The Shattered Elden Ring Thread: Tarnished Edition - (Shadow of the Erdtree p. 85)

[sXeth]

HA -

The ideas cute, but it basically has to be fake. There's a name over your head when you get within 30m or whatever saying "Host of Fingers", and you can only change it to instead look like a summon. (There's also a compass marker on the Host for the Invader, and using target lock will only lock onto players, but those are a little more obscure)

 

[Dalisclock]

Took down Rykard/the God devouring Serpent. Admittedly it's basically another take on the Yhorm/Storm King fight, but with a two phase battle and a rather interesting dynamic between the two. Notably how you don't get the proper intro until you defeat the God Devouring Serpent and only then does Rykard show up as part of it.

Also the fact it's kind of an interesting arc for Lord-type boss character that he wanted power so much that he basically fed himself to an ancient snake god specifically so he could merge with it(somehow) and apparently to gain it's immortality, a trope I don't think I've seen in these games before. And it's yet another example of how the Golden Order is just the most recent of many, many religions in the Lands Between, all kind of layered on top of each other. FROM loves this layering effect and now instead of eras and kingdoms, it's civilizations and religions.

 

[BrawlMan]

​

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

The ideas cute, but it basically has to be fake. There's a name over your head when you get within 30m or whatever saying "Host of Fingers", and you can only change it to instead look like a summon. (There's also a compass marker on the Host for the Invader, and using target lock will only lock onto players, but those are a little more obscure)

After reading a few of the comments about people doing this in past games as well, it sounds like it could be a case of obliviousness on the invader’s part. The compass and name markers disappear at a certain distance and the invader might’ve never had a clue about locking on to single out a target. Although it could’ve also easily been staged for kicks. Really not that familiar with it though as I’ve only done PvP for Varre’s quest.

 

[sXeth]

After reading a few of the comments about people doing this in past games as well, it sounds like it could be a case of obliviousness on the invader’s part. The compass and name markers disappear at a certain distance and the invader might’ve never had a clue about locking on to single out a target. Although it could’ve also easily been staged for kicks. Really not that familiar with it though as I’ve only done PvP for Varre’s quest.

Theres a couple times in the vid the invader walks right next to him. Totally impossible to miss even if you don't know the compass thing or lock on.

(that idea was used in the one AC that had an MP mode, and in Watch_Dogs (#1 and #2)

 

[Dalisclock]

Finally exploring the Capitol, but first took a detour to beat up on the Tree Sentinel from the beginning of the game. At level 100 and 50 or so hours, I assume I'm way fucking overleveled for him then again, I've fought a number of mounted enemies by this point so I kind of have them dead to rights at this point. After that, even though I got access to the Capitol via the Deeprot Depths and Fia, I decided to fight the Draconic Tree Sentinel because...why not? And he was a bit harder, though he stupidly got stuck behind a rock near the door and I was able to beat him down quite a bit before he freed himself. Also, fun fact, the fog gate between the grace point on the bridge and horse boy only worked in one direction, so I had to ride all the way around to fight him, instead of coming in from behind him to fight him and clear the fog. So the DTS went down like a little *****....exactly as planned *hides the mimic tear and ignores the rock*.

Anyway, Lyndell is quite striking and beautiful in that decrepit FROM way and while on one reason, I realize it's really not that big, it FEELS very big and dense, much like Yarnhem or Lothric. Also the fact I'm carrying a lot of souls, close to a level, but I'm also feels super lost looking for the next grace gives me a sense of constant paranoia that I adore in the best way.

And I have the worst feeling, based on what I've heard, that this is the peak of the dungeon design in this game and I should take my time and enjoy it.

Update: Been exploring all over this place and it's quite well done, but two things I keep seeing in Lyndell that keep catching my attention and I've yet to figure out just what's up with it.
1.) There's these big piles of Ash choking some of the alley's and roads in the Capitol. This would make sense in Dark Souls 3, especially in Irithyll, because the universe slowly being reduced to ash was a big theme there but I'm unclear what's going on in Lyndell that justifies the ash piling up in various parts of the city.
2.) A lot of the houses can't be entered because the doors are sealed with....Wax? Resin? I mean I guess it's because the houses are being abandoned and they're trying to prevent squatters? Or did they just start piling the (un)dead in the buildings and sealing them up....oh god, that's what they did, didn't they? Those soldiers there there to keep the dead from getting too annoying, not to keep people out, aren't they?

 

[Silvanus]

1.) There's these big piles of Ash choking some of the alley's and roads in the Capitol. This would make sense in Dark Souls 3, especially in Irithyll, because the universe slowly being reduced to ash was a big theme there but I'm unclear what's going on in Lyndell that justifies the ash piling up in various parts of the city.

This is the aftermath of Leyndell being sieged at least twice-- once by Godrick, and once by Radahn-- during the Shattering. We see in the intro cutscene that Godrick's forces used flaming catapult rounds-- so presumably the ash is the result of fires in the city under siege. Most Leyndell soldiers have long since lost their minds, so there's been no concerted effort to rebuild.

 

[Dalisclock]

This is the aftermath of Leyndell being sieged at least twice-- once by Godrick, and once by Radahn-- during the Shattering. We see in the intro cutscene that Godrick's forces used flaming catapult rounds-- so presumably the ash is the result of fires in the city under siege. Most Leyndell soldiers have long since lost their minds, so there's been no concerted effort to rebuild.

That makes sense. The only other thing I've seen that might make sense is that it might be the dead dragon slowly decaying into dust. Maybe?

I also made it nearly to the top of the Erdtree sanctuary(I stopped at the fog gate near the Erdtree because it was getting late) and there's a LOT of dead finger readers on the path between the two boss arenas. And that also has my curiosity up. Did they just go up there and die? Were they slaughtered trying to reach the erdtree? And there's a lot more of them then I've seen dead fingers through the game.

 

[Silvanus]

That makes sense. The only other thing I've seen that might make sense is that it might be the dead dragon slowly decaying into dust. Maybe?

I also made it nearly to the top of the Erdtree sanctuary(I stopped at the fog gate near the Erdtree because it was getting late) and there's a LOT of dead finger readers on the path between the two boss arenas. And that also has my curiosity up. Did they just go up there and die? Were they slaughtered trying to reach the erdtree? And there's a lot more of them then I've seen dead fingers through the game.

Hmm, I suppose it could be Gransax decaying. Hadn't thought of that.

The Finger Readers who lie dead near the Erdtree Sanctuary I believe were killed by the Black Knife Assassin in the area. And yeah, there's many more Finger Readers than Fingers. Don't think it's meant to be 1-to-1 ratio or anything.

 

[EvilRoy]

2.) A lot of the houses can't be entered because the doors are sealed with....Wax? Resin? I mean I guess it's because the houses are being abandoned and they're trying to prevent squatters? Or did they just start piling the (un)dead in the buildings and sealing them up....oh god, that's what they did, didn't they? Those soldiers there there to keep the dead from getting too annoying, not to keep people out, aren't they?

That's an interesting thought, personally I thought it might be a method of containing the spread of Madness or Curse due to some stuff they have going on below, but they just didn't expand on it enough to be sure.

The goop looks a bit like the shit the perfumers toss around so maybe they did the sealing under orders - there are only a few left in the city. Casualties maybe? Or they mostly turned deranged after getting high on their own supply having to deal with it.

Or its sikaboom. It really looks like sikaboom.

 

[Dalisclock]

That's an interesting thought, personally I thought it might be a method of containing the spread of Madness or Curse due to some stuff they have going on below, but they just didn't expand on it enough to be sure.

The goop looks a bit like the shit the perfumers toss around so maybe they did the sealing under orders - there are only a few left in the city. Casualties maybe? Or they mostly turned deranged after getting high on their own supply having to deal with it.

Or its sikaboom. It really looks like sikaboom.

I mean, there's is frenzied flame as one of the side....plots, I guess, of this game, so maybe it's been a problem in Lyndell as well as parts of the boonies. I've read it was originally meant to be a bigger part of the narrative then it ended up being in the final version, where you could easily go most if not all of the game without once seeing any frenzied flame depending on where you went.

But yeah, the perfumers might be involved as well. I'm sure it does have something to do with the thinly stretched royal guards in the capitol. For a city that's as important as lyndell is supposed to be, there's one(albeit powerful) knight guarding the back door(once you sprint past the golems along the path). There's almost no resistance from there keeping you from actually getting into the city and just a few scattered knights patrolling here and there, some with a couple common soldiers for backup. I mean, once you know where the guards are, you can avoid a great majority of them with little issue. So clearly there not there to keep out invaders(that's what the two tree sentinels and the army camp at the outer wall gates are for), there seem to be there to keep the streets quiet....from who I don't know. Maybe the creeps down in the lower city?

But yeah, there are a lot of dead bodies, overturned carriages and sealed houses in the city, which makes you wonder just what happened since the shattering.

It does very much remind me of Anor Londo or Irithyll considering how populated the place is supposed to be and how very depopulated it actually is.

 

[EvilRoy]

I mean, there's is frenzied flame as one of the side....plots, I guess, of this game, so maybe it's been a problem in Lyndell as well as parts of the boonies. I've read it was originally meant to be a bigger part of the narrative then it ended up being in the final version, where you could easily go most if not all of the game without once seeing any frenzied flame depending on where you went.

But yeah, the perfumers might be involved as well. I'm sure it does have something to do with the thinly stretched royal guards in the capitol. For a city that's as important as lyndell is supposed to be, there's one(albeit powerful) knight guarding the back door(once you sprint past the golems along the path). There's almost no resistance from there keeping you from actually getting into the city and just a few scattered knights patrolling here and there, some with a couple common soldiers for backup. I mean, once you know where the guards are, you can avoid a great majority of them with little issue. So clearly there not there to keep out invaders(that's what the two tree sentinels and the army camp at the outer wall gates are for), there seem to be there to keep the streets quiet....from who I don't know. Maybe the creeps down in the lower city?

But yeah, there are a lot of dead bodies, overturned carriages and sealed houses in the city, which makes you wonder just what happened since the shattering.

It does very much remind me of Anor Londo or Irithyll considering how populated the place is supposed to be and how very depopulated it actually is.

The dungeater/frenzied flamer is potentially related to the situation in Lyndell, but honestly its purely a proximity thing, probably because of cut content like you said. There's a whole other dungeon you can find below Lyndell, and that has a dungeon below it, and you could potentially blame the stuff you find for causing a need to quarantine. Although honestly I never actually picked up on how one "catches" madness, and the dungeater seems to be a very intimate situation, so maybe neither of those even spread enough to matter.

The whole time I was in the city I expected to run into a resident evil situation where all the doors fly open and there's an ocean of really fucked up undead, because the sealed buildings and sparse kind of off center guards reminds me of the spanish village just before shit goes way south.

There's this whole thing with Hoarah Loux where I guess he had led his people somewhere, and those people are tarnished, so maybe everybody just left? I'm having a hard time figuring out timelines which makes it tough to nail down what there was time to have happened in the city. The damaged ground outside Lyndell has spring flowers blooming and no field grass, which screams those craters happened basically last summer before flowering plants went to seed, but then like, an entire city went to crazy lockdown and totally evacuated leaving only a handfull of civilian servants and nutty soldiers in barely a season? Technically possible I guess, certainly, people probably bailed really fast when the dragon touched down. It feels like we're missing something really important to understand the timeline of everything.

 

[Dalisclock]

The dungeater/frenzied flamer is potentially related to the situation in Lyndell, but honestly its purely a proximity thing, probably because of cut content like you said. There's a whole other dungeon you can find below Lyndell, and that has a dungeon below it, and you could potentially blame the stuff you find for causing a need to quarantine. Although honestly I never actually picked up on how one "catches" madness, and the dungeater seems to be a very intimate situation, so maybe neither of those even spread enough to matter.

The whole time I was in the city I expected to run into a resident evil situation where all the doors fly open and there's an ocean of really fucked up undead, because the sealed buildings and sparse kind of off center guards reminds me of the spanish village just before shit goes way south.

There's this whole thing with Hoarah Loux where I guess he had led his people somewhere, and those people are tarnished, so maybe everybody just left? I'm having a hard time figuring out timelines which makes it tough to nail down what there was time to have happened in the city. The damaged ground outside Lyndell has spring flowers blooming and no field grass, which screams those craters happened basically last summer before flowering plants went to seed, but then like, an entire city went to crazy lockdown and totally evacuated leaving only a handful of civilian servants and nutty soldiers in barely a season? Technically possible I guess, certainly, people probably bailed really fast when the dragon touched down. It feels like we're missing something really important to understand the timeline of everything.

Yeah, I've been able to figure out a fairly basic timeline to the whole history(like real basic) but not so much what was going on in Lyndell specifically. And the Dragon is really wierd because apparently that dragon is what sparked the War against the dragons way back in the day, before the Shattering even happened. So apparently they just killed it and left the corpse there for ages, even after the war was long over the the dragons because part of the Golden order or something.

Yeah, the dung eater has his own weird creepy thing going on like a serial killer and the frenzied flame.....I guess it spreads like Rabies or something, considering it can kill you if you're too close to enemies who have it and there's one village on the weeping peninsula that's filled with frenzied infected villagers but you also find rats with it as well(thus the rabies metaphor).

What creeped me out in Lyndell were all those dudes just sitting on the ground doing nothing, and I ended up killing a lot of them because I didn't want to risk them getting up and sneaking up behind me while exploring. Though now that you mention it the sealed doors also seems paranoia inducing. I've seen a couple of them get up once but I'm not sure what aggroed them.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Yeah, I've been able to figure out a fairly basic timeline to the whole history(like real basic) but not so much what was going on in Lyndell specifically. And the Dragon is really wierd because apparently that dragon is what sparked the War against the dragons way back in the day, before the Shattering even happened. So apparently they just killed it and left the corpse there for ages, even after the war was long over the the dragons because part of the Golden order or something.

Yeah, the dung eater has his own weird creepy thing going on like a serial killer and the frenzied flame.....I guess it spreads like Rabies or something, considering it can kill you if you're too close to enemies who have it and there's one village on the weeping peninsula that's filled with frenzied infected villagers but you also find rats with it as well(thus the rabies metaphor).

Idk if all frenzy acts the same way, ie area of effect spells, but it’s possible to use the environment like large rocks to take cover from its effects. The caster at the flame tower in Liurnia is an A-hole kind of like Djura in Old Yharnam. But at least he had the decency to warn the player and even be friendly under certain conditions.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Lemme tell you about Babs, my ER character.
I created my character for looks a lone, women look better than men IMO so I usually choose to play as them, and I made her dark-skinned, thin, with shoulder-length hair. I chose the Prisoner class because I was coming off of Demons Souls and I enjoyed playing that with INT and DEX and was going to continue that here.

By the time I cleared the first two shard bearers and encountered some NPC's my mind started to change about my character. From a gameplay perspective, I was not liking the poking weapons (rapiers etc) which were awesome in DS, instead I wanted to slashing and striking. Glintstone Pebble was useful early on as all the websites say but the other spells were kinda lame to me. The Bleed effect was so cool when other enemies and players did it, and it is unique to ER compared to other From games (maybe not totally unique but on this level of import and power, it is to me).

Meanwhile, I the more interesting and cooler looking NPC's were women, especially Nephili. After I found the merchant that sells her outfit in Caelid and encountered Millicent who is chasing Melania, while also dealing with the crazy scary area of Caelid and defeating Radan, I decided that all this righteous warrior woman energy and battle-mania and blood turned Babs from a conservative sorceress wannabe nerd into a blood-hungy warrior maniac.

Acquired Eleanora's Pole (or whatever it's called, the blood-fire twinblade) and re-specced to use faith spells for lightning spear, black fire spells and ARC and DEX. As of yesterday evening, Babs is spinning and leaping a bloody tornado of chaos across the Lands Between and honor of all the FromSoftware women that is sick of everyone else's B.S. And most importantly my character looks hella cool.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Lemme tell you about Babs, my ER character.
I created my character for looks a lone, women look better than men IMO so I usually choose to play as them, and I made her dark-skinned, thin, with shoulder-length hair. I chose the Prisoner class because I was coming off of Demons Souls and I enjoyed playing that with INT and DEX and was going to continue that here.

By the time I cleared the first two shard bearers and encountered some NPC's my mind started to change about my character. From a gameplay perspective, I was not liking the poking weapons (rapiers etc) which were awesome in DS, instead I wanted to slashing and striking. Glintstone Pebble was useful early on as all the websites say but the other spells were kinda lame to me. The Bleed effect was so cool when other enemies and players did it, and it is unique to ER compared to other From games (maybe not totally unique but on this level of import and power, it is to me).

Meanwhile, I the more interesting and cooler looking NPC's were women, especially Nephili. After I found the merchant that sells her outfit in Caelid and encountered Millicent who is chasing Melania, while also dealing with the crazy scary area of Caelid and defeating Radan, I decided that all this righteous warrior woman energy and battle-mania and blood turned Babs from a conservative sorceress wannabe nerd into a blood-hungy warrior maniac.

Acquired Eleanora's Pole (or whatever it's called, the blood-fire twinblade) and re-specced to use faith spells for lightning spear, black fire spells and ARC and DEX. As of yesterday evening, Babs is spinning and leaping a bloody tornado of chaos across the Lands Between and honor of all the FromSoftware women that is sick of everyone else's B.S. And most importantly my character looks hella cool.

Something tells me this post isn’t truly complete without a pic.

 

[Dalisclock]

Done with Morgott and Lichdragon......Fo...the one in Fia's room. Now heading up the Mountaintop of the Giants after a brief side trip to Morgott's tower(that was an interesting boss fight...familiar somehow...). So far the mountaintop is fine. I've Been riding past everything picking up stuff because honestly there's not much to see or do. Yeah, it does feel like another version of "Late Game FROM syndrome" though not as bad as the back end of Dark Souls, at least it's no Lost Izalith....at least so far.

I'm honestly to the point just of doing the content I have to do to get to the endgame(and unlock the endings I want to see) and at some point I'll go down and check out lower Lyndell and the sewers. I also intend to try to do the other optional dungeon, the Haligtree, though considering how hard that one is supposed to be, that'll probably be one of the last things I do before the finale, because god knows I'll probably need the levels. So far I've felt like I'm decently leveled and equipped for the content so far, but I've heard that's about to change for the worse so....hurray?

Oh and I'm doing the Goldmask quest because why not. It's really wierd. The fact the one guy can apparently translate for him despite the fact goldmask doesn't even move or talk. Apparently he has a voice actor too, but I don't think he ever talks, so that's wierd.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

 

[Catfood220]

Why does it seem like people only like my messages in this game just after I've healed myself and don't need it? Are they watching me?

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Done with Morgott and Lichdragon......Fo...the one in Fia's room. Now heading up the Mountaintop of the Giants after a brief side trip to Morgott's tower(that was an interesting boss fight...familiar somehow...). So far the mountaintop is fine. I've Been riding past everything picking up stuff because honestly there's not much to see or do. Yeah, it does feel like another version of "Late Game FROM syndrome" though not as bad as the back end of Dark Souls, at least it's no Lost Izalith....at least so far.

I'm honestly to the point just of doing the content I have to do to get to the endgame(and unlock the endings I want to see) and at some point I'll go down and check out lower Lyndell and the sewers. I also intend to try to do the other optional dungeon, the Haligtree, though considering how hard that one is supposed to be, that'll probably be one of the last things I do before the finale, because god knows I'll probably need the levels. So far I've felt like I'm decently leveled and equipped for the content so far, but I've heard that's about to change for the worse so....hurray?

Oh and I'm doing the Goldmask quest because why not. It's really wierd. The fact the one guy can apparently translate for him despite the fact goldmask doesn't even move or talk. Apparently he has a voice actor too, but I don't think he ever talks, so that's wierd.

Cool I look forward to your impressions. I'm way behind you but using the Fextralife progress guide's recommended levels to help check if/when I'm at what levels for what.

I mostly spent yesterday in the underground night city and aqueduct areas while being in the 70's and at this point my feeling throughout this game is that I'm at appropriate level for everything except bosses for which I'm just always feeling underleveled. Summons, co-op, cheese, wikis... that's the only way I'm getting through these bosses so my leveling and such is really about the caves, catacombs and dungeons.