Leyndell, Royal Capital

Geyndell lmao

>like 20 buildings
lmao even cities in skyrim are bigger, and you can talk to NPCs there, and enter the buildings and do many other things
why is from so fucking incompetent?

>>713979805
Leyndell was too big and convoluted. I felt suffocated.

>>713979196 (OP)
best ost too
https://youtu.be/qQGD67_mLkc

>>713979196 (OP)
none of the buildings in dark souls/er ever feel like they're actual constructions for actual living beings or people

>>713980083
Good.
Having to deal with humans is the worst part of architecture.

toot

https://youtu.be/LDHs_W55jys
Kino desu

>>713979196 (OP)
Imagine if Fromsoft weren't hacks and made buildings with interiors and a multitude of characters each with their side quests here. Nope, enjoy your empty pathways as you stare at the buildings and running up staircases lol!

>>713980474
>kill 10 Leyndell knights
>collect 10 arteria leaves
fuck quests

>>713980569
oh don't get me wrong, Fromsoft quests gotta be one of the worst in the industry. I don't even know why they even bother with that shit anymore. Everything either ends up dead or it's a fetch quest. It doesn't help that the NPCs are extremely static like they're a piece of decoration in a room or something.

>>713980474
kinda inevitable problem when it comes down to open world games, no matter what daggerfall fanboys tell you
the real problem is the inane attempt to present all the stretches of land as entire fucking countries that went to war with each other somehow
if fromsoft wants to make empty desolate wastelands, then they should frame it like SotE, i think the empty areas there worked quite well

>>713979196 (OP)
how long has it been like that

>>713979196 (OP)
>*toot*

>>713980474
I was really hoping ER would have some kind of castle/hold we'd earn and then get to build up and send people to.

>>713980569
Why does it have to be the worst option? Why not just put a couple key NPCs with proper quests in a city?

>>713979196 (OP)
least it was, until I fucked a tranny and got AIDS

>>713979196 (OP)
>>713979805

eeing Dark Souls 3 or Bloodborne footage to compare to Elden Ring really makes you appreciate the sense of scale that they have, this may sound strange because Elden Ring is obviously the vastly bigger game and has way more explorable space, but what I mean to say is that in older titles so much of what you can see is just backdrop, it's unreachable, areas you can't play in but they are there to make the world feel bigger, in Elden Ring, if you can see something, you can reach it, which has it's virtues, but personally, I think it also has it's downsides.

Leyndell in Elden Ring is beautiful, but it's small as fuck isn't it? They allow you to explore all of it, but it's for that very reason that they can't make an enormous city and palace in the first place. Compare it to what it's like to see Lothric castle the first time you teleport to the high wall, Lothric has much of the area devoted to just being backdrop that's not explorable, and it feels huge, enromous, it's not golden and majestic like Leyndell, but it feels vast, like you're a small part of a much grander world, Leyndell doesn't feel nearly as big visually.

>>713980474

I actually think it's the opposite, focus on quality and not quantity, most of the city should be inaccesible because actually designing a huge city to fully explore would be an unreasonable amount of work, it has to be a city themed area, look and feel like a big city, but it can't be an actual plausible city

>>713980732
>It doesn't help that the NPCs are extremely static like they're a piece of decoration in a room or something.
Remember when NPCs used to wander in Demon Souls? Admittedly that would likely create a higher chance of them wandering off and dying permanently like idiots, but it was still neat

>>713980746
This is an issue with open world games that at any point try to make you suspend your disbelief about the size of a kingdom, the lands between are all explorable but they are like... 15 kilometers long, it's not a truly vast country, it's a small small island once you actually think of it for a few seconds.
Hell, we can take an even more recent example with Death Stranding 2, in that game you're supposed to walk all over the entire Australian continent, but the size of Australia in the game is about 1% of the actual irl Australia, because at some point making video game requires concessions.

Even Rockstar games developing GTA 6 for who knows how long will have Vice City be like 1/4 the size of actual Miami because recreating the vastness of the real world is still impossible on many levels nowadays.

>>713980746
>>713982371
This is all irrelevant. Leyndell still feels smaller and lamer than, say, the Hyrule Castle Town from Ocarina of Time

>>713982156
the next Fromsoft game needs to make big efforts to have NPCs that aren't actual objects, the concept of "oh you gotta rest on the bonfire twice to advance the questline" or "oh he moves to another area when you kill this boss" is so cancer and stupid that I don't know how they've tolerated it so much up until now.

They don't have to make hyper advanced wandering NPCs but surely there's more reasonable ways to make NPCs that feel more alive and not such obvious video game programmed events.

>>713982478
No I know, I completely agree, see this post >>713981905


The problem with Elden Ring is that they tried really hard to embody the philosophy of "if you can see it, you can explore it", and this holds true for basically the whole game, so this puts a huge restriction on Fromsoft because they don't have infinite money and 10 years to make a game, but at the same time, the lands between makes no fucking sense because the towns are like 5 shacks and the big city of the gods is like 15 big houses with a golden roof.

>>713979196 (OP)
One of the best levels in all of video gaming

>>713979196 (OP)
What a shitty dungeon, only saved by the superb sewer section that's the best dungeon in the game.

>>713982719
>>713982647
Leyndell is pretty but the fact that the enemies populating it are all the normal ass infantry soldier we have seen 100 times throughout the game makes it way more boring.

I was sure we were gonna see erdtree sentinels on foot or special elite erdtree knights or whatever but in the end it was just boring infantry with some perfumers and pages sprinkled in.

>>713982719
There has never been a good sewer level because sewer aesthetics are miserable and make exploring unfun by nature.

>>713979196 (OP)
Where were the women and children?

>>713982719
Stormveil would be a way better dungeon if it wasn't for the fact that you can literally just walk up to Godrick if you run past 5 guys, and it has multiple pointless shortcuts.

In fact, Elden Ring loves to do this, the game tries hard with the level design and shortcuts but in the end there are so many sites of gracet that it doesn't matter and half of the level is optional anyway, since getting to the boss is incredibly easy, like the rooftop section in Raya Lucaria having nothing to do with reaching Renalla, or how the whole ass Volcan manor can be skipped if you do the shitty assasination quests that for some reason gatekeep like 4 sets of armor (including the coolest one in the game) for no reasons?

So many Elden Ring design decisions feel retarded, like they are shooting themselves on the foot and making the game worse for literally no gain.

Kino, the Area

who even lived there it seems like a place only nobles or royalty would live i doubt any commonfolk were there

>>713982719
It the only time they have come close to ds1 sewers which is still the best in the series

>>713983063
>you can skip half the game if you read the guide
wow every videogame ever

>>713983063
Taking the main gate in Stormveil is definitely harder than just, 'run past 5 guys'.
Sure you can brute force your way in, but you're going through at least 2 major aggro roadblocks on the way. And you're going to miss a lot of useful loot unless you backtrack anyhow.

>>713983204
Nobles were commonfolk back then

>>713979196 (OP)
It's the best boletaria dungeon in the series. They took all the boletaria-like setpieces and put together this giant dungeon. I love every one of the callbacks and how it's more open and alive than the others.

>>713979196 (OP)
Why did the dragon die mid-nut?

>>713983029
Rape

>>713983204
I imagine it's like the Vatican City, where all of the residents are the royal family's servants and guards and their respective families

>>713981182
>what is roundtable hold?

>>713983379
How can fromsoft claim to be Berserk when exactly that is absent from their games?

>>713983063
For contrast: Eleum Loyce is an optional dungeon but skipping it makes Aava and the Ivory King way more difficult. SoTE scadu fragments are basically a variation of this idea but the execution is horrible.

>>713980474
Nigga, the place is a dungeon and is designed like one. Go play your gay fucking (not)simulatorshit elsewhere.

>>713981905
It´s because it´s the god damn same level structure. if you remove the parts of Leyndell without actual shit in it, like a lot of the backstreets by the elevators, it becomes about as big as lothric castle.

>>713979196 (OP)
What do they eat?

>>713983465
Miyazaki has always talked about how his biggest design philosophy is "elegance above all". Even hideous monster designs are supposed to have an element of classiness to them. Rape is probably too tasteless and unsightly to cover, so he leaves it out for the most part (but occasionally dabbles in it like with Miquella, Seluvis's puppets, or the Bloodborne Doll)

>>713983063
Are you complaining about there being multiple ways to progress??? Are you ok anon??

>>713983063
I agree in some parts, I went back to this dungeon for reasons and I was overpowered for it. You can see the intended setpieces but you never participate in them because it's just easier to take the shortcut. And the game doesn't encourage you to take the main path, you only take another path if you're trying to finish all the side-quests. The game really needed NG+ content or something. This linear type of design ended up making you have no reason to take anything less than the optimal path

>>713983663
Nothing, because they don't need to eat because they're all crazed immortal zombies because this is a fantastical post-apocalypse setting

>>713983220
>You have to read the guide to find out how easy it is to just bee-line Godrick and Renalla

It doesn't take a genius to just run for like 10 seconds after you reach the area with the omen, the site of grace beside the elvator, and I don't even need to talk about Raya Lucaria

>>713983240
No, I know that's true, doing the side path and all that on Stormveil is fine, but as soon as you reach the halfway point in the dungeon you can easily just stumble your way into Godrick because it's very obvious where the boss is, I know this because in my first playthrough this is exactly what happened, I recall being underwhelmed because I reached Godrick after exploring Stormveil for a whole 20 minutes, I had hoped it'd be more of a puzzle to reach him.

>>713983472
>SoTE scadu fragments are basically a variation of this idea but the execution is horrible.
Of all the undeserved complaints SotET gets, scadutree fragments have got to be the most blatant red flag for outing the whiner as a shitter. The game literally hands you every single fragment you could possibly need to beat the entire DLC passively by simply going to major sites of grace. Any Scadutree level last 10 is barely changing, and is not going to make/break a boss fight.

>>713983741
This is just nonsense because half of all enemies in every souls game are some kind of jumble of assholes and limbs and are covered in sores and oozing pustules.

>>713979196 (OP)
I remember when I was stupid enough to think ER was going to be a real RPG with actual cities and stuff because journalists who got to play it talked about them. I should have known better than to think that they meant it had actual cities and not just city-like levels full of the same kinds of enemies and sparse NPCs that say a few words then try to kill you.

>>713983876
I much prefer the level design of Bloodborne for example, where you take a path and then discover shortcuts you can unlock along the way.

>>713984080
It's not your fault. Sekiro was a massive departure from the Fromsoft formula, especially in terms of storytelling and worldbuilding. So I don't blame you for thinking ER might've been something more than Dark Souls 4. But alas, Fromsoft made one step forward and two steps back

>>713983741
He's coping, hes just masking his rule of cool priorities.
He just likes zombie knights and cathedrals and berserk swords

>>713983741
I don't mean classy, I just mean tasteful. A lot of the designs are more on the artistic side of things. Look at the patches on BB, they slapped his head on a spider body. It's cheesy but also unsettling. Meanwhile some tryhard AAA artist would have done some super exaggerated design aiming for ‘'realism’' or that ‘'animey’' look

>>713984080
Why are people so determined to turn FromSoft rpgs into the very thing people liked the games for avoiding in the first place?

>>713979196 (OP)
It was based and the first time I got there I was impressed by the aesthetics. What a great game.

>>713983982
>Any Scadutree level last 10 is barely changing*
*after an aggressive rebalance patch

>>713984080
It's an arcade game with RPG mechanics. The game isn't even a shallow dungeon crawler like Diablo, because Diablo has a lot of theorycraft. ER linearity makes a lot of theorycraft straight up annoying.

>>713984262
Which happened not long after it came out, and even then the changes weren't massive in the first place. But please, keep crying about an "issue" that never really was much of a problem, that was later rectified to be not an issue at all.

>>713983764

My complaint is that if a game has 3 ways to progress and one of them is the most fun but the other two are underwhelming and very easy to stumble into, then yeah, that's a waste.

Why should I explore the rooftop area of Raya Lucaria? I could easily just not even find out about it because after Radagon's wold Rennalla is just one lift away, I wish reaching Renalla was harder, YES, I wish I HAD to explore the rooftops and halls of Raya Lucaria to be able to reach Rennalla, I find that more desirable than having her be incredibly easy to reach and then this side area that's fun to play through but is inherently pointless because what is there in that area for me to find? Magic items? I don't have a magic build.

Why bother get a sense of the layout of Stormveil and find the lift shortcut to Godrick and when Godrick just has a site of grace right beside his bossgate? I am not incentiviced to properly explore everything, to understand the areas I am playing through, and no, getting a run of a lost knight or a shitty bow found on a corner is not incentive enough.

Instead of having one satisfactory option, we have two unsatisfactory options the way I see it, any accomplishment I feel by unlocking shortcuts or exploring areas becomes lessened when i find out "oh this had nothing to do with beating the level, I was fucking around, there's a site of grace right here I could have fought the boss like 15 minutes ago".

>>713984216
>into the very thing people liked the games for avoiding in the first place?
I know you're a bandwaggoning faggot who got to the party late, but Fromsoft games and DeS in particular got popular here because during a time of railroaded, cinematic, linear games, it was a game that just let the player play the game and die if they fuck up. No one here was excited about the lack of real quests or towns or anything. In fact, people loved the Nexus.

>>713984358
Elden Ring was the first game in the series where you could theorycraft and make unique builds. Every FromSoft rpg prior basically had "builds" predetermined in design.

>>713983876
>I had hoped it'd be more of a puzzle to reach him
The average player would just get confused and frustrated that they can't immediatly go into the bossfight and have to waste time fighting mobs and sheeit.

>>713979896
That's what made it one of the best dungeons in all of FS games.

At least it took Elden ring 2/3 of the game to fall off. As opposed ot DS1 and BB falling off after 2 hours.

>>713984080
>>713984191

I also expected the world to feel more alive not just from the NPCs but the enemies too, this may sound dumb, but dumb stuff like the beastified Yharnam citizens yelling and being racist at you while they attack you truly added a lot to me, I was hoping Elden Ring would do more shis like that to make the world feel more alive, instead though, everyone is either a "hollow" or a stoic silent person that attacks you for no reason with only a few exceptions.

>>713984380
>why doesn't the magic school have items for my non-magic build
>terrible design

>People whining that stormveil is so open you can run straight to the boss (as if people did this the first time without following a guide)
>But also whine when levels are linear

>>713984380
Your criticism is interesting because this isn't a problem for seasoned From players. I sink dozens of hours more than I should because I just didn't want to get good gear (annoying), or level up (being a tryhard), but think if you're a From software virgin. You'd take the other paths. And that's more or less how I played DS1 almost 10 years ago. Now I know where I'm going in From games without needing guides and stuff, I just use guides for the cryptic NPC quests. But for me the game needed a real NG+

>>713979896
>Leyndell was too big and convoluted.
It literally has two streets and one sewer.

>>713983876
Finding out the path to the boss is part of the game. They could make a nice long line full of enemies for people like you, and you would just run past them and still complain.

>>713979196 (OP)
>nothing to do there but the same "kill everything" shit like everywhere else in the game

>>713984626
Yeah, the Yharnamites being actual people was cool. Or the Sekiro guards having conversations you could eavesdrop on. But no, let's go back to boring mindless zombies who stare at a wall all day because they're video-game obstacles and the devs aren't even trying to hide it. This is why fanboys are such a bad thing; because their mindless acceptance leads to devs becoming lazy and complacent

>>713984626
Wanting a world that feels reactive and interactive isn't dumb at all.

>>713984539
People weren't complaining about that on Bloodborne or Dark Souls 1 or Dark Souls 3 (yeah, I know people will complain about bonfire placement in DS3 but Elden Ring sins worse in this regard).

Well, at least people who weren't retards didn't complain.

What's the point to good level design or shortcuts if we don't have runbacks anymore? Just put the checkpoing right before the boss and then you don't have to worry about that, and Elden Ring kind of did this and kind of didn't, it was a weird halfway point.

I'd be way happier if we got boss runbacks again but the bosses were less cancer so we didn't need 40 tries to beat them, HOWEVER I do think that overly cancerous runbacks like Midir in DS3 are also not acceptable and having a checkpoint before the boss is not always bad.

I just miss things like having to unlock the Lothric elevator before trying to fight Vordt and shit like that, there's no instance of this in Elden Ring at any point is there?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicab_geometry

>>713984821
what did you want instead? a ferris wheel minigame?

>a lone mudcrab gets aggro'ed
>can't look at the map for 20 seconds

>>713984420
I pre-order Demon's Souls and have been playing this series since day 1, faggot. I know why people like these games, because I was one of the first people to start singing it's praises. What you are asking for is another step in movieslop cinemashit where you spend more time listening to badly written NPCs talk/lecture at you than you do exploring/fighting in hazardous environments, all for what? To collect 10 boar assess? Na, fuck off with that gay shit. I'll take cryptic NPC questlines that promise multiple playthroughs and hidden rewards you can miss over that dumb shit any day of the week.

>>713984625
Once you enter the first mine and catacomb you've already seen 80% of the games tile sets. The chalice dungeons had more variety than the mine and catacomb tiles.

>>713985017
Never met a chalice dungeon defender in the wild that's crazy
How do you go from Central Yharnam and Cathedral Ward to the fixed dungeons?

Leyndell if he real

>>713984626
ER has the most lively world in the series. A lot of enviromental storytelling that is meaningful

>>713984913
>cancerous runbacks like Midir
You go down an elevator and a ladder and there are zero enemies? It ain't no Iron Passage.

>>713985153
You don't need to defend chalice dungeons to see they had a bigger tileset than the mine and catacomb sets combined. It's like From has regressed.

>>713985282
>ER has the most lively world in the series
You never went after any of the carriages haven't you? Leaving the world too long on it's own quickly exposes how dead it actually is.

>>713985017
1. Chalice Dungeons were fucking cool, people were too retarded and rely on overturned shit to carry themselves through these games to truly appreciate them

2. Elden Ring is completely fine, and the legacy dungeons were more than enough "OG" content full with enough equipment/spells to let any stat focused playstyle thrive well enough to finish the game. If you don't like doing side content, don't do it.

>>713985017
Fuck off liar. ER side dungeons have more unique tiles and regular tiles than chalice dungeons.

>>713982371
>because recreating the vastness of the real world is still impossible on many levels nowadays.
More like that would be a terrible idea. No one wants to spend 40 minutes driving from one end of a city to the other. Save a few autismos who don't leave their house and never experience a daily commute.

>>713984687

Nigga the terrible design decisions isn't the items the terrible design is that it's not mandatory.

>>713984754
I get your mentality because I do this too in games, I try to squeeze as much enjoyment as I can out of them by making my choices when playing, but here's the thing, I don't like having to do that.

I want a game to be very fun and satisfying even when I'm trying my hardest, I don't like thinking "oh I am going to avoid the boss on purpose because I want to experience more of the level before it's over", or "oh this is clearly the main path, turn around and do the side path", nor do I like thinking "oh this weapon is too good I need to avoid it because the game would become too easy so I must consciously handicap myself".

To an extent, this is not a problem that can fully be solved in games, it's normal, but I felt it WAY more in Elden Ring as compared to older Fromsoftware titles, the Volcano Manor assasination teleported me to Rykard but I still decided to beat the area and explore it before fighting him, some may say this is good due to options, to me the experience was ass because I couldn't stop thinking "lol I already reached the boss and I am only exploring this area because I have more fun pretending that I haven't since it was so anticlimactic, I would rather have found Rykard by beating the literal level based around him instead of fucking getting teleported inmediately to his bossroom".

>>713985576
When exploration becomes mandatory it stops being exploration.

>>713984420
>No one here was excited about the lack of real quests or towns or anything. In fact, people loved the Nexus.
The Nexus is literally the same exact hub they recycled with each and every game and what ER has with Roundtable hold down to Fia pulling a Yurt on you.
The sheer audacity of the mindless contrarianism you soulsfaggots go to shit on the very things you pogfaced before ER are beyond embarassing.

>>713984779
I reccomend playing through Demon's Souls so you can understand what I mean, in that game just running past everything and stumbling on the boss is not somethign that happens easily at ALL and I was pleasantly surprised when i played the remake and found this out (yes I know the remake is soulless and uglified but I still wanted to play it and I couldn't emulate PS3).

>>713985567
No they don't. Each chalice tile has 5 variants. There is only one tile set for all biomes in ER.

>>713985348
I liked the root chalices better than the fixed dungeons. It's just horrible game design that you have to scour the shitty ass fixed dungeons to play anything else. Rando chalices let the games mechanics actually breathe. Still nowhere near the first 3rd of the game which is the absolute pinnacle of fromsfot

Almost no runbacks and being able to jump is a Godsend, i hope they just drop Dark souls and only make Elden rings from now on

>start a new run
>this time try something new
>pick wretch, pick uchigatana, blood blade
every time

at the very least it used to be before I fumbled everything...

>>713985729
Again, liar. Altus side dungeons have more roots. Mountaintops side dungeons are frozen. Caelid dungeons have rot.

>>713985818
Not your fault good bleed weapons and ashes are all Limgrave. To get your first fire ash you need to run to Redman castle or to get lighting you need to trek to Liurnia. Blood has all the shit in the starting area along with a amazing dagger that you don't even need to level for if you start as bandit.

>>713984842
>>713984885

The Yharnamites and Ashina soldiers are good but I must bring up the hollows in Dark Souls 3 too, many of you may think the Elden Ring enemies are literally just hollows again and DS3 wasn't any better, but I would disagree.

The enemies in DS3 are usually placed with intention and have so many animations and actions that makes them feel unique, compare the soldiers in stormveil castle just being there to the hollows in Dark Souls 2 who are praying and kneeling to the castle, bumbling around, in this pitiful state of half death, enemies in Dark Souls 3 also have insanely good sound design, they are loud, have a variety of screeches and screams that can sometimes be startling or scary, Elden Ring enemies in contrast are much more silent and "mass-produced".

>>713985818
Me with curved swords. I just like the move set when dual-wielding them.

>>713985310
I hate doing the calling elevator and falling down two holes rigamarole I would rather have to dodge enemies than that.

>>713985979
Bloody Helice is in a side dungeon in Altus as is Great Stars, chicken leg is in the DLC etc, there's no Blood spells in Limgrave either

>>713986167
Reduvia is 100 meters from the starting area.

>>713984987
Nah, you're a faggot. I was here when people still still importing from playasia. No one praised it for a lack of real RPG mechanics.
>To collect 10 boar assess?
No point in talking to a retard that doesn't play RPGs and thinks all RPG quests are MMO fetch quests.

>>713985713
>The Nexus is literally the same exact hub they recycled with each and every game and what ER has with Roundtable hold down to Fia pulling a Yurt on you.
The difference is that the Nexus is still bigger than the Roundtable, and instead of expanding upon or improving upon that aspect, they stripped it down even more.
>The sheer audacity of the mindless contrarianism you soulsfaggots go to shit on the very things you pogfaced before ER are beyond embarassing.
I'm not a Fromdrone. I just like some of the games they've made, and love a couple of them.

>>713986057
I feel that ER has better positioning for NPCs. Lothric is also not that consistent with its NPCs and many of them are placed there because this is a video game and the game needs ambushes.

>>713986290
Imagine sitting behind a corner for 50 hours straight until someone finally rounds the corner so you can jump them. What was he doing for those 50 hours? Did his feet ever start to hurt? Did he ever take a bathroom break?

>>713985680

Again, I'll bring back the first level in Dark Souls 3 as an example, would you say that you didnt have to explore the high wall? Technically speaking it's side areas aren't mandatory, but bee-lining Vordt is a recipe for disaster, you are rewarded for understanding the layout of the place, finding the shortcut that shortens the runback, and then fighting him becomes a more reasonable option and it feels more satisfying to beat him after finding this out.

Godrick is the same as vordt and Stormveil is the same as the high wall, but there's a key difference, Godrick has a site of grace right before his fight, there's an elevator with a sidepath shortcut that leads you to him from a farther away site of grace, but why bother with that when... there's literally a site of grce 5 meters away from his fight? All of a sudden, the exploration became less incentivized and less satisfying, even though the layout of the level isn't bad at all.

Where do they get water?

I don't understand why From changes the plots of their games two weeks before release. ER has both scripts and recorded dialogues for a few NPC quests that are far better than the shit we got. I'm starting to suspect Melina was added at the lest minute considering the game had a number of maiden quest that guided you to different ending in the game files. Like for example Melina's role in the files was fulfilled by Bernahl's finger maiden if you decided to follow the fingers. She even has more recorded dialogue in the game files than Melina too lol. Same fucking shit with BB it has a entire cut storyline that is clear and focused in it's goals unlike the vague shit you do in release BB.

>>713985568
maybe in the context of an open world, but i imagine a "realistically scaled on-foot journey" game would have its fair share of lovers, just like any autistically accurate simulator does
it's just that instead of slaying demigods or sneaking through vents, the incredible gameplay would be finding a good spot to ford a stream or a not-too-steep decline into a mountain pass

>>713986583
there's water all around them

>>713986583
They all stay hydrated and well-fed by sucking on Marika's tits

>>713986438
neutering the runbacks is both the best and worst thing elden ring did

>stakes that function as respawns but still punish you by not having grace/bonfire functions
>good handful of fights don't even use them

I wonder if placing a grace instead of a stake at Godrick was intentional as part of the first dungeon training wheels.

>>713986438
The second playthrough problem, anon. Novelty is novelty, systems are systems. You can only explore once, so once you can sprint past every enemy straight to the boss fog with your eyes closed one must ask the question: does the game not contain any engaging gameplay systems that provide challenge whenever you're not in a bossfight?

>>713986815

The map looks like this but when you actually look at the "lake" surrounding Leyndell in the game there's no water at all, the outer moat has water, but the "lake" within the walls is actually a huge a byss, an empty precipice, like half of the city fell down to the earth.

>>713986696
Probably some bugs that they couldn't iron out and decided to go nuclear on instead.
Malenia was meant to have some kind of longer questline before your fight with her, instead that got chopped and she tries to kill the player for literally no reason and after you beat her, you can give her a new anti-rot needle like you ever had any reason to like her.
These games are always hacked together at the last minute with only the broadest strokes being consistent from the start of development to the end.

>>713986907
Yeah it fell into deeproot.

>>713986815
There is no water in that spot in the game.

>>713986815
Does drinking it ever give them dysentery? Has there ever been an instance of a Leyndell soldier drinking from the lake, getting dysentery, shitting his brains out thereby dehydrating himself and getting stuck in a loop?

>>713986256
By all means, tell me what is to be gained by having NPC's in towns that exist for some reason that isn't already covered by the central hub zones if not to add retarded MMO fetch quests, all so you can have some weird sense of "immersion" in a game about progressing through dungeons, collecting equipment, and fighting bosses?

Dungeons
Equipment
Bosses

These are what people liked the game's for. The aesthetic appeal is icing on the cake, but nobody is delving hundreds of hours into each of these games simply because they look nice.

>>713986221
Reduvia is not the end of all of bleed weapons, in fact it's kinda mediocre compared to things like the Bloody Helice.
>>713986256
>The difference is that the Nexus is still bigger than the Roundtable
The Nexus is 90% empty space with zero function other than making you run pointlessly inbetween NPCs and teleport points.
>and instead of expanding upon or improving upon that aspect, they stripped it down even more.
Are you stupid? Oh wait of course you are, you call others fromdrones while regurgitating actual mindless drone contrarianism.
In what way did they not improve on the Nexus considering that again, they actually condensed all that pointless empty space into a much more functional set of hubs?
In what way did they not expand upon what the nexus did considering places like the Roundtable hold or DS3 Firelink (Which is quite literally just the Nexus again but bigger) have additional areas you can unlock as you proceed through the game?
Stupid motherfucker, have some modicum of self awareness.

>>713985726
And running to Godrick through the gauntlet on a first playthrough when you don't know anything about the castle interior isn't something that happens easily either. But now you are also claiming to have complete the assassination quest on a first playthough which requires reaching Mountaintops before exploring Volcano Manor so I know for a fact you are a guide gamer. Its a good thing from dont design their games around you.

>>713986830
There's a place for runbacks and a place for no runbacks depending on a variety of factors, but I don't think Elden Ring did it in the most elegant way is all.

>>713986871
I found this to be a persisent prorblem even in first playthrough Elden Ring though, Godrick has the easy to ignore shortcut, Rennalla has the easy to miss whole ass 40% of the Raya Lucaria level, Rykard can literally be fought without setting a single foot on the dungeons of the Volcano Manor if you actually do Tanith's quest, reaching castle Redmane when the festival has started makes it so you can literally just teleport there from the birdge, (castle Redmane was overall very underwhelming anyways though).

Shit like this, one single instance wouldn't be so bad but having so many small things like ths in the game drives me up the wall, I don't like this type of design at all, it's not even missing secret content due to not paying attention, it's straight up content that's there and feelsl ike should be mandatory but it's not and you can just get to the boss out of luck, good luck or bad luck depending on how you see it, to me it's bad luck because I want to experience as much of the game as possible and I want to feel like "oh I'm doing this for a good reason" while I do it, not "oh well I don't really have to do this but there may be cool items here and I missed this area so just in case I'll do it now".

>>713987170
>isn't something that happens easily either
A couple deaths in the ballista sections maybe, but Elden Ring layouts are really spacious.

>>713987170
taking the front gate in Stormveil is not easy at all, but after you do the side path for about 15 minutes you can then beeline to Godrick easily, you do have to explore the area yes, just less than I'd like.

>>713987326
Fromsoft games are played by screeching children, i don't think they see elegancy in not getting to retry a boss without needing to run past 20 enemies

>>713979196 (OP)
Great but weird city. I wouldn’t live there.

The more I think about ER the more I think the open world aspect was a mistake. I still really enjoy it, but I prefer the tighter experience we get in their other games

>>713987517
What does TripAdvisor say about Leyndell? Is it tourist friendly?

>>713987532
I wish it was even bigger and more empty.

>>713987008
>tell me what is gained by a game being a real RPG
>and no, it doesn't need anything more than gear and bosses
Nah, you're a dumb fag.

>>713987093
>Are you stupid? Oh wait of course you are, you call others fromdrones while regurgitating actual mindless drone contrarianism.
How fucking stupid are you? People get called Fromdrones for sucking From cock nonstop no matter if a game is good or bad, and pretending their mechanics and designs rehashed 5 times are brilliant and interesting. What the fuck is "drone contrarianism"? Don't dodge the question, answer it directly. You're just a retarded faggot who's mad that someone smarter than you disagrees with you, so now you're using words incorrectly because in your tiny little mind, they're all just buzzwords that mean "person I don't like".
>empty space
You're impossibly fucking stupid. Why not just have a menu like Etrian Odyssey if you're going to be that retarded about it?

>>713979196 (OP)
Leyndell is unironically the best dungeon Fromsoft's ever released.

>>713987467
it all comes to the difference between thinking of the challenge as just the boss or as having to do part of the level and then the boss as a climax, both have their place IMO, but I feel like lately Fromsoftware has pandered more and more to the "omg le epic bosses!!!!1" public so now the bosses are the star of the show and designing the game around them instead of with the whole level in mind seems more prevalent now.
Think of how Rykard is on a cave that you have to teleport to, the cave is not even a place you can find if you explore the manor, it's not somewhere you can walk and find if you go on an underground area, Fromsoft made the volcano manor then said "shit hold on we designed Rykard to be in this big cave... but we don't know how to link the cave to the level, oh well, teleport it is".

>>713979196 (OP)
Game should've ended here

>>713987532
It should have had no mounts and 2 hour long journeys to the next dungeon with dangerous enemies spawning out of thin air during the night

>>713984770
reducing it to "two streets and a sewer" when the sewer is one of the most convoluted dungeons in gaming, the vertical design of the streets and whatever going on between them is just about the niggatry i expect from this website. just saying shit just to say shit.

>>713987532
>>713987628

I think there's a way to link the open world and the classic areas together nicely but Fromsoft wasn't that good in their first attempt at it, I can think of many ways to make Elden Ring a more fun game to experience in my personal preference and they don't neccesarily require completely scrapping the open elements.

>>713987532
The open world wasn't the problem, being a shitty Tanimura game was the problem.

>>713987897
>the sewer is one of the most convoluted dungeons in gaming
Fromdrones really have become the new tendies. Please, play some video games that aren't From games or journalist praised AAA flavor of the month shit.

>>713987635
>What the fuck is "drone contrarianism"?
Your hypocrisy, for starters.
Praising trash like DeS for being poorly designed while accusing the following games of somehow not expanding on something like the Nexus of all things when literally every single game from DS1 onwards made sure to fix the hub specifically because the Nexus was a poorly designed dumpster fire of wasted potential.
You're the usual fromdrone in denial whining about shit other games did right only because more people played and enjoyed those games so you can't pretend to be le hipster patrician who plays le totally not mainstream games, you make me sick, you're fucking vile and people like you are one of the main reasons why this entire website is beyond saving.
>You're impossibly fucking stupid.
Lower your tone, retard, and yes, given how the Nexus is 90% empty space that serve literally zero function outside of some superficial wow factor for midwits like you they might as well done a generic teleport menu exactly like Etrian Odyssey considering all Archstones are self contained anyway, luckily they learned a lot with the following games and even when they insisted on making a nexus again like DS3 Firelink or Roundtable Hold they had the decency of making it tighter and with actual shit to do in it.

Is night rein good?

>>713988163
It's what people in this thread want, 30 minute runback the boss so you can enjoy clearing the central castle for the Nth time.

>>713988163
No. Not by any metric. 99% of it is literally just reused assets from Elden Ring. If they were gonna reuse assets, they could've at least brought back some more Dark Souls bosses

>>713983982
No, he's right, the skibidi fragments do nothing but make repeated runs of the DLC a slog. It's pure padding
>Miyazaki-sama, our analytics show players are running past all the useless open world content on their second runs, and speedrunning to the loot they're interested in!
>WHAT THE FUCK BROS THIS CANNOT STAND, THE PLAYERS MUST WALK TO EVERY BULLSHIT COPYPASTED POINT OF INTEREST EVERY TIME OR THEY'RE NOT ALLOWED TO DEAL DAMAGE!!
Literally getting rid of the ONE strength of Elden Ring's open world design: that, at least in the base game, you can skip it and plan routes around visiting only the places you need for your build's gear. This is like if in BOTW, Ganon had 95% resistance to any weapon but the master sword so you were effectively forced to visit 40 shrines no matter what.

>>713979196 (OP)
>DLC comes and goes
>Stormveil and Leyndell remain peak and unsurpassed

>>713987326
I've talked about this before. Because of the way the game world is designed, there's not really any reason to fight anything that isn't a mandatory encounter or required to complete your desired build. Normal enemies reward a relatively low amount of runes and their item drops are low % RNG, and they're bad at chasing the player. You CAN fight enemies, but it's kinda stupid without a proper incentive. It's a problem with inconsequential bosses too. If the bossfight has shit item/rune rewards and the boss arena doesn't lead into a new area, who's going to care? These aren't major combat encounters, they're not mechanically challenging or interesting to make the fights fun just as an activity.

>>713988365
>make repeated runs of the DLC a slog.
They already put the bare minimum you need along the direct path to the ending.

>>713988365
The vast majority of the seeds are put in the path of the main dungeons, you don't even need most of them to deal good damage and people have beaten the DLC with no skibidi blessings at all, stop whining about issues that exist purely in your deranged mind and go actually play the game

>>713981905
To me, the problem is not it being small, but being empty and "videogamey". The city is constructed like a level and it shows. In previous games, From always showed some background stuff that allowed your imagination to make it more real than it actually is.
For example, Anor Londo feels a bit dumb, but then you look at the background and understand you see only a small portion of the city, that was turned into improvised Sen Fortress 2.0 in order to test you. So you can imagine the rest of the city as a lot more realistic.
The problem with ER is that there is nothing beyond videogamey environment, no proper forests, no proper cities or villages, just hills and rocks, with some castles in the middle of nowhere. I thought that From will take some inspiration from TES, but they've messed up with ER's world, big time. It feels like a bad version of DaS world, with hollows and stuff, even when it shouldn't feel like it. One of the reasons why Melina's reasoning to leave Frenzy Flame alone feels hollow - you're already a lord of nothing.

>>713988443
Nah specimen storehouse was very good. Maybe even better than stormveil.

>>713988535
I have no idea what compels people like you to lie this much, not just to other people but to yourselves.

>>713988659
Nope.

>divided into two chunks
>half is inaccessible if you don't take the backdoor
>is yet another cringe interstitial area like Black Keep

No. Storehouse is just Research Hall from BB but worse.

>>713988497
>the direct path
Skipping Gravesite plains and rushing the fort skip, going up the Specimen Storehouse by entering from the church district, fighting Messmer, rushing to Romina and then through Enir Ilim? That might not even be 5 blessing levels.

>>713988853
Where did I lie?
Maybe you should actually play TES games, in order to see how a proper world should look like.

>>713988891
>divided into two chunks
>half is inaccessible if you don't take the backdoor
Not true at all. Did you even play the game? If you head in via the main entrance you can access all areas by jumping on the hanging specimens. Only if you raise the specimen via the lever later on will be connection be broken.

>>713981905
>>713988535
Yeah dude, the games were better when there was a skybox to look at and imagine if the level was bigger instead of just having a bigger, better level to actually play. What a fucking joke.

>>713979196 (OP)
KINOOOOOOOoooOOoOO!

>>713988535
if you actually pay attention to the city design and castle designed of older games it's clear they make no sense, it has always been "city themed" or "castle themed" levels.

Yharnam as a place to live in makes no fucking sense, but here's the thing, it's very easy to suspend your disbelief in Yharnam, it's very easy to think "oh there's closed gates and doors, there's inaccesible areas, there's all these buildings around that I can't explore but they're there so I know it's a big important city".
They also work thematically, the insane amount of creepy statues and weird street design in Yharnam can make it seems like it's a city with a weird culture, consumed by their religion and worship of this blood that has made the economy boom so fast that the city has grown too fast for it's own good, cramped and laberynthic and strange.

The lore of Elden Ring screamsat you "holy shit the golden order is supreme, those who serve erdtree posessed unimaginable wealth, their armors are golden, Marika is the god of this world", you'd expect the city to be enormours, grandiose, Marika's palace should be fucking huge, a city that should house thousands of people, and Leyndell could never live up to this in the game, but holy shit it doesn't even get slightly close, so of course it feels strange, it looks pretty, but it doesn't cut it at all, it feels like it should be twice the size it is.

>>713989163
I played it more than you. It's a half zone unless you use the backdoor. If you backdoor it's still lame. Backdoor Keep and Storehouse are offensively bad. I still seethe about how fucking bad they are.

>>713989168
The game is bigger but the levels aren't better lmao, Elden Ring isn't this flawless new age game that improved on all fronts nigga.

>>713989126
You couldn't pay me to waste more hours on Bethesda's garbage than I already did, I wish somebody would pay you for stop shitposting in this place considering the shit you say.
Seriously, no forests? When half of Altus plateau is a fucking misty forest? When fucking Limgrave also has a forest? No villages when there's more villages in ER than all the Souls games put together?
>Inb4 b...but where are my dozens of pointless background NPCs and radiant quest questgivers???
In Bethesda's dumpster fires where they belong, you fucking imbecile

>>713989380
It's a full zone without the backdoor. The fact that you apparently played so much and can't figure out the level design means it's brilliant.

>>713989370
>if you actually pay attention to the city design and castle designed of older games it's clear they make no sense
Yeah, where's the main entrance of Lothric Castle?

>>713987635
>tell me what is gained by a game being a real RPG
>and no, it doesn't need anything more than gear and bosses
>"Nah, you're a dumb fag."
Gee, I must have missed the part where the games you spend 99.9% of your time looking around every nook for an item you might have missed, fighting enemies, spending upgrade materials needed to get better at damaging those enemies you fight, discovering shortcuts to quicker make it to the end of the dungeon, all wrapped with a boss at the end, was the parts people liked these games for, and not some weird hipster element intentionally left vague or some nebulous buzzphrase retards can throw around in place of an actual, solidified point made.

>>713989508
Anon, I have invaded in it for over 20 hours. I am an expert in it's layout. Storehouse and Keep are dogshit. Same with Belurat and Enir-Elim. Fucking weak as fuck linear shitshows that aren't fun to explore and once you come back with map knowledge, still aren't fun or engaging. Linear, boring, generic dogshit.

yes, ER would have been much better if its map was a Mad Max-like empty wasteland, that's what I believe
entire game being like the Radahn area... ludo.

>I'm going to go to Japan and I'm going to eat all the tuna! All of it!
That might not be as difficult as she thinks, because worldwide tuna stocks are literally like 90% depleted relative to their 1980 levels...

>>713989601
Exacly, however, in that game we can see lots of inaccesible places in the lower areas of Lothric, and if you suspend your disbelief enough you can think "oh well, there's probably a true entrance that has become inaccesible for some reason so that's why we needed to take this secret path on the chapel". Dark Souls 3 also has the whole earth shifting and shit thing going on which is why the bridge leading to the undead settlement is broken, because Lothric rose from the earth hundreds of meters with some sort of tremor, and the areas of the game feel so weirdly connected, like these different plates stacked so strangely, surrounded by what looks like hundreds of kilometers of snowy deserted mountains.

Now, this isn't perfect, I wouldn't blame someone for still finding it retarded but Elden Ring doesn't even have the faraway backdrops to use as an excuse, entering Queen Marika's house requires you to do parkour on a very fat branch and her hourse is basically like a big court and then her bedroom and then the Elden Throne area, it's not like Lothric had realistic living spaces in the castle but at least it had the biggass huge library and rooftops.

>>713989503
>>713989503
Mongrel, ER has no proper forests. It has hills with a bit of trees, that's the Morrowind's idea of a forest. Kingdom Come had much better forests and that game came four years earlier.
ER also has no fucking villagies, its just a buch of houses that were randomly put together. All of them are barren, the houses themselves look like shit, no sane person will make a house like people in the Lands Between. Hell, Marika's home "'''''village''''' is what, 5 houses? That are too small for the people to live in as well.
TLB doesn't even have goddamn ports, even though it's a land surrounded by water.

>>713989126
Get back to me when TES creates an enemy with as much mechanical depth as a Godrick Soldier, then maybe you can start pretending to have a point.

>>713987093
Reduvia is bonkers for Limgrave. It utterly rapes Margit and Godrick.

>>713980746
Allegedly they're scaling down and don't want anything as big as Elden Ring again from some interview a couple years ago.

>>713990494
Then they're newer games are going to not sell as much, simple as. They'd be better off starting Elden Ring 2 right fucking now and dropping whatever it is they originally planned on working on.

>>713990340
I think it's funny how in old concept art the lands between used to be connected to a bigger landmass, which would give a tangible sensation of a bigger world, but then they decided to make them into an island, which feels very retarded when you think about it for 5 seconds.

They prolly wanted to avoid invisible walls and conveniently placed cliffs as the limits of the open world but that came with a price because the lands between as an island is very retarded if you care about some sort of realism or a good source to suspend your disbelief without ignoring too much stupidity.

>>713990610
I'm sure they'll still sell like hotcakes and 100% we're gonna get another "ring-like" game inlike 10 years, just not for a while.

>>713990708
>prolly
Stop saying this.

>>713990856
Probbly won't

>>713990115
>it's better not because it's realistically designed but because I can pretend it is

>>713990414
I know that Bethesda can't make enemies for shit, but that wasn't the point. Bethesda can make good environment, and while it's not perfect, it looks like more or less functioning world, with plantations, ports etc.
There was no good reason for From to make an open world game with the Elden Ring. But if they really wanted to do that, they should have went with something better than "really big dark souls level".
Take Caelid for example - a land that was raped by a plague. It has soldiers that are addamant to stop the spread of Scarlet Rot, they've even burned their crests. Of all people in TLB, they have the lest reason to attack you - you literally help them. But guess what - they're still hollow zombies that howl and try to kill you at first sight. If From would have went with TES approach - Caelid would have been the place where you interact with humans and slay monsters, but in the game it's just another DaS level.
Hell, Radahn soldiers even have a festival for champions and guess what - the castle becomes empty, for no reason.

>>713990708
>m-muh realism

The Lands Between is an almost mythological place in which the rules of reality bend and you can't even be sure it exists on the same plane of reality as the rest of the, presumedly normal, world.

You're basically bitching that Olympus doesn't feel like a real place.

>>713991083
unironically yes, no Fromsoft game is ever gonna be realistically designed cause actual places aren't designed like cool vidya levels and dungeons to explore, but an attempt at making it seem like they could really does go a long way, I think the game that does this the best is actually Demon's Souls, though that game has a huge advantage due to the way it's world is divvied up by the nexus telportations and it doesn't have to all link together.

>>713991216
Yes, joyless spergs do have cringe complaints

>>713990610
I think they are scaling out with franchises rather than throwing all the eggs in one basket like AAAA usually do. See Duskbloods/Nightreign trying to do completely different things
This might just be cope because I need more Armored Core.

>>713979196 (OP)
Elden Ring is still daily discussed in multiple threads

>>713991387
>the most influential videogame of the past years is still being discussed
Surprising insight.

>>713988112
The ''''empty space'''' in the Nexus is there to serve the atmosphere, it makes the place feel ominous and sacred. It's also not overly big at all, it takes less than 30 seconds to go up to the top, which you only have to do once to meet the Monumental. Aside from that, all the NPC's are at the bottom level

Imagine complaining about the Nexus while defending the dogshit slop that is ER, the game that wastes 50+ hours of your time having you hold forward through endless proc-gen empty fields with literally nothing going on, lmao

>>713979982
>checks the building
wow. that's some impressive visuals.
>checks the wall on the right
that gayass shit belongs to ps2.

>>713987635
People like these games because they're not The Witcher or Skyrim or Kingdom Come.
Because they're focused combat challenges and exploration puzzles, that skip the busy work of talking to Bigus Dickus for 15 minutes to start the game.

>>713991216
I am not bitching that olympus isn't a real place, but if I get to olympus and it's Leyndell sized it'd be underwhelming as hell.

God of War 3, not a realistic game at all, clearly the real world can't have olympus and olympus is not a place livable by humans, but the scale of it, the way it's depicted and the way you play through the game and see different parts of it feels "right", it feels appropriate, it lives up to your mental image, and the world feels big, even though it's literally not due to the linear level based structure, you still see the backdrops, the greek cities, the huge mountains, the opulent areas habited by the gods.

Leyndell doesn't have to make sense and have bathroom and kitchen and shit, but it does need to feel appropriate, and for me, it doesn't achieve that.

Fromsoft games don't depict real worlds, instead, a more apt comparison would be tha ttheir wolds ar elike twisted or dark versions of fairy tales, I know that's true, but I still have standards for fairy tales, the lands between telling me a town is like 3 burnt shacks is asking too much from me, if it was 7 shacks I'd be fine, at some point I have to be satisfied, but there's also a cutoff point for what I am willing to accept, and Leyndell to me didn't feel like a city of the gods with Marika's palace, Leyndell felt small and had boring repeated enemies, I can't unfeel that way.

>>713988112
>Your hypocrisy, for starters.
Words means things. You're an illiterate monkey repeating words you've heard because you think they're all just meaningless insults. Drone contrarianism doesn't mean hypocrite. You're very fucking stupid.
>Lower your tone, retard,
It's always the dumbest monkeys that think the most highly of themselves. You can have another reply when you learn what words actually mean.

>>713989791
>and not some weird hipster element intentionally left vague or some nebulous buzzphrase retards can throw around in place of an actual, solidified point made.
That's a lot of mental gymnastics you just did to avoid talking about how From games are supposedly RPGs but lack fundamental RPG mechanics and are worse off for it. They're shitty action games, with the exception of Bloodborne and Sekiro, nothing more.

>>713991586
Those 50 hours of riding around are better than most of the levels in DeS.

>>713988163
It is pure Elden Ring combat with the difficulty amped up.
Shitters that just want to run around with a broad sword and a shield they never use on their back, complain because it asks you to be good at the game.

>>713991798
>people liked Demon's Souls for not being games that came out after Demon's Souls
That makes sense. And skip the part where you pretend anyone cared about TW1.

>>713992065
I enjoyed riding the horse in ER too but bro the DeS are really good calm down

>>713992150
>It is pure Elden Ring combat
So it's trash.

>>713992151
Bethesda games were already huge at the time.
Souls games remained popular for 15 years because they still do things differently from most other big budget ARPGs, which have only leaned more heavily on story and cinematics.

>>713988163
Yes, but only because I love tard-wrangling coop people. This game is just that with some gacha rolling and it completely filters people who relied on cheese builds. 128 hours in and I still really enjoy it.

>>713989168
>the games were better when there was a skybox to look at and imagine if the level was bigger instead of just having a bigger level to actually play
Correct

>>713992272
ER has some of the best action combat around.

>>713979805
From doesn’t make actual games, they expect you to find a broken dagger in the wall and bring it to Fartixent the malevolent and do a quest that you would have never known about unless you luckily stumbled upon it

>>713980231
Most retarded slop enjoyer.

>>713991204
>I know that Bethesda can't make enemies for shit, but that wasn't the point. Bethesda can make good environment, and while it's not perfect, it looks like more or less functioning world, with plantations, ports etc.
Almost like the former is a trade-off so the latter can exist. Problem is, Bethesda still do a shitty job at the latter regardless, and all the effort in making NPCs exist in a city means fuckall in the end of the day.
>There was no good reason for From to make an open world game with the Elden Ring.
Sure there is; it's the game they wanted to make. There is no other reason needed.
>But if they really wanted to do that, they should have went with something better than "really big dark souls level".
Why?
>-they're still hollow zombies that howl and try to kill you at first sight.
Because that is what these games are, dumb-dumb.

>>713983982
it's a neat idea because overleveled/maxed out characters have a sense of progression (most important thing in an RPG) which would be impossible to have otherwise, but the idea they executed it was horrible.

The scadutree fragments should have dropped by overworld mini-bosses, cave mini-bosses, overworld locations and of course legacy dungeons. Instead many of them are spread out wherever and as a consequence there are so many mini-bosses or caves with worthless loot especially since scadu fragments are way more important in the DLC than levels or EXP anyway.

They should have done it the same way as Golden Seeds in the base game: have more Scadu fragments than needed for max Shadow level and maybe you could trade the excess for EXP, runes or items.

>>713994031
Name an actual game.

>>713991354
Anon, you just got a decent Armored Core not that long ago.

>>713979196 (OP)
Elden Ring was such dogshit. Glad I was able to refund it in time.

>>713979982
What build anon?

>>713992003
>From games are supposedly RPGs but lack fundamental RPG mechanics
They're aRPGs without the top-down Diablo loot drop autism and lack the screen wiping AoE spamfest the those sorts of games are always reduced into becoming. There is a reason it basically spawned it's own genre. But to say they lack RPG mechanics is hilariously idiotic simply because it isn't cursed with having shit gameplay at the same time.

>>713994434
>but crackhead, you just snorted yesterday, don't steal my copper wire
I need another game.

>>713994393
>The scadutree fragments should have dropped by overworld mini-bosses, cave mini-bosses, overworld locations and of course legacy dungeons
I am not exaggerating when I say the majoirty of then literally fucking do, Anon. You beat a boss, and the immediate next Site of Grace will have fragments there. You're complaining because the boss doesn't simply shit them out the microsecond upon dying is laughable.

Elden mid...worst game Fromsoft has ever made...

>>713994346
>Almost like the former is a trade-off
No, it isn't. Godrick soldiers are complex yet the ER's world is really big. It's bigger than any TES world, and I bet that it was harder to make, simply because it looks better, has more complex models.
The problem is the design, the way how From approached the open world. They've wasted so much time and resourses to make the world big - yet it doesn't live up to Skyrim, which is honestly surprising.
>Sure there is; it's the game they wanted to make.
Yes, From wanted to trap a good Dark Souls game inside an open world slop, and they've succeeded. Great.

>>713992618
>Bethesda games were already huge at the time.
You'd have a point if Bethesda games weren't also derided by RPG fans.
>Souls games remained popular for 15 years because
Because the marketing worked and normalfags bought into the PTD shit and then watched some lore videos on youtube.

>>713992824
ER is genuinely some of the worst action combat there is.

>>713995268
That would work, if not for Elden Ring having huge player retention, even if its like a 100 hr game for most first time players.
30% of players got the Age of Stars ending, the Ranni one, and another 25% got one of the Elden Lord endings. And 10% got the Frenzy ending.
There's probably a good bit of overlap there, but even still, likely around 35-40% of the players that started it, finished the game. Which is huge for one that is so big and often challenging.

>>713994748
>simply because it isn't cursed with having shit gameplay at the same time.
It's idiotic to pretend that any of From's RPGs don't have shit gameplay. They were good because of level design and exploration. The combat was never actually good.

>>713979196 (OP)
Best part of the game. (Also probably why I dropped the game after this kek)

>>713995710
Wow, Matthewmatosis, what a daring claim.
Your next line is 'muh maiden astraea, muh hideki kamiya liked arcade cabinets'.

>>713994407
Undertale

>>713995697
>That would work, if not for Elden Ring having huge player retention,
How does that disprove a successful marketing campaign for Dark Souls that caused From to become what it is today?
>Which is huge for one that is so big and often challenging.
You're assuming that everyone does the same retarded "you didn't beat the game if you used and kind of summons and didn't just roll and R1 poke" rules that people here use. I work with people who play video games and are extremely casual (and young enough that they haven't played Dark Souls, even) and they just run through coop with friends and use magic. It really just did establish itself as the "hardcore gamer game series" despite being pretty casual and accessible.

>>713995953
Nice schizo rambling, but no.

>>713996148
Marketing can't hold someone's attention for several IRL days worth of time, likely spread out over months of playing.
Even with spirit summons and player summons, the game is definitely pretty hard for noobs and they're likely to die a few times to the difficulty wall bosses.
Yes, Elden Ring is only a ball crusher if you refuse to touch most mechanics like a moron, but even still it is well above average in difficulty in the current market.

>>713984080
Yeah Elden Ring would be so much better if Varre introduced you to the game by telling you to collect 5 boar hides

>>713995367
Sorry you just want to roll slop and refuse to parry, block, deflect, jump or crouch.

>>713996430
>Marketing can't hold someone's attention for several IRL days worth of time, likely spread out over months of playing.
You really underestimate how good marketing is.
>Even with spirit summons and player summons, the game is definitely pretty hard for noobs and they're likely to die a few times to the difficulty wall bosses.
And you really underestimate how hard ER is with magic.

>>713988535
>"videogamey"
journalist tier post

>>713996672
No, I want them to make good reactive combat like Sekiro had. But feel free to pretend ER actually has dynamic combat with a lot of options when most encounters are still built around iframes, and the other mechanics that exist don't flow smoothly together or work well against enemy movesets and behaviors.
>But look at this webm of jumping over an enemy attack then pressing L2 so I can pretend it's got dynamic movement and combos!
No thanks, I've seen it.

>>713994594
>Dragon's Dogma 2 trickster gameplay.

>>713996685
not shown: the 50 previous attempts where the gargoyle did anything else and the player ran out of FP and then died
the runes are even ticking up at the start of the clip, didn't hide it well enough

>>713996858
Let's pretend sekiro had good combat when it was basically bop-it, baby's first press the right button game.
>most encounters are still built around iframes
No most encounters are built around sword and board first, which is why 9/10 classes start with a parry shield.

>>713997117
>runes are even ticking
it may be from his summon killing mobs

>>713990115
I always thought that the design choices for Leyndell not making sense were because the city went to shit thanks to Morgott's stagnation and refusal to actually engage with the current state of the world, rather than just waiting for Marika to return.

>>713996685
Might as well say that they're using secret Shinto Mind Control in order to keep players obsessed.
At a certain point the game is just good, and that is why people stick through it.

Magic isn't even overpowered in Elden Ring.
The strongest builds are all Strength/Arcane.
Magic is a noobtrap in ER because most bosses are rushdown types that require you to constantly run away and rely on spirit summons to hold aggro to keep casting. While STR/ARC can absolutely chunk HP bars without any fucking around.

>>713979196 (OP)
Best city in gaming

In this thread
>it's not an RPG
>It's not an action game
>it's not even a video game
ER haters are literally insane, there's no point in even arguing with someone that thinks he's fighting a zero sum guerrilla war against a computer toy

>>713997117
>not shown: the 50 previous attempts
That's my webm. Did it on the second try because I needed to figure out where to stand. That was it. You can now proceed to piss and shit in anger and tell me how it was actually a super hard setup.

>>713997259
nothing around there except the boss itself yields 12000 runes

>>713991761
that's not a wall

>>713997165
>Let's pretend sekiro had good combat
I'm not pretending, and if you think Sekiro doesn't have good combat then you're genuinely too shit at games and too stupid to talk about good gameplay mechanics.

>>713997297
>Magic isn't even overpowered
lmao, magic builds can cheese 99% through the game anon

>>713997407
there are militia mobs in vicinity

>>713997297
>At a certain point the game is just good, and that is why people stick through it.
Yeah that's why people have 6000 hours in LoL or FFXIV or Skyrim, because they're good.

>>713997494
Try a STR/ARC build with a focus on Bleed/Frost.
It is stronger than Magic, 110%.

>>713997592
not 12000 runes worth, not that it matters when he admits he died trying to do it

>>713997481
Sorry I'm not the sekiro shitter who needs easy mode deflects because he can't parry to save his life. Who needs a big 危 sign to know what to do. Who needs stance getting broken just via deflects alone, which ER fixed by making guard counters mandatory if you want to capitalise on the stance damage built up by deflecting hardtear.

>>713997601
Bad faith comparison, Elden Ring isn't a skinner box multiplayer game and people play Skyrim for 5000 hours to goon

>>713997391
>some bosses are easy with magic
Wow, what an insightful commentary. Try cheesing DLC bosses except one or two with Azur Comet.

You know, as someone who loved all the Dark Souls games, I just cannot be motivated to complete Elden Ring. I think it's because the NPCs here just kind of suck. In the Dark Souls games, the NPCs are what let you both learn more about the world and develop a stronger personal connection to it, while the NPCs in Elden Ring are all just kind of doing their own thing. And because it's open world, it's way easier to accidentally fuck up their quests.

>>713979196 (OP)
Elden Ring is such a beautiful game

>>713995262
>The problem is the design, the way how From approached the open world
A subjective non-issue, sure. Games are designed for their intended purpose, and the purpose of Elden Ring is to be a demi-god slayer in a world rife with enemies to fight, things to find, and legacy dungeons to progress through. In this way, Elden Ring's design works for what it sets out to do, regardless if that's not what YOU want it to do.
>From wanted to trap a good Dark Souls game inside an open world slop, and they've succeeded.
Reminder that "slop" isn't an actual argument or criticism, and instead is a buzzphrase people use as a scapegoat for making an actual solid point that can be criticized on it's own right.

>>713992649
>>713989168
BUT DUDE I WISH I COULD GO THERE AND FIND 5 ARTERIA LEAFS THO!!!

>>713997824
Just cheese them with night comet instead

Sorry I'm going to use nearly 3 year old webms to criticize a game because I never bought it.

>>713980474
>>713998042
>it needs more open world
>it needs to be more streamlined
who was in the wrong here?

>>713998071
>night comet
>cheese
Night comet has less DPS than basically any competent melee build, it just allows you to hit them without any specific timing.

>>713997723
>I'm so fucking bad at video games that I can't handle timing and reading actual move animations so I need iframes and slow gameplay
That's nice. I'm sure you'll get more dogshit Tanimura games in the future.

>>713995367
Elden Ring has more mechanical depth than the vast majoirty of pure action games championed on this very board.

https://youtu.be/RwKHGI__4HM?si=a19hZhdH7UCj3yIL

>>713994594
I'm glad my favorite role-playing rpg game doesn't have any cheeses, tricks and exploits like this.
Of course, the game I'm talking about is... uh...

>>713989168
>Dude if only this level had mile-long corridors leading to dead ends and the same reskinned knights you've been fighting for the last 30 hours
open world brain is a disease

>>713997767
>Bad faith
>skinner
>goon
I hate redditors.

>>713994594
what exactly is this supposed to show? that the enemies go after you when you heal? duh of course they do. In what world is that bad game design, the AI of enemies is adapting over time just like players are overcoming every new obstacle that comes their way each game. People still manage to beat the game while healing in between attacks, now its just not as easy. How is this bad

I'm 80-something hours into my first playthrough and still enjoying. Don't see myself replaying it after this run though.

>>713996858
SotET added Sekiro deflection to Elden Ring, and parry shields have existed since Demon's Souls first walked in.

>>713998449
I just know you had the little reply window open thinking about how to reply to my post for like 10 minutes and this is all you could come up with

>>713998297
dude imagine if it was open world you could explore the entire city and find 3 corpses with arteria leafs on them, one each

>>713998364
>Elden Ring has more mechanical depth
Show me a single actual combo, or an enemy reacting to a specific attack (as opposed to a generic flinch animation or not reacting at all). Show me some unique enemy behaviors. Show me interactivity between either multiple players or multiple enemies. Show me ways you can interact with enemies either offensively or defensively.
>you can do magic that does damage when it hits, or other magic that does damage when it hits, then you stagger them and get a canned animation with a parry shield!
Please tell me which action game championed here has less mechanical complexity than that. You made the claim, now back it up.

>>713998331
Sekiro shitter so bad at videogames he needs a mechanic that kills positioning completely, just stand there and press the easy mode button until you see 危 wow. And free revive from death + block even if you miss a deflect. No surprise Yamamura made AC6 one of the easiest and most braindead armored core games too.

>>713998590
>SotET added Sekiro deflection to Elden Ring
That's like saying new Monster Hunter games added Dragon's Dogma climbing.

>>713998690
The "open world" aspect of Elden Ring is the overworld between the major locations, when you can ride the horse. There's no actual difference in level design between Leyendell and a regular level in the other Fromsoft games. Did you even play the game?

>>713998729
>that kills positioning completely,
I love when cocksucking retards who don't know anything about action games talk about positioning when they want to defend games with garbage mechanics. You constantly circle strafing an enemy or running away doesn't mean positioning is part of combat. Sekiro objectively has more of a focus on positioning because boss attack patterns change a lot depending on where you're standing relative to them, not that you'd know given that you struggled through the game once and then never played it again.

>>713998956
No. I'm not going to play from slop.

>>713979196 (OP)
>that giant staircase leading to a tiny elevator
after I saw that I knew I was playing not a serious game

>>713982506
because its extra content and not necessary to finish the game. youre not supposed to use guides and tutorials, just fucking enjoy it. there is literally no reason to pursue everything and complete every little detail like some automaton. play multiple times, explore a little and just have fun. unless youre a lifeless achievement hunter, there is no reason to get upset about this crap

>>713999026
Really settles the argument doesn't it

>>713988025
nope, the good aspects were because of tanimura

>>713987962
completely agreed

>>713998036
>Elden Ring's design works for what it sets out to do
It works poorly, because it's illogical and boring copypasted world,
>Reminder that "slop" isn't an actual argument or criticism
I've given actual arguments, you can whine and cope all you want that ER was meant to be copypasted wastleland, it doesn't take away from my argument. There were different ways to make a barren wastlenad with enemies to fight and things to find and From made a bad job at it, for the reasons I've already stated. An actuall opem world DaS game would have been more preferrable at this point, simply because DaS lore properly establishes reasons why the world is messed up the way it is. Not to mention that general world design in DaS is more interesting.

>>713999002
>Sekiro objectively has more of a focus on positioning because boss attack patterns change a lot depending on where you're standing relative to them
Elden Ring bosses do the exact same thing, that's why you see people bitching about Morgott's infinite combos, because they keep moving to positions where he can extend instead of just staying in the same relative position so he actually finishes a combo.

>>713998112
Pirating it counts right?

>>713999292
>Elden Ring bosses do the exact same thing
If you actually played Sekiro and weren't shit at it, you'd know that what I'm talking about isn't even remotely comparable to the boring telegraphed heal catches and gap closers in ER. AI in ER is a fucking joke.

>>713998695
>Show me a single actual combo,
Nobody cares about mastabatory Staggerslop. If you want to stun enemies, you gotta actually earn it.
>or an enemy reacting to a specific attack
One of the biggest criticisms of Elden Ring by people who fuck donkey dicks at it is that enemies are designed to react to player's actions too well.
>Show me ways you can interact with enemies either offensively or defensively.
Offensively:
Rush down bleed/Frost buildup, firebomb/grease use, and properly timed weapon arts.

Defensively:
Guard counters, parties, item use to neuter boss encounters or getting hostile NPC factions into fighting each other on your behalf.
>Please tell me which action game championed here has less mechanical complexity than that.
Name one you think does. I made a declarative statement. If you disagree, then by all means prove me wrong.

MFW I play Fromkino's latest Kinogame from autèur creator Hidetaka Miyazaki and it's both a commercial and critical success that elevates the entire medium of video games

>>713999070
This is the same game where half of the continent is basically inaccessible if someday the big elevator and the mineshaft collapses

>*Fweeeeeeeeee*

>>713999253
>Another retard MCsyndrome Anon that thinks his subjective opinion supersedes the intended goal of a product

>>713983485
>nigga it's a generic dungeon like every dungeon before it... but this time it has 2 more shortcuts!!
keep consuming the slop, nigger. i bet elden ring was your first souls game.
>>713998297
neither. they need to make the open world more meaningful to explore. SOTE displayed how pathetically weak the open world is when you have all your gear maxed out. there's nothing to do but stare at empty assets and collecting the same shit over and over (akin to BOTW kek, but that game at least had some shit to do like finding a random korok). They had a good foundation for quests going in SOTE but they sorta half-assed it. Ymir's finger quest thing was fun, but again, having NPCs just randomly tp somewhere and just standing there statically is so dogshit. It's like they're still stuck with King's Field technology with updated graphics. They really need to step it up because their games have really been feeling same-y with every main release.

>>713998956
>There's no actual difference in level design between Leyendell and a regular level in the other Fromsoft games.
How many new enemies did Leyndell introdce? There's a pretty big difference :^)

>>713999859
Post mentions Korok gathering as "something to do"

>>713999429
You are so full of shit, Sekiro is the most pre-choreographed game they have made, enemies don't react to the player position they just put themselves automatically into whatever position is needed for them to do the epic combo they were programmed to do. It's fake reactivity.

>>713999859
>"Not a REAL Scottsmen"fag who probably started the series with Dark Souls 1 over a year after it already released
Pot calling the kettle, "nigger."

Playing Elden Ring made me appreciate Skyrim and KCD more. I can't believe people enjoy empty boss gallery sims. It's fucking boring.

>>713999429
Which is why I didn't mention one half of a duo boss like Godskin Apostle and instead went to Morgott who has insane combo variety and can just harass you forever if you keep putting yourself in the wrong positions. Do you think Genichiro just giving you a free mikiri counter every time you chug is the pinnacle of boss design?

>>713999998
It's one of the things you can do to break the monotony of the open world. i'm not talking about walking around and looking for the 300+ koroks thrown around the world, but rather when you find one by mistake and decide "fuck it let me do this real quick". Of course, there's other random shit to break the monotony of just walking around like taking pictures of the memory locations, seeking the dragons for their scales, getting the white horse, doing side quests etc. The problem with Elden Ring "quests" is that they all end the same way, either with death or a fetch quest that goes nowhere.
>>714000169
keep consuming slop, pig. at this point you can tell chatgpt to generate a fromsoftware game for you to play endlessly with how repetitive their gameplay and quests have become.

>>714000346
Yeah bro, games were better when they were instead big/empty AND couldn't design a single enemy that didn't function as a bonified zombie in any other video game.

>>713999971
>Big and small trumpeter
2 new enemies. Meanwhile drangleic castle has horsehead statues and pikemen statues, also 2 new enemies with the rest recycled.

>>714000535
Elden Ring has more unique build variety in a single player game than the staggering majoirty that exist, period. And anyone that plays games for fetch quests or turning in 10 boar assess are literal bug people.

>>714000715
It's the white people who make skyrim and kcd and yellow people who make elden ring anon.

>>713986815
Yes but how does it replenish? Does it rain too much or something? That would mean that the lake is artificial, but it doesn't look like that

>>713986907
It's Noklateo

>>714000605
Using that logic drangleic castle has way more because it introduces a differently sized chariot too. It also introduces a syan knight with a different weapon. Also, the mastodon knights are the golden variant. So 5 new enemies vs 2.
inb4
>i-it doesn't count because they're not that unique...
yet you count the envoys seperately

>>714001115
Ok then one new enemy for ER and 0 new enemies for DS2. And how many new enemies for lothric castle? Oh wait, zero.

>>714000715
>Elden Ring has more unique build variety in a single player game
and yet all melee weapons play the same.
heavy weapon? jump heavy, repeat.
light melee? light attack until the boss moves his arm then dodge.
only magic and ashes of war really have any variety to them, but even then it gets boring after a while (since combat is very simple in elden ring). also no, no one does that flashy shit you see on youtube in their playthrough realistically. the "variety" in the game is offset by the simple combat (light, heavy, dual attack).

>>714001115
The envoys are completely different enemies, they're just the same species of creature

>>713989601
The main entrance is where you fight Vordt. The world is collapsing and rising at the same time which has caused Lothric to break off leaving the bridge that connects Undead Settlement and Farron Keep below where it should be. I don't like DS3 but the world design does make sense here. The bigger "video gamey" issue is with Irithyll. The only entrance is through the catacombs which makes no sense.

>>714001318
>0 new enemies
Oh now we're lying? Horsehead statues and pikeman statues are new
1 vs 2

How are we still getting storyless empty open worlds in a post RDR2 world? You'll think games of this sort would have evolved by now.

>>713986583
Two great rivers flow beneath the Lands Between, the Siofra and the Ainsel. This vast region is said to be the grave of civilizations that flourished before the Erdtree.

SOTE is shit
SOTE bosses are shit

What is the point of arguing with someone that hasn't played the game about whether the game is good or not

>>714001660
Filtered

>>714001626
>Story is when you drive a car or walk slowly while NPCs talk
lol

>>714001626
>How are we still getting storyless empty open worlds in a post Gothic 2 world?
ftfy

>>713979196 (OP)
Fromsoft art direction is unmatched.
their games are truly beautiful in every sense.

>>714001742

>>714001626
Nigger
>>714001983
Filtered

>>714001983
Proof that SOTE bosses are great.
>You can cheese with greatshield
>You can tank every hit with the right build
>You can parry her to death
>You can deflect her to death
>You can mix roll, jumps and low stance attacks due to her extra precise hitboxes

>>713999429
kek that phantom

>>714001814
>4k
Post more

>>713998445
Anor Londo looked like an actual city of the Gods. You can absolutely imagine some powerful people living here and it juxtaposes well with the rest of the game in how clean and beautiful it is compared to the ugly undead burg and ruins found elsewhere in Ds1. Leyndell doesn't come close.

>>713999532
>slop
Sounds like you're a retard who doesn't know anything.
>One of the biggest criticisms of Elden Ring by people who fuck donkey dicks at it is that enemies are designed to react to player's actions too well.
Yup. You completely misunderstood what I was asking.
And you also refused to name a game championed here that has less mechanical complexity. Good strategy, given that you clearly don't know shit about action game mechanics. You're pretending fucking status effects that just stack damage are mechanical complexity, and you don't understand the concept of reacting to specific attacks.

>>713997871
They are less tutorial mouthpieces and far more all half-delusional doomed weirdos.

>>713997871
>In the Dark Souls games, the NPCs are what let you both learn more about the world and develop a stronger personal connection to it
Did you even play Dark Souls?

>>714000092
>enemies don't react to the player position they just put themselves automatically into whatever position is needed for them to do the epic combo they were programmed to do.
Objectively wrong. If you actually played the game, you'd know this.

>>714000402
>Do you think Genichiro just giving you a free mikiri counter every time you chug is the pinnacle of boss design?
No, I don't think his one single baitable and abusable move is the pinnacle of design. But I do think his other strings and how they change based on your deflections and distance from him and relative position to him are good design. But go ahead and keep pretending generic gap closers in ER are great boss design.

>>713994734
whatever this is called. I usually always make a character that can use a bit of everything.

>>714001635
Where do those rivers get their water from? The Snowfields?

>>714002242

>>714002398
Most of the Firelink NPCs are direct ways for the game to teach you about mechanics and how they all fit into the world.
And what the NPCs tell you is basically accurate and not very controversial.
While in ER, even the tutorial merchant NPCs all have an angle to manipulate you or you discover are wrong about everything/deluded about the world.
Laurentius vs Sellen or Corhyn

>>714002510
Again, it'd make a lot more sense if The Lands Between wasn't an island. What exactly are the lands "between" anyway? It's an ocean.
>omg time is convoluted blah blah blah
Shadow of the Colossus had its game world closed in by a cliff and it didn't make the world feel any less grand or less epic. If anything, it added to the feel that this particular land was special because it was quarantined off and that there was a world elsewhere.

Rollslop peaked in SotE (worst From dlc) and exposed how awful SotE boss design and roll combat are.
ER peaked with Malenia (one of best Souls bosses).
Sekiro shits on SotE.

>>714002510
Ainsel goes through Altus, Liurnia and Limgrave
Siofra through Mountaintops basin, Leyndell, Rauh and Caelid

>>714002849
>What exactly are the lands "between" anyway?
Middle-earth
it's just gurm ripping off Tolkien again

>>713998071
That is the world's worst cheese.
In the time and effort you'd take to spam night comet to whittle down a late game boss, you could have just killed them with a standard Strength build twice over.
Magic is not OP at all in Elden Ring. It is basically just Good. It is better than DEX, but worse than STR.

>>714003060
Filtered

>>714002849
Deliberately kept vague, it's a kind of mythical New World that ambitious people sail to in search of power.

>>713998695
>combos
Gross.

>>713999775
>>*Fweeeeeeeeee*
if all these illiterate retards crying 'no story' would read some lovecraft, they would understand the implication here.

It doesn't even matter anymore, From now only does Fortnite clones and coopslop

>>714003084
>>What exactly are the lands "between" anyway?
>Middle-earth
It's from the Midlands of Berserk, retarded Tolkienslopper

>>714003095
STR bonkers like to pretend INT is easymode but it's the other way around.
Most bosses are a lot harder as a wizard than a bonktard because most spells don't stagger at all.

>Azur Comet
It was nerfed to the ground. The real cheese is just jump attack spam. If you use light weapons you're playing hardmode.

>>714003075
Sorry if I didn't get it, but how does that answer my question? Maybe Mountaintop's snow is the water source?

>>714003320
It's only been a year since SOTE came out calm the fuck down. Single player masterpieces take time you know.

>>714003320
Even worse. Nightreign isn't so bad. The bosses and characters are cool. They learned something from SotE feedback.

>>714003505
>Single player masterpieces
fromsoys went hard with this 1

This game had too many fundamental problems like the lack of narrative and quests that are still shit like in souls.

>>714003252
Where are the boats and seaside villages if people sail to The Lands Between? Where are the farms? Why is Hogwarts in the middle of nowhere in a random lake? I hate to sound like a "what do they eat" poster but the world of Elden Ring is so video gamey it sets off my autism.

>>714002246
Anor Londo is locked in permanent stasis, while Leyndell has been the site of several sieges and is rotting from the ground up because of Deathroot.

>>714003505
>2gaas lmao
Nightreign didn't flop like VV.

>>714003371
Bro, your rock sling?
Staggers as fast as some str weapons while spamming it from afar.

>>713985818
same except its with INT
i love magic so much
even when i did a pure arcane i still put in points for faith to cast the dragon spells

>>713979196 (OP)
why did pooptide the heartrender do this?

>>713986907
did you consider that maybe the map was drawn when there was water?

>>713985979
this is why i just use cheat engine and give myself the starting equipment i want and enough runes to hit level ~40 so i can level End enough to wear my fashion
ng+1 is horribly balanced in favor of the player and too many really fun builds require dlc armor/spells/weapons to work properly

>>713983029
All of the pages that assrape you when you get near their old men are teenage girls.

>>714003730
yeah all the gods and monsters and ghosts, the immortal player character, etc but where I draw the line is the lack of coastal villages

>>714003923
The long cast time / slow projectile speed and shit tier damage make it pretty bad for most bosses, most of the rocks will miss too if it's not a huge dragon or something
It's more mana-economical to spam comet unless it's a magic resistant enemy.

>>713979196 (OP)

>>714003730
The people that sail there are not in the mind of making villages to profit off sea trade.
There's probably not even a real economy, Golden Rule made everyone immortal.

>>714003925
>rock sling
Pussy spell.

>>714003476
You asked where those two rivers come from and I told you where they flow
They come from Mt. Gelmir and Mountaintops
On Mountaintops the water freezes but flows under to Rauh
Rauh has a giant crumbling artificial acqueduct that brought water the Helphen Keep and the region of Gravesite plain and the Norther region of the Realm of Shadow.
Rot doesn't spread because it is cut off exactly by the flow of the Siofra river

So Miyazaki actually wrote the map taking care of every single detail

at least its not nightreign
lmao

>>714003961
chill bro it's not a complain it was just a funny fact

>>714001334
>they all play the same
Wrong. YOU play them all the same. Very different argument.

>>714004590
Incantations are even more overpowered than sorcery builds.

I love my doll wife

>>714004606
It's legitimately insane how actually smart Miyazaki is at creating worldbuilding. He would probably be a great mangaka

>>714004423
Strawman nonsense. The game world has contextualized gods and monsters to be real but The Lands Between is just empty outside of a few castles. But if there's nothing outside the castles then the castles have no reason to exist. They could have given us ruins to give us the illusion that this world USED to have people, but they don't do this. It's not like I'm asking for much, I just wish From actually gave a shit about the environmental world building instead of delegating all lore to vague item descriptions.

>>714004867
Yea. They're more fun too. Sorcery builds were really only powerful on release before nerfs. I mean the strongest sorcery is weapon art from INT weapons. Especially little dagger that casts comet

>>714005037
Nigger

I rather play Dragon's Dogma instead.

>>714005037
The castles are there because Gods fight against each other for the control of the territory.

>>713999075
I like having characters to talk to and be able to follow the stories in a way that makes sense instead of them just being basically statues in a corner and then 20 hours later they appear dead on a ditch because I didn't run into them in shitfuck castle before killing Myrmidon the forgiven.
I'm not asking for streamlining or casualization nor do I want the game to handhold me, I like that the game wants me to think and react appropriately, but the standards for Fromsoftware questlines are often retarded and annoying and tedious and esoteric, which it would be fine if it was like one questline per game, but it's not, it's all of them, you don't know how happy I was in Sekiro and Nightreign when I had this persistent cast of characters that I could actually see often and I actually got to know.

Would you say that sekiro is better than ER?

>>714005369
Lol not even close

>>714005369
Yes.

zanzibart lives like this?

>>714005369
Yes, because I actually like video games.

>>713999429
AI in ER isn't a joke, the bosses are very intricately designed, but the way they are designed can often be annoying and grating because the boss design is built around having "gotchas" on the player, most high level bosses will often pull out some super move in the middle of the fight that's basically impossible to predict and understand until you die a couple times or they use actual trashbag game design like an enemy's feet sliding on the ground so the attack can reach further or track you better than you'd expect, to see the greatest example of this look at Heolstor in Nightreign and his pokes where he only takes step forward but he slides 20 meters closer to you because the game is more about rolling at the right time than positioning.

>>714005369
not a chance. its japanese spiderman

>>714005369
>L1L1L1L1L1
No
>>714005763
Wrong

>>714005369
Sekiro is better in terms of combat, but if that's the only thing that makes a game good for you than you do you. Elden Ring mogs in terms of world, lore, sense of wonder, visual spectacle, music, aestethics, armors, weapons, enemy variety, replayability, builds. Idk how anyone can consider it inferior to Sekiro, but i guess it doesn't really matter either way. I played both. Enjoyed ER far more.

>>714004423

>the game has dragons and mages so why are you upset that there's a Toyota Corolla Hybrid that you can ride after buying a key from Zanzibort the frenzied vendor?

>>714000851
How are Asians so good at making art and why do Europeans suck at it?

>>714006021
>blocking is good
but you took damage vs not taking damage by i-frames abuse

>>714006029
>Sekiro is better in terms of combat
It's also better aesthetically, in terms of characters, and in terms of storytelling. No, doing the whole "recreating the experience of an ESLfag trying to read an English book experience set in a dying dark fantasy world" thing for the 5th time is not good storytelling.

>>714001814
That is by far the best armor in the game.

>>714006021
Nigga you're not showing Heolstor attacking your mp4 has heem getting his ass beat after flying for a few seconds

>>714005369
>not open world
already 10000 times more bearable

>>714001983
>bosses work for every play style and shields are really good again
>this is bad because they should make you rollspam instead

>>713983876
>I had hoped it'd be more of a puzzle to reach him.
That sounds cool but you have to consider the replayability. Doing the first time is nice but have to do it again and again each playthrough would be annoying as fuck

>>714006356
>are really good again
It works in all souls games. Even in BB.

>>714005037

There are ruins all over the game but they don't feel like towns or centers of population at all, usually they're like copy pasted shacks or copypasted stone ruins, Elden Ring doesn't do a good job showing places where commoners might have lived in the past at all, now, it'd be unrealistic to ask Fromsoft to show a perfectly logical world but they don't do enough to suspend my deisbelief personally, and seems like it's the same with you.

I think Shadow of the Erdtree was better with this, not perfect, but way better than the base game.

>>714003730
Raya Lucaria was on an island, the issue is that everything is sinking around it and there's no one to maintain it.
Around the Southern Entrance you can see tons of half-sunk forts and houses and large buildings that in one time would have been a full city around the school.
But Rennala is braindead and the Sorcerers running the school don't care about the outside world, so they don't help fix that.
Otherwise they'd have dug dykes or reinforced foundations or the like.

>>714006448
if playing through an area is annoying as fuck then what the fuck is the point of playing the game though? I have fun cleaning the levels and unlocking the shortcuts in older souls games and I did too in Elden Ring.
I don't think it'd get annoying at all, the fun is not just the bosses and leveling, the legacy areas too.

>>714003923
Rock sling is only good against slow bosses and enemies.
Against anyone that can close a gap the slow time to cast makes it hard to use.

>>714006221
its a good one, but this one is my favorite.

>>713984216
I liked Dark Souls because the mechanics and the worldbuilding fit together very well, I had to do very little work to suspend my disbelief. Same with Armored Core 6, btw. With Elden Ring, they did absolutely no work whatsoever to ensure the lore and the mechanics worked together at all, it's just blatantly Dark Souls 4 but open world and everyone ever is a zombie now.

I think Fromsoft has already given up a lot that made Souls distinct in the first place, so if they want to make a huge open world then I think the bare minimum that calls for is a few functional NPC hubs, be that camps, towns, garrisons of soldiers, or whatever else. From is too pozzed to ever give us a 'save the princess' type of story and instead opted for 'rule the world' here, but the world is repeatedly shown to be a massive, barren ruin full of murder zombies. The in game player motivation in ER doesn't work because we are given nothing worth ruling.

>>714006029
>Sekiro is better in terms of combat
Wrong

>>714005369
>90% of the prosthetics are trash, the remaining are shitty gimmicks
>98% of your combat arts are straight up garbage
>bosses are just parryslop over and over, little to no positioning, no strategy, no tactic, just a very basic low skill ceiling rhythm game
>90% of bosses constantly either cancel to block hits or superarmor, meaning using attacks slower than R1 is a bad idea unless they go beyond blocks (see Ichimonji spam)
No, the only people who like Sekiro better are people who suck major ass at Elden Ring

>>714006886
I think it's quite telling that most endings in Elden Ring just don't feel as impactful at all when the game ends, they are either the Ranni ending (we like her cause she's a waifu but what the fuck does her age of stars mean? What's she even gonna do?) or the frenzy ending (the most emotionally evocative ending with very striking imagery, the implications of it are also clear, the lands between are destroyed and the world has now a new world ending threat to deal with, you), and then the copy pasted endings of the mc sitting on the elden throne, these endings are the worst ones, it doesn't matter if it's an age of order or fracture or duskborn, it's just you sitting on a chair and you don't even know what's gonna happen now, idk why everyone is a zombie in the lands between anyway but aside from that, yeah, the world is empty and in ruins and now you made the erdtree change color and what the fuck does that mean? Seriously can someone tell me what the implications are for goldmask ending? How is anyone gonna repopulate? Lands between are fucked.

>>714007258
>90% of the prosthetics are trash, the remaining are shitty gimmicks
>98% of your combat arts are straight up garbage
Skill issue

>>714007320
>I think it's quite telling that most endings in Elden Ring just don't feel as impactful at all when the game ends
According to YOU maybe
The only ending I would think as impactful as Age of Stars, Order or Frenzy is Usurpation of Fire and maybe Back to Slumber

>>714007320
>I'm too retarded to understand the story, so it's bad

>>713980474
>why isn't this post-apocalyptic action game a detailed RPG with tons of characters

>>714001983
>NOOOOOOOOO I DON'T WANT DIFFERENT PLAYSTYLES OR VARIED WAYS TO BEAT THE BOSS NOOOOOO I WANT ROLL + R1 SPAM TO BE THE ONLY WAY TO WIN EVER NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Souls "veterans" are embarrassing

>>713985818
>Be me Strength Chad
>Ancient Meteoric Ore Greatsword is my favorite weapon
>Have to go all the way to Mohg and 20 min in the DLC
At one point I said fuck it and use cheat engine

>>713980083
Fair, but I don't really want to wander around a world full of tiny peasant hovels when I could have grand churches, castles, universities and cathedrals to explore instead. We can just pretend that all of the smaller dwellings were burnt to the ground when the normies died.

>>714007607
>No, you don't understand bro, this retarded video game lore that GRRM scribbled on the back of a napkin and Miyazaki used to justify fighting Godefroy the grafted is really like Dostoevsky, it's like Cormac McCarthy, it's great literature that you are not fit to appreciate

>>714007780
I would agree but if you can get away with spamming R1 then it's not a good design. Shield and spear are all about stamina management.

>>714005369
>90% of the spells are trash, the remaining are shitty gimmicks
>98% of your aow are straight up garbage
>bosses are just rollslop over and over, little to no positioning, no strategy, no tactic, just a very basic low skill ceiling rollspam game
>90% of bosses constantly either spam combos or superarmor, meaning using attacks slower than 1-2 R1 is a bad idea unless your weapon can stance break
Yes, the only people who like Elden Ring better are people who suck major ass at Sekiro

>>714007476
how is being to just defect and poke everything to death a skill issue?

>>714007663
It's in no way post-apocalyptic. It's set in the aftermath of a continental war that ended up in a stalemate, all the demigods involved in the war are still alive and still have encampments of soldiers scattered around the world.

>>714007320
As though endings in the dark souls games weren't all just "continue to light the fire", "let the fire go out" or "some secret third thing"

>>713988025
Based Tanimura gave is Best Souls 2 and make faggots seethe to this day

>>713989218
faggot ass weapon for a faggot ass character. it rhythms.

>>713990708
Now that I think about it the game would have felt bigger if it started in the weeping peninsula and once you enter the mainland it would have been much better

>>714008095
>>714007607
Idk about Souls 2, but Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1, Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne, and Sekiro all have endings that are quite impactful and clear in their conclusiveness, I know what the fuck happens when Wolf sacrifices his life to let Kuro live, I know what the fuck happens when I kill Gehrman to take over the hunter's dream, but tell me, what the fuck happens when I bring forth the age of the duskborn or despair or stars or anything that isn't frenzy and why should I care?

I'm not searching for here to dislike niggers, I like Elden Ring, I want to find things to like and enjoy but the endings don't have 'em.

>>714007780
>le DIFFERENT PLAYSTYLES
>turtling with shield
>jump attack spam
>all dogshit gameplay for retards
There is a reason why 95% of Nightreign players are god awful and can't even roll through easiest ER bosses. Because all of them used so called "le DIFFERENT PLAYSTYLES" "to beat the game". The crutches people use to not learn mechanics and beat bosses with ease. Same shit happened in AC6.
Le DIFFERENT PLAYSTYLES is a lie. ER was designed around nothing but rollspam. That's why bosses have 3000 ways to counter rolling especially in DLC. Roll catches, mixups, delayed attacks, input reading, constant aggression and hyper armor. All this was done for rolling. Devs know that rolling is the main defense mechanic. They didn't balance the game around "le different playstyles". It's all same shit easy mode.

>>714008758
>There is a reason why 95% of Nightreign players are god awful and can't even roll through easiest ER bosses. Because all of them used so called "le DIFFERENT PLAYSTYLES" "to beat the game".
This is extremely true. The amount of people who used the least skilled, least interactive, most fraudulent "playstyles" and arte absolutely SHITTING THE BED in Nightreign is crazy big.

>>714008064
people literally cannot die, caelid is completely uninhabitable, the gods abandoned the planet and the demigods are all dead or dying
godrick is a second-rate retard who will never accomplish anything
radahn's syphilis has rotted his brain and he's now an animal
malenia was just sitting in a hole doing nothing, also slowly dying
ranni is getting ready to leave the planet
rykard has kind of accomplished things but he's also merged with a disgusting creature, losing much of his personality

>>714005763
>AI in ER isn't a joke
Calling it AI implies that the conditions of the battle affect what they do. But it's really just three things: distance from player, if the flask input was registered, and taking enough damage to shift phases. Other than that there's no real interaction between the player and the boss because the player can't do anything to the boss, there's nothing to react to. The boss essentially cycles between combos at random while the player's weapon hitbox applies negative values to its healthbar.

>>714008758
The Devs designed the game around punishing rolls and made jumps, blocking, parrying, heavy aggression, hyper armor+regeneration, and even fucking backsteps more viable than rolling. How do you take away "WE ONLY WANT ROLLS" from that?

>>714008036
This sounds like an extreme case of skill issue
>90% of spells are trash, the remaining are shitty gimmicks
The first part is undeniably false, most spells are good and it's an outlier for one to be bad actually, and what the fuck does the second part even mean? They're not trash but instead they're shitty and a gimmick? Learn what words mean retard

>98% of Aow are straight up garbage
LMAO okay you're baiting or you've never played the game

>>714003295
Very true

>>714009290
Now let's see what players do against gay Radahn if they don't have a hyperspecialised fingerprint turtle build.

>>714009084
>godrick is a second-rate retard who will never accomplish anything
he's me fr

>>713979196 (OP)
>.

you just described an AI system, sure it's not a friggiin android but yeah, NPCs act differently based on what the player is doing, be it distance from the player, or dodging because of a spell, or attacking because of healing, or raising a shield when they're at a distance at which they can be attacked, etc.

That's an AI in a game, maybe you don't like how it's done or you think it can be done better but it's an AI

>>714009290
>made jumps
Ah yeah. Legendary jumps in ER. You don't even know what attacks are jumpable because this isn't Sekiro with actual refined combat.
>consort fight
>you're supposed to jump over AoE light shit even though it doesn't look jumpable at all
>literally lasers from the sky

>>714008743
>duskborn
People that die can now legally reinhabit corpses
>despair
Everyone will be born cursed and in constant pain (asshole ending)
>stars
The Elden Ring is outside of people's reach, they must now think for themselves instead on leaning on the word of divine figures

>>714009638
marshmallow pisses me off

>>714008758
>It's designed with nothing but rollspam in mind! the game is shallow and simple!
>j-just ignore all the other defense mechanics they put into the game, like parrying, blocking, sekiro physick, posture breaking, defensive talismans, defensive consumables, defensive spells, defensive aows, etc. that's cheating and if you use them YOU DIDN'T BEAT THE GAME
souls purist faggots like you are just angry that you didn't have fun ignoring every other aspect of combat in the game and instead threw your head at the wall trying to rollspam + r1 every boss to death with no clothes and a stick

>>714005037
>it's just that I can't install skyrim sex mods to this game so there's nothing for anyone to do in it

>>714009619
use the deflect flask and the reinforced blocking

>>713997672
Agreed. Scav Swords with frost on them and jump attacking is bar none the strongest built.

>>713983741

>>714009619
Beat him anyway?
>>714009690
Skill issue
>this isn't Sekiro
Even bigger skill issue then

>>714010050
>"other defense mechanics"
>bosses don't even react to other defense mechanics unlike with rolling
>"other defense mechanics" didn't change at all
Yeah sure. Turtling with shield or spamming jump attacks to stagger bosses are peak gameplay. Devs totally designed combat around such defense mechanics. Rellana has 120 poise because From didn't like stagger spam.

>>714010050
If you can't rollspam the majority of the roster into submission, you're a shitter.

Those guys carrying you in Nightreign? They're the guys who know how to play properly. Those guys three barring on night 1? Those are "PLAAAAAAAAYSSTYLLLEE" niggers who never learned a boss' moveset.

>>713979196 (OP)
How many of the demigods actually resided there at it's height

>>713987591
You have to listen to the envoys 24/7

>>714007934
>>714008743
Not my fault you are retarded
Ranni literally explains that she removes the Elden Ring from the Lands Between, with the concept of Order no longee binding people's fate like the Erdtree or the Golden Crucible did respectively in their ages

>>714010598
Yeah they gave rellana low poise to incentivize staggering her because of how hyper aggressive and fast she is, other bosses are much harder to stagger, could it be that some bosses are weaker, or more resistant to certain game mechanics than others?

>other defense mechanics didn't change
Jumping attacks, which you seem to hate so much, are literally a new mechanic that allow for you to both dodge certain boss attacks while punishing them if you understand their moveset well enough, tell me what's wrong about that from a game design perspective without using meaningless buzzwords

And that's also just not true, you can make a whole guard counter build around the deflecting tear that give you a sekiro like block, that hasn't existed in traditional souls games, it's a new mechanic they brought over from a different style of game that they made

>bosses dont react to other defense mechanics unlike with rolling
How should they react? Do you want every boss to have an attack that immediately breaks you out of a guard if they see you holding out a shield or something? Shield builds work because there are other tools in the game to increase your stamina pool and regeneration enough so that you can survive through an attack chain without your guard being broken and opening you up to a huge punish, did you forget that was part of the game?

>>714010679
For certain, Malenia and Miquella grew up there.
Godwyn and Messmer probably lived there.
Morgott and Mohg lived underneath in the sewers.
Ranni, Rykard, and Radahn, might have visited or moved in when Radagon left their mother.
>>714010598
FROM has been doing the "super fast and aggressive sword woman who is easy to stance break", for a long time. It is a trope of theirs at this point. Like 4 winged dragons.

>>714010606
So then why are you all complaining they made it harder to dodge by just rolling? If it's so easy, just as easy as every other souls game, why are you complaining about the mixups added to boss movesets to punish you for rolling too early?

>>714009723
>All wrong
Kek

>>714012140
What are the correct interpretations then? I'm open to changing my mind.

Elden Ring filtering Sekiroshitters is the best part of /v/ threads

>>714006029
>Elden Ring mogs in terms of world, lore, sense of wonder, visual spectacle,
Sekiro is better in all of that. ER does nothing we haven't seen in a Souls game before.

>>714012339
>Square Off
You didn't beat the game. Sorry that ability is too OP it trivializes the game and it's design by putting everything in a stunlock loop from two attacks.

>>713979196 (OP)
Best dungeon in all of Video Games.

>>714011825
wdym retarded, I understand what you're saying I'm just saying I don't care, Elden Ring failed at making me care and getting an emotional response as intense as literally every other Fromsoftware game, I can't unfeel that you troglodyte

>>713979196 (OP)
Everything looks too samey and i always end up running around looking for the well to the sewers. Stormveil was better

>>713979196 (OP)
Most legacy dungeons in ER sucked. There's no gameplay, it's just a bunch of enemies in a more or less labyrinthine environment. Whether you go right or left, or whether you unlock a shortcut or the next checkpoint, you're still just killing enemies in the exact same way as the open world.
The level design in the DeS --> BB era was much more engaging

>>714013419
>it's just a bunch of enemies in a more or less labyrinthine environment.
This is literally all Souls and Sekiro.

>>713988025
The bad parts of Elden ring are all mitsubishi's doing anon

>>714000715
>Elden Ring has more unique build variety in a single player game
LOL.
LMAO even.

>>714013626
No, actual good levels have interesting mechanics, sections and scenarios where you have to solve some kind of problem. In most ER legacy dungeons you just run around and whack dudes

>>714012296
>What are the correct interpretations then?
The Age of the Duskborn ending means people become undead and their soul remains in their dead body after death. As such people Live in Death rather than having their soul and body pass away
The Age of Despair ending means people become affected by Omen curse, so explosed to Crucible currents that make them develop horns similarly to the Hornsent, the Misbegotten or Bayle. As such their souls become wraiths that then spread and multiply through reproduction
The Age of Fracture restores the Erdtree burials and resumes the Age of the Erdtree by mending the Elden Ring without a mending rune.
The Age of Order embeds Goldmask's calculations of light cipher, the language of the Grace that binds people souls to Order, to mend the Elden Ring with the Fate of all in the Lands Between, blending the Stargazers and the Erdtree worshippers fates in the Perfect Order mending rune, since they actually both draw their Fate from the light/starlight manifester by the Stars of the Greater Will, and the dichotomy is only apparent.
The Age of Stars causes the dissolution of the old Order. Ranni's Order is instead signified by the Moon, an entity that binds the Fate of the Eternal Cities first and then all the Lands Between inhabitants, but such Order is distant and removed and the Fate it writs in the sky does not enforce a rigid cycle of Life and Death that all being go through.

None of those are bad endings.

>>713979805
That's only half the city. It also has a fully explorable underground. It's fucking ridiculous. I spent 20 hours there alone

>>714014596
It's also false as there's not a single Skyrim city with 20 buildings.

>>714014201
All the """"""interesting mechanics""""""" in DeS are just a giant poison swamp (5-2), every other occasion is just a special enemy, which all ER dungeons have. ER also has significantly greater verticality and platforming opportunities, only second to Sekiro since it's a ninja action game.

>>714000346
>i don't like empty boss gallery
>that's why i prefer empty gallery without bosses

>>714014481
This is just what i said first but longer.
>duskborn
Yeah, obviously if they are allowed to Live in Death then everyone will eventually become undead, it will just take a while.
>despair
All those horns and internalized wraiths hurt like shit and greatly increase chances of death. You'd only choose this ending if you want people to suffer.

>>714014481
frenzied flame is the best ending
you're restarting the universe and you and Melina can make a better place

>>714014717
Comparing white run against Leyndell will make anyone commit seppuku, Elden Ring doesn't have citizen NPCs or anything of the sort but the amount of sheer architecture has ER mogging Skyrim very plainly.

>>714015567
no but what did they mean by this

>>714014792
SotE totally dropped the ball on level and dungeon design to be fair. The only good area in SotE is the messmer castle. The other shit is stuff like
>that madness mansion which is literally just a hallway
>has a grace after every time the hallway turns
>but for some reason there's also a shortcut to the next grace between every grace
Why the fuck? If you wanna go to a grace you just teleport, why unlock shortcuts between graces? It's just such nonsensical lazy design.
That first castle was also just empty hallways with random enemies strewn about. The only actual level design was sometimes an enemy would be behind a hidden corner and wind up an attack with hyperarmor. Yes very cool, please move on from this boring dogshit. Even if you see them they get hyperarmor and get to smack them. It's not fun or interesting, people shat on DS2 for overdoing this (my one gripe with the game) and ER gets a free pass

>>713979196 (OP)
The dragon was too much. It takes the spotlight from the city which is more than interesting enough in itself. It didn't need a huge dead lizard covering half of it.

>zoomzooms arguing over whose better at fake difficulty artificial open world poo-slop made for normies who like game of thrones
my honest reaction

>>714015763
>SotE totally dropped the ball
full stop

>>714015398
>This is just what i said first
No
>All those horns and internalized wraiths hurt like shit and greatly increase chances of death.
No, because the issues Omens have is they become resonant of wraiths that can't find their way to the Erdtree and their birth is not embedded in the Order.
In the Age of Despair the curse is now a blessing, so in the actual game lingo the ability to give life

>>713981905
Nope. Sorry. The clutter of randomly placed unreachable towers in the distance hasnt been interesting to me since I was 12. Grow up.

>>714015763
No, it didn't
>>that madness mansion which is literally just a hallway
>>has a grace after every time the hallway turns
>>but for some reason there's also a shortcut to the next grace between every grace
cherrypicking the only area that is mediocre.
SotE is choke full of fantastic levels, areas and dungeons

>>714015740
Melina doesn't need to know. You can complete her quest and still become Lord of the Frenzied Flame.

>>714014481
The Age of Despair doesn't turn people into Omens because the Dung Eater doesn't actually give a shit about Omens, he just liked that they were hated and reviled.
It is just a pestilential curse on all of the world to make it suffer forever, not some kind of transformation that touches everyone with part of the Crucible.

>>714005369
tough to say one or the other. build and gameplay variety goes to elden ring. tight gameplay and skill goes to sekiro. i also like that surviving sekiro doesn't come down to rolling around like an idiot. i'd choose parry slop to roll slop any day, especially for a swordfighting game.
if i had to choose, i'd pick sekiro because it was an intense and focused test of skill and persistence. elden ring is a great game, though every build choice is viable and it comes down to rolling or taking. you can also reach a level where all your attributes are high and you become this overpowered blob.

>>714015740
They mean that with Death restored now Ghostflame also has back its murky violet hue, so those who Live in Death now have violet eyes

>>714017225
but I became Frenzied to save Melina

>>714017424
Its funny to see people jump through hoops about her not being the Gloam Eyed Queen for whatever reason.

>>714017229
You have been btfo like a retarded oorelet every time you made this post
The Dung Eater cares about wraiths because his soul is a wraith, as seen in game. His armor bears the Sun of the Fell God.

The ending is extremely explicit that the Omens suffer because their curse, which is the wraiths that torment them, lingering souls with nowhere to go. With the Age of Despair the curse (meaning the actual wraiths) becomes a blessing (returning to the Erdtree, which births them anew as Crucible-touched) due to the Pox

>>714017585
Because she is not the Gloam Eyed Queen, and people who claim it are retarded and don't understand what the murky violet eye actually is.

>>713998523
same, though I beat it at about 200 hours. that's what ng+ is for though, whenever you do want to pick it up again.

>>714016295
Horns and wraiths caused early death even before the Golden Order.

>>713980474
>everything i play has to be exactly the same
The universe is trying to tell you something but you're too stupid to listen.

>>714017776
are you the schizo that defends the DLC lore?

>>713979196 (OP)
Why do they even build buildings if there's nobody living there, in every souls game

>>714017817
The horns cause death because the condition is not natural, and entirely due to the Hornsent being foreigners that came in the Lands Between and mutated due to the powerful Crucible currents that affected them specifically.

The accumulation of wraiths can cause deforming growth, a vestige of Primordial Life born of de-evolution that is seen across all races from giants to dragons.

The only way to stop that deformed growth is the Age of Despair.

>>714017634
The Omen do have perpetual nightmares, but that is also driven obviously by them being tortured and locked in sewers and regularly hunted by Omen Killers.
They create wraiths because they exist in a state of perpetual torment and suffering on account of Marika hating them.
The Dung Eater likes the part where they're hated, but he doesn't give a shit about the Omens in a deeper level.
Instead of understanding that their horns come from them being touched by the Crucible, the fountain of life, and that said horns aren't a curse at all, he recreates them through horrific violence and blasphemy in a twisted and vile form that is disconnected from all of the rest of life.
Using iconography very similar to the Fell God is just more LARPing from the Dung Eater. He has no link to the giants other than enjoying using one's spine as a weapon after killing it or stealing the sword from someone that did. It is also something hated and reviled by the Golden Order, therefore he likes it more.

>>714017987
Are you the faggot that gets clowned every time he asks about Miquella's body and hasn't gotten over being wrong about Godwyn theories taken from Vaatividya?

>>714017776
>told about a purple eyed royal who delivered death to demigods
>meet a purple eyed royal who promises to deliver death to us (a god)
Story writing isn't that complex. It is extremely obvious that Melina was being revealed to be the the GEQ in that scene. If it looks a certain way on the face, it probably is.

>>714017634
>Omens suffer because their curse
They suffer because of the golden order. The Omens aren't cursed at all. They are suffering a blowback because Marika tried to cut off and suppress the emanations of the crucible which is just the past form of the elden ring. And you can't do that because the crucible created all life.

>>714018782
>those that live in dead are harmle...
>sentences you to a eternity of fighting for fun

>>714018750
>They create wraiths because they exist in a state of perpetual torment
No, they accumulate wraiths because wraiths are attracted by the Crucible-knot. They also exist outside Omen, but find the Omen as hosts.

The Dung Eater correctly seeds the pox in bodies, where they grow and affect the soul in a way that turns them into wraiths

Each defilement advances a cause of the Dung Eater, because the Erdtree was built over turning the Golden Crucible into the Scadutree. This is why the Sun Fell God is depicted with Omen horns even by Messmer soldiers. The Furnace Visage haunts the hornsent sagas in the same way the Omen are haunted in their sleep. This is also why the Horned Bairn from which you posted the description is found in an Ulcerated Tree Spirit.

Through the Mending Rune of the Fell Curse, the Order is defiled, and as such wraiths becomes the equivalent of souls, meaning in this new Order, souls are first defiled and then they return to the Erdtree as wraiths for the rebirth. This at the same time solves the issue of Omens hosting wraiths and wraiths stuck in the Lands Between with no guidance.

The Dung Eater is a questline of terrible vengeance against the Erdtree. The headcanon you made up to justify your 3 years long committment to claiming the Dung Eater is a 1 dimensional evil dude is retarded and completely unfounded.

Omen curse was cast upon humanity by the hornsent as their last "fuck you" before they faded into history.
>You may have bested us but your children will now be sometimes born resembling your enemies from ages ago.
This is why Marika hated Omens.

>>714018928
Purple is the color Ghostflame turns into at the end. Maliketh has purple eyes
Spectral light turns into purple.
Ghostflame torch turns purple
Melina is now the Gloam Eyed Queen. She is a Death priestess that lived her whole life stuck in a cellar. The Roundtable Hold depicts the role those priests have, able to conjure death into the flower Crucible.

The Gloam Eyed Queen is Eiglay, a shape shifting serpent associated with fertility and births and actually tied to the Godskins unlike Melina.

>>714019876
The Dung Eater is a 1 Dimensional Evil Retard and he tells the player that openly.
There's no depth to him because he's the uncomplicated, "Bad Guy Ending Pathway".

The Dung Eater creates seeds for a Great Rune by torturing people to the point that their souls twist and change and warp. He curses them through brutality
This is similar to the suffering of the Omens themselves, who are tormented and create wraiths, both real and mental, that torture them further. They are unreasonably and unfairly cursed by Marika.
The Omen Bairn even preserves that this curse is artificial and external, "Please, don't hate me, or curse me. Please."
But the Dung Eater doesn't care about this. He just likes the idea of being one of the reviled and hated. So he dresses like an Omen, but it is just skin deep.

There is no reason to think that the Erdtree turned the Crucible into the Scadutree. That is just headcanon.
The Sun God being depicted with horns does link it to the Crucible, but that is something we already had an idea about before the DLC. The Forge of the Giants is literally modeled in the shape of a giant crucible.

The Dung Eater quest is just the game's requisite edgelordism for people that like that type of stuff and it gives the setting the ability to actually track how a Great Rune could develop, entirely separate from any actual Gods. Just through one psychopath's absolute derangement and faith in himself.

>>713989168
This but uninronically. In fact I think your post is so retardedly backwards and wrong I will screencap it for future amusement.

>>714020000
And the uniqueness of the Hornsent and Omen conditions is irrelevant to the symbolism and relevance horns had before that, when the Fell God was the worshipped deity.
The Lamenters, that achieved full communion, carry the face of the Fell God in their back like the Fire Giants do in their belly, and all Hornsent fear the Fell God because it haints them due to the Crucible influence causing the de-volutions.

The Dung Eater is an Omen without having horns because before the Hornsent and the Erdtree people were bound through Order to the Golden Crucible without transforming into horned being themselves.

The Dung Eater was one of them, his tarnished gold armor, seedbed curse aside, is the exact same of the Crucible Knights, with the same tarnished coloring, and Sun imagery matches the Fell God, and when you actually realize that his committment to spreading the Fell Curse is a justified seething vengeance and just one of the many endings, none of which are "good" or "evil".

But you didn't understand that because you took 2 elements out of 1000 and projected your own lame ass headcanon over the actual story.

>>713992649
>>713998445
>>714020921
You all are just on the opposite curve of the contrarian swing right now.
10 years ago games like RAGE were made fun of brutally for having elaborate skyboxes and simplistic levels.
Now you're going to act like having gestures at a game world the player can never interact with is good because it is trendy to be contrarian against open world titles.

>>714020907
NTA but is there a single evidence to what you are saying?
>There is no reason to think that the Erdtree turned the Crucible into the Scadutree
The fucking trailer said this
Marika created Gold and SO TOO WAS SHADOW BORN
The Thorn spell denouncing the Scadutree is also in the Hornsent museum
I think you are talking out of your ass

>>714021530
Evidence for what part?

We know the Omen have nightmares about wraiths tormenting them, this comes from the Omen Killer Mask. With the Omen Killers modeling themselves on these nightmares.
But we also know that the Omen aren't actually vile cursed monsters, but that horns are direct results of being touched by the Crucible. The Crucible talismans all talk about how various animal traits, like horns, feathers, tails, are just aspects of being closer to the Crucible which was the primordial soup life sprang from. Omens are closer to the Crucible Knights than something actually twisted and evil like Revenants.
What is more likely than the Omen just being horribly cursed from birth, is that they are just tormented and tortured, which they are, into ending up traumatized and actually cursed. Perhaps even deliberately so by Marika. Ones like Mohg and Morgott that managed to escape their fate in the sewers and gain a control over their lives aren't shedding wraiths all the time and don't have cursed souls. They instead are just demigods, as the others.

The Dung Eater is shallow and what he wants is to embrace what is hated by society and revel in it.
He wants to be disgusting, deranged, violent, brutal, and vile in every way possible. And he likes that Omens are treated like dogshit, so he dresses as one.
But he has no understanding of the Omens themselves. He doesn't understand their link to the Crucible or how they're not evil curses at all.
He doesn't care about anything but being disgusting and ostracized as much as is possible.

Yes, the Scadutree is the dark reflection of the Erdtree, but that doesn't mean that the Crucible was used as the material to create it.
The Crucible is a separate entity from both, but the Erdtree acts as a modern version of it in certain ways.