Elden Ring [2022-21-01] [PS, XB, PC]

50 hours into the game and my only gripe is the amount of multi-boss fights, this is the worst From has ever done in that regard. Pretty much all of these fights are an unfun slog of running around and hopping to get a lucky hit every 30 seconds after both of the bosses have finished flailing around...

Apart from that the game is phenomenal, best open world game I've ever played and imo leagues better than Zelda BoTW (that it gets compared to), in that they somehow retained the core experience of playing a souls game in a vast open world, I'm at a loss for words, they are masters of this craft.

 

Well I gave it another go, think I've spent about 50ish hours on it. I found some underground caves full of things that killed me instantly. I went down some lift to some underground map where I found some things that killed me instantly. I explored a beach and got killed instantly. Found the only way I could actually get any runes was by grind picking red flowers and selling them, found some two bladed sword that was marginally better than the sword I had at killing deer and birds, but useless against anything else. Got killed carrrying about 3 hours worth of runes and then realised that if you die before you get back to pick them up you lose them :/

So I decided to delete the game, and the save game, since there's no way I'm wasting anymore time on it. Fair play to anyone who can actually find any pleasure in playing these games, but I can see why they stay so niche!!

 

Safe and easy way to farm runes is to help other people kill bosses. Just put your co-op sign down outside of a boss room using a Tarnished Furled Finger or send it to the summoning pool using a Small Golden Effigy.

It's also a great way to get practice in on tough fights by doing that with bosses that you had a tough time with. Since it's risk free, you can take more risks while helping the host. Although I try not to be TOO risky since if I die it makes things harder for the host. Experience with dodging and timing comes in really helpful for future tough fights.

I usually put my sign down outside of boss rooms that I'm about to fight so that I can learn the fight with absolutely Zero risk to me. And as a bonus, I'm getting free risk-free runes while I'm learning the fight.

A bit late for you since you've already deleted everything, but might help someone else who might find themselves "stuck" and not being able to find a good place to farm.

Regards,
SB

 

50 hours? And then was the first time you lost souls?
I’ve lost like 40K souls easily and I’m at hour 16? Maybe 20 with deaths. I am lvl 52.

A bit surprised by that honestly. The key to enjoyment is actually to get around souls lost anxiety. The actual game is about obtaining items and smart usage of limited consumables (the ones that you cannot farm)

I think once you get into that mindset, the game is pretty great. Souls; easy to farm. Find a particular place and just get like 30k every 15minutes. 120K per hour. So souls are easy to get. Getting the scrolls, the items, weapons, gear etc. finding those is really the “advancement” in this game and dying never takes that away.

 

Over 10m sales on Steam alone so far. Wouldnt call that niche.

 

Souls games were niche until Elden Ring.

 

Well I think the first time I died was when the dude on horse came and one hit me outside the church. Then it was some soliders, and then some wolves, and then some soliders, and then some guy on horseback again. And then some guys with shields. Rinse and repeat. I made it as far as getting the horse thing but I never really got out of the first area, aprt from by accident when I found lifts etc that just took me to new places where I could get one hit by everything. Having never played a souls game before none of it really made any sense and life is too short to to spend any downtime just getting frustrated. I was never anxious about losing shards, just annoyed because it took so long to get them in the first place and you needed a ridiculous amount to just level up any stats. Which appeared to make zero difference to your characters abilties anyway. It's just not my kind of game, and I'm not the only one who thought it was going to be different to what it turned out to be. Doesn't matter anyway now, it's been chucked in the bin.

 

oh =(
sorry to hear that. My first souls game I felt a lot of frustration too. I can only recommend one thing, if you want to give it one more chance, find a complete 0 to finish guide and follow it through, you'll find the experience rewarding still. And once you sort of 'get it', you may enjoy Souls styles games without the guide afterwards.

 

I would but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't change the experience, even following a guide it would be an uphill struggle to find any enjoyment in the frustration. I don't find beating challenges rewarding, they are just obstacles to the end game and, as far as I can see and from what I've read, there is no end game with ER. No matter if you are level 1 or 120 you are still never going to feel like you have reached a pinnacle.

 

i'm sure if you beat the final boss you're officially done. You can start a New Game +, but I think typically for most people, they are done. If you really like the game you can do a New Game+ and continue, try different builds etc.

 

If that's the case I'll watch it on youtube or twitch. I play games to relax and explore other peoples imaginations, life and work are stressful enough!! Feeling like I'm being punished for doing that is not an experience I would, normally, be willing to pay for. But I believed the marketing that this was an easier and more sophisticated way into the souls world, something more akin to the witcher but with harder combat, but it's not. It's just a souls game with a jump button. So lesson learnt and no more money to FROM sofware from me again

I made my money back selling all the extras I got with it on ebay anyway so all is balanced again. I'll just wait for Biowae and Bethesda to get their act together fpr some proper RPG'ing. Meanwhile I have HFW to keep me occupied in my downtime.

 

ohic .

darn.. you got the collectors edition? I'm quite jelly. lol haha

 

There's a couple of relatively easy XP farm methods which I of course took advantage of, cause I'm that type of person. I'd very much recommend the sword of night and fire, I've now managed to get it to +10 and well, you basically don't need anything else in the game. LVL 135 now.

 

Yeah, I'm sad like that. I always buy the collectors version if it's available, my favourite was Fallout 3 with the bobble head pip boy and lunch box

 

The Hoarfrost Stomp weapon art also makes a lot of encounters fairly easy. It's nice since it's a very high damage AOE with a low FP cost and it has a pretty fast animation. You can also get it fairly early in the game. Only thing it doesn't really help with is flying enemies.

Regards,
SB

 

My grind run is the five giants. They are located right next to a site of grace. They worth 1000 runes a piece. Takes 5-6 hits a piece (I can get three hits before the giant typically responds) When I feel like the game is getting too challenging I just grind some levels to get back to a more enjoyable experience.

I did so last night. I probably went through 5 multi-hour sessions where I jumped maybe 4 or 5 levels. I was able to level from 52 to 60 in ~1.5 hour last night through grinding the giants. I grinded out 80K in runes for ~40 minutes at the start of my session and finished off with 100K rune run which took almost an hour. The other 1.5 hours was spent knocking off the dragon in Limegrave, completing the Fringefolk Hero's Grave Dungeon, traveling to the Dragon Communion Altar, meeting D Hunter, knocking off a Mariner and meeting Gurrang.

I don't mind the monotonous grind runs because I spend the other 95% of my time tackling Elden Ring content at a difficulty I enjoy.

 

I’d very much recommend doing other Xp Farms. Start with the rolling ball one. At lvl 60 you should start doing the one in the blood area (the minions) where you can do 30k in a min or so, then same area the bird farm where you can easily do 100k in a minute.

 

"Still, even now! There is no Xbox console that can run Elden Ring at 60fps!" - Alex

Super surprising, you would expect it to hit 60fps. Limit with DX12 Ultimate API the problem in the game?

 

There's no problem with DX12U. There's a problem with FromSoft.
The behavior of this game on Xbox was a design decision by them.
Watch the previous DF Direct where they cover this. Although they also talk about it in this video.
The game just keeps pushing settings higher and higher if there's additional GPU power beyond a specific threshold. Apparently, FromSoft thinks 33fps is an appropriate threshold.

 

which place is this? I'm getting close to lvl 60