Soulsborne Thread #12

[BigBossBalrog]

5 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said:

I mostly agree with this. Particularly Dark Souls 1 which to this day might be their most fair and balanced game with very little in the way of BS. 

But unfortunately, I think that would be very difficult in Elden Ring because the progression system typically leads to the player character being almost as overtuned and OP as the strongest bosses. We’re so fast, and our abilities are so powerful, that I don’t think there’s a single enemy on the DS1 roster that would even provide a challenge. Hell, even DS3 would only have a couple.

I imagine it’s very hard to create challenging bosses for late game ER who aren’t crazy aggressive or spammy, because, honestly, slow bosses are piss easy when you’ve nearly got the speed of Bloodborne Hunters and half your weapons spit fire or some other crazy magical crap.  

Personally, I haven’t been bothered by it yet. But I also haven’t encountered most of the tougher DLC bosses that you guys have. Though I will say that while I’ve liked the bosses I’ve met, I wouldn’t say they’ve been a big step up from the base game in the same way that most the Dark Souls and Bloodborne DLC bosses were.

I agreed with most of this. Dark Souls 1 had a perfect balance of difficulty, spectacle, and practicality (If we ignore Bed of Chaos). Made you feel awe...but didn't have the bullet-hell explosions, or the super insane attacks  (And if they did, it was only for special bosses). 

[The Good Doctor]

31 minutes ago, BigBossBalrog said:

I agreed with most of this. Dark Souls 1 had a perfect balance of difficulty, spectacle, and practicality (If we ignore Bed of Chaos). Made you feel awe...but didn't have the bullet-hell explosions, or the super insane attacks  (And if they did, it was only for special bosses). 

I think it’s almost an inevitability of Elden Ring’s design. It’s generally a good thing for big open world games to let you keep progressing in strength from beginning to end, rather than capping you off somewhere in the middle. But in a game this massive, that is a lot of progression.

The upside is you never feel stagnant and always have this sense that you’re growing in power and becoming more worthy of being Elden Lord.

Downside is that challenging the player gets more and more difficult for the devs, especially when we can be so damn versatile by just changing a few weapons and talismans.

Result is bosses who are absolutely nuts, because I suppose Fromsoft would rather some players get frustrated and angry at the difficulty than bored and disinterested because they steamrolled everything in their path.

[ColonelKillaBee]

10 hours ago, The Good Doctor said:

I’m stoked to face Messmer, but I keep getting delayed by exploration. I still haven’t even taken my first step into the Shadow Keep.  

I played another hour tonight instead of going to sleep at a reasonable hour. My plan was to finally check the place out and make for the second Fingerprint Ruin, but first I took a detour to check out Colonel's bog… turns out I just missed it, literally went into and looted the cave which leads to it but somehow missed the giant window leading to a new area…

… And now I’ve found several more areas. Some of them huge. This map is endless.

On the extra plus side, I found a Two-Headed Turtle Talisman that grants really good stamina regen.  

Ooooh gimme! That talisman is almost essential for Messmer

[ColonelKillaBee]

Or one of the other crazy good ones like the two handed talisman 

[The Good Doctor]

Regarding Omens, I think they are indeed a curse, not a blessing from the Crucible or representative of closeness to it. At least not in a way that’s natural.

The old Hornsent grandma cries out for a curse upon "the progeny of the Strumpet (Marika)" in retaliation for what she did to their people.

That has to be in reference to the Omens. Using their Divine Beasts, the suffering Hornsent placed a curse upon Marika so that her future progeny (Morgott and Mohg) would be born as warped, messed up reminders of the people she slaughtered.

Everything we used to think applied to the Omens, of how they are an ancient people, blessed by the Crucible, was actually about the Hornsent all along.

That is why the Omens are gross, disfigured, pathetic beings whose very existence is agony. While the Hornsent were much prouder, more stable and healthy beings. They are a natural race, whereas the Omens are a horrible curse.

[BigBossBalrog]

1 minute ago, The Good Doctor said:

Regarding Omens, I think they are indeed a curse, not a blessing from the Crucible or representative of closeness to it. At least not in a way that’s natural.

 

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The old Hornsent grandma cries out for a curse upon "the progeny of the Strumpet (Marika)" in retaliation for what she did to their people.

That has to be in reference to the Omens. Using their Divine Beasts, the suffering Hornsent placed a curse upon Marika so that her future progeny (Morgott and Mohg) would be born as warped, messed up reminders of the people she slaughtered.

Everything we used to think applied to the Omens, of how they are an ancient people, blessed by the Crucible, was actually about the Hornsent all along.

That is why the Omens are gross, disfigured, pathetic beings whose very existence is agony. While the Hornsent were much prouder, more stable and healthy beings. They are a natural race, whereas the Omens are a horrible curse.

The Lamenator Mask also implied there were omens amongst them too, which they shunned. 

[ColonelKillaBee]

1 minute ago, The Good Doctor said:

Regarding Omens, I think they are indeed a curse, not a blessing from the Crucible or representative of closeness to it. At least not in a way that’s natural.

 

  Hide contents

 

The old Hornsent grandma cries out for a curse upon "the progeny of the Strumpet (Marika)" in retaliation for what she did to their people.

That has to be in reference to the Omens. Using their Divine Beasts, the suffering Hornsent placed a curse upon Marika so that her future progeny (Morgott and Mohg) would be born as warped, messed up reminders of the people she slaughtered.

Everything we used to think applied to the Omens, of how they are an ancient people, blessed by the Crucible, was actually about the Hornsent all along.

That is why the Omens are gross, disfigured, pathetic beings whose very existence is agony. While the Hornsent were much prouder, more stable and healthy beings. They are a natural race, whereas the Omens are a horrible curse.

Thats pretty fucked lol

Thats like a racist that hates black people having kids that look like racist archetypes lmao

[The Good Doctor]

2 minutes ago, ColonelKillaBee said:

Ooooh gimme! That talisman is almost essential for Messmer

Go to that bog you pointed me to, follow it to the new area that’s in a big ravine.

Go west, past two big stone goliaths, past the ruined town behind them, all the way to the cliffside behind it.

The cliffside has those big tombstones sticking out. Climb down them carefully and you’ll end up in a very deep ravine that leads into the river. It’s in a small cave close to where you’ll arrive at the bottom. 

[ColonelKillaBee]

11 hours ago, BigBossBalrog said:

Interesting, but I don't think it ultimately makes sense. A Tarnished Samurai is from the Land of Reeds: I don't think Godfrey stopped in Japan  There was originally cut content that had him saying you were part of Godfrey's army, so I think that's probably it.. 

Its because youre thinking too literally, Im saying they were reborn there, not that they fled there.

Murdered in the lands between, reborn elsewhere, thats why they're foreign

[The Good Doctor]

1 minute ago, BigBossBalrog said:

The Lamenator Mask also implied there were omens amongst them too, which they shunned. 

If the Hornsent are able to place the curse upon a bloodline, then there’s no reason Marika would be the first or only person it ever happened to. 

And it makes sense the Hornsent would shun Omens if they are a product of curses.

[The Good Doctor]

2 minutes ago, ColonelKillaBee said:

Thats pretty fucked lol

 

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Thats like a racist that hates black people having kids that look like racist archetypes lmao

Yeah, like she finds the whitest, most Viking looking dude imaginable to have kids with, but they just keep coming out looking like those old 1920s blackface movies instead.  

[ColonelKillaBee]

2 hours ago, The Good Doctor said:

I mostly agree with this. Particularly Dark Souls 1 which to this day might be their most fair and balanced game with very little in the way of BS. 

But unfortunately, I think that would be very difficult in Elden Ring because the progression system typically leads to the player character being almost as overtuned and OP as the strongest bosses.

We’re so fast, and our abilities are so powerful, that I don’t think there’s a single enemy on the DS1 roster that would even provide a challenge. Hell, even DS3 would only have a couple.

I imagine it’s very hard to create challenging bosses for late game ER who aren’t crazy aggressive or spammy, because, honestly, slow bosses are piss easy when you’ve nearly got the speed of Bloodborne Hunters and half your weapons spit out waves of fire or some other crazy magical crap.  Not that I’m excusing any poor boss design, just trying to speculate on why it might be that way.

Personally, I haven’t found any of the DLC bosses poorly designed so far. But I also haven’t encountered most of the tougher ones that you guys have posted about, so there’s a fair chance I’ll be raging and calling BS later down the line.

That said, I wouldn’t call any of them a big step up from the base game in the same way that most the Dark Souls and Bloodborne DLC bosses were. They’ve been fairly middle of the road so far. No Gaels, Ludwigs, or Marias. Hopefully that changes.

I dont think that we're bloodborne level in speed besides a few ashes of war i guess, but thats a specific build vs bloodborne you can almost build for that at base with just trinkets and such, and the weapons are in edition to that. Meaning for instance the quick step one, its useful but not nearly as useful as the old hunter bone imo

But thats a matter of opinion, overall I agree that DS1 is a joke compared to elden ring both in bosses and player capability.

I also agree they had to scale up for player opness for sure, but, I think they took it a wee bit too far and overestimated average player base. Which is interesting since the stats show barely anyone in the community actually 100 percents the game, we're a very small minority which is so odd lol. But makes sense.

That said, I wonder what that looks like if separated between eastern and western users. How much better are the Japanese than us I wonder xD 

[The Good Doctor]

1 minute ago, ColonelKillaBee said:

Which is interesting since the stats show barely anyone in the community actually 100 percents the game, we're a very small minority which is so odd lol. But makes sense.

While you’re right about the 100% thing, the rate of players who defeated Malenia is astoundingly high for how difficult she is. Fromsoft genuinely has cultivated a huge amount of players who are willing and able to git gud.  

[ColonelKillaBee]

2 hours ago, The Good Doctor said:

I think it’s almost an inevitability of Elden Ring’s design. It’s generally a good thing for big open world games to let you keep progressing in strength from beginning to end, rather than capping you off somewhere in the middle. But in a game this massive, that is a lot of progression.

The upside is you never feel stagnant and always have this sense that you’re growing in power and becoming more worthy of being Elden Lord.

Downside is that challenging the player gets more and more difficult for the devs, especially when we can be so damn versatile by just changing a few weapons and talismans.

Result is bosses who are absolutely nuts, because I suppose Fromsoft would rather some players get frustrated and angry at the difficulty than bored and disinterested because they steamrolled everything in their path.

Yep good point

Btw speaking of just switching up your build, one I found a few locations to the larval tears that werent noted on the internet, just randomly exploring while at night, and two, your twin swords, they are incredibly useful for big enemies. Small ones not so much but the surface area of that pontif R2 move is huge. You'll be happy with the results of that in the future

That said, Guts sword still the best for big enemies lol, but this is also useful in its own right, and if you do it correctly works way faster on big enemies in the right spot than anything else i've tried.

[ColonelKillaBee]

2 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said:

While you’re right about the 100% thing, the rate of players who defeated Malenia is astoundingly high for how difficult she is. Fromsoft genuinely has cultivated a huge amount of players who are willing and able to git gud.  

Depends what you consider astoundingly high tho, and I bet if we talk soloing her (i still havent, used ashes) i bet its even smaller

Especially with let me solo her running around lol

[The Good Doctor]

You know, all the empyreans kinda suck, don’t they?  

Between Ranni assassinating Godfrey and Miquella bewitching Mohg and sending his sister to invade Caelid, I feel like a vast majority of the conflict and devastation that came about after the Shattering lies squarely on their shoulders.

If they hadn’t done those things, the Lands Between, even without a lord, would be in a much better state right now. 

-Mohg would have still created his underground kingdom, but it probably wouldn’t be nearly as deranged as what it became.

-Caelid would be completely intact.

-The Haligtree would be intact.

-Liurnia wouldn’t have gotten so devastated by war.

-Godfrey would still be around, meaning Godrick might have never gained power or become so screwed up. Hell, Leyndell may not have even been assaulted all those times. Hard to say.

-Rykard might’ve still launched his rebellion. But since he originally conspired with Ranni, it’s hard to say for sure if he’d have done it if she hadn’t done what she did first. Still, Volcano Manor is a relatively small player in the grand scheme.

[The Good Doctor]

8 minutes ago, ColonelKillaBee said:

Depends what you consider astoundingly high tho, and I bet if we talk soloing her (i still havent, used ashes) i bet its even smaller

Especially with let me solo her running around lol

In a game with tens of millions of players, I’d consider 20% achievement score pretty astounding, myself.

Even with summons, because frankly, she’s still hard even then. And in most games, I don’t think 20% of players would even reach a boss who is that obscure and buried away.

Let Me Solo Her became such a good meme that I kinda wish From had put him in the game as an Easter egg somehow.  

[ColonelKillaBee]

To be fair when you think about the role of an Empyrian, which is just to pump out seed for the erdtree, an alien construct unnatural for this world in the first place, beholden to the will of an outer god, it makes sense why she acted how she did. Granted for the state of the world it wasnt at all good I agree, but thats pretty similar to irl royalty when you think about it. They're human but told they gotta sacrifice everything for the good of their kingdom.

That said, I'd say that it doesnt take away from what you said since irl that life is way better than peasants especially of medieval and ancient times.

But in elden ring they take the baby making slave thing to another level lol, that pose that marika has is essentially what she is, a holy sacrifice for the greater (good) will. Thats her tragedy.

Interestingly enough I think thats why her master plan was to have the world exist in limbo without progression, preserved in constant rebirth or stasis, because that is what was the life of an empyrian and imo why they all went crazy eventually. Its not natural for them either, unlike the ones who made them this way in the first place.

Its like if an alien entity made you into a vampire and were expected to stay sane.

[ColonelKillaBee]

4 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said:

In a game with tens of millions of players, I’d consider 20% achievement score pretty astounding, myself.

Even with summons, because frankly, she’s still hard even then. And in most games, I don’t think 20% of players would even reach a boss who is that obscure and buried away.

Let Me Solo Her became such a good meme that I kinda wish From had put him in the game as an Easter egg somehow.  

is that just steam or overall, cause I remember i was playing and my gf looked it up and it was a much smaller percentage that she found

[The Good Doctor]

1 minute ago, ColonelKillaBee said:

is that just steam or overall, cause I remember i was playing and my gf looked it up and it was a much smaller percentage that she found

Xbox. But I figured it’d be higher on Steam.

[ColonelKillaBee]

2 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said:

Xbox. But I figured it’d be higher on Steam.

wow 35.8 percent

I think that the percentage shot up because of the dlc, it wasnt nearly that high before, used to be like 16 percent and even that seemed high to me

[ColonelKillaBee]

Oh yea absolutely because Margit the Fell Omen achievement was waaay smaller, 75 percent of players have that one now.

[BigBossBalrog]

The biggest revelation for me from the Fingers quest.

 

Was the very founding notion of the Golden Order: that it was the Greater Will's...will, was false. Metyr is described as a communicator between the Lands Between and the GW...and a broken one. The item description states it only received a single message, and afterwards saw false signs and took it as messages even if they weren't. It could have just been feeding Marika lies. 

[The Good Doctor]

7 minutes ago, ColonelKillaBee said:

Oh yea absolutely because Margit the Fell Omen achievement was waaay smaller, 75 percent of players have that one now.

It’s wild that nearly half the people who beat Margit, the first boss in the whole game, stuck with it enough to reach Malenia at the farthest, most hidden away corner of the map, and beat her too.

[The Good Doctor]

37 minutes ago, ColonelKillaBee said:

To be fair when you think about the role of an Empyrian, which is just to pump out seed for the erdtree, an alien construct unnatural for this world in the first place, beholden to the will of an outer god, it makes sense why she acted how she did. Granted for the state of the world it wasnt at all good I agree, but thats pretty similar to irl royalty when you think about it. They're human but told they gotta sacrifice everything for the good of their kingdom.

That said, I'd say that it doesnt take away from what you said since irl that life is way better than peasants especially of medieval and ancient times.

But in elden ring they take the baby making slave thing to another level lol, that pose that marika has is essentially what she is, a holy sacrifice for the greater (good) will. Thats her tragedy.

Interestingly enough I think thats why her master plan was to have the world exist in limbo without progression, preserved in constant rebirth or stasis, because that is what was the life of an empyrian and imo why they all went crazy eventually. Its not natural for them either, unlike the ones who made them this way in the first place.

Its like if an alien entity made you into a vampire and were expected to stay sane.

Indeed, becoming a god in this world sucks. I just find it amusing that the apocalyptic state of things isn’t actually the result of any natural collapse of the world like Dark Souls or (direct) eldritch tomfoolery like Bloodborne.

It’s ultimately because just a small handful of people, two in particular, made personal choices at the expense of everyone else in the world. If there is a GRRM hand in the storytelling, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is it. While Miyazaki loves his more high-level, difficult-to-comprehend metaphysical god stuff, these are the themes George adores, where grand conflicts full of pointless suffering can be traced back to a handful of very "human" individuals doing things that are understandable or relatable.

Robb Stark forsakes an arranged marriage and gets his whole kingdom toppled. Rhaegar and Lyanna run off and it starts a civil war. Jaime bangs his sister and it starts another civil war. Relatable stuff, ya know?