A Very Long Discussion on Elden Ring [Light Spoilers] | Dropped Frames Episode 306

[@vernontk]

Elden Ring gives Soulsborn rookies so much easy stuff to do while they learn. My first run will be a shameless exploration grindfest and in future runs I can explore new builds. As a newcomer to this kind of game, I'm enjoying it immensely.

[@castanzofranzman2013]

1000% agree. Ngl it kinda hurts my soul to watch streamers or let’s plays just truck through the main story. Like they dont realize it’s not linear anymore. That being said I’m the rookie here so I won’t complain

[@tommyvanderkolk3469]

crouch is useless? i'm 6 hours in and at least 4 were assasins creeding my way through mobs on the little camp just north of the start finding a route that clears the whole thing. Hell its the best assasins creed game since brotherhood

[@SolitaryLark]

Yeah that’s weird to hear someone say that.

[@SNESpool]

Legit I use stealth everywhere. Or at least in any new area I'm exploring, when I don't know exactly what's gonna try to murder me, and how utterly horrifying they're gonna be. The fact that this game manages to make me feel constantly on edge, both anxiety AND anticipation of whatever awaits, is probably my single favorite thing about it. Every other triple A game I've played in the last five to seven years takes about a week to get used to all the game's mechanics (and see most of the enemy varieties) and from that point on, it's a boring slog punctuated with cut scenes and maybe the occasional engaging boss battle. With Elden Ring, 120 hours in and I still have no idea what I'm gonna find over the next hill/around the next corner. I've only uncovered 75% of the map (that I know of, possibly even less) and every day I'm talking excitedly with coworkers that are playing, telling stories about encounters and trading info. It feels like being 10 years old talking to the neighborhood kids about where to get the Biggoron Sword in Ocarina of Time. Haven't gotten that feeling from a game since I was an actual child.

[@BobaVett]

I just beat the first story boss at about 35 or so hours at lvl 50. I purposefully tried to explore EVERYWHERE in Lingrave before pushing through Stormveil. While this was happening, I was always in awe as to what I’d find and just how much content was in the first area. Then I crossed the castle…… My god. I believe most people don’t truly understand just how massive this game is and how much QUALITY content is on offer here. I thought I had seen a lot. I’ve experienced nothing compared to what’s in front of me now. I have no clue how Fromsoft pulled this off, but I’m incredibly happy they did. As of now, this is the most exciting gaming experience I’ve ever had.

[@brandond40]

I’m 80 hours in and still exploring Liurnia. I finished the academy but this game is HUGE

[@aronorange]

A little bit off topic but from 26:30 to 27:19 is the same frustration that I feel when people try fighting games, which is always considered a hard game by default. Sometimes people get so focused on how quickly they lose to something (Elden Ring) or someone (Fighting Games) and close the book to the experience without trying to learn the mechanics, build the muscle memory and learn patterns of opponents. Have patience. Having said that, Really cool that Elden Ring turn out to be really good and not a disappointment like Cyberpunk, at least for the majority of people.

[@TeckTheBlooded]

For me personally, I'm like wading in shallow water with fighting games. I've played and enjoyed multiple types (Soul Cal for 3D, Mortal and SF for 2D, and some anime fighters), but my problem has been I understand the basic of basics, but learning a kit I dont feel like I have the dedication to learn it to the extent of playing online. Best example would be Nightmare in SC6, I played 5 and Nightmare was one of my 2 mains, so I knew the general mindset for him, but learning the intricacies I didnt have anyone around to help push me to getting them down to enjoy the higher levels of play

[@rensopinto2139]

I think there’s a crossover of fighting gamers and people who like fromsoft games. I was an arcade rat as a kid and loved getting good at fighting games. This kind of game is totally arcadey in that way where a kid from another neighborhood came to the arcade w some new tech and hed beat your ass. You’d go home and think about it and go back the next time and run into that dude and finally get him. I always enjoyed games as a competitive thing. A lot of gamers are not like that, they play mostly for the stories in the games and the escapism.

[@TheWindwall]

Hit the epiphany last night in regards to the world, and in regards to the map today.

[@tylersimmons6524]

Kahlief: "I feel like you're going to walk into an area and it will get really dark, and fingers will just come from the sky and crush you." Yep, pretty much. Good luck in that area.

[@austin4211luckE]

I’ve been playing on ps4 and it’s been running great so far. Minor pop in at distance and some frame drops but I’m also not a person who cares much about it. It looks gorgeous still.

[@Mysterymelmoth]

Yeah same. Its not high fps of course but so is Bloodborne and I have played through that once per year at least since release. Loadtimes are long of course but it plays pretty well. Edit: have since found some fights where specific, very screenfilling attacks do tank the framerate significantly.

[@LtSMASH324]

It's ridiculous because it doesn't matter how good your PC is, I have a newest i5 processor and a 3070, and there are certain spots that drop to 30 - 40 fps even briefly, no matter the settings I change. Even lowering resolution doesn't do anything. I've had the game freeze twice, granted in ~60 hours of gameplay. One time the game just decided not to load on the loading screen, and I have a new M2 SSD. A lot of people aren't talking about how the game slows down when it lags sometimes, even just a little bit, is jarring. It's definitely playable, but it's annoying when my system should be able to run it just fine, and it performs so poorly.

[@PickedaName_]

The frames dip for less than 1-2 seconds while textures fully load and that's basically it. Bloodborne dropped frames harder than Elden Ring has for me. I'm on the 500gb HDD PS4, a SSD would probably limit the dips.

[@LtSMASH324]

@@PickedaName_ that's astounding to hear that a PS4 can keep up, but the PC port is bad enough that even good hardware still has sizeable issues.

[@PickedaName_]

I know nothing about computers specifics, which is why I stick to consoles for games. I had to turn blood off on PS4 to keep it smooth in combat. Reducing camera speed seemed to help it load the world as I turned instead of trying to create it after motion blur.

[@1gnore_me.]

breath of the wild walked so elden ring could run

[@Monkismo]

I'm a 56 year old casual gamer and this is my first Soulsborne game. I don't expect to finish the main quest but I'm having a blast just exploring and fighting progressively tougher enemies as I learn the game mechanics. I love the art design and the weird lore too.

[@nateputerbaugh5709]

One of those things on the approachability of the game. I love that From said "hey you know those guys that say you haven't REALLY beaten it if you use summons? Fuck those guys. Here's 8000 summons"

[@WolfHreda]

"Do you want to summon functionally immortal skeleton warriors? How about an exact duplicate of yourself? Here, have a big fucking jellyfish. Go nuts."

[@Kmaitland89]

I don’t care about how YOU play the game, but I care that I play the game without summons. You do you man. It’s a game, play it how you like.

[@SolitaryLark]

I get that but some people do try to push that on other people. Certainly not a lot but as always very vocal.

[@nateputerbaugh5709]

@@SolitaryLark I love that From was like "hey those people? Fuck those people. Here's 8000 summons." If that's your bag to play without summons awesome, but they are not shy in this one of saying it's a tool, use it have fun

[@Alienshade]

31 hours in and realy loving the game..... Are soon finished with the most of everything on 3-4 maps. But have not even found the first realy "golden" elden ring boss in the castle because it's so big!

[@swnick3386]

I'm 40 hrs in and haven't fought this boss either

[@n2nother]

There’s no “ember” equivalent. Rune Arcs just boost whatever your Great Rune is.

[@davetroll5027]

This was beyond stellar guys. I did not like the souls games, but now I know why I need to play this when things to you guys.

[@tylercarrol5213]

You won't regret it

[@dsagent]

I can't stop playing elden ring. It has so much, plus I just found out secret bosses spawn at night. I have a 1060 6GB. Read a steam review which had a guide to make the game smoother.

[@WolfHreda]

17:30 Ah, yes. I think we've all experienced it by this point. And it's still an incredible experience.

[@JohnDoe-sy5dt]

He's scared of the giant ants, I'm betting.

[@NickHunter]

who isn't! they're bloody terrifying, so well animated

[@zerogravity8982]

How tf do i fight the queen?

[@joeyxl3456]

You guys have a good thing going. I like your vibe. Thanks for the video. Cheers.

[@SilverNuclear]

1:49 so patch 1.3 runs on my 7 year old gaming laptop that uses a 970m GPU. It needed a driver update to even boot, but I'm impressed it runs at all.

[@Thurmanation2011s]

In the first major Castle I spent 2hours trying to find out how to open a locked door. In that time I found two big areas I missed and I still could not open the door.

[@nateputerbaugh5709]

When I stumbled upon the basement just screwing around I was like....oh....we're doing this now in games

[@jacksummers6464]

"Oh wow that sounds exactly like that sc2 caster JP..." *checks names* "Yep. That'll do it"

[@netwatch7261]

Elden ring is my favorite game since the demon souls remake. I love fromsoft. Put 57hrs in on my Xbox and 9hrs on my PC. It hasn't been bad on my PC and I only have a 2080, i9 with 16gb of ram

[@netwatch7261]

I've had two instances of weird stuttering but I didn't start playing until the second patch, so maybe that helped with the vrr on my oled. Certainly wasn't as bad as what I've seen other people post.

[@Davemate]

I get steady 60 on a 1080 with high settings I think the CPU and RAM plays a massive part that people aren't talking about much. My CPU is top of the line and my RAM is good and it runs great I hope it fixes for people soon

[@philbrake7525]

Same here, 1080 with only 16gb of ram and a newish CPU. Game definitely drops at some points, but for the most part it runs flawlessly.

[@TheRaziel08]

i get pretty decent 60fps on high settings most of the time with my mediocre setup (2600x, 1660super). the main problem are certain areas and boss fights. mad pumpkinhead and tree sentinel had very noticable framedrops that nearly got me killed a couple times.

[@niallcoughlan4900]

Omg the guy who stole woody on toy story is in the top right 😳

[@SilverNuclear]

Alright, finally back after beating the game. I've grown notably paler. I've lost good controllers along the way. And I feel dirty after what I did to some bosses.

[@Kmaitland89]

I've been playing on PC and it's fine for me. I have a 3090 though like you, so I guess that may play into it.

[@JoaoPedro-hq7bs]

My only gripe with the game so far, outside of FPS drops on PS5, is that it could use some more explanation of the menus. I haven’t played much Souls games, so there are stats and numbers that I don’t know the meaning of and there’s no explanation for them. Same could be said regarding some mechanics like the spells, you need the fingers whatever to cast them, but there’s no explanation about needing that item or how to then use it. Otherwise, it is a fantastic experience

[@nr1771]

There's a button you can press that will let you scroll through the stats and explain what they do.

[@TamerBayouq]

Elden ring is cool yo.

[@Kmaitland89]

JP are you talking about Ashes of War as strength based spells?

[@apharys8921]

Could be the Clawmark Seal with Bestial incantations. Seals are how incantations scale but the Bestial incantations also have very low faith requirements so can be used with a Str build very easily and one of them is a heal over time.

[@Kmaitland89]

Years later and much more knowledge. There is no strength based spells. He has no idea what he’s talking about here.

[@MenekiNekoMusic]

Lmao, this randomly came on and when they were talking about dude that beat it in 45 hrs. Really why? Don't you wanna enjoy the game.. 400hrs for me still haven't finished it and loved every minute spent there.. even the deaths

[@seanfroelich4528]

Toy Story 2. IYKYK

[@pastorofmuppets4552]

Elden Ring is the scariest game to someone who played Bloodborne?

[@Justin-ee1mv]

PagMan

[@opethmike]

Elden is.... okay. Middle of the pack for FROM games.

[@brianleal87]

? The best game in your life? I'm calling bullshit, Zelda is way better

[@zombiegodsire]

Strength based spells? What is he on about? Is he misunderstanding what ashes of war are or just playing a different version of the game than everyone else cuz there aren't spells that scale with strength

[@SolitaryLark]

It’s not the spells but the staves some staves have str scaling

[@mduckernz]

@@SolitaryLark Some incantation seals do as well :)

[@saucyjack4936]

There ARE spells that scale with strength, you get access to them midway through D’s questline, which is pretty easy to follow. Don’t bark at this guy trying to sound smart pls

[@zombiegodsire]

@@saucyjack4936 there ARENT spells that scale with strength at all actually. Only a seal. Dont bark at me trying to sound smart pls

[@saucyjack4936]

@@zombiegodsire look, obviously spells themselves don’t scale with strength. By this logic, incantations don’t scale with faith and magic spells don’t scale with intelligence, heavy armor doesn’t scale with high equip load capacity... You obviously know what the man meant, and you know what I meant too, you’re just arguing about wording which is pointless and lowly. There are spells that are meant to be used by strength builds is the point

[@lolicongang.4974]

Lol I don't get stuck crouching I got gentle hands lol. Like why would I be putting force on my controller.

[@FMD-FullMetalDragon]

I could only play this game on PS4. PS5's are just too expensive.

[@LtSMASH324]

you don't have the right O you don't have the right in short you don't have the right O you don't have the right

[@stoatin3050]

What a great funny uplifting show. I've probobaly watched all the dropped frames in the last couple of years and this was one of the best.

[@Slagomancer]

I got browbeaten out of Souls games by a shitty friend and the general "git gud" horseshit, but the wide world element of this game has me really teetering on the precipice again.

[@KyngD469]

The phobia is hands. I know this because I also leanred something about myself that day too. 🤣🤣🤣😂😂

[@joshsmith7033]

Dis gay

[@spacedoohicky]

Almost all the spells are great. I don't know why people get so focused on the pebble. There are crowd control, and knock down power spells that lay waste to enemies. There is also a spell that works really well against shield wielders that is OP as hell. Players are missing out on so much focusing on the pebble spell. Spell effects also get bigger when you increase INT, so the spell that looked puny early on becomes super powerful just at level 20 to 30. I've seen a let's player use pebble the whole time, and I'm thinking, if they only tried out that other spell they wouldn't have spent 30 minutes on that one dude that was giving them problems. Such a waste.

[@swnick3386]

It's cause the pebble does "decent" damage when ur leveled up and it costs very little FP. Doesn't take long to cast at all so u can spam it.

[@spacedoohicky]

@@swnick3386 I already know that explanation, but that doesn't explain why people focus on it after collecting other spells that wipe out enemies later on. There is also a spreading sorcery that doesn't cost much FP, and can be spammed to knock down multiple enemy health bars, and passes through shields. There are power spells that can break large enemies stance. There is a spell that tracks enemies, can be cast backwards while on horse, and kill shield wielders. There are a lot of good spells that do not cost very much FP, and can be spammed. Some of them are nearly as fast to cast as the pebble. There is even one spell that is faster than pebble. The pebble actually sucks.

[@spacedoohicky]

@@swnick3386 Also casts get bigger with higher INT. So that means a spell that has a wide spread defeats crowds of enemies even faster. I've seen people pew pewing the pebble on a crowd of enemies for like 10 minutes. I play, and break out this other spreading spell, and wipe out the same crowd in 30 seconds. This is the sort of thing I'm talking about.

[@swnick3386]

I'm an astrologer, (level 38) 40 hrs in and haven't really found OP spells yet so I'm sure ur right. I'm trying to not overlevel or become Op in the early game and ruin the experience. I did that with Ds3 and halfway through the game I was 1 shoting end game bosses with moonlight great sword and crazy lava pyromancy. I'm excited that there is still so much left to find/do.

[@spacedoohicky]

@@swnick3386 You have Glintstone Arc. That's the one I'm talking about. At level 25 it was OP for me. You should be able to find Magic Glintblade by now too which is super powerful against shield wielding enemies, and can be cast backwards. Using a combo of these spells I've taken out large crowds in 30 seconds, or less. Other more powerful spells you might have already, and not be aware how useful they are. I wouldn't worry about being OP. Strength players are seeking their bigger swords, and hammers. As casters we should be seeking big sorcery. There are areas you will not be able to complete without them, and you won't know how to use them if you don't have them somewhat early. Not seeking to be OP in Elden Ring will punish you later on. It's totally different than Dark Souls. No matter how OP you think you are, you will not one shot what's coming.

[@Ronin11111111]

It runs decently on my 5 year old PC on high. It fluctuates between 30 and 60 in the overworld and since the Nvidia drivers came out it has been a LOT better. No stuttering at all. Though I did have 1, 5 second freeze and 2 hard crashes, but that's all in 60 hours.

[@Gedis2x]

Game runs good for me on my old i5 and rx590, not max settings obviously, but runs smooth, no lag or stutter. Weird people having trouble with much more powerful pc's.

[@iphoneShothand]

56:49 is such a great point and really funny at the same time.

[@justanother8862]

I had the same issue as Zeke on my laptop, will try on my more powerful desktop but sad my laptop cant handle it

[@neozyxn]

If your laptop has a dedicated card and integrated graphic, make sure its running off the right card. I had issues booting the game and lag due to it defaulting to the integrated intel graphics instead of the nvida card I had. I had to force it to run on the dedicated card through the nvida control panel.

[@justanother8862]

@@neozyxn I will try that thank you

[@belli7639]

I wanted to like this game but it was hard. First there is no in game store in 21. Century... Wtf... Areas er not marked so you don't know what level should you be before going there... Game ramdomly teleported me in part of the map that is way over level... And it didn't even worned me... Also you kant stop attack... No easy mode... No buying skins...

[@nezukoclub652]

why would u want an in game store so u have to pay more money to beat the game go play assassin's creed

[@Aingeal_Ridire]

game isn't playable.... "greatest game ever" people just out here deep throating fromsoft for giving them trash, good job everyone.

[@LtSMASH324]

Nice bait

[@Aingeal_Ridire]

@@LtSMASH324 is it a bait? they talked about the hot mess that this game is for about 2 minutes while making excuses for fromsoft, going on for the next hour and twenty minutes in what sounds like an add for the game. if this was any other developer putting out trash like this, it wouldn't be overlooked.

[@SolitaryLark]

It’s not “unplayable” it has stutters sometimes. Gross exaggeration.

[@Aingeal_Ridire]

@@SolitaryLark say you have never played a souls game without saying you have never played a souls game

[@SolitaryLark]

@@Aingeal_Ridire lmao dead wrong bro. I skipped 2 and haven’t touched sekiro but I’ve played ALL other from soft game.