[regawdless]

I hate that I was right in this case. Quoting myself:

I totally understand you.

BUT I solved that with reshade, MXAO & the RT shader. Tanks performance, but looks great. And I am not certain that FROM will do a better job at it at all. Maybe if they include RT reflections.

Glowy unnatural vanilla vs my reshade:

Thinking of other games that added it post launch, it took a long ass time and was pretty lackluster in some cases. Like Mortal Shell added it like a year or so after launch and it was shit. Just some shadows and it was a bad implementation. Wasn't worth the wait at all.

Given how FROM isn't that good with tech and that the RT patch will also be aimed at consoles - I don't expect much.

I said it in this thread already, but I'm not convinced that the RT implementation by FROM will be any good. I believe it'll be very limited in scope and run like utter shit.

 

[Zefah]

Very glad I wasn't holding my breath.

Still can't believe Nvidia didn't do whatever it took to get them to implement DLSS at the same time as this update...

 

[Nada]

I'm on PS5 and with the new patch it's hard to describe the improvement ray tracing adds. The framerate obviously takes a dip but then it's always been janky anyways.
But I've just fought the elden beast again plus done some dungeons and random fights and it does have more depth to the image. It's subtle but definitely worth keeping switched on from what ive experienced so far.

 

[regawdless]

 

[regawdless]

Do you remember this one from FROM btw?

Eternal Ring

Remembering FromSoftware's PS2 Launch Title Eternal Ring

These days, thanks to the success of titles such as Elden Ring, Bloodborne, and the Dark Souls trilogy, FromSoftware is widely regarded as one of the hottest developers in the industry. This wasn't always the case, however, and like most other developers, FromSoftware has some less-than-stellar releases scattered throughout its 37-year history. One of these titles is Eternal Ring, a first-person RPG that was also a PS2 launch title, which left many gamers scratching their heads due to the implementation of some rather strange mechanics. Despite showing the odd flashes of what would eventually make FromSoftware so great, Eternal Ring proved to be a mish-mash of ideas that were strung together to create an uneven and ultimately forgettable experience.

https://gamerant.com/fromsoftware-eternal-ring-forgotten-ps2-launch-game-retrospective/

 

[Kreese]

 

[regawdless]

Bad update. On PC, RT shader and MXOA from reshade make it look better than their RT.

 

[Nikana]

Bad update. On PC, RT shader and MXOA from reshade make it look better than their RT.

Seems like a pretty poor use of resources. Least they delivered on their promise I guess.

 

[Stifler's Mom]

Along with 4K, Raytracing seems to be such a nonsense.

 

[regawdless]

Along with 4K, Raytracing seems to be such a nonsense.

Nah man. RTGI and RT reflections when implemented properly, improve visuals drastically. Games like Metro Exodus PC maxes look incredible, big visual impact that can not be achieved without raytracing. Dying Light 2 maxed on PC is also impressive.

Sadly, bad implementations are more common than the good ones, and bad examples like Elden Ring don't help it.

Thing is, the time isn't right for most devs. The performance hit for the good implementations is so big that only strong GPUs can run it, and even those only with DLSS/FSR. It can be pretty glorious. But it's not an option for most devs because consoles can't do it, so why put in the effort.

The tech itself is amazing, but hardware has to catch up.

So yeah, RT can be nonsense for some games and devs. It can also be transformative. Metro Exodus level RTGI and reflections would make Elden Ring into a feast for thine eyes.

 

[HariSeldon]

Metro Exodus level RTGI and reflections would make Elden Ring into a feast for thine eyes.

Tbh I'm not sure it would. Elden Ring seems very much designed for the lighting it has, and it looks beautiful for it. There's more than one way to skin a cat and they've found a very low tech way to make something beautiful, artistically, even if it may not be super high tech.

 

[regawdless]

Tbh I'm not sure it would. Elden Ring seems very much designed for the lighting it has, and it looks beautiful for it. There's more than one way to skin a cat and they've found a very low tech way to make something beautiful, artistically, even if it may not be super high tech.

Graphic whore autism mode: enabled

Yes it does look good overall, but could look way, way better and has many issues. I think better tech would make their art design shine.
The game deserves better tech tbh.

The reflections are bad and water surfaces have many issues like here, look under the sword:

Or the puddles:

That's not artistic direction, just incompetence.

Proper sexy reflections on water, mud and metals would make the game look way better. The armors and weapons reflecting light properly etc.

Lighting is very poor. The interiors look unbelievably flat, your character doesn't even cast any shadows when torches or other light sources are on the walls. It's very bad. Your character isn't lit properly and "glows". There are no self shadows. It's flat and bland, like here, the mask and clothes shouldn't look like this.

I injected the reshade RTGI and it made the game look way more coherent. The bad interior lighting is not intended by the devs, they just didn't have the time to make all the caves and dungeons properly lit because they had to make it all manually. With so many dungeons, it's just not possible.

For example, look how the character and the enemy on the ground stick out vs injected RTGI reshade (no real RT, just a shader)

*Autism mode off

It looks good but it could and should look better. I think the game is a monumental achievement, it deserves better tech.

 

[HariSeldon]

For me some of the RT stuff tends to add visual clutter of which I'm not a huge fan tbh. Reflections in puddles, who cares? It just adds clutter to the scene and adds an extra thing for my brain to parse.

 

[regawdless]

For me some of the RT stuff tends to add visual clutter of which I'm not a huge fan tbh. Reflections in puddles, who cares? It just adds clutter to the scene and adds an extra thing for my brain to parse.

The puddles are already reflective, the water as well. But there are artefacts and visual glitches, which are distracting. Like the video that I posted above, with the artefacts under the sword. The reflections are wrong, they disappear when you tilt the camera because they're just screen space reflections. Or the puddle, where huge pixels are flickering that stick out of the environment. That's all weird and adds extra things for your brain to parse.

Proper RT reflections that don't make them mirror like but realistic with some transparency, would remove all those distracting issues and make it all look homogeneous. It would actually remove visual clutter.

RTGI lighting would also remove any clutter by making the world evenly and correctly lit, fixing objects that stick out because they're too bright.

I can really recommend Quake 2 RTX lol. Videos don't do it justice, playing it while dynamically changing the sky and time of day, with everything reacting in real time, great showcase of the tech. Like changing to night time and seeing how rockets, projectiles and so on dynamically light up the environments... Wank material.

Sadly, RTGI hasn't been used much so far because it's so expensive.

 

[regawdless]

Let's remake Elden Ring in UE5!

 

[Dacon]

Graphic whore autism mode: enabled

Yes it does look good overall, but could look way, way better and has many issues. I think better tech would make their art design shine.
The game deserves better tech tbh.

The reflections are bad and water surfaces have many issues like here, look under the sword:

Or the puddles:

That's not artistic direction, just incompetence.

Proper sexy reflections on water, mud and metals would make the game look way better. The armors and weapons reflecting light properly etc.

Lighting is very poor. The interiors look unbelievably flat, your character doesn't even cast any shadows when torches or other light sources are on the walls. It's very bad. Your character isn't lit properly and "glows". There are no self shadows. It's flat and bland, like here, the mask and clothes shouldn't look like this.

I injected the reshade RTGI and it made the game look way more coherent. The bad interior lighting is not intended by the devs, they just didn't have the time to make all the caves and dungeons properly lit because they had to make it all manually. With so many dungeons, it's just not possible.

For example, look how the character and the enemy on the ground stick out vs injected RTGI reshade (no real RT, just a shader)

*Autism mode off

It looks good but it could and should look better. I think the game is a monumental achievement, it deserves better tech.

Well if you wanna be autistic about it, that first image of your isn't water, that's blood.

Also, I dont really gaf about RT in this game, every frame matters to me and the default settings look good enough while keeping my reactions snappy and precise.

I JUST WANT MORE CONTENT REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

 

[IrishWhiskey]

Something weird I have encountered that I wasn't expecting at all. After upgrading from 16GB to 32GB system RAM (same RAM sticks just +16) I'vr noticed that Elden Ring pretty much doesn't freeze or stutter at all. I had no idea it was sensitive to system memory size. Or maybe because of the larger system RAM it doesn't need to go into virtual memory on a slower SSD?

Just a weirdly unexpected result. Already I saw big improvements with stutter/freezes/frametimes switching from a 2600X to a 5800X3D but this extra RAM seems to have improved the general performance a lot. Very unexpected but something I felt worthy of documenting for my fellow Elden Ring addicts.

 

[regawdless]

Something weird I have encountered that I wasn't expecting at all. After upgrading from 16GB to 32GB system RAM (same RAM sticks just +16) I'vr noticed that Elden Ring pretty much doesn't freeze or stutter at all. I had no idea it was sensitive to system memory size. Or maybe because of the larger system RAM it doesn't need to go into virtual memory on a slower SSD?

Just a weirdly unexpected result. Already I saw big improvements with stutter/freezes/frametimes switching from a 2600X to a 5800X3D but this extra RAM seems to have improved the general performance a lot. Very unexpected but something I felt worthy of documenting for my fellow Elden Ring addicts.

I played it on an SSD and 16GB RAM, and it ran smoothly, didn't notice the stutter.

 

[Stifler's Mom]

Like I posted an example of how games developed from 1981 to 1987, it's hard to get excited about reflections in puddles and some shadows that look as good as when competently baked in.

Not worth the performance hit imho.

 

[HariSeldon]

Like I posted an example of how games developed from 1981 to 1987, it's hard to get excited about reflections in puddles and some shadows that look as good as when competently baked in.

Not worth the performance hit imho.

Yep we’re at a point of diminishing returns requiring vast horsepower to do.. not much, all while game interactivity and systems and AI stagnate.

 

[miona's shoulder monkey]

Along with 4K, Raytracing seems to be such a nonsense.

For now yes...

 

[VlaudTheImpaler]

Proper RT in AAA games (and even some AA if the devs want a more realistic look) would save devs time and money and allow them to spend more time and resources on things like AI, mechanics and such. When lower tier hardware catches up and everyone can have it at little to no impact I expect the sentiment to change.

 

[Rock And Roll]

Hopped back in the other day, was right outside the capital of Leyndell. Took me a few attempts to take out the Tree Sentinel guarding the entrance since I was rusty. Leyndell looks incredible, having a giant city/castle as a dungeon is so intriguing. I did a decent amount of exploring, got rocked a few times by random enemies but kicked their ass upon return. I'm trying to explore a lot but it's so sprawling I'll probably miss a lot of stuff. There was an area with a couple of lightning knights that was hard to get past, but eventually I did and made my way up a fossilized dragon to find the 3rd campfire/point of grace. There was a tree guardian in town that I decided to run away from so I'll have to go back later and take care of him. There's also a few alternate paths that I need to check out before I move on past this third waypoint.

Feels great to get back into the game though. It's funny because this is taking me so long to beat but I've loved all 50+ hours of it so far and I could be down for a lot more.

 

[regawdless]

Fuck me, that dude beat the game with a mod where every enemy was Malenia. Without leveling up his vigor.




Took him around 10 hrs, he had crashes because the mod was so demanding.

 

[Rock And Roll]

Did a lot of exploring in Leyndell. I noticed in that area that had the fossilized dragon and all the tombs that there was a balcony you could jump off of to another area, so I went down there, found a well then ended up in the Subterranean something area. Took a while to figure out where to go as I cleared out most of it but couldn't figure out how to progress. Mohg The Omen was the toughest boss I've faced so far and it took me easily like 15-20 tries to take him down. I guess this is where the game is going to start to get hard? After I did that I finished up some of the other areas I had missed (beat that tree guardian in the middle of the path, explored other parts of the city). I think I've done most of what I can now so I'm going to progress past the site of grace that I found after scaling the dragon.

Oh also I went back to the round table or whatever to do some upgrades and I checked in on that red dude in the library. I guess I picked up something along the way that allows me to progress his story (Sewer key), possibly in Leyndell. Is his quest worth doing or should I ignore it? I am using a Samurai with no magic/spells, so if the reward is some more spells/wands it's probably not worth the effort.

 

[regawdless]

Did a lot of exploring in Leyndell. I noticed in that area that had the fossilized dragon and all the tombs that there was a balcony you could jump off of to another area, so I went down there, found a well then ended up in the Subterranean something area. Took a while to figure out where to go as I cleared out most of it but couldn't figure out how to progress. Mohg The Omen was the toughest boss I've faced so far and it took me easily like 15-20 tries to take him down. I guess this is where the game is going to start to get hard? After I did that I finished up some of the other areas I had missed (beat that tree guardian in the middle of the path, explored other parts of the city). I think I've done most of what I can now so I'm going to progress past the site of grace that I found after scaling the dragon.

Oh also I went back to the round table or whatever to do some upgrades and I checked in on that red dude in the library. I guess I picked up something along the way that allows me to progress his story (Sewer key), possibly in Leyndell. Is his quest worth doing or should I ignore it? I am using a Samurai with no magic/spells, so if the reward is some more spells/wands it's probably not worth the effort.

The Dung Eater quest can have different outcomes and is also connected to other NPCs. You could get his sword and later his armor but like with most of the quests, there are variables that you won't understand if you don't look it up tbh.

 

[Rock And Roll]

The Dung Eater quest can have different outcomes and is also connected to other NPCs. You could get his sword and later his armor but like with most of the quests, there are variables that you won't understand if you don't look it up tbh.

Right on, I'll check a walkthrough

 

[Rock And Roll]

So after taking way too many attempts to beat Mohg, I took out both Godfrey and Morgott (or whatever their names are) both on my first try while playing like a complete asshole. No finesse at all, just running up and spamming attacks, dodging out to heal. Mohg was way more challening, so weird to just roll through those two at the end of the dungeon. I did a bit more cleanup (did the catacombs in Leyndell), checked out a few other areas, beat the two fat dudes on the bridge to the tower (Fell Twins I think?), now I'm off to the last area (presumably) of the game. I'm pretty sure I can finish it up in time for Zelda if I keep exploration to a minimum and follow the main path. I can pick it back up later and do some post game content once I finish Zelda.

Also, feel free to laugh at me but I never look through my inventory or experiment much so I just used a Rune Arc for the first time and feel pretty dumb I haven't used them before. I should probably look through my inventory for other items that might be useful.

 

[regawdless]

So after taking way too many attempts to beat Mohg, I took out both Godfrey and Morgott (or whatever their names are) both on my first try while playing like a complete asshole. No finesse at all, just running up and spamming attacks, dodging out to heal. Mohg was way more challening, so weird to just roll through those two at the end of the dungeon. I did a bit more cleanup (did the catacombs in Leyndell), checked out a few other areas, beat the two fat dudes on the bridge to the tower (Fell Twins I think?), now I'm off to the last area (presumably) of the game. I'm pretty sure I can finish it up in time for Zelda if I keep exploration to a minimum and follow the main path. I can pick it back up later and do some post game content once I finish Zelda.

Also, feel free to laugh at me but I never look through my inventory or experiment much so I just used a Rune Arc for the first time and feel pretty dumb I haven't used them before. I should probably look through my inventory for other items that might be useful.

Don't underestimate the amount of content left. If you want to finish it before Zelda, better invest some time my friend hehe

 

[Rock And Roll]

Don't underestimate the amount of content left. If you want to finish it before Zelda, better invest some time my friend hehe

Probably won't finish it then, I can do maybe an hour a day if I'm lucky. If that's the case hopefully I can find a suitable spot to hit pause.

 

[and 3 others]

I can do maybe an hour a day if I'm lucky.

Mods, change his screen name to Easy Listening!!!

 

[Rock And Roll]

Mods, change his screen name to Easy Listening!!!

Maybe I don't have time for games cause I'm too busy rocking

 

[Kreese]

 

[Rock And Roll]

Alright, little update. You guys pretty much talked me out of trying to just plow through the main path and finish up the game before TotK, which is a good thing to be honest. I had way more fun doing some exploring and going back to a few things I had forgot about. I took out a field boss or two in the snow region, then I headed to the castle on the top north part of the map. Commander Niall was the boss, and I took a few attempts at him before deciding to save him for later. I didn't want to waste too much time trying to take down a boss (I really hate boss fights with summons too). There was still a marking on my map for a hit job from Volcano Manor, so I headed out to where that was and took the guy out, then went to Volcano Manor and met with the Lord. I saw there was a weapon right at the start of the fight, so I figured it must be important and equipped it in my left hand. Definitely a good move because I don't know how you are supposed to do that fight without that thing helping you with ranged damage. Just run into the fire and die? Seems silly. Anyway, I summoned the Mimic Tear ash and made quick work of that boss. From there, I explored the other part of Volcano Manor (hidden quest behind a wall I had put aside). Really cool area, I had fun going through there. Then at the very end, it teleported me back to the arena with the manor lord. So I guess you were able to fight that boss way earlier? Two paths to him, one was doing all the hit contracts and the other was going through that area?

From there, I remembered I had that Ranni questline or whatever, and I had gotten stuck at the Carian Study Hall (I think that's the name) and read you couldn't progress with it until you did Ranni's quest. So I went to her, finished it up, she gave me the inverted statue and then I cleared out the study hall. From there, I went back to Ranni's Rise and figured I'd check out that tower that was previously sealed off. I guess she unsealed it when she disappeared and I took a teleporter back down to the underground city (by far my favorite area in the game). That's as far as I got. But, I'm going to try to find a way to sneak in an hour or two over the next to finish that area off.

 

[regawdless]

Alright, little update. You guys pretty much talked me out of trying to just plow through the main path and finish up the game before TotK, which is a good thing to be honest. I had way more fun doing some exploring and going back to a few things I had forgot about. I took out a field boss or two in the snow region, then I headed to the castle on the top north part of the map. Commander Niall was the boss, and I took a few attempts at him before deciding to save him for later. I didn't want to waste too much time trying to take down a boss (I really hate boss fights with summons too). There was still a marking on my map for a hit job from Volcano Manor, so I headed out to where that was and took the guy out, then went to Volcano Manor and met with the Lord. I saw there was a weapon right at the start of the fight, so I figured it must be important and equipped it in my left hand. Definitely a good move because I don't know how you are supposed to do that fight without that thing helping you with ranged damage. Just run into the fire and die? Seems silly. Anyway, I summoned the Mimic Tear ash and made quick work of that boss. From there, I explored the other part of Volcano Manor (hidden quest behind a wall I had put aside). Really cool area, I had fun going through there. Then at the very end, it teleported me back to the arena with the manor lord. So I guess you were able to fight that boss way earlier? Two paths to him, one was doing all the hit contracts and the other was going through that area?

From there, I remembered I had that Ranni questline or whatever, and I had gotten stuck at the Carian Study Hall (I think that's the name) and read you couldn't progress with it until you did Ranni's quest. So I went to her, finished it up, she gave me the inverted statue and then I cleared out the study hall. From there, I went back to Ranni's Rise and figured I'd check out that tower that was previously sealed off. I guess she unsealed it when she disappeared and I took a teleporter back down to the underground city (by far my favorite area in the game). That's as far as I got. But, I'm going to try to find a way to sneak in an hour or two over the next to finish that area off.

I enjoy your progress updates a lot, keep them coming. Thinking back, it's incredible how much unique and fun totally optional content is in this game. Some iconic optional areas with more optional stuff in them.

 

[Kadayi]

Some new PC Mod out there called The Convergence

The Convergence

The Convergence mod is an exhaustive overhaul of Elden Ring with dozens of new weapons, hundreds of new spells, extensively revamped areas and maps, new enemies, bosses and much more.

www.nexusmods.com

Fighting Cowsboy posted up a bit of a playthrough of it. Seems like a lot of work has gone into it.

 

[Rock And Roll]

Jumped back in last night. Looks like I left off in Nokstella, I was at a site of grace facing a tunnel. Went through the tunnel to an area with a red hue and some shadow asshole in the middle. Took him out and that witch started talking to me, I guess I had an outstanding side quest I wasn't aware of. Anyway, took an elevator down and why the previous area had a red hue became obvious, ended up in the lake of rot.

This is where I start to remember why these games get on my nerves. These areas are stupid. I tried to summon my pony but he wouldn't show up. So I consulted a walkthrough to see if I was missing anything and nope, just run through the area. You have a few options, you can run between the small islands and wait for the rot buildup to reset or you can waste items to make it go down. Or (what I did), just start running, forget about the rot buildup, heal when you need to and get to the site of grace on the far end. It's just so unbelievably stupid and annoying. Oh and there's a boss in the middle, another dragonkin dude. But this time of course you have to fight him with rot, or waste time trying to juggle your heals/rot buildup or try to fight him on a small platform. Hard but fair, right? Took him out after a couple tries, then headed to the next area. Apparently there's items you can find in the lake but really it's so obnoxious to explore I don't care enough to search.

Next area I cleared out quick before finding a coffin at a waterfall (blood fall?) At the bottom there was a boss, Astel. Took him out after a couple of tries then saw a seal at the other end of the room. Googled how to get rid of it, turns out the shadow I had just killed dropped a key that was to be used on the locked chest at the academy where the boss was. I had forgot about that to be honest, but I doubt I would have figured out the key was for that chest since it was so much earlier in the game. Anyway, tonight I'll explore the area that I just unsealed.

Feels great to jump back in, obnoxious stupidity of the lake of rot aside. I think I'm going to try to finish this up before I go back to TotK. I was planning on a wait and see approach, but with summer I'll have a bit more time to game so I figure I should get this out of the way then focus my attention on Zelda.

 

[Rock And Roll]

Been playing a decent amount. Explored the area past Astel and there was that dragon from Ranni's Rise earlier who left mid fight. Past him was a church and in the bottom there was the great sword. Unfortunately, I don't think I can use it on this run due to my samurai build. I've been pretty much using my starter katana the whole game and then when I got the moonlight I double fisted those bad boys. I don't want to switch off the starter katana because it has bloodhound's step attached to it and it lets me wear heavy armor without worrying about my dodge rolls being slow. But next time I play through this I'm going to try to go the magic route and the base stats for strength + dex aren't really that high, so I'll use that as a melee weapon later in the game.

Went back to the land of the giants, tried to fight that giant ass dragon a couple of times but decided to just ride on past him. Wasn't really in the mood for another dragon fight to be honest and this one seems a bit more annoying than the others. Found a hero's grave, cleared the place out and got an armor set I haven't even looked at yet. After that, went further into the mountains. I like all those dead frozen giants, looks cool AF. I basically rode past everything and didn't fight anything because there were too many enemies that hit too hard, I just let them fight each other and collected some souls passively. I couldn't find anything other than a golden seed in that area so I kept riding higher into the mountains when I came upon the fire giant. Took him out on the second try then went up to the forge. I couldn't figure out what to do so I tried to ride down into it only to die like a dumbass. Then I sat down at the campfire to find a prompt to talk with the cyclops bitch who gave me my pony. Activated some cutscene, burned the Erdtree, got teleported somewhere and now shit seems kind of fucked up. Not sure if this is close to the end and if I can turn back to clean up a few things. There are a few bosses I thought I'd circle back to but when I opened my map it said I couldn't warp from that area. Hopefully I'm just temporarily locked out of warping and can go back after I'm done whatever it is I'm about to do.

 

[and 3 others]

Been playing a decent amount. Explored the area past Astel and there was that dragon from Ranni's Rise earlier who left mid fight. Past him was a church and in the bottom there was the great sword. Unfortunately, I don't think I can use it on this run due to my samurai build. I've been pretty much using my starter katana the whole game and then when I got the moonlight I double fisted those bad boys. I don't want to switch off the starter katana because it has bloodhound's step attached to it and it lets me wear heavy armor without worrying about my dodge rolls being slow. But next time I play through this I'm going to try to go the magic route and the base stats for strength + dex aren't really that high, so I'll use that as a melee weapon later in the game.

Went back to the land of the giants, tried to fight that giant ass dragon a couple of times but decided to just ride on past him. Wasn't really in the mood for another dragon fight to be honest and this one seems a bit more annoying than the others. Found a hero's grave, cleared the place out and got an armor set I haven't even looked at yet. After that, went further into the mountains. I like all those dead frozen giants, looks cool AF. I basically rode past everything and didn't fight anything because there were too many enemies that hit too hard, I just let them fight each other and collected some souls passively. I couldn't find anything other than a golden seed in that area so I kept riding higher into the mountains when I came upon the fire giant. Took him out on the second try then went up to the forge. I couldn't figure out what to do so I tried to ride down into it only to die like a dumbass. Then I sat down at the campfire to find a prompt to talk with the cyclops bitch who gave me my pony. Activated some cutscene, burned the Erdtree, got teleported somewhere and now shit seems kind of fucked up. Not sure if this is close to the end and if I can turn back to clean up a few things. There are a few bosses I thought I'd circle back to but when I opened my map it said I couldn't warp from that area. Hopefully I'm just temporarily locked out of warping and can go back after I'm done whatever it is I'm about to do.

Samurai build!? Mods, make him commit seppuku!!!

 

[Rock And Roll]

Samurai build!? Mods, make him commit seppuku!!!

I'm more of a crossword guy all those numbers confuse me