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0:00 Spoiler Rules
1:27 Behold its size!
8:56 Legacy dungeons
12:21 FS lets you miss things
19:18 Sales numbers
27:37 Magnum opus
33:21 Extreme length of the game
41:26 Mini dungeons
42:46 Spirit Ashes
47:30 Story bosses
54:20 Quest obscurity
1:01:33 Trap chest
1:03:45 Crafting
1:11:20 Vigor
1:18:00 PvP
source
This video was recorded right before patch 1.3 and as such some information may be outdated. YouTube always puts a lot of ads on these podcasts so can listen on your preferred podcast platforms here: https://anchor.fm/ratatoskr
Podcasts are released there a day after they release on YouTube.
I've gotten close to the end of the game (the entire map is revealed, and I think I'm heading into the final boss), and I've started to feel pretty disappointed by late-game areas in terms of how empty vs. not-empty and how designed vs. not-designed they are. I heard content creators say "the game keeps expanding!" and "the quality doesn't decrease!", and that set me up to expect more and be disappointed when, lo and behold, the game did stop expanding, and the quality did decrease, and areas were much, much smaller and emptier than they had been earlier in the game. I kind of resent hearing all these positive takes on the scope of the game, because it set me up to expect much more than the game actually did have to offer. If anyone reads this, I recommend mentally preparing yourself to finally find the boundaries of the game and the shrinking scope and density of any new areas you do find. Let yourself emotionally prepare for the moment when the surprises do stop coming, or the surprises left are small and paltry in comparison to their antecedents…and maybe you'll feel less let down and more content when that moment comes, because it will come.
It's funny abot the "front loading of estus upgrades" bit. I had the exact opposite experience where the estus never healed me to ful because I didn't discover the weeping penninsula until like level 80 lol I was convinced fsr that it was going to be a whole other zone, not just a part of limgrave. I was waiting for some kind of lead in and there just wasn't one. So I eventually went way later on and found all those churches so late, just smh.
21:00 Regarding the point about people beating Margot, on PlayStation it shows that 70% of people have beat him, which really surprised me. And I heard a similar number for Steam as well. Part of me was worried that the hype would draw in a lot of people who really just don’t vibe with this type of game, they wild play it for a few hours and then just give up/return it/resell it. But it seems like that’s not the case which is really cool.
That video on finding Ranni sounds fantastic!
Ratotosker please share your similar experiences! Its so cool to see how each player is experiencing almost a completely different game!
I think I have 34 vigor at level 120 or so and it has saved my ass countless times. Vigor is extremely important end game because of how fast and hard things hit.
I remember going down to siofra and thinking there was an entire underground cavern that spanned the whole map. At this point i had been teleported to lyndell so i had an idea of how huge the overworld map was. To think that it was doubled blew my mind.
Way too many ads.
Cool!
Rataroskr, has created the best content around this game. I created a strength character, missed the vigor. As I got to late game I found my self really needing to perfect bosses and finally deemed my character “glass”. I’ve restarted and been much happier with my second attempt as a dual mage. You still need to “dance “ as a mage. Love the content!
I finished my first playthrough at level 154. My first playthrough clicked in at 88 hours and while I know I saw every major area and hit every major boss I know there's still a lot I missed. Stormvale being a prime example. A mostly blind playthrough,, and I had 60 vigor.
I fully disagree about multiple enemies. I think these games are at their best when you have to fight multiple enemies. I really loved the Crucible knight Duo and godskin Duo. They seemed to me to be really balanced around one player. They have predictable moves, that swing slowly, they're not aggressive.
I have a lot more fun fighting Duo bosses than, say, Morgott.
Probably why Dark Souls 2 was my favorite From game until Sekiro. I love fighting multiple enemies. Nothing makes me feel quite like a badass.
This was an amazing episode! Looking forward to a continuation!
Really glad to open this and immediately see there would be rules surrounding spoilers so i can listen without having to worry about something being ruined for me.
I’m 185 hrs in and I’m not done. Tho I have been playing every moment I can. I have a problem o.o trying different weapons and builds.
well as someone who's finished the game i can tell i love dark souls 1 far more than elden ring
Elden ring have too much problem to be a masterpiece like dark souls 1
Roomba nature, yes I feel u
I've been waiting for this! Very happy to hear all of your thoughts.
I'm at 135 hours and still not finished, i think I'm close but also there are a lot of places that i can t figure out how to get into, and also 2 demigods i haven t a clue about where they could be
Great stuff! I would be interested in what you all think about the end game difficulty. I think the final onslaught is next level. I think it’s much harder than anything they have put out before, even using summons. I’m not sure how I feel about it, certainly the pacing is quite poor at this point. I’m trying to do a 2nd play through summonless to really try to learn the bosses.
The missing things gives the world a real sense of mystery and wonder that is almost completely absent from most games. It also makes playing with and sharing information with friends worthwhile outside of the inherent fun that entails. I missed the knight at the shack in limgrave and the deathbird in liurnia. The shack someone told me about and the death bird me and my friends found by accident camping near a grace pvp'ing with randoms for 2 or so hours. The sense of wonder and accomplishment is great and it's genuine not really guided in any way outside of chance. Well a little guided since they up your chance by putting it by points of interest. A grace site you meet friends at to pvp in out of a lot and a shack with a merchant you could go to visit at night to be very surprised. So there is a method to the madness that skews your chances higher but not anywhere near a guaranteed encounter.
There is a ridiculous amount of ads in this video.
The entire Ludwig fight rocks so fuckin hard. The music that comes in during the second have slapps so fuckin hard it's unreasonable
"It's like an old text adventure, where a big part of the game is figuring out how to interact with the game."
That actually articulates exactly why these games are so unique and beloved, and why some game devs are baffled by some design choices. Thank you.
I played 150hs on my 1st playthrough, when I finished and looked up stuff to see what I missed, I realized I missed an entire area in the underground, the Deeproot Depths, which also houses a major dragon boss which gives an achievement I didn't have. And I also missed a lot of very good talsimans and some good whetblades.
Then I started a NG+, and I decided to just rush the critical path to see how long it would take and how difficult it was, I finished it in 1 day, I was so strong I almost killed on 1st try all the bosses. I just rushed with Torrent, bypassed all the enemies and just fought the non-optional bosses. It was soo much faster that I didn't believe how fast you can finish the game since it took me 20 days and 150hs on my first playthrough. The only boss in the game that really gives me a hard time now is Malenia, she is insane, but I beat her a little faster the second time.
Limgrave weeping peninsula and stormveil alone took me about 30 hours
Not a word about covenants in the PvP section?
Ratatoskr heading highspeed to that 100k subs!
When I was doing Ranni's sidequest I felt like I was on my very own journey to the center of the earth. The places and creatures I saw had me enchanted but also disgusted.
I think this whole discussion around copy pasted bosses would have been mitigated had From made a new classification of enemies, let's say Elites. They just get something in the UI design to make them distinct from normal enemies but also bosses. Suddenly it would have made more sense to players. Of course there are multiple assassins, multiple members of the night cavalry, multiple crucible knights and multiple demi-human leaders. And that's how I like to think of most of these bosses, as especially strong "regular" enemies.
55:00 I got the Ranni questline by accident. I got Rogier up to the point of the stuff mentioned in Ratatoskr's video on quests in Elden Ring, and I got the rune of death and I think the knife (because I like hitting walls), but then I just found Ranni because she was around, and talked to her to get that quest started anyway. I had no idea there was a connection there (never talked to Fia about it).
I also thought that UP was the exit in the Sellia cystal tunnel when I got teleported.
I had to craft simple bone throwing knives and use ALL my inventory to get to the boss (again, I THOUGHT it was the exit, I didn't saw any Mine dungeon and BOOS WOODEN GATE at that point), I hit it once and inmeditely decide to go the other way.
I found the exit and I'm greeted by That's not BLOOD, swamp-Miyazaki-BORNE-Land and realize the game was an actual Masterpice.
I can't believe I'm so willing to spend 2 hours of my life listening to non-devs speaking about a game that isn't theirs. As always, great talk.
Yes!! So glad you're still doing these post release! I was just about to head off work on my long commute home and now I have something to listen too <3
I'd suggest Sekiro to Elden Ring enjoyers over Bloodborne if only because that game actually runs at a playable framerate. Gonna be a hard sell to people enjoying ER that they have to halve their framerate and accept massive lagspikes.
I have beaten Margit, Godrick, Crucible Knight at 10 vigor. I also killed Renalla at 12 vigor. I'm a pure melee player – Claymore, Grafted Bladesword, Godrick Axe etc. I'm enjoying the game 10x more if I had 30-40 vigor. ESPECIALLY early on in the game, you should not invest in vigor. I feel bad for people who came into Crucible Knight as OP for instance where I actually learned its patterns and dodged each of his movements.
Elden Ring is the first FromSoft game in which I've used Magic on my first playthrough. I historically always choose to be some type of Mage in any fantasy-setting but I never did in Souls because of stuff like having to invest in Attunement, only having a certain number of casts per spell, all the cool spells taking like 3 slots, having to sacrifice healing, etc. etc. etc. It just never felt like it was worth the effort to commit to.
They finally figured it out in Elden Ring and I could not be happier about it and all the lore around Magic is awesome to boot.
So am I the only one playing on PC who's had barely had any issues? The only place the lag got really bad was at the bottom of the hill where you fight the Tree Sentinel, and even that was fine if I just went up the hill a bit. For those wondering I'm on a 1070 Super and a Ryzen 5 2600x, and those issues were on the day 1 version.
Are you planning on putting more of these out
I have been equalizing all my stats to 20. I've been exploring as much as I can and it's just starting to be a problem but Vigor is my first priority after I hit level 80. I do not recommend doing this XD
See I'm super excited to see what Elden Rings's DLC is going to look like. If they make it that is, which would honestly be kind of dumb not to given the commercial success it's already had. Cause in the past most of the best parts of Fromsoft's games were in the DLCs. Like look at Oolacile, Ashes of Ariandel, The Ringed City, The Old Motherfuckin' Hoonter's. I can only imagine what Elden Ring DLC would be like.
The underground area wasn’t even that big, but it made a point. I went through most of the game thinking there was only Limgrave, Liurnia, and Calid. And I knew they were all massive. My head just about exploded when I saw the underground, and imagined that I’d need to clear three more entire areas. Another daunting 120+ hours of content just waiting to be explored. It turned out that the underground areas were not that large after all, but the impression it left stuck with me as I discovered there were several more overworled areas I hadn’t even touched yet. The game had lied to me, but in some ways it had actually been telling the truth all along. It was simply offering a glimpse of things to come.
Lol i taught the festival is always active:))) now i m curios
I love what you guys say about the feeling of finishing quest lines in this game. The feeling when you put the dots together yourself is so fulfilling. In other open world games quest lines feel like a to do list, you don't have to figure anything out for yourself there's markers leading you to the "secret" area. It just feels so much better to have to use your brain/experiment/get lucky to find these secrets
I ran around with 22 vigor and 2 of the sorseals until the literal endgame. We're talking last 4 bosses. When I tell you I literally could not get hit at all by the time I got to Rennala….it was unreal. I play soulsgames pretty true to an RPG style and refuse to deviate the design of my character, so the difficulty was pretty outstanding, but the payoff for winning was phenomenal. PS wondrous physik bubble shield is the only thing that makes it possible.
Feel attacked as someone that ran around at 16 vigor most of the game and even finished it at 22. I'm playing that way to practice for PVP and no-hit playthroughs more importantly. It's possible, though I don't know if it's going to work long term for PVP. Currently it doesn't matter if someone is pumping vigor or not if land the first hit. They nurfed a lot today, but buffed the hell out of my current build. It isn't fair it's so bad.
Anyone else never uses summons ?