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

[Hell Swarm]

So Elden Ring offers new or less skilled players numerous ways to overcome its difficulty while never forcing these mechanics so that series vets or skilled newbies can take on a greater challenge if they so wish. Somehow, this is bad.

Yes, it is bad when it's handled poorly. In a game you're expected to have an increase in skill. If you can beat 1-1, then 1-2 should be within your skill set. If you beat 4-2 then 4-3 is within the range of your skill set and you build an escalating difficulty so by the time you get to 8-4 you're a skilled player with a full range of skills and able to adapt and use those skills suitably. Except instead of going 1-3 through 8-3 you handed the controller to someone over the internet who never speaks to you and beats all those levels for you. Now how the fuck are you supposed to do 8-4? In Elden ring's case you're expected to beat 3 difficult bosses before you can enter the capital. If you haven't done that and can't do that, how are you prepared for what's in the capital and beyond? If Internet friend with a +5 pyro flame melts a boss for you when you only had a +1 weapon and can't hurt enemies in the next area what the hell are you going to do going forward?

I don't mind spirit ashes helping a player as they're a part of the tool box and don't invalidate the player being there. They can do but most summons will die to a boss with a decent chunk of health left if the player sits back and watches. While Coop that isn't true and autists will start whoring themselves on reddit for updoots because they killed a boss 10,000 times for people who can't. I'm willing to bet you could beat Elden Ring as a pure pacifist build if you used player summons. You could probably use an emote in the corner of a boss arena and let random internet people carry you through everything.

 

[Cryomancer]

So Elden Ring offers new or less skilled players numerous ways to overcome its difficulty while never forcing these mechanics so that series vets or skilled newbies can take on a greater challenge if they so wish. Somehow, this is bad.

No, every game must be like Sekiro /sarcasm

 

[Lyric Suite]

So Elden Ring offers new or less skilled players numerous ways to overcome its difficulty while never forcing these mechanics so that series vets or skilled newbies can take on a greater challenge if they so wish. Somehow, this is bad.

Yes, it is bad when it's handled poorly. In a game you're expected to have an increase in skill. If you can beat 1-1, then 1-2 should be within your skill set. If you beat 4-2 then 4-3 is within the range of your skill set and you build an escalating difficulty so by the time you get to 8-4 you're a skilled player with a full range of skills and able to adapt and use those skills suitably. Except instead of going 1-3 through 8-3 you handed the controller to someone over the internet who never speaks to you and beats all those levels for you. Now how the fuck are you supposed to do 8-4? In Elden ring's case you're expected to beat 3 difficult bosses before you can enter the capital. If you haven't done that and can't do that, how are you prepared for what's in the capital and beyond? If Internet friend with a +5 pyro flame melts a boss for you when you only had a +1 weapon and can't hurt enemies in the next area what the hell are you going to do going forward?

I don't mind spirit ashes helping a player as they're a part of the tool box and don't invalidate the player being there. They can do but most summons will die to a boss with a decent chunk of health left if the player sits back and watches. While Coop that isn't true and autists will start whoring themselves on reddit for updoots because they killed a boss 10,000 times for people who can't. I'm willing to bet you could beat Elden Ring as a pure pacifist build if you used player summons. You could probably use an emote in the corner of a boss arena and let random internet people carry you through everything.

It seems FromSoft has more faith in the average player than you do. You want to compel people to go through a forced progression, where as FromSoft just says: here's the game, do whatever the hell you want. Wanna ruin it for yourself? Be my guest who cares.

Given that summons have been there from the very beginning, and seeing nobody had an issue with this system despite the fact it has been present in every modern FromSoft game from Demon Souls to Elden Ring with the exception of Sekiro (even Bloodborne from what i understand had them, though i think they were NPC summons?), i'd say you are a little late with this complaint since shit has been proven to work just fine for years.

And if the argument is that Elden Ring is bigger than all their past games and that it has drawn from a larger pool of normie players, who may not be able to resist the temptation to cheese every boss thus failing to learn the game, all i can say is fuck them. Like, who gives a fuck. Let normies fuck themselves. They deserve it anyway.

 

[Odoryuk]

Spastic bosses who require i-frame abuse to deal with? Obvious to anyone new, completely invisible to a guy who was i-framing the fuck out of Alant since 2009.
Enemy spam? "Bruh, just equip the Electic Moon Dildo from the Fushrum Cave and wipe them in one swing, git gud."
"Electic Moon Dildo" snaps the game balance in half? "Rofl, nobody said you have to use it all the time just for big groups, git gud."

I sense some order of frustration here.

even Bloodborne from what i understand had them, though i think they were NPC summons?

Bloodborne's multiplayer system mimics Souls's system, though with some changes. There's both coop and pvp, and also NPC phantoms to help those poor bastards who didn't subscribe to PS+

 

[Lyric Suite]

"I never enjoyed ruining people's game." said the player ruining multiple people's games by cheating bosses for them. But that might hurt your ego to admit.

Dude, i'm not their father it's not my place to judge what people do with their games as long as the game does what i want it to do. If FromSoft ever decides to dumb down their games for the sake of making things easier for normies, i'd be first in line to ditch this company for good. But as long as the game remains what it is, i have no issue with how others decide to play them.

Hell, whenever i got summoned at the start of a dungeon i even went so far as to point out secrets to people lmao. One thing i really enjoyed about Elden Ring in fact is that often you would get summoned to help people through a dungeon, not just the boss. Several times i ended up guiding people through the entirety of Stormveil and a few other legacy dungeons.

Like i said, i'm a die hard Sunbro and occationally a Dark Moon guy on the side, just hunting down filthy invaders. I could never bring myself to play as a red phantom. Just wasn't in me.

 

[Odoryuk]

@jerome3138
7 months ago
I'll never forget the first time I summoned someone. It was in Dark Souls 3, I had made it all the way to the soul of cinder, I was stuck for three days, scared I was going to be repeating the week long battle I had with the nameless king, going to work, coming home, fighting him for an hour before giving up, I decided I'd just summon someone and get it over with. As one of my many cinders was used, I saw him. There he was, the greatest summon I've ever seen, Patrick star. He wore no clothes, he had nothing but a pink body, and a very large sword. At first I thought this fight was going to be tough, a long fight that we may not win. But then, Patrick star, in his beautiful, nay, boastful, yet muscular form, he 1v1'd the boss, as I sat as a mere weakling on the sidelines. His fight was glorious, he danced with the Soul of Cinder, and when all was said and done, he rolled away and allowed me to get the final hit in. I had never seen such an act of compassion, dedication, and selflessness from another mortal ever. Thank you, Patrick.

Jaded codexers will call this

 

[Ravielsk]

Spastic bosses who require i-frame abuse to deal with? Obvious to anyone new, completely invisible to a guy who was i-framing the fuck out of Alant since 2009.
Enemy spam? "Bruh, just equip the Electic Moon Dildo from the Fushrum Cave and wipe them in one swing, git gud."
"Electic Moon Dildo" snaps the game balance in half? "Rofl, nobody said you have to use it all the time just for big groups, git gud."

I sense some order of frustration here.

Its the exact order in which the discussion in this thread flows whenever a problem is brought up.

This is a pointless argument you are having here. Souls cheerleaders cannot and will not understand that having kept with the series since DS1 or even Demon's Souls(15-13 years btw) gives them a painfully warped perspective on how well designed a new game is or is not. Having familiarized themselves so much with the base formula and all its variations means that a lot of problems that are obvious to new or even not so thorough players(aka skipped some games, have not played in a very long time etc.) go completely under the radar for them.

You would think that it would be exactly the opposite of what you just said. Here, watch:

This is a pointless argument you are having here. Souls newbies cannot and will not understand that not having kept with the series since DS1 or even Demon's Souls(15-13 years btw) gives them a painfully warped perspective on how well designed a new game is or is not. Being unfamiliarized so much with the base formula and all its variations means that a lot of problems that are obvious to seasoned or even somewhat experienced players go completely under the radar for them.

Yes, in any other game series this would be spot on. Problem is Soulsborne as a series has placed "being difficult" as a core tenant of its identity. As such the series has maintained many bad habits that would otherwise have been dropped ages ago. For old players this is simply how its always been but a new player immediately looks at it and concludes it bullshit since their judgement is not occluded by how the series was in 2011.

Example: camera that does not zoom out to let you see gigantic bosses. In DS1 and DeS this could have been claimed to be a oversight since most bosses were not big enough or spastic enough to cause issues. From DS2 onwards however its a deliberate choice and one that seems to exclusively stem from an effort to make the game harder.

For someone starting with Elden ring this is an obviously stupid decision that only artificially inflates the difficulty. For a long time player this is just how its always been and the new player just needs to "git gud".

 

[Hell Swarm]

It seems FromSoft has more faith in the average player than you do. You want to compel people to go through a forced progression, where as FromSoft just says: here's the game, do whatever the hell you want. Wanna ruin it for yourself? Be my guest who cares.

Not true any more. Every souls games after Demon's souls has fail safes built in to stop you ruining your game. And even Demon's souls won't let you kill the maiden.

Given that summons have been there from the very beginning, and seeing nobody had an issue with this system despite the fact it has been present in every modern FromSoft game from Demon Souls to Elden Ring with the exception of Sekiro (even Bloodborne from what i understand had them, though i think they were NPC summons?), i'd say you are a little late with this complaint since shit has been proven to work just fine for years.

That's where your wrong bucko! Right from the start many were complaining about newbies using summons to beat bosses they couldn't do themselves. It was considered bad form and looked down upon greatly. It wasn't until Solaire fanboys started to wank over how great they are where it became a big problem and a bunch of reddits started trying to make themselves e famous for doing it.

I'll also remind you Demon's souls was a limited release game. The amount of summons you would find was very small due to low player count/server and it required you to open yourself up to both tendency mechanics while making some bosses harder like the blind hero. There was a risk/reward to summoning coop partners and they were almost always summoned at the start of the level not right at the boss fog door because you popped a humanity opening up PvP for all of 10 seconds before you walked in the fog gate. Dark souls eased off on this a little by dropping world tendencies and making bonfires closer to bosses but still had server issues where it could be difficult to find summon signs and fans modded shit so they could summon with their friends. Which was never the intended use of the mechanic and clearly breaks PvP to heavily favour the gank squads which eventually killed Dark souls multiplayer.

I recall you never played Demon's souls, but I can tell you Elden rings' coop looks nothing like Demon's souls did. There is always someone online to carry you, the players are using way more powerful builds and they don't have to get you through the level safely or risk you facing an even harder game world. All the risk is completely gone now and that's not in the spirit of souls games. It's dumbed down for normalfags like yourself.

If FromSoft ever decides to dumb down their games for the sake of making things easier for normies, i'd be first in line to ditch this company for good.

They already did. Spirit ashes is arguably one of those ways and there's plenty of examples of difficulty being shifted away from. Maybe you didn't see all the bonfires in day souls 3. That's dumbing down.

For someone starting with Elden ring this is an obviously stupid decision that only artificially inflates the difficulty. For a long time player this is just how its always been and the new player just needs to "git gud".

It's always been a complaint after demon's souls. The camera has been broken since day 1 and From have no interest in fixing it. And you have fanboys like LS defending everything they do because fixing problem things is just not what From want to do. The fanbase is rapid because most of them have built their identity around le hardcore gamer and dark souls validates them in ways no sane person could even comprehend.

 

[smaug]

The Co-op summoning mechanic of dark souls is easily my favorite for how simple and fun it is.

I wish they had some optional dungeons which were designed around co-op difficulty explicitly.

 

[Silverfish]

Except instead of going 1-3 through 8-3 you handed the controller to someone over the internet who never speaks to you and beats all those levels for you. Now how the fuck are you supposed to do 8-4?

By summoning someone else.

 

[Skinwalker]

It's always been a complaint after demon's souls. The camera has been broken since day 1 and From have no interest in fixing it. And you have fanboys like LS defending everything they do because fixing problem things is just not what From want to do. The fanbase is rapid because most of them have built their identity around le hardcore gamer and dark souls validates them in ways no sane person could even comprehend.

Except the camera is fine and there's no need to do a ridiculous zoom-out to fit the entire giant into the frame. Why the fuck would you even want to do that? There are occasional moments when the camera locks on to the wrong part of the giant or has a freak-out while trying to track a fast-moving target, but those are rare.

Literally had next to zero problems fighting trolls and giants in Elden Ring. Maybe you're just a butthurt scrub, lol.

 

[Bloodeyes]

More than two years and I'm still at it. This guy is a str/arc build for level 200:

 

[Cheesedragon117]

You can hardly call anything above RL 150+ a "build" since you have so many stat points for everything. The only thing you're building for that high up is the funky three-stat-scaling weapons and the Prince of Death's Staff, which only becomes the best sorcery staff at 80/80 INT/FTH.

Interesting use of poison, although I am a tad saddened to still see the dual Naginatas at such a high level, when you have so many options. It seems the Tarnished still do not tire of their obeisance to the Two Fingers -er, rather, the "meta". Whatever gets you the gank spank, I guess.

Also, I noticed you buff with Assassin's Gambit and Unseen Form one after the other. You know those are the same effect, right? They do the exact same thing, same duration, and overwrite each other, albeit the Ash of War also gives silent footsteps but at the cost of health.

 

[Bloodeyes]

You can hardly call anything above RL 150+ a "build" since you have so many stat points for everything. The only thing you're building for that high up is the funky three-stat-scaling weapons and the Prince of Death's Staff, which only becomes the best sorcery staff at 80/80 INT/FTH.

Interesting use of poison, although I am a tad saddened to still see the dual Naginatas at such a high level, when you have so many options. It seems the Tarnished still do not tire of their obeisance to the Two Fingers -er, rather, the "meta". Whatever gets you the gank spank, I guess.

Also, I noticed you buff with Assassin's Gambit and Unseen Form one after the other. You know those are the same effect, right? They do the exact same thing, same duration, and overwrite each other, albeit the Ash of War also gives silent footsteps but at the cost of health.

Wrong about the builds. An optimal 200 is terrifying. Its still a build, just a more complete build. If you know what you're doing none of those 200 level will be wasted. This one doesn't use many dual scaling weapons. It uses blood affinity weapons that scale well with str to maintain very high AR while doing scary amounts of bleed build up. He has many tools to make him versatile and adaptable while still being focused on hyper armor trading. Status, high damage and excellent tankiness make him win trades most every time. He's a brawler, and every one of his 200 levels supports that.

I've made a few of level 200 builds and none of them have used PoD staff yet. I've done str/int, quality, str/arc, str/fth. All brawling bonk builds. There are different approaches to building a 200 and more that you can do than just adding AR. Carian knight swords and blasphemous blade are very good at this level, but there's other approaches you can take. Rather than adding AR I add stamina and equip load because that helps me more than AR after a point.

As for the nagis, those guys had blues on and killed a red right as I was coming in. This isn't my first rodeo. I knew when I killed his phantom he was going to play passive until reinforcements arrived. After two years even the blues are often trained to go so there was a decent chance he could have turned that around and absolutely shit on me if he got a good one. I have a gargoyle's halberd for a chase down as well as nagis. I use that instead if I don't want to get blocked. IDGAF if gankers block me.

Assasins gambit and unseen form stack. As in one reduces lock on range and both together removes the ability to lock on at all. Its 30 seconds where you can fight without stars of ruin, swarm of flies, fallingstar beast jaw etc being spammed from off your screen, which every team of remotely competent gankers will do.

Edit: I got a bit triggered by you saying my magestic bullgoat is not a build. I've spent the better part of a week refining him and tweaking stats, equipment etc.

 

[Lyric Suite]

The Co-op summoning mechanic of dark souls is easily my favorite for how simple and fun it is.

I wish they had some optional dungeons which were designed around co-op difficulty explicitly.

They did in DS2. Each zone in the DLCs had an area designed specifically for co-op. People screetched about them because they tried to do them solo lmao.

 

[Lyric Suite]

It's always been a complaint after demon's souls. The camera has been broken since day 1 and From have no interest in fixing it. And you have fanboys like LS defending everything they do because fixing problem things is just not what From want to do. The fanbase is rapid because most of them have built their identity around le hardcore gamer and dark souls validates them in ways no sane person could even comprehend.

Except the camera is fine and there's no need to do a ridiculous zoom-out to fit the entire giant into the frame. Why the fuck would you even want to do that? There are occasional moments when the camera locks on to the wrong part of the giant or has a freak-out while trying to track a fast-moving target, but those are rare.

Literally had next to zero problems fighting trolls and giants in Elden Ring. Maybe you're just a butthurt scrub, lol.

They are just grasping at straws at this point.

Summon mechanic doesn't affect your personal play who gives a crap if other people abuse them. It's their game, their problem.

Camera and lock on mechanic can be janky at the times but it's rarely an issue. You got enemies like the Ulcerated Tree Spirit which are intentionally designed to take advantage of the fact the camera can be confusing on large enemies as part of its "challenge". Ultimately, he isn't actually that hard to read once you figure him out. I'm not saying there aren't problems with large enemies that could recieve some attention. It's annoying for instance that sometimes you can't seem to hit them even though their size is gargantuan. And i already mentioned how truly janky it was to see dragons get stuck in the map or disappear after flying away too far etc. Yes, those are genuine problems but they don't define the entire combat system and don't apply to every single enemy.

Also notice that acording to this people, FromSoft games are simultanously getting easier and more popamole but also unreasonably harder. And they say this without being aware of the contradiction. So Elden Ring is both too obscure and hard to grasp but also too easy, because of summons (optional), or spirit ashes (also optional).

 

[Silverfish]

Moreover, they ignore a big part of the series' appeal, that being subsequent playthroughs. Yeah, you can (and should) abuse summons, spirit ashes, Moonveil, etc. on an initial run, but that doesn't preclude you from becoming a tryhard later on. The first time I played Dark Souls, I abused Frampt buying certain items for more than they cost from vendors to artificially inflate my soul level. The third time I played it, I stayed at soul level 1.

 

[processdaemon]

Moreover, they ignore a big part of the series' appeal, that being subsequent playthroughs. Yeah, you can (and should) abuse summons, spirit ashes, Moonveil, etc. on an initial run, but that doesn't preclude you from becoming a tryhard later on. The first time I played Dark Souls, I abused Frampt buying certain items for more than they cost from vendors to artificially inflate my soul level. The third time I played it, I stayed at soul level 1.

Yeah, I've never summoned other players in a FS game but I enjoyed playing around with spirit ashes on my first playthrough of ER, the meta summons are gamebreaking but a lot of the others are just fun to have around (like the jellyfish or the soldjars of fortune). My second run was summonless but I kind of missed them to be honest.

 

[Hell Swarm]

You got enemies like the Ulcerated Tree Spirit which are intentionally designed to take advantage of the fact the camera can be confusing on large enemies as part of its "challenge".

You seriously need to take a step back and consider what you're defending here. When your argument is "From know it's broken and it's an intended gameplay mechanic" you're fanboying so hard you're about to combine Soul of Cinder with Pikachu for your comic. This shit is not acceptable no matter what. If your camera shows nothing but a foot when you're fighting a boss you need to redesign your boss.

Yeah, I've never summoned other players in a FS game but I enjoyed playing around with spirit ashes on my first playthrough of ER, the meta summons are gamebreaking but a lot of the others are just fun to have around (like the jellyfish or the soldjars of fortune). My second run was summonless but I kind of missed them to be honest.

Summon ashes are great and it's an obviously intended mechanic. That's different to faggots from Reddit like Let me solo her who spent hours every night getting people through a boss and tried to get efamous for it. Player summoning should have been locked to NG+ and the boss AI needed a total rework to deal with multiple players.

 

[Lyric Suite]

This shit is not acceptable no matter what. If your camera shows nothing but a foot when you're fighting a boss you need to redesign your boss.

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. This is particularly the case with the DS2 dragon you are showing which was supposed to be a super ancient dragon so they made him extra large for lore reasons.

As for the Elden Ring dragons, it's not actually true all you can do is go under their dicks and hit them in the shins. Their weak point is actually their snout which you can exploit to do a ton of damage to them:



Fortissax is obviously designed to be a dick on purpose, but his snout is still a viable target:

 

[Child of Malkav]

Sekiro zoomed out the camera when fighting large enemies.

 

[Lyric Suite]

It still zoomed back in during their attacks:



Sekiro has only a tiny fraction of the options you get in Souls that's likely why they were able to tune it more perfectly.

The overtuning of Sekiro btw made it harder to fight multiple opponents. The double monke fight stressed me out way more than anything in Elden Ring.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Sekiro zoomed out the camera when fighting large enemies.

I think Bed of Chaos does as well. But this is From, every time they fix a problem they revert it next game. So you end up with half broken shit every where.

Farming grass is annoying lets make Estus > Estus and some healing items > lol blood viles, time to farm again! > Estus and 10 different healing items to pop!

 

[Child of Malkav]

It still zoomed back in during their attacks:

Well they're still halfway there. Maybe in the game they'll figure out this alien technology.

 

[Skinwalker]

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