If you a long time fan of games from veteran developers FromSoftware, you will know what to expect when playing Elden Ring, for new players, you might be in for a bit of a shock, thankfully, we’ve got you covered with our top 10 Elden Ring tips and tricks to help you survive.
While our Elden Ring tips and tricks will help you to survive, much like the Souls series, the best way to survive is simply by gaining experience, learning how to time your dodges, and understanding how these brutal worlds work, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a few tricks you can use along the way, to at least try and keep yourself alive a little longer.
Elden Ring Tips & Tricks
1. There is a tutorial
When you first jump into Elden Ring, it’s easy to think that the game doesn’t have a tutorial, but it in fact does, much like most content in this game, it’s just not super obvious and you have to pay attention to notice it.
When you are in the cave near the start of the game, you will se a ghost sat on a chair, speaking to him reveals a hint that there is a tutorial nearby, simply jump down off the ledge and the tutorial will start.
Bear in mind that the tutorial only shows you the very basics, it still leaves much of the game for you to figure out yourself, but what it does show you is how to fight, dodge and stay alive, it even features an easy mini-boss for you to practice your fighting skills on too.
2. Take your time picking a class
There are currently 10 classes in Elden Ring, make sure to test a couple of classes before making your decision on which class to play in Elden Ring.
As well as having melee, ranged and magical classes in Elden Ring, there are also hybrid classes too, which combine both melee and magic, or if you really want a challenge, there is the Wretch, a class that starts with no gear other than a club, but does give you the freedom to stack their stats to make a custom class.
Try playing each class for an hour, just to get an understanding of how they work, and see if you can find one that matches your play-style. If you’re still not sure about the classes, take a look at our Elden Ring character classes explained article.
3. Farm Runes and Level Up
Runes are the main currency in Elden Ring, not only are they used to purchase gear and weapons, but they are needed to be able to level up your character too.
Near the start of the game, in Limegrave, the first open world area in Elden Ring, you will come across a large camp, clearing this out of enemies will earn you a solid amount of runes, and the enemies are fairly easy to defeat.
To the north of this camp, next to the gates, there is a site of grace, go there and rest once you have defeated all the enemies at the camp, once you come out of the camp, all of the enemies will have respawned, allowing you to kill them all again, and keep farming runes.
There are some other spots deeper into the map where large groups of enemies stick together, and these can be a quick and fairly easy way to obtain runes, which can be used to level up.
There are better ways to make runes in Elden Ring, but this is the easiest method at the start of the game, and will help you to earn enough runes to at least get a few levels, and make taking on Elden Ring’s first boss a little bit easier.
Another option is to look for grave sites, you can often find large tombs with items inside of them, there are often several tombs together and more than one will have an item inside.
These items are Golden Runes, items that comes in different sizes and each version giving runes upon use, each of the grave sites I have visited have given me a fair amount of these, often letting me walk away with several thousand runes.
4. Find map fragments
When you first open the map in Elden Ring, you will notice it’s veiled in a fog of war, something that can make finding your way around very difficult.
Thankfully there are map fragments that can be found in each area, finding the map fragments will unlock the map for that area, removing the fog of war.
The good news is, you can see the statue symbol, as pictured below, even through the fog of war, these are the location of the map fragment for this area, simply make your way over the where the symbol is on the map, and pick up the fragment.
Just make sure to be careful, in most cases the map fragments are heavily guarded, if you’re still a low level, it might be a better option to just run through on your horse and try to quickly pickup the map fragment, without getting into a fight.
5. Summon other players
While Elden Ring is primarily a single player game, much like the Souls series, there are some options to play with other players.
When you reach a boss, just before the entrance in most cases you will find a Martyr Effigy, these are a sign that a boss is nearby and being nearby a Martyr Effigy increases the chances of finding players to help you with the boss you are fighting.
Interact with the Martyr Effigy to activate it and then open your menu, head over the the multiplayer tab and select the object Furlcalling Finger Remedy, this will now show you all the multiplayer summoning signs on the floor.
If you are struggling with a boss fight, why not try calling on the aid of another player, this might just be enough to help you turn the tides and defeat the boss.
6. Turn off messages
You might have noticed that there has been a lot of controversy over the message system in Elden Ring recently, this has been down to trolls, and people outright abusing the system.
There have been multiple players taking to Reddit to vent frustration over players who have left messages at the bottom of ladders, stopping them from being able to escape, and ultimately leading to their demise.
Turning off these messages could mean the difference between life and death, but at the same time, some messages can be helpful and lead to hidden rooms, it’s up to you if the bad outweighs the good here.
You can read how to disable messages in Elden Ring here.
7. Add more flasks and rearrange them
As you roam the map, you will notice some golden glowing trees these are called Erdtree saplings and they drop golden seeds, and item that can be used to increase the amount of flasks you own.
Once you have collected some golden seeds, head on over to the nearest site of grace and click on flasks, from here you will be able to add another charge, giving you another flask to use in battle.
While you are at the site of grace, you will be able to allocate flask charges too, this means you can change how many flasks you have for both mana and health, taking one charge away from one flask, and adding it to another instead.
8. Place waypoints
When you explore the map in Elden Ring, you will more than likely stumble across tons of dungeons and hidden areas that you might want to return to later in the game, or even merchants you might want to return to.
Some of these will not have map markers on them, and in some cases they wont even have a site of grace next to them, this is where the map marker comes in handy, allowing you to forge your own map, and leaving yourself markers to remind yourself where important areas are, in a vast open world where it can be hard to remember every place you’ve been to.
9. Upgrade armaments
Upgrading your armaments in Elden Ring is essential to progressing and surviving, during the early stages of the game, you are able to do this from the forge at the Church of Elleh, but later into the game you will be able to visit the blacksmith in Roundtable Hold who will be able to upgrade them even further.
To upgrade armaments you will need to have found some smithing stones, these come at different values, and to push your upgrades beyond a certain point, you will need to start obtaining higher value smithing stones.
While increasing your characters level can help you stay alive longer and do more damage, upgrading your armaments is the best way to really make a difference and be certain you pack a punch.
10. Stay away from Margit, he’s not nice!
If you follow the lines between the sites of grace, they will shortly lead you to a boss called Margit, you would think being so close to the start of the game he would be easy, he’s not, he will bash your face in.
When you see the yellowish mist as pictured below, don’t go through it yet, even with the help of higher level players, you will likely be better off waiting, and perhaps killing of some of the other bosses first.
Elden Ring doesn’t give you much direction, in fact, that’s likely the reason you’ve looked for an Elden Ring tips and tricks guide in the first place, but if you look around, there are plenty of dungeons and hidden passageways with bosses and treasures to collect before you should think about taking on Margit.
