Elden Ring - Shadow of the Erdtree Expansion Announced

[MrHendo]

I still have an all strength build to make, a faith build and my sword spell character to get past the first few sections.

There’s every chance I’ll have a few characters to use on the DLC!

[Qazimod]

8 hours ago, Darwock said:

Is it still the case that the PS4 version played on the PS5 provides the best experience? I’ve only played the PS5 version but I do have access to PS4. I may start a fresh game on that for the DLC, if it isn’t too much of a step down in visual quality.

 

Yes, but I didn't notice massive performance clunkiness - then again I tend to care about it more in racers, character action and fighting games.

 

Alternatively, treat the botched framerate as a badge of honour - being able to beat bosses with fewer frames to dodge attacks.  

[Darwock]

I don’t think I’m very sensitive to framerate drops, because I thought the PS5 version was fine. I mean it’s great if PS4 is smoother, but if it’s also uglier I’m perfectly happy to stick with PS5.

 

Back onto the topic of my NG+ adventures, it turns out Patches was telling the truth (sort of):

 

Spoiler

The abductor at the foot of the Raya Lucaria elevator does contain a transporter trap. He said it would take me to the foot of the Erdtree. It actually dropped me in the caldera at Volcano Manor lol. I fought my way out past the double Abductor boss fight, back onto the plateau, legged it through the Wyndham ruins so as to avoid the Mariner fight, and arrived at the Erdtree gazing grace point. My map still won’t let me fast travel.

 

How do I free myself? Do I need to go all the way back down to Liurnia on foot?

[PikaStu]

So a year on, how does it run on Series X / PS5 after the various patches?

 

My 100+ hour save is on PC, but I reckon I’ll start again on console and get the DLC for that. 

[Superunknown]

PS4 version on PS5 is the most stable - basically a locked 60 throughout with checkerboard 1800p and slightly pared back draw distance for grass, and lower fidelity shadows. If you buy the digital version you get both IIRC. I’ve played it this way and the absolutely tiny graphical improvements are not worth the loss of framerate.

 

PS5 and XSX versions regularly drop below 60, so if that bothers you then you’ll need a VRR capable screen.

[MrHendo]

1 hour ago, Darwock said:

I don’t think I’m very sensitive to framerate drops, because I thought the PS5 version was fine. I mean it’s great if PS4 is smoother, but if it’s also uglier I’m perfectly happy to stick with PS5.

 

Back onto the topic of my NG+ adventures, it turns out Patches was telling the truth (sort of):

 

  Reveal hidden contents

The abductor at the foot of the Raya Lucaria elevator does contain a transporter trap. He said it would take me to the foot of the Erdtree. It actually dropped me in the caldera at Volcano Manor lol. I fought my way out past the double Abductor boss fight, back onto the plateau, legged it through the Wyndham ruins so as to avoid the Mariner fight, and arrived at the Erdtree gazing grace point. My map still won’t let me fast travel.

 

How do I free myself? Do I need to go all the way back down to Liurnia on foot?

I think you would have to sit at a new site of grace?

If that’s the place I’m thinking of, there’s a little trip past some bats and then you end up in a little building surrounded by lava, some fire slugs and an enemy or two by a grace. You should be able to teleport out after that.

 

Edit: from the Fextralife page….

 

Spoiler

From the Schoolhouse Classroom Site of Grace in Raya Lucaria Academy, head south out the door and around the corner. Ride the looping elevator down to the lower floor where you'll see a normal enemy Abductor Virgin. Let it grab you (use a Sacrificial Twig or Twiggy Cracked Tear to avoid losing runes), and you'll be teleported to a special area in Volcano Manor. Hop across the lava flows and travel southeast, dropping down a few ledges along a lava waterfall until you reach the Subterranean Inquisition Chamber Site of Grace.

 

[Darwock]

I’ve done all that, and been way past it and visited another site of grace beyond there - still got red lines through my grace points on the map 😕

[Hawklord]

5 minutes ago, Darwock said:

I’ve done all that, and been way past it and visited another site of grace beyond there - still got red lines through my grace points on the map 😕

I think that when this happens, you can only re-activate fast travel by opening the map while seated at the SoG. Not sure if you have to specifically do it at the SoG that MrHendo mentions

[Darwock]

Actually that’s probably it - I didn’t stop to rest at any of the graces, just tagged them on my way past. Cheers!

[Anne Summers]

This is pretty cool - how do people do this kind of thing ? (I mean technically, not morally or something...)

 

 

 

[Ste Pickford]

It shows what a robust and well written piece of software the game is, to support different numbers of players and enemies and different types being swapped into different encounters.

 

[Anne Summers]

1 hour ago, Ste Pickford said:

It shows what a robust and well written piece of software the game is, to support different numbers of players and enemies and different types being swapped into different encounters.

 

Is there a tool/ mod for doing it or something like that? 

Could you take enemies from Dark Souls (for example) and drop them into Elden Ring?

[dug]

1 hour ago, Anne Summers said:

This is pretty cool - how do people do this kind of thing ? (I mean technically, not morally or something...)

 

 

 

 

Ha, I've been bingeing on this channel over the last week or so. My favourites are the battle royales where they pitch, for example, all the enemies with the word knight in their name against eachother. Oddly compelling.

[Ste Pickford]

No idea how compatible characters from one Fromsoft game would be with another, to be honest.  It sounds like it wouldn't be easy - they've probably changed and upgraded their systems a lot between titles, but I'm just guessing.

I think within Elden Ring itself, this kind of mod must be built upon the fact that the game is designed have multiple active players in the game world, partly for multiplayer, and partly for summons, so some of the active players in the game are AI controlled, and because there are loads of potential summons (both type and number active), they've made their system allow an effectively unlimited number of players in the world at once, alongside enemies and NPCS, and let any number of those players be AI controlled,.  Presumably, all enemies and players work as interchangable 'actors' too, using more or less the same system, so nothing breaks if you swap the player for a particular boss and let the game run.
 

So I'm guessing it's possible to swap a player for a humanoid boss without rewriting tons of code, game, just mostly messing about with data.  

Not every game will be written this way, so this kind of thing is not necessarily possible in every game.

[Anne Summers]

7 minutes ago, dug said:

 

Ha, I've been bingeing on this channel over the last week or so. My favourites are the battle royales where they pitch, for example, all the enemies with the word knight in their name against eachother. Oddly compelling.

What's with the very last fight in that video? That knight is the first boss from the tutorial isn't he - how is he able to wipe the whole army out so quickly? Did someone buff him?

[Girth Certificate]

yeah I expect they tweaked his stats a bit 

[dug]

1 hour ago, Anne Summers said:

What's with the very last fight in that video? That knight is the first boss from the tutorial isn't he - how is he able to wipe the whole army out so quickly? Did someone buff him?

 

Ha, yeah they've changed him from Soldier of Godrick to Rick, Soldier of God, and buffed his stats to ridiculous levels.

[Benny]

He's

 

Spoiler

A super secret boss that only appears back at the starting tutorial area if you meet certain conditions. Probably the hardest boss From have ever designed.

 

[SpagMasterSwift]

Against all my better judgement I started this tonight. Initial impressions are the frame rate is doing weird things to my head, I don’t like being poisoned and wolves can fuck right off!

[Twinbee]

Just had my first go. Got through the tutorial, out into the world…

 

Let’s have a look at that gold armoured bloke…

Dead. 
 

OK, how about those three bat demon things?

Dead.

 

Yes, but I’ll get them next ti—

Dead. 
 

Third time lucky—

Dead. 
 

Oh yeah I’ve got a staff that shoots, let’s try some of that!

Not dead. 
 

Cool, I’m a pro now, let’s try that solider over there.

Not dead. 
 

The hype is clearly not true and this is just like playing Zelda. What’s in this tunnel?

 

Dead. 
 

Blimey, I’ve never met a game world less happy to see me!

[Gorf]

I’ve got right back into Elden Ring the past couple of nights after not touching it for months

 

Ive remembered a reason why I moved away from it, I thought it was covid related at the time

 

After a late night session, I get a weird vertigo sensation where I feel offbalanced and slight room spin that  lasts for ages

 

Anyone else?

 

Or maybe ive got covid again!

[Darwock]

Ummm, no. Not sure how that could be Elden Ring related either, as it’s a pretty standard 3P action game perspective?

[Calashnikov]

1 hour ago, Gorf said:

I’ve got right back into Elden Ring the past couple of nights after not touching it for months

 

Ive remembered a reason why I moved away from it, I thought it was covid related at the time

 

After a late night session, I get a weird vertigo sensation where I feel offbalanced and slight room spin that  lasts for ages

 

Anyone else?

 

Or maybe ive got covid again!

What you’re talking about is relentless, unwavering oppression, and it’s the reason I also bailed, and it’s fucking glorious tbf 👏🏻 

[Anne Summers]

Playing this now and there are no summon signs appearing in front of Commander Niall's boss gate (I see messages so I'm definitely online). Does this mean literally no one in the world / server region is putting them down in this location right now? Seeme hard to believe. 

 

Anyone able to jump on and give me a hand with him?

 

 

 

[Alask]

Probably a bit late now, but there’ll only be a summon sign outside Niall’s if someone has walked all the way there and dropped one. I suspect most people just use the auto thing now and send out summon signs “near and far” in which case you’d want to have a look near the entrance to the castle and see if there any by the summoning stone.

 

As long as you unlocked the lift it’s a quick run to the boss from there.

[MrHendo]

I’ve had barely any multiplayer signs on my bleed character run, I assumed there were barely anyone putting signs down.

[Anne Summers]

3 hours ago, Alask said:

Probably a bit late now, but there’ll only be a summon sign outside Niall’s if someone has walked all the way there and dropped one. I suspect most people just use the auto thing now and send out summon signs “near and far” in which case you’d want to have a look near the entrance to the castle and see if there any by the summoning stone.

 

As long as you unlocked the lift it’s a quick run to the boss from there.

I've never been exactly sure what all those summoning pools and summing statues are about. So is the basic idea that you can put your sign down anywhere, and then another player can activate the stone close to where they are, and pull all the local signs to them?

There doesn't seem to be a statue outside the Niall boss room, unlike most of the others (I think). 

[Alask]

• You can just write down a single gold summon sign where you're stood and it'll appear in the same place in other peoples games and they can summon you. So if you only want to help fight a particular boss, you can do it outside that bosses room and only people who are about to go in to fight that boss are going to summon you.
• Or you can use the small gold effigy in your items to choose to have your summon sign appear at every martyr/summoning statue in the zone (near) or everywhere in the world (far) that you've previously touched. Then your summon sign will appear next to all of those in other peoples games and you could get summoned all over the place. It's more of a push mechanic though, the person wanting to be summoned sends their sign out to all the martyr statues. The person wanting help just has to hope there's someone who either particularly likes fighting this boss or that someone's pushed out their summon sign to whichever the nearest statue is.

 

Most bosses do have a martyr/summon statue near them, but not all. Niall doesn't so if you want help with him you have to go back to the castle entrance and pick someone up there.

[rgraves]

And there is some level matching going on - so you can only summon players that are relatively close to you in level (unless you both enter a matching password to force a match). That can thin things out if you're a lower level in some areas than everyone else is etc

[Keyboard Koala]