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

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Dark Souls 1 is tryhard bullshit only to noobs who only knew popamole that was pervasive at the time it came out. And the fucking retard gaming journos of that time made all this stink about it like it's the hardest game ever. It wasn't, it simply forced you to actually pay attention to what you were doing. To people like me it felt like a bit of step back to design of games from 90s - early 2000s and it didn't feel harder than them. "Tough but fair" described it perfectly. But of course if all you've been playing was shit like AssCreed then Dark Souls will feel like omg hardest thing ever.

More like late 80s and early 90s. Demons souls came out in the 00s.

 

[Hell Swarm]

I remember getting to the end of secret passages in the previous games only to find a spell or armour or weapon that didn't suit my build. That's the price you pay for build variety. Don't get me wrong, the crafting cookbooks can fuck off, but I don't think the problem is as ubiquitous as you make it out to be, and anyway my enjoyment in finding a route to a hidden treasure isn't nullified just because the item isn't useful to my character. If it's done well, exploration and the thrill of discovery is its own reward, and I thought it was done very well both in the main game's legacy dungeons and in the DLC's open world.

I don't mind finding items I can't use or won't use, that still feels valuable. A new sword might not be for my build but I can say "Hey, that mattered to -someone-, that's cool". Who the fuck does a pickled fowl feet matter to or a cookbook to make buttplugs from runes? If there's a chance to find a new item for your build and you don't, there's still a lets say gambling chance from doing side areas. Collecting a totally useless item doesn't even give you the hope of a useable reward.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Sorry the cookbooks ruined it for you, I guess. I found lots of cool shit.

 

[Hell Swarm]

This guy made a decent video on the problems with the DLC and the problems with From's community at once. Don't agree with everything but he's on the mark about most of it.

Sorry the cookbooks ruined it for you, I guess. I found lots of cool shit.

You're such a dishonest little faggot. You found the same stupid shit I found and I bet you can't even tell me what recipes the cookbooks gave you let alone how many fire greases you used throughout your play through because both are irrelevant.

 

[Strange Fellow]

You found the same stupid shit I found

Of course.

I bet you can't even tell me what recipes the cookbooks gave you

Not a single one.

let alone how many fire greases you used throughout your play through

Not a single one.

Digressions aside, what part of "I found lots of cool shit" is unclear to you?

 

[Hell Swarm]

You found the same stupid shit I found

Of course.

I bet you can't even tell me what recipes the cookbooks gave you

Not a single one.

let alone how many fire greases you used throughout your play through

Not a single one.

Digressions aside, what part of "I found lots of cool shit" is unclear to you?

"I found 10 cook books, 3 feet, a mushroom and a helmet. This was a valuable experience and I'm glad I put the effort in to enhance my build" said fucking no one.

 

[cvv]

This guy made a decent video on the problems with the DLC

"Seems like most of the money went to remembrance bosses and the Shadow Keep"

Yep, that's my feelings, nicely boiled down.

 

[Hell Swarm]

This guy made a decent video on the problems with the DLC

"Seems like most of the money went to remembrance bosses and the Shadow Keep"

Yep, that's my feelings, nicely boiled down.

I know most people like the castles but I found most of them bland. The vertical area with the animals was cool until I saw you had to climb on Marika's feet and I was immediately fed up with From's pandering. They know the foot fetish meme and they knew exactly what they were doing and it spoiled an other wise pretty good area. Although unoriginal because we've seen the banster thing multiple times. It should have been just moving across weird animal corpses to be something original IMO.

New Londo was great, enjoyed it a lot but I can't see it as part of Shadow keep even if it technically is. If taking an elevator ride that long is the same area than firelink is new londo and the parish in one.

The money definitely went into developing the spectral with boss fights. That's really easy to see on display.

 

[abija]

I stopped when he called the DLC lazy. There's personal opinion and there's being 100% dumbfuck. I should have stopped at the part with "I felt something wrong when entering the DLC", but hey, my bad.

I wish him (and many of you) to play only games were the devs were less lazy than From with this DLC.

 

[Stoned Ape]

I hope they have more weapons similar to the Carian Sorcery Sword in future games. Although it's high-end scaling is not as good as a staff and you can't use it to guard counter or do heavy attacks it is pretty fun to cast spells with a melee weapon. It would be pretty cool if they had a similar weapon (or shield) for Faith builds.

 

[Hell Swarm]

I stopped when he called the DLC lazy. There's personal opinion and there's being 100% dumbfuck. I should have stopped at the part with "I felt something wrong when entering the DLC", but hey, my bad.

I wish him (and many of you) to play only games were the devs were less lazy than From with this DLC.

"I didn't think From were lazy when they turned normal enemies into bosses all throughout the DLC or reused based game assets slightly reskinned."

So you didn't like the truth.. Are you going to tell us how original the shadow Dreglings from Demon's souls are?

 

[cvv]

I stopped when he called the DLC lazy.

It was first time I heard someone call the DLC lazy, sure.

But in the last two weeks I've heard and read A LOT of takes saying the DLC is "kindda empty" and I've heard a couple about it being "unfinished" and "rushed".

In fact the "empty" take seemed to be the majority one. "Lazy" might be a stretch but it's not THAT far off.

 

[Hell Swarm]

I stopped when he called the DLC lazy.

It was first time I heard someone call the DLC lazy, sure.

But in the last two weeks I've heard and read A LOT of takes saying the DLC is "kindda empty" and I've heard a couple about it being "unfinished" and "rushed".

In fact the "empty" take seemed to be the majority one. "Lazy" might be a stretch but it's not THAT far off.

While saying it was lazy he shows footage of a shadow dancer (is that the name?) with a health bar under it. Then shows some other bosses using normal enemies as well. There's areas From put a lot of work into but taking the literal first enemy you encounter in the DLC and giving it more HP and calling it a dungeon boss is unacceptable and very lazy. Same with reusing the dragons from the base game already over filled with dragons. The issue isn't just the emptiness or some of the areas feeling a bit samey. It's the exact issue we complained about with Elden ring reusing bosses just to pad the numbers out.

 

[Stoned Ape]

But in the last two weeks I've heard and read A LOT of takes saying the DLC is "kindda empty" and I've heard a couple about it being "unfinished" and "rushed".

Apparently there's text lines for a cut Miquella ending (1000 years of compassion). The Putrescent Knight was also apparently repurposed from Gloam-Eyed Queen content to St Trina. I know this sort of thing is pretty common in development but it is a bit frustrating to know we'll never get the original vision for what the DLC was planned to be.

Still, there have been far worse examples (for example the original Dragon's Dogma had around half the planned content cut) and I enjoyed playing through this.

 

[cvv]

Same with reusing the dragons from the base game already over filled with dragons.

I for one was never too bothered by reused enemies and bosses in the vanilla - and there was A LOT of that already. I didn't exactly loved it but on my list of serious problems it wasn't even there.

But I very much subscribe to his claims of emptiness and the lackluster effort/reward system (mostly cookbooks, stones and runes wherever you go).

Oh and one more thing he didn't mention - for some reason most DLC spells, ashes and summons are terrible. Especially the spells and other knicknacks you got from remembrances and dragons seem all laughably useless. I don't use summons much but I found only the horned warrior and golem useful (and the healing finger thing, that one is potentially downright broken). Everything else is laughably bad even though I'm sure I haven't found everything yet.

 

[notpl]

People praised the DLC's bosses - and I certainly liked a few of them - but overall I felt they continued to lean into their very worst design impulses, reveling in the idea of being "hard" at immeasurable cost to things like verisimilitude and worldbuilding. Just like it's bullshit and immersion-ruining that Malenia keys off your controller input and levitates into the air to begin a thrusting attack before your character has even started the flask-drinking animation, it's bullshit how many of the DLC's bosses are designed with frame-perfect dodge rolls in mind. "I-frames" as a concept should not even exist, let alone become a cornerstone of your gameplay. If you force me to dodgeroll through an arena-wide explosion, causing me to miraculously avoid damage as flaming lava washes over me, then you no longer deserve the acclaim of "great worldbuilding." You haven't created a world that makes any sort of sense. If you force me to start thinking about frame data and hitboxes then you have completely failed at that job. At that point I'm just playing Street Fighter against you, the dev. No longer an RPG, no longer an adventure, barely even a game.

 

[Stoned Ape]

"I-frames" as a concept should not even exist, let alone become a cornerstone of your gameplay.

This 100%.

 

[Silverfish]

"I found 10 cook books, 3 feet, a mushroom and a helmet. This was a valuable experience and I'm glad I put the effort in to enhance my build" said fucking no one.

Hey, those of us old enough to remember hoekende know that a helmet is all you need.

https://www.mugenmonkey.com/darksouls/257369

 

[abija]

In fact the "empty" take seemed to be the majority one. "Lazy" might be a stretch but it's not THAT far off.

Or they got overzealous when making the world?

Unfinished or cut to fit budget, possible. Rushed, possible. Worse than other From DLCs, sure, everyone has his own taste and opinion.
Calling them lazy is 100% dumb. A person who is either clueless about game dev or hasn't worked a real job in his life.

 

[cvv]

"I-frames" as a concept should not even exist, let alone become a cornerstone of your gameplay.

This 100%.

Maybe 50%.

i-frames kindda make sense when fighting a dude with, say, a sword. It just simulates you artfully dodging a slash or a stab.

But yeah, i-rolling arena wide explosions or strikes of colossal boss weapons or even i-rolling through a charging boar... that's clearly retarded.

 

[Silverfish]

Calling them lazy is 100% dumb.

Ubisoft Montreal did half the work, so yeah, 'lazy' qualifies.

 

[Stoned Ape]

"I-frames" as a concept should not even exist, let alone become a cornerstone of your gameplay.

This 100%.

Maybe 50%.

i-frames kindda make sense when fighting a dude with, say, a sword. It just simulates you artfully dodging a slash or a stab.

But yeah, i-rolling arena wide explosions or strikes of colossal boss weapons or even i-rolling through a charging boar... that's clearly retarded.

There are far better ways they could include to avoid sword strikes, though. For example they could include a sidestep command to avoid vertical slashes/lunges and improve the backstep to dodge horizontal slashes, possibly add a second command input after a backstep to travel forward with an attack to punish after avoiding.

Rolling is just silly, and dodging through attacks using I-frames is lazy design.

 

[Hell Swarm]

In fact the "empty" take seemed to be the majority one. "Lazy" might be a stretch but it's not THAT far off.

Or they got overzealous when making the world?

Unfinished or cut to fit budget, possible. Rushed, possible. Worse than other From DLCs, sure, everyone has his own taste and opinion.
Calling them lazy is 100% dumb. A person who is either clueless about game dev or hasn't worked a real job in his life.

Just once I'd like you to actually reply to people pointing out how wrong you are. I pointed out several examples of enemies being reused not only from the base game, but previous games with no effective differences. Then those same enemies end up as bosses because we all needed ANOTHER golden knight right? We needed another 3 ghost dragons. We needed 2 more tree sentinels and a falling star beast.

It is undeniably lazy and for whatever reason you ignore it and try to argue with a strawman yet again.

From isn't Lazy, so here's an example of how hard working they are.

Golden Hippo (phase 1) is used 3 times.
2 Red bears
Demi queen (reused from base game)
Demi yoda Onze is reused as a regular enemy
2 Dancing lions
2 Tree sentinels (reused from base game)
3 Ghost flame dragons (in base game? Don't recall)
1 Death rite bird (reused the base game)
Chief Bloodfiend is a regular DLC enemy with a health bar
Curseblade Labirith is a regular DLC enemy with a health bar
Jori is a regular enemy with a health bar and the ability to summon massive amounts of regular enemies, later reused in the final dungeon of the game
Depending on how you look at it the Death knights are potentially a reuse with 2 of them.
The frog black knight has a health bar and is the same as the generic ones except he has a unique ash of war.
Furnace Golems are used 8 times (I think). Which is excessive considering how boring they are to fight.

Depending on how you slice is nearly 25% of the bosses in the DLC are reused or they're normal enemies with maybe 1 or 2 unique attacks. While also remembering the new forge dungeon type lack bosses at all. So we're missing bosses where they used to be let alone reusing them.

 

[abija]

Enemies and assets being reused in such a huge game doesn't mean the devs are lazy. I mentioned it before in this thread.

But hey, keep living in your fantasy world where games of this scope and quality are a norm not a rarity.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Enemies and assets being reused in such a huge game doesn't mean the devs are lazy. I mentioned it before in this thread.

But hey, keep living in your fantasy world where games of this scope and quality are a norm not a rarity.

I edited my post to point out all the reused assets. It's 25% of the game. And quality is very questionable with how many issues these games have and have had for a decade now.