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

[Vagabond Merchant]

Actually, beating her with your pals and total strangers is the intended way to defeat that boss. Some of yous forgot the delights of jolly cooperation and it shows

We need Solaire to come back to teach the new kids to be sociable and engage in jolly cooperation

 

[Ravielsk]

Talismans are already buff stacking to a degree. What does convergence do different?

Several things. First and foremost it frontloads the buff spells. Most classes start with one as a a default and can very easily get the buffs from other classes. Just in Limgrave you can get around 3 different buffs including a health regen one. Also you get spell handed out in bundles of 3-4 so you immediately have a full and functional kit which means you do not have to contort yourself to incorporate a incongruent spell or buff into your character, you can simply and fully switch over.
Furthermore it moved all talismans and tears into a crafting system that lets you make what you want whatever you want as long as you have an appropriate material.
And if even that was not enough for you it has a full teleportation system right from the start that lets you warp to any area with an erdtree(including the endgame ones).

The buffs usually have a duration of 1 to 3 minutes and have no limitations on stacking(so no body, weapon, aura or whatever joggling is needed) and your FP regenerates by default. Meaning that you do not need to pursue a particular build to be able to apply more than one buff as buffs lasts long enough for you to apply one, wait for your FP and apply a second one.
Overall it makes including buffs(and stacking them) into your playstyle an immediately viable option and if you know what you want to do it lets you speedrun to whatever items you might need.

To compensate most buffs do not go beyond a 5% boost to damage or 10% damage reduction so stacking them while significantly less cumbersome than in a vanilla it also does not grant you the same metheoric jumps in power. Most are in fact utility based like recovering FP when hitting enemies or countering the summoning debuff(new mechanic that cuts your stats based on the power of the used summon).
There are a few more things but you should get the idea of the delta between how vanilla ER does things and how convergence does them.

 

[Itoh]

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.

I'm late to this, but it struck me that instead of the silly looking dodge From should use a ghostform option for i-frames. Instead of rolling around like a hedgehog you'd just turn ethereal for a second or two. This would have the advantages of 1)making sense in terms of flavor as your character is usually somewhere between life and death, 2) making it perfectly clear when you have your I-frames and when you don't, and 3) maybe leading to some additional design space, where you could hold down B to stay invincible for longer at the cost of rapidly increasing stamina consumption. IDK why they haven't done something like this

 

[MasPingon]

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.

I'm late to this, but it struck me that instead of the silly looking dodge From should use a ghostform option for i-frames. Instead of rolling around like a hedgehog you'd just turn ethereal for a second or two. This would have the advantages of 1)making sense in terms of flavor as your character is usually somewhere between life and death, 2) making it perfectly clear when you have your I-frames and when you don't, and 3) maybe leading to some additional design space, where you could hold down B to stay invincible for longer at the cost of rapidly increasing stamina consumption. IDK why they haven't done something like this

All I want to see in their next game is something they've already done - a blend of dodge from Bloodborne and parry from Sekiro. Rolling is retarded, that I agree.

 

[abija]

"You didn't accept my dishonest framing, thus you fail at basic logic." I thought that I was arguing in bad faith?

Quoting you and asking to clarify is dishonest framing... sure.

Yes. Elden Ring, in my view, shouldn't have bothered with a map considering that previous entries in its own series made worlds that could be navigated without and it's inclusion is a concession to a more casual audience. Simultaneously, Bethesda and Obsidian have made open world settings that better utilize clearly marked 'intended' paths and points of interest despite their use of maps.

When devs add an open world and a map for that open world you can't claim it should work without it and use "it worked without a map when there was no open world" as an argument. There's no implication there.
Similarly, you can't use as an argument "clearly marked intended routes should be enough without a map" when your examples have both those and a map. Again, no implication. It's almost the opposite of what you claim, considering they did a better job marking routes and still wanted a map.

If you want to argue the devs made a wrong choice, you need actual facts to support "your view". Instead you just made it clear you have no grasp of basic logic.

 

[Hell Swarm]

All I want to see in their next game is something they've already done - a blend of dodge from Bloodborne and parry from Sekiro. Rolling is retarded, that I agree.

I want to see Souls games as a genre die off completely so action games can get away from iframe stamina managament and get back to skill based combat and worlds enjoyable to explore.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Are spells considered a cheat too or just buffs:



BTW, considering the duration of buffs, it's clear to me their actual intended use is to get past the first phase of a boss, which in itself is just training ground for what comes past (otherwise, why have phases at all? Just let the bosses start at full power).

 

[Silverfish]

When devs add an open world and a map for that open world you can't claim it should work without it and use "it worked without a map when there was no open world" as an argument.

Except that I can and have. Elden Ring's world is an advancement of the open-ended design of Dark Souls and DS2, not some radical new concept. Comparisons are more than fair.

Similarly, you can't use as an argument "clearly marked intended routes should be enough without a map" when your examples have both those and a map.

Yes, Beth games and New Vegas have maps. The reason I pointed these games out was that despite use of maps, they can be easily navigated without and make better use of points of interest or, in some cases, quite literal signposting. Furthermore, why shouldn't From's open world design improve upon those games? ER came out years later and had lots of successes and failures to learn from.

If you want to argue the devs made a wrong choice, you need actual facts to support "your view".

No I don't.

 

[Lyric Suite]

You don't need the map for anything in Elden Ring except for fast traveling. It's literally worse to use the map for orientation than to actually learn your surroundings directly by looking at them. I played the entirety of Elden Ring as if it was Dark Souls, only popping up the map to travel around the sites of grace (and with so many of them, the map is definitely a welcome addition).

 

[abija]

No I don't.

Clearly, which is why you don't produce arguments, yet you use them as such. As someone already mentioned, another case of building a fantasy construct and arguing ER isn't that.

Except that I can and have. Elden Ring's world is an advancement of the open-ended design of Dark Souls and DS2, not some radical new concept. Comparisons are more than fair.

1. Does ER feel like playing a 20x bigger dark souls or like 5 dark souls with large different areas in between?
2. Even if it were similar you would still have to at least demonstrate why a huge increase in volume wouldn't necesitate additional features.

Yes, Beth games and New Vegas have maps. The reason I pointed these games out was that despite use of maps, they can be easily navigated without and make better use of points of interest or, in some cases, quite literal signposting.

Yet they considered those maps necessary and implemented them. In which way does that imply that ER would have benefited in not having a map?

Furthermore, why shouldn't From's open world design improve upon those games? ER came out years later and had lots of successes and failures to learn from.

And how is this relevant to anything unless you are implying removal of the map would be such an improvement. Which means you use the thing you try to prove as an argument for itself.

Imagine this: Company A is doing circular manhole covers. They want to do a square one and implement a safety system so it doesn't fall through. You argue that they're both manhole not some radical new concept so it's better without dumbing it down with extra safety systems. You give as example better designed square covers that also have the safety feature (just design it even better). This is the type of insanity that is generated by skipping logic.

The 2 skips are:
- if A works, slightly different A still works. That's not an implication but something that needs to be proven.
- if better A and B works, then better better A without B works. Again, not an implication (this is not even a skip/fail, just borderline absurdity) and it needs to be proven.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Bullshit never stops.

"The map shows you where stuff is" and "you shouldn't use the map. I never did" like a week apart. lol

Elden ring's open world is inspired by BOTW. Japan is so inbred and retarded they didn't wake up to the genre until Nintoddlers made one. Which is why it's so poorly done and none of the mechanics work.

 

[abija]

You went from

Malenia seems pretty easy compared to the story bosses. Even the first story boss is more aggressive and has harder to dodge attacks. Large weapons have an especially hard time with some of these because speed is a real thing here. You have bosses who will charge you down with questionable hit boxes only to immediately launch into a big AOE spell and charge you again.

I'm good at these games and I have the determination to grind it out even when I'm getting my ass kicked. I don't expect people who started with Elden ring to have an easy time even with the very first non-main boss you find to the left of the DLC entry point. I didn't expect people to have an easy time with a giant katana faggot who randomly iframes your shit and is hyper aggressive.

to

Would be really nice if faggots could stop joining the thread to say "I just started the DLC. I don't see the problems with it at all" as if the entire discussion isn't around late DLC bosses being bullshit not the tutorial stuff.

and at some point you even become annoyed of people mentioning your initial claims

Why people are complaining about DLC difficulty? I think I'm 3/4 done with it (Shadow Keep), and the only truly difficult thing so far was Rellana on low Scadutree level. Everything else feels 'just right'. Are people playing naked and level 10?

Oh look it's the 50th post of "Why do people complain about the difficulty when I haven't got to the things people complained about yet". Maybe play through the DLC and see the issues instead of making dumb posts?

All while complaining people aren't aknowledging your points. You little worm...

 

[Hell Swarm]

Bad faith builds are the worst. But Baron's here to make an Elden ring video! He makes some really fun stuff.

 

[Raghar]

Shields are extremely strong in DS3. With a high-tier greatshield and a high investment in Endurance, you can block even the longest combos from Midir and the Soul of Cinder.

And don't forget to use magic shield on that shield.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Actually, beating her with your pals and total strangers is the intended way to defeat that boss. Some of yous forgot the delights of jolly cooperation and it shows

We need Solaire to come back to teach the new kids to be sociable and engage in jolly cooperation

Solaire was a faggot and I'm glad he died in a volcano and got shoved up a dinosaur's asshole.

Summoning ruins Souls games. If you need someone else to beat a boss for you then you should never have been playing the game. You cheating in another player because you're not good enough is disgusting.

 

[Silverfish]

another case of building a fantasy construct and arguing ER isn't that.

Dark Souls 1 is a fantasy construct?

Does ER feel like playing a 20x bigger dark souls or like 5 dark souls with large different areas in between?

It feels like playing Far Cry: medieval fantasy edition.

Even if it were similar you would still have to at least demonstrate why a huge increase in volume wouldn't necesitate additional features.

I did. I want the game to be more difficult outside of combat. Not sure how you missed that.

Yet they considered those maps necessary and implemented them. In which way does that imply that ER would have benefited in not having a map?

I agree. Developers shouldn't try to improve upon previous design.

Imagine this: Company A is doing circular manhole covers. They want to do a square one and implement a safety system so it doesn't fall through. You argue that they're both manhole not some radical new concept so it's better without dumbing it down with extra safety systems. You give as example better designed square covers that also have the safety feature (just design it even better). This is the type of insanity that is generated by skipping logic.

When we've reached the point of equating unnecessary quality of life features in video games to potentially life-saving features in real-world construction, are you sure that someone else hasn't skipped a bit of logic?

Solaire was a faggot and I'm glad he died in a volcano and got shoved up a dinosaur's asshole.

If you've never done it, summon him for the Gaping Dragon fight. His total inability to fight the slowest boss in the game is more comedic than it has any right to be.

 

[Vagabond Merchant]

Actually, beating her with your pals and total strangers is the intended way to defeat that boss. Some of yous forgot the delights of jolly cooperation and it shows

We need Solaire to come back to teach the new kids to be sociable and engage in jolly cooperation

Solaire was a faggot and I'm glad he died in a volcano and got shoved up a dinosaur's asshole.

Summoning ruins Souls games. If you need someone else to beat a boss for you then you should never have been playing the game. You cheating in another player because you're not good enough is disgusting.

I have finished all the souls games without summoning, but I like being summoned to help other players and it's fun to do so. Why would there be only one way to "properly" play the game? Let people have fun

 

[Odoryuk]

Summoning ruins Souls games

FromSoftware make the most fragile games ever. Almost everything ruins them!

 

[Stoned Ape]

Summoning ruins Souls games

FromSoftware make the most fragile games ever. Almost everything ruins them!

They put so much stuff in the game that you're not supposed to use if you're playing properly... no buffs, no great shields, no spirit ashes, no co-op summons, no NPC summons, at least half the spells, any ash of war that's supposed to be good, any of the better weapons, no levelling past 150 (at the absolute max), etc. etc.

If you use any of that stuff then apparently you're not playing properly and you shouldn't play the game.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Summoning ruins Souls games

FromSoftware make the most fragile games ever. Almost everything ruins them!

They put so much stuff in the game that you're not supposed to use if you're playing properly... no buffs, no great shields, no spirit ashes, no co-op summons, no NPC summons, at least half the spells, any ash of war that's supposed to be good, any of the better weapons, no levelling past 150 (at the absolute max), etc. etc.

If you use any of that stuff then apparently you're not playing properly and you shouldn't play the game.

If you completely ignore context then you're right but you shouldn't.

Using buffs is different to stacking them so you melt a boss
Using a great shield is fine, respecing to use a specific difficult to get one to beat Radahn because you can't beat him with your skill is not.
I never said no spirit ashes. They're very clearly intended in Elden Ring.
NPC summons and player summons beating a boss for you is cheating and always has been. Beat a boss with your skill not another player doing it.
Who complained about spells or ashes of war? I've never had a problem with this.
Some weapons are just busted and if you stack buffs with them you break the game. I think we've all seen 1 shots with a single melee hit.
150 meta shit can fuck off. Use your souls.

 

[ind33d]

All I want to see in their next game is something they've already done - a blend of dodge from Bloodborne and parry from Sekiro. Rolling is retarded, that I agree.

I want to see Souls games as a genre die off completely so action games can get away from iframe stamina managament and get back to skill based combat and worlds enjoyable to explore.

at this point souls games are like a cargo cult, dark souls 1 was basically a $59.99 shitpost. there's no possible way From actually thought it was fun

 

[Lyric Suite]

There's nothing wrong with rolling, i-frame combat or stamina management (i repeat there is NOTHING wrong with any of this. At all) and FromSoft has done some of the best level design and exploration ever seen in gaming. There's also nothing wrong with summoning. Not a single fucking criticism layed against FromSoft was ever proven or demonstrated with anything even remotely resembling a cogent argument. It's telling that the only thing you guys can rely on is sophistry, because if you had some genuine points to make you would have made them. Ever since this Hell faggot showed up this thread has turned into utter shit of endless retardation and pointless screetching for the sake of screetching without a single genuine point being made a long the way.

You cheating in another player because you're not good enough

So? What's it to you?

DMC has easy modes that you can unlock if you suck too much. Are people who play those modes "cheating"? You even get a thing called automatic mode:

https://devilmaycry.fandom.com/wiki/Automatic_Mode

Is the game shit now?

Even bullet hell games come with easy modes. All the console ports of games like the DoDonPachi series or other games by Cave come with various modalities that aren't aivalable on the arcade version. Some are harder, some are just different and some are actually easier.

The vast majority of games out there have easy modes or things the player can do to tailor the difficulty to their liking. None of it is a problem, unless FromSoft does it, than suddenly it's an issue.

 

[abija]

Using buffs is different to stacking them so you melt a boss
Using a great shield is fine, respecing to use a specific difficult to get one to beat Radahn because you can't beat him with your skill is not.
I never said no spirit ashes. They're very clearly intended in Elden Ring.
NPC summons and player summons beating a boss for you is cheating and always has been. Beat a boss with your skill not another player doing it.
Who complained about spells or ashes of war? I've never had a problem with this.
Some weapons are just busted and if you stack buffs with them you break the game. I think we've all seen 1 shots with a single melee hit.
150 meta shit can fuck off. Use your souls.

Funny, according to this new checklist, my playthrough is proof of you being wrong with pretty much everything you complained about boss and balance in this DLC.
- didn't stack buffs yet I pretty much melted most bosses. I brutalized dancing lion so hard before first patch while you were qqing here about hp bloat that I stopped using golden vow until Radahn.
- didn't need to respec or to summon players, or even swap to a shield
- didn't use a broken weapon afaik and the dmg I did with it to bosses was minimal anyway
- player skill wasn't needed and I only had more tries on Radahn cause I wanted to kill him in a fancy way (which required me to handle at least some of his abilities).
- didn't even need to tweak armor, used medium roll for fashion purposes (except Radahn which was light for same reason)
- with the exception of Radahn (which is fine) I can't see any of the bosses being a block unless players use self imposed restrictions (and that's not on designers)

You probably want a new revision of your "proper play" checklist.

 

[Silverfish]

There's nothing wrong with rolling, i-frame combat or stamina management

Not on their own, no. There's a fair question though as to whether or not Demon's Souls' fairly simplistic combat mechanics should be stretched out over a hundred hours.

Hell faggot

Huge improvement over 'figgit' and 'Hell Swamp'. In another thirty pages, you'll have worked up to actual insults.

 

[Odoryuk]

If you ever pressed a triangle/Y button - congrats, you've ruined your game. Might as well go play Overwatch