TL;DW: Journalists played Elden Ring on Switch 2 on gamescom. They weren’t allowed to record gameplay but performance is really bad. Tons of stuttering and reportedly dips to <20FPS in cases.
TL;DW: Journalists played Elden Ring on Switch 2 on gamescom. They weren’t allowed to record gameplay but performance is really bad. Tons of stuttering and reportedly dips to <20FPS in cases.
You want your Vigor to be at the soft cap (40 if you are Gud, 60 if you don’t like driving nails into your proverbial winky). Grab a tower shield and spec for that and it will carry you to Malenia, Mohg, and Elden Beast. Learn to dodge and you are good all the way up to the final DLC boss. And actually use the spirit ashes (and not just the mimic tear).
While I think some of the endgame bosses are more than a bit much due to their long attack chains with multiple delays in a given combo, pretty much everything else about ER is some of the most accessible Souls’ing ever to be seen. Its just that people think they are hot shit just because they beat Ornstein and Smough back in the day and try to glass cannon it and… don’t do that.
Also probably don’t play it on a potato. Which is the point of the thread.
OH. And don’t be afraid to respec with the gal who likes bad boys. Most of the endgame bosses have MASSIVE weaknesses and Malenia is kind of notorious for how fast she melts against a stagger build or an arcane bleed build.
I appreciate your reply. I gave the game a legitimate shot. I put 40 hours of play time into the game and it is just not for me.
My gripe with the game besides getting my ass handed to me on the regular is that it’s way too massive yet still quite empty. Having to wander around exploring and finding nothing but some plant material is quite boring. I think my favorite layout has been DS Remastered where the Firelink Shrine is the hub with many spokes leading out into different areas that you definitely shouldn’t go until later.
I wound up losing interest jn the game and buying Demons Souls which has been fun and more like the Dark Souls and Bloodborne that I’m used to.
Yeah. ER’s overworld is really not one you are meant to explore*. It is a lot closer to the Ubisoft design philosophy where the idea is you are going from point A to point B and find POIs (caves, mines, etc) along the way. So it is more that you should always more or less be walking in the direction of the grace sparkles and just do caves as you find them.
Outside of the good shit that you read about online to get more bell bearings or special weapons.
That said: I will always argue that Nioh 2 is the true best Souls. And that is a lot closer to Demon Souls in that there is no interconnected metroidvania world and it is all discrete (often repeated) levels. But the combat is without parallel and, after the initial horrible bosses (fuck Hino Enma. Although she is more Nioh 1), they are REAL good. Reminiscent of Dark Souls 2 in that it often feels like a duel between two knights (well, samurai) but actually done well.
Staying vague since they are one of the big bads but: Nioh 2 has a recurring enemy. Eventually you fight them when they are truly at the peak of their power and it is a BRUTAL fight. But it works so well because you have mastered the game by then so you are constantly rushing forward to counter their perilous attacks, getting in quick swipes, dodging all of their attacks, etc. And the narrative build up is SO good. It honestly feels like a Yakuza/LAD boss in that “In a different world we could be friends. In this world you have slaughtered countless innocents. But I like your vibes and that attack you just did is so fucking sick”. Yes, Team Ninja actually made Pursuer/Forlorn/Aldea WORK.
*: Until the DLC… where exploring too soon breaks every single NPC quest the moment you cross a bridge
I have bounced off Nioh 2 like a dozen times, the combat system utterly overwhelms me every time I jump in. I have beaten every Souls game outside of Sekiro, but the stances and absorbtion mechanic thing around parrying (forget the exact details) just does me head in.
And every time I bounce off I am sad, cus otherwise it looks amazing. I want to get to the end game and grind out stuff, but getting off the ground is a slog.
You can basically ignore stances (Rise of the Ronin was TN experimenting with making that not an option). Just pick the stance you like (usually medium) and MAYBE swap to heavy against oni if you feel like you need to. Conceptually it is basically one handing or two handing (or… half handing?) a weapon in a Souls game. You aren’t swapping mid fight and are more deciding as you approach an encounter. That said… Nioh 3 by all indications is gonna make that integral.
Burst counters are all about figuring out what moveset you want. I personally love yellow (?) yokai because I rush forward. Which is baller as fuck but ALSO means that even if I parry too soon I have good odds of intercepting the attack and getting the punish. Whereas other people prefer blue for blocking or red for attacking.
But yeah. The Niohs are HORRIBLE for tutorialization even beyond the boss design. TN have gotten a lot better with integrating tutorials into gameplay (especially in Stranger of Paradise and Rise of the Ronin) but they ALSO still insist on having a mandatory void mission that then just dumps all that info and more into you and mostly undoes the “Hey, that guy hasn’t seen you. Sneak up on him” training.
It took me up until the penultimate core boss in Nioh 1 to realize that I was an idiot for not using the special attacks. What went from hit and run with a katana became just holding r1+square to melt enemy HP with dual swords or doing massive ki damage with a katana or flying across the room with the kunai wit chain and so forth.
But once you figure out what parts of the game you can ignore and what matters? Oh there is nothing like that.
I still think Dark Souls 1 is more accessible than Elden Ring. Yes, ER offers more and better tools - like the aforementioned spirit ashes - but the complexity and demands of the boss fights are still much harder I would say.
I think DS1’s very structured first half is pure genius. Asylum and Taurus demons teach you about situational awareness and the value of using movement to manipulate your enemy and make openings. Capra teaches you to carry a god damned shield and that sometimes you have to trade health for progress. Gargoyles are DPS gates that also encourage actually summoning. Iron Giant exists… And O&S are your final exam that makes sure you were paying attention (and also you have Brolaire… if you play offline. Otherwise you just get endlessly invaded). I think it does fall apart in the back half but most of that game does.
ER definitely suffers from the open world nature of the game. Theoretically, Stormveil (?) castle is your first legacy dungeon and it is really good for that… Some of us found the back path and did Raya Lucaria (?) first and dealt with the hell of a bunch of kids with M-16s hosing you down the moment you stick your head out from behind cover. But the various bosses still do a good job of teaching mechanics.
But I really think the secret is the Spirit Ashes. No matter what your build, you can find an ash to complement that. Yeah, they fall off as you near endgame but… you have mimic tear then. And then, if you are smart, you grab Tiche and realize knife mommy is best girl.
All that said? I think the Niohs actually have the better system where you can summon NPCs based on player builds fairly freely. But Nioh also has some of the worst boss progression in the sense that TN seems to think Hino Enma (bird lady who is hard to hit, inflicts status effects, and has a grab that heals her…) is the third boss you should fight…
But yeah. As much fun as “git gud” is, it just really annoys me because people’s need to say they are super hardcore sexy super gamers just ignores all the work that the devs of these games put into teaching mechanics and providing alternatives. And Elden Ring REALLY suffered from that with all the sweaties who insisted you should play with no summons and low vigor… and then got pissy that it was hard.
Slime boi was the best prenerf, then still the best post in my opinion. I used radahns swords and he used to spam the shit outta of the gravity weapon arts. Stupid good. But even after nerf he still did it in clutch moments and the times we both use it together was just glorious.
I mean there was nothing like two fat santa clause turtles running around with 2 big ass swords fucking things up.
As soon as you understand that traversing the level is the real boss… christ on a cracker, the amount of times I’ve fallen to my death. (I’m on crystal cave, I should know better by now)
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
Deep breath
┬──┬◡ﾉ(° -°ﾉ)
But it’s such a good game. <3
Oh yes, for sure! That’s what I tend to tell people whose first Soulslike is Elden Ring: Dark Souls 1’s bosses will feel very underwhelming in comparison but the areas themselves will be equally or more challenging.
Though the DLC does have a couple of fun bosses. Make sure you look up how to enter it, it’s not something you’d stumble on naturally. Also you have to do it before the final boss, unlike later games NG+ starts automatically upon defeating the final boss.
Sorry, you lost me here.
Using a tower shield and poke weapon was the easiest playthrough of the game I’ve done. Easiest of all the from soft games I’ve played, even. The final boss went down in 4 minutes and I barely had to heal.
I think a problem some people get with these games is they have a sort of tunnel vision. They’ll have a scimitar and lose to the boss lose to the boss lose to the boss, and they don’t really consider trying something else.
Back when game design was an actual artform, having a boss who’s easy with one build but terrible against another up-to-then valid build indicates BAD GAME DESIGN, but suddenly when it’s Fromsoft making the amateur failures, it’s Perfectly As Designed™.
Yes, for example, famously pokemon with the elemental gyms was bad design. You should totally be able to use your fire pokemon to fight the fire gym. /s
And certainly no other game has something like a fire elemental boss that you can’t use fire on.
There’s just such a contingent of people who get off on hating from soft. It’s tedious as heck
Come now, Fromsoft’s design flaws go far deeper than “fire beat water”. Don’t strawman things you supposedly respect.
Your post was nonsense. “You can’t have a boss that is strong against something else that used to work” is a stupid design “rule” you made up. Like every game that has meaningfully different builds is going to have parts that are easier or harder for a build.
Easier and harder are not the goal posts being discussed.
You yourself say the boss battle was EASY with a shield and pokey build. That is a whole different discussion than, “some builds do better against certain enemies”.
Stop strawmanning the argument, numpty.
“easy”
easy
EASY
Are you kidding me right now? Is this a bit?
He said easiest playthrough. Because towershield plus pokey thing means you take no damage and can poke everything to death, slowly. Veeeeerrrry slowly. You must not do soul like games.
Or just use magic its great, you can one-shot many bosses with the kamé kamé ha glass cannon build.
Magic is definitely easy mode against (most) bosses. But the traversal between bonfires needs more effort since, even if you also have a glock spell you fundamentally have limited damage because you need to fuel it with blue estus. So people tend to grab moonveil or some other hybrid melee for those purposes and you quickly realize that a lot of the team that worked on Dark Souls 2 worked on certain areas in ER.
For a noobie that would be a stupid build for their first run. They will soft lock themselves at renalla.
I main staff in one hand and ROB in the other and its worked out well. I’m in the DLC now most of the way through and only got stuck a couple times. I did a shitload of grinding.
That isn’t an all magic build though. Renalla is nearly immune to magic so a full magic build (blood isn’t magic) does neglible damage on her.
Or, from the sacred texts -
Git gud.
If you’re a toxic dipshit, sure?
Or we can actually be mature adults and realize that From (and most of the good souls devs) actually put a LOT of work into gradually ramping up difficulty, teaching mechanics, and adding alternatives so that pretty much anyone can beat any non-DLC boss without a human summon.
That could be what he means by git gud.
Learn the basic attack patterns and how to dodge. Don’t skip bosses. You’ll learn the mechanics and by extension you’ll “git gud”.
People that bitch about people saying “git gud” are the toxic ones. Usually it’s someone who gets angry because they can’t beat a boss. If you’re good you don’t cry if someone says “git gud”.
This is exactly the point! I wish i could have explained it in this way years ago. Git gud means you gotta put in the work to learn the enemies area and bosses. I have beaten all fromsoft soul games besides bloodborne :(, and i am by no means the best player. Yet i git gud and beat every one of them to full completions.
But dont ask about my death count.