Yeah.
I’m a melee guy. I have no spells, I have some arrows but they do hilariously low damage.
fire bombs?
Mmm I accept that. I use the pots surprisingly little.
Lightening arrows.
I always have a bow available, even for melee characters as there are times you just have to cheese something. By halfway thru the game you can poison, rot or bleed enemies.
I too rarely use bombs. I tend to forget I have them and tbh until you get the ones that burn (volcanic stone somethings) they do little damage. Kukri’s work but you need to get close to use throwing knives.
My left thumb is for all practical purposes non-functional. The wrist also has issues, and I have a less than 1 lb weight limit on holding anything in that hand. The best medical facility in driving distance offered a surgery involving removing bones and physically wiring the thumb into the base. I declined, as due to the underlying condition causing it, it may not heal from the surgery. So …
Controller is obviously out as I can not manipulate the left stick. Full stop. Even trying is excruciatingly painful.
I just got Elden Ring on the Christmas sale. I can remap enough keys and buttons (also with a LogitechG502). The game recognized Mouse 4&5, which for many console ports was a nice surprise. It took maybe two weeks of trying various key mappings, but you can remap enough with what they provide to make it work fine in terms of offloading that thumb. If I can get something to work with my thumb, I suspect you can too.
However. Camera Lock can go die a horrible death. Spells and mounted combat are a particularly nasty combo. I love the mounted combat btw. Just not with spells. I’m getting there with that though as current character is a mage.
And this. My (adult) son is playing using his controller and we are streaming to each other in Discord as we work through it. The difference in control obvious.
However, I am able to make it work and the game is fun! My first souls game too, as a grandmother no less. Friends told me though that if I had made it through much of MH:W and soloed all the Valheim bosses but the last, I would probably be able to grasp it. So far, so good. All solo.
That’s my situation and KB&M report.
Thank you for the encouragement Hechicera! I know I can make it work now and your description of how to go about it gives me hope. Plus my thumb is slowly getting better which sadly isn’t an option for you. I’m going to give it a go after I finish Vampire Survivors (and Stray which I started as a less demanding game for sure). Meow :)
In my defense, I still don’t have that recipe. From what I see in the wiki, it’s in an area I still haven’t fully explored.
If i was fighting you in real life and I could sit on top of a 1 story rock raining arrows down on you and slowly but surely ending you, that’s not cheesing…that’s smart.
I’m playing a range bow guy right now and trying to see how far I can take mostly using bows only…it’s fun.
Hechicera, you’re a goddam hero.
One of the reasons I’m playing Elden Ring is that it has easier bosses than other DS games, thanks to the Spirit Ashes. But… I wonder if they went overboard with them. Once you have a good spirit ashes at level 8-10, there are some bosses that they are able to solo, on their own, without you doing anything. I also could not use spirits I know, but if a game give the player x tools, I expect the difficulty to be balanced towards using all the available tools. I think spirit ashes should have been capped at level 7, or at least put only the last upgrade materials in the last two areas of the game.
There are, towards the end, bosses most people couldn’t solo. I think they are harder than most end game DS bosses. I think they consider spirit ashes to be the easy mode for the non-hardcore. Although a couple bosses are tough even with spirit ashes.
The mimic tear and Tiche are probably too powerful though.
I think part of the issue is that is a open world rpg with static enemy and weapon levels. So, well, it’s very hard to always offer the player a fair fight, not too easy nor too hard, as the players can explore with freedom, can do things out of the intended sequence, can grind more or less in some areas, etc etc.
I wonder, what other games out there exist with a similar combat?
With this I mean, that is decently freeform/systemic.
-with real time, player-driven action combat
-Where you can choose weapon type, with different properties, damage, length, animations, weight, etc
-where you can choose to dual wield, or use a weapon with one or two hands, or weapon + shield…
-where you can choose your attributes (strength, dexterity, vitality, endurance, etc) that affect the combat
-clasless, in the sense you can be a warrior, a mage, or mix freely whatever you want.
I can only think of Mount & Blade, and it’s a bit less all-encompassing.
Spirits become almost worthless post /at fire giant really. If you over level them they are great pre golden city though, they can trivialize some of the bosses. It also is pretty dependent on how and what order you tackle the content in.
I could go with spirits being slightly less useful the first 60% of the game, and much more useful later on.
I really enjoyed Nioh 2 after Elden Ring. It’s more complicated, but there are a zillion different ways to build your character out and the magic system is a skill, just like ninja skills or melee skills so you can mix and match to go with your play style.
I really just don’t like this at all. Looks really well done, but after playing for a couple hours and realizing that my experience was 90% frustration and 10% aimless wandering, I decided to uninstall it. Maybe I’ll check it out again some time in the future.
To be fair, I think most people who haven’t really played other Fromsoft games have pretty much the same experience you’re describing here. I felt a little frustrated at first too at how little direction the game gives the player. However, I think peeking at a Wiki or guide is perfectly fine for these kinds of games (since they are so difficult to begin with), which helps a lot when you’re starting. After you beat the first Demi-god boss, the game clicks a lot more and it should feel much less frustrating.
That said, it does require quite a bit of patience at times. If you’re not over-leveled, be prepared for major (and some of the minor) bosses to take 10-30 attempts. But this just makes them feel so much more rewarding when they’re finally defeated.
This is my first souls game.
And indeed I do liberally read wikis etc.
And yeah I did feel lost for a while.
Enjoying it.
I highly recommend watching some videos on how to get started, how to get decent items early on etc. There was no advantage I could get that made me feel bad about getting it. My enjoyment of the game went up exponentially the more I learned how to cheese it lol.
Also first souls game, but am a MH:W alum. So I was ready for the death loops, and really don’t care. As, I look at them as puzzle games. The puzzle is a dungeon layout, or an opponent move set. The death penalty is so light, esp. compared to Valheim, and easily planned for. So I see it more as infinite “lives” in which to solve the puzzle. I’m also used to open worlds/sandboxes, so “pick a direction” was expected.
But, I was curious by my 4th restart or so (working out keybinds) about what path the game expected you to take. Even with an open world, there usually is a cannon expected path. And I figured out how to tell! Bring up any wiki or stand alone map (the one on map genie is good with the filters for this). Filter for recipe books only. Then do a sub-search for “Nomadic” to get only the Nomadic Warrior’s recipe book set. This is also great if you want the lowest spoiler method of seeing this.
And there you have it, a nicely numbered list of where they think you will end up next in some expected path.