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

[Hell Swarm]

That is explicitly a very bad thing. If a game is designed that way its no longer a game but a movie that pauses every few seconds. It defeats the whole purpose and goes directly against the mediums strengths and emphasizes its weakest points.

I think you're arguing something different to what demon meant. Some of the best games ever made are linear games and they still have a lot of player expression and work well with the medium's strengths. A linear game would be something that isn't open world rather than a game on rails. Devil may cry, Halo, Doom are all linear games. The hallway simulator genre where they're glorified movies are also linear but they're linear in a different way and generally get called something else.

I like people comparing FF13 to Elden ring because both have the same problem. Their exploration is entirely visual and the presentation is top notch but everything else is scarified for it. FF13 maybe more on rails but the developer focus was woefully off target in terms of making the most of the medium. Riding torrent across an empty field with spooky grave stones may as well be a screeensaver for all the engagement it has.

The problem with early Soulslike design is that you sometimes felt like you were headbutting a brick wall over and over again as your progress is blocked until you beat certain bosses. Elden Ring isn't perfect but at least there are either ways around bosses causing you trouble or you can easily just go and do something else and come back when you've levelled up a bit.

I've never found any souls boss gatekeep anything as hard as Elden ring's final boss rush. Dark souls 3 DLC bosses can be quite nasty but Maliketh is in a league of his own. I think the DLC patched his AI some what. Fighting him recently I noticed he does a bit less of the bullshit like attacking through pillars. He still can but it's nothing like it was.

 

[Silverfish]

That is explicitly a very bad thing. If a game is designed that way its no longer a game but a movie that pauses every few seconds. It defeats the whole purpose and goes directly against the mediums strengths and emphasizes its weakest points.

No, trimming fat is always appreciated. An eight hour game with only fun parts is always superior to a fifty hour game with a bunch of boring stuff in between the fun.

 

[Dark Souls II]

You will never be Dark Souls II. You have no real PVP, you have no atmosphere, you have no varied and interesting level design. You are a normie game twisted by the decision to pander to western AAA audience into a crude mockery of game design perfection. All the “validation” you get is two-faced and half-hearted. Behind your back people mock you. Your players are disgusted and ashamed of you, your “fans” laugh at your ghoulish appearance behind closed doors. Real gamers are utterly repulsed by you. Thousands of years of evolution have allowed gamers to sniff out goyslop with incredible efficiency. Even aspects of Elden Ring taken from Dark Souls II look uncanny and unnatural to real gamers. Your PVP is a dead giveaway. And even if you manage to get a gamer to pirate you, he’ll turn tail and bolt the second he gets a whiff of your generic, soulless open world full of uninspired and reused enemies.

 

[Hell Swarm]

You will never be Dark Souls II. You have no real PVP, you have no atmosphere, you have no varied and interesting level design. You are a normalfag game twisted by the decision to pander to transexual speedrunners into a crude mockery of game design perfection. All the “validation” you get is two-faced and half-hearted. Behind your back people mock you. Your players are disgusting and ashamed to play you, your “fans” laugh at your broken hit boxes behind closed doors. Real k***hts are utterly repulsed by you. Thousands of years of evolution have allowed dex players to sniff out goyslop with incredible efficiency. Even aspects of Elden Ring taken from Demon's souls look uncanny and recycledl to Dragon Bone Smashers. Your boss fights are a dead giveaway. And even if you manage to get a lonely incel virgin to pirate you, he’ll turn tail and bolt the second he gets a whiff of your generic, soulless open world full of uninspired and reused enemies.

Fixed it for you.

 

[Hell Swarm]

1st thing is actually interesting and it's weird it was cut as the game is so bare bones already

last thing.. also interesting. If you beat Radahn it triggers a flag to make the DLC more difficult in future play throughs. So you enter NG+ after beating him enemies get a 12% damage and defense buff in the DLC in your NG+. Doesn't change the base game, just the DLC. So basically beating Radahn gives you an extra hard DLC in NG+s

 

[Dark Souls II]

You will never be Dark Souls II. You have no real PVP, you have no atmosphere, you have no varied and interesting level design. You are a normalfag game twisted by the decision to pander to transexual speedrunners into a crude mockery of game design perfection. All the “validation” you get is two-faced and half-hearted. Behind your back people mock you. Your players are disgusting and ashamed to play you, your “fans” laugh at your broken hit boxes behind closed doors. Real k***hts are utterly repulsed by you. Thousands of years of evolution have allowed dex players to sniff out goyslop with incredible efficiency. Even aspects of Elden Ring taken from Demon's souls look uncanny and recycledl to Dragon Bone Smashers. Your boss fights are a dead giveaway. And even if you manage to get a lonely incel virgin to pirate you, he’ll turn tail and bolt the second he gets a whiff of your generic, soulless open world full of uninspired and reused enemies.

Fixed it for you.

Thank you, I know it wasn't very accurate because I have never played a second of Elden Ring in my life

 

[Max Damage]

1st try double KO

 

[Max Damage]

This game's kinda fun when you're beating stupid shit with your own stupid shit, I just wish there was way less stumbling on yet another filler dungeon with filler boss that drops another useless filler summon or whatever, it's baffling how bad exploration in this game is compared to any Souls game.

 

[Haplo]

That is explicitly a very bad thing. If a game is designed that way its no longer a game but a movie that pauses every few seconds. It defeats the whole purpose and goes directly against the mediums strengths and emphasizes its weakest points.

No, trimming fat is always appreciated. An eight hour game with only fun parts is always superior to a fifty hour game with a bunch of boring stuff in between the fun.

Going through corridors and watching cutscenes is not my definition of fun. Not even close.

Of course, there are lots of games in between, with level after level to explore and beat - and those are usually the best I guess.

 

[Hell Swarm]

That is explicitly a very bad thing. If a game is designed that way its no longer a game but a movie that pauses every few seconds. It defeats the whole purpose and goes directly against the mediums strengths and emphasizes its weakest points.

No, trimming fat is always appreciated. An eight hour game with only fun parts is always superior to a fifty hour game with a bunch of boring stuff in between the fun.

Going through corridors and watching cutscenes is not my definition of fun. Not even close.

Of course, there are lots of games in between, with level after level to explore and beat - and those are usually the best I guess.

All the best games are like that. 5 minutes of skippable cut scenes between an hour or 2 of gameplay is about the right balance. It's actually the same balance From games used to have where the boss cut scenes were paced similarly to other action games unless you got really stuck some where. It sounds weird but early From were so good at pacing games they managed to pace a toxic dart guy making you reach firelight just as you were about to die so you could find the bonfire was out. It takes a lot of skill to pace things that tightly and they did it because they knew it enhanced the experience in ways nothing else could. It's a classic moment in gaming and it must have taken ages to get it just right the way it does.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Lol, my God how did FromSoft make feel sad for a plant:



This poor thing was trying so hard towards the end, why did i have to kill it.

Fourth main boss down, so far only the first (Dancing Lion) felt like it would be rage inducing. This guy didn't seem to have anything too unfair, and neither did the Putrescence thing. Rellana too wasn't too hard in her second phase, or at least i didn't feel her magic attacks were "bullshit" (even the one where she throws those magic arcs is easily to dodge once you get the timing).

I'm getting the feeling they blew their load with the Dancing Lion and there's not gonna be anything majorly rage inducing until Radahn.

 

[Lyric Suite]

That is explicitly a very bad thing. If a game is designed that way its no longer a game but a movie that pauses every few seconds. It defeats the whole purpose and goes directly against the mediums strengths and emphasizes its weakest points.

No, trimming fat is always appreciated. An eight hour game with only fun parts is always superior to a fifty hour game with a bunch of boring stuff in between the fun.

Going through corridors and watching cutscenes is not my definition of fun. Not even close.

Of course, there are lots of games in between, with level after level to explore and beat - and those are usually the best I guess.

I'm gonna say it since nobody will: Elden Ring's open world, as "empty" and uneventful that it may feel like, is vastly preferable to those mid 2000s "corridor" games where you literally can only move in one direction: forward. The overall map alone in the DLC is a masterclass in level design that reminds me of how the world was designed in DS1 (though it's not quite to that level and the individual areas of course are often just open landscapes).

Despite open world throwing a monkey wrench on what made Souls level design so great, there's still a lot of cleverness in how the areas are designed, you still need navigational skills to make sense of where you are at and where you are going, and you still have to deal with the complexity of choice, or where to go, when to backtrack etc. Corridor games are the most braindead thing imaginable.

 

[Stoned Ape]

I'm getting the feeling they blew their load with the Dancing Lion and there's not gonna be anything majorly rage inducing until Radahn.

There is one boss that I found far more annoying than Radahn. He is optional and just gives access to a small area with a bunch of ski-doo blessings when you kill him.

 

[Silverfish]

Going through corridors and watching cutscenes is not my definition of fun. Not even close.

Depends on what's in the corridors.

I'm gonna say it since nobody will: Elden Ring's open world, as "empty" and uneventful that it may feel like, is vastly preferable to those mid 2000s "corridor" games where you literally can only move in one direction: forward.

A five hour game that cuts out all the extraneous stuff and keeps to the fun bits will always be superior to a fifty hour game where you go hours in between the fun bits.

 

[Lyric Suite]

A five hour game that cuts out all the extraneous stuff and keeps to the fun bits will always be superior to a fifty hour game where you go hours in between the fun bits.

The "extranous stuff" is the shit that makes games great you mongoloid.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Go back to your containment thread. You're being retarded again Lyric. You might like being bored riding round a field but no one else does.

 

[Max Damage]

I don't know why I bothered returning to Elden Ring, level and encounter design is so dumbed down that it's hard to believe same company made Dark Souls. Generic crypts have same copypasted stone imps and traps, but do bigger dungeons spice it up in any meaningful way? No, here's copypasted ant cave, then copypasted stone man cave. Yesterday it was copypasted wizard area and copypasted mimic area (after area of copypasted spirit hunters that you already slained full cave worth). Add in a couple spastic overdesigned giant enemies somewhere in the middle, cap it off with a boss (mostly copypasted too), here's your adventure wrapped in stale Bethesda/Ubisoft open world treadmill. It's been a long while since I witnessed decline so steep and shocking, fuck Fromsoft.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Go back to your containment thread. You're being retarded again Lyric. You might like being bored riding round a field but no one else does.

This thread has gone massively to shit since you showed up maybe you should sit this one out, figgit.

Level design, even in its most padded or diluted form, will always be superior to zero level design, which is the defining characteristic of a "corridor" game. The smallest Elden Ring cave is more interesting than the entirety of any of those dumbed down retardations. The second a game forces you to think of where you are and what's around you, even for the briefest of moments, it's already better than a game where you are basically on autopilot the whole time, barely even registering the enviorments around you because you know there's nothing there. It's basically like a theme park ride, a slideshow of pretty pictures you aren't paying attention to because it's just background decoration.

 

[Strange Fellow]

I don't know why I bothered returning to Elden Ring, level and encounter design is so dumbed down that it's hard to believe same company made Dark Souls. Generic crypts have same copypasted stone imps and traps, but do bigger dungeons spice it up in any meaningful way? No, here's copypasted ant cave, then copypasted stone man cave. Yesterday it was copypasted wizard area and copypasted mimic area (after area of copypasted spirit hunters that you already slained full cave worth). Add in a couple spastic overdesigned giant enemies somewhere in the middle, cap it off with a boss (mostly copypasted too), here's your adventure wrapped in stale Bethesda/Ubisoft open world treadmill. It's been a long while since I witnessed decline so steep and shocking, fuck Fromsoft.

If that's how you feel you might as well skip the open world bits, and look up what you've missed after going through the legacy dungeon of each area. I can't imagine those won't be worth your while if you like the Souls games, even if the rest isn't.

 

[Lyric Suite]

5 minutes of skippable cut scenes between an hour or 2 of gameplay is about the right balance.

Games are better the less cutscenes they have.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I don't know why I bothered returning to Elden Ring, level and encounter design is so dumbed down that it's hard to believe same company made Dark Souls. Generic crypts have same copypasted stone imps and traps, but do bigger dungeons spice it up in any meaningful way? No, here's copypasted ant cave, then copypasted stone man cave. Yesterday it was copypasted wizard area and copypasted mimic area (after area of copypasted spirit hunters that you already slained full cave worth). Add in a couple spastic overdesigned giant enemies somewhere in the middle, cap it off with a boss (mostly copypasted too), here's your adventure wrapped in stale Bethesda/Ubisoft open world treadmill. It's been a long while since I witnessed decline so steep and shocking, fuck Fromsoft.

Would you feel the same way if the assets were always different but the structure remained unchanged?

 

[Max Damage]

Nope, the design is lazy at its core, even combat feels brainless and boring because you barely have to care about who you fight. Enemies have more moves than ever before, but most of time there's no group synergy that you have to solve, the environments also don't allow for any creative ambushes or threat from distance, you just mash out your usual attacks and move on. Pretty sure even macro bot could finish this game, you even get flask refills after wiping each individual group. Elden Ring is like caricature of DS3.

 

[Silverfish]

The "extranous stuff" is the shit that makes games great you mongoloid.

Riding around on a horse to get from point A to point B doesn't make any game great. Unless it's a horse racing game.

maybe you should sit this one out, figgit.

Pretty sure Swarm can handle being called a faggot. No need to reddit it up.

 

[Hell Swarm]

This thread has gone massively to shit since you showed up maybe you should sit this one out, figgit.

Feel free to leave it and don't come back then. You had to get a containment thread because no one wanted you posting your play through here lol.

It's basically like a theme park ride, a slideshow of pretty pictures you aren't paying attention to because it's just background decoration.

You just described the majority of elden ring.

Pretty sure Swarm can handle being called a faggot. No need to reddit it up.

Being called a faggot by him means you're doing something right.

It's sad I've just started Nioh and immediately saw how much better it is than From's slop. Enemies in Nioh will attack you when you rush them. It's not safe to immediately jump on an enemy and start swinging like you can to every enemy in From games. You have to pay attention to their stance and weapon to know if it's risky or not.. While Elden ring every enemy that isn't a poise abusing damage sponge will let you run up and stun lock them with zero risk

 

[Spike]

Lyric brings up good points about Elden Ring but the execution just isn't there. In vanilla especially it just drags ooooon and oooooooon and on.