Elden Ring

[QualityChimp]

Bit of a shame, I can't quite kill the Godskin noble, so I can't get that Somber Smithing Stone 7.
Had a fair few cracks at it and did some damage a few times, but I just kept wasting the sleep pots, dying from his attacks, then he fell asleep as YOU DIED popped. Gargh.

Decided to leave it for a while and have a mooch around at last. I'm still dying, but taking out more enemies than ever.

Headed up the West side of the map, where I've barely uncovered any fires.
Found a cursed village, but mashed up the wizard there and got half a medallion.
Found some imps who tried to ambush me.
Went up a hill for four portals on it, guarded by jellyfish and giant ghost trolls. Mashed up one of them, goodstyle.
Found a camp with a fair chunk of enemies including one of those pumpkinhead guys and a tough knight.
Saw a group of soldiers and prepped for the challenge, but wiped them out fairly easy apart from the general.
Found a cave full of rock troll rat things, but bottled the boss battle.
Found a tower with some stuff hidden at the top.

I'm doing a lot of horseback fighting because it gives you the opportunity to get away from attacks.

As for bosses, next to the cursed village was a tough guy that killed me on my first visit, but went back and was more cautious, avoiding his flame attacks.
By the giant tree, there was some kind of tree boss. Felt a bit cheesy just riding around, dodging his attacks then going in for the kill, but a win is a win.

Bit of a shame that almost everyone is an enemy. A few times I've given people the benefit of the doubt, hoping the talk prompt appears, but instead there's a boss health bar!

Fair play, it's a gorgeous game though. I'd ridden to the top of that portal hill and had to take a snap of the view with the giant glowing tree on the left and a castle atop a hill on the right. Quite a few times, it's made me stop in my tracks and just take in the view.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to be doing, now. I'm just enjoying having a mooch (and not dying as much), but there's no real plan to what my goal is.

[QualityChimp]

More exploratory romping.
I'm basically just looking at gaps on the map where there might be a site of grace and just mooching around to see if there's anything there. I just loooove unfogging a map.

Highlight of last night was probably find a bit near the start I didn't explore.
There's a bridge with a giant crossbow on it and I managed to take out all the soldiers.
I met an NPC that wanted me to deliver a letter to her father, rather than straight up murderize me like most people.
Beyond the bridge were some zombie guys and a giant. They all tasted my steel!

After that, night had drawn in and I could see a grace site glowing, however, night brought with it a Night's Cavalry!
Now, a few days ago, I was running away, hoping for an easy cheese win, but tonight, battle commenced!
Basically, it was me riding in circles trying to hit him before he hit me, but I'll tell you that it was a majestic battle that will be sung about by bards for centuries to come.

Lit the fire, headed to the castle, but was getting attacked by a trebuchet or something.
Got closer to realise it was a giant golem firing a massive crossbow at me.
Although lethal at long-range, the fool was easily dismissed when his ankles met my Bloodhound's Fang!

It was gone half midnight on a school night, by that point, so I called it quits, ready to tackle the castle.

Earlier on, I'd ventured into another castle (I'm starting to sound like Mario...) and there were some weird hand spider monsters that just demolished me with their chained attacks. I killed a couple, but I was dying more than surviving, so yoinked my souls and I'll tackle it later.

[Lebowski]

COLOSSEUM COMING TOMORROW!!!!

https://www.eurogamer.net/elden-ring-multiplayer-colosseum-update-available-tomorrow

free update too let the chimp battling commence!

[QualityChimp]

COME AT ME, BRO!

I'm level 12 now!

[Finsbury Girl]

WOAH!

[QualityChimp]

[QualityChimp]

Carried on from where I left off last night at Morne Castle, trying to deliver a note from blind Irena to her father who is still protecting the castle.

Dude is doing a bad job of it as the place is overrun with gargoyles and zombie dogs, man.

The gargoyles are pretty easy to take down, but not when there's a crowd - they'll decimate you.
Crept around the castle, mashing 'em up, but gulped all my healing juice, so decided a tactical retreat to reset, rather than risk losing all my souls, which proved a good decision.

Although I like the helpful messages people leave, only a fraction are useful and the majority are jokes or on stupid places.
I kind of liked it the other day when I had no internet connection and I just got to enjoy the aesthetics of the castle I was in, rather than see all the note planks hovering in stupid places like ledges and flagpoles.

Anyway, I worked my way through the castle, carefully eliminating the enemies and traversing jumps and drops and ended up at the gate to the boss. Got a bit nervous as it's only my second boss and that Godskin Noble kicked my ass.

I traversed the fog and was faced with a monster pacing towards me amongst the tombstones on a beach graveyard.
I ran up to him and unleashed my special move and absolutely demolished him in two combos! Sweeeet!
Showed my friend that I borrowed it from and he was well-annoyed because he'd died looooads there!
He's more of a Skyrim guy and this is much tougher than that.
I didn't want to be perpetually frustrated at dying all the time, which is why I've beefed up early.
It's still not "easy" but I'm enjoying not being demoralised at being one-hitted by the weakest of NPCs.

Then tried to finish the storyline by taking the letter to the father in the castle.

->Open Spoiler<-

He told me he was going to stay to fulfil his duties, despite knowing he's the only alive human left!
Went to tell his daughter and she was dead ("She's dead. PRESS OK") and the father swears revenge on all the monsters.
So I popped back to the castle and they're all still monstering around, so he didn't even do that.
Went to the "Revenger's Shack" for the final part and his spectral form invades.

By this point, he's been a rubbish soldier, an awful father, terrible avenger of her death and now he's attacking me?!
Well, he killed me, but I respawned and explained to him my disapproval of his behaviour, using my sword.

Got a sweet Halberd, but it's too heavy for me to carry at the moment.

Then finished off with a bit more mooching/unfogging/fire lighting.
Found a massive bird boss which chomped me in half, but when I respawned it had legged it, so I think it's a night boss.
Mainly exploring the Southern part of the map,

[briareos_kerensky]

I traversed the fog and was faced with a monster pacing towards me amongst the tombstones on a beach graveyard.

Good, because it'll become a standard enemy in later areas

[QualityChimp]

Yeah, I know it'll get progressively tougher, I just didn't want the early stages to be a chore of repetitive death.

Made it much more fun (for me) and enjoying seeing what there is to explore.

I found that walking bell/platform/castle things, but I've no idea how to get up to it.

[QualityChimp]

Working on the South of the map, as I think that's the "starter" area.
Most things I can handle and I'm sorting out a lot of the stuff I was running away from earlier.
The dragon in the lake and the nearby guy who invades have been sliced in twain.
Did a couple of bosses like the reindeer and Margaret Margit the Fell Omen took one hell of a beating.
Some proper buff dude with twin hammers thought I was a proud nail.
Tag team of a sword and flail guys were defending Hogsmeade.
General in the poison swamps was tough, but I used the horse to ride around him and his troops.
A summoned spectre in the swamps was also felled.

With these these bosses I'm dying a couple of times as I work out their attack patterns, but I feel it's my fault.
Either I'm getting careless when they have a sliver of health left or panicking in the moment and applying blood grease, rather than healing and I'm all thumbs on the controller.

However, I keep stumbling across bosses that seem tougher than the area they're in.
I've slain a few bears, including those massive ones, so when I found one in a cave I thought it'd be fine, but I used that Finesse supermove and it barely touched his health bar!

Found another tree guardian (rotten or foul or something) and he was one-hit-killing me and sending laser swords at me.
Next to him were the tree guardians that still take about 4 hits to down and there were loads.
Next to them was another dragon. I'd already killed one that night, so thought I'd have a pop, but again I barely dented his health bar.

Thought I'd have another pop at the Godskin Noble, but I can't seem to get the sleep potions right.
I'll be backing away with him targeted and it'll disengage the lock-on and I'll throw it away from him.
Annoying because I'll take the sword to level 9 if I get Somber stone 7.
Saw there were a couple of other ones, but they're in areas I've not unlocked yet.

I'm trying to get into the habit of levelling up when I have enough souls because a couple of times I've had like 50K from moochin' and killin' then lost them all. Most of the bosses don't respawn so farming more souls will take a lot more time from the grunts.

I really enjoyed that section underground with the ghostly Minatours and the spectral background. Gorgeous!

I'll probably stop banging on as I'm not really helping anyone else as you've either played it and know it all already or stopped playing because it wasn't clicking.

I'm really enjoying it, but I'm still lost as to what I'm supposed to be doing, half the time!

[briareos_kerensky]

Thought I'd have another pop at the Godskin Noble, but I can't seem to get the sleep potions right.

Sleep arrows are great against the Noble, they build up sleep and do damage. Jump-attacking with a bow is way faster than standing firing on the ground too, so you can keep mobile and dodge attacks.

[QualityChimp]

Cheers, BK.
Not very experienced with the bow as the Uchikatana and Fang have been so effective so far.

I'll investigate!

Sadly, the sleep lilies seem a finite resource.

[briareos_kerensky]

The lilies are dropped by the spirit jellyfishes, and there's at least one merchant selling them (IIRC not infinite though).
As a suggestion though, try doing it without sleep. Have you been using summon spirits? They can aggro bosses while you heal, they are a huge help in many situations.

[QualityChimp]

As you can tell, I've not really explored any of this other stuff as I've been having fun just exploring and looting.

Literally read last night that I'm told how to summon from one of the first NPC interactions, but I don't know how I do it!
That's a great suggestion, cheers.

I didn't know about the jellyfish, but I watched a video of someone saying you can farm them from the female soldiers in the swamp.
He then goes on to show it's ultra rare when they drop, so you'd be at it for hours!

As you can tell from my generalities with the names, I'm just enjoying the adventure without learning their names before I mash 'em!

[Golgo]

I really admire the chilled-out way you play games, Chimp. Just wanted to say. It's very entertaining to read and must be also fun to do. I'm jealous too. Everything you say about the qualities of this game are totally right. I guess I have a particular mania for clear objectives so I can never properly relax into a game space as you have done here, and as you did previously with your Fallout 4 'diary', etc., which I also enjoyed reading.

New Year Resolution: just **** about in games more.