Current Events > Anything I need to know before starting Elden Ring for the first time?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Finally am trying it out.

uhh just level vigor a lot

Give up while you're ahead.

Best to go in blind. There's a wiki page on which starting gifts suck but other than that go and have fun.

If you're kind of heartless, you can kill the merchants around the world. They'll drop an item called a bell bearing. Bell bearings can be given to an NPC in your main quest hub to give that shop's items to the NPC. So in that way, you can consolidate all merchant's inventories in one place. The one exception is the first merchant you meet, Kale. He's slightly involved in an early questline, so you want to avoid killing him.

The game in no way tells you about power stancing. If you're dual-wielding the same weapon type in both hands, the left-hand light attack button (L1 or left bumper) to will become a moveset that uses both weapons.

If you get a hug, it'll reduce your maximum health until you use the item the hug gives you.

Don't attack NPCs until they attack you. Good way of breaking questlines.

Horseback combat only uses your right hand weapon. Since the spellcasting classes default to putting your spell-focus in your left hand, a lot of people think you can't cast on a horse. You can, you just need to put the focus in your right hand. "Two-handing" it is the easiest way to do that.

If you press L3 in the inventory, you can sort items. If you want to use multiple consumables in the inventory without closing it, press R3 until the middle/right-hand side of the menu goes away.

Try finger but hole.

This might just be me, but something that confused me is that when I equipped certain items, bars would pop up on the screen. What it was was that the items was giving me resistance to certain status effects. To avoid you being able to manipulate status build-ups by equipping and unequipping items, it apparently just adds X amount of status build-up when you equip an item with X amount of resistance.

Just blindly attack everything you see. That always works in games.

Don't bother exploring, all the optional caves are rehashed mid-tier enemies. Also when you get a great rune you have to activate it at the closest tower before you can use it.

Thanks everyone. Just now starting. I chose Samurai for giggles and I like having different options in combat.

Southernfatman posted...

Thanks everyone. Just now starting. I chose Samurai for giggles and I like having different options in combat.

Their sword is one of the best in the game so good choice lol

What's with all the blood stains and weird messages lol?

pegusus123456 posted...

Their sword is one of the best in the game so good choice lol

Sweet

Southernfatman posted...

What's with all the blood stains and weird messages lol?

Never played Dark Souls before, aye?
Those bloodstains are of other players leading up to their untimely demise, if you activate them they'll show you exactly what happened and the messages are also left by other players. If you rate them they'll heal the player.

Tropicalwood posted...

Never played Dark Souls before, aye?
Those bloodstains are of other players before they died and the messages are also left by other players. If you rate them they'll heal the player.

Thanks, and no I haven't. I've heard ER is the most accessible to new players out of all of those games. Guess all the "but hole" ones are some sort of in joke I don't understand yet.

prepare to say goodbye to your other games for a while!

Southernfatman posted...

What's with all the blood stains and weird messages lol?

They're both from other players.

Bloodstains will show you a phantom of someone else dying. If you walk into an area and there are a dozen bloodstains on the floor, you know some shit's going to go down. They're also extremely common around cliffs lol.

Messages are deliberately placed. You'll get the item to write them really quickly, I think in the first room. You can pick from a good number of phrases and nouns. They can warn you about ambushes, tell you about illusory walls, and make dumb jokes.

Southernfatman posted...

Thanks, and no I haven't. I've heard ER is the most accessible to new players out of all of those games. Guess all the "but hole" ones are some sort of in joke I don't understand yet.

Like I said, message are written with preselected words. Due to the game's storyline, finger ended up being a word you could use. So the first meme message ended up being, "Try finger but hole."

Southernfatman posted...

Thanks, and no I haven't.

Wtf, I'm so jealous that you haven't. I wish I could play Dark Souls and Demon's Souls for the first time again.

Dark Souls 3 was fine, but stay clear of the the absolute fucking worst abomination; Shit Souls 2.

try finger
but hole

Vicious_Dios posted...

absolute fucking worst abomination; Shit Souls 2

I actually preferred Dark Souls 2 to Elden Ring, they focused on multiplayer and ended up making a fairly mediocre follow up in terms of mechanics and overall level design.
Where Elden Ring slapped multiplayer on last minute and forced 1v2 and removed the possibility of a second invader unless the host used the Taunter's Tongue. Doesn't help that the game was released in an unfinished state, don't believe me? like a dozen quests lines were finished in patches, those big Colosseum looking structures that you can't enter have interiors that you can enter with cheat engine and the horse glitch and like 90% of the fluff areas have standard enemies posing as bosses.

I think the game is more frustrating than it is hard. There are many ways to do things. You can go to the end game area 5 hours after you've started and that is 15 minutes after start for someone who can play the game. Exploits abound.

My advice.
Do some searches for lore.
Check out sites with aftermarket DLC:just knowing it is there makes the game less frustrating.
Check out trading forums and coop forums.

Backstabbing and getting back stabbed is a major mechanic. A shield slung on your back protects you from backstab and you get any passive ability on the shield.

Seriously consider the madness path. It is the fastest through the game.

CobraGT posted...

A shield slung on your back protects you from backstab

This is not true

Yeah, I'm also not sure what the hell aftermarket DLC is supposed to be.

Keep us updated on your thoughts. I've only played the game with the Seamless coop mod with my wife, I dont think I'd enjoy it one bit solo.

Makes me curious how much of a difference that makes when exploring.

Dog ahead

If a boss or area is kicking your ass and you don't feel like you're making progress against it, go out exploring and do other stuff. You can always come back when you get stronger (whether it's from leveling up, upgrading s weapon that you like, or simply becoming better at the game).

The 1st cutscene boss in particular is meant to be a lesson on that, but the game doesn't really tell you that and it has led to some people quitting because they think the rest of the game is going to be too hard (in part because the game subtlety leads you to that fight)

UnholyMudcrab posted...

This is not true

OK. I stand corrected but can you backstab an enemy with a slung shield?

Is it normal to die all the time at first?

Southernfatman posted...

Is it normal to die all the time at first?

Ya it normal

kirbyy posted...

Best to go in blind. There's a wiki page on which starting gifts suck but other than that go and have fun.

I dod this and enjoyed most of it. But if you're like me and you smoke all your memories away every day, you end up playing on a weird order, not following any signs and fucking up the difficulty. Id say, play blind for the first 20 hours and then get a rough draft of where you shod be goi.g

Ratchetrockon posted...

Ya it normal

I feel slightly better about myself.

Lost_All_Senses posted...

dod this and enjoyed most of it. But if you're like me and you smoke all your memories away every day, you end up playing on a weird order, not following any signs and fucking up the difficulty. Id say, play blind for the first 20 hours and then get a rough draft of where you shod be goi.g

...yeah that's probably how it will be for me.

Southernfatman posted...

Is it normal to die all the time at first?

It's normal to die all the time period.

Even late in the game, regular trash mobs can destroy you if you let your guard down too much.

Southernfatman posted...

...yeah that's probably how it will be for me.

Don't leave LimGrave unless you feel you actually accomplished something big. I did like 2 and a half areas before realizing I never finished it. Then when I came back, all the big bosses who were cool moments for everyone else ended up being mostly a cakewalk.

I'm still roaming around and killing things and being killed. Met that one lady who levels you up for money. Worth it? Or is it what you're supposed to do?

Yeah, for sure. Buying stuff isn't all that important.