*** Elden Ring ***

[sHo0sH]

I keep getting "lost" as I disappear off having found/seen something, and deviate from the very loose story. Ranni seems to be the only one that I've followed...ish
Only now have I got to Consecrated Snowfields, having defeated Commander Niall in 2022, and again recently - not NG+ but some wierd save bug I guess.

Holding off DLC, until my inner magpie is content enough shiny things have been discovered in ER! Will be soon though.

Man, Commander Niall was a grind! The amount of times I ran up to his cloud gate on my first playthrough was sickening.

I made sure to get Tiche to level 10 as a spirit summon on my second run through as I just wanted to get DLC ready and she absolutely melted him (and most other bosses)

 

[bakes0310]

Update on my samurai build that I starrted a couple weeks ago. I'm level 78 and have my long reaching katana at +4. I've explored a large portion of limgrave now. Haven't made it to godricks castle yet as I keep getting diverted by other things.
As mentioned before I'm new to this game and not a 100% sure where to go. I've just gone where the enemies are easy and turn around when they are not lol.
Any beginner advice is welcome.

 

[strumpusplunket]

Man, Commander Niall was a grind! The amount of times I ran up to his cloud gate on my first playthrough was sickening.

I made sure to get Tiche to level 10 as a spirit summon on my second run through as I just wanted to get DLC ready and she absolutely melted him (and most other bosses)

Ah yes... one of only two or three bosses I ended up cheesily kamehamahamahama'ing. He melted in like five seconds just after he noticed I was there

Quite looking forward to the DLC of this game at some point, but going to finish Lords of the Fallen first (and then go on holiday). Can't remember what level or build I left my character at. Just that I think I respecced out of my wonky-but-fun str-int build somewhere in the Haligtree. Have a vague feeling it was somewhere around level 130 and a fair bit of investment in faith. It will be interesting to find out again and to see if it's been nerfed in the meantime.

 

[weeble]

Update on my samurai build that I starrted a couple weeks ago. I'm level 78 and have my long reaching katana at +4. I've explored a large portion of limgrave now. Haven't made it to godricks castle yet as I keep getting diverted by other things.
As mentioned before I'm new to this game and not a 100% sure where to go. I've just gone where the enemies are easy and turn around when they are not lol.
Any beginner advice is welcome.

This has helped when I've got myself too lost https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Game+Progress+Route

 

[iamtheoneneo]

Update on my samurai build that I starrted a couple weeks ago. I'm level 78 and have my long reaching katana at +4. I've explored a large portion of limgrave now. Haven't made it to godricks castle yet as I keep getting diverted by other things.
As mentioned before I'm new to this game and not a 100% sure where to go. I've just gone where the enemies are easy and turn around when they are not lol.
Any beginner advice is welcome.

The map has arrows in the form of flames that point in the direction of the main story. Also when you are at a grace you can often see a wind of flame also pointing in the general direction. But limgrave > stormveil > Liurnia will get you on the right track. Your now overleveled for Godrick so I would say go kill him. He is the first real skill check of the game and an important milestone to get over. It will also give you confidence to be able to tackle the next boss.

 

[ICDP]

Having put a few nights into the DLC, I have had enough. It’s just boring with the usual terrible story and RPG elements and this time the combat alone can’t save it. The map is even more convoluted with excessive verticality. I was having to force myself to explore dungeons and areas just to level up, not because I wanted to explore.

Elden ring does force this grind but this DLC adds even more grind for the Scadutree stuff (or whatever it is called). So the gameplay is just a grind fest.

I got to Messmer (I think that’s how it’s spelled) and was having some problems. Normally I would try a different ash of war, such as bleed or freeze, or I would go do the level up grind. But this time I just had a sanity check and thought “nah, can’t be arsed with this anymore”.

 

[TheBrooder]

The map has arrows in the form of flames that point in the direction of the main story. Also when you are at a grace you can often see a wind of flame also pointing in the general direction. But limgrave > stormveil > Liurnia will get you on the right track. Your now overleveled for Godrick so I would say go kill him. He is the first real skill check of the game and an important milestone to get over. It will also give you confidence to be able to tackle the next boss.

Once you've completed the objective they point at do they disappear? I'm not sure if there's more to do in that direction or not!?

 

[iamtheoneneo]

Once you've completed the objective they point at do they disappear? I'm not sure if there's more to do in that direction or not!?

The objective is the end of the game so they wont disappear until you have done that.
There is always more to do in areas thats the beauty of the game, but the graces will point you in the direction you should be going to in order to progress.

White-Faced Varre says this at the start of the game:

Are you familiar with grace? The golden light that gives life to you Tarnished.
You may also behold its golden rays pointing in a particular direction at times.
That is the guidance of grace. The path that a Tarnished must travel.
Mm, indeed. Grace's guidance holds the answers.
It will lead you Tarnished to the path you are meant to follow.
Even if it leads you to your grave.

 

[bakes0310]

Still level 78 but close to getting another level. At this stage I'm very over levelled for limgrave and south of limgrave. Managed to get my sword up to +5 now and I have 6 health potions that I've upgraded to +2 now. Think I'm ready to go to godricks castle now, I'm guessing that's where I'll fight my first major boss which is kinda scary but I'm hoping that I'll be okay.

As a new player this game to me really does encourage to explore everywhere and prepare yourself for difficult situations.

 

[Parky]

As a new player this game to me really does encourage to explore everywhere and prepare yourself for difficult situations.

And there lies it's greatest strength, if you get stuck and frustrated, you can just explore elsewhere and come back later rather than hitting a wall where progression stops. It also makes your journey (especially the first playthrough if you keep it blind) your own and more memorable.

You'll be fine at the castle, the big legacy dungeons in each area generally are a bit more difficult than the surrounding caves/ruins, but they are meant to be a test. Just keep on upgrading your weapons when you get chance and your damage will steadily get better over time, make sure Vigor is levelled up decently as you progress and armour is optimised too and you'll be set for the most part.

 

[bakes0310]

And there lies it's greatest strength, if you get stuck and frustrated, you can just explore elsewhere and come back later rather than hitting a wall where progression stops. It also makes your journey (especially the first playthrough if you keep it blind) your own and more memorable.

You'll be fine at the castle, the big legacy dungeons in each area generally are a bit more difficult than the surrounding caves/ruins, but they are meant to be a test. Just keep on upgrading your weapons when you get chance and your damage will steadily get better over time, make sure Vigor is levelled up decently as you progress and armour is optimised too and you'll be set for the most part.

Well I just killed Godrick on my first go. I had a barbarian women help me by seeing this yellow marker on the floor near the boss entrance??

I was level 78, stats was 40 vigour, 40 dexterity and I had a +6 to my long reaching katana. First of all it was quite hard then I thought I beat him quite quickly, then he has a second stage with a dragon head for an arm lol.

Looks like I'm heading off to a swamp now to find an academy which I'm guessing is where the next main boss is. Everyone's advice has been solid about the yellow markers.

 

[Parky]

Well I just killed Godrick on my first go. I had a barbarian women help me by seeing this yellow marker on the floor near the boss entrance??

I was level 78, stats was 40 vigour, 40 dexterity and I had a +6 to my long reaching katana. First of all it was quite hard then I thought I beat him quite quickly, then he has a second stage with a dragon head for an arm lol.

Looks like I'm heading off to a swamp now to find an academy which I'm guessing is where the next main boss is. Everyone's advice has been solid about the yellow markers.

Good stuff, looks like you are on the right natural progression path. 40-60 Vigor is generally the amount people go for on their playthroughs, with 40 Dex as well already you will be hitting very hard soon. Your weapon will upgrade all the way to +25 (+10 to special/boss weapons) to give you an idea of how much more is to come.

The Gold summon signs are from NPCs who you might have met (or yet to meet) during your travels, some appear a few times throughout the game at various bosses. A side note as well, summoning a player/NPC actually increases the amount of HP a boss has, so the version of Godrick you fought that went down easy probably had a lot more HP than normal too.

On levelling, there are actually various soft caps on all of the stats that start to reduce how effective levelling them becomes:

Spoiler

So take Dex for example. Levelling it to 20 will give a big benefits to weapons damage, after that it will be slightly less but still a good amount until around 55, after that it's even less until 80, after that it's very minimal. So just keep in mind that it might not always be the best option to max it out, those extra points could be put to better effect in other areas.

Not necessarily something to worry too much about but it's something these games never really explain.

 

[Angst]

Loving the dlc so far, about 30 hours in and just killed messmer. Reading a lot online about the bosses been super hard but I have loved most of them so far and probably struggled a lot more with most base game bosses.

 

[Tombstone]

My biggest annoyance with Elden Ring is starting to rear its head again. Although I 100%'d the basegame, playing again is reminding me of the one thing about the game which drove me absolutely nuts last time around. The targetting. Is it SO complicated to simply target the thing that my character is looking at, the sheer number of times that something will be in front of me and I hit the target lock and it decides to spin me round 180 degrees and face a wall or something...good god devs, stop targetting the closest thing and target the thing I'm looking at !!

 

[El Jimben]

My biggest annoyance with Elden Ring is starting to rear its head again. Although I 100%'d the basegame, playing again is reminding me of the one thing about the game which drove me absolutely nuts last time around. The targetting. Is it SO complicated to simply target the thing that my character is looking at, the sheer number of times that something will be in front of me and I hit the target lock and it decides to spin me round 180 degrees and face a wall or something...good god devs, stop targetting the closest thing and target the thing I'm looking at !!

What type of weapons do you use? I just use a katana & a shield with a couple of offensive spells thrown in & I can't say that I've never needed to use target lock.

 

[Tombstone]

What type of weapons do you use? I just use a katana & a shield with a couple of offensive spells thrown in & I can't say that I've never needed to use target lock.

Its not a problem particularly for melee classes, but bow or caster class where you need to lock on to actually hit anything and its a nightmare. So easily fixed too, surprised they havent corrected it yet, just have it target whatever is central on the screen, seems a daftly easy solution to me

 

[AStaley]

Elden Ring, the only game where you can spend an hour exploring insignificant church ruins because there "might" be something hidden there......there wasn't, but I do love this game, the sense of exploration is fantastic.

 

[Noxia]

Still on my og playthrough. A long long way to go before I catch up with my PS5 save but killed Radahn last night and descended to Nokstella.

 

[FlyingFish]

I put 300hrs plus into the main game and loved it all, even though I'm absolutely **** at it. The exploration and satisfaction of beating the bosses and mini bosses is pure gaming greatness. No namby Pandy hand holding rubbish.

I'm totally enjoying the dlc, even after a long enough break away from playing the main game... I'm still totally rubbish at it, and loving it
I'm level 200+ And I'm getting my arse kicked constantly

 

[opethdisciple]

I put 300hrs plus into the main game and loved it all, even though I'm absolutely **** at it. The exploration and satisfaction of beating the bosses and mini bosses is pure gaming greatness. No namby Pandy hand holding rubbish.

I'm totally enjoying the dlc, even after a long enough break away from playing the main game... I'm still totally rubbish at it, and loving it
I'm level 200+ And I'm getting my arse kicked constantly

I highly recommend Sekiro if you enjoyed this.