Umbral ending question

[Limp Squirrel]

I have just finished the game with the Radiant ending by just playing naturally. I've started a new character and am looking to do inferno and umbral.

However, due to time constraints, I had to Google how to do the umbral ending. Legit question, have people actually figured this out by themselves? Going through the steps, I'm just thinking how crazy convoluted it is. Does the game's dialog actually provide proper context for figuring it out by yourself? Especially since all the lore is locked behind radiance/inferno stats.

[Kodiak412]

I am sure someone would but for a normal player it would take multiple runs through the entire map to make sure you did not miss something, or advance the storyline.

With that said the youtube vid creator FightinCowboy has a wonderful 100% Walkthough on yt that takes you through the entire game to get that unbral ending.

Also naturally there is a point of no return that is a great place to make you back up save and that will let you reload that save and then complete the other endings. I made a new character and save swapped to knock out running though about 70% of the beginnings to get the other endings. This gave me 2 toons, one with Unbral ending and one that I could work the other endings on. Good luck.

[Barf]

I think the big issue with the umbral ending is the numerous fail states that van occur. Cleanse a beacon? Fail. Pass the Bramis gates before getting the correct Adyr rune? Fail. Next big issue Is obviously getting Dunmires quest done prior as well. I hold no shame in using a guide.

[Blacksmith77K]

Originally posted by Squidcake:

have people actually figured this out by themselves? Going through the steps, I'm just thinking how crazy convoluted it is. Does the game's dialog actually provide proper context for figuring it out by yourself?

I play games since 1983, i love difficult puzzles too, but since Demon's Souls Character Tendency (full white/full black) opens different passages, Souls-likes tend to have cryptic puzzles that are really stupid.

Without any hints about what you should do and what you shouldn't do in order not to destroy the quest, it is almost impossible to understand the connections in a 'normal time frame'.

So the answer to your question: NO

Example from a quest:

You have to have all conversations with the NPC in 3 places

You are not allowed to use the elevator behind the guard

You are not allowed to use a wooden elevator on the way to the person you are looking for

You don't really know who/what you're looking for but once you find it you have to tell the NPC.

The quest is only completed when you use the elevator behind the guard.


This ALL without any hints ingame...

[Daredevil]

There's no way, that an average Joe or even an experienced player can figure out how to do Umbral Ending all by themselves.

The steps to do it, can be considered too random if you don't know that they are the steps of achieving the umbral ending.

Only by dumb luck or prior knowledge can ensure that you do each step correctly, but if it is dumb luck for one of the steps, what about others? lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place, mathematically speaking, the odds of someone figuring out all the steps all by themselves are close to zero.

The only ones who can figure all this out are the ones who are crazy enough or dedicated enough to play this game for a very long time and through trial and error, eventually figure all this out. (highly unlikely)

And since people have already done Umbral ending, no one will stick around long enough without gaining knowledge from the internet to try and tackle the umbral ending all by themselves.

As I said, there's zero chance for a modern person, maybe for a caveman with a pc in a cave with no internet and no friends and only got this game to play, maybe that person can figure this out, eventually, however that might take him a very long time, by then maybe we will have Lords of the Fallen 2...

[Kodiak412]

To touch on Crusaders points. I wish the game had a hint option that you could turn on or off that would let you know what you can do in game. For example when you get to the first beacon and you get the option to Cleanse, if you have hints turned on it would also say, Cleasing will lock you into the Radiance Ending and lock you out of the others.

Or Warping out of the area without speaking with Byron first will lock you out of Wintergreens quest. While this may look like hand holding to many, to many other gamers having in game hints would help. This would allow the game to appeal to a larger audience.

[Daredevil]

Originally posted by Kodiak412:

To touch on Crusaders points. I wish the game had a hint option that you could turn on or off that would let you know what you can do in game. For example when you get to the first beacon and you get the option to Cleanse, if you have hints turned on it would also say, Cleasing will lock you into the Radiance Ending and lock you out of the others.

Or Warping out of the area without speaking with Byron first will lock you out of Wintergreens quest. While this may look like hand holding to many, to many other gamers having in game hints would help. This would allow the game to appeal to a larger audience.

That would probably never happen, because all the information is out there already, how do these Youtubers and Fextralife know which steps (seemingly random steps if done in the correct order) are for Umbral Ending? Ofcourse they had prior knowledge.

The steps for Umbral Ending are "The Steps" because developers deemed it so, there's maybe logic behind some of them, but there's no logic behind another, for example Byron Quest, if you take the elevator, you are done.

The logical way to proceed would be to take the elevator, because many people wouldn't know or care about going the other way, they would just take the elevator.

Because there's no logic behind this step, it could be any elevator, any door or any ladder, but developers chose that specific one.

As I was saying, the steps will seem random to most of the gamers, they only seem logical or makes sense because they were pre-determined by developers, that if you do things in this specific correct order, it will lead you to Umbral Ending.

In theory if they changed steps, or maybe they swap places, like step 8 became 2 and step 2 became 8, it would still work, because the only logic that is behind them, is because developers deemed it so.

So yeah with all the information about endings already out before general public even gets a chance to play this game for the first time, no one would even think of try and figure out Umbral Ending all by themselves, and even if they do decide to figure it out, it is hard to avoid spoilers.

An Umbral Ending 100% earned in a legit way, would require a couple of Einstein of gamers, locked in a room, with no internet, and they play the game, each one do something different than the other, trial and error, trial and error and if they stick long enough, eventually they might figure it all out, and it all becomes to "make sense".

Chances of that happening are close to zero, simply because no one would even attempt to do it and even if they do, almost impossible to figure it out correctly all by themselves with no help from anyone whatsoever.

Edit:

Forgot to give a correct example of a step from Umbral Ending itself.

So Step 25 goes something like this:

At certain point of game, at a certain door (which doesn't even look like a door tbh) you need to have a specific rune acquired prior to interacting with that "door" if you use the usual rune (as every single person would do, almost) you are done.

Step 28 goes something like this:

You need to be at a specific place in a specific location and be in correct form and talk to the specific NPC to acquire something specific that you will later need to use on another specific location.

[Limp Squirrel]

So arbitrary is the name of the game.

I was just wondering because by just playing the game, I failed about all quests because I had no idea what I'm supposed for this random NPC.

I wonder if the devs shared information about the umbral ending with select community members prior to launch. It'd completely defeat the point.

Compared to dark souls I also do not really derive any logic from the lore here. In the sense that in DS there are clear lore notes that would explain why s certain NPC would do or need something.

[Daredevil]

Originally posted by Squidcake:

So arbitrary is the name of the game.

I was just wondering because by just playing the game, I failed about all quests because I had no idea what I'm supposed for this random NPC.

I wonder if the devs shared information about the umbral ending with select community members prior to launch. It'd completely defeat the point.

Compared to dark souls I also do not really derive any logic from the lore here. In the sense that in DS there are clear lore notes that would explain why s certain NPC would do or need something.

I can say that with absolute certainty that they did have prior knowledge, you think IGN or big names in video game journalism had time to go through everything and figure out everything by themselves? That's a tall order when time is money.

Because it is not only the Youtubers who actually play the game and love these sort of games are out there giving tips or hints or providing steps with how to do a certain quest or a certain ending, big name sites are doing it too, so either they are copying someone and that someone copying another and so on, or they had prior knowledge.

That's just how thing works I suppose, I don't mind, All I am trying to say is that, the only way I or you or others will manage to achieve Umbral Ending, it will be because we used step by step guide, highly unlikely to achieve the umbral ending, with dumb luck or persistence and dedication.

[楊玄。杨玄。LangrisserWWE]

I am sure there are people, who are probably used to From Soft Dark Souls type of quest, put in a lot of effort into solving the quest with whatever hints the devs put in the game.

People like me, who are only into the actions and builds. Are too impatience to figure out the way to unlock these endings. So I go for youtube for guides.

Then again, with the internet. Devs may just leak the way to unlock these endings to people so they can find it. Which, IMO pretty stupid in a way to make game quests and ending, but of course, this is just me guessing.

[Blacksmith77K]

Originally posted by Crusader:

Step 28 goes something like this:

You need to be at a specific place in a specific location and be in correct form and talk to the specific NPC to acquire something specific that you will later need to use on another specific location.

And once you've solved this cryptic nonsense, you'll be standing around stupidly with a bottle of perfume and not having the slightest idea what to spray with it.

Hint: beguile the ex-husband of the ex-queen

[Majere]

I suppose there's something sort of appropriate in the Umbral ending requiring you to go away and look up secrets outside of the game to figure out how to do it. It's supposed to be about embracing otherworldly knowledge, after all.

In general, though, this sort of thing is pretty standard in Soulslikes. Ideally it should lead to the game's community coming together to figure out how to do it, but in these days of fast media it's more likely to be datamined and be on wiki sites the day after the thing releases.

[Daredevil]

Originally posted by Blacksmith77K:

Originally posted by Crusader:

Step 28 goes something like this:

You need to be at a specific place in a specific location and be in correct form and talk to the specific NPC to acquire something specific that you will later need to use on another specific location.

And once you've solved this cryptic nonsense, you'll be standing around stupidly with a bottle of perfume and not having the slightest idea what to spray with it.

Hint: beguile the ex-husband of the ex-queen

My sentiments exactly, so yeah everyone and their grandmothers will be using a guide, if there's a single living soul out there and can say out loud God's honest truth that they managed to figure out how to Umbral ending all by themselves, with no help from anyone or anything, I'd call them "Einstein Among Us Mortal Gamers"