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

[smaug]

The map design in Elden Ring is of the same quality as their level design in Souls. The issue with ER is that the Souls formula simply doesn't land itself to this kind of format. It's not that ER is done badly, it's that what it wanted to do cannot be done as a matter of principle.

Which makes it shit.

 

[Cryomancer]

that doesn’t mean ER’s open world should even be accepted as passable

like just analyze the mechanics and the world on its own merits and deficiencies

I already said. IMO ER would be better if focused more in quality instead of quantity in some areas. But ER is the best modern AAA RPG regardless of one or two little flaws. If you disagree, mention something better.

s point you toward main objectives

Gives a general direction

weapon and armor durability was removed

And new effects like scarlet rot added. All that durability did in previous games is to force you to eventually use a "repair powder".

stamina is only drained in combat.

Because it would only slow down the game otherwise.

 

[smaug]

that doesn’t mean ER’s open world should even be accepted as passable

like just analyze the mechanics and the world on its own merits and deficiencies

I already said. IMO ER would be better if focused more in quality instead of quantity in some areas. But ER is the best modern AAA RPG regardless of one or two little flaws. If you disagree, mention something better.

The flaws are not “little” and fuck you with your whataboutism

 

[Hell Swarm]

And new effects like scarlet rot added.

You mean toxic? Nothing is new in Elden ring. It's the same status with a new name.

 

[Silverfish]

All that durability did in previous games is to force you to eventually use a "repair powder".

I know. I liked needing to have a couple of repair powders on hand in DS2 or the smithing boxes in DS1. They weren't strictly necessary, but added to the games' immersive quality.

Because it would only slow down the game otherwise.

So? I'll take mechanical consistency over expediency any day. Besides, that's why you have a horse.

 

[Skinwalker]

I fail to see a tower in this screenshot, unless you mean the one far off the distance.

 

[Caim]

I fail to see a tower in this screenshot, unless you mean the one far off the distance.

I see two of them.

 

[Skinwalker]

Oh yeah, look at that! Imagine how boring this game was if you could just fly/climb up to all the things in the distance, annihilating space and verticality like in BOTW or Fart Cry 3.

 

[Ravielsk]

The map design in Elden Ring is of the same quality as their level design in Souls. The issue with ER is that the Souls formula simply doesn't land itself to this kind of format. It's not that ER is done badly, it's that what it wanted to do cannot be done as a matter of principle.

Very true. What seems to have been lost in the modern era is that the allure of open world games is not in having a big field to jump around but for the player to be able to experience the game world as a whole. To put it into Souls terms the point is to not be boxed into a singular Boletarian castle but to be able to experience all or at least most of Boletaria.

This is why I to this day maintain that Gothic 1-2 are the platinum standard of open world design because in both you experience the story both through the main narrative and the world itself. Those games give you the sense that not only did you finish the main quest and slain the dragon but that you have also "lived" for a moment on Khorinis and cared about its fate.

Based on that I judge Elden Ring's open world as "perfectly adequate" but mostly pointless. From software does literary nothing with all those big open plains, mines and dungeons besides sequestering bigger and minor bosses into them. They could have easily cut about 50% of the landmass without losing much of any actual value. All the areas are essentially hyper abstracted battle arenas with basically no inhabitants or even inhabitable structures. The few NPCs that you do talk to, talk very little and usually not what you would care to know and their quests are basically a collection of "guess where I will spawn next". Ironically this much bigger and more detailed world feels so much more fake than anything from DeS or DS because there I could buy that I am exploring just a small section of a castle that just so happens to not be the living space but when I move into a whole open world then I have a hard time accepting that there are like 5 beds in the world total.

Do you know why so many people picked Ranni's ending? Because she is pretty much the only NPC in the game that actually feels "human" as in she has more than 1-5 lines of looping dialog and has some connections to the world around her besides the fact that she spawn in the world space.

ER's world is the definition of a missed opportunity and the only reason why it gets so much praise really is because a decade of absolutely gutter trash open worlds from Ubisoft has lowered the bar so much that anything slightly better than shit gets to be called a master piece.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Oh yeah, look at that! Imagine how boring this game was if you could just fly/climb up to all the things in the distance, annihilating space and verticality like in BOTW or Fart Cry 3.

Why do you have to be so salty? You made a strawman and now you're angry about it.

ER's world is the definition of a missed opportunity and the only reason why it gets so much praise really is because a decade of absolutely gutter trash open worlds from Ubisoft has lowered the bar so much that anything slightly better than shit gets to be called a master piece.

Ubisoft does 1 thing right. It makes it fun to explore their open worlds. In their case they use vehicles to get around fast and do fun jumps or run people over. Something like Stalker uses anomalies and enemy encounters you can't just walk away from adding a sense of tension. Elden ring really fails at making it fun to traverse and that hinders it on it's own merit and makes it even worse when exploration was one of From's greatest strengths until Elden Ring.

Can we just be honest here and say Elden Ring's open world is Skyrim's open world if you removed all the towns? It's literally the same level of random pointless dungeons every where.

 

[smaug]

The map design in Elden Ring is of the same quality as their level design in Souls. The issue with ER is that the Souls formula simply doesn't land itself to this kind of format. It's not that ER is done badly, it's that what it wanted to do cannot be done as a matter of principle.

Very true. What seems to have been lost in the modern era is that the allure of open world games is not in having a big field to jump around but for the player to be able to experience the game world as a whole. To put it into Souls terms the point is to not be boxed into a singular Boletarian castle but to be able to experience all or at least most of Boletaria.

This is why I to this day maintain that Gothic 1-2 are the platinum standard of open world design because in both you experience the story both through the main narrative and the world itself. Those games give you the sense that not only did you finish the main quest and slain the dragon but that you have also "lived" for a moment on Khorinis and cared about its fate.

Based on that I judge Elden Ring's open world as "perfectly adequate" but mostly pointless. From software does literary nothing with all those big open plains, mines and dungeons besides sequestering bigger and minor bosses into them. They could have easily cut about 50% of the landmass without losing much of any actual value. All the areas are essentially hyper abstracted battle arenas with basically no inhabitants or even inhabitable structures. The few NPCs that you do talk to, talk very little and usually not what you would care to know and their quests are basically a collection of "guess where I will spawn next". Ironically this much bigger and more detailed world feels so much more fake than anything from DeS or DS because there I could buy that I am exploring just a small section of a castle that just so happens to not be the living space but when I move into a whole open world then I have a hard time accepting that there are like 5 beds in the world total.

Do you know why so many people picked Ranni's ending? Because she is pretty much the only NPC in the game that actually feels "human" as in she has more than 1-5 lines of looping dialog and has some connections to the world around her besides the fact that she spawn in the world space.

ER's world is the definition of a missed opportunity and the only reason why it gets so much praise really is because a decade of absolutely gutter trash open worlds from Ubisoft has lowered the bar so much that anything slightly better than shit gets to be called a master piece.

Dark Souls is not meant to be open world and the world in general is not a living one, it’s very gamey/levely. Open World should only be used for actual RPGs like gothic.

 

[Ravielsk]

Dark Souls is not meant to be open world and the world in general is not a living one, it’s very gamey/levely. Open World should only be used for actual RPGs like gothic.

I mean... yes you are correct but this is elden ring and fundamentally everything is in there to move past purely gameplay driven levels. Just as simple idea what if instead of the Roundtable hold being some abstract nowhere place it was an actual location in the open world you could discover, maintain and send NPCs to? How about instead of just getting a free teleport to your blacksmith and item trader you had to find an abandoned fort, clear it out and then populate it? Exploring the world to find new members for your team would rather nicely mesh with the idea of becoming an elden lord.

Elden Ring has all the piece to make it happen, but From simply refused to do so.

 

[Ravielsk]

Ubisoft does 1 thing right. It makes it fun to explore their open worlds. In their case they use vehicles to get around fast and do fun jumps or run people over. Something like Stalker uses anomalies and enemy encounters you can't just walk away from adding a sense of tension. Elden ring really fails at making it fun to traverse and that hinders it on it's own merit and makes it even worse when exploration was one of From's greatest strengths until Elden Ring.

Can we just be honest here and say Elden Ring's open world is Skyrim's open world if you removed all the towns? It's literally the same level of random pointless dungeons every where.

I am not sure I would really praise Ubisofts world design, but then again their last game I touched was AC brotherhood. The second part I can mostly agree with, ER leap frogs skyrim in biomes that are different gameplay and visual wise but otherwise their worlds are disgustingly close in terms of design.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Ubisoft does 1 thing right. It makes it fun to explore their open worlds. In their case they use vehicles to get around fast and do fun jumps or run people over. Something like Stalker uses anomalies and enemy encounters you can't just walk away from adding a sense of tension. Elden ring really fails at making it fun to traverse and that hinders it on it's own merit and makes it even worse when exploration was one of From's greatest strengths until Elden Ring.

Can we just be honest here and say Elden Ring's open world is Skyrim's open world if you removed all the towns? It's literally the same level of random pointless dungeons every where.

I am not sure I would really praise Ubisofts world design, but then again their last game I touched was AC brotherhood. The second part I can mostly agree with, ER leap frogs skyrim in biomes that are different gameplay and visual wise but otherwise their worlds are disgustingly close in terms of design.

Ubisoft do a lot of open world games with a variety of ways to traverse. Steep is an extreme sports game with a lot of fun ways to get around. Watch dogs is a decent GTA clone with a gimmick, blackflag had pirate ships that are fun to fuck around on. Ghost recon is 4 dudes in a car shit talking as you run over brown people. Driver and The Crew are fun to zip around in your car and run over less brown people. All of these things are better than Torrent farting into the sky to get up a cliff face. Elden ring is so bare bones it's like it was made in 2010.

 

[Silverfish]

I fail to see a tower in this screenshot

I know you do.

 

[Terenty]

Dragons Dogma 2 just came out and shat on Elden Ring's open world in every department, why do ppl in this thread keep asking for a better modern open world rpg? Truly bizarre

 

[Hell Swarm]

Dragons Dogma 2 just came out and shat on Elden Ring's open world in every department, why do ppl in this thread keep asking for a better modern open world rpg? Truly bizarre

"My pile of shit is better than your pile of shit!"
How about Japan stops making games 15 years out of date and makes something new instead?

 

[The Decline]

Dragons Dogma 2 just came out and shat on Elden Ring's open world in every department, why do ppl in this thread keep asking for a better modern open world rpg? Truly bizarre

"My pile of shit is better than your pile of shit!"
How about Japan stops making games 15 years out of date and makes something new instead?

New like the current crop of western AAA diarrhea? I mean Capcom did implement DEI into DD2 so I guess they did do something new.

 

[Skinwalker]

Ubisoft does 1 thing right. It makes it fun to explore their open worlds. In their case they use vehicles to get around fast and do fun jumps or run people over.

You've made it exceedingly clear that you're a moron, you can stop hammering that point home already.

 

[Ezekiel]

Dragons Dogma 2 just came out and shat on Elden Ring's open world in every department, why do ppl in this thread keep asking for a better modern open world rpg? Truly bizarre

"My pile of shit is better than your pile of shit!"
How about Japan stops making games 15 years out of date and makes something new instead?

New like the current crop of western AAA diarrhea? I mean Capcom did implement DEI into DD2 so I guess they did do something new.

This post is saddening. Bad design for so many years that players know that all we can get now are the old and tired or the new and bad. Even if they can imagine better design or a more tasteful, responsible mix of old design for something that then becomes unique/new, they want NOTHING new or better, because they've been hurt too many times.

 

[Hell Swarm]

New like the current crop of western AAA diarrhea? I mean Capcom did implement DEI into DD2 so I guess they did do something new.

You're about 20 years too late for that complain. Capcoms have loved niggers for years. Why do modern capcom fans think this is new?

You've made it exceedingly clear that you're a moron, you can stop hammering that point home already.

/v/ is missing you right now. They say you have no argument and you jerk off to sonic characters.

 

[HoboForEternity]

The map design in Elden Ring is of the same quality as their level design in Souls. The issue with ER is that the Souls formula simply doesn't land itself to this kind of format. It's not that ER is done badly, it's that what it wanted to do cannot be done as a matter of principle.

Honestly the problem with ER is the scope. I'd cut out the mountain altogether, add more legacy dungeon and less repetitive prison bosses.

 

[Odoryuk]

Do you know why so many people picked Ranni's ending? Because she is pretty much the only NPC in the game that actually feels "human" as in she has more than 1-5 lines of looping dialog and has some connections to the world around her besides the fact that she spawn in the world space.

You forgot to mention the actual reason

 

[Silverfish]

Why do modern capcom fans think this is new?

A few years ago, people started pushing the idea of a Capcom "redemption arc" based on one good game (Monster Hunter World), a streamer meme game (Resident Evil 7) and a couple of lazy cash grabs (REmake 2 and DMC 5). People actually fell for this and are now shocked to learn, again, that Capcom is actually fucking gay.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Why do modern capcom fans think this is new?

A few years ago, people started pushing the idea of a Capcom "redemption arc" based on one good game (Monster Hunter World), a streamer meme game (Resident Evil 7) and a couple of lazy cash grabs (REmake 2 and DMC 5). People actually fell for this and are now shocked to learn, again, that Capcom is actually fucking gay.

I enjoyed all of those games, it's pretty much everything else they did that became a problem. The redemption arc is over and we're bad to shitty capcom doing shitty capcom things.