Elden Ring

[mcbigski]

Yeah Volcano Manor seems weird.  I fought my way thru Mt Gelmir and then this chick is asking me somewhat cryptically if I want to destroy shit for her.  No idea why, and haven't found a lot in game to go on other than a warning from a finger about her boss.  It seems like you agree just so you can loot her castle.

[sifth]

 

So we choose to track down and kill the first thing we actually feared in the open world, last week.

[Fez]

Made it to Hagiltree. It's a cool-looking area, but damn is it hard. Still, I think I'll stay there for a while to keep avoiding the Fire Giant fight.

[Werthead]

 

[Ran]

I've been really interested in what people have pieced together of the lore, and you can really see GRRM's fingerprints all over the mythos. That said, one of the endings that has stood out to people... has turned out to be perhaps really badly translated from Japanese to English, largely changing the sense of the ending's meaning and intent. You can read about it here, but beware spoilers.

 

 

[Fez]

7 hours ago, Ran said:

I've been really interested in what people have pieced together of the lore, and you can really see GRRM's fingerprints all over the mythos and mythos. That said, one of the endings that has stood out to people... has turned out to be perhaps really badly translated from Japanese to English, largely changing the sense of the ending's meaning and intent. You can read about it here, but beware spoilers.

At some point I'm going too need to fully catch-up on the lore. It was easy to follow at first, but has since spiraled out and I've become very lost. Likely both because I've missed quests and I haven't found some of the items with important lore descriptions. It also doesn't help that so many characters have such similar names, which I strongly suspect is a GRRM thing. But names like Tytos/Tywin/Tyrion are much easier to follow than Godwyn/Godrick/Godefroy when I can see them written in a book regularly than when I hear them once every several hours in a game.

 

Anyway, I've reached the final boss (I think) of Hagiltree and what a nightmare she is. I saw some folks say she's the hardest boss in the game, and I'd believe it. So maybe I will go back to the Fire Giant, who I hate. Mostly because of the camera actually; I can barely see him most of the time so I can't read his tells. And when he rolls and it screws up my targeting lock and I miss at least one attack. It's extremely annoying.

The rest of Hagiltree was tough too, filled with higher level versions of some of the most annoying enemies in the game. But I also found a farming spot where I can get 30k souls in under a minute. I haven't used it much yet, but I could always grind there if I needed to. 

[sifth]

15 hours ago, Ran said:

I've been really interested in what people have pieced together of the lore, and you can really see GRRM's fingerprints all over the mythos and mythos. That said, one of the endings that has stood out to people... has turned out to be perhaps really badly translated from Japanese to English, largely changing the sense of the ending's meaning and intent. You can read about it here, but beware spoilers.

 

 

I mean the game is filled with turtles. More turtles than I've ever seen in a FromSoftware game before. We all know GRRM loves his turtles, lol

[aceluby]

Felt like exploring the capital a bit more and ended up finding an entirely new (huge!) area

Spoiler

There's a wall with rubble that I happened to climb over and found a well with a ladder.  That ladder led me to the sewers, which was significantly harder than the capital and has some of the best level design in the game so far.  Nearly a half dozen different shortcuts, some tricky platforming, and it leads you down down down to a new boss and a really fucking weird catacomb that changes as you play.  Yes... this one seems to keep going and actually changes the areas as you progress.  Brilliant!  Also found another secret after the boss that has room after room of dead bodies and a really tricky platforming piece down to some spells, the fingerprint shield, and eventually leads you out to Deeproot Depths

Now that I'm done with that I have a few places to venture off to.  I have the Volcano Manor still, a few more catacombs surrounding the capital, 2 or 3 heroes ruins, the boss in Deeproot, a few spots in east Caelid to clear out, and then work my way toward

Spoiler

Burning the tree down 

Think I may just hit up the manor first and then explore the northeast after

[briantw]

Finished Caria Manor yesterday.  Those hand spiders were annoying, but overall I didn't find the place to be all that bad.  I figured it'd be a legit mini-dungeon like Raya Lucaria, but it was quite a bit smaller without much variance in the path.  Found the Sword of Night and Flame that I've seen in YouTube videos, although I don't have enough faith to use it at the moment.

With Loretta defeated, I was finally able to properly embark on Ranni's quest as well.  Honestly, that's the main reason I finally got around to doing Caria Manor.  I know her quest ties in with defeating Radahn and wanted to get it to that point before I fought him.  

Next stop will either be the Siofra River to find Blaidd and further advance the Ranni quest or up Mount Gelmir, as I recently made my way across the rope bridge that takes you there from the Altus Plateau.  I've got an invitation to Volcano Manor and want to check that out.

[RumHam]

18 minutes ago, briantw said:

Finished Caria Manor yesterday.  Those hand spiders were annoying, but overall I didn't find the place to be all that bad.  I figured it'd be a legit mini-dungeon like Raya Lucaria, but it was quite a bit smaller without much variance in the path.  Found the Sword of Night and Flame that I've seen in YouTube videos, although I don't have enough faith to use it at the moment.

With Loretta defeated, I was finally able to properly embark on Ranni's quest as well.  Honestly, that's the main reason I finally got around to doing Caria Manor.  I know her quest ties in with defeating Radahn and wanted to get it to that point before I fought him.  

Next stop will either be the Siofra River to find Blaidd and further advance the Ranni quest or up Mount Gelmir, as I recently made my way across the rope bridge that takes you there from the Altus Plateau.  I've got an invitation to Volcano Manor and want to check that out.

I know Night and Flame was one of the things they nerfed. No idea how hard. 

I believe there are at least three ways into volcano manor. Going up the mountain and in the front door, plus:

Spoiler

If you have the invitation you can meet Rya somewhere near the erdtree gazing hill site of grace and she'll teleport you there. I did this on my second character and it was so much easier.

Also Patches at one point tells you about a monster that can teleport you to the erdtree. I've read that it really teleports you to somewhere in the manor where you have to fight your way out. Have not tried that myself yet. It's in Raya Lucaria at the bottom of the water wheel elevator where the "negates fall damage" talisman that doesn't actually prevent fall damage is. 

 

[aceluby]

6 minutes ago, RumHam said:

I know Night and Flame was one of the things they nerfed. No idea how hard. 

Not that bad. It went from absolutely broken to just really good. Still very much a top tier weapon

[Fez]

I beat the Fire Giant! Turns out I had to go full melee and pretend I wasn't a sorcerer. Moonveil+10 for the win.

And now I'm in an endgame-looking area that I briefly saw a small part of much earlier in the game. I don't think I'm in the final area yet though. Also, I haven't found whatever area Mohg is in; so there's at least one optional region I'm still missing.

[aceluby]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

I beat the Fire Giant! Turns out I had to go full melee and pretend I wasn't a sorcerer. Moonveil+10 for the win.

And now I'm in an endgame-looking area that I briefly saw a small part of much earlier in the game. I don't think I'm in the final area yet though. Also, I haven't found whatever area Mohg is in; so there's at least one optional region I'm still missing.

Spoiler

It’s under the capital

 

[briantw]

I think I found what I saw mentioned earlier in this thread as the "coward's path" to the Altus Plateau, via a series of elevators on the north end of Liurnia called the Ruin Strewn Precipice that function as the mines in the Liurnia area.  

[aceluby]

Not getting as much time as I'd like with it, but still making incremental progress.  Took down a couple dragons, a couple of the dark knights, killed all the giant jar's knights, whooped up on Fia's champions, snuck into one of the rises that I couldn't figure out how to get into to get another memory stone, pledged to Haight (hopefully that doesn't ruin anything), stumbled on a few sites of grace that I apparently missed, and found a couple more dungeons.

This game is just so expansive.  It is definitely feeling a lot less like the normal souls formula, and more like something to just get lost in.  I have at least 4 gaols to explore, a quest to find and release the red dude at the roundtable, Haight's questline, a half dozen dungeons and hero tombs, the manor, and a bunch of stuff I just ran past in the mountains.  And all that stuff is just side content as the main story is pulling me northeast.

I am easily going to end up with 200 hours on this first character without really getting into the online content.  Insane.

[sifth]

 

Last week was rather eventful, this week not so much however.

[aceluby]

Cleared out a bunch of caves, the open gaols I had left, and one of the hero graves in Mt Gelmir.  My god do those things suck.  Today I'm hoping to wrap up the last two caves I have and finally start Volcano Manor.  It's weird, because I know I'm going to be hitting that post Capital difficulty spike soon, but I also don't want to do these at an even higher level later, so it's been pretty easy the last week or so. 

[RumHam]

43 minutes ago, aceluby said:

Cleared out a bunch of caves, the open gaols I had left, and one of the hero graves in Mt Gelmir.  My god do those things suck. 

I couldn't figure out how you're supposed to navigate the lava. I had to use the bloodhound step ash of war to get through that. I'm still not sure I found everything. 

[aceluby]

6 hours ago, RumHam said:

I couldn't figure out how you're supposed to navigate the lava. I had to use the bloodhound step ash of war to get through that. I'm still not sure I found everything. 

I saw a video after and you can use the rafters to drop down on top of the horses and it will carry you to the bottom. But yeah, I used bloodhound step as well. I don’t think you missed any items.

[aceluby]

Anybody try the cave in the north Radahn area?  I did it this morning and it was one of the harder areas I've done.  Boss wasn't too bad since I'm pretty over-leveled, but the cave itself is just great design.  I also keep just stumbling into areas that I missed, so I still haven't made my way to Volcano Manor yet.