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Hey Ratatoskr, im an italian commenter that helped SmoughTown revise his theories in his videos on the Greater Will and the Outer Gods exposing ideas of a famous italian souls content creator known as Sabaku no Maiku, that rarely gets aknowledged becouse of the linguistic barrier, i think you would find at least some clarity on the matter. Just like Ziostorm said during this very podcast we western audiences tend to associate too much to the cosmos in Elden Ring, i would also add that way too often ideas never confirmed in game are taken as truth just becouse someone said them first or becouse they are exposed by a bigger channel like vaati. The interpretations Sabaku reveals are not just lots of brain twisting, they are an in depth research of the japanese traslations AND the (very different) japanese audience view on the lore. As for the claims about the Greattree misstranslations i would reccomend the reddit posts of reddit user u/LaMi_1 he's the skilled traslator of Sabaku and helped SmoughTown in his OuterGods video.
I've felt like they could have put a great-flail type weapon in the game since I first saw they put flails in so I would be ecstatic to see that. They could be like the curved greatsword of flails.
Sorry to say, but you’re wrong. Out of the 20 million units sold, how many of them have a shit about the lore in ER? It’s a niche thing. It’s for dorks who care about that shit. Nerds like you.
When it comes to the PvP stuff, I dont actively seek it out, but if I'm a summon in someone's world and there's an invasion I genuinely have a good time with it most of the time. Even if PvP isn't my thing, it's still fun in FromSoft games.
The Eldenring subreddit wasnt that anti pvp until release. When the new player influx came in, like right after release it was crazy, it felt like 80% of people straight out hated invasions.
I didn't get into souls until ds3 and I absolutely hated invasions at first, but that was just because I sucked at the game and couldn't win. As soon as I got gud pvp became fun
Even though invasions in Elden Ring are more forgivable than they have ever been? If you play solo they virtually don't exist, and if you play with friends, you are always at upper hand against invaders. And you can summon blues/hunters continually.
My flawless theory on why Iji is covered in black flame: The ID numbers for the black flame effect and the Destined Death flame effect are one apart, and some developer typed in the wrong one by accident, and nobody caught it.
People immediately think the assassins were just trying to kill Iji unprompted. However, Iji only dies when you tell him about Blaidd's death. If you don't tell him, the assassins don't come. The assassins attack him because he does something after hearing about Blaidd.
You guys might not know this but demon's souls had a godly pantheon which was effectively a real time leaderboard where whatever player matched the God in question was displayed in everyone's world.
I was hoping that “underwater” souls game that was rumored to be in development was just a major expansion for elden ring speaking of that one thing that lingers on my mind to this day is the rusted anchor states that a single ship stayed behind I wish I knew what that meant
I thought it just meant that some Tarnished refused to leave and thus paid the consequences for it. The Ancient Hero of Zamor in the evergaol near the Church of Pilgrimage might be one of them, probably defeated by Radagon after some attempt at revenge for his banishment (he drops Radagon's soreseal and the Church nearby is his site of Pilgrimage, indicating this event was important, maybe he saved Marika's life...?)
I think one of the best things that happened for my FromSoft gaming experience is that early on in my experience with Dark Souls, I stumbled upon ENB's channel right as he was starting his From the Dark playthrough. I learned through that opening episode to pay attention to everything. And after I was done, I watched that series to pick up on any things I missed. From that point on, I was hooked.
Hearing Ratatoskr talk about being confused about the lore and not having watched much of the recent lore videos in the community have me excited about all the info he'll get when he hunkers down to it. I definitely recommend SmoughTown's Outer Gods video. It views Elden Ring lore with a whole different perspective from most of the other lore videos. Then his Story Timeline video puts many major events in a great package.
Smoughtown makes way too many blatant mistakes bc of how fast he's been trying to crank out the content. When I watched his malenia video I deliberately kept an eye out for a typical mistake that a lot of people make when discussing one of the rot items, and sure as hell he made that exact mistake, WHILE the in-game item description that should have tipped him off to his mistake WAS ON THE SCREEN. I'd rather rata checked out quelaag's videos, rambly and schizoid as they may be.
I began replaying Elden Ring, i left it at the snowfields, currently im at the albinauric town with the archers and ive changed my build to be a black knife assasin, im having a lot of fun.
set your skin tone jet black, eyes black, and black clouding/eye shadow around the eyes. you will aesthetically look like the NPC black knives. only up close do you really notice the facial features like the nose.
I started playing Elden Ring again after a good 6 months break. Never done that with any soulsborne, but I kinda wanted to "forget" as much of the game as possible for my 2nd playthrough and indeed it's a special feeling right now. Of course nothing will ever feel like your first playthrough, but I can still feel the magic of this game and it still feels very new.
I have seen people equate it by saying “I don’t consent to the invasion just like drunk people don’t consent to….” A few different arguments I’ve seen were very similar to this. The argument isn’t made in a joking way but seriously. But if you buy the game you know what you’re buying and what mechanics are in it while playing. You don’t have to play the game if you don’t like all the mechanics. It’s a poor argument equating it to something in poor taste, that doesn’t even make sense
Yeah its insane. You can literally just turn invasions off by playing offline. Oh wait but then they wont have their summons that can carry them through the game :(
Regarding the additional upgrades in the DLC: it would be a terrible idea for PvP balancing and would break the normal endgame. Imagine the current bosses with like 5 additional upgrade levels. I would suggest adding merchants with the currently unavailable crafting ingredients like the rare butterflies or Arteria leaves.
There's the Gael Tunnel which also special in the sense that you can go further than the boss (has an entrance from Limgrave, too), actually the boss is optional becuase you can't get back after you fell down, there's no elevator. Also the Gaol cave, you have a view to Limgrave when you find the Regalia of Eochaid.
Definitely watch Smoughtown's timeline video if you haven't! He talks about tree iconography of the Uhl civilization and the origins of the Erdtree. Seems very relevant to this mushroom theory
I came across a theory on YT, I forget who sorry, maybe quelaag, but it looks as if Rani betrayed the Knox/numen somehow on the night of black knives and when she made herself known and murdered her 2 fingers their own assassins came after igi and Blaid. Assassins are dead next to blaids location when he goes nuts
Great podcast, I loved that farum azula connection to the ever gaols, and seeing you gonna catch up eventually with current theories I suggest you give a view to smoughtown video "Elden Ring Story Timeline", also queelag and tarnish archeologist channels have quite a few of interesting theories.
Yooooo Ziostorm and Ratatoskr, my two favorite UA-camrs!!! I love it!! Also congrats to you both for having your videos featured on Asmongold with positive reactions
They have a "send my duel sign anywhere" item that you get right with the Duelist's Furled Finger, it would make so much sense to rework that item to send your sign to the Colosseums, for whatever matchup needs people. Also, Coastal Cave in Limgrave leads to the tranquil island with the Church of Dragon Communion, the mine in the Capital Outskirts leads to the Divine Tower for Rykard, and there's a mine in Caelid that leads to an otherwise inaccessible platform in Limgrave.
Off-topic, but I made a MH:Rise ODST challenge based off of your last podcast, Ratatoskr. It features Ibushi wrecking the main village at the beginning of the game and Hamon and crew needing several quests to rebuild the forge. Check it out if you want, I've been enjoying playing this way for the past few days at least. Since YT won't let me post links, just search up ODST challenge in the Steam MH:Rise guides section.
Great episode! Haven't watched your lore videos but I will. I always regret not reading item description when playing a souls games for the first time. And colossal flails sound awesome! Think the Witch King from Return of thr King fighting Eowyn. Now THAT is a flail! ;-)
So as someone who has a platinum in both GOW and Elden Ring along with alot of both studios previous titles I will say that Elden Ring 100% deserves to be in the nominations for best narrative but the issue is the casual audience picking up on it their first play through because of how deep the lore can go. On the flip side a game like GOW is in your face and in fact you can’t even skip cutscenes but if your engaged with the story (which honestly isn’t hard with those games) then you get some of the most emotionally impactful and tear jerking moments you will ever witness. So I guess All I’m saying is while I think Elden Ring should be talked about and praised in this category GOW’s story and narrative should 100% take it this year because we know Elden Ring is gonna win everything else lol
The Tarnished Archeologist’s latest videos really rekindled my faith in deep layers of lore still waiting to be uncovered. Even if the necessary links to bring it all together are never found or never even existed, the amount of work put in the world building is staggering and not at all random, which I started to fear at some point.
Let's be real, the reason they disabled solo host invasions is cuz of Torrent. You can't use Torrent when other players are in your world. Imagine riding around and get kicked off your horse out of nowhere. And they probably didn't want to have solo host invasions in legacy zones/dungeons for consistency. That's my guess atleast.
Which is weird, for a developer that loves to talk about challenge to then make such a safe and simple world? Honestly if you can hit the boost button and follow a liner path then you’ve mastered the challenge of theirs world as a space.
We all know consistency isn’t the problem. If anything, solo invasions would be healthier for the entire multiplayer aspect if it was a thing specific for legacy dungeons. It would encourage new players to use random summoning to progress through a level instead of having the generic password summon twink gank squad farming invaders at a site of grace.
Great discussion! It seems like a lot of people in the industry have a narrow view of what a narrative can be in video games. I think it was Alan Moore who said that in making Watchmen he wanted to create a story that could only work in the comic book medium. A story optimized for that medium. I think there's something to be said about that when talking about stories in video games. Games like Disco Elysium, Hellblade, Bioshock and Elden Ring are to varying degrees optimized for the video game medium in terms of how they deliver their stories through the actions of you the player, while games like The Last of Us, Uncharted and God of War fall into the "playable movie" category. I'm not suggesting that those kinds of game narratives don't have merit, but my hope is that they don't rate video game narratives like movies. The medium is capable of more than that.
If Tarnished Archeologist is correct, and the Crucible is the stump of previous the great tree... that works very well with the mushroom theory, where the Erd Tree is a mushroom of order growing out of a tree stump that had previously been trying to regrow chaotically. However, Tarnished Archeologist puts the location of the great tree in the center of the map, where the cloud is, though perhaps that significant location once had something else.
51:51 - Elden Ring ( and Dark Souls ) pvp style is very good for esports. There is no game with combat mechanics like that. I hope that is true, although i am not much into esports in general i think that could lift up the games pvp scene considerably.
There was also the Sealed Cavern in Altus Plateau that would lead to the Divine Tower where you'd get Rykard's Great Rune after beating the Onyx Lord mini-boss.
So about the connection to Farum Azula, I have a hypothesis that idea was that the meteor that crashed Lands Between, which led to the rise of the Alabaster Lords, may have been responsible for the damage that we see in Farum. As in the Alabastor Lord's meteor may have crashed through Farum during its descent, causing the weird time shenanigans we see.
Great talk overall, especially the mushroom theory! The horns seen on Morgott, Mogh, and the ogres can be seen instead as their distinct fungal growth, similar to the misbegotten. You then have the Dung Eater who wants to implant the seedbed curse, which has tiny versions of horns within it. When you mend the Elden Ring with Dung Eater's mending rune, the sky has a fungal look to it, identical to when you're fighting Fortissax, which is in Fia's nightmare. Fia wants to mend the Elden Ring so that Those Who Live in Death become part of the natural order of things, a.k.a. Godwyn's dominance over the Elden Ring (and over the other mending runes). The Golden Order Fundamentalists can be seen as folks on a mission to disinfect Godwyn's fungal influence on the Lands Between. Goldmask learns that the capriciousness of the demigods acted like cavities to the Golden Order, which gives way for other fungal infiltrations to occur (the mending runes), and that's why his mending rune covers the Elden Ring (forming a protective barrier around it). Even the falling leaves and the Erdtree itself look at their healthiest in the Age of Order ending. Ranni is just disgusted by all of this mushroom business (and I suspect that Marika was as well) and she just wanted to cleanse the Lands Between of all of this nasty fungus once and for all. Shabriri and the Three Fingers' motivation remain unchanged.
I would love to get a proper desert area. Rahadn's arena is so close, but it only has the boss and that one dungeon. Make a whole area a desert, it would be so great
I really hope the cut quest involving the mimic tear is restored. And possibly a way for covenants to be worked in somehow. Covenants always gave extra meaning to pvp in the souls games.
Good thing rata drops videos so late at night, it gives me something that I can listen to while at work. Also I need more Bloodborne combat, give me BB2 or some remake, I want to inject gun parry's directly into my veins.
I’ve seen rumors that the people that made Demon Souls are working on a “Bloodborne Project.” My guess is a remake and sequel. Edit: Bluepoint is the dev
Like everybody else I want fromsoftware to make Bloodborne 2, but if they have no interest in doing it i would be okay if blupoint made it. If bluepoint ends up with that monumental task, I don't think they can capture the lore and atmosfere, but if they get the combat right like with demon's souls i'm good. Bloodborne is my favorite game of all time (probably), and if Miyazaki never wants to make another one i'd rather have a bluepoint sequel than to have nothing at all.
@@Derpdeder_ Bloodborne is my favorite game ever. I don’t think Bluepoint would be able to match FromSoftware in quality for a sequel. I’d love a remake though
In the dlc I want a well crafted underground area. All the underground areas look beautiful, but they are completely obsolete on repeated playthroughs, and their level design is either forgettable or straight up bad.
I feel like the Recusants and volcano manner were supposed to be the aldrich/post-pontiff of Elden Ring but got cut for time. The whole isolated setup and entry to the area just makes sense with pvp in mind. Hell, since its optional they could have had the whole of mt Gelmir be a recusant auto-invade zone as players fight their way up the mountain.
I'm definitely one of those people that prefers to focus on the single player experience and doesn't go out of their way to engage in PvP, but acknowledges that it's an essential aspect of the experience. I'm happy to fight invaders sometimes, especially helping others fend them off. People who enjoy invasions and duels more than me deserve to see improvements to this aspect of gameplay, and those who are hostile toward PvP confuse the hell out of me. No one likes to get killed, and certainly feeling dragged into something that I'm not good at sometimes can be frustrating, but it's immature to resent the fun someone else is having in the same game you booted up knowing it would happen sometimes.
There was a great tree before the erdtree. The normal wood and gold of the erdtree obv are two separate things like the top branches also mentioned here at the end. There is also Melina saying she’s burned and bodiless. Prob from here burning the first tree. And there is already left over ash all over lyndell and corpse wax sealing most doors from the ash getting inside just like they did during the American dust bowl storms. Tarnished Archeologist explains a lot of this is one of his videos and pretty much proves it through in game archeology.
There’s no way ER PvP goes anywhere in esports without rollback net code. I dabbled *very* casually in PvP but I was so deeply annoyed with the delay that it didn’t feel like I was playing elden ring, or even a AAA product. They have to fix the net code if they want this to be bigger
I very rarely play PVP, but man, I love watching other people duke it out. 😂 And one thing I love about Elden Ring is that not only it brought a diverse set of players together, but also many content creators, in really good ways than I've seen before... as a gamer who's at his late 30's.
I had totally forgotten about massive anti invader hate train. I remember 2016 getting bodied by invaders and I don't ever remember feeling hate towards them. It was like woah how can this one guy kill me and 2 other people like that. It made me want to pvp and join fight clubs
I think having a 1v1 duel, 2v2 brawl and one or two rotating modes that switch daily would be best. The modes would be nothing too grand, but they could have fun. Imagine a 6v6 where there's 3 players on each team and 3 sets of bosses split between the two teams.
ELDEN SWEEP Speaking of sweep i do hope they add more stuff for multiplayer like being able to scale overleveled friends down to a proper level and being able to enter other biomes and dungeosn during multiplayer and leveling up in graces together unless theres an invader in the world
Don't be afraid to diversify your content. I just like to hear your guys voice and opinion regardless of the game. I mean I really like your deep dives, so I wouldn't necessary change to a channel style where you switch the games you are talking about on a weekly basis. Shallow channels like that exist enough, but if you can flesh out a game enough, I think nothing can stop you, even if the algorithm has a bad day.
@@murray821 financially probably, but there will always be a group of people that will just play the current Fromsoftware games (from demon souls to elden ring) for the rest of their life and a part of them will continue to watch videos about these games as long as those games have enough stuff to talk about. But probably we will just compare everything to the current Fromsoftware games and will tell people how everything else is not as good as darksouls and I will stay here for that. Let's just see the world through the eyes of darksouls and my depression will be complete. Gosh I hate triple A games these days.
That mushroom theory is really damn good actually. Duality is a big big theme across the whole game, even duality of a single thing. Like how the Crucible might hold in itself both meanings of the word, the outer gods being both literal and metaphorical parasitic mushrooms is very possible. From my own playthrough I already got the sense that there is no benevolence in the any of the outer gods' wills, they influence the people of the world so that they may gain dominance through them and exploit the planet for their own gain. This mushroom theory actually strdnghtens my belief that the Rani ending is the good one. There is this idea in a webnovel I read "a mortal cannot defeat an immortal" and the way this reflects in ER is that in most endings the status quo just shifts a little compared to before The Shattering. No matter what you want or do the Greater Will still maintains its hold on the Lands Between through the Elden Ring. Ranis quest is basically her becoming the guardian god of the planet, guarding it from all the outside influences plaguing it, and distancing herself to allow the inhabitants their own free will. And going along with the theory, her casting aside her flesh and adopting a musroom-like appearance further cements her ambitions and marks her an immortal. And though indirect, to me, this whole thing kinda points the "how" and "why" of the Elden Ring world: the ER world did not have a native god, so it became a free for all to all other gods that noticed it and through many many wars, the Greater Will managed to reign supreme until the Shattering era.
Counter hit damage with pokes in ER are especially nutty this time around. I'm surprised they didn't make sweeps on big weapons break guards or something to improve the usefulness of all the standard moves. Not just the poke of any weapon with one
Most game stories are told like a book. Elden ring tells its story like a museum. A book gives you all the prices in chronological order. You stare at the beginning and when you get to the end you’re done. In a museum there are tons of pieces that you can look at or not. You can run through an exhibit and look at everything or run through and ignore everything.
Hey Ratatoskr and Ziostorm! You should check out the newest Hawkshaw video on the colors of Elden Ring. It's such a fresh take on such an obvious concept that it's easily overlooked. I wonder if it can get y'alls wheels spinning on some theories related to it.
On invasions. I 💯 percent believe that’s how they wanted them to work originally but just didn’t have the time to focus on it. It’s makes no sense for the summoning pools other wise and those have been in there since day 1. Too that I also think a lot of content that’s been added since then (sidequest characters balancing) are thing if this had been any other studio or series. The media and gaming community would have had a field day saying how unfinished this game was. I think it speaks a lot how fromSoft plays close to the chest and personally I wish more studios did that.
Good context in different genre. Metallica just announced a whole new album, tour and music video without any leaks or media about it at all. If the biggest band in the world can suppress any leaks so can from software.
I mass murdered those guys during launch week for hours praying it would drop, was so sad when fextralife completed the weapon portion of the wiki and it wasn't a listed weapon 😭😭😭
great podcast, especially the lore discussion. I'd love to hear more of the sort from you two together! It made me start up Elden Ring again for the first time after my initial playthrough.
So I made a poll on the ER subreddit to see what the sub thinks about PvP. Results after 20h: 143 likes PvP, 146 doesn't, 241 tried it but definitely prefer PvE. Take it for what you will.
I’ve been absolutely loving the co op post patch. I’ve always loved co op/co op pvp in these games but honestly I just stopped playing ER because it got so boring. You’d always know for the most part who and what you’d be fighting but now I put down my sign when I’m in leyndell and idk if I’ll be fighting knights in the capital, dragons in caelid, serpents in volcano manor or what. It’s really just added so much variety and replayability (however there are spots I’d wish they’d add summon pools like caria manor front gate)
I don't think I've ever heard of anyone talk about this, but I would like a souls based stand alone pvp game by fromsoftware. It could actually be really good since baseline mechanics don't need to be balanced for pve, like roll distance, i frames and poise
38:30 At least for me, most of my attacks were too slow to hit her consistently so I resorted to pokes, lion's claw, and jump attacks when I knew I could hit them. Also, switch weapons COULD work as long as the switching mechanism is bound to your two-hand and if the weapon art is specifically unique to each of them so a variant could be made per each weapon in the switch weapon. Would be awesome if we got another Bloodborne callback like in DS3 (I think we did, maybe I'm dissociating).
Ratatoskr, if you do intend to hunker down on lore, The Tarnished Archaeologist seems like the best channel out there for interesting connections and speculations
in terms of weapon types that enemies use but we can't use- Kusarigama! When the game was new, I literally spent hours farming the vulgar militia guys with the little kusarigama. You can get everything else that they use, the other two weapon types and all their armor, but you can't get their kusarigama.
Always love these. random question but what country are you from, Ratatoskr? I remember you saying English was your second language and I have to say I cannot tell by listening. Your English is perfect.
To me the Lands Between always seemed like some form of purgatory, it existed, but we the Tarnished were cast out, and only in death are we returning her to set ourselves right. Of course, that still doesn't explain the whole celestial thing, of which there's a lot of. I just never feel the world is actually real, not the one we are in. It is out there on the other side.
I think the only thing they should do is to increase the weight on the heavier armors, someone shouldn't be able to be full bulgoat and one shooting with spells
On the subject of narrative. I know some people like to have things laid out in front of their face.... but lately when I read a bit more books in my language I see that it is even there Miyazaki type narration is not so rare (I read in Polish, maybe in English books it is different). The point is that, for example, a reader with ADHD who 'sprints' through the book will pull out the protagonist's story. The one who carefully reads the paragraphs will discover that there are themes to the events. The one who ponders the meaning of the use of description or treatment in the narrative will discover symbolism and meaning in the patterns that comprise not only the narrative but even the use of colors in the description or the object that the protagonist wears or other nuances are relevant to the story.
@@SpottedHares Remember that the souls series and Elden Ring is an interactive thing and that a big part of the game is exploration. It's all about putting in the effort and attention you'll put in just wanting to interpret. You can speed up the game by flying from boss to boss, but you can, like I did with a friend on PS4 party mode, stop and sometimes try to connect in your head what you have and what you see. It's a matter of attention and willingness to let the patterns and meanings reveal themselves to you. PS: Sometimes you have to have the skill to do it, too. Not all people think that way.
A good narrative, in many ways, isn't accessible. Because it's often told through subversion and trickery. Kafka's The Trial isn't a very accessible book, it's quite confusing and heavy, but the narrative of the book is amazing, because it puts you in the mindset of Josef K, which is the whole point. Elden Ring's Narrative is so darn good, a style you can ONLY get through videogames, which is why it's odd to me that people just want a movie style narrative in their games. Also: People misunderstand what a "story" is. They think the story is the scrips. That's not true. The story is what happens in YOUR game, contrary to other's games. The script is the plot. What's the story of Mass Effect? Who knows. I can tell you the plot, then I can only tell you the two stories I played. In the story does Kaiden or Ashley die? Who knows? Narrative though, is how the story is told, and within the narrative gameplay is also a key part that many people forget. Metal Gear Solid cannot and will not work outside of videogames, even though it uses a lot of movie tropes, ultimately Kojima's games are a critique of the player, and thus the games can't work as a passive piece of art.
About the crucible: I'm not so convinced that the crucible grants random attributes, like Toskr describes at the end of the video. The crucible grants rather distinctive features: Scales, feathers, horns... And what's that? Aspects of the Crucible: Breath? Sounds a lot like a dragon to me! I smell a lot of ancient dragon/beast/Farum Azula stuff going on.
Think about this:Finnegan's Wake has a narrative. Anyone saying that Elden Ring/Soule games have incomprehensible and nonsense stories need to read more books and expand their definition of what a narrative can entail.
It would be nice if players had the ability to create a PVP zone in a small area that would allow for multiple players in a fight club, or I guess the areas would do that, hopefully. They def need more 3 v 3 madness from DSIII in ER, I would love that bec I miss fight clubs. One thing about the two fingers is that they bear a weird resemblance to plasedusax (or however you spell it). When you get warped to fight the dragon, it raises its dual heads and has the same appearence as the two fingers. As far as the outer gods like the greater will, they all seem to me to be parasitic, which would make sense regarding the trees.
4:53 I have to disagree, the switch runs plenty of great looking games fine although yes it could be more powerful, but scarlet and violet isnt a hardware issue, those games are atrociously optimized
For me I personally imagine the final Bose fight in Elden Ring was supposed to envoke the than kind of emotion as if at the end of dark souls 2 “ we find hollowed king Vendrick chained up inside the throne of Want, who then transforms into Gwyn from dark souls 1, then as a phase 2 the Soul of Cinders bursts out of Gwyn and then uses his body as a club”. Definitely a climatic way to end a fight by beating down the legacy of the previous two elden lords (Goldfrey fight before it is mandatory), and the physical embodiment of the golden order (note this is Marika’s legacy and influence on the Elden Beast, not the Hands of Greater Will). Only After providing your strength, the Greater will recognizes you a successor and give you carte Blanche to create what ever new order for the player to imagine.
The reason why Iji is dead, is because Ranni betrayed the Eternal cities (which is where the Black Knife assassins come from, confirmed by Rogier) by having the player steal their most priced artifact. Some Black Knife assassins have access to the black flame. Mystery solved.
They hate reds because they suck at the game. They call it sexual assault because they are extremely privileged, and have never had to face any actual hardship in their life. It’s pathetic
I'm really liking this mushroom theory, though I would like to point Ratatoskr and Ziostorm to Smoughtown's more recent video about the Outer Gods, namely that the Japanese community agrees that Outer Gods are akin to Kami (natural spirits) rather than cosmic entities vying for power, and the Greater Will is NOT an Outer God. It puts the whole idea of what these Outer Gods are into perspective. They're only outer to the golden order, not outside the order of the world the Greater Will has made. Though I think the mushroom theory is still compatible with this idea, but it does bring up questions about why the Erdtree exists and why it became the center of Marika's rule.
People are insane about PVP, they think that invaders playing the game as intended are griefing and abusing the game. I don't even PVP myself, but I unfollowed another Souls/Elden ring content creator because he made an argument defending the AFK farmers. Basically it came down to him hating invaders, so if something pisses them off, it's good for the game... when I called him out on it he doubled down, so I just unfollowed
UA-cam puts a lot of ads on these podcasts so you can listen on different podcast platforms here: anchor.fm/ratatoskr
Episodes are released there 1 day after UA-cam.
Hey Ratatoskr, im an italian commenter that helped SmoughTown revise his theories in his videos on the Greater Will and the Outer Gods exposing ideas of a famous italian souls content creator known as Sabaku no Maiku, that rarely gets aknowledged becouse of the linguistic barrier, i think you would find at least some clarity on the matter.
Just like Ziostorm said during this very podcast we western audiences tend to associate too much to the cosmos in Elden Ring, i would also add that way too often ideas never confirmed in game are taken as truth just becouse someone said them first or becouse they are exposed by a bigger channel like vaati.
The interpretations Sabaku reveals are not just lots of brain twisting, they are an in depth research of the japanese traslations AND the (very different) japanese audience view on the lore.
As for the claims about the Greattree misstranslations i would reccomend the reddit posts of reddit user u/LaMi_1 he's the skilled traslator of Sabaku and helped SmoughTown in his OuterGods video.
Oh no pc still sucks, was doing the 100% for my brother in law and it will still slow to sub 1 frame on killing bosses most of the time.
1:20:27 proglem
New weapon types:
Colossal flail
Colossal whip
Colossal fists
Colossal dagger
Colossal colossal sword
I've felt like they could have put a great-flail type weapon in the game since I first saw they put flails in so I would be ecstatic to see that. They could be like the curved greatsword of flails.
colossal thrusting sword (i hope miyazaki doesnt read this)
@@prostagma6055 Nah its more like a mini-colossal sword
Colossal fist remind me to korean mmo where martial art class have colossal gauntlet weapon
Super colossal great colossal mega colossal sword
Yo you need to get tarnished archeologist on your podcast. Hands down best interpretations of lore
He's doing archeological research on a video game. Pretty wild.
No one gives a shit about the lore in an action game
@@stevemichael652 serious contender for the single dumbest comment ever written
Sorry to say, but you’re wrong. Out of the 20 million units sold, how many of them have a shit about the lore in ER? It’s a niche thing. It’s for dorks who care about that shit. Nerds like you.
When it comes to the PvP stuff, I dont actively seek it out, but if I'm a summon in someone's world and there's an invasion I genuinely have a good time with it most of the time. Even if PvP isn't my thing, it's still fun in FromSoft games.
Such an amazing podcast. Reminds me of the times before ER when I listened to all your podcasts to tide me over
The Eldenring subreddit wasnt that anti pvp until release. When the new player influx came in, like right after release it was crazy, it felt like 80% of people straight out hated invasions.
All the people complaining about pvp are the same people that don’t play the game many months after release😩
I didn't get into souls until ds3 and I absolutely hated invasions at first, but that was just because I sucked at the game and couldn't win. As soon as I got gud pvp became fun
@@zuurek6907 on God the git gud argument is correct in like 80% of circumstances
Noobs, they don't deserve a place in the community
Even though invasions in Elden Ring are more forgivable than they have ever been?
If you play solo they virtually don't exist, and if you play with friends, you are always at upper hand against invaders. And you can summon blues/hunters continually.
@Ziostorm I would definitely watch your channel for news or videos about other games. Keep making stuff and I'll keep watching
52:40 yeah I’m one of those people. I love playing co-op with my buddy, and some of the most fun we’ve had with the game is getting invaded.
My flawless theory on why Iji is covered in black flame: The ID numbers for the black flame effect and the Destined Death flame effect are one apart, and some developer typed in the wrong one by accident, and nobody caught it.
I thought they were literally the same
People immediately think the assassins were just trying to kill Iji unprompted. However, Iji only dies when you tell him about Blaidd's death. If you don't tell him, the assassins don't come. The assassins attack him because he does something after hearing about Blaidd.
You guys might not know this but demon's souls had a godly pantheon which was effectively a real time leaderboard where whatever player matched the God in question was displayed in everyone's world.
I did not know this. Thank you for sharing.
I was hoping that “underwater” souls game that was rumored to be in development was just a major expansion for elden ring speaking of that one thing that lingers on my mind to this day is the rusted anchor states that a single ship stayed behind I wish I knew what that meant
I thought it just meant that some Tarnished refused to leave and thus paid the consequences for it. The Ancient Hero of Zamor in the evergaol near the Church of Pilgrimage might be one of them, probably defeated by Radagon after some attempt at revenge for his banishment (he drops Radagon's soreseal and the Church nearby is his site of Pilgrimage, indicating this event was important, maybe he saved Marika's life...?)
I think one of the best things that happened for my FromSoft gaming experience is that early on in my experience with Dark Souls, I stumbled upon ENB's channel right as he was starting his From the Dark playthrough.
I learned through that opening episode to pay attention to everything. And after I was done, I watched that series to pick up on any things I missed.
From that point on, I was hooked.
Hearing Ratatoskr talk about being confused about the lore and not having watched much of the recent lore videos in the community have me excited about all the info he'll get when he hunkers down to it.
I definitely recommend SmoughTown's Outer Gods video. It views Elden Ring lore with a whole different perspective from most of the other lore videos. Then his Story Timeline video puts many major events in a great package.
100%, that video was revolutionary
Smoughtown makes way too many blatant mistakes bc of how fast he's been trying to crank out the content. When I watched his malenia video I deliberately kept an eye out for a typical mistake that a lot of people make when discussing one of the rot items, and sure as hell he made that exact mistake, WHILE the in-game item description that should have tipped him off to his mistake WAS ON THE SCREEN. I'd rather rata checked out quelaag's videos, rambly and schizoid as they may be.
@@johncra8982 The Tarnished Archeologist is right there with her on thoughtfulness. Without the abundant ADHD.
I began replaying Elden Ring, i left it at the snowfields, currently im at the albinauric town with the archers and ive changed my build to be a black knife assasin, im having a lot of fun.
Replaying? Did you even finish ?
set your skin tone jet black, eyes black, and black clouding/eye shadow around the eyes. you will aesthetically look like the NPC black knives. only up close do you really notice the facial features like the nose.
I started playing Elden Ring again after a good 6 months break. Never done that with any soulsborne, but I kinda wanted to "forget" as much of the game as possible for my 2nd playthrough and indeed it's a special feeling right now. Of course nothing will ever feel like your first playthrough, but I can still feel the magic of this game and it still feels very new.
Agreed, nothing like first. I cant get back into it though but im like that with all games.
The thumbnail lmao I love Zio
Edit: people compare invasions to sexual assault? wtf
I have seen people equate it by saying “I don’t consent to the invasion just like drunk people don’t consent to….” A few different arguments I’ve seen were very similar to this. The argument isn’t made in a joking way but seriously. But if you buy the game you know what you’re buying and what mechanics are in it while playing. You don’t have to play the game if you don’t like all the mechanics. It’s a poor argument equating it to something in poor taste, that doesn’t even make sense
I always bow before I rape my victim....🙄
Yeah its insane. You can literally just turn invasions off by playing offline. Oh wait but then they wont have their summons that can carry them through the game :(
Would love to explore the aftermath of Ranni's ending and to see what sort of trouble is brewing among the Nox.
Elden Ring 2 will be set in space and will be a fromsoft dating sim. the only person that can be dated is Ranni instant 10/10 GOTY
Regarding the additional upgrades in the DLC: it would be a terrible idea for PvP balancing and would break the normal endgame. Imagine the current bosses with like 5 additional upgrade levels.
I would suggest adding merchants with the currently unavailable crafting ingredients like the rare butterflies or Arteria leaves.
There's the Gael Tunnel which also special in the sense that you can go further than the boss (has an entrance from Limgrave, too), actually the boss is optional becuase you can't get back after you fell down, there's no elevator. Also the Gaol cave, you have a view to Limgrave when you find the Regalia of Eochaid.
The door in Gael Tunnel can't be opened if you enter from Limgrave so you'll have to get in from the other side regardless.
Definitely watch Smoughtown's timeline video if you haven't! He talks about tree iconography of the Uhl civilization and the origins of the Erdtree. Seems very relevant to this mushroom theory
I came across a theory on YT, I forget who sorry, maybe quelaag, but it looks as if Rani betrayed the Knox/numen somehow on the night of black knives and when she made herself known and murdered her 2 fingers their own assassins came after igi and Blaid. Assassins are dead next to blaids location when he goes nuts
Great podcast, I loved that farum azula connection to the ever gaols, and seeing you gonna catch up eventually with current theories I suggest you give a view to smoughtown video "Elden Ring Story Timeline", also queelag and tarnish archeologist channels have quite a few of interesting theories.
Yooooo Ziostorm and Ratatoskr, my two favorite UA-camrs!!! I love it!!
Also congrats to you both for having your videos featured on Asmongold with positive reactions
They have a "send my duel sign anywhere" item that you get right with the Duelist's Furled Finger, it would make so much sense to rework that item to send your sign to the Colosseums, for whatever matchup needs people.
Also, Coastal Cave in Limgrave leads to the tranquil island with the Church of Dragon Communion, the mine in the Capital Outskirts leads to the Divine Tower for Rykard, and there's a mine in Caelid that leads to an otherwise inaccessible platform in Limgrave.
Off-topic, but I made a MH:Rise ODST challenge based off of your last podcast, Ratatoskr. It features Ibushi wrecking the main village at the beginning of the game and Hamon and crew needing several quests to rebuild the forge. Check it out if you want, I've been enjoying playing this way for the past few days at least. Since YT won't let me post links, just search up ODST challenge in the Steam MH:Rise guides section.
Great episode! Haven't watched your lore videos but I will. I always regret not reading item description when playing a souls games for the first time. And colossal flails sound awesome! Think the Witch King from Return of thr King fighting Eowyn. Now THAT is a flail! ;-)
So as someone who has a platinum in both GOW and Elden Ring along with alot of both studios previous titles I will say that Elden Ring 100% deserves to be in the nominations for best narrative but the issue is the casual audience picking up on it their first play through because of how deep the lore can go. On the flip side a game like GOW is in your face and in fact you can’t even skip cutscenes but if your engaged with the story (which honestly isn’t hard with those games) then you get some of the most emotionally impactful and tear jerking moments you will ever witness. So I guess All I’m saying is while I think Elden Ring should be talked about and praised in this category GOW’s story and narrative should 100% take it this year because we know Elden Ring is gonna win everything else lol
The Tarnished Archeologist’s latest videos really rekindled my faith in deep layers of lore still waiting to be uncovered. Even if the necessary links to bring it all together are never found or never even existed, the amount of work put in the world building is staggering and not at all random, which I started to fear at some point.
Let's be real, the reason they disabled solo host invasions is cuz of Torrent. You can't use Torrent when other players are in your world. Imagine riding around and get kicked off your horse out of nowhere. And they probably didn't want to have solo host invasions in legacy zones/dungeons for consistency. That's my guess atleast.
But imagine if we had jousting tournaments, at least in the coliseums.
Which is weird, for a developer that loves to talk about challenge to then make such a safe and simple world? Honestly if you can hit the boost button and follow a liner path then you’ve mastered the challenge of theirs world as a space.
these are the conversations I’m here for.
We all know consistency isn’t the problem. If anything, solo invasions would be healthier for the entire multiplayer aspect if it was a thing specific for legacy dungeons. It would encourage new players to use random summoning to progress through a level instead of having the generic password summon twink gank squad farming invaders at a site of grace.
You do get kicked off torrent when invaded by npc's, so there already is a consistency issue.
Great discussion! It seems like a lot of people in the industry have a narrow view of what a narrative can be in video games. I think it was Alan Moore who said that in making Watchmen he wanted to create a story that could only work in the comic book medium. A story optimized for that medium. I think there's something to be said about that when talking about stories in video games.
Games like Disco Elysium, Hellblade, Bioshock and Elden Ring are to varying degrees optimized for the video game medium in terms of how they deliver their stories through the actions of you the player, while games like The Last of Us, Uncharted and God of War fall into the "playable movie" category. I'm not suggesting that those kinds of game narratives don't have merit, but my hope is that they don't rate video game narratives like movies. The medium is capable of more than that.
If Tarnished Archeologist is correct, and the Crucible is the stump of previous the great tree... that works very well with the mushroom theory, where the Erd Tree is a mushroom of order growing out of a tree stump that had previously been trying to regrow chaotically. However, Tarnished Archeologist puts the location of the great tree in the center of the map, where the cloud is, though perhaps that significant location once had something else.
51:51 - Elden Ring ( and Dark Souls ) pvp style is very good for esports. There is no game with combat mechanics like that. I hope that is true, although i am not much into esports in general i think that could lift up the games pvp scene considerably.
Watching this after the 2023 Game awards and I can confirm I've gone full blown hollow. Like attacking the chosen undead kind of hollow.
There was also the Sealed Cavern in Altus Plateau that would lead to the Divine Tower where you'd get Rykard's Great Rune after beating the Onyx Lord mini-boss.
So about the connection to Farum Azula, I have a hypothesis that idea was that the meteor that crashed Lands Between, which led to the rise of the Alabaster Lords, may have been responsible for the damage that we see in Farum. As in the Alabastor Lord's meteor may have crashed through Farum during its descent, causing the weird time shenanigans we see.
I think if R2's always stagger it would aliviate part of ziosyotms poise problem.
Great talk overall, especially the mushroom theory!
The horns seen on Morgott, Mogh, and the ogres can be seen instead as their distinct fungal growth, similar to the misbegotten.
You then have the Dung Eater who wants to implant the seedbed curse, which has tiny versions of horns within it. When you mend the Elden Ring with Dung Eater's mending rune, the sky has a fungal look to it, identical to when you're fighting Fortissax, which is in Fia's nightmare.
Fia wants to mend the Elden Ring so that Those Who Live in Death become part of the natural order of things, a.k.a. Godwyn's dominance over the Elden Ring (and over the other mending runes).
The Golden Order Fundamentalists can be seen as folks on a mission to disinfect Godwyn's fungal influence on the Lands Between. Goldmask learns that the capriciousness of the demigods acted like cavities to the Golden Order, which gives way for other fungal infiltrations to occur (the mending runes), and that's why his mending rune covers the Elden Ring (forming a protective barrier around it). Even the falling leaves and the Erdtree itself look at their healthiest in the Age of Order ending.
Ranni is just disgusted by all of this mushroom business (and I suspect that Marika was as well) and she just wanted to cleanse the Lands Between of all of this nasty fungus once and for all.
Shabriri and the Three Fingers' motivation remain unchanged.
I would love to get a proper desert area. Rahadn's arena is so close, but it only has the boss and that one dungeon. Make a whole area a desert, it would be so great
Guys very good and fun episode to listen to
Love that lore talk
I really hope the cut quest involving the mimic tear is restored. And possibly a way for covenants to be worked in somehow. Covenants always gave extra meaning to pvp in the souls games.
Good thing rata drops videos so late at night, it gives me something that I can listen to while at work.
Also I need more Bloodborne combat, give me BB2 or some remake, I want to inject gun parry's directly into my veins.
I’ve seen rumors that the people that made Demon Souls are working on a “Bloodborne Project.” My guess is a remake and sequel.
Edit: Bluepoint is the dev
Like everybody else I want fromsoftware to make Bloodborne 2, but if they have no interest in doing it i would be okay if blupoint made it.
If bluepoint ends up with that monumental task, I don't think they can capture the lore and atmosfere, but if they get the combat right like with demon's souls i'm good.
Bloodborne is my favorite game of all time (probably), and if Miyazaki never wants to make another one i'd rather have a bluepoint sequel than to have nothing at all.
@@Derpdeder_ Bloodborne is my favorite game ever. I don’t think Bluepoint would be able to match FromSoftware in quality for a sequel. I’d love a remake though
In the dlc I want a well crafted underground area. All the underground areas look beautiful, but they are completely obsolete on repeated playthroughs, and their level design is either forgettable or straight up bad.
This was fantastic. Thank you
I feel like the Recusants and volcano manner were supposed to be the aldrich/post-pontiff of Elden Ring but got cut for time. The whole isolated setup and entry to the area just makes sense with pvp in mind. Hell, since its optional they could have had the whole of mt Gelmir be a recusant auto-invade zone as players fight their way up the mountain.
Haven't even watched the video yet, but I dropped a like for the thumbnail alone
I'm definitely one of those people that prefers to focus on the single player experience and doesn't go out of their way to engage in PvP, but acknowledges that it's an essential aspect of the experience. I'm happy to fight invaders sometimes, especially helping others fend them off. People who enjoy invasions and duels more than me deserve to see improvements to this aspect of gameplay, and those who are hostile toward PvP confuse the hell out of me. No one likes to get killed, and certainly feeling dragged into something that I'm not good at sometimes can be frustrating, but it's immature to resent the fun someone else is having in the same game you booted up knowing it would happen sometimes.
There was a great tree before the erdtree. The normal wood and gold of the erdtree obv are two separate things like the top branches also mentioned here at the end. There is also Melina saying she’s burned and bodiless. Prob from here burning the first tree. And there is already left over ash all over lyndell and corpse wax sealing most doors from the ash getting inside just like they did during the American dust bowl storms. Tarnished Archeologist explains a lot of this is one of his videos and pretty much proves it through in game archeology.
The coastal caves lead to the dragon castle. And one in the Altus leads to the huge tower where u get a great rune
There’s no way ER PvP goes anywhere in esports without rollback net code. I dabbled *very* casually in PvP but I was so deeply annoyed with the delay that it didn’t feel like I was playing elden ring, or even a AAA product. They have to fix the net code if they want this to be bigger
I very rarely play PVP, but man, I love watching other people duke it out. 😂
And one thing I love about Elden Ring is that not only it brought a diverse set of players together, but also many content creators, in really good ways than I've seen before... as a gamer who's at his late 30's.
Who wants blades of chaos style chainblades or kusarigama?
Those are probably the only thing souls is missing. Good idea
Nioh actually did Kusarigama pretty well
I loved this podcast, your content is really good. Keep it up and have a nice day!
I had totally forgotten about massive anti invader hate train. I remember 2016 getting bodied by invaders and I don't ever remember feeling hate towards them. It was like woah how can this one guy kill me and 2 other people like that. It made me want to pvp and join fight clubs
I think having a 1v1 duel, 2v2 brawl and one or two rotating modes that switch daily would be best. The modes would be nothing too grand, but they could have fun. Imagine a 6v6 where there's 3 players on each team and 3 sets of bosses split between the two teams.
ELDEN SWEEP
Speaking of sweep i do hope they add more stuff for multiplayer like being able to scale overleveled friends down to a proper level and being able to enter other biomes and dungeosn during multiplayer and leveling up in graces together unless theres an invader in the world
Don't be afraid to diversify your content. I just like to hear your guys voice and opinion regardless of the game. I mean I really like your deep dives, so I wouldn't necessary change to a channel style where you switch the games you are talking about on a weekly basis. Shallow channels like that exist enough, but if you can flesh out a game enough, I think nothing can stop you, even if the algorithm has a bad day.
The problem with Channels that only cover one certain subject will die when that subject becomes irrelevant.
@@murray821 financially probably, but there will always be a group of people that will just play the current Fromsoftware games (from demon souls to elden ring) for the rest of their life and a part of them will continue to watch videos about these games as long as those games have enough stuff to talk about.
But probably we will just compare everything to the current Fromsoftware games and will tell people how everything else is not as good as darksouls and I will stay here for that. Let's just see the world through the eyes of darksouls and my depression will be complete. Gosh I hate triple A games these days.
@@st0ox if you want a thrill, you should try Alien Isolation. Its great and terrifying.
@@murray821 yes from what I have seen I agree. Left this game for far to long on my pile of shame.
That mushroom theory is really damn good actually. Duality is a big big theme across the whole game, even duality of a single thing. Like how the Crucible might hold in itself both meanings of the word, the outer gods being both literal and metaphorical parasitic mushrooms is very possible.
From my own playthrough I already got the sense that there is no benevolence in the any of the outer gods' wills, they influence the people of the world so that they may gain dominance through them and exploit the planet for their own gain.
This mushroom theory actually strdnghtens my belief that the Rani ending is the good one. There is this idea in a webnovel I read "a mortal cannot defeat an immortal" and the way this reflects in ER is that in most endings the status quo just shifts a little compared to before The Shattering. No matter what you want or do the Greater Will still maintains its hold on the Lands Between through the Elden Ring. Ranis quest is basically her becoming the guardian god of the planet, guarding it from all the outside influences plaguing it, and distancing herself to allow the inhabitants their own free will. And going along with the theory, her casting aside her flesh and adopting a musroom-like appearance further cements her ambitions and marks her an immortal.
And though indirect, to me, this whole thing kinda points the "how" and "why" of the Elden Ring world: the ER world did not have a native god, so it became a free for all to all other gods that noticed it and through many many wars, the Greater Will managed to reign supreme until the Shattering era.
Counter hit damage with pokes in ER are especially nutty this time around. I'm surprised they didn't make sweeps on big weapons break guards or something to improve the usefulness of all the standard moves. Not just the poke of any weapon with one
Most game stories are told like a book. Elden ring tells its story like a museum. A book gives you all the prices in chronological order. You stare at the beginning and when you get to the end you’re done. In a museum there are tons of pieces that you can look at or not. You can run through an exhibit and look at everything or run through and ignore everything.
Great Stars is kinda a giant flail. Favorite early game weapon fully leveled up with the waves of darkness ash and cold mod
There’s a mushroom in Mesoamerica called “God’s Flesh”. Maybe the Godskin nobles and apostles are a reference to this?
I found your podcasts on the Google Podcast App, but I couldn't find this one. Are you still using it?
Hey Ratatoskr and Ziostorm!
You should check out the newest Hawkshaw video on the colors of Elden Ring. It's such a fresh take on such an obvious concept that it's easily overlooked. I wonder if it can get y'alls wheels spinning on some theories related to it.
The fact that the mushroom theory has grown to this point is hilarious lol😂
On invasions. I 💯 percent believe that’s how they wanted them to work originally but just didn’t have the time to focus on it. It’s makes no sense for the summoning pools other wise and those have been in there since day 1. Too that I also think a lot of content that’s been added since then (sidequest characters balancing) are thing if this had been any other studio or series. The media and gaming community would have had a field day saying how unfinished this game was. I think it speaks a lot how fromSoft plays close to the chest and personally I wish more studios did that.
Good context in different genre. Metallica just announced a whole new album, tour and music video without any leaks or media about it at all.
If the biggest band in the world can suppress any leaks so can from software.
also one of the new weapon types may be the sickle and flail weapons that the militia men use
I mass murdered those guys during launch week for hours praying it would drop, was so sad when fextralife completed the weapon portion of the wiki and it wasn't a listed weapon 😭😭😭
I feel like increasing the max for weapon upgrades would just cause more issues for PvE balance in the base game
great podcast, especially the lore discussion. I'd love to hear more of the sort from you two together! It made me start up Elden Ring again for the first time after my initial playthrough.
So I made a poll on the ER subreddit to see what the sub thinks about PvP. Results after 20h: 143 likes PvP, 146 doesn't, 241 tried it but definitely prefer PvE. Take it for what you will.
things i wanna see in the ELDEN RING DLC, underwater area, jungle area and more eternal city areas to explore.
What do you mean underwater? We all know tarnished can’t swim.
I def would like a more forested area
Thank you for another great podcast!
You have to open summoning pools in an area to invade from afar. I just opened all and coop or invade world wide , lol
I’ve been absolutely loving the co op post patch. I’ve always loved co op/co op pvp in these games but honestly I just stopped playing ER because it got so boring. You’d always know for the most part who and what you’d be fighting but now I put down my sign when I’m in leyndell and idk if I’ll be fighting knights in the capital, dragons in caelid, serpents in volcano manor or what. It’s really just added so much variety and replayability (however there are spots I’d wish they’d add summon pools like caria manor front gate)
I don't think I've ever heard of anyone talk about this, but I would like a souls based stand alone pvp game by fromsoftware. It could actually be really good since baseline mechanics don't need to be balanced for pve, like roll distance, i frames and poise
38:30 At least for me, most of my attacks were too slow to hit her consistently so I resorted to pokes, lion's claw, and jump attacks when I knew I could hit them.
Also, switch weapons COULD work as long as the switching mechanism is bound to your two-hand and if the weapon art is specifically unique to each of them so a variant could be made per each weapon in the switch weapon. Would be awesome if we got another Bloodborne callback like in DS3 (I think we did, maybe I'm dissociating).
Ratatoskr, if you do intend to hunker down on lore, The Tarnished Archaeologist seems like the best channel out there for interesting connections and speculations
in terms of weapon types that enemies use but we can't use- Kusarigama! When the game was new, I literally spent hours farming the vulgar militia guys with the little kusarigama. You can get everything else that they use, the other two weapon types and all their armor, but you can't get their kusarigama.
Always love these. random question but what country are you from, Ratatoskr? I remember you saying English was your second language and I have to say I cannot tell by listening. Your English is perfect.
Probably french
@@Truestoned0 now that you mention it the squirrel is wearing one of those French nipple berets
To me the Lands Between always seemed like some form of purgatory, it existed, but we the Tarnished were cast out, and only in death are we returning her to set ourselves right.
Of course, that still doesn't explain the whole celestial thing, of which there's a lot of. I just never feel the world is actually real, not the one we are in. It is out there on the other side.
Both the top and bottom of Farram swamp is part of the covenant invasions. Bottom isn’t as frequent but it 100% happens
Farron*
@@xXLunatikxXlul yea, I’m not editing it. Everyone knows what I meant
I think the system they have with poise is pretty good, for now at least.
I think the only thing they should do is to increase the weight on the heavier armors, someone shouldn't be able to be full bulgoat and one shooting with spells
On the subject of narrative. I know some people like to have things laid out in front of their face.... but lately when I read a bit more books in my language I see that it is even there Miyazaki type narration is not so rare (I read in Polish, maybe in English books it is different).
The point is that, for example, a reader with ADHD who 'sprints' through the book will pull out the protagonist's story. The one who carefully reads the paragraphs will discover that there are themes to the events. The one who ponders the meaning of the use of description or treatment in the narrative will discover symbolism and meaning in the patterns that comprise not only the narrative but even the use of colors in the description or the object that the protagonist wears or other nuances are relevant to the story.
It more how rather then getting parts of a narrative, their getting snippets of the wiki page.
@@SpottedHares Remember that the souls series and Elden Ring is an interactive thing and that a big part of the game is exploration. It's all about putting in the effort and attention you'll put in just wanting to interpret. You can speed up the game by flying from boss to boss, but you can, like I did with a friend on PS4 party mode, stop and sometimes try to connect in your head what you have and what you see. It's a matter of attention and willingness to let the patterns and meanings reveal themselves to you.
PS: Sometimes you have to have the skill to do it, too. Not all people think that way.
A good narrative, in many ways, isn't accessible. Because it's often told through subversion and trickery.
Kafka's The Trial isn't a very accessible book, it's quite confusing and heavy, but the narrative of the book is amazing, because it puts you in the mindset of Josef K, which is the whole point.
Elden Ring's Narrative is so darn good, a style you can ONLY get through videogames, which is why it's odd to me that people just want a movie style narrative in their games.
Also: People misunderstand what a "story" is. They think the story is the scrips. That's not true. The story is what happens in YOUR game, contrary to other's games. The script is the plot. What's the story of Mass Effect? Who knows. I can tell you the plot, then I can only tell you the two stories I played.
In the story does Kaiden or Ashley die? Who knows? Narrative though, is how the story is told, and within the narrative gameplay is also a key part that many people forget. Metal Gear Solid cannot and will not work outside of videogames, even though it uses a lot of movie tropes, ultimately Kojima's games are a critique of the player, and thus the games can't work as a passive piece of art.
The thumbnail is fire 😂
Awesome episode.
About the crucible:
I'm not so convinced that the crucible grants random attributes, like Toskr describes at the end of the video. The crucible grants rather distinctive features: Scales, feathers, horns... And what's that? Aspects of the Crucible: Breath? Sounds a lot like a dragon to me! I smell a lot of ancient dragon/beast/Farum Azula stuff going on.
Think about this:Finnegan's Wake has a narrative.
Anyone saying that Elden Ring/Soule games have incomprehensible and nonsense stories need to read more books and expand their definition of what a narrative can entail.
45:40 this gives me hope that maybe if a website gets made for fixing bugs in the past games maybe they'll get fixed one day ☺️
The mech genre you were describing is called Diesel Punk lol
"Maybe it really is all MUSHROOMS in the end..."
It would be nice if players had the ability to create a PVP zone in a small area that would allow for multiple players in a fight club, or I guess the areas would do that, hopefully. They def need more 3 v 3 madness from DSIII in ER, I would love that bec I miss fight clubs. One thing about the two fingers is that they bear a weird resemblance to plasedusax (or however you spell it). When you get warped to fight the dragon, it raises its dual heads and has the same appearence as the two fingers. As far as the outer gods like the greater will, they all seem to me to be parasitic, which would make sense regarding the trees.
4:53 I have to disagree, the switch runs plenty of great looking games fine although yes it could be more powerful, but scarlet and violet isnt a hardware issue, those games are atrociously optimized
Sorry but those are exceptions to the rule at this point.
For me I personally imagine the final Bose fight in Elden Ring was supposed to envoke the than kind of emotion as if at the end of dark souls 2 “ we find hollowed king Vendrick chained up inside the throne of Want, who then transforms into Gwyn from dark souls 1, then as a phase 2 the Soul of Cinders bursts out of Gwyn and then uses his body as a club”.
Definitely a climatic way to end a fight by beating down the legacy of the previous two elden lords (Goldfrey fight before it is mandatory), and the physical embodiment of the golden order (note this is Marika’s legacy and influence on the Elden Beast, not the Hands of Greater Will). Only After providing your strength, the Greater will recognizes you a successor and give you carte Blanche to create what ever new order for the player to imagine.
The reason why Iji is dead, is because Ranni betrayed the Eternal cities (which is where the Black Knife assassins come from, confirmed by Rogier) by having the player steal their most priced artifact. Some Black Knife assassins have access to the black flame. Mystery solved.
I hope magic weapons is a weapon type like Goodrick and Godfrey hammers and daggers
They hate reds because they suck at the game. They call it sexual assault because they are extremely privileged, and have never had to face any actual hardship in their life. It’s pathetic
Can’t wait till new Armored core
I'm really liking this mushroom theory, though I would like to point Ratatoskr and Ziostorm to Smoughtown's more recent video about the Outer Gods, namely that the Japanese community agrees that Outer Gods are akin to Kami (natural spirits) rather than cosmic entities vying for power, and the Greater Will is NOT an Outer God. It puts the whole idea of what these Outer Gods are into perspective. They're only outer to the golden order, not outside the order of the world the Greater Will has made.
Though I think the mushroom theory is still compatible with this idea, but it does bring up questions about why the Erdtree exists and why it became the center of Marika's rule.
People are insane about PVP, they think that invaders playing the game as intended are griefing and abusing the game. I don't even PVP myself, but I unfollowed another Souls/Elden ring content creator because he made an argument defending the AFK farmers. Basically it came down to him hating invaders, so if something pisses them off, it's good for the game... when I called him out on it he doubled down, so I just unfollowed