3004

Nice! You’ve made a lot of progress. Did you sweep through the whole Southern Peninsula yet? I think at your level, you should be able to handle all of it.

3005

Actually I started playing one day before or two before I did my first post saying I was going to play it.
And yes, that’s the current plan. Sweep it, then try to do the bosses I can in the correct order (ie. ascending power)

3006

I’m very jealous of your vigor. After telling everyone they shouldn’t neglect to put points into it, that’s exactly what I just did with my current Confessor character. I got so hung up on increasing Strength and Faith, I neglected Vigor and Endurance, so my health and stamina are not where they should be.

On the other hand, since this is my second real run through the game (first was on PC back in February, March, April), this time I’m cheating like heck to grab some excellent equipment, whereas the first time though I was playing “naturally”. I must say, playing naturally is a lot more fun. Cheating like this with my previous knowledge on where things are makes everything feel less triumphant. When you’re playing naturally and you find a Ash of War or weapon to try out, it feels pretty thrilling. Something new!

Oh btw, that reminds me, don’t neglect to try stuff that sounds vaguely ridiculous. Like the Whip. I swear, the first time I tried it out, it felt like a cheat code, it’s so good, especially against low level human guards.

3007

I got a new spirit
https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Lhutel+the+Headless

however… there is no way I can summon it, it needs too much fp. I thought of upgrading Mind attribute to be able to use it but, I think I’d need to invest 6 levels into Mind, that doesn’t give me almost any benefit to my build, except for using said spirit.

I also have found that some royal scrolls for mages and memory increases, also for mages, worthless to me.

3008

Love Lhutel, she was my main summon for the first 1/2 of the game. I played a Mage, though, not sure if it’s worth spending levels on mind if you’re not using it otherwise. You’ll eventually get talismans that boost FP and a potion that lets you spend any amount for 10 seconds, but they’re not until later.

3009

As for your question, I don’t want to spoil it. ;)

But Patches is no boss.

3010

This is a great spirit btw.

3011

Now that I’m stronger, I went back and kicked the Impaler Catacomb’s ass so easily. Phew. So satisfying to get revenge.

On the other hand, I also got my ass kicked this morning. One by the Evergoal which has the Crucible Knight. Because, of course, what did I expect? I’m not ready to take on the Crucible Knight yet, but I sure has hell tried a dozen times. I’m still blown away by how much fun it is to fight this guy, even when I’m getting my ass kicked. I can’t help but admire his move set and his timing, and his choice on when to use his stun move at just the right times. God, that guy is good. Good for you Crucible Knight. I will return when I’m stronger and crush you later.

I also surprisingly got my ass kicked by the Bell Bearing Hunter. I think I went after the Bell Bearing Hunters much later in the game in my other games, so I never thought of them as particularly strong, so I was really surprised. This guy is a fucking badass! Good lord! After about a dozen tries, I only got him halfway once. He just attacks so often, and I never upped my Vigor, so I can only get hit about 3 times at most, and that’s if none of his stronger hits connects. I guess it’s time to do Castle Strongveil, or whatever it’s called, and then come back for these fools later.

3012

To me these are one of the hardest bosses in the game. Even after over 300 hours in the game they can still consistently kick my ass.

3013

Yeah Crucible Knights ugh…

Somewhere in Caelid, iirc, I stumbled on a Bell Bearing Hunter at night, who crushed me.

Revenge may be due this weekend.

3014

Update (note, I’m on vacations for a few days, that together the bank holidays of new year means I could play a ton) :

I finished almost all the stuff of the initial area and the peninsula, including the dragon (being patient and going all the time around its back), the knight that is around at the beginning, and other stuff.
Later I finally decided to go to the Stormveil Castle. I needed a good amount of time to explore it fully (that included killing the grafted enemy near the kitchen), lots of places you can go jumping down from some points. It wasn’t that hard, all things considered, and the boss eat the dust on my second attempt.
I think that I just reached the castle a bit overleveled, as I have done all that could be done in the other areas, including the forest at the east, where I discovered the entrance to the Siofra river! I had no idea, it was a good surprise to have.
Looking at the map, I only explored 1/3 of that underground area, at that point I decided to continue on the surface as things were a bit too hard (although not impossible).

So now I explored a bit north of the Stormveil Castle (Lurnia of the Lakes) although I’m in between doing that area or Caelid first, not sure what is the ideal order. I guess I will have to try.

About weapons, I’m using an unlikely weapon: a freaking anchor. Yes, from all the weapons available, I decided to level up that one.

Although in two or three more levels I will be Strength 30, then I think I will change to some other weapon.
Armor wise, the game is a bit of letdown. I still can’t find anything good, and I don’t like how it cannot be upgraded when weapons can be.

edit: oh yeah, finally after the castle i could upgrade my currently used spirit, the demihuman squad. First to +2, that helped me with a few stragglers (ie. bosses I had pending to do), and now I got enough ingredients in the dungeon near the erdtree between Caelid and the initial area, so I just upgraded it to +5, now it should kick ass.

3015

I think the hardest single non-boss guy in the game (maybe tied with some of the later Crucible Knights and Revenants) is the Ball Bearing guy in Caelid. And when you finally do kill him he drops something I never use.

That’s the guy.

I think there are three of them, each in a different area. For some reason the one in Caelid is the toughest for me.

3016

I have that anchor too.

3017

Input reading is a big part of it. Which kind of sucks, but once you realize it’s happening, you can often make it work for you.

3018

I have that anchor too, and never thought of actually trying it. D’oh! I really should try everything just to see if it’s cool, but I keep forgetting to.

3019

I should also try more than I’m doing right now. For example I have a good repertoire of weapon arts, but I barely have tired them.

3020

An issue with the game is how upgraded weapons don’t sell for more runes. You can invest a lot in a single weapons upgrading it (in between smithing stones and runes for each upgrade), around 15k runes for example in getting it to +8, but a +8 weapon still sells for 300 runes. It’s silly.

And because how the game works, sometimes you decide to invest in weapon x heavily, and fate decides to give you a better weapon only 30 minutes later, and a talisman that raise one stat to help you handle it. If you recover at least 1/3 of the invested…

In totally related news, I swapped the Greataxe +8 for the Golden Halberd, which because it uses somber smithing stones instead of normal ones (which i had spend on the greataxe…), I could upgrade to +4.

3021

I know you said you haven’t played the Dark Souls games, but now you have some idea of their level design now that you’ve explored Stormveil Castle. Dark Souls is like that place. Mostly linear, but also with side places to explore, and multiple ways you can go within that framework.

Yeah, the games are definitely designed so that you experiment with basic weapons early on, but then you pick one you like, you upgrade it and stick to it for a while, as you keep upgrading it. And then it’s designed so that you then graduate to a different better weapon that you then use Somber stones for, and upgrade it and stick to it.

The other Souls games are like this too. But generally in those games, they give you enough upgrade materials that you have enough to upgrade at least two basic weapons in the beginning, and then more later if you change your mind. And then the same with the somber stones, they give you enough for one weapon at the start, and then you find enough upgrade material that you can upgrade maybe two or three others. And then enough of the top upgrade material that you pick one weapon fully upgraded with you to the final boss.

The difference with Elden Ring is that it’s so big, I think the more you explore, the more you can upgrade. Don’t think too much about the runes/souls currency part of it. There will always be more of that. Both in the Souls games, and Elden Ring. The real bottleneck is only the stones and somber stones, and even those eventually you can buy them from vendors using Runes/Souls, so even those become unlimited later for the lower tiers of upgrades.

I think that’s also why they designed Caelid and the Lake area the way they did. It’s to give you two giant areas to explore after Limgrave if you choose to do so, and the more you explore, the more runes you’ll get for your upgrades, so you don’t need to worry about not being able to sell old weapons for a good price. I think the only reason you’re thinking that way is that thanks to your mod, where you never lose runes, it’s a closed loop for you. You never lose runes, so the only place you’re losing them is on the upgrades of weapons that you might abandon. Whereas for the rest of us playing these games, we lose runes all the freaking time, so it’s no big deal.

3022

I haven’t played the other Dark Souls games. Is there a historic reason why the game lets me sell non-duplicate weapons and armor at all? Because based on the prices it clearly wants me to keep a “library” of the equipment I’ve found.

3023

I don’t think the other games let you sell stuff at all.

I liked that addition in Elden Ring, because by selling duplicates, and by selling Rowan berries and other random junk, I’m able to get to thresholds much easier in this game than in past Souls games. So for instance if I need 4081 Runes to upgrade my Wolves to the next level, I can just sell some duplicate equipment or berries in Elden Ring.

In past games, you still found the equivalent of those Golden Runes in this game, where each grade is worth a different amount. Those were the only things that served that purpose in the past. To help you to get to those thresholds to get to the next level when you’re a little bit short, for instance. But I’m glad Elden Ring added the ability to sell stuff, even if it doesn’t give you much “value” for them, per se, it’s still a lot more than zero.

And yeah, the game clearly still wants you to keep a library of stuff. That’s a great way to put it.