Elden Ring: YOU DIED on a horse

Gg! Yeah I was kinda bummed that Messmer's chamber didn't lead elsewhere.

I'm doing the finger gardens and wishing there was more in them given the size and how imposing they are on the map, but it's also possible I'm missing stuff.

That was my experience of that area also, felt like they maybe didn't come up with anything for it.

Yeah those finger butthole places are a bit of a letdown. I didn't enjoy going to the second one because all it involved was dashing as fast as I could to the centre trying to avoid those lamprey homing tether spells (super annoying). Even if there had been new stuff to explore, I wouldn't have been able to. But the only thing I could find of note was a fairly easy c/p fallingstar beast

Yeah those things are horrible. I went back and explored again recently and couldn't really find anything else. Very large area for how few things it contains.

It's just... I'm sure the base game had some pretty open areas, but there always seemed to be "stuff" going on. Even Liurnia of the Lakes, which is a pretty wide and sparse space, still had lots of little hidden secrets, and seemed to be divided into micro-biomes. Compared to things like the Cerulean Coast, Hinterlands, Ruah Base, it's literally packed.

In the DLC, too often I find myself riding my horse in a sort-of zig zag tack up a long wide empty corridor of land with very little going on and only one direction to follow. The zig-zag is just land coverage in case I happen on something cool like a cave or even a hidden item. But usually there isn't anything. When I got to the Hinterland, for example, I saw a hill going off to the left which led to a large plateau. "Cool, there must be something up here", but no - just a bunch of bears and nothing else.

And then on the critical path you fight not one but two Tree Sentinels in a row. You can even summon an NPC to help you, even though you don't really need her. Then it's just a long long featureless ride to the finger gardens. The closest thing I've come to an obvious fetch quest in these games; not helped by the fact you can only access it by using a gesture to access the hidden path - I only worked this out through a guide.

OTOH, there are other areas, notably the legacy dungeons but also other areas of land, that are so layered and intricate I have a hard time mapping them out in my mind. Try remembering how to get to the (I think) Western Nameless Mausoleum by heart. Not simple!

Those two things together - tangled layered paths (+ verticality) combined with weirdly long empty or sparse stretches - seem to be the fundamental rhythm of the DLC. Don't know if that's intentional but I came to like it, tho more looking back on a session than when I was in - feeling like you're in this looping confusing not-quite-filled-in lonely dreamscape. It's a very different atmosphere from the main game - hard to articulate and it sometimes does just feel empty or under-realised but I love the moments where it works (for me, Cerulean Coast and then down into the fissure)

You've definitely got a point, but it's disconcerting sometimes. Like, I'll often find myself thinking "there must be a point to this whole bit, no? They wouldn't have just put this gigantic hard-to-reach plateau on the map for no reason at all?"

It would be fine in some cases (Cerulan Coast is very pretty), but there are at least a handful of these areas that are clearly undercooked or feel unfinished. What about that massive Suppression Tower? It's so big and prominent and takes a good bit of scurrying to get to; you ride a lift up there forever and there's just a chest up there with an item and a fairly nice view of the place (so long as the weather's clear).

Going to these areas and exploring all the little nooks and crannies only to find some butterflies or a mushroom (if I'm lucky) can feel like a cruel joke and a deliberate tax on my time for doing the thing FromSoft have been training me to do for all these years. I don't expect there to be rewards everywhere, but if you're going to have a long weird sidepath, make it lead to something!

No, I basically agree - there are quite long runs where I come out thinking something like 'honestly? smithing stone 7?'. Definitely different from those cruel but funny moments in base game when you carefully edge round some ledges and then it's mushroom.

xpost i like the suppression tower! It's pointless but has sinister meaning at the same time - it makes sense in terms of the landscape. However, completely agree that the finger ruins are undercooked (assuming we're talking about the same place). It's quite unnerving as you go down into them, and on the map, or when you see them from afar, and then they're just a bit empty and crap.

i'm either which way on it all. the most obvious thing, which woof has highlighted, is that it is so different form from the base game. Very different feel. I love the verticality, the tangled legacy dungeons and innocuous gaps that lead to completely new areas all around you. One problem with that though is a sense of being directionless, which leads to those boss dead ends that you mentioned, dl, as well as exhaustive exploration feeling a bit... well, exhausting really.

the emptiness i just didn't mind as I liked exploring the landscapes, and then suddenly you creep up on a busy lair or nest of things, and it produces a different vibe, wandering in benighted lands, rather than the teeming lands between of the base game.

oh yeah, co-sign on the boss dead ends and absolutely the finger ruins - they got a genuine 'get the fuck out miyazaki you sick fuck' out of me when I came to them cold but then they were just thin to go through

Yeah I agree with all this. It was kinda jarring in the main game to get to the Snowfield area where there just was... less content. The DLC feels like a bunch of Snowfields, dressed up in exceptionally pretty ways. The boss and enemy design is wonderful, though.

I'm at 49/50 and 24/25. It's soooooo annoying. Last night I went down the list to find my last Scadufragment, visited every location, got to the end and still hadn't found it.

Part of the thrill, for me, of DeS and DS1 was the way that repetition, exploration, and the density of the design meant that I literally knew every rock and cranny of the world. I could likely trace a convincing map on paper, right now, of Undead Burg. This density was lost in Elden Ring, with the exception of Stormveil Castle and Elphael. The fussier the design is, the better, imo

Finding the last scadus is definitely difficult. Have you got all of them in the specimen storehouse etc? There are loads there.

It is quite maddening when there's one or two left and you've no real idea if you got them or not.

I had this stretch of going through all the amazing parts (Shadow Keep, Ruah, Enir Ilim) without really knowing it was the main path, and now I'm feeling a little over-blessed (scadutree level 15 I think) and checking out all the outskirts of the map that feel more empty. I'm sure there will be some more good bits, but yeah it seems like it would have been so easy to add a few more bits in some of these places (or even to spread out some of the weapons and talismans).

Still looking forward to doing a playthrough with light greatswords, great katanas, and some of the claw weapons though!

There was that online game you could play where you're shown a random image of somewhere in Elden Ring and you have to work out where on the map you are. I got pretty good at it. I'm not sure I could feasibly do that with SOTE

But yeah, what sort of builds have you been rolling with for this?

I have been mostly using a Quality Milady with the Wing Stance Ash of War and the Rellana's Cameo to bolster it. Works really nicely in the wild but not great on very fast bosses like Messmer

I may be tempted to respec now im part way through the game

Finding the last scadus is definitely difficult. Have you got all of them in the specimen storehouse etc? There are loads there.

I think I have definitely found all the Scadu drops, there might be some potsmokers who just haven't dropped the bong

I just read SOTE as "Shadows Of The Empire", god I'm old.

TMI to follow I guess. When I was six, seven years old, I used to build structures with blocks and Lego, tightly-wound little urban landscapes with tunnels and intersections that I could drive little cars on, and the complexity and density of the structure would give me the sudden urge to shit. I'd go shit and be trying to hurry up, excited to get back to my play. Undead Burg reminded me so much of that feeling of tightly-wound architecture and what it did to my bowels, same with Stormveil. There's something really appealing about exploring a very densely designed knot of structure!

You must have had many urges to shit in the sewers of Leyndell

Haha, can't say I've experienced that physiological phenomenon but that you for sharing.

I enjoyed this 30 minute explication of the virtues of the Milady:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iqFCL_3tOc

I guess the intestines are stimulated by architecture that is intestinal

Thanks for that Milady video, gonna watch it now

I think I have definitely found all the Scadu drops, there might be some potsmokers who just haven't dropped the bong

there's one really well hidden in ruins of rauh

Strange women dragons lying in ponds distributing swords ridership is no basis for a system of government.

oops wrong nerd thread

Reached the Ruah Ruins yesterday. Is that passage with the lift from the First Floor Storehouse to the big bridge always open or does it only open when you beat Messmer? I'd never come across it before

Ruah is pretty amazing though huh? Another absolute maze

I reached it before Messmer, if I'm thinking of the right place.

I enjoyed the underwater lair of the finger mom btw.

Yeah that's brilliant, if it's the bit I'm thinking of with the long ladder

I reached it before Messmer, if I'm thinking of the right place.

― Jordan s/t (Jordan), Tuesday, 6 August 2024 05:07 (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is crazy to me. I thought I'd explored almost all of the Storehouse, but it seems I just never thought to go directly left from the first Storehouse site of grace and take the elevator down. After beating Messmer I was so confused because it led to a dead end. Online, someone told me to go back to the first Miquella's Cross and there's a note there from Leda telling me where to go.

I too just wandered into Rauh before seeing any of the rest of the storehouse. Between the base and the multi-level ruins it's the area I feel I understand the least - like I don't understand where I am or how it fits together at all.

And you keep ending up there! Like that random imbued gate early on that drops you in an odd bit of it.

i'm stuck there at the moment going round in circles.

imbued gate?

i see it as having two areas - the lower part you reach via a sort-of cavern with a large tree and perfumers; and the top part which you reach via the Storehouse (that i totally missed).

I still am 49/50 and 24/25. I decided to just roam around and see how much I could explore without resting at a grace. Cleared Castle Ensis, headed down toward the Dragon Communion, dropped into Charo, just wandering. Found some drops I'd missed (Spirit Glaive). Once the one-time-kill enemies have been eliminated, this world is very empty and peaceful in a soothing way

you've merked all the hippos, I take it?

Yep. I read on Reddit that some players have had to kill the potsmokers up to four times before they drop drop, but idk, I think I really got them all covered

Curious too as to which spirit ash I might be missing… haven’t gone down the checklist for that yet. Might be my next move, it might show me a corner of the map I overlooked

*spirit ash = you know, the Scadu fragments that upgrade them. I’m only missing one

Sometimes they disappear also, the potheads, they are unreliable. The one at Rauh on some weird middle platform I'd never have found without reading a guide, and it also disappears really quickly, as others try to aggro you.

imbued gate?

Y'all I haven't even found the Abyssal Woods yet

don’t go there woof outright lying about parrying unless parrying = waft hopelessly with your shield and die of madness immediately one thousand times

Use the buckler, it's got the most parryframes. And: they are permadead when you kill them. And: you get a grape when you do. And: one of them gives you a talisman for when you want to run a madness build

ok ok. i’ll do it. thanks fgti

you don't need to kill them, just sneak along the sides away from them or whatever. it's a tiny bit of elden ring as horizon zero dawn, hide in some bushes feeling annoyed you can't just whack the stuffing out of some minor not-even-field boss, but it's about a half-hour then you get to the manse dungeon thing.

No kill them