Elden Ring

[RichFN2]

Got it as a random Christmas present so had it a few months now, to begin with I hated it but kept persevering with it. Was spending ages picking fruit and selling it to the the creepy troll guy in the church just sivi could level up and buy more kit (yes I was that bad)

Now about level 105 but only around halfway through the game but being very through to find every cave, catacomb etc.

My mind is quite literally blown at times it's that good, sometimes it's frustrating how hard it is but you get to a certain stage where your good enough to kill most things after a few attempts. Apart from Starcourge Radahn I can't get him below half health without dying, will have to come back to that one!

[Steven_RW]

Ruskie said:

It has corrupted gaming for me. It’s the best game I have ever played in 30+ years and I can’t get interested in anything else now. Just waiting for the DLC and will start another play through!

All souls games are like this for me. I have played through Demon's Souls and Dark Souls Remastered numerous times over the last couple of years. Add in several play throughs of Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne too. Even the lesser enjoyed Dark Souls 2 has been run through at least 2 times in the last couple of years. If you are feeling like you want something else that gives that similar feeling to Elden Ring and haven't played through the other Souls games, I'd recommend every one of them. Plenty out there to keep you going till DLC. I have played through Elden Ring for 2 complete play throughs but still enjoyed Demons and Dark Souls, DS3 and Bloodborne since. Elden Ring doesn't take the shine off those games at all. IMO.

[FourWheelDrift]

Just a Small patch v1.09

Ray tracing support has been added for PC and consoles. Along with some balancing and bug squashing.

V1.09 patch ELDEN RING update 1.09 is now available.



New feature

Ray Tracing support has been added.

Ray Tracing can be activated in the settings menu:
PS5 / XSX: Game Options → Ray Tracing
PC: Graphics → Ray Tracing Quality

Please note that performance - such as frame rate and resolution - may be impacted while playing with Ray Tracing on.

The minimum and recommended technical specification to use Ray Tracing can be found at the end of the patch notes.

PvP-exclusive balance adjustments

The adjustments in this section do not affect single-player or cooperative play.

The Inescapable Frenzy incantation power and grab angle have been increased.
The Lifesteal Fist skill power, range and grab angle have been increased.
Decreased the power of two-handed jumping attacks.
Decreased the power of heavy and heavy running attacks of Fist and Claw weapon types.
Decreased the power of the Founding Rain of Stars spell.
Decreased the spell enhancement effect of the Terra Magica spell.
Decreased the damage and poise damage of the Wave of Gold skill when hitting an opponent over a certain distance.
Decreased the effectiveness of the Determination and Royal Knight's Resolve skills.
Decreased the effects of Contagious Fury skill of the Jellyfish Shield.
Decreased the effectiveness of the Claw Talisman.
Decreased the effectiveness of the Lord of Blood’s Exultation Talisman.
Decreased the attack power buff granted by the White Mask head armor.
Decreased the jumping attack damage buff granted by the Raptor's Black Feathers armor.
Decreased the damage buff granted by Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear, Flame-Shrouding Cracked Tear, Lightning-Shrouding Cracked Tear, and Holy-Shrouding Cracked Tear when activated with the Flask of Wondrous Physick.


General balance adjustments

Added an invincibility window when respawning in the colosseum .
Increased the scaling of the following attributes when infusing weapons with certain Ashes of War: Magic / Fire / Flame Art / Lightning / Sacred
Increased the attribute scaling of the following weapon types: Colossal Sword / Great Axe / Hammer / Flail / Great Hammer / Colossal Weapon
Increased the speed, range and recovery time of some attacks for the following weapon types: Great Hammer / Great Axe / Great Sword / Curved Greatsword
Flail weapons changes:
- Increased the speed of some attacks.
- Reduced attack recovery time.
- Increased poise when using two-handed attacks.
Increased running attacks speed and reduced attack recovery time for the following weapon types: Straight Sword / Curved Sword / Katana / Twinblade Sword / Axe / Hammer / Halberd
Increased the first attack speed for the following weapon types: Straight Sword / Curved Sword / Whip
Increased the speed of guard counters for the following weapon types: Straight Sword / Great Sword / Colossal Sword / Great Curved Sword / Katana / Twinblade Sword / Axe / Great Axe / Flail / Great Hammer / Spear / Great Spear / Halberd
Reduced the attack recovery time for Whip weapons.
Increased the damage of Claw weapons.
Added Holy damage and Faith scaling to the Great Club.
Increased damage negation when blocking Holy damage and decreased damage negation when blocking damage from other affinities.
Increased the effectiveness of the Twinblade Talisman.
Slightly reduced rolling travel distance for light equipment weights.
Decreased the hitbox size for some attacks of the following weapon types: Thrusting Sword / Heavy thrusting Sword / Spear / Great Spear / Halberd


Ashes of War adjustments

Lifesteal Fist
- Increased target grab range.
Surge of Faith
- Increased projectile generation speed.
Flame Spit
- Increased the guard speed and blocking amount of the skill.
- Adjusted the angle of the fireball.
Tongues of Fire
- Increased the guard speed and blocking amount of the skill.
Great Oracular Bubble
- Increased projectile generation speed and reduced the recovery time.
Viper Bite
- Reduced the time before rolling is possible after using the skill.
Shriek of Milos
- Increased close range poise damage.
Spearcall Ritual
- Increased projectile generation speed.
Cursed-Blood Slash
- Increased projectile generation speed and reduced the recovery time.
Gold Breaker
- Reduced the recovery time.
I Command Thee, Kneel!
- Increased attack generation speed.
Starcaller Cry
- Increased the speed of follow-up attacks.
Spinning Wheel
- Increased attack generation speed.
- Added a roll & heavy attack cancel timing while using the skill.


Bug Fixes

Fixed a bug where the Scarlet rot status buildup was not properly reflected when giving the Antspur Rapier a Cold affinity.
Fixed a bug where the Scarlet rot status buildup was not properly reflected when giving the Rotten Greataxe a Blood affinity.
Fixed a bug where some attacks of the Partisan , Death Ritual Spear, and Lucerne had unexpected Physical attack scaling.
Fixed a bug where the Nightrider Glaive did not increase the damage of horseback attacks.
Fixed a bug where the Duelist Greataxe and Rotten Greataxe did not increase the damage of charged attacks.
Fixed a bug where the Roar Medallion Talisman effect didn’t increase the power of some incantations.
Fixed a bug that reduced the power of some skills while under the Golden Vow effect.
Fixed a bug that caused the effects the Determination and Royal Knight's Resolve skills when casted from a left-handed weapon to be added to other skills casted with a right-handed weapon.
Fixed a bug that reduced the critical hit power of right-handed weapons while having Determination or Royal Knight's Resolve active on a left-handed weapon.
Fixed a bug where status build-ups were unintentionally added to some Weapon Skills.
Fixed a bug where the power and special effects of a left-handed weapon could be added to a skill cast with a right-handed weapon.
Fixed a bug that caused an equipped Sacrificial Twig to be consumed when a player died in the Colosseum.
Fixed the camera positioning when respawning in the Colosseum.
Fixed a bug where a player could receive credit for a kill in the Colosseum when dying due to the Death status effect, instead of the player who inflicted that status effect.
Improved stability in Colosseum matchmaking.
Fixed a bug related to level correction when an invader used the Phantom Bloody Finger.
Fixed a bug that could cause disconnections with other players in certain locations during multiplayer.
Improved online multiplayer stability.
Fixed a bug related to some enemies not rendering or behaving as expected.
Several performance improvements and other bug fixes.


Ray Tracing Technical Specifications

MINIMUM:
OPERATING SYSTEM: WINDOWS 10
PROCESSOR: Intel Core i5-10600K or AMD Ryzen 5 3600XT
MEMORY: 16 GB RAM
GRAPHIC CARD: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, 8 GB or AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT, 12 GB
RECOMMENDED GRAPHICS SETTING: 1080p - Low quality – Low Ray Tracing


RECOMMENDED:
OPERATING SYSTEM: WINDOWS 11
PROCESSOR: Intel Core i7-10700K or AMD Ryzen 7 3800XT
MEMORY: 16 GB RAM
GRAPHIC CARD: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, 8 GB or AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, 16 GB
RECOMMENDED GRAPHICS SETTING: 1080p - High quality – High Ray Tracing

[FourWheelDrift]

Quick test, Ray tracing maximum with everything else at 1440p. Still not dropping below frame capped 60fps.

5600x/RTX3080

Ps. Just tested 4k, still 60fps.

PPS. It does drop into the mid-40s at Max RT in very forested areas. The RT is shading on grass, trees and objects not light or shadows. If they did that it would definitely need DLSS.

Edited by FourWheelDrift on Friday 24th March 19:49

[FourWheelDrift]

Elden Ring meets Elder Scrolls VI

First Person camera Elden Ring - https://www.nexusmods.com/eldenring/mods/3266

[FourWheelDrift]

All you do is drop the 3 or 4 files into the game folder and click on the new exe, if you use the normal exe you get the normal game. It doesn't mess with game files.

[davek_964]

Since I'd bought a PS5, I decided it was time to finally start NG+.

Unfortunately, I think I'm a bit over-levelled. The first "boss" you meet - the guy on the horse near the very start - caused me massive problems on my first play through (even though I was quite levelled up by then) - but he was dispensed with first time. As was a dragon, and another boss (actually - one of them did kill me once, but that was because my Echo randomly decided to connect to my AV Amp, which then switched to bluetooth input and the screen suddenly went blank!).

It's still quite entertaining wandering around - and I suppose it should get harder as I progress - but at the moment, it's a tad easy. Which I'm sure it's not supposed to be!

[ZedLeg]

Respec your character and use different weapons. Should give some challenge back

[MWM3]

davek_964 said:

Since I'd bought a PS5, I decided it was time to finally start NG+.

Unfortunately, I think I'm a bit over-levelled. The first "boss" you meet - the guy on the horse near the very start - caused me massive problems on my first play through (even though I was quite levelled up by then) - but he was dispensed with first time. As was a dragon, and another boss (actually - one of them did kill me once, but that was because my Echo randomly decided to connect to my AV Amp, which then switched to bluetooth input and the screen suddenly went blank!).

It's still quite entertaining wandering around - and I suppose it should get harder as I progress - but at the moment, it's a tad easy. Which I'm sure it's not supposed to be!

Ng+ is designed as a revenge tour. In my first Ng+ I Golden pathed it to so I could get another ending on my way towards the platinum. It took me just over two hours to beat.

[Ruskie]

I downloaded a map for my second run and visited all places I missed.

[Squirrelofwoe]

I'm sure this is going to sound like a really daft question, but when you fast travel to an area, in the centre of the screen there are a whole list of stat effects / buffs etc (I presume) that appear to move- as though they are clearing. What does this all mean?! Is it tied to having a rune arc activated?

I have tried the internet, but I can only seem to find references to those symbols displayed under the health bar in the top left- and I understand what they mean.

I'm approx 60 hours in and its not causing me any obvious issues- beyond seeing all this information flash up every time I fast travel and not having a clue what any of it means!

[Steven_RW]

Squirrelofwoe said:

I'm sure this is going to sound like a really daft question, but when you fast travel to an area, in the centre of the screen there are a whole list of stat effects / buffs etc (I presume) that appear to move- as though they are clearing. What does this all mean?! Is it tied to having a rune arc activated?

I have tried the internet, but I can only seem to find references to those symbols displayed under the health bar in the top left- and I understand what they mean.

I'm approx 60 hours in and its not causing me any obvious issues- beyond seeing all this information flash up every time I fast travel and not having a clue what any of it means!

"You have a piece of gear equipped that boosts your resistances to those conditions. When you spawn in, the buff gets applied, and then you tick down to your new zero point. The souls games seem like they count down from having an affliction, instead of counting up to it, so any stat boosts will show up on screen as you losing a status ailment."

[Squirrelofwoe]

Steven_RW said:

"You have a piece of gear equipped that boosts your resistances to those conditions. When you spawn in, the buff gets applied, and then you tick down to your new zero point. The souls games seem like they count down from having an affliction, instead of counting up to it, so any stat boosts will show up on screen as you losing a status ailment."

Thank you- I sort of get that!

Loving the game so far regardless though. Having the ability to go and do something else when running into a difficulty roadblock has made this feel reasonably forgiving. The crazy variety of weapons / unique skills is also superb, it does however make we want to try out pretty much everything!

The only souls game I have previously played was Bloodborne which I loved but eventually got fed up with the 30fps limit about half way through.

[FourWheelDrift]

Get more than the locked 60fps on PC with this if you want - https://github.com/uberhalit/EldenRingFpsUnlockAnd...

Change frame rate lock to your monitors Hz and tick the box and off you go.

[Steven_RW]

Squirrelofwoe said:

Steven_RW said:

"You have a piece of gear equipped that boosts your resistances to those conditions. When you spawn in, the buff gets applied, and then you tick down to your new zero point. The souls games seem like they count down from having an affliction, instead of counting up to it, so any stat boosts will show up on screen as you losing a status ailment."

Thank you- I sort of get that!

Loving the game so far regardless though. Having the ability to go and do something else when running into a difficulty roadblock has made this feel reasonably forgiving. The crazy variety of weapons / unique skills is also superb, it does however make we want to try out pretty much everything!

The only souls game I have previously played was Bloodborne which I loved but eventually got fed up with the 30fps limit about half way through.

Bloodborne is the utter bomb. In my view. It was my first souls game and I have played it through numerous times. If you get to the end of Elden Ring and hanker for more (it is likely you will see most other games as lacking once you finish a proper souls game) then i strongly suggest heading back to Bloodborne. Playing it on PS4 Pro it works just fine (IMO). Yeah 60 FPS perfection would be great but I have enjoyed it thoroughly on the PS4 Pro and recommend you go back to it. It has the best atmospherics of any game for me. Cheers

[Squirrelofwoe]

Steven_RW said:

Bloodborne is the utter bomb. In my view. It was my first souls game and I have played it through numerous times. If you get to the end of Elden Ring and hanker for more (it is likely you will see most other games as lacking once you finish a proper souls game) then i strongly suggest heading back to Bloodborne. Playing it on PS4 Pro it works just fine (IMO). Yeah 60 FPS perfection would be great but I have enjoyed it thoroughly on the PS4 Pro and recommend you go back to it. It has the best atmospherics of any game for me. Cheers

Totally get where you are coming from- I tried it a couple of times (before really understanding what the game was about- having never played a souls game) then on my third attempt I got through the initial area and everything just clicked. The world design and atmosphere is absolutely incredible, I love the whole gothic / victorian / lovecraftian vibe.

I think part of the FPS issue is that I was playing other games on PC at the same time, and so whenever I jumped back into Bloodborne the 30fps felt extremely jarring. When I had spells of playing only Bloodborne for a couple of weeks I got used to it so that's probably what I need to do- I certainly want to revisit it at some point. I also wonder if the FPS issue felt worse as the PS4 (non-pro) is hooked up to a 42" tv, whereas when I play games on PC I'm using a 28" monitor- not sure if there is any science behind it but 30fps feels much jarring on the bigger screen than it does on a smaller monitor.

Regardless, I've got plenty of Elden Ring to get through first- have just finished the Raya Lucaria Academy and Caria Manor, and have been clearing out all the remaining dungeons / caves etc I can find in Liurnia.

[Squirrelofwoe]

Finally managed to get 100% completion on this (all Steam achievements) over the weekend, it might be the first game I've ever stuck with long enough to do that!

Been playing since March and clocked up just over 170 hours. Absolutely loved it, it's been a long time since a game kept me hooked for as long as this has.

To any potential newcomers worried about the difficulty, I am far from being particularly skilled in these games- I just built my character / equipment to minimise my skill weaknesses- but I love that this is a totally viable strategy in this game, I don't think there are any true 'roadblock' moments that can't be overcome by trying a different setup / approach or simply levelling up a bit more.

To caveat my 100% completion- I used a save backup to get the various endings in one playthrough and I did essentially play the game on 'easy mode', using summons wherever available (Mimic, Tiche, or Letenna for fighting dragons), with a focus on being able to do decent amounts of ranged damage throughout the game to deal with challenging enemies (i.e. using Bolt of Gransax to one-shot all the beastmen in Farum Azula). I also regularly checked the Fighting Cowboy walkthrough on Youtube to keep on top of the various NPC quests.

Mainly levelled Dexterity to start with, using twin Guardian Sword spears early on- one with Spectral Lance (for ranged attacks) and the other with Sword Dance for bosses.

Then mid-game went more to Faith and fire damage using Vike's war spear (trivialises all of the npc 'invasions') along with the Spectral Lance Sword spear and Frenzied burst for ranged attacks.

Finally late game once I discovered the Blasphemous blade I pretty much stuck with it (for the crazy health regen), with Bolt of Gransax for long range one-shot kills, and the Envoy's longhorn for enemies weak to strike damage and for melting the big slow bosses. All of which work really well with Dex & Faith. Then just swapped talismans / flask tears depending on whether I wanted to focus on fire / lightning / holy damage.

Toughest boss encounters were the Fallingstar beast that you fight in one of the crystal tunnels (it was almost a give up moment), Radahn (my second almost give up moment), Commander Niall, and Elden Beast (took 10+ attempts and finally got it with barely any health and no flasks left). I actually managed to do both Malenia and Maliketh on the first attempt as I found they were both just very susceptible to my particular setup - fire / lightning damage with the increased stagger tear.

I found the second half of the game (after Radahn) considerably easier than the first, purely due to access to much better equipment.

So probably didn't play it in the true Soulsborn spirit, but then I wouldn't have stuck with it if I had! Thoroughly enjoyed it and will definitely be going back to it for a newgame+ run before too long.

[Turtle Shed]

Just bought this for my Xbox One.

Very rare for me to play or buy games these days, but the last one I truly enjoyed (though got nowhere near finishing it) was Dark Souls III.

It was this or Starfield, I suspect I made the right choice.

[Don Roque]

Definitely, Elden Ring is excellent and Starfield is a load of ste.

[Ruskie]

Turtle Shed said:

Just bought this for my Xbox One.

Very rare for me to play or buy games these days, but the last one I truly enjoyed (though got nowhere near finishing it) was Dark Souls III.

It was this or Starfield, I suspect I made the right choice.

The first time playing this is an absolute joy.