Good! Elden Ring felt too large at times, especially some DLC areas. Where I had the most fun was contained dungeons and castles. I think that’s really where their level design shines best.
Same. Elden Ring’s biggest weakness is its open world, in my opinion. It makes the first playthrough great, but it makes subsequent playthroughs a chore. Especially when you’re aware that 90% of dungeons/side areas have completely worthless gear and runes. Your subsequent runs just end up being you riding Torrent for long stretches of time from point A to point B.
My disappointment isn’t with the enemy variety or gear drops. It’s with the dead world. My first hours in the game I saw a wolf walk through a herd of deer both ignoring each other. When you’ve just come off RDR2, seeing wildlife as decorations running 2 scripts that both depend on player interaction is lame.
Even FarCry3 had emergent game-play through enemy/wildlife AI.
True other games have had that, but it really wasn’t a goal for Elden Ring and I don’t think it really hinders it. The immersion into a real world was clearly a tentpole design decision for Rockstar in RDR2, but not Fromsoft. Which is fine for you to miss in Elden Ring, I just think we gotta manage expectations sometimes where not every game can have every thing.
They embarrassed EA, but more importantly Ubisoft. Open world games are pretty much all Ubisoft is known for these days.
I certainly think they can compete with Rockstar. Elden Ring is just a different genre from RDD or GTA. Had Elden Ring not been so difficult and had all the normie garbage like quest markers and other hand holders, it likely could have outsold GTA. But because From makes hard games (even though Elden Ring is their easiest game) and because they didn’t hold the players hand, people passed on some sales.
In the DLC, it’s still open world and extremely flexible in how you explore it, but there’s less wasted space.
It’s very tightly knit and the pacing is better as a result.
It’s like Elden Ring was watching masters of their craft cut their teeth on something new, and then the DLC was them applying everything they learned in that process.
Can’t wait for their next game in that same vein (especially not held back by last gen consoles).
I think it’s unlikely we’re going to get Sekiro 2 because the franchise is under Activision. If anything, we’ll probably get a spiritual successor under Namco.
The verticality is absolutely the best part. My biggest gripe with Elden Rings world is that it’s an “open world” game in kind of the same way Ubi games are. Traversal is largely trivial, so you stop paying attention to the map after you’ve reached major areas.
In my opinion, Dark Souls I is also an open world game, but instead of a 2D map all the zones are tangled up together in a confusing but interesting web.
Shadow of the Erdtree brought some of that back by having zones stacked on top of each other to a much heavier degree than the base game, while also segmenting off geographically close regions.
I wanted to be a level designer for a lot of years, so this is admittedly a bit of a soft spot for me, but I absolutely loved having the game world come at you as as a challenge, almost a character to be fought and bested, outside the legacy dungeons.
Was it really? I’ve seen this figure thrown around a lot and why we can ignore the layers upon layers I still thought it to be bigger. At least the size of Limgrave + Weeping penisula
Yep. What I’m saying is Fromsoft like to underpromise and overdeliver, which is a breath of fresh air compared to most other AAA studios and overall very based.
Also I might be biased from Brandon Sanderson’s books, which seem to get thicker with every new novel despite his apparent efforts to have mercy on the publisher
Lol I think we were replying to the guy at the same time even - don’t worry, I gotchu (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞
And no you right, about FromSoft and Sanderson - that guy’s a hero, in my book! I got my little sister into his work, she just finished the Mistborn/Alloy saga, so I gave her Stormlight to start on. So good.
I bought the DLC a month ago and chip away at the game whenever the kids are asleep. I’ve spent 80 hours already and nearing the finish line. It’s crazy.
Fantastic, I’m sure it was a hell of a slog for them. I’m really looking forward to their next games, their one offs like Bloodborne and Sekiro are my favourites.
I’m not sure why you think every interaction in an open world game is supposed to be completely hand crafted from scratch.
The scale is part of the point, and Elden Ring nailed the sense of exploration of a huge, open world that maybe hasn’t happened since Skyrim. It’s that rare to capture that sense of awe.
Because when I explore I want to go see something new and interesting. Half the time in Elden Ring I’d just run into something I’ve seen before. It made it not feel good to explore.
I don’t blame them for this, but this is the reality of making a project this big in scope. You can’t possibly fill it with good content. They made one of the like top 3-5 best open world games, but it’s still stuck with all the same drawbacks as open world games.
I just want them to go back to making more focused content.
The world is jam packed full of new and interesting. It quite possibly has more new and interesting than any other game ever made.
Enemies similar to previous enemies you’ve encountered but with different twists and in different situations are part of enemy design. It’s supposed to happen. It’s what real worlds look like.
If you don’t like open world period, fine, but there’s a reason it’s by far the most successful game they’ve ever made, and it’s because nothing matches the feel of open world done right, and they did it right.
I think Elden Ring has much greater variety than any other open world game. I agree there’s quite a bit of copy pasting, but even after playing for more than 50 hours, I’m surprised with new enemy types and environments (especially now with the DLC). I think it’s exciting to explore every corner of Elden Ring.
Compare it with Tears of the Kingdom. It felt like I’ve seen most the game had to offer after 10 hours. I lost the excitement of exploring rather quickly.
Shrines in BOTW were the worst. The engine was genuinely interesting. Everything being legitimately traversable and designed around stamina was great, and I’d love to see more games utilize the premise that everything you see is accessible. But all that traversal just never got you anywhere interesting. Eventually you’d find a shrine, take longer to load it than beat it, then load back into the world.
TOTK I just never got far enough to feel if it improved.
After some 200+ hours in the game, this alleged issue hasn’t even crossed my mind once. The world is absolutely gorgeous, and the sense of exploration is unreal
I was initially mainly interested in it, because it was made with the open source godot engine which i use. I havent started playing it yet, but i have really liked what i have seen and heard elsewhere. It does seem to eventually run out of replayability but as this post claims that should be somewhat alleviated by the latest update.
Yeah but after Cities:Skylines 2, you have to imagine that LBY had to be looking ROUGH if Paradox was afraid of showing it to the world. They probably did us a mercy tbh.
This is a shame, I haven’t played a sims game in a while and I remember them quite fondly. The latest EA sims stuff has just been utter micro transaction slop, or at least last I checked. I hate to see a smaller studio that’s not working through one of bastard publishers get hit like this.
I’m a lot more patient with paradox than I am with other publishers. Their focus still seems on producing interesting games rather than chasing “maximized revenue”. There are realities to being a publisher though. if a studio is failing to produce something and your financials are limited, there’s only so much risk you can take on extending deadlines, and writing something off for a quick boost to financials is a alluring sirens call.
I have my issues with how paradox studios design is affected by their DLC model, but I don’t think there’s a better way to bring in ongoing revenue to fund further development.
It’s a mess, all of it, but it is a results of the context and system they exist with in, not necessarily the will of those making the calls at paradox. Paradox tends to do a better job of existing with in the system without making pure slop than other big publishers, so they have my patience for that.
The latest EA sims stuff has just been utter micro transaction slop, or at least last I checked.
Feels like the only valid way to play the Sims these days is to pirate it. No one wants to pay $500 for the complete DLC collection, and if you don’t have that you’ll always be plagued with fomo and possible mod conflicts.
I don’t understand how anyone buys Early Access games. Yes, I understand that the creators need to make a living before the game launches, but big companies should have the reserves and small companies may just take the money and run.
A couple days ago I looked at pcgamer’s summer steam deals list, and since Manor Lords topped the list I went over to Steam to check it out. Early Access. Nevermind.
I forgot about it entirely until looking at this article. Went to Steam and: Oh. Right. Early Access. Nevermind.
I do agree that it is too early to expect more updates. It only became available in April. I don’t expect it to have improvements worth integrating yet. That said, I’m not spending $30 (regular price $40) on something that may or may not end up being any good – that might always be too buggy to play, or too cringe-y to enjoy, or go so far from the initial demo that it isn’t the same game (I will never forgive you, Spore, and I will never buy you).
It’s a gamble - but one mitigated by looking at review.
I, for one, am very satisfied with my EA purchase of Satisfactory (…pun intended, but heh). Coffee Stain has been absolutely amazing throughout the entire EA Aperiod.
Same for me, and I have had better luck with enjoying early access games than most full release games. Valheim is the stand out example for me, but there arena couple others with hundreds of hours of fun! It also helps that indie early access games tend to be less expensive.
Then there is the case of Multiversus, which was way more fun to play in prerelease than it is now. On top of that they cranked up the intrusive monetization, so getting to the less fun gameplay is a slog.
Then there is Tekken 8, which launched ok and then added a shitty shop and annoying seasons shortly after release. It also seems like the networking has gottenn worse.
But every early access game where I was clear on expectations has been fun and always feels worth the money.
See? That’s the thing. I don’t want to support future in-app purchases that get tacked on after they got me to PAY THEM for the ‘privilege’ of doing their beta testing for them. That seems like a special kind of evil that must not be encouraged.
Tekken 8 didn’t have an early access that I am aware of, and I have given a Not Recommended review on steam because of the shop being added post release. The Tekken situation is not an early access problem, just a greed problem so I might have caused some confusion as an example of games having sketchy behavior even without early access.
Multiversus is free to play with predatory monitization. The beta was free, but you actually got stuff by playing a somewhat reasonable amount of time. During the beta they increased the amount of time and people complained, so it was kind of surprising that they did the opposite of the early access feedback on release.
Yeah, Rimworld was in early access for 5 years and was worth the price the entire time IMO. Project Zomboid has been in early access for over a decade! If you just blanket ignore early access games you’re cutting yourself off from some excellent games.
One of my favourite examples of this is still Rust. Sure, it’s not a perfect game, I don’t always like the updates, but do I feel like I got my money’s worth, from a purely online game I bought in 2013 and can still hop on with thousands of other people? I do.
Like, a big AAA dev/publisher or a relatively unknown newbie? Not gonna trust that it’s going to turn out good or get finished.
A company like Crate? Hell yeah, they make solid shit and haven’t fucked me over once on it. I watched Grim Dawn grow up from 2 acts to getting a third expansion. Farthest Frontier is also shaping up into a fun time, in my opinion.
If they have a history, it can be worth it to take the risk and take some small part in the process.
Early access doesn’t necessarily mean bad. 2 of my favourite games this year have been Core Keeper and Timberborn. Both early access, got more than 100 hours in both and I’m definitely not halfway through either. They’re great as they are and updates are coming to improve them. I do agree though you have to be very wary of what game you choose to support, I have been burned before by a developer that took the money and ran. Fuck you Code{}atch, I’ll never forgive you.
I do that to help some of the indie devs I like. I don’t play them until the final release or don’t contribute any other way. Did that for Factorio, Mashinky, Soviet Republic, Songs of Syx, Kingdoms Reborn, Farthest Frontier, etc.
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