Elden Ring

[Rusty]

For some reason those reddit clips autoplay and scare the crap out of me! Usually they're a couple of posts off the screen so I don't know they're running.

edit. Now I've actually watched the clip... what am I even looking at?

[Raid]

The ghost is placing its hands on the crotches of two suits of armour.

[Mantis]

Stormveil Castle is so great, classic From level design. The addition of the jump button really adds so much to the verticality and being able to explore the puzzles in these maps. Absolutely huge area, took me about 3 to 4 hours in total to clear entirely and I'm pretty sure I've found every secret it has to offer now.

Spoiler

The huge tree demon in the ravine under the castle took me by complete surprise. Found him whilst casually exploring with no flasks left and he pancaked me. Got him on the second run though. And very pleasantly to say, managed to kill Godrick on my very first attempt. Loving the twinblade action.

[ManBearSquid]

I bought this on PC while feeling sorry for myself due to covid, and so far it seems pretty awesome. Some minor frame hitches here and there, but pretty few and far between compared to some people's experience and it's no worse than some of their other titles, for me at least. Hopefully things remain playable.

I chose The Confessor and I'm gonna go for a strength and faith build as I usually lean more towards intelligence but I wanted to switch it up. Not long reached Limgrave, so it's early days for me yet.

[Wrathbone]

I'm still hugely enjoying it, particularly the eye-opening vistas and vast, imposing architecture. The placement of grace sites is much more generous than bonfires in previous Souls games, often having them right outside boss fights so you don't have to keep re-treading the same areas again and again, which for me is a positive design choice.

[Hatredsheart]

Was lucky enough to win a Steam key for this, I've avoided the Souls games completely but from the videos I've seen this looks like a hoot.

[Raid]

I had to take a few days away from the game because my last few hours with it were pretty frustrating. There are a few enemies in Stormvale Castle that I consider to be badly balanced - they have huge attack areas, they "lock on" to you with certain attacks so the only way to avoid them is to get out of range (as they'll just spin around if you try to dodge past them), and they offer so few obvious times to attack that it just became an exercise in frustration. I can beat them but I'd use most of my flasks to do it, and then have to do the rest of the stretch until the next Grace without any healing ability. I don't seem to be the only one having trouble with these, the ER subreddit seemed to be very negative toward them too. You can cheese some of them by backstabbing from stealth, running away, then repeating once they went back to their patrol route, but it's a tedious way to do things.

The crux of the matter is that I just don't feel I'm very good at this. I don't have the reaction times to deal with some enemies at the minute, and then the game has some elements like stun-locking, and the fact that you can inadvertently "queue" attacks (meaning you start a second attack animation instead of the dodge roll you really want to be doing), and it just leads to me getting frustrated. I am going to go back to it, but I suspect it's not one I'll be finishing.

[Alan]

Knife birds? I found them quite annoying.

I just had a very annoying encounter with spiderhands myself.

[Wrathbone]

The crux of the matter is that I just don't feel I'm very good at this. I don't have the reaction times to deal with some enemies at the minute, and then the game has some elements like stun-locking, and the fact that you can inadvertently "queue" attacks (meaning you start a second attack animation instead of the dodge roll you really want to be doing), and it just leads to me getting frustrated. I am going to go back to it, but I suspect it's not one I'll be finishing.

That is precisely how I felt about Demon's Souls a couple of weeks after starting it, and I didn't go back to it for a year. When I did I felt much the same initially, but I persevered and by the time I'd finished it I absolutely loved the game. I don't think these games are for everyone, but feeling that you're lacking the skills to properly enjoy them I'd say is a common response that can be overcome. They just need time, patience and arguably research to get past sticking points.

[Mantis]

If you're getting stun locked a lot then check what your poise stat is and consider swapping out to heavier armour. You can take a lot more hits before being staggered if you wear something sturdier than the lighter cloth and leather items.

Also, find a 100% physical block shield. They are essential for many encounters against larger or faster foes.

[Raid]

It's not the loss of poise, it's just the general recovery animation, and it happens from the very first hit of certain combos. I'm already wearing decent armour (or at least as decent as I've found), and the shield I have is 100% physical. If I take an entire combo from one of these enemies to the shield, it completely drains my stamina. If I get hit by the first attack in the combo without the shield, the guy just wails on me and I can't move away from it. Some of the attacks I can make do stagger him, but I find it impossible to judge when to do them and which attacks I can prevent him from completing.

And no Alan, it's not the birds, although they're annoying as shit too because of the way the game handles locking on. It's just really difficult to judge your distance from an enemy because the camera points straight at them. The way the Zelda games do it, where the camera pulls back a bit and your character model isn't blocking your view of the gap between you, is vastly better.

I actually didn't have much trouble with the big grafted spider thing next to one of the lifts; I used up most of my flasks to beat it, but it's easily skippable.

[Mantis]

This may not fit your play style, but try learning their attack patterns and relying on dodge rolling a lot more. I don't use the shield much anyway, but particularly so when I know that an enemy combo is just going to burst my stamina to oblivion if I stand and block it all. Most attacks you can learn the timing of to avoid with a single dodge roll for each swing in their combo and then have plenty of stamina preserved to get at least one swing in of your own at the end of their chain.

I also barely use the lock on. I personally find it way easier to just use the camera thumb stick to track things. Lock on is just way too disorientating when you're up against super fast or enormous enemies.

[Raid]

I very rarely use the shield, I much prefer two-handing my weapon. I only really try it if I'm struggling. I've always been the type to dodge attacks than block them. My issue with these guys is that rolling past the attack doesn't work, as they just rotate on the spot and slam the sword down into you regardless of where you end up. You can roll backwards, but they have so much reach on them that it's frequently difficult to avoid the hit.

It's true though, I do need to observe more.

[Mantis]

Are you talking about the taller banished knights in the castle? Their attack animations are far more of a pain than most things up until that point but there is still a window where you can make use of the dodge i-frames to avoid their attacks. If you're dodging and then they're adjusting their aim to automatically swing round and hit you then you're dodging a bit too early. You get a tiny amount of invincible frames on a roll so you can even dodge directly into their weapon swing if you time it right. In fact, in a lot of cases that's probably the better option as if you're dodging in the same direction as the swing motion the i-frames may run out and you'll get clipped by the tail end of the attack anyway.

You have to just dodge away if they're charging up one of those gust attacks though because even if you perfectly time the dodge to avoid the initial contact, the lingering gust effect will still hit you anyway.

[Wrathbone]

I found the easiest (or surest) way to deal with them is to parry/riposte when they attack then retreat and repeat.