Elden Ring (George RR Martin and From Software)

For most games I never bother with walkthroughs but the devs of these games are different. Elden Ring in particular is absolutely vast and you get almost no information at all about where to go or what to do. There’s no journal of any sort or even a basic log of conversations you have with NPCs so for side quests in particular if you don’t use walkthroughs or wikis it will take hundreds and hundreds of hours to figure out and finish everything on your own and even if you could give it that time you’d still miss things. It did annoy me alright when playing through Dark Souls 3 but generally I will try and do as much as I can on my own before looking up help.

While I mostly agree, getting the best ending (as well as the areas, items and bosses that go along with it) takes a fair bit of leg work and is very hard to track without a guide. But then, you don't knowthat you're missing stuff unless you're already looking at a guide or walkthrough, nor do you know which NPCs or quests are side missions or important for the best endings, or what you might lock yourself out of if you don't do something in time.

This probably applies more to the older games as I do think ER is better balanced in that regard, but things like the repeated eavesdropping which eventually leads to Fountainhead Palace in Sekiro, or the invitation to Cainhurst Castle in Bloodborne, or anything to do with World Tendency in Demons Souls... I'm not sure I would have figured out any of them without guides, but also without knowing I needed to follow a guide while playing in the first place.

Oh totally. There's a good ending, a bad ending, and 4 middle endings which are all the same. But the good and bad endings require going to certain areas which aren't that easy to find or access, have interesting items/weapons or have ancient smithing stones, or have brilliant boss fights. Or even accessing the boss fight against Placidusax is definitely very easy to miss though it has no bearing on anything).

With Elden Ring I think you can still do most of those things after completing the game even if you can no longer get that ending, but with other Soulsborne games you can miss or lock yourself out of some great content.

On my second playthrough I flip-flopped between a few different builds. Started as strength/faith but was struggling, so when I got the chance to respec I went dex/faith for a while, then an arcane bleed build, then back to strength/faith by the end as I could quickly level up some great strength & faith weapons/spells.

Don't be afraid to respec, there are plenty of larval tears to find and respec again if you need. The main thing to keep in mind is what weapons will you use if you respec, and can you upgrade those weapons to match the level you're respeccing to.

If you think there are places you haven't fully explored in the starting areas that you could handle with a low-level weapon, it would be worth doing those to help you try to collect smithing stones and also get used to the different playstyle, before you start progressing further. A few caves could help you buff the weapon to near enough where you're currently at.

Yeah you could duplicate whatever remembrances you can in the big mausoleum-walking things, then either use them for runes, or unlock weapons at the two fingers in the Roundtable Hold if you want them. If you think you might want to dual-wield any of the remembrance weapons (such as Radahn's sword), you can only get one per playthrough, so use the remembrence for them before starting NG+, then you can get the seond one for dual-wielding in NG+.

I'd also suggest collecting as many of the ancient smithing stones and gravewort flowers as you can, just in case you want to upgrade more weapons or summons. And buy as many upgrade materials from the Twin Maidens as you can, as some of the bell-bearings don't carry over, and I think things might become more expensive (but I'm not sure on that).

After that, just collect as many larval tears and stonesword keys if you know there are more out there you haven't found yet.

This probably gives the best breakdown of what carried over and what doesn't.

Magic is strong in this game but you don't get the good stuff until you've levelled up your stats a good bit. The Katanas are very strong and require high dexterity to use effectively. If you haven't played any of the souls game before when levelling up pick a few stats to specialise in depending on what weapons / magic you'd like to use, rather than spreading the points around evenly. In the beginning it's important to level up your vigour a fair bit early on as once you move away for the starting areas the enemies start to hit hard and you always want to be able to tank a few hits from regular enemies.

I would say for your first playthrough don't bother with walkthroughs or wikies at all, if you get properly stuck post questions in this thread and we can give spoiler free hints.

Quick overview on how to make a Witcher build and play as one too. This is actually great.

That's a great resource, thanks for linking that

You're probably in a bit of a middle ground. Closer to the start than where you'll become able to respec, but also far enough in that restarting might be a pain and not really worth it. Your time might be better spent just exploring everywhere in the starting areas as much as possible and simply putting all your runes into levelling up Int (for sorceries using a staff) or Faith (for incantations using a seal). That way you'll likely find decent weapons/items/upgrade materials that will be beneficial too.

The starting classes don't matter too much past the first area. You're still early enough that just levelling up different attributes or farming/exploring shouldn't take that long to re-jig your skills into the type of build you want rather than restarting. Any points you've already put into the likes of Dex might be required anyway to wield some better staffs later on.

You should be fairly capable for most stuff in the starting areas. The castle to the very south can be difficult enough, maybe leave it until last before moving North into the next areas, say Level 25 or so.

Hah yeah, it's tricky as f*ck. Use ranged attacks to pull enemies one by one where you can, and divide and conquer!

Yeah I'd explore until you level up a few more times just to rebalance your skill points and weapons to your new build, then don't be afraid to move on without having done everything. You'll start to get diminishing returns in terms of runes/items.

So I got this game on release. A year later 82 hours in, I still haven't completed it. I only get to play a couple of hours on Sundays. I reached the fire giant a few weeks back but decided to stop my progression of the main story there and start exploring the areas a bit more. The game still throws surprises at. Today, I killed a few bosses who had been giving me trouble earlier, then decided to travel back to round table for some enhancements only to find the place in darkness. That silent guard who normally stands in one of the halls had gone red and started attacking me a few seconds after I spawned.

It completely caught me off guard and took a few circles of the table before I could fight back. 😄

Actually what's the largest amount of runes players have accumulated before chickening out and cashing in?

Cats

Man, I wonder how far out it is. Surely would have been in development for quite some time, if only officially announcing it now, could be fecking huge altogether.

That's my big worry. I've completed pretty much everything on my main playthrough to the point where I don't want to have to do NG+ as even if I complete it I won't have everything done. Even after completing a second playthrough on a new save I ended up going back to my first save/character. But it means I might also be over-levelled for a DLC. Though I guess given how hard some of their previous DLCs have been, might not be a bad thing either.

But then, I kinda want to do NG+ if for no other reason than to be able to dual-wield Wing of Astels...

I still havent played this, which is wild to me, given my love for soulsborne/sekiro, its been going on so long now i think im just gonna wait for the "complete" edition. Or maybe when this DLC/expansion gets released I'll dive in, just in case i get run over and killed haha 😄😫

Anyway, i have Demon souls installed on my new ps5 to tide me over 😁