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

[mkultra]

Love it how the dragon fucks around with you first psychologically, then viscerally.

Such a fucking shill preview.

"Extraordinary looking!"
No it isn't. Each to his own when it comes to art ofc, but pretending it's next-gen like he does, it truly isn't. On the tech side it's very similar to Skyrim (2011), when it comes to lighting/shaders. It does one or two things better from what i've seen, some things worse (in Skyrim grass LODs etc will fade in for example, this makes pop-ups more subtle than here where the higher detail models pops in from nowhere).

"Emblematic experience, a defining moment!", "he takes on an intelligence that other open world games just doesn't have!"
Amazing! So what does he describe? A dragon that can see him, and walks towards him. How the fuck is that emblematic, how is it intelligence that other open world games doesn't have? Yes, he's free to think dragons are cool and all that but this is clearly shilling.

"Does things better than 95% of all other open world games!"
Yet he never explains what. Imo, the game is too "gamey" to really take advantage of an open world so-called immersive setting. It does not do things better than Skyrim or whatever, that game would not work as a linear / hub experience while their games can, even this game - it would remove very little from the actual mechanics or gameplay, while for e.g Skyrim it just couldn't work, you would not recognize it.

He describes everything like it's never been done before:

You can avoid doing things in the open world.
If you sneak and are in tall grass enemies will not see you.
You can sneak up and backstab an enemy.
Enemies can sound an alarm.
Enemies will stop pursuing you after a while if you run from them.

He goes on saying he saw big birds. He thought they were enemies but portrays it as being amazed that no, they were just birds you can kill for resources. Come on now.

Here i stopped watching.. we've had this in open world games for the last 20 years or so.

The game does NOT do open world better than 95%.. It's such BS. It doesn't even have swimming or diving like most full fledged open world games including latest assassins creeds. Fall damage seems utterly retarded as well. A step in a more casual direction where you never need to be afraid to die from heights (personally i love that thrill from heights, it's a great gameplay element, simplistic yes but it does add additional danger/thrills).

 

[Sentinel]

Love it how the dragon fucks around with you first psychologically, then viscerally.

Such a fucking shill preview.

"Extraordinary looking!"
No it isn't. Each to his own when it comes to art ofc, but pretending it's next-gen like he does, it truly isn't. On the tech side it's very similar to Skyrim (2011), when it comes to lighting/shaders. It does one or two things better from what i've seen, some things worse (in Skyrim grass LODs etc will fade in for example, this makes pop-ups more subtle than here where the higher detail models pops in from nowhere).

"Emblematic experience, a defining moment!", "he takes on an intelligence that other open world games just doesn't have!"
Amazing! So what does he describe? A dragon that can see him, and walks towards him. How the fuck is that emblematic, how is it intelligence that other open world games doesn't have? Yes, he's free to think dragons are cool and all that but this is clearly shilling.

"Does things better than 95% of all other open world games!"
Yet he never explains what. Imo, the game is too "gamey" to really take advantage of an open world so-called immersive setting. It does not do things better than Skyrim or whatever, that game would not work as a linear / hub experience while their games can, even this game - it would remove very little from the actual mechanics or gameplay, while for e.g Skyrim it just couldn't work, you would not recognize it.

He describes everything like it's never been done before:

You can avoid doing things in the open world.
If you sneak and are in tall grass enemies will not see you.
You can sneak up and backstab an enemy.
Enemies can sound an alarm.
Enemies will stop pursuing you after a while if you run from them.

Here i stopped watching.. we've had this in open world games for the last 20 years or so.

The game does NOT do open world better than 95%.. It's such BS. It doesn't even have swimming or diving like most full fledged open world games including latest assassins creeds. Fall damage seems utterly retarded as well. A step in a more casual direction where you never need to be afraid to die from heights (personally i love that thrill from heights, it's a great gameplay element, simplistic yes but it does add additional danger/thrills).

Nooooooo stop you can't just take apart a paid shill's rhetoric you must believe them and get excited to consoom call of d- i mean dark so- i mean elden ring

 

[Hassar]

Love it how the dragon fucks around with you first psychologically, then viscerally.

Such a fucking shill preview.

"Extraordinary looking!"
No it isn't. Each to his own when it comes to art ofc, but pretending it's next-gen like he does, it truly isn't. On the tech side it's very similar to Skyrim (2011), when it comes to lighting/shaders. It does one or two things better from what i've seen, some things worse (in Skyrim grass LODs etc will fade in for example, this makes pop-ups more subtle than here where the higher detail models pops in from nowhere).

"Emblematic experience, a defining moment!", "he takes on an intelligence that other open world games just doesn't have!"
Amazing! So what does he describe? A dragon that can see him, and walks towards him. How the fuck is that emblematic, how is it intelligence that other open world games doesn't have? Yes, he's free to think dragons are cool and all that but this is clearly shilling.

"Does things better than 95% of all other open world games!"
Yet he never explains what. Imo, the game is too "gamey" to really take advantage of an open world so-called immersive setting. It does not do things better than Skyrim or whatever, that game would not work as a linear / hub experience while their games can, even this game - it would remove very little from the actual mechanics or gameplay, while for e.g Skyrim it just couldn't work, you would not recognize it.

He describes everything like it's never been done before:

You can avoid doing things in the open world.
If you sneak and are in tall grass enemies will not see you.
You can sneak up and backstab an enemy.
Enemies can sound an alarm.
Enemies will stop pursuing you after a while if you run from them.

Here i stopped watching.. we've had this in open world games for the last 20 years or so.

The game does NOT do open world better than 95%.. It's such BS. It doesn't even have swimming or diving like most full fledged open world games including latest assassins creeds. Fall damage seems utterly retarded as well. A step in a more casual direction where you never need to be afraid to die from heights (personally i love that thrill from heights, it's a great gameplay element, simplistic yes but it does add additional danger/thrills).

We definitely don’t need reviewers hyping up games like journos. I’d want to hear from YouTubers breaking down the art style, hitbox detection, animation, etc. - i.e. things that require knowledge and deep critical analysis rather than just reacting to a shiny new toy. I think I found one YouTuber who is an animator who broke down the jumping animations. Way more interesting than someone just talking about how they were hyped before even seeing anything and now trying to justify their excitement and advance copy with fatuous claims.

The game is not next gen - I don’t think From really cares about developing next gen systems or taking full advantage of next gen hardware. Miyazaki has always focused on a design philosophy. Throwing the next gen term in the review demonstrates that that YouTuber hasn’t thought about what the term means.

Honestly, I don’t think most designers are capable of executing open world that well. That approach seems to require a simulationist mindset balanced with a new approach to AI and emergent storytelling. Not sure there is anything in the current trailers showing an “open world” as such - they all just seem to show large, open fields with occasional NPCs and enemies. I haven’t seen any complex character interactions and even the boss animations are scripted. It looks more like an MMO than an open world game.

But we wouldn’t know. Because most YTers (in their new roles as temporary/seasonal marketing assistants) are tripping over themselves gushing and trying to convince us to preorder rather than discussing what open world ‘is’ and how ES achieves that.

 

[Egosphere]

Moving around in full plate with enemies unseeing you because "crouch" is a new low for the industry.

Perhaps From should have gated the various abilities among the different classes. One class can summon phantoms, another can sneak, the warrior has access to unique weapon arts, another has a cooler horse etc. Then you could have some unique content as reward - a place with a one-off encounter if you sneak inside rather that fight your way into it, and so on.

 

[Hassar]

Moving around in full plate with enemies unseeing you because "crouch" is a new low for the industry.

Perhaps From should have gated the various abilities among the different classes. One class can summon phantoms, another can sneak, the warrior has access to unique weapon arts, another has a cooler horse etc. Then you could have some unique content as reward - a place with a one-off encounter if you sneak inside rather that fight your way into it, and so on.

I don’t think skill gates work that well and I tended to dislike the content gates locking skills behind covenants in other Souls games.

I think the comment was really about how the crouch/stealth system is a regression making it questionable why it was even shown off as some sort of new feature. It’s an awkward thing to show off since it suggests that armor type may have minimal effect on enemy detection. After all, the choice of armor is/was a tactical choice. If you wanted to be stealthy, you’d wear something less noisy like leather, cloth/padding, etc. and use the environment in a deeper way than just crouching in grass. That worked for Horizon Zero Dawn because the main protagonist was a woodsman-type who wore nonmetallic armor. Sneaking around in metal armor near light sources that close to enemies is very “gamey” in that it is a “touch button for invisibility within limits”-type thing. The inference is that the stealth and armor systems aren’t particularly dynamic.

 

[Delterius]

Moving around in full plate with enemies unseeing you because "crouch" is a new low for the industry.

New?

 

[mkultra]

Honestly, I don’t think most designers are capable of executing open world that well. That approach seems to require a simulationist mindset balanced with a new approach to AI and emergent storytelling. Not sure there is anything in the current trailers showing an “open world” as such - they all just seem to show large, open fields with occasional NPCs and enemies. I haven’t seen any complex character interactions and even the boss animations are scripted. It looks more like an MMO than an open world game.

Yes. I guess playing Ultima 7 II (first real open world game i played) has put me in a certain mindset when it comes to "open world". If it doesn't have for example NPC schedules, then i don't think they have a good understanding for it..

if you just treat open world as a more open play area then what's really the point? You can certainly do exploring in games that aren't big open world games, the DS games has secrets, exploring and so forth and you don't need "useless" travel.

Does this game have factions you can join, fight other factions etc? I doubt it. To me this just seems like a more open play area than the previous games. You can sneak in tall grass, ok, at least one addition. This feels like they're jumping on the open world train (because it's what people expect) and not because they really have any exceptional ideas of how to improve their games or open world games overall.

It's sad to see how many thumbs up the ShillUp video has... if people seriously are as amazed as him that they can kill animals for resources (he's amazed that the big birds weren't enemies, but birds he could kill for resources for crafting.. wow certainly better than "95%" of all other open world games lol ) - then i guess there's a ton of people who are totally new to open world games.

 

[Perkel]

Great preview going deep into mechanics, design and so on. Clearly ED seems like combination of everything they worked on before but on massive scale. Power stancing, DS1 poise, a lot more animations per weapons and so on.

Hype.

 

[toughasnails]

All the whining about graphics is p ridiculous tbh. You want to say that the the open world game releasing on last gen systems, that was developed for a long time for those last gen systems, doesn't look as good as the titles built from the grounds up for the next gen? YOU DON'T SAY???
You knew how long this game was in development and what systems it will be released on so don't play dumb now.
And it looks perfectly fine when seen in the right context. Artistically it continues DS3's direction which is fine by me as I think that DS3 was a beautiful game. It's about the same level of fidelity from what I can see given that, unlike DS3, this is an open world game with huge areas in which you can move p fast.

 

[mkultra]

All the whining about graphics is p ridiculous tbh. You want to say that the the open world game releasing on last gen systems, that was developed for a long time for those last gen systems, doesn't look as good as the titles built from the grounds up for the next gen? YOU DON'T SAY???
You knew how long this game was in development and what systems it will be released on so don't play dumb now.
And it looks perfectly fine when seen in the right context. Artistically it continues DS3's direction which is fine by me as I think that DS3 was a beautiful game. It's about the same level of fidelity from what I can see given that, unlike DS3, this is an open world game with huge areas in which you can move p fast.

Personally i'm more annoyed with people portraying it as looking next gen when it's clearly not, i have no bigger problem about how it looks. But i don't think we need to be too apologetic or act like fanboys either, it's not helpful other than for shilling purposes.

Skyrim was developed in 2008, released in 2011, 100 people worked on it (FromSoftware are 300 people, not sure how many works on this game, but it must be at least as many.) Skyrim looks about as good as this game, with some exceptions or additions (Skyrim also has more NPC's roaming around the world, more AI is going on constantly i would argue, which is CPU heavy, that game is also very interactive, you can toss almost any objects etc - so physics is probably more advanced as well). This game should look better even if it was developed for last gen consoles, with less AI and less physics (more power can go to graphics) + one generation of consoles ahead which means a tremendous step up in terms of power.

 

[hackncrazy]

The most curious part for me so far, is that if you take a screenshot from this game and swap it with Dark Souls 3 hud (which is 90% similar btw), it's hard to know which game you're looking at.

Hell, if someone said to me that this was a mod for DS3 I'd believe it.

All this rambling apart, I'm still hopeful it will be a nice game. From Software never had top of the industry graphics or anything, but in terms of atmosphere, boss fights and world building they always delivered good stuff.

Sadly, I don't think they'll ever make anything as good as Bloodborne.

 

[Silva]

All this rambling apart, I'm still hopeful it will be a nice game. From Software never had top of the industry graphics or anything, but in terms of atmosphere, boss fights and world building they always delivered good stuff.

Sadly, I don't think they'll ever make anything as good as Bloodborne.

Yeah, no one doubts the game will be good, because From. But will it be a new classic like DeS/DS1/BB/Sek, or another low-effort shit like DS2/DS3 ? This is the question.

 

[Black Angel]

Fortunately for me I have a good memory, I do remember having this discussion about stealth in the Sekiro thread
I had even posted a video proving my point, but apparently has been deleted from the site's servers (in any case you conceded this point in the following page, stating that the system was good in " *context* of Fromsoft's games")

I stand corrected here. However, do note that you only post that video (I forgot what's the content of it to make me reply that way) after I brought up the stealth mechanic, and I brought it up because I didn't see people at least acknowledging it (and instead, as aforementioned, the comments saying using stealth in Sekiro is basically LARPing).

It's quite funny reading past posts like these
You can see in them that generally when anyone brings up the fundamental flaws of Sekiro's combat design, you resort to that inane "every game is actually form of rhythm game lol" instead of arguing against the actual points people make

Except I already did, and yet people keep on repeating the rhythm game drivel.

Also you usually follow that with the: "Sekiro has depth because you can parry/dodge/jump-doge/mikiri/combat art/fist your opponent"
Again ignoring the arguments made that these things the way they are designed don't really enchance the experience properly

What, these?

Alrigth for starters, I don't think Sekiro is a bad game. It's nice and fun - sure is better than dynasty warriors and the others you mentioned.
But it's honestely I belive it's the weakest one From has put out in these 10 last years.
And if they want to go in this direction (more action oriented titles), they need to work on a lot of stuff.

Sekiro is admittedly a hard game to critique, because everything here is functional (on paper).
But once I get down with the combat, there's something there that it frankly feels off.
So I'll explain things the best I can.

Action games are all about giving you tools to succeed and requiring you to effectively read their opponents and react.
Unfortunately Sekiro in my eyes fails in both parts.

The PC is the slowest attacking character on the field. Enemies are able to dodge you, interrupt your attacks and their combos are longer and more damaging. Given the speed of enemies, there should be some sort of canceling animations in this game. If an enemy begins their attack while you are attacking, most of the time you’re going to be the one taking damage.

Regarding the three defenses: parrying, dodging, and jumping.
As you know they are used to counter specific attacks - for the most part (will talk about later)...
The problem is that it’s impossible on instinct/reaction to read what defense to use when. This isn’t a game where just looking at the enemy tells you what attacks to expect.
Enemy attack animations are fast, and similar to Soulsborne titles, the same starting attack animation can lead into different combo patterns.
Does this attack require parrying, or is it a jump? You’re not going to be able to answer this in the first few tries.

This is something that then intensifies to that prevaling issue of beating the enemies by memorization.

In fact, the game feels very mechanical.
Enemies seem to be designed to block all your attacks except those specifically designed to kill them - i.e., if an enemy can only be defeated by counter slashing, then that’s it.
The only way to win is to know ahead of time what attack the enemy performs and how to counter them. There's no room for experiementation or improvisation, the whole thing appears to be about performing a sequence of X maneuvers perfectly - like a choreography.
You can even see this in how weirdly limited/specific in use most tools and moves are.

Enemies also give me the feeling of having less attack patterns compared to the Souls series - if this is the case than it probably is to compensate for the fact that the player has to read the patterns more closely and because of the overall increased enemy number.
The design difference between Sekiro and Soulborne titles comes down to this - in previous games, a boss fight was dependent on both the enemy and your own build; here, the only thing that matters is the boss patterns itself and not the player.

Action games have to be designed around a tug of war between player and enemy.
Problems arise when the game is not consistent in its rules and how the mechanics work from battle to battle. A notion which Sekiro has no problems in ignoring
Giving of some examples of my playtrogh: the thrust attack that’s supposed to always cause damage on block doesn’t always work on bosses; sometimes, even their normal attacks would go through my block, and then a minute later the block would hold; there were cases where even dodging at the right time to avoid an attack I was still hit; I also noticed cases where the speed at which posture reduces changed, regardless if I was holding block or not.

And finally speaking of stealth.
No it doesn't let you properly sneak your way through the levels and enemies.
Just the fact that enemies can spot you a mile away if you’re standing up, but can calmly walk around them while crouching is bad enough. But once an enemy spots you, all enemies in the area know where you are. Even if you break line of sight, they can still find your position (not even Oblivion did that man).
The stealth should have been more developed, considering how much it is a core gameplay system.

Man, oh, man, I've never see someone being so absolutely fucking wrong, it's not even funny. Dragon's Dogma? Better melee combat than Sekiro? Really?

Yeah.
Sure the combat migth not have the satisfying feel to it like Sekiro, and to be honest it's combat is not as difficult to master. But it does have: a conisderable amount of well designed mechanics that all inter-link with each other; a large variety of techniques that allow for multiple distinct playstyles; a very good enemy rooster that supports all those playstyles; none of the problems mentioned above.

After reading it again, I'm wondering why I didn't reply to it. Now that I get down to actually try reading it, I have to say.... for a shitload of wall of text, you have very little of value to say (oh well, this is the Codex, I guess). Especially the part that I bolded above, because other than not really saying anything other than seemingly for the sake of saying something, I'm questioning whether you've been paying attention to the game you're playing or not. Further elaboration will be in the actual Sekiro thread instead

except with Sekiro there's a whole lot more than simple deflect/parryable attacks so you also have to jump, dodge, Mikiri, maybe use the prosthetic tools or combat arts

See...

 

[Egosphere]

I don’t think skill gates work that well and I tended to dislike the content gates locking skills behind covenants in other Souls games.

I think the comment was really about how the crouch/stealth system is a regression making it questionable why it was even shown off as some sort of new feature. It’s an awkward thing to show off since it suggests that armor type may have minimal effect on enemy detection.

If you locked it behind one class with the right stats (ie. little strength), it'd be harder for the player to wear heavy armour, since carry weight is tied to strength. That way you could theoretically still sneak around in giga-plate armour, but it would be heavily penalized since you'd need to dump all of your levels into str.

Either that, or just remove it entirely. It looks like DS, so let it play like DS - you either fight every mob or run past them.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

the game is too "gamey" t

Hahahaha

 

[Viata]

So, another dev that decided to just release the same thing +1 and get easy money.
inb4 fanboys(are there any here?) mad

 

[toro]

It looks like multiple summons are only available around special rebirth monuments.

 

[Multidirectional]

All I needed was something that's better than Dark Souls III and this sure looks like it. I'll leave crying how it's not a masterpiece of creativity and innovation to the youngsters.

Too bad my gaypad started going to shit, so I would have to get a new one on top of the game. I guess I won't be playing it immediately after release.

 

[Matador]

the bad
- "body type A" and "body type B" nonsense instead of normal male and female options

Not like this.

 

[Tyranicon]

Sadly, I don't think they'll ever make anything as good as Bloodborne.

I've been waiting years for a Bloodborne sequel or something else from From that deals with cosmic horror.

Kind of a shame that of all the western devs that tried their hands at Lovecraftian horror, a Japanese studio manages to knock it out of the park.

 

[Alphard]

So, another dev that decided to just release the same thing +1 and get easy money.
inb4 fanboys(are there any here?) mad

i consider myself a DS fanboy and even to me the gameplay shown seems disappointing

 

[Cryomancer]

So, another dev that decided to just release the same thing +1 and get easy money.
inb4 fanboys(are there any here?) mad

At least is open world souls, not a generic wow clone.

I just wish that they implement cryomancy from convergence mod as default.

 

[Matador]

I'm avoiding spoiling my self watching videos from the network test.

Is it known how much of the game is in this demo?

 

[Whisper]

I'm avoiding spoiling my self watching videos from the network test.

Is it known how much of the game is in this demo?

Around 8%-10%.

 

[Villagkouras]

it's supposed to be a 100+ hrs long open world game...

Really? Any source on this?