Elden Ring no spoiler tags friendly exploration thread - The Bear and Badger

mistercrayon

Next level up I’m getting Dex so I can wear some wolverine claws.

mistercrayon

Tempy wrote:

Five Great Runes down, four divine towers, and there’s still even more to go. Madness. The stuff i’ve seen makes a mockery of other open world games.

I don’t even know what a great rune or a tower is.

mistercrayon

Hmm this black armoured chap just inside the castle is a bit of a dick.

acemuzzy

Crayon is going more my pace than Tempy, not sure I want to be reading late game stuff yet so might fuck out of this thread... Happy adventures all!

acemuzzy

(I'm probably gonna head back to the castle soon, I'm nearly done with the bit I was exploring... Or maybe I'll find yet more distractions, who knows!)

RamSteelwood

mistercrayon wrote:

I don’t even know what a great rune or a tower is.

SNAP!

Rev

Don't go to the WarMaster's shack at night time. Got a shock and discovered where you can get hold of a bell ringer token? Tough bastard of a boss that I'm not sure how to take down.

mistercrayon

acemuzzy wrote:

Crayon is going more my pace than Tempy, not sure I want to be reading late game stuff yet so might fuck out of this thread... Happy adventures all!

You’re probably not going to read this but I think I’ll put something here about late game spoilers in case anyone feels apprehensive about putting something later than where I’m at. But I can totally understand the sentiment. Good adventuring bro!

SHORT ANSWER: post what you like but stuff you interacted with and come up with on your own! But yeah if that feels scary to you I have no problem with people noping out and cheers for giving it a go!

Firstly again this is an experimental thread partly me to see how far I can test the spoiler mentality in myself and for others as well. It could be by the end I will have ruined my experience of Elden Ring because someone has said all the secrets in the game. I’m willing to take the risk because I think the all too common experience is to feel fearful about the interaction with media and keeping it “pure” and I want to see if it’s possible or better to still enjoy something that is outside of the ideologically prescribed mode of game consumption involving “spoilers”. I want as many people as possible to give this a go (although I accept it’s hard and unlikely and I’m glad for people who have done so already).

Over the last few years I’ve had things which are notionally spoiled for me. I listened to the waypoint podcast on the whole of Kingdom Hearts and what I found was a) it was nonsensical gibberish hearing nouns with no context so nothing really was being ruined and b) it made me want to play the game for the first time. So if hearing spoilers makes me want to play a game I feel like that at least partly undermines the naming of the term “spoiler” (it was be “spoiled” or not try at all).

I also listened to eggplant podcast where they explored spelunky 2 together and I thought - actually that experience is something I’d like to have a piece of. What better than to try it with something that most people are universally excited about?

So far for Elden ring I think everyone in here has struck a good tone but even in the spoiler tag thread I don’t think I’ve seen anything that will ruin the game for me. I’m excited to see what area DS is talking about, I’ve liked reading about peoples mini humps at Margit and Goldrick and kind of anticipate them excitedly and delightedly when I conquer them. I saw Tempy chatting about his constructed theory and while he’s further than me actually I think it enhanced an interaction I had with the woman who gives you a jellyfish (“oh that’s what he’s talking about!”) whereas I think it would otherwise feel a bit arbitrary and weird (of course this might be exactly the tone you want - who knows what resonates?)

So I’m gonna keep posting here fully expecting to see things I don’t know properly about yet but hopefully accepting them with grace and enjoyment and it will make Elden ring better or different in some way to other games I’ve played.

Tempy

I’ve been quite coy still, the Great Runes are I think explicitly talked about earlier on - they’re what you get from killing the demigods, Ryjard, Rennala, Radahn etc. You’re told about those folk in the intro to the game, and there’s an NPC you can ask for details. It’s no great mystery you’ll find them in the areas you’ve been told they’re hanging out in. They’re well-known demigods!

The divine towers? You get your first sniff at them earlier. I could blow minds with the breadth of stuff I’ve seen, and I still don’t think i’ve even scratched the surface yet.

If the game was JUST Limgrave with a few extra areas tagged on it would be huge and expansive, but this just keeps unfolding the further you go. It’s like it has no ending.

mistercrayon

Yeah that was my thought too. They feel like, at least how you talked about them, big things in the game.

RamSteelwood

I'm with crayon in that i think for me 'spoilers' for this are less likely to put me off and more likely to keep me interested. I'm not a souls fan so i'm not worried about certain lore/mechanics/characters that might pop up...i know the game is rock hard and has lots of big monsters, so knowing there's a big wolf called John in place x doesn't matter to me...i can't remember the names of the ones i have fought anyway (i'm usually too busy panicking and rolling/attacking/dying to even bother to look at the name). there's so much i don't know about the systems and items in the game that hearing about stuff is more helpful than never knowing it's there.
in fact so far one of the biggest helpers for me getting in the game is tempy's 'spoiler' that he ran past that monster guarding the gate at the start. It helped me accept that sneaking past is part of the game and not just a sign i'm 'not good enough' to play the game.

i'm behind the curve and not moving through the game very quick so i don't think i really have anything 'spoilery' to add though, so i'm more just observing in here...though i did get killed by deathbird (deathwing?) creature that isn't a totally obvious beast to find so there's that to look out for

mistercrayon

Lol I accidentally got transported to some wacky crystal mine which seems to have infinite level 5 smithing stones and fucking quick way to get a bunch of runes (I’m zapping everyone with sorcery).

The cleverness of the game is obviously I can’t upgrade my weapons because you need level two stones precisely.

mistercrayon

When I was in the “safe zone” of the round table I accidentally went into an area where I got into a fight with an invader. Pretty fucking rude.

I also beat some horrendous spider thing by doing the Jurassic park thing.

mannaboy

I through natural travel stumbled upon the same crystal mine. A few hours later I went back to Limgrave and found a chest near a lake…

tigersgogrrr

I got teleported there and got absolutely fucked by everything inside. Nowhere near enough to combat them at the time. Lots of running away and then absolute screams once I reached the surface...

mistercrayon

I like that it’s possible to stealth out though even if you’re a level one guy and get the grace in there.

RamSteelwood

mannaboy wrote:

I through natural travel stumbled upon the same crystal mine. A few hours later I went back to Limgrave and found a chest near a lake…

i found that chest right at the start of my game, and stepping out melee only i was getting killed instantly. very nearly binned the whole game off then (as couldn't teleport away) until i realised that i could sneak out rather than fight my way. got outside, found myself in some hellscape, quickly teleported back to the safety of limgrave and never went back to the mine yet!

mistercrayon

It’s a good place to get some smithing stones - some of the smaller baddies are killable and you can snipe them from the sidelines.

mannaboy

Those multi projectile firing insectoids can do one.

mistercrayon

I worry there’ll be a boss with them!

mistercrayon

Had a go on Goldrick. I feel it might be my wall. I need twice as many hits on him as I needed for the previous guy.

RamSteelwood

Went back to the start area. Cleared the caves and catacombs, the big gold Knight, the gate guard, and took down Maggie. I'm in the castle noo

mistercrayon

nice. Do you mean the horse guy? He's still too strong for me!

Or I'm just too lazy.

hylian_elf

I still haven’t gone back to kill Agheel. Should be easy now, I’m 50hrs in and at lv40 I think.

RamSteelwood

Yeah horse guy. Took a few goes whereas the others were dropped 'first time'

stonechalice

Horse guy is fine if you do it on horseback. Circle him anti clockwise.

tigersgogrrr

mistercrayon wrote:

Had a go on Goldrick. I feel it might be my wall. I need twice as many hits on him as I needed for the previous guy.

Hah, same.

Might go elsewhere for a while.

Rev

Curse frogs are back. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck

mistercrayon

Ugh I got goldrick down to zero health twice today and died just as he died. What a crock!

stonechalice

That happens a lot in this game...

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