Bonfireside Chat 207: Stormhill Central / Roundtable Hold
Added 2022-05-01 19:48:47 +0000 UTCThis week we turn back from the Stormveil Castle gates and head to the western and central portions of the region, talking to Warmaster Bernahl, getting previews of Magma Mansion, and fighting some optional bosses. Then we follow Melina to our home base: the Roundtable Hold to meet some Tarnished champions.
Comments
Love it
Mike Edmondson
2025-05-01 13:21:42 +0000 UTCThe Crucible is definitely a lot like the chaos flame in ds1. Not really seeing the connection to abyss tho
Jessie joy
2025-04-11 10:57:44 +0000 UTCWhat a pain in the....I would rather pay 5 dollars to not have to do this. Seriously. Cancelled
DigitalDusto
2024-06-25 17:44:07 +0000 UTCThere are instructions for subscribing to Bonfireside Chat alone in your welcome email or the pinned post. Patreon doesn’t provide a way to break out individual shows. https://www.patreon.com/posts/63283880?utm_campaign=postshare_creator - K
Duckfeed.tv
2024-06-25 17:32:16 +0000 UTCCan someone explain how I can follow bonfireside chat. I have dig and search for every single episode. I just joined patreon for the Bonfireside podcast. There's not a follow or subscribe button so if anyone can help, TY 😉
DigitalDusto
2024-06-25 17:27:20 +0000 UTCCrucible knight definitely is an example of difficulty discontinuity in elden ring. I really love him though. Without parrying, no hitting them is a real test of skill. At level 1 I think they rank up there with the top hardest boss movesets in the game
Michael Neighbour
2024-06-01 05:21:18 +0000 UTCTo be fair, our wolfbro has even more try head messages than fia. So, progress?
Jochem
2024-04-30 21:36:02 +0000 UTCSaying you guys dont think D is important kind of makes me fearful listening to the rest of the season.. D is incredibly important in a philosophical and story sense. He is the avatar of blind faith and zealotry, but he/they are also pitiful because no one else would have them. A rare positive of the golden order.
Jochem
2024-04-30 21:32:50 +0000 UTCThanks
Tala Maillot
2024-03-06 03:12:05 +0000 UTCOhhhh thats right!!!! I thought it was some Berserk reference and kept coming up empty. 🤣
Paul Villemaire
2022-05-16 15:55:33 +0000 UTCIt’s a reference to this video from around the launch of DS2. Go to roughly 7:20 for the joke. It’s done in the style of 90s game hint VHS tapes, complete with incorrect names and information (the big ones are calling Iron Keep “Magma Mansion” and Royal Rat Authority “Authority the Royal Rat”). It’s dumb, but it stuck. https://youtu.be/EjslOGK3L4I
Duckfeed.tv
2022-05-16 14:54:50 +0000 UTCI've been scouring the internet trying to figure out what magma mansion is. What exactly is it that volcano manor is referencing?
Paul Villemaire
2022-05-16 14:15:31 +0000 UTCYeah I preferred the longer fortnightly episodes to be honest. The content is still good just they feel less substantial. Part of this tbf is Elden Ring itself. It doesn’t lend itself to a good structure without either missing a lot of stuff or having huge episodes. Damned if the they do, damned if they don’t. I also think it may partly be a limgrave issue as it’s by far the most spread out area. Even Lurnia should lend itself to more of a traditional structure with “area and some sort of end boss” for episodes. Though I do worry with the shorter format we’ll still get the odd “travel around, see some landmarks we’ll go to later, meet an NPC we’ll talk about later, do a small cave, end” episodes. Again no fault of Gary and Kole it’s just how ER is.
Not today Satan
2022-05-15 18:10:01 +0000 UTCMy first experience with bell bearing hunters - "Hi Berna... Oh god, nonono whyyyy!" There was a long time when I thought it was Bernahl's dark side. And I'm still not convinced that isn't the case considering what we learn about him later in the game. The hunters are relatively easy if you fight them at close range though. They tend to stick to the same 2 hit/3 hit combo, a grab and a shield slam, only rarely using their magic. Once you get the timing down on those attacks, you can heal or attack after every move. It's like a crucible knight except they constantly leave opening to punish them.
Emil
2022-05-05 12:36:12 +0000 UTCNo consequences for personal attacks on the internet :-/
Emil
2022-05-05 12:33:07 +0000 UTCI do a decent amount of pvp and don't mind the AFK farmers. It's nice for evenly balanced duels because you're less likely to be outnumbered. It isn't a waste of time so long as I get to fight people and I can always leave if there isn't any action. I can understand it being annoying for invaders more interested in ganking or being a funny environmental hazard for co-op players just trying to clear an area. Although I don't have a tremendous amount of sympathy for them - there is no rule set for their style of pvp so they shouldn't complain if their victims play unfair as well.
Emil
2022-05-05 12:27:19 +0000 UTCIf you are still feeling out the spoiler wall, i would recommend the wall being after Godrick. Yes, it's fairly early but it is when the game starts to open more between Caelid, Raya Lucaria, Caria Manor, the underground areas, and even early paths Mogwyn palace and Volcano Mannor you're feeling suicidal, there are just so many directions (and many of them interact) that it's not really possible to be spoiler free since a new player could just go in a different direction than you. While technically some of these are open before Godrick, I think the game directs you to kill Godrick first hard enough to assume most people will (on a first playthrough) kill him first then explore elsewhere
Dani Doyle
2022-05-05 06:08:57 +0000 UTCNot sure if this is the best place to post this, but I wanted to share that Fritz Langs remastered 'Die Nibelungen' is on Youtube for free. It's an incredible pairing with Elden Ring, the first 10 minutes include a gorey battle with a giant dragon, and a couple items from ER appear in the film. I highly recommend it, I can't read German and I had a BLAST. Here's a boss arena entrance scene from the first 30 minutes: https://imgur.com/t9I6Y0b
griffith williams
2022-05-03 23:49:38 +0000 UTCPrehensile feet, huh?
Duckfeed.tv
2022-05-03 20:32:53 +0000 UTCI also thought the finger reading crones had 4 arms, until I found out that those other two limbs are just their legs and feet, not an extra set of arms and legs. I thought so many things in this game had extra limbs, between the crones and some other individuals we haven't met yet, and that grafting was going to be a much bigger theme in the game than it ended up being.
Sbeve
2022-05-03 19:56:13 +0000 UTCFair. But even when I was a kid doing that, I wish I had stopped. Like, someone should have educated me about how sexist I was being -GB
Duckfeed.tv
2022-05-03 18:04:29 +0000 UTCJust saying that when these episodes drop I get the same feeling as cresting a new ridge in Elden Ring. Thank you.
Greyboxer
2022-05-03 17:25:43 +0000 UTCI think you're right there and I got wires crossed. Since release I've seen a big uptick in sponsorship offers to my channel from sites selling runes and Steam accounts, which supposedly could relate to AFK farming, but in reality are probably just generated by cheats. That being said, I do think it's an interesting design issue. We know from interviews pvp was continually being tweaked until release because of issues integrating it into the open world. I think it largely "works" (these geometry issues seem like a bit of an inevitability), but to your points here there's a larger discussion about how pvp even fits into the experience at this point. With invasions only happening in MP situations, people trying to casually play with a friend are being constantly barraged, and invaders are making characters designed to manage being outnumbered, which I'm not sure is the ideal scenario for either party. Adding in what appears to have been a prevalent increase in taunter's tongue AFK farmers is just an extra bummer. I don't think the overreactions from some in the community are acceptable, but a few pvpers I know who have enjoyed pvp and were looking to their first fresh experience since 2016 are a bit bummed at the state of things, because it's just not that fun. That's just anecdotal evidence though.
thelorehunter
2022-05-03 14:54:11 +0000 UTCAbout the “Why all the immature comments? Grow up already! We did!” Alot of those might just be actual children or teenagers who are where we would have been 10-15 years ago. I always try to keep in mind a random interaction online might not actually be a peer, it may be my past, so to speak.
JackelZXA
2022-05-03 14:12:56 +0000 UTCI'm not, Gary's never really cared for the PVP aspects of the Souls games. The worst part is unlike most other games, you have to really go out of your way to get invaded in ER. You either need to have a co-op summon or actively call them to you.
superkeaton
2022-05-03 00:22:23 +0000 UTCget over it nerd
Matt Laninovich
2022-05-02 21:15:18 +0000 UTCThanks Kole! Appreciate you and Gary considering our feedback. This is definitely (and very apparently) a more difficult game to cover than the previous games, and that's not lost on us. I'm sure that whatever format you guys settle on will be enjoyable. The first few have been great!
ChipHand_Z
2022-05-02 19:00:02 +0000 UTCThis makes my monday shift 100% better
Mcav86
2022-05-02 18:30:21 +0000 UTCHow would they sell runes they got from pvp though? I assumed the "rune sales" stuff was about solid rune items?
Duckfeed.tv
2022-05-02 18:14:18 +0000 UTCI'm not sure if I just never noticed it, or it's especially apparent this episode, but Kole is sounding like the male equivalent of "Uncut Gems" girl with everything rising at the end and sounding like a question. Enjoying the episodes, learned a lot of little things I never connected in my playthroughs!
Colin Larkins
2022-05-02 17:45:42 +0000 UTCbest executed gimmick boss since Storm King
Matthew David
2022-05-02 17:09:03 +0000 UTCI'll admit I haven't gotten to that part of the recent episode yet, but my understanding is that AFK farmers are using cheats or exploiting map geometry to be impossible to beat and using taunter's tongues to be a target in order to farm runes and possibly sell them. I'm not a pvp person, but I think we all agree cheating is bad, and as far as exploiting a weakness in the multiplayer system to get to a place that's impossible to reach, it's an interesting conundrum of the design of multiplayer in Elden Ring that I speaks to the difficulties in getting pvp to work in the open world. I'm sure From didn't intend for that to be exploited to make the invading experience worse, so it'll be interesting if they address it or even can address it.
thelorehunter
2022-05-02 15:37:24 +0000 UTCHewg ended up being maybe my favourite blacksmith in any of the From games I’ve played. Andre is hard to beat of course. But I really like Hewg and his storyline with Roderika is lovely. It’s got to the point that I keep hearing his little grunt of “…handle….” while he’s working. It’s weirdly catchy. Fun episode and glad you’re getting positive feedback on the weekly gamer treats being provided!
Jon Cheetham
2022-05-02 13:46:53 +0000 UTCWe’re still figuring things out, and very much in the experiment zone. New game, new format. Legacy dungeons will have a bit more of a stable format because they’re more familiar, but Stormveil will likely be in the learning phase too. We appreciate any patience and understanding that is sent our way as we work through the learning process. - K
Duckfeed.tv
2022-05-02 13:16:23 +0000 UTCI completely agree. It’s been great to get an episode every week, but I personally wouldn’t want this new schedule to mess with the format too much, especially for the legacy dungeon episodes, which I feel should be covered in the same way as the levels in previous seasons.
ChipHand_Z
2022-05-02 13:12:13 +0000 UTCIt sounds to me like they are trolling the trolls. I don’t really see a problem with doing something like that if the game supports it.
ChipHand_Z
2022-05-02 13:03:03 +0000 UTCFor what it's worth, since this seems to have become more of a "thing" than anticipated, I'd like to say that my disagreement on the AFK farmers take isn't pulling me out of the pod or anything. It's just a minor point to me lol.
Josh S
2022-05-02 08:36:28 +0000 UTCWhy are you so upset about a slight inconvenience to the point of cancelling your membership? Like does this really honestly bother you THAT much? I don't get it man.
Connor Cox
2022-05-02 07:08:29 +0000 UTCBecause I already paid for May. I'm disappointed, that's immature, Gary.
Nathaniel
2022-05-02 05:43:39 +0000 UTCWhy are you still here? You quit the patreon!
Duckfeed.tv
2022-05-02 05:39:22 +0000 UTCIf you just said "I don't like PVPers, F them" at least that's a coherent position. What you're saying now is not
Nathaniel
2022-05-02 05:36:49 +0000 UTCThat doesn't make sense to me. AFK farmers don't need help- they use the taunters tongue deliberately so they can be invaded solo, while deliberately positioning them somewhere that you can't reach in multiplayer. They're not playing the game. They end up getting invaders and blue summons, and wasting all of their time, for personal gain. It is not defensible as just another way of playing the game. You're conflating different things here.
Nathaniel
2022-05-02 05:32:41 +0000 UTCNoted. Part of it is informed by seeing a lot of "AFK farmers are scum and deserve to die" shit online, and part of it is that I've cooled a bit on how ER handles invasions. If someone summons help, they're probably struggling and I think that it's a valid read that that person considers being invaded a waste of their time. Sure, it's in the game, but so is hiding yourself. There are even items for it. So, if an invader wastes a few minutes and has to try again, I don't feel tons of sympathy. Feel free to disagree. GB
Duckfeed.tv
2022-05-02 05:26:29 +0000 UTCKind of on the same page here. Really feels like the whole "play the game how you want" thing goes out the window when you choose to literally not play the game. I don't even engage with PVP at all but the AFK farmers seem pretty negative to me.
Josh S
2022-05-02 04:38:51 +0000 UTCI'm disappointed with your take on afk rune farmers. You say you don't care because you don't PVP, okay- what about people that do PVP? Do you need to be dismissive of how this affects them because it doesn't affect you? Do you really think afk farming is defensible as a way of playing the game? Doesn't "let people play how they want" have to have the caveat that when it becomes detrimental to other players, they have a right to be upset? It sounds to me like you don't think PVP is a valid way of playing the game, so you don't mind a problem that only affects PVP (and not just invaders - blue summons are sick of this too). A really bad take, I was surprised to hear it
Nathaniel
2022-05-02 04:25:35 +0000 UTCSome evolving thoughts on this season’s format: It’s nice to get a new episode every week, but I find the fluid, unpredictable nature of “what will actually get covered” each week to make each individual episode feel less…canonical? Official? Put another way, I miss being able to play a discreet section of the game alongside the corresponding episode. For example, I loved replaying Bloodborne’s Old Yharnam while listening to the episode at the same time. Or completing No-man’s Wharf in DS2 and then jumping straight to the episode right after. I’m guessing the biggest issue here is Elden Ring itself. The game is so vast, the areas so sprawling, you can’t just do “Caelid” as one episode. Still, I wonder whether “longer episodes, every other week,” would allow for more areas to slot neatly into episodes. That said, it sounds like more of the community prefers every week shows, and I’m still enjoying these too. My only remaining ask would be to make sure each legacy dungeon gets an official episode (or 2) specifically dedicated to it, which seems to be the plan?
Ben Taylor
2022-05-02 03:52:17 +0000 UTCyeah, I like everything about the presentation of the Magma Mansion boss (and Magma Mansion in general tbh), but that fight (at least phase 1) had my blood boiling.
ChipHand_Z
2022-05-02 03:06:35 +0000 UTCGlad someone else agrees. That boss is a bigger insult to Storm King than even Yorm is
Dani Doyle
2022-05-02 02:41:41 +0000 UTCI just had to comment on the "Magma mansion" boss that you guys actually liked, i haven't raged against a boss like that since Bed of Chaos... His cutscene was silly the first time, but holy crap that fight is garbage.
erix84
2022-05-02 00:40:31 +0000 UTCMy play through is turning out so different than y’all’s! I love hearing about the stuff I missed
Alex Brewington
2022-05-01 23:37:30 +0000 UTCCurrently on my third playthrough and was also completely unaware of the Bell Bearing Hunters' very existence until listening to this.
Mike Suskie
2022-05-01 22:18:05 +0000 UTCwe are the daughters of the goros you couldn't add to the game
anonymous
2022-05-01 22:01:24 +0000 UTCTry this link- it's unlisted but he tweeted it
Nathaniel
2022-05-01 22:00:11 +0000 UTChttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEG5EZe1Tlc&ab_channel=LanceMcDonald
Nathaniel
2022-05-01 21:59:49 +0000 UTCI hope the coliseums become usable in a future patch or dlc. It would be weird to just leave them there as cut content
Nathaniel
2022-05-01 21:46:35 +0000 UTCI didn't know about Sekiro Dubi, but weirdly Lance's videos on it haven't show up for me.
Duckfeed.tv
2022-05-01 21:25:53 +0000 UTChey! People have glitched into the coliseums! and even tried to operate them. look up what Lance McDonald and Sekiro Dubi have done
Nathaniel
2022-05-01 21:14:01 +0000 UTCYeah, I’ve not encountered the ball bearing hunter yet either. At 80 hours and plugging my way thru “Magma Mansion”.
Shane W
2022-05-01 21:06:01 +0000 UTCI don’t know how I managed it. I guess I somehow never explored at night in the right areas. I only ever ran into the night cavalry and the death right bird in the mountains of the giants. I never ran into a ball bearing hunter either. I had to actively search them out after I heard about them and was already at the final boss.
Aidan fleming
2022-05-01 20:42:46 +0000 UTC
