[Nymphae]

It's an interesting addition. I'm not ashamed to use it when I just want to make progress, but god damn it is so OP it actually does feel cheap. You can still summon people so I'm not sure why they felt single player needed such an OP tool.

 

[regawdless]

Yeah the mimic tear is totally op. But I'm not a fan of the summons in general.

 

[Black Chamber]

How is everyone's performance on console after the latest patch?

 

[regawdless]

One thing that FROM does so we'll is the feeling of progression. It's a nice rewarding mix of you actually getting better, but the game also making it easier for you. With higher character levels, poise and resistances increase, items give you significant advantages etc.

So you get the feeling of you gitting even more gud than you actually are, which is very satisfying.

And then they throw some difficult bosses at you to motivate you to improve more.

 

[Explosive Zombie]

Certain strats you can use are OP and cheap, but when certain bosses (Malenia) are OP and cheap, too... eh... do what you gotta do.

 

[Soodanim]

How is everyone's performance on console after the latest patch?

I can’t speak for console, but on PC things feel a bit smoother in the overworld. That could be entirely because of the new option to disable automatic camera rotation, because you notice lower FPS more when the camera is panning (especially tiny judders of auto rotation).

I’m also reading elsewhere of PC performance being improved in general, so I guess it’s a double improvement.

Edit: mixed opinions of improvements, how are you all getting on?

 

[regawdless]

I deleted my old reshade and started from scratch, keeping the colors from the vanilla version, just make them pop a bit more and I finally got that RT shader going. Combined with a little bit of MXAO, it's a BIG improvement.

So while the character was weirdly glowy and stuck out all the time, not affected by the lighting around him, the RT shader changes that. Also, light from candles affects the environment. I like it a lot, makes the game look way more coherent and natural. Quick comparison:

Look at the weapon and the dude on the ground, goes from weird floating, flat and glowing, to way more natural.

 

[Soodanim]

I deleted my old reshade and started from scratch, keeping the colors from the vanilla version, just make them pop a bit more and I finally got that RT shader going. Combined with a little bit of MXAO, it's a BIG improvement.

So while the character was weirdly glowy and stuck out all the time, not affected by the lighting around him, the RT shader changes that. Also, light from candles affects the environment. I like it a lot, makes the game look way more coherent and natural. Quick comparison:

Look at the weapon and the dude on the ground, goes from weird floating, flat and glowing, to way more natural.

I see why they give the character a glow (so you always have some visibility), but I like what you’ve set up more than the glow. I’m curious to see how the RT update looks, there’s some real potential in this world. I’ll be interested to see what they implement and how well it works with the area colour filters. Maybe it’ll be a non-issue, I dunno. Maybe the update won’t even be as good as what you’ve achieved!

 

[regawdless]

I see why they give the character a glow (so you always have some visibility), but I like what you’ve set up more than the glow. I’m curious to see how the RT update looks, there’s some real potential in this world. I’ll be interested to see what they implement and how well it works with the area colour filters. Maybe it’ll be a non-issue, I dunno. Maybe the update won’t even be as good as what you’ve achieved!

The shader does introduce a ton of flickering and shit at first, maxing the ray amount and amount of steps per ray eliminates that - but it costs a ton of performance. Without the RT shader, I'm always at around 60fps. With it, it can drop into the 40s in busy scenes. So yeah, not great.

Regarding FROM: their whole world and lighting are highly artistic and unnatural, they drastically change the color palette from scene to scene, their changes are rather abrupt. With RT lighting being natural and depending on the actual light sources, I don't know how they will manage that if they go for RT lighting.

Therefore I actually think only going for reflections and maybe shadows would be the best decision, not the whole RT GI thing.

 

[Dreamlord]

That might just be the shaders compiling, and it will settle eventually. Unless there’s some AMD problems I’ve not heard of.

The map is confusing around there, too many elevation changes that don’t translate well to the drawn map. The easiest way is to leave Volcano Manor and follow that around, but if you haven’t teleported there then there’s a path that takes you to the same path.

Spoiler

From north Altus, take the bridge going west to Bridge of Iniquity grace. From there, in the area with the angry virgins there’s a big ladder on the left. Keep following the natural path round and up, when eventually you get to “Ninth Mt. Gelmir Campsite”. Take the big jump up, then either fight or skip the boss. Either way, go west off of this to get down to where you want to be. Either the manor if you haven’t been, or round to the tree.

So, after finishing the cave and looking around again and feeling perplexed (again), I watched a youtube video and realised I had already been there, killed the Erdtree and then moved on to the main castle.

 

[Hostile_18]

Still loving this game as much as any other From game.. but must admit sometimes it does feel more like there's just "gaps" between locations or empty space to fill. Love the length of the game but at the same time miss the highly detailed more linear locations.

 

[Soodanim]

The shader does introduce a ton of flickering and shit at first, maxing the ray amount and amount of steps per ray eliminates that - but it costs a ton of performance. Without the RT shader, I'm always at around 60fps. With it, it can drop into the 40s in busy scenes. So yeah, not great.

Regarding FROM: their whole world and lighting are highly artistic and unnatural, they drastically change the color palette from scene to scene, their changes are rather abrupt. With RT lighting being natural and depending on the actual light sources, I don't know how they will manage that if they go for RT lighting.

Therefore I actually think only going for reflections and maybe shadows would be the best decision, not the whole RT GI thing.

I wonder if they could do normal GI but throw a filter over the top. It seems to be what they’re doing anyway, you can sometimes see the abrupt fade between filters
Edit: basically said what you said, I’m a tit

 

[regawdless]

Huh so on my NG+, Alexander the Jar didn't appear. Just... Not at all. Checked his first location out all the time, before and after every important action. He's simply not there. No idea why. Weird.

 

[Explosive Zombie]

Huh so on my NG+, Alexander the Jar didn't appear. Just... Not at all. Checked his first location out all the time, before and after every important action. He's simply not there. No idea why. Weird.

Did you check in your basement?

 

[Soodanim]

Huh so on my NG+, Alexander the Jar didn't appear. Just... Not at all. Checked his first location out all the time, before and after every important action. He's simply not there. No idea why. Weird.

Might be worth using Celestial Dew to see if you can force a reset, although if you’ve done Radahn you might be locked out for this one. In NG+ I laughed out loud when it came to the final stage and I beat him in one charged hit hit

 

[regawdless]

Might be worth using Celestial Dew to see if you can force a reset, although if you’ve done Radahn you might be locked out for this one. In NG+ I laughed out loud when it came to the final stage and I beat him in one charged hit hit

I didn't do Radahn yet and already tried to use a Celestial Dew for another NPC, but it said there's no need for absolution. Wanted to respawn the first merchant to be able to do the Blaidd quest, but you can't revive those merchants.

Yeah I'm pretty OP for NG+ after doing nearly everything in my first run. Im currently rocking dual Fallingstar Beast Jaws, the range attack of that thing is useful and the weapon does good damage overall.

 

[Soodanim]

I didn't do Radahn yet and already tried to use a Celestial Dew for another NPC, but it said there's no need for absolution. Wanted to respawn the first merchant to be able to do the Blaidd quest, but you can't revive those merchants.

Yeah I'm pretty OP for NG+ after doing nearly everything in my first run. Im currently rocking dual Fallingstar Beast Jaws, the range attack of that thing is useful and the weapon does good damage overall.

Maybe you could piss someone off to flag the Dew as usable, might work.

I’ve not tried the Jaw yet, I’ve just been going back and forth between my normal and a pairing of Ruins and Starscourge for their different skills, sometimes the circular AOE works better than Wave of Destruction.

I’m at the stage where I like the fun and unique stuff. It’s satisfying to hear the death sound effect 5 times in one second

 

[regawdless]

Maybe you could piss someone off to flag the Dew as usable, might work.

I’ve not tried the Jaw yet, I’ve just been going back and forth between my normal and a pairing of Ruins and Starscourge for their different skills, sometimes the circular AOE works better than Wave of Destruction.

I’m at the stage where I like the fun and unique stuff. It’s satisfying to hear the death sound effect 5 times in one second

Never used the Starscourge as the main with it's skill. Now I dual wield it and it's really, really nice. Love that skill. Ruins does more physical damage and damage overall, but the Starscourge does more magic. And the skill is cool and slams.

Also, while dual wielding it, you actually wear 4 of those swords which looks great.

 

[regawdless]

This time around, I actually finished all the Volcano Manor contracts before killing the boss. What a totally fucked up ending of that story with the Manor Lady.

Really fun to breeze through a second playthrough and catch up with the stuff I've missed.

I like the cold infused Greatsword a lot. Does very good damage + cold, very effective against many bosses.

 

[Explosive Zombie]

This time around, I actually finished all the Volcano Manor contracts before killing the boss. What a totally fucked up ending of that story with the Manor Lady.

Really fun to breeze through a second playthrough and catch up with the stuff I've missed.

I like the cold infused Greatsword a lot. Does very good damage + cold, very effective against many bosses.

Which weapon is this or did you just use a cold ash of war on it?

 

[regawdless]

Which weapon is this or did you just use a cold ash of war on it?

Yeah, it's not really dependend on the ash though as every ash can then be changed to a certain kind like heavy, fire or cold.

I have one GS with Bloodhounds Step and then Cold, and the second hand has just a random ash, also with Cold.

 

[Soodanim]

I’m in NG+2 now and I’ve gone arc/fai/dex. Right now it’s dragon and bleed, and I’m going to mix in the appropriate weapon and spells once I get to Three Fingers and see how madness affects enemies. It’s not an often used status.

For weapons, I’ve been mostly using Eleonora’s twin blade. Unique L2, quite fun. The only drawback is the same I’ve noticed before: if you’re not using a weapon that stuns enemies, they will abuse you. Leyndell Ogres are such a pain. At least I’m using the Black Knife armour for the silent movement buff.

But the star of the show is the dragon spells. I went balls deep, even bringing out Greyoll’s Roar. When you use that (which does its own damage as well as the debuff - I didn’t realise) then a full breath blast using a Dragon Communion seal (394 scaling) you can do anywhere from 3000-7000 damage with the breath. Even the paw/maw spells hit like trucks. I haven’t been using the named spell variants, the normals do just fine. Might experiment, but they might be worse overall except for the niche utility of mid air casting.

If you’ve read to this point, here’s a reward: the maxed out blue flask restores 220FP, so there’s not much point putting levels into Mind past 220FP if you won’t be able to fill it back up without a talisman.

 

[regawdless]

I’m in NG+2 now and I’ve gone arc/fai/dex. Right now it’s dragon and bleed, and I’m going to mix in the appropriate weapon and spells once I get to Three Fingers and see how madness affects enemies. It’s not an often used status.

For weapons, I’ve been mostly using Eleonora’s twin blade. Unique L2, quite fun. The only drawback is the same I’ve noticed before: if you’re not using a weapon that stuns enemies, they will abuse you. Leyndell Ogres are such a pain. At least I’m using the Black Knife armour for the silent movement buff.

But the star of the show is the dragon spells. I went balls deep, even bringing out Greyoll’s Roar. When you use that (which does its own damage as well as the debuff - I didn’t realise) then a full breath blast using a Dragon Communion seal (about 330 scaling) you can do anywhere from 3000-7000 damage with the breath. Even the paw/maw spells hit like trucks. I haven’t been using the named spell variants, the normals do just fine. Might experiment, but they might be worse overall except for the niche utility of mid air casting.

If you’ve read to this point, here’s a reward: the maxed out blue flask restores 220, so there’s not much point putting levels into Mind past 220 if you won’t be able to fill it back up without a talisman.

Sounds great! Some of the buffs from armors are pretty useful and I missed them for the most part.

So much stuff in this game to discover.

 

[Kreese]

An Elden Ring VR mod is coming, and we have some footage

Something incredible ahead.

www.pcgamer.com

 

[Nada]

An Elden Ring VR mod is coming, and we have some footage

Something incredible ahead.

www.pcgamer.com

Imagine a Revenant or Scion coming at you in VR. That would be truly horrific and I'm not sure i could handle that.

 

[HariSeldon]

An Elden Ring VR mod is coming, and we have some footage

Something incredible ahead.

www.pcgamer.com

Be still my beating cock..

 

[Soodanim]

After 300 hours, I suddenly hit a wall. Closed the game, watched the endings on YouTube. The one I was going for is unique and worth seeing more than any other, and they barely changed a thing for the other/normal endings which invalidates any effort it takes to get them.

Dark Souls 3’s Hollow ending set the bar higher. Throughout the game you get people saying “I’ll be by your side when you’re Lord, bro” then nothing. A bit empty to say the least.

I’m not saying I’m completely done, but I pretty much did everything. Might experiment with bows, parries, and items as an approach, although that will be a limited dabble given how the late game is. Also haven’t touched sorcery.

 

[Kadayi]

An Elden Ring VR mod is coming, and we have some footage

Something incredible ahead.

www.pcgamer.com

From an immersion perspective, great. From a gameplay perspective though, I'd imagine the need for a sick bucket once you get your rolling on in VR. I remember Valve talking about why they opted to make Half-Life-Alyx versus a VR Portal Game, and it was largely down to motion sickness being a huge factor. Played a lot of NMS using my Rift S and albeit generally, I've been fine, sometimes if you are flying planetside and shit goes awry you're brains all 'feel the need to void'

 

[HariSeldon]

From an immersion perspective, great. From a gameplay perspective though, I'd imagine the need for a sick bucket once you get your rolling on in VR. I remember Valve talking about why they opted to make Half-Life-Alyx versus a VR Portal Game, and it was largely down to motion sickness being a huge factor. Played a lot of NMS using my Rift S and albeit generally, I've been fine, sometimes if you are flying planetside and shit goes awry you're brains all 'feel the need to void'

Could maybe wear the sick bucket to role play as Let Me Solo Her?

 

[JORMBO]

From an immersion perspective, great. From a gameplay perspective though, I'd imagine the need for a sick bucket once you get your rolling on in VR. I remember Valve talking about why they opted to make Half-Life-Alyx versus a VR Portal Game, and it was largely down to motion sickness being a huge factor. Played a lot of NMS using my Rift S and albeit generally, I've been fine, sometimes if you are flying planetside and shit goes awry you're brains all 'feel the need to void'

Was the vomit thread made in Tavern in preparation for this?

 

[regawdless]

Here are the hidden faces of all the NPCs:

 

[Kadayi]

 

[and 3 others]

That needs to have the cutscenes from the game put in. I'd play that.

 

[kiNeMs]

Finished the game last night. Now on Malenia. Fuck this scrag my gawwwdd.

What a game. What an experience.

 

[DonDonDonPata]

The last two pages of posts

If I can get 100 hrs out of any game that's a win. I sunk 70+ hours into my first Sekiro playthrough which is certainly a smaller/narrower game compared to ER.

 

[miona's shoulder monkey]

The last two pages of posts

If I can get 100 hrs out of any game that's a win. I sunk 70+ hours into my first Sekiro playthrough which is certainly a smaller/narrower game compared to ER.

what the hell are you waiting for?

 

[DonDonDonPata]

what the hell are you waiting for?

A PS5.

And fewer PS4 games to beat.

 

[regawdless]

Does anyone know how the coop scaling works?

If I'm level 200 for example and join a level 100 dude to help him with a boss. I've read that you get downgraded to 10 levels higher than your coop partner. In this example, I'd be level 110 then.

Nerd spasm incoming:

The way the damage scaling works with its soft caps at 50 and 60 points, a level 120 build has a different point distribution compared to a level 200 build.

Let's say I have a weapon that has an A strength and a C dex scaling. Of course I'd put 60 levels into strength but then the soft cap kicks in, and I only get like 1 damage point per level from that point on. But I'm level 200 and have many more points to use. Therefore I'd then put levels into dex instead of strength, because it'll give me more damage despite the worse scaling. Because the soft cap has not kicked in yet.

It would flatten earlier than with the strength, but let's say I'd have 60 Str and Dex at the end of the day because it makes the most sense with how the caps work.

Now I join the initially described coop session and my character level gets cut by nearly half. Having just over 30 points strength and dex, doesn't make sense with that weapon anymore because I didn't max the better strength level potential to 60.

Is that how it really works?

 

[Explosive Zombie]

“Elden Ring repeated as the best-selling game of the month, as dollar sales for the title experienced double-digit percentage dollar sales growth compared to its February 2022 launch,” said Piscatella. “Elden Ring ranked first in dollar sales among tracked titles across PlayStation, Xbox, and PC.”

At this rate, Elden Ring is bound to finish the year as one of the best-selling games.

“Elden Ring remains the best-selling game of 2022 year to date, and now ranks second over the 12 month period ending March 2022 with dollar sales trailing only those of Call of Duty: Vanguard.”

 

[HariSeldon]

“Elden Ring repeated as the best-selling game of the month, as dollar sales for the title experienced double-digit percentage dollar sales growth compared to its February 2022 launch,” said Piscatella. “Elden Ring ranked first in dollar sales among tracked titles across PlayStation, Xbox, and PC.”

At this rate, Elden Ring is bound to finish the year as one of the best-selling games.

“Elden Ring remains the best-selling game of 2022 year to date, and now ranks second over the 12 month period ending March 2022 with dollar sales trailing only those of Call of Duty: Vanguard.”

Turns out that quality sells. That makes me happy.