Elden Ring: New Fromsoft rpg

[Lazy8s]

It’s not a spoiler, so no tags, but Fromsoft’s decisions on when/where you can summon Torrent and/or spirit summons make no sense at all. Frame rate glitches aside, it was one of my biggest gripes with the game.

My solution was to level WAY above what was recommended in NG+ and makes bosses cry.

[Thr0tt]

Well those From Software guys are sadistic pricks.

Dropping a surprise dragon on you spitting distance from the start of the game is no way to encourage exploration of the map!! Took me a while, but I dealt with that fooker. Take that From!!

You now have a dragon heart you can go and exchange for learning Agheel’s Flame, nice. Needs 23 faith I think though.

Level 152 now, need to do some more mining to get a few items usable as focussed on strength and vigor and mind.

[SD-[Inc]]

One big thing that worried me about starting the game was the time sync it would be become. I play casually so got about 25 hours in the last few week. I love to go around and explore every nook and cranny. Having fun so far. I recently spent 120 hours in Forbidden West. (Most people spend less the 40) and feel I did everything I wanted to. What worries me in Elden Ring is that’s a completely unrealistic way to play the game. After 25 hours the game tells me I am at 2% completion. At this pace, it will take me 1250 hours to complete.

Not sure I want to spend the rest of my gaming life finishing this…

I do like how there are so many mini-bosses hidden everywhere in the game. Finding them usually means lots of loot and fun. But holy crap, I am moving slow. I like that there isn’t long quests yet and almost all discovery is through exploring. It makes it easy just to stop where you are and go back to real life. One bad thing about some open world games is that you can’t always just stop in the middle of a quest. I haven’t seen that yet in this game. I’ll probably just keep playing my way until I either get bored or something shiny comes up. Not sure I will ever see the ending.

[SD-[Inc]]

You now have a dragon heart you can go and exchange for learning Agheel’s Flame, nice. Needs 23 faith I think though.

Level 152 now, need to do some more mining to get a few items usable as focussed on strength and vigor and mind.

I got the flame but it’s a little useless to me now as I am focusing on Strength and Dex. I wouldn’t mind an offhand skill in Faith or Magic. But not sure which one yet. I’ll allocate points accordingly when I find something I like. Was going to keep going until I find more to decide. I got a big sword off of a field boss that is doing the job for me right now. That’s one thing about these games is making skill decisions early usually come back to bite you later. The worst was Demon Souls where you don’t know they are going to limit the spells you can buy and they present you the crappier ones first. Right now I am too low level so just need basic strength/dex/endurance/vigor leveling.

[theshadowcult]

Surprised at how easy "relative" melina was. got told repeatedly she was the hardest fight in the game, but mohg was a real bitch. took like ten tries.

[Meteor_of_War]

Surprised at how easy "relative" melina was. got told repeatedly she was the hardest fight in the game, but mohg was a real bitch. took like ten tries.

What level and build type?

[theshadowcult]

quality str/dex with some faith for the regen heal and a couple spells for fun. two handing the beastclaw great hammer, i killed her second try. i am probs higher level than some though, around 180 - 200, i forget exactly.

[Lazy8s]

quality str/dex with some faith for the regen heal and a couple spells for fun. two handing the beastclaw great hammer, i killed her second try. i am probs higher level than some though, around 180 - 200, i forget exactly.

That’s still quite the accomplishment

[Lazy8s]

I got the flame but it’s a little useless to me now as I am focusing on Strength and Dex. I wouldn’t mind an offhand skill in Faith or Magic. But not sure which one yet. I’ll allocate points accordingly when I find something I like. Was going to keep going until I find more to decide. I got a big sword off of a field boss that is doing the job for me right now. That’s one thing about these games is making skill decisions early usually come back to bite you later. The worst was Demon Souls where you don’t know they are going to limit the spells you can buy and they present you the crappier ones first. Right now I am too low level so just need basic strength/dex/endurance/vigor leveling.

You get to respec fairly early in the game, provided you find the necessary item before you meet the boss that you can respec after beating. And the amount of weapons you’ll pick up before end game is just mind blowing, so many to choose from

It sounds like you’re starting out the same way I did. I got tired of combing every single area for stuff, so I just hopped on Torrent and starting racing through areas looking for graces and map fragments, caves and such. Then I went back after. It just seemed to make the game flow better for me, and I also found areas and items and spells/incantations that let me level pretty quickly.

It’s such an amazing open world, but it’s very much a marathon as opposed to a sprint.

[Meteor_of_War]

quality str/dex with some faith for the regen heal and a couple spells for fun. two handing the beastclaw great hammer, i killed her second try. i am probs higher level than some though, around 180 - 200, i forget exactly.

Good job. Yeah level 180-200 is pretty high, but regardless still impressive if you beat her on 2nd try.

First time i beat her i think i was level 120 or so and it was tough. I think the build and weapon you use makes a big difference though, maybe more than level. Some weapons with fast bleed proccing and others that deal knockdowns to her are best i think.

[theshadowcult]

oh, well, thank you guys

As for knockdowns, yeah i can see that being useful. i hit her a couple times with the blasphemous blade art and it knocks her down sometimes. Unfortunately the beastclaw art isnt that great, just fun

Honestly, i think she is one of the fairest fights in the entire game (So far, i have not finished it yet). I had so much more trouble with some others... **** you radaan.

[Meteor_of_War]

Oh if you used blasphemous blade on her that is like Malenia easy mode. The range and knockdown power of that weapon art is just awesome.

First time I fought her I used sword of night and flame and it was just too slow to get off either of the weapon skill magics on her. It was pretty useless to be honest but I stuck with it and eventually got her after something like 20-30 attempts.

Second time I fought her I used rivers of blood and it was MUCH easier. Think I got her like 2nd or 3rd try.

[theshadowcult]

nah i used beastclaw, i just tried out the blasph to see what fire damage did to her. i dont really like the sword, i keep it as a necessary evil kind of thing.

[Exposed]

Took several hours but finally beat the end bosses. Just like Melania, once you figure out the mechanics it becomes surprisingly easy after so much dying and learning.

[Meteor_of_War]

Took several hours but finally beat the end bosses. Just like Melania, once you figure out the mechanics it becomes surprisingly easy after so much dying and learning.

Yep that's Souls games in a nutshell.

Congrats on beating it.

[Lazy8s]

nah i used beastclaw, i just tried out the blasph to see what fire damage did to her. i dont really like the sword, i keep it as a necessary evil kind of thing.

BLASPHEMY!

Took several hours but finally beat the end bosses. Just like Melania, once you figure out the mechanics it becomes surprisingly easy after so much dying and learning.

Congrats dude, you doing NG+? It’s easy mode after the 1st play through.

[theshadowcult]

Took several hours but finally beat the end bosses. Just like Melania, once you figure out the mechanics it becomes surprisingly easy after so much dying and learning.

nice, well done.

[Meteor_of_War]

Anyone here ever have an issue where Elden Ring will freeze for like 10 seconds, then just close to the desktop? Happened on my son's new PC a few times now. Checking event viewer it just says "application error." I'm inclined to think its just the game and not a system problem.

It runs fine otherwise, and temps are good while playing. GPU temp stays in the high 60's and CPU usually in the mid 50's, so its not overheating or anything like that. All his other games seem to be working fine.

Just figured I'd ask those of you who are playing currently, as maybe a recent game patch broke something.

[Fuku2]

I get some severe stuttering after playing for quite some time, usually 6 hours straight or so. Quite long pauses. No crashes I can remember.

[Lazy8s]

It CTD for me 3 or 4 times, but it was immediate, no stuttering. Fwiw it happened on the PS5 version a couple of times too. I just chalked it off to the game.

[Meteor_of_War]

Ok thanks guys.

It was weird because I had not heard about this specific symptom with the game. But after looking it up I have been reading some posts on Reddit and other places with people complaining about the same thing - long freeze then CTD.

It just complicates things in my mind because this is on a totally new PC that I am still working the kinks out of. But yeah I am leaning towards it being the game, since everything else is running great on it so far. Stinks though, Elden Ring was the game my son was most looking forward to playing now that he has a capable PC, and its doing this.

[Lazy8s]

Ok thanks guys.

It was weird because I had not heard about this specific symptom with the game. But after looking it up I have been reading some posts on Reddit and other places with people complaining about the same thing - long freeze then CTD.

It just complicates things in my mind because this is on a totally new PC that I am still working the kinks out of. But yeah I am leaning towards it being the game, since everything else is running great on it so far. Stinks though, Elden Ring was the game my son was most looking forward to playing now that he has a capable PC, and its doing this.

That’s got to be a major disappointment for him, and you

It just seems random across any and all specs and rigs from the reading I did on it. The game also hung a few times on quitting…I would try to start the game and get a message that it was still running - the next day.

It needs fixing, and I really hope they do it this time instead of ignoring it in typical Fromsoft fashion.

[Meteor_of_War]

That’s got to be a major disappointment for him, and you

It just seems random across any and all specs and rigs from the reading I did on it. The game also hung a few times on quitting…I would try to start the game and get a message that it was still running - the next day.

It needs fixing, and I really hope they do it this time instead of ignoring it in typical Fromsoft fashion.

Yeah he was a little bummed, but got over it quickly when he went to a different game. He's not as much a huge Souls fans as we are so its not really a big deal for him to not play it. Honestly I am doubting he would even beat the game. Its a long game and I'm thinking he'll likely lose interest far before that.

There's still some things I can try to alleviate the crashes though. He's got all settings maxed, and I'm thinking of having him play it with settings at medium just to see if it still happens. There could be a specific setting that's causing it. Also, maybe the latest GeForce driver broke something with the game, at least on his system. I can try rolling back to a different driver release. Or, I just realized when it was happening yesterday we didn't try just doing a reboot. We'll see later when he tries it again.

[Lazy8s]

Best of luck with it buddy It would be great to even just confirm it isn’t the rig.

[Meteor_of_War]

I am also reading a lot of people online attribute the freezes / crashes to the game's anti-cheat system.

Some people saying when they use the trick to disable it the game runs smooth and issue free. Might have him try playing in offline mode.

[Lazy8s]

I am also reading a lot of people online attribute the freezes / crashes to the game's anti-cheat system.

Some people saying when they use the trick to disable it the game runs smooth and issue free. Might have him try playing in offline mode.

That would be a nice easy fix! Let me know how it goes?

[theshadowcult]

Me and my housemate have crash issues often enough. For use though its always when loading. The moment it starts loading for something, it will sometimes crash immediately, and then take like a minute or so to close the game.

Its rare, but far more common then it should be, and its consistent.

[Meteor_of_War]

That would be a nice easy fix! Let me know how it goes?

He says he prefers to play online if possible, so I'm going to try everything else I can think of before that.

I kept seeing recommendations to disable virus security software, so decided to try adding an exception for Elden Ring to Windows Defender. Just played for about half hour or so without any problem. Time will tell though.

Also other things can be tried, like disabling all game overlays, Xbox game bar, Discord, etc. Or, just might be a buggy game and nothing can be done about it. Will come down to the frequency that it happens. If its once every 10 hours or so its one thing. But if it happens every 15-20 minutes I consider that unplayable.

[Meteor_of_War]

The game seems to be running freeze/crash free now. My son played for over an hour tonight without a hitch.

He's doing well BTW. He got through Castle Morne pretty fast and beat Leonine Misbegotten in 3 attempts. He's a fast learner and I'm having more fun watching him play than doing a replay myself. of course I've been giving him basic guidance, but not telling him too much and letting him learn the hard way with most of the game. He picked samurai as starting class. He's just doing melee for now, no spells yet. I told him he should get a handle on the fundamentals of the combat first as a good foundation.

I totally underestimated how fun it is to watch my son play through a Souls game. I'm really hoping he gets hooked and finishes it, then wants to play the other Souls games. We'll see.

[Lazy8s]

The game seems to be running freeze/crash free now. My son played for over an hour tonight without a hitch.

He's doing well BTW. He got through Castle Morne pretty fast and beat Leonine Misbegotten in 3 attempts. He's a fast learner and I'm having more fun watching him play than doing a replay myself. of course I've been giving him basic guidance, but not telling him too much and letting him learn the hard way with most of the game. He picked samurai as starting class. He's just doing melee for now, no spells yet. I told him he should get a handle on the fundamentals of the combat first as a good foundation.

I totally underestimated how fun it is to watch my son play through a Souls game. I'm really hoping he gets hooked and finishes it, then wants to play the other Souls games. We'll see.

Nice, so do you think it was Defender causing it? I’ll have to try it on my PC version if that’s the case. The last time I fired it up the pauses and hitches were pretty bad.

[Meteor_of_War]

Nice, so do you think it was Defender causing it? I?ll have to try it on my PC version if that?s the case. The last time I fired it up the pauses and hitches were pretty bad.

It might have been the Defender exception that helped. Can't say for sure though.

I also set Elden Ring to maximum performance in Windows advanced display settings. Also shut down background programs like Discord and MSI Afterburner. So far so good but just don't know what exactly helped.

Should note though, this was not the usual micro stutters everyone gets. This was a long freeze then CTD.

[Lazy8s]

It might have been the Defender exception that helped. Can't say for sure though.

I also set Elden Ring to maximum performance in Windows advanced display settings. Also shut down background programs like Discord and MSI Afterburner. So far so good but just don't know what exactly helped.

Should note though, this was not the usual micro stutters everyone gets. This was a long freeze then CTD.

I’m going to give it a try. I get the long pause followed by what looks like 200fps for a couple of seconds. It’s brutal to deal with during boss fights.

[Meteor_of_War]

I’m going to give it a try. I get the long pause followed by what looks like 200fps for a couple of seconds. It’s brutal to deal with during boss fights.

Sadly I'm not optimistic but good luck, worth a shot. This game's issues just seem so random.

[Lazy8s]

Sadly I'm not optimistic but good luck, worth a shot. This game's issues just seem so random.

So random. I just hope Fromsoft continues troubleshooting and patching. This is their crowning achievement so far. It would be a shame if they gave up on certain bugs.

[Meteor_of_War]

So random. I just hope Fromsoft continues troubleshooting and patching. This is their crowning achievement so far. It would be a shame if they gave up on certain bugs.

I believe its been over a month now since the last patch. Wouldn't be surprised if no more patches until at least the DLC is released.

I just don't think they care enough about PC performance. Or, they don't have the know how to fix the remaining issues.

[theshadowcult]

Some of the ds games still received patches years after release. They just take some time, sometimes.

[Exposed]

BLASPHEMY!




Congrats dude, you doing NG+? It’s easy mode after the 1st play through.

On NG+ now, definitely feels like God mode now but I'm sure that will change soon. I think Limgrave is deceptively easy regardless of mode compared to what comes after it

This was my journey for the finale:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7saFR-jcqYY

[yt]7saFR-jcqYY[/yt]

[Lazy8s]

On NG+ now, definitely feels like God mode now but I'm sure that will change soon. I think Limgrave is deceptively easy regardless of mode compared to what comes after it

A little tougher….I think Morgott may have hit me once It’s a nice power trip after the rougher spots in NG. I like that lol.

[Meteor_of_War]

So just after saying there may not be any more significant patch releases they just released 1.05 today with a lot of bug fixes.

Additional Elements Added

• Items unlocked for purchase by offering Bell Bearings to the NPC “Twin Maiden Husk” will now carry over to NG+ play. This affects all items unlocked by offering the following items to the NPC “Twin Maiden Husk”: Bone Peddler's Bell Bearing/Meat Peddler's Bell Bearing/Medicine Peddler's Bell Bearing/Gravity Stone Peddler's Bell Bearing/Smithing-Stone Miner's Bell Bearing/Somberstone Miner's Bell Bearing/Glovewort Picker's Bell Bearing/Ghost-Glovewort Picker's Bell Bearing.
• Added emphasis to the choice of the Sacred Flask and several other options that can be strengthened in the grace menu.
• Added sound effects when other players' summon signs appear.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where equipment could be changed from the equipment menu during the use of a skill under certain circumstances.
• Fixed a bug in the "War Cry" skill where the effect was applied to a weapon that was not the target of the skill.
• Fixed a bug where recovery time for some actions of the "Barbaric Roar", "War Cry", and "Troll's Roar" was longer than expected.
• Fixed a bug where the effects of the "Determination" and "Royal Knight's Resolve" skill does not always wear off with certain weapons.
• Fixed a bug in which some attacks of the "Ice Spear" skill could not be guarded against.
• Fixed a bug that caused the attack power of some skills to be reduced when using the "Golden Vow" skill.
• Fixed a bug which caused the light wave of the "Moonlight Greatsword" skill sometimes not aim at the locked-on target.
• Fixed a bug that caused damage to allies when using the "Seppuku" skill under certain circumstances.
• Fixed a bug that caused the increase in attack power of the "Seppuku" skill to be higher than expected for some attack motions.
• Fixed a bug in which a status effect was applied when using the "Hoarah Loux's Earthshaker" skill.
• Fixed a bug where the "Waves of Darkness" skill would not hit the enemy with a spinning cleave.
• Fixed a bug that caused unintended motions to be played when switching to a different sorceries or incantations while using a sorcery or incantation.
• Fixed a bug that caused FP consumption to increase when using the sorceries "Magma Shot" and "Roiling Magma" while riding a horse.
• Fixed a bug where the “Claw Talisman” effect was not applied when jumping with the "Starscourge Greatsword" in both hands.
• Fixed a bug that caused the power of two-handed attacks of the weapon "Golem's Halberd " – with the exception of the jumping attack – to be different from what would be expected.
• Fixed a bug with using the weapon "Pulley Crossbow." When equipped with the left hand while the right hand weapon was given an attribute by magic or item, the effect was given to the "Pulley Crossbow" as well.
• Fixed a bug in which arrows and bolts that did not match the type of long-range weapon equipped by the player could be fired by using certain procedures.
• Fixed a bug that caused guard boost to be reduced when some weapons were strengthened to the maximum.
• Fixed a bug in which the attributes of weapons could be changed while a player’s inventory had reached its maximum capacity and ashes of war could not be changed.
• Fixed a bug that caused the boss "Malenia, Goddess of Rot" to have low HP under certain circumstances.
• Fixed a bug that allowed enemies to be attacked from outside the fog in certain areas.
• Fixed a bug in online multiplayer where, when a boss is defeated in a host's world as a cooperative player, the same boss might not appear in the cooperator’s world.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the battle with the boss "God-Devouring Serpent" from progressing under certain circumstances.
• Fixed a bug that prevented hostile NPCs from appearing under certain circumstances.
• Fixed a bug that prevented an event with the NPC "Alexander, Warrior Jar" from progressing under certain circumstances.
• Fixed an issue where the item "Sacred Flask" was not restored after destroying a group of enemies under certain circumstances.
• Fixed a bug that under certain circumstances, after defeating the boss "Starscourge Radahn," the user could not move from the map to the grace.*
  *If you cannot move from the map to the grace, you can move to the grace by touching the grace "Starscourge Radahn.”
• Fixed a bug that prevented found sites of grace from registering on the map under certain circumstances.
• Fixed a bug that prevented some graces from being able to be touched when approached under certain circumstances.
• Fixed a bug that allowed hostile guests to enter boss areas under certain circumstances.
• Fixed a bug that prevented a critical hit from behind from landing in hostile multiplayer.
• Improved stability of online multiplayer between PS4 and PS5.
• Improved loading times for the Xbox Series X|S version.
• Fixed a bug that caused performance to slow down when the "Sentry's Torch" weapon was equipped under certain circumstances.
• Fixed a bug that caused the master volume setting to be ignored in some cutscenes.
• Improved stability of online multiplayer.
• Fixed a bug that caused sounds to play differently than expected in some situations.
• Fixed a bug that caused the player to become inoperable and die in certain locations.
• Fixed a bug that caused attack animations and hit detection to be rendered differently than expected in some maps.
• Fixed a bug in some maps that allowed players to reach unexpected locations with certain procedures.
• Fixed some texts.
• Several other performance improvements and bug fixes.

I don't know yet if they did any work in this patch to fix the stuttering issues this game has, but it does also say "Several other performance improvements." Would likely need to reinstall the game or graphics driver to test for that.

[Thr0tt]

On Radagon & Elden Beast, doing my head in, managed after a few days to kill Radagon but then the beast stuffed me in the first 10 seconds !

Shame they didnt incorporate after a certain amount of tries give you the option to do easier with less reward... bah.