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Yet another Elden Ring thread - is the balance off?

No you didn't. If i were to guess, at that point you hadn't seen even half of the game's content. And while questlines can be indeed unnecessarily obtuse, exploration is pretty instinctive, since literally anywhere you go leads to somewhere new. I'm 90 hours in and i'm still finding places on the map i had no idea existed.
There's like 3 or 4 large underground areas (probably even more since there's still 'main' regions i have to get to), as well as bunch "islands", not to mention secret places within secret places, like one elevator in one of the underground areas that leads straight to the inside of a fissure in caelid, or a trio of teleporters at the top of a mountain that leads to secret places within other areas (one of them even leads you to the area at the very start of the game), or a huge plateau with a bunch of stuff in it that you can only get to by following a certain questline.

Seriously, the majority of the people i see complaining about unfair difficulty only have 50 - 60 hours of game. And yes, i call it only because this game is just that massive. If you play this without half-rushing to the end, you'd normally be looking at 100-200 hours minimum.

Tree sentinel is easy, unless you tried to fight him as soon as you got out of the underground. Get torrent, practice horse combat and level up a bit, then you should be fine.
What’s the best armor/weapons to get before Margit? Playing as Vagabond and feel lost on how to progress
 
What’s the best armor/weapons to get before Margit? Playing as Vagabond and feel lost on how to progress
What kind of weapon would you like to be using? The uchigatana from the Deathtouched Catacombs in northern Limgrave and the bloodhound's fang from the evergaol in southern Limgrave are both great weapons that can carry you through the entire game.
 
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fart town usa

Gold Member
What’s the best armor/weapons to get before Margit? Playing as Vagabond and feel lost on how to progress
Sounds like you just started?

You should get some type of summon, I've stuck with the 3 wolves the whole game but people say the jellyfish are good too, I think that's the first one you get. Talk to the girl in Stormhill shack, rest at the grace point and talk to her again. Or fast travel to the round table and then go back to her. Eventually she'll give you a summon and then disappear. Once she disappears she'll be at the round table, talk to her and the blacksmith, just go back and forth. She'll then move next to the blacksmith and will be able to upgrade your spirit summons.

A useful item for Margit is Margit's Shackle, binds him to the ground but it's only effective twice in battle. You buy it from Patches, google it.

You should focus on leveling up and exploring. Killing knights will randomly drop armor but you can also buy armor from merchants. One you start getting armor, try to keep your weight at medium or lower.

Halberd is a good weapon if you're going as a melee build, it has good range and is relatively quick.

Best thing to do is just level up and explore, take Margit on in co-op or use a summon, he's gonna kick the shit out of you though. If you're early, just focus on other things for the next 30 hours. You can also bypass Margit completely. If you follow the path near Stormhill Shack that leads you to the castle/margit, at the base of where all the soldiers are, you can hang to the right and it takes you around the castle. There are some trees there but there's also a dirt path. It's easy to find. Just keep following it and you'll come to a bridge, just keep going and eventually you'll be in a new area entirely. You can sink dozens of hours into this spot and gain tons of levels, etc.

If you are new to the game, the biggest favor you do for yourself is to just forget about Margit and focus on riding around on torrent and exploring. Find grace points, find golden seeds, look for ruins and churches. Find pieces of the map. Be sure to talk to each NPC multiple times in a single instance so you exhaust their script, it'll cause things to happen like unlocking services they offer.

Don't be afraid to use google either, the game is huge and you won't spoil much of anything if you're looking up where an item is or what an item does, etc. Leave messages too, people will "praise" them and when they do that, your health bar will be restored.

Also, play co-op if you have a friend to play it with. To me it's the best way to play. So damn fun. Playing in a co-op is a process but it's easy to do once you realize how co-op is handled in the game.



 
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What kind of weapon would you like to be using? The uchigatana from the Tombsward Catacombs in northern Limgrave and the bloodhound's fang from the evergaol in southern Limgrave are both great weapons that can carry you through the entire game.

Sounds like you just started?

You should get some type of summon, I've stuck with the 3 wolves the whole game but people say the jellyfish are good too, I think that's the first one you get. Talk to the girl in Stormhill shack, rest at the grace point and talk to her again. Or fast travel to the round table and then go back to her. Eventually she'll give you a summon and then disappear. Once she disappears she'll be at the round table, talk to her and the blacksmith, just go back and forth. She'll then move next to the blacksmith and will be able to upgrade your spirit summons.

A useful item for Margit is Margit's Shackle, binds him to the ground but it's only effective twice in battle. You buy it from Patches, google it.

You should focus on leveling up and exploring. Killing knights will randomly drop armor but you can also buy armor from merchants. One you start getting armor, try to keep your weight at medium or lower.

Halberd is a good weapon if you're going as a melee build, it has good range and is relatively quick.

Best thing to do is just level up and explore, take Margit on in co-op or use a summon, he's gonna kick the shit out of you though. If you're early, just focus on other things for the next 30 hours. You can also bypass Margit completely. If you follow the path near Stormhill Shack that leads you to the castle/margit, at the base of where all the soldiers are, you can hang to the right and it takes you around the castle. There are some trees there but there's also a dirt path. It's easy to find. Just keep following it and you'll come to a bridge, just keep going and eventually you'll be in a new area entirely. You can sink dozens of hours into this spot and gain tons of levels, etc.

If you are new to the game, the biggest favor you do for yourself is to just forget about Margit and focus on riding around on torrent and exploring. Find grace points, find golden seeds, look for ruins and churches. Find pieces of the map. Be sure to talk to each NPC multiple times in a single instance so you exhaust their script, it'll cause things to happen like unlocking services they offer.

Don't be afraid to use google either, the game is huge and you won't spoil much of anything if you're looking up where an item is or what an item does, etc. Leave messages too, people will "praise" them and when they do that, your health bar will be restored.

Also, play co-op if you have a friend to play it with. To me it's the best way to play. So damn fun. Playing in a co-op is a process but it's easy to do once you realize how co-op is handled in the game.




Alright, I’ll guess I’ll avoid bosses and stuff for now. Thanks for the help
 

NinjaBoiX

Member
"this is the easiest souls game mate. You just need to put 150 hours into it and read quests and area guides on wiki. It's your fault for not finding this obtuse shit"
lol, exactly man!

And even knowing all this obtuse shit (like the ridiculously convoluted “quest path” to the dumb bird farm, come the fuck on, how on earth would 99% of the people playing be expected to work this out?), it still requires a frankly unreasonable amount of hoop jumping.

The game is weird man, it asks far to much from the casual participant to just see it through. I honestly feel like this is From’s shark jumping moment.

🤷🏼‍♂️
 

Guilty_AI

Member
What’s the best armor/weapons to get before Margit? Playing as Vagabond and feel lost on how to progress
I remember defeating margit with rabies lol.

Earlier in the game i had been transported to Caelid through a chest trap and found a rotten dog summon there. I basically kept getting his attention and let the dog summon infect him with scarlet rot, then all i did was keep my distance most of the time until he died. Well, i half did it that way because i thought it would be funny if it worked :^P.
 
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fart town usa

Gold Member
lol, exactly man!

And even knowing all this obtuse shit (like the ridiculously convoluted “quest path” to the dumb bird farm, come the fuck on, how on earth would 99% of the people playing be expected to work this out?), it still requires a frankly unreasonable amount of hoop jumping.

The game is weird man, it asks far to much from the casual participant to just see it through. I honestly feel like this is From’s shark jumping moment.

🤷🏼‍♂️
But then there's players like me. I have 80 something hours in, level 84. I've killed 3 demi-gods and I've googled a few things, like how to find the other half of a medallion that opens the elevator to Atlus, or where I can find the bell bearing to buy smithing stones, etc. I don't think I'm on any quest that is preventing me from progressing...

I just do whatever I want when I play, I can't really relate to getting hung up on something quest related in the game but maybe I just haven't reached that specific point yet?

I dunno. The game is definitely cryptic and obtuse but I just don't really give a shit I guess. "I'm in a world full of enemies and some are bosses." That's about how much thought I'm giving the story, lol.
 

ClosBSAS

Member
nah, am 38, over 100hrs and so far am soloing it with a few summons here and there...but if i can do it...you can op. its as easy as dark souls 3 but harder than 1 and 2. Its just not that hard.
 
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TheDreadBaron

Gold Member
It’s been said already, but there are many, many in-game ways to mitigate the difficulty. There’s so many ways that you can ignore most of them and still succeed. You can very finely tune exactly how difficult the game is with a combination of weapon choice, stat allotment, ashes of war, spirit ashes, crafting items, talismans, tons of different magic, armor, and shields. That’s why I think it’s silly to say the game is unbalanced when the player is entirely in control of the balance. Sure it takes some time to go questing and find these powerful items, and time to level up your character to use them properly, and that right there is the adventure and the game itself. Guides are totally optional. Finding a way to overcome a tough boss IS the game, and it gives you so many different ways to do it. Beating a notoriously tough boss on the first try by accident usually leaves me feeling let down, because the bosses are supposed to be in unfair and godlike and a challenge to overcome, have you seen them?! If you want to do a take no hits damage focused build, that is just as legitimate as a one hit kamehameha build, and everything inbetween too. If you feel like your build isn’t doing enough damage you can level your main damage stat, if you don’t have enough health level your health stat. Or alternatively experiment with status effects with throwable pots or summons like the rotten stray. There’s so many options, if you’re stuck try a different strategy or a different area.

Or there’s always the choice to blame the game, the most boring and self-defeating choice. And hey guys, I get it, we’ve all died to some bullshit and said fuck this. That’s the game working as intended, pick yourself up and stop making excuses, adapt and overcome.
 

NinjaBoiX

Member
Thanks for all the replies guys. I do probably need to just work on my build a bit and maybe respec? I’ve gone for a full DEX build like I always do, and have been rocking the Uchigatana from the start.

But it’s just so much work to look into other weapons and have them be viable at this stage. I heard some guy saying he just had shit loads of upgrade items just lying around, like how?

I think the message here is, you need to put in the work to get something out of this game.

I think the question is, do I want a video game to feel like work?
 

Graciaus

Member
Thanks for all the replies guys. I do probably need to just work on my build a bit and maybe respec? I’ve gone for a full DEX build like I always do, and have been rocking the Uchigatana from the start.

But it’s just so much work to look into other weapons and have them be viable at this stage. I heard some guy saying he just had shit loads of upgrade items just lying around, like how?

I think the message here is, you need to put in the work to get something out of this game.

I think the question is, do I want a video game to feel like work?
I beat the whole game with the Uchigatana with a spin slash weapon art. You can find more OP katanas later in the game (mainly the weapon arts) but that one is solid all around. Only issue is a few bosses and enemies are damage resistant to it. Take it slow and you'll be fine.

I put all my points into DEX and occasionally health. You'll have a lot of the minor weapon upgrades if you explore but not enough to keep multiple weapons at the same level.
 
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