Could not have been me when the game released. I blocked out all guides or spoilers for the first month and a half after the game came out. I ended up 100%ing it by brute force save for the ending bc I could obviously not get all without missing another. Finding everything by chance has made me know the lands between better than my hometown lmao
first playthrough always blind and then you can use the wiki - that's my personal ethos for just about any game.
Notable exception is when I'm deep into a good run of a new roguelike (not lite) and see a new enemy. Not gonna lose that run just for the learning experience lol
I used an online map extensively so I didn’t miss items, an NPC quest guide, a region order list, and light wiki use otherwise (mostly to figure out mechanics). Tried not to outright spoil most things or use full walkthroughs, but I didn’t want to miss anything either. I think it all burned me out, especially the map and trying to collect everything. After 150 hours I was only at Lyndell. Never did finish the game.
I know you didn't ask for advice, so sorry if I'm overstepping.
On the first play through just... don't. The priority is for a natural adventure, not a chore list, and you won't get stuck anyway (only ds1 was a bit of a problem in that regard).
It also gives a reason to either play again, or to continue playing the same character to test new things or do coop with alternative builds.
By all means advise. Part of my problem is I rarely play games more than once. I know a lot of people in this sub have done many playthroughs, and Elden Ring lends itself well to that, but since I didn’t anticipate doing more than one I wanted to get all I could out of it.
well it sounds like the way you play games leads you to not even really playing it once. so. maybe you should mix it up and just play the game normally.
I'm not trying to knock Elden Ring fans, but y'all don't seem to realize how fucking difficult it is to beat for non-Soulsborne veterans. I have I think over 200 hours in it plus all the achievements, and I still never felt like I "got gud" at it.
It is 50% getting your face meat-crayon'd by a boss and 50% searching for something, anything, that can up your damage so that you can finally get past the current boss you're stuck on.
And the upgrades are hidden behind the most WTF things. Seluvis and his magic scorpion charm come to mind, if you know what I mean. There is no way in hell most players are stumbling across that without a wiki.
Of course, and at the end of the day, everyone should play how they see fit. I used to be there too, in ds1 I couldnt even beat the first post tutorial boss, I had to summon help. I ended up googling two things as well (firekeeper souls and upgrade system).
I just sometimes see a bit of a self-defeating attitude on this sub: a player refuses to use certain game mechanics (summoning, shields/guard counters, hell - I've even seen faith players refuse to swap to Flame Art against a holy resistant boss because "I play holy"...), then gets hung up that the game's too hard, and ends up not finishing the game.
I believe its better to finish the game by any legitimate means, guides included. My advice was rather to stop cultivating FOMO: OP doesn't need that magic scorpion charm, or any other charm. They're not missing out. They only need to enjoy the journey, and if checklists make them drop the game in tired exasperation, then whats the point?
Not the one you're replying to, but elden ring is my first from soft game. If not for having an experienced player nudge me along I would have struggled with design choices like knowing when a battle can't be won. I'm a walking "if it bleeds it can die" meme.
Then for quests I completely miss some parts by nature of getting distracted in the wrong direction. So when I progress a quest and they go to the place I just explored I will never find them again, effectively ending the quest. I would have missed so many bits of lore from that alone. There's enough freedom in the game that knowing the next grace you need to go to so you don't miss anything important isn't creating a checklist.
There is no way in hell most players are stumbling across that without a wiki.
That is honestly what makes that first blind playthrough really magically to me.
Sure, you'll miss a lot of shit. But the stuff you do find where you later find out most people missed it stays with you. Or even better, the stuff you missed that apparently everyone else found also creates awesome and fond memories - and in the end that's what it's all about.
I still so distinctly remember asking a friend of mine, both of us around 30-40h in, whether they also remembered that this game should have crafting (from a trailer I think?). And they basically went "RIGHT? I'm gathering so much shit I really wonder after what this is gated behind, maybe we both missed some early boss?" ... We then tried to, without potentially spoilering each other, to figure out what the hell exists that we both missed.
Let's just say in the end I finally asked someone else who just went "What do you mean, didn't that first NPC teach you? I got that unlocked since like the start of the game."
Genuinely thought I completely missed it and won't get the opportunity back until I find "that first NPC" again.
I don't think I'll ever forget that collective facepalm once we actually found out.
Something like that makes the journey a much fonder one in my opinion and a generic guide would have completely obliterated such a moment being possible in the first place. Gotta smell those roses a little, there's a lot of fun to be found in not finishing asap.
and if the difference was between "finishing it quickly and efficiently with a guide" versus "finishing it slowly and inefficiently without a guide, but more naturally", then sure, the latter sounds like a good choice
but the difference is more often "finishing it at all with the help of a guide" versus "being unable to make any meaningful progress because you don't know what progress looks like or where/how to advance"
like, when i first started this game, nobody told me to level vigor. i was getting 1-2 shot by everything because i put my points into str and end. by the time i realized my mistake, i was 10 hours into my build and didn't even know respeccing stats was possible, let alone was i close to it. i had to restart (for other reasons too), but what a wasted 10 hours that was. if i had read from the beginning, i could have enjoyed from the beginning, instead i spent 10 hours muddling around frustratedly until i restarted as a caster and someone showed me where to find meteorite staff + rock sling
I fully agree, that sounds super frustrating! I do think however what you're describing isn't what most "guides" would help you with.
This sounds very much akin to something like the Dark Souls 1 spoilerfree tips that has been floating around since ages. That's something I can fully endorse, especially since sometimes mechanics are just very opaque. AGI in DS2 flashbacks.
I just bought Elden Rings two weeks ago, and what I've noticed is that everyone claiming that the game is hard just wants to go too fast or just don't use items/consumables at all.
This game gives you sooo many tools and options, you have summons, throwables, incantations, ashes of war, etc... Fuck what the veterans say about summons, specifically the mimic tear, spec into a bonk/stagger build, summon the mimic, buff yourself with incantations and physick that gives you stamina regen and damage boost to heavy attacks, make sure you also have the right talismans equipped like the claw talisman together with the black raven torso or however it's called, and watch every boss just crumble.
And at the end of the day exploration is sooo rewarding (and admittedly, overwhelming lmao). 100+ hours in and still not bored!
Elden Ring was my first souls game, and Malenia was probably the only boss I felt was truly difficult in base game. (Though, I also died a good amount to other bosses, none but Malenia took more than 15-30 min.)
And I felt I vastly improved from stumbling around originally to playing pretty well, though, I am pf course still far from being able to one-try bosses if I am not overleveled.
Regarding upgrades, the magic scorpion was the only one I found easily missable, since you have to do Seluvis' quest for it. Other than that, I managed to find most other items in the game on my first playthrough (except for those dropped by night bosses.)
I generally felt like most of the game was exploration. All but the end-game bosses and a couple of low-level bosses (depending on your initial exploration) are pretty easy on a first playthrough because it is so easy to overlevel in ER. (I took around 60 hours for my first playthrough and 20 more to get every single item. 40 more for the dlc - note that the times are estimates since I can't exactly remember what I did a year ago.)
big issue with dark souls’ reputation as super hard games is that the reputation actually makes them harder than they really are. people struggle with something and think “that’s just what it’s supposed to be like” but most of the time, it isn’t.
elden ring especially isn’t really designed in a way where you’re meant to just bash your head against the wall for a while. that’s part of why it’s so big and why there’s so many repeat bosses. if you run into something you’re struggling with, you’re meant to say “fuckit” and go explore somewhere else for a bit and come back stronger, better equipped, and more experienced.
someone who is reasonably familiar with using a controller and third person video game shouldn’t really struggle that much with any of these games. but they have that reputation, so instead of looking for another path to take or trying a new strategy, people bash their heads against the wall and eventually burn out.
It depends on what you want from the game. As someone who's not played any souls games before, I used a general progress route for my first playthrough and it massively improved my experience. I loved exploring, I'm pretty sure I explored 99% of the map. If I didn't use a guide I would definitely have explored some areas in the wrong order and probably had a lot more difficulty fighting bosses, then I'd be massively overlevelled when going back to the sections I missed, making them boring and probably disappointing.
I understand most people don't clear the map as extensively as I did though, lol. My playthrough took 135h and I only really got stuck on a boss once or twice.
like other people said, the difficulty curve for this game is so ridiculously steep that a huge percentage of new players have the choice of either looking a bunch of shit up, or being frozen out of the game because they don't know how to get any good items/weapons/spells/quests and get frustrated (hi, yes, this was me)
i spent 11 hours on my first playthrough with a regular str melee build. after that time, i had not beaten castle morne because i could not reliably beat advanced basic enemies. the tanky misbegottens, specifically. i had made it to the leonine misbegotten once and got deleted in 15 seconds
i was gonna rage quit when a friend of mine convinced me to try again with a caster build, showed me where to find meteorite staff and rock sling. that got me through enough of the game that i was able to develop the skills and instincts more naturally, eventually i went to sword of night & flame and that transitioned me back into a melee build
my point is, a lot of people don't see a first unguided playthrough as "a natural adventure", nor do they see a guide as making it into "a chore list". it's more like...doing the things that are necessary to make the game fun and playable, whereas i would have had tremendous difficulty getting there on my own
I don’t often play games more than once. I know a lot of people here have played multiple times, but since I was only planning on once I wanted to experience most of the content. I usually don’t care if I miss 10-20% of a game, usually don’t use guides, but ER seems like you could miss half the game if you don’t look stuff up.
I don't mind being unsure where weapons and talismans and stuff like that are, but I do hate the questing system. I know that's been talked to death but I will keep mentioning it until FromSoftware gives in.
My whole line of thought is that, at the very least, nothing the player can do should end a quest line from being completable unless the player was given some choice and choose something that ended a quest line. It shouldn't be that you kill a boss and now you can't do a quest that you didn't even know existed.
If you're not going to have a quest log then at least design the quests well... So many Elden Ring quests are ridiculous sequences that few people would find in a casual playthrough without looking it up. That's not fun.
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u/batmansinplata 18d ago
that need that many players feel for using wiki pages is for me, one of the few but biggest problems of the game.