Board 8 > Elden Ring Discussion 3 Sword of Dark and Spark

(+) Yeah! (+)

Beat it! What an insane ride. Final bosses were fun, Hoarah Loux being an absolute highlight of the game. Used a STR/FTH build the whole way through with colossal weapons the vast majority of the time, there's definitely a massive difficulty spike around Azula and especially in the optional areas but it never felt truly unreasonable. Next run through I'm definitely going to be playing something much less "fair," though.

I have had a Ps3 PS4, and PS5 and I have exactly one platinum trophy from a game that gave you a plat just for beating the entire story. (Nonary Games)

There have been several games where I've been like Yeah! This is the one! And then I realize that I value my time more than playing a game I don't want to play any more for arbitrary achievement and don't bother

I like achievements that give you a goal to do hard things, but getting every ending for example is just not something I'm interested in. If there was a trophy for beating Melania with no armor I would be more likely to try for it because then its skill based

Man, I never really felt like there was a difficulty spike. The difficulty cratered for a bit after Radahn since that's when you get access to a bunch of Somber Stones, but other than that I thought it was pretty consistent, for both regular enemies and bosses.

Getting to Elphael in 60 hours seems insanely fast to me though! I was over 100 hours by the time I got there.

I got my first ending at 55 hours and I was level 150 or something without any grinding. Some of us are just fast explorers!

Also I agree the last few areas were a complete chore and I was running past most of the enemies because why bother fighting them?

I don't think there's a difficulty spike in general, it just feels like it because as soon as you hit the ice area it's the two blade ice guys everywhere, who barely appear as regular enemies anywhere else in the game, and those guys SPECIFICALLY are fucking ridiculous. It's also a funnel so there's no way around them, just through, so everyone experiences them as the very first thing there no matter what.

If you run past those dude the difficulty is completely on par with what you were doing before.

Yeah I am at level 120 now and right before the final maingame area
No regrets!

But Sol Castle is especially bullshit

Okay I just beat Margott, and I exchausted Kenneth and Nepheli's diaglogues at his keep and roundtable respectively. I went to Godrick's site and passed time there and they wont show up in the throne room?

okay well shit

I thought "Maybe if I kill Kenneth and then go to the church of vows it will reset him and where he should be"

so I kill Kenneth

...but it says I dont need absolution when I try to atone

I had to pass time a couple times in order to get them to move to Godrick's throne room

It didnt work for me until Patch 1.05 hit

Absolution has only ever made NPCs deaggro in these games.

Like Ranni the Witch and her instant death stare

The amount of time I've died just because my character cannot drop off a ledge without jumping ten feet forward

fucking hell

htaeD posted...

The amount of time I've died just because my character cannot drop off a ledge without jumping ten feet forward

fucking hell

It's why I wish they simply wouldn't attempt platforming sequences. My three least favorite segments of the game were all due to platforming. It never feels like a meaningful challenge but rather a fight against awkward controls. It shouldn't be this difficult to simply step forward and fall a few feet.

Basically, a challenge needs to feel rewarding, but I ended those three sequences just being annoyed that From thought anyone would enjoy them. 90% of the time, this game felt poised to take my all-time favorite spot, but the platforming is genuinely bad design and present enough that it ended a fair distance away from #1. Even two weeks on, the poor platforming is one of the first things I think about when reflecting on the overall experience. I even chose my ending not because I wanted it but because I never, ever want to repeat the platforming on its path...

I actually like the platforming lol, except in one spot fuck getting onto the mausoleum in Liurnia lake. But there's something about it that makes it feel cool to me, because From makes such cool structures and environments so being able to platform across a bunch of it that in past games you would look at and be like "man if I could jump up on that". Certainly could just be a me thing

I do like exploring and enjoy the platforming when I feel like I'm reaching an impossible location. Of the three locations I'm thinking of, only one really captured my curiosity and I can give it a pass. But the other two are in rather dull locations.

100k down the drain because of some asshole bear in a disguise

htaeD posted...

100k down the drain because of some asshole bear in a disguise

lol that guy

Fire Giant is down too
I can see why he might be trouble for melee users in phase 2

Nah Fire Giant's easy for melee. Just block his attacks with a shield.

Beat Radahn at level 58. Oof, they really overcorrected with nerfing him. I ended up just fighting him without any summons in the end and he still wasn't much of a challenge. I know he apparently wasn't much fun to fight before, but I kinda wish I had fought him pre-patch just to see how bad it was.

JackMan posted...

Beat Radahn at level 58. Oof, they really overcorrected with nerfing him. I ended up just fighting him without any summons in the end and he still wasn't much of a challenge. I know he apparently wasn't much fun to fight before, but I kinda wish I had fought him pre-patch just to see how bad it was.

You really don't. Pre Nerf Radahn was miserable. One of the worst parts of the game.

It's so confusing to me when people talk about bosses in this game being miserable. Like, most Bloodborne and Dark Souls 1 bosses are way harder than anything in this. Why complain about Malenia or Radahn when Quelaag's ten times as difficult?

Quelaag is mega easy what are you talking about. I've literally never died to her. She's like Pinwheel compared to Malenia.

Mac Arrowny posted...

It's so confusing to me when people talk about bosses in this game being miserable. Like, most Bloodborne and Dark Souls 1 bosses are way harder than anything in this. Why complain about Malenia or Radahn when Quelaag's ten times as difficult?

I had no issue with Malenia even though it was extremely difficult

Radahn was miserable because the optimal strategy involved riding around on your horse for 5 minutes and sometimes you still randomly die in one hit.

It was both tedious and random. Horrendous combination. Compared to a boss like Melania who was both extremely consistent and the skills it tests are how well you can fight instead of how well you can gallop away

Mac Arrowny posted...

It's so confusing to me when people talk about bosses in this game being miserable. Like, most Bloodborne and Dark Souls 1 bosses are way harder than anything in this. Why complain about Malenia or Radahn when Quelaag's ten times as difficult?

Are you sure you're meaning to say Quelaag?

The fire spider woman after Blighttown, right? She's definitely who I'm talking about.

masterplum posted...

You really don't. Pre Nerf Radahn was miserable. One of the worst parts of the game.

Okay, then I wish I had played him when he was fixed, because he's clearly broken in the opposite direction now.

And yeah, Quelaaq, the spider-lady? She's a lot of things, but difficult is not one of them.

There are already 100 bosses in this game. Having one that gates a bunch of content being a weird gimmick boss is something I am ok with. There usually is one in every souls game

As far as Radahn goes, yeah he's a lot easier now but the fight is still lame due to the setup. I would have absolutely no problem is he was literally the exact same fight but all the summons autospawned, having to do them one at a time every run is just lame as all hell. There are people who dont like using in game summons who would be pissed. but fuck 'em, rule of cool is all that should matter for a fight like that.

Or, absolute best option, Everything auto summons but you pick who you want to take with you in the courtyard where everyone is prepping for the fight ahead of time, talk to them like you're building a team. Makes that an actual cool interactive area and everything. Then you all ride in together right out of the teleporter. I see no downside whatsoever to this option.

Radahn prenerf was not hard, he just had a wacky optimal strategy that looking back doesn't fit with the rest of the game.

I have heard that Radahn was actually much easier if you didn't fight him on the horse.

Not that it would have helped me, I was a squishy mage getting two-shot and also bad at dodging

I fought him on foot with the bloodhound sword, took an hour to get the hang of but he was very manageable. I didn't have any rage toward Radahn.

Malenia on the other hand, I ain't never been so pissed off at a boss in my life.

Malenia took me two and a half hours of attempts but there was never a point where she felt anything less than fair IMO. Extremely demanding, yes, but everything she was testing are skills core to the game - a pretty solid super boss IMO.

I haven't had a bad time fighting any enemy or boss except the Royal Revenants. Fuck those things

Radahn and Malenia were hard but not to the point that it felt unfair

Mac Arrowny posted...

Like, most Bloodborne and Dark Souls 1 bosses are way harder than anything in this.

Play all the bosses in DS1 again.

Got the Gold Scarab earlier today, helping me get to currently level 96 and doing Altus Plateau/Volcano Manor. I love the snake enemies, they're so cute when they run towards you lol

https://youtu.be/-D-a9aKhuV4

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/3/0/AAB6RfAADEhC.jpg

new secret boss

Tonight I beat Mohg. Good fight!

Platinumd

This one Leonine has a stupidly wide aggro range

Fighting God Devouring Serpent/Rykard, I kept getting hit by that one attack where it sticks its head in the ground and sends the magma wave coursing through. I tried every way I could think of to dodge it and just can't, went to the wiki moveset breakdown out of curiosity

"Very difficult to dodge, use shield to greatly reduce damage"

Feels good to be a no shield dodge user. I guess I do appreciate for a quasi-gimmick fight you still have to do the fight, but man that move is shitty.

Bane_Of_Despair posted...

Fighting God Devouring Serpent/Rykard, I kept getting hit by that one attack where it sticks its head in the ground and sends the magma wave coursing through. I tried every way I could think of to dodge it and just can't, went to the wiki moveset breakdown out of curiosity

"Very difficult to dodge, use shield to greatly reduce damage"

Feels good to be a no shield dodge user. I guess I do appreciate for a quasi-gimmick fight you still have to do the fight, but man that move is shitty.

You can upgrade the weapon

I mean I don't have an issue with the weapon, the fight isn't hard I just have to actually do it and stop being an idiot with some dodge timings. Although I didn't actually consider that it could be upgraded and affect the special effect it has on the fight, but makes sense I suppose

I finally beat Maliketh. Sure, I did just about everything else in the game that I possibly could, with the exception of the real volcano manor because i can't be bothered to go back to an early game area that I missed entirely, and I might have been level 150 with a rune arc active, but at least he's finally dead.

Yeah I dont know how to dodge that attack either.
Doesnt seem very fair.

Got all the achievements yesterday.

Not too much to complain about, if it had one weakness some of the more open areas were a little too bare bones, but the fact a secret could be just around the corner kept me exploring every nook and cranny in the world.

Also just a neat little tidbit, I got all achievements in this and Dark Souls on PC and both ending up with 107 hours of total play time.

Probably wont get in to it again any time soon unless some DLC gets released.

Radahn needed only a single nerf, which was those homing meteors. Everything else was hard but doable either doing solo carefully or with a bunch of summons. Just like any other boss but with a cool raid vibe. That meteor was the only really frustrating one-shot BS he had.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

I would have absolutely no problem is he was literally the exact same fight but all the summons autospawned

No way, half the fight is running around summoning people while avoiding his attacks

Yes, and that part sucks.

And not in a sense that it's hard, it's just garbage busy work. It's objectively lame as hell. If someone told me they liked going around and summoning the first wave of dudes, I would just straight up call them a liar. It would be impossible to convince me otherwise.

It makes every death suffering, not in the same way as the rest of the franchise, but in a way where going through the process is far more foreboding than the fight itself.

To me, it's no different than if a boss fight was gated by a Resident Evil sliding puzzle, and every time you died you had to do the sliding puzzle again. Just trash.