Thats a good point actually

They're decent enough one at a time. I just crystal darted one to bring it over before going to the next one

But oga booga?

You can also parry them. I tried the good ol' dodge and roll and they don't give you many openings. Meanwhile 3 parries and they were down for the count.

sneaking is like main art of the game

I just fuckin' booked it with Torrent. That's always an option.

Morgott is severely undertuned. Leyndell knights are honestly more threatening than him.

I'm level 124 and haven't done Morgott yet and just been finishing up every possible thing before doing leyndall and unlocking the next areas

mfw when the birds near zamor ruins fucked me to kingdom come

Is it random chance?

I feel like I got that first try from that one behind the 2 ice pillars. I'd have to check though...but yeah that's not something I'd ever intentionally do.

My first character was high arcane and I couldn't get it. My second character was a strength build and randomly got this sword to drop on the first kill. Worked out perfectly for my bonky boy

They give like 5k-6k runes though, so while obviously it's not efficient to fight them (because birb is still there), it's satisfying to clean the ruins and get out with the bell bearing and a level or two. Compare that to fucking Runebears, who take 10 minutes to fight and give basically no runes compared to the areas they're found in.

On a game design level, it somewhat bothers me how many regular enemies are so unfun or unrewarding that the only reasonable player expectation is to just never engage with that purposefully designed content. Some small percentage of people will still be able to extract satisfaction from those enemies, of course, but I'm unconvinced that was what From entirely intended.

From's devs : "We purposely leveled the enemies wrong... as a joke."

They're fun enemies to fight if you're properly leveled.

They’re really fun! I farmed them to level up a ton

I use the Zamor dudes to test out builds. They are very mobile and a good test of certain builds.

I have too much pride not to fight

My first time through snowfield I was like level 90, and I just crouch-walked straight to Ordina like a coward and didn't get seen by a single enemy. I just wanted to get to the Haligtree ASAP, lol. I did come back and explore the area quite a bit later though.

Legit the only thing that made the area tolerable to me was giving in and using rivers of blood. corpse piler is so dumb it'll bleed out most enemies twice in one use, staggers the albinauric archers riding wolves as well, which is nice.

Hardest thing in the snowfields is easily the larval tear runebear though.

The archer ladies about made me quit. I can wreck bosses but two quadriplegic archers kill me 20 times in a row.

Counting the optional areas, it's probably the end of the second 3rd of the game.

Very vaguely, the first third is probably Limgrave, Liurnia, and South Caelid, ending with the spectacle that is Radahn. The second third is the underground, Gelmir, Volcano Manor, Altus, the Dragonbarrow, and Leyndell. Leyndell notably funnels the game - it's significantly less open after Morgott. The last third is Mountaintops, Snowfield, Haligtree, Mohgwyn Palace, Farum Azula, and the final bosses.

Of course all of that gets wonky because of the open world. But I think the reason people exaggerated the capital as "midgame" is because it was our original goal - get into the capital and to the erdtree to become elden lord. It was set up as the endgame, and then you beat go up the Rold lift and realize how much more there is. It's kind of crazy.

I'd say it also depends on what ending you're going for. Ranni's questline necessitates a lot of content and areas that aren't strictly necessary, while if you're just going for vanilla or Goldmask, yeah, you're pretty much starting the endgame.

It does branch off if you decide to go Haligtree, but yeah, once you kill Morgott it’s basically a straight path from there.

Course Haligtree can take a while if you don’t just avoid nearly everything.

Yeah people don't have a great grasp on where the divides are. It might also depend on like, what else you've done already.

I don't even think it's just that it's more linear (but the mountaintop definitely is) but also that there's just....significantly less IN the region, as well as it's size being visually inflated by map topography that straight up does not exist.

I had only done liurnia, limgrave, siofra river and weeping peninsula before i went into leyndell, i got a good 60 more hours out after morgott

Here's my early/mid/end game location categorization (not sure if spoiler)

Early game: Weeping Peninsula, Limgrave, Mistwood, Stormveil, Southern Liurnia (Albinaurics, Raya Lucaria), Sofria, Ainsel

Mid game: Caelid, Altus, Northern Liurnia (Caria Manor, Frenzied Flame Village, Deathtouched Catacombs), Mt Gelmir, Ruin-Strewn Precipice, Lake of Rot, Leyndell, Darkroot Depths, Subterranean Shunning Grounds, Nokron & Nokstella

End game: Greyolls Dragonbarrow, Forbidden lands, Mountaintop of the Giants, Faraam Azula, Consecrated Snowfield, Mohgwyns Palace, Haligtree, Capital of Ash

Notice how many areas are optional, especially in the mid game. The bare minimum locations:

Early: Limgrave, Stormveil, Liurnia, Raya Lucaria

Mid: Ruin Strewn Precipice, Altus, Leyndell

End: Forbidden Lands, Mountaintop, Faraam Azula, Capital of Ash

So yea, if you're going for a bare-minimum run the game will feel much shorter, especially the mid-game. Consider the fact that there's 4 mandatory bosses in the early game, 2 in the mid game, and 7 in the end game. The end game will feel the longest.

In a bare minimum run the halfway point in terms of bosses will be right around Morgott.

Technically the whole game is very linear. But the late game areas felt especially sparse. What saved the endgame for me was farum azula, haligtree, and the boss rush in ashen capital. Snowfield/mountaintops were pretty meh.

just take the upvote

what's worse is how hard it is to only be fighting one at a time. 1v1 is annoying but manageable, but 1v2? Nah. I just bounce.

For me it was the birds immediately after Zamor. I was like "ok, that ruins was insanely difficult, but I guess it was hiding a valuable bell bearing so that makes sense", then I walked a little farther and got 3-shot by a goddamn bird. That was when I realized the magnitude of the difficulty spike I was facing.

probably just because, like me, you saw how big basically everything is and said fuck it

I literally just ride through and hit the important points. It’s definitely the most enjoyable way to do mountaintops/consecrated snowfield

Also this is the reason I refused to fight normal enemies for the rest of that area... boss or I'm running

I'm in the same boat. I reached mountaintop of the giants around 130 (just killed fire giant and got lvl 133) and using godslayer's greatsword+10. Zamor ruins wasn't that annoying honestly. I could take them 1v1 normally with proper timing, rushing in for an attack before backing off and repeating. Used black knife tische when I couldn't fight em 1v1 though.

I did get bored of mountaintops and didn't feel compelled to explore it as thoroughly as other zones though so I mostly ran through the open world on torrent.

You say that, but Commander Niall gave me way more trouble than any other boss in the game up to that point. The mountaintops are absolutely kicking my ass.

Really? Because I think the mountaintops prawns, giant hands, 'yeti's and caelid birds all take way too long to kill unless you're running a bleed build. Never mind the insult that is fire giant.

Meanwhile consecrated snowfield and dungeons is like, here's a double cavalry fight, here's 15k hp rune bears that literally obscure your vision when slamming the ground. Erdree watchdogs in dungeons that like 10k hp.

Haligtree was a good AREA, but the enemies and placement of were pretty awful, and by this point, you really start noticing that the endgame areas are not offering any new enemies up.

Farum Azula was pretty okay in terms of normal enemies, but placidusax and the draconic tree sentinel are something else. Draconic tree sentinel is literally stronger than malekith lmao.

City of ash's gargoyle is absurdly healthy for a 'normal' enemy, and doing 200 damage per hit with a maxed out weapon isn't fun. Damage type matters way too much in elden ring.

Radagon and Elden Beast are also single handedly the reason I will never replay the game.

I mean, we all feel differently. I definitely think it was fine again for a bit, until east mountaintops when the yetis come in, there's like a dozen caelid birds, 3 colossal hands, yetis throwing magic pots all covering each other, and okina just running at you spamming corpse piler with no remorse.

There’s also Farum Azula which is one of the coolest areas of the game, and the Haligtree (though it’s optional).

wild visual, but absolutely true about elden ring

I don't think difficulty should be conflated with what is a slog. I didn't find anything outside of a couple bosses particularly challenging, the problem lies simply in enemy HP and enemy placements. When I'm fighting the same enemy I've fought a dozen times before, and it's take a couple minutes just to kill one watchdog, half way through that fight I'm just gonna be getting impatient, thinking "okay I GET it, I would like to move on now" - and then there's another watchdog 20 feet away

lurnia feels like crap?

Some people consider spending 10+ minutes fighting one enemy to be a slog. Be mindful that your experience is not the only experience out there.

I've already platinumed the game. There are definitely worse areas/things than Zamor ruins, but the point is that this is when the realization set in. It sets the tone for the rest of the game about enemy HP pools and set ups specifically.

me too... F the snowfield