#see also: mimic tear fight in Elden Ring

[krawkpaladin]

Minor Plot/Gameplay Spoilers for Baldur's Gate 3, Act 2 below the cut, but it's mostly discussion on the mechanics of a specific encounter with some plot.

So when you enter the temple of Shar by the House of Healing and get down into the Gauntlet of Shar, there's a gauntlet (heh) of trials you have to go through in order to get these magical gemstones to be used later, pretty typical "test of skills/character" stuff. There's a lot of cool things you can do, including scouting out the rooms if you pick the locks before starting the challenge, disarming traps in advance, that sort of thing. One of the challenges, however, is called the Self-Same challenge and is... a clone fight.

If you've played a lot of CRPGs or JRPGs (or lots of other games, say hi Ocarina of Time!) you've seen this type of gimmick fight before. The party (or character, if it's a solo deal) is confronted with a clone/dark reflection of themselves that is a perfect copy in every way and you have to defeat the clone(s). The in-universe intended solution to this sort of gimmick combat is generally superior skill/tactics, but D&D 5E's combat is swingy enough that even superior tactics can't save you from rolling a fat 6 for damage on Guiding Bolt only for your clone to turn around and hit you for 30 damage at a time when you likely have a max HP of around 40. On top of this, your clones have several additional abilities that you normally don't: like many Act 2 enemies, they turn invisible when not standing in a light source, they are immune to being pushed/moved around, and they are immune to spells like Hold Person. The last component of the fight is that you receive a stacking debuff (-1 to all ability scores until your next long rest) from attacking your allies' clones until you defeat your own. So your tactics end up having to be a lot of "hit your own clone and hope they die first" since you get a debuff for doing the reasonable tactical action of, say, using your rogue to gank the wizard clone first thing.

Of course, there are ways to reduce the difficulty of the fight, partly because it is a video game. You can do this in a couple ways, usually by manipulating how the clones generate. The most straightforward is to strip your party of all their equipment, generate the clones, and then put all their gear back on and beat the snot out of a bunch of naked people. I... I don't particularly like this solution. The logic is overly video-gamey, as it's hard to imagine how anyone would make the connection between a clone fight and removing all their equipment without already knowing the conventions and limitations of the encounter. The other way is that you can send in only one person to start the challenge, and then have the rest of the party follow by breaking into the room after it is sealed so you're only fighting a single clone. I do think that this solution is actually pretty clever, and given the nature of the dungeon and Shadowheart's storyline, can be a fun little potential thematic rejection of Shar's faith in her own temple.

Though to be perfectly honest, I just don't like clone fights the way they're implemented 90% of the time in RPGs. It's either a slug-fest where you hope you roll better on average, or you strip down naked and then get back in your armor faster than the Dragonborn Skyrim eats 10 wheels of cheese to recover from a sword stab mid-battle. There are some interesting ones out there; Final Fantasy 4's Dark Knight fight comes to mind, where the solution is not to attack at all. (It is also, strictly speaking, not a real clone fight, as it doesn't scale with Cecil's level, but it is very much thematically a clone fight.) This has got me thinking though of how to make clone fights interesting, especially in the context of TTRPGs, but I'm still sorting my thoughts on that so I'll probably make a follow-up post assuming I don't get lost in more BG3 or prepping for my group's Sci-Fi Campaign 2 Space Theft Boogaloo.

[infestedslime]

Messmer's spear is, and I do not say this lightly, maybe the coolest weapon fromsoftware has ever put in a game

[reitziluz]

i really need to catch up with my elden ring lore theorizing vids because man so like --

the people i follow seemed to settle pretty fast that the other part of the vow, what radahn is getting from it, is like. valhalla. eternal war. if even that, maybe he wants nothing and got mind controlled, end of.

and it just bugs me to hell and back like. what's the narrative satisfaction there. what is it saying. how does it play with the themes. there's so little to go on, and it leaves him feeling so disjointed. like of course there's no other answer, miquella just is the worst person ever and ~has manipulated him all along ooh~

and it just does not feel right. like the puzzle piece doesn't fit.

like miquella has Gone Wrong. no bones about it. but i just. things just make so much more sense if instead of someone Powerful and In Control, he's been scrambling for a long time from dead end to dead end, setback to setback. acting from pain, cornered in desperation as everything keeps getting worse, and oh if everyone just was more compassionate towards each other, if just they could --- like miquella feels like the kind of activists you see sometimes, who need to save the world and everyone in it but they can't and it breaks them.

and miquella has people genuinely following him. people choose to stay.

so. radahn. is there something if we assume that he's genuinely sworn to miquella.

first off, absolutely sick. why would the ostensibly likely most good hearted demigods out of the bunch do that? what would drive them to it? i lose my mind thinking about how nobody has healthy attachment here. i lose my mind thinking about how much it feels like miquella might have been isolated due to his condition.

point is. desperation. everything stinks of desperation to me.

what would radahn have wanted. and if he wanted something, why didn't he go miquella willingly.

i have been turning gaius around in my head for some time. cursed from birth, with an other half, a friend to messmer, an older brother to the lion. albinauric. one of the oppressed peoples miquella is trying to save.

is that enough? is his older brother figure so dear to radahn? did he change his mind, abandon a (sworn?) brother because he'd rather have war and whatever he was fighting for in the shattering? the man who learned gravitation magic so he wouldn't have to leave his beloved horse behind?

what would the story be. what else is there in the world.

does he just want to be a lord to be even more like godfrey?

miquella makes him look more like godfrey in their fight. he also looks kinda like serosh. serosh was there to hold back hoarah loux's bloodlust. the cutscene makes it look like radahn was about to freak out, but then miquella steps in and holds him (back?) but why would radahn want his bloodlust held back, when he's such a war guy? but what else is there?

... wait.

at the festival, radahn doesn't have feet.

he's not an albinauric. people suffering from scarlet rot lose limbs (though the asymmetry of malenia's legs feels pointed in contrast to the symmetry of albinauric fading...) but the rot makes you sickly pale colors, not the dark grey he's got going on (have i forgotten someone else that has gone his color from it?)

gaius was cursed from birth. an albinauric. the loss of legs starting from feet is so specific to albinaurics. what are albinaurics. why does the putrescent knight have albinauric-like legs. the putrescence oozing out of the coffin ships, the way shaman flesh easily melds bodies together, silver tears - wasn't there something about mimic tears and albinaurics, a theory(?) about them being related? what is going on with the albinaurics. is a curse something that is touched by outer gods? they are called by suffering, and suffering is how the dung eater is making curses.

marika's children are cursed (except, or maybe...?) radagon's children don't seem to be cursed. but gaius was cursed from birth. it's not limited to just marika's children, and radagon is marika anyway.

does any of this connect? resonate?

was radahn cursed?

had he lost his mind by the time he and malenia clashed?

is that why malenia had to remind him of his vow?

is he yet fucking another person, another SIBLING, who turned to miquella, seeking salvation?

did miquella vow to save him too?

i have fucking crumbs to go on and only second hand sources for them but that's only making me Lose My Mind more because i am in hell! hell!

what is the story here, miyazaki i just want to talk ---

[headcanontheshitoutofsoulsborne]

I have noticed a divide in FromSoft fans when it comes to Elden Ring lately. As I am on the site of "I think that Elden Ring boss fights are unbalanced and not fun to me", I think I want to explain it from my point of view. In FromSoft games, my most favourite part was learning the dance with the boss. You know, finding out how to dodge, finding the tiniest window to attack and ultimately finally play so well that I can beat them. For example, sometimes I managed to no hit the first phase of Nameless King. Brutally hard boss but so so satisfying to learn. What an accomplishment. Enter Elden Ring. I would say, the first half of the game is fine. Sure, there are some awful duo bosses in caves but they are all optional. The main bosses are fine and while hard, they can be learned and beaten. But then we enter the Mountaintops of the Giants. And everything falls apart. The bosses are suddenly not only HP sponges to the max but they also never stop their combos, don't seem to have downtime, can easily recover before your Flask animation is done (the DLC is a very bad offender of that) and they explode. God, do they explode. They explode ALL THE TIME! So of course, the game gives us options. It gives us really broken builds. It gives us spirit summons. So you can use them! Honestly, I have not fun using them. I don't want to see my Mimic Tear beat the boss for me. And I don't want to see their health bar be diminished in seconds. Winning against the boss is not the fun part for me. For me, the fun part is LEARNING the boss. And in Elden Ring end game and DLC, learning the boss has become so brutally difficult that I stopped having fun doing it. And I am not the only one thinking that. At the same time, I know there are people who love Elden Ring's system and that is fine. Please keep enjoying the game where I and many others cannot. I just want to explain. Because for many of us, it is not that we don't want to use spirit summons, we don't have fun using them. And that is okay too.

[themaskstayson]

A Study In Magic

Gale and Faith (Tarnished turned Tav, they/them), nerds flirting???

Baldur's Gate 3 and Elden Ring crossover (no knowledge of Elden Ring needed, Faith will explain... badly lol)

Note: a crossover only I crave

The spell drops as Gale turned to Faith again, a smile on his face as she looks at him with confused wide eyes. “Ceremorphosis—” 

“What was that?” Faith interrupted, looking around for the mirror image of Gale. “A Silver Tear?” They asked, “How did it look so live like?”

Gale frowned in confusion. “A what?”

“A Silver Tear?” Faith also frowned in confusion. “They're from Nokron, the Eternal City. Though…” They bit their lips in thought, before giving a shy smile with an embarrassed chuckle. “I guess it wouldn't be one since it would be so far away from... home…” Faith's gaze moved downward as a frown took over once more at the word home as the air around them became tense.

Gale also frowned, wondering if Faith was missing the Land Between as much as he was missing his tower in Waterdeep. It was hard to relate on such a level, at least he was still in the same Prime Material Plane but Faith was taken from their whole universe. “I was casting a spell called Mirror Image, an illusory magic that looks and sounds as I am but only mimics.” Faith hummed, looking back at him and then the space the image had taken up before vanishing. “It's quite safe, I assure you.” He gives them an easy smile to soothe their worries and Faith gives one back but less sure. “What is a Silver Tear?”

“Ah, well…” She flushed with embarrassment. “It's basically a silver puddle of goop that can transform into anything. I fought plenty but there was one that mimicked my body and moves, it was a silvery color. Not like your Mirror Image.” They crossed their arms over their chest in thought, a pained look crossed their face for a moment at the memory. “Imagine my surprise thinking it would be an easy battle and then having to fight myself? Luckily it was quite dumb… Though, that might be an insult to myself.” Faith chuckled.

“Interesting.” Gale smiled, “Are they a common being?”

“No, the Eternal City is an ungrounded location. The Silver Tear, and by extension the Mimic Tear I guess, was made as a piss poor attempt to make a lord by the Nox.” They shrugged. “I am no scholar, the church did not think it was needed for my skill set.” They laughed again, pulling at their braid now with, once again, embarrassment as to keep their gaze busy and away from Gale.

“Fascinating.” Gale smiled, “I would love to see your home, the things you tell us are so vastly different from Faerûn, and yet familiar.” 

Faith looked up with a small smile. “I think you would love the Eternal City. It is hauntingly beautiful but, like all of the Land Between, very fatal.”

“Well, with you by my side, I can study the area while you keep me safe.”

“I…” Faith blinked, blushing again. “I think you would love the Academy, it is a place of study for sorcerers, also very beautiful.”

“And fatal.” Gale teased with a chuckle.

“Ah, yeah…” Faith let out a laugh. “But, once Elden Lord, I could take you and it would be safe.”

“I would love that.” Gale smiled.

Faith smiled back.

Lae'zel grinding her weapon filled the camp and brought Faith back to reality. 

“So… Ceremorphosis?” Faith motioned to Gale to continue.

[blaiddfailcam]

Dunno if this is really worth anyone's time, but since it's caught some people's eye, I thought I'd talk a bit about how I set up shots on console without a photo mode mod!

While it obviously has its limitations, I find there's a fun layer of diegesis that you can play around with using the world itself as your toolkit. There are a number of tricks that come in handy when setting up a shot, so I'll go over them one at a time.

General practices

Settings are limited in Elden Ring's visual department. Beyond toying with saturation and brightness (which is much easier to do "in post," anyway), there are a few basic settings to help get a clearer picture.

Turn off the HUD. This seems scary at first, but the game is actually quite intuitive without it. Having the compass ruin an otherwise pretty shot is never much fun.

Turn off camera auto-rotate. This will make it easier to record steady angled shots while moving.

Turn off wall auto-recovery. Again, this helps maintain a steady shot.

Turn on ray tracing. Really, this is fully optional, but it does make for an impressive image even if you have to sacrifice framerate. After all, framerate doesn't matter all that much for screenshots or gifs.

With that out of the way, it's onto getting a pretty picture!

◇◇◇

Here are various methods for getting some alluring angles and cinematics without use of modding:

Wall crouching

Use: Capturing as much of the scenery as possible without relying on the telescope's zoom.

Method: Get up close to a wall, pillar, or other outcropping that won't turn transparent, then simply crouch. Angle the camera away from the wall to get a wide field of view while hiding the player character. (Remove headgear or weapons that might be sticking up into your view.)

ADVANCED: Move along the wall to get a truck shot (having the camera move sideways)! It doesn't always work perfectly, but it can be kind of cool.

Wall snagging

Use: Getting a closer look at the player character without sacrificing resolution, or using them as a foreground focus.

Method: Similarly to wall crouching, position yourself near a wall or permanent object and angle the camera away from it with your player character nearby. Have them strike a pose, if you want. Crop according to taste.

Character occlusion

Use: Getting a closer look at enemies or NPCs, or angling their head for a more dynamic pose.

Method: Reposition yourself around a character, keeping them between the camera and yourself. Move closer or further depending how close a look you want at them. Crop the photo/video to your liking if the character looks too dead-center.

Mimicry

Use: Getting close to enemies or aggro'ed NPCs without breaking their idle pose or patrol.

Method: As the name suggests, use the Mimic Veil to disguise yourself, then either set up camp where you won't mind looking like scenery, or reapply until you mimic a smaller object that can be hidden using wall crouching.

Mimic tears

Use: Capturing an enemy or boss fighting "you," but from a distance, or drawing their aggro toward a pawn.

Method: This is probably the strangest on the list. First, equip the Furled Finger's Trick Mirror (the one that makes cooperators appear as the Host of Fingers online). Summon your mimic tear where applicable, and they will also appear as a Host of Fingers—more specifically, as you without their usual silver color.

Makeshift camera rigs

Use: Giving the impression that the camera is moving during recording.

Method: Hitch a ride on an elevator or other moving platform, then use the telescope, or wall crouch if possible.

"Directing"

Use: Capturing an enemy or NPC in motion, as opposed to their usual idle stance.

Method: Aggro the character you want to screenshot/record, then lead them around the environment and see how you can influence their AI so that you might be able to predict their movements. This can be as straightforward or complex as you want!

Celestial Dew not included.

◇◇◇

That's really all there is to it. I won't bother going into what makes a good composition or anything, as I'm still practicing that myself, but these few tools have helped me appreciate the visuals on a whole other level.

I hope this might help any other console players that want to jump into digital photography!

[foxingpeculiar]

Elden Ring/SotE:

So, I realized I totally forgot about Ranni's quest. Very much a "doy," head-smacking moment. Especially since that's obviously the best ending.

So I did the rest of that--went to Renna's Rise, through Ainsel River and Nokstella. I think I got everything in Nokstella except the Golden Seed--I went up to the temple and got the Moon of Nokstella, but didn't think to poke around, and then saw it later from below and was like "fuck it, I'll get that later."

Got through the Lake of Rot with a minimum of fuss. Even beat the Dragonkin boss in there, which I've never done before. Had enough Boluses that the Scarlet Rot wasn't a huge problem. Then went down and beat the Astel down there in one go--he looks scary, but he's not that tough (not for a dedicated sorceress at level 132 with a maxed-out Mimic Tear, anyway).

Got to the Moonlight Altar and did all that shit. The lady in the Ringleader Gaol did take me two tries, but I got her on the second one by basically spamming Transient Moonlight at her. Goddamn, that move rules. Chelona's Rise kind of sucked, only because it took me forever to find that third, flying turtle, but I got Ranni's Dark Moon out of it, so okay, cool. The Lunar Estate and Moonfolk Ruins weren't bad--the talisman that boosts your FP was worth it for a sorcery build. The Glintstone Dragon wasn't shit. And then Ranni and I got sort of married and we're off to the races there.

So then it's Consecrated Snowfield time. But first, I had a whole "Beast Eye Quivers" moment in the Secret Path to the Haligtree area, and thought to myself "well, I already killed Maliketh, but let's see what this is about." So I found the whole Invisible Bridge of Bullshit thing, which I definitely did not find on previous playthroughs, and I guess that's cool.

The Snowfield is kind of going the same way--I'm finding things I didn't even think to look for last time I played this. Like the Albinauric Rise, the seal on which took some figuring out, but (thanks to some Crystal Darts) I managed it. I don't even remember what was in there, but it's the principle of the thing. Also found the Consecrated Snowfield Catacombs, which I definitely did not know were there, and man, that place kind of sucked--mostly because of the Burial Watchdogs. That first one that ambushes you from a high platform freaked the shit out of me the first time and absolutely wrecked my shit, but the second time I was prepared and I got him. (Incidentally, Loretta's Great Bow is fantastic for disarming the flame/frost traps from a distance--learned that). Didn't even fight the second one--just grabbed the helmet from in front of him and ran away through a narrow passage he couldn't follow. I'm not having trouble with the Cleanrot Knights this time, though, and the boss there wasn't shit.

Found the Forlorn Cave, also. Again, nothing to write home about. Although once I beat the Misbegotten Crusader and teleported back to the entrance, there was a Land Octopus at the cave mouth absolutely flipping her shit, so that was kind of funny.

I haven't much progressed beyond the river yet, I'm still in the "this is some Frigid Outskirts bullshit" snowstorm area. Got ambushed by a Red Wolf of Radagon, pancaked by a surprise Dragonkin spirit, stumbled upon a caravan and barely made it away with the Flowing Curved Sword, etc. I feel like there's probably still some stuff I haven't found, but I'm ready to slowly start making my way toward Ordina, I think.

Really curious to see how Elphael and Malenia actually go this time. Last time I got a co-op summon and the other player honestly kinda took the lead in the Malenia fight. But this time, I'm gonna beat her on my own merit... hopefully. We'll see how that goes.

[miirshroom]

The Age of Wood and the Winds of Change

In Elden Ring the "Ruins" type structures are some of the most enigmatic to me. I have recently found an in-game strategy for reading the environment that may help shed more light on what they're all about, but first I have some thoughts that I want to record. This is a post about intersectionality between Elden Ring and other FromSoft games, using meta information to delve into the hidden distant past.

I was going through the Woodfolk ruins because I had some cleaning up to do there and found something that sparked a thought:

From the vantage point at the Altus Bloom behind this Wormface boss there is an optical illusion of a twister in a doorframe of the nearby ruins. That this can be seen from the location of an item that can be interacted with is important - the environment designers deliberately placed something in this spot to draw attention. The appearance of the twister recalls to me a theory proposed by another person on Reddit that Farum Azula was once located above the Woodfolk ruins and was picked up by the twister and moved around. But more importantly I realized that the last time that I spent a significant amount of time in this area I had not thought to look for hints in my spreadsheet.

Intro to The Spreadsheet

I don't think I've discussed on tumblr my FromSoft spreadsheet. The basics is that it's where I collect various date-based information that corresponds to the release days of various FromSoft games. It has sortof been evolving over time into the present monstrosity. First I started with the astrological zodiac, because I noticed some astrology trends in Elden Ring itself, and reading the synopses of Armored Core games there are enough hints to piece together an astrological timeline across the games. There is confirmation of this in ACV where you fight through the zodiac as enemies. Then I had the idea to search for whether anyone had noticed a zodiac trend in Sekiro and as it turns out 8 of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals are represented - and once again they match to release years of Armored Core games including matching elements (i.e. 3 visible Folding Screen Monkeys matches to 3 AC games in the year of the Wood Monkey - 2004). In fact, 2004 is practically a convergence point for all of the weird meta stuff that traces back to it.

Sometime later I saw a post where someone was speculating about numerology in Elden Ring and learned that numerology has ties to tarot. Coincidentally, the major arcana has 22 entries when "The Fool" is counted twice as both 0 and 22, which is exactly the span of time between Eternal Ring (2000) and Elden Ring (2022). So I added that to the spreadsheet, where 2004 is "the Emperor" and 2005 is "the Hierophant". And when anomalies started converging on 2004, I noticed that April 1, 2004 (April Fool's Day) provides a unique opportunity to set up a second lagging-behind tarot track. And it also happens to fall within the Gemini era of AC games, so it's the ideal time for an imposter zodiac to split off as well. Silent Line: Armored Core (2003) is about the discovery of a second underground twin city. Armored Core: Nexus sees the short-lived emergence of a new corporation who had uncovered an ancient superweapon - a spin on Gemini's trait of "communication between the surface and the underworld". This seems to create the headache that is AC games following the "false" but flashy Western Zodiac while the vibes-based vedic astrology continues to be expressed subtly, but lagging behind as it does in the regular calendar year. I have guessed that this is where twin cities Nokron and Nokstella enter the picture in Elden Ring - and their development of the mimic tear.

And what ties this all off nicely is that FromSoft axed 14 game franchises by the end of 2004. With the benefit of hindsight it can be seen that only two (2) game franchises were receiving new entries both before and after 2004: Armored Core and the newly acquired Tenchu. There was a deliberate change in direction this year.

At some point I had a thought to check the moon phase for every game FromSoft has ever released (in my defense - they really like referencing the moon), and found exactly 4 dates that they had ever released a game on either a new moon or full moon. Three of these dates are in 2004. The single instance in another year is Forever Kingdom on June 21st, 2001 - the date of a solar eclipse. The same eclipse occurred in 2020 without a single release from FromSoft directly - only Demon's Souls remake by Bluepoint. The Shadow of the Erdtree is scheduled for June 21, 2024. Applying a bit of math, this should be the year of the 20th major arcana "Judgement", which was in 2020 on the main track.

Basically, it is my belief that Elden Ring has a built in Augmented Reality Game component that can be uncovered by paying attention to what the writers pulled as inspiration from past games. Such as a past Age of Wood that correlates directly to the era of the Woodfolk Ruins. See below screenshots for what this data collection looks like for the years of 2004 and 2005, which were the years of the Wood Monkey and Wood Rooster:

Twisters and the Winds of Change

"The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings or endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning" - Wheel of Time Book 1: The Eye of the World

Following the trail of the Wood Rooster led me to discover that I am missing yet another column of data. I was on a wiki binge about the exact sequence of events at the end of WWII and from an article on the Potsdam Agreement I noted that Potsdam is on the Havel River. "Havel the Rock" is a character in Dark Souls who I was certain was inspired by Taurus because of his rocky, mountain-like design, and hoof-like feet and proximity to the Taurus demon. But actually looking at the name "Havel" it's a Gaul word that means "rooster", which would fit him to the year of the Rooster. And indeed his helmet resembles a cock's comb. But that made no sense for the spreadsheet - there is nothing "Taurus" about the year of the Wood Rooster in terms of the AC game matchup and there is no year of the Earth Rooster within the history of FromSoft. So failing all other options I turned to tarot. I knew very little about tarot before this little project, and did not realize that there is also zodiac tied to tarot suits. And sure enough, the zodiac attached to The Hierophant is Taurus. Strengthening the association, this is also probably why Havel's backstory has him as being a Bishop - the Heirophant is otherwise known as "the High Priest". Havel is known to hate the magic of Seath the Scaleless - I wonder if this hints that Seath is the Magician of the 2nd tarot track...

Some key art for Havel the Rock

So why was I looking at the Potsdam Agreement? The last game of 2004 was Metal Wolf Chaos. Of all of the games in their extensive library, FromSoft chose to bring back this game in response to popular demand. And of all of the dates to release a bombastic game about an over-the-top American President carelessly using weapons of mass destruction they chose August 6, 2019 - anniversary of the day that an atomic weapon was first detonated over Japan. I don't believe in coincidences when it comes to the release dates of FromSoft games, at least not in the past few years. Bloodborne: The Old Hunter's DLC released on November 24, 2015 - the birthday of Carlo Collodi, author of Pinnochio. This DLC sees the appearance of Lady Maria in the flesh, after previously meeting a doll fashioned in her image in the base game. I can only imagine that the developers of Lies of P sussed out some part of what FromSoft is up to and used it for their own Bloodborne-inspired game. Pinnochio is an impudent boy made of wood, perhaps what might be described as a Wood Monkey even. And once again, the Armored Core series pulls through in confirming that yes, FromSoft did have Pinnochio in their back pocket dating far earlier than you'd think. In Armored Core 2 (2000) and Armored Core 2: Another Age (2001) the corporation Balena has an "inside weapon" part called Puppet which "fires a dummy for enemy radar". Baleen is an archaic word for whale, from French - as in the whale that swallows the wooden puppet. The worm face in the Woodfolk ruins is not actually looking directly at the Minor Erdtree - it is looking at the pine tree in front of the tree. Pinocchio means "pine eye".

The 3 corporations of the AC2 generation. Zio Matrix I think to have the strongest ties to astrology, because Mars is the planet ruler of both Scorpio and Aries. Emeraude will be discussed below

As an observation of how this ripples forwards, 2024 is the Year of the Wood Dragon.

We're still a few meanders away from my point about the twister. In Metal Wolf Chaos, the president of the United States of America Michael Wilson has a lady on the coms named "Jodi". A charming gal who talks in his head and tells him what to blow up next on this whirlwind of destruction. I think it's a perfectly fitting origin for Marika ('murica) and her loyal shadow the Metal Wolf Maliketh. It's strange, isn't it, that Maliketh and Gurranq are the same, but displaced in time? Well, Metal Wolf Chaos (2004) exists beyond time trapped on the ancient device of Xbox Japan. Metal Wolf Chaos XD (2019) is much closer to the present, hence Gurranq's presence in the Bestial Sanctum. And maybe take a look at the white haired protagonist of Tenchu Dark Shadow (2006) - was not Marika's only use for her shadow as a place to keep Destined Death? I don't really think it matters if FromSoft always had the meta-narrative in mind when they picked up the Tenchu series or if this is a new lens applied with hindsight - it fits on the timeline.

Is it a weak connection that they both have white hair and hold sword in reverse grip and are Shadows? Maybe so, but I will grasp these straws

But Michael Wilson and Jodi are imposters - they are mimics of something older. That's what everything about the Gemini twins and the Wood Monkey and the new April Fool's Tarot are hinting at. Even on a surface level, it's a self-parody of the Armored Core format. And so the search continues with Armored Core (1997) where the major corporations are "Chrome" and "Murakumo Millenium" (murakumo means "a gathering of clouds"). The game has 29 template emblems, some of them generic and some silly and some obtuse, and the one that is most relevant for this train of thought is "Comet Judy". The name Judy being a very close corruption of Jodi. There are 3 leading candidates for what this emblem could be a reference to:

The Yokosuka D4Y Suisei (彗星) - a Japanese WWII dive bomber with a name meaning "Comet" but which the Western Allied reporting name was "Judy". A Suisei plane was used by 3 men in one of the final kamikaze ("divine wind") attacks by Japan in the hours after surrender on August 15, 1945.

A song called "St. Judy's Comet" which is a lullaby from father to son by Paul Simon (most famously from the musical duo Simon and Garfunkel), released on May 22, 1973.

Judy Garland - an actress who is most famous for playing Dorothy, a "good witch who fell from a star" in 1939's Wizard of Oz. Comets are not the same as shooting stars - that would be meteor fragments - but the actual art of the emblem does show a star.

Aside from Comet Judy I added 2 other emblems that are my favourites to make the embedded visual look better

The first two candidates will come up when you search "Comet Judy". And honestly, I would not count them out as being relevant in some manner (May 22 was the earliest release date of Lost Kingdoms 2 in 2003). The third only really makes sense with context clues. After all, there are dozens of Oz references in Elden Ring, and a handful here and there in Demon's Souls (the Twister-like shape of the Old Monk's Robe - perhaps a connection to think on between "Monk" and "Monkey") and Dark Souls (the "Homeward" miracle - good witches do "miracles", according to the 1939 film). They had to be inspired by something. And finally this is where the twister comes in. The one that picks up Dorothy's house and carries it off to Oz and a journey to find the wizard at the Emerald City. Another corporation of AC2 and AC2: Another Age is called "Emeraude", a French word meaning "Emerald". And after getting into the lore of the Wizard of Oz is when I start realizing that the twister can be a recurring phenomenon - The Wizard also arrived to the Land of Oz on a twister and it was through his influence that the Emerald City was constructed. Emeraude is a rival corporation to Balena - who is the corporation that manufactures the Moonlight laser sword in the AC2 generation of games. Luckily, following the guiding moonlight is where I find another solid point of comparison anchoring the Woodfolk Ruins twister to the years 2004-2005. Armored Core Nexus (2004) and Armored Core Nine Breaker (2005) are follow-ups to AC3. And in this generation of games the Moonlight laser sword is manufactured by the corporation "Mirage". As in Elden Ring's "Mirage Rise", which is found right next to the Woodfolk Ruins.

Here's another wrinkle to all this though. I know that the twister in the Woodfolk Ruins that I believe to be corresponding to Metal Wolf Chaos is not the first time a numen has fallen from a star/comet, or been carried in on the wind, or whatever. Both because of the pre-existence of the Emeraude Corporation, and because the name and context of Chelona's Rise tells the story of a witch who had a house dropped on her - and I think that Chelona's Rise pre-dates Mirage Rise by the nature of their puzzles. The question becomes: how many times before and after have the winds of change blown through, and when exactly were the other times? I think that there have been at least 4 twisters, as demonstrated by the 3 smaller twisters that can be seen accompanying timeless Farum Azula from the disconnected area through the Four Belfries "Crumbling Lands" portal. For the view of Farum Azula seen from the Isolated Divine Tower there is only one single twister seen spinning at the centre of the ruins - what possible meaning does this have?

The next lead that I have is Wyndham Ruins. Sometimes I'll idly do a "this day in history" kind of search for the various available dates. And it happens that July 10th is both the release date of the original Armored Core and the birthday of sci-fi writer John Wyndham, whose most famous work is The Chrysalids (as in how Roderika describes the Grafted Tarnished), and it's a story about a post-apocalyptic future where women are ostracized for giving birth to mutants. Wyndham also wrote The Day of the Triffids which is described as "After most people in the world are blinded by an apparent meteor shower, an aggressive species of plant starts killing people". And also The Midwitch Cuckoo "in which the women become pregnant by brood parasitic aliens". So, some interesting parallels there. For the Cuckoo in particular, this meshes with the knowledge that it's an old motif in the Lands Between - even the Moon of Nokstella has two cuckoos perched at the top of it.

Also notable that Wyndham Ruins is infested with deathroot. An aggressive species of plant that grows like a Cancer - which is one of the zodiac that spans across the "Age of Wood" according to my timeline project.

[huggingtentacles]

I'll go over the basics first for people who don't follow me:

From Software combat system falls apart when you introduce a second target to any enemy. When you're fighting something in fromsoft games, the game makes your opponent target you when it engages you in a fight, and their attacks are directed at you. At the very core, stripping down all the special effects, fromsoft games require you to do 2 things: Dodging and Hitting.

You dodge the attacks your opponent throws at you and you look for an opening during their recovery/when they're vulnerable during their attack. It's a simple, yet satisfying system, that is easy to pick up and takes time to master.

Summons break that system completely, leaving little to nothing behind.

When the enemy targets your other person in the coop, you have a free opening at the enemy's back. They're not directing their attacks your way and you can wail on them as long as they keep their targeting on your summon. What happens when they switch? Well now your summon is in the same position as you were! Free openings on demand, because the enemy AI simply cannot deal with two people, can't divide it's attention, it doesn't have a strategy or a play against you two, it's just forced to swap wildly between you two hoping one of you messes up this very simple strategy.

Summons make it so every boss is fought the exact same way. Once you figure out this out, there is no difference between fighting Godfrey or Godrick, you do the same thing to them both.

"Okay huggingtentacles, I see where you're coming from, but this system has been here since Demon's Souls and you don't seem to complain about other games, what's so different about spirit summons?"

First of all, I am also complaining a little about other games, but there are a lot of key differences that make spirit summons extremely bad in comparison to coop.

1. At least coop requires both people to actually think.

At least on harder bosses, when the boss focuses their attention on you, you at least have to dodge and weave untill your buddy takes aggro. Spirit summons are simply damage sponges. They require no input, no learning curve, they just take the enemy's attention away as long as they have hp.

2. There are trade-offs to coop that make you consider doing it yourself.

If you coop, you get invaded, yes, and that's quite frankly my favourite part of it, but even if you summon next to a fogwall to avoid invaders, the boss gets increased HP, status resistances and poise. Which means if your co isn't pulling their weight, it might be worth trying it on your own still. And they usually cost some form of currency (though in Elden Ring that has been removed in favour of more accessible coop. I don't hate that choice but I prefer having some sort of cost to such an overpowered tool)

Spirit summons, on the other hand, have little to no trade-offs despite being just as efficient if not more than your average coop member. My mimic tear can solo Malenia, that's not a feat most people get to brag about.

Yes, there is a mind requirement. A negligible mind requirement. 23 mind is required for Tiche, the most expensive spirit summon in the game. That's without considering the fact that you can shrink it down to 16 with stat boosting gear. Or you can simply use Mimic tear which costs 1 healing flask. Most summons before Tiche and Mimic Tear can be summoned with base mind of your chosen starting class.

Oh, you could also sacrifice one singular physick flask slot to summon anything in the game for free. And in exchange you get a summon that ranges from "just a funny little guy" to "can literally beat the entire game for you with little to no input from you"

3. Despite breaking some parts of the game, coop is overall a great contribution to the culture, lore and fun surrounding these games.

The flaws of coop, when properly balanced, are minor compared to how much it adds to the overall experience of Fromsoft games. Coop offers so much more than merely help beating a boss, and spirit summons simply don't have that.

"Okay, but spirit summons are genuinely fun, what if I like having a little guy beside me?"

Adding an NPC companion to the game could've been done better without compromising gameplay. Having your clone or a little jar guy follow you around in the open world, helping you out but not breaking the combat could be done with a little bit of creativity. If someone asks me about it I might make a post on how I would do it.

"What about people who are bad at these games and wouldn't beat play it otherwise? Wouldn't you want them around in the community?"

This is a very delicate question because I risk coming across as an elitist asshole from the "git gud" crowd (though to some people on Tumblr I'm already that so whatever) so I'll try to explain it in the nicest way possible.

In one of his interviews, Miyazaki stated one of the reasons as to why his games don't have an easy mode:

And I wholeheartedly agree now that I've experienced a sort of "easy mode" added to Elden Ring in the form of spirit summons. This might be the most important thing I'll say in this post, I hope this answers the inevitable "just don't use spirit summons let people have their fun":

People using spirit summons are impossible to relate to while discussing Elden Ring. They are, in a way, playing a different videogame from the rest of us. Spirit summons fragment the user base.

For example, when someone makes a post "I finally beat Malenia!" It makes me happy because Malenia is a difficult boss that took me a long time to beat and master. But when I ask how long it took for them to beat and they reply "Oh it took 8 attempts Maliketh felt way harder" I immediately understand that they did not have the same experience as me. They haven't learned anything about the boss. I can't discuss the mechanics with them because they haven't interacted with those mechanics. Which method did they use to dodge waterfowl? They didn't! The mimic ate the damage and they outdamaged the heal.

How did they beat Margit? The wolves distracted him and they hit his back. How did they beat Rennala? Ancestral Follower distracted her and they hit her back. Morgott, Godrick, Astel? You get the point.

Which boss is the hardest? You have to be a goober to say Malenia is not the hardest boss ever made by fromsoft. And yet Maliketh makes it to the top of the list sometimes, why? Because he jumps around a lot and if the summon doesn't have ranged attacks, you risk the boss targeting you for more than 10 seconds.

"Okay, but wouldn't the people playing coop only be just as unrelatable to you?"

No, because the post they made would be "WE finally beat Malenia" "Me AND the phantom I summoned finally beat Godfrey, thank you Marikastoes28490!"

I know that they didn't have the same challange as me, but they still experienced jolly cooperation which I can relate to and discuss, they experienced random coop which is part of the core experience of Fromsoft games. Coop takes away something from the gameplay but it gives back something so much more: human connection. Unless you're using McDonalds WiFi in which case your connection is inhumane.

This post is getting long so here is a lightning round of all of my other gripes with spirit summons:

1. People who could beat the game normally and have that experience choose the path of least resistance and end up ruining the game for themselves. Merely having that option is enough to make someone question "maybe you're supposed to beat it with spirit summons" (you're not)

2. They take away online activity because summons have all the advantages of it without any disadvantages. Less invasions, less coop = deader game sooner.

3. They make people hate bosses that are perfectly fine without summons. Fire Giant rolls in unpredictable directions and one shots your little spirit summon user because they didn't have enough vigor (they didn't have to take damage for most of the game) this is where the famous "endgame difficulty spike" comes from. If you're playing the game normally, no such spike is felt because you're improving as the bosses get stronger.

4. You can't even kiss Tiche. Why Bother.

I think these are all of my complaints about spirit summons, I hope this covers everything. I think spirit summons are badly conceptualised and awfully executed and I wish they went into a different direction with them. Maybe make them controllable in some way! Maybe make them passive/supportive companions! Anything but "replace coop with a more braindead option".

They probably won't rework them, but I hope they won't come back in the next title Miyazaki makes.

Guys sorry I need to come clean.

I hate spirit summons. They're one of the worst additions to souls formula ever.

[asleepinawell]

Shoot in elden ring? Opinions on class/builds?

oh man. hmmm. it's tough when I've only played through with one build and am just starting on a second one but I can pull from knowledge of previous games I guess.

the one thing that's tough here is that I feel elden ring more than previous games really forces you to commit to a build and weapon/spell set more due to the balance issues near the end of the game and that in general it's easier to fall into maxing out damage from one stat rather than trying an interesting hybrid build. which makes it tough because both root and shaw are really flexible in terms of abilities. part of what makes them so efficient is their ability to improvise and work with any tools. so I'll give you what I think makes sense in terms of how they operate even if they might not be the most efficient or successful builds in game to play with

shaw: primarily a melee build but has a bow for sniper opportunities. I'd see her as having enough points in str and dex both to be able to wield some of the fancier hybrid weapons, but I think she'd favor dex. shaw is usually much smaller than her opponents in the show and her fighting style works to quickly disable/stun/take down people rather than relying on brute strength...but she does also like shooting people with big guns haha. overall shaw is strategic and stealthy when needed which also works with the dex build. she probably has some points in faith at well, enough to do some basic healing for herself and others. I kind of like the idea of her having some points in arcane because it increases discovery if you think of shaw as being observant and resourceful it kinda tracks...not too sure it's practical for the build though. despite all of that, no, shaw would not use the infamous rivers of blood because she is Too Cool. also think she'd use craftable items heavily.

armor set: black knife armor

weapons: I haven't inspected the full range of dex weapons enough but maybe the black knife to go with her armor. just go full tiche.

spirit ash: lone wolf ashes

root: she has like nine rivers of blood under her goth cloak and trolls people in pvp with them. she could destroy people with the most basic starting sword but she finds it funnier to use rivers of blood and moonveil because she's just an asshole like that. for build though, int/dex hybrid build. root has always struck me as a rogue and is definitely into the fancier more complex melee weapons and finding unique uses for weapon art skills. but she also uses sorcery. my lore knowledge on the source of sorcery is limited (despite having played an int build 😩) but I think a lot of it came from the stars and primeval...thingies...and maybe you can make some parallel about her deriving her power from a higher entity with the machine or something? sure. anyway she can absolutely cast the fuck off laser beam when needed but she relies more on situational spells, like exploiting the firing delay on magic glintblade, night comet and ambush shard, putting frostbite on enemies, doing magic stealth (wish they had an illusion spell for her), etc. root also has the bastard's stars flail because of course she does.

armor set: she has all of them of course and wears the mushroom one to piss off shaw. prefers one of the gother ones usually maybe like alberich or fia's set, but also rocks the rotten gravekeeper cloak to fuck with shaw.

weapons: root shows up to the team meeting three days late dual wielding moonveil and rivers of blood. when not being an asshole she prefers a smaller set of dex weapons with bleed damage and a staff...maybe the prince of death's staff for The Aesthetic even if it's not the best fit for her build

spirt ash: mimic tear obviously

also you didn't ask but john is a pure str build. he has 0 points in int or faith. he dumped them all in str and maybe a few in endurance. he's never heard of a shield or dodging he's dual wielding 2 handers and running straight into battle. is he screaming due to the joy of battle? or because he's on fire? yes.

thank you, anon, for allowing me to be a huge nerd

[lichdragon-fortissax]

As previously stated, Fortissax is my favourite boss in Elden Ring. The other contenders who were very close to also having that place include Maliketh, Placidusax, Radagon/Elden Beast, Godfrey/Hoarah Loux, Malenia and Morgott. Mohg and Lansseax are also very fun, good bosses, but lost out due to several factors. E.g. In terms of Lansseax, I was overlevelled and thus didn’t fully experience it as it should’ve been. For Mohg, the fight was over too quickly. I ain’t summoning for him in NG+ now.

Addendum: I’m not saying Mohg is a short fight, he’s reasonably tangy, but I won’t summon for him in NG+ or any future saves because the two summons I had seemed to have respeced specifically to counter him from what I could tell from how much damage they did to him compared to what Mohg did to them, and that’s if he hit them in the first place. I feel if I had the full proper Mohgin’ time experience, along with Lansseax, they’d be higher on my list of favourite bosses. My fault, not theirs.

...

Oh yeah, I totally feel that with Mohg. I remember learning him on stream with friends, then decided to summon my mimic tear on a whim and just fuckin' SHREDDED him. Same with Maliketh, which I actually regret doing because of how low his health pool was. Radagon/Elden Beast were also fights that I really liked a lot visually speaking, but Radagon gets trivialized with parries so I eventually began to see them as just the Hollow Knight/Radiance duo fight in the back of my brain again, lmao. Which doesn't degrade them at all, the sheer sorrow of the Hollow Knight fight and the anger of the fight against the Radiance just have an emotional whiplash that is completely different to the heartpounding awe I felt when fighting Radagon and the Elden Beast.

For favorite bosses, I think that mechanically Malenia and Maliketh are my top favs (MINUS THE FUCKING WATERFOWL DANCE, which can be dodged but is so finicky that it shouldnt be as dangerous as it is), with Rykard and Mohg coming in as close second for both the spectacle of their bossfights and how fun it was to fight them. Malenia and Maliketh are both Bloodborne-fast with their movesets, which matches perfectly with fast, aggressive fighters like me, and I enjoyed figuring out the trick to Malenia's fight, which is focused more around proper spacing than probably anything else in the game. Their design, lore, boss arenas, and voice acting are also spectacular- Maliketh's gave me actual fucking goosebumps when I heard his death-speech

The only major gripes I had with these two were a.) Malenia's waterfowl dance, and b.) Maliketh's low health. Malenia's waterfowl is perfectly dodgeable, but its not intuitive in the slightest, and is difficult to do if she initiates it right after you're recovering from an attack. The amount of damage done and the lethality of such a hard-to-manage move also makes the fight sometimes feel more rng than it should be, even though literally everything else that she throws at you is perfectly manageable. Someone mentioned that waterfowl dance feels more like a cut Sekiro attack than something that fits in Elden Ring, and I agree, because deflecting it feels like a much more viable strategy than dodging it. Her health regain is fine, I didn't have a problem with that at all.

For Maliketh, I really didn't like his first phase at all. I think they should have either made his second phase proc after you got 25% of his health down instead of 50%, or made him a two-healthbar fight like they did with Malenia. I'm guessing that the reason why they chose to give him such low health/make his second phase not last as long is because of the burn of Destined Death draining your health faster on successive attacks, but that could be fixed by just not making it stack, or to have it still stack but the health drain amount be decreased by a percentage if another damage modifier is present. Some more ground melee attacks would also be good for slower weapon builds, because as much as I love how he moves like a Bloodborne boss, very strength-focused builds are not made for speed in this game, and him bounding about and doing aerial flips can make him quite frustrating for those with slower weapons.

[stan-stanmenson]

Elden ring sucks

After 115 hours of playtime, here is a loose and spoiler filled rant on elden ring because I have many opinions and I can't be bothered to write an editorial because I am not doug walker.

The open world is beautiful.

There's no fucking enemy variety, everywhere you go there are the same 3 cunts you've been fighting since the fucking minute you booted up the game. Every area has a Knight enemy, a lesser Knight enemy, peasant and Noble cannon fodder enemies that are palette swapped according to area. These are the most common enemies in the game and their only difference is that the Knights in the altus plateau have lightning powers. There are 3 zombie type enemies that show up in massive hordes everywhere, every area has the same fucking bat, the same troll, the same dog all with different colour schemes or area appropriate status effects. For some reason the mutant dogs and crows from caelid show up on the mountaintops of the giants, as well as the demi humans, skeletons, bats and golems from limgrave (and they don't even have the decency to swap colours! They just have bigger health bars!) Everywhere you go, if there's any kind of body of water, there is a giant crab, again appropriately colour swapped and given area specific status effects, yet the main problem with this constant repetition is that the way in which you fight never has to change. It would be fine if a crab showed up again later, as long as it had a different moveset to make fighting it dynamic.

More on enemy repetition! The constant repetition also cheapens every previous instance of an enemy. When you first go to the underground river, there are ghostly buff horned men, and when you first encounter them you go "damn, cool new unique enemy. Nice" then 20 hours later when you're fighting them in liurnia you realise they weren't a unique enemy, and that you're a fucking clown for thinking so. The land octopi you can find scattered in limgrave fucking show up everywhere, you cannot escape them. The crabs hunt you down wherever you go, as if you're playing the game as queen Elizabeth. The ulcerated tree spirits (which are a reskin of the pus of man from dark souls 3) you find under stormveil appear everywhere, the magma wyrms, the 5 or 6 dragons that are all the same exact fight but they breathe a different fire, the fucking tree sentinels (a reskin of the asylum demon from dark souls 1 and 3), all these enemies are everywhere, and it cheapens their earlier appearances but also exploring. Whats the point of seeing what's beyond the horizon when it's probably just another fucking CRAB

Dogs and rats continue being the worst fucking enemies to fight good lord please fix them

The weird hysterical women at the windmill village appear to be flayed, which is not only in all likelihood a reference to the godskin apostle you fight at the top of the village (iirc they skin people and wear their flesh or something) but also I think a reference to the fairy tale where an old woman gets a woodcutter to flay her to grant her youth or something

Rykard is the worst boss fight in the history of video games. Not only is he a worthless gimmick fight like yhorm or ancient wyvern, but he has a constant ring of lava around him making getting close impossible and he constantly walks towards you and traps you between his lava and a wall if you're more focused on killing him than running around and prolonging the garbage fight, his voice (i think the voice actor did a really good job btw i just fucking hate this boss) is fucking clown tier (yeah it fits for a deranged snake monster person, but again I hate this boss) and his attacks are absolute garbage, FUCK this boss

The last third of the game is either fucking impossible due to the bosses having infinite combo phases and barely any punish windows or laughably easy if you use the mimic tear and spam your weapon skill

The last boss is a fucking joke, the elden beast is the second worst fight in the game and like, wow, what an epic final boss. A giant cosmic worm with no setup and a moveset 90% of which is borrowed from the fucking 15 dozen ulcerated tree spirits you've been fighting all fucking game. The game should have ended with fighting radagon, who is actually somewhat of a presence in the story and thus has more weight as a final boss, serving a similar role as gwyn, especially if you find out earlier that he and marika are 2 sides of the same coin.

Exploration rewards are incredibly hit or miss, most being spells or weapons that require faith because the game really wants you to play a magic focused build despite somewhat preaching that you can have whatever build you want

The legacy dungeons are amazing and I love them but they're so so so so so small especially compared to the size of the world around them and it makes me want to die that the best parts of the game are so small and feeble. The haligtree is my favourite area in the game and has impressive verticality but I would sacrifice my first born if it was just a little bigger. Just 10 more minutes in the haligtree and i could die a happy man

The underground rivers are fucking amazing, and are the best content next to the legacy dungeons. Nokstella, nights eternal rest/nokron and the deeproot depths are some of my favourite sections of the world and they're amazing to journey through. But only once.

There's fuck all replayability. I spent 90 hours on my first playthrough as I wanted to explore everything and get every ounce of content. I have only spent 25 ish hours on my second playthrough because it turns out half the shit I did in my first was utterly worthless and not worth replaying. All I've done in my second playthrough is finish quests I missed the first time and get to the haligtree and the underground to relive the best moments the game has to offer.

The age of stars ending is the best as it frees the world from the grubby little piss stained hands of the outer gods and their meddling, allowing those in the lands between to be truly free as they are no longer shackled by gods or masters.

Personally I wanted more berserk references, and I'm a bit disappointed that the guts sword is not the dragonslayer but looks more like a beefier version of his sword in the later chapters of the golden age/eclipse arc

Jesus christ someone at from software needs to slap miyazakis hands away from his keyboard anytime he tries adding in a poison swamp area.

Caelid sucks and doesn't even have a true legacy dungeon

Again, the aesthetic and world is amazing and beautiful and I sometimes wish I could live there

Thank you if you read all of that, sorry for the spoilers and the loose ranting and the overuse of swearing, I'm just really shit at writing structured, video essay type shit, as seen by my garbage witcher post. Elden ring is a pretty good game weighed down by the same shit every modern open world game is, and whilst I did enjoy my time with the game, the more I played it the more apparent these issues became until I reached a point where I had to write this dumbass rant.

Tl;dr: who fuckin cares

[mentally-moderato]

OC questions 4, 7, 11, 38!

:D So, since they've been extensively on the mind, these'll be for my Elden Ring Tarnished, Ion! My first character, and thus made before knowing any lore of the game, they ended up not being too nonsensical but pleasingly fantastical, being a golden-eyed Nightkin roaming in the Lands Between!

4. Do they enjoy baking?

They do, in-theory, but are too impatient and are not particularly good at it. :] They understand the basic concepts of mixing dry and wet, and that dough with all the moisture cooked out of it will stay good for a very long time, but Ion could not make a decent cake to save their life. In random abodes in the Lands Between, Ion will sometimes help themselves to the stove or oven, but exploring the nooks and crannies of said abodes usually ends up taking priority. Camping in the wild, they use a small vessel gifted from the inhabitants of Jarburg for quickbreads.

They tried baking in the Roundtable Hold precisely once, asking Sir Gideon for a recipe. The attempted pound cake came out too runny, and then was baked into a brick and given to Boc, who declared that taken with enough tea and cream it "weren't half bad, really."

7. Do they have any unusual fears?

After Caelid, as well as further adventures, Ion has developed a begrudging unease of mushrooms, particularly of live growths. While assorted mushroom dishes of the Nox were once among their favourites, now the association with Rot is too inextricable, and large or unusually-shaped mushrooms recall memories of fetid swamps, harrowing battles, and the sickening feeling of infection and infestation.

Glintstone in all its forms is similarly disliked, due to its tendency to grow and corrupt, with Ion believing it to be a terrestrial corrosion of starlight. Seeing how Rot has infested Caelid and other locations, and how crystals similarly infest mines and the underground and parts of Liurnia, they fear that they too might one day succumb to either.

Finally, despite their proclivity for Ranni, they have a pronounced fear of dolls and mannequins, as well as the Burial Watchdogs -- the stiff, mechanical motion is unnerving, compared to more sinuous and flowing motion.

11. Do they have any addictions?

Dragon hearts. Despite knowing better than to indulge, and full knowing the inherent dangers of such, Ion is intoxicated by the thrill of the fight and is always tempted to consume the heart anyway, chasing the high and the power alike that such brings. For the most part, one aspect has replaced the other, with Ion rationalising to themself that it is the fight in itself that truly grants power, not necessarily the consumption of the heart with its potential side-effects. This also generalises into overall thrill-seeking behaviour, as well as a deep urge when viewing most dangerous or imposing foes: "I would like to fight it."

More mundane than self-endangerment is, against their better judgement, a fondness for warmth. They have passed Rogier's leaving while heading to Fia's chamber on more than one occasion, and truly think her goals noble, if difficult to understand.

38. What are their dreams like? Do they have any recurring dreams/nightmares?

Their dreams are usually dark, in multiple senses. Orphaned and abandoned cities, as well as being locked away, are common themes, and Ion fears the answer to the question of if they are dreams or visions. A consistent nightmare is of being trapped in darkness and unbearable heat, burning from invisible fire; another, both dream and nightmare and yet at once neither, is of multiplicity, particularly after meeting Millicent and especially after battling her sisters.

The dream is of meeting a silver tear who rises to take on Ion's own appearance, even -- unusually -- copying Ion's golden eye. It mirrors their every motion perfectly, up until it and Ion make contact, at which point Ion's body begins disintegrating and being absorbed into the mercurial mass. Once completed, there stands only the mimic alone in a perfect resemblance of Ion; it turns around, to meet another silver tear, who rises to take on its appearance. And so the dream repeats.

[yumeka36]

After 150 hours of gameplay across 1.5 months, I finally finished my completionist playthrough of Elden Ring - I conquered every map location, defeated every boss/mini-boss, collected most of the items, and obtained every PSN trophy.

(my end game stats)

This was definitely one of the most incredible gaming journeys I’ve ever had. This game was amazing from beginning to end - the graphics, the level and character designs, the interconnectivity of the map, and the variety of gaming mechanics and open world, which makes every player’s adventure unique. I can’t remember when I was this engrossed in a game before! It was like FromSoftware took all the great elements of their previous games, with improvements, and put them all together in one incredible, enormous package (seriously, Elden Ring has enough content to be two games, maybe even three!) There were so many moments while I was playing where I was like “this reminds me of that one area from Bloodborne,” and “oh, it’s like that one fight from Dark Souls 3,” but they didn’t totally copy things from past games...you could simply see the inspiration from previous titles and a genuine passion to make Elden Ring bigger and better. But at the same time, I think it’s one of the most accessible of FromSoft’s games. There’s good guidance through early tutorials, but not so much that it feels like the game is holding your hand. And because it’s open world, if something is too difficult, you can go to an easier area to level up and search for solutions through a variety of means, like different weapons, spirit summons, Ashes of War, crafting items, etc,. After using a melee build in all my previous FromSoft games, I decided to change things up for Elden Ring and use a magic build. While it did make some bosses easy, especially later on when I got better spells and the Mimic Tear, the game was still plenty difficult! But while things like spirit summons and using magic can make the game seem “too easy,” you can simply choose not to use these things if you want the raw difficulty that FromSoft games are known for. So with all this, Elden Ring is both a love letter to long-time fans of Souls games, but also a welcoming entry into these types of games for new players.

Miyazaki and his team did so many things right with Elden Ring. I think it’s one of the best games ever made and I look forward to playing it again in the not so distant future!

[foxingpeculiar]

Elden Ring/SotE:

Okay, so at this point, I have cleared Leyndell, went through the Subterranean Shunning Grounds, and now I'm fucking around in the Mountaintops of the Giants--I just cleared the lions out of the entrance to Castle Sol and am about to explore it properly.

I remember saying earlier that I was finding the early game pretty smooth sailing but "we'll see how I do once I get to Mountaintops of the Giants or so." Well, I'm here and... like, it's still pretty smooth sailing? I dunno if it's just this build or what, but nothing so far is giving me that much trouble. Got Godfrey's Ghost and Morgott both in one, the underground Mogh and the Deathbird in two. I don't think *any* boss has killed me more than 3 times.* (The thing that has? Trying to get down that damn pit to the Frenzied Flame--that took like a solid 45 minutes and soooooooo many deaths). I remember the commander in Castle Sol being a huge pain in my ass last time though, so we'll see how that goes.

(*I take that back--a couple, like the Godskin Apostle in the Caelid Tower were a bit much for me when I first fought them. But I've since gone back and cleared most of them. The only one I haven't is the double Crucible Knight fight, but now that I have the Mimic Tear, I should reinvestigate that.)

I'm currently rocking INT of about 52, VIG around 44. Occasionally I throw a stat point into MND or END. I really want to get INT high enough to use Renala's Full Moon, which has a requirement of 70. I've got Moonveil upgraded as much as I can without an Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone and I have yet to come across one of those. I'm still rocking the Demi-Human Queen's staff also, which is up to +20 or something--I have ostensibly "better" staves I could use at this point, but I dunno how much I really need to bother upgrading one of them enough to surpass this one. We'll see.

As far as quest progress, lemme just kinda go down the list here:

Sellen - Finished her quest; sided with her against Jerren, she is now a weird head-ball thing in Rennala's room.

Thops - Finished his quest. He dead and I looted his corpse inside the Academy.

Rogier - Finished his quest. He's also dead, and I whupped his ass during the Fia's Champion's fight.

Boc - Finally got his questline to work; turns out I had to buy all currently available pieces of legendary equipment. But once I did that, the prompt showed up to give him the gold needle, which I did, and then told him he was beautiful rather than giving him a Larval Tear. Not sure that there's any more to that quest, but I guess we'll see.

D and Fia - both quests concluded. She killed him, his brother killed her, I got her Mending Rune.

Corhyn and Goldmask - Was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to cast Regression, but hey, it has an INT requirement instead of a FTH requirement, so that's handy. Solved the riddle for Goldmask and, last I saw them, Corhyn was having an existential crisis on a bridge in the Mountaintops.

Gurranq (Maliketh) - So, I thought I aggroed him by accident cos I tested out a weapon art in his room and he started coming at me. But the Church of Vows said I was good, and when I went back to fight him, he did the thing where he chilled out after a couple of hits. So, okay. I got the Beast Claw from him and he has since fucked off.

Bernahl/Tanith/Rya - I have done all the Volcano Manor hunts so far, including Bernahl's and the Red Letter one, but I have yet to pop back to the Manor to follow up. Will probably do that after Castle Sol.

Alexander - Last saw him on Mt. Gelmir. I think he's around here in the Mountaintops somewhere, but haven't come across him again yet.

Yura - He's dead and I beat the woman that killed him. Then he got taken over by Shabriri, who's creepy AF.

Varre - Last saw him at the Rose Church in Liurnia. Not sure what he's up to--should check in on that.

Edgar/Irina - She's dead, but he wasn't by her corpse yet, last I checked. I dunno if I've progressed too far for that or what, but I'll go back and check again at some point.

Kenneth - He's doing his thing in Fort Haight. I think I have to finish Nepheli's questline before anything can happen there.

Nepheli - Gave her the thing you're supposed to give her after the Albinauric Village (not the poison, the other thing), but haven't seen her since. I think she's moved to Stormveil by now? Again, something I need to go back and check up on.

Diallos - He was in the manor, then he wasn't, now he is again. I don't think he moves to Jarburg until after Rykard's dead, so we'll see how that goes.

Patches - being a dick in the Manor Entrance. Again, I don't think he moves to the Briar guy's castle until after Volcano Manor falls.

Hyetta - Last saw her in Liurnia where she seemed to have made peace with eating people's eyes. But she wasn't in the Frenzied Flame Pit when I was down there, so I must be missing a step somewhere.

Dung Eater/Blackguard - Let Dung Eater out and he fucked up my prawn buddy, but I killed his ghost. I think I've given him 3/5 curses at this point?

Ranni and her gang - Progressed Seluvis enough to get the poison for Ranni, but gave her the Fingerslayer Blade instead because I'm not stupid, so he should be dead now. Blaidd is out of the evergaol and off somewhere going mad. Iji's just chillin'.

Millicent - Got her help beating the Black Blade Kindred and met her in Mountaintops of the Giants, but when I reloaded the area, she was gone, so I guess I'll see her later. Haven't gone back to check on Gowry yet, but I will.

The Great Jar - tried fighting his knights a while ago, but they kept getting the better of me. Could probably take them now, though. Something else to add to the checklist.

I *think* that's everybody that has shit for me to do?

Anyway. Yeah. Castle Sol, then Volcano Manor, then Faram Azula and the Ash Capital and the Consecrated Snowfield/Haligtree. And then I suppose I'll be ready to go down and fuck up Mohg again and start the DLC.

[foxingpeculiar]

Elden Ring:

Okay, let's see... where did I leave off? Oh yeah, I was in Mountaintops of the Giants and, after taking some detours to the Haligtree and Mogh's hangout in Siofra, I was gonna advance the game.

So first, mysterious ice dragon showing up in the snow, got past him. Then I was riding up flame peak and there's an NPC invader that shows up outside a church there that absolutely flayed me a few times. I still haven't gone back to kill him. But I said, okay, I'll ride in a different direction. And then out of nowhere, a giant hand comes down and smashes a crow to death. I noped past that pretty fast.

And then I ended up in the Fire Giant boss fight. I've heard this guy described as very difficult, but that wasn't my experience--I beat him on the third try, which was also the first time the fight lasted more than 10 seconds. The first phase was a lot of ride up on Torrent, slice at his ankles, run away, repeat. And then in the second phase, all you have to do is just take a wide arc around him and huddle by/attack his intact leg and almost none of his attacks can hit you. No big thing.

So then Melina did her deal and I wound up in Faram Azula. And that place suuuuuuucked. It's a labyrinth full of bullshit--birds, beastmen, dragons, annoying-ass knights. I did not enjoy my time there.

Contributing to that were the Godskin Duo. Good lord, those guys. That took quite a few attempts, interrupted by a little rune farming to upgrade Tiche and the Mimic Tear and also level up a couple of stats. In the end, I got through it with Reduvia and liberal use of Swarm of Flies. But it was definitely demoralizing to actually kill one of them, only to have them respawn because the shared health bar wasn't depleted yet. But I did it, I got past them.

Then I got hella lost. I know Placidusax or whatever is in there somewhere, but I have no idea how to get to him and I'm not even sure how I got through the way I did, but eventually I ended up at the Beast Clergyman/Malekith the Black Blade. Lotsa cursing during this fight, which took a couple dozen attempts. I could get past the Clergyman phase without too much trouble, but then he'd transform and start parkouring all over the place zapping me with blackflame lasers and shit and it was just... over. I still don't know how I won--Tiche and I wore him down enough in the first phase and I managed to rollspam around his attacks just enough after she got annihilated and I did it.

So now I'm getting my ass handed to my by Godfrey/Hoarah Loux. I'm 92 hours in at this point and ready to be done, frankly. But I'm so close, I have to see it through, so I'm gonna keep throwing myself against this wall until it cracks. I suppose I can alternate with Mogh, whom I haven't taken out yet either. And I will try Malenia at least one more time, just to see.

But yeah, closing in on the end of this massive thing.