Elden Ring

[Moonface]

I wonder if any of the runs done so far are even possible after the latest patch. It nerfed quite a few things that were basically broken and apparently some of that stuff was being used in runs.

Patch 1.03 Changes

Additional Elements Added

• Added a function to record an icon and the name of an NPC on the map when you encounter that NPC.
  
• Added NPC Jar-Bairn.
  
• Added new quest phases for the following NPCs: Diallos/ Nepheli Loux/ Kenneth Haight/ Gatekeeper Gostoc.
  
• Added some summonable NPCs in multiple situations.
  
• Increased the number of patterns of objects player can imitate when using Mimic’s Veil.
  
• Added night background music for some open field area.
  

Bug Fixed

• Fixed a bug that prevented summoned NPCs from taking damage in some boss battles.
  
• Fixed a bug that sometime prevented the player from obtaining item after boss battle.
  
• Fixed a bug that causes dialogue to be skipped when talking to NPCs and using custom key configurations.
  
• Fixed a bug that causes the player to freeze when riding.
  
• Fixed a bug that causes arcane to scale incorrectly for some weapons.
  
• In situation where the player cannot obtain more than 2 talisman pouches, added talisman pouch to Twin Maiden Husks shop line up.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented the user from warping to sites of grace from the map at the end of the game.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented the player from moving to the next area after the battle with the Fire Giant.
  
• Fixed a bug which causes some weapons to have incorrect scaling after strengthening.
  
• Fixed a bug which causes some weapons to not use stat scaling.
  
• Fixed hang-ups in certain occasions.
  
• Fixed a bug which incorrectly displays multiplayer area boundary when playing online.
  
• Fixed a bug that allows player to activate Erdtree Greatshield’s weapon skill without absorbing an attack using a special combination of item and incantation.
  
• Fixed a bug which causes Fire’s Deadly Sin incantation to have different effect.
  
• Fixed a bug with the Ash of War, Determination and Royal Knight's Resolve, where the damage buff will also apply to other weapons without that skill.
  
• Adjusted the visual effect of Unseen Form spell.
  
• Deleted the Ragged armor set from the game which was mistakenly obtainable in previous patch.
  
• Fixed a bug that causes some hostile NPCs to drop Furlcalling Finger Remedy.
  
• Fixed a bug that causes incorrect sound effect to play in some situations.
  
• Fixed a bug which causes visual animation and hitboxes to not be displayed correctly on some maps.
  
• Fixed bugs which causes incorrect visual and behavior for some enemies.
  
• Fixed a bug that causes incorrect stat parameter for some armor.
  
• Text fixes.
  
• Other performance improvement and bug fixes.
  

Balance Changes

• Increased the drop rate of Smithing Stone for some enemies.
  
• Added Smithing Stone to some early game shop line up.
  
• Increased shield’s effectiveness.
  
• Increased the damage for all offensive cracked pot items.
  
• Increased the damage for the following items: Spark Aromatic/Poison Spraymist.
  
• Increased the effect duration for the following items: Uplifting Aromatic/ Ironjar Aromatic.
  
• Increased HP healing for Torrent when using the following items: Rowa Raisin/ Sweet Raisin/ Frozen Raisin
  
• Reduced FP consumption and increased the damage of the following sorceries: Glintstone Cometshard/ Comet/ Night Comet
  
• Increased the damage of the following sorceries: Gravity Well/ Collapsing Stars/ Crystal Barrage
  
• Decreased FP consumption of the following sorceries: Star Shower/ Rock Blaster/ Gavel of Haima/ Founding Rain of Stars/ Stars of Ruin/Greatblade Phalanx/Magic Downpour/ Loretta’s Greatbow/ Loretta’s Mastery/ Carian Greatsword/ Carian Piercer/ Shard Spiral
  
• Raised projectile speed and range of Great Glintstone Shard
  
• Decreased Ash of War, Hoarfrost Stomp's damage and increase cast time.
  
• Increased Ash of War, Bloody Slash's self-inflict damage while slightly lowering the damage and increasing the cast time.
  
• Decreased weapon skill, Sword of Night and Flame’s damage.
  
• Increased FP consumption and lower duration of Ash of War, Barricade Shield.
  
• Changed FP consumption timing of Ash of War, Prelate’s Charge.
  
• Decreased the damage of spirit summoned when using the item Mimic Tear Ash and changed the spirit’s behavior pattern.
  
• Other enemy and weapon balance changes

The points I bolded are the ones that I believe are the very notable ones, with the two in Balance Changes being the ones I've seen people pointing out the most as very notable nerfs. I don't know much about Mimic Tear but I am aware that Sword of Night and Flame can become incredibly broken and allow a player to rinse most of the bosses with their eyes closed.

I can't find it in the notes but apparently there was also a bug where players could jump over a wall into a boss area and kill it without triggering the fight and so the boss just stood there and took attacks without doing anything about it. Not sure if that particular boss was involved in speedruns though because I can't recall what boss it was that had that exploit.

[Dragon Lord]

And so begins Fromsoft once again nerfing anything that's remotely OP/fun to use for people who just want to do stupid amounts of damage. They just never learn to leave things alone. Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls 3 had some of the most fun things in the game completely ruined in this same way.

Nioh/Nioh 2 also had most of the really fun builds ruined with nerfs too, though that's a different developer. I just don't understand why they feel the need to nerf OP things in a majority single-player game (anyone who argues that the PvP is the main draw of the Souls games is on some major copium).

I'm already having trouble motivating myself to play the game (haven't touched it in nearly two weeks), and knowing they're starting the nerfs already just makes it harder for me to want to jump back on it.

[Mr EliteL]

Yeah the nerfs suck, even though I wouldn't have used them in my first playthrough it could've been a fun thing to do later on. I'm in the same boat, I haven't touched Elden Ring in a week, probably only spent four or five days (not fully of course) bothering to play. But that's mostly down to my dislike of having to retreat from battles or outright avoiding them while I explore thus meaning missing out on gathering runes. I'm aware there's a good place to farm and other areas later on you can farm easy enemies for them, but haven't bothered doing that either. I also understand there's no point facing every battle situation too thanks to respawns and such or being underleveled or too many enemies, but still it's not like I enjoy running away.

[Moonface]

And so begins Fromsoft once again nerfing anything that's remotely OP/fun to use for people who just want to do stupid amounts of damage. They just never learn to leave things alone. Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls 3 had some of the most fun things in the game completely ruined in this same way.

Nioh/Nioh 2 also had most of the really fun builds ruined with nerfs too, though that's a different developer. I just don't understand why they feel the need to nerf OP things in a majority single-player game (anyone who argues that the PvP is the main draw of the Souls games is on some major copium).

I'm already having trouble motivating myself to play the game (haven't touched it in nearly two weeks), and knowing they're starting the nerfs already just makes it harder for me to want to jump back on it.

Did Bloodborne ever get any nerfs? I know I got into it late so I don't know if anything was changed post-launch for it. I do find it odd how the developers don't know a weapon is OP before launching the game though, considering they would be setting the stats and presumably checking that they're not too high or too low. I find it hard to believe they just assume the numbers are okay when it looks like the majority of weapons didn't end up too high or too low and require adjustments.

I'm curious too as to what about the game hasn't made you come back to it in a bit?

Yeah the nerfs suck, even though I wouldn't have used them in my first playthrough it could've been a fun thing to do later on. I'm in the same boat, I haven't touched Elden Ring in a week, probably only spent four or five days (not fully of course) bothering to play. But that's mostly down to my dislike of having to retreat from battles or outright avoiding them while I explore thus meaning missing out on gathering runes. I'm aware there's a good place to farm and other areas later on you can farm easy enemies for them, but haven't bothered doing that either. I also understand there's no point facing every battle situation too thanks to respawns and such or being underleveled or too many enemies, but still it's not like I enjoy running away.

Wait until running away actually becomes enjoyable because you reach the point where you actively start ignoring most enemies for the sake of just mowing through bosses to reach a different ending on a NG+. By my third playthrough of Bloodborne I was just ignoring most enemies once I got to the final few bosses in that game. 

It's hard for me to suggest anything since I haven't played the game but maybe see if you can draw enemies away from a group or at least have them distance themselves from each other. In Bloodborne and Sekiro I sometimes knew trying to tackle multiple enemies at once could be risky and would try to lure them out in smaller packs or get some distance built in the group so I could hit the front runner once or twice, then dodge and back off before the stragglers catch up and surround me. Hit and run tactics + divide and conquer, basically.

[Dragon Lord]

Bloodborne did have some stuff nerfed, yeah. The Cannon used to be able to one-shot basically anything in the game before it got nerfed. A few other things ended up getting nerfed too, though I don't remember exactly what all they were. I think the Tiny Tonitrus tool got nerfed pretty hard too.

The main thing that has caused me to lose interest in Elden Ring so fast is the open world. There's a lot of "dead" space in the open world and it makes it pretty boring exploring it. Then you have the issue of Fromsoft thinking it was okay to just spam giant, HP-bloated enemies every where. Of course these enemies being huge also means they have really terrible hitboxes (something Fromsoft has always struggled with). Congratulations! You took down one giant, hp-bloated enemy! Now do it 30 more times in this area. This is why most people turned to OP magic builds in Elden Ring. Just so you didn't spend 90% of your play time clearing out these stupid enemies. Playing a melee build makes it take forever to clear an area out of there fuckers, especially considering you have to do it every time you want to go back to that area.

Then you have the horseback combat which is the biggest joke I've ever seen in a Fromsoft game. They should have just not done it instead.

The game is really good, but these few issues just drain my motivation to hop on the game and actually play it. I don't feel like spending four of my five hours of playing it just being fighting 30 of the same giant enemy.

[Moonface]

I'm shocked the hit boxes are bad because they really nailed them in Sekiro due to the emphasis on sword play. I've seen footage of that game where someone has the sword of their enemy practically millimeters from their head as they perform an attack that does not feature i-frames.

I wonder if the strong enemy spam was an attempt to encourage players to keep moving by not wanting to deal with every enemy. Not that that reason would exempt it from being a questionable design choice but I'm just trying to think of what logical way, if any, there could've been for the approach.

[Mr EliteL]

I've lost the desire to continue playing, OK not outright, but I haven't got a plan of when the next time I'm going to boot it up. I thought Elden Ring would shoot up into my top 10 games in the first few hours playing like many recent games have done so I'd play them for a long time, even with the vast size of the open world here but I can't be bothered. Thought it would be a game I'd be itching to play and wishing I don't have to go to work or sleep, but nah. Not getting the satisfaction I thought I'd get from exploring, and don't really enjoy the combat either. Perhaps it's my build, but I got it stronger last time I played dealing more damage and less time fighting enemies. I might change my mind later about it if and when I do get further in. Might even start over again I dunno. I have watched others play and got more enjoyment from watching over playing and do see how it's a great game. That's just how I feel at the moment. *shrugs*

[Moonface]

Wow, it's nuts seeing you guys falling off the game just because I wouldn't have expected it. Do you think this style of game is better off as the more classic linear style that every prior game was before this one? Since it seems the open world is what's the bane of everyone's existence or the crux of the problems.

[ShiraNoMai]

It definitely seems like I'm seeing the trend of folk that didn't mesh with BOTW consequently aren't meshing with this one, and vice versa (those who fell in love with BOTW spending ages exploring and adoring Elden Ring).

Open world design isn't for everyone but it seems to be quite magical for those who do. The boss and enemy design thing is a FromSoft specific issue I wish they'd see is a common universally hated issue and actually rectify it but they seem to be pretty stubborn about it haha

[Moonface]

Are you still trying to keep going with the game @Monocle or did you drop off it too?

[Monocle]

oh I'm still playing host very slowly. Got distracted by Stranger of Paradise but still very much going. almost level 50. Total glad cannon build though since my vigor and HP are so low. rip

[Moonface]

What did you put your levels into? Strength, magic, or something else?

[Monocle]

Dex and Int. I use magic and I have a dex weapon. Plus I'm pretty good at dodging. I have a portion to increase max stamina and stamina recovery rate so I don't worry about running out

[Moonface]

Dex and Int. I use magic and I have a dex weapon. Plus I'm pretty good at dodging. I have a portion to increase max stamina and stamina recovery rate so I don't worry about running out

Ah. What made you decide to go for a magic build?

[Monocle]

I'm a huge pussy so I wanted to be able to attack from far away lmfao