Elden Ring: YOU DIED on a horse

So many of the NPC quests are... not exactly broken, but it's so easy to miss an important bit of dialogue if you don't speak to the right person at the right time. Doing Ranni's quest had me scratching my head so many times, and then I go back and watch a video of the full quest and there's a bit where if you talk to a specific NPC between carrying out a certain task, they fill you in on the whole backstory and what is actually going on. It makes so much more sense, but if you don't talk to them you'll just end up continuing the quest without knowledge of what you're doing

I didn't do her quest either, which I justified as role-play appropriate because it seemed like "wizard stuff".

When it comes to upgrading weapons, I found that it's good to prioritize "finding the bell bearings" for normal weapons, and planning out your usage of found somber stones for the special weapons.

The normal smithing stone bell bearings are reasonably easy to acquire... once completing the boss(es) at Leyndell, you can access the third in the series pretty quickly, and you can turn anything into a +18 (provided you have the runes to do so)

The somber bell bearings are more of a challenge to find, they're held by tough enemies and the last few are really really late game

I played a little last night and I'm trying out big two-handed weapons with a DEX build. A Lightning Zweihander? why not

i have access to the altus plateau/leyndell now but i haven't really spent much time in caelid at all, any thoughts on which i should prioritize? probably the latter, i assume, to build up my level and gear?

If you can deal with the dogs and birds, clear Caelid first, at the very least the ruins and caves and stuff

But make sure you only mess with southern Caelid, or at least avoid the Dragonbarrow region to the north (which is late game difficulty for some reason).

Altus and Mt. Gelmir are probably about the same as southern Caelid in terms of level, I think I did all of Caelid first and then was slightly overpowered for Mt. Gelmir.

Gelmir is... strange. Maybe my least favourite part of the game, although I remember enjoying the Shaded Castle. I'm actually just played through a bit of it now. It's kinda unhinged. The ladders are endless.

Oh gor Dragonbarrow is horrific, there's dragons on every block! I'll only ever go thru that area at full tilt on my horse.

Cept for the fields up at Bestial Sanctum, cos I take those little fuckers out to farm runes.

I haven't explored a whole lot of Caelid. The whole atmos is quite intimidating.

Managed to get to Leyndell sewers last night and spent AGES in there and YOU DIED so many times. Found a lot of things I didn't expect to find too! I'm a bit concerned about progressing too far down there and locking myself out of specific endings (which I've heard can happen).

My Faith/Strength build is really working at the moment although I miss my ranged glintstone sorceries which were really snappy and fast. The ranged Incantation I'm using seems to make my character step forward slightly each time I cast it which makes me paranoid I'll fall off a ledge (easy to do in those sewers).

Ha, I am one of those people who accidentally locked myself into an ending after clearing the sewers. You really have to jump through some hoops to do that, I was feeling pretty clever until I wasn't. Did all that Ranni stuff for naught.

Justified it to myself by looking at the trophy list and seeing it's the least commonly achieved ending and that's something, right?

Heh, I got that ending. You can still avoid it but you have to beat Malenia. Even then I couldn't figure out how to use the correct item, and wanted to see that ending anyway.

I stumbled upon that area towards the very end of my run and was passed the point of being able to reverse it unfortunately. The frenzied flame was my destiny.

Killing Millicent was another "can I have a re-do" moment.

Good video on boss fight mechanics, posture and baiting certain attacks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-AJro6KgQQ

I'm definitely guilty of playing this game like it was Dark Souls 3, going melee-only, staying close most of the time and thinking I can roll most attacks, even when the game is trying to tell me otherwise. This was apparent in certain fights when taking damage was sometimes unavoidable, so I would need to be doing a certain amount of damage and have a certain amount of health in relation to the boss to get through it.

Or at the very least, I never properly incorporated jumping to avoid certain attacks instead of rolling, which was a Sekiro thing too.

Thought i knew what I had to do to fight Renalla (kill the key singing minions first), waded in and got immediately killed. WTF.

And like I see ppl said upthread, why the feck is this the one battle with no site of grace/marika statue right out front, forcing one to trek back from the parlour EVERY TIME.

I get making a game challenging. Trollish punative design can get fucked.

There's a perfectly sensible lore reason for renalla not keeping any stakes of marika around tbh

Yeah a bit of reading I've done suggests that. I dunno if I'm just not far enough in the game but very little of this lore has come across me? Just the story of Radahn being all full of rot, something about Radagon's statue, maybe I havent been paying attention.

well if you didn't know - the majority of the lore in this and other souls games is dispensed through item descriptions. though i think i learned the basics about rennala/marika/radagon (at least at that point in the game) just through talking to gideon and turtle pope

Trayce have you managed to shut off the marble?

What? You can shut off the marble?!

I died enough times to Rennala that I never noticed the marble was there eventually, you just sprint and hug the safe spot by the right wall, it bounces the same way every time

I left a little ILX message on that safe spot. Forgot what it said it, it it was a good one!

turn back poxy fule?

xps it's a testament to the depth of this game that you can play it as much as fgti seems to have and *still* find out about stuff you missed!

Anyway, here's a pretty video about how this game is pretty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LkuXemiZ-I

i ended up turning off the marble after dog latin mentioned it was possible, but i'm still not sure exactly what triggered turning it off. i was looking for a lever to pull but i guess it was triggered by something else i did in that area (being vague to avoid specific spoilers).

I think it's that spot where you exit the big courtyard, the way other than coming from the marble or going up the elevator. You can jump or shimmy to another platform and go up the ladder, which puts you above the marble. There must have been something there to turn it off?

Trayce, the other Souls games may not be for you, a run back to the boss was just standard procedure for years (you get pretty good at zig-zagging past the enemies on the way there). Trying to think of what the worst one is...maybe Queelag in DS1, where you have to cross the poison swamp while giants are throwing boulders at you to get back to the boss?

I wonder how many dungeons I missed in this game. Just saw a video containing the 'Azuria Side Tomb', which I had definitely never seen before.

The run to the Ancient Hero in Demon's Souls is absolute hell, though he is not hard himself when you get there

Ornstein and Smough prog the worst for the difficulty of the fight and the fact that you have to summon that fuckin ridiculous rube Goldberg elevator again every time you die

You were going all that way for O&S?! You can open that shortcut to the room near the bonfire and just run by a few knights. Or do the thing where you jump off the spiral staircase.

*nintendo tipline operator from 1989 pops his head out*

"AND don't forget, you can hit up, down, down, up, select, select, select to start the game with an extra flask!"

Dah fuck!!

not really. but if from games were in the 1980s, they definitely would had done that shit

i wonder if anyone has ever made a full on Envoy's Horn + Oracular Bubble build? it's a lot more fun when you're the one tooting the horn!

I've seen it, it looks like...a blast.

I dont mind re-schlepping to the boss, but not when I'm killed 2.5 seconds after i get there :(

So after you merk the hecking knight after the marble run, you can jump out a window to your left. There's a mage there so watch out. Keep going, climb a tall ladder and there are some fairly tricky baddies up there. But if you manage to beat them, the marble shuts off and the run gets just that bit easier

uh, i found millicent, i found the guy in the shack who wanted me to save her, he told me to head to the swamp to get something, and when i showed up there, millicent invaded me, so i killed her.

?
:(

it's too bad, because i just found commander o'neill and easily dispatched him. i guess i was supposed to know it was Millicent invading and not hurt her?

whatever. i'm roleplaying here and when you invade me you cross a line

https://i.imgur.com/dUHmfvv.jpg

Wow, good job killing her, she used waterfowl dance on me and then I could never get her to invade again.

I don't think killing invader Millicent affects her actual quest, though.

yeah, was about to say, she's alive and well! guess killing her invading version was not the "real" her, which i can respect

I have that aristocrat jacket too! I like how it gives me a big fat bum.

someone on ilx just defeated a shardbearer! :D

KM that image

It fills me with happiness and familiarity

LMAO @ KM's screenshot.

I never got Roderika's crimson hood, but I rock the navy one quite regularly.