Elden Ring Fans Rejoice As Dreaded Bloodhound Step Nerfed In Enormous Gameplay Update
It’s been a while since Elden Ring saw any love, but patch 1.06 is here. There’s not much in the way of new additions, though notably the update means you can now do co-op or invasions in multiple places at once in addition to having larger invasion area. There’s also a new mysterious NPC who is supposed to help you advance Varre’s questline without wading into multiplayer at all, though in typical FromSoftware fashion no word on where to find this useful fellow. Still, the update is an enormous one, at least when it comes to gameplay tweaks.
The much-reviled Bloodhound Step, an Ash of War which allows you to dodge attacks at high speeds while becoming invisible, has been tuned down so that the more you use it, the less effective it is. Bloodhound Step does also go further when you’re light on equipment, but it seems that FromSoftware has touched nearly everything to do with low carry loads. You can now roll farther when you’re not carrying much, for example. Still, the Bloodhound Step nerf is pretty huge news for anyone who partakes in multiplayer. Recently in a poll of 10,000 players, the oft-used skill was one of the most-cited reasons for believing that the multiplayer was broken and unbalanced.
And you can believe players are happy about this: nearly every reply under the Twitter announcement celebrates Bloodhound’s demise.
One of the other hugely-requested changes is a Corpse Piler downturn. Corpse Piler is the skill attached to the popular Rivers of Blood weapon, where the player swings the sword into an “X” shape that leaves behind a trail of blood. If the enemy gets hit by the trail or the actual weapon, it will cause damage, blood stabbing buildup, and fire damage to boot. Now though, the trail of blood left behind isn’t as effective as before, with less damage and bleed doled out on-hit. The actual blade also does less damage, but only slightly so, according to the patch notes. That seems fair, really. Read More: 8 Ways To Make Elden Ring Feel New Again While You Wait For DLC Unfortunately, the Astrologer fave Glintstone Pebble now does decreased damage but it does go farther than before. The spell didn’t do a ton of damage, but it could be doled out quickly at a low FP cost, and it made horseback witchcraft a hell of a lot easier, too. Despite finding a wide variety of more powerful spells, I had the Pebble equipped for maybe 75% of my playthrough. “Bonk” players should be pretty happy as well, because the patch makes Greatswords and Great Hammers a hell of a lot better. If you wield bonk, you can now roll faster after attacking, charge attacks happen faster and axes are speedier outright. You can find the full PVP-centric patch notes below.Rip bloodhound and RoB users
— MilkNut (@MNut115) August 9, 2022pic.twitter.com/an2Ggzi2Ao
- Added the function to send summoning signs to summoning pools in multiple areas, including distant areas.
- When sending a co-op sign to distant areas with this function, summoning pools in “Mohgwyn Palace” will be excluded
- Added a new way to advance White Mask Varre’s questline other than participating in multiplayer invasion by defeating a new NPC
- Balance Changes
- Added the following adjustments to Greatsword, Curved Greatsword and Great Hammers: Reduced the time it takes for rolling to become possible after an attack (Jump attack, dual wield attack and attacks while mounted not included)
- Increased the motion speed of strong attack and charge attack (mounted attacks not included)
- Increased Guard Counter’s motion speed
- Increased the attack speed of Great Axes and reduced the time it takes for rolling to become possible after an attack (Jump attack, dual wield attack and attacks while mounted not included)
- Increased rolling distance when player has a light equip load.
- Increased the hitbox of Cipher Pata’s weapon skill “Unblockable Blade”
- Increased the range of Ash of War “Glintstone Pebble” and “Glintstone Dart” projectile while decreasing the damage and stagger power
- Decreased the travel distance and invincibility frames of Ash of War “Bloodhound Step” while adding the changes below: ・Reduced performance when used continuously Increased travel distance when on light equip load
- Shortened the activation interval when using “Quick Step” skill in succession, increasing its ability to circle around the enemy when locked-on and add the changes below: ・Reduced performance when used continuously ・Increased travel distance when on light equip load
- Decreased the damage and bleed build-up of weapon skill “Corpse Piler” when hit with the blood attack. When hit by the blade, the damage is only decreased slightly
- Decreased the target tracking ability of sorcery “Stars of Ruin”
- Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug which caused some attacks of “Lucerne” to not pierce enemy’s guard
- Fixed a bug which made it harder for a two-handed jump attack with “Bloodhound’s Fang” to break enemy’s stance
- Fixed a bug which caused the effect of “Determination” and “Royal Knight’s Resolve” to disappear after using the “Parry” skill with a dagger
- Fixed a bug when dual wielding Axe and Greataxe which caused additional effects from Spells, Weapon Skills and Items to not be applied correctly
- Fixed a bug when two-handing a Halberd which made it harder to withstand enemy’s attack after using guard counter
- Fixed a bug which caused the physical attack affinity of some weapons to be different from the affinity listed in the description.
- Fixed a bug which caused the player to become more easily noticed by the enemy when wearing “Deathbed Dress”, even when crouching
- Fixed a bug which caused charge attack with flail to damage ally character when wearing “Deathbed Dress”
- Fixed a bug that caused HP to regenerate when switching your equipment to certain type of armorFixed a bug where the effect added to the weapon upon using “Mists of Slumber” was lost when the player receive an attackFixed a bug which caused the playable character’s movement to become unstable upon hitting certain enemies with the skill “Ghostflame Ignition”
- Fixed a bug which prevented player from using “The Queen’s Black Flame” skill’s follow-up attack when performing the skill with insufficient FPFixed a bug with the weapon skill “Zamor Ice Storm” which allowed player to more easily withstand enemy’s attack when using the skill with insufficient FP
- Fixed a bug which caused the effect of spells and items added to right-hand armament to occur when using certain weapon skills with left hand.
- Fixed a bug which caused the FP consumption description of certain weapon skills to be different from its actual FP cost
- Fixed a bug that allows “Rock Blaster” to not consume any FP when used with a staff on the left hand and no weapon on the right hand
- Fixed a bug which caused the charged version of “Black Flame Ritual” to consume the same amount of stamina as the normal version
- Fixed a bug which caused the player to receive less HP recovery from incantations and items other than “Flask of Crimson Tears” when activating the effect of “Malenia’s Great Rune”Fixed a bug which caused the “Opaline Hardtear” to not boost physical damage negation
- Fixed a bug which prevented the player from jumping mid-air while riding under specific condition
- Fixed a bug which allowed jump attack with Colossal Weapons while mounted to hit twice consecutively
- Fixed a bug which caused some signs to appear more than once in the Summoning Pool
- Fixed a bug which caused the effect of some weapon skill’s attack to persist under specific circumstances
- Fixed a bug which sometimes caused significant performance issue at “Ordina, Liturgical Town” under certain circumstances
- Fixed a bug which prevented the player from picking up dropped Runes upon death under certain circumstances
- Fixed a bug which allowed users to reach certain inaccessible area during multiplayer
- Fixed a bug which caused the multiplayer area to have different boundary than expected
- Fixed a bug that causes some enemies to have incorrect visuals and behaviours.
- Fixed a bug that caused incorrect sounds to be played under certain circumstances.
- Fixed a bug which caused some areas to make the player unable to move which lead to death
- Fixed a bug that caused some places on the map to have incorrect visuals and hitboxes.
- Fixed a bug in some maps that allowed users to reach unexpected locations using certain procedures.
- Fixed a bug with the PC version which caused click input to occur when equipping Staves or Sacred Seals and switching Windows to active.
- Other Added the “ERROR” text to unauthorised items In update file 1.04, we have fixed a bug that allowed players to pass unauthorised items that cannot be obtained in game to other playersAfter the distribution of this update file, possession and usage of these unauthorised items will be subject to warning or penalty after a certain period of time.
The post Elden Ring Fans Rejoice As Dreaded Bloodhound Step Nerfed In Enormous Gameplay Update appeared first on Kotaku Australia.