Elden Ring - Shadow of the Erdtree Expansion Announced

[Hexx]

2 minutes ago, kensei said:

 

 

  Hide contents

Im getting perplexed by what skills I need to play this. I block with a shield, I still get fucking destroyed by magic dudes. I roll around and it seems random if I avoid an attack or not (far more so with bosses).

 

 

Spoiler

Check your shield 

 

It will have a range of values which show how much it blocks (as a percentage I think)

 

e.g. Physical 86, Fire 60, Magic 20.

 

It's quite possible to have a 100% Physical block shield, but most other damage types will nearly always get through. But you might want to change shield as you might have one that better at magic rather than fire depending on what facing

 

[Anne Summers]

After a few more hours on this last night I'm finally at a point where I feel I am blocked from progressing - as in, I can't move further forward with what I think are the main quest objectives, and I don't have any interesting other things I can think of, to go off and do (side quests, open world exploration etc). 

 

Spoiler

Fighting Starscourge Radahn - just can't make a dent in him due to his ranged attacks, can't summon anyone for help ... and the janky game mechanics of this section make me feel unmotivated to push forward with it right now. The other "main quest" direction that I assume is open to me is the capital city, where I keep being told to go - but I can't really seem to find a way in there (doors seem to be closed - guess I have to open them somehow but no idea how, despite having explored the surrounding area quite thoroughly. Hint, anyone?

 

Also I am sure there is a ton more open world stuff I could be getting on with, its just that I haven't found it yet, and seem to have explored everywhere I have access to, at the moment. 

 

This is still nowhere near as frustrating as getting stuck at Ornstein and Smough on DS1 and knowing there is genuinely nowhere else to go until I've beaten them!

[IR354Lifeqhybot]

Bif

[moosegrinder]

4 minutes ago, Anne Summers said:

This is still nowhere near as frustrating as getting stuck at Ornstein and Smough on DS1 and knowing there is genuinely nowhere else to go until I've beaten them!

 

I stopped playing for an age because of those cunts. Once I beat them the rest of the game was relatively easy. 

[JPL]

14 minutes ago, Hexx said:

But as you level up the weapon it's scaling might increase (D to C to B to A to S). 

When you say ‘might increase’, is there a way to tell if it definitely will?

 

I don’t want to keep pouring my smithing stones into a weapon that might not scale.

[idespair]

8 minutes ago, JPL said:

When you say ‘might increase’, is there a way to tell if it definitely will?

 

I don’t want to keep pouring my smithing stones into a weapon that might not scale.

 

The Wiki at Fextralife allows you to drill down into every upgrade path for each weapon and see what damage and scaling looks like at each level of reinforcement.

[Spacehost]

On man, the giant at the Gatehouse near the start respawns? Am I meant to just get on my horse and run through his legs like in Empire Strikes Back?

 

Oh hang on. That sounds fuckin' sweet.

 

I gave the starting "biome" a good explore and oh my God, there's so much stuff to see. Stuff that looks like it'll fuck me up, but I don't think I've reached anything like an edge yet.

 

[Rayn]

I've hit a wall, kind of. I no longer know where I'm supposed to go.

 

Spoiler

I've unlocked most of the map (there's a bit in the western part of the snowy mountains that's still uncovered) but other than that the map seems complete. I'm level 78 and I've reached the boss in the northen most castle on the map, castle sol or something like that. I don't have a chance against him. 

 

I've unlocked the ancient rune from Godrick in Limgrave, but I can't seem to do so for the rune from the Moon Queen in Lurnia Lake, I think I need an item for a pedestal at the bottom of the tower. I've looked all over for this but can't seem to find an object that fits. 

 

Ive also got an ancient rune from the capital city, the dude guarding the thorn wall, I've no idea where to activate this rune. I can't seem to get on track of finding more legacy dungeons. I've tried the desert boss but I seem to be way too underpowered to take him on. 

 

 

I'd love to get a wee hint or two what to do next. 

[Hexx]

12 minutes ago, nightwaxon said:

So, the more I level up a weapon with a smithing stone,  the scale value increases? This depends on what attributes I level up on my character?  Thanks for the explanation by the way. 

 

The scale factor might increase. You can see if it will before you commit, but only for next level up.

 

So if you've got a +0 hammer there's no way (in game) that I know of seeing when/if it's scaling will change (you can look on a website) other than if you're going to turn it into a +1 hammer.

 

It's a pretty good guess it will do though. I don't think there's any "trash" weapons in the game,.

 

A scale factor of D might turn your 20 str in 20 bonus damage.

A scale factor of B might turn your 20 str in 40 bonus damage.

 

If you find a weapon/playstyle you like you should normally put you stats into what it scales with - and what it scales best with.

 

Eg all the scaling might not change/reach cap. .e.g you might have Str C, Dex E, Faith E weapon. Something holy related but still based on your muscle power for damage (e.g. a holy mace?). That might increase but it's unlikely all of those will reach Str probably will, but Dex/Faith will probably not reach S rank

 

14 minutes ago, JPL said:

When you say ‘might increase’, is there a way to tell if it definitely will?

 

I don’t want to keep pouring my smithing stones into a weapon that might not scale.

 

It's almost certain to scale. And Smithing Stones are very abundent later. It's only when you're getting to max weapon levels they become super rare I suspect. 

I haven't got there yet but in Dark Souls for instance you could only get one or two weapons to max level per playthough, although you could get most to close.

[Hexx]

4 minutes ago, Rayn said:

I've hit a wall, kind of. I no longer know where I'm supposed to go.

 

  Hide contents

I've unlocked most of the map (there's a bit in the western part of the snowy mountains that's still uncovered) but other than that the map seems complete. I'm level 78 and I've reached the boss in the northen most castle on the map, castle sol or something like that. I don't have a chance against him. 

 

I've unlocked the ancient rune from Godrick in Limgrave, but I can't seem to do so for the rune from the Moon Queen in Lurnia Lake, I think I need an item for a pedestal at the bottom of the tower. I've looked all over for this but can't seem to find an object that fits. 

 

Ive also got an ancient rune from the capital city, the dude guarding the thorn wall, I've no idea where to activate this rune. I can't seem to get on track of finding more legacy dungeons. I've tried the desert boss but I seem to be way too underpowered to take him on. 

 

 

I'd love to get a wee hint or two what to do next. 

 

Have you been 

Spoiler

To the manor in North West Lakes? And the areas behind?

Or have you explored the underground?

How about the Mountain above Lakes/Plateau? Or the manor there?

 

[Kryptonian]

1 hour ago, Ste Pickford said:

 

I think this article is a little unfair.  I can definitely read those original three dev tweets as being slightly tounge-in-cheek.  'My life is a lie'. etc.  The article takes it a bit too seriously.

I could see that point of view too.

[MikeF]

14 minutes ago, Rayn said:

I've hit a wall, kind of. I no longer know where I'm supposed to go.

 

  Hide contents

I've unlocked most of the map (there's a bit in the western part of the snowy mountains that's still uncovered) but other than that the map seems complete. I'm level 78 and I've reached the boss in the northen most castle on the map, castle sol or something like that. I don't have a chance against him. 

 

I've unlocked the ancient rune from Godrick in Limgrave, but I can't seem to do so for the rune from the Moon Queen in Lurnia Lake, I think I need an item for a pedestal at the bottom of the tower. I've looked all over for this but can't seem to find an object that fits. 

 

Ive also got an ancient rune from the capital city, the dude guarding the thorn wall, I've no idea where to activate this rune. I can't seem to get on track of finding more legacy dungeons. I've tried the desert boss but I seem to be way too underpowered to take him on. 

 

 

I'd love to get a wee hint or two what to do next. 

 

Spoiler

A NPC questline is needed for that item.  You need to exit Caria Manor from the boss room and explore there

 

[Majora]

Had a pretty good session on this last night. Took down Rennala and then went back to the ghost bull area and cleared it out. The boss for this area seemed much easier than dealing with the bog standard enemies (those archers who can see you a million miles away are annoying but the way they can track your movement through walls is total BS).

 

Rennala wasn't my favourite boss. The first phase is just boring and I felt like the easiest way to avoid most of her attacks in the second phase was just to sprint around her in a circle. It seemed like I was much more likely to get hit trying to dodge.

[cassidy]

Well that Renalla was a bit easy tbh.  Just killed her on 3rd attempt. 

 

Then promptly fell of the cliff trying to get onto the second Walking church in the lake and lost 15k runes as they spawned on the bloody sheer cliff face. 

[kensei]

1 hour ago, Qazimod said:

Pretty slapdash of From Software to develop a completely redundant experience and levelling system.  

 

Levelling up absolutely matters. Everyone is focusing on scaling and weapon requirements and while that stuff is really helpful there have always been workarounds to get you sufficient damage on low stats.

 

If we are talking survivability, the things that matter are 

 

1. Every level gives you increased defence.

2. Vigor: a longer health bar will stop you being killed as quickly

3. Endurance: longer stamina bar let's you tank hits more readily, roll away for longer, get that last hit in. It also ups equip load which means heavier armour, which is more defense equivalent to more health.

It probably remains king stat. It certainly was in Dark Souls.

 

Each individual level isn't dramatic but cumulatively they build up; I could survive two hits, now I can survive three so I lived long enough to estus.

 

Mad speed runners Dan level 1 this stuff, but for your average pleb levelling is key 

 

[deerokus]

1 hour ago, Ste Pickford said:

 

I think this article is a little unfair.  I can definitely read those original three dev tweets as being slightly tounge-in-cheek.  'My life is a lie'. etc.  The article takes it a bit too seriously.

I think the Horizon developer is genuinely annoyed, less so the other ones.

[John0]

Anyone else go from "oh ok I think I'm finally getting the hang of this!" in Limgrave to "Oh god now I remember what getting battered by Souls games is like!" in Liurnia? 

[K]

That knowyourmeme article is absolutely horrible. It's badly written (the very first line is "It's only been out for 10 days, but FromSoftware's Elden Ring is quite literally shaking up the video game industry"), it's got an unpleasant bullying tone, it does that thing of presenting stupid tweets by completely random people as evidence of some kind of large-scale furore. The whole thing seems to be aimed at creating or sustaining a pile-on directed at a group of people who have some relatively mild criticisms of a game. 

 

This is well below the usual high standards of knowyourmeme.com.

[PeteJ]

My adventures last night were rather limited. Playtime for the evening....20 minutes.

 

I decided I'd finally enter Stormveil Castle. I'm not sure what the proper way in was but I found a path and all was good. Battery died on xbox controller, had none spare. Switched to cheap third party cabled controller....quickly realized my character would no longer walk in a straight line and attack button wouldn't always register. No worries, just a hitch.

Kept going, built up a large number of runes and not taking a hit. Entered a very dark room so carefully edged in with the torch out...

 

Spoiler

Screen goes black for about 5 seconds. I hear a laughing noise. Massive knight thing suddenly appears and I get flattered in one hit.

Huh.

Restart castle, try to run to runes and fall off the platform to my death almost immediately because I can't walk straight. Great!

 

I'm still trundling along thinking I've cleared the whole opening area prior to the castle only to find more things and more bosses. I think I might have Castle Avoidance Syndrome or something. Thankfully I'm squishing the bosses I'm finding on my first go as I'm now clearly over leveled, which quite honestly feels great. Screw the horsey knight at the start though. Also struggling with the dragon at the start, largely because it usually gets stuck on the cliff and I can't get to it without it resetting. Oh there's this other knight as well I can't kill. Everything else is done though...sure.

 

Getting increasingly amused at the shortcuts they've had to take to get the game to run on base Xbone. Not exaggerating, if an enemy (especially the medium to large ones) are a short distance away from your their animation must fall to sub 5 fps. They look like weird stop-motion characters awkwardly moving across the landscape. The general drabness of the game compared to how it is on the XS (I have compared the two) is rather shocking as well, but neither really put me off wanting to go in for more. 

 

It's pretty much all I want to do. Play more, play all the time, but I can't. Grr.

 

Edit - I seem to have posted this in the wrong ER thread. 

[Girth Certificate]

FFS Hogwarts isn't as much fun as the movies make it seem.

 

 

[Davros sock drawer]

39 minutes ago, kensei said:

 

Levelling up absolutely matters. Everyone is focusing on scaling and weapon requirements and while that stuff is really helpful there have always been workarounds to get you sufficient damage on low stats.

 

If we are talking survivability, the things that matter are 

 

1. Every level gives you increased defence.

2. Vigor: a longer health bar will stop you being killed as quickly

3. Endurance: longer stamina bar let's you tank hits more readily, roll away for longer, get that last hit in. It also ups equip load which means heavier armour, which is more defense equivalent to more health.

It probably remains king stat. It certainly was in Dark Souls.

 

Each individual level isn't dramatic but cumulatively they build up; I could survive two hits, now I can survive three so I lived long enough to estus.

 

Mad speed runners Dan level 1 this stuff, but for your average pleb levelling is key 

 

 

This is all true. The prime example for me is Rom from Bloodborne. I found that the easiest boss in the game (apart from maybe The One Reborn) whereas others found it almost impossible. My recollection is that I'd levelled enough VIT that I couldn't ever get one-shot killed, so nothing it could do was un-survivable, but others had not and were really struggling.

[Davros sock drawer]

On another "Things that are definitely broken" topic, I'm getting a lot of no-shows from NPCs. The Barbarian lady in Stormveil, for example, hasn't shown up in Roundtable (as she has done in Limmy's stream. I'm used to these games though, and I realise it's probably because I simply didn't do something, or in the case of one guy, because I killed him.

Spoiler

Blaidd, sadly.

 

 

It's a bit of a bummer that I can't finish certain quests now, but it's very deliberate that you can't see all these stories in one play through. I can see a lot of people new to the series complaining about it though (as I did about Demon's Souls!)

[Hexx]

How did you kill him?

 

[cassidy]

That horrible thing at the bottom of Stormveil is a bit mean isn't it. 

 

Never tried to climb a ladder so fast. 

[Hexx]

Just now, cassidy said:

That horrible thing at the bottom of Stormveil is a bit mean isn't it. 

 

 

There's a few of them throughout the game - nearly always in tiny tiny rooms where it's huge (often clipping into walls) and a) hard to see it's tells and b) nearly impossible to move out of range. you need to block/use iframes.

[Parappa]

4 hours ago, robdood said:

Levelling up stats is not how you beat the game. Learning how to fight specific enemies is how you beat the game. Learning how mechanics actually work is how you beat the game.

Very sound advice this.  Margit is probably the first Souls boss I have taken the time to learn their move set etc (I have given up on previous games) but yeah - this is how you beat them. 

[Jamie John]

2 hours ago, Anne Summers said:

Hint, anyone?

 

You need to find an item in a certain fort 

Spoiler

South of the Mistwood in Limgrave in order to go up the lift.

 

Or, you can find an alternative route up the lift relatively nearby, but it's not as starightforwards.

 

[Stopharage]

3 hours ago, imp said:

@Doctor Shark You might wanna spoiler that admittedly lovely middle pic. It’s such a change of scenery it’s a lovely surprise when you stumble upon it. 

For transparency, I've edited as requested by a few folk. 

[kensei]

1 minute ago, Parappa said:

Very sound advice this.  Margit is probably the first Souls boss I have taken the time to learn their move set etc (I have given up on previous games) but yeah - this is how you beat them. 

 

Yes and no. Unless you are absurdly overleveled it's hard to tank through without understanding patterns. However, it's all about how many mistakes you can make and survive.

 

You might understand the pattern perfectly, but you still have to execute. A boss that can one shot you for not executing perfectly will be hard. A boss that requires you to execute well for a long time because your damage output is so low will be hard.

 

This is no different from other games. When Nintendo want to up the difficulty for Mario games for champion road challenges etc, they require you to execute for long periods without a mistake and require you to restart if you do. Execution challenge might be modified by power ups to give you a floater jump or others assists.

 

Anyway

 

Summoning help is how you beat the game

Cheesing every cheesy strategy possible is how you beat the game

Going to look up fextralife is how you beat the game

Overlevelling so your Zweihander takes a quarter of the boss health bar us how you beat the game

 

There's a lot of git gud but when Sekiro required you to actually git gud a lot of people bounced hard.

[Jamie John]

Is the second 'legacy dungeon' after Stormveil supposed to be 

Spoiler

Raya Lucaria?

 

I've skipped west Liurnia entirely for now and end ended up exploring the Caria Manor. The big 

Spoiler

Spider finger enemies

there put up more of a fight than anything else I've encountered in this region, whereas most other things I can cut through with my character without breaking a sweat, so it seems like this is maybe the third or fourth significant location you're supposed to go to.