Elden Ring (George RR Martin and From Software)

I hope we get some DLC before year end. A month or two break then dive into DLC be perfect👌

Volume 1 of the Future Press guide arrived 🙂 unfortunately volume 2 is delayed.

Being the glutton for this game that I am I've managed to finish it a fifth time, this time with a new character rather than NG+.

40 levels lower and less than a third of the time it took me to finish it the first time, pretty happy with that even though I know some players finished about that time there first playthrough.

Strength character with a bit of faith toward the end. Played the whole thing with the grafted great sword once I got it.

The multiplayer aspect of FromSoftware games has always seemed pretty iffy in general.

Dung Eater is a pretty good summon if your willing to do the quests in a certain order to get him. I like making him my b***h given his character as well🤣

Was browsing the ER sub reddit the other day and came accross a post that said equip the Raw Meat Dumpling if you use Mimic Tear and the Mimic will use it to restore health, tried it the other day and it worked, I don't think summons take status damage so the Mimic doesn't get the poison proc the player would from eating it😮

Its a lot of game for 30 quid! I was hoping the remastered version of DS1 would be on sale but it's still full price, kinda crap sale imo.

Never had any real trouble myself on the PS5 version. Been a few patches which have probably improved performance anyway so I imagine it should be fine.

Doesn't PS5 support VRR since the release of this game, so it should be better on a VRR display now. That was one advantage XBox SX had when this game first came out.

I've played all the souls games and never going the stuttering as bad in any of those as I did with Elden Ring. I thought i was going mad as most people were saying it was fine but i posted both versions side by side and for whatever reason, my ps5 version was just really bad. Maybe it's my telly, i dunno but will download it again to try it out.

I feel like there is a hitch every so often, id assume based on world loading, but its very minor. I started playing a few months after release and never really had an issue and I do notice frame pacing issues.

Low frames can be ok but they have to be consistent.

Did you have it on Performance or Quality mode?

All my time has been spent in performance mode.

I had it on performance and it was like a time thing iirc, every 5-10 seconds the screen would freeze for a sec, it was affecting combat and button inputs, not just a 'i want 60 fps' thing.

Yeah, I did a reinstall and no joy but installing again now so will see how it plays with all the updates.

Tried this again on the ps5 app, seems to run better for me now but still not as smooth as the ps4 pro version. Definitely not the unplayable level i first experienced.

Not that I have anything against following walk throughs, but do you regret not taking this approach with the other games?

I feel like the surprise/shock factor is one of the more enjoyable aspects of the Fromsoft games. Having said that, to get the platinums or to progress certain storylines, some form of guide is necessary. I like the futurepress guides as they only give the bare minimum amount of info needed. I also like having a solid memento for the game afterwards :)

A little, but I'm happy enough with how it went. Elden Ring being open world meant that while there was a golden path, exploration is such a key part of the game and the game is more balanced to allow that. Whereas I think I really would have struggled in some of the other games simply because of the scarcity of upgrade materials or special items. In particular, some of the ways to get to side paths in previous games like having to carefully dodge-roll onto small ledges and run around the side of castle walls or other awful platforming bits, I wouldn't have tried to attempt in previous games. I doubt I would have found even a tenth of the illusionary walls. Things like that in previous games I'm glad I could just see a video and know that that's a place I need to go for whatever item. I think it feels more forgiving in Elden Ring, maybe due to the ability to jump (so it's more evident that you might be able to make it over to a ledge rather than having to dodge-roll onto them), and more sites of grace to checkpoint, and even out in the open being able to summon Torrent and get the hell out of there if you realise you're somewhere you shouldn't be.

One of my main complaints about previous games is that upgrade material felt rare enough that it felt difficult to upgrade more than one weapon, and it was usually best to use all your material on your main weapon. It's why I didn't enjoy Bloodborne as much as others; I stuck with my starter weapon (Hunter's Axe) and just used the heavy swing attack on it for pretty much the entire game. And even going back to the game a while later I didn't want to use any other weapon because I got so used to it. So I wasn't even using the trick weapon ability for combos or anything, the heavy swing worked so well on pretty much everything, and the combat ended up boring me.

Elden Ring felt far more forgiving in that there were more sites of grace but also upgrade material feels far more abundant because they know you're likely to miss some areas or side paths. With the sheer amount of different weapons and builds possible, weapons feel a lot easier to level up and try out, and have a few different options for the same build.

Some of my favourite moments from Elden Ring were discovering parts of level design and how areas are connected that I probably would have lost if I just followed a walkthrough, so I probably did miss out on experiencing that directly in previous games, but I think it's a happy trade-off. I don't know if I would have kept going with Soulsborne games, as it was really the walkthroughs that let me get over a lot of the hesitations I had with them.