The Lemon Sour Hour : Ep. 1 - I Don't Like Elden Ring

[@mikepartridge6396]

on the dectus medallion, you don't actually need it to progress. theres a second way up the mountain guarded by a boss which would probably be amazing to discover on your own

[@DarkeWiing]

That's what happened during my first playthrough, going up the elevator after the boss and reaching altus was one of the most memorable moments

[@hiflyby]

And the second way is through a mine, which you are incentivized to go to for weapon upgrades and is visible on your map

[@jpsecfn4322]

an npc in liurnia tells you about it too

[@augustgurtisen]

​@@DarkeWiingsame with me for finding caelid through sofria

[@Jasonwolf1495]

I didn't know about the dectus medalion. I was just wandering around and found that way.

[@GamersWeekend]

Lemon, do you really expect me to listen to this entire thing? …cause I’m gonna. Probably multiple times.

[@ThatGuyOrby]

56:00 Small correction here (small spoiler for Rennala lore half way through, beware): He dies if you give him the Larval Tear at all. The Prattling Pate is to convince him he doesn't need rebirth. Rebirth will kill anyone that does not have the Great Rune of Rebirth (that is why Rennala's room is full of crippled soulless copies of her younger self because she was trying to rebirth a perfect version of herself and went mad trying to do so because they keep dying). You can't give him the Great Rune obviously because you need it. So you need to convince him not to seek Rebirth at all.

[@Morgannin]

But she had the great rune herself. Why were her copies dying?

[@john.darksoul]

If I remember correctly you only need two great runes to progress so technically nothing should stop you from giving away the rune of rebirth except for Miyazaki's desire to make his quests as unintuitive as possible 🤔

[@ThatGuyOrby]

@@Morgannin Because she was trying to clone herself instead of just rebirthing herself. Though they call it "Reincarnation" in regards to what she was doing. Implying she was doing this to other people rather than just strictly cloning herself, pretty dark to think about.

[@Gensolink]

@@ThatGuyOrby she wasnt rebirthing herself what are you talking about

[@ThatGuyOrby]

@@Gensolink That is what's implied. It's Elden Ring, this stuff is as vague as it gets. There are two to three theories at most as to what they are. 1. Literal clones of herself. 2. Repeatedly reincarnated students in her image, they literally are all identical and are modeled after a younger version of either herself or Ranni. 3. They're just soulless students of the academy that have willingly subjected themselves to rebirth for...whatever reason. Those are the three current theories on it. Bluntly 2/3 of them are functionally the same as cloning. To argue different in being pedantic at best.

[@Necronner]

For the demihuman quest. You doomed him the minute you gave him the larval. If you read Renalas rune, you mist poses the rune for the rebirth process to work correctly. The demihuman does not poses the rune and as such will die no matter what. The pate basically assauges his doibts so he feels better about himself as a demihuman.

[@leithaziz2716]

The item you give him is the voice of his mother, the one person who saw Boc as beautifull and loved him for what he was.

[@kordami28]

What

[@Raptor747]

"must possess"

[@casual_elitist]

@@kordami28 "For Boc's quest, you doomed him the moment you gave him the larval tear. If you read the description of Rennala's great rune, you must possess the rune for the rebirthing process to work correctly. Boc doesn't possess the rune, so he'll die no matter what. The prattling plate assuages his doubts and makes him feel better about his identity as a demihuman."

[@kordami28]

@@casual_elitist haha thanks for translating to English

[@johnathenleroy7900]

I don't think lemon will see this but. I used to watch your videos to help me go to sleep. But the more I watched the more interest I became in fromsoft games. I even went and beat dark souls. Anyways recently I've been going through some tough times and something about this video reminded me of those older videos and I just had the best nap that I e had in months. I just wanted to say thank you, and that even though we've never met you mean a lot to me and I truly wish you well.

[@DoomWolfOfficial]

"My favorite invasion was the guy that left" MOOOOOOOOD lol

[@themainhater123]

hour?? lemon this is 2 hours!! and i’m gonna happily watch it all

[@Mastertorch1]

Me too

[@liambishop2460]

Bro does not know time

[@Jack-mt3fw]

Brotha can’t count 😔

[@ivanramos8152]

I think my biggest point of tension with elden ring is the quests. In dark souls, the world was set up in a way that you would progress certain quest lines just by progressing through the game and exploring naturally. Elden ring is just so big and open ended that it’s a miracle if you complete a quest line through exploration alone. Love them both to death though

[@alexkeska9300]

I absolutely adore Elden Ring, but the fact that I had to look up most things to find out where they are to progress even on NG+ while with Dark Souls 3, Sekiro and Bloodborne there was less looking things up and more doing. For certain endings you obviously will look stuff up bcos no way you're going to find it naturally, but with Elden Ring it isn't just with the ending, it's with every quest.

[@ArkbladeIX]

Idk if I'm just a brainlet but I can't complete like any quest organically regardless of fromsoft game

[@IcarusFaIlen]

I never even found ranni the first or second playthrough lol. I knew about her but I just didn't care to try and find her.

[@man-iz4ml]

Yeah, when I'm playing. There are certain things that I have to think. How the f*** would you know without outside Knowledge

[@blackbloom8552]

Overall, they needed to develop new ways to guide people toward and during questlines and instead relied on their old methods which were designed for much smaller and controlled worlds.

[@luckyomen]

Gonna start counting my hours in Lemon-hours. There are 12 Lemon-hours in the day.

[@atlasfp]

in Elden Ring's defense, when you kill Radahn, the location of the meteor is literally marked in red on the map tho

[@joeljrvanier4457]

That was patched in though. I don't think it was marked on release... I think.

[@franzluggin398]

It is now, after a patch.

[@lunarrvx]

​@@joeljrvanier4457 true however the giant meteors floating in the sky wouldve been somewhat of an indicator

[@RitzStarr]

People had trouble with that? It was stupidly obvious where it landed

[@brettf5000]

Great listen, Lemon and friends! It sounded like to me the biggest sticking points of the guys not liking it were how obtuse the "direction" you are supposed to go is and the idea of just not really finding anything REAL out in the world. I think the slider bar for "Elden Ring enjoyment" is directly tied with how much you like aimless exploration and not getting yourself tied into doing exactly one thing. Whoever said "it's not trying to be Dark Souls" hit it on the head. I remember bouncing from idea to idea I had about where to go and what to do, getting slightly new information, going back again, and just slowly unfolding bit by bit lots of different threads, and that all felt fun and cool to me. The more you don't lookup, the more fun is had. But if you have limited time to play, and you find a random camp, and two random caves, and you feel like you didn't get anything of use to you from them, I can see why you wouldn't be enjoying the experience. To put it in a different way, if Dark Souls and Bloodborne are about the combat experiences and the idea of the maps being so well interconnected, Elden Ring is at least half an exploration experience, in a much wider way than Dark Souls or Bloodborne would ever be about. Discovering a random camp and then two random caves with nothing of major consequence for you in it is supposed to make you go, "man that was cool, what else is out there?" instead of "Why on earth has nothing pointed me where to go yet?" The absolute thrill I got out of Dark Souls and Bloodborne was "OMG I FINALLY BEAT THIS BOSS!", and while that is always a bit of a thing in a FromSoft game, for Elden Ring I got absolute thrill out of "OMG I found a half of a medallion! That means there is a 2nd half out there somewhere! Where could it be? OMG an NPC told me there is a festival going on over there! I wonder where it is? Oh hey a painting! Do I need to look for this location?" almost like gamer ADD I suppose haha. All that is to say, if you don't like Elden Ring, there is nothing wrong with that, but if you are WANTING to like Elden Ring, I think it's best done in a way where you don't fret about which direction you are going and let it unfold as naturally as it can without looking anything up as long as possible.

[@luckygozer]

I don't mind the idea of wandering around aimlessly. The problem is that I just didn't really feel rewarded for doing so. Not that the reward at the end of the dungeon wasn't good for my build or whatever but that the entire dungeon didn't feel worthwhile being mostly the same as so many others with a boss that i already fought before (or with a minor twist). Elden Ring also more naturally lends itself to looking things up just because there is so much more to find and miss. A silly thing perhaps but I only discovered the weeping peninsula after exploring all of liurna. That made me feel like i missed out but also made it clear how much of a difference levels make never felt like quite such a problem in previous games to me. That also put a nasty thought in my head whenever I found something difficult of I could just go and explore some more instead. Which might not sound so bad to you but that felt so antithetical to the souls serie to me that i started to hate that. Because any fight which previously I would've looked at as they want me to get good now felt like do they want me to get good or did they intent for me to be stronger when i got here?

[@wachem3808]

i recently actually completed the game after having it for a while n it def got more lame after i had to look some things up. (i only did so after not finding a couple bosses i knew i missed)

[@mirailemon9905]

I saw sour hour then saw two hours and felt happy instead of disappointed for me this speaks volumes about your content it’s criminally underrated

[@deusexvesania1702]

Episode 1?! Does that mean this is going to be a reoccuring thing if it succeeds?? I really enjoy listening to this kind of stuff while doing something else that doesn't require much brain.

[@proto-type3201]

in my first playthrough I climbed through the ruin strewn precipe to get to altus. it wasn't completely blind because I knew the medallion existed and at the end I was like "oh, I'm in altus now?" and it was amazing

[@MorizonPlays]

On the first difference between the older games and ER: The older games are contained level-based games where the gameplay loop is 1. Do level 2. Check corners for secrets 3. Kill Boss Elden Ring is an open-world game youre not meant to check every corner or do every dungeon, I'd classify the gameplay loop as: 1. Progress on the main path until you hit a wall 2. Do dungeons and sidepaths until your character is strong enough 3. Progress main story I feel like lots of souls vets burned themselves out with elden ring because they insisted to play the game the same way as the other games and do ALL the optional content on their first playthrough

[@Terrorain]

Wholeheartedly agree

[@Quandry1]

That's where there's a problem with the design if you take it that way. Your not supposed to do everything but at the same time it doesn't give you direction on what you are supposed to do beyond a few lines of light on your map giving you a vague direction for the main storyline... except that a couple of them don't actually lead to the main storyline. And there are items for the main storyline that are basically lost in those side places. The parts of the emblem for the elevator is a good example of that. both halves are in side dungeons that nothing for the main story points you towards.

[@Terrorain]

@@Quandry1 I mean on that example of the dectus lift, I didn't find the medallions in either of my first 2 playthroughs, I went it the direction of the plateau, which the game repeatedle told me about through indicators, gideon, melina etc.. and found the dungeon that you can reach it by... which is next to the lift, only down in the water. The game does give directions for blocking parts, such as "you need great runes" and telling you to seek carriers of these.. telling you that you need to reach the plateau and stand before the erd tree etc..

[@BlackChrom3]

I wholeheartedly disagree: "you are not meant to check every corner or do every dungeon", expect that this is exactly how open-world games are designed. It is meant to invoke your desire to stray from the main path. Most open-world games reward you for exploration, finding everything of a given type, hide secrets in clever spaces and put the world before the story. And this is not only a new thing: TES - likey one of the most prominent examples of open-world design - explicitely is known for being a game many players played for hundreds of hours without even touching the main story. Elden Ring reinforces this by being extremely stingy about giving you any dropped loot at all like armors and often time copy-past bosses, enemies and also worthless loot on your main path and hiding the best and most interesting things in the later part of the game (they even give you a very "rewarding" way to use the theme of exploration to skip the first main dungeon of the castle, which again encourages exploration and not following the given path and to explore everything it has to offer). They don't incentivice in any shape or form your assumed way of playing Elden Ring, quite contrary. The only way to get anything remotely interesting in this game about various weapons, weapon art, armor and so on (even smithing bell bearings) are off the main path and since nothing in Elden Ring is communicated transparently (and often times - like in the terrible quest design - something where you feel punished for not going into every nook and cranny of the world), going into dungeons is the only way to actually get anything interesting out of the open-world (again, since the early parts of the game do not actually give you any really interesting bosses to fight against or interesting items to collect in the main dungeon). This goes so far that explicitely NOT following the main path is heavily rewarded with the one thing all Souls games have in common: Grandure and the spectacle. Just look at Caelid. Look at Hallowhorn Grounds. They actively are telling you in their presentation and design: "Go out and explore the world, not the main story, because there is awesome stuff here". Even the way to get to the end (with only two greater runes necessary) is heavily inspired by games like Breath of the Wild which doesn't work the way you describe. And this is where in my opinion Elden Ring fails miserably: It does not communicate in any shape or form that you should approach the open world differently to other games but instead follows exactly, to the point, the same design logic most of those games use to communicate "please explore and leave the main part for now" ESPECIALLY in the first few hours of the game (and even worse in a game where you have vage, missable quest lines: The fear of missing something important for even just one NPC you like), only to then not reward this exploration by duplicating bosses, having disappointing rewards, asset flipped dungeons, lazy theme design in puzzles and dungeons overall ... Like, it is funny that you say "it is not how it is supposed to be" if many of the most successful open world games (Breath of the Wild, Skyrim, Fallout, The Witcher 3, a few Ubisoft games, ...) do not suffer from those issues and explicitely do not work the way you describe. Elden Ring on the other hand is a game that wants to be an open world game, wants you to explore. Only to fail and punish you in mutiple ways for playing an open world game how most people play open world games (ranging from bad rewards, boring dungeons, duplicated bosses that ruin bosses on the main path, a level progression that makes the game easy and tedious, wast open spaces with nothing to do after you get over the graphical design awe,...).

[@MorizonPlays]

@@BlackChrom3 never before have I read a comment that was this long without saying a single thing that's true. I'll give a detailed response to the individual points in a bit

[@FaustBusserl]

My main problem with my initial completionist style of play was that I thought the many dungeons would give some big rewards or obvious plot revelations. Now I see that is not what they are there for. They seem to be what the items off the (much smaller) main path in DS1 were. I'm on my first playthrough in the late game.

[@idlemindedmage6925]

The issue with with providing a singular reward for mass dungeon completion is that it incentivizes clearing every single one which is frustrating to some.

[@ExpandDong420]

​@@idlemindedmage6925or incentivizes using a guide and breaking your immersion, either way not exactly good

[@gabrielbarnes203]

I'm not sure if it's from a more recent patch but when you find the demi human clothes guy he talks about how his mom used to call him beautiful and I think it even has a dialog prompt that if you call him ugly or something he goes aggressive so it makes the "you're beautiful" gesture more implied

[@Deneb626]

Elden Ring was my first souls game, probably beaten it 7 or 8 times by now, like 700 hours in It deserves the criticism it gets. The open world more often than not just spaces out the content. Only a fraction of the bosses are actually unique. The damage after the capital ramps up to silly levels. The best duo fight in the game involves a stationary plant. Fespite all those criticisms and many more, I still play it because I'm still finding new weapons and playstyles I enjoy. I played DS3 after Elden Ring. I think DS3 is a better game mechanically and balance wise. The thing ER does better is let you access so many weapons and spells so early if you know where to go

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

You know, I hadn't considered that... but yeah, actually. The Omenkiller+Miranda fight IS the best duo fight in the game. That's sad.

[@btarczy5067]

Wait, best duo fight? Have you forgotten about "Insert Random Enemy Pool: Miniboss" and "Insert Random Enemy Pool: Miniboss"? Still gives me C H I L L S to think about that fight.

[@savary5050]

@@btarczy5067lmfao

[@muramasa870]

Elden ring is just Dark Souls 3 v.2 with open world but worse and this is coming from 10 year fromsoft die hard fan

[@monkeyboy275bobo8]

Does that mean you can still play bloodborne for the first time? Man im jealous.

[@tytydino]

LEMON ITS BEEN TWO YEAR RELEASE ELDEN RING FIRE BOMB ONLY AND MY LIFE IS YOURS!

[@dancingcow8640]

I think the biggest problem with ER, is the ridiculous boss combos that you see. With most bosses, you have to wait around for quite a while doing nothing, waiting for a boss to finish their 45 hit super duper wombo combo, its just not super fun.

[@residentdingus]

I’m much warmer on the game since this conversation but I definitely still feel this way about the combos. It’s just absurd most of the time

[@seanhennessy3968]

And every hit can do 90% or more of your health.

[@joshuahallen06]

15:50 Technically Dark Souls 2 had a "full blown tutorial" elden ring was not the first haha

[@raiden_c1]

I feel my biggest issue with Elden Ring, as a vet of the Soulsborne series, was boss design. The way a lot of those bosses feel is they have the speed of Bloodborne, but you as a player don't have the moveset to match that speed, and I feel that stems from the game having way too much for the player to be able to do. It doesn't feel super focused. I still think the game is great, and I enjoyed all 3 playthroughs I did of it, but I will always prefer Bloodborne and Sekiro over it for how incredibly focused they are

[@parris739]

yeah… my personal issue with bosses were the feints they do before the actual attack omg its actually so frustrating when u roll a feint and into an attack and yeah it is a skill issue ig

[@aarondreyer]

I kind of agree with this. There were some bosses, malenia being the most egregious example for a lot of people. Whom are just un-killable with certain specs, I know it is far easier in elden ring than any other soulsborne game to respec but it doesn't seem fair to build a boss around certain types of damage or specs. I have never felt that in any of the other soulsborne games, it has always been skill first and build second prior to Elden ring. And it is only a minor thing even in Elden ring and reserved for only a few bosses but it still stinks a little when it occurs.

[@carlschrappen9712]

As a another Vet of the Soulsborne games, and someone who has put hundreds of hours into Elden Ring, you absolutely do have the moveset to match that speed. 99% of all boss attacks have clear, consistent ways to be avoided and punished with every build while playing solo, just as they always have in Soulsborne games. It can be tricky to get used some of those bosses/attacks, but once you do, you'll realize Elend Ring's bosses just do more of what bosses from the previous Soulsborne games were already doing.

[@dragonhunterneo1742]

This is true I have only beaten the game twice so far , but I’ve watched tons of play throughs on tulak and mango channel ( I recommend) you can beat the game with pretty much any build what matters is your skill, having trouble with a boss summon a spirit ash it’s a tool from gave you for a reason don’t gimp yourself by not using it or you have only yourself to blame, different ashes can be good for different bosses , there’s also summoning other players who have different builds than you that are willing to help another tool of the game

[@RodinDragon]

The feints were a big deal for me until I realized that they're deliberately there to stop roll spamming, and that Elden Ring teaches you not to do that very early on. How early? Margrit. I had a ton of trouble with Margrit on my first playthrough, but as I've kept playing I've realized that he's the perfect Souls tutorial boss. He has a TON of delayed attacks which deal high damage combined with high speed moves which deal low damage. This forces the player to break their old bad habits from previous games - spam rolling at the first sign of an attack and you will die. Hang back just out of range of an attack and then charge in and you'll get chopped up. You need to watch the boss, be patient, and actually move in for the opening when it presents itself. And positioning actually matters instead of just iframing through everything. On the speed thing: go back and watch Dark Souls 3. The knights on the Wall of Lothric make the Crucible Knights look like chumps with how fast and aggressive they are.

[@hotknux]

I think the only thing i would suggest to make this more interesting would be an indicator over each persons head for when each is talking since dan and colins voices can sound similar at times so it can be confusing whos talking @Lemon

[@Isaac-pd6hj]

As someone with nearly a thousand hours in elden ring, I have the issue of loving the updated and more precise combat and being a massive fan of all of the main bosses (except godskin duo and Gideon) and have done over 30 playthroughs, and I after all of that, I still despise the open world because it means that one 10 hour playthrough is 5 hours of actually having fun and then 5 hours of running to the next boss. Even with highly optimized routes that I have developed, it still takes around 45 minutes before I can even start playing the game on a new character (getting all significant items in Limgrave (Physick, dectus halves, soreseal, nights cavalry cheese, and enough seeds in tears for +4 flask with 9 charges) and unlocking necessary graces in liurnia and caelid). I don't even want to imagine what it is like for newer players who need to find required items and refuse to use some form of wiki (a playstyle I encourage for every other Soulsborne game)

[@sgtpastry]

I did that on my first playthrough, the whole going through the world blind without using a wiki. I would not recommend it for this game. For context, I only missed one dungeon and one quest out of the possible 53 side dungeons and 36 side quests. By the time I got to the Capital I wanted the game to be done. I had the same problem Dan and Lemon had, you go through the dungeon, fight a boss that you have fought dozens of times before, and get a trinket that would be great for another build but not yours. It made exploration tedious and not very rewarding, which, to me, is a core tenet of a souls-like. The main dungeons were a blast though.

[@Isaac-pd6hj]

@@sgtpastry I think it would be helpful if there were lore tablets outside of each dungeon telling you what you might find within. Maybe a dungeon that drops a sorcery could have some cryptic note about some sorcer who left behind something important so that casters would know to go in that dungeon and melee builds would ignore it.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

Interesting. I would consider Elden Ring's combat to be *less* precise, because of how much more freedom you have to make mistakes while still recovering from those mistakes without being punished. I am curious on your thoughts on the main bosses, because it's such a different perspective from my own. To my mind, the only actually interesting boss fights in Elden Ring are Rennala and Rykard. Everything else is just the same fight on repeat. Fast and aggressive with long reach melee and a handful of ranged tech and massive mid range AoE attacks, ad nauseam. Rennala and Rykard being long range fighters are pretty much the only exceptions to this rule.

[@Isaac-pd6hj]

​@@dontmisunderstand6041 Funny how we have such opposite opinions on this as I find Rennala to be a pain to fight (80% of the battle is running after her, and phase 2 just has to summon that literally forces you to disengage), and Rykard is a boss that I respect as being good but personally find annoying to fight (2-3 of his attacks are borderline unavoidable) and I could never really figure out when in the game you are meant to fight him (the boss right before him godskin noble is wayyy easier from a leveling standpoint). When it comes to the main bosses, my favorites are probably Radagon, Godfrey, and Maliketh (perhaps because they are all extremely fair), and I despise Gideon, Fire Giant, Godskin Duo, and Elden Beast for the exact opposite reason. There is also Malenia, who I find very, very fun to fight, but at the same time,e Waterfowl Dance and Scarlet Clone are both such insanely difficult to dodge (90% of my deaths on RL1 were to those moves), and I wouldn't consider either of them to be reasonable attacks. Mohg is a really fun boss... for everyone except me. I find him to be a very good fight but just not one I enjoy much. In response to your comment on "everything else is just the same fight on repeat," I think this statement requires more explanation for me to agree with it at all. The main bosses have drastically different movesets and techniques to fight them. You have to be careful around Maliketh and wait for him to come to you VS when fighting Radagon, you have to just go go go at him the entire fight if you want to succeed (you literally cannot dodge his triple ring attack without being right next to him). When fighting Godfrey, you go back and forth with him, building a rhythm and following it closely back and forth and back and forth VS Mohg, which is an endurance fight where you have to think strategically to avoid walking into any bloodflame while slowly working your way towards him.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

@@Isaac-pd6hj What you're describing as the things that annoy you are the ways those bosses force you to approach them in a different manner than every other boss in the game. That's why I think they're interesting.

[@MorizonPlays]

45:12 this moment was apparently even too cryptic for the devs as they, at some point after launch, added a red marker to the players map after the meteor hit the ground

[@flannaz3769]

That was there at launch

[@ChristianKnight-1054]

​@@flannaz3769I only saw the red marker to find the bestial sanctuary and the mountaintops of the giants.

[@mangoalias608]

38:09 the pot he's talking about is in an extremely dark area, and it glows 41:20 that castle is usually the first one players go to of the two, because there's an npc outside of the mistwood right next to the starting location who is yelling out for the player to help him. that npc tells you to go to his fort, where you find the medallion half 45:02 did you somehow miss the part where right after this cutscene it says "a red mark was made on your map"? 52:12 he's talking about Millicent's questline. when you give her the unalloyed needle, she falls asleep. RIGHT NEXT TO HER is a grace, and if you rest at it, she wakes up and you can continue 56:08 everyone's already explained this to him, but yes, Boc is dead as soon as you give him the larval tear. the clues to doing his questline right are in item descriptions, which is where a lot of this lore and explanations that these guys missed are. Rennala's great rune, which lets you respec, explains that the rune allows you to be reborn properly, and anyone who doesnt have it lives very short lives. additionally, the prattling plate that says "your beautiful" says in its item description: "Twisted clay sculpt in the shape of a demi-human head... Unconditional love. Unrestrained assurance. It must have been a mother speaking." Boc mentions multiple times in his quest that he misses his mother. this is pretty obscure, so it makes sense that he missed it, but he's comparing one of the endings of a questline where your seamster dies to letting multiple key npcs in the demon souls nexus die. its doesn't have the same impact on gameplay, but its one of his main points. 56:36 the point here is that these people don't have the time to find all the obscure parts of the game to complete it. my problem with this is how much they compare the world design to the first dark souls, which was also very obscure. at the beginning of the video, one of them explains that he couldn't figure out where to go in dark souls without a friend's help. and yet, they all show so much love for that game, and so much hate for elden ring. it feels like theres a large bias in play here 58:00 i think he just doesn't like open world games these guys make a lot of valid points, but it pissed me off how many times they say that the game "never" told them what to do or where to go. if they missed these things, i can't blame them. its a big game. but you should be able to figure out where to go if you explore even just a little bit, and it feels like they didnt even try

[@luckygozer]

From reading other comments the red marks where only added in a later patch.

[@AonDuine077]

@@luckygozer If that happened then it would have had to been super early on. I got the game day one and the mark was on my map a few days later when I beat Radahn if memory serves.

[@luckygozer]

@@AonDuine077 Quick google search out of curiosity tells me they got added in path 1.05 june 13th while the game released feb 25th.

[@connorstaggs1691]

On the medallions... did it ever occur to you to read the item description?

[@theAshesofDecember1]

I also had some gripes about elden ring compared to other souls games. It made me realize that it’s the structure and level design of the other games that makes the challenge worthwhile.

[@chukyuniqul]

It also feels more intimate. The moment you add a jump button, a table is no longer an obstacle, but just background furnishing. So much of dark souls is densely packed in a wonderfully tight world design where everything(steps, barrels, corners to turn, small gaps in the floor) gives places a sense of space. Elden ring simply HAS to make things so much bigger lest the design become irrelevant. It feels...empty.

[@marioplumber3378]

personally the open world just made making builds far more tedious, a average build for me if i speedrun it (which is all the time because this is elden ring) takes like 2 full hours before i can even start playing...

[@albertosara416]

nailed it with that, the open world experience made for fun world and interesting mechanics. however it just gets tedious after a while when it becomes a very long back and forth trying to remember what's where, which places you haven't checked, where should you be heading to. played like 120 hours and was just making to the capital with my character when i just got burnt out

[@leithaziz2716]

Something Elden Ring showed me, and that made me appreciate Dark Souls 3 and Sekiro, is that I really value good pacing. I feel like half my time with ER was just running through the map, collecting items (most of them not contributing to my build), and not feeling like I was doing anything meaningfull. Elden Ring has a cool world with lots of lore, but it didn't do a good job making me invested to care about what I'm doing in the first place. I'm still not sure why it failed to do that, but Fromsoft has made settings I've gotten invested in before, wether it's Dark Souls, Bloodborne, or Sekiro.

[@ZorrotheArtist]

I like Elden Ring’s open world and art style, it felt like a painting. It was fun and very immersive to me. I’ve replayed the game 5 times on separate saves, one pure strength, one pure faith, one dex/faith, one str/int, one dex/int/arc (This is my favorite as it allows me to use sorceries and the Darkmoon Greatsword, while still having good scaling on things like Bleed Katanas in the case of “Okay, this guy is fast, I’m gonna need to be fast too”) and one pure intelligence. The difficulty really varies depending on the build and I appreciate that as it makes the game really replay-able for me. I think the easiest time I had was pure intelligence because duh, it’s a pure intelligence build, like 95% of the spells are ranged options, 3% are buffs and 2% are melee spells. Not to mention that you have access to Meteorite Staff basically at the start, and that’s a staff with S-Tier intelligence scaling meaning that even spells like Glintstone Pebble will remain useful through out the game. I think the moment the game really just clicked for me was when I went to Stormveil Castle and tried to go through the main-gate, eventually dying and losing all my Runes. After that, I listened to what the dude in the room next to the gate said and took the side path. That’s when the exploration just clicked in, instead of brute forcing myself through an area, I took another route and it was fun as fuck.

[@KingNin64]

For Radahn's meteor, it explodes (showing you it landed), Blaidd tells you exactly where it landed, AND it gets circled on your map. How could you miss that 😭

[@sagacity1071]

Plus big floating rocks

[@arbiter771]

Iirc the circle part is newer. Most of the quest markers and helpful map markers weren't added originally from what i remember, like D marking the portal on your map that takes you to Gurranq

[@Morgannin]

I killed Radahn before getting the quest from Ranni or even meeting Blaidd, so I had no idea the hole was even there until I warped back to Limgrave for unrelated reasons and saw the floating rocks.

[@RodinDragon]

I'm pretty sure there was a tell on your map after it happened. To be fair, I did completely fail at spotting it and only found it while exploring Limgrave on unrelated business. It's also not actually a required area unless you're doing Ranni's questline, and you can access every underground area other than Nokron by other means.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

Every quest segment in the game is telegraphed by simply paying attention. The issue is, the map is too large. Finding the actual questlines is an ordeal unto itself because the map is big for the sake of big, at the detriment of the gameplay experience AND the story.

[@callofdarksouls]

This was a great podcast and a lot of gripes I have with ER were brought up. Hope to see more episodes in the future

[@Aluc1d]

Great discussion. Is there a way for you to highlight which avatar is talking during the video? It is just a nice additional way to follow the conversation on screen.

[@NY-nx9es]

My biggest gripe after playing through ds3 is that everything deals half my healthbar in one attack come endgame

[@sasaki999pro]

Have you tried leveling ADP- I mean Vigor? In all seriousness though, the damage spike post leyndell is outright atrocious, there is literally no reason for it. the enemies have enough fast and elaborate combo attacks that simply boosting their own HP to match the players AR progression is MORE than enough, once you hit the mountain tops of giants the only new enemies are mini bosses from earlier in the game, theres an entire spot that has nothing but Zamor Heroes copy pasted everywhere. Theres no defense progression in the game at all, you cant upgrade your armor, and even the best sets cap out at about 40% negation which just means that enemies can kill you in 3 attacks at 50 vigor instead of just 2. Honestly I'd say its WORSE than ADP, because there is literally only ONE solution to the problem.

[@man-iz4ml]

​@@sasaki999proAnd even worse, like people actually seriously trying to say. O Just level vigor and ignore the fact that you are basically forced to level a stat. Wasn't that frowned upon with adaptability? Have we just gone full circle.

[@geneallen4711]

@sasaki999pro UM AKSHUALLY there IS defense progression in the game! 🤓 And its AWFUL. Its all based around consumable items and buff stacking just so they could artificially populate the open world with "useful loot". Literally half the spell roster in the game is just over bloated with stat boosting effects, and you BETTER make sure to know the god damn difference between Body, Aura and Unique buff types otherwise you're gonna spend half the game wasting runes, fp and crafting materials on buffs that overwrite eachother with jackshit in terms of indication on what effects stack together. AND YOU BETTER MAKE SURE TO TRACK THOSE SIDE QUESTS, SCRUB. Oh did you kill Rykard early? WELP there goes boiled crab and bullgoats, better luck next time!! And those "elaborate attack combo's" in the end game? Yeah have fun dealing with those while keeping track of your buff durations, gotta manage all those timers like they're ability cooldowns in some sweaty ass MOBA, cuz y'know thats what the Souls games REALLY needed, more League of Legends!

[@oscaranderson5719]

what really rustles my jimmies is the ridiculous poise they all have (at least when I was playing, I remember rumors about PvP/PvE balance splitting which sounds like its own bugbear 😅) and the fact they throw like 20 healing flasks at you and expect you to swig one every time you get hit by a 70% HP attack. just increase my health and reduce my supply, I ain’t here to simulate crippling potion addiction. it’s so terrible how it interrupts the flow of a fight by forcing you to run away and drink one, which only makes it worse if you get hit again while you’re drinking.

[@genesisosuna]

you would never get past limgrave at RL1 lol. As much as I hate using this term, this really does sound like a massive skill issue.

[@V.I-Sines]

As someone who has gotten platinum and logged 550 hours on elden ring, i feel like it is a one and done thing. And is best played once without touching ng+. I feel the game is fundamentally different from the other souls game in that you are encouraged not to grit your teeth and kill the boss, but to explore and kill a few weaker bosses and enemies until you level up enough to fight it. Don't get me wrong you absolutely can grit your teeth and bash your head against a challenge, but in my experience it's not satisfying, and i felt like i just completed a chore. The caves and mines didn't feel very unique, with a few exceptions, and often weren't very challenging until higher levels, and had very similar layouts and styles. The evergaols were interesting at first, but i rarely felt the rewards past limgrave and liurnia were worth it. I wanted to use the weapons i liked, but sometimes it would increase the fights length by several minutes and felt like a waiting game. Some bosses felt like they were designed less as a fight and more as a cinematic showcases. Some moves (not super common) you legitimately cannot avoid in certain spots without raptor of the mists and vow of the indomitable, and rely on positioning and preemptive dodging like noble presence. And in a game where hitboxes are tighter than ever, you can't hit bosses with certain weapons like fists or knives because you get pushed away by invisible barriers. I don't want to be petty, and i have really tried to love this game, but i have problems with it that i can't always say are from me not knowing a boss well enough. I liked my first playthrough of the game, and will ultimately walk away from that positively, but i cannot say anything past that has felt like anything but a chore. And that there was something missing from the experience for me.

[@suemeade2471]

Some of those evergaols are very rewarding. Roundtable knight vyke gives you vyke's dragonbolt which is one of the best damage buffs you can give your weapon. I was on new game +4/5 I think with less than 500 hours and I was level 380 I think so you really found almost everything you could.

[@V.I-Sines]

@suemeade2471 which is why i said rarely rewarding. Vykes armor helps me to do a soul of cinder like cosplay, which is cool, but i can only think of a handful of evergaols that give you things equal to or greater than the bloodhound knight sword or crucible tail incantation

[@leithaziz2716]

What rubbed me the wrong way about evergaols is when I found out one of them just casually recycled Godrick and pretended it was a completely different character. Chalice Dungeons in Bloodborne aren't the greatest thing ever, but they can house some unique bosses that aren't in the main game, and it was cool to discover that. Most bosses and even enemies didn't feel all that fun to for me to fight, mainly because it always felt like you were playing at a disadvantage and not given universal tools to even the playing field (overpowered spells and spirit ashes are a bandaid solution to the balancing issues). Bloodborne had rallying and universal parries, and Sekiro had deflections, more mobillity overall and no stamina. Meanwhile in Elden Ring it feels like you're fighting Bloodborne and Sekiro enemies while the player is stuck playing Dark Souls.

[@imperialspacemarine1539]

@@leithaziz2716 but to be fair to from soft they were a releatively small dev team for a game of this AAA scope. i mean look at what from soft made: Dark souls: niche game; sekiro: niche game; blood borne: niche game and PS exclusive; Armored core games wich were to my knowledge all exclusive to playstation. while most definately wouldnt call them an indie studio they were not an AAA studio either. To cut budget, workload and overall save precious time some recycling just cannot be avoided. i mean look at the erdtree avatars: they are sped up and reskined versions of asylum demon from ds 1. dont get me wrong im not saying that the recycling is good but to compare the likes of elden ring to predecessors like sekiro or bloodborn doesnt do the game any justice. all previous fromsoft titles were a) linear to a fault. there was no unnecessary map design to fill in gaps in between points of interessts. and b) the previous titles were compared to the size of elden ring but a tiny glass of water. Both these points together mean that it is by far easier to make every single boss absolutely unique without inccuring extra costs, workload or overall time spent. and just to point out Elden ring has 104 bosses in total. out of these bosses i think 74 are completely unique. that already is insane compared to previous titles. especially considering that most if not all previous title are just as guilty of boss recycling as elden ring. but as I said because elden ring is a lot bigger it also means the recycling is far more obvious. Godfroy is still a stinker though.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

@@leithaziz2716 Well, Godefroy isn't quite Godrick. He's Godrick's phase 1 but with fewer attack patterns.

[@graydarkwhite]

It's an older video, so you probably won't see this, but I really think this should be brought back. Just hearing you guys talk about this is really interesting ❤

[@TheBacklogs]

Soon (tm)!

[@graydarkwhite]

@@TheBacklogs yesss

[@devinanderson3354]

Elden Ring was my first FromSoftware that I played and I've platinumed the game. It actually sparked a love of the series and I've done a Bloodborne and DS3 playthrough since and had a blast. As a totally new player, I really appreciated how since so much of the game was open, I could go find something to practice on and learn my timing and my weapons. But I can see as a veteran of the series, that sort of breadth and scope can be, as TotalBiscuit put Skyrim one time, "An ocean with the depth of a puddle"

[@-opus]

Sounds like it is time to put your big boy pants on and get into Dark Souls 2

[@dirkdiggler5902]

What’s your take on Bloodborne??

[@devinanderson3354]

@@dirkdiggler5902 I actually just started replaying it for a second playthrough last week. It's probably the one of the three that I've played that's sunk it's teeth into me the most. With my very limited scope, I feel like if I were recommending games to start getting Soulsborne, it would be second to Elden Ring (Or first if they tried Elden Ring and didn't care for it) Having so many healing potions allows you to make mistakes and not be drastically punished for it like you would be in Dark Souls 3. And they give those things out like candy so if you make a mistake on an approach to a boss, you can go stab a big guy and get 4 real quick. And I am sure this ones pure personal preference, but being so heavily rewarded for -aggression- just helps me learn the difference between smacking my sword against something and punishing an attack.

[@dirkdiggler5902]

Top man

[@savary5050]

@@-opusI seriously do not understand why people have decided that DS2 is actually a good game. It’s really not.

[@brentramsten249]

1:51:00 ish: not knowing what the hell is going on 'is' the intended experience. these games feel is based on miyazaki playing games in english that he doesnt understand and him delving into it as much as the language barrier allowed him to. there is a correct, coherent answer (this statement is the least true in elden ring of all the souls games, but still...) but your access to that is intentionally restricted. not all games are for all people, i think we should all keep that in mind lest we start suggesting that games be changed for people who shouldnt be playing them in the first place, and who would have a lesser experience regardless, and which would come at the expense of those who would love it most

[@ThatGuyOrby]

Elden Ring is simultaneously both my favorite and least favorite of the Soulsborne line up. I love the style of everything, the feel of the combat is great almost universally, the lore is fucking phenomenal like seriously I'm in love with the game's world and history, and the magic is the most diverse and interesting as it has ever been (Crucible Incantations are my favorite), and I do like the sheer variety of viable playstyles like back in DS2. I love most of the story significant bosses. However, there are *a lot* of things I hate about the game. *Spoiler Warning for those who haven't played through the game in it's entirety, read at your own risk* 1. Enemies overly abusing pseudo input reading 2 The cranked up hyper aggression of a lot of bosses 3. The way that bosses can seemingly randomly start or stop or even extend a massive combo string that only the best would be able to completely avoid (which isn't me, I've played all the games so that makes me a "Veteran" but I'm still average all things considered) 4. I despise the fact that they stuck with the Bloodborne/DS3 system for armor/defense. I *liked* being able to upgrade my armor and directly invest into my tankiness outside of just pumping HP. Armor should actually function as goddamn armor. This fashion souls nonsense is legitimately ridiculous to me. Just because a few people want to look good that somehow justifies heavy armor being about as useful as tissue paper? Fuck that. There used to be good reason to wear heavy armor, now it's mostly just fashion because even the lightest armor can get comparable Damage Negation with buffs. When fully buffed the difference between the heaviest armor and the lightest is like 10-15% and the heaviest armor requires like 50 END minimum to wear effectively if you're using a weapon that isn't particularly light. 5. Conceptually I like the Spirit Ashes, calling the spirits of the dead back for assistance is dope, but I hate their implementation. Some are too powerful, some are useless, they require a very annoying to find resource to upgrade that differs depending on if they're a "renowned" ash or not. They also are just blatantly too good against some bosses. Some bosses live and die by how you manage their aggro and having a strong ally to keep aggro when you need to heal or to make openings for you to do damage is VERY strong. 6. I hate the lack of covenants that make PVP more or less non-profitable in any way that matters. 7. I hate the way invasions are set up so that 90% of the time you're going to be getting a 3 on 1 gank. 8. I hate how they basically rendered Poise irrelevant in this last patch ala DS3 completely ruining any point Heavy Armor still had after they neutered Defense back in DS3 and kept that god awful absorption system instead. 9. I don't like Malenia's boss fight, just full stop. There's nothing about it I find enjoyable and not just because it's difficult. I think a lot of her mechanics are cheap and only exist for the sake of artificial difficulty because they hyped her up so much in the promotion. Some of her attacks are fun and intuitive to avoid. Then there's Waterfowl Dance. While I'm alright at avoiding it now just because I can deal with it does not mean I think that it's a good feature. If you remove that single attack the boss gets substantially easier. I don't think the difficulty of a boss should be dependent on a singular move. Oh also the healing, I don't particularly like that either. It wouldn't be as annoying if she didn't heal regardless if you fully blocked her attack or not but alas that's not the case. Malenia at her core is an alright boss that's been dunked in two of the cheapest artificial difficulty tweaks I've ever seen. 10. Conversely my favorite boss, Morgott, is woefully under tuned for the point at where you fight him so while fun as hell he stands out as just a speed bump if you do any amount of exploring off the intended path. They could unironically double his stats across the board and I wouldn't mind. His poise desperately needs buffed, his HP needs majorly buffed, his defenses desperately need buffed, and his damage could use a slight tune up. I mean on my first playthrough I beat him in one attempt just because I had the gall to explore a bit and came in apparently vastly overequipped despite no conscious effort to do so at all. This is the only time this happened in my first playthrough. 11. The absolutely absurd damage spike post Leyndell. Everything does roughly 2-3 shot damage unless you are running a very defense/buff heavy build. 12. Destined Death. Enough said. It makes Maliketh, an otherwise enjoyable fight (second phase anyway, Beast Clergyman just isn't fun in my opinion) just patently unfun and directly punishes anyone who enjoys using shields to any degree like a guard counter heavy playstyle. Oh you blocked all the damage of that hit? Well too bad, there goes a quarter of your HP regardless because Destined Death. Anyway, overall for me it's a hard game to rate. I love it and hate it. It's my favorite and my least favorite at the same time. It's just in a weird spot for me on my rankings of the series.

[@BloodyAshes]

Completely agree

[@ThatGuyOrby]

@@asdergold1 Yeah I agree on almost all of these points honestly, though personally I feel that Morgott can still stand a Stance buff regardless. He can be fast when he wants to be but there is often a lot of down time between when he usually is which makes him very punishable. Also just on a common sense basis. For reference has the same exact stance as Malenia (80) despite not getting Hyper Armor, being give or take twice her size, having an absolutely ripped physique under his cloak. Omens are also infamous for their ridiculous strength in the lore. It seems odd to give one of the strongest Omens to ever exist, and a literal Demi-God Omen at that, the same stance as a half rotted away woman half his size. Just seems a bit strange to me is all.

[@ThatGuyOrby]

@@asdergold1 That's a fair point, guess I just wish my favorite boss fight in the game lasted a bit longer XD

[@seanhennessy3968]

They should just be honest with us and remove shields. They basically did it in Bloodborne. Why be coy here?

[@mathewmontavon9079]

Blind playthroughs are a hell of a thing. I set myself with with rewards. Took my high level tunes in DS3 and Bloodborne to my favorite bosses, beat them and set up another round with each while the Elden Ring was downloading, then promised myself I wouldn't touch them again until I was satisfied with my ER character. Then I spent 3 New Journeys making a tune that I liked playing.

[@arl4693]

To be clear, Elden Ring is 100% absolutely not a "Dark Tower" scenario. It has no ties whatsoever with the Souls series other than sharing thematic elements as a result of being made by the same studio, similarly to something Sekiro. The example given of Basiliks is just a resuse of a popular and iconic enemy from the Souls series, reskinned to fit a new world.

[@dummbobqqqqq]

I feel like much of Lemon's points would fit all Souls Games in general and he just knows the ins & outs of those already. So many little tweaks and easy starts you can find in those Souls Games...and Elden Ring is no different.

[@philliphorton3541]

i just started the video so i cant properly agree entirely. but the first negitive they talk about it litterally having to look up stuff to complete quests or find items and that is such a HUGE part of every souls game where you just never know anything and that has always been a part of their game design so i dont know how theyre saying thats an elden ring specific problem

[@chef_boysauce4399]

@@philliphorton3541I completed Seigmeyer’s and Anri’s quests in Dark Souls 3 without looking things up, all Bloodborne’s sidequests without looking up anything and saved most NPC’s. All of DS2 and a couple of DS1’s. There was like 2 or 3 in sekiro and I was only able to do The Rejuvenating Child without searching the web. I couldn’t do ANY in ER because some of the npc’s next locations are near inexplicable, and when I did find them, I either could figure out what the next step to do was, or their quest straight up broke and never got patched until way after I beat the game. ER it’s hard to do because they can go so many places. Alexander says I’m heading east and then instead of taking the logical beeline to Caelid from he’s found he goes south a bit and then into a tunnel. I found him by accident unlike 90% of npcs in previous games. He was the only quest I finished besides Ranni.

[@alexkeska9300]

​@philliphorton3541 I looked up waaaaayyyy more things for Elden Ring than I did with Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne and Sekiro combined. Due to it's open-worldness it's harder to find where something is while the rest of the games were more linear.

[@livviegoat]

@@philliphorton3541 In their defense, I would argue that it's a bigger problem for Elden Ring than any of the others. I read the Dark Souls wiki's because i wanted to. I read the Elden Ring wiki because I felt like I had to in order to not get bored. I used the Dark Souls wiki to look up lore, see all the cool weapons and armor sets, and maybe find a boss fight strategy. I used the Elden Ring wiki for that purpose too, but I also spent waaaaaaaaaay too long trying to puzzle out if certain dungeons actually had items inside worth my time or if I should skip them entirely.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

Elden Ring is poorly balanced, and that's the real difference. If you make every mistake possible early on, Dark Souls 1 still is relatively friendly. You are encouraged to learn from your mistakes instead of simply suffer for having not known everything you needed to know beforehand. Each individual mistake made at any point during your character building in Elden Ring adds several hours to the playthrough. The gap between the strongest and weakest builds in DS1 is small, to the point of maybe a 10% difference in game length due to difficulty between builds. The gap between Elden Ring's strong and weak builds are absolutely massive, to the point that a strong build can 100% the game faster than a weak build can beat the game at all. FromSoft may be bad at PvP balance in every game, but their PvE balance is usually fine. There is no real meta in DS1 because all builds excel. Elden Ring, you're running bleed or str, or sucking at basic PvE.

[@kerozseventiel4383]

I feel like the whole thing with elden ring and why it seem like quite a few people seem to not be convinced by it is, funnily enough, because it's it's yet again, the souls experience, but put in a situation that expose it's issues. the genre is more than a decade old at this point, and in that time, other games have come out, which often improved key aspect of the genre. Like, look at nioh with it's tighter combat and most importantly, A PAUSE BUTTON. So yeah, Elden ring coming out with the same list of key feature as each previous souls without much improvement and the issues get exacerbated by the new open world things just ended up being a harsh return to reality. I'm gonna get crucified for what i'm about to say, but idc: the franchise is filled with games that are solid 6.5/10, that bring new idea but with many issues, but that have a charm that make you see it as a 10 is you vibe with it. it's the same thing for MGR, as a beat'em up, it's pretty mid design wise, but if you get charmed by the zandatsu, you forget all it's issues. the soul series is exactly like that too. and i hope the slap many fan felt with ER push them to ask for more from fromsoft instead of letting them sit in their ivory tower

[@studiogimli7645]

hardcore agree especially with MGR, its a decent game but people talk it up way too much i think lol

[@kerozseventiel4383]

@@studiogimli7645 Well, with MGR, people don't start praising it's gameplay as revolutionary except for zandatsu. what people praise is the story, the music, the messaging, the good stuff. on the other hand, i've seen souls fans defend the whole not having pause thing by saying thingsd like "it's just up to you to choose your priorities. if your bladder come first then don't complain you loos eprogression" i really wish i was kidding on that one

[@numbersbubble]

I feel like the use of a jump button really harmed the level design. they can't just simply block off an area with a fence or boulder. now they have to add entire walkways that lead no where important and made the level design bloated and boring.

[@BaronSterling]

As a lore nerd, one of my biggest gripes with Elden Ring is that any and all good lore is only present in content that was removed from the game. Miquella being Saint Trina? Removed. Kalé discovering the Caravan sealed underground and going mad? Removed. The sentient mimic tear that wants to become you to fulfill the Noxian's goal of creating an artificial lord? Removed. Once you realize how 90% of the deep lore people talk about in Vaati-esque lore videos isn't even in the game, you realize this game's story, lore, and worldbuilding are BARREN compared to every other Fromsoft game.

[@lettuceprime4922]

Oh hush. Millicent, Yura, Varré, Rogier, & Sellen provide plenty of sick lore &, most importantly, actually work within the context of a game. As cool as Kalé's cut screaming is, really seems like most of that quest is just finding him in different spots, & there are plenty of quests like that already. Also I wouldn't be shocked if Uncle Rico got cut 1- because the Dream Mist mechanic didn't work the way they wanted & 2- the connection is there but laid out way too explicitly for the developers. The base game already has an orgy of evidence that Miquella == Trina.

[@thefebo8987]

I really hate that someone like vaati talks about cut content like it would be canon. Videos about the lore are getting more and more away from the game itself.

[@holcomx]

It’s not their fault they didn’t have enough time to implement them. You can already tell they were short on time with other things in the game. The point is that it was going to be in the game and would have been with more time. Be thankful that those ideas were at least developed

[@mercuryshadow5445]

Great name for the Podcast, not sure if it was just stumbled upon, but very catchy! I love the concept of your debut. I have very mixed feelings towards ER, particularly the last third, but I could also say the same for DS1. The issues i have are very differrent though. The last third of Elden Ring have a massive difficulty spike, particularly in co-op (i was a guide for 3 different buddies doing DS1-3) Everything from Godskin hits like a truck and just punishes every single mistake. The linearity of the Dark Souls series makes a big case that not ever game has to be open world. It makes me wonder if the next step in however many years will be a FromSoft MMO on a Subscription basis, because its the only way they can really go any bigger

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

I wouldn't call Elden Ring's jump a difficulty spike. It's purely numerical. The enemies aren't harder, they just have absurdly high stats. DS1 is more of a true open world game than Elden Ring. The last half of Elden Ring is a hallway. DS1 has the decency of opening back up after it funnels you into one direction for a short period.

[@Frrongg2Tooadd]

Never been a fan of podcasts... but this, THIS I can get behind. Love ya Lemon

[@jonniesaur]

Awesome video as always. I was thinking the exact same thing “its like ds 1 all over again” and I can’t express how good it is to hear you’re gonna give it a second shot. The games just a “harder” but it only has to be as hard as you’ll make it for yourself. Using summons, “over-leveling”, and any other tricks aren’t something you should need to feel bad about. The game, and especially the lore are just spectacular but can be a much slower burn. Best of luck man!

[@slaygoblins]

I have over 500 hours in elden ring and i still have fun every time i log in.

[@Denali187]

I have 400 hours in total in Elden ring, and I can say that I only started having fun after 40 hours, and for me, its a masterpiece

[@juliofoolio2982]

I have almost never used the summons. You can level them up and you can get as little or as much help as you want. If you want the summon to win for you, yes there are only a few that can do that. Also, there are many weapons with many different stat requirements. Also there is plenty of runes without rune farming. I have never rune farmed, when you move to the later areas and get tons of runes.

[@Morgannin]

The discussion on summons around the 1:15:00 mark basically sums up my issue with the balance of the game entirely. It's not just summons where you realize that "meta" is superior to creativity by a frustrating margin. Granted, my first build wasn't terribly creative, but getting to the end of the game, struggling against the veritable gauntlet of bosses by that point, and finally giving up and summoning other players just to watch them nuke the final boss in seconds because they had "the right build" was incredibly discouraging. At that point the only novelty the game has left is to challenge yourself to beat it with the anti-meta weapons, spells, etc. because all sense of fulfilment for coming up with my own build is lost when I know that it won't hold a torch to the established ones that trivialize the game.

[@1stCallipostle]

I don't get this take at all. I don't see why the broken stuff existing is discouraging at all. I consider it a crutch, throw it in the trash, and go back to doing whatever I want. They're a worse player for using it, you're not a worse player for not finding it.

[@Morgannin]

@@1stCallipostle It's the appeal of finding your own way to optimize your build, that, for me at least, is just made substantially less appealing when I learn the build is just naturally going to be inferior to "the meta." But it does leave the door open to just saying "screw that, I'm choosing this build and will challenge myself to make it work," but it made the struggles of my first playthrough much less satisfying when I learned I pretty much did the least optimal thing I could have, through no real fault of my own, just because of the way the general game balance was skewed.

[@RodinDragon]

Isn't that true of all Souls games though? Dark Souls 3 meta when I started playing it was Straight Sword R1 Spam, but I never felt compelled to use it there either. DS1 had broken fast rolling, but my favorite way to play that game is still as an uber-tank who fat rolls. Same's true of all the games except MAYBE Bloodborne. I've found Elden Ring in general to have a much higher build diversity than any of the other games.

[@Morgannin]

@@RodinDragon Sure, but it's getting worse as the games get bigger. Particularly in, say, spell variety. There are probably dozens of spells in Elden Ring that just never get used because they're terrible, but a new player who is trying to find their own build won't know that until they find and try all of them. Might not matter to everyone, but for me, the first few playthroughs of a Souls game were made more interesting by the discovery and learning process of trying new things. No game is perfectly balanced, but putting the time and effort into Elden Ring just to find I've made nothing but bad choices for my first build, without having any reason to think so, was incredibly frustrating. I'm sure that's why they made respec-ing more accessible, but that just feels like a cop-out, and I felt disinclined to change my build on a first playthrough because changing it halfway through would leave me unfamiliar with my build and weapon choice and such, as the difficulty was continuing to escalate. Take it for what you will. More than anything, I found the absolute scale of the game made these kinds of problems exponentially worse than they were in any previous Souls game.

[@RodinDragon]

@@Morgannin I can definitely see that, and it's a perfectly fair way to feel. I just tried a Frost build which totally faceplanted when I realized that the Frost stuff kind of sucks unless you build it a very specific way. I would definitely feel really bad trying that on my first playthrough, or something really janky like a Bloodthorn mage. On the flip side I've found the situation with spells to be much, much better than it was in past games. Trying any Sorceries other than the basic Soul Arrow type spells in any of the previous games (except maybe DS2) was an exercise in frustration. Sorcery in Dark Souls 3 was a joke unless you wore a very specific set of non-matching armor and rings, and even then most of the spells were not viable. With Elden Ring there are still a ton of crappy spells, but the sheer volume means that there are a lot of GOOD spells too. And not just good spells, but innovative and cool ones too. As an example, the various Dragon Breath spells get a lot of crap if you read about them on the Wiki, but master them and you can bounce fire around corners and up stairwells to do massive damage. I did another build where I was only allowed to use "magic weapons" like Loretta's Longbow and Gavel of Haima, and that build absolutely slapped. That depth of possibility is what brings me back to Elden Ring over and over again. There are still so many builds I have yet to try, and none of them would count as meta but you can beat the game with all of them. Fromsoft still suck at balancing weapons and spells, but the sheer number of them means you can find a lot of really fun stuff to play with. They've also been much better at buffing weaker builds (like the aforementioned Dragon build) than they have been for any prior game. But yeah, I can definitely see how it's frustrating to try and play blind and then run into something that just doesn't work.

[@elymistv8557]

This may come off as unfair because I had to pause after the 1:10:00 or so, but I wanted to write something regarding how Dan's ideas come across. The big one for me that highlighted this was the Rune farming. "If this is the only answer" as one of the reasons Dan quit the game was an idea that Rune farming was the "only" solution to overcoming barriers in the game. This is uh, just not true? Outside of people who complete ER and other FS titles at SL 1 or BL4, there are other tools at your disposal. Elden Ring probably makes accessing different options one of the most apparent and available compared to any FS game to date. So something feels unthought through to leverage problems with the game as a whole to someone not problem solving themselves (or tapping into resources). I can appreciate that this whole conversation is individual perspectives and is totally subjective, and that's fine of course. But I kind of get that vibe that both Lemon and Dan approached Elden Ring in a few select ways, those ways posed challenges, and quitting was the alternative to trouble shooting. The firebomb run was another good example of this-lots of challenge runs exist already in ER and not all of them "require" 165 boss kills. Yours didn't either, similar to in how some DLC fights in other games became too barrier ridden, you could move on from these bosses too. Like I said, maybe if I watch the whole thing you both tackle this in someway, but it kind of got grating to hear "I can't problem solve it" so "this is a flaw in the design" or as Dan put it, "you can't have it both ways" (when discussing linearity vs openness in design).

[@residentdingus]

Honestly don’t remember for sure if it’s in this conversation or not, but when I was struggling the most with plateauing in the game, it was shortly after it came out where a lot of answers online were “go farm runes and come back”, whereas now there is much more information and strategies available. So, it’s a but of an outdated critique at this point. BUT I do still feel that the rune awards are often not nearly what they should be for what it takes to get them.

[@man-iz4ml]

When it comes to the other resources, you'll mainly mean. Switching weapons or switching stats cause if it means so that could also be problematic. Because, well, it could just not be fun. And if your example is Go f*** off somewhere else and just come back stronger. Isn't that kind of just Rune farming but with extra steps.

[@residentdingus]

@@man-iz4ml well, yes and no. My issue at the time was that the common recommended method was to go to a low-risk/high-reward area and rinse-repeat it until I could level further, which was not fun. It was only much later and having more free time to sit back down, do a little research, and approach the game differently did I get over the hump. It's silly in retrospect, but I still maintain that probably due to the sheer size of the game and the whiplash of difficulty peaks and valleys, it's much tougher to determine the best path to take next in comparison to other open worlds.

[@man-iz4ml]

@@residentdingus The main thing I want to ask is. What do you mean, do a little research?

[@residentdingus]

@@man-iz4ml just some weapons, items, or things that sounded cool. this is after i took a year away from the game and wanted to ease back in and approach it more relaxed.

[@darianclark3980]

My main issue with Elden Ring is the Bosses. Way too many Bosses that are just Minions/outside enemies with more HP.

[@orangechicken2262]

That is a complaint but the only way to make such a big game not have this problem is to spend more time, not every boss can be a god

[@leithaziz2716]

@@orangechicken2262 That begs the question of the world needing to be as big as it is if you have to fill it with recycled content to make it seem alive.

[@synthraofficial5366]

​@@orangechicken2262Then don't make the world so big just for the sake of it. Problem solved!

[@studiogimli7645]

​@@orangechicken2262smaller map, less dungeons, less bosses, better dungeons, better bosses

[@nexemisroguelikes234]

The Same Deal was brought up with Breath of the Wild and Skyrim so this is isn't even a valid complaint.

[@dididi3368]

45:15 after beating radahn after the cutscene of the star shooting across the sky bliadd is standing there near the grace and you can talk to him and he tells to head over there and tells you thats where he's going, he also uses the name of the place thats on the map.

[@Skenjin]

Really sad that you couldn't find the fun, since for those of us who did it was hundreds of hours of a great time.

[@ThatGuyOrby]

1:21:29 Oh that block thing is actually a friendly gesture by the way (unless it's done like after a kill, then it's disrespectful. Like a wave after killing an enemy, which itself is only second to the point down after a kill in disrespect), basically like waving hello without actually having to sit there and do the emote. That goes way back to DS1 PVP. There's a whole unspoken code of conduct to these things, it's complicated honestly and not really relevant.

[@AaronCorr]

Elden Ring would rival DS3 for me, if it wasn't just so god damn big. It takes sooo long to get to the fun parts. Finished my 4th run and am absolutely burned out. Meanwhile I finished DS3 and again and again until I had around 460h

[@manjackson2772]

And that's funny because that's the general complaint about DS3 compared to DS1. 3's linearity means the early levels can feel like a slog you're struggling through to get to your build.

[@AaronCorr]

@@manjackson2772 I always saw it as natural progression towards maximum power. But I also never strayed into late game areas in DS1 to get cool stuff early.

[@Gensolink]

@@AaronCorr trying a luck build I honestly got bored at the game because luck infusion is locked until you can reach irythill. Honestly I really dislike having to fetch stuff to suddenly being able to put lightning on my weapon especially when physical build dont have to wait so long to get going

[@gaiance]

I really enjoyed this. If I had any criticism it'd be that I really wish there was a visual indicator for who was talking at the time. Hard keeping track of all of ya, even your voice, Lemon.

[@ians7184]

Have you tried "Lemon's Sour Hour"? It rolls off the tongue better

[@joshuahendrickson8694]

I actually got COVID the week ER was released. I put 50 hours into it in the first 5 days, and had a blast. I do feel for the people who didn't have the time to really explore everything though, as that feeling of discovery was my favorite part of this game.

[@connormccarthy2745]

Lemon, consider trying the Convergence mod! It changes the way that dungeon and world boss rewards work, as well as adding tons of new classes with unique starting locations and notes suggesting where to go for gear. It's a phenomenal rework of the systems that addresses a lot of the issues you have with the game.

[@sand_sand7304]

Also a dark souls 3 version!

[@TheTeKaDon]

As someone who's going through convergence with seamless coop, shits good, really really good, it makes you want to find every single place just to find new goodies

[@Pooxk0045]

45:15 blaaid tell's you and even if you didn't talk to him still they put a mark on the map of the place that the meteorite landed

[@TheBacklogs]

They put it on the map NOW. They didnt at launch.

[@kevinlemon3467]

I found your conversation about the lack of runes really interesting because I farmed less in Elden Ring on my first playthrough than any other From game, but I also would describe my first playthrough as ADHD the game. I went in a direction and looked at stuff and then saw something interesting and did that and then got distracted by something else and did something else. I was far more interested in exploring than completing the main game or beating every boss and as a natural consequence to that, I did almost no farming. By mid-game I almost always felt over-leveled. If there is a farming heavy souls game, for me, it's Bloodborne and not because you need to grind for levels, but because you have to buy blood vials. I cannot tell you how many Yharnamites I've squashed with a flaming boulder or weird waxy students I've melted because I need blood vials.

[@Gensolink]

that's because I think they intended each dungeon to basically net you a level up or two as you explore them, well if you do intended exploring at least

[@skilletborne]

My most fun playthrough so far was the only one I ever farmed the monstrous raven in Mohgwyn Palace. The game never feels like it's rewarding me enough for the trouble I'm going through when I explore. Wow, thanks, another dex weapon or a spell as a reward for another copypaste boss after a tedious dungeon on my Str character. 1 level up for my troubles in a game where you're looking at being level 140 by the end.

[@ArkbladeIX]

I've fisted so many pigs I'm bound to be on a healing church watchlist

[@kain7219]

This is late. But you shouldnt need to farm blood vials that hard? Quite a few enemies drop blood vials. The axe guy in the first area drops them and so does the guys carrying bricks and tree trunks. If you have to farm for blood vials it seems you get hit more often and avoid some enemies.

[@Soumein]

1:08:00 Margit - When I got to Margit, I felt like my damage was fine; I just couldn't understand his moveset. I don't want to grind to the point my attacks do 1/5 of his HP. I'd dodge roll the sweep and still get hit. The magic sword never fails to hit me. The only move I can consistently avoid is the mega jump hammer time, and I can't even see him during it. Then I find the magic shackle, but it doesn't work on phase 2, when I actually need it. I've beaten him 3 times, and by that, I mean I've assisted Rogier in beating him 3 times. The game keeps telling me to do Jump attacks to stun him, and it just never happened, or he'd dodge every time I try. The game looks and feels like the previous games, which I haven't felt this way about since the sudden shift from DS1 to 2, but even then, I managed. There's clearly something I don't understand.

[@residentdingus]

The most consistent success I’ve found starting with margit onward is using summons and/or spirit ashes. Not because they’ll necessarily do a bunch of damage for you (more often than not they won’t), but it keeps the bosses off your jock enough to learn their movesets and sneak in some hits. There’s a hefty amount of bullshit with just about every main boss, but it is much more manageable when you take advantage of the help.

[@Soumein]

@residentdingus I kind of recognize that's what I'm not accepting: the game is built around getting help. Rogier can stun Margit down on his own a few times per fight, maybe with my relative chip damage, and free ripostes. When I got to God... rck? Dragon arm guy, I auto summoned the Npc without a first attempt, and we beat him 2nd try. Bur I couldn't tell you a single thing about the attacks other than blowing fire at one point. Later, I was against a misbegotten and crucible knight (knights with dragon tail attacks?), and there is no way I could to get rid of the misbegotten before crucible knight without summon ashes, but I think I was a bit underlevelled. Reflecting on those 3 boss fights, I felt like the npcs were doing 70% of the work, and I didn't feel like I was learning them. Maybe some day I'll use cheat engine, and reduce my and enemy damage by 50% so I have more time to learn them

[@黒上悠子ちゃんネル]

@@Soumein i really hope you two realize the game is not made to be played with summons, you are just a bit bad (margit is extremely far from "bullshit")

[@Soumein]

@user-sg7rl8be1s as I said, I don't understand his moveset. If I'm bad, the game didn't make it clear what I was supposed to do. Jump and heavy attacks? Seemed whenever I tried, he'd dodge or smack me out of the air. I literally cannot anticipate or react to the light dagger. Mind I've played all 4 Souls games, bloodborne notwithstanding. I can understand From's designs. I know they're always obtuse. But this game is the one that it's preventing me from enjoying it. Elden ring feels extremely similar, but it's not working for me. Whether or not the game was made for summons, that's the path of least resistance. And I don't like it, because it feels like I don't matter, that I'm not learning whatever square block that isn't fitting into my triangular hole of a mind.

[@-moyo-]

my personal gripes with elden ring are: invasions: it is almost every 15 minutes when you’re trying to co-op. Mostly that problem is on the steam version. no covenants: there is no incentive to invade besides to be malicious, and the reward is a rune arc which is something everyone totally uses all the time. rune arcs: I’ve found them to be mostly useless, I’ve only ever seriously used morgotts for the health boost when I bothered to get it. I pretty much use it as an ember. Music: most boss themes are just a lot of choir background. With very few being instantly recognizable, and the one i actually can hum along to is the godskin bosses. godskin duo: like ornstien and smough, but they knew the journalists wouldn’t get that far so they never bothered to make it fun. I did find the summon npc and that makes it feel possible. post-capital: they scale the damage numbers way too drastically as soon as you go to any area past the capital, also probably since they knew journalists wouldn’t go that far. Bosses: some are designed more for the lore or the spectacle than being balanced. The one that does it correctly is ones like rahdan, who definitely looks like he deserves the ability to one shot you from orbit. Melania: the first fromm boss I’ve encountered that I gave up on because it just stopped being fun, and knowing that even if I were to win, it won’t feel rewarding. I have beaten the game, I still can say the game itself is fun, and the seamless co-op mod is the best way to play it with your friends.

[@RedGalbot]

The invasion problem is a direct result of Fromsoft listening to people complain about pvp. Everyone complained about getting invaded when playing solo so they made it only happen in co-op to reduce the complaints of it being unfair. But there are a ton of players who enjoy invading, so they're all funneled into the same few co-op groups.

[@Isaac-pd6hj]

I would add on that once you get into 10-20+ playthroughs most of your time is spent going from one boss to another as you already know exactly what is required and what routes to take but said routes are just increadibley long due to fromsoft expecting players to stop and explore the areas along the main path and not just go straight to the next major boss.

[@leithaziz2716]

While I would not call the PvP experience in any of these games polished enough to be considered "great", I think DS3 put the best effort in trying to make it a fun thing. You had covenants for goofing around (Moundmakers), assisting people as sunbros, invader-hunters and a cool covenant where you're essentially the boss to another player as a Spear of the Church. you had great PvP spots like Pontiff's arena, and the way Poise worked made it so that the person who strikes first could armor through, which felt fair.

[@studiogimli7645]

being able to become a blood knight, mohgs cut NPC role and getting the crazy eyes, it feels like they were gonna do covenants but killed it later

[@genesisosuna]

​@@leithaziz2716you're actually out of your mind. Ds3 combat is full of laggy straight sword artorias gankers whenever you invade. And this wasn't an issue on my end. For some reason the servers specifically on ps4 were absolute garbage. Also later on the games lifespan, people who abused the bow glitch to be unscaled phantoms to gank with their buddy host, made it unplayable. Just getting two shot by a level 600 havel monster with a dark lothric knight straight sword at soul level 120 with like 40 vitality. To me ds3 had the worst pvp experience, apart from the horrible mess that is ds1, with all the cringe backstab fishing, insane spells, insane stun on weapons like the murakumo or insane damage on fast weapons like a gold tracer. Aside from that, ds3 pvp is a close second. To me, it is clear that you never really dabbled in ds3 pvp all that much.

[@BenSi10]

This is great, do more of this. Perfect background noise for work etc. Now that I've established that I love this; Parts of this hurt me to listen to LMAO. I have around 600 hours in the game, and every once in a while something factually wrong was said and I was losing my MIND over it. Fantastic content, keep it up!

[@anthraxplus498]

"radahn is the daughter of a mage and a king and he learned gravity magic-" bigender radahn was never something i considered, but im totally here for it

[@procow2274]

3:00 kind of generalizing there. I can think of plenty of fromsoft games where you can hear npcs just fine

[@danielgonzalez6609]

i do like elden ring but i also dont put it in a pedestal like everyone else, its good game maybe even great game but its not best thing ever like everyone says it is

[@danielgonzalez6609]

@fliegerabwehrkanone yeah exactly, nostalgia is a hell of a drug, they are hard but that's back then now it's hard but not that much

[@GearsofCoss]

Great podcast even though I'm like 10 months late, started up a DS through elden ring playthrough to get ready for the dlc coming out this month. I absolutely love Elden Ring and feel like it's something I can pick up and play whenever, but I think the reason I didn't see the issues you guys did (totally valid points, btw) is that I just enjoyed the combat/world so much that every time I played it, it was more of a relaxing exploration with no real goal in mind other than what I came across in the world. It lets you just pick a direction and go, and if you aren't rushing to anything in particular, you'll find that there's plenty all over the map to discover and explore entirely at your own pace. Find a cool area with tough enemies that you can't damage enough? Just mark it on your map for later and go find another place to explore until you feel ready to tackle that challenge. Anyway, hope you gave it another shot, Lemon, and if not, still love all the DS content!

[@IBRA360HIMYT]

I know this will be great before even watching.

[@JadenIttanenn3]

Something that popped into my head while watching this, in regards to the Rune/souls Acquisition. My Friends and I never ran into that problem, we never framed or seem to have a problem getting more. but then I thought back to the previous point, Where Lemon had said that this is a community styled game. And I realized that my friends and I had played with a max party. We where doing everything three times... seems odd but it could it be that was the intended play style of the game? why things cost what they did?

[@billbob8510]

Boc dies if you give him the larval tear period. You need to use the you're beautiful before you give him a tear so he accepts himself

[@Rufiowascool]

Holy shit you're past 300k subs - I remember when you were like...2k. Amazing and SO well deserved.

[@TheBigbum1974]

Its interesting hearing the complaints, since they sound like issues I originally had with DS1&2. Glad to hear your thoughts! Just a guess, but I feel like the point of difference between like and dislike is how much someone likes to explore a digital map. Learning the map is probably the part of a souls game I like the most. The feeling of making a sprawling area into my digital backyard that I know the ins and outs of. I'd hazard a guess that many people who have had issues with ER don't appreciate having to backtrack through areas in search of key NPCs and items. I don't appreciate it, but for me its kind of a peaceful way to get loot and XP. Also, the Fast travel and horse are there for a reason and that reason is to be able to flee anything you don't want to deal with right now. I'd say anyone looking to enjoy Elden needs to really think of the game as its own thing. Don't expect to be able to blitz it on the first go. In a lot of ways I approached it like my first successful DS1 playthrough. Slow and steady, accept outside help (wiki, forums, friends), and know that a 100% playthrough isn't happening first time through. My VG vet status was only helpful in determining how I approached stuff, not how I beat it. For example, when I hit Margit and died 10 times, I shrugged, turned around and played 5 hrs bouncing around the map before trying again. I didn't assume he was a hard skill check, I theorized that my 1st time would need the right gear. A little flexibility and an appreciation of the world, not just the bosses, is what allows me to see ER as a phenomenal game. Anyway, just found this channel about 2 weeks ago. Really have enjoyed it and am glad to see someone else who appreciates Salt and Sanc. so much. Best of luck on the next FireX only run and

[@BIGSTANK12349]

Thanks!

[@windflier1684]

it's pretty brave for anyone who actually step up and says they don't like elden ring, everyone I saw doing that got massive backslash and seriously attacked, it's really a breath of fresh air

[@sambony94]

Love the new podcast, only input I have (and I realize it may mess with editing a bit) is some sort of onscreen effect to show who is talking at that moment. I've got an issue where often voices blend together which makes it difficult at times to tell who is talking. Otherwise, I love it!

[@tylerlee8531]

Dark souls 2 is still my Fav in the series idc

[@tylerlee8531]

@@asdergold1 It's by far the most beautiful imo

[@gaszwyn449]

@@asdergold1 This is so true. Honestly I fucking hate it when games try to have things like "s" and "8 way rolling". Like wtf!?? Dark Souls is supposed to be HARD. I thought I was gonna vomit when Dark Souls 3 didn't have any big rooms full of rats with boss healthbars. Honestly can you believe that it doesn't have POWERSTNCING??? I had a heart attack playing Bloodborne when I realized that you didn't have to walk through a big gauntlet of shark giants appearing out of nowhere every time you wanted to fight Orphan. Truly miyazaki is a dumb hack only good game he made was demons souls because it has the iconic boss Adjudicator

[@tylerlee8531]

@@gaszwyn449 ok

[@gaszwyn449]

@@asdergold1 Glad you agree with me fellow peak souls 2 bro

[@AxeBum]

This was great! I'm looking forward to the next one :)

[@TomiLumi]

personally one of my issues with elden ring was how easy it was to just skip parts of questlines on accident and then be really confused on what to do like when i was doing ranni's questline on my first playthrough your suppose to met blaidd in siofra river well but because i already "cleared" that area it skipped that part of the quest entirely and i spent hours looking around like a idiot for an area i might have missed then i got fed up and looked up what to do to find out that it was possible for it to skip that part of the quest if you already explored siofra river or maybe im just stupid and couldn't find him

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

Blaidd is never in Siofra at any point.

[@matthewjacobs2991]

Pretty sure I cleared it before doing Rannis quest but he's in a really out of the way place. Though if you activated a future part of her quest I imagine it would advance. So there's probably variables at play. But I could easily imagine people not finding him in Soifra

[@DerCrawlerVomUrAnus]

This was great, listened to the whole thing on my commute to work and got really into it, even started driving in the slow lane so I could spent more time listening to this. Loved the different opinions and respectful conversation and the consesus you guys reached at the end. As a Dark Souls veteran myself I definitely see why you had some gripes with Elden Ring but also understood the positive arguments. I myself really enjoyed the game but just can't find the time to play it again, because of job and life issues which just chip away so much of my time I would like to play games in. I'm definitely gonna listen to another one of these during driving because it really keeps me busy instead of just blasting my ears with music for hours on end. Great job! Looking forward to the next one!

[@PressContinue]

Ah now this is interesting

[@DIMOHA25]

Not really. I got 2/3 through the video and pretty much none of the complaints are resonating with me at all. I definitely got a couple of my own, the game isn't perfect, but it's definitely not the things they're talking about.

[@DerSchnaiter]

Really enjoying this format, hope you do more of it :)

[@dirkdiggler5902]

45:00 Yeah... the game puts a huge red mark on your map and literally tells you to investigate it 🤦🏼‍♂️ This is an Elden Ring critique from three people who’ve barely played the game!

[@TheBacklogs]

It puts the mark on the map NOW. That was apparently added in an update down the line.... guess we weren't the only players that couldn't figure it out :)

[@OGTrashPanda44]

ONLY JUST SAW THE "podcast" section please do more of these!

[@horizonbumpy2828]

18:30 actual elden ring talk starts here

[@pievancl5457]

Sometimes I feel like I played a different game than the people who dislike this game. I hear the critiques, and some I def agree with. But the highs in this game were so absolutely high for me, it out weighed most of the negatives. Also, Elden Ring is one of the absolute best first time playthroughs of any game. The sense of wonder exploring the lands between is almost peerless. It’s earned it’s place as a masterpiece for me just off of that first blind playthrough alone.

[@ThatGuyOrby]

1:14:20 Expanding a bit on this point about what summons are viable late game, here are some suggestions if anyone is struggling (these are all going to be Renowned Ashes as they are the only ones I've tested). *Spoilers for the best Ashes in the game, if you care about finding that stuff out on your own please stop reading here* Keep in mind these are based on actual combat performance, but also have a heavy dose of my own opinions. 1. Mimic Tear: Obviously, as was stated here it's still probably the best Ash in the game if you have a strong build but it's not necessarily the best for every situation. Most HP for an Ash (give or take 10,300 at +10), you can customize it's build, if you invest in buffing incants you can essentially make it immortal, but...he's dumb as a box of rocks and has a tiny aggro range before he'll come running back to you. 2. Black Knife Tiche: Also a very infamous Ash and for good reason. Her Destined Death attack does percentage based HP damage and temporarily reduces the enemy's Max HP effectively double dipping on damage dealing. She's also very nimble, fast, and dodges often making her very hard to hit. The downside is that her HP is very, very low (only about 6,300 HP at +10). 3. Ancient Dragon Knight Kristoff: He is the objective best out of the standard Knight type Ashes. He has the highest HP barring Mimic Tear (give or take 10,000 at +10, for reference this is unironically almost double Lhutel's HP at +10), he has the highest Defense barring Mimic Tear, he has an amazing greatshield which helps him tank even more, his spear does pretty good damage and has good range, he has the Rejection Incantation and a shield bash which will knock down most humanoids for crowd control, he has the Thunderbolt Ash of War on his Spear which he can spam against enemies at long range for good damage and stagger (it also buffs his already hard hitting spear with Lightning). The only downside is that his behavior is...temperamental. Sometimes he's the most passive Ash in the game, other times he's on the war path full Terminator style. It really just depends unless you invest in Cursed Blood Pots. 4. Banished Knight Oleg: Probably the single most aggressive Ash in the game. Very good against faster enemies with low stance. Also good against enemies that flinch easily as he will flinch them with basically every hit if they're susceptible to flinching (I.E Malenia). If you think an enemy can be stunlocked, he's the guy to test that theory with. His damage is not spectacular but he hits so fast it makes up for it quite a bit. His pros are that he's insanely aggressive even without Cursed Blood Pots, has a relatively high HP pool (about 8,500 HP at +10), staggers and flinches enemies easily, has decent defense so that alright HP of his goes further than you'd expect. Weak to enemies that don't stagger easy and that can break his stance in return. Engval has almost identical stats (slightly higher HP, about 8,600 HP at +10 that's really not enough to matter much) but a harder, but slower, hitting Halberd. He can easily fit this slot as well. 5. Blackflame Monk Amon: Relatively high HP (about 8,400 HP at +10), solid defense, heavy hitting mace that does a lot of stance damage, blackflame attacks which do percentage based damage to enemy HP, has a few ranged options with said blackflame attacks. My only gripe with him is that he's quite slow and that overall despite his mostly lacking any serious drawbacks he just tends to not perform as well as the others. 6. Latenna the Albinauric: This one is highly conditional, because she's only useful if you intend to keep aggro meaning you have to be aggressive the entire time because she will not survive if she accidentally takes aggro. She has among the lowest HP pools out of any ash (about 2,800 at +10) and has next to no defense. If you can keep the enemy aggroed on you however she does immense damage and has homing arrows which will basically never miss. 7. Redmane Knight Ogha: The seventh and last Renowned Ash I'd recommend for anyone entering the late game. It's important to first note that I put him at the bottom of the ones I'd recommend because of his quirks, not because he's necessarily the worst of these ones. First things first he is a primarily ranged Ash. He spawns in with a gravity magic infused greatbow and pelts enemies from a pretty impressive range, knocking down any humanoid hit (he's often used to cheese Malenia because of this in fact). However, when he gets close he's still a Knight enemy so he's far from a pushover. He is very aggressive when he pulls out his sword and shield, he self buffs with a war cry every now and then, he uses Lion's Fang which flattens all humanoids with ease and has hyper armor, his HP is on the higher end as well (about 8,200 at +10), his defense is also alright meaning he can take a few more hits than you'd think. His main drawbacks are that he starts with a bow out regardless and takes a moment to switch even when getting bumrushed, he is susceptible to more aggressive enemies bumrushing him as he does not have a lot of poise or stance though he does a lot of poise/stance damage himself so he can deal it back as well, his long range aim is far from perfect. He's very accurate but he's no Latenna. Now let's move onto Ashes I genuinely don't recommend, at least not for late game. 1. Lhutel the Headless: I know this is a controversial one to say not to bring into the late game but hear me out. She is a spear and shield type Knight exactly like Kristoff so she has the same basic moveset, instead of a lightning strike attack that rarely misses Lhutel has a spear throw that is very prone to missing and does less damage, Lhutel has only a little over half Kristoff's HP (5,700 HP at +10 vs 10,000 at +10), her spear's deathblight buff does not effect enemies at all, her teleportation while it makes her more survivable goes against the point of the role she's supposed to play. Hold aggro and tank for a less aggressive player. Kristoff is just better than Lhutel, I'm sorry. 2. Omenkiller Rollo: This one hurts because I love Rollo...however...Decent HP (about 7,200 at +10) but low defense, highly temperamental AI, attacks do high Stance damage but little actual damage later in the game, he likes to spam his backwards walking breath attack which does very little damage and puts him very far away from the boss meaning you're probably going to take aggro. His bleed build-up on his main weapons while nice is very low and depends on his AI playing ball with what you want him to do on any given day. No ranged attacks besides the breath at all. The biggest sin is that you find him AFTER the Capital though. You have to beat a good 3/4 of the game to get him and he's really best in the first half of the game. Very cool ash, but by the time you get him you have much better options. Sorry Rollo. 3. Bloodhound Knight Floh: This one only applies to the mid-late game. Floh is alright early on but quickly gets her wings clipped by her terminally low HP for such an aggressive Ash (only 4,700 at +10). Damage is similarly lackluster, defense is also not great, her speed will not save her from the late game's massive AoEs or wide sweeping attacks. You have a low damage, low hp, low defense, aggressive ash that's going to get bodied by anything in the late game very easily. Heck in testing she severely struggled even to do much to the first Draconic Tree Sentinel. Even before Leyndell you have much better options.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

Black Knife Tiche is by far the best ash in the game. It's not even close. It's the only one that can solo every single boss fight. She can beat Malenia in a 1v1. She can beat Rykard. She can beat Radagon and the Elden Beast back-to-back. She's a monster. She's the only summon that is guaranteed to be stronger than you no matter what. Mimic Tear's strength is directly proportional to how OP your own build is. It's only strong if your build is strong.... and it will always be a weaker version of you. Otherwise there are dozens of superior options. And even if you're using the strongest possible build, it's still only 2nd or 3rd strongest. Rotten Stray is absurdly strong. Don't underestimate it just because it's a "normal" summon instead of a legendary summon. This is the one that's probably 2nd strongest.

[@ThatGuyOrby]

@@dontmisunderstand6041 Yeah no, literally nothing you just said is true in the least. I tested all Renowned Ashes against all the Remembrance Bosses several times and by far her performance ranged the most wildly. Some times she did fantastic, other times she got steamrolled by bosses she shouldn't have had a problem with. A lot of the times dodging directly into attacks she was trying to avoid. She is also not the only Ash "guaranteed to be stronger than you no matter what". Her HP is mediocre, her Defense is mediocre, her dodging AI is only good against enemies that lack any form of AOE, her AI will often spam the dodge instead of attacking, she is highly temperamental when it comes to using the one and only attack that makes her a viable summon in the late game (sometimes she spams it, sometimes she never uses it), and finally her damage without Destined Death is mediocre. She is not the best Ash, and she only ranked as high as she did because of her best performances. Late game her mediocre HP pool is just too much of a liability for all the AOE attacks. Also across 10 attempts even at +10 never has Tiche even once beaten Radagon and Elden Beast and she has not once even managed to beat Rykard's or Malenia's first phases let alone their full fights in my testing regardless of whether cursed blood pots were used or not (they make your summons hyper aggressive on the marked target for the duration of the effect). Mimic Tear is also just objectively the best when it comes to survivability, again the damn thing has 10,300 HP at +10 regardless of your own stats. That is literally over 3.2x the Max HP achievable in the game with 99 Vig, Crimson Amber +2, Erdtree's Favor +2, and the Crimsonspill Physick. The only things worse about it are damage which is roughly 1/2 to 3/4 your own and the fact it's dumb as a box of rocks. If it's running an even half decent build it will perform as good or better than any other Ash. Also *I literally prefaced it that I only tested Renowned Ashes* and you're coming in here talking about normal ones. Like bruh I made it clear from the start that this is only for Renowned Ashes. I have a job, I don't have time to test all the normal ones in my off time.

[@ThatGuyOrby]

@@dontmisunderstand6041 To put this in perspective she did not beat a single boss post Morgott (save for Gideon). Granted neither did any other Ash (again, save for Gideon) but it wasn't like she did much better than the others listed among the recommended ones. Rykard, Niall, Fire Giant, Maliketh, Placidusax, Godfrey, Radagon, and Elden Beast all rolled her. Reminder that she got 10 attempts at these guys just like all the others. In actuality among the 7 Renowned Ashes I put above she did the second worst against Fire Giant, Maliketh, and Godfrey.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

@@ThatGuyOrby I get that you don't know what you're talking about, and that's fine. Not everyone can be an expert in everything.

[@ThatGuyOrby]

@@dontmisunderstand6041 Oh so you're one of those kinds of people. The ignorant who think they know everything are so amusing to see in the wild. I literally tested this, what have you done to prove anything? Probably nothing. Default profile picture lookin' ass XD Let me put it this way... 1. Been playing since literal day 1, first hour. Literally did that timezone switch to New Zealand trick with my xbox to play it as soon as it dropped. 2. 2,000+ hours in game 3. Beat the game 12 times across six different characters 4. Unlocked all the achievements within the first 4 months of the game being out 5. Have literally every piece of equipment, spell, incantation, and summon in the game. Everything that can be upgraded is either maxed out or one off from it. 6. Tested all Renowned Ashes against all remembrance bosses a total of 10 times. The first five times were on their own, the last five were buffed with all the best incantations that buff allies. Tiche only has a reputation for being a good Ash because of her Destined Death attack which she doesn't even use half the time. She's not the best, get over it XD

[@LeperFriend1837]

Souls vet here. Though ER has problems, I tend to have a difficult time going back to the older fromsoftware games. Because ER made buttons other than R1 and dodge useful. There's powerstancing, heavy attacks breaking posture and guard counters. Blocking is useful. I don't mind the repetition of bosses and dungeons (as a monster hunter fan and someone whose played all the soulsbourne games many times over, I don't really have the right to dislike it). But the repetition of combat over 12 years has kind of run its course. (original Demon's Souls is still my favorite so I biasly play it still) Though a lot of your problems are non-issues for me, different strokes for different folks. 99% ER challenge runs are boring anyway.

[@lordham4191]

I like the podcast! Keep them up!

[@badboybalin]

About the lift of Dectus. I finished the game relatively blind except for side stuff when getting my platinum. There’s a path that allows you to get to leyndell without the medallion which I found by scanning the map and staring at the same three hundred pixels until I noticed a path.

[@tinminator8905]

There also like 3 different NPCs that tell you that path exists. There is a 3rd pretty hidden path that only patches tells you about and he doesn't specifically tell you it is a path that can lead to altus.

[@raouflilxpx5691]

nice channel i watch the old vids for the nostalgia

[@alanjames1484]

38:45 the all-knowing if spoken too at roundtable hold will task you with eliminating her and tell you where to find her

[@bonkaddicct8620]

Lemon you're SO SO SO SO SO SO based for looking at and being open to other people's perspectives! Literally thank you so much and I can't wait for more of this series!

[@stingerjohnny9951]

All very good points Lemon. However: Toblerone

[@TheKeyblader133]

I think the main thing that has made Elden Ring so pleasant for me as someone who has bounced off the 3 other from soft games that ive tried is that I can just... go wherever feels right for me. Which is very much a factor of me being able to take my time with the game. But it has let me get over that hurdle of getting comfortable at my own pace. Rather than what tends to happen with souls games where I hit a brick wall and there isnt much else I can do (which isnt totally accurate to what options I surely had). But, for as excessively large as Elden Ring is, I genuinely appreciated just being allowed to get lost in the landscapes. It is a shame that it has issues that make it hard to commit to, but I'm honestlu just grateful to actually be having fun with a fromsoft game for the first time. Bloodborne was my favorite of the few I played and even there I struggled to really feel like I was grasping it (not to mention that I don't handle the horror-elements very well). I won't be surprised if I reach a brick wall, but considering the numerous times I've laughed from experiences playing in ER, it has been a complete delight.

[@Foogi9000]

On the one hand i like the world of Elden Ring but on the other i hate it because the size lead to so many copy-paste dungeons and reused bosses with abysmal rewards. I wish that the game was more focused and linear while still preserving the open world. I also think that they put in a lot of spirit ashes as filler for the dungeons. I never used even a fraction of the spirit ashes available to me.

[@xenoMorten]

I've never wanted to be part of an episode of a podcast before, until this. The overwhelming positive talk about Elden Ring was a bit weird once you got into it. The most important experience for me was, as was mentioned, that I got interested in trying some of the other games, games I have only briefly touched. Doing this made me realise that Dark Souls 3 is a much nicer experience than Elden Ring. I also have had a hard time figuring out if I would actually recommend it to someone else, and right now I am on a very fragile "yes, but...".

[@sablen1319]

Elden Ring would have so much replay value if it didn’t require 5 hours of tedious running per playthrough. Don’t even get me started on having to collect upgrade materials… I did love my first playthrough of Elden Ring though.

[@CaptainFanta07]

So personally for me I noticed the flaws at Malenia not because she was a genuinely bad boss like Deacons or Witches but it was definitely when I realized how little fun I was actually having while playing this game I can’t really place why but I was just pushing and pushing myself to get through the game, it was just a complete slog from beginning to end and I actually prefer open world games most of the time, idk BloodBorne will forever be my favorite game of all time but I think elden ring might be at the very bottom of my favorites list

[@leithaziz2716]

What makes me sad about Malenia is that the team knew how to make agile bosses like her a lot more fun to fight. Sister Fride and Lady Maria are much more successful examples of what Malenia was going for. They attack a LOT, but you're able to completely shut down their offense with any strike, since they have no armor and stagger instantly. This made it so that the player always felt in controll of the fight. Malenia being able to approach with hyperarmored attacks discourages that playstyle, and Waterfowl Dance exists. She would legit be more fair in Sekiro where you can animation-cancel attacks and could parry Waterfowl.

[@davidrw67]

I prefer dark souls 2 out of the dark souls games and I honestly dislikes dark souls 3, that was before I played elden ring and I feel like it’s the worse souls like game I ever played

[@CaptainFanta07]

@@davidrw67 honestly darksouls 2 is overhated definitely my second favorite behind Bloodborne my only gripe is that I didn’t enjoy most of the bosses but the combat and world design more than made up for that

[@suemeade2471]

@@davidrw67 then you should give noih one a go and have a really bad time. None of from softwares souls likes are bad, there are many dreadfully worse ones out there.

[@CaptainFanta07]

@@leithaziz2716 in all honesty as much as I hate Malenia I full heartedly believe if she didn’t have such unbelievable hyper armor and poise she would have been a lot more fun imo and yeah I agree on that Maria and Friede are awesome Friede particularly is one of my favorite fights in the series and definitely atleast top 10 of all time for me

[@kurtwagner307]

Nice I been waiting for this. To bad I gotta go to work now. Oh well I shall enjoy this after work. Looking forward to listening to this!

[@relativedepression4604]

Managed to beat Kalameet while listening to this podcast! This episode will now make me mad everytime I replay it