Topic: Elden Ring Hype Thread

@JohnnyShoulder ah, ok

@kyleforrester87 Forgot to say, everything else before that can be bought eventually from the twin Maiden husks at Roundtable Hold.

How is the ray-tracing? I just redownloaded to try and finish this amazing since it got the update.

I am going through Ranni's Quest line, and I've currently just gone through the Lake of Rot, what a nice place that is!.

This game is massive! There's just so much to do, I've logged 60 hours now and I think there's easly another 60 to go

I am at almost exactly the same point as you. I just completed Ranni's Questline last night, after a few sessions where Astel made me rage quit.

I played Elden Ring last year for ~70 hours, but the only souls game I had played previously was Bloodborne and by the time I made it to the royal capital I was really struggling with the build I had gone for. I know you can respec, but I had upgraded specific weapons to +18/20 and couldn't figure out how to change my build to use another weapon.

Since then I've played through DS1 and DS3 multiple times each, and recently decided to start ER from scratch with a new character. I'm enjoying it more this time with a few more souls games under my belt.

I've gone for a pure strength build this time. I have played through both DS1 and DS3 with a magic or strength build - DS1 was easier with magic and DS3 was harder. I figured that the magic mechanisms in ER are similar to DS3 so went for strength. Currently using the brick hammer and a greatshield.

@woollypump I managed to beat Astel last night, he was probably the toughest fight I've come across for a melee build at the moment, alot of his AoE attacks did some serious damage but after 2 tries I managed to sus his movements.

Sounds like your making good progress, similar to you but with different games, I finished Bloodborne and Demon Soul's and I feel like it's given me an "extra edge" when playing elden ring, I just seem to understand everything a bit more.

I'm glad your enjoying it, it's really an amazing game.

After 2 tries! I reckon I was 20+ for me, also melee. I think sometimes I just bash away hoping to get lucky though, particularly if it's been a hard day and concentration is lacking.

That said, I now have Lions Claw on the Brick Hammer and I think Astel might have been easier if I'd got that first! The Dragonbarrow evergaol boss went down after a few L2's

@woollypump One of the most interesting things about this game is where different players hit stumbling blocks!
For instance, I didn't have too much grief with Malenia (who I understand is a pretty common boss to wreck you) but I lost days of my life trying to beat the Fire Giant.... which apparently most people smoke pretty easy?!

Radahn was a big problem for me also, although I played at release and understand he might now have been nerfed somewhat?

Such an awesome game though, and I have the fondest of memories playing this. My absolute GOTY 2022 without doubt.

@CJD87 Yeah Fire Giant I did on like the second try (nice pun btw), which is rare for me on most bosses in similar games.

I always find it amusing when some one thinks they have struggled when I see that have like 5 goes at a boss. They it pretty normal for me! Try multiplying that by 10, then you know a real struggle! 😂

I'm approaching where I got to on my first playthrough but having seen a lot more. Tonight I did a few things I missed on my first attempt; the divine tower of Caelid, which I just could not figure out on my first playthrough and gave up on without managing to get inside, but did fully tonight, top to bottom. Also found Goldmask, and have just started the Shaded Castle.

I'm wondering if I should stop upgrading the brick hammer (currently at +17) and switch to Great Stars, which I have just found. I don't think I have all the stones I need to get it to the same level though.

I think that's true of all the FS games - I beat both Lady Maria and Orphan of Kos in a couple of tries, but did the zero insight cheese to beat Witches of Hemwick on my first playthrough hehe

Elden Ring has clicked for me on this playthrough. More than anything it's a constant feast for the eyes. The art style/direction is just perfection for me.

I am now further along than I made it on my first attempted playthrough - I beat Godfrey (Golden Shade) in the capital.

I'm not sure how to do the spoiler formatting so I won't go into details but I was completely stumped where to go in the capital when I last played, but I figured it out last night

This is a question that has been asked in many places in many permutations, but what is the consensus on how far i should be able to progress without locking myself out of the DLC on NG? All the way to the endings but without starting Journey 2 as was the case for DS3?

I'm playing this again for the third time as my girlfriend wanted to play it again so we're both on new game plus at the same time. The original idea was that we'd play through at the same pace so we could summon each other when we needed help but it's so easy on new game plus that this hasn't happened. And this isn't one of those oh look at me I'm the heavyweight champion of gaming that's why it's easy posts. It's just really easy.

It might get silly later on - I don't know. We're both dual wielding the Bloodhound Fang (I think it's called that) and we're killing everything with spectacular ease. It actually makes for a totally different experience. The first time through was so intense in parts and now it's like I'm just on a cool adventure strolling about the world, exploring, and smashing people up. I'm not sure whether it's a case for including an easy mode in these games, or a case for new game plus being a reward for people who battled through the game.

Looking forward to getting to Malenia and Maliketh - those were the two bosses that gave me massive trouble the first time around. No idea if the difficulty is due to spike or not in the upcoming areas but so far I'm having a blast playing it again.

@johncalmc First of all — how incredibly romantic! Coordinated slaughter with your significant other. Right down to matchy-matchy twinkie weapons. A regular Don Juan in action.

Second of all — it is a fascinating longitudinal study of whether the enjoyment from the game is dependent on the challenge. Do you still get the dopamine hit when you slay a tough boss? I’m guessing it’s a different flavor of enjoyment from the first run.

Third of all — hey, weren’t you supposed to be working on platinums for every Yakuza game and a playthrough of every single Final Fantasy game this year? And yet you let your other half convince you to spend time on a third playthrough of Elden Ring… love has blinded you, my friend.

@Th3solution Mate it's gone right out of the window. I've nearly finished Yakuza 3 - just got to finish off the last few minigames and then do the legendary difficulty playthrough. But I find it quite draining to play because the combat in that game is notoriously awful so I have to keep having a break and playing something else and then going back.

Unsure about Final Fantasy. I know most of them so well that I can finish them quickly, especially by the time I hit VI, VII, VIII, IX and X. I could easily do all of those within a month. The problem is waiting for the Pixel Remasters and not wanting to wait to play XVI. I wanted to play all the games in order but I don't think I could finish them all before XVI. So that might be off.

Regarding Elden Ring, no, there's no rush at all killing the bosses now. It's a different experience. I often think about Souls games and playing one over again because there's a feeling when you stroll into a boss room and you're on the edge of your seat fighting it and then you finally triumph. It's something that few games replicate. The only none Souls game that gave me that feeling was Returnal, which I also think about replaying quite a bit.

That feeling playing Elden Ring the first time can't be replicated, although I did get something close to it playing the second time co-op with my girlfriend who was playing it for the first time because to her it was all new and the fights were still hard. Now when we're both in new game plus that feeling is totally gone. We're up to the Altus Plateau and I bet we've died more from falling off cliffs than from bosses.

But while the dopamine rush from narrowly defeating a boss is gone, it's been replaced with the fun of adventure and exploration. Elden Ring is tense even when wandering about because you never know when something awful is going to pop up. Without that threat it's quite a fun game to just run around in exploring, not worrying about losing your runes, not worrying about what's around the corner. It's enjoyable in a totally different way.

@woollypump I'm at the capital now after spending a good 5 to 6 hours in the atlus plateau and the outskirts of the capital, there's just so much to do, every time I think I should progress on with the main game I find a cave or a church or something to distract me!.

@johncalmc Honestly I can understand, the way you play the first time not knowing what's around the corner or what secrets a place may hold makes the game so tense and exciting at the same time, the game has so much more to offer than just the surprise factor and has plenty of replay ability but you could never replicate that first playthrough again.

I started Mountaintops of the Giants last night. I still have Deeproot Depths and Volcano Manor to do. Currently trying to decide if I try to do both of those before progressing in the Mountaintops. My final Volcano Manor contract is somewhere in the Mountaintops so going far enough to do that, and then finish off all Volcano Manor quests before going further.

I'm level 95 at the moment with +20 Great Stars equipped with Lions Claw - with +10 Stormhawk Deehn it sometimes feels a bit too powerful.

@MaulTsir Definitely. I got the platinum when I played it the first time and I was doing stuff last night that was totally new to me. I got to an area I'd never even seen and fought a boss I didn't know existed. I spent 100 hours with it and got every trophy and I'm still finding new things pretty regularly.

@Th3solution congratulations on beating Dark Souls Remastered and making it through the DLC! Long time no speak. I have finally gotten around to approaching Elden Ring in a casual way (about an hour per session when I do play it.) And was hoping that you and @Jimmer-jammer could advise me on various ways to make the game easier for myself, I already have a rough plan to use a Strength build and get the Mimic Tear Ashes and then upgrade the Mimic Tear to +10 ASAP in order to get through the game with as few headaches as possible. My previous Souls games took me a few months to a year to complete individually, so this one should go on for two to three years, lol as it is much longer and I am only playing casually, but then again I hear most the content is skippable so maybe I can complete it in about a year after all.