Elden Ring Patch 1.12 Out Now, Adds New Features and Adjusts Balance Before Erdtree

The summoning pool functions are great. I hope the unnamed improvements are pre-dlc adjustments.

I’ve had Elden Ring since a month or so after it released and I still haven’t played it. I’ve not really gamed much at all these past few weeks, but all of a sudden, I’m pretty eager to at least give it a go and see if I vibe with it. I love big action RPG’s, but the high skill ceiling does concern me a little. Maybe I’ll finally fire it up this weekend?

I'll try that game for the third time someday, but I fear it ends a few hours later again. I still cannot help myself, contrary Demon's Souls, this game is heavily unfair.

Every time I see that pic of Malenia, her proportions always looked so weird to me.

Anyways, I'm kinda surprised those features for the inventory weren't implemented sooner.

@The_Pixel_King I've got around 600 hours into Elden Ring and let me offer some advice for a beginner player. There are videos on how to get quick levels that are super easy and I'd recommend them only as they just help to make the game more enjoyable since it is so open world. These are tricks either, but some very specific things you can do very early. I hope you enjoy it!

I'll be firing this up on the weekend to dust off those cobwebs!

Booted it up on PS5 last night to see if I’d beaten the bloody guy in the mausoleum to use the dlc and it turned out I had. Game also reminded me I no longer have PS+ so I can’t get players in to assist me, which I did at every opportunity when I played the game, so 1 more reason not to concern myself with the dlc.

@djlard Unfair? Its the most fair and most accessible souls game From have made.

@djlard maybe you're heading to the wrong areas too soon? There are also lots of high-level enemies scattered about the map that are best avoided when first encountered.

Using the co-op feature also helps immensely; I can't do from software games without it... which is why I never beat Sekiro.

@DennisReynolds If you get hit by bear swinged paw that is visually about 5 meters away (paw itself, not bear) or by giant's club that lands visibly 3 meters away, it doesn't seems fair to me.

@djlard Exaggerate much? For starters the hitboxes are fine, no better or worse then previous game and two if the Bear is giving you trouble don't fight it, they're tough enemies its best to avoid until you have better gear and are off a higher level.

@L_Bosch Yes, I have it on my mind. Still I feel hitbox of my character is 5x larger than person. Demon Souls (PS3) had much more precise hitboxes.

@DennisReynolds Of course I avoid one-hit killers. My problem is I cannot use to the fact I need about 5 meters more around my character to not get hit. And on level 30 I still feel like level 1 character.

@DennisReynolds It's not really "fair," it's more that there's terrible balance between various builds/ashes, so you can trivialize fights abusing INT, katanas, bleed, spirit summons, etc. Perhaps they'll get the balancing right with this latest patch? 2 and 1/2 years later...

IMHO it's a mess compared to every other Souls game. It seemed rushed, too, at launch you could stunlock almost any boss with Hoarfrost Stomp. I found myself frustrated by the looooong combos from one boss and then feeling like I was overpowered for the next. Didn't make for a good time.

I don't begrudge the game's fans, enjoy the DLC, but I'd personally rather replay BB or any DS. Maybe if ER hadn't ended with Elden Beast I wouldn't have such a foul taste left in my mouth.

@djlard I've played this game 5 times and I have never noticed issues with the hitboxes more than once or twice in the total time

@The_Pixel_King this probably has the lowest skill ceiling of all the From souls-type games. Torrent the horsey is basically easy mode

@Logonogo same

I am so torn between continuing my first / current play through and starting a brand new one...

150+ hours in and never finished the game. Finally going back to tackle the crumbling sky temple (or whatever it’s called). Then Malenia, then finale. Holy cats, though… Forgot how tough From games are! Especially after Stellar Blade lol. Brutal, but awesome gameplay.

@thechetearly My vote is continue your first character. The game is absolutely massive and a huge time sink. You can always respec to switch it up!

@The_Pixel_King I bought the game on last Christmas sale. I ended up with playing it for 6-8 weeks nonstop. I beat every single boss and explored every inch of the map, dungeons, extra bosses and all. Worth every Swedish crown/euro/dollar/pound it cost.
Play the game, enjoy it. And check on youtube if you get stuck 😉🦾😎✌️ You will love Elden Ring if you give it time! 🥰

@djlard Not sure to understand what you mean. Demons Souls is extremely unfair, you can totally destroy your playthrough just by making a small mistake, forcing you to start over. There is no such thing in Elden Ring. Same for failing a boss that requires you to redo a whole level from scratch. Elden Ring is extremely friendly, especially with the multiplayer where you can invite people to do the job for you.

@ear_wig All the bosses can be cheesed by using the correct weapon + buffs. There are thousands of guide on the web. And at this stage of the game, you likely have all the major weapons, talismans and spells/miracles.

Put a ton of hours into this game. Been focused on beating as many bosses as I can before the DLC launch. One thing that I wish they had (although I know it may break some of the discovery) is that the map has a marking where you beat a boss. If I look online at a boss location map, all I can cross-reference it to is potentially a Site of Grace, but that doesn't mean I have beaten the boss there. I took a bunch of time off after beating the game, so now just not remembering where I did beat one or not. Not sure if anyone has a better tactic.

People beating random bosses thinking they're ready for SOTE 😁. It's about Mohg! Couldn't remember how I found him first playthrough but luckily I'd advanced on Varre's questline on my 2nd run, I got a straight ticket to dude's palace.

@DennisReynolds I felt right from the start that elden ring was easily the most user friendly of the souls games as in the combat,traversal and difficulty are the finest in any of them. Sure there are difficulty spikes but as you've stated they can be navigated by levelling up and getting better gear. It's the only souls game I've platinumed and I've tried to 100% all of them. Not sure why people think the hit boxes are off? Probably the same thought process that goes into "the frame rate makes it unplayable." Awesome game.

@VaultGuy415 Well its open world game it was never going to be balanced like Bloodborne or Souls

@Logonogo I've noticed it more than in other games and it is uncomfortable for me.

@Mikey856 I find that Elden Ring is quite linear. The map is like a c-shape and you go from bottom right all the way up, more like a succession of small open area than a big big map like HFW where you have to go in all directions at once.

@B0udoir I'm singleplayerist so I never think about invitations (I don't like actual people play my game). Yes DS is "not so" open world and it sometimes feels frustrating to repeat location from last waypoint, but on the other hand you can more predict action of enemy and simply avoid hits. Enemies also almost don't have thrust attacks, where they jump to your face from long distance in blink of an eye. ER gives me constant feel that enemies have unnatural accuracy and swiftness which makes me feel hugely underpowered. Not as much as in Bloodbourne, but still a lot. Of course talking about ordinary enemies. Bosses I've met (in ER) were all one-two hit killers with so long attacks or collateral damage that it is even not possible to get close enough to hit them.

I’ve been very, very slowly making my way through this (really enjoying paper Mario 1k yr door tho a fave from childhood)

WHEW!!! Glad they spent the time on new hairstyles! Far better use of time than actually putting a few trophies in a massive $40 DLC 🙄🤦🏽

I tried doing a new playthrough recently and just got bored. Three playthroughs was enough for me. I'm still not a fan of the open world of Elden Ring and it doesn't help that the world progression is pretty much just one path forward i.e going from Limgrave, to Liurnia to the Atlas Plateu. The only exception being Caelid.

I feel the open world would have benefited from being truly interconnected, it would help with replayability.

With any Dark Souls, I replayed each up to 10 times, although the third one suffered from the same type of linearity progression as Elden Ring does, forcing you into going one direction.

@DETfaninATL Well it actually is. The new hairstyles will be new models or whatever. Trophies are just a quick add that don't require any effort. I'll take new cosmetic options in any game over pointless trophies.

Does anyone know if the native PS5 version runs better yet or should we still be using the PS4 version with the PS5?

@TruestoryYep To each their own, for sure, but I (obviously) could care less for pointless hairstyles that affect absolutely nothing gameplay-wise and would much prefer (admittedly, equally pointless) trophies that give me something to chase after. There's an entire sub-culture of gamers out there who hunt trophies, like I do, and many will bypass the DLC entirely due to the lack of trophies, thus why i think it would have been a better decision to put time and effort into creating some trophies as opposed to something like additional hairstyles. Just my 2 cents tho......

Just add trophies… fr

New hairstyles? I'm gonna die 147 times, but damn it, I'm gonna look good.

@JokerBoy422 I’m not too sure about the improvements but I played and got platinum running ps4 version on my ps5 based on early recommendations from digital foundry. Then I got the ps5 version’s platinum by running through the game again and it was enjoyable with no obvious technical problems.

@oahusurfmonk that's good enough for me! Thanks man!

@JokerBoy422
PS5 version has its fair share of stuttering and frame rate dips, so it depends on how tolerant you are to this.
VRR helps a bit, but these frame dips and stuttering are odd and feel more like issues caused by loading, rather than rendering - it hits in odd places for about 5-10 seconds then clears.
When it happens it can be quite jarring, but it doesnt last too long.
If im right its silly really as the PS5 has tech in it to stop most loading issues but I dont think it was used (a lot of 3rd party games dont).

To be fair, Im on the fence about dlc...

Hard areas - Not a problem - level up a bit and try again.

Obtuse objectives / npc stories - irritating, but guides helped.

Melenia - defeated after a few tries - spamming Ancient Death Rancor melts her with the right build and almost stun locks her (though ive not seen it mentioned in any guide).

Hard Bosses - Lies of P was harder.

DEVS KEEPING NERFING THINGS IN PVE - almost unbearable...

"Added new feature to summon spectral steed during the Elden Beast the boss battle."

Well that certainly changes the way that battle flows, doesn't it?

@DonkeyFantasy would have been so helpful the first 4 times a little too late now though lol

Not having Torrent in Elden Beast fight made it harder, don't know if this is good or bad to old and new players alike.

They still haven’t fixed one of the games biggest glaring problems. It doesn’t have a codex/notebook that keeps track of the enemies fought, NPCs meet, locations visited, and overall lore. Many times now I’ve meet a NPC and they say something cryptic then disappear only to run into them 40 hours later and that’s supposed to be a side quest. It’s extremely lame that we need to spend $50-$100 on separate books to keep track of information that should have been included in the game. Which is a feature that has been industry standard for these types of games for a quarter of a century.

@ThunderFunk You do know notebooks, journals, paper, and the notebook on your phone exist right? Try writing, it's very useful. I'm not against a codex since Dragon's Dogma 2 has that and is nice.

@Nepp67 That might work as a workaround if the game had a pause feature. But even then it would just be a workaround. AAA games of this nature shouldn’t need workarounds for features that have been industry standard for 25 years. This game will easily take me 200 hours to fully complete. I tend to play games this big in 60 hour chunks. I’m 60 hours in and just picked it up for the first time in 6 months and I have no idea what is going on or what my objective is. In games like the Witcher 3 I was able to look at my quest log and get a good recap. In Elden ring I feel like I’m role playing as a tarnished with amnesia. 😅

230'something hours into my first playthrough. Still discovering things. Man oh man am I stoked for the DLC LET'S GOOOO!!!!!! It's definitely slide into my favorite game of all time. Unmatched to me.

@The_Pixel_King I Hope you enjoy it. Best lesson I was ever taught was to parry the hand not the weapon.

@DennisReynolds Fair point