Topic: Elden Ring Hype Thread

@Mega-Gazz Cool cheers, I think that is where I'm was going next anyway.

I'm going for mainly Dex and Vigor for my stats, but I saw somewhere yesterday that you will see better gains from upgrading your weapons.

@Mega-Gazz Vigor and Dex, with a secondary emphasis on Strength, Intelligence (gotta have mana for Unsheathe), and Stamina.

I'm falling into old habits - vitality, endurance and strength. I don't really know another way to play these games. Maybe I should try one of these fancy dex builds.

@kyleforrester87 If I ever replay this, I'm going full barbarian and pumping all of my points into Strength, Vigor, and Stamina. I want to be able to use these huge swords I keep getting.

@Mega-Gazz Half Strength, Half Dexterity, a few points into health and stamina when I can.

Anyone else using Radagon's Scarseal as a talisman? It's pretty awesome - gives you 3 extra points to Strength, Endurance, Dexterity and Vigor (everything that counts for anything unless you're leaning into magic) - at the expense that it "increases damage taken" (not sure how much)

That's like, 12 levels worth of points, just for taking a bit more damage . Been using it for a couple of hours now, doesn't seem to increase the damage taken to the point where you get one shotted

Sounds right. I keep telling myself I’ll try something different, hence putting points into sorcery as a secondary ability, but sword and board just works too well and is low-fuss. That said, the sorcery is really useful on occasion, and being able to buff my weapon with magic always is nice.

I hate even posting this but I'm super curious. I don't want this to come off as a hey we got a badass over here post or whatever, but does anyone else think that Elden Ring is a bit easy?

I've hit a few walls - first big boss at the first castle obliterated me repeatedly - but once I explored and levelled up and got a new weapon etc. I've basically marched through the game without much resistance.

That said, my map is quite small so I'm assuming I'm not very far - played 25 hours or so. I'm wondering if anyone else was like this only to have the rug pulled from under them at a certain point? Perhaps I've spent so much time exploring I'm overlevelled?

Still loving it I just don't think it's causing me as much trouble as previous Souls games.

@johncalmc depends where you’re at, you maybe a bit over levelled. I have found it on the easier side overall but I know I am a bit on the high side. I have only just reached the castle. An article the other day said it gets hard nearer the end so I am waiting to hit a wall later on. I’m not summoning at all for bosses so far to help keep the challenge.

Plus maybe you just got gud. It happens.

@johncalmc It’s less that it’s easy and more that it gives you more means to get a leg up. By all accounts, later bosses are incredibly difficult, and from what I’ve seen in the later areas I’ve explored, that holds true.

@johncalmc open world stuff - yeah it's definitely easier than most souls games (with the exception of maybe the tree sentinel), a lot of the optional dungeons too. Stormveil castle though, is classic Dark Souls. It's like a Dark Souls location, except it's actually surrounded by a big, open world rather than being conveniently attached to several other densely packed locations.

I've yet to make it all the way to Godrick in Stormveil - but then, I'm not sure if I'm going the right way or if I'm exploring myself into harm's way

I think what really helps in the open world is the option to be on horseback. "Run in, hit it, run out before it has a chance to hit back" is a really viable tactic on a lot of enemies/hoards of enemies/bosses, and having that extra speed (as well as being able to chug on health flasks while torrent is still running) makes all the difference

@kyleforrester87 I've never summoned the whole game apart from an NPC on the first boss. And let's be frank - I summon all the time on Dark Souls etc. I think I'm overlevelled because I don't know what I'm doing so I'm just wandering about the whole map doing everything I see.

I've killed two of the main bosses and got eight of the boss killing trophies and I'm level 48. The map isn't huge yet. Unless it is and I overestimated how big it is. Who even knows. Still never used a magic spell.

@nessisonett That would be good because I always find with Souls games that the start is the hardest and then by the end I'm smashing everyone up. The only exception of course being Sekiro which saves the most ludicrous boss for last.

It'd be nice to see them get the escalation right here.

@johncalmc As others said, the bosses in caves, tombs and the like are very easy, and can often be 1-shorted.

The bossses in legacy dungeons like Godrick are full on souls bosses and quite difficult.

There is actually a formal tier system (enemy/great enemy/etc/etc/shard bearer) in place.

@Mega-Gazz yeah it's hard to say what combination of bosses I've done without looking it up or getting spoilery. But I've done at least three of the ones that have cutscenes. I have two remembrances. Done probably a dozen or more random dungeons, gaols, etc.

Managed to finally beat the tree sentinel, dragon agheel, a couple of mini-dungeon bosses, met Patches and another npc invader in like one 45 min session. Also interacted with a silver frond and a spirit showed me the way to some treasure! I'm heading back for Margit later. @johncalmc, I definitely think being able to nope out and go explore somewhere else, level up whilst exploring/discovering without having to grind and come back later, along with your ashes of war summons might make thing easier. I'm guessing there's going to be some really difficult stuff in the margins, like nameless King or Martyr Logarius.

OK, the Misbegotten Warrior and Crucible Knight boss battle is just obnoxious. Game throws two powerful enemies at you almost at the same time in some crappy arena where it's easy to get stuck on trash littering the place. Literally the worst part of this game so far.

Redmane Castle is seriously getting on my nerves, since I died a few times to these insane giant lion enemies in the courtyard, kept getting poisoned by some obnoxious flying thing until I was able to find the site of grace, etc.

Thanks for the input everyone! I played the previous games on 30 so I guess I should be fine. I’ve been spoiled by Nioh’s performance modes. Be picking it up tomorrow.

@johncalmc Yeah I can see where you are coming from as apart from the Tree Sentinel I've not really struggled with much in the open world. The Banished Knights in Stormveil Castle I seem to struggle against, and those blobs with two swords and a shield in one of the dungeons destroyed me.

I tried one of the Evergaol bosses, and that definitely felt like a step up terms of difficulty from what I've experienced so far.

I went wandering underground and accidentally found a boss. Apparently that earned me a trophy! And a fairly rubbish reward, just one of those things to boost a renowned ashes to +10 which I doubt I’ll ever use. I just don’t have the FP for the special summon I found, it needs like 120 because it’s some Perfumer person.