Dexterryu

7 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

You need to guard counter those Banished Knights. Also use gold pickled fowl foot to fight them, cuz they drop the best vagabond early game uograde?

 

Do you have a good tower shield? Or a brass shield? The brass shield is very good, especially later when upgraded, with the right ashe of war it's guard boost can get right to 100 (meaning no stamina used when blocking). It's in the 80's without the ashe of war. I think its Golden block, or something similar. Hard to remember, it's been a week.

First question... Guard Counter is just when you're holding block and they hit right? If so how do you Guard counter without running out of Stamina.

Yes, I have a Brass Shield. I'll have to look for that Ash of War if that will help to block those bastards.

Some questions and thoughts on the game from a From Software/Souls newb.

First, thank you to those that responded and nudged me towards the game. I'm really enjoying it.

Thoughts:

The game for me is at it's best in the open world. I love how the map works and find the SoG and respawn system works. I like how the world is so interesting with stuff to see and do and that most of it can be found by looking critically at the map. So far I've taken down several world bosses (both the horsemen bosses, the dragon, several of the mini-dungeons, and Margit.

Quests:

I like that they are there and how they don't automatically put an icon on your map leading you exactly to the spot. However, some sort of a log to let you know that there is something to do in X area would probably be a good Quality of Life improvement. 

Stormveil Castle:

I've headed here as my next step and am reminded why I've avoided Souls games for the most part so far. I don't mind the tough encounters but I do mind having 5-10 minutes of replaying an area over and over again to get back to those really aggravating Banished Knights. I've died to those things more times than any of the bosses (probably combined). The bosses, you respawn close can quickly re-engage to learn how they fight and devise a strategy. They seem to continually attack me without breaking and have long enough range it's tough to get distance to heal. So if anyone has any tips for these asshole's I'd love to hear it (playing Vagabond, mostly with a Dex/Str build and using a +2 Bloodhounds fang ATM). The ones I've taken down so far I basically get them with a backstab, bloodhounds finesse, then a jump attack. However when I have to face them head on they almost always take me out because of their combination of range and frequent combos make it difficult to hit then retreat.

For what it's worth, I have similar struggles with other "elite" type shield/spear enemies. So any tips on those I'd love to hear.

25 minutes ago, Dimden said:

 

There are sites of grace all over the place, convenient shortcuts to find in legacy dungeons and every "Major" or "Boss" encounter has a "Stake of Merika" that allows you to spawn very close to - if not right next to - the place where you died. Corpse runs have been absolutely trivialized; however, this game will not respect your time...

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Because you'll become so enthralled you can't stop playing 

 

I'm OK with that. I love long games. I just don't love replaying the same parts of long games over and over again. Kind of like the pre-boss unskippable cut scenes. 

I've got a question for you guy's. I'm on the fence on buying this game. Like some, I am not a fan of the soulslike games. I want to be, but I haven't been so far. That said, I have enjoyed the bits of them that I've played. I enjoy the challenge and the difficulty. Where the games turn me off is that I have limited time to play and find that they don't have a great respect for my time.

I'm fine with a tough section of a game and dying to it over and over. Where I disliked them was that they'd force me to re-run long lengths of the game just to get back to the boss or encounter that killed me. Many of the reviews on Elden Ring seem to indicate that this isn't so much of an issue since it's much easier to get around and/or leave an encounter that you're struggling with and then come back to it later with different gear/approach?

The game looks really interesting and I'm tempted to jump in once I finish Forbidden West.

Most of my friends (and myself) got theirs by doing the Playstation direct route. Just sign in with multiple browsers and also multiple private/incognito browsers. The each get different sessions and "tickets" to order. Took me like 3 tries.

I have a few... some that have already been mentioned... TLOU & TLOU 2, God of War, Hades, TitanFall 2.

A few others for me: 

FrostPunk

Beat Saber

Dishonored

Ori

I'd put Witcher 3 here, but it had a few bugs and was a challenge to get it to run great when it first released.

14 hours ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

I do like the less bloated feeling of Valhalla. While I enjoyed some of the side stories in Odyssey, there was a lot of it there. I enjoy a lot of these little world event in Valhalla, some of them have made me bust out laughing. I wouldn't mind a few side stories of consequence, though.

 

Overall, I'm just really enjoying Valhalla. It's the setting that does it for me. I love the Middle Ages, especially England.

While I enjoyed both games, I preferred Valhalla. That said, I felt that both games overstayed their welcome just a little bit. By that I don't mean that the games were too long (I like a long game) but I mean that there wasn't much difference in the missions/combat through the game. IE... the first raid is pretty much the same as the last raid, the first siege is very similar to the last siege.

It would be great if you didn't have to buy a bunch of DLC for all of the manufacturers. I considered it for my latest build just to make sure I had a good feel for the parts & components all fitting in my case (Sliger Cerberus), but Sliger wasn't on it.

So all I can say is I'm never buying from Newegg again. Great sight for researching products. Horrible customer service.

Here's the situation so far. First they forced a bundle on me and then wouldn't let me return the extra item (an AMD motherboard) and saying I have to return the whole bundle, even though they are separate products. Then my shipment arrives multiple days late and the package is beat to heck. I had to fight with them to return it and after hours on the phone they finally are allowing me to refund the order.

Amazon has spoiled us with their customer service.

12 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

I... what? I've got quite a few hours in this game and I wouldn't say that I spent a large amount of time climbing at all. It actually seems quite a bit less vertical than recent Ubisoft games in my experience. I mean, you can climb to scale areas, but usually there's a quick path around or one of those rope-wheel shortcut things, which now I'm realizing I can't recall the name of.

My opinion may be colored a bit by that place you go after you get the herbs and drink. It's not a large map, but it takes forever to traverse. I took that quest fairly early on and when I was still trying to hit all of the POIs on the map and spent way to much time climbing around for those in that map... 30 of them for 5 Power... I felt pretty ripped off for the reward vs time spent.

On 12/15/2020 at 5:59 PM, Kal-El814 said:

 

I'm 50ish hours in, and I suspect this is how I'll feel at the end. A couple more ways to break into places to make the exploration a bit more engaging, making the combat a bit more challenging, and a little more incentives around the homestead and the game would have been really exceptional. As it stands, it's still very good.

I agree. While verticality is a cool concept, I find it annoying and Ubi games of late have been kind bad with making areas unrealistically mountainous. Towards the end, if something required a climb I ignored it unless it was necessary to advance... but like I said, this issue has sort of plagued all of their recent games. Odyssey had this issue, Ghost Recon, Immortals, heck even FC5 had it. Really the only Ubi game I don't recall being annoyed by climbing lately is Division. 

Don't get me wrong, I like that I can climb and I like all of these games. I just don't want to spend 30% of my in game time slowly climbing with a weird ass camera angle to get to my objectives.

1 minute ago, Spork3245 said:

Thank you! I’m on the list too, I’m 99% sure I filled out their auto-notify the day it went up and still nothing  

The one I'm very close on is the Hybrid FTW 3080, which I prefer over the one that I got. So I'd potentially swap that out for the FTW Ultra I got last night. Either way, I'll help ya if I can.

1 minute ago, Spork3245 said:

I’ve been trying since launch day, chief  

I'll keep my EVGA notifies open for you. Based on the community spreadsheet that they run I should be getting very close. If I get my notification to order soon I'll reach out to you via a PM.

3 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

I click on the alerts within 5-seconds and it’s out of stock.

Same, it took me a few days. I think I got through last night due to the stock drop of so many cards/bundles hitting all at once. That said, I almost ordered a second one for a friend but decided against it because I didn't want the hassle of trying to sell an add random part I didn't want/need.

This discord has been fast and accurate. I scored an EVGA 3080 FTW Ultra last night thanks to it.

Discord

DISCORD.COM

---

Discord is the easiest way to communicate over voice, video, and text. Chat, hang out, and stay close with your friends and communities.

Speaking of which I have an extra and brand new, unopened ASRock Phantom Gaming B550 PG VELOCITA AM4 AMD B550 SATA 6Gb/s ATX AMD Motherboard that I would sell below retail if anyone is interested.

Finished the game last night. Clocked in at 80 hours. Did all of the main quests, hunted all of the order, and most of the wealth markers.

Overall, a very good game, though it overstays its welcome quite a bit in that the raids, castle sieges, and combat all start to get a bit stale. Some of the quests at the higher levels start to feel like the game length is being padded by sending you on long trips away from fast travel points which got annoying. Started to get tired of the same puzzles over and over again (find the oil jar to blow up the wall or find the obtuse way to enter a building). I still got annoyed by some of the power/level gating of some of the quests and zones, which is a concept I think needs to just go away in games period. Those are my gripes. 

I know it may sound as if I'm knocking the game, but it has a very good main story and interesting characters. Major improvements there when compared to Origins/Odyssey but also still a ways to go to get to classic Bioware/CDPR levels. Definitely trending in the right direction.

On to Immortals while I hold out for a 3080 so I can play Cyberpunk with all the stuff turned on/up. 

Ghost of Tsushima

Remnant: From the Ashes

Batman Arkham series

Hellblade

Jedi: Fallen Order

Question for everyone. I just finished 

Anyhow... once done I got another quest to go to 

2 hours ago, johnny said:

Is it possible to just mainline this game and not do any side stuff to grind? I’m having an okay time with it but for whatever reason the game isn’t grabbing me like Odyssey did. 

I don't think so. There are some quests that have a recommended "power" and you'll get 1-2 shot by enemies.

Decided to do Ubisoft Connect + to play this game at little risk, plus get the DLC for Odyssey that I never played (and also Immortals next month). 

I'm very glad I did. The game feels much tighter and self restrained, especially for an UBI game, in terms of not just giving the player a bunch of mostly inconsequential crap to do.

Compared to Odyssey, I also like the characters much more so far too. They seem to actually have relationships with each other and less like various generic caricatures. This is especially true of Eivor, who seems to have a realistic disposition in light her childhood. Compared to Kasandra (who I liked) just seem to cheery and chill. I'm still in the prologue so my impression is very very early still but the starting area and quests are just much tighter/better written and less generic.

3 minutes ago, Mercury33 said:

Its similar in that it’s the next step in the progression of the game that started with Origins. The combat is similar but improved IMO. So far the world is great. Not as vibrantly bright, more along the lines of what you saw in Witcher 3. But there’s still a lot of beauty there. Running on top of a snowy mountain while the moonlight reflects off the snow is pretty breathtaking. I’m not too far along but the characters seem pretty on point as well. And unlike Odyssey both the male and female are acted well haha. 
 

So your main gripe seemed to be the side quest system? That is WAY different. Instead of collecting a series of level based side quests that you complete one by one they’ve gone with a “points of light” system. Basically on the map you see either Yellow(treasure) Blue(Mysteries) or White(artifacts) points of light. Think of them like a color coded version of the “?” from Witcher 3. So you can choose which to go to and you know what you’re getting. The treasure ones are typically the important materials needed for upgrading your gear. The artifacts are new gear(of which there is much much less) or abilities and the Mysteries are your side quests. 
 

So far I haven’t run into any really long side quests(although I believe they do exist) most of them are fun little stories that are contained to the immediate area. As a result the game has a better flow. It’s much easier to play through the single player and take detours when you see something cool. Or just spend some time exploring if you want. But so far it’s never felt like I HAVE to run the side quests. Simply that they’re there for a nice change of pace. It’s much better than Odyssey IMO. 
 

Hope that helps

Thank you. This is very very helpful. Sidequests contained to the immediate area are really good to hear. That was the other thing I hated about Odyssey is that they tended to send you all over the map to track something down... even with the fast travel system it was annoying. Definitely going to get this one now. 

Questions about this game, if anyone has the time and is inclined... I'm debating on getting this game now or waiting a bit until it goes on sale.

I'm a long time AC player... and I want to ask how much is it like Odyssey and in which ways? I have a love/hate with that game. I really liked the characters, world, and combat but I really disliked the quest system and how it seemed to punish you for wanting to progress in the main story in favor of the myriad of mostly shitty side quests with it's level/level scaling system. In many ways both issues seemed built around padding the game length or encouraging me to buy "Time Savers" like XP boosters.

Things that drove me nuts with the quest system in AC Odyssey were the stuff like this:

The Medusa & Minotaur quests... I was really enjoying enjoying hunting them down and in both cases I was helping an NPC that took me RIGHT TO THE FREAKING DOOR to both and then they both sprang up a 3 pronged mundane sidequest to go get the key.

The main story, I enjoyed quite a bit too but was frustrated by how difficult the game made it to progress by throwing up silly blockers or jumping 4-6 levels between chapters so just when you start getting into the plot you have to take a break from it and grind some sidequests. Don't get my wrong, I like sidequests, especially when they are meaningful or add some character to the world (Witcher 3 does this really well).

Anyhow... how much & how different are Odyssey and Valhalla in this way?

Thanks again for reading and your recommendations.

I have a feeling they are going to trickle in over the next month up to the holiday so if you're quick you might be able to snag one.

8 hours ago, JPDunks4 said:

For those without one still looking, were you looking for the Disc Version or Digital?

I prefer digital, but would have been fine with either.

Tried the same at walmart... got both a digital and disc in my cart and got to checkout before getting the out of stock. I'll say this... their API sucks if it's not able to lock a stock item for transaction. Serves them right for not using AWS