2030

There’s actually a much quicker way to get a short bow from a merchant just a short way from the starting church area.

Ride south of the church down to the beach. Avoiding the big giant dude with the club, unless you’re high enough level to take him on. Ride along the beach, and you’ll see a merchant. He sells a short bow.

2031

I kind feel like I should respec. I’m not sure why. I’ve been going down a str / dex path and using the Bloodhound’s Fang, which I got from a boss. I’ve got three weapons that look cool that are above my intelligence and faith because I haven’t been using any magic, so I don’t put points into them. I could forget about them and use them with a different character.

I started off using a shield, but it has gotten less useful as I made progress. I did get a new shield that seems pretty good that requires 44 strength. Maybe I respec and go full str? Not sure…

Edit: And there is a good summon that requires for spell points than I have too.

2032

Is there something I need to do to make my map show the kind of detail I see on other maps posted? The areas I’ve explored so far have no detail at all, just a swath of solid color.

2033

There are map fragments that you can pick up at special “crossroads” points. Once you grab it, it will show the detailed version of the map.

The “crossroads” points are marked on the largely blank map and show up looking like little tombstone/obelisk type markers. You can beeline for those and then unlock the map for each new region.

The “crossroads” point for the starting area is right along the road that passes through the Gatefront ruins. In fact, IIRC it’s right about where one of the tougher guys with a warning trumpet walks.

[Edit] Here’s someone’s screenshot showing what the icon looks like:

image
image1280×720 164 KB

2034

It is a very good weapon and I don’t think took that much dex over what I started with.

2035

Can Steam servers not handle all the cloud syncing from Elden Ring or something? Now I’m getting a straight up error that says it’s unable to sync at all.

They’re aware of the old issue at least:

https://service-en.bandainamcoent.eu/app/detail/a_id/5527/

The new issue seems to be a Steam server thing.

2036

So, even though I’ve never played a Souls game, and have grave doubts about my, ahem, skilz, I bought this. Mostly because my students have been talking about it non-stop, and anything I can do that will give me another point of interaction with them to help me help them do stuff is welcome. And because it looks cool.

I’m also using this as a way to force myself to become comfortable with a controller. I am using my Xbox 360 PC controller exclusively, as a sort of test I guess. So far I’ve found it pretty doable, though I think my ineptitude in general is going to be legendary. I opened a pathway using some sort of key I got at character creation and tried exploring that way, and ended up dying a bajillion times trying to navigate this route where a giant cart with spiked wheels tries to impale me and all the alcoves where you can duck in to avoid it are, you guessed it, populated with bad guys who kick me into the path of the cart or gang up on me three to one.

Gave up on that for the moment as I think I can return later, and went to wander in the outside world a bit. Saved and quit after buying a crafting kit from a merchant. No clue whether that was a good idea or not!

Game does look very nice and combat feels good, even if I need a ton of practice obviously.

2037

It is possible to back up your save just in case it somehow gets corrupted or in this time of cloud problems you click on the wrong option.

Bring up File Explorer (w10)
Click on This PC
Clock on OS
Click on Users
Click on “your user name”
Click on AppData
Click on Roaming
Click on Elden Ring
Click on the file with all the numbers
Copy the file ER0000.sl2

Save that to someplace you can find it. You can rename it then if you choose but should you need to use it you will have to rename it ER0000.sl2 and copy it over the file in the Elden Ring Directory.

Many people were doing this in DS3 in case they got hacked. It is also a way to go back in time if you want. It was not considered bannable or cheating by FROM in the other DS games.

2038

Dark Souls 1 was the first game I used a controller on. The FROM games really need a controller although there is a group that claims KB/M works perfectly fine. It doesn’t. :)

2039

I mostly find Souls games pretty frustrating. But IMO this one is just more fun for those of who aren’t particularly good at action games. But I’ve got 28 hours into this one and am still having fun.

I played a bit of Souls 1 and know I got through at least one of the major segments (killed the giant statue guy with the Shield). Played some Souls 2, but concluded it was very interesting, but was making me frustrated and unhappy (IIRC, I got stuck somewhere in the catacombs and the skeletons kept kicking my ass). I tried Bloodbourne because I really liked the setting and ended up stopped pretty early on, because I couldn’t get past a boss that was gating me from getting further (IIRC it was some dude in a graveyard). Because I’m an idiot I got Sekiro (also because I love the Japanese Sengoku Jidai period) and I got further than Bloodbourne, but still stuck unable to get past a pair of bosses (dude on horseback in front of the castle on one side and some jumping puzzle thing I can’t remember the boss I ran into on that side, but stuck there too).

I think one problem for me, is even when I get good enough to take out the chaff, the difficulty bump is so much higher for the bosses, I just end up getting my ass kicked.

The thing I love about Elden Ring is it’s just much more wide open and if I get stuck fighting one type of enemies in one environment, I pop over to another part of the map and fight something else. With almost 30 hours in, I still don’t feel like I’m just completely blocked because I can’t progress past some enemy.

Also the whole Stake of Marika system means you can at least take another go at the boss immediately, without having to spend another 10 minutes trying to fight your way through the minions. That helps reduce frustration levels a lot and gives more practice fighting bosses, instead of constantly replaying the sections to get to the boss.

2040

I did the same thing. I ended up going back about thirty levels later. It wasn’t any less bullshit, but I had my Elden Ring legs by that point, so it was at least manageable.

2041

Good to know thank you. That site put up a weird ad on my phone though, about a “security alert” so be careful of that y’all.

2042

So uh… I just get this now when I try to play:

image

Spoiler: Restarting Steam gives you the same message every time (also no option to NOT restart Steam you can’t click on anything else).

Guess I’m gonna reboot the computer and hope that works?

2043

Wow this game is a rollercoaster.

2044

Okay, good to know. Link removed. Sorry. It’s just what came up when I googled for a screenshot showing the proper icon (I would have just taken my own screenshot, but I currently don’t have any map areas I’ve reached that I haven’t already grabbed the correct map fragment for).

2045

Oh great thank you! The screenshot alone is super helpful.

2046

Steam seems to be having some issue with cloud back-ups. I just got alerts for about five different titles, so I don’t think it’s specifically an Elden Ring thing.

-Tom

2047

Rebooting my system worked. I had a Windows update and somehow a Steam update that Steam wasn’t updating. Weirdness but it worked out.

2048

It looks like they rolled out a new cloud save status thing. There are probably some glitches.

2049