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

[Odoryuk]

The only thing that are unique to souls is the checkpoint and death system

These are not unique and were done before Souls

 

[Damned Registrations]

^ The checkpoint and death system is pretty much just cribbed from diablo anyways. The only thing about it that is noteworthy is your corpse evaporating if you die a second time.

 

[Damned Registrations]

For what it's worth, I can understand the argument of 'I want more of the same and don't give a fuck what other people like more.' I felt the same way about Armored Core and instead got fucking Armored Souls with magical estus nanites, camera lockon and retarded energy mechanics that simulate the souls stamina bar.

What I don't understand is defending blatant laziness regarding all the jank, lack of weapon variety, and bosses that have become spastic crackheads while our defenses have improved 10%.

 

[Odoryuk]

The checkpoint and death system is pretty much just cribbed from diablo anyways

The idea that you have to get back to the place were you died to take something back is lifted from Diablo/early MMO corpseruns, but dying and getting back to the specific part of the world without loading your save (meaning you retain everything you got prior to dying, if you pressed some switches or killed a boss, this will remain the same after death) was actually introduced in King's Field 1 back in 1994, but you have to contain a very rare item (Dragon Tree Fruit) in your inventory in order to respawn this way, and the item gets consumed after you respawn. Die without it and you have to load a save

 

[Lyric Suite]

From hasn't created new convention or theory of designs. Complex bosses, rythmic attack patterns and parry focused gameplay existed since the times of 2D action games.

If you generlize things it's easy to make those kind of claims.

In reality, FromSoft DID come up with their own conventions or we wouldn't be having this conversation.

And that's relevant here because your argument is that Dark Souls is essentially the same as DMC... except lesser. My point is that it is something else altoghether so comparisons like that don't apply. The fact you can perform five thousand spazzy combos in Nioh but not Souls doesn't mean Souls is just a more simplistic version of the same thing. Take all the flashy combos and Nioh becomes babby's first Dark Souls, and Nioh is the only one that actually incorporates some Souls-like elements. Take all the combos out of DMC and i'm not even sure what you would get.

 

[Anonona]

Sorry, I think we are getting nowhere. If after all this we are still on "combos" then there has been a serius issue of communication

Take all the combos out of DMC and i'm not even sure what you would get.

A fantastic but lesser game with a myriad of options to deal with bosses attacks, from parries to multiple form of dodges, jump, enemy stomp, animation canceling, devil trigger to gain hyperarmor, movement options like teleports, weapon clash and probably more.

Offensivenly, an array of moves with diverse purpose, reposition, blocking, guard point, adding hyperarmor, charge attack, attacks that consume meter or build their own resources, that reposition the enemy, that grant you iframes, long and short range, etc.

All always at disposition of the player

 

[Damned Registrations]

Actually, if you took all the flashy combos out of Nioh, you'd still have a more interesting stagger mechanic with permanent ki damage on demons and the corrupted ground, more interesting status effects and buffs that do things besides 15% more damage, a much, much wider variety of basic weapon attacks, more meaningful equipment, the living weapon transformation and it's effects, locational damage on enemies and bosses, and a better NG+ system.

 

[cvv]

Actually, if you took all the flashy combos out of Nioh, you'd still have a more interesting stagger mechanic with permanent ki damage on demons and the corrupted ground, more interesting status effects and buffs that do things besides 15% more damage, a much, much wider variety of basic weapon attacks, more meaningful equipment, the living weapon transformation and it's effects, locational damage on enemies and bosses, and a better NG+ system.

All true and still, souls would remain their own thing, fun and engaging in their on way. Precisely because they're different.

The main reason most people don't consider Nioh a soulslike is the combat which ACTUALLY follows the flashy, stylized, fast paced animu tradition of hack'n'slashers and fighters. Demon's Souls was such a sensation precisely because it veered from it, going with heavy, slow, "realistic" movements with long commits instead.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Actually, if you took all the flashy combos out of Nioh, you'd still have a more interesting stagger mechanic with permanent ki damage on demons and the corrupted ground, more interesting status effects and buffs that do things besides 15% more damage, a much, much wider variety of basic weapon attacks, more meaningful equipment, the living weapon transformation and it's effects, locational damage on enemies and bosses, and a better NG+ system.

None of that means a whole much for me because we are talking about quanity vs quality.

I happen to think that the basics of FromSoft games are qualitatively superior. This is why i brought up music as an analogy, because you can compare the number of notes and chords all you want, but that tells you nothing about the actual quality of the melodies and harmony of the songs. Making comparisons between what's on paper tells you nothing about all the "invisible" intricacies that exist once you look at the actual reality (it's a bit like claiming Deus Ex is infinitely superior to Doom on every level while ignoring the gunplay in the latter is actually vastly better designed).

The attack patterns and movements of enemies in Nioh was fairly "middle ground" compared to anything in Dark Souls. I wouldn't use a word like "mediocre" because unlike some people here i don't have an axe to grind one way or another, but it's still a fact that if you play the game as if it was Souls it's not even remotely as good. The design of the attacks in FromSoft games are in the main more clever, more unique and look better visually.

Nioh just felt fairly middle of the road in terms of what it does that is similar to Souls. Was better than Dark Souls 2 but in a way it reminded me of the latter, just not as janky.

Now, would the addition of all those other intricacies like combos etc tip the scale, putting the game above FromSoft combat? Maybe. I wish i had seen it but like i said this idea you have to wait until NG++ or whatever in order to get to that part is to the detriment to the game. But from a visual point of view alone, i'm not really keen to what i'm seeing. That guy doing all those spazzy combos in that video i just posted. Might be impressive in terms of gameplay design, is still not particularly appealing to me as a matter of preference. I don't want to spazz around doing animu combos with magic shit shooting out everywhere.

One of my favored fights in Sekiro was this dude:



It's not even a major boss, just a minor mini-boss. But it's the whole visceral feeling i had during this fight. The second he hits me i got so mad (doing a no-hit video on this one was obnoxious because of his buddies at the start) that i just pushed him into the corner and basically pulled some next level (for me anyway) deflect-fu just out of sheer rage.

I never felt this level of intensity when fighting anything in Nioh. Even when i kept the fights simple, the combat didn't feel to have as much "weight" to it, felt more arcadish and less grounded.

Would i feel something similar if i was doing all the DMC style crap that guy is doing in that video? Maybe, maybe not, but just aesthetically i can tell you that kind of thing alienated me a bit. I could still probably enjoy the game by simply accepting it for what it is, but if Nioh 3 and Sekiro 2 were to be announced toghether, my money would go to the latter first, purely out of personal preference.

 

[Anonona]

None of that means a whole much for me because we are talking about quanity vs quality.

First off, yeah, it mattered. Didn't you pride yourself on finding "clever" solutions to fights? What those things allow in Nioh is the same, but instead of dividing them in multiple weapons, those options are grouped in weapon types. Is not all about combos.

What he said was in fact is quality over quantity. Souls is more quantity than anything else, Tons of weapons yet their movesets are very similar and sometimes give an impression of being unfinished. Jump light attack, backsteps, full chain of attacks and some uniques moves are usually either too niche or downright useless, with some becoming more useless after ER added new moves that occupied their niche. And because your moveset is always so limited, niche options are pretty much ignored, even if they would offer help in certain fights because you had to sacrifice a much better one to use it. Or how some of these actually had purpose in past games but somehow they refused to reuse those improvements. Is so dumb how in ER backstep was so weak due to the changes in combat and refusal to use DS2's backstep, and suddenly in the DLC they introduce a talisman so it can be useful again.

Feels like there was no testing or real though put into them.

That guy doing all those spazzy combos in that video i just posted.

Half of the things the dude did were moves to chase or reposition himself. Also you don't seem to realize that people will find combos everywhere because the nature of combos are just creative use of player tools.

The grounded, comboless combat of Sekiro





Oh, shit. A combo, in my Elden Ring?





Your real problem seems to be aesthetics and "game feel".

 

[Lyric Suite]

Didn't you pride yourself on finding "clever" solutions to fights?

I think i was just taking the piss with that, mostly at myself.

Which boss was it anyway? I even forgot what we were talking about.

As for doing combos, sure, it's possible, and Ongbal has been able to pull some crazy stuff over the years but the system itself doesn't revolve around that and most of what he does is kinda gratuitous and superflous. It looks good visually but it's not more effective or anything.

I remember in Sekiro i tried to substitute the regular jump stomp with that kung-fu kick but it didn't last long until i got bored with it.

Call me a minimalist i just don't find that stuff interesting.

Your real problem seems to be aesthetics and "game feel".

That's not an irrelevant factor.

I actually disliked the snappiness of movement and attack in Nioh. Made the game "feel" less grounded and more arcadish, which is invariably less interesting to me.

 

[Damned Registrations]

That Sekiro fight looks so banal to me. I can't unsee a god of war style quick time event playing out every time he raises his sword or whatever. PRESS TEH BUTTAN!

The design of the attacks in FromSoft games are in the main more clever, more unique and look better visually.

What are you smoking? 80% the bosses in fromsoft games are just a human spazzing out with hyper armour. Dark souls was the only one with decent variety, having moonlight butterfly, priscilla, Nito, 4 kings, and Gwyndolin all being pretty unique and interesting fights.

Even bosses that are superficially very different in ER like Loretta and a godskin noble get fought against in basically the exact same way- you passively circle strafe and counter attack certain moves after trial and erroring enough to learn which ones are safe. They're pretty much all like that.

 

[Lyric Suite]

That Sekiro fight looks so banal to me. I can't unsee a god of war style quick time event playing out every time he raises his sword or whatever. PRESS TEH BUTTAN!

That just indicates you are retarded.

What are you smoking? 80% the bosses in fromsoft games are just a human spazzing out with hyper armour.

Maybe it looks like spazzing out because you can't actually see what's going on?

 

[Anonona]

I think i was just taking the piss with that, mostly at myself.

Really? A shame, I agreed with you. Imo, I find in many of your videos you tend to find intelligent solutions to use against bosses combined with good play.

As for doing combos, sure, it's possible, and Ongbal has been able to pull some crazy stuff over the years but the system itself doesn't revolve around that and most of what he does is kinda gratuitous and superflous. It looks good visually but it's not more effective or anything.

Dude, he is shutting down enemies with those combos and achieving faster kills. They are anything but superfluous.

 

[Lyric Suite]

As for doing combos, sure, it's possible, and Ongbal has been able to pull some crazy stuff over the years but the system itself doesn't revolve around that and most of what he does is kinda gratuitous and superflous. It looks good visually but it's not more effective or anything.

Dude, he is shutting down enemies with those combos and achieving faster kills. They are anything but superfluous.

If you are talking about the Sekiro video, he is shutting them down with the fire crackers or fire and then perform flashy attacks while they are staggered.

In my videos, i intentionally ignored prosphetic tools for the most part precisely to avoid "shutting down" the enemies because i wanted to display how far i had gotten mastering their attacks. I also ignored some of the skills that also had that effect and only used them sporadically when i thought they didn't invalidate the fight or made it seem i wasn't doing it "legit".

In my fight with Messmer, i "shut him down" during his second phase by calculating posture damage in my head but i don't consider that a display of skill. I basically cheated my way out of learning his second phase.

BTW, before some retard starts to assume i'm claiming i'm better than Ongbal, get the fuck off with that shit and learn to read and understand arguments.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Maybe it looks like spazzing out because you can't actually see what's going on?

Or maybe it's because they're jumping 20 meters across the room every 5 seconds, attacking non stop all over the place like they're trying to kill an invisible horde of zombies? Sorry I can't hallucinate secret hints from the bosses to justify their behaviour like you and your 'sword glint' from Margit.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I think i was just taking the piss with that, mostly at myself.

Really? A shame, I agreed with you. Imo, I find in many of your videos you tend to find intelligent solutions to use against bosses combined with good play.

Oh i was referring to the part where i was acting like what i came up with was somehow unique and nobody had thought about it before.

I always get the feeling i'm giving that impression to people whenever i set out to describe what kind of approaches i devised, so that one time i intentionally acted like i was. I think i was just being petulant because FromSoft pulled the rug under me by nerfing the boss while i was in the middle of mastering him lmao, so i was in a sour mood.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Maybe it looks like spazzing out because you can't actually see what's going on?

Or maybe it's because they're jumping 20 meters across the room every 5 seconds, attacking non stop all over the place like they're trying to kill an invisible horde of zombies?

Maybe you are not used to that because in games that allow for complicated combos bosses are mostly stationary, especially if you make them that way by keeping them staggered?

And hey, the sword glint in Morgott was an obvious tell to me that attack was parriable. Just the fact he comes at you with his sword sticking out even though the attack is coming from the hammer just felt intentional to me. Same for all those attacks with suspiciously long wind ups.

I also think Midras basically vindicated all my suspicions. The fact they set your mind on parry (by flat out telling you to do it against the lantern guys) before you even fight him just confirmed everything i ever said. And if i had to take a guess, i think the reason they expected you to use parry unlike their older games is an after effect of Sekiro. They even tried to include the Sekiro deflection somehow.

BTW, i was checking Ongbal and it seems my solution to the long combo in the second phase mirrors his (just circle around him), but i made it look better by rolling after his combo in reverse where as he just keeps his distance:



I've seen a few other videos from other guys and they all run away when he raises his sword and knife. Guess i was being clever after all lol.

I mean it's kinda useless since once you side step the start up of the combo you can just watch him spazz out of the way from a distance, but the way i did it looks better.

 

[Lyric Suite]

BTW, while i was looking at the above this shit came up on my feed:



Well, ok then. A whole channel devoted to just killing Isshin, every day.

I thought i had seen all forms of autism associated with those games but i have never seen anything like this.

 

[Multidirectional]

Would i feel something similar if i was doing all the DMC style crap that guy is doing in that video?

You wouldn't be able to do it. You posted a video of some mega tryhard who intentionally gimped his character so he could spazz out with combos for longer. From the comments:

You do realize that I purposefully lower my damage, right? It's a playstyle preference of mine. If I built like most players, then enemies would die too quickly for me to have fun.

Of course, a combo tryhard video of Sekiro is no way a proof that the game is "flashy animu crap", but a similar video of Nioh 2 is just the proof you need that you would hate all these other games you have no experience with. Lord and savior Myazaki, please deliver us from animu crap.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Lord and savior Myazaki, please deliver us from animu crap.

Well, he would have if their games had any actual influence in the Japanese industry but by and large they didn't. Nioh is inspired by Souls to a degree but for the most part FromSoft only managed to produce low budget mostly indie clones. I suspect creative stagnation has a lot to do with it. If you look at all the major Japanese publishers they are all busy reashing worn out franchises.

As for hating those other games, i wouldn't necessarily. I'm actually pretty open minded and i have no issues giving anything a "chance" on its own terms (i still plan to play Nioh 2 for the record). I just have a problem overcoming the initial resistance if there's something that is immediatly off putting about a game (like all the silly crap in DMC).

BTW, can anybody point me out proper videos that showcase the best of those various games and their combat system? Because everytime i search for something, and post it here i'm told that's not an actual valid rapresentation.

 

[Multidirectional]

I just have a problem overcoming the initial resistance if there's something that is immediatly off putting about a game (like all the silly crap in DMC).

You are not some special snowflake in that regard. I wasn't enticed to play these games from seeing videos either. But I eventually played them and saw how much fun I was actually having these combat systems. That's why watching videos is pointless in this regard. If it's a type of game you've never played you won't know if you like it until you played it. And people who post these videos are generally the type who want to show off how good they got at the game, those are the videos that tend to be more viewed and uprated. Look at your own Sekiro videos as an example. Did you post videos of average run of the boss, or did you tryhard over and over until you got an attempt that looked "good enough"? I'm not even going to bother searching for video that shows off what it's like to play it for regular Joe, just play and find out for yourself. Plus in Nioh 2 there are so many different builds you can do that a lot of these videos confuse the fuck even out of me, who has 500+ hours in it. And this is another thing I appreciate about it - skill ceiling. After so many hours in it I still feel like improving and discovering new shit, whereas in Sekiro I was close to being as good as I'll ever get after a single run.

 

[Ezekiel]

Disagree. You can figure a lot out from a video. I've watched videos, been told that I shouldn't comment because I hadn't played it and then had my criticisms confirmed when I actually did play it.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Well, it goes without saying people are only putting their best take on youtube, but i'm not sure why that should be a problem in terms of getting a sense of how the combat system plays out, especially at high level.

 

[Anonona]

BTW, can anybody point me out proper videos that showcase the best of those various games and their combat system? Because everytime i search for something, and post it here i'm told that's not an actual valid rapresentation.

Hard to do, to be honest, because is hard to grasp how complicated or smart what the player is doing without understanding the game itself. I guess Donguri990 is probably the equivalent of Ongway for DMC and other action games. He focus mainly on combo videos, but also has some no damage runs and S rank runs of missions both of new and old action games, from DMC to Sekiro. Guess you can look around his channel a bit.

Just be warned that he sometimes uses modded versions of games and has spoilers there, so watch at your own discretion.

Also I think Multidirectional may be right in regards that is not really possible to grasp the quality of gameplay by watching alone, just the general gist or style of the game at best. As you value enemy complexity the most, showing a video of a pro player will be mostly about him using their skills to shutdown the boss and kill it fast, just like the Sekiro video I posted, without mentioning that without experience is hard to tell why he did certain things and how the player predicts what the boss is going to do (for example, in the video you posted of Nioh, a lot of what the players does have purpose beyond mere combos, instead serve to keep pressure or dodge as he attacks among other things.)

Is like watching a parry video of ER without having played, is hard to grasp how difficult it truly is just by watching or why the player may decide to parry certain hits or not. For example, the video of Ongway he walks backwards after every succesful parry, instead of chaining the parries. If someone hasn't done that fight, they may not know that the boss has an attack too fast to parry that has a random chance to use after being parried, so is hard to appreciate how something as simple as walking is actually a smart move.