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

[Brickfrog]

The open world makes it harder to conceal artificiality. Before only you had access to a small part of a castle and the rest was a blurry background, left to your imagination, for you to assume there is more. In an open world game those barriers are gone.

I feel like ER does a better job of using space. In previous ds games i would get a sense that the playable area might only be a fifth of the geographic size of the dungeon, castle etc. When I'm in shaded castle or the underside of volcano manor it feels like every street and rooftop can be reached.

 

[perfectslumbers]

The open world makes it harder to conceal artificiality. Before only you had access to a small part of a castle and the rest was a blurry background, left to your imagination, for you to assume there is more. In an open world game those barriers are gone.

This is basically the exact opposite of how I feel (although what you're saying makes sense.) When I run through Anor Londo and I see the streets below, it takes me out to know I can never visit them. Whereas in Elden Ring whenever there's a castle or city you can go through nearly the entire thing, which made it more convincing to me even if the scale of things was much smaller than they would be in real life.

It's hard to believe that anyone would actually live in the world of Elden Ring, but I found the exact same thing in the Souls games. Personally I'm fine with that though, it adds to the dying atmosphere.

 

[hackncrazy]

Ok, I just had one of the most amazing discoveries so far for me (heavy spoilers ahead):

Spoiler

There are FOUR demigods aside from the ones you are already searching from the start. So I guess they'll be more places to explore than the ones that I already found.

Goddamn it this games keeps delivering even at this point where I'm approaching 100 fucking hours.

 

[Curratum]

*sigh*

Went into Radahn's combat zone.

What even is the point in all of this?

Spoiler

He keeps killing all summons in literally 2 hits and they don't help ME much get in there, because his 200-meter hitboxes flailing around erratically doesn't make for hitting him.

 

[Silva]

It's hard to believe that anyone would actually live in the world of Elden Ring, but I found the exact same thing in the Souls games.

I agree if we consider only what's shown in both games. But DS1 smartly hints at things not shown, which makes a world of difference for those who care for this kind of thing - the magic from Vinheim, the pyromancers from the Great Swamp, the noble Astora, joyful Catarina, zealots from Carim, etc. All painting a picture of a vast functionaning world out there, full of tragic stories for facing the same apocalypse we see in Lordran. The Lands Between feels like a cardboard world in contrast.

 

[fork]

Worst FromSoft game ever (well, in two decades or so).

Have you even played DS2/3? Retard.

With Dark Souls 3 it's close, yes, but I still like it better than Elden Ring. Dark Souls 2 is a masterpiece in comparison to ER and DS3 though.

 

[Silva]

This is the first From game that would benefit from an optional "Hardcore mode". One that limits teleporting to nearby bonfires and makes this retardo horse slower or something.

 

[Lutte]

As many gripes as I have with ER, I think I prefer it to DS3 if only because it has actual level design that befits the genre, and I don't mean "wow look there's a sidebranch with secrets" (seems like the sort of thing that makes people happy with the capital) but just how levels interact with gameplay, enemy placements etc.
There is more gameplay and level induced danger in one tiny linear catacomb of ER than the whole of DS3. And as much as I despised the cookie cutter thing of doing a "every zone has one catacomb, one mining cavern, one this one that etc" the catacombs in particular were all great experiences. I just wish that they'd do something like stick together two catacombs as one linear level, or three, and reduce the amount of open world travel on horse nonsense you have to do to get to the meat, because that's just padding.

The best catacomb so far for me was that one that has every room structure look the same to disorient you and make you wonder if you're even progressing into it, I admit I ran around in circles for a while.

 

[Silva]

Yeah, for all my bitching and whining, ER is probably on par with the best from have put so far. No way it's inferior to DS3.

 

[Egosphere]

will probably not be able to play this until next year, but what's the consensus? Inspired stuff, or just decent but same as what came before?

 

[perfectslumbers]

will probably not be able to play this until next year, but what's the consensus? Inspired stuff, or just decent but same as what came before?

I think mostly everyone likes it better than DS3 at the very least

 

[Silva]

will probably not be able to play this until next year, but what's the consensus? Inspired stuff, or just decent but same as what came before?

I think mostly everyone likes it better than DS3 at the very least

It's in From's high echelon for sure. Time will tell if it has the lasting impact of a DS1, but it's in the conversation.

We can't forget it still haven't received enough patches, and the eventual DLC of course. It could even top DS1.

 

[Perkel]

even more than Stakes of Marika saving us from retarded 2 minutes runbacks to boss fights.

Imho that is huge decline.

This is why Demon's Souls imho still has the best design. Because all shortcuts really meant something if you had to play from start level everytime you died and only get new bonfire when you kill level boss. So not only you had to kill your way through level to master it but also you had to deal with boss at the end of the level with resources you were left with.

Removal of above mechanic lead to increase in skill difficulty rather than player prediction/strategy/logic difficulty. Now in elden ring there are bonfires everywhere and before bosses you have shrines which completely cut walking to boss in most cases.

Obvious different people like different things but i loved initial design. Superb bosses are great but nothing beats the feeling when you find some cage you go up in it and you realize that you found a way to skip 50% of level increasing your chances to beat boss.

 

[Matador]

will probably not be able to play this until next year, but what's the consensus? Inspired stuff, or just decent but same as what came before?

There is no consensus. But I think most agree in that the legacy dungeons like Stormveil castle are brilliant.

The open world is more divisive. I don't hate it, but I think is too big and can get tiresome when you have played for 30-40 hours.

 

[Matador]

even more than Stakes of Marika saving us from retarded 2 minutes runbacks to boss fights.

Imho that is huge decline.

This is why Demon's Souls imho still has the best design. Because all shortcuts really meant something if you had to play from start level everytime you died and only get new bonfire when you kill level boss. So not only you had to kill your way through level to master it but also you had to deal with boss at the end of the level with resources you were left with.

Removal of above mechanic lead to increase in skill difficulty rather than player prediction/strategy/logic difficulty. Now in elden ring there are bonfires everywhere and before bosses you have shrines which completely cut walking to boss in most cases.

Obvious different people like different things but i loved initial design. Superb bosses are great but nothing beats the feeling when you find some cage you go up in it and you realize that you found a way to skip 50% of level increasing your chances to beat boss.

Totally agree. The ability to warp any time was the only flaw in the otherwise impressive Stormveil castle, and removed tension for me in two occasions than I previous games would have been pretty nasty and interesting.

Teleport should not be allowed in the dungeons.

 

[Silva]

Yeah, put "less stakes of Marika" in the Hardcore mode too. So far..

- Only teleport nearby sites of grace.
- Slower horse.
- Less Stakes of Marika.

Miyazaki, I know you're reading this, so take note.

 

[HumanTotemPole]

The cycle of Fire was presented in tandem with settlements and vistas that hinted at functioning societies.

Have to personally disagree here, nothing in any DS game has ever come across to me as anything but obscured mythics of a broken reality.

Absolutely. Never understood the fandom's desire to theorycraft a concrete canon for the Dark Souls series.

 

[hackncrazy]

Worst FromSoft game ever (well, in two decades or so).

Have you even played DS2/3? Retard.

With Dark Souls 3 it's close, yes, but I still like it better than Elden Ring. Dark Souls 2 is a masterpiece in comparison to ER and DS3 though.

Not trying to attack you or anything, but I have a really hard time to figure out if the praise that Dark Souls 2 gets over here it's some kind of internal joke or if people really believes it. I say that because the codex is unironically the only environment that I'm part of that has people praising Dark Souls 2 over any other game in the souls series.

Level design in DS2 is horrendous, and the boss fights are pretty much forgettable. I've seen people shitting on ER for having repeated enemies, and then again the first "major boss" of DS2 is a fucking giant that has two attacks. And things don't go much better from there in terms of bosses. Hell, give me 35 fights with Crucible Knight over this shitty stuff that has 2 or 3 patterns.

The DLCs makes things better (at least in terms of level design), but if you compare vanilla DS2 with every other souls games it's kinda of bizarre to think it's from the same company.

I'd really like to see people pointing out what exactly DS2 does better than any other souls game because this praise gets me really curious.

 

[hackncrazy]

even more than Stakes of Marika saving us from retarded 2 minutes runbacks to boss fights.

Imho that is huge decline.

This is why Demon's Souls imho still has the best design. Because all shortcuts really meant something if you had to play from start level everytime you died and only get new bonfire when you kill level boss. So not only you had to kill your way through level to master it but also you had to deal with boss at the end of the level with resources you were left with.

Removal of above mechanic lead to increase in skill difficulty rather than player prediction/strategy/logic difficulty. Now in elden ring there are bonfires everywhere and before bosses you have shrines which completely cut walking to boss in most cases.

Obvious different people like different things but i loved initial design. Superb bosses are great but nothing beats the feeling when you find some cage you go up in it and you realize that you found a way to skip 50% of level increasing your chances to beat boss.

I think it all comes from the way you explore the level after you find a boss.

In my case, I try to explore every nook and cranny from a level and if I find the boss fog door, I let it go from there and continue exploring everything I can. Once I'm done exploring the level, it's time for the boss fight. When I enter the boss, my mindset completely changes, is not a "exploration and combat" game anymore, it's a "beat the boss" game.

In previous games, after doing the process I mentioned I went to the boss. If I died, I would never go on the boss killing all enemies again, so pretty much at this point my game was a "run past all enemies and face the boss" thing. There's no tension anymore, there's no new stuff I'm going to find nor anything like this.

With the Stakes of Marika, things got into the perfect state I always desired: Explore the level > fight the boss > die to the boss > respawn at the boss door. As you said, different people like different things, but I'd be really surprised if people kill all the enemies every time they are going to face the boss again.

 

[hackncrazy]

Not trying to attack you or anything, but I have a really hard time to figure out if the praise that Dark Souls 2 gets over here it's some kind of internal joke or if people really believes it. I say that because the codex is unironically the only environment that I'm part of that has people praising Dark Souls 2 over any other game in the souls series.

I unironically shill for DS2. I genuinely like the game and thinks it's actually good. Hell, I like it more than I ike DS1. Not saying it's necessarily a better game, but I enjoyed it more.

That I understand completely. Objectively speaking, I feel is the worst of all series but in a subjective sense there's nothing wrong in loving it.

 

[d1r]

Worst FromSoft game ever (well, in two decades or so).

Have you even played DS2/3? Retard.

With Dark Souls 3 it's close, yes, but I still like it better than Elden Ring. Dark Souls 2 is a masterpiece in comparison to ER and DS3 though.

Not trying to attack you or anything, but I have a really hard time to figure out if the praise that Dark Souls 2 gets over here it's some kind of internal joke or if people really believes it. I say that because the codex is unironically the only environment that I'm part of that has people praising Dark Souls 2 over any other game in the souls series.

Level design in DS2 is horrendous, and the boss fights are pretty much forgettable. I've seen people shitting on ER for having repeated enemies, and then again the first "major boss" of DS2 is a fucking giant that has two attacks. And things don't go much better from there in terms of bosses. Hell, give me 35 fights with Crucible Knight over this shitty stuff that has 2 or 3 patterns.

The DLCs makes things better (at least in terms of level design), but if you compare vanilla DS2 with every other souls games it's kinda of bizarre to think it's from the same company.

I'd really like to see people pointing out what exactly DS2 does better than any other souls game because this praise gets me really curious.

Great weapon and armor selection, powerstancing was fantastic, and a lot of weapons (at least the DLC ones) had great movesets. And ... uhm, that's about it.

 

[perfectslumbers]

DS2 is basically unplayable to me because of the animations and controls. Feels terrible next to the other souls games which feel crisp and responsive.

 

[Ivan]

Superb bosses are great but nothing beats the feeling when you find some cage you go up in it and you realize that you found a way to skip 50% of level increasing your chances to beat boss.

if the boss fight is the punctuation mark, I see nothing lost in bypassing what's come before. you've earned it by that point.

also, context is important. these checkpoints are used sparingly. there's still plenty of the usual retreading of old ground bullshit, just less of it.

 

[Riddler]

will probably not be able to play this until next year, but what's the consensus? Inspired stuff, or just decent but same as what came before?

I think mostly everyone likes it better than DS3 at the very least

I don't have the hate-on for DS3 that some people here have but I've not decided yet whether I like this better than DS3 or not, but I'm not super far in. I've only done godrick and explored a bit of the second region, will head to the academy soon.

So far I think the open world doesn't really contribute much and somewhat detracts from the experience (even if it isn't terrible). Furthermore, the music so far is clearly and significantly inferior but that might change as I make it further in.

There clearly is a lot of content and the first castle was great so I suspect that the "legacy dungeons" are at least as good as what we got in DS3. The issue being that you have to fuck around with the mediocre open world to not be underleveled/undergeared.

The story isn't anything to write home about here either, I honestly can't really tell what the story is beyond some very broad strokes. Perhaps this improves as I play but so far it's very generic. It doesn't seem like as much of a retread of the earlier DS games' story but there doesn't seem like there is anything interesting to replace it either.

If the story and music starts improving and the legacy dungeons retains their high quality throughout the game then I will say that this is superior to DS3 but I really wish they had skipped the open world and just made a tighter experience.

 

[deem]

DS2 is the worst in the series but it's still DS so better than most games.