Elden Ring - Shadow of the Erdtree Expansion Announced

[Stanley]

I wonder if this will win RLLMUK game of the year award 

[PikaStu]

I’ve only increased two levels since Wednesday, as I’ve spent most of my time dying! 
I finally killed Magrit thanks to the Bloody Slash Ash of War I got from a knight in a castle to the east. Still took several attempts, I just couldn’t get my head around his attack patterns. 
 

Talking about said knight, I love the open nature of approaching enemies. This guy was in a castle where I couldn’t take my horse, but after picking off all the cannon fodder, he’ll follow you outside the castle and you can run rings around him on the horse. If in doubt, cheese it!
 

Stormveil Castle is a bit of a challenge eh?! Those bloody birds! I made it inside the side entrance and got stuck in a dark room with a knight. I went to use my Bloody Slash, only to realise I wasn’t dual-weilding, panicked and pressed several wrong buttons while the knight slaughtered me! I ended up leaving there and going back to “friendlier” locations for more exploration. Lost a good few thousand runes as it would’ve taken ages to get back to that room.
 

I also took on another cave near the start, with those stone goblin things and the mini boss

Spoiler

Burial Tree Watchdog

Made short work of him though! 
 

I think today I’ll go look for a second katana and try dual wielding, and perhaps that double sword thing for some Darth Maul action.

 

Still to kill the dragon near the start too… maybe today…

[therearerules]

 

[Ry]

8 hours ago, Kryptonian said:

I’ve not been to where you’re at but isn’t there a grace point just before the boss? That seems to be the usual pattern for me so far. I thought I had done the 2nd main boss but it was a bloke.

 

No. The grace site is an annoying run away. Someone else mentioned it too. It's a pain in the arse. 

[Mike S]

8 hours ago, Gorf said:

I’ve read that I missed the tutorial completely at the start too, have I set myself up for a harder game by picking the wretch?

Wretch club is the best club! Every item of gear discovered feels really significant and will be an improvement however basic. It might make for a harder early game but maybe a more rewarding one.
 

Also the wretch club is a genuinely handy weapon even at the most base level. I still use mine occasionally as some enemies are really susceptible to being smashed on the head rather than sliced or diced.

 

You can always go back to the tutorial as it does teach a few little tricks.

[Curtis]

1 hour ago, Doctor Shark said:

It briefly increases your poise when consumed. So no benefit, really!

While its in your inventory un-used you actually get a 5% health decrease, so you should use it ASAP.

[Jamie John]

13 minutes ago, therearerules said:

 

 

Haha! That's brilliant. What the fuck? We should have adverts like this.

[ChewMagma]

17 minutes ago, Ry said:

 

No. The grace site is an annoying run away. Someone else mentioned it too. It's a pain in the arse. 

 

We talking about Raya Lucaria?

 

Spoiler

Once you have killed the Carian Moon Knight or whatever he is called, you can just go to the right side of the open area from the bonfire, jump across the buttresses to the bridge (not sure what the trigger is, maybe killing the knight, but the rolling boulders stop) and then get to the boss lift without encountering any enemies. Takes about 20 secs, if that.

 

[Cyhwuhx]

Stormveil Castle spoiler that kind of blew my mind and made me go, "Oh From... that's so you...:

 

Spoiler

 

[Kirby]

I'd forgotten just how "random" the RNG is I From games. Finally found a place to farm smithing stones- picked up 4 - 2 3's, a 1 and a 2. Squeak of joy followed by 4 runs with nothing then another with a 1, 3 more duds then 3 3's and a 2. 😆

 

 

[Jamie John]

3 minutes ago, Cyhwuhx said:

Stormveil Castle spoiler that kind of blew my mind and made me go, "Oh From... that's so you...:

 

  Hide contents

 

 

Is that just while you're in the castle?

[Popo]

On 01/03/2022 at 14:26, Alan Stock said:

 

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.

 

What’s the deal with the “I want to go home” message that always gets eleventy billion likes? Is there an in-joke at work here?

[Cyhwuhx]

1 minute ago, Jamie John said:

 

Is that just while you're in the castle?

 

 

Yes.

 

I think so...

[Jamie John]

1 minute ago, Cyhwuhx said:

 

 

Yes.

 

I think so...

 

I think I killed him on the way back anyway. I'm pretty sure you catch him 

Spoiler

following you on top of the church where you find Rogier. I think that's him, anyway, but didn't put two and two together. He gives you a pretty useless item if you don't kill him. Could be someone different, though.

 

[Davros sock drawer]

Oh that's so cool!

 

I let him live.

 

Spoiler

Worth it to see him stamping on the tiny shrivelled human remnants of Godrick after the boss fight though.

 

[Popo]

On 01/03/2022 at 15:20, Flub said:

 

I assume one of the benefits of the template-based messages is they make sense in any language… which means I guess the old “try finger but hole” would only make sense in English… which then makes me think there must be messages out there I’ve read that were complete nonsense, but that had a small group of Finnish geeks doubled over with mirth. 

[JPL]

17 minutes ago, Kirby said:

I'd forgotten just how "random" the RNG is I From games. Finally found a place to farm smithing stones- picked up 4 - 2 3's, a 1 and a 2. Squeak of joy followed by 4 runs with nothing then another with a 1, 3 more duds then 3 3's and a 2. 😆

 

 

Where’s this place?

[Girth Certificate]

Evil Robot Cat Charmander is a very strange boss  

 

Magrit is just incredible looking, the level of detail in the animation. 

[Cyhwuhx]

4 minutes ago, Popo said:

 

I assume one of the benefits of the template-based messages is they make sense in any language… which means I guess the old “try finger but hole” would only make sense in English… which then makes me think there must be messages out there I’ve read that were complete nonsense, but that had a small group of Finnish geeks doubled over with mirth. 

That messaging system... it's hell on localization. You have to squeeze words and grammar into a system that's made primarily for English and doesn't adhere to any of the target language stuff at all. Nevermind the puns, if you thought the English was broken at places, you ain't seen nothing yet in other languages. Finnish... that's just a whole different level with their grammatical suffixes.

[Melon_Bread]

35 hours in and I finally found...

 

Spoiler

An Illusory Wall.

 

[Davros sock drawer]

Back to start of Stormveil Castle as I know I must have missed loads. Found a path straight away that I’d missed. Anyway, before I came here I upgraded the Zweihander to +5 and it’s already doing more damage than my Longsword +10. Not only that but the Ash of War it comes with is PERFECT against those annoying birds. One hit, gone! 

[Gigawatt]

43 minutes ago, ChewMagma said:

 

We talking about Raya Lucaria?

 

  Hide contents

Once you have killed the Carian Moon Knight or whatever he is called, you can just go to the right side of the open area from the bonfire, jump across the buttresses to the bridge (not sure what the trigger is, maybe killing the knight, but the rolling boulders stop) and then get to the boss lift without encountering any enemies. Takes about 20 secs, if that.

 

There’s a quicker way than that. 
 

Spoiler

Facing the Carion Knight, turn left in his square, and then run across the covered bridge and open a door that’s at the end. Then from the previous bonfire, run to the left of the open area, jump up the rubble, up the stairs past the 2 sorcerers, straight across the bridge and left in the square to the lift. Saves having to dodge the rolling boulder.

 

[Majora]

27 minutes ago, JPL said:

Where’s this place?

 

Mines are the best places to farm smithing stones. You can usually find them at places on the map that look like a red circle. 

 

You can buy smithing stones and sombre smithing stones later on but they're pretty expensive compared to just doing a run through a mine and getting them for free + souls from killing some usually pretty easy enemies.

[Kryptonian]

1 hour ago, Ry said:

 

No. The grace site is an annoying run away. Someone else mentioned it too. It's a pain in the arse. 

 

Man, that's gonna be annoying then

[JPL]

1 minute ago, Majora said:

 

Mines are the best places to farm smithing stones. You can usually find them at places on the map that look like a red circle. 

 

You can buy smithing stones and sombre smithing stones later on but they're pretty expensive compared to just doing a run through a mine and getting them for free + souls from killing some usually pretty easy enemies.

Oh yeah, I’ve cleared out the mine near the first dragon, so I’ll keep my eye out for others.

 

I assumed Kirby had found somewhere where they regenerate though, as I don’t think they do in the mines.

[Cosmic_Guru]

4 minutes ago, JPL said:

Oh yeah, I’ve cleared out the mine near the first dragon, so I’ll keep my eye out for others.

 

I assumed Kirby had found somewhere where they regenerate though, as I don’t think they do in the mines.

Mines are everywhere in this - look for a sort of brown splodge on the map when you get a new one.  The stone deposits don't regenerate but the miners do and they often carry stones.  Soldiers are fairly good too.

[joemul]

Cleared Castle Morne last night. That was great. Managed to do the boss on my 2nd attempt. We each had a sliver of health left and just as i was in the air, leaping at him to try a risky L2 attack he died from the poison effect that my summons must have got him with at some point.

 

I've managed to get myself a bow (can't remember where from - think it was a mine) and a bunch of smithing stones. Need to decide whether to upgrade my longsword past +2 or make a start on claymore, zweihander or something else.

 

I'm goning to settle a couple of grudge matches* first before heading to face Margit

 

 

*

Spoiler

dragon on the lake

npc on the same lake

 

[joemul]

Getting you hands on a bow is transformative in how it allows you to bait enemies and deal with mobs one at a time. Really, really helped in Castle Morne

[Goemon]

Margit be Margot last night!

 

Jolly coop’ed him like 10 times on the trot to help my fellow tarnished out.

 

I can happily spend hours and hours just helping people out on a tough boss, such an under appreciated part of the game.

[therearerules]

23 minutes ago, joemul said:

Getting you hands on a bow is transformative in how it allows you to bait enemies and deal with mobs one at a time. Really, really helped in Castle Morne

Bone darts are good for this as well, easily crafted and don't take up a weapon slot