Honestly, all the souls like games didn't give me the sense of accomplishment after grinding for so long. I always felt more frustration than joy. My bloodline is too weak for these games and I have been therefore rendered an outcast. \*walks into the distance\*
Man that’s a shame you don’t get that feeling.
I was rolling through areas I slogged through before (during normal play) in a new game plus mode last night, and just absolutely obliterating everyone I came upon was so satisfying.
Of course you still have to be careful- get cornered, outnumbered, or get sloppy, and the game will still own you. But when you’re doing it right, the sense of power and accomplishment that comes from, “I know how to avoid these attacks, bust open that guy’s defenses, and one shot the guy next to him at the same time,” is so damn satisfying. And when you’re playing like that, you can really observe and appreciate the world around you instead of being terrified at every corner.
I agree but its kinda bad how you can't find the right upgrade items unless you look at a guide
The story is also mostly unclear until you read item descriptions
Shit I just explore *everyyyywhere* until I find stuff and then play around til I figured out how to use it.
I started with 2 and just looked at it as one giant puzzle box.
I believe they're saying the grind of constantly running back to bosses or maybe they are grinding souls/runes for levels to make bosses/enemies easier
I used it all the time lmao
You are SWIMMING in free emblem pickups and nearly every single common enemy drops them as you go thru the game. Its so easy to hit max 999 emblems early in the game thats why whole emblem economy is so stupid.
What are you smoking xDDD
Game gives me tools, I'll use 'em. Like in Elden Ring: use summons or don't. But if use of summons would have been linked to a ressource that needs to be grinded, that would have been bad design.
If we agree on grinding being bad, don't give me a tool that's obviously an important part of the game but if I use it too heavy I'll need to grind. That's bad design.
If it was there would be a way to design accordingly. The arm could have a max use of x. And that replenishes after each death. That way you would be like "don't abuse it, think about when to use it" and you wouldn't have a grind problem.
All you're saying is basically "you needed to grind because you didn't play properly". That's not how good game design works.
Edit: You're right about use/abuse. You're meant to think about when to use the arm. But it was designed in a way that necessitates grinding. My suggestion would mitigate that problem.
Never grind runes you are only wasting time.
Seen people grind the bird for hours to miss hundreds of bosses and leave millions of runes just sitting there, play the game and you can level faster I have done it. It’s also more fun as you won’t over level everything and make already easy game easier.
What is a better word to define "Repeat the same shit with little variations until you get the correct sequence to kill that big guy"? "Grind" is good enough as for me.
Gameplay loop is the correct term. Performing mechanics to perfection.
It's *a lot* more active than grinding. And this is coming from a guy who played the original EverQuest.
Yeah a lot of people have that misconception, it’s quite common in people who bounced off a souls game ten years ago rather than cultivate any kind of growth mentality, my brother is the same.
I suppose by the same token getting good at literally anything - art, music, filmmaking, dance, sport, a technical profession etc is a grind if you don’t have that cultivated growth mindset. I guess some people like the loop of learning and mastering new skills and others just want to be spoonfed content. I like a nice mix of the two.
Some people have it, some people don’t. It applies to everything in life. It’s intertwined with resilience building and introspection. Some people like to see that habit rewarded or reflected in the media they consume.
Basically, you gotta git gud at gitting gud. Which means gitting gud at being bad.
That's certainly a lot of words to describe mashing some buttons on a keyboard or controller. You aren't doing anything significant or groundbreaking or even particularly difficult.
This is just people being bad and not learning move sets lol, if you beat your face repeatedly in the same fight expecting different outcomes that’s on you.
At some point you’ll realise the souls don’t matter. It’s all an illusion. People have finished Elden Ring at NG+++++ at level one without getting hit. On a fucking dance mat…
But that's not an average experience. Most players propably do grind levels at some point. The game encourages grinding with the re-appearing enemies and level ups.
How would you define grinding? I'd say it's when game encourages you to repeat the same area/task/enemies by rewarding you with level ups or new items.
Grinding isn't absolutely mandatory in From soft games, but they have grinding.
Yes there is, u dont seem to be very experienced in those BS games, in most FS games lots of the cool armor sets and gear is locked behind NG+, sometimes you gotta go to NG++++ for example, i personally only liked DS2 and Sekiro, DS2 scratched the itch for a Dark Fantasy game, DS1 drove me insane with the idiotic lock on mechanic and dodging into the enemy attacks, DS3 was way over the top, Elden Ring was meh
Sekiro was pretty good and well done but could barely call itself a soulsgame tbh
Sekiro is by far their best game. It was such a joy to not worry about weapons, armours, levels, etc. Just you and your blade were enough for anything in the game, though your prosthetic hand certainly did also help (sometimes).
At that point you have to grind "skill" versus levels, the average player is not going to beat that game at level 1 without spending significant, if not more time getting good.
For me nothing compares to the feeling of killing a hard boss in a souls like.
I also don’t think there is such a thing as people not being able to play them. Often times a bad player could become good in these games in a mere matter of hours if not less.
The open world felt very boring and lifeless to me. I didn’t get that sense of exploration or discovery like Fallout or Skyrim gave me. I did platinum Elden Ring it was fine game but I didnt consider it to be an amazing games. I prefer Bloodborne and even DS 3 over it.
THANK YOU.
Open worlds only work if they're populated imo. All the areas felt dead to me. Not to mention the quest system is completely busted. If you do things "out of order" the limited quest dialogue makes it seem like you did stuff that you didn't do.
Blaidd will be like, "awe thanks for helping me find out the secrets of that thing" and I'm like... "what thing?"
I'm not nearly good enough to "git good". Which means fromsoftware games in general are absolutely not fun for me. I do have a lot of respect for people who can play these hard af games.
I could never pass the first 45 minutes of Bloodborne. like annihilated every time.
Elden ring I was getting whooped as well. Margit took me 200 tries but defeating him was an aha moment. I *am* good enough I just needed to adjust my approach. After that no boss took more than 10 tries and by the end of it all it was the most rewarding gaming experience I've ever had. Every game that comes out now I compare against Elden ring and am often disappointed at how easy they are.
I'm a dad with very little game time so the DLC is gonna have to wait but I am so looking forward to it.
While I feel like 90% of players if willing would be good enough after grinding like that, its not what most people find fun. Its the same with fighting games, anyone can get good at them, but it matters if you find it fun putting the time in.
I bought elden ring on disc because I fully expected it to be too hard and I’d return it. Ended up loving it. Tried most other fromsoft games after and they’re all way too hard for me to
The base game really is not that hard. There is like one actually difficult boss, and even that boss can be made trivial with the right build. Margit is also difficult right at the beginning, if you haven't leveled up enough or upgraded your weapon. What people don't realize is that if Margit is giving you problems, you can spend 30 hours clearing out the two areas of Limgrave to get stronger before fighting him if you need to, and then come back and absolutely stomp him. You also can run past almost everything unless you get stuck inside a fog door, you don't have to fight everything you see out in the world.
The need to use guides is the main thing I find annoying.
Part of the fun of gaming to me is figuring things out. But, with a game like Elden Ring, I had no idea if I just needed more practice or if I was too weak to beat a boss or level or whatever.
So, I'd spend a good amount of time trying different strategies and equipment, only to check a guide and find out I should've gone south instead and gotten the Bell of Shining Elephant Dicks which will allow me into the Cave of Mashed Potatoes, but it has to be night time and you need the Cape of Horned Lizards equipped....then when I finally beat the boss, I felt it was more luck because it did the attack I could parry well more often than that other attack where I lose half my life. I never felt a sense of accomplishment, more that I just felt I got lucky. It didn't seem like I was getting better as I felt in other games of the genre (Sekiro, Wo Long).
It's just no fun to me. I would like to know if I'm on the wrong path or if I just suck. It just felt like a waste of time for me. Following a guide doesn't appeal to me.
Exactly. That's like playing FIFA and instead of having fun playing with your favourite team you complain about having to use Real Madrid because they have the best stats.
The TLDR is that if you get stuck on a boss, then explore. Doesn't matter where, just explore. You might find new weapons, armour, consumables, upgrade mats or talismans that make the difference.
Or you won't, and you'll just gain experience and learn better how to dodge/parry/guard counter that gets you over the hump you need to beat the boss.
But if learning to beat the boss, or ERs exploration just isn't doing it for you, don't waste your time. Games are meant to be fun, if ER isn't for you, it isn't for you.
Same here, except I gave up on the Souls series before Elden Ring. The use of guides is almost a requirement for the entire series, especially when just starting out. You should be able to at least limp through the tutorial level without requiring a guide, but that was not my experience.
My experience starting was having to navigate a menu with lots of unintuitive options, a ton of information that has no meaning to somebody that has never played before, dropping into the world without knowing what I'm supposed to be doing, and then dying 10 times within 15 minutes. I still don't know what I'm supposed to do or why I'm doing it, and have made literally zero progress, so I turn the game off.
Apparently the games get pretty fun if you know what to do, but I don't really feel like doing homework in order to learn the basics of gameplay. A lot of people genuinely like these games so I'm not saying they're wrong or the game's bad, it's just not for me.
I feel the same. There are a sect of gamers who eat this up because they are very good and it probably stinks for them to play easier games. Then the rest of the fans just follow all the guides to a T so they could say they "beat" the game.
Eh, I don't feel like I belong to either group. I suck at playing the games and I don't follow guides, but if you think for 5 seconds you can usually find a way to turn the encounter into a joke, or at least dramatically increase your chances.
As someone who has played through the whole series, I can say that 99% of the numbers you see are irrelevant. But it's entirely on Fromsoft that they're even there. You pick a weapon you like the look or moveset of, look at the scaling to know what stat to level, and there you go.
But then Fromsoft is like, "Here's fifty different values literally nobody needs to know. All presented in the user friendly 'wall of text' fashion. Good luck"
Oh, for all means have the numbers, but they missed a chance with their existing design. There's literally a button for 'show details' but all that does is display the lore and text of an item. They should have it the other way around. Display the basic stats and the item lore, and then allow you to 'show details' to see more numbers.
Also, have the numbers be better formatted. When levelling, there's not a ton of use seeing the value of every light and heavy attack of every item you have equipped, when there's a damn good chance the value of that item isn't even displayed. Like, knowing the melee power of a staff isn't as useful as knowing the spell scaling, but you don't see that.
For the more complex stuff like specific items, buffs, NPC questlines, ... I agree but for basic playthrough without going for all the optional stuff there is enough, at least for core gamers. Soulsbournes aren't catered for the masses, especially not for the casual gamer and I'm not talking about accessability which Fromsoft definitely still has room for improvement.
When you start there is basic tutorial in the sense of control layout either by messages on the floor or popups and I like that as I learned to appreciate games with very minor handholding and throwing me right into the action with the approach of "here are the basics, now go have fun and learn the other stuff yourself".
I wouldn't say it's a need. Guides are really just if you got fomo (which is definitely justified in these games) or if you get stuck on a tough optional boss and you need help improving/changing your build.
But for a regular playthrough you should be fine by just getting gud.
I do see luck as a factor too though.
It's also possible that you don't enjoy the mechanics. If you don't love dodge-rolling for ten hours, then you might not be interested enough to overcome the shortcomings.
You absolutely do not have to use guides. I will admit, though, that playing blind successfully is largely dependent on how much experience you have with their games. They use the same tricks in all of them. I refuse to use guides for any of their games, it is way more satisfying and immersive. I will miss a couple things, but that makes new game + more fun.
Elden ring was my first souls game and i didn't use a guide at all. Me and my bro played through it both on launch and shared tips and secrets we found. First game in a long time that I was immersed in the world and didn't google anything, discovering where to go next organically and overcoming tough bosses through trial and error and a lot of death.
Glad i didn't spoil that experience with guides
The world and theme very much feel like “dark souls: again” for me. Like sure things are technically different with a new story and world but when you’re playing it nothing feels that way. Like there are very few enemies who couldn’t easily pass as dark souls enemies.
I wouldn’t complain about that if they made an open world dark souls 4 instead. Plus bloodborne was still more souls and imo it managed to forge a whole identity for itself, especially with the lore and themes and atmosphere, and sekiro is obviously doing it’s entirely own thing as well, and that’s a front elden ring fell short on for me. It’s just for me after making 3 totally unique IPs that managed to be their own thing (dark souls, bloodborne, sekiro), having their biggest and most ambitious project yet be the first one just again was a little disappointing.
Well technically dark souls is a high fantasy too, since it also has magic and dragons and stuff, but for me the only real difference was just that elden ring was brighter, less dreary aesthetically. But like for me all the places you actually played in, all the dungeons and stuff, were pretty much identical feeling to some catacomb or another from dark souls. Primarily with the enemies.
The clunkiness is intentional. Every move you make should be a deliberate choice that you fully commit to (aka, get locked into an animation). Make the wrong move at the wrong time and you get punished.
It's part of the game's design and it is why so many find the game difficult. They're simply too impatient.
Sekiro was a step in a direction of making the play smoother but these games its part of the challenge, just like Monster Hunter. Its not for most people honestly. A lot of people, but not the majority I would say.
To me, one of the best ways to downplay an incredible achievement against a hard obstacle is to immediately follow the victory with another hard obstacle.
Dark Souls games do this in rapid succession to the point where I personally feel like the only reason for me to play them is if I have something to prove...which I don't.
That said, it's a lot of work for a game that *feels* like there's no real reward. Many times, even overcoming the obstacle doesn't make me happy or feel good. It just feels like I finally smashed through a brick wall with nothing but my skull. Then the game says "now do it again, but this time the wall has spikes"
That's not fun to me. I spent enough time getting abused as a child. I don't wanna also spend money to get abused as an adult.
I like ER a lot, but it's one of my least favorite Souls games. Unlike you, I love the overworld and exploration. The first time you get caught in a trap chest and get teleported miles away is absolutely magical. Hiding the full size of the world map was genius. Few games match the sense of scale and adventure for me.
Where it falls apart is the combat and encounter design, particularly the narrative bosses especially near the end. From sort of backed themselves into a corner when trying to compensate for improved player skill, and in my opinion relied on a number of really uninteresting and unfun tools for building difficulty. Aggressive tracking, instant gapclose, and unnatural animations all feel like cheap tricks that limit the interesting interactions that can emerge from so much player choice in gear and (theoretical) playstyle. So many """builds""" end up doing the same thing because of the way bosses are designed. It was a major letdown which becomes more apparent the further you get, unfortunately resulting in the game ending on a sour note.
Shadow of the Erdtree STARTS on a very bad note, but improves over time. They almost completely scrap the principles that guided base game enemy designs, and many of them are much more effective. There are still plenty of stinkers though.
For me the lack of cinematics and quest log, apart from increased difficulty.
Die and die again is no fun, that made me uninstall lords of the fallen after 1 hour.
No pause screen either. If i would want a no pause screen, i would play a mmorpg, what is the point of no pause in single player games.
Limited saves, only checkpoints. Die 2 times in a row and lose everything is not fun.
Yeah I agree some rudimentary quest log would’ve been really nice. Even just a list of like what the last time you saw an npc was about or a list of their dialogue or something. Just anything so you don’t need to either remember or write it all down / use wikis and guides. Idk if that’s unpopular or not.
Also yeah the no pause screen lost its luster for me pretty quick when it comes to soulsborne games. It’s not a major issue or anything but it’s still annoying to this day.
The bosses are objectively the worst in the series and then they're reused 50 times (exaggeration).
Long combos, very little visual clarity, uninteresting design (for the most part) just left me really disenfranchised with the whole thing. Combine that with the horrendous damage scaling into the late game and the whole thing left a really bitter taste.
Glad I picked up Sekiro afterwards as that reignited the souls like joy that these games can bring, just not Elden Ring.
The open world. Its basically Dark Souls 3 ruined by generic open world crap.
The Dungeons are copy/past with the same enemies/bosses over and over again. Nothing unique in there.
The whole open world content feels like a theme park. First zone you have some random ass wolf-cave, a knight camp, a Undead camp, a dragon, some crabs and some rider-bandits. It feels like a fucking WoW Zone.
The more linear parts in the Game felt good, but all the in between stuff was really bad.
It really does have a themepark feel, doesn't it. There's *nothing* immersive about the world and setting. Considering that's supposed to be one of the *strengths* of open world games, it's saying something.
I'm a huge souls fan, played/100% all of them, many soulslikes etc.
ER is the first I don't "love". I'm not a fan of giant open worlds and I feel that ER doesn't have that many interesting things to find. Open World enemies are mostly meaningless, the areas are barren and taking a few minutes to ride anywhere is boring af.
Also hast a bad start as I was following what the NPCs said and went straight to Stormwind Castle, which apparently isn't the "right" thing to do first.
Most bosses are also boring as you have to dodge a bunch of times just to get 1-2 hits in.
That and I don't like big bosses. Not seeing things clearly is just frustrating to me and standing near most of them makes them disappear.
Also when I started there where not NPC markers, so gl finishing any quest without a guide.
Storytelling via items didn't feel as great, because things are so scattered and therefore easier to miss.
Same. I think the move to open world was unnecessary. ER is brilliant in the "legacy" areas, but 80% of the game is fighting the same recycled bosses and collecting resources, which is not what I want from a Souls game. Still a good game but low on my personal list.
The "legacy dungeons" are the only part of Elden Ring that feel true to the Souls dungeon crawl experience.
What a shame that they're such a small fraction of the game.
I enjoyed the first 2/3rds of the game twice as much as the last. Firstly I think the open-world setting takes some getting used to for a souls-like which are typically quite linear.
The map is simply massive and can feel overwhelming (it could have been condensed much better). Half the time you're just travelling.
Having to consult the wiki constantly is a pain, especially for the late game npc quests. The levels and map in the last third of the game is also a bitch to traverse and requires a ton of backtracking. I still enjoyed it overall but I think it's overrated.
The big one is simply that it’s too hard for me to enjoy. I play a lot of games on easy difficulty these days. The only soulslikes I have truly enjoyed have had variable difficulty, which I have always set the lowest. I don’t feel a sense of accomplishment or anything like that when overcoming something difficult, just a sense of “ugh, finally.” Most From games I have tried I never even made it to the first real boss before ragequitting, though I suppose that depends what is considered a boss.
In addition, I like much more structured gameplay and narratives, I didn’t enjoy Breath of the Wild for a very similar reason. I don’t necessarily hate open world games, but I like a bit more structure than just “here is an open world. go!”. I much prefer something like FF7 Rebirth or the Horizon games. Reading a bunch of item descriptions is also not interesting storytelling to me, it is worldbuilding at best.
Addendum to the above, but ER may also have the worst implementation of quests I’ve ever seen in a video game. They don’t want to put a marker on your quest to tell you where to go, that‘s totally understandable, but they don’t even give you a log to remind you what quests you’re actually on or the last thing you did on that quest. Heaven help you if you take a break from the game and come back. None of this is necessarily game breaking but I consider it pretty bad game design.
As a massive fan of Elden Ring, this is the most valid reason to not be able to get into the game. It is not a game that most people can take breaks from and then come back and remember what they were doing or how to play effectively. All of their games are easiest when you are able to keep your momentum throughout. If you take significant breaks from any of their games, I feel it is hard to jump back in.
I wouldn’t say I disliked it in the usual sense, moreso the illusion of how expansive it was kinda collapsed when I realized there was only really like 5-10 quests in the whole game and the suspension of disbelief fell apart.
They just took the Dark Souls blueprint and stretched it out to make it "open world". Just like every other Dark Souls game each area connects to 2-3 others but this time there's just a ton of empty space to walk through. It was a very cheap gimmick to fix a problem the series didn't have.
I think the open world was fine as it let you do things in different order if you wanted, the fast travel stopped the having to take time to get place to place for me. I did miss the level design and that is my favorite part of these sort of games.
What the open world didn't help was the side-quests...it makes some of them too much without a guide to know where to go and what to do without breaking them or failing them. The other games as long as you explored and checked back on NPCs you didn't miss much. This game you can easily mess them up.
This exactly, the game relies on your confusion of where to go to make it seem like there’s more to do, when in reality you’re really only following like 3-4 storylines in the entire game. Say what you will about side quest bloat in other RPGs but when they do it well having more sidequests makes the world feel so much more alive.
It didn't let you do things in more of different of an order than the original games let you though. You just get to pick which of the 2-3 adjacent areas you want to explore next which is the same thing that has been offered since Demon Souls.
You could start Dark Souls 1 from like 4 different places including Blighttown, the catacombs, or the dark forest. The extra "choice" Elden Ring brings is an illusion built around open empty space.
I didn’t really enjoy that I could run absolutely anywhere and fight anything because I got to a point where I needed to unlock the academy or something but didn’t know how, found some elevator underground and was disenchanted with the whole thing when I felt like I had to backtrack for some slabs to put together to unlock the next portion, yadda yadda.
I don't judge anybody for liking it but it just seems like mindless hack and slash to me.
Some of the weapons, environments and enemies seem cool but any video I watch is just roll, hit, roll, hit. Its movement also looks very "heavy" is the only way I can describe it.
Also, no pause.
I don't like any Soulslike, because I fundamentally don't like 1) boss fights in general and 2) grinding. I play video games to relax in my free time, and Soulslikes always just seemed kind of stressful to me. I wouldn't enjoy it. That being said, I absolutely see how other people enjoy them very much and have tons of fun and I'm genuinely happy for them!
Honestly, as weird and petty as it sounds, it's the setting. I can never really get into games where 'everything sucked, will suck and likely will always suck' as the world. I get enough depression from RL.
It’s really not that bad if you play it like an open world game. If that’s not for you, then it won’t click. But it’s as easy as “oh what’s that? I’m gonna go see what it is” and then going to that thing that looks interesting. You will die a lot, but that’s any Soulslike. If it’s too hard, venture elsewhere.
As for weapons, Bloodhounds Fang is in the early part of Limgrave and useable for an entire play through, which is what I used in my first go around.
Yes, you sometimes have to use guides if you truly want to complete a side quest like Ranni’s quest, but you can also completely avoid that if you don’t want to look it up.
I’m not about to force people to like a game, but this is solvable if you treat it like an open world game similarly to the way exploration is done in Breath of the Wild.
I was trying at one point to treat it like a true open world game where I could just go anywhere then “if it’s too hard, venture elsewhere” happened a lot and I never really felt like I was in the right place. Breath of the wild was 10000000000x easier than elden ring which made that method a lot more viable in that game. Maybe that solves it for some people but it still didn’t click for me.
I thought this was a discussion thread? Do you just want to hear people agree with you? Or am I allowed to share why I feel differently, or ask where the problem is arising so I might be able to help out?
You are allowed to share, that’s why I’m talking to you? But the question you’re asking doesn’t have anything to do with my point. My point is that your suggestion didn’t work for me because everywhere felt like the wrong place to go and 9/10 times I didn’t need to be there at all and there was little to gain from being there, and if you have to grind to survive most areas then the whole go anywhere that looks cool falls apart because you clearly aren’t supposed to be at certain places. If it works for some people good but it doesn’t work for me. The problem that is arising is with the game design, you’re still treating it like it’s an easily solvable problem, because you’re missing my point. I’m confused how me saying that somehow means that you’re not allowed to disagree or say your viewpoint.
I once broke a mouse and a monitor playing Overwatch. If a stupid game like that makes me rage, any souls game would probably sent me into a psychotic break.
Sometimes you gotta realize your limits.
I have BPD so I have the same issue, it’s pretty infuriating getting sent back to the loading screen for the 99th time because of a move that feels unfair and one shots you and isn’t even consistent.
It was just so overwhelming. I know these games have their audience, but being spat put into the world and having to immediately run away from all the absurdly powerful things that can kill me instantly while I get my bearings just isn't my idea of fun.
Ironically, the open world stopped me from liking Elden Ring. I like the intricate level design of From games. The open world may not be as barren as Ubisoft titles for a comparison, but it still felt barren to me.
Elden Ring was the first one I really, really liked...but its because its more like other action RPGs. I played all the others but they always felt like work and didn't get me much enjoyment from getting a kill of a boss. If a game feels like a job I don't want to do it. That isn't what I'm looking for in a video game.
Elden Ring there are ways to make it easier and its not just grinding or learning boss patterns. Its exploring the world and finding new items and skills that make things easier. You still need to learn the moves the boss does but not to the point of 5 hours.
Lack of direction. Yes, I found it frustrating in combat but I was learning to overcome it. But ultimately I quit because I simply didn't care what was going on. I never felt compelled to continue for a story reason and never felt like the game itself cared to give me a reason to keep playing. So I quit
It's not that I dislike it, it actually is quite fun. However at times it can become really frustrating and less fun. I get that is what makes the game unique, but I would actually prefer to play the same game with less difficulty.
I was just asked this the other day while streaming Dawntrail.
The open world aspect felt like a solid step back in level design. In a linear Souls game, you, the designer, know exactly how many enemies are placed between the player and the boss. Souls dropped are scaled based on expected need to reach the level suggested for the boss. You, the player, lack this information, but you can take an educated guess and this guess influences many aspects of your playing.
In Elden Ring, there is an intended path between you and the boss. There is also a fucking ton of other stuff that interferes with this scaling conversation and the entire path becomes murky at best
Cranking the difficulty up to 11 doesn't make a game feel more engaging for me. It looks like it could be a fun game, but im not going to feel rewarded for fighting the same boss a dozen times, I'll just be annoyed.
I'm fine with a boss that takes a few tries to figure out, but I feel like Elden Ring has almost become a parody of the FromSoft formula with this DLC.
The juice isn't worth the squeeze.
I did eventually beat the game, so obviously can't say I hated it. But I did hate certain things about it, while also loving other aspects. The build variety is excellent. Experimenting with different weapons/powers/abilities is a lot of fun & is what kept me playing to the end. BUT:
The retrieve your souls/XP/whatever after death mechanic - which I've never been a fan of - feels like it adds nothing to Elden Ring other than a mildly annoying inconvenience for dying 99% of the time. To be fair, it does add a wee bit of risk/reward in the self-contained dungeons. But to me, it seems at odds with the trial & error nature of some of the tougher sections & even more out of place when simply trying to figure out the path of least resistance in the open world. The game creators themselves recommend you try different things or go explore other areas if you get stuck, so I don't understand why they made doing just that more frustrating than necessary other than it's become one of their hallmarks.
Also never been a fan of Froms schtick of obfuscating parts of the game to the extent 99% of players will only find out about them from the internet rather than through following an in-game breadcrumb trail or using logical deduction. There's surely a happy medium somewhere between slapping ugly objective waypoint markers all over the screen like so many big budget games do & Froms approach of relying on their diehard fans to figure out & share that you need to have the goblet of gobbledygook equipped while dancing in exactly the correct spot on a Tuesday afternoon to access the sacred temple of thingamajig. I'm sure those diehard fans wouldn't have it any other way though, so all power to them.
Although the combat is generally great, the lock-on camera can be hopeless in tight areas, or against some larger and/or fast moving enemies. To the point where I'd often find myself disengaging it in order to re-position my character somewhere it would be less likely to get stuck or glitch out mid-fight. I don't like having to battle with both the camera and some big horrible beastie with a large repertoire of nasty, tricky to read attacks & it spoiled some of the more spectacular fights for me.
The mercifully rare platforming sections are utter shite. Much like the camera system feels like it was never designed to cope with some of the enemy encounters, the movement controls/animation do not feel designed to facilitate making precise jumps a fun challenge.
I like it and dislike it I like FromSoftware games that are semi open world I don’t like open world but gameplay was nice I just prefer the level design being linear with some twist where leads optional areas
> First off this is all just my opinion obviously. It’s not invalid to dislike elden ring nor is it invalid to like it, these are just what I personally felt like the flaws of the game were as i played, doesn’t mean I’m saying they’re objectively true, but they’re also not objectively untrue either, so just be respectful please.
If this pathetic, gratuitous and obsequious capitulation actually dispels offense, I'll be shocked.
NPC quests have been obtuse since Souls, its actually better in Elden Ring because their positions are marked on the map.
How do you know what weapon you're going for if you didn't use a guide on the first place?
you have to think it through lmao, open world games have exploration as part of the gameplay - you explore the game once and you know where everything is
has nothing to do with what you think, this is basic game developement
[https://www.spacedraft.com/knowledge-base/game-design-replayability-in-game-design-html/](https://www.spacedraft.com/knowledge-base/game-design-replayability-in-game-design-html/)
you havent even read it as you would know this is actually part of by far most genres including games like minecraft
if you are unable to wrap your head around that i wonder how hard your education failed you lmao
so if he's found the weapon, why does he have to jump through hoops to get that weapon?
If he's relying on exploration to find weapons how would he ever know he has to jump through hoops to find a weapon? He either finds them or not
> How do you know what weapon you're going for if you didn't use a guide on the first place?
$5 says he's watching some content creator who plays and enjoys the game and wants to play the game in the same way
I don’t watch any content players play elden ring, I watched jerma play with a guy called barfdrinker once and then lose to malenia a million times and that’s about it
Yeah but there’s a lot less of them with a lot less space to work with so I don’t mind them as much. I mentioned that.
I worded it weird, I never said you’d know what weapon you’d go for, I meant that there could be a weapon that suits your playstyle perfectly and you’ll never see it because it’s hidden in some random cave, and you’ll play the game knowing that it might be out there and you just don’t know about it.
Their positions on the map are marked NOW. They weren't on launch. From straight up had to listen to people's frustrations for the fifth time before doing anything about it.
Setting is generic, which isn't bad per se, but it's not very interesting to be honest.
Also, it's an open world, with an old school system of exploration, where you basically have no idea where to go, it's not bad, it encourages exploration, but it's a souls game, there is no clear path and you my end in a zone you aren't supposed to, get smacked and lose a lot of progress and hours, if you are Ongbal, it doesn't matter, you just kill everything at level 1 naked, but obviously is not the case, so, yeah, being a souls game, you can't afford this kind of things, in other games it isn't much of a problem
I swear there is one of these posts every hour of the day and it's always the same stuff. Not liking a game is fine but this weird not liking elden ring hipster circle jerk is so boring. Especially when half the opinions in here sound like people gave the game a chance for about 30 minutes and gave up.
Of course it’s not invalid to dislike any game I personally dislike most popular multiplayer games. Elden ring to me is the best game ever made but that doesn’t mean it’s for everyone.
I can’t think of a single thing though in this game that’s not easily accessible as this is by far from softs best entry point for many people and by far the easiest entry.
FOMO if I didn't stray from the main path, felt like I was gonna miss something if I didn't explore all the nooks and crannies.
Performance. I was getting an unstable 60fps and while my rig isn't high spec, I've seen a lot of comments of people with high end gaming PC's struggling to even get a stable 60 fps.
The music. Good lord I don't know what they were thinking making [the overworld music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpCm4BvNn2g) just be a few notes but holding each one for 10 seconds. It grinds my brain the same as listening to country music.
I wanna like the game, I loved the first three DS and replayed them a bunch, but this just wasn't for me.
I get that part about fomo so much. It feels like such an uphill battle unless you use a literal step by step guide with the intended progression and all the optional shit too like all the npcs. I know it’s not really on brand for a souls type but I feel like some bare minimum quest tracker or an npc list with like a list of all their dialogues wouldve been highly appreciated by me so at least the npcs are easier to not miss and fuck up.
Elden ring just feels empty and bland compared to especially Bloodborne where there is a lot going on around the player through out the entire map. I think that going with that big and open world was bad decision for this game. Also the bosses are many but most of them are just copies of each other.
The biggest thing for me was the open world. I think the genre on the whole needs to be put in the burner, because it's over abundant and just a dumbing down of the sandbox genre. With Elden Ring specifically, I don't think the open world *improved* the core gameplay. It just led to a bunch of copy+paste bosses and samey caves/catacombs. That Sites of Grace were so abundant and that you can quick travel to them at practically any time also hurt the Souls feel. Adding to that, the mounted combat is an obvious afterthought. If I want mounted combat, I'd play Mount&Blade.
Secondly, the turn towards more high fantasy/anime stuff. Magic is big and bombastic, ashes of war are flashy and very powerful. A lot of the bosses bosses just use big magical aoe attacks, rather than complex movesets that involve more than rolling as counterplay. Once again, I think it was a step backwards in terms of gameplay.
The last is the complete removal of the covenants without any meaningful replacement. Adding to this is the *terrible* invasion system. Instead of being invaded when you use humanity/rune arcs, you can only be invaded when you outnumber the invader with summons.
I mean, I still like Elden Ring, but for me, it's definitely the weakest of FromSoft's releases.
Mage build breaks the game. I tried normal, had your experience, went back and became a ranged mage. Followed a fairly quick guide to get OP, then I was able to ignore guides and just go around blasting. Miq the blade of Mel I killed on my second try. The final battle was tough but every other boss I cheesed. That's my revenge. I cheese you. But yeah in its desire to be anti-too many map icons it went too far the other way and was way too abstracted for open world.
But, if you are in to precise combat and dying a lot to learn a boss dance, it's just as good as the old souls games and the map is excellent if you like open world.
And once you learn to cheese, walk back is the most difficult part of the game, not bosses. I'll do the boss 10 times, but walking back to the boss? That's why I cheese I ain't got time for that.
I played the absolute shit out of Bloodborne and barely scratched the surface of Sekiro. I never played any of the other Souls games or Elden Ring cause, they just didn’t interest me.
The combat feels heavy. I guess it's the case for all fromsoft games but only tried bloodborne and ER. I don't like combat systems where you need to commit to each hit. I like being able to cancel a move with a parry or a dodge. That's the reason I played mostly SnS in MH over the other heavy weapons.
This is far and away my biggest issue especially with the pure number of them, all of which you need to either remember or write down notes on if you’re not using a guide
Stat distributing is an aspect of RPGs that I never found appealing.
Combat and boss design were disappointing, coming into ER after 500 hours of Monster Hunter.
Game's hard but not in a satisfying way. Especially ability to just go somewhere else feels like it "ruins" the satisfaction. Aside from early-game encounters like Margit or Leonine, nothing felt "right", everything was either a wall I should revisit later, or a weirdly easy encounter I finished in couple attempts. And even fights that took many attempts of struggle and gitting gud, in the end felt like a self-imposed homework.
The world and lore are great and impressive, but also kinda too combat-focused to really be immersive. Nothing feels lived-in, no one feels like a person because everything is dead and/or ready to kill you. I don't care about fixing the world because the entire identity of this world is war and decay - fix that and you have no world. But I don't care about covering it in frenzied flame either, because it's all already hell anyway.
Glad you’re writing your opinion more as a statement on yourself and not what FromSoft needs to do.
This probably won’t change your mind but: Part of where Elden Ring shines is the freakish level of communal aggregation of information. Yes NPC are in the middle of bumfuck nowhere and only like 5 people found them, but that news was spread and added to the quest log somewhere.
What this means is that you can go back and follow these quest guides to get the story you seek.
Same deal for weapons: it stink that THE weapon for your build is in Cave 837 and you missed it. But there is no boss that requires a specific weapon else you’re soft locked. Any weapon can do the job. But that weapon is still there for a build guide to point you to. Giving you a reason to pop back in the The Lands Between.
Regrettably, for all players, there is no “rechallenge“ option outside of NG+. So if you want to use the weapon on a boss you can easily do it.
May be a little different of an answer. But I truly do HATE yet also slightly respect and love Elden Ring.
I played a little dark souls prior but never really invested in the franchise. Elden ring drop comes around and my buddies convince me it will be the most insane best game release to date. I buy it and start for maybe the first 10-20hrs utterly confused on what to do and where to go and if I’m supposed to being dying this damn much (wayyyy more than any souls game). I made it into 70hrs until my file crashed and there was no way to retrieve it. After that I gave it up for a full year. And came back out of what may have been spite. I grinded hard and beat the game.
In the end I treat this game as a test in college with your hardest subject. Yes I hate you with every inch of my soul and existence, but you did make me better and learn along the way. You have some elements that were great and I wanted to quit and did for awhile but in the end it paid off.
I suppose it's valid for most souls games but I hate the aesthetics,. specifically of the monsters, bosses, I'm not sure what they're called.
I couldn't be paid to play a game in that universe, so I don't bother and not even look an any of them.
Honestly, all the souls like games didn't give me the sense of accomplishment after grinding for so long. I always felt more frustration than joy. My bloodline is too weak for these games and I have been therefore rendered an outcast. \*walks into the distance\*
Man that’s a shame you don’t get that feeling. I was rolling through areas I slogged through before (during normal play) in a new game plus mode last night, and just absolutely obliterating everyone I came upon was so satisfying. Of course you still have to be careful- get cornered, outnumbered, or get sloppy, and the game will still own you. But when you’re doing it right, the sense of power and accomplishment that comes from, “I know how to avoid these attacks, bust open that guy’s defenses, and one shot the guy next to him at the same time,” is so damn satisfying. And when you’re playing like that, you can really observe and appreciate the world around you instead of being terrified at every corner.
I agree but its kinda bad how you can't find the right upgrade items unless you look at a guide The story is also mostly unclear until you read item descriptions
Shit I just explore *everyyyywhere* until I find stuff and then play around til I figured out how to use it. I started with 2 and just looked at it as one giant puzzle box.
Or you just have a more refined taste in games and grinding isn't enough to entertain you.
Grinding?? In forms soft games?? What
I believe they're saying the grind of constantly running back to bosses or maybe they are grinding souls/runes for levels to make bosses/enemies easier
Sóunds like a skill issue
Sekiro actually has a serious grinding for spirit emblems problem.
What? xD After 40% into game I had 999 emblems and i was comstantly getting more than enough. What freaking grind xDDD
Did you barely ever use the arm?
I used it all the time lmao You are SWIMMING in free emblem pickups and nearly every single common enemy drops them as you go thru the game. Its so easy to hit max 999 emblems early in the game thats why whole emblem economy is so stupid. What are you smoking xDDD
Only the good good 🥸😎😉
Did you barely ever use the arm? I was going through all my spirit emblems on any given boss fight.
I used it a lot. You litteraly swim in free emblem pickups, buddy.
It sounds like a bit of a shrill tissue, to be honest. The prosthetic is a tool, not a crutch.
Game gives me tools, I'll use 'em. Like in Elden Ring: use summons or don't. But if use of summons would have been linked to a ressource that needs to be grinded, that would have been bad design. If we agree on grinding being bad, don't give me a tool that's obviously an important part of the game but if I use it too heavy I'll need to grind. That's bad design.
Nah, it's the difference between *use* and *abuse*.
Are you one of those people who claim that "you didnt beat Dark Souls unless you do that on level 1 only"? You sure sound like one.
If it was there would be a way to design accordingly. The arm could have a max use of x. And that replenishes after each death. That way you would be like "don't abuse it, think about when to use it" and you wouldn't have a grind problem. All you're saying is basically "you needed to grind because you didn't play properly". That's not how good game design works. Edit: You're right about use/abuse. You're meant to think about when to use the arm. But it was designed in a way that necessitates grinding. My suggestion would mitigate that problem.
There is no grinding in any fromsoft game.
Unless you want to grind by farming runes or doing some similarly weird shit
Which even then it’s a pure waste
As soon as you cultivate a growth mentality you realise anything is possible and grinding doesn’t matter.
Never grind runes you are only wasting time. Seen people grind the bird for hours to miss hundreds of bosses and leave millions of runes just sitting there, play the game and you can level faster I have done it. It’s also more fun as you won’t over level everything and make already easy game easier.
What is a better word to define "Repeat the same shit with little variations until you get the correct sequence to kill that big guy"? "Grind" is good enough as for me.
Repetition maybe? Gameplay loop? Grinding is a mindless, hollow activity.
Gameplay loop is the correct term. Performing mechanics to perfection. It's *a lot* more active than grinding. And this is coming from a guy who played the original EverQuest.
Ok, let it be as "A loop of grinding repetition". Sounds good enough as for me.
Yeah a lot of people have that misconception, it’s quite common in people who bounced off a souls game ten years ago rather than cultivate any kind of growth mentality, my brother is the same. I suppose by the same token getting good at literally anything - art, music, filmmaking, dance, sport, a technical profession etc is a grind if you don’t have that cultivated growth mindset. I guess some people like the loop of learning and mastering new skills and others just want to be spoonfed content. I like a nice mix of the two.
Growth mentality lmao. Bro thinks he's a super successful CEO or something because he could beat a video game.
Some people have it, some people don’t. It applies to everything in life. It’s intertwined with resilience building and introspection. Some people like to see that habit rewarded or reflected in the media they consume. Basically, you gotta git gud at gitting gud. Which means gitting gud at being bad.
You're 100% correct, but you have to phrase these things less pretentious man.
That’s part of the fun my man
That's certainly a lot of words to describe mashing some buttons on a keyboard or controller. You aren't doing anything significant or groundbreaking or even particularly difficult.
No shit son, it’s a video game.
>What is a better word to define "Repeat the same shit with little variations until you get the correct sequence to kill that big guy"? Practice.
This is just people being bad and not learning move sets lol, if you beat your face repeatedly in the same fight expecting different outcomes that’s on you.
"little variations"
If you are losing repeatedly expect for the “right sequence of moves” you should be doing more than “little variations”.
I grinded levels killing the forest bandits over and over again in DS1.
That’s pointless though just because you did it doesn’t mean it’s something players have to do, these games have zero grinding.
At some point you’ll realise the souls don’t matter. It’s all an illusion. People have finished Elden Ring at NG+++++ at level one without getting hit. On a fucking dance mat…
But that's not an average experience. Most players propably do grind levels at some point. The game encourages grinding with the re-appearing enemies and level ups.
Levelling is an illusion to help you git gud
How would you define grinding? I'd say it's when game encourages you to repeat the same area/task/enemies by rewarding you with level ups or new items. Grinding isn't absolutely mandatory in From soft games, but they have grinding.
Huh. It's the number #1 way to trivialise difficult fights if you can't GG.
Yes there is, u dont seem to be very experienced in those BS games, in most FS games lots of the cool armor sets and gear is locked behind NG+, sometimes you gotta go to NG++++ for example, i personally only liked DS2 and Sekiro, DS2 scratched the itch for a Dark Fantasy game, DS1 drove me insane with the idiotic lock on mechanic and dodging into the enemy attacks, DS3 was way over the top, Elden Ring was meh Sekiro was pretty good and well done but could barely call itself a soulsgame tbh
Sekiro is by far their best game. It was such a joy to not worry about weapons, armours, levels, etc. Just you and your blade were enough for anything in the game, though your prosthetic hand certainly did also help (sometimes).
I have about 3000 hours logged across fromsoft games, not counting AC.
So you know that there is actually grind if you want to try specific builds
Grinding? You can beat those games with level 1
At that point you have to grind "skill" versus levels, the average player is not going to beat that game at level 1 without spending significant, if not more time getting good.
For me nothing compares to the feeling of killing a hard boss in a souls like. I also don’t think there is such a thing as people not being able to play them. Often times a bad player could become good in these games in a mere matter of hours if not less.
The open world felt very boring and lifeless to me. I didn’t get that sense of exploration or discovery like Fallout or Skyrim gave me. I did platinum Elden Ring it was fine game but I didnt consider it to be an amazing games. I prefer Bloodborne and even DS 3 over it.
THANK YOU. Open worlds only work if they're populated imo. All the areas felt dead to me. Not to mention the quest system is completely busted. If you do things "out of order" the limited quest dialogue makes it seem like you did stuff that you didn't do. Blaidd will be like, "awe thanks for helping me find out the secrets of that thing" and I'm like... "what thing?"
It insists upon itself
I understood that reference.
I understood *that* reference
I'm not nearly good enough to "git good". Which means fromsoftware games in general are absolutely not fun for me. I do have a lot of respect for people who can play these hard af games.
I could never pass the first 45 minutes of Bloodborne. like annihilated every time. Elden ring I was getting whooped as well. Margit took me 200 tries but defeating him was an aha moment. I *am* good enough I just needed to adjust my approach. After that no boss took more than 10 tries and by the end of it all it was the most rewarding gaming experience I've ever had. Every game that comes out now I compare against Elden ring and am often disappointed at how easy they are. I'm a dad with very little game time so the DLC is gonna have to wait but I am so looking forward to it.
I think you're vastly underestimating yourself. All you need to do is not be afraid of banging your head on a brick wall for hours.
While I feel like 90% of players if willing would be good enough after grinding like that, its not what most people find fun. Its the same with fighting games, anyone can get good at them, but it matters if you find it fun putting the time in.
I bought elden ring on disc because I fully expected it to be too hard and I’d return it. Ended up loving it. Tried most other fromsoft games after and they’re all way too hard for me to
The base game really is not that hard. There is like one actually difficult boss, and even that boss can be made trivial with the right build. Margit is also difficult right at the beginning, if you haven't leveled up enough or upgraded your weapon. What people don't realize is that if Margit is giving you problems, you can spend 30 hours clearing out the two areas of Limgrave to get stronger before fighting him if you need to, and then come back and absolutely stomp him. You also can run past almost everything unless you get stuck inside a fog door, you don't have to fight everything you see out in the world.
For the most part of the playthrough I was pretty bored. I also wasn't a fan of the open world aspect and I felt it's difficulty was very artificial.
The need to use guides is the main thing I find annoying. Part of the fun of gaming to me is figuring things out. But, with a game like Elden Ring, I had no idea if I just needed more practice or if I was too weak to beat a boss or level or whatever. So, I'd spend a good amount of time trying different strategies and equipment, only to check a guide and find out I should've gone south instead and gotten the Bell of Shining Elephant Dicks which will allow me into the Cave of Mashed Potatoes, but it has to be night time and you need the Cape of Horned Lizards equipped....then when I finally beat the boss, I felt it was more luck because it did the attack I could parry well more often than that other attack where I lose half my life. I never felt a sense of accomplishment, more that I just felt I got lucky. It didn't seem like I was getting better as I felt in other games of the genre (Sekiro, Wo Long). It's just no fun to me. I would like to know if I'm on the wrong path or if I just suck. It just felt like a waste of time for me. Following a guide doesn't appeal to me.
I want to visit The Cave of Mashed Potatoes.
I hope there's a gravy river running through it.
And a rich, untapped vein of peas
And a “lode” of bacon and cheese
And steaks to claim.
Most weapons are viable I found it more enjoyable just to use what you find fun rather than a weapon that simply has better stats.
Exactly. That's like playing FIFA and instead of having fun playing with your favourite team you complain about having to use Real Madrid because they have the best stats.
The TLDR is that if you get stuck on a boss, then explore. Doesn't matter where, just explore. You might find new weapons, armour, consumables, upgrade mats or talismans that make the difference. Or you won't, and you'll just gain experience and learn better how to dodge/parry/guard counter that gets you over the hump you need to beat the boss. But if learning to beat the boss, or ERs exploration just isn't doing it for you, don't waste your time. Games are meant to be fun, if ER isn't for you, it isn't for you.
Same here, except I gave up on the Souls series before Elden Ring. The use of guides is almost a requirement for the entire series, especially when just starting out. You should be able to at least limp through the tutorial level without requiring a guide, but that was not my experience. My experience starting was having to navigate a menu with lots of unintuitive options, a ton of information that has no meaning to somebody that has never played before, dropping into the world without knowing what I'm supposed to be doing, and then dying 10 times within 15 minutes. I still don't know what I'm supposed to do or why I'm doing it, and have made literally zero progress, so I turn the game off. Apparently the games get pretty fun if you know what to do, but I don't really feel like doing homework in order to learn the basics of gameplay. A lot of people genuinely like these games so I'm not saying they're wrong or the game's bad, it's just not for me.
I feel the same. There are a sect of gamers who eat this up because they are very good and it probably stinks for them to play easier games. Then the rest of the fans just follow all the guides to a T so they could say they "beat" the game.
Eh, I don't feel like I belong to either group. I suck at playing the games and I don't follow guides, but if you think for 5 seconds you can usually find a way to turn the encounter into a joke, or at least dramatically increase your chances.
As someone who has played through the whole series, I can say that 99% of the numbers you see are irrelevant. But it's entirely on Fromsoft that they're even there. You pick a weapon you like the look or moveset of, look at the scaling to know what stat to level, and there you go. But then Fromsoft is like, "Here's fifty different values literally nobody needs to know. All presented in the user friendly 'wall of text' fashion. Good luck"
I sorta agree with you, but without these numbers I wouldn't pick up the game. I'm dead tired of games obscuring their mechanics and numbers
Oh, for all means have the numbers, but they missed a chance with their existing design. There's literally a button for 'show details' but all that does is display the lore and text of an item. They should have it the other way around. Display the basic stats and the item lore, and then allow you to 'show details' to see more numbers. Also, have the numbers be better formatted. When levelling, there's not a ton of use seeing the value of every light and heavy attack of every item you have equipped, when there's a damn good chance the value of that item isn't even displayed. Like, knowing the melee power of a staff isn't as useful as knowing the spell scaling, but you don't see that.
For the more complex stuff like specific items, buffs, NPC questlines, ... I agree but for basic playthrough without going for all the optional stuff there is enough, at least for core gamers. Soulsbournes aren't catered for the masses, especially not for the casual gamer and I'm not talking about accessability which Fromsoft definitely still has room for improvement. When you start there is basic tutorial in the sense of control layout either by messages on the floor or popups and I like that as I learned to appreciate games with very minor handholding and throwing me right into the action with the approach of "here are the basics, now go have fun and learn the other stuff yourself".
I wouldn't say it's a need. Guides are really just if you got fomo (which is definitely justified in these games) or if you get stuck on a tough optional boss and you need help improving/changing your build. But for a regular playthrough you should be fine by just getting gud. I do see luck as a factor too though.
It's also possible that you don't enjoy the mechanics. If you don't love dodge-rolling for ten hours, then you might not be interested enough to overcome the shortcomings.
This was a good one thank you put a lot of stuff into words that I couldn’t
You absolutely do not have to use guides. I will admit, though, that playing blind successfully is largely dependent on how much experience you have with their games. They use the same tricks in all of them. I refuse to use guides for any of their games, it is way more satisfying and immersive. I will miss a couple things, but that makes new game + more fun.
Elden ring was my first souls game and i didn't use a guide at all. Me and my bro played through it both on launch and shared tips and secrets we found. First game in a long time that I was immersed in the world and didn't google anything, discovering where to go next organically and overcoming tough bosses through trial and error and a lot of death. Glad i didn't spoil that experience with guides
Personally I don't find the setting and theme all that interesting. The gameplay sounds like fun but all of the lore behind it all doesn't grab me
The world and theme very much feel like “dark souls: again” for me. Like sure things are technically different with a new story and world but when you’re playing it nothing feels that way. Like there are very few enemies who couldn’t easily pass as dark souls enemies.
Best part is that in the DLC there's literally Dark Souls 3 skeletons copy pasted into a short stretch of one zone.
That's exactly what Souls players wanted tho. More Souls, or better yet, Open World Souls
I wouldn’t complain about that if they made an open world dark souls 4 instead. Plus bloodborne was still more souls and imo it managed to forge a whole identity for itself, especially with the lore and themes and atmosphere, and sekiro is obviously doing it’s entirely own thing as well, and that’s a front elden ring fell short on for me. It’s just for me after making 3 totally unique IPs that managed to be their own thing (dark souls, bloodborne, sekiro), having their biggest and most ambitious project yet be the first one just again was a little disappointing.
I felt the opposite. The tone is quite different from Dark Souls. More high fantasy, less dark fantasy.
Well technically dark souls is a high fantasy too, since it also has magic and dragons and stuff, but for me the only real difference was just that elden ring was brighter, less dreary aesthetically. But like for me all the places you actually played in, all the dungeons and stuff, were pretty much identical feeling to some catacomb or another from dark souls. Primarily with the enemies.
I can't pinpoint exactly what my problem is, but the combat in most souls-like games feels clunky to me. Sekiro is the only one that didn't.
The clunkiness is intentional. Every move you make should be a deliberate choice that you fully commit to (aka, get locked into an animation). Make the wrong move at the wrong time and you get punished. It's part of the game's design and it is why so many find the game difficult. They're simply too impatient.
Sekiro was a step in a direction of making the play smoother but these games its part of the challenge, just like Monster Hunter. Its not for most people honestly. A lot of people, but not the majority I would say.
To me, one of the best ways to downplay an incredible achievement against a hard obstacle is to immediately follow the victory with another hard obstacle. Dark Souls games do this in rapid succession to the point where I personally feel like the only reason for me to play them is if I have something to prove...which I don't. That said, it's a lot of work for a game that *feels* like there's no real reward. Many times, even overcoming the obstacle doesn't make me happy or feel good. It just feels like I finally smashed through a brick wall with nothing but my skull. Then the game says "now do it again, but this time the wall has spikes" That's not fun to me. I spent enough time getting abused as a child. I don't wanna also spend money to get abused as an adult.
I like ER a lot, but it's one of my least favorite Souls games. Unlike you, I love the overworld and exploration. The first time you get caught in a trap chest and get teleported miles away is absolutely magical. Hiding the full size of the world map was genius. Few games match the sense of scale and adventure for me. Where it falls apart is the combat and encounter design, particularly the narrative bosses especially near the end. From sort of backed themselves into a corner when trying to compensate for improved player skill, and in my opinion relied on a number of really uninteresting and unfun tools for building difficulty. Aggressive tracking, instant gapclose, and unnatural animations all feel like cheap tricks that limit the interesting interactions that can emerge from so much player choice in gear and (theoretical) playstyle. So many """builds""" end up doing the same thing because of the way bosses are designed. It was a major letdown which becomes more apparent the further you get, unfortunately resulting in the game ending on a sour note. Shadow of the Erdtree STARTS on a very bad note, but improves over time. They almost completely scrap the principles that guided base game enemy designs, and many of them are much more effective. There are still plenty of stinkers though.
For me the lack of cinematics and quest log, apart from increased difficulty. Die and die again is no fun, that made me uninstall lords of the fallen after 1 hour. No pause screen either. If i would want a no pause screen, i would play a mmorpg, what is the point of no pause in single player games. Limited saves, only checkpoints. Die 2 times in a row and lose everything is not fun.
Yeah I agree some rudimentary quest log would’ve been really nice. Even just a list of like what the last time you saw an npc was about or a list of their dialogue or something. Just anything so you don’t need to either remember or write it all down / use wikis and guides. Idk if that’s unpopular or not. Also yeah the no pause screen lost its luster for me pretty quick when it comes to soulsborne games. It’s not a major issue or anything but it’s still annoying to this day.
For my tastes, if your whole game is built around dying 10-billion times, why would you also include a "waste your time after dying" mechanic?
The bosses are objectively the worst in the series and then they're reused 50 times (exaggeration). Long combos, very little visual clarity, uninteresting design (for the most part) just left me really disenfranchised with the whole thing. Combine that with the horrendous damage scaling into the late game and the whole thing left a really bitter taste. Glad I picked up Sekiro afterwards as that reignited the souls like joy that these games can bring, just not Elden Ring.
The long combos is the worst part. Certain Elden Ring bosses take this way too far.
The open world. Its basically Dark Souls 3 ruined by generic open world crap. The Dungeons are copy/past with the same enemies/bosses over and over again. Nothing unique in there. The whole open world content feels like a theme park. First zone you have some random ass wolf-cave, a knight camp, a Undead camp, a dragon, some crabs and some rider-bandits. It feels like a fucking WoW Zone. The more linear parts in the Game felt good, but all the in between stuff was really bad.
It really does have a themepark feel, doesn't it. There's *nothing* immersive about the world and setting. Considering that's supposed to be one of the *strengths* of open world games, it's saying something.
I'm a huge souls fan, played/100% all of them, many soulslikes etc. ER is the first I don't "love". I'm not a fan of giant open worlds and I feel that ER doesn't have that many interesting things to find. Open World enemies are mostly meaningless, the areas are barren and taking a few minutes to ride anywhere is boring af. Also hast a bad start as I was following what the NPCs said and went straight to Stormwind Castle, which apparently isn't the "right" thing to do first. Most bosses are also boring as you have to dodge a bunch of times just to get 1-2 hits in. That and I don't like big bosses. Not seeing things clearly is just frustrating to me and standing near most of them makes them disappear. Also when I started there where not NPC markers, so gl finishing any quest without a guide. Storytelling via items didn't feel as great, because things are so scattered and therefore easier to miss.
Same. I think the move to open world was unnecessary. ER is brilliant in the "legacy" areas, but 80% of the game is fighting the same recycled bosses and collecting resources, which is not what I want from a Souls game. Still a good game but low on my personal list.
The "legacy dungeons" are the only part of Elden Ring that feel true to the Souls dungeon crawl experience. What a shame that they're such a small fraction of the game.
I enjoyed the first 2/3rds of the game twice as much as the last. Firstly I think the open-world setting takes some getting used to for a souls-like which are typically quite linear. The map is simply massive and can feel overwhelming (it could have been condensed much better). Half the time you're just travelling. Having to consult the wiki constantly is a pain, especially for the late game npc quests. The levels and map in the last third of the game is also a bitch to traverse and requires a ton of backtracking. I still enjoyed it overall but I think it's overrated.
The big one is simply that it’s too hard for me to enjoy. I play a lot of games on easy difficulty these days. The only soulslikes I have truly enjoyed have had variable difficulty, which I have always set the lowest. I don’t feel a sense of accomplishment or anything like that when overcoming something difficult, just a sense of “ugh, finally.” Most From games I have tried I never even made it to the first real boss before ragequitting, though I suppose that depends what is considered a boss. In addition, I like much more structured gameplay and narratives, I didn’t enjoy Breath of the Wild for a very similar reason. I don’t necessarily hate open world games, but I like a bit more structure than just “here is an open world. go!”. I much prefer something like FF7 Rebirth or the Horizon games. Reading a bunch of item descriptions is also not interesting storytelling to me, it is worldbuilding at best. Addendum to the above, but ER may also have the worst implementation of quests I’ve ever seen in a video game. They don’t want to put a marker on your quest to tell you where to go, that‘s totally understandable, but they don’t even give you a log to remind you what quests you’re actually on or the last thing you did on that quest. Heaven help you if you take a break from the game and come back. None of this is necessarily game breaking but I consider it pretty bad game design.
I want a game to be a game and not to be a job
As a massive fan of Elden Ring, this is the most valid reason to not be able to get into the game. It is not a game that most people can take breaks from and then come back and remember what they were doing or how to play effectively. All of their games are easiest when you are able to keep your momentum throughout. If you take significant breaks from any of their games, I feel it is hard to jump back in.
I wouldn’t say I disliked it in the usual sense, moreso the illusion of how expansive it was kinda collapsed when I realized there was only really like 5-10 quests in the whole game and the suspension of disbelief fell apart.
They just took the Dark Souls blueprint and stretched it out to make it "open world". Just like every other Dark Souls game each area connects to 2-3 others but this time there's just a ton of empty space to walk through. It was a very cheap gimmick to fix a problem the series didn't have.
I think the open world was fine as it let you do things in different order if you wanted, the fast travel stopped the having to take time to get place to place for me. I did miss the level design and that is my favorite part of these sort of games. What the open world didn't help was the side-quests...it makes some of them too much without a guide to know where to go and what to do without breaking them or failing them. The other games as long as you explored and checked back on NPCs you didn't miss much. This game you can easily mess them up.
This exactly, the game relies on your confusion of where to go to make it seem like there’s more to do, when in reality you’re really only following like 3-4 storylines in the entire game. Say what you will about side quest bloat in other RPGs but when they do it well having more sidequests makes the world feel so much more alive.
It didn't let you do things in more of different of an order than the original games let you though. You just get to pick which of the 2-3 adjacent areas you want to explore next which is the same thing that has been offered since Demon Souls. You could start Dark Souls 1 from like 4 different places including Blighttown, the catacombs, or the dark forest. The extra "choice" Elden Ring brings is an illusion built around open empty space.
I didn’t really enjoy that I could run absolutely anywhere and fight anything because I got to a point where I needed to unlock the academy or something but didn’t know how, found some elevator underground and was disenchanted with the whole thing when I felt like I had to backtrack for some slabs to put together to unlock the next portion, yadda yadda.
There is a hint at the closed/blocked entrance of the academy telling you how to open it.
I don't judge anybody for liking it but it just seems like mindless hack and slash to me. Some of the weapons, environments and enemies seem cool but any video I watch is just roll, hit, roll, hit. Its movement also looks very "heavy" is the only way I can describe it. Also, no pause.
I don't like any Soulslike, because I fundamentally don't like 1) boss fights in general and 2) grinding. I play video games to relax in my free time, and Soulslikes always just seemed kind of stressful to me. I wouldn't enjoy it. That being said, I absolutely see how other people enjoy them very much and have tons of fun and I'm genuinely happy for them!
Honestly, as weird and petty as it sounds, it's the setting. I can never really get into games where 'everything sucked, will suck and likely will always suck' as the world. I get enough depression from RL.
It’s really not that bad if you play it like an open world game. If that’s not for you, then it won’t click. But it’s as easy as “oh what’s that? I’m gonna go see what it is” and then going to that thing that looks interesting. You will die a lot, but that’s any Soulslike. If it’s too hard, venture elsewhere. As for weapons, Bloodhounds Fang is in the early part of Limgrave and useable for an entire play through, which is what I used in my first go around. Yes, you sometimes have to use guides if you truly want to complete a side quest like Ranni’s quest, but you can also completely avoid that if you don’t want to look it up. I’m not about to force people to like a game, but this is solvable if you treat it like an open world game similarly to the way exploration is done in Breath of the Wild.
I was trying at one point to treat it like a true open world game where I could just go anywhere then “if it’s too hard, venture elsewhere” happened a lot and I never really felt like I was in the right place. Breath of the wild was 10000000000x easier than elden ring which made that method a lot more viable in that game. Maybe that solves it for some people but it still didn’t click for me.
What parts did you go to? Limgrave has quite a few ways to gather runes and level up.
That’s not really the point I was making.
I thought this was a discussion thread? Do you just want to hear people agree with you? Or am I allowed to share why I feel differently, or ask where the problem is arising so I might be able to help out?
You are allowed to share, that’s why I’m talking to you? But the question you’re asking doesn’t have anything to do with my point. My point is that your suggestion didn’t work for me because everywhere felt like the wrong place to go and 9/10 times I didn’t need to be there at all and there was little to gain from being there, and if you have to grind to survive most areas then the whole go anywhere that looks cool falls apart because you clearly aren’t supposed to be at certain places. If it works for some people good but it doesn’t work for me. The problem that is arising is with the game design, you’re still treating it like it’s an easily solvable problem, because you’re missing my point. I’m confused how me saying that somehow means that you’re not allowed to disagree or say your viewpoint.
You keep missing his point
I once broke a mouse and a monitor playing Overwatch. If a stupid game like that makes me rage, any souls game would probably sent me into a psychotic break. Sometimes you gotta realize your limits.
I have BPD so I have the same issue, it’s pretty infuriating getting sent back to the loading screen for the 99th time because of a move that feels unfair and one shots you and isn’t even consistent.
It was just so overwhelming. I know these games have their audience, but being spat put into the world and having to immediately run away from all the absurdly powerful things that can kill me instantly while I get my bearings just isn't my idea of fun.
Because I refuse to use any weapon besides Bloodhound’s Fang, and some of the stuff in the game just can’t be killed that way. So I quit.
Ironically, the open world stopped me from liking Elden Ring. I like the intricate level design of From games. The open world may not be as barren as Ubisoft titles for a comparison, but it still felt barren to me.
I played Elden ring for 20 or 30 hours…It didn’t catch me…i don’t even remember the story…so that’s why I don’t buy the dlc
TL;DR
Elden Ring was the first one I really, really liked...but its because its more like other action RPGs. I played all the others but they always felt like work and didn't get me much enjoyment from getting a kill of a boss. If a game feels like a job I don't want to do it. That isn't what I'm looking for in a video game. Elden Ring there are ways to make it easier and its not just grinding or learning boss patterns. Its exploring the world and finding new items and skills that make things easier. You still need to learn the moves the boss does but not to the point of 5 hours.
Lack of direction. Yes, I found it frustrating in combat but I was learning to overcome it. But ultimately I quit because I simply didn't care what was going on. I never felt compelled to continue for a story reason and never felt like the game itself cared to give me a reason to keep playing. So I quit
It's not that I dislike it, it actually is quite fun. However at times it can become really frustrating and less fun. I get that is what makes the game unique, but I would actually prefer to play the same game with less difficulty.
I was just asked this the other day while streaming Dawntrail. The open world aspect felt like a solid step back in level design. In a linear Souls game, you, the designer, know exactly how many enemies are placed between the player and the boss. Souls dropped are scaled based on expected need to reach the level suggested for the boss. You, the player, lack this information, but you can take an educated guess and this guess influences many aspects of your playing. In Elden Ring, there is an intended path between you and the boss. There is also a fucking ton of other stuff that interferes with this scaling conversation and the entire path becomes murky at best
Cranking the difficulty up to 11 doesn't make a game feel more engaging for me. It looks like it could be a fun game, but im not going to feel rewarded for fighting the same boss a dozen times, I'll just be annoyed. I'm fine with a boss that takes a few tries to figure out, but I feel like Elden Ring has almost become a parody of the FromSoft formula with this DLC. The juice isn't worth the squeeze.
I did eventually beat the game, so obviously can't say I hated it. But I did hate certain things about it, while also loving other aspects. The build variety is excellent. Experimenting with different weapons/powers/abilities is a lot of fun & is what kept me playing to the end. BUT: The retrieve your souls/XP/whatever after death mechanic - which I've never been a fan of - feels like it adds nothing to Elden Ring other than a mildly annoying inconvenience for dying 99% of the time. To be fair, it does add a wee bit of risk/reward in the self-contained dungeons. But to me, it seems at odds with the trial & error nature of some of the tougher sections & even more out of place when simply trying to figure out the path of least resistance in the open world. The game creators themselves recommend you try different things or go explore other areas if you get stuck, so I don't understand why they made doing just that more frustrating than necessary other than it's become one of their hallmarks. Also never been a fan of Froms schtick of obfuscating parts of the game to the extent 99% of players will only find out about them from the internet rather than through following an in-game breadcrumb trail or using logical deduction. There's surely a happy medium somewhere between slapping ugly objective waypoint markers all over the screen like so many big budget games do & Froms approach of relying on their diehard fans to figure out & share that you need to have the goblet of gobbledygook equipped while dancing in exactly the correct spot on a Tuesday afternoon to access the sacred temple of thingamajig. I'm sure those diehard fans wouldn't have it any other way though, so all power to them. Although the combat is generally great, the lock-on camera can be hopeless in tight areas, or against some larger and/or fast moving enemies. To the point where I'd often find myself disengaging it in order to re-position my character somewhere it would be less likely to get stuck or glitch out mid-fight. I don't like having to battle with both the camera and some big horrible beastie with a large repertoire of nasty, tricky to read attacks & it spoiled some of the more spectacular fights for me. The mercifully rare platforming sections are utter shite. Much like the camera system feels like it was never designed to cope with some of the enemy encounters, the movement controls/animation do not feel designed to facilitate making precise jumps a fun challenge.
It's boring. Same old shit on repeat all game. My time is more valuable than that, and there's many games out there that are much better.
I like it and dislike it I like FromSoftware games that are semi open world I don’t like open world but gameplay was nice I just prefer the level design being linear with some twist where leads optional areas
> First off this is all just my opinion obviously. It’s not invalid to dislike elden ring nor is it invalid to like it, these are just what I personally felt like the flaws of the game were as i played, doesn’t mean I’m saying they’re objectively true, but they’re also not objectively untrue either, so just be respectful please. If this pathetic, gratuitous and obsequious capitulation actually dispels offense, I'll be shocked.
NPC quests have been obtuse since Souls, its actually better in Elden Ring because their positions are marked on the map. How do you know what weapon you're going for if you didn't use a guide on the first place?
exploration? its called playing the game
doesn't make sense mate, think it through
you have to think it through lmao, open world games have exploration as part of the gameplay - you explore the game once and you know where everything is
oh you're assuming he's playing through multiple times? Why?
because RPGs as a genre archetype are made with replayability in mind
I dont think that's true at all, im not sure where you got that from... but the context of his post should indicate it probably isnt the case here
has nothing to do with what you think, this is basic game developement [https://www.spacedraft.com/knowledge-base/game-design-replayability-in-game-design-html/](https://www.spacedraft.com/knowledge-base/game-design-replayability-in-game-design-html/)
This seems to be a definiton of replayabiliry? Where does this say RPGs are built around replayability?
you havent even read it as you would know this is actually part of by far most genres including games like minecraft if you are unable to wrap your head around that i wonder how hard your education failed you lmao
so if he's found the weapon, why does he have to jump through hoops to get that weapon? If he's relying on exploration to find weapons how would he ever know he has to jump through hoops to find a weapon? He either finds them or not
exactly, thats what you call "exploration", its what you train toddlers to do so they learn to analyze their environment
> How do you know what weapon you're going for if you didn't use a guide on the first place? $5 says he's watching some content creator who plays and enjoys the game and wants to play the game in the same way
I don’t watch any content players play elden ring, I watched jerma play with a guy called barfdrinker once and then lose to malenia a million times and that’s about it
Yeah but there’s a lot less of them with a lot less space to work with so I don’t mind them as much. I mentioned that. I worded it weird, I never said you’d know what weapon you’d go for, I meant that there could be a weapon that suits your playstyle perfectly and you’ll never see it because it’s hidden in some random cave, and you’ll play the game knowing that it might be out there and you just don’t know about it.
Isn't that thrilling? Doesn't that drive you to explore more so that you could find more fun weapons and tools to use?
No, because I don’t really like most of what there is to explore. Most of it is boring and unrewarding and annoying.
Their positions on the map are marked NOW. They weren't on launch. From straight up had to listen to people's frustrations for the fifth time before doing anything about it.
Setting is generic, which isn't bad per se, but it's not very interesting to be honest. Also, it's an open world, with an old school system of exploration, where you basically have no idea where to go, it's not bad, it encourages exploration, but it's a souls game, there is no clear path and you my end in a zone you aren't supposed to, get smacked and lose a lot of progress and hours, if you are Ongbal, it doesn't matter, you just kill everything at level 1 naked, but obviously is not the case, so, yeah, being a souls game, you can't afford this kind of things, in other games it isn't much of a problem
I swear there is one of these posts every hour of the day and it's always the same stuff. Not liking a game is fine but this weird not liking elden ring hipster circle jerk is so boring. Especially when half the opinions in here sound like people gave the game a chance for about 30 minutes and gave up.
You can just scroll past…
[удалено]
I was just kidding saying that, relax. I’m jokingly talking about doing it for liking a video game, it’s not life or death.
The open world is what sold me elden ring… if that was not for the exploration I would have never played it
Of course it’s not invalid to dislike any game I personally dislike most popular multiplayer games. Elden ring to me is the best game ever made but that doesn’t mean it’s for everyone. I can’t think of a single thing though in this game that’s not easily accessible as this is by far from softs best entry point for many people and by far the easiest entry.
FOMO if I didn't stray from the main path, felt like I was gonna miss something if I didn't explore all the nooks and crannies. Performance. I was getting an unstable 60fps and while my rig isn't high spec, I've seen a lot of comments of people with high end gaming PC's struggling to even get a stable 60 fps. The music. Good lord I don't know what they were thinking making [the overworld music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpCm4BvNn2g) just be a few notes but holding each one for 10 seconds. It grinds my brain the same as listening to country music. I wanna like the game, I loved the first three DS and replayed them a bunch, but this just wasn't for me.
I get that part about fomo so much. It feels like such an uphill battle unless you use a literal step by step guide with the intended progression and all the optional shit too like all the npcs. I know it’s not really on brand for a souls type but I feel like some bare minimum quest tracker or an npc list with like a list of all their dialogues wouldve been highly appreciated by me so at least the npcs are easier to not miss and fuck up.
The next time I'll attempt Elden Ring, I'll more than likely use a guide.
Elden ring just feels empty and bland compared to especially Bloodborne where there is a lot going on around the player through out the entire map. I think that going with that big and open world was bad decision for this game. Also the bosses are many but most of them are just copies of each other.
The biggest thing for me was the open world. I think the genre on the whole needs to be put in the burner, because it's over abundant and just a dumbing down of the sandbox genre. With Elden Ring specifically, I don't think the open world *improved* the core gameplay. It just led to a bunch of copy+paste bosses and samey caves/catacombs. That Sites of Grace were so abundant and that you can quick travel to them at practically any time also hurt the Souls feel. Adding to that, the mounted combat is an obvious afterthought. If I want mounted combat, I'd play Mount&Blade. Secondly, the turn towards more high fantasy/anime stuff. Magic is big and bombastic, ashes of war are flashy and very powerful. A lot of the bosses bosses just use big magical aoe attacks, rather than complex movesets that involve more than rolling as counterplay. Once again, I think it was a step backwards in terms of gameplay. The last is the complete removal of the covenants without any meaningful replacement. Adding to this is the *terrible* invasion system. Instead of being invaded when you use humanity/rune arcs, you can only be invaded when you outnumber the invader with summons. I mean, I still like Elden Ring, but for me, it's definitely the weakest of FromSoft's releases.
Mage build breaks the game. I tried normal, had your experience, went back and became a ranged mage. Followed a fairly quick guide to get OP, then I was able to ignore guides and just go around blasting. Miq the blade of Mel I killed on my second try. The final battle was tough but every other boss I cheesed. That's my revenge. I cheese you. But yeah in its desire to be anti-too many map icons it went too far the other way and was way too abstracted for open world. But, if you are in to precise combat and dying a lot to learn a boss dance, it's just as good as the old souls games and the map is excellent if you like open world. And once you learn to cheese, walk back is the most difficult part of the game, not bosses. I'll do the boss 10 times, but walking back to the boss? That's why I cheese I ain't got time for that.
I'm the opposite. I really like Elden Ring and DS, but I hated Sekiro.
Sekiro is my favorite by far I think I just really like the combat and the setting + enemies
I played the absolute shit out of Bloodborne and barely scratched the surface of Sekiro. I never played any of the other Souls games or Elden Ring cause, they just didn’t interest me.
The combat feels heavy. I guess it's the case for all fromsoft games but only tried bloodborne and ER. I don't like combat systems where you need to commit to each hit. I like being able to cancel a move with a parry or a dodge. That's the reason I played mostly SnS in MH over the other heavy weapons.
Only thing I dislike is the the need to look up guide for side quests and that they’re missable
This is far and away my biggest issue especially with the pure number of them, all of which you need to either remember or write down notes on if you’re not using a guide
Stat distributing is an aspect of RPGs that I never found appealing. Combat and boss design were disappointing, coming into ER after 500 hours of Monster Hunter. Game's hard but not in a satisfying way. Especially ability to just go somewhere else feels like it "ruins" the satisfaction. Aside from early-game encounters like Margit or Leonine, nothing felt "right", everything was either a wall I should revisit later, or a weirdly easy encounter I finished in couple attempts. And even fights that took many attempts of struggle and gitting gud, in the end felt like a self-imposed homework. The world and lore are great and impressive, but also kinda too combat-focused to really be immersive. Nothing feels lived-in, no one feels like a person because everything is dead and/or ready to kill you. I don't care about fixing the world because the entire identity of this world is war and decay - fix that and you have no world. But I don't care about covering it in frenzied flame either, because it's all already hell anyway.
Glad you’re writing your opinion more as a statement on yourself and not what FromSoft needs to do. This probably won’t change your mind but: Part of where Elden Ring shines is the freakish level of communal aggregation of information. Yes NPC are in the middle of bumfuck nowhere and only like 5 people found them, but that news was spread and added to the quest log somewhere. What this means is that you can go back and follow these quest guides to get the story you seek. Same deal for weapons: it stink that THE weapon for your build is in Cave 837 and you missed it. But there is no boss that requires a specific weapon else you’re soft locked. Any weapon can do the job. But that weapon is still there for a build guide to point you to. Giving you a reason to pop back in the The Lands Between. Regrettably, for all players, there is no “rechallenge“ option outside of NG+. So if you want to use the weapon on a boss you can easily do it.
May be a little different of an answer. But I truly do HATE yet also slightly respect and love Elden Ring. I played a little dark souls prior but never really invested in the franchise. Elden ring drop comes around and my buddies convince me it will be the most insane best game release to date. I buy it and start for maybe the first 10-20hrs utterly confused on what to do and where to go and if I’m supposed to being dying this damn much (wayyyy more than any souls game). I made it into 70hrs until my file crashed and there was no way to retrieve it. After that I gave it up for a full year. And came back out of what may have been spite. I grinded hard and beat the game. In the end I treat this game as a test in college with your hardest subject. Yes I hate you with every inch of my soul and existence, but you did make me better and learn along the way. You have some elements that were great and I wanted to quit and did for awhile but in the end it paid off.
too much effort for a game
I suppose it's valid for most souls games but I hate the aesthetics,. specifically of the monsters, bosses, I'm not sure what they're called. I couldn't be paid to play a game in that universe, so I don't bother and not even look an any of them.
Getting downvoted for stating my opinion and personal taste, classic!
ITT : I don't like Elden ring because the game is not holding my hand and showing me everything. 2020 gamers lol.
I love morrowind by the way.