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Could/Should God of War Ragnarok win GOTY over Elden Ring based on technical superiority?
- Thread starter ChiefDada
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Danjin44
The nicest person on this forum
One of my issue with original GOW(2018) is that enemy/boss vairety was piss poor, especially for AAA game and being just semi-open, meanwhile game like Elden Ring has crazy amount of enemy and boss types even tho it’s fully open world. If GOWR suffers from same problem then having better framerate won’t save it.
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ChiefDada
Gold Member
Christ way too many people are getting caught up in the two games I have offered as examples, as well as the GOTY designation.Clearly it's on me since it keeps happening. These games just happen to provide very good example as case study for reasons I clearly and purposefully stated in the first comment where I provide context. GOTY should also be viewed as a proxy for "the quintessential game", which of course doesn't exist. I'm getting at people's evaluatory preferences here.
One game (ER) is pushing the medium in meaningful ways, but leaves a bit to be desired in the tech performance arena.
The other game (GoW R) doubles down on mastery of narrative (excellent execution of existing formula) and presumably rock solid in tech performance.
Sheesh, work with me here...
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
The overall quality of the game should be taken into account: character design, level design, story, visual fidelity, music, performance, combat, innovation, etc.
Theoretically, assuming all things are the same, the game with better visual fidelity, sound design, and technical performance should win -- whichever game that may be. This is a big reason why I didn't agree with Elden Ring getting 10/10, which implies it's a perfect game. But the poor performance across the board on all platforms means it had room for improvement.
Theoretically, assuming all things are the same, the game with better visual fidelity, sound design, and technical performance should win -- whichever game that may be. This is a big reason why I didn't agree with Elden Ring getting 10/10, which implies it's a perfect game. But the poor performance across the board on all platforms means it had room for improvement.
Danjin44
The nicest person on this forum
Here is the bigger question. Do you guys want in GOTY devs be rewarded for just better graphics? That basically communicates with rest of devs that they should concentrate more on graphics instead of game itself because that how they will get recognized.....I mean is that direction we want game industry to go?
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SlimeGooGoo
Party Gooper
.
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Craig of War
Banned
NO
Oof85
Member
If Gow:R has more of the cinematic "trappings" that saturated Gow18, I certainly wouldn't rate it over Elden Ring, a game that I respect yet don't pedestalize.
Considering what Gow18(only point of reference) did and what ER did, I don't see how ER wouldn't come out ahead for my tastes.
I absolutely loathe games that take control away from me in order to tell their story or show something.
That "funeral" at the start where you could only do one thing blew me away with how obtuse it was from a design perspective.
That's what we need to be running away from, not encouraging.
Considering what Gow18(only point of reference) did and what ER did, I don't see how ER wouldn't come out ahead for my tastes.
I absolutely loathe games that take control away from me in order to tell their story or show something.
That "funeral" at the start where you could only do one thing blew me away with how obtuse it was from a design perspective.
That's what we need to be running away from, not encouraging.
Chukhopops
Member
Should it? No
Could it? Maybe but that would be really sad. There’s already way too much graphics whoring in the industry and we don’t need more of it.
As a side note I really don’t see the « mastery of narrative » in GoW, even among the Sony exclusives I’d consider it bottom tier. It’s the best one gameplay wise though.
Could it? Maybe but that would be really sad. There’s already way too much graphics whoring in the industry and we don’t need more of it.
As a side note I really don’t see the « mastery of narrative » in GoW, even among the Sony exclusives I’d consider it bottom tier. It’s the best one gameplay wise though.
TheGreatMusashi
Member
Technically being impressive means nothing.
Cinematic experience will never triumph player experience.
Cinematic experience will never triumph player experience.
Popup
Member
The only reason I would want such a thing to happen is to find some way to finally send a loud enough message to these seemingly deaf Devs about their history of poor performance in their games. The fact that others have painfully sifted through their code working on remakes etc. and managed to fix it.
It's not like the company has no technical talent, how can they be so irritatingly ignorant to such a glaring problem?!
It's not like the company has no technical talent, how can they be so irritatingly ignorant to such a glaring problem?!
ShadowLag
Member
We have BAFTA for this: https://www.bafta.org/games/awards/2022-nominations-winners
They give out awards for outstanding technical achievements.
They give out awards for outstanding technical achievements.
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3liteDragon
Member
Yes.
Borowski_1
Member
Sekiro won in 2019
This should answer that question
This should answer that question
existensmaximum
Member
Graphical and technical achievements are factors to be considered yes, in my opinion. They definitely add to the experience and can make for a better game. I think Elden Ring is a cool game, but nowhere near as good as people give it credit for.
I don't have many technical issues with it really, but it would be more enjoyable to me if the graphics weren't so extremely dated, ugly and unimpressive regardless of platform. But even then, the game wouldn't be like a timeless masterpiece or anything, just a game that is better than most games.
I don't have many technical issues with it really, but it would be more enjoyable to me if the graphics weren't so extremely dated, ugly and unimpressive regardless of platform. But even then, the game wouldn't be like a timeless masterpiece or anything, just a game that is better than most games.
Yoboman
Member
And God of War won in 2018
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
As long as the game is amazing as well then yes, but graphics don't totally matter in game of the year.
GAME of the year should be down to the whole package but primarily the best gameplay coupled with what other elements build out the package. World, story, writing etc and technical chops and impact on the majority of the gaming community / industry.
I don't think anything could touch elden ring this year overall but I do hold out hope for GoW as I'd love two monster bangers in a year.
GAME of the year should be down to the whole package but primarily the best gameplay coupled with what other elements build out the package. World, story, writing etc and technical chops and impact on the majority of the gaming community / industry.
I don't think anything could touch elden ring this year overall but I do hold out hope for GoW as I'd love two monster bangers in a year.
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Fredrik
Member
Is BOTW a technical marvel? (~30fps)
Or Ocarina of Time? (17/20fps)
Or Halo? (25/30fps)
Or God of War? (30fps)
Or The Last or Us part 2? (30fps)
The question is flawed in my opinion. What is technical superiority?
Technically Elden Ring is impressive, it’s a cohesive huge world, nearly seamless, with amazing draw distance and complex geometry and night and day transition, lots of particles, breakable things littered on the map, ragdoll tech, at least on PC I’ve played it at smooth 60fps 99.9% of my 180+ hours, and it runs well on Steam Deck and has cloud saves and is in general just working.
What’s so bad about it’s tech?
But anyway if Ragnarök is a better game than Elden Ring, then it should win GOTY, no doubt.
Same thing goes for Horizon Forbidden West, I’ve only played 20 or so hours, I can’t tell if it’s not better yet.
And there are many more games to play before the year end.
Any game have a chance. But not because of technical superiority.
Or Ocarina of Time? (17/20fps)
Or Halo? (25/30fps)
Or God of War? (30fps)
Or The Last or Us part 2? (30fps)
The question is flawed in my opinion. What is technical superiority?
Technically Elden Ring is impressive, it’s a cohesive huge world, nearly seamless, with amazing draw distance and complex geometry and night and day transition, lots of particles, breakable things littered on the map, ragdoll tech, at least on PC I’ve played it at smooth 60fps 99.9% of my 180+ hours, and it runs well on Steam Deck and has cloud saves and is in general just working.
What’s so bad about it’s tech?
But anyway if Ragnarök is a better game than Elden Ring, then it should win GOTY, no doubt.
Same thing goes for Horizon Forbidden West, I’ve only played 20 or so hours, I can’t tell if it’s not better yet.
And there are many more games to play before the year end.
Any game have a chance. But not because of technical superiority.
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It's also a better game than Elden Ring, so it's not clear what you mean...
Ghost of Caelid
Banned
GOW 2018 wasnt even in the same tier as elden ring...so for ragnarok to beat elden ring it needs to be noticably better than 2018...wouldnt put my money on that.
Yoboman
Member
GOW 2018 is considered by many to be one of the best games of all time
Personally I think Elden Ring edges it but Ragnarok has every opportunity of improvement to match ER
DukeNukem00
Banned
If Ragnarock is as mediocre as the 2018 one then no chance. But that travesty already happened in 2018, so who can saw how the dumb mind of the press works.
Danjin44
The nicest person on this forum
Honestly Sekiro BY FAR my favourite FROM game, not only it has the most satisfying combat and boss fight but also it has proper character you get attached.
For example: When you fight Demon of Hatred you know who that is and if heard all sculptor's dialogue Sekiro himself will recognize him, it gives the fight texture, more meaning rather than just another boss fight.
Same with Emma if you choose Shura route.
As much as I enjoyed Elden Ring, I felt nothing for its story or any of the characters same way I did with Sekiro.
I hope FROM does another SP only game.
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Joke post? Sony exclusives have had no trouble winning GOTY awards in the past
Not sure how you’re so worried about people comparing ER vs GOW when the thread is about GOTY. Why wouldn’t comparisons be made ?
Fredrik
Member
God of War 2018 was riding on a wave of feeling fresh, people were positively shocked at what Santa Monica did there.
Elden Ring is enjoying that phase too no doubt, it’s still a Souls game but they changed so much that old fans are undecided if they like it or not. Same thing happened with God of War, and Breath of the Wild, and The Last of Us part 2, etc.
Ragnarök won’t get free plus points as easily, with what seems like a pretty safe sequel you always risk coming away looking like you didn’t push it far enough. With sequels to these big generation defining games you need to do more than anyone else to come away impressing people as much since there is so much that has a ”samey” feeling.
It’s not like BOTW2 can ride on the success of BOTW, the second game needs to blow minds to even come close to the first one when it comes to metascore.
Yoboman
Member
I agree. Ragnarok won't get away with being a simple rehash. Fortunately as good as 2018 was there was a ton of room for improvement. It's also gone through a fairly long dev cycle and not been rushed out the door. I'm expecting it to be very feature rich and there's a lot of room to grow the formula further beyond the short teasers they've given.
GOW2 was considered by many to be the best GOW game because it was a feature rich sequel to the 2005 game which set the standards but still had room to improve
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Borowski_1
Member
That graphics don't win awards
Yoboman
Member
I love Elden Ring but it's simply scaled up Dark Souls in a really well done open world. If GOW went full open world it wouldn't be any more or less ground breaking
vaibhavpisal
Member
I think LoZ:BOTW 2 will win praise for doing what it's predecessor did.
But God of War will get ravaged for doing that.
Has happened before.
Lucifers Beard
Member
No and anyone voting yes is part of the current problem in this industry.
Games are way more than just the technical aspects. We should be judging games by how much we enjoyed them, not just based on how well they run.
Elden Ring has GoW beat anyway I think. As much as I’m sure I’ll love GoW, Elden Ring is one of those games that only comes around every so often and basically sets a new standard for its genre.
Games are way more than just the technical aspects. We should be judging games by how much we enjoyed them, not just based on how well they run.
Elden Ring has GoW beat anyway I think. As much as I’m sure I’ll love GoW, Elden Ring is one of those games that only comes around every so often and basically sets a new standard for its genre.
I think this statement doesnt tell the groundbreaking that Elden Ring did, the open world alone justify the win, they did it without compromising anything from their philosophy, they didnt comprise on the scale of the legacy dungeons, compare it to any series that went open world, or just went to HD, Final fantasy for example, metal gear.
They brought a new fresh air to the open world formula, that makes exploration fun and rewarding, where the industry was so stale.
GOW 2018 was a very well done game, but thats it, even that was a scaled down game from the previous entries, do you really recall any Epic boss fight from that game ?!
James Sawyer Ford
Member
Elden Ring exploration is basically BOTW
GoW18 had epic storytelling. Do you recall anything memorable about Elden Ring’s story?
Yoboman
Member
GOW 2018 reinvented the formula for its series. Took far more open design choices with the hub worlds, substantially improved the "adventure" component of its gameplay, reinvented the core combat and delivered a title 3-4x as long as any previous game. The Valkyries are the best boss fights in the series, the problem for GOW is they didn't have time to add as many boss fights as they should have
It sacrificed on certain elements like bosses that can be improved on the sequel but Elden Ring similarly has areas that could be improved with a sequel like the copy pasted areas, dungeons designs, having the later areas match up to the quality of the starting areas and quest design
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There is a reason why it is called the Game of the year, not the storytelling of the year !
Yoboman
Member
Story telling is part of games
James Sawyer Ford
Member
GoW18 had better combat than elden ring to me. More fluid, excellent animations and abilities. Better balance
Also had awesome Valkyrie battles
Sure the boss encounters were light, I expect Ragnarok to go all out on that
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I don't think GOW 2018 was bigger than GOW II, but I see where you are coming from, there are alot of things i didnt like in 2018, but as a first step towards a change it was a welcomed change.
But to compete against Elden Ring they need to deliver alot really a lot, and made those potentials to fruition.
For me, the open world was the biggest minus of ER. The legacy dungeons were (mostly) great, but the open world was really boring and unnecessary.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
Subjective, but I think God of War (2018), Mass Effect, Super Mario Odyssey, and TLOU 2 were those 10/10 games. RDR 2 was a solid 9 or 9.5 (the only deduction was the now outdated restricted mission design).
Sure, we can argue about God of War deserving a 9/10 instead of 10/10 because it was missing extensive mini-boss variety, but that's way more subjective and negligible than a game that targets 60 FPS and spends a lot of time in the 40s on all platforms. At some stage, we have to deduct a point or two from reviews and not give them perfect 10/10s.
Yoboman
Member
God of War II is 13 hours, GOW 2018 is 30 hours and substantially more getting through all optional content
Fredrik
Member
I think it’ll be an amazing experience from a story and presentation perspective, question is how much they’re changing in the gameplay and structure to make it feel fresh today.
Hoppfully we’ll see more enemy types and plenty of cool bosses, I think that’s the main thing most people complained about in the first game which should be obvious areas to focus on to improve in a sequel.
Then there is the gear-based walled off areas god slaying Kratos should easily be able to jump to. And enemy waves spawning when you walk past a certain point. And static NPCs, etc. I hope they’ll improve those things too. They showed a grappling mechanic in the trailer so maybe we get new ways to traverse to get the game more vertical. We’ll see.
There is a big difference between not liking the open world ( As a genre) which is fine and acceptable statement, than saying the wolrd was boring and unnecessary.
The way they structure the open world, and fillig it with optional dungeons, tunnels and other activities, the way they made the teleportation points that expand your horizons and make you aware of the scale and areas of the open world.
To me they nailed the scope, scale, fun and rewarding aspects of moving to open world.
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