One other unifying feature setting the Fallen Hawks and Knights of Zamor apart from most other NPCs is their IDs, which are 7000 and 7100 respectively. They're the only NPCs in the 7000 range, so we can assume it was being reserved for any other Buddy NPCs they decided to make, but that didn't really end up being necessary.
So how exactly did they work around having to have npcs preloaded in the map? You explained Torrent, but no video I've seen on spirit ashes has explained how Fromsoft pulled it off. I enjoy your videos, btw, this is not a criticism
@@kamonwolfe5057 Its just a change to the engine, there isn't any particular reason any game can't spontaneously generate an NPC. The older games were just made in such a way that they didn't have that technology and needed them pre-loaded and with Elden Ring they put in the effort to have the game load the NPC when you summon them. Its like saying "This sandwich shop didn't used to have authentic imported mozarella cheese and now they do, how did they pull that off?" well, before, they didn't have any... and now they put in the effort to find a supplier so they do.
@@kamonwolfe5057 There was a function in the debug menu for the older games for spawning NPCs, but any NPC spawned with it wasn't fully functional because it was basically just a test tool and didn't properly set up all the info the NPC needed. They just took that system and overhauled it so it properly spawns NPCs as though they were spawned from the map placements.
Any chance we can get a "what's under the mask" for Zamor knights and various other enemies with obscured faces? Assuming there even is anything under there of course.
A Zamor Knight buddy would’ve been interesting, a Fallen Hawk not so much. 🫤 Speaking of Hawks, just finished Berserk “The Golden Age” 3 Arc movie series (fantastic redo of the 1997 original anime)… and thought of the Hawks. If From ever did a Berzerk game series it would be epic. They already got Guts’s Greatsword after all.
Well, it's wholesome until you remember you're talking about an enslaved spirit of a creature that couldn't even escape from you into death perpetually being used as a meatshield against godless creatures. Them calling it a buddy system when that's their general purpose makes it a tad bit darker than it already was. Unless you run daedicars woe and take the aggro onto yourself, then it actually is quite wholesome, made more so by the dedication to keep the spirit up as long as possible by tanking for it. Don't touch my Latenna, and definitely don't touch Jellybae
Maybe they could have added continuous coop like some people spent hundreds of hours on without compensation to provide in a game that made a fortune and called that the buddy system instead. :)
This reminds me of my first Dark Souls 2 playthrough where in No Man's Wharf there is a hollow npc who does not attack you even if you attack him, when you free him he follows you around as a torch bearer. Because this was first Npc I grew so attached to I decided to be befriend and even named him Richard.
Aww, that's cute! I've seen a couple DS2 playthrus, and it seems to be pretty common for players to name that torch hollow. I was somewhat uncreative and named mine Buddy.
I also liked that this system gave us a bit of lore for each of the enemy types that become summons. Nice to have it directly tied to the enemy instead of just items they drop, etc.
@@manfreygordon we definitely need some informations about some other creatures like the fingercreepers though, as we know almost nothing about them apart from speculations. I got the impression that they're some type of demons that simply exist in the world. An interesting detail is that the ones in the Mountaintops of the Giants don't wear any rings, which implies that that's where they live in the "wild", while the ones outside of the Caria Manor and near Volcano Manor are domesticated versions equipped with rings, wearing them like dog collars.
I've always said the Ashes in this game were basically the "NPCcompanions" of Elden Ring and with them being internally called "buddy" kinda tells me that what they were going for. I bet at first they were planning on giving a "companion quest" to all ashes, small for the normal ones and huge for the legendary ones, and not just Latenna and the Spirit Jellyfish.
I really wish they'd allowed spirits to be something you can just have with you at all times, even consuming your blues to keep them up cuz wandering around with them woulda been nice.
@@glorytoukraine5524 yeah, also now that I remember the twin imp ashes are used to open the Consecrated Fields Spire, so maybe even that was supposed to be more developed quest. Maybe they realized that having a quest for every ashes was too complicated to develop time-wise
Love what you did at 2:44, recreating the 'first look' image at 1:16. Overall really enjoyed the posing of everything in this ep! Even the shot of you riding Torrent at 1:59 was awesome, and it didn't have to be. We all know Torrent's deal. Talking about him, you could've just thrown in a shot of him standing around. But hey, might as well snap a nice, dynamic pic where he's doing his thing. Love to see it ^_^
Having named spirit ashes gave a surprising amount of depth to them, it made them feel unique, with this not just being any Lleyndel Knight, but a specific knight with a unique story.
The spirit ash system is such a cool idea for this game, and I’m so glad they introduced it. It gives you a middle ground between “hey I’m struggling a little with a boss” and “here is this naked man with a pot on his head who can beat the boss by himself”. Sure, mimic, tichu, etc are very strong but like, calling in some wolf friends is just good fun and pretty helpful
Them being usable everywhere instead of just in these tiny areas wouldve helped a lot with that. Giving the weaker summons a purpose, I mean, instead of just using Mimic or Tiche or whatever. Rolling around as a flea-ridden madman with a pack of mangy giant rats would've been hilarious! When it comes time to fight a boss and you can actually use them, though? Dead in a heartbeat...
Spirit Ashes are a poor solution to boss difficulty in the same way Summons are, because FromSoft doesn't know how to program the enemy AI to effectively fight multiple enemies at once. It's similar to the problem the combat system suffers from, in that it's designed around 1v1 combat but they make you fight multiple enemies at one time, completely undermining the lock-on mechanic. The boss will target one person, leaving the rest of the people present to just attack the boss from behind and not have to worry about dodging because the boss isn't attacking them. This means that any Spirit Ash you summon, regardless of how strong it is, is really strong in the sense that the boss will attack it, giving you an opportunity to attack the boss while it's distracted. This is why there is a system in every Dark Souls game that makes the boss more tanky for every person/NPC summon, it's to try and combat the fact that the bosses can't fight multiple enemies at once effectively. When the added Spirit Ashes, they decided that they shouldn't increase the boss's maximum health for some reason, so they needed to come up with a different solution to this problem. Their solution was to give every boss some kind of AoE attack (or multiple AoE attacks) and make them play very aggressively, while also just making the bosses harder so they can kill people more easily, stuff like giving them attacks that can't be dodged on reaction, or multiple ranged attacks. The other idea was to just put multiple bosses in the arena, but they didn't put any effort into making sure the enemies had good synergy together like the Demon Princes or Ornstein & Smough, it's just 2 bosses that will attack you are the same time because people liking fighting the Graverobber, Varg, and Cerah in DS2, right? This completely undermined the single player experience by making the bosses much harder than they should have been, incentivizing the use of Spirit Ashes. It's a self-perpetuating problem that doesn't really have a solution. If you don't use Spirit Ashes for any reason, you are handicapping yourself, but if you _do_ use Spirit Ashes it makes the fights too easy because the bosses, despite being buffed to fight multiple opponents, still aren't primarily designed around fighting multiple opponents.
@@michaelbowman6684 well said. Not enough people realize how damaging spirit ashes and extremely easy access to coop had on Elden Ring’s balancing. As they are right now, spirit summons break the game and should universally be nerfed HARD in conjunction with rebalancing bosses for single player focus. At the very least spirit summons need to be treated the same way as coop summons and increase boss health. In a lot of ways the spirit ash system brought a lot of the problems that the fan base warned introducing an easy mode would as that is effectively what they are, Elden Ring’s easy mode. From was trying to have their cake and eat it too. Unfortunately they ended up with essentially the worst of both worlds. Spirit ashes can trivialize the game (along with some other extremely over powered items/spells) but playing completely solo without the crazy overpowered tools puts you up against an unfair challenge. It’s disappointing to see something like that happen to From when they’ve traditionally been so good at the “tough but fair” difficultly balancing. More people need to speak out about the damage the spirit ashes and other balancing issues did to Elden Ring so that From can hopefully fix it or at least not repeat the mistakes in future titles.
@@LordSevla On the other hand, if Spirit Ashes were far weaker, there would be no excitement in obtaining and using them. Personally I just choose not to use Ashes unless I'm fighting a double boss, which is a bit of a shame since I do find some of the summons really cool, but hey, not every mechanic needs to be for everyone, that aspect of customization is the neat part. I don't use 90% of magic spells neither, doesn't mean I think they're better removed. And it's not like there aren't other ways to completely break the game. Powerstanced UGS jump spam and Rivers of Blood comes to mind.
They are marks which cover amount of area where you can use spirit ashes. That way Fromsoft can just conveniently put them in different places without modifying any complicated requirements for summoning. If you've watched Zullie long enough you will know that Fromsoft have a habit of using NPC for almost anything so they can easily code.
@@ukaznipsigururuk8685 I feel like they're not in every boss room though - I don't think I've seen them in the room of the godskin apostle below Caelid tower, for example, but you could still summon there. Maybe I'll just keep a closer eye out for them now..
@@an_ordinary_goose yea you gonna have to keep an eye out for that. I've seen every one of them in every places with summons. Fromsoft intentionally hides them so they wouldn't be out of place.
If you get very lonely in the land between, just remember to ring the little bell and you can summon a buddy to accompany you your Journey just like Pokémon.😺
The terms "BuddyStandard" & "BuddyUnique" seem like they just picked two existing units for initial testing the summoning implementations. It seems like that division ended up being the way Spirit Ashes are split between Normal & Legendary in the released game, where it just specifies generic troops vs. named individuals. Those seem like pretty normal approaches for iterative developments based upon where the early gameplay was and wasn't running into tech limitations, then gradually shifting design ideas around how to use the system based on what worked how and where. I wonder if the Zamor Spirit Ash was initially going to be a reward from the Evergaol at the Weeping Peninsula. It's such an oddly located enemy given how isolated it is from all the others. It's not at all surprising that the Fallen Hawks were an enemy around early enough to be used for this kind of generic unit testing though, given their roots in _BERSERK_ themes with the Eternal Cities.
Yeah I feel like out of all the evergaols that might be the most nonsensical, so I'd hope there used to be more of a reason. Also giving that ash that early would be insane so idk
I feel like the spirit ash system could make for an interesting take on an RPG party system, tbh. Something that bugged me a bit in Elden Ring was just how many NPCs agreed to "cooperate" with you, but were actually heading off on a parallel journey that required you to summon them via gold signs at highly specific locations, or happen to run into them off the side of the road. It didn't feel so much like teamwork as a highly missable series of hide-and-seek games. I'm sure it might've demanded some finegling, especially pertaining to each NPC's relevance in the story progression, but it would've been nice if more characters actually accompanied you similarly to Latenna and could be summoned for their personal quest duration, not as spirits, but as a unique subset of live cooperators. I feel it would've helped the game feel a bit more adventurous during the singleplayer story if you had even this slight sense of camaraderie with characters like Millicent or Blaidd, without straying too far from the usual Souls style.
This style of NPC quest seems to be a From staple -- it's honestly 89 times less frustrating and vague in ER than in the other games, too -- so I don't think it's going anywhere. Kind of unfortunate, because there's definitely untapped potential in how fleshed-out some of the ER NPCs try to be.
Speaking of Zamor knights, maybe you could do a little showcase on the models to speculate what are they? Im 99% sure this wasnt a fewer dream: Was fighting a Zamor dude at the ruins and somehow ended up knocking a knight off an incline and it fell on its back, and in the getting up animation it appeared to twist its head back into position. Just curious to see a showcase of these guys as the dont appear human, maybe puppets or something.
The Spirit ashes in terms of usage are generally really nice in how they're implemented, on one hand giving counter play against gank bosses in place of the rare find npc summons and allowing a way to practically add an easy mode for boss fights and some enemy encounters that is easy to find and use and doesn't require massive reworks to the whole game
Even though I don't play "Souls Games" I find your content to be entertaining and interesting and you are truly and inspiration to me. Keep going and I hope that life is good!
Ayo Zullie, can you check whether transporter chest traps actually behaves like poison mists? Like, does it have a hidden status counter to fill before being transported?
If you spam the roll button as soon as you start opening the chest, you can dodge out of the trap, so it's possible it only locks you in place after the "poison" meter fills completely.
Pretty sure it doesn't. I've insta-rolled to avoid the mist and then ran back to the chest to try and get teleported and nothing happened. Seems like it's a "Grab" move done by the chest, or possibly an invisible NPC on the chests location.
Just wanted to say, watching this at 5am on the morning before work has hit different, and has made me realise like, watching your video, with elden ring footage going on with the text above it and no commentary, and just with the quiet and chill ambience, really make it a pleasure to watch. If you ever do add commentary I’m not against it at all but it just is really nice to watch on a morning like this one, so thank you!
I think they're holding back on some 'cool stuff' to pack into the DLC(s). Zamor summon and Crucible Wings incantation are the two I am wanting the most.
@@lordanonimmo7699 I guess that's true, but you can already do that with Waterfowl and they have been trying to make adjustments so it cannot be abused to game breaking levels. And Waterfowl really isn't an issue because you get the weapon really late on NG if you're a casual player...if you get it at all. I think if they add the wings, it will be very late in the game as well for the same reason and probably walled by a tough boss to boot and its likelihood to be a remembrance spell is also high. Since they're NG+ things and you're less likely to go as dedicated through the overworld again and scan every corner I personally don't think it's an issue at all.
A miniature Crucible Wings seems doable- you fly in the air like you do for Scarlet Aeonia, then you dash forward with the weapon/slam down with the spear. Just gotta remember that nothing in this game is *actually* flying, and that means the wing dash would *appear* to you as flying, but is coded as if you were running on the land- and so you'll fall off ledges normally... just like the crucibles do as well.
I always love finding out things like this. You can learn (or at least guess) SOO MUCH about a game's development process just by looking up what assets are called.
0:40 WAIT THATS WHAT THOSE ARE???????? I WAS WAYS SO CONFUSED BY THOSE BECAUSE I THOUGHT THEY WERE HITCHING POSTS BUT THEIR PLACEMENT NEVER MADE ANY SENSE OH MY GOD THOSE THINGS ARE THE SUMMON STATUES HOLY SHIT
I wish we could’ve had more unique/legendary ashes. A zamor summon that felled the first giant, Makar before he became a magma wyrm, a carian knight, something like that.
Suddenly I just realized that this may have been an attempt to bring phantom questlines into the game as a core, universal experience rather than a disjointed sequence of events. Fighting alongside NPCs has always been somewhat of an unspoken barrier they never crossed, but being able to summon your companion to fight instead of them being in a party with you makes so much more sense in context.
I would always still come here for the top notch lore and insider info, but I wouldn’t be smiling and nodding along as happily as I do without the bouncy music.
I like that recreation of the older screenshot at the end. Also lol pocket Radahn. It kinda sounds like they initially planned it to be a mixture of covenants and sign summons, but they ended up iterating it farther away from that to the ashes system once they solved the NPC loading issue. Really neat cross section of development ideas here.
I just noticed watching this after the more recent videos about grace showing up in the eye, the BuddyStandard one has the gold in his eye that the other characters with grace have.
My favorite buddies are the ranged supports like Latenna and (early game) Aurelia the jellyfish. I can drop Latenna down at one end of the arena and smack the boss into fighting me at the other end while Latenna drops artillery the whole fight. Makes the fights more fun and doable while not being so overpowered as to summon other people (who inevitably burn through bosses with OP builds).
I always found it odd that the shield fallen hawk ashes were (probably) the only one to suggest how to use it in battle. I always wondered if the reason that some use just a shield, is that the summon was designed first.
That part where you summoned Radahn made me realize just how cool it would be to be able to summon bosses, like if you could summon them for one combo or special attack then they disappear. someone needs to get to work on a mad that does that, I think it’d be a hit
That would be like how summons worked in classic Final Fantasy games. You summon Bahamut, he does a cool elemental attack, and then disappears. Instead, I want, need, and must have a Radahn Puppet spirit ash that requires 80 Mind to actually bring out and clips through the ceilings and walls for the basement fights in the various ruins.
At a glance, the old Zamor buddy in the screenshot looks to be carrying a rougher Serpent-God's Curved Sword (based on the shape coming up from the end of the blade).
Appearance-wise, it sorta makes sense in retrospect that the Hawks were specifically designed to be allies. They have a sort of goofy amiable look to them, and remind me of Sir Daniel from MediEvil
Tbh I would love if spirits could be summoned almost anywhere instead of being restricted. (Because some are really cool but the restrictions make it limited when you can actually use them)
I always love using spirit ashes in fights. It's a nice little thing that allows you to not have to worry as much about dodging attacks and keeping aggro, while dealing damage at the same time. This also makes it all the more interesting as they have lore attached, and some event have real ingame presence like the jellyfish and latenna. Both have questlines, making it fun to see how one can find out more about these powerful helpers, and make things less lonely in every way
In my head, when I use certain summons, they have names. The greatshield group is "the boys", the imps are remus and romulus, the kaiden sellsword is Lenny.
"sparse roster in the mountaintops." The only truly new enemy is the largest oracle variant, with everything else appearing at least once beforehand. That is literally the ONLY new enemy post-capital. Elden ring was definitely a lot further from completion than the release date allowed.
Albinuriac Archers, Flame Guardians and Haligtree Knights (Yes, there are other knights, but all knight variants have different spells/AoW's) are unique to post-capital.
@@aswifte5743 Well, that's only completely unique enemies. There are still additional unique variations of enemies like the Giant Fingercreepers, Spiritcaller Snails as regular enemies, the unique Banished Knights with frost attacks, Azula Beastmen as normal enemies and maddened Trolls. Still not a lot, but eh... Most of the post-capital areas pretty barren anyway (Especially with Consecrated Snowfield being half obscured by fog), makes sense that life isn't particularly diverse in a desolate post-apocalyptic-post-war wasteland.
@@tarille1043 Honestly, I don't get the complaint. I enjoy the gameplay of getting to a new area and finding old enemies, particularly when it's something like the fire monks, trolls, or albinurics, which you encountered in very rare and sparse instances before. I think there are a number of things to complain about post-Leyndell (like the mountaintops being very same-y, the Fire Monk "fortress" being a bit of a cakewalk without a real dungeon or boss in it), but beyond the scarlet rot enemies at the top of the mountain that make very little sense, I never was bothered by old NPCs being used or the lack of "unique" ones.
I'm absolutely loving this content! It gives me vibes of Pannencoek2012's style of in-depth analysis, but also easy and fun to digest. Thank you for replicating that whether intentional or not.
The funny thing about finding loot for me at least is that I was disappointed by almost everything I picked up. After spending 3 hours straight exploring and looting different areas and dungeons but finding nothing but consumables, crafting components and summons, I stopped exploring entirely and started boss rushing.
wholly unrelated but your video format is fantastic, if i see one of your videos in my home page after i've decided to go to bed i can watch it on 2x speed and i lose nothing, or if i catch it in the morning with a cup of coffee in hand its enjoyable that way as well, please don't change it lol
Baffles me how resistant some players were to using summons at all. These are the same people who will complain about bosses having 'unlimited combos' and 'no openings'. As it turns out, if you try to play Elden Ring like a completely different game, you're going to have a harder time. Amazing, right?
I find these complaints to be stupid, yet I do not like to summon. Summoning feels less satisfying because there is another thing in the boss room influencing the behaviour of the boss. For anyone using summons however, I can only recommend to always try and beat bosses without summons. (That also goes for player summons in ER and any other souls game) This is not just because summons make the boss easier, but more so because I believe it will be a better experience for them mechanically, when they are fully in tune with a bosses moveset at the end of the battle. It can be exhilarating.
To be fair, you don't really need summons for any boss as long as you don't spam the roll bottom and you're mindful of your positioning. Being aggressive and use all of your moveset is the key to find the openings between their combos and trading hits is a good option if you feel like you're close to break their posture. Now, summons are pretty fun in duo battles or in those situations were you're outnumbered. Refuse to use them in this situations and then say that the game is unfair when it's a tool available for all builds is a pretty absurd complain, especially after the patch that toned down enemy aggression in duo battles.
@@jbark678 Yeah, that's not bad. I will do such things usually after my first playthrough. Trying out NPC-Summons like Sirris in DS3 or ashes of an enemy you like in ER can be fun, if you know the boss already. Edit: added ER example
@@warcoder I'm of the mind that Summons are a function of the player moveset as well. While it may be more fun for a player to handicap themselves to find more enjoyment out of an encounter, it's as-designed to use the tools the game hands you throughout the playthrough.
Something that I would like to see Zullie look into and cover in a video is the skybox during Dung Eater's ending. It seems to be a recolored version of the sky from the Fortissax fight/Godwyn's Dream. I can't help but wonder what implications it may carry; Perhaps Dung Eater's pox is a mutated variant of the standard Deathblight?
Those "Unique buddies" are in fact one of the hardest enemies for me. I can only kill one by myself at a time. For the Mountain Top, I need another "buddy" to help me and draw the aggro from them.
![เจ็บที่ยังฮัก - ม่อน วรวิทย์ [ Official Mv ] จอนนี่มิวสิค](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/KALIGSRSjFs/mqdefault.jpg)
One other unifying feature setting the Fallen Hawks and Knights of Zamor apart from most other NPCs is their IDs, which are 7000 and 7100 respectively. They're the only NPCs in the 7000 range, so we can assume it was being reserved for any other Buddy NPCs they decided to make, but that didn't really end up being necessary.
So how exactly did they work around having to have npcs preloaded in the map? You explained Torrent, but no video I've seen on spirit ashes has explained how Fromsoft pulled it off. I enjoy your videos, btw, this is not a criticism
@@kamonwolfe5057 Its just a change to the engine, there isn't any particular reason any game can't spontaneously generate an NPC. The older games were just made in such a way that they didn't have that technology and needed them pre-loaded and with Elden Ring they put in the effort to have the game load the NPC when you summon them.
Its like saying "This sandwich shop didn't used to have authentic imported mozarella cheese and now they do, how did they pull that off?" well, before, they didn't have any... and now they put in the effort to find a supplier so they do.
@@kamonwolfe5057 There was a function in the debug menu for the older games for spawning NPCs, but any NPC spawned with it wasn't fully functional because it was basically just a test tool and didn't properly set up all the info the NPC needed. They just took that system and overhauled it so it properly spawns NPCs as though they were spawned from the map placements.
Any chance we can get a "what's under the mask" for Zamor knights and various other enemies with obscured faces?
Assuming there even is anything under there of course.
A Zamor Knight buddy would’ve been interesting, a Fallen Hawk not so much. 🫤
Speaking of Hawks, just finished Berserk “The Golden Age” 3 Arc movie series (fantastic redo of the 1997 original anime)… and thought of the Hawks.
If From ever did a Berzerk game series it would be epic. They already got Guts’s Greatsword after all.
There's something so....weirdly pure and wholesome about Fromsoft calling the spirit ash system the "buddy system" during game development
In a world full of pain and suffering, a buddy is always welcomed
@@NamelessKnightt dare I say "Jolly cooperation".
@@deathepyon1743 the jolliest
Well, it's wholesome until you remember you're talking about an enslaved spirit of a creature that couldn't even escape from you into death perpetually being used as a meatshield against godless creatures. Them calling it a buddy system when that's their general purpose makes it a tad bit darker than it already was.
Unless you run daedicars woe and take the aggro onto yourself, then it actually is quite wholesome, made more so by the dedication to keep the spirit up as long as possible by tanking for it.
Don't touch my Latenna, and definitely don't touch Jellybae
Maybe they could have added continuous coop like some people spent hundreds of hours on without compensation to provide in a game that made a fortune and called that the buddy system instead. :)
This reminds me of my first Dark Souls 2 playthrough where in No Man's Wharf there is a hollow npc who does not attack you even if you attack him, when you free him he follows you around as a torch bearer. Because this was first Npc I grew so attached to I decided to be befriend and even named him Richard.
This does make me curious... how did things end with Richard II? Or have you blocked that memory?
Aww, that's cute! I've seen a couple DS2 playthrus, and it seems to be pretty common for players to name that torch hollow. I was somewhat uncreative and named mine Buddy.
Hell yeah that's Torch Bro. If he ever died I'd restart the area, I refused to finish without Torch Bro.
Ah yes, Dick The Torch-Bearer
I can't believe I don't know about this torch fellow. And DS2 was my first Souls game, dang that'd be so much easier
I also liked that this system gave us a bit of lore for each of the enemy types that become summons. Nice to have it directly tied to the enemy instead of just items they drop, etc.
This is an underrated part of the system, we basically got the bestiary that we always wanted in a souls game.
This is my favorite part of the summons by far.
@@manfreygordon we definitely need some informations about some other creatures like the fingercreepers though, as we know almost nothing about them apart from speculations. I got the impression that they're some type of demons that simply exist in the world. An interesting detail is that the ones in the Mountaintops of the Giants don't wear any rings, which implies that that's where they live in the "wild", while the ones outside of the Caria Manor and near Volcano Manor are domesticated versions equipped with rings, wearing them like dog collars.
2:18 Zullie proving she's stronger than queen Rennalla herself as she *casually* summons Starscourge Radahn.
I've always said the Ashes in this game were basically the "NPCcompanions" of Elden Ring and with them being internally called "buddy" kinda tells me that what they were going for. I bet at first they were planning on giving a "companion quest" to all ashes, small for the normal ones and huge for the legendary ones, and not just Latenna and the Spirit Jellyfish.
You might be onto something. The mimic had a quest as well, after all
To be fair the standard NPC summons are still in the game too and plenty of them for major bosses.
@@Deadput I mean as "bring these talking ashes to a specific place for story reason to get a cool reward".
I really wish they'd allowed spirits to be something you can just have with you at all times, even consuming your blues to keep them up cuz wandering around with them woulda been nice.
@@glorytoukraine5524 yeah, also now that I remember the twin imp ashes are used to open the Consecrated Fields Spire, so maybe even that was supposed to be more developed quest. Maybe they realized that having a quest for every ashes was too complicated to develop time-wise
I love that it was called the buddy system, and now I will never forget that those so many monuments are called buddystones. So incredibly hilarious
It’s so cute
Love what you did at 2:44, recreating the 'first look' image at 1:16. Overall really enjoyed the posing of everything in this ep!
Even the shot of you riding Torrent at 1:59 was awesome, and it didn't have to be. We all know Torrent's deal. Talking about him, you could've just thrown in a shot of him standing around. But hey, might as well snap a nice, dynamic pic where he's doing his thing. Love to see it ^_^
Your nose has been brown all your life huh?
Having named spirit ashes gave a surprising amount of depth to them, it made them feel unique, with this not just being any Lleyndel Knight, but a specific knight with a unique story.
The spirit ash system is such a cool idea for this game, and I’m so glad they introduced it. It gives you a middle ground between “hey I’m struggling a little with a boss” and “here is this naked man with a pot on his head who can beat the boss by himself”. Sure, mimic, tichu, etc are very strong but like, calling in some wolf friends is just good fun and pretty helpful
Them being usable everywhere instead of just in these tiny areas wouldve helped a lot with that.
Giving the weaker summons a purpose, I mean, instead of just using Mimic or Tiche or whatever.
Rolling around as a flea-ridden madman with a pack of mangy giant rats would've been hilarious!
When it comes time to fight a boss and you can actually use them, though? Dead in a heartbeat...
Spirit Ashes are a poor solution to boss difficulty in the same way Summons are, because FromSoft doesn't know how to program the enemy AI to effectively fight multiple enemies at once. It's similar to the problem the combat system suffers from, in that it's designed around 1v1 combat but they make you fight multiple enemies at one time, completely undermining the lock-on mechanic.
The boss will target one person, leaving the rest of the people present to just attack the boss from behind and not have to worry about dodging because the boss isn't attacking them. This means that any Spirit Ash you summon, regardless of how strong it is, is really strong in the sense that the boss will attack it, giving you an opportunity to attack the boss while it's distracted.
This is why there is a system in every Dark Souls game that makes the boss more tanky for every person/NPC summon, it's to try and combat the fact that the bosses can't fight multiple enemies at once effectively.
When the added Spirit Ashes, they decided that they shouldn't increase the boss's maximum health for some reason, so they needed to come up with a different solution to this problem. Their solution was to give every boss some kind of AoE attack (or multiple AoE attacks) and make them play very aggressively, while also just making the bosses harder so they can kill people more easily, stuff like giving them attacks that can't be dodged on reaction, or multiple ranged attacks. The other idea was to just put multiple bosses in the arena, but they didn't put any effort into making sure the enemies had good synergy together like the Demon Princes or Ornstein & Smough, it's just 2 bosses that will attack you are the same time because people liking fighting the Graverobber, Varg, and Cerah in DS2, right?
This completely undermined the single player experience by making the bosses much harder than they should have been, incentivizing the use of Spirit Ashes. It's a self-perpetuating problem that doesn't really have a solution. If you don't use Spirit Ashes for any reason, you are handicapping yourself, but if you _do_ use Spirit Ashes it makes the fights too easy because the bosses, despite being buffed to fight multiple opponents, still aren't primarily designed around fighting multiple opponents.
@@michaelbowman6684 well said. Not enough people realize how damaging spirit ashes and extremely easy access to coop had on Elden Ring’s balancing. As they are right now, spirit summons break the game and should universally be nerfed HARD in conjunction with rebalancing bosses for single player focus. At the very least spirit summons need to be treated the same way as coop summons and increase boss health.
In a lot of ways the spirit ash system brought a lot of the problems that the fan base warned introducing an easy mode would as that is effectively what they are, Elden Ring’s easy mode. From was trying to have their cake and eat it too. Unfortunately they ended up with essentially the worst of both worlds. Spirit ashes can trivialize the game (along with some other extremely over powered items/spells) but playing completely solo without the crazy overpowered tools puts you up against an unfair challenge. It’s disappointing to see something like that happen to From when they’ve traditionally been so good at the “tough but fair” difficultly balancing. More people need to speak out about the damage the spirit ashes and other balancing issues did to Elden Ring so that From can hopefully fix it or at least not repeat the mistakes in future titles.
Yes. I wish they were far weaker so I could use them always without feeling guilty for it almost soloing a Boss... Which ruins the fun.
@@LordSevla On the other hand, if Spirit Ashes were far weaker, there would be no excitement in obtaining and using them. Personally I just choose not to use Ashes unless I'm fighting a double boss, which is a bit of a shame since I do find some of the summons really cool, but hey, not every mechanic needs to be for everyone, that aspect of customization is the neat part. I don't use 90% of magic spells neither, doesn't mean I think they're better removed. And it's not like there aren't other ways to completely break the game. Powerstanced UGS jump spam and Rivers of Blood comes to mind.
The biggest takeaway here for me was finding out what the rebirth monuments are. I've only ever known them for being covered in "but hole" messages
They are marks which cover amount of area where you can use spirit ashes. That way Fromsoft can just conveniently put them in different places without modifying any complicated requirements for summoning. If you've watched Zullie long enough you will know that Fromsoft have a habit of using NPC for almost anything so they can easily code.
@@ukaznipsigururuk8685 I feel like they're not in every boss room though - I don't think I've seen them in the room of the godskin apostle below Caelid tower, for example, but you could still summon there. Maybe I'll just keep a closer eye out for them now..
@@an_ordinary_goose yea you gonna have to keep an eye out for that. I've seen every one of them in every places with summons. Fromsoft intentionally hides them so they wouldn't be out of place.
If you get very lonely in the land between, just remember to ring the little bell and you can summon a buddy to accompany you your Journey just like Pokémon.😺
The terms "BuddyStandard" & "BuddyUnique" seem like they just picked two existing units for initial testing the summoning implementations. It seems like that division ended up being the way Spirit Ashes are split between Normal & Legendary in the released game, where it just specifies generic troops vs. named individuals.
Those seem like pretty normal approaches for iterative developments based upon where the early gameplay was and wasn't running into tech limitations, then gradually shifting design ideas around how to use the system based on what worked how and where.
I wonder if the Zamor Spirit Ash was initially going to be a reward from the Evergaol at the Weeping Peninsula. It's such an oddly located enemy given how isolated it is from all the others. It's not at all surprising that the Fallen Hawks were an enemy around early enough to be used for this kind of generic unit testing though, given their roots in _BERSERK_ themes with the Eternal Cities.
Yeah I feel like out of all the evergaols that might be the most nonsensical, so I'd hope there used to be more of a reason. Also giving that ash that early would be insane so idk
I feel like the spirit ash system could make for an interesting take on an RPG party system, tbh. Something that bugged me a bit in Elden Ring was just how many NPCs agreed to "cooperate" with you, but were actually heading off on a parallel journey that required you to summon them via gold signs at highly specific locations, or happen to run into them off the side of the road. It didn't feel so much like teamwork as a highly missable series of hide-and-seek games.
I'm sure it might've demanded some finegling, especially pertaining to each NPC's relevance in the story progression, but it would've been nice if more characters actually accompanied you similarly to Latenna and could be summoned for their personal quest duration, not as spirits, but as a unique subset of live cooperators.
I feel it would've helped the game feel a bit more adventurous during the singleplayer story if you had even this slight sense of camaraderie with characters like Millicent or Blaidd, without straying too far from the usual Souls style.
This style of NPC quest seems to be a From staple -- it's honestly 89 times less frustrating and vague in ER than in the other games, too -- so I don't think it's going anywhere. Kind of unfortunate, because there's definitely untapped potential in how fleshed-out some of the ER NPCs try to be.
Speaking of Zamor knights, maybe you could do a little showcase on the models to speculate what are they?
Im 99% sure this wasnt a fewer dream: Was fighting a Zamor dude at the ruins and somehow ended up knocking a knight off an incline and it fell on its back, and in the getting up animation it appeared to twist its head back into position. Just curious to see a showcase of these guys as the dont appear human, maybe puppets or something.
I have no idea if there's a connection there, but they kinda remind me of non-shadowy versions of the Cemetary Shades.
I really love your work, Zullie. It's intelligently analytic and well done. Also, the Wind Waker's music never gets old.
Dude I am so stoked for you. I’ll always watch.
The Spirit ashes in terms of usage are generally really nice in how they're implemented, on one hand giving counter play against gank bosses in place of the rare find npc summons and allowing a way to practically add an easy mode for boss fights and some enemy encounters that is easy to find and use and doesn't require massive reworks to the whole game
Even though I don't play "Souls Games" I find your content to be entertaining and interesting and you are truly and inspiration to me. Keep going and I hope that life is good!
Ayo Zullie, can you check whether transporter chest traps actually behaves like poison mists? Like, does it have a hidden status counter to fill before being transported?
This right here. I’ve been wondering how this works since my second transport chest
I have ran out of the chest before and not be teleported but I’ve also been stuck and couldn’t move
If you spam the roll button as soon as you start opening the chest, you can dodge out of the trap, so it's possible it only locks you in place after the "poison" meter fills completely.
And if so, is it possible to grant this functionally elsewhere? Replacing a basilisk's death fog with "you are going to Caelid" for example
Pretty sure it doesn't. I've insta-rolled to avoid the mist and then ran back to the chest to try and get teleported and nothing happened.
Seems like it's a "Grab" move done by the chest, or possibly an invisible NPC on the chests location.
Just wanted to say, watching this at 5am on the morning before work has hit different, and has made me realise like, watching your video, with elden ring footage going on with the text above it and no commentary, and just with the quiet and chill ambience, really make it a pleasure to watch. If you ever do add commentary I’m not against it at all but it just is really nice to watch on a morning like this one, so thank you!
"Okay, before we set out exploring the Lands Between, does everyone have their Buddy?"
I think they're holding back on some 'cool stuff' to pack into the DLC(s). Zamor summon and Crucible Wings incantation are the two I am wanting the most.
Crucible wings incantation will probably never happen,it would allow players to bypass many areas super essily and easily brake many levels.
@@lordanonimmo7699 I guess that's true, but you can already do that with Waterfowl and they have been trying to make adjustments so it cannot be abused to game breaking levels. And Waterfowl really isn't an issue because you get the weapon really late on NG if you're a casual player...if you get it at all. I think if they add the wings, it will be very late in the game as well for the same reason and probably walled by a tough boss to boot and its likelihood to be a remembrance spell is also high.
Since they're NG+ things and you're less likely to go as dedicated through the overworld again and scan every corner I personally don't think it's an issue at all.
A miniature Crucible Wings seems doable- you fly in the air like you do for Scarlet Aeonia, then you dash forward with the weapon/slam down with the spear.
Just gotta remember that nothing in this game is *actually* flying, and that means the wing dash would *appear* to you as flying, but is coded as if you were running on the land- and so you'll fall off ledges normally... just like the crucibles do as well.
@@lordanonimmo7699 counterpoint, just make it so you have to beat ALL the crucible knights before you can get it.
For the Spirit Ash system to actually be called the "Buddy" System is surprisingly wholesome for FromSoft.
right? Miyazaki starting to soften his heart instead of putting a lot of very sad endings of NPC questlines and you know, the good ole acid swamps.
Love the commitment to recreating that shot at the end!
An awfully wholesome name for a game like Elden Ring
An awfully ho moe picture for someone named "gakulon"
I always love finding out things like this. You can learn (or at least guess) SOO MUCH about a game's development process just by looking up what assets are called.
0:40 WAIT THATS WHAT THOSE ARE????????
I WAS WAYS SO CONFUSED BY THOSE BECAUSE I THOUGHT THEY WERE HITCHING POSTS BUT THEIR PLACEMENT NEVER MADE ANY SENSE
OH MY GOD THOSE THINGS ARE THE SUMMON STATUES HOLY SHIT
I do share your feeling.
I thought they were mapping points. Apparently not!
That's a mystery solved for me.
try rump
Surprisingly wholesome and also, love the music choice.
I wish we could’ve had more unique/legendary ashes. A zamor summon that felled the first giant, Makar before he became a magma wyrm, a carian knight, something like that.
Recreating that screenshot at the end *chef's kiss* 🤌
Suddenly I just realized that this may have been an attempt to bring phantom questlines into the game as a core, universal experience rather than a disjointed sequence of events. Fighting alongside NPCs has always been somewhat of an unspoken barrier they never crossed, but being able to summon your companion to fight instead of them being in a party with you makes so much more sense in context.
The amount of joy I get when you do Zelda music especially this one is unreal
That's tight. I was waiting to see how they implemented this because, thanks to your videos, I know how they normally did NPCs.
Well, now I have to call all my spirite ashes "buddy" from now on. I can't get over BuddyStones.
This channel is a gift, thank you Zullie
The buddy system makes me want to hold hands with my summon so we don't get lost.
Gotta love the outset island theme music on these videos
Zullie is my favorite youtuber. Great content, great music, quality editing, no talking, and NEVER begs for likes and subs.
I would always still come here for the top notch lore and insider info, but I wouldn’t be smiling and nodding along as happily as I do without the bouncy music.
Your videos are the best I really fell in love with Elden Ring because of this channel thank you for your hard work!!!
Thanks for another great video Zulie! The fallen Hawks are even more wretched than I remember...
Love your videos. Really cool insights.
Came here for funny naming of a creepy asset, instead learned about (assumed) development breakthroughs with the NPC loading in From's games. Thanks!
I just finished the game and am glad that I can finally watch your videos without fear of spoilers :)
I like that recreation of the older screenshot at the end. Also lol pocket Radahn. It kinda sounds like they initially planned it to be a mixture of covenants and sign summons, but they ended up iterating it farther away from that to the ashes system once they solved the NPC loading issue. Really neat cross section of development ideas here.
OH so that's what those stone obelisks do...
I think this is one of the earliest I've caught one of these. I'm happy to know those rebirth monuments are 'BuddyStones'
Item Description: “… *slaves* [were] ordered to explore the Eternal city.”
History Book: “… *buddies* were ordered to explore the Eternal city.”
The Curved Greatsword in the early picture of the Spirit Ash Zamor looks like the Onyx Lord's Greatsword.
I love your use of Zelda music. Two of my favorite games in one vid.
I just noticed watching this after the more recent videos about grace showing up in the eye, the BuddyStandard one has the gold in his eye that the other characters with grace have.
gosh i love your vids Zulie! interesting and introduces lore or at least thoughts on it.
This is my favorite TH-cam channel on all youtube
i never realised how terrifying the fallen hawks looked up close
My favorite thing about the Spirit Ashes is the official name and lore they give us for so many enemies.
Love it when you break out the outset island theme :D
My favorite buddies are the ranged supports like Latenna and (early game) Aurelia the jellyfish. I can drop Latenna down at one end of the arena and smack the boss into fighting me at the other end while Latenna drops artillery the whole fight. Makes the fights more fun and doable while not being so overpowered as to summon other people (who inevitably burn through bosses with OP builds).
I always found it odd that the shield fallen hawk ashes were (probably) the only one to suggest how to use it in battle. I always wondered if the reason that some use just a shield, is that the summon was designed first.
That part where you summoned Radahn made me realize just how cool it would be to be able to summon bosses, like if you could summon them for one combo or special attack then they disappear. someone needs to get to work on a mad that does that, I think it’d be a hit
i think that is actually a mod for the game. You can randomize the summons as well
Nioh 2 pretty much did this.
@@kaargen yeah I was trying to remember which game I was thinking of that had a similar mechanic, thank you
@@inoli3164 I’ll have to look around and try to find it
That would be like how summons worked in classic Final Fantasy games. You summon Bahamut, he does a cool elemental attack, and then disappears.
Instead, I want, need, and must have a Radahn Puppet spirit ash that requires 80 Mind to actually bring out and clips through the ceilings and walls for the basement fights in the various ruins.
Hopefully we'll get a Zamor Knight Summon in the Miquella questline, considering one likely taught the blind Melania how to fight, for the DLC
why does everyone call her melania or melenia?
@@ArtoriasGaming0516 I blame autocorrect x_x
wtf i just noticed i said melenia instead of malenia 💀
Spirit Ashes should have been called "the game journalist mode" since that's what it is.
You are dope and I agree totally
I love that you recreated the old leaked screenshot
"I can't leave without my buddy Hawks!"
"Eeeauuuagggghh!"
Buddy, the Harold of Elden Ring.
Never knew the fallen Hawk look so terrifying up close
holy shit I don't think I ever looked closely at the Fallen Hawks, what a terrifying face
"Art thou familiar with the Finger Buddies? I would play the role of Buddy to thee."
"Yo buddy, you still alive"
- Demon Lord of the Round Table's Best Buddy
At a glance, the old Zamor buddy in the screenshot looks to be carrying a rougher Serpent-God's Curved Sword (based on the shape coming up from the end of the blade).
Appearance-wise, it sorta makes sense in retrospect that the Hawks were specifically designed to be allies. They have a sort of goofy amiable look to them, and remind me of Sir Daniel from MediEvil
Tbh I would love if spirits could be summoned almost anywhere instead of being restricted. (Because some are really cool but the restrictions make it limited when you can actually use them)
This whole time I never realized those weird spikes were related to being able to use spirit ashes.
Damn, Knight of Zamor probably would've been my favourite summon had it been included. I love their look and fighting style.
I always love using spirit ashes in fights. It's a nice little thing that allows you to not have to worry as much about dodging attacks and keeping aggro, while dealing damage at the same time. This also makes it all the more interesting as they have lore attached, and some event have real ingame presence like the jellyfish and latenna. Both have questlines, making it fun to see how one can find out more about these powerful helpers, and make things less lonely in every way
it took me the longest time playing the game before i realized the rebirth monuments were actually spots you could summon spirit ashes.
In my head, when I use certain summons, they have names. The greatshield group is "the boys", the imps are remus and romulus, the kaiden sellsword is Lenny.
Disfigured fallen Hawk... so you're telling me that's Griffith
Im glad you showcased this. Buddy the skeleman may not be in the final game, but he is still a friend.
Don't give up, skeleton!
"sparse roster in the mountaintops." The only truly new enemy is the largest oracle variant, with everything else appearing at least once beforehand. That is literally the ONLY new enemy post-capital. Elden ring was definitely a lot further from completion than the release date allowed.
Albinuriac Archers, Flame Guardians and Haligtree Knights (Yes, there are other knights, but all knight variants have different spells/AoW's) are unique to post-capital.
Yeah, a game having more than 170 unique enemy designs is so far from completion...
@@tarille1043 that’s still pretty low…
@@aswifte5743 Well, that's only completely unique enemies.
There are still additional unique variations of enemies like the Giant Fingercreepers, Spiritcaller Snails as regular enemies, the unique Banished Knights with frost attacks, Azula Beastmen as normal enemies and maddened Trolls.
Still not a lot, but eh... Most of the post-capital areas pretty barren anyway (Especially with Consecrated Snowfield being half obscured by fog), makes sense that life isn't particularly diverse in a desolate post-apocalyptic-post-war wasteland.
@@tarille1043 Honestly, I don't get the complaint. I enjoy the gameplay of getting to a new area and finding old enemies, particularly when it's something like the fire monks, trolls, or albinurics, which you encountered in very rare and sparse instances before. I think there are a number of things to complain about post-Leyndell (like the mountaintops being very same-y, the Fire Monk "fortress" being a bit of a cakewalk without a real dungeon or boss in it), but beyond the scarlet rot enemies at the top of the mountain that make very little sense, I never was bothered by old NPCs being used or the lack of "unique" ones.
I'm absolutely loving this content! It gives me vibes of Pannencoek2012's style of in-depth analysis, but also easy and fun to digest. Thank you for replicating that whether intentional or not.
The funny thing about finding loot for me at least is that I was disappointed by almost everything I picked up. After spending 3 hours straight exploring and looting different areas and dungeons but finding nothing but consumables, crafting components and summons, I stopped exploring entirely and started boss rushing.
You can use the wind waker ost as long as you like, it always fits so well
Zullie just casually summoning Radahn is pretty funny. like "btw there is code to summon the bosses, moving on"
"Night shift is easy bro"
-BuddyStandard, 24
wholly unrelated but your video format is fantastic, if i see one of your videos in my home page after i've decided to go to bed i can watch it on 2x speed and i lose nothing, or if i catch it in the morning with a cup of coffee in hand its enjoyable that way as well, please don't change it lol
I always wondered what the "BubbyStones" were and what they were called. Did not expect to find the answer on this video, amazing!
2:20 A Radahn Spirit Ash summon would've definitely been entertaining.
I love how happy the music is in contrast to the horrors on display xD
👀 the Radahn summon. With the ability to mess with summons and mounts, the large scale mods of Elden Ring are gonna be fun
Therapist: Spirit summon Radahn isn't real, spirit summon Radahn can't hurt you.
Spirit summon Radahn:
"don't worry buddy, we got this!" every spirit ever summoned
Buddy Stones is what I will call them from now on
Baffles me how resistant some players were to using summons at all.
These are the same people who will complain about bosses having 'unlimited combos' and 'no openings'.
As it turns out, if you try to play Elden Ring like a completely different game, you're going to have a harder time. Amazing, right?
I find these complaints to be stupid, yet I do not like to summon. Summoning feels less satisfying because there is another thing in the boss room influencing the behaviour of the boss. For anyone using summons however, I can only recommend to always try and beat bosses without summons. (That also goes for player summons in ER and any other souls game)
This is not just because summons make the boss easier, but more so because I believe it will be a better experience for them mechanically, when they are fully in tune with a bosses moveset at the end of the battle. It can be exhilarating.
To be fair, you don't really need summons for any boss as long as you don't spam the roll bottom and you're mindful of your positioning. Being aggressive and use all of your moveset is the key to find the openings between their combos and trading hits is a good option if you feel like you're close to break their posture.
Now, summons are pretty fun in duo battles or in those situations were you're outnumbered. Refuse to use them in this situations and then say that the game is unfair when it's a tool available for all builds is a pretty absurd complain, especially after the patch that toned down enemy aggression in duo battles.
Weaker summons are fun to throw into the mix to see what they do.
@@jbark678 Yeah, that's not bad. I will do such things usually after my first playthrough. Trying out NPC-Summons like Sirris in DS3 or ashes of an enemy you like in ER can be fun, if you know the boss already.
Edit: added ER example
@@warcoder I'm of the mind that Summons are a function of the player moveset as well. While it may be more fun for a player to handicap themselves to find more enjoyment out of an encounter, it's as-designed to use the tools the game hands you throughout the playthrough.
That Radahn spirit summon is terrifying
Something that I would like to see Zullie look into and cover in a video is the skybox during Dung Eater's ending. It seems to be a recolored version of the sky from the Fortissax fight/Godwyn's Dream. I can't help but wonder what implications it may carry; Perhaps Dung Eater's pox is a mutated variant of the standard Deathblight?
Your work is amazing
Let us call forth our buddies! And engage in jolly cooperation!
Those "Unique buddies" are in fact one of the hardest enemies for me. I can only kill one by myself at a time. For the Mountain Top, I need another "buddy" to help me and draw the aggro from them.
Miyazaki: We're using the buddy system
From software: Buddy system?
Miyazaki: Sure, watch....BUDDY!
Jellyfish: BUDDY!