Elden Ring and Shadow of the Erdtree expansion

[Xenich]

It is getting pretty bad when pirating something isn't worth the time.

[1998]

why is this in the rpg section

agreed, all souls-like should go to gg. Otherwise might as well move all tactical games in here.

[Vaako]

I am kinda burned out on the souls formular myself. Eldenring and the dlc being openworld and that you cant invade single hosts anymore takes a lot of fun away you cant just invade someone and snipe him from a ladder or throw bombs on his head while he fights some monsters or activate some traps which will make him fall to his death. Way easier to do if you have more linear levels like in the dark souls games and you dont always invade an overleveled ganksquad.

[Statesman]

why is this in the rpg section

I suppose because Soulslike are technically categorized as ARPG. But honestly, there isn't that much of a difference between them and other action games, outside barebone quests and some semblance of choices so

[Xenich]

why is this in the rpg section

I suppose because Soulslike are technically categorized as ARPG. But honestly, there isn't that much of a difference between them and other action games, outside barebone quests and some semblance of choices so

Yeah, I always saw the souls games as just arcade adventure games in 3D. There is nothing RPG about them. When the character development isn't required to beat the game, it becomes fluff for the bad players to feel like they are winning the game.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Hold up. The long haired girl in the dress at the end, the one asking to marry you... is actually a guy?

Didn't see any St. Trina/ Miquella apart from the dead one.

I've seen a butterfly spell (suits my character modelled after my Druid perfectly) and I learned how to read between the lines when it comes to...the way DS and ER are written
I'm quite fond of it

Miquella surely will be a part of the story

Here's the cut Miquella lines voiced with AI.
So there must be something, but I think there's going to be disappointment if he remains as a cocoon + hand.

Is this what @maidenhaver was talking about?

This game is ****** propaganda.

[ArcaneLurker]

Hold up. The long haired girl in the dress at the end, the one asking to marry you... is actually a guy?

I've seen a butterfly spell (suits my character modelled after my Druid perfectly) and I learned how to read between the lines when it comes to...the way DS and ER are written
I'm quite fond of it

Miquella surely will be a part of the story

Here's the cut Miquella lines voiced with AI.
So there must be something, but I think there's going to be disappointment if he remains as a cocoon + hand.

Is this what @maidenhaver was talking about?

This game is ****** propaganda.

Yep... That 'girl' in the official art is a man, who has the body of a boy.

► Show Spoiler

Oh boy...
How do I put it?

Miquella is a demi-God like his sister, but whilst the sister has a problem with her body rotting, Miquella can't age beyond boyhood. Whilst he was attempting to age himself to adulthood with a magical egg-womb in his own special Erdtree, he was kidnapped by his deformed Uncle, who wishes to be his consort

[Element]

They're recycling Gwyndolin

[DDC]

First impressions after a couple of hours: I will reluctantly devour my slop and gruel.

I very recently played Lords of the Fallen and initially thought it felt cartoonish after years of From games due to things like faster run speed, longer roll distance, forward moving attack animations, but I grew to like it as the game went on. Now Elden Ring feels slow and dull in comparison. Rolled into the first legacy dungeon and it feels pretty lifeless and lacking in detail so far. Big graphical downgrade from Lords of the Fallen. I'm here for the boss fights though, and I haven't fought a real boss yet so I'm reserving judgment on that. I've seen reports on steam forums that the boss HP pools and damage scaling are way off and that the only viable builds are things like bleed that hit for a percentage of max HP. I'm screwed if that's true because that isn't how I played the main game and I don't have any weapons leveled for it.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Hold up. The long haired girl in the dress at the end, the one asking to marry you... is actually a guy?

Here's the cut Miquella lines voiced with AI.
So there must be something, but I think there's going to be disappointment if he remains as a cocoon + hand.

Is this what @maidenhaver was talking about?

This game is ****** propaganda.

Yep... That 'girl' in the official art is a man, who has the body of a boy.

► Show Spoiler

Oh boy...
How do I put it?

Miquella is a demi-God like his sister, but whilst the sister has a problem with her body rotting, Miquella can't age beyond boyhood. Whilst he was attempting to age himself to adulthood with a magical egg-womb in his own special Erdtree, he was kidnapped by his deformed Uncle, who wishes to be his consort

Sounds like that's GRRM's writing contribution.

[rusty_shackleford]

Hold up. The long haired girl in the dress at the end, the one asking to marry you... is actually a guy?

Here's the cut Miquella lines voiced with AI.
So there must be something, but I think there's going to be disappointment if he remains as a cocoon + hand.

Is this what @maidenhaver was talking about?

This game is ****** propaganda.

Yep... That 'girl' in the official art is a man, who has the body of a boy.

► Show Spoiler

Oh boy...
How do I put it?

Miquella is a demi-God like his sister, but whilst the sister has a problem with her body rotting, Miquella can't age beyond boyhood. Whilst he was attempting to age himself to adulthood with a magical egg-womb in his own special Erdtree, he was kidnapped by his deformed Uncle, who wishes to be his consort

most normal japanese love story in video games

[Finarfin]

First impressions after a couple of hours: I will reluctantly devour my slop and gruel.

I very recently played Lords of the Fallen and initially thought it felt cartoonish after years of From games due to things like faster run speed, longer roll distance, forward moving attack animations, but I grew to like it as the game went on. Now Elden Ring feels slow and dull in comparison. Rolled into the first legacy dungeon and it feels pretty lifeless and lacking in detail so far. Big graphical downgrade from Lords of the Fallen. I'm here for the boss fights though, and I haven't fought a real boss yet so I'm reserving judgment on that. I've seen reports on steam forums that the boss HP pools and damage scaling are way off and that the only viable builds are things like bleed that hit for a percentage of max HP. I'm screwed if that's true because that isn't how I played the main game and I don't have any weapons leveled for it.

I'm lvl 183 right now and have about 64 points in Vigor and the same in Endurance and Strength basically being a immovable tank with the fingerprint shield yet even the lowliest enemies in SotE take about 20% of my health.
I killed the 3 main bosses with difficulty because they seem to be more resistant to staggering.

► Show Spoiler

Rellana, Dancing Lion and Hippopotamus

[Nooneatall]

Hold up. The long haired girl in the dress at the end, the one asking to marry you... is actually a guy?

Here's the cut Miquella lines voiced with AI.
So there must be something, but I think there's going to be disappointment if he remains as a cocoon + hand.

Is this what @maidenhaver was talking about?

This game is ****** propaganda.

Yep... That 'girl' in the official art is a man, who has the body of a boy.

► Show Spoiler

Oh boy...
How do I put it?

Miquella is a demi-God like his sister, but whilst the sister has a problem with her body rotting, Miquella can't age beyond boyhood. Whilst he was attempting to age himself to adulthood with a magical egg-womb in his own special Erdtree, he was kidnapped by his deformed Uncle, who wishes to be his consort

This is the **** I was talking about, Japanese people eat up that weird sex **** as much if not more than American normies. I'd say they are worse about it since I remember back in the 00s most every normie I knew was turning into a conservative Christian and the most degenerate thing they'd do was get drunk and the most degenerate show they'd watch is star trek. That's anecdotal of course. Japanese women seem to like it even more than the men too.

[DDC]

I'm lvl 183 right now and have about 64 points in Vigor and the same in Endurance and Strength basically being a immovable tank with the fingerprint shield yet even the lowliest enemies in SotE take about 20% of my health.
I killed the 3 main bosses with difficulty because they seem to be more resistant to staggering.

Seems like everything hits really hard. I started playing the expansion proper tonight. A lot of last night was just reorienting myself with all the jank of Elden Ring. I haven't played it since it came out and couldn't even remember the basics like how to 2H a weapon, pouch items, how to use the horse, etc. Also, I forgot how utterly comical it is that this game has a dedicated jump button and you have a 40 inch vertical in full plate armor.

Rolled through Belarut (the first legacy dungeon) just now and I was really unimpressed with the enemies and design. Very dull and uninspired. Also no difficulty other than that enemies hit hard, but they die quick and the attacks are easy to avoid. I got to the beast fully expecting to get my *** beat because I only had one Scat-tree blessing and because I'm so rusty on the game, so I summoned the Freya npc. To my surprise, we beat his *** pretty easily. The combo of golden vow + flame give me strength + godslayer greatsword special still chunks boss health.

And therein lies what I have always hated about Elden Ring's difficulty tuning. The attack patterns and damage output on that boss were insane. Without a summon, I probably could have spent hours on him and wouldn't have been able to beat him with my build because the sword is too slow and it didn't seem like there were windows to refresh buffs. With a summon, he was basically trivialized. The main game had a decent number of bosses that were the same way--trivial with a summon, sort of unbalanced without. I miss the classic hard but balanced fights like Witch King, twin princes, etc.

[maidenhaver]

Its a multiplayer game.

[WaterMage]

This DLC is quite brutal. The bosses hit like a truck, are fast, unpredictable, with huge aoe ohk attacks...I;m trying to git gud and lets see if I can.

[ArcaneLurker]

Hold up. The long haired girl in the dress at the end, the one asking to marry you... is actually a guy?



Is this what @maidenhaver was talking about?

Yep... That 'girl' in the official art is a man, who has the body of a boy.

► Show Spoiler

Oh boy...
How do I put it?

Miquella is a demi-God like his sister, but whilst the sister has a problem with her body rotting, Miquella can't age beyond boyhood. Whilst he was attempting to age himself to adulthood with a magical egg-womb in his own special Erdtree, he was kidnapped by his deformed Uncle, who wishes to be his consort

This is the **** I was talking about, Japanese people eat up that weird sex **** as much if not more than American normies. I'd say they are worse about it since I remember back in the 00s most every normie I knew was turning into a conservative Christian and the most degenerate thing they'd do was get drunk and the most degenerate show they'd watch is star trek. That's anecdotal of course. Japanese women seem to like it even more than the men too.

Yeah, they've always been ****** up in that regard, and whilst they have more freedom to create media that we don't have the freedom to create, they mostly create the same crap on repeat, like moe/ isekai, and Live Action Japanese stuff isn't even on the same level as Korean/ Chinese.
The main appeal of Japanese media was that it didn't depict 'diversity', and wasn't made by freaks with a ****** fetish (mostly ****), but I suppose that is coming to an end now.

[Manny V]

Yep... That 'girl' in the official art is a man, who has the body of a boy.

► Show Spoiler

Oh boy...
How do I put it?

Miquella is a demi-God like his sister, but whilst the sister has a problem with her body rotting, Miquella can't age beyond boyhood. Whilst he was attempting to age himself to adulthood with a magical egg-womb in his own special Erdtree, he was kidnapped by his deformed Uncle, who wishes to be his consort

This is the **** I was talking about, Japanese people eat up that weird sex **** as much if not more than American normies. I'd say they are worse about it since I remember back in the 00s most every normie I knew was turning into a conservative Christian and the most degenerate thing they'd do was get drunk and the most degenerate show they'd watch is star trek. That's anecdotal of course. Japanese women seem to like it even more than the men too.

Yeah, they've always been ****** up in that regard, and whilst they have more freedom to create media that we don't have the freedom to create, they mostly create the same crap on repeat, like moe/ isekai, and Live Action Japanese stuff isn't even on the same level as Korean/ Chinese.
The main appeal of Japanese media was that it didn't depict 'diversity', and wasn't made by freaks with a ****** fetish (mostly ****), but I suppose that is coming to an end now.

yeah, with Elden Ring, they essentially took Gwyndolin from Dark Souls, who was hidden away and used illusion magic (yknow, like what a ****** in a fantasy setting would do) and instead went 'but wot if we make it venerated more openly and have an actual ****** incestuous paedophilic relationship with it, and then make the DLC double down on this and make it happen again'

and then there's other equivalents like Marika basically just being a female version of Lord Gwyn, but a giga mega ***** and psycho

feels like they just took some of the stuff from Dark Souls 1 and subverted it with modern faggotry

[wndrbr]

every enemy does a lot of damage, has a ton of health and has endless combos that leave nearly no openings"

******* bosses with jerky roll-catch movements and a plethora of physically nonsensical moves make the bosses in this DLC hard to put up with

As someone who beat all the Fromsoft games with gimped Lvl1 characters for fun (the base game included), I'll be calling quits on this one. It's fine if enemies jump high, fly or do magic, but changing trajectory mid-air, floating ominously and having impossible pauses mid-movement to throw the player off their reflexes is atrocious design for an action game. I'm not making mistakes because my reflexes are weak, but because I can't see what's happening

Get ready for 5 more copy-pasted giant dragons in the first couple hours, and major bosses have straight up recycles from base game

LOT of poise-monsters. If anyone remembers the dragon shrine knights from Dark Souls 2 before they were patched, think that. Crazy HP pool enemies with infinite stamina, and infinite poise. It's like they took Haligtree and cranked it to 15/10. I find this type of enemy design extremely unfun. Several new enemy types spam attacks nonstop. There is no ebb and flow to combat, only trading blows since they never stop spamming attacks unless parried. It really encourages the player to simply run past engagements and not partake in combat at all

say you're in the endgame; a boss is dealing 80% of your 60 vigor health bar in one hit. then you go to your stat screen, and you realize you have 70% absorptions against all attacks... the boss just deals that much damage. you're also only tickling him, but you have 1100+ AR. the boss is just that tanky

i miss the time when the soulsborne games where about understanding the bosses, using their weakness against them and overcoming them by skill and knowledge. Now its just 10 hit combos where every attack also does a second aoe attack that makes it completly confusing when to dodge

Miyazaki strikes again. I've been saying that the souls games have started to become harder and harder in an unfun kind of way since Dark Souls 3, but every time I say that people just reply to me with 'git gud'.

Multi-stage boss fights where you are getting pummeled by two or three huge monsters who have a fuckton of health, who deal enough damage to send you to a checkpoint in two hits, and who have intentionally confusing attack patters designed to throw you off? "That's actually a good game design, and if you don't like it then go play mario or some other stupid game for little children, you piece of **** ****** scrublord".

Making bonfires more sparse, removing the ability to warp between them at will, and designing the world in accordance with these changes? "You are literally Hitler for wanting me to waste my precious time constantly running back to a boss fight. I have a job, and kids, and I'm an adult person who can only afford so much time to playing video games".

[maidenhaver]

Maybe he wants players to give up and move on.

[Element]

Miyazaki strikes again. I've been saying that the souls games have started to become harder and harder in an unfun kind of way since Dark Souls 3, but every time I say that people just reply to me with 'git gud'.

Bloodborne got the ball rolling, but it tweaked the movement and the mechanics to suit. Sekiro pushed the boat out further, but the game design went into total overhaul to make it work. For some reason after DS2, Miyazaki has chosen to port this trend back into the old formula that at it's core was designed to fight DeS bosses. The two approaches are at odds with each other and they're diverging as time goes on. 10 years ago Ornstein and Smough were still considered the series' great filter. Now they wouldn't be in the top 25.

[Oyster Sauce]

If you've played the same game 10 times in a row at some point you really do need to be expected to git gud

[rusty_shackleford]

dlc has mixed rating, souls fanbois are absolutely seething yelling "git gud" everywhere

someone post the meme with the "pauses mid-air"

[maidenhaver]

I just ******* hate rolling.

[Element]

Highest rated dlc of all time according to metacritic lol

[Nooneatall]

every enemy does a lot of damage, has a ton of health and has endless combos that leave nearly no openings"

******* bosses with jerky roll-catch movements and a plethora of physically nonsensical moves make the bosses in this DLC hard to put up with

As someone who beat all the Fromsoft games with gimped Lvl1 characters for fun (the base game included), I'll be calling quits on this one. It's fine if enemies jump high, fly or do magic, but changing trajectory mid-air, floating ominously and having impossible pauses mid-movement to throw the player off their reflexes is atrocious design for an action game. I'm not making mistakes because my reflexes are weak, but because I can't see what's happening

Get ready for 5 more copy-pasted giant dragons in the first couple hours, and major bosses have straight up recycles from base game

LOT of poise-monsters. If anyone remembers the dragon shrine knights from Dark Souls 2 before they were patched, think that. Crazy HP pool enemies with infinite stamina, and infinite poise. It's like they took Haligtree and cranked it to 15/10. I find this type of enemy design extremely unfun. Several new enemy types spam attacks nonstop. There is no ebb and flow to combat, only trading blows since they never stop spamming attacks unless parried. It really encourages the player to simply run past engagements and not partake in combat at all

say you're in the endgame; a boss is dealing 80% of your 60 vigor health bar in one hit. then you go to your stat screen, and you realize you have 70% absorptions against all attacks... the boss just deals that much damage. you're also only tickling him, but you have 1100+ AR. the boss is just that tanky

i miss the time when the soulsborne games where about understanding the bosses, using their weakness against them and overcoming them by skill and knowledge. Now its just 10 hit combos where every attack also does a second aoe attack that makes it completly confusing when to dodge

Miyazaki strikes again. I've been saying that the souls games have started to become harder and harder in an unfun kind of way since Dark Souls 3, but every time I say that people just reply to me with 'git gud'.

Multi-stage boss fights where you are getting pummeled by two or three huge monsters who have a fuckton of health, who deal enough damage to send you to a checkpoint in two hits, and who have intentionally confusing attack patters designed to throw you off? "That's actually a good game design, and if you don't like it then go play mario or some other stupid game for little children, you piece of **** ****** scrublord".

Making bonfires more sparse, removing the ability to warp between them at will, and designing the world in accordance with these changes? "You are literally Hitler for wanting me to waste my precious time constantly running back to a boss fight. I have a job, and kids, and I'm an adult person who can only afford so much time to playing video games".

I'm happy people can enjoy and get their extreme difficulty ball torture games that spit on them and call them a worm. I'll be happy to go back to my baby games like Mario and Zelda (pre botw).

[SoLong]

dlc has mixed rating, souls fanbois are absolutely seething yelling "git gud" everywhere

someone post the meme with the "pauses mid-air"

Not going to spoil the story but some of the confused reaction is because Miquella's end goal (specifically who it revolves around) not only makes no sense but wasn't even foreshadowed at all in the base game.

Sigh. Ah well, at least the gameplay seems to be decent even if the story is bad even by soulslike standards.

[Xenich]

every enemy does a lot of damage, has a ton of health and has endless combos that leave nearly no openings"

******* bosses with jerky roll-catch movements and a plethora of physically nonsensical moves make the bosses in this DLC hard to put up with

As someone who beat all the Fromsoft games with gimped Lvl1 characters for fun (the base game included), I'll be calling quits on this one. It's fine if enemies jump high, fly or do magic, but changing trajectory mid-air, floating ominously and having impossible pauses mid-movement to throw the player off their reflexes is atrocious design for an action game. I'm not making mistakes because my reflexes are weak, but because I can't see what's happening

Get ready for 5 more copy-pasted giant dragons in the first couple hours, and major bosses have straight up recycles from base game

LOT of poise-monsters. If anyone remembers the dragon shrine knights from Dark Souls 2 before they were patched, think that. Crazy HP pool enemies with infinite stamina, and infinite poise. It's like they took Haligtree and cranked it to 15/10. I find this type of enemy design extremely unfun. Several new enemy types spam attacks nonstop. There is no ebb and flow to combat, only trading blows since they never stop spamming attacks unless parried. It really encourages the player to simply run past engagements and not partake in combat at all

say you're in the endgame; a boss is dealing 80% of your 60 vigor health bar in one hit. then you go to your stat screen, and you realize you have 70% absorptions against all attacks... the boss just deals that much damage. you're also only tickling him, but you have 1100+ AR. the boss is just that tanky

i miss the time when the soulsborne games where about understanding the bosses, using their weakness against them and overcoming them by skill and knowledge. Now its just 10 hit combos where every attack also does a second aoe attack that makes it completly confusing when to dodge

Miyazaki strikes again. I've been saying that the souls games have started to become harder and harder in an unfun kind of way since Dark Souls 3, but every time I say that people just reply to me with 'git gud'.

Multi-stage boss fights where you are getting pummeled by two or three huge monsters who have a fuckton of health, who deal enough damage to send you to a checkpoint in two hits, and who have intentionally confusing attack patters designed to throw you off? "That's actually a good game design, and if you don't like it then go play mario or some other stupid game for little children, you piece of **** ****** scrublord".

Making bonfires more sparse, removing the ability to warp between them at will, and designing the world in accordance with these changes? "You are literally Hitler for wanting me to waste my precious time constantly running back to a boss fight. I have a job, and kids, and I'm an adult person who can only afford so much time to playing video games".

I find it rather amusing though. Thought that comes to my head though when people complain about the difficulty is... "welcome to the 80's kid!"

At least they don't have to feed quarters into a machine when they die. LOL

[Vaako]

Only appeal I see from the dlc are the new weapons/spells with some op **** on it. But most areas look rather depressing and lots of reused monsters. Most bosses have way too much health and kinda miss a built up, at least in ds1 the dragons you could see before you fight them and you could do tailcuts for special weapons. That whole openworld concept was a mistake I think, especially with the very repeating stone structures everywhere. Also a reason why I never bothered with demon souls even more ****** areas there.

[somerandomdude]

I haven't played the DLC, but I find the reviews to be funny. Especially those complaining about difficulty. The thing about these "souls" games, if you actually utilize all the tools the game gives you to win, they're fairly easy games. Elden Ring gives you plenty of tools. People have no excuse to complain about difficulty if they're not utilizing these tools.