Elden Ring - Shadow of the Erdtree Expansion Announced

[Qazimod]

37 minutes ago, Thor said:

Actually, I have to wonder, if I defeat the Crucible Knight in the Evergaol*, will that stop him from appearing in Caelid?

 

You joke but

 

Spoiler

There is an event/quest/something you can trigger that will outright remove the MW/CK tag team from that location. I know, because that's where I'm at.   I just don't know what I did!

 

I'd like to think there's a way to reverse this though, because when I was attempting the battle I got pretty close!

 

[Steven]

13 hours ago, jonamok said:

Wherever you point the camera just makes you stop and go ‘fuck’.

 

I had a similar experience last night but I was running away from things and screaming fuck off! a lot

 

 

[Thor]

7 minutes ago, Qazimod said:

 

You joke but

 

  Reveal hidden contents

There is an event/quest/something you can trigger that will outright remove the MW/CK tag team from that location. I know, because that's where I'm at.   I just don't know what I did!

 

I'd like to think there's a way to reverse this though, because when I was attempting the battle I got pretty close!

 

Wasn't joking, I thought maybe Caelid summoned them from their jail, but good to know.

[therearerules]

10 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

 

 

 

Is it a night-time only boss that you encounter in Limgrave? I thought I'd explored every cave already.

If there's one thing I've learnt (after my 4th visit to the Castle) is that you've never fully explored an area. Thought I'd done the weeping peninsular, went back did a dungeon, overworld boss and got a golden seed I'd missed previously.

[Alan Stock]

Oh one thing I have been meaning to say for ages that is the best thing about Elden Ring is....

 

That you can pick up resources with a single button press and it happens instantly. WHY don't other open world games do this? It drives me mental in stuff like Horizon and Dying Light, even if you have to hold down the button for just a second, its just such a waste of the player's time. I get the reasoning behind it - so you can't magically loot as you are getting chased, and because its not realistic enough. But these are games. Elden Ring proves that insta-pickup makes resource and item gathering painless and a LOT less annoying. I even divert to go and collect resources in this game, where in similar games I just can't be arsed because I know it will be tedious. Adding a delay to pickup for basic resources and looting adds nothing to these kinds of games, and given how long and big they are, you spend ludicrous amounts of time holding down buttons. Please devs, follow Elden Ring's example!

[Thor]

22 minutes ago, Triple A said:

All very true of course.  That said, if they had gone in with new tech I don't think we would have got anywhere near the game that we did in the end.  Maybe they'll be able to up team size and tech investment for their next game (if they want to and feel it conducive to their all-important level design planning methods etc.), given how well this seems to be selling.

I agree with John that it looks and feels like souls from ten years ago, but with a healthy sprinkling of Bloodborne which is "only" seven years old. But like you say, this same engine allowed them to create this game, where they've gone for the same overall aesthetic, but made use of the tech to ramp up things like draw distance, enemy numbers and a much larger map. 

[Triple A]

Their tech decisions were smart - they made sure the project stayed in scope as well as possible because the tech was used and proven.

[Hawklord]

Just realised that in the week that I've had this, I've spent more time in the game that I have working and that includes overtime lol

[Majora]

3 minutes ago, Triple A said:

Their tech decisions were smart - they made sure the project stayed in scope as well as possible because the tech was used and proven.

 

Yes, I think the key thing that enabled a relatively small team like From to be able to make a game this big and varied is because it is at heart a refinement of everything they've spent a decade doing.

 

It's full of reused weapons, items, animations, art assets and so on from past games. The vast majority of the mechanics are familiar to anyone who has played past games.

 

And I'm not saying this as a criticism, more that it is smart for a team of their size because it means that they can focus on key things like content creation instead of having to worry about creating a load of new assets and a new engine and so on. There's plenty of new stuff in here too of course, but the bones of the game being so well-established is what enabled them to create all this content.

 

It's what makes me confident BOTW2 will end up being a lot more varied than the first game. Much as I loved it, it is lacking in variety in places (like enemies). But with the engine built and all the physics elements and climbing/gliding mechanics in place and so on you imagine Nintendo can go in a lot harder on unique content creation because they already have the framework in place from the first game and won't be spending a lot of their time just making sure it all functions.

[Triple A]

It really is exceptionally clever and a lesson to all devs

[Davros sock drawer]

32 minutes ago, Alan Stock said:

Another thing I can't get my head around and which hypes me to no end is how big the world seems to be. I unlocked another map column just now north of Stormveil, and its obvious from looking that the map is going to expand yet again beyond that, not only to the north but the west as well. Its total madness, all I've explored properly is West Limgrave and Weeping Peninsula.

 

 

 

You're in for such a treat. Liurnia is massive!

[Davros sock drawer]

So I think I've rinsed Stormveil now, after 3 visits. Last task was the CK, and after about 20 attempts to git gud (and often gitting killed in a couple of hits) I had a little word with myself... 

 

You see, when I played Bloodborne as my first Fromsoft game, and even more so when I played Dark Souls and Demon's Souls, I did NOT limit myself to just going toe to toe with an enemy and trying to git gud. I used magic, consumables, ranged weapons, poison, even gravity - anything to get the kill and progress. In short, playing the game.

 

So I had a rummage through my inventory, to see what I had. Turns out I had a lot of very, very useful stuff. Buffs from food and magical items. And, crucially, a superb Ash of War with (I believe) i-frames!

 

This is what happened:

 

Spoiler

 

 

Git gud?! I got gud at using shit to get the job done!

 

So yeah, this was a lesson for me, and I submit that it's a lesson to all who play these games - you don't need to brute strength it, and you don't need elite skills. The games are difficult, but often we make them harder than they need to be.

 

Here endeth the lesson. And now, here's a calming video of some clouds:

 

 

[joemul]

2 hours ago, Thor said:

I really admire Joemul. He sounds absolutely ace!

Very kind of you to say so, sir.

[SharkyOB]

4 minutes ago, Davros sock drawer said:

This is what happened:

 

Cheesed that fucker last night, just murdered him with my bow from the platform above where he stands.  Perfectly valid tactic as far as I'm concerned 🤣

[Davros sock drawer]

2 minutes ago, SharkyOB said:

 

Cheesed that fucker last night, just murdered him with my bow from the platform above where he stands.  Perfectly valid tactic as far as I'm concerned 🤣

 

Exactly! I've done the same thing many times with tough enemies. 

[Onze]

2 minutes ago, SharkyOB said:

 

Cheesed that fucker last night, just murdered him with my bow from the platform above where he stands.  Perfectly valid tactic as far as I'm concerned 🤣

I noped out on him and ran to take the lift to safety. Apparently he couldn't handle the rejection so he threw himself down the lift shaft. 😉

[therearerules]

Yeah, lots of open spoilers in this thread, or spoilers with no indication of what the spoiler might even be. If it;s specifics like bosses people could at least spoiler it with a dungeon name or something. At least for the first month or so.

[Davros sock drawer]

9 minutes ago, Onze said:

I noped out on him and ran to take the lift to safety. Apparently he couldn't handle the rejection so he threw himself down the lift shaft. 😉

 

It counts! 

[Anne Summers]

4 hours ago, Fitzcarraldo said:

Re: Raya Lucaria you can stop the boulder permanently. 

How? I don't think it's killing the knight that was mentioned before. 

[mr_woo]

Currently I'm stuck between two areas 

 

 

Spoiler

Gelmir Heros Grave and Black Knife Catacombs

 

When I say stuck I mean I'm gonna complete one of these bastards today/tomorrow without going anywhere else. I'm stubborn.

[Jamie John]

14 minutes ago, SharkyOB said:

 

Cheesed that fucker last night, just murdered him with my bow from the platform above where he stands.  Perfectly valid tactic as far as I'm concerned 🤣

 

Yup. I poisoned him then stood on top of the ruins nearby and watched him die. Any tactic is valid if it gets the job done! Absolutely exploit any bottlenecks, high ground or other advantages with the geography you can.

[Kirby]

6 hours ago, JPL said:

Where’s this place?

 

Spoiler

Outside Raya Lucaria - the southeast. There's a bunch of Royal Guards who drop them. There's also a horrible head/flamethrower on wheels.

 

[Rayn]

11 minutes ago, mr_woo said:

Currently I'm stuck between two areas 

 

 

  Hide contents

Gelmir Heros Grave and Black Knife Catacombs

 

When I say stuck I mean I'm gonna complete one of these bastards today/tomorrow without going anywhere else. I'm stubborn.

I did the latter last night, it really did my head in as I couldn’t figure out how to open a door. In the end I solved it and it reminded me of a BotW shrine in some ways.

 

The former one you mention has had me rage quit twice today 😠

[mr_woo]

2 minutes ago, Rayn said:

I did the latter last night, it really did my head in as I couldn’t figure out how to open a door. In the end I solved it and it reminded me of a BotW shrine in some ways.

 

The former one you mention has had me rage quit twice today 😠

 

Yep, and I haven't even reached the bosses yet!

[Retroid]

Loving my new shiny claws.

 

Spoiler

 

 

Time to take on Godrick!

[Vulgar Monkey]

As a consolidation of everything theyve achieved thus far, polished up to the nth degree, having it on the same engine feels somehow thematically appropriate too. But yeah, after this I think they need to switch up, and to be fair they've more than earnt the time/money needed to do so before they pump out another game. The aesthetic can stay though, I'd be happy if they kept it forever.

 

On the note of engine blahblah though, as well as obviously allowing them to add or refine things without having to bolt stuff on to layers upon layers of pre-existing convoluted code, does developing a new engine yield any benefits around....uh, 'efficiency', for lack of a better word I guess?

 

What I mean is, I could boot up Red Dead 2, tweak a few settings, and it would still run with much higher visual fidelity than ER at lower resource costs in terms of clock speeds, memory usage etc. Presumably as it is a newer engine that hasnt been expanded so far beyond its original incarnation. I assume a lot of that comes down to how the engine does what it does?

[Thor]

29 minutes ago, joemul said:

can you spoiler this, bud? Would've been a great, and nasty surprise

Done, you might want to edit your quote of me though.

 

23 minutes ago, therearerules said:

Yeah, lots of open spoilers in this thread, or spoilers with no indication of what the spoiler might even be. If it;s specifics like bosses people could at least spoiler it with a dungeon name or something. At least for the first month or so.

 

This thread seems to be all over the place for spoiler "rules", we openly talk about fighting Margit and Godrick at Stormveil Castle and no-one bats an eyelid; but then other smaller stuff is considered serious spoiler material. Not having a go at you or Joe here, I'm usually pedantic as fuck* when it comes to spoilers, but I'm less concerned about them with these kind of games, and I got the impression that was also the general feel of this thread. 

 

*But not as pedantic as some in the Bloodborne thread back in the day, who insisted on initialisation of boss names (ie Vicar Amelia = VA). That drove me mad.

[Vulgar Monkey]

Oh, re spoilers, I did look at a posting of the full map on kotaku (?) earlier, as I dont really consider it a spoiler other than telling me how big the game is.

 

It's fucking big, holy shit.

[mr_woo]

3 minutes ago, Retroid said:

Loving my new shiny claws.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Time to take on Godrick!

 

Get bleed on those claws and you'll be wrecking fools 😎

 

2 minutes ago, Vulgar Monkey said:

As a consolidation of everything theyve achieved thus far, polished up to the nth degree, having it on the same engine feels somehow thematically appropriate too. But yeah, after this I think they need to switch up, and to be fair they've more than earnt the time/money needed to do so before they pump out another game. The aesthetic can stay though, I'd be happy if they kept it forever.

 

On the note of engine blahblah though, as well as obviously allowing them to add or refine things without having to bolt stuff on to layers upon layers of pre-existing convoluted code, does developing a new engine yield any benefits around....uh, 'efficiency', for lack of a better word I guess?

 

What I mean is, I could boot up Red Dead 2, tweak a few settings, and it would still run with much higher visual fidelity than ER at lower resource costs in terms of clock speeds, memory usage etc. Presumably as it is a newer engine that hasnt been expanded so far beyond its original incarnation. I assume a lot of that comes down to how the engine does what it does?

 

Honestly the main thing I want is them to improve their engines performance and smooth out the rough edges more than anything. Maybe this is harder to do if they've made many engine modifications but they get that sorted and I'd be fine with it. 

[Kryptonian]

2 hours ago, Jamie John said:

 

It's a weekly gaming podcast by two veteran games journalists. It's great!

 

 

Thanks!