1949

I finally found a cave with stone 3s. They even trolled me with lower grade stones and somber stones. +14 weapon!

1950

Is there a conventional wisdom about whether it’s foolish to spend stones on your starting weapon, versus saving them for a cooler weapon you find later? Earlier in the thread it seemed like there was some difference of opinion, and after all, that was like 6000 hours of forum gameplay ago.

1951

I’ve had crashes since day one, roughly every 5-10 hours. Sometimes it just freezes forever while the music keeps playing, and sometimes it hard crashes. It also crashes every time I quit (from the main menu or Alt-F4). I’ve never lost progress, but I’m backing up my saves just in case.

There are plenty of stones to find. The important question is, do you like your weapon’s moveset? There aren’t too many weapons to collect early. I leveled the looted greatsword until I found a Claymore to buy because the straight-stab strong moves make it much more versatile in the long run. You can also buy stones later on.

1952

I don’t think that’s too far from the official lore, which the game makes even less of an attempt than their previous games to get across to you. I think the Tarnished are kind of exiles, maybe self-imposed, who are returning from outside of the Lands Between because of the breaking of the Elden Ring.

1953

I was going to tell him he was rage quitting wrong, but you told him. :)

1954

So funny thing, friend shared with me this Twitter thread in order to do some rune farming. I thought I’d give it a whirl.

It first involves going to Summonwater Village and talking to a guy named D. So I made my way there tonight and…no D. Like, I skirted around the whole village and didn’t find him. Even used the awesome map to try to find him:

And still no D. I guess I won’t be getting the big D tonight. I’ll try again for some D tomorrow.

1955

That seems pretty close, except for the part where the Tarnished are apparently killed for some attribute they have.

1956

Is that what’s happening with the martyrs and such? I don’t understand why this game plays everything so close to the vest. Maybe they figure yeah, yeah, whatever, we know why you’re here, kill monsters, etc. and make some vague story gestures.

1957

There is an NPC in Stormveil who mentions something like that. He sells magical ash for weapons. Not understanding there use I passed on them.

1958

I’m not sure I found that guy. That place is quite a maze.

1959

My lvl 32 wizard beat Margit on the first try. Summoned wolves (not upgraded at all) and spammed rock sling using the meteorite staff. Used one health pot and two mana and he was dead. He’d just killed the last wolf when my rock sling stunned him, and I spammed them fast and hard to finish him off.

Stormveil Castle is pretty f’n cool.

1960

And I thought I was a late bloomer for not beating him until I was level 28!

-Tom

1961

Today I thought I was making my way thru the castle, but after fighting thru several areas I finally realized the Site of Grace I had found was actually another entrance to the Stormveil and not an advancement. Damn.

1962

Also doubles as a maze, easily. Yesterday I spent about an hour trying to get to a secret location before I caved in and looked it up on youtube. Being able to jump over the walls definitely makes things a lot more complex (and fun) as far as exploration goes.

On an unrelated note, has anyone figured out if the optional bosses out in the wilderness that require a specific time of day (usually night) to be present are RNG based? As in, they don’t always seem to spawn, even if you travel away from their location and then back, or reset the world by resting at bonfire (or jumping between them).

1963

There are at least two kinds of encounters that only happen at night.

1964

I do know that bears are all over the SE map at night. Sure they exist during the day, but there are many more at night.

1965

Does collecting runes and using them to buy things and level up ever start to make sense? I’ve read through the descriptions for all of the Golden Runes I’ve found in Limgrave, but I’m no closer to understanding how puffs of symbols make me more powerful. Souls make sense intuitively, and consuming eldritch god blood for power is a great fit for the story and world of Bloodborne. But…runes? Maybe a better question is which mythologies associated with World Trees should I read about to try to understand how runes work.

From presents meticulous worlds in their games. It bothers me that I can’t wrap my hear around this basic feature of Elden Ring’s world.

1966

Yeah but what we’re talking about are actual boss fights (health bar and all).

Have to say, retreading my steps over the early game I’m amazed at how much I overlooked on my first character. Either I really suck at exploration or From is just really good at hiding catacomb entrances and such.

Also, if there is a game that does mounted combat better than this one I’d love to know. Nothing like charging at a very large boss on horseback and taking a flail to its knees repeatedly.

1967

I have never bothered with the lore in the DS series. If they can’t bother to explain it to me then maybe even they don’t really have a philosophy to explain it. I do think with ER they have tried new words for old items and in a way really confused things.

1968

My one complaint is it doesn’t do lance charges very well. I was very excited when I found an actual Lance for my knight, but using the weak attack you flail around with it as if it was a sword, which makes no sense at all. Actually achieving a hit with it using a strong attack is quite difficult (at least for me), much, much harder than doing the same thing with a sword. So while it looks cool (as long as you’re not swinging it around like an idiot), it functions pretty poorly.

I’d love for them to properly implement lance charging. But otherwise, I do love the mounted combat.