Elden Ring journeys and experiences

[danutz_plusplus]

You know a game is special when it causes a normally mild-mannered bloke to summon the F-word 13 times in one post.

Such is the power of Dark Souls.

The sad thing is, like a Stockholm victim, I'll probably return to it after cooling off. But man, is it infuriating. I think platforming might be the worst part of this game. It's all so rigid and brittle, that you never know how your character will react to some moving object in the environment. But it's almost never nice.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Myeah, embarrassed to admit this, but I went back into the fortress hours later, with a clearer head and did it on first try. I think i was already with my nerves stretched to their limits, since that whole place is such a mud pit, and when I saw that had to do it all over again I just snapped, and didn't see straight.

I'll give it another shot. Until the next mental snap.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

This game. It's really one troll encounter after another. I managed to reach the entrance to what looks like the big palace or whatever it is, in Anor Londo. I hate the reddish gargoyles or whatever they are. Somehow those, and the big knights tend to consume all of my flasks. But right now I have another pain in the ass section. I'm at another damn platforming puzzle, running on the edge of a building, with 2 sharpshooting archers firing really strong missiles at me, and knocking me off the edge. This game.

 

[Shagnak]

Basically, I go into Blighttown via Firelink/Valley of the Dragons, kill the 3 big dudes pretty easily. And then, all the way down to the bottom you only have 2 of those fiery chaos flies, a couple of small flies which you can mostly ignore. And the big rotating wheel that you jump on and ride all the way down. Then you got 2 more chaos flies and you're at the bonfire down there.

I found the bit you're meaning. Funny thing is, I opened the gate to the Valley of Drakes quite early on, I think with that key you can optionally start with, and thought "that sounds way too hard" and turned back to continue exploring the Undead areas. All I had to do is go a little down a path with no monsters to get to the other entrance to Blighttown. Oh well, now I know.

I did some reading to find out if there is a way to increase my resistance to being stunned when I screw up my blocking or dodging. Looks like in the Darkroot area there is a ring that gives +40 poise, and there is also the best knight armour in the game. Somehow I failed to stumble across them on the way to smiting that butterfly boss.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Great progress was made in DS. After acquiring Havel's armor, I decided to try and wear that for a bit, so I pumped all the stats needed, since it's very very heavy. And after a bit of that, and finding great success with it, I decided to go all out. I even killed Havel and took his ring, which grants you +50% weight capacity.

I also took the strongest and heaviest shield I have (can't use Havel's shield since it's got a hefty strength requirement of 50, but I'm getting there). So basically right now I'm a walking tank. I got the slow roll, but with the shield and the + dark knight halberd I'm pretty much demolishing everything.

Took out the 5th or 6th titanite demon by standing in its face, blocking and then swinging. And finally, I went into the Ornstein and Smaug fight, and absolutely demolished them both, on the first try. O guess I'm a wee bit overpowered?

Here's how I look and the stats with which I easily killed them both.

To be honest I'm a bit floored it went this easily.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

I've managed to explore the whole of catacombs, and then also went back with a guide to see what I missed. The level design is just insane. I know it's sounding like a broken record, but they constantly manage to one-up whatever maze-like level they designed so far with something even crazier. Some of them make almost no sense, but they're just awesome regardless. This whole game world is like 100 ouroboro snakes eating each other in the most bizarre ways possible. It's great!

After killing Pinwheel, I started the famous level that's in almost complete darkness. I have a feeling it's gonna sting, since it's probably gonna be mostly deaths by environment. Otherwise pretty much no enemy is giving me any issues. I'm still breezing through it all.

EDIT: oh, and forgot to mention. I also killed Sif and the Stray Demon back in the prison. Piece of cake, both of them. I really wonder if it's gonna continue like this till the end. Or am I gonna face something that really spikes up. Unless I'm mistaken I still have quite a long way to go.

 

[bkrueger]

@danutz_plusplus Do you play the original or the remastered version of Dark Souls? (Sorry if you mentioned it and I missed it.)

I have started Dark Souls 3 now and it is a little bit like Elden Ring without the open world and the exploration. I almost quitted it at the first boss for two reasons: The controls seem clunkier than the Elden Ring ones and there was no way to level up before the boss.

One small example: obviously the game interprets pressing forward and attack at the same time as command for a "kick". But that is not what I want: I want to run to the boss, keep running towards him and hit him during the movement. Sometimes this works, sometimes it makes a "kick" instead of a hit. Seems to depend on the exact timing of the keystrokes. I have lost some fights even against easier enemies only because of that. And there seems to be no way to change the keybinding for "kick" (I don't use it anyway, so deleting the key binding would be sufficient for me).

But even without that specific issue the controls seem clunkier. In Elden Ring I would have won against that boss with rolling and circling, without him even hitting me. In DS 3 he sometimes hits and sometimes misses even if I did exactly the same movement. I admit I had to look up a cheese for that boss.

Another thing I don't like is, that there was no way to level up before that boss (obviously it is meant to be part of the tutorial). I hope that is not the case later.

I am now in the first castle (Lothric) you can teleport to from the Firelink Shrine. This seems better, since I can level up a bit there and get used to the fights. But the problem that the game often makes a "kick", when I try to hit an enemy while running towards him still gets on my nerves.

I was now considering to try the remastered version of DS 1, since I understand that this is newer than Ds 3 and may be nearer to Elden Ring from the game mechanics. (That is one reason for my question @danutz_plusplus above.)

But for now I will try to go on in DS 3 for a while...

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Yeah, I'm on the remastered version of DS1. No way am I putting up with a worse version of this.

As far as the kick issue, I sometimes have it in DS1 as well. I haven't learned what exactly triggers it, but it seems to be when enemies are too close my character attempts a kick instead of the regular swing.

From what I remember, and the little I played of DS3, it seemed considerably better than DS1 and 2. DS3 was released after BB, so they smoothed out and made the combat much faster. So I'm not sure if you can expect DS1 (even the remastered version) to be better than DS3. The remastered version didn't change anything mechanically. It just runs technically better, looks slightly better and runs on ultrawide resolutions.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Well, I decided that since I was down here in Tomb of the Giants, in pitch black darkness, I was going to try and see how far I can go. The guide I'm following to fill in any missing gaps seemed to recommend doing this one that last one, as far as the main story goes.

So, I kept at it and managed to explore all of it, aside from a few hidden items I probably missed, and even killed Nito, the final boss and one of the 4 primal souls I need to gather. It was ridiculously easily. I even managed the last part of the dungeon to his place using only 1-2 flasks and 2-3 humanities. And had no flasks and used only one humanity in his fight. Piece of cake.

 

[bkrueger]

Yeah, I'm on the remastered version of DS1. No way am I putting up with a worse version of this.

As far as the kick issue, I sometimes have it in DS1 as well. I haven't learned what exactly triggers it, but it seems to be when enemies are too close my character attempts a kick instead of the regular swing.

From what I remember, and the little I played of DS3, it seemed considerably better than DS1 and 2. DS3 was released after BB, so they smoothed out and made the combat much faster. So I'm not sure if you can expect DS1 (even the remastered version) to be better than DS3. The remastered version didn't change anything mechanically. It just runs technically better, looks slightly better and runs on ultrawide resolutions.

Thanks for the info! Withe respect to the kick-issue I understood only now that normal attacks need stamina (in Elden Ring only strong and special attacks need stamina, but not the normal one, as far as I remember). So you kick if you are out of stamina. But it is not the only situation where it happens so your observation may also be true.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Well I seem to have screwed myself. I had one last firekeeper to upgrade my flasks, and I went and had to kill Gwyndolyn, which prompted the last of them to aggro me. So now I'm at +5 with apparently no way to upgrade. And apparently the flasks go up to +7. I'll see if I can just tank it ahead.

 

[JDR13]

One small example: obviously the game interprets pressing forward and attack at the same time as command for a "kick". But that is not what I want: I want to run to the boss, keep running towards him and hit him during the movement. Sometimes this works, sometimes it makes a "kick" instead of a hit. Seems to depend on the exact timing of the keystrokes. I have lost some fights even against easier enemies only because of that. And there seems to be no way to change the keybinding for "kick" (I don't use it anyway, so deleting the key binding would be sufficient for me).

I wonder if that's a side effect of playing with M+K. I can't recall it ever happening when I was using my Dualshock 4.

 

[sakichop]

Well I seem to have screwed myself. I had one last firekeeper to upgrade my flasks, and I went and had to kill Gwyndolyn, which prompted the last of them to aggro me. So now I'm at +5 with apparently no way to upgrade. And apparently the flasks go up to +7. I'll see if I can just tank it ahead.

You can find absolution in dark souls.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

You can find absolution in dark souls.

Yea, but apparently not for certain sins.

Absolution - Dark Souls Wiki

darksouls.wikidot.com

“You cannot: Revert Lady of the Darkling only if you made her hostile by killing Gwyndolin. You can still revert her if you made her hostile by damaging her.”

 

[Shagnak]

Oh well, I'm quitting properly now. Sen's Fortress or whatever it's called is nuts. I'm going to watch a few walkthrus of the bits I've missed and call it a day.

I love the level design and atmosphere, but try as I might, I just can't git gud enough, and there are a heap of games in my queue.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Oh well, I'm quitting properly now. Sen's Fortress or whatever it's called is nuts. I'm going to watch a few walkthrus of the bits I've missed and call it a day.

I love the level design and atmosphere, but try as I might, I just can't git gud enough, and there are a heap of games in my queue.

Yeah, I can understand that. I'm also pretty sure this will be my ownly playthrough of Dark Souls. It's been great, but the level of difficulty was insane until I stumbled onto my current build which steamrolls almost everything. And I'm sure I wouldn't want to just repeat this build on another playthrough, since that would be boring. And there's no way I'm putting up with some of the stuff in the game again.

I'll probably try Dark Souls 2 afterwards, since I keep hearing mixed messages. Some say it's the worst, others that it's not that bad, others that it's actually good. I want to at least give it a proper try.

 

[Shagnak]

I'll probably try Dark Souls 2 afterwards, since I keep hearing mixed messages. Some say it's the worst, others that it's not that bad, others that it's actually good. I want to at least give it a proper try.

I'll be having a look at that as well. I already own it, but was determined to play through Dark Souls 1 first. Hopefully it's a bit less... clunky?
I know some people here think it's pretty good (@JFarrell71 ?).

 

[danutz_plusplus]

I'll be having a look at that as well. I already own it, but was determined to play through Dark Souls 1 first. Hopefully it's a bit less... clunky?
I know some people here think it's pretty good (@JFarrell71 ?).

From what I've seen it's still clunky, but a slightly different type of clunky. I think it was developed and lead by a separate team than the usual FromSoft? DS3 is the only one that felt a significant departure from the jank of the first two games.

 

[JFarrell71]

I'll probably try Dark Souls 2 afterwards, since I keep hearing mixed messages. Some say it's the worst, others that it's not that bad, others that it's actually good. I want to at least give it a proper try.

No idea what you'll think, but Dark Souls 2 was my first From game (I'm not counting Kings Field, which I barely played and is from a thousand years ago), and I played through it twice. The first time was a top 10 gaming experience for me. It won't have anything like that impact on you because a lot of that was it being my first and coming into it thinking I wouldn't be patient enough to get through it, and then feeling uber dedicated to playing it. But I 100% think the levels, gameplay, setting, etc are right up there with any of their games.

 

[bkrueger]

I wonder if that's a side effect of playing with M+K. I can't recall it ever happening when I was using my Dualshock 4.

Yes it is possible that this happens mainly with keyboard and mouse. Since I can't get used to controllers I will play with keyboard and mouse nevertheless. I got quite used to the controls in DS3 in the meantime.
I am now in an area called "Cathedral of the deep" and have much fun there in spite of dying constantly. It has great level design a little bit like Stormveil Castle in Elden Ring.

All in all Dark Souls 3 reminds me very much of Elden Ring, it is obvious that they developed many ideas used there already here.

Looking forward to my next session...