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A Critical discussion on Elden Ring and Innovation

jufonuk

not tag worthy
I'm sorry people. Don't get mad at me. I'm sure this has been suggested a million times.

Some kind of glider would've been cool. If it would've made obtaining key items too easy and compromised the progression of the game, then keep it for the end game, or NG+.
Weapons could break also?
 

ClosBSAS

Member
Lmao, see op..even with all those flaws u just reviewed and analyzed. It's still a better game than 90% of games out there and it's still is top tier contender for GOTY. So find all the flaws you want, no gane is perfect. But the sales and audience growth speaks for itself. Game is a winner.

Technical issues sucked yes, but they don't require 15 30gb patches like Ubisoft games do.
 
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SmokedMeat

Gamer™
My one and only issue with ER is how absolutely pointless altering your armor is. Sure the weight drops a little, but the stats take a big hit.

Why bother?? There’s literally no upside to it. I’d rather leave them as is, and work my way into wearing them well.

The ability to level up armor would be pretty neat too. But that might be overkill.
 

Aion002

Member
This reminds a hot take a friend of mine made with Kuon, comparing it to Silent Hill 3, claiming that I was wrong liking Kuon more than SH3.

The same thing I said to him many years ago I will say it again: different budgets, different scopes, different approaches, different devs and what is so great for you might not be for others.


Anyway, From Software doesn't have the capacity to make Triple A game like Sony, they don't have enough budget and staff to make that happen.


Comparing Elden Ring with Horizon is unrealistic.

From Software develops niche games , they always did, their games have lower budget and smaller scope than a triple A game like GTA, Horizon or Assassin's Creed.

From Software games being popular right now won't immediately change that and it might even never change, because they make the games they wanna make.

I don’t remember FS making any promises with ER, saying that it would be innovative or comparing it with triple A games like Horizon or RDR2.

So... Yeah... Maybe FS games are not for you...
 

Meicyn

Gold Member
My one and only issue with ER is how absolutely pointless altering your armor is. Sure the weight drops a little, but the stats take a big hit.

Why bother?? There’s literally no upside to it. I’d rather leave them as is, and work my way into wearing them well.

The ability to level up armor would be pretty neat too. But that might be overkill.
Drip is never pointless.

To hell with the stats, I need to look hot while I murder shit.

ao3M8GJ.jpg


I altered that body piece to remove the hood because invaders need to see my 80s inspired homoerotic oily muscled dude killing them with a non-optimal weapon and shield lineup for maximum humiliation.
 
I love Fromsoft games, but I do think that Elden Ring is overrated. Still a great game, but not a masterpiece. Bountiful as far as content goes, but wears out it's welcome once you reach the 4th repeating "open" area of terrain, complete with colour palette swaps and slight variations. So much is novel and discoverable which is the main draw of the game, new loot, new area, new wooden NPC quest. I have to say that combat has not evolved anywhere since Demon's Souls in any meaningful way, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The "lore" and "story" is just a bland mess... with the same tired old RPG tropes. The most fun I had, playing as a wretch and having to jump around in my loincloth in the early game, clubbin' dudes. Scaling is a bit off, even without trying to level up you just become walking nuke by the end. Fuck Malenia though.

HOT TAKE TIME: I had far more fun with Horizon Forbidden West than Elden Ring. Give me more dynamic combat - Ultra hard is fantastic.
 

Thief1987

Member
Maybe reviewers should actually finish the game and maybe also give an honest opinion rather than go with the hyperbole and call a masterpiece a game they didn't understood what the fuck they were doing to begin with
Bandai was very smart giving review codes very late, knowing that most of the outlets only care about hype and clicks, so they will write their reviews based on first 30-40 hours, and that the second half of the game is trash-tier and 6/10 at best.
 

ChorizoPicozo

Gold Member
I see. People get triggered by the word Innovative. And people have weird takes (if not lame takes) between graphics and art direction.

I'm just going to say this:

Let's remember that from software games have a root inspiration from dungeons and dragons. And we can see this essence rooted in from software game design= you are encourage to explore and experiment.

And this is why it feels so rewarding to engage in this way. When the vast majority of AAA games are void of this kind of game design philosophy.
 
OP, this guy pretty much states what you're attempting to, but with way more clarity as someone who as fully explored all that the game has to offer.



Slight rambles a bit a few times, but he has very valid criticisms while still prefacing that he thinks the game is great.
 

CeeJay

Member
Bandai was very smart giving review codes very late, knowing that most of the outlets only care about hype and clicks, so they will write their reviews based on first 30-40 hours, and that the second half of the game is trash-tier and 6/10 at best.
Genuine question.

When does the game drop off in quality? I have over 100hrs and currently exploring the Royal Capital.
 

Alebrije

Member
If players used most of all items You can fabricante to attack enemies they would Discover different ways to approach an enemy.

Saddly most people Focus on armor and weapons...there is a reason Froms put all those items in the world , the flowers , sparks,. Etc. Arw there for a reason.

Just by example two well known tactics :. You can put sleep the two monks with an item so the battle becomes very easy. Throwing an item to the The Big giant golems Will make them fight between them.

Saddly most of people think those tons of items are useless but if used properly they make a lot easy the world.

So from a gameplay point of view ER and others Froms games are unique , that is what makes the games different vs other formulas
 
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arvfab

Banned
Agree, OP. I think after crafting, the open world was the worst addition to ER. Would have been a much better game if they connected the very good legacy dungeons together without any unnecessary bloat in-between, like they did with their previous games.

I think people are giving ER more praise because it is the easiest From game and are therefore able to appreciate the Souls formula for the first time.
 

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
Drip is never pointless.

To hell with the stats, I need to look hot while I murder shit.

ao3M8GJ.jpg


I altered that body piece to remove the hood because invaders need to see my 80s inspired homoerotic oily muscled dude killing them with a non-optimal weapon and shield lineup for maximum humiliation.

Looks good. Now I want to see some women looking like Frank Frazetta art.
 
The game is so repetitive and boring after NG+7...

ER is far from perfect. Story and quests are a 0/10 for me and graphics could be improved on the technical side. But boring? There're so many weapons, spells and enemies, and the combat system is so deep that you can play for 100 hours and still find different ways to fight an enemy. And not to mention the challenge, which is so rare these days.

In my case, it was my first Souls game and it was so boring and repetitive that I played Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 3 after it, and still want more.
 

Fredrik

Member
The game was a technical mess on release (don't know the situation now)

Look at Horizon Forbidden West. I cant speak for story and mechanics as I haven't played it”

I have to ask - Have you played it?

1. You can sneak slowly and pick up loot, or walk past enemies, there is even talismans focusing on silencing your foot steps and crafting items doing the same thing.
2. You can disguise yourself.
3. Getting enemies to attack each other is a thing.
4. NPCs are static for sure, as in pretty much all games. But NPCs do move around in the world, at least some, once you’ve progressed their quest line to certain points.
5. Torrent, the horse, is most definitely changing how the game plays, it spawn right under you and can double jump and it adds mount combat. It changes everything and makes other Souls games feel slow and clunky.
6. The exploration is peak of the industry, possibly only beaten by some Bethesda game.
 

Saber

Gold Member
Stopped reading after "The game was a technical mess on release (don't know the situation now)". If you can't be bothered to play the game then i can't be bothered to read your opinion on it.

Me too.
Like...technical mess? Was the game running at 10 fps or something? Was it broken or crashing my PS4? Seriously, the drama people make is beyond limits. Maybe I'm too old to deal with stupid comments like the OP did just to nitpick.
 
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ReBurn

Gold Member
tl;dr but really, Elden Ring wasn't made to be innovative. Elden Ring was made to be an open world FromSoftware soulsbourne game. In that it has achieved what it intended to achieve. That's really all that matters.
 

CeeJay

Member
Me too.
Like...technical mess? Was the game running at 10 fps or something? Was it broken or crashing my PS4? Seriously, the drama people make is beyond limits. Maybe I'm too old to deal with stupid comments like the OP did just to nitpick.
it seems like nowadays unless a game never drops a frame it is unacceptable. I have been playing on SeriesX (supposedly a bad next gen version compared to PS5) and have not yet been pushed to outrage by the performance. It would be interesting to see what these guys would have made of the N64! Near enough every beloved title from that console ran like shit! Goldeneye, OOT, Mario64, Body Harvest, Perfect Dark, Starfox64 and the worst offender I encountered Turok 2, now that shit was unplayable for me. Decent framerates were possible on that console such as F Zero but the majority of polygon based games on it were sluggish at best.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
OP, this guy pretty much states what you're attempting to, but with way more clarity as someone who as fully explored all that the game has to offer.



Slight rambles a bit a few times, but he has very valid criticisms while still prefacing that he thinks the game is great.


This is typical of the type of YT "depth" critique that I cannot fucking stand.

Why would anyone want to listen to somebody you don't know rabbit on for an hour and 40 minutes about a game's subjective failings?
Seriously. Why invest the time on such an unrewarding endeavour?

What's being uniquely brought to the table here that I, or anyone else, need to waste the length of a movie on hearing?

This guy moans about the game being a slog, but apparently doesn't understand the value of brevity and conciseness in his own work!

All it does is drive the viewer to skip ahead to the conclusion, and make their assessment based solely on that. And of course, that inevitably demonstrates the length of the analysis to be entirely unjustified, because there's never anything tremendously insightful revealed.

In this case, all that is revealed is he thinks the game is good, but not as good as Dark Souls.
Whoopty-fucking-do. 100 minutes for that.
 
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Fbh

Member
Yeah Elden Ring isn't a particularly innovative game. It's essentially open world Dark Souls and it doesn't bring any new crazy mechanics or never before seen innovations to the open world formula.
I don't see that as a negative though, and I don't think innovation is the only thing that should make a game worthy of praise.

If anything, I think the fact Elden Ring has stood out as much as it has and connected with so many players by doing non innovative things like having a less linear approach to progression and exploration, less reliance on waypoints and map icons, cool boss battles and having well designed and fun to explore main locations speaks way more poorly about the state of AAA open world gaming than it does about Elden Ring.
 

GymWolf

Member
I love Fromsoft games, but I do think that Elden Ring is overrated. Still a great game, but not a masterpiece. Bountiful as far as content goes, but wears out it's welcome once you reach the 4th repeating "open" area of terrain, complete with colour palette swaps and slight variations. So much is novel and discoverable which is the main draw of the game, new loot, new area, new wooden NPC quest. I have to say that combat has not evolved anywhere since Demon's Souls in any meaningful way, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The "lore" and "story" is just a bland mess... with the same tired old RPG tropes. The most fun I had, playing as a wretch and having to jump around in my loincloth in the early game, clubbin' dudes. Scaling is a bit off, even without trying to level up you just become walking nuke by the end. Fuck Malenia though.

HOT TAKE TIME: I had far more fun with Horizon Forbidden West than Elden Ring. Give me more dynamic combat - Ultra hard is fantastic.
What differences did you noticed in ultra hard compared to very hard?

Are the enemies actually more aggressive and smart of just more tanky and damaging? In the past game the difference was pretty big.
 

DragonNCM

Member
To start off, I saw Kssio_Aug's criticism thread a while back. He just compared Elden Ring to prior Fromsoft games and said he felt it was overrated.

I'm not going to criticize Elden Ring in terms of other Fromsoft games, since I don't feel people set enough standards for Fromsoft.
I'm looking at this from the viewpoint of what a critically acclaimed open-world game IN 2022 should be like.

The game was a technical mess on release (don't know the situation now), with all the stuttering and lags, on next-gen and PC. But what makes me even more critical is that the game doesn't really have anything computational that's weighing it down. What the hell is intensive in Elden Ring that was making it stutter on a PS5? With all it's power? I wonder🤔. With what I have seen so far, if it was even remotely optimized well, a PS3 would be able to run it. No joke.

I do not know what whoever at Fromsoft set the stock keyboard input layout for PC was thinking. Who the hell presses G to open a map? F to run? For all the crap games like RDR2 received for convoluted controls, this takes the cake.

Exploration is just looking for loot or bosses to kill. With all the acclaim for being an inventive open world, I thought they would have nailed the element of surprise. Like creeping slowly to get some loot, only to get captured by a plant monster with vine ropes, from which you would have to break free quickly or you die.

The world is terribly static to say the least. Using a telescope you could see enemies afar off just rotating around the same territory, back and forth. Ghosts and any NPCs only exist to mutter one or two lines of dialogue and nothing else. The rest of the world only exists to attack you. The world seems like it waits for you to act. You can wait at a spot for hours and nothing will happen, as long as you're not fighting.

The game has a God-tier art style and brilliant boss designs, but even those are brought down to earth by the PS3 level graphics and average character models. I have a fair tolerance for things like pop-in and all that graphical jargon, but that and artifacts on distant objects in this game are honestly terrible.

The game's enemy AI and gameplay is dated: the enemies have always had the same purpose. Attack the character with the same, one or two janky animations until he's down. But how about bringing a new enemy mechanic, instead of the old parrying and slashing? Instead implementing new gameplay features like using magic spell to make enemies attack themselves, or having the ability to take possession of an enemy and attack the others. You should be able to use a potion to masquerade as an enemy once, so you can move past without combat. Bosses should have had the ability to change fighting tactics to keep the game more challenging, with you having the ability to find a weak spot to strike, like in Sekiro.This isn't hard for crying out loud. I played some DS3 back in the day, and I kid you not, I was seeing similar if not same animations. It kinda reinforces my point that they did not care to update their engine to add new animations.

You cannot swim. In 2022. Swimming is a standard feature of open world games (at least of ER's scale). The last open world game I know that had this issue was RDR from 2010. If you guys want to bring up the issue of relevance of swimming, then why did they add water to the game? FS could have even added running on water as a mechanic to reach further places like islands. Now THAT is a new mechanic.

I will never dispute the fact that anyone can have fun with the game despite it's barrage of issues. Fun is subjective. But what I do not understand is how ppl can ignore glaring game design problems and overhype it as some innovative open world, when in reality it's just a repetition of FS's prior games.

Look at Horizon Forbidden West. I cant speak for story and mechanics as I haven't played it, and honestly I'm not so into it, but it is a genuine technical masterpiece as it was able to maintain the best graphics on the PS4 and run smoothly on it, while being cross-gen with the PS5, and adding great character details. Instead of highlighting that achievement, reviews were only bordered on "lack of innovation", which I feel is more apt to Elden Ring by the way.

I would have way more respect for Miyazaki if he actually had the balls to take risks and actually push to innovate on the established souls formula after 11 years of the nearly the same game, bar Sekiro.

As a matter of fact, I feel Sekiro is by far Fromsoft's best game, at least innovation wise. Fromsoft at least innovated on it. It goes in new territory, added new stealth combos kills and attacks, and some of the mechanics were genuinely graceful. The story was good, and the some of the characters were charismatic.

Its a bit frustrating that we are in an age of gaming where AAA developers should be placing priority on advancing gaming with innovation in AI, game mechanics and upscaling their tech to take advantage of faster console and PC hardware... And then an AAA game like this comes around and gets critically acclaimed for mediocre tech and average game design.

I don't know what to term this on Fromsoft's part. It's not like FromSoft are Indie. They have been making successful games. They could have used their manpower to overhaul their game engine. They could have made use of brilliant game designers to prescribe new mechanics and features to add.
So why didn't they?

Any other developer would have been heavily criticized with the barrage of technical issues the game has, and would have even gotten torn to shreds over the fact that they did not substantially innovate with their formulae.

Just think.

Is adding a horse, (to a series that should have had it since the beginning, by the way) really an evolution?
Is adding the ability to jump a mind-blowing, inventive game mechanic?

Look. Elden Ring doesnt have to completely overhaul open worlds, but I don't see what brilliant new features or improved mechanics it brought to advance open world gaming, warranting all the praise.

I feel if Fromsoft are criticized for issues they'll drastically improve and innovate in their next games.
This is my first Fromsoftware game.
World & story they build in this game & story telling thru quests, item descriptions, notes, gameplay, blowed my mind totally.
Graphic & art directions have some filling of originality, performance is not bad at all & will not agree with your "PS3" comparation at all.
I play most of my times openworld games AC, Days gone, Far cry , Horizon, Witcher, CP 2077, GTA , RDR etc. This games have same boring formula of questing, most of the time getting junk items from quests to overwhelm your inventory so you can fucking spend 30 min to sell junk in game store merchants. Useless items that you will never use, inventory/with limit that disrupt your gaming experience, skill trees that have 2 maybe 3 useful talents & you need to spent 20 points of Lv so you can get that talent what actually what will make difference.
Elden ring on other hand is not limiting you with anything. You can play the game the whey you fill it is fun or right for you. Every item in the game has story behind it & vastly can change your game experience (to better or worst). There are no quest marks for main & optional quests, you need to search clues for this quests & most important you need to read & listen them carefully. Then you need to open the map & mark points of interest. World is so vast that even after 150h of gameplay you will keep looking for tombs, caves, mines, teleports, items quests etc. you can't just storm true main story & skip anything else. Fromsoftware want you to explore their world. They will not let you just skip cutscenes & conversation & all story in the game (if you do that you will probably need to rewatch that on youtube) & you will need to learn & adopt to brutal hard bosses & mechanics in this game. They want you to learn & understand their game story & mechanics.
I don't know how reviewers rated this game after 50h playing (or less). I personally learned how to play this game after 70h (with hard blackout from internet media) & then I started real exploration & learning of game mechanics & that helped me a lot to finish the game.

Is Elden ring best game till today ?
For me it is, because most of the things in this game are done right. combat, map, exploration, leveling system, items, weapons, armors, shields, etc. , quests & optional quests.
After all this game is not for everyone. Some one will love it & some one will hate it.
 
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Spaceman292

Banned
To start off, I saw Kssio_Aug's criticism thread a while back. He just compared Elden Ring to prior Fromsoft games and said he felt it was overrated.

I'm not going to criticize Elden Ring in terms of other Fromsoft games, since I don't feel people set enough standards for Fromsoft.
I'm looking at this from the viewpoint of what a critically acclaimed open-world game IN 2022 should be like.

The game was a technical mess on release (don't know the situation now), with all the stuttering and lags, on next-gen and PC. But what makes me even more critical is that the game doesn't really have anything computational that's weighing it down. What the hell is intensive in Elden Ring that was making it stutter on a PS5? With all it's power? I wonder🤔. With what I have seen so far, if it was even remotely optimized well, a PS3 would be able to run it. No joke.

I do not know what whoever at Fromsoft set the stock keyboard input layout for PC was thinking. Who the hell presses G to open a map? F to run? For all the crap games like RDR2 received for convoluted controls, this takes the cake.

Exploration is just looking for loot or bosses to kill. With all the acclaim for being an inventive open world, I thought they would have nailed the element of surprise. Like creeping slowly to get some loot, only to get captured by a plant monster with vine ropes, from which you would have to break free quickly or you die.

The world is terribly static to say the least. Using a telescope you could see enemies afar off just rotating around the same territory, back and forth. Ghosts and any NPCs only exist to mutter one or two lines of dialogue and nothing else. The rest of the world only exists to attack you. The world seems like it waits for you to act. You can wait at a spot for hours and nothing will happen, as long as you're not fighting.

The game has a God-tier art style and brilliant boss designs, but even those are brought down to earth by the PS3 level graphics and average character models. I have a fair tolerance for things like pop-in and all that graphical jargon, but that and artifacts on distant objects in this game are honestly terrible.

The game's enemy AI and gameplay is dated: the enemies have always had the same purpose. Attack the character with the same, one or two janky animations until he's down. But how about bringing a new enemy mechanic, instead of the old parrying and slashing? Instead implementing new gameplay features like using magic spell to make enemies attack themselves, or having the ability to take possession of an enemy and attack the others. You should be able to use a potion to masquerade as an enemy once, so you can move past without combat. Bosses should have had the ability to change fighting tactics to keep the game more challenging, with you having the ability to find a weak spot to strike, like in Sekiro.This isn't hard for crying out loud. I played some DS3 back in the day, and I kid you not, I was seeing similar if not same animations. It kinda reinforces my point that they did not care to update their engine to add new animations.

You cannot swim. In 2022. Swimming is a standard feature of open world games (at least of ER's scale). The last open world game I know that had this issue was RDR from 2010. If you guys want to bring up the issue of relevance of swimming, then why did they add water to the game? FS could have even added running on water as a mechanic to reach further places like islands. Now THAT is a new mechanic.

I will never dispute the fact that anyone can have fun with the game despite it's barrage of issues. Fun is subjective. But what I do not understand is how ppl can ignore glaring game design problems and overhype it as some innovative open world, when in reality it's just a repetition of FS's prior games.

Look at Horizon Forbidden West. I cant speak for story and mechanics as I haven't played it, and honestly I'm not so into it, but it is a genuine technical masterpiece as it was able to maintain the best graphics on the PS4 and run smoothly on it, while being cross-gen with the PS5, and adding great character details. Instead of highlighting that achievement, reviews were only bordered on "lack of innovation", which I feel is more apt to Elden Ring by the way.

I would have way more respect for Miyazaki if he actually had the balls to take risks and actually push to innovate on the established souls formula after 11 years of the nearly the same game, bar Sekiro.

As a matter of fact, I feel Sekiro is by far Fromsoft's best game, at least innovation wise. Fromsoft at least innovated on it. It goes in new territory, added new stealth combos kills and attacks, and some of the mechanics were genuinely graceful. The story was good, and the some of the characters were charismatic.

Its a bit frustrating that we are in an age of gaming where AAA developers should be placing priority on advancing gaming with innovation in AI, game mechanics and upscaling their tech to take advantage of faster console and PC hardware... And then an AAA game like this comes around and gets critically acclaimed for mediocre tech and average game design.

I don't know what to term this on Fromsoft's part. It's not like FromSoft are Indie. They have been making successful games. They could have used their manpower to overhaul their game engine. They could have made use of brilliant game designers to prescribe new mechanics and features to add.
So why didn't they?

Any other developer would have been heavily criticized with the barrage of technical issues the game has, and would have even gotten torn to shreds over the fact that they did not substantially innovate with their formulae.

Just think.

Is adding a horse, (to a series that should have had it since the beginning, by the way) really an evolution?
Is adding the ability to jump a mind-blowing, inventive game mechanic?

Look. Elden Ring doesnt have to completely overhaul open worlds, but I don't see what brilliant new features or improved mechanics it brought to advance open world gaming, warranting all the praise.

I feel if Fromsoft are criticized for issues they'll drastically improve and innovate in their next games.
'Some guy thinks popular thing is overrated.'

Wow fascinating.
 
Me too.
Like...technical mess? Was the game running at 10 fps or something? Was it broken or crashing my PS4? Seriously, the drama people make is beyond limits. Maybe I'm too old to deal with stupid comments like the OP did just to nitpick.
I started at PS5 and because of the news and thread that is a mess I changed to the ps4 version. After beating it i started again at PS5 to see the difference and the only thing I notice was some fps drops here and there like EVERY fucking game and I decided that never will i trust again idiots at forums that complain for 1-2 fps drops and claiming it unplayable.
 

Fredrik

Member
I started at PS5 and because of the news and thread that is a mess I changed to the ps4 version. After beating it i started again at PS5 to see the difference and the only thing I notice was some fps drops here and there like EVERY fucking game and I decided that never will i trust again idiots at forums that complain for 1-2 fps drops and claiming it unplayable.
How long ago was this? I haven’t played any console version so I don’t know how bad it was or is, just know that it has received many patches since launch, might be unfair to claim people were exaggerating if you jumped back in way layer.
 
This is typical of the type of YT "depth" critique that I cannot fucking stand.

Why would anyone want to listen to somebody you don't know rabbit on for an hour and 40 minutes about a game's subjective failings?
Seriously. Why invest the time on such an unrewarding endeavour?

What's being uniquely brought to the table here that I, or anyone else, need to waste the length of a movie on hearing?

This guy moans about the game being a slog, but apparently doesn't understand the value of brevity and conciseness in his own work!

All it does is drive the viewer to skip ahead to the conclusion, and make their assessment based solely on that. And of course, that inevitably demonstrates the length of the analysis to be entirely unjustified, because there's never anything tremendously insightful revealed.

In this case, all that is revealed is he thinks the game is good, but not as good as Dark Souls.
Whoopty-fucking-do. 100 minutes for that.
To be fair to the creator, this is arguably his most sloppy video. Other videos of his are way shorter, have been well researched, and he has been more precise with his thoughts. His two videos on Elden Ring were fresh longform rants, one after playing and one just after finishing the game, to which I think he was trying a new style of video. I don't think he's going to go back to doing that type of content again. I mainly linked it because within his long rant he makes some really good points, but you're right about the video and I think he realized that too. Here's a better video example to how his content is styled:

Showing off 6 fun and obscure platformers in 30 minutes.

 
My biggest complaint is not being able to have some sort of progression system on the map. There are so many caves and other sites but it doesn't tell you on the map if you've killed the boss and gotten all the items. The map is so big it is hard to remember if you have cleared out an area or if a boss is still there. I try and clear out an area when I discover it but sometimes have to put it on the back burner and it can be hard to remember you need to come back and clear it.
You can create your own markers to show if you've cleared an area. That's what I did in my second playthrough.
 
Elden Ring is a pinnacle of open world design and I'm not going to regurgitate what has already been documented by hundreds, if not thousands of others on this subject.
Okay, a vast majority of people are fine with the game.
That's not an excuse for why it didn't innovate though..
No game is above criticism.

Not only that. His comparing it on a technical level. 1 game is a 3rd party cross gen open world title that's designed completely different and focuses on exploration versus a 1st party title that prioritizes visuals over art style and level design. The guy doesn't understand differences between 1st party and 3rd party , doesn't understand how game design works and does not understand game development. A clown.
Doesn't really matter tbh.
They're both 2022 games.
ER has brilliant art style but could have had better graphics since it came out on stronger hardware.
My point still stands that HFW took full advantage of the PS4.
Don't see the need for all the tantrums and name calling.

'Some guy thinks popular thing is overrated.'

Wow fascinating.
Deep, thoughtful, critical and insightful opinion.
 
It's telling that all the pushback from spectacularly fair criticism - such as that in the OP - is often met with snark on the levels of "Herp derp, yeah too bad it didn't put in quest markers or skill tree. . .maybe then you'd have liked it! Snarf!" Like, what does that have to do with any of the criticisms that the OP pretty clearly laid out: zero iteration over the Souls combat formula, exploration that quickly loses its charm as you're only doing so for the chance at an incremental upgrade to the aforementioned tired combat formula, AI that - again - hasn't iterated at all, etc. None of that has anything to do with trying to UBI-ify the game, yet. . .

If you can't tell the difference between those two bolded portions, maybe it's not the OP who is a dingus. Hint: the second bolded does not invalidate anything that came after the first.

Always be one of my favorites: "He doesn't like thing I like so he's a troll with bad arguments."
Exactly!

It seems that ppl completely missed the point I was trying to make.
I expressly stated I would criticize ER based on innovation and standards. Just that.
I stated that I felt it didnt innovate over the Souls formula, and gave detailed points and proferred examples of better mechanics.
I bet if I had stated any criticism related to the difficulty or Quest Design I would get beaten over with all the "git gud" comments, ad-hominems, etc.
 
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GigaBowser

The bear of bad news
It's telling that all the pushback from spectacularly fair criticism - such as that in the OP - is often met with snark on the levels of "Herp derp, yeah too bad it didn't put in quest markers or skill tree. . .maybe then you'd have liked it! Snarf!" Like, what does that have to do with any of the criticisms that the OP pretty clearly laid out: zero iteration over the Souls combat formula, exploration that quickly loses its charm as you're only doing so for the chance at an incremental upgrade to the aforementioned tired combat formula, AI that - again - hasn't iterated at all, etc. None of that has anything to do with trying to UBI-ify the game, yet. . .



If you can't tell the difference between those two bolded portions, maybe it's not the OP who is a dingus. Hint: the second bolded does not invalidate anything that came after the first.



Always be one of my favorites: "He doesn't like thing I like so he's a troll with bad arguments."
youknow-you.gif
 

Boneless

Member
The game was a technical mess on release (don't know the situation now)
My expectations is that you did not actually play this on PC and are just jumping on the popular complaint bandwagon, am I right? Calling it a technical mess is simply wrong. Yes, the first world boss caused some stutter, but the performance otherwise was completely fine.

Also, bitching about no swimming? Really?? :')
 

Hugare

Member
Elden Ring is like Skyrim 2.0

Game looked dated since launch, you can nitpick it to hell and back, but goddamn if the game isnt fun and full to the brim with content. Not Ubisoft kind of "content", but content, with huge diversity of enemies and areas to explore, stories to uncover and etc.

People enjoy comparing it to Breath of the Wild, since it is the closest open world game in terms of freedom, but comparing ER amount of content to that piece of shit is embarassing.

You mentioned Horizon, OP, and the only saving grace in that game are the graphics. It looks, feels and plays like DLC for the first game. Runs great, looks gorgeous, but couldnt play for more than 5 hours.
 

GigaBowser

The bear of bad news
Elden Ring is like Skyrim 2.0

Game looked dated since launch, you can nitpick it to hell and back, but goddamn if the game isnt fun and full to the brim with content. Not Ubisoft kind of "content", but content, with huge diversity of enemies and areas to explore, stories to uncover and etc.

People enjoy comparing it to Breath of the Wild, since it is the closest open world game in terms of freedom, but comparing ER amount of content to that piece of shit is embarassing.

You mentioned Horizon, OP, and the only saving grace in that game are the graphics. It looks, feels and plays like DLC for the first game. Runs great, looks gorgeous, but couldnt play for more than 5 hours.
Content being moving around a static open world on a horse and there being nothing to do in the game other than combat?
 

Dr. Claus

Vincit qui se vincit
Quick translation for everyone who doesn’t want to read the full thing:

”I barely played the game, think its highly overrated, and mischaracterize why people call the game innovative and fantastic to further bolster my crappy opinion.”
 
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