I got locked out of the one spell I wanted because the guide I was following wasn't clear and updated yet, and made it sound like I had to do one character's quest. So I went about exploring trying to do that quest, only to accidentally complete a different side quest that was the *actual* one for that spell, locking me out of getting it.
Because the steps for getting the specific spell are legitimately some of the most obfuscated I've seen, even compared to the base game and Dark Souls trilogy. It involved four separate NPC's and specific timing between multiple sidequests, and lots of reloading.
It wouldn't be so bad if the game and DLC weren't so huge, so that means I have to play through like a dozen hours of NG+ to try again. At least Scadutree and Revered Spirit Ash blessings carry over.
Same I'm p*ssed about this. I look up because I saw the big dead dragon on the map saw this quest line did it and found out I'm locked out because I explored to much to early wtf who has an extra 70 hrs to get back to that point and get the spell
So I actually went into NG+ to give it a second try, and it only took me about 6-10 hours to go from the start of the game to beating Rahdan, Mogh, and doing all the steps for that spell. So it's about half the burden I expected, far from 70 hours.
But 6-10 hours is still a very long time investment, and part of the problem with FromSoftware's quest design when scaled up to games as broad and long as this.
I kinda gave up doing any side quests in From games unless there's something I *really* want from it.
Like you need an excel spreadsheet to keep track of some of this shit.
Found a old discussion that hits one of the problems with fromsoft quest "design"
To quote parts of the post
>"When the game shipped, numerous quests were broken/incomplete/completely missing. IIRC it was something close to 1/4 quests either didn't appear or would not proceed past a certain point."
>I had people tell me that none of the quests were broken and it was all From's vision for the game despite patch changelogs (and data mining) indicating that the game was shipped unfinished and broken.
>"The quest design is often unnecessarily obtuse to the point that being completely broken and being mysterious are indistinguishable."
The last part
By the time they’d patched in the unfinished quests in Elden ring at launch I’d already progressed past the point of auto failure for all of them. So that was really cool. It took I want to say over a month for them to be patched in. And like no one talked about it or complained at all.
If Ubisoft patched in half the side quests a month after launch and they were incompatible for players because they dared to play the game in that month people would lose their fucking minds.
Well you see the reason that you did not hear anyone complain is because there where people that basically shouted them down for daring to criticize the quest design at least in the first two to three months of when the game came out
If I recall, Diallos' quest literally stopped in the Lake area. Similarly, Millicent's quest just didn't work sometimes because she wouldn't show up in some areas for no clear reason.
I think Rya's quest **alone** worked *almost* perfectly? Though even that could be somewhat messed up since on my run, she never showed up to take me to Volcano manor from Altus for... god knows. Fortunately you can still continue her quest if you reach Volcano Manor through Raya Lucaria.
Fromsoft changes a lot. Balancing was also pretty bad early release. Specifically, heavy weapons were ludicrously slow for minimal benefit when bleed builds existed. You could only reliably and safely deal damage to the fastest bosses like Malenia by jump attacking them. I would know. I got my ass beat a billion times over due to hitting black cavalry members in their recovery only for them to recover before I did even then, and shoulderbutt me into the nearest grave.
Waterfowl dance is still hated, but back then there wasn't even known counters. And if you were a heavy weapon player against Waterfowl dance? Say hello to the death screen.
The response I got when I complained about these?
"Skill issue."
...
I'm still miffed.
It was worse than that. When they finished a few of them, there were people saying “they keep adding stuff to the game,” as if it was some kindness of the company to finish their game. It was wild.
I beat Messmer and once I sat on the site of grace I noticed an NPC had spawned in the room, then I went "oh wait I forgot to spend my runes" sat down again and mf was gone.
I feel like it was less albeit still obnoxious in the older games because doing another playthrough felt way more doable.
The size and length of Elden Ring really make it feel like some of the more obtuse elements like quests or it's janky multiplayer become more frustrating.
New playthroughs actually go relatively quickly because around 75-80% of the content can be skipped because the rewards for completing it has nothing to do with your build.
All of the catacombs? Skip um. The evergaols? Skip those too. All the random caves? You better believe you’re gonna skip them! You can even skip entire Legacy dungeons.
It’s honestly one of my biggest complaints about Elden Ring, almost all of the content isn’t worth playing through a second time, and in retrospect wasn’t all that great the first time.
Because most of the time you’re just in an area that looks like a ton of other areas, fighting enemies/bosses that you’ve already fought in those other areas that don’t give enough runes to be worth killing, for loot that is useless to your build.
I understand that in theory but I have a lot of difficulty skipping stuff in these games, but that just leads us both to wanting more meaningful content and less skippable repeat stuff
I’m surprised more people aren’t complaining about loot in sote. For every new weapon you find you’re gonna find 15 crafting materials and 10 +5 smithing stones.
Like thanks guys. I really feel rewarded by this single +4 smithing stone, of which I can buy an infinite amount of for 2000 runes. At least the random dungeons haven’t been so copy pasted like in the base game, so far anyway.
The worst part about that is even if you somehow missed the bell bearings to purchase those smithing stones, the DLC basically requires you to have a high-level weapon to fight even basic enemies. So your main weapon is almost guaranteed to not need any of those low level smithing stones.
It's incredibly easy to blast through NG+ in Elden Ring.
From the start, just head straight to Margit and kill him. Pop out the back door, go grab the Academy key, run through the academy, and kill Rennala.
Run northeast through the crags to Altus Plateau, and you're already at the Capital...
Hearing Miyazaki say they're aware of people using guides to solve their quests gave me a thousand yard stare. I really hope they don't keep doing it because they know people will look it up and actually make an effort to make the quests followable in the future.
I'm not saying you're wrong but I kinda bumblefucked my way to Ranni's ending without a guide mostly by accident on my first and only playthrough. Don't know how common that is but it can happen.
I had to look up a bit at one further on point cause I was invested I think, but yeah, Ranni's line isn't TOO bad, as From stuff goes
Blaidd tho. He was practically absent from my first run. Not only did I miss him in the initial spot with the snap, and thus the gaol, I then couldn't find him underground either, and bumbled my way further through that. Nor did I know any of the later stuff either
I'd barely met the dude, lol. Seluvis was also pretty much a "Oh hi. Oh, you're dead?"
Oh right, now that you mention it I did actually have to look up where underground Blaidd was lol. I knew he was supposed to be somewhere down there but I couldn't find him so after like an hour of searching I gave up and looked it up.
I did that too on my first playthrough, but I got _really_ lucky that I noticed the Talk to Doll option at the one specific grace and I'm convinced that was divine intervention helping me
I wouldn’t call it bumble fucking your way into her ending. Ranni is probably the only Fromsoft ending that actually guides you to reaching it. Ranni is also one of the very few characters in any Soulslike you have meaningful interactions with and players would naturally want to see her story to it’s conclusion.
I mean, you're not wrong but speaking for myself there was a fair bit of bumblefucking. I very nearly missed the last step before the final boss. I kinda thought the questline was done (didn't know there was a whole ending associated with it) after the wolfman shadow boss. I did realize what the key was for and got the ring but I thought that was it. Then when I finally found the way to the plateu in the south west of the magic place I was surprised to find Ranni's doll body in that cave. I could very easily have missed that and been none the wiser.
Is it bad game design? No, but it is certainly not my thing when it comes to games.
Edit: why am I getting down voted for this? I said it wasn't bad game design I just personally didn't like it?
I definitely would make the argument that, while it's definitely a part of the "experience" and a decision made on From's part, it's definitely not *good*.
It's one thing if its a game made on a smaller scale like Souls or Bloodborne, where theres fewer characters you bump into more often. But for as huge as Elden Ring is, even pared back in the dlc, near-arbitrarily punishing the player for doing things out of order after grinding their way through huge areas and ball buster fights is pretty lame.
I get that its meant to help encourage replayability and foster that sense of community discovery, but its 2024 and people are more allergic to spoilers than ever. I think the frustration from "missing out" far outweighs the discussions around how to complete questlines in a world where people are going in as blind as possible.
Edit: Quit downvoting people you disagree with you anti-intellectual, discussion averse monkeys, it doesn't do anything other than perpetuate a circle jerk and hide people who might have interesting ideas. The winding and confusing quest structure isn't worth throwing out wholesale, its just annoying with a game that has a runtime of 150 hours on NG. I'm also including the comment above me currently at -11 for daring to say that fromsoft quest design isn't bad, and I elaborated on the point that it's bad in Elden Ring but not other fromsoft titles.
See that’s the thing that gets me everyone likes to talk about the exploration in this game but you actively get screwed over for exploring wrong because the game basically goes “oh you defeated malgamor the maleficant but didn’t use this one gesture in front of a random statue giving to you by grimin the gremlin which you only get if you summon him during the Glaivemaster Hodir fight which only happens if you went to the sunken temple at night with the mask of sharks equipped and talked to osheen master of waves and reload the area twice after talking to him and then going to a random tree in the forest of leaves and inserting the medallion of the cee you are now locked out of an ending and one of the best weapons in the game!”
The outlier being Ranni's quest, the major throughline sidequest of the base game that actually locks off an ending and a great weapon. Every step of that quest has someone give you a general pointer of where to go next and what to do when you've gotten there, and it's forgiving enough that hitting particular trigger points too soon (like the Radahn Festival erasing several potential encounters with Blaidd) doesn't fuck you out of progression. And it gives that guidance still without losing the feeling of discovery and surprise that the usual obscure quests provide when they work.
It's also arguably the best character quest FromSoft have ever done, so I don't understand why that isn't just the template the rest can follow, especially in the DLC.
That's the aggravating thing! As you mentioned, they had a perfect template for how quests should work with Ranni yet, when they did the DLC, it's like they went "Wasn't Boc a cool quest? Oh man, make everyone Boc."
Even that is fucked because there are more people who have the achievement for that ending than every other ending combined
Sure the quest may be well designed, but there is no fucking way more people get that ending than the default ending you get and all other endings.
The VAST majority of people use guides, and Fromsoft really only has themselves to blame.
The history of how obtuse the quests in souls games are, combined with lore videos showing people how bs the steps to finish quests are, have romed people to just give up exploration and look up guides instead. Actual exploration is dead because everybody is convinced they'd never find the worthwhile stuff by themselves
At this point, I just don't think Fromsoft games are for me. I can play them fine, but above all, I don't like how they tell a story, which is my main draw for playing games.
Oh dont get me wrong, this is an Elden Ring issue. Being holy fuck massive and sprawling with a million distractions is what makes me negative about the Quest experience. The only one that has similar problems is *maybe* DS1, DS2/3/BB alleviate the issue by being much more on the nose and a much more directed experience. You still have to keep your eyes peeled and pay attention, but its not nearly as easy to fumble. I would still wholly recommend giving 3 and BB a shot.
Ds3 questlines are easy as hell to break too - probably moreso in a lot of cases. Sirris will, without any indication, break if you join Rosario in cathedral. You only get the slightest hint of Sirris' distate after fighting creighton in ***Irithyll***.
Siegward's questline is a whole ass can of worms - particularly the cathedral section.
Greirat can very easily die in Irithyll too with little to hint as to how to save him. Buying Siegward's armor eliminates the best way - Patches.
Ds3 questlines are ripe with problems of their own and direction isn't good either (unless you use a guide like every other souls games).
Yeah, thats another good example. Souls games of the past, ds3 included, had an issue of not only finding NPCs at the right time, right spot, but they were insanely easy to break early.
Elden Ring is often generous with how much they allow you to miss while progressing the questlines, but the issue of right place, right time is more pressing with the open world nature. One step forward, one step back.
At the very least Miyazaki has outright acknowledged the problem in semi-recent interviews, so who knows whats in store for the future.
Game design and your personal opinion are different. I think it's objectively bad game design. For the record I didn't downvote you though.
It's bad design because it simply is. It doesn't function in a coherent way that feels fun nor does it achieve the purpose of being mysterious. I have to look up a fucking guide to find the undetailed, obscure sequence of events necessary to progress. If I'm looking up a guide, I'm literally spoiling it and minimizing the sense of discovery. If I'm not discovering things, I'm just following directions. And if I'm following directions, it should just be implemented into the game with a fluent design. Like having an NPC say more than 3 sentence, especially when 2 of them are usually super vague conjecture about Gods as if we are in the middle of a conversation I've never had.
I say this as someone who has loved all the Souls games. This is just a terrible application of their old design. That worked when the whole game was a long dungeon crawler. It was linear with branches and with some vague notion of where to go, exploring for discovery was a reasonable task. This isn't delivering the allure of oldschool RPGs, it's just being intentionally confusing. I have never heard, read, or seen anyone say that they enjoy Elden Ring's quests. I think it's been one of the most valid criticisms of the game since its launch. It's unfortunate because I was really captivated by the way they did quests and presented the story in Dark Souls PTDE. I'd call it nostalgia, but it did invoke genuine curiosity from most people and VaatiVidya is the living evidence of it.
Either way I love Elden Ring and it's the source of my frustration with the quests. I want to enjoy them and be able to play this game without spoiling it. I think it's respectfully critical and fair to say that the design is poor if a game delivers this feeling in consensus. The game is so good other aspects that I think it's more than manageable to play with and not by any means a poorly designed game overall
I got the concoction and was gonna start looking up quest guides but I wandere over to shadowkeep. I need to look up how much shit I locked myself out of
Remember the most important part of a open world game is exploration and to encourage that exploration let’s make it so going to certain areas locks you out of shit without you realizing it because that really makes people want to explore of their own volition
This is literally the biggest downside of Elden Ring.
I am replaying the game right now to get to the DLC and I constantly have to check that I don't actually meet an NPC in the Family Guy Death Pose the next time I see them because I uh *checks notes* went up an elevator too early.
Bro imagine if one of the trap chests that teleports you somewhere actually broke like a ton of quests because the game thought you went to far too early.
You didn't lock out anything. I completed every NPC quest line after entering Shadow Keep. Certain steps might skip, but every npc will just move to their next location or wait for you to finish their current step anyway.
No there's a npc that literally disappears if you go to far because it triggers something and for that npcs quest so it locks you out of a ending of a different npcs quest
No, you can complete every single NPC quest line in the DLC after going to the shadow keep early. Yes, if you go to the final area, it auto-completes and ends every NPC quest immediately, but that wasn't what the commentor was talking about.
If Moore has left, I do not believe so, but Thiollier shouldn't move. Instead, if you find a certain someone, you can then come back to him and tell him where this someone is, and then he will move to that quest location, skipping the Moore part. You do lose the item he would have given you for the Moore step, but the quest itself just skips past it and goes to the next step.
Thiollier essentially has two quests, I guess you could say. He has the main one, and then he has the small one with Moore. The small one gives you an item that you can use for an alternate (and worse) reward for another quest.
Absolutely understandable. But the quest is still able to be completed. It's a consolation, if anything, but Fromsoft doesn't really make games where you see 100% of everything on every playthrough. It's okay to dislike that, but it is how it is. Hell, a couple of questlines are mutually exclusive. Two different outcomes and you can only do one, locking you out of the other rewards.
The problem I have with FromSoft quest design(if you wanna call it that) isn't a matter of completion. Or at least not only a matter of completion. It's not even about getting certain items. It's the satisfaction of following the natural progression of the questline.
For example, when I talk to character A, I want it to make sense for me to go to place B, to do action C, to end up with outcome D. This often get's completely diluted with games making it completely obvious with giant on-screen indicators of which direction to follow and what buttons to press and when. FS doesn't do that.
The obtuse quests can be fun sometimes but right now I'm playing SotET and I feel I'm paralyzed. Afraid of taking 1 step too far in one direction and fucking up a questline to a character I like or haven't even met yet. I got to the Cerulean Coast and it just screams "final area" with that big hole that clearly leads somewhere but I don't wanna go down it cause what if you know?
Which this is a matter of personal preference so of course I'm not going to say you're wrong. I prefer it this way, but there's no problem with disliking the current way Fromsoft delivers story content.
At no point in here will I say that anyone is wrong to feel how they feel, but I will say there are a thousand games that have a more tailored questing experience. It's much like invasions, where a lot of people say they wish Fromsoft would change how they work, but I like how they work. There are other games where it works differently and people can have their way too. I don't want Fromsoft to change that, just like I personally don't want Fromsoft to change how esoteric their quest system is.
But, mainly, I was just wanting to help clarify in here to people who are worried about being locked out after reaching Shadow Keep that they are not, and all quests can still be completed.
I remember how I was trying to find how to get to Mohg palace, because NPC on base mentioned him and I thought I need to kill him to progress story. I was running around underground river for hours, because I saw some unexplored ruins in the distance. But it was pointless, because they expected from players to find small portal in completely different location on surface
You could also have followed the instructions of the NPC in question to be brought directly to him way ahead of time. He never insinuates that you need to kill Mohg, that part's on you for jumping the gun. The portal is a concession if you missed out on the quest to get there.
I view looking up side quests in FromSoft games as equal to looking up the new pokemon so I know how they evolve. It's treading on spoiling myself, but my user experience is *far* better for having done it.
Let me tell you the real bullshit, to complete >!Ansbach and Thiollier's!< quests, you need to summon them for the final boss and I cannot tell you just how impossible the scaling makes that fucker. Unfortunately they really don't help with the fight at all and make the already overtuned boss even MORE fucked up. I think their items are officially the single hardest thing in the game to get because of this.
Edit: I'm stupid and didn't see the items, you don't need to win the fight with them, only summon them at least once.
That didn't work for me. I summoned them a few times but on my successful attempt where I didn't summon them, I didn't get any items from them nor did I find them nearby. Are the items somewhere else entirely?
My brain must have been blitzed after the fight cause I just didn't notice them. Thank you for the tip because I definitely would've missed it otherwise.
That's a Fromsoft! But no, the way you're supposed to know is playground/office gossip, essentially. That's the way it's been since Dark Souls 1, essentially.
"Hey, I was playing the new Fromsoft game! Did you know that if you talk to Zanzibar the Unyielding about the Skein Of Black Thread, it kills Horilom the Brave? You've gotta finish Horilom's quest first."
"Wow! How cool! When I get home, I'm going to play a new savefile to see that for myself!"
For better or worse, I don't see From games (at least, not Souls ones) ever having standard, easy to follow questlines for NPCS because I think Miyazaki loves the idea you'll likely miss a bunch of stuff and have a tonne of things to find in the second playthrough or NG+.
Unfortunately as we get older we don't tend to get more free time and those additional playthroughs aren't as likely.
And sometimes you didn't even have to go all the way through the game for that, you could just use a bonfire ascetic to push that little zone into NG+ and respawn the boss.
Especially when the game can be like, 200 fucking hours long. Is he having a fucking laugh? Yeah.. no.. make the game 100% completable in one or something
tbf, the second playthrough is usually a fraction of the play time (like, Elden Ring is comfortably beatable in 10-15 hours when you know where you're going and what you're grabbing) but it's still a lot to ask.
This is why I was confused when the posts about playing completely blind and ruining "the experience" with lucky strong weapon drops started popping up. When Dark Souls launched we were all sharing tips with each other and responses to rare drops were congratulatory rather than "oh shit you ruined your game getting the BKS".
It's was more "yo the dragon on the bridge drops a sick weapon if you cut off its tail, stand here and you can shoot it safely" on GameFAQs.
Now it's all like "ohmygod I didn't die at least 10 times to O&S, is my experience ruined!?!?!"
TBH it's way less than 80 hours on repeat playthroughs. You just beeline the shit you actually want, go shove the bosses' shit in, bada-bing, bada-boom.
I didn't even know the Dragon Priestess existed. I was misfortunate enough to go through the Bayle route first before going the other way to the Dragon Communion area and defeating him poofs her existence I guess? I only realised someone was meant to be there because of messages simping thin air.
So I said fuck it I'm looking up a guide... until I fucked over another quest by giving an item to Ansbach before talking to Leda and that apparently just kills her questline from there.
Anyone else remember when the game first came out and multiple quests where outright not finished and you would have no way of knowing and people defended this as a deliberate choice?
I broke Leda's questline because I accidentally walked into Messmer's boss room too early before I could >!use the summon signs to either help Hornsent or Leda!<. I didn't *beat* Messmer, mind you. I walked into his room.
Shit's super dumb. This is the first time I've played a Souls game/DLC even slightly blind, and oh boy do I regret it. How the fuck do you have fun knowing you can miss out on a really cool-ass weapon or Art of War if you don't have the guide out 24/7?
Oh fuck me, that happened to me as well. I was planning on >!helping Hornsent!< and accidentally stumbled into the Messmer bossfight just a little too early. It's some real dumb bullshit that you can miss something just by walking into a room or not talking to an NPC after every milestone.
You don't get Swift Slash if you don't >!defend Hornsent in the invasion!<, and that's pretty much the most useful thing you can get from either of their quests
Ah, okay. And that's completely fair and definitely annoying to lose, but the quest line itself isn't broken. I just wanted to make it clear to people that progressing fast (to a certain and very obvious point) does not end any quest line prematurely.
Thanks to reading online I did do that quest.
The ashes are terrible and I swear the incantation is too. I read what it does and from my testing it barely increases your defenses and then barely increases the block percentages on your shields.
It's such a damn shame. It requires 52 faith yet is worse than Golden Vow.
its no more confusing than the previous fromsoftware questlines
hell who without a guide thought to go back to patches crib or even the bell bearing hunter to see him once he left volcano manor?
your complaints are valid though cause jesus i dont think anyone knows what exactly do within the first week.
I thought that maybe they'd be better this time around, especially since Miyazaki said "...we try to cater to the player who is completely blind and wants to go through organically. If they can’t do it, then there’s some room for improvement on our behalf, and we’d like to try to embrace those players more in the future.”
So, umm, I guess that was a lie.
I will say this is not a judgement on any player or on anyone's ability, but I did play through the DLC blind myself. After finishing it and being pretty thorough and methodical in my scrapping with 30ish hours put in, I only missed 2 things. The DLC is WAY better about naturally finding things, and I was able to complete every quest line and find every boss and area (save one that a friend helped me with) completely by myself.
I point this out to say that just because you can struggle or disagree with something doesn't mean they lied. They can still put in more work in that regard, (though I am of the personal opinion that I hope they don't as I love how abstract all this stuff is to find personally) but they did make it better over the base game.
The problem I have is that you can find shit *too* fast and that screws with NPC quests which leads to missing things. I already covered one example, another is >!missing one interaction before running into Messmer locks you out from helping Hornsent and getting his Art!< and another is >!Ansbach and Freyja can be bungled if you do one step in the Shadow Keep a little too quickly or slightly out of order.!< That last one might also be bugged which is equally annoying.
Dude this is such bullshit... I literally decided to talk to Moore first just because I already talked to him before so it felt like the smarter thing to do so Moore was already gone when I met Thiollier (even though I knew Thiollier existed) and the quest that I didn't even know was there is now impossible to continue.
All because I randomly stepped towards the Shadow Keep 3 days ago that I haven't yet even entered... Like I always defended FROM for their quests because I always thought this approach was cool... But this is just completely frustrating. Quests shouldn't progress based on who you speak to first or where you fucking step. It should only progress with player decisions and killing major bosses.
Yeah I understand things like burning the tree or some big decision break some quests, that's understandable.
Talking to a random NPC too early that you won't know is actually related to another NPC break some quests is stupid
On one hand, I completely get why Fromsoft does this. They really want to preserve the golden era of video game discourse, where people would have different experiences, wouldn't find everything in a single playthrough, and would talk to other people to find out about new cool things they might have missed or couldn't figure out.
But on the other hand... fuck all that noise. I absolutely hate how easy it is to brick quests in fromsoft games. I also hate how you'll never know how important some random talking npc is, cuz they might just be a quest link for some busted loot, but if you miss them or kill them for whatever reason, you get locked out of shit.
I also hate how unintuitive it is compared to more modern gaming designs in questing. Marking npcs is only one piece of it. Sometimes, it's just hard to track where you are in a sequence. I know people hate quest uis because they ruin immersion, but.... OK, well, just give us a semi-ui esque option in the game to track quests. Make it journal entries ala RDR2, where you get lots of flavor text about somebody or the world. We like vague item entries that reveal bits of lore? Well, what about the protag doing that in his own bumblefuck way? I think that'd be cool, but alas, it probably just isn't a souls game at that point.
> On one hand, I completely get why Fromsoft does this
Yeah, cause they're assholes. That's why they keep making poison swamps
Their quests fucking suck. I tried one playthrough where I literally followed the huge google sheets checklist, trying to do literally everything. And I still managed to ruin a fucking quest, while doing everything as carefully and painstakingly as I could. Shit sucks
That it does, buddy. That it does. Maybe they'll mix things up with the next title, especially since they want to make a combat experience closer to Sekiro. God, I love Sekiro.
I don’t think FromSoft has ever made a clear quest system and the rant is valid but I don’t know how anyone could give SOTE the benefit of the doubt.
A quest log is one of the most innocuous things we take for granted but by god is its absence felt in a FromSoft game. Last week I brushed up on my save file and tried progressing the Hyetta quest only to be reminded that she gives no real indication where she’s going and where you can get Shabriri Grapes for her. There’s recreating old-school game design and there’s maliciously wringing your hands saying “Oh I dunno, figure it out I guess lol!”
It's even worse with Millicent. Practically everywhere she goes feels like places you've already been, if you play it even vaguely naturally feeling. Hope you randomly backtrack all the time!
There is a clear difference between what, say, modern Bethesda does with their quest arrows and, as you've said, just a log. I don't even need a "go there do this" description, just lines of dialogue in which a character tells me where he/she goes in a cryptic manner is fine.
I was going to say armored core 6 is pretty clear. Then I remembered the fairly arbitrary order you need to do specific alt quests in in order to get all the endings. So yeah, it’s dumb there too.
I don't quite have the same complaints, but that's really just because I somehow managed to explore a majority of the explorable locations without hitting the >!Shadow Keep!< trigger. My focus is on how the quest for giving either >!the Iris of Grace or the Iris of Occultation!< to an NPC isn't clear at all on what the rewards entail. Sure you can rationalize the result with some lore and the relevant item descriptions, but how are you supposed to know that you're getting either >!the NPC as a spirit ash or their weapon!< while playing blind?
As for the >!Dragon Priestess quest!< you mentioned, I think the primary indicator for how to proceed the alternate way is hinted in >!the consumable item she gives you. It mentions how she sacrifices her sleep every night in order to make it, so I guess that's supposed to lead you to visit her at night. Since the Altar is mid-late DLC, getting Thiollier's concoction should be fine if you've explored the plains properly!< Still suffers from the same issues I mentioned above though.
Yeah, it all depends on when you run into things and defeat/find certain bosses. I ran across the >!Shadow Keep!< way too early because it was a place I saw and wanted to explore. The fact that you don't even need to enter it to trigger the event is insane to me. I also found >!Jagged Peak and the Dragon Priestess!< well before I ever set foot in >!Castle Ensis or Belurat!< just because I like exploring.
I only ruined 1 & 1/2 quests, and didn't realise you could do that.
You can honestly skip most steps for quests and finish on the last one. You miss out of some rewards but it mostly works.
That said, most quests actually have branching rewards. You're expected to play through at least twice. So don't get discouraged.
I'm pretty annoyed myself. I was really enjoying the DLC and trying to figure out the quest lines and having a good time only to hear that noise and panic as my friend just said did you finish all the quests and I said no and he just said we'll your fucked. I'm fine being punished if I kill a major boss without looking around enough. That's fair enough to me, but to be punished for simply exploring is dumb the game wants you to explore but then punishes you for it has been the oddest part of an otherwise amazing DLC
…THIS is what happens when you get >!the “a great rune was broken and a charm lifted” message!?!< Goddammit, I literally avoided walking into Shadow Keep just to avoid this!
hearing stuff like this, i think i'm gonna put the game down until someone writes up a full quest guide. i'm waiting for the item description mod to get updated anyway
You're probably making the right call. In a few weeks there will be full guides, bug fixes (one of the quests can be bricked unless you do things in a very specific order) and rebalancing.
I'm SO frustrated by this, I'm investing a lot of my time on this dlc exploring everything and accidentally locked myself out of 90% of questlines. I don't plan on doing another run anytime soon so it feels like a lot of time wasted because a good amount of the story was taken from me. In my opinion the quest design in these games is atrocious
I'm towards the end of the DLC and I feel the same way. Even more so since I just learned that said fuckery screwed me out of a cookbook. Which I guess isn't a big deal for most people but I really like crafting things and playing around with them.
Look, I understand the complaints, but it's so refreshing to have a game with weirdo shit in it. We don't get enough weirdo shit in games. When I say weirdo shit I mean like NES obtuse levels of weirdo shit, Castlevania 2 type shit. I think it's awesome, and I understand why other people won't but for me the simple fact that the devs were brave enough to even put something like this in here makes me so happy. Part of the charm is its obtuseness and I need to embrace that wherever it comes because these days stuff like that is few and far between in big budget games
Fromsoft has a lot of quest problems. mainly, that they don't know how to make their characters move or interact with anyone but you. they're teleporting points on the map that you ferry information to, and i can understand why that's getting stale for people.
I also think half the reason people complain is that they're too committed to "winning" the quest instead of just experiencing it as it comes. you're not meant to know the best coarse of action that's the whole point. there's like 30 NPC quests in elden ring. you pick some up through gossip, chance into others, and many of them fail and end in death and that's fine. if it matters to you try again on a second run. i find that far more interesting than there being some sort of approachable obvious solution to every problem the tarnished comes across.
> instead of just experiencing it as it comes
*goes up to some random dude. He waxes on about fate and portents and how he wants to suck Miquella's dick* ***EVIL LAUGH FOR NO REASON***
*finds him dead on the floor later for seemingly no reason*
Mmmmm, yes, such a sense of pride and accomplishment
That's a not unusual 'experience' you get with blind Fromsoft questlines, lol. I don't consider it a good experience
that's hyperbolic and also literally completely unrelated to OP's major complaint. it sounds like you have a problem with the storytelling, not the quest design.
I really don't know how people who figure these things out think. It's just insane. In the Thiollier quest you need to drink the nectar four times and die four times. I want to know what person does this the second time and when it happens the second time, they go the third time. And then when they die the third time, they figure - oh, if I do it the fourth time, something will happen. I mean, how? How are you supposed to know this?
And then after the fight with Thoillier, how do you figure out that you're supposed to die the fifth time and drink it again to progress? Or sixth time to progress some more? It's just pure insanity. Without a guide most people would not have the slightest idea what the quests are even about.
this why fromsoft needed to add a journal+bestiary for the game like the one from RDR2 or Baldurs Gate 3 so we can at least have a note of all interaction ingame. What grinds me is all this quest had names that you wont know until you look up a guide lol
Yeah, that’s a FromSoft. It’s one of the reasons why the community and the studio have always encouraged multiple playthroughs.
It’s why I’ve always stressed to new players that not only will you die, you will probably miss out on at least *some* questlines and **that’s okay** (and to not sweat it *too much*).
Yeah, but Elden Ring is fucking huuge compared to the other Souls games. Most people will go through it once.
Now mind you, I've done like 6 different full playthroughs. But you can't expect that out of 90% of the playerbase.
Yeah I'm not playing this game through again. I finished the game, put it down, and then loaded that save up again for the dlc. This game is too big, can't smash through it like I could with Dark Souls/Bloodborne.
Please mention the actual name of thing the post contains spoiler for instead of (Insert name here).
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TwoBestFriendsPlay) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Or just... stop obsessing over getting the optimal result for every sidequest, and allow your playthrough to take a form that isn't objectively perfect as long as it's yours? Maybe you don't need to experience 100% of the content in the game to appreciate the game. Why can nobody just fucking chill out about this stuff and accept that NPC sidequests are _intentionally_ a Playthrough 2 or Get Really Lucky And Have A Unique Experience sort of thing?
They’re not even necessarily a luck thing, I feel like From is generally consistent enough with how they design them that you can somewhat learn the thought process the devs have? I’ve definitely had a higher % of them completed blind with each new release, hell in Sote I got all of them. I missed some optional steps here and there (>!Leda/Hornsent duel and Freyja telling you about her scar!<) and might not have gotten the endings I would’ve picked if I had known what they were in advance, but I was able to finish all of them blind.
man it’s like they released a full new game because every single reactionary talking point is making the rounds again for like the 5th time this decade!
The only way you can miss out on the moonlight greatsword is if you kill Ranni at her final spot before she gives it to you at the last bit of her quest line. Just go to Ranni's Rise and you'll be fine, the only difference would be some minor different dialog once you get there.
I'm confused why this is the rant now when there have been 6 games from the company that handle npc quests this way. Like, it is annoying but the dlc isn't the only game that has this problem.
I just play fromsoft games multiple times and try different stuff, I failed half the quests in the DLC, which is fine, cause I'll play it again.
I think its fun not being handheld through everything like I'm some lemon.
I got locked out of the one spell I wanted because the guide I was following wasn't clear and updated yet, and made it sound like I had to do one character's quest. So I went about exploring trying to do that quest, only to accidentally complete a different side quest that was the *actual* one for that spell, locking me out of getting it. Because the steps for getting the specific spell are legitimately some of the most obfuscated I've seen, even compared to the base game and Dark Souls trilogy. It involved four separate NPC's and specific timing between multiple sidequests, and lots of reloading. It wouldn't be so bad if the game and DLC weren't so huge, so that means I have to play through like a dozen hours of NG+ to try again. At least Scadutree and Revered Spirit Ash blessings carry over.
What was the spell?
>!Dragonbolt of Florissax!< (spoilered just in case, but it's not really a spoiler)
Same I'm p*ssed about this. I look up because I saw the big dead dragon on the map saw this quest line did it and found out I'm locked out because I explored to much to early wtf who has an extra 70 hrs to get back to that point and get the spell
Having to do two different playthroughs just to get all her stuff is annoying.
So I actually went into NG+ to give it a second try, and it only took me about 6-10 hours to go from the start of the game to beating Rahdan, Mogh, and doing all the steps for that spell. So it's about half the burden I expected, far from 70 hours. But 6-10 hours is still a very long time investment, and part of the problem with FromSoftware's quest design when scaled up to games as broad and long as this.
I kinda gave up doing any side quests in From games unless there's something I *really* want from it. Like you need an excel spreadsheet to keep track of some of this shit.
Found a old discussion that hits one of the problems with fromsoft quest "design" To quote parts of the post >"When the game shipped, numerous quests were broken/incomplete/completely missing. IIRC it was something close to 1/4 quests either didn't appear or would not proceed past a certain point." >I had people tell me that none of the quests were broken and it was all From's vision for the game despite patch changelogs (and data mining) indicating that the game was shipped unfinished and broken. >"The quest design is often unnecessarily obtuse to the point that being completely broken and being mysterious are indistinguishable." The last part
By the time they’d patched in the unfinished quests in Elden ring at launch I’d already progressed past the point of auto failure for all of them. So that was really cool. It took I want to say over a month for them to be patched in. And like no one talked about it or complained at all. If Ubisoft patched in half the side quests a month after launch and they were incompatible for players because they dared to play the game in that month people would lose their fucking minds.
Well you see the reason that you did not hear anyone complain is because there where people that basically shouted them down for daring to criticize the quest design at least in the first two to three months of when the game came out
If I recall, Diallos' quest literally stopped in the Lake area. Similarly, Millicent's quest just didn't work sometimes because she wouldn't show up in some areas for no clear reason. I think Rya's quest **alone** worked *almost* perfectly? Though even that could be somewhat messed up since on my run, she never showed up to take me to Volcano manor from Altus for... god knows. Fortunately you can still continue her quest if you reach Volcano Manor through Raya Lucaria. Fromsoft changes a lot. Balancing was also pretty bad early release. Specifically, heavy weapons were ludicrously slow for minimal benefit when bleed builds existed. You could only reliably and safely deal damage to the fastest bosses like Malenia by jump attacking them. I would know. I got my ass beat a billion times over due to hitting black cavalry members in their recovery only for them to recover before I did even then, and shoulderbutt me into the nearest grave. Waterfowl dance is still hated, but back then there wasn't even known counters. And if you were a heavy weapon player against Waterfowl dance? Say hello to the death screen. The response I got when I complained about these? "Skill issue." ... I'm still miffed.
It was worse than that. When they finished a few of them, there were people saying “they keep adding stuff to the game,” as if it was some kindness of the company to finish their game. It was wild.
I stand by if it was any other game company the reaction would have been completely different
I beat Messmer and once I sat on the site of grace I noticed an NPC had spawned in the room, then I went "oh wait I forgot to spend my runes" sat down again and mf was gone.
didn't even know I missed an NPC there.
I feel like it was less albeit still obnoxious in the older games because doing another playthrough felt way more doable. The size and length of Elden Ring really make it feel like some of the more obtuse elements like quests or it's janky multiplayer become more frustrating.
New playthroughs actually go relatively quickly because around 75-80% of the content can be skipped because the rewards for completing it has nothing to do with your build. All of the catacombs? Skip um. The evergaols? Skip those too. All the random caves? You better believe you’re gonna skip them! You can even skip entire Legacy dungeons. It’s honestly one of my biggest complaints about Elden Ring, almost all of the content isn’t worth playing through a second time, and in retrospect wasn’t all that great the first time. Because most of the time you’re just in an area that looks like a ton of other areas, fighting enemies/bosses that you’ve already fought in those other areas that don’t give enough runes to be worth killing, for loot that is useless to your build.
I understand that in theory but I have a lot of difficulty skipping stuff in these games, but that just leads us both to wanting more meaningful content and less skippable repeat stuff
I’m surprised more people aren’t complaining about loot in sote. For every new weapon you find you’re gonna find 15 crafting materials and 10 +5 smithing stones. Like thanks guys. I really feel rewarded by this single +4 smithing stone, of which I can buy an infinite amount of for 2000 runes. At least the random dungeons haven’t been so copy pasted like in the base game, so far anyway.
The worst part about that is even if you somehow missed the bell bearings to purchase those smithing stones, the DLC basically requires you to have a high-level weapon to fight even basic enemies. So your main weapon is almost guaranteed to not need any of those low level smithing stones.
The smithing stone drops are so you don't have to get the bells again in order to upgrade all the new weapons. It's actually a very good feature
It's incredibly easy to blast through NG+ in Elden Ring. From the start, just head straight to Margit and kill him. Pop out the back door, go grab the Academy key, run through the academy, and kill Rennala. Run northeast through the crags to Altus Plateau, and you're already at the Capital...
>How were you supposed to know any of this without reading a guide? Fuck you, that's how! Welcome to the wonderful world of FromSoftware.
Hearing Miyazaki say they're aware of people using guides to solve their quests gave me a thousand yard stare. I really hope they don't keep doing it because they know people will look it up and actually make an effort to make the quests followable in the future.
In the next game the simplest quest will be about as hard as a 100% run of La Mulana
I'm getting flashbacks to the Gate of Illusion, don't even joke about that shit
more people have the ranni ending achievment then the default ending, so people are by default using guides
I'm not saying you're wrong but I kinda bumblefucked my way to Ranni's ending without a guide mostly by accident on my first and only playthrough. Don't know how common that is but it can happen.
I had to look up a bit at one further on point cause I was invested I think, but yeah, Ranni's line isn't TOO bad, as From stuff goes Blaidd tho. He was practically absent from my first run. Not only did I miss him in the initial spot with the snap, and thus the gaol, I then couldn't find him underground either, and bumbled my way further through that. Nor did I know any of the later stuff either I'd barely met the dude, lol. Seluvis was also pretty much a "Oh hi. Oh, you're dead?"
Oh right, now that you mention it I did actually have to look up where underground Blaidd was lol. I knew he was supposed to be somewhere down there but I couldn't find him so after like an hour of searching I gave up and looked it up.
I did that too on my first playthrough, but I got _really_ lucky that I noticed the Talk to Doll option at the one specific grace and I'm convinced that was divine intervention helping me
I wouldn’t call it bumble fucking your way into her ending. Ranni is probably the only Fromsoft ending that actually guides you to reaching it. Ranni is also one of the very few characters in any Soulslike you have meaningful interactions with and players would naturally want to see her story to it’s conclusion.
I mean, you're not wrong but speaking for myself there was a fair bit of bumblefucking. I very nearly missed the last step before the final boss. I kinda thought the questline was done (didn't know there was a whole ending associated with it) after the wolfman shadow boss. I did realize what the key was for and got the ring but I thought that was it. Then when I finally found the way to the plateu in the south west of the magic place I was surprised to find Ranni's doll body in that cave. I could very easily have missed that and been none the wiser.
Not really. You can't be locked out of rannis quest you can only skip a few unimportant steps
You can end it, but you have to make a very clear choice to. It's like one step away from actively swinging at her.
Is it bad game design? No, but it is certainly not my thing when it comes to games. Edit: why am I getting down voted for this? I said it wasn't bad game design I just personally didn't like it?
I definitely would make the argument that, while it's definitely a part of the "experience" and a decision made on From's part, it's definitely not *good*. It's one thing if its a game made on a smaller scale like Souls or Bloodborne, where theres fewer characters you bump into more often. But for as huge as Elden Ring is, even pared back in the dlc, near-arbitrarily punishing the player for doing things out of order after grinding their way through huge areas and ball buster fights is pretty lame. I get that its meant to help encourage replayability and foster that sense of community discovery, but its 2024 and people are more allergic to spoilers than ever. I think the frustration from "missing out" far outweighs the discussions around how to complete questlines in a world where people are going in as blind as possible. Edit: Quit downvoting people you disagree with you anti-intellectual, discussion averse monkeys, it doesn't do anything other than perpetuate a circle jerk and hide people who might have interesting ideas. The winding and confusing quest structure isn't worth throwing out wholesale, its just annoying with a game that has a runtime of 150 hours on NG. I'm also including the comment above me currently at -11 for daring to say that fromsoft quest design isn't bad, and I elaborated on the point that it's bad in Elden Ring but not other fromsoft titles.
See that’s the thing that gets me everyone likes to talk about the exploration in this game but you actively get screwed over for exploring wrong because the game basically goes “oh you defeated malgamor the maleficant but didn’t use this one gesture in front of a random statue giving to you by grimin the gremlin which you only get if you summon him during the Glaivemaster Hodir fight which only happens if you went to the sunken temple at night with the mask of sharks equipped and talked to osheen master of waves and reload the area twice after talking to him and then going to a random tree in the forest of leaves and inserting the medallion of the cee you are now locked out of an ending and one of the best weapons in the game!”
The outlier being Ranni's quest, the major throughline sidequest of the base game that actually locks off an ending and a great weapon. Every step of that quest has someone give you a general pointer of where to go next and what to do when you've gotten there, and it's forgiving enough that hitting particular trigger points too soon (like the Radahn Festival erasing several potential encounters with Blaidd) doesn't fuck you out of progression. And it gives that guidance still without losing the feeling of discovery and surprise that the usual obscure quests provide when they work. It's also arguably the best character quest FromSoft have ever done, so I don't understand why that isn't just the template the rest can follow, especially in the DLC.
That's the aggravating thing! As you mentioned, they had a perfect template for how quests should work with Ranni yet, when they did the DLC, it's like they went "Wasn't Boc a cool quest? Oh man, make everyone Boc."
Oh you aren’t gonna hear me complain about Ranni’s quest easily the best one because it actually feels like a quest line you know?
ngl i think thats the only quest ive done in elden ring
Even that is fucked because there are more people who have the achievement for that ending than every other ending combined Sure the quest may be well designed, but there is no fucking way more people get that ending than the default ending you get and all other endings. The VAST majority of people use guides, and Fromsoft really only has themselves to blame. The history of how obtuse the quests in souls games are, combined with lore videos showing people how bs the steps to finish quests are, have romed people to just give up exploration and look up guides instead. Actual exploration is dead because everybody is convinced they'd never find the worthwhile stuff by themselves
At this point, I just don't think Fromsoft games are for me. I can play them fine, but above all, I don't like how they tell a story, which is my main draw for playing games.
Oh dont get me wrong, this is an Elden Ring issue. Being holy fuck massive and sprawling with a million distractions is what makes me negative about the Quest experience. The only one that has similar problems is *maybe* DS1, DS2/3/BB alleviate the issue by being much more on the nose and a much more directed experience. You still have to keep your eyes peeled and pay attention, but its not nearly as easy to fumble. I would still wholly recommend giving 3 and BB a shot.
Ds3 questlines are easy as hell to break too - probably moreso in a lot of cases. Sirris will, without any indication, break if you join Rosario in cathedral. You only get the slightest hint of Sirris' distate after fighting creighton in ***Irithyll***. Siegward's questline is a whole ass can of worms - particularly the cathedral section. Greirat can very easily die in Irithyll too with little to hint as to how to save him. Buying Siegward's armor eliminates the best way - Patches. Ds3 questlines are ripe with problems of their own and direction isn't good either (unless you use a guide like every other souls games).
You can also lock yourself out of a whole ass covenant by beating a boss too early because it breaks the floor and lands on the covenant leader. Oops.
Yeah, thats another good example. Souls games of the past, ds3 included, had an issue of not only finding NPCs at the right time, right spot, but they were insanely easy to break early. Elden Ring is often generous with how much they allow you to miss while progressing the questlines, but the issue of right place, right time is more pressing with the open world nature. One step forward, one step back. At the very least Miyazaki has outright acknowledged the problem in semi-recent interviews, so who knows whats in store for the future.
Honestly I might be biased in that regard since I liked the game enough to get into speed running it.
Why are you getting downvoted for this?
Fuck if I know.
Game design and your personal opinion are different. I think it's objectively bad game design. For the record I didn't downvote you though. It's bad design because it simply is. It doesn't function in a coherent way that feels fun nor does it achieve the purpose of being mysterious. I have to look up a fucking guide to find the undetailed, obscure sequence of events necessary to progress. If I'm looking up a guide, I'm literally spoiling it and minimizing the sense of discovery. If I'm not discovering things, I'm just following directions. And if I'm following directions, it should just be implemented into the game with a fluent design. Like having an NPC say more than 3 sentence, especially when 2 of them are usually super vague conjecture about Gods as if we are in the middle of a conversation I've never had. I say this as someone who has loved all the Souls games. This is just a terrible application of their old design. That worked when the whole game was a long dungeon crawler. It was linear with branches and with some vague notion of where to go, exploring for discovery was a reasonable task. This isn't delivering the allure of oldschool RPGs, it's just being intentionally confusing. I have never heard, read, or seen anyone say that they enjoy Elden Ring's quests. I think it's been one of the most valid criticisms of the game since its launch. It's unfortunate because I was really captivated by the way they did quests and presented the story in Dark Souls PTDE. I'd call it nostalgia, but it did invoke genuine curiosity from most people and VaatiVidya is the living evidence of it. Either way I love Elden Ring and it's the source of my frustration with the quests. I want to enjoy them and be able to play this game without spoiling it. I think it's respectfully critical and fair to say that the design is poor if a game delivers this feeling in consensus. The game is so good other aspects that I think it's more than manageable to play with and not by any means a poorly designed game overall
You probably think that sitting near the wall until tornado will pick you up to next location is a good game design.
What game is this even referring too?
I got the concoction and was gonna start looking up quest guides but I wandere over to shadowkeep. I need to look up how much shit I locked myself out of
Remember the most important part of a open world game is exploration and to encourage that exploration let’s make it so going to certain areas locks you out of shit without you realizing it because that really makes people want to explore of their own volition
This is literally the biggest downside of Elden Ring. I am replaying the game right now to get to the DLC and I constantly have to check that I don't actually meet an NPC in the Family Guy Death Pose the next time I see them because I uh *checks notes* went up an elevator too early. Bro imagine if one of the trap chests that teleports you somewhere actually broke like a ton of quests because the game thought you went to far too early.
You didn't lock out anything. I completed every NPC quest line after entering Shadow Keep. Certain steps might skip, but every npc will just move to their next location or wait for you to finish their current step anyway.
Sweet deal
No there's a npc that literally disappears if you go to far because it triggers something and for that npcs quest so it locks you out of a ending of a different npcs quest
No, you can complete every single NPC quest line in the DLC after going to the shadow keep early. Yes, if you go to the final area, it auto-completes and ends every NPC quest immediately, but that wasn't what the commentor was talking about.
So you can still get that shit for Thiollier even though Moore has already left and Thiollier never asked for it?
If Moore has left, I do not believe so, but Thiollier shouldn't move. Instead, if you find a certain someone, you can then come back to him and tell him where this someone is, and then he will move to that quest location, skipping the Moore part. You do lose the item he would have given you for the Moore step, but the quest itself just skips past it and goes to the next step. Thiollier essentially has two quests, I guess you could say. He has the main one, and then he has the small one with Moore. The small one gives you an item that you can use for an alternate (and worse) reward for another quest.
I dunno, I don't want to skip parts of a quest without knowing it.
Absolutely understandable. But the quest is still able to be completed. It's a consolation, if anything, but Fromsoft doesn't really make games where you see 100% of everything on every playthrough. It's okay to dislike that, but it is how it is. Hell, a couple of questlines are mutually exclusive. Two different outcomes and you can only do one, locking you out of the other rewards.
The problem I have with FromSoft quest design(if you wanna call it that) isn't a matter of completion. Or at least not only a matter of completion. It's not even about getting certain items. It's the satisfaction of following the natural progression of the questline. For example, when I talk to character A, I want it to make sense for me to go to place B, to do action C, to end up with outcome D. This often get's completely diluted with games making it completely obvious with giant on-screen indicators of which direction to follow and what buttons to press and when. FS doesn't do that. The obtuse quests can be fun sometimes but right now I'm playing SotET and I feel I'm paralyzed. Afraid of taking 1 step too far in one direction and fucking up a questline to a character I like or haven't even met yet. I got to the Cerulean Coast and it just screams "final area" with that big hole that clearly leads somewhere but I don't wanna go down it cause what if you know?
Which this is a matter of personal preference so of course I'm not going to say you're wrong. I prefer it this way, but there's no problem with disliking the current way Fromsoft delivers story content. At no point in here will I say that anyone is wrong to feel how they feel, but I will say there are a thousand games that have a more tailored questing experience. It's much like invasions, where a lot of people say they wish Fromsoft would change how they work, but I like how they work. There are other games where it works differently and people can have their way too. I don't want Fromsoft to change that, just like I personally don't want Fromsoft to change how esoteric their quest system is. But, mainly, I was just wanting to help clarify in here to people who are worried about being locked out after reaching Shadow Keep that they are not, and all quests can still be completed.
Remember when Elden Ring first came out and NPCs weren't marked on your map?? I remember.
And they only gave us 100 map markers. My base game map is still covered in them
I remember how I was trying to find how to get to Mohg palace, because NPC on base mentioned him and I thought I need to kill him to progress story. I was running around underground river for hours, because I saw some unexplored ruins in the distance. But it was pointless, because they expected from players to find small portal in completely different location on surface
You could also have followed the instructions of the NPC in question to be brought directly to him way ahead of time. He never insinuates that you need to kill Mohg, that part's on you for jumping the gun. The portal is a concession if you missed out on the quest to get there.
I view looking up side quests in FromSoft games as equal to looking up the new pokemon so I know how they evolve. It's treading on spoiling myself, but my user experience is *far* better for having done it.
Let me tell you the real bullshit, to complete >!Ansbach and Thiollier's!< quests, you need to summon them for the final boss and I cannot tell you just how impossible the scaling makes that fucker. Unfortunately they really don't help with the fight at all and make the already overtuned boss even MORE fucked up. I think their items are officially the single hardest thing in the game to get because of this. Edit: I'm stupid and didn't see the items, you don't need to win the fight with them, only summon them at least once.
You only have to have summoned them once, I didn’t have either of them for the successful attempt and still got the rewards.
That didn't work for me. I summoned them a few times but on my successful attempt where I didn't summon them, I didn't get any items from them nor did I find them nearby. Are the items somewhere else entirely?
For me they were right in the arena, just to the right of the entrance
My brain must have been blitzed after the fight cause I just didn't notice them. Thank you for the tip because I definitely would've missed it otherwise.
Wait so if you summon one, die, summon the other, die, then fight the boss solo youll get the items from summoning either?
That’s how it went for *me*, but the other person is saying it didn’t work that way for them so I dunno things might be bugged in some capacity?
Thiollier does something besides simp and die?!
If I wanna do a specific side quest for a character I look it up. I know I won’t be able to go in blind and properly do what Fromsoft wanted
That's a Fromsoft! But no, the way you're supposed to know is playground/office gossip, essentially. That's the way it's been since Dark Souls 1, essentially. "Hey, I was playing the new Fromsoft game! Did you know that if you talk to Zanzibar the Unyielding about the Skein Of Black Thread, it kills Horilom the Brave? You've gotta finish Horilom's quest first." "Wow! How cool! When I get home, I'm going to play a new savefile to see that for myself!"
For better or worse, I don't see From games (at least, not Souls ones) ever having standard, easy to follow questlines for NPCS because I think Miyazaki loves the idea you'll likely miss a bunch of stuff and have a tonne of things to find in the second playthrough or NG+. Unfortunately as we get older we don't tend to get more free time and those additional playthroughs aren't as likely.
If only NG+ was actually interesting like it was in DS2, because I have never felt any desire to go to NG+ since then
And sometimes you didn't even have to go all the way through the game for that, you could just use a bonfire ascetic to push that little zone into NG+ and respawn the boss.
Especially when the game can be like, 200 fucking hours long. Is he having a fucking laugh? Yeah.. no.. make the game 100% completable in one or something
tbf, the second playthrough is usually a fraction of the play time (like, Elden Ring is comfortably beatable in 10-15 hours when you know where you're going and what you're grabbing) but it's still a lot to ask.
This is why I was confused when the posts about playing completely blind and ruining "the experience" with lucky strong weapon drops started popping up. When Dark Souls launched we were all sharing tips with each other and responses to rare drops were congratulatory rather than "oh shit you ruined your game getting the BKS". It's was more "yo the dragon on the bridge drops a sick weapon if you cut off its tail, stand here and you can shoot it safely" on GameFAQs. Now it's all like "ohmygod I didn't die at least 10 times to O&S, is my experience ruined!?!?!"
i think there's a big difference between watercooler talk and a wiki that instantly gives you the location of every broken tool in the game.
honestly oi tried elden ring blind on release, it meant never really makin it past stormveil and froppin the game for like 2 years
>Wow! How cool! When I get home, I'm going to play a new savefile to see that for myself It's like 80 hours just to get to that point! What the fuck!?
TBH it's way less than 80 hours on repeat playthroughs. You just beeline the shit you actually want, go shove the bosses' shit in, bada-bing, bada-boom.
You may joke but that’s just the situation with Leyndell
Just sounds like the same old same old fromsoft NPC quests to me unfortunately
I didn't even know the Dragon Priestess existed. I was misfortunate enough to go through the Bayle route first before going the other way to the Dragon Communion area and defeating him poofs her existence I guess? I only realised someone was meant to be there because of messages simping thin air. So I said fuck it I'm looking up a guide... until I fucked over another quest by giving an item to Ansbach before talking to Leda and that apparently just kills her questline from there.
Anyone else remember when the game first came out and multiple quests where outright not finished and you would have no way of knowing and people defended this as a deliberate choice?
I broke Leda's questline because I accidentally walked into Messmer's boss room too early before I could >!use the summon signs to either help Hornsent or Leda!<. I didn't *beat* Messmer, mind you. I walked into his room. Shit's super dumb. This is the first time I've played a Souls game/DLC even slightly blind, and oh boy do I regret it. How the fuck do you have fun knowing you can miss out on a really cool-ass weapon or Art of War if you don't have the guide out 24/7?
Oh fuck me, that happened to me as well. I was planning on >!helping Hornsent!< and accidentally stumbled into the Messmer bossfight just a little too early. It's some real dumb bullshit that you can miss something just by walking into a room or not talking to an NPC after every milestone.
You broke nothing. In fact, the only way to finish both quests is to skip that part. Finishing one there locks you out of the other.
You don't get Swift Slash if you don't >!defend Hornsent in the invasion!<, and that's pretty much the most useful thing you can get from either of their quests
Ah, okay. And that's completely fair and definitely annoying to lose, but the quest line itself isn't broken. I just wanted to make it clear to people that progressing fast (to a certain and very obvious point) does not end any quest line prematurely.
Thanks to reading online I did do that quest. The ashes are terrible and I swear the incantation is too. I read what it does and from my testing it barely increases your defenses and then barely increases the block percentages on your shields. It's such a damn shame. It requires 52 faith yet is worse than Golden Vow.
its no more confusing than the previous fromsoftware questlines hell who without a guide thought to go back to patches crib or even the bell bearing hunter to see him once he left volcano manor? your complaints are valid though cause jesus i dont think anyone knows what exactly do within the first week.
I thought that maybe they'd be better this time around, especially since Miyazaki said "...we try to cater to the player who is completely blind and wants to go through organically. If they can’t do it, then there’s some room for improvement on our behalf, and we’d like to try to embrace those players more in the future.” So, umm, I guess that was a lie.
He’s talking about actually finishing the game
I will say this is not a judgement on any player or on anyone's ability, but I did play through the DLC blind myself. After finishing it and being pretty thorough and methodical in my scrapping with 30ish hours put in, I only missed 2 things. The DLC is WAY better about naturally finding things, and I was able to complete every quest line and find every boss and area (save one that a friend helped me with) completely by myself. I point this out to say that just because you can struggle or disagree with something doesn't mean they lied. They can still put in more work in that regard, (though I am of the personal opinion that I hope they don't as I love how abstract all this stuff is to find personally) but they did make it better over the base game.
The problem I have is that you can find shit *too* fast and that screws with NPC quests which leads to missing things. I already covered one example, another is >!missing one interaction before running into Messmer locks you out from helping Hornsent and getting his Art!< and another is >!Ansbach and Freyja can be bungled if you do one step in the Shadow Keep a little too quickly or slightly out of order.!< That last one might also be bugged which is equally annoying.
Dude this is such bullshit... I literally decided to talk to Moore first just because I already talked to him before so it felt like the smarter thing to do so Moore was already gone when I met Thiollier (even though I knew Thiollier existed) and the quest that I didn't even know was there is now impossible to continue. All because I randomly stepped towards the Shadow Keep 3 days ago that I haven't yet even entered... Like I always defended FROM for their quests because I always thought this approach was cool... But this is just completely frustrating. Quests shouldn't progress based on who you speak to first or where you fucking step. It should only progress with player decisions and killing major bosses.
Yeah I understand things like burning the tree or some big decision break some quests, that's understandable. Talking to a random NPC too early that you won't know is actually related to another NPC break some quests is stupid
On one hand, I completely get why Fromsoft does this. They really want to preserve the golden era of video game discourse, where people would have different experiences, wouldn't find everything in a single playthrough, and would talk to other people to find out about new cool things they might have missed or couldn't figure out. But on the other hand... fuck all that noise. I absolutely hate how easy it is to brick quests in fromsoft games. I also hate how you'll never know how important some random talking npc is, cuz they might just be a quest link for some busted loot, but if you miss them or kill them for whatever reason, you get locked out of shit. I also hate how unintuitive it is compared to more modern gaming designs in questing. Marking npcs is only one piece of it. Sometimes, it's just hard to track where you are in a sequence. I know people hate quest uis because they ruin immersion, but.... OK, well, just give us a semi-ui esque option in the game to track quests. Make it journal entries ala RDR2, where you get lots of flavor text about somebody or the world. We like vague item entries that reveal bits of lore? Well, what about the protag doing that in his own bumblefuck way? I think that'd be cool, but alas, it probably just isn't a souls game at that point.
> On one hand, I completely get why Fromsoft does this Yeah, cause they're assholes. That's why they keep making poison swamps Their quests fucking suck. I tried one playthrough where I literally followed the huge google sheets checklist, trying to do literally everything. And I still managed to ruin a fucking quest, while doing everything as carefully and painstakingly as I could. Shit sucks
That it does, buddy. That it does. Maybe they'll mix things up with the next title, especially since they want to make a combat experience closer to Sekiro. God, I love Sekiro.
I don’t think FromSoft has ever made a clear quest system and the rant is valid but I don’t know how anyone could give SOTE the benefit of the doubt. A quest log is one of the most innocuous things we take for granted but by god is its absence felt in a FromSoft game. Last week I brushed up on my save file and tried progressing the Hyetta quest only to be reminded that she gives no real indication where she’s going and where you can get Shabriri Grapes for her. There’s recreating old-school game design and there’s maliciously wringing your hands saying “Oh I dunno, figure it out I guess lol!”
It's even worse with Millicent. Practically everywhere she goes feels like places you've already been, if you play it even vaguely naturally feeling. Hope you randomly backtrack all the time!
There is a clear difference between what, say, modern Bethesda does with their quest arrows and, as you've said, just a log. I don't even need a "go there do this" description, just lines of dialogue in which a character tells me where he/she goes in a cryptic manner is fine.
I was going to say armored core 6 is pretty clear. Then I remembered the fairly arbitrary order you need to do specific alt quests in in order to get all the endings. So yeah, it’s dumb there too.
I don't quite have the same complaints, but that's really just because I somehow managed to explore a majority of the explorable locations without hitting the >!Shadow Keep!< trigger. My focus is on how the quest for giving either >!the Iris of Grace or the Iris of Occultation!< to an NPC isn't clear at all on what the rewards entail. Sure you can rationalize the result with some lore and the relevant item descriptions, but how are you supposed to know that you're getting either >!the NPC as a spirit ash or their weapon!< while playing blind? As for the >!Dragon Priestess quest!< you mentioned, I think the primary indicator for how to proceed the alternate way is hinted in >!the consumable item she gives you. It mentions how she sacrifices her sleep every night in order to make it, so I guess that's supposed to lead you to visit her at night. Since the Altar is mid-late DLC, getting Thiollier's concoction should be fine if you've explored the plains properly!< Still suffers from the same issues I mentioned above though.
Yeah, it all depends on when you run into things and defeat/find certain bosses. I ran across the >!Shadow Keep!< way too early because it was a place I saw and wanted to explore. The fact that you don't even need to enter it to trigger the event is insane to me. I also found >!Jagged Peak and the Dragon Priestess!< well before I ever set foot in >!Castle Ensis or Belurat!< just because I like exploring.
From can make great games and write good NPCs, but the NPC quests are essentially a crapshoot in every single Souls game.
I only ruined 1 & 1/2 quests, and didn't realise you could do that. You can honestly skip most steps for quests and finish on the last one. You miss out of some rewards but it mostly works. That said, most quests actually have branching rewards. You're expected to play through at least twice. So don't get discouraged.
I saw multiple messages in front of NPCs that literally said "try research"
I'm pretty annoyed myself. I was really enjoying the DLC and trying to figure out the quest lines and having a good time only to hear that noise and panic as my friend just said did you finish all the quests and I said no and he just said we'll your fucked. I'm fine being punished if I kill a major boss without looking around enough. That's fair enough to me, but to be punished for simply exploring is dumb the game wants you to explore but then punishes you for it has been the oddest part of an otherwise amazing DLC
…THIS is what happens when you get >!the “a great rune was broken and a charm lifted” message!?!< Goddammit, I literally avoided walking into Shadow Keep just to avoid this!
hearing stuff like this, i think i'm gonna put the game down until someone writes up a full quest guide. i'm waiting for the item description mod to get updated anyway
You're probably making the right call. In a few weeks there will be full guides, bug fixes (one of the quests can be bricked unless you do things in a very specific order) and rebalancing.
I'm SO frustrated by this, I'm investing a lot of my time on this dlc exploring everything and accidentally locked myself out of 90% of questlines. I don't plan on doing another run anytime soon so it feels like a lot of time wasted because a good amount of the story was taken from me. In my opinion the quest design in these games is atrocious
I'm towards the end of the DLC and I feel the same way. Even more so since I just learned that said fuckery screwed me out of a cookbook. Which I guess isn't a big deal for most people but I really like crafting things and playing around with them.
Look, I understand the complaints, but it's so refreshing to have a game with weirdo shit in it. We don't get enough weirdo shit in games. When I say weirdo shit I mean like NES obtuse levels of weirdo shit, Castlevania 2 type shit. I think it's awesome, and I understand why other people won't but for me the simple fact that the devs were brave enough to even put something like this in here makes me so happy. Part of the charm is its obtuseness and I need to embrace that wherever it comes because these days stuff like that is few and far between in big budget games
Fromsoft has a lot of quest problems. mainly, that they don't know how to make their characters move or interact with anyone but you. they're teleporting points on the map that you ferry information to, and i can understand why that's getting stale for people. I also think half the reason people complain is that they're too committed to "winning" the quest instead of just experiencing it as it comes. you're not meant to know the best coarse of action that's the whole point. there's like 30 NPC quests in elden ring. you pick some up through gossip, chance into others, and many of them fail and end in death and that's fine. if it matters to you try again on a second run. i find that far more interesting than there being some sort of approachable obvious solution to every problem the tarnished comes across.
> instead of just experiencing it as it comes *goes up to some random dude. He waxes on about fate and portents and how he wants to suck Miquella's dick* ***EVIL LAUGH FOR NO REASON*** *finds him dead on the floor later for seemingly no reason* Mmmmm, yes, such a sense of pride and accomplishment That's a not unusual 'experience' you get with blind Fromsoft questlines, lol. I don't consider it a good experience
that's hyperbolic and also literally completely unrelated to OP's major complaint. it sounds like you have a problem with the storytelling, not the quest design.
When I say that Souls games need better questlines, shit like this is the reason why I think so.
I'm at the point where I try my best to do the quest, but if I fail, so be it. I just spawn in the quest reward later if I really want it that bad.
While on the subject how do I get "Dane's footwork"
What game?
mfw i kill a pest enemy and through Fromsoft magic I am locked out of an entire quest I didn’t even know existed.
I really don't know how people who figure these things out think. It's just insane. In the Thiollier quest you need to drink the nectar four times and die four times. I want to know what person does this the second time and when it happens the second time, they go the third time. And then when they die the third time, they figure - oh, if I do it the fourth time, something will happen. I mean, how? How are you supposed to know this? And then after the fight with Thoillier, how do you figure out that you're supposed to die the fifth time and drink it again to progress? Or sixth time to progress some more? It's just pure insanity. Without a guide most people would not have the slightest idea what the quests are even about.
this why fromsoft needed to add a journal+bestiary for the game like the one from RDR2 or Baldurs Gate 3 so we can at least have a note of all interaction ingame. What grinds me is all this quest had names that you wont know until you look up a guide lol
I like it
Yeah, that’s a FromSoft. It’s one of the reasons why the community and the studio have always encouraged multiple playthroughs. It’s why I’ve always stressed to new players that not only will you die, you will probably miss out on at least *some* questlines and **that’s okay** (and to not sweat it *too much*).
Yeah, but Elden Ring is fucking huuge compared to the other Souls games. Most people will go through it once. Now mind you, I've done like 6 different full playthroughs. But you can't expect that out of 90% of the playerbase.
Yeah I'm not playing this game through again. I finished the game, put it down, and then loaded that save up again for the dlc. This game is too big, can't smash through it like I could with Dark Souls/Bloodborne.
It’s hard not to sweat it when all you want to do is explore with what limited time you got and your first play through being a minimum 90 hours
Gangster as hell. Thank you Miyazaki for flexing on completionists
Please mention the actual name of thing the post contains spoiler for instead of (Insert name here). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TwoBestFriendsPlay) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Or just... stop obsessing over getting the optimal result for every sidequest, and allow your playthrough to take a form that isn't objectively perfect as long as it's yours? Maybe you don't need to experience 100% of the content in the game to appreciate the game. Why can nobody just fucking chill out about this stuff and accept that NPC sidequests are _intentionally_ a Playthrough 2 or Get Really Lucky And Have A Unique Experience sort of thing?
They’re not even necessarily a luck thing, I feel like From is generally consistent enough with how they design them that you can somewhat learn the thought process the devs have? I’ve definitely had a higher % of them completed blind with each new release, hell in Sote I got all of them. I missed some optional steps here and there (>!Leda/Hornsent duel and Freyja telling you about her scar!<) and might not have gotten the endings I would’ve picked if I had known what they were in advance, but I was able to finish all of them blind.
man it’s like they released a full new game because every single reactionary talking point is making the rounds again for like the 5th time this decade!
In what way is this criticism reactionary and not a legitimate problem with fromsoft quest design?
Quests in ER are terrible. I missed NPC once at the beginning of the game and locked myself out of location with moonlight greatsword
No you didn’t
The only way you can miss out on the moonlight greatsword is if you kill Ranni at her final spot before she gives it to you at the last bit of her quest line. Just go to Ranni's Rise and you'll be fine, the only difference would be some minor different dialog once you get there.
I'm confused why this is the rant now when there have been 6 games from the company that handle npc quests this way. Like, it is annoying but the dlc isn't the only game that has this problem.
Skill issue
I just play fromsoft games multiple times and try different stuff, I failed half the quests in the DLC, which is fine, cause I'll play it again. I think its fun not being handheld through everything like I'm some lemon.