oh yeah they’re absolutely speedruns and I admire the amount of research, experimentation, studying, and practice that goes into them. I just feel like after a point it’s like there’s no way to develop enough literacy with the hyper-specific techniques involved to really appreciate the skill on display beyond “wow I can’t believe they did that… whatever it was that they did.” but also that’s what’s so cool about this… I definitely don’t want people to stop finding out shit like this.
but in terms of personal taste, these speedruns like… honestly, watching other comparably crazy wrong-warp/arbitrary code execution speedruns feels prosaic, easy to follow, and entertaining in comparison. I get more out of that even than this. if anything it makes me appreciate basic ass, glitchless meat-and-potatoes speedruns even more.
although to be fair, in the case of elden ring, right now most of those speedruns involve watching someone horseback around the lands between for an hour picking up resources before even taking on a single boss. I should see if there’s like a “no teleport but all other glitches allowed” category. but I do often enjoy seeing exploits in action as much if not more than glitches. the current glitchless WR run actually fights rykard first, and then uses the serpent hunter spear for the rest of the run. I had no idea that weapon was so good outside of that fight! it’s cool to learn things like that.
The GDQ YouTube channel has a really incredible low-hit (the goal was hitless) Elden Ring run that showcases a lot of setups and strats and really met my kind of ideal speedrun format in that it shows actual gameplay and isn’t 16 hours long.
The banter is… it’s a little much, but I guess these are Twitch personalities so they make their living off being sort of annoying. Aside from that, very good run.
my main question is, they got all these fingers, but I haven’t seen a single giant thumb in the game yet. are they saving that for the DLC? if there are no thumbs in elden ring, how the heck is it possible to like or dislike messages? really makes you think
It was confirmed for me as such when it grabs you and lights you on fire to I guess shove the full power of the frenzy into you. Man that whole route was fun and weird.
I don’t like how it locks you into that ending and forces you to fight the most difficult optional boss to get out of it. I wouldn’t mind if the questlines were better signposted… melina does kind of warn you but it’s so easy to miss those optional site of grace conversations with her.
on the other hand that cutscene was so sick it was totally worth it. I think I’m gonna go for that ending on this playthrough, since it feels appropriate for my blood/arcane build.
It is very appropriate for blood/arcane, which is what I was, so yeah.
Also i don’t think you actually have to beat that boss as much as just use the item in the boss’s room? I think the wiki’s said that. I never even went and saw that boss because there is no way I was undoing it, or removing my scars and glowy eyes. . I kinda liked that it locks you into the ending mostly, though. I don’t like picking my ending at the end of a game, so this one doing that was fine by me.
I’m referring to malenia, not placidusax, though thankfully you still don’t have to fight him too.
and yeah I don’t think I’d mind the locking you into it thing if that was more clearly signposted. it didn’t affect my playthrough, but it really marred the experience for a friend of mine who is really particular about that kind of thing.
yeah same, I got too invested in beating her just out of principle… I’d probably have felt differently if suddenly that fight was mandatory. for me it would have been since I was dedicated to ranni’s ending as an int/dex player. but since I did beat her, I went ahead and did and then undid the chaos just to see what happened.
Fair. I went and did Ranni’s stuff right before finishing out the game, and it was a nice questline that would have fit my original build better, but did not fit my current one, so BURN IT TO THE GROUND GIVE ME MY FIRE ORB HEAD.
