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Lords of the Fallen |OT| Not that one. The other one.

Valt7786

Member
I reached Manse of the Hallowed Brothers yesterday. I think I'm in the last third or maybe quarter.

They've really hidden a ton of stuff in this game. Exploration and discovery are my favorite parts of these games, so I'm loving it. I started going back through some areas to see what I've missed. I spent a long time in Lower Calrath last night and I'm still not done there..

I get the complaints in regard to enemy variety. Consider, though, that they don't have a foundation of multiple previous games to build upon. Dark Souls made a huge leap over Demon's Souls in this respect, for example. I'm not fond of getting bombed with range stuff around every turn. I wonder if this was done intentionally to force melee characters to use throwables or if the throwables system was worked out to make melee viable after they realized they had a million Tom Brady clones roaming around every map. Its not ideal, but I'm okay with it.

It's a shame that this reviewed so poorly. It's about a 9.5 for me but I'm a Souls fanboy. Sucks if the UE4-5 stuff is true. Nobody cares enough about Soulslike graphics to justify the turmoil. I hope it does well enough for DLC and a sequel.

I'm in complete agreement with you. Game is fantastic overall, needs a few performance and balance tweaks for sure. Like you said, too many ranged dudes and the last quarter of the game just bombards you with enemies you're just not supposed to fight that many at a time.
 

ssringo

Gold Member

In case anyone is interested they're going live shortly with a Q&A hosted by Souls veteran FightinCowboy.
 

ssringo

Gold Member
Small recap of the questions they answered. It's not exhaustive as I have a hard time listening to speakers with thicker accents. These are just the ones I cared about or thought was worthwhile.

- NG+ will not have permanent vestiges added in. They did say they may look at adding vestige options later down the line though.

- Crossplay will be re-enabled when they can get PC at an acceptable performance level.

- Their idea of "seamless" co-op is how it's implemented currently and won't change.

- Item storage will be added but they don't have a time frame or know how it'll be implanted.
 
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Lokaum D+

Member
Small recap of the questions they answered. It's not exhaustive as I have a hard time listening to speakers with thicker accents. These are just the ones I cared about or thought was worthwhile.

- NG+ will not have permanent vestiges added in. They did say they may look at adding vestige options later down the line though.

- Crossplay will be re-enabled when they can get PC at an acceptable performance level.

- Their idea of "seamless" co-op is how it's implemented currently and won't change.

- Item storage will be added but they don't have a time frame or know how it'll be implanted.
Jake Gyllenhaal No GIF
 

j0hnnix

Member
-NG+ will not have permanent vestiges added in. They did say they may look at adding vestige options later down the line though.
Question Mark What GIF by MOODMAN
 

ssringo

Gold Member
-NG+ will not have permanent vestiges added in. They did say they may look at adding vestige options later down the line though.
Question Mark What GIF by MOODMAN
Yeah, a little mixed signals with that. I'm taking it as they aren't making or planning on any changes in the near future/it's not something on the agenda. But later on they might add in challenge options involving vestiges. I know I've made the suggestion to them that no vestiges could be an option at character creation and I'd enjoy a challenge run that way instead of doing it NG+.

As I mentioned I do have a hard time listening to speakers with thicker accents so I might've misunderstood what was being said. He did ramble a bit in his answers which made it a little hard to follow 100%.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Yeah the game is starting to have a fuckload of enemies everywhere and the lock on is way too sensitive and unprecise for gunk fights imo.

I'm gonna put it on pause for a while untile they patch and balance the whole thing.

The game has a decent base and exploration and possible builds are fun but when you start running between enemies instead of fighting in a souls game it's never a good sign.

Also the game hard boot my pc at least once per session and i don't wanna cause hardware problems.
 
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Manse area was cool though performance was *worse* than the swamp for some reason. Not to give the devs a pass but I understand the difficulty in creating something that is essentially 2 worlds in one with everything happening in Umbral even when you don't "see" it. I do wonder once you're *in* Umbral if it can't be better optimized since you can't see or interact with Axiom in any way until resting/activating a statue. Beyond frame drops and some occasional weird texture stuff I've had zero crashes or anything of that nature, fingers crossed it stays that way.

Some more photo goodness, I really love the art in this game 📸:

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NJLgRJL.jpg
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Nnfj9Em.jpg
lSZgTDa.jpg
mHvaMPo.jpg


Will be dividing my time between this and Spider-Man 2 now though I want to prioritize at least finishing my 1st playthrough of Lords.
 

Camper182

Member
Loving this game! Really beautiful and fun to play. The not so great performance on ps5 is actually fine, because the game is so immersive and beautiful.
Haven't found it limiting to my gameplay experience yet.
 

Draugoth

Gold Member
Another Patch:

Confirmed they are prioritizing the PC version. Consoles will be getting the patches in a single big one it seems.

Patch v1.1.214​

October 20th, 2023
8 Min Read

Live now on Steam.

All Platforms:​

More information to follow on Xbox, PS5 and Epic.

PC:​

Greetings Lampbearers,
As usual, we continue our quest to squash bugs in order to improve stability and performance.

Additionally, Fighting Cowboy hosted a Q&A session in which the community was able to inquire about various topics related to Lords of the Fallen. Feel free to check it out here.

And last but not least, we've seen the community is really engaging with our Faction Shrines!

  • Shrine of Adyr is now fully unlocked!
  • Shrine of the Putrid Mother - tier 2 has been unlocked
  • Shrine of Orius - still on the base tier 1
Stability

  • Fixed a crash that could happen when interacting with the vestige, under very specific conditions.
  • To all AMD GPU users, make sure to update to the latest drivers, as AMD has pushed specific driver fixes for Lords of the Fallen.
  • To all Nvidia GPU players, we highly recommend to update to latest, too.
Optimisation

  • The navmesh has been optimized further to avoid potential hiccups and micro-stutters.
  • Revised some global textures to reduce memory usage without any apparent loss in visual quality.
  • Collisions within a secret arena at Bramis Castle (with a group of enemy drones) have been optimized and adjusted.
  • We have heavily optimized the game thread for calculating navmesh, adhering to a maximum processing time budget.
  • Umbral eggs have been optimized to check for player position only after they've been opened.
  • Collision optimizations in the Lower Calrath storehouse surroundings.
  • Several additional collision optimizations have been implemented to free up memory and improve the game's performance.
Multiplayer

  • Fixed an issue in which the client could lose the ability to move under certain conditions.
  • Ensured that health, mana, and sanguinarixes are refreshed whenever you join coop or pvp, and when getting back to your world. Invaders, though, will have half of their sanguinarixes when they spawn, to avoid endless battles.
Balancing

  • The Parry Guard protection has been increased to 80%, as announced in today's stream with Fightin' Cowboy. It also avoids receiving any elemental damage or ailment.
AI

  • Ruiners now have a higher chance of triggering their fearful charge.
  • Ruiners now aim their shield fire attack at players more accurately. Beware!
  • Parasites now follow their hosts more quickly to prevent them from straying too far when the player pulls the host far away. If they are blocked, they will teleport to the host to aid players who are siphoning them by staying close.
  • We found an issue where Pilgrim's Perch pilgrims could sometimes shoot through certain structures. This issue has now been fixed.
Boss

  • We observed an instance where Reinhold's stab attack was propelling the player in a random direction. This issue has now been fixed.
  • Menacious Visage will now react correctly with the camera if the player is positioned between the boss and the camera.
Level Design

  • A puzzle involving umbral platforms at the Empyrean could be exploited by using soulflay on one of the platforms from a specific angle.
  • A streaming volume has been adjusted in Pilgrim's Perch to ensure that some assets don't appear too late for the player.
  • Adjusted the region scalars of the enemies behind the frozen door to better match the player's level.
  • Revised the obstacles in one of the shortcuts to no longer force the player to go through the Umbral fully; now it can be crossed by simply raising the lamp.
  • Slightly adjusted the backstab tutorial to prevent the enemy from sometimes going through the fence.
Collisions

  • The collisions of two umbral walls in Lower Calrath have been reviewed and updated.
  • Various ramps and staircases that didn't offer smooth navigation have been improved.
  • Two ground tiles that were causing issues with Delyth's attacks, preventing her from reaching the player, have been fixed.
  • Collision issues in the Deep Forest have been addressed to prevent enemies from getting stuck in certain situations.
  • Collision issues in the Deep Forest have been fixed to improve player navigation and prevent invisible blockers.
  • Collisions in Upper Calrath have been adjusted to provide smoother player navigation and eliminate small steps.
  • Collisions in Lower Calrath's Alehouse have been improved to better support jumping gameplay and prevent players from falling off on the other side.
  • Multiple collision fixes in Lower Calrath have been implemented to ensure the AI's navigation mesh functions correctly.
  • A rock that previously lacked collisions now has proper ones.
Visuals

  • Several armor sets, including the Marksman Armour, Sin-Piercer belt, and Condemned chest, have been adjusted to address minor clipping issues that occurred when using extreme character sizes (strong or thin).
  • A few fire decals in Lower Calrath have undergone further optimization and visual enhancement.
  • Fixed an issue where a bush was clipping through a wall in the Manse of the Hallowed Brothers.
  • Camera vibrations on some elevators have been adjusted to reduce exaggerated camera shakes.
  • Fixed a soulflayable spirit that was hard to hit due to the art surrounding it.
UI

  • Fixed a display issue for stackable items sold in vendors, where it could show a higher number than the actual available purchasable amount after going through an anchor once.
  • Improved navigation on Faction Shrines with a gamepad, so you don't have to go all the way down to move from tier to tier.
  • Increased the password limit for multiplayer to 8 characters.
  • Removed a prompt warning of the presence of an umbral path from a boss arena, and it now only appears after the fight is over.
  • Interact prompts sometimes did not display the correct keybinding, depending on the chosen key.
Steam Deck

  • Fixing the red eye issue on the Steam Deck is proving to be more challenging than we initially expected, and VALVE themselves are lending a hand. In the meantime, we've ensured the Scarlet Shadow doesn't spawn, until he's been fixed. So anybody blocked by this, should be able to proceed normally - the Scarlet Shadow will be back soon.
In Light we Walk.
 
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kittoo

Cretinously credulous
OK this game can look really good sometimes. Just entered the area after Fen (the road that leads to Calrath and the castle) and wow, looked amazing and next gen. Its not that good looking all the time, but sometimes it just fires on all cylinders.
 

Thief1987

Member
Is the global map interconnected like in Dark Souls and metroidvanias in general or it's linear like Lies of P?
 
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Does this have the replayability and flexibility of builds that Elden Ring has?

I really don't like DS2 at all, but I adore DS1, 3, and ER. Where does it fit between these? I really am interested in playing this, but I have been burned by every Soulslike so far.
 

Lux R7

Member
Does this have the replayability and flexibility of builds that Elden Ring has?

I really don't like DS2 at all, but I adore DS1, 3, and ER. Where does it fit between these? I really am interested in playing this, but I have been burned by every Soulslike so far.

it's just a personal opinion but i already prefer this to dark souls 2, and the build variety seems to be there. This game is satisfying my craving for a "Dark Souls 4", i'm pretty happy so far (almost 33 hours in)
 
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ssringo

Gold Member
Does this have the replayability and flexibility of builds that Elden Ring has?
No. ER is the product of many years and games of progress. It'd be insane to pop out a game with that level of diversity.

But there is a good bit of variety in how to build a character with different move sets, armor and spells. A few different endings as well.
 

Draugoth

Gold Member
In the Q&A with Studio Head they said crospslay was disabled because of a Unreal Engine 5 issue

The UE4 >UE5 rumor said UE5 broke multiplayer...

Hmmmm :messenger_neutral:
 
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I completed the radiant ending last night. I'm surprised at how much there is to go back for after looking at the wiki. I've only got twelve of twenty saintly quintessences, one of three chisels, I'm missing about thirty rings, etc. I've got a bunch of other builds to try as well.
Does this have the replayability and flexibility of builds that Elden Ring has?

I really don't like DS2 at all, but I adore DS1, 3, and ER. Where does it fit between these? I really am interested in playing this, but I have been burned by every Soulslike so far.
I've got a couple thousand hours or so in Souls games. This doesn't come close to Elden Ring in terms of replayability. I'll probably do more new runs and spend more time in NG+ with this than any other Soulslike, though.
 
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illmatik

Neo Member
Finished the game just now on PC. Overall really enjoyed my time with Lords of the Fallen despite nearly dropping it in the swamp zone. I'd give it a solid 8/10.

Positives
- Excellent art design that is brought to life by impressive graphics tech. One of the most beautiful games out right now (PC version on a 4080) and tops for a souls-like.
- Combat is weighty and holds up against the From games and Lies of P. Fallen Lord's Sword, Inferno build delivered on my favored STR build, with an added AOE proc that helped a lot with clearing the enemy hordes the game throws at you.
- Umbral world system feels genuinely rewarding, unique, and tense. Choosing when to enter or leave Umbral adds a layer of risk/reward that I hope is echoed in future souls-like games.

Negatives
- Some technical issues including a handful of crashes when enabling MSI Afterburner and some bad texture flickering in the last dungeon (maybe DLSS3 artifacts?). Nothing terribly bothersome, though.
- Worst final boss of any souls game
- Very poor enemy variety- IMO the worst part of the game that combined with the final boss fight screams the game ran out of budget. Playing through it feels like there is about 10 different enemy types that are being recycled with increased stats. You see the same demon axemans, zombie trash, grey gremlin dudes, etc. across the game without even a re-color.
- Aggro range needs more tuning, especially on some of the archers
- Swamp zone is overtuned. Way too many mobs including a frustrating amount of Chris Kyle accurate ranged mobs.
 

Thief1987

Member
The amount of enemies is kinda ridiculous, and I'm still early in the game. Especially in Umbral, where they can spawn everywhere and behind you as well. Just killing any desire to explore. Complete amateur hour from the developers.
 
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Thief1987

Member
Game performs terrible on PS5. It's not just constant framedips it's also stutters and freezes like crazy. Absolutely unacceptable. Game is kinda garbage too. That swamp area might be the worst piece of trash that I've ever seen. Now I'm pretty convinced that all of these devs absolutely creatively bankrupt, they just blindly copying everything from fromsoftware including the worst parts and somehow making them even worse in the process. Well, another one in the trash bin.
 

ssringo

Gold Member
Finished my first playthrough at just under 39 hours, level 127 and got the Radiance ending. Used Pieta's sword through a lot of the game but swapped to Judge Cleric's Spear once that became available and finished the game with it. Enjoyed probably 90% of the game. My only major complaints (performance aside) is the mook spam can get ridiculous and annoying at times and the NPC questlines are pretty awful to figure out on your own. I'd also have liked it if once you were able to beat the Red Eye Reaper and equipped his drop (which was underwhelming) you could freely explore Umbral without the time limit.

Not taking this one to NG+. Already got my second playthrough going with an Inferno character to go for the Infernal ending. Will definitely be keeping tabs on the NPC quests this time through.

Not sure why it's so washed out. Guess it screenshotted without HDR? Looks fine on my monitor.
 

kittoo

Cretinously credulous
Was standing at Skyrest Bridge (open area where you fight pieta) and looked down below, only to recognize far in the distance the bridge on which I fought the fire axe boss. Kinda blew my mind. These kind of interconnected worlds where you can recognize where you've been or came from, and circle back sometimes, really give a sense of journey. Love it.
 

Crownttano

Member
Took me a bit to realize The Sundered Monarch stops fighting you at low hp and just gives up at the end



Some Umbral Agony Action
👁️👁️👁️👁️
 

Lux R7

Member
Was standing at Skyrest Bridge (open area where you fight pieta) and looked down below, only to recognize far in the distance the bridge on which I fought the fire axe boss. Kinda blew my mind. These kind of interconnected worlds where you can recognize where you've been or came from, and circle back sometimes, really give a sense of journey. Love it.

yeah the world is absolutely stunning and well crafted
 

GrayChild

Member
I don't think I've played a game with worse balance. 80% of the time its piss easy, then they throw either 10.000 enemies at once or several bosses in a single arena and the game becomes exercise in frustration and cheap difficulty.

It's DS2 with all of its flaws multiplied by 10.
 
Last night I spent a few hours farming the large upgrade stones and was able to get the crimson sword and angel's axe to +8. Now I'm duel wielding both these bitches. The move set when duel wielding is very effective at crowd control. Almost feel like my "spin to win" Barbarian in Diablo IV :messenger_tears_of_joy: I've logged 36 hours on the game now and still only cleansed one beacon...lol. I haven't enjoyed exploring a world this much since DS3. I was one of the few that didn't much care for the open world in Elden Ring. This game just checks all the boxes for me. My only gripe is with the performance. It can really chug along in certain areas. Hopefully the consoles get a few more patches soon.
 

ssringo

Gold Member
Just released a new patch on PC. Only a couple of changes but they're also letting us know upcoming plans.


Of note is they're partially walking back their stance on NG+ vestiges.

From today's patch onward, now when you complete your initial playthrough, you will be presented with a new option before embarking on your next runthrough; you can either progress directly to the next consecutive NG (i.e if you’ve just completed NG+1, you would move onto NG+2), or you can replay the current NG at the same difficulty, albeit retaining your character, items and progression, but resetting the entire world, including NPCs and questlines. This will allow trophy hunters and completionists to seek out any outstanding tasks without having to contend with increased difficulty, should they so choose.

A further patch this coming Thursday will see further updates made to the NG+ mode; instead of removing all vestiges (as it does currently), NG+1 will only see a few disappear while keeping the key locations intact. In NG+2, a few more will disappear, and then in NG+3 all but the main HUB (Skyrest Bridge) and Adyr's Shrine vestige will disappear. This way, our initial vision remains intact but is more of a gradual adaptation, awaiting those who seek increasing levels of challenge.

Lastly, as a follow up to the popular announcement made during last week’s stream, we can confirm we have started designing the "NG+ modifier system", allowing players to fully customize their NG+ experience, whether that’s retaining all vestiges, keeping just a few, or removing them completely. It will also include other fun modifiers like a "hardcore" mode (1 death = permadeath), item randomizers, enemy randomizers, etc. The feature set is yet to be fully defined, but our current intention is to release the modifier system before the end of the year.
 

We hear you. And have decided to roll out some fundamental changes to ensure everyone continues to enjoy the NG+ experience, including both those who have relished the no-vestige challenge and those who would rather they were still present throughout the world.

From today's patch onward, now when you complete your initial playthrough, you will be presented with a new option before embarking on your next runthrough; you can either progress directly to the next consecutive NG (i.e if you’ve just completed NG+1, you would move onto NG+2), or you can replay the current NG at the same difficulty, albeit retaining your character, items and progression, but resetting the entire world, including NPCs and questlines. This will allow trophy hunters and completionists to seek out any outstanding tasks without having to contend with increased difficulty, should they so choose.

A further patch this coming Thursday will see further updates made to the NG+ mode; instead of removing all vestiges (as it does currently), NG+1 will only see a few disappear while keeping the key locations intact. In NG+2, a few more will disappear, and then in NG+3 all but the main HUB (Skyrest Bridge) and Adyr's Shrine vestige will disappear. This way, our initial vision remains intact but is more of a gradual adaptation, awaiting those who seek increasing levels of challenge.

Lastly, as a follow up to the popular announcement made during last week’s stream, we can confirm we have started designing the "NG+ modifier system", allowing players to fully customize their NG+ experience, whether that’s retaining all vestiges, keeping just a few, or removing them completely. It will also include other fun modifiers like a "hardcore" mode (1 death = permadeath), item randomizers, enemy randomizers, etc. The feature set is yet to be fully defined, but our current intention is to release the modifier system before the end of the year.
happy parks and recreation GIF

*edit* oops :messenger_hushed:
 
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The game is meant to be good, but does have its detractors. However, the main reason it has mixed reviews on Steam is because the "high" graphics setting automatically turns on Raytracing, and there's been a bit of backlash to Raytracing as of late...
It's the same reason why The Callisto Protocol (a good, but flawed horror-shooter game that's definitely NOT this gen's The Order 1886 like a certain thread will have you believe) had mixed reviews: Because of the PC port's bizarre/bad optimisation. I'll buy it on PC, set it to normal, and I'll be fine, but the fact is that people are getting sick of bizarre PC ports like Lords of the Fallen.

P.S. That reveal trailer set to Iron Maiden, amirite?
P.S.S. Yes, I like Callisto. And I'm hoping for a sequel and a Director's Cut which fixes flaws and reinserts cut content like the ties with PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. So what?
 
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