Elden Ring: YOU DIED on a horse

beat radahn today after ~10 tries, i have my wolverine claws doing cold damage on top of the bleed damage now, scaling with both int and dex, and once you get those meters full it goes bananas

I haven't even come close to progressing onto any of the real bosses or anything - Magit? - but I did do some more exploring into .. Caelid? The red area? I don't think I'm ready, it was pretty tough, especially all its feral dog beast things. And there was this one archer knight by a castle who kept raining down laser arrows on me.

i met that guy this morning, total jerk

I’ve been playing this regularly while assiduously avoiding battling any bosses or anything big. I’m level 30 and have my main weapon at +4 and haven’t even attempted Margit once lol. I skirted around Stormveil and made my way up north and even got into the magic academy. But I still haven’t beaten the Tree Sentinel (I got pretty close a couple of times but got frustrated and gave up). Wonder how far into the game I can make it continuing this trend.

I levelled up four levels with the Vulgar guys early on around lvl 20, and then did some help-a-friend work with Radahn for about four or five more levels, but otherwise haven't been actively farming, just uh "playing fastidiously", like remembering which ruins I need to loot and which catacombs I need to clear.

As a result, sticking to the beaten path a little longer, I think I might be horrendously overlevelled or something? I'm at 140 and touring the Mountaintop. I'm not finding myself dying that often, usually it's because I fall off something.

Here are some recent deaths I remember

- the perfumers in Leyndell are actually rather punishing when they want to be
- impaled by a very-strong lobster in a deep sewer
- bled to death a couple times by Vulgar losers on a landbridge
- one Erdtree Avatar became two Erdtree Avatars and that didn't work out well for me the first time

And many deaths-by-falling while popping from tree branch to tree branch or rafter to rafter

And many many deaths by instakill chariots

I did kill the Tree Sentinel, so there's that. A lot of early enemies are much easier on horseback so far, and it's tons of fun to just charge into groups like a lunatic. That's one way I knew that Caelid was not really for me just yet, since poor Torrent was either getting easily taken out or I was getting taken off by some strong enemies, like the nightmarish giant dogs.

So the weird thing about Caelid is that the southern part is much more suited to lower levels than the northern part. I don't know if they envisioned you taking a certain path in, or just wanted to scare you with the North, or were happy with both.

Apparently I'm 50 hours in, lvl 70, bopping around doing sidequests and invasions before I continue on. Just found a great big poisonous underground area, very much in character.

Tip on that area: use Flame Cleanse Me (and a talisman to boost your faith if you otherwise can’t). Comestible remedies are not gonna save you

Excellent, I respec'ed my faith down to the minimum for that spell and Heal, put the savings into arcane.

You'll be fine, you only need 15 I think? Use the soreseal and/or the other one that gives you +5. Trust you will need it

Luckily I also have an endless supply of Great Runes if I need a stat bump.

Adam, I'm curious how different Radahn is after the patch, the internet is abuzz saying he's much easier but it sounds like he's still got some fight in him, I'm sure it's still a challenge.

I'm quite a few hours in and still can't even quite kill the cat boss. I've had a go at Godrick but he's totally OP

xp I just beat Radahn last night after a few tries, going in hard with some NPC friends and then dodge rolling when he throws that huge fireball did the trick. After that he was so low on HP that I was able to re-summon a couple more friends then take him down. All in all not too stressful.

i could do without having to fight any more ulcerated tree spirits. i'm around lvl 110 currently wandering around the mountaintop, have fought i think 4 ulcerated tree spirits in total, and really hoping i don't have to face them again.

xp yeah radahn was all about riding around summoning dudes, avoiding attacks until they drew aggro, running in to get some hits, then run away and re-summon dudes, repeat.

the re-summoning made it feel a little less intense, could you do that pre-patch?

I tried my hand at Radahn a few times yesterday, and even got him down to around 1/3 of his health bar, but decided I'd have a better time if I go level up a bit, so I decided to trek back to the Ruin Strewn Precipice and see if I can finally make my way up to Leyndell/Altus. So now I'm stuck on Magma Wyrm Makar, but it seems doable with the right summons & tactics.

God, I feel so weird when people are like "I'm level 80 and I've been playing for 60 hours." I've been playing for almost 70 hours and I'm only level 60! But I die so much. And also I tend to obsessively go back over areas to make sure I haven't missed something cool.

One random thought while I'm thinking about this game: I know that "random isolated NPCs, and maybe a little hub zone" is the FromSoft house style, but I can't help but feel this game would benefit from a few honest-to-goodness RPG towns? They don't have to be huge or dense, just something that makes the world feel a bit more inhabited I guess. I really appreciated how, in BotW, there were still signs of people living ordinary lives despite living in the shadow of a catastrophe. I found Jarburg the other day, and thought, "yeah, more of this, please!"

Yeah you could re-summon in Radahn's phase 2, although I ended up not doing it because that gave him more of a chance to throw meteors at you, and they had insane tracking and one-shot me every time I got hit. Ended up being better to stay close, where he either wouldn't summon meteors or they wouldn't hit you.

Agreed about towns, that would have been nice. Also could have provided some spots to look for npcs when they move around that aren't totally random (I guess they do tend to post up at shacks and churches, but also just on the road, or sometime wherever).

Is this worth getting on the PS4 or is best waiting until I eventually get a PS5?

absolutely worth getting on the ps4. aside from quite rare frame rate issues noted above, especially involving bats or mobs, it’s fine.

xxp

idk i for one am grateful that these games forego towns and such. just get the ghosts of civilization in the long decimated ruins, it's fundamental to the whole vibe.

also i kinda hate going to towns in RPG's and having a zillion meaningless conversations with NPC's. it's like my least favorite part of the genre.

xxp
fizzles otm and I think the basic PS Store edition is PS4 + PS5 (or that's the impression I got when I bought it)

(I'll buy it again if I get a PS5 and it turns out I'm wrong. Maybe I'll buy it again anyway. This game is too much value for money. It's indecent)

idk i for one am grateful that these games forego towns and such. just get the ghosts of civilization in the long decimated ruins, it's fundamental to the whole vibe.

otm, the more grimdark the better for me, though the way FROM have integrated that side of things with some elements of the BoTW open world remains a marvel

Oh man this Melania fight….

90 hours in and level 136, she is destroying me every time. Had been going with an int build with Moonveil+10 have now rage-respecced to a dex/arcane build with rivers of blood+9, getting somewhat closer but it’s a real brick wall at the moment…

I think I'm far from reaching her, but I did watch a couple lvl1 fights on Youtube where people were parrying her every move. Makes it look so easy, lol.

Xp I managed Melania with a Dex/Arc build dual wielding Rivers of Blood and a blood Nagakiba with a Mimic Tear backing me up. I had a few levels on you and some talisman all aimed at raising bleed and attack power, but that path your on should be the way. Took me a handful of tries.

Also had the Seppuku ash on the offhand katana. Definitely the whole bag of the current patch 1.03 OP load out.

idk about Melania, I'm not there yet, but I'm similarly levelled. I did find Alecto (the assassin in the Liurnia plateau ever gaol) to be a remarkable challenge, and he seemed to anticipate Melania's moveset. "A remarkable challenge" I killed him second try, but I was definitely running low on flaskpower at the end

In typical dark souls fashion I got annihilated by Malenia several more times, before everything finally clicked and I breezed past her. I don’t think I took any damage at all in her first phase.

Have now respecced back to my previous build and will spend a wee while exploring some areas I didn’t linger in before (mainly consecrated snowfield and back around Volcano Manor which seems like it might be huge?) before starting what I presume is the endgame past the Beast Clergyman and all that…

Have had an absolute blast with this game, never bothered doing NG+ with any souls games or bloodborne but I’m really excited to jump back into this again right after I finish.

Man, I keep discovering stuff in places i thought I'd stepped over a million times

If I'm favoring a magic build over melee, whats the diff between levelling up FP, vs Intelligence? And should I have put some into faith? I figured the staff spells were enough but Ive seen some amazing looking high-level holy swords.

I am finding the heavy D&D stat wrangling HELLA confusing.

If I'm favoring a magic build over melee, whats the diff between levelling up FP, vs Intelligence? And should I have put some into faith? I figured the staff spells were enough but Ive seen some amazing looking high-level holy swords.

I am finding the heavy D&D stat wrangling HELLA confusing.

My partner has just bought this game and we share played the first couple of hours together. She's already foubnd a ton of stuff that passed me by entirely (like an easy way to kill and farm the troll at the beginning of Stormgate by shooting it with a bow from the left hand side of the cliffs where it can't get you).
Then I played my own game from 6pm-2am, mostly just retracing parts of Limgrave and the Weeping Peninsula and finding tons of hidden caves. I think maybe my favourite thing to do in this game is tracing my way around cliff edges looking for secret paths down.
Then I went to bed and dreamt about Elden Ring all night.

And I STILL am no further in the game than I was three days ago.

I have just acquired sorceries though... I'm level 40 FFS

The thing that annoys me in Souls games is you're in a shop eyeing up some armour or a weapon, but there's no easy way to compare it to the weapon you already have without memorising all the stats, leaving the shop menu, going into your own inventory and looking at what you have. Or am I wrong here? How am I meant to know whether something is worth buying without a lot of tediousness? I'm terrible at memorising numbers for a start, so this annoys me a lot

You're not wrong, there is no quick stat-compare in shops, and it is super annoying. I never buy any weaponry or armor for this very reason, and most of the best gear is stuff you're going to find out in the world anyway. I spend all my runes on the crafting cookbooks and useful items like the lantern.

the inverted carian study hall was the most frustrating part of this game for me so far. genuine demons souls-era mental agony.

I find it frustrating that the shop menu will indicate the number of usable items you possess, but not the same for weaponry or armour. "Do I already own a broadsword, I wonder?" Sorry, you have to leave the shop and access your inventory (or your hope chest) to find out!

Tree Sentinel felled, Bloody Finger Nerjius felled. And suddenly the big trolls are easy pickings for farming. There's one near Third Church I can just spam and get runes from so this is useful

Some more fun invasion clips, I just can't get enough of the magic parry shield skill:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-II0OXR0KMY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3P_ACeWf9A

the inverted carian study hall was the most frustrating part of this game for me so far. genuine demons souls-era mental agony.

― adam, Tuesday, March 22, 2022 8:15 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Oh fr? I remember it being short but maybe I missed a bunch. Do you mean the npc who keeps shooting magic arrows at you?

yup, idk why. i just couldn't counter the loretta's greatbow spam. finally got her, then fell to my death and died to some spider hands before retrieving my runes. vintage souls.

Haha. I just sat there trying to parry her shots with the shield art in those videos I just posted (worked pretty well!).

I have a magic glintblade that does similar to that parry - it can hit things you cant otherwise, cos it comes from up high and whams down on the target.

Godrick felled on fourth go! Whooo

fire giant just took me exactly 40 tries. 40 rune arcs.

Felled the wee Leonine beastie at Castle Morne fairly easily, but apparently I was meant to speak to Edgar first and missed him completely lol whoops. I gave him his daughters letter now but he didnt want the sword. Ive quit for now (work, sigh) ad hopefully he'll take it when I reload.

Given the lack of questlogs it feels like it'd be easy to break some side quests in this game, if you half get a quest, forget it/pass by a part of it/kill the wrong NPC.

You can break a big side quest really easily with Edgar, apparently, not his quest, but another quest he's needed for. I'd suggest doing a little guide-sniffing about him so you don't ruin it, as I did!