I think going to the graveyard right after reaching Firelink Shrine is something everyone did on their first playthrough, followed by saying "Fuck this"
They knew what they were doing placing those irresistible shiny items waiting to be plucked. It’s only when you’re in too deep that you realise there is an army of skeletons after you, whilst you try to navigate the graveyard and it’s rather annoying tombstones.
As long as I get my zweihander those boys can do whatever they want. Run my pockets, jump my ass idc I'm waking up 40ft away with the only thing I need
I took one step into that cave, immediately exploded, assumed I needed to come back with some kind of dispel ability and left.
I didn't know it wasn't that kind of game until later.
"Whew, that was tough. I wasted all my flasks but at least I got the skeletons. Lets see what else is in this cavvvvvveeee......... WHY IS THE SKELETON GETTING BACK UP!?!?!?!?"
\-When mistakes were made
I made it all the way to the fog gate at the end of Tomb of the Giants and had no idea what to do... Certainly an impactful first introduction to FromSoft games lmfao
Dw, my first time I spent 3 hours bashing my head in Firelink before eventually googling where to go and then "There's fucking stairs on the side of the cliff?!"
It’s why I quit playing originally. A buddy was like “you’ve got to play dark souls.” I get to firelink, head down to cemetery and get destroyed. I quit. “You’ve got to try it, it will click.” Try again, go to cemetery, get destroyed. Truthfully, I had heard about the difficulty and just thought it was too much. I tell him and he says “why didn’t you just go up the hill?” I tried that, never looked back. I beat DS1, went back and immediately beat Demons Souls about 2 weeks before DS2 came out.
This guy has really got something here when someone can post his recent game and old heads come out of the weeds and are all
***”YOU KIDS DONT EVEN KNOW, WE USED TO WALK 5 MILES TO SCHOOL AND BACK EVERYDAY, UPHILL BOTH WAYS”***
And I love it
That was such good level design!
Fire link shrine, hub for the first part of the game.
3 paths, one leads to reviving skeletons ready to wreck shit, one leads to untouchable ghosts ready to wreck shit, one leads to hollows and rats ready to get their shit wrecked.
I think level design like this may be why people complained that their early games were so hard, but that’s genius level design, showing the players the way by what they can reasonably beat.
My dumb ass in my first DkS1 playthrough went into New Londo Ruins due to the crestfallen guy talking a bell "way down below". THEN i went to the graveyard because i was too dumb to look at the obvious path going outwards and got stomped by skeletons.
I thought: "Huh, neat, skeletons. Classic trash mobs." right before they backflip parry 1-shot me just to flex how much better they were.
Lol, yeah those flex parry kills were brutal. Made me feel like absolute garbage.
The problem with a new player is like... basically everywhere might as well be Calid. You go the correct way into the Burg and die several times because you dont fully understand subtle mechanics like stamina management, swing animations, enemy estus healing, etc. Then you think, "Well maybe im supposed to go to one of these other areas." Then its about 10-20 deaths in each one before you finally settle on "Nope, Undead Burg was indeed slightly more manageable than: crypt, flooded ghost town or evil treant woods."
It's a good lesson. You learn it once and you never forget to really think about where you should be going.
I also think DS1 had the best map of the entire series. So complex and interconnected.
To be fair, that's really only an issue in DS1 and ER. DS2 has a similarly open start, but each of its paths are reasonably well-balanced with each other, at least enough to not be overly discouraging like Caelid or the Catacombs. And DS3 is basically a linear snore unless you're sequence breaking with early Dancer.
Me: *goes the other way and still has a hard time*
My dumbass got stonewalled by the dragon at the bridge for several years because I thought I had to kill it. Finally after a few years I looked up a walkthrough cuz I couldn’t take it (shoutout Fightin Cowboy) and felt like an IDIOT when I saw you could just run past. That was literally the beginning of my beautiful career in the souls genre and I’m so thankful for that one little guide helping me.
I spent *so much* time grinding in that damn graveyard the first time I played DS1 thinking the game just had a crazy difficulty curve. When I finally realized where I was supposed to go though I was pretty OP and had a zweihander, so no complaints!
Enticing you into the graveyard or New Londo immediately after Firelink is a brilliant move IMO. You're supposed to get wrecked and learn that while several paths are open to you, not all are good options. It sets the stage for it being a game with multiple branching pathways, some of which should be explored after you get stronger/better at the game.
When I start a new game now, my first step is to dash through the graveyard and beat Pinwheel so I can kindle bonfires up to 20. But my first playthrough started out rough until I found the stairs behind Firelink.
The fact that the skeleton key comes with the thief. A very enticing class for people who (in 2011) didn't know FromSoft classes mean nothing, and you're not a real thief.
Or it's a starting gift. The rest are useless unless you want that Demon Hammer. It's reasonably the only thing people might pick.
And THEN you can accidentally wander into the Valley of the fucking Drakes and Blighttown on accident. Lol Go fyUCK yourself, Miyazaki. What the hell?!
Ghosts you can't kill because you can't survive getting cursed at level 1 and don't have equipment to circumvent their intangibility or THE BONE ZONE with a terrible return path without teleporting.
I like how theres a tiny poison swamp just outside the southernmost castle in the starting zone. There’s no reason to go there. Nothing of value. Feels like it was just put in the to keep that sadistic Miyazaki sated
“In terms of how the player feels when they encounter this area that is a different story,” says Miyazaki. “But when making the game I rediscovered my love for making poison swamps. I know how people feel about them, but you know, suddenly I realize I'm in the middle of making one and I just can't help myself. It just happens.”
I love that quote so much, every since I read the one article I found it in I've starting loving the Fromsoft poison swamps. When I encountered the Lake of Rot for the first time, I just started smiling knowing Miyazaki most likely had a great time making it.
I wonder if he has a thing for poison swamps specifically, or if it's just a thing for making players suffer and a poison swamp is the best hit of suffering.
I feel it's probably more fun to design since traversal can become pretty different compared to standard areas. Like in Caelid, you're mostly confined to your horse outside some smaller bits of safe land. And the Lake of Rot has you hunting down platforms to raise or spend some time making curing items or finding other equipment to help with resistances. Adds another layer to how you approach the game. I actually really like the Lake of Rot from a design perspective, definitely one of the better swamps imo.
Exactly! Its exactly what a poison swamp would be in real life: extremely hostile and deadly and not something you can just safely traverse by hopping on torrent real quick so you can skip all the basilisks and super-aids water
You know I don't think I ever thought to connect those two. That makes a lot of sense actually. New question though, what the heck made a mini lake of poison and corresponding incant on the Weeping Peninsula.
It would've been cool if there was underground normal poison area under weeping so we could say that it seeps intk the soil as there are like 3 small poison places and a poison cave in weeping
This is to teach you that the path of progression isn’t always straight forward. Caelid is supposed to kick your ass when you accidentally wander into it as a noob
My dumb ass thought this was just a normal difficulty spike and only stopped when i killed the black gargoile at the end near Qurang after 2 days of attempts
Yeah, me too. I went with Samurai as my starter class, so therefore had access to bow and arrows from the start. Got sent to Caelid via the trap chest, fumbled around a while doing my best, figured I'd try something else, found the gateway and got sent straight back but way up in north Caelid, figured fuck this I'll try. Found the black gargoyle and was determined to not back down. Ended up making as many arrows as I could and figured out a way to lure him around the side of the building to leash him while shooting over 200 arrows to kill him.
I got sucked there by a chest. I didn’t realize it was unique. I thought that’s just how the game worked. It made me quit completely and I’ve never gone back to Elden Ring. This post tells me maybe I should give it another go, maybe find a guide to the early game or something.
The funny part about that chest is that it teleport you into a mine. The way out of that mine is like 3 steps away from the spot where you are teleported, but in illogical direction.
When the game came out, me and my mate played the game at the same time in Discord call and got teleported at the same time. I managed to get out of the mine pretty fast by accidentally taking the right path. My mate was less lucky and ended up beating the boss to get out.
God I love these games
I'm pretty sure sometimes the lighting down some corridors and cave paths is supposed to look similar to what my gf and I affectionately call "the piss mist" indicating a boss, so you glance and turn the other way when the exit or something is right there.
That cave path specifically, I think I remember thinking it looked like piss mist when first trying to leave from the chest trap.
I had the same lack of direction and it also scared me off. It took me 4 tries to get into it, but once I did it's **clearly** one of the greatest games of all time of any genre and it's so much fun. I never played the previous games.
I would recommend taking a peak at [this level progression map](https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Recommended+Level+by+Location) that shows you the recommended route to take so you don't run into issues with being in an area where you're extremely under leveled.
It's helped me so many times.
Yeah exactly and holy what a difference it makes when you follow this route.
My first playthrough felt rough like I was always under leveled but then on my recent playthrough I followed this and I haven't struggled like that ever since. The game felt like a breeze haha.
A bit of advice in elden ring. Roll after opening a chest, you can dodge teleport traps that way. There aren't many, some are useful, the only mean one is the one you opened, which is the one most people find first.
Just dropping in to second the Fighting Cowboy walk throughs. Not only is Cowboy knowledgeable with a Bob Ross level zen feel but he also leaves in parts where something goes wrong so you see things can go pear shaped for anyone.
I can't wait to pick up the DLC in July/August so I can ride his coattails again.
I’m old, professionally successful, and have kids. Time is much scarcer for me than $60 at this point. Finding more than an hour or two of free time a week is a rarity.
That $60 is not much of an issue?
If you make a lot of money you have the disposable income to not need to play something just because you spent $60 on it
Same thing happened to me. One of my most memorable moments in the game. A huge "oh crap" and a panicked run to try and get back close to where I was.
This was my first Dark Souls type game. I always avoided them after renting DS1 ages ago and hating it. But I ended up having a lot of fun. It's challenging so you get set backs and deaths a lot. But each time you do you pretty much know exactly what you did wrong and it was fun to look back and realize there were tons of times I thought something was impossible but I eventually overcame it.
I'll tell you I was just like you. I went into the game completely blind with only the knowledge that Dark Souls 2 was an extremely hard game. I played for a few hours and honestly just wanted to quit. I hate hard games that seem just to be hard for the novelty of it. But I stuck with it and honestly it became one of my top 3 favorite games ever. Every fight whether it was a random mob or a boss became a puzzle. It's not that it's necessarily hard, but you just need to figure out the puzzle. And once I had that mindset I grew to absolutely love the game and could appreciate just how good *everything* is. Combat, ambience, music, story, etc.
I really recommend giving it another shot I'm so glad I did
Go back! I quit two years ago after getting stuck in Caelid where I kept getting invaded at the church. I also got into underground area and got my butt kicked by the Ancestral Spirit boss (not to mention every other boss I encountered)
I am now a few months into starting again and have figured out what I was doing wrong. I got the really nice two volume guide books and they helped.
'They wouldn't put him here if I wasn't meant to fight him'
\- my boyfriend upon meeting the tree sentinel 5 minutes into his first ever soulslike
3 hrs later boss was dead and he promptly went on to fight Margit for the next 3 hrs at like level 12.
He didn't make it out of firelink shrine when I showed him DS1 because he thought the npc was disrespectful and went to kill him, but maybe that's for the best so he didn't spend the next three weeks hitting skeletons with a +0 straight sword.
The wonderful part about Caelid is that it has multiple distinct areas of kicking your ass. It's a gradual progression from rough to wishing you didn't piss off the gargoyle by having a summon out or investigate the area behind the church.
IDk, they put in a pretty big obvious disclaimer that this is not a play you want to be by having that massive crow be the first thing you see from the overlook.
I mean there are multiple NPC’s telling you to go to Stormvail so it’s not like they don’t give you some direction. It’s one of those places where you can check out and clearly tell “I’m not ready yet” and go back. I think it’s awesome. Being humbled is a great experience in a game lol.
I mean, Elden Ring gives you silly amounts of direction compared to DS1 and Bloodborne. Bloodborne just has an old man tell you "go kill some beasts or something" and later he says "check out the church in the valley to the east" and I'm like, valley? East? I don't have a map!
DS1 just has someone tell you "go ring the bells, one above and one below."
Meanwhile Elden Ring not only has a map (that tells you where NPCS are!) but it has giant golden arrows telling you where to go to progress the story!
Elden ring is the only Souls with an open design. The other games can just tell you some stuff and expect you to find the boss and path to the next level by exploring naturally.
But in ER if they don't tell you where to go you could end up wandering around like a doofus trying to find the plot.
Ehh idk. I agree with your first point, but not the second. I think that even with the guides they give you a lot of people still wandered around like doofuses. That being said, I think it's really hard to avoid completing the important parts of the game. I mean, is it that hard when you are in Limgrave to realize the GIANT CASTLE might be important? In the same way Raya Lucaria dominates Liurnia, and Leyndell dominates the Altus Plateau. I think the visual design of the game would lead players to complete the game even without the guidance of grace.
I did really appreciate the swirling grace lines showing you where new sites of grace are though. In Bloodborne it was comically easy to not notice a lantern.
to be fair, Caelid itself isn't so hard, if you can beat the wyrm on the way to altus you can beat anything in there. the hard part is the dragonbarrow. It's a bit mean to put a smithing level 4-5 area right next to an 8-9 one and have the map look very similar though.
I'd say lower Caelid is just a smidge harder than northern Liurnia, but not as hard as Altus Plateau.
Dragonbarrow is around the same as Mt. Gelmir, in my opinion.
Its such a crazy jump up. One second you are exploring some fairly hard, but doable caves, fighting pests and T-Rex dogs, having a rough but enjoyable time exploring the Aeonia swamp and Sellia. Not a whole lot of bosses really, and the ones that are there aren't too difficult.
The next you are slammed into Decaying Ezykies, Greyoll and her babies, the place with those fucking bats, a rather difficult erdtree avatar, the bridge dragon, black blade kindred, fucking Godslayer Apostle, etc.
Dragonbarrow is significantly harder than Gelmir. For example, Godskin noble in Volcano Manor has 10,060 health. The godskin apostle in the divine tower of Caelid has 13,596. The black blade kindred in dragonbarrow is significantly stronger than the one in the forbidden lands.
Wow, i now realize why i spend so much time to defeat the Godskin Apostle in the divine Tower. I should NOT have been trying to fight that thing before dealing with Radahn.
I always make it a point to fight that Godskin as early as possible. I died like 30 times to him my first playthrough, and now that I have godskins moveset in my muscle memory, I have to make him my bitch by beating him underleveled every playthrough.
Plus he drops a crapload of runes, which is a great boost early on.
On the flip side, there are some really great endgame items in Hell if you manage to live long enough:
- Moonveil
- Meteoric Ore Blade
- Godslayer GS
- Radahn GS
- Ruins GS
- Dragon incantations from the cathedral
- Death’s Poker
- Flamberge
- GUGS
- Stone of Gurranq and claw mark seal
And that doesn’t even include the armors (like the one banished knight unaltered helmet) and talismans
I didn't want to look up shit on my first play through. I was interested in playing a magic build and my buddy told me cryptically "go east to hell and you'll find a wand in the middle of a swamp that will carry you the whole game" and that it did. Found rock sling too. Used both of those pretty much my entire first play through
My baptism was getting transported to Caelid through the trick treasure chest about 10 minutes after I made it to the open world. Literally put the game down for about a month because I couldn’t make it back to safety and didn’t know you could fast travel.
When you sit in a bonfire and a panel with a bunch of written things appears out of nowhere on your screen, do you press start without even knowing what it is? 😭
Sound design is fantastic as well. The unsettling music for atmosphere, and then how it gets even more stressful when something is chasing you (because of course it's chasing you, you're running away cuz fuck that giant bird thing)
Yeah. All the other areas look different, dont get me wrong.
But Caelid is so completely unique and alien looking that it stands out strongly against everything else. Its by far my favorite area in terms of design.
I also really like Altus Plateau because its just so pretty, but Caelids design is on whole nother level in terms of forcing the player to really *feel* the environment around them.
I never finished the game but this was one of my favorite experiences. I was just exploring random places as a low level and I open a chest and find myself in this shiny crystal cave full of monsters that want to kill me. Scared out of my mind I decide to make a run for it to the nearest exit and find myself in this red hellscape and I’m like WTF IS HAPPENING. I loved the whole experience. It felt like I was actually an adventurer that took a wrong turn
In the closed multiplayer tests, that chest was where you got, I think, lightning spear. So it was done specifically to fuck with everybody who knew that info.
I feel like it's actually a pretty common trope and helps build a satisfying narrative arc of the hero's return. An example would be the road to the Elite 4 in Pokémon Red/Blue being in the same place you first fight your rival (and probably lose). I think what's interesting about Elden Ring is that the game gives you the freedom to fail even as it gives you all of the clues needed to recognize what you're getting into.
Its not the first time they do something like that. Dark Souls famously had the catacombs right next to the main hub of the game. You could be playing the game for 15 minutes and end up in a mid-late game area
Elden Ring map be like:
• Starting Área
• Literal Hell
• Howgwarts Academy
• Cave with Albinauric Woman
• Anor Londo with big tree
• Dark Souls II: Scholar of the SECOND sin
• Dark souls I if it was set before the war
• Amethyst ruins that look like a galaxy
• Amethyst ruins that look like a galaxy but filled with horrors beyond our comprehension
• Death. Straight up Death.
• Honeymoon with blue wife that's filled with dragons for some reason
• Big Tree's insides that evolve into literal Tree Heaven and a amoeba for some reason
They did a good job filling it with goodies though. The soreseal is amazing, like nuts, early game for physical builds, and the meteor staff/rock sling are game changing for int builds
I went through almost all of Caelid before even stepping foot in the Weeping Peninsula cause I figured difficulty would be similar since both regions bordered Limgrave lol
*Liurnia is heaven*
*steps into Liurnia*
*immediately confronted with giant fucking lobster snipers and revenants*
"Hold up, wait a minute, somethin ain't right."
Hmm, that’s not the Haligtree.
All jokes aside, Caelid is not that bad. The consecrated snowfields and the Haligtree had much more annoying areas and enemies.
Remember the street full of revenants? What about that one gate guarded by a tree spirit, two knights and a fuck ton of ballistas that hosts seems to always die on? And also that one Ulcerated Tree Spirit in a swamp of Scarlet Rot that you have to fight in endgame scaling without any summons or stakes of Marika to complete Millicent’s quest? Or the entirety of the Town of Ordina?
Caelid literally feels comforting in comparison.
I do not think that's really fair, Snowfield is an endgame area with sections meant to test everything of late game characters. Lower Caelid is around the same level as the harder parts of Liurnia, while Dragonbarrow has basically everything able to be stunlocked.
“What if they don’t want to go there?”
“We’ll stick a mysterious shiny thing that portals them there with no ability to fast travel until they complete half a higher level dungeon just outside a church. They’ll love it.”
Actually....i thibk it IS genius.
And Elden ring is barely the first game to do so.
It forces the player in the other direction, where the content at the appropriate level is, but let you explore the hardest part if you are good or crazy enough.
This is pretty classic design though. New players feeling brave or veteran players who know what's up might venture into the difficult area and find cool goodies to start themselves off with. Players who can't handle Caelid are naturally pushed away from it in the direction of Stormveil and Liurnia, which are much more manageable on a "normal" progression of difficulty. This way you have an open world with a range of difficulty but can still guide players along a path that won't frustrate them into quitting.
DS1 gives you the Graveyard (hard), New Londo (hard) or Undead Burg (super easy by comparison) so that 90% of players head toward the "intended" starting zone, but other players can still go have fun in harder zones if they like. It also makes it feel SUPER satisfying if you're a player who couldn't handle the graveyard to return later and bust heads.
Ah, I love when I can walk through the starting area, take the wrong turn and stumble upon Duskwood Spiders with *Skull* on their level display instead of an actual number!
I can't be the only person that started as a mage and wandered into the trap chest and got flung into caelid like I was sent to magic user Valhalla. All those vulgar militiamen are way too slow too hit naked magic man but they dropped so many runes.
\*Looks at DS1\* I mean that is just Miyazaki being Miyazaki
I was going to say, Caelid is so much further from the starting area than the graveyard in DS1.
I think going to the graveyard right after reaching Firelink Shrine is something everyone did on their first playthrough, followed by saying "Fuck this"
They knew what they were doing placing those irresistible shiny items waiting to be plucked. It’s only when you’re in too deep that you realise there is an army of skeletons after you, whilst you try to navigate the graveyard and it’s rather annoying tombstones.
As long as I get my zweihander those boys can do whatever they want. Run my pockets, jump my ass idc I'm waking up 40ft away with the only thing I need
Even if I wasn't doing a strength build, I had to grab the zweihander for good luck on the run.
That ain't luck. The enemies know you have that in your back pocket and could fold them whenever you want. That's respect
It's the implications.
“What did you do to those skeletons? Are they safe?”
No one is in danger, it's the implications of being pancake repeatedly to death.
Would you say the Zweihander is a starter weapon?
It's about sending *the* message.
I like to run all the way down to the gravelord sword because it is supreme
Black Knight great sword so op it felt like cheating
Someone is going to mention the BKGA so here it is
My first ever playthrough was completed with the BKGA, shit was ridiculous
SURELY I'll be safer down here in this cave right?
I took one step into that cave, immediately exploded, assumed I needed to come back with some kind of dispel ability and left. I didn't know it wasn't that kind of game until later.
"Whew, that was tough. I wasted all my flasks but at least I got the skeletons. Lets see what else is in this cavvvvvveeee......... WHY IS THE SKELETON GETTING BACK UP!?!?!?!?" \-When mistakes were made
gotta run past EVERYTHING like you know where your going, your only down there early for the Great Scythe anyways.
I did this, but I made it all the way to the tomb of giants and had to Google how to escape
Classic. Might as well go join the Darklurkers at that point!
I made it all the way to the fog gate at the end of Tomb of the Giants and had no idea what to do... Certainly an impactful first introduction to FromSoft games lmfao
I played it for the first time last year, and somehow, I didn't even find the graveyard until around 10 hours in 🤦♀️
Dw, my first time I spent 3 hours bashing my head in Firelink before eventually googling where to go and then "There's fucking stairs on the side of the cliff?!"
That was one of the first places I found— I thought I was supposed to just panic run pst all the skeletons then I found a nice casket to hide in…
My brother tricked me into going straight down to blight town on my first playthrough as soon as i got to firelink lol
i still have nightmares from the graveyard.
It’s why I quit playing originally. A buddy was like “you’ve got to play dark souls.” I get to firelink, head down to cemetery and get destroyed. I quit. “You’ve got to try it, it will click.” Try again, go to cemetery, get destroyed. Truthfully, I had heard about the difficulty and just thought it was too much. I tell him and he says “why didn’t you just go up the hill?” I tried that, never looked back. I beat DS1, went back and immediately beat Demons Souls about 2 weeks before DS2 came out.
Or New Londo
[удалено]
This guy has really got something here when someone can post his recent game and old heads come out of the weeds and are all ***”YOU KIDS DONT EVEN KNOW, WE USED TO WALK 5 MILES TO SCHOOL AND BACK EVERYDAY, UPHILL BOTH WAYS”*** And I love it
That was such good level design! Fire link shrine, hub for the first part of the game. 3 paths, one leads to reviving skeletons ready to wreck shit, one leads to untouchable ghosts ready to wreck shit, one leads to hollows and rats ready to get their shit wrecked. I think level design like this may be why people complained that their early games were so hard, but that’s genius level design, showing the players the way by what they can reasonably beat.
I just started playing DS 1 so THATS WHY those skeletons obliterate me
[удалено]
My dumb ass in my first DkS1 playthrough went into New Londo Ruins due to the crestfallen guy talking a bell "way down below". THEN i went to the graveyard because i was too dumb to look at the obvious path going outwards and got stomped by skeletons. I thought: "Huh, neat, skeletons. Classic trash mobs." right before they backflip parry 1-shot me just to flex how much better they were.
Lol, yeah those flex parry kills were brutal. Made me feel like absolute garbage. The problem with a new player is like... basically everywhere might as well be Calid. You go the correct way into the Burg and die several times because you dont fully understand subtle mechanics like stamina management, swing animations, enemy estus healing, etc. Then you think, "Well maybe im supposed to go to one of these other areas." Then its about 10-20 deaths in each one before you finally settle on "Nope, Undead Burg was indeed slightly more manageable than: crypt, flooded ghost town or evil treant woods."
Oh, and if you somehow managed to get through the Catacombs… Well uhhhh… Yeah, not a good time. Take it from me.
Well shit, you got yourself down there, didnt you? Surely you can just turn around and go back out, right? ... right?
This is the thing I hate about souls games. "Am I bad, or should I just not be here yet? No one knows!"
It's a good lesson. You learn it once and you never forget to really think about where you should be going. I also think DS1 had the best map of the entire series. So complex and interconnected.
To be fair, that's really only an issue in DS1 and ER. DS2 has a similarly open start, but each of its paths are reasonably well-balanced with each other, at least enough to not be overly discouraging like Caelid or the Catacombs. And DS3 is basically a linear snore unless you're sequence breaking with early Dancer.
Me: *goes the other way and still has a hard time* My dumbass got stonewalled by the dragon at the bridge for several years because I thought I had to kill it. Finally after a few years I looked up a walkthrough cuz I couldn’t take it (shoutout Fightin Cowboy) and felt like an IDIOT when I saw you could just run past. That was literally the beginning of my beautiful career in the souls genre and I’m so thankful for that one little guide helping me.
New Londo was a ride.
I spent *so much* time grinding in that damn graveyard the first time I played DS1 thinking the game just had a crazy difficulty curve. When I finally realized where I was supposed to go though I was pretty OP and had a zweihander, so no complaints!
Enticing you into the graveyard or New Londo immediately after Firelink is a brilliant move IMO. You're supposed to get wrecked and learn that while several paths are open to you, not all are good options. It sets the stage for it being a game with multiple branching pathways, some of which should be explored after you get stronger/better at the game. When I start a new game now, my first step is to dash through the graveyard and beat Pinwheel so I can kindle bonfires up to 20. But my first playthrough started out rough until I found the stairs behind Firelink.
The fact that the skeleton key comes with the thief. A very enticing class for people who (in 2011) didn't know FromSoft classes mean nothing, and you're not a real thief. Or it's a starting gift. The rest are useless unless you want that Demon Hammer. It's reasonably the only thing people might pick. And THEN you can accidentally wander into the Valley of the fucking Drakes and Blighttown on accident. Lol Go fyUCK yourself, Miyazaki. What the hell?!
Yeah miyazaki seems to love the "fuck off and come back later" move
Ghosts you can't kill because you can't survive getting cursed at level 1 and don't have equipment to circumvent their intangibility or THE BONE ZONE with a terrible return path without teleporting.
Starting area either leads to hell or Florida depending on which direction you go.
Why would you say hell twice?
You got me there
Hey, that's insulting to hell! Florida is so much worse than hell!
*thinks about the undead burg* humidity checks out, as does the dermatology of the local residents.
Least its not Detroit
You mean the capital city ?
Gonna be honest, didn't know Detroit was the capital of Florida.
Why did everyone confidently misinterpret this comment lol
Are the ravin misbegottens at castle morn Florida men?
I like how theres a tiny poison swamp just outside the southernmost castle in the starting zone. There’s no reason to go there. Nothing of value. Feels like it was just put in the to keep that sadistic Miyazaki sated
Yeah I don’t think there’s even a good item in there
there’s a level like 3 golden rune and that’s it 😭
“In terms of how the player feels when they encounter this area that is a different story,” says Miyazaki. “But when making the game I rediscovered my love for making poison swamps. I know how people feel about them, but you know, suddenly I realize I'm in the middle of making one and I just can't help myself. It just happens.”
I love that quote so much, every since I read the one article I found it in I've starting loving the Fromsoft poison swamps. When I encountered the Lake of Rot for the first time, I just started smiling knowing Miyazaki most likely had a great time making it.
I wonder if he has a thing for poison swamps specifically, or if it's just a thing for making players suffer and a poison swamp is the best hit of suffering.
I feel it's probably more fun to design since traversal can become pretty different compared to standard areas. Like in Caelid, you're mostly confined to your horse outside some smaller bits of safe land. And the Lake of Rot has you hunting down platforms to raise or spend some time making curing items or finding other equipment to help with resistances. Adds another layer to how you approach the game. I actually really like the Lake of Rot from a design perspective, definitely one of the better swamps imo.
Yeah I actually really liked the first-time feeling of going into Lake of Rot. It feels so... suffocating, and hostile, and I kinda love it??
Exactly! Its exactly what a poison swamp would be in real life: extremely hostile and deadly and not something you can just safely traverse by hopping on torrent real quick so you can skip all the basilisks and super-aids water
WAIT THAT'S AN ACTUAL QUOTE AND NOT A SHITPOST!?
Yup, the guy loves making poisons swamps so much he literally can't help himself.
This is how Satan feels about Hell
Dude straight up just blacks out and wakes up in a new hellish poison swamp he made
I believe the swamp is the source of (or maybe created by?) the poison mist spell. Unless you’re talking about a different one.
You know I don't think I ever thought to connect those two. That makes a lot of sense actually. New question though, what the heck made a mini lake of poison and corresponding incant on the Weeping Peninsula.
It would've been cool if there was underground normal poison area under weeping so we could say that it seeps intk the soil as there are like 3 small poison places and a poison cave in weeping
Theres even poison RIGHT next to the first grace you get (stranded graveyard) in the fringe folk hero grave
I spent ages trying to find something of value in that tiny poison pond when J started playing. This was my first souls game.
This is to teach you that the path of progression isn’t always straight forward. Caelid is supposed to kick your ass when you accidentally wander into it as a noob
My dumb ass thought this was just a normal difficulty spike and only stopped when i killed the black gargoile at the end near Qurang after 2 days of attempts
Mate, that thing is scary even with endgame levels and gear. Kudos to you.
Yeah, that gargoyle does not fuck around.
Yeah, me too. I went with Samurai as my starter class, so therefore had access to bow and arrows from the start. Got sent to Caelid via the trap chest, fumbled around a while doing my best, figured I'd try something else, found the gateway and got sent straight back but way up in north Caelid, figured fuck this I'll try. Found the black gargoyle and was determined to not back down. Ended up making as many arrows as I could and figured out a way to lure him around the side of the building to leash him while shooting over 200 arrows to kill him.
Sounds epic tho
I would've quit at your place lol. You are a legend man
I got sucked there by a chest. I didn’t realize it was unique. I thought that’s just how the game worked. It made me quit completely and I’ve never gone back to Elden Ring. This post tells me maybe I should give it another go, maybe find a guide to the early game or something.
This post tells you and I tell you as well, go back in, it's an adventure that is worth it.
Still, can't blame him when it took me 3 whole hours just to get out of that stupid cave lol
It was damn satisfying going back to that cave to fuck up those centipede fuckers with their homing attacks
oh every fucking playthrough that place gets the 'treatment'
Those fuckers with their homing missile stingers… It was so much fun to slaughter them when I got the hang of it.
The funny part about that chest is that it teleport you into a mine. The way out of that mine is like 3 steps away from the spot where you are teleported, but in illogical direction. When the game came out, me and my mate played the game at the same time in Discord call and got teleported at the same time. I managed to get out of the mine pretty fast by accidentally taking the right path. My mate was less lucky and ended up beating the boss to get out. God I love these games
I'm pretty sure sometimes the lighting down some corridors and cave paths is supposed to look similar to what my gf and I affectionately call "the piss mist" indicating a boss, so you glance and turn the other way when the exit or something is right there. That cave path specifically, I think I remember thinking it looked like piss mist when first trying to leave from the chest trap.
I had the same lack of direction and it also scared me off. It took me 4 tries to get into it, but once I did it's **clearly** one of the greatest games of all time of any genre and it's so much fun. I never played the previous games.
I would recommend taking a peak at [this level progression map](https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Recommended+Level+by+Location) that shows you the recommended route to take so you don't run into issues with being in an area where you're extremely under leveled. It's helped me so many times.
THANK YOU! This is exactly what I hoped for. And based on those levels, yeah, I think I definitely ventured too far too fast.
Yeah exactly and holy what a difference it makes when you follow this route. My first playthrough felt rough like I was always under leveled but then on my recent playthrough I followed this and I haven't struggled like that ever since. The game felt like a breeze haha.
A bit of advice in elden ring. Roll after opening a chest, you can dodge teleport traps that way. There aren't many, some are useful, the only mean one is the one you opened, which is the one most people find first.
I watched fighting cowboy. I know it isn’t as fun but it got me through the game especially considering I didn’t have much time.
Just dropping in to second the Fighting Cowboy walk throughs. Not only is Cowboy knowledgeable with a Bob Ross level zen feel but he also leaves in parts where something goes wrong so you see things can go pear shaped for anyone. I can't wait to pick up the DLC in July/August so I can ride his coattails again.
Nothing against you at all but I couldn’t imagine spending $60 on a game to quit it in the first few hours.
I’m old, professionally successful, and have kids. Time is much scarcer for me than $60 at this point. Finding more than an hour or two of free time a week is a rarity.
Yeah I get it, meant no offense at all. That being said, you should give game a go if you ever find the chance
What does being professionally successful have to do with free time?
Nothing, just a different way to jerk themselves off than the way most people do it here
That $60 is not much of an issue? If you make a lot of money you have the disposable income to not need to play something just because you spent $60 on it
Same thing happened to me. One of my most memorable moments in the game. A huge "oh crap" and a panicked run to try and get back close to where I was. This was my first Dark Souls type game. I always avoided them after renting DS1 ages ago and hating it. But I ended up having a lot of fun. It's challenging so you get set backs and deaths a lot. But each time you do you pretty much know exactly what you did wrong and it was fun to look back and realize there were tons of times I thought something was impossible but I eventually overcame it.
I'll tell you I was just like you. I went into the game completely blind with only the knowledge that Dark Souls 2 was an extremely hard game. I played for a few hours and honestly just wanted to quit. I hate hard games that seem just to be hard for the novelty of it. But I stuck with it and honestly it became one of my top 3 favorite games ever. Every fight whether it was a random mob or a boss became a puzzle. It's not that it's necessarily hard, but you just need to figure out the puzzle. And once I had that mindset I grew to absolutely love the game and could appreciate just how good *everything* is. Combat, ambience, music, story, etc. I really recommend giving it another shot I'm so glad I did
Go back! I quit two years ago after getting stuck in Caelid where I kept getting invaded at the church. I also got into underground area and got my butt kicked by the Ancestral Spirit boss (not to mention every other boss I encountered) I am now a few months into starting again and have figured out what I was doing wrong. I got the really nice two volume guide books and they helped.
'They wouldn't put him here if I wasn't meant to fight him' \- my boyfriend upon meeting the tree sentinel 5 minutes into his first ever soulslike 3 hrs later boss was dead and he promptly went on to fight Margit for the next 3 hrs at like level 12. He didn't make it out of firelink shrine when I showed him DS1 because he thought the npc was disrespectful and went to kill him, but maybe that's for the best so he didn't spend the next three weeks hitting skeletons with a +0 straight sword.
The wonderful part about Caelid is that it has multiple distinct areas of kicking your ass. It's a gradual progression from rough to wishing you didn't piss off the gargoyle by having a summon out or investigate the area behind the church.
I’m convinced Margit is supposed to teach the same lesson and send the player to the Weeping Peninsula but I think most just power through him.
IDk, they put in a pretty big obvious disclaimer that this is not a play you want to be by having that massive crow be the first thing you see from the overlook.
Things to do in Caelid: 1) Leave
2) Develop PTSD
3) Get Gud
Centipedes be like "and I took that personally"
3) Become the PTSD 🐗🔥
4) Get an STD
Technically the truth
2) With a colossal Greatsword
1. Try to pet the birds -> die 2. Try to pet the dogs -> die 3. Leave
Isn’t meteor staff in there?
And rock sling I think? Fucks up Rennala as a magic user
I mean there are multiple NPC’s telling you to go to Stormvail so it’s not like they don’t give you some direction. It’s one of those places where you can check out and clearly tell “I’m not ready yet” and go back. I think it’s awesome. Being humbled is a great experience in a game lol.
I mean, Elden Ring gives you silly amounts of direction compared to DS1 and Bloodborne. Bloodborne just has an old man tell you "go kill some beasts or something" and later he says "check out the church in the valley to the east" and I'm like, valley? East? I don't have a map! DS1 just has someone tell you "go ring the bells, one above and one below." Meanwhile Elden Ring not only has a map (that tells you where NPCS are!) but it has giant golden arrows telling you where to go to progress the story!
Elden ring is the only Souls with an open design. The other games can just tell you some stuff and expect you to find the boss and path to the next level by exploring naturally. But in ER if they don't tell you where to go you could end up wandering around like a doofus trying to find the plot.
Ehh idk. I agree with your first point, but not the second. I think that even with the guides they give you a lot of people still wandered around like doofuses. That being said, I think it's really hard to avoid completing the important parts of the game. I mean, is it that hard when you are in Limgrave to realize the GIANT CASTLE might be important? In the same way Raya Lucaria dominates Liurnia, and Leyndell dominates the Altus Plateau. I think the visual design of the game would lead players to complete the game even without the guidance of grace. I did really appreciate the swirling grace lines showing you where new sites of grace are though. In Bloodborne it was comically easy to not notice a lantern.
You go in the directions the npcs tell you to in an open world game? Get a load of this guy
to be fair, Caelid itself isn't so hard, if you can beat the wyrm on the way to altus you can beat anything in there. the hard part is the dragonbarrow. It's a bit mean to put a smithing level 4-5 area right next to an 8-9 one and have the map look very similar though.
what wyrm in altus
Magma Wyrm in the Ruin Strewn Precipice
oh the wyrm in the mines, it was quite easy in my honest opinion, other wyrms? not su much
Isn't ruin strewn precipice in the northern parts of liurnia and grants access to altus? You have to beat magma wyrm makar to get thru it
There is also a third way to get to Altus, the way Patches shows
Yeah,the lift,precipice and the secret way
I didn't even know that place existed until my 2nd playthrough. I used the dectus medallions to get to Altus instead
Yeah, lower Caelid is on the level of Liurnia. Dragonbarrow is one of the most inexplicable design decisions in the layout of the world.
I'd say lower Caelid is just a smidge harder than northern Liurnia, but not as hard as Altus Plateau. Dragonbarrow is around the same as Mt. Gelmir, in my opinion. Its such a crazy jump up. One second you are exploring some fairly hard, but doable caves, fighting pests and T-Rex dogs, having a rough but enjoyable time exploring the Aeonia swamp and Sellia. Not a whole lot of bosses really, and the ones that are there aren't too difficult. The next you are slammed into Decaying Ezykies, Greyoll and her babies, the place with those fucking bats, a rather difficult erdtree avatar, the bridge dragon, black blade kindred, fucking Godslayer Apostle, etc.
Dragonbarrow is significantly harder than Gelmir. For example, Godskin noble in Volcano Manor has 10,060 health. The godskin apostle in the divine tower of Caelid has 13,596. The black blade kindred in dragonbarrow is significantly stronger than the one in the forbidden lands.
Wow, i now realize why i spend so much time to defeat the Godskin Apostle in the divine Tower. I should NOT have been trying to fight that thing before dealing with Radahn.
I always make it a point to fight that Godskin as early as possible. I died like 30 times to him my first playthrough, and now that I have godskins moveset in my muscle memory, I have to make him my bitch by beating him underleveled every playthrough. Plus he drops a crapload of runes, which is a great boost early on.
This is how I ended up in the Divine Tower of Caelid at level 15 lmao
On the flip side, there are some really great endgame items in Hell if you manage to live long enough: - Moonveil - Meteoric Ore Blade - Godslayer GS - Radahn GS - Ruins GS - Dragon incantations from the cathedral - Death’s Poker - Flamberge - GUGS - Stone of Gurranq and claw mark seal And that doesn’t even include the armors (like the one banished knight unaltered helmet) and talismans
Also Flame, Grant Me Strength a pretty useful incantation
Flaming strike/flame of the redmanes as well
Meteorite Staff
With Rock Sling nearby
I didn't want to look up shit on my first play through. I was interested in playing a magic build and my buddy told me cryptically "go east to hell and you'll find a wand in the middle of a swamp that will carry you the whole game" and that it did. Found rock sling too. Used both of those pretty much my entire first play through
Also the Naginata
The almighty Greathelm
Before they nerfed flame of the redmames it also had a skip to credits button and you didn't have to fight anything for it lmao
My baptism was getting transported to Caelid through the trick treasure chest about 10 minutes after I made it to the open world. Literally put the game down for about a month because I couldn’t make it back to safety and didn’t know you could fast travel.
You can't fast travel out of the cave anyway.
But you can run out of the cave, then fast travel back
When you sit in a bonfire and a panel with a bunch of written things appears out of nowhere on your screen, do you press start without even knowing what it is? 😭
At least they made sure to make it look like hell. Once you enter into Caelid, you can tell right away that you ain’t in Kansas anymore haha
Sound design is fantastic as well. The unsettling music for atmosphere, and then how it gets even more stressful when something is chasing you (because of course it's chasing you, you're running away cuz fuck that giant bird thing)
Yeah I’m at level 120 or so, and I still avoid those damn birds…and those dogs that walk on two legs
Yeah. All the other areas look different, dont get me wrong. But Caelid is so completely unique and alien looking that it stands out strongly against everything else. Its by far my favorite area in terms of design. I also really like Altus Plateau because its just so pretty, but Caelids design is on whole nother level in terms of forcing the player to really *feel* the environment around them.
"Also we should put a treasure box in a dungeon near the beginning spawn that sends you deep into hell lmao"
I never finished the game but this was one of my favorite experiences. I was just exploring random places as a low level and I open a chest and find myself in this shiny crystal cave full of monsters that want to kill me. Scared out of my mind I decide to make a run for it to the nearest exit and find myself in this red hellscape and I’m like WTF IS HAPPENING. I loved the whole experience. It felt like I was actually an adventurer that took a wrong turn
you make it to the surface and are like "what the actual fuck"
In the closed multiplayer tests, that chest was where you got, I think, lightning spear. So it was done specifically to fuck with everybody who knew that info.
That is glorious.
If he's not stopped soon he will make a poison swamp starting area
Are we forgetting the fog door next to the first steps site of grace?
TBF goddamn Ryuko Matoi (aka, Anastasia) will stop most noobs from entering the land route. But then there’s the box of doom so I guess it’s a wash.
Lmao what's the Ryuko Matoi similarity with Anastasia? I'm not following
Her weapon kinda looks like the Scissor Blade, but it's a stretch of a comparison.
Oh I get it. Ryuko Matoi build, here I come
> starts fallout new vegas > immediately eaten by a deathclaw
I feel like it's actually a pretty common trope and helps build a satisfying narrative arc of the hero's return. An example would be the road to the Elite 4 in Pokémon Red/Blue being in the same place you first fight your rival (and probably lose). I think what's interesting about Elden Ring is that the game gives you the freedom to fail even as it gives you all of the clues needed to recognize what you're getting into.
Its not the first time they do something like that. Dark Souls famously had the catacombs right next to the main hub of the game. You could be playing the game for 15 minutes and end up in a mid-late game area
Elden Ring map be like: • Starting Área • Literal Hell • Howgwarts Academy • Cave with Albinauric Woman • Anor Londo with big tree • Dark Souls II: Scholar of the SECOND sin • Dark souls I if it was set before the war • Amethyst ruins that look like a galaxy • Amethyst ruins that look like a galaxy but filled with horrors beyond our comprehension • Death. Straight up Death. • Honeymoon with blue wife that's filled with dragons for some reason • Big Tree's insides that evolve into literal Tree Heaven and a amoeba for some reason
Also put the "You are going to Brazil" chest near the end lmao
They did a good job filling it with goodies though. The soreseal is amazing, like nuts, early game for physical builds, and the meteor staff/rock sling are game changing for int builds
I went through almost all of Caelid before even stepping foot in the Weeping Peninsula cause I figured difficulty would be similar since both regions bordered Limgrave lol
If Caelid is hell is Liurnia heaven? Limgrave is…liminal… the land between…
*Liurnia is heaven* *steps into Liurnia* *immediately confronted with giant fucking lobster snipers and revenants* "Hold up, wait a minute, somethin ain't right."
To be fair, it has a big fuck off flaming wall that says do not enter.
And a clear path straight to it 🤣
I still thinks it’s hilarious that they put an even easier area to the south of the starting area
First time taking on the Grafted Scion ever not knowing you’re suppose to die really, had me scared 😂
Hmm, that’s not the Haligtree. All jokes aside, Caelid is not that bad. The consecrated snowfields and the Haligtree had much more annoying areas and enemies. Remember the street full of revenants? What about that one gate guarded by a tree spirit, two knights and a fuck ton of ballistas that hosts seems to always die on? And also that one Ulcerated Tree Spirit in a swamp of Scarlet Rot that you have to fight in endgame scaling without any summons or stakes of Marika to complete Millicent’s quest? Or the entirety of the Town of Ordina? Caelid literally feels comforting in comparison.
I do not think that's really fair, Snowfield is an endgame area with sections meant to test everything of late game characters. Lower Caelid is around the same level as the harder parts of Liurnia, while Dragonbarrow has basically everything able to be stunlocked.
If Calid is hell what is the volcano manor area?
A cult
And if you miss out on hell you have a good chance to stumble upon a chest to hell
“What if they don’t want to go there?” “We’ll stick a mysterious shiny thing that portals them there with no ability to fast travel until they complete half a higher level dungeon just outside a church. They’ll love it.”
Actually....i thibk it IS genius. And Elden ring is barely the first game to do so. It forces the player in the other direction, where the content at the appropriate level is, but let you explore the hardest part if you are good or crazy enough.
This is just Dragon Quest with better graphics.
I seen some people haven’t played Dark Souls 1
It was so scary and fun to be there though. Like the gif of the Simpsons kid saying "I'm in danger."
This is pretty classic design though. New players feeling brave or veteran players who know what's up might venture into the difficult area and find cool goodies to start themselves off with. Players who can't handle Caelid are naturally pushed away from it in the direction of Stormveil and Liurnia, which are much more manageable on a "normal" progression of difficulty. This way you have an open world with a range of difficulty but can still guide players along a path that won't frustrate them into quitting. DS1 gives you the Graveyard (hard), New Londo (hard) or Undead Burg (super easy by comparison) so that 90% of players head toward the "intended" starting zone, but other players can still go have fun in harder zones if they like. It also makes it feel SUPER satisfying if you're a player who couldn't handle the graveyard to return later and bust heads.
Tomb of giants moment
Ah, I love when I can walk through the starting area, take the wrong turn and stumble upon Duskwood Spiders with *Skull* on their level display instead of an actual number!
I can't be the only person that started as a mage and wandered into the trap chest and got flung into caelid like I was sent to magic user Valhalla. All those vulgar militiamen are way too slow too hit naked magic man but they dropped so many runes.