I think the doors in the Hold should be open leading to a room with one of those creepy old woman critters you sometimes see at bridges. She’ll let you trade in tokens you get from the bosses or either a weapon or spell or equipment piece. Aside from that, just make the rounds with the NPCs after major events and they’ll let you know if anything’s changed since last time.
If you haven’t returned to Jellyfish Girl since going through Stormveil, do that. She’s your ticket to enhancing Ash Spirits. She might have popped into the Hold on her own; I understand she’ll do so if you miss her. Run her chat/fetch quest if you haven’t (it’s just passing notes).
Otherwise, it’s mainly a job of exploring each region and heading for the tallest building for the big event(s).
If you haven’t noticed, the map does give some direction in that it shows yellow flares from the Grace points to the next major story step. It’s not always advisable to follow them ASAP but it does make some minor attempt to offer a suggestion.
I found a guide for reaching the western edge of Liurnia. It may seem like such an obvious thing, but I could NOT get over here without this guide, which showed how you…can indeed just walk right up from a certain spot. It’s allowed me to explore that side of the map.
It isn’t clear from the title, but this really is just about getting to the western part of the map and then the other stuff can be done whenever.
I’m making my way through Caria Manor and this is a new level of tough for me because the wizards here are shooting like crazy. I’m ducking, I’m rolling, I’m using a summon every time the symbol comes on screen now, and I’m making my way through bit by bit. I’m not sure if this is officially one of the larger dungeons or not, but it kind of feels like it.
Oh, I apparently cheesed something. I hit a wall heading north towards what would turn out to be the Manor. I hit a wall that blocked my progress. A couple notes indicated the wall was fake, but me hitting it with my sword did not break it.
I went to the edge, saw around the wall, and jumped the gap on Torrent. Problem solved.
Apparently hitting the wall…does break the illusion? How many times do you need to hit walls for them to disappear if they are fake?
Question: Do we have a Straight Dope password so I can see messages and deaths from Straight Dope players? We should make one if we don’t have one. Every time a player kills a major boss, everyone gets 5% bonus runes for…a little while. Neat.
I’ve been playing a lot and I was able to defeat the boss of the Academy. I found “ignore everything and run at her” as a great method once she hit second phase. I dodged everything she summoned and ran at her and had good success that way.
I found Gideon! If you are wondering how the heck I missed him, I never went and spoke to this old lady at the entrance because whenever I warped into Roundtable, she was apparently behind me. Having spoken to her, I spoke to Gideon and found he will actually tell you some areas to go to.
He was impressed I had 2 Great Runes and advised I go to the Atlus Plateau.
Uh, the old lady even said, “Go become Elden Lord!” to me. Uh…I’ve barely earned that…
I am currently navigating my way through a series of ladders and platforms fighting my way up, hoping it will take me upwards to the plateau, which it looks like I am gradually approaching.
This was the fight I’ve struggled with most in the game, although it’s a long way behind me now. I really struggled with her, mostly getting through the first stage to practice the second!
Honestly, it’s only an OK game for me. I would have preferred a difficulty slide and some people on reddit have helped me via the online component, which has been nice. They gifted me runes to help level up a few times to get the game going(you can gift runes that are like currency in your wallet).
I’m no champ, just got ahead the easy way. I’m by no means insanely strong, but it helped to get a couple weapons, some armor, and some levels the easy way.
I still die a lot. I just died a ton from just an area with regular enemies, but I have had help and I consider it reasonable since it is built into the game.
I made it to Atlus Plateau, though barely. Once I used the grace point there, I headed to what I think is the capital city, but never made it in. It has a long staircase and I was absolutely massacred trying to climb it.
I believe Gideon said to go to Volcano Manor on the west side and while I think I know roughly where that is, I don’t know how to get there and going West a bit got me absolutely SLAMMED by a giant skeleton that comes out of the water…and the ground in that area.
And I and my summons can not damage it, first boss I have seen that my weapons do no damage to. I suppose I am supposed to add a grease to my weapon(Holy?), but I’ve not seen a boss or enemy that my sword swing does zero damage.
I ran away after grabbing my runes and am now meandering around trying to find something I can survive. Atlus Plateau feels like another increase in difficulty.
There are enemies that can’t be hurt by physical damage, or magical damage. That’s why I grabbed a spell that flings rocks at enemies; even though I’m using a spell, the rocks are physical and can harm an enemy that is immune to magical damage.
When I play again, I’ll likely try to run past it for now. If that doesn’t work, I’ll google it and see what I can figure out.
It’s a field boss, so most of those are skippable. I’m not even sure I’m going the right way for Volcano Manor.
I wonder the intended order of events for this game, if there is one. I skipped the “red area” East of Limgrave for now, though I did go there. I got slammed to death by dragons, like multiple ones. It was very grim as a location and even basic enemies there were knocking my health down fast.
In the Atlus Plateau, I seem to be able to head to the capitol city or Volcano Manor, which is the actual location Gideon said to go to. That’s my plan as of now. Getting to the capital city got me wiped out twice. Thankfully, I had just grabbed my runes on second attempt, so they fell back out of me.
There’s an NPC in Liurnia that will teleport you directly to the Volcano Manor if you help her and then reach Altus. I’m not sure if she’ll still offer you the quest if you reached Altus before you met her, but couldn’t hurt to try.
Another way to get there is from Raya Lucaria Academy in Liurnia.
There’s an Abductor Virgin that will take you to Volcano Manor if you let it kill you with its grab attack.
I’m trying walking/riding there west of the initial grace point I found in Atlus region.
The big skeleton boss was unhurtable because that ISN"T the boss! It’s a guy on a boat in the middle of the pond, who can do essentially nothing to you while mounted on horse. Easiest boss of the main game so far once I realized his summon does not attack himself, so hug him and beat him to death with sword. He killed me once with a column of magic power, but was probably one of the most broken/easy bosses yet once I…realized his summon is not him.
I am walking around trying to get to what I assume is Volcano manor, but struggled with the big enemies that suck you inside them. I ran past most of them, only to find “big fire breathing carts” that also hurt me, but I can barely dink any health of them.
I’m basically dodging around and hiding trying to figure out where the heck the entrance to the manor is.
I just reached Volcano Manor and activated the grace point there. I may leave and go down to Caelid, though I have received no directions for anything to do there aside from normal wandering around.
North Caelid is called Dragonbarrow, and is probably best avoided for a bit. In the south, though, there’s the usual assortment of dungeons, ruins and horrible, horrible death. There’s a fun town in the middle called Sellia, which I really enjoyed looking around.
There’s lakes of scarlet rot about, which will kill you pretty quickly, but you can ride through them safely on Torrent. Watch out for geysers.
Redmane Castle is in the south, which the game will eventually hint you towards (it did this for me before Volcano manor, but I haven’t actually done much in Volcano manor and suspect I’ve bypassed it. Might go back later). Anyway, Redmane Castle has a big part to play in the plot, eventually, but before that happens it’s good to look around and loot.
I may have missed the hint. I don’t have a journal to write anything down and after Gideon’s blah-blahing, I took away “go to western Atlus and go to Volcano manor”.
I may head down int eh south and check out the castle you mentioned.
I did go through a bit of the Scarlet Rot lake/swamp, but died too many times and decided to leave. I think that is when I left the region, too.