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Elden Ring: Refitted
19 Plays2 months ago
Join Dave and Jake as together they retread the lands between. They nitpick faults in horizontal progression, a boss's problematic special attack in the base game (you know the one), chat about the Seamless Co-Op Mod experience, and discuss the dual-nature of the Shadows beneath the Erdtree in this week's episode!
Intro:
- Elden Ring - Divine Beast Dancing Lion (Synthwave Arrangement)
Outro:
- Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree - The Promised Consort
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Transcript
Introduction and Breakfast Banter
00:00:45
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake, and I am joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going today, Dave? It's going pretty good. And how are you doing? I'm doing well. I'm caffeinated. I had an, uh, I don't know if it's an omelet.
00:01:01
Speaker
at least a cooked egg. I feel like the term omelet implies that there's a little bit more going on, but one of those... I would've called it an omelet, it just wasn't folded. Yeah. No, there was no fold. I know, I've seen like the videos and shorts of like ah they cook the omelet like very specifically and then they like cut across the top or whatever.
00:01:22
Speaker
I'm going to say it incorrectly. They're like, Omaruche or something, but it's like, that's correct. Oh, nice. I have no idea. I crushed it. um But yeah, the inside is like still so soft and a little bit runny and eggy. The outside's cooked, so you just put it over some rice and then it kind of just like drapes over. yeah Then I think it's traditional to have it with ketchup as well to give it like that that sweet tang. Oh, yeah.
00:01:46
Speaker
Oh yeah. um Nothing quite so sophisticated, but it was better than when I was young. My dad used to, when when he was responsible for feeding my brother and I, he would cook us ah eggs. He would make omelets or whatever. He had to break a couple of eggs to to get there, by the way. Exactly, exactly.
00:02:07
Speaker
um But I can say this because he doesn't listen to the podcast with no toppings whatsoever, like no seasoning, nothing, just the egg. It is it is so crazy when you like go back and think about your childhood and like the things you were provided as food and you're like, yeah, that's just like it's kind of like a dry meat. I'm not really a big fan of eggs. You're like chicken.
00:02:32
Speaker
And then you have it prepared differently later on in your life. You're like, oh, so they just fucked it up. Yeah, you could do something with this, actually. Yeah. There were other options. Fried egg, that's what I should have called you prepared. That's what it was. It was a fried egg. I mean, it was it at least runny on top? True. Fried egg fashion, or is it just all? A brick throughout. no No flavor. Do you want a crunchy protein or some just carbon? um Yeah, pretty much, though, honestly. um But no, it was
Holiday Fun and Video Game Introduction
00:03:04
Speaker
a little bit better than that. So good day so far. Also, you know we're going into, for some people, hopefully yourself, an extended weekend. Yeah. um I do have all for President's Day, thankfully. Nice. Nice, nice. We're all presidents on that fine day. So we're going to fix some things.
00:03:27
Speaker
but I'm just going to celebrate the first 45, not in order. Yeah, I'm not familiar with most of them, but you know next get together, try to get better. I imagine if Nate's listening to the podcast, he's just like, but I know them all. I'll tell you.
00:03:45
Speaker
ah Exactly. Well, we've got, based off the title, I think we could have seduced Nate ah to listen to this particular podcast.
Elden Ring Co-op and Mod Advantages
00:03:54
Speaker
Elden Ring Refitted, what were you even thinking about coming up with that name, Dave? Why are we here?
00:04:01
Speaker
um We've been playing more Elden Ring on the co-op mod, and Jake has opinions. ah So we're going to basically go back and hash some of those things out. I know when we initially did our episode for Elden Ring, we had been playing it for a good bit, maybe even completed it at that point. ah But it's still pretty fresh. ah There were definitely some patches that happened afterwards, DLC that happened in between. Yes. And now this this mod.
00:04:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. ah And the co-op mod is absolutely a game changer. I mean, I'm sure we'll talk about our impressions for the mod overall. um but It's very small. it's just You can download it from Nexus Mods. And it's, I think, under two megabytes or around that. If you had storage concerns for this mod. Just drop it in your ah drop it in your installation. And what it essentially is, is normally for Elden Ring, um there are areas where you can summon
00:05:07
Speaker
ah Cooperators, people to help you out, generally to clearing area or a boss, but there are a lot of limitations placed on that. There's areas that's not possible. um There's ah walls that will go up to prevent you from leaving certain areas if you're already in co-op. And there's no ability to ride around on a horse, on torrent, um while co-op is ongoing.
00:05:30
Speaker
um And those are pretty big limitations in what is otherwise an open world game that allows you the freedom to go everywhere and largely do what you want. Sequence break, do whatever you want, right? But um the co-op mod is like, what if we didn't? And allows you to ah join on a friend using a password um and then just play the entire game with them, largely without restrictions.
00:06:01
Speaker
Also, you can ride horses together. Yes, absolutely. um The only price that you pay, and I'm not sure i'm not sure exactly what the the exact cost is, but the bosses are made more difficult.
00:06:17
Speaker
Um, I don't know how more difficult, right? I don't know if this is a 10% health increase or they do more damage. Um, I didn't see any change move sets, but the documentation does say that the bosses scale. Okay. and That's good. Uh, we kind of easy mode to just run through the buddy, but I have to be the default boss. Yeah. And I think part of that is also like in line with the the base game. If you enter a boss arena.
00:06:45
Speaker
um with allies, then the boss gets more health in the base game at least. But I think co-op mod might add
Character Builds and Game Mechanics
00:06:53
Speaker
other things. I'm not sure though. Yeah, it's been really nice to go back into Elden Ring, but because we've played through at least once, I think maybe twice even, I think I've done three. You played it more than I did.
00:07:11
Speaker
Like we've definitely played the game a lot and it kind of sucks to go back and be like, oh, let me grind all my way back up to the DLC again ah versus when you're playing with a friend and you know where certain things are, you can kind of split up, cover some stuff on the map, figure out the items and gear you want to grab any spells and then kind of like hit some bosses in order. um Yes.
00:07:36
Speaker
And the other thing that I've been loving about it, which I talked about at least a year ago, is ah basically our peeing, where each person has like their own class, so to speak. I again went meet meat boy, I hit with stick, ah just just a two hand and and a prayer. And Jake has been backing me up with, I have a ah note here. Jake is without sin because he is casting the first and every stone. Yeah, he's been throwing rocks at people Yeah, I started started off with like a faith build pure faith actually um Not using a different weapon I was using a cypher pata which doesn't mean anything for most people listening to this but they're basically imagine like Little blades on your like coming out of the back of your wrists almost kind of like Wolverine claws
00:08:28
Speaker
um But they are just made of pure light, essentially, and they do almost no impact, ah poise damage to to enemies. um They do decent damage on their own, but it falls off very quickly and it's entirely holy, which so many enemies are resistant to.
00:08:48
Speaker
I think those weapons make more noise than they dealt damage. Yes. ahha they they have like The special ability is relatively cool because it's like unblockable strike or something like that. You like pierce forward with one of them um and it'll like go through shields. but Yes, it's not a good one. um They're fast at the very least. They were kind of funny to use, right? Because there's there's an interesting trope of being the character that's like, I am full faith kind of caster.
00:09:20
Speaker
But if I do end up in Melee, I'm using really, really fast, really, really short range weapons. But I didn't stick with that. I switched over to intelligence and sorceries. And now we're late enough in the game that I'm like, I have enough points to just start picking up face stuff anyways.
00:09:40
Speaker
um But I'm casting spells. Rocks, as as as Dave said, are one of the primaries for any enemy that has like magic resistance. Since rocks are getting hit with the rock is physical damage in real life and the game. Yeah, and it's been nice because it pairs well with like a heavy two handed weapon, which is going to do a lot of poison damage as well. Yeah. um There was a boss we were playing against in the DLC that we were I was struggling against. We were all struggling, for sure. i you You oftentimes died first, but that was just because the boss was hitting you first. Then she switched me and invariably I would also die with it. Seven seconds. But basically we kind of built up this pattern of
00:10:24
Speaker
ah Punishing certain attacks and then getting enough stuff and then when the poise break happened um I'd either have enough time to heal and then walk up and do it or i'd let Jake throw an extra volley of rocks Yes, and then I do it but it basically became like certain things on a timer where It's like oh and there's the boys break go go go Yeah, I like per run we're getting probably like five boys breaks maybe more um On this boss sometimes during like phase transitions for her or a special move. That was so nice. Uh-huh It's just very funny to just repeatedly throw rocks at somebody um I Mean, are you now a convert? Do you now want to do more intelligent stuff? Are you still kind of a faith boy? It's tough
00:11:13
Speaker
um Part of this goes to the comparison for Elden Ring to other games in the series. um i don't For the spells that I'm using for sorcery right now, it's focused on like rocks, and which is Rock Sling, that's the name of the spell, and ah ah invisibility sorceries, Night Comet in particular. Night Comet, because bosses and enemies don't see them, so they won't dodge them.
00:11:41
Speaker
which is a massive bonus when you're playing sorceries. Because otherwise, a lot of enemies will just be like, what if I just step to the side? right They're like, oh, I'm being targeted by a ranged thing? Side step. Exactly.
00:11:55
Speaker
um I don't find the gameplay as engaging as when I was in Melee. Part of that is probably also because we do have this co-op dynamic going on where it's more efficient for you to be holding the bosses aggro. So I literally walk into the arena after we all buff up, which, you know, thanks to buff spells for me, I'm like following the wiki, basically. I'm like, I have my body buff, my aura buff, my heal over time buff.
00:12:24
Speaker
um And then to step in, cast Terror Magica, which basically establishes my command zone, where spells will do more damage if I stand inside of it. And then just repeatedly cast spells at the boss while you fight for your life. um And that might be the efficient way to do it. It's not the most engaging way to play the game. um So I don't think I could compare this to, like,
00:12:52
Speaker
if yeah i wish If I was ah using sorcery but with solo and I had to avoid all the bosses attacks and then find windows and stuff like that. I think the best builds are typically like a mix of both, which I'm too dumb to do. So I will go martial because I like that engagement. It kind of forced me to learn some of the move sets. yeah And I don't have to worry about mana.
00:13:19
Speaker
I can just not engage with certain parts of the game and be like, I will focus on red bars only. Yeah. Yeah. I do want to mention because I know there's going to be some some int stands out there. um Like there are a lot of different types of sorceries in Elden Ring and incantations, to be honest, the faith um spells for this game. um And some of them play differently. And I do want to play around with some of them by the time it's all over.
00:13:47
Speaker
Um, like maybe I'll do the necromancy one, or maybe I'll do the, the fingers spells that are all like, they, they come from the shadow of the earth tree DLC. And there's some like bonkers things there, are like creating a black hole above the enemies that then like explodes after a like windup time. That sounds really fun, but it kind of pushes up against the issue that, um,
00:14:15
Speaker
it Sort of afflicts all of the souls games. I think which is it's not always easiest to like re Respect everything that you're doing um When it comes to ah gear dependent ah Classes and things like that. So like for example um I have four staves that I use. Dave thankfully helped me in retrieval of duplicates. So I have like two staff of loss. but So I use one in each hand and they both make um the knight sorceries stronger. I also have two meteor meteorite staves, which are good for the rocks. If I were to switch out and I want to try some of this other stuff,
00:15:01
Speaker
I can do that and they will still work if I use what I already have, but it'll do less damage compared to getting one of the staves that's going to be better with death magic or better with finger magic or something like that, right? um And so there's some investment if you want to like optimize to make those options better compared to kind of what I already have, which sort of handles all situations, even if it isn't glamorous.
00:15:26
Speaker
Yeah, I mean when I found myself going through single player stuff and I was experimenting with new spells and weapons and Basically just you know hitting that hardball at the end of the DLC for a while. I did a lot of experimentation but Each time if I did need to kind of like roll my stats over to something else There are a limited number of larval tiers in the game. and I think a lot of posts I saw were from many years ago saying, oh no, you can just farm this ah one bear. I'm like, they don't do that anymore. No. So I can get one from Naku. Yeah.
00:16:04
Speaker
yeah I kind of just went back to my default the build and kind of locked in and ended ended up doing it that way. But there are so many spells in the game that it feels weird to not try some of them. Yes. I almost wish they had like, you know, that arena um off of the round table hold.
00:16:27
Speaker
like the PVP area or it's like a little PVP area. Just let people kind of like fuck around with stuff in there. Yeah, like hear me out. Let's say you have one wall kind of lined with your different weapons and you could just grab one and then try it out. And you don't need to go into your inventory, search for it, check your stats.
00:16:49
Speaker
um But something like that, to be like, oh, I do appreciate this more. OK, it's more dex-y. OK, I can keep that in mind. Maybe I can transition into more of a dex thing. Yeah, I think that would be really cool. Because that basically is the issue I have with experimenting with build diversity. is The game does let you try other things, right? I want to make it clear that like if you have the stats for it, you can just pick up a weapon and use it, or cast spells and use them.
00:17:20
Speaker
bye there's a massive difference between a plus zero weapon and a plus 25 weapon. Right. And depending on where you're at in the game, it can be very difficult to scrounge together the resources like heavens forbid you're not using a guide to tell you where all of these resources are um in order to upgrade multiple options to be viable in the mid to late game.
00:17:45
Speaker
And that's where my concern is. right like I could cast Necromancy magic no problem. It's going to do like no damage compared to the rest of it because I have all of these bonuses to other types. um And same for you for switching weapons. right like If you were like, I want to cut over from using this big two-handed weapon into like a fast beast moveset or something like that, you've got to find all of the ingredients or all of the crafting materials to upgrade that secondary weapon. Yeah. i I think a way around that is, one, just let people respect whenever. The only people who are going to care are the the try hard get good crowd.
00:18:28
Speaker
Oh, it's too easy if you can change it whenever you want. Who gives a shit? um If people get to engage with more of the systems and different types, maybe you're like, oh, I didn't even know you could have a playstyle like this. Maybe I could try a bow run next time or a shield run or something else. But.
00:18:48
Speaker
If you feel like you're locked out of it because you're like, oh, I don't want to spend my next six levels in it so I can try this one thing and then be like, oh, that sucked. And then you need to repurpose that into anyway. Yeah. So I think they need to make that just and more accessible. Mm hmm.
00:19:08
Speaker
i'm hoping I'm hoping that's kind of a change we see in and Night Rain because it's going to have the the resets. And we're not talking about Night Rain. This isn't the Night Rain episode. But um the idea of resetting more often might lead to some of that situation like some of those um some of those outcomes where you play around with more tools because they're presented to you um with with different different upgrades and things like that.
00:19:32
Speaker
um But yes, this is an issue across all of the Souls games except Sekiro. Somehow they found a way to like fix the primary weapon itemization for Sekiro. So again, that's the thing that would kind of answer the question as far as upgrade materials.
00:19:46
Speaker
um Because let's say we even did the thing where you could change around stats. OK, you still have a shitty second weapon. That's my issue. If you kind of had a this is my martial weapon upgrade path and this is my special weapon upgrade path, that was kind of global across your character.
00:20:06
Speaker
um You would need to kind of redistribute um how the smithing stones are found or used. Right. So it wasn't just, a oh, I played the game for 10 hours. I have all of them. Type deal. So you should still feel earned, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Because usually, and this is kind of nerdy, but the way that the progression in the game works is you'll have the renewable smithing stones to get things up to like a decent tier of plus, but you'll only be finding enough materials that are non-renewable or farmable or just out there in the world um to upgrade one to two weapons to like a high tier um until you get to the DLC where this problem is largely solved. um Or you literally get to the end area of the game to Faramizula. I mean, this is all
00:21:02
Speaker
You had your opportunity to avoid spoilers for Elden Ring um and you beat the godskin duo, which gives you the ah ability to just buy resources up to like a plus nine. Right. So like that's very, very late.
00:21:21
Speaker
um And but all of the Souls games kind of had this issue, right? Like. They don't really let you continually farm to keep several weapons at max upgrade tier um until pretty late in the game. Yeah.
00:21:40
Speaker
I get why they do it in the DLC to a degree. um If the assumption is somebody's already played through the game, maybe even New Game Plus, yeah and they have a lot of stats. They're probably 40 across the board at least. um They're like, okay, we'll give them some new things to play with. We can do higher stat requirements maybe.
00:22:02
Speaker
um but They also, they have a bunch of new weapons in the DLC. And if they didn't give you those materials, then you wouldn't even be able to try them out,
DLC Critique and Gameplay Challenges
00:22:11
Speaker
right? that's That's the other piece of evidence that this is an issue. Sometimes you just kill an enemy in the DLC or you like pick up an item on a corpse and it's like, you just got seven smithing stone fours or something like that. And you're like, that's a very high number. Why why is there so many here?
00:22:26
Speaker
And then a lot of the arm the enemies are actually farmable, which is kind of what I wish the base game had ah to get those crafting materials. um But it's because they added like five new weapon types to the DLC, but you have to kill Moog to get into the DLC. You're already in the end game by the time you get to the DLC, which I actually think was one of the missteps um to making it available, if I'm being completely honest. We could talk about that if you want.
00:22:56
Speaker
um I think, obviously lore-wise, it makes sense why they did it. And for how difficult the area, or at least how difficult they made it, um it makes sense for where they placed it. But if I'm somebody who just got Elden Ring and the DLC, it would be nice to have some of those other weapons as an option.
00:23:19
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. Like unless they really think that some of the DLC weapons would just kind of break the base game of like, oh, you can't have the attack shield. It's broken. It is. I think they never did, but. Yeah. The versus again, you find something like really late like, oh, that's fucking cool. Oh, I can't really easily switch over to that. OK, I'll just put in my inventory.
00:23:41
Speaker
Mm hmm. And then you really only get to see how these new weapons or abilities work if you are invaded or there's some type of PVP thing going on. Right. Like the challenge in front of like the the giant warrior pot by the arena. Mm hmm. Because that's all based off of actual players and you'd be like, oh, somebody's trying this weird thing. I didn't know this. I didn't know bubble magic was viable. Uh huh. Yeah. No, it's it's an issue that has kind of plagued The word plagued is very clickbaity. This is a relatively minor issue as far as these games are concerned. But um if weapons only are become available towards the end of the game, then you just don't have that much game left to use them in. And people people will make arguments. They're going to be like, that's what new game plus is for. If I literally have to play the game a second time in order to experience using this weapon, what am I doing? What are we doing here?
00:24:39
Speaker
um And I get it. And maybe that is, that is sort of fair, but like my solo build right now is using twin blades. And, uh, there's a really, really cool twin blade available in the DLC.
00:24:56
Speaker
right before the final boss, the final final boss. And it's like, ah how much gameplay am I getting when I get there? And then hopefully I have all the resources to upgrade it to max. Thankfully, again, the DLC solves some of that by making them farmable and just showering you with them. But yeah, it's it's very, very late.
00:25:20
Speaker
and that That was in the other games too, right? I did the scythe run, the scythe guyy dude ah run for Dark Souls 3, and Sister Frieda's scythe is pretty late in the game. um So you have to use the other options until you can get to that. But yeah, it's a specific concern. This is this is picking at nits.
00:25:48
Speaker
by It is unfortunate. It would be really awesome if you could start with the martial arts closer to the beginning of an Elden Ring run, because right now, say like there's something cool in the DLC, and you're like, I really want to try that weapon type. All right, well.
00:26:02
Speaker
you're going to beat most of the game before you get the option to use it. Right. Unless you're soul level one fighting Moog. Good luck. um Like it's going to it's going to be a while before you get to experience that gameplay. I think it's kind of poor game design to put what players want so far behind what players have to do. Hot take.
00:26:27
Speaker
I think it's old world thinking. ah Not to say like FromSoft is sedentary and very old and set in their ways. They are, but yeah, go on. For a lot of video games, grinding just became a part of it. I think something from like the arcade era that like creeped in is, oh, it's still more content for us to put more collectibles in to whatever it's going to make the player play more of the game but even it like I love elder wings combat I love elder wings exploration oh yeah but again if I wanted to kind of switch things up
00:27:09
Speaker
I'm not in the mood to go through at least an hour process of me going around hunting for stuff, seeing how many things I need to crack to get enough money, to buy the rocks, to come over, to be like, do I have enough money to pay for the thing now that I have the rocks? No. Okay. I got to go farm some enemies.
00:27:27
Speaker
and That whole back and forth is, again, just an unnecessary barrier of entry for me to just check out my cool new weapon that I got and roll with it. um Yeah, something that a lot of single player type of games like um single player like it takes two. And that was a poor example. Yeah, something that it takes two does is it gives you a mechanic and then lets you play with it and.
00:27:55
Speaker
then it because you have different applications for it and then you're on to the next thing. Right. And it never feels stale because you're always given these new opportunities pretty quickly. Hmm.
00:28:07
Speaker
And in the same way, it would be nice to have something like that in a FromSoft title where you can just check out something new and not be penalized for it. Yes, yeah. And the game does encourage it also in how it wants to condition your gameplay, right? One thing I noticed, and I do want to call call it out. We can get over like this particular topic, I think, as far as like how difficult it is to switch builds in these types of games.
00:28:33
Speaker
but um Playing through in my single player, I use items a lot more. I use crafting a ton more. And um I kind of feel dumb for having entirely overlooked it, basically, in prior runs. You can. You can force your way through so many different encounters in this game. yo um And to a certain extent, that is that is part of a challenge run, right? It's kind of like, I'm just not going to use weapons or whatever. You set your own difficulty to some extent with games like this.
00:29:02
Speaker
um but those items can completely change how you fight enemies, right? um Or they can make it like much easier, they can give you more options. um The classic example, I think the strongest one is, I already mentioned them, but in Pharah Missoula, the godskin duo, um are super, super susceptible to the sleep status ailment. And when I say super susceptible, I didn't realize the extent to which they were susceptible.
00:29:34
Speaker
If you make sleep ah throwing pots, um and then you hit one of the two people that you're fighting, because this is ah this is a ah team up boss battle, essentially, two of them against you, um and you hit one target, they're put to sleep for like over a minute. They're taken out of the fight. It's insane.
00:29:58
Speaker
It is intended. is I have to assume it's basically intended as one of the primary ways to beat him. But something like that is really only going to come from somebody who has played these games a lot. And when they hit a wall, their instinct is to explore the the wall for crevices. yeah They're going to keep changing things up to be like, hey, what works? OK, poison doesn't seem take effect. Oh, rot seems a little bit viable. yeah And they're willing to keep hitting their head against the wall again versus.
00:30:33
Speaker
people who are not in they're not in the paint as much as we would be and they're just at this experience, you're like, okay, this person seems very resistant to everything. I don't know what to do. I don't know what my options are beyond what I currently have.
00:30:51
Speaker
And I can see somebody easily just get being deterred. Yes. Deterred. Yeah, they are deterred. Another example of that, like and I think that this is exactly the type that you described. the They're finding crevices in the wall. Milania Waterfowl Dance.
00:31:10
Speaker
ah It's a problem, but I'll see if I get into it or not. If you throw a freezing pot at her when she jumps up in the air, um her resistance, is if it's of a high enough quality, if it's a good enough type, because there's different types you can make, um it will afflict her with enough frostbite status buildup instantly to afflict her with frostbite.
00:31:33
Speaker
And what that does is it resets her character state. She'll literally just fall to the ground and cancel the entire super, super deadly move. This is the most infamous move in the entire game of Elden Ring, um probably even after the DLC. There's some nonsense in the DLC, but this is probably still the most known. um And absolutely someone figured that out by trying everything.
00:32:03
Speaker
i But yeah um ah we've been talking about like consumables and stuff. If you needed to switch your gear, you know you're at your weapon type, if you needed to just start using a shield or something like that, I guess shields don't have to be upgraded as much. But it does benefit them. um Then, yeah, it's harder to do in the middle of a run. And sometimes requires you to just step away from fighting the boss entirely. But I think that's the way they want you to play.
00:32:27
Speaker
um Yeah, I think it's fine to be like, Oh, I hit a wall. I need to maybe come back and re approach something and try it out. Um, it's the tree sentinel example, right? They have you defeat Rick soldier of God.
00:32:43
Speaker
And then right after that, essentially, it's like, OK, well, I could beat bosses. You enter the open world. There's an enemy right in front of you. He's going to destroy you. He's going to destroy you. He's going to destroy you. Don't even bother trying to fight him. That's the lesson they're trying to get you to learn, is leave and do something else and come back with a different idea. Yeah. i
00:33:07
Speaker
ah man I wonder if there's a way to do that a little more organically i to teach people that like Hey, maybe they have a tool tip for Margit now, I'm not sure. Yeah. He's going to kick your ass, come back, explore, look for anything else. Or you can sign before you go through the fog gate. A little pop up. Find the jellyfish summit. Ah-ha. Poisonous guy. Because again, just from a new player perspective, for me, I'm like, oh, I can't fight that. And I know I can't fight that. So I will leave.
00:33:41
Speaker
Whereas as other people are like, I didn't dodge roll right. I'm going to try it to again. Yes. I think everyone's susceptible to that a little bit because if you enjoy games like this, you're also.
00:33:54
Speaker
You're going to get your face face kicked in like a lot at these bosses. And it's hard to it's hard to know. It's hard to have the introspection to know my face kicked in. It was just kicked in. And I need to change what I'm doing or my face was just kicked in. And I got to do what I was trying to do a little bit better. Right. Usually a couple of attempts will kind of let you know that immediately. Yeah.
00:34:22
Speaker
Are you going to say for a fight with Rulana? Rulana. Yeah. I mean, we, it was a combination of both, right? We changed our strategies up a little bit. We got some levels, we got some gear, we upgraded things and then proceeded to still get our face kicked in many, many times um until we actually defeated her.
00:34:43
Speaker
Yeah, I think at least in the DLC, it feels very much like don't get hit. Like you need to learn these movesets. Do not get hit. If you get hit once, you probably get hit a second time or you'll dodge roll and then get hit by the half second delay. um Like they really want you to get it down pat because.
00:35:04
Speaker
Some of the moves are kind of bullshit. Like, you know, again, I'm up in the front, essentially one V1ing Rolana while Jake is throwing rocks over my shoulder. hi And she hits so many times and I feel bad when I'm trying to get the fuck out of Dodge and then I fuck up and then we have to restart again.
00:35:27
Speaker
Yeah, it's it is it is tough. And they do kind of go into overdrive for some of those bosses in the DLC. I think Rolana, Mesmer, and the final boss are all, those are probably the top three. I could be misremembering one. That war rider? Bullshit.
00:35:48
Speaker
He is tough. So I will say I did not use the horse at all because didn't even think to. I just got caught in the corner and. Eventually, eventually beat him. I fought him in my single player and he did have ah recently and he he he did cause me trouble.
00:36:08
Speaker
um Torrent was not the answer for me. i beat him I defeated him off of Torrent because some of his attacks just outright knock you on your butt. And in this game, if you get dismounted, um if you get knocked to the ground, you usually get like a lot of iframes. If you like get hit with Dragon Breath or something like that, for instance, it may actually be advantageous for you to not immediately get back up um because you'll have more time invulnerable on the ground um compared to if you immediately get up you have your GitHub frames, and then you are vulnerable. um But if you get knocked off your horse, the game doesn't work that way. And a lot of things can just hit you on the ground and kill you. ah So that's what he did for me. So I think I beat him by being cautious and doing the Dark Souls 2 thing of like, it's your turn. It's my turn. It's your turn. It's my turn. um Yeah.
00:37:05
Speaker
um I don't know how people do these games without having Poise Break, because like I need that window of like, please stop hitting me. Yeah, for certain bosses, it's it's pretty ridiculous. um For how much I, again, Waterfall Dance, absolutely hate it. I wish it wasn't in the game, even though it gets them great press. And it's the source of many ah news articles, I think, and probably sold more games, because people were talking about it.
00:37:36
Speaker
um Without that, I actually think the Melania fight is pretty fair because she actually has fairly low poise. Like if you hit her with an attack, it'll flinch her and oftentimes you can hit her with another attack. Not enough that you just like permanently stun her outside of some cheese strategies with a mimic tier or a cooperator. um But it's enough that it feels good to land a strike because it feels like you're being rewarded with landing another strike.
00:38:05
Speaker
um Yeah, versus using cypher potter and you're like they don't care ah Yeah, this doesn't do it. This doesn't do anything because then you're basically committing more attacks while they're preparing their attack Yes, you get less time to react and do stuff Yeah, but I get into my nitty-gritty nitty-gritty thoughts on the gameplay Mm-hmm One thing we did want to talk about was kind of like the difficulty throughout the game and some of that scaling. yeah and Part of this is just.
00:38:39
Speaker
I mean, DLC is obviously made more difficult. But the way they wanted to approach it, because they didn't know what level people were going to enter the DLC at. They're like, oh, hey, we'll put in these things called skidoo fragments. yeah And blue skidoo, you can't do it. But it makes such a ah big difference for how much damage you deal and how much damage reduction you get for each of those. um um and if you If you don't get them,
00:39:09
Speaker
It is brutal. Yes. And so it feels kind of limiting when you're like, oh, I'm going to fight this boss. Oh, I'm getting my ass beat. I'm doing the best I can with what I have. I know the moveset pretty well, but I get hit once and just die. You're like, OK, now I kind of have to go and farm and explore to find those. And again, I'm fine with that to a degree if they have some type of indication of where you would find it. Because in base Elden Ring, you will have things like mines. You're like, oh, I can get rocks there. Cool. Oh, a church. Oh, yeah, I know I can get sacred do. I'm sorry, the tears, what have you. um And so on and so forth with like the urge trees. and But for stuff like this, it's like find it. I don't know.
00:40:00
Speaker
Yeah, it's i'm i'm I'm looking at a graph because I was curious why you brought it up. um It's also like old English pronunciations just before people call us out on it. So it is like shadow fragments or whatever shadow do fragments. um And that's cool. I get that. But ah this graph calls them Scooby Snacks. And I like that more. um But basically, when you start out,
00:40:23
Speaker
ah You're miserable. If you do not grab fragments and you show up in a boss fight, you're going to have a very, very, very bad time. um If you explore a little bit, you get like five level ups with the the Shadow Fragments. You get like a 50% increase in the damage you deal and a reduction in the damage you take. And this game expects you to do that. And if you do not do that, you will just die. And it will take forever to kill bosses on the high end. It's insane to do that versus, again, having them hidden in like
00:41:00
Speaker
a certain location where you could identify on a map, you can still lock it behind. Oh, you have to complete this area. You have to beat this boss. You have to do something ah for it, maybe complete one of the new dungeons. Yeah. And then you're rewarded with it versus I needed to find a random guy who's carrying a pot. at his but And the only reason I knew that is because I Googled where the fuck are these shadow fragments?
00:41:26
Speaker
Uh huh. And even then, it took me so long to find them all. Yeah, I don't know. It just it feels like such a tedious system that like it's not fun for me to go and find them. Mm hmm. Like it is a nice reward for exploration, but I shouldn't need to. That's my thought. It doesn't feel intuitive. Right. Like usually.
00:41:51
Speaker
Dark Souls is generally about, I should say this whole series, is generally about you do some exploration, sure. But that's largely seen as sort of optional. And then there are these set piece vices fights, which um oftentimes yeah um sell the games, which are the things people talk about. um In this case, if you're more interested in the fights and you're less interested in looking for guys carrying pots or exploring every nook and cranny, um you're going to really be so much worse in effectiveness at fighting the bosses and generally completing the DLC.
00:42:30
Speaker
um And the reason I think that's kind of a bad idea is there's no intuitive I walked around. i picked i talked like I picked up these fragments from shrine, so I'm just stronger now. like That doesn't really mean anything. It's very arbitrary. right um Compare this to Sekiro, which in a lot of ways is kind of peak peak from soft as far as the combat and progression is concerned in my mind, where it's like you defeated a strong enemy, a boss. You now are more skilled, and you do more damage with your weapon.
00:43:01
Speaker
right um That makes sense. Kill the guy with the pot doesn't make sense. Like, oh why do I take those damage now? um And so I think that that's that's part of it. And the other aspect is beyond just it's not intuitive, is it's just not fun to run around and collect them as part of like a mandatory side quest or semi-mandatory side quest in order to fight the boss at the intended difficulty that FromSoft wants you to be at when you fight that boss.
00:43:34
Speaker
Yeah. And it's also such a big and sprawling area. And there's so much detail in it. And even just like the first area, the fields, like you could easily hide some items in there because you're just small and emit a little bit of white light.
DLC Strategies and Evolution
00:43:52
Speaker
Yeah, I could easily miss this. I'm sure I have.
00:43:54
Speaker
um
00:43:57
Speaker
But yeah, it just feels like an unnecessary, hey, you got to do this fetch quest. No, where's the thing I'm looking for? You got to do that fetch quest. And I think.
00:44:10
Speaker
I would be more inclined to be fine with the fragments if the DLC wasn't locked behind Moog. But now it seems like, in my mind, I don't understand the combination of these two ideas, right? Because Moog is a check that says, like, you probably are a very high level, likely well above 100 at the point that you fight him.
00:44:31
Speaker
um You don't have to be. There are people who are really good at the game, but he's a very tough boss. He's ranked high, and he kills a lot of people. ah yeah And some of the things that you can get to like make his fight easier are also fairly late in the game and require more exploration and stuff. So it's intended, I think, that you fight him a lot later. And that's a comparison with the default Elden Ring difficulty scaling, which is like levels, defense, attack power, the usual things that you're increasing.
00:45:01
Speaker
Okay, now that you've done that and defeated Bradon, which is probably an easier foe than Moog, then you can go to the DLC. Now we're no longer really keeping track of how much scaling you had in the base game, and we're going to start over again. Like, I don't understand. You could have just assumed people were at Moog fighting strength.
00:45:22
Speaker
and gone from there, then it would have been fine. Like, even if you said it like, hey, we're going to make it this number, you could just tell the players like, hey, you're entering this area. This is like a level X area. Yeah. So you can go in if you're below that. But like heads up, it might be more challenging for you. Yeah. But yeah, if you've done the check of, oh, I'm strong enough to be this boss to enter this area,
00:45:53
Speaker
Yeah, that should be it. Like, do you know how I can get into Lane Dale? Because I killed the tree sentinel outside. I earned that shit. ah There's not a... Did you collect the tree sentinel pieces? I just wanted to check. all Because if you don't, he's going to kill you in one hit. Right. And I know the counter argument is you don't have to collect any of the fragments. You can choose to fight the final boss dealing half damage and taking double damage if you want.
00:46:20
Speaker
Don't do that. This is not the pace to wellness and mental health. I will say, I do remember watching Nairo on YouTube grind it out just with no shadow fragments. Oh my God. He had a terrible time. He eventually did it, but he had a terrible time. Very impressive.
00:46:40
Speaker
um And again, it's it's fine to have that for the people who want to engage with it and set their own difficulty that high. But again, for the average fucking player, they're going to just want to go in and play the game. Right. um They're not looking to specifically go around roadblocks. Now, sure, they might encounter some things and they're like, oh, this is a challenging boss. I need to try ah more attempts to learn the moves or I need to maybe try a different approach.
00:47:12
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not. That is an optional approach versus the, yeah, you got to do it. Yeah, I would just say this is my last thoughts on the the Shadow Fragments. I literally just basically recommend that people follow the guide to pick them up when they're playing the DLC. Because if you're at my skill level, I'm not a pro gamer, right? I don't i don't i don't think that I'm excellent or anything like that. I don't think I'm significantly off of average.
00:47:42
Speaker
But I've also played a lot of games like this and I'm probably okay, right? I expect I'm pretty close to average. Some of these bosses are incredibly difficult if you have every single shadow fragment available to you at the point that you go through the DLC.
00:47:58
Speaker
um don't make it harder on yourself unless you're specifically going for a challenge run. Just look them up. And if my recommendation for a game is just look it up, then it's a sign that the design should have been differently differently done.
00:48:12
Speaker
um Yeah. Request lines. Well, that that was what I was going to say. it was like We've been pretty critical, though. I still freaking love Elden Ring. There's a lot of positive things to say. Oh, I think it's the best game. Full stop.
00:48:27
Speaker
Dang. That's pretty good. Even better than Pong or Tetris. Oh, hold on, that is pretty pretty sloppy soundtrack. The one song when the boss fight music comes in for Tetris. But like, again, this for me has been like the culmination of so many things um for all like the FromSoft games. And now with Night Rain, again, I see it as a bit of a left turn, but also a type of progression, and because for the average gamer, they want to get in and do cool stuff.
00:49:02
Speaker
and use cool abilities and cool weapons. right Okay, Night Rain is literally doing that. You pick your class, you find weapons as you go through, and then you equip and use them.
00:49:13
Speaker
You can, there's no fall damage. You can run around pretty fast. You can be launched up in the sky, go around. And it just gets you into, this is like the mid game where it's, I have a lot of options, things are challenging versus, I want to start a new character, opens doors, looks up at a giant urge to be like, well, it doesn't be a bit. Why is my health bar so small? Yeah. All right, let me do the church pilgrimage so I can get on my esteth.
00:49:41
Speaker
um Yeah, we criticize the things we love. um And that's the reason that my family doesn't talk to me anymore. But there is a lot of good things to say um about what's happened, or like thoughts on Elden Ring that have developed over the years. My old k concerns are still there, some of the progression things. It's easy to miss out on NPC quests in the base game. They actually do address some of that in the DLC, with one major exception.
00:50:08
Speaker
which is walking a little bit too far in an invisible area and then making a post on Reddit about how you missed an NPC quest and have to go through a new game plus cycle to complete an NPC quest now. Outside of that one exception, which is big, um it's actually really hard to kind of like miss a lot of the NPC quests in third tree just because they put them in areas that you're gonna go to near the stakes of Mikola.
00:50:36
Speaker
Um, which is awesome. That's like improvement over the base. It's huge. Um, cause you don't have to go around looking for people at random locations. Uh, cause sometimes they may not even be near a site of grace. It might just be off sitting somewhere chilling. yeah Um, versus again, tying it to the progression. Cause you can just be like, well, it's, it's something I need to kind of go in this vague line. Okay. Yeah. You're running to the people you need to. Yeah.
00:51:04
Speaker
but And one of the places you're pretty much guaranteed to go, um it's not strictly necessary to talk to the people, but they will literally will give you a map of stakes of Nikola. Not only are these glowing ah projections, basically, as you're like traveling through the world that you're very likely to see.
00:51:23
Speaker
But they give you a map to lead you to the first couple to get you in the idea and the the habit of looking for them. um And then they have the shadow fragments, which, again, you do want. So you're very, very unlikely to miss them. um And that's awesome. like they They did more intuitively tying together of the mechanics and the behavior that they kind of want you to get in order to experience the NPC quests.
00:51:49
Speaker
um which are also way more meaningful in Erdtree. We're full spoilers at this point, so. Jake opens up his 13 page on Theolea. Well, so i'm not I'm not going to go in super deep on each NPC and stuff like that. Go to Vadi's channel for that. But like it is really cool. There's a particular moment.
00:52:13
Speaker
where there's the culmination of everyone fighting each other in this battle for and against Mikala in the DLC. And it's just like awesome. Yeah, because it's all the quest lines kind of weaving together based on how they were done. Yeah.
00:52:38
Speaker
Because you can be like, oh, I'm going to specifically not do this person's thing. OK, they're going to still be on Mikola's side versus I did this. They have this sense of fulfillment. They love me now, actually. and And you're like, oh, they're fighting with me. That's really cool. I feel rewarded that I did it outside of just. Here's here's an an item.
00:53:03
Speaker
Yeah. it's Thanks for doing everything I wanted to do with my life. ah Here's an Xbox. No, it's like taken on the face of it. If you just took a bunch of NPCs and the player character and you put them in a battle arena and you set them against each other, that could mean absolutely nothing. But.
00:53:21
Speaker
If you know about some of the character's goals, if you've helped them accomplish those goals, if they've helped you, if you've helped them gain some information about like how Mikala is being manipulative. um If like I didn't even know that Thalia could assist you in the final fight.
00:53:40
Speaker
Like, I had no idea. And it literally requires dying to Saint Trina like seven times or whatever it is. I think it's like five. um Yep. That's another Googleable quest thing.
00:53:54
Speaker
But it is really cool that you can be like, all right, well, I helped you with some grand revelation that's going to help change your allegiance for this fight. um And the base game has nothing like that. ah Not even close. Like, there are some NPC quests that go largely to the end. um And there are even some that interweave.
00:54:15
Speaker
Yeah, like I think it wasn't in the initial version of Elton Ring, but as far as who was going to rule Lengrave. Mm hmm. Now that Godric was dead. Yeah, it's like, oh, is it going to be Nefelilu? Is it going to be, I guess Godric's kid? Is it going to be? I don't think Kenneth height wanted to rule. Yeah, he wants to be like a steward. He wants to. He just wanted to have his own look as he's like, I'm going to do this one building. He actually wants a lord. That's his whole thing. as he he but He basically wants a a lord to serve.
00:54:44
Speaker
It's kind of like a microcosm of the whole main Elden Ring lore. We need a lord. Not holding up our lord. You can make a religion out of this. Till the end of the night ring. Oh my gosh. It's all coming together. My dog just pricked up right in the ring. But yeah, it's it's it's great. And like Shadow Theory 2 is 40 bucks, right? If anything about recent RPG releases has told us anything,
00:55:14
Speaker
um It's that $40 for that much good content and an improvement on a lot a lot of elements and some of the most iconic fights that exist in Elden Ring because one of my my one of my gripes is also Elden Ring has a lot of field bosses or minor bosses or or so ulcerated tree spirits that I'm not that interested in fighting every time. um they have some They have a lot of cool fights in the base game. Don't get me wrong. But Shadow of the Earth Tree is like, all right, let's start there and then build on that. right um And that's awesome. That was that was a $40 DLC that was basically a full game. Yeah. At no point did I feel like, oh, it's already over. It was more of like,
00:55:58
Speaker
Wait, where haven't I been? Holy shit. How did I miss this? And then again, the two things I really love for these types of games are exploration. I'm going to make it a third thing, player progression.
00:56:09
Speaker
um
00:56:12
Speaker
And it's just, it's fucking gorgeous. Like I like to get lost in things and then find things randomly. And like some of it might be pertaining to my build. Yeah, hopefully.
00:56:25
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's good to have like developments especially for a game My main character or the character I started with the his hour count doesn't count because I literally like have a script to farm runes and stuff like that For him, but for other characters, it's very easy to have over a hundred hours in a playthrough for this game um Not even hard um And it's nice it's nice to you know be incentivized to have the option to mix it up, have new things. And if nothing else, the DLC was a whole lot of new things. um Whole lot of new. Whole lot of new. Yeah. Maybe I'll try some of those weapons in a new game plus run one of these days. ah Right. Yeah. I mean, it's.
00:57:07
Speaker
That argument does hold a lot of weight is there's not really a disincentive to do them in a new game plus run because you will have all of the resources at the end of the game at least to upgrade something to max. um so I will say um some of the new, if not all of the new weapons feel very anime compared to and the base game.
00:57:31
Speaker
Yes, which I like. It's very cool. um But it is a definite shift between I have two moves swing and swing a different
Game Evolution and Community Reflections
00:57:43
Speaker
way. Yes. Right. Horizontal or vertical vertical slice. Yes. um Versus, oh, I use the the L2. I did the weapon art on the Beast Clause automatically going into like an eight hit combo. ahha I'm like, very cool. But also what the fuck?
00:58:01
Speaker
I think some of that started with Dark Souls 3 and like some of the DLC stuff for that um because there was a they had their weapon arts and the scythe was one of them. I think Sister Frieda's scythe, where it's like, oh yeah, ignite the blade and then like do a jumping attack until like double swing, all this like anime nonsense.
00:58:21
Speaker
um And if you went back to like Dark Souls one, people would be like, I think that the long sword is a good weapon because it's got strong vertical swipes or whatever. And again, because I think it's a good weapon because it has an eight kit eight hit combo and you like it bleed on them a million times or something. You're like, yeah, the scale has changed a little bit.
00:58:44
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's still cool to have those anime moments because. Basically, when you first hit a boss wall, you're like a moral enemy. I fucking hate this person. Yeah, um by the end of it, hopefully um you know enough of what you're doing to kind of style on them. You figured out their patterns, you figured out how you can punish them when they're weak to and then you style on him and then him with like a prattling pates or you them with your cool weapon art and you're like,
00:59:12
Speaker
Fuck yeah, explosion goes behind you. haha It feels nice to go to get to that point. Yes, absolutely. I mean, that's the core. That is the core of these games, right? Is a challenge that you overcome. Like that is the core ethos of the entire Soulsborne series is we're going to make it very difficult. You're going to have to get good or adapt or do something other than just beat it on the first try.
00:59:40
Speaker
Um, but it'll feel good when you do it and then you get to the end and you're like, yeah, I mean, I, played Dark Souls. I, I beat that. I parried Gwyn. Yeah. That's pretty neat. You heard of him. Lord of Cinder. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Not the soul of Cinder though. That's, that's a completely different game. Uh, or they, I guess since, you know, Dark Souls, sweet spoilers. Um, my but yeah. Um,
01:00:11
Speaker
I like it. I mean, I would have a difficult time. Is Elden Ring the top game? I don't know if I can just dethrone Prey, but definitely like top three. And it's still to this day, if you were to play any FromSoft game to just start off um in the Soulsborne series, I guess, because it's kind of weird comparing to Armored Core, which is a very different thing. Like Elden Ring is where you start.
01:00:36
Speaker
um Yeah, i I think it's very accessible. And again, I've seen multiple people play it for my Steam friends, who I never would have assumed that they would play like a Dark Souls 3 type thing. But they're like, oh, this seems like a cool thing that I want to check out. I'm like, fuck yeah. Get in. The water is warm. Don't ask why.
01:00:57
Speaker
It's all of the pee from the previous attempts. Yeah, no, it's ah it's really good. And if people like ah open world games, this is the first one you can use to bait them in as well as like an angler fish. Basically, you're like, oh, yeah, it's like an open world game. You can challenge things at different times. It has crafting and you need to survive. It's yes. Elden rings the survival of crafting game. um Very fair.
01:01:26
Speaker
But it sounds like a thumbs up still. Couple of years in, looking forward to night rain, and it's held up. i This is not one of those ones that dropped off, and we just look back on it with regret, and we we're like, what were what were you thinking? and It's not one of those, you have to play that. Uh-huh, exactly. um And seeing people play the game and talk about the game and stuff like that is makes me want to play the game, which is a sign of a good game. Yeah. um I will still watch anybody play Elden Ring, just be like, where are you at? What are you doing? And then I'll just kind of ah sit, like, fly on the wall. i'm like
01:02:07
Speaker
You can win. You can do this. ahha But it yeah it's one of the few things where I do feel like a random sense of community with it, even though I'm not an online forum person.
01:02:20
Speaker
Right. Yeah. I mean, it's good to have those. Some of my favorite games are like that. And I think for any of the show's special guest, Ian also is that type of ah player. I almost doxed him in real time. But all also that ah for some games, he loves watching people play like Hollow of the Night or Outer Wilds and things like that. so It's good. It's good. Hopefully, Night Rain lands. We're going to have a lot more upcoming coverage for that, I assume. Although, neither of us wanted to be spoiled by getting the beta test, I think. We didn't we didn't want that. That's not something that we explicitly reached out to FromSoft for. I'm not a beta. I passed the test. Didn't get back to us. Oh, yeah. we We're only interested in the alpha test. It's barely playable. Alpha, check. ah we're We're waiting for the Sigma test. um Get on that grind set. I apologize. ah But thank you guys for listening to another episode of Soapstone and helping us return to our roots here with as much requested Elden Ring episode.
01:03:29
Speaker
um Always good to talk about from stuff from stuff from soft stuff. That was hard for me to say then I thought it would be um As always if you want to follow us ah the information is in the description.
Closing and Future Plans
01:03:42
Speaker
We're on blue sky now um and we'll see if we can tag from soft hopefully they have an account there and Further grow our audience, but you guys are our favorites you were here first and we appreciate it As always we'll see you in the next one have a good night
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