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[The Infectious Paradox]

So, I disliked Elden Ring compared Dark Souls or BB. Actually, the better phrase is I felt less immersed and rewarded. I kept wondering why, but I think after all this time I'm understanding why.

Generally speaking, I think these souls like tend to be more enjoyable in a semi open world. It's feels more focus and purposeful with enemy placement. In a lot of ways, exploring the map felt like - ride up on a new area and here are 3 or 4 enemies sitting there. Just standing around waiting for you to meet them and fight.

I recently replayed RDR2 and the immersion and world felt alive. Obviously, this is not the same type of game. BUT in my ideal world I would have liked the world to feel less static. I mean more NPCs and enemies interacting. A rune bear fighting soldiers, but also simple things like the caravans with the 2 giants.

I think this would have been more achievable if the world was a little smaller. Maybe that'd help with the same enemy bloat. I know what these From games are about and I love them. But if you're going to make it open world itd feel more enjoyable if the world felt like it would be moving with you there or not.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

ER is great, but there's really no denying that it is mostly a one-trick pony. You seek out battles, and you fight. That's it.

 

[Mozzarella]

I'm not sure Elden Ring did anything new. Morrowind had exploration, hand placed loot, no map or markers.
Never played it but I'm told Gothic 2 did the same.

It just seems like the industry kinda forgot

I dont think more than 10% of gaming journalists actually played Gothic 2, lol.
As for Morrowind you may be right that they forgot, or that its too old for them, but maybe they have some beef with Todd, who knows.

At the end of the day, elden ring could theoretically also have towns, varied quests etc and STILL have the world that it has.

Trust me ive put 200 hours into elden ring, I beat it. It does secrets and enemy variety, and has really cool armor sets and cool ways to find them. It does that REALLY WELL. It also does a better job than all of those games at making you fear their world. They do a good job of making you not know whats coming next when you enter a new zone, or what enemies will be there. That stuff is great. It also did mage stuff better than all of these games. Except maybe black desert.

BUT, imagine that alongside towns and varied creative quests, the quests of the witcher WITH that world of elden ring is my dream.

Imagine finishing a dark brotherhood quest from oblivion (not skyrim), and then going out in the world to explore a bit and that world was like elden ring. THATS what I want, THATS learning from other devs and past games and making the perfect game.

My issue with Elden ring, coming from someone who played nearly every open world rpg, is that elden is a game thats basically about everything you do outside of quests. It just has that down.the sub-game. I'd argue it does sub-game better than all those games actually.

But I feel like thats incomplete, atleast the others tried to do quests, storyarchs, varied experiences and situations, and THEN you can STILL go out and find loot, explore, fight, level up (sub game). Elden ring only does the latter.

Witcher 3/oblivion story and quests, with elden ring open world. If FROM does that, THEN it would be a pinnacle. But witcher 3 did it all, main narrative and sub-game, or atleast came the closest.

When Elden Ring was announced i always had this image in my mind, the one vision you speak about, a Dark Souls game with massive world full of characters and cities to explore, i literally imagined something like Game of Thrones meets Lord of the Rings meets Dark Souls, i even was a bit more optimistic by thinking it will have quests and factions with choices and consequences, multiple paths to play so you can replay the game and pick a different side, you would enter a city and watch how its people live and take quests from them, engage in the town and the world by interacting and buying stuff, selling, doing all that.
I had something like that in my mind.

Then when the showcase came, Geoff was extremely excited lol, so i watched that and i liked it, but i remember that day i said: That's it? only that?
If you dig my post history enough you can probably find that comment i made, i was slightly disappointed from the showcase that its more of the same but open world, eventually i learned to accept that and when the game released i enjoyed it a lot, its a masterpiece and i still love it and cant wait for the DLC, but i realized my expectations were too high.

 

[Madflavor]

ER is great, but there's really no denying that it is mostly a one-trick pony. You seek out battles, and you fight. That's it.

Well you don't become Elden Lord by asking nicely.

 

[MagnesD3]

Honestly this thread and all this talk about Elden Ring is just making me want to play the game again. I probably would if not for Diablo 4 being right around the corner. Goddamn I can't wait for Shadows of the Erdtree DLC.

You must wait for the DLC beat it with all of your characters then replay a brand new character for the base game plus dlc from scratch, at least that's what I plan on doing..

 

[rofif]

I think the trope that I'm starting to find boring in From's games is that the state of the worlds we find ourselves in are always in the period after all the exciting stuff has taken place. Our characters are like archaeologists that learn about how amazing these worlds used to be and then spend the entire game killing off its inhabitants one by one and seemingly setting up the world for something interesting to happen that we can't participate in or witness.

I dont think this rings true for Bloodborne, where I feel like we are participants in a key moment in history and watch the world change before our eyes, but for the Dark Souls series and particularly Elden Ring, I can't help but feel like we're always entering the worlds at the most boring times in their histories.

The worlds are static, lonely. Political dies have already been cast, wars have been fought and everything is at a a standstill waiting for us to come along and move the needle. It's like if it weren't for our awakening the state of things would remain exactly as it was. There's never an impending event that we must intervene in. There's never armies on the move or characters who have intentions outside of just sitting in their lair waiting for us to come and kill them.

So I agree with OP. The worlds are a bit stale and lifeless. I hope From take a different approach with their next game.

To further this point, I think about if From made Oblivion or Skyrim, we would be awakened in Cyrodill, 1000 years after the Oblivion crisis. The worlds would be barren and decimated, we would find remnants of old Oblivion gates across the world and would have to peice together what took place. Likewise with Skyrim, we would enter the world hundreds of years after the civil war and the rebirth of dragons. We would find their bodies strewn across the landscape amongst old Imperial encampments, suggesting exciting events that took place in the past.

It's not necessarily a bad approach but its a trope they stick to with almost every game. To me, I much preferred to be their and playing during those key events in Oblivion and Skyrim, as when you hear about them in later titles, it's like you're hearing about your own history and the times and places you originally played those games, I love that shit.

Yeah I can see that.
There are these huge chunks of buildings stuck in the ground with the lore being that these have fallen from the sky. But we don’t get to experience any of it.
There is leyndell battlefield full of these huge spears. Nothing to it.
There is leyndell alone with all the doors sealed shut with ancient glue.
After Radahn you get down in the hole and meet fucking aliens… and you don’t feel like it’s a big deal. There are whole towns under earth.

It’s all so cryptic and unexplained that I feel annoyed by it. Who are we, why are we here, why do we come to this land and so on. Why these single npcs always. Heave like wrong nothing is going on and this is just daily life.

In Elden ring, they give you less than in previous games. You don’t know anything. All the cut prologue stuff and dialog shows you talking to Godfrey before arriving to lands between. It’s explained there are multiple people fighting for throne and you too. Why don’t include any of that in The final game.
I’ve finished the game. 100 hours and without yt, I would have. I idea what was the story of the game, who is godfrey all of sudden, why you fight two of him and so on.
As for the topic discussion. World is beautiful and visually rewarding with new area around each corner. But I could do without caves and 170 repeated bosses out of 200.

Souls games are more coherent and the state of the world makes more sense. Everyone is dead because it’s land of the undead. It’s the afterlife world and the whole struggle of this world is that people forget who they are and even forget their humanity. Or something like that.

 

[Zannegan]

Not to get too meta, but I really wish all this analysis had hit either before TotK came out or way after. Coming so close after TotK's launch, it feels reactionary. Fair points or no, having something they love unfavorably compared to the new hotness is just going to make people feel defensive and dismissive of your analysis.

TotK might be my cup of tea, but then I love exploration for its own sake and building crazy contraptions in games (Nuts and Bolts forever!). If you value weighty combat, oppressive atmosphere, and the tension of death around every corner, then Elden Ring would be more your thing. A more interactive, systems-driven world might be a cool addition, but it would hardly contribute much to what attracts Souls fans to those games. It might even lessen that all-important tension.

 

[HazukiSensei]

I dont think more than 10% of gaming journalists actually played Gothic 2, lol.
As for Morrowind you may be right that they forgot, or that its too old for them, but maybe they have some beef with Todd, who knows.



When Elden Ring was announced i always had this image in my mind, the one vision you speak about, a Dark Souls game with massive world full of characters and cities to explore, i literally imagined something like Game of Thrones meets Lord of the Rings meets Dark Souls, i even was a bit more optimistic by thinking it will have quests and factions with choices and consequences, multiple paths to play so you can replay the game and pick a different side, you would enter a city and watch how its people live and take quests from them, engage in the town and the world by interacting and buying stuff, selling, doing all that.
I had something like that in my mind.

Then when the showcase came, Geoff was extremely excited lol, so i watched that and i liked it, but i remember that day i said: That's it? only that?
If you dig my post history enough you can probably find that comment i made, i was slightly disappointed from the showcase that its more of the same but open world, eventually i learned to accept that and when the game released i enjoyed it a lot, its a masterpiece and i still love it and cant wait for the DLC, but i realized my expectations were too high.

Yeah, like...I liked elden ring. Trust me, i get Elden Ring, there are things i would certainly defend about it. Even though I talk shit about it lol But I do think it can do more, I'm not comfortable saying its groundbreaking, or saying its "moving open world games forward". I think...CDPR did more of that to be honest, I even got more of a vibe that Witcher 3 left devs more shook than anything (Bethesda), nobody wanted to have to live up to that.

So it makes me sad, people are only mentioning rdr2, breath of the wild, and elden. But if I'm really being honest...I'm not sure the varied quests...is in FROMs wheelhouse. I think they have a limited skillset as a team, I think they get away with alot, and I think they mask their weaknesses through their design. It's almost like they were never truly meant to be AAA.

 

[Mr Branding]

ER is a very overrated game.

Souls formula works best in a wide linear world. This feels bloated and boring and has no reason to be open world.

Kudos to them for trying tho but it’s still far from the open world greats out there like Totk, Rdr2, etc

 

[AMSCD]

In this thread: people complaining that games aren't designed with their personal preferences in mind.

Also on the first page why is everyone comparing ER to BOTW? BOTW has been superseded by TOTK and TOTK should be the focus of comparisons if you think doing do is worthwhile.

Finally, I'll just admit it: I didn't like ER because it was too damn hard for me. Maybe I'm just a shit gamer but I didn't find dieing all the time fun. Yes, challenge is good but I stood no chance. That's fine though. I recognized that for skilled gamers ER was probably fun.

Peace out.

 

[Metnut]

OP probably takes the point too far, but it’s not exactly going out on a limb to suggest that Elden Ring could’ve benefited from a few towns/cities.

 

[PanzerCute]

Extreme hot take:
The only thing souls games have going for them is the arcade quarter munching stickler of dying repeatedly until you memorize patterns to die less.
Outside of that, souls games are rather hollow.

"Yeah I mean, if you put aside the game's best in class level design, the incredible aesthetics, the soul eating storytelling, the huge ennemy variety, the perfectly tuned gameplay, the beautiful OST, the great sound design, the colossal amount of content, the brilliant pvp and coop elements, the sense of dread and wonder that the game gives you at any time, the sublime boss encounter design, the great production value, the huge replayability, the always rewarded exploration, the pacing or the insane amounts of possible builds, well outside of that, these games dont have much"

Yeaaaaaaah OK.

 

[Satansblade]

Yes it's all true I'm sorry my friends I can see why peoples like it but its very ones dimensional.

So much more to doos in TOTK.

Elden Rings is still a good game tho

I mean, I LOVE totk, but ER is the better game. Better combat, better exploration, better art direction in the world, better challenge, way better level design.

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

I started playing Elden Ring for the first time a month or so ago. I have enjoyed the souls games since Demons Souls on PS3. At first I really couldn't get into it because I wanted that linear crafted experience, but after continuing to try it I did finally ease into enjoying it.

But further into the game when I finally reached certain areas I was a little depressed to find that the game really was nudging me to go there to begin with and by the time I got there they were very trivial but I would rather have that than level scaling in the end.

But for some reason in the end I did put it down and did not finish the game, while it was one of the most beautiful games I've ever seen it just wasn't as gripping as the standard Souls game that is more linear and tailored.

I'm not saying I don't like it and I do plan to pick it back up at some point and finish it but to some extent it was a little disappointing in that regard. Mixed feelings for me for sure.

Though the quality of the world wasn't really in question it felt apt for that style of game that they have been producing. I just didn't care as much for the open areas aside from being a visual spectacle. The more enjoyable areas for me were relatively confined areas that acted similarly to the standard Souls prototype. I didn't care so much for the dungeons or caves that you can find they all seemed very similar but again I haven't beaten the game.

 

[ANDS]

. . .relative to BOTW, ER is a damn cavalcade of interesting adventuring. Fact is, neither of them conquered open world design; I wouldn't call them "dead" just "not alive."

In this thread: people complaining that games aren't designed with their personal preferences in mind.

Also on the first page why is everyone comparing ER to BOTW? BOTW has been superseded by TOTK and TOTK should be the focus of comparisons if you think doing do is worthwhile.

One inspired ER's approach to an open-world, the other didn't (unless Miyazaki has a time machine). Obviously.

 

[22•22]

No it isn't the first time around.

 

[damidu]

it absolutely is mostly just meaningless padding between boss fights.

but they still did good work on distinct look for the areas, landscape variety and stuff. so it doesn't feel too repetitive.

 

[Jormatar]

It's fun world to explore for the first time but after that running into places gets extremely tedious.

 

[semiconscious]

me? i think a tv series about a young frontier family attempting to make a go of it in limgrave (a sort of 'little house on the prairie') would be very watchable...

 

[Knightime_X]

"Yeah I mean, if you put aside the game's best in class level design, the incredible aesthetics, the soul eating storytelling, the huge ennemy variety, the perfectly tuned gameplay, the beautiful OST, the great sound design, the colossal amount of content, the brilliant pvp and coop elements, the sense of dread and wonder that the game gives you at any time, the sublime boss encounter design, the great production value, the huge replayability, the always rewarded exploration, the pacing or the insane amounts of possible builds, well outside of that, these games dont have much"

Yeaaaaaaah OK.

I said what I said, but still play and enjoy the games just like everyone else.

 

[Boots_the_God]

What'd I like is From to give us a game before the ruin has happened or maybe during.

 

[DevilHunterX0]

Many towns and settlements in TOTKs and many npcs on schedules, fighting in wars, climbing, weather systems, hunting, survival, physics, building, ai layers emergent gameplay

Did you typed all that from the back of the game case?

 

[Satansblade]

This game often gets credited along with Breath of the Wild as a pioneer for modern open world game design and I don’t really see it. It does some things well for sure. The hidden areas are cool, and I like the emphasis on discovering things for yourself, without the assistance of Ubi style checklists and map markers. I liked being able to do things in any order. But I dunno, it feels like most of the “discoveries” are just items that don’t even fit with my build, so they’re just useless. At some point I ended up just using a guide to find the best weapons and abilities for my build so I didn’t have to wander around aimlessly only to get rewarded with useless crap.

The world barely has any non hostile NPC’s in it. There’s no towns or settlements. For me, one of the great things about open world games is seeing a new town over the horizon. It feels like a reprieve from the sprawling forests, green fields, and mostly empty spaces that occupy open world games. I love going around to whatever unique shops a town might have, and talking to NPC’s. BOTW keeps this aspect, while still maintaining its free flowing open world. Elden Ring has basically none of this. MGS V gets derided for being empty and barren but ER doesn’t.

The only way to interact with anything in Elden Ring is through combat. Makes sense because it’s an essentially a Souls game, I know. But it became extremely dull as the game went on. There was no “discovery”, just a different enemy trying to kill me. The “what’s over there” feeling dissipated as I realized this. The game is just a series of enemy mobs and mini bosses. Most of them are very cool, no doubt. The art design is tremendous. Not denying any of that. But there is simply no world interactivity beyond direct combat.

For me, Red Dead 2 and BOTW are far superior open worlds. They actually feel alive and lived in. You can literally just walk around like a normal citizen in RDR2 and vibe with the games atmosphere because it is so filled with life.

Yeah, this is pure nonsense.

 

[Satansblade]

GTA V has a goods world and crud gameplay
RDR2 has a good world and OK gameplay
TOTK has a good world and the best gameplay

Totk combat is mediocre at best. None of those games do combat better than ER, or anything else really. TotK is a sandbox, that’s what’s great about it. Elden Rings world is far more interesting to explore, has far more interesting secrets, better level design by a mile.

 

[Satansblade]

Did you typed all that from the back of the game case?

Dude is an obvious fanboy. Zelda is my second favourite series, easily. Been playing since the 80’s. But man, theres a lot of hyperbole on this game.

To be clear, I love this game, it’s probably mu GotY, but it’s still very lacking in a bunch of areas, especially level design for dungeons and caves, and it’s bad combat, controls, and performance.

 

[Ainem Enamas]

This is an intentional video game design.

 

[rofif]

ER is a very overrated game.

Souls formula works best in a wide linear world. This feels bloated and boring and has no reason to be open world.

Kudos to them for trying tho but it’s still far from the open world greats out there like Totk, Rdr2, etc

You almost had me. Then you mentioned rdr2. The slowest, most boring open world game that ever existed.

 

[kevm3]

Open World ruined a lot of what made the Dark Souls series good. Instead of going from tightly focused are to tightly focused area, you are just travelling through huge expanses with nothing going on and the environment doesn't really do anything interesting.

I'm in this super stormy place, so maybe there should be a tornado or super intense gusts that make me take shelter. Caelid was this cool and creepy world, but underneath it all, it wasn't THAT different from the other environments aside from looks. Going to a new zone felt more like you just got a new environmental graphic skin and the same formula persisted. There might be some dragons to fight. There's some ruins... There's some gaols.

The best part of Elden Rings was the 'throwback' dungeons.

Open world doesn't really work for games that were originally tightly focused. If they're going to do open world, they need to actually create a world with npcs, a ton of random events. Creating huge, spaced out Dark Souls levels doesn't work because it removes a ton of the tension since you can simply run away or around enemies and exploration largely becomes a chore of slogging through empty landscapes.

 

[peronmls]

ER is great, but there's really no denying that it is mostly a one-trick pony. You seek out battles, and you fight. That's it.

That's all open world games.

 

[Thief1987]

Open World ruined a lot of what made the Dark Souls series good. Instead of going from tightly focused are to tightly focused area, you are just travelling through huge expanses with nothing going on and the environment doesn't really do anything interesting.

I'm in this super stormy place, so maybe there should be a tornado or super intense gusts that make me take shelter. Caelid was this cool and creepy world, but underneath it all, it wasn't THAT different from the other environments aside from looks. Going to a new zone felt more like you just got a new environmental graphic skin and the same formula persisted. There might be some dragons to fight. There's some ruins... There's some gaols.

The best part of Elden Rings was the 'throwback' dungeons.

Open world doesn't really work for games that were originally tightly focused. If they're going to do open world, they need to actually create a world with npcs, a ton of random events. Creating huge, spaced out Dark Souls levels doesn't work because it removes a ton of the tension since you can simply run away or around enemies and exploration largely becomes a chore of slogging through empty landscapes.

Thank you for writing up my exact thoughts.

 

[BossLackey]

ER is great, but there's really no denying that it is mostly a one-trick pony. You seek out battles, and you fight. That's it.

You can distill any game into a few words. That doesn't make it true.

And it's certainly not true here.

 

[Krathoon]

That is the annoying thing about all the Souls games. You never fully know what the hell is going on.

That is an irritating form of storytelling. At least in real life you have more a grasp on things.

 

[rofif]

That is the annoying thing about all the Souls games. You never fully know what the hell is going on.

That is an irritating form of storytelling. At least in real life you have more a grasp on things.

Elden Ring is even more cryptic than souls games.
You could kinda gather what is going on in souls but in Elden Ring ?! NOOOOPE.

Why are there building in the ground that look like they've fallen from space?
Why are there aliens underground?
Who are all these people malika? marika? radagon, godfrey/rick and many others.
What is this place?! What is tarnished? Why be the king?!
What is elden ring?
Who is elden beast ?!?!
What the hell is two fingers?!

Turns out, a lot of it was planned to be explained. There was supposed to be a prologue level where godfrey speaks and they set up kinda "race to the throne" event.
Listen what gofrey says in unused dialogue. Such a shame. All bosses have deleted dialogue which would explain a lot.
Really wish they would've finished the cut dialogue stuff rather than boat dungeons. Just like dark souls 3 amazing beta concepts.


it is amazing the game makes you ask these questions but I would like something more than just weird things, for which I have to make explanations myself

 

[Outlier]

I agree. I would have preferred more interactions or varying enemy encounters.

 

[nemiroff]

You can distill any game into a few words.

Including life versus nihilism... And yeah, it's also a classic low-effort mechanism to try to win arguments in video game discussions.

Anyway, I don't believe in the "dead and boring" narrative when it comes to ER in the slightest. It's one of the most captivating open worlds I've ever experienced, and I still enjoy Zelda! I suspect that people are so hung up on what they are subjectively and narrowly used to that they can't seem to make the smallest of efforts to try to understand that different doesn't necessarily mean worse. But I do agree with OP that RDR2's living, breathing world was astonishingly well executed.

 

[HelpYouFall]

I love Elden Ring to death, but can they please hurry up and make that Berserk game already? Preferably as a super contained Sekiro kind of action game and not a massive open world.