General Gaming Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree - Information Thread, update (06/21): Fextralife guides posted

[Mercury33]

1 hour ago, legend said:

 

The game design is ostensibly built around fun hard challenges that you have to overcome. If cheesing it is a solution people reach for, it implies that it has failed at making that part of the game actually fun and worthwhile.

 

I'm not sure pushing through something so hard you're not enjoying it is great, but if your alternative is eliminating one of the pillars of the game, I can see why people might not love doing that either.

 

A better solution might be difficulty modes so that someone can always choose something that gives a challenge *for them* without it being a binary "it's hard as fuck" or "it's trivial," but From seems allergic to adding difficulty modes.

This is incorrect. The developers have long stood by the fact that however you figure out how to get through the game, that is the correct way.
 

If you go naked, parry every attack and never get hit. That’s correct. 

 

If you farm so you’re way over leveled in order to get past something. That’s correct. 
 

If you cheese an environmental advantage in a fight to win. That’s correct. 
 

There are zero sections or bosses in any From Software game that are so cheap you can’t win without getting lucky. Adding difficulty levels to these games is the single WORST thing the developers could do. There are thousands of games designed to let you breeze through to the end if you want. This is not one of them. Not every game is for everyone. If someone doesn’t like a game then simply don’t play it. 
 

And this is not coming from any kind of elitest “From are for real gamers” nonsense. I use Moonveil and Mimic Tear +10 all time. 

[Keyser_Soze]

1 hour ago, TheLeon said:

Elden Ring is “easy” once you know what you’re doing. You can trivialize a lot of tricky boss fights by using the right strategy/weapon/item. It just takes a lot of perseverance, trial and error, and exploration to get to that point. Or you can use the extensive wiki. 
 

Like you can say “just max out your mimic tear to unlock ez mode”, but that’s not exactly a simple one step process. When I took down Mohg the other day, it only took a couple of tries, mostly because I had sought out a few specific items that I knew would make it a lot easier (and I ended up not even needing the shackles).

 

Stand back rotten breath, ez game

 

[Keyser_Soze]

Is this more or less impressive than beating it on a dance pad?

 

 

[BloodyHell]

49 minutes ago, Best said:

 

I don't remember specific number of tries but definitely too many lol. I understand this game and why others love it. 

 

You're never going to convince me it's an easy game. 

 NOt saying it’s “easy”, it’s definitely challenging, but absolutely anyone can beat most of it. Especially if you have friends to help you.

 

PC is easily the best way because of the Seamless coop mod, but it’s easily done on console as well. 
 

im playing on pc and ps5. PS5 alone, and PC with my best friend. It’s definitely easier with a friend, but mimic tear helps a lot of the difficult fights. 

[BloodyHell]

28 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Is this more or less impressive than beating it on a dance pad?

 

 

That’s pretty interesting. What is the headset? Something on the market, or something they are trying to develop?

[Moa]

14 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

That’s pretty interesting. What is the headset? Something on the market, or something they are trying to develop?

 

Briefly looking through her twitter it's a portable EEG machine, which I highly doubt is self-constructed. Super impressive stuff since I assumed there'd be some sort of eye tracking, gesture-based control, not pure brain activity.

[Best]

45 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

 NOt saying it’s “easy”, it’s definitely challenging, but absolutely anyone can beat most of it. Especially if you have friends to help you.

 

PC is easily the best way because of the Seamless coop mod, but it’s easily done on console as well. 
 

im playing on pc and ps5. PS5 alone, and PC with my best friend. It’s definitely easier with a friend, but mimic tear helps a lot of the difficult fights. 

 

I played with my nephew for a few boss fights but he is way too busy for consistent help. He is extremely skilled in games so he litteraly destroyed the bosses as I ran around watching. 

 

I used randoms on some of the main bosses but you can't use online help for every boss type. 

[BloodyHell]

43 minutes ago, Best said:

 

I played with my nephew for a few boss fights but he is way too busy for consistent help. He is extremely skilled in games so he litteraly destroyed the bosses as I ran around watching. 

 

I used randoms on some of the main bosses but you can't use online help for every boss type. 

You can summon online help for absolutely any part of the game 

[Best]

4 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

You can summon online help for absolutely any part of the game 

 

I remember trying to summon help and it only working for the "main" bosses in the game. Well that's interesting but I'm still shelving the game. 

[TheLeon]

Beat the lion boss in Belurat and made it through a bunch of Castle Ensis. Considering I spent last week breezing through a bunch of the main game, this has been a major adjustment for me. Everything is new and exciting (and very dangerous). 

[Mercury33]

Just finished Castle Enis! This is 10000% my weapon for the rest of the game. Perfect way to extend the game given the ending I got for the base game. 
 

1 mini dungeon, 1 world(what an asshole), two main bosses down. 

[legend]

4 hours ago, Mercury33 said:

This is incorrect. The developers have long stood by the fact that however you figure out how to get through the game, that is the correct way.
 

If you go naked, parry every attack and never get hit. That’s correct. 

 

If you farm so you’re way over leveled in order to get past something. That’s correct. 
 

If you cheese an environmental advantage in a fight to win. That’s correct. 

 

The developers have said on numerous occasions that they want to make a game where people have to struggle and work together to overcome it, which is defeated if trivial cheesing is the way people get through it. They've cited this very reason for not including difficulty modes.

 

But hey, if you want to cling to the developers thinking trivial cheesing makes a fun game, okay fine. They want bad game design I guess. The criticism about the game design stands regardless of developer intention.

 

4 hours ago, Mercury33 said:

There are zero sections or bosses in any From Software game that are so cheap you can’t win without getting lucky.

 

I'm sure all the bosses can be beat without luck. That has nothing to do with the point I made.

 

4 hours ago, Mercury33 said:

Adding difficulty levels to these games is the single WORST thing the developers could do. There are thousands of games designed to let you breeze through to the end if you want. This is not one of them. Not every game is for everyone. If someone doesn’t like a game then simply don’t play it. 
 

 

And now you're contradicting yourself and making my very point. If you want the game to be challenging, then it's bad game design to allow it to be trivially cheesed as an escape hatch. Difficulty modes that offer more than the binary "it's easy" and "it's hard" is a substantially better escape hatch, because then people can keep it challenging without getting blocked and resorting to making it trivial. Having mechanics that make it a breeze is akin to offering "hard" and "very easy" mode and nothing in between.

 

 

[skillzdadirecta]

17 minutes ago, legend said:

The developers have said on numerous occasions that they want to make a game where people have to struggle and work together to overcome it, which is defeated if trivial cheesing is the way people get through it. But hey, if you want to cling to the developers thinking trivial cheesing makes a fun game, okay fine. They want bad game design I guess. The criticism about the game design stands regardless of developer intention.

Most games, especially RPGS can be cheesed if you find an OP build and over level, so are you saying all RPGS suffer from bad game design? The one From game that can't be cheesed like this is Sekiro which forces you to learn how play it on its terms with the ability to cheese it. I'm sure Miyazaki would want all of his games to more more like Sekiro than Elden Ring, but Elden Ring is the compromise for newer players. It's still challenging but not unbearably so and most people who do play it don't resort to cheesing it at all. Hell most players don't want to use summons or spirt ashes and don't even use all of the tools available to them because the challenge IS the fun so i don 't think Elden Ring has failed in this aspect at all. All @Mercury33 was saying that there really is no wrong way to play it and if you're stuck on whatever part you're stuck on, finding a way past it IS part of the fun and the game design and if "cheesing" is the way to do it, then that's your decision. The game is preventing you from doing that at all and because it doesn't, it doesn't mean the game has "failed". @JPDunks4 where is that Miyazaki quote you shared with us on Discord?

[legend]

14 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Most games, especially RPGS can be cheesed if you find an OP build and over level, so are you saying all RPGS suffer from bad game design?

 

Developers usually take great pains to avoid OP builds as much as possible, and they would consider that a failing in their game design, yes. There are exceptions where a game is designed to breakable as part of its very nature, but usually by requiring the player to think outside the box. E.g., Larian's games usually fit this mold where it's designed to be hard if you do the dumb thing, but very easy when you think outside the box by leveraging the various systems. Elden Ring's (or probably almost any From game's) design philosophy is at odds with cheesing and from what people are saying, doesn't succeed in making the OP cheesing strategy an interesting strategy.

 

The point I'm responding to ITT is that people are citing very easy to cheese mechanics in Elden Ring as a feature to make it easier. But this is an absolutely awful way to unblock a player that does a disservice to their goal if the problem is people getting stuck.

 

14 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

The one From game that can't be cheesed like this is Sekiro which forces you to learn how play it on its terms with the ability to cheese it. I'm sure Miyazaki would want all of his games to more more like Sekiro than Elden Ring, but Elden Ring is the compromise for newer players.

 

I haven't played it, but from what I've heard, it does sound more consistent with the design principles he's going for.

 

14 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

It's still challenging but not unbearably so and most people who do play it don't resort to cheesing it at all. Hell most players don't want to use summons or spirt ashes and don't even use all of the tools available to them because the challenge IS the fun so i don 't think Elden Ring has failed in this aspect at all.

 

Exactly -- the game principle is meant to be challenging and that's why my first comment was in response was to say I understand why people wouldn't want to use a cheese mechanic to get through. That solution is completely antithetical to the very point of the game. If From wanted to make the game more accessible, difficulty modes are a much better way to make it accessible without having the choice be "hard or trivial cheesing."

 

14 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

All @Mercury33 was saying that there really is no wrong way to play it and if you're stuck on whatever part you're stuck on, finding a way past it IS part of the fun and the game design and if "cheesing" is the way to do it, then that's your decision. The game is preventing you from doing that at all and because it doesn't, it doesn't mean the game has "failed". @JPDunks4 where is that Miyazaki quote you shared with us on Discord?

 

I think my above comments cover this, but just to emphasize: the point I'm making is having cheese mechanics be how a player unblocks themselves is bad gameplay design that is a disservice to the rest of the game design. I think developers ought to be able to do better than that and design other ways to make the game more accessible, if that's what they want.

[TheLeon]

There’s real cheese, like that boss in Demon’s Souls that you could snipe before the fight even started (I think there’s one in ER too, I forget). But then there’s “cheese” like a major boss that is really hurt by scarlet rot, and once you figure that out the fight becomes really easy. That’s what makes ER in particular so much fun to me. If you get stuck on a particularly hard boss, sure, bash your head against it doing the same thing 100 times until you “get good” if that’s how you want to spend your time. OR, experiment a bunch, try out some new items, maybe respec and try an entire new build. Just fuck around, and eventually you’ll find something that works. Go explore around the world, charge through while ignoring every enemy you want, find some cool new weapon or spell and try that out. There’s probably an easier way to tackle whatever fight has you stumped. And in the meantime, there’s a million other things you could be doing, because there are so few true bottlenecks. 
 

That's my pitch. Getting “good at Elden Ring” is less about mastering parry timing and stamina management or whatever, and more about exploration and experimentation. And for me, it’s a nearly perfectly designed game in that regard. 

[legend]

6 minutes ago, Mercury33 said:

Lol I’m fairly certain the developers don’t think finding ways to cheese the mechanics/physics is fun. Nor is that the way they would prefer that everyone plays their games. The point they’re making is simply to combat at the gate keeping try hards that will insist on a right and wrong way to play their game.

 

Then what are we arguing about?

 

 

6 minutes ago, Mercury33 said:

And you’re speaking as if the majority of players are progressing through by actively looking for ways to cheese through it. Or that it’s being encouraged to play through the game that way. Neither of which is remotely true. 
 

So every game that has things that can be cheese is bad game design? That’s 90% of games ever made. Players will always find things that were impossible to find in testing. 

 

Who said anything about the majority of players? My first comment was a response to Biggie, and others, who said if you get stuck you can just cheese the game. And my response was I can see why someone wouldn't want to resort to that because it defeats the purpose. I went on to say that if the goal was to make the game accessible to people having a hard time, the developers should have done something else design wise including good ol' fashioned difficulty modes. We shouldn't be praising cheese options as a good or enjoyable accessibility feature.

[legend]

7 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

There’s real cheese, like that boss in Demon’s Souls that you could snipe before the fight even started (I think there’s one in ER too, I forget). But then there’s “cheese” like a major boss that is really hurt by scarlet rot, and once you figure that out the fight becomes really easy. That’s what makes ER in particular so much fun to me. If you get stuck on a particularly hard boss, sure, bash your head against it doing the same thing 100 times until you “get good” if that’s how you want to spend your time. OR, experiment a bunch, try out some new items, maybe respec and try an entire new build. Just fuck around, and eventually you’ll find something that works. Go explore around the world, charge through while ignoring every enemy you want, find some cool new weapon or spell and try that out. There’s probably an easier way to tackle whatever fight has you stumped. And in the meantime, there’s a million other things you could be doing, because there are so few true bottlenecks. 
 

That's my pitch. Getting “good at Elden Ring” is less about mastering parry timing and stamina management or whatever, and more about exploration and experimentation. And for me, it’s a nearly perfectly designed game in that regard. 

 

All that sounds perfectly fine to me.

[Bacon]

16 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

OR, experiment a bunch, try out some new items, maybe respec and try an entire new build. Just fuck around, and eventually you’ll find something that works

The problem is that FROM doesn't just let you do this. Want a new build? OK go get 12 of every type of upgrade stone and then the limited final special one. Be careful! You only have a limited number of respecs!

 

Not even joking, but ER would benefit massively from loadouts. So you could just swap to your saved builds. It sucks having to reassign stat points every respec.

[TheLeon]

7 minutes ago, Bacon said:

The problem is that FROM doesn't just let you do this. Want a new build? OK go get 12 of every type of upgrade stone and then the limited final special one. Be careful! You only have a limited number of respecs!

 

Not even joking, but ER would benefit massively from loadouts. So you could just swap to your saved builds. It sucks having to reassign stat points every respec.

Sure, respecs are limited, and you have to defeat a certain boss before unlocking that ability, but that’s still more room for experimentation than they’ve allowed in the past. And yes, it can take a lot of resources if you want to max out a weapon. There are some things you have to work for and commit to. But do you really need to max out a weapon just to try it? If you find the right bell bearings you can just buy the stones you need to get them to a high level pretty easily. And you can swap ashes of war and affinities without committing to them. I’ve been using the same uchigatana for most of the game, but sometimes it’s dealing frost damage. Sometimes it’s keen. Sometimes it’s dealing extra bleed. 

[Bacon]

[TheLeon]

10 minutes ago, Bacon said:

No shame. Brought in my new NPC friend and my mimic and that piñata was spewing out candy in no time. 

[stepee]

Making my way through the first castle place. Died several times to the person guarding it that isn’t even a boss. Havent gotten to level up yet because I keep losing all my souls, last time lost 100k. We back!

[Moa]

One man's cheese is another man's mold.

[BloodyHell]

I love great katana’s!

 

 

thankfully I have tons of the top level smithing stones of both kinds, and the bell bearings, so getting weapons leveled is easy (but pricey). 
 

at night, look for blue glowing blue graves out in the world and you can get larval tears to respec there. I think I found 5 or 6 larval tears so far. I still agree wit @Baconthat the game would really, really benefit from load outs. 3 would be perfect. A str/faith build, a dex build, and maybe an int build to play with for fun. 

[Bacon]

There are so many DLC weapons that I just throw in the trash because they have a faith requirement.

[Bacon]

[Best]

Fuck you guys. I keep reading these posts and I think to myself maybe I can do this if I do some reading online. I certainly can't do it by myself but maybe I should read what to do and get back into this. 

 

I absolutely LOVE the world in this game and the satisfaction from beating bosses is a gaming high like none other. 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Time for more guides!

 

Miscellaneous:

 

Boss guides:

Spoiler

 

 

Build guides:

 

 

Location walkthroughs:

 

 

 

[Best]

@Commissar SFLUFAN Have you played this? I appreciate the guides you've been providing. 

[skillzdadirecta]

 

[Mercury33]

Fextralife is earning every inch of a sub this week. 

[Keyser_Soze]

Well fired it back up again for the first time in a while. Just like riding a bike... just as soon as you remember how to ride the bike.

 

And then you remember that these dungeons (which I left my save at) take a long time to beat. So I spent like two hours in this dungeon and it had a bunch of those sword wielding stone cat statues (that were NOT bosses) good times.

 

I'm like level 138 I think, so still have a ways to go and I'm at Flame Peak

[cusideabelincoln]

1 hour ago, skillzdadirecta said:

 

 

All of those are great, although should be noted that Glintblade Phalanx got nerfed in the patch so they aren't quite as strong at staggering.

 

Another easy-to-use mechanic is the Endure ash of war. Pair it with a defensive-minded build and you are basically invincible... without needing to use a shield. Endure before an enemy attacks and you gain massive defense and can't be knocked down by most attacks, and it lasts just long enough for you to get a full charged heavy attack off on the boss too. You can also use Endure right before you heal or buff so you won't get interrupted either.

[Bacon]

I am confused. I have ground slam on a weapon. It is a heavy affinity Ash of War. However, my weapon is listed as quality.

 

[Bacon]

Nevermind, you can change the Affinity on the Ash when you select it.