Elden Ring

[Prototime]

Haven't picked it up yet. I've read some favorable reviews though. For those of you playing, how does it run and how do you like it?

[Hertzian56]

Well I posted about my experience so far in the what game are you playing now but I'll just go through it a bit more here. I'm about 20hrs into it. There are definitely stutters but it's not that big of a deal and it's usually when coming off a "rest" or in high enemy concentrations but nothing that is so bad that it is unplayable. People seem to watch the FPS too much now rather than just play the game imo. I did have a crash during the initial cut scene and one other somewhere but otherwise it's been stable. I play at 1080p and a mix of high/med/low/off depending on what hits the perf most like volumetric fog, SSAO etc It looks amazing to me, sharp but not too sharp, really nice LOD distance, nice animations and varied enemies in line with other Dark Souls games. I'm on win10, i5-10300h, 8gb ram, 2060m 6gb, 471.x driver, games on an external hdd loads fast and is smooth. I get a range of around 47 to mostly locked 60fps which is the max sans mods. It works for me because it is easier on the fan noise, my screen is 120hz native. I think it's about 45% cpu, 70% gpu usage most of the time per MSIAB. I can't see how so many people are having such bad perf per steam comments but that's a selection bias because people like that are usually the loudest. I also think that at higher settings and resolutions it is more prone to that, but it shouldn't be so for a finished for sale product but that seems to be normal now. Is it so prohibitive for the developer to have low/mid/high equipment testers play it for a week? Guess so. There's a lot of chatter about not supporting ultra wide, seems there are a lot more people with that or they're just more noisy about it. Mods can fix that I think.

 

If you've played DS2/DS3 it's pretty much the same game but better. If you enjoyed the DS games and Sekiro it's a recommend for sure. Graphics even at my settings are sweet, def better than DS3. I just stop and look at the screen a lot of the time it's so nice looking, keep in mind that I'm not conditioned to 2k/4k ultra/max though. The art style is just like DS games, really cool. The UI is similar to other DS games but actually a bit better imo. It gives you more direction as to where to go per the "rest" campfire things, graces, which give a directional indication in game and on the map but of course it's a pretty big open world so you can go anywhere and explore, meet different npcs with various side quests etc I like the horse because the world is so big that walking is just too slow and I haven't figured out if there is a run option, there is a dive forward which works in a pinch. But you have to burn a consumable slot for the horse call, this should have been a standard alternate button like RDR2/TW3 and also not a consumable thing. One really nice thing is that you can fast travel from the map at any time to any of the discovered campfires, in previous DS games you had to find a campfire to travel to another one and also there was no map in DS games making it harder to know where you were or where you were going to travel to. If there was a tutorial I must have missed it but I've figured out the basics like switching gear, using various consumables etc I do recommend a controller because From Software games are geared towards console/controller. I use an xbone controller, worked out of the box.

 

There's a multiplayer/coop part to it but that's not my thing can't comment there. Not much cut scenes, not book length dialogues, journal, notes etc, story is sort of revealed in game or you just piece together your own story kind of like the DS games which I still am not sure what the canon story is lol It doesn't have annoying taking camera control away from you, screen shake stuff like GOW etc has. It's exploration focused and has plenty of secrets and cool locations so far. Has dungeons, castles, villages, underground, coast, forest etc Combat is same as DS. I'm not a big fan of the character physical customization, seems to not make much difference other than starting gear and things like face/body/hair customization are a bother to me, time sink if you get into it instead of just straight into the game. You're going to be wearing armor/face body coverings to stay alive anyways. The classes you choose give you starting stats that make a difference if you get into that, I'm more of a hack and slash explorer no matter what the stats are.

 

Overall a great game and GOTY contender easily. Again if you like DS games it's a solid recommend. From the link below my gpu is roughly equal to the 980ti desktop and I get pretty much the fps reported.

 

 

 

https://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/elden-ring-pc-performance-analysis/

[cucubits]

Compared to DS2/3, how is it with general difficulty in mind? I played all Dark Souls games but I have to admit some of the boss fights took the fun away from me and couldn't even finish them.

[Hertzian56]

Eh I'd say its about the same, pretty hard and tbh if I get stuck or too frustrated I use a trainer its my game and Im doing sp only. Too bad theres not a free demo to answer that question yourself. If you abandoned the other ds games over that I dont think this would be recommended.

[Reciever]

I feel like the odd man out as I enjoyed demon souls quite a bit but never followed up with the dark souls entries.

 

I have them, just haven't played them. Elden ring came out of left field for me but I haven't been able to look at the gaming landscape as much recently.

[hfm]

23 hours ago, Reciever said:

I feel like the odd man out as I enjoyed demon souls quite a bit but never followed up with the dark souls entries.

 

I have them, just haven't played them. Elden ring came out of left field for me but I haven't been able to look at the gaming landscape as much recently.

 

Agreed. I bought it and played it for about 5 hours.. I'll jump back into Elden Ring after I finish AC:Valhalla which I just installed instead. Will probably be a patch by then to cure those hitches that happen sometimes, though they were not really bothering me much. I do like the FromSoft souls games. I grey-marketed the Asia version of Demons Souls (it had the english track) on PS3 before it was even released in north america and devoured that, almost finished Dark Souls on PC but stopped somewhere near the end of that, need to replay it.. fell off both DS2 and DS3 after single digit hours in them.

 

I'm a little afraid that I've done the same thing in Elden Ring where there's just something about them since I fell off DS1 late where I think I just got burned out of redoing the same thing over.. and over... and over.. in order to make progress. I know that grind is the whole point but it gets.. tedious.. 

 

For instance, I'm not giving anything away really it's super early in the game, following the directional hints using the first set of Sites of Grace you eventually come across this small camp being patrolled by some guards and one strong knight level guard (I haven't committed the name of the enemies to memory yet sorry).. I kept getting killed by the damn knight after sneaking around and picking off the others one by one..  so I'd have to redo the whole damn camp again.. then again... then again.. I mean i know the reason I was losing the fight was my own fault, partly I kept hitting X instead of B to dodge because that's the key in the AC games and I've been playing that as the last few games I played for hundreds of hours, But whatever that's a lame excuse. But redoing that damn camp over and over was starting to get super old. And every time you rest.. here are all the enemies again. It kind of ruins any sense of "progress" or that it's a living world.. even more so now that it's an open world. It kind of ends up breaking the immersion a little for me and turns it into a puzzle game that resets every time you sneeze. I know that's just part of the game and grinding those areas over and over is the only way to level but it's SO.. DAMN... TEDIOUS and doesn't make me feel like I'm progressing in the world. It kind of makes me frustrated because I really like the rest of the game.. the world.. the enemies.. the story beats... the feel.  

 

So I do finally beat the knight (the number of times I quit playing for the night after getting beat by that dude over and over because I didn't want to kill everyone in the camp again is two.. two times.. and I rarely frustratingly quit a game..) and then I'm like ok lets head up through that archway by the other site of grace.. oh man come on what's that big dude on the arch.. ugh it jumps down.. DEAD.. though I did give it a run for it's money and got it most of the way down. So I was like sitting there like.. do I REALLY have to frigging fight this dude over and over to get further..  I JUST WANT TO SEE THE WORLD AND STUFF...

 

I'll come back to it after I finish AC:Valhalla, which will probably be October as I like to uncover everything.. and Ragnarok comes out this month. When I do get back to Elden Ring I'm going to have to just steel up and commit to forgetting every other game until I can get myself back into the "Souls like" mindset, I'm just not there right now and can't really be bothered with all the groundhog day repetition.. They should be called Groundhog Day-likes.. not Souls-Likes. I wouldn't mind fighting the same type of enemies if I felt I was making WORLD progress, but having to fight the same enemies in the SAME EXACT PLACE over and over is just making me feel like I'm wasting my time.. So i'll probably see Elden Ring again later in the year and try to clear my head and become one with the repetition and grind and let it not bother me so I can experience it.

[Reciever]

30 minutes ago, hfm said:

 

Agreed. I bought it and played it for about 5 hours.. I'll jump back into Elden Ring after I finish AC:Valhalla which I just installed instead. Will probably be a patch by then to cure those hitches that happen sometimes, though they were not really bothering me much. I do like the FromSoft souls games. I grey-marketed the Asia version of Demons Souls (it had the english track) on PS3 before it was even released in north america and devoured that, almost finished Dark Souls on PC but stopped somewhere near the end of that, need to replay it.. fell off both DS2 and DS3 after single digit hours in them.

 

I'm a little afraid that I've done the same thing in Elden Ring where there's just something about them since I fell off DS1 late where I think I just got burned out of redoing the same thing over.. and over... and over.. in order to make progress. I know that grind is the whole point but it gets.. tedious.. 

 

For instance, I'm not giving anything away really it's super early in the game, following the directional hints using the first set of Sites of Grace you eventually come across this small camp being patrolled by some guards and one strong knight level guard (I haven't committed the name of the enemies to memory yet sorry).. I kept getting killed by the damn knight after sneaking around and picking off the others one by one..  so I'd have to redo the whole damn camp again.. then again... then again.. I mean i know the reason I was losing the fight was my own fault, partly I kept hitting X instead of B to dodge because that's the key in the AC games and I've been playing that as the last few games I played for hundreds of hours, But whatever that's a lame excuse. But redoing that damn camp over and over was starting to get super old. And every time you rest.. here are all the enemies again. It kind of ruins any sense of "progress" or that it's a living world.. even more so now that it's an open world. It kind of ends up breaking the immersion a little for me and turns it into a puzzle game that resets every time you sneeze. I know that's just part of the game and grinding those areas over and over is the only way to level but it's SO.. DAMN... TEDIOUS and doesn't make me feel like I'm progressing in the world. It kind of makes me frustrated because I really like the rest of the game.. the world.. the enemies.. the story beats... the feel.  

 

So I do finally beat the knight (the number of times I quit playing for the night after getting beat by that dude over and over because I didn't want to kill everyone in the camp again is two.. two times.. and I rarely frustratingly quit a game..) and then I'm like ok lets head up through that archway by the other site of grace.. oh man come on what's that big dude on the arch.. ugh it jumps down.. DEAD.. though I did give it a run for it's money and got it most of the way down. So I was like sitting there like.. do I REALLY have to frigging fight this dude over and over to get further..  I JUST WANT TO SEE THE WORLD AND STUFF...

 

I'll come back to it after I finish AC:Valhalla, which will probably be October as I like to uncover everything.. and Ragnarok comes out this month. When I do get back to Elden Ring I'm going to have to just steel up and commit to forgetting every other game until I can get myself back into the "Souls like" mindset, I'm just not there right now and can't really be bothered with all the groundhog day repetition.. They should be called Groundhog Day-likes.. not Souls-Likes. I wouldn't mind fighting the same type of enemies if I felt I was making WORLD progress, but having to fight the same enemies in the SAME EXACT PLACE over and over is just making me feel like I'm wasting my time.. So i'll probably see Elden Ring again later in the year and try to clear my head and become one with the repetition and grind and let it not bother me so I can experience it.

Yes I can understand most of the struggle. Its a bit odd of a problem as those types of titles like to harken back to what I like to call Mega Man era titles where most of the time the deciding factor of how a "fight" boils down to timing and a high level of patience before you get to have that reward of victory. Where as many titles today like to give the user many abilities like in Mega Man X, where you can wall jump, choose different armors, and abilities are more pronounced. Tempo's increased as well, its why those titles stand out for its unapologetic nature.

 

Lately I have been getting some of that through God Of War with battling the Valkyries, the Queen soundly kicked my butt for a few hours before I put the game down to come work on more things for the forum. 

[hfm]

1 minute ago, Reciever said:

Yes I can understand most of the struggle. Its a bit odd of a problem as those types of titles like to harken back to what I like to call Mega Man era titles where most of the time the deciding factor of how a "fight" boils down to timing and a high level of patience before you get to have that reward of victory. Where as many titles today like to give the user many abilities like in Mega Man X, where you can wall jump, choose different armors, and abilities are more pronounced. Tempo's increased as well, its why those titles stand out for its unapologetic nature.

 

Lately I have been getting some of that through God Of War with battling the Valkyries, the Queen soundly kicked my butt for a few hours before I put the game down to come work on more things for the forum. 

 

Hah. Yeah it's just all about building up the muscle memory and buying into the game system. I'll definitely put the time in next I pick it up.

[cucubits]

When I had the most frustrating times with DS 2/3, of course I'd also quit the game as clearly I wasn't making any progress just brute forcing. Then to make it worse, I'd go watch this dude LobosJr on youtube go through the games like they're nothing. He's almost mocking the game's difficulty with 0 hit runs, breeze through boss fights without any issues...

[Prototime]

I haven't played a Dark Souls game before, so I don't have a direct point of reference, but the idea of tediously refighting the same fights and rage quitting doesn't appeal to me. That said, the open-world aspect of Elden Ring has piqued my interest because if you run into a wall, you can (apparently) go perform a different task and level up, then come back later when you're stronger. I haven't played the game, but is this an accurate assessment?

[Hertzian56]

I'm definitely a fan of open world exploration and just playing it last night I stumbled upon 2 new sections and believe me I have passed by some sections that I didn't know the answer of how to progress. For example one section has magically sealed doors which I have no idea how to open but I explored all I could in that section, I do wish it would give some explanation of what I need to do but I'm ok with it for now because there are still more fogged out map sections.

 

Another section has a tower/castle but there's a giant plant pot in front of it, not sure how to get inside there, there's another huge spire that I can see a lone guard with a torch and a long ladder up it, but I've tried to figure out how to get there with no luck, the whole underground river I could not figure out how to get up river as it's terrain locked in a couple of places just have to go back and try to figure it out again or there's another hidden entrance I haven't found. I also glanced down there at a weird all pink section that I couldn't figure out how to get down to, definitely going back. I got stuck on a floating boss in a library who has these legless crawling people throwing things at me while I fight, but she's in an invulnerable bubble and I can't figure out how to break through, I just quit and it reloads at the nearest grace fire outside the locked combat area, come back to it. I'm pretty sure I have to defeat her to main story progress. I don't want to spoil too much but I could go on.

 

The art is fantastic, the enemies you encounter are creative and fantastic animations so I'm loving it. Really needed a new engrossing game because last few months there hasn't really been any new stuff of interest, could go into the catalog of older and unfinished games though plenty of those.

[KING19]

Im not a fan of RPG games nor i've played any Soul's game before but i gotta say this, The fake outrage about Elden Ring's difficulty level from so called game journalists all weekend made me laugh my ass off and it kinda makes me wanna buy the game to try it out and support them for catering to their fan base instead of certain woke groups. I like games with a difficult learning curve as i grew up during the time when games was tough to beat

[Prototime]

Fewer than half of Elden Ring players have actually beaten the first major boss on PC | TechRadar

 

Quote

By Rhys Wood published 4 days ago

FromSoftware's latest action RPG, Elden Ring, has been a huge commercial success on console and PC, but around half of its players haven't progressed past the first major boss, potentially showing that many newcomers were blindsided by the developer's penchant for high difficulty.

 

According to Elden Ring's achievements list on Steam Community, around 63% (at the time of writing) of players have beaten Margit the Fell Omen, a sort of gatekeeper boss that tests if you're ready for the difficulty increases to come. Quite similar to Bloodborne's Father Gascoigne or Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice's Genichiro Ashina.

 

However, it's the game's first major boss, the demigod Godrick the Grafted, where many Elden Ring players are running up against a wall. According to Steam, just under half of the playerbase have actually defeated this roadblock of a boss fight. It's a similar story on PS5 and PS4, too, where around 54% of players have currently defeated Godrick.

These achievements stats are particularly notable, as Elden Ring has not just been a critical darling, it's also a huge commercial success. In the UK, Elden Ring had the best launch week for a non-Call of Duty or FIFA title since Red Dead Redemption 2 (thanks, Eurogamer).

Analysis: why are Elden Ring players struggling?
Elden Ring's first-week success could be a strong indication that it'll become FromSoftware's best-selling title to date, meaning there's bound to be a ton of newcomers experiencing the developer's particular brand of crushingly high difficulty for the first time.

It could be that many players are buying the game on a whim, looking for their next big fantasy RPG fix after, say, Skyrim, and while waiting for the hotly-anticipated Dragon Age 4. In this case, then, it's entirely possible that Elden Ring's high difficulty, matched with no immediately obvious options to lower it (outside of co-operative player summons) has some players bouncing off before they can really invest themselves in The Lands Between.

Yet while Elden Ring is undoubtedly a difficult game, we also have to mention its PC port, which as of now, falls short in terms of both performance and settings. According to PC players, Elden Ring's mouse and keyboard support isn't fantastic, there's no support for ultrawide monitors and jarring stuttering persists throughout the game, making for a gameplay experience that's anything but smooth. FromSoftware has begun to release patches to address these bugs.

The consoles versions (particularly the PS4 Pro version, oddly), while also not perfect in the performance department, still run a lot smoother than their PC counterpart. That higher percentage of players who have defeated Godrick, then, could be the difference in performance between console and PC. 

Smoother performance overall means that Elden Ring on console controls more tightly as a result, and there's less risk of controller input delay or frame stuttering that could turn a perfectly good boss run into a living nightmare. Here's hoping Elden Ring's PC issues are addressed soon, giving more players an opportunity to experience the game as it was intended.

[ryan]

@hfmis there a game you want but just can't pull the trigger

[Hertzian56]

https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/these-elden-ring-mods-add-an-easy-mode-reduce-grinding/

[hfm]

23 hours ago, ryan said:

@hfmis there a game you want but just can't pull the trigger

No, can't say that there is.

[Hertzian56]

I'm about 42 hrs into it and still have plenty to do but from online maps I've found the majority of major places and all the in game maps to clear all the map fog not sure about underground and a few quests I can't figure out how to advance, DS games have always required online research for me and probably anybody else who doesn't have a ton of time to just wander around and figure it out.

[Reciever]

Started my second playthrough of God of War, increased the difficulty and doing another run. :) The game was pretty good, I enjoyed it. Hopefully the next one is a bit longer

[Prototime]

1 hour ago, Hertzian56 said:

I'm about 42 hrs into it and still have plenty to do but from online maps I've found the majority of major places and all the in game maps to clear all the map fog not sure about underground and a few quests I can't figure out how to advance, DS games have always required online research for me and probably anybody else who doesn't have a ton of time to just wander around and figure it out.

Indeed, you could always turn an open-world game into a more linear game with the help of online maps, though personally I feel like that hurts the charm of the open world. But that's understandable if time is limited.

 

31 minutes ago, Reciever said:

Started my second playthrough of God of War, increased the difficulty and doing another run. 🙂 The game was pretty good, I enjoyed it. Hopefully the next one is a bit longer

I think you posted this in the wrong thread chief 😉

[ryan]

yeah wrong thread? all good...happen too me with a topic on warp drive lol....what the heck does warp drive have to do with gaming ?

[Reciever]

50 minutes ago, Prototime said:

Indeed, you could always turn an open-world game into a more linear game with the help of online maps, though personally I feel like that hurts the charm of the open world. But that's understandable if time is limited.

 

I think you posted this in the wrong thread chief 😉

Long day 

[Hertzian56]

1 hour ago, Prototime said:

Indeed, you could always turn an open-world game into a more linear game with the help of online maps, though personally I feel like that hurts the charm of the open world. But that's understandable if time is limited.

 

I think you posted this in the wrong thread chief 😉

No it's not linear for me, what I meant was I looked at the whole revealed map online and confirmed I found all the places you find the area maps in game. I haven't looked at the underground maps though found about 3 of those extensive underground areas. Small caves don't count they just have fast travel markers at the entrances. Non main story line I'm stuck on helping Ranni and her companions to get something to open up one of the towers w a major enemy inside, probably. Even using trainer help it's a long game, play it my way no regrets btw

[Hertzian56]

I'm about 50hrs into it now, took a break for smaller less time commitment per session games. Well every time I think I've entered the final area it just has more which is good, but I just got through a few cutscenes before entering an old but altered area, in fact the whole map has some alteration to it now, so I'm pretty sure this is the final part. The game prevented fast travel in the previous area which I thought was the final area. I can now fast travel to any part of the map to continue other undone stuff I've discovered. Going back to a few unfinished/not figured out parts which have no real explanation of what to do in game, typical dark souls/fromsoft MO. Going ahead and doing online help to move forward in those cases. It's not too bad since none of them are the main story just extra side stuff., probably for more optional bosses/lore and equipment like the other DS games have. Definitely my GOTY of the games I've played this year.

[Hertzian56]

Pushed through and finished it last night, got the default ending. I've read there are 6 endings discovered so far but I'd bet there are more than that. I remembered I didn't do some of Rani's requests so that's probably why she stopped being available to talk to and she has an ending associated with her, the "moon" ending I think it's called. I have a save backup before the ending sequence I can just swap in instead of ng+ but not in a hurry and you can just keep exploring in free roam after the main story, my ending does change the world a bit but not drastically. From how long does it take I got the average length of about 50hrs but with the trainer it probably cut a good 20hrs out of it. My play style is exploration and some side missions that were easy to figure out.

 

https://howlongtobeat.com/game?id=68151

[Custom90gt]

I may pick this up after i finish with my stretch of night shifts.  The co-op sounds fun.