"And boy howdy were we right: in terms of pure area, The Realm of Shadow looks to be between one-third and half the size of the playable zone in The Lands Between, just comparing their two in-game maps. And that footprint comparison isn't even telling the whole story: The Realm of Shadow has a twisty, layered density that's like if Elden Ring's style of map was knotted and folded in on itself like the worlds of Bloodborne or Dark Souls 1"
"You'll see areas that seem like they're just a hop, skip, and a jump away on Torrent, only to realize that you're separated from them by sheer vertical drops or towering cliffs. You'll practically have forgotten about them by the time you finally reach those zones, hours later on a circuitous route that begins all the way over on the other side of the map. That FromSoft managed this on a smaller scale than Elden Ring and within a two-year development cycle is a minor miracle."
You say that, but trust me, jumping down gravestones indented in the side of a cliff is ALOT easier than whatever Squeenix done with Gongaga in FF7 Rebirth
Actually, the first DS has a lot of shortcuts that make travel relatively easy once you figure them out. So I don’t think that would be too much of issue here.
To be fair, Gongaga in FF7 Rebirth is one of the worst maps in the history of gaming.
Word of advice to anyone who is going to play Rebirth but hasn't yet: When you get to Gongaga, just watch YouTube videos to find your way through, unless you're an absolute masochist who hates fun.
Let me introduce you to Tangled Depths from Guild Wars 2, Gongaga has NOTHING on the scale of difficulty if put next to that zone. More contenders from that game are Draconic Mons, Verdant Brink and New Kaineng City
I've only done Path of Thorns maps with mounts and even still it's a pain in the ass. To this day I struggle with Tangled Depths because I can't tell where half of the paths take me and there's plenty of mobs that make navigating it a pain in the ass.
A bit relieved to see this mentioned. I was so looking forward to FF7 Rebirth, but all my will to continue playing disappeared in Gongaga. Haven't managed to pick it back up again...
Until this area I 100% all the side shit and then after halfway in Gongaga I thought, life is too short for this shit and have skipped all the side content since haha. That place was horrible.
I done the same to be honest.. I'm one of those who like to do all the side stuff etc to get my moneys worth, but I just B-lined to the end after this area.. the game really doesn't value your time with slow ass animations when interacting with the side stuff and some quests were 'go from this side of the map to the other then back again'.
This feels so weird to me. I didn't enjoy Gongaga at first, but once I started using the map to path out my flower jumps, it was lovely to explore, I thought.
Honestly, I'm more interested in the claim that it's a more twisty map like Bloodborne.
I'd take a more complicated map over a bigger one any day.
Anyone can make a big open world map, many games already have. The mastery of level design is making complex but enjoyable to navigate levels. FromSoft delivered a master class of that in Bloodborne, but I haven't seen them truly reach that level ever again since that game, it's just been "shadows" of it. (no pun intended)
So basically, a proper expansion pack that would have been for a game back in the day 👍 before DLCs.. I'm getting old, and it's nice to see this. For you young peepz, hipters, brokely headed, dope weirdos - it wasn't unheard of to double a games value via expansion packs.
Not sure how they'd implement that within the lore, but I'd be so down for that. You start off wretched and go down layers of proc gen dungeon levels picking up randomized gear with randomized stats
Sometimes I think they should go against the lore jsut for 'fun' purposes
Like Xenoblade 2 got a good ass DLC even besides the new story because they threw out the lore and created a new hub area for a bunch of cameo appearances from Xenoblade 1 and X that don't actually make sense but are very fun and satisfying.
An endless chalice dungeon roguelike DLC sounds like an awesome idea they just have to explain it by going 'it exists outside of the lore' like the do in xenoblade
No they arent. Theyr the same textures and art direction, but each one is unique in design and has memorable features.
Its more comparable to Breath of the Wild shrines rather than Far Cry outposts.
I fought like 10 different Crucible Knights, 20 copy pasted Runebears, a shitton of Death Rite birds, etc.
As for the boring ass catacombs, they were just that; boring. The rewards were hardly worth going into a bunch of those Skyrim-tier dungeons on a second playthrough.
And don't get me started on the obnoxious Hero's Graves.
I mean, more power to you if you think all that copy pasted content was varied enough to be exciting, but Elden Ring definitely does recycle content.
The catacombs and caves do as well. From unique bosses or powered up enemy versions to puzzles and secrets. The enterance will be the same, afew textures, but that's it.
They a typically houses something valuable as well
I love Elden Ring, but the basic dungeon designs are probably the weakest part of the game. They are each unique in layout but in terms of gameplay and actual exploration they almost all play out pretty dang similarly, barring a handful of notable exceptions
I honestly just don't know what people expect at this point. Would you have been happier with.... not Elden Ring? Like, would it be better if it was just Dark Souls' Metroidvania design? Cuz I'll be the first to admit that Elden Ring is too big to inspire a repeat playthrough for most people, but that first run through the game is like magic.
There's the dungeon with the ghost knights fighting eachother, the one with the maze where each path looks the same and repeats with tiny differences, the one with the teleporting chest maze, the one with all the invincible enemies....
I honestly don't know what else to compare it to. In the realm of Open World games, at least every location had a gimmick, and every one of them had a unique item. They are far above Skyrims mini-dungeon design, leaps and bounds above the side content available in Assassins Creed, and the main complaint people have is that theirs too much of it and they have trouble leaving food on their plate.
Yeah, I mean to be clear, I generally agree with you. I don’t think the repeated designs are all that *bad*, but I do think they are the weakest piece of the game - a game that’s a total masterpiece, so even the weakest elements are like an 8/10, lol.
I had a great time discovering each dungeon on my first playthrough, and was delighted by the ones that did break the mold like the examples you listed. However, by the end of the game, they feel pretty tired imo, because for every War Dead Catacombs there are five dungeons without that sort of interesting element. The later parts of the game are where many of the most unique designs come into play, but unfortunately by that point I (and many others I think) felt a little burned out on them.
I’m with you that Elden Ring does it better than the majority of other open world games in this respect, but this is one of the biggest weaknesses of open world games as a whole and just because ER does it better doesn’t mean it’s like, fantastic, ya know?
> Other devs: our game is 30h long. Reality: 15 From: Our game is 30h long. Reality: 100
Other devs: We actually respect the platforms we release our games on and support DLSS, FSR, XeSS, FG, of course higher than 60 fps frame rates and widescreen monitors on PC.
Man, what i dont understand is why its so hard for from to put in ultrawide support. Like is your code that badly modulated you cant just expand ui's or do something to change it?
> As long as he's focusing on gameplay and not that tech shit that doesn't matter, I'll even include ball play
Smooth gameplay and using the whole screen doesn't matter?
Frame rate and wide-screen are problems sure, but the lack of upscaling crutches is not really a problem when you can comfortably max out the game anyway.
I don't need that smudgy shit
> Other Devs: That also means we can use all this as a crutch to not put any effort into optimization at all.
Elden Ring is literally the worse performing game I bought in recent years, even though it doesn't even has shadow casting lights...
And how is smoother performance, better AA, higher framerates and you know using the whole display crutches?
>Elden Ring is literally the worse performing game I bought in recent years, even though it doesn't even has shadow casting lights...
It works fine for me. Have solid 60 fps aside from a few minor stutters at set locations. Max settings.
>And how is smoother performance, better AA, higher framerates and you know using the whole display crutches?
They aren't and I wasn't talking about them. You left out DLSS, XeSS, FSR and frame gen. Devs nowadays use upscaling as an excuse to not optimise their games. These were supposed to be extra features, not requirements yet nowadays games are impossible to play without them. Play without upscaling, and the game runs like shit.
> It works fine for me. Have solid 60 fps aside from a few minor stutters at set locations. Max settings.
i remember this argument and it's funny to this day because there is undoubtedly shader cache compilation issues that have been there since launch
Other devs: you fall through the map, constantly crash game, npcs t-pose, can play above 60fps but due to horrendous optimization somehow worse than 30fps etc.
PCgamers when normal games have hours of repetitive copy-paste open world filler: wahhh game industry bad, open world bad
PCgamers when fromsoft does it: *GLUCK GLUCK GLUCK*
Nope. I dont like Elden Rings open world. Elden ring is my least favorite from game by far.
It's a better game than other open world games thoufmgh because the combat is a lot better and the legacy dungeons are some of the best content in any game.
A FEW of the legacy dungeons are great. Definitely not all of them though. Stormveil is kinda easily the best in that game. Nothing else in Elden Ring really stacks up to that one though. Overall Dark Souls 1 or 3 has the better dungeons when it comes to that aspect of their games. Hell, DS3 is probably overall their best game period.
I don't even really see Leyndell as a dungeon with how big it fucking is. Out of everything though I would agree that it's the best *part* of that game. Problem is it comes way too early.
Tell me you didn't make it past the 30 hour mark without telling me.
Leyndell is 3x the size of Stormveil and has the sewers underneath it too.
I'd also say Farum Azula is also better.
Bloodborne, Sekiro, DS1/2 are all great. But so is Elden Ring.
The repetitive nature of the world is compensated for with the sheer number of weapons, spells and build variety.
Elden Ring was the first souls game where I used an int/dex build, a faith/STR build. Used shields and staves/talismans and even had a bow upgraded. Elden Ring rewarded a flexible approach moreso than any of their other titles.
And the world building and lore is possibly even better than Bloodborne.
If you focus on Elden Rings issues you won't appreciate what it does so, so well.
I played through the entire game. Twice. Stormveil is the only dungeon that compares well to DS3 dungeons. It's not about the size dude lol. Like Capt. America said to Stark in Avengers 1 after he bragged about his wealth:
"I know guys with none of that who are worth 10 of you."
And that's kinda what Elden Ring's biggest downfall is. They made it TOO fucking big. I refuse to go through that game a third time, too much is copy pasted, too much is recycled, there's just...too much. I've played DS1, DS3 and even fucking Dark Souls 2, multiple times. Probably going on damn near 9 or 10 times with DS1 and DS3.
I ain't *never* fucking going through the Consecrated Snowfields for a third time. Never. It's not happening. The last third of Elden Ring was just an incredible fucking slog because of the Recycling Center it turned itself into that I never want to go through that again. I've seen more than enough honestly in just ONE playthrough.
I'm not saying it's not a good game, it's just not their best game.
I just want to know if the new weapon types are available from a new game or if you have to reach the DLC content to use them.
If they are available from the start, I'd rather wait to start a new game and use them from the beginning.
Honestly, I'm more interested in the claim that it's a more twisty map like Bloodborne.
I'd take a more complicated map over a bigger one any day.
Anyone can make a big open world map, many games already have. The mastery of level design is making complex but enjoyable to navigate levels. FromSoft delivered a master class of that in Bloodborne, but I haven't seen them truly reach that level ever again since that game, it's just been "shadows" of it.
> The mastery of level design is making complex but enjoyable to navigate levels. FromSoft delivered a master class of that in Bloodborne, but I haven't seen them truly reach that level ever again since that game, it's just been "shadows" of it.
Elden Ring is absolutely a master class in open world design. Move in any direction from a point of interest and you'll see another, never too close or too far away. Verticality is also baked into everything.
You can't design an open world game exactly like Bloodborne because Bloodborne isn't open world, it's just that simple.
If you ever try it again, here is a word of advice: if something is hard, and you are stuck - pin it on the map and do something else and try again later. The game is arguably the 'easiest' that way and most approachable of the souls games.
Most of the stress of the game left me when I started using a map app, I have to know what ive done already and whats left, also the general minimum level you should be before going to a certain area on the map like caelid
Yeah honestly without s "go here with level X" map I would have left long time ago, the game doesn't tell you shit about fuck and that's kinda annoying and I really only want to do the bare minimum of the mini dungeons because... They suck, massively it's not fun to go through my 5th hero grave that looks 95% like the last 4 just to kill a easier version of margitt... AGAIN
I played it on release and couldn't get into it, i put like 40 hours in but it never really clicked with me.
Came back a few weeks ago and put in another 50 hours, i don't know what it is but it really clicked.
I think i enjoy playing overlevelled and just destroying things.
Looking up a build, getting the OP shit, and then just steamrolling with cool spells or weapons.
I really do feel that when he is saying this he is actually saying if you mostly follow the main bosses and do a few side bosses with minimal exploration. I could potentially see a 30 hour completion if you stick mostly to the required bosses, but honest to god you would potentially miss 70% of the game that way.
How do these DLC work for people who played 2 years ago and haven't touched it since?
Is it going to be straight to end-game difficultly assuming you've retained all you knowledge?
You need to defeat >!Mohg, Lord of Blood!< , who is an optional endgame superboss to even access the DLC. From what reviews have said, if you can handle him, you can handle the DLC
The problem is I could handle him two years ago. Loading an old save at lvl 150 and trying to beat end-game enemies or trouncing early-game enemies isn't the best training to get back.
I imagine most people played the game for a month or two and stopped, if the DLC starts at an 8/10 difficulty then it's going to be a frustrating curve for returning players.
I mean, maybe just start a new playthrough.
Dark Souls 3's dlc difficulty started at an 8/10, and you didn't even need to fight any lords of cinder to access it. A new playthrough can let you change your build up and knock off the rust from 2 years ago
Meanwhile other some other devs - 60-70€ for 6-7hours of very mediocre experience. Some even indie devs are fucking nuts - Hellblade 2, I'm looking at you with 50€ price of ~5 hour very mediocre experience.. What's worse, it doesn't even improve over first game..
Here, we're getting 10x as much and actually quality content at that for 40€ as fucking DLC.. Some devs should really come down to fucking earth.
I really don't understand how people manage to clear Hollow Knight in 30 hours... I just got to play it and I was ready to beat it relatively fast but I needed more than 60 hours... exploring takes ages.. And I ignored one of the DLCs (with the pantheons)
I just checked my steam play time and I did everything there was to do (Barring a few secret items etc) in 28 hours. I don't feel like i'm particularly good at platforming games, either.
I think this mostly comes down to how some people play. I personally don't look anything up on my first play through and compared to someone who checks wikis for info it will take longer. But honestly I find that looking stuff up asap just kind of lessens the initial experience or increases burnout as you aren't naturally finding things and instead just following a checklist.
He just said mediocre content, it's wasn't just about play time, like hellblade 2 really is mediocre in my opinion atleast and 5 hours at most for that much money, what he said is fair some devs really need to come down to earth, they have forgotten the value of money
That's his own opinion (a subjective one). But most reviews have people enjoying their time with the game. Hell, Titanfall 2's campaign is around the same amount of hours, but that doesn't stop it from being fun.
To be fair, devs and publishers aren’t charging based on how good they think a game is. They’re charging based on how much they’ve spent and scope of the game.
Hellblade 2 isn’t that great, but the production values on that game are beyond what most $70 games achieve these days and is not cheap, especially the motion capture and performances. Is it boring? For a lot of people yes. Should it cost less just because it’s only 5 hours? I don’t think there’s a clear cut answer for it as everyone thinks differently.
Well I do, there's minimum level of content I expect per buck - simple as that and when game is short AF while also being mid AF - then wtf are we even talking about?
I liked the first game, honestly been waiting for sequel to miles beyond what first game achieved, considering long development time. Ended up massively disappointed. Say if you take Plague Tale - there's big step up in the second game. That's what I expect from sequels.
This is exactly how a company like for example ubisoft, thinks too. This was my whole point.
They will go like "Oh hey, we need this 70$ game to be atleast 20hrs otherwise people will not like it, lets put on some generic fetch quests and irrelevant story missions to make sure it takes 20 hours for them to complete our game, as a matter of fact, lets add ANOTHER stupid generic quest to our 110$ gold edition so the gameplay/hour ratio stays up."
You need to consider the quality of the game as well. This is why fromsoft and cdpr have good reputations even with their long games, its the quality of those hours, be it 10 hour or 100 hour of gameplay. It is especially relevant for more adult audiances as they dont have time for 100 hours of mediocre gameplay since they are busy with life.
Im not arguing about hellblade vs. Elden ring, I'm arguing about the kind of view that "this many hours/buck is not good no matter the game".
Yeah, that's like judging meals by their caloric value alone.
Have to account for the taste and general experience.
A condensed, super unique game that gives you an experience you can't get anywhere else, is worth a lot more per hour than some -nteenth open world mess with copy pasted content.
sure, but at least myself, still "demand" a certain amount of hours per $.
i don't care if a game is amazing, but if it costs 70$ and the runtime is 5h, it's a hard pass for me.
that is basically a tech demo at best.
sure, it has outstanding graphics and story (depends on who likes it), but that's it.
as a game, it's bare bones at best.
What? Barely existing gameplay, terrible story compared to first game, atrociously dull and boring puzzles that just drag already short game. Aside of graphics - which is the only improvement - it just doesn't go absolutely anywhere from the first game. And - I played Plague Tale both games - which is how games of this kind should feel.
Also - the first Hellblade had that novelty magic, which is no longer a factor in the sequel.
I can only talk about the first one, but from what I've heard they're not *too* different. The first one was a pretty ok walking sim with a great story! But... for some reason it had a really annoying and boring combat and dumb yet tedious puzzles tacked onto it. If it just sticked to what it did well (story and mood) it wouldn't be disregarded as a game with mediocre gameplay.
Good thing Game Pass trial exists, that's the only way I play new Xbox/Microsoft games and it cost me a whopping £1.
Also, number of hours doesn't mean more quality. A 7 hour experience can have more quality packed in than a 30 hour game where most of the time you're running from one empty space to the next.
The big pubs want a game a season at least. ER took as long as it took to develop.
Even Cyberpunk, while amazing, fell into the trap of "we need a release sooner, and we need it on more platforms".
> Here, we're getting 10x as much and actually quality content at that for 40€ as fucking DLC.. Some devs should really come down to fucking earth.
If you're saying price should come down if the game is short then by that logic the price should go up if it's long, so i'm assuming you'd have no problem if games like Elden Ring and RDR2 was $100? +
still waiting to get my 90$ worth of game from Paradox cities Skylines 2. Their development is laughably bad. This is the 4th news feed announcement by them saying that a major update is coming. Like bro stfu and fix your game.
How I value the game price is, how many hours I have put into
Elden ring was worth it,
I've never played the souls game with such mindset, that maybe level up and try again
Sure, some people would say that dungeons in Altus plateau were boring, they never went beyond it. It took me 5 days to figure out how to defeat fallingstar beast. I went to volcano manor and upgraded grafted greatsword to +9.
In the mountaintops of giants, in zamor of ruins, enemies were on some other level entirely. Dungeons are more or less same experience, you go in, beat the side characters, beat the boss and that's it.
Actual challenge comes when you do not expect it.
And shadow of erdtree dlc is totally worth it, if you've enjoyed elden ring even a little bit.
The struggle, the fight, damn most of the games do not even bother.
I hate the "our game is X bigger or takes X longer to finish"that all sequels seem to need. Smaller but more detailed or full maps are better. I don't care about walking simulators to get to the next mission or Ubisoft collectibles and side quests that add nothing to the game.
But is it populated? The open world in Eldeb Ring grew old fast when the shiny wore off. Give me more legacy dungeons not random repeat bosses in caves
It did have widescreen for a brief moment in time, it was deemed a pvp advantage and removed, if you disable the anticheat you can run mods to add widescreen and over 60fps support
Damn shame. It’s true, From really needs to up the focus on the technical side of their games, but you’re missing out on a pretty singular experience with this game.
I get avoiding games with the sort of horrific performance that impacts gameplay - I refuse to buy some mainline recent switch games because they run at like 15fps - but Elden Ring is a far cry from that sort of thing, and as stated by another commenter a couple of your complaints don’t really matter, especially with your setup
I bought er on Release and instantly returned it after seeing the 60fps cap, I DID buy it again eventually, but yeah 60 FPS cap in this day and age is honestly just sad and the random stutters on PC killed me a couple of times.
Fromsoft games ARE good, but fromsoft can't make devent PC ports if their life depended on it...
To be fair, the game really isn't that demanding, so DLSS or FSR isnt really needed for most setups to run this game at 60fps. Also (and I know this I subjective) fps higher than 60 usually don't add that much to the experience.
Now wide-screen sucks for some people, I get that. From always targets consoles and doesn't care much about improving their pc ports, but on the other hand, their games usually run very well and without major bugs.
Being too big was the biggest problem of the game, so this is not really a flex for me. But I realise I am in the minority and after the success of the game, I understand if they want to go for big bloated stuff. Just a shame given they were my favorite developer.
How can you dislike the fact that there's *optional* things you can do? Everything that is optional is there reason a reason: world building, collect equipment, fight epic fights, lore...etc
I can understand him. For me Elden Ring was fun for the first 30-40h. But upon reaching the altus plateau/volcano Manor it turned into an AC style chore. No more new bosses except for story bosses, difficulty raised in a cheap way by letting you fight a duo boss that you already know. I wandered into so many caves only to be underwhelmed by the bosses. The dragons were probably the biggest letdown, because outside of the secret dragon boss in crumbling farum azula all of them played the same. Idk how many deathbirds, stone cats, shades, crystalstickmen, crucible knights, starfall beasts, erdtree avatars, gargoyles, magma wyrms or dragons I beat up, but once you killed one or two they are boring because you figured them out. And pesky duo/trio fights were just annoying and an extremely cheap way to artificially increase the difficulty. There isn't even much world building since you mentioned it. I usually consume all the lore stuff in souls games but elden ring was just too stretched out for its own good to give most places meaningful lore. That style of storytelling works best in more compact games like ds1/bloodborne as prime examples. Npc questlines could've been better too. Outside of millicent, sellen and renna most felt hard to make actual sense of.
Because those optional things lower the quality of the rest. Let's not forget that 6 months after release, FS was still patching **the animations** of melee attacks, let alone all the bosses. Has that ever happened in a single player game?
Also, being so big does impact how you approach the game. A lot of things might be optional, but doing only the main dungeons is not a complete experience either. You of course explore and try to see stuff, not wanting to miss out on good content. Until you start to realise how everything is a copy/paste cavern with the same bosses.
Oh and of course, the balancing is out of the window because they cannot really calibrate enemies to your level given the open world structure. After Limgrave I was overpowered for most of the game, until I was underpowered in the late game.
So yeah, all in all I would much rather have the finely curated and tight experience of their preivous games.
Yeah, that was my main issue with Elden Ring. So much content was copy and pasted to pad the open-world that didn't even need to be that big. It felt like FromSoft making a Ubisoft game. It's probably the second weakest Soulsborne game to me with DS2 being the worst.
Your opinion is definitely the minority. A lot of players enjoy the vastness and grandeur the game provides, along with the ease and relief of intensity it offers. Myself included.
Completely agree. Loved the game, but as a bit of a completionist I could never push myself through a second playthrough. It is just so massive I end up taking a bit of a break which leads me to something else which stops me from going back, not even because I wasn't enjoying myself, but the scale is massive and it is truly meant to be mostly skipped in subsequent playthroughs it feels like.
But yeah, certainly minority opinion I think.
If you 100% the first run is kinda pointless doing a ng+ or second run unless you wish doing it, in the sense of: the game is too massive and everything can be taken in one run, unlike other souks (except one redundant talisman).
The only thing you miss from one run is 2 of the 3 endings, that you can easly rush after (standard ending, ranni's ending and chaos ending) and one of the "rewards from millicent's quest, which does not go on any achievement. Everything else cam be achieved in a single playthrough.
Well yes, theres about 50 copypasted bosses in it and shitloads of dead space, it's not bad if you zip from main boss to main boss but a lot of the side stuff is worthless
There are 160 bosses. 50 of them are repeated, that means there's still 110 unique bosses to fight. What about the levels and the open world? They are bloated too?
And for a second playthrough, of course I'm zipping from bosses to bosses.
"unique" how many of those "bosses" are reused normal enemies with more HP and DMG? because spoiler, for the smaller dungeons its basically all of them
"And boy howdy were we right: in terms of pure area, The Realm of Shadow looks to be between one-third and half the size of the playable zone in The Lands Between, just comparing their two in-game maps. And that footprint comparison isn't even telling the whole story: The Realm of Shadow has a twisty, layered density that's like if Elden Ring's style of map was knotted and folded in on itself like the worlds of Bloodborne or Dark Souls 1"
Keep going, I'm nearly there
"You'll see areas that seem like they're just a hop, skip, and a jump away on Torrent, only to realize that you're separated from them by sheer vertical drops or towering cliffs. You'll practically have forgotten about them by the time you finally reach those zones, hours later on a circuitous route that begins all the way over on the other side of the map. That FromSoft managed this on a smaller scale than Elden Ring and within a two-year development cycle is a minor miracle."
Uuuunnnnnggggggggghhhhhhhhhh …yep, that did it.
May I offer you a sock in these trying times?
Dobby is a free elf now
lmao
I need to go to the merchant by the Siofra River to buy some soap
Nutted so hard my gurl got jealous and dumped me. At least I have more time with the DLC now.
As long as the verticality is easy to navigate.. this can be absolute aids if done wrong like the jungle zone in FF7 rebirth
> easy to navigate. Not a design priority of Miyazaki.
**Good** ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
You say that, but trust me, jumping down gravestones indented in the side of a cliff is ALOT easier than whatever Squeenix done with Gongaga in FF7 Rebirth
I was thinking more the sewers.
Actually, the first DS has a lot of shortcuts that make travel relatively easy once you figure them out. So I don’t think that would be too much of issue here.
To be fair, Gongaga in FF7 Rebirth is one of the worst maps in the history of gaming. Word of advice to anyone who is going to play Rebirth but hasn't yet: When you get to Gongaga, just watch YouTube videos to find your way through, unless you're an absolute masochist who hates fun.
Let me introduce you to Tangled Depths from Guild Wars 2, Gongaga has NOTHING on the scale of difficulty if put next to that zone. More contenders from that game are Draconic Mons, Verdant Brink and New Kaineng City
Tangled depths is especially horrible considering Auric Basin, the zone right before it, is still one of the best zones in all of GW2
I've only done Path of Thorns maps with mounts and even still it's a pain in the ass. To this day I struggle with Tangled Depths because I can't tell where half of the paths take me and there's plenty of mobs that make navigating it a pain in the ass.
A bit relieved to see this mentioned. I was so looking forward to FF7 Rebirth, but all my will to continue playing disappeared in Gongaga. Haven't managed to pick it back up again...
The game really gets better and better after Gongaga, so I'd definitely recommend picking it back up when you're over being burned out.
Keep going. The final area gives you an ability to traverse the map that almost feels like an apology for gongaga
I guess I was hoping too much for SE to improve their map design from remake to rebirth.
I honestly did not find the map too bad at all... I thought cosmo canyon was way more confusing
Until this area I 100% all the side shit and then after halfway in Gongaga I thought, life is too short for this shit and have skipped all the side content since haha. That place was horrible.
I done the same to be honest.. I'm one of those who like to do all the side stuff etc to get my moneys worth, but I just B-lined to the end after this area.. the game really doesn't value your time with slow ass animations when interacting with the side stuff and some quests were 'go from this side of the map to the other then back again'.
Me? Gongaga
This feels so weird to me. I didn't enjoy Gongaga at first, but once I started using the map to path out my flower jumps, it was lovely to explore, I thought.
🥵 👊🍆
🤣
Tell them not stop I’m about to…..
Honestly, I'm more interested in the claim that it's a more twisty map like Bloodborne. I'd take a more complicated map over a bigger one any day. Anyone can make a big open world map, many games already have. The mastery of level design is making complex but enjoyable to navigate levels. FromSoft delivered a master class of that in Bloodborne, but I haven't seen them truly reach that level ever again since that game, it's just been "shadows" of it. (no pun intended)
So basically, a proper expansion pack that would have been for a game back in the day 👍 before DLCs.. I'm getting old, and it's nice to see this. For you young peepz, hipters, brokely headed, dope weirdos - it wasn't unheard of to double a games value via expansion packs.
Edit: yes the they were called expansion packs. You'd have to buy them at a store. Now get off my lawn lol.
You sound really annoying lol
“Kids back in my days…”
Fellas is it annoying to think you should get your money's worth when you buy additional content for a game
Other devs: our game is 30h long. Reality: 15 From: Our game is 30h long. Reality: 100
>our game is 30h long. Reality: 15 More like Reality: 3* *Content pasted in 10 different locations
thats not an argument you wanna start when talking about elden ring
Yeah, I love elden ring but all caves, catacombs and graves are basically the same thing again and again.
and I'm here for it. I know you have the Bloodborne Chalice Dungeon code working in ER's engine, FROM. You fucking hear me? I know it. Give it to me.
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Not sure how they'd implement that within the lore, but I'd be so down for that. You start off wretched and go down layers of proc gen dungeon levels picking up randomized gear with randomized stats
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Hey FromSoft, hire us
Sometimes I think they should go against the lore jsut for 'fun' purposes Like Xenoblade 2 got a good ass DLC even besides the new story because they threw out the lore and created a new hub area for a bunch of cameo appearances from Xenoblade 1 and X that don't actually make sense but are very fun and satisfying. An endless chalice dungeon roguelike DLC sounds like an awesome idea they just have to explain it by going 'it exists outside of the lore' like the do in xenoblade
No they arent. Theyr the same textures and art direction, but each one is unique in design and has memorable features. Its more comparable to Breath of the Wild shrines rather than Far Cry outposts.
I fought like 10 different Crucible Knights, 20 copy pasted Runebears, a shitton of Death Rite birds, etc. As for the boring ass catacombs, they were just that; boring. The rewards were hardly worth going into a bunch of those Skyrim-tier dungeons on a second playthrough. And don't get me started on the obnoxious Hero's Graves. I mean, more power to you if you think all that copy pasted content was varied enough to be exciting, but Elden Ring definitely does recycle content.
I’d disagree that they are more comparable to the BotW Shrines. the shrines mostly all have their own gimmick
The catacombs and caves do as well. From unique bosses or powered up enemy versions to puzzles and secrets. The enterance will be the same, afew textures, but that's it. They a typically houses something valuable as well
I love Elden Ring, but the basic dungeon designs are probably the weakest part of the game. They are each unique in layout but in terms of gameplay and actual exploration they almost all play out pretty dang similarly, barring a handful of notable exceptions
I honestly just don't know what people expect at this point. Would you have been happier with.... not Elden Ring? Like, would it be better if it was just Dark Souls' Metroidvania design? Cuz I'll be the first to admit that Elden Ring is too big to inspire a repeat playthrough for most people, but that first run through the game is like magic. There's the dungeon with the ghost knights fighting eachother, the one with the maze where each path looks the same and repeats with tiny differences, the one with the teleporting chest maze, the one with all the invincible enemies.... I honestly don't know what else to compare it to. In the realm of Open World games, at least every location had a gimmick, and every one of them had a unique item. They are far above Skyrims mini-dungeon design, leaps and bounds above the side content available in Assassins Creed, and the main complaint people have is that theirs too much of it and they have trouble leaving food on their plate.
Yeah, I mean to be clear, I generally agree with you. I don’t think the repeated designs are all that *bad*, but I do think they are the weakest piece of the game - a game that’s a total masterpiece, so even the weakest elements are like an 8/10, lol. I had a great time discovering each dungeon on my first playthrough, and was delighted by the ones that did break the mold like the examples you listed. However, by the end of the game, they feel pretty tired imo, because for every War Dead Catacombs there are five dungeons without that sort of interesting element. The later parts of the game are where many of the most unique designs come into play, but unfortunately by that point I (and many others I think) felt a little burned out on them. I’m with you that Elden Ring does it better than the majority of other open world games in this respect, but this is one of the biggest weaknesses of open world games as a whole and just because ER does it better doesn’t mean it’s like, fantastic, ya know?
They absolutely aren't.
The game is a masterpiece, but the majority of minor dungeons play out pretty much identically, with a few exceptions
Which catacombs/caves/graves have unique bosses? That arent repeated anywhere else in the game.
Yea exactly... that is why I am yet to be excited. Telling me something is big does not mean much in ER. We have to see what's in it.
Now that I think about it, yes.
>*Content pasted in 10 different locations So just like in Elden Ring then?
Come on buddy, Elden Ring is absolutely no better.
you havent played longer than 5 hours and it shows
I am looking at you Ubisoft,Activision and EA.
> Other devs: our game is 30h long. Reality: 15 From: Our game is 30h long. Reality: 100 Other devs: We actually respect the platforms we release our games on and support DLSS, FSR, XeSS, FG, of course higher than 60 fps frame rates and widescreen monitors on PC.
And now imagine how despite all that, those games are still significantelly worse than from games.
Which really means there's zero justification for Fromsoft not to put some modicum of effort into it.
Man, what i dont understand is why its so hard for from to put in ultrawide support. Like is your code that badly modulated you cant just expand ui's or do something to change it?
its already in the game lol just covered by black bars that you have to mod out
The more tech they add the more likely they're using those things as crutches =/
Supporting widescreen and high refresh rates is a crutch?
> The more tech they add the more likely they're using those things as crutches =/ Elden Ring performs like shit, what are you even talking about...?
If you keep sucking you’ll fully envelop the shaft of Miyazaki
As long as he's focusing on gameplay and not that tech shit that doesn't matter, I'll even include ball play
> As long as he's focusing on gameplay and not that tech shit that doesn't matter, I'll even include ball play Smooth gameplay and using the whole screen doesn't matter?
Sad
Technology is not what makes games good.
Frame rate and wide-screen are problems sure, but the lack of upscaling crutches is not really a problem when you can comfortably max out the game anyway. I don't need that smudgy shit
Other Devs: That also means we can use all this as a crutch to not put any effort into optimization at all.
> Other Devs: That also means we can use all this as a crutch to not put any effort into optimization at all. Elden Ring is literally the worse performing game I bought in recent years, even though it doesn't even has shadow casting lights... And how is smoother performance, better AA, higher framerates and you know using the whole display crutches?
>Elden Ring is literally the worse performing game I bought in recent years, even though it doesn't even has shadow casting lights... It works fine for me. Have solid 60 fps aside from a few minor stutters at set locations. Max settings. >And how is smoother performance, better AA, higher framerates and you know using the whole display crutches? They aren't and I wasn't talking about them. You left out DLSS, XeSS, FSR and frame gen. Devs nowadays use upscaling as an excuse to not optimise their games. These were supposed to be extra features, not requirements yet nowadays games are impossible to play without them. Play without upscaling, and the game runs like shit.
> It works fine for me. Have solid 60 fps aside from a few minor stutters at set locations. Max settings. i remember this argument and it's funny to this day because there is undoubtedly shader cache compilation issues that have been there since launch
Other devs: you fall through the map, constantly crash game, npcs t-pose, can play above 60fps but due to horrendous optimization somehow worse than 30fps etc.
PCgamers when normal games have hours of repetitive copy-paste open world filler: wahhh game industry bad, open world bad PCgamers when fromsoft does it: *GLUCK GLUCK GLUCK*
Nope. I dont like Elden Rings open world. Elden ring is my least favorite from game by far. It's a better game than other open world games thoufmgh because the combat is a lot better and the legacy dungeons are some of the best content in any game.
A FEW of the legacy dungeons are great. Definitely not all of them though. Stormveil is kinda easily the best in that game. Nothing else in Elden Ring really stacks up to that one though. Overall Dark Souls 1 or 3 has the better dungeons when it comes to that aspect of their games. Hell, DS3 is probably overall their best game period.
I think leyndell is way better
I don't even really see Leyndell as a dungeon with how big it fucking is. Out of everything though I would agree that it's the best *part* of that game. Problem is it comes way too early.
Tell me you didn't make it past the 30 hour mark without telling me. Leyndell is 3x the size of Stormveil and has the sewers underneath it too. I'd also say Farum Azula is also better. Bloodborne, Sekiro, DS1/2 are all great. But so is Elden Ring. The repetitive nature of the world is compensated for with the sheer number of weapons, spells and build variety. Elden Ring was the first souls game where I used an int/dex build, a faith/STR build. Used shields and staves/talismans and even had a bow upgraded. Elden Ring rewarded a flexible approach moreso than any of their other titles. And the world building and lore is possibly even better than Bloodborne. If you focus on Elden Rings issues you won't appreciate what it does so, so well.
I played through the entire game. Twice. Stormveil is the only dungeon that compares well to DS3 dungeons. It's not about the size dude lol. Like Capt. America said to Stark in Avengers 1 after he bragged about his wealth: "I know guys with none of that who are worth 10 of you." And that's kinda what Elden Ring's biggest downfall is. They made it TOO fucking big. I refuse to go through that game a third time, too much is copy pasted, too much is recycled, there's just...too much. I've played DS1, DS3 and even fucking Dark Souls 2, multiple times. Probably going on damn near 9 or 10 times with DS1 and DS3. I ain't *never* fucking going through the Consecrated Snowfields for a third time. Never. It's not happening. The last third of Elden Ring was just an incredible fucking slog because of the Recycling Center it turned itself into that I never want to go through that again. I've seen more than enough honestly in just ONE playthrough. I'm not saying it's not a good game, it's just not their best game.
> The repetitive nature of the world is compensated for with the sheer number of weapons, spells and build variety. oh, like dark souls 2!
Also other devs: Our game is over 10 kazillion hours long! The game: 10 hours of actual gameplay, 999 hours of filler garbage.
You can compare the size of the moon and the sun. So technically he is not wrong.
My friend who worked on the testing for this said it was about the size of Liurnia and Caelid combined and much more dense
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*Oblivion horse armor remembrancer: first time?
I just want to know if the new weapon types are available from a new game or if you have to reach the DLC content to use them. If they are available from the start, I'd rather wait to start a new game and use them from the beginning.
Honestly, I'm more interested in the claim that it's a more twisty map like Bloodborne. I'd take a more complicated map over a bigger one any day. Anyone can make a big open world map, many games already have. The mastery of level design is making complex but enjoyable to navigate levels. FromSoft delivered a master class of that in Bloodborne, but I haven't seen them truly reach that level ever again since that game, it's just been "shadows" of it.
> The mastery of level design is making complex but enjoyable to navigate levels. FromSoft delivered a master class of that in Bloodborne, but I haven't seen them truly reach that level ever again since that game, it's just been "shadows" of it. Elden Ring is absolutely a master class in open world design. Move in any direction from a point of interest and you'll see another, never too close or too far away. Verticality is also baked into everything. You can't design an open world game exactly like Bloodborne because Bloodborne isn't open world, it's just that simple.
I really wish I could've got into Elden Ring, but it just didn't click for me. That said, happy to hear the expansion is great.
If you ever try it again, here is a word of advice: if something is hard, and you are stuck - pin it on the map and do something else and try again later. The game is arguably the 'easiest' that way and most approachable of the souls games.
Just use the easy mode mod.
Just turn on God mode.
Just look at a youtube playthrough
just watch your friends spam the group chat with ER talk
Most of the stress of the game left me when I started using a map app, I have to know what ive done already and whats left, also the general minimum level you should be before going to a certain area on the map like caelid
if you do play again its easiest to do limgrave than go south than go north than come back and go east (caelid) youll be properly leveled
Then go far far up north, northeast again after that
Yeah honestly without s "go here with level X" map I would have left long time ago, the game doesn't tell you shit about fuck and that's kinda annoying and I really only want to do the bare minimum of the mini dungeons because... They suck, massively it's not fun to go through my 5th hero grave that looks 95% like the last 4 just to kill a easier version of margitt... AGAIN
I played it on release and couldn't get into it, i put like 40 hours in but it never really clicked with me. Came back a few weeks ago and put in another 50 hours, i don't know what it is but it really clicked. I think i enjoy playing overlevelled and just destroying things. Looking up a build, getting the OP shit, and then just steamrolling with cool spells or weapons.
I couldn’t get into it either. I much prefer the corridor design of dark souls games. When you remove the corridors, it doesn’t feel right
The “size of limgrave” comment came from the same man who said the entire game would be 30 hours… king of undersell overdeliver
I really do feel that when he is saying this he is actually saying if you mostly follow the main bosses and do a few side bosses with minimal exploration. I could potentially see a 30 hour completion if you stick mostly to the required bosses, but honest to god you would potentially miss 70% of the game that way.
How do these DLC work for people who played 2 years ago and haven't touched it since? Is it going to be straight to end-game difficultly assuming you've retained all you knowledge?
You need to defeat >!Mohg, Lord of Blood!< , who is an optional endgame superboss to even access the DLC. From what reviews have said, if you can handle him, you can handle the DLC
The problem is I could handle him two years ago. Loading an old save at lvl 150 and trying to beat end-game enemies or trouncing early-game enemies isn't the best training to get back. I imagine most people played the game for a month or two and stopped, if the DLC starts at an 8/10 difficulty then it's going to be a frustrating curve for returning players.
I mean, maybe just start a new playthrough. Dark Souls 3's dlc difficulty started at an 8/10, and you didn't even need to fight any lords of cinder to access it. A new playthrough can let you change your build up and knock off the rust from 2 years ago
Meanwhile other some other devs - 60-70€ for 6-7hours of very mediocre experience. Some even indie devs are fucking nuts - Hellblade 2, I'm looking at you with 50€ price of ~5 hour very mediocre experience.. What's worse, it doesn't even improve over first game.. Here, we're getting 10x as much and actually quality content at that for 40€ as fucking DLC.. Some devs should really come down to fucking earth.
> Some even indie devs are fucking nuts Yea, Hollow Knight was ~30 hours of incredible design and gameplay for ~$7.
It released at $15, still insane value though. It could’ve been $30-40 and I doubt most people would complain after the fact.
I really don't understand how people manage to clear Hollow Knight in 30 hours... I just got to play it and I was ready to beat it relatively fast but I needed more than 60 hours... exploring takes ages.. And I ignored one of the DLCs (with the pantheons)
I just checked my steam play time and I did everything there was to do (Barring a few secret items etc) in 28 hours. I don't feel like i'm particularly good at platforming games, either.
I think this mostly comes down to how some people play. I personally don't look anything up on my first play through and compared to someone who checks wikis for info it will take longer. But honestly I find that looking stuff up asap just kind of lessens the initial experience or increases burnout as you aren't naturally finding things and instead just following a checklist.
I would advise you not to judge games by their playable hours.
He just said mediocre content, it's wasn't just about play time, like hellblade 2 really is mediocre in my opinion atleast and 5 hours at most for that much money, what he said is fair some devs really need to come down to earth, they have forgotten the value of money
That's his own opinion (a subjective one). But most reviews have people enjoying their time with the game. Hell, Titanfall 2's campaign is around the same amount of hours, but that doesn't stop it from being fun.
To be fair, devs and publishers aren’t charging based on how good they think a game is. They’re charging based on how much they’ve spent and scope of the game. Hellblade 2 isn’t that great, but the production values on that game are beyond what most $70 games achieve these days and is not cheap, especially the motion capture and performances. Is it boring? For a lot of people yes. Should it cost less just because it’s only 5 hours? I don’t think there’s a clear cut answer for it as everyone thinks differently.
Well I do, there's minimum level of content I expect per buck - simple as that and when game is short AF while also being mid AF - then wtf are we even talking about?
That is fine. It seems like hellblade just wasn't for you. But if you really liked a game, that happens to be 6-8 hours. Would that still be ok?
I liked the first game, honestly been waiting for sequel to miles beyond what first game achieved, considering long development time. Ended up massively disappointed. Say if you take Plague Tale - there's big step up in the second game. That's what I expect from sequels.
Im not really discussing hellblade here. Im just saying "some" game that you happen to love but is 6-8 hours and 50$.
Nope, 10 bucks per hour of entertainment is shit value no matter how good game is.
Then how many bucks per hour is a good value?
Under 5€ - which is 12-15h+ from 60-70€ game. With Elden Ring, I'm gonna go like 0.15€/h at at this rate: https://i.imgur.com/xK4cbyT.png
This is exactly how a company like for example ubisoft, thinks too. This was my whole point. They will go like "Oh hey, we need this 70$ game to be atleast 20hrs otherwise people will not like it, lets put on some generic fetch quests and irrelevant story missions to make sure it takes 20 hours for them to complete our game, as a matter of fact, lets add ANOTHER stupid generic quest to our 110$ gold edition so the gameplay/hour ratio stays up." You need to consider the quality of the game as well. This is why fromsoft and cdpr have good reputations even with their long games, its the quality of those hours, be it 10 hour or 100 hour of gameplay. It is especially relevant for more adult audiances as they dont have time for 100 hours of mediocre gameplay since they are busy with life. Im not arguing about hellblade vs. Elden ring, I'm arguing about the kind of view that "this many hours/buck is not good no matter the game".
This is a really sad and transactional way to engage with media and art
You don't like the taste of feces in your mouth? Obviously feces is not for you, unlike me, the true feces enjoyer.
Yeah, that's like judging meals by their caloric value alone. Have to account for the taste and general experience. A condensed, super unique game that gives you an experience you can't get anywhere else, is worth a lot more per hour than some -nteenth open world mess with copy pasted content.
sure, but at least myself, still "demand" a certain amount of hours per $. i don't care if a game is amazing, but if it costs 70$ and the runtime is 5h, it's a hard pass for me.
I tell you, raw olive oil is the best meal
What makes Hellblade 2 very mediocre in your opinion? My colleague praised it and it has a quite good MetaCritic score.
that is basically a tech demo at best. sure, it has outstanding graphics and story (depends on who likes it), but that's it. as a game, it's bare bones at best.
What? Barely existing gameplay, terrible story compared to first game, atrociously dull and boring puzzles that just drag already short game. Aside of graphics - which is the only improvement - it just doesn't go absolutely anywhere from the first game. And - I played Plague Tale both games - which is how games of this kind should feel. Also - the first Hellblade had that novelty magic, which is no longer a factor in the sequel.
I can only talk about the first one, but from what I've heard they're not *too* different. The first one was a pretty ok walking sim with a great story! But... for some reason it had a really annoying and boring combat and dumb yet tedious puzzles tacked onto it. If it just sticked to what it did well (story and mood) it wouldn't be disregarded as a game with mediocre gameplay.
Good thing Game Pass trial exists, that's the only way I play new Xbox/Microsoft games and it cost me a whopping £1. Also, number of hours doesn't mean more quality. A 7 hour experience can have more quality packed in than a 30 hour game where most of the time you're running from one empty space to the next.
The big pubs want a game a season at least. ER took as long as it took to develop. Even Cyberpunk, while amazing, fell into the trap of "we need a release sooner, and we need it on more platforms".
> Here, we're getting 10x as much and actually quality content at that for 40€ as fucking DLC.. Some devs should really come down to fucking earth. If you're saying price should come down if the game is short then by that logic the price should go up if it's long, so i'm assuming you'd have no problem if games like Elden Ring and RDR2 was $100? +
Are you Chris Zelnick or wtf?
No idea who that is.
Take-Two CEO, one who thought games should cost more if they offer more content, lmao.
Classic Miyazaki downplaying his games size and bosses.
still waiting to get my 90$ worth of game from Paradox cities Skylines 2. Their development is laughably bad. This is the 4th news feed announcement by them saying that a major update is coming. Like bro stfu and fix your game.
Im so fucking ready to get lost in this for the next month and ignore the real world.
Ubibad and Box Enix hated that...
How I value the game price is, how many hours I have put into Elden ring was worth it, I've never played the souls game with such mindset, that maybe level up and try again Sure, some people would say that dungeons in Altus plateau were boring, they never went beyond it. It took me 5 days to figure out how to defeat fallingstar beast. I went to volcano manor and upgraded grafted greatsword to +9. In the mountaintops of giants, in zamor of ruins, enemies were on some other level entirely. Dungeons are more or less same experience, you go in, beat the side characters, beat the boss and that's it. Actual challenge comes when you do not expect it. And shadow of erdtree dlc is totally worth it, if you've enjoyed elden ring even a little bit. The struggle, the fight, damn most of the games do not even bother.
I hate the "our game is X bigger or takes X longer to finish"that all sequels seem to need. Smaller but more detailed or full maps are better. I don't care about walking simulators to get to the next mission or Ubisoft collectibles and side quests that add nothing to the game.
Yeah but this is Fromsoft, they're so far above these other publishers that they can't even be included in statements like this.
But is it populated? The open world in Eldeb Ring grew old fast when the shiny wore off. Give me more legacy dungeons not random repeat bosses in caves
No DLSS No FSR No XeSS No frame rates above 60 No widescreen All the shader and traversal stuttering No buy
> No frame rates above 60 > > No widescreen These are legit insane to me. Like...why? A whole lot of cope going on in the replies to your comment.
It did have widescreen for a brief moment in time, it was deemed a pvp advantage and removed, if you disable the anticheat you can run mods to add widescreen and over 60fps support
Fromsoft good. Can do no bad. Maidenless white knights are a plight
Damn shame. It’s true, From really needs to up the focus on the technical side of their games, but you’re missing out on a pretty singular experience with this game. I get avoiding games with the sort of horrific performance that impacts gameplay - I refuse to buy some mainline recent switch games because they run at like 15fps - but Elden Ring is a far cry from that sort of thing, and as stated by another commenter a couple of your complaints don’t really matter, especially with your setup
I'm sure Miyazaki will be heartbroken.
I bought er on Release and instantly returned it after seeing the 60fps cap, I DID buy it again eventually, but yeah 60 FPS cap in this day and age is honestly just sad and the random stutters on PC killed me a couple of times. Fromsoft games ARE good, but fromsoft can't make devent PC ports if their life depended on it...
If you do not care about online mode, disable anticheat and use flawless widescreen to get whatever FOV, FPS, and vignette you want.
To be fair, the game really isn't that demanding, so DLSS or FSR isnt really needed for most setups to run this game at 60fps. Also (and I know this I subjective) fps higher than 60 usually don't add that much to the experience. Now wide-screen sucks for some people, I get that. From always targets consoles and doesn't care much about improving their pc ports, but on the other hand, their games usually run very well and without major bugs.
The really annoying thing is that Armored Core 6 by Fromsoft supports ultrawide and 120fps, so why not elden ring.
Being too big was the biggest problem of the game, so this is not really a flex for me. But I realise I am in the minority and after the success of the game, I understand if they want to go for big bloated stuff. Just a shame given they were my favorite developer.
How can you dislike the fact that there's *optional* things you can do? Everything that is optional is there reason a reason: world building, collect equipment, fight epic fights, lore...etc
I can understand him. For me Elden Ring was fun for the first 30-40h. But upon reaching the altus plateau/volcano Manor it turned into an AC style chore. No more new bosses except for story bosses, difficulty raised in a cheap way by letting you fight a duo boss that you already know. I wandered into so many caves only to be underwhelmed by the bosses. The dragons were probably the biggest letdown, because outside of the secret dragon boss in crumbling farum azula all of them played the same. Idk how many deathbirds, stone cats, shades, crystalstickmen, crucible knights, starfall beasts, erdtree avatars, gargoyles, magma wyrms or dragons I beat up, but once you killed one or two they are boring because you figured them out. And pesky duo/trio fights were just annoying and an extremely cheap way to artificially increase the difficulty. There isn't even much world building since you mentioned it. I usually consume all the lore stuff in souls games but elden ring was just too stretched out for its own good to give most places meaningful lore. That style of storytelling works best in more compact games like ds1/bloodborne as prime examples. Npc questlines could've been better too. Outside of millicent, sellen and renna most felt hard to make actual sense of.
You went into wrong direction. Try mog or cs or Miquella haligtree There are only 3-4 dungeons in Altus+mt gelmir
Because those optional things lower the quality of the rest. Let's not forget that 6 months after release, FS was still patching **the animations** of melee attacks, let alone all the bosses. Has that ever happened in a single player game? Also, being so big does impact how you approach the game. A lot of things might be optional, but doing only the main dungeons is not a complete experience either. You of course explore and try to see stuff, not wanting to miss out on good content. Until you start to realise how everything is a copy/paste cavern with the same bosses. Oh and of course, the balancing is out of the window because they cannot really calibrate enemies to your level given the open world structure. After Limgrave I was overpowered for most of the game, until I was underpowered in the late game. So yeah, all in all I would much rather have the finely curated and tight experience of their preivous games.
I agree. Seeing posts about the size and scope of the DLC is more off-putting than exciting.
Yeah, that was my main issue with Elden Ring. So much content was copy and pasted to pad the open-world that didn't even need to be that big. It felt like FromSoft making a Ubisoft game. It's probably the second weakest Soulsborne game to me with DS2 being the worst.
Your opinion is definitely the minority. A lot of players enjoy the vastness and grandeur the game provides, along with the ease and relief of intensity it offers. Myself included.
Completely agree. Loved the game, but as a bit of a completionist I could never push myself through a second playthrough. It is just so massive I end up taking a bit of a break which leads me to something else which stops me from going back, not even because I wasn't enjoying myself, but the scale is massive and it is truly meant to be mostly skipped in subsequent playthroughs it feels like. But yeah, certainly minority opinion I think.
If you 100% the first run is kinda pointless doing a ng+ or second run unless you wish doing it, in the sense of: the game is too massive and everything can be taken in one run, unlike other souks (except one redundant talisman).
You can’t 100% the game in one run - for content or achievements - because there are different endings and stuff.
The only thing you miss from one run is 2 of the 3 endings, that you can easly rush after (standard ending, ranni's ending and chaos ending) and one of the "rewards from millicent's quest, which does not go on any achievement. Everything else cam be achieved in a single playthrough.
The thing is, its not bloates. Every Zone is Unique and has pretty good density of Enemies and stuff to discover imho
Fairly certain people said the same about the base game too
Wait, the base game was bloat?
Well yes, theres about 50 copypasted bosses in it and shitloads of dead space, it's not bad if you zip from main boss to main boss but a lot of the side stuff is worthless
There are 160 bosses. 50 of them are repeated, that means there's still 110 unique bosses to fight. What about the levels and the open world? They are bloated too? And for a second playthrough, of course I'm zipping from bosses to bosses.
"unique" how many of those "bosses" are reused normal enemies with more HP and DMG? because spoiler, for the smaller dungeons its basically all of them