How are you actually supposed to play this game without wiki? How can you complete all/most of the quests without wiki?

[davidj123456]

NOTE: This is a genuine question. This is not a troll post.
This is my first Souls Game. During my first play through I struggled a lot. After about 10-15 hours in I started looking up YT guides and build guides which gave away a lot of info. Limgrave, Weeping Peninsula, Stormveil Castle, Caelid, Dragonbarrow, Redmane Castle, and Liurnia of the Lakes I explored entirely on my own. Whatever I found is what I got. But after that (after about 40-50 hours of gameplay) I started looking everything up on the wiki because I was so afraid of missing something.

So I want to ask how are you supposed to play the game without the wiki? Any advice or tips? How are you actually supposed to know which boss to do next? How do you find all of the NPCs and as such complete all their quest lines without missing steps?

[Don Lobo]

You try your best, you get to the end of a cycle and beat the game with whatever quests you manage to do on your own. Maybe stop playing for a bit to not burn out. Then you come back to the game and try things a little bit different. Until you're eventually satisfied with what you manage to do on your own and then stop playing. Simple enough.

But I guess people are too obsessed with achievements and doing everything as fast and superficially as possible that "simple" is not good enough. “Do a second blind playthrough?! Are you ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mad?!”. So yeah… impossible without a wiki- I said with as much sarcasm as I could possibly express.

[Elbonris]

Im playing without the wiki, I just ask a few questions and ask for no spoilers, on here.

You are not necessarily meant to get all the quests in one playthrough.

You kind of jist explore and see what happens. Then you can go to NG+ and try other things you didn't do and/or use a guide.

For me, I am just doing quests as I come across them and having a great time.

[MULTIPASS]

I don't know how much of the main story you want spoiled, but it's actually really simple and the npc's you meet just tell you what to do: Go here, kill this guy, find another guy to kill, go there, now go there, kill this thing, do this dungeon, now beat the last bosses. That's the entire main story in a nutshell. Along the way, sites of grace are always literally pointing at the places you need to go.

As for the side quests, it's simply not required or intended that you be able to do all of those. They just kind of exist for you to (maybe) find. Typically, if you want to do them all to completion you would get info from the community like on a wiki - that's been the case for every souls game. Some people who know the Souls formula well will try to do it on their own as a challenge.

[Sabaithal]

Aside from following the trail of glowing unicorn piss the sites of grace emit? I found most of it via the map. IE, cleared Leyndell, alright, oh look a weird bridge off to the east, lets go find that!

[Nemesis]

my first playthrough was amazing with almost every story line missed. its just they way its meant to be. replayable.

[Argonaut]

Originally posted by davidj123456:

NOTE: This is a genuine question. This is not a troll post.
This is my first Souls Game. During my first play through I struggled a lot. After about 10-15 hours in I started looking up YT guides and build guides which gave away a lot of info. Limgrave, Weeping Peninsula, Stormveil Castle, Caelid, Dragonbarrow, Redmane Castle, and Liurnia of the Lakes I explored entirely on my own. Whatever I found is what I got. But after that (after about 40-50 hours of gameplay) I started looking everything up on the wiki because I was so afraid of missing something.

So I want to ask how are you supposed to play the game without the wiki? Any advice or tips? How are you actually supposed to know which boss to do next? How do you find all of the NPCs and as such complete all their quest lines without missing steps?

Bruh... you have an auto filled map.

If you ride into a greyed out area for like 5-15m and open the blank map you will see an icon appear on the blank canvas that is the location of the map fragment. Set a marker and go straight to it to pick it up. Once picked up look at the map and identify the symbols for notable areas that aren't pop up icons and set markets at them. Congradulations by process of elimination you will now complete the game and can choose the level of completion that you want.

You also don't need to get everything on your first playthrough. If you rush the game and psyche yourself out by being paranoid about getting everything you will make the experience worse for yourself for no reason. Just go into new game+ or start a new character .

[The Fountaineer 🖋]

This game can be overall brute forced so quest lines don’t matter as much. While ER handles questlines even more obtusely than its predecessors, those games as well were figured out by trial and error - just imagine how humans had to figure anything out without the internet or modern knowledge.

I wouldn’t worry about trying to 100% the game right off the bat, particularly if its your first title. Just play it for fun.

[impuretrash2878]

my first playthrough I avoided wikis of any sort. Ranni's quest was totally do-able without outside help. I also managed to finish Irina's or whatever the frenzy eyeball eating girl is named. All of the others not so much. First theres the problem of NPCs relocating to some random spot on the map that you'd have to just get lucky to notice them standing there and then theres the really obscure ones like Sellen's quest which is probably the most unintuitive one in the game.

[Elbonris]

Originally posted by impuretrash2878:

my first playthrough I avoided wikis of any sort. Ranni's quest was totally do-able without outside help. I also managed to finish Irina's or whatever the frenzy eyeball eating girl is named. All of the others not so much. First theres the problem of NPCs relocating to some random spot on the map that you'd have to just get lucky to notice them standing there and then theres the really obscure ones like Sellen's quest which is probably the most unintuitive one in the game.

Is the woman that cuddles you significant at all? Or is her name Irina?

She surprised me with the whole gift and peace out thing, so far haha

[impuretrash2878]

Originally posted by Elbonris:

Originally posted by impuretrash2878:

my first playthrough I avoided wikis of any sort. Ranni's quest was totally do-able without outside help. I also managed to finish Irina's or whatever the frenzy eyeball eating girl is named. All of the others not so much. First theres the problem of NPCs relocating to some random spot on the map that you'd have to just get lucky to notice them standing there and then theres the really obscure ones like Sellen's quest which is probably the most unintuitive one in the game.

Is the woman that cuddles you significant at all? Or is her name Irina?

She surprised me with the whole gift and peace out thing, so far haha

The cuddler's name is Fia. Her quest isnt hard to finish. In fact I think its one of those you cant possibly mess up. You'll find her again later.

[Humpenstilzchen]

I think the quests are almost impossible to do without reading the wiki, but everything else is pretty much learning by doing.

[DayLight1943]

you are not necessarily supposed to finish all the quests and discover every area in a first, blind playthru. the main quest that leads to beating the game and the credits rolling is incredibly easy to follow without the wiki, and outside of that youre just supposed to discover what you can and play the game. you will miss some things, you might not get to a secret area, you might not be able to finish some quests you start. thats how the game is supposed to work. you simply cannot do a blind completionist playthru on your first go-round.

most players use the wiki for completionist playthrus. this is the way its supposed to be. the game is intentionally obtuse and vague to drive community engagement - discussions on message boards, asking friends, making/watching tutorials, making/reading the wiki. interacting with the community and figuring ♥♥♥♥ out is part of the whole experience.

[Krazy Wallet]

This game is very much about exploration. It's a gold mine for the naturally curious. For my first run, I do it completely blind until the end of the game where I check for bonus areas/bosses I may have missed. Also, get used to missing small things, it's ok and adds to the replayability. I'm still finding little things that I missed in prior playthroughs such as talismans or weapons. It's perfectly ok to be lost or not fully understand what something does. Experiment, use different weapons, different spells, and different builds. If you make a mistake in the build, you have ways to reset your build.

As for where to go, the story generally takes you north but you definitely don't have to take those routes. Look for a spot on the map. If it seems unusually barren of things, go explore and see if you can find a cave or even a bonus legacy dungeon. And there's no shame in wandering into an area that you aren't ready for yet, realizing you're outmatched, and returning later. Just be aware, bosses are supposed to be difficult. If you're new to the series, don't expect to kill them in the first 2 or 3 attempts. You may be properly leveled for them and just need to practice and learn their movesets. You also have a lot of resources to use from ashes, spells, and craftables. If something is giving you a really hard time, perhaps your strategy needs some adjusting to simplify the challenge.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out on the forums. There's always someone super knowledgeable and willing to help

[REhorror]

Literally follow the paved road?

[impuretrash2878]

Originally posted by REhorror:

Literally follow the paved road?

this guy has 18% in elden ring