texsn95 said:

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DallasTeleAg said:

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texsn95 said:

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Should I play blind? It's so tempting to read about some of the stuff y'all are talking about and watch videos, but I've tried to stay away from any spoilers. I don't know much except from the trailers and that it's a huge world, with a horse, and enemies that will put you on your ass. And also some type of tutorial level.

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You should always play as blind as possible.

Have you ever played a From Software game?

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DS1 is probably my favorite, hated DS2 (played a few hours), loved DS3, Demon Souls, Bloodbourne. But never went in to them without some knowledge of things.

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Then go in without any knowledge.

You pro Dark Soul players probably knew this already, but I wanted to share something I just learned and found useful.

There's a dungeon where the skeletons inside don't die unless you kill a nearby necromancer. I was struggling to get through this place. But then it dawned on me that holy damage might keep the undead dead.

The Ash of War: Sacred Sword does something unique. After you activate the ability, which takes a moment and it shoots a beam of light Zelda style, it leaves your sword infused with holy light.

But this holy infused damage is special and it keeps those skeletons dead despite the necromancer. I killed the skeletons without the holy infusion, since the stat page says the sword does holy damage by default but that didn't stop the undead rising. So you have to have used the Ash of War ability recently.

Anyway, I hope someone finds that helpful. Even my skinny weak muscled mage could slash through the undead with this, and it made the dungeon a breeze!

I just rush the necromancer and take him out.

I couldn't rush the necromancer in the room with the blades moving up and down. You have to hop on those and get to the second floor where he is, and i just couldn't do it with the two archer skeletons and the one up top lobbing fire bombs

I am over 74 hours played... and only 16% complete, according to my game. Only two areas I don't have the map for, and I finally found a way up to the volcano area, so I should have the map shortly.

Ran into two things today that started pissing me off, but I ultimately beat them. One was on the path to the volcano area. There's a dungeon with lava and those goofy statues on spiky wheels that go up and down the inclined path. Kept trying to go a direction that turned out to be the wrong way, lol. Finally found the correct path.

The other were to two Tree Sentinels at the gate to the capital. You can skip them, but I wanted them dead. That took me a good 12 tries, or so. I couldn't get a single one killed during those tries, until the final one when I killed them both.

I feel like I've done so much and explored so far, but I still haven't gone to the next main dungeon after the Lucaria Academy.

Yeah, I've skipped those guys for now… need to go back and introduce them to my best friend the stray dog.

And I got the volcano manor last night… one of the things I enjoy most about this game is finding the things from the loading screens, the manor checked another one off, think I've seen most of them now.

Holy jesus... finally beat the Fully Grown fallingstar beast on top of the mountain. Damn, that guy was a *****.

Seeing mixed reviews on this game for the PC. Any of y'all playing on PC and having issues?

zip04 said:

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Seeing mixed reviews on this game for the PC. Any of y'all playing on PC and having issues?

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Zero issues

I have heard about framerate dips on PC. I haven't experienced any of that on PS5.

Got to probably the hardest boss fight I've come up against, in the game; dual knights. One has a giant spear mace thing, the other a sword and shield. I have now died at least 40 times to this ****ing boss, and only killed one of them, once.

I can't get myself to just come back later. I haven't skipped anything this entire game.

DallasTeleAg said:

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Holy jesus... finally beat the Fully Grown fallingstar beast on top of the mountain. Damn, that guy was a *****.

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I ran past him

DallasTeleAg said:

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I have heard about framerate dips on PC. I haven't experienced any of that on PS5.

Got to probably the hardest boss fight I've come up against, in the game; dual knights. One has a giant spear mace thing, the other a sword and shield. I have now died at least 40 times to this ****ing boss, and only killed one of them, once.

I can't get myself to just come back later. I haven't skipped anything this entire game.

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The ones in the tomb outside the capital?

Yeah, ran from them too. Or more accurately for that one just left their dungeon, put a skull on the map and will come back later when I'm like lvl 150 lol

Tonight just killed some side bosses and a dragon. Tried Radahn a couple more times. Died a couple more times.

I haven't figured out how to get to the snowy area yet, I think that may be the last region for me to get to.

Those are the ones.

If I had an ash that could stay alive long enough, I could do it. I could destroy either one, 1 on 1. Together, it's so freaking hard. I have to slowly whittle down the spear guy, and then 1v1 the sword and shield guy. I finally killed the spear guy, but then I realized I had been learning his moves but didn't know the sword guy's moves, so ended up dying to a bull **** combo I couldn't double roll away from.

DallasTeleAg said:

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Holy jesus.... I killed them.

I don't know how many attempts that was, but it was the most I've ever attempted a Soulsborne boss. I have spent at least 4 hours of gameplay on these guys.

Also, in classic From Software form, on my final attempt I still had 9 HP flasks left. Just got in the zone and wrecked them.

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are you playing without summoning spirits? There are some pretty absurd bosses in this game. That's all I will say.

Why wouldn't I summon spirits? They're a tool to be used.

I don't do co-op on anything, nor do I connect my game online at all, so I don't get all the markers everywhere.

Was just wondering since you said it took so many tries. There are some players who refuse to summon and will stop at nothing to kill bosses without it even though many of the bosses are clearly balanced with summons in mind. One prominent souls streamer spent 14 hours on one boss because he refused to summon.

Rotten stray ftw

zip04 said:

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Seeing mixed reviews on this game for the PC. Any of y'all playing on PC and having issues?

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I have occasional frame rate drops and have had a few crashes to desktop (maybe...4 in 20 hours?). But not nearly enough to make me put it down.

That said it is my first Souls-like, and crashing as I was about to finish off Margit for the first time was...disappointing.

I bought it. Haven't decided if I'm going to use mouse and keyboard or my scuff controller yet. I pretty much play m/kb exclusively now that I switched from ps4 to pc.

zip04 said:

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I bought it. Haven't decided if I'm going to use mouse and keyboard or my scuff controller yet. I pretty much play m/kb exclusively now that I switched from ps4 to pc.

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mouse and keyboard for 3rd person action RPGs is a bad idea... especially a Soulsborne game.

Finally took out radahn tonight and also found the boss that kills you in the intro area and got my revenge.

This has been my first Fromsoftware game and I've been enjoying the hell outta it. Even though I'm really bad.

12 hours in, only just beat Margit and am almost through Stormveil castle.

JTA1029 said:

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This has been my first Fromsoftware game and I've been enjoying the hell outta it. Even though I'm really bad.

12 hours in, only just beat Margit and am almost through Stormveil castle.

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Welcome to my world. I'm terribad.
I've played a couple, platinumed the DS remake on PS5, that was the first one I've beaten. You could cheese the hell out of all the bosses on that one though, this game is a lot harder to cheese the bosses.

Sub 1 hour speed run…. Crazy

https://www.pcgamesn.com/elden-ring/speedrun-world-record

I tried doing the Tree Sentinel duo...lulz What a stupid fight. When you dodge one, the second one flies in and hits you dead on at the end of your roll. You're flat on your back and then they beat you into submission. Being a mage with 20 something Vigor, I don't get many chances (I've been fine with low health thus far, until this fight)

They almost completely ignore summons, too. So you can't get any breathing room. After about 10 tries I decided if they're going to be cheeky, I'm going to be cheeky. So I equipped Comet Azur and the no FP cost flask and melted the shield guy's health down to 30% while standing in the door way. His buddy didn't notice, so me and Mr Shield guy ran around in circles while I shot him with Stars of Ruin and Night Maiden's Mist. Stars is an awesome spell for being on horseback, but it's FP intensive.

The one without the shield isn't a problem for a mage. Stars of Ruin and Rock Sling, bye bye. I probably could have just ran around and whittled them both down with Stars of Ruin from the get go, but that would take a while and open up room for weird crap to happen.

Also, went around and took out the Draconic Tree Sentinel. That was a fun fight. His moves are easily telegraphed.

Not sure I want to go into the capital just yet, I keep putting it off for some reason.

It's super creepy in there lol

bbattbq01 said:

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It's super creepy in there lol

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Like...Caelid levels of creepy?

Yeah... go fight the Crucible Knight Duo. By far, the hardest fight I've done in this game.

The Tree Sentinel Duo can be 1v1'd, if you enter from behind... at least for about half the HP of the first one.

I need to see how many hours in I am, but I have uncovered most of the map and been to most points of interest. I'm around level 95 or so, and finally got my 3rd greater rune. I want to find the guy who drops the bearing to buy Smithing Stone 3 and 4 from, but can't seem to find that cave. I will keep looking a bit, but will probably eventually just look it up. I don't want to spend hours just looking for a cave and getting burnt out.

I am over 100 hours in and haven't beat it yet. There is a late game optional boss that is giving me trouble and I will not back down!! Capital level is awesome. I just loved exploring it for some reason. When I first walked in I almost felt like I was in an Uncharted game. Felt that spectacular.

TriumphForks said:

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I am over 100 hours in and haven't beat it yet. There is a late game optional boss that is giving me trouble and I will not back down!! Capital level is awesome. I just loved exploring it for some reason. When I first walked in I almost felt like I was in an Uncharted game. Felt that spectacular.

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The capital gave me the same sense of wonder as Anor Londo the first time I saw it in Dark Souls, but on a grander scale.

Level design in this game is unmatched except by Bloodborne perhaps. This game is the "Open World" concept built to perfection IMO.

This is my first Dark Souls type game that I've played more than for a couple of hours before never playing again. I don't think my impressions of FromSoftware games were helped by the fact I tried to play on mouse and keyboard and the controls just feel horrible with that input.

I've appreciated the difficulty but also the chance to go out and explore and become OP enough after clearing out 90%+ of Limgrave to feel like if I make a mistake or two I can still get through a battle. I surprisingly one-shot both Margit and Godfrey, but I'm using a magic build with the headless knight summons who is a beast in 1v1, so I guess only my summons has to "git gud."

I'm about 45 hours into the game and just got my second great rune last night from evil Hogwarts and am starting to worry when I may start breaking some of these incredibly vague quests if I push forward too much more in the main story.

Also about this game is that it seems like an even bigger open world than Witcher 3, HZD/HFW, or Hollow Knight. All of those games resulted in some open world fatigue after awhile to where I would put them down and come back and finish them years after I started. Hopefully that doesn't happen here, but it's intimidating to think after 45 hours I've still got 2/3rds of the game to go.

Is Caelid an entirely optional zone in the grand scheme of things? From what I understand the main quest doesn't go through there?