Elden Ring - Shadow of the Erdtree Expansion Announced

[Ste Pickford]

I've only just realised I've been thinking about equip load wrong.  I've been making sure I'm just below 50% so I have a fast roll, but the threshold is 30% and 70%, isn't it?  As I've not got enough endurance yet to think about getting down to 30%, I might as well wear some stronger armour.  Doh!

[joemul]

Absolutely loving this. I think i've got about 20 hours on the clock so far. Started as wretch, and i've travelled to, and noped out of, most directions on the map. I've killed two NPCs, three optional bosses, but haven't beaten Margit yet.

 

One thing has confused me though:-

 

Spoiler

On the West of the map (directly West from the starting area) there is a massive blue light shining up from the sea. I can't see where it is originating from but it's visible from a good chunk of the map. Anyone else got this?

 

[Down by Law]

46 minutes ago, CrichStand said:

I think it comes down to how you play the game. I’ve roamed a huge amount of the world - far north, Far East, far west and been to late game areas, with a base character and starting weapon. Hardly anything attacks you and you can easily avoid the stuff that does. It’s far from hostile and unfriendly. You can just explore, find items and level up without, for the most part, fighting. It’s clearly designed to be like that and it’s absolutely fantastic. I’ve only just started to use the horse for combat too, which makes things even easier. Levelled up properly and with decent gear, I’m pretty sure most of the stuff I’ve encountered so far wouldn’t be that difficult.

 

Even at base level there’s a vast amount of stuff you can tackle. For example, after almost 50hrs playing I’ve found whole areas of the map I’ve missed in Limgrave, with hidden items, shopkeepers, dungeons, mini bosses, shortcuts etc.

 

I can't agree with the bolded part because at my level I need 6000 runes or so to level up, you aint gonna find that amount just chilling in the overworld without constantly fighting. I just don't really like the gameplay all that much, I didn't like Souls either. I vastly prefer the aggresive gameplay stylings of Bloodborne and the general structure and aesthetic of that game over this.

 

 

Just before anyone says you suck get gud etc.

 

I dunno. Maybe not the right frame of mind. I'll buy it again in 6 months and start over. Plenty to play in the meantime.

[Triple A]

4 minutes ago, Ste Pickford said:

I've only just realised I've been thinking about equip load wrong.  I've been making sure I'm just below 50% so I have a fast roll, but the threshold is 30% and 70%, isn't it?  As I've not got enough endurance yet to think about getting down to 30%, I might as well wear some stronger armour.  Doh!

The equip screen does tell you whether an item will take you into heavy gear/big boy/girl territory, when highlighting the item before choosing/equipping it

[joemul]

Anyone else encountered

 

Spoiler

the horseback mini boss who is only present on a bridge at night to the south west of the starting area. He battered me.

 

[Alan Stock]

Check out this awesome attention to detail with the Tree Sentinel with the church:

 

Spoiler

 

 

[Ste Pickford]

2 minutes ago, Triple A said:

The equip screen does tell you whether an item will take you into heavy gear/big boy/girl territory, when highlighting the item before choosing/equipping it

Yeah, I wasn't paying attention, my brain was still in Dark Souls mode.

[Number 28]

3 minutes ago, joemul said:

Anyone else encountered

 

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the horseback mini boss who is only present on a bridge at night to the south west of the starting area. He battered me.

 

I kicked his ass on Torrent. He appeared for me in the south on the road to Morne Castle.

[Dark Soldier]

Location spoiler in screenshot. North 'Lift' down location. End of dungeon. Praise Miyazaki. Godly.

 

Spoiler

 

[Chadruharazzeb]

Just picked up the Bloodhounds Fang sword which apparently has an move called Bloodhounds Finesse on it, but I'm damned if I can find any info on how to do it. 

[robdood]

6 minutes ago, joemul said:

Anyone else encountered

 

  Reveal hidden contents

the horseback mini boss who is only present on a bridge at night to the south west of the starting area. He battered me.

 

 

1 minute ago, Number 28 said:

I kicked his ass on Torrent. He appeared for me in the south on the road to Morne Castle.

Those are two separate dudes with separate loots!!  The one near Morne drops an awesome meaner version of the flail you find in an early dungeon! And a good weapon art! 

 

I've now taken to traversing the map at night on occasion hunting for more of them!! Does anyone know if there's a trick to finding them? I'm sticking to roads for now, if I have to travel the whole map at night just to find something I'm not gonna bother. 

[robdood]

3 minutes ago, Dark Soldier said:

Location spoiler in screenshot. North 'Lift' location. End of dungeon. Praise Miyazaki. Godly.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Not that much of a spoiler, it's one of the loading screens!  I wish they hadn't put cool things on the loading screens. 

[Captain Kelsten]

10 minutes ago, Down by Law said:

 

I can't agree with the bolded part because at my level I need 6000 runes or so to level up, you aint gonna find that amount just chilling in the overworld without constantly fighting. I just don't really like the gameplay all that much, I didn't like Souls either. I vastly prefer the aggresive gameplay stylings of Bloodborne and the general structure and aesthetic of that game over this.

 

 

Just before anyone says you suck get gud etc.

Nice one on the platinum, bet that took some work!

 

You can be super aggressive in this, btw. Far more than any previous Souls and much closer to Bloodborne, if you wish. 

[scottcr]

1 hour ago, hmm said:

 

Do you mean the

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stag

?

 

I don't know what level you are but I don't think that's intended to be an especially tough one - it didn't seem to hit that hard and I was only mid 20s or something when I did it recently. Think I've got a video if you want to see how.

 

OTOH, if you mean the

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Dragonkin soldier

then, yeah, come back much later. But I don't think the torches unlock access to him - think he's there anyway?

 

yeah it was the first one... it's not let me use my jellyfish or zombie summons I have, which is a bit annoying - I see from the video above that I should be able to.

 

I've got the bell... ?!

[PeteJ]

Just now, scottcr said:

 

yeah it was the first one... it's not let me use my jellyfish or zombie summons I have, which is a bit annoying - I see from the video above that I should be able to.

 

I've got the bell... ?!

You might have to rest again before summons are available. I think they can only be used once per 'rest'. 

[mr_woo]

14 minutes ago, Down by Law said:

 

I can't agree with the bolded part because at my level I need 6000 runes or so to level up, you aint gonna find that amount just chilling in the overworld without constantly fighting. I just don't really like the gameplay all that much, I didn't like Souls either. I vastly prefer the aggresive gameplay stylings of Bloodborne and the general structure and aesthetic of that game over this.

 

 

Just before anyone says you suck get gud etc.

 

I take it you played Sekiro as well ?  That's probably as aggressive as it gets for FROM Softwares games gameplay wise, one of my favourites.

[Opinionated Ham Scarecrow]

10 minutes ago, Dark Soldier said:

Location spoiler in screenshot. North 'Lift' down location. End of dungeon. Praise Miyazaki. Godly.

 

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Oh snap.

Spoiler

 

[Down by Law]

Ha yeah 80 hours or so, did it all on my own as played offline, only used the NPC summons. 

 

I love the trick weaponry and the arsenal in Bloodborne is awesome. In 13 hours of Elden Ring I had a sword and two different types of Halberd, one did have a cool BB style saw on the end but the moveset was pretty much the same. I picked up a crossbow, a mace, a hammer and an axe that all had a red x on them so I couldn't use them. Never even got to use a ranged weapon once. I felt like I was going through the motions.

Will give it a try in a few months, will likely get the PS4 version for better performance. I mean NO dual sense features either, wtf

[Dark Soldier]

10 minutes ago, robdood said:

Not that much of a spoiler, it's one of the loading screens!  I wish they hadn't put cool things on the loading screens. 

Ah I've been looking away when it loads! Proper frustrating.

[Exidor]

21 minutes ago, joemul said:

One thing has confused me though:-

 

  Reveal hidden contents

On the West of the map (directly West from the starting area) there is a massive blue light shining up from the sea. I can't see where it is originating from but it's visible from a good chunk of the map. Anyone else got this?

 

 

Location spoiler:

Spoiler

Sounds like you've placed a marker on a random bit of sea on your map.

 

[Kryptonian]

1 hour ago, robdood said:

I’d recommend all newbies (well, it's what I'm doing too really) level Vigor as a priority to get more HP and make sure you survive a bit longer.  Then concentrate on upgrading one weapon to about +6 before trying to beat Margit.

so not my level 11 vigor and +4 bastard sword 😬

 

edit - iOS autocorrected vigor to bigot

[Cosmic_Guru]

Couple of easy sub bosses for magic users down .   Even getting to some of the locations is an adventure in itself.  Annoying that lightening spell us deemed a faith spell seems like glintstone is my crack, fortunately there is lot of it around and a mining source too.

[robdood]

4 minutes ago, Kryptonian said:

so not my level 11 vigor and +3 or 4 bastard sword 😬

 

edit - iOS autocorrected vigor to bigot

It's probably doable, Margit isn't THAT big of a deal compared with what will be expected of us all later in the game..  Having vit at about 15-20 gives you a bit more of a cushion. 

 

Bastard sword is a, er.. bastard though, I find it too stubby to be useful tbh! 

 

How much damage do you do to him in a charge R2 / jump R2, if it does more than a few pixels of his health bar you're in good shape.  When I beat him I was probably taking about 5% with each big attack.  That's only 20 hits!! It's then a matter of steeling your nerves for the duration of the fight. 

 

If you summon help, only summon one person, as it'll up the boss health too much.  Alternating between attack/defend while boss is distracted helps a lot.  But your wolves or jellyfish or whatever spirit is your favourite does the job too without buffing his health! 

[cassidy]

2 hours ago, Popo said:

Ohhh, how do you upgrade your summons?

I posted how earlier in the thread today in a spoilered post if you want to read how. Or it may have been yesterday.  Days are blurring into one at the moment. But the info is in here. 

[Kryptonian]

Just now, robdood said:

It's probably doable, Margit isn't THAT big of a deal compared with what will be expected of us all later in the game..  Having vit at about 15-20 gives you a bit more of a cushion. 

 

Bastard sword is a, er.. bastard though, I find it too stubby to be useful tbh! 

 

How much damage do you do to him in a charge R2 / jump R2, if it does more than a few pixels of his health bar you're in good shape.  When I beat him I was probably taking about 5% with each big attack.  That's only 20 hits!! It's then a matter of steeling your nerves for the duration of the fight. 

 

If you summon help, only summon one person, as it'll up the boss health too much.  Alternating between attack/defend while boss is distracted helps a lot.  But your wolves or jellyfish or whatever spirit is your favourite does the job too without buffing his health! 

I did him yesterday like that, can’t remember the damage but it was a few heavy hits to get him on the ground (is this taking his super armour off that I read in here) so I could stab him up. The next phase involved a lot more rolling around though!

[Chadruharazzeb]

Fuck you, Margit. 

[CrichStand]

47 minutes ago, Down by Law said:

 

I can't agree with the bolded part because at my level I need 6000 runes or so to level up, you aint gonna find that amount just chilling in the overworld without constantly fighting. I just don't really like the gameplay all that much, I didn't like Souls either. I vastly prefer the aggresive gameplay stylings of Bloodborne and the general structure and aesthetic of that game over this.

 

 

Just before anyone says you suck get gud etc.

You absolutely can do exactly what I’ve mentioned. It’s what I’ve done myself for large amounts of the game. There are Runes scattered everywhere in the world that you can discover and pick up without fighting. You do realise that the glowing skulls that are scattered about on the floor can be smashed and have Runes in them of varying levels?
 

I must have over 100 Golden Runes stored up, some high level, which adds up to to an absolutely insane amount of upgrades, all from just exploring. You also find the flask upgrades, health upgrades and plenty of decent gear too from just exploring.

 

You can also just ride around and smash stuff up on horseback in Limgrave and easily get loads and loads of Runes too.

 

Not having a go, just pointing out it comes down to how you play the game. You can play it like Dark Souls, Bloodborne etc and jump into loads of battles and try to follow the main game line. However, you can also approach the game differently because of the open world. You can 100% head off in any direction and explore and discover stuff to build your character up, and do that with only the occasional death. I’m 50hrs in and completed loads of stuff with my low level character, yet barely scratched the surface of other stuff I’ve found. And in terms of the whole game world and the stuff I’ve discovered, I’ve probably done about 1%. It’s absolutely outrageous, the scale and scope of what they’ve achieved. But yeah, its not for everybody and there’s nothing wrong with that.

[Dark Soldier]

I don't think I've seen anything in film, television, music, all art that matches the sheer passion and vision that Miyazaki has brought to this. Phenomenal, breathtaking stuff.

[Goemon]

4 minutes ago, Chadruharazzeb said:

Fuck you, Margit. 

He is brutal! I think he’s deliberately tough to get people out exploring.

 

I just played jolly coop on him for an hour and a half and only managed to beat him once. :s

[Davros sock drawer]

48 minutes ago, Alan Stock said:

Check out this awesome attention to detail with the Tree Sentinel with the church:

 

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Happened to me when I tried to cheese him from inside the church. Worth doing for a laugh if anyone has yet to kill him!