Yes it is. Just Don’t start immediately your journey 2. You can still explore yours first play through after beating the final boss. And that’s when you should make your backup.

Yes, I did that on PC. The endings are chosen after the boss by interacting with Fractured Marika. So I copied my save after the boss fights and then replaced it to watch each of them.

Impossible: You can get all Elden Lord-endings and the Ranni-ending, but NOT the Frenzy-ending, if you save AFTER the final boss.
To get the Frenzy-ending, you first have to inherit the flame of frenzy, which locks you out of all other endings.
Meaning, you have to beat the final boss at least twice, once with the flame and once without it - and then in theory save after the final boss to get the elden lord/ranni endings.

So they still count. You can get summoned to malenia from the start. But the annoying part is you can’t use golden effigy unless a nearby summoning pool is active!

Some areas I don't want to be summoned in for co-op, but I can't go back and deactivate the effigies. A reset is nice when you went ahead and activated all of them that you found on your first playthrough. Then you can just activate the ones that you want for co-op.

Little bro forgot about the difficulty modifier.

pretty sure you shouldn't be allowed to reach max lvl

Oh yeah, so that NG +2 to NG+7 are totally useless with the character already being max lvl? Yeah no thanks dude, its perfectly fine the way it is. Its a You problem.

Just farm at Mohgwyn Palace it’s not that hard

The point of ng+ is not rune farming... You are playing thru the game again with the same character so they tune up the enemies to compensate. Unfortunately, the enemies don't really become a threat again until a few cycles through.

ng+ stops scaling
up after ng+7 it's been that way throughout the series iirc

Yeah, don't really want to explore the entire world again just to fight the same boring layout of enemies.. also why put every talisman in the first playthrough?

"why put every talisman in the first playthrough?"
Exactly, it's not fun to do a NG+..... boring yup !

The game is already huge. I'm glad you aren't forced to do a second playthrough just to get better talismans. I don't know about everyone else, but my NG+ cycles were typically completely different builds, trying things out at a really high level to see the variety offered by the game's vast array of weapons and spells.

I think the idea is that you can get those things again. It'd be pretty confusing to still have the ball bearings but have the shops restock when you receive the same bearing again in NG+

Except it's on the same character and the game doesn't change at all on NG+, so how isn't it essentially the same playthrough?

I did the exact same thing. Got the achievement right away.

Level up some more, i am lvl 220 at journey 1 still, and you can level up pretty fast at the palace approach ledge-road with the farming method

Yea definitely lvl some more just as someone else said. I bet being on NG+4 is pretty difficult for you being at only 150. Also Kinda impressive you even made it that far. Im lvl 170 and i havent even hit my first NG yet but just beat the last boss.

I was level 193 going into NG+

Definitely hang in +4 for a while.

You're pretty much underleveled at this point. The recommended lv for end game at NG is 150. So for NG+ it must be greater than that, and by a lot

That's too low, I'm on NG+3, level 255 with 60 vig and enemies hit like a truck already.

I’m on NG+5 stuck on Melania and Elden Beast. I’m lvl 256. Tried them both over 40 times now. Just stuck.

Might want to tune game a bit and get the levels up

How did you get to NG +4 and only level 150? I’m lvl 190 and haven’t even beaten the game yet. And I still get my *** handed to me at 60 vigor

Honestly I like the map not resetting, it let me know if I entered a new cave that I didn't in my last game or not

It does make it harder to keep track of where you've already gone on the playthrough, slightly annoying for people like me who always tends to go for all bosses.

There is a grace near just about every location. Use this as a guide to where you've been.