|OT| Elden Ring - Foul Tarnished, in search of the Elden Ring

Parsnip

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Hate to say it but i think im going to drop playing this. I think im near the end but the step up in difficulty is just a bit too much for me. Ive been grinding using the kill the bird exploit but i now need a lot of levels to help me out and not sure if i can be bothered.

Shame as its really a great game, probably my GOTY. I feel though for me it could've been half as big. I think im at 130 hours which is mad for a single playthrough. Would've preferred half this one and then a sequel next year or something.
Are you on pc?
Cheating is an option if you want to see it through one way or another.
 

Gamall Wednesday Ida

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My RL1 run is nearly complete.

I killed Fire Giant, Godskin Duo, and Commander Niall (uhhhhhhhhhr the adds killed me so many times, I screamed my lungs off whydoIdothistomyself....)

To kill fire Giant I really needed Tiche (I came so close several times without, but there are two many random one-shots in phase two), which means I needed to kill Astel and Alecto.... Alecto RL1 was a bundle of relentless fun. Thank fuck for Flame of the Redmane and Miséricorde.

I want to take everything and do everything possible before setting the world on fire, so I'm leaving Maliketh for the final stretch. I'm not worried about him, he's pretty much a one-shotter no matter what, so I'm not sure RL1 changes the equation much, and with luck Tiche can solo him.

I'm heading towards Haligfuck City. May some white-faced surgeon grant me the sweet release of death right now. Why do I do this to myself ?
 

Gamall Wednesday Ida

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RL1 run update:

As I thought, Maliketh was no real threat: I used Miséricorde + FotR. Spirit Ash was mostly irrelevant. I had Latenna+9 out on my successful attempt. He is very overtuned, of course, but also quite fragile, and I had fun.

Frankly, I had much more trouble with the thrice-damned Draconic Tree Sentinel before him.

OTOH, Malenia is just terrible. I have pretty much given up on her, though I got her very close twice. It's too RNG dependant. Not only is she ridiculously hard, but I find her terribly designed in many crucial respects. I have zero fun with her.

I don't feel too bad about it, because she's the uber-boss and completely optional. Besides, I didn't do DLCs or Nameless King either for my SL1 run of DS3. This is any%.

Now... I am very fearful of Godfrey Loux. Guess it will depend on how many moves one-shot.
 

Gamall Wednesday Ida

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RL1, cnt:

Godfrey Loux is dead. Not all moves one-shot, thankfully. I had 2 HP left at the end !

One of the better bosses IMO. Less so than his Golden Shade version, which has much less overtuned bullshit, but many of his moves are readable and reactable in sane, intuitive ways. For both versions, I appreciate them a lot more after going RL1, and I had fun. I was really a bit disappointed to see him die, as I was still learning openings. A breath of fresh, (mostly) honest air after Malenia...

... and before the final bosses. I know that some very good players had trouble with them RL1. My worry is lacking the FP to take down the huge health bars quickly. If the fight drags on, the likelihood of getting Elden Star'd goes to 1 :-(

edit: it's doable; I got Elden Beast to less than half health on the 5th overall try or something like that. Will finish another day, but it's definitely doable. edit 2: two tries later, to ten percent and I got elden star'd :-( I should have run....
 
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Gamall Wednesday Ida

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I got it ! It wasn't so bad. RL1 any% run over. And there is much rejoicing 💃

MVP: Flame of the Redmanes (on Miséricorde. But I upgraded many weapons along the run -- what else to do with the runes ? -- and each served in its time)

For anyone else attempting RL1, I can't recommend that ash of war enough, along with Phalanx in some circumstances, for outstanding posture breaking potential on bosses. For fights where that's the main source of damage, Miséricorde is a natural choice.

I'm not sure it was harder than DS3 SL1; Soul of Cinders killed me more times than Maliketh, Gideon (don't laugh, he's an actual threat at RL1), and RadaBeast combined. Twin Princes were no pushovers either. ER RL1 also has a much greater variety of usable weapons and tactics than DS3 SL1.

Overall, I screamed and ranted a lot, but I don't regret doing it. Try it ! if you hate yourself


----

Meanwhile, my mother (in her 60s) is fighting Radahn, after clearing Limgrave and Liurnia. Given that her gaming experience is more "point and clicky", and that she died seven times against Soldier of Godrick on her first day (a few months ago), there is meteoric progress. I lured her into the game with the nice scenery...

----

And now... I'll finally stop spamming that poor topic. Thank you and goodnight.
 

Gamall Wednesday Ida

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Patch 1.08 nerfed Flame of the Redmanes to the ground, from 40 posture* damage to... 10. So it's useless now, basically.

I sure am glad I finished my RL1 run before this... FotR carried me through the last few bosses.

* I refuse to use "poise" for this, though everyone else does. I'm a rebel.
Major new features
  • The Colosseums of Limgrave, Caelid and Leyndell are now open.

In these arenas, players can engage in a variety of combat trials:
one-on-one duels
,
free-for-alls & team battles up to six players
, and
special fights with spirit summoning enabled
.
Learn more about the Colosseums by visiting our dedicated article.

  • New hairstyles for character creation have been added. These are also available during character edition by using the Round Table Hold Clouded Mirror Stand.

PvP-exclusive balance adjustments
The adjustments in this section do not affect single-player or cooperative play.

  • Reduced thrusting weapons counterattack damage.
  • Reduced guard efficiency when attacking with your shield up for some weapon types.
  • The poise damage of the following weapons have been reduced (Weapon Arts poise damage remains unchanged):
  • Straight Swords / Thrusting Swords / Heavy Thrusting Swords / Curved Swords / Axes / Spears / Twinblade Swords / Katanas
  • Reduced the poise damage of the Incantation Bestial Sling.
  • Reduced the power of the Spell Carian Slicer.


General balance adjustments
  • Increased the speed and distance of some attacks and reduced the recovery time for the following weapons:
  • Daggers / Axes / Hammers / Flails (dual wielded)
  • Increased the speed of some attacks and reduced the recovery time for the following weapons:
  • Twinblade (two-handed) / Reaper / Fist / Claw
  • Slightly increased the speed of crouching and rolling attacks of Colossal Swords.
  • Increased the stagger damage of Axes’ guard counters.
  • Increased poise when attacking with two-handed Hammers.
  • Increased poise damage of Claws. Weapon Arts remain unchanged.
  • Increased poise value during the active part of the Stamp (Upward Cut / Sweep) Weapon Art.
  • Increased poise damage of the weapon slash part of the Transient Moonlight Weapon Art, and reduced the poise damage of the magic wave.
  • Reduced the speed Thrusting Swords and Heavy Thrusting Swords crouching attacks.
  • Reduced the stagger caused by double-handed Heavy Thrusting Swords jumping attacks.
  • Reduced poise damage of Hammers, Great Hammers, and some Colossal Weapons. Weapon Arts remain unchanged.
  • Reduced the poise damage of the Cragblade Weapon Art.
  • Reduced hitbox duration of the flame portion of the Flaming Strike Weapon Art.
  • Reduced poise damage of the Flame of the Redmanes Weapon Art.
  • Increased the time it takes to activate the guard part of the Shield Bash Weapon Art.
  • Reduced the poise damage of the Gravity Bolt Weapon Art.

Bug Fixes
  • Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented consumable items from being replenished when teleporting to a grace from the map.
  • Fixed a bug where stamina would replenish when switching to a crouching position while running.
  • Fixed a bug where Spell, Incantation, and item input actions were ignored while guarding against attacks.
  • Fixed incorrect physical attack values of some attacks of the Serpent-Hunter weapon.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the follow-up attack from occurring when the Black Sword Incantation was activated with a Sacred Seal in the left hand.
  • Fixed a bug where the attack power of the right hand weapon was sometimes applied when casting the Inescapable Frenzy Incantation with a two-handed Sacred Seal in the left hand.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause multiple damage instances when certain Spells and Incantations were casted while jumping.
  • Fixed a bug that caused Weapon Arts to be incorrectly used with specific combinations of weapon and Weapon Arts.
 

LEANIJA

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This update unfortunately made my game crash and subsequently not load/be stuck in white screen hell.

If you play it on Linux as well, removing all the Proton files as well as Shader cache + reinstalling the whole thing...,.and then also disabling EAC once again helped.
:blobweary:
 

Gamall Wednesday Ida

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This update unfortunately made my game crash and subsequently not load/be stuck in white screen hell.

If you play it on Linux as well, removing all the Proton files as well as Shader cache + reinstalling the whole thing...,.and then also disabling EAC once again helped.
:blobweary:
I play on Linux, and I've had white screen hell for a week or two before the update, and the cause was purely EAC. I can't launch it with EAC at all right now. The game just doesn't start after EAC.

(edit: I tried again, and it launched, but I had trouble with ALT TAB
edit2: with EAC, sometimes it launches, sometimes not; restarting steam seems to have done it for me. I've been to the inside of the Limgrave Colosseum, seen player messages,... not done any actual MP because I'm not terribly interested, but there no reason for it not to work at that point.
I use Proton 7.0-5.
)

Fortunately, disabling EAC is very simple: here is my "launch option":
echo "mangohud gamemoderun %command%" | sed 's/start_protected_game.exe/eldenring.exe/' | sh
of course, remove mangohud gamemoderun if you don't use them.
 
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Gamall Wednesday Ida

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Update re Linux LEANIJA : I just tested multiplayer, Limgrave arena (I just started J7, so that's the only one I have access to right now).

Elden Ring started with gamemode and EAC without problem, immediately after starting steam. I had no trouble whatsoever in MP. I use EndeavourOS (arch-based), up-to-date from yesterday, and Proton 7.0-5, on a 5900X+3070. I think being on a "fresh" steam session might be the most important factor in whether EAC plays nice.

_ General comments on MP/colloseums

I don't often do MP, but I had some fun with it. Some people were very laggy, some less. I now understand why Moonveil is so hated :LOL: And I had a guy with the Bloody Helix that could hit me from another zip code.

The only other game I ever played in MP was Jedi Academy, back in the halcyon days. Maybe it's the rose-tinted glasses, but the way I remember it, in all but the most extreme cases, the hits felt more precise, the moves less choppy. And everybody had much worse internet then. Assuming I remember correctly, I wonder what it is about the way those games handle network lag that makes them feel so different. (And I wish ER could display pings)

SoulsRing MP combat is fun thanks to the variety of options, but it feels so much worse than solo, mechanically, because of the pervasive choppiness :(
 
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Gamall Wednesday Ida

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I'm triple posting but hey, I finally got Malenia in my RL1 challenge run.
She was the very last boss standing (discounting Soldier of Godrick and other cave bosses).

Did not even expect it or work very hard or use a broken build. 10 casual attempts, most very short, just as a change of pace from the boring slides I'm preparing. I hadn't touched that run in a long time. Was quite surprised to win. Kind of disappointed I did not film it --- I have taken to making boss videos for my mom, who plays ER and DS3.

Banished Knight Halberd + Blackflame Tornado, Ritual Sword and Shield, Radagon's Soreseal, Alexander's Shard, and of course Tiche (my RL1 run rules prohibit multiplayer, but not NPC summons or Spirit Ashes, because I'm not completely off my rocker).

Its not really a "feel good" victory, more a "box checked" one. I still think Malenia is a terrible, terrible crap boss, for so many reasons, which the RL1 run threw into stark relief. She is unfair by design, and thus ultimately unenjoyable whether in victory or defeat.

At least now I have the penultimate counter to Malenia enjoyers' "you just don't understand the genius of her design, git gud". The ultimate would be "RL1 no Spirit Ash" but screw that with a Bloody Helice I'm out.
 
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Gamall Wednesday Ida

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Heeeyyyy, actually, I lied! Placidusax is still alive :love: I'd completely forgotten about him, poor boy...

I like him, but the runback is a pain, so I'll optimise.

I'll have to do Milicent's quest to get Pest Threads (deadly to big enemies) and the Winged Sword Insignia while I'm at it -- it synergises well with PT -- and Flock's canvas because why not.
Which means killing her sisters and the rotten Ulcerated Tree Spirit for the talismans. PT probably works well on UTS, so maybe not too painful?

Finger Seal is probably best RL1 according to simulator; Elden Ring Spell Tool Comparator - by Jerp

Still some life in this run. Apart from Malenia, it's good fun.

edit: got halfway with Black Flame Tornado; works better than PT without optimisation. Placid' is going to be a bit of a challenge given that everything one-shots...
 
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Gamall Wednesday Ida

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Fighting against Placidusax as RL1 must really be hard, good luck with the challenge.
Thanks :)

Famous last words, but after Malenia I'm not too worried.

It's bad because huge AOE and I don't think I've found a single move that doesn't one-shot regardless of talismans. He kills Tiche rather quickly too.

However, I have good hopes, because everything that kills me so far looks telegraphed and learnable, and I've gotten him to half with three different setups (Tiche + BFTornado, Tiche + Swarm of Flies, and Black Knife + Latenna), the later being my favourite so far, because Latenna is so far that it's easy to keep him focused on me, and her steady damage gives less incentive to get greedy, while the ranged attack makes positioning easier..

If that doesn't suffice I'll try Night Maiden's Mist. Spiral Shard also has a fearsome reputation against him.

OTOH, I have Pest Threads and Flock's and it's the biggest disappointment since the invention of lukewarm ice cream. Was it nerfed in a patch I didn't notice?

If I just can't go the distance, there's the option of farming for Uplifting Aromatics to tank a few more hits --- free bubble tears --- but I'd rather not.

Oh, and there's the ludicrous bubble cannon, of course, but I don't want to spend my life farming for it either.

Something in there has got to work, right? :LOL:

edit: I got him (Black Knife + Latenna), and this time I have it on video :) I think I'm missing Ancestor Spirit among remembrance bosses, though.
 
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rybrad

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I finally started playing this game and I seem to have some sort of atrocious input lag that is really killing it for me. I have played all the other Soulsbourne games minus Sekiro and Demons and never had an issue like this. Has anyone else experienced this or am I crazy?
 

Gamall Wednesday Ida

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I have not experienced this.

I went back and forth between DS3 and ER recently, so if there was a difference I like to think I'd have noticed it.

Is your system beefy enough to get capped 60 fps?
 

rybrad

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I have not experienced this.

I went back and forth between DS3 and ER recently, so if there was a difference I like to think I'd have noticed it.

Is your system beefy enough to get capped 60 fps?
Yep, have a 5800x3D and 6900XT. I saw some people saying vsync an cause this pretty badly so I might try disabling that tonight. I am never sure what is supposed to be on and off with the VRR stuff so I will switch it off and see what happens.
 

Gamall Wednesday Ida

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rybrad Did vsync solve your problem?




I was actually missing three bosses in my RL1 run: Placidusax, Borealis, and Ancestor Spirit.

If anyone is interested, here are my winning runs on video:
I'm fairly happy with Placidusax in particular. (Apart from losing Bubble Tear to the very first attack. Greed.)

Unlike Malenia, whom I now despise even more, RL1 made me appreciate the big dragon a lot more. There is a kind of serenity to the fight --- befitting the etymology of his name --- once it clicks.

It's not about quick reactions, but entirely about endurance, macro-level positioning, and fighting greed. By "macro-level" I mean it's not about taking a small step back or to the side to let an attack whiff and counter-attack, it's about choosing which zip code you want to be in, ten seconds from now. Choose wrong, and the disaster unfolds in slow motion; there is no outrunning the fire, and you know it long before you die. Run too far away, and you don't get to attack. The trick is to find the closest safe ground; eg @1.10. (I run waay too far for most other attacks).

Borealis is much less interesting but I was glad to find another boss still alive. He has stronger area denial than other dragons (except that phase 2 move from the rotten one), so attacking the legs is a bad idea.

I'm pretty sure I'll want to do a summonless RL1 at some point. Flame of Redmanes being nerfed into uselessness will change things a bit. But I'll skip Malenia this time, thankyouverymuch.

I wish they would release that DLC. Or Bloodborne PC. Or both.
 

LEANIJA

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Parsnip

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I did some napkin math way back when SteamSpy was still considered an accurate estimation and FROM released some official numbers, I think it was a while after Dark Souls 2 or possibly a while after Scholar Edition, and Steam was basically 40~50%, depending on the game and accounting for SteamSpy margin of error of that time. I doesn't seem likely that the Steam share would have shrunk since then, seems more likely to have grown instead.
It's a bit unfortunate that they'll never release any official splits though.

It's kind of a wild success story with the petition, dsfix ( :cat-heart-blob: ), gfwl and its eventual removal etc. I hope whoever made the final decision to greenlight the port at the time got a decent raise at FROM or Bamco.
"Fine, lets do it, maybe we'll break even. At least it will shut up those PC nerds. What's a Steam?"



Lol at the current SteamSpy. :toucan:
 

rybrad

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You just reminded me what a shitshow the original ds pc version was. DSfix was a godsend (thanks Durante!) but I had forgotten about the GFWL dumpster fire. I met a friend in the dlc of DS while being a summon helper on Kalameet that I still play with to this day. Still wild to think that PC got the DLC first too, by a couple months if I remember right.
 
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Durante

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A friend and I made up an entire lore and voodoo chicken approach towards co-op connectivity in DS1 PC that we still reference to this day.

We played through the entirety of DS1 PC in co-op (before the improved online mod existed), so we had this entire, vast array of (probably ineffectual) strategies for making each others summoning signs show up, including placement, relative positioning and movement, etc.
 
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Durante

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I didn't expect that.
I wonder what kind of RT we're talking about here. Reflections would mostly be pretty subtle in ER, though it's always nice to get rid of screen space jank. Shadows would probably just be a relatively minor improvement.
The most exciting by far for ER would be global illumination, but I don't expect them to implement that.
 

Parsnip

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Finally. I hope they don't take too too long.

Weird thing that occurred to me just now is that I don't remember if I rolled my save over to NG+ or not. I hope I didn't, I don't want to do the DLC in NG+. :D
If I did, I guess I could play the whole game again or something. :grinning-face:
 

Gamall Wednesday Ida

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I hope I didn't, I don't want to do the DLC in NG+. :D
You think that's bad... I have three characters in my save:

  • one gal in NG+7 (max Rune Level)
  • one completed RL1 (summons/spirits allowed), and
  • one ongoing RL1 (no summon/spirit allowed)

So I'm in for a world of pain no matter which character I pick :LOL: (Not that I would want it any other way)

Yeah, Hogwarts Legacy didn't really hold my attention past the 30h mark, so I started my second, summonless RL1 run sooner than I expected. This time I'm recording the fights (mostly to entertain my mom, who is stuck against Radabeast and Soul of Cinders in ER and DS3, but the videos are public for convenience. I'm quite content with some of the boss fights).

I find that recording adds a level of pressure beyond the RL1 baseline --- I end up redoing fights I won if I don't feel I won "elegantly enough".

___

Regarding the DLC, the character's distinctive hairdo means they're probably Miquella. A Miquella-focused prequel of sorts (judging by the state of the tree and land... and the fact that Miquella is not cocooned) has a lot of potential. I'm sure Reddit is full of speculation already.

(edit: looked at Reddit; plenty of speculation to be sure, but nothing that goes beyond the obvious for now, i.e. that's Miquella in the past. Or possibly Marika, according to some).
 
Reason: reddit
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rybrad

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Looks like my delay in playing this game paid off and I will finally be able to do a Souls DLC without being on a NG+ or higher character and having it be almost an unfun level of hard the first time.
 
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On the one hand I don't mind going back to the game, but by the time the DLC comes I'll be so rusty that it's gonna be pain (but then again it was the same with DSIII so ¯\(ツ)/¯).
 

Gamall Wednesday Ida

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On the one hand I don't mind going back to the game, but by the time the DLC comes I'll be so rusty that it's gonna be pain (but then again it was the same with DSIII so ¯\(ツ)/¯).
Nah, it'll be way worse. :sneaky:

The first DLC for DS3 came out half a year after the game, and the next half a year after that.

This DLC is announced a full year after the game came out...
 

rybrad

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Nah, it'll be way worse. :sneaky:

The first DLC for DS3 came out half a year after the game, and the next half a year after that.

This DLC is announced a full year after the game came out...
I wonder if we will even see this before fall since there was no release date announced and it probably takes significantly longer to make DLC for this style of game compared to other Souls games. Especially given how high quality all their other DLCs have been.
 

Gamall Wednesday Ida

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I wonder if we will even see this before fall since there was no release date announced and it probably takes significantly longer to make DLC for this style of game compared to other Souls games. Especially given how high quality all their other DLCs have been.
Who knows?

It took... a bit more than one year and a half between Elden Ring's first announcement at E3 2019 and its release, so we can reasonably assume that as a strict upper bound for the DLC.

I'd be very pleasantly surprised if they made us wait less than 6 months.

The thing is, we have no idea of the scope of the DLC at this point. It may well be a full-fledged game in the same engine, in terms of sheer size --- just smaller than ER. ER itself is a bit of a monument to hubris; it's certainly larger and more ambitious than it really needed to be, and Miyazaki has seen that approach pay off in spades, so why would the DLC not follow the same philosophy?

If so, From may well put us through a full year of hype building.... the magnificent bastards...

AND I STILL WANT BLOODBORNE PC MIYAZAKI PLEASE
 

LEANIJA

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Nah, it'll be way worse. :sneaky:

The first DLC for DS3 came out half a year after the game, and the next half a year after that.

This DLC is announced a full year after the game came out...
yup, I will be totally rusty when this DLC comes out ;)
Havent played Elden Ring in a good while


Who knows?

It took... a bit more than one year and a half between Elden Ring's first announcement at E3 2019 and its release, so we can reasonably assume that as a strict upper bound for the DLC.

I'd be very pleasantly surprised if they made us wait less than 6 months.

The thing is, we have no idea of the scope of the DLC at this point. It may well be a full-fledged game in the same engine, in terms of sheer size --- just smaller than ER. ER itself is a bit of a monument to hubris; it's certainly larger and more ambitious than it really needed to be, and Miyazaki has seen that approach pay off in spades, so why would the DLC not follow the same philosophy?

If so, From may well put us through a full year of hype building.... the magnificent bastards...

AND I STILL WANT BLOODBORNE PC MIYAZAKI PLEASE

also yes
 

Gamall Wednesday Ida

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For those interested in the lore, I strongly recommend https://www.youtube.com/@tarnishedarchaeologist, especially the earliest videos, watched in order.

He makes many extremely well-considered points based on the design and geographical distribution of the game's assets, and finds out the real-world inspiration of many sigils, statues, etc. That his quasi-archaeological approach seems to work rather consistently on this game is a testament to how exceptionally well-crafted the world is.

Later videos are more speculative and meandering, to my taste.

-----------

Meanwhile, my RL1 solo run proceeds, and I'm chuffed to have beaten the Apostle+Noble gauntlet in the Spiritcaller cave. They were a major pain even with a summon in my first RL1. The fight lasts over 5 minutes, with much one-shotting on the table if unlucky. Video here.

I didn't need to kill them, of course, but I consider this good training for Godskin Duo.

Everything before the Forbidden Lands was surprisingly easy, including Morgott, but now everything will be pain, I'm afraid. Fire Giant, Godskin Duo...
 

Parsnip

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Installed ER today to check if I did engage NG+ or not. The answer turned out to be yes. But since I'm on PC, it wasn't too difficult to roll my game state back to just NG, journey 1 as they say.
As far as I know there's no easy way to verify which journey you are on, other than beating the game again and seeing which journey is next, but trying out the tree sentinel first on ng+ and then again on regular ng, the ng rollback change definitely worked.
Now I'm ready for the DLC. :blobnerd:

Though who knows, depending on how and where you even start the DLC, I may actually need to play a bit further than just the church of elleh. :D

Actually played a little bit online so unmodified game, was nice seeing messages and bloodstains etc, but that chroma shift is a real bummer. When the DLC hits I'll probably try doing that for a while, and see if I can tolerate it.
 
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Gamall Wednesday Ida

Just a loon, apparently.
Dec 4, 2020
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there's no easy way to verify which journey you are on, other than beating the game again and seeing which journey is next
Kill an enemy and see how many runes they give you --- compare to amount on wiki.

but that chroma shift is a real bummer
I have no idea what you're referring to. You had mods to alter the colour palette?

Now I'm ready for the DLC. :blobnerd:
But are you ready to wait a year for the DLC ? (Insert "it's been 88 years" meme here)
 

Parsnip

Riskbreaker
Sep 11, 2018
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I have no idea what you're referring to. You had mods to alter the colour palette?
Chroma shift, chromatic aberration, sometimes color fringe, the beast has many names.

It's when the edges of things have the blue and red colors slightly (or in some cases a lot) shifted from the actual edge. A popular post processing technique trying to mimic a (poor) camera lens.
Extreme example from wikipedia.


In my case it can be headache inducing, so I just used mods to disable it and the vignette, the downside being that I had to disable the anticheat and be offline all the time.