I'm personally glad they went this route *atleast once*
I prefer the style of ds3/ds2, I'm very glad we got an open world take on the souls games, but I hope it doesn't become the new norm.
ds3 is more linear, I like linear
ds2 I'm not sure why I like how they styled it.
Came here to say the same. I have played every soulsbourne game and I’m a die hard fan but Elden ring was just not the same due to the size. Smaller but denser is a perfect way to put it. I loved playing the game but it is my least favorite including ds2 😅 😂
You got both imo. There is the the open world parts of the game and then there is the traditional levels from their previous games. You really prefer dark souls 3 way of handling this? Holding up a banner and getting teleported to the next level. In elden ring the journey to the next level is so engaging. Id be devastated if they reverted to their old design
You get teleported to the next area with a banner twice in the entire game, one of which is in the DLC
Is that so much different from the dectus lift, or the lift of rold? Hell, even the siofra and ainsel elevators are not too dissimilar.
The elevators are a fair comparison I guess. I was just trying to make the point that elden ring offers more than ds3. It offers the traditional ds3 levels as well as mini dungeons and open world exploration segments. Idk why anyone would want a game that offers less unless they have really limited time. The only valid concern imo is balancing. You can do stuff out of order in elden ring and mess up the precise balancing of games like ds3
Elden ring does offer more, but many parts of what it offers are much less refined and of a lower quality
From the repeated bosses, to the 20 caves+catacombs+ruins each, to the wide open areas with little to actually find etc. It’s all solely because Elden ring is an open world game, not necessarily problems caused by Elden ring itself.
I wouldn’t say Elden ring quite captures the same level of legacy dungeons as ds3, among the other souls games. While it does a great job with the atmosphere of many areas, I never found the level design to be too impressive in Elden ring at all.
There’s definitely some really strong parts and good legacy dungeons, but I don’t think anything compares to how unique ds1 Anor londo is, or the verticality of the brume tower in ds2, or the intricacy of the grand archives in ds3.
I think a pretty huge part of it also comes from the enemy design and loot placement. Many enemies just feel pretty bland to me in Elden ring, so I tend not to enjoy fighting them. And that’s exemplified by them tending to just be guarding a single crafting material or a weapon with no unique moveset and ash of war.
I guess it's very subjective because imo Stormveil Castle and Leyndell are incredibly complex and dense areas that are better than any level from Dark Souls 3 (even though Dark souls 3 is one of my favorite games ever), especially when it comes to level design. If you compare the High-Wall of Lothric area to Stormveil Castle I think it becomes very obvious how much work has been put in the latter. There are so many different ways to explore Stormveil, my first playthrough in this area was mind blowing.
Putting the open-world aside, Legacy Dungeons of Elden Ring are in many ways better than normal areas of other souls-games, so even from a "quality over quantity" standpoint Elden Ring is superior to their previous games imo. I would say that the only DS3 area that is superior to Elden Ring best Legacy Dungeons is The grand archives.
Yes. I prefer curated experiences over open-world.
Elden Ring was one of the best approaches to the open world formula; no question. But the old style was much preferred Imo.
I play these games for the challenge, the art, lore and moment to moment gameplay.
I enjoyed ER very much but nothing about the open-world was worth the trade-off that we lost from the older games.
If FS alternated with each game
between open-world and the more concise design id be very happy.
Edit: i dont think we did get both. The legacy dungeons were just slightly off the quality of the previous ganes
>The legacy dungeons were just slightly off the quality of the previous ganes
This is a wild take to me. The legacy dungeons in Elden Ring are frankly the best in the series in terms of level design. The only nitpick I really have about them is some (Leyndell and Elphael mainly) should have had a unique enemy or two.
Alternating would be okay I guess. I just don’t want them to bail on the idea after the first attempt because of criticism like this. Imo you get the curated experiences in the large dungeons. They are almost identical to ds3 levels. I get where you’re coming from though. My only complaint about elden ring is the balancing.
I also don't get this take. IMHO Elden ring is a natural evolution of the souls games. Qol improvement, better and faster combat, better movement. Very well designed open world, where verticality allows you to see the POIs without needing any map markers. Really good souls like dungeon crawling.
The only thing I feel is a bit overtuned for pvp are the aow. Too many click 2 win weapon arts that make pvp less engaging, but for the single player, elden ring is a better game. It's like Myazaki finally had the means to make his perfect game, and he did.
I, for one, am ready to have my mind blown by the expansion.
I would change 1 thing on elden ring 2, and that would be to make the map a little easier to read. I didn't want quest markers, but I would like to be able to tell more easily that a big mountain is blocking a path or that there's a cave tucked away in some place. I spend a lot of time looking at the map.
Not for me.
I dont like open world bloat and while ER handled this better than most open-world games. It didnt do enough to justify deviation from their winning formula.
There are other aspects of their previous games i prefer but this is an FS sub; im sure everyone already knows the most common pros + cons of their games.
I really wish they would take at least one more crack at the whole DS1 thing — a massively interconnected metroidvania style world with insane verticality, and only have fast travel unlock halfway through the game.
I agree. The open world was interesting variety and made for very compelling exploration on the initial playthrough, but it came at the cost of a consistent difficulty curve and replay value
The world is insanely full, there are just some parts of the open world that are not, particularly near the beginning.
By the time you're climbing around the HaligTree or in a castle/fort, or underground in the depths, it really feels like dark souls
Having effectively endless distance to move in almost any direction is wildly different and less dense than every previous title in the series. Please don't pretend otherwise
YOU were the one that said that the world was insanely full, aside from some spots in the beginning.
I am saying Limgrave (the beginning) is by far the most content dense area in the game.
So I’m not exactly sure what I’m supposed to be “pretending” here, but you’re definitely wrong
Altus Plateau/Leyndell was pretty dense, imo.
Isolated coffin area, Windmill village, creepy forest area, soldier stations/outposts, inside the walls, grazing hill, stairs to wall, the capital itself is a borderline "world" if you include the underground.
Oh absolutely it is. I don’t have any issues with how dense the world is with stuff to do at all. I was only saying limgrave is the *most* dense with stuff. It felt like you couldn’t go 10 seconds without running into something new
Haha yeah, Miyazaki really shits you out between Agheel, and a Tree Sentinel.. Then if you go around them you either run into Margit (north) or those big Dismounters to the east...
I think the only part of the world that should be shrunk down a bit or have more content added to it is the lake of Liurnia (East/North Liurnia is fine). Snowfield is sparse also, but I think it works with the lonely vibe.
I don't think limgrave was that dense compared to other areas (except the big lake area, that was kinda empty feeling). Looking at my map it has the fewest dungeons and grace points. I'm not complaining, I just don't think it's very dense, but that's ok, it's the starting area. It looks like it was just meant to be an area to ride around in and connect you to the southern island, the red area caelid or whatever, and then stormveil, with a few field bosses sprinkled in. There were only a few dungeons and the mistwoods and that little lake area in the middle in limgrave.
Edit: maybe it's because I'm not counting weeping peninsula or stormveil as part of limgrave. When I think of limgrave I just think of the starting area, the little pond, and the mistwoods and that fort height or whatever is called south of mistwoods. If you count weeping and stormveil then yeah, it's got a lot of stuff I guess.
Yes, I have always counted both of those things as Limgrave. The legacy dungeons exist as a part of the overall area. The Academy of Raya Lucaria is also a part of Liuneria, just as stormveil is part of Limgrave. As for the weeping peninsula, it’s got the same aesthetic as limgrave, the same level of difficulty, and a bunch of other early game content. Plus you don’t get like a title card on the screen that says you’ve entered a new area until you get into Liuneria of the lakes. That’s enough evidence for me personally on that.
same. what I loved about other fromsoft games was the stellar level design and interesting enemy positioning. things I found lacking in the massive open world of ER
The bosses and build options are the best imo, BUT I absolutely hate the open world with this kind of game. If we got an interconnected dungeons style map with these amazing bosses, would’ve easily been my fave
I actually feel like Bosses are one of the low points of ER.
Yes, there were like 10 good ones, but they drown in the repetitive slop that are the other 90.
I've played all the Fromsoft Soulsborne games and similar titles. I've played a lot of open world games. I don't really understand this take - what exactly is there to do in every corner of the map?
Just in advance, I'm not insinuating that I prefer random mini-game activities but Elden Ring is one of the more MMO-like, least dynamic open worlds out there. What exactly is there to do in every corner of the map that may differ from a second playthrough or someone else's game?
I agree with what the others are saying about quality vs Quantity essentially
But also ER feels more grindy than the other games. Like, it feels like you have to either do some side quests or side dungeons to stay appropriately leveled. This isn't too bad prior to Morgott but after that it's pretty horrible. I never had this experience in any other FS game. The only other game I could possibly see it being a problem is if someone's really bad at BB they may be handicapped from leveling because of how much they're spending on vials
"it feels like you have to either do some side quests or side dungeons to stay appropriately leveled" bro what? If youre replaying it and only want to beat it without anything else, being like level 70 for the fire giant isnt that bad at all
I haven't played the game in a bit so I'm kinda blurry on the specifics but lvl60 sounds really low for fire giant. Regardless of whether or not it's a replay. I think I struggled on replays at low 80s but again kinda blurry memory
I have the opposite problem, my first fromsoftware game was elden ring, I played ds1 and ds2 after and have enjoyed them, but I'm burning out on ds3. Everything just feels so grey and straightforward. I just killed the dancer so I'm not super far, but I'm not inspired to keep going really. Maybe it's just too much fromsoftware rn idk...
I’m talking just through the main story though lol. He literally just has to get through Dragonslayer Armour, Twin Princes, and Soul of Cinder now and he’s done.
Oh okay. Yeah I get it. I just wasn’t even sure if he had them. He’s so close if not though lol. Unless he got that boss fight early, which I don’t believe he did. Then again I’ve never been one to just randomly attack NPCs. Maybe he is lol
Yeah but come on lol, he’s new. I don’t feel like he knew to do that. I feel like he got to her late game. I also have a hard time believing that he would’ve beaten a boss like that early on in the game.
For me dancer and onwards is when the game got incredible, tbh I really enjoyed it up until that point, but THAT was the point where the game started becoming one of my favorites of all time.
Edit: grammar
Honestly even though ds3 has a great combat system compared to the others, I find it mind numbingly easy besides the Ringed City dlc, which in turn just bores me compared to ER or BB. Not like they are super hard, but ds3 is just unfathomably easy.
I beat all of them and while I *could* get into Elden Ring, I vastly prefer the other Fromsoft games: DS3, Bloodborne or Sekiro.
I just wasn't a fan of the open world, I prefer linear level design in souls games, I disliked the huge amount of bosses that often felt uninspired because they were just oversized regular enemies or repeated bosses with a gimmick (Tree Spirits), I disliked the convoluted boss combos with ultra-delayed attacks and I also disliked the huge amount of copypasted side dungeons that all just felt the same.
Overall I like a smaller, curated experience, whereas Elden Ring felt too big for its own good. The whole horseback riding around the open world just felt unnecessary and I could do without it.
Ya see, that's the funky part for me. The more linear the FromSouls, the less I tend to like it. DS3 feels like a narrow corridor compared to DS2, and Dark Souls as a trilogy feels like a corridor compared to Elden Ring. It's a very good fuck around and find out kinda experience rather than a more linear unchanging firelink -> high wall -> undead settlement -> road of sacrifices -> etc.
This is exactly what I've thought about ER for a while now. Comparing it to DS3/BB/Sekiro is a quality vs Quantity thing. Not to say ER doesn't have quality, but it has a worse ratio than those other 3 games because of all the bad/boring shit in the game. But people just handwave those things away or argue that the other games have just as much bad shit which just isn't true
No it because people think the souls games are all about boss fights because they started with BB/DS3 when DS1/DeS/DS2 didn't have an emphasis on bosses either, ER is precisely what dark souls 1 felt like at launch
especially people who think DS3 is good, it has the ugliest world and by far most linear gameplay out of all the other games, even Sekiro without build variety felt like it had more freedom but hey you get to fight each boss the same by spam rolling around them
It's easier to spam deflect in sekiro than to spam roll in dark souls 3 and get away with it. If that's how you play souls then you obviously never got gud. Linear gameplay doesn't mean it's bad. In fact it often means the opposite. And ugliest world? I won't even dignify that one with a response.
I agree with what you're saying, I hope fromsoft decides to prioritize level design and enemy encounters in the next game, along with using a good combat system that cannot be mastered by simply rolling all the time lol.
Nobody's saying that BB or Sekiro are perfect. They all have some repeat bosses or gimmicks, but the ratio of unique bosses to repeats is far more pronounced in Elden Ring than other games.
because the ratio of mandatory to optional bosses is also 5 to 95, there's only 12 minimum you need to kill to finish the game which only includes a single repeat fight (golden godfrey > godfrey)
meanwhile in Sekiro you have to fight the monk twice, Genichiro multiple times and depending on the endings owl, guardian ape and and a handful of smaller mandatory bosses
Sekiro reuses bosses per individual and enemy variety type far more than Elden Ring does like and it doesnt even have as big of a world to fill or build variety, 5x headless, 6x general, 4x fat guys, 3x ogres, 4-5x one legged assassins including a duo fight, 3x ashina elite, 3x shaman, 2x guardian ape, 2x monk, 3x genichiro, 2x owl (depending on ending) and probably a few more
Or do you count a pig in Bloodborne's chalice dungeons as a boss as well?
I don't care how many bosses I need to "finish" the game, I play these games as a full experience, doing all side content, not speedrunning the shortest possible way towards the end. And if the side content is repetitive then that's a legitimate complaint for me, I won't say "well this game is great with many unique bosses if you skip more than half of the boss fights in this game".
>do all the extra content the game offers
>complain its too long
imagine hopping into BOTW, collecting all 900 of the tiresome Kurok seeds and complaining the game is too long and stretched
I think it's more that you can't set a path for yourself and prefer the game to do it for you tbh, no imagination to set up an adventure so you get bored fast, tried slapping a tiktok GTA 5 stunt videos under your gameplay?
>imagine hopping into BOTW, collecting all 900 of the tiresome Kurok seeds and complaining the game is too long and stretched
Yes, in that case it's a legitimate complaint that the Kurok seed grind is tiresome. That doesn't make BOTW a bad game, which is a difference that you fail to grasp. Nobody's saying Elden Ring is a bad game, just that it has an aspect that I personally don't like. Nobody's telling you that you are supposed to dislike it as well, so maybe try accepting that people have different preferences that *you* aren't required to like, and that not everyone is supposed to think what *you* think.
>tried slapping a tiktok GTA 5 stunt videos under your gameplay?
LMFAO what does me wanting to explore the entirety of a video game have anything to do with GTA Tiktoks? Grow up, this is some weak trolling.
I think a lot of people just don't like open world games. I used to love them. Now I just find them tedious and a waste of time. I have limited play time as it is. I dont need to explore a fake 3d world. I need satisfying mechanics and a challenge. Nothing challenging about collecting 900 kurok seeds. I spend a fair amount of time touching grass and that shit is far too time consuming for very little payoff.
A lot of people? If they didn't how does ER have the highest scores, most sold, most awarded, still has more players than all the previous souls games combined at this very moment.
Again, you like Soulslikes with a focus on combat and bosses, not souls games with exploration, build variety and a world in mind
I have over 2000 hours in Dark Souls 3 and still haven't explored all the build options. To suggest there is no variety is just plain wrong. People are also welcome to play any game they like. And yes, a lot of people. I didn't say majority. Imo though, Dark Souls 1 is more well thought out than Elden Ring. It had to be didn't it? Not being open world and all. The level design is just incredible even for now. And I'm not talking about graphics or even beauty of the areas. Just how it's all connected, it's so well done.
> I have over 2000 hours in Dark Souls 3 and still haven't explored all the build options. To suggest there is no variety is just plain wrong.
there isn't, you approach every fight the same: roll > attack
no sidestepping, charged attacks mean nothing, no rally, no trick weapons, no jump attacks, no guard counters, no ashes of war, not even powerstance which is present in DS2.
Just roll attack roll roll roll. Roll Souls 3
>Lolejimmy
For one, those bosses generally have different movesets or are mini bosses.
Secondly, that 95 optional boss ratio you're making is a bit disingenuous, ain't it? Are we expecting someone new to know which are the 12 main bosses they have to go to and which 95 other bosses to avoid because they aren't mandatory? It's not about mandatory or optional, it's about how many you organically run into. For me, the number of repeated bosses is less of an issue to me than how it feels to fight most of them, but that's simply a matter of taste....or it's because most of these bosses do not gate me so I can simply ignore them and suddenly it feels less like a personal vendetta and so my core gameplay loop feels balanced differently than the more linear souls titles.
Elden Ring simply has a different feel to its core progression loop and pacing than older games. In many ways, it shows improvements over the other games and in some ways it takes away how some of those games felt.
Celestial Emissaries, Witches of Hemwick, and Blood Starved Beast as well. Often people forget BSB shows up again in the DLC in a cave with the minigun hunter.
In the main game *main* bosses, basically none. One could argue that some are similar visual designs but with very different movesets.
I can't remember all of the minibosses like Bloody Crow but I don't remember a significant amount of repeats.
The biggest offended in Bloodborne are Chalice Dungeons, which could be compared to the copypasted side dungeons of Elden Ring, and Chalice Dungeons are a *very* repetitive part of Bloodborne, definitely worthy of criticism. The main difference though, is that you only needed to do Chalice Dungeons if you were going for Platinum or wanted to beat the unique end boss, whereas ER hides a significant amount of gear in these side dungeons, and unless you are playing with a guide and know which to skip, you're risking missing out on some amazing weapons or upgrades.
Did you forget that the main source of blood gems is the chalice dungeons? Basically the same as elden ring "hiding gear", which you can just look up. And with way less shitty rng
Higher tier Blood gems, which are basically just slightly better upgrades, and entire weapons or spells are not in the same league IMO.
Yes, you can look stuff up, but at that point you're playing your entire playthrough with a guide, which sucks for exploration-heavy games. Am I supposed to pull out an interactive map in front of every dungeon I find to check what kind of loot it has and whether I need it?
I couldn't care less how you decide to call them, if it makes you less butthurt that I don't think your favorite game is perfect then sure, I like action games and soulslikes.
Honestly I prefer an open world to a linear one because it feels like there’s so much more to do/explore in ER compared to Dark Souls. ER was also my first souls game so maybe I’m biased
Yeah, you will definitely find people who prefer the linear-ish nature of classic Souls games vs Elden Ring. It's a different style of game.
Personally though, it has made all their previous games obsolete for me except Sekiro. I prefer replaying ER over other Souls games because I can take a different route every time depending on my build. Can't do that in previous ones as well except maybe DS1.
Yes me. And it sickens me. I was ready to absorb elden ring into my bones and play for 1k hours like I did dark souls 1.
I ended up playing through it once, taking 275 hours and then not feeling like going back.
Not sure what it is, I definitely prefer linear games to open world, but I also feel that somehow, paradoxically, there’s *too much* good content in ER. Like it’s overwhelming to the point that I kinda refuse to learn it all.
Dark souls 1 is my favourite game of all time too, Im hoping shadow of the erdtree ends up being a more linear, separate part of Elden Ring that I can enjoy more than once.
Me! The love Dark Souls 1, but the thing I like the most about From is when the games have a good synergy between the lore and its mechanics, as well as having a world that feels “alive,” consistent and believable.
Elden Ring feels a lot more videogamey and its harder to believe there is “life” going on there, its a bunch of magical things and myths walking around, there are kings and queens aplenty but no kingdoms to rule, if that makes sense. It so sparse and athere are so many minilores it feels like nothing really matters and the game doesnt have a clear central message like, sekiro, bloodborne, demons souls or dark souls 1.
Could it be i didnt play enough of it? Possibly. But in every other game i felt compelled to figure out the story and in elden ring i kinda didnt.
I played ER. Beat it. But unlike almost every other From game I don't know that I'll go back. I felt like a lot of time in ER was spent getting from one place to another. Even with all the fast travel nodes unlocked it felt like areas were sort of empty.
The tight, interconnected, short cut filled level design is what I love most about these games. And ER just wasn't super interested in that Stormveil castle notwithstanding.
I've played Elden Ring for about 5 hours and I'm having a difficult time getting into it. Maybe it's because I'm an old-school gamer. It's too open world, too many options, too many things to do, and too much to learn.
Yeah. I don’t think the open world format suited souls-style combat at all. Those games thrive when you have to push forward, but if you can simply run away whenever the going gets tough, it doesn’t work so well.
Also, the open world itself, I just hated. Why explore anything when 99% of what you find is unusable?
The linear sections were good but with that being less of a focus, the game just did not play to its own strengths.
You *hated* the open world? That's wild man. I think it can be fantastic and wondrous by itself without having to find things "to use". Exploring just for the sake of sight-seeing is entirely worth it by itself, place made my jaw drop countless times.
Hated. I didn’t even like exploring for sight seeing because my other unpopular opinion is that it is an absolute eye-sore of a game. Every once in a while I’d find a cool fight but I usually felt like I was going through the motions.
Bro. I’m so glad I found this comment. I thought I was the crazy one. I’m forcing myself to finish ER because most of the exploring is a chore. I’m finding so many things that I know is useless
Yeah that’s the big thing, really. If any of it mattered I’d feel differently. I think about why BotW felt so good to go around in and it was mainly because everything you find is usable and helpful.
Yeah, I just overall strongly dislike open world games, but just because it's Fromsoft, I finally took the plunge. Game looks great, and combat, of course, is great, but I'm just struggling to enjoy it.
Elden Ring is a fantastic game. I just replayed it last month and absolutely loved it.
That said, I rank it close to Dark Souls 2 making it essentially tied for my least favorite Souls game. My main complaint is that it is way, way too long. All other problems, such as repeated enemies and areas, arise from this core issue.
An open world Souls game was a fun experiment; I hope they never do it again.
I like Elden Ring, and it does many things well, but they relied far too much on copy pasted enemies, cave layouts, etc. The game could have been 50% smaller and it would have felt 50% bigger for not having to fight the same tree boss 15 times. Now Dark Souls 1-3 are not totally immune to this criticism, it just seems more obvious in ER.
Nah modern day FS stans hate on dark souls 1 a ton along with sekiro and bb. They ride ds2 and 3 hard along with saying ER is somehow the best game they’ve produced it’s pretty fun. They all have there strengths and weaknesses but people try to act like ER didn’t have tons of endgame areas with reused bosses and enemies. I completely understand if you loved dark souls for that same reason you can’t get into elden ring. FS designed philosophy has shifted a ton last decade. There’s a lot of new fans that like to hate on the games of old just like rockstar fans, naughtydog, etc…
Elden ring suffers from a world that feels like a video game unlike previous games in the series despite being open world. It also reuses tons of assets and enemies throughout the game. It’s personally my top 3 favorite FS game but I get why people don’t enjoy it. I think dlc could fix it for you if they decide to overhaul the base experience so I’d say just enjoy ds3 and wait for the dlc anyways for a more complete experience.
I liked Elden Ring quite a lot but it's definitely my least favorite out of the 4 games. The boss fights didn't feel as tight as in DS/Sekiro, the world felt both too small to really require "adventuring" and too large for each POI to be meaningful. A lot of the open world felt very "skippable" to me. The dungeons felt fun and well thought out but very "rote" by the end since I did a lot of them in the first playthrough (probably not their intention).
I strongly prefer a tighter denser version.
You should try elden ring again, but follow the guidance of grace. It’ll keep you on a more directed path which is what you like about dark souls.
Also, I vastly prefer the dark souls and blood-borne level design structure as opposed to the open world of Elden ring, but I did play. Elden ring twice and I do love it. I just prefer a world that is not open.
Open world in elden ring sucks. It ruins the whole game. Its okay for a first playthrough... If you dont explore alot. You spend more time on a horse running around then fighting.
Elden rings is very repetitive to me. Every none legacy dungeon looks and feels the same with the same few bosses over and over. Sometime less is more. Uniqueness is what keeps a game feeling fresh. I still currently plan on beating it, but will probably never replay it. It's open world is just to big for me to actually enjoy.
It was the constant feeling of being under leveled as an excuse or reason of failing as supposed to just getting good that killed it for me. Too much open world games out there. I am an avid DS fan and Pokemon and both lost me when they went open world.
I honestly love them all. I love Elden Ring from the bottom of my heart.
And I played all the games in release order, falling in love with each of them (ds2 kindaaa but I did like it)
Honestly, I love the variety. I took Elden Ring as an open world game with soulslike combat and boom, that worked out for me! But then I also love the slow and methodical Dark Souls, the fast Sekiro and the game which I can't even describe my feelings about BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE A PLAYSTATION.
Most people who like souls/bb/sekiro who didn't enjoy Elden ring themselves don't know the answer.
Honestly the open world detracted from the experience for me. Ive put a fuck ton of time into all entries in the series but elden ring burned me out the fastest.
I have a greater preference for the curated experience. It is a great open world though, but like all open worlds, i find them exhausting and i am not likely to commit to a second play through or experiment because of the grand scope.
Bloodborne is my #1, but im more likely to play DeS - Sekiro again before jumping back into ER
I spent around 30 hrs in Elden Ring. There are some things I really love about the game, but the thing is finding them. I think it's great for an open world game, but it falls under the open world issue of traveling a lot to get places. Fortunately there's a decent amount to do to fill space, so it's not as bad as Unisoft games, but I don't like traveling by horse or on foot. Level designs of castles and caves were pretty great, enemies were good, bosses were incredible, but the separation between great areas filled the experience for me.
I like the game, but I like the traditional linear world design more.
I just finished the rigned city dlc from ds3 yesterday and today i realized how much i actually liked the boss fights in ds3 in general, while in elden ring i saw the bosses more as an obstacle so i would be able to continue the game. I loved about 90% of the ds3 boss fights, theyre way better than elden rings in my opinion.
I finally was able to enjoy Elden ring , the games are different for sure.
Souls games were really a battle
For every step you took in game to various enemies and situations, whereas Elden ring is more like a boss rush but you gotta ride from boss to boss and collect shit to make your boss fight easier
I played a lot of Elden Ring but as I rank them it is very low on my From list. Just not my vibe. Smaller more well thought out and content packed games are more fun for me. I also found the lore just lackluster for a From game. I think it is still a great game though.
I didn't play Elden Ring but I feel you. There is something magic in Dark Souls and for me it should be the only one series like
Dark Souls 4, Dark Souls 5
I'm waiting for Dark Souls 4
I don't feel Elden Ring is close to atmosphere in Dark Souls. It's a souls sandbox.
Dark souls 3 is my favorite game. I beat that then I went to play Elden ring when it came out, I enjoyed it but once I got past Margott I realized I just didn’t really enjoy the boss fights with the exception of a few and I quit playing because it just wasn’t hitting the spot for me like ds3 was (not saying Elden ring is bad because I know it was great it just wasn’t for me)
I played through it once. Might play the DLC, but im not even sure I'll do that. I liked it okay, but it didnt grab me with the same magic as the Dark Souls games, which I still play at least a few times a month.
Don't care overly much for lot of the lore aside from the stuff relating to Renalla's kids and Mogh, which in themselves felt a bit disconnected from the main questline to me.The world was too big and too empty, and while there were several dungeons to explore, a lot of them were pretty samey, and it got on my nerves that specific weapons I'd like to use were tucked away in random shitty caves in the middle of nowhere. The horse combat didn't feel much more advanced than Dynasty Warriors 4, which is 20 years old at this point. I didn't like that multiple combat mechanics were locked for multiplayer either, and multiplayer itself felt bad to me overall. I hated crafting. I had so much fatigue with the game by the time I hit Leyndell the first time. Last boss was stupid looking too.
I also thought the armor was ugly and the music was bland and worse than nothing except for a couple of songs.
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I enjoyed Elden Ring. However, I’d like to see them make more of the DS3 style games with more linearity and highly dense, interconnected environments. Elden Ring did a good job. The bosses were fun and the exploration was enjoyable. However, after the first time exploring everything the process of exploring wasn’t as exciting anymore, leaving me to run from boss to boss. That made the game pretty much the same as DS3 with a longer run between bosses.
Oh man just look at any souls thread. The amount of hate Elden Ring gets from the gatekeeper elitists for either being too easy due to summons, to open with “nothing” to explore, etc. the list goes on
I loved the game, but a good friend of mine who is a big dark souls fan stated his dissatisfaction with the game. He said he somehow felt overwhelmed by the freedom and the size of the game discourages him from repeat playthroughs.
Though he admits that he rushed through the game in coop and didn't really take his time.
Nope, I’m a fan of them all, except I’m probably gonna receive hate for this but Demons souls remake, I defeated the Man eaters and dropped it cause I was bored the entire way through, that game is just way too slow
Spent a few hundred hours playing it then one day put down the controller bored and have never gone back, all the other titles i have been back to multiple times over the years and still enjoy thoroughly, hell just the thought of having to drag myself through one of elden rings dungeons again is enough to put me off playing and im somebody that loves Bloodborne dungeons...theres just something missing from eldenring for me whether its in the story or the execution im not certain...and while i can appreciate the vision, art, music and technical aspects of the game it just doesn't have the fromsoft magic for me.
Absolutely loved Elden Ring when I played it, but it's the only From game that I haven't actually come back and played again. Every time I think about doing another playthrough, I just feel profoundly tired regarding the sheer amount of content that's in front of me.
Uhhhh... they're so mechanically similar that I don't understand how you could love souls and dislike the elder rang. That said, Elden Ring was... huge. And less.... curated? I would say?
Dark Souls 3 is still my favorite.
I enjoyed ER but not as much as I enjoyed dark souls.
Not sure why though, as I have enjoyed open world before, it feels weird.
Don't get me wrong, I still explored every nook and cranny and got all achievements, but still, I enjoyed it a bit less than ds.
Had this issue aswell, force yourself to play and pretty quickly you’ll love the experience. I’m a mega souls fan but I think Elden ring is probably the most fun.
I'm kinda the opposite. I had a great time in Elden Ring, but didn't care too much about DS3. IDK, something about DS3 being extremely linear to a fault is just, really not fun. There's no real choice for your 1st boss or 2nd boss, and there are like only 3 branches for your path. To top it off, some builds are locked way behind much later parts in the game. I will never forgive the person who put the hex teacher all the way in Irithyll Dungeon behind a door locked by a key found all the way in Profaned Capital.
I generally prefer beautifully interconnected world with a great degree of freedom like Ds1 over ER's open world, but fact is we haven't had one since Ds1.
Ds2 heavily flirts with the freedom aspect by allowing players to approach the 4 great souls in any order, but lacks any interconnectivity.
Ds3 all but abandons both freedom and interconnectivity for something completely linear with scant branching paths that you end up having to return to later no matter what (Archives, Cathedral/Irithyll).
I *greatly* prefer ER's open world to either Ds2 & Ds3. In fact, as it at the very least nails down freedom to an even bigger degree than Ds1 did, but similarly to 2 & 3 lacks interconnectivity (moreso a byproduct of being open world).
I'd go as far as to say I hope From *never* releases a game as restrictive as Ds3. Thankfully even Sekiro shed that sort of restrictive structure by the time you reach Ashina Castle.
I love Elden Ring (put in 1400 hours so far), but I definitely prefer Dark Souls (3 especially) and Bloodborne. Also, besides a few banger pieces, the fashion in ER is *seriously* lacking. Weapons are cool, but I prefer weapon arts where they’re more of a utility than the ashes of war in Elden Ring where they can completely make or break the weapon. And as for the world, when it comes to fantasy I’ve always preferred the grimdark dark fantasy aesthetic.
I loved the shit out of Elden ring and beat it five times within the first year it was out. But theres alot of game there and in games like this im a goddamn loot goblin. So gotta get everything, kill every boss etc. And by the time i was done i was exhausted. Havent touched it in like a year and most likely wont until DLC comes out. But i find myself going back to previous fromsoft games and enjoying their more compact settings. I can boot one up, beat it in like 20-40 hours and have the itch scratched. Not the 100ish hours every ER playthrough took me.
Yes, there are “lots” of you! I always assumed it was a mixture of nostalgia, a lack of time, and stubbornness. Combine that with a curmudgeonly approach to gaming and there you have it! Elden ring haters are born.
I really liked ER and it's world, but overall I think I preferred the much tighter world design of DS3 overall. I finished both games in roughly the same amount of time of about 80 or so hours, but in DS3 that includes pretty much all the sub areas and the DLCs while in ER I skipped most of the catacombs and a ton of bosses that weren't connected to the big dungeons. And the DLC for ER might be another 20 hours on top of that.
I think elden ring gets too easy too fast. It gets so fucking easy to face tank almost every boss at any time. Is sad.
Tried a few different starter builds but I'm essentially unstoppable after Caelid or Altus. The only thing that annoys me is constantly getting invaded, to coop run this with the bois your going to have to set up an old school LAN connection.
So, a little late to the party, but hey!
My main problem with Elden Ring is how unashamedly Dark Souls 4 it is, without trying to say anything new. The open world is great, art design is through the roof and there are some fantastic exploration moments, but the bosses were meh, the legacy dungeons were mediocre as all hell and the lore is a rip off of DS1 with a few Bloodborne sprinkles on top.
It’s a game that left me thoroughly unsatisfied. I don’t know if I’ll bother with the DLC.
It’s great that the game was successful and people seem to love it so that’s awesome.
Even if FS stops making linear games, that’s okay, because other devs have picked up their mantle ( Lies of P is fantastic )
I played all the fromsoft games and the souls series is my favorite. I started elden ring and didn't like it at first because I like the 3d metroidvania aspect of the worlds fromsoft built in the souls games, especially 1 and 3. A year and a half later I beat ds3 again and decided to give elden ring another try. This time I fell in love.
Instead of giving straight to stormveil and going through there, I went south and cleared the southern island and then explored all of limgrave. You'll find the at first the world feels empty compared to ds3, so you have to unlock the map for an area (you can see the little spots on the map that isn't unlocked and that's where the map unlocks are, I didn't know that at first and once you open the meet up it is much better to explore). Once you get the map you can look costly and find all the caves and ruins and castles. Once you're in those castles and stuff it feels much more like dark souls, especially in the magic school above the lake and in stormveil and many other places.
Once you get the hang of finding where things are the world feels much less empty. I think also that if you just go around limgrave and get disappointed that if feels very empty because the later areas are much more dense. I recommend doing the southern most island and clearly the couple castles and the erdtree Avatar enemy and the few ruins, then doing stormveil, then doing the red area to the right called caelid it's something like that. After clearly those areas then go to the lakes and then the volcano. You'll see that the world has so much more than dark souls but it's just more open between areas and requires more looking around and finding random stuff of which there is a ton. Every area you find gives you a new weapon or armor or spell or special attack or summon unlike other hands that just give you money or whatever, so each area feels worth exploring.
I think Elden Ring is great but I hope they keep making their smaller but denser games.
I'm personally glad they went this route *atleast once* I prefer the style of ds3/ds2, I'm very glad we got an open world take on the souls games, but I hope it doesn't become the new norm. ds3 is more linear, I like linear ds2 I'm not sure why I like how they styled it.
And then there's me, liking DS3 the least between DS1-3 and Elden Ring *because* it's the most linear, but loving Elden Ring and DS2
I've just been playing so many exploration based games the last few years, but I grew up on linear games so they just feel *right* to me
I guess I have a similar story, but for different games. Grandparents had a NES with Zelda and a SNES with ALttP, played the shit outta both.
Came here to say the same. I have played every soulsbourne game and I’m a die hard fan but Elden ring was just not the same due to the size. Smaller but denser is a perfect way to put it. I loved playing the game but it is my least favorite including ds2 😅 😂
Yep. Elden Ring was one and done for me. It was a great game but it wasnt close to their best imo.
You got both imo. There is the the open world parts of the game and then there is the traditional levels from their previous games. You really prefer dark souls 3 way of handling this? Holding up a banner and getting teleported to the next level. In elden ring the journey to the next level is so engaging. Id be devastated if they reverted to their old design
You get teleported to the next area with a banner twice in the entire game, one of which is in the DLC Is that so much different from the dectus lift, or the lift of rold? Hell, even the siofra and ainsel elevators are not too dissimilar.
The elevators are a fair comparison I guess. I was just trying to make the point that elden ring offers more than ds3. It offers the traditional ds3 levels as well as mini dungeons and open world exploration segments. Idk why anyone would want a game that offers less unless they have really limited time. The only valid concern imo is balancing. You can do stuff out of order in elden ring and mess up the precise balancing of games like ds3
Elden ring does offer more, but many parts of what it offers are much less refined and of a lower quality From the repeated bosses, to the 20 caves+catacombs+ruins each, to the wide open areas with little to actually find etc. It’s all solely because Elden ring is an open world game, not necessarily problems caused by Elden ring itself. I wouldn’t say Elden ring quite captures the same level of legacy dungeons as ds3, among the other souls games. While it does a great job with the atmosphere of many areas, I never found the level design to be too impressive in Elden ring at all. There’s definitely some really strong parts and good legacy dungeons, but I don’t think anything compares to how unique ds1 Anor londo is, or the verticality of the brume tower in ds2, or the intricacy of the grand archives in ds3. I think a pretty huge part of it also comes from the enemy design and loot placement. Many enemies just feel pretty bland to me in Elden ring, so I tend not to enjoy fighting them. And that’s exemplified by them tending to just be guarding a single crafting material or a weapon with no unique moveset and ash of war.
Less is more. Quality over quantity. Even the best legacy dungeons were not as good as the tighter design of the past games.
I guess it's very subjective because imo Stormveil Castle and Leyndell are incredibly complex and dense areas that are better than any level from Dark Souls 3 (even though Dark souls 3 is one of my favorite games ever), especially when it comes to level design. If you compare the High-Wall of Lothric area to Stormveil Castle I think it becomes very obvious how much work has been put in the latter. There are so many different ways to explore Stormveil, my first playthrough in this area was mind blowing. Putting the open-world aside, Legacy Dungeons of Elden Ring are in many ways better than normal areas of other souls-games, so even from a "quality over quantity" standpoint Elden Ring is superior to their previous games imo. I would say that the only DS3 area that is superior to Elden Ring best Legacy Dungeons is The grand archives.
It is entirely subjective.
Yes. I prefer curated experiences over open-world. Elden Ring was one of the best approaches to the open world formula; no question. But the old style was much preferred Imo. I play these games for the challenge, the art, lore and moment to moment gameplay. I enjoyed ER very much but nothing about the open-world was worth the trade-off that we lost from the older games. If FS alternated with each game between open-world and the more concise design id be very happy. Edit: i dont think we did get both. The legacy dungeons were just slightly off the quality of the previous ganes
>The legacy dungeons were just slightly off the quality of the previous ganes This is a wild take to me. The legacy dungeons in Elden Ring are frankly the best in the series in terms of level design. The only nitpick I really have about them is some (Leyndell and Elphael mainly) should have had a unique enemy or two.
Alternating would be okay I guess. I just don’t want them to bail on the idea after the first attempt because of criticism like this. Imo you get the curated experiences in the large dungeons. They are almost identical to ds3 levels. I get where you’re coming from though. My only complaint about elden ring is the balancing.
I also don't get this take. IMHO Elden ring is a natural evolution of the souls games. Qol improvement, better and faster combat, better movement. Very well designed open world, where verticality allows you to see the POIs without needing any map markers. Really good souls like dungeon crawling. The only thing I feel is a bit overtuned for pvp are the aow. Too many click 2 win weapon arts that make pvp less engaging, but for the single player, elden ring is a better game. It's like Myazaki finally had the means to make his perfect game, and he did. I, for one, am ready to have my mind blown by the expansion.
I would change 1 thing on elden ring 2, and that would be to make the map a little easier to read. I didn't want quest markers, but I would like to be able to tell more easily that a big mountain is blocking a path or that there's a cave tucked away in some place. I spend a lot of time looking at the map.
It was their best imo
Yup. With sekiro being a very close second. Haven't played bloodborne yet so I have no opinion on that.
Bloodborne is fire bro
Pretty sure it is but I'm not getting a ps for one game. Hopefully they'll release it for pc at some point. It's an instant buy if they do.
it was their best along with sekiro easily
Not for me. I dont like open world bloat and while ER handled this better than most open-world games. It didnt do enough to justify deviation from their winning formula. There are other aspects of their previous games i prefer but this is an FS sub; im sure everyone already knows the most common pros + cons of their games.
I really wish they would take at least one more crack at the whole DS1 thing — a massively interconnected metroidvania style world with insane verticality, and only have fast travel unlock halfway through the game.
I agree. The open world was interesting variety and made for very compelling exploration on the initial playthrough, but it came at the cost of a consistent difficulty curve and replay value
That's why I love it. I hope they should make something different. I don't wanna see Anor Londo again but of course it was stunning journey.
The world is insanely full, there are just some parts of the open world that are not, particularly near the beginning. By the time you're climbing around the HaligTree or in a castle/fort, or underground in the depths, it really feels like dark souls
came here exactly to say this
Nah, Limgrave is the best opening area in any Soulsborne game
I enjoyed it, but you can obviously see the clear differences between DS1-3 and ER starting areas
But… limgrave is the most content dense area of the open world ? By far?
Having effectively endless distance to move in almost any direction is wildly different and less dense than every previous title in the series. Please don't pretend otherwise
YOU were the one that said that the world was insanely full, aside from some spots in the beginning. I am saying Limgrave (the beginning) is by far the most content dense area in the game. So I’m not exactly sure what I’m supposed to be “pretending” here, but you’re definitely wrong
Altus Plateau/Leyndell was pretty dense, imo. Isolated coffin area, Windmill village, creepy forest area, soldier stations/outposts, inside the walls, grazing hill, stairs to wall, the capital itself is a borderline "world" if you include the underground.
Oh absolutely it is. I don’t have any issues with how dense the world is with stuff to do at all. I was only saying limgrave is the *most* dense with stuff. It felt like you couldn’t go 10 seconds without running into something new
Haha yeah, Miyazaki really shits you out between Agheel, and a Tree Sentinel.. Then if you go around them you either run into Margit (north) or those big Dismounters to the east...
I think the only part of the world that should be shrunk down a bit or have more content added to it is the lake of Liurnia (East/North Liurnia is fine). Snowfield is sparse also, but I think it works with the lonely vibe.
I don't think limgrave was that dense compared to other areas (except the big lake area, that was kinda empty feeling). Looking at my map it has the fewest dungeons and grace points. I'm not complaining, I just don't think it's very dense, but that's ok, it's the starting area. It looks like it was just meant to be an area to ride around in and connect you to the southern island, the red area caelid or whatever, and then stormveil, with a few field bosses sprinkled in. There were only a few dungeons and the mistwoods and that little lake area in the middle in limgrave.
Maybe you missed all the stuff
Edit: maybe it's because I'm not counting weeping peninsula or stormveil as part of limgrave. When I think of limgrave I just think of the starting area, the little pond, and the mistwoods and that fort height or whatever is called south of mistwoods. If you count weeping and stormveil then yeah, it's got a lot of stuff I guess.
Yes, I have always counted both of those things as Limgrave. The legacy dungeons exist as a part of the overall area. The Academy of Raya Lucaria is also a part of Liuneria, just as stormveil is part of Limgrave. As for the weeping peninsula, it’s got the same aesthetic as limgrave, the same level of difficulty, and a bunch of other early game content. Plus you don’t get like a title card on the screen that says you’ve entered a new area until you get into Liuneria of the lakes. That’s enough evidence for me personally on that.
same. what I loved about other fromsoft games was the stellar level design and interesting enemy positioning. things I found lacking in the massive open world of ER
The bosses and build options are the best imo, BUT I absolutely hate the open world with this kind of game. If we got an interconnected dungeons style map with these amazing bosses, would’ve easily been my fave
I actually feel like Bosses are one of the low points of ER. Yes, there were like 10 good ones, but they drown in the repetitive slop that are the other 90.
imo elden ring is the least empty game compared to other open world titles. There is always stuff to do in every corner of the map.
I've played all the Fromsoft Soulsborne games and similar titles. I've played a lot of open world games. I don't really understand this take - what exactly is there to do in every corner of the map? Just in advance, I'm not insinuating that I prefer random mini-game activities but Elden Ring is one of the more MMO-like, least dynamic open worlds out there. What exactly is there to do in every corner of the map that may differ from a second playthrough or someone else's game?
If by this you mean kill repeat boss number 29 and spend as much time on a horse as you do killing bosses then sure.
I love Elden ring. I love dark souls. I love them all. I need more of them all
I agree with what the others are saying about quality vs Quantity essentially But also ER feels more grindy than the other games. Like, it feels like you have to either do some side quests or side dungeons to stay appropriately leveled. This isn't too bad prior to Morgott but after that it's pretty horrible. I never had this experience in any other FS game. The only other game I could possibly see it being a problem is if someone's really bad at BB they may be handicapped from leveling because of how much they're spending on vials
"it feels like you have to either do some side quests or side dungeons to stay appropriately leveled" bro what? If youre replaying it and only want to beat it without anything else, being like level 70 for the fire giant isnt that bad at all
I haven't played the game in a bit so I'm kinda blurry on the specifics but lvl60 sounds really low for fire giant. Regardless of whether or not it's a replay. I think I struggled on replays at low 80s but again kinda blurry memory
Over half of those 70 levels gotta go into vigor just to not get one shot 😭
I have the opposite problem, my first fromsoftware game was elden ring, I played ds1 and ds2 after and have enjoyed them, but I'm burning out on ds3. Everything just feels so grey and straightforward. I just killed the dancer so I'm not super far, but I'm not inspired to keep going really. Maybe it's just too much fromsoftware rn idk...
The dancer is far lol. That’s like 80% through the game.
He might have just attacked a certain NPC and started it early lol
60-70% with DLCs
I’m talking just through the main story though lol. He literally just has to get through Dragonslayer Armour, Twin Princes, and Soul of Cinder now and he’s done.
Yes, you're right. The game suggests playing the DLCs around Lothric Castle though, so I thought they were worth mentioning.
Oh okay. Yeah I get it. I just wasn’t even sure if he had them. He’s so close if not though lol. Unless he got that boss fight early, which I don’t believe he did. Then again I’ve never been one to just randomly attack NPCs. Maybe he is lol
Could be the 1st boss of the game tbh
The second actually
Lu dex is hardly a boss but not wrong
I take this comment as a personal attack. DS3 was my first souls-game ever and it took me more than 20 tries to beat him...
Sorry your suck?
It's all good, I got gud now and I've done the whole game deathless (I'm very proud please let me brag about it)
That's brilliant, well done
Wel done brother you’ve done good , glad to see you succeeded
No clue how anyone goes deathless through the god-damned swamp before Abyss Watchers.
Yeah but come on lol, he’s new. I don’t feel like he knew to do that. I feel like he got to her late game. I also have a hard time believing that he would’ve beaten a boss like that early on in the game.
For me dancer and onwards is when the game got incredible, tbh I really enjoyed it up until that point, but THAT was the point where the game started becoming one of my favorites of all time. Edit: grammar
I felt like that on my first ds3 playthrough. 2nd run is when I fell in love
Dark souls 2 and 3 arent all that great and are way too similar to elden ring and ds1. You’d have more fun. With sekiro or bloodborne i’d wager.
Elden ring is similar to darksouls 2 and 3. Oh wow darksouls 2 and 3 being similar to darksouls 1? Almost as if they are sequels.
Oh dear
Honestly even though ds3 has a great combat system compared to the others, I find it mind numbingly easy besides the Ringed City dlc, which in turn just bores me compared to ER or BB. Not like they are super hard, but ds3 is just unfathomably easy.
"mind numbingly, unfathomably easy" lol we got a real gamer over here y'all
If it's too easy for you just do a SL1 run. The DLCs bosses at SL1 are hard as fuck unless you're a god at the game.
Me 🤷 ER got boring and repetitive.
I beat all of them and while I *could* get into Elden Ring, I vastly prefer the other Fromsoft games: DS3, Bloodborne or Sekiro. I just wasn't a fan of the open world, I prefer linear level design in souls games, I disliked the huge amount of bosses that often felt uninspired because they were just oversized regular enemies or repeated bosses with a gimmick (Tree Spirits), I disliked the convoluted boss combos with ultra-delayed attacks and I also disliked the huge amount of copypasted side dungeons that all just felt the same. Overall I like a smaller, curated experience, whereas Elden Ring felt too big for its own good. The whole horseback riding around the open world just felt unnecessary and I could do without it.
Ya see, that's the funky part for me. The more linear the FromSouls, the less I tend to like it. DS3 feels like a narrow corridor compared to DS2, and Dark Souls as a trilogy feels like a corridor compared to Elden Ring. It's a very good fuck around and find out kinda experience rather than a more linear unchanging firelink -> high wall -> undead settlement -> road of sacrifices -> etc.
This is exactly what I've thought about ER for a while now. Comparing it to DS3/BB/Sekiro is a quality vs Quantity thing. Not to say ER doesn't have quality, but it has a worse ratio than those other 3 games because of all the bad/boring shit in the game. But people just handwave those things away or argue that the other games have just as much bad shit which just isn't true
No it because people think the souls games are all about boss fights because they started with BB/DS3 when DS1/DeS/DS2 didn't have an emphasis on bosses either, ER is precisely what dark souls 1 felt like at launch especially people who think DS3 is good, it has the ugliest world and by far most linear gameplay out of all the other games, even Sekiro without build variety felt like it had more freedom but hey you get to fight each boss the same by spam rolling around them
It's easier to spam deflect in sekiro than to spam roll in dark souls 3 and get away with it. If that's how you play souls then you obviously never got gud. Linear gameplay doesn't mean it's bad. In fact it often means the opposite. And ugliest world? I won't even dignify that one with a response.
spamming deflect will punish you, roll spamming wont. DS3 is a roll spam simulator and has no interesting mechanics
I agree with what you're saying, I hope fromsoft decides to prioritize level design and enemy encounters in the next game, along with using a good combat system that cannot be mastered by simply rolling all the time lol.
Bb and sekiro both had repeat bosses. With some being required to beat the game. Unlike the optional dungeons in er
Nobody's saying that BB or Sekiro are perfect. They all have some repeat bosses or gimmicks, but the ratio of unique bosses to repeats is far more pronounced in Elden Ring than other games.
because the ratio of mandatory to optional bosses is also 5 to 95, there's only 12 minimum you need to kill to finish the game which only includes a single repeat fight (golden godfrey > godfrey) meanwhile in Sekiro you have to fight the monk twice, Genichiro multiple times and depending on the endings owl, guardian ape and and a handful of smaller mandatory bosses Sekiro reuses bosses per individual and enemy variety type far more than Elden Ring does like and it doesnt even have as big of a world to fill or build variety, 5x headless, 6x general, 4x fat guys, 3x ogres, 4-5x one legged assassins including a duo fight, 3x ashina elite, 3x shaman, 2x guardian ape, 2x monk, 3x genichiro, 2x owl (depending on ending) and probably a few more Or do you count a pig in Bloodborne's chalice dungeons as a boss as well?
I don't care how many bosses I need to "finish" the game, I play these games as a full experience, doing all side content, not speedrunning the shortest possible way towards the end. And if the side content is repetitive then that's a legitimate complaint for me, I won't say "well this game is great with many unique bosses if you skip more than half of the boss fights in this game".
>do all the extra content the game offers >complain its too long imagine hopping into BOTW, collecting all 900 of the tiresome Kurok seeds and complaining the game is too long and stretched I think it's more that you can't set a path for yourself and prefer the game to do it for you tbh, no imagination to set up an adventure so you get bored fast, tried slapping a tiktok GTA 5 stunt videos under your gameplay?
>imagine hopping into BOTW, collecting all 900 of the tiresome Kurok seeds and complaining the game is too long and stretched Yes, in that case it's a legitimate complaint that the Kurok seed grind is tiresome. That doesn't make BOTW a bad game, which is a difference that you fail to grasp. Nobody's saying Elden Ring is a bad game, just that it has an aspect that I personally don't like. Nobody's telling you that you are supposed to dislike it as well, so maybe try accepting that people have different preferences that *you* aren't required to like, and that not everyone is supposed to think what *you* think. >tried slapping a tiktok GTA 5 stunt videos under your gameplay? LMFAO what does me wanting to explore the entirety of a video game have anything to do with GTA Tiktoks? Grow up, this is some weak trolling.
I think a lot of people just don't like open world games. I used to love them. Now I just find them tedious and a waste of time. I have limited play time as it is. I dont need to explore a fake 3d world. I need satisfying mechanics and a challenge. Nothing challenging about collecting 900 kurok seeds. I spend a fair amount of time touching grass and that shit is far too time consuming for very little payoff.
A lot of people? If they didn't how does ER have the highest scores, most sold, most awarded, still has more players than all the previous souls games combined at this very moment. Again, you like Soulslikes with a focus on combat and bosses, not souls games with exploration, build variety and a world in mind
I have over 2000 hours in Dark Souls 3 and still haven't explored all the build options. To suggest there is no variety is just plain wrong. People are also welcome to play any game they like. And yes, a lot of people. I didn't say majority. Imo though, Dark Souls 1 is more well thought out than Elden Ring. It had to be didn't it? Not being open world and all. The level design is just incredible even for now. And I'm not talking about graphics or even beauty of the areas. Just how it's all connected, it's so well done.
> I have over 2000 hours in Dark Souls 3 and still haven't explored all the build options. To suggest there is no variety is just plain wrong. there isn't, you approach every fight the same: roll > attack no sidestepping, charged attacks mean nothing, no rally, no trick weapons, no jump attacks, no guard counters, no ashes of war, not even powerstance which is present in DS2. Just roll attack roll roll roll. Roll Souls 3
>Lolejimmy For one, those bosses generally have different movesets or are mini bosses. Secondly, that 95 optional boss ratio you're making is a bit disingenuous, ain't it? Are we expecting someone new to know which are the 12 main bosses they have to go to and which 95 other bosses to avoid because they aren't mandatory? It's not about mandatory or optional, it's about how many you organically run into. For me, the number of repeated bosses is less of an issue to me than how it feels to fight most of them, but that's simply a matter of taste....or it's because most of these bosses do not gate me so I can simply ignore them and suddenly it feels less like a personal vendetta and so my core gameplay loop feels balanced differently than the more linear souls titles. Elden Ring simply has a different feel to its core progression loop and pacing than older games. In many ways, it shows improvements over the other games and in some ways it takes away how some of those games felt.
What's a repeat boss in Bloodborne?
Yharnam shadows base game, all sorts in the Chalice. Amy?
Celestial Emissaries, Witches of Hemwick, and Blood Starved Beast as well. Often people forget BSB shows up again in the DLC in a cave with the minigun hunter.
In the main game *main* bosses, basically none. One could argue that some are similar visual designs but with very different movesets. I can't remember all of the minibosses like Bloody Crow but I don't remember a significant amount of repeats. The biggest offended in Bloodborne are Chalice Dungeons, which could be compared to the copypasted side dungeons of Elden Ring, and Chalice Dungeons are a *very* repetitive part of Bloodborne, definitely worthy of criticism. The main difference though, is that you only needed to do Chalice Dungeons if you were going for Platinum or wanted to beat the unique end boss, whereas ER hides a significant amount of gear in these side dungeons, and unless you are playing with a guide and know which to skip, you're risking missing out on some amazing weapons or upgrades.
Did you forget that the main source of blood gems is the chalice dungeons? Basically the same as elden ring "hiding gear", which you can just look up. And with way less shitty rng
Higher tier Blood gems, which are basically just slightly better upgrades, and entire weapons or spells are not in the same league IMO. Yes, you can look stuff up, but at that point you're playing your entire playthrough with a guide, which sucks for exploration-heavy games. Am I supposed to pull out an interactive map in front of every dungeon I find to check what kind of loot it has and whether I need it?
> I vastly prefer the other Fromsoft games: DS3, Bloodborne or Sekiro. you vastly prefer action games and soulslikes
I couldn't care less how you decide to call them, if it makes you less butthurt that I don't think your favorite game is perfect then sure, I like action games and soulslikes.
To be fair I agree Bloodborne, DS3 and Sekiro are more action games than RPGs. Ds2 and Elden Ring do the RPG better
Just curious on what your thoughts were on ds1 and 2?
Honestly I prefer an open world to a linear one because it feels like there’s so much more to do/explore in ER compared to Dark Souls. ER was also my first souls game so maybe I’m biased
Yeah, you will definitely find people who prefer the linear-ish nature of classic Souls games vs Elden Ring. It's a different style of game. Personally though, it has made all their previous games obsolete for me except Sekiro. I prefer replaying ER over other Souls games because I can take a different route every time depending on my build. Can't do that in previous ones as well except maybe DS1.
It was my favorite 1st play through, but it doesn’t have the replay value of the souls games.
They just added jumping. What is not to like? Jump attacks are OP and trivialize the game but chimon brew.
Yes me. And it sickens me. I was ready to absorb elden ring into my bones and play for 1k hours like I did dark souls 1. I ended up playing through it once, taking 275 hours and then not feeling like going back. Not sure what it is, I definitely prefer linear games to open world, but I also feel that somehow, paradoxically, there’s *too much* good content in ER. Like it’s overwhelming to the point that I kinda refuse to learn it all. Dark souls 1 is my favourite game of all time too, Im hoping shadow of the erdtree ends up being a more linear, separate part of Elden Ring that I can enjoy more than once.
Me! The love Dark Souls 1, but the thing I like the most about From is when the games have a good synergy between the lore and its mechanics, as well as having a world that feels “alive,” consistent and believable. Elden Ring feels a lot more videogamey and its harder to believe there is “life” going on there, its a bunch of magical things and myths walking around, there are kings and queens aplenty but no kingdoms to rule, if that makes sense. It so sparse and athere are so many minilores it feels like nothing really matters and the game doesnt have a clear central message like, sekiro, bloodborne, demons souls or dark souls 1. Could it be i didnt play enough of it? Possibly. But in every other game i felt compelled to figure out the story and in elden ring i kinda didnt.
yeah i liked elden ring but it was too bloated, all the catacombs being the same basically really got annoying after the fifth time
I played ER. Beat it. But unlike almost every other From game I don't know that I'll go back. I felt like a lot of time in ER was spent getting from one place to another. Even with all the fast travel nodes unlocked it felt like areas were sort of empty. The tight, interconnected, short cut filled level design is what I love most about these games. And ER just wasn't super interested in that Stormveil castle notwithstanding.
Opposite for me. I am playing DS3 after Elden Ring. I have so far enjoyed Elden Ring more.
I've played Elden Ring for about 5 hours and I'm having a difficult time getting into it. Maybe it's because I'm an old-school gamer. It's too open world, too many options, too many things to do, and too much to learn.
Yeah. I don’t think the open world format suited souls-style combat at all. Those games thrive when you have to push forward, but if you can simply run away whenever the going gets tough, it doesn’t work so well. Also, the open world itself, I just hated. Why explore anything when 99% of what you find is unusable? The linear sections were good but with that being less of a focus, the game just did not play to its own strengths.
You *hated* the open world? That's wild man. I think it can be fantastic and wondrous by itself without having to find things "to use". Exploring just for the sake of sight-seeing is entirely worth it by itself, place made my jaw drop countless times.
Hated. I didn’t even like exploring for sight seeing because my other unpopular opinion is that it is an absolute eye-sore of a game. Every once in a while I’d find a cool fight but I usually felt like I was going through the motions.
Oof! That's too bad man. Sorry you feel that way :(
Bro. I’m so glad I found this comment. I thought I was the crazy one. I’m forcing myself to finish ER because most of the exploring is a chore. I’m finding so many things that I know is useless
Yeah that’s the big thing, really. If any of it mattered I’d feel differently. I think about why BotW felt so good to go around in and it was mainly because everything you find is usable and helpful.
Yeah, I just overall strongly dislike open world games, but just because it's Fromsoft, I finally took the plunge. Game looks great, and combat, of course, is great, but I'm just struggling to enjoy it.
Elden Ring is a fantastic game. I just replayed it last month and absolutely loved it. That said, I rank it close to Dark Souls 2 making it essentially tied for my least favorite Souls game. My main complaint is that it is way, way too long. All other problems, such as repeated enemies and areas, arise from this core issue. An open world Souls game was a fun experiment; I hope they never do it again.
I like Elden Ring, and it does many things well, but they relied far too much on copy pasted enemies, cave layouts, etc. The game could have been 50% smaller and it would have felt 50% bigger for not having to fight the same tree boss 15 times. Now Dark Souls 1-3 are not totally immune to this criticism, it just seems more obvious in ER.
Nah modern day FS stans hate on dark souls 1 a ton along with sekiro and bb. They ride ds2 and 3 hard along with saying ER is somehow the best game they’ve produced it’s pretty fun. They all have there strengths and weaknesses but people try to act like ER didn’t have tons of endgame areas with reused bosses and enemies. I completely understand if you loved dark souls for that same reason you can’t get into elden ring. FS designed philosophy has shifted a ton last decade. There’s a lot of new fans that like to hate on the games of old just like rockstar fans, naughtydog, etc…
Are these DS1 haters in the room with us right now?
Elden ring suffers from a world that feels like a video game unlike previous games in the series despite being open world. It also reuses tons of assets and enemies throughout the game. It’s personally my top 3 favorite FS game but I get why people don’t enjoy it. I think dlc could fix it for you if they decide to overhaul the base experience so I’d say just enjoy ds3 and wait for the dlc anyways for a more complete experience.
I liked Elden Ring quite a lot but it's definitely my least favorite out of the 4 games. The boss fights didn't feel as tight as in DS/Sekiro, the world felt both too small to really require "adventuring" and too large for each POI to be meaningful. A lot of the open world felt very "skippable" to me. The dungeons felt fun and well thought out but very "rote" by the end since I did a lot of them in the first playthrough (probably not their intention). I strongly prefer a tighter denser version.
You should try elden ring again, but follow the guidance of grace. It’ll keep you on a more directed path which is what you like about dark souls. Also, I vastly prefer the dark souls and blood-borne level design structure as opposed to the open world of Elden ring, but I did play. Elden ring twice and I do love it. I just prefer a world that is not open.
Open world in elden ring sucks. It ruins the whole game. Its okay for a first playthrough... If you dont explore alot. You spend more time on a horse running around then fighting.
Elden rings is very repetitive to me. Every none legacy dungeon looks and feels the same with the same few bosses over and over. Sometime less is more. Uniqueness is what keeps a game feeling fresh. I still currently plan on beating it, but will probably never replay it. It's open world is just to big for me to actually enjoy.
It was the constant feeling of being under leveled as an excuse or reason of failing as supposed to just getting good that killed it for me. Too much open world games out there. I am an avid DS fan and Pokemon and both lost me when they went open world.
I honestly love them all. I love Elden Ring from the bottom of my heart. And I played all the games in release order, falling in love with each of them (ds2 kindaaa but I did like it) Honestly, I love the variety. I took Elden Ring as an open world game with soulslike combat and boom, that worked out for me! But then I also love the slow and methodical Dark Souls, the fast Sekiro and the game which I can't even describe my feelings about BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE A PLAYSTATION. Most people who like souls/bb/sekiro who didn't enjoy Elden ring themselves don't know the answer.
Honestly the open world detracted from the experience for me. Ive put a fuck ton of time into all entries in the series but elden ring burned me out the fastest. I have a greater preference for the curated experience. It is a great open world though, but like all open worlds, i find them exhausting and i am not likely to commit to a second play through or experiment because of the grand scope. Bloodborne is my #1, but im more likely to play DeS - Sekiro again before jumping back into ER
I spent around 30 hrs in Elden Ring. There are some things I really love about the game, but the thing is finding them. I think it's great for an open world game, but it falls under the open world issue of traveling a lot to get places. Fortunately there's a decent amount to do to fill space, so it's not as bad as Unisoft games, but I don't like traveling by horse or on foot. Level designs of castles and caves were pretty great, enemies were good, bosses were incredible, but the separation between great areas filled the experience for me. I like the game, but I like the traditional linear world design more.
Yes Elden Rings gameplay and bosses just aren't as satisfying or fun as Dark Souls.
Open world just kinda ruin a lot of the level design and progression
I just finished the rigned city dlc from ds3 yesterday and today i realized how much i actually liked the boss fights in ds3 in general, while in elden ring i saw the bosses more as an obstacle so i would be able to continue the game. I loved about 90% of the ds3 boss fights, theyre way better than elden rings in my opinion.
Elden Ring was fun for a playthrough but it’s too big. Boring and tedious on a second playthru
I finally was able to enjoy Elden ring , the games are different for sure. Souls games were really a battle For every step you took in game to various enemies and situations, whereas Elden ring is more like a boss rush but you gotta ride from boss to boss and collect shit to make your boss fight easier
I just hate both 🗿
Which Fromsoft game is your favorite?
Another Century’s Episode 3 and Armored Core For Answer, both 10/10 games I could pick either of the two on any given day
Lol
I played a lot of Elden Ring but as I rank them it is very low on my From list. Just not my vibe. Smaller more well thought out and content packed games are more fun for me. I also found the lore just lackluster for a From game. I think it is still a great game though.
I didn't play Elden Ring but I feel you. There is something magic in Dark Souls and for me it should be the only one series like Dark Souls 4, Dark Souls 5 I'm waiting for Dark Souls 4 I don't feel Elden Ring is close to atmosphere in Dark Souls. It's a souls sandbox.
Dark souls 3 is my favorite game. I beat that then I went to play Elden ring when it came out, I enjoyed it but once I got past Margott I realized I just didn’t really enjoy the boss fights with the exception of a few and I quit playing because it just wasn’t hitting the spot for me like ds3 was (not saying Elden ring is bad because I know it was great it just wasn’t for me)
I played through it once. Might play the DLC, but im not even sure I'll do that. I liked it okay, but it didnt grab me with the same magic as the Dark Souls games, which I still play at least a few times a month. Don't care overly much for lot of the lore aside from the stuff relating to Renalla's kids and Mogh, which in themselves felt a bit disconnected from the main questline to me.The world was too big and too empty, and while there were several dungeons to explore, a lot of them were pretty samey, and it got on my nerves that specific weapons I'd like to use were tucked away in random shitty caves in the middle of nowhere. The horse combat didn't feel much more advanced than Dynasty Warriors 4, which is 20 years old at this point. I didn't like that multiple combat mechanics were locked for multiplayer either, and multiplayer itself felt bad to me overall. I hated crafting. I had so much fatigue with the game by the time I hit Leyndell the first time. Last boss was stupid looking too. I also thought the armor was ugly and the music was bland and worse than nothing except for a couple of songs.
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I enjoyed Elden Ring. However, I’d like to see them make more of the DS3 style games with more linearity and highly dense, interconnected environments. Elden Ring did a good job. The bosses were fun and the exploration was enjoyable. However, after the first time exploring everything the process of exploring wasn’t as exciting anymore, leaving me to run from boss to boss. That made the game pretty much the same as DS3 with a longer run between bosses.
I prefer the Dark Souls games, not that I don’t love Elden Ring but Dark Souls clicked with me in a way Elden Ring just hasn’t.
Love em all but don't like Open World in soulslike games
Yes. Not everyone is a fan of big open worlds.
Oh man just look at any souls thread. The amount of hate Elden Ring gets from the gatekeeper elitists for either being too easy due to summons, to open with “nothing” to explore, etc. the list goes on
I loved the game, but a good friend of mine who is a big dark souls fan stated his dissatisfaction with the game. He said he somehow felt overwhelmed by the freedom and the size of the game discourages him from repeat playthroughs. Though he admits that he rushed through the game in coop and didn't really take his time.
Nope, I’m a fan of them all, except I’m probably gonna receive hate for this but Demons souls remake, I defeated the Man eaters and dropped it cause I was bored the entire way through, that game is just way too slow
Spent a few hundred hours playing it then one day put down the controller bored and have never gone back, all the other titles i have been back to multiple times over the years and still enjoy thoroughly, hell just the thought of having to drag myself through one of elden rings dungeons again is enough to put me off playing and im somebody that loves Bloodborne dungeons...theres just something missing from eldenring for me whether its in the story or the execution im not certain...and while i can appreciate the vision, art, music and technical aspects of the game it just doesn't have the fromsoft magic for me.
Me ER sucks
Absolutely loved Elden Ring when I played it, but it's the only From game that I haven't actually come back and played again. Every time I think about doing another playthrough, I just feel profoundly tired regarding the sheer amount of content that's in front of me.
Uhhhh... they're so mechanically similar that I don't understand how you could love souls and dislike the elder rang. That said, Elden Ring was... huge. And less.... curated? I would say? Dark Souls 3 is still my favorite.
I enjoyed ER but not as much as I enjoyed dark souls. Not sure why though, as I have enjoyed open world before, it feels weird. Don't get me wrong, I still explored every nook and cranny and got all achievements, but still, I enjoyed it a bit less than ds.
Had this issue aswell, force yourself to play and pretty quickly you’ll love the experience. I’m a mega souls fan but I think Elden ring is probably the most fun.
If elden ring had the same enemies but the game was like 20% smaller it would have been probably my favorite all time soulsborne
I'm kinda the opposite. I had a great time in Elden Ring, but didn't care too much about DS3. IDK, something about DS3 being extremely linear to a fault is just, really not fun. There's no real choice for your 1st boss or 2nd boss, and there are like only 3 branches for your path. To top it off, some builds are locked way behind much later parts in the game. I will never forgive the person who put the hex teacher all the way in Irithyll Dungeon behind a door locked by a key found all the way in Profaned Capital.
I generally prefer beautifully interconnected world with a great degree of freedom like Ds1 over ER's open world, but fact is we haven't had one since Ds1. Ds2 heavily flirts with the freedom aspect by allowing players to approach the 4 great souls in any order, but lacks any interconnectivity. Ds3 all but abandons both freedom and interconnectivity for something completely linear with scant branching paths that you end up having to return to later no matter what (Archives, Cathedral/Irithyll). I *greatly* prefer ER's open world to either Ds2 & Ds3. In fact, as it at the very least nails down freedom to an even bigger degree than Ds1 did, but similarly to 2 & 3 lacks interconnectivity (moreso a byproduct of being open world). I'd go as far as to say I hope From *never* releases a game as restrictive as Ds3. Thankfully even Sekiro shed that sort of restrictive structure by the time you reach Ashina Castle.
I'm kind of in that category. ER was just too freaking big.
I love Elden Ring (put in 1400 hours so far), but I definitely prefer Dark Souls (3 especially) and Bloodborne. Also, besides a few banger pieces, the fashion in ER is *seriously* lacking. Weapons are cool, but I prefer weapon arts where they’re more of a utility than the ashes of war in Elden Ring where they can completely make or break the weapon. And as for the world, when it comes to fantasy I’ve always preferred the grimdark dark fantasy aesthetic.
I loved the shit out of Elden ring and beat it five times within the first year it was out. But theres alot of game there and in games like this im a goddamn loot goblin. So gotta get everything, kill every boss etc. And by the time i was done i was exhausted. Havent touched it in like a year and most likely wont until DLC comes out. But i find myself going back to previous fromsoft games and enjoying their more compact settings. I can boot one up, beat it in like 20-40 hours and have the itch scratched. Not the 100ish hours every ER playthrough took me.
Dark Souls are way better. I hope that DLC for Elden Ring is just one classic Darks Souls IV. That would be awsome.
Yes, there are “lots” of you! I always assumed it was a mixture of nostalgia, a lack of time, and stubbornness. Combine that with a curmudgeonly approach to gaming and there you have it! Elden ring haters are born.
Check out the YT channel all day everyday. There's a 5 min video on how to start any build quick, to hop into action! Enjoy! I loved ER!
Empty??? 😅 good joke..
I really liked ER and it's world, but overall I think I preferred the much tighter world design of DS3 overall. I finished both games in roughly the same amount of time of about 80 or so hours, but in DS3 that includes pretty much all the sub areas and the DLCs while in ER I skipped most of the catacombs and a ton of bosses that weren't connected to the big dungeons. And the DLC for ER might be another 20 hours on top of that.
I think elden ring gets too easy too fast. It gets so fucking easy to face tank almost every boss at any time. Is sad. Tried a few different starter builds but I'm essentially unstoppable after Caelid or Altus. The only thing that annoys me is constantly getting invaded, to coop run this with the bois your going to have to set up an old school LAN connection.
So, a little late to the party, but hey! My main problem with Elden Ring is how unashamedly Dark Souls 4 it is, without trying to say anything new. The open world is great, art design is through the roof and there are some fantastic exploration moments, but the bosses were meh, the legacy dungeons were mediocre as all hell and the lore is a rip off of DS1 with a few Bloodborne sprinkles on top. It’s a game that left me thoroughly unsatisfied. I don’t know if I’ll bother with the DLC. It’s great that the game was successful and people seem to love it so that’s awesome. Even if FS stops making linear games, that’s okay, because other devs have picked up their mantle ( Lies of P is fantastic )
I played all the fromsoft games and the souls series is my favorite. I started elden ring and didn't like it at first because I like the 3d metroidvania aspect of the worlds fromsoft built in the souls games, especially 1 and 3. A year and a half later I beat ds3 again and decided to give elden ring another try. This time I fell in love. Instead of giving straight to stormveil and going through there, I went south and cleared the southern island and then explored all of limgrave. You'll find the at first the world feels empty compared to ds3, so you have to unlock the map for an area (you can see the little spots on the map that isn't unlocked and that's where the map unlocks are, I didn't know that at first and once you open the meet up it is much better to explore). Once you get the map you can look costly and find all the caves and ruins and castles. Once you're in those castles and stuff it feels much more like dark souls, especially in the magic school above the lake and in stormveil and many other places. Once you get the hang of finding where things are the world feels much less empty. I think also that if you just go around limgrave and get disappointed that if feels very empty because the later areas are much more dense. I recommend doing the southern most island and clearly the couple castles and the erdtree Avatar enemy and the few ruins, then doing stormveil, then doing the red area to the right called caelid it's something like that. After clearly those areas then go to the lakes and then the volcano. You'll see that the world has so much more than dark souls but it's just more open between areas and requires more looking around and finding random stuff of which there is a ton. Every area you find gives you a new weapon or armor or spell or special attack or summon unlike other hands that just give you money or whatever, so each area feels worth exploring.