Elden Ring: YOU DIED on a horse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asqWq8MIAWA

I'm reading Russian interviews with Miyazaki and I can't wait to find out what "less annoying" means for invasions (also, invasions!):

https://www.igromania.ru/article/31725/Pogovorili_s_Hidetakoy_Miyadzaki_ob_Elden_Ring._Otkrytyy_mir_multipleer_i_yadovitye_bolota.html?from=mpp

Elder Bling

So unless I misunderstood, it sounds like GRRM's contribution was the back story of the bosses/demi-gods you must face, which sounds fine to me, because it's not like Miyazaki has ever really needed someone's help before, let alone a name ringer.

https://www.ign.com/articles/elden-ring-miyazaki-hidetaka-full-interview-summer-of-gaming

Yeah it sounds like he just wrote the mythology for the world and backstory, split and let From take it from there:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/o0680a/miyazaki_famitsu_interview_translation_part_1/

Oops here's a link to the rest of that interview:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/o0bvgi/miyazaki_famitsu_interview_translation_part_4/

looks absolutely incredible, sounds like it's trying to deliver on everything you could possibly want from "open world dark souls" and even more (there's a summonable monster collecting mechanic, combat is taking on some aspects from sekiro too), and bc it's fromsoft i believe they can actually pull it off. world design sounds like it's taking a lot from botw while directly addressing the biggest problems i had with it too

there's one more interview out there, in german but it's comprehensible enough with machine translation: https://www.4players.de/4players.php/dispbericht/Allgemein/Vorschau/40800/84122/0/Elden_Ring.html

I mean, it basically looks and sounds like another Dark Souls, which is fine with me.

Dark Souls (or at least some of them) are basically open world games anyway so i'm bout it bout it

Yesss, perfectly happy with how Dark Souls (except with added horse, jump button, wayfinding, stealth, and NPCs moving their mouths) this looks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JldMvQMO_5U

that looks really cool, definite Breath of the Wild things going on with it

Super cool, super glad this is coming out on PS4. Nice to see so much comfortably familiar stuff recycled from Souls/Sekiro games (and borrowed from BotW), plus new stuff.

Witcher RPG structure, Elder Scrolls sprawl, Dark Souls dialogue/lore/design/combat/UI and Breath of the Wild improv/central castle mechanic sounds like just what i'm looking for. just keep the stakes continually high and the procedurally generated shit minimal and you got me.

The summoning spirits thing seems intriguing, as is the absence of health bars and the like in those clips.

Oh the HUD is definitely just turned off for the demo, to make it look more cinematic I'm sure.

Ive never played Dark Souls (the way everyone talks about how hard it is put me off - I dont play games to get MORE stressed out). I love and still play Skyrim and BOTW, would I like this? It looks very nice.

The thing about Dark Souls and all its successors is that they're difficult in a very specific way; it's all about paying careful attention to things like the timing of your own attacks. It's not hard the way a bullet-hell game is hard. It's a slower-paced, almost meditative challenge. I didn't think I liked "hard" games either, but I did get pretty into DS1. I found it frustrating and I did eventually slide off it. A few boss fights aside, I didn't find it "stressful" exactly. YMMV of course.

That having been said, I'd love to see From embrace the recent trend of allowing players a temporary assist if they're stuck, a la God Mode in Hades, or the assist features in Celeste.

I think so? The difficulty of the games is way overstated imo, and this one is sure to be the most user-friendly version so far. It's more that you can't rush through or brute force it, at least not on a first playthrough. And there are so many different ways to approach the game, you can summon helpers and use magic from a distance if you don't want to get deep into the melee combat.

Forks otm...like, I get to enjoy the 'aimlessly riding around on a horse' mechanic of BotW and Red Dead Redemption, except when you get off the horse, it's Dark Souls? Yes please.

xp

Definitely overstated imo.... you mostly just have to pay close attention and remember things, and you're rarely put in a position where you can't take a breath (admittedly the only souls game I've played is demon's on ps3 but they apparently get easier from there)

To expand on X's point, I'd say the "taking a breath" aspect is a huge part of these games, eg. bonfires. The moments of peace and quiet are all the more delicious after having slogged through lugubrious combat

*part of the appeal of these games*

A lot of these games are indeed pretty meditative, in mood and design. They're lonely and emphasize exploration and experimentation. All the dying and setbacks become amusing after a while, with the reward being how easy stuff that once challenged you becomes later on in the game, as if to emphasize, "See? you've come so far!" The only real stress comes with the boss fights, imo, which is where the real challenges lie, with a few specific areas or enemy exceptions here and there. The bosses, on the other hand, both impede progress and are the least forgiving, plus are more or less the only enemies where you can see just how close you are to beating them while still dying. Or, you know dying in just a couple of seconds, which can be frustrating, too. Don't think I found any/many enemies in Dark Souls 1/3 or Bloodborne as annoying or frustrating as many of the enemies in Sekiro, though, but clearly different strokes, etc. Maybe I'm just blocking them out. I'm sure I can find some posts of mine to the contrary.

Also the boss fights are designed to psyche you out with their epic scale and music, but almost all of them are a matter of learning the boss's moves and how to avoid them, and picking your moments.

Yeah, I remember reading a recommendation that sometimes when you hit a wall, just turn off the sound. Though sometimes you miss certain cues when you do that. Regardless of moves or scale or whatever, there will always be some bosses that some people can beat with their bare fists blindfolded the first attempt, but you'll fight 50 times and barely make headway. I tend to get bored after a while more than frustrated, which is another reason to turn down or off the sound.

I definitely turn off the music sometimes (you can do that and leave the sound on).

!

Yeah! Just go into settings and there should be separate volume sliders for music and sound fx.

I never had a PS3 so it was interesting to come to the Demon's Souls remake after playing all the other games. Some of the levels, one bonfire and all, seem monstrously punishing compared to later stuff, but the bosses don't really have any capacity to surprise when you've been through all the more developed, multi-stage/gimmicky ones from later games

I beat most of them in one try so far

Didn't get a network test code :(

Tons of info & videos out there today from people who have early access. I'm trying to avoid spoilers for the most part, except for stuff about the mechanics.

Standing poise (instead of Dark Souls 3-style hyperarmor) = in (not sure how I feel about this)
Powerstancing (ie you can equip two weapons of the same type and get a different dual-wielding moveset) = in
Mixing your own combo potions that can make you explode = sure why not
Solo hosts can't be invaded unless they use a few items = ok, fine
Invaders get a compass to see what direction the host is = sick
Invaders also get an item to quickly vanish from the host's world and reappear nearby = oh my god

It really does seem like a blend of all their games plus a bunch of new stuff, can't wait.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzFR5HsPcng

all sounds cool. I have no problem with spoilers, because not only will I forget by the time I get it, I can't play any of these games without walkthrough help anyway lol.

i have the same problem/gift with forgetting everything! really comes in handy on very rare occasions

Just finished that video and have some thoughts. One, I've never played Dark Souls II because I've ... well, I guess I just skipped it, but I've heard mixed things (and there are essentially two versions of it, for that matter). But it is interesting that some of its elements have made their way to other games, despite its reputation as a disappointment. For example, as I understand it your health can be halved in DS2, and a similar mechanic was brought into Sekiro. And according to this video, power stances from DS2 have made their way to this one, too. Second, I've never used magic in any of these games, because choosing magic is like choosing an entirely different, novel way to play the game, and if you're only going to play it once I'm not sure magic is the way to do it. But maybe it is in this game, because magic looks super cool. Third, I really hope this plays well on PS4 (and other last generation systems), but I have a bad feeling between it being open world and generally newer than the past several From games it might really benefit from the speed and power of newer systems. That's one advantage of (as this video points out) From never being on the tech vanguard, because it means the games generally don't *need* next gen tech to run. (I know Demon's Souls is PS5 exclusive, but those that have played it, do you think it could run on a PS4?)

Anyway, I can already tell there are going to be a lot of funny videos generated by this game.

Oh, also, looks like you don't take fall damage when you jump, which would have been a very perverse thing for From to do, so I'm glad they didn't do it! Or at least, maybe there are height restrictions/allowances? And I like how there is environmental damage that can be done by at least bosses, which I know was in "Sekiro," though I can't recall if it was introduced there.

Demon's Souls is quite a tech showcase, it wouldn't have been able to run at that framerate on ps4, and some of the lighting/particle effects look like they would have been a big stretch too

I like Dark Souls 2 to some degree, some dispiritingly shit world design like the infamous Earthen Peak Elevator Jaunt travesty aside. It's like a difficult 3rd album that isn't among the classics but fits a certain mood when you happen to want it. I found the DLC far too much of a grim slog though

Elden Ring looks unreasonably good, can't wait

This game looks fun, and by early accounts the open world design is supposed to be good, but I can't help but wonder whether the openness actually adds much to the Souls formula. The main draw of the world design in DS1 (admittedly the only one of these I've played) was for me, its labyrinthine density. Eldenringland just looks kinda vast and drab to me.

i was moderately interested in this game, but after watching some of those videos posted above i am now EAGERLY ANTICIPATING. my only problem is i don't have a system for it, and i was leaning toward getting a steam deck rather than a ps5.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9DWTt37khU

Fwiw, both videos note the difficulty of the first mandatory boss.

i showed the game a friend of mine who really likes dark souls, and he seemed to be a bit disappointed at first. i think he was thinking of it as a souls-like game, which, it is in some ways of course, very much so. but just being open world and adding jumping completely changes it. it reminds me of GTAIII or breath of the wild in terms of how those games were a departure from the games they built on

Souls-like.

And something else I was thinking about, given From's propensity for hidden walls/loot/enemies/NPCs/entire levels and/or alternate endgames, I wonder what that portends for an open world game? Gonna be a lot of OCD dudes slashing at every bush, rock or piece of foliage, looking for secret stuff, a la the first Zelda.

To be honest the open world part isn't particularly compelling to me. I do like the idea of all the new handcrafted zones that are the equivalent of large Dark souls areas, and a whole bunch of new build options and mechanics (and invasions, of course).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEypd23I0pQ

here's footage of the PS4 version - it seems like it runs without any serious issues or significant visual downgrades. i got into the network test on PS4 so i'll see how it is in a few hours from now.

i'm not at all concerned about the open world, all the footage of the network test has made it very clear that it's avoiding all the common open world pitfalls (repetitive content, big for the sake of being big, etc.) & is very dense with unique content. there are at least 10 bosses in the network test area alone (which is estimated to be around 1/12 of the full game's map). it's a big change, sure, but i don't think anywhere near as radical a shift as say GTA3 or BOTW were - the core gameplay is still very much the same despite the change in environmental scale.

For example, as I understand it your health can be halved in DS2, and a similar mechanic was brought into Sekiro.

DS2's max health decreasing on death (in increments down to a min of 50%) was more of an iteration on Demon's Souls' mechanic where you lost half your max health when you were in 'soul form' opposed to 'human form', which happened upon dying while human. in both cases, the game was generally balanced around the halved max health, with more than that being a bonus, but it was still kinda presented as a punishment. i think both were intended to give the player another incentive to go into human form, which enabled being invaded as well as summoning other players as well as removing the max health penalty. DS3 improved upon this by having embers, which worked the same way in enabling multiplayer, provide a bonus to your max health instead.

there wasn't any sort of max health restriction upon death mechanic in Sekiro though, and there doesn't seem to be in Elden Ring either.

DS2 is one of the weaker souls games but it's still worth playing. the issues with it are largely that the encounter design isn't quite as tight, the world design is clumsier & it rarely reaches the same sorts of high-point boss fights as the best of the series. i'd still put it above Demon's Souls at least.

i may be a minority opinion here, but i don't worry at all about whether something can run well enough on a certain machine. i can count the number of times i have been bothered by the framerate/slowdown of a game on one hand. i think part of it is that i came to gaming age playing games like LIFE FORCE. the slowdown was part of the game. the bug became the feature. aiming for this perfect-smooth framerate ideal is understandable but also kind of disappointing. it's just different, i guess

blighttown was pretty miserable at times in the original console versions of ds1 due to all the slowdown. it's certainly something to be concerned about & can make experiences much worse. with cross-gen games like this, it does happen sometimes that the last-gen versions are significantly inferior due to cutting corners trying to get the game to run on hardware they weren't focusing on, but that thankfully doesn't seem to be the case here at all.

IDK I think having a smooth frame rate is critical for a game like this where you have to time movements precisely. And while 60 is nice, 30 is perfectly good as long as it stays consistent. I played DS1 on Switch and it runs great!

As a relatively recent returner to games, I've learned my lesson the hard way. When I got "Doom" for the Switch it kinda ran like shit, even after a few updates. The slowdowns definitely affected game play in such a fast paced game, and even things like jumping were impacted. Like, you would run at a couple of spots (even with no enemies) and suddenly things would slow down, right before you pressed jump, and you would fall to your death. But tbf, "Doom" is almost uniquely busy and fast paced, and yeah, I can't think of another game off the top of my head with issues like that.

That said, I sort of suspect at least some of my problems with "Sekiro" were related to the frame rate. Usually I don't notice/care, but that game was all about timing, and while it could have been me (I mean, for sure it was me), it's also possible it was just that much trickier for me at 30fps than it would have been at 60.

there wasn't any sort of max health restriction upon death mechanic in Sekiro though

Oh, I just meant the mechanic that makes you lose half your souls or whatever. And gives everybody dragonrot. There's a cost of dying, which I found irritating since these games are built around dying over and over again. DS1 and DS3 don't have that cost, and Bloodborne gives you a shot to get some echoes back, too.

I never minded slow downs either, it's like slo mo at a dramatic moment.

Glad the PS4 version runs well, I never cared about graphics but had to admit that 60fps is really nice after playing the DS1 remaster and now DS3 on PS5. But I played all of the other games at 30fps for hundreds of hours and had a great time, so it's definitely not essential.

very positive impressions

https://kotaku.com/elden-ring-may-just-reinvent-the-open-world-genre-1848093261

I look forward to suddenly earning souls from some NPC that dies fighting enemies on the other side of the map.

I keep wondering if I should give the other From games a shot? I just got incredibly fed up with BB but maybe having a shield would make me feel better? (Probably not.)

On the one hand having experience in one of these games helps with all of them since they have some basics in common, but on the other hand, ER looks to be the most user-friendly of them all (from little things like the menus and upgrade systems, to how the combat system seems to align with what you see onscreen in a more intuitive way, rather than having to look up online how combos/poise/parries/etc work...that's mostly for pvp though).

Generally speaking though Dark Souls 1 and 2 are slower paced, while the combat in Bloodborne is faster (and DS3 is somewhere in-between).

Shields in these games are mostly there to taunt you and weigh you down.

i have played defense heavy builds to some advantage in these games on occasion; it's a preferred method. it makes me shit at pvp tho!

I haven't used a shield in DS3 since my first playthrough, but I might use one for ER! For one thing, there's a shield weapon art (or "ash of war" I guess) that acts as both a normal parry AND can parry spells (and turn them into little magic swords you send back):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BBLmt_DI50

In the pvp world, there's been a lot of talk of the big changes from Dark Souls 3, particularly:

-No guaranteed combos, ie hitting someone once doesn't necessarily mean you can hit them again if they decide to roll out of it. In DS3, most small and medium weapons had a guaranteed 2-hit combo on normal attacks, with a shorter stun window after that so the other person could get away.

-Backstabs are de-emphasized, and no one's sure if they're "working as intended" or not. Basically the backstab doesn't work if the other person isn't perfectly aligned with your character, or possibly if they're in any kind of animation. In DS3, it would work as long as the other person wasn't moving away from you, meaning that you could sneakily backstab someone if they were in a long animation (like after swinging a large weapon, or casting a healing spell). I enjoyed that system, but it makes sense that From is trying to smooth over elements that looked or felt weird to anyone not super versed in the mechanics.

I'm all for the changes if they make the pvp more intuitive and appealing to people. Although I hope there are some good unparryable attacks to use when someone keeps throwing out parries, since that still seems strong, and in DS3 you could run around behind them, use a kick, etc.

This looks really good. I mean, it's very Soulsy and sometimes these things can feel like Scategories. Just replace bonfire with lamp; souls with blood echoes etc...
But I'm down with this. It looks a lot more open and less fiendishly claustro than Bloodborne. I also like how you can actually jump. There also seem to be a few more NPCs about the place, so it's got more of a Witchery vibe to it. Yeah looking forward to it

This is gonna own me isn't it.

There has been much Oroboro watching in our household this past month

just bought the lil baby xbox series s in a chip-shortage panic, just in case they disappear again before this comes out

I also got the lil' baby Xbox, the first Microsoft console I've ever had! Personally, I think it's great as an affordable, stand-alone Game Pass machine

are they readily available?

though frankly i don't think i can hang with that joystick

got one at a gamestop on myrtle ave, looked like there were tons

https://kotaku.com/the-elden-ring-community-is-now-arguing-over-horse-crot-1848315650

They should split the difference between Dark Souls and Red Dead Redemption and make horse genitalia prominent, dynamic and a stat. Because you know there would be hundreds of level one players who will put every single soul into horse dick.

Counterpoint, you should have a separate character creation menu for your horse, complete with gender and appearance sliders

Why not both! Customizable horse would be next level From. Hell, you should be able to *play* as a horse, that would be rad.

If they did have horse dick, what stat would it scale with

Luck

girth

all horse dicks aside, i am really fucking hyped to play this game

I'm medium hyped! I literally beat Gael for the first time today yay

I cannot wait. I may have said this but the weekend it comes out I'm going to be in Florida playing a gig and visiting my folks, and it's going to be tough avoiding spoilers!

Josh is always worried about the horse parts

Haha, I actually never worried about my horse (named My Horse) in RDR2 ever! Nor did I ever notice its gender or genitals, come to think of it. Maybe I should have paid closer attention?

Wait, there were horses in Breath of the Wild, weren't they? I don't think I ever used a horse, except the one or two times a fight required it.

yes there were horses, and yes we had a many post discussion about it

Shows what an impression they made. All I remember is that they offered me no benefit so I stabled them. Where they remain, virtually, to this very day.

https://blog.playstation.com/2022/01/28/an-interview-with-fromsoftwares-hidetaka-miyazki/

I have been keeping up and everything looks incredible, but the most important feature so far is that you can find tailor's tools and add a cape (and who knows what else?!) to your outfit.

this is gonna happen fairly soon and i'm genuinely a little nervous as i simply don't have time.

there might be a slight dip in unemployment in early march

so this is getting "greatest game ever" reviews!!! https://www.theguardian.com/games/2022/feb/23/elden-ring-review-an-unrivalled-masterpiece-of-design-and-inventiveness

Will this be worth playing on PS4?

I was wondering that, I've yet to make the upgrade. Given that DS3 makes my console wheeze like an asthmatic chain-smoker, it might be a stretch, though that game does itself run fine...

I think noisy PS4s are due to age and dirt/dust, not power. I have a slim I got ... whenever I got it. 2019? Anyway, mine barely makes a peep.

i'll be playing on ps4 for sure

i have an ancient one, loud as fuck. if it bites the dust while trying to run elden ring, i will consider it a fitting death

YOU DIED

...it's true, my ps4 is/was a horse. a loud, annoying horse!

Seems to be fine on PS4, there's just less grass on the ground. :)

Needless to say, I'm extremely excited. Going to start playing on Sunday, and I gave myself a late birthday gift of taking Monday off.

i washed out my largest poopsock and i've informed my loved ones that something is happening and i have to go away for a while

something poopsock-related

I’m one month into three months of paternity leave, PS5 plus Elden Ring arriving tomorrow - excited for my small baby to experience it’s first From game

Ha, nice. It's wild to me that my friend with a 8 month old has much more time to play video games than I do (because his free time is from when the baby goes to bed to whenever he decides to do so, whereas I spend time with my partner at night and we go to bed at the same time, weird huh).

all my gaming time is now playing switch games as my 4-year-old directs me, we have 831 moons in mario odyssey.

i put my lil baby xbox next next to my home office setup so i can sneak in some elden ringing on company time.

PSYCHED. Took Friday off for this bad boy.

Okay I've ordered it

reviewing almost as well as *checks notes* GTA 4

Listening to this and not watching, but hell yeah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdstSHeoNGA

The reviews are all exactly what I want to hear. I guess this is gonna be my weekend. I demand everybody liveblog!

Iron pineapple is my go to guy for enjoying from games, if he likes it that much I am all in

Glad to hear that it's a bit more forgiving in a sense cuz you can go off and grind when you get stuck, which is less of an option in the other games, and I am baaaaad at these

i watched the review above and minor quibble but this shit is not stunningly beautiful its grody as hell, looks like an amazing game tho

Yeah idk if “stunningly beautiful” is a thing I’d associate with From, but there are moments amidst the gnarly, gloomy grime that are pretty and/or awe inspiring.

That review in particular’s also limiting itself to the first two main areas of the game for spoilerage sake.

jeez these reviews are HYPE, i keep running into critics begging you to buy the game even if you don't like souls games
fextralife guy called it "skyrim but with online and good combat and no bugs and ingenious developments... definitely game of the year and possibly game of the decade" and ouch i guess i don't get to leave the house for awhile? lotta complaints about PC bugginess so i am hoping the ps5 investment was the right call.

why would you buy it if you dont like souls games, its still the exact same gameplay

maybe you like it now

the argument i'm hearing is that if you find it too hard, they have built checks and balances to allow for alternates to GIT GUD but the guys what GOT GUD already don't have to cop to them if they don't want to. also that if you hit a boss and don't want to fight a boss, there's so much else to do that you can just fuck off and not worry about it until you are overleveled. and a better spawn system. mostly that a lot of the flint that makes things souls like is greatly reduced, leaving you just with the fun stuff. We'll see.

The promise of a cross between "Dark Souls" and "Breath of the Wild" does indeed scare me into the prospect of isolated hermit-dom. I think I'm going to maintain my self-imposed limit of not getting this (or Horizon Zero West, and other next gen games) until I have a PS5, and I'm not getting a PS5 until it's easier to get a PS5.

I guess there’s no soapstone (or equivalent) message system in this? One thing I haven’t heard anything about, so I assume not.

Magic actually looks pretty fun this time out, I’ll probably play a hybrid class of some sort.

Oh and bows that look much more functional as part of the combat flow this time out. Looks like no shortage of viable options.

ohhhhhhhhh elden ring

There are still messages, I'm pretty sure (and the usual bloodstains, ghosts, summon signs, etc).

Pvp is a little different, fyi you can't be invaded unless you summon help first, or use a dried finger-type item to open the invader floodgates. Also 4 player max, with at least one slot reserved for invasions.

Magic actually looks pretty fun this time out,

I've never used magic in any Souls game, but magic in this game looks dope, and the game seems to encourage magic used as part of melee builds rather than as its own thing.

There's bus ads for this here and while I understand GRRM just did the backstory, having the pull quote be "this looks amazing - George R R Martin" and then "developed by Hidetaka Miyazaki and George R R Martin" underneath is still lol

lol, i love seeing the stuff he gets into instead of finishing those books

Well said forks, it sounds like it's easier in that there are a ton of approaches and you'll rarely if ever be in a "you need to beat this hard boss in order to progress" situation.

But if you don't like 3rd person action rpgs, then this still won't be your game, lol.

I never do magic either and I'm excited about all the ash of war/spell options, it seems like they want you to play around more with crazy build options and moves this time.

I'm pretty sure there must be traditional unskippable gatekeeper bosses to advance the story (as such), but it seems like maybe there are many different paths one can take to get there.

what is the penalty for death in this one?

you die irl iirc

looks like the same concept as in previous games, except no like "hallowing" type penalty on top of it.

Yeah you just lose your 'runes' (souls), nbd.

one punch pulled that i'm all onboard with is apparently there are almost always save points right by bosses or difficult encounters. running back to a boss after getting wrecked was never fun.

admit it - permadeath elden ring would be kind of amazing

what if the game only costs $9, but permadeath is the only option and the game deletes itself after you die, and you have to sign a NDA with From beforehand prohibiting you from talking about it

That's how all pre-release streams should be handled.

Actually useful non-spoiler content, for those who care about stats & stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgq4CADdr8w

i really want this to be the first From game i've ever beaten (or really come close to beating)

I want this to be the second From game I put over 1000 hours of my singular life into :/

haha

how would you feel, honestly, if what that guy in the 15 minute or so video you posted said about how he couldn't imagine going back to the older games because this one obliterates all?

i guess he was being a little hyperbolic, lol. despite me not beating any of them, it's clear the souls games are lasting classics in the zelda/mario mold, where the og games are still legitimately fun to play long after those series went off in different directions

Tbh I have no desire to play through the single player version of Dark Souls 3 ever again, it's the multiplayer that becomes the game for me. I'll definitely miss doing invasions in DS3, but doubt I'll come back to it for a long time if ever (both because I'm hoping invasions will be fun in Elden Ring, and because activity in DS3 is going to nosedive for awhile, although I bet a lot of people will play ER as their first From game and go back to DS3).

All the games are still great, but I stopped doing Bloodborne duels when DS3 came out and I expect the same thing will happen with this one. The only reason I kept playing DS3 for five years is because they didn't release anything to replace it, lol.

jeez these reviews are HYPE, i keep running into critics begging you to buy the game even if you don't like souls games

This me but

The promise of a cross between "Dark Souls" and "Breath of the Wild"

Neither of these have any appeal to me whatsoever. :(

then i guess your choice is clear

but they're begging you!

curious though, is there something in particular that you don't like about the two, like a dealbreaker? one thing that stands out is that neither usually has much of a story.

Lack of story is probably it! I don't care enough about exploration for its own sake or playing around with the sandbox physics to get me into a game.

And my days of tackling HARD games is well behind me (I rage quit Bloodborne).

i was playing bloodborne last week for the first time and hadn't even gotten stuck yet, up until i suddenly got OBSESSED with vampire survivors for about 20-30 hours (of playtime). now i feel like i just exited rehab and it's time to get my new elden ring game and do it right

i've already notified the 3 people irl i know who give a fuck about my whereabouts and have let them know that starting at midnight i need to go away for a while, and that it's good for me. they all either understood or said they already knew i was going to do that

lol

do i get this on a 1st gen ps4

if it helps, i am! i'll be digitally downloading asap

If u ever upgrade to PS5 you can freely upgrade your PS4 version to PS5. I’ve heard this plays about the same as past souls games have on the base PS4.

Although your save file won't transfer from the PS4 to PS5 version from what I understand (but running the PS4 version on a PS5 is still supposed to be an improvement as far as FPS etc)

oh bummer, i wonder why you can't transfer your save? seems like one of those things you could at least do via a usb stick or something, even

looks like it'll be playable at midnight eastern, and i'm currently in central, so that's an extra hour to play tonight! :) i'm guessing there's probably a way to adjust my ps4's clock so that it seems like i'm in, say, new zealand?

if it helps, i am! i'll be digitally downloading asap

Ha judging from reddit the New Zealand trick works on Xbox, but on PS requires setting up a whole new account.

Ohhh, apparently you can transfer a save from PS4 to PS5, but not the other way around: https://www.aroged.com/2021/11/08/elden-ring-can-save-games-be-transferred-between-ps4-ps5-xbox-one-and-series-x-s/

I was initially hoping you could freely jump back and forth just so I could use whichever controller I want to, which is not the case. It's so dumb that you can't use the PS4 controller with PS5 games.

oh nice, on the save transfer! i'd hope that maybe there's a way to easily patch the game later so that it's easier to do and goes both ways (ps4 -> ps5 definitely the more common of the ways though)

I'm gonna have to get this on PS4 because we do have a PS5 but its my partners and he is a console hog and will be playing the new Destiny expansion and Horizon for the forseeable. So I guess I'll play it on the PS4. We can upgrade it for free anyway apaz.

and will be playing the new Destiny expansion and Horizon for the forseeable

when you all could be playing elden ring. this is...i'm sorry. i don't mean to create conflict. but they are just wrong here. this is like if FF7 came out and you were busy finishing final fight guy

i respect it in a way, but come on!

Posted this on the terrible opinions thread but I agree with Dunkey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q38fjcyP1IQ

Dear mister Amazon, you fuckers promised this was shipping day and date, you can get me mothballs in 30 minutes but I am supposed to get this on SUNDAY I am dissappoint

I'm in

yeah, after Amazon similarly boned me on at least two different game releases i've stopped going that route.

xp

Having lost too many games with the system I downloaded them on, I am unwilling to download a soils. I need the artifact.

Dork soils

Was initially alarmed to note that pushing forward and R2 no longer produces a jumping attack but...theres a jump button

https://www.polygon.com/22949205/elden-ring-quest-log-journal-notes
I am into this idea! Everybody keep a journal!

already read, already prepared journal

85 minutes until a better world unlocks

took 4 nap earlier. the sock is clean. i am ready to die

Yep, there are definitely player left messages in this one. Landscape is like graffitied with them, haha. This is fuckin rad. So far Dark Souls meets Breath of the Wild is very much on point.

I am sooooo bad at these games! ha!

cleared a few dungeons though, although I still haven't managed to find anyone that lets me level up

I haven’t either. I’m also sloppy as hell at these games, but still manage to shuffle through them somehow.

Deciding to clear half of a mostly pitch black cave at the outset without a torch was pretty bold/dumb of me, but auto lock saved the day.

Couldn't sleep, playing Elden Ring. :)))

I've been playing it safe, just got the horse & leveling up lady though!

Me too! Just hit that part.

I'm not sure even dunkey agrees with dunkey.

I'm in too, seems to run fine on my old PS4, and it looks GREAT

I actually started the PS4 version on PS5, because people were saying it had more stable performance (for now). Whatever, it feels and looks amazing.

Found some cool stuff around the coasts. The first little dungeon boss walks like an Achewood character, it's great.

I managed to parry and counter attack the spider dude who attacks you outside the starting chapel, and I thought yes, game-breaker! Then he one-hit stomped me. YOU DIED.

Also I put the horse whistle in the pouch, so you can always use with a d-pad + button and don't need to switch to the item.

Although I have a bad habit of constantly clicking L2, because it didn't do anything much in past games, so I'm always jumping off my horse mid-fight.

Don't change horses mid-flight, as they say

I'm not gonna get a chance to get into this until next week, but have fun y'all

I love how uncompromisingly weird Miyazaki continues to be. Just as bizarre and auteur-y as ever. Totally does feel accessible and crossover without sacrificing anything thus far.

Oh btw, y'all want to choose an ILG keyword? That way you're more likely to see each other's messages, ghosts, signs, etc

If you can do that while still seeing some other public ones, I’m onboard. 90% garage marks over here, but there are the occasional helpful ones.

Yep! And you can have multiple groups too.

Oh btw, y'all want to choose an ILG keyword?

oh shit, that's a great idea!

cointandplick

?

(just trying to think of a short one we can remember and won't be used by others)

I played for 3 hours as soon as it was up, then got some rest. ready to go back in now!

due to a inside joke with me and someone else, i was forced to start as a Confessor, which is not really the playstyle i'm looking for at all (i could see a magic/intelligence build, but probably not faith). so, the early going has been a little difficult as i'm really weak and all the confessor/faith gives me for now is a minor heal spell that's too slow to be effective.

but it'll even out, i think - this seems like a game where any starting class can be highly modified

ugh i don't have the money or time to play video games and don't like hard games but you all are making me want to get this to be part of the communal experience

Lol, I intend to fully join the communal experience in a year, playing offline.

nice, i found a first map (love looking at it already) and also i think i may be engaged and may have to do some fingering as part of the deal :-o

i'm also in the bittorrent scene now, i didn't ask to be part of this

I literally zipped off to Montreal to get away from my PS5 because I have deadlines I have to meet and I knew I wouldn't be able to resist this game's launch date

Glad to see you're all having fun

may have to do some fingering as part of the deal :-o

― dig your way out of the shit with a gold magic shovel! (Karl Malone), Friday, February 25, 2022 12:04 PM (twenty-one minutes ago)

wait what is this game about

apparently there is a two finger method that is spreading across the land - this is from the game

That's probably GRRM's contribution

It’s not a new game invention, but it’s done particularly well here. Being in a huge landscape and seeing all these landmarks off in the distance. Then after a few hours of scrubbing through a dungeon or on some lower path, you climb a peak and look around and you see where you came from. The paths you took to get there that you didn’t even realize. Get an entirely new idea of the geography.

Love that shit.

I can't/won't play for a while, but I have been peeking at a couple of playthroughs in progress, and I found a guy playing who had never played a single From game before, so I watched it until he died for the first time, which was maybe ... three minutes into the actual game?

Lol, he just referred to the thing that killed him as "clearly the Lynels of this game" and I immediately thought, he has no idea what he's in for, in Souls games, almost everything is a Lynel.

oops all lynels

OK, gotta stop watching this stuff. This game looks totally awesome. After so many years of games borrowing from From, now we get a From game that incorporates stuff from other games (namely, open world stuff). Seems like it's going to be a totally fresh, perhaps overwhelming, possibly all-encompassing experience.

WHY AM I NOT PLAYING THIS RIGHT NOW

I did not find a map yet, I love how different the experiences are. It seems hard to get spoiled by reading about things, because where the hell is it anyway.

I do not love that I'm now in Florida and can't play for a few days.

Just fired this up, I’m excited for my nightfolk prisoner to meet the Loathsome Dung Eater

part of this game takes place in Florida? it might be too dark for me

We knew there was a poison swamp

Senator Loathsome Dung Eater (FL-R)

That's probably GRRM's contribution

― feed me with your chips (zchyrs),

lol, that's probably correct! there's also this from another early character:

"just give me a nice clean lick from the rear, and i'm sure it'll come clean out. give it your all, i say"

Is there a drop attack move in this? Was pretty crucial on occasion in the previous games, but wasn’t happening the few times I’ve tried it.

I guess “plunge attack” is the term. Can’t find any info on it, guess it’s gone?

there must be. i found a note with a tip on an enemy suggesting i do one

i'm getting way off the "main path" (the yellow arrows where the campfires point), going off to the east. but it seems easier for now? love this game

TEN

spent 7 hours yesterday wandering around exploring limgrave and it's really lived up to expectations, this is the best open world design i've ever seen. reminiscent of how much i loved playing breath of the wild for the first time, but even better

like botw was fantastic to explore & dense with interesting puzzles, but the end result was always shrines, and the enemy variety was very limited. while here there's a ton of interesting things organically integrated into the game world, and the combat is fantastic as always with from

pc performance is a bit rough but still playable at least

yeah i'm having a fantastic time. just got into the storm castle thing near the beginning, after avoiding it for quite a while.

My friend says he’s being invaded constantly since the roundtable? He’s not playing co-op, not seeing anything online about it, we’re both baffled.

there's one place i've seen so far where you seem to get invaded automatically (and it doesn't seem to be a real human). i encountered it right before the roundtable and not since

like botw was fantastic to explore & dense with interesting puzzles, but the end result was always shrines, and the enemy variety was very limited. while here there's a ton of interesting things organically integrated into the game world, and the combat is fantastic as always with from

haven't played this at all but i feel like you could've said the same thing about botw up to a certain point? the game world seems wondrous and varied at first but the further out you go the more you start to notice the repetition

Maybe, but this is definitely not “go to x landmark, get y item” at all so far like BOTW was.

Closer to Red Dead 2’s open world in its uniqueness of encounters.

Oh, uh, I kinda misread that.

Anyway, my friend rebooted his PS and the invasion problem went away. Guess it was a bug, but with something like that you’d just assume…

Huh, that sounds like my kinda bug, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a designated post-Pontiff Sulvayhn style invasion area where the rules are different.

I guess we’ll find out if that’s a bug or a feature eventually.

I binged the hell out of this, taking a break. Half delirious. It’s kinda insane that what I’ve seen so far is apparently just a small fraction of the total.

I'm a bit stuck at the first Stormveil boss, but i did a ton of extracurricular exploring otherwise, especially in the south peninsula. i managed to find a map for that one, too. finding a map is crucial for me, and it's hilarious because finding a map feels so rando

I was struggling to find the map for that eastern portion, but its location was apparently marked… on the map.

Granted in the grey mass of the map, but it was there.

Looking it up, they’re typically along the main roads.

put in about two hours and got killed all over, found at least four separate solid possibilities for deep exploration. there's too much stuff almost immediately! I need to settle down and follow the storyline so i can get the horse and level up!

good moooooooorning

PRAISE THE SUN!

I’m gonna be back on the grind in a minute. Been doing a lot of texting trying to explain myself to friends who bought this on my recommendation.

It has turned from “wtf, this is impossible” to “i just cleared some caves!” pretty fast though.

I'm gonna restart i think. Doing wretched was a bad idea as I think i want a thief build.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/hidetaka-miyazaki-sees-death-as-a-feature-not-a-bug
^presented unread

i love this anecdote

In Elden Ring, if your game system is connected to the Internet, the ghostly outlines of other players occasionally flicker onscreen while you roam, suggesting that you share the burden of your experiences. It’s even possible to summon another player for help during a taxing encounter. The players can’t readily talk to one another, so the difficulty is leavened by trust; after the challenge is complete, the summoned player dissolves in a shower of light. Miyazaki had the idea for such moments years ago, after his car became trapped in snow on a hill. A group of strangers pushed the vehicle to the top, then disappeared soundlessly into the night.

You guys are going to make me buy this shit
Hoping for a lot of strand type gameplay on the horse

xp That’s an amazing anecdote.

Beautifully rendered anyway.

I’m back on this and have been texting with friends about the pain and the glory. Special kind of game, like it’s very much not always fun. But coming out the other side of a struggle is uniquely, brilliantly rewarding.

I'm trying to remember, but maybe because it is most fore of mind I felt that dark souls 2 played up in-game NPC phantom helpers more than the other installments did, so that those playing offline like I do get a bit more of that experience.

Turns out the kick is now an L2 weapon art connected to certain weapons like the mace you can get in the area to the south of Limgrave

I like how there are so many non-hostile creatures on the map, just sheep running on armadillo code and minding their own business, but what are those jellyfish that hang out near piles of corpses up to you have to wonder

Finding a flail that you swing around wildly made me want to restart as a dex build, but making do squishing people with the regular mace for now

love too inadvertently jump off my spectral steed while trying to make a rapid escape from being You Died.

also i have not yet got the hang of fighting mounted enemies, on my spectral steed or no.

On early thing that seems to work is attaching the hors and knocking them off

I died a bunch of times to the tree sentinel but god it was good

finding a cave with wolves guarding a beastmaster stuck in some forest is kind of a perfect way to get the ball rolling here. roll d10 for initiative.

I want to find the wolf cave. When I stopped I had ridden into bear country.

Yeah I've played all of two hours so far and the Beastman guy is kicking my arse

I need to get used to defending more. I'm used to Bloodborne which I guess has the gun parry, but you don't have to use it all that much

Found the Beastman later than I was perhaps expected to so that was no problem. I think he's supposed to teach you to use your jump attack to get over his sweeps? Very Sekiro-like. In learning that the jump and guard counter mechanics are pretty key.

Now I'm approaching Stormveil.

What happens in the not-fighting-bits? Hard to tell from the streams

Also I’d feel bad stabbing these nice eccentric/looking mythological creatures so I think this game may not be for me

found a third map today! Also, without being spoilery, has anyone else been down the Siofra River Well? on one hand i was definitely underleveled for what i found there, but i kept sneaking and running past everything and completing objectives and finding new sites of grace, so i just kept going for a long time. eventually i had to bail because i was getting one hit killed, but...anyway, very curious about that place

I’m there at the moment. I am also getting one-hit killed by this large being but refuse to leave without beating him. Think I am in for a painful couple of hours

I can get him down to 1/3 of his health fairly consistently with my scythe-jousting strat (the horse is my favourite part of this game), but haven’t broke that barrier in around 25 tries. Feel so close!

Mostly don’t want to give in because I’m not keen on taking that 5hr elevator ride again.

siofra well was a real skullsplitter on that initial elevator descent. i've done the same, a bit of running around avoiding beasties, a bit of being a cooperator to gain a bit of confidence slash learn a bit about the fights down there, but do generally feel well underleveled

Managed to kill Beastman after a small bit of grinding and finding a sword armament. Then tried my hand at Stormveil. I don't know how much this game expects me to kill enemies rather than run past them on my horse. There's that big giant right as you get on the path up there and he's not exactly a cinch to kill. Then there are arrowmen whose ranged weapons are hard to dodge. I ended up just riding as quickly as I could. Then the Magelin (?) boss killed me pretty easily.

Really enjoying this game though. I love the open world feeling and it's a lot less claustro than Bloodborne

Patches!

So is the idea to spend time carefully exploring/being avoidy and levelling up a bit, like I'm used to in Skyrim maybe?

I think so!

I love how we're all having completely different experiences. I keep trying Margit, then going off to do other stuff.

lol, i love that i have found the "Margit Bind" but not Margit! And apparently vice versa.

I have no idea how non-spoilery we want to make this or if sharing stuff we find is in the spirit of the game.

Anyways, fuck the rolling death chariot behind the double-key at the start of the game and FUCK THAT ULCERATED TREE SPIRIT, it's gonna be awhile before i try him for real

there is a cave on the beach, terribly far away from where you start and separated by an ocean from a tantalizing castle on an island. you find the cave because a group of primal cave people are sunning on the rocks nearby. you kill them and then go in and it's pitch black. new chimps flood out and kill you. it's too dark, no way forward. an hour later, you meet a merchant in the ruins of a church and what do you know, he's got the first torch you can find in the game. You travel back to the cave to find maybe a dozen cave people and a handful of wolves stuck inside. with persistence you take them out one at a time: one by leaping off a balcony and splitting his noggin, one with a well placed arrow headshot, a few stuck in a crooked pathway by wildly swinging my sword as i run down the stairs. Eventually, everyone's dead. I find the only route out and it's a fog wall but there's something new this time, a golden summon sign. A knight appears and joins your side. You lope into a room to find another half dozen primal people eeeking and ooking the place up, suddenly joined by a newly awakened giant half wolf zombie thing. Your knight friend is doing good damage so you try to kite the cave people away. Oops. You've awoken the second giant half wolf zombie thing. They gang up on the knight while you try to clean out the little guys, then make short work of you. Lesson learned. Next time, you keep it close and murder them one at a time, easy peasy. The knight disappears and you leave the cave room to go up a series of tunnels. You emerge on an island far out at sea and it doesn't take long to realize it's the island you saw before. It's infested with little crabs and giant, friendly, floating jellyfish. In the center of the island, within the castle, is a fossilized dragon. There is an altar before the dragon that asks you to insert a dragon's heart to receive its power. You have never yet seen a dragon before in this world. The future is terrifying.

ended up at siofra after choosing to explore rather than proceed through stormveil and it's really worth pushing through, the final boss fight down there is beautiful.

have we talked about the rolling goats?

Haha yeah I saw one do that just out the corner of my screen

enjoying this. interesting what jordan said about beastmaster. i hadn’t really been applying sekiro thinking to this - but that combination of leap and dodge thinking, plus guard retaliation sounds exactly right.

i chose the bandit and the light knife, which you can slash away with until a mob enemy dies is *really* poor discipline for fighting. might start again with a different class.

also lol Erdtree Burial Watchdog clearly a v basic level boss but my dark souls/sekiro discipline has completely deserted me (see above) and i made really heavy weather of it. took about five or six goes.

will aim to do beastmaster today. just mainly been exploring Limgrave out beyond the main map fragment found by the guardhouse ruins. need to get better at getting rid of mounted foes who are just wrecking me at the moment. and really want to take out that area to the east with the astronomer/mage perched out on a long pillar throwing magic at anything in a 360 radius. v v enjoyable game.

lovely the way new secrets reveal themselves at night as the erdtree leaves fall, and you get that shimmering buff (no idea what it does yet - no spoilers please)

I am finding mounted combat really hard. Even trying to kill a goat that's right next to me, I seem to just be randomly slashing the air.

Anyone else been transported to the crystal mines and thought they'd broken the game?

it took me a while to realise I could fast-travel out of Table of Lost Grace, I got beaten up by the sorcerer guy who spawns there a fair few times.

That guy is annoying! I got him down to two swings from death and then he chugged an estus. No idea if he provides any benefit in death other than an item which allows you to be invaded at any time which, lol nah cheers

I got kidnapped to the mines yeah, the gross millipede sorcerers are very, very annoying but it's not that hard to suicide run to the upgrade material drops and sprint downhill to the save point. Going outside and seeing the absolute state of the place you're in is a hell of a vibe

Mounted combat is giving me a lot of flashbacks to embarrassing air swings in mount and blade. When fighting mounted enemies I only ever use the horse for a quick first strike, if that, then just dismount and go carefully timed guard counters. The horse does make it feel like you're never really stuck in trouble anywhere when you're outside though

Sometimes, and only sometimes, I slay an enemy and get this kind of red glow about me as though I've drunk a potion - is that health replenishment? It's only happened once or twice. I do miss that mechanic from Bloodborne.

Sometimes if there is a group of similar enemies together on the map and you kill all of them, your stock of healing potions is replenished by x amount

If someone online approves a sign you've written it's just a straight one off health refill (I always get loads when I'm just leaving a bonfire for the first time in a session and rarely ever when I'm actually injured and in combat)

limmy streaming on twitch atm

making me realise mounted combat a *lot* easier when you’re not just armed with a dagger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVE1PZgCgqA
^useful non-spoiler info

great video, thank you! lots of good horse tips in there.

also, i have had very good look in just stumbling onto maps while exploring, but a VERY useful tip in that video is that there's actually a tiny little icon on your map, in the unexplored areas, showing you where you can find the map for that area.

so for anyone struggling to find a map still, take a good look at the map and see what pops out on the unexplored areas.

also, no surprise but holy shit this game must be big. i've warped to a couple places that are waaaaay far away and extend the map out that far to reveal it. *gulp*

god i hope i can beat this game

Didn't you say you never beat all the other From games? That's a bit like saying you can never finish a steak but are competing in one of those 72oz Texas-sized clean-plate competitions.

the real beating this game is the friends we made along the way

i will go try him myself before too long but how hard is the swamp dragon?

If you get that guard break thing where you get the parry sound and they fall to their knees, is there a bloodborne-style visceral attack that can be triggered from the front or are you just expected to circle round and backstab? I've just been getting regular swings coming out whenever I try to follow one up and it feels a bit anticlimactic

That's a bit like saying you can never finish a steak but are competing in one of those 72oz Texas-sized clean-plate competitions.

that is as good a description of what my life is like as anything else, haha!

i do think that this game is supposed to be easier, overall, if still challenging (for me). one big thing is that since it's open-world, it is usually very easy to escape a hairy situation and then just fast-travel to a totally different, easier, area. and also, the vastness of the world means that i'm not eventually "stuck" on a boss like i was in earlier souls games - there are so many other things to do that are slightly easier, so i can go back later.

the first boss in the stormveil castle (forgot its name, but it's the one on the big bridge with no sides near the gates) is kind of a good example of all this. i ran across it the first time and got completely stomped, classic YOU DIED style. i tried again a few more times, and it didn't take me long to get back into the boss fight since now you can re-spawn right outside it. i continued dying, so i explored the big island south of the starting point (forgot the name, sorry), and the area to the east (east Lind...horn? I'm writing this without consulting the internet or upthread to show the depths of how little I remember areas and names, lol. lindmane? east lindmane?). last night i tried the stormveil boss again and was able to get it down to 1/4 health a few times. so i'll just go do some more exploring and come back in another few hours of gameplay, and i think i'll be ready to take it down and keep going into Stormveil.

WHAT'SA it gonna TAAAAAAAAAAAKE?

sorry, spud infinity just came on and i'm the world's undisputed #1 fan of the song, so

It can be your "Eye of the Tiger."

Josh you should be playing this game right now! this is like when botw came out or mario 64 came out or ff7

also, i mean no one has even brought up the demigod that just wants to hold you, and to whom you just want to be held by

sigh. there is a better than average chance I might buy it after I finish horizon zero Dawn. But I'm not sure I've ever paid full price for any (not Nintendo) game, and I've got an epic backlog. Plus, a giant non-incremental progress open world game would probably drive my family crazy. Where is Dad? He's in the basement again, duh

i guess it's time to choose what's more important. elden ring, or your family.

i want to remind you that this game has already been rated a 10.0

at least youre not in the basement of the local bar! where theres another bar guess, it could just have two stories, or maybe its a restaurant that has a bar in the basement

that sounds nice, having a nice protein and carbs eating session upstairs, maybe pour out the poopsock, then head downstairs to grab a beer and play some elden ring

its like cheers except in the back room instead of pool theres console gaming

it's the white lodge to the cryptopawnshop's black lodge

WHAT'SA it gonna TAAAAAAAAAAAKE?

sorry, spud infinity just came on and i'm the world's undisputed #1 fan of the song, so

― dig your way out of the shit with a gold magic shovel! (Karl Malone), Monday, February 28, 2022 4:42 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Haha I'd left the album playing when I popped to the shop next door and was reading this thread as I walked back in the door to this song as I read this

you guys aren't kidding about that elevator ride, wow

ended up at siofra after choosing to explore rather than proceed through stormveil and it's really worth pushing through, the final boss fight down there is beautiful

Oh fr? I started exploring down there, but the insane ghost archers made me say "mmm, maybe later". I was able to beat Margit after doing the Weeping Peninsula and some more leveling/upgrading, so I think it's time for Stormveil.

Also I opened a chest and was taken to a tower far away, where I killed a giant lava golem and got an hp-regenerating talisman.

Speaking of, yes you can do a visceral/crit attack on big enemies after stunning them, although it's not always the head. I couldn't figure it out at first with that giant, but he had a glowing spot on his chest that worked.

did anyone participate in the open beta or follow it much? i'm curious how much of the map was open before launch day

there was no open beta

there was a closed beta, which i think is what he's referring to
https://kotaku.com/elden-ring-fromsoftware-varre-npc-dark-souls-bloodborne-1848589678

yep whoops, don't know why i added "open" on there.

also, i think most of my deaths come when i think i'm holding my shield up with L1, but in fact I am drawing my bow

It was a lot of Limgrave, and you could fight Margit.

Found a bridge with multiple giant lava golem where they kept hitting each other and knocking each other down so I could stab them in their hearts, it was hilarious.

restarted with vagabond rather than bandit and by god it’s so much easier. mounted combat? just get your halberd on and you’re done.

retraced most of my steps - tho there’s a shack to the north in limgrave i can’t find again. also got absolutely hammered by some reincarnating ghouls of some sort while lost in the mist in the woods. but made my way up through storm pass without any problems. well charged up and backstabbed my way back down anyway.

just took out leonine! very good times with the videogames these last few days

You can kill those reincarnated ghouls for good by hitting them as they’re reincarnating (they’re a remains glow blue). Same goes for Skellies.

Also wow Jordan you killed that night? I got one shot and got the hell out of there. Might go back and give him a go

This game is pretty amazing

okay, the fire golem wasn't actually that difficult. the ol' bloodborene strategy of hug the body, dish out hits, rolls even further into the body when he does his easily telegraphed move. Just cashed in Goldrick's great soul (still going to be using DS lingo until I master the new Elden Ring lore) for the grafted dragon head and it's balls fun. Very happy with my str/faith build, been swinging my scythe and black fireballing my way to the position of Elden Lord with a skip in my step. favourite part of this being open world is I feel like I have the time to try out so many different play styles/weapons. Plan to spend the next hour shield blocking before punching monsters in the face with a fiery dragon head. what more could you want from a video game?

Very glad they incorporated parts of Bloodborne's lovecraftian monster design. The massive squid balls on the beach, old mate boss cutting his arm off, the disgusting great tree monster. Realising my most desired from soft game would be this, except with Dante's inferno-esque lore in a bloodborne tone. Open world hell exploring would be amazing and feels like it would fit perfectly into the fromsoft repertoire. This raises the question, where do fromsoft go after this? I don't know if Elden Ring 2 as a straight rehash would hit the same with critics as much as this one (which isn't to say I wouldn't play the hell out of it). They've done fantasy, they've done horror. Based on video game tropes I am highly looking forward to the Elden ring: SPACETRAVEL expansion coming out at the start of this year.

Also I am so impressed at this game from a workload perspective. In awe at how much time and attention would have to be put in. Must have been a crazy increase in budget from their previous titles

it's time for them to make a new armored core

Man, bummed I’ve got a packed week and probably won’t be able to fire this back up until the weekend. Will have to live vicariously through you all.

Same! I beat Godrick btw, now I have a surfeit of different places to explore.

I think I explored too much. Stomped Goldrick first time because I’m level 46 lol

i have no idea where godrick is, and i'm level 33

I went all over the bloody world last night and I know I haven't even scratched the surface yet. Just kept going and going until I got OP'd by some sneak attackers. Lost a lot of Runes. There are also far fewer waypoints as you get further out. Still stuck on Margaret though - I get him down to second phase and then his glowy hammer just mooshes me. I'm probably around level 19 or something I think. The coolest thing about this game is that grinding doesn't really have to feel like grinding since you're generally exploring the world at the same time as killing random enemies and fauna; feeling the place out, trying not to You Died.

Ha, I have a friend playing this who has dedicated himself to riding about the entire world without actually doing anything yet, just picking things up, getting maps, and seeing the sites. I've toyed around with that approach but feel less overwhelmed when I'm doing the slow, thorough exploration approach (even though I'm clearly missing tons of shit, such as most of those stairways that lead to an underground treasure room from overworld ruins).

So I've been trying to figure out what the boss combat is trying to teach me. It definitely punishes you if try to just stay close to the boss and dodge through attacks, since many bosses have these extremely fast attacks that are basically un-dodgeable. Although maybe that's telling me I should be using a shield, lol. I've had the best luck keeping middle distance and using the big jump attacks or charged attacks/ash of war moves after avoiding a combo. Not to mention coming back later if I'm not getting close to getting them.

In the Souls games it always felt like you could avoid ever getting hit by bosses if you knew their moveset and could read them. Here it doesn't quite feel like that -- I wonder if the fact that you have additional options to approaching bosses (spirit summons, coming back overleveled, etc) means that taking some damage is inevitable, or if I just haven't quite gotten the hang of the new combat systems yet.

(and I'm not saying that I'm actually trying to beat bosses without getting hit or anything, just to play it like Elden Ring and not like Dark Souls)

my dex build is based on running in, jump attack, maybe get off a twinblade combo, then retreat and wait for another opening. supported of course by my good friend Ghostly Jellyfish

Are you lot playing online or offline? I find online a bit off-putting to be honest. Too many messages and the ghosts distract me

bloodstains next to an elevator shaft are too funny to pass up imo

Sorting out the troll vs useful messages is its own metagame.

(but yeah, there are a ton of messages right now, there will probably be fewer later on)

I can’t get the What stains to work for some reason. I wonder if it’s some sort of a glitch specific to my play through

are What stains blood stains? i would call them How stains, haha. :) anyway, if so, i'm having the same problem - i often click on blood stains, and i only see the manner of death maybe 1 out of 10

I feel like that's always been weird in these games, idk why.

Watching Saint Riot's stream where he decided to do his playthrough without using fast travel, got transported to *redacted* very soon after he started playing, and resolved to simply walk back (before even getting the horse!).

Hoosteins

went and said hi to margit, and have decided actually i will pop round later after all if it’s all the same.

v much enjoying the “errant knight” feel to this. esp with the sense of the ruling powers’ soldiers patrolling the land and keeping some semblance of order. sounds odd to say but you get a feel of the politics of the place.

Loved coming across a ruined chapel of Marika through the mist as well, and getting buffeted about up on Stormhill. discovery feels like discovery and as has been pointed out, so nice to not have people giving you bloody quests etc.

on the boss battles agreed that rolling isn’t really working for me - doesn’t just feel like mis-timing. wondering whether it’s expecting a more flexible use of weapon arts, jumps and jump attacks, dodges etc. sekiro was v v good at training you and i don’t really feel i’ve quite got the measure of it yet.

sense of the ruling powers’ soldiers patrolling the land and keeping some semblance of order. sounds odd to say but you get a feel of the politics of the place.

oh this, i definitely feel this too, at least in this early portion of the game. the witcher 3 kind of had that feel too, but there was sooooooo much expository text (and experiential too) that it was unmissable. it's much more subtle here in E.R. (season 1, with george clooney) and the better for it imo

I found some sort of mirror hidden in a bush and it transported me so far away. Also: the elevator. This game is enormous!

My only regret is I am not going to finish nearly the amount of games I wanted to this month :( Goodbye DKC:TP, NSMB:U and MGSV

I like acronyms

Yep I’ve got GT7 arriving tomorrow but fuck knows when I’ll get around to it. After meeting Margit and having similar feelings to Fizzles I went galloping round the castle walls, found an old dead guy and took his grape (which turned out to be an eyeball I need to give to a blind maiden?), then kept riding and somehow ended up in Lake of Liurnia which seems to be absolutely enormous, I’m totally lost and loving it.

Ha, I plan on playing this for years to come.

I like this - I went back and fought the dragon with halfway similar tactics, except I was still attacking his ankles, running away on the horse to avoid firebreathing attacks, running in with the horse, repeat (when I should have been bold enough to attack the head).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_18aBpTIY64

I am going to have to put this on pause so that I don’t fuck up my work. Not happy about this. It’s too good.

Is there any chance this will play on a nearly ten years old non gaming rig? I'm definitely not buying a new console or pc for it and it's not like I have any time to play games or have played any games in the last 6+ years thanks to kids and even if I can play it I will probably resent both the little time I have to play it and the loss of the other things I would be doing if I weren't playing it. But I want to play it.

No. The required minimum specs are quite high (it doesn't run well for people with top of the line PCs at the moment but even if patched you'd not stand much of a chance of getting anything workable. You'd be better off getting a 2nd hand ps4 if it was enough of a draw to play it

god i'm terrible at this game. i have been fighting the Fire Thief for about an hour straight, could have killed him within the first few tries, and many times after that. i guess it doesn't help that i keep getting one-hit killed. might be a little further out than i should be

Oh interesting, did you already beat Godrick? Or did you circumvent Stormveil entirely? I heard that was possible, although I haven't looked for the route.

Circumvented stormveil! it was easy, you can just go right around the back and then down the cliffs. I'm so close to beating this dude, and I would like any fire-based item he has, but my attacks are really weak and i don't have any good counter-magic, so i'm trying to pull off this very long tedious fight with zero mistakes

dark souls style, basically. i should probably switch it up

Oh cool yeah, that's definitely the hardcore approach.

Even after just doing the Weeping Peninsula and Mistwood (along with a few other brief excursions), I feel somewhere between evenly matched and overpowered against anything in Limgrave/Stormveil/early Liurnia.

Also I feel guilty about how good this Bloody Slash ash of war is, I'm trying not to overuse it against bosses because of the ridiculous damage.

fuck yeah! killed the asshole, finally! And got the Flame of the Fell God invitation, which requires...FAITH 41. My Faith is 17, and I started as a Confessor. sigh.

I keep running into this, actually - getting rewarded with items that are just way beyond my stats. which tells me I'm way out beyond where I'm supposed to be for my level, but I'm also still struggling with some basic enemies around storm....veil? I think the reason I don't know the name is that there's also stormgate, the stormfoot catacombs, stormhill, and...i haven't gotten to hte site of grace that's actually inside the castle yet because i still need to kill the boss.

ok, time to carb up in real life and then come back to *looks at camera* take care of some unfinished business

you know one thing i'm glad is not in the game? weapon degradation

Yeah I finished Demon's Souls remake last week and going from weapon degradation and having to constantly manage the weight of your entire inventory to this game where none of that is a thing at all was somewhat akin to waking up in the morning and realising it's a Saturday

Oh btw "cointandplick" is too long for a group keyword, I propose just using "ilg"?

Sure!

for anyone else like me who struggled a bit to find it, it's in Pause>Multiplayer>settings

you know one thing i'm glad is not in the game? weapon degradation

I just got this for early bday gift and even the character creation screen is too much for me haha. Battlemage or standard warrior. I cant decide.

I've beaten Godrick and am well into Liurnia now, I've made my way into the wizardy castle and there is much wizardy bullshit to contend with. I might give Caelid a go instead as [minor spolier] I've found an ice weapon, which would seem to be helpful there. A Dex build with a bow and arrow seems like a good bet for this game, though I'm looking forward to using a mage build at some point. The game is crazy big, comparable to Skyrim, it's astonishing.

Damn I need to bite the bullet and actually go into Stormveil, I've been happily wandering through Limgrave and the adjacent areas since release. Was briefly stuck on the Ancestor Spirit last night but then powered through and beat Agheel and the amusingly hair-raising demihuman chiefs boss fight before chilling with some penguins on the beach

I've ended up abandoning the idea of sorcery and speccing towards faith tank so I can use the tree sentinel's big halberd; I'll probably end up regretting this when I realise its moveset is too slow to fight all the dogs and flying things this game throws at you and also I spent all my magic weapon upgrade stones on the dang crossbow

i usually favour dex builds (introduction to fromsoft was bloodborne) but i’m pleased i switched from my nascent bandit dex build to a strength build. might go back when i’ve got a bit more used to fighting rhythms and tactics, as i was dodging fuck all with my bandit.

xp I did a fair amount of wandering around there too, I still have a few spirit gaols and dungeon bosses to sort out. I managed to stop one of those walking bell isalnds which was wandering around the Weeping Peninsula, really cool if too early in the game to be of any use!

on combat: I'm finding that a dex build with a decent shield and the block riposte mechanism works well, particularly with my favoured rapier enhnanced with the Blood Slash Ashes of War.

nice, yes, i can see that. and it’s a good point on the shield - i was taking too much damage with my buckler for the guard riposte to work well (also needed to up my stamina because i was getting staggered too easily).

Decided not to buy this given I already have four 20-30% completed From games sitting in my library and my dog doesn't really let me get much solid play time.

Cracked, obviously, and jumped in last night, pup be damned. Decided not to read anything & enjoying the mix of souls familiarity and mild confusion.

xp I managed to find an underground area early on (wtf there's a whole beneath-ground set of areas that would seem to some good proportion of the size of the overworld???) for which I was under-levelled but I did find a good shield there...

I've been doing dex sorcerer builds in recent From game first playthroughs but went the opposite approach of prioritising early leveling on getting enough endurance to agile-roll in fairly heavy armour. Dodge through one or two big boss swings, tank the last hit with a 100% shield and guard counter, you're in business. I like how many boss fights fall into place when you remember you can do street fighter-style jump-ins or potentially be allowed to do it mounted

You don't seem to get many runes for the minor bosses but there are so many of those glowing skulls that contain runes dotted round the open world that you end up being able to cash a bunch in towards a level up in one go

getting rewarded with items that are just way beyond my stats.

I saw a good tip somewhere in a spoiler-free post that the game is apparently actually really good at subtly telling you if you're under- or over-leveled at any given point. Let me find it ...

This:

if you need a quick, cheap rule for progression, one thing you can do is look to the Smithing Stones. These are the items you use to upgrade your weaponry at a blacksmith—by the way, pick a weapon and upgrade it whenever you can, later swords won’t be better, just different, and you’ll get a lot of your damage output from a properly upgraded main weapon—and they follow a very simple naming convention, starting with Smithing Stone (1) and ascending from there. As a rule, you’re in roughly the right area, power-wise, if the stones you’re finding in the environment are the ones you can actually use to buff your best weapon; if you’re getting a bunch of (2)s when you need (4)s, you’re probably over-powered for the level, and if you keep getting (7)s when you’re still working to upgrade your staff to a (5), you might be just seconds from getting one-shotted by a measly undead soldier working with a late-game power boost.

I've only come across one smith so far and he was at the Roundtable which I don't really know how to get back to

-You can also upgrade weapons at that first church you find (Church of Elleh)

-It's a little weird, but you just go to your map and zoom out, and you'll see the round table on the lower left (and can fast travel back to it)

found those birds you meet shortly past margit, extremely funny in premise, extremely annoying in practice.

haven't tried any ashes of war yet, i kind of assumed they were permament, but can you take them on and off weapons?

xp Thanks! Still really getting used to the whole mechanics of the menus and how the stats and rules work. I think it's pretty strange that you can fast travel almost anywhere at any time without much of a penalty, but you can only do certain things (like upgrading a weapon etc) in very specific places

Just got into this yesterday and have logged a few hours. Playing a Prisoner build, because spellswords are my fave. So far I've managed to kill the beastman, get my steed & the local map, and I have tried and repeatedly failed to take out the whole Gatefront Ruins camp by stealth. I've already felt a little overwhelmed at points, but it's ok.

i killed those giants that sloooooowly pull the treasure wagon through limgrave (toward the gatefront).

man, the game makes you feel REALLY bad for doing so, especially the second one.

Ah yeah the second one managed to just about kill me. But what happened to the treasure wagon? It disappeared!

Weird, I wonder if it got crushed by the giants or something? You should be able to open the chest on the back.

devvvine, yeah you can freely swap ashes of war between weapons. And somewhere in Stormveil you get a tool that can also change the scaling associated with each one (ie which stat the weapon's damage is based on).

Ive never played any Souls games before and I am getting my arse kicked nine ways til Sunday because I cannot get my head round all the controls. How do I assign things to my hands, like the horse-calling ring? Do I get runes simply by killing enemies? Why was I stupid enough to stumble upon Agheel almost immediately and get mashed by a giant crab.

Any really good complete-newb pages anyone can recommend for never-played-Souls players? I found https://gameplay.tips/guides/elden-ring-beginners-guide.html which seems ok but I am more overwhelmed by things like why cant I pick some stuff up (glowing skulls etc), where do I find spells/make spells, and like... everything ahaha.

it's worth noting we all get mashed by the giant crab

-Soooo if you go into your menu > Equipment, you can select what goes on your quick slots. You can cycle through those with the Down button on the d-pad. HOWEVER, there's also the new pouch, where you can assign things to be used with Triangle + a d-pad direction. I assigned the horse ring to Triangle + Down, so that I never have to cycle through items for it.

-You do get runes by killing enemies, and if you ride around on the horse and stomp on those glowing skulls, you can pick up golden runes that show up in your inventory and can be used later.

-Stumbling on ridiculous enemies early is as it should be, best to just ride around and avoid them, come back later when they'll be no big deal.

I think these are good to start with:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLdZ8Zex1cw

Good random mechanic tips, you don't need to worry about all them at first:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVE1PZgCgqA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg_hveDzzvo

bringing back memories of when i first played bloodborne and i was “how does anyone get beyond the first section ffs?”

on the horse whistle, i’ve put mine in a pouch, activated by (playstation) triangle and relevant arrow button.

generally you’ll assign weapons to hands in the equipped screen, also rings to the relevant slots, and items to your uh… things you can hold slots (ie where you’ve got your health flasks).

you do get runes simply by killing enemies.

this is my users guide to elden ring.

like woof i’m trying to avoid reading anything and am just enjoying wandering around finding stuff and going from waling on mobs with a big sword and getting the shit kicked out of me.

I assigned the horse ring to Triangle + Down, so that I never have to cycle through items for it.

alternatively put it in your items, call your horse, forget to switch to health flasks, so when you’re low on health in the middle of a battle, you can blow your horse whistle instead and make your steed disappear before getting rapidly YOU DIED.

Legend, thanks lads.

I'm prob gonna start afresh soon as I get the hang of things, at present I'm an Astrolger and early-game magic-dealing via staff is not turning out to be as useful as Id've liked.

How do y'all dismount usually? I always use L3 crouch (sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally), but maybe there's a better way. Especially for those dragon-type bosses where you want to ride out, and then come in and use an ash of war attack or something.

xp, magic in these games gets pretty powerful, but can be a slow starter. On the other hand, magic ranged combat will give you a lot of breathing room with bosses? In case learning the melee combat feels overwhelming. Maybe prisoner would be better? I haven't messed around with the magic yet tbh.

I feel like some of the button mapping is really unintuitive but that might be me being used to Nintendo. R3 to target is really cumbersome!

i strongly recommend restarting a few times while you're still getting the hang of the game! it's a good way to try out different playstyles.

Usually I'd say starting class doesn't matter that much and you can always shape it into what you want, but they don't exactly shower you with new gear in the beginning, and here I am 20 hours in still mostly using my starting katana and samurai armor. :)

Yeah I think starting class matters way more in this game as you don't really pick up too many new transformative gear/spells/incantations for a while, mid and late-game I'm sure you have way more flexibility

I'm in a weird place with my lvl 30 prisoner character where I can kill some pretty high level things with spells (really one spell in particular) but get wrecked by other things immediately (those spider scorpion things that shoot homing missiles at you) that I think I'm over-leveled for.

So I just wasted my whole 1 hr lunchbreak playing this instead of eating anything, ha ha ha oh dear.

welcome, now you can never leave

alternatively put it in your items, call your horse, forget to switch to health flasks, so when you’re low on health in the middle of a battle, you can blow your horse whistle instead and make your steed disappear before getting rapidly YOU DIED.

Been clearly warned, still 100% going to do this several times in the coming weeks.

oh hi, here's margit

I totally walked past Stormveil and thought I was meant to keep going through Lake Liurnia to get there. Belatedly went back to say hello to Margit and was horrifically over leveled, poor guy

All doing his little speeches as his health bar drains two inches at a time

i have acquired a big sword. everything is going to be fine.

Haha, welcome Trayce.

I've been back to Stormveil TWICE since clearing the boss because I've seen or heard about things I didn't find, and while I've found a lot more, there are still paths I'm missing.

Omg apparently there's a whole second boss (aside from Godrick) in Stormveil! This game.

waht, where is???

"hidden crypt section" :(

https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Lesser+Ulcerated+Tree+Spirit

I killed my first giant today (the one hanging out by the Third Church of Marika). I felt so good about this, I immediately went back to the grace site in the church, respawned him, and killed him again.

Also if Capcom ever makes a Dragon's Dogma 2, they're *really* gonna have to come up with something interesting to compete with this.

I finally enjoyed to play this for three hours last night! So far this game reminds me far more of Skyrim than anything else, the new summoning mechanic gives me flashbacks to atronachs

I am playing as a wretch as promised, have levelled up vigor and strength each five times, found a cool longsword that I'm just strong enough to use two-handed

Have fought and killed a couple of dungeon bosses, was rudely teleported to someplace scary but made it back.

I have beat a few giants even in these first few hours but it's been cheesy and there was a horse involved

How do y'all dismount usually? I always use L3 crouch (sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally), but maybe there's a better way. Especially for those dragon-type bosses where you want to ride out, and then come in and use an ash of war attack or something.

i think this is L3 crouch tbh. v good for doing flying attacks at enemies.

also v good for triggering “dismounts” during really tense moments where you’re desperately trying ride in circles to get in an attack or escape on your all-too spectral steed and you’re holding your controller like it’s a fuckin safety bar on a rollercoaster, popping that L3 for fun.

you know that tiny little head that says "Hi?" when you use it? i keep that in my pouch.

;_;

HULLLLOOOO

Mimic's Veil is def going in the pouch.

i LOVE how arrows stick in you and enemies in this game :)

I haven’t played this because my pc sucks but please tell me they still have the “VERY GOOD” voice item thing

Ah looks like not, but this one might be just as fun: https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Prattling+Pate+You're+Beautiful

Can't wait until I find the "APOLOGIES" one

found the "thank you" one, died shortly afterward to four skeletons who woke up immediately afterward in the same room (i suck), then returned to the same room, killed them all, and said "thank you"

*csi: miami sunglasses*

the singing bird by the minor erdtree in limgrave!! amazing moment

Took a break and elected to investigate the Bridge Of Sacrifice which seemed to lead to the end of the world map. Nope! There’s a whole other area south of here

Elden Ring rule #1: there's always another area.

the singing bird by the minor erdtree in limgrave!! amazing moment

― the world's undisputed #1 fan of 'Spud Infinity' (Karl Malone), Friday, March 4, 2022 12:39 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

no matter how bright it can get, nothing ever really lets up in this game

I thought those minor erdtrees would provide some peaceful solace but nope, they're all guarded by those dumb giant tree avatars.

So I'm not sure what Ive managed to do here. I got to that Stormhill gate, a huge boss thing fell down from above and I realised I couldnt fight him.

Then I came back on my horse and just... powergalloped through all the gates/fences and out the other side, and ended up at a collapsed bridge. I figured I could walk down the side of it and went round what felt like an alt/secret route? And ended up at Liunria of the Lake and met someone who transported me to the Roundtable place.

But I didnt defeat the Stormveil boss

Have I somehow skipped something? The guides say I cant skip thisMagrit boss but I never saw this place?

Ohhh wait I see what I did - I'm on the cliffs ABOVE the lake, I skipped the castle by going round it, ha no wonder I cant get down to the road.

I did pretty much the same thing trayce! I panicked and sped through the gate, then went around the castle and a crazy journey beyond that. Still haven’t taken on stormveil at level 36!

Hehe we all ended up at the same spot apparently. I can’t quit this game! I had a dream about it!

I'm at a very early point where I realise I need to do some grinding - I was so focussed on just working out how to use all the gear/weapons/my staff that I forgot to even bother with any levelling up. I've lost more runes than Ive earned.

I beat Margit. They buffed up the boss strength when you summon NPC help! I summoned Sorcerer guy a few times but found it easier on my own

I liked the Godrick fight and the darkly comic scene that ensues afterwards

Kept on getting close and then running out of healing while trying to be cagey at the end of his second phase, then just got him in a very short fight by being as aggressive as possible

The cutscene in the middle where he just starts going "AAAAAAAGH" in the most insane voice possible was perfect "ah, fuck, what now" Souls foreboding

moving v slowly thru this but it’s extremely amenable to that.

had a fairly easy win over the ghostly Mariner, realised i was hopelessly underpowered for the mobs in Siofra, reached the Roundtable, got hammered by the giant bear, *again*, (indiscipline really, feels fairly standard rolling should make this easy enough), i’m due another go at Margit next time i sit down.

think i’m going to level up stats for some ranged magic/incantations - having options for the bosses seems sensible.

this was mildly interesting:

Video game soundtrack composer Christa Lee made a really interesting point on Twitter: she said the fights actually work more like turn-based battles from classic Japanese RPGs. You make your attack move, then you need to wait to see how the enemy responds, counter that with a parry or a dodge, then take your turn to strike again. It’s all about reading attack patterns, working out the best distance at which to engage the enemy, and ensuring you have the correct weapons and knowledge for the job.

it feels truer in ER than DS even - the bosses are going to exploit the range of tactics available to you and given the range of attacking options is wider than before, so is the requirement for tactical flexibility.

Yes! I've been saying for years that the secret precursor to this series is Vagrant Story

After a week off, I got back on last night and explored the first-ish areas about to my heart’s extent. Put me around level 26. Decided to suck it up and start clearing bosses. Surprised myself by spanking Magrit then Godrick and his level in only a few tries. Went back to clean up every mini boss in the land above, below, and over after ‘Rick. Maybe like eight or so guys? I was on a warpath. Leaned on my spirit ashes, NPC summons, and horse in some variation for all of them.

Feeling cocky, I decided to try a stone sword key level and got absolutely smushed by what was waiting for me at the end. Plenty of struggle ahead!

People are gonna have some wildly different experiences with this thing.

But yeah, so far all time great game, I love it to death.

some seriously irritating souls loss up at Caelid ffs.

I gotta say, npc quest lines are as inscrutable as always. In a world this big, it's even harder to randomly stumble upon their next location. I looked up the one to get the reusable invasion item because I didn't want to mess it up, and I don't know if I ever would have gotten there on my own.

On another note, I won my first invasions in the Academy. :)

Elder Horse

Went over to Morne Castle, murdered a Leonine something. Finally got my strength level up to 30 so I switched over the two-handing the Golden Halberd. I'm feeling like the guard riposte mechanic is so overpowered in this game, like you can pull off Bloodbornes "parry" mechanic but you only have to hold the block button and wait til the right moment. I dunno if this means that I should be looking toward a one-handed-with-shield eventuality. Two-handing is how I enjoy melee in this series in general though so idk!

Also ventured into a sending gate, met a hungry-for-death beast, elected to sneak past a hilarious dragon giant thing, killed a few deadly-but-wimpy smallmen in the tallgreygrass and was collecting 1000 runes apiece (insanity!), levelled up some more and idk what to do now! Greyveil or what's it called I guess?

There is little-to-no armor in this game and I've found next-to-no spells and zero bows. (Wasn't planning on using spells or bows anyhow). I think I've kinda naturally settled into a strength build with a faith-y aspect to it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dnaii1piTrM

out on the weeping peninsula. just generally rocking around. need to find the three wise beasts. hope one of them wasn’t that spectral turtle i slaughtered.

will do margit tomorrow.

I have found a ton of spells I won't be using, but no armor worth switching to. I've been two-handing as well mostly, with a buckler for parries.

Just beat the second story boss in Liurnia! Fun fight, not too difficult. Not sure where to go from here so I guess it's wander time.

I bought the classic Knight armour from the creepy maiden husks. Using mace+5, golden halberd+2 and crepus crossbow+2; the sombre stones are a bit hard to come by but I assume pushing on from Limgrave will turn some up. Haven't put enough points into faith to get any big time miracles yet

Might have a go on the grafted greatsword when I get my strength up but I've got to kill a few big bosses to pay for my levels at this stage

This game is amazing, I wasn't sure I liked the directionless freedom on my first couple of sessions but realising you can go in basically any direction and get a unique souls-quality experience really hits you after a while

My only complaint is that YOU DIED takes too long to appear and you lose some time to aimless enemy slashing at thin air while your corpse decides when to disintegrate

My only complaint is that YOU DIED takes too long to appear and you lose some time to aimless enemy slashing at thin air while your corpse decides when to disintegrate

HOw are you guys levelling up so fast? Compared to Skyrim I am finding levelling extremely tedious in this game. Nothing levels you just by doing day to day spellcasting or skills, you simply have to kill heaps of things and then still find a grace spot to sit and spend the runes at. It just feels really cumbersome to me, it breaks up my flow of play cos I am forever getting a good swarm down then running back to a grace point just to level up so I dont lose all the runes dying. I started a new Prisoner class guy (his staff spell is wicked good but a little slow), and I'm still only on like level 14. Are you lot just playing for hours and hours? Ive been at it since 8 this morning, its 3PM now and I feel like I'm getting nooooowherrrre.

Being able to level at rest points and fast travel to them is more convenient than some of the games, ha. But levels aren't everything, and runes come and go.

Imo the most important thing you can level early on in this game is vigor. Aside from basic stat requirements for weapons/spells, that gets you a lot of hp for your buck, and upgrading weapons seems to have way more impact then scaling?

Yes a few things Ive read have said that too, though I guess it depends on both yr playstyle and yr chosen class. This prisoner dude I now have had a much better starting staff spell, and with it, I can pick off a lot of dudes from a safe distance without getting a scratch on me. I was also lucky very early on to get a weapon drop and some armour. I think I just need to break the long-held Elder Scrolls habit/playstyle Ive always had (slow exploration/lots of crafting/very little close up melee) bcs that playstyle doesnt work well in this game. No cheat-grinding by making dozens of potions, lol.

Idk, you could probably make a magic + archery character that does just that!

True! The guys I have is good hands off combat too, but I guess I dont like that all the other stuff - crafting, talking to NPCs, learning spells etc - gpes toward XP/levelling!

All that said I'm really enjoying this, what a time sink. I'm grimly determined to git gud.

I dont like that all those things DONT go towards levelling that should say obv. Yay run on sentences.

Speaking of crafting, is anyone finding much use for it? Maybe Idont have enough recipes yet but none of them seem terribly useful, aside maybe from that soft landing/silence one and the firepots.

The thing that will get you runes is killing shit, especially big or difficult shit.

i don’t think those other things go towards levelling, Trayce, other than tangentially, ie talking to NPCs will sometimes direct you towards specific areas or give you useful info (obliquely obv), and spells will help you kill shit.

with death so lightly punished and so integral to the games, it sounds like you may want to bias a bit more towards just fighting things, especially challenging things, though the game usually does a good enough job of that for you. and tbh i’m v much playing slowly, and exploring the relatively easy but unknown areas in Limgrave and Stormveil. Only level 24. A nice thing about ER is that it’s really relaxed about how you approach it.

Still. Time for Margit.

i haven’t done any crafting though some stuff looks like it might be useful - like trailing a fire pot off the back of your steed, which by the way i quite like the way it looks a bit more like a shaggy auroch than a thoroughbred.

one other thing - weapon descriptions were a great way to get into lore and story in DS and Bloodborne - but they seem pretty thin in ER. am i missing something?

It's funny, but invading after I think I've explored an area is a great way to find what I missed. As in, where the hell is the host? Oh, I apparently he went in this secret passage and dropped down into that room with the closed door, cool.

Also a good way to see so much wild gear, like someone using a jellyfish as a shield.

did margit, with co-op, but fuckit. lost a *lot of souls* in this session. a lot. love the music in stormveil castle (in the game generally in fact - it’s v good)

still haven't been able to defeat Margit. :( I really want to do it myself, without calling in a player summon / co-op, but my character is just too squishy. I'm able to get Margit down to about 20% but at that point my summon pals (wolves+1 or a giant jellyfish+1) usually die and i'm not strong enough to bring Margit down 1 on 1.

do smithing stones regenerate in the mines/caves? i ask because although i have a surplus of smithing stone[2] and somber stones, i can't level up my broadsword+3 any more because i can't find any. more smithing stone[1]

sorry for many typos

i'm just realizing...i need to upgrade my fucking armor!!!!!!!

maybe that's my problem?! god i'm an idiot. i'm still mostly using my starting gear, as the drops around limville and cato caelin haven't provided me with much of a better option. but i think i've only upgraded my weapons and completely forgotten about my armor? going back in.

maybe you can't upgrade armor? (by "armor" i mean my helmet, greaves, etc. by "upgrade" i mean "pay a guy and use some smithing stones to add a +1")

Nope, smithing stones don't regenerate, I don't think (although enemies in the mine still drop them, and there are other mines).

I don't think you can upgrade armor? I hope not anyway. Maybe just explore another area and come back?

HOw are you guys levelling up so fast? Compared to Skyrim I am finding levelling extremely tedious in this game.

Generally, I ensure that I am levelling up once or twice after every mini-boss. Yesterday I killed that dragon on the lake near the starting point, got sidetracked into a weird helldungeon and lost about 6k runes as a result. Usually I'm not so hubristic.

One thing that I tend to exploit in this game and other From games is that when I realize there's an opportunity to do some soul/rune farming, I take it when necessary. Somebody (D? I think?) told me about a "sending portal" to the East of the start and put it on my map. I went there, was teleported to some advanced area, and met this beast god I think I was supposed to meet. I peeked outside and there was a present-tense-unkillable dragon fucker who would not attack me if I snuck by him. Behind him? a field full of deadly-but-easy-to-R1-spam creatures who netted 1200 runes each.

So I killed about 12 of them, mostly by sneaking up and criticalling them, and walked away with 15k runes. I decided I was going to buy the Knight set from the two-headed creature in the Round Table area, which was gonna cost about that much, so I warped back out to that field, murdered 12 of those creatures, went back and bought it.

I'm Level 36 or so now, have beaten Margit but not Godrick, have killed every mini-boss in the first three areas (I forget the names, but like main area one, the Weeping Peninsula, and that woodsy place immediately to the East). I haven't killed the Ball Bearing Bastard (I gagged when he first showed up), or that one evergaol dude on Stormhill or whatever. Haven't finished the underground river starscape place either. Wow this game is big

Speaking of crafting, is anyone finding much use for it?

So far, bone darts and that's it. I use bone darts to pick off groups one-by-one and to trigger those catacomb fire pillars from a distance. I've crafted some of the "I wanna summon somebody" items, too.

i'm just realizing...i need to upgrade my fucking armor!!!!!!!

You can't! Shields can be upgraded. I'm unsure as to whether or not it's worth it, though, the upgrade table only gives information about "increasing damage" of shields, which is not useful. I assume there is some increase in guard counter stats or something but it doesn't say so, so idk

fwiw: I'm wearing boring-ass Knight armor, my Wretch was wearing hand-me-downs and I needed SOMETHING, so I bought it. I switch between the Golden Halberd 2H (which looks ugly with the armor) and a more-appropriate Heater Shield + Longsword combo. I did a sneaky suicide run into a distant castle to grab a Fire Ash for the Longsword (at Level 36 my stats are still low enough to justify some of those high-base-damage-but-poor-scaling options).

Oh, I accidentally smacked a key ally when she was imprisoned and so I did some googling about how to save our relationship and it is looking bleak but I'm hoping I'll solve it when I beat Godrick and get to the next area

Smithing stones are rare drops from imps, and apparently (1) and (2) varietals can be purchased at some point.

godrick kicked my ass.

Yeah, my one complaint so far is that there’s really not a lot of armor. At least in the earlier part of the game. I think I’ve got 40 hours in and my collection’s pretty pitiful.

MARGIT HAS FELLED YESSSSSSSSSS

finally i can face the world with some dignity

the weapons, buffs and summons that ended up working for me were:

claymore+2, both hands.
ash of war: golden vow (sacred, gives you this skill: "granting self and nearby allies increased attack power and defense"
wondrous physick: one that boosts faith, one that boosts charged weapon attacks
talisman: boost charged weapon attacks
summon: wolves+2

before going in, i summon rogier, my old friend, who, at this point, i have spent more quality time with, accumulatively, than some of my own friends, and we traverse through the mist. immediately summon the wolves, huey, dewey, louie, moe, curly, larry, domingo, carreras, and pavarotti. i use the cerulean flask to fill my FP back up, then use the Golden Vow skill described above to buff all the wolves and old rogier's attack and defense, as well as my own. THEN i use the wondrous physick to boost faith (which boosts the sword, which is sacred) and charged weapon attacks.

then i let that mess of friends distract Margit, until i get behind it and do a full charged attack. get one in, back off, let others distract him again, repeat until the stance is broken.

and that's it. suddenly it was so much easier than all the other times, and it was because i was double boosting a couple different things (charged attacks and sacred/faith stats)

I can't tell, but I am intuitively feeling like "armor means more" in this game than previous Souls games.

I just want to say, too, that I've had a couple ermagerd moments:

The first time I went back to the Warmaster shack to buy something nice, I came at night without knowing better and the Ball Bearing Hunter walked out of the wall glowing like the fires of Hell and I screamed holy shit and died soon thereafter

Arriving at the second bonfire in the Siofra River Ruins, seeing the roof of the cavern as a starry sky, I thought "wow they really killed every chicken in the coop for this feast huh"

i now feel slightly overleveled for stormveil proper, and it's a good reward :)

So, I know all the little monsters/soldiers etc all just respawn as soon as you save but please tell me once Margit/Godrick et al are done with they stay done, right? What about Agheer?

BTW does siofra ruins remind anyone else of Blackreach from Skyrim? I ended up there by accident and noped back out, I figured Bad Things lay ahead.

Siofra River, i meant.

once the bosses are done, even the mini-bosses, they're done! like, remember that guy on the horse near the very beginning of the game? you kill him, he's gone gone

So for all you folks that are playing this, will it even be possible for people to post 100% walkthroughs or even just regular walkthroughs? It seems like it might not lend itself to that.

nah, any game has a walkthrough

there are five main bosses (i think), five main lands (i'm guessing). go in this order to defeat them, optimally. there are already 1000s of guides for elden ring

Oh! I just remembered something else I'm not clear on. Side quests - how to keep track? I think Ive been given a couple (old weird witch lady on the bridge, something about 2 crescents joining?) and... there seems to be no quest log in the menus. How do I keep track of what NPCs ask me to do, do I have to just write it in Notepad or something? What is this, 1994.

You gotta keep track yourself. Also, for a lot of them, you kinda gotta look it up. Not entirely clear what to do next.

And yes, these games are deliberately old school in many ways.

I saw a little starters guide that recommended just writing it down irl. There are markers you can use on the map, as well, but they’re not too useful

xp!

I am not writing anything down, and intend to consult guides when I’m done an area to see what I’ve missed

Played co-op with a friend and it was surprisingly easy. She helped me with Godrich, and her help was helpful? but I murdered the guy, got two guard-break into critical during the fight, very rewarding!

@ Trayce: I have discovered but not explored two underground areas incl Siofra and they are not esp difficult and they have amazing upgrade materials, both

They link between each other, map-wise, the underground worlds. Like a Dark World. I’m reeling

What impresses me most about this game weirdly— I mean, the design and the bosses and the landscape yes yes— but it’s the adaptation of all the best elements of previous From games into something that is simultaneously more accessible/easier but still retains its extreme difficulty. I’m taking a particular pleasure in the Ash mechanic, being able to hot-swap your upgrades, compare damage rates between them, it’s ingenious

A weird thing which is so obvious but so good is the No Skill Ash; put it on your shield and you can use the Weapon Art in your RH (via L2) without issue

Re: guides. I’m staying spoiler free as much as I can. I did spoil myself for some suicide run Ash stuff— a fire plug in for my longsword, and the withstand-everything plug-in for my shield

people are really going wild for this game

It’s one of those games that’s going to make everyone else have to confront what’s possible. The people who spend a hundred million dollars making Assassins Creed games will have to look at it and go “oh shit” https://t.co/gEih4YrCs0

— plainclothes goth (@Arr) March 7, 2022

Improving on Margit but he whoops me at last minute every time with combos I just can't seem to get out of. I've got my twinblade and even an advanced ash I found that gives him scarlet rot. I just can't seem to stay alive quite long enough

I just noticed the 'underground' toggle on the map, wild.

I know no one else is doing this, but I've decided invasions are fantastic in this game. I'm addicted to invading in the Academy, in the area before marble madness. The fact that there are no (or very few) true combos means you use all the moves & tools at your disposable, and everything has a place. It's like a microcosm of what they did with the game as a whole.

Also it made me realize that while the katana is fast enough for pve, I needed something faster for pvp (at least for my style, running around unlocked interrupting people's attacks and weaving in and out).

Theres no map mode while in a cave, is there? I got hopelessly lost in one of the smallest caves in the start area full of wolves cos I had no torch.

That Thai ad is fucking bonkers btw

xp you can find cave maps, I got one for Siofra and for another cave/river area I've discovered. Check the icons at the bottom of the map to toggle from underground to overground and vice versa too.

I've now got a magical rapier +10 and have begun to tune my spirits, gitting gud. Agree on the armour thing, presumably sets begin to show up more often deeper into the game, IIRC that was the model for DS3...

Watching that amazing Thai ad (thank you I now vaguely understand the back story after as usual completely blanking out on the game intro) and finding it trying to stick to my no-serious-investigation principle and resist the 'Get Overpowered Early in Elden Ring!' video in the sidebar (especially since I'm working and I'm at the stage where if I can't play it, I want to browse about it. Also its Vaatividya who iirc is reliable and has a pleasant voice).

Anyway, only a few hours logged so just exploring and levelling (cynically doing the usual kill-rest-rekill cycle on manageable groups - is there any downside to that in this one?). Took down a couple of little dungeon minibosses - I'd forgotten the joyous & visceral rush of managing it after repeatedly you-dieding, even if I had a jellyfish to help me this time.

Only minor complaint is, like Trayce, I feel like crafting should level something - nothing serious, just a separate good-at-crafting stat.

RE: crafting, I could sorta see replacing the mechanic of buying recipes with unlocking recipes via leveling up a crafting skill. Though actually leveling up your character via crafting would be kinda wack imo. You get useful items from crafting, don’t think you need more incentive than that.

just met a giant tortoise wearing a mitre!

Oh yes! I met him yesterday and I hope a certain NPC isn’t mad at me any more, too

xp right - I wouldn't want actual levelling, just extra recipes etc. I think it's the ex-WoW player in me that likes having low-stress by-ways to wander along.

I'm addicted to invading in the Academy, in the area before marble madness

Well, now I have to make a beeline to the academy!!

The academy also has tons of spells for the sorcerery-inclined, as you would expect.

I have not met the Bell Bearing Hunters, but I would like to!

Only noticed the "underground" toggle on the map yesterday, it's truly insane to think that there is an equally large world to explore underneath the main one. I've only dipped into Siofra so far.

I made it to Godrick last night, will probably do a bit more exploring before coming back, but I don't expect it to be an epic Margit-like humiliating experience this time around either, ha!

I have not met the Bell Bearing Hunters, but I would like to!

1. Warp to the Weaponmaster's Shack in Stormhill
2. Rest until nightfall
3. Say goodbye to your friend, the weaponmaster
4. Rest at the state of grace again to reset the area
5. Go back to where the weaponmaster normally is
6. Die

Excellent ty.

My friend who rode all over the world before doing anything got to Godrick at lvl 44 and smote him on the first try. Being overleveled is a valid strategy, but I think I'm going to keep following the main story quest to try and stay 'level-appropriate', before going off on too many tangents. It's a constant tension though, so many places to go and things I've missed.

an ashes of war question, sorry. for most of them, when you apply them to a weapon, you can choose either "standard" or the type of ash of war you just selected (blood, sacred, heavy, etc). what is the difference between the two? is it that if you pick standard, your weapon damage/type stays the same but you get access to the ash of war's skill? and if you pick a certain type, instead, like Sacred for example, your weapon's stats will also change, and it would do holy damage instead of the previous type of damage?

hopefully that q makes sense, sorry

I could be wrong but I believe it changes the scaling stats of a weapon, so for a example heavy will make it scale with strength and keen will scale it with dexterity etc

I think that's right, but for scaling (what stats it works well with) as well as damage type

Xp

I was over leveled for Margit to the point where the fight was so short I barely remember anything about it. Godrick was good clean, deranged fun and a challenge but probably not the "oh shit" skill check it was intended to be.

I think I might start fussing less over trying to catch everything in an area, I guess you can always do a second playthrough and use a guide to identify which areas you haven't already found to keep it fresh

Yeah, that's just the scaling. If you found the iron whetblade in Stormveil, you can freely change the scaling. So you can take your standard katana, apply a different skill, and also make it keen (scales better with high dex), heavy (strength), or quality (both). I assume there are other whetblades later on that let you change weapons to scale with int/faith/etc.

xp yep

Apparently there are some hilariously busted weapons in late game pvp right now, related to the madness and 'death' status effects

thanks everyone! that makes sense.

i just picked up the Clayman's Harpoon. I might switch to that after doing a lot of broadsword/claymore for the first...50 hours i've played this? i think i'm around there. anyway, it has both physical and magic damage, seems to cut a wide swath, and i'm assuming it'll do decent armor/piercing damage as well.

the iron whetblade in Stormveil

hmmm...don't think i've found it yet, but I have definitely have more exploring to do in stormveil. i'll keep an eye out for it!

It's behind one of those stone imps that requires a stonesword key, iirc

Another thing about invasions, it makes me actually explore my tools more. I'm starting to actually use incantations, because when a party is passively sitting in a small room, it will be cool to cast a globe of darkness or breathe fire. Or if they're surrounding me, I can cast Rejection.

Also will have to find and start crafting the new healing-preventing pot that some people keep throwing at me.

The different infusions for each Ash are a throwback to earlier Souls games, where you could spend a lot of time/energy/souls/research in infusing a weapon in a certain way. In DS1 it was fairly permanent, by DS3 it was semi-swappable, and with Elden Ring (thank goodness) it's an easy plug-and-play situation.

I have myself found that "scaling" is far less important than people make it out to be... you only really see significant damage increases once the pertinent stat gets past, like 40 (at least). I remember in Demon's Souls, despite having levelled up my Strength to 50, using an A- or S-scaling weapon resulted in STILL comparable damage to, say, a Dragon Scimitar upgraded to the same area

I personally find it more important to figure out situational-solutions. I LOVE having a fire-infused weapon all the way to the late game because it's the easiest way to deal with things at lower levels. (Fire infusions have bad scaling but high output, so they are good early on and less-good later on). Already my game got a lot easier when I got a Fire (TM) Ash in a suicide run in some distant Caelin castle, slapped it on a basic sword, and there it is

In short, I wouldn't put too much worry into infusions (Heavy/Quality/Keen/Sacred/etc.), just see which one works at the time, and maybe think about Whetstone if there is one infusion that you extremely prefer. But this is just me! Some people are scaling nuts, I've just become not-one-of-them

No, that sounds about right! In googling for other elden ring stuff, I ran across someone saying similar about how scaling seems more like a higher level thing, and probably more important for the meta pvp community, which tends to be more advanced players.

My main goal is to beat this fukken game! I feel like I’m on my way this time

Yeah for real. When I was deep into DS3 I was scaling-nuts and it just never really seemed to matter so much in the end. I ended up winning with the weapon that had the moveset that worked for me. (In DS3 it was def the Spiked Club, that weapon was great)

It was so easy to go down the wrong path in DS1 (especially) with levelling up the wrong stat, upgrading the wrong gear, finding no way of fixing it except restarting. It wasn't so much the case in DS3 and it's even less so in this game, so far

I finally figured out what Rune Arcs were and I am shocked! what a spectacular way of retaining the Humanity mechanic from previous games and yet making it more worthwhile

Screw you Margaret!

Oh yeah moveset is waaay more important. Also bleed seems really good in this game against bosses/dragons/giant, not sure about other status effects yet.

I tried a rune arc for the first time and was pleasantly shocked that the Great Rune effects last until you die, I assumed it would have a timer. Although I'm a little disappointed that you can't use them as an invader, since presumably the host can. I've got like 50 furled finger remedies & rune arcs from invading so far.

Beat Margaret earlier on. Tried and failed to make it up the castle (via the back route), but constantly finding new treasure, new secrets etc

what's awesome about elden ring is getting your ass completely kicked the first five times you face a boss, then thinking about how you're actually doing so much better than those other 5-10 bosses that were 10x harder, somehow

i just not hit radahn

*no hit

wait, what is a

no hit? like a flawless victory, without them hitting you, or does it mean you kill them off without directly striking them somehow? signed, hiding n00b

also i like your username, it is very evocative! haha

it means what it sounds like. he threw a no-hitter

*halfway through boss fight*

looks like my Tarnished has got a no-no brewing...

i didn't get hit by the boss, when you get to the radahn fight it'll be less impressive than i feel about it

if i ever no-hit any boss, i will feel incredibly accomplished! i am so bad at this game, but it's nice that i can keep going and gradually make progress. in that way, it reminds me of some roguelite games with permadeath that are punishingly difficult, but also gradually let you improve your base stats over the course of many replays so that you can get a little bit further each time - hades, rogue legacy, those kinds of games.

Congrats! I haven't gotten to that boss yet, but he's the one everyone is complaining about, so that sounds very impressive.

Y'all, I've decided that I am just bad at open world exploration. Even knowing that I should go back and find the Warmaster's Shack on Stormhill and the general area on the map, I just could not find it until I looked up the map location on the wiki, then help my phone up next to my map. I tend to ride around the coasts/edges of an area and look for interesting things, but maybe I need to just make zigzags or concentric circles around the middle? Also I'm terrible at finding those staircases amongst the ruins you encounter, I always miss them.

I'm excellent at killing groups of players, very good at pve, decent at boss fights, pretty ok at finding things in the legacy dungeons (mostly because I know the tricks, like always looking behind you for items), and terrible at exploring the map. I've totally reconciled myself to using google for npc quests, as I always do.

That's awesome KM!

I am now committed to playing with my Rune Arc always equipped and my co-op summon always turned on (to replace my lost Rune Arcs)

No more reckless jumping!

Jordan i feel like our strengths/weaknesses are very complementery! if were one of those duos who drive multiday european endurance races, you would be the driver and i would be a really good navigator. when i was a kid i always wanted to be a cartographer and i liked imagining myself down on the "world" and what it would look like from my perspective. i used to kick ass in my age group at games like RC Pro Am and Super Off-Road because i found it easy to imagine the world flying by from the perspective of the driver.

in ER, the one thing i'm good at is knowing where I am, where I've been before (generally), and methodically combing through it. that's the most fun part of the game, to me! my favorite thing is being on undiscovered land and either crouching and stealthing my way around, if i feel like i'm going to die (which i will, which we all will, praise the sun), or riding in triumphantly on a horse and a buffed up sword if i'm feeling sassy (which, i do on occasion).

but the actual skilled part, the rest of the game. yeah i'm bad at that, haha. but i know exactly where i am as i get my ass kicked!

do you ever use the little map token/icons to mark things? when there's a NPC/fetch quest I usually put a little person token on the map. even if you 7 or 8 of them going at once, it still narrows down the options considerably when you forget.

fgti, you should try a few invasions to see what you think :)

Also, I'm on the hunt for a weapon that I saw someone else using -- it's like a shotel but with a longer handle, sort of like a great shotel or a smaller scythe (but with more of a curved blade)? I can't find it on any videos or lists, let me know if this rings a bell.

xp

Yeah we would make a good co-op team. I keep forgetting to use the markers, must do that more often!

xp fgti i was wondering what a rune arc is, but now i realize it's because i don't have a great rune! great with a capital g. but soon i will, godrick willing

I've switched to online mode but I have to say the ghost outlines of other players really throw me a lot of the time

of all people dog latin i thought you'd be comfortable with "stranding type gameplay" :D

weapon scaling does have an impact but you don't really need to worry about it until maybe the latter half of the game if at all, it doesn't start to have a big impact until your weapons are highly upgraded (which also boosts scaling) and then even then you can probably make it through the game fine with nearly anything. you'll still get much more benefit from just upgrading weapons than anything else, with some rare exceptions. pretty much any sort of build seems to be viable - the only thing i've seen people complain about is some of the flashier later-game magic being very difficult to use due to long cast times & lack of poise, but there's still plenty of cool magic that is very very usable.

anyway the scope of this game is insane, i've played 50 hours and am only maybe a third of the way through it? i've got two great runes but i'm obsessively exploring everything

Bloody hell Stormveil Castle is enormous and not many sites of grace to help out. Had to choose between fighting a knife wielding crab and a double hard knight. And those fucking eagles

Can finally wield the Golden Halberd and oh my I am having fun.
Have been using the Grafted Dragon till now and it has done great things in making me actually play better having the absolute tiny range it does. Going from that short range weapon to the long ranged halberd is like switching from nightmare to easy mode. Feel extra attached to it for all the pain that Tree Sentinel caused me. Having a lot of fun with me Str/Faith build but excited to try the respec option I just unlocked from the Academy boss and shift to Dex/arc or something of the like.

I keep getting tempted to switch from faith to int as a secondary stat, because I keep finding int-scaling weapons. That's probably just because I'm exploring Liurnia though. I'm interested in a status effect build but that'll probably take awhile to put together.

i'm not sure what to focus on, with faith, because you also need mind (more FP) and having decent INT helps too, because there are some incantations that require both FTH and INT. and then, if you do all that, you're extremely weak and squishy, so you need some VIT as well.

however, as soon as i started listening to the advice to focus more on leveling up weapons, i started to get more powerful more quickly. a little frustrated right now because smithing stone [1] are so hard to come by, while i find loads of [2] and [3]s.

In Liurnia you can eventually unlock the ability to buy them (1 and 2) from the roundtable, which helps. I'm constantly running back and forth between the weird vendor twins and the blacksmith.

Also I realized that it's not even worth trying to explore if I just have 1/2 an hour on a weeknight, so I'm just invading and experimenting with builds.

I marvel at how quickly you lot are getting along. I find it hard to put more than an hour or 2 a day into this and I'm just getting nowhere, I'm still not even L20 yet.

it really helps to be retired

with no children