Aaaaand we’re back. In the Elden Ring channel of the RKG Discord, I have not clicked on any of the spoiler tags because almost everyone is farther along than I am. It really feels like a neverending CIA document with all the black boxes. It’s hard to read any given comment without clicking on the boxes. Because of that, I’m basically skimming through them or just using the channel as a way to ask questions when I need guidance.
At the end of the last post, I was talking about finding new areas and beating hard bosses. I will say that one thing the DLC has been excellent at is making me change up my build when I hit a wall with a boss. Still, the best thing I did was dump 20 points in Vigor. I did not want to bash my head against the wall over and over again just because I took a hit or two. I had told Ian excitedly that I had added 20 points to Vigor and he laughed and said that for someone who was so worried about health (I always top up when my health bar is down at all), I skimped so much on Vigor. I jokingly (but not so jokingly) said I was a glass cannon without the benefit of the cannon part.
It really is the one big difference for me from the main game, and I have absolutely no qualms about doing it. I have enjoyed the DLC so much more than I have past ones because I can take a few hits. Someone in the Discord posted a TikTok from a FromSoft content creator called CohhCarnage who was talking to someone in his chat. That person said they didn’t have much time to game so they used summons to get through it. Cohh immediately said, “That’s great. That’s how it should be.” He went on to say that the bosses are tuned to use summons and anyone who doesn’t use them are doing difficulty challenges. He was clearly impatient with the people who complained that the DLC was too hard but would not summon, comparing it to onebros who whine that Margit is too hard. I have included the first video of his DLC playthrough below.
I wanted to stand up and applaud beacuse I am so sick and tired of this debate. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t play the games that way if they want, but they need to realize that they’re imposing the difficulties on themselves. I saw someone who played Elden Ring as his first From game agreeing with the hardcore fans after playing Bloodborne that Elden Ring was artificially hard and Bloodborne was better. But what he and the hardcore fans refused to see was that they are different games at their base. I mean, they’re similar in some ways, of course, because they are made by the same person (company, but really one person is the visionary), but they are different games.
The guy who was complaining did not use shields or summons. Yes, you are going to find Elden Ring particularly hard if you don’t use either. I mean, duh. I give him a little leeway because it was his first From game, but it’s so toxic–and it doesn’t help when the community encourages that mindset.
Again, it’s a legit way to play. Do it if you enjoy it, but don’t blame FromSoft for making the game different than you would prefer. In fact, welcome to my world! I have mentioned before that there was a prominent FromSoft content creator who, a few months after the base game was released (Elden Ring) put out a video that said as time went on, it would be clear that Elden Ring was the worst From game of all time. He was mad because of how difficult it was to solo all the bosses and the fact that they were designed with summons in mind.
Which, again, that’s fine as his personal opinion, but it amused me that he stated it as fact. Here we are two years later and it’s still considered one of if not the best video game of all time. It’s the folly of considering yourself the norm, which is so easy for cishetwhitemen to do.
Anyway! I do use the spirit summon and the NPC summons, but so far, I have not used human summons. There are two reasons for it. One, I haven’t needed it yet. Two, there are maybe 5 people playying on PC in the RKG Discord. I would much rather summon slugs than randos. I trust our community more to be good summons and not to peace out mid-fight.
I am not against human summons, though, and I would do that if I needed it in future fights. As I said, I have a hunch that things are going to go to a hundo once I get back to the main storyline, and I’m not in it for the boss fights. I know that I’m in the minority because of that–and I did get that adrenalin rush when I beat–I can’t believe it’s this late before I need to add the spoiler warning, but here it is. *SPOILER WARNING* When I beat Commander Gaius, I was jubilant. It was such a rush, especially since I figured out a way to beat him legitimately. It’s wild how not using Torrent made such a big difference. When I was on Torrent, I felt really slow, helpless, and if I couldn’t escape the damn boar.
When I read that the boar was faster than Torrent, a light bulb went off in my head. It wasn’t me being slow or my shitty reflexes. Torrent literally could not outrun the boar. If that was the case, then of course I had to get off him! I did not want to do that because while I did not like horseback combat, he was so useful to maneuver in a fighht, I could not imagine not using him. Let me clarify, in a boss fight in a field, it’s weird not to fight with him.
Once I was off Torrent, all the moves that intimidated me were suddenly so much more manageable. I won’t say they were easy, but I didn’t feel as if I couldn’t escape them. Basically, dodging/rolling into the attacks mitigated much of the problem. At least the regular attacks. The meteor/gravity attacks were a different matter, but that was more a ‘get the fuck out of the way’ situation. As for the Boar, as long as I stayed to the side, most of its attacks were harmless(ish).
It was worth it to kill him, and it really emphasized to me that I need to be flexible with my builds. I tend to stick to one once I make it work for me. I did not have to retool everything for him, but learning the one big thing (not using Torrent) and a few smaller things (using buffs and blood incantations) really helped.
Now. Let’s talk about how I missed certain areas completely. I was joking in the RKG Discord that I needed to take notes as I wander around, but I’m not actually joking. My memory has been shit since my medical crisis, and I have missed two paths simply because I forgot they existed. I talked about that in the last post, but I want to say that even when I diligently search an area, I still miss shit.
I know this is part of the games. It was the same in the base game, but it seems more pronounced in the DLC. There is much more verticality in unexpected places than there was in the base game–which was pointed out by someone in the Discord as well.
I’m done for now. More tomorrow.