[ER] Not sure what to think of this
The Chalice Dungeons certainly aren't a home run for the average player, but overall, I did enjoy them a lot more than I enjoyed ER dungeons.
The layout was oftentimes repetitive, true, but so was Elden Ring in that regard. They could have seen the reception of BB's Chalice Dungeons and do something about it.
The bosses were, overall, a lot better than in ER. Amygdala can go choke on a brick, but the Pthumerians were cool, Abhorrent Beast and Fire Dawg are cool, the latter being a pain on your way to Yharnam, Queen fucking Yharnan who might be one of the coolest bosses in the entire game?! Compared to Watchdog 1, Watchdog 2, 2 Watchdogs, Yucky Tree Serpent in 10 of them. Like, what?
The worst thing is the rewards in ER's dungeons. I know some people here in our community that know what to do with these, for example the crafting materials you get, but to the average player, the rewards are bull. In BB, you get special variant weapons and materials to access deeper levels of the Chalices - not useful in the regular sense but useful to progress further, gaining meaning in that way at least.
I just woke up from a nap and maybe I'm being too combative right now but come on :D
Thoughts?
15 replies
I like the Dungeons in ER way more than Chalice Dungeons. In BB the Chalice Dungeons are a huge step down in terms of level design from the main game (which has some of the very best levels; Central Yharnam is still the best tutorial in all of gaming.)
The Dungeons in ER are way more deliberately designed. The first couple are tutorial and then you need to build upon what you learned; find the lever use spacial reasoning etc.
Also the loot is just way better in ER at least in my opinion. But that is also from someone who as Druid put it "knows what to do with". And in I will admit during a first playthrough only like 10% of loot is interesting. But I can think of a reason to go to almost all of the catacombs and other mini dungeons in Elden Ring for some reason or another (okay maybe not the first two mini catacombs in Limgrave).
The loot in BB only gets useful at the very end with the best Runes and the best Blood Gems. And I hate Blood Gems (that is a rant for another day). Until almost the very last dungeons the gems are better in the main game and the depths were you get the good ones is at a difficulty of about NG+6. (and the Runes also only appear at the very end.). To get there you need it either grid about 2 playthrough worth of dungeon's or cheat with online glyphs.
Bosses… Okay Bosses maybe BB is slightly ahead especially when we are comparing only catacombs. Still there not really any Bosses to make me go to Chalice dugeons just for them. The humanoids like the Watchers or Pthumerian are boring and I dislike Yharnam (the fight not the character; the character is awesome.). The headless Bloodletting Beast with the centipede does look cool though, even though it is a bit jank to fight.
Edit: Also Mini-Dungeons are pretty fun in ER Randomizers. Until now I have not given into the temptation of clicking "All Bosses" in the important item section. But one day I will do an all Bosses Randomizer run.
Feeling kinda dumb here what does "POE" stand for? My brain keeps expanding it to "Path Of Exile" but that doesn't seem right....
Tbh, if you remove the last line everything else fits, but is not something I would a complain about lol.
Point of interest
eeenterest?
I guess it's just how much you enjoy the progression. I don't give a fuck about noble sorceror ashes, or whatever, but I appreciate the satisfaction of clearing a dungeon and emerging a little stronger.
I think the main strengths ER dungeons have over chalice dungeons are how they're interspersed throughout the world, rather than almost entirely separate. This gives you a break from them between dungeons, while I, at least, tend to do a bunch of chalice dungeons all at once. Also, ER dungeons are preparing you for the more engaging late game story content, whereas chalice dungeons are the highest level content in BB and only preparing you for more chalice dungeons.
Also the ER dungeons are hand-crafted and build on each other, in some cases relying on your familiarity with the tileset. One of my favorite experiences in ER was the dungeon that warped you between two copies of the same map in order to disoriented you.
You are probably thinking of Auriza Side Tomb. It uses a number of teleport chests to wrap you between two slightly different copies of the same dungeon.
Leyndell Catacombs does something similar only without teleports. And the third-ish level in the Giants’ Mountaintop Catacombs also loops through two almost identical floors to confuse you.
A nice detail in the Leyndell Catacombs is that there is a dead Omen in the place where you would have killed an Omen in the other copy; just to further confuse you.
Yessss. Auriza was the one i was thinking of, but leyndell was also great. I dont think i made it all the way to the mountaintops one, though (I should open the game back up at some point)
I read that and thought: yep, that's Diablo.
then saw the final line and thought: well, maybe it's even more than Diablo lol
I think that the actual design of ER's dungeons is generally fine, it's just that many of them are basically the exact same experience. This is fine if you know which ones have stuff you want in them, but that requires you to either a) have done them all a whole bunch, or b) have some out-of-game resource like a wiki available. If you only need to worry about the quarter or so of them that have something you actually want or a boss you enjoy fighting, then they're fine; if you are trying to do all of them and get everything, they get dull.
Some of the catacombs are interesting. Auriza Side Tomb, Sainted Hero's Grave, and Leyndell Catacombs stand out, I think. Not sure if the fact that those are all in Altus means anything. Whoever made the Giant's Mountaintop Catacombs is a a fucking sadist though
Giants' Mountaintop Catacombs was probably made by the same person who made Frigid Outskirts. I guess, my Ritual Pots will forever be stuck at 9 out of 10.
GMC Motto: And now we kill the player.
I also really like the DLC Catacombs. Each have a unique gimmick and are generally fun to do. I play through them on most of my runs.
Yeah, it was nice to see them get more creative with it! Not 100% sure how I feel about the gameplay shift forced by the giant roving basilisk eyes specifically, but I respect the willingness to experiment. Also I like fighting the death knights, and the bigmouth imps are hilarious
Bigmouth Imps are definitely hilarious. The Bigmouth Imp Ashes spirit you get at the Darklight Catacombs is also one of my favorite summons.
You can actually kill/deactivate the basilisk eyes with damage over time effects like black flame or destined death (This is a bug). There is a Zullie video about it.
Some of the ER dungeons are neat. Even the dull ones are mostly fine as an intro.
They do feel a bit pointless once you know what the loot is. Maybe it would've been neat if clearing them had some other nice effect, but that might've turned into a chore.