I had a marathon session of Elden Ring last night. For whatever reason, I really want to see credits roll (after 175 hours, I think I’ve earned it) so I’ve been chugging through the main storyline as best as I can. I previously thought that the area I was in was the last area (that was my impression before going into it), but I was confused because I knew of at least two other areas. Were they optional areas maybe? It didn’t seem like it from the little I’d gleaned about them. One in particular seemed like it was a real place. Or rather, a critical area. In addition, I hadn’t met half the main bosses I knew I had to defeat, so what the hell? As I worked my way through what I had thought was the last area, it dawned on me that it wasn’t, indeed, the last area. It also dawned on me that I had no idea how to make progress within said area. There was a particular loop I had done for an hour without finding the next place to go. And the enemies were whomping me at every turn. Not only were some of them just that hard in and of themselves (which they were), but also there were relentless mobs of them, and it wasn’t possible to draw one away all the time.
Side Note: There is a spell in Dark Souls III called Hidden Body (also in the original game), which is pretty self-explanatory. It makes you mostly invisible. Couple it with the Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring that muffles your footprints, and you can sneak around with abandon around enemies. Both are available in Elden Ring. The former is called Unseen Form and the latter is Crepus’s Vial (a talisman, this game’s version of a ring). There is, apparently, also a talisman that lengthens the duration of sorceries That’s the same as the Lingering Dragoncrest Ring in DS III, but I don’t have it yet. In other words, it’s firmly in end-game content.
In DS III, with all of this equipped, I could run around with abandon, only engaging with enemies on my terms. In Elden Ring, it may work or it may not, depending on, uh, I don’t know. Sometimes enemies will spot me right away. Sometimes, they won’t. I can sneak past some without them noticing whereas others will turn on me in an instant. It1’s more frustrating than a nerf across the boards because I don’t know when it’ll be great and when it won’t.
Anyway. I was trying t o get through this area on my own, but I just could not find the next place. I literally was looping around again and again, getting increasingly frustrated. One thing that annoyed the fuck out of me was that they put a previous field boss right next to a Site of Lost Grace. Even using my sorcery/talisman combo, I could not be guaranteed that he wouldn’t see me. If he caught up to me, he could chop me to death with his two massive cleavers (hello, cut-rate Capra Demon) in two hits. Now, I know I have a tiny health bar with less than 30 Vigor, but that’s just not on. Sites of Grace are supposed to be safe havens. Putting a nasty ex-boss outside one is just mean. It’s not the only time it happens, but it’s especially irritating when I’m trying to figure out where the fuck I’m trying to go.