Elden Ring: YOU DIED on a horse

Yeah it's crazy reading about how people are playing the entire second half of the game using Mimic Tear to beat all the bosses. .

I haven't been using spirit summons just because it doesn't seem particularly fun for my playstyle, so I'm sorta dreading hitting a late game wall where some bosses are built around them. Very curious to see how my experience compares to all the people complaining about difficulty on twitter.

I think I'm headed that way soon fgti, so we will see!

Gonna be honest, the text list of warp points in the map just blew my mind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEQCRFcIogY

distortion2's now under 30 minutes for his latest any% elden ring speedrun.

Gave up on Radahn for a bit, headed to Leyndell instead, made some glacial progress getting killed over and over until finally reaching Godfrey, somehow managed to beat him first try. Then carried on to Morgott and smashed him to bits first try too! I kind of find the bosses in this less stressful than fighting multiple normal enemies or whatever. Now I need to work out how the fuck to get out of town to go to this elevator…

I know those speedruns are often done using various glitches and exploits, but I wonder how From feels about people figuring out how to finish them so fast so, well, fast.

I also know previous From games were notorious for including OP weapons and stuff at launch that subsequently got nerfed. Right?

xp Good list! I knew most of those except the text list warping and the rune-acquisition bonus.

I was annoyed for a minute that I couldn't dupe a remembrance that I'd already used, but you can! and you can dupe it again (if you wanted!) so you can theoretically run around with Godrick Axes in both hands if you so desired. Almost makes the tedium of felling those mausoleums worthwhile :)

Radahn is intensely insanely difficult but I'd recommend "trying new things" to try and beat him, because the optional area that opens up as a result is some useful pre-Leyndell questing.

I actually still haven't started Leyndell yet. I did get pulverized by a couple of Sentinels while trying, once!

and you can dupe it again (if you wanted!) so you can theoretically run around with Godrick Axes in both hands if you so desired

Ooh, that is cool, although I haven't encountered any boss weapons yet that I want to use. I wish there was some way to duplicate other unique weapons.

I just poked my head into Leyndell this morning, and it felt like I'm a bit under-leveled for it so I'm going to explore elsewhere (like that optional area you mention). Tbh I don't really like racing through an area picking up loot, I'd rather wait and go through it slowly when I'm ready for it.

I know those speedruns are often done using various glitches and exploits, but I wonder how From feels about people figuring out how to finish them so fast so, well, fast.

I think it's a credit to the 'open-worldness' of the game, and obviously "finishing" the game in 1/2 hour means you're not engaging with 95% of the content.

I also know previous From games were notorious for including OP weapons and stuff at launch that subsequently got nerfed. Right?

Yeah, Dark Souls 3 had a bunch of balancing patches for weapons and mechanics. I'm a bit surprised they haven't fixed some of the obvious glitches yet (like the Eclipse Shotel/Fire's Deadly Sin thing), but I also wouldn't be surprised if they didn't nerf much in terms of damage. It seems like the whole idea is to eventually have a bunch of flashy, overpowered tools at your disposal and to just put it all in a blender.

The crazy thing about the speedrun is that the top time was roughly 30 minutes longer like two days ago

So many of the boss weapons have a three-stat minimum which makes me hesitant. I should really be saving those mausoleums so I can duplicate the specific remembrances that offer a choice between two spells/incantations (if I'm interested in 100%-ing, which I never follow through, but always have on my mind)

Look I'm still using a plain old Lordsworn longsword I got in a drop right at game's start, and have levelled it up to +3 and my glintstone staff to +7, because I thought I read somewhere that in the end the weapon doesnt matter as much as how levelled up it is?

But I am still finding it impossible to melee attack anything but passing zombies/skellies. My staff is pretty good now, 1 or 2 hits a lot of mobs, but FP is finite. I'm just shit at rolling out of the way I think :(

Im thinking of starting again (again) .

Nothing wrong with the longsword! I don't know why you would start again? Better to keep going imo, you can always take the character in another direction.

I feel like i've misallocated my stats, maybe? I piled it all into HP and FP and nothing else. Not even end or str

Look I'm still using a plain old Lordsworn longsword I got in a drop right at game's start, and have levelled it up to +3 and my glintstone staff to +7, because I thought I read somewhere that in the end the weapon doesnt matter as much as how levelled up it is?

But I am still finding it impossible to melee attack anything but passing zombies/skellies. My staff is pretty good now, 1 or 2 hits a lot of mobs, but FP is finite. I'm just shit at rolling out of the way I think :(

That's fine! HP is the most important, there will always be time later for damage stats, and you don't need much endurance unless you're doing heavy armor/big weapons. And eventually you'll be able to re-allocate if you really want to.

xp

Thats good to know!
plus a mace on scaly things that need whacking.

ohhhh I sold a mace I'd got in a drop, ive always thought them useless, but I was vaguely aware some things have hard armour/scales. Actually it even seems like my glintstone shard spells bounce of some kinds of higher level knight armour/shields.

def overlevelled, just completely owned godrick with +7 wolverine claws

I have some of those claws, thinking of trying them, they do bloodloss which always seems handy.

the two handed moveset is nasty, recommended

Incidentally, every last thing I have seen or read of this makes it appear very much of a piece with previous From (and particularly Souls) games. Yet this is the first From game with a conspicuous high-profile contributor: George RR Martin. But is there anything is this game that deviates or differentiates from past From games to indicate anything he may have contributed?

well all major bosses names begin with a G, R or M

It's so dumb

What I love about this is how different everyone's game is. I didn't expect the character selection at the start to have such an impact on what you can and can't do in this game

lol which is the thing I dread most about these games. It's one thing to get a different game from someone else, it's another to get a worse/infinitely harder/more boring game. On the other hand, does lend itself well to replay. On the other, the idea of playing a 100+ hour game twice ...

Trayce if your plan is to play magic (seems to be with that glintstone staff!) you shouldn’t feel despair re poor melee

But get some INT when you can!

Yeah I am only like... 15 on my int I think? I hate that the rune requirements jump exponentially, cos I'm still only making 2-3K runes a session before I get mowed down :(

I played a couple hours just now and had one of the most satisfying adventures I’ve ever experienced, tbh. Don’t wanna post abt what it was bc I feel like it’d spoil it both for others and myself. It was amazing, this game is amazing.

https://preview.redd.it/1xvivvdormn81.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=7b1fba5ab440ba4537a550c8fd818975f28e1a82

Lol. Also Trayce I don't know what you're doing for melee, but a good basic tactic is just go near an enemy to bait a swing and then move out of range, hit once after they do, repeat. Obviously it gets trickier with the more aggressive ones like knights etc, but the principle is the same.

I got Yura's super-sized katana, contemplating going back to some kind of double katana bleed build, idk. Or maybe a katana + straight sword hybrid, even though you can't powerstance them (ie there's not a special moveset that uses them both at the same time, like there is if you use two weapons of the same class).

One on one I can fight like that fine but sometimes I end up in some area or dungeon and suddenly 4 jillion things are all hitting me at once and I cant get a swing in.

(which is exactly why I prefer picking people off from a distance haha)

rats are real dicks in this game, speaking of dungeons

otm rats can piss right off

Finally took on Stormveil and yeah incredible fighting the knife-bomb eagles, chancing stupid jumps to avoid the eagles, cheesing the giant crab from a doorway, ledgewalks to pillage a fucking mushroom, sensible gaps between sites of grace but then the absolutely draining skin-of-teeth grind (including ridiculous panicked run around/across crossbow courtyard) to the penultimate one, and then the final one basically next door lol.

Took one crack at the big man at the end but I think I want to explore more first now I've opened it up. I've taken against those big knights.

it's worth having a look for the basement, I came back and did that yesterday, lots of useful stuff down there

Happened on the Patches cave today but had no idea I had to fight a bloody invader first. I actually threw the controller on the floor in a tantrum, lol. Got there once I worked out how to back off and let the other guy do the work.

I managed to get to the Patches cave without fighting the invader, although I still need to do that

this looks pretty great on PS4 but i have to say i've noticed some choppiness when there's a lot of action on screen

I've sometimes noticed a bit of frame droppiness when bats are on the screen, but mostly it's fine.

Spent way too much time last night watching Girlfriend Reviews' initial Twitch stream playing this game and LMFAO @ her reaction to the game and how she went about the opening couple of hours of play, which wewre very similar to mine. It's also great to see how the game kind of funnels players into a fairly set route even though it's an open world.
We all start by randomly running around until we reach that camp of soliders at the foot of Stormgate, then decide to pick the soliders off one by one, cautiously at first and often failing, until the confidence sets in and we're just running in all guns blazing (then inevitably You Dieding much more) and then realising you don't HAVE to keep trying to kill all these soldiers if you've picked up all the items. I dunno, it's a very clever game design that gives you the feeling of a totally open world but which sooner or later you're just gonna do what they want you to.

We'll see when I start playing on PS4, but fwiw a streamer I sometimes watch has been playing it on their super computer rig, and even he has come across some choppy frame rate issues here and there. I assume this is the kind of stuff that will get tweaked in future patches.

I'm on non-pro ps4 and yup nasty choppiness with some mob gangs - like the crew at the back of the troll caravan, or the gatefront boys if that one toots his horn and they pile on.

I love that girlfriend reviews clip. One of the MANY amazing things about ER is how it condenses and parcels out the souls experience in a way that’s accessible to any skill level. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible

If I were less busy right now, in addition to playing the everliving fuck out of this game, I would be writing an essay connecting the experience of elden ring to exploring a rural cemetery

As it stands, since I can’t parcel gametime at the moment, I am playing through stormveil in my head as I go to sleep which is the surest sign of souls fever

Meanwhile I just saw a subway guy pull out a trumpet on the platform and my first thought was “I gotta hit him with an arrow before he alerts the mob!”

This though:

After years of watching my boyfriend play souls games, I took on a cave and beat the lil boss at the end on my second try! ….And then I cried, because I’m stupid and dumb. I love video games!!! pic.twitter.com/ZZ05iwelap

— Girlfriend Reviews (@itsgfreviews) March 1, 2022

Big patch! New jar just dropped.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/tg0wvn/patch_notes_version_103/