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

[Lyric Suite]

You had to get a containment thread because no one wanted you posting your play through here lol.

It's because i decided to do an actual let's play. Not an extensive one like the one i did for Sekiro but big enough that would have been impossible to post in this thread without basically taking it over.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Lyrics back to his usual posting where he absolutely will never admit that Elden ring is a barren boring landscape. Yet the original God of Wars which is a non-shop beat 'em up is some how empty? I wonder what kind of mental illness you need to have when you're so desperate to defend a game you defend empty open worlds with minutes between enemies even trying to attack you and none of them being able to hit you. It's just fucking sad.

Elden ring's map isn't complex. It's poorly designed. Elden ring is about as complex as Assassin's creed 1 and didn't learn any lessons from the games it tries to poorly copy. BOTW works because the player has vertical movement options and skills able to make an empty open world into a play ground. Elden ring has.. well you can hit stuff and roll. You can't even damage terrain, it's just blocks to make only your weapon bounce and look pretty for autists who want to take screenshots for reddit.

 

[Odoryuk]

People who tricked themselves into thinking that Dark Souls 2 is the best thing since sliced bread now with all seriousness arguing that Elden Ring's open world bad

 

[Lyric Suite]

Yet the original God of Wars which is a non-shop beat 'em up is some how empty?

Who said anything about the game being empty? Do you see the phrase "God of Wars is empty" anywhere? Can you point where i said anything at all about God of Wars? I just laughted much like i laughted when you guys mentioned Halo. The idea of actually taking mainstream slop seriously is ludicrous to me.

This is why my apologia is actually gaining traction here btw. Because you guys are so shit at arguing and are so dishonest people are actually considering my points even though they'd actually like to hate on this game lmao (and there's legitimate reasons to hate it to be sure. If only you guys could actually make good arguments though).

Elden ring's map isn't complex.

You literally said the map was too complex and confusing. "Too much" were your exact words if i remember. A lot of normies rely on written routes because they have no clue where to go and aren't observant enough to find secrets and hidden things, or to even understand their whereabouts half the time.

You may find the planimetric sections "boring" but there's nothing simplistic about the overall structure of the map itself. It's not like the same people who designed all those complex legacy dungeons suddenly lost their know how when they set out to make the layout of the world map.

So yes, if we are making a comparison to a game where the level design has been stripped entirely and you are basically just pressing forward like a drone all the way through, Elden Ring clearly has the more involved and complex design.

Of course, it's not a credit to Elden Ring that it happens to be better than the absolute bottom of the barrel, which is what usually corridor games end up being, but i wasn't the one to bring that comparison up.

 

[Hell Swarm]

The idea of actually taking mainstream slop seriously is ludicrous to me.

Elden Ring is the text book definition of mainstream slop. It took an old style of game, made it the most mainstream genre and watered down it's content until it's literally slop. So.. why are you taking it seriously?

You literally said the map was too complex and confusing. "Too much" were your exact words if i remember. A lot of normies rely on written routes because they have no clue where to go and aren't observant enough to find secrets and hidden things, or to even understand their whereabouts half the time.

Poorly designed maps are poorly designed. They're not complex. There's no depth to them. There isn't even any height differences in them or hidden caves. It's just large elevators between two different locations or an entry way to a tunnel. The DLC doesn't even fix this because the way you access the different heights is simply going through a transition point. Even Far cry 3 does a better job.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Poorly designed maps are poorly designed. They're not complex. There's no depth to them. There isn't even any height differences in them or hidden caves. It's just large elevators between two different locations or an entry way to a tunnel. The DLC doesn't even fix this because the way you access the different heights is simply going through a transition point. Even Far cry 3 does a better job.

I assume this argument is based entirely on the fact you can't traverse things "vertically" like you can in BOTW. Which... isn't what verticality is. It's not the "act" of going up and down itself that defines vertical level design.

See, it's always some semantic bullshit with you guys. "You climbs walls in BOTW that means the game is more vertical than Elden Ring".

Verticality when talking about level design is precisely that of layering and stacking planimetric sections on top of each other, the result being that it becomes more "challenging" to plot out and memorize the layout, especially when you factor in descending or ascending alternatives constitute "branching" paths which is usually what confuses normies the most, normally even when the layout is purely horizontal, all the more so when you include a vertical dimension.

There are parts in the open map both in the original game as well as this DLC that if you were to condense the space of the horizontal sections it would sort of start looking like a nascent legacy dungeon.

 

[Hell Swarm]

'The game will free vertical movement is less vertical than a game with very little vertical movement outside of linear tunnels and jump off points'.

BOTW is a console game on a weak machine it barely runs on and yet it mogs ER and you're doing the exact same Lyric thing of arguing bad design is good because you're autistic and like empty fields. Quality post. Next you will be telling us how using a gesture to teleport to a mountain top is better than running there yourself and finding a path to climb it.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Vertical "movement" has shit to do with vertical level design.

Vertical movement isn't even a point in favor of anything. Doom Eternal has it. It made the game retarded as you are now plaiyng spiderman for no reason.

The Leyndell sewers are a case in point in how "drop" points between horizontal layers creates a branching complexity that threw a monkey wrench on most people's sense of orientation. Scaling a wall in BOTW is NOT vertical complexity in and of itself.

BOTW also has like ten times less enemy variety than Elden Ring. Funny how it's ok when other games do it though, right?

 

[Strange Fellow]

You heard it here first people, Flight Simulator is peak vertical level design.

 

[Hell Swarm]

BOTW also has like ten times less enemy variety than Elden Ring. Funny how it's ok when other games do it though, right?

BOTW isn't a game about combat with a bare bones combat system. It's an exploration game where combat is part of the exploration. In BOTW I set fire to grass to burn out a goblin camp then cleaned up the mess using a stick I set fire to from the grass. Elden ring has nothing like this. It doesn't even have proper traps to lore enemies into any more.

You're repetitive and dull Lyric. Go back to your containment thread. You can argue with yourself how pressing jump at the elevator spot is vertical gameplay and all console games suck because they surpassed From slop a decade ago.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Oh well, it's not a combat game, so that totally exscuses the lack of enemy variety. It's also an "exploration" game, which totally exscuses the lack of dungeons.

I wonder if being a combat game exscuses Elden Ring from being less of an exploration game though.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Oh well, it's not a combat game, so that totally exscuses the lack of enemy variety. It's also an "exploration" game, which totally exscuses the lack of dungeons.

BOTW has 5 dungeons. But you haven't played it so feel free to stop discussing it at any time.

 

[Silverfish]

God of War lmao.

Yeah. Better combat, better platforming, no time wasted in a pointless open world.

If i'm playing a racing game, it has to be a real sim. I cannot play arcade racing games or even simcades. It doesn't matter how much "skill" they may require. Speed doesn't matter to me, action doesn't matter to me, only reality matters.

"Only reality matters. This is why I'm playing a racing sim instead of going go-karting."

The idea of actually taking mainstream slop seriously is ludicrous to me.

Elden Ring has sold 25 million copies and has just cracked the top 50 best-selling games to date. You've been taking mainstream slop seriously the whole time.

 

[Lyric Suite]

More bad arguments, more sophistry.

The fact the game sold a lot doesn't mean it's mainstream slop. Not even remotely close. That is not the metric. A game with this level of difficutly and complexity doesn't even remotely come close to warrant the term "slop". That is purely reserved for dumped down, streamlined shit, like, say, Halo, or corridor games, or God of War etc.

 

[Hell Swarm]

That is purely reserved for dumped down, streamlined shit, like, say, Halo, or corridor games, or God of War etc.

Like a big open world, with NPC markers on it and having to put markers on the map to show where you get upgrades or where the underground area is after Radahn..

Wait, I thought this WASN'T slop? Sounds like console baby slop to me!

 

[Lyric Suite]

"Only reality matters. This is why I'm playing a racing sim instead of going go-karting."

Alright, that does it. You guys just aren't worth talking to. It was amusing for a while to see this level of sophistry and stupidity but now it's just boring.

 

[Hell Swarm]

He'll be back in 5 minutes. He can't resist his autistic essays about how perfect his favourite goyslop is.

Elden ring might be one of the best games of the year casualness for a general audience but but... it's just not goyslop okay? Spirit ashes are NOT GLOYSLOP. AHHH Help me NIGGERMAN!

 

[Lyric Suite]

Casualness, Elden Ring lmao. Said by the guy who started bitching about the game because he thought was too difficult.

I also just realized you are the same retard who was arguing 80s Warhammer 40k was "colorful" in the same way infantile modern mobile soy pastel shit is colorful. You are like the physical manifestation of bad arguments.

 

[Vic]

elden shit

 

[Silverfish]

The fact the game sold a lot doesn't mean it's mainstream slop.

It would be a far more respectable position to just say "Yes, this is mainstream slop, but I like it." Like I mentioned a few posts ago, I enjoy Skyrim. It's dumbed down junk and I accept that, but it's still a fun way to kill an hour or two. You don't have to conjure up arguments that no one believes anyway to explain why your mainstream slop is somehow an exception. You were the one telling me not to make arguments in an attempt to look cool.

Alright, that does it. You guys just aren't worth talking to. It was amusing for a while to see this level of sophistry and stupidity but now it's just boring.

"You want me to go do things in real life? Well, enough of this."

Casualness, Elden Ring lmao.

I beat Margitt by spamming reduvia's ranged attack while my jellyfish summon pelted him with poison spit. Yes, this is a game for casuals.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Everything can be anything you want when you have the power of semantics, bad faith arguments, strawmen, goal post shifting etc.

Are you guys l1bruls btw? Because you sort of argue the same way.

The fact remains, and this IS indeed a fact, that even with the dubious design decisions introduced by this open world experiment, Elden Ring still remains infinitely more mechanically complex and difficult than almost anything out there, certainly more so than anything that one would consider "mainstream". No amount of sophistry is going to change this. Much of what made Dark Souls stand out so much is still there by a large degree. There is no dumping down, no principle was sacrificed. In fact, FromSoft has doubled down in its intransigence to the point the game's difficulty is now seen as outright excessive (to some anyway. Still not seeing it myself). So much for catering to the "casuls".

For me and anyone with an actual thinking brain, there's still quite a bit about this game that is as rich, deep and challenging as anything made by FromSoft in the past. The question is whether one can tolerate the inevitable padding that is inherent in open world design to get to the "good parts". In my case, it seems i was able to cope with it, thought i'm not entirely sure how many times i'll ever be able to play this game from start to finish again (especially now with this DLC which also appears to be truly massive). Some people cannot, which is their prerogative. But to claim this game is now in line with Ass Creed or anything mabe by Bethesda is just utterly demented. This kind of try hard hyperbole doesn't help your case at all and makes you look like downright retards.

 

[Max Damage]

The question is whether one can tolerate the inevitable padding that is inherent in open world design to get to the "good parts".

I keep asking this myself every time I try to resume my playthrough, and I think I may be done for real this time, one day is all it took for boredom to settle in again. The butter is spread way too thin. Level and encounter design definitely got dumbed down to sleep inducing sameness.

 

[Stoned Ape]

Playing Dark Souls 2 at the moment. The world design is... certainly something. For me, Elden Ring area design and coherency is superior to some of the things FromSoft achieved with peak DS2.

 

[Max Damage]

They basically had to scrap lots of stuff to release DS2, it feels like whole level got cut between Earthen Peak and Iron Keep.

 

[Silverfish]

Alright, that does it. You guys just aren't worth talking to.

That was a scary ten minutes.

Are you guys l1bruls btw? Because you sort of argue the same way.

"You're arguing like the people who've gotten everything they've wanted for the last century. Don't you feel foolish?"

Elden Ring still remains infinitely more mechanically complex and difficult than almost anything out there, certainly more so than anything that one would consider "mainstream".

Couldn't agree more. This,



is far more mechanically complex and difficult than this,

There is no dumping down,

Just off the top of my head: map, compass, map markers manifesting in-world as beams of light, removal of item durability, stamina no longer drains outside of combat, stamina and carry weight are once again merged into one stat after being separated in DS2 and 3, power stance no longer requires stats being 50% above the weapon's minimum requirements, summoning bell, summons that expend health instead of focus so that non-mages can still gain an advantage without being punished for their builds & ashes of war can be swapped at sites of grace so you don't have to think too hard or be stuck with a bad weapon art.

But to claim this game is now in line with Ass Creed or anything mabe by Bethesda is just utterly demented.

I don't think they're in-line with Bethesda at all. Beth's open worlds and interactivity leave Elden Ring in the dust.