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

[lametta]

Hi guys!

 

[Wasteland]

Hi guys!

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Every SoulsRingBorneKiro game has the same plot:

-A speshul power is discovered (The first flame, the old blood, dragon blood, the elden ring)
-The people who discover it become kings or gods with the power
-A golden age is created
-The gods/kings become corrupt, Bad Things happen, monsters appear (undead, beasts, dragon plague, etc)
-The effort to defeat the monsters only makes the problem worse
-The land falls into ruin
-PLOT TWIST: the Speshul Power caused the Bad Things!*
-The player appears as a final agent of fate
-The fallen gods have to be killed, and the player either escapes the cycle or restarts it.

*For those who aren't aware, the Undead Plague is caused by the First Flame burning your humanity away until you become Hollow, and Vaatividya is a stupid moron.

 

[HumanTotemPole]

Not a total bust in the art direction department:

Spoiler

Tremendous. A vista straight out of classic fantasy art

 

[Turn_BASED]

I went and emulated demons souls after finishing the DLC, it was the most visceral gaming whiplash I’ve ever experienced. What went so wrong over the years?

 

[Frank Capicoli]

What went so wrong over the years?

Dark Souls III happened.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

What went so wrong over the years?

Arguably Bloodborne. While that game was great, the effort to make DS combat faster and more twitchy almost certainly was the result of Bloodborne's popularity.

Personally what I miss is the inventive multiplayer mechanics of DS1. Getting invaded at the worst times, battling through the forest covenant (and then joining it), becoming an invader who only invades the 'bad' invaders, etc. It was all really innovative for the time and none of the later games expanded on it. Instead they relegated PvP mostly to gank squads or formalized dueling, which is fun but basically segregated from the main gameplay.

 

[Raghar]

Do you remember how ghost attacked trough the walls? That was interesting part, especially if you had half HP just to be able to hit them.

 

[Ezekiel]

I'm so tired of how defensive these games are now on the part of the player. Get one hit, then defend, defend, defend, defend.

 

[Crayll]

What went so wrong over the years?

Arguably Bloodborne. While that game was great, the effort to make DS combat faster and more twitchy almost certainly was the result of Bloodborne's popularity.

Personally what I miss is the inventive multiplayer mechanics of DS1. Getting invaded at the worst times, battling through the forest covenant (and then joining it), becoming an invader who only invades the 'bad' invaders, etc. It was all really innovative for the time and none of the later games expanded on it. Instead they relegated PvP mostly to gank squads or formalized dueling, which is fun but basically segregated from the main gameplay.

For as phoned-in as DS3 was, I thought they did a good job building on DS1's multiplayer. Invading as a Mound Maker in a high-traffic area was some of the most PVP fun I've had since the original PC release of DS1. Makes the decline in ER's multiplayer mechanics even more baffling.

I'm so tired of how defensive these games are now on the part of the player. Get one hit, then defend, defend, defend, defend.

The deflecting hardtear was added to help this problem. Guard counters come out way quicker than roll -> light attack on most weapons and poise break much faster, meaning you can play more proactively. With the proper timing you can do perfect blocks with most weapons, no shield required.

 

[gabel]

They simply got too successful and started catering to the lowest common denominator in all aspects.
Getting invaded when you don't want to, basically having to carefully crawl through hand-crafted dungeons all the time with tight encounter-design and environmental challenges is not what the plebs want. They want an open world you can traverse brainlessly on your mount, inconsequential "dungeons", "consentual" PvP and abusing systems to break spastic bosses so they can feel like gaming-gods.
It took longer than usual, but around the time of Bloodborne and DS3, the signs were there. Happened to everything successful ever. Just sad to see it happen to something you adored.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Everyone who complains about this game has a similar build and playstyle:

-2-handed weapons
-No Shield
-No parry
-No guard counter
-Dodgeroll only
-No spells
-No items/pots/buffs
-No status effects
-No spirit ashes
-No Co-op or NPCs
-No ranged weapons
-Mid vigor (or lower)
-Mid or light armor
-Low SL/Never grinds
-No physik
-Use ashes of war, but never the 'broken' (i.e. good) ones

When anyone points out alternate tactics, the haters insist that ignoring 90% of the game's system is the "intended" way to play.



I really don't know what else to say. If you choose to play the game with a self-imposed challenge build because it's the only way you can have fun, great. But I don't think it's reasonable to expect different builds to all be equally viable. That's Skyrim talk.

 

[gabel]

You're retarded.
I always preferred Greatshields and had to step out of my comfort zone for the SL1 runs. The rolling 2-handed retards are the ones praising the game.
And none of that has anything to do with the degenerate design of ER whatsoever.

 

[Frank Capicoli]

Everyone who complains about this game has a similar build and playstyle:

I've tried all these different builds and it still doesn't change that Elden Rang largely misses the mojo that captured me with things like Shadow Tower or Demons Souls did.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Just because I could easily win fights by holding up a giant shield and poking shit with a rapier while watching my green bar go up and down doesn't mean they're good fights. Everyone defending ER's combat has no experience playing anything with actual decent combat with multiple viable options and variety in challenges and playstyles.

 

[gabel]

We're just maidenless, guess we better take the two fingers.
This game is just degenerate crap in every way.

 

[Crayll]

Just because I could easily win fights by holding up a giant shield and poking shit with a rapier while watching my green bar go up and down doesn't mean they're good fights. Everyone defending ER's combat has no experience playing anything with actual decent combat with multiple viable options and variety in challenges and playstyles.

Holding up a giant shield and poking shit has always been the easiest way to play these games, since Demon's Souls. Absolutely nothing has changed there. There are more viable options in ER given there's a wider variety of equipment and build options. There's no reason you have to use the most boring option unless you really want to for some reason.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Yeah, sure, other viable options include spending 45 minutes buffing yourself to kill the boss in 15 seconds, gangbanging it so it spends the entire fight not attacking you while you treat it like a tree to be felled, or looking up a guide for which 15 degree segment of the boss to stand in so it continually does the same fucking move every time and you can counter it safely instead of getting caught in the 97 step input reading counter attack flowchart. These are all shit because they don't involve actually interacting with the boss. I'd argue most of them are much more boring than shield poking. Souls combat was never great and it's gotten significantly worse with all the spastic flailing and cheap gotcha moments in fights.

Malenia's low poise was brought up as a reason the fight isn't fucking trash, but because of all her moves that randomly have hyper armour, you can slap her with a fucking guts sword 10 times and not get a poise break. 100% retarded bullshit to fuck over players. You could easily fight her and never even realize she has low poise.

 

[Reinhardt]

godrick was anticlimatic. guess real boss was "friends" i've made across his castle.

 

[Crayll]

None of those things are required to beat the DLC bosses. None of them are even particularly challenging outside of the final boss, they all have very readable movesets that you can easily learn and figure out what to roll, what to block, where to weave in attacks, understand which number guard counter will break poise and give you a crit, without having to resort to cheese. This also applies to the final boss's first phase, the second phase is only bad because the VFX gets dialed up to retard levels and you can't tell what's happening anymore.
Elden Ring went too far with the delayed attacks, but that's been a thing since Margit.

Outside of Dragon's Dogma, what action RPG has better combat? Pure action games and action games wearing RPG skins (Nioh) are better on that front of course, but nothing that's a full RPG comes to mind.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Fromsoft games aren't even close to being full RPG, especially these days. Honestly you get more build customization out of Monster Hunter, Nioh, etc. What gives you the idea ER is a 'full' rpg? Levels barely mean anything and the gameplay is 99% combat. Which makes the fact that the combat is still shit a pretty big sin.

 

[gabel]

Combat used to be better, and we had actual level design.

 

[Crayll]

What gives you the idea ER is a 'full' rpg?

Well first we need to start by defining what an RPG is!

Levels barely mean anything and the gameplay is 99% combat.

Thinking the difference between 10 vigor and 60 vigor is barely anything may explain why you can't beat any bosses.

Combat used to be better, and we had actual level design.

You're not wrong that the level design used to be better. The ER DLC is an improvement on the original in that regard and there's still nothing near the level of Sen's Fortress or Blightown. The combat is the same though, just with more options for the player, and with more complexity to the enemies, because people would get tired of fighting Gwyn for 15 years.

 

[Damned Registrations]

The difference between 20 vigor (which is what you'll actually have at level 1 for most of the game) and 60 is generally dying in 2 attacks instead of 3, and is quite often literally nothing because everything is massive overkill. That is certainly 'barely anything' in my book, compared to the kinds of advantages you build up in Nioh, Monster Hunter, and other action rpgs, which include things like life stealing, invincibility shields, and immunity to status effects and types of attacks.

The stats in ER exist mostly to make retards that can't follow basic fucking logic get excited about numbers going up.

 

[Crayll]

The difference between 20 vigor (which is what you'll actually have at level 1 for most of the game) and 60 is generally dying in 2 attacks instead of 3, and is quite often literally nothing because everything is massive overkill.

The only class that starts at level one is the Wretch, which has 10 vigor. The highest vigor starting class begins at level 9 and only has 15. The difference between 10 vigor and 60 is massive. With a level 180 character (a reasonable level to reach with a character entering at the previous PVP 'meta' level and doing most content) that had 80 vigor and wearing medium armor, I could facetank 5-6 hits from the final boss without healing. A 10 vigor character would be oneshot. That's more than barely anything.

the kinds of advantages you build up in Nioh, Monster Hunter, and other action rpgs, which include things like life stealing, invincibility shields, and immunity to status effects and types of attacks.

Life stealing like Malenia's great rune? Invincibility shields like the opaline bubbletear? These are all things you can obtain in ER, so I'm not sure what your point is.

The stats in ER exist mostly to make retards that can't follow basic fucking logic get excited about numbers going up.

They exist for the same reason they exist in all RPGs, to show your character's growth in experience beyond just your skill as a player improving.