Elden Ring: YOU DIED on a horse

That last VM mission, Mr. Hoslow with the poise and the bleed whips, was a real tough nut to crack.

Fgti, that sounds fun, I've never done a no-leveling challenge in any of these games. The closest I've come is advancing to mid or late game areas on a character I'm trying to keep at a low level for invasions, in order to get some weapon or piece of gear.

Going back home for the weekend and I would literally kill someone for a Steam Deck to play this on the train

Wouldn't be much help as I have it on PS5 but whatever, Limgrave's nice enough right

just curious, what are the ps5 loading times like compared to ps4?

on ps4, when i YOU DIED and start over, i'd guess it takes maybe...20 seconds? 15? 25? in that range.

About the time it takes for two deep breaths, to re-gird one's loins. 5 secs?

Oh god, my life would be ruined with a ps5. I would never stop.

Yeah it's not quite as insanely quick as the Demon's Souls remake but not bad at all

Flashbacks to Bloodborne, especially before the first performance patch, when 1) loading took forever 2) to fast travel anywhere OR level up, you'd have to first go back to hub area, then go where you were headed. You'd have to really weigh whether it was worth the trip.

That last VM mission, Mr. Hoslow with the poise and the bleed whips, was a real tough nut to crack.

Yeah, the others were fairly easy but I had to have a few goes at him

The long load times and occasional drops in frame rates are a bit frustrating on PS4, especially when you're attempting a high level boss and have to wait each time you die. Other than that, it's pretty stable on PS4

yeah, no complaints otherwise! the framerate for the summons drops to like 15 fps sometimes (especially when you're summoning several creatures), but that doesn't bother me. and otherwise, it's very smooth, no weird bugs or glitches or crashes or anything, i've been very content.

honestly the 20-25 second loads are often a good reminder for me to drink from a glass of water or something

the load times are a bit of a pain on PS4 but they do make me think a bit more carefully and focus rather than treating 'you died' as absolutely zero-cost.

I was glad I knocked out Rennala pretty quickly. Load time plus long-seeming run to her was making my heart sink rather than hunger for battle.

Having to run all the way up that marble run each time was annoying even if you defuse the marble. I know there's a reason for no statue of Marika but it's frustrating

It's easier to go the back way -- take the stairs to the left once you unlock the tunnel, then you just have to run past that first group of enemies and the one Burger King sorcerer.

I had the same type of huge one day run in the story at the same point dog latin was (post academy/liurnia), but that was around the time I finally chose to throw all of my smithing stones into the great epee and gloveworts into the shield bro guys. Once I did that I could really steamroll things in the way that I couldn't before

I killed the Farum Azula knight, the most nerve-wracking fight in the game thus far, and made the mistake of going straight through the fog only to be confronted by the Beast Clergyman with no Estus, you can guess the rest

Oh, I guess that's not the knight I was thinking of, since I haven't seen the Beast Clergyman around here.

I was talking about the one before you enter Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, followed by Dragonlord Placidusax etc..

Oh, unless you're talking about the knight on the horse similar to the Tree Sentinel, I haven't gone back to him yet.

lol I didn't realize the rooftop path over the Raya Lucaria was leading me in a big circle. I kept getting torched by the flamethrower crossbow guy at the end of the big hall so thought "I'll just explore the lower level of this building, surely there's something cool down there." I got excited to find a site of grace and then as soon as I rested, realized it was the same site of grace I started from a week ago.

I do wish the map was more useful when you're in areas like Raya Lucaria, even zoomed in they don't really seem to relate to what's actually there that well.

The load screen on PS5 is a snap of the fingers, you don't even notice it. The load screens on PS4 (which generously include some Witcher 3-style play tip splashes) are long enough to be noticeable and annoying over time. About the same number of seconds as a load screen (on PS5) into online play.

Fgti, that sounds fun, I've never done a no-leveling challenge in any of these games. The closest I've come is advancing to mid or late game areas on a character I'm trying to keep at a low level for invasions, in order to get some weapon or piece of gear.

That's mainly why I'm doing it! My plan was to enjoy doing some 1v2 invasions at low level with the full benefit of late-game talismans and armour choices. I restarted and did my muling and then had an "oh, right" moment as I'd forgotten that you start the game with only one talisman option. So, I started progressing through the game at my low level with +0 weapons with the intention of, at least, getting as far as beating Golden Shade Godfrey for a complete set of talisman pouches.

Haven't beaten that Godfrey just yet, he is a chore at low level. His floor stomp requires immediate flask recovery if you get hit, and any axe hits are one-hit death. He's immune to everything, too, which makes my solutions limited

The load screens on PS4 (which generously include some Witcher 3-style play tip splashes)

PS5 doesn't even show the tips because there's not enough time to read them

i feel like i'm reading on papyrus over here

Maliketh down! Turns out that doing Volcano Manor eventually results in an item that makes this fight much easier and more fun (although I'm not sure if you can get it without doing VM, or certain portions of it). Must be getting near the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxR40HjdvCg

No, YOU'RE beautiful

i just lost 42K+ runes :(

still, i'm LVL69 and making steady progress. i think i even found the foot of the volcanic manor? was immediately way outleveled, backed off

Wow, can't believe how things are speeding to a conclusion here.

One more for the day, I thought the WWF superstar fight actually ended up being really fun, especially once I got a consistent phase 1 strat.

(obviously please ignore these if you're avoiding spoilers)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNGanyegGUE

I beat Radahn! I finally feel like i’m getting somewhere. Does anyone else feel bad having to kill the viking dudes in Nokron btw? They’re just strolling about singing and herding sheep it feels wrong somehow.

yeah, killing them and the giants the latter of whom are obviously the slave caste makes me feel bad :-(

theres a spot by moghwyns palace with tons of albinaurics just chilling out, you want to leave them alone but they drop 2k runes each, my murderous greed bums me out

I feel bad killing darn near everyone in this game. Especially now that I'm at the Haligtree, which if I understand the lore correctly, is supposed to be a safe haven for all the weirdos cast out by the Golden Order? I'm like "why am I murdering all these Misbegotten who are just trying to chill out at Scary Lothlorien"

This game is so sad :(

do they remember their countless brutal murders at your hands as they are reborn again and again?

they sure don't act like it, with all these backstabs I'm getting

I'm such a monster

Looking up at you with their big dumb eyes...

Well, I did it, it's done. Wasn't a huge fan of the final boss(es), but oh well. Immediately started up a new Prisoner character to start the level 40 invader build, and of course everything goes so much faster. Magic is fun too, it turns out.

Congrats Trayce! That's great, you're definitely on your way now.

Nokron is definitely good at making you feel like an intruder.

yeah i feel bad attacking any of the dudes who don't go after you unless you attack them first. all those poor miner guys mining smithing stones or whatever.

i'm a little stuck on a rennala, which is annoying bc it seems like she should be easy. i think i'll be able to knock her out pretty soon though. i haven't had much playing time recently.

Rennala is a little tough at first, but the learning curve on her is pretty easy. The most useful thing is in phase 2 to ignore her summons entirely because they vanish after a few seconds. Also, I think her summons are random and some of them are easier to avoid than others, so a certain amount of luck is involved.

xp the miners are a good example! They may be weird inter-galactic crystalline entities but they are mercilessly slave-driven by their prawn overseers, and don't deserve to be clubbed over the head by a presumptuous Tarnished

I respecked yesterday. My bleed/sorcery build was incredible but I started feeling like I was cheating a bit. A few rock slings was taking down even tough bosses.

So I'm either going to work on this Strength/Faith build I've got going on or maybe look to specialise in Strength and just be a tank or maybe be a dragon dude, I dunno

Btw I tried starting my new game on the PS5 version, but there was all this stutter/jitter when moving the camera around. So weird! I scrapped it and made a new file on the PS4 version (playing on PS5) and it's buttery smooth, same as the playthrough I just finished.

Also I just realized that I forgot to turn the music back on after my Malenia fight, so I missed out on the soundtrack for all the final boss fights. Ha, no wonder it felt slightly anti-climactic.

I ran a strength-focused build for a while and found myself well-protected (with my great shield) but that my damage output was so wimpy in comparison to my quality build (with which I won the game, Bloodhound Fang + Omen Cleaver), my DEX/ARC katana build I ran for a while, and my current DEX/FTH cold/buff powerstancing situation

I'm realizing that the advantage to strength builds (aside from the availability of great shields) seems to really be about taking advantage of the 2H stat boost. Two-handing a weapon adds 50% to your stat, so theoretically you can be dealing the same damage at 64 STR two-handed as you could at 99 STR.

I am interested in trying it out, before I became seduced by Elden Ring's power stance mechanic I was a resolute 2-handed no-shield player in Dark Souls games. I don't think I've ever run with the standard-issue greatsword and I'd be interested in trying it out for sure

What exactly is meant by a quality build? I haven't really got my head around that aspect yet, and I suspect it's because the Moonveil I was previously using didn't need ashes of war etc on it

And what about power stances?

Quality build usually means equal strength and dex, can use a wide variety of weapons. Usually the damage is a bit lower than a specialized strength or dex build though.

Also strength builds got some big buffs in the most recent patch.

Power stance = using two of the same kind of weapon, one in each hand. There's a special moveset for some attacks (this was a thing in Dark Souls 2, and Elden Ring is the first time it's made a return).

The music for the final boss is really lovely, would have definitely enhanced the experience.

On the other hand for some of the really bombastic themes, I kinda prefer the starkness of just hearing the sound fx.

Man, trying to explain what is "a quality build" really demonstrated to me just how deeply internalized From's whole scaling mechanic has become over the past three years since I started playing their games.

Yeah, @ dog latin, a "quality build" is, in its purest form, "40 VIG, 40 STR, 40 DEX", with some points put into END, and INT/FTH/ARC essentially ignored except for minimum requirements for certain weapons and/or spells

Quality builds are great because they are super flexible, you can try out all sorts of weapons, you can use a greatshield if you desire (or bows if you desire). They generally are not as high-damage as other builds-- at least, historically this is the case, but I found my quality build in Elden Ring to be pretty damaging!

Powerstancing is as Jordan said a DS2 mechanic that has returned. All your weapons are sorted into types, try equipping two of the same type in both your left and right hands and tapping L1 a few times. You have the capacity to attack with both weapons simultaneously.

One of my favouritest little things is that you can power stance any katana with the Wakizashi dagger! So, so cool. Not really viable though... the parry on that dagger is slow and its window is brief

ok i beat renalla lol. she was pretty easy ultimately. it has become clear to me that half the time i have problems with a boss in this it's because i'm being impatient and trying to get too many hits in at once

when I beat renalla she died and then .2 secs later a giant troll she summoned fell out of the sky and killed me, all the stuff was in the room when I came back tho but it was very shocking