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

[Haplo]

Gothic is peak open world design, in fact. The rest, I agree with.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

We'll agree to disagree, because if there's one classic series of RPGs I never got one shit for, it was Ultima. I'd rather replay a Wizardry again than touch these things. Could never get into Stalker, Gothic is peak eurojank and GTA is more of an arcade driving game than any other elements when you consider how much time you spend in a car.

Never played genesis Shadowrun.

How's your stand on Mount and Blade and Kenshi, if you've played those?

 

[Curratum]

The game has a number of other significant problems that don't stem directly from the open-world foundation. If anything, the open world only adds to the tedium, but isn't the most badly executed thing about the game.

They could have kept it open world and designed it to be much tighter and more enjoyable, but I suppose Miyazaki wanted to have the fucking Erdtree visible from every part of the map, so I guess they had to bloat it all to kingdom come :D

 

[Silva]

How would you describe Dark Souls then? Non-linear non-open non-CRPG world exploration? Anyway, I don’t want to derail the thread either for those who’d rather stick to Elden Ring but it’s interesting to think about.

This is a good point. The difference between DS1 and ER is just scale. While DS1 world is a series of corridors that interlink, ER widens these corridors into landmasses that also interlink.

The real difference comes in the consequences of those to the gameplay, with the first offering a tight, content-dense experience and the later spreading out that content and requiring the player to walk/ride proportionally more to see the same content.

I don't know where I'm getting here. But I would call Dark Souls a (very) small scale open-world, or an interlinked corridor world, if that makes sense.

 

[cvv]

How would you describe Dark Souls then? Non-linear non-open non-CRPG world exploration? Anyway, I don’t want to derail the thread either for those who’d rather stick to Elden Ring but it’s interesting to think about.

It is. In the end "open-world/non-open-world" aren't binary states. It's clearly a spectrum where something like Dungeon Master are on the linear end, Dark Souls would be somewhere in the middle and Skyrim or Gothic 3, where you can go almost anywhere in the world from the get go, represent the "freedom" end of the spectrum.

ER would be much closer to the freedom end than I thought initially, AFAIK you can go p. much anywhere from the start up to and including Leyndell (or can you go to the Giant area without beating the Leyndell boss?).

 

[Lutte]

We'll agree to disagree, because if there's one classic series of RPGs I never got one shit for, it was Ultima. I'd rather replay a Wizardry again than touch these things. Could never get into Stalker, Gothic is peak eurojank and GTA is more of an arcade driving game than any other elements when you consider how much time you spend in a car.

Never played genesis Shadowrun.

How's your stand on Mount and Blade and Kenshi, if you've played those?

I actually like Mount and Blade, it's fun to dick around in this game but.. and this is a big but. It's deeply flawed on pretty much all levels. The combat isn't good enough and at the core it's just a very repetitive game. You also bring in masses of troops but then again the mechanics to manage this shit is total jank and not a replacement for proper strategy type games.
I see M&B the way I see junk food. You can like junk food, lots of people do, who doesn't like fries? but it's not nutritious and it's objectively bad.

Didn't play Kenshi.

 

[cvv]

I suppose Miyazaki wanted to have the fucking Erdtree visible from every part of the map, so I guess they had to bloat it all to kingdom come :D

Kingdom Come isn't bloated

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I suppose Miyazaki wanted to have the fucking Erdtree visible from every part of the map, so I guess they had to bloat it all to kingdom come :D

Kingdom Come isn't bloated

That depends on what Henry has been eating.

 

[Silva]

If they ditched the horse and scale down the world size and content to fit the player walking/running speed, it would be a good first step.

(yeah, I hate this horse).

And Lutte , go play Genesis Shadowrun NOW. It's awesome, bro.

 

[SumDrunkGuy]

Margit is a cheap piece of shit. Fuck From Software. I just summoned somebody to kill him. I don't give a fuck anymore. There's nothing rewarding anymore about wasting countless hours on From's bullshit bosses. It's nothing but a giant waste of time.

 

[Silva]

Margit is a cheap piece of shit. Fuck From Software. I just summoned somebody to kill him. I don't give a fuck anymore. There's nothing rewarding anymore about wasting countless hours on From's bullshit bosses. It's nothing but a giant waste of time.

And here I was finding Margit a good boss. Lol

What bosses people loved here? I rather liked Margit and Rennala so far.

 

[Ghulgothas]

What bosses people loved here? I rather liked Margit and Rennala so far.

The Fire Giant was cool, the best of the big monster bosses this game has.

Fuck the dragons though. Especially the one painted up in all the goddamned red lightning in the Deeproot Depths and that blizzard sonofabitch in the Mountaintops.

 

[Curratum]

What bosses people loved here? I rather liked Margit and Rennala so far.

The Fire Giant was cool, the best of the big monster bosses this game has.

Fuck the dragons though. Especially the one painted up in all the goddamned red lightning in the Deeproot Depths and that blizzard sonofabitch in the Mountaintops.

Literally getting high 20s frames in the blizzard dragon battle. Shit's fucking broken.

 

[Curratum]

And speaking of mountaintops, compare Dragon Aerie to mountaintops, both "roof of the world" areas, and you have your answer to why the open world was a mistake. Almost entirely new enemies and compact, meaningful area design, versus literally 100% reused enemies over vast, empty swathes of land. The fire giant arena takes up the same world map surface area as all of Stormveil castle.

 

[Shrimp]

Margit is a cheap piece of shit. Fuck From Software. I just summoned somebody to kill him. I don't give a fuck anymore. There's nothing rewarding anymore about wasting countless hours on From's bullshit bosses. It's nothing but a giant waste of time.

And here I was finding Margit a good boss. Lol

What bosses people loved here? I rather liked Margit and Rennala so far.

People have different criteria for what makes up a good boss fight, but I think some of the fights that are memorable to me are gimmick encounters like Rykard and the Tibia mariners.
Then again, if 95% of the games' bosses consist of you fighting a big dude in one-on-one combat it's probably easier for the unconventional fights to stand out from the crowd.

Other bosses that I imagine I will remember for a while include Astel because of the long and arduous journey down to the deepest part of the underground's underground, Radahn because of how much time I spent on him (even more than I spent on Malenia) as well as the MMO raid boss theme of the fight where you fight alongside all the summons. I also liked Hoarah Loux who initially fights you as Godfrey but ultimately just says fuck it and goes full unga bunga barbarian on you.

 

[NJClaw]

What bosses people loved here? I rather liked Margit and Rennala so far.

I'd say all the unique main bosses are pretty good, where by "unique" I mean actual bosses and not those common enemies recycled as bosses in dungeons and catacombs.

Usually I don't like the token souls gimmick boss, but everything about Rykard is so absurd and over the top that I loved it.

 

[Curratum]

What bosses people loved here? I rather liked Margit and Rennala so far.

I'd say all the unique main bosses are pretty good, where by "unique" I mean actual bosses and not those common enemies recycled as bosses in dungeons and catacombs.

Usually I don't like the token souls gimmick boss, but everything about Rykard is so absurd and over the top that I loved it.

The thing is, even mainline bosses are reused... Duo is used in parts in a half a dozen other places, Margit is reused like twice, with minor alterations.

 

[perfectslumbers]

(yeah, I hate this horse).

YES FUCK THE HORSE. Hate spending an entire open world game zoomed out speeding around on my Honda Accord past all the randomly placed enemies

What bosses people loved here? I rather liked Margit and Rennala so far.

Rennala, Ancestor Spirit, Firstborn of the Void, Boat Nigga, and the final boss were all great.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Objectively Ishin Father Owl is the best boss FS has ever created

But really, Sekiro has some really fucking amazing bosses across the board. Even the gimmick boss in that game is kind of cool.

edit: I found out while playing yesterday that another of ER's best bosses is also recycled (Mohg). Though to be fair, the "main" Mohg is a lot cooler than the one in the Lyndell sewers.

My favourite ER bosses so far are Astral and Mohg. Too bad they're both recycled. Not too fond of the main story bosses, I guess Morgott was alright.

 

[Silva]

Objectively Ishin Father Owl is the best boss FS has ever created

But really, Sekiro has some really fucking amazing bosses across the board. Even the gimmick boss in that game is kind of cool.

The fact the discussion for best From boss ever is among two Sekiro bosses says it all.

 

[d1r]

Uninstalled the game after reaching Mountaintops of the Giants.

Game became absolutely intolerable with each new step towards endgame. Enemies one or two shotting you with 45 VIG and 40% PHYS DMG REDUCTION, but also having like 5000-8000 HP at the same time. Absolute shit game design that for whatever reason has been sticking with the Souls series after Dark Souls 1. Game had a lot of stuff going for it for the first 30 hours or so until you noticed the patterns of the open world design, and then everything became foreseeable and the world lost most of its charm (most, because some areas you could discover were still pretty unique and deviated from the usual catacombs, and so on).

And I don't even want to talk about the MP with its constant freezes, crashes, and how they completely buchtered PvP invasions.

If I had to rate every Souls game I've played, it would look like this:

Demon's Souls = Dark Souls >>>>>>>>>>> Dark Souls 3 = Dark Souls 2 SOFTS > Elden Ring >∞> Dark Souls 2

 

[Sunri]

Uninstalled the game after reaching Mountaintops of the Giants.

Game became absolutely intolerable with each new step towards endgame. Enemies one or two shotting you with 45 VIG and 40% PHYS DMG REDUCTION, but also having like 5000-8000 HP at the same time. Absolute shit game design that for whatever reason has been sticking with the Souls series after Dark Souls 1. Game had a lot of stuff going for it for the first 30 hours or so until you noticed the patterns of the open world design, and then everything became foreseeable and the world lost most of its charm (most, because some areas you could discover were still pretty unique and deviated from the usual catacombs, and so on).

And I don't even want to talk about the MP with its constant freezes, crashes, and how they completely buchtered PvP invasions.

If I had to rate every Souls game I've played, it would look like this:

Demon's Souls = Dark Souls >>>>>>>>>>> Dark Souls 3 = Dark Souls 2 SOFTS > Elden Ring >∞> Dark Souls 2

Sometimes I think that we are playing a different game when I read a post like this, lol I was one/two shooting every enemy with my weapon from the moment I got Ramadan great sword to the end of the game and first hit would always break their poise if there were more than 3 enemies in the room I would use weapon art and clear them out are you running with starter weapon or what?

 

[Great Deceiver]

I agree with the sentiment that r1 becomes completely obsolete in the endgame. Trying to play ER endgame with a big sword doing r1 is just asking to be buttmad. Ever since I swapped to Moonveil and got a couple FP talismans I pretty much never run out of FP and spam the r2 art to kingdom come. 1500 damage a pop, stagger everything in 3 hits from range, faster than pretty much any attack or spell in the game. It has made this last stretch much more tolerable to me.

 

[d1r]

Uninstalled the game after reaching Mountaintops of the Giants.

Game became absolutely intolerable with each new step towards endgame. Enemies one or two shotting you with 45 VIG and 40% PHYS DMG REDUCTION, but also having like 5000-8000 HP at the same time. Absolute shit game design that for whatever reason has been sticking with the Souls series after Dark Souls 1. Game had a lot of stuff going for it for the first 30 hours or so until you noticed the patterns of the open world design, and then everything became foreseeable and the world lost most of its charm (most, because some areas you could discover were still pretty unique and deviated from the usual catacombs, and so on).

And I don't even want to talk about the MP with its constant freezes, crashes, and how they completely buchtered PvP invasions.

If I had to rate every Souls game I've played, it would look like this:

Demon's Souls = Dark Souls >>>>>>>>>>> Dark Souls 3 = Dark Souls 2 SOFTS > Elden Ring >∞> Dark Souls 2

Sometimes I think that we are playing a different game when I read a post like this, lol I was one/two shooting every enemy with my weapon from the moment I got Ramadan great sword to the end of the game and first hit would always break their poise if there were more than 3 enemies in the room I would use weapon art and clear them out are you running with starter weapon or what?

Have been running a +20 Keen Partisane.

 

[Sunri]

Uninstalled the game after reaching Mountaintops of the Giants.

Game became absolutely intolerable with each new step towards endgame. Enemies one or two shotting you with 45 VIG and 40% PHYS DMG REDUCTION, but also having like 5000-8000 HP at the same time. Absolute shit game design that for whatever reason has been sticking with the Souls series after Dark Souls 1. Game had a lot of stuff going for it for the first 30 hours or so until you noticed the patterns of the open world design, and then everything became foreseeable and the world lost most of its charm (most, because some areas you could discover were still pretty unique and deviated from the usual catacombs, and so on).

And I don't even want to talk about the MP with its constant freezes, crashes, and how they completely buchtered PvP invasions.

If I had to rate every Souls game I've played, it would look like this:

Demon's Souls = Dark Souls >>>>>>>>>>> Dark Souls 3 = Dark Souls 2 SOFTS > Elden Ring >∞> Dark Souls 2

Sometimes I think that we are playing a different game when I read a post like this, lol I was one/two shooting every enemy with my weapon from the moment I got Ramadan great sword to the end of the game and first hit would always break their poise if there were more than 3 enemies in the room I would use weapon art and clear them out are you running with starter weapon or what?

Have been running a +20 Keen Partisane.

Seems weak.