Elden Ring: YOU DIED on a horse

I mean I loved Hades, and dying was a bit important in that game so I'm ready for a challenge

I played it for a few weeks and it’s really impressive. I had to take a break because it’s so bleak and was not in a good spot in my life. Things aren’t super better now, but I’ve been meaning to pick it back up.

Okay, so BotW is probably my GOAT favorite video game experience, thought RDR2 a masterpiece, and TLOU 1&2 the best stories told in video games. Recently played Horizon Forbidden West (was bundled with the PS5 so why not), felt it was pretty, immersive, but meh and samey. Feeling a bit burnt out from open world games. Never played a From Software game.

Give me a reason to play this game immediately and why I might fall for it given the above, or maybe give me a reason to run for the hills and just play God of War and Metroid Prime and not look back

― octobeard, Wednesday, February 22, 2023 6:39 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I played the original GOW and enjoyed it immensely. Then I started dipping my toes in the FromSoft games (Bloodborne) and found them overwhelming - not just the difficulty but just the overall way it's played, the UI, the way NPCs interact, how leveling works etc. It was a bit like learning a new language.
Elden Ring came out, I persevered, I got immersed, it was all I could think about some days. When GOW Ragnarok came out I bought it on day of purchase and was underwhelmed. It was the same type of game as before with a bigger story, but it just felt so rote, straightforward, spoon-feedy, on-rails - a playable movie with good performances but little sense of personal agency beyond walk along, smack R1 for a while, walk a bit more until the story picks up etc...

To make a musical analogy for you especially, Elden Ring is akin to the Autechre of video games. It requires a significant level of "meeting it halfway" in order to get the most out of it. You can, if you want, play it as an open-world arcade slasher and many people do; but the possibilities seem almost endless. It's one of the few games where it feels like you have true agency over your own story, over the way your character and build. You can play it pretty much any way you want and it very rarely takes over the controls for you. I'm on my fourth playthrough and am still discovering new things about it. And I still haven't really dipped my toe into the world of PVP yet, which is a whole other thing.

I also think the difficulty and grimness are over-stated. Yeah, these games are generally fairly tough, especially when one isn't used to how they work. It is a bit like learning a new language sometimes. A big part of the experience is to do with slowly learning about this internal language works - and it will go out of its way NOT to explain this. What's quite amusing in more recent playthroughs on updated versions is how jarring it can feel now that they've added some helpful sign-posting towards the beginning of the game, whereas on first release it was pretty much: "Here you go, now get started!"

Octobeard my inclination is not to encourage you to play this game but rather to urge you to stay away from it until you’re ready to lose six-to-eight weeks of your life to it, tbh

^^^^

Or a whole year + in my case

Same!

Octobeard I love all those games you listed

I can’t really claim that Elden Ring is “the best game I ever played” because I don’t think Elden Ring aspired to be “the best”. It felt to me while playing it that the metric of “best” no longer applied, that Elden Ring kinda broke the measuring tape

It definitely is “the closest video games have ever gotten to hard drug levels of addictiveness”

As someone who also loved BoTW very very much (and Skyrim) and is a fan of open world in general, I can say that I really love this game, even with my reservations about how hard Souls games supposedly were - I'd avoided them all for years because I hate punitive gameplay.

So, its a FUCKING PUNITIVE game, make no mistake. If you have little spare time, or little patience, or are quick to anger, it may not be the game for you. But the world is so glorious, and detailled, and inscrutable if you dont look up walkthroughs!

But yes one thing it is is a timesink. You cant really pick it up for 30 mins and whip off a battle or puzzle.

Ugh the Red Wolf of Radagon always feels like an exceptional difficulty spike, not to mention a horrible fight with a really random moveset

I played HFW on bloody easy/story mode, so basically breezed through it, but I think it was largely because I really disliked the enemies and battling in the game initially. The combat mechanics didn't mesh well with me, while with Breath of the Wild and Red Dead, it was absolutely a challenge to me initially, but the mechanics of the game were so ergonomic and the world so accessible that I pushed through and was rewarded immensely for exploring and grew to adore battles and fighting.

I'm hoping Elden Ring is like this - a game that massively rewards exploration, is immersive, and has a lore and depth to the story and world that stokes the imagination while making it fun to grow your character and take on new baddies. HFW had an interesting back story and plot, but looking back on it, I felt I was almost forcing it. The world was beautiful enough that I put in 70 hours to finish it, I guess, but it's soured me a bit on the genre now, sadly.

I'm literally considering Elden Ring vs Cyberpunk 2077 for the next open world game buy (well, before Tears of the Kingdom at least). I know Cyberpunk has vastly improved since its release, and is a much improved experience according to many. I bring up RDR2 and BOTW as I consider these absolute pinnacle open world game experiences, and if either ER or Cyberpunk approach that level I'm in, especially if they don't fall into similar traps that HFW's game design and narrative fell into. I will say, exploring the wreckage of post-post apocalyptic SF was really fun, just mad it took 50 hours of game play to get there.

One thing that is extremely different about ER (and From games in general) is that the mode of storytelling is very, very unique. More of a jigsaw puzzle than a novella

Yeah theres lore but its not presented nicely to you in journal entries or books you can read off shelves.Thats my only niggle with it really - you have to really scrabble around to find all the clues and bits of lore and really pay attention to what each NPC tells you because a) it'll be important, which I didnt realise on my first try and b) they wont re-tell you or put it into a journal in your menu. If youre so inclined, you may want to go oldschool and jot things down as you go.

I think that's part of the fun though. Yeah, it is a bit frustrating to start with but I grew to really enjoy the sleuthing. Another big thing is making sure to pay attention to the environment and to read things like item descriptions which play a huge part in filling out the back story.

One of the more annoying things is how it often requires you to go and talk to NPCs without always prompting you though. Yeah, you quickly get used to exhausting characters' dialogues, but there are a fair few instances where you will need to chat to someone, go away and rest at a site of grace, then talk to them again. It's that, or you need to go and talk to an NPC, say Fia, in order to properly progress a quest, except nothing really tells you to do this.
Multiple times in my first playthrough I found myself scratching my head wondering how the game might expect me to just guess where to go next. Use of guides is almost always essential in these cases

DLC announced as in development, "Shadow of the Erdtree." Pretty much it, in terms of details.

The image shows what appears to be Miquella riding Torrent in a field full of ghosts. Perhaps this is the Land of Reeds of Eochaid or one of the other lands referred to tangentially in the game. It looks like the Erdtree in the background is totally burnt and dead too. Fan theories blowing up all over the internet already

I'm sure whatever lore they devise will be perfectly clear and make perfect sense.

GRR Martin has been working on it around the clock

We're about to learn more about the tangled backstories of Grendlemare, Garintigue, Grent and Gorefeld and their rivals for the throne, Redilmane, Roddiful and Reechurgle. Plus pretenders from foreign lands, Malignatent, Magistratia and Macklemore.

Lol the fact there are characters called Margit, Morgott, Maggie and Margo in this really makes me laugh

I'm so confused. Why does everyone know thats Miquella, who is apparently a "young boy" and not this lass riding a steed?

Is Miquella like Radagon?

Am I even getting the names right ffs

Miquella is the one demigod we don't properly encounter in the game and that whole quest seems to end in a bit of an abrupt cul-de-sac. So it's long been speculated that the DLC will cover him.

There's some deep lore somewhere that Miquella was cursed at birth to never become an adult. We don't see much of them other than a big hand coming out of an egg at Moghwyn Palace, and a slightly obscured hand-painted image in the opening scenes of them being taken away by Mogh. In that photo we can see Miquella has long golden tresses very similar to the ones on the rider.

Somewhere, it's also applied that Miquella and St Trina are the same person. St Trina is the patron of sleep, and there are a few items to do with St Trina (St Trina's Sword, St Trina's Lily, and also the Slumbering Egg and Nascent Butterfly which are used to make Sleep Pots) which are all associated with Trina/Miquella. So this points to a Marika/Radagon, Ranni/Renna, Gurranq/Maliketh thing where Miquella is more than one person somehow - possibly both a boy and a girl

FFS I'm not very good at this hidden text thing. Apologies

I guess anyone reading this far will be fairly familiar with the story now anyway. It's pretty hard to discuss the lore without some sort of spoiler

There is lore that directly alludes to Miquella being androgynous. The Kotaku article about the DLC is pretty illuminating

Yeah I'm seeing that now from other lore pics. Certainly makes sense as yr right its the one character spoken of frequently and not yet seen at all.

VaatiVidya and Smoughtown are the best YouTube authorities on lore as far as I'm concerned.

Her'es a deep dive on Miquella:

Oops

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aacRIObSGZk

Wonder which is coming out first, this or Armored Core? Either way I need some new From in my life rn.

Had so much trouble with Radahn this go round.

I'd get him down to second phase and then he'd just start chasing me around until he was able to one-shot me. Somehow I wasn't able to revive my festival pals fast enough before he could catch up. Also, quite annoyingly for some reason, I'd sometimes go to blow my steed whistle and instead I would drink a potion(!)

I read you could use dragon breath and inflict scarlet rot on him, but as I was doing a mage build, I had to re-spec for more Faith. Unfortunately that then meant that I couldn't use my trusty Moonblade which I'd upgraded. What a palaver!

Anyway, in case anyone cares, this was about my 15-20th attempt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXqy7rjOg28

I love the small handful of really big From arenas.

Anyone here subscribe and listen to Bonfireside Chat podcast? I highly recommend it.

There's a really well hidden catacombs in that Radahn arena you can visit. I wonder if it's reachable during the fight - that would be pretty mad

It's interesting how the Radahn fight starts out all red and Martian-looking but goes to a night-time blue after he jumps in the air

I always remap my steed whistle to one of the quick slots. :)

Yeah I have up as the steed whistle, left and right for my tear flasks, but sometimes my controller seems to think I'm pressing left instead of up (or I'm doing it in a panic, I dunno)

I have a second build I'm doing more of a speedrun on, and I found Margit, godrick and Radhan easy this time round (FAI/STR build with a reasonable leg up on dex/int). But yea its rotten breath that does the trick. I tried using the black key crossbow with the rot bolts, but it didnt seem to have the same impact as rotten breath did?

No matter what happens, I generally find Str/Int is the way to go for the first part of the game respeccing to Str/Fai shortly after Caria Manor

Shamelessly nicked from reddit;

https://i.imgur.com/ktPS0Ip.jpg

This is perhaps the most useful thing I could imagine for anyone playing the game. A diagramatic guide to all the various NPC quests

https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/11lfopv/guide_all_npc_quests_endings_w_points_of_failure/

Played through the whole of Ranni and Fia's quests over the last few days. Needless to say, a highlight of the game but also absolutely and easily skippable if you don't know what you're doing.

Now I've married Ranni though, I'm unsure as to whether I've got the stamina to play through the rest of the thing yet again.

If I have a qualm about this game (and it's a small one) it's that no matter how you play it, you're always forced to play Leyndell, Mountaintops and Crumbling Farum Azula on every playthrough. And man, I just cannot be bothered - especially with CFA. That said, I think I'm still interested enough to revisit Volcano Manor and the Haligtree

Still think they should make a Souls game based on the film Mandy

i would like to hear more about this idea

I mean, it writes itself. Film has psychotic hippie cultists, chainsaw-wielding demons, flasks of stuff that makes you go insane, vodka, chainsaws, super long chainsaws, crossbows, a cool forest, underground dungeons, a mystical horn you can blow, a soundtrack that swerves from neoclassical ambience to prog to death metal, eye-wasps, motorbikes, pickup trucks, lore you can glean through TV adverts and food product packaging, cheddar goblins...

At least make a mod

Get fuckin SunnO to do the soundtrack. Boom.

also, caelid