Elden Ring: YOU DIED on a horse

ELDEN RING!!!!!!!!!

lol

I'm just gonna post that every few hours until it comes out

lol. I have to say that while I really could care less about the lore for the most part, on my new playthrough it's more interesting to hear about all these weirdo demigods having already killed them all. Y'know, it's nice to put a face to name. Otherwise it was really like someone telling boring stories about a bunch of friends you don't know.

oh the lore is what i live for. but yeah it's more fun the second playthrough when you're like "oh wait, I KNOW that place. I've got a timeshare there"

I've definitely fallen into the lore video wormhole. Big fan of the Tarnished Archeologist. It's crazy how much depth there is in the game and you begin to see where GRRM's influence into it too. Harder to grasp if you just go in and play blind and ignore all the item descriptions

By the end of my first playthrough, I had no idea who I was fighting and why. Second playthrough it all came together, the loreplot is convoluted but rewarding

YEah I got a lot from watching VaatiVidya, Smoughtown, Zullie The Witch and listening to the Bonfireside Chat podcast. I don't think I'd get half as much fun from this without knowing a bit about the lore and why stuff is happening. It becomes like a cryptic detective game, and I'm all up for that.

On this playthrough I'm especially struck by the world/quest design. You really do have a ton of freedom in terms of the order in which you approach things, but the enemy scaling is very clear too. I did most of Altus before ever visiting Caelid (and Radahn is a shadow of his former pre-nerf self, sadly), and now I'm lvl 50 with a +10 weapon and Leyndell is the obvious place to go quest-wise, but that Draconic Tree Sentinel is quite obviously telling me that I should probably go explore all those areas that I skipped (like the underground and Volcano Manor proper) before continuing forward.

The difficulty curve is remarkably smooth if you know what the intended order is. Of course it's unlikely anyone could know it without having played before or consulting a guide, but I found it impressive on my last run; especially considering how much farming and grinding I used to do on this game and previous Fromsoft games. Seriously, I've no idea how anyone can get through Bloodborne without occasionally farming those werewolves on the bridge at the beginning

I'm now up to Stormveil on my third proper playthrough, around lv30, and I'm realising how much stuff I missed on my previous playthroughs, like Dear Ratboy and not-Vampire-Hunter-Undead-Hunter-actually D out in the wild. The Blood Katana with boosted Dex, Arc and Vig build seems to be working well as a build, you can really take down those giants hardcore!

It's been a while since I played but... who is Dear Ratboy?

D is a weak link in the game imo, but I forget that it's possible to meet him before you get to the Roundtable Hold. I do like the voice-casting and his peculiar Rotherham (I assume Rotherham based on a friend who sounds similar) accent

Dear Ratboy sounds like Boc to me.

I should do his quest this time, and Jarburg since that was broken on my first playthrough.

I never thought I would become such a halberd enjoyer, but I got the dragon halberd and may try a dual halberd build with the starting one. Also swapped out the Great Stars for a basic (heavy) longsword and I'm much happier.

I'm not sure I've ever been able to do the whole Jarberg quest all the way through

It's low-key frustrating that as a PS player who's completed the game 3 times, I have to go through a significant part of it yet again to get to the DLC. That said, I don't think it's too hard to get to Radahn or Mogh in the earlier stages of the game is it? Besides, I'm looking forward to going back to it.

Did I mention that I applied to go on Mastermind on a whim the other day; chose Elden Ring as my number one choice of specialist subject

Can't you do just it on one of your end-game characters? That's my plan. Or did you go to ng+, and want to do the DLC in new game?

You can get to Radahn & Mogh pretty early, but beating Mogh at a low level is another thing entirely, and I think the DLC will be tuned for end game stats.

I've yet to start a fresh character, on ng+3 at this stage. Wouldn't the appeal to start fresh be primarily for challenge and PvP? I'm kinda PvE only and have a bunch of larval tears and maxed out weapons to play with my build. While at the start of ng+3, it should be fun to get to Mohg again

I got 70k runes from an over-leveled phantom dying during an invasion last night, that was a cool four levels for free.

I'm quite heavily back in - NG+ & overlevelled (250-260), clearing up as much as I can before I burn the shit out of the Erdtree. Feel like I'll burn through the DLC too quick if I stick with this guy so starting to think about a new playthrough - I've never done a thing with INT so maybe fun to be a sorcerer for a bit.

Thought I might commit to Bloodborne or DS3 (both of which I've done about 20% of) before the DLC but I don't want to confuse my hard earned muscle memory with slight variations.

my intentions to do sorcery/INT builds always die after a few hours of play through. wd consider re-speccing a post renala STR/DEX/FAI build tho.

Ha, same. Even if I tell myself I'm going to do more spells or archery, ranged combat is not that satisfying for me, and I'm too much of a simpleton to worry about blue flasks or crafting arrows. A straight dex or str build with a few different weapons/ashes is as much as I can concentrate on. Too busy dodging.

Same really - I always end up thinking ‘f it why I don’t just hit the little shit with a sword’ when I try magic classes - but I might as well try it and I’d rather keep Mr Level 255 as an OP beast who hits things and they die.

I have about three RL 150 characters that have “done it all” except burn the Erdtree, I prepped them for dueling, but also with the purpose of entering the DLC. I hope you don’t need to start a new game for DLC to be accessible!

All three characters were also like “me figuring out which character’s playstyle I most enjoyed” and it is, absolutely, a greatshield dude— my preference is for the Haligtree gs

A turtle! Do you use a poke-y weapon with that?

Dear Ratboy sounds like Boc to me.

― feed me with your chips (zchyrs), Tuesday, February 27, 2024 3:32 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Correct! Going to head to the coastal cave to help him out...

Can't you do just it on one of your end-game characters? That's my plan. Or did you go to ng+, and want to do the DLC in new game?

You can get to Radahn & Mogh pretty early, but beating Mogh at a low level is another thing entirely, and I think the DLC will be tuned for end game stats.

― Jordan s/t (Jordan), Tuesday, February 27, 2024 4:06 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

When you start a new game it uses the same save file you previously had, so you lose all your grace sites but keep all your weapons etc. It shouldn't be too much of a hassle

I picked up the game again for the first time in several months (link if anyone's really interested in watching 3 hours of me going "where's the steed whistle again?" and dying to low-level mooks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0q32xC0NRs).

I had previously started a brand new game as a Wretch, playing it as closely to the intended order as I could, and gotten through about half of it up to Altus Plateau.

Something I don't remember having to do in previous playthroughs was the Yura quest in order to get the Purifying Crystal Tear from Bloody Finger Eleanora.

I know I must have used it to fight Mogh, but I've no memory of the sections at 2:19 where you help Yura fight an assassin, and 2:41 at the Second Church of Marika where you find him dying and then have to fight Eleanora. Was that all patched in later?

looks like Eleanora invades even if you're not doing the Yura quest - see final bullet of the questline on fextra

I've never done a thing with INT so maybe fun to be a sorcerer for a bit.

Quite like my current character having 60/50/60/60 VIG/END/STR/FAI and 9 INT. So, so thick.

I picked up the game again for the first time in several months (link if anyone's really interested in watching 3 hours of me going "where's the steed whistle again?" and dying to low-level mooks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0q32xC0NRs).

DL I am not going to watch all of this but you successfully have me yelling at the screen to try and tell you where Torrent's whistle is. Tense-making!

hahaha, no I wouldn't expect anyone to watch 3 hours of me trying to summon back the muscle memory I lost while playing Dark Souls, Demon's Souls and Baldur's Gate.

It's very strange, even playing the other FromSoft games, there are small mechanical variables that make a huge difference

looks like Eleanora invades even if you're not doing the Yura quest - see final bullet of the questline on fextra

― woof, Wednesday, February 28, 2024 10:47 AM (sixteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Well I'd have thought so, but she didn't appear until I did that Yura quest. But maybe I was doing something wrong

hmmm now I look her fextralife page has a lot of confusing comments about the actual spawn conditions - maybe have the nagakiba, maybe visit the grand lift of roid…

I think you get the nagakiba when Yura dies, which I'd also never had before

So maybe it is just the 'ever visited the grand lift of roid?' condition. I did Yura pretty carefully first time around iirc, so can't really give any first-hand info.

Oh - I've never played FromSoft DLC before. Does the weapon upgrade system stay roughly the same? I'm hoarding ancient dragon stones/sombers on this NG+ amble (wouldn't call it a run) in the expectation that they will be useful in June if I take this character in & there are fun new weapons.

Apparently the DLC will have its own unique levelling-up system similar to Sekiro so that it still presents a challenge to people who've overpowered themselves in the main game

@ Jordan, yes, a lance typically

I’m a big time lance enjoyer, my best duelist was a light rolling 2h lance user with a silly cleaver as my second weapon

But like in the depths of my Elden Ring obsession I had 15 copies of every ash, maxed ingredients and consumables, 10 to 20 of every weapon, I helped people out over Reddit a lot

I had a go at rolling a halberd last night but it was quite slow to swing. I generally just go for the weapon with the most attack power that won't take me over medium load - that's what we all do, right?

My big fun was to wield several copies of the same weapon (cleanrot rapier for example) with different complimentary ashes applied. I’d swap my right hand so the opponent never knew which ash was coming next

But for PvP, yes, lance and haligtree great shield with a misericorde offhand, parry and crit all comers. I’d swap to something more powerful like a great sword for bosses

I find the halberd r1 poke to be quite fast and good at interrupting people's attacks (good poise damage I guess), but I need other options for horizontal/unlocked attacks against multiple targets.

Upgraded the dragon halberd and dual halberds definitely has some potential! With pvp I'm remembering that it's often not enough to have a vanilla build and ignore all the talismans/buffs/ashes/etc. In DS3 you could sort of do that if you were good at the fighting mechanics, but in ER you just need that big damage sometimes.

I tried the Great Jar Challenge last night (at lvl 50) and failed miserably, it was hilarious though. It uses real player builds, and now every npc is a ridiculous fextra/youtube build, relentlessly spamming ashes with infinite mana and buffed hp.

Apparently the DLC will have its own unique levelling-up system similar to Sekiro so that it still presents a challenge to people who've overpowered themselves in the main game

Yeah this is interesting, it sounds like they're trying something new so that there's still a challenge for people's overpowered level 300 builds. But I assume things like the weapon upgrade system will stay exactly the same, if past games are anything to go by.

@ Jordan yes, the Great Jar Challenge became impossible around the arena update. I think I was trying to get a RL 80 character going, and I had to re-spec to a cheese build just so I take on those Jar challengers. Awful!

That's cool if there's a new levelling system. Just going to keep getting OP while staying remorselessly stupid.

fgti how did you get parry on a greatshield? I was mucking about trying to learn parry the other day and could only get the parry-ish ashes onto my mediums. Thought it would be fun to have it on a stupid big shield but failed.

Oh I'm likely misremembering, I think you're correct. It's been well over a year since I've Eldened a Ring. In PvP I think I relied on the ridiculous poise reduction of the lances and poise absorption of the greatshield to stagger, for example, those beastly knights in Elphail and Farum Azula, at which point I'd crit with a dagger. One day I'll re-connect my PS5 and revisit my builds but not today!

ELDEN RING!

Okay, well now I've remembered the controls, I spent a lot of time just prattling about again last night in spaces I thought I was familiar. It's amazing how much time one can spend doing this, in fact, just saying "I'm just going to follow this wall or this cliff edge and see where I end up". In fact I'm sure I happened upon a part of Limgrave I couldn't quite remember seeing before with all these abandoned decrepit flame chariots dotted around a field with a rune bear in the middle of them.

This is partly because I can't quite recall where I tapped out of the game almost a year ago. Until now I've been trying to go through the game in the "intended" order, but now I've hit Altus Plateau, it's not obvious where to go next.

Totally. My build is coming together, can confirm that the Dragon Halberd is pretty ridiculous (I happened upon it and only later found the videos about how it's been buffed and the weapon skill now true combos) and the dual halberds are working for pvp. Just goes to show that planning out a build rarely works out for me, better to play through the game and experiment with what feels good. At this rate I'll definitely have two characters for the dlc.