Where are the civilians?
Why is every town, village, and city empty?
Why are the only "people" you come across either insane demigods or mindless zombies?
Why are there less than 10 people to talk to in the entire country?
This "world" doesn't feel very alive...

>>715657224 (OP)
Good point... Fromsoftware formula has his limitations... Not very well suited for open world.

>>715657224 (OP)
you dont get it anon
its supposed to empty, lifeless, and static

>>715657224 (OP)
>Mindless zombies
There they are

To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Elden Ring. The lore is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of ancient philosophy most of the worldbuilding will go over a typical viewer's head.

>>715657224 (OP)
Because the world is shattered and rotting. That's the premise of every Dark Souls game.

>>715657224 (OP)
the world blew up or something

>>715657224 (OP)
everyone's undead, Jim

>>715657804
thats boring as shit

The intro tells you

>>715658884
damn, war kills everyone?
Wait a minute, so World War 1 and 2 was a bunch of bullshit?

these dudes are all over most population centers
>but they're mean to me :(
most of them are passive and only fight you if you attack first
the aggressive ones are justified regardless, you're intruding on their home and killing and looting everything in sight
>but i want to have pointless conversations and do heckin skyrim quests with them
play a different game
it's an action RPG, not a life sim

>>715657224 (OP)
Might have something to do with the game's premise of civilization collapsing because the god of that world shattering the fundamental rules of nature, just a guess.

>>715659120
Basically it's not an RPG

>>715659149
Honestly, I'd agree to this.
Farum Azula is the only place in the game that feels like a level, designed with its own dignity and intent to progress. Farum Azula is a very strange place in Elden Ring, and I would absolutely believe it was the first area of Elden Ring that was made, since it FEELS like a Dark Souls area, built around access to a jump button.
The rest of Elden Ring is pretense you skip over to go fight the bosses. Elden Ring is full of enemies who will never threaten you, compared to the dangerous rooms, or enemies who never quite stop being dangerous of the Dark Souls games. Mastery of the levels themselves is considered part of the process for Dark Souls. Reaching the boss with minimal damage, used resources, ect is part of that boss, you gain more resources for doing the level well. The legacy dungeons lack form, most are incredibly open ended, and can just be skipped, and their challenges can be circumvented. Nothing in the world is forcing you to deal with it, you can just ride Torrent around or jump over anything you don't want to deal with. Smaller dungeons are even worse, often positioning the same, pathetic enemies in front of you to give the illusion of an accomplishment and resistance, but in reality may as well not be there, since you can just be entitled to a top off against the boss anyways.
Stakes of Marika are the ultimate admission that the game simply is not concerned with the majority of its content. You should not care about the dungeons or the areas, the game doesn't, and you should just skip them.

It is basically a gnostic tale and mythology. The lands between is some sort of purgatory or bardo or limbo.

>>715657224 (OP)
When does elden ring get good? I played it for a few hours but I just got frustrated after getting repeatedly killed by anything and everything and not understanding what the hell I was supposed to be doing.
t. never played a souls game

>>715659434
it's an action RPG
roleplaying through action, not dialogue trees

>>715657224 (OP)
>This "world" doesn't feel very alive...
I don't think FromSoftware were trying to make The Lands Between feel alive as that would go against Elden Ring's themes and direction.

>>715660238
either look up builds to become OP, like the vast majority of people who played the game, or just drop it
what you experienced is what the entire game is, it doesn't change or open up narratively or whatever. It's just combat

>>715660238
The game peaks in its legacy dungeons but you need to get better at the combat and level up your character in order to reach them.

>>715657224 (OP)
Talking with NPCs is shitty gameplay. If you want to read, read a book.

>>715660392
>either look up builds to become OP, like the vast majority of people who played the game
You don't have to do any of that. The game tells you enough about how your stats and weapons work so minmaxing would just make the game less interesting.

>>715660238
follow the golden beam, if you hit a boss you can't beat go fuck around the map until you're stronger and try again
don't listen to the pussy faggots who tell you to look up where the broken shit is

>>715657224 (OP)
worked better in dark souls where it was always obvious that the part of lordran you're exploring is not all of it whereas in elden ring you are traveling across the entire landmass of the lands between which makes the whole game less immersive because it's treated as more of an attraction. people always talk about the immersive qualities of open worlds, but immersion is one of those words that just gets parroted without any thought

>>715660712
if anon is getting killed by everything, he probably will get more out of the game by min/maxxing. even then, looking up the guide would tell the player where certain spells/weapons are and could bee-line to it as opposed to hoping to stumble on a 'good' item and not realizing what he has or finding an item thats actually pretty ass and he invests in it only to get fucked over.

>>715657224 (OP)
Where are the civilians?

They went cray cray

Why is every town, village, and city empty?

They are not

Why are the only "people" you come across either insane demigods or mindless zombies?

Because it’s post apocalyptic and you are acknowledging there are people still left

Why are there less than 10 people to talk to in the entire country?

Post apocalyptic only few sane remain you can still put them to sleep too.

This "world" doesn't feel very alive...

Post apocalyptic… the world is meant to feel broken and dying that’s why I love it.

>>715660238
i genuinely recommend playing older souls games first, maybe at least ds1 by itself
or DS3 if you want not the best introduction to the franchise, but the closest game to elden ring

Elden mid...worst Fromsoft game ever...

>>715657224 (OP)
>soultrash
>expecting actual lore or world building
lol, lmao
>not expecting rabid fromdrones to perform olypic mental gymnastics and defend it

you are tarnished, you are hated in the lands between, by everyone.

>>715659835
>The legacy dungeons lack form, most are incredibly open ended, and can just be skipped, and their challenges can be circumvented.
That's only true if you've mastered the levels.

>>715659149
All you need
>enemies
>bosses
>good level design
>equipment
literally paradise

>>715657224 (OP)
why do you feel like you need to have those things? they serve no purpose
also
>jarburg

>>715657224 (OP)
>Where are the civilians
There's hundreds of them wandering around every corner of the world, dumbass

>>715660238
it's always shit
fromsoft is overrated
be glad you're seeing the truth early before you get indoctrinated into thinking any of these games are good

>>715659149
What an actual fucking moron. Even the open world, the worst part of the game, has a largely coherent design that tries to get the player to try and do specific things that teach them how to play the game properly.

>>715657224 (OP)
movie will have a Zanzibart moment

>>715668353
Amen

>>715659835
>Honestly, I'd agree to this.
>wall of text
Okay, mr. blow

>>715659835
>a level, designed with its own dignity
???

>>715668353
truke

>>715666874
This. Your first time through, the only ones that are lacking are the non-dungeons like Redmane Castle. On successive playthroughs you can simply sprint through any encounter, which is the case for every FromSoft game since Demon's Souls. The only difference is that Elden Ring has a jump button and overworld encounters can obviously be skipped thanks to Torrent. While enemy AI is able to deal with changes in elevation to chase you, most of them have to align themselves to jump, slowing them down.

>>715657224 (OP)
The premise of basically every From game. Everybody is dead. The stronger among the dead have come back to life, died, and come back so many times that they're now insane. Entropy is a core theme.

Bioshock started this “omg what happened to this city why is everyone so mean and violent” trend and it’s never gone away since

>>715657224 (OP)
sounds like Skyrim is more your speed kiddo

>>715669754
Escape from LA is what started it actually.

“Omg it’s the demented and twisted surgeon general of Beverly Hills FUCK FUCK FUCK”

>>715669934
I can believe this.

>>715657224 (OP)
where they get their foodstuff?? there’s no farms

>>715657224 (OP)
from doesn't know how to do anything besides design fun levels and put enemies in them.

Play Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon. It's the dying world but actually a thought out world and true RPG instead of souls garbage

>>715665602
DS1 is the best introduction because it's slow as fuck.

DS2 is store brand DS1.

DS3 is Bloodbornized fast combat with wavy tendrils, goopy fluids, and fast slashing.

Elden Ring is a slower version of DS3.

>>715657224 (OP)
What stupid complaints to make when there are plenty of good ones.

>>715659835
Stormveil, Raya Lucaria, and Leyndell were all fantastic and frankly completely mog most areas in previous Souls game in terms of level design. Place like Sen's Fortress, Duke's Archives and Anor Londo feel downright amateurishly designed in comparison, you can easily feel how much level design experience FromSoft have accrued over the years.

>>715657224 (OP)
Ironically enough, even though it is objectively the biggest souls game by far, one of my biggest complaints about Elden Ring is how small it feels.
The idea of being able to walk virtually anywhere sounds cool on paper, but in practice what it does is break the illusion of the Lands Between having any cohesion as a place.
The previous games avoided this by making it look like you're only experiencing a tiny part of the world through a selected laid-out path. This way, you could suspend your disbelief enough to envision a whole coherent society being able to be formed in those worlds.
Meanwhile, in ER, you're forced to confront the undisputable fact that these lands that have housed civilizations and kingdoms, when removing all obstacles, could be traversed by foot in a day or two.
Elden Ring has the most wandering of any of these games, but by far the least wondering amongst them.

>>715660248
Killing the same copy-pasted enemies is not roleplaying though.

>>715671254
Stormveil is easily the best level they've ever designed.

>>715657224 (OP)
The world is what's left after multiple shitshows.
A few civil war coups, a few branches of magic backfiring at their pinnacles, aliens, demonic summonings, regression into extreme cultism, extreme transmogrification, etc.
Everyone keeps asking what "one" thing happened, and no "one" thing happened, damn near everything bad that could happen in a fantasy universe happened in such close proximity that the whole place is fucked.
The most alive parts of the world are in a state of limbo, at best. Everything else is actively decaying into lifelessness.
The insane, stupid, stubbon, mindless, and hopeless are the only beings still left in the world. The PC is a zombie, for fuck's sake, it straight up tells you in the intro AND that your ultimate goal is getting the world to a point where it can just fucking die already.
Even the "happy" version of the ending is a character asking if you want to bounce off this dead planet/universe with them.
>why doesn't the nursing home look like mardi gras?

>>715657224 (OP)
it's called laziness and incompetence uhm I mean environmental storytelling

>>715657224 (OP)
There are fucking villagers everywhere, you kill mountains of them are you dumb?

>Where are the civilians?
ancient husks
>Why is every town, village, and city empty?
because people cant die and everyone is 1000 year old
>Why are the only "people" you come across either insane demigods or mindless zombies?
they are 1000 years old
>Why are there less than 10 people to talk to in the entire country?
all the other tarnished died you are late to the party
>This "world" doesn't feel very alive...
yeah its dead welcome to fromsoft games
go play skyrim or witcher if you want a living world, this is an action game

>>715657804
Because it’s a shit game. lol.

>>715671964
what action RPGs have more enemy variety than elden ring?

>>715657224 (OP)
Not a lot of fun to be had unless you are keen to kill everything that casts a shadow. Probably why there aren't too many sane people left

>>715673872
who gives a shit when you treat them the same as any other

>>715673872
stop asking questions

Miyazaki talked about this in an interview, the team tried to give towns a go but were spread too thin and just doubled down on what they were good at instead to make the release date. And honestly I don't know how well towns would fit the Souls model, it feels like a wasted effort to placate normalfags just like the crafting system was.

>>715671375
based

>>715675457
Yeah, it doesn't really benefit the game in any meaningful way. It's a criticism largely leveled by "idea guys" who think that blindly throwing popular features at existing games without regard for their specific strengths and weaknesses is a good idea. It's like people complaining about NPCs disappearing or dying at the end of their side quests, when it's just a simple method of giving those characters closure - rather than having them continue to idle in the game world doing nothing for dozens or hundreds of hours. Case in point, no one ever brings up Nepheli's quest line in Elden Ring because it sucks for this exact reason. She's one of the few characters to not only survive, but get a good ending, and then she just stands in Stormveil for the rest of the game doing nothing.

>>715676218
Also note that they improved upon this in SotE with all of the side characters converging in the fight against Leda et al.

The world is compressed just like in every other open world game

>>715657224 (OP)
is the thread where I dump all my kino Elden Ring screenshots?

>>715676506
Sure

>>715673872
Enemy variety is not an RPG element, THOUGH. Being able to interact with the world is, and the only way to interact with the world in Elden Ring is killing.

>>715676601
What about talking to NPCs, NPC side quests, and exploring

>>715657224 (OP)
Why do you want them to waste time on bullshit content that everyone will skip instead of focusing on the stuff that people actually play the games for?
There's a reason that Bethesda games have dogshit combat.

>>715675457
I don't care what faggots say. Though sticking to what you know is good, never advancing to take on challenges to your development can stunt progress if they were heading that way. Miyazaki knew this before and was caught off guard by ER's reception and success. We saw this in ds3 with taking massive steps backwards from Bloodborne and cutting too much off due to crunch issues. It's an anomaly on how successful the worst games in the series are and yet the decent ones aren't.

>>715659149
He is right though. That's why nightreign is well-received as compared to Miyazaki's magnum opus. Instead of wasting time exploring a boring dead world, players can go straight to bossfights now. Its really an ingenious well thought game design by Ishizaki.

>>715677452
>nightreign
>well received

>>715676750
Elden Ring has barely any of that. Exploration is so poorly done that they introduced fast travel all over the map, so you don't have to walk around anymore.

I think they should be acquired by Koreans now. They don't know shit about making the game more meaningful than another cheap asset flip copy. The Japs have become the 2000s chinks with copying and pasting everything so shamelessly and producing cheap value in return. There is no creativity left in their bone once the yen declined.

>>715676506
>No shadows
>Fucking forced CA
Elden Ring is so fucking ugly man.

>>715676601
The game is an action RPG. Your choices in character building determine how you engage with the action. The enemies in turn inform your choices, as different enemies have different properties and weaknesses. Besides simple damage type weaknesses, you also have to consider weapon moveset differences, behaviors of the enemies, and your defensive strategy. That's what action RPGs are all about. Ys or Diablo games aren't about "interacting with the world" either. They're about killing a fucking ton of monsters and finding loot that empowers you to kill more monsters. You're quite simply in the wrong subgenre if you want to stand around talking to people.

>>715657224 (OP)
>wtf why is this not elder scrolls?

i think if roundtable hold were envisioned instead as some sort of majula like seaside village in limgrave it would have been a bit nicer

They're known for dead worlds for 30 plus years. Idk if they're capable of doing anything else. It's like teaching a wild gorilla how to read and write.

>>715657224 (OP)
The commoners aren't mindless or zombies anon. You're Tarnished and they're all loyal Golden Order followers who know Marika REVOKED grace from the Tarnished and attack you on sight for religious/self preservation reasons.

>>715678075
Skyrim is an action-RPG and has tons of choices, NPCs, quest and living cities with actual people in them and not just mindless zombies.

>>715679309
>skyrim is an action-RPG
debatable

>>715679056
How do they know that I'm a Tarnished?

>>715679309
The combat in Skyrim alone omitted the fact that there's any action to that half assed shitty sandbox. Even Just Cause mogged it in that department.

>>715679578
Your eyes.
>but I have a helmet on!
You can see, they see your eyes.

>>715659149
>braid creator
braid came out almost 20 years ago. why does anyone care what this dude has to say anymore?

>>715657224 (OP)
They have a massive skill issue when it comes to game development. Please understand.

>>715657224 (OP)
Go play skyrim or something retard

pseudo contrarian ragebait thread

>>715657224 (OP)
>Where are the civilians?
>Why is every town, village, and city empty?
>Why are the only "people" you come across either insane demigods or mindless zombies?
>Why are there less than 10 people to talk to in the entire country?
>This "world" doesn't feel very alive...

>>715679713
I started out as a Prophet though?

>>715679950
Prophets were called that specifically for the heretical anti Erdtree visions they had

>>715679584
As opposed to rolling in the floor around every boss? In Skyrim you can make an archer, a thief, a warrior or a mage and all of these are viable options. Their skills have large applications outside of combat. And this is baby's first RPG.

Whenever I’m exploring a big city level in a FromSoft game I can’t stop imagining what life was like in it during its normal peak.
Like imagine living in Yharnam, and you gotta go run to the market for milk and the stupid city requires you to climb down some ladders and stairs and navigate its twisting alleys for like a half hour, only for you to once again have gotten lost and ended up in Old Yharnam again, so you gotta go back all over again, and all this for some fuckin milk and bread.
I believe I have autism.

>>715679309
Skyrim is an "action RPG" in so far as it is an RPG with action combat, in the same way you could say it's an FPS because it's first person and you shoot enemies with a bow or spells. It's just as bad at being an action RPG as it is at being an FPS.

>>715657224 (OP)
>Why is every town, village, and city empty?
because the Shitch 2 does not have enough RAM for that.

>>715658043

>>715669754
would you kindly stop pepe posting?

>>715679363
Honestly, Action-RPG is one of the most inconsistent "genres" ever.
Sometimes it means RPG with Action combat
Sometimes it means any RPG with real-time combat instead of turn-based, regardless of whether the combat is Action oriented.
Sometimes it means loot rarity clickfest games (usually abbreviated as ARPG)
Sometimes it means Action-Adventure game with RPG elements.

>>715659149
jon blow it out your ass

>>715657224 (OP)
Yeah exactly. Literally all previous DS games have higher percentage of peasants than ER. Even worse, the highest percentage of NPCs in the game is all in the tomb of merchants. Hell, even ignoring all of those, merchants are still the highest population in this world somehow. Fallout 3 looks realistic in comparison to this world building

>>715680016
You just left click the whole time in Skyrim with no dodge or anything despite class. At least with souls they give you options to parry and roll without standing still and taking it and also have more satisfaction with magic effects.

>>715680301
>Literally all previous DS games have higher percentage of peasants than ER
proofs?

Okay replies are retarded. No, being ALIVE is not against themes of elden ring, because the entire fucking point of Golden Order is INFINITE LIFE. Not undeath, not hollowing, not being posessed by funny bug - LITERALLY UNENDING LIFE. Why all the pesants are "dead from war" if people literally never died

>>715680476
1. living an unnaturally long life doesn't mean you can't be killed, especially without grace
2. people still die and are returned to the roots of the erdtree in ritual burial to be born again
3. your player character is a foreign pillager who washed up the shore with the express purpose of killing you, your boss, and your gods

>>715680639
>your
the*

How come Bethesda an CDPR could pull it off perfectly with crunch time while these clowns struggle to add more than one line of NPC dialogue or someone who doesn't die? Is it an IQ issue or what? Why are the MCs always non character ruthless murderers who go unpunished?

>>715671254
>Stormveil
Okay i am tired of stormveil glazing. It's fucking ass. We have alright beginning, then there's a bunch of same rooms that is very easy to get lost in that serve zero purpose other than to waste your time, then there's another useless roof segment, again, with no proper enemy placement or interesting encounters at all, and then there's cortyyard which would be cool... if they did ANYTHING to AI there. It looks like it's supposed to be a Phalanx/Tower Knight like boss encounter, instead it's just another dumb kiting excercise killing the immersion completely. Sekiro had camp allerts, actual camps in this game had camp alerts, yet this exact place does not.

Undead burg stomps it because it has actual progressive new challenges and enemy placement, which stormveil has ONLY in the beginning and never again.

>>715680763
>bethesda
>pulling it off perfectly

>>715680763
It's a different subgenre. It's an IQ issue for you if you can't differentiate an action game with RPG character building systems from a sandbox RPG with boilerplate action combat.

>>715680830
Lmao Stormveil.is.insaley well designed and you're only proving how much of a plebe you are by saying otherwise.

Take it from somebody with over 1k hours in ER. Stormveil is the best designed space in the game, DLC included.

>>715658043
This fucking guy comes to every elden ring thread and says “ dirrr high iq durrrr”

>>715680304
>anything despite class
have you seriously not played Skyrim?

>>715681508
He's being a cunt but he's 100% correct.

Elden Ring lorefaggotry requires a beginner/intermediate grasp of the beliefs and ideas or histories of things like:

>Hermetic Gnosticism
>Kaballah/Judaism
>Christianity [particularly Byzantine Roman Christians]
>Buddhism
>Shinto
>Ancient Babylon
>Arthurian Legend

>no fishing
>no horse racing
>no player housing
>no npc daily routines
>no smithing
>no cooking
>no camping
It's bare bones trash.

>>715681769
Sounds like you just randomly listed a lot of religions, mythologies, and civilizations to make the game sound deep when it's not.
Literally nothing in the game references Byzantine Rome or Babylon for example. And the Arthurian mythos? It's surface level inspiration. As in the knights + the failed chivalry.

>>715681440
honestly, I agree with anon
Stormveil is not that interesting, and yeah its good for Elden Ring. but it pales in comparison to any other level in similar style in other Souls games
take it from somebody with over 1.5k hours in ER.

>>715657224 (OP)
Why the fuck is everything busted up too?

What the fuck are you ruling over?

All powerful demigod but you can't fucking repair a fucking brick wall or pick up the papers and shit on the floor?

It's best to think of it as Cyberpunk 9099 imho.

game tells you pretty quick everything went to pot because marika made everyone immortal

most raya lucarians or liurnians and tarnished seem to still be sane and it's mostly leyndell residents that went completely fucking bonkers

>>715681974
Nope. These are simply what the game draws on. I'm not gonna spoonfeed you but here's a morsel I'll leave on the table:

The Frenzied Flame is -literally- Tikkun Olam.

Elden ring is the greatest video game made to date surpassing Ocarina of Time if you consider that #1
Every game since is compared to it and does not compare

>>715682117
>I'm not gonna spoonfeed you
Lol. People always say this when they can't explain their stance

>>715682252
No, you're not worth my time. That's all.

>>715682252
It's true.

I don't know what you guys are talking about but Elden Ring lore is incomplete at best

>>715682278
Fucking kek

C
O
P
E

>>715682302
It doesn't matter how complete it is. The game draws inspirations and ideas from those things and when you understand those things, Elden Ring becomes easier to understand.

>>715682379
Uhh

>>715682302
the only souls story that makes sense is bloodborne and sekiro, the latter of which has actual storytelling. the dude has said he intentionally leaves gaps in the storytelling to let players imagine shit, like he did as a kid with english books.
>filtered brainlet lmao
By all means, tell me how complete the SoTE lore is.

>>715681769
Lorefaggotry and world building are a joke in souls games and don't draw much from their og sources other than aesthetics like a teenage girl who fakes being mentally ill.

>>715681769
>>715682117
>>715682278
Same energy

>>715682652
Yes anon, I posted several times. What a fucking retarded post lol

>>715681826
There’s smithing, cooking, and camping.

>>715659835
too high IQ for /v/

>>715683012
>Yes anon, I posted several times. What a fucking retarded post lol
No, you didn't lol. You tried to imply that there was some hidden meaning behind Elden Ring that was only understandable if you'd studied like ten different cultures, religions, and mythologies. I'm mocking that statement you made by referencing Anno's Evangelion which was loaded with Abrahamic and Gnostic imagery and symbolism, which led to fans naively believing there was some hidden depth to the story. But that notion was crushed by Anno himself when he said that all of the imagery met literally nothing and he only used it because it looked cool. Sound familiar?

>>715684351
>>715684351
Nope. I said to be a lorefag you need to know a lot of schools of mysticism as well as world history. If you dont, you will be unable to engage with or understand those who do.

You're just an insecure retard who is making excuses instead of accepting his own ignorance. Anno is you attempting to cast aspersions instead of engaging in a fight you know you'll lose.

>>715684546
The lore is nonsensical, anon. That's why no one can even agree on what the lore IS. Just because the writers grabbed a few surface level concepts from a few civilizations and mythologies, doesn't mean that the story is deep.
If I go by your logic, I could make ANY story sound deep.
For example, here's me taking Mushoku Tensei, a blatant power fantasy isekai, and trying to make it sound deep:
Mushoku Tensei is a tale of gnosticism and human determinism as mankind tries to usurp the demiurge to usher in a new cycle of brahman. The forces of mankind work to enact Tikkun Olam, while the demiurge seeks to topple the babylonian kingdom of human progress. Ancient knights honor bound by chivalry take up arms on both sides, bound by promises of Damnation and Heaven. The forces of man work to prevent the birth of the messiah for he is also the antichrist and will usher in the end times.

See? I just mishmashed like 5 different cultures and religions to describe Mushoku Tensei. Going by your logic, you need a high IQ and the ability to study like ten mythologies and cultures to even begin to understand the plot.

>>715685118
>>715685118
>>715685118
>The lore is nonsensical, anon. That's why no one can even agree on what the lore IS
Nah, that's just an indictment of the average level of education or IQ amongst people who attempt it.

Anyways I stopped reading there so.... Get fucked lol.

>>715671254
I agree, Leyndell is one of the best areas in the Souls series by far. Visual design, level design, progression, exploration, etc. My only gripe is how annoying the archers with the three exploding arrows are, it always feels like a 50/50 whether I get oneshotted by them.

>>715685276
>Anyways I stopped reading
Concession accepted.

>>715673872
Portrait of Ruin

>>715657224 (OP)
You didn't understand the madness

People say they want a game that gives them this feeling, but you don't actually want a game like this. Look at all that empty space with nothing in it. No inhabitants. No interesting landmarks. It's just an open field. This would take over 10 minutes of running on horseback just to reach the large statues in the back. Sure, Elden Ring has a lot of space, but those empty spaces take like 30 seconds to pass at most. The vast majority of the game has something to interact with or look at every few seconds, especially in Limgrave. If you can't handle 30 seconds of running on Torrent in Elden Ring in an empty field, you wouldn't be able to handle a truly vast world (akin to the emptiness of real life, have you seen the Sahara desert?). You don't actually know what you want from games.

>>715657224 (OP)
Just go watch a streamer play some games so you can have a parasocial relationship with a real human being instead of with fake NPCs written by C-tier failed hollywood writers.

>>715688751
Dragon's Dogma 2 unironically has this

>leave the first town
>see ruins off in the mountainside
>depart in that direction
>Eventually come upon the Sphinx's lair after exploring for a couple days in the wilderness

Absolute adventure kino

>>715688751
>People say they want a game that gives them this feeling, but you don't actually want a game like this.
we already had a game like that, it's shadow of the colossus and it's unfiltered kino

of course the key difference is that SOTC doesn't overstay its welcome, unlike elden ring. you never reach a point where you're tired of traveling the vast terrain. colossi are also so varied that the wonder of what you're gonna fight next keeps you motivated.

>>715658148
That's boring
How many games they made with this exact premise?

>>715688751
You don't need that large set-piece back to back, constant massive open fields. Just a few, or even only one. You just got to build it properly. Give a beautiful soundtrack, set the atmosphere right, have an NPC on a horseback beside you talking about something, or even have something going on, like animals feeding, playing around, have other NPCs coming in from the other direction or a carriage stopped by to the side with an NPC to talk to or perhaps buy stuff from. Put a hidden cave somewhere in there.
Don't just leave a massive empty field with nothing in, just like Elden Ring does. Elden Ring has one of the worst open worlds I've ever played.

>>715681769
I don’t give a fuck about your faggot mystical lore where a talking turtle talks about vague tranny shit
The game has no story

>>715688751
People want a game like that but as a cohesive journey, not just where "items tell a story'' or where you can get teleported to the stars-realm and then back, and then teleport back to where you started from, just for kicks

Unironically, the Last of Us games have the exact formula that's severely craved for for that type of game

>>715660238
It doesn’t
It’s a shit game

>>715657224 (OP)
>Even if you spend the rest of eternity just sitting in one spot, someone is likely to try to fuck with you because consequences are nil anyway
>Literally the only stability and social organization is various flavors of "Hello would you like to join my Eldritch deathcult?"
>Civilians instantly get tossed into the meatgrinder and reincarnated, so you're only ever interacting with the fraction of people not undergoing Erdtree burial

>>715657224 (OP)
It's funny cause the one place confirmed to have suffered from relentless genocide and war (the shadow realm) has multiple instances of life and civilization. It also has proper homes and roads.

idk bro, where's all the people in pompeii

I'm honestly just sick of the dying world where everyones either insane, dead or a monster, outside of the handful of people who go insane or die anyways. It was a cute little novelty in DeS, DaS and Bloodborne but now it borders on parody. I mean even if they give a good reason for it, like a demonic fog or lovecraftian monsters the trope is tiring now. Like why in the fuck is EVERYONE across a continent some shambling husk or demon especially in a world that promotes itself as being more optimistic and godly? They don't have any excuse now that they've grown exponentially.

>>715657224 (OP)
It's just a slop company sad excuse of not wanting to put any effort into world building nor lore for profits. People who buy into the streamline FOMO are sheep like always.

>>715657224 (OP)
this is how it should be. if what you want from an rpg is villages with farmers asking you to collect 10 daffodils, touch grass.

>>715659149
>It's a huge map full of a bunch of bosses
Reductio ad absurdum. Following that logic the witness is a huge map full of a bunch of puzzles with no design. Jon Blow and the whole indie movie crew really fell off.

>>715677819
>She doesn't know

>>715689409
DD2 is shit though

>>715681508
Its a copy pasta but it also isn't wrong. People who call Elden Ring boring because they watch compilation videos are stupid.

>>715659149
wow it’s almost like some sort of video game

>>715657224 (OP)
Everything's fucked
Just like in every From game
People actually looking like zombies is weird af in ER though. In DS they were hollows but here they just look like hollows for no reason.

>>715681440
> I have 1k hours in elden ring

Maybe if you played games other than Fromslop you would know what game design actually looks like. Cause Stormveil got NOTHING on megaman/castlevania style ascending difficulty of encounters through clever design DS1 did so well. Stormveil is a fucking Diablo dungeon tier, Nioh has better level design despite being actual diablo looter game.
Ever since DS3 there has been retarded level design inflation without adding anything meaningful. Grand archives being prime example of giant rooftop section with absolutely jack shit to do

>>715695324
they look like hollows cause they are a fucking ds3 asset cause elden ring is a super smash bros z of souls games

>>715691608
Same as The Lands Between. You have the high road to the Dectus Lift which, though broken, can still be followed all the way from Leyndell to Sellia/Redmane Castle.

>>715659149
He’s right you know. DS1, 2, BB and Sekiro all had better gameflow

>>715671375
>one of my biggest complaints about Elden Ring is how small it feels.
>Elden Ring has the most wandering of any of these games, but by far the least wondering amongst them
I think this is overly dogmatic, given that Elden Ring generally does scale and geography much better than other open world games, and is, typically for From, incredibly rich in environmental storytelling that makes the world feel steeped in history, mysterious, and lived-in
I don't think it's fair to say that the game doesn't imbue you with a sense of wonder simply beholding the Erdtree at the beginning.
Obviously there are always inherent compromises in open world design when it comes to providing flesh and form to the abstract fantasy ideal envisioned at the planning stages of the setting, which areas like Anor Londo, Lothric, The Ringed City, Yharnam etc. in their vastness portray very well in a painterly manner. Yet even those must make some compromises here and there. Compare the intro cutscenes of DS1 and 2, and the scale and grandeur of the cities. Lothric I think might be the only one out of the trilogy that looks like the complete incarnation, and yet is in contention for being the least traversable. Dark Souls suggests that an entire flourishing civilisation lives in a cavern accessible only by an elevator to a grotty shrine, with its rear entrance being a precipitous drake-filled ravine.
This issue for me is a mental one. If you haven't already come to terms with the notion that an open world, and any explorable game-world for that matter, will likely not be a completely faithful scale-translation of the idealised overarching setting, then playing them will only continue to irk you with logical discrepancies. Quibbles like matters of agriculture, kingdom-sustaining populations, housing, Leyndell's tax policy etc.

>>715699358
Even when things are small, having enough of them makes more sense. BotW is tiny even compared to skyrim, but feels lively cause it's written well. Mw there's no writing in ER. Open world world design isn't about presenting scale, but highlights one would expect within said scale

you forget the village of jars

jarburg is lame piece of nothing with one guy to talk to and they all fucking die in the end like the rest of game's retarded npcs. Give me 7 jars and i'll call it ok

>>715671375
>Elden Ring
>"small"
The game is fucking massive.

>>715657224 (OP)
Towns, cities, villages filled with non-hostile NPC's really only results in superfluous game design like sidequests and other ubisoft slop
From clearly design their games with the intent that the player discovers more about the setting as if they were putting together piece of a jigsaw puzzle that had been scattered across a world.
Having some demihuman monkey guy called Robert explain that Marika killed the Gloam Eyed Queen, who was some random bitch called Smelldina, queen of the Stankogres of the ancient Caelid Wilds, because I went out and found ten bananas for him, would severely detract from the sombre mood and allure that these game's are actually distinct for

>>715699358
>I think this is overly dogmatic, given that Elden Ring generally does scale and geography much better than other open world games
I disagree, extremely. The transition between Limgrave, Caelid and Liurnia looks incredibly stupid if you put even the tiniest thought into them.
>Limgraves yellowing skies randomly give way to Caelid's rot coloured skies.
>Stormveil has entire swamp and Academy in it's backyard
The only time this isn't a problem is when you take the elevator up to Altus.
Not to mention the wildly inconsistent water heights found throughout the world.

>>715700018
bitch it has ranni and gideon pissing in your ear for hours with zero animations. From absolutely would spam lore defecating NPCs if they had the budget for so much voice acting, 100%. Fromsoft has the single worst most boring dialogue "system" on the market that even ubislop is better.
And, you know, ubisoft started doing that shit cause it's fucking good if done well, they simply are having a skill issue. It's retarded to complain about shit that made RPGs so peak in the first place. Especially considering how embarassinly low gameplay variety in ER already is.

>>715692330
it's not ad absurdum, that's an incorrect fallacy identification
it's just oversimplication which isn't the same thing

>>715667619
>good level design
Wake me up when Elden Ring gets this. Having a sexo skybox is not good level design btw.

Team Ninja made me realize how botched and half assed Fromshit games really are from both gameplay and story perspectives. Even the aesthetics look off putting due to foreign labor and stubbornness from changing to far better ones after decades of using the same shitty one. Even UE5 looks more pleasing to the eye than any of their games.

>>715700227
>it has ranni and gideon
Aka two people that know very much about the world and tell you a lot about its secrets. Not a random guy in a random village that looks like 300 other random guys in random villages.
>embarassinly low gameplay variety in ER already is.
It's a game about killing monsters to get stronger. If you don't want to do that, go play other games instead of diluting the gameplay.

>>715700651
>it's a game about killing monsters and getting stronger
Unlike the survival horror/dungeon crawler/puzzler of original few titles and this is why it needs fucking proper towns to have any appeal. Or reduced to nightreign. Tho nightreign is actually a much deeper game fixing many flaws Fromsoft kept doing since game 1 for no fucking reason, and it isn't one trick pony unlike Sekiro. So ER isn't good open world RPG even like fucking bethesda or ubislop but it also isn't a good game about killing monsters and getting stronger like dragon's dogma or nightreign. Tho scratch that, Dragon's Dogma got good worldbuilding and alright quests

>>715658148
No, in DS1 there are stable and civilized countries in the world outside Lordran, like Vinheim, Thorolund, Carim, Catarina, Astora ect. Even though the world is collapsing, people are still holding on.

>>715701023
Maybe that's actually the same for ER. There's no peasants cause they all GTFOed to other normal countries, and only losers are left in Lands Between. IF ONLY THE FUCKING GAME SAID SO.

>>715657224 (OP)
Because it's a lazy asset flip.

>>715700983
You still haven't actually said why ER needs towns and minigames to be good (it is already good).

>>715701667
The game does say so. Eochaid, the Land of Reeds, the Badlands and many others are places beyond the sea that were colonized by Tarnished when Marika banished them with Godfrey.

>>715678072
name a more beautiful game.
you can’t.
not talking about just the art direction either. Elden Ring is a beautiful masterpiece in every conceivable way.

>>715702376
it doesn't state the time passage and that midlands were abandoned by everyone and that "tarnished" are actually the modern normal fucking civilization

>>715657224 (OP)
I love my doll wife

>>715702267
cause it failed to make killing mobs not boring

>>715682565
>Lorefaggotry and world building are a joke in souls games and don't draw much from their og sources other than aesthetics like a teenage girl
Unironically true. All of the "lore" you see in those youtube videos is just drug fueled headcanon that the fanbase peddles as canon. That's why every lore "scholar" has a entirely different interpretation of the lore and the worldbuilding. No one can agree on it because its all fucking nonsense that Miyazaki only put in the game because he liked the aesthetic.

>>715702641
why can’t normies understand the concept of a story told via allegories and archetypes?
Guess everything needs to have concrete labels like a disney movie in order for the smooth brianed faggots to not feel threatened.
what I am saying is, you gotta have higj iq to fins enjoyment in Miyazaki san’s masterpieces.

>>715702458
>no shadows, shit models, and 2D grass
Yikes. Even GoT manages to look much better than this play dough PS2 looking game. The jeets they hired did a shit job but what do you expect from a lazy Jap slop company.

>>715702902
ER and fromsoft as a whole still have a much prettier and unique style. not sayin GoT wasnt a good looking game, but imo fromsoft is still unmatched.
either way all GoT has going for it was pretty visuals, since the actual gameplay is bland af and the story and characters your standard modern western woke shits.

>>715702458
>looks like ass
>plays like ass
>sucks ass

>>715702267
> (it is already good).
That's the problem. Elden Ring should've been a cart game so that we would've had a good cart game.

>>715703203
now youre just being an emotionally charged contrarian faggot lmao.

>>715702641
>it doesn't state the time passage
Why does that matter? It's clear that it's been centuries at least
>and that midlands were abandoned by everyone
They weren't, only the Tarnished left.

>>715703351
no, there are many others who dwell
in the land in between who aren’t tarnished. every single humanoid being which you kill is part of a race of beings who are very much part of the world.

>>715702708
To you, maybe. I like killing mobs when it's suitable.

>>715703579
I'm saying the opposite, the Tarnished (and Godfrey) LEFT the Lands Between to go outside, while creatures with gold in their eyes remained.

>>715657224 (OP)
Umm sweaty... It's DARK FANTASY. The world is supposed to be empty and not alive. Clearly you don't have the media literacy required to appreciate the atmosphere and deep symbolism

>>715703306
No, I'm not.
The game looks and plays like shit.
The open world sucks shit.
Button input delay is retarded.
Giving bosses sekiro speed tier 50 hit combos is retarded.

>>715703878
sounds like a skill issue.
many such cases.

>>715703941
The game isn't hard as it gives you a plethora of crutches to bruteforce your way through.
The game's design choices are just retarded.
I much prefer Nioh and Lies of P to miyazaki slop.

People who never listened in History or Religion might try to insist on you that this game requires multiple layers of knowledge, but that's really just to affirm their own totally bias analysis of this game.

It's a game about a political conspiracy of a Mother sanctioning the murder of her son and the guilt that followed. The world itself is artificial, almost semi-aware of the fact that words hold their own innate power (There is a reason you use Runes and Rememberances to become stronger). Her child tried to seize it in the way the society that preceded Marika did, and with her knowledge needed to put an end to it.

Godwyn wanted to become a Dragon, and there is a reason Radagon is an anagram of "A Dragon".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King%27s_Two_Bodies

Marika possesses her own child's corpse to maintain a politic theatre, but it is eventually discovered. A ruler can still be tried for murder, especially their own heir.

>>715704070
you just threw Nioh in there so it wouldn’t be so obvious that you’re a seething hook hating on the superior Nippon. but I see righty through a faggot like you lmao.

>>715704071
To quote the article I posted:

"The book is structured around an exploration of the numerous devices and technologies medieval theologians and lawyers developed to "defeat death" and "extend bodily existence far beyond carnal boundaries"."

This is The Golden Order.

>>715704214
>gook
>superior nippon
Nah, I'm just not an ameriweeb who sucks jap cock 24/7.

>>715672017
no, Leyndell is, its huge the Subterranian Shunning Grounds is also "part of the level"

all the way down to Godwyn in the underground tree area, its a huge vertical slice of a level, a monumental acheivement.

>>715704321
but you suck gook cock when they make unreal engine slop huh faggot? you are one dumb tasteless niggger.

>>715701023
The Lands Between is this weird pseudo-mythological land in the ER world that's supposed to be more magical than anywhere else.

>>715704417
Those games I mentioned just have far superior mechanics and actual proper responsive gameplay.
cope

when you're in hunter's dream in BB you can see the other stems all around

lordran is built on top of a tree

the lands between are a spiral around the erdtree

i think elden ring tells the early prehistory of lordran, bloodborne shows the future of it. they build lordran on top of the tree and then it becomes yharnam over 1000s of years.

the thing is each player's game copy represents another copy of the erdtree, another world history. thats why theres millions of stems.

>>715704578
k, well I love nioh and team ninja as well. can’t say much about lies of piss since I tried that game and stellar blade and thought both were pure shit.
either way, none of the games you mentioned play anything like ER. nor do they come near Fromsofts craftsmanship in terms of its world building and graphical artistical style.

>>715704508
its Mount Olympus but for a weird take on Roman Catholicism made by a crazy Blonde.

then the forces of other analog religions are pressing in, they want to wield the power to make their religions as real and potent as the GO, these are the Outer Gods.

turns out solidifying the laws of reality into a bunch of golden hoops is a pandora's box of retarded ideas.

>>715704839
>muh world building and graphical artistical style
Irrelevant when the gameplay is shit.

>>715705023
>it’s shit
youre just very emotional right now and saying dumb shit. take a breath, log off for a few and cool your head.

>>715689608
Shadow of the Colossus had only 16 enemies in the entire game though, it was an especially-tailored experience.

>>715691284
You're basically describing the start of Liurnia, anon.

>>715657224 (OP)
Elden Ring's story is essentially a war of succession but every faction is comprised of no more than 5 weirdos fucking around in a derelict ruin somewhere.