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

[Skinwalker]

Don't get too upset over the "I hate this game so much that I've played it for 500 hours" retardation, there's one for every great game out there.

 

[Jinn]

It's an all too common occurrence - especially around here - that I've lost my patience with. It's not about the game or any valid criticism at that point, but rather about the person. You're not getting paid to play the game, motherfucker. Move on. You're criticizing a game to boost your own ego, while simultaneously making a fool of yourself by "wasting your time." It's peak absurdity.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Lack of enemy variety

Wrong. The game has a great amount of enemy variety. It just so happens to be so large even FromSoft's inhuman ability to churn out distinct enemies couldn't keep up with it. Most open world games don't even remotely come close to the enemy variety of Elden Ring. The very fact you are expecting only unique enemies from a FromSoft game is because you are used to FromSoft's unusual high standards. No other company has this kind of demand imposed on them. Nioh literally had the same exact roster of enemies every single map. Dragon Dogma from the looks of it also has many repeated enemies. How come it's only a problem when FromSoft does it? Is it because you are expecting more from them?

Sekiro had some recycled bosses too btw, which did feel a bit grating but Sekiro was much more contained than Elden Ring and the recycling wasn't as extensive.

NG+ system is lacking

It's the same NG+ as all their other games except Dark Souls 2. Expecting them to revolutionize the way they do NG+ when they could barely fill up NG as it is it's a little unreasonable.

no covenants

I hated there were no covenants but this feels more like a conscious decision not to have them than anything else.

large areas lacking in content

Define content. It's Dark Souls strewn across an open map. The content is the combat, same as in Dark Souls, and the open maps are designed pretty much in the same way, each being distinct from one another both visually as well as in the layout (somebody already mentioned for instance how Mt. Gelmir is coiled like a snake). In fact, it's kinda of impressive how the open maps still retain some of the Dark Souls design.

The issue is that it's unfeasible to have something as tight as Dark Souls spread out over a much larger space. That's where Elden Ring fell through the cracks in the end, but i wouldn't say the game lacked effort. It's just that open world Dark Souls can't be done in principle, mostly because the Dark Souls standard is just too high and the quality can only be sustained when the environment is more carefully controlled.

tons of caves etc. with no reason to ever go in them once you know they only contain some shitty item nobody would want and nothing unique, not even an interesting layout.

Actually, the caves did have interesting layouts. They were all variations on the same theme, but variations they were. Each of them was like a different "take" over the same basic set up, and over time you can see there was a certain logic and progression, each cave having a unique "gimmick" that became increasingly more tricky.

Of course, the recycled bosses and useless loot was indeed disappointing, but again, that's just a direct consequences of Dark Souls simply not being suited for open world design.

In most open world games, finding resources or consumables in a random dungeon isn't problematic and it's pretty much expected. It's only with Dark Souls that it becomes a problem. Trying to make an open world game out of Dark Souls definitely felt like trying to force a square through a circle. Dark Souls is a game where every step you make offers something new, a new challenge, a new enemy, unique loot etc. Open world games by contrast are all build on repetition. Combining the two was basically unfeasible as i said. It's not that they didn't try, which appears to be what you are saying here, it's that i don't think it could be done at all.

Fuck, half the questlines didn't even work on launch.

As far as i remember, all they did is add some steps in the Nepheli and Kenneth Haigh quests. The quests are pretty much the same as they were at launch. They are also anything but undercooked, not if you compare them with past Souls in terms of the frequency of the changes and number of them. In fact, Elden Ring sorts of suffer from having TOO many quests and characters.

 

[Odoryuk]

If the expansion added something like the NG+ mechanics in DS2

You mean, a single meaningful event that could have been presented in the base game and a lot of weird and random black phantom enemies? DS2 technically started a good NG+ implementation, but it wasn't done in a particularly good way, and I feel like it would take a lot of time to balance and actually make something meaningful. There's a reason it's the only Souls game that tried it. It's an idea that is good on a paper, but doesn't change much when playing.

 

[Damned Registrations]

It just so happens to be so large even FromSoft's inhuman ability to churn out distinct enemies couldn't keep up with it.

It didn't 'just so happen'. It was designed. Someone decided that having this ratio of enemy variety to explorable terrain was a good idea. They were wrong.

Honestly, most of your replies boil down to 'open world games are just shitty in these ways' but you're wrong. You can make a dense open world game that doesn't waste the player's time with 50 dungeons whose reward is a spirit ash you'll never use. They could have combined the 50 caves into 10-20 larger, more elaborate and interesting caves, or spent less time making caves and more time making bosses and enemies. The earlier areas of the game are far more interesting than the later ones- you've got random minibosses, merchants, lore elements, NPCs and questlines all over the place in the first few areas. By the time you get to the snowfields everything is significantly watered down, which feels especially bad since you've also already seen all the content twice or more by now. How many godskin nobles have you killed by the time you get to Farum Azula? If in the early game you can find something interesting every 5-10 minutes, in the late game it's more like every 30+ minutes. Most people complain that the game wore out it's welcome after Leyndell and this is why. It's not a matter of too much area, it's that the areas start getting repetitive and empty. SotN and Hollow Knight are also very large open world games and they don't have this problem because they didn't bother adding a new area without adding new enemies as well, and offering more interesting upgrades as you go. The last third of an open world game should be just as interesting as the first third. There's no reason it can't be.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Honestly, most of your replies boil down to 'open world games are just shitty in these ways' but you're wrong.

No i'm not.

You can make a dense open world game that doesn't waste the player's time with 50 dungeons whose reward is a spirit ash you'll never use. They could have combined the 50 caves into 10-20 larger, more elaborate and interesting caves

The game already has legacy dungeons.

"Well they could have had more"

Yeah well sure, that would have been great, but that's not the point. By the time you are arguing that you might as well argue the game would have been better off not being open world at all (and you'll get no arguments from me either). If you combined all the caves and catacombs into one large extra legacy dungeon you would essentially ended up with all the open world areas being bereft of said caves and catacombs. At that point, why not go a step further and just get rid of all the "empty" open areas as well and let's go back to Dark Souls.

Personally, this criticism seems to suggest one is not taking into account the fact there are clear qualitative differences between how FromSoft designs their maps and how other open world games design theirs, where "size" sort of becomes a relative term. Daggerfall had sprawling dungeons that could literally take hours of in game time to wade through, but you'd really expect FromSoft to do that kind of design?

For me it's obvious why they opted for the little dungeons, or the little castles and so on. They needed to fill up the open world areas with caves and catacombs and stuff, but at the same time they couldn't relinquish their design style. Unable to just make Dark Souls except five times as large, they decided to downsize everything and rely on repetition instead (like all open world games). Every area has a cave, a catacomb, a set of ruins, a small castle, a tower, plus a dragon and a night boss or two (either cavarly or death bird or both). This framework is repeated every zone but with certain differences each time.

As far as i'm concerned, i don't see how you could do "open world" Dark Souls any other way. If you expected them to start designing realistic enviorments like a western RPG you were kinda of deluded. Dark Souls was always a glorified arcade game, and Elden Ring operates very much like an arcade game too in how the enviorments are designed.

or spent less time making caves and more time making bosses and enemies.

Or not spend any time with the open world at all and just do Dark Souls 4.

The earlier areas of the game are far more interesting than the later ones- you've got random minibosses, merchants, lore elements, NPCs and questlines all over the place in the first few areas. By the time you get to the snowfields everything is significantly watered down, which feels especially bad since you've also already seen all the content twice or more by now. How many godskin nobles have you killed by the time you get to Farum Azula? If in the early game you can find something interesting every 5-10 minutes, in the late game it's more like every 30+ minutes. Most people complain that the game wore out it's welcome after Leyndell and this is why. It's not a matter of too much area, it's that the areas start getting repetitive and empty. SotN and Hollow Knight are also very large open world games and they don't have this problem because they didn't bother adding a new area without adding new enemies as well, and offering more interesting upgrades as you go. The last third of an open world game should be just as interesting as the first third. There's no reason it can't be.

Mountaintops of the Giants is literally the only place where this criticism is true, and it's not unusual for FromSoft to have areas where they clearly just gave up due to running out of time or whatever (Lost Izalith being the most famous example).

Most people say they had a very good time in Limegrave but then got tired after that, but that's not because the other areas are empty of content, it's becuse of the repetition itself, repetition being a fundamental element in all open world designs. Caelid, Liurnia, Mt Gelmir, Altus plus all the under ground areas, none of those places are that far off from Limgrave. You are just tired because, first, Livegrave was so fucking gargantuan already as it is, and second, all the other areas are just variations on the same thing. You know what would have fixed that problem? Not making an open world game.

 

[Damned Registrations]

let's go back to Dark Souls.

I mean, yeah, that's basically what I'm arguing. Dark Souls WAS open world. It was just done better. You don't need a fucking horse and expansive plains everywhere with flower picking to be open world just because that's how Bethesda did it.

Mountaintops of the Giants is literally the only place where this criticism is true

Consecrated Snowfields and the roots leading to the Haligtree are also really, really fucking barren. So is Mohgwynn Palace, which honestly felt a lot like Lost Izalith to me. Some area slapped together at the last minute with filler enemies scattered around. Comparing these areas to Liurnia and Altus is disingenuous. I'd say Limgrave, Lirunia and Altus are the 3 best areas in the game, and the bar all the areas should have been at. Gelmir and Caelid are more bland, but still somewhat interesting. Everything past the capital is a slog between remembrance fights.

Like seriously, compare Liurnia to Snowfields. Liurnia has the Albinauric town, the academy, the observatory, the cliff leading up to Altus, the 4 Belfries and the Caria Manor, all unique and interesting areas. Here's the list of NPCs:

• Boc the Seamster
• Lightseeker Hyetta
• Thops
• Old Albus
• Latenna the Albinauric (NPC)
• Knight Diallos
• Bloody Finger Hunter Yura
• Alexander, Warrior Jar
• Jar-Bairn
• Nepheli Loux
• Patches
• Blackguard Big Boggart
• Rya
• War Counselor Iji
• Seluvis
• Blaidd the Half-Wolf
• Ranni the Witch
• Nomadic Merchant (Liurnia Lake Shore)
• Pidia, Carian Servant
• White Mask Varré

Now consecrated snowfields has...

Ordina, town of snipers.
Cave to Mohg Palace.
Latenna's giant mom or whatever.

...like, what the fuck? Why was this even an area? They could have put those things in the eastern half of the snowy area instead, easily. Even if you count everything after the capital as one zone, the list of notable characters looks like this:

• Melina
• Finger Reader (Forbidden Lands)
• Shabriri
• Millicent
• Hermit Merchant (Mountaintops of the Giants)
• Brother Corhyn
• Goldmask
• Ghost (Church of the Eclipse)
• Ghost (Castle Sol Rooftop)
• Ghost (South Consecrated Snowfield)
• Ghost (Inner Consecrated Snowfield)
• Ghost (Ordina, Liturgical Town)
• Latenna the Albinauric
• Phillia, Towering Little Sister

It's so fucking barren someone had to start padding the list with ghosts. Caelid isn't much better:

NPCs​

• Nomadic Merchant (Caelid Highway North)
• Nomadic Merchant (Southern Caelid)
• Isolated Merchant (Dragonbarrow)
• Alexander, Warrior Jar
• Blaidd the Half-Wolf
• Sage Gowry
• Millicent
• Castellan Jerren
• Gurranq, Beast Clergyman

Probably should have combined Caelid and Gelmir as well, to be honest. Caelid has what... Selia and Radahn's castle? That's basically it. I suppose you could count the dragonbarrow as interesting, though it feels more like a weird gimmick that was meant to be fleshed out as a proper boss fight and questline for the dragon cult.

 

[Skinwalker]

If you expected them to start designing realistic enviorments like a western RPG

Such as?

 

[Skinwalker]

I enjoyed most of the catacombs and caves, each one usually has some kind of mini-theme going on that makes it interesting. The cave infested with those poison guys is memorably different from the cave with the magic seal at the bottom or the cave with a whole bunch of illusory walls and a secret second boss. To say nothing of the amazing triple dungeon in the sewers of Leyndell, and the amount of detail they put in to trick the player (that omen "mourning" over the fake corpse of the other omen you had killed to make you think you're in the same place that's changed slightly )

I also don't see why whining about loot is relevant. You explore dungeons because exploring dungeons is fun. Loot is just a bonus.

 

[Lyric Suite]

If you expected them to start designing realistic enviorments like a western RPG

Such as?

Such as game being designed as a real place. Realism and LARPing can alleviate some of the issues inherent in opern world, such as recycling and repetition. I don't know how Japanese games like Ghost of Tsushima work but in the case of FromSoft you know they are just hard wired to action gameplay no matter what. Anybody who thought they were goiong to LARP in Elden Ring was just fooling themselves.

 

[Skinwalker]

If you expected them to start designing realistic enviorments like a western RPG

Such as?

Such as game being designed as a real place. Realism and LARPing can alleviate some of the issues inherent in opern world, such as recycling and repetition. I don't know how Japanese games like Ghost of Tsushima work but in the case of FromSoft you know they are just hard wired to action gameplay no matter what. Anybody who thought they were goiong to LARP in Elden Ring was just fooling themselves.

I mean, which western RPGs have realistic environments?

 

[Val Doom]

I want a catacomb that combines the horse carriage traps and the absolutely cancer jumping puzzle on the way to the Three Fingers.

 

[Cheesedragon117]

It just so happens to be so large even FromSoft's inhuman ability to churn out distinct enemies couldn't keep up with it.

It didn't 'just so happen'. It was designed. Someone decided that having this ratio of enemy variety to explorable terrain was a good idea. They were wrong.

Honestly, most of your replies boil down to 'open world games are just shitty in these ways' but you're wrong. You can make a dense open world game that doesn't waste the player's time with 50 dungeons whose reward is a spirit ash you'll never use.

I think you're forgetting that every talisman/weapon/spirit ash you'll never use is a talisman/weapon/spirit ash someone else will use. There is nothing wasted in ER's dungeons, and every reward is unique.

Though, I do question the reward structure of some of the later bosses, and even some of the earlier ones. Adan, Thief of Fire rewarding you with a 41 Faith incant, all the way back in Liurnia where you're probably no higher than RL 40? An Ash of War as a reward for a mandatory boss (Godskin Duo)? What the heck? At least they tried to keep it all logically consistent.

 

[Lyric Suite]

If you expected them to start designing realistic enviorments like a western RPG

Such as?

Such as game being designed as a real place. Realism and LARPing can alleviate some of the issues inherent in opern world, such as recycling and repetition. I don't know how Japanese games like Ghost of Tsushima work but in the case of FromSoft you know they are just hard wired to action gameplay no matter what. Anybody who thought they were goiong to LARP in Elden Ring was just fooling themselves.

I mean, which western RPGs have realistic environments?

Not realistic enviorments as such (though there are some, most obviously Kingdom Come), but they are build as if they were real places. The logic compared to Elden Ring is all different. Elden Ring is still an arcade game at heart.

 

[Socrates]

Elden Ring ist wunderbar. I haven't played an rpg in such a long time that captivated me to the extent it did. It's certainly not perfect, there are some issues here and there but the totality of the game itself is a masterpiece. I also really appreciate Fromsoft fending off regressive studio shit like MTX or "live service" bs (which im sure they were put under enormous pressure to do). They also took a massive risk making the world as open as it is. No souls game up to that point had even attempted it at that scale.

They have come a long way in design and craft from 2011.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I think this whole conversation is based on the question of whether they tried or not. I think they did, but results are what they are given the nature of the Souls formula and the amount of content they decided to put in the game (which to me indicates the opposite of lack of effort. Feels more like self indugence on the part of Myazaki, a desire to have his "magnus opus", so to speak). I would have much preferred if the game had been 30% shorter and the remaining 70% would have been fleshed out better. The game could have then been able to afford two DLCs on top of a more refined base game.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I think you're forgetting that every talisman/weapon/spirit ash you'll never use is a talisman/weapon/spirit ash someone else will use. There is nothing wasted in ER's dungeons, and every reward is unique.

That argument can be use on all Souls games. 90% of the gear you find in Dark Souls is likely gonna be useless to your build, but you are still gonna pick it up because it's unique loot and collecting it is still rewarding in and of itself.

Plus, now that respec is a thing in Souls who is to say you are not gonna change your build and try something else.

 

[Skinwalker]

That argument can be use on all Souls games.

ftfy

Unless it's the type of game which is so linear that you'll have no choice but to use every single item you find.

Otherwise, something is always going to be useless to someone, but useful to someone else. Three out of the four talismans I have equipped on my 2nd playthrough were completely useless to me and not even under consideration as useful items on my 1st playthrough. Now I rely on these formerly "useless" things pretty heavily, because I've changed my playstyle.

I still remember when, in the middle of my 1st playthrough, Latenna went from that spirit ash I never use to one of the most used ones, because I discovered the benefit of a steadily decreasing boss health bar heavily outweighs her immobility. Instead of using a summon to distract the boss, I started using a summon to deal damage to the boss while I distract it with myself.

It's nice to have options.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I mean, the alternative would be to have a Diablo loot system.

I'll definitely take the Souls loot system over that shit.

 

[Caim]

Posting on an interesting page.

 

[Odoryuk]

666th page reminds me that there aren't any demons in Elden Ring's world. Feels pretty fresh (even Bloodborne had demons early in the development, but they were scrapped). It's more Antique view on godhood, rather than Abrahamic.

 

[Val Doom]

666th page reminds me that there aren't any demons in Elden Ring's world. Feels pretty fresh (even Bloodborne had demons early in the development, but they were scrapped). It's more Antique view on godhood, rather than Abrahamic.

Unless you count the Omen, which closely resemble the Oni from Japanese folklore in their design. Not demons in an Abrahamic sense though, but another example of Elden Ring blending western and eastern elements.

 

[Skinwalker]

666th page reminds me that there aren't any demons in Elden Ring's world. Feels pretty fresh (even Bloodborne had demons early in the development, but they were scrapped). It's more Antique view on godhood, rather than Abrahamic.

Dark Souls never had any demons in the "Abrahamic" sense. Neither did Bloodporn, although the eldritch entities and the Faustian allure of their blood certainly come closer thematically than the Dark Souls chimera monsters.

Not sure about Demon Souls, haven't played that one.

 

[Odoryuk]

666th page reminds me that there aren't any demons in Elden Ring's world. Feels pretty fresh (even Bloodborne had demons early in the development, but they were scrapped). It's more Antique view on godhood, rather than Abrahamic.

Dark Souls never had any demons in the "Abrahamic" sense. Or Bloodporn. Or Sekiro. Maybe Demon Souls, not sure about that one.

Fair enough, but those games did have demons, even as a Dungeon and Dragons trope (except for Bloodborne and Sekiro, who's Demon of Hatred is based on Japanese mythos). Not Elden Ring though. There are imps, but they are hardly demonic in nature, more like automatons.
Update:

The word may perhaps derive from the term ympe, used to denote a young grafted tree.

Miyazaki, what the fuck

 

[Skinwalker]

Fair enough, but those games did have demons, even as a Dungeon and Dragons trope

Not even as a D&D trope. Just generic hybrid/chimera monsters. You could remove the word "demon" from the game, and no one would think of calling them that.