Elden Ring - Shadow of the Erdtree Expansion Announced

[Majora]

Finished Caria Manor. Well, I say finish. I skipped most of the ground floor because I hate hate hate the giant enemies. So I've probably missed some stuff down there. The rest was pretty straightforward though, including the boss. Now I seem to have another 3 NPC quests on the go from what I can tell.

[Minion]

I can't believe how big, detailed and dense this game is, it's completely blown me away and I was already a huge fanboy. 90 hours on the clock and I'm still in Altus/The Capital area, I also now have a super sweet massive katana, basically the washing pole from the first game/s. I'm going away for a week from Friday and I know I will be jonesing hard for this, incredible. Also how fun is riding around and merking enemies from horseback, the claymore is particularly good for it!

[Majora]

2 minutes ago, scottcr said:

How do I find the way onto the big bridge from Stormveil now I’ve Godricks rune?

 

You get onto it from an area inside Stormveil Castle if that helps. If you want something more specific

 

Spoiler

It's from an outside courtyard area in the castle full of enemies and archers

 

[Hawklord]

Spent the evening going around Liurnia making sure I hadn't missed anything and turns out I had

 

Spoiler

Found a lady who'd been mugged for a necklace which I graciously got back for her from a guy boiling prawns lol

 

And found a church with and NPC invasion who I smashed in about 3 hits. I'm probably OP for here now

 

Then I went underground and found this guy lol

 

Spoiler

Dragonkin boss also went down fairly easily. Bloody Slash got him to the 2nd phase fairly quickly and managed to stay close while avoiding the lightning attacks. Only took about another 8 hits and he was down

 

 

 

 

[Klatrymadon]

Killed Rennala on the first go, but died to a summon she cast on her way out. I think that would have still counted in the Souls games, but the fog door is up! 

 

Edit: actually, I think it depends on the length of the death animation. She was probably still there when I carked it.

[Jamie John]

Anyone else get the impression that the Tarnisheds of Renown mentioned in the opening cinematic are actually all pathetic losers, and this is kind of the point?

 

Spoiler

Fia the Deathbed Companion seems to be a vampiric necrophile devoted to a long-dead demigod. She murders people and has no interest in becoming the Elden Lord.

 

Sir Gideon Orfnir, the All-Knowing, is a grouchy old bastard who never seems to leave the Roundtable Hold and spends a lot of his time asleep at his desk.

 

The Loathsome Dungeater is a fat pathetic sort covered in buboes who sits about feeling sorry for himself. Plus he, you know, eats dung.

 

I haven't met the Everbrilliant Goldmask yet or Hoarah Loux, Chieftain of the Badlands, but I'm not expecting much. Seeing as the latter appears to have disowned his daughter (she refers to Orfnir as her foster father), he doesn't sound like much of a hero, either.

 

What a great game.

[Captain Kelsten]

Fia’s questline ending spoilers:

 

Spoiler

So she gave me a dagger and told me to give it to its owner, which turned out to be D, Hunter of the Dead. Next time I went back to Roundtable, one of the side rooms had opened. Inside was a very dead D, with Fia stood over his body. She teleported away. 
 

Later on, I find a guy asleep in Siofra aqueduct and it gives me the option to give him the Twinned armour, which D was wearing and which id picked up. Thinking this must be D’s sleeping twin brother, whom Rogier had mentioned, I gave him the armour and he woke. 
 

Later on I’m in deep root and run towards what looks like a dead, rotting mermaid dragon thing when a boss spawns: Fia’s champion. I kill it. Then a shade of Rogier spawns, so I kill that. Then two more champions (one of which is a crucible knight) and a shade of Lionel the lionhearted spawn, and I kill them, beating the boss.

 

Fia is suddenly sat there. She asks if I’m there to stop her, and I have the choice of stopping her or asking for a hug. She’s been nice to me so I ask for the hug and it gives me some dialogue: turns out she’s trying to resurrect the lord of the dead so that she can have his child and bring a new Demi-god of death into the world. She falls asleep and it teleports me to the “death dream bed” or something where I fight a huge lich dragon who uses red lightning.
 

I beat him and go back to Fia, to find D’s twin brother, wearing the twinned armour I’d given him, standing over the corpse of Fia and declaring victory over the “vile” witch, spouting off some Golden Order zealotry. With nothing else to do,  I killed him and got the armour and his greatsword.

 

This game is bleak, dudes

 

[Qazimod]

3 hours ago, Qazimod said:

Gah, getting a little closer with MtOK (25% health left with flasks to spare), but only when I pull out enough of my shenanigans. Putting (affinity spoiler)

 

  Reveal hidden contents

blood buildup

 

on my best sword helps with damage and (tactics spoiler)

 

  Reveal hidden contents

the ally is a good distraction...

 

 

Got 'em. The tactics spoiler above led to a pretty sweet moment at the end...

 

Spoiler

I was trying to build up bleed for the kill but getting nowhere, and my ally was nearly dead, but she managed to knock him down at the last moment! I gave him a couple more swings and then the bleed popped. Go us.  

 

[Anne Summers]

40 minutes ago, scottcr said:

How do I find the way onto the big bridge from Stormveil now I’ve Godricks rune?

How did you enter the castle? If you came in through the main gate (or you've since opened the gate) it's easy, just go through the gate into the first courtyard and take a right onto the bridge. 

 

If you snuck in the side way and haven't opened the gate yet - warp into the rampart tower and head down the lift that takes you into the small chamber next to the big banquet hall type room which is home to the non-respawning shambling abomination. Head up the stairs in that room, through doorway into the room with a patrolling knight, and out of the only exit in that room into the open air, and you will see a pile of stuff next to a low wall that you can walk up, to jump over the wall and onto the rooftops. From there, just look around for a gap that you will find somewhere close by that lets you drop down into the courtyard that's just inside the main gate, where the bridge connects with the castle. 

 

That's the simplest route I can think of, someone else may have a shorter way to make the somewhat tricky journey back to the courtyard for those that entered via the side passage. 

[Ry]

Made some progress today. Done the main part of the capital and need to burn down a tree or some crap which I can't do yet. 

 

Headed to the frost giants area and I can hardly put a dent in the first enemy I met. So I'm guessing I'm not supposed to be here. But I don't know where to go now as I have been everywhere else. 

 

I do have that big bastard (Radahn?) In the battlefield to kill but fuck that. I can't even get close to him and after an hour I just gave up. Spent another half hour waiting on some help but no one was for answering. 

 

I think I got some great runes from big bosses but not sure what to do with them now either.

 

 

 

 

[Parappa]

🤣

[Captain Kelsten]

Crucible Knight? Crucible Shite, more like! 
 

I look much better in his armour than he ever did! 
 

[JPL]

@Anne Summers Hang on. You can get into Stormveil without beating Margaret?

[Anne Summers]

8 minutes ago, JPL said:

@Anne Summers Hang on. You can get into Stormveil without beating Margaret?

I don't think so ...

[JPL]

Just now, Anne Summers said:

I don't think so ...

Oh. I must have misunderstood when you were talking about sneaking through the side door to Scott.

 

I actually found the back way in first, but that’s definitely a dead end if you enter that way.

[kensei]

Caelid is pure nightmare fuel and even at level 58 I seem pretty underlevelled for it and it I stray into dragon town I'm boned.

 

So I am definitely pottering about here because the alternative is dealing with finger spiders in Caria and that is next level nightmare.

[CrichStand]

How are you supposed to know what to do with the 2nd Glintstone Key?

[kensei]

10 minutes ago, CrichStand said:

How are you supposed to know what to do with the 2nd Glintstone Key?

 

There's a guy looking one

Spoiler

Church of Irith, near grace point after taking the back way past Stormveil

 

 

[Captain Kelsten]

By paying attention to the story and the npcs. 
 

Spoiler

Thops in the Church of Irith 

 

[scottcr]

Thanks for the castle help… will try that tomorrow.

 

Burnsy, Gibbo and Cheeks are now +4. Combined with +10 long sword and STOMP I’m absolutely battering things about in Limgrave now. Great fun.

[Vulgar Monkey]

Finished up in WP and went back north to get the last couple bits of limgrave.

Spoiler

was on the way down to sir heights fort and stopped off at the well of siophra on the way. '5 minute diversion, might as well'. Get down there, 'Hm. Might need more than 5 minutes.'

 

Eventually made my way north past the glow-trolls with the .50-cal arrows, and back up to the surface. Where am I? Oh, Caelid. Cool.

Red sky at night, run's gone to shite.

 

[Hexx]

2 hours ago, Vulgar Monkey said:

Quick q:

I assume the flask of wonderous physick allows you to swap out combo items the same as with ashes, that is that nothing ever gets 'consumed', just you can only assign so much at once? Getting to the point where I have enough items for it now that I should probably make use of it.

 Yep

[Anne Summers]

47 minutes ago, JPL said:

Oh. I must have misunderstood when you were talking about sneaking through the side door to Scott.

 

I actually found the back way in first, but that’s definitely a dead end if you enter that way.

Yeah, I found that first, too. Thinking about it, I really must go back and see if I can work out what that stuff with the grapes was, back there. 

[CrichStand]

18 minutes ago, Doctor Shark said:

By paying attention to the story and the npcs. 
 

  Reveal hidden contents

Thops in the Church of Irith 

 

Fine if you just mainline the story. But you’re encouraged to explore the game world. So having explored the game world thoroughly I’m supposed to remember an NPC I met over 50hrs ago? Not only that I’m supposed to remember a single line of dialogue he gave me over 50hrs ago? Not only that I went back there recently and the dialogue was just “You need to find a Glintstone Key to get through the Academy”. Which I did. There’s nothing hinting at you needing  to return to that NPC at all. For all the player knows they need to find another door to unlock in the dungeon they’re at or at the other location the game warps you to. There’s no common sense to it at all. What happens if you’ve missed him in the first place?
 

Not sure how anyone can claim that’s great design. Why not have the item description as “Key once belonging to Thops of Southern Liurnia”l You then have to go off and explore to find him, or it jogs your memory a bit.

[Captain Kelsten]

14 minutes ago, CrichStand said:

Fine if you just mainline the story. But you’re encouraged to explore the game world. So having explored the game world thoroughly I’m supposed to remember an NPC I met over 50hrs ago? Not only that I’m supposed to remember a single line of dialogue he gave me over 50hrs ago? Not only that I went back there recently and the dialogue was just “You need to find a Glintstone Key to get through the Academy”. Which I did. There’s nothing hinting at you needing  to return to that NPC at all. For all the player knows they need to find another door to unlock in the dungeon they’re at or at the other location the game warps you to. There’s no common sense to it at all. What happens if you’ve missed him in the first place?
 

Not sure how anyone can claim that’s great design. Why not have the item description as “Key once belonging to Thops of Southern Liurnia”l You then have to go off and explore to find him, or it jogs your memory a bit.

I don’t know what you want me to say? Some people are taking notes as they play. I just happen to remember without notes. Some people might Google. There are options. 

[Number 28]

Man this is getting really frustrating now. Took me an age just to figure out how to exit east from the capital (does it show the doors unlocking in a cutscene I missed or something?) Then there's a 2 mile hike from the nearest bonfire and Torrent can't be summoned for some reason. Those gold knights can get fucked.

 

Edit: Ok managed to leg it through to the next bonfire. This place is going to destroy me I'm sure.

[CrichStand]

22 minutes ago, Doctor Shark said:

I don’t know what you want me to say? Some people are taking notes as they play. I just happen to remember without notes. Some people might Google. There are options. 

Not aimed at you mate! Just pointing out some frustrating stuff I’ve encountered, that seems at odds with the great design elsewhere.
 

The world is absolutely incredible with a real sense of adventure and discovery, so when stuff like this crops up, and the solution is to leave that Gameworld, jump onto Google and look at a solution, it really spoils things for me. Seems easily avoidable too and wouldn’t take anything away from the game by just adding a better description to an item or putting a map alongside all the other maps etc. 
 

Anyway, outside of that had an awesome session tonight. Discovered more of the River, cleared out that section and took down the boss, did a nice mini-dungeon that had a great little solution to it. Explored a bit more of Stormveil I’d missed and discovered PVP. Completed most of the 2nd dungeon too. Over 90hrs now and it’s still absolutely incredible. Amazing!
 

[NexivRed]

10 hours ago, Robo_1 said:

One of the often unremarked joys of this game / series is returning to an earlier part of the game and monstering your way through enemies you earlier had to hold your breath to face. Indeed, the game is hard and making progress will almost always tax your abilities but that sense of frustration can often be counterbalanced by revisiting earlier areas with your new equipment, exploring them with impunity as you slice through enemies with ease, maybe returning to that mini boss you once ran past. I think it's an important part of the souls recipe which makes the games so compelling.


 

  Reveal hidden contents

For the curious, the area was the coastal cave, which leads to a separate island once completed. Can't recall what loot was available but it's an easy enough detour and worth the effort.

Thwacking the two giant troll lads yanking the carriage up to the Storm Gate, and the entire procession with them, has become my goto for “ooh, need a few thousand runes quickly”. 
It’s immensely satisfying two shotting the Tibetan looking lads on ponies on the way, tossers, and three of the horn blower/torch waver types in one go. 

I think the best part is is you still can’t face roll it at level 40. You can still actually die!

 

 

8 hours ago, JPL said:

I’ve finally got the Bloodhound Fang and while it’s a pretty imposing weapon, I feel it’s too slow for my playstyle as I’ve got so used to my Lordsworn’s Straight Sword that I’ve got to +5.

 

My question is will the Bloodhound Fang become any faster if I level it up or level my STR/DEX, or am I better off looking for a different sword?

 

Which leads me to my second question, which sword should I be looking for that scales well but is fast?

 

I’m worried about wasting any more smithing stones on upgrading my Lordsworn’s if there are better ones out there for the taking.

 

I am loving this weapon, as I’ve been enjoying a lot of mounted combat here there and everywhere, and it was great to have something to finally swap my halberd for. Its reach is long enough (you can hit three at once), and it’s still worthy enough for floor fighting.

It’s slow, especially compared to my morning star. So it’s a bit awful against rogue types. But I like that it has the bleed effect my morning star has, which makes it worth using, but my morning star isn’t totally useless as it’s good against casters, (magic throwing people, not furniture wheels).

 

 

7 hours ago, Ry said:

 

Yeah been doing that. 

 

Tried at least 40 times in my 50 hours. Weird. 

 

For an NPC summons help on the second boss, you have to have found her in the courtyard nearby. 
 

 

I had an NPC show up to help me take down a horrible bandit type. And then I had an opportunity to invade him and help him back! This is just an NPC, as I don’t play online. I thought that was fucking cool. 

 

 

5 hours ago, Yuujiin said:

What level are you now??  I'm still going through Stormvile castle at the moment with the same armour I started with and a Bloodhound Fang +2. 

 

When I see all these white silhouettes going around with swanky armour and weapons I feel like I have missed out on a lot. I'm sure I have explored most places in Limgrave .

 

I’m level 41 or something and still haven’t found something better than my starter vanguard gear. Especially when weight has to come into play. 
 

When I was going through the castle I had one new weapon at +2 and my original halberd at +1, and that was it. So I think you’re probably still on track. 

 

 

3 hours ago, spanx said:

Thanks for all the pep talks but I’m going to leave this for a few days and play something else I think. Come back to it with a fresh mind. For all the talk of being more approachable this feels waaay harder than Bloodborne and I need to play something that doesn’t relish kicking my arse. I love it so much but I feel like I’ve hit an impenetrable wall and all the talk of later bosses being much harder is worrying.

 

10/10 game, but I am a 3/10 gamer I think

 

Don’t give up for too long. It definitely feels like there’s nowhere safe to go that won’t piss you off because you can’t waste everything in your path, but then things really do settle down into it.
I’m finally feeling strong and capable against melee and magic at 41 with about 25 in STR and weapons dealing between 250-400 damage.

I’ve just gone back to a set of crystal caves I thought were impossible about three levels and two smithing stone upgrades ago, and it was perfectly doable. Fun even. Trust that you’ll scale up if you stick your points in your damage stat, and upgrade your weapon. 

 

 

Pro tip, if the lack of smithing stones pisses you off like it was me for a while:

Spoiler

You can leg it through all of the mines collecting all of the yellow and white gem looking deposits (smithing stones) whilst rolling past bad guys, as they have lifts throughout which mean you leave aggro behind and get a breather.

From the lowest level in the Limgrave Tunnels, right up to the high level crystal caves (I’ve found three crystal mining places with a boss at the end so far that drop the sombers).

I cleared two caves, but was getting frustrated at my damage around the Academy, so went to a higher level one to get my morning star to +15!

 

I may have a go at streaming some soon, if anyone wants to get their Elden Ring fill by watching a screeching Suffolk lady suck until she rage quits 👌🏻

[Broker]

Finished my map! It's taken 85 hours and there's still one place on there I'm pretty sure is a location but I haven't been to yet, but all the pieces are filled in

 

Spoiler

 

[CrichStand]

So the 2nd Key is not how you progress. Back to wandering around the dungeon again it is then!