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Bought Elden Ring. Did I goof?

SteadyEvo

Member
My history with Souls games

Completed:
-Demon Souls
-Dark Souls
-Summoned through Bloodborne
-Skipped DS2
-Got ass raped by the snake šŸ guys on the roof to start of DS3. I quit.
-Donā€™t get me started with Sekiro. Didnā€™t get past the 1st zone. Absolutely soul crushing.

Did some research and hear that Elden Ring dials the difficulty back and ā€œeasy modeā€ can be activated with magic and summons. Itā€™s installing now so time will tell.

Any tips for an old Souls veteran looking to breeze through are welcomed. Build tips and early weapon pickups, etc.
 
Elden Ring is by far the easiest game of the bunch, just take time and really explore the map and donā€™t think you gotta rush into the next dungeon or boss fight. The more you explore the stronger you get, and youā€™ll end up breezing through a large part of the game.

There are some really OP builds as well. I played the entire game as a magic build and i was straight up demolishing most bosses after a while. Samurai also has some broken builds, search youtube for them.

Get the Mimic tear as soon as you can also, if you want to lessen the difficulty. You have souls experience so its not gonna be completely foreign to you, i know people that have never played them or couldnā€™t play them before that finished elden ring without much of a problem.

Youā€™ll still get your ass kicked though so its not gonna be assassins creed level easy
 
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Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
Donā€™t get me started with Sekiro. Didnā€™t get past the 1st zone. Absolutely soul crushing.
disappointed-upset.gif


I enjoyed Elden Ring but it kind of remind me how much I enjoyed Sekiro much, MUCH more.
 

Bragr

Banned
It gives you the option to grind in a fun way, instead of just going through the same areas over and over again to grind for enough souls to buy potions/vials, you grind by doing side bosses and side dungeons and whatever you want, so the more you explore and wait with the main path, the easier the game gets.

Personally, I found it far easier than any of their other games, but I heard the opposite too from people who only follow the main path.
 
If you beat Bloodborne, then you shouldnā€™t have a problem. Despite what the Miyazaki deep-throaters may have lead you to believe, itā€™s just your standard souls game (in a bloated open world).
basically, yes - it's bloat, but bloat done right. loads of room for wandering around / leveling up, if you like. i went magic/dexterity, & had a great time. enjoy!...
 
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Thief1987

Member
It's as hard as you want it to be because it has zero balancing. You can fight first story boss on level 10 or on level 70, and it will be naturally without any grinding. Curse(or bless) the "genius", who decided to make almost every area in the game, high level included, reachable without fighting a single boss. Ending still could be tough as a very later bosses will most likely catch-up with you in level.
 
My story with the Souls game is as follow:

DS on PS3 = Played a few minutes at a friend's place, something or other killed me right away... Controls are strange

DS remake on PS4: did the intro section and advanced all the way to the three little porcs, never got around to kill them (tried a lot)
HOW DO I GET MY ENERGY BACK IN THESE GAMES? and the controls are still strange.

BloodBorne ... Never got very far in the city. The controls are still awkward.

Elden Ring (PC) : Played maybe 5 hours, got bored.. Controls still make the game harder than it would otherwise be.

So I think I should not be giving advices on these games, unless you are like be. Don't buy into the hype, they are not for everyone.
 

bbeach123

Member
The game's difficulty greatly varies depend on the weapon/build/magic/summon you use .

I did try the 2h pure strengh chad / magic for pussie build and I got crushed . Switch to shield/spear and I crushed , 1 shot most boss til the end .
 
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My history with Souls games

Completed:
-Demon Souls
-Dark Souls
-Summoned through Bloodborne
-Skipped DS2
-Got ass raped by the snake šŸ guys on the roof to start of DS3. I quit.
-Donā€™t get me started with Sekiro. Didnā€™t get past the 1st zone. Absolutely soul crushing.

Did some research and hear that Elden Ring dials the difficulty back and ā€œeasy modeā€ can be activated with magic and summons. Itā€™s installing now so time will tell.

Any tips for an old Souls veteran looking to breeze through are welcomed. Build tips and early weapon pickups, etc.
Brah you are in for a treat.

The build possibilities are so diverse that itā€™s impossible to recommended a route without knowing more about your play style.

Make sure to level vigor to 40 first. Then focus on your main attack stat. Iā€™d honestly go for quality first time around but if you want easy mode then pump your INT as fast as you canā€¦
 
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fart town usa

Gold Member
Don't be in a rush to get to Stormveil Castle, you can bypass the castle by going to the right of it. The path is more or less due north from Stormhill Shack. The path takes you up to Liurnia of the Lakes, a massive area that's fun to explore.

I say that because Margit blocks entrance to the castle and is legit difficult. Spending as much time as you can with exploring and leveling up will make that fight much more manageable.

Explore, explore, explore. It's so much fun and so many things to find.

Also, play in coop if you can, it's so much fun. I only play in coop these days. I've been at the last boss since June but I'm too busy playing coop with my friends to even care about beating the game. I've put in roughly 212 hours of legit playtime and it's been a total treat the entire time.

Also, as you get more comfortable with the game and powered up, it kind of turns into an arcade type experience, especially in coop. It's a really fun game.
 
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MHubert

Member
You are not going to regret it OP, it accounts for one of my favorite gaming experiences. It is the easiest souls game by far especially if you use spirit summons or summon other players. Make sure to explore a lot, and don't be too proud to leave or skip hard areas or bosses till later when you are stronger. Stick with weapons that has movesets you like, there are plenty of ways to further enhance you gear.

If you want the best possible experience don't look up anything on the web before having at least completed it once- I can't stress this enough.
 

GHG

Gold Member
disappointed-upset.gif


I enjoyed Elden Ring but it kind of remind me how much I enjoyed Sekiro much, MUCH more.

The only thing I really wish they carried over from Sekiro was the block mechanic (or at least an option for those who don't want to use shields).

That would have been the cherry on the top.
 
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MiguelItUp

Member
You're certainly in for a treat OP. As someone with over 150 hours in Elden Ring, you'll dig it quite a bit. Bleed treated me really well during my playthrough and then some. Also dual wielding blades.

My history with Souls games

Completed:
-Demon Souls
-Dark Souls
-Summoned through Bloodborne
-Skipped DS2
-Got ass raped by the snake šŸ guys on the roof to start of DS3. I quit.
-Donā€™t get me started with Sekiro. Didnā€™t get past the 1st zone. Absolutely soul crushing.

Did some research and hear that Elden Ring dials the difficulty back and ā€œeasy modeā€ can be activated with magic and summons. Itā€™s installing now so time will tell.

Any tips for an old Souls veteran looking to breeze through are welcomed. Build tips and early weapon pickups, etc.
Considering your completed Souls titles, I'm sure you'll be more than fine, you didn't goof at all. I'm honestly shocked you didn't finish DS3. Though I understand Sekiro, I think that game made me rage the most out of all of them, lmao. But I was able to finish it, haha.

DS2 is a certainly divisive game, but as someone that finished it, you're not missing a whole lot IMO. More than half way through the game it felt like a chore to get through for me. I heard the DLC was better than the game, but I didn't even bother. Once I beat it, I ejected and never went back, lmao.
 
Don't be in a rush to get to Stormveil Castle, you can bypass the castle by going to the right of it. The path is more or less due north from Stormhill Shack. The path takes you up to Liurnia of the Lakes, a massive area that's fun to explore.

I say that because Margit blocks entrance to the castle and is legit difficult. Spending as much time as you can with exploring and leveling up will make that fight much more manageable.

Explore, explore, explore. It's so much fun and so many things to find.

Also, play in coop if you can, it's so much fun. I only play in coop these days. I've been at the last boss since June but I'm too busy playing coop with my friends to even care about beating the game. I've put in roughly 212 hours of legit playtime and it's been a total treat the entire time.

Also, as you get more comfortable with the game and powered up, it kind of turns into an arcade type experience, especially in coop. It's a really fun game.
Yup, co-op is life. Playing by myself feels so lonely now. Gonna suck in five years when nobody is playing anymore.
 

Fbh

Member
IMO it's the easiest one mainly because of the Spirit Ashes, which allow you to summon "ghosts" of various enemies to help you out (in select locations). While there's a ton of them and some are better than others, even the most basic ones have a big effect on the difficulty of bosses simply because the AI struggles with handling more than one enemy. Just having a somewhat bulky summon taking some of the aggro away from you can make a big difference.
With that said Melania is easily the hardest boss out of any souls game, but she is optional.

Game is awesome, it's everything good about Dark Souls combined with a cool open world that makes you question why (almost) everyone else is still stuck making "Follow the GPS" simulators.
 

fart town usa

Gold Member
Yup, co-op is life. Playing by myself feels so lonely now. Gonna suck in five years when nobody is playing anymore.
Yea dude, playing in coop allows for so many hilarious things to happen. Below is me and my buddies from the other weekend. The end had us dying with laughter.

 
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I played as the Astrologer, keep at it for a long while as I was spamming the same spell over and over and over for a long time till I finally get a 3rd spell, then suddenly I had lots of spells and had to make decisions on which I liked best.
 
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Aenima

Member
Elden Ring is the most unbalanced souls. The open world section can be super easy cuz you have a mount and can hit and run and cheese enemies. Some bosses range from super easy to frustating hard, most of them are fine.

And yeah, Magic is still OP. I played a pure melee build and had a hard time in the final boss, and some ppl with magic builds was destroing it spamming 1 spell.

Just remember summoning a player can make a boss fights easier, but bosses get a boost in health when more than 1 player are in the world, if they are good players they can carry you, if they are bad it can make the fight actually more dificult than going solo. (My experience with the final boss)

PvP is the worst trash ever in a souls game. You either make a pvp build to troll other player or get trolled by other player spamming weapon skills.
 

Thief1987

Member
Oh how i could forget about bleeding. Bleeding was hilariously broken before some patching, and it's just broken now. So if you want a complete easy mode just look at any viable bleed build. Reduvia dagger for example is an absolute OP in the first half of the game.
 

BossLackey

Gold Member
Elden Ring is by far the easiest game of the bunch.
I think this is highly dependent on the choices you make. I think it can be the easiest, but it can also be up there with some of the hardest FROM games.


Builds (at least at launch) simply are not balanced. More than any other game in the "series", certain build directions are massively OP whereas others are incredibly wimpy. Add to that the order in which you tackle things and the pace you take, and you have quite a wide swath of difficulty.
 

Dev1lXYZ

Member
Elden Ring.....been stuck at the last boss and don't really have the will to wrangle with the cheap bastard any longer.

The game was amazing aside from that.

As you said, there are so many ways to make the game much easier. Be warned that the last boss changes up the game on you.

Got a good ending lined up, too.

It's still my GOTY, and I have been waiting and hoping the PC version goes on sale so I can get it for my Steam Deck.
 
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I had fun with it to a point, then it just got too difficult and frustrating and I went back to other games. This has been my experience with every From game I've played (Bloodborne, Dark Souls Remastered, Sekiro, Elden Ring) but I keep buying into the hype for some reason. I just don't like overly difficult action games. If Elden Ring was maybe 30% easier it probably would've been my GOTY (and would've still been a tough game!).
 

Duchess

Member
been stuck at the last boss and don't really have the will to wrangle with the cheap bastard any longer.
Ditto. As far as I'm concerned, I finished the game. I've mentioned in other threads how much I despise the endgame. I'll probably return to it one day with a cheap ass magic build, to finish it "properly".
 

MagnesD3

Member
It's the best one, if you only play it for difficulty you may not enjoy it because its difficulty depends on if you rely on summons or your build/what order you tackle things.
 

MastAndo

Gold Member
It's terrific. I think you're in for a treat - this is coming from someone who didn't care for any of the Souls games before this.

As for difficulty, I never found it overwhelming - though one boss took me the better part of an afternoon to finally beat. The game provides the freedom to have you level up and come back to any enemy that is proving too difficult. I haven't played in a while so I wouldn't know about any nerfs, but there are also "crutches" in the form of Summons that can basically trivialize some fights. Also, some builds are pretty OP. I think you'll be fine.
 

Rex_DX

Gold Member
Nah youā€™ll be fine. Go find the Crucible Knight in the first zone. Heā€™s super easy and you get an awesome weapon that makes the game a cakewalk. Trust me.
You mean the Tree Sentinel in the first zone.

But still ... they'll be fine.
 
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