Topic: Elden Ring Hype Thread

Got 2.5 hours in tonight and…yeah…I’m really enjoying it. It’s a beautiful world thus far, and the presence of wildlife and overworld music is really nice too. Can’t wait to continue my journey.

@Jimmer-jammer I'm also really liking the fact that you recover some health flasks (can't even remember what they're called this time round, but I know they're not "estus") when you defeat a group of enemies. It means if you end up getting through them with just a sliver of health, you don't necessary have to retreat straight back to the nearest point of grace

I ended up playing for about 4 hours last night. Frame rate can be a bit choppy at times, but I'm playing (PC version) on a GTX 1060 3GB - it's the kind of graphics card that'll play the vast majority of modern games, but choppy frame rates are just a fact of life for more recent games. It's also the absolute minimum GPU for playing Elden ring on PC, according to the system specs

With a few tweaks to the graphics settings (including some specific suggestions from Steam users on Windows settings which help mitigate the issue - obviously PS players don't get this kind of flexibility, they just have two graphics modes and whatever patches From software release) I managed to get a mostly steady 60FPS, dipping occasionally, down to 30 or so at the lowest points, but only very occasionally. That's just life for me, and it didn't really detract from the experience that much.

What is unusual is that if I'm managing to get a mostly steady 60fps on a 1060 3GB on medium settings, the guys with 3080 TI's really shouldn't be struggling to hit 60 at all on any graphics setting (given that there isn't any RT options yet), so hopefully they'll be able to improve performance at some point. But like I say, I had a blast despite the occasional frame rate drops

@Voltan I did manage to co-op on Steam at one point. It works - the three of us utterly failed to take down the horseback knight that's near where you start in the overworld

As I posted previously, the PS5 version arrived yesterday but I probably won’t start it for a week or two. In the mean time, I’m seriously considering picking up the PS4 version as it is supposedly the best way to play it atm. It’s currently £45 on amazon.

@colonelkilgore Seems like a bit of waste of money. I'm sure that will be patched eventually. I'm playing the ps5 version and it has been fine, but I've never been that sensitive to the issues reported. Sure I notice sudden spikes in in frame rate, like in Bloodborne when you first enter Old Yarnham. But it has bever really effected my enjoyment of the games. Like Ness said before, everyone has different sensitivities to these things.

@JohnnyShoulder you’re probably right… the main thing that is sticking in my mind though is, I’ll want to plat both versions eventually anyway. So it probably makes most sense to play the PS4 version while it is the best version (as minimal an advantage as it may be)… and then play the PS5 version in a year or two, by which time it’ll probably be running far better.

@danlk1ng You can also recover your uses of flasks of the corresponding colour by defeating scarlet or blue scarabs.

@colonelkilgore If that is the case, why on earth didn't you get the ps4 version in the first place? You get a free upgrade to the ps5 version. 😆

Did anyone else get the adventure guide? Not sure if is a pre-order bonus or something. Anyway, I found the below useful, hope others do.

@JohnnyShoulder yeah, I found the merchant that way, had wandered off in a completely different direction at the start to avoid you know who!

@JohnnyShoulder I've got the bonus gesture but not the adventure guide for some reason (I pre-ordered PC version from Argos, and to be fair to them the preorder bonuses weren't advertised on their listing, so it was never clear if they were included or not)

@JohnnyShoulder wouldn’t be the first From Soft game that I end up having more than one copy of tbh… I have 3 different versions of Demons Souls, Bloodborne and Dark Souls 2, 2 versions of Dark Souls and Dark Souls 3… in fact it’s only Sekiro of the Miyazaki From era that I only have a single copy of.

The club that the wretch starts with is actually good. The weapon art on it is a really nice buff that seems to break poise of people in short range.

@R1spam Yeah same here, I backtracked and found the merchant!

I love this part of these games when there is so much unknown and to find out.

I can see myself spending quite a bit of time hunting and crafting to keep my arrows topped up!

@JohnnyShoulder the hunting for arrow ingredients gets old fast, especially using arrows to get them.

But the arrows are great vs mounted guys.

@Mega-Gazz I've been sneaking up to birds and deer to kill em. I'll probs end buying arrows eventually, but at this early stage it is good to save on some coin.

@danlk1ng I think it’s crimson tears this time around. Yeah, it’s brilliant, though I believe it’s single handedly the reason it took me two hours to find Torrent 😂

@colonelkilgore If it helps at all, I’m playing the PS5 version, and though it does contain the usual From Software frame pacing hiccups, it’s probably the best performing FS game I’ve played out of the gate and hasn’t given me any problems at all.

good to know, cheers @Jimmer-jammer

Playing this on PC.

The level of shadow flickering and pop-in in this game is nuts on the low graphics setting. With that said, after all of the horror stories about the game running at 15fps on modern video cards, the fact that the framerate isn't tanking at low settings on my piddly, 7-year-old GPU is a relief.

How many gamer incel jokes will this inspire, I wonder?

@Jimmer-jammer I almost skipped the scene where you get torrent (it seems to linger for a few seconds before anything happens, and at first I thought it was just a long animation for resting at the site of grace) I don't know if I'd even know I'd got him if I managed to skip before Melina turned up

LOL. Thanks, now saving this for future use.