Elden Ring - Shadow of the Erdtree Expansion Announced

[Broker]

Jesus, the area after the capital is amazing. Beautiful and terrifying in equal measure:

 

Spoiler

The Volcano Manor quest has some brilliant armour:

 

 

Still getting smashed by enemies despite being pretty high level. Here’s my build so far:

 

[robdood]

6 hours ago, Alan Stock said:

Is this Tree Sentinel video working for anyone? I've uploaded my PS5 captures to Youtube but they aren't loading for me on Youtube despite having thumbnails and being to watch them in the creator page. No idea what's going on! If anyone has uploaded PS5 to Youtube before, have you run into similar issues and if so, let me know any tips!

 

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Edit- might be a problem with the channel itself, I'm even getting errors trying to play older videos like this Dark Souls 3 one:

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I couldn't play any of my own videos on YouTube through YouTube desktop itself yesterday, but they worked on mobile / when embedded on here. Think a problem their end?

[Jamie John]

5 hours ago, jonamok said:

Anyone beaten the invader NPC Vyke I think it is? In the Liurnia region. Gives you madness if he hits you. Loads of AoE attacks too. Just keeps instakilling me. There’s a nice little grace point in a church behind him, but it won’t activate till he’s dead. I’m even using a talisman that reduces madness build up. Tips welcome.

 

Yeah, he's a dick. I managed to get him, but it took a full half hour of trying at about level 50 or so. In the end, I think I just constantly backed away from him while circling and punished his spear thrusts with a jump attack, but it's still difficult. The hardest one to dodge is a madness lightning bolt that comes tearing out of his head very quickly. Unless you time your roll of you're running sideways full-pelt it will likely one-shot you.

 

I was able to activate the Grace point in the church behind him while he was still hunting me, though, which made it a lot easier to keep trying, so try that again.

 

Have you taken care of the 

Spoiler

Big frenzy Eye in the sky nearby?

 

I would do that first. It might make him more powerful or something.

 

Ultimately, you can always come back later and smash him!

[Rayn]

4 hours ago, Broker said:

Jesus, the area after the capital is amazing. Beautiful and terrifying in equal measure:

 

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The Volcano Manor quest has some brilliant armour:

 

 

Still getting smashed by enemies despite being pretty high level. Here’s my build so far:

 

 

 

I told you yesterday I was just ahead of you.... Weeeell, that's only location wise, I'm far behind you in character progress. I think I'm lvl 73, no wonder I've a hard time there when even you find it a challenge  

[Exidor]

Me yesterday: Well that's the south completely 100% done, time to head north and see what's beyond Stormveil.

 

6 hours ago, Alan Stock said:

You wanted boss videos? Here are boss videos!

 

Weeping Peninsula Bosses (spoilered separately within this spoiler - you can see their names though) 

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Scaly Misbegotten

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Leonine Misbegotten

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Runebear (successful run starts around 5:40, sorry!)

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Weeping Peninsula Evergaol

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Context taken from my earlier post - This was a great boss, albeit very hard. It's a tall thin swordsman/woman called the Ancient Hero of Zamor. It's very reminiscent of the Dancer in Dark Souls 3 with its wonderful and graceful movements, its hair flowing as it spins. The Hero could kill me with its combos, or one-shot me with some attacks. Now, I went into this fight with my Grand Epee +2, which didn't do great damage, and is slow to attack. The Hero has a very reactive gameplay design. It stalks around you, staying just out of melee range, and if you get too close it does super-fast attacks or pushes you back instantly with a blast. Its possible to dodge-roll past these close attacks but you can run out of stamina trying to get to safety, and with my medium rolls I was left vulnerable to instadeath in any windows between. Now another evil thing about this boss is that when you start a melee attack, it will often instantly retaliate with a super-fast attack of its own - which 90 percent of the time will hit you before you even connect your hit, and either kill you or severely damage you. R2 attacks are even more risky. I was able to use my rapier thrust attack but as I liked the boss challenge so much, I found that attack hurt the boss too much and removed a lot of the challenge, so I didn't use it.

 

So essentially the Hero in the first phase, at least with the weapon I was using, was a tense duelling battle where you pace around each other just out of range, prodding and poking for openings, and being ready to roll to safety at an instant because of its super-fast attacks. I'll put up the video later, but essentially Phase 1 is a lot of knowledge of the Hero's behaviour, risking attacks. I could have played it safer by waiting until it does its ice breath attack each time to get guaranteed free damage, but where's the fun in that? I also kept on masochistically limiting my healing, trying to get more perfect performance. In the end I gave up on this and started being more generous to myself with healing, as it was taking too long once I realised how hard Phase 2 was.

 

Phase 2 is where things get real nasty. The Hero pulls an ice blade from the ground and becomes super aggressive, with much longer combos and some very long-range attacks where it will charge for miles. A lot of these attacks are one-shot kill or very close to it, and although in Phase 1 you get time to heal up in relative safety, Phase 2 healing is like waving a red rag to a bull and he'll usually punish you for it unless you're really far away or pick a safety window to do so. It has to be said the animations and attacks in this phase are even cooler to watch. I love that this is an optional mini-boss encounter which is as involved and good-looking as some main bosses in earlier games.

 

I have no idea how many attempts The Hero took me to beat but it certainly took me over an hour, maybe even 2. I was in the zone and knew if I stopped I would be starting from scratch. In the end I persevered with my self-imposed difficulty and it was really satisfying to pull off. It was far from a perfect victory (I think I was down to my last heals), but I did feel like I had learned the encounter quite well. Its a great, if very punishingly designed boss. I do hope there's some way to replay them somehow.

  

 

Limgrave Evergaols

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Limgrave South Evergaol

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Limgrave North Evergaol

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Me today: 

 

I haven't even found some of those caves/mines.

[Stanley]

Guard counter really is a game changer for me, I love it. 

[jonamok]

51 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

Have you taken care of the 

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Big frenzy Eye in the sky nearby?

I tried but even looking at it from well outside magic pebble/bow range instakilled me. Is there a trick to it?

[Jamie John]

4 minutes ago, jonamok said:

I tried but even looking at it from well outside magic pebble/bow range instakilled me. Is there a trick to it?

 

Spoiler

You have to time your charge across the field in front of it, going from cover to cover, until you can come up underneath it. Climb the tower and kill the monks there directly under it and it'll disappear. It's quite tricky and I don't know if it affects Vyke at all. Probably best to save it for later.

 

[Benny]

I'm going to have to post about this as I just have to share this experience as I headed out of the first area. Big spoiler for a surprise so be careful:

 

Spoiler

Seriously

 

Spoiler

So I was heading eastwards into the wooded area, and saw

 

Spoiler

A little temple bit by a minor Erdtree, went inside and it was a lift. Thought ooh, maybe some nice item or something

 

Spoiler

Instead, as it kept going down... I experienced sheer awe. I was like "whaaaaaaat?!". Utterly incredible.

 

 

 

 

[polygon_monkey]

Spoiler

 

 

So close. Haven't gotten that close again. (World boss in the north west of the map)

[Ste Pickford]

15 minutes ago, Benny said:

I'm going to have to post about this as I just have to share this experience as I headed out of the first area. Big spoiler for a surprise so be careful:

 

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Seriously

 

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So I was heading eastwards into the wooded area, and saw

 

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A little temple bit by a minor Erdtree, went inside and it was a lift. Thought ooh, maybe some nice item or something

 

  Hide contents

Instead, as it kept going down... I experienced sheer awe. I was like "whaaaaaaat?!". Utterly incredible.

 

 

 

 

I had exactly the same experience yesterday afternoon.  Wooaaahhh!

[scottcr]

Summoned someone to help in Stormveil. Had a great session,

 

Spoiler

dropping down and battering the big knight, the spider beast thing and all the way to Godfrey where we died. A great wee session. 
 

then last night I decided to explorer north of the castle all the way north to another big place with massive deadly Zelda like hand monsters that I noped away from very quickly.

 

 

Cracking game this

[Broker]

1 hour ago, Rayn said:

 

 

I told you yesterday I was just ahead of you.... Weeeell, that's only location wise, I'm far behind you in character progress. I think I'm lvl 73, no wonder I've a hard time there when even you find it a challenge  

Yesterday I went murdering. Started at the church of Elleh and just worked my way through Limgrave, killing everything I came across. I went through stormveil and the lakes and beyond, killing everything I found and levelling up periodically. Went up about 10 levels and I’ve now got two +18 weapons and a +9 one that takes somber stones. Found a few caves and catacombs that I’d missed, including one where I killed the boss in one hit for a measly 4000 runes (which I can get from normal enemies where I am on the main path). I levelled out my stats and got the points to wield a few weapons I’d been saving. 
 

I worked out that it costs 230400 souls to take a weapon from nothing to +18 if you’ve got the three bell bearings to buy smithing stones up to 6. Not much direct progress (except finishing the Volcano Manor quest) in the session but my character is getting pretty strong now.

[Ste Pickford]

This is from reddit.  A 'fixed' version of the UI. It was posted on the gamedev forum where a bunch of the devs were complaining about the design flaws in the game.  

 

[Rayn]

1 minute ago, Broker said:

Yesterday I went murdering. Started at the church of Ellen and just worked my way through Limgrave, killing everything I came across. I went through stormveil and the lakes and beyond, killing everything I found and levelling up periodically. Went up about 10 levels and I’ve now got two +18 weapons and a +9 one that takes somber stones. Found a few caves and catacombs that I’d missed, including one where I killed the boss in one hit for a measly 4000 runes (which I can get from normal enemies where I am on the main path). I levelled out my stats and got the points to wield a few weapons I’d been saving. 
 

I worked out that it costs 230400 souls to take a weapon from nothing to +18 if you’ve got the three bell bearings to buy smithing stones up to 6. Not much direct progress (except finishing the Volcano Manor quest) in the session but my character is getting pretty strong now.

 

My weapon of choice,

Spoiler

the Bloodhound Fang

, requires the Somber Smithing Stones and I've gotten it up to +9. To get it to +10 it seems I need something completely different,

Spoiler

I think it said something along the lines of Draconic Smithing Stone

,  and I've no idea where to even start looking for that  

 

Also, I think some of my quests are bugged. I tried to follow the NPC instructions as well as I could but I had no success finding what I was supposed to find. 

Spoiler

I went to a tower in the Three Sisters area and got to speak to three holograms, one was for Blaidd the wolfman. Went to Santa merchant at the start and he said something about listening to howling at some ruins. Went there, didn't find Blaidd. Looked for him all over the place but no luck. I ended up googling it and I was supposed to find him at the ruins and use a snap finger gesture but he really wasn't there. By chance I found him in the south-east corner of the Caelid area where he wants to join the fight for that insanely hard desert boss. According to the guide, that was the last step for finding him so it seems I've skipped a lot of steps. 

 

 

[Kryptonian]

Is that a joke?

 

Do you have a link to where it's posted?

 

edit - @Ste Pickford

[Rayn]

1 minute ago, Kryptonian said:

Is that a joke?

 

Do you have a link to where it's posted?

 

edit - @Ste Pickford

 

 Ofc it's a joke. They've basically made it a Ubi game with those additions, in other words all the things that's wrong with almost every other open world game out there today. 

[Ste Pickford]

1 minute ago, Kryptonian said:

Is that a joke?

 

Do you have a link to where it's posted?

 

edit - @Ste Pickford

 

Yeah.  Wary of posting actual links to reddit in case autoplay video with horrible sound starts playing for everyone in the thread.
 

 

[Kryptonian]

[Kryptonian]

3 minutes ago, Ste Pickford said:

Yeah.  Wary of posting actual links to reddit in case autoplay video with horrible sound starts playing for everyone in the thread.

 

And what did the devs think? much improved...?

[Broker]

2 minutes ago, Rayn said:

 

My weapon of choice,

  Hide contents

the Bloodhound Fang

, requires the Somber Smithing Stones and I've gotten it up to +9. To get it to +10 it seems I need something completely different,

  Hide contents

I think it said something along the lines of Draconic Smithing Stone

,  and I've no idea where to even start looking for that  

 

Also, I think some of my quests are bugged. I tried to follow the NPC instructions as well as I could but I had no success finding what I was supposed to find. 

  Hide contents

I went to a tower in the Three Sisters area and got to speak to three holograms, one was for Blaidd the wolfman. Went to Santa merchant at the start and he said something about listening to howling at some ruins. Went there, didn't find Blaidd. Looked for him all over the place but no luck. I ended up googling it and I was supposed to find him at the ruins and use a snap finger gesture but he really wasn't there. By chance I found him in the south-east corner of the Caelid area where he wants to join the fight for that insanely hard desert boss. According to the guide, that was the last step for finding him so it seems I've skipped a lot of steps. 

 

 

 

I’m guessing that item is the slab equivalent, as it takes somber weapons from +9 to +10. I’ve not found a somber one, but I did find a regular one:

 

Spoiler

In the mouth of a big skull near the ruins at the start of the mountaintops of giants. Says it takes a weapon to +25 which makes sense if everything up to level 8 stones takes things up 3 levels.

I totally missed that NPC as well. I’ve only done 3 or 4 quests of people I’ve happened to run into and remembered to go back for. I think of those things as jobs for later playthroughs generally.
 

1 minute ago, Kryptonian said:

Is that a joke?

 

Do you have a link to where it's posted?

 

edit - @Ste Pickford

It was a joke in r/gamedev, posted in response to people whining about the design decisions in this.

[Ste Pickford]

To be fair, it's split - there are plenty of fans.  But there are a fair number who can't see past a missable combat tutorial as bad design, as a clunky UI as bad design, as lack of clear explanation of systems as bad design, as occasional poor collision through walls as bad software, and therefore the whole thing adds up to an objectively bad game, and so reviewers are idiots for rating it so highly. 

[Rayn]

2 minutes ago, Ste Pickford said:

To be fair, it's split - there are plenty of fans.  But there are a fair number who can't see past a missable combat tutorial as bad design, as a clunky UI as bad design, as lack of clear explanation of systems as bad design, as occasional poor of collision through walls as bad software, and therefore the whole thing adds up to bad game, and so reviewers are idiots for rating it so highly. 

 

While I don't think Elden Ring (nor any other From game) is perfect when it comes to UI, I find it a breath of fresh air compared to the 'norm'. If I wanted a quest journal, gps markers, dynamic minimap, qte events I'd play an Ubi game (or even Dying Light 2) but at the moment I find the From approach rather interesting as I've actually started to make my own adventures while playing Elden Ring and not let a journal and a gps marker decide for me what to do and where to do it. 

[Majora]

The menus/stat screens could definitely be better and weapons going through the floors and walls has always been an infuriatingly cheap element of their games. But to write the game off based on things like that is a serious case of not seeing the woods for the trees.

[robdood]

44 minutes ago, Ste Pickford said:

This is from reddit.  A 'fixed' version of the UI. It was posted on the gamedev forum where a bunch of the devs were complaining about the design flaws in the game.  

 

Lol reddit is so unoriginal, the same thing was done with Bloodborne!!

 

 

[Popo]

On 02/03/2022 at 11:00, Doctor Shark said:

There’s more than one tree boss. One for every tree, it seems! 

Really?

 

Spoiler

Did I somehow miss the minor Erdtree boss in the Mistwoods?

Edit - Christ, I’ve just noticed I’m 40 pages behind on this thread. 

[Hexx]

The Main UI thing I want is the ability to immediately see details when I pick up a new item rather than going to have to find it in the inventory after

 

Edit- And the ability to compare shop items with what I'm wearing.

[ChewMagma]

53 minutes ago, Ste Pickford said:

To be fair, it's split - there are plenty of fans.  But there are a fair number who can't see past a missable combat tutorial as bad design, as a clunky UI as bad design, as lack of clear explanation of systems as bad design, as occasional poor collision through walls as bad software, and therefore the whole thing adds up to an objectively bad game, and so reviewers are idiots for rating it so highly. 

 

Not sure Miyazaki will be losing much sleep over it.

 

As an occasional musician, you stumble across people like these devs all the time, people who are convinced there are objective and "correct" ways to make art, but don't then understand why all their own efforts are so tired, anodyne, and uninspiring.

 

[PeteJ]

I'm so far behind you all it's unreal, I've played every day and put more time into this already than any other game in the past five years but there's no hope of keeping up. I find being part of the discussions in Souls games part of the fun, but it is difficult when you fall behind and everybody is talking about areas and features you have no idea about. 

 

Nearly 16 hours in already though! Level 32 Prisoner. I admit I spent some time just bombing around with horsey grabbing items from under the noses of very big monsters. 

 

I'm just clearing up a few more bosses before hitting the main starting castle. Margit is down already and last night cleared Morne Castle (and killed the boss first time!). 

[Captain Kelsten]

Progress has slowed last few days as I’ve been crazy busy, but the game just keeps getting better and better. Level 81.