The Cracked Mug v 2.0

[erikavonkaiser]

Sophie is already memeing about our thembo child

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[Fetian]

3) I do think I'm still going to struggle with progression in some ways. For instance, I hit my first boss that I had to get through, was defeated three times, and then went "eh" and switched to playing Stardew Valley. I deeply lack the thing that makes people enjoy the challenge of fighting a boss like that multiple times (it's the same reason I ultimately bounced off Hades and will not play Hades 2; I really wanted to love that game but it made me more grumpy than joyful so I set it aside) and I am not sure how to ... not lack that! It's the reason I've always avoided Soulslike games. I'm not very good at them, and I end up feeling punished for not being very good at them.

Which boss?

Elden ring is sort of designed so you bounce off the first "real" boss and go do something else the first time you reach them, to teach you (and, more aptly, people who are used to soulsborne games) that that's okay to do. That said, it's okay to do and very effective! Not even necessarily 'go grind for an hour and come back' but being like 'fuck this guy, I'm going to go look around over here for a while instead' and go explore and find a different quest to put yourself on. I think when I bounced off Margit I ran around picking up map pieces

Basically if you run into an area and you're not hitting enemies for as much damage as you think you should, you're in the wrong area. But otherwise go ham

If you want tips for easy runes, I have 'em

All that being said, I do have friends who can help me beat bosses (I think there's a co-op feature?) and I know Greggo would definitely help, since I used to have him help me with CODE VEIN. I also could grind and make my weapons stronger and stuff, which I'm not completely adverse to doing. So I've not given up, but it may be slowgoing because once I give it a few tries I start to lose interest. I'm not sure why I do that with this style of game (+roguelikes) in particular, because I've grinded out and beaten high end content in other games (Destiny, Doom, speedruns in Resident Evil). More mobility in those other games, maybe? I dunno!

There is indeed a co-op feature and I think the xbox is able to co-op with PC copies, but I'm not positive. I am, either way, stuck in sony-land all alone, but my point is I think Dave might also be available for jolly cooperation. There's also! A like, club feature where you can join a group and when people in it reach milestones in their games you get a boost to rune acquisition. I have some of these on my game and basically always have the buff

I am trying not to infodump All The Things at you, sorry if I get too excited and say too much

4) mek how do I go fast is it dexterity will that make me fast boy I don't wanna swing slow I wanna be FAST

I think attack speed is purely weapon dependent, they all have set attack animations. But your general speed and dodge speed depend on your equip load, which is determined by stamina. You want to keep your equipment at light or medium load to be a fast boi, so boost stamina and/or wear light armor and carry light weapons (which will also generally have faster attack animations, to boot)

Your equip load is only equipment, not your inventory as a whole, so carrying around All The Swords won't weigh you down

Apparently dexterity is the stat that determines fall damage, so that's good to know. And how fast you cast spells, which is an odd choice, but I guess if you want to be a fast flamethrower boy, that's an option

 
One more 'a lot of people have this problem' tip: if you have hugged the lady, she has given you an item that will reduce your HP by 5% until you use it, but when you use it, it increases your poise for a period of time. If you have a little red square under your status bar with a down arrow in the corner, you have reduced HP and it's probably for this reason.

I'm excited you're playing it!! I wanna know all about Gild's adventures *_*

[knightofcups]

I would just like to say that this post makes me feel joyful.

[erikavonkaiser]

Okay! Follow-ups and further observations after playing a little more last night!

@mek: so the boss was in fact Margit, and when looking up the list of bosses to confirm which one, I was surprised to see he is optional! I think I am just very used to linear progression in games, even in big worlds like Skyrim you have a literal list of errands and chores to do. I can do that all day (completing small tasks makes brain go brrrr) but I think I need to reframe how I play Elden Ring, since I have been directly following the little light source things and when one of them took me Margitways I was like oh clearly I need to defeat this creature next. But I guess not necessarily?

And good to know re: stats! Is there a way to reroll your stats? When I did character creation I picked a class with high dexterity because I assumed that was the speedylad stat, but it sounds like I may need to dump into stamina and look up what kind of weapons I should use. Right now I have double scimitars which seems okay, I think.

THAT HUGGIN' HO SHE TOOK MY HIT POINTS???? I do in fact have that red square because I was wondering what it was and now I know it's BETRAYAL AND LIES

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also I will give you the same exemption I have given Greggo, which is the Erika Exemption from Mansplaining because in the case of Elden Ring I know nothing and am happy to get ticks/trips -- wow NO I do NOT want ticks and trips, wtf brain! I would like tips and tricks, though. So advice is welcome!

[erikavonkaiser]

There is indeed a co-op feature and I think the xbox is able to co-op with PC copies, but I'm not positive. I am, either way, stuck in sony-land all alone, but my point is I think Dave might also be available for jolly cooperation.

OH YEAH GOOD POINT

hey @Dax Webster

[erikavonkaiser]

Sophie came to see me for three days and it was pretty gay and excellent!

On day one we did about the gayest thing I've ever done, which is we picked out a wine (from the middle shelf at the grocery store; neither of us are wine drinkers so not only did we have to Google "what wine goes with [the chicken curry dish we were making for dinner]" but we fully acknowledged The Good Stuff would be wasted on us), made dinner together, and then, um.

Showed each other PowerPoint presentations of our OCs.

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That's three slides from mine, I think we each had about twenty slides and limited it to five (ish) characters. I ended up going over my Trifecta (Rex, Silas, Phi -- I make iterations of them in virtually every video game I play, or just any environment that Needs an OC, and two of them have canonical versions) and then added on Merillian and Leon.

We had a blast! It's the first time I've been able to share this part of my brain with a partner and it was nice to be like "this is the sailor himbo I made and his fish boyfriend and I think about them smoochin' sometimes" and not feel like I should be embarrassed or ashamed. I like making things and telling stories and filling those stories with my dumb gay sons! Sophie supports that, which I appreciate.

We also went used bookshopping (I discovered, dangerously, there is a delightful used bookstore around the corner from me), took Baby Dog to the dog beach, and watched Sophie's favorite sci-fi show, Babylon 5! I had never seen it before, we watched the pilot movie and then maybe half of the first season. I don't know if anyone here is a fan but I've enjoyed it so far, it's 90s in the best sort of way and while I have been slightly frustrated by how often the plot hinges on that entire station having the worst security ever (ilu Garibaldi but,,,,) I've definitely enjoyed the writing otherwise.

(It's funny to me how often I see people critiquing shows for "getting political" in the tone of that being a new-fangled thing and my brother have you watched literally any science fiction show ever it is baked into the genre)

We did some other stuff (dark star run of Unpacking! Pokemon drawing game that I should explain sometime because it's a really fun icebreaker type game that only requires basic knowledge of any generation of Pokemon and the ability to digitally or traditionally draw!) but mostly just ... spent time together and it was nice!

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Baby Dog kept trying to steal my woman though

[Fetian]

I want to react to that post with multiple rainbows

[Fetian]

I also found out that Margit was optional when I looked him up last night to make sure I was remembering his name correctly -- the fucken names in this game are awful for people who have trouble remembering people's names, it's super problematic and discrimination against me personally. I'm surprised, but since you can go around the castle, I guess it makes sense. Basically all the boss fights are optional, except that you need to defeat a certain number of them to progress, but I thought Margit and (fuckin', what's his name, I literally just looked it up five minutes ago,) Godrick were mandatory. Guess not!

But yeah, I think Margit is specifically designed to slap the player down and encourage them to go back and do something else for a while, and to experiment with the co-op system. It's also the direct point from -- okay, hold on, I'm going to explain how enemy scaling works real quick

There is disagreement in the community about how enemy scaling works, but something that is known is that non-boss enemies don't scale to your level, but to the area they're in. So enemies have a base stat, and the area they're in will give them boosts to those stats. So the same enemy will have one set of stats in Limgrave and a different set in Caelid. Stormveil Castle marks a point between two of those areas, so I think Margit (and Godrick) are designed to be a 'turn back if you're not a high enough level for the area after this' test

Anyway, if you went straight from game start toward Stormveil, my specific recommendation is to go west from start, to the cliffs, and explore the beach that's under them. I found that to be a good area to start with, when I started playing. Just don't be like me and do this

But there's also several little dungeons to do in Limgrave, and a few quests

Oh, and to go around Stormveil -- this will take you into that 'area after this' I mentioned, but there are some goodies before that, and it's not like the enemies in it are harder than the bosses, just remember what I said about turning back if you get into the lakes and get body-slammed by a crawfish -- but you'll go under this bridge circled and follow the broken bridge to the end of it. The path from there is pretty obvious. Specifically, there's a useful story beat from the maiden following you if you rest at a grace beyond Stormveil, and there's one along that path. I don't remember what happens but I do remember when I restarted a character specifically speedrunning to that grace to make it happen, so it must be important for something or other

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And good to know re: stats! Is there a way to reroll your stats? When I did character creation I picked a class with high dexterity because I assumed that was the speedylad stat, but it sounds like I may need to dump into stamina and look up what kind of weapons I should use. Right now I have double scimitars which seems okay, I think.

There is a way to reroll your stats, but it's a ways into the game (you have to defeat a boss in Liurnia). I was going to say that you will probably want to stick with your current class because I thought that classes with higher endurance were also the strength-based ones, but I looked it up and fextra has these recommendations for starting out:

• Melee Vagabond: The ideal starting class for melee fighters and beginners due to its well-rounded nature and highest Vigor, giving new players the highest health pool to begin the game.

• Hybrid Casting Confessor: This class focuses on DEX and Faith making you a hybrid caster. Good for Magic beginners.

• High END Samurai: Samurai is a lot of people's favorite starting class because of its great starting Weapon, which gives you an advantage at the start of the game, and you start of with great Endurance.

  • Magic Caster Astrologer: For those who want to focus on Magic and Sorcery

  • Aggressive Warrior: A bleed-focused Build has been made for beginners who want to play aggressively. New players to this classes can try and make modifications to the existing Bloodblade Build.

So if you're up for starting over and experimenting with your class, that's an option, but because there's no real penalty to overlevelling, it's also an option to just start levelling your endurance now.

THAT HUGGIN' HO SHE TOOK MY HIT POINTS???? I do in fact have that red square because I was wondering what it was and now I know it's BETRAYAL AND LIES
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The item is genuinely very useful when you actually use it! But yeah she just kind of slipped it into your pocket without you noticing

The, stat modification bar icons are an awful system and I wish very much they'd included any kind of explanation of what any of them are.

Hold on, I'm going to come back with some rune-grinding tips, I need to get some screenshots from my game

[Fetian]

Oh another good place to explore before you head north to Liurnia is that little australia-lookin' island to the south. That is also Limgrave, so intended for the same rough level-range as the starting area, and there's a couple of quests that happen along the main path there

Your main grindable spot in Limgrave is going to be Gatefront Ruins, but you probably could have guessed that. Just travel back and forth between the Gatefront and Agheel Lake North graces, killing all the dudes between them. I also found Coastal Cave to be a good spot, rest at the grace inside the cave, run out and kill the group of enemies just outside it, rest at the grace again, repeat. (You can also just keep doing the cave repeatedly). That said, there's enough to do in Limgrave that isn't grinding, that grinding isn't really necessary at that point

Also good (it was my favourite for a while) is the Third Church of Marika

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There's a giant just outside it, so you rest at the grace, run out to kill it for ~1000 runes, run back inside, rest, repeat. With an ash summoned it can go pretty quick

Caelid is a deceptively high-level area, but if you want a passive grind, here's what you do:
Run past everything to the Southern Aeonia Swamp Bank grace so you can get that, you'll be starting here

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Get on your horse and head south, swing wide at this platform

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Or you'll kite this bird and it'll keep hitting you while you're trying to run

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Keeping going south, try to get the dogs' attention, if it looks like one is going to bite you, move at a diagonal. They usually won't be able to get an attack going until you're past them, and they'll chase you down to the camp at the end of the path

Jump over the fence, swing right to the cliffs, jump onto them, and hang out while the battle takes care of itself. When the soldiers and dogs are done fighting, you'll have gotten ~2000 runes, if you want to you can then jump down and try picking off the stragglers from horseback, or you can fast travel to the first grace and start it over

It does take a while for them to kill each other, so this isn't a fast way to earn runes (""earn"" runes), but it's great if you've got a video to watch while you do it, or whatever

Your path will look like this:

You can also swing left at the fence and hang out on the rocks above the battle there, but there's a chance one of the dogs will end up up there and then you'll have a bad time, so I prefer the higher cliffs past the watchtower

Fextra's game progress guide recommends Limgrave stuff up to level 30, then Stormveil Castle at 30~40. Obviously that's going to vary from person to person with different character builds and skills and so on, but that gives you an idea of where they expect you to be before you have a solid chance against Margit.

I will be back with more tips if I think of any other things a lot of players end up surprised by!

[knightofcups]

I don't know how to say I am specifically reacting to the visit-recap post but I am.

THAT IS SO SWEET AND GOOD AND NICE AND