Elden Ring

[Wolf Kanno]

I'm sure only like two other people on this forum will care about this, but I still want to talk about how cool this game looks.



I know it looks like Dark Souls 4, but I'm okay with that.

[WarZidane]

I'm definitely one of those people who thought the trailer looked and sounded a bit too much like Dark Souls 4 (Tarnished One, hooded ladies helping us, the general look of things, etc) and would've preferred a departure in that regard

That said, I'm certainly up for trying out open world Dark Souls. My favorite part in From Soft games is the elaborate level design, the exploration, searching nooks and crannies for items. I'm curious to see if they can keep that up in an open world game.

Plus, it seems to have taken a lot from Sekiro's gameplay, which I definitely preferred over the Souls games gameplay-wise (lack of customization aside).

[Spuuky]

Plus, it seems to have taken a lot from Sekiro's gameplay, which I definitely preferred over the Souls games gameplay-wise (lack of customization aside).

I didn't watch the trailer and still haven't but I have heard a lot of people talking about the game and this is the first thing to make me feel sad about it.

[A Pint of Quinness (pissboy)]

Shadow of the Souls. I'm excited, but obvs won't be buying until well after release.

[Wolf Kanno]

Plus, it seems to have taken a lot from Sekiro's gameplay, which I definitely preferred over the Souls games gameplay-wise (lack of customization aside).

I didn't watch the trailer and still haven't but I have heard a lot of people talking about the game and this is the first thing to make me feel sad about it.

It has a jump mechanic and stealth taken from Sekiro but the animations for all the combat come directly from Dark Souls. Like lifted whole sale weapon techs and all. So I wouldn't worry too much about it being more like Sekiro. Granted it looks closer to Dark Souls 3 with the Bloodborne transfusion combat than Dark Souls 1.

[WarZidane]

Yeah I'm not saying it's going to have Sekiro combat or anything, it just seems to have taken some things I liked from it. It has stealth, which I'm always a fan of, Miyazaki has said the stamina is less restrictive than Souls (but it is still there, unlike Sekiro), jumping (basic, I know, but I like being able to jump) and just in general the movement seemed slightly more speedy than Souls (admittedly Bloodborne was also speedier than Souls before Sekiro ever existed).

On the other hand it does not look like they took the weaker parts of Sekiro (Lack of customization, extreme leniency and reliance on parrying, these things I disliked even though on the whole I prefer Sekiro's gameplay)

[Vyk]

Surprised this thread hasn't been resurrected already. But a 20 minute gameplay reveal happened recently. This game is to Dark Souls 3, what Dark Souls was to Demons Souls. It's almost just a conversion mod with a little Sekiro baked in. The open world nature and interactive map and summons are some of the only unique things. I don't necessarily have a problem with this. If it's not broke, don't fix it. But i do have a problem that Fromsoft gets a pass when this happens and everyone raises a stink if BioWare or Bethesda use an old engine or reuse animations. I know they also get a lot of justified complaints regarding bugs and broken promises, but that's beside the point. I suppose that may separate fans from fanboys. I'm not afraid to be objective about things I like. But yeah. If you were hoping for a more unique experience like Sekiro or Bloodborne, or if you don't really dig getting invaded by twinkers, might either want to get in early before the exploits and OP builds become meta, or hold off until they become meta and just play a boring standard meta build to stand a chance. I'm a little sad they didn't try to tweak the Bloodborne invasion method. I feel like mostly everyone was okay with that. Not becoming a target when you have a friend but still having risk with bell ladies or summoning a rando who may just attack you instead of help. Not really a fan of bored people sitting at home camping invasions just wanting to bully low level players so they can get their rocks off. But that's my two cents. Still plan on getting it day one if possible

[A Pint of Quinness (pissboy)]

Haven't seen the demo yet, but I think Dark Souls was a substantial improvement over Demons' Souls. I argue that BioWare and Bethesda get backlash due to generally being lazy trout developers, and that backlash attaches to any old excuse due to the inability of general audiences to think critically and build appropriate arguments rather than the dupe work being the actual crux of the issue.

The FromSoft design philosophy seems very much gameplay-oriented wherein they iterate on and fine tune concepts, and I'm honestly about that. It was a miss for me with DS2, but it was cool to see them play around with different things.

100% agree that BB invasion mechanics are vastly superior to any of their other work, and it baffles me to hear they're turning away from that to go back to the nuisance engine.

[Wolf Kanno]

The preview was pretty interesting. I mean I always figured this was going to be Dark Souls Open World edition. I'm not bothered they are re-using assets since that tends to smooth over issues when you have a developer working on new mechanics they are not familiar with. At least you'll know the combat will be familiar even if the new game design elements aren't up to standard.

I've never been a huge fan of dealing with invaders and the fact the multiplayer was trapped behind a paywall in the PS4 versions meant I haven't actually bothered with it for either Bloodborne or DS3, so I'm kind of used to not having to deal with it either way.

So far the game is looking pretty good, so I'm excited. I just hope I have SMTV finished by it's release date.

[WarZidane]

Only thing I've read about invasions in Elden Ring is that they can only happen in co-op because you can't be mounted during co-op, which sidesteps an issue I had considered when they first revealed the game was open world with mounts: "How's an invasion gonna work in a huge open world where a player can just mount and ride away from the invader?"

Anyway, personally I won't miss being invaded (which i won't be, as i don't play these games co-op), since 99% of the time you'd either get an invader with a pure pvp build that'd wreck you easily, or a random newbie who just hides behind enemies all the time. Neither are very appealing to me.

That said, I guess ideally they'd find another way to sidestep the open world/mount issue and give solo players the option to be invaded or something

[Vyk]

Hm. I always thought you could still be invaded in DS3, you just couldn't call a friend for help if you didn't subscribe to the platform service. I haven't really been following development updated so haven't heard the mounted thing. I honestly would have assumed the world was built in cells and that getting invaded would surround that cell with fog walls. Similar to dark souls, where you get locked to a zone when invaded

[Spuuky]

I had the PC version, so I was not artificially gated out of content in DS3. Add it to the list of why I am not a console gamer, I guess.

Yeah I assume they will necessarily limit you to some specific geographic area when you are invaded, it makes no sense otherwise. But even in a small area, if it is large/flat/open, being mounted would be way too annoying for PvP.

[cheesesteak]

My only FromSoft game I've played (not counting random short sessions of DS w/ my roommate 10+ years ago) is Sekiro, and that was even pre-online features. So my only experience in FromSoft games is completely offline. However, I'm fully aware of Soulsborne invasions and other online features. None (even the assistance features, really) sound appealing.

Now, I know ER can be played offline. But pre-network test, I thought the game would be more co-op focused, if not actually a full co-op game. But now it seems co-op is only for bosses and you can get invaded anyway when in co-op mode. So...there kinda goes my hopes for that experience.

I was really hoping for a better co-op experience and to have more Sekiro-like combat like was alluded to for a while (not sure what they took from Sekiro in ER...stealth and a jump? ), but it looks to be just another stamina manager, albeit maybe with some slight nuance (I know stam is not used outside of combat/stealth kills/first hits?, but I've seen players dodge mid-combat and not use stam somehow. So maybe it's based on some mechanic more related to the enemy?). But a fairly linear stamina manager nonetheless - do anything, then wait to recover stam. And that is arguably my biggest/only gripe w/ soulslikes (I loved Nioh's Ki Pulse mechanice, tho).

So, my excitement for the game has died down quite a bit. I'm still tempted to play it as my first FromSoft pure soulsborne experience (I don't count Sekiro as a "soulsborne", since its combat/other Souls features are so different... AND doesn't have "souls" or "borne' in the title ). I definitely DO plan to play Bloodborne if/when it hits PC. But for whatever reason, I'm still sort of turned off by Elden Ring. Maybe b/c of my hopes/expectations pre-stress test not being met. But, I have 3 months to re-adjust my mentality and accept these new expectations. Instead of a co-op Sekiro, I'll view it as just an offline open-world Dark Souls and try to get excited for that.

[Vyk]

Yeah, I'm still digesting the fact that it's just Dark Souls 4 (now with open world). There's some assured quality, but its not really what I was hoping for either, especially since I had only just learned co-op would even be a thing. But they have to ruin it with invasions. Fortunately they seem to have some things in place to mitigate some invasion issues. And I hope to god they've finally tackled their age-old netcode issues where you get hit from 20 feet away. And there are certainly users who know how to abuse that inconsistency, and there's other users who are bored enough to have systems in place to basically DDoS you so that you get nothing but lag, and they get nothing but backstabs. And of course the people who stay low level and run to the end of the game to grab late game stuff, and then get paired to you in an invasion because you're the same level, even though they're using stuff that way out-classes what you're capable of defending against

It sounds like you'd really enjoy Bloodborne's online style. It requires an item to use, which is rough to start out, but easily gained throughout most of the game. And you get to choose if you get invaded, and invasions only happen in certain areas. Otherwise you're free to co-op as much as you want. And if it comes to PC there'd be a resurgence in the amount of people making themselves available. And one of the things I loved about the online Bloodborne community is the amount of people either being extremely civil, or role playing, or both. You'd frequently get a bow at the beginning and even the end of a fight, instead of the insulting "point down" emote. And very frequently you get people playing extremely fair, where if they're clearing spanking you they will back off, especially if you're pressured into a corner. More sportsmanlike. I've only had one person try to cheese me into a pit out of the dozens I fought, and unlike Dark Souls, I never felt like invaders had an advantage in combat. Maybe the scaling was better. It actually made me enjoy PVP, which I normally avoid like the plague

[cheesesteak]

It sounds like you'd really enjoy Bloodborne's online style. It requires an item to use, which is rough to start out, but easily gained throughout most of the game. And you get to choose if you get invaded, and invasions only happen in certain areas. Otherwise you're free to co-op as much as you want. And if it comes to PC there'd be a resurgence in the amount of people making themselves available. And one of the things I loved about the online Bloodborne community is the amount of people either being extremely civil, or role playing, or both. You'd frequently get a bow at the beginning and even the end of a fight, instead of the insulting "point down" emote. And very frequently you get people playing extremely fair, where if they're clearing spanking you they will back off, especially if you're pressured into a corner. More sportsmanlike. I've only had one person try to cheese me into a pit out of the dozens I fought, and unlike Dark Souls, I never felt like invaders had an advantage in combat. Maybe the scaling was better. It actually made me enjoy PVP, which I normally avoid like the plague

Interesting to hear. A friend of mine said Bloodborne was the only FromSoft game that he did pvp in and he'd invade and poison ppl to troll them lol. Stuff like that makes me think I'd just play it offline, like I did Sekiro. But I will say, I've been lurking around the Bloodborne subreddit and the community does seem quite nice.

I AM tempted to just get PS Now for PC and play it via the cloud. I've seen video and the quality looks good. And I have the internet (800 Mbps) to cloud stream it just fine (I believe only internet matters for cloud gaming, in regards to visual quality?). However, I don't believe The Old Hunters is included, but I'm not sure.