Elden ring!

[TedEH]

Plus there have been a couple really major illusionary walls (like, the kind that unlock whole secret areas/dungeons) that I only found because of messages on the ground.

I honestly prefer the idea of the messages giving you hints rather than either missing stuff entirely or relying on an internet guide or something.

 

[MFB]

I find them funny, and helpful, since they tend to warn about ambushes or things you might have missed. Also, you get healed when someone appraises your own messages. IMO they feel core to the souls-type experience.

I see some that do say "be wary" of X, or Y, but then I usually see one immediately undermining it saying the OTHER direction or "NO enemy ahead" which is usually never the case; and they always end with "therefore praise message!" which, if a message is good enough, you'd already want to do that. People also like to put them in front of interactionable things like chests, switches, etc and then drop the "didn't expect message..." and it's like, how could I not expect one here when it's a glowing white emblem on the floor at the thing I need? I HIGHLY expected it.

 

[wankerness]

I've never played any Souls game online because I don't wanna pay for the Xbox service, but in Sekiro it went online without the subscription (not a clue why it works there and not in DS/ER) and it was annoyingly cluttered with all the whatever they're called in that game. Maybe the whole subscription thing changed recently...

Sekiro's system is the one that seems totally pointless. It seems to like, let you record gameplay videos, which usually consists of people taking a video of themselves spamming L2 over and over while squatting and unsquatting. Never saw a point to it. That's the one of these games I think actually isn't enhanced by online.

 

[wankerness]

I see some that do say "be wary" of X, or Y, but then I usually see one immediately undermining it saying the OTHER direction or "NO enemy ahead" which is usually never the case; and they always end with "therefore praise message!" which, if a message is good enough, you'd already want to do that. People also like to put them in front of interactionable things like chests, switches, etc and then drop the "didn't expect message..." and it's like, how could I not expect one here when it's a glowing white emblem on the floor at the thing I need? I HIGHLY expected it.

You tend to get a feel for what is legit vs not legit, I guess. Like usually any time there's someone actually lying there's a way higher rated comment behind it saying "liar ahead." I guess having played many hundreds of hours online in ER I get a feeling for which messages seem safe to totally ignore vs are worth reading.

On xbox and switch the messages were garbage cause so few people played online that there was no filter working. Like, messages all had 0 votes so it was impossible to tell which were legit vs not, and they were haphazard and scarce. But it's been fantastic on PS4/PS5 and PC.

Also you get healed if anyone praises OR downvotes your message. I have been saved a few times already in the DLC by conveniently timed heals from people voting on my messages. I put two useful ones in a row so I usually will get two big heals right in a row, ones that require no player input. It's great! If you place a really obnoxious message that everyone hates you can also get a ton of heals from it.

It's also funny how people will sometimes start placing them really late in a dungeon when they get desperate and are out of heals. There were a LOT of "healing needed therefore praise message" in the end of that jar dungeon. At that point it's too late, barely anyone is going to be going through to the end of that hidden dungeon compared to people going through the first legacy dungeon or whatever.

 

[TedEH]

There were a LOT of "healing needed therefore praise message" in the end of that jar dungeon.

Ooooooooh I was wondering why people kept saying "offer healing". Didn't occur to me that they were just blatantly saying "I put this here to farm the free heal". I thought it was a warning of something that does a lot of damage ahead or something, as in "you'd better heal up here before you continue".

Deciphering the weird meme-language of the game is a kind of fun in itself. For every "try fingers, but hole" there's a "dog ahead" in front of a turtle or something, and I enjoy the idea of a community converging on something like turtle = dog.

 

[wankerness]

Ooooooooh I was wondering why people kept saying "offer healing". Didn't occur to me that they were just blatantly saying "I put this here to farm the free heal". I thought it was a warning of something that does a lot of damage ahead or something, as in "you'd better heal up here before you continue".

Deciphering the weird meme-language of the game is a kind of fun in itself. For every "try fingers, but hole" there's a "dog ahead" in front of a turtle or something, and I enjoy the idea of a community converging on something like turtle = dog.

Yeah, the "Dog" thing has been a thing for a few games now. Basically a lot of the animals in the game just don't exist in the messaging system so it's common to put a label of "dog" in front of some non-dog animal, sort of mocking the limited language of the message system. Turtles in Elden Ring are the most popular since the game's got the most players and thus it's become a more known meme. I forget what they'd do that with in DS2 but remember it being a thing.

Another one that's been common since DS1 is putting messages like "fatty!" in front of like, narrow passages the player can't fit through. Elden Ring removed "Fatty" as a word you can use, so now people say "skinny sort required" or something. It amuses me. It's stupid.

 

[TedEH]

It amuses me. It's stupid.

Dare to be stupid.
- Strange Albert

 

[pahulkster]

Found a section I do not enjoy at all because of the mechanic involved. Probably the only part so far I'll skip and watch FightinCowboy or somebody do it later.

Spoiler

Stealth part with the madness guys in the Abyssal Woods. I don't even know if it leads to a boss or them being cleared eventually. Game is just not made for stealth.

 

[TedEH]

Some progress.
Took down the big fire-y guy in the first area. It's not that it's particularly complicated, it just takes a long time. Also got past the Castle Ensis boss, and a couple other smaller ones. I accidentally cheesed one boss by pushing him down a cliff, and by the time I caught back up with him, my summoned helper guy beat him for me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[MFB]

Went back to Belurat to find the Miquella Cross thats apparently hidden in a dungeon in there, and also unlocked one more, so now my Scadutree blessing is up to 4, and we'll see what that does for my damage negation; probably not much honestly, but I'll take whatever I can get at this point.

I also managed to make it thru the Haligtree to get the Dragoncrest Great shield talisman, so that's another 20% damage taken off, so hopefully between the two, I see a decent reduction.

 

[p0ke]

Sekiro's system is the one that seems totally pointless. It seems to like, let you record gameplay videos, which usually consists of people taking a video of themselves spamming L2 over and over while squatting and unsquatting. Never saw a point to it. That's the one of these games I think actually isn't enhanced by online.

Yeah, it did seem completely useless. I'll probably turn it off next time I play, because those markers cluttering up the entire world is kinda annoying.

Argh, reading all your comments about the DLC really makes me wanna get it immediately, even if it sounds like a pain in the ass But yeah, I've got plenty to play in the meantime, and then I'll get the DLC when I can get it for like 10€ (and by then I assume they'll have adjusted the balancing a bit as well).

 

[narad]

Dude, backhand blades, so fun. Highly recommend.

 

[wankerness]

Apparently they "nerfed" the game and the usual morons are crying about it. Apparently the only change was that now the blessings reduce damage by like .5% more per level and increase damage by like .6% more per level, and that mainly affects the lower levels (the buff basically evens out with the original values as you get to +15 or higher). I don't think it will really be noticeable to anyone! It's not like they were even doing entire percents.

I played for a few hours yesterday and today.

I continue to appreciate the multiplayer in this game. There was a statue I found at the end of a dungeon that had some "try gesturing" comments in front of it, which 95% of the time in DS games are bullshit. But, a couple of them had been done by people that also accompanied the message with a spirit of themselves doing a particular gesture I'd gotten in the DLC. I tried doing the same one, and bam, the statue opened the wall and opened a whole new area. That's awesome! It's way more satisfying to find out about this kind of thing through community messages than having to read FAQs or whatever, and I know that this was the intended design of this messaging system ever since Demon's Souls.

Yesterday I got to a totally busted boss that I completely hated, that seems to be pretty universally despised across media - Commander Gaius. This is basically a super version of the Tree Sentinel, crossed with the Fallingstar Beast (coincidentally, I fought two tree sentinels and one fallingstar beast in the DLC yesterday too). But, his mount moves faster than your horse can move, and many of his moves will instantly kill the horse, leaving you stunned on the ground and thus 90% likely to get killed before you can get up, so it seems insane to fight him mounted even though that seems like the intended design. He's just total bullshit - he has this charge move that can basically only be dodged if you're using light roll and/or that one talisman that gives you slightly more roll iframes, and he spams it like crazy. When he hits about 55% health, he starts spamming gigantic AOE spells over the arena that can suck you in and quickly stun you, making it all the more difficult to avoid his other attacks. Also he charges you the second you enter his arena, and depending on your luck, this charge will probably hit you for 50% health or might just kill you instantly (his hitboxes are broken so sometimes the charge hits you twice, seems unintended).

Almost every strategy or page I've seen on the guy talks about immediately running around the corner and getting him stuck on the edge of the castle and spamming him dead with one of the handful of abilities like Mogh's Spear's AOW that can hit things through walls. I tried this a couple times, realized quickly it was even more frustrating than fighting the boss if you didn't have a Mogh's Spear build (str/arc), and fought him "legit." I think I died 30+ times, and only won by first getting scarlet rot on him and then just running around juggling aggro with the mimic tear and sniping him down with Moonveil AOW beams, and there I think I was totally out of flasks. This guy is legit the hardest boss in the DLC so far, but I have faith they're going to fix his hitboxes and maybe make him at least a bit less infuriating if you can actually dodge his goddam charge without speccing entirely to do so.

Well, that's not true, the strategies for strength build are "dual wield big weapons and jump attack him a few times." Argh! I chose the wrong build!

Then I got to that stealth/madness area that someone was complaining about above. This was actually a strong point for my build, cause I could just keep casting invisibility on myself while using the talisman that makes you move silently and the talisman that makes you more stealth while crouched. I didn't get sighted once by the Winter Lanterns (yes, they seem basically identical to their Bloodborne counterparts apart from not singing) until I read that one of them drops a unique item, so I killed that one (you have to parry them) and got all the items in the area and found all the grace points without incident. The only problem I had with it was the sheer size of it - since you can't mount up it's pretty tedious to explore the whole area on foot, especially while stealthing. I do know this area would have completely sucked if I didn't have the mind necessary to keep stealth up all the time and hadn't gotten those talismans already, but with them it was easy. This area leads to another minor legacy dungeon, which actually had what I'd consider a good boss in it. This guy is very difficult and has a nasty moveset, but his attacks mostly only do like 30% of your health in damage, and the couple of big nukes he has (and the madness buildup) still won't kill you instantly. He took me a few tries cause he has a ton of health and I'd eventually just run out of heals, but again, it's actually a good boss. Plus you can parry him! Midra was the name, I think.

Anyway, now I need to figure out where the third big story boss is, and figure out how to fill in the southeast part of the map, and also find the first FINGER RUINS that some guy gave me a quest to find. I found a later one, apparently, but still haven't found the first one.

 

[wankerness]

Some progress.
Took down the big fire-y guy in the first area. It's not that it's particularly complicated, it just takes a long time. Also got past the Castle Ensis boss, and a couple other smaller ones. I accidentally cheesed one boss by pushing him down a cliff, and by the time I caught back up with him, my summoned helper guy beat him for me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The fire guys are way easier after I discovered that you can stagger them with light, fast weapons just as quickly as big bonk weapons. The first ones I fought I was using a colossal sword, thinking that would stagger them faster, and it was much easier to screw up the timing and get locked in an attack animation when I needed to jump one of their stomps. Going after them with moonveil was way, way easier. I still haven't fought any of the ones that are gimmick fights (they have armored legs so you have to perfectly aim a furnace pot into their "basket" to do any damage, and those are REALLY limited and I'm not good at judging their flight arcs).

The only boss I've skipped so far is that darn ghostflame dragon with all the knights fighting him on the highway. Today I decided to try again, and sat there waiting for about 10 minutes for him to get the knights low (for some reason he does about 50 damage to them a hit, while he does about 5000 damage to you) and then ran in and picked them off, and then...promptly screwed up with torrent, got knocked off my mount, and killed before I could get up. By themselves, they aren't hard compared to some of the dragons in the base game, but boy is it tedious to fight that one with the tons of knights in the same zone.

 

[pahulkster]

Just beat the most annoying boss in the game for me. I need to get the mimic something nice for Christmas.

Spoiler

Commander Gaius and his bullshit never ending bullshit. Took me way too many tries just to figure how to get into the fight without instantly getting killed. I don't know or care if my strategy is considered cheese but fuck that. Basically just hugged the walls/corners and used a cold weapon to get some hits now and then. Probably close to fifty tries with most just being stagger kills when I had 11 flasks left. Tried so many combos of weapons and items. Not being bitter when I say that fight seems broken. It's impossible to ride Torrent in a mounted fight in a huge open arena. Like what? I'll have to watch some asshole kill him with the karate while taking no hits.

Also had to give up and look how to access an area I spent way too long trying to get to. Find random gesture, use it twenty hours later in a random spot. I swear they just release the solutions to certain media and people share it because I have no idea how you'd figure that out.

 

[MFB]

This might be helpful for some people, I inadvertently started dodging AOE by jumping vs. rolling on this last playthru and noticed how much better it worked and this explained why, along with some other stuff

 

[TedEH]

At some point, in a dungeon area, there are messages in front of a wall that read "bug ahead" and "cliff ahead" in front of a wall. Heed the warning. There's a bug in the geometry, and what looks like a secret passage is actually just a way to fall through the world.

 

[Moongrum]

Anyone know what's up with the jump scare screams? Like I'll just be riding through a field and hear a random scream, and there isn't anything around that would make a sound like that. Is it a bug?

 

[narad]

Apparently they "nerfed" the game and the usual morons are crying about it. Apparently the only change was that now the blessings reduce damage by like .5% more per level and increase damage by like .6% more per level, and that mainly affects the lower levels (the buff basically evens out with the original values as you get to +15 or higher). I don't think it will really be noticeable to anyone! It's not like they were even doing entire percents.

I played for a few hours yesterday and today.

I continue to appreciate the multiplayer in this game. There was a statue I found at the end of a dungeon that had some "try gesturing" comments in front of it, which 95% of the time in DS games are bullshit. But, a couple of them had been done by people that also accompanied the message with a spirit of themselves doing a particular gesture I'd gotten in the DLC. I tried doing the same one, and bam, the statue opened the wall and opened a whole new area. That's awesome! It's way more satisfying to find out about this kind of thing through community messages than having to read FAQs or whatever, and I know that this was the intended design of this messaging system ever since Demon's Souls.

Yesterday I got to a totally busted boss that I completely hated, that seems to be pretty universally despised across media - Commander Gaius. This is basically a super version of the Tree Sentinel, crossed with the Fallingstar Beast (coincidentally, I fought two tree sentinels and one fallingstar beast in the DLC yesterday too). But, his mount moves faster than your horse can move, and many of his moves will instantly kill the horse, leaving you stunned on the ground and thus 90% likely to get killed before you can get up, so it seems insane to fight him mounted even though that seems like the intended design. He's just total bullshit - he has this charge move that can basically only be dodged if you're using light roll and/or that one talisman that gives you slightly more roll iframes, and he spams it like crazy. When he hits about 55% health, he starts spamming gigantic AOE spells over the arena that can suck you in and quickly stun you, making it all the more difficult to avoid his other attacks. Also he charges you the second you enter his arena, and depending on your luck, this charge will probably hit you for 50% health or might just kill you instantly (his hitboxes are broken so sometimes the charge hits you twice, seems unintended).

Almost every strategy or page I've seen on the guy talks about immediately running around the corner and getting him stuck on the edge of the castle and spamming him dead with one of the handful of abilities like Mogh's Spear's AOW that can hit things through walls. I tried this a couple times, realized quickly it was even more frustrating than fighting the boss if you didn't have a Mogh's Spear build (str/arc), and fought him "legit." I think I died 30+ times, and only won by first getting scarlet rot on him and then just running around juggling aggro with the mimic tear and sniping him down with Moonveil AOW beams, and there I think I was totally out of flasks. This guy is legit the hardest boss in the DLC so far, but I have faith they're going to fix his hitboxes and maybe make him at least a bit less infuriating if you can actually dodge his goddam charge without speccing entirely to do so.

Well, that's not true, the strategies for strength build are "dual wield big weapons and jump attack him a few times." Argh! I chose the wrong build!

Then I got to that stealth/madness area that someone was complaining about above. This was actually a strong point for my build, cause I could just keep casting invisibility on myself while using the talisman that makes you move silently and the talisman that makes you more stealth while crouched. I didn't get sighted once by the Winter Lanterns (yes, they seem basically identical to their Bloodborne counterparts apart from not singing) until I read that one of them drops a unique item, so I killed that one (you have to parry them) and got all the items in the area and found all the grace points without incident. The only problem I had with it was the sheer size of it - since you can't mount up it's pretty tedious to explore the whole area on foot, especially while stealthing. I do know this area would have completely sucked if I didn't have the mind necessary to keep stealth up all the time and hadn't gotten those talismans already, but with them it was easy. This area leads to another minor legacy dungeon, which actually had what I'd consider a good boss in it. This guy is very difficult and has a nasty moveset, but his attacks mostly only do like 30% of your health in damage, and the couple of big nukes he has (and the madness buildup) still won't kill you instantly. He took me a few tries cause he has a ton of health and I'd eventually just run out of heals, but again, it's actually a good boss. Plus you can parry him! Midra was the name, I think.

Anyway, now I need to figure out where the third big story boss is, and figure out how to fill in the southeast part of the map, and also find the first FINGER RUINS that some guy gave me a quest to find. I found a later one, apparently, but still haven't found the first one.

Weirdly I had gotten to this guy about my first post in this thread about a week ago. I must have done some very weird route through things as I couldn't make a dent in him, probably got to him with like 3 scadutree score, and I've just been doing random things ever since. Even worse that he's universally hated because I was hoping I had just reached him way under-"leveled". Now I'm nearly out of other thinsg to do and it's probably time to go back to him.

 

[MFB]

Took out Golden Hippo, got him about 1/3 of the way before thinking he had a massive health pool since I was about 3 flasks in, but then summoned mimic and we melted him without much trouble. Some of his AOE is much larger than I expected, but still nothing terrible given what I've heard.

Oh yeah, guess that also means I bet Rellana too, for him on a handful of tries, dude just moved too fast to solo, and then his phase 2 really pops off; he's basically a Banished Knight on steroids, which I can see why people trying to do him alone would be annoyed. His combos reminded me a bit of Waterfowl albeit a BIT more readable, still not enough to get the timing though.