Elden Ring

[briareos_kerensky]

I can...I see we have been running in circles around the same point for quite some time

[hudson]

Yeah you said you were wondering why you couldn't use them. I dunno.

[briareos_kerensky]

Yeah you said you were wondering why you couldn't use them. I dunno.

Ok, last post about the subject...that was before getting the bell. Got that after getting the first two spirits, explored a good chunk of the area past Stormveil gate, and went back to explore the starting area on a whim.

[Tobal]

Beaten my first Lord, Godfrey. Come back at lvl 29 with powered +4 Spike Club and +1 spirit rabid dog making the difference, specially the dog causing rot which just wasted his HP away while i scrambled to block, dodge, heal and the occasional club swing against his 2nd phase... thankfully did it one go.

advice for those looking for load bearing talisman, feels like it could be lock out quest depending on your actions.

->Open Spoiler<-

where Godfrey is, if you take a left towards the giant/2xsoldiers, past them on that stone path there is a room of to the side with a npc in it, talk to her till she offered help on Godfrey, i never took her in to the fight but the golden summon was there, after beating Godfrey head back to the roundtable and the women npc is there and will gift you the weight talisman

Also had some scary times in the divine tower in the rot area,

->Open Spoiler<-

noticed i could jump on to some tree below a cliff so began a terrifying climb up the outside, and and even worse one inside, thankfully i'd found the assassins spell book and bought the soft fall spell in an earlier adventure . enemies far to tough killing me in 1 or 2 hits, and me doing barely any damage to their HP bars, alot of push them off to there deaths for 1.2k exp..

[briareos_kerensky]

Got to the beach,

->Open Spoiler<-

killed an invisible enemy that dropped a skill, found a cave, defeated a boss there, and made my way to an island with a ruined church with an altar dedicated to dragons. Went to a location marked by an NPC, teleported to a completely different location (which quadrupled the size of the map), go a bunch of items for what I think is a covenant, and got killed by nearly invisible midgets.
Stumbled on a wolf VS giant bear fight.

The game's version of the Maiden

->Open Spoiler<-

brought me to a non-combat zone where I finally found a bow for sale, jumped off a railing, and an NPC red phantom killed me.

All in all, having a good time

[gordon]

Playing this on a base PS4, which runs surprisingly well; I’ve put about 13 hours in over the last two days. Got people to help me in the first two mini dungeons I came across but since then I’ve been using spirits. Love the combat, it’s very Dark Souls, and it was like slipping on a glove.

Overall I’m amazed, overwhelmed and occasionally (disappointed?) with it. It’s like playing Breath of the Wild for the first time & getting used to the paradigm shift: it’s a Souls game, but it’s not. Outside of the only main dungeon (the first castle) I’ve been in, the sense of dread and claustrophobia and desperate desire to get to the next bonfire/grace point isn’t there. I found myself doing what I always do with open world games, and that’s unlocking huge areas of the map I’m not strong enough to face yet, picking up stuff I can’t use yet, and feeling in awe of the size of the world.

None of this is to say I don’t love it - because I do. It’s magnificent, challenging, melancholy, familiar; but it’ll take time to get used to the new hybrid design.

[briareos_kerensky]

Got my first sort-of game-breaking bug. From the beach near the starting area I jumped back up using the aerial currents, I misjudged Torrent's turn radius and fell downb the cliff. The death didn't register and for a while I was able to operate some controls (lock-on, weapon switching) but couldn't bring up the map to teleport, forcing me to close the game through task manager. Got back into the game, and the moment I loaded in my character died in the same spot I unwillingly jumped off, and then respawned at the previous Grace found.

Also had a close encounter

->Open Spoiler<-

with a giant bear in some ruins and it was pretty frantic seeing the beast destroying wall to get me. Was able to give it the slip by falling into a pit that led to a new skill scroll.

Lucky

[Tobal]

still been unable to log on to online services for 2 days now, i'm missing the messages, bloodstains and ghosts.

[Cassius_Smoke]

Not one to complain about a game I haven't played, but in videos the graphics look pretty poor.
Why is there so much pop in? And why do we still have a main character who phases through bushes and grass without affecting them in 2022 on next gen consoles?!
I'm not expecting Horizon FW levels of fidelity, but From needed to update their engine from 2013.

[fuse]

Finally got the chance to spend a couple of hours with this yesterday. So far I've just found the one boss who I'm fairly sure I am under-prepared for, so I guess it's back off for a wander in another direction.

In general, I've not immediately fallen for it and do still need a bit more woo-ing. I have had some great moments already but there's a lot of new systems that have been introduced by means of big pop up tutorial window that I've not been able to do anything in relation to yet, which has all felt surprisingly inelegant. I'm not sure I'm totally sold on the great big open world yet either - it looks great, but it's very odd to me to have these mechanics and very little direction to channel them into. Wandering through a great big field to then sneak up behind a soldier and backstab him feels very odd to me.

Other minor things: bloody hell there are a *lot* of comments right now. I normally make a habit of reading any I see but so many of them are useless and/or repeats. Also yes, having a dedicated jump button is weird.

I'm sure it'll gel in time (hello future me reading this comment) but it is a pretty big change up from other From titles.

[hudson]

This is botw for grown ups (joke) and I love it.

[nonny]

This is botw for grown ups (joke) and I love it.

Yeah it is isn't it... It's dark souls mechanics plonked directly into that mould and provided enough new mechanics to make it work well in that open world plan.

[Tobal]

couple of the changes to the combat system really do change things for me, removing the leap attack and letting you manually jump with a attack command can really let you get the surprise attack even on bosses with a very good chance to interrupt and even stagger with heavy attack. The other is the war arts (they kinda existed before on certain boss weapons), allow pure melee builds can use that MP for something and the cost is pretty low so you can bust out quite a few.. and there are so many types i've come across and a few unique to special weapons that make beating bosses for them so much more rewarding along with the ability to freely change up the arts you have collected and as you find the crafting tools you can freely change the stat scaling to.

[briareos_kerensky]

Hey,

->Open Spoiler<-

it's Patches! Past a dragon (which should really be called a wyvern because of the two wings/two legs, but I'm not a nerd), and of course a couple of traps. Sells interesting things as usual.
Also stumbled upon an Artist's Shack with a large interactive painting but I chickened out and didn't activate it.
And two Evergaols...reminded of Bloodborne's gaol I did interact with them and transported to two minor boss fights. One was pretty easy and drops a cool curve greatsword, the other is an armoured beast that kills me in two hits.

[112]

So I’ve only been able to get a few hours out of this over a hectic weekend. Yesterday was a write off, but worth it for the result (LFC fan).

Like others have said, getting use to the controls will take some time for me, coming from playing previous games.

I have another stupid question to ask - how do you kick in this game? Or has that been removed now?

For some strange reason I decided to play as a wretched, to build my character up the way I wanted to, and I literally got my ass handed to me more times than I care to remember. I’m levelled to 8 now, so have some chance at battles.

Something I really like is being able to run fast without depleting stamina, when there are no enemies about - a nice evolutionary feature. Talking of enemies, my word, does it want to show off how many enemies it can have on screen at one time…

Really liking what I’ve seen of this so far…

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