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

[mogwaimon]

first playthrough IS the easy mode tho for Fromsoft games, NG+ is normal/hard mode...

and lawl, imagine allowing yourself to spend 70+ hours in Skyrim but bouncing off Dragon's Dogma because of 'respawning enemies' and Dark Souls because Taurus Demon has too much HP, christ. What, encountering the same troll running up on you out of the blue to murder you in the wild is OK (oh wait if you've got Dawnguard active it's a vampire instead, my bad) and having to blindly mash attack to deplete the health of some random daedric armor bandit is also OK but somehow when it happens in more inclined action RPGs it's not?

 

[hackncrazy]

game journalists and other cry babies asking for MUH DIFFICULTY SLIDER

Fuck game journos.

That said difficulty options should be part of any RPG in my book. With one fixed difficulty you always piss off most players - those who want the game easier and those who'd prefer it harder.

FromSoft's way of tuning difficulty - coop for easier play, Champion Covenant or the Demon Bell for harder - is cool from a design point of view but in practice it's not ideal. For example on my 1st DS3 playthrough I bashed my head against Nameless, Friede and Gael. After 30+ tries I summoned a sunbro and we smashed them first try. So FromSoft's solution means that some parts are either super hard or utterly trivial. Nothing in between. I'd prefer to be able to jack down difficulty as the last resort in a more gradual way.

What you are asking is just artificial difficult in form of more hp/damage taken for harder difficulty. One of the few games i have seen manage to implement the concept of different difficulties well is Furi, where enemies at higher difficulties gain new attacks and combos. This approach homever would be impossible to implement in a game as huge as elden ring , since this alone would drain a lot of dev resources. That's why one single well tuned challenging difficulty is perfect

I tend to agree with you, not to mention that as cvv himself said, there is a difficulty slider on Soulsborne in form of summons, ranged weapons and such.

I think that if someone really wants to have a smaller damage/HP enemies, there should be extremely easy to mod the game.

 

[smaug]

It's like negative Buddhism. Reality is illusion, only darkness is real, the illusion is cyclical, runs strong for a while but eventually the darkness starts to creep back in, your choice in the end is to renew the illusion or shatter it once and for all.

I tried Dark Souls (1) and quickly gave up for a couple of reasons. First I couldn't care less about a world that appears to be dead & dark everywhere, the "living humans" NPCs are all shallow, spent and "flat" (and with horrible voiceovers), and the existence of things like a merchant in the middle of a ruined city and surrounded by deadly demons and whatever else was just over the top illogical. Secondly, you really only ever fight (and explore) in the game, and you explore so you could fight more and more; I felt like there is no "real world" there, just an elaborate arena with enemies and bosses to kill; the fact that gigantic demons jump from around the corner was just tiring. Am I supposed to be impressed by the huge creature that is also an HP sponge? I'm sure it is a very good game for people who like to fight ceaselessly in a grim/dark world, but I just couldn't care less.

Now, if what you say of its story is true, then wow what a retarded idea.

I understand your point. There is only so many times you can visit a dead, decaying gameworld whose best days are long past and only item descriptions remain to describe more interesting events. You’re essentially fighting in a junkyard.

I think the issue is that From revisits that idea a lot. There really isn’t a living world in their games. Even Deracine was largely about an area frozen in time. This keeps From games from advancing because there really isn’t a story besides kill this and keep going.

My theory is that part of the design philosophy From taps into is from an older era of games where you are dropped in a stage and keep going forward with minimal dramatic weight or character development. Whereas there is quite a leap between Zeldas 1, 2, & 3 into making the world feel like a living, organic thing, From is still stuck at a Zelda 1 era of design for no reason.

I would really like to see them give as much weight to non-combat adventurous activities like pure exploration or social puzzles to enhance their game world.

Ironically, I think this is why so many of us keep replaying DaS1. That formula was rough, but fresh. But after two sequels and different franchises with similar gameplay and themes, it is now stale and repetitive. Booting up DaS3 and playing through the first through levels is a boring chore compared to the execution of DaS1’s interlinked opening areas.

I hope they branch out a bit and explore new design ideas more. And hire a proper writer to pull the disparate cutscenes, dialogue, and item descriptions into a single, unified game versus action-adventure with some cutscene elements.

As I study these games, storytelling, and game design, it becomes interesting how these design philosophies percolate into other areas of the game. Non-warriors like Astraea and Rhaea don’t do anything because how could they have any agency in that type of game world if all meaningful interaction is via weapons?

Keep in mind, these weaknesses don’t make a bad game. But they do impose limitations. As someone else pointed out, being undead removes the need for your character to have human traits, but it is those human traits and overcoming them that makes a hero and elevates disconnected episodes to the level of an epic adventure.

Never understood the appeal of DS1's interlinked levels, I mean the world isn't coherent anyway and you get fast travel later on (Which makes the first part of the game even more confusing because you just have more tedious travel to go through.). Interconnected design I guess can be explored in later playthroughs for just screwing around.

 

[hackncrazy]

It's like negative Buddhism. Reality is illusion, only darkness is real, the illusion is cyclical, runs strong for a while but eventually the darkness starts to creep back in, your choice in the end is to renew the illusion or shatter it once and for all.

I tried Dark Souls (1) and quickly gave up for a couple of reasons. First I couldn't care less about a world that appears to be dead & dark everywhere, the "living humans" NPCs are all shallow, spent and "flat" (and with horrible voiceovers), and the existence of things like a merchant in the middle of a ruined city and surrounded by deadly demons and whatever else was just over the top illogical. Secondly, you really only ever fight (and explore) in the game, and you explore so you could fight more and more; I felt like there is no "real world" there, just an elaborate arena with enemies and bosses to kill; the fact that gigantic demons jump from around the corner was just tiring. Am I supposed to be impressed by the huge creature that is also an HP sponge? I'm sure it is a very good game for people who like to fight ceaselessly in a grim/dark world, but I just couldn't care less.

Now, if what you say of its story is true, then wow what a retarded idea.

I understand your point. There is only so many times you can visit a dead, decaying gameworld whose best days are long past and only item descriptions remain to describe more interesting events. You’re essentially fighting in a junkyard.

I think the issue is that From revisits that idea a lot. There really isn’t a living world in their games. Even Deracine was largely about an area frozen in time. This keeps From games from advancing because there really isn’t a story besides kill this and keep going.

My theory is that part of the design philosophy From taps into is from an older era of games where you are dropped in a stage and keep going forward with minimal dramatic weight or character development. Whereas there is quite a leap between Zeldas 1, 2, & 3 into making the world feel like a living, organic thing, From is still stuck at a Zelda 1 era of design for no reason.

I would really like to see them give as much weight to non-combat adventurous activities like pure exploration or social puzzles to enhance their game world.

Ironically, I think this is why so many of us keep replaying DaS1. That formula was rough, but fresh. But after two sequels and different franchises with similar gameplay and themes, it is now stale and repetitive. Booting up DaS3 and playing through the first through levels is a boring chore compared to the execution of DaS1’s interlinked opening areas.

I hope they branch out a bit and explore new design ideas more. And hire a proper writer to pull the disparate cutscenes, dialogue, and item descriptions into a single, unified game versus action-adventure with some cutscene elements.

As I study these games, storytelling, and game design, it becomes interesting how these design philosophies percolate into other areas of the game. Non-warriors like Astraea and Rhaea don’t do anything because how could they have any agency in that type of game world if all meaningful interaction is via weapons?

Keep in mind, these weaknesses don’t make a bad game. But they do impose limitations. As someone else pointed out, being undead removes the need for your character to have human traits, but it is those human traits and overcoming them that makes a hero and elevates disconnected episodes to the level of an epic adventure.

Never understood the appeal of DS1's interlinked levels, I mean the world isn't coherent anyway and you get fast travel later on (Which makes the first part of the game even more confusing because you just have more tedious travel to go through.). Interconnected design I guess can be explored in later playthroughs for just screwing around.

I totally understand the appeal of the interlinked levels and why people like it, but I really don't understand why they don't allow the fast travel.

If the world is fun to explore, players will find the shortcuts/links anyway, so it really doesn't make sense. Hell, Sekiro's World is at least as interlinked as DaS1 and the fast travel is there since the beginning. Same goes for Bloodborne.

 

[smaug]

It's like negative Buddhism. Reality is illusion, only darkness is real, the illusion is cyclical, runs strong for a while but eventually the darkness starts to creep back in, your choice in the end is to renew the illusion or shatter it once and for all.

I tried Dark Souls (1) and quickly gave up for a couple of reasons. First I couldn't care less about a world that appears to be dead & dark everywhere, the "living humans" NPCs are all shallow, spent and "flat" (and with horrible voiceovers), and the existence of things like a merchant in the middle of a ruined city and surrounded by deadly demons and whatever else was just over the top illogical. Secondly, you really only ever fight (and explore) in the game, and you explore so you could fight more and more; I felt like there is no "real world" there, just an elaborate arena with enemies and bosses to kill; the fact that gigantic demons jump from around the corner was just tiring. Am I supposed to be impressed by the huge creature that is also an HP sponge? I'm sure it is a very good game for people who like to fight ceaselessly in a grim/dark world, but I just couldn't care less.

Now, if what you say of its story is true, then wow what a retarded idea.

I understand your point. There is only so many times you can visit a dead, decaying gameworld whose best days are long past and only item descriptions remain to describe more interesting events. You’re essentially fighting in a junkyard.

I think the issue is that From revisits that idea a lot. There really isn’t a living world in their games. Even Deracine was largely about an area frozen in time. This keeps From games from advancing because there really isn’t a story besides kill this and keep going.

My theory is that part of the design philosophy From taps into is from an older era of games where you are dropped in a stage and keep going forward with minimal dramatic weight or character development. Whereas there is quite a leap between Zeldas 1, 2, & 3 into making the world feel like a living, organic thing, From is still stuck at a Zelda 1 era of design for no reason.

I would really like to see them give as much weight to non-combat adventurous activities like pure exploration or social puzzles to enhance their game world.

Ironically, I think this is why so many of us keep replaying DaS1. That formula was rough, but fresh. But after two sequels and different franchises with similar gameplay and themes, it is now stale and repetitive. Booting up DaS3 and playing through the first through levels is a boring chore compared to the execution of DaS1’s interlinked opening areas.

I hope they branch out a bit and explore new design ideas more. And hire a proper writer to pull the disparate cutscenes, dialogue, and item descriptions into a single, unified game versus action-adventure with some cutscene elements.

As I study these games, storytelling, and game design, it becomes interesting how these design philosophies percolate into other areas of the game. Non-warriors like Astraea and Rhaea don’t do anything because how could they have any agency in that type of game world if all meaningful interaction is via weapons?

Keep in mind, these weaknesses don’t make a bad game. But they do impose limitations. As someone else pointed out, being undead removes the need for your character to have human traits, but it is those human traits and overcoming them that makes a hero and elevates disconnected episodes to the level of an epic adventure.

Never understood the appeal of DS1's interlinked levels, I mean the world isn't coherent anyway and you get fast travel later on (Which makes the first part of the game even more confusing because you just have more tedious travel to go through.). Interconnected design I guess can be explored in later playthroughs for just screwing around.

I totally understand the appeal of the interlinked levels and why people like it, but I really don't understand why they don't allow the fast travel.

If the world is fun to explore, players will find the shortcuts/links anyway, so it really doesn't make sense. Hell, Sekiro's World is at least as interlinked as DaS1 and the fast travel is there since the beginning. Same goes for Bloodborne.

What confuses me is that the interlinked areas serve no purpose other than to make you travel longer for something you need to go back to. DS isn't really a pseudo open world so I see no reason for this. An interconnected level is fine but areas, don't get it. I think it's good evidence to show that DS1 was pretty experimental with it's somewhat random design elements and sadly the series never went beyond a basic attempt at certain mechanics/design. Never played Demon Souls, but it looks like it would be my type of game.

 

[Lutte]

I mean the world isn't coherent anyway

Always felt it made the world feel tinier than levels you only see a glimpse of but don't explore to the very borders. DS1 interconnectedness makes it seem like there's a whole kingdom.. the size of a medium sized city.

 

[hackncrazy]

What confuses me is that the interlinked areas serve no purpose other than to make you travel longer for something you need to go back to. DS isn't really a pseudo open world so I see no reason for this. An interconnected level is fine but areas, don't get it. I think it's good evidence to show that DS1 was pretty experimental with it's somewhat random design elements and sadly the series never went beyond a basic attempt at certain mechanics/design. Never played Demon Souls, but it looks like it would be my type of game.

Demon's Souls is a pretty good game, and I feel like in terms of level design, Elden Ring might be very close to it, with separate areas that are like stages or something. The fact that you can tackle them in different order is also nice, even though balancing this must be kinda tricky.

 

[Alphard]

first from game with level scaling. That would solve the issue

 

[hackncrazy]

first from game with level scaling. That would solve the issue

Well, Miyazaki Senpai already said that even though the player is free to choose, there will be a "recommended" path, so I think that takes level scaling out of the picture.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I totally understand the appeal of the interlinked levels and why people like it, but I really don't understand why they don't allow the fast travel.

Because fast travel is for scrubs.

You don't need fast travel in the beginning. Every area is directly reachable from the first bonfire, you just have to open all the various shortcuts or connections. The moment the world grows large enough that you'd be forced to cross two or more areas to get where you want to go that's when you get fast travel.

It works. It's beautiful. Makes sense. What's not to like?

 

[[UCHIHA]XxDarkSasuke420xX]

I wonder if my favorite youtuber, VAATIVIDYA, has uploaded a video "PREPARE 2 CRY" about Miyazaki's bleeding asshole and how it symbolizes sorrow and despair and bloody poops in dark souls 4 elder ring

 

[cvv]

What you are asking is just artificial difficulty

My man, a protip - ALL difficulty is artificial

as cvv himself said, there is a difficulty slider on Soulsborne in form of summons, ranged weapons and such.

Well as I said, tinkering with difficulty through summoning is very jarring. The DS games are not well balanced for co-op, they tend to get trivial once you summon a human bro, especially bosses who are not programmed to handle more than one threat very well.

 

[racofer]

 

[The_Mask]

Never understood the appeal of DS1's interlinked levels, I mean the world isn't coherent anyway and you get fast travel later on (Which makes the first part of the game even more confusing because you just have more tedious travel to go through.). Interconnected design I guess can be explored in later playthroughs for just screwing around.

That's because you're you, smaug. It's okay. You'll grow older. And I was going to say wiser, but... probably not. In any case, at some point you'll get it. Somehow.

 

[smaug]

Never understood the appeal of DS1's interlinked levels, I mean the world isn't coherent anyway and you get fast travel later on (Which makes the first part of the game even more confusing because you just have more tedious travel to go through.). Interconnected design I guess can be explored in later playthroughs for just screwing around.

That's because you're you, smaug. It's okay. You'll grow older. And I was going to say wiser, but... probably not. In any case, at some point you'll get it. Somehow.

Nah, I'm an RPG enthusiast and I don't give a shit about action games though DS is a nostalgic game for me. I'd have the combat switch to dice rolls if it were up to me. I like theorizing about potential design and mechanics.

 

[Caim]

I totally understand the appeal of the interlinked levels and why people like it, but I really don't understand why they don't allow the fast travel.

Because fast travel is for scrubs.

You don't need fast travel in the beginning. Every area is directly reachable from the first bonfire, you just have to open all the various shortcuts or connections. The moment the world grows large enough that you'd be forced to cross two or more areas to get where you want to go that's when you get fast travel.

It works. It's beautiful. Makes sense. What's not to like?

Barring a small number of bonfires (the Depths becomes next to useless after clearing that area, the one in Seath's cave, the Tomb of the Giants one after the one near the blacksmith was added, maybe the Anor Londo one) just about all bonfires are useful for teleporting to because they are a hub, have access to merchants or are near a covenant. It's the best way to handle things: allow for the usual bonfire services but let the player teleport to only the most important ones. In fact, a smaller overal number of bonfires but with more circular level design would be a blast compared to making them checkpoints on a linear path.

 

[The_Mask]

Okay, smaug, I'm going to ignore that shitposter tag you have for a sec, and try to actually have a conversation with you where I am actually taking you seriously.

Never understood the appeal of DS1's interlinked levels

It's not necessarily "the appeal" at stake here. It is creating a world. Especially one that is faithful to its lore. Each level has to have a way for a giant to move around in (or, seemingly, designed for a giant) and another one for humans. The quickest example of this is The Chamber of the Princess, where on the right hand side you have an elevator that is big, and on the left you have one that is a lot smaller.

I mean the world isn't coherent anyway and you get fast travel later on

The world doesn't necessarily have to be coherent to you. You're seeing a decrepit world on its dying breath. Sen's Fortress is right on top of the Catacombs. Is it coherent from a human level? No. Is it coherent from a metaphorical level? Yes. The giants were literally saying: "serve us, or die".

Also, fast travel... *sigh* let's take the road you would have to take from The Chamber of the Princess all the way to Andre. You would have to kill less than 10 monsters during that journey. Is it a lot? Depends.

If you didn't kill O&S, it's arguably a challenge. You still have ways to go in either understanding the mechanics, or mastering the action part of the game.
If you killed O&S it's arguably a waste of your time. So why not? Just skip.

Interconnected design I guess can be explored in later playthroughs for just screwing around.

10 years ago felt great to see a building in the distance, and to know that it wasn't just a dumb skybox. There is a building there. You will get there. And whatever's in there has a favourite food. And that food is your face.

I'd have the combat switch to dice rolls if it were up to me.

It has a move phase. An action phase. 2 actions max in each.
There's also partial parry...
Not everything needs to be spelt out to you, smaug. You don't need to have some dice in front of you to have it be like that.

Imagine when you realize Gothic 1, for example, is basically D&D 2nd edition, just... no dice on screen, so they won't get sued.

I'm an RPG enthusiast and I don't give a shit about action games [...] I like theorizing about potential design and mechanics.

Doesn't feel like it, but okay.

 

[DemonKing]

According to this GRRM's "contribution" was finished year ago:

https://kotaku.com/oh-hey-george-r-r-martin-is-talking-about-elden-ring-1847126102

 

[mogwaimon]

According to this GRRM's "contribution" was finished year ago:

https://kotaku.com/oh-hey-george-r-r-martin-is-talking-about-elden-ring-1847126102

that's not surprising, he was only there for the writing credit wasn't he? and only for the overall world background, not anything like dialogue or item descriptions, anything that would require his constant input. the sort of stuff he was doing 'should' be ironed out early on in development.

 

[MajorMace]

I can't tell that I'm really disappointed in this. It's no jab at GRRM, it's just that I don't get the added value of a collab between him and miyazaki.

 

[Shrimp]

I can't tell that I'm really disappointed in this. It's no jab at GRRM, it's just that I don't get the added value of a collab between him and miyazaki.

I don't think it ever was about being a collab in the first place. Won't change the game from being known as "the souls game with a story by GRRM" though

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Dark Souls 3 was really really bad. This one? It's going to be much worse.
Dark Souls 1 and Dark Souls 3 should never had been made in the first place...
Dark Souls 1 isn't even a finished game. They released the dlc, but couldn't been bothered to finish the main game content so even after all the dlcs and rereleases we still have empty locations with placeholder enemies...
Dark Souls 3 is PAINFULLY derivative and also a bit pathetic, considering they caved in to demands of the worst part of their fanbase: "please make exactly the same game with no originality whatsoever and no scary pvp men".
The only game in series which was finished and wasn't scraped clean of any remnants of originality is Dark Souls 2..

 

[Tehdagah]

Never understood the appeal of DS1's interlinked levels, I mean the world isn't coherent anyway and you get fast travel later on (Which makes the first part of the game even more confusing because you just have more tedious travel to go through.). Interconnected design I guess can be explored in later playthroughs for just screwing around.

That's because you're you, smaug. It's okay. You'll grow older. And I was going to say wiser, but... probably not. In any case, at some point you'll get it. Somehow.

Or he probably cares more about gameplay than lore and immersion.

 

[[UCHIHA]XxDarkSasuke420xX]

Dark Souls 3 was really really bad. This one? It's going to be much worse.
Dark Souls 1 and Dark Souls 3 should never had been made in the first place...
Dark Souls 1 isn't even a finished game. They released the dlc, but couldn't been bothered to finish the main game content so even after all the dlcs and rereleases we still have empty locations with placeholder enemies...
Dark Souls 3 is PAINFULLY derivative and also a bit pathetic, considering they caved in to demands of the worst part of their fanbase: "please make exactly the same game with no originality whatsoever and no scary pvp men".
The only game in series which was finished and wasn't scraped clean of any remnants of originality is Dark Souls 2..

This is all true Dark Souls 2 even had dual bladed lightsaber swords so you could be darth maul

but those were TOO BASED for dark souls 3 so god emperor miyazooki had to remove them
i like how you triggered the butthurt codexers with the truth. DKS2>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Miyashit

 

[Shrimp]

Never understood the appeal of DS1's interlinked levels, I mean the world isn't coherent anyway and you get fast travel later on (Which makes the first part of the game even more confusing because you just have more tedious travel to go through.). Interconnected design I guess can be explored in later playthroughs for just screwing around.

That's because you're you, smaug. It's okay. You'll grow older. And I was going to say wiser, but... probably not. In any case, at some point you'll get it. Somehow.

Or he probably cares more about gameplay than lore and immersion.

My man, if you don't think taking a random elevator in Undead Parish and ending up in Firelink Shrine is the tightest shit then get out of my face