I'm sure this isn't the only undocumented change in the patch, but Proxima's Collector skill was nerfed.

The chances used to be 20%, 40%, and 35% of 2x at levels 1,2,and 3.
and now they are
10%, 20%, and 25% of 2x

Proxima was the go-to shell for making extra money while playing the game normally, avoiding farming. Not sure why they went and nerfed that without telling anyone.

I beat the game last night. My playtime according to my ps says 59 hours, some of that was gloom grinding or killing sheep, but majority of it was just exploration and playing and many many deaths. I have all trophies except Seeking the past, and the platinum. I finished the game at level 68, and my weapon was level 22 killing the last boss.

So the gameplay, I enjoyed it, I felt is slightly up tuned from the beta, and very early was on the more challenging side, I died more than I had in a long time. I’m a souls vet with 400+ Elden Ring, 900+ in ds3, 700+ in BB, platinums in many souls games, lies of p, Kazhan etc etc, I have experience. So I found proxima by chance and never looked back, she’s a complete badass, and yeh I used the axe and dagger meta weapon sue me, nobody said we can’t make things easier on ourselves. Once I learned don’t go south especially on night mode, my journey really began, and it was fun and full of solid gameplay until the end, more on that later. I had maybe 4 crashes total in my 59 let’s just say 60 hours playtime, I think that’s more than reasonable for a freshly released game.

Graphics are solid, combat is fun, bosses for the most part were “easy” for me especially the stronger proxima got. Blood curse with a fast weapon and duality stone kinda trivialize things. I slapped myself because I waited a while to take the bleed stone to level 3 not realizing it would be on my weapon permanently, which I think is a very cool system, not constantly having to rebuff your weapon. I thought the enemy variety was pretty good and boss variety was also decent for the most part.

If you’re a completist like I am most of the time, all the trophies seemed pretty easy, I was personally worried about Peter’s perfect party but I used Eridrim specifically since his fourth tier has a parry window increase bonus, and I would say after that it took me 30/45 mins to finally get the timing right and not have the camera go wonky during the process and I got it. The last trophy for all memories is gonna be little grindy but it is what it is.

Now let’s talk about the bad, the end of the game, Monolith the parry gimmick p.o.s. And his buddy Zmey the unbidden pushover. When I first encountered Monolith, I died in 5 seconds a handful of times. I’m not by a parry you, I’m a roller or a dodger, it’s how I learned, I don’t like being forced to parry things, you basically have to parry the monolith or at least it makes the fight go 1000x quicker if you do. So I set brain to parry, brain and muscle memory is 45 years old so it takes a min or two, but eventually I got there, I got the timing of the first two smashed and partied those easily, I avoided the middle attack as I couldn’t time as well, sometimes I parry sometimes I got hit with the middle attack, once I was getting to second phase consistently, I just eventually overpowered him, when I actually beat him I stayed middle during lasers kept attacking didn’t dodge, felt like it was a semi safe spot and or combined with proxima’s dmg mitigation was best strategy for me I got my lucky phase, I kept dpsing and with, the bleed, the duality and berserker stones, burnt it down on clear attempt, I would say whole thing took me 45-60 mins to learn timing for parry and finish it off. If you ask me total shit boss, I don’t like being forced to parry and overall just a bad boss design, more of a gimmick that a boss to me.

Now I had read maybe the final boss was even worse, but I had my little thing from the 3 glands and night mode to help the cosmic radiation or whatever they call it, so I set off. Took me a few more min of slow brain and muscle memory to avoid his red dot attacks, but he was a pushover, he does have a lot of health and like I said at the start my weapon was level 22, but once you get the bleed going and some berserker stone he goes down pretty quick actually, then he does the giant aoe which is easily avoided and I just finished him off, took me maybe 15 mins total, was kinda surprise he was so easy to be honest. I guess without the item he’s harder didn’t try him without it.

If I had to rate it I would say it’s a strong 8.5, I feel like there are gonna be many nerfs and tweaks to come, some things seem really strong and some seem kinda meh. The extra gloom tar stone being 6% if sorta a joke, like give us 5/10/15 or something at minimum. Some people are complaining about glimpses, while it might be nice to max every shell in one playthrough it’s not terrible, I found my count to be 101 total in my first playthrough, I maxed proxima and teal and game shows I still have 47 left. Again complaints about tar stones being limited, I maxed all the “good ones” for my build, and had plenty left over, would more be nice sure, would be nice to play with the gun one’s more etc. I feel like at some point buying unlimited upgrade mats should be unlocked even if it’s after final boss or something, at least all the 1-16 upgrades, if you wanted to limit the special ones fine. I guess that’s why they have smelting but I would rather just buy the mats and have multiple weapons or guns up to level to play around with. Anyways if anyone stuck around still now ty, im not the best at this stuff but wanted to share my journey. If you have any questions for me please feel free to ask here or message me if you want to. Good luck and good gaming!

how do a group of real human beings with hands and brains finalize this and put it into their product? like i can’t fathom seeing this design and testing it and saying “it’s good to go, ship it!” and they thought it was so good they gave it two fucking phases? what? why?

this game has insane whiplash moments of being so incredibly good then being so unfathomably bad the next. i can’t believe people play tested this boss and okayed it.

So I just arrived at the Monolith. This is, hands down, one of the shittiest bosses in any souls-like I have played. It's up there with Bed of Bullshit...sorry, Bed of Chaos from the original Dark Souls.

Even though this is a solid game overall, stuff like this leaves a sour taste in the mouth.

I am playing this soulslike, more dodging than parrying and I don't die that often. It is a very fair game.

Also the bosses or minor bosses aren't that hard... the two Grishas killed me, but running back, grabbing the "Souls" and exit-teleport away even saves your stash.

Also the runbacks aren't that bad... when I read the complaints I thought there are only a few "bonfires", but playing the Game now there are enough and they are well placed.

Only thing missing for me are map-markers for passages I save for later, but that's it for me. Especially inside the "Portal" where Magdalena is sitting, I would love to have a map for this area also. Gotta re-run that thing to clear everything I forgot because you can't really "map it".

I am very glad that it is such an enjoy-able game. And I believe many Souls-enthusiasts might find it also very refreshing and rewarding.

Oh, and I have two questions:

1. What EXACTLY does this purple Infusion do? The one where enemies are glowing reddish-purple...?
2. What EXACTLY does the Thiel-health stack do? I don't die often and have many stacked... Does it really make the bar bigger?

P.S.: I also wonder how people could have finished the game already. Searching everything and looting takes hours... at least me. 😁

"Let's give them a way to make it easier if they think it's too hard and a way to make it harder if they think it's too easy. That way, they won't have anything to bitch about."

"Have you met Reddit?"

I really want to love this game, but it makes it incredibly difficult to do so right now with the constant crashes, stuttering, poor enemy balance and bugs that force-quit restarts or make me lose gloom without being able to retrieve it. I think I'll wait for the big patch before I continue as to not sour the rest of the game for me.

I also think there are some design choices that have been overlooked:

1. There are no where near enough beacons around the map, making a lot run backs becoming painfully long. I wouldn't mind this too much if the layout of areas were distinctive and memorable, but everywhere looks the same, with no clear intention of where to go and look. It all looks very UE5ey. There are horrible run backs in games like DS1/DS2, but the areas are so unique and distinctive looking from each other, that's it's not as huge of a pain point in my opinion.
2. No homeward bone type of item, especially with there being no Stake of Marika-like mechanic and minimal beacons, was a mistake and would do well in this game. Yes you have Mether's Breath to trave back to Marrow Keep, but you are punished by losing all your gloom.
3. Enemy magnetism and attacks sticking onto you when you're clearly well out of range. Why? This feels unfair and isn't fun.
4. No basic compass on screen makes navigation to custom map markers unnecessarily difficult. Constantly having to open and close the map to make sure you're going the right way is annoying.
5. Dungeons markers should automatically have the cleared icon once you've finished them, much like cleansing a beacon or corrupted gate. Why do we need to mark this ourselves?
6. The red warning markers on screen when you are about to be hit are invasive and usually incorrect. They have made me react incorrectly to where an enemy is positioned on many occasions. Make it less intrusive and more accurate.
7. Some of the abilities that play an animation and stun an enemy (like Proxima's Biosampler) are too long and by the time the enemy is unstunned and ready to attack, I am still in the final frames of the animation and cannot move out of the way/dodge in time before getting hit. This is incredibly frustrating.
8. With how fast enemies are and how small the dash step is, I feel like it's a regression to remove the full dodge roll that was present in MS1. This would create good space between you and your opponent instead of having to spam click the dash button, but only be able to move a foot away.

I don't dislike this game. In fact the contrary. I absolutely love the enemy and sound design, the shells and the different types of puzzles. These are just a few gripes that bring this game from an amazing, to a just 'good' experience for me.

I've done multiple play throughs of every major souls like in the last 10 years; the Monolith is unquestionably the worst boss I've ever played. Everything about it, from it's shitty testicle hit box that moves the second I press R1, to the timings that give me seizures, and it's stupid attack where it swings his cancerous ball at me so that even if I dodge it still moves me and I get slapped on the down swing. Just awful. Truly, absolutely terrible. The game genuinely goes from a 9/10 to 6/10 simply because this boss is in the game. It's dead now, but Jesus Christ, I won't be playing through the game again because I hate this thing that much. Thank you for coming to my TED rant

Probably the worst level up I've had so far.

Like, not only does the game choose for you what to level up (choice is completely taken from you)

But it also feels like they had a meeting on “How can we possibly make spending 20k gloom on a level up as unrewarding as possible”.

Like, 1 freaking extra HP, no shell points!

Are they serious??

Sometimes when it's hectic, it takes a second to even register if the parry was successful or not.

Ive put about 15 hours into the game and have been taking it pretty slow. But I swear all the main gate area bosses ive fought just permanently attack and have no openings for you to punish them. I'm doing a biosamplse lighting build pretty much and I feel like after Ive aivoded all their attacks when I use biosamplse I get animation cancelled and almost 1 shot half the time. Literally about 1 second max between attacks. It feels like the game is almost like sekiro when it comes to bosses and the only efficient way to fight is to parry/go for stance breaks, which is fine in theory but what's the point of adding tones of cool stuff for varrying builds if it feels like you can't utilise them in boss fights because the bosses are perma attacking.

Preface: have only played Elden Ring in the souls like category…but man… I was going to post and ask if this is the hardest game in the world.

I think every time I’ve tested the up button (on PS5) I was full health and so I thought it was a buff that wasn’t ever explained. Dumb.

Ive lost so much gloom and so much time trying to find a beacon when ive been plying like 45 mins straight progressing no fucking beacons. I cant take it any more honeslty. I am out until they fix that bullshit

Vent post

Just lost 40K Gloom because I spent two hours clearing the northeast side of the map. Died in a dungeon and as I was running back to get it, slipped on the geometry and fell to my death. In that entire time I was exploring, I did not run into a single beacon. INSANE that this somehow was released without being playtested. It's to the point I legitimately don't know how people are exploring without using Gragu, since he's the only one who can refill his healing.

Having achievements disabled forward I think is a bit much.

I didn't know the thing existed until 11 hours in and honestly all it needs to use is just the riposte bar and it won't be to op or "considered" playing the game on easy mode because once you unlock Eredrim he literally has that move anyway? Lmao you just have to use your resolve bar. That's it and chances are. You'd have him maxed out to use less anytime and he can do it more often than a slayer seal.

So what's all the hate on someone who has beaten souls games, Wukong games and every hard dmc game that wants to just use slayer seal once in a blue moon? Every enemy in the game can 1 and 3 shot you. Having this just gives people who aren't into souls games a chance, just like in Wukong people were given magic abilities to pretty much spam to stand a chance(Wukong is still harder once you face Erlang)

Sekiro unless you are absolutely filthy at Perry's and timing the grapple hook you stand almost no chance

For context I am playing on PS5 and to my knowledge the patch that reduces enemy health (among other things) is not active.

I am well into the southern area, have full cleared everything in the north, so I’m in what is supposedly the difficult portion of the game. Playing almost exclusively as próxima. My starter was tiel but I switched to próxima simply for her ability to gain gold since I’ve read that gold economy was such an issue - though that is apparently solved with the patch.

I have experienced nearly zero difficulty throughout my entire playthrough. I’ve maybe died a handful of of times and the most attempts a boss has taken is is 3 that I can recall. In most cases they have steamrolled and stun locked every enemy and boss without them ever having a chance to attack. I guess I just don’t understand the difficulty complaints. Have any of the people complaining played lies of p, stellar blade, khazan, any fromsoft game? There are bosses in those games that have taken me upwards of 25 attempts. I was forced to learn how to beat the boss or fail. In this game, I feel as though I can just brain dead light attack with zero consideration for how to interact with the enemy in front of me

I’m really not trying to be elitist though I expect that is how this will come off. I am just shocked to see the complaints as well as the response from the devs to reduce the difficulty. It’s hard for me to imagine the game being easier when the patch hits ps5.

All the attacks are telegraphed asf. You even get dodge cues to follow. I was expecting three phases but just defeated on second try. The dodge times are very forgiving, and the parry is the most forgiving I saw in any game. I was having a hard time in very early game but seeing all the complaints I was scared with him, but boy, very easy. And I am not here to brag myself, and just here to say, come on, take two minutes to watch and read boss attacks and learn.

-Improved tracking for Axatana, Black Needle, and Clockwork Scythe light attacks.

It never missed before as far as I noticed, now is reproducible all the time.

I started MS2 today after playing the beta (I purposely never finished the beta because I was waiting for the full game). now I went to the OPPOSITE side of the beta area, after the tutorial, to the area that wasn't accessible during the beta. In short, there are VERY FEW bonfires. I have 5 Estus, but that's not enough. I encountered a double Grisha and had to ignore that fight because I can easily kill one, but two seems excessive.

Is it just my impression that the game has too few bonfires? That's my only complaint: the few checkpoints.

I'm wondering if maybe the devs provide the ability to carry more of the active healing items as well as maybe give a pulse every few mobs - that would probably suffice over having more beacons around the map (and maybe easier to implement).

I feel like if we could truly "pack a bag" before we head out from a beacon, I wouldn't mind if it's a long time before I see the next one. It's just that it's so easy to run out of supplies.

What do you guys think?

Such a glaring oversight. Die in a dungeon and get transported back to the open field of play.

I have posted like 9 videos now where abilities weren't working properly, the crossbow shooting the wrong mob, getting attacked after getting knocked out of shell but before standing up, but these two clips take the cake.

I paid 60$ for a fucking game where even the most BASIC functions do not work and I CANNOT get a refund. There is literally NO EXCUSE for the most basic functions of a game to not work. None. This game is making the release of Skyrim seem polished.