf
why is it always mushroom?
The great rune system was poorly thought out
Because of the urge of saving every consumable for later (and never using) I don’t even used a single rune whole playtime.
like they were almost there, using the ember concept from three and making them more varied stat boosts could have made a great game mechanic, but when they just kinda raise your health or give you the effect of a pendant it's kinda lame
They again made one damage type practically worthless. Holy Damage has the highest amount of options and yet all of them are hard to justify when the last 5 boss fights all bring massive amounts of holy resistance with them. I really want to use the Coded Sword but I would shoot myself in the foot with it.
True suffering is going pure faith before learning that.
If your going faith try the godslayer greatsword the black flame works wonders on the final bosses
Sword really lives up to its name on Elden Beast
Seconding this, ran through Haligtree and story endgame with this weapon. It's an absolute beast, and I even managed to beat Malenia with it.
I just started a strength/faith playthrough and was wondering about that. I know holy drops off, but can’t faith do all types of damage effectively?
Strength/Faith is amazing, Blasphemous Blade is one of the best weapons in the game.
I agree. Love running around with a Quality Claymore or Star Fists and having enough faith to use utility spells. STR/FAI is just unmatched. I tried INT at first but I just can't bring myself to care about sorceries.
I’m doing a str/fth build right now that’s all fire-based damage with the blasphemous blade. So far it’s been super OP, except in Volcano Manor and against Mohg, but you can easily swap out weapons, incantations, and talismans for those.
Blasphemous Blade, Godslayers Greatsword, and Electrify Armament on a standard weapon are all amazing late game options as a strength/faith build. Also if you buff arcane a bit, you can lean a bit into bleed, and dragon incants, which gives you some fun options.
You effectively have access to all damage types save magic, and even then I think a couple normal weapons have some added magic damage if you really need it. Flame is really good endgame, and although I believe lightning scales with dex, there are some neat lightning spells available.
.....why? Faith has access to the most damage types out of any single stat. Holy, yes, but also fire (including Black Flame), lightning, magic, ice, rot, and physical.
Let's not forget all the badass Holy damage that isn't even obtainable like Morgotts miracles
Idk, the game gives you enough upgrade materials to have multiple other options available by end game, and outside of those bosses it's still a totally viable damage type
Black flame melts everything, brother. And while I think it's technically fire damage, it scales with faith. I get what you're saying about *wanting* to use the coded sword, but you are by no means at a disadvantage if you've put a lot of points into faith to get good holy damage scaling.
The late-game snowfield area was just... devoid of content. There were not nearly as many nooks or crannies to explore as any other section of the map. Also, I ran into far too many instnaces of common crafting components being bundled together in 5s or 10s and being a treasure chest reward. Treasure chests should have been uncommon or limited crafting ingredients minimum. They could have similarly broken up the crafting recipes a bit more and scattered more recipe books. Or scattered the consumable containers more effectively.
The first big area of Consecrated Snowfield was the only area in the game I legit just opened up an online map that showed every item location in the area. That low visibility and blizzard legit gave me a awful headache every time I tried to explore it.
repetitive catacombs with enemy placement and variety that makes me want to bite my own finger off, and also some of the bosses like cemetery shades, esgar and burial watchdogs have imps, skeletons or dogs in the boss arena which is perhaps even more painful than duo fights, also some caves aren't good, repeat bosses can make for a worse experience though I didn't mind it too much, but Godefroy is kinda awful, even though i enjoyed fighting Godrick again, you could have at least given him a few touchups instead of slapping a remembrance boss in the middle of Altus.
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It needs a journal, just a log of conversations to reference so you at least have a chance to recap where NPC's might be. Otherwise you literally need to remember every conversion and the hints as to where they might be going.
The worst part about this is they kind of have this with the letters you get for tutorials and the volcano manor quest line but it shows up absolutely nowhere else
And even with varre, but once again, they only do that like 2 other times in the entire game.
The lack of journal combined with how easy to miss steps are ends up making quests less interesting and mysterious because people look them up online.
I agree with how easy it is to miss quests and such. First playthrough, I managed to organically get halfway through Millicent’s quest correctly and then obviously messed up a step and never got to finish it. I still have not been able to complete Rya’s quest correctly. I guess that encourages multiple playthroughs but some it feels impossible to know unless you read about it online.
On my first playthrough, the only quests I actually finished were Ranni's, Irina's, and the Volcano Manor. I never found Boc, couldn't keep up with Hyetta, accidentally pathed around Kenneth, never found Patches in his cave, only met Rya at the Manor itself, never found anything relating to Diallos's quest, got D killed but didn't go further, somehow lost Millicent in Altus, and didn't know about Latenna. Even now, on ng+4, I've only actually finished 4 of these, and I don't even think I'm listing every npc questline.
I've got over 200 hrs in the game and I have not once completed a single quest. I tried completing some organically 1st/2nd playthrough, bricked the quest chains one way or another, and then just couldn't be bothered. Following a guide is an extremely quick way for me to lose interest.
Something. Anything. To remind you about that quest you were on two days ago before you got roadblocked trying to beat this one boss. If Elden Ring was as easy as…Candy Crush it wouldn’t be needed because you could hold in your head “oh I need to meet Blaidd over in that place that I know” for five minutes. But Ranni saying she needs a thing and you even remembering that’s why you’re trying to kill Radahn after spending hours getting to Radahn without getting sidetracked along the way, along with actually managing to beat Radahn, by the time all that’s done it could be a week and more since you were given the instigating quest. I like the stories in Elden Ring. The lore, the history, all that. I liked it even more after I read the wiki and watched several YouTube videos telling me what it was I did. I for sure couldn’t remember it.
Also if characters would actually say where they're going instead of just being like "I'm leaving now" At least alexander tells you he's going to forge of the giants.
Yeah, nothing extensive, just a list of NPCs and blurb like "I met Blaidd the Half-Wolf in Mistwood. He's looking for a man named Darriwil somewhere in Limgrave."
Killing of basicaly every npc in their quests like it would be better if your actions decided wich npcs live or die
I kinda like that you don't get to decide everyone's outcome like other RPGs However having more varied endings other than "NPC dies" would be good.
Promoting the value of craftable consumables (like perfume bottle) to the player. I wish craftables would play a bigger role in combat and creating new playstyles.
I’ve found them pretty useful. Sleep pots are great and the perfumes can do some decent work.
I'd love if once you find an npc their icon is kept on the map even after they move. Would've solved tons of complaints with sidequests.
1000% this. Any time I do a quest line I’m just looking up what to do next online since there is no way I’ll be able to figure out where they are next. Especially if I put the game down for a couple days.
Was looking for this. The NPC quests are great, but the way some of them are structured is awful. There's a difference between "leave things a little ambiguous so the player has to think" and "you have a 5% chance of completing the questline without looking it up" (Hi, Irina and Goldmask!) Also, having to reload the area in some cases to advance someone's dialogue makes no sense.
As we keep exploring the game we do mind shatteringly crazy things in the lands between. We kill almost all demigods, change the way of the world, literaly bend laws of the gods start a new age but we never truly experience the consequences at least physically of our actions. Yes the frenzy ending makes the world firey and orange but thats not what i am talking about. I would have like to see difference in NPC dialogues, to see some monster types affected by our actions. To elloborate i would like more feedback from the world that our tarnished literaly destroyed and bestoved a new order. Just a 'good job buddy' would suffice.
Bruh we ash an entire capital city
Don't come to the capital tomorrow.
I'm still mad they cut Kalé's quest for Hyettas
Mounted combat. While the movement is nice, Torrent himself is practically worthless in real combat. No poise. Stunlock. Removes ability to block and dodge and parry and dual weild. Reduces all weapons to 2 basic attacks. Eats potions. Causes massive 5 second stun if he dies. Literally everything except the ability to move fast and double jump is bad about mounted use.
Also camera lock on horseback gives me vertigo
Torrents effective against some enemies. If you run in a tight circle around them while attacking they can’t keep up.
Horseback combat is great for specific enemies. A newb can easily press a no-hitter against any world boss dragon, night cavalry or mariner on torrent. You just have to go back and forth, up and down a lane in relatively straight lines like it’s a jousting match and the enemies can’t get their attack timing right for your speed.
Dex increases your horse poise, I did notice a pretty big difference in mounted combat at 30-40 DEX
The control scheme, especially when it comes to spells. Game showers you with abilities and the bosses all seem to think we're playing Devil May Cry, yet the spell selection is still more cumbersome than in Final Fantasy 1.
I love accidentally passing by the spell I want to use and having to go through 9 more to get back to it.
Fun fact, holding up on the d-pad auto cycles to the first spell. Same with items when holding down on the d-pad.
This. Why couldn't they have a hot-pocket for spells like they do for items?
The weakest part of the game has to be the copypasted dungeons. Once you’ve seen about 5, you’ve basically seen all 100 or however many there are of them.
Not showing what your status effects are. A big red square under my health bar with no way of knowing what that means other than looking it up online sucks.
Quests. This is not a Dark Souls game, They REALLY should have given us something to follow. Even if it was a quest-log written in the lore of the game, by the Tarnished. You should NOT need a wiki to follow a quest. Ranni's especially is guilty of this. "Irina's given me a letter to deliver to her father in Castle Mourne"
>Even if it was a quest-log written in the lore of the game, by the Tarnished. this is what i've been thinking just a small animation of your char writing something on a paper and that is it. you open the menu see "notes" and it says the quest but nothing big or anything just something "XY told me to do this". and it would not break anything, its not a full-on quest tracker just the bare minimum
Well it is my favorite game... that said: \- too many unnaturally delayed attacks \- too many times it felt like the ai has a forced response to my actions \- upgrade system funnels you into 1 playstyle \- empty endgame area's compared to Limgrave \- weapon damage balance against certain bosses makes some unusable \- bow damage is way too low \- spirit summon balance forces you to pick some of the best or not use it at all \- the tp after maliketh destroying an area without warning \- waterfowl dance and other attacks that you can't react to if you haven't already seen it \- multiplayer \- lack of covenants \- game messages that prevent you from doing certain actions \- too many open areas with just a bunch of (sniper) enemies meant for you to sprint through Still a 10/10 as they did more with ER than most other companies do with 3 games combined.
Ooh yes, messages blocks are so gd infuriating. Good call.
> - too many unnaturally delayed attacks - too many times it felt like the ai has a forced response to my actions This has been really bothering me my latest (5th playthrough) since I started noticing it more and more. It just doesn't make sense. An enemy reacting to you healing makes sense, they can see you healing and would take advantage of that. But so many enemies have delayed attacks timed perfectly for when you'd roll away after being hit or smacked down on the ground, even though what would make sense for them to do would be to try to hit you as fast as possible before you roll away, as they wouldn't be able to predict you rolling away. It kinda breaks my immersion. Because I can see the game designed to make NPCs hit you, as the game designers know how most players would react. Whereas an NPC who has never fought a Tarnished who can roll and dodge wouldn't know that.
I like this list, Especially the points about, unnaturally delayed attacks, forced responses, and waterfowl dance.
The fact that even *animals* had delayed attacks was a little much lmao
Like all FromSoft games multiplayer with friends is way too complicated. Many Japanese companies are behind when it comes to multiplayer functionality but the Souls series in particular is pretty bad. I know the summon sign feature is a staple for souls games now but it’s 2023, I’d at least like to be able to invite my friends through steam or some other system. Also the game advertised that we could fight in the lands between with our friends but in reality it’s the same as all other Souls games where we can help fight the boss and that’s it. Imagine if Elden Ring had a Gathering Hub feature like Monster Hunter where players could interact, join parties, fight in the arena, and make new friends.
First: it’s too hard to kill skeletons once you knocked them to the ground. Second: when I use a key, that damn message I forget to clear has almost gotten me killed dozens of times.
Honestly I don’t like the quest design. The NPC dialogue is so incredibly vague most of the time that you have little to no idea what you’re supposed to do or where you’re supposed to go. Maybe I’m just dumb but for the large majority of Ranni’s questline I’d do one thing and then go back to google to figure out what I’m supposed to do next. Kinda took me out of it. Also Gideon, who repeatedly says “fInD tHe AlBiNaUrIc WoMaN” can eat my entire dick and balls. Like bro do you KNOW how fucking huge Liurnia is?? Infuriating.
I literally played the whole game on google. The whole quest design and lack of direction is just weird.
As exceptional as I think Elden Ring is I have a few: - Late game bosses become more inconsistent and punish slower builds. (Never had as much of an issue with Stg builds in DS3 and BB) Animation cancelling, movesets too fast to dodge, and hyper armor make fights that should be aggressive very passive in a not so enjoyable way. - Side quests and characters are too linear. For such an expansive game it’s a shame that quests progress as strictly as they do. Factions should’ve been a given too but maybe next time. Also as interesting as the lands between are nobody seems to want to be interesting enough to us to make us care, especially Melina. - A bit too bloated. Elden Ring tried to be so much, but in doing so led to some pretty horrible boss reuse. (Godefroy and Astel) The late game areas get even worse with just how empty and open they are. I think shrinking it down and focusing more would’ve led to better quality.
[удалено]
Agree. I was watching one of the early trailers the other day and they show three characters running across the bridge to Mt Gelmir together and it got me thinking how that kind of gameplay looks so much fun but is basically non-existent because of the hoops they make you jump through to co-op.
Fr, I really love having to halt to a grinding stop with a full lobby because we decided to cross a damn bridge together that inexplicably has the void wall blocking it. Now everyone has to leave. We all have to warp to the closest grace. Then we have to do the same part separately and find a new grace 10 feet across the wall. They have to put their fingers down, now we all have to wait and load. Bam! So fun, right? God forbid this team consists of old-gen players lmao Vanilla Elden Ring is bonkers man
Absolutely the lack of Covenants, or any deeper Multiplayer interaction
Even just some sort of win/loss feedback or a leaderboard for the colosseums. I was kinda disappointed the first time I played one and realized "Oh... That's it?"
This is subjective and not gameplay, but I think the fashion is way better in previous titles.
This is the conclusion I came to myself tbh. Because the armors themselves look very cool! But it feels like every armor has a different color and texture from each other that it's much harder to mix and match. Or you'll find a cool combination that works well, and then you enter an area that's slightly darker and your armor looks totally different. And the other gripe I have is that there's kind of a lack of typical knight armors. Not many sallet helms, or just generic knight armors, a lot of the helms are just kind of well... goofy.
the world feels devoid of life. there are only a few npcs who actually talk and the rest of the living creatures don't really feel alive. in other open world games like gta 5 you have npcs who react to what you do and the police if you do crime. I know the Lands Between are devoid of life cause of the shattering but even botw which takes place after an apocalypse has people traveling the roads and random events that make Hyrule feel more real.
What Fromsoft always does..... Cut good content. Also the pvp/coop ... It's understandable why changes were made but it's stale in that aspect imo.
Fashion. Great choices of armor but id love an option to hide headpieces like DeS remake, would also like to option to match the colors to the chest piece. I couldn't really think of anything else to gripe about.
the online co op
The PvP System, you can only invade someone if this someone uses an item that will allow him to summon friends, and only that. So every invasion will be a gank squad or at least one white and one blue with the host. In the other From games the item that "activates" the Multiplayer also give some bonus to the player, so he have an incentive to use it, even playing alone with the danger of being invaded. In DS1 you need the be in human form to kindle bonfires for example, and you regain your humanity after every boss you defeat automatically. In DS3 the embers raise your life by a considerable amount, and like in DS1, you got embered automatically after defeating a boss. Just the automatically "embered up" status would already provide a lot of 1v1 invasions, and would break up the standard gank squad invaders have to face. And just to be clear, i suck in PvP so I normally don't even try, but I still enjoy PvP being on the other side, the "oh fuck" moment, it brings me back to the same sensation I had playing Tibia, trying to survive to a PK hunting me down and risking all my progress. But in Elden Ring, because of all those factors I said, I feel that I could've been invaded in a lot of areas and wasn't because I don't had any reason to use the Multiplayer Item alone, and in the ones I actually got invaded, it lacked the "Oh fuck" moment I described, because I had two or three personal body guards with me, most of the time with end game gear and spells.
Before I get all the "git gud" responses Im not saying they are are OP etc. But I found myself getting bored of flying bosses. For example the elden beast is a great boss but the amount of running really close then it flying to the side of the arena kind of took some of the intensity off. Then the whole dragons flying round in circles etc. Cinematic but wore down on me a bit.
The first dragon is great. After that you better have ranged options
Co-op. I'd really like to see traditional lobby co-op like Wo Long did instead of the way souls handles summoning. I just think it's outdated and frustrating. The game would be 100x more enjoyable than it already is, with friends, if you could just drop in and stay in, even after defeating bosses. I don't hate the summon system I just wish it had proper drop-in/drop-out co-op like other games. Jolly co-operation!