Elden Ring - Shadow of the Erdtree Expansion Announced

[Triple A]

1 hour 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?

There's a lot of baiting and switching and feinting in boss attacks with this game.  More so than previous From games imo.  Some attacks take an aaaggggeee to land, trying to get you to commit to an early roll.  Part of the fun!

In short, pay attention to what they actually do and don't let your anxiety at what might happen, get the better of you.

Reminded me of this video!

 

[Captain Kelsten]

Fucking ghost bull arrow cunts 

[Triple A]

🤣

[Cyhwuhx]

36 minutes ago, scottcr said:

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 

 

They're set to the gyro: hold Triangle and waggle the controller in a certain way (as displayed in the menu). Lord knows which movement is which though.

[Triple A]

I did not notice that!  Very cool

[Davros sock drawer]

8 minutes ago, Doctor Shark said:

Fucking ghost bull arrow cunts 

 

Glad it's not just me. I'm heading back there this evening to backstab every last mother fucking one of 'em. And them I'm lighting that last torch!

[Flub]

[robdood]

1 hour 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. 

Don't give up, skeleton! 

 

Try my guide for Dark Souls.  Hope it helps.    Episode 8 is probably of use.. 

Spoiler

 

 

[Tomdominer]

33 minutes ago, Uncle Nasty said:

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

 

Well, none of them are about "but hole", or "is this a dog?" if that's what you are getting at.

[mr_woo]

22 minutes ago, Doctor Shark said:

Fucking ghost bull arrow cunts 

 

I was having major trouble last night with 

 

Spoiler

These goddamn flying harpy things last night.  Theres like the basic minions who swoop down and get you but there's these bastard ones, who when you approach are singing in a lovely operatic voice, it's genuinely really nice.  They then scream, fuckin swoop down and grab your head and one shot you.  My summoned wolf bros sorted them out though.  Cunts.

 

[Jamie John]

I have to admit to letting slip a little titter when I first read "Is this a dog" next to a massive tortoise. The second time it wasn't so funny.

 

But the third time. Well.

[Majora]

Is it just me who is immature enough to snigger every time they bang on about Finger Maidens and worshipping the two fingers or something? Pure Carry On.

 

I wasn't expecting (hub spoiler after Godrick)

 

Spoiler

For the two fingers to actually be LITERALLY two enormous living fingers...

 

[CrichStand]

This game is INSANE!!! Last night I explored the giant lake for hrs, but still didn’t even reach its end. Wandered around a flooded village, found hidden poisonous tunnels and caves, discovered the Shadow of the Colossus style creature and climbed onboard it. Discovered some churches and what they do, unlocked loads more of the map, discovered illusory walls in a building that revealed whole other areas, found 4-5 big dungeons, the Boat Man, ran up a hill zig zagging and rolling like all fuck whilst blue death rained from the skies (don’t know why that was happening), got attacked by a rudimentary tank, attacked by a giant catapult, discovered the Great Lift of Dectus, discovered the giant bridge to the floating castle, found some paintings and went off to solve them which led to discovering even more stuff. The amount of places I now have to go is totally overwhelming and it still feels like I’ve only just scratched the surface.
 

All of that and I’m base level, using the standard halberd and haven’t even done the first boss! The visual design of the world is just next level. It’s ludicrously vast and just keeps unfurling and unfolding more and more and more. The scale of stuff is just incredible. It’s one of the best games ever made.

[Alan Stock]

For those struggling with progressing their character like @Ry, here are some basics. Note I know some of you newbies will already know some of this stuff, but I'll be going over it all just in case I can cover any gaps.

 

Character Level / Menus

- Save up runes and spend them at grace sites to level up your character stats. VIG (Vigour) for HP, END (Endurance) for stamina. STR (Strength) or DEX (Dexterity) depending on what weapons you want to use. Magic users will also put points into INT (Intelligence) for sorcerer spells or FTH (Faith) for miracles. MND (mind) increases your FP (mana) but you probably won't need to do that until later unless you are a sorcerer. I would ignore (ARC) Arcane unless you are going for specific builds/goals.

- Note that on any menu screen you can press touchpad (or non-Playstation equivalent, check the prompts on the bottom of the screen), to bring up a submenu. Choose Explanations (not Menu Explanations) and now you can move the cursor over each stat and it tells you what each means. Useful for level up screen, Status screen, and weapon/armour screens.

- Press Square on Playstation (or equivalent) on any item/armour/weapon to cycle to a detailed description which has lore and more details of the item, for weapons it also details the special attack it has.

 

Weapons

- Weapons have a stat requirement to use you can see on the Equipment screen. Sometimes you might want to put a few points into the relevant stat to get that tasty weapon. Remember that just because a weapon looks low damage now, doesn't mean you can't upgrade it to make it as good or better than your current weapon.

- Compare stats with weapons you have equipped by selecting your currently equipped weapon on the equip screen and then moving the highlight over other weapons. Make sure to use stick click (or PC equivalent) to bring up the relevant window and use Square button (or equivalent) to cycle through information. 

- You can only upgrade weapons you currently have equipped, so don't miss that. Do this at the anvil (like the one at the church with Santa Claus) or blacksmiths.

- Weapon stat scaling basically works like this: If a weapon has STR D - then its damage will slightly increase as you raise your STR stat. If it had STR A, the damage will increase a lot more as you raise your STR. If you are going for a primarily STR or DEX build, stick to weapons which have better scaling letters for the relevant stat. Previous posts go into more detail.

- Essentially if you want to cause more damage, look at the weapon you're using, or want to use, and pick the highest letter you can see (with A being the highest and E being the lowest). Then bump up the stat that letter is on. STR C and DEX E sword? You'll do more damage with that if you put points into your character's STR, but still get a bit of a damage boost from boosting your DEX.

- If there are equal letters on a weapon like STR E/DEX E, either stat will do.

- Note that upgrading weapons eventually can actually upgrade the letters too, so keep an eye out for potential gains on the blacksmith/anvil screen when you hover over upgrades you can buy.

- Upgrades require stone shards which can be hard to find initially, so choose carefully. But keep exploring the world and you will find some. I got about 20-25 stones in Limgrave alone, enough to upgrade my sword to +6 and another to +2. Eventually you can unlock the ability to buy stone shards too.

 

Armour, Shields and Weight

- Armour and Shields don't have letter scaling like weapons. But they do have stat requirements to wear. Armour is generally dropped from mobs, but you can buy full sets from some vendors, like the chainmail from Santa Claus in the church. Like weapons, you can compare stats with your current armour in the same way.

- You can't upgrade armour in this game (at least according to the veterans on here!). It is possible to unlock armour variations which have the prefix 'Altered' in their name, but this is purely cosmetic, the armour stats remain the same as the originals.

- You can go for light armour (magic users/rolling gods), which lets you move faster and dodge faster. Medium armour gives better protection but slower rolls and movement. Heavy armour generally means 'fat' rolls, slow movement, but better protection.

- If you are going for heavy armour using a shield or eventually a Greatshield is a good idea, because you won't be rolling out of danger.

- For beginners I would probably recommend going for medium armour and a shield, unless you enjoy/are good at rolling out of danger. Note that rolling makes you invincible during the roll, so you can literally roll through enemy attacks, even towards them if you time it right (something that I never realised until my second Souls game!).

- Keep an eye on the equip load in the right of the equipment screen, it will say light, medium or heavy. That dictates the speed of your character and rolls. Most equipment has a weight value which is listed near the top of its stats, the weight of everything you are wearing is added together to give your equip load.

- Unless you want to be slow and wear heavy armour, keep the equip load on medium or less. Bear in mind that having multiple weapons equipped (i.e. cycling between multiple right hand weapons for example) will still add all of their weight combined to your equip load. Don't have 3 weapons equipped in each hand unless you need them or can handle the load. I believe Endurance stat increases your max equip load. Note that items in your items 'bar' (like consumables, ashes, telescope, etc) don't weigh anything, so equip them to your heart's content.

- For shields, look for the physical protection stat, it will generally be the most important. At 100 or more you won't take any damage when you block (unless the enemy is using an elemental attack like fire). Less than 100 for physical protection means you may take a bit of damage when blocking (still much better than taking the full hit!).

- Better Endurance means a bigger stamina bar, which means taking more hits on your shield before your shield posture breaks (when your character staggers).

- Remember if you let go of the block button when using your shield, your stamina will regenerate much more rapidly, so do that if you aren't in immediate danger.

- In general I don't advise using any shards to upgrade shields (feel free to correct me, pros).

- For fights against specific element types, shields and armour have protection values for stuff like fire, the higher the better the resistance, so you can always try swapping them out for better protection.

 

Weapon Ashes

- Assign them at grace sites, they replace whatever the default weapon skill is with whatever the ashes do (Left trigger on console to activate in combat). You can change or remove them whenever you want (at a grace site).

- When assigning you usually get a menu. This shows how it will affect the weapon stats, and allows you to do stuff like changing the letters for the weapon scaling. So if you are using a DEX based character, you could use the Quality option for example to raise the weapon from DEX D to DEX C, making it more powerful if you have a good DEX score. 

 

Spirit Ashes/Summons and Upgrading Spirits

- Find these in the world or often as rewards for bosses/dungeons, allowing you to summon spirits to help in boss fights/hard encounters

- You can only use them once you speak to a certain NPC, or failing that buy a special item in the Roundtable, a location you will unlock after a while. Spoilers for finding these NPCs:

Spoiler

If you rest at the church where the Santa Claus vendor is, (may need to be night time) a glowing witch will appear sitting on the church wall. She will give you the bell to allow you to summon (note its a key item that you don't have to equip). This probably only happens after you have collected at least one spirit ashes. We are unsure of the exact events needed to trigger her appearance when resting here.

 

If you miss this or can't get the witch to appear, in the Roundtable (should unlock after a while in-game after resting at a site of grace) find the finger ladies, a vendor who will sell the bell.

- Spirits can only be summoned in specific locations, usually bosses or hard encounters, where a grave icon appears on the left of the screen. They cost varying amounts of FP (mana) to cast, and once summoned they can't be summoned again in that fight even if they die. If you die or the encounter resets, you can summon again. Note that you can't have different spirits out at once, or summon a different spirit after one dies.

- You need to assign the spirit ashes to your inventory slots or quick menu (the hold down Triangle on PlayStation menu) and use the ashes to summon them.

- You can level up the strength/HP of your summons via a little quest chain starting with:

Spoiler

The girl who you find in the shack in the windy area, just to the right of the main road leading up to Stormveil castle - past the massive gate with the giant ambush. Exhaust her dialogue, and she'll bugger off to the Roundtable when you next go there. Then do a little back and forth between her and the blacksmith and she will become your spirit upgrader.

- To upgrade you will need runes and special flowers which I've generally only found in dungeons. The higher the level to upgrade, the more flowers you will need.

- Spirits are a big help in distracting enemies and causing a bit of extra damage, try out different ashes to see what works best for each encounter.

 

NPC and Player Summons/Helpful Items

- You can summon player co-op to help in fights, although I won't go into it here as I haven't dabbled in it yet! But suffice to say if you are struggling doing a boss, bring in some help!

- Some boss fights also have a story related NPC who you can summon to help in front of the boss door. Usually you will need to find the NPC in the world first, where they will offer to help. Look out for a glowing golden sign on the floor by the boss door similar to player messages, and it will ask you whether you want to summon them. They will act similarly to a player co-op partner in a fight, tanking and dealing damage and are even better than spirit summons. If they die in the fight, it doesn't kill them in the world, you can summon them again for another attempt. Even though they vanish after victory, you can usually find them again in the world, often somewhere different to where you first met them.

- Sometimes you can find special items or weapons that are specifically to help with certain bosses. Keep your eyes out and read your item descriptions. A good general tip is to always go through all of a vendor's inventory and read up on the items even if you can't afford them - you may find stuff that will be useful to buy later.

- Its also possible to find items called Talismans in the game, which give little buffs, for example I have one which reduces fire damage and another which increases my jumping attack damage. These can be equipped in the Equipment menu in the talisman slot/s. Note they also have a small weight value.

 

Hope this helps. My first Souls game (Demons Souls original) I had many of the same issues, and I agree the series is still frustratingly byzantine for newcomers in terms of upgrade mechanics. 

[Alan Stock]

20 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

I have to admit to letting slip a little titter when I first read "Is this a dog" next to a massive tortoise. The second time it wasn't so funny.

 

But the third time. Well.

 

For the first crab you find on a beach I wrote 'Beware of Pincer attack'. Only 3 upvotes for grade A hilarity. Bloody ingrates!

[scoobysi]

@Alan Stock thank you, very useful, I’ll read through it properly tonight.

[Wiper]

With the sidenote that I think Elden Ring is magnificent, and had a lot of appreciation for the narrative design of even the Souls titles that I didn't enjoy I (which made not being into the games all the more frustrating); nevertheless this made me giggle: 

 

 

 

[Davros sock drawer]

Have I missed a way to upgrade armour? I can’t see the option at the Smithing Stone or Blacksmith…

[John0]

1 hour ago, Uncle Nasty said:

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

 

I very much am not paying enough attention to the story, but I do feel like a bad guy in this more than ever (probably influenced not just by the game but also by, well, *gestures broadly at everything*). I kind of just wonder around killing everything without giving much thought to why I'm doing it. I didn't kill any of the animals (who don't attack you) at first but I have started a little bit for the crafting items. But some of the half dead peasants toiling in the fields.. I don't just wanna kind of walk up and slaughter them. Feels super bad. I suppose you can take solace in the fact that they magically come back to life (or as close as they get to it) every time you rest.

[Cosmic_Guru]

The woman who will upgrade summons appears to have died from neglect in my game.....

[disperse and recoagulate]

Man this looks complex.

 

Made myself before - scrawny Confessor with tremendous hair - and looking forward to getting my teeth stuck into it.

[Alan Stock]

5 minutes ago, Davros sock drawer said:

Have I missed a way to upgrade armour? I can’t see the option at the Smithing Stone or Blacksmith…

 

I also want to know this. I have found a key item which I thought lets me do it, but I can't see the option either. Halp.

[Mike S]

Yesterday I visited a castle on a post run and it looked and felt very much like Boletaria. At lunchtime today I was teleported to an area that looks like a very grand Anor Londo!  It's like a greatest hits package.

 

Also, I've confirmed that the trap smoke can be dodged which, to be honest, is a little bit disappointing. Of course, I wanted to see what happened so opened it again and off I went...

[deerokus]

7 minutes ago, Alan Stock said:

 

I also want to know this. I have found a key item which I thought lets me do it, but I can't see the option either. Halp.

Don't think you can upgrade armour.

[Alan Stock]

I'll have to check the item description again tonight. Spoilers for its location:

Spoiler

It was a tailor kit or similar I got off the proto human bosses in the seaside cave in the south of Limgrave.

 

[Broker]

10 minutes ago, Alan Stock said:

 

I also want to know this. I have found a key item which I thought lets me do it, but I can't see the option either. Halp.

No armour upgrades, you can modify them to slightly change the appearance but you can’t dump shards into them to improve them anymore.

[Captain Kelsten]

The tailor's kit doesn't let you upgrade armour, it lets you alter the look of some armour sets for cosmetic purposes i.e. adding/removing capes.

 

There is no way to upgrade armour.

[hmm]

I would be fascinated to know what exactly GRRM contributed to this. Very strong suspicions that he was given a large bag of cash just to let them associate his name with it. More than happy for them to garner a wider audience that way, of course - the game certainly deserves it!

 

And there's also the fact that if they had been genuinely dependent upon him for the storyline then this magnificent creation would still be at least two years away right now.

[Captain Kelsten]

He apparently came up with a lot of the backstory prior to the calamity that struck the game world, to give FROM a foundation to build on.

[cassidy]

37 minutes ago, Alan Stock said:

For those struggling with progressing their character like @Ry. Here are some basics. Note I know some of you newbies will already know some of this stuff, but I'll be going over it all just in case I can cover any gaps.

 

Character Level

- Save up runes and spend them at grace sites to level up your character stats. VIG (Vigour) for HP, END (Endurance) for stamina, and STR or DEX depending on what weapons you want to use. Magic users will also put points into INT (Intelligence) for sorcerer spells or FTH (Faith) for miracles. MND (mind) increases your FP (mana) but you probably won't need to do that until later unless you are a sorcerer. I would ignore (ARC) Arcane unless you are going for specific builds/goals.

 

Weapons

- Weapons have a stat requirement to use you can see on the Equipment screen. Sometimes you might want to put a few points into the relevant stat to get that tasty weapon. Compare stats with weapons you have equipped by selecting your weapon on the equip screen, making sure to use stick click (or PC equivalent) to bring up the relevant window, that will show you how the highlighted weapon compares to your one.

- You can only upgrade weapons you currently have equipped, so don't miss that.

- Weapon stat scaling basically works like this: If a weapon has STR D - then it the damage will slightly increase as you raise your STR stat. If it had STR A, the damage will increase a lot more as you raise your STR. If you are going for a primarily STR or DEX build, stick to weapons which have better scaling letters for the relevant stat. Previous posts go into more detail.

- Essentially if you want to cause more damage, look at the weapon your are using, or want to use, and pick the highest letter you can see (with A being the highest and E being the lowest). Then bump up the stat that letter is on. STR C and DEX E sword? You'll do more damage with that if you put points into your character's STR, but still get a bit of a damage boost from boosting your DEX.

- If there are equal letters on a weapon like STR E/DEX E, either stat will do.

- Note that upgrading weapons eventually can actually upgrade the letters too, so keep an eye out for potential gains on the blacksmith/anvil screen when you hover over upgrades you can buy.

- Upgrades require stone shards which can be hard to find initially, so choose carefully. But keep exploring the world and you will find some. I got about 20-25 stones in Limgrave alone, enough to upgrade my sword to +6 and another to +2. Eventually you can unlock the ability to buy stones shards too.

 

Armour and Shields

- Armour and Shields don't have letter scaling like weapons. But they do have stat requirements to wear. Armour is generally dropped from mobs, but you can buy full sets from some vendors, like the chainmail from Santa Claus in the church. Like weapons you can compare stats with your current armour in the same way.

- You can go for light armour (magic users/rolling gods), which lets you move faster and dodge faster. Medium gives better protection but less fast, and slower rolls and heavy armour generally means 'fat' rolls, and slow move, but better protection.

- Keep an eye on the equip load in the right of the equipment screen, it will say light, medium or heavy. That dictates the speed of your character and rolls. Unless you want to be slow and wear heavy armour, keep the equip load on medium or less. Bear in mind that having multiple weapons equipped (i.e. cycling between multiple right hand weapons for example) will still add them to your equip load. Don't have 3 weapons equipped in each hand unless you need them or can handle the load. I believe Endurance stat increases your max equip load.

- For shields, look for the physical protection stat, it will generally be the most important. At 100 or more you won't take any damage when you block. Better Endurance means a bigger stamina bar, which means taking more hits before your shield posture breaks (when your character staggers). In general I don't advise using any shards to upgrade shields (feel free to correct me, pros).

- For fights against specific element types, shield and armour have protection values for stuff like fire, the higher the better the resistance, so you can always try swapping them out for better protection.

 

Weapon Ashes

- Assign them at grace sites, they replace whatever the default weapon skill is with whatever the ashes do (Left trigger on console to activate in combat). You can change or remove them whenever you want (at a grace site).

- When assigning you usually get a menu. This shows how it will affect the weapon stats, and allows you to do stuff like changing the letters for the weapon scaling. So if you are using a DEX based character, you could use the Quality option for example to raise the weapon from DEX D to DEX C, making it more powerful if you have a good DEX score. 

 

Spirit Summons/Ashes

- Find these in the world or often as rewards for bosses/dungeons, allowing you to summon spirits to help in boss fights/hard encounters

- You can only use them once you speak to a certain NPC, or failing that buy a special item in the Roundtable, a location you will unlock after a while. Spoilers for finding these NPCs:

  Reveal hidden contents

If you rest at the church where the Santa Claus vendor is, it should turn night time and a glowing witch will appear sitting on the church wall. She will give you the bell to allow you to summon (note its a key item that you don't have to equip).

 

If you miss this or can't get the witch to appear, in the Roundtable (should unlock after a while in-game after resting at a site of grace) find the finger ladies, a vendor who will sell the bell.

- Spirits can only be summoned in specific locations, usually bosses or hard encounters, where a grave icon appears on the left of the screen. They cost varying amounts of FP (mana) to cast, and once summoned they can't be summoned again in that fight even if they die. If you die or the encounter resets, you can summon again.

- You need to assign the spirit ashes to your inventory slots or quick menu (the hold down Triangle on PlayStation menu) and use the ashes to summon them.

- You can level up the strength/HP of your summons via a little quest chain starting with:

  Reveal hidden contents

The girl who you find in the shack in the windy area, just to the right of the main road leading up to Stormwind castle, past the massive gate with the giant ambush. Exhaust her dialogue, and she'll bugger off to the Roundtable when you next go there. Then do a little back and forth between her and the blacksmith and she will become your spirit upgrader.

- To upgrade you will need runes and special flowers which I've generally only found in dungeons. The higher the level to upgrade, the more flowers you will need.

- Spirits are a big help in distracting enemies and causing a bit of extra damage, try out different ashes to see what works best for each encounter.

 

NPC and Player Summons/Helpful Items

- You can summon player co-op to help in fights, although I won't go into it here as I haven't dabbled in it yet! But suffice to say if you are struggling doing a boss, bring in some help!

- Some boss fights also have a story related NPC who you can summon to help in front of the boss door. Usually you will need to find the NPC in the world first, where they will offer to help. Look out for a glowing golden sign on the floor by the boss door similar to player messages, and it will ask you whether you want to summon them. They will act similarly to a player co-op partner in a fight, tanking and dealing damage and are even better than spirit summons. If they die in the fight, it doesn't kill them in the world, you can summon them again and even though they vanish after victory, you can usually find and talk to them in the world, usually somewhere different to where you first found them.

- Sometimes you can find special items or weapons that are specifically to help with certain bosses. Keep your eyes out and read your item descriptions. A good general tip is to always go through all of a vendor's inventory and read up on the items even if you can't afford them - you may find stuff that will be useful to buy later.

 

Hope this helps. My first Souls game (Demons Souls original) I had many of the same issues, and I agree the series is still frustratingly byzantine for newcomers in terms of upgrade mechanics. 

Great post and very helpful to those starting out. Tbh though I think most of this does get explained in the game and the help menu really does help.  And I still think this is less Byzantine in its complexity compared to starting Monster Hunter as a noob. And before all the QOL improvements made to the last gen game. 

 

I recall starting the first version that came out for the 3DS which is the one that clicked for me but starting that you have no fucking clue and these  really really tedious egg carrying quest to complete. 

 

This game however I honestly think is more welcoming than my past attempts at Souls games.