Elden Ring Shadow Erdtree General Thread

I recently got back into Elden Ring after playing for 50hrs or so the base game mostly back in 22 when it came out. Incredible game, art style is amazing so it's one of the best looking games I've ever played. I have a few mods to take out chromatic aberration, cpu affinity, no vignette, no intros etc I just copied them over from my previous v108 to the current v112 and they work fine. I don't think I got every boss or major enemy my base game play but most of it and of course I use a trainer, flings, to cut out a lot of the grindy stuff and such so I saved likely 2 or 3 dozen hours over vanilla no trainer play.

So I finally found where to even start the DLC it's not explained well in places I looked at but briefly you need to get underground way out on the extreme western cliff edge of the snowfield region. A good tip is if you see those huge bears in the white snowy area to just keep going along the edge and find a teleport to the underworld map. I had been there previously so from there I could just teleport to a grace at the cocoon which you then touch the hand to then teleport to the shadow land which is the DLC map. It looks incredible and mostly runs smooth. I do get slowdowns in places but it comes back to normal fps quickly. FS makes some incredibly great looking games, Dark Souls 3 also was amazing for it's time and for the most part is still pretty good looking if not the same level as ER.

 

As a note I had to use a save importer coming from an older version save. It was a lifesaver because I really didn't want to start from the beginning, it's a great game but I'm not interested in starting from base game to just play the DLC. I really think FS needs to make DLC accessible directly from the start menu separately to import your save and not bother with having to go online to find where how to even get into the DLC people pay 40$ for, kinda ridiculous by FS. I also don't think putting conditions from the base game to be able to get to the DLC should be required, that's frankly ridiculous. I already did enough in base to just go to the cocoon and go directly to the DLC though.

So yeah the save game importer is here if you need it, pretty self explanatory.
https://github.com/BenGrn/EldenRingSaveCopier/releases

 

I also recommend using Cheat Engine as it usually has a few people working on free cheats at one time, more available. Most trainers are just fancy looking cheat engines, I think Flings are. I also use Flings trainer in this game, the stealth option is nice so you're not constantly having to fight the many roving enemies. But there is no player speed mult in flings trainer so a cheat engine table has that, pretty convenient for such a big game and the horse isn't that much faster then running.

 

So yeah I'm fairly deep into the dlc afaik defeated a good amount of the named bosses and a few w cutscenes before the battle etc I'm currently in the Ruins part of it trying to find my way through the typical FS game maze. I can see a huge bad guy out there but can't figure out how to get up there.

I did defeat the weird Lion thing at the top tower then proceeded to get to the shadow covered door that doesn't open. I guess I need to defeat more of the major bosses in other areas before it can be opened idk it's a FS game! I don't even know to a certainty I finished the base game and I went all the way to the throne part of it so I guess I did.

This game draws you in if you like exploration and enviro puzzles mazes like I do and it looks incredible ofc. I was hoping to switch to Ghost of Tsushima to do the final major mission of Act 2 but never made it I just kept playing this til I was too tired to play anything else. I use Flings trainer to have stealth so I'm not constantly attacked so can focus on just seeing these amazing creations that FS is so good at and just defeating the bosses needed to move forward. No apologies I like to play the games as I most enjoy them which doesn't always match up with the creators intentions. Nothing will ever match the wonder I got when I first played Dark Souls 3 though, my first FS game.

 

So I did a long session today and also used the cheat table from nexus, it's way too complicated but does at least have a kind of inf jump for horse which comes in way handy to save time. You can see where you need to go but it's not obvious how to get there, just jump w horse and he climbs if you keep jumping and moves forward so you can go directly to where you can see most of the time. There is also a true no die cheat where even if you fall a great distance you won't die, sometimes the camera won't go down w you if it's too far and you're SOL but mostly works. The horse will die there but you just fall. Flings trainer has the rest that's really needed except no player only speed mult while on foot, that would be sooo nice in this game or even a horse speed mult option.

I did get to the "final" boss and ofc beat him so I guess ending is done. I still need to go back to the sealed door up on the castle or wherever that had shadow thorns over it and see if it will open now. Only place I have not managed to explore and get the map for is the Abyssal Forest which I understnad you need to go through the Recluse River to get to.

I just kept my build from the base game including armor swords etc frankly the menus are a mess in this game and there's so much stuff it's hard to want to wade into it with the new things in this DLC. It's really the world that's most interesting in this game for me, not the combat, armor etc

I'd guess about 15hrs with cheats for me to the final boss but more to completely get all maps and see most of the regions in total. Fun game that draws me in as mentioned above. It's not a game I'm going to start a new game and do it all over again though, you see the world and amazing enemies etc it's enough once. So I'd say about 70hrs whole game w DLC maybe add 10 more for what I've got left to explore in the dlc. Along w DS3 a classic "souls" game with stunning visuals if not my fav traversal and too much stuff to want to dig too deep into tbh I know there are people who love all that it's just not for me.

 

So yeah the Abyssal Woods are a PAIN to get to and I finally found out how to get there which isn't the funnest thing imo There's not much there tbh but it is a kind of cool Endor PNW type place just not much architecture to it and a long slog to find the mansion since you can't use your horse in the woods, he's afraid of giant rats and such there. I still have not found a simple speed mult for the player walk run, kind of ridiculous with amount of options in the Hexinton cheat engine super table that's not in there.

I think a good dozen or more hours of this game are just traversal and I get it the world is amazing to look at, awesome enemy designs, animations and art style, but if you're focused on finding places and seeing a lot but don't have 4hrs or more a day to play it's a bit much. This is where platformers and nintendont stuff is superior, don't have a lot of time per day to invest in a game then go for those type of games, longer more involved games on weekends or holidays etc And you could emulate older nintendont games on a potato pretty well.

Uh I think that's it for this game for a while. I think I was at 72hrs but it's likely about 68hrs in reality I had a bug where the cheat table speeded up the whole game thinking it was traversal speed so the play clock was going way too fast for a bit. So yeah base done and DLC done in 68hrs not bad. I'm not claiming to have beat every boss or found every grace but I do have no fog on either map and lots of graces found for fast travel. Special shiny junk hunting I'm not interested in.

So classic FS souls game looks incredible and draws you in. My fav still DS3 though. Didn't have enough allies and chance encounters in ER imo I remember the giant at the top of the tower throwing huge spears at you until you go up there and make a friend in Dark Souls 3 etc Not as many lovely ladies in ER either nor as many chance friends to meet as DS3 had.

But overall ER and ET DLC are top notch games def top 10 of their release years.