The first good news is that I have been able to play Elden Ring for 6 hours and had a lot of fun with it. I reached level 20 and got a basic grasp of what the game is about. Following advice on YouTube, also by Bigeye in the comments on this blog, I took an Astrologer spellcasting class, which is very much oriented to ranged combat. As Bigeye said, using summons in combination with ranged spells is "easy mode", at least for regular monsters and mini-bosses.

Now I spent many years playing MMORPGs, and this is my first "souls" game, so I am somewhat struck by the differences. Elden Ring has game design elements that would make a MMORPG developer cringe. MMORPGs are designed to not make farming too efficient, and to avoid combat situations in which there is no danger to the player. Elden Ring has none of that. In the starting area there are two giants slowly pulling a huge wagon. You can kill them with ranged weapons without them ever being able to touch you, as they are chained to the wagon. They each give over 1,000 runes, which is both the "gold" and the "xp" in Elden Ring. And after you killed them, you can teleport to the closest rest area, and by resting not only regain all your mana, but also respawn the giants. Rinse, lather, repeat, this is how I got to level 20 in no time.

On the other hand, some monsters can be extremely hard, especially boss monsters. I haven't reached the first story boss yet. But right at the start there is a boss that pretty much automatically kills you, and then you come to the first outside area and there is another boss on a horse riding up and down a path. Of course he killed me immediately when I checked him out. So I turned on god mode and tried again. And he killed me again! Apparently the god mode only provides unlimited health, and boss mobs frequently have insta-death abilities that aren't prevented by unlimited health. Doh! There are other cheats giving *you* insta-kills, so I don't think I'll ever really get stuck, but this was kind of unexpected.

So in my experience I haven't been able to find cheat settings yet that would make combat both challenging and fun for me. Even without cheats, many regular mobs are just pushovers against a summon plus ranged strategy. I am beginning to suspect that the game is based on melee combat, not ranged. While being a spellcaster is efficient, I constantly get rewards or discover game elements that are of absolutely no use to me: Strength or dexterity based weapons, armor, shields, "ashes of war" that add combat skills to melee weapons, smithing to improve weapons and armor, nothing really applies to my character yet. Kiting enemies is ridiculously easy.

Elden Ring is sometimes frustrating in that it doesn't tell you a lot on how to play the game. Somewhat ridiculously there are guide videos that show you how to reach the tutorial area, which is very easy to miss. And even with the tutorial you understand only a fraction of the game if you haven't played previous incarnations. Experience in other games doesn't help much, because things are very weirdly balanced. As an Astrologer I start with a cheap spell, Glintstone Pebble, that fires a magic missile rather quickly, and for a low mana cost. Then I find a sorceress selling expensive other spells (Glintstone Stars, Crystal Barrage), only to realize that these "improved" spells actually deal less damage than my basic spell. I don't think I fully understand the magic system yet.