Elden Ring - You're not supposed to see this

Jagged Peak is home to a bit of an enigma, with a mysterious crowd of NPCs inexplicably haunting the mountainside. Just what were they supposed to do and why are they here?
Song used: Subterranean Graveyard - King's Field IV OST

[@ZullietheWitch]

It feels likely this may have escaped the notice of the QA team because there's not much reason for players to go back through the summit path after Bayle is gone, or alternatively, it may have been noticed, but was deemed fairly low-priority for that same reason. Sometimes developers find glitches well before players ever have a chance to see them, but they still get shipped because the labor it would take to fix them is better spent elsewhere while they're working to get the project completed.

[@omerozel4716]

@@ZullietheWitch i got back there because i knew there was an Ancient Somber Dragonsmithingstone somewhere

[@TrippyTimesTwo]

Of all the “features” of the DLC, these guys were such a minor inconvenience that I’d do the same. There was plenty to fix on launch, without having to try and fix the 4 invisible dudes who 90% of players Torrent sprinted past

[@gwyndolinds-en8yt]

QA manager: “Keep it, only data nerds would come back to this place, and they will find it neat”

[@glitchypriest3462]

@@TrippyTimesTwo Problem is, the fans (that don't try to understand the underlying code and game mechanics) take everything in the game as intentional, to build the lore. So if we didn't have code analysts, we would have videos trying to understand the lore implications of invisible NPCs that suddenly appear after Bayle is dead. So it's a low-impact bug, but still something to fix when you can, imo. Now makes me wonder how many more things are not lore-intended, and are just for convenience...

[@cowhale2488]

@@glitchypriest3462 I don't think intention matters that much as long as the story you have is good and makes sense. I think this would just be considered a bug more than anything, it's very obviously a mistake. There are happy accidents that happen sometimes though, like the friendly dog in Leyndell that was never intended.

[@lubue5795]

Very dedicated stage helpers, standing there in the rain and wind on a god-forsaken mountain only to get continuously hit by lightning.

[@Zarroxius]

Not as dedicated as the Radahn stagehand, he willingly gets hit by a meteor!

[@gwyndolinds-en8yt]

Lightening Spirits, we call them

[@Metal_Maoist]

Their boss gets killed so now they get to partially phase back into existence to take a smoke break

[@alextrill5829]

Eh, it beats working retail.

[@mani21axe40]

Whats wrong with jagged peak? Bayle! Vile Bayle!

[@RashFever26]

That, and also MY ARMS, MY LEGS!!! EACH LIES A BLOODY RUIN... ARRGHHHHHH

[@SomeKrieger]

2:23 Zullie gets demolished and fucking dies

[@noahjester8471]

Top 10 saddest deaths in anime

[@vatonage1599]

Zullie no! You're standing next to the Radahn Targeting NPC!

[@tristanneal9552]

So sad that this the last Zullie video 😢

[@TheSilly6403]

she got back up and pwned him

[@spiderbug7615]

​@@vatonage1599oh no, she's got her air pods in, she can't hear us 😱

[@DisFantasy]

Reminds me of how Blizzard used invisible bunnies to give raid bosses targets for attacks and pathing.

[@zakanyimen]

this is very common practice in almost all games.

[@JasoTheRed48F2]

The Igon Everywhere system was very innovative for it's time.

[@jcace13]

Everyone will rue this day!

[@KogasaTatara514]

Friendly reminder that there are 100 dummied out godskin apostles in the leyndell catacombs

[@omerozel4716]

@@KogasaTatara514 wait what

[@TREVORVADER]

Wait what?

[@KogasaTatara514]

@@omerozel4716 search "a hundred godskin apostles boss fight" by sekiro dubi

[@gwyndolinds-en8yt]

The Gloam army, waiting for their Queen’s Return

[@LangostaV76]

This sounds like the fake void memes "There is a dead god beneath the US capital, he will escape the 27th of october 2031"

[@RAHelllord]

I love those invisible yet important NPCs. Back in the days WoW used a lot of invisible imps and bunnies to broadcast flavor messages in the area (either zone wide or just local, depending on the specific story requirements) whenever the actual "speaker" was meant to be invisible to the player anyway. Like boss taunting you from the back of the cave, but the case is mostly unloaded and so the boss isn't loaded either, so a little invisible bunny near the mouth of the cave would instead be playing that sound file and broadcast the associated chat message. Clever little system, and occasionally a new patch would make some of them visible until they fixed it again, and that was always fun. They also occasionally forgot to set a few flags so here and there they could be interacted with, like for example pulling rogues or druids out of stealth, or making a hunter pet try and attack a spec of dust on the floor and just refusing to obey any other command.

[@AtelierMcMuttonArt]

Reminds me of Morrowind's method- have the player character, themselves, speak the lines if the actual speaker isn't really there

[@HawRazor]

iirc onyxia had an attack that would target an invisible bunny npc that would sporadically run around the arena too

[@DeadlyNightshadeZ]

"We can change the facedata of the NPC's to Igon" CURSE YOU BAYLE! We hereby vow, that you will rue this day! Behold, a true drake warrior, and I, Igon, and I, Igon, and I, Igon, and I, Igon, and I, Igon, and I, Igon, and I, Igon!

[@viljamtheninja]

Actually laughed out lout to this one.

[@jcace13]

Bayle be sweating.

[@bl4cksp1d3r]

Gotta love these stage hand NPCs. A quick and simple solution to a problem, instead of trying to find the difficult way around it

[@LiaHing-on5do]

I really appreciate the stagehands comparison, keeping a touch of poetry. Your videos are truly a pleasure ngl.

[@wadespencer3623]

That is a LOT of Igons. Bayle better look out.

[@GoldLight73]

Now I just have a mental image of an army of Igon endlessly screaming at the peak...

[@omerozel4716]

I remember posting about those NPCs a week or so ago and also thought they are tied to the lightning. Thanks for confirming it Zullie.

[@Xelatheshep]

The worst thing about Jagged Peaks is that Bayle is there. Curse you Bayle indeed.

[@ironsalmon784]

The spirits of those slain by bayle have been set free upon his death

[@AaronCorr]

This has the same energy as Morrowind making disembodied dialogue be technically spoken by the player character. Iirc, in daedric shrines the lips of the character move when the deadra speak

[@GalokVonGreshnak]

A major blast to the past, wow. I remember my friend taking his helmet off when Azura was speaking and we both theorized she was using the character as a vessel.

[@OFSheep]

1:40 you shot the Invisible Swordsman!

[@jahrfuhlnehm]

Excuse me, are you the Singing Fulgurbloom?

[@Bukwheat]

Everything is wrong with the Jagged Peak

[@commaJim]

Not Igon

[@AtomicZamurai]

I disagree but ok

[@akechijubeimitsuhide]

What I'm hearing is Bayle hired a bunch of int/fth build dudes (invisibility + lightning) to make the road leading to him more Epic

[@Trollkiller]

This always strikes me as curious but when the land of shadows was ripped from the lands between I wonder if like the volcanos and other natural phenomenon under the grounds surface were brought too or if that's the reason for the dormancy.

[@sundewscrewdriver]

0:01 i love how your videos are both very informative and interesting but also have some of the most poetic descriptions ever

[@HamezTheHorrible]

Absolutely love your videos. You always have great explanations and apt comparisons.

[@ZKP314]

Well obviously this is the work of an Enemy Stand User.

[@ladyabaxa]

Anyone remember the invisible bunnies in World of Warcraft used for all sorts of scripting purposes? Pepperidge Farm remembers... as does the internet as it was trivially easy to find a bunch of articles on the subject in any search engine. Anyone this is just to say that this is a developer technique that's been in use for a long time so anyone curious to know more about the subject has plenty to look up.

[@tTaseric]

It's not even particularly deep as a research topic. Speaking from experience, most of the time it's simply a matter of convenience because manually typing coordinates is tedious and annoying.

[@eeeee-bs5ii]

I personally like to think that drakes/mortal dragons have evolved to hunt each other, due to the baby drakes in dragonbarrow not dropping dragon hearts, having smaller horns, and lacking fire breath, they're young and recently born. Maybe when they reach a certain age they grow the longer, piercing horn to hunt their kin and extract trace amounts of gravel stone, developing fire breath, (and maybe extending their lifespan) possibly leading to them growing and becoming like greyoll and the nameless giant dragon in a final lifecycle stage to produce a litter (greyoll drops 5 hearts, so either its a freak mutation or they have killed) Additionally the description for dragon communion flesh (which is crafted from sharp gravel stone, which mentions "ancient" dragons that consume their lesser kin) says that it is AN IMITATION OF DRAGONSCALE FLESH, which drops from jagged peak drakes and mentions "aged dragons", maybe ancient/aged really means older, drakes that have hunted more of their kin and thus gained far more gravel stone, one of the jagged peak drakes is even attacking another drake, perhaps in a form of hunting. So baby drake --> adult with horn --> develop dragon heart & fire breath from killing drakes and getting gravel stone --> kill more --> become big from it and produce a huge amount of baby dragons Or maybe im reading way too much into the horn on dragons, either way I personally believe that the jagged peak is a cesspool of cannibalism for the drakes to grow strong and mature

[@cyclonesama8147]

This is the equivelant of exposing the Wizard of Oz

[@EuclideanAl]

Zullie swooping in with some Sunday Elden Ring fun facts I love it

[@WinterDominus]

Damn, I often get distracted by Kingsfield music... it's such a banger. I need a modern Kingsfield from From.

[@TrippyTimesTwo]

So THAT’S what my ADLS hit on my way up the peak. I was wondering why I saw hits but no bodies.

[@smilingman4299]

0:58 Behold ! I, Igon ! And I, Igon ! And I, Igon !

[@falgalhutkinsmarzcal3962]

There is an invisible npc/enemy in the Giant-Conquering Hero's Grave at the top of the steps leading to the boss, in vers 1.0. You can lock onto it, put it to sleep, set it afire, poison it, etc, and it comes back upon Grace rest. It even has sound files scripted for it. It sounds like a human being.

[@Klirikay]

So is the lightning around fields of fulgurbloom flowers being casted by invisible npc?

[@XDarkGreyX]

Those if-statements tho. Bruh. Ah well...

[@LWmusik]

I know nothing about game dev but do a lot of C++ in other areas. Everytime I see one of these types of fromsoft videos I get pretty confused, like why do we even need NPC's with hitboxes for something like this?

[@SkylerEvansAK]

​@@LWmusik​Likely because the engine is set up so that the lightning spell being cast need to be cast BY something. Like, I doubt the engine is built so a random rock object can be the spellcaster, and the script literally is calling a "ShootBullet()" method. That's probably inherent to their NPC/Player/Enemy classes, so it would need to be tied to SOMETHING instead of a random gameobject, and... well, rather than making an invisible goblin, or snake, or boar, it's probably simplest to just make it an NPC. The video literally mentions that they don't even use a flag to make them invisible or anything, it literally defaults that way because they just don't have face data or a body model. Game dev is pretty unique among programming branches in that you are CONSTANTLY doing random tricks and things like this to accomplish effects and events that you want. Would it be more complete to make a robust system that could handle these things in any situation? Sure. But when you're only doing it a couple times, it's not worth the creep to make that new system, potentially upending tons of things built on it, and require so much new testing. Better to just tie it to a dummied-out player model and be on with your day. This sort of thing happens ALL the time. These are just also some of the most datamined games out there, so we see a lot more of the intricate workings.

[@Kit76879]

*Carbot:* Wouldn't it be funny if all the elemental stuff were actually practical effects set up by hidden people? *Fromsoftware:* 😨

[@CrowSkeleton]

Thank you, Lightning Ninjas!

[@a_level_70_elite_raccoon]

That's pretty neat! I love little things like this.

[@usamimi-no-majo]

I like the comparison to stagehands xD

[@lifeisraph]

Absolutely fascinating! :)

[@jeremycaswell]

I kinda wanna see a lets play with all the internal stuff made visible now

[@a.s.raiyan2003-4]

Using Invisible NPCs in such a makeshift way seems kinda funny since the Developer themselves use this method.

[@spacenaves]

Setting them all into Igon needs to become a mod.

[@mayh-]

Love the kings field ost

[@ShotgunFemboy09]

I only found out about those guys because of a message that said "try target lock" and obviously after murdering an invisible man, I was kind of confused to say the least

[@UbequistãoRojadão]

2:24 Damn, Rahdan has cake... No wonder his brother wanted him.

[@whateveryousayfam5240]

WAKE UP WAKE UP, ZULLIE DROPPED ‼️‼️‼️‼️🗣️🗣️‼️‼️

[@wealthybone2990]

Wow I never this but its interesting how that works I wonder if there was any other way they could've done it? But weird that left that in I mean I guess the DLC seemed kinda rushed.

[@KindlyKell]

Friend of mine and I caught this a few weeks ago. Was really confused.

[@marcelojunior4870]

You're amazing, Zullie 👌

[@softestpup]

World of Warcraft uses invisible bunnies and Guild Wars 2 uses invisible moas

[@mrbaileys4371]

This is genuinely interesting

[@Zoomeep]

The Anime Protagonist isn't easy to spot. The Anime Protagonist: 2:26

[@fillershmazman3030]

Fells like they could have accomplished the same thing by making a dummy ball entity, like 1 pixel big or something. I don't know if it does, but the way it is now I assume it eats a bit of RAM for no reason

[@tTaseric]

Bayle's peak already has so much stuff happening that like 5 invisible NPCs that dont do anything really is a drop in the ocean. Idk about Elden Ring's engine but a lot of 3D engines do just have completely empty objects that only store coordinates. You'd usually use those in a situation like this, but it's entirely possible NPCs had to be used for whatever reason. Maybe the lightning is considered an attack and therefore wouldn't work without an NPC to target, and it'd be too much work to recode the lightning to work without a target, or something. Idk. Shit like that happens with game dev.

[@topcat59]

It seems that these dudes are better at being target than ourselves.😺

[@NarffetWerlz]

I wondered what those things were. I figured they had to be player models based on how long it took to get the runes.

[@MISTAWULFY]

Nah man they’re just spooky ghosts

[@L0rdLexan01]

Ah, so the Riot Games special of coding everything as a minion is, in fact, a common practice.

[@firewolf595]

The more I look at Bayle the more I wonder how tf Placidusax stood a chance.

[@agentc7020]

Teleportation's a hell of a trick

[@1umbreon4life]

Placi also used to have 150% more heads, which means 150% more firepower

[@gwyndolinds-en8yt]

You find Placidusax without 3 heads, with scars all over his body. He says: “You should see the other guy”. Bayle: wings ripped off exposing bones, without one leg and part of it’s tail, covered in open wounds.

[@Fusi453]

reminds me of the DS2 invisible hollows

[@tomskeleton]

Peak needs time

[@dreadjr9125]

now that make sense why sometimes when i play alone the boss aggros to somewhere other than me

[@DJIronChef]

Yo i ran in to this when the dlc came out, same spot. I transformed in the spot using the rock heart and it played a death animation but my character didn't die

[@Wyrdist]

Uhh so were the invisible Jagged Peak npcs widely known ? I’ve never heard anybody talk about that

[@claytopolis]

people gave fallout 3 shit for the fact that the train you ride on once is actually just a weird hat being worn by an npc under the floor running along a path. But the truth is a lot of games do stuff like that, even the really high quality ones like this. the lesson to take from this is that programming a game within the limits of the game engine sometimes requires you to pull off some rube goldberg kind of shit.

[@rossemklyn401]

Poor Igon...

[@StarKurusu]

yaaaaay new zullie upload

[@goldie89283]

igon village!

[@Ludwig_Accursed]

They are here to CUUUUURSEEEEE BAYYYYYLEEEE

[@Noizzed]

More proof that Elden Ring is just Dark Souls 2: 2

[@jahrfuhlnehm]

Imagine all these NPCs just starting aggroing you after Bayle is done with trying to stab you to death. D: Well we already have a few of those invisible Black Knife Assassins in the game so imagination isn't needed here, but say you couldn't use the sentry torch on these guys, so like that horrid foggy woods area

[@thebonesyman]

another Zullie banger

[@thaddeusgigachaddeus2954]

New zullie the witch video???

[@robertrodriguez3312]

Beautiful ❤🎉

[@aestheticblight833]

So at 2:22 could you backstab the invisible NPC (like at 0:37) to get i-frames when Radahn's meteor attack lands?

[@kenzor4953]

i like this

[@ManuelRiccobono]

so the scipt spawns an NPC and strike it with a ligting to make that effect? and now they are still there because only the lines that cause the lighting to strike got erased, but not the rest?

[@zakanyimen]

They not got erased . The script just stops if bayle is dead midway so they not set themselves to be untargetable and unkillable.

[@TuRmIx96]

They are just there to serve as a coordinate for the lightning strike’s end position. They forgot to make them untargetable and unkillable I guess.

[@ZoneXbez]

Could you potentially hit/kill the ones in radahns fight?

[@nardopol0]

This is a question from someone with no technical knowledge of game design, but why not put the models under the geography if they need them for an anchor for the lightening?

[@RainbowGod666]

13k views in an hour *bruĥ*

[@jaggidfire]

The Phyre Engine is showing its age again

[@ZullietheWitch]

FromSoftware doesn't use the Phyre Engine, most of their games use a proprietary engine the modding community refers to as "Dantelion", with the exception of Dark Souls II, which they attempted to build a new engine for.

[@jaggidfire]

@@ZullietheWitch huh. Did Demon's Souls at least use the Phyre engine? Why did I think this?

[@ZullietheWitch]

@@jaggidfire The only FromSoftware related title known to use Phyre is, weirdly, Metal Wolf Chaos XD. It was sort of a well circulated rumor/people being stubborn saying that they used Phyre for the Souls games, but datamining/modding tools have made it abundantly clear that it's not.

[@AtelierMcMuttonArt]

Such a strange method- why not just use empty gameobjects, I wonder?

[@TheBrixHub]

Who was here before the title changed? :DD

[@RaMeNoodles7]

first (also i love ur videos Zullie, hope u have a great day)

[@leadpoisoned45]

Music in this vid is a bop, anyone know what it is

[@Proxy1199]

So what are the lore implications?? 🤔🤨

[@roriksavant]

Is using NPCs like this resource intensive?

[@meyes1098]

Man every deep dive into the workings of anything made by Fromsoftware just reveals how incredibly bad programmers they are!

[@TuRmIx96]

I wonder why they waste performance on this rather than using and empty node as a target. Engine limitation or laziness?

[@zaidlacksalastname4905]

0:11 Traitor? He's not one of them, though, right? Isn't he a drake?

[@sswaawss]

It’s said that drakes and ancient dragons coexisted for a time until Bayle betrayed them, that’s why

[@bunny_apocalypse]

Unfinished ass zone

[@judgem0rt1s23]

Why do I feel like these are going to be enemies in the future?

[@leggomypotato1484]

This is one of thousands of reasons why this game's optimization is so poor.

[@thomaspopa3354]

First let’s goooo

[@frogfrog_4]

👎

[@thecuza9716]

I don't even need to watch the video. That thumbnail is the perfect summary of this entire channel. Shame she's going to change it in an hour.

[@ZullietheWitch]

KZbin lets you upload three thumbnails at the same time and have the algorithm figure out which one is performing best. The test usually has enough data to settle on a winner after the first hour the video is live, so it makes sense it would look like the thumbnail always gets changed after about an hour for viewers who saw either of the two thumbnails that didn't win.

[@agentc7020]

You ok man?

[@thecuza9716]

@@ZullietheWitch Yeah, I figured it was algorithm related. Didn't expect the process to be automated though. I just assumed it was some weird RNG manipulation speedrun tech where manually changing the thumbnail exactly X minutes and Y seconds after the video goes live somehow gets you more views for some bizarre alien reason only the algorithm itself knows.

[@arsenii_yavorskyi]

so the game's engine is so limited it can't even spawn effects at arbitrary locations? bruh…

[@tTaseric]

I mean, it's not really a game engine thing (it could be, but it probably isn't). With any game engine, it's simply easier to just place an object where you want something to spawn, and reference that in the code as like "sLocation1" or something arbitrary like that. So you don't need to remember a set of coordinates for every single thing, you only need to type "sLocation1.position" or something like that. It's extremely common practice even in the fancy modern engines like UE5. It's probably slightly less efficient for performance by a miniscule amount but that will 99.99% of the time NEVER outweight how convenient it is to do it that way.

[@pastorplays]

Love your content but I really wish you'd stop changing the thumbnail multiple times in a day. I'm really not convinced that helps the algorithm at all. Still, thanks for all the great content.

[@ZullietheWitch]

KZbin has a feature where you upload three thumbnails and the algorithm switches between them to test their performance, so they're actively encouraging it. It typically settles on a winner after about an hour, so you usually won't see new thumbnails after that point.

[@Chatisthisrealquestionmark]

lousy coding. classic Miyazaki.

[@betterlatethannever4536]

Oh, hello 30 seconds ago

[@ArilandoArilando]

What a load of jank garbage. Fromsoft should hire some more talented programmers.

[@GeneGear]

apparently it is standard industry practice. A lot of people in the comments are talking about how Blizzard used invisible bunnies in order to create "random" aoe attack patterns for players to dodge.

[@OffTheRocker]

You should apply then, since you know so much about programming.

[@nebuloxxx]

Yo I'm early!