Elden Ring (George RR Martin and From Software)

Banished Knight Oleg was doing great for me, and I'd upgraded him to +3, but after getting Mimic Tear to the same level, there's no comparison. Now have Mimic to about +9 and it just wrecks. I've also started upgrading Latenna the Alburinac to be more of a ranged summons if required.

Did three duels in front of the Great Jar. Two of them used the moonveil katana skill and insta-killed me. Gotta say, not a fan of being on the receiving end of it.

Yeah not sure how to stop that at the moment. Currently rolling over stuff. 50 hours in low 80s level wise running a +10 mimic, +17 twinblade or +9 bloodhound fang depending if I want a fast or slow swing. Not feeling aligned with the content level. Just finished fia quest and now in lake of rot for ranni. I don't feel like I've don't anything excessive to out level the content but coming from sekiro this is different.

....

Anyway perhaps I'll come back crying shortly that something is wrecking my face

Yeah I would. Head south and such you've got all of the weeping peninsula and a mini dungeon down there to do

Finally made it into the Capital. Have also been wandering into even more underground areas that I had no idea existed. The scale of this game is insane, and every time I enter a new area it feels unique, or even when it doesn't, the way it links to other areas previously explored is just incredible. And I still often see items out of reach and know I'll probably later end up finding a completely different path that takes me to it.

I still don't feel "overpowered". Mimic Tear definitely makes most of the bosses a lot easier, and spamming the weapon skill of moonveil katana takes care of most things. But at the same time, mistiming the skill or getting too greedy still means getting slapped down hard.

Have also taken my Demi-Queen staff from +8 to +20 after finally finding some more Smithing Stone 6's. Rock sling starting to do decent damage again.

Finished it over the weekend and spent hours on trying to get as many endings as possible - I am going to do a new game or NG+ because I think I missed 1 ending/fcked up some sidequests.

All in all, best game of the decade for me, I havent played a game this crazily (just around 100hours) since 2006 lmao (every day at work in the past 2 weeks most of the time my brain keep thinking about ER - should have taken a week off for this ha).

From has truly outdone themselves and god I wish the game industry learns something from them - designing a game (let alone an open world 'sandbox') should never be mundane - ER just keeps on going on and on after 1 surprise after another - I truly did not expect so much contents. For the value (and it doesnt even come with those crazy AAA 70e price tag, i paid 42e for it, this game is average at 50e) and entertainment, i recommend everyone to get it.

BUT bloody hell, as a melee str first playthrough, I didn't enjoy those endgame (and 'super' endgame) areas, and that final boss is just pure frustration lmao. For sure From overtuned the melee build for whatever reasons and I seriously doubt that did they QC on the other builds that I have seen people doing.

For example watching some streams, some builds can pass through everything easy pesy around 100 levels (Dex/Int build like moonveil) while I was struggling at 150 levels killing myself to go through the same bosses/areas. I understand sure most of the builds cant even take more than 2 hits from the enemies (when I could take 3-5 hits), but those end game bosses hit so hard it doesn't matter anyway - and the worst thing is that I cant even go near the bosses to hit them lmao. And omg don't even get me started from the crazy input reading from late game enemies, absolutely messed up.

I read an interview basically Miyazaki saying he usually plays str melee build - so ya it really could be that they overtuned that lmao. And...not surprisingly apparently the DS2 director plays a big part in ER - no wonder the enemies design do give me DS2 vibe - most noticeable feature is that the overall satisfaction from defeating ER bosses somehow feel worse than DS3, it just doesn't feel as rewarding due to not well designed (ie lots of BS moves).

Let's see how will the game gets patched next, I hope they spend more time on testing other builds and also I heard quite a bit of items not working well (or it is intended lmao). I am going to start Int/faith with Astrologer this week ha.

I got stuck, a bit of help anyone?

Quick question from someone who is new to the From Software style game....

How are people keeping track of "side quests" or the pieces of clues the NPC's give? Im finding myself talking to someone, they might mention "look west beyond the gate once you get to X area".

Fast Forward about 5 hours of random exploring and I totally forget what that NPC has said. Or I might find an item and I was like....oh yeah someone said something to me about this. But have forgotten who. I take it there is no way in game to see these bits of info? Im genuinely considering taking down notes in a doc so I remember.

Also Im level 55 and still using the same gear I started with. Samurai build with my +8 Katana. Am I doing it right!?

Ops, i thought @Cordell beat the bosses and asking where to go next ha (sorry pal lol).

Ya man reading back to your post, yes, it is not about 'git gud' for ER - I totally agreed. I think I enjoyed ER so much on the exploring and the world, the enemies are ok (some of them are so **** annoying and 'unfair' to deal with) - DS3's gameplay/bosses actually are better designed imo and more of them from DS3 are memorable. And ER soundtracks are also less impressive/memorable for me - the main theme is the best that's it.

Can't wait to start new game this week though 😂

Yeah, for the last gauntlet of bosses I decided to not even try to learn them solo. I'll probably try to learn their 1v1 mechanics on another playthrough, but I was pretty fatigued by trying to do it up til then which is what I was getting at with the lack of satisfaction I have with beating stuff in Elden Ring. I don't want to just complete the content and stuff, I want to feel the back and forth in fights. But some of the encounters ask a lot of you in terms of how much time it takes to even understand what's going on

I just made the one exception for the secret boss I posted about earlier, cause I knew it was going to be the showcase of the game's mechanics and wanted to kinda do that one before burning myself out.

I think the middle ground isn't there with Elden Ring where if you aren't super skilled you might have this feeling with it, or you lack patience to grind fights for hours and hours. Overtime tho I could see Elden Ring becoming my preferred game for ng+, cause there's still a shitload to figure out on replay while Dark Souls is kinda one and done in that regard. So I think I will like the game better the 2nd time through.

Gonna go for fist weapons this time, they seem fun lol