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

[Lyric Suite]

Why not make Malenia the very first enemy in ER and skip the 50 hours of poking zombies that don't fight back?

Why is it that everybody here cannot into logic?

ER doesn't hold back in forcing you to learn all its mechanics and postponing that part until NG++. There's very little Malenia does that Margit isn't gonna expose you to.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Why not make Malenia the very first enemy in ER and skip the 50 hours of poking zombies that don't fight back?

Why is it that everybody here cannot into logic?

ER doesn't hold back in forcing you to learn all its mechanics and postponing that part until NG++. There's very little Malenia does that Margit isn't gonna expose you to.

That's nonsense. Malenia heals constantly, has an attack that kills you unless you dodge it in a very stupid way, dodges projectiles and is capable of resetting her poise meter instead of being staggered. Even if you scaled her stats down to what Margit has she's full of endgame bullshit that's only 'fair' in the context of the player cheesing the fight with a mimic tear or equivalent.


Besides which, ER doesn't HAVE any mechanics to hold back. The weapons are incredibly generic, the status effects all simply do damage, and every enemy has the same poise breaking mechanic. Nioh is already deeper than ER in the first 10 minutes of the game before you even know a fifth of what can be done. And if you actually cared to jump straight to the endgame, downloading a savefile would take considerably less time and effort than playing through ER for 50 hours to reach endgame bosses that won't fall over to shield pokes with a rapier or backpedalling with a glowing blue gun.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Besides which, ER doesn't HAVE any mechanics to hold back

Oh besides which is it?

 

[Damned Registrations]

'Summon a mimic tear so you don't have to fight this boss that cheats' isn't a mechanic the player needs to learn, dumbass.

 

[Lyric Suite]

'Summon a mimic tear so you don't have to fight this boss that cheats' isn't a mechanic the player needs to learn, dumbass.

You still don't need to wait to finish the game twice over to see the "real" combat system.

 

[Damned Registrations]

What combat system? You can explain everything the player can do in ER in about 2 minutes and memorize it all in 5. Being so simple there's nothing to teach isn't a virtue, it's a glaring flaw. If it were a book it'd have a 200 word vocabulary.

A game doesn't need good combat to be worth playing- Shadow of the Collossus is another game with shitty combat that gets a pass for it's atmosphere and sense of exploration. But to say it can't be improved by adding more depth to it is inane fanboyism.

 

[Odoryuk]

it's a glaring flaw

Not really

But to say it can't be improved by adding more depth to it is inane fanboyism

Also not entirely true. I mean, it is fanboyism, but changing design to something completelly different won't make their ARPGs better, it will make them different, and will it be better different or worse - it's is a wide opened question

 

[Multidirectional]

A game doesn't need good combat to be worth playing- Shadow of the Collossus is another game with shitty combat that gets a pass for it's atmosphere and sense of exploration. But to say it can't be improved by adding more depth to it is inane fanboyism.

FS games seem to attract wider audience than full combatfag games. Part of that might be their amazing art style but I also suspect that simplicity of combat is another reason. By reading various discussions about these games outside of Codex I have seen loads of comments that go like this "I was never a fan of action games but I did manage to get into Souls series and now it's one of my favorite things ever". I think it's very possible that the fact you don't need to use more than 3-4 buttons for combat in these games is a big part of their appeal to a more mainstream audience, which tends to be intimidated by action games with more mechanical complexity. Maybe FS understands this and doesn't want to add too much mechanical depth for this reason? Yet they still have this reputation for their games being hard and want every new game to continue being challenging even for their veteran players. So the ways they end up increasing difficulty are what I personally find annoying and unfun, while tools they offer to make fights easier don't seem very engaging or rewarding to me.

 

[abija]

My biggest issue with mechanical complex games is that they give no reason to master them. I grew up with KoF and SF, working towards mastering them was rewarded by winning vs other kids. Getting a high score or managing longer chains vs random pve mooks isn't rewarding for me.

 

[Multidirectional]

My biggest issue with mechanical complex games is that they give no reason to master them.

Well, when I was attempting to finish DMC V on Dante Must Die it seemed like the mastery required for it was way above what I could handle. I gave up halfway through it. Comboing into high scores seemed actually mandatory there as that's also what gets you to recharge Devil Trigger a lot faster. I guess I could've just used Gold Orbs I gathered throughout lower difficulties but that wouldn't have felt like I actually beat it so I didn't feel like using them. And I also kinda doubt I would've reached Depths in Nioh 2 if I didn't learn to juggle variety of moves and abilities at least semi-efficiently, like constantly applying multiple elemental debuffs to keep Confusion going on enemies, blasting them with feathers when they're out of Ki, landing Yokai grabs when presented with opportunity and just generally keeping up aggression with combos to recharge my Anima bar fast. Though I don't think I will get good enough to finish Depths completely, stopped at 16/30 floors for now. It's a massive difficulty jump from regular Underworld.

 

[Silverfish]

Bloodborne's main goal with its changes to Souls combat was to promote and reward aggression. The Rally system is often cited as the main reason for this

Erroneously. The rally mechanic rarely rewards aggression since Bloodborne doesn't utilize poise, thus attempting to rally is usually a good way to get stunlocked and killed.

Is Sekiro dumbed down garbage compared to Dark Souls?

Yeah.

 

[Odoryuk]

Erroneously. The rally mechanic rarely rewards aggression since Bloodborne doesn't utilize poise, thus attempting to rally is usually a good way to get stunlocked and killed.

Elden Ring rewards agression a lot more, because of poise breaking focus this game got because of Sekiro. It's like they have a specific vision of what they want to experiment with, and agressivenes is something that was pushed, from Bloodborne to Dark Souls 3 to Sekiro (though it is not a part of their Souls line of work) and to Elden Ring. I see no signs of them changing their vision yet, seeing how Armored Core 6 is also full on agressivenes in combat (though it's nothing new to the series as well).
There's a possibility they will eventually work on a spiritual successor to King's Field (fairly recently they made a spiritual successor to Echo Night, of all things, after all), and this game, being first person, will have to be a lot slower and could be a good change of pacing for FS

 

[Ravielsk]

There's very little Malenia does that Margit isn't gonna expose you to.

There is no better way to confirm that you are wikpediaing your way through a game than this statement. Of all the bosses Malenia is the only one to which this statement absolutely does not apply. Just the fact that she heals with every hit landed on the player(in rapid fire combos that if caught in 100% stagger you into them) is enough to make that statement not true. But on top of that she has a second phase that no only resets your and her positioning(aka if you pushed her into a corner she will no longer be in that corner) but also lets her apply a status effect that can easily chew through even the beefiest healthbar(3.3% Max HP + 26 per second for 300 seconds). And the less said about all the fuckery balance patches bring onto the table the better.

That is unless you are running a wikipedia build that is just about hyperbursting the boss down before it has any chance to execute on all of its bullshit. Only in that case, yes Malenia is basically just a late game Margit.

 

[Lyric Suite]

There's very little Malenia does that Margit isn't gonna expose you to.

There is no better way to confirm that you are wikpediaing your way through a game than this statement. Of all the bosses Malenia is the only one to which this statement absolutely does not apply. Just the fact that she heals with every hit landed on the player(in rapid fire combos that if caught in 100% stagger you into them) is enough to make that statement not true. But on top of that she has a second phase that no only resets your and her positioning(aka if you pushed her into a corner she will no longer be in that corner) but also lets her apply a status effect that can easily chew through even the beefiest healthbar(3.3% Max HP + 26 per second for 300 seconds). And the less said about all the fuckery balance patches bring onto the table the better.

That is unless you are running a wikipedia build that is just about hyperbursting the boss down before it has any chance to execute on all of its bullshit. Only in that case, yes Malenia is basically just a late game Margit.

Nah, you are making the difference be way bigger than it is (i'm also not exactly sure what wikipedia has to do with anything here).

Yes, she has a few extra quirks, as expected given she was designed to be the hardest boss in the game, but in the main she is still within the same ballpark as everything else in the game. More specifically, and that was the argument in case you missed it, everything that Elden Ring does in terms of difficutly happens on NG, and that from the very start of the game. There may be a slight learning curve but the difference is not as big as you think. If Margit had the same health and damage as the late game bosses he wouldn't be that far off from them. The point i was making is that the game doesn't pull any punches, holding on in revealing it's fuill complexity until after a few game cycles. Everything Elden Ring has to offer in terms of its difficutly you get on your first playthrough.

The fact i don't have to wait until NG++ before i get to "truly" experience the game is entirely in Elden Ring's favor. Because the Diablo system is predicated on the notion of dragging that carrot indifinitely, they always have to dick around with the player, forcing you to go through inane difficutly modes until you can finally get to the part where the full complexity of the system comes into play, and from what you guys are telling me Nioh has fallen into the same trap which for me is to the detriment of the game. In case you are wondering, i quit at the toad boss after i did a no hit with him on my third try. I found myself both overleveled and with little incentive to go on. I remember quitting Grim Dawn for the same reason. I got to the final act and i was just going through the motions since i was unkillable by that point. I even ended up using a mod to put some kind of consumable in my stash that would have allowed a fresh character to jump straight into the next difficutly but by that point i was just disheartened by the whole thing.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Erroneously. The rally mechanic rarely rewards aggression since Bloodborne doesn't utilize poise, thus attempting to rally is usually a good way to get stunlocked and killed.

Elden Ring rewards agression a lot more, because of poise breaking focus this game got because of Sekiro. It's like they have a specific vision of what they want to experiment with, and agressivenes is something that was pushed, from Bloodborne to Dark Souls 3 to Sekiro (though it is not a part of their Souls line of work) and to Elden Ring. I see no signs of them changing their vision yet, seeing how Armored Core 6 is also full on agressivenes in combat (though it's nothing new to the series as well).
There's a possibility they will eventually work on a spiritual successor to King's Field (fairly recently they made a spiritual successor to Echo Night, of all things, after all), and this game, being first person, will have to be a lot slower and could be a good change of pacing for FS

I think their vision is to just incorporate their past achievements into their new games.

Whenever they think they hit on something good they pass it on the next game. It's probably their way to "rescue" a few choice ideas from games which for one reason or another are unable to continue to build upon. They can't make a sequel to Bloodborne for one reason or another (not lucrative enough, licencing issues etc), but something of Bloodborne still lives on in Elden Ring. Same as Sekiro.

 

[Silverfish]

Elden Ring rewards agression a lot more, because of poise breaking focus this game got because of Sekiro.

Okay, but Sekiro's posture system was itself iterating upon Demon's Souls.

 

[Lyric Suite]

My biggest issue with mechanical complex games is that they give no reason to master them. I grew up with KoF and SF, working towards mastering them was rewarded by winning vs other kids. Getting a high score or managing longer chains vs random pve mooks isn't rewarding for me.

One of the reasons i liked bullet hell games for a bit is that they are challenging in and of themselves which makes the score mechanic actualy interesting since it can help you beat the game (you try to get as many extra lives on the easier levels so you have a bigger safety net for the final stages).

Even as a little kid i never cared much about keeping a score, i liked games that challenged me with their mechanics right off the bat.

I also got used to the idea of having to redo something "over and over" because that is how arcade games worked for the most part. Arcade games are an interesting phenomena because the reason they made them so difficult was because they wanted to steal your money, but they inadvertently led to some great gameplay because the designers had to come up with ways to keep the player hooked into the game. Making them hard in and of itself wouldn't have worked if the experience was just frustrating and unfun. They wanted you to keep putting coins so the games were both challenging and mechanically addictive and interesting.

And of course since as a kid i didn't have a lot of cash with me i also got into the habit of trying to get as much as i could out of the meager few coins i had on me (some of the games that didn't allow you to continue at the end, like Shinobi, required a group effort as we took turns playing the game and we all learned the last stage toghether by watching each other get through it step by step), which probably prepped me up for Dark Souls in the first place. Like i mentioned already, i basically skipped the console era entirely. I grew up on arcades then once i got my first PC it was PC games only from there on, until Dark Souls brought me back full circle.

My first RPG btw was likely Wonder Boy in Monsterland. When i was 10 years old i remember thinking the last stage which was a kind of labyrinth was the coolest thing ever. That experience taught me how to find my way out of levels (it was a point of honor to not use the bell among my friends) which incidentally prepped me up for when i first played Doom and other PC games with labyrinthine level design.

In essence, i prefer games that put a problem in front of me and compel me to overcome it. I have no psychological affinity to the idea of creating problems for myself which is why i'm still struggling to understand how exactly i'm "supposed" to be playing those kind of games.

 

[Lyric Suite]

BTW, this conversation made me load up DMC out of curiosity. Man that fucking intro like wtf is this lmao. Took me about 15 minutes to figure out how to quit from the game too (so "exit" means exit menu and reset is how you quit the game what is this upside down shit. I thought it was the Deck that was just glitching out).

 

[Anonona]

What DMC was it? The original Devil May Cry 1, or DmC (stylized like that) the awful reboot everyone hated and was abandoned?

 

[Lyric Suite]

First one. I got the "HD" collection on a keyshop for a few bucks, so it's the first three games.

 

[Anonona]

Ah, I see then. A shame, though it doesn't surprise me

I think gameplaywise DMC1 could have been the one you liked the most of the saga, it keeps things simple combatwise and beyond the opening it does have quite a dark and eery atmosphere. If you are ever inclined to try another action game, both Dragon's Dogma and Ninja Gaiden would be my recomendations for you. Dragon's Dogma is more simulationist, won't offer the enemy complexity you like but is a very different experience, its own thing, and Ninja Gaiden, despite having "combos" has a very "practical" style of play, it encourages killing fast and with few hits.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I may still play it, if anything out of curiosity. Actually the first hurdle right now is the camera more than anything. Such a strange way to navigate through a game. Never understood it but i seemed to be a thing back then on the Playstation.

I suspect Dragon Dogma is the one i'll like the most though. Just need to make the time to play it.

 

[Anonona]

I may still play it, if anything out of curiosity. Actually the first hurdle right now is the camera more than anything. Such a strange way to navigate through a game. Never understood it but i seemed to be a thing back then on the Playstation.

Take into account DMC pretty much established a lot of conventions of the genre. Is like the Demon's Souls of Hack n' Slash, so expect some jank and some weird choices here and there, as well as the cheesy voice acting of the time. The camera I think to remember it was fixed, it wouldn't be until later than a lot of action games would really improve that aspect and it was quite a slow process.

 

[Lyric Suite]

What's the origin of that camera system, Resident Evil?

Also, what's the origin of the cheese, just Japanese people looking at 'Murrican 90s culture and doing a confused outsider take of it?

I mean, maybe "confused" is not a strong enough word to describe this lmao:



This is like "no thanks, bro", the video game.

 

[Anonona]

What's the origin of that camera system, Resident Evil?

Actually, yes. The first DMC was born from a prototype of RE4, one which was going to feature paranormal elements.

Also, what's the origin of the cheese, just Japanese people looking at 'Murrican 90s culture and doing a confused outsider take of it?

Multiple reasons:

- The DMC saga had had two different directors. Hideak Kamiya and Itsuno. Kamiya created DMC 1 and was inspired by multiple sources. Cool 90s american culture and some manga and anime, specifically Space Adventure Cobra, a manga about a bounty hunter with a devil-may-care attitude. Itsuno's inspirations were quite different so there is a tonal shift later on, starting from DMC 3 onwards becoming even goofier than Kamiya's version.

- The plot of the games don't take themselves very seriously, they are mostly there to be funny, look cool and give context to why you are killing demons. The gameplay is pretty much the main focus. If you take a look at Kamiya's other games, like Bayonetta, is easy to see he just take the piss when writing the plot or put things in because he thinks they are cool.

Edit to avoid going offtopic too much: If you end up enjoying DMC 1 and want to try more, is advisable to skip DMC 2 (play it only if you are curios to see how much Capcom can fuck over their own IPs), and try DMC 3. I said DMC 1 could be the one you like the most, but is possible DMC 3 may actually be of you liking. It is the middle point between the simplistic DMC 1 and the complex DMC 4, so you have more weapons and moves at your disposal, but instead of having them all at the same time at all times, you select which 2 melee and ranged weapons you will carry and what style you will be using at the beginning of each level and at save points, and enemies have certain weaknesses to certain weapons. In that regard the combat system is still relatively simple while letting you figure out what is the best loadout to use against levels or bosses.