Elden Ring Catch-all

Dyni wrote:

- there is a world map
- the actual dungeons do not have a map

I haven't watched the interview yet. Does that second point imply that the dungeons are procedurally-generated?

merphle wrote:
Dyni wrote:

- there is a world map
- the actual dungeons do not have a map

I haven't watched the interview yet. Does that second point imply that the dungeons are procedurally-generated?

No, just that there's no in-game map or minimap to reference in dungeons, ala every other Souls game. Everything is still hand-crafted.

All sounding very interesting. Excitement and anticipation are on the rise.

30 hours sounds quite short for what it has been described as previously "big open world, larger in scope than previous games etc.). Not necessarily a bad thing, but it makes it sound like the open world is just for show, while moving between the real content; the dungeons. As someone who isn't a big fan of "open worlds" (tm), that could very well be a good thing.

six major areas that function as distinct dungeons, ruled by demigod characters (you don't have to follow an order)

Now this is outright Demons Souls, if there arent any paths between those areas outside of the hub.

He also specified that it's 30 hours if you skim side content. So it's probably going to be more if you decide to do all or as much of the side content available as you're willing.

I don't mind 30 hours myself, though. Massive open-worlds are too numerous and often way too padded.

Dyni wrote:
merphle wrote:
Dyni wrote:

- there is a world map
- the actual dungeons do not have a map

I haven't watched the interview yet. Does that second point imply that the dungeons are procedurally-generated?

No, just that there's no in-game map or minimap to reference in dungeons, ala every other Souls game. Everything is still hand-crafted.

Nice. Thank you for the clarification. So it's the FIRST point that's divergent from existing Souls games, not the second. Actually, Sekiro had a world map, didn't it? I forgot that game existed.

When I played Zelda Breath of the Wild the combat and much of the lonely progression through a very detailed and well constructed world made me comment than it was Nintendo’s take on Souls games but open world.

Now I’m looking at Elden Ring and thinking this is From’s take on Breath of the Wild.

Watching Kinda funny’s P.S. I love you and they are doing polls for people watching as it goes along. One poll was Elden Ring? With three voting options that were all Elden Ring (Elden Ring and Elden Ring both got 27% of the vote but the winner was Elden Ring with 45%.)

Someone put pokemon in my Dark Souls!

Is this game finally a DS casual player opportunity? Fingers crossed. I admire the reward folks get from the punishing traditional experience but I’m too old to keep getting beaten down over and over by the same beast.

chooka1 wrote:

Is this game finally a DS casual player opportunity? Fingers crossed. I admire the reward folks get from the punishing traditional experience but I’m too old to keep getting beaten down over and over by the same beast. :)

Sekiro was the first Souls game that I did not finish because it got too hard for me. However, in the past, I have gotten around those barriers because there were 1) builds that can exploit enemies and 2) cooperative multiplayer. Sekiro had neither of those, and I'm guessing Elden Ring will have both.

Aristophan wrote:
chooka1 wrote:

Is this game finally a DS casual player opportunity? Fingers crossed. I admire the reward folks get from the punishing traditional experience but I’m too old to keep getting beaten down over and over by the same beast. :)

Sekiro was the first Souls game that I did not finish because it got too hard for me. However, in the past, I have gotten around those barriers because there were 1) builds that can exploit enemies and 2) cooperative multiplayer. Sekiro had neither of those, and I'm guessing Elden Ring will have both.

According to VaatiVidya’s video above Elden Ring has both and a lower skill floor than Sekiro.

I think you're right, pandasuit. Kotaku has penned an article based on one in Famitsu that appears to confirm this.

I can't help wondering whether this more... sympathetic design partly reflects the fact that many of From Software's senior team are also getting on in years. Miyazaki is about 47 now after all. Perhaps putting out 'easier' games is the gaming equivalent of Hollywood actors doing kids' films?

Equally interesting, Kotaku is also carrying an article about George RR Martin's involvement in the game. It's based on an interview he gave to a local radio station. This stood out to me:

“I worked up a fairly detailed background for them, and then they took it from there”, he says. “It’s been several years since I’ve last seen them, but they would come in periodically and show me some monsters they’d designed.”

That sounds like fairly minimal involvement at a very early stage. Perhaps this calls for a neologism. I propose a verb: To 'Clancy'.

Elden Ring being the cause of eternal Game of Thrones delays confirmed!

Sounds like he was involved just enough to make From able to put his name in advertisement.

I'm not surprised, as the actual story-telling of Martin doesn't seem like something that would work in a From game. He's great at building out lore, but the majority of the man's career before Song of Ice and Fire was writing soap operas. Which, if you think about it, explains a lot about A Song of Ice and Fire.

Additionally, I imagine any further collaboration between them would be difficult due to the language barrier. Establishing the lore itself was probably quite a bit of work, and likely fresh and exciting for Martin, but I think trying to have him write the story, and then translate it back to the Japanese devs, which might then need to be localized right back over into English... I have a feeling a lot could be lost in such a game of telephone.

Plus, I feel like taking writers from outside of video games and trying to adapt them into a very different workflow has worse results more often than good.

As for being a more "sympathetic" design, we'll have to see. People thought the resurrection in Sekiro would make the game easier for "more casual" players, and if anything the game is the hardest they've made, it seems. Similarly, Bloodborne offers a lot more healing supplies than Dark Souls seems to, and yet it's still easy to get torn up and repeatedly die in Bloodborne. I think it's more that the open-world approach necessitates a different sort of consideration towards difficulty and one's ability to heal than linear design. But, we'll just have to see when it releases.

Elden Ring Will Be Easier, Dev Says, But No Difficulty Options

From Software is known for punishing games, but it’s trying to make Elden Ring more inviting for newcomers

It might be the one for me to try! Actually I tried 1 and 3 - and I knew I could beat them but they would require a lot of dedication and I am really too scattered with gaming to devote that much time to one game.

This discussion touches pretty close to what I really liked about the Dark Souls games, and especially 3. Though I think they are more known/hyped for their melee combat, they also offer a great deal of fun taking other approaches, and many of them do tend to be easier (for me anyway) than going pure melee. Elden Ring sounds like it is going at least as far as in that direction as DS3 did, maybe even more so depending on how things like the "Pokemon" work out in practice.

Shadout wrote:

Elden Ring being the cause of eternal Game of Thrones delays confirmed!

Sounds like he was involved just enough to make From able to put his name in advertisement.

Yup. In the same way that James Patterson is just enough involved in his books to be listed as the co-author. Very, very nice work if you can get it.

With regards to the difficulty, don't get too excited about Elden Ring's accessibility. Miyazaki said in one interview that the difficulty will be on a par with Dark Souls 3, which, while "easier" than Sekiro, is still an immensely challenging game.

Tasty Pudding wrote:

With regards to the difficulty, don't get too excited about Elden Ring's accessibility. Miyazaki said in one interview that the difficulty will be on a par with Dark Souls 3, which, while "easier" than Sekiro, is still an immensely challenging game.

True, but like Dark Souls 3, this will have multiplayer elements that you can engage in to lower the difficulty. It's possible the NPC summons might also be a more reliable way to do this, but we'll have to wait for more details to know that for sure.

Another thing that will probably ease the difficulty curve is the open world structure. None of the other Souls games are entirely linear, but there is usually a recommended path of progress with optional detours along the way. It sounds like Elden Ring is going to be much more free form about the order in which you tackle the dungeons. If you get stuck in one, there should be several other paths to explore that might give you an easier time until you power up.

Sounds like you can skip half the main bosses in Elden Ring and still finish the game and lots of dungeons are optional. Every Souls game I've played has had optional content but not half the core bosses.

In all the core Souls games you could power level through some parts and cheese many other parts or coop. It could get grindy and cheesing was often kiting which takes forever but the option was there. There were tactics for getting through tough parts of Souls games without just gitting gud.

The steam page is up. According to the current tags, this is casual dating sim. Thats a pivot! ;p

absurddoctor wrote:

The steam page is up. According to the current tags, this is casual dating sim. Thats a pivot! ;p

I knew the Souls games were casual dating sims the first time I fought the gaping dragon.

Yeah, the Souls games are already waifu simulators. Whom among us hasn't fantasized about getting jiggy with fallen gods who are half-woman, half-spider?

Casual dating sim? Huh. Guess that's the new hardcore.

Looks like some new info dropped via a closed door presentation for some press outlets:

Polygon Preview

Ferret wrote:

Looks like some new info dropped via a closed door presentation for some press outlets:

Polygon Preview

Yeah, IGN has one too:

https://www.ign.com/articles/elden-r...

Vaatividya has his coverage up on Youtube:

"I've Seen 16 Minutes of New ELDEN RING Gameplay (but I can't show it lol)"

I assume some marketing teams has decided trickling out information keeps fans invested.