same with binoculars and lantern. i had them the other way around at first and noticed i kept triggering the wrong one, some strange hidden psychology going on there
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this is the fromsoft title I actually want
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up - white finger (because I keep forgetting to find something better)
left - wolf summon
right - torrent
down - firebomb
and the start menu bonus slots are lantern and the margit seal (because Iām still constantly dropping summon signs whenever I have a critical mass of runes that I want to preserve to the next level up).
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^ Physick
< Whatever summon I want to use at the given time
> cerulean flask
V torrent
though Iāll swap some out if Iām playing co-op sometimes
putting the crimson flask in the pouch sounds like suicide to me. I always wanna be able to use that shit instantly. the added delay of having to hold the action button is way too long.
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< Torrent
^ Hello speech orb
> Red potion
V Blue potion
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always weird hearing people bring up blackguard boggart like they didnāt immediately equip the spiked caestus and beat him to death for having mugged the snake girl
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< leave a co op mark
^ use the co op item
Torrent
V join the summoning pool
I feel like I co op a lot more than other people, both inviting to my game and helping others out, and itās pretty fun? Like thereās a great joy in struggling with a boss only to end up getting/joining a posse going to just wail on them.
Current look: Goth Taylor Swift, Blood Bishop:
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hahaha i just realised thereās a run animation while sneaking
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Just now realizing that Godwyn and Godfrey are two different characters, that explains a lot.
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Yeah, the -wyn suffix I think is a descent indicator? I base this on Mohgās speech about starting a dynasty, which takes place in Mohgwyn Palace, and Godwyn being the son of a God. Kinda like patronymic naming, but not gender based.
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I forgot to mention this earlier, but I did a minor boss cleanup run just pitting my ashes against everyone. Basically PokĆ©mon. Itās kinda fun if youāre looking to mash action figures against each other.
The shield Iām holding is the block everything shield. It feels exactly how youād expect and was probably the hardest thing for me to get in the game, bar whatever Malenia drops. But if you worked on getting one of the weirder endings you mightāve picked it up along the way incidentally.
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Ergo this was my setup:
^ Torrent
< Telescope
> Lantern
v Rainbow Stones
I tried putting ashes and flasks on there later, but the damage was already done, muscle memory set in. Looking at the environment for 200 hours here
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Iāve never used the telescope or stone equivalents in any of these games.
Feel like my progress has ground to a halt after reaching the plateau. Mired in caves, quests and coop. Just did the windmill village boss after 10 hours of plateau access.
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I donāt often help other players with a boss unless itās a relatively easy one because I donāt want to be a liability. But whenever I beat one relatively easily Iāll put my sign down a few times afterwards. I have never tried the summoning pool thing and Iām probably over-leveled to do it much at this point. I might try it in the Haligtree, but Iām afraid Iād just get pulled in to fight Malenia where Iād be no help at all.
The only āhardā boss I ever really became confident fighting was Amygdala. I helped a bunch of people fight that one.
I used a larval tear for the first time to trade my STR for INT and try out sorceries. I was hesitant because anything with a limited use seems risky, but I found that there are some great weapons that work with a lot of INT (Wings of Astel, Moonveil, Moonlight Greatsword) and I like some of the spells Iāve tried out (Ancient Death Rancor, Lorettaās Mastery, Ranniās Dark Moon).
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The plateau was when I stopped bothering with most caves, accepted that they have materials and some cool spells and stuff but usually unsatisfying bosses in them. I wasnāt unhappy to go back into them when searching for a specific item (wiki searching) or whenever I just kind of naturally stumbled into them. But I basically wrote them off as a waste of time for a bunch of hours at that point, which made the game more enjoyable because it made me focus on the critical path and the cooler optional dungeon spaces instead. And that is a much better game.
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I also had a weirdly intuitive time with Amygdala and proceeded accordingly
The midboss of Haligtree is comparably easy so putting your sign in front of the boss door is a good late-game rune farming spot. Depending on matchmaking wait times, it might be a little slower than repeatedly killing all the dudes near Drainage Channel but itās a lot more entertaining, plus you get Rune Arcs.
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I pretty much canāt stop agreeing with everyone around the thread (except the UI thing, sure design climax is when you donāt even need to learn something and just understand it intuitively, but that almost never happens even irl). But something on the back of my head just keeps saying there is a common ground.
This is FromSoft first open-field game.
This is really big. But in the end I finished the game only missing one cave dungeon, 2 questlines, and ending some of them not so good. Also missed a few items around the open field (not underground), but not that many.
However I was doing pretty much one of @Rudie first āworriesā. Lawn mowing.
Literally setting markers to isolate areas that I would thoroughly explore for items, entrances, NPCs. This is not much different from how I played the other FromSoft games since I went back and forth the paths 3 times to be happy that I didnāt miss a weird camera obscured entry.
But the open field is much bigger, harder, in fact feels pretty much like work. On top of that the time it took me to do that was insane, and the same could be said to get to the next point of plot. I really hope people are not thinking at this point that I was ādoing it wrongā because I seriously would not enjoy the game otherwise.
But the sheer size of it, or how much you get side tracked, either works for some people to really enjoy themselves, or not like how much time it takes to get to the next boss or area that will either remind of the gameās themes, specially with a meaningful boss.
I didnāt disliked that, but again I insist it does result in a more ādilutedā experience from the more condensed games FromSoft did. You get distracted with this and that, it actually takes a long time to get with that distraction because itās not just ātake a left on that pathā, and the themes feel lost, disconnected, less powerful. This actually works pretty well with some people, others not so much.
All that weird cosmology that is always disconnected in FromSoft games (I call it FF7 syndrom) gets even more disconnected because there is a bigger time difference between that usual nudge āhey, the themeā. Specially on the post capital part, which is mostly composed of optional stuff.
That plays right into FromSoft alley of ānot being afraid to design things the player will missā. Which I am fine with, absolutely (not reallyā¦ Why I explore so much). But in this game the time you invest in it is much bigger than Sekiro, or Bloodborne, or Demonās Souls, because it is not simply a ātake this path and then a right other thereā. So missing things will probably feel more frustrating than the other smaller and more condensed games.
Still, all of these typical FromSoft choices of narrative work pretty well with this new world design, and does specially satisfy people that have beeb imagining it for years. Even if the kinks are not fully ironed, one must be careful to understand that it took FromSoft quite a few games to get from a disjointed messy metroidvania attempt to a Sekiro that not only is condensed but also interconnected with that ocasional interesting side area.
If we talk about more of their games, then just check Armored Core. Took plenty of games (even if you donāt count quite a few) to get from the janky 1st generation, to a messy 3rd generation that wanted insanely more speed with the same janky control of the avatar, to a full blown super-sayan-mecha-god on 4 Answer, to a thoughtful, well planed and properly design fully innovative control of avatar and levels on Veredict Day.
Being a game so big also kinda justifies why so many enemies are repeatedā¦ But it really shouldnāt =p. However I know very few open field RPGs, new and old, that donāt do it (just change that enemyās palette).
If I do have to pass a judgement of my own on this, Iāll simply generalise and go:
This FromSoftware way of doing their action games doesnāt work too well with open-field world design, but works better than anything else out there.
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and actually since you mentioned it, Japanese open world style games always seem to have a weird assumption that, around the 2/3 mark, youāll stop the main question progression cold in order to pursue some side quests which will only be available for a chapter or two and which my usual style of play has typically not advanced far enough before they wind up being gated off. I think thatās whatās at play here too
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Youāre probably right, but the way it plays out is that the side content in Elden Ring is more tempting near the beginning of the game. Because itās paced to trickle items for 100 hours, I felt starved for items, my inventory was still weirdly empty-looking even at the 5-hour mark. The early cavesā difficulty level also felt more manageable
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