From Software Elden Ring - From Software's new game with writing by GRRM

[Cryomancer]

Or ... You can KAHEHAMEHA him and end him in about 20 sec

Am I the only one who has always played every souls game with the multiplayer turned off?

I like invade and being invaded. I just tunned it down in DS3 cuz I din't liked PvP in DS3.

 

[Lyric Suite]

The multiplayer in DS1 was one of my favored things in the game. Not the way it worked as such, but how it was integraded into the world. I never saw anything like that before.

Over the years i got slightly jaded because i started to pay attention more to how it was done and to the meta. In that sense, DS1 still remains my favored multiplayer experience in this series just because i was new to the experience. The first time i got invaded i didn't even have a clue of what was happening.

BTW, in terms of integration of the multplayer experience with the world of the game, i really missed covenants in Elden Ring.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Covenants were broken since their inception and it's a fucking miracle From decided to give up on them instead of dragging them along.

 

[Skinwalker]

I loved joining the Cathedral of the Deep covenant from a dead corpse that's found after killing the covenant leader (Sulli) and right before killing the covenant deity (Aldritch). Both of which are mandatory bosses.

Makes perfect sense!

 

[Lutte]

I don't understand what you expect them to do. It's a giant enemy of course up close all you gonna see is their crotch

You need to play a deeper repertoire of action games so that you can have an informed opinion on how things can be designed.



Here's a proper camera system.

And here's how to not do it, in the game that probably had in fact the best camera of all From's games (to compare a smilarly sized boss, since there's no dragon to fight in DMC5)



I love From Software games (ER a lot less from the repetitive open world elements, still has its good sides tho) but... they have made no major mechanical improvements in years. The jank that was normal and excusable in their first attempts at making action games became less and less tolerable as the studio became more experienced and grew sizably. They are not the studio that could have gone bankrupt, rebooting a failed game bringing a new director during Demon's Souls. They are the studio making games that went above the 10 million copies sold bar multiple times.

This isn't a "the game is impossible for me" whine. I've done all of it.

Honestly, it feels like From is unable to improve. All they've done over the years is hasten the pace of combat in their Souls games and add a few gimmicks (trick weapons in bloodborne, weapon arts in DS3, ashes of war in elden ring), while continuing to basically just make the same game again and again with little addition to mechanical depth or improvement of implementation (camera, handling of input, engine still riddled with frame pacing issue, control mapping schemes so that maybe using more than one ability like the various spells doesn't depend on switching back and forth in a list? see also: how it's done on Dragon's Dogma etc)

If they also go full on making nothing but open sores games because open sores sell even better after making Elden Ring I'm losing interest.

 

[kites]

I’m choosing to be fabulously optimistic for their future, they didn’t evolve much since DS but holding their own and recently entering a new level of holy money/studio space/tech.. I don’t expect a sea-change with the ER dlc but there has to be something notable after.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

There is no jank. The combat system is pretty much perfect imo. The problem is they keep designing bosses and uber enemies that don't mesh with the combat. They feel like they were designed for a game with faster, more flashy combat. It's been a bad habit ever since DkS3. Bloodborne was the only game to do it right with this style of boss fight. And Sekiro to a lesser extent I guess.

Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Dark Souls 2 didn't have this problem at all.

 

[Skinwalker]

Honestly, it feels like From is unable to improve. All they've done over the years is hasten the pace of combat in their Souls games and add a few gimmicks (trick weapons in bloodborne, weapon arts in DS3, ashes of war in elden ring), while continuing to basically just make the same game again and again with little addition to mechanical depth or improvement of implementation (camera, handling of input, engine still riddled with frame pacing issue, control mapping schemes so that maybe using more than one ability like the various spells doesn't depend on switching back and forth in a list? see also: how it's done on Dragon's Dogma etc)

They've been remaking the same game since Demon Souls, to ever-increasing success. Soulsgames largely carry the studio nowadays, and each new souls game has been a bigger and more mainstream success than the previous, culminating in the ultra-successful and extremely enjoyable Elden Ring.

If it aint broke, don't fix it fundamentally rework it for the sake of muh innovashun and muh originality.

 

[Cryomancer]

I agree, "if it aint broe, don't fix it". Improve what is working and discard what is not working. What I like about ER is that there is no Bed of Chaos/Dragon God tier awful boss.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

If it aint broke, don't fix it fundamentally rework it for the sake of muh innovashun and muh originality.

You compromise your own argument. Elden Ring was a step backwards. They had something that wasn't broke and they tried to fix it with Elden Ring, and they broke it a bit.

 

[Skinwalker]

If it aint broke, don't fix it fundamentally rework it for the sake of muh innovashun and muh originality.

You compromise your own argument. Elden Ring was a step backwards.

How is it a step backwards when they implemented a whole new type of gameplay environment (open-world) and succeeded, while keeping the series formula fully intact?

A step backwards would be a literal Dark Souls 4, in the vein of DS2. Which is what you want. You want a step backwards.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

If it aint broke, don't fix it fundamentally rework it for the sake of muh innovashun and muh originality.

You compromise your own argument. Elden Ring was a step backwards.

How is it a step backwards when they implemented a whole new type of gameplay environment (open-world) and succeeded, while keeping the series formula fully intact?

A step backwards would be a literal Dark Souls 4, in the vein of DS2. Which is what you want. You want a step backwards.

They succeeded in sales, not quality. The open world is not great. And I'm not asking for a Dark Souls 4. I'm asking for a real Dark Souls 3 that doesn't wipe it's ass with all of the great things Dark Souls 2 did.

 

[Cryomancer]

IMO the open world aspect of ER could have focused more in quality instead of quantity and having one or two mines instead of dozens of very similar mines and could have genders instead of body times in character creation. This are my ER critiques. However, ER is the best modern AAA RPG.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

However, ER is the best modern AAA RPG.

Horseshit. Play DD2 before spewing such filth.

 

[Skinwalker]

IMO the open world aspect of ER could have focused more in quality instead of quantity and having one or two mines instead of dozens of very similar mines and could have genders instead of body times in character creation. This are my ER critiques. However, ER is the best modern AAA RPG.

There's only a handful of mines (proper mines, with miners, pickaxes, walls rich with cracked crystal and smithing stones, etc). I think it's just one per region.

There are however a lot of catacombs (which I enjoyed) and a lot of caves (which mostly sucked). Also, a limited number of Hero's Graves, which are large and elaborate dungeons with annoying chariots riding up and down.

 

[Cryomancer]

DD2

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

Perfect example of why user reviews can be just as worthless, if not more so than critic reviews. Users aren't always right.

 

[Hell Swarm]

I don’t expect a sea-change with the ER dlc but there has to be something notable after.

Are you serious? From is going to keep Froming. Don't expect anything but Dark souls+1+1+1+1+1 at this point.

What I like about ER is that there is no Bed of Chaos/Dragon God tier awful boss.

Which is also a problem IMO. I like Dragon god as a boss. It forces you to change how you play the game. A major complaint about later souls games is every boss is Arty over and over. Fighting 30 bosses with basically the exact same style gets boring. Fighting 200 is stupid. And some of them are reused almost 10 times.

There are ways to make interesting bosses with Souls combat. Not flailing retards teleporting around the arena and shitting 20 hit combos at you. But Who wants to use the mechanics to create challenging encounters with meaningful player decisions? From instead pick to make every boss the same style doing the exact same thing with slightly different animations. The one exception I can think of in Elden Ring is the invisible boss fight. Everything else is by the books and it's one of the reasons the game isn't interesting once you discover this. There's no Old Iron King or Ceaseless Discharge. There's no Bed, Wyvern or Dragon God. There's just rolling and hitting the boss until it dies with 2 or 3 changes and a couple of roll catches. They can't even use awkward timing and roll catches to make a boss unique any more because every boss is doing it, so even in your kiddy pool of complexity they're wasting potential to have a boss like Dancer stand out. Dancer wouldn't even stand out in Elden Ring and she barely does in DS3.

 

[Odoryuk]

I don’t expect a sea-change with the ER dlc but there has to be something notable after.

Are you serious? From is going to keep Froming. Don't expect anything but Dark souls+1+1+1+1+1 at this point.

What I like about ER is that there is no Bed of Chaos/Dragon God tier awful boss.

Which is also a problem IMO. I like Dragon god as a boss. It forces you to change how you play the game. A major complaint about later souls games is every boss is Arty over and over. Fighting 30 bosses with basically the exact same style gets boring. Fighting 200 is stupid. And some of them are reused almost 10 times.

There are ways to make interesting bosses with Souls combat. Not flailing retards teleporting around the arena and shitting 20 hit combos at you. But Who wants to use the mechanics to create challenging encounters with meaningful player decisions? From instead pick to make every boss the same style doing the exact same thing with slightly different animations. The one exception I can think of in Elden Ring is the invisible boss fight. Everything else is by the books and it's one of the reasons the game isn't interesting once you discover this. There's no Old Iron King or Ceaseless Discharge. There's no Bed, Wyvern or Dragon God. There's just rolling and hitting the boss until it dies with 2 or 3 changes and a couple of roll catches. They can't even use awkward timing and roll catches to make a boss unique any more because every boss is doing it, so even in your kiddy pool of complexity they're wasting potential to have a boss like Dancer stand out. Dancer wouldn't even stand out in Elden Ring and she barely does in DS3.

Rennala's first phase is the gimmick boss fight of ER and it's my favorite among them all.

 

[Lyric Suite]

You need to play a deeper repertoire of action games so that you can have an informed opinion on how things can be designed.



Here's a proper camera system.

Looking at that i may actually prefer how FromSoft does it. You feel the size of the boss more. Done like that you might as well just shrink the monster and call it a day.

Also, the part where he grabs the boss by the tail and starts to spin him around. That kind of shit is what puts me off those kind of games lmao.

And here's how to not do it, in the game that probably had in fact the best camera of all From's games (to compare a smilarly sized boss, since there's no dragon to fight in DMC5)

Like i said, i actually liked when the camera got that close. One of my favored moments in Sekiro was being able to deflect an attack powerful enough to bring Sekiro to his knees, forcing him to plant his sword to the ground to actually block the damage. Getting stomped by the Demon of Hatred upclose like that and being able to withstand his full weight just felt satisfying to me.

I prefer combat that has more meat to it. The zoom zoom flashy shit never interested me. The more grounded the game feels, the better for me. The more arcadish it becomes, the more i get alienated by it.

I love From Software games (ER a lot less from the repetitive open world elements, still has its good sides tho) but... they have made no major mechanical improvements in years. The jank that was normal and excusable in their first attempts at making action games became less and less tolerable as the studio became more experienced and grew sizably. They are not the studio that could have gone bankrupt, rebooting a failed game bringing a new director during Demon's Souls. They are the studio making games that went above the 10 million copies sold bar multiple times.

It's possible but i'm also getting the impression you guys want Souls to be something else entirely. Maybe the combat system warrants some kind of evolution at this point, but if that means making the game play like those DMC or Monster Hunter videos you guys are posting, then, no, i don't want that.

 

[Odoryuk]

Looking at that i may actually prefer how FromSoft does it. You feel the size of the boss more. Done like that you might as well just shrink the monster and call it a day.

Yeah, I'd be bummed if FS did something like this to large bosses/enemies.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Perfect example of why user reviews can be just as worthless, if not more so than critic reviews. Users aren't always right.

The rating is a protest against Capcom's scummy practices. It seems this game was the straw that finally broke the camel's back in that regard. It's unfortunate but it was a long time coming from what i can see.

Also, the shit posted by their localization division makes me even more suspect of their games.

 

[mediocrepoet]

DD2

Almost all the negative reviews are people filtered by having shit hardware. Though patches seem to have improved frame rates now too.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

Poor cheap negro types with outdated hardware trying to play real next gen shit. Fuck 'em. I hope they never get to play it. I hope their mudshack burns down too. Third world livin pieces of shit.

 

[Hell Swarm]

This thread has more cock sucking than pornhub. What the fuck is wrong with you people?