Elden Ring - Shadow of the Erdtree Expansion Announced

[Kryptonian]

8 minutes ago, Ry said:

Decided to head south from the starting area as the castle after Margit fight was kicking my arse.

 

Although I'm getting annoyed with the game and mechanics regarding the attributes. I don't have a clue what these numbers mean and I have minus numbers next to plus and other convoluted nonsense. So much is not explained I feel the game is wasting my time. I am still using my starting sword at plus 4 strength and no idea how to upgrade further. 

 

I just constantly have that nagging feeling my character could be much stronger and I don't know where to begin. 

 

As much as I love a ton about the game, it feels like a bloody chore at times. 

 

You should post a pic of your stats screen for people to see

 

Why do you think you could be much stronger?

[metallicfrodo]

Other players messages are actually beginning to piss me off now, so I might have to go offline. Some areas are littered with them which totally ruins the ambiance, and it doesn’t help that far too many seem to be the same “joke” about ‘but hole’. Also fuckers who leave them right by somewhere you actually need to interact with!

[Harrisown]

I lost 6k souls earlier but I guess I have to take it on the chin.

The summon I got from the boat man dude is really good.

 

One thing I'm sick of is the messages.

Too many smart arse not funny idiots making crap jokes.

Also the GUI gets in the way. Surely From can make something where the prompts don't keep covering your screen.

 

[Harrisown]

4 minutes ago, metallicfrodo said:

Other players messages are actually beginning to piss me off now, so I might have to go offline. Some areas are littered with them which totally ruins the ambiance, and it doesn’t help that far too many seem to be the same “joke” about ‘but hole’. Also fuckers who leave them right by somewhere you actually need to interact with!

snap

 

Earlier when I was trying to get my 6k souls back I couldn't change my left hand weapon to a shield because it was trying to interact some message prompt that was probably a message.

 

 

[kiroquai]

1 hour ago, John0 said:

 

Which Let's Play are you watching Kiro?

 

(also I envy your self control over not playing something that makes you rage )

 

FightinCowboy's one. Really good stuff!

 

 

[Alan Stock]

I had an amazing time last night, finished off Stormvale castle and into the lands beyond. The game just gets better and better, it keeps upping the scale, the atmosphere, the graphics and the surprises. Absolutely enthralled with it!

 

My adventures yesterday (Spoilers for end of Stormvale and next area activites):

 

Spoiler

First order of the night was to spend some runes, upping my Lordswain straight sword to +6, then tapping into some of my consumables Runes to level up STR to wield some other weapons. Then realised I could now weild the Grand Epee (basically a huge rapier) but could only afford to give it +2. Never upgrade weapons if you are planning to level up first! I also finished off my exploration of the windy plateau below the castle, the giant infested area and discovered you could get inside the grand gate where the giant ambush is on the top level, I love that most structures do have some way inside.

 

Then it was time to take on Godfrey again. With the NPC summon on hand I made a number of attempts, and also had the resist fire miracle to help in phase 2. The spirit summons always die in phase 1 but the NPC usually lasts a bit longer. As I mentioned earlier, I read a message at the boss door recommending the jellyfish summon, who I've found pretty useless so far, but that was the clincher. The jelly managed to soak up a fair bit of damage and also ended up poisoning Godfrey before its demise at the start of phase 2. By this point my dodge timings for the boss were quite good so I managed to survive the one on one conflict once the summons were all dead, using the window of opportunity when he does his fire attacks to get in close and charge R2 attacks to finally finish him off. Tough but nothing compared to Margit!

 

Leaving with the rather ominous words from the priest fellow, I finally reached the non-combat side rooms I'd found via my castle skip route and emerged once again into the amazing vista beyond, which doesn't get any less impressive on the second viewing. I'd not returned here since finding the back way, not wanting to get too far ahead of the guided progression. I headed left, cleared out the little graveyard and to the ruined chapel where I learned about the magic enclave from the rather glum sorcerer NPC. A guilded key is on the to do list! Past the chapel the cliffside reveals a view to a cool little structure atop a rock spire in the sea, though I wasn't sure if this was the place the NPC was on about (in retrospect I think when he was talking about the lake he means the flooded lands to the north).

 

After taking on some tough skellies in another graveyard uphill (Square Off weapon arts are good against these guys), I took the narrow road downhill into the next area, destroying the encampment on the way. This led me into the forested flooded region below, where I found the next grace site and vendor. What blows my mind is that when I looked down on the vista earlier, I had assumed all the trees at the bottom were just landscape flavour and we would be sticking to the raised areas - but actually the huge forest is a zone within itself! So cool!

 

Feeling brave I followed the flooded road into the forest. Amazing atmosphere and lighting here, the visuals just keep getting better. Wights silently crawl around (easy to kill) and there is the occasional undead horse rider from the loading screen, which when alerted spews smoke as it runs around, which looks amazing. I reached the next map point and as I was expecting, the map has got massively bigger, how exciting! Its pretty mindblowing how huge this world is, and I can't really believe it. Super hyped! Without deviating too much from the main road I reached another grace site and checked out some big flooded ruins beyond that the grace was guiding me towards. Bloodstains and a big open area in the middle suggested a boss fight, so I worked my way around the edges picking off wights, finding a suspiciously empty underground chamber which had a bell which casts the golden projectile attack that the wights use (which is a lovely graphical effect).

 

Summoning my wolves I ventured into the centre and sure enough a centipedal monstrosity emerged from underground, with arms instead of legs. It's insanely fast, moves horrifically and can leap huge distances to do instadeath combos, not to mention spewing poison and burrowing underground to emerge behind you. Awesome creature design, the way it jitters and moves so fast is pretty terrifying. Needless to say, although I could damage it well enough and it doesn't have a huge health pool, its attacks are so fast you can easily die in one combo. I even bought the poison resist spell to help, but it's the melee attacks that are the issue. I reluctantly decided to come back later when I have a bit more HP (I've only put 3 or 4 points into vigour so far).

 

But I still had another progression thread to follow - the tower mentioned when you pick up Godrick's great rune, at the end of the mighty castle bridge. I thought I knew how to get there, the right hand door in the ballista courtyard of death at the castle gate, the one guarded by the insane giant beast. Summoning my courage I ported to the gatehouse grace site and after some deaths repeated my earlier tactic, zig-zagging my way out of the ballista fire up the stairs on the left, and used the wolves to help clear the first part of the courtyard. Being a bit stronger now, I managed to clear the enemies at the front gate as well (straight ahead from the main gate). Seeing as I hadn't taken the lower route yet, I pressed onwards, climbing up the cliff on the left only to die a number of times to sneakily hidden fire ballistas. The next attempts were rune retrival runs, requiring clearing out the courtyard each time (never going near the beast so as not to alert him). Ultimately I decided to try the crossbow I'd unlocked from the imp statue room at the roundtable, which turned out to be a great idea. It allows you to snipe and so I was able to methodically clear out the enemies and ballista men with some hair-raising strafing, peeking out and ducking in to avoid huge ballista bolts. I ended up clearing that section of road, got a few items as a reward and made it up to the central courtyard where I noped out of a frontal assault, one day I'll return and take it all out from the rear and take on the giant chap there.

 

With that side mission over, I went back down to the first courtyard and carefully sneaked my way through the left side of the garden towards the right-hand door, keeping a close eye on the resting beast. Thankfully he wasn't alerted, and I entered a cool tower with steps leading up to the mighty bridge. What followed was an epic showdown straight out of Shadow of the Colussus. On the rubble-strewn bridge not one, but three (!) of the giant stone golems rose up against a dark and stormy sky, their glowing molten cores contrasting beautifully with the surrounds. Awesome. I soon realised they would hurt each other accidentally, and even topple each other over, so I focussed on keeping them in front of the golem archer and trying to rush in for critical hits on their heart when they fell over. After a few deaths I claimed victory and teleported over to the end of the bridge where the tower awaited.

 

Up the long lift was a gorgeous view (tm) and the walkway emerged into the tower's top with what looked like legs of a creature around the great rune. Around the sides were amazing vistas of the world in every direction. Another awe-striking moment, I totally love this aspect of Souls games where you can see all the landmarks and wonder at the sheer scale, the excitement of knowing you'll go down into those vast lands and eventually see all of the castles, towers and plains below. With the bell tolling, the fog rolling and the sky roiling, all lit from the golden Erdtree, the atmosphere here is incredible. I picked up the rune and apparently it gives me a stat boost, but equipping it didn't seem to change anything. Later on, going through my inventory, it seems like I use the rune fragment consumables I've acquired along the way to enable the effect, and you can buy them from the finger ladies in the Roundtable as well. I finished up the tower by going back down and working my way back along the bridge to where its broken, a stretch populated by more war-birds and many falcons. Not much to find but I guess its a great place to farm feathers for crafting.

 

It was time for a return to the Roundtable to see if any new NPCs had appeared or story progression. Sure enough the girl who helped me fight Godrick had arrived, who is apparently the Roundtable's leader's adopted daughter. She said she would leave but we might meet again. The blacksmith was in prayer to Marika but wouldn't divulge much, and then I noticed a new door open in the central room. Beyond was... what the fuck! I didn't expect the two fingers to be... two fingers. Well played, From! Very creepy, very Bloodborne. So the body at the top of the rune tower was the body of another 2 fingers, intriguing. A lore dump from the fingers lady was interesting as well, seems we are doing the will of the fingers to become the elden lord after the others have been corrupted. The tone and dialogue does hint that we aren't exactly working for the good guys here, but such is the Souls way, I for one embrace my creepy finger overlords!

 

Now the study door had opened and the Roundtable leader has a lovely chunk of lore and teasing what comes ahead. At least four more demi-gods to take on in various regions. I only read up on the guy from the rotted wastes, I prefer to go to these locations and experience them first without pre-conceptions, then I'll come back and learn the lore. It really builds the anticipation for what's to come, and to already know the size of the world from the map and vistas, and knowing I'm maybe a 5th into the game, I am absolutely thrilled with the prospect of the wonders to come. Incredible!

 

I took a brief foray over the bridge south of Limgrave, finding a rude garrison on the bridge with a fire ballista who had to be taught a lesson with Torrent. However at the end of the bridge (apparently this is the Weeping Peninsula), I found another imp key, so now with 2 in hand I could open one of the forcefields from earlier in the game. I ported to the starting building (called gravesite something) and opened up the field there. Down into a poison pool (I did use the poison cure spell but turns out I can make it through just before the bar fills - maybe my higher faith stat protects me more than you guys, or my armour?), and into a wide downhill corridor... where there is a terrifying rolling spike trap on rails mounted by a statue knight and steeds. So began a harrowing descent dipping into side alcoves to avoid the roller of doom, which of course instakills you and is very fast. Of course there are enemies in the alcoves to mess you up, and get past one section and the roller follows you to the next one! After some deaths I made it to the narrow strip, getting flattened once before following player message's advice to drop down, leading me to stone imps and a deadly fire trap which I couldn't avoid. After a few tries I remembered you can damage them to make them go down, so a shot with the crossbow cleared the way. After more imps I reached a vast cavern with a suspended walkway to some kind of altar. Empty and suspicious as hell. Sure enough when crossing the bridge, to my horror one of the spider things from the castle dropped down (I can't take on these guys yet), and even worse as I ran to get off the bridge, there was another behind me! I rolled to dodge and promptly fell off - but surprisingly not to my death, to an empty platform below. I used a rainbow stone to check the next level down and sure enough it was solid, so into the shallow water I plopped. Up some stairs and a lift, I emerged on a ledge overlooking the start of the death roller alley, and to my left a spectral halberd warrior arose. No problem, the other ones had been easy. Not this guy! I did minuscule damage to him, got hit and was already out of flasks. I retreated down the stairs and desperately rolled onto the lift, just descending as a swipe passed over my head. I gave it a minute and went back up, only to find the bugger waiting there. Death.

 

Even though I clearly wasn't in a position to take on the spiders or the halberd guy, I had noticed a second drop down from the first drop down you take to avoid the roller, so went back there and this led to another hill system with another death roller. Exploring uphill I found a room with another spectral warrior, but this guy was much easier than the last. Intriguingly he and the body he was over had dragon related items, an anti-dragon weapon consumable and an item which boosts dragon incants (which I guess you might get from the temple). However it looks like dragon stuff uses Arcane stat, so not sure if I'll invest in that when it comes to it. The lore here intrigues me though. What is the connection with the dragons and the body/spectral warrior here. Why are the Exiles here spectral, when in the castle they are solid? It is located in a graveyard though and that makes sense, and the locale is the 'tomb' of something or other. Hope to gain more clues about this later in the game. One cool thing to note is when you look down into the void from the slopes, you can see the structure vanishing below right into the distance, the tomb is clearly vast. Anyway, I got ran over by the roller exploring in the other direction, and decided to call it a night. I will probably go back there for today's session and continue the mission not to be splatted.

 

I've now levelled my Grand Epee sword by another point, and it's proving useful against the stone imps and the warriors when you have room to breath, it's a really big rapier that looks a bit silly but feels great when you pull off an impale. With my Godrick runes I also did a bit more levelling up, generally spreading out points between a bit of everything I need. It's expensive now though, around 5k per level, so it takes quite a while to get that many runes, not to mention not dying and losing them all!

So what an amazing night on the game, a bit of everything that's great about Elden Ring. A boss battle, clearing out a castle segment, a Shadow of the Colussus fight, an atmosphere-laden vista, a creepy and enticing lore dump, an adventure into a beautiful and wild area, crazy new enemies, and finished up with a classic Souls trap-filled dungeon. I had so many 'wow' moments last night and just that sense creeping in that I am playing a game that is very special indeed. The prospect of so much more to come, and that I am probably less than a quarter into the game is so exciting! My playtime is 20-25 hours (hard to tell exactly because I go AFK quite a bit), soul level I'm not sure, I think around 20/22.

 

 

I realise probably few people read these long write-ups of mine, but its nice to take a break from the game and reflect on my adventures. And for those who have got further than me hopefully it's interesting to see how the order of events and playstyle differs from your own. I doubt I'll be able to keep this up this level of detail, I'm currently on holiday so I have the time to do it!

 

Currently working its way up to being my favourite Souls game already and I can definitely start to see why its been getting 10/10s across the board. And the estimates of 100 hours of playtime (if you do most of the content) seem legitimate, I am on 20-25 hours and have only done most of Limgrave and Stormvale! And probably much longer if you start to do jolly co-op, which I've still not touched!

[Dan]

22 minutes ago, Popo said:

Absolutely gutted I can’t play this over Xcloud on my laptop while at work. 

Remote play?

[Thor]

13 minutes ago, metallicfrodo said:

Other players messages are actually beginning to piss me off now, so I might have to go offline. Some areas are littered with them which totally ruins the ambiance, and it doesn’t help that far too many seem to be the same “joke” about ‘but hole’. Also fuckers who leave them right by somewhere you actually need to interact with!

"fort, night" should be fucking banned as a possible combination. 

[Yiggy]

When you’re getting attacked how clear is it when an enemy is lining up a BIG attack that can’t really be blocked and requires a roll to negate. Is it usually big wind up / pull back that gives the game away? I spend most of my time rolling about. And I find with some of the mega bosses it’s really hard to tell because it’s not like they’re winding things up and signposting everything. They just seem to SMASH you every time. On those is it just timings on your rolls?

[Uzi]

18 minutes ago, metallicfrodo said:

Other players messages are actually beginning to piss me off now, so I might have to go offline. Some areas are littered with them which totally ruins the ambiance, and it doesn’t help that far too many seem to be the same “joke” about ‘but hole’. Also fuckers who leave them right by somewhere you actually need to interact with!

I've been playing office since day 1. Not feeling like I'm missing anything after having played all other souls games online (not intending to co op right now)

[Davros sock drawer]

8 minutes ago, Alan Stock said:

I had an amazing time last night, finished off Stormvale castle and into the lands beyond. The game just gets better and better, it keeps upping the scale, the atmosphere, the graphics and the surprises. Absolutely enthralled with it!

 

My adventures yesterday (Spoilers for end of Stormvale and next area activites):

 

  Hide contents

First order of the night was to spend some runes, upping my Lordswain straight sword to +6, then tapping into some of my consumables Runes to level up STR to wield some other weapons. Then realised I could now weild the Grand Epee (basically a huge rapier) but could only afford to give it +2. Never upgrade weapons if you are planning to level up first! I also finished off my exploration of the windy plateau below the castle, the giant infested area and discovered you could get inside the grand gate where the giant ambush is on the top level, I love that most structures do have some way inside.

 

Then it was time to take on Godfrey again. With the NPC summon on hand I made a number of attempts, and also had the resist fire miracle to help in phase 2. The spirit summons always die in phase 1 but the NPC usually lasts a bit longer. As I mentioned earlier, I read a message at the boss door recommending the jellyfish summon, who I've found pretty useless so far, but that was the clincher. The jelly managed to soak up a fair bit of damage and also ended up poisoning Godfrey before its demise at the start of phase 2. By this point my dodge timings for the boss were quite good so I managed to survive the one on one conflict once the summons were all dead, using the window of opportunity when he does his fire attacks to get in close and charge R2 attacks to finally finish him off. Tough but nothing compared to Margit!

 

Leaving with the rather ominous words from the priest fellow, I finally reached the non-combat side rooms I'd found via my castle skip route and emerged once again into the amazing vista beyond, which doesn't get any less impressive on the second viewing. I'd not returned here since finding the back way, not wanting to get too far ahead of the guided progression. I headed left, cleared out the little graveyard and to the ruined chapel where I learned about the magic enclave from the rather glum sorcerer NPC. A guilded key is on the to do list! Past the chapel the cliffside reveals a view to a cool little structure atop a rock spire in the sea, though I wasn't sure if this was the place the NPC was on about (in retrospect I think when he was talking about the lake he means the flooded lands to the north).

 

After taking on some tough skellies in another graveyard uphill (Square Off weapon arts are good against these guys), I took the narrow road downhill into the next area, destroying the encampment on the way. This led me into the forested flooded region below, where I found the next grace site and vendor. What blows my mind is that when I looked down on the vista earlier, I had assumed all the trees at the bottom were just landscape flavour and we would be sticking to the raised areas - but actually the huge forest is a zone within itself! So cool!

 

Feeling brave I followed the flooded road into the forest. Amazing atmosphere and lighting here, the visuals just keep getting better. Wights silently crawl around (easy to kill) and there is the occasional undead horse rider from the loading screen, which when alerted spews smoke as it runs around, which looks amazing. I reached the next map point and as I was expecting, the map has got massively bigger, how exciting! Its pretty mindblowing how huge this world is, and I can't really believe it. Super hyped! Without deviating too much from the main road I reached another grace site and checked out some big flooded ruins beyond that the grace was guiding me towards. Bloodstains and a big open area in the middle suggested a boss fight, so I worked my way around the edges picking off wights, finding a suspiciously empty underground chamber which had a bell which casts the golden projectile attack that the wights use (which is a lovely graphical effect).

 

Summoning my wolves I ventured into the centre and sure enough a centipedal monstrosity emerged from underground, with arms instead of legs. It's insanely fast, moves horrifically and can leap huge distances to do instadeath combos, not to mention spewing poison and burrowing underground to emerge behind you. Awesome creature design, the way it jitters and moves so fast is pretty terrifying. Needless to say, although I could damage it well enough and it doesn't have a huge health pool, its attacks are so fast you can easily die in one combo. I even bought the poison resist spell to help, but it's the melee attacks that are the issue. I reluctantly decided to come back later when I have a bit more HP (I've only put 3 or 4 points into vigour so far).

 

But I still had another progression thread to follow - the tower mentioned when you pick up Godrick's great rune, at the end of the mighty castle bridge. I thought I knew how to get there, the right hand door in the ballista courtyard of death at the castle gate, the one guarded by the insane giant beast. Summoning my courage I ported to the gatehouse grace site and after some deaths repeated my earlier tactic, zig-zagging my way out of the ballista fire up the stairs on the left, and used the wolves to help clear the first part of the courtyard. Being a bit stronger now, I managed to clear the enemies at the front gate as well (straight ahead from the main gate). Seeing as I hadn't taken the lower route yet, I pressed onwards, climbing up the cliff on the left only to die a number of times to sneakily hidden fire ballistas. The next attempts were rune retrival runs, requiring clearing out the courtyard each time (never going near the beast so as not to alert him). Ultimately I decided to try the crossbow I'd unlocked from the imp statue room at the roundtable, which turned out to be a great idea. It allows you to snipe and so I was able to methodically clear out the enemies and ballista men with some hair-raising strafing, peeking out and ducking in to avoid huge ballista bolts. I ended up clearing that section of road, got a few items as a reward and made it up to the central courtyard where I noped out of a frontal assault, one day I'll return and take it all out from the rear and take on the giant chap there.

 

With that side mission over, I went back down to the first courtyard and carefully sneaked my way through the left side of the garden towards the right-hand door, keeping a close eye on the resting beast. Thankfully he wasn't alerted, and I entered a cool tower with steps leading up to the mighty bridge. What followed was an epic showdown straight out of Shadow of the Colussus. On the rubble-strewn bridge not one, but three (!) of the giant stone golems rose up against a dark and stormy sky, their glowing molten cores contrasting beautifully with the surrounds. Awesome. I soon realised they would hurt each other accidentally, and even topple each other over, so I focussed on keeping them in front of the golem archer and trying to rush in for critical hits on their heart when they fell over. After a few deaths I claimed victory and teleported over to the end of the bridge where the tower awaited.

 

Up the long lift was a gorgeous view (tm) and the walkway emerged into the tower's top with what looked like legs of a creature around the great rune. Around the sides were amazing vistas of the world in every direction. Another awe-striking moment, I totally love this aspect of Souls games where you can see all the landmarks and wonder at the sheer scale, the excitement of knowing you'll go down into those vast lands and eventually see all of the castles, towers and plains below. With the bell tolling, the fog rolling and the sky roiling, all lit from the golden Erdtree, the atmosphere here is incredible. I picked up the rune and apparently it gives me a stat boost, but equipping it didn't seem to change anything. Later on, going through my inventory, it seems like I use the rune fragment consumables I've acquired along the way to enable the effect, and you can buy them from the finger ladies in the Roundtable as well. I finished up the tower by going back down and working my way back along the bridge to where its broken, a stretch populated by more war-birds and many falcons. Not much to find but I guess its a great place to farm feathers for crafting.

 

It was time for a return to the Roundtable to see if any new NPCs had appeared or story progression. Sure enough the girl who helped me fight Godrick had arrived, who is apparently the Roundtable's leader's adopted daughter. She said she would leave but we might meet again. The blacksmith was in prayer to Marika but wouldn't divulge much, and then I noticed a new door open in the central room. Beyond was... what the fuck! I didn't expect the two fingers to be... two fingers. Well played, From! Very creepy, very Bloodborne. So the body at the top of the rune tower was the body of another 2 fingers, intriguing. A lore dump from the fingers lady was interesting as well, seems we are doing the will of the fingers to become the elden lord after the others have been corrupted. The tone and dialogue does hint that we aren't exactly working for the good guys here, but such is the Souls way, I for one embrace my creepy finger overlords!

 

Now the study door had opened and the Roundtable leader has a lovely chunk of lore and teasing what comes ahead. At least four more demi-gods to take on in various regions. I only read up on the guy from the rotted wastes, I prefer to go to these locations and experience them first without pre-conceptions, then I'll come back and learn the lore. It really builds the anticipation for what's to come, and to already know the size of the world from the map and vistas, and knowing I'm maybe a 5th into the game, I am absolutely thrilled with the prospect of the wonders to come. Incredible!

 

I took a brief foray over the bridge south of Limgrave, finding a rude garrison on the bridge with a fire ballista who had to be taught a lesson with Torrent. However at the end of the bridge (apparently this is the Weeping Peninsula), I found another imp key, so now with 2 in hand I could open one of the forcefields from earlier in the game. I ported to the starting building (called gravesite something) and opened up the field there. Down into a poison pool (I did use the poison cure spell but turns out I can make it through just before the bar fills - maybe my higher faith stat protects me more than you guys, or my armour?), and into a wide downhill corridor... where there is a terrifying rolling spike trap on rails mounted by a statue knight and steeds. So began a harrowing descent dipping into side alcoves to avoid the roller of doom, which of course instakills you and is very fast. Of course there are enemies in the alcoves to mess you up, and get past one section and the roller follows you to the next one! After some deaths I made it to the narrow strip, getting flattened once before following player message's advice to drop down, leading me to stone imps and a deadly fire trap which I couldn't avoid. After a few tries I remembered you can damage them to make them go down, so a shot with the crossbow cleared the way. After more imps I reached a vast cavern with a suspended walkway to some kind of altar. Empty and suspicious as hell. Sure enough when crossing the bridge, to my horror one of the spider things from the castle dropped down (I can't take on these guys yet), and even worse as I ran to get off the bridge, there was another behind me! I rolled to dodge and promptly fell off - but surprisingly not to my death, to an empty platform below. I used a rainbow stone to check the next level down and sure enough it was solid, so into the shallow water I plopped. Up some stairs and a lift, I emerged on a ledge overlooking the start of the death roller alley, and to my left a spectral halberd warrior arose. No problem, the other ones had been easy. Not this guy! I did minuscule damage to him, got hit and was already out of flasks. I retreated down the stairs and desperately rolled onto the lift, just descending as a swipe passed over my head. I gave it a minute and went back up, only to find the bugger waiting there. Death.

 

Even though I clearly wasn't in a position to take on the spiders or the halberd guy, I had noticed a second drop down from the first drop down you take to avoid the roller, so went back there and this led to another hill system with another death roller. Exploring uphill I found a room with another spectral warrior, but this guy was much easier than the last. Intriguingly he and the body he was over had dragon related items, an anti-dragon weapon consumable and an item which boosts dragon incants (which I guess you might get from the temple). However it looks like dragon stuff uses Arcane stat, so not sure if I'll invest in that when it comes to it. The lore here intrigues me though. What is the connection with the dragons and the body/spectral warrior here. Why are the Exiles here spectral, when in the castle they are solid? It is located in a graveyard though and that makes sense, and the locale is the 'tomb' of something or other. Hope to gain more clues about this later in the game. One cool thing to note is when you look down into the void from the slopes, you can see the structure vanishing below right into the distance, the tomb is clearly vast. Anyway, I got ran over by the roller exploring in the other direction, and decided to call it a night. I will probably go back there for today's session and continue the mission not to be splatted.

 

I've now levelled my Grand Epee sword by another point, and it's proving useful against the stone imps and the warriors when you have room to breath, it's a really big rapier that looks a bit silly but feels great when you pull off an impale. With my Godrick runes I also did a bit more levelling up, generally spreading out points between a bit of everything I need. It's expensive now though, around 5k per level, so it takes quite a while to get that many runes, not to mention not dying and losing them all!

So what an amazing night on the game, a bit of everything that's great about Elden Ring. A boss battle, clearing out a castle segment, a Shadow of the Colussus fight, an atmosphere-laden vista, a creepy and enticing lore dump, an adventure into a beautiful and wild area, crazy new enemies, and finished up with a classic Souls trap-filled dungeon. I had so many 'wow' moments last night and just that sense creeping in that I am playing a game that is very special indeed. The prospect of so much more to come, and that I am probably less than a quarter into the game is so exciting! My playtime is 20-25 hours (hard to tell exactly because I go AFK quite a bit), soul level I'm not sure, I think around 20/22.

 

 

I realise probably few people read these long write-ups of mine, but its nice to take a break from the game and reflect on my adventures. And for those who have got further than me hopefully it's interesting to see how the order of events and playstyle differs from your own. I doubt I'll be able to keep this up this level of detail, I'm currently on holiday so I have the time to do it!

 

Currently working its way up to being my favourite Souls game already and I can definitely start to see why its been getting 10/10s across the board. And the estimates of 100 hours of playtime (if you do most of the content) seem legitimate, I am on 20-25 hours and have only done most of Limgrave and Stormvale! And probably much longer if you start to do jolly co-op, which I've still not touched!

 

I read 'em! And I'm glad I did. I missed a bit in the spikey slope of doom section. On the To Do list it goes!

[Davros sock drawer]

4 minutes ago, Yiggy said:

When you’re getting attacked how clear is it when an enemy is lining up a BIG attack that can’t really be blocked and requires a roll to negate. Is it usually big wind up / pull back that gives the game away? I spend most of my time rolling about. And I find with some of the mega bosses it’s really hard to tell because it’s not like they’re winding things up and signposting everything. They just seem to SMASH you every time. On those is it just timings on your rolls?

 

It really is just a case of learning their moves and windup animations. I think it's fair to say that as the Souls series has gone on there have been far more of these slow, delayed attacks which I find very hard to read.. 9 times out of 10 I roll too soon, which is what the bastards want you to do.

 

As a result I'm tanking far more in this than in previous games. 

[joemul]

I need to have a thorough wander. I don't have any smithing stones and my sword is only level +2. Had a good go at Mragit but just wasn't dealing enough damage.

 

Is this the first game where your steed doesn't just feel like a gimmick? It helps with traversal but also legitimately opens up new battle options.

[Alan Stock]

10 minutes ago, Harrisown said:

One thing I'm sick of is the messages.

Too many smart arse not funny idiots making crap jokes.

Also the GUI gets in the way. Surely From can make something where the prompts don't keep covering your screen.

 

 

On the contrary I am absolutely loving the messages. Yes there are always the same jokes in predictable places, but there are genuinely smart and funny messages out there too. I often get a laugh out of them. One thing I love is how it makes the world feel a shared experience. It also makes locales and the open world more fun to explore, I enjoy finding out of the way places and seeing the messages people have left. I enjoy composing my own messages, trying to be unique or funny. I've had a few clutch heals in fights thanks to message ratings.

 

Its fun to walk around a boss fight arena and see the messages of victory and pointing out things in the arena. Its cool to go to an amazing new vista and seeing all the other people that have been there too. The messages have helped me in gameplay terms a bunch of times, I generally don't read them too much in new areas as I don't want to spoil all the surprises, but when the game went offline last night, I was in a dungeon and suddenly the place felt so lonely and empty without all the bloodstains and messages of help, support, jokes and trolls. The sense of shared experience even when you are technically alone in the game is a vital part of the Souls formula for me, and one of the areas I think Sekiro did suffer a bit for (although they added messages in retroactively, it kind of spoiled the atmosphere).

 

I appreciate that in this game I think there are even more message words and phrase options than ever, which has made for much better fun messaging overall, especially with combined emotes. My only bugbear is that the number of your own messages you can have active at once seems very small, around 10 or so, after which it starts deleting older ones unless you protect them. That really sucks. It must be so little data to store the preset word combos and location of the message, I can only imagine its limited to help whatever system they have to ensure a varied spread of popular and new messages for players. I'm sure you could have more messages in Dark Souls 3 for example.

 

The one gripe I do have with player message behaviour is people who blatently just copy a popular message and try to pass it off as their own. How sad that they are so desperate for likes that they'd just copy it exactly. My theory is its kids who are stuck on Margit and are hoping for a never-ending stream of message heals 

 

Anyway, messages. Never change baby. Just give us more to use.

 

[Cyhwuhx]

44 minutes ago, Ry said:

Decided to head south from the starting area as the castle after Margit fight was kicking my arse.

 

Although I'm getting annoyed with the game and mechanics regarding the attributes. I don't have a clue what these numbers mean and I have minus numbers next to plus and other convoluted nonsense. So much is not explained I feel the game is wasting my time. I am still using my starting sword at plus 4 strength and no idea how to upgrade further. 

 

I just constantly have that nagging feeling my character could be much stronger and I don't know where to begin. 

 

As much as I love a ton about the game, it feels like a bloody chore at times. 

 

Multiple people have explained this now. Have you read those posts?

 

Basically: weapon have number; smith weapon to get higher number; get extra + or - numbers depending on your stats; letter tells you how much stat will influence +/-; add Arts to influence letters.

[Mike S]

29 minutes ago, metallicfrodo said:

Other players messages are actually beginning to piss me off now, so I might have to go offline. Some areas are littered with them which totally ruins the ambiance, and it doesn’t help that far too many seem to be the same “joke” about ‘but hole’. Also fuckers who leave them right by somewhere you actually need to interact with!

 

 

And this is exactly why I have always played these games offline. 

 

Setting aside that they remove a lot of the mystery by telegraphing areas of interest they have always been hideous eyesores.

[scottcr]

Is there a way to set emotes to a key press? I’ve been told to click my fingers somewhere and it’s a bit annoying doing it via the menu 

[Broker]

3 hours ago, Thor said:

Oooh, where?

 

Also, can you not upgrade armour on this, only weapons?

Just weapons. As for the shards:

 

Spoiler

There’s a merchant in the Roundtable that looks like two witches sat next to each other. 
 

They accepted my ballbearing which I got from a mine somewhere so I went looking for more mines and found another ballbearing. Each one seems to expand their inventory. I’m currently going to every mine I can find hoping for more.

 

[John0]

11 minutes ago, Alan Stock said:

The one gripe I do have with player message behaviour is people who blatently just copy a popular message and try to pass it off as their own. How sad that they are so desperate for likes that they'd just copy it exactly. My theory is its kids who are stuck on Margit and are hoping for a never-ending stream of message heals 

 

I see this less out of a desire to copy and try and farm likes, but more that if the original message isn't displayed for some players then this gives a better chance of communicating what was in the message to everyone.

[Ste Pickford]

41 minutes ago, metallicfrodo said:

Other players messages are actually beginning to piss me off now, so I might have to go offline. Some areas are littered with them which totally ruins the ambiance, and it doesn’t help that far too many seem to be the same “joke” about ‘but hole’. Also fuckers who leave them right by somewhere you actually need to interact with!

 

Try Gesture!

[dug]

45 minutes ago, metallicfrodo said:

Other players messages are actually beginning to piss me off now, so I might have to go offline. Some areas are littered with them which totally ruins the ambiance, and it doesn’t help that far too many seem to be the same “joke” about ‘but hole’. Also fuckers who leave them right by somewhere you actually need to interact with!

 

43 minutes ago, Harrisown said:

I lost 6k souls earlier but I guess I have to take it on the chin.

The summon I got from the boat man dude is really good.

 

One thing I'm sick of is the messages.

Too many smart arse not funny idiots making crap jokes.

Also the GUI gets in the way. Surely From can make something where the prompts don't keep covering your screen.

 

 

Chaps! Chaps! I've had an idea for a most chortlesome jape! I shall post a message saying "secret path ahead" in front of a wall.

 

"Well, dug," you might think, "I cannot see what is so comedic about that. You are merely aiding other players in their search for secrets." 

 

So it would seem! But here is the fiendish part: there is in actuality no secret path! The wall is merely that, a wall! 

 

This will have the bounders spluttering on their port from here to Rotherhithe.

[Alan Stock]

If you find the colosseum in Limgrave your head will surely explode 

[Tomdominer]

25 hours in, only just found there is an "HRD" option that was turned off... 

[Tomdominer]

50 minutes ago, metallicfrodo said:

Other players messages are actually beginning to piss me off now, so I might have to go offline. Some areas are littered with them which totally ruins the ambiance, and it doesn’t help that far too many seem to be the same “joke” about ‘but hole’. Also fuckers who leave them right by somewhere you actually need to interact with!

 

Yeah, it does seem way worse than other From titles, for some reason.

 

That said, I've had a few messages "go viral" and they can be a godsend in the right situation.

[Uncle Nasty]

Starting to get strong "Are we the baddies?" vibes.

[scoobysi]

I’m never going to find anything in a barrel am I 😁.

[Strafe]

8 minutes ago, Tomdominer said:

25 hours in, only just found there is an "HRD" option that was turned off... 

 

You are not the only one. Thanks for the tip!

[Uncle Nasty]

1 minute ago, scoobysi said:

I’m never going to find anything in a barrel am I 😁.

 

Still can't stop rolling into them though.

[dug]

The thread title!

[Len]

6 hours ago, Hexx said:

 

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Yeah - I’d given him letter before fighting boss 

he thanked me for killing/reclaiming sword and said he would move on

 

 

Bugger.

 

Oh well, next build maybe.