Elden Ring: Breath of the From Software

Prefaced to say I am not a fan of the Souls games at all. Not my cup of tea, obtuse UX, shit save feature, distracting hi-def granularity on every surface.

That being said, my wife calls me into the living room to ask me what stuff we can delete from the living room PS4 since she bought a new video game. I was surprised as she is not a huge gamer and generally sticks to what she has played in the past like Skyrim, Fate, Stardew Valley, etc. She says she saw a new open world game out and thought it looked cool to play.....trigger heart sinking feeling. And there it is, waiting to be installed, Elden Ring. Fffkkk. See, she like to watch me play new games so she can pick up lessons on what to do and what not to do when she jumps in. I don't want to squash what may be a new branch in her gaming tree by saying how much I am not a fan....hell, maybe she will enjoy it. Now I am playing a game I have actively avoided.

So far, it is not so bad.....but I still hate the inventory system and all the damn numbers for everything. And you can't compare armor pieces if you want to buy them with what you have equipped?! The shit is that?

My adventure with Sister Sledge, the Confessor has begun. Maybe this outing will make me a fan......

hotseatgames wrote: I have never even tried to use the mimic tear. One thing I hate about the inventory system is that it will tell you in the most high level abstract way what something "does", but never why I would actually want to use it. I have been carrying around shit I picked up at the beginning, and literally have no idea why.

This game is why strategy guides used to be hot sellers.

Mimic tear is a summon you pick up way off the beaten path. If you have it you should try it, it's so good.

And yea, From designs with community wikis and multiple playthrough in mind.

I beat the arcane castle yesterday effortlessly, all bosses first try.

So just an FYI to newer players, this game definitely does have a clear order to confront major areas in in terms of level. But you don't have to follow that order at all and since harder areas will yield more souls from normal mobs, you'll get up to speed pretty quickly after some early struggle wherever you go... unless you go to the last areas first and one hit and can't kill mobs. There are also build reasons to go to particular areas first, I can't imagine trying to a sorcery build without hitting the area I was in asap.

So if you're worried about fewer difficulty peaks and valleys, I think there is a optimal path. I would never do that, but then it doesn't bother me to have non linear difficulty changes.

the_jake_1973 wrote: And you can't compare armor pieces if you want to buy them with what you have equipped?! The shit is that?

This was irritating to me as well. I’m pretty positive the Souls games had this feature.

Ah_Pook wrote: Mimic tear is a summon you pick up way off the beaten path. If you have it you should try it, it's so good.

And yea, From designs with community wikis and multiple playthrough in mind.

Then maybe I have a Mimic Veil? I don't know. Haven't played in 2 days.

hotseatgames wrote:

Ah_Pook wrote: Mimic tear is a summon you pick up way off the beaten path. If you have it you should try it, it's so good.

And yea, From designs with community wikis and multiple playthrough in mind.

Then maybe I have a Mimic Veil? I don't know. Haven't played in 2 days.

I think the item you're talking about is to troll people in multiplayer by disguising yourself as scenery

Mimic Tear summons an exact copy of your character, which as you might guess is extremely good.

Finally put Radahn down. I was actually hunting for Somber 5s and one was in Redmane…I was there, didn’t have a lot of runes, so I figured why not give it a shot. After two tries it was done.

That is such an amazing boss fight, I think it’s one of the best they’ve done. Granted, I am hitting it post-nerf so I avoided the frustration folks have had with it.

Weirdly, my wife (who has no idea about anything to do with the game) had a dream the other night that we were being attacked by a bear and I wouldn’t do anything about it. So last night I went rune bear hunting and for the first time didn’t run away from them. Bagged 4 of those bastards. Felt good.

I’m down in Ainsel River right now, those clay dudes are ridiculous.

Speaking of Ainsel River, if I just got into Liurnia of the Lakes, is it feasible to beeline it to the River elevator and go down and grab a Celestial Dew? Blaidd was immediately hostile to me (I think his bear hit his tower when I got close) so I need to reset him at the Church of Vows.

Disgustipater wrote: Speaking of Ainsel River, if I just got into Liurnia of the Lakes, is it feasible to beeline it to the River elevator and go down and grab a Celestial Dew? Blaidd was immediately hostile to me (I think his bear hit his tower when I got close) so I need to reset him at the Church of Vows.

Try it and see! If the answer is no the only thing you'll be out is a few souls and the time it took to try it.

Risky but doable IF you don’t get swamped but the claymen. There are TONS of them and they are unusually dangerous. I think You might miss where most of them congregate though.

Got the Mimic Tear this morning holy shit.

Michael Barnes wrote: Risky but doable IF you don’t get swamped but the claymen. There are TONS of them and they are unusually dangerous. I think You might miss where most of them congregate though.

I got the Celestial Dew without running into them, until I realized I was on a ledge and had to drop down into a massive horde of them. I just ran away from them toward an elevator that went who knows where, but I pulled the lever and was waiting like in a horror movie for the elevator to arrive while they got closer and closer and barely made it out. But I got the Dew, got my atonement, and started Blaidd's quest.

I found my third dungeon with the chariot trap things... Man those things are just not fun to deal with. Please no more, From. I beg.

Banged my head for a while against the two gargoyles boss but couldn't pull through even with summon help. The multiple big enemy camera nightmare is not my favorite From trope.

Plugging away at this, I hit ruts but then I hit something that really energizes me like what happens when Radahn dies.

I ended up looking up some NPC quests on the wiki. I actually recommend it, the game is really expecting you to be poking into the corners of roundtable hall and finding NPCs standing around the world constantly.

The lore is sort of coming together for me, doing Ranni's quest line helps.

I am kind of flagging at the moment as well, which just means I'm only playing *most* of the time, and not *all* the time.

I have the wiki and interactive map up on my second monitor at all times when playing. As soon as I run into an NPC, I check their questline. I check the map for the area I'm in to make sure I didn't miss anything. I look up everything, and I am having a great time.