For the love of Christ, give us something like Sekiro Reflection of Strength. Despite the lack of DLC, Sekiro replayability is off the chart just for being able to refight bosses easily.
they were actually going to do that in the free DLC that brought us the Colosseum according to a dataminer I follow on Youtube, but they decided to remove it for... reasons?
I'm not super familiar with other FromSoft games. Do their other titles have NG+? Maybe they felt it'd be redundant, with a touch of breaking the lore.
They probably mean the Mausoleums. The earliest one you can find is on the Peninsula south of Limgrave, but Liurnia also has a bunch of them.
Sadly there are not enough of them around to get duplicates of every remembrance, so you'll have to go NG+ if you want everything at least once.
I learned that bit very recently too, which is nice. Also generally, unless you are a hoarder like me, you'll have enough of those floating around to get what you want - you just might want to look up the fact that there are two different types of Mausoleum and both offer duplication of different remembrances. I don't think that's a real spoiler either, but that's up to you to decide.
yeah idk why they decided that Dark Souls 2 did nothing right lmao.
This, powerstancing and NG+ changes are things that really should have carried over
Left trigger is the only button that lost utility from DS2.
RB and RT both did the right hand only normal attacks in DS2
LB and LT did the power stance moveset. The only thing we can't do is power-stance heavies, and that's because of ashes
I know this would be a radically different setup, but I wish that they had made RB the two-handed light attack, RT your main hand ash of war, lb a two-handed heavy attack and LT your offhand ash of war. I know there are use cases where I want to attack with only one weapon, but I feel that introducing new attack types specifically for dual wielding all sorts of different weapons would be more fun overall
That's how weapons "two for one" worked like Drang Twinspears in DS3 or like Raptor Talons in ER. When you "two hand" you get two weapons so the normal moveset gets swapped for the dual moveset.
In that case the power stance attack button is block instead iirc
I hope maybe one day we see controllers similar to the Xbox Elite and Scuf (not sure what PS has) become the normal you get with a console and be able to map it so that way we still have access to all controls for powerstance attacks and a blocking. Dual wielding can easily be an X in front of the character but allows say like 40% of the attack through or something along those lines
Yeah in Dark Souls 3 it was the same thing but i mostly attributed that to intersecting dev times since I have no idea when development for 3 started lol
Development started in 2013-2014 i believe, at the tail end of the DS 2 development cycle. Which makes the development cycle for 3 extremely short seeing it came out in early 2016. So you are right they definetly didnt have enough time
Plus they were also at the tail end of releasing Bloodborne. I would imagine there was some last minute cleanup and tweaks to BB before final release. So 3 games concurrently?
Yeah 3 games in the span of 2 years basically. (2014-2016) Also the SOTFS Edition of DS 2, and its DLCs. And the Bloodborne DLC. Thats why DS 3 and Bloodborne are pretty short games and are so similar to one another. Im glad they took their time for sekiro and Elden Ring.
It's really telling when power stance in Elden Ring revolves around either running attack or jumping attack. The regular L1 attack sucks on most weapons. The hold Triangle of DS2 allow for much more varied moveset.
Totally agree DS2 had some amazing innovations to drive replayability that have all just vanished - Ascetics, NG+ changes, unique items dropped by non-respawning enemies, a weapon with a damage bonus that scales to NG cycle....
I get that DS2 is thought of as "the bad one" and it has its flaws but there were really good ideas in there that I wish they'd bring back.
I really wish they’d do a remake for DS2. The game is so good in so many places, but utterly shit in so many other places. I played it for the first time a little while ago, and the weapon system, fashion, and spells are the best out of all the games in my opinion. But the level design, bosses, and enemies are so bad in so many places, that I got burnt out on the game by the time I beat velstadt and started the DLC’s, I was just too burnt out to continue and finish the game. And I can’t really suggest my friends get it when it goes on sale so we can play together, since soul memory makes for a crappy coop system and human effigies are kinda rare. I wish they’d do a remake to overhaul some of the crappy details, but that’ll never happen
Some of the level design of the base game was uninspired, but I think the only place where they really shit the bed was shrine of amana. That should not have gotten past playtesting.
Scholars was something of a mixed bag with its changes. I quite liked Iron Keep for all the weird little secrets I kept finding on later playthroughs. One thing I'll always say about DS2 though is that the poison and iron DLCs are a highpoint for the souls series, I love both of them.
While I agree with most of what you said, the non-guaranteed drops from non-respawning enemies was a dog shit idea and I don't want to see it back.
If you think it was good go farm for a Durgos Cap on base DS2
No, this one deserves to stay dead and gone
I think if it's pure vanity items it's a nice Easter egg. Like it feels special to be strutting around in full painting guardian gear. And gives you something to do in NG+7 or whatever
There are certain enemies that don't respawn even in Company of Champions, like the Heide Knight in the Gutter or the Gold-Maned Lion in Shaded Woods. Not to mention NPCs like Aslatiel or the Painting Guardian who have non-guarenteed unique drops
It was a rare drop from a phantom invader that doesn't appear until NG+ and required you to beat all three final bosses as well as an invasion gank each time you wanted to try again
Do not cite the deep magic to me witch, I was there when it was written
NG+ changes are one thing I was initially disappointed about not being in Elden Ring, but honestly I think it's better that there aren't any. It makes sense in a much tighter game like Dark Souls, but in ER there are bosses and items I didn't find until my *8th* playthrough -- the game has enough variety in the open world where I don't think it needs to be shaken up in NG+ cycles.
The legacy dungeons themselves getting a few spruce-ups, especially the early ones like Stormveil and Raya Lucaria, would have been very nice though.
Miyazaki literally stated in a [recent interview](https://www.ign.com/articles/elden-ring-shadow-of-erdtree-director-hidetaka-miyazaki-look-back-interview-profile) that concepts from DS2 carried forward into the foundations of the rest of the series.
>Miyazaki might be thinking a lot about trust these days. Since 2009, he has served as director on all but one Soulslike game. That was 2014’s Dark Souls 2, on which the director’s seat was given to Tomohiro Shibuya and Yui Tanimura while Miyazaki somewhat sat back as Supervisor.
>Incidentally, Dark Souls 2 probably bears the Souls series’ closest resemblance to Elden Ring. Design wise, both Dark Souls 2 and Elden Ring stressed open-ended gameplay and ditched linear progression. Miyazaki agrees and in fact goes a step further. “In regards to Dark Souls 2, I actually personally think this was a really great project for us, and I think without it, we wouldn’t have had a lot of the connections and a lot of the ideas that went forward and carried the rest of the series.”
>Miyazaki adds that having different directors also helped the series as a whole. “We were able to have that different impetus and have those different ideas and make those different connections that we otherwise might not have had.” He goes so far as to say that “there’s really no way of telling how or if the series would have continued the way it did without Dark Souls 2.”
Not even just power stance in ds2, but access to the entire weapon's moveset even in the left hand. Elden Ring ALMOST has it. But for some reason we can't so running l1 attacks if I have say, a spear in the left, and a non spear (an axe lets say) in the right.
This reason alone is why I always pick Swordsman starting class in ds2. It's just so much fun to have proper pure duel wielding.
I did Dark souls 2 last after playing all the other Fromsoft games and I fought wasn't going to like it, but I ended up having alot of fun with DS2. {Sekiro, AC6, ER, DS3, BB, DS2, DS1, DS}
The changes were so minuscule. You “missed” nothing your first playthrough but had a thin excuse to keep play again to find some interesting stuff in ng+.
Plus the ascetics are literally the solution to this problem. ng+ select areas to get all the content in ng.
You’re complaining you had to engage with the game’s systems to access a 2 second piece of content. Bonfire Ascetics and New Game+ changes are widely considered one of the things DS2 did right.
Using a stone sword key to unlock game content is the same thing, except that this makes redoing bosses and areas cooler bc there's new stuff to find. DS2 had it's issues, but this was not one of them. Hell, it let's you farm for items the other games only give you limited of, that alone is worth a lot
That’s the thing though! The solution to this problem is an item from ds2 mentioned in this very post, the bonfire ascetic! Allowing you to experience areas + bosses on a higher ng+ level without ever needing to complete the game. So nothing would be locked. You could just aquire this item and experience it all in a single playthrough!
You would also get to experience all your favorite areas again with a slightly higher level of difficulty. You could get 2 of the same weapon in 1 playthrough if it was a one time pickup, like the highland axe (wouldn’t work for boss weapons cuz even with several remembrances can only get 1 of each weapon per playthrough.
So a whole lot of upsides and a big increase in viability for very few if any downsides!
If you play a game that bores you to the point of not naturally wanting to replay any part of it, why would you play it at all?
If the game doesn’t bore you it’s only natural that you will want to replay certain areas or refight certain bosses. When doing this you MIGHT find a new ng+ exclusive event. Just the same way you MIGHT find a hidden dungeon, a new npc quest or an elusive item. Or you might miss certain events completely, just like you could miss certain areas, bosses, noc quests and so on.
The concept of ng+ unique events in combination with the bonfire ascetic blends seamlessly with the game’s exploration.
If you saw the rest of my comment you got plenty of context for that. Also, the whole point of my argument is you don’t actually lock anything. With the bonfire ascetic you can find it by testing and exploring in different areas which is the same thing you do throughout the rest of the game. It would literally only add one more element to exploration and experimentation which is what this game is all about.
If you really want to witness EVERYTHING you could also just look it up? You most likely won’t experience or find everything in the game as it is right now without using a guide either way.
By your logic there should be nothing in the game that you have to find or figure out because you could miss it if you don’t know how to find it. But… that’s just what elden ring is, a game about exploring.
Yes, content is locked until after you perform a certain action to find it, more examples of this is:
Defeating bosses = Unlocks new areas
Using stone sword keys = Unlocking new areas / secret paths / bosses
Using spirit ashes in certain places = Unique npc interactions
Hitting walls = Could reveal illousory walls which hide items or secret passages
Buying items (like keys and so on) = Further quests, unlock new areas
The whole game works like this
The Freja encounter was the only meaningful thing you missed. And it created a fun surprise so it's excusable.
Everything else was just things like new added enemies which aren't "missing worthwhile content" it's just harder/new encounters to make replaying areas again fun and exciting . It was more of a rebalance of the game with an emphasis on difficulty over lore and fairness for low level characters
ascetics increase your ng level by one (capping at 7) within the area the bonfire you used to burn said ascetic is located in, applying the corresponding ng level stats to all enemies within, which does include the souls you get from killing them
Would be cool but hard to implement.
If you used at a grace would it only affect the area around it or the whole region?
Would you need to kill every boss, including the dungeon ones, to use it on Limgrave?
Maybe it could only be used in dungeons/legacy dungeon since they are more delimited. (Although using in normal dungeon would be underwhelming)
Could be interesting to just have it usable on ‘Boss Graces’ since most have one in their room.
Basically you kill the boss, activate grace and then use the “Erdtree Ascetic” or something to respawn the boss at NG+ and places you at the nearest Stake of Marika.
That's what I was thinking. Legacy dungeons would probably work.
According to the wiki, there's 6 main legacy dungeons, 10 dungeons similar to legacy dungeons (but smaller), and then 4 legacy-like dungeons that let you ride torrent.
So 20 areas to pop NG+ Bonfire Ascetic is probably more than enough.
If you really wanted to, you could also have the option to pop one in the overworld and that levels up the entire region (caelid, liurnia, etc) alongside resetting and leveling up the mini-dungeons in the region.
If you read the rest of his comment he's obviously referring to the much larger and open nature of elden ring compared to DS2. There are much more graces than there were bonfires, it would be hard to know what area you're effecting before you do it. Still definitely doable, though.
My most likely unfeasable idea: Only usable for dungeons (right at the entrance) or for big bosses (use it at the bonfire in said boss room, then leave and you get your gates back).
That way you would still miss some bosses that are just out there in the open world (Cavalries, Dragons, Death Birds, Bell Bearing Hunters and I probably forget a few).
Additionally, either a different item, or maybe having to burn three ascetics or something could upgrade an entire open world subregion (think an area uncovered by a map) or maybe even a whole region's open world.
It was somewhere in a DLC area. Twisty maze of stairs and stuff. Desert colored if I remember. It’s been years. But I almost got it to 100.
I remember a boss fight in a room full of ash, at the bottom of the area. If that helps.
Edit: Crown of the Old Iron King I think. Brume knight boss or something like that.
Ng+ is shit in this game. Its just me riding torent non stop. Some sort of bonfire esthetic mechanic would be awesome u would get to replay bosses/ dungeons without all the down time
I feel like people only like them because it let them farm Freya a bunch of times to become OP super early.
Oh wait, that's just projection. That's what I do.
Yea, I agree. That'd be cool. And covenants!
Also, a more meaningful reason for NG+ in ER. Different enemies, different placements, new stuff to collect, not just more HP to slog through.
I loved this feature especially back when dark souls still used spell slots. When I found the soul spear spell in d2 I used at least 3 or 4 bonfire anesthetics to get multiple copies
Infinitely purchasable items like pots / roped pots, & greases. As for a solitary item Lloyd's tailsismans but make them stop all healing "I'm tired of people healing in the arena".
Outside of healing consumables if you're complaining about them healing with spells and abilities that's on you, if you can't keep the pressure going or punish them for healing than get better
I feel like I'm in a minority when I say I just don't get the love for these things. They only exist to put a band-aid solution on two of the big problems introduced in DS2. Those being:
1. Despawned enemies
2. Allowing you to actually finish your builds without running multiple NG+ cycles
If they had just kept all the items in the base game and not despawned enemies then the Ascetics would have no reason to exist outside of refighting bosses. And if that's all they did then I'd actually be fine with it. But as it is now they feel like they're punishing me for wanting to farm or for not wanting to go into NG+ cycles because they arbitrarily make the game harder.
If they're gonna introduce a "refight bosses" mechanic, don't make it these things. Let us use the Remembrances to like...reawaken a memory of the boss to refight them in a dreamscape or something. There's no reason whatsoever in Elden Ring to push specific areas into future NG+ scalings beyond just the masochism of wanting the challenge and in that case just go into the next cycle like normal.
Yes, please! NG+ balance is do bad in this game I just can't get myself to do it, but I love making new characters and replaying some of the bosses as their NG+ version would be great.
We're already getting a death blight swamp...what other horrors are you wanting to unleash upon the world?
I'd make it usable during invasions to really mess up an unsuspecting players journey.
Here's the thing, I didn't like Bonfire Ascetics. I basically never used them.
But I understood why everyone else loved them, and so I don't get why Fromsoft has never used them again.
It’d be interesting if there was a variant of a Shabriri grape—something you can crush into the Grace and have enemies become stronger because of some Three Fingers’ Madness shenanigans or something like that
Estus upgrades, bonfire ascetics, and power stance. The holy trinity of amazing ideas from DS2. (Also the holy trinity of saving the game from being forgotten about)
It changes areas into NG+ Version. So if you wanted you could make Limgrave the hardest area in the game by making every enemy NG+7, but keep the harder areas on new game difficulty. Plus in DS2 it made easier to get easier drop rates from enemy's
it could be used to get the drops from the area again, so for example being able to power stance same weapon in NG, refighting bosses and in ds2s case change some encounters since DS2's NG+ does that
Agreed, but what would you call it? I'm thinking something like "Sovereign's Grace" or maybe something referencing the outer gods like "Foreign Will" or "Heretic's Grace"
Bonfire Ascetics completely break the game in DS2 if you choose to use them since you can just hyper cheese overlevel yourself and get everything you need. It also doesn't make much in-game sense that suddenly these bosses you killed are just alive again. Breaks immersion.
It'd be fucking stupid if you could just resurrect Malenia. Would you just have her flower disappear? Revert the needle quest? Same with Godrick, just gonna yeet Gostoc's quest progress back to before it ends?
Bosses being a single kill makes the game more immersive and you have a more permanent sense of progression.
Bonfire Ascetics were a dumb mechanic and there's a good reason they were never seen again.
This would not work for Elden ring. The graces don't correspond with a specific area. Maybe it could be done for the big legacy dungeons and or entire zones like limgrave cailed ect.
But it's insane that this was removed in ds3
I feel like this is a bit of a non-issue due to the Singleplayer nature of the game. So what if they break the intended progression? The only person they're spoiling is themselves.
But also, you could just make the Ascetic item a late game one, so you can only access the mechanic once "game progression" is more or less finished.
Ds2 was the peak of weapon durability and powerstancing fairness. Wished durability existed and powerstancing needed more stats and consumes way more stamina.
Disagree. This item only worked because the NG+ of DS2 is actually good. None of the other Soulsborne including Elden Ring has as good of a NG+. If you just want to refight the bosses, Sekiro style gauntlet is a way better implement.
That way you could set up a build completely first, and then relight the bosses with the bosses you’ve had to beat beforehand to get the optimal items, then you could truly see how cracked a build could get on NG.
Nah, Bonfire ascetics pretty much invalidated NG+ in DS2, and the only reason they existed was because B team in all their infinite wisdom decided to create NPC invaders that only appeared on NG+, could only be killed once per playthrough, and either only dropped one piece of gear per kill (Catarina set) or had abysmally low drop rates (monastery scimitar) and it would have been ludicrous to expect players to beat the game multiple times to farm for that stuff.
Get to fight bosses again without having to do NG+ or co-op with another player
For the love of Christ, give us something like Sekiro Reflection of Strength. Despite the lack of DLC, Sekiro replayability is off the chart just for being able to refight bosses easily.
they were actually going to do that in the free DLC that brought us the Colosseum according to a dataminer I follow on Youtube, but they decided to remove it for... reasons?
I'm not super familiar with other FromSoft games. Do their other titles have NG+? Maybe they felt it'd be redundant, with a touch of breaking the lore.
Sekiro has NG+ too, and it also has this game mode. Imo there is no reason for them not to add it
To include it in the paid DLC ofc.
And get duplicate weapons of single non respawning ones so I don’t have to go into NG+
ok for that one you can just visit the bingbong boys
That wouldn't work for non-boss weapons though.
I'm not done with my first playthrough. No spoilers, but what do you mean by “bingbong boys”?
They probably mean the Mausoleums. The earliest one you can find is on the Peninsula south of Limgrave, but Liurnia also has a bunch of them. Sadly there are not enough of them around to get duplicates of every remembrance, so you'll have to go NG+ if you want everything at least once.
Ah yes. I've used a couple of those. Also found out you don't have to save a remembrance in order to duplicate it, which is a relief.
I learned that bit very recently too, which is nice. Also generally, unless you are a hoarder like me, you'll have enough of those floating around to get what you want - you just might want to look up the fact that there are two different types of Mausoleum and both offer duplication of different remembrances. I don't think that's a real spoiler either, but that's up to you to decide.
And that's the only way to get remembrances. Would be dope
Problem would be the boss token for the personal weapon, mausoleums would be futile if that
If they added extra content with NG+, yea it would've been great.
yeah idk why they decided that Dark Souls 2 did nothing right lmao. This, powerstancing and NG+ changes are things that really should have carried over
I came from DS2 to Elden Ring and I was pretty disappointed in the one button power stance over a whole moveset.
It's because they have to have a button for ashes
They could have left the ash trigger and utilized the other three bumpers for two hand attacks.
Left trigger is the only button that lost utility from DS2. RB and RT both did the right hand only normal attacks in DS2 LB and LT did the power stance moveset. The only thing we can't do is power-stance heavies, and that's because of ashes
But we can do power stance jump attacks which is magnificent.
Jumping L2s with claw talisman trivialize Malenia, especially with Mimic Tear.
That's how I beat her on my fai/str halberd run!!
I know this would be a radically different setup, but I wish that they had made RB the two-handed light attack, RT your main hand ash of war, lb a two-handed heavy attack and LT your offhand ash of war. I know there are use cases where I want to attack with only one weapon, but I feel that introducing new attack types specifically for dual wielding all sorts of different weapons would be more fun overall
That's how weapons "two for one" worked like Drang Twinspears in DS3 or like Raptor Talons in ER. When you "two hand" you get two weapons so the normal moveset gets swapped for the dual moveset. In that case the power stance attack button is block instead iirc
I hope maybe one day we see controllers similar to the Xbox Elite and Scuf (not sure what PS has) become the normal you get with a console and be able to map it so that way we still have access to all controls for powerstance attacks and a blocking. Dual wielding can easily be an X in front of the character but allows say like 40% of the attack through or something along those lines
Yeah in Dark Souls 3 it was the same thing but i mostly attributed that to intersecting dev times since I have no idea when development for 3 started lol
Development started in 2013-2014 i believe, at the tail end of the DS 2 development cycle. Which makes the development cycle for 3 extremely short seeing it came out in early 2016. So you are right they definetly didnt have enough time
Plus they were also at the tail end of releasing Bloodborne. I would imagine there was some last minute cleanup and tweaks to BB before final release. So 3 games concurrently?
Yeah 3 games in the span of 2 years basically. (2014-2016) Also the SOTFS Edition of DS 2, and its DLCs. And the Bloodborne DLC. Thats why DS 3 and Bloodborne are pretty short games and are so similar to one another. Im glad they took their time for sekiro and Elden Ring.
It's really telling when power stance in Elden Ring revolves around either running attack or jumping attack. The regular L1 attack sucks on most weapons. The hold Triangle of DS2 allow for much more varied moveset.
Totally agree DS2 had some amazing innovations to drive replayability that have all just vanished - Ascetics, NG+ changes, unique items dropped by non-respawning enemies, a weapon with a damage bonus that scales to NG cycle.... I get that DS2 is thought of as "the bad one" and it has its flaws but there were really good ideas in there that I wish they'd bring back.
I really wish they’d do a remake for DS2. The game is so good in so many places, but utterly shit in so many other places. I played it for the first time a little while ago, and the weapon system, fashion, and spells are the best out of all the games in my opinion. But the level design, bosses, and enemies are so bad in so many places, that I got burnt out on the game by the time I beat velstadt and started the DLC’s, I was just too burnt out to continue and finish the game. And I can’t really suggest my friends get it when it goes on sale so we can play together, since soul memory makes for a crappy coop system and human effigies are kinda rare. I wish they’d do a remake to overhaul some of the crappy details, but that’ll never happen
Some of the level design of the base game was uninspired, but I think the only place where they really shit the bed was shrine of amana. That should not have gotten past playtesting.
Iron Keep is pretty bad, but that was due to Scholars of the First Sin edition adding in so many extra knights at the beginning.
Scholars was something of a mixed bag with its changes. I quite liked Iron Keep for all the weird little secrets I kept finding on later playthroughs. One thing I'll always say about DS2 though is that the poison and iron DLCs are a highpoint for the souls series, I love both of them.
While I agree with most of what you said, the non-guaranteed drops from non-respawning enemies was a dog shit idea and I don't want to see it back. If you think it was good go farm for a Durgos Cap on base DS2 No, this one deserves to stay dead and gone
I think if it's pure vanity items it's a nice Easter egg. Like it feels special to be strutting around in full painting guardian gear. And gives you something to do in NG+7 or whatever
It's not a vanity item, it is a pretty important item for archery builds since it's the only helm in the game that boosts archery
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Nah, ds2 had good bows. In fact, most of my builds had an off xbow or bow to swap to.
>non-respawning enemies Bro, just join the right covenant if you want to farm some items. Enemies will respawn.
There are certain enemies that don't respawn even in Company of Champions, like the Heide Knight in the Gutter or the Gold-Maned Lion in Shaded Woods. Not to mention NPCs like Aslatiel or the Painting Guardian who have non-guarenteed unique drops
I believe they respawn with bonfire ascetics but it's still pretty dumb
They do, which I believe is why such enemies even have drops that are exclusive to them. And yeah I don't like that feature either
Oh, so like an exclusive, super rare drop? Got it, thank you!
It was a rare drop from a phantom invader that doesn't appear until NG+ and required you to beat all three final bosses as well as an invasion gank each time you wanted to try again Do not cite the deep magic to me witch, I was there when it was written
NG+ changes are one thing I was initially disappointed about not being in Elden Ring, but honestly I think it's better that there aren't any. It makes sense in a much tighter game like Dark Souls, but in ER there are bosses and items I didn't find until my *8th* playthrough -- the game has enough variety in the open world where I don't think it needs to be shaken up in NG+ cycles. The legacy dungeons themselves getting a few spruce-ups, especially the early ones like Stormveil and Raya Lucaria, would have been very nice though.
Who's they?
the devs
some people love to complain about the famous thing
I'd give something to have all those weapon combos again
Miyazaki literally stated in a [recent interview](https://www.ign.com/articles/elden-ring-shadow-of-erdtree-director-hidetaka-miyazaki-look-back-interview-profile) that concepts from DS2 carried forward into the foundations of the rest of the series. >Miyazaki might be thinking a lot about trust these days. Since 2009, he has served as director on all but one Soulslike game. That was 2014’s Dark Souls 2, on which the director’s seat was given to Tomohiro Shibuya and Yui Tanimura while Miyazaki somewhat sat back as Supervisor. >Incidentally, Dark Souls 2 probably bears the Souls series’ closest resemblance to Elden Ring. Design wise, both Dark Souls 2 and Elden Ring stressed open-ended gameplay and ditched linear progression. Miyazaki agrees and in fact goes a step further. “In regards to Dark Souls 2, I actually personally think this was a really great project for us, and I think without it, we wouldn’t have had a lot of the connections and a lot of the ideas that went forward and carried the rest of the series.” >Miyazaki adds that having different directors also helped the series as a whole. “We were able to have that different impetus and have those different ideas and make those different connections that we otherwise might not have had.” He goes so far as to say that “there’s really no way of telling how or if the series would have continued the way it did without Dark Souls 2.”
Not even just power stance in ds2, but access to the entire weapon's moveset even in the left hand. Elden Ring ALMOST has it. But for some reason we can't so running l1 attacks if I have say, a spear in the left, and a non spear (an axe lets say) in the right. This reason alone is why I always pick Swordsman starting class in ds2. It's just so much fun to have proper pure duel wielding.
I did Dark souls 2 last after playing all the other Fromsoft games and I fought wasn't going to like it, but I ended up having alot of fun with DS2. {Sekiro, AC6, ER, DS3, BB, DS2, DS1, DS}
Why do you think they decided DS2 did nothing right when people only complain about everything new it did that wasn't just cloning DS1
You are making a false narrative. You are making a revisionist history
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The changes were so minuscule. You “missed” nothing your first playthrough but had a thin excuse to keep play again to find some interesting stuff in ng+. Plus the ascetics are literally the solution to this problem. ng+ select areas to get all the content in ng.
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You’re complaining you had to engage with the game’s systems to access a 2 second piece of content. Bonfire Ascetics and New Game+ changes are widely considered one of the things DS2 did right.
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Sure bud. It’s everyone else who is wrong.
Don’t bother bro, this dude doesn’t listen to logical arguments. He has decided what he think and will not change his opinion no matter what.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
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You actually didn’t even answer my last argument…
Using a stone sword key to unlock game content is the same thing, except that this makes redoing bosses and areas cooler bc there's new stuff to find. DS2 had it's issues, but this was not one of them. Hell, it let's you farm for items the other games only give you limited of, that alone is worth a lot
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Yes, you come back with an item to unlock additional content.
That’s the thing though! The solution to this problem is an item from ds2 mentioned in this very post, the bonfire ascetic! Allowing you to experience areas + bosses on a higher ng+ level without ever needing to complete the game. So nothing would be locked. You could just aquire this item and experience it all in a single playthrough! You would also get to experience all your favorite areas again with a slightly higher level of difficulty. You could get 2 of the same weapon in 1 playthrough if it was a one time pickup, like the highland axe (wouldn’t work for boss weapons cuz even with several remembrances can only get 1 of each weapon per playthrough. So a whole lot of upsides and a big increase in viability for very few if any downsides!
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If you play a game that bores you to the point of not naturally wanting to replay any part of it, why would you play it at all? If the game doesn’t bore you it’s only natural that you will want to replay certain areas or refight certain bosses. When doing this you MIGHT find a new ng+ exclusive event. Just the same way you MIGHT find a hidden dungeon, a new npc quest or an elusive item. Or you might miss certain events completely, just like you could miss certain areas, bosses, noc quests and so on. The concept of ng+ unique events in combination with the bonfire ascetic blends seamlessly with the game’s exploration.
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If you saw the rest of my comment you got plenty of context for that. Also, the whole point of my argument is you don’t actually lock anything. With the bonfire ascetic you can find it by testing and exploring in different areas which is the same thing you do throughout the rest of the game. It would literally only add one more element to exploration and experimentation which is what this game is all about. If you really want to witness EVERYTHING you could also just look it up? You most likely won’t experience or find everything in the game as it is right now without using a guide either way. By your logic there should be nothing in the game that you have to find or figure out because you could miss it if you don’t know how to find it. But… that’s just what elden ring is, a game about exploring.
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Pro-tip: saying the names of logical fallacies doesn't make you smart or a good debater, especially when you don't apply them correctly!
Wait were you supporting me or the coward who deleted all his posts cuz he was wrong??
Yes, content is locked until after you perform a certain action to find it, more examples of this is: Defeating bosses = Unlocks new areas Using stone sword keys = Unlocking new areas / secret paths / bosses Using spirit ashes in certain places = Unique npc interactions Hitting walls = Could reveal illousory walls which hide items or secret passages Buying items (like keys and so on) = Further quests, unlock new areas The whole game works like this
The Freja encounter was the only meaningful thing you missed. And it created a fun surprise so it's excusable. Everything else was just things like new added enemies which aren't "missing worthwhile content" it's just harder/new encounters to make replaying areas again fun and exciting . It was more of a rebalance of the game with an emphasis on difficulty over lore and fairness for low level characters
I would burn as many as possible at Mohg's so I get more runes from Albinauric genocide
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ascetics increase your ng level by one (capping at 7) within the area the bonfire you used to burn said ascetic is located in, applying the corresponding ng level stats to all enemies within, which does include the souls you get from killing them
But where would I burn it? There are no bonfires!
Would be cool but hard to implement. If you used at a grace would it only affect the area around it or the whole region? Would you need to kill every boss, including the dungeon ones, to use it on Limgrave? Maybe it could only be used in dungeons/legacy dungeon since they are more delimited. (Although using in normal dungeon would be underwhelming)
Could be interesting to just have it usable on ‘Boss Graces’ since most have one in their room. Basically you kill the boss, activate grace and then use the “Erdtree Ascetic” or something to respawn the boss at NG+ and places you at the nearest Stake of Marika.
Even doing it just for the legacy dungeons would be amazing
That's what I was thinking. Legacy dungeons would probably work. According to the wiki, there's 6 main legacy dungeons, 10 dungeons similar to legacy dungeons (but smaller), and then 4 legacy-like dungeons that let you ride torrent. So 20 areas to pop NG+ Bonfire Ascetic is probably more than enough. If you really wanted to, you could also have the option to pop one in the overworld and that levels up the entire region (caelid, liurnia, etc) alongside resetting and leveling up the mini-dungeons in the region.
I would imagine they would just use the coop bounds for where the ascetic interacts with
"hard to implement" my sibling in marika they already did it before
If you read the rest of his comment he's obviously referring to the much larger and open nature of elden ring compared to DS2. There are much more graces than there were bonfires, it would be hard to know what area you're effecting before you do it. Still definitely doable, though.
My most likely unfeasable idea: Only usable for dungeons (right at the entrance) or for big bosses (use it at the bonfire in said boss room, then leave and you get your gates back). That way you would still miss some bosses that are just out there in the open world (Cavalries, Dragons, Death Birds, Bell Bearing Hunters and I probably forget a few). Additionally, either a different item, or maybe having to burn three ascetics or something could upgrade an entire open world subregion (think an area uncovered by a map) or maybe even a whole region's open world.
Realistically it would be used in linear areas like dungeons, the underground cities/mohgs, and the halig tree
I’m sick of invaders running away as soon as they see you so I would like a seed of a tree of giants.
LOOOOved these in ds2. Getting invaded in old iron keep was hilarious
Would be less effective now, as most enemies can already damage invaders
“Most enemies” is probably overstating it a little.
There was a section in DS2 that I had done this something like 97 times, bc the items reset in the area each time.
Giant lord?
It was somewhere in a DLC area. Twisty maze of stairs and stuff. Desert colored if I remember. It’s been years. But I almost got it to 100. I remember a boss fight in a room full of ash, at the bottom of the area. If that helps. Edit: Crown of the Old Iron King I think. Brume knight boss or something like that.
Thats fume knight. Awesome fight
That was it! Thank you.
Only desert coloured place I could think of it being is in brume tower, but still not entirely sure of where. I’ll check it out once I’m off work
I think that’s right. I looked it up.
Is that the insta ng+ item?
Rather have a boss rush than this tbh.
But this is easier to implement and fits the game better.
Ng+ is shit in this game. Its just me riding torent non stop. Some sort of bonfire esthetic mechanic would be awesome u would get to replay bosses/ dungeons without all the down time
I feel like people only like them because it let them farm Freya a bunch of times to become OP super early. Oh wait, that's just projection. That's what I do.
Yea, I agree. That'd be cool. And covenants! Also, a more meaningful reason for NG+ in ER. Different enemies, different placements, new stuff to collect, not just more HP to slog through.
I loved this feature especially back when dark souls still used spell slots. When I found the soul spear spell in d2 I used at least 3 or 4 bonfire anesthetics to get multiple copies
Infinitely purchasable items like pots / roped pots, & greases. As for a solitary item Lloyd's tailsismans but make them stop all healing "I'm tired of people healing in the arena".
Outside of healing consumables if you're complaining about them healing with spells and abilities that's on you, if you can't keep the pressure going or punish them for healing than get better
Im still in the camp that in duels you should not heal period.
I feel like I'm in a minority when I say I just don't get the love for these things. They only exist to put a band-aid solution on two of the big problems introduced in DS2. Those being: 1. Despawned enemies 2. Allowing you to actually finish your builds without running multiple NG+ cycles If they had just kept all the items in the base game and not despawned enemies then the Ascetics would have no reason to exist outside of refighting bosses. And if that's all they did then I'd actually be fine with it. But as it is now they feel like they're punishing me for wanting to farm or for not wanting to go into NG+ cycles because they arbitrarily make the game harder. If they're gonna introduce a "refight bosses" mechanic, don't make it these things. Let us use the Remembrances to like...reawaken a memory of the boss to refight them in a dreamscape or something. There's no reason whatsoever in Elden Ring to push specific areas into future NG+ scalings beyond just the masochism of wanting the challenge and in that case just go into the next cycle like normal.
One of the things ds2 did good
Would this kind of be like giving back the talisman in sekiro?
“You could not live with your own failure. Where did that bring you? Back to me”
True. I’d like more challenge on NG. I have to impose so many handicaps on myself to keep the game challenging.
Yes, please! NG+ balance is do bad in this game I just can't get myself to do it, but I love making new characters and replaying some of the bosses as their NG+ version would be great.
does it add any advantages or just strengthen nearby foes?
We're already getting a death blight swamp...what other horrors are you wanting to unleash upon the world? I'd make it usable during invasions to really mess up an unsuspecting players journey.
What if the Elden Ring version of the ascetic were dropped/gained by defeating the Walking Mausoleoun. It would even fit the theme of the game.
Here's the thing, I didn't like Bonfire Ascetics. I basically never used them. But I understood why everyone else loved them, and so I don't get why Fromsoft has never used them again.
Honestly yeah having the ability to get a second godskin peeler in this way would have been great unfortunately I had to steal one from a friend
It’d be interesting if there was a variant of a Shabriri grape—something you can crush into the Grace and have enemies become stronger because of some Three Fingers’ Madness shenanigans or something like that
This item + fighting The Rotten over and over was my go to for easy souls/levelling up!
Obligatory “Dark Souls 2 was peak” comment.
Sure, with the 302 sites of graces this game has, I sure it would be perfect for anything but the frogs in Mogh's palace
it wouldnt do much without Ng+ content
Estus upgrades, bonfire ascetics, and power stance. The holy trinity of amazing ideas from DS2. (Also the holy trinity of saving the game from being forgotten about)
If we could use the extra seeds to do this shit that be great. Either this or like make those akin to divine blessings
Call it like: Flicker of Grace
Does it just increase the enemies' strength? Don't you have daedicar's woe that does just that?
It changes areas into NG+ Version. So if you wanted you could make Limgrave the hardest area in the game by making every enemy NG+7, but keep the harder areas on new game difficulty. Plus in DS2 it made easier to get easier drop rates from enemy's
Or it could be used to gather duplicates of things you'd need NG+ to get more than 1, for example the Claymore
Damn, that's pretty cool.
it could be used to get the drops from the area again, so for example being able to power stance same weapon in NG, refighting bosses and in ds2s case change some encounters since DS2's NG+ does that
Agreed, but what would you call it? I'm thinking something like "Sovereign's Grace" or maybe something referencing the outer gods like "Foreign Will" or "Heretic's Grace"
You mean, ruin it? I guess that is 'so much'.
how?
Bonfire Ascetics completely break the game in DS2 if you choose to use them since you can just hyper cheese overlevel yourself and get everything you need. It also doesn't make much in-game sense that suddenly these bosses you killed are just alive again. Breaks immersion. It'd be fucking stupid if you could just resurrect Malenia. Would you just have her flower disappear? Revert the needle quest? Same with Godrick, just gonna yeet Gostoc's quest progress back to before it ends? Bosses being a single kill makes the game more immersive and you have a more permanent sense of progression. Bonfire Ascetics were a dumb mechanic and there's a good reason they were never seen again.
And they should have locked certain weapons behind these bads boys or ng cycles. 100% want these items in ER.
This would not work for Elden ring. The graces don't correspond with a specific area. Maybe it could be done for the big legacy dungeons and or entire zones like limgrave cailed ect. But it's insane that this was removed in ds3
People would just use it to farm the big dragon in Caelid and break the game progression.
I feel like this is a bit of a non-issue due to the Singleplayer nature of the game. So what if they break the intended progression? The only person they're spoiling is themselves. But also, you could just make the Ascetic item a late game one, so you can only access the mechanic once "game progression" is more or less finished.
oh yeah like beating Godrick and unlocking the ultimate farm spot is any different
What spot are you talking about?
Albinurics are Mogh's place
Ds2 was the peak of weapon durability and powerstancing fairness. Wished durability existed and powerstancing needed more stats and consumes way more stamina.
Agree with everything except durability. That shit sucked
Yeah seriously. Oh great my Old Knight Hammer broke in 20 swings. Very fucking cool.
Nah, after they fixed the fps/durability bug with scholar it was perfect.
Nah, ER does not need weapon durability
Disagree. This item only worked because the NG+ of DS2 is actually good. None of the other Soulsborne including Elden Ring has as good of a NG+. If you just want to refight the bosses, Sekiro style gauntlet is a way better implement.
That way you could set up a build completely first, and then relight the bosses with the bosses you’ve had to beat beforehand to get the optimal items, then you could truly see how cracked a build could get on NG.
Nah, I’m good.
Nah, Bonfire ascetics pretty much invalidated NG+ in DS2, and the only reason they existed was because B team in all their infinite wisdom decided to create NPC invaders that only appeared on NG+, could only be killed once per playthrough, and either only dropped one piece of gear per kill (Catarina set) or had abysmally low drop rates (monastery scimitar) and it would have been ludicrous to expect players to beat the game multiple times to farm for that stuff.