by which i assume he means shit like Dragon Dogma 2. Now prey, what's the enemy variety in that game?
And that game got shit on even by die-hard fans, ER doesn't get a pass.
He mentions Monster Hunter, a game that basically reuses the same monsters without making too much of a fuss about it.
The amount of unique (key word, unique) bosses in MH makes ER look like a joke, and old monsters are getting updated each game while adding new ones. MH is basically a boss rush game, which not a single Souls game really is (Sekiro is debatable though).
Fuck, Mh being mission based is a good indicatior that MH and ER are different beasts. There is no exploration in MH, you choose what to fight and you are expected to fight monster multiple times to get materials and improve your skills and all gear is crafted. It is all about the bosses, to the point that regular monster hardly matter. Is like shitting on Street Fighter for reusing fighters and just updating them. The expectations for these games are completelly different.
In fact, what game doesn't reuse enemies?
Some do, others don't. And almost none reuse it's own regular enemies as bosses as many times as ER do. You wouldn't know it considering you play very little else.
The idea that the useless loot "ruins" the exploration. Do open world games have useful loot? Which ones? Can you point them to me?
Doesn't suddenly means that is ok for ER to do the same either
The complaint about the open world stuff is all the more pernicious when it comes from normies. Complaiting about the fact there's too many catacombs or caves that use the same assets coming from people who slurped Bethesda's asshole for years and by and large still do given how many people still bought Starshit is a bit hypocritical, to say the least.
First of, the fact that we are now comparing ER to Open world slop is a sad indication of the issues of the game itself.
Second, I don't see how those game being worse means this one deserves a pass. Specially when it wasn't a problem with other From games before, at least not so much.
You have games like Nioh which uses the worst possible loot system imaginable, the Diablo system. How come there's no issues there? 99% of the loot you find in the game is literally trashbin worth it, barely even worth turning into crafting mats. No issues with that?
And many people, even fans, dislike that aspect. In this very forum you probably will find many fans of the game (me included) that dislike the loot system, but put out with it because the other aspects of the games are just that good. And even then the building possibilities of Nioh are wider and deeper than ER. Also Nioh is a Combatfag game, while ER is an Explorefag game, meaning the latter should be nailing exploring and rewarding said exploration, as is its main appeal, whereas Nioh is more about the combat, which is obvious considering how many endgame quest are just gauntlets of consecutive fights.
Considering how much you like to talk about From's game design, you should realize why Nioh has you character have the same moveset with all the weapons of the same type and has things like skill points, while Souls have your weapons determine what your moveset is, with different weapons of the same type having different movesets and/or AoW. This is because Nioh is all about the combat, and want you to have all those tools at all times, and Souls is about exploring, and want you to be rewarded by finding new weapons, which give new styles of play. That alone shows such a difference in goals and design philosophies.
In truth, a lot of the problems with Elden Ring are only problems when compared to previous FromSoft games.
Yes, that is what many are saying. It wasn't a problem before, it is now. You know, decline.
And even then there are things that are only a problem in Elden Ring, despite existing in their previous games. I pointed out for instance that Sekiro reuses many bosses. Why wasn't it an issue with that game?
And people criticized Sekiro, but its smaller size and better design made it so it was not so egregious.
I think they did put an effort in this DLC to make sure every catacomb or cave has something you hadn't seen before.
Sure, and some of us praised them for improving on secondary content. But in older souls you would had most likely a big, well thought level with those bosses as optional or secret encounters, instead of smaller dungeons scattered through the map. Hell, even in base ER you had dungeons like Stormveil and Leyndell that have special, non respawning enemies scatered around that were pretty much minibosses (but without the healthbar and sadly repeated encounters from the open world). They can do it, they know how to do it, but they are focusing on the wrongs aspects.
And part of the problem, and this is another thing that gets ignored, is that designing a boss in a FromSoft game is a bit more complicated than in most other games, and yet in those the recycling is actually much worse.
Fuck no, they really aren't. ER aren't even top 10 most interesting or complex bosses in action games. They are very similar and don't really take any risk nor experiment much. Add that they have to take into account that the player may tackle the boss without x or y mechanics because the core moveset is so small, and they really have to limit themselves in what they can do. Unless you are talking about your Assasins Creed, Far Cries, etc. Which is a really silly comparison to make, as those are just AAA slop and many wouldn't even consider comparing them to real action games or even ARPGs
Do i wish they had never taken the open world route? Sure, without question. Do i think FromSoft has been lazy in how they went about it? No. I think what happened is that they simply run into an insurmountable problem, which is that it is unphasable to have the same level of standards found in their previous games while having to churn out five times the amount of content. This DLC has taken a long time to make and yet it suffers from a lot of the same problems as the base game, which shows that this is all they can do.
So instead of catering to the mainstream and change the formula that made their game so good, they shouldn't have gone open world. They are not lazy, but is obvious that the amount of work the open world requires hurt many other more fundamental aspects of the game. Is better to have quality over quantity.
Do people actually complain that the loot they find is useless to their current build? Lmao wtf is even this.
No. People complain that the game is full of generic dungeons, caves and the like with repeated enemies and lame rewards or even things they can't use.
All of this together. A legacy dungeon is a dense level full of interesting design, enemies and loot, some useful, other not so much depending on the player. ER secondary content is reused assets and ideas and usually a regular enemy turned boss at the end and more likely than not 1 or 2 item which very likely you won't even use. With some exceptions, they are just not as interesting nor do a good work at encouraging players to complete them. Specially bad if you want to replay the games. Old Souls you pretty much did all content because it was fun, here I can't see myself doing more than maybe 3-4 secondary dungeons at most because in general they really aren't that fun.
Don't create this victimization narrative where only From gets critized. All of your examples either got criticized (and harsly I may add, DD2 got destroyed, specially funny because it got compared constantly with ER) or aren't even issues of those games because they are part of those games fundamental designs and have very different goals than ER. From is actually still getting praise everywhere. Hell even many of the ones in this forum being critical of it actually like the game, but have problems with it and don't want for them to become worse next game.
