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Post by rhaegyr on Aug 5, 2024 14:07:08 GMT
This is awesome!
I've not ran into any of the frustrations people have reported yet (though I've only done Ensis and Belurat Tower).
The little gravestones everywhere are a bit annoying though.
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rawshark
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Post by rawshark on Aug 16, 2024 17:36:51 GMT
The world’s slowest play through of the base game continues…
Beat the Lake of Rot and Moonlight Alter now, so that’s Ranni’s quest line finished. Ringleader Alecto probably gave me the most trouble - so much HP! Still managed to beat her in a few goes (very satisfying when she went down) so that’s Black Knife Tiche on my side now. As I understand it she can just beat the rest of the game for me now.
(The fully upgraded Mimic Tear has kind of been doing that anyway. I just pointed it at the Dragonkin Soldier in the Rot and watched from a distance.)
Dragonbarrow next, I guess.
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Post by Jambowayoh on Aug 16, 2024 18:26:16 GMT
Tiche has been nerfed somewhat. Mimic is still fundamentally the best spirit for survivability and damage output.
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rawshark
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Post by rawshark on Aug 16, 2024 20:48:51 GMT
Tiche has been nerfed somewhat. Mimic is still fundamentally the best spirit for survivability and damage output. first I get burned by the Sword of Night and Flame, now this. |
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Post by mothercruncher on Aug 16, 2024 22:21:46 GMT
Have one character about to complete the game and two others mid way through the dlc, which means…
I need to make another character of course 🥸
I bloody love the early game, Stormveil, Weeping Peninsula and mad dashes into Caelid and Liurnia to pick stuff up. Digging the heck out of twin dagger build, never bothered with them before but challenging enough, without a shield and needing to be at close range and so f’in satisfying to watch bleed latch on.
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Post by JuniorFE on Aug 16, 2024 22:31:14 GMT
I've been running a quick Strength build myself, Golden Vow/Flame Grant Me Strength, Grafted Blade Greatsword, Great Stars with Prayerful Strike, Mind/Int/Fai/Arc still at base level and only the bare minimum of Dex, the works. It's fun enough, and the big pp numbers do activate the neurons, but I'm starting to remember why I prefer having faster attacks and ranged options tbh, I'm facetanking entirely too many attacks because it's much harder to find openings  Major props to that one streamer I follow that beat all the bosses he fought (including finishing the base game and DLC) exclusively with the Starscourge Greatswords, I don't think I could |
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Post by Jambowayoh on Aug 16, 2024 22:51:29 GMT
Anyone tried out the backhand blade with its ash blindspot. Definitely feel it's being slept on with how ridiculous it is.
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Bongo Heracles
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Post by Bongo Heracles on Aug 17, 2024 9:52:00 GMT
Tiche has been nerfed somewhat. Mimic is still fundamentally the best spirit for survivability and damage output. I saw a post on Reddit the other day saying how the summons are basically the difficulty slider and the reason most of them suck. Mimic tear plays for you, Tiche is good and then it’s a sliding scale all the way down to giant rat. I don’t know how true that is but, yeah, it does kind of scan. My main complaint is that the game itself is actually fairly easy solo, it’s just the bosses that are a pain in the arse but Mimic trivialises 90% of them. It never really occurred to me to try and find a spirit that would give me just enough help and match my skill level. Every time I tried a new one I just thought ‘this is shit’ and went back to mimic. |
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Post by Vandelay on Aug 17, 2024 11:07:04 GMT
I think the issue is for me is that all I want during a boss fight is a bit of space and time to be able to recover when needs be. Most of the late game bosses (and even some of the early ones), just don't give you that unless you have a summon with you to serve as distraction.
But, most of the summons die incredibly quickly. A summon like Tiche (although I admittedly only got her on my recent playthrough and tried her against DLC bosses), may do a shit ton of damage, but if they are dead before a boss reaches half health then they are not meeting my need for the summon. I don't really care if it is doing any damage, it just needs to stay alive.
The mimick is the only one that I found that has the staying power to actually last out the boss fights towards he end of the game, or at least stay alive until the boss is on its last legs. The fact it also can do a shit ton of damage to the boss, depending on what build you have, makes many of the fights trivial though.
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Post by JuniorFE on Aug 17, 2024 11:22:13 GMT
I used the Crystalian a ton before the Mimic. It has the same resistances and mechanics as the enemy version, so a surprising amount of enemies could barely damage it unless you let it get staggered.
And the golem smith summon from the DLC is basically the second coming of that but trading the stagger thing for a weakness in the back. It's pretty telling that it was one of the few summons that didn't get a buff in the latest patch. There's even videos of it solo-killing the final DLC boss if you play support with Heal From Afar and maybe the occasional buff!
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Post by mothercruncher on Aug 17, 2024 19:18:26 GMT
I think these games are head and shoulders for scope and depth, deep gameplay and a million other things but I get the boss gripes. When they’re flailing at you constantly, closing gaps all the time, the only way to beat them is to meticulously learn every move- and every variation on those moves- and then the frigging second phase of said moves all over again and then nail each moment of your fight.
Which plays to the twitchy gaming ninjas but it’s going to take 10 bloody runs and fights for me to ever learn all that and I can’t be bothered.
So I end up half learning what I need to do and using a tanky summon to buy that space. Or sometimes just cheesing because I want to get back to the stuff I find fun- the moment to moment gameplay and exploration.
Do think they set things up so that really any method that gets you through is valid enough and it’s testament to their design that that’s the case. I think I’d position mist nearly every one of them if I could.
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Aunty Treats
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Post by Aunty Treats on Aug 17, 2024 20:17:08 GMT
Dunno about the testament to their design bit. They managed to make challenging but not annoying bosses in their previous games. Seems like they went too far the other way and stuck some summons in to effectively let you skip them
Difficulty discussion:
Going by a lot of comments on the bosses here, I really think a difficulty option would be better if that's the route they want to go (skewing to the hardest of the hardcore). It doesn't have to change damage/health- it could just make the bosses less aggressive, have more/longer gaps/windows and maybe remove a couple of moves from them- like giving Melania's combo only one attack instead of three on easy or normal or whatever. It'd still do decent damage but not kill outright. Easy mode could also checkpoint boss phases as I'm sick of Malenia's first one. Plenty of scope to do decent difficulty options
That, or someone should mod a practice mode into the game so you can endlessly fight a boss without dying to learn them. It's the first time a boss in a From game has caused me to stop playing
A normal mode for a smoother first time playthrough without having to outright gimp fights would be good at this point |
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Post by RadicalRex on Aug 17, 2024 20:21:58 GMT
Do think they set things up so that really any method that gets you through is valid enough and it’s testament to their design that that’s the case. Miyazaki said he uses every tool available when he plays, Mimic and everything, so the nazis better stop claiming that's not valid. The game is designed to give you a challenge if you want it, but also to allow you to make it easier if you wish. It's not like they didn't know what they were doing when they put items like Blasphemous Blade or Fingerprint Shield in the game, or the Mohgwyn Palace rune farming spot. People should be able to play a game however they want, and the Elden Ring devs clearly think so too, in fact I know few games that make such an effort to give the player so much freedom in choosing their own play style. |
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Aunty Treats
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Post by Aunty Treats on Aug 17, 2024 20:25:46 GMT
Miyazaki said he uses every tool available when he plays, Mimic and everything, so the nazis better stop claiming that's not valid. The game is designed to give you a challenge if you want it, but also to allow you to make it easier if you wish. It's not like they didn't know what they were doing when they put items like Blasphemous Blade or Fingerprint Shield in the game, or the Mohgwyn Palace rune farming spot. People should be able to play a game however they want, and the Elden Ring devs clearly think so too, in fact I know few games that make such an effort to give the player so much freedom in choosing their own play style. I'm only going by what I've read in this thread as I haven't engaged with many, if any, of those mechanics. But it doesn't sound like they've done a very good job of making it a something you can scale. It's either deal with all the bollocks or let the game play itself. Plenty of comments here of people saying they beat a boss using summons or particular builds but it wasn't satisfying at all
Games are suppose to be fun, ultimately, not just beaten or overcome. I personally wouldn't get any enjoyment from the summons
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Post by Jambowayoh on Aug 17, 2024 20:28:27 GMT
That would be an option I guess but we know a difficulty option isn't going to happen. I personally don't think it needs to really as the stuff in between bosses doesn't really call for a difficulty option. I think the biggest issue is having bosses that don't follow the rules they set in the world. It's no use having things like poise, stamina and startup and delays to moves if you're going to put enemies in the game who don't follow those rules.
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Post by Jambowayoh on Aug 17, 2024 20:32:34 GMT
Miyazaki said he uses every tool available when he plays, Mimic and everything, so the nazis better stop claiming that's not valid. The game is designed to give you a challenge if you want it, but also to allow you to make it easier if you wish. It's not like they didn't know what they were doing when they put items like Blasphemous Blade or Fingerprint Shield in the game, or the Mohgwyn Palace rune farming spot. People should be able to play a game however they want, and the Elden Ring devs clearly think so too, in fact I know few games that make such an effort to give the player so much freedom in choosing their own play style. I'm only going by what I've read in this thread as I haven't engaged with many, if any, of those mechanics. But it doesn't sound like they've done a very good job of making it a something you can scale. It's either deal with all the bollocks or let the game play itself. Plenty of comments here of people saying they beat a boss using summons or particular builds but it wasn't satisfying at all
Games are suppose to be fun, ultimately, not just beaten or overcome. I personally wouldn't get any enjoyment from the summons
And that's fine. I have a friend who's playing his first From soft game now in elden ring and he's enjoying it and gladly using summons. He's also enjoying to see if he can do stuff by himself. |
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Aunty Treats
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Post by Aunty Treats on Aug 17, 2024 20:35:20 GMT
I'm just annoyed because Malenia is a wanker. She'd be dead weeks ago now without that one attack. If they made an easy mode where she doesn't have that one move, I'd be happy. I wouldn't use it if they called it easy mode, obviously. They'd have to go Normal>Hard>Classic or something
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rawshark
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Post by rawshark on Aug 17, 2024 20:39:30 GMT
Got to agree with that. No one’s asking you to pull out that Minic Tear. It even penalises you for it by making sure you spend a flask.
For me, I get maybe an hour a week to play. I’m cheesing anything that can be cheesed.
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Post by Jambowayoh on Aug 17, 2024 20:41:47 GMT
I recently fought her again using my dlc build and found it quite hard. Went back to my double katanas and it was over in quick sharp time. Elden Beast was surprisingly a walkover with Torrent. It seems the AI doesn't know what to do with it.
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Aunty Treats
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Post by Aunty Treats on Aug 17, 2024 21:04:31 GMT
I (apparently uncommonly) enjoy the bosses as one of the main draws of the games, so the idea of using summons is basically skipping a lot of the fun. I could mimic my way to the end of the game but what would be the point
I suppose melee unassisted is basically playing it as an action game and that's been perfectly achievable previously, even if not the intended way. But it has now become a bit of a challenge run instead and you're lumped in with the hardcore players
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Post by Jambowayoh on Aug 17, 2024 21:09:59 GMT
I guess you do you, others are doing what's fun for them. Everyone's happy.
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Aunty Treats
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Post by Aunty Treats on Aug 17, 2024 21:15:52 GMT
The point is they're not though, literally. Even you yourself said you didn't get any enjoyment/satisfaction from using the mimic or whatever it was on bosses and I'm not happy because it's more frustrating than I would like I don't know why people are so unwilling to accept that there's flaws and any complaint/criticism is a 'you problem'. ER introduced issues that weren't there in 6 previous games. They messed something up
I still really like the game for the most part. It's not perfect though
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rawshark
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Post by rawshark on Aug 17, 2024 21:22:00 GMT
Hell. I poison misted the hardest boss in Demon’s Souls without aggroing him. Probably missed a great boss fight. Do I regret it. Not a single bit.
When I bought that game there were fears the online element could be taken down any day. I loved it, I have many great memories of it, but by that point I just had to get through that bleak, bleak, bleak game.
And while I’m at it… walkthroughs all the way. Lake of Rot would have sucked a ball if I didn’t know about various immunity raising items buried away all over the map. Beast repellent torch too. Basilisks can do one.
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Post by Duffking on Aug 17, 2024 21:24:08 GMT
Tiche has been nerfed somewhat. Mimic is still fundamentally the best spirit for survivability and damage output. I saw a post on Reddit the other day saying how the summons are basically the difficulty slider and the reason most of them suck. Mimic tear plays for you, Tiche is good and then it’s a sliding scale all the way down to giant rat. I don’t know how true that is but, yeah, it does kind of scan. My main complaint is that the game itself is actually fairly easy solo, it’s just the bosses that are a pain in the arse but Mimic trivialises 90% of them. It never really occurred to me to try and find a spirit that would give me just enough help and match my skill level. Every time I tried a new one I just thought ‘this is shit’ and went back to mimic. I have a similar complaint to you; the game is relatively easy solo right up until the bosses where many are just tuned way above everything leading to them. If this *was* their attempt at technically having a difficulty slider then frankly, I wish they hadn't bothered because IMO it's a worse experience for everyone and they should have just done an actual difficulty select.
The bosses just generally aren't any good at dealing with multiple targets. The spirits end up either completely useless because they don't stay alive along enough, or trivialise the fight because they stay alive long enough and the bosses as mentioned before don't deal with multiple targets well. There's not really a scale IMO, just "useless", "not useless" and then a select few where they also happen to do stupid amounts of damage for you too.
I used to point out that people massively underestimate how much effort doing multiple difficulty settings can be - you can't just blanket increase/decrease things by percentage and expect things to still feel right across the board, you risk people going "well this is shit" if they play on difficulties outside the one you really dialled things in. But at least you still have the baseline one. As opposed to it not really feeling "right" at any point.
It's why I've never agreed with the take that the game was designed to have you use the spirits as a primary. IMO it has the hallmarks of two bits of design that didn't talk to each other enough. Encounter team was making the bosses, another team was doing the spirits. Spirits were dying too much so they gave a bunch of them more health, now it was too easy not to die so the bosses got more AoEs and more aggression, and voila, the bosses aren't much fun to fight solo any more and they're still not great at dealing with spirits either.
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Post by Jambowayoh on Aug 17, 2024 21:26:21 GMT
The point is they're not though, literally. Even you yourself said you didn't get any enjoyment/satisfaction from using the mimic or whatever it was on bosses and I'm not happy because it's more frustrating than I would like I don't know why people are so unwilling to accept that there's flaws and any complaint/criticism is a 'you problem'. ER introduced issues that weren't there in 6 previous games. They messed something up
I still really like the game for the most part. It's not perfect though
No ones saying it's a you problem. I don't know where you're getting that from. People are very willing to criticise it. You seem to be very bothered about using a spirit as you think it lessens the experience for you personally, others don't seen to give a shit, I don't believe I've said I didn't get satisfaction from using mimic, I've used whatever I want. I hated the last dlc boss thought it was terrible for the very reasons I mentioned earlier. I'm not sure what you really want. For people not to use spirits? For people to use whatever tools available to them? |
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Post by Duffking on Aug 17, 2024 21:28:12 GMT
I'm happy that there are people who get fun out of fighting the bosses with spirits. I just wish it seemingly didn't come at a cost of bosses that are fun for me to fight, with or without them.
Not that all the bosses are bad though, it's really just a select few.
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rawshark
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Post by rawshark on Aug 17, 2024 21:28:57 GMT
Why can’t you all just admit I’m shit hot at gaming and the mimic tear is merely a merry companion to my crusade.
(No, don’t challenge me to PvP)
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Post by Danno on Aug 17, 2024 21:29:36 GMT
I swear this degenerates into an easy mode discussion every month and it is as boring as my morning piss.
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Post by Jambowayoh on Aug 17, 2024 21:32:12 GMT
I'm sure your morning piss is very exciting.
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Aunty Treats
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Post by Aunty Treats on Aug 17, 2024 21:33:26 GMT
I don't care what other people do. I don't want to change the game for everyone. I want an experience like I've had for their 6 previous games. A reasonable challenge that doesn't need assists
I just took your response as being a bit curt- everyone else is happy except me (apologies if not the case)
I think Duffking is melee and doesn't like using summons, so he gets it. People keep talking about being able to play however you like, but the playstyle that I, and plenty of others, like has been made a lot less enjoyable in order to cater to two extremes (very easy and very hard). If someone doesn't care about skipping stuff or is happy to cheese things, that's fine but isn't really relevant
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