Elden Ring

[Carpet_pissr]

So is anyone here playing on PC? Reviews on Steam are terrible and just wondering why (compared to the absurd Metacritic score).

Anyone playing it on a PS4 Pro?

I am and have had just 1 crash in about 30 hours.
My rig comes in at just above min specs, but runs really good.
Everything looks beautiful on mid settings.
What are the complaints you're seeing on Steam about?
I'm seeing alot of positive reviews there.

Are you using KB+ mouse?

[stimpy]

Nope. Xbox controller. Working great.
I tried KB + M at first, but quickly gave up.
Too convoluted.

[coopasonic]

Yeah From games are definitely controller games. Most of the PC complaints I have heard are around performance, mostly stuttering in the open world. I've had it happen a couple times even on my somewhat beastly rig. It hasn't really been a detractor for me. The main detractor for me is that it's really just another From game but with more words this time. I really need to stop buying them.

[Carpet_pissr]

From??

[Roman]

From??

From = FromSoftware

[Ralph-Wiggum]

So is anyone here playing on PC? Reviews on Steam are terrible and just wondering why (compared to the absurd Metacritic score).

Anyone playing it on a PS4 Pro?

It's supposed to run ok on the PS4 Pro, but I think it's locked at 30 fps.

[Octavious]

I'm at the 38 hour mark somehow so I guess I like it. I'm sure a few minutes of that is paused, but it's not a lot. Pretty much all I've done with any free time since Thursday. The crazy thing is that I'm nowhere near completing the game. I only have 2 big bosses down and at least 3 areas I haven't explored at all.

AND I don't even like my build that much. I plan I starting right up again with a pure mage character which I've never done. You can respec, but I've spent a ton of resources on upgrading my weapons and such. I'm really not feeling the Katana which I've been using the entire time. It's at +9 and it's still not that great no matter how I set it up. I found another sword last night and got it up to +5 and it's wayyyyy better. It's a weapon made for faith based characters and it's pretty awesome looking.

[hepcat]

I went with confessor because it just looked cool. But I'm actually glad I did as I'm loving incantations.

Last night I started my summoning binge. I've found that the

Spoiler:

skeletal militia

rocks and rocks hard. The

Spoiler:

jellyfish

which i've read is supposed to be the favorite didn't do much for me. but i'm probably using it wrong.

I tried 5 times to defeat margrit last night with both the NPC summon and 5 different ash spirit summons, but the closest I got it down to was about 25 percent health. So I backed off and hit a few other areas, defeating a couple of new mini bosses I encountered while exploring. I'll probably try again tonight after hopefully getting my spirits and weapons upgraded at the hub.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

I tried 5 times to defeat margrit last night with both the NPC summon and 5 different ash spirit summons, but the closest I got it down to was about 25 percent health. So I backed off and hit a few other areas, defeating a couple of new mini bosses I encountered while exploring. I'll probably try again tonight after hopefully getting my spirits and weapons upgraded at the hub.

I beat him last night. I had tried when I was ~ level 20 and could get him down about 3/4 of the way before conking out. I've since leveled to 30 (there's a great place to grind at

Spoiler:

the mines you get trap transported to

) and got the jellyfish. Between that and Rogier, I managed to take him down pretty easily. I just let them soak up all the hits while I wailed on him with magic.

[hepcat]

Did you upgrade the spirts and/or your weapons a lot first? My sword is only +3 and my seal is only +2, and I cannot whittle him down far enough before he decimates the NPC and the summons.

Side note: One thing I cannot stress enough is you should ALWAYS talk to NPCs more than once. I've advanced quite a few stories/received quite a few gifts by revisiting characters after doing something I didn't think was related to that character in any way, only to find out they had new dialog branches for me. Oftentimes ending with me getting something/them moving to the hub and offering new services/etc..

Same goes for revisiting resting sites. Sometimes someone will appear out of the blue with something new after you rest at an old location.

[Scuzz]

I've yet to use summons as I'm not entirely sure how they work. Are they one use and they go away?

The ashes summons are unlimited use, but you can only summon them when you have the blue gateway icon on the left side of the screen and they can only be used once in each area with that blue gateway until you rest.

Yep and they also require FP. Picking the right summons are key to a lot of boss battles. I think at this point I have about 8 different summons and I regularly use 4 of them.

Second question: do you have to summon them from outside boss battle "curtains"? Or do you have to/can you from within the boss battle arena? If the former, do they follow you past the curtain?

They can be summoned in various places but not always where you think you should be able to. Some bosses allow you to summon them (within the fog door) while others will not.

[naednek]

So is anyone here playing on PC? Reviews on Steam are terrible and just wondering why (compared to the absurd Metacritic score).

Anyone playing it on a PS4 Pro?

yes, see my posts...

I stopped playing until they fix the stuttering on the PC. Apparently there's a patch being released today. I'll report back

[Octavious]

Did you upgrade the spirts and/or your weapons a lot first? My sword is only +3 and my seal is only +2, and I cannot whittle him down far enough before he decimates the NPC and the summons.

Side note: One thing I cannot stress enough is you should ALWAYS talk to NPCs more than once. I've advanced quite a few stories/received quite a few gifts by revisiting characters after doing something I didn't think was related to that character in any way, only to find out they had new dialog branches for me. Oftentimes ending with me getting something/them moving to the hub and offering new services/etc..

Same goes for revisiting resting sites. Sometimes someone will appear out of the blue with something new after you rest at an old location.

Ya the number one rule is to talk to them until they start repeating themselves. That's been the way since the first game. I look forward to playing again so I can keep better track of quests. Right now it's so much to take in that I forget most of them. I vastly like this system of having almost nothing on the map vs the Ubisoft ? porn. I just find that so overwelming and way less fun. Let me run to that question mark way out in the middle of nowhere! Fun... Or let me wander around and HOLY CRAP I FOUND SOMETHING. I'll take the latter every single time.

[hepcat]

That was the nice thing about Witcher 3. You could just turn off all the quest prompts and explore a bare map.

[Octavious]

Yup that's how I played that game. It's just zero fun for me to have a thing saying hey there's totally a "hidden" thing over here! And in this fort there are 3 chests and I'll keep track of each one you collect. It's like a mindless checking off a box exercise to me.

[stimpy]

[coopasonic]

From??

From = FromSoftware

Yes sorry. I don't want to use the term Souls-like, because I actually have loved so many Souls-likes that are NOT made by FromSoftware. It is specifically their games that just don't draw me in. Sekiro was by far the best of them from that perspective.

I tried 5 times to defeat margrit last night with both the NPC summon and 5 different ash spirit summons, but the closest I got it down to was about 25 percent health. So I backed off and hit a few other areas, defeating a couple of new mini bosses I encountered while exploring. I'll probably try again tonight after hopefully getting my spirits and weapons upgraded at the hub.

One thing I did last night that *finally* got me past Margit was starting with just the NPC and then summoning Jellyfish when you get to phase 2, so he lasts longer. The bonus of the Jellyfish is that he is pretty tanky and lasts a good while. His poison is just a nice bonus.

[hepcat]

Hmmmm....I like it. I think I'll try it tonight. Thanks!

[Smoove_B]

This game is definitely taunting me. It's 100% outside my wheelhouse of what I know I like, but like a $2 pitcher of domestic beer and $0.10 wings at the local dive bar, I cannot help but think, maybe this time it will be good idea...

[Pyperkub]

This game is definitely taunting me. It's 100% outside my wheelhouse of what I know I like, but like a $2 pitcher of domestic beer and $0.10 wings at the local dive bar, I cannot help but think, maybe this time it will be good idea...

In that boat as well, but I've got a ton of things that are on gamepass and in the backlog to suck up my time. If I had a regular crew who wanted to play on the xbox, I'd probably grab it, but for now, I can wait for gamepass in a few months (probably).

[Octavious]

It's in the running for my favorite game ever. Not that I'm surprised as I've loved the series since Demon Souls, but man aside from peoples performance complaints this game is amazeballs. It's everything I loved about the series dialed up to 11.

[hepcat]

Only get Elden Ring if you like to learn from mistakes and planning the same thing over and over again. In a way, it reminds me of a tower defense game. You build your corridor of death, and then you see if it can defeat the encroaching army of pixels. If it doesn't (and it rarely does on the first few tries) you go back to the drawing board and try again with different tactics, but this time armed with some knowledge of what WON'T work.

Now, combine that with an open world game with obtuse mechanics that aren't fully explained...by design, and a pretty decent exploration component that allows you to (sometimes) circumnavigate the tower defense game in favor of just looking for gold tinged excrement and magic grease (and let's face it, those two really should have been front and center on all the adverts for this game), and you have Elden Ring.

Me, I'm a sucker for tower defense games. I put 100's of hours into Defense Grid 1 and 2. I'm a moron in that way (and so many others, to be fair). I will sit there like a doofus for hours on end trying to perfect the placement of every laser and fire pit, only to curse out the monitor when it doesn't work.

Oh, but when it DOES work? There's no finer feeling.

But yeah, if you don't like the philosophy of tower defense games, stay away from Elden Ring.

[stimpy]

I'd probably grab it, but for now, I can wait for gamepass in a few months (probably).

Highly unlikely, as there are currently a total of zero FromSoftware games on Gamepass.
Had I thought there was a chance, I would have waited myself.

[Pyperkub]

I'd probably grab it, but for now, I can wait for gamepass in a few months (probably).

Highly unlikely, as there are currently a total of zero FromSoftware games on Gamepass.
Had I thought there was a chance, I would have waited myself.

How many are published by Bandai Namco tho? Theirs usually show up after about six months I've been told.

[hepcat]

I would imagine that with the sales being this high, they'll avoid bringing to any kind of subscription service for at least a year...if ever. Well, unless they decide to shift towards making money off DLC at some point.

[Octavious]

This game is definitely taunting me. It's 100% outside my wheelhouse of what I know I like, but like a $2 pitcher of domestic beer and $0.10 wings at the local dive bar, I cannot help but think, maybe this time it will be good idea...

While totally different games what I liked about Days Gone kind of applies to this game. It's more about exploring and figuring things out than anything else. It can be really freaking hard, but that doesn't bother me much. I just find ways to adjust or just go do something else until I get stronger. This game is a lot easier to go find something else to do if you get stuck. The older games you could hit a wall where you were pretty much screwed until you passed it. I really should go back and finish that game I was having fun with it and then got distracted.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Did you upgrade the spirts and/or your weapons a lot first? My sword is only +3 and my seal is only +2, and I cannot whittle him down far enough before he decimates the NPC and the summons.

My weapon is only a +2 but I actually only hit him with it twice (once when is was knocked down for a critical hit). But at some point I found a pretty good staff and have bumped up my intelligence to 18, so my starter spell does pretty good damage. I’ve also bumped up my Mind so I can cast it 8 (?) times before needing to use a flask.

Side note and this is something you all probably know: I didn’t realize until having played 10+ hours that you can redistribute the health:magic flask ratio. Once I realized that, things became much easier since I’ve been primarily using magic.

[Scraper]

I'd probably grab it, but for now, I can wait for gamepass in a few months (probably).

Highly unlikely, as there are currently a total of zero FromSoftware games on Gamepass.
Had I thought there was a chance, I would have waited myself.

How many are published by Bandai Namco tho? Theirs usually show up after about six months I've been told.

I think most From games are published by Namco in North America. Literally the only soulslike game on gamepass is Mortal Shell

[Scuzz]

So I got into Stormveil and beat the boss on the bridge on my third try. I have beat 6-7 bosses now, but I think that was the first real boss. The Tree sentinel kicked my ass forever but he was optional.

I am a lvl28 Vagabond with a +2 great sword.

[wonderpug]

This game is definitely taunting me. It's 100% outside my wheelhouse of what I know I like, but like a $2 pitcher of domestic beer and $0.10 wings at the local dive bar, I cannot help but think, maybe this time it will be good idea...

In that boat as well, but I've got a ton of things that are on gamepass and in the backlog to suck up my time. If I had a regular crew who wanted to play on the xbox, I'd probably grab it, but for now, I can wait for gamepass in a few months (probably).

FWIW, I got this game despite it being outside my wheelhouse and I’m not really enjoying it. I’ve tried the first game in the series, either 3 or Bloodborne, and Sekiro, and didn’t get very far in any of them. Mostly I had trouble with the combat difficulty and stalled out. But I love the idea behind the games so I keep thinking this next one will be the one that clicks for me.

So far in Elden Ring the difficulty level isn’t as bad for me, but I’m having trouble with how little story there is. I think I’m looking for more of a reason to be killing all these random people and animals along the path other than just because they’re there, and more of a reason to be walking to the next campfire other than “because the last campfire pointed that way.” The prospect of needing to grind to be successful is probably the thing that’s going to make me give up, though.

So I dunno, that’s just me. People seem to be universally singing high praises for the game so I think I have to finally accept I’m just not compatible with the Soulsborne genre.

[hepcat]

The prospect of needing to grind to be successful is probably the thing that’s going to make me give up, though.

To be fair, that’s literally been the case for every single game in the series. It’s like complaining that the Battlefield games have guns.

[Octavious]

I've never run around and killed things to level up. I'm exploring and getting stronger while doing that. It's not a JRPG where I need to go run around in circles for an hour killing bunnies.

[hepcat]

You come across something you can’t kill, you go level up. The grinding may be dressed up more and come across as exploring, but you’re still grinding. The only thing different from previous games is that there seem to be more ways around the boss blocks that would segregate areas before. But there are still areas you can’t enter until you level up significantly…and since you don’t acquire skill points for completing quests, but rather from killing things ( or stomping on a glowing skull with your horsey), you’re going to be killing things a lot to level up. In other words, grinding.

[Scuzz]

This game is definitely taunting me. It's 100% outside my wheelhouse of what I know I like, but like a $2 pitcher of domestic beer and $0.10 wings at the local dive bar, I cannot help but think, maybe this time it will be good idea...

In that boat as well, but I've got a ton of things that are on gamepass and in the backlog to suck up my time. If I had a regular crew who wanted to play on the xbox, I'd probably grab it, but for now, I can wait for gamepass in a few months (probably).

FWIW, I got this game despite it being outside my wheelhouse and I’m not really enjoying it. I’ve tried the first game in the series, either 3 or Bloodborne, and Sekiro, and didn’t get very far in any of them. Mostly I had trouble with the combat difficulty and stalled out. But I love the idea behind the games so I keep thinking this next one will be the one that clicks for me.

So far in Elden Ring the difficulty level isn’t as bad for me, but I’m having trouble with how little story there is. I think I’m looking for more of a reason to be killing all these random people and animals along the path other than just because they’re there, and more of a reason to be walking to the next campfire other than “because the last campfire pointed that way.” The prospect of needing to grind to be successful is probably the thing that’s going to make me give up, though.

So I dunno, that’s just me. People seem to be universally singing high praises for the game so I think I have to finally accept I’m just not compatible with the Soulsborne genre.

None of the Dark Souls games are story driven. There is lore, but lore tends to be in the eyes of the beholder.

Have you tried the Horizon Zero Dawn or it's sequel. Much more story driven, beautiful games with some quick combat as well. But different combat, you can actually turn the difficulty down if you find it too much for you.

[naednek]

This game is definitely taunting me. It's 100% outside my wheelhouse of what I know I like, but like a $2 pitcher of domestic beer and $0.10 wings at the local dive bar, I cannot help but think, maybe this time it will be good idea...

In that boat as well, but I've got a ton of things that are on gamepass and in the backlog to suck up my time. If I had a regular crew who wanted to play on the xbox, I'd probably grab it, but for now, I can wait for gamepass in a few months (probably).

FWIW, I got this game despite it being outside my wheelhouse and I’m not really enjoying it. I’ve tried the first game in the series, either 3 or Bloodborne, and Sekiro, and didn’t get very far in any of them. Mostly I had trouble with the combat difficulty and stalled out. But I love the idea behind the games so I keep thinking this next one will be the one that clicks for me.

So far in Elden Ring the difficulty level isn’t as bad for me, but I’m having trouble with how little story there is. I think I’m looking for more of a reason to be killing all these random people and animals along the path other than just because they’re there, and more of a reason to be walking to the next campfire other than “because the last campfire pointed that way.” The prospect of needing to grind to be successful is probably the thing that’s going to make me give up, though.

So I dunno, that’s just me. People seem to be universally singing high praises for the game so I think I have to finally accept I’m just not compatible with the Soulsborne genre.

None of the Dark Souls games are story driven. There is lore, but lore tends to be in the eyes of the beholder.

Have you tried the Horizon Zero Dawn or it's sequel. Much more story driven, beautiful games with some quick combat as well. But different combat, you can actually turn the difficulty down if you find it too much for you.

And that's when I ask, why did they bring on the Game of thrones author... There's definitely atmosphere where he probably has influence on, but you'd think they'd use his skills to further along the genre.

[wonderpug]

Yeah, the George RR Martin involvement is why I thought there’d be a story for this one. But no need to derail the thread just for me! I’m glad the game is so awesome for most of you! I only broke my silence in the thread to give Smoove and Pyper a counterpoint since they were on the fence.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Yeah, these games are definitely not for those looking for a story driven RPG.

I haven't really understood the use for most of the Ashes of War I've found, but yesterday I found a place to buy Ashes of War that imbued my flail with magic, even though the description of the Ash didn't mention flails. It increased my total damage by about 50, but now that damage is split between physical and magic. Seems like a pretty good pick up for 1000 runes.

[stimpy]

Yeah, these games are definitely not for those looking for a story driven RPG.

I haven't really understood the use for most of the Ashes of War I've found, but yesterday I found a place to buy Ashes of War that imbued my flail with magic, even though the description of the Ash didn't mention flails. It increased my total damage by about 50, but now that damage is split between physical and magic. Seems like a pretty good pick up for 1000 runes.

I've probably spent more time searching the web for info on various mechanics and items and watching YouTube videos than I have playing.

[Smoove_B]

Yeah, the George RR Martin involvement is why I thought there’d be a story for this one. But no need to derail the thread just for me! I’m glad the game is so awesome for most of you! I only broke my silence in the thread to give Smoove and Pyper a counterpoint since they were on the fence.

It's appreciated. I play video games for exploration and story elements. The mechanics have become secondary (or tertiary) for me in the sense that they're just a means to what I'm looking for. That said, if the mechanics make things like exploration difficult or get in the way of the story, that's a problem. That's where I'm hung up. I want so see new things and explore. I don't want to re-do something 37 times until I figure out the exact perfect combo of dodge/roll/lite strike/roll/heavy strike/turn/parry/spin to get to get through a door.

[Octavious]

I spent most of last night just wandering the old areas to see what I missed. Got a few new incantations and I respeced to make myself even more faith based. I really wish I could cast spells without have to switch from my shield. I mean I get it, but it's kind of clunky. My one takeaway from this particular game is that pure melee is kind of rough. Some of the bosses are made in such a way that it's not super practical to just use melee. This has always been a thing, but it seems more so in this one. Shrug...