Elden Ring: YOU DIED on a horse

I don't how much you're avoiding reading around this stuff, but you can sort out an endless supply of smithing stones 1-4 fairly painlessly. I went out of my way to do it just yesterday - seemed a lot of fun being able to get any weapon to +12 without stress.

I believe there's a Bell Bearing you can get, but I haven't got it yet

I've kind of given up on playing totally blind as I'd originally planned. I've bird-farmed a couple of times just so as not to lose runes, and one time when I was a bit tipsy and feeling anarchic. Reading up on lore adds to the fun. And yeah, consulting guides to find out the locations of things like rare Smithing Stones doesn't take away from the enjoyment either

that's it - I checked where to find the first 2 bell bearings - didn't feel too bad about it given I already had a +12 weapon.

There are more for the next smithing stone levels but a) doesn't feel right in my own very fuzzy quality-of-life vs no-peeking calculus and b) they're probably not gettable by me at this point.

I largely gave up on blind play a while back. I'm still holding back but really I don't have the time & if I can't play during the working day, I want to read about it.

particularly doing this on builds at the moment as im gearing up for a respec. it’s all fine. the more i can explore and have fun with it the better. i enjoyed not reading up at first immersion but im there now. well, i will be once i beat f’ing starscourge radahn.

Elden Ring confession: I'm 100 hours in, lvl 125, and I never found Boc the cute tailor guy.

He's right at the start of the game and I would have missed him too if I hadnt looked up why I was hearing "hello? Why can't anyone SEE ME?!" coming from a bush. Hint: look for said bush. Gi'it a jab.

But if you're as far in as you are the entire questline's prob gone now cos I htink he's looped into some other stuff.

I'm loving the story of this legend that's been born.

https://www.thegamer.com/elden-ring-player-let-me-solo-her-becomes-community-legend/

People have already started making memes.

I love it, and the guy is clearly great and has learned the fight. However, with the response it's getting and the amount of times I've seen internet people describe Malenia as "bullshit" or "badly designed", I can't shake the feeling that with the amount of people for whom this is their first Souls game, they're used to brute-forcing every single boss fight? Leaning on high damage ash skills or spells that damage race or stun-lock the boss so that they never have a drawn out fight than involves lots of reads and dodging.

The classic approach in these games is to fail many times while learning the moveset of the boss, then know how to avoid each attack and when your openings to attack are. And while magic/ranged approaches have always been an option, ER makes alternate approaches way more viable (there are tons of strong skills, status effects, and the open world means you can level up in another area and come back later). Which is great! But it feels like when new players finally hit these end game optional bosses that are somewhat resistant to brute force approaches, they haven't learned the fundamentals or a more patient approach on easier bosses, so they get frustrated and call them broken or bad game design.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqN2phpMWno

Anyway, that clip of Bjork in The Northman could totally be an Elden Ring cut scene, right?

How does Malenia compare to some of the fabled late-game Sekiro bosses? Malenia seems kinda like "critical mass in terms of testing one's patience" within this game design, like, that no-hit win relied on only two distinct windows for openings in either stage. I can't imagine From being able to make a harder boss and keep it within the realm of "this is fun", but I gave up on Sekiro hilariously early (couldn't even beat the first general)

She is definitely in the mold of Sekiro bosses, which are both fast-paced but also about patience, you can't really cheese them or rush the fight.

A big difference is that in Sekiro you would be expected to block/deflect her flurries, which would break her posture and leave her open for a big critical. In Elden Ring, if you block them, it gives her hp. So clearly you're supposed to dodge here (although I've heard that some gravity attacks can knock her out of the attack).

She's the one boss that I've seen a bunch of videos of without having fought yet, but I just got to the Haligtree.

Oh the Haligtree is so wonderful

Ha I can't tell if you're being facetious. The first area is a nightmare, and I assume you're supposed to run through all those enemies leading up to Loretta haunted house/Sonic the Hedgehog style. It's the first area where I've done that, there are just too many and they're all serious business. But I just got to Elphael last night, and that has some beautiful views and more room to breathe.

fuuuuck that first area. don't know how many times i fell off that tree trying to maneuver to or around those dopey mobs.

Not to mention that ants that actively try and push you off. I died soooo many times. And then the boss fight with Loretta was 100% Carian Retaliation, just sending back everything she threw at me. By far the most fun part..

...But it feels like when new players finally hit these end game optional bosses that are somewhat resistant to brute force approaches, they haven't learned the fundamentals or a more patient approach on easier bosses, so they get frustrated and call them broken or bad game design.

― change display name (Jordan), Thursday, April 14, 2022 10:02 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Or they never played Punch-Out!!

lol yes. I've beaten Sekiro, but never could beat Mike Tyson.

have you tried to beat tyson AFTER you beat sekiro though? it does seem like correlation would be high

but yeah, re: people whining about how hard the game is sometimes, it's like, dudes, play any 2D space shooter (gradius etc) and prepare to spend the next month of your life memorizing some INSANE shit

My thoughts exactly! Original SMB is harder than most of this stuff, not to even mention the Mega Men

Mega Mans?

And I wasn't being facetious re Haligtree. I didn't struggle with the platforming but I did die a few times to the awful ant corridor and to the scarlet rot envoy bubble trench run

And I think the first time I made that trench run I ascended to deal with the inconspicuous looking envoys above, unaware that Envoy #3 was a superenvoy who one-shotted me

The bizarre battlemages gave me far more trouble tbh idk why

I love that area though, really gorgeous and atmospheric

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjDd2q2fcAw

I love it, and the guy is clearly great and has learned the fight. However, with the response it's getting and the amount of times I've seen internet people describe Malenia as "bullshit" or "badly designed", I can't shake the feeling that with the amount of people for whom this is their first Souls game, they're used to brute-forcing every single boss fight? Leaning on high damage ash skills or spells that damage race or stun-lock the boss so that they never have a drawn out fight than involves lots of reads and dodging.

The classic approach in these games is to fail many times while learning the moveset of the boss, then know how to avoid each attack and when your openings to attack are. And while magic/ranged approaches have always been an option, ER makes alternate approaches way more viable (there are tons of strong skills, status effects, and the open world means you can level up in another area and come back later). Which is great! But it feels like when new players finally hit these end game optional bosses that are somewhat resistant to brute force approaches, they haven't learned the fundamentals or a more patient approach on easier bosses, so they get frustrated and call them broken or bad game design.

I grabbed Vordt's Greathammer ASAP and played the whole game with it, just to make sure I was doing it with the slowest weapon class that would have the hardest time exploiting boss punish windows... and yep, it's night and day. Not only do you attack faster than ER's Colossal Weapons, bosses actually let you hit them after the vast majority of attack chains - even the more crazy DLC bosses like Gael, and even with standing R1s, not just roll attacks. It's a back and forth dance that I rarely felt in Elden Ring when playing with a Colossal Sword and just barely with smaller weapons.

if newbies are complaining about the hard bosses for being hard i mean... from newbies have been doing that for every game release haven't they? that is just the chain of casual souls memes that can never be broken

anyway, i am somehow still doodling around liurnia about 80 hours into my game, determined to do everything possible before every area's legacy dungeon and taking as long as possible to do all of it. i don't know how people get through it so quickly. proud to say that after saying this:

reasons i'm terrible at fromsoft games:
-suck at timing parries

after the evergaol CK i was finally ready to take on stormveil and wanted to try to parry lord him, but screw needing two parries for a riposte. i hate how this went, because i kept dying to him but i felt like i could've beaten him eventually one on one. during one attempt, i got him down to his second phase but was doing bad on flasks and knew i wasn't going to beat him there, so i summoned ancestral follower just to see how effective it'd be. margit literally did not try to attack me once after that. i would smack him repeatedly, he'd turn for half a second and then ancestral follower would immediately re-draw his aggro.

i don't want to dip into the "you're not playing ER right if you use spirit ashes" discourse but they really do feel like a cheat code sometimes, and i've stopped using them unless i find myself dedicating half a saturday to some unfulfilling boss. i don't think spirit ashes are a very good mechanic, there's no depth to them for the most part... every summon is basically just two sliders for "how tanky are they" and "how well do they draw and maintain aggro." eventually you can add a "how strong are they" slider. there's a million of them in the game but so many of them are basically just cosmetic reskins of other ones with those 2 or 3 slider stats slightly nudged. it's a fun experiment but i'm not sure there was ever really a way to make it an interesting mechanic.

that said this is still the greatest game of all time

counterpoint: summons and cheese abilities are necessary and vital additions that allow ppl with children (or other responsibilities) to play and enjoy the game without devoting untold hours to getting gud

I don't disagree with you at all

Totally valid. Although the counter-counter point would be that you're playing a 100+ hour game anyway, so it's just a question of what you'd rather do. If you have half an hour to play, you could stomp the boss and keep exploring. Or you could just fight the boss, and do the same next time.

Is the goal to get to the end of the game as fast as possibly? I'm not trying to play any other games, so not for me. It's really just about what's more fun for you.

Anyway I'm at Malenia, and the game is now the Malenia game, and I guess I'll just be fighting Malenia for weeks now. She certainly is unforgiving and lives up to the hype.

I don’t find much functional difference re spirit ashes and co-op summons except spirit ashes are prepared for solo mode

Godskin Duo is def the hardest duo boss in the series, but I personally didn’t find Malenia harder than Artorias, Maliketh harder than Manus or Gael. I found Laurence harder than any of these (and never beat him and never made it to Orphan)

They may have a point that colossal weapons are less viable though!

Re: Malenia, that's wild to me. Artorias was an early example of maybe having to dodge a different direction for one of three attacks, but he didn't heal every time he hit you or have anything as exacting (or punishing) as that waterfowl dance.

What I like, too, about ER's summon/spirit mechanic is that it is n/a in evergaols and certain boss fights. idk I thought there was a great spread of variety in ER. Part of what felt weird about DS1 (I think) was that the number of actual "skill test" boss fights were very few... aside from Artorias, Gwyn and the DLC opening beast, I found the most satisfying battles in the game to be the Black Knights.

https://i.imgur.com/FD9Vhjd.png

Have been exploring Mt Gelmir and just got absolutely shitted on by the Fullgrown Fallingstar Beast.

On the difficulty level, the video that Jordan posted on enemy AI was really interesting. Bloodborne encouraged aggressive attack through its health retrieval, to encourage people to avoid hiding behind a shield, Sekiro went even further by generally (not always) encouraging you to stay tight in on enemies and react according to their attack, which i thought was amazing combat and brilliantly taught by the game.

here i haven’t quite worked it out, and i think the video is right that it’s v dependent on build, which is another aspect of the flexibility of the game.

anyway beat Radahn by rotten breathing him, galloping round on Torrent and summoning NPCs whenever i could. it’s how he would have wanted to go.

Well, I fought Malenia for 3 hrs this morning and only got to phase 2 on the last try. But now I think I feel comfortable with all her moves and how I want to handle them, I just need to do it (a bunch of times).

I had to switch to cold claws w/Bloodhound's step for the waterfowl dance, it was too hard to switch weapons in the moment and dodging it normally was too unreliable. And turn the music off (my #1 boss tip).

Oh also I couldn't believe what a difference it made to go from a medium roll/equip load to light. Attacks that I couldn't dodge before suddenly became easy with some extra iframes & roll distance.

I don't think it matters much for other bosses, but it makes a big difference here if you're primarily trying to dodge all her attacks.

i doubt you need help with malenia, just more time fighting her over and over but raptor of the mists can really help with dodging waterfowl dance or whatever the fuck it's called

I’m not sure I’ve ever had a light load in this game! Only a medium. I’ve always wondered, does it make a difference if you’re on the heavier side of medium, vs the lighter end? Or do they all result in the same speed?

I absolutely loved the Radahn fight, it was like a Souls Wrestlemania match, complete with mood-lightening cameo from Patches, the greatest midcard comedy worker of all time

Also appreciate when From games give you a savepoint with the name of a boss you killed in that area, like yes mate you were the scourge of stars and the greatest demigod general in history and now there's a little glowing hotel I go to to relax and mix potions and it is Named! After! You!

I’ve always wondered, does it make a difference if you’re on the heavier side of medium, vs the lighter end? Or do they all result in the same speed?

no difference, afaict each load level has one distinct animation and set i-frames and that's it (though crucible feather talisman can increase the amount of i-frames for each level)

Finally felled the Fire Giant, burned the Erdtree, and found myself in Farum Azula. I assume I'm in the home stretch, give or take some optional areas?The Banished Knights here are kicking my ass. I wouldn't have it any other way.

bridge of donkeys, interesting tip! That hadn't occurred to me but I will try it out. I've been using Bloodhound's Step to dodge waterfowl, which started working 100x better as soon as I started unlocking once she jumps up in the air. I switched from claws to dual katanas, which have longer hitstun so I can get her with two L1s during her openings (usually after some sort of jump/dive attack, or sometimes after her triplet hit where it looks like she's daintily waving her giant sword as a paintbrush).

Y'all I'm going start experimenting with the mimic tear in phase 2, because it would be nice to move on with my life. I can have a beautiful phase 1 with lots of patient dodging, only to get smoked in phase 2 by one of her many powerful jump attacks.

It might not even work though, since with a melee build it's hard to attack at the same time as the mimic without getting clipped, and she might end up gaining more health than she loses by attacking the mimic?

I'm over 160 hours in now and still progressing at a very gentle pace. Completed Ranni's quest a while ago and just finished Fia's. Only recently got to Volcano Manor and Leyndell etc

to me, you are "the traveler". that is, the "one who has gone so far"

I'm at a point where I've several bosses I'd like to beat and just cant and I'm not sure what to do while I try gittin' gud, as I've already arsed up some quests by getting to bosses too fast.

I've tried Radagan so many times, I can get just past the point where he asteroids back to earth and then no matter what I do, at some point I fuck up my controls/fall off my horse and he just one hits me.

I've got Rennala lined up ready to go as well, and havent tried her yet.

And few minibosses Ive tried and just walked away from in despair: Sir Istvan, commander ONeill, its all so muuuuuch.

Not sure what level you're at Trayce. I took on Renalla and the whole Raya Lucaria area a long time before fighting Commander O'Neill or getting to Volcano Manor, so I would go do that first off if you can. It's also a great level, like all the legacy dungeons, full of little secret passages and rooftops you can go and get lost around for hours

I'm about to go to Mountaintop of the Giants but forging ahead with the main story makes me feel like I'm running through the zoo without looking at the animals a lot of the time. There's still a lot of the lower map I haven't explored yet. I finally managed to find the Masuoleum Compund after a friend said she just happened on it fairly easily, but for me it took a whole lot of dead ends and runebears and assholes shooting me and impossible cliff edges. And then once I'd found it and killed the Erdtree Beast there, I couldn't find my way back out!

Jordan, a good tip for Malenia is to summon Tiche instead of the Tear, if you can FPafford it

I cannot! But I just beat her before work, using Swarm of Flies on phase 2 just before installing the patch that nerfs it, lol.

I don't feel great about it, but I couldn't go on like this. Who knows how long it would have taken to get a near-perfect fight the way I was doing it. And it was satisfying to learn her phase 1 moveset, it felt amazing on a good run when I was reacting to everything without thinking about it.