There’s a guy on Twitch who just ran through that game without taking any damage supposedly

Beat is a couple days ago after putting in 180 hours. The pins haven't been getting much attention lately....

I beat dark souls, twice.

No one deserves that much punishment.

Elden ring. Not happening.

I just started a new play-through tonight. My initial suggestion is to start as a Samurai. Unsheathe is crazy powerful early game.

Also, don't be afraid to get on YouTube or Reddit and look up where some early game OP items are. This game will bend you over repeatedly and laugh about it, so any little "boost" will be welcome.

To me it’s been significantly easier than other games. If you’re stuck, you find a new area to fool around in until your ready to progress the storyline. Not as much an option in the other games

I’m about 80 hours in. Loving it.The only tip I have is take your time & explore everything.

I think I have almost 90 hours in and am not even close to finishing. I didn't even fight Margit until I was 40+ hours in!

Having a bow with LOTS of arrows is good!

Rob

Beat it at lvl 13X @80 hours.

I kept my patience up until lvl 90 with no guides. Glad I made it that long but also glad I used the internet the same way ida used the lunch table to talk about hints and secret caves.

Had a dex/arcane samurai which wrecked anything I could get close too.

Absolutely wonderful game. They don't get much better than this.

This has been keeping me away from my pins which is a feat in itself. Absolutely astounding game, it's truly a work of art.

Edit: I didn't post any tips/tricks! One is to simply back off and turn tail from anything which is wrecking you. The game doesn't hold your hand and tell you when something is too powerful to take on - it'll just let you get pummelled over and over again. The Tree Sentinal right at the start is a prime example.

Another thing to try - ditch the shield and go with 2 swords it's amazing. Especially 2 of the same kind you get all new specific combos. I'm rocking 2 katanas at the moment and its all kinds of ace (you have to get good at dodging though).

Horse combat helped me a lot early on, especially against other horse riders and giants.

Rob

Definitely don't be afraid to look at videos and guides. I didn't have any help until about the 50hr mark and am so glad I started looking at hints and help online. Really opened the game up for me. The game has so many unspoken mechanics and weapon combinations that can make gameplay much more enjoyable. You do start to discover stuff organically but I don't have time for that!

This game is amazing. Easily a top 3 game of all time for myself.

Can't recommend this enough. I've never been great at parrying and the shield was just slowing me down. Once I started to use the roll/dodge as my "shield" the combat went from great to best ever. The weapon you get from General Radan is so fun to dual wield.

Just explore.If something is too hard , come back later.

The game is a marvel for the first 2/3 that I was thinking was literally the best of its kind ever. SO MUCH to do and see, and so much "lived in" world detail. Then I got to the last 1/3 and it became a boring, tedious slog. The last 1/3 is obviously rushed and really puts an unfortunate taint on the whole game. It needed another 6-12 months in development for that last 1/3, at least, by my estimation.

Also, the XBOX networking being borked from launch so summons were hard to pull off at times and invasions were almost nonexistent took away a key fun aspect of the game.

Build vigor. This is my first souls game it took me almost 2 weeks to start having fun, when I finally fought Marget.
I started taking notes and keeping track of areas I wasn’t able to finish, And a list of areas that I’ve cleared and Fog walls that I need to revisit and such.
Took me a while to realize on the map you can fast travel to sights of grace and that round table hold in the bottom left of the map.

The picture I added is my character as of now at level 60,
FB88036A-0EBD-44A2-B2F2-2363AC3D2B9F (resized).png

Iam level 138 at the moment and just got into Mountaintop of the Giants. I "HAD" been enjoying being overpowered but that came to an end and starting to struggle with the bosses again. Really an amazing game.

If I had a critique of the game is that it gives you zero direction... like if you recieve a new item there is no way to really figure out what to do without a guide of somesort.. I would have never completed Ranni's quest without a guide.

I'm at around 70 hours and level 80ish. My first souls game. I'm trying to avoid too many guides or spoilers, but I have looked up stuff like weapon recommendations. Smithing stones have been tough to come by, making me very stingy with them.

I had no idea going in a went with an Astrologer. Learning to dodge and keep distance has been key. I have like 3 staves (staffs?) that I need to choose between, but I'm afraid of wasting stones.

Leveling up weapons is arguably more important than your overall level. I noticed a big change in combat once I started using the smithing stones more.

***potential minor spoiler***

There are ways to acquire as many as you want, via the bells you give to a certain merchant.

Agreed. I had Astrologer's +8 before finding Meteorite. Meteorite doesn't allow upgrades, but is already better and scales S with INT. I don't think upgrading Astrologer's or Demi-human will make it better than Meteorite. I'm considering sword upgrades for times when I need it, but I also have Moonveil and only need a couple more DEX to use it.

Once you figure out the mechanics, which are extremely opaque, these kinds of decisions are a big part of the fun.

I'm a relative novice, so some of this might not be quite right.

*** MINOR SPOILERS MAYBE ***

When you level up, you get to add a point to an attribute, so for me as Astrologer, I choose INT most often.

A weapon will have minimum values (numbers) for some attributes before you can use it effectively. If any are red, don't bother equipping it.

A weapon will also have a letter for one of more attributes, which is the scaling. If I remember correctly, they're like E,D,C,B,A,S from worst to best. The better it is, the more your weapon improves when you upgrade that particular attribute.

When you strengthen your weapon using stones, it will sometimes improve the scaling as well. There are regular stones with levels, something like 1-5, each type allowing you to upgrade your weapon three levels. So, stone [1] can get you +1, +2, +3. Stone [2] for +4, +5, +6. Somber smithing stones are for a whole other tier of weapons.

Seriously - this is the best piece of advice ever if this is your first FROM Software game - do not be afraid to use google and places like the wiki to look things up:

https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Elden+Ring+Wiki

It does not mean you are failing - there is an absolute TONNE of stuff in this you can miss if you haven't played Demons/Dark Souls games before, and honestly these games are deliberately obtuse its all part of their charm.

I've played through every other game to completion but i've still had to use a guide to progress some of the NPC side quests - and believe me some of the stuff you see during the side quests are even more spectacular than the main game.

Oh wow didnt know this thread existed. I LOVED all 90 hours I spent with eldin ring. I beat it as a strength build and may go back and play it as something else later on. Ive beaten all the souls games except the original demon souls(played about 2/3 of it).

Anyways I just adored Eldin Ring. I couldnt do anything else with my free time while I was playing it. Just wanted more Elden Ring. I had Horizon FOrbidden west sitting there and just havent touched it....

I wanted to ask a question regarding gameplay and myself specifically.

I had a stroke and three brain surgeries, so my left hand is functional but not excellent. For instance I can play some pinball, but after about an hour, my left flipper hand grows tired.

Ultimately, I like to try harder and I am rewarded by trying to use the left more.

So what do you think about this game. Should I try it myself? Or should I just watch videos.

I was not good at demon souls before my stroke.

Should i try anyways, thanks in advance for your thoughts.

https://www.wired.com/story/elden-ring-difficulty-modes/

He died five times in thirty minutes and then some trepidation sets in. I might be like this player.

Pet peeves about Elden Ring:

- Accidently dismounting your horse in a battle by clicking the left stick. I can't tell how dozens and dozens of times this has happened.
- Turn off PS5 motion control. I died many times when trying to use my pouch for a potion and got stuck in a gesture during battle. The ring gesture OMG lasts like 15-20 seconds...
- Pots, glintstones and other throwable things... I never use them because you don't get very many, so what's the point of even bothering?
- Item crafting just becomes a huge chore. Other than summons, there really isn't much worth crafting. Farm runes to buy arrows because it is way way way too tedious to kill 35 billion sheep for enough thin bones.
- Farming runes is just lame. I've probably spent many hours just doing this.

My tips:

- Buy keys and recipes whenever you see a merchant who has them
- Remember where to buy arrows and other throwables that the shopkeeper doesn't run out of
- Use the wraith calling bell to lure enemies 1 at a time.
- Use the wraith calling bell with a lot of FP potions to spam kill dragons from a save vantage.
- Bows are great for sniping enemies
- Skeleton summons can ressurrect if they are not hit while dismembered the first time.
- Wolf summon is probably the best early on. Others are lame like the jellyfish and sage.
- Get good at horse combat if you can. It's key to winning some battles I think.
- Use the wraith calling bell against mosquitoes. Such annoying pests!
- Don't screw up your rebirth (stats re-arranging) if you choose to! I wasn't happy the first time I did this and had to go find another larval tear.
- Don't become a tank. Heavy armor and weapons mean protection, but you moves and ability to roll is seriously compromised.

Rob

I asked on another forum and the response I got was:

"Controller-wise, if the user has issues with using the left hand for long periods of time, maybe the Xbox Adaptive Controller can be used?
Build wise, High Vigor/Endurance/Strength build with heavy armor and the use of summon spirits may help. I'd want to suggest using a Greatshield, but that would require holding down L1 for long periods of time (potentially) and that might be an issue for the left hand."

Maybe this helps!

What really drove this home for me was when I was in the middle of a conversation with an NPC and was attacked from behind.

YOU DIED

My time on this now seems to consist of either:

1) Getting absolutely SMASHED by everything in whatever latest area I've found.

2) Going back to previous bosses/dungeons that I couldn't do before - laughing in their face and then proceeding to decimate them with my (now significantly upgraded) swords.

I mentioned it above, but this has been much more enjoyable for me since ditching the shields. Put a weapon of the same type in each hand (2 katanas, 2 flails etc) and the block button becomes a "whirling dance of death" button instead.

I'd also say put some priority on:

- upgrading your weapons with stones - don't just keep levelling up your character without upgrading your tools the benefit is really diminshed
- investing a bit in vigour when you level up - it just saves you from getting killed in one hit all the time. When you can take a few more hits it's less frustrating.

Enjoy it and don’t throw your controller into a wall, as bad as you want to. If balls-out aggro isn’t working, using a shield - saved my bacon on a few bosses so far. Sometimes aggro is the way and the shield stays stashed as the Katanas hack away.

Biggest one I’d say is that you can respec after fighting the second major boss in Raya Lucaria. So don’t stress too much if you’ve picked attributes that you regret at that point. I swapped over after beating her to a “battle mage” DEX/INT build (Moonveil) and I’m absolutely loving it.

My first Souls game, loving it but the curve is steep…

Finally beat Maliketh last night. By far the toughest boss in the game so far. That second phase was ROUGH. Also the tree sentinel on the bridge in front of Maliketh's area is almost as hard as the boss fight.

Upgrade your summons! Makes life a lot easier.

I will be a watcher on this game. Life goes on for me. I play a lot of world of Warcraft and mtg arena. Just beautiful, I wish they would make a less punishing game franchise, as well as this one.

https://www.pcgamer.com/paralysed-former-firefighter-beats-elden-ring-by-blowing-into-tubes/

That's definitely the truth. I accidentally took a wrong path and walked into the final battle on Zelda well before I intended to, and won on the first try.

Compare that to Elden Ring where only a minute into the game they throw a boss at you, knowing you'll lose, and that's part of advancing the story.

Start slow and level up “early” and it’s hard but not impossible. There’s a few Rune farms out there (one in particular) that can give you a really nice slingshot into the game without ruining the experience. Fire me a DM if you want to know about it so people that don’t aren’t spoiled.

I’m only on what would be considered mid-game I think (I’m level 56) and most bosses I’m fighting still require strategy but aren’t punishing to the point of frustration. If I get schooled I come back when I’m a higher level. It doesn’t have to be brutal to be fun.

I'm level 80+ and keep getting my butt kick by bosses and hard foes. I've dabbled in sorcery and incantations a bit after playing many hours just with using brute force. All of my incantations feel rather lackluster so far using too much FP for the damage they do. Glintstone floating protection swords are probably over powered because they usually stun even moderate foes. It makes me want to invest in INT more so I can get the bigger sword version and abandon my faith attribute path. For a brute force weapon, I am still using the Golden Halberd from the tree sentinel (golden guy on horse at the beginning). I only found 1 weapon which scales S and it's INT (Meteor Staff). It's like I find what I DON"T need rather than what I need.

The bell is still one of the best weapons aside from bow for ranged combat. I've killed Dragons with it, it just takes a little while.

Rob

I’m digging Moonveil/Meteorite staff on a INT/DEX build with Loretta’s Greatbow for sniping and Rock Sling for closer ranged stuff. I still suck and die all of the time but at least I feel like I have a chance!

DO NOT continue buffing a faith character, go with your gut and abandon that path. You cannot finish the last boss with a faith character build. Giant game-end middle finger to players that chose that route with zero warning or clues along the way that I saw. I know they've changed stats on a lot of the bosses now with the last few patches, but pretty sure the final boss is still unbeatable with a faith-build character.

I've just re-specced my character for the second time... just slightly....

First build was a DEX/INT katana wielding sorcerer, I then decided to ditch magic and go full DEX and use a bow for range, which was infinitely better. However, I've just found another sword called "Rivers of Blood" that requires 20 Arcane. I just had to have this immediately so removed the remaining points I had in INT (for Moonveil) and dumped them in ARC instead. Now have a monster Nagakiba +18 in one hand and Rivers of Blood +8 in the other, which is some sweet weaponage right there... I'm still getting my ass kicked though.