Elden Ring - Shadow of the Erdtree Expansion Announced

[Davros sock drawer]

1 minute ago, Majora said:

I noped the fuck out of Caria Mansion last night 

 

I'm kind of getting to the stage where all the places I feel able to explore are still pretty horrible and I'm trying to settle on the least intimidating option. 

 

I found some mines last night but they're full of poisonous stuff and I still haven't found any poison cure items or crafting books so they're a pain in the arse Can anyone give a vague push as to the general area I can find them?

 

For poison I'm pretty sure one of the early merchants sells the Bolus - on the beach I think.

 

Faith requirements are also very low for the Cure Poison incantation. 

[Dark Soldier]

1 minute ago, Davros sock drawer said:

 

For poison I'm pretty sure one of the early merchants sells the Bolus - on the beach I think.

 

Faith requirements are also very low for the Cure Poison incantation. 

Merchant also sells the cookbook.

[Laters]

21 minutes ago, Chadruharazzeb said:

Anyone else like the liberating feeling when you have zero runes? Just seems like at that point you might as well try anything.*

 

 

* In the game. 

 

Yes!

- Found an item to mitigate the loss the other day.

 

 

 

[Cosmic_Guru]

30 minutes ago, QuackQuack said:

I kinda regret going Astronomer but I’m a bit too all in now. Some of the faith enemies seem much cooler.

Me too.  Magic pebble is a powerful spell and with sufficient mana and stamina you can let rip for long enough to get a lot of runes quickly eg in all the mines or where there is a red v red fight in progress.  However  there appear to be enemies resistant to this magic eg orks, whether corporeal or ghost   and it would be nice to have some faith or pyro up ones sleeve to supply different damage types.

 

Also  am I right in thinking that the locations of the main story bosses must be cleared in a certain sequence?  I've now come across 2 such locations but they currently seem inaccessible.

 

 

[Jamie John]

45 minutes ago, Davros sock drawer said:

One puzzle still remains. There's a lift in the middle of one of the areas (with the gears accessible at the top) which gives the old "Contraption Doesn't move" message. I guess it might be my way out of here if I can survive.

 

You came very close to activating it, by the sounds of it.

[Dark Soldier]

I love this look so much

 

[Jamie John]

Just defeated the Morne Castle boss first time 

 

I haven't explored the entire castle yet, but the Weeping Peninsula in general feels like where you're supposed to go before you take on Stormveil. Everything here is a lot easier than it is there, and I'm not that many levels higher than I was when I did Stormveil.

 

I'm going to finish up here and head west, I think. Mordor Caelid still seems a bit too tasty for me at the moment.

[Jamie John]

Oh, and everyone should listen to this week's episode of The Back Page, which is all about Elden Ring. Great to hear two guys not previously that into their Souls games absolutely loving this 

[Kryptonian]

2 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

Oh, and everyone should listen to this week's episode of The Back Page, which is all about Elden Ring. Great to hear two guys not previously that into their Souls games absolutely loving this 

What’s that?

[dug]

A couple of Stormveil Castle observations:

 

Whoever came up with the idea for the sword hawks is definitely a psychopath and should be on some sort of register.

 

From's distinctive visual identity really comes through here. My wife watched me play through part of the castle and said "I thought you said this game was new? I swear I've seen you play this before." Hah. Obviously she hadn't, but she has seen me play the other from games.

[Thor]

2 hours ago, Jamie John said:

I think. Mordor Caelid still seems a bit too tasty for me at the moment.

I've managed to get to the boss door at Caelid, only to find

Spoiler

there's a mini-boss encounter before you get to the actual boss:

 

Misbegotten Warrior - "Damn, this tarnished fucker has already got me down to half health, this is impossible!"

Crucible Knight - "Hold my beer"

 

That's right, when you get MW down to half health, fucking twatting Crucible Knobhead joins in for a jolly good threesome! Chortlesome japes indeed!

 

[Majora]

3 minutes ago, dug said:

 

From's distinctive visual identity really comes through here. My wife watched me play through part of the castle and said "I thought you said this game was new? I swear I've seen you play this before." Hah. Obviously she hadn't, but she has seen me play the other from games.

 

Ha, From are very crafty when it comes to reusing art assets across their games so that's probably why as well. I haven't played Bloodborne in years but I'm positive they've lifted a ton of assets from it wholesale for one of the main dungeons.

[Jamie John]

4 minutes ago, Kryptonian said:

What’s that?

 

It's a weekly gaming podcast by two veteran games journalists. It's great!

 

 

[Thor]

Actually, I have to wonder, if I defeat the Crucible Knight in the Evergaol*, will that stop him from appearing in Caelid?

 

*Things I learned thanks to this game: Evergaol is pronounced Ever Jail. It turns out gaol is the very ye olde english way of spelling jail.

[Jamie John]

1 minute ago, Thor said:

I've managed to get to the boss door at Caelid, only to find there's a mini-boss encounter before you get to the actual boss:

 

Misbegotten Warrior - "Damn, this tarnished fucker has already got me down to half health, this is impossible!"

Crucible Knight - "Hold my beer"

 

That's right, when you get MW down to half health, fucking twatting Crucible Knobhead joins in for a jolly good threesome! Chortlesome japes indeed!

 

I explored it when I got warped there at a fairly low level and activated a lot of the PoG, but most enemies were making short work of me. I found

Spoiler

an army commander boss in the middle of swamp but he was too much for me, though I did clear out most of the sorcery town.

 

So many places to see!

[Thor]

2 minutes ago, Majora said:

 

Ha, From are very crafty when it comes to reusing art assets across their games so that's probably why as well. I haven't played Bloodborne in years but I'm positive they've lifted a ton of assets from it wholesale for one of the main dungeons.

Yep, some of the quicker attacking enemies have the exact same slashing combos as those in Bloodborne. 

[Captain Kelsten]

6 minutes ago, Thor said:

I've managed to get to the boss door at Caelid, only to find there's a mini-boss encounter before you get to the actual boss:

 

Misbegotten Warrior - "Damn, this tarnished fucker has already got me down to half health, this is impossible!"

Crucible Knight - "Hold my beer"

 

That's right, when you get MW down to half health, fucking twatting Crucible Knobhead joins in for a jolly good threesome! Chortlesome japes indeed!

 

You’ve got to a boss door in Caelid. Not the boss door. Trust me on that

[Jamie John]

I think, generally, the engine and whole aesthetic of these games is getting a bit long in the tooth now. I mean, if they'd called this Dark Souls 4 I don't think anyone would have batted an eyelid, really. Don't get me wrong, it's absolutely fit for purpose, but just the way the player character moves looks and feels the same as it did in 2011.

[Thor]

1 minute ago, Jamie John said:

 

I explored it when I got warped there at a fairly low level and activated a lot of the PoG, but most enemies were making short work of me. I found

  Hide contents

an army commander boss in the middle of swamp but he was too much for me, though I did clear out most of the sorcery town.

 

So many places to see!

Ah, Commander O'Neill. I did him yesterday. I was a touch under-levelled for him, but devised a strategy where I chipped away at him until he was down. Took a few attempts, but I got him.

 

That Crucible Knight though ... I went back to the Evergaol last night to practice parrying, I'm so useless at that, but it's clearly needed to beat him unless you're stupidly over-levelled for him.

[Spacehost]

Sometimes this feels like hanging about a train station in Easterhouse or something. Oh aye hen, your pals all got dismembered and grafted piece by piece to the giant spider? You're still working up the courage aye but you fancy it too? I didn't really ask but. Excuse me while I try to both walk away and absolutely not let you out of my line of sight.

[Majora]

6 minutes ago, Thor said:

 

 

That Crucible Knight though ... I went back to the Evergaol last night to practice parrying, I'm so useless at that, but it's clearly needed to beat him unless you're stupidly over-levelled for him.

 

You definitely don't need to parry, I did it all by dodging. I definitely wasn't over-levelled either, each sword slash only took about 100-150 damage off him. It's one of the toughest fights I've done so far but if you keep practising he actually has a very predictable and readable set of attacks you can dodge through. Some bosses I struggle to read even after lots of practice but he gives a lot of visual cues. He is just kind of relentless and hard-hitting so it'll take quite a few goes for most people.

[Thor]

1 minute ago, Majora said:

 

You definitely don't need to parry, I did it all by dodging. I definitely wasn't over-levelled either, each sword slash only took about 100-150 damage. It's one of the toughest fights I've done so far but if you keep practising he actually has a very predictable and readable set of attacks you can dodge through. Some bosses I struggle to read even after lots of practice but he gives a lot of visual cues. He is just kind of relentless and hard-hitting so it'll take quite a few goes for most people.

Yeah, dodging isn't really my thing because I'm running a heavy load. Perhaps I should strip off and run around in my pants. Dropping some armour in the game might help too.

[Jamie John]

Does the Crucible Knight in the Evergaol

Spoiler

grow wings and a massive golden tail once it gets down to half health, like the one at the base of Stormveil?

 

[Triple A]

26 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

I think, generally, the engine and whole aesthetic of these games is getting a bit long in the tooth now. I mean, if they'd called this Dark Souls 4 I don't think anyone would have batted an eyelid, really. Don't get me wrong, it's absolutely fit for purpose, but just the way the player character moves looks and feels the same as it did in 2011.

All very true of course.  That said, if they had gone in with new tech I don't think we would have got anywhere near the game that we did in the end.  Maybe they'll be able to up team size and tech investment for their next game (if they want to and feel it conducive to their all-important level design planning methods etc.), given how well this seems to be selling.

[Captain Kelsten]

2 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

Does the Crucible Knight in the Evergaol

  Hide contents

grow wings and a massive golden tail once it gets down to half health, like the one at the base of Stormveil?

 

Yarp

[Jamie John]

1 hour ago, Chadruharazzeb said:

Anyone else like the liberating feeling when you have zero runes? Just seems like at that point you might as well try anything.*

 

 

* In the game. 

 

Absolutely. Suicide runs are a key exploration and item gathering tactic! It's often a good idea, when you come to a new area, to top your runes up so you've just got enough to level up, level up, then just charge straight through the new area recklessly, running past enemies, quickly learning the geography and picking up as many items as you can before you die. The next time through you can go more slowly and systematically kill the enemies one by one, but you'll benefit from the knowledge you've gained from doing the suicide run (or runs) first.

[Jamie John]

Just now, Doctor Shark said:

Yarp

 

Fuck. I thought the Evergaol fight was hard enough as it was.

 

Separately, where is this pumpkin headed boss people keep referring to? I've run into a few regular pumpkin heads (or that's what it looks like, anyway - a squat round golden cage around their heads which they bang into the ground).

 

Is it a night-time only boss that you encounter in Limgrave? I thought I'd explored every cave already.

[Girth Certificate]

it's down some stairs beside some 

Spoiler

big evil flowers

 

if that helps. 

[Flub]

I started a new mage and got this sweet sword

 

[Alan Stock]

I've got the afternoon and evening to play. Whoop! Having a explore of the lake, what a stunning area. One thing I've just noticed (not spoilery) is that maybe the position of the main Erdtree changes depending on what your next objective is. It used to generally look like it was nearby to Stormveil, but now its sort of towards where my next story beat is. Or does it just move around depending on where you are? If the answer is spoilers, don't tell!

 

Another thing I can't get my head around and which hypes me to no end is how big the world seems to be. I unlocked another map column just now north of Stormveil, and its obvious from looking that the map is going to expand yet again beyond that, not only to the north but the west as well. Its total madness, all I've explored properly is West Limgrave and Weeping Peninsula. Looking at my map, the unexplored paper part I've added from 2 map markers is at least the same size as what I've already explored in total. The paper part of the map I have acquired I reckon is maybe 1/6th or less than the entire world, and I know its going to expand a lot to the East as I've not even been over the paper map lines yet. Its so exciting, I've already seen so much amazing stuff and you see all these landmarks on the horizon and know there could be even more beyond. I found another sky telescope as well, which is a really nice feature that lets you take in the scale of the world, I just wish it would let you plonk down map markers like in other open world games from that view.

 

Last night after some solo progress I'll write up later, I spent maybe 3 hours doing my first jolly co-op in Elden Ring. Becoming a co-op helper is much simpler than I thought, you just use the item that sends your sign to nearby summoning pools and that's it. I activated it in the Weeping Peninsula and the coverage seemed to be all the dungeons/bosses in the entire region, so the scope is  large. One nice thing is that with the graphical upgrade in this game they've made it so you can much more clearly see other player's armour, faces and so on, which adds a lot more personality to the characters you meet. It was fun times in general, though it was a bit of a shock being so limited in resources and so I had to be a lot more careful!

 

There are a few dungeons where it kind of sucks to get pulled into, where you know the boss is really easy but of course the summoners don't know that. At least they're usually done quickly. I had some epic victories and humiliating defeats. One of the funniest was where me and another co-op guy helped a newbie through all of Morne Castle, showing our knowledge and skill at taking down everything and showing him all the secrets. Then into the boss door and within 3 seconds the boss jumped and killed both of us in one sweep! I couldn't stop laughing, the host must have thought we were so bad! I did redeem myself in another session where I got another guy through the whole castle and helped him beat the boss though. Another funny time was a floor trap in a dungeon and despite me and a fellow co-op girl trying to entice the host to come over to our position of safety, the guy just didn't get it and kept on getting splatted, it was so funny as we just looked at each other as my colleague collapsed in defeat and you could just imagine the groans and laughter we were sharing on the other side of the screen.

 

After all that I had 28,000 runes and I have no idea what to do with them. I'm not spending them on levelling up or better gear because I'm trying to maintain a difficulty curve for myself, and I already have most of the armour sets and interesting weapons from the merchants I've found. Maybe I should just spend it on arrows, or expensive consumables from the finger ladies or something. I know a bank would completely undermine the point of Souls games but in cases like this I'd love to just put the runes under a pillow until I find a vendor with a fun set of fashion souls armour.