Elden Ring was the clear frontrunner for Game of the Year in 2022, deservedly wracking up dozens of awards across the industry. It was undoubtedly a step forward for open-world games, brilliantly fusing exploration with the hard-boiled combat of the Dark Souls franchise. Despite all its strengths, however, there’s still one area where Elden Ring has continuously fallen short, PvP. Ray Tracing lighting and shadow effects may be the headlining feature of Elden Ring’s new Patch 1.09, but its array of changes to the PvP system is by far the more meaningful addition.
PvP in Dark Souls games has always been a bit of a niche scene, but Elden Ring’s multiplayer has dried up much quicker than FromSoftware’s other games. In a report from September 2022, Inverse writes, “Competitive balance — never a strong suit of FromSoftware's output — turned out worse than anyone expected. Entire categories of weapons and magic were dismissed as competitively unviable in record time.”
These issues have seemingly only compounded over time, even as FromSoftware released a PvP-focused colosseum update. Patch 1.09 sees the biggest changes the system has seen yet, with a load of different items getting decreased damage and power. Here’s the full list of PvP changes, and you can see the full patch down below.
- The Inescapable Frenzy incantation power and grab angle have been increased.
- The Lifesteal Fist skill power, range, and grab angle have been increased.
- Decreased the power of two-handed jumping attacks.
- Decreased the power of heavy and heavy running attacks of Fist and Claw weapon types.
- Decreased the power of the Founding Rain of Stars spell.
- Decreased the spell enhancement effect of the Terra Magica spell.
- Decreased the damage and poise damage of the Wave of Gold skill when hitting an opponent over a certain distance.
- Decreased the effectiveness of the Determination and Royal Knight’s Resolve skills.
- Decreased the effects of the Contagious Fury skill of the Jellyfish Shield.
- Decreased the effectiveness of the Claw Talisman.
- Decreased the effectiveness of the Lord of Blood’s Exultation Talisman.
- Decreased the attack power buff granted by the White Mask head armor.
- Decreased the jumping attack damage buff granted by the Raptor’s Black Feathers armor.
- Decreased the damage buff granted by Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear, Flame-Shrouding Cracked Tear, Lightning-Shrouding Cracked Tear, and Holy
- Shrouding Cracked Tear when activated with the Flask of Wondrous Physick.
Some of the general gameplay changes are also going to be tremendously helpful for PvP, with two in particular.
- Slightly reduced rolling travel distance for light equipment weights.
- Decreased the hitbox size for some attacks of the following weapon types: Thrusting Sword / Heavy thrusting Sword / Spear / Great Spear / Halberd
The change to light equipment rolling seems to be something the community is particularly happy about, with multiple threads on r/EldenRingPVP highlighting the fact. Patches like 1.09 continue to show that FromSoftware is committed to fixing and changing Elden Ring, but the big question is if it’s already too late. The community has already dried up much faster than any FromSoftware game before, and conceivably it’s hard to see those players coming back.
The one saving grace may be Elden Ring’s upcoming Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, which we still know very little about. Obviously, new story content is attractive enough, but if FromSoftware can continue to refine PvP and then give it a big push at the launch of the DLC, there’s a chance the scene could come back. That’s a big “if,” however, especially as the studio moves onto other projects like Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon. Below are the rest of the patch notes for 1.09, along with FromSoftware’s minimum and recommended requirements for Ray Tracing.
General Balance Adjustments
- Added an invincibility window when respawning in the Colosseum.
- Increased the scaling of the following attributes when infusing weapons with certain Ashes of War: Magic / Fire / Flame Art / Lightning / Sacred
- Increased the attribute scaling of the following weapon types: Colossal Sword / Great Axe / Hammer / Flail / Great Hammer / Colossal Weapon
- Increased the speed, range, and recovery time of some attacks for the following weapon types: Great Hammer / Great Axe / Great Sword / Curved Greatsword
- Flail weapons changes: Increased the speed of some attacks, reduced attack recovery time, and increased poise when using two-handed attacks.
- Increased running attacks speed and reduced attack recovery time for the following weapon types: Straight Sword / Curved Sword / Katana / Twinblade Sword / Axe / Hammer / Halberd
- Increased the first attack speed for the following weapon types: Straight Sword / Curved Sword / Whip
- Increased the speed of guard counters for the following weapon types: Straight Sword / Great Sword / Colossal Sword / Great Curved Sword / Katana / Twinblade Sword / Axe / Great Axe / Flail / Great Hammer / Spear / Great Spear / Halberd
- Reduced the attack recovery time for Whip weapons.
- Increased the damage of Claw weapons.
- Added Holy damage and Faith scaling to the Great Club.
- Increased damage negation when blocking Holy damage and decreased damage negation when blocking damage from other affinities.
- Increased the effectiveness of the Twinblade Talisman.
- Slightly reduced rolling travel distance for light equipment weights.
- Decreased the hitbox size for some attacks of the following weapon types: Thrusting Sword / Heavy thrusting Sword / Spear / Great Spear / Halberd
Ashe of War Adjustments
- Lifesteal Fist: Increased target grab range.
- Surge of Faith: Increased projectile generation speed.
- Flame Spit: Increased the guard speed and blocking amount of the skill. Adjusted the angle of the fireball.
- Tongues of Fire: Increased the guard speed and blocking amount of the skill.
- Great Oracular Bubble: Increased projectile generation speed and reduced recovery time.
- Viper Bite: Reduced the time before rolling is possible after using the skill.
- Shriek of Milos: Increased close-range poise damage.
- Spearcall Ritual: Increased projectile generation speed.
- Cursed-Blood Slash: Increased projectile generation speed and reduced recovery time.
- Gold Breaker: Reduced the recovery time.
- I Command Thee, Kneel!: Increased attack generation speed.
- Starcaller Cry: Increased the speed of follow-up attacks.
- Spinning Wheel: Increased attack generation speed. Added a roll & heavy attack cancel timing while using the skill.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug where the Scarlet rot status buildup was not properly reflected when giving the Antspur Rapier a Cold affinity.
- Fixed a bug where the Scarlet rot status buildup was not properly reflected when giving the Rotten Greataxe a Blood affinity.
- Fixed a bug where some attacks of the Partisan, Death Ritual Spear, and Lucerne had unexpected Physical attack scaling.
- Fixed a bug where the Nightrider Glaive did not increase the damage of horseback attacks.
- Fixed a bug where the Duelist Greataxe and Rotten Greataxe did not increase the damage of charged attacks.
- Fixed a bug where the Roar Medallion Talisman effect didn’t increase the power of some incantations.
- Fixed a bug that reduced the power of some skills while under the Golden Vow effect.
- Fixed a bug that caused the effects the Determination and Royal Knight’s Resolve skills when casted from a left-handed weapon to be added to other skills casted with a right-handed weapon.
- Fixed a bug that reduced the critical hit power of right-handed weapons while having Determination or Royal Knight’s Resolve active on a left-handed weapon.
- Fixed a bug where status build-ups were unintentionally added to some Weapon Skills
- Fixed a bug where the power and special effects of a left-handed weapon could be added to a skill cast with a right-handed weapon.
- Fixed a bug that caused an equipped Sacrificial Twig to be consumed when a player died in the Colosseum.
- Fixed the camera positioning when respawning in the Colosseum.
- Fixed a bug where a player could receive credit for a kill in the Colosseum when dying due to the Death status effect, instead of the player who inflicted that status effect.
- Improved stability in Colosseum matchmaking.
- Fixed a bug related to level correction when an invader used the Phantom Bloody Finger.
- Fixed a bug that could cause disconnections with other players in certain locations during multiplayer.
- Improved online multiplayer stability.
- [PS4] Fixed a bug that occurred when using the Finger Severer on summoned NPCs while offline that could cause the game to crash.
- Fixed a bug related to some enemies not rendering or behaving as expected.
- Several performance improvements and other bug fixes.
Ray Tracing Technical Specifications
- Minimum
- Operating System: Windows10
- Processor: Intel Core i5-10600K or AMD Ryzen 5 3600XT
- Memory: 16 GB RAM
- Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, 8 GB or AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT, 12 GB
- Recommended Graphics Setting: 1080p – Low quality – Low Ray Tracing
- Recommended
- Operation System: Windows 11
- Processor: Intel Core i7-10700K or AMD Ryzen 7 3800XT
- Memory: 16 GB RAM
- Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, 8 GB or AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, 16 GB
- Recommended Graphics Setting: 1080p – High quality – High Ray Tracing
