Elden Ring

[Peppermint Lounge]

You'll def want to remap if you play kbam. I think I've got mine down after struggling with the default setting. Space for sprint, F for jump, arrow keys to swap weapons? Yeah right. Have got it now so it's the usual PC setup - left shift to spint, space to jump, number keys to cycle left and right hand weapons/items. Have mapped dodge/roll to one of my side mouse buttons. Also turned off auto targetting and switched on manual attack aiming which suits kbam more.

[pilonv1]

I'm very keen to get it but for full price and not optimised for PC I'll wait for now

[lestat]

Wow what a journey, I'm at the final boss now but I'm just doing the alternate ending quest chains before triggering it.

This game is a masterpiece, there is nothing out there that compares to the size and scope of enemies/bosses/world design. Each new area you open up you are awestruck at Miyazaki's genius. The game certainly has flaws though and mechanics that aren't properly explained which are quite important to understand to achieve success. In a way it kinda saddens me that some people may never see a lot of great areas/bosses because they may just give up out of frustration. Currently only 2.3% of people have gotten to the point I have according to steam achievements.

It's funny too my complaints about weapons/gear, all the good shit is in the last 1/3 of the game even then you tend to stick to one weapon because you don't have enough weapon upgrade shards to level them up to the required level to beat late game bosses. You need to get these bells around the world that unlock the resources in the round table shop, this will let you experiment with different weapons in the end game.

I recommend using the elden ring wiki as a resource.

https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/

There is no quest log so its easy to forget or miss details when talking to npcs, this is an area they should have improved imo, game is hard enough but having a world so big and no quest log/tracking is annoying.

FYI my current playtime is 77hrs.

[Peppermint Lounge]

Ta for the link. Just to reiterate what lestat mentioned above, the new areas you open up really do give you pause to sit there wide-eyed to absorb what's appeared unexpectedly before you. No quest markers leave you to just discover these things in what feel like chance encounters. The world is punishing and beautiful so I'm in a contant state of wonder + caution/alert.

I tried controller last night to see how it feels. I could immediately tell how much better the controls are suited/designed for a controller. On my wireless XBox One pad the camera felt nice to control with the sticks too. I just haven't used them in years other than for racing games so I'm just bad with button placement/memory in a pinch. Not sure if I should persist with controller or plough on with kbam because one move that's much easier on a controller is dodge/roll. An important one to have down. I've mapped it to my left shift (for back-step) and mouse 4 (for roll) which works pretty well. It just works better controlling roll direction and timing with a stick.

[lestat]

So the last few bosses, what an unbalanced mess. I had slogged though it and basically got stuck the last few days on the Final boss, I tried everything but nothing worked, there was a particular attack you just can't dodge/avoid. I had my mimic summon at +6, I realised I missed a +7 upgrade in Nokstella, so I figured I'll try upgrading my summon this morning.

Upgraded my mimic to +10 and I beat the final boss first try. Jesus how messed up is that, the fight is completely balanced around a +10 summon.

My advice to all as you get to the end, make sure you upgrade your mimic or summon of choice to +10. You'll need it because these fights otherwise with out them at that level is broken and complete misery.

I did the save file trick to get 3 different endings, I had done the quest chains for the 2 alternate ones. I've now joined the illustrious 0.5% of people on steam that have finished the game.

Total playtime was 97hrs according to steam, lvl 130, +24 Uchigatana, I used the General Radahn Armor set towards the end, seems to be the strongest armor I've found so far.

This game tested my patience and my Wife's. If the end portion wasn't so broken around the summon mechanic, it would be 10/10 for me, but the reused bosses, end boss issues along with the stutters. It's a 9/10 from me.

I still think Sekiro is their best game to date, Elden Ring is their most ambitious game and very cool but they failed to stick the landing imo, maybe more testing and time in the oven would have alleviated that and not sullied the experience.

elden_ring_steam_stats.png

[Peppermint Lounge]

Congrats, mate. Raising my coffee cup to the wife also who will be pleased to have you back. Thanks for the end game tips. I'm level 30 after traversing Limgrave. Have knocked off a few area bosses, have upgraded weapons and a summon so feel ready to look at Margit again. I'm 20 END, VIG & STR with a couple in Faith as I intend to explore incantations the further I go. I'm getting there with kbam and am dodging/rolling well after struggling at bit earlier. Something else I'm getting properly used to is how the game locks onto enemies and toggles between them. Elden can get pretty janky when engaging multiples.

[Froggy]

I got the nice launch edition from Big W last night, they still had a few at my local for 89. I have been locked away with Covid so didn't think I'd get one.

I'm eager to start but conflicted with waiting on patches and Lestat's last update there has me baulking again. I've now got three largish games on at once, I think I'll finish the other two as it sounds like I won't be a be to hop in and out of this one and keep track of things easily?

[Peppermint Lounge]

Got past Margit last night. Such a cool looking boss and fun fight. His attacks look great and each move flows so well to the next.

[Peppermint Lounge]

The jank in this game can test you. Like when you fight your way through tough mobs to a mini boss guarding a gate, you kill the mini boss with not much to spare and you get killed by a couple of mobs you just aggro'ed during the boss fight because the game is interrupted by screen prompts listing the boss drops. Back to the grace site I go.

[pilonv1]

MSI finally sent me my $50 steam code for getting a motherboard with them last year. They sent it to me in US$ instead of AU$ so I got $78 credit.

So I'm installing this now.

[lestat]

The jank in this game can test you. Like when you fight your way through tough mobs to a mini boss guarding a gate, you kill the mini boss with not much to spare and you get killed by a couple of mobs you just aggro'ed during the boss fight because the game is interrupted by screen prompts listing the boss drops. Back to the grace site I go.

It's not so much the difficulty that kills you in these games, it's the jank and crappy controls/lockon/camera most of the time. Things like lets bind run to the dodge button, so if you press the B button just a little bit too long, we'll treat that as a run instead of the dodge you wanted. Roll is only triggered on B button release and enjoys a nice 750ms delay.

The game also has a lot of collision detection problems, attacks going through walls/cover which is just busted. Also the game just loves throwing large enemies at you so when you're up close the busted camera doesn't pan out so you can see the incoming attacks.

The other infuriating thing is the blatant input reading the AI does, it's pretty bad in this game.

Any other game/series would get destroyed for these issues but souls fans wave it way with the old git gud.

[Froggy]

Installed last night, 48gb patch later. Judging by Lestat there I'll wait on the next patch

[Froggy]

Installed last night, 48gb patch later. Judging by Lestat there I'll wait on the next patch.

Question, my mate started playing last night and he is trying to beat the first boss your meant to avoid after the tutorial. Is this an impossible task? I told him it's probably gonna waste hours for not much benefit.

[pilonv1]

The stuttering on this isn't that bad but it's noticable and really jarring. That or the constantly moving camera are giving me some motion sickness as well.

That said it runs pretty well on my 5600x and 1070 at 1440p. Could see enjoying this more if I could play longer than 20 minutes without feeling nauseous.

[Peppermint Lounge]

Question, my mate started playing last night and he is trying to beat the first boss your meant to avoid after the tutorial. Is this an impossible task? I told him it's probably gonna waste hours for not much benefit.

Wasted effort. A low level character could chip away until he's dead but you'd have to avoid being hit. Not an impossible task however the reward for beating him is a weapon you can't use until many levels later.

[Peppermint Lounge]

It's not so much the difficulty that kills you in these games, it's the jank and crappy controls/lockon/camera most of the time. Things like lets bind run to the dodge button, so if you press the B button just a little bit too long, we'll treat that as a run instead of the dodge you wanted. Roll is only triggered on B button release and enjoys a nice 750ms delay.
s but souls fans wave it way with the old git gud.

The lock-on - lol. Love being rushed by those spak-attack archers and/or spinning spear guys and finding I've auto-locked onto a goat in the background.

And yeah the camera when you're trying to melee the legs of a giant enemy is terrible.

But I do love it.

[lestat]

Yeah the lockon is crazy busted at times. With regards to lockon and the busted combat with mobs, find the hoarfrost stomp Ash of War, it's super strong and destroys mobs. That and bloody slash I found worked best on my dex samurai build. Also switched from the uchigatana to the nagakiba, it has better damage dex scaling and longer reach, same moveset/speed with just a slight weight penalty.

Killed Malenia last night, she was the last boss on my end game hitlist. I'm pretty much done with the game.

[Peppermint Lounge]

Haven't got Hoarfrost Stomp yet but I've been using Bloody Slash. It's saved my arse a few times now. I've only sprinkled dex for a couple of ranged options. Have opted for strength and have upgraded a Claymore greatsword more than any other weapon so far. I'm stingy with smithing stones because I don't know if there are enough in the world to just drop them into any old weapon. They don't seem to respawn in mines I've already cleared. They drop relatively frequently but not enough that I feel confident upgrading weapons I'm not sure will stay with me.

[lestat]

The crystal mines have bells you can turn in to the 2 weird looking things vendor at the round table, that unlocks the ability to buy smithing stones from them for upgrades. So later/end game you can grind runes for materials if you have found all the bells. I'm not a huge fan of the weapon upgrade system, eventually you get a lot of cool weapons but because you can't upgrade them without huge cost you end up just sticking to your old faithful.

https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Bell+Bearings

Game has sold 12M copies. Incredible result for From software.

https://www.fromsoftware.jp/ww/pressrel ... _salesdata

[flipswitch]

It's doing WAY better than expected. Just roll out the patches so others can buy it.

[pilonv1]

Played a bit more tonight but think I'm going to have to shelve it until the stuttering gets fixed. I think in time I can deal with the camera resetting constantly which is causing some of my motion sickness but the stuttering just amplifies it.

[Peppermint Lounge]

Elden downloading a 1.6gb update. Was going to give it a break tonight and satiate my Destiny 2 FOMO. Excited now to get on and see what this update brings.

[Peppermint Lounge]

ELDEN RING - Patch Notes Version 1.03
https://www.bandainamcoent.com/news/eld ... otes-v1-03

Major Changes Included in the Latest Update

Additional Elements Added
Added a function to record an icon and the name of an NPC on the map when you encounter that NPC.
Added NPC Jar-Bairn.
Added new quest phases for the following NPCs: Diallos/ Nepheli Loux/ Kenneth Haight/ Gatekeeper Gostoc.
Added some summonable NPCs in multiple situations.
Increased the number of patterns of objects player can imitate when using Mimic’s Veil.
Added night background music for some open field area.

Bug Fixed
Fixed a bug that prevented summoned NPCs from taking damage in some boss battles.
Fixed a bug that sometime prevented the player from obtaining item after boss battle.
Fixed a bug that causes dialogue to be skipped when talking to NPCs and using custom key configurations.
Fixed a bug that causes the player to freeze when riding.
Fixed a bug that causes arcane to scale incorrectly for some weapons.
In situation where the player cannot obtain more than 2 talisman pouches, added talisman pouch to Twin Maiden Husks shop line up.
Fixed a bug that prevented the user from warping to sites of grace from the map at the end of the game.
Fixed a bug that prevented the player from moving to the next area after the battle with the Fire Giant.
Fixed a bug which causes some weapons to have incorrect scaling after strengthening.
Fixed a bug which causes some weapons to not use stat scaling.
Fixed hang-ups in certain occasions.
Fixed a bug which incorrectly displays multiplayer area boundary when playing online.
Fixed a bug that allows player to activate Erdtree Greatshield’s weapon skill without absorbing an attack using a special combination of item and incantation.
Fixed a bug which causes Fire’s Deadly Sin incantation to have different effect.
Fixed a bug with the Ash of War, Determination and Royal Knight's Resolve, where the damage buff will also apply to other weapons without that skill.
Adjusted the visual effect of Unseen Form spell.
Deleted the Ragged armor set from the game which was mistakenly obtainable in previous patch.
Fixed a bug that causes some hostile NPCs to drop Furlcalling Finger Remedy.
Fixed a bug that causes incorrect sound effect to play in some situations.
Fixed a bug which causes visual animation and hitboxes to not be displayed correctly on some maps.
Fixed bugs which causes incorrect visual and behavior for some enemies.
Fixed a bug that causes incorrect stat parameter for some armor.
Text fixes.
Other performance improvement and bug fixes.

Balance Changes
Increased the drop rate of Smithing Stone for some enemies.
Added Smithing Stone to some early game shop line up.
Increased shield’s effectiveness.
Increased the damage for all offensive cracked pot items.
Increased the damage for the following items: Spark Aromatic/Poison Spraymist.
Increased the effect duration for the following items: Uplifting Aromatic/ Ironjar Aromatic.
Increased HP healing for Torrent when using the following items: Rowa Raisin/ Sweet Raisin/ Frozen Raisin
Reduced FP consumption and increased the damage of the following sorceries: Glintstone Cometshard/ Comet/ Night Comet
Increased the damage of the following sorceries: Gravity Well/ Collapsing Stars/ Crystal Barrage
Decreased FP consumption of the following sorceries: Star Shower/ Rock Blaster/ Gavel of Haima/ Founding Rain of Stars/ Stars of Ruin/Greatblade Phalanx/Magic Downpour/ Loretta’s Greatbow/ Loretta’s Mastery/ Carian Greatsword/ Carian Piercer/ Shard Spiral
Raised projectile speed and range of Great Glintstone Shard
Decreased Ash of War, Hoarfrost Stomp's damage and increase cast time.
Increased Ash of War, Bloody Slash's self-inflict damage while slightly lowering the damage and increasing the cast time.
Decreased weapon skill, Sword of Night and Flame’s damage.
Increased FP consumption and lower duration of Ash of War, Barricade Shield.
Changed FP consumption timing of Ash of War, Prelate’s Charge.
Decreased the damage of spirit summoned when using the item Mimic Tear Ash and changed the spirit’s behavior pattern.
Other enemy and weapon balance changes

[Peppermint Lounge]

Bloody Slash and Hoarfrost Stomp nerfed.

[pilonv1]

Does it fix the stuttering?

edit: from my very unscientific romp around the first area after the tutorial it seems to be running a bit better. Stuttering still there but doesn't feel as jarring as it used to.