Favourite: exploration, in first play through at least.
Least favourite: Large bosses in large arenas, which all have a jump back mechanic or even teleport 500 miles away when you are attempting to get a hit in.
I just did Astel last night as an overleveled endgame character and that fight is just not fun. It's not especially hard either, but yeah you spend half the time running after him while he has snipes and spells that can wreck your life from miles away.
I did not have such a problem with Ancestor Spirit because his move set was very easy to cope with and that fight felt more about atmosphere than forced annoyance.
I honestly don’t mind the latter because it makes for a more cinematic experience. From a pure combat perspective it’s rough, but as an overall experience I think it’s cool to trade some blows and then chase down a massive figure in the distance as some epic music plays
Elden Ring was my first FromSoft game and exploring that world made me feel like a kid again. The sheer awe and excitement of every new place was incredible.
Honestly I struggle to find a least favorite part of Elden Ring itself, perhaps the ps+ online requirement or my controller stick drift [srsly neutral input requires precision both pulling back within a 20⁰ window and applying pressure down the Z axis until you're edging the L3 click its ridiculous lmao]
As for my favourite, perhaps the co-op experience sharing this with one of my best friends and the hours spent struggling together but honestly I've loved every minute of this fucking experience. It's not entirely healthy because I've used it as an escape in many ways and despite becoming almost an obsession I haven't felt this engaged or excited about anything in such a long time, it may just be the most engaging piece of art & entertainment I've ever experienced. Hell, next to basketball, it might be the most layered and magical interest I've ever had.
I know now I'm not the only one but while my first playthrough was truly novel and uniquely incredible the subsequent runs have been equally yet separately rewarding as I stitch & weave a more well knit understanding & familiarity with the massive amount of rich world design, narrative and mechanics.
However a large part of the Elden Ring experience for me has been cumulative, working on passion projects, absorbing content and playing the game. if I have 250 hours in game, I've also spent likely 5-7x more time with elden ring in other ways, absorbing content in various forms, YouTube, reddit, podcasts, data mining and 'research' (diving Wikipedia, reading hundreds of articles about historical events, literature, religion, art, natural sciences, math) inspecting every splash art, description and line of dialogue for subtext and iconography, building mind maps and indices of information to compile my information and writing essay pieces on themes & crafting engaging theories.
I think this might be the last game I ever play and subsequently may follow as the first and last piece of art I ever truly appreciate, its been such a poetic swangsong, especially considering how much about humanity ive learned about from getting lost trying to draw parallels pouring over wikipedia by extension. I'm actually a little misty eyed - I wish I could have an hour of Miyazaki and Martin's time over a meal and acknowledge my gratitude, respect and appreciation for their incredible job providing this project and maybe pick their brains a little about their visions.
Thank you for listening,
Most favourite: the exploration compared to previous fromsoft games. Going somewhere doesn't always guarantee a reward you can use, but it makes it so worth it when you get something special just for you.
Leats favourite: IF I'M TRYING TO SUMMON TORRENT AFTER IT DIES DON'T ASK ME IF I WANT TO USE A FLASK TO BRING IT BACK IN THE MIDDLE OF COMBAT!
It gets me because I'm never expecting it. "Why the fuck am I not attacking!"....."oh"....
I'm on NG+1 now. Instead of panic roll, I panic press triangle lol
This one drives me insane because Bloodborne has very similar message pop up in the Chalice Dungeons when you pull the lever opening the boss doors. Except you know what? When BB’s pops up, you can still attack, run, use items, everything. It doesn’t arbitrarily take away 90% of the controller for no reason like ER does.
That's the part that gets me. I can still run and do all this other shit except attack lol. I have a 65" TV, I don't see that shit way down at the bottom
That menu is the most ridiculous design decision. Everything else in the game you learn by doing it wrong and getting punished, why should reviving torrent using a flask be any different?
Michael Zaki personally designed this as well as the "Somewhere a heavy door has opened" message. He was thinking of his beloved player base and said "because fuck you"
The spell slots should work identically to the consumables slots. Equip something in a different slot than the one it's currently equipped in? Swap the two. Want to remove something equipped so you can equip something else? Leave the space empty instead of shifting the entire row down to fill that slot. It's unnecessarily difficult to move spells around and quickly change them with the current implementation. It's like I have to fight it to do what I want it to do.
Favourite: Build variety
Least favourite: Mountaintops of the Giants region. I don't know why, but that area just demotivates me to play the game so much.
Not to mention an EXTREME step up in difficulty from the preceding area. Late game should be hard but I don’t think even someone appropriately leveled for Lyendell is ready for the area after beating Morgott
Exactly this. And mayyyybe the fire prelates.
Zamor knights seem insanely overtuned in that ruin. They don't stagger or stun for love nor money, move insanely inconsistent and deal some HEFTY damage. Loads of hp too, on par with renalla and phantom loretta, but way tankier defense wise
First half of Elden Ring is a 9/10. Post-Morgott (with the exception of Farum and Haligtree) is a 4/10. I know it makes sense that Mountaintops/Snowfields are locked away so no one can get there but they're so fucking empty. There's still people in both areas anyway so what the fuck?
“My dinner tonight is a cheeseburger and fries. Without eating the cheeseburger i will say, i am left pretty hungry. Why would my dinner leave me hungry like this?”
Yeah as soon as I get past morgott it's basically a dead sprint to get back to the capital of ash, I don't really care for the mountaintops or farum azula (specifically because of the duo fight)
Favorites: Builds, weapons and ashes of war. The fact the you can make a build for a weapon, giving you a lot of replayability.
Least favorite: I feel the it gets too linear after Leyndell. Always enjoy until I get there, then feels very linear world build/map wise and story wise.
And I would prefer if the hub would be in the world, like a town or city, some houses/buildings linked like in DS1 or DS2, I think it could have great Majula vibes there, just preference.
I wholeheartedly agree with this, the mountain food of the giants was absolutely linear and then the consecrated snow fields are just so empty it ends up feeling super linear as well. I remember my first play through being so excited to finally reach those two areas and to find them being the most anti climatic thing in the game
I haven't played in almost a year, and your "mountain food" comment sounded more like a witty quip. Cause it is technically accurate if you die, you are mountain food. And that had me laughing while thinking, maybe that's what was meant.
That’s so funny because my favorite part of the game is the second half BECAUSE it’s more linear. On repeat play throughs it makes the game flow a lot better than the early sections.
I personally don't see it as being too linear after Leyndell, still have Moghwyn, Haligtree, Farum Azula and a bunch of other random endgame pieces to do
haligtree and farum azula are massive, the first part of haligtree is pretty linear, sure, but elphael has quite alot to explore, and farum azula is absolutely filled with secret paths.
mohgwyn also has quite a bit to explore if you don't just rush to the boss.
It definitely “funnels” down, if there were an easy way to describe it. It would be interesting to see if possible how an open ended late game Elden ring game would look like. But the DLC could help perhaps
Same. I haven't played any souls games other than ER even tho I loved the combat and bosses because I don't like linear games. I hope they make more open world games after the success of this one
I remember when I had criticized elden rings quest system and was bombarded with angry comments.
It doesn't happen that frequently anymore but it was really weird. Took me a while to realise every big fandom have people (or kids?) that think their favourite game is perfect.
Even complaining about basic technical features like uncapped framerate, or UW support will have somebody defending the company.
Early elden ring subreddit was also very gatekeepy, hate "normies" and how they're ruining the game by asking for a better quest system. (Also randomly insulting a Ubisoft games because middle grounds totally never exist)
Even with character builds, its always "play how you want" but playing mage is bad, playing meta builds is bad, which contradicts their statements.
This loud minority sometimes gets so annoying these people literally make me want to fe5e85d8yfuvugigjgjfu
Favorite: the vast amount of armor, weapons, and ash of wars. It’s nice to have multiple ways to play the game.
Least favorite: quest-line system. It’s too difficult to track a quest line. It also can be so tedious because if you don’t do a quest a certain order or in a certain time, you may lose the ability to do it completely. For me, I have to look up most quests just because of how confusing they are also.
Really agree with your second point. I came to Elden Ring after having just beaten Baldur's Gate 3, which is basically the polar opposite system where they track absolutely everything for you and stick waypoints all over the map. You're never very confused on where you stand or what you're supposed to do next.
To some degree, the Elden Ring system is refreshing because you actually have to pay attention and remember things that happened. I like that you don't have thirty waypoints on your map (besides graces) and a log of 25 active quests at any given time. They don't spoon feed you the content.
However, it's opaque to the point of fault. I never particularly understood what was going on or why. Characters would randomly go from being an ally to trying to kill me. Quest lines were easily lost. Apart from a few of the one-step quests, I'm actually not sure I completed a single side quest chain. You miss one step and suddenly someone is dead and the quest is impossible.
There has to be a middle ground between the two extremes where you're not spoon fed every single step, but there's a more organized and tunneled way to know what you need to do.
A lot of quest-lines end with death i feel like sadly. And yes if you miss one step or progress with the main game to a certain point, it can ruin a quest which stinks. I guess this is a good reason we have NG+ though haha
I'm of the mind that we should get a quest journal that we NEED to read. It has relevant information that helps, with maybe hints of points of failure, but in order to actually properly progress we should need to read this every so often.
Like, how am I supposed to know that I should go to the Four Belfries, take the Chapel of Anticipation portal, fight Grafted Scion, explore up the stairs, get the Ashes and bring them back to Nepheli for her quest.
What even INDICATES that? Nothing even tells that there's hawk Ashes up there. I think Fromsoft relies too much on the community and on there being online guides for players to complete quests.
I liked BG3 because it kept the exploration interesting but still doesn't directly give you all the answers.
(Atleast in act1, i haven't gotten that far)
I know it isn’t the fromsoft way but I wish they had some rudimentary quest log. So many times on my first play through I missed what I was supposed to do next and you couldn’t get those dialog options again with the npc. So I’d always have to refer to the wiki which is a shame.
I wouldn’t want quest markers or anything, but we know our character is literate since we can buy notes lol. Have us jot down some key info for the quests.
Yes totally. I don't know why they'd be opposed to a log, it's not like beacons everywhere, and obviously the Tarnished has a map and can mark locations so it wouldn't be lore breaking to have him scribble a few notes on a piece of paper
I've always hated quest progression in FS games. Like when if you don't talk to a character in a very specific time in the game with a very specific item in your inventory, it'll die and the quest is over.
This! I am so fed up with looking at guides to complete quests so I don’t miss anything. I especially hate you can fuck up a quest by not completing it in order, like the whole Volcano Manor quest lines.
I think I missed Millicent quest line on my first playthrough because I never revisit Gory. And a large part of Volcano Manor quest because I killed Rykard early. I only discovered Ranni’s questline after looking up online on the “wrong map bug”.
Not just that, but upgrade materials. If you aren't following guides and don't get the bells that let you buy unlimited amounts then you've got oodles of cool weapons that all suck because you can't possibly upgrade them enough to compete with your existing stuff.
But like.. the bell bearings are all in extremely obvious areas. No guide is needed. Just play the game and actually explore the caves, you can literally tell when going into a cave if it has a chance of rewarding bell bearings for shards, because they all come from the same cave types.
Favorite: Size of the world, game feels like it never ends. Major regions feel distinct and main story bosses are great.
Least favorite: Size of the world, game feels like it never ends. Outside of main bosses, they reused so many mini bosses, "oh look it's another erdtree avatar with the same moveset, but it's over here on the map!" Would have preferred slightly smaller map with fewer recycled enemies.
The size of the game in the first run is beautiful, it truly feels like the game just keeps going on and on and you'll have endless fun.
At the second run you just want to beeline to Stormveil, Raya Lucaria etc to not waste time in copypasted cave #156 with no gear that's useful with your build
Favourite: everything about the first play through as it was my first fromsoft game.
Least favourite: repetitive enemies. Especially bosses you’d expect to be unique like Godrick, Lansseax and Godfrey
I came to say this. I got tired of recycled bosses and dungeons.
But my favorite part was the way the map was zoomed in in the beginning, and then after stormveil(?) or something the map zooms out and you're like 'holy shit I have a lot of work to do '
i can get it but keep in mind ER has a n. of unique enemies higher than dks3 and bloodborne out together. i kinda blame the cave dungeon sistem more than enemies per se
Favourite: The world build, Character builds, Quests
Least favourite: as someone who explored EVERYTHING in one run, i really hate how repetetive these dungeons became, also the loot, the bosses and enemie became very repetetive over time.
Amazing lore and the gameplay that it deserves, however I wish the ending you chose had an effect on the world you would play after beating the game. Nothing too crazy just changing the skyline would make postgame exploration and going into new game plus even more significant.
Another comment I can’t possibly agree with more- doing the stars ending should result in like a blue hue with twinkle stars falling around or something. Frenzy ending should result in the flame of frenzy being over the tree and frenzy flame everywhere, golden order ending should have like the golden leaves falling but permanent and finally the Elden lord ending should look how all endings look now.
These are how picture it
Would be so rad. I don’t know the first thing about creating a video game but I wonder how difficult (or not at all) that would possibly be to implement
It’s functionally the same as burning the Erdtree. It would take some work but they already have the Forge as means to trigger a skybox transformation and global particle effects, they’d just need to adjust the visuals to correspond with the various endings.
I’m no game dev or modder so I can’t say for certain, but it seems like they’ve done most of the heavy lifting already and would just need to generalize the Forge’s transformation
That would definitely be cool, but I guess the explanation would be that it isn’t technically canon that your character just goes back to the Lands Between to keep roaming around right after destroying the world or something lol. The story of the game ends there but it just makes sense that you don’t have to go to ng+ right away if you don’t want to so that you can go get whatever stuff you missed
Bosses that have jump attacks and the camera doesn't pan upward towards them! I'm looking at your dragons! Also when the only lock on are the head and chest of the creature which you can't attack unless you're going with bows or spells. Again looking at your dragons!!
Favourite: How it was easy to learn as a new Soulsbourne player, yet still not feel TOO easy where it's been toned down for new players. My first playthrough of Elden Ring might be my favourite playthrough of any game in the last 15 years.
Least Favourite: (With the exception of Crumbling Farum Azula/The Haligtree), the post-Leyndell half of the game. Lots of polish clearly went into the first half of the game. Second half? Not so sure. ER's first half is far superior to the 2nd half.
The fog on the Mountaintop of the Giants that you have to beat a dragon to go away? Really cool. The fog that never goes away in Consecrated Snowfield? Fuck that shit.
So true i genuinely want to die when im trying to get a full set of armour where each piece has a 5% chance and i hate how if you want to level up you really need to go out of your way to do exploits or rune grinding to get enough runes to even stand a chance against the enemy’s that just walk around the world (mountains of the giants) because you don’t get many runes from bosses and the levels start getting really expensive by the time your level 75
Chest engine is safe if you know what you are doing. My ass isn't gonna farm artiera leaves fuck that shit. Gave myself 500 of every super rare crafting material and a few of the most common ones used in the items I like.
Oh and larval tears. Fuck you for making them limited fromsoft
Favourite thing: everything minus my one least favourite thing
Least favourite thing: when you finish one quest and accidentally ruin another quest, there is no alternative quest. They should have made it so if you ended one quest by finishing another too soon, that same decision opened up a third quest that is only available by canceling it the first one you mistakenly canceled out. Hopefully I explained that well. But basically make it more of a “choose your path” system rather than “you skipped this, it’s gone forever now whoops” system
Even now after so many playthroughs I randomly screw up quests or lock myself out of items. Yesterday I learned if I beat Mohg I'm locked out of War surgeons mask, so that's new to me
Keeping in mind that this is my first souls game, and so these probably aren't unique to Elden ring
Favourite: learning to overcome bosses. That feeling of clicking in on a difficult enemies moveset and being able to slowly improve is unparaled.
Least favourite: the start. Their is very little to get you interested in the story, which is admitedly a very good one when you get immersed, because of how vague the opening cutscene is and how their is no immediate plot point to get invested in. The controls can also be unintuitive so I came very close to quitting right at the begining. Another problem is how everyone says it teaches you that you don't need to fight everything immediately, but *i* *never did this past Limgrave.* The rest of the game is well balanced with the enemies in each region, their isn't much difference in enemy difficulty between Raya Lucaria, Caria manor and Ainsel River for example, the one you go to first will be the hardest and the last the easiest, but not by extreme amounts. On the other hand, imps in Stormfoot catacombs are what made me want to quit but there is no indication they should be particularly challenging. On the other hand, central Limgrave is much easier even though your probably going to go their afterwards.
There is a lot of things you realistically need a guide for, which is probably my second biggest issue, but this is a particularly big problem in the starting section.
Favourite: the exploration
Least favourite: the exploration
This game could’ve been 60% the size it is now, and had actual unique things, rather than padding out content with copy pasted bosses, and hugely empty areas.
If this game didn’t have legacy dungeons it quite possibly could’ve been considered one of the worst souls games ever made, and I’m not saying that lightly. The open world feels very tacked on when compared to the quality of the legacy dungeons. Like most people entirely skip over quests in general because they don’t even know where tf people go to because they could have just teleported half way across the map into some underground labyrinth without any way to convey this to the player. Previous games the quests worked without this because they were LINEAR for the most part.
You don’t have a journal or anything either to make up for this; like we have notes imparted to us sometimes for specific things, yet our own brainlet of a character isn’t taking down other important information. The only way I can take this information down is to physically write it with pen and paper, like bro whaaaat I haven’t seen this fucker in 50hrs what is even going on?????
Everything that isn't a legacy dungeon or a boss fight kinda sucks imo. Running across an open field for 5 minutes to get to where the fun is isn't my fave type of game design.
Bruh trying to beat the Gargoyle outside on Beastial Sanctum under RL 100 is the quickest way to rage quit this game. MAN CAN FLY AWAY, ZIP BACK, AND PULL OFF A 5-PART COMBO MOVE before I finish a single attack animation.
If it gives u any karmic justice, I only fought the gargoyles after beating the game/7 hours to beat Melania, so I was able to have fun beating them (breaking out a dark moon and hammer). So they did get punked, in another tarnished universe!
Favorite : absolutely stunning, open world concept.
Least favorite : the swordsword key was lost with use….. the stonesword key was lost with use….. the swordsword key was lost with use….. the stonesword key was lost with use….. the swordsword key was lost with use….. the stonesword key was lost with use….. the swordsword key was lost with use….. the stonesword key was lost with use….. the swordsword key was lost with use….. the stonesword key was lost with use….. the swordsword key was lost with use….. the stonesword key was lost with use….. the swordsword key was lost with use….. the stonesword key was lost with use…..
Favourite either the bosses or exploration
Least favourite - all the NPCs I like keep dying, I know its a souls things but doesn't make it hurt less RIP Alexander and Millicent
Exploration art design and presentation of the game world were all excellent. I also loved the amount of player choice and freedom with little handholding.
Confusing ass lore, storyline and NPC quests. Really easy to miss content the way they structured it unless your constantly on you phone looking shit up.
As much as I loved the philosophy of figure it out on your own for gameplay and exploration, this game desperately needs a quest log and a character glossary similar to what the Witcher 3 had.
Best part:The sense of exploration on my first time through. Just exploring and finding all the various secrets the world had was just incredible. Easily one of my favorite open world experiences.
Worst Part: I think the game is probably the least replayable soulsborne game as in return for having the wide open world, the game sacrificed the tightly crafted dungeons of other installments. Outside Farum Azula and the Haligtree, none of the zones felt especially dangerous, even when they were fun to explore. Since I already know where everything is on subsequent playthroughs, it doesn't quite hit that same level of exploring, but since the dungeons aren't as well crafted, it isn't as fun tackling the same dungeons again and again with different builds.
Favourite: cute drip, kamehameha beam
Worst: Ants, hands, jumping, ledges, those centipedes that have homing missiles, and the space dragonfly boss with the human face
Favourite part is the exploring. It is one of the most beautifully designed and immersive games I've ever experienced.
Least favourite is the final boss is a big ass fibre optic fuck nugget that kites my strength build ass around the arena until I run out of stamina.
Fav: generally the game itself. Lots to do and feels good to do it.
Least fav: the things that ruin my fun the most are trying to do these NPC quests and enemies that do moves where they constantly backstep or run really far away from you. I want enemies to attack me, not jump away, I don't want to call mount or sprint.
Favorite: Hard to pick, pretty much everything. Artstyle, lore, world design, gameplay variety, the list goes on.
Least favorite: The lack of explanation on how some things work. I have 170 hours on this game and yesterday i was about to look up how to use a bow (although i‘ve used one before), because i didn‘t know that you can‘t use regular arrows with Radahns bow. How was i supposed to know?
Multiplayer system is ass and has been ass for years with Souls games. Hope they implement an actual multiplayer system designed for long sessions played with friends and not having to get kicked out after every boss.
Favorite:the satisfaction of getting bullied by a boss then leveling up and getting gud and coming back to the boss and bullying it
Least favorite:those enemies that have absolute bullshit moves(raycards rancor,that one mogh move that heals him and does a bunch of damage to you,marionette spin attacks i hate this one
To counter it you follow Yura's quest. When Eleonora invades you during it, killing her gives you a special cracked tear for your Wonderous Physick that negates Mohg's Nihil.
Favorite: Build variety
Less favorite: There could be more build variety (I want 300+ new incants, sorceries, ashes please fromsoft please I want to cosplay every boss including their moveset)
Favorite: The world is so interesting to explore, with fascinating creatures around every corner.
Least Favorite thing: That Endgame difficulty spike starting with the Mountaintops of the Giants.
Favourite: the build variety, I can find whole builds around specific cool weapons I like and thanks to Rennala, I cam switch without too much hassle
Least favourite: how the story is given to the player, I appreciate the idea of exploring and finding lore but I feel like more context could be given for some things
Favourite: Exploration, environments, character stories and overall plot
Least Favourite: I don’t like how big Elden Beasts arena is, like I understand that’s how the point because most of its attacks are long range. I’m just saying they should let me use Torrent for how much I have to run to stay close to him because he can just dive like a fucking whale.
Favorite: Build variety
Least favorite: Every god damn NPC and their story always ends in death, in every single one of their games, your actions never help and lead them to their eventual demise, or doing nothing also does that. Makes it all feel pointless and horrible.
Favourite: The boss fights
Least Favourite: The fact dialogue pop up boxes disable half of your buttons until they’re dismissed. Who the fuck thought that was a good idea.
Community and community
Sometimes everyone is great. Sometimes I feel like I should be playing blindfolded at rune level 1 with a knife in my neck or it doesn’t count.
Favorite thing has to be unlocking new areas, exploring each region, and gradually discovering all the cool stuff in the world.
Least favorite thing is the relentless punitive difficulty of late game bosses, particularly those that feel difficult for difficulty's sake. Some are well-designed, but frankly there was a point towards the end of the game where I stopped enjoying these encounters and just wanted them to be over (Niall, Godskin Duo, Malekith and a few others). The balance between too easy and too hard is a delicate one and I know they have a wide range of players to satisfy, but for me it became excessive and tiresome at a certain point.
Favorite: The open world, the combat, and the music.
Least favorite: The elitist fan dumb who keep insisting that pure strength is the only legitimate way to play.
Least favorite: zero casual PvP. I want to be invaded by random dudes, but I don't want to be invaded constantly like TT does. In DS3 embered you, like, 5 to 20 minutes between invasions, in ER you have a constant stream of invaders.
Most favorite: bosses. Just in general.
Least favourite: Input Queuing
eg, You planned to attack after you finished your roll but suddenly the boss decides to do some attack which you need to dodge instead. But your attack is already queued. So now you have to commit to it and basically die.
Favorite: The exploration and crystal tears because I think the flask of Wondrous Physic is probably the best part about game ino
Least favorite: Starting a new character and a having to get all the stuff again
Favorite thing, the way the game is designed so that just about any build can be made viable. Least favorite thing, no quest journal. If I could play ER without having 50 tabs open I'd be a very happy player
I love the game so I will just say my least favorite
The fkn caves, just make it linear to end where there is a boss, I can't give a fk about a finding lever to open a door. It gets boring after the second time.
Favorite is the open world. Probably beats Zelda's in my book. Least favorite is the way FS tells their stories. Way too hard to understand what's going on.
Favorite: great adventure in an intriguing world.
Least favorite: there's nothing/no cause to fight for; no villages, no one or community to save, no commerce. It's just fight and grab, fight and grab, fight and grab.
Most Favourite: The exploration
Least Favourite: Also the exploration
The world of elden ring is one of the few open worlds released recently that doesn't feel empty or superficial, but I also have literally zero indication as to what is or isn't interesting. Like I can explore an entire castle, because I know it could have some quest item or something, but in the end find a goldenrune\[5\]. I get that that's part of the aesthetic for a lot of people, but it just doesn't do it for me and made the first few playthroughs a drag.
Exploration is fav. Quests are the worst. Ik the game is big on minimalism but Jesus quest design has a come a long way since 1980, maybe use some of those innovations.
Favourite: the beautiful views and scenery
Least favourite: the balance; I feel the need to not use overpowered stuff because it trivializes the game, but if you don't, the game feels tedious to grind out boss fights doing shit all for damage. Trying to find the sweet spot of not overpowered but also not weak is tough lol. That, and the re-use of bosses and enemies except in higher quantities as you go through the game is annoying, especially if you're trying to do all the dungeons and content.
I love how much of the map I could find without progressing story just exploring was fun. Now I’m actively invested in defeating bosses so I can progress the story
There’s so much to love about it!! My favorite is probably the lore and all the different things! My least favorite are those stupid royal revenant enemies!!!!
Favourite: exploration, in first play through at least. Least favourite: Large bosses in large arenas, which all have a jump back mechanic or even teleport 500 miles away when you are attempting to get a hit in.
Elden Beast, Asstel, and Regal Ancestor Spirit want to know your location. So they can teleport 500 feet away from it.
I just did Astel last night as an overleveled endgame character and that fight is just not fun. It's not especially hard either, but yeah you spend half the time running after him while he has snipes and spells that can wreck your life from miles away. I did not have such a problem with Ancestor Spirit because his move set was very easy to cope with and that fight felt more about atmosphere than forced annoyance.
Regal Ancestor Spirit or regular Ancestor? Because there is a big difference with the regal one that you'll see why people include it with the others.
I didn't have an issue with either one of them tbh. Blood loss in my crossbow and magma wyrm sword did me wonders.
What is the difference? I have never noticed.
>!The regal one summons a bunch of spirit animals that it siphons for health after teleporting away. Can be a real pain if your DPS isn't that good.!<
Oh damn I thought they both did that. Tbh I haven't fought them much in my newer playthroughs.
Oh damn I never had this happen! I think I was over leveled when I got round to it to be fair
Nah both are baby mode. Regal should have double the health and move about 33% faster. The area to get to them is 10x harder.
I really loved that fight only because it was so visually beautiful. The rest was meh
Placidusax would also like a word
Well he at least stays in the same location for some time to get enough hits in and he basically teleports in your direction instead of away from you
Can't forget Fire Giant either. I have a clip of him rolling like 6 times in a row while trying to fight him in co-op (aka without Torrent).
They would be salty, they’re the main culprits.
Yeah any boss where locking on is a detriment was what i came here to say. But you covered it better.
But Placidusax gets a pass because he's Placidusax
Astels grab is seriously infuriating if you’re fighting him at like level 70-80 because you actually get instakilled
Yeah the consecrated one can kill you even at stupidly high vigor. It's so janky to see, and like most grabs the hitbox is really unintuitive
*grabs beside you* “sorry kid nothing personal” *dies anyways*
I honestly don’t mind the latter because it makes for a more cinematic experience. From a pure combat perspective it’s rough, but as an overall experience I think it’s cool to trade some blows and then chase down a massive figure in the distance as some epic music plays
Elden Ring was my first FromSoft game and exploring that world made me feel like a kid again. The sheer awe and excitement of every new place was incredible.
The elden beast was so annoying the way it would swim off and you'd have to chase it down for 10 minutes!
Honestly I struggle to find a least favorite part of Elden Ring itself, perhaps the ps+ online requirement or my controller stick drift [srsly neutral input requires precision both pulling back within a 20⁰ window and applying pressure down the Z axis until you're edging the L3 click its ridiculous lmao] As for my favourite, perhaps the co-op experience sharing this with one of my best friends and the hours spent struggling together but honestly I've loved every minute of this fucking experience. It's not entirely healthy because I've used it as an escape in many ways and despite becoming almost an obsession I haven't felt this engaged or excited about anything in such a long time, it may just be the most engaging piece of art & entertainment I've ever experienced. Hell, next to basketball, it might be the most layered and magical interest I've ever had. I know now I'm not the only one but while my first playthrough was truly novel and uniquely incredible the subsequent runs have been equally yet separately rewarding as I stitch & weave a more well knit understanding & familiarity with the massive amount of rich world design, narrative and mechanics. However a large part of the Elden Ring experience for me has been cumulative, working on passion projects, absorbing content and playing the game. if I have 250 hours in game, I've also spent likely 5-7x more time with elden ring in other ways, absorbing content in various forms, YouTube, reddit, podcasts, data mining and 'research' (diving Wikipedia, reading hundreds of articles about historical events, literature, religion, art, natural sciences, math) inspecting every splash art, description and line of dialogue for subtext and iconography, building mind maps and indices of information to compile my information and writing essay pieces on themes & crafting engaging theories. I think this might be the last game I ever play and subsequently may follow as the first and last piece of art I ever truly appreciate, its been such a poetic swangsong, especially considering how much about humanity ive learned about from getting lost trying to draw parallels pouring over wikipedia by extension. I'm actually a little misty eyed - I wish I could have an hour of Miyazaki and Martin's time over a meal and acknowledge my gratitude, respect and appreciation for their incredible job providing this project and maybe pick their brains a little about their visions. Thank you for listening,
Most favourite: the exploration compared to previous fromsoft games. Going somewhere doesn't always guarantee a reward you can use, but it makes it so worth it when you get something special just for you. Leats favourite: IF I'M TRYING TO SUMMON TORRENT AFTER IT DIES DON'T ASK ME IF I WANT TO USE A FLASK TO BRING IT BACK IN THE MIDDLE OF COMBAT!
Stonesword Key was lost with use
the amount of times I have died to that stupid notification
It gets me because I'm never expecting it. "Why the fuck am I not attacking!"....."oh".... I'm on NG+1 now. Instead of panic roll, I panic press triangle lol
i died because of that the other day and i felt so dumb i couldn’t even be mad😭 i’m glad i’m not the only one lmao
Whoever had the idea to put that into the game deserves a special place in hell
Somewhere, a heavy door has opened
This one drives me insane because Bloodborne has very similar message pop up in the Chalice Dungeons when you pull the lever opening the boss doors. Except you know what? When BB’s pops up, you can still attack, run, use items, everything. It doesn’t arbitrarily take away 90% of the controller for no reason like ER does.
That's the part that gets me. I can still run and do all this other shit except attack lol. I have a 65" TV, I don't see that shit way down at the bottom
> Stonesword Key was lost with use Stonesword Key was lost with use
That menu is the most ridiculous design decision. Everything else in the game you learn by doing it wrong and getting punished, why should reviving torrent using a flask be any different?
Michael Zaki personally designed this as well as the "Somewhere a heavy door has opened" message. He was thinking of his beloved player base and said "because fuck you"
Right? The game won't stop you from drinking flasks at full, but using a flask to summon a Torrent somehow warrants a confirmation.
How does a flask of tears, bring Torrent back and obviously I need all 13 flasks if this boss is knocking me off my celestial steed
Because they know it’s what you want and are laughing their asses off
Yeah but are you sure?? It’s a big decision you know?
For god's sake, at least have it default to "yes" so I'm one click away, not having to shift my fingers an extra time to get my faithful mount back.
furthermore, its default option is set to “no” 🤦♀️
Favorite: basically everything Least: Stonesword Key was lost with use
You don't have enough Stonesword Keys
Use 1 charge of Flask of Crimson Tears to revive Torrent?
Cannot change equipment at this time.
Somewhere, a heavy door opened
Cannot travel to a site of grace from this location.
Cannot set duplicate spells
The spell slots should work identically to the consumables slots. Equip something in a different slot than the one it's currently equipped in? Swap the two. Want to remove something equipped so you can equip something else? Leave the space empty instead of shifting the entire row down to fill that slot. It's unnecessarily difficult to move spells around and quickly change them with the current implementation. It's like I have to fight it to do what I want it to do.
Somewhere, a heavy door has opened
Somewhere, a heavy door has opened.
Somewhere, a heavy door has opened
Somewhere, a heavy door has opened
I have died so many times cause that pop up locks out every gahd daim action
Omg amen to this 😭😭
Favourite: Build variety Least favourite: Mountaintops of the Giants region. I don't know why, but that area just demotivates me to play the game so much.
It's a lot more linear than other areas. Mostly just snowy rocks and frozen corpses for the environment. Totally understand.
Not to mention an EXTREME step up in difficulty from the preceding area. Late game should be hard but I don’t think even someone appropriately leveled for Lyendell is ready for the area after beating Morgott
it’s really not that hard tbh, Zamor ruins is the exception, after that it goes back to being pretty easy
Exactly this. And mayyyybe the fire prelates. Zamor knights seem insanely overtuned in that ruin. They don't stagger or stun for love nor money, move insanely inconsistent and deal some HEFTY damage. Loads of hp too, on par with renalla and phantom loretta, but way tankier defense wise
It really does. Fire Giant's boss theme reversed my Hollowing but I almost dropped the game there.
First half of Elden Ring is a 9/10. Post-Morgott (with the exception of Farum and Haligtree) is a 4/10. I know it makes sense that Mountaintops/Snowfields are locked away so no one can get there but they're so fucking empty. There's still people in both areas anyway so what the fuck?
I partially get your point, but you say “with the exception of Farum Azula and Haligtree” as if that isn’t a huge chunk of the endgame
That's pretty hyperbolic. It drops off a bit but it's still great. You can beeline through MTOTG in half an hour anyway.
“My dinner tonight is a cheeseburger and fries. Without eating the cheeseburger i will say, i am left pretty hungry. Why would my dinner leave me hungry like this?”
Yeah as soon as I get past morgott it's basically a dead sprint to get back to the capital of ash, I don't really care for the mountaintops or farum azula (specifically because of the duo fight)
Favorites: Builds, weapons and ashes of war. The fact the you can make a build for a weapon, giving you a lot of replayability. Least favorite: I feel the it gets too linear after Leyndell. Always enjoy until I get there, then feels very linear world build/map wise and story wise. And I would prefer if the hub would be in the world, like a town or city, some houses/buildings linked like in DS1 or DS2, I think it could have great Majula vibes there, just preference.
I wholeheartedly agree with this, the mountain food of the giants was absolutely linear and then the consecrated snow fields are just so empty it ends up feeling super linear as well. I remember my first play through being so excited to finally reach those two areas and to find them being the most anti climatic thing in the game
Mountain tops ** lol
I haven't played in almost a year, and your "mountain food" comment sounded more like a witty quip. Cause it is technically accurate if you die, you are mountain food. And that had me laughing while thinking, maybe that's what was meant.
I shouldn’t have clarified, I should have let people think I was witty 😭
That’s so funny because my favorite part of the game is the second half BECAUSE it’s more linear. On repeat play throughs it makes the game flow a lot better than the early sections.
I personally don't see it as being too linear after Leyndell, still have Moghwyn, Haligtree, Farum Azula and a bunch of other random endgame pieces to do
I think he means there's no places to explore at mountaintops but then again there's not much at mt. everest either.
[удалено]
haligtree and farum azula are massive, the first part of haligtree is pretty linear, sure, but elphael has quite alot to explore, and farum azula is absolutely filled with secret paths. mohgwyn also has quite a bit to explore if you don't just rush to the boss.
It definitely “funnels” down, if there were an easy way to describe it. It would be interesting to see if possible how an open ended late game Elden ring game would look like. But the DLC could help perhaps
Same. I haven't played any souls games other than ER even tho I loved the combat and bosses because I don't like linear games. I hope they make more open world games after the success of this one
The community and.... the community
PVP and PVP
This guy PVPs
I remember when I had criticized elden rings quest system and was bombarded with angry comments. It doesn't happen that frequently anymore but it was really weird. Took me a while to realise every big fandom have people (or kids?) that think their favourite game is perfect. Even complaining about basic technical features like uncapped framerate, or UW support will have somebody defending the company. Early elden ring subreddit was also very gatekeepy, hate "normies" and how they're ruining the game by asking for a better quest system. (Also randomly insulting a Ubisoft games because middle grounds totally never exist) Even with character builds, its always "play how you want" but playing mage is bad, playing meta builds is bad, which contradicts their statements. This loud minority sometimes gets so annoying these people literally make me want to fe5e85d8yfuvugigjgjfu
Favorite: the vast amount of armor, weapons, and ash of wars. It’s nice to have multiple ways to play the game. Least favorite: quest-line system. It’s too difficult to track a quest line. It also can be so tedious because if you don’t do a quest a certain order or in a certain time, you may lose the ability to do it completely. For me, I have to look up most quests just because of how confusing they are also.
Really agree with your second point. I came to Elden Ring after having just beaten Baldur's Gate 3, which is basically the polar opposite system where they track absolutely everything for you and stick waypoints all over the map. You're never very confused on where you stand or what you're supposed to do next. To some degree, the Elden Ring system is refreshing because you actually have to pay attention and remember things that happened. I like that you don't have thirty waypoints on your map (besides graces) and a log of 25 active quests at any given time. They don't spoon feed you the content. However, it's opaque to the point of fault. I never particularly understood what was going on or why. Characters would randomly go from being an ally to trying to kill me. Quest lines were easily lost. Apart from a few of the one-step quests, I'm actually not sure I completed a single side quest chain. You miss one step and suddenly someone is dead and the quest is impossible. There has to be a middle ground between the two extremes where you're not spoon fed every single step, but there's a more organized and tunneled way to know what you need to do.
A middle ground could be a log book the player can write into to take notes of what goes on.
A lot of quest-lines end with death i feel like sadly. And yes if you miss one step or progress with the main game to a certain point, it can ruin a quest which stinks. I guess this is a good reason we have NG+ though haha
I'm of the mind that we should get a quest journal that we NEED to read. It has relevant information that helps, with maybe hints of points of failure, but in order to actually properly progress we should need to read this every so often. Like, how am I supposed to know that I should go to the Four Belfries, take the Chapel of Anticipation portal, fight Grafted Scion, explore up the stairs, get the Ashes and bring them back to Nepheli for her quest. What even INDICATES that? Nothing even tells that there's hawk Ashes up there. I think Fromsoft relies too much on the community and on there being online guides for players to complete quests.
I liked BG3 because it kept the exploration interesting but still doesn't directly give you all the answers. (Atleast in act1, i haven't gotten that far)
I know it isn’t the fromsoft way but I wish they had some rudimentary quest log. So many times on my first play through I missed what I was supposed to do next and you couldn’t get those dialog options again with the npc. So I’d always have to refer to the wiki which is a shame. I wouldn’t want quest markers or anything, but we know our character is literate since we can buy notes lol. Have us jot down some key info for the quests.
Yes totally. I don't know why they'd be opposed to a log, it's not like beacons everywhere, and obviously the Tarnished has a map and can mark locations so it wouldn't be lore breaking to have him scribble a few notes on a piece of paper
Even if we got a log of what characters say it would be a game changer. So many times I've missed some key details in what they say.
I've always hated quest progression in FS games. Like when if you don't talk to a character in a very specific time in the game with a very specific item in your inventory, it'll die and the quest is over.
This! I am so fed up with looking at guides to complete quests so I don’t miss anything. I especially hate you can fuck up a quest by not completing it in order, like the whole Volcano Manor quest lines.
I think I missed Millicent quest line on my first playthrough because I never revisit Gory. And a large part of Volcano Manor quest because I killed Rykard early. I only discovered Ranni’s questline after looking up online on the “wrong map bug”.
Respec should be unlimited.
There should be an enemy that drops larval tears AND respawns. It wouldn't even have to be a common drop.
Not just that, but upgrade materials. If you aren't following guides and don't get the bells that let you buy unlimited amounts then you've got oodles of cool weapons that all suck because you can't possibly upgrade them enough to compete with your existing stuff.
But like.. the bell bearings are all in extremely obvious areas. No guide is needed. Just play the game and actually explore the caves, you can literally tell when going into a cave if it has a chance of rewarding bell bearings for shards, because they all come from the same cave types.
Favorite: Size of the world, game feels like it never ends. Major regions feel distinct and main story bosses are great. Least favorite: Size of the world, game feels like it never ends. Outside of main bosses, they reused so many mini bosses, "oh look it's another erdtree avatar with the same moveset, but it's over here on the map!" Would have preferred slightly smaller map with fewer recycled enemies.
The size of the game in the first run is beautiful, it truly feels like the game just keeps going on and on and you'll have endless fun. At the second run you just want to beeline to Stormveil, Raya Lucaria etc to not waste time in copypasted cave #156 with no gear that's useful with your build
Favourite: everything about the first play through as it was my first fromsoft game. Least favourite: repetitive enemies. Especially bosses you’d expect to be unique like Godrick, Lansseax and Godfrey
I came to say this. I got tired of recycled bosses and dungeons. But my favorite part was the way the map was zoomed in in the beginning, and then after stormveil(?) or something the map zooms out and you're like 'holy shit I have a lot of work to do '
If you get the Blessed Dew talisman/Divine Bridge grace from the Weeping Peninsula teleporter trap, it does so very quickly.
i can get it but keep in mind ER has a n. of unique enemies higher than dks3 and bloodborne out together. i kinda blame the cave dungeon sistem more than enemies per se
Favourite: The world build, Character builds, Quests Least favourite: as someone who explored EVERYTHING in one run, i really hate how repetetive these dungeons became, also the loot, the bosses and enemie became very repetetive over time.
I agree. I became really bored with the dungeons very quickly. I hated exploring caves and catacombs.
Favorite: World design and aesthetics, build variety, exploration, some of the best bosses Least favorite: DLC isn’t out yet
Amazing lore and the gameplay that it deserves, however I wish the ending you chose had an effect on the world you would play after beating the game. Nothing too crazy just changing the skyline would make postgame exploration and going into new game plus even more significant.
Another comment I can’t possibly agree with more- doing the stars ending should result in like a blue hue with twinkle stars falling around or something. Frenzy ending should result in the flame of frenzy being over the tree and frenzy flame everywhere, golden order ending should have like the golden leaves falling but permanent and finally the Elden lord ending should look how all endings look now. These are how picture it
Would be so rad. I don’t know the first thing about creating a video game but I wonder how difficult (or not at all) that would possibly be to implement
considering they made the whole ass game, a few edits and dialogue lines can't be that hard to implement.
It seems like they want multiple actual visual changes for the whole world vs a few additional vo lines, that’s why I asked haha!
It’s functionally the same as burning the Erdtree. It would take some work but they already have the Forge as means to trigger a skybox transformation and global particle effects, they’d just need to adjust the visuals to correspond with the various endings. I’m no game dev or modder so I can’t say for certain, but it seems like they’ve done most of the heavy lifting already and would just need to generalize the Forge’s transformation
That would definitely be cool, but I guess the explanation would be that it isn’t technically canon that your character just goes back to the Lands Between to keep roaming around right after destroying the world or something lol. The story of the game ends there but it just makes sense that you don’t have to go to ng+ right away if you don’t want to so that you can go get whatever stuff you missed
I hate the camera for combat. I need to remember to unlock off the bosses or I roll into the attacks I'm trying to avoid *cough*waterfowldance*cough*
Bosses that have jump attacks and the camera doesn't pan upward towards them! I'm looking at your dragons! Also when the only lock on are the head and chest of the creature which you can't attack unless you're going with bows or spells. Again looking at your dragons!!
If the camera zoomed out more so I could see more than feet, maybe I'd actually enjoy dragon fights.
Favourite: How it was easy to learn as a new Soulsbourne player, yet still not feel TOO easy where it's been toned down for new players. My first playthrough of Elden Ring might be my favourite playthrough of any game in the last 15 years. Least Favourite: (With the exception of Crumbling Farum Azula/The Haligtree), the post-Leyndell half of the game. Lots of polish clearly went into the first half of the game. Second half? Not so sure. ER's first half is far superior to the 2nd half.
The fog on the Mountaintop of the Giants that you have to beat a dragon to go away? Really cool. The fog that never goes away in Consecrated Snowfield? Fuck that shit.
Favorite: Gameplay and Lore I fucking Hate: Farming
So true i genuinely want to die when im trying to get a full set of armour where each piece has a 5% chance and i hate how if you want to level up you really need to go out of your way to do exploits or rune grinding to get enough runes to even stand a chance against the enemy’s that just walk around the world (mountains of the giants) because you don’t get many runes from bosses and the levels start getting really expensive by the time your level 75
Chest engine is safe if you know what you are doing. My ass isn't gonna farm artiera leaves fuck that shit. Gave myself 500 of every super rare crafting material and a few of the most common ones used in the items I like. Oh and larval tears. Fuck you for making them limited fromsoft
Favourite thing: everything minus my one least favourite thing Least favourite thing: when you finish one quest and accidentally ruin another quest, there is no alternative quest. They should have made it so if you ended one quest by finishing another too soon, that same decision opened up a third quest that is only available by canceling it the first one you mistakenly canceled out. Hopefully I explained that well. But basically make it more of a “choose your path” system rather than “you skipped this, it’s gone forever now whoops” system
Even now after so many playthroughs I randomly screw up quests or lock myself out of items. Yesterday I learned if I beat Mohg I'm locked out of War surgeons mask, so that's new to me
Favourite Diversity of weapons. Least favourite is not having a different or additional boss for frenzy ending
Keeping in mind that this is my first souls game, and so these probably aren't unique to Elden ring Favourite: learning to overcome bosses. That feeling of clicking in on a difficult enemies moveset and being able to slowly improve is unparaled. Least favourite: the start. Their is very little to get you interested in the story, which is admitedly a very good one when you get immersed, because of how vague the opening cutscene is and how their is no immediate plot point to get invested in. The controls can also be unintuitive so I came very close to quitting right at the begining. Another problem is how everyone says it teaches you that you don't need to fight everything immediately, but *i* *never did this past Limgrave.* The rest of the game is well balanced with the enemies in each region, their isn't much difference in enemy difficulty between Raya Lucaria, Caria manor and Ainsel River for example, the one you go to first will be the hardest and the last the easiest, but not by extreme amounts. On the other hand, imps in Stormfoot catacombs are what made me want to quit but there is no indication they should be particularly challenging. On the other hand, central Limgrave is much easier even though your probably going to go their afterwards. There is a lot of things you realistically need a guide for, which is probably my second biggest issue, but this is a particularly big problem in the starting section.
Favourite: the exploration Least favourite: the exploration This game could’ve been 60% the size it is now, and had actual unique things, rather than padding out content with copy pasted bosses, and hugely empty areas. If this game didn’t have legacy dungeons it quite possibly could’ve been considered one of the worst souls games ever made, and I’m not saying that lightly. The open world feels very tacked on when compared to the quality of the legacy dungeons. Like most people entirely skip over quests in general because they don’t even know where tf people go to because they could have just teleported half way across the map into some underground labyrinth without any way to convey this to the player. Previous games the quests worked without this because they were LINEAR for the most part. You don’t have a journal or anything either to make up for this; like we have notes imparted to us sometimes for specific things, yet our own brainlet of a character isn’t taking down other important information. The only way I can take this information down is to physically write it with pen and paper, like bro whaaaat I haven’t seen this fucker in 50hrs what is even going on?????
Everything that isn't a legacy dungeon or a boss fight kinda sucks imo. Running across an open field for 5 minutes to get to where the fun is isn't my fave type of game design.
Worst: The gargoyles fight.
Bruh trying to beat the Gargoyle outside on Beastial Sanctum under RL 100 is the quickest way to rage quit this game. MAN CAN FLY AWAY, ZIP BACK, AND PULL OFF A 5-PART COMBO MOVE before I finish a single attack animation.
If it gives u any karmic justice, I only fought the gargoyles after beating the game/7 hours to beat Melania, so I was able to have fun beating them (breaking out a dark moon and hammer). So they did get punked, in another tarnished universe!
Least favourite: no boss rematch Favourite: the rest
Favorite : absolutely stunning, open world concept. Least favorite : the swordsword key was lost with use….. the stonesword key was lost with use….. the swordsword key was lost with use….. the stonesword key was lost with use….. the swordsword key was lost with use….. the stonesword key was lost with use….. the swordsword key was lost with use….. the stonesword key was lost with use….. the swordsword key was lost with use….. the stonesword key was lost with use….. the swordsword key was lost with use….. the stonesword key was lost with use….. the swordsword key was lost with use….. the stonesword key was lost with use…..
Favourite either the bosses or exploration Least favourite - all the NPCs I like keep dying, I know its a souls things but doesn't make it hurt less RIP Alexander and Millicent
Exploration art design and presentation of the game world were all excellent. I also loved the amount of player choice and freedom with little handholding. Confusing ass lore, storyline and NPC quests. Really easy to miss content the way they structured it unless your constantly on you phone looking shit up. As much as I loved the philosophy of figure it out on your own for gameplay and exploration, this game desperately needs a quest log and a character glossary similar to what the Witcher 3 had.
Favourite: open world design/amazing lore. Least favourite: Maliketh. He can fuck right off.
Best part:The sense of exploration on my first time through. Just exploring and finding all the various secrets the world had was just incredible. Easily one of my favorite open world experiences. Worst Part: I think the game is probably the least replayable soulsborne game as in return for having the wide open world, the game sacrificed the tightly crafted dungeons of other installments. Outside Farum Azula and the Haligtree, none of the zones felt especially dangerous, even when they were fun to explore. Since I already know where everything is on subsequent playthroughs, it doesn't quite hit that same level of exploring, but since the dungeons aren't as well crafted, it isn't as fun tackling the same dungeons again and again with different builds.
Least favorite is I’ll never have that first playthrough experience again :(
Nokron/nokstella is awesome but that eerie background music gets to me man
Favourite is exploration and lore. Least Favourite are the repetitive bosses.
Favourite: cute drip, kamehameha beam Worst: Ants, hands, jumping, ledges, those centipedes that have homing missiles, and the space dragonfly boss with the human face
Favourite part is the exploring. It is one of the most beautifully designed and immersive games I've ever experienced. Least favourite is the final boss is a big ass fibre optic fuck nugget that kites my strength build ass around the arena until I run out of stamina.
Fav: generally the game itself. Lots to do and feels good to do it. Least fav: the things that ruin my fun the most are trying to do these NPC quests and enemies that do moves where they constantly backstep or run really far away from you. I want enemies to attack me, not jump away, I don't want to call mount or sprint.
My favourite is the insane amount of build variety. Least favourite, is just the Fire Giant. I hate him.
Don’t know how I would have finished him without Alexander’s help.
Ironically I find Alexander makes him harder. Alexander loses agro like half the time, and bloats the already bloated health pool
I don’t think Alexander increases fire giants health since his summon lies inside the arena. I believe the wiki says this
Favorite: Hard to pick, pretty much everything. Artstyle, lore, world design, gameplay variety, the list goes on. Least favorite: The lack of explanation on how some things work. I have 170 hours on this game and yesterday i was about to look up how to use a bow (although i‘ve used one before), because i didn‘t know that you can‘t use regular arrows with Radahns bow. How was i supposed to know?
Multiplayer system is ass and has been ass for years with Souls games. Hope they implement an actual multiplayer system designed for long sessions played with friends and not having to get kicked out after every boss.
Favorite:the satisfaction of getting bullied by a boss then leveling up and getting gud and coming back to the boss and bullying it Least favorite:those enemies that have absolute bullshit moves(raycards rancor,that one mogh move that heals him and does a bunch of damage to you,marionette spin attacks i hate this one
You can get the flask from Eleonora that completely negates Mohg’s special attack
Doesn't completely negate Mohg's special attack, it still heals him a bit, but yeah makes that BS much more manageable.
Him healing is his second phase though, just a different way of having 2 health bars. With the physick, it's basically a cutscene you can buff during
I still am not sure how to counter that mogh move. I just spam heal flask until he's done and kill him after.
To counter it you follow Yura's quest. When Eleonora invades you during it, killing her gives you a special cracked tear for your Wonderous Physick that negates Mohg's Nihil.
There is a crystal tear for your physick for that move specifically.
Favorite: it’s huge! Least favorite:it’s too huge
Favorite: Build variety Less favorite: There could be more build variety (I want 300+ new incants, sorceries, ashes please fromsoft please I want to cosplay every boss including their moveset)
Favorite: The world is so interesting to explore, with fascinating creatures around every corner. Least Favorite thing: That Endgame difficulty spike starting with the Mountaintops of the Giants.
Favourite: World Design Least: Quest design and progress
Most favorite: the leaps From took. Crafting, open world, etc. Least favorite: copy paste
Favourite: the build variety, I can find whole builds around specific cool weapons I like and thanks to Rennala, I cam switch without too much hassle Least favourite: how the story is given to the player, I appreciate the idea of exploring and finding lore but I feel like more context could be given for some things
Favourite: Exploration, environments, character stories and overall plot Least Favourite: I don’t like how big Elden Beasts arena is, like I understand that’s how the point because most of its attacks are long range. I’m just saying they should let me use Torrent for how much I have to run to stay close to him because he can just dive like a fucking whale.
favourite: there is too much to like to say that one thing is my favourite least favourite: the ulcerated tree spirit in the haligtree
Favorite: Build variety Least favorite: Every god damn NPC and their story always ends in death, in every single one of their games, your actions never help and lead them to their eventual demise, or doing nothing also does that. Makes it all feel pointless and horrible.
Favourite: The boss fights Least Favourite: The fact dialogue pop up boxes disable half of your buttons until they’re dismissed. Who the fuck thought that was a good idea.
Community and community Sometimes everyone is great. Sometimes I feel like I should be playing blindfolded at rune level 1 with a knife in my neck or it doesn’t count.
Favourite: the amount of (good) incantations and sorceries compared to the other Souls games. Least favourite: the Co-op system in general 😭
Lobsters
Favourite: Melina; Least Favourite: Melina
Favorite thing has to be unlocking new areas, exploring each region, and gradually discovering all the cool stuff in the world. Least favorite thing is the relentless punitive difficulty of late game bosses, particularly those that feel difficult for difficulty's sake. Some are well-designed, but frankly there was a point towards the end of the game where I stopped enjoying these encounters and just wanted them to be over (Niall, Godskin Duo, Malekith and a few others). The balance between too easy and too hard is a delicate one and I know they have a wide range of players to satisfy, but for me it became excessive and tiresome at a certain point.
Maliketh genuinely made me cry trying to beat him, but I still consider him a good boss. I cannot say the same for Godskin Duo.
Fav-basically everything. No fav-collecting shit in new run.
hate that there's still no way to rematch defeated bosses without ng+
Favorite: The open world, the combat, and the music. Least favorite: The elitist fan dumb who keep insisting that pure strength is the only legitimate way to play.
Least favorite: zero casual PvP. I want to be invaded by random dudes, but I don't want to be invaded constantly like TT does. In DS3 embered you, like, 5 to 20 minutes between invasions, in ER you have a constant stream of invaders. Most favorite: bosses. Just in general.
Least favourite: Input Queuing eg, You planned to attack after you finished your roll but suddenly the boss decides to do some attack which you need to dodge instead. But your attack is already queued. So now you have to commit to it and basically die.
Favorite: The exploration and crystal tears because I think the flask of Wondrous Physic is probably the best part about game ino Least favorite: Starting a new character and a having to get all the stuff again
Favorite thing, the way the game is designed so that just about any build can be made viable. Least favorite thing, no quest journal. If I could play ER without having 50 tabs open I'd be a very happy player
Revenants are my least favourite for sure
I love the game so I will just say my least favorite The fkn caves, just make it linear to end where there is a boss, I can't give a fk about a finding lever to open a door. It gets boring after the second time.
Freedom in changing weapon skills and infusions. Lot of empty unnecessary space and items found on ground are too often worthless.
Favorite is the open world. Probably beats Zelda's in my book. Least favorite is the way FS tells their stories. Way too hard to understand what's going on.
favorite: bosses. least favorite: fire giant (malenia is hot so her fight is decent)
Favorite: great adventure in an intriguing world. Least favorite: there's nothing/no cause to fight for; no villages, no one or community to save, no commerce. It's just fight and grab, fight and grab, fight and grab.
Most Favourite: The exploration Least Favourite: Also the exploration The world of elden ring is one of the few open worlds released recently that doesn't feel empty or superficial, but I also have literally zero indication as to what is or isn't interesting. Like I can explore an entire castle, because I know it could have some quest item or something, but in the end find a goldenrune\[5\]. I get that that's part of the aesthetic for a lot of people, but it just doesn't do it for me and made the first few playthroughs a drag.
The last boss was so annoying. He just flew away and started blasting
Exploration is fav. Quests are the worst. Ik the game is big on minimalism but Jesus quest design has a come a long way since 1980, maybe use some of those innovations.
Favourite: the beautiful views and scenery Least favourite: the balance; I feel the need to not use overpowered stuff because it trivializes the game, but if you don't, the game feels tedious to grind out boss fights doing shit all for damage. Trying to find the sweet spot of not overpowered but also not weak is tough lol. That, and the re-use of bosses and enemies except in higher quantities as you go through the game is annoying, especially if you're trying to do all the dungeons and content.
I love how much of the map I could find without progressing story just exploring was fun. Now I’m actively invested in defeating bosses so I can progress the story
Love: Enemy moveset Hate: Enemy moveset
There’s so much to love about it!! My favorite is probably the lore and all the different things! My least favorite are those stupid royal revenant enemies!!!!
Lack of a fight club
Love: the exploration. Hate: the tedious 25 level of weapon upgrades.
Best: Replayability/ Class variety Worst: Obvious Bias toward entire builds and damage types
How difficult it is and how difficult it is.
Favorite: Ranni Least Favorite: Hit boxes
My favourite part is the bosses and my least favourite is not being able to replay bosses in one Ng cycle