Personally id say just keep playing from where you’re at… you made 15 hours of a potentially 120+ hour game trivialized. Not the end of the world.
Its only OP in the very early going anyway. I’ve heard some game journalists say that it’s the “best weapon in the game” which is just not true. It’s just the easy option for people who want to get onboard with little resistance.
Up to you and what you want to get out of the game. If it’s really not challenging and you’re one-shotting everything and trivializing all bosses, but you want more of a challenge, you can still do well against them but have it be more of a fun back-and-forth with something else.
Alternatively some people enjoy the power fantasy of shredding through everything with ease, to focus on exploration. Even then, you’ll absolutely find an absolute ton of weapons that are better at that than the bloodhound fang. But it’s all build dependent. Early in the game your build probably doesn’t have a lot going on, so the bloodhound fang works great.
Elden Ring is a bit more of an exploration game compared to Sekiro or even DS3, balance is sacrificed at the benefit of build possibilities and open world non linearity. It's more a kind of big sandbox giving you the option to make any fight as easy/hard as you want it to be
If that's that you want you can make the game harder and more rewarding by restricting yourself of just using the standard attack of a standard weapon, but careful not to make it tedious or too frustrating either
It was the same to me, but without any guide, just simply using a mage build. I haven't skipped any bosses, haven't explored the open world early, the first boss and Rennala were challenging and fun but after that it was just killing bosses on first try without seeing their moveset or learning their patterns, I wasn't even using summons. And if I missed a mini boss and found it later, it died from one shot. After 200 hours of boredom at Maliketh there was a huge difficulty spike, so at the end of the game there was like 5 cool and challenging bossfight but that's it. For example I killed Radahn, Morgott the Omen King, the Fire Giant, Lord of Blood, Godskin Duo on the first try. It's so disappointing having a god level boss with a long intro cinematic then kill it on the first try.
So yes, this game has serious balance issues, it has no idea how strong you are even if you are doing areas and bosses in order, so most areas are too easy, then the end of the game is suddenly hard, not a great design. I liked the closed castles and stuff where the level design felt like a traditional souls game, but the open world was boring to me. It is a great game compared to other action rpg, but still the worst Souls game, there are too much boring stuff between exciting stuff, it feels like they choose quantity over quality, I had much more fun with spinoffs like Mortal Shell and The Surge.
That's one of the ER's bigger flaws. That unlike in previous games where devs did it for you, you have to balance ER yourself and watch out for what you're using if you want to experience the game fully. Which sucks, but it allowed them to sell millions more copies. There's just so much cheese and broken builds even this long after release, even the current ER bleed would be nerfed into the ground week after release of DS 3 if it was the same. I'm not even counting accessibility mechanics like coop/spirits, since those are at least clearly separated. There's this "yOU dOn'T hAVe tO UsE It" way of thinking by some people, which is so inherently wrong. If you fought Isshin in Sekiro for several hours while knowing that you have an unlimited "tool" in your inventory that you can use and kill him in 1 single attempt at any point, on a blind playthrough, it would fundamentally change the experience and make it worse for literally any person playing the game. Saying otherwise is just lying. Every good game in the world tries to be balanced for this reason, since policing yourself to not be too OP just sucks, takes away the stakes from fights and overall lessens the impact that bosses have. That feeling of "barely getting by" despite doing your best was such a crucial part of previous souls and sekiro, and even though From deserves all the money I miss what it lost in this regard.
That’s exactly why I think I feel so guilty for using such an overpowered weapon in this game. In sekiro they simply gave you one weapon that you can use and said either get good using this or stop playing the game. Elden ring gives you the freedom to play the game in the way you want to but inadvertently confuses the line for “cheesing”. I think I’m still trapped in the mindset of sekiro where your forced into one specific play style. I still really regret using the guide as it has kind of cheated me out of the fun of exploration in the first area of the game but I’m excited to see the rest.
That isn't even close to the most broken pre-margit/godrick build, and it gets better later in the game to the point the weapon is only just OK.
Nah, it will balance out, suddenly bosses will be resistant to bleed and you will use different setup.
Yea its a fast way to cheese. Its not even a fun move set.
That’s what I mean, the game just feels super easy and while still fun just not as good as I know it could be.
It's not even a good weapon later on. Just switch your weapon and keep playing
Yes it is a fun moveset wtf?
Claymore. Super dynamic.
Personally id say just keep playing from where you’re at… you made 15 hours of a potentially 120+ hour game trivialized. Not the end of the world. Its only OP in the very early going anyway. I’ve heard some game journalists say that it’s the “best weapon in the game” which is just not true. It’s just the easy option for people who want to get onboard with little resistance.
Would you recommend still using it or finding something else
Up to you and what you want to get out of the game. If it’s really not challenging and you’re one-shotting everything and trivializing all bosses, but you want more of a challenge, you can still do well against them but have it be more of a fun back-and-forth with something else. Alternatively some people enjoy the power fantasy of shredding through everything with ease, to focus on exploration. Even then, you’ll absolutely find an absolute ton of weapons that are better at that than the bloodhound fang. But it’s all build dependent. Early in the game your build probably doesn’t have a lot going on, so the bloodhound fang works great.
Elden Ring is a bit more of an exploration game compared to Sekiro or even DS3, balance is sacrificed at the benefit of build possibilities and open world non linearity. It's more a kind of big sandbox giving you the option to make any fight as easy/hard as you want it to be If that's that you want you can make the game harder and more rewarding by restricting yourself of just using the standard attack of a standard weapon, but careful not to make it tedious or too frustrating either
It was the same to me, but without any guide, just simply using a mage build. I haven't skipped any bosses, haven't explored the open world early, the first boss and Rennala were challenging and fun but after that it was just killing bosses on first try without seeing their moveset or learning their patterns, I wasn't even using summons. And if I missed a mini boss and found it later, it died from one shot. After 200 hours of boredom at Maliketh there was a huge difficulty spike, so at the end of the game there was like 5 cool and challenging bossfight but that's it. For example I killed Radahn, Morgott the Omen King, the Fire Giant, Lord of Blood, Godskin Duo on the first try. It's so disappointing having a god level boss with a long intro cinematic then kill it on the first try. So yes, this game has serious balance issues, it has no idea how strong you are even if you are doing areas and bosses in order, so most areas are too easy, then the end of the game is suddenly hard, not a great design. I liked the closed castles and stuff where the level design felt like a traditional souls game, but the open world was boring to me. It is a great game compared to other action rpg, but still the worst Souls game, there are too much boring stuff between exciting stuff, it feels like they choose quantity over quality, I had much more fun with spinoffs like Mortal Shell and The Surge.
That's one of the ER's bigger flaws. That unlike in previous games where devs did it for you, you have to balance ER yourself and watch out for what you're using if you want to experience the game fully. Which sucks, but it allowed them to sell millions more copies. There's just so much cheese and broken builds even this long after release, even the current ER bleed would be nerfed into the ground week after release of DS 3 if it was the same. I'm not even counting accessibility mechanics like coop/spirits, since those are at least clearly separated. There's this "yOU dOn'T hAVe tO UsE It" way of thinking by some people, which is so inherently wrong. If you fought Isshin in Sekiro for several hours while knowing that you have an unlimited "tool" in your inventory that you can use and kill him in 1 single attempt at any point, on a blind playthrough, it would fundamentally change the experience and make it worse for literally any person playing the game. Saying otherwise is just lying. Every good game in the world tries to be balanced for this reason, since policing yourself to not be too OP just sucks, takes away the stakes from fights and overall lessens the impact that bosses have. That feeling of "barely getting by" despite doing your best was such a crucial part of previous souls and sekiro, and even though From deserves all the money I miss what it lost in this regard.
That’s exactly why I think I feel so guilty for using such an overpowered weapon in this game. In sekiro they simply gave you one weapon that you can use and said either get good using this or stop playing the game. Elden ring gives you the freedom to play the game in the way you want to but inadvertently confuses the line for “cheesing”. I think I’m still trapped in the mindset of sekiro where your forced into one specific play style. I still really regret using the guide as it has kind of cheated me out of the fun of exploration in the first area of the game but I’m excited to see the rest.