Elden Ring Critique(s)

[mediocrepoet]

Light armor got fucked in this game because light roll doesn't seem to be doing much of anything that i've seen.

Light roll just makes you roll further. Doesn't give extra iframes or anything, there's almost no point to it, just go medium load and call it a day unless you're using the blue dancer charm.

 

[Bloodeyes]

It needs a journal. Dungeons appearing on the compass when close by would help a great deal. The lack of these features just forces guide usage.

The smithing stones thing is bullshit. The game throws dozens of weapons at you then forces you to commit to using one. I ran ahead to pick up the miner's bell bearing 2 just so I could try other weapons, then went back to what I was doing. Annoying. I was 75 fucking hours in when I did this, and I've since played for a further 25 hours and still haven't made my way to the area where I would have found it. That means that someone who wants to full explore the map before moving on (as is normal in an RPG) could spend over 100 hours using their starting weapon. Of course I did find more smithing stones, but I spread them across different gear and was only able to get one weapon up the +14. Everything else was +7 until I ran for the stone. Bullshit. Just let people pay for upgrades from the start and gate the better ones behind level or story progression. Or base weapon damage progression wholly on stats. That would work too.

It needs a pause. People live in houses with other people. Their phones ring, their pets complain, their bladders get full. Forcing you to continue playing in these situations doesn't make a game hard core. It's stupid.

It often feels aimless. Like there is no natural route of progression through the world. The first area was great. Lots of dungeons to explore in a big but dense area. An obviously too high level area next door. A clear objective: explore, loot, level up, and then beat the boss to access the next area. I thought the whole game would be like this but after the first act it really opened up and the scale is a bit overwhelming for me. A friend said he got exploration fatigue and I get it. I've been trying to see and do everything for ages now and it's just started to feel like a bit of a chore. I want a bit more structure to the experience, a bit of coherence. Proper quests, a proper story etc. Even if it's kept abstract and impressionistic in tone just give me something comprehensible to do instead of just wandering around.

An in-game encyclopedia that explains things like weapon damage calculations and resistances would be much appreciated too. Not to fucking mention how vague item descriptions are. Not good enough. Your players have a right to know what their gear, abilities and spells do. You're asking them to decide what to use so give them the information they need to make that decision.

I started out playing with no guide usage, as it was my first time and I didn't want spoilers. Now I have my laptop on the bed next to me with the wiki page ready so I can look shit up. I have to, or I don't know if I should wear the talisman that boosts faith by 5pts or the talisman that "improves incantations". The improves incantations one is +4% damage. I have 40 faith, so a flat 5 pts should give me an 8% increase in damage. Maybe. I don't even know how much damage my spells do. No way of checking what's happening under the hood without reading a lot more guides. There's no need for this!

I still think the game is a masterpiece. Nothing is flawless. I've never experienced anything like this before and I absolutely love it. But yeah, if they make a sequel they should stop pandering to the self-proclaimed "hardcore gamers" and just focus on making a good, enjoyable game. You can still have quality of life features in a difficult game as long as the core gameplay is challenging.

 

[Vibalist]

It's too long. There is absolutely no reason for it to be this long. If it only included Limgrave and Liurnia, it would have been worth the money and roughly the same length as any other DS game. It's like they became the victims of gamers' ever increasing, illogical demand for 100+ hour experiences. What they should have done, imho, was keep the first two areas as they are, along with the underground sections (which are excellent) and then taken the best aspects of Altus, Caelid and Mountaintops and melted them into one coherent and impressive late game area (preferably with the aesthetics of Altus, which is the best looking place, and maybe a little Caelid mixed in).

This would have minimized repeat boss encounters, copy pasted monsters and general lack of content near the end, and also prevented the burnout that you would have experienced even if the game hadn't dropped markedly in quality towards the latter parts. Win-win.

 

[Silva]

Light armor got fucked in this game because light roll doesn't seem to be doing much of anything that i've seen.

Light roll just makes you roll further. Doesn't give extra iframes or anything, there's almost no point to it, just go medium load and call it a day unless you're using the blue dancer charm.

It's a legacy of DS3. How they managed to keep this weight system in place is beyond me, since it already borked light builds in that game.

 

[HumanTotemPole]

It's too long. There is absolutely no reason for it to be this long. If it only included Limgrave and Liurnia, it would have been worth the money and roughly the same length as any other DS game. It's like they became the victims of gamers' ever increasing, illogical demand for 100+ hour experiences. What they should have done, imho, was keep the first two areas as they are, along with the underground sections (which are excellent) and then taken the best aspects of Altus, Caelid and Mountaintops and melted them into one coherent and impressive late game area (preferably with the aesthetics of Altus, which is the best looking place, and maybe a little Caelid mixed in).

This would have minimized repeat boss encounters, copy pasted monsters and general lack of content near the end, and also prevented the burnout that you would have experienced even if the game hadn't dropped markedly in quality towards the latter parts. Win-win.

I think that Elden Ring's sheer length also made it very difficult for the designers to maintain a grand overarching narrative or a consistent tone over 100+ hours using the From house style of primarily environmental & mechanical storytelling with relatively sparse character interactions. My difference in engagement with say, the whole Volcano Manor area & questline versus the whole arc with Melina was pretty stark almost entirely due to how naturally concentrated around a distinct place & time in a playthrough the former are.

Victory for levels over big open worlds here. Not saying large open worlds can't work for RPGs but I personally think that they're much better suited to more mechanically abstracted CRPGs rather than tighter ARPGs like this.

 

[Ventidius]

So, I posted this over two months ago after finishing my first playthrough:

I'd say the quality definitely takes a dip at around the Crumbling Farum. The dungeon itself is probably the weakest in the game, and the main story bosses, while retaining (arguably increasing) the difficulty, really stop being fun at about the Godskin Duo. The Duo itself is probably the worst offender in terms of cheese, and it will likely be patched (as it is worse than pre-patch Rom was). Frankly though, I think the late-game boss rush is the weakest part of the game by far. The best bosses are still the early game guys like Margit and Godrick.

That said, my view of that will perhaps change once we have a better understanding of the game's meta, and once some patches start rolling in. Also, if you are into this series for the "masochism" aspect (more challenge at any cost), you will likely have fun.

Even though I wouldn't put Elden Ring on par with the pre-DS3 Soulsbornes, I certainly don't think it's a bad game. Its positives outweigh the negatives and it is a good game overall. It is certainly epic as well. Let's give it some time, patching, and perhaps DLC; there is potential for greatness here despite everything.

Now that a couple of patches have rolled around, I have five playthroughs spread over multiple characters under my belt (including NG Plus), have seen most of the main content (well, at least I've seen all of the achievement-related content, though there is still a lot to discover), and have clocked over 200 hours in the game, I'd say it's a good time to revisit my thoughts on it.

First of all, my main complaint with the game after my first campaign: the endgame bosses. I gotta say, I've done a 180 on this. The short of it is, I think the endgame bosses are fine, in fact, I went from considering the early bosses the best of the game to now thinking that this is true of the endgame bosses. I still think each of them has some issues of some sort compared to something like, say, The Nameless King, but I think this is true of a lot of the best bosses of the series anyway.

I think what threw me off was that Elden Ring is a much more expansive game than any in the series before, in just about every way, including both the options at your disposal and those at the bosses' disposal. If you try to brute force the final boss gauntlet using the same tactics we used in previous Soulsborne games... you are not gonna have a good time of it. And I certainly didn't, initially. But once you learn that the game actually does give you the tools to dish it out right back at them, the playing field changes quite a bit. Elden Ring's power curve is essentially an arms race in which you are encouraged to build your character in a way that explores and takes advantage of at least some of the expanded options added to your arsenal: weapon arts, jump attacks, power stancing, talismans, charge attacks, physicks, status effects. All of these are now very effective tools to mix and match and even build around. They'll certainly beat the old "wait for opening and R1" that previous games encouraged most of the time; certainly against the endgame bosses. Spirit Ashes are actually overpowered, IMO, and you can break the final bosses if you have a fully upgraded Mimic Tear and/or Tiche lying around (which is why I avoid using them).

Another important thing to point out is that builds are a bit more elaborate this time around. It's no longer primarily about a stat spread and a weapon. Now you have to really focus on synergizing your talismans, moves of choice (WA, jump attacks, charge attacks, status, etc), and even pieces of armor (offense-boosting armor is more of a thing than ever with stuff like Raptor's Black Feathers and stat-boosting armor pieces) with your stat spread and weapon choice. Heck, you can even get really creative with tricks like using stat boosting WAs such as Oath of Vengeance to temporarily boost your stats in order to cast certain spells and thus optimize your build.

Just about every build has gotten some love. Colossal swords are extremely fun and powerful (as of patch 1.04 at least), and I ran a build dual wielding them and focusing on jump attacks, and with the proper talismans and gear, the damage I was doing to the endgame bosses was insane. I shredded the Godskin Duo on the first try. Bleed is also crazy, as has been pointed out many times, Rivers of Blood's Corpse Piler can easily carry you through most of the game, endgame included. Radagon and Elden Beast's immunity to Bleed is a nuisance, but the effectiveness of this build against Malenia is well worth it. Int/Dex is also powerful, and Moonveil remains OP (destroys the crap out of Radagon tbh). Magic and Faith have a lot to play with in terms of powerful and utility spells, more than they did in even Dark Souls 2, and the stronger Int spells with proper physick and spell buffs can annihilate bosses in a way that has already become memetic. Faith, on the other hand, is all about versatility.

Knowing all of this drastically changes the experience, and in a sense, it could be levied as a criticism of the game that it arguably requires at least some degree of metagaming to not only powerbuild, but also to funbuild; something that is true even if you are a veteran of previous FS games. Indeed, I'd argue that being a veteran can actually be a disadvantage, as the game almost punishes ingrained behavior learned from the other games. And I guess that's fair enough as far as criticism goes, but it's also true that Elden Ring is not the first game to have such balance issues, and certainly, it's a trait that's almost endemic to RPGs. There is no denying that Elden Ring is the most "RPG-ish" of all FS games, in fact, I'd say it'd be very difficult to argue that Elden Ring is not an RPG (something that has been argued of previous FS games). It's definitely an Action RPG, and it has many of the strengths, and weaknesses, traditional to RPGs. The amount of fun options and variety of viable playstyles is definitely there, and this is probably the aspect of the game that has kept me coming back the most. The flipside of that, of course, is that those who don't know how to build a character (and this includes knowing the locations of key gear) will likely be at a disadvantage.

On my first playthrough, I found the Godskin Duo to be one of the hardest bosses, but they have been pushovers in just about every subsequent playthrough, to the point that I often beat them in the first try. In retrospect, I can see that they were basically a build check: a gatekeeper to the endgame. If you can't hold your own against the Godskins, you won't be able to manage Malekith, Godfrey, Malenia, or Radagon & Elden Beast. That's why the Godskin Duo can be easily beaten with a lot of offensive power, a lot of Vigor, or both, while for the others bosses having those things is usually just the price of entry (unless you are an outlier in terms of twitch skills, of course). I would say that overall, however, the endgame bosses, with one notable exception, do a good job of matching the "firepower" available to the player while not being horribly cheesy or unfair for the most part. As I said, I still have some issues with them, such as Radagon and Elden Beast being back-to-back fights, or Hoarah Loux and Malekith's second phase being a bit too "anime" in their kinetics, but overall I'd say this is about as fair as one can expect these fights to be once you know the movesets and are backed with the insane amount of power that the game grants the player.

The exception to this is, of course, Malenia, and this video does a good job of explaining why she is not a fair fight. TL;DR, it's not so much about dodging Waterfowl Dance (which we know is possible, if very hard, to do reliably) as it is about unbreakable hyperarmor and stagger cancelling. Still, I don't dislike the Malenia fight. I don't think every fight in a game has to be fair, and this is double the case for an optional endgame piece of content (in fact, Malenia is arguably the only "post-game" content we have pre-DLC). The fact is, Malenia can prove a threat to a character that has already conquered everything else in the game, and that alone makes her presence in the game welcome. Though I'd also argue that the feeling of fighting an enemy as mercurial (even if this mercuriality is achieved "unfairly") is tense and exciting enough in its own right. Knowing that at any moment she could cancel into a Waterfowl that you are not ready to dodge hangs a Sword of Damocles over your head the entire fight in a way that is actually a bit of a rush. Though I suppose this kind of thing is ultimately quite subjective.

Be that as it may, the feeling of overcoming Malenia, along with her very fitting comment "Your strength, extraordinary...", which feels extrememly well-deserved, brought me back to the old days when I was just learning to play these games, and having to try multiple times to beat a boss until finally hitting that satisfying sense of well-earned achievement upon defeating them. That alone was well worth whatever cheesiness the fight has (and it has plenty), especially since, at least in my view, the cheesy aspects fall just short of ruining the fight as a FS boss. I don't think it's one of the best FS bosses ever by any means, but I think she is solid enough in her own right, and remarkable as an experience, especially since her difficulty (fair or not) befits her lore as the strongest (martially at least) of the demigods/Empyreans in the setting. The extent to which the fight fails in elegance is somewhat compensated by the ludonarrative consonance that comes with that.

I suppose I could also address the criticism of the open world, but there is not much to really say here. If you like open worlds and overworld exploration, you'll find ER to be exquisite, an almost ideal open world game. If you dislike open worlds and overworld exploration, you'll think it's a waste of time, a repetitive slog, and something that gets in the way of playing it like Bloodborne. The way I see it, Elden Ring picks up the Daggerfall concept of trading uniqueness and elegance for scale and freedom and refines it to an unprecedented level (though there is more than enough quality unique content in ER to fill an entire FS dungeon crawler), and as fan of overworld exploration in games, I consider it a design triumph in this area. Much like Sekiro, ER shouldn't be evaluated by the standards of previous FS games, as it is a different kind of game. It is not a dungeon crawler, but an open world game, and it has been honest about that from the start. It's not really a game for those who want dungeon crawling, and those guys always have the option of going back to previous Soulsbornes. There are five of them, and at least four of them are great. Then again, I sort of understand why some people are frustrated, after all, and unlike BOTW, ER manages to have some excellent dungeons intermixed with the open world: Stormveil, Leyndell, the Haligtree, and many of the areas related to Ranni's questline are among the best levels in any Action RPG.

The bottom line is, my opinion of this game, as I hoped and expected when I wrote my older post, has improved drastically with meta knowledge and updates. I no longer think it's weaker than DS1 and DS2, and in fact, I now think it's the best FS game along with Bloodborne (the height of the FS dungeon crawler formula). Comparing ER and BB is interesting, because they are almost as opposite to each other as two games in the same subgenre(or even genre) can be. BB is all about streamlined elegance: it's a consistently fair exercise in design economy where very little is wasted and the experience is, from beginning to end, precisely tuned. This applies to most aspects of the game from power curve and balance, to itemization and item placement, to level design. ER is the opposite of that in just about every aspect: it's a glorious, complex mess where, much like in a lot of old-school RPGs, you cheese the AI and the AI cheeses you back. That's why I find it hard to put one over the other, as they are different enough that they may well be incommensurable. However, it would be fair to say that BB is a better (if IMO easier) Action game, while ER is the better RPG.

 

[elverkongen]

I went up against Radagon and his ridiculous holy damage with an incantation that took my holy resistance from roughly 30 percent to about 60 percent. I went from getting almost instakilled to basically facetanking the motherfucker. It almost trivialized the whole fight.

You didn't play the game.

 

[Late Bloomer]

Elden Ring is a much better game than Oblivion

 

[Silva]

I was taking this post seriously until this part..

suppose I could also address the criticism of the open world, but there is not much to really say here. If you like open worlds and overworld exploration, you'll find ER to be exquisite, an almost ideal open world game

No, ER open-world is not "exquisite", it's not even good. It's just crap.

 

[HumanTotemPole]

Elden Ring is a much better game than Oblivion

Certainly in a moment to moment mechanical sense when compared to vanilla.

Oblivion was my first major gaming disappointment on release, I actually discovered this place via VD and Section8's infamous reviews. The Codex seemed like the only outlet that was remotely interested in criticising that game back in the day.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Elden Ring is like comparing Wagner to Bach. Yes there's problems with Wagner's music but it is still notable.

Oblivion meanwhile is mumble rap stretched too long.

 

[HumanTotemPole]

Elden Ring is like comparing Wagner to Bach. Yes there's problems with Wagner's music but it is still notable.

Oblivion meanwhile is mumble rap stretched too long.

In Oblivion's defense we did get some excellent content out of it, including a certain legendary screenshot.

 

[smaug]

I was taking this post seriously until this part..

suppose I could also address the criticism of the open world, but there is not much to really say here. If you like open worlds and overworld exploration, you'll find ER to be exquisite, an almost ideal open world game

No, ER open-world is not "exquisite", it's not even good. It's just crap.

Honestly, what is with this “exquisite” shit? The open world is garbage.

I’ll bite, Ventidius why is it an “ideal open world game?” and explain why it’s not shit.

 

[elverkongen]

Holy shit guys I just fought Turdtree Avatar #19 at Minor Turdtree #5 in NG+5 and my opinion of the game has completely changed. It's a masterpiece, FromSlopp's magnum opiss, a tour de farce and everlasting peennacle of the RPG game video game genre. The fact that the story and lore is cobbled together by youtubers from item descriptions and three lines of NPC dialogue makes it so incredibly deep and mysterious.

 

[perfectslumbers]

"Elden Ring is better than Oblivion" Yeah a McDonalds hamburger is better than slurping up dumpster juice.

 

[Ventidius]

I was taking this post seriously until this part..

suppose I could also address the criticism of the open world, but there is not much to really say here. If you like open worlds and overworld exploration, you'll find ER to be exquisite, an almost ideal open world game

No, ER open-world is not "exquisite", it's not even good. It's just crap.

Honestly, what is with this “exquisite” shit? The open world is garbage.

I’ll bite, Ventidius why is it an “ideal open world game?” and explain why it’s not shit.

I suppose it goes back to my view on what constitutes quality overworld exploration, and I'd say it consists of the following elements:

Engagement: This is mainly about incentives to explore. These are the rewards for indulging your curiosity and scouring the world. They usually come in two main forms: treasure (the most obvious) and means of progression. Treasure includes things such as weapons, armor, and other gear, and in the case of Elden Ring, there is a lot to sink one's teeth in in terms of useful items to find: Unique weapons and armor (and the excellent item design in this game synergizes with this), Flask upgrades of two kinds, Weapon and Ashen Spirit upgrade materials, Physicks, plus sorceries and incantations. Not all that you will find will be useful to your build, however, given how many options diverse builds allow, there is plenty of gear that, while not essential, might be nice to have for situational uses. A lot of my builds had multiple backup options in terms of weapons, armor, and talismans, so I often had uses for much of the loot I came across. There are also more undifferentiated items such as upgrade materials come into the equation, and those are useful to just about everybody. For a world as big as this one, it's impressive how rarely it makes you feel that you came out of an expedition into a cave, new area, or mini-dungeon with nothing to show for it.

The point I made in my previous post about this game's emphasis on builds that exploit some of the options afforded by the new system is also important, since this means that the items and gear that you find through exploration is actually meaningful and makes a big difference in combat. In other words, the game's strength in build diversification and options synergizes significantly with the way exploration works.

It should be noted that the people who dislike open worlds and overworld exploration will actually think this is a point against the game, because it means that a lot of the items they need for their build are spread around, forcing them to engage in exploration that they'd rather not do. As I said, a lot of fans of previous games dislike that the overworld gets in the way of their playing the game like Bloodborne (or any of the previous FS games), they just want to easily get the gear for their build and move on to the next dungeon boss, they care little for exploring. But for those of us that actually like to wander off the beaten path, this is a very satisfying element of the game.

The other reward type that I mentioned was means for progression, and in Elden Ring this applies to both the itemized runes spread around the world and the many enemies, mini-dungeons, optional bosses and encounters that you'll find. If you don't feel like advancing through the critical path or grinding, there is plenty of optional content that you can do that can be both respectably engaging and challenging and will also make you more powerful.

Scale: Another positive that, to haters of open worlds, will always be a negative. They'll talk about quality being superior to quantity (as if Elden Ring didn't have an enormous quantity of quality content, the Legacy Dungeons alone are examples of that) without realizing that quantity is a quality, and that a sense of exploring, traversing and conquering a massive world can be a very satisfying feeling on its own. Elden Ring certainly delivers in this area, and I feel I don't have to argue this point too vehemently as the scope of the game is well-established. The detractors will rather point to repetitiveness as an issue that comes with the scope, and some degree of that is inevitable, but FS went above and beyond in terms of designing a massive roster of unique dungeons, enemies, and bosses, and they simply repurposed much of that already large pool of content into "derivative" enemies and areas that drive a lot of people absolutely berserk. But to those of us that appreciate the ideal of Daggerfall and the great scope in gameworlds that it championed, this repetition is a fair price to pay, especially when the core content is so good.

I will say, there is some issue in terms of immersion when some bosses like Godefroy and Stars of Darkness seem to be "copypasted" from bosses that technically shouldn't be (a different case from, say, dragons, which make sense due to belonging to the same species), however, not only are these few and far in between, but we are still not entirely sure that there is no lore explanation for their existence, as FS always seems to be very deliberate about these things, and this game, for the most part and despite its size, has not been the exception in other areas.

Biome variety: Not the best that I've seen in an open world, but pretty solid all around. You've got your snow areas, your volcano, your lakes area, and Limgrave being the more standard woodlands/plains area. Not exactly the most imaginative setup, but it covers most bases, makes the areas distinct enough, and grants a respectable level of polychromatism to the experience while not feeling too "theme-parkey" and disjointed. Caelid and the underground areas like Siofra River are the most exotic by far, and the underground areas in particular are spectacular and a high point in area design. Caelid is a wasteland, but of a very unique kind that is deeply interwoven with the quirks and lore of the world: it's pretty good. The Altus Plateau seemed the weakest overworld area the first time I visited it, but it has grown on me, in part because I have come to appreciate its traversal, which leads me to the next point.

Traversal: This refers to actually introducing broken terrain: hills, mountains, forests, and the like. This is good because it makes moving around the world less straightforward and thus less of a "hiking sim", let alone a "walking sim". Overall, ER does this very well. As I said, Altus in particular requires some thought in how to move around the actual plateau in order to reach places of interest, and indeed, in order to figure out how to reach the plateau itself. However, other areas also have plenty of this, such as Caelid, which has some interesting traversal mini-puzzles such as reaching the Giant Jar's Arena, which requires a detour via Siofra, or finding the path to the Albinauric village in Liurnia, or navigating the well, mountains, of the Mountaintop of Giants, which can lead to some circuitous expeditions and even some really cool things like the invisible bridge. Finding one of the many teleporters that lead you to other parts of the game, and indeed, finding your way to many of the games later areas is all quite engaging. There are plenty of creative ways of criss-crossing around the world.

Given Elden Ring's - and FS games apart from Sekiro - lack of emphasis on traversal mechanics (such as climbing, gliding, and the like), there are limits to what the game can really do here, even with stuff like the wind vortexes, but nonetheless, I think FS did a great job of working with the mechanical scheme that they had to turn this aspect into something that contributes positively to the experience as a whole without dragging the game down.

Encounters and dungeons: Self-explanatory, and Elden Ring has plenty. A lot of the forts and encampments offer solid encounters against enemy groups, the overworld bosses generally tend to keep to certain archetypes (Dragons, Night's Cavalry, and Erdtree avatars being the most common), but also offer some welcome variety here and there in the form of much less used bosses such as Magma Wyrms, Tibia Mariners, Death Rite Birds, the Fallingstar Beasts the evergaol bosses, or the surprise encounter with Margit, which is very cool and synergizes perfectly with his lore. The mini-dungeons are controversial to people who dislike open world games (are you seeing a pattern here?), but fans of overworld exploration have known since Morrowind at least how much they can enhance a game. They don't need to be masterpieces of labyrinthine design, they just have to meet a bare minimum of interesting loot, involved layout, and fun encounters and bosses, all while also sprinkling a bit of personality and uniqueness in each. The vast majority of the mini-dungeons do exactly that (you'll rarely see Skyrim-style linear romps), and in the process offer a way for the player to continue engaging with the world and becoming stronger without doing the same "legacy" or critical content. I have cleared all of the main bosses and dungeons and there are still a lot of little caves and catacombs that I haven't visited and could see in coming playthroughs, and that's a great feeling. Not to mention, it adds to the sense of scope.

Discovery: A lot of the content in the overworld, such as evergaols, ghost footprints, divine towers, and caravans have a sense of wonder to them when you are starting a blind playthrough, but they do tend to lose it after you've seen them a few times. The prevalence of "archetypal" content design definitely tends to cheapen a lot of these points of interest by the late game, but by that point you should be powerful enough that discovery has shifted from curiosities in the world to bosses, dungeons, and questlines. I felt this progression in the nature and pace of the game was quite natural, and the old point of interest types still contributed to the engagement of the world even after they lost their discovery appeal. Some of these things also helped the areas feel part of an unified world that had been once a single empire, especially stuff like the Divine Towers once you know some of the lore behind them.

Overall, this is an element that is at its strongest during the first blind playthrough, and it always, in all games, gets weaker with meta knowledge. That's normal, and what matters is that an overworld can keep engagement even when that sense of discovery is gone.

Environmental storytelling: The worldbuilding of Elden Ring is probably one of the most interesting I've seen in a FS game, and indeed it even rivals Bloodborne while also bringing a lot of themes that were experimented with in DS1 and DS2 to new heights. But that'd a whole 'nother conversation on its own. What matters here is how well the environments show that, and as always, FS has done an impressive work of weaving the lore into its overworld. From things like the very shape of Leyndell reflecting symbolism from alchemy (a concept that itself is central to the themes of ER), to the particulars of the presence of Albinaurics (including corrupted ones) inside and surrounding Mohgwyn Palace, the Omenkiller in the village of the Albinaurics being a remnant of the massacre perpetrated by Sir Gideon, the frozen corpses of the Giants in the Mountaintops, the curious presence of Fire Guardians in multiple areas, the connections between the Haligtree and the Shaded Castle, the footsoldiers of different factions populating related areas, the remnants of siege and battle surrounding the embattled capital, the way Leyndell and Liurna are associated with opposed alchemical symbolism (the Sun and the Moon) and their atmosphere and art direction support it, the list goes on...

To really get into the details of this, I'd probably need another wall of text explaining what I know about the lore and the way it was instantiated in the world, but needless to say, I think this aspect is very well done.

Freedom: Both in terms of allowing you to visit "higher level" areas early on and in terms of having plenty of content that is not critical to the campaign. In other words, "freedom from" in the sense of a relative lack of artificial limitations and "freedom for" in the sense of having optional things to do. You can access four major overworld areas right off the bat and without fighting any bosses: Limgrave, Liurnia, Caelid, and the Weeping Peninsula. Four other areas (Altus, Gelmir, the Mountaintops, the Consecrated Snowfield) require you to beat bosses. The underground areas are a bit more complicated, but there is at least one (Siofra River) that can be accessed off the bat. This means both that you get a lot of freedom to explore and that there is a strong sense of progression and discovering new areas, and that's a very reasonable way of handling this design element.

In terms of having meaningful optional content to do, this game has a lot of that. The entire content related to Ranni's questline is so extensive and constructive to the experience that any other developer would likely not have had the balls to make it optional. But From did. And apart from giving you things to do parallel to the critical path and main progression, it's says something about the care, love and attention to detail of the devs that they made all of this content so elaborate and refined (it could even be argued to be some of the best content in the game, if not the best) even though a lot of players (perhaps most?) wouldn't even see it. That used to be considered one of the hallmarks of monocled design around here.

Apart from the Ranni-related areas, there is still a lot of excellent optional content. The Consecrated Snowfield and the Haligtree, Placidusax, the Deeproot related content, plenty of unique bosses and mid-sized dungeons like the Shaded Castle and Castle Morne... This is a massive world where content density is not a major issue, and that is quite the achievement, to say the least.

Well, that should cover the areas that I value most in open worlds. The weakest aspect of the world, and the sense in which it feels the most empty, is probably the relative dearth of NPCs and questlines. Though I personally don't put a lot of emphasis in this aspect, which is closer to the "storyfag" side of things, which means its possible de-emphasis doesn't bother me too much. Still, there is plenty to see here in terms of questlines, the main issue is that they are often too far in between and a bit on the obtuse side.

As I said in my previous post, if you enjoy overworld exploration, you'll enjoy Elden Ring's world. The complaints that I often see from people are not issues (in fact, they are often positives) for those that naturally feel compelled to traverse and explore, which makes me think that these are people that simply disdain non-dungeon exploration as a gameplay element tout court. It's true that not every one of the elements I examined is great or excellent in ER, but each one of them is at least reasonably solid, which is more than what most open worlds have achieved. Most overworlds in action games out there have at least one major, glaring flaw (like the progression and itemization in BOTW), while Elden Ring's world is just very tight on all fronts while still excelling on a couple of important areas (like engagement and encounters and dungeons). That's why I think ER's overworld is quite close to the ideal open world, or at least one of the closest we've gotten.

 

[smaug]

I was taking this post seriously until this part..

suppose I could also address the criticism of the open world, but there is not much to really say here. If you like open worlds and overworld exploration, you'll find ER to be exquisite, an almost ideal open world game

No, ER open-world is not "exquisite", it's not even good. It's just crap.

Honestly, what is with this “exquisite” shit? The open world is garbage.

I’ll bite, Ventidius why is it an “ideal open world game?” and explain why it’s not shit.

I suppose it goes back to my view on what constitutes quality overworld exploration, and I'd say it consists of the following elements:

Engagement: This is mainly about incentives to explore. These are the rewards for indulging your curiosity and scouring the world. They usually come in two main forms: treasure (the most obvious) and means of progression. Treasure includes things such as weapons, armor, and other gear, and in the case of Elden Ring, there is a lot to sink one's teeth in in terms of useful items to find: Unique weapons and armor (and the excellent item design in this game synergizes with this), Flask upgrades of two kinds, Weapon and Ashen Spirit upgrade materials, Physicks, plus sorceries and incantations. Not all that you will find will be useful to your build, however, given how many options diverse builds allow, there is plenty of gear that, while not essential, might be nice to have for situational uses. A lot of my builds had multiple backup options in terms of weapons, armor, and talismans, so I often had uses for much of the loot I came across. There are also more undifferentiated items such as upgrade materials come into the equation, and those are useful to just about everybody. For a world as big as this one, it's impressive how rarely it makes you feel that you came out of an expedition into a cave, new area, or mini-dungeon with nothing to show for it.

The point I made in my previous post about this game's emphasis on builds that exploit some of the options afforded by the new system is also important, since this means that the items and gear that you find through exploration is actually meaningful and makes a big difference in combat. In other words, the game's strength in build diversification and options synergizes significantly with the way exploration works.

It should be noted that the people who dislike open worlds and overworld exploration will actually think this is a point against the game, because it means that a lot of the items they need for their build are spread around, forcing them to engage in exploration that they'd rather not do. As I said, a lot of fans of previous games dislike that the overworld gets in the way of their playing the game like Bloodborne (or any of the previous FS games), they just want to easily get the gear for their build and move on to the next dungeon boss, they care little for exploring. But for those of us that actually like to wander off the beaten path, this is a very satisfying element of the game.

The other reward type that I mentioned was means for progression, and in Elden Ring this applies to both the itemized runes spread around the world and the many enemies, mini-dungeons, optional bosses and encounters that you'll find. If you don't feel like advancing through the critical path or grinding, there is plenty of optional content that you can do that can be both respectably engaging and challenging and will also make you more powerful.

Scale: Another positive that, to haters of open worlds, will always be a negative. They'll talk about quality being superior to quantity (as if Elden Ring didn't have an enormous quantity of quality content, the Legacy Dungeons alone are examples of that) without realizing that quantity is a quality, and that a sense of exploring, traversing and conquering a massive world can be a very satisfying feeling on its own. Elden Ring certainly delivers in this area, and I feel I don't have to argue this point too vehemently as the scope of the game is well-established. The detractors will rather point to repetitiveness as an issue that comes with the scope, and some degree of that is inevitable, but FS went above and beyond in terms of designing a massive roster of unique dungeons, enemies, and bosses, and they simply repurposed much of that already large pool of content into "derivative" enemies and areas that drive a lot of people absolutely berserk. But to those of us that appreciate the ideal of Daggerfall and the great scope in gameworlds that it championed, this repetition is a fair price to pay, especially when the core content is so good.

I will say, there is some issue in terms of immersion when some bosses like Godefroy and Stars of Darkness seem to be "copypasted" from bosses that technically shouldn't be (a different case from, say, dragons, which make sense due to belonging to the same species), however, not only are these few and far in between, but we are still not entirely sure that there is no lore explanation for their existence, as FS always seems to be very deliberate about these things, and this game, for the most part and despite its size, has not been the exception in other areas.

Biome variety: Not the best that I've seen in an open world, but pretty solid all around. You've got your snow areas, your volcano, your lakes area, and Limgrave being the more standard woodlands/plains area. Not exactly the most imaginative setup, but it covers most bases, makes the areas distinct enough, and grants a respectable level of polychromatism to the experience while not feeling too "theme-parkey" and disjointed. Caelid and the underground areas like Siofra River are the most exotic by far, and the underground areas in particular are spectacular and a high point in area design. Caelid is a wasteland, but of a very unique kind that is deeply interwoven with the quirks and lore of the world: it's pretty good. The Altus Plateau seemed the weakest overworld area the first time I visited it, but it has grown on me, in part because I have come to appreciate its traversal, which leads me to the next point.

Traversal: This refers to actually introducing broken terrain: hills, mountains, forests, and the like. This is good because it makes moving around the world less straightforward and thus less of a "hiking sim", let alone a "walking sim". Overall, ER does this very well. As I said, Altus in particular requires some thought in how to move around the actual plateau in order to reach places of interest, and indeed, in order to figure out how to reach the plateau itself. However, other areas also have plenty of this, such as Caelid, which has some interesting traversal mini-puzzles such as reaching the Giant Jar's Arena, which requires a detour via Siofra, or finding the path to the Albinauric village in Liurnia, or navigating the well, mountains, of the Mountaintop of Giants, which can lead to some circuitous expeditions and even some really cool things like the invisible bridge. Finding one of the many teleporters that lead you to other parts of the game, and indeed, finding your way to many of the games later areas is all quite engaging. There are plenty of creative ways of criss-crossing around the world.

Given Elden Ring's - and FS games apart from Sekiro - lack of emphasis on traversal mechanics (such as climbing, gliding, and the like), there are limits to what the game can really do here, even with stuff like the wind vortexes, but nonetheless, I think FS did a great job of working with the mechanical scheme that they had to turn this aspect into something that contributes positively to the experience as a whole without dragging the game down.

Encounters and dungeons: Self-explanatory, and Elden Ring has plenty. A lot of the forts and encampments offer solid encounters against enemy groups, the overworld bosses generally tend to keep to certain archetypes (Dragons, Night's Cavalry, and Erdtree avatars being the most common), but also offer some welcome variety here and there in the form of much less used bosses such as Magma Wyrms, Tibia Mariners, Death Rite Birds, the Fallingstar Beasts the evergaol bosses, or the surprise encounter with Margit, which is very cool and synergizes perfectly with his lore. The mini-dungeons are controversial to people who dislike open world games (are you seeing a pattern here?), but fans of overworld exploration have known since Morrowind at least how much they can enhance a game. They don't need to be masterpieces of labyrinthine design, they just have to meet a bare minimum of interesting loot, involved layout, and fun encounters and bosses, all while also sprinkling a bit of personality and uniqueness in each. The vast majority of the mini-dungeons do exactly that (you'll rarely see Skyrim-style linear romps), and in the process offer a way for the player to continue engaging with the world and becoming stronger without doing the same "legacy" or critical content. I have cleared all of the main bosses and dungeons and there are still a lot of little caves and catacombs that I haven't visited and could see in coming playthroughs, and that's a great feeling. Not to mention, it adds to the sense of scope.

Discovery: A lot of the content in the overworld, such as evergaols, ghost footprints, divine towers, and caravans have a sense of wonder to them when you are starting a blind playthrough, but they do tend to lose it after you've seen them a few times. The prevalence of "archetypal" content design definitely tends to cheapen a lot of these points of interest by the late game, but by that point you should be powerful enough that discovery has shifted from curiosities in the world to bosses, dungeons, and questlines. I felt this progression in the nature and pace of the game was quite natural, and the old point of interest types still contributed to the engagement of the world even after they lost their discovery appeal. Some of these things also helped the areas feel part of an unified world that had been once a single empire, especially stuff like the Divine Towers once you know some of the lore behind them.

Overall, this is an element that is at its strongest during the first blind playthrough, and it always, in all games, gets weaker with meta knowledge. That's normal, and what matters is that an overworld can keep engagement even when that sense of discovery is gone.

Environmental storytelling: The worldbuilding of Elden Ring is probably one of the most interesting I've seen in a FS game, and indeed it even rivals Bloodborne while also bringing a lot of themes that were experimented with in DS1 and DS2 to new heights. But that'd a whole 'nother conversation on its own. What matters here is how well the environments show that, and as always, FS has done an impressive work of weaving the lore into its overworld. From things like the very shape of Leyndell reflecting symbolism from alchemy (a concept that itself is central to the themes of ER), to the particulars of the presence of Albinaurics (including corrupted ones) inside and surrounding Mohgwyn Palace, the Omenkiller in the village of the Albinaurics being a remnant of the massacre perpetrated by Sir Gideon, the frozen corpses of the Giants in the Mountaintops, the curious presence of Fire Guardians in multiple areas, the connections between the Haligtree and the Shaded Castle, the footsoldiers of different factions populating related areas, the remnants of siege and battle surrounding the embattled capital, the way Leyndell and Liurna are associated with opposed alchemical symbolism (the Sun and the Moon) and their atmosphere and art direction support it, the list goes on...

To really get into the details of this, I'd probably need another wall of text explaining what I know about the lore and the way it was instantiated in the world, but needless to say, I think this aspect is very well done.

Freedom: Both in terms of allowing you to visit "higher level" areas early on and in terms of having plenty of content that is not critical to the campaign. In other words, "freedom from" in the sense of a relative lack of artificial limitations and "freedom for" in the sense of having optional things to do. You can access four major overworld areas right off the bat and without fighting any bosses: Limgrave, Liurnia, Caelid, and the Weeping Peninsula. Four other areas (Altus, Gelmir, the Mountaintops, the Consecrated Snowfield) require you to beat bosses. The underground areas are a bit more complicated, but there is at least one (Siofra River) that can be accessed off the bat. This means both that you get a lot of freedom to explore and that there is a strong sense of progression and discovering new areas, and that's a very reasonable way of handling this design element.

In terms of having meaningful optional content to do, this game has a lot of that. The entire content related to Ranni's questline is so extensive and constructive to the experience that any other developer would likely not have had the balls to make it optional. But From did. And apart from giving you things to do parallel to the critical path and main progression, it's says something about the care, love and attention to detail of the devs that they made all of this content so elaborate and refined (it could even be argued to be some of the best content in the game, if not the best) even though a lot of players (perhaps most?) wouldn't even see it. That used to be considered one of the hallmarks of monocled design around here.

Apart from the Ranni-related areas, there is still a lot of excellent optional content. The Consecrated Snowfield and the Haligtree, Placidusax, the Deeproot related content, plenty of unique bosses and mid-sized dungeons like the Shaded Castle and Castle Morne... This is a massive world where content density is not a major issue, and that is quite the achievement, to say the least.

Well, that should cover the areas that I value most in open worlds. The weakest aspect of the world, and the sense in which it feels the most empty, is probably the relative dearth of NPCs and questlines. Though I personally don't put a lot of emphasis in this aspect, which is closer to the "storyfag" side of things, which means its possible de-emphasis doesn't bother me too much. Still, there is plenty to see here in terms of questlines, the main issue is that they are often too far in between and a bit on the obtuse side.

As I said in my previous post, if you enjoy overworld exploration, you'll enjoy Elden Ring's world. The complaints that I often see from people are not issues (in fact, they are often positives) for those that naturally feel compelled to traverse and explore, which makes me think that these are people that simply disdain non-dungeon exploration as a gameplay element tout court. It's true that not every one of the elements I examined is great or excellent in ER, but each one of them is at least reasonably solid, which is more than what most open worlds have achieved. Most overworlds in action games out there have at least one major, glaring flaw (like the progression and itemization in BOTW), while Elden Ring's world is just very tight on all fronts while still excelling on a couple of important areas (like engagement and encounters and dungeons). That's why I think ER's overworld is quite close to the ideal open world, or at least one of the closest we've gotten.

In essence, you like the game world because it’s stimulating and provides the player with something to do all times. The spectacle is what you admire (massive seamlesss open world, with no restrictions), or rather the exploration of the world is it’s own reward despite half of it being copy-pasted banality. You literally explore the same layout of army camps in every single part of the world. Liruinia, Limgrove and the Weeping Peninsula are all balanced around the same level as a way to extend the game and make it much larger/longer than it needs to be.

Your praise of the of build system and forcing players to explore to find potential good gear is flawed. In previous Dark Souls games, exploring levels felt natural so even if you found a useless item it wasn’t a huge problem because it’s level based. But in ER, you have to go out of your way to find a mini-dungeon where some “potentially” useful loot “might” be found. Also, I like how from gives you the ability to respec near infinitely to justify all the useless items you get, because you can just respec bro.

I assume you only mention Shaded Castle and Castle Morne, but you forgot Castle Sol because that’s the extent of actual mini-dungeons. I remember finding a side dungeon in (the level 100 area) where the novelty is another reskinned rune bear except it’s got over 20,000 HP (this is probably the most egregious example) and another small room which is the boss (2 Demi-humans)

Not going to argue about setting, lore, or any of that. I don’t care for it, because the Japanese seem to be incapable of writing anyhow.

The mini-dungeons are controversial to people who dislike open world games (are you seeing a pattern here?), but fans of overworld exploration have known since Morrowind at least how much they can enhance a game. They don't need to be masterpieces of labyrinthine design, they just have to meet a bare minimum of interesting loot, involved layout, and fun encounters and bosses, all while also sprinkling a bit of personality and uniqueness in each.

I haven’t played Morrowind (only the intro) but I know for a fact the game has a lot of things going for it besides dungeons and combat. Also, that game is a proper RPG and offers way more in that regard than ER, how are they even remotely related?


We’ll have to agree to disagree, I suppose. I didn’t respond to some of the other exploration parts because it’s not a proper RPG, so even when the game does a clever thing (teleporting you to a mine, the one in Dragon Ruins is neat, except getting out isn’t hard at and then you just teleport out fairly quickly.). I applaud you for you writing a wall of text for this undeserving game.

 

[Ventidius]

In essence, you like the game world because it’s stimulating and provides the player with something to do all times. The spectacle is what you admire (massive seamlesss open world, with no restrictions),

You make it sound as if something awesome happens every two steps, and that is not the case at all. There's always a balance with these things, and you don't want to either saturate the player with stimuli or make him feel he's doing nothing meaningful to progress in the game. Elden Ring avoids both extremes, in my view, and this is thanks to the fact there is a hierarchy to exploration rewards: they are not all equal. Build-defining talismans and weapons are probably the most valuable and exciting prize, but they are rare. Then you have stuff like upgrade materials which, while useful, aren't very important in the short term but rather over extended stretches of exploration that allow you to amass many of them. IIRC you need 12 regular smithing stones to upgrade regular weapons (though Somber ones are different as you only need one of each level), that means getting one level-appropriate stone is useful and it's progress, but it's not exactly a huge dopamine hit. Golden Seeds are also very nicely implemented in that getting a single one is very valuable early on, but becomes less exciting the more you need for the next flask upgrade. I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the argument that there is too much valuable stuff spread too far around, but this is very far from being a modern Diablo-like or Monty Haul where you get constantly showered with shiny loot pinatas.

or rather the exploration of the world is it’s own reward despite half of it being copy-pasted banality.

I assume you only mention Shaded Castle and Castle Morne, but you forgot Castle Sol because that’s the extent of actual mini-dungeons. I remember finding a side dungeon in (the level 100 area) where the novelty is another reskinned rune bear except it’s got over 20,000 HP (this is probably the most egregious example) and another small room which is the boss (2 Demi-humans)

I already addressed this in my discussion of scale, so I'll simply add that the content in this game comes in many classes, and the wiki helps a lot with sorting them out: https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Locations

Basically you have the Legacy Dungeons (largest and scarcest), the Minor Legacy Dungeons (usually mid-sized, around 10 in number, they are not mini-dungeons and are in fact decently fleshed out and varied for what they are), and the actual mini-dungeons like the caves (over 20 of them, small in size). Making the game like a slog of repetitive banal content is a strawman, because the least developed content (caves) is supposed to be mostly a complement to the main attraction of the game: the more detailed content. That's the context. It's not a game composed of 50 hours of Crystal Caves. You can spend as much time in optional mini-dungeons as you wish, and they are at their best when you explore them in between the more detailed bits of content. Some might see it as padding, but it can just as easily be seen as gravy and as something that improves the pacing of the game for those who are in no rush to beeline to the endgame.

It should also be noted that even the most simple pieces of content like the caves have a decent amount of variety in their layouts, with some surprises here and there such as one where you fell into a trap with an Abductor. There is a respectable amount of verticality, hidden passages, and non-linearity in many of them for what they are. Again, Skyrim rollercoasters they are not, and IMO they are also more fun to explore than the Chalice Dungeons in Bloodborne.

As for the bear comment, sure, some enemies are just silly, like the high level animals such as rats. I do think the high level Runebears are very annoying as well (the one in the Consecrated Snowfield is a pain in the ass), but hey, it's not a perfect game, just a good one.

You literally explore the same layout of army camps in every single part of the world.

A bit reductive, especially since there are couple that make solid use of verticality and artillery, but I'll admit that camps in particular aren't the most exciting part of the world. Sometimes they are good for netting some runes, and some have decent loot, but that's about it. Forts are much better and some of them like Faroth and Haight have a couple of interesting things going on. Even so, I'd argue that they at least help in making the world avoid the feeling of "emptiness" that a lot of people complain about in open worlds.

Liruinia, Limgrove and the Weeping Peninsula are all balanced around the same level as a way to extend the game and make it much larger/longer than it needs to be.

Not exactly true. Liurnia has clearly tougher foes than the other two. Lobsters, Albinaurics, and the magical soldiers can all put a serious dent on a freshly created character. Your chances of survival early on are much better in Limgrave and the Weeping Peninsula. One good way to measure regional "power level" though this is through the dragons, and the dragon in Liurnia is quite a bit tougher than the Limgrave one.

The Weeping Peninsula and Limgrave are very close to each other in terms of "level", but I don't see what's wrong with that. The two areas do a good job of introducing the player to the way the game handles regional variety without punishing him too hard for exploring. There are other areas later on that are close to each other in their place within the power curve, but there is also a clear, gradual progression and escalation from Limgrave and WP all the way up to the Mountaintops and the Consecrated Snowfield. As I pointed out before, there is a very reasonable balance here between freedom and progression.

Your praise of the of build system and forcing players to explore to find potential good gear is flawed.

Well, it's what Morrowind did, and it's a feature of that game that became so beloved that some people even modded it into Skyrim (IIRC it was called Morrowloot). If your game focuses on exploration and there is little that you gain in that exploration that actually helps you beat the game then your game has a serious design flaw/dissonance.

In previous Dark Souls games, exploring levels felt natural so even if you found a useless item it wasn’t a huge problem because it’s level based. But in ER, you have to go out of your way to find a mini-dungeon where some “potentially” useful loot “might” be found.

What you needed wasn't always in the way in Dark Souls either. It really depended on your build, but the smaller world meant you had a better chance of stumbling upon it. That said, Dark Souls did reward the player for exploring with unique loot that helped your build, this has in fact been a constant in modern From games (with perhaps the exception of Sekiro) and it's something they've always done well. It's just that in DS this was done in the context of a dungeon crawler, while now it is done in the context of an open world. So now they need to incentivize you to explore not only dungeons, but also the overworld. You may, like many other ER detractors, think that encouraging this exploration is a mistake, but having this feature is obviously a major facet of designing exploration-centric open world. Again, at this point the critique seems to boil down to "it's not a dungeon crawler" and that'd be fine if at least people were honest about it instead of trying to argue that the game fails on its own terms.

Also, I like how from gives you the ability to respec near infinitely to justify all the useless items you get, because you can just respec bro.

Respec has been around since Dark Souls 2. Incidentally, that game also had quite a bit of build complexity, like Elden Ring. It's not a coincidence either. Dark Souls 1 and Bloodborne could do without a respec system because build variations didn't get as complex, and building yourself into a corner was harder and less relevant to success (in part also related to lower boss difficulty). While respec is a controversial feature, it is certainly more understandable in games like Elden Ring where your build is more essential to success - and bosses have more walling potential - than ever before in the series. In any case, respec won't grant you the fully upgraded gear that you need to make a drastically different build work, which limits its exploitability.

I haven’t played Morrowind (only the intro) but I know for a fact the game has a lot of things going for it besides dungeons and combat. Also, that game is a proper RPG and offers way more in that regard than ER, how are they even remotely related?

The main gameplay strength of Morrowind has always been the exploration. In that sense, it's not too different from ER in terms of its basic design. That said, a lot of people also remember MW fondly because of its very unique setting, worldbuilding and environmental storytelling. ER is also good at those things, though probably not quite as good.

Also, there were more quests, NPCs, and simulationist elements in MW than in ER, but while the last of these traits sets it apart from ER and is often praised, the first two elements are rarely considered above-average by RPG standards (I personally think they are serviceable), especially compared to something like Fallout.

We’ll have to agree to disagree, I suppose. I didn’t respond to some of the other exploration parts because it’s not a proper RPG

Well, unless you consider Action RPGs as non-RPGs, then ER is very much an RPG. At least according to the definition of the term that I have expounded upon in previous threads, namely the notion that RPGs are games that combine combat, character-building, and exploration. If Wizardry is an RPG, there is no reason ER isn't (again, unless you consider Action RPGs as non-RPGs).

so even when the game does a clever thing (teleporting you to a mine, the one in Dragon Ruins is neat, except getting out isn’t hard at and then you just teleport out fairly quickly.).

I mentioned the teleporting because it's cool that it allows you find creative ways into regions and areas, not because they trap you.

 

[smaug]

In essence, you like the game world because it’s stimulating and provides the player with something to do all times. The spectacle is what you admire (massive seamlesss open world, with no restrictions),

You make it sound as if something awesome happens every two steps, and that is not the case at all. There's always a balance with these things, and you don't want to either saturate the player with stimuli or make him feel he's doing nothing meaningful to progress in the game. Elden Ring avoids both extremes, in my view, and this is thanks to the fact there is a hierarchy to exploration rewards: they are not all equal. Build-defining talismans and weapons are probably the most valuable and exciting prize, but they are rare. Then you have stuff like upgrade materials which, while useful, aren't very important in the short term but rather over extended stretches of exploration that allow you to amass many of them. IIRC you need 12 regular smithing stones to upgrade regular weapons (though Somber ones are different as you only need one of each level), that means getting one level-appropriate stone is useful and it's progress, but it's not exactly a huge dopamine hit. Golden Seeds are also very nicely implemented in that getting a single one is very valuable early on, but becomes less exciting the more you need for the next flask upgrade. I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the argument that there is too much valuable stuff spread too far around, but this is very far from being a modern Diablo-like or Monty Haul where you get constantly showered with shiny loot pinatas.

or rather the exploration of the world is it’s own reward despite half of it being copy-pasted banality.

I assume you only mention Shaded Castle and Castle Morne, but you forgot Castle Sol because that’s the extent of actual mini-dungeons. I remember finding a side dungeon in (the level 100 area) where the novelty is another reskinned rune bear except it’s got over 20,000 HP (this is probably the most egregious example) and another small room which is the boss (2 Demi-humans)

I already addressed this in my discussion of scale, so I'll simply add that the content in this game comes in many classes, and the wiki helps a lot with sorting them out: https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Locations

Basically you have the Legacy Dungeons (largest and scarcest), the Minor Legacy Dungeons (mid-sized and around 10 in number, and they are not mini-dungeons and in fact are decently fleshed out for what they are), and the actual mini-dungeons like the caves (over 20 of them, small in size). Making the game like a slog of repetitive banal content is a strawman, because the least developed content (caves) is supposed to be mostly a complement to the main attraction of the game: the more detailed content. That's the context. It's not a game composed of 50 hours of Crystal Caves. You can spend as much time in optional mini-dungeons as you wish, and they are at their best when you explore them in between the more detailed bits of content. Some might see it as padding, but it can just as easily be seen as gravy and as something that improves the pacing of the game for those who are in no rush to beeline to the endgame.

It should also be noted that even the most simple pieces of content like the caves have a decent amount of variety in their layouts, with some surprises here and there such as one where you fell into a trap with an Abductor. There is a respectable amount of verticality, hidden passages, and non-linearity in many of them for what they are. Again, Skyrim rollercoasters they are not, and IMO they are also more fun to explore than the Chalice Dungeons in Bloodborne.

As for the bear comment, sure, some enemies are just silly, like the high level animals such as rats. I do think the high level Runebears are very annoying as well (the one in the Consecrated Snowfield is a pain in the ass), but hey, it's not a perfect game, just a good one.

You literally explore the same layout of army camps in every single part of the world.

A bit reductive, especially since there are couple that make solid use of verticality and artillery, but I'll admit that camps in particular aren't the most exciting part of the world. Sometimes they are good for netting some runes, and some have decent loot, but that's about it. Forts are much better and some of them like Faroth and Haight have a couple of interesting things going on. Even so, I'd argue that they at least help in making the world avoid the feeling of "emptiness" that a lot of people complain about in open worlds.

Liruinia, Limgrove and the Weeping Peninsula are all balanced around the same level as a way to extend the game and make it much larger/longer than it needs to be.

Not exactly true. Liurnia has clearly tougher foes than the other two. Lobsters, Albinaurics, and the magical soldiers can all put a serious dent on a freshly created character. Your chances of survival early on are much better in Limgrave and the Weeping Peninsula. One good way to measure regional "power level" though this is through the dragons, as the dragon in Liurnia is quite a bit tougher than the Limgrave one.

The Weeping Peninsula and Limgrave are very close to each other in terms of "level", but I don't see what's wrong with that. The two areas do a good job of introducing the player to the way the game handles regional variety without punishing him too hard for exploring. There are other areas later on that are close to each other in their place within the power curve, but there is also a clear progression and escalation from Limgrave and WP all the way up to the Consecrated Snowfield and the Mountaintops. As I pointed out before, there is a very reasonable balance here between freedom and progression.

Your praise of the of build system and forcing players to explore to find potential good gear is flawed.

Well, it's what Morrowind did, and it's a feature of that game that became so beloved that some people even modded it into Skyrim. If your game focuses on exploration and there is little that you gain in that exploration that actually helps you beat the game then your game has a serious design flaw/dissonance.

In previous Dark Souls games, exploring levels felt natural so even if you found a useless item it wasn’t a huge problem because it’s level based. But in ER, you have to go out of your way to find a mini-dungeon where some “potentially” useful loot “might” be found.

What you needed wasn't always in the way in Dark Souls either. It really depended on your build, but the smaller world meant you had a better chance of stumbling upon it. That said, Dark Souls did reward the player for exploring with unique loot that helped your build, this has in fact been a constant in modern From games (with perhaps the exception of Sekiro) and it's something they've always done well. It's just that in DS this was done in the context of a dungeon crawler, while now it is done in the context of an open world. So now they need to incentivize you to explore not only dungeons, but also the overworld. You may, like many other ER detractors, think that encouraging this exploration is a mistake, but doing so is obviously a major facet of designing exploration-centric open world. Again, at this point the critique seems to boil down to "it's not a dungeon crawler" and that'd be fine if at least people were honest about it instead of trying to argue that the game fails on its own terms.

Also, I like how from gives you the ability to respec near infinitely to justify all the useless items you get, because you can just respec bro.

Respec has been around since Dark Souls 2. Incidentally, that game also had quite a bit of build complexity, like Elden Ring. It's not a coincidence either. Dark Souls 1 and Bloodborne could do without a respec system because build variations didn't get as complex, and building yourself into a corner was harder and less relevant to success (in part also related to lower boss difficulty). While respec is a controversial feature, it is certainly more understandable in games like Elden Ring where your build is more essential to success - and bosses have more walling potential - than ever before in the series. In any case, respec won't grant you the fully upgraded gear that you need to make a drastically different build work, which limits its exploitability.

I haven’t played Morrowind (only the intro) but I know for a fact the game has a lot of things going for it besides dungeons and combat. Also, that game is a proper RPG and offers way more in that regard than ER, how are they even remotely related?

The main gameplay strength of Morrowind has always been the exploration. In that sense, it's not too different from ER in terms of its basic design. That said, a lot of people also remember MW fondly because of its very unique setting, worldbuilding and environmental storytelling. ER is also good at those things, though probably not quite as good.

Also, there were more quests, NPCs, and simulationist elements in MW than in ER, but while the last of these traits sets it apart from ER and is often praised, the first two elements are rarely considered above-average by RPG standards (I personally think they are serviceable), especially compared to something like Fallout.

We’ll have to agree to disagree, I suppose. I didn’t respond to some of the other exploration parts because it’s not a proper RPG

Well, unless you consider Action RPGs as non-RPGs, then ER is very much an RPG. At least according to the definition of the term that I have expounded upon in previous threads, namely the notion that RPGs are games that combine combat, character-building, and exploration. If Wizardry is an RPG, there is no reason ER isn't (again, unless you consider Action RPGs as non-RPGs).

so even when the game does a clever thing (teleporting you to a mine, the one in Dragon Ruins is neat, except getting out isn’t hard at and then you just teleport out fairly quickly.).

I mentioned the teleporting because it's cool that it lets you find creative ways into regions and areas, not because they trap you.

I’ll respond to the rest later, but this:

Basically you have the Legacy Dungeons (largest and scarcest), the Minor Legacy Dungeons (mid-sized and around 10 in number, and they are not mini-dungeons and in fact are decently fleshed out for what they are), and the actual mini-dungeons like the caves (over 20 of them, small). Making the game like a slog of repetitive banal content is a strawman, because the least developed content (caves) is supposed to be mostly a complement to the main attraction of the game: the more detailed content. That's the context. It's not a game composed of 50 hours of Crystal Caves. You can spend as much time in optional mini-dungeons as you wish, and they are at their best when you explore them in between the more detailed bits of content. Some might see it as padding, but it can just as easily be seen as gravy and as something that improves the pacing of the game for those who are in no rush to beeline to the endgame.

They are mostly comprised of rooms with 1 potential gimmick: chariots, traps or just rooms with an ambush. The rest of this is moot, previous games did just fine with levels. What’s the point of a massive open world that lacks unique content (and potentially isolates interconnecting mechanics from each other) rather than just hand-crafted levels? The padding is worse in this case than in other games because it’s straight reskins and rehashes like the army camps.

You make it sound as if something awesome happens every two steps,

That’s because there is, you’re fighting all the time. Animals to kill, random roaming mobs to kill, turn a corner and there’s some ambush or group of enemies to kill. The entire world is a dungeon crawler. You don’t travel across a world finding towns, cities, dungeons and solving plots through any interesting means. That’s why the scale is bad, because it’s a meaningless open world that doesn’t make sense at all for it’s design. (How is this so hard to understand?).

It is quite literally padding the in the worst possible sense.

 

[Vibalist]

You're exaggerating the problems, dude. Yes, the game has padding. No, it doesn't have as much padding or pointless content as many other open world games.

 

[smaug]

You're exaggerating the problems, dude. Yes, the game has padding. No, it doesn't have as much padding or pointless content as many other open world games.

I don’t give a damn about “other open world games”. It’s egregious in this game and that’s what matters.

 

[Vibalist]

It's not egregious. You're clearly honing in on the game's flaws while ignoring everything it does right. The amount of handcrafted, unique, interesting content in ER is staggering and enough to fill two Dark Souls games to the brim. That it is also bloated and somewhat repetitive doesn't take away from this and the fact you insist on ignoring every good aspect of ER shows your bias.

You're basically just another run of the mill Codex hater who insists on thoughtlessly shitting on everything because you think it's the cool thing to do around here, and there is nothing more predictable and annoying at this point.

 

[Silva]

Nah, the only saving grace in this game is legacy dungeons, but those aren't enough to carry this turd.

On open-world: ER doesn't even have a world, but a fighting arena. Nothing in it has verossimiltude, everything is fodder for fighting. Most egregious being the dumb animals. Like the wolves and eagles that let you stealth ambush them. Awful. Please, see STALKER for what an actual open-world looks like.

 

[NJClaw]

Nothing in it has verossimiltude, everything is fodder for fighting.

But enough with the good, let's get to what you think the game does wrong.

 

[smaug]

It's not egregious. You're clearly honing in on the game's flaws while ignoring everything it does right. The amount of handcrafted, unique, interesting content in ER is staggering and enough to fill two Dark Souls games to the brim. That it is also bloated and somewhat repetitive doesn't take away from this and the fact you insist on ignoring every good aspect of ER shows your bias.

You're basically just another run of the mill Codex hater who insists on thoughtlessly shitting on everything because you think it's the cool thing to do around here, and there is nothing more predictable and annoying at this point.

Quit being such a baby. You can like garbage games just like the masses outside the codex do.

The amount of handcrafted, unique, interesting content in ER is staggering and enough to fill two Dark Souls games to the brim