in what ways can Fromsoft significantly improve on their proven formula?

>>712863487 (OP)
Nothing, now is the time to do something else. Make another King's Field or Sekiro game, those are different enough to keep people interested.

>>712863487 (OP)
very carefully

>>712863487 (OP)
By going back to it. The multiplayer slop needs to stop

>>712863487 (OP)
An actual story and quests and towns

dodgeroll on button press rather than button release

>>712863487 (OP)
go back to dark souls 2 and finish what they started
bring back adaptability and force bosses to be slow again, have a larger emphasis on levels

Take what they did with Bloodborne and Sekiro and do it with another time period/fantasy world.
Mashups like Werewolves + Lovecraft seemed to work wonders in terms of creativity.
I like medieval fantasy as much as the next guy but there is only so many times a studio can do it before it starts to feel like they're phoning it in. A Dark Souls IV or Elden Ring 2 are the least interesting thing they could do right now to me.

Duskbloods would've been a cool direction but being a multiplayer only game killed all my interest in it.

>>712867561
The idea of a WW1 inspired Souls-like mixed with horror elements is what I would do if I had the money. Plays like Bloodborne with machine guns and trench guns working as parry/shield breakers.

>>712863487 (OP)
They pushed entire roll system to the limits in SotE. It's dead end. To move forward they need to go Sekiro+Bloodborne path and never design SotE shit bosses ever again.
They did impressive job with SotE's open world vertical again and failed so hard by making it totally empty. Vabilla ER had pretty good rewards for exploration besides ashes dogshit and crafting.
Ashes is shit system. Either go full https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on-rBtlOsrs and design game around group AI play like Dragon's Dogma or fuck off

>>712867870
Nah, not unless you were going to take liberties with the level design and still give us massive imposing buildings with weird architecture. WWII is a good setting for claustrophobic horror games but Souls games have always been about the bleakness of the massive uncaring environments

>>712867870
honestly that sounds very boring

>>712868132
>>712868290
Well I tried.

fromsoft was never good. demons souls was unintentionally clunky because of poor jap game devving and people found it charming. nobody actually likes elden ring except people who are chronically depressed

>>712868326
BB gun parry system isn't good. Nightreign showed us that From playerbase is total garbage and can't even roll without their meta builds or mimics. Next From game really should force people to learn how to play game (and teach them).

>>712868326
i think im just jaded with fromsoft and bloodborne especially
seemed to be very shallow when I last played it a few weeks ago

>>712863487 (OP)
>in what ways can Fromsoft significantly improve on their proven formula?
Turn based roll slop

>>712868418
>nobody actually likes elden ring except people who are chronically depressed
Hey fuck you man

>>712863487 (OP)
Shrink the overworld, expand the major Dungeons, get actual writers to plan out the quests and stories so they're halfway sensical, improve the quest system to have a journal or something so you don't have to google which corner of a ruin a character is hiding in to progress. I'd personally cut multiplayer because I never cared much for it and my friend group is far to casual to really get into any Fromsoft games but with the popularity of Neigh reign I don't see that happening. If anything we're doubling down on multiplayer in their future, which I dread. I fucking hate seeing rune signs glowing like the sun with the same dull fucking meme posted next to every single turtle or wall or ledge.

The world can be dead and past it's prime but your little safe area where you level up and upgrade your stuff should become actually kind of noisy and lively with characters interacting with each other the more quests you complete and bosses you slay.

>>712866895
>By going back to it
this
>get rid of multiplayer fortnite bullshit
>get rid of open world
>get rid of map
>get rid of copy/paste dungeons
>go back to more compact world design
>reinstate existential dreamlike atmosphere
I'm enjoying Elden Ring so far but its really lacking the same bite that DS had

>>712869035
>improve the quest system to have a journal or something so you don't have to google which corner of a ruin a character is hiding in to progress
Elden Ring already has character icons in the map appearing whenever you get close to them.

>>712869035
>>712869226
They could improve the quest system 10 fold by just having the characters say
>I will see you in 3 days west of Leyndell
Or some shit
The fact that you have to run around to find them sucks ass

>>712869226
No that's bad. I still want to find them by searching the place they said they'd be at, The issue is that after 5 hours of doing other stuff I don't remember exactly where the fuck most character even said they'd be, and half the time they don't say anything at all they just show up at a random spot.

>>712869331
Instead of glowing stuff on the map, why not just have the character say "Hail and well met" or whatever when you get near them. Or just have them be audibly talking to themselves or another NPC.

>>712868878
>be depressed
>play fromsoft game
>get more depressed with how lonely and somber everything is
>play world of warcraft to get a jolt in the opposite direction
>everything is bright and retarded
>game sucks
>depressed again
>take a chance on a new game, its got a long weird title, maybe itll be good
>ends up being a cool little turn based RPG that reminds me of games i liked as a kid
>i like the characters, especially the protag girl
>main characters get killed in the end, girl is alone
>game over
>depressed again

sorry anon

>>712869883
Because the idea is that you can then look at your map 7 hours later when you forgot exactly where they were and see "oh yeah, they're right here" and even put a waypoint directly on them.
>Why not have them say something when you're near
They do this, Alexander literally is calling for help when you first meet him. So is Boc. Snek does the same. Weebman gives a cheesy one-liner when he comes in to rescue you from the guy you probably either instantly died to or immediately deleted without effort.
In the early game the only ones who don't immediately call out to you off the top of my head are D, who's far too cool for that kind of thing obviously, and iji, while he doesn't speak he does smith with his hammer so you can hear him from afar.
Oh and Thops I guess, but he's just sitting in a church so he's hard to miss.

>>712867870
The Darkness did this in 2007

I miss when they used to spread the challenge evenly throughout the level, instead of dumping every ounce of it into the boss.

Zero thrash mobs, every enemy gets a moveset capable of ending you. Faster combat.

>>712869180
Open world rocks fuck you.

>>712863487 (OP)
I'd like to see a modern take on King's Field as well. It'd be popular with the normalfags too who would call it "Dark Souls meets Skyrim".
Alternatively, Sekiro 2 but with some more variety. Not as much as a Souls game but a few different weapons with different playstyles would be nice.

>>712870787
Yeah but that's just a small fraction of early game encounters, typically when a character is hidden or a step off a beaten path. No one is typically complaing about that they complain about things like having to play "Hweres Hyetta?" or who the fuck knows where Yuri will wind up next. Or that weirdly difficult to find rooftop with the dead tomboy childhood friend on it.

My problem isn't about locating a specific character in an area, it's about missing a character entirely and ending up missing a major questline because I killed one boss too many while someone was jerking off in a cave.

>>712863487 (OP)
A first person New King's Field game would unironically sell like crack in the hood

>>712871241
Nah, it's shit. Doesn't even have any randomness to keep things fresh.

>>712870989
the darkness isnt' a souls-like

>>712871509
They definitely need to have more old locations become more dangerous and get new loot and enemies after certain story beats. Which they did in Leyndell admittedly but I feel it could be more widespread and over the course of more stuff. You open up the Sewers Omens start getting out into Leyndell, you get Selena BALLED a bunch of Rogue wizards start showing up, you do Frenzied Quests more Frenzied enemies start showing up, etc

>>712871509
And the static world of the others does? Contrarian for being a cunt's sake.

>>712863487 (OP)
I think Fromsoft need to start making smaller and more focused games again. The studio is so massive that they could produce 3 Sekiro/BB in the time it takes to make one ER, and I think that's for the better.
One of the issues most pronounced in ER (and to be fair they pulled it off pretty ok), is that the variety of builds actually hampers the enjoyment of facing the bosses. In Sekiro, due to the limited build variety, moveset, and weapons, every boss could be carefully crafted to challenge the Player in a very specific way. In ER, every boss has to be a HP bloated anime-spamming mess to pose any challenge (which can still be trivialized through certain "broken" builds).
Ideally we'd see Fromsoft return to a more intimate and thoughtfully crafted game. Something like a spiritual successor to Shadow Tower: Abyss would probably be the right speed. First person. Intricate, detailed, and clever dungeons. Bosses which are puzzles, not just health bars. Limited build variety. Fiendish traps. It'll scratch the dark fantasy itch without the crazy time investment in another Dark Souls or Elden Ring.
Here's my line-up of Fromsoft games I want to see in the next 3-5 years.
>Shadow Tower/Echo Night spiritual successor.
>Armoured Core 6.5: Electric Boogaloo.
>Kuon spiritual successor (fixed camera horror game).

>In ER, every boss has to be a HP bloated anime-spamming mess to pose any challenge
insane, contrarian take incoming: the fundamental issue with the souls formula is the roll. It's just insanely overpowered and as soon as the player gets the hang of it there's very little the designer can do to counter it other than drawing out fights and putting ridiculous rollcatch gotchas on every single attack, but all that really does is raise the skill floor a little.
The only real fix, other than massively nerfing stamina which From is obviously unwilling to do, would be to rework rolls into a positioning tool and completely rethink encounter design to reward that. AC6 has a lot of systems that couldn't just be straightforwardly ported over to a souls-like format with souls-like environments and enemies and mechanics, but I'd kill to see a new souls game with a similar approach to player defenses. Outmaneuvering attacks with boosts and cover and movement is infinitely more satisfying than "press b for iframes" (not to mention AC6's shield mechanics, which probably could be straightforwardly ported over and would make the sword and board playstyle way more interesting)

>>712873694
>>712872657
whoops

>>712873694
>insane, contrarian take incoming: the fundamental issue with the souls formula is the roll
Nah, that's not insane nor contrarian. It's why DS2 I think has the most dungeon-crawler feel to it. The roll is fundamentally a last ditch effort to avoid damage, not your first line of "defence".
Bloodborne made it a key part of the combat mechanics: get in quick, attack, get out quick, get in quick again. It worked for that game as the whole game as built around this concept of aggression. The fault of DS3 was that they kept the BB dodge concept but tried to tie it into the DS formula. This could have been solved if they also reintroduced Adaptability, and DS1-Poise (ADP to make doge-rolling an investment, and DS1-poise to make not having ADP a legitimate choice).
You're 100% right about AC and Boost. Boosting doesn't give you i-frames, it just moves you out of the line of attack. Unfortunately. we're somewhat conditioned to expect i-frames from Soulslike games, so I imagine it's a hard sell to remove it.

>>712872364
Skyrim's isn't static.
Hell, not even the Far Cry games are static. In Elden Ring everything happens at the exact same place at the exact same time in every single playthrough. You can't accidentally wander into a skirmish between two opposing factions or enemies. A dragon can't ambush while you're travelling along the road. Wolves don't actually ride on the wind like the game implies and randomly appear out of thin air. The carriages walk along a set path, and just sit there forever. Everything is static, enemies can't even leave their invisible areas to give chase.

>>712873694
>the fundamental issue with the souls formula is the roll
thank fucking god someone else thinks this
felt like i was going mad in a thread some time ago trying to get people to understand that because of the roll, it got more and more fucked.

>>712863487 (OP)
Make everything customizable(attacks, block, jump, dodge). The standard combat formula has gotten old and putting gameplay altering mechanics on flasks, rings or ashes of war is way too limiting. Characters should be able to naturally progress from a generic souls character to a more specialized nightreign-esque character over the course of the game.

>>712874263
thing is, there are moments that you can happen on. that cart being dragged by two giants and a bunch of soldiers following? so good to see them on that path. but the problem is that it's only from Point A to Point B. It doesn't loop, it's not a circuit. It doesn't have anything after the first time you go there.

that dynamic storytelling you get in open world games like Skyrim and Minecraft I think is what we need in open world games.

>>712874267
I unironically prefer the DSII roll. It costs more Stamina the more you spam it (something like +25% stamina per additional roll after the first). It feels like you're desperately throwing yourself out of the way. Heck, it might even work better if from a visual standpoint it was a dive instead of a roll.

>>712874267
>>712874197
next game should have rolls with no iframes so you can see the difference

>>712874374
>Characters should be able to naturally progress from a generic souls character to a more specialized nightreign-esque character over the course of the game.
I think that's probably the idea. NR is an experiment of Player Characters, and I don't doubt we'll see a lot of it added to whatever next mainline game Fromsoft make.
I wouldn't even mind a Dark Souls-like game but when you pick your Class, it actually locks you in somewhat to a playstyle in the same way choosing a Nightfarer does.

>>712863487 (OP)
I think they've already peaked on boss difficulty and now its time to tone things back and lean into building worlds that feel alive and different from the dead wastelands that they've been working with for the last more than a decade.
Maybe keep working on giving the PC the ability to feel like a real fantasy protagonist. The spirit ashes and ashes of war were both great steps in the right direction.
>>712863795
Kings Field is a shitty format for anything but low budget titles.

>>712874395
>thing is, there are moments that you can happen on
And the problem is that moment will repeat endlessly whenever the world state is reset whenever you rest at a bonfire or die. Even killing all the enemies and taking all the loot doesn't stop the endless encounters from spawning in. So you end up with a convoy guarding an empty carriage.

>>712868621
>and teach them
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Keep that tutorial shit to yourself.
I play Souls games the way God intended. With Fextralife open at all times on a second monitor.

>>712869035
The world should be bigger and more empty.
I genuinely enjoy just riding Torrent through the mountains or fields or across lakes.
Elden Ring has too much content jammed into it, that you never feel like you're just riding a horse though a vast landscape. Instead you're milling around someone's backyard at all times.

>>712874451
I know it's a meme, but after playing through Elden Ring last month, I really did come to appreciate Dark Souls 2 a lot more.

>>712874674
Yeah, I thought that's what I said, but I guess I just didn't explain myself very well.

>>712874263
That is a real flaw.
The Walking Mausoleums were nice in that they walked a set loop, but if you defeated one once, it would stay downed forever.
The Troll Caravans should have absolutely been the same. They had a walk loop, but if you took one out, it wouldn't respawn.
And enemy patrols definitely should be randomized much more than they are.

>>712874197
>>712874451
DS2 having iframes on backstep was also a really interesting choice I don't see discussed much. Tighter timing and a longer initial delay before the iframes kick in, but less overall downtime and lower stamina cost to reward player skill and/or ADP investment. Still really overpowered once you got the hang of it, but at least added some extra depth to dodging.

>>712874896
Nah, I understood what you said, I just felt like bitching about that part of the game personally. it was first sign I noticed of the open-world being a static bore.

>>712871374
I don't think people would actually like a new FromSoft dungeon crawler much.
No one really loved the Chalice Dungeons in Bloodborne and Elden Ring's dungeons and caves are heavily memed for being shitty, too.
Kings Field was unironically worse on average than either of those.

Remove all i frames from the game those forcing themselves to make a real game for once

>>712873694
100% correct.
Rolls should be nerfed a lot and blocking/magical defenses/dashing/jumping/etc. should all be the main means of defending yourself.
My caveat would be I'd hate for parrying to always be the objectively best option in this new paradigm or for From to steal Sekiro's loop because I fucking hate how Sekiro and Lies of P play with pressing the parry button being your routine 90% of the time.
It feels like playing pattycake and the 'wait your turn' message is grating. I'm the type of player to poise stack and facetank shit just so I can tell the boss its my turn.

>>712874980
>iframes on backstep
It's one of the reasons I like Bloodborne so much., You have two dodges; a roll, and a step.
I'd like to see that come back into the souls formula, either contextually triggered or requiring two inputs.

>>712875046
Oh yeah, I get you. There's another cool moment in the... southeastern part of Liurnia? It's where a little battle plays out with the ghosts fighting the real enemies? It'd be so nice to see that expanded upon. A questline, a reward, a much longer battle that would move across the area. Even being able to pick a side. It's great that it exists, but it comes back to that feeling of, "It could be so much more."

>>712863487 (OP)
add more cute girls and skimpy armor
persona like dating system

>>712872657
They should be more open.
One of the best parts of ER is being able to skip over stuff that annoys you.
There are very few times where you just have to bash your head against a boss to progress.
Linearity is a boat anchor dragging an action-adventure game down.

>>712863487 (OP)
clearly we need more infinite stamina mmo fights where the boss shits out AoE attacks constantly

>>712874374
>>712874585
I'd support doing more stuff with Nightreign's hero system 100%.
Souls RPG mechanics suck.
There's almost no world interactivity with them, a lot of the rules about how stats work are esoteric and mostly based on legacy than rationality, and with how the games always scale region stats you never even feel much more powerful over the course of a run.

Using set archetypal classes would definitely be an improvement in smoothing out the on-ramp for new and older players alike, imo.

>>712875383
>Linearity is a boat anchor dragging an action-adventure game down
I'll just have to disagree there.
Smaller doesn't mean linear - it just means smaller in scope.

>>712863487 (OP)
Let two characters have conversations on screen
Don't design every quest to involve
>Talk to character in one location, they ask for special item
>You give them the special item
>The next time you sit down at the bonfire, they teleport to a mid game castle and are covered in blood after having killed their best friend and mentor offscreen and are losing their mind (or something like that)
Make quests that involve more puzzle solving and things beyond just killing a boss
More weird, abstract, bespoke mechanics like World Tendency. I didn't even like World Tendency but these games need some oddball mechanics to keep them interesting. Essentially, the more time passes, the better From gets about designing their combat mechanics and loot system, but worse at all the narrative intricacies that made their games intriguing in the first place. SotE had great content but it sours the whole thing to know that there really isn't much story at all to care about, and very little about the world of Elden Ring is elucidated beyond what we already knew. The best part of the DLC was a guy who showed up 3 times to yell at a dragon, and that's as elaborate as any of the quests in that DLC got

>>712875316
>Even being able to pick a side
This what I dislike the most about the skirmishes you can stumble upon. You can't choose to help a side, because they will stop attacking their original foe just to kill you. Crazy that you can't help Radahn's soldiers kill the Caelid rape dogs, and then talk to them afterwards.

>>712875571
I disagree with you, mainly because one of my major joys in these games is making various themed builds from scratch.
However having more unique equipment and a hybrid between the hero powers and Sekiro tools would be cool.

>>712874612
From fucking loves their dead wastelands, they've been making those for well over 20 years and I hope they never stop
I genuinely can never get enough of GRIMDARK settings

>>712876635
If they want to continue with it that way they really need to fucking rethink upgrading weapons, i dont know if they have data but im sure most blind players aren't swapping to fandangos twin godswords 75% of their way through the run, its just wasted content on most people
If you could upgrade all weapons simultaneously and hotswap it would be much better, upgrading slots or something instead of individual weps

>>712877074
To my understanding there are basically Four kinds of souls players in this regard.
Guys who find the big sword they like and just use that (Claymore players across the series and Heavy Jumping Attacks in ER)
Guys who looks up what the meta is and just does that.(Guys who had the Drake Sword up till Anor Londo and then switch to the Furysword)
Guys who lab out every new weapon they get (also most likely to do PvP)
And people who move from weapon to weapon as they feel like it and think one is cool.

Your not reaching the "Claymore Guys" with new weapons and meta guys are dependent of how broad the meta is but the last two are markets that make up a sizable chunk of the playerbase.
If anything its just a matter of ER fucking up on upgrade materials being so spare in the early days.
All you need is a blacksmith that gets a more open inventory of purchasable stones as the game goes along without needing to treasure hunt for the upgrades.

>>712877760
>people who move from weapon to weapon
hey, thats me!
really disappointed in ER when it took so much time and effort, and google, to find out where to upgrade all these different weapons. didn't feel like experiment much and kinda stuck to the same few weapons. nothing i hate more than having to use the internet for a single player game

>>712877074
I hated it so much finding a cool weapon in the DLC and never using it because I couldn't be fucked to grind up the smithing stones and runes, having normal weapons be +25 was supremely retarded especially since getting somber weapons to +9 was fuckloads easier

>>712877760
All these guys (except meta slaves) would have a better time with a better system, I think the whetstone stuff is a start atleast

Here's the real kicker: Dark Souls 2 is perfect because it was unlike the others. Fortnight: Reign happened because Dark Souls 3 happened, because Bloodborne happened, because DS1 happened. DS2 happened because it was the first FromSoft's attempt at making a great game.
And sadly the last one.

They need to combine the execution difficulty and player move variety of Elden Ring with the level interactivity of dark souls 2. I would also recommend smaller transitional spaces between levels. But honestly they don't need to change much, elden ring's already nearly perfect. I would say the soundtrack could use some work, but SOTE and Nightreign already fixed that.

>>712879527
You've never played DS2, and there is nothing wrong with nightreign, even if it's not your cup of tea.

>>712863487 (OP)
BRING BACK ACTUAL FUCKING LEVELS INSTEAD OF JUST BOSS RUSHES

>>712879771
Elden Ring has the best levels of any From game

>>712879652
>there is nothing wrong with
Stop. Stop and shut the fuck up. Elden Ring was already dogshit, turning it into a $40 co-op boss rush is just absolutely dogshit japanese kulak behaviour.
>>712879852
They're just retreads of Dark Shits 3 corridor-esque autopilot sequences