Elden Ring

[ShiraNoMai]

Has anyone messed with the crafting this game offers? Been watching someone do a Consumables-Only run of the game and it's been... interesting, to say the least

[Monocle]

Unfortunately no. I have the crafting equipment but then I totally forget I can craft and use it like a doofus.

[Moonface]

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

Ah. That was sorta my approach to playing Demon's Souls, where I went for a build that was both melee and ranged so I could attack enemies out of my reach easily. I should've gone magic for it instead of bow though because I always run out of arrows. x.x
I assume it's not too hard to keep your MP replenished in this game so far? I've not seen anyone heavily using magic to see how MP regen works.

[Monocle]

uhhhh depends on the spell but summoning spirits to help in boss battles uses mp as well. so it's all about balance. I mean there are flasks to heal mp but those only get recharged at sites of grace

[Moonface]

Ah. Well at least there's a rechargeable MP source in the game unlike some of the other Souls games where it's a finite consumable you have to gather more of.

I saw a little of the crafting in the game and I like that you can just make things you need by just gathering things from the world, as opposed to other Souls games where pickups only spawn once and then you have to either grind it off enemies (and hope they drop it) or grind currency to buy it from a vendor. It's nice there's a more reliable way of getting things in this game, especially after the torture I've had with a bow run in Demon's Souls.

[Monocle]

Yeah it's been tons of fun. only thing I'm struggling with is smithing stones but now I know I can get a key item to get a vendor to sell them to me so I'm gonna go work on that

[Moonface]

How many bosses have you got through now @Monocle?

[Monocle]

uhhh that's a good question. I've beaten a few enemies and a few great enemies but I wasn't keeping track. but the world is so damn big that I know it's only the tip of the iceberg

[Dragon Lord]

I really need to get myself back into this game, but it's a struggle.

It's a pretty bad sign when I choose to replay FFVII for the 100th time over playing something new like Elden Ring. I think I just need to restart in Elden Ring and go with a different build and also explore more thoroughly before opening new areas, and just leaving myself with too much to explore in a huge random mess of a map.

[Moonface]

uhhh that's a good question. I've beaten a few enemies and a few great enemies but I wasn't keeping track. but the world is so damn big that I know it's only the tip of the iceberg

I think bosses in this game are all through those fog gates unless they're in the open world areas. I could be wrong though.

@Dragon Lord: What build did you go with and what one(s) are you looking at for a fresh start?

Also, piggy backing off @ShiraNoMai's earlier post about someone doing a consumables only run, they finished it a few nights ago. It was neat to see a challenge run that wasn't a typical "Soul Lvl 1" run and I wonder what other types of runs are possible in this game that aren't really feasible in the other Souls games.

[Monocle]

there's bosses out in the field too. boss HP bars on the bottom of the screen and anything. So it's been fun just finding something deadly. rip me

[Dragon Lord]

uhhh that's a good question. I've beaten a few enemies and a few great enemies but I wasn't keeping track. but the world is so damn big that I know it's only the tip of the iceberg

I think bosses in this game are all through those fog gates unless they're in the open world areas. I could be wrong though.

@Dragon Lord: What build did you go with and what one(s) are you looking at for a fresh start?

Also, piggy backing off @ShiraNoMai's earlier post about someone doing a consumables only run, they finished it a few nights ago. It was neat to see a challenge run that wasn't a typical "Soul Lvl 1" run and I wonder what other types of runs are possible in this game that aren't really feasible in the other Souls games.

I was running a pure DEX build, but I'd probably switch to a DEX/INT build because not using magic in this game is just pure hell. They gave such a staggering advantage to magic in this game, more so than any other Souls games, and you just feel like you get super hardcore punished for not using it. Especially since so many bosses have long combo strings that often hit you despite rolling, because they attack fast enough to hit you in between rolls despite timing it as best as you can. 

Also I'm sure LobosJR will do every challenge run under the sun with Elden Ring, as he's done with every Souls game. He's done consumable only runs of Dark Souls 1-3 and Bloodborne I believe. He did a LV1 challenge first, and now he's going through the game figuring out what can be done in the cheesiest ways possible, and then after that I'm sure he'll start tearing through whatever challenge runs he can think of. Bow only, consumable only, fist only, etc..

[Moonface]

uhhh that's a good question. I've beaten a few enemies and a few great enemies but I wasn't keeping track. but the world is so damn big that I know it's only the tip of the iceberg

I think bosses in this game are all through those fog gates unless they're in the open world areas. I could be wrong though.

@Dragon Lord: What build did you go with and what one(s) are you looking at for a fresh start?

Also, piggy backing off @ShiraNoMai's earlier post about someone doing a consumables only run, they finished it a few nights ago. It was neat to see a challenge run that wasn't a typical "Soul Lvl 1" run and I wonder what other types of runs are possible in this game that aren't really feasible in the other Souls games.

I was running a pure DEX build, but I'd probably switch to a DEX/INT build because not using magic in this game is just pure hell. They gave such a staggering advantage to magic in this game, more so than any other Souls games, and you just feel like you get super hardcore punished for not using it. Especially since so many bosses have long combo strings that often hit you despite rolling, because they attack fast enough to hit you in between rolls despite timing it as best as you can. 

Also I'm sure LobosJR will do every challenge run under the sun with Elden Ring, as he's done with every Souls game. He's done consumable only runs of Dark Souls 1-3 and Bloodborne I believe. He did a LV1 challenge first, and now he's going through the game figuring out what can be done in the cheesiest ways possible, and then after that I'm sure he'll start tearing through whatever challenge runs he can think of. Bow only, consumable only, fist only, etc..

Yeah, I've noticed that some enemies will have combo strings that are so quick and stacked back-to-back that you have to spam dodge repeatedly to avoid it all, but that only works if you didn't get the timing wrong on the first dodge to eventually end up slightly behind in frames on following attacks. Mix that sort of thing with instances of double boss fights or other enemies being present in the fight and I really don't see how some stuff is supposed to be done without just attacking from range.

Also I did not think a consumable only run would be possible for the other Souls games, especially Bloodborne (I say especially because it's the only one I've played to know what consumables are really like in it). It sounds like it would be a total slog for some of those games.

[Moonface]

So a survey got held to ask a sample of 1700 players what they thought of Elden Ring across various aspects, of which were then ranked based on the responses from the participants, including first class choice, prioritized stats, favourite weapons types/skills/ashes of war, favourite sorceries and incantations, favourite talismans, areas that left the strongest impression, and a whole bunch more: Frontline JP: Elden Ring Survey Results

There's a lot in there, but I'll put the list of what people liked the most below since I think it's one of the most interesting and I'm curious where others here rank some of those aspects based on their time with the game.

What Do Players Like About Elden Ring?

1. The story/world: 1410
   
2. The field: 1391
   
3. Exploration: 1225
   
4. Boss combat: 1189
   
5. Weapons and armor: 1091
   
6. Characters (including NPCs): 995
   
7. Dungeon crawling: 992
   
8. The size of the map: 956
   
9. The graphics: 912
   
10. The ashes of war and weapon arts: 884
    
11. The music: 841
    
12.  The spirit ashes: 797
    
13. The combat balance: 786
    
14. Sorceries and incantations: 763
    
15. Character design: 740
    
16. The horse: 711
    
17. The leveling system: 682
    
18. The controls: 560
    
19. Multiplayer: 469
    
20. The equipment upgrade system: 458
    
21. Item crafting: 150
    

I'm not surprised Caelid ranked highly in the most impactful areas, since I expect a lot of people discovered it by being warped there by the trapped chest in the starting area and it tends to also be the one area I see people bring up the most on social media. Great Claws must be really shit since that weapon only got 8 votes out of 1700 people.  
I think combining story and world into one option is a little flawed, because it's hard to tell how much of a vote was made leaning towards one of those two parts more. It would've been better to do an option of story/lore instead since those are intertwined a lot more than the world and story are.

[ShiraNoMai]

It's crazy that barely over half the surveyed folk did not give a shit about the music. There are some really good tracks in that game, and it's a shame people are half and half on it. Same with the characters, I actually liked the character designs!