Elden Ring: YOU DIED on a horse

8 months, 400 hours, level 250, three playthroughs, and I've Platinumed this absolutely marvellous piece of work.

I feel kind of sad now

Wow! Time to start a new character and try more multiplayer. :) Level 250 is not going to have much activity, it's higher than meta level (~150). I think you'll find more activity by going lower (30 - 150) or possibly even higher, since everything higher than level 300 is in its own bracket.

Did they ever tweak/patch this game's performance on the PS5? I'd heard that the "best" way to play it is the PS4 version on the PS5, rather than the native PS5 version, but that can't still be true, can it? I'd actually be more willing to start over if I played the PS5 version. I wonder if even a dope like me that takes forever and hasn't played it in a year would finish it a lot faster the second time around?

I have a character at RL 250, and there's lots of multiplayer happening... but def not as much as my "multiplayer character" (who remains at RL 134)

Whenever an invasion pulls me into Stormveil, I still discover new stuff in the level. A window that you can climb out of that leads to outdoor scaffolding, looking all the way down from the birds-with-swords-on-their-feet area to see the erdtree spirit in the basement, etc. Truly an insane level.

This one was a journey (I cut out the 5 minutes where I was looking for the host party and seeing all that stuff):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M2kxmW_A-Y

oh my GOD that was crazy!!!!

that was seriously amazing to watch. i really thought you were done for when the other player coated their sword with fire near the end you missed with a couple big attacks, had no more flasks. i would have given up so many times.

five bags of popcorn and a flask of coke

Makes me wonder what this game would be like if there were just people fighting each other all over the place all the time as you progressed.

that sounds like gta online to me, which, in my experience, was nothing but teenagers murdering me wherever i spawned with rocket launchers and helicopters while screaming with glee in a voice chat which could not be muted

Thanks Karl, I would much rather pull out an unlikely victory like this than stomp my opponents, that's the perfect invasion experience I'm always looking for.

(even/especially if it's due to my own mistakes!)

An even more unlikely win against one of those people who just hangs out in the Liurnia swamps with the Taunter's Tongue on -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z-hfqAlZUA

Man I am *really* struggling with the fire giant :( I try and stay under his feet but he keeps rolling away. I cant work out wether its better to use Alexander or not (as using him means no horse for one thing).

I'm not a glass cannon exactly but I'm more mage than ungabunga.

Hmm, that does seem like a tough boss to do with magic, this seems like a good approach?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6SfaDXcMj4

Ive respec'd to a strength build for late game and it's way more fun now than being a mage. I killed the fire giant with wild strikes on a great hammer

Trayce, I found the trick was to know when to use Torrent. You have to use him to get close, then dismount, hack away at one of the giant's feet, then know when to get back on the horse and back off. If you can use a mimic tear, do that!

Here's how I did it first time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2Im5XUW40M

Yeah Jordan I tried that guy's video but I cant get fucking comet azur to actually hit anything (and I know you have to switch off targeting). If I'm under his feet for phase one I couldnt work out how to the get at that distance when he flops over to shoot him in the face, I guess its just try and try again.

Also lol@ "twisted fire giant"

I'm pretty sure when I fought the fire giant, as a melee build, it glitched, or otherwise wasn't as hard as I'd heard. I got lucky.

I wonder if theres a way to lure him off the cliff. even if I died too...

Was the glitch the giant falling off a rock? I just found a cheese youtube where that happened but it said it was since patched.

I did not struggle with Fire Giant on my actual play through but I struggle extremely when helping others in co-op. It feels like nothing damages him, especially in the second stage, and his fiery furnaces are unpredictable and one-shot

I found hima pretty tough boss - toughest to fight up until that point and probably about third toughest in the game

xxpost No, the glitch was nothing dramatic at all, like falling off a cliff or anything (RIP, that one gargoyle, though). Like I said, wasn't even sure it was a glitch, but I'd been primed for a fight and iirc beat him the first or second try. We were fighting, I was dodging and weaving, doing stuff, and then ... he just lay down and died (or whatever it does). It was pretty weird. Maybe I was somehow OP, I can't remember. Maybe I mentioned it months ago upthread, lol.

Hmm, didn't see any old post of mine, it's possible I didn't mention it before because I was embarrassed to get past it so easily! If I did this game again I would definitely grind for runes early on, now that I know some spots. Btw, got a cheap copy of PS5 Demon's Souls waiting for me in the basement, think maybe I'll hit it after LOT2 or some other suitably grim winter epic.

Kenny Garrett!
https://stellarlive.stellartickets.com/events/elden-ring-a-night-in-the-lands-between

Lol I would like to know how this came about. I would be delighted to learn Kenny Garrett is an avid gamer.

i would imagine he is an avid collector of paychecks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vS_6MrfRPY
"Elden Riiiiing!"
Kuroda seems plugged into the game but not so much Kenny

Haha. I don't know that I need these two parts of my life combined, but I admit to some curiousity.

For you online nerds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3gvvJ8JHs4

Neat, I'll probably mess around with this for a couple days but I'm not really into structured duels.

I think people always assumed those arenas were in the game for a reason. There are rumors of something bigger coming tomorrow, fwiw.

Maybe this will get me to play PVP?

I played for about 30 minutes. Duelling feels the same, but the Battle Royale format means a completely different approach. I've steered clear of Somber weapons (in general) because in a duel or an invasion, they become one-trick. Not so in Battle Royale. Massive AoE stuff, breath attacks, these seemed to rule the school. Insipid stuff like Mohg's weapon art, rot and frost breath, Marika's weapon art, dragon claw slam, these were doing the business. My duelling skills had no carry-over.

^ this isn't meant to be a sour post, quite the opposite. It does feel as if certain "good weapons" I've shied away from because of their seeming inflexibility (Stormhawk Axe, Axe of Godfrey i.e.) are going to prove themselves very useful in this format

Your description has me more curious to play arena pvp now than I mightve otherwise. TBH I've avoided it 100% so far, because the way it is talked about on Reddit puts me off trendously (I'm gonna be "doing it wrong" somehow because I'm a noob/female/playing a mage)

I watched a few clips of people fighting and it looked pretty fun ... to watch, lol. It does seem very different from the standard duels or invasions I've watched in that you are obviously much more limited in terms of environment (and iirc what powers you can use, depending on the colosseum). But it was def. enjoyable as a spectacle, all these power players going nuts with huge AOE attacks and whatnot, like watching a fireworks display. Honestly, gave me a shudder of PTSD, too, since I didn't immediately recognize some of the weapons/attacks, and then when they clicked made me realize how huge this game is and how long it would take, starting over, for me to get to some of the levels/powers these players were at.

The biggest thing about arenas is that stamina management is now much more in-line with the Souls games (no more mashy-mashy)

I didn't notice that, but I finally tried the arena part night and was surprised at how much fun 3v3 is. Very chaotic, but there's a gleeful energy to it.

Can't wait for Armored Core btw. :)

Running the Elden Ring half-marathon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN3P4HrOX7E

Wow:

https://kotaku.com/elden-ring-geoguessr-geography-map-world-pois-1850007231

time to merge this thread with Guess the City

i am not good at elden ring or geoguesser, but it seems like the elden ring version would be a lot easier because there's the constant landmark of the giant erdtree, and often the minor erdtrees as well.

i have kind of a sad/fun elden ring update. after several months, i picked it up again. i had stopped at the foot of the Fire Giant, where i needed to level up a bit and just didn't have the endurance (irl) to do it. so when i came back, i finally googled "rune farm". the last week or so i've just been shooting an arrow across the chasm at the giant bird by the Mohgwyn Palace Approach Ledge-Road site of grace. before that, i went back to the get the rune bonus talisman and a cookbook i had missed which allows the crafting of gold-pickled fowl foot. each little arrow in the bird (which causes it to freak out and immediately leap to its death) is worth about 17K runes. so now i'm just leveling like crazy. i went from 35 vitality to 60, which helped a lot, lol

Fire Giant can go jump off a conveniently-located cliff. What a jerk >:( ...actually, it would kinda own if you could lure him off the edge of the arena.

I decided to roll a new character out of boredom the other day, and got sucked back into this pretty quickly. It's obviously a very different experience than the first run, but the replay value is definitely there. There's a satisfaction in knowing a Souls dungeon/area like the back of your hand. I've been challenging myself to get past bosses without using summons, and I've managed to get past both Margit and Godrick this way. IDK how much of that is me getting gud and how much is be From's tweaking the difficulty in updates, but it's been a rewarding experience nonetheless.

The cliff-bird is easily the best way to grind, especially late game. Earlier, there's a great farming method with a giant ball you can repeatedly run off a cliff in Caelid.

I know these games can be won level one, in your undies, blindfolded, but for the average gamer (me) I can't imagine how long they would take to complete if I didn't farm to level up faster.

I still enjoy playing this game. I've tried other games since I got it but I just keep wanna dipping back into it. I'm running a very traditional paladin dude right now and it's very rewarding

Yeah I still grind via the bird in Mogwhyn approach road too.

I got to fire giant, got stuck and lost heart. Went back to Cities Skylines during my summer holidays :/

so did i! only it was my winter, but yeah. Birdieville was once again a bustling 22,000 pop town with the traffic of NYC at rush hour