Elden Ring (George RR Martin and From Software)

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122226547#Comment_122226547

Annoyingly this took up all my gaming time last night to fix and even once I fixed it I was getting tearing in every game which turned out to be AMDs advanced sync being turned on. V sync that caused tearing…

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122226618#Comment_122226618

I don't think you can get the new weapons outside of the DLC area, but you'll be able to use them in the main game areas anyway once you've gotten them. As for the martial arts weapons, I think it works similar to the fists in that it has its own new fighting style, and then there'll be different skills and ashes or war you use in conjunction with it.

johnny_ultimate

I assume the weapons will carry over, but there seems to be a new levelling system(s) that will only apply within the new DLC areas?

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122227019#Comment_122227019

From what I've read, you still need to level up your weapons like the main game, but then there's items you can use to both boost your damage output and reduce damage taken specifically in the DLC areas, similar to the Attack Power in Sekiro where you'd use a memory of a boss you just beat to raise your Attack Power. They're more character-based than weapon-based items.

Zero-Cool

Checked my end game save, I have a couple of tears, couple of ancient dragon smithing stones and a ton of items that I have forgotten exactly what they do. Loads of remembrances but not sure which to use if any. 1 mausoleum taken down but again, not sure which to use. Think I'm happy enough to dive straight into the dlc and see what I come across. Then if I find a new weapon/style I really want to try, will respec then.

CptMonkey

Went back last night to check my 3 characters and I'm only in a good position in one. Stupidly went into ng+ with my main guy.

And I now suck and keep dying 🙃

Unearthly

Release date is working out perfectly for me. Almost finished Bloodborne which will complete the 7 games. DLC should keep me going for a few months

Penn

Beat Malenia in NG+. I definitely hadn't forgotten how difficult she is, but man that's just a tough-ass fight. I've seen clips of how to avoid Waterfowl Dance, but the issue is that unless you spot it right away and you're not already performing an action, you're going to get caught up in it to some degree. Also doesn't help that no matter how much health you bring Mimic into the second phase with, dumbass is going to run and stand right in the scarlet bloom.

Didn't take as many tries as previous playthroughs, but had to change up my whole loadout for it to get more blood and frost.

Just have Mohg and Fire Giant, and then can start moving on towards the endgame areas.

Zero-Cool

I only noticed that i didn't actually have any larval tears so looked up a guide and got 5. Some of them i would have never found. Think i have enough anyway to try a few different builds.

Penn

NG+ finished. None of the final bosses gave much trouble at all. It was actually Gideon giving the most bother. On attempt 5 I got him down to about 40% when my phone rang and I had to take it. Since you can't pause, I just accepted it'd be another loss. Mimic ended up beating him while I stood on and watched. It's awful being the weak link in our team....

I did the quests for all the ending runes (though went with Ranni's ending anyway), got all the deathroot, did all the dragons and a good few optional bosses, but I admit towards the end, I just started running through a lot of areas, not doing caves/catacombs etc. Already had pretty much all the talismans, armours, weapons etc from first playthrough.

Anyway, all that's left is to go back to my main NG character just before release and make sure my build is top notch, maybe farm some runes to help with the DLC.

Zero-Cool

Ha, Bandai Namco retweeted the fact that over 60% of steam players haven't beaten Mohg yet and basically told them to git gud.

https://x.com/BandaiNamcoUS/status/1800330011171496440

Vicxas

Finished Stormvale castle last night, forgot how much of a ballache it is.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122246548#Comment_122246548

In fairness though, Mohg's entire area is completely optional, and only accessed through Varre's quest (which I've actually never bothered with as you have to invade and defeat 3 other players), or through an obscurely hidden gateway in another completely optional area.

Even Mohg's other boss fight under Leyndell is optional and hidden. So many players who've beaten the game may never have met him at all 😁

Zero-Cool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122246846#Comment_122246846

Yeah and i know souls dlc was mostly obscure to start, Mohg's boss room is definitely not an easy access point.

Today i decided to head back to dragon floating island (I'm so rusty with location and boss names) as i never actually fought any optional dragon there. Came across the one who rains down red electricity on the path to him with those bastard birds. His flames wiped me out straight away. 2nd go, i went to his side and he was dead in 2 hits.i feel like it was a first as no way he has the same hp as the birds i had just fought? Anyway, shiny ancient Dragon smithing stone for me.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122247326#Comment_122247326

I think lore-wise, that Dragon is so old that it's fairly weak anyway, but I think whatever HP you take off him doesn't recover even if you die and have to try him again, and he doesn't respawn once he's dead.

If you want a real challenge with an optional Dragon, you're not too far away from one of the best in the game (this f*cker will not go down in two hits…. trust me!). Keep following that path, go up an elevator after beating (or running past) the Beastmen, and get to the site of grace called "Beside the Great Bridge" or something like that. That's the nearest site of grace to the fight. So go back down the elevator, run back past the beastmen and out the door and continue straight ahead to the edge of the cliff. There'll be dropdown ledges on your left (there'll probably be message icons on the floor). Follow that down, have a bit of a lie down, and enjoy!

Zero-Cool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122248960#Comment_122248960

Intrigued by this so gave a quick go before work, man what an awesome boss level! I couldn't figure out what I had to do until I saw a ghost lie down on the ground :D Never heard of this boss before, wasn't expecting a cool set piece like that. Got him down to half health on first go but he's a tough bastard all right, determined to beat him though! Thanks Penn!

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122249094#Comment_122249094

Definitely one of the coolest fights in the game, and the best dragon boss fight. The arena, the music, the absolute absurdity in what you have to do to find it and get there…. Plus it's actually an important fight for one of the endings:

Spoiler Warning

If you take on the Frenzied Flame with the Three Fingers at the very bottom of Leyndell, you're locked into that ending. The only way out of it is to complete Millicent's quest, use the needle on Malenia's Scarlet Bloom after beating her, then have the needle with you when you beat Placidusax, and you can choose to undo the Frenzied Flame and open up the other endings again.

Utterly bizarre how these things are designed, but part of the charm too. But even without all that, it's such a great boss fight that it's worth doing anyway.

Zero-Cool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122250654#Comment_122250654

He's absolutely wrecking me! I will say, as strong as Mogh's spare is, it's soooo slow. I much prefer, hit roll block, nice and quick. Looking forward to trying some new weapons from the dlc and coming back to this fecker.

It's gas, I'm picking random graces to spawn at and just heading to points in the map that look a bit blank and coming across random mini bosses and mauling them. One funny one was the 2 erdtree sentinel on horses at the top of the stairs in atlas. I remember just legging it past them first time, now i man handled both at the same time, great feeling. Then i got killed by a pen of wolves, so typical.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122250792#Comment_122250792

Get the new martial arts weapons skill and come back and kick Placidusax in the face a few times 😁

A new (kind of) story recap video released by Bamco

https://youtu.be/UE_sVd9Ns7A?si=RlOELmqsE48bXI_B

Zero-Cool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122251409#Comment_122251409

I was thinking the same ha!

J. Marston

Started a new playthrough with a Baldur's Gate twist. I was either gonna make Astarion for a sneaky playthrough or Karlach for a smash everything playthrough. Karlach sounds more fun. But when I opened the door to Limgrave I was like this…

I've completely forgotten where weapons/ashes of war/items/NPC questlines are and where to go and what to do. It'll probably come back to me.

Zero-Cool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122252314#Comment_122252314

I was the same, the main thing is bee line church Grace with the merchant near the start, then into the grace at the entrance to the castle where you get horsie and then fast travel back to church Grace to talk to Ranni who will give you bell for summoning ash. Then limgrave is your oyster. Definitely recommend guides for side quests though.

I'm using a guide to do side stuff in end game but the first 2 npc's i tried to check in on, i found them dead 😂 got their bell bearings but missed out on the whole quest.

J. Marston

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122252457#Comment_122252457

Gonna use this, looks handy.

https://gobluebro.github.io/Elden-Ring-Checklist/

Zero-Cool

Said I'd do my bit and throw down my summon outside Mohg's room. Summoned within 5 seconds, let's go! Take this Mohg! Wow, my Mohg's spear and bloodboone ritual are actually doing very little damage and he is walloping me when hits land…..I underestimated this fight, it's been a while. Summoner died quickly after that. I failed him.

Not sure if it was NG+ as I was doing more damage to Dragonlord Pacid. Google says he is resistant to flame but my Mohg's spear uses bloodflame which should be okay?

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122251409#Comment_122251409

Ah yes the story.

I still kind of think it's funny all the people wanting an easy mode in From games so they can experience the story. Couldn't tell you what the story of Elden ring is but can tell you about all the cool dungeons, enemies and bosses there are to fight. Very much doubt anyone cares about story their first time through.

If you were to ask me what the main villain of each From game is I'd say it was tracking overhead' with delay frames that catch you coming out of a roll.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122253451#Comment_122253451

I think the bleed damage to him only really hurts once Blood Loss hits. You should review your talismans to really boost the damage of it too, and more points in Arcane. He is surprisingly tough though, especially since his AoE does blood damage to you too.

Retr0gamer

I was really disappointed with the mohg fight. I went to fight him after I was at the end game and I was so over levelled that I killed him first time without seeing his second form.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122253561#Comment_122253561

I always feel like if you just went to VaatiVidya's youtube page, hit Play All, sat there for 20+ hours watching everything…. you still wouldn't understand the story of these games. Even with Elden Ring, I'm still not 100% sure if Ranni's ending is supposed to be the best/good ending because apparently there's some mistranslation between the English and Japanese versions.

It's why an Easy Mode to experience the story wouldn't work; the story is only there if you sink a hell of a lot of time, attention, and flowcharts with strings on walls into it. You're given the dots, but it's a hell of a lot of work connecting them.

That said, I do enjoy replaying the game having watched Vaati's videos to give a better general understanding of what's going on and seeing how some of those dots line up, but it's just not a story game. At least when references are made to other characters you haven't met yet, you have somewhat of an understanding between their connection.

Evergreen tweet:

https://twitter.com/ThatSamWinkler/status/1490070305859162113

Retr0gamer

I think making sense of the story is harder than the super bosses. There's hoops you have to jump through that would make sierra adventure games from the 80's feel easy.

Also:

https://twitter.com/itz_CBD/status/1800956482428502072?t=2f4Nl_BUwvWOcHqc8Qb7Qw&s=19

Zero-Cool

I was only looking at Vaati vids yesterday for lore on Dragonlord Placid and it was so interesting but went off in a mad direction to other dragons, beasts, locations and he was name dropping left and right. It made me realise I had forgotten most characters in this game and even listening to him explain the story and lore in great detail, I was still lost. Even Miquella, who you are looking for in the DLC. Oh he's the brother of Melenia who I brutally killed and I have zero clue where he will be okay with that or not.

The lore is cool and it is interesting but the selling point has and always will be the combat. Now, if Miyazaki start simplifying to the point of quest markers and cutscenes over explaining things and your character mumbling to themself about what they have to do next, it would completely ruin the Souls charm.