Elden Ring: YOU DIED on a horse

Decreased the effect that increases the power of spells of Terra Magica.

Decreased the effect duration of the Cerulean Hidden Tear.

How dare you nerf my magic user cheese!

Increased the speed of some attacks of the following weapon types:

Axes / Greataxes / Hammers / Flails / Reapers

Increased the damage of charged attacks of the following weapon types:

Axes / Greataxes / Some Colossal Weapons

Okay - definitely time to respec to my dual great stars bonk build

Heh I'm curious how the changes to spinning slash affect my dragon halberd build. It's probably a good time to nerf the strong builds (power-stanced weapons etc) to get people to try the new dlc weapons.

They done nerfed the Blasphemous Blade just as I was getting to Malenia. DAAAARRRGHHG

Thinking I might livestream my first play of the DLC in about 30 minutes

Miyazaki interview in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/games/article/2024/jun/21/hidetaka-miyazaki-fromsoftware-elden-ring-shadow-erdtree

Only a couple of hours in. Been more or less poking my nose around the opening area, mostly seeing what there is to see, dying, then going some other place.

It is gobsmacking. Two things that really strike me are in the architectural aesthetics, which truly give the base game a rub for its money. Use of music and general sound effects also feel like a huge step up.

It's so weird starting this after having familiarised myself so thoroughly with Elden Ring over the last two years. To suddenly be unbridled by a lack of orientation is such a thrill, and they've done well to give that sense of "Okay this feels new". The game is screaming at me to stop relying on my old build and try new techniques.

Thanks for the reminder to turn my music back on! I disable it sometimes for boss fights (to stay calm) and always forget to turn it back on.

Woke up at 6am and thought "hmm, why not explore the shadow realm before work?" Loving it so far.

The first boss I found is a real dang doozy, incredible design though. Can't decide if I'm going to keep throwing myself at him (I've gotten him down to half health so far and have been making progress, but he can kill me in three hits) or come back later. It also crashed my game spectacularly at least once (no big deal, the save file was fine and I'm sure they'll patch everything soon).

(he also

Also loving the new 'recent items' tab, although it's a bit silly that your flask keeps rotating to the top every time you use it.

gave it quick go round after returning from some travel. enjoying the desolation. some nice jump scare SHRIEKS in the woods, killed a gargoyle, got mauled to death YOU DIED by some spectral dogs that i didn’t think would be a problem.

A+ would YOU DIED again. (and will when i go back to retrieve my runes i imagine)

Yeah the recent items tab is a great addition. I'm loving my somewhat over-leveled NG+2 character going into this. Retains the challenge of mid-late game of my first run, but with a bit more damage. Dying frequently but making some decent progress. Killed the first big boss after about 20-30 go rounds and with the help of the given summons. I've been getting more items to strengthen spirit ashes vs my character proper and I kinda feel the game is telling me "yeah it's okay, use your spirit ashes"

On this run I am doing a magic user build too, which is a fun and less frustrating way of taking this on so far. Still in the initial area, but already seeing that there's a LOT here to explore and it's got the feeling of "this is just getting started".

Not sure it's a good idea to respec to my proposed bonk/strength build yet (was going to tackle NG+3 with it)

Where is this Recent Items tab? I can't see it

God the scare shriek. I jumped so hard I had to spend 10 minutes rearranging my skeleton

Level 130, I'm dying to everything

Where is this Recent Items tab? I can't see it

everything does *so much damage* lol.

even the scorched mobs, which aren’t hard to kill but man if you get at all overwhelmed…

Xps thanks!

I left the boss for now and am having fun exploring. I'm having build fomo though...finding all these fun dex weapons, but I'm on my dual halberd strength character. And I don't actually like most strength weapons because they're too slow, but want to switch things up. Might respect but will wait to see what else I find (seems like a lot of hybrid stuff with requirements in 3-4 stats?).

Lol nevermind, I embraced the bonk and equipped the giant anvil I found in the forge, proceeded to destroy that boss. I guess if you're gonna do a strength build you may as well play to its, uh, strengths.

just lost 200,000 souls rolling off a ledge on a run back thru the gaol. the purist dark souls experience.

Got a friend to help me on the first boss, and it was fun! Now we're both very much stuck on the second boss

I was at the bottom of a great dungeon, which literally kept going down and down, having a good boss fight when the power went out. Then our basement flooded and we had to unplug and disassemble everything, so I don't know when I'll be getting back to the shadow realm. :(

Sounds like the realm of shadow came to you :(

Haha yes, that lightning whip-wielding Death Knight was just trying to increase damage by flooding the arena. Dastard!

that sounds awful, hope everything's alright Jordan!

Managed to beat the second boss within an inch of my own life after about 10 tries. A very dramatic fight involving the NPC and Mimic Tear. I spent much of the fight keeping my distance and just buffing my aids.

In interesting news: My friend managed to somehow skip Castle Ensis by finding a route round the back way. I've tried to work out what she did and I've been all round, but no idea how she did it. It's not recommmended though as it apparently breaks a few NPC quests

So far I'm really enjoying this. The atmospheres and biomes are amazing. The boss fights and many of the NPCs are challenging. And I'm only just getting started. No idea about the lore yet. I'm enjoying meeting all these different NPCs (many of them look very similar to each other - they're all wearing masks!)

Bearing in mind, I'm only on the second map fragment. But a small qualm so far is that the Shadow Realm feels a little wide and empty compared to, say, Limgrave or Altus Plateau.

I'd compare Gravesite Plain to Consecrated Snowfield for that reason. I can spend a long time ploughing through these wide empty fields without really hitting anything special. Or heading down a particular road only to find a dead-end with just a single item.

Gravesite Plain is surrounded by huge impenetrable rock walls and valleys, which, in the base game would have had lots of little caves and catacombs buried in them to explore. But these are much fewer and farther between. You could argue it's delayed gratification. The ones I've found are really well hidden!

Maybe it's partly because there's no Varre-type character telling you where you need to go that it feels at-once more directionless AND more linear. "Run around and find these crosses and come back to us", feels a bit more "gamey" than "You need to obtain a rune by beating the master of Stormveil so you can enter the roundtable hold".

Thinking about it, the general lay-out reminds me of Dark Souls 2's "hub-and-spoke"-style map quite a bit.

The legacy dungeons also feel a bit more compact linear than I'm used to (although I admit I got a bit lost in Belurat). I'd equate somewhere like Castle Ensis with somewhere like Castle Sol or Castle Morne than Stormveil. There's less of that intricate higgledypiggledy wrapping-around on themselves vibe. When I spent an hour in a poisoned swamp fighting an ulcerated tree spirit and hordes of insect-creatures just to gain a few random items and only to be left with the option to turn back on myself, I was frustrated.

Anyway, these are minor complaints, or qualms I should say - I'm just getting started and I'm sure there'll be a lot more to discover!

Thanks, we took out all the floor and shop-vacuumed up the water, and I hooked the PS5 back up last night to play in an empty concrete room on an exercise bike, as Miyazaki intended.

Are we in spoiler territory on the thread now? I really loved fighting this catacombs boss, very fun and unique moveset for a miniboss.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEXW0XQOFYQ

I haven't ventured into what I assume is Castle Ensis yet, I'm doing everything I can around it. It's kind of refreshing not to always find caves where I would expect them, but I'm not sure if it feels more empty or not. I found a really cool path northeast of the castle, descending down where a soldier was looking out with binoculars, eventually using the horse to navigate a bunch of floating (?) rocks and pillars. In the end all I found was a cookbook, a mushroom bell-bearing (lol) that I had to shoot down, and a grace. But I'm probably missing something important, idk.

Also I appreciate that two mini-bosses have given up their weapons upon defeat, but it's the classic "this weapon seems much smaller and less cool when I use it" thing. Guess I'll stick with my giant cartoon anvil that makes it hard to see, for now.

Xp oh wow, I don't even know if I've found this yet. I feel like I've poked all round Gravesite Plain, and even ended up way off in some kind of volcano biome before thinking I should head back

Re: Spoilers, I'd say it's down to your own judgement. Maybe hide big spoilers and speak more generally?

I KNEW IT

(spoilers for what's under the dancing lion's coat)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO8vEHspEdE

10-15 hours in and won't say anything spoilery but it's got me. Started off feeling like it was a bit flat, like maybe I've done enough of this Elden Ring business, especially bombing around big dark landscapes, but bit by bit - that lion, hidden paths into big new areas, mysterious stuff lying around, fun fun weapons, repeatedly dying as I learned my way through some obnoxious gangs - I am back to thinking about it all the time and sloping off to play whenever I have five minutes.

"5 minutes"

This is always the way it goes, but it's kinda crazy to me to see all the people who are on their second or third playthrough of the dlc. I'm slowly making my way through the first main map area and still haven't entered the castle, and still telling myself I need to be more thorough at exploring (for instance I had missed that Blackgaol Knight in the starting area!). I know my tendency is to be tempted on to the next area and miss at least 35% of the things, so I'm trying to really make the most of this first experience.

I killed a dragon yesterday, did a few invasions, that's about it.

"5 minutes"

For instance I just now popped in for 5 minutes to look at a new dungeon and try out a blood backhand blade and ok, it's now 50 minutes later but that's a single order of magnitude, nothing in cosmic terms.

I've also really missed squinting at the map and trying to pick out paths to get somewhere that looks intriguing. Relatedly, fuck you cliffs.

really good playing this in summer, with me squinting at the screen because although it's sunny in my front room, it's night and raining in the proper world, and i'm crouch-walking around a camp full of things I can't really see, but which will kill me pronto.

Also fuck you cliffs. I've only played a few hours. I must admit although it's underpopulated comparative to say Limgrave, I quite like the central desolation, the sense this dimensional world is under the sole control of Messmer and his fire, with only the dubious demiurge figure of Miquella to (apparently) counterbalance the weight of power in the realm.

Got to that dungeon I think Jordan was in - a catacombs. I usually dislike catacombs, they've been my least favorite dungeons in the main game, but this one was a gem! It had two stakes of Marika, to boot! Boss was very very hard, absolutely pulled out the ashes again, but bounced him after like 10 tries. Power stayed on and my basement did not flood. Whew

Haha

has anyone been to Belurat Gaol? TMI about Iron Fist Alexander and his kin!

yep. first place i ended up! very unwelcome information!

delurking cos need to talk about this game, haha. dunno if this is a common feeling but i find myself not wanting to do anything too major yet, like i'll enjoy it more if i explore shit. i love the extent to which the game rewards you just nosing around for stuff.

i have finally done a bit of what i think is belurat gaol, some really difficult long bits between sites of grace with multiple enemies that you have to try to isolate from each other. got invaded by some extremely pompous knight and p much one-shotted him. i'm level 205 and it's hard to kill me, especially in open territory as i have so many replenishing flasks, but i wouldn't say i'm particularly good at combat. still getting back used to it and so i panic a bit sometimes or go too aggressive.

does anyone use that sword you get after killing the elden lord? it's too unwieldy to equip all the time but it is p cool when there's a well-populated area of enemies just annihilating loads of them with its special ability.

elden beast i mean, rather than elden lord.

never used that sword, but v similar experience otherwise - nosing around, taking in the atmosphere, avoiding anything that looks major for the moment, also i’m 160 and similar wrt combat - reminding myself not to spam R1 to give myself time to move away / dodge, separating out messmer troops, especially those massive lightning hammer wielding arseholes, who are slow but can p much two shot me.

i need to think about changing my weapons as well - completed ER with the Magma Sword, and also a big of the ah twirly herald club bubble blowing thing.

hoping to get some serious hours under my belt over the weekend tbh.

hello LG! The Belurat Gaol is a one-boss one-grace dungeon with lots of jar enemies as well as... jar-related enemies. It's fairly early-game and not too difficult but definitely has vibes.

i am still using bloodhound's fang and a hugely levelled up omen cleaver

xpost i must be in belurat adjacent area or similar.

I love the sacred relic sword from the final boss of the main game but I’m trying not to rely on it because there’s so many cool new weapons to try out. The lightning perfume bottlle is nuts and so fun to use.

I learned that the backhand blades get an A scaling in strength when heavy-infused, which means that my strength character is now also my dex character! Amazing, I can't say how happy this makes me. So I've been swapping between my giant anvil on a stick and these crazy fast blades (with a running attack that you can KEEP RUNNING After).

Found the Belurat gaol last night finally, I had overlooked it before. Had a weird thing happen - I died to the boss because I was trying to parry him, lost 200k souls, then stupidly died again. Got him on the 3rd try and picked up my souls...and they were all there?! Must have been a glitch.