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

[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.

 

[abija]

A more fair approach is counting the unique things that are in the game.
Or you could list the studios that you don't think are lazy so we know where your standards are. For me ER and the DLC have been way above everything else I got so far in 30+ years of gaming.

 

[Hell Swarm]

A more fair approach is counting the unique things that are in the game.
Or you could list the studios that you don't think are lazy so we know where your standards are. For me ER and the DLC have been way above everything else I got so far in 30+ years of gaming.

How is ER and the DLC above anything?

I could list off a bunch of companies like (old) Bungie, which went above and beyond with the Halo series to the point where random bits of the map play special music or difficulties completely change the game balance. Almost everything Capcom do make From look like piss soaked babies and even their stagnated series (Monster hunter) makes an absolute joke out of From games. But what difference would it make? You just ignore what we say and go "BEST GAME EVAH!!!!" without being able to respond to a single flaw listed or even attempt to discuss why they're wrong. You didn't want to hear a guy call a game lazy and immediately turned a video off without hearing why he thought it was lazy. You're unironically a From Drone.

 

[Cohesion]

Guess at which page Hell Swarm started posting?

 

[Reinhardt]

losing interest, to be honest. where is all cool shit? still running in mongol set i farmed in first few hours of the game. only other kinda decent looking armor i found is fire monkeh.

 

[gabel]

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.

Pretty comprehensive summary.

The signs were present starting with Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3, but Elden Ring marks the point at which I can say without a doubt that I'm not part of Fromsoft's audience anymore.

 

[Hell Swarm]

The signs were present starting with Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3, but Elden Ring marks the point at which I can say without a doubt that I'm not part of Fromsoft's audience anymore.

Who is From's audience now?

 

[Stoned Ape]

The signs were present starting with Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3, but Elden Ring marks the point at which I can say without a doubt that I'm not part of Fromsoft's audience anymore.

Who is From's audience now?

A lot of people, but not gabel. I expect From are crushed.

 

[cvv]

Didn't like the 2nd half of the video that much, seemed like a collection of boss whines.

I do think the trend of absurdly idiotic delayed attacks, spawned by DS3, is getting out of hand with ER, SotE and Lies of P. Don't agree with the rest.

 

[abija]

I could list off a bunch of companies like (old) Bungie, which went above and beyond with the Halo series to the point where random bits of the map play special music or difficulties completely change the game balance. Almost everything Capcom do make From look like piss soaked babies and even their stagnated series (Monster hunter) makes an absolute joke out of From games. But what difference would it make? You just ignore what we say and go "BEST GAME EVAH!!!!" without being able to respond to a single flaw listed or even attempt to discuss why they're wrong. You didn't want to hear a guy call a game lazy and immediately turned a video off without hearing why he thought it was lazy. You're unironically a From Drone.

Are we still talking about lazyness, scope and reuse of assets?
Best games by Bungie (Myth and Halo) are short and when they tried something bigger the quality dropped like a rock.
And do you really want to bring MH series in a discussion about reuse and padding? Or do you want to compare the quality of Capcom open worlds with that of ER? Or maybe the amount of junk loot you find exploring in DD?

Just because you don't like a game, doesn't make the devs lazy. Words have a meaning and the youtuber you linked is a moron. Or worse, he doesn't believe half the shit he said, just did it to polarize people and get more views.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Hell Swarm makes me question whether my own criticisms of the game are even valid. His arguments are so bad i'm starting to wonder whether i may have been a bit too harsh on this game.

It's also worth pointing out a lot of the criticisms people are laying on this game are things that somehow are only bad here, but gets a pass everywhere else. Hell Swamp mentions "Capcon", by which i assume he means shit like Dragon Dogma 2. Now prey, what's the enemy variety in that game? He mentions Monster Hunter, a game that basically reuses the same monsters without making too much of a fuss about it. In fact, what game doesn't reuse enemies? Especially open world games.

The idea that the useless loot "ruins" the exploration. Do open world games have useful loot? Which ones? Can you point them to me? 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 material, barely even worth turning into crafting mats. No issues with that?

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.

In truth, a lot of the problems with Elden Ring are only problems when compared to previous FromSoft games. 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?

As for the bosses, i haven't seen that many yet (the major ones i mean) so i'll comment on that later. I will say in terms of variety for the minor bosses it's actually not that bad. I think they did put an effort in this DLC to make sure every catacomb or cave has something you hadn't seen before. Even the ones they reused had some unique attacks to make them a little different. I can respect the effort though i think they are holding on so far only because compared to the base game there just aren't that many caves or catacaboms, and also no evergaols and stuff like that. If there were, i suspect it would have been the same. 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.

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. It shows that to expect every cave or hole in the game to have a unique boss with great, original design unseen before and new sophisticated movesets is pure delusion. According to Google, their current team is around 300-400 developers, which is actually kinda of minute compared to the rest of the industry. That's 300-400 people for two games (Elden Ring & Armored Core 6), a DLC and whatever else they are cooking up as we speak.

 

[Lyric Suite]

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.

Pretty comprehensive summary.

The signs were present starting with Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3, but Elden Ring marks the point at which I can say without a doubt that I'm not part of Fromsoft's audience anymore.

Not watching because i don't want spoilers but i randomly clicked and i caught the guy complaining the bosses don't explain what to do, like when to jump etc.

That's... not a good sign for the rest of his arguments.

 

[Lyric Suite]

My enjoyment of Dark Souls wasn't predicated on finding phat loot around every corner. I accepted in those game, as I do in this one, that not every piece of loot is going to be useful. 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.

Do people actually complain that the loot they find is useless to their current build? Lmao wtf is even this.

Unique loot is the best thing Dark Souls had going for it.

 

[Anonona]

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.

 

[Stoned Ape]

Hell Swamp mentions "Capcon", by which i assume he means shit like Dragon Dogma 2. Now prey, what's the enemy variety in that game? He mentions Monster Hunter, a game that basically reuses the same monsters without making too much of a fuss about it. In fact, what game doesn't reuse enemies? Especially open world games.

I'm pretty sure he hates DD2, he certainly hates DD:DA.

DD2 has a lower number of enemy types than Elden Ring, but each type of enemy has more unique behaviour patterns and does interesting stuff. You can cause goblins to fight among each other by dodging their attacks so they hit each other, feed raw meat to wolves to make them lose agro, knock cyclopes down so they grab ledges and you can run over them like a bridge, you can climb on a griffin and have it fly you back to it's nest, all sorts of stuff. Each enemy type is far more engaging to encounter than any base mob in ER and they have far more character and charm. They're generally less challenging to beat unless you play like an idiot, and the encounter density is probably a bit on the high side, though.

DD2's open world design is generally more interesting than Elden Ring's, but ER has far more interesting architecture and a more interesting, dreamlike feel. Legacy Dungeons in ER are miles ahead of anything in DD2.

 

[Silverfish]

You have games like Nioh which uses the worst possible loot system imaginable, the Diablo system. How come there's no issues there?

There are issues. Very, very few Nioh diehards like the loot system. Doesn't change the fact that Nioh's loot is still lightyears ahead of ER. You'll never find a weapon you can't actually use and junk items can serve various purposes, not just sit in your item box until the save is deleted.

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.

The repetition is more noticeable in ER since combat dungeons are all you find. At least Beth games offer the occasional change of pace, which helps the reused assets go down a little smoother.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Some interesting discussion going on, sorry I can't quote it all.

I don't like Dragon's dogma. I haven't played 2 but I don't like the first and put it down after 2 attempts of about 2 hours play time each. I like the idea but the game sucks.

I have never liked Bethesda games and I will be the first in line to shit on empty open worlds with no purpose to 90% of the play time except to hold W and move between land marks and boring 'dungeons'. Which is the exact same problem I have with Elden Ring.

I don't hate Elden Ring. I think a first play through is quite enjoyable. I hate what Elden Ring has done to one of my favourite game series. It's similar to being a fan of Tank control Resident evils, and liking RE4 but being sad the tank control with pre-rendered backgrounds is over or RE7 killing the RE4 version of Resident evil's style. Elden Ring has some excellent content spread out between Bethesda levels of complete garbage that wastes the players time. Having set side dungeons you're basically forced to do if you want weapon upgrades instead of finding them among the quality content is the exact opposite of what I want from a Souls game.

Monster hunter has multiple combos off of it's weapons. What buttons you push influences what moves your character does. Elden Ring doesn't have flex combos. It has hard fixed combos that can't link into each other. It's like playing street fighter but you only have heavy punch and heavy kick. It's incredibly shallow.

Calling people normies makes you look like a faggot and you're trying to invalidate people's opinions by character assassinating them. From drone who can't even beat the DLC wants us to take his opinion seriously lololololololololololol

It's a completely valid and correct criticism to say reusing the cave assets to make a cave with a rune bear at the end as a boss is being lazy and a waste of the players time. It is lazy and it is a waste of the players time even if you consider it some how worth playing.

The DLC reuses it's own assets multiple times and most aren't original side dungeons. The new stuff creates new biomes but they're reused in lazy ways as well. I don't care about "muh poor devs making an open world game. Won't someone think of the devs!" arguments. If you can't make good content without copying pasting it for a 100 hour game then make a 50 hour game. Get your GAME DESIGNERS to design boss arenas that aren't flat circular rooms instead. The Rotten is a very basic boss but he's raised up because of the fire around him, you have to constantly control your space and watch where you room. Fighting a difficult enemy in a hostile enviromental is the bare minimum you could do to mix up your reused content. But that's not what From does is it? They reused the same boss arenas and they're flat and bland. They don't even try to do something original because they have to make sure the player can always roll around. It's sad when Dark souls 3 is starting to look decent for it's boss variety when it's up against a game with 300 bosses and none of them come close to being anything but the exact same mechanic ground into paste.

From's games are becoming so meta-complex they should be explaining how things work better. When the video guy says Bosses don't explain things he's correct. Many of Elden rings attacks are so flashy there is no way to know when or how to dodge things. The Furnace golems jump looks like it could be dodged the same way dodging the single stamps can (jumping) when it can't. You specifically have to run away on torrent to dodge it as I'm aware. There is no reason to be on torrent to fight those things. Horse combat is so clunky and torrent dying can get you killed. You're significantly better off being on foot where you have iframes and a better moveset.. So how does the game communicate this? With animations you can clearly see hit too high to jump over? No, sorry this is From. Fire looks dodgable with a jump but it isn't. And this is one enemy they reused 8 times or whatever and is one of the first encounters in the DLC with one of the games new mechanics (parry blocking) locked behind it. So he is 100% correct the game is doing a poor job of communicating things. There's the infamous gif of Margitt holding up his sword for like 20 seconds getting ready to punish a player for pushing a button. WTF is that communicating to the player?

Elden Ring is a game based on spectral and set pieces. It has ironically become Call of duty in fake-RPG form. Instead of quality level design we get "beautiful vistas you can screen cap for reddit" or epic boss spaz fests where shit flies every where but it looks cool in a trailer or when a streamer spends a week learning to dodge it. Elden Ring is incredibly outdated in basically every way except it's boss graphics. The open world is a shit show with random cliffs and valleys put there just to make it another hour to get to where you want if you don't fast travel invalidating the open world all together if you haven't already run past everything. The combat is simple, maybe even brain dead if we're honest and making more complex bosses does nothing for the game when other souls likes surpassed From almost 10 years ago now.

If you want to say "From boss fights take more effort than other games boss fights" then you need to alt+f4 and never open your browser again. Devil May Cry (a capcom series BTW) had more complex boss fights on the PS2 than From are presenting. Dante's move set is wildly more complex with less iFrames to abuse. There is no healing in DMC if you want a decent rank (it's a crutch there for people who struggle to beat a boss, but it punishes you for using it long term) and there is no buffs to stack to melt down bosses you can't handle. So if From's combat is so deep and hard to design for, how the fuck do Capcom design for a character with a thousand more moves, which can all combo into each other and still expect to have the human mind function? Simply put, From fanboys do not play other games in the genre, they do not even play action games besides this one. They like the simple combat because they cannot handle anything more complex. The combat was fun and rewarding in the previous titles. Now it's an anchor weighting the series down because From do not need to innovate or take risks any more. Their fanbase will buy any shit they produce with the Souls brand attached. But hell have no fury like a From drone made to fight a boss other than Arty for the 500th time. Because Dragon God and Bed of Chaos made them shit their pants for the last decade and be unable to face up to anything but pushing roll at the same time. Blind bosses? GONE! Have a roll catch instead. Special aerial bosses you could only fight with ranged or a special sword? GONE! Have a roll catch instead. Fun and challenging NPC invasions? GONE! Have an input reading auto dodging hyper armoured damage sponge instead.

I don't hate Elden ring. I hate the From community being incapable of facing up to the problems with the game and being ignorant of the action RPG genre. You shouldn't judge a game based on what it isn't, so comparing Nioh to Elden ring 1 for 1 isn't completely fair. Tetris isn't a worse game because it lacks voice acting by theatre actors like Elden ring has. But Elden ring fails on multiple fronts on it's own terms. It repeatedly makes rookie mistakes the genre solved years ago. The DLC does improve on some of them but doubles or triples down on others. And it never had to make any of those mistakes because the open world genre has been in full swing since the PS3 era. And From have experience making open world games with King's field and should have been at the forefront of the genre instead of limping along in last place as they are now.

Give it 6 months, maybe 12 and watch the backlash happen. This is another Bioshock Infinite where the fanboys held up the game as a master piece and once they moved on to masturbating to rule 34 more than astro turfing the discussion it got torn to shreds and thrown in the gutter.