Elden Ring journeys and experiences

Then I spent some time trying to find all the secrets in the academy. It involved lots of dying when not making jumps successfully. :)
I think I've actually died more times from missed jumps than I have from being defeated by enemies. I was in a cave today called the Raya Lucaria Crystal Tunnel, and I ate dirt like 5 times in a row trying to get to an item that you have to platform a handful of times to reach.

Speaking of secrets, there are quite a few fake walls in the academy and other places in the Liurnia region.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,138
Location
Florida, US
My main rule in these games after playing them for months now: Never do new things (area exploration, fighting against unknown enemies) with more souls in your pocket than you can afford to lose. This avoids 95% of the stress.
 
Joined
Dec 26, 2007
Messages
1,786
Finally got to the Altus Plateau!
I'd tried that giant Magma Wyrm that blocks the way many hours ago and he toasted me real good.
So I went back to previous areas I'd explored (Liurnia, Caelid, etc) and kept finding enough little bits and bobs I'd missed and it kept me entertained for quite a while. Made those damn madness tower cultists pay dearly.
I even explored the underworld bits you can't initially get to, but didn't reach the very end of either underworlds I'd found so far, because it got a bit hard. I had about 20 goes at the twin gargoyles, got within a few millimeters of killing the second one time, but eventually gave up.
Returned to the Magma Wyrm a litle more fire retardant, two co-operator summons, and the levelled up Mimic Tear summon, and this time killed it first go. Two of my summons didn't get out of it alive, though, so it wasn't a total cake walk. (Mimic Tear had a sliver of health left)

The Mimic Tear Ashes summon is damn kick-ass.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
2,245
Location
New Zealand
The Mimic Tear Ashes summon is damn kick-ass.
Yes, once you have that, every boss fight is much easier.
By the way did you realize that there are other ways to the Altus plateau without the Magma Wyrm?
 
Joined
Dec 26, 2007
Messages
1,786
Yes, once you have that, every boss fight is much easier.
By the way did you realize that there are other ways to the Altus plateau without the Magma Wyrm?
Yep, but they put me in difficult places (like that volcanic area), which was a nasty surprise. Maybe they'd be less difficult to me now? Either way, I was determined to go up through the guts :)
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
2,245
Location
New Zealand
I need to get back to my playthrough. I was hooked like crack cocaine for a couple weeks, but RL started to rear its ugly head, and then I got sidetracked by Next Fest demos.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,138
Location
Florida, US
I need to get back to my playthrough. I was hooked like crack cocaine for a couple weeks, but RL started to rear its ugly head, and then I got sidetracked by Next Fest demos.
Going to RL is pure escapism! Elden Ring simply was too hard for you! :)
 
Joined
Dec 26, 2007
Messages
1,786
Yep, but they put me in difficult places (like that volcanic area), which was a nasty surprise. Maybe they'd be less difficult to me now? Either way, I was determined to go up through the guts :)
The cannon way is to simply take a lift....
:cool:
 
Joined
Dec 26, 2007
Messages
1,786
The cannon way is to simply take a lift....
:cool:
Alas, that was nonoperational for me. I assumed you had to find a way up to the top to make it operational, like with some others here and there.
[Just Googled, you need an item that I may not have had when I last tried]

Edit:
Just checked my inventory and it has the bits I need. Must have found them during my wanderings since my last visit to the lift. I will now use it, for completion's sake :)
 
Last edited:
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
2,245
Location
New Zealand
I have finally managed to get all achievements in Dark Souls 3! The last and hardest task for me was defeating the Nameless King. I managed it using the Sunlight Spear (a miracle) in the first phase and the Great Soul Dregs (a dark sorcery) in the second phase.

Defeating the Nameless King allowed me to get the last missing miracle and the the last missing ring, so together with the achievement for the nameless King himself and the one for all achievements, I got four achievements. This was in my third play through (NG++), because you need three of these to get all three endings and to find all rings.

All in all I played nearly 500 hours, which is probably not necessary, but I had to level up a bit in order to win this last fight. Probably I could have done it much earlier, but somehow I struggled to learn the best strategy for the Nameless King. As usual, once you managed to win a fight, it feels easy. This is like finding the best move in a game of chess: Once you know it, it looks obvious.

Achieving such a goal in a game like this is much more satisfying than winning a "normal" action RPG, because it is so hard. Comparing it to board games, it is like winning a game of chess against a good player compared to winning a random board game like monopoly against some friends.

Having played DS3 for a long time after playing Elden Ring, also for a long time, I am not sure, which of both I like best. Anyway, everybody , who likes one of them will probably also like the other one, because they are very similar in the game mechanics and the story development. Elden Ring is more open world, but I didn't really miss that in DS3.

Now I will probably do something completely different like trying the new Spellforce game. (I don't feel like playing DS2 or DS1 right now and don't know if I will do in future. My first impression of DS2 was, that it feels very outdated compared to DS3 or ER.)
 
Joined
Dec 26, 2007
Messages
1,786
View: https://twitter.com/ELDENRING/status/1630478058103734274


Seems it's a good thing I didn't dive too deep into Elden Ring. I'll wait for the expansion.
I wonder what the chances are for a second expansion, considering how much the base-game sold.

I do also think the expansion will not reach half of all sales of the base game.
I think a considerable number of purchases were from people that just got hyped with the game via media and advertising.
And a lot of those people probably got wiped due to the difficulty, and never managed to get too far into the game.
And so, they're likely less of a candidate to buy the expansion.

If the expansion get 1/3 of the base game sales, I'd be content.
 
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
6,252
I won't be waiting. "Currently in development" tells me this expansion is a long ways off.
I agree. While I am of course looking forward to the expansion, I wouldn't recommend to wait for it before playing the base game. If the expansion were to be published in a few weeks, that might make sense, but we cannot expect that.
 
Joined
Dec 26, 2007
Messages
1,786
I'll definitely be getting the expansion. There's so much to explore and do already, but I won't say no to more.

Recently I've managed to knock off Volcano Manor, most of the Altus Plateau, and a teeny bit of the capital.
Now I'm going back to finish off some areas I missed or hit a wall in. Found and finished another underworld section ("Deep Root" or something), then finished off another underworld that I had earlier discovered, where I met some very hard boss that I cheesed with missile combat while my pet mimic kept him busy.

Then discovered a magic wall that I wasn't allowed through because, according to the game prompt, I didn't have a certain ring. This annoyed me because it was obvious that behind it was the lift that would take me up to that large inaccessible plateau in the South West of Liurnia, and as far as I coudl tell, I hadn't missed anything in the quest line.
Ended up Googling it, and it's ridiculous. How people get though this shit without searching the net is beyond me.

First, get a certain item from a coffin near the beginning of one the sections of the underworld (dead easy to find).
Then rest at a certain Site of Grace.
Try and talk to the "certain item" repeatedly. It ignores you multiple times until finally it speaks to you. It asks you to go kill something.
Go kill the something in a different section of the underworld (it isn't terribly specific about where this is).
A key then magically appears in your inventory. You are not told what it fits.
Ends up it fits a chest that can be found in the location of a boss that you will almost certainly have already defeated, but it was a while ago so unless you searched on the net for it you wouldn't know to go back there.
Get a ring out of the chest, that has a completely different name from the ring that the game prompt told you you needed. So unless you were doing this specifically to unblock the area, you probably wouldn't know that you had the right one.

FFS
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
2,245
Location
New Zealand
I'll definitely be getting the expansion. There's so much to explore and do already, but I won't say no to more.

Recently I've managed to knock off Volcano Manor, most of the Altus Plateau, and a teeny bit of the capital.
Now I'm going back to finish off some areas I missed or hit a wall in. Found and finished another underworld section ("Deep Root" or something), then finished off another underworld that I had earlier discovered, where I met some very hard boss that I cheesed with missile combat while my pet mimic kept him busy.

Then discovered a magic wall that I wasn't allowed through because, according to the game prompt, I didn't have a certain ring. This annoyed me because it was obvious that behind it was the lift that would take me up to that large inaccessible plateau in the South West of Liurnia, and as far as I coudl tell, I hadn't missed anything in the quest line.
Ended up Googling it, and it's ridiculous. How people get though this shit without searching the net is beyond me.

First, get a certain item from a coffin near the beginning of one the sections of the underworld (dead easy to find).
Then rest at a certain Site of Grace.
Try and talk to the "certain item" repeatedly. It ignores you multiple times until finally it speaks to you. It asks you to go kill something.
Go kill the something in a different section of the underworld (it isn't terribly specific about where this is).
A key then magically appears in your inventory. You are not told what it fits.
Ends up it fits a chest that can be found in the location of a boss that you will almost certainly have already defeated, but it was a while ago so unless you searched on the net for it you wouldn't know to go back there.
Get a ring out of the chest, that has a completely different name from the ring that the game prompt told you you needed. So unless you were doing this specifically to unblock the area, you probably wouldn't know that you had the right one.

FFS
Yes, that is part of the most complex sidequest in the game. My favorite one...
I also believe that it is very hard to find all steps on your own and I looked several things up in my first playthrough. But if you have done this once and, in a later playthrough, listen exactly to everything the NPCs tell you, you realize that theoretically you could have derived everything from what they say.
Somebody must have found all of this on their own, otherwise you couldn't find it in the net. This is a recurring theme in all Souls games, obviously.
 
Joined
Dec 26, 2007
Messages
1,786
I need to get back to ER. I got sidetracked and haven't touched it in over three weeks. I'd probably be finished by now if I hadn't stopped.

Now I just have to get past that mental barrier of jumping back into a big game after taking a break and playing other games. I don't even remember what I was doing when I left off.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,138
Location
Florida, US
I need to get back to ER. I got sidetracked and haven't touched it in over three weeks. I'd probably be finished by now if I hadn't stopped.

Now I just have to get past that mental barrier of jumping back into a big game after taking a break and playing other games. I don't even remember what I was doing when I left off.
I know that feeling. I always have it, when trying to continue a game after a few weeks of doing other things. I often end up restarting the game from scratch, because I fear to miss something otherwise. But if you have played ER already for some time, I wouldn't recommend that approach, since the game is simply too long for that. Simply continue, where you were, die a few times and you will feel at home again...
 
Joined
Dec 26, 2007
Messages
1,786
Leyndell city was enjoyable to explore. The massive underground bits were enjoyably complex (but difficult!). I died a lot from falls and status effects.

After beating Morgott (only a couple of attempts required), on to the snowy regions...
... and this is where things suddenly got less interesting. Annoying enemies on snowy landscapes... then a big-ass Fire Giant at the end that slaughtered me over and over. I went back to places like the Volcano Manor and Liurnia to re-explore some areas, and found some hidden bits I hadn't discovered the first time around, and killed some bosses I'd skipped. But I was dreading coming back to this dull-but-deadly area.

Then I Googled the stats for the Fire Giant, leveled up a big-ass hammer, buffed it with Frostbite up the wazzoo, and killed it on the second go.

Now I'm in some weird area that is suspended in the sky, floating arouind a giant tornado looking thing. It's much more interesting to explore, so far.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
2,245
Location
New Zealand
Leyndell city was enjoyable to explore. The massive underground bits were enjoyably complex (but difficult!). I died a lot from falls and status effects.

After beating Morgott (only a couple of attempts required), on to the snowy regions...
... and this is where things suddenly got less interesting. Annoying enemies on snowy landscapes... then a big-ass Fire Giant at the end that slaughtered me over and over. I went back to places like the Volcano Manor and Liurnia to re-explore some areas, and found some hidden bits I hadn't discovered the first time around, and killed some bosses I'd skipped. But I was dreading coming back to this dull-but-deadly area.

Then I Googled the stats for the Fire Giant, leveled up a big-ass hammer, buffed it with Frostbite up the wazzoo, and killed it on the second go.

Now I'm in some weird area that is suspended in the sky, floating arouind a giant tornado looking thing. It's much more interesting to explore, so far.
If you want to complete the side quests and fight the hardest boss in ER, you will have to cross an even more deadly snowy landscape, where sometimes you don't see anything because of the fog. It is also more interesting, however...
 
Joined
Dec 26, 2007
Messages
1,786
If you want to complete the side quests and fight the hardest boss in ER, you will have to cross an even more deadly snowy landscape, where sometimes you don't see anything because of the fog. It is also more interesting, however...
I think I've found what you mean (so that's what that extra medallion was for). Looks to be a substantial area. I might spend the next chunk exploring that, as I've reached a bit of a wall in Farum.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
2,245
Location
New Zealand
Back
Top Bottom