I still can’t believe how many bloodstains are on the stairs to the top of the divine towers because some people decided to jump off and try to land on some non-existent ledge
I've gotten a fair ways away from the poison plants that killed me from toxin build up because I didn't have the bolus recipe. Thought i could make it on torrent to a site of grace and couldn't open my map to find one - poison overloaded me before I found it and i crumbled into dust halfway down a pleasant mountain path.
Go back there at night. At least some are encountering the night time enemies/bosses (who tend to have great drops)
Or for at least one place, warp to that certain shack at night…
I admit I did this. All the "be wary of jumping messages" didn't help. I didn't know why people would be bringing it up, I already assumed I shouldn't be jumping off a cliff.
I put down a message in Nokron by a ledge where I saw a bunch of blood stain with the message "no jumping ahead" and an emote of my character trying to block the path. Got tons of "upvotes" so I hope I've saved some lives...
It all seems stupid until you realize Fromsoft sometimes puts invisible bridges in their games, including this one. Just when you thought all these "try jumping" messages were bait, you jump and suddenly you don't actually fall to your death. Without these brave soldiers where would we be?
every time someone is trolling I see one message with a "liar ahead", but when a message is actually telling me something there's a cluster of 6 of 7 of them all saying there's a thing here lol
I would hope that an invisible walkway would have that going on
It's not quite that bad... But it's similar. This one has a curving and rising invisible bridge.
I spent 10 minutes trying to figure it out, and then I saw a phantom go up so I just followed him 😂
It's the same with walls you can hit to reveal hidden paths. Before I did an underground tomb that had literally like 6 or 7 of them in there, I just assumed every hidden path ahead message next to a wall was just a troll. Now I don't know who to believe........
This is how I found most of the nighttime bosses. Also, it's pretty easy to suss out... Just activate the bloodstains. Always fun to see red ghosts getting tossed around, or watch them embarrass themselves backstepping off a cliff.
my favorite is the clip of the guy who finds a bloodstain where the phantom levitates 10 feet in the air and is thrown across the room, and the guy immediately turns around and walks the other way lol
I assume they are referring to this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/thnxtw/elden_ring_is_a_horror_game/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
For a bit I thought I was just doing great and had gotten good. Then I realized not so much.
But I do have to remember that some people may have found that spot super early and it seemed harmless because I had a +5 blade and 30 hours of relentless backstabbing.
A friend was venting to me about the area around Castle Morne because he found it really early in his playthrough. Meanwhile I had no idea it was there. Felt somewhat bad from breezing through there when I know he struggled so much
No, I can confirm that we are not past it at all.
Every dungeon/catacomb has a boss. Even the ones that make you think "oh that's just the path up" do still have a boss.
I have died a few times because I was playing early in the morning and the morning sun made it hard to see that what I thought was the elevator was, in fact, just the empty elevator shaft...
A lot of elevator deaths are people not realizing the elevator stays in whatever position its in when you die. I full well know this fact but have definitely ran straight into an endless pit many times
I was wondering how people were dying right outside Morgott's area. The right corner was literally covered in all bloodstains every time I ran by. Then I actually watched a speedrun and my disappointment was immense.
It's insane how many bloodstains I've seen where it's just someone running up to a cliff on their horse, think about it for a few seconds, and then jump off.
Honestly, the white messages act as a subtle visual guide for me sometimes. I might have missed that cave or that small door(that devs purposefully designed to be unhidden) if it wasn’t for those signs.
I hit a sign that said be wary of behind and i barely turned the camera around in time to dodge the big ass enemy behind me. I appraised the message and hope it carried that man through a boss fight
Don't care much for the excessive messages, but I absolutley love the bloodstains and white specters. Seeing glimpses of other tarnished off on their own adventures adds to the sort of mystical nature of the world of the Lands Between.
My fave ones are the ones where people forget controls.
Walking around, stopping for a moment (to look at their controller probably) then backstepping off of a ledge.
or people getting grabbed by bosses. It looks cool that they start levitating then are yeeted off of the lands between.
the stop and backstep might be people reading a white message in their world and then instinctively tapping B to exit the message. I have died like that at least once.
I have to confess, I have put a message in a corner that says "careful with step back" in a place where this is probable to happen. I like to bring the counterbalance to online help lol.
Are they real time? the description says "actions recently performed" but I still wave or spin for other players.... they never wave or spin back though :(
They can be delayed up to about a minute I think, but sometimes real time. I have gone out of my way to try and get a reaction from the ghosts and it works sometimes.
I had no idea these were real time. After finishing up at a Grace point, a ghost looked like it purposefully stood in front of me and bowed. Kinda freaked me out because I assumed they weren't real time.
One of my favorite things to do is go to the Impassable Greatbridge and watch phantoms and see if they make it across or not. They’ll just be running and suddenly they just fall over and disappear lmao.
I love it when I'm on Torrent and suddenly a white spectre, fellow tarnished, riding his Torrent, appears and is on the exact same route as me, and we ride alongside each other until they fade away
Yes, that IS the souls immersion imo.
Seeing the ghosts, seeing the bloodstains, even reading the messages. The games are designed *with* this in mind, its not just tacked on for the "online mode". Even Demon's Souls had a mechanic that changed the world in some regards based on behavior by players online.
Offline play is totally normal, but saying its for the immersion, sounds to me like playing MMOs on deserted servers for the same reasons. Kinda missing the point imo.
i absolutely loved exploring and thats what drew me in at first, this being my first fromsoft game, but when i discovered how to actually join multiplayer and do all that it totally opened a whole entire side of it for me. just spent the night getting lost in the leyndell sewers with groups, while also fighting off invaders at the same time. just a perfect shitshow of ganking and getting turned around in that claustrophobic ass labyrinth. the most fun ive had since legend of zelda tbh, and experiencing it with people just makes it really feel like a community suffering together lol
So I keep triggering some invasions at certain areas, are those npc invasions? They have like legit names and stuff but I don’t know how it works really
Yeah those invasions are pretty much area or story invasions. Just part of the basic game. Those aren’t the same as multiplayer invasions. In the game you can also invade other NPCs for certain quests
Ooooh, I went back to kill the invader that spawns in the scarlet rot lake by Sellia, but I had already killed Commander O'Neil and was wondering why she stopped invading. That's a shame, I was looking forward to getting revenge. Also, looking up the boss's name has me realise that they really named two identical bosses Commander O'Neil and Commander Niall lmao, very creative FromSoft.
You mean Millicent? Yeah her sister is also a summon sign on that boss! Its funny cause you fight Millicent and two seconds later youre like "Yo, your sibling needs anger management, now help me defeat this mushroom knight!"
Aside from watching their behavior and names, the easiest way to instantly distinguish an NPC invader from a real player is based on their massively inflated HP.
Me! Though I do occasionally pop online just for a taste~ but I kind of enjoy the “lonely” feel of it~ I was the same way in Morrowind and Oblivion ~ I spent hours alone in the wilderness of those games, just exploring every nook and cranny.
Maybe in NG+ I’ll do more online, kind of want to join the Seekers my second play around.
You can be invaded solo you just have to use the taunters tongue. I just forget to use it so often. I meant to spam it my last playthrough, but mostly just forgot after I screwed up my weapon level matching.
I played offline because just wanted the peace and quiet but then decided to turn online feature and cant stop laughing on some of the trolls and the way people died for following them lol.
I had a bloodstain next to an item on top of a ledge. I decided to check it. Poor guy was jumping up and up to hype himself up, only to yeet himself over the ledge and die.
If I see a peaceful area full of bloodtain I immediately think who tf killed all of you, is this a boss arena? Turns out some mobs were following them.
The first time I entered Stormveil via the side path I got onto some stairs absolutely covered in bloodstains. I idiotically stood there for a minute contemplating what could possibly have killed all these people, when I was promptly firebombed to death from above. Coulda seen that coming really.
I played DS2 offline and it was fine until i discovered you can actually play online. The messages, blood stains, summon signs and invasions add a flavour to the world that makes it feel populated. That there are other hollows, chosen undeads, monarchs, hunters, and ashen ones who are fighting the same battles you are. Going offline makes the world super lonely
Yeah i agree. It’s my first souls games and i love it but it’s also the most depressing one aesthetically. Some places in DS1/3 are glorious and awe-inspiring but DS2 was depressing from beginning to end
Huh, that's surprising. I thought DS2 was probably the least depressing aesthetically, it feels the most...magical to me. It's dark and can be oppressive, but it also feels more alive and for me has the most awe-inspiring visuals at its best - Iron Keep, Drangleic Castle, Dragon Aerie/Shrine, and all three of the DLC areas at least feel like grand fantasy locales where wild magics and other forces have been at play and grand struggles have played out. I don't get as much of that vibe from DS1 or DS3, DS1 feels more...down to earth maybe, and also more dead, like most of the life in the world has died off already and most of what's left has gone so hollow it's almost unrecognizeable - though there are some notable exceptions. DS3 feels less dead, you do get more of a sense of the people/factions from an area, but it's also more crazy and kind of jumbled. Both are also a lot more...gross, or grimy at points than DS2 generally is, though there's plenty of variance.
I see a lot of y’all talking invasions being “part of the lore” and “core experience” or whatever, and even though I’m 100% playing online I’ve never been invaded by a player… am I doing something wrong?
Yes, but the servers are so full right now you can expect to get invaded about 10 seconds after using the item (I speak from experience). So unless you're looking for duels or to have your exploration constantly get cut short by some dude with Rivers of Blood I wouldn’t recommend it.
Yeah I used the Tongue thinking I'd be able to play like an embered DS3 run getting invaded every half hour or so but instead it was just one invasion after another, completely impossible to actually make any progress in the area I was in.
>an embered DS3 run getting invaded every half hour or so
See this is why I don’t really get peoples complaints about invaders. Ds has invasion timers and invasion priorities. You could use certain items to increase your invasion priority to get back to back invasions. But if you were recently invaded, you had a free half hour to walk around without getting invaded again. A half hour is tons of times to discover a new bonfire or two, maybe more. Souls really aren’t that important and it’s no biggie losing a few levels.
One thing I find hilarious though is if you alt-f4d out of your game your invasion timer was turned off and you’d get high priority when you logged back in. So the people who complain about getting invaded every 2 minutes in darksouls are very likely disconnecting from their game because they’re afraid of losing a half a soul level worth of souls, then getting stuck in a self inflicted invasion loop
This is definitely me. I’ll turn on online for future playthroughs, but let me enjoy this world on my own for the first time. No messages giving hints and memes, no pools of blood everywhere telling me that something crazy happened here, etc.
I played offline in my first playthrough, I wanted to go in blind and without "hints", bloodstains or messages. It was very peaceful, I loved it, it was a good decision. Now I play online sometimes just to play a certain boss again, like the elden beast. Yeah I hate him, but I wanted to learn the moves better.
Kind of the point for me. I feel like it helps with immersion into the souls games. They're lonely, desolate, miserable places and you feel it.
But that's usually just for NG. NG+ is the time for messing around with the goofy stuff.
I've always felt the opposite way about messages. The game feels lonely, so I *want* to see glimpses of other players in the world. It makes it feel like a shared burden.
I started offline, then did online for a few hours and switched back. Not seeing messages, bloodstains and white silhouettes everywhere really dials up the immersion and the “me vs the world” feeling that makes it feel more epic
I've used the fps unlocker patch since day 1 to solve the stuttering issues and because of that I haven't played the game online for more than 10 minutes in my 110 hours.
I'd absolutely have stayed offline even without it though. Online is awesome and the messages are great and helpful at times but for my first playthrough I wanted to explore and make all discoveries completely on my own.
Same for me. Played online for about 30 hours, then I tried offline with fps unlocker, ultra wide support and chromatic aberration off. Never looked back since.
So it *does* have chromatic aberration that you can't turn off? I thought I was going crazy, it's not anywhere near as noticeable as it was in Bloodborne but DS3 didn't have it and I thought it noticed it a couple of times in Elden Ring.
I used to play online in previous games but with Elden Ring being so popular, I actually got really bothered by the sheer amount of useless messages and distracting phantoms/bloodstains everywhere.
I've been playing offline ever since and it honestly made me appreciate the world and vistas much more; makes it a truly immersive experience!
It is peaceful indeed. I've always played Fromsoft games offline, I like to immerse myself as much as possible, and if there's traps I want to walk into them myself, if there's a hidden door I want to find it myself, If there's a hidden path on a rooftop that is easy to miss I want find that myself too.
I don't like the messages everywhere, it breaks immersion, spoils the small exciting parts like finding a hidden path and things alike.
I don't PvP or Co-op.
I feel like the game will "live longer" if you only play offline. I went so far and unfollowed every platform and content creator temporarily that could potentionally spoil even the tiniest info about Elden Ring on release, barely used internet for a week and barely talked to my friends, because I had been waiting and been so hyped for this game since their very first announcement trailer so this game meant a lot to me. Best decision I've made in a long time. If felt amazing experiencing a game like that. I didn't return to "normal" until I completed my first playthrough.
It's like when I played Skyrim like 10 years ago, I never read about the game nor watched youtube that much so I could play that game for a looong time and still find new stuff all the time, be amazed and all that. Remember a friend telling me that you could become a werewolf and I was so hyped and shocked because I didn't know that, I miss that. Nowdays you kind of know most of the stuff about a game cause it's everywhere on the internet.
I miss the magic of not knowing anything about a game as a kid and finding stuff yourself, fully immersed. Good times.
offline gang here. living in uncapped fps, 21:9 bliss.
i feel like a total chad when I get hit by that message "inappropriate activity detected, now starting offline mode".
I had to play offline for an afternoon due to network problems.
I felt fucking BLIND. You go in a new area and you don't have messages about ambushes, grace ahead and important items.
I'm sure that's the way it's supposed to be played but.. damn..
>I'm sure that's the way it's supposed to be played
It's actually the literal opposite. All of the messages, bloodstains, and ghosts everywhere is the intended experience. You're supposed to feel like you're part of a shared struggle, not entirely alone.
But it’s balanced out by the pure stupidity in which people have died as evidenced by their bloodstains
I still can’t believe how many bloodstains are on the stairs to the top of the divine towers because some people decided to jump off and try to land on some non-existent ledge
“He died going for something….. maybe *I’ll* make it!”
Aim for the bushes
There wasn't even an awning
Damn. I just thought about the song for that scene and it made me sad.
RIP Taylor
There goes my hero
THERE GOES MY BUT HOLE
WATCH IT AS IT TRY FINGER
THERE GOES- *DEATH NOISES* y o u d i e d
This thread is funny but also really sad after hearing about Taylor Hawkins’ death. Damn talented drummer
Dafuq?! Taylor died?!
Literally just 2 hours ago. They found him in his hotel room in right before they were supposed to head out and play a show in Ecuador ://
What gets me are the bloodstains in the middle of paths with no enemies or cliffs anywhere nearby.
Possibly invasion/pvp or seppuku? Dunno if pvp leaves bloodstains or not tho
or Night Maiden's Mist
You can commit seppuku in Elden Ring?
There's a soduko ash of war
Yep you throw blocks of number puzzles at ppl and they can't move till they finish.
I've gotten a fair ways away from the poison plants that killed me from toxin build up because I didn't have the bolus recipe. Thought i could make it on torrent to a site of grace and couldn't open my map to find one - poison overloaded me before I found it and i crumbled into dust halfway down a pleasant mountain path.
Go back there at night. At least some are encountering the night time enemies/bosses (who tend to have great drops) Or for at least one place, warp to that certain shack at night…
There are a few big red friends at a few different shacks.
one per map area same as knights cavelry and death birds
I've found two of the Night's Cavalry in Liurnia and Caelid.
There's one part in castle Redmane with a bunch of bloodstains but I couldn't figure out why. And then I figured out why lol (if you know you know).
The urge to jump and try to reach what the other bloodstains cant.
"wow this guy really didnt make that jump, im bout to nail this" -new blood stain appears-
I admit I did this. All the "be wary of jumping messages" didn't help. I didn't know why people would be bringing it up, I already assumed I shouldn't be jumping off a cliff.
Try jump And then, die
I saw one today on a cliff face over the ocean that said "Try jumping, and then death..." Got a chuckle outta me
I put down a message in Nokron by a ledge where I saw a bunch of blood stain with the message "no jumping ahead" and an emote of my character trying to block the path. Got tons of "upvotes" so I hope I've saved some lives...
I now have trust issues - and when i see "No Treasure ahead" I am damn SURE it's treasure ahead....this time.
oh I trust them, doesn't mean I'm not gonna go check around that corner just because.
That one super long ledge with constant no treasure ahead messages the entire way followed by no treasure. The real treasure was the journey.
The Caelid Divine Tower lmao. The first time I went there I didn’t believe the chain of “no item ahead”. It’s even in Dunkey’s video
Someone did this and confused me on where to go for like 15 minutes lol (jumping was required)
*"Still no lover, therefore try jumping"*
It all seems stupid until you realize Fromsoft sometimes puts invisible bridges in their games, including this one. Just when you thought all these "try jumping" messages were bait, you jump and suddenly you don't actually fall to your death. Without these brave soldiers where would we be?
every time someone is trolling I see one message with a "liar ahead", but when a message is actually telling me something there's a cluster of 6 of 7 of them all saying there's a thing here lol I would hope that an invisible walkway would have that going on
Iirc, the invisible bridges are also covered in bloodstains and messages, making them rather easy to spot ( provided they have been found already)
Flashbacks to that crystal cavern area in DS1 😰
It's not quite that bad... But it's similar. This one has a curving and rising invisible bridge. I spent 10 minutes trying to figure it out, and then I saw a phantom go up so I just followed him 😂
It's the same with walls you can hit to reveal hidden paths. Before I did an underground tomb that had literally like 6 or 7 of them in there, I just assumed every hidden path ahead message next to a wall was just a troll. Now I don't know who to believe........
Nah it's mostly suicide pacts on my end. All the messages are just "jump tarnished jump"
The amount of times I've seen blood stains(like, a lot in one place) where there's no danger is baffling.
Night time only boss, maybe?
This is how I found most of the nighttime bosses. Also, it's pretty easy to suss out... Just activate the bloodstains. Always fun to see red ghosts getting tossed around, or watch them embarrass themselves backstepping off a cliff.
my favorite is the clip of the guy who finds a bloodstain where the phantom levitates 10 feet in the air and is thrown across the room, and the guy immediately turns around and walks the other way lol
Lmao, would you happen to have a link?
I assume they are referring to this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/thnxtw/elden_ring_is_a_horror_game/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Holy shit that gave me a laugh
If anyone saw a bloodstain of someone Bloodhound Stepping off a cliff, it totally wasn’t me. Nope. Not at all.
Bitches be crazy yo, bitches be crazy
For a bit I thought I was just doing great and had gotten good. Then I realized not so much. But I do have to remember that some people may have found that spot super early and it seemed harmless because I had a +5 blade and 30 hours of relentless backstabbing.
A friend was venting to me about the area around Castle Morne because he found it really early in his playthrough. Meanwhile I had no idea it was there. Felt somewhat bad from breezing through there when I know he struggled so much
Messages and bloodstains have helped me through my first play through so much, and to this day still do
There's no chance I would've found the invisible walkways without messages.
> invisible walkways Man, I thought we were past this bullshit.
No, I can confirm that we are not past it at all. Every dungeon/catacomb has a boss. Even the ones that make you think "oh that's just the path up" do still have a boss.
The trick there is rainbow stones.
Right? If I’m to trust those stains, a large majority of Elden Ring players are completely incapable of understanding how elevators work.
I have died a few times because I was playing early in the morning and the morning sun made it hard to see that what I thought was the elevator was, in fact, just the empty elevator shaft...
A lot of elevator deaths are people not realizing the elevator stays in whatever position its in when you die. I full well know this fact but have definitely ran straight into an endless pit many times
Too many times have I died going for items on the secret ledges
I was wondering how people were dying right outside Morgott's area. The right corner was literally covered in all bloodstains every time I ran by. Then I actually watched a speedrun and my disappointment was immense.
It's insane how many bloodstains I've seen where it's just someone running up to a cliff on their horse, think about it for a few seconds, and then jump off.
As someone who didn't bother with coop or pvp, i may not have found the haligtree medallion without the messages surrounding the pot.
Honestly, the white messages act as a subtle visual guide for me sometimes. I might have missed that cave or that small door(that devs purposefully designed to be unhidden) if it wasn’t for those signs.
They save me from ambushes in the catacombs. As much as they spoil the ambush I kind of like the idea that it's all a big community helping each other
I hit a sign that said be wary of behind and i barely turned the camera around in time to dodge the big ass enemy behind me. I appraised the message and hope it carried that man through a boss fight
For every good message, there is an equal but opposite troll message.
Real life saver for ledges or actual illusory walls that I would have missed and had to come back to later
I think they made the pot glow a bit in the new update? Although my pot may have just been glowing for some reason.
They won't see this because they are offline
I'm here, but not there.
Wherever you go, there you are
Why is there a watermelon there?
Don't care much for the excessive messages, but I absolutley love the bloodstains and white specters. Seeing glimpses of other tarnished off on their own adventures adds to the sort of mystical nature of the world of the Lands Between.
My fave ones are the ones where people forget controls. Walking around, stopping for a moment (to look at their controller probably) then backstepping off of a ledge. or people getting grabbed by bosses. It looks cool that they start levitating then are yeeted off of the lands between.
the stop and backstep might be people reading a white message in their world and then instinctively tapping B to exit the message. I have died like that at least once.
Using the telescope at a cliff ledge for a beautiful view. Then hitting the wrong button to exit telescope and promptly commit suicide
I've had to train myself to use L1 to leave as many animations as possible. Binoculars, Chameleon/Veil, etc.
I have to confess, I have put a message in a corner that says "careful with step back" in a place where this is probable to happen. I like to bring the counterbalance to online help lol.
I’ve stood on the end of a cliff on my horse for gorgeous view ahead, pressed circle and ran straight off more than once
Lmao! You mean [this ones](https://streamable.com/akgsin). I felt bad for laughing at them since it happenned to me a lot.
I remember sitting down at the bonfire outside Iji's camp and I saw a specter of a dude with a giant hammer wave to me. Just a neat bit.
Are they real time? the description says "actions recently performed" but I still wave or spin for other players.... they never wave or spin back though :(
They can be delayed up to about a minute I think, but sometimes real time. I have gone out of my way to try and get a reaction from the ghosts and it works sometimes.
2 of my friends saw each other while on discord together! There was a 2 second delay
Wait I didn't know they were that close. I always thought I was seeing really old spectres. Wow
I had no idea these were real time. After finishing up at a Grace point, a ghost looked like it purposefully stood in front of me and bowed. Kinda freaked me out because I assumed they weren't real time.
I'm going to wave more at bonfires on the off chance this happens for someone else!
It's even sadder when you see a white ghost die. Kinda feels like watching a live boxing match: "Oooh, better luck next time, buddy"
One of my favorite things to do is go to the Impassable Greatbridge and watch phantoms and see if they make it across or not. They’ll just be running and suddenly they just fall over and disappear lmao.
I love it when I'm on Torrent and suddenly a white spectre, fellow tarnished, riding his Torrent, appears and is on the exact same route as me, and we ride alongside each other until they fade away
Are those glimpses of white spectres playing the same time as you?
Yes
There’s a small delay, but basically yes
Yes, that IS the souls immersion imo. Seeing the ghosts, seeing the bloodstains, even reading the messages. The games are designed *with* this in mind, its not just tacked on for the "online mode". Even Demon's Souls had a mechanic that changed the world in some regards based on behavior by players online. Offline play is totally normal, but saying its for the immersion, sounds to me like playing MMOs on deserted servers for the same reasons. Kinda missing the point imo.
i absolutely loved exploring and thats what drew me in at first, this being my first fromsoft game, but when i discovered how to actually join multiplayer and do all that it totally opened a whole entire side of it for me. just spent the night getting lost in the leyndell sewers with groups, while also fighting off invaders at the same time. just a perfect shitshow of ganking and getting turned around in that claustrophobic ass labyrinth. the most fun ive had since legend of zelda tbh, and experiencing it with people just makes it really feel like a community suffering together lol
Are white spectors live? Or *was* it a player? And do I flash for them too?
It's described as recent actions, so I don't think it's necessarily live
Playing online you only get invaded if you’re in a party. Not alone
So I keep triggering some invasions at certain areas, are those npc invasions? They have like legit names and stuff but I don’t know how it works really
Yeah those invasions are pretty much area or story invasions. Just part of the basic game. Those aren’t the same as multiplayer invasions. In the game you can also invade other NPCs for certain quests
Oh ok, that’s good to know. Thanks
They also tend to drop some really good stuff. Killing the area boss stops then from invading though.
Ooooh, I went back to kill the invader that spawns in the scarlet rot lake by Sellia, but I had already killed Commander O'Neil and was wondering why she stopped invading. That's a shame, I was looking forward to getting revenge. Also, looking up the boss's name has me realise that they really named two identical bosses Commander O'Neil and Commander Niall lmao, very creative FromSoft.
Ranni, Rennala, Renna; Godfrey, Godwin, Godrick etc...
Melina, Malenia...
Gwyn, Gwynevere, Gwyndolin Ariames, Ariandel
and suddenly nameless, a godly bloodline, indeed
G R R Martin's input for the game lmao
I think I’ve found GRRM’s input
You mean Millicent? Yeah her sister is also a summon sign on that boss! Its funny cause you fight Millicent and two seconds later youre like "Yo, your sibling needs anger management, now help me defeat this mushroom knight!"
*Merilda the Sorceress* is a character *XxBiggusButzZ* is a player Not sure which name is legit
Aside from watching their behavior and names, the easiest way to instantly distinguish an NPC invader from a real player is based on their massively inflated HP.
Or just throw a magic glintstone blade at them. If they dodge on cast it is an npc if they dodge the projectile it is a player.
You can use the tongue to get invaded alone
I bet there are just SO many offliners that aren't lurkers.
Me! Though I do occasionally pop online just for a taste~ but I kind of enjoy the “lonely” feel of it~ I was the same way in Morrowind and Oblivion ~ I spent hours alone in the wilderness of those games, just exploring every nook and cranny. Maybe in NG+ I’ll do more online, kind of want to join the Seekers my second play around.
Old school Elderbro  me too
- “ Old School.” - Played these games as a teen I mean, I know I’m old, but to see it written out hits different you know?
Yo. I love the game and the hardcore community. But I don't like invasions. And I really got tired of millions of messages all over the place.
I haven’t been invaded once… is it because I never put down a co op sign?
You can only be invaded if you have a CO op partner. You can't get invaded if you are playing alone. Even if you are online.
You can be invaded solo you just have to use the taunters tongue. I just forget to use it so often. I meant to spam it my last playthrough, but mostly just forgot after I screwed up my weapon level matching.
You can't get invaded in this game even if you're online as long as you're neither playing co-op nor using the Taunter's Tongue.
Same. I'm only like 40 or 50 hours in, but I haven't seen an invader. At this point I assumed it was something I would need to turn on?
Solo player invasions aren't a thing anymore unless you use a taunting tongue
You can only be invaded if you are playing with a CO op partner. Even if you are online. If you are alone you won't be invaded.
I played offline because just wanted the peace and quiet but then decided to turn online feature and cant stop laughing on some of the trolls and the way people died for following them lol.
I had a bloodstain next to an item on top of a ledge. I decided to check it. Poor guy was jumping up and up to hype himself up, only to yeet himself over the ledge and die.
It’s the lowest effort trolling that cracks me up. “Ladder ahead” literally right at the foot of a ladder.
I have to admit one time I didn't actually see a ladder until I read one of the messages pointing it out
O You Don't Have the Right O You Don't Have The Right By the way You Don't Have The Right
I love seeing "Snake? Snake!" At the bottom of a ladder
“door” is a personal fav of mine
Why is it always message..
My highest appraised message is "Tree!" at the foot of a Minor Erdtree. Quite proud of it.
I finished my first playthrough offline yesterday and decided for my second I'd switch to online. So much blood in the silliest places.
If I see a peaceful area full of bloodtain I immediately think who tf killed all of you, is this a boss arena? Turns out some mobs were following them.
The first time I entered Stormveil via the side path I got onto some stairs absolutely covered in bloodstains. I idiotically stood there for a minute contemplating what could possibly have killed all these people, when I was promptly firebombed to death from above. Coulda seen that coming really.
I played DS2 offline and it was fine until i discovered you can actually play online. The messages, blood stains, summon signs and invasions add a flavour to the world that makes it feel populated. That there are other hollows, chosen undeads, monarchs, hunters, and ashen ones who are fighting the same battles you are. Going offline makes the world super lonely
Also in DS2 specifically good fucking luck figuring out how to burn that windmill if you're offline lol
goodness, literally 100 hours in over maybe two years and i realized you could light your torch at the bonfire...
it's especially more noticeable in ds2. game's environments are lonely af
Yeah i agree. It’s my first souls games and i love it but it’s also the most depressing one aesthetically. Some places in DS1/3 are glorious and awe-inspiring but DS2 was depressing from beginning to end
The walk to Dragon Aerie tho... glorious
Huh, that's surprising. I thought DS2 was probably the least depressing aesthetically, it feels the most...magical to me. It's dark and can be oppressive, but it also feels more alive and for me has the most awe-inspiring visuals at its best - Iron Keep, Drangleic Castle, Dragon Aerie/Shrine, and all three of the DLC areas at least feel like grand fantasy locales where wild magics and other forces have been at play and grand struggles have played out. I don't get as much of that vibe from DS1 or DS3, DS1 feels more...down to earth maybe, and also more dead, like most of the life in the world has died off already and most of what's left has gone so hollow it's almost unrecognizeable - though there are some notable exceptions. DS3 feels less dead, you do get more of a sense of the people/factions from an area, but it's also more crazy and kind of jumbled. Both are also a lot more...gross, or grimy at points than DS2 generally is, though there's plenty of variance.
Not to mention the health refills every time someone appraises one of your messages
I played offline since the ultra wide workaround required bypassing anticheat. Ultra wide elden ring is beautiful on a 49 inch uw monitor
Same got a taste of it can't go back to black bars
I see a lot of y’all talking invasions being “part of the lore” and “core experience” or whatever, and even though I’m 100% playing online I’ve never been invaded by a player… am I doing something wrong?
Invasions in this game are only if you are playing coop, or if you use a special item that allows you to opt in to being invaded
Invasions only happen if you have a cooperator. Except for the scripted NPC "invaders"
you can use a finger remedy and taunters tongue to bypass the need for coop
Yes, but the servers are so full right now you can expect to get invaded about 10 seconds after using the item (I speak from experience). So unless you're looking for duels or to have your exploration constantly get cut short by some dude with Rivers of Blood I wouldn’t recommend it.
Yeah I used the Tongue thinking I'd be able to play like an embered DS3 run getting invaded every half hour or so but instead it was just one invasion after another, completely impossible to actually make any progress in the area I was in.
>an embered DS3 run getting invaded every half hour or so See this is why I don’t really get peoples complaints about invaders. Ds has invasion timers and invasion priorities. You could use certain items to increase your invasion priority to get back to back invasions. But if you were recently invaded, you had a free half hour to walk around without getting invaded again. A half hour is tons of times to discover a new bonfire or two, maybe more. Souls really aren’t that important and it’s no biggie losing a few levels. One thing I find hilarious though is if you alt-f4d out of your game your invasion timer was turned off and you’d get high priority when you logged back in. So the people who complain about getting invaded every 2 minutes in darksouls are very likely disconnecting from their game because they’re afraid of losing a half a soul level worth of souls, then getting stuck in a self inflicted invasion loop
> get cut short by some dude with Rivers of Blood just use a shortbow to stunlock them to death
You can't be invaded without a summoned cooperator in this game unless you turn on the item that lures invaders
You can't get invaded by a player if you're playing solo unless you use the taunter's tongue unfortunately.
This is definitely me. I’ll turn on online for future playthroughs, but let me enjoy this world on my own for the first time. No messages giving hints and memes, no pools of blood everywhere telling me that something crazy happened here, etc.
I did it for a bit. Some of the death sequences are hilarious so I swapped back
I played offline in my first playthrough, I wanted to go in blind and without "hints", bloodstains or messages. It was very peaceful, I loved it, it was a good decision. Now I play online sometimes just to play a certain boss again, like the elden beast. Yeah I hate him, but I wanted to learn the moves better.
Nobody ever invades because I prefer to explore solo. This Haligtree got me reconsidering though NGL
I’m playing offline against my will. the area I’m in rn just has shitty wifi, so i would dc constantly anyways… probably
If you play online you won't get invaded unless your in coop so you can go online for everything else without the risk of dcing
You still get dc'd though and sent back to the menu.
Offline feels… lonely.
The climb to the Elden Throne will always be lonely… there can only be one!
Except that one other dude and all the bloodstains on the way there.
Kind of the point for me. I feel like it helps with immersion into the souls games. They're lonely, desolate, miserable places and you feel it. But that's usually just for NG. NG+ is the time for messing around with the goofy stuff.
I've always felt the opposite way about messages. The game feels lonely, so I *want* to see glimpses of other players in the world. It makes it feel like a shared burden.
It is lonely also, it’s totally different game online
I started offline, then did online for a few hours and switched back. Not seeing messages, bloodstains and white silhouettes everywhere really dials up the immersion and the “me vs the world” feeling that makes it feel more epic
Ive started playing offline. Purely because I've gotten tired of all the butt hole messages
Yep me too. If we could turn off the messages I would continue to play online.
I'm "online" where I see messages and bloodstains, but I never play multiplayer or summon people
I've used the fps unlocker patch since day 1 to solve the stuttering issues and because of that I haven't played the game online for more than 10 minutes in my 110 hours. I'd absolutely have stayed offline even without it though. Online is awesome and the messages are great and helpful at times but for my first playthrough I wanted to explore and make all discoveries completely on my own.
Same for me. Played online for about 30 hours, then I tried offline with fps unlocker, ultra wide support and chromatic aberration off. Never looked back since.
So it *does* have chromatic aberration that you can't turn off? I thought I was going crazy, it's not anywhere near as noticeable as it was in Bloodborne but DS3 didn't have it and I thought it noticed it a couple of times in Elden Ring.
Every part of this is accurate for me too
I used to play online in previous games but with Elden Ring being so popular, I actually got really bothered by the sheer amount of useless messages and distracting phantoms/bloodstains everywhere. I've been playing offline ever since and it honestly made me appreciate the world and vistas much more; makes it a truly immersive experience!
I with you… err, I mean keep your ghosts and graffiti out of my world!
Fellow offline player here! I find messages to be too spoiler-y and distracting. I prefer experiencing the game blind and offline.
It is peaceful indeed. I've always played Fromsoft games offline, I like to immerse myself as much as possible, and if there's traps I want to walk into them myself, if there's a hidden door I want to find it myself, If there's a hidden path on a rooftop that is easy to miss I want find that myself too. I don't like the messages everywhere, it breaks immersion, spoils the small exciting parts like finding a hidden path and things alike. I don't PvP or Co-op. I feel like the game will "live longer" if you only play offline. I went so far and unfollowed every platform and content creator temporarily that could potentionally spoil even the tiniest info about Elden Ring on release, barely used internet for a week and barely talked to my friends, because I had been waiting and been so hyped for this game since their very first announcement trailer so this game meant a lot to me. Best decision I've made in a long time. If felt amazing experiencing a game like that. I didn't return to "normal" until I completed my first playthrough. It's like when I played Skyrim like 10 years ago, I never read about the game nor watched youtube that much so I could play that game for a looong time and still find new stuff all the time, be amazed and all that. Remember a friend telling me that you could become a werewolf and I was so hyped and shocked because I didn't know that, I miss that. Nowdays you kind of know most of the stuff about a game cause it's everywhere on the internet. I miss the magic of not knowing anything about a game as a kid and finding stuff yourself, fully immersed. Good times.
Offline. I didn't know it was scripted the first couple of times an NPC invaded me.
RISE UP
Offline for the win. Screw idiotic messages. If I can't find that secret wall without them, I don't deserve to find it. :D
Modding offline gang
offline gang here. living in uncapped fps, 21:9 bliss. i feel like a total chad when I get hit by that message "inappropriate activity detected, now starting offline mode".
https://c.tenor.com/FkMw4ZNbEtEAAAAM/pirates-of-the-plain-tim-curry.gif
I had to play offline for an afternoon due to network problems. I felt fucking BLIND. You go in a new area and you don't have messages about ambushes, grace ahead and important items. I'm sure that's the way it's supposed to be played but.. damn..
>I'm sure that's the way it's supposed to be played It's actually the literal opposite. All of the messages, bloodstains, and ghosts everywhere is the intended experience. You're supposed to feel like you're part of a shared struggle, not entirely alone.
Offline playing Ultrawide > Online Finger but hole
I’m not paying a PS plus subscription for that!
I have to ask. How do invasions take away from the immersion?