Regarding a big club, perhaps you might want to look around the area east of the starting point…
Just stay away from the swamp for now.
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Oh yeah, and make sure you check in with the Santa-looking merchant in that first ruined church a couple times. He’ll eventually point you along to the start of an important thread.
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So random follow-up question: I am trying to follow the main path, am 5 hours into the game and have yet to come across what I’d consider a true boss fight (or even dungeon). My one friend is baffled by this assuming I’d have at least stumbled upon one on the field by now, so have I possibly wandered well off path already?
(I did stumble upon a cave right by the starting point that was basically a dark hallway, an open cavern/room with some wolves in it, another hallway that lead to a fog door and a low level boss, but that felt more like a small intro one than a full thing).
Of course I did stumble upon some graveyard enemies that wouldn’t stay dead so I jumped down a cliff wall via platforms sticking out of them, wandered near a swamp with a giant lobster, then touched a glowing thing that warped me all the way to the upper left portion of the map right in front of a giant glowing door I can’t open and a dead body with a meeting map. In retrospect it is conceivable that the main ideal path would not look like that… Anyways, place is full of notes saying “dragon west” so I guess I’ll figure out how to go that direction once I stop leveling up off the several lines of knights with their backs to me guarding the other direction.
So yeah, neat game.
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The big castle at the start is definitely what I would call a dungeon. And there are like multiple true boss fights involved in clearing that place. But there is a good chance maybe you could just walk past it and move onto other locations, and not encounter a Big One for a long time.
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Sounds like you made it to the outskirts of the second major dungeon.
The early characters you’ve met and the arcs of light on the save points ought to be steering you towards the castle in the stormy region to the northwest of the starting point—south of where you are now.
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I tried to get to that castle near the windy place and follow the light paths but it seemed fairly inaccessible, so clearly I must have walked past a giant open door at some point 
I did end up finding a door outside a save point (the one by the graveyard with the creatures that won’t stay dead) that lead to an interior where I had to climb a ladder and went to a place where I couldn’t swing a sword and had a throne room but was utterly abandoned, I assume that wasn’t the castle.
I’ll make a mental note to double back there later and hope missing it for a bit isn’t a huge issue!
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Ah! Check the other side. That ladder and inaccessible door is like the exit to the castle dungeon.
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I am approaching 250 hours and close ti finish the game. It’s wonderful.
It feels weird that my 3 favourite games (Sekiro, Demon’s, Elden) are now by the same developer.
Anyway, I have a question for who already finished it:
Should I do Haligtree and Malena first, or go with the straight path and kill the Eldne Beast?
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Either route is fine, there is no point of no return that will block you off from exploring when you’ve killed the last big bad. I killed Melenia first because I couldn’t kill the final boss for a very long time.
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I’m at about 250 hours too, but I’ve been doing a ton summon sign dropping so I’m around level 155 yet only up to the capital.
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So good news, played another couple hours today and finally came across some bosses/a small scale dungeon in a cave! That is a relief. The… less good news is that my gut reaction is that I’m a bit underpowered for all the ones I came across and could only manage one of them think it was in a cave called End of the Road something, had a lot of illusionary walls that hid a boss that was actually an invisible snail that warped around that had a spectral knight attacking you the whole time. Knight was way too strong, snail wasn’t. I was two handing my sword and doing rather little damage while a single hit was generally taking between 2/3 and 3/4 of my health, these games can be hard but it felt like that was a bit more than they’d go for this early on (all this was in the upper left corner).
I am trying to avoid fast travel for now because I have a general “don’t fast travel in open world games unless it is very far or you’ve out a ton of time into it already” rule, I could go back to where I warped to before as I think I found the key for that big door but I am concerned I might not be quite prepped for it. I did try to summon a jellyfish buddy at one point but it didn’t seem to work, might have to look up if I need a catalyst or something for that.
Actually I picked up a few things that I have no idea what they are, might need to look into them when I load up again.
My shield also isn’t parrying anymore, might need to investigate that as well.
…Mysteries abound~
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i love the snails and their wiggle animation while casting spells
north west is definitely higher levelled, you should probably try exploring the south. game’s hard, there is a STEEP damage curve which will probably keep you levelling vitality the whole way through, and as others have mentioned upgrade materials are kind of awkward to come by in the early stages
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What is good is that the knight folks in the north-west actually drop a decent amount of the basic upgrade materials, so even if this early trek there has been for naught I did end up with some of those.
Not to flood the topic with thoughts y’all likely had months ago but I am surprised at how often I am leaning on stealth in the field. At some point I’ll likely have a ton of strength and a giant club to smash all low level opposition with but for now sneaking through groups in bushes and dropping in the occasional backstab is new to my “never played Sekiro” self and gives the early game a much different flavor than what Souls has traditionally offered me.
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This gets stuck in my head every time I find a smithing stone.
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So wait I’m dumb and something someone said earlier just struck me: if I enter GOD.HAND as my multiplayer password does it turn all the other bloodstains and messages off, or just highlight SB ones in addition to them?
BTW I had the idea to see if riding the horse canceled out the poisonous effects of a swamp and felt like a GD genius.
Anyways I looked up online why I wasn’t parrying and apparently need ashes of something to do it except that the game hasn’t even mentioned them yet and I don’t even see an option for it anywhere so… back near the castle anyways so I guess time to get back on the intended course.
Oh yeah, I also stripped off most of what I was wearing and dropped my shield so I can two hand the giant hammer at all times (I have no where near enough strength to one hand it) while still having a decent dodge/roll speed, I missed being a glass cannon.
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It just highlights other GOD.HAND rings
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I need help!
I cannot beat Malenia. I managed to beat her initial form once, and then she one shot me after her transformation.
Any advice?
Are there any consumables that I can use to improve stagger, for example?
Any other possible tricks?
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So the “multiplayer password” will just lock you down to interactions with people also using that password (aside from invasions). That’s for if you want to play with a particular friend.
The “group passwords” won’t shut you out from other interactions but will highlight ones from your groups. You’ll also see this weird tally mark telling you which of the five groups it’s from when you hit the button on the message. For the longest time I thought that was someone’s fancy extended ascii name but it corresponds to the slot on that password screen.
You also get a brief xp multiplier bonus and a cool leaf falling effect any time someone in the group beats a boss. And because approving someone’s message refills their potions, I generally make a point of liking all the SB messages I find.
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And yeah, both the Dark Souls style parrying and kicking commands have been relegated to special abilities on certain weapons or weapons outfitted with those particular ashes.
There’s a guy that sells both of those near the start but make sure you don’t visit him at night…
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