Elden Ring - George R.R. Martin and Hidetaka Miyazaki

You are maybe 75% thru short of skipping some things. But it is much more linear soon.

I agree. That’s basically why I stopped playing in the Atlus plateau, or whatever it’s called. It was too much by that point, and I’d had an amazing time until then, so why keep playing and force myself.

Now, a year later, I’m having a great time again from the beginning with a new character.

I haven’t read much of the thread after Feb 22 right before the game was released. Just started and put a solid 90 minutes into the game with another 90 minutes of troubleshooting / optimizing settings so it wouldn’t run like complete ass. Hopefully that is fixed. Unfortunately whenever I quit out of the game it still locks up my computer for several minutes in a not responding fail state. That blows. (Sekiro ran like a dream)

So after coming fresh off pretty much mastering every boss in Sekiro…I forgot enemies suck at blocking my attacks and die super fast in Souls games. Hilarious. While my indomitable “deflect powers” are gone I see they brought in the jump button and stealth crouch. I played until I got the mount and two-hander From always provides early on in every souls game including Demon’s Souls. It’s not the claymore but it will do. It will do nicely. Mounted combat seems overpowered once you can get good at it.

Sekiro muscle memory is still fucking with me for sure though.

Some people play huge amounts of the game on Torrent while others, like me, start out using him sparingly. I preferred exploring on foot, and I kept accidentally dismounting in combat. :)

I have a feeling that Torrent was added relatively late in the game’s development, since there are parts of that game that are really easy to cheese with it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was put in after testers complained about it taking too long to walk everywhere.

I bet in the inevitable sequel more enemies will have attacks that can easily dismount the player.

There will be DLC, but I doubt you will see a Elden Ring 2.

Those mini-dungeon baby bosses were kind of a joke. I think I beat the first proper boss following the grace trail into the castle. The ballista prior was a little bitch but I didn’t die.

At first he felt pretty easy, but I am less use to spot dodging repeatedly now and he gets a flurry of attacks when he’s lower on health. Feels like a Bloodborne boss. Anyways I kept getting him down to like 2 inches of health but still dying. I decided to just summon the doggos. Let loose the good boys FTW. (they actually all died and I still needed to widdle down the last 2 inches)

I like how powerful mounted combat is but I feel like I need to spam the loot button to pick up materials as I travel around the map.

I guess there are more mini-dungeon baby bosses I might have missed now.

This game is totally Dark Souls except Sekiro happened. I am feeling like there is some serious stun lock punishment happening out of the blue. Fodder knight does some insane bonkers specials chained with attacks that instantly reduces my health to zero in a matter of seconds. I rez and destroy him easier afterwards with three simple swings of my two-hander. Who was the other guy?

Ever since Bloodborne FROM has introduced quicker, more deadly enemies in the games. DS3 has some and ER is full of them.

For me it’s more whiplash from Sekiro, which is way faster, and you never have to really “dodge.”

So I feel my dodge skills have demised somewhat. Everything dies fast though.

Key additions included in Elden Ring from Sekiro:

  • Jump button (LOL)
  • Stealth couch (also not unique but for souls, yes)
  • Easy to avoid and bypass enemies, but even more so. It’s practically opt-in only, but this goes for mostly landscape, not dungeons…which is classic Dark Souls. So hybrid model.
  • I also feel like the Ashes of War is a bit like Combat Arts but with a much dumber name so we can include that too!

The most unique advent feature is mounted combat and it feels pretty damn good. It is also really powerful.

In other news I finally found Patches. That was a pretty good introduction. I was wondering because his outro in Dark Souls 3 - The Ringed City felt like the “bookend” final encounter.

In a true open world you need the ability to jump and crouch. Otherwise you couldn’t access some things and stealth builds couldn’t be a thing.

The jump button was needed but if you watch a lot of YouTubers many of them found ways to jump to places in DS3 I could never get to.

DS3 also had weapon arts on some weapons.

Just highlighting FromSoft continual iteration my dude.

This doesn’t have anything to do with “open world” games per se.

It is weird to see how they did it though. “Chalice dungeons” in different flavors except they’re much shorter. And whatever the heck those evergaol things are. (literally forever jail). Bespoke bosses…

Yea, it is kind of like they used every idea they had.

After around 155 hours of solo playtime and reaching level 167, I defeated the final boss. This encounter pretty much summed up my experiences with the game: intense moments of extreme frustration, followed by experimentation and progress. The end result was so very satisfying.

The part I appreciated the most was that I never felt funneled into a specific kind of gameplay sequence, live having to time dodge, rolls, or hits in a rigid order. While knowing how bosses behave is essential, I always found a way to fumble through, either by trying different tactics, loadouts and weapons. And if I kept hitting a brick wall, I would leave off and go exploring, maybe grind a few extra levels or find new gear or a weapon. Then I would come back with a vengeance, often steamrolling over the boss that had previously given me trouble. Good stuff.

Now to play some NG+.

Just like nobody has truly copied the formula of the original Dark Souls games.

I think the best way forward for open world games it to not have “mission states”. A holdover from GTA that refuses to die. Ubisoft is still all about it though.

One problem I am having in Elder Ring is just getting too powerful too quickly. Like, most enemies/bosses are too easy. It’s really easy to happen if you explore a lot.

The more you explore the more you level because of how much stuff is in the world. As you go north on the map enemies get tougher.

The only way I could finish the game! :P

but I agree a bit with you, I could kill some bosses on my second attempt, before I truly learned their patterns.