From Software Elden Ring - From Software's new game with writing by GRRM

[Anonona]

My favourite Devil May Cry moment is when Dante is impaled with his sword and then rips it out of his chest to power it up

Is not much of a difference, and the game's plot is dumb, just an excuse for action, but if the moment you are speaking of is the one I think, he isn't powering the sword. The sword itself is a demonic entity with will of its own, he survives the hit that would have been mortal for a human and then takes control of the weapon. The weapon itself is magical, Dante isn't really doing anything special besides using it.

I guess is similar to Sekiro obtaining the Mortal Blade. The weapon kills anyone who tries to use it, the main character just happens to have powers that let them cheat this inconvenience away.

 

[mediocrepoet]

My favourite Devil May Cry moment is when Dante is impaled with his sword and then rips it out of his chest to power it up

Is not much of a difference, and the game's plot is dumb, just an excuse for action, but if the moment you are speaking of is the one I think, he isn't powering the sword. The sword itself is a demonic entity with will of its own, he survives the hit that would have been mortal for a human and then takes control of the weapon. The weapon itself is magical, Dante isn't really doing anything special besides using it.

I guess is similar to Sekiro obtaining the Mortal Blade. The weapon kills anyone who tries to use it, the main character just happens to have powers that let them cheat this inconvenience away.

Yeah, that could be. This is a memory from like 25 years ago on the PS2. Whatever. It was dumb as hell. Me and my buddy both burst out laughing.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Actually the first hurdle right now is the camera more than anything. Such a strange way to navigate through a game. Never understood it but i seemed to be a thing back then on the Playstation.

You have to remember that back then 3D was in it's infancy. Your two decent options indoors were basically fixed cameras or first person. It took quite a while for the over the shoulder style popular these days to not be total dogshit. Even as recently as Dark Souls the camera would very frequently do shit like clip into objects and render you blind, or bounce off something and make your character take a 90 degree sharp turn off a cliff. Games with a movable 3rd person view tended to only take place outdoors, like dynasty warriors or Armored Core, where there was nothing for the camera to collide with.

Even as a little kid i never cared much about keeping a score, i liked games that challenged me with their mechanics right off the bat.

I also got used to the idea of having to redo something "over and over" because that is how arcade games worked for the most part

I'm surprised you're not a fan of roguelikes. Those two things are basically half the core elements.

 

[Silverfish]

I think liking this shit is actually an IQ test.

Sorry you flunked.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I think liking this shit is actually an IQ test.

Sorry you flunked.

QED

 

[Lyric Suite]

Two more weeks and then i'll have all the time in the world. I think i'll try DMC first as it seems i can finish it quickly and then jump on DD.

it's bad if the player can read what a boss is doing and react to it naturally.

From my perspective, this is the equivalent of saying prog rock or classical music etc shouldn't exist because it's bad to have a kind of music that cannot be understood instinctively and requires constant listening and training before you can even get close to grasping what's going on.

If anything, i hope they go even further as i found during the DLC that the game started to get a bit too predictable. Elden Ring covered every possibility already i think with the DLC they got a bit too close to revealing what was happening behind the curtain. The attacks were still clever and novel but some of the patterns got a bit too transparent. Definitely felt they got to the bottom of their bag of tricks with this combat system i hope they shake things up on the next game.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I'm surprised you're not a fan of roguelikes. Those two things are basically half the core elements.

They never came to my attention for one reason or another.

I'm also not sure whether it's the same thing. Having to redo something because you got unlucky with the RNG isn't exactly the same.

 

[Ravielsk]

From my perspective, this is the equivalent of saying prog rock or classical music etc shouldn't exist because it's bad to have a kind of music that cannot be understood instinctively and requires constant listening and training before you can even get close to grasping what's going on.

Then your perspective is wrong. These are not even remotely comparable. Music can be listened to in its entirety from start to finish regardless of how much or how little you understand it. The song does not stall out because you did not get the last verse, it also does it restart to the beginning, nor does it stop you from enjoying any of the other songs in the album.

Elden ring and videogames (in general) however do all of those things. If you cannot get past certain bosses you are either locked out of entire chunks of the game or gear pertinent to your build. Neither of which is exactly justified when the requirement for "getting it" is to first die several times to unpredictable moves.

 

[Odoryuk]

saying prog rock or classical music etc shouldn't exist because it's bad to have a kind of music that cannot be understood instinctively and requires constant listening and training before you can even get close to grasping what's going on.

Good prog rock and classic music doesn't require "training" to enjoy, unless by "training" you mean pretending to like something subpar to look smart solely from consuming media other people rarely want to

 

[Lyric Suite]

From my perspective, this is the equivalent of saying prog rock or classical music etc shouldn't exist because it's bad to have a kind of music that cannot be understood instinctively and requires constant listening and training before you can even get close to grasping what's going on.

Then your perspective is wrong. These are not even remotely comparable. Music can be listened to in its entirety from start to finish regardless of how much or how little you understand it. The song does not stall out because you did not get the last verse, it also does it restart to the beginning, nor does it stop you from enjoying any of the other songs in the album.

Elden ring and videogames (in general) however do all of those things. If you cannot get past certain bosses you are either locked out of entire chunks of the game or gear pertinent to your build. Neither of which is exactly justified when the requirement for "getting it" is to first die several times to unpredictable moves.

I don't think the analogy is invalidated because of that distinction.

I also think that's an argument in favor of the simplification of games if you take issue with any kind of system where you are forced to learn something in order to progress thorugh the game. You can apply the same logic to complex level design. What if somebody gets lost in a level and aren't able to make it out?

 

[Lyric Suite]

saying prog rock or classical music etc shouldn't exist because it's bad to have a kind of music that cannot be understood instinctively and requires constant listening and training before you can even get close to grasping what's going on.

Good prog rock and classic music doesn't require "training" to enjoy, unless by "training" you mean pretending to like something subpar to look smart solely from consuming media other people rarely want to

Actually, they do require training to enjoy. You train with your ears instead of your fingers but the difference is immaterial in terms of the present argument.

And one of the reasons those genre of music aren't popular is that the majority of people don't like effort. They prefer things that are grasped easily, expecting instant gratification over having to grow in knowledge and understanding.

 

[Ravielsk]

simplification of games

Nobody here is talking about simplification, only you.

learn something in order to progress thorugh the game

There is a massive difference between having to learn something and having to "trial and error" your way through an encounter. Technically both are classifiable as "learning" but are hardly the same. Falling once into a lava pool to learn its instadeath and having to die 10 times to a boss to learn his whirlwind attack is undodgeable are two very different processes and experiences. Even if the resulting end knowledge is technically the same.

You can apply the same logic to complex level design. What if somebody gets lost in a level and aren't able to make it out?

No, you cannot. Reaction windows and level design are two fundamentally different areas of game design and do not operate on the same level nor do they test the same skill/capability.

A boss whose moveset has reaction windows that are consistently brushing against the limitations of input lag is a test of patience, not of learning or understanding capability. You simply have to know the exact animation tell and mash the button with borderline frame perfect accuracy otherwise you are done. This means that any boss designed in this way inevitably comes with a "mandated minimum failure rate" before the player can realistically respond to what is even happening on screen. Minimum being in bold and underlined because there is no way for the developer to ensure there is a maximum past which the player does not need to fail.
No player will catch the tells in the same amount of time and some may simply never. On top of that when it comes to PC you have to account for the huge delta between input devices since just gamepads have radically different input lags depending on their connection method and manufacturer.

Point being there is a solid chance for players to catch the tell but end up incapable of responding to it due to their hardware not allowing for such tight responses. To put this into perspective with your level analogy that is as if certain levels were potentially not beatable if the player did not have a 240hz monitor or did not have surround sound.

 

[Multidirectional]

As it stands From's combat isn't about challenging the player with mechanically interesting choices
It's about playing Guitar Hero: Prepare to Roll Edition

So Lyric Suite seems like you are in agreement with DJOGamer PT then.

It also sounds like you would really like Lies of P combat, which I found to be even more annoying than ER combat as it abuses the shit out of delayed "gotcha" attacks. While I do enjoy some of the music that requires active listening, I do not want combat in action games to be equivalent of that.

 

[Ravielsk]

So @Lyric Suite seems like you are in agreement with DJOGamer PT then.

It also sounds like you would really like Lies of P combat, which I found to be even more annoying than ER combat. While do enjoy some of the music that requires active listening, I do not want combat in action games to be equivalent of that.

Paradoxically I enjoyed Lies of P combat more than Elden ring specifically because it played its cards straight. The tutorial actually covered the expected playstyle and the game clearly signals what action is expected of the player. Hence even though I died to the police boss more than I would have liked it never felt half as bullshit as most ER bosses because at no point was I stuck questioning whether I am too slow, using the wrong loadout or something else.

 

[Multidirectional]

Paradoxically I enjoyed Lies of P combat more than Elden ring specifically because it played its cards straight. The tutorial actually covered the expected playstyle and the game clearly signals what action is expected of the player. Hence even though I died to the police boss more than I would have liked it never felt half as bullshit as most ER bosses because at no point was I stuck questioning whether I am too slow, using the wrong loadout or something else.

Well that is true, game is more upfront about that it expects you to do. It's just that I didn't enjoy that much. Maybe if deflecting was as easy to do as in Sekiro it would have been a different story. As it is, much more difficult timing for deflect coupled with constant delayed attacks just rubbed me the wrong way. It's amazing that I even had patience to beat the last boss which didn't allow summons as that was one annoying fucker. Took me several respecs before I could do it though.

 

[Lyric Suite]

There is a massive difference between having to learn something and having to "trial and error" your way through an encounter.

There is no difference because it's always trial and error. Every single game in existence is like that. That's what "learning" is in a video game. Always has been.

Mario was trial and error. Nioh was trial and error. Doom was trial and error back in the day. Even Bioshock which i just finished, a game with fairly simplistic design and gameplay, was trial and error.

It's how game design works at a fundmanetal level. The only way to know if you can make that jump in a platformer is to try it. If you fail, you need to try it again until you get a grasp of the timing and distancing.

The only thing that is different about Elden Ring is that it's more difficult. That's literally the only distinction. And the fact there's more to understand about the game, whether it involves more trial and error or not, means there's more to "learn".

Technically both are classifiable as "learning" but are hardly the same. Falling once into a lava pool to learn its instadeath and having to die 10 times to a boss to learn his whirlwind attack is undodgeable are two very different processes and experiences. Even if the resulting end knowledge is technically the same.

In video games, there are things that you can learn on paper (I.E., the fact a boss is "weak" to a particular damage type), and things you can only learn through experience. Action games, for the most part, focus on the latter. It's still learning in either case though.

No, you cannot. Reaction windows and level design are two fundamentally different areas of game design and do not operate on the same level nor do they test the same skill/capability.

It's the same in terms of the discussion we are having.

In Thief, understanding a level involves a great deal of backtracking and retracing your steps. For every path you take there are alternative routes and there's no way to know where they end up until you follow them. And in order to make sense of the whole level you often have to go back and follow the same paths several times until you commit them to memory.

The process is the same, even if the underlying nature of what it is that you are learning is different, because learning is learning, doesn't matter if it's a spatial pattern or the timing for a dodge.

A boss whose moveset has reaction windows that are consistently brushing against the limitations of input lag is a test of patience, not of learning or understanding capability.

Dark Souls was always a test of patience. It was considered one of its chief virtues when i got into the series back then. There's still learning involved though.

You simply have to know the exact animation tell and mash the button with borderline frame perfect accuracy otherwise you are done.

Yeah, you simply have to learn the animation tell and the timing.

This means that any boss designed in this way inevitably comes with a "mandated minimum failure rate" before the player can realistically respond to what is even happening on screen.

I have no issues with that whatsoever. That's where my analogy with complex music comes in, because in that too there's a mandate minimum failure rate before the listener can realistically claim to be able to understand what is going on in the music.

Other genres, like schmups, also have a mandated failure rate, which is actually far more massive than anything in Souls. Show me the person who was able to get through the final stage in DoDonPachi first try. There are games, like Battle Garegga, which even play on the fact failure is INEVITABLE no matter your skill level. The game keeps getting harder the better you play and then the strategy is to know WHEN to fail.

And Elden Ring is not even remotely as punishing as those kind of games. You have things that can edge your bets and cut down failure. You have healing that allow you to recover from mistakes. You have tools that you can use to shorten the duration of the fight, or stop the boss in its tracks (like in my fight with Messmer where i basically stunlock him throughout his entire second phase by abusing the stance mechanic). You can use stuff like bleed or rot to cut down on the boss, you have tools like parry that can cancel entire combos.

There's tons of stuff you can do in the game to reduce the difficulty and downplay the frustration. The ONLY time what you are complaining comes into play is if you are trying to do a no-hit run on the boss, possibly while limiting your damage output, and 99% of people don't do that kind of stuff.

No player will catch the tells in the same amount of time and some may simply never.

So?

Your last point about input lag is both irrelevant (you can make the same argument when it comes to other games) and false (FromSoft games are designed for console hardware, which is fairly standardized).

 

[cvv]

Paradoxically I enjoyed Lies of P combat more than Elden ring specifically because it played its cards straight.

That's a very strange defense. "Yes the game is insufferable but it's honest about it!"

Also, I'm not sure about the second part either but whatever floats your boat.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Personally, i think after Elden Ring and particularly the DLC i don't see how anyone can claim the game holds any real mystery anymore.

It basically works like this. You have attack, fast attack, attack with delayed start up, attack that chains into follow ups, but sometimes there's a chance there's no follow up (RNG), super fast double attacks (actually the worst one in the bunch in my opinion, with Consort Radhan pushing it to an extreme), grab attacks, and finally special attacks (magic spells etc). And if we are talking about a humanoid opponent, i would add surprise jump attacks.

And that's pretty much it. Now the attacks are all different, patterns change, tells need to be learned for every single boss, and understanding windows of opportunity and timings involves some trial and error (but not as much as people think as after a while you can get a sense of how the timing works). You then get all the other mechanics (spells you can use yourself, parry, blocking, knowing when you can stagger a boss or when you have to look out for hyperarmor, stance breaking and so forth) which can change the dynamic of the fight but in terms of what kind of patterns you should expect from a boss it's fairly transparent now.

And aside for being more punishing now, the design philosophy isn't terribly different from what Souls has always been. The biggest enemy, as always, is impatience.

So where does the complexity lie? Personally, i think is in how the movements are designed, how "tells" need to be deciphered first, and how attacks are always visually varied, the game rarely falling into cliches in that respect. That's probably one of the things i like best about it.

 

[Lutte]

My favourite Devil May Cry moment is when Dante is impaled with his sword and then rips it out of his chest to power it up. Totally not retarded.

Also, since I haven't played them much because the first was so dumb, while looking for an image of this retardation, I learned that this happens in every game in the series. ... I think liking this shit is actually an IQ test.

Yeah, the IQ test that Elden Ring players have failed.

Every post From fans make in this thread are just self own at this point.

 

[Cheesedragon117]

I think the fact that he pulls it out forwards (as in, the crossguard and handle going through his chest somehow) is an important distinction. Ridiculous? Yes, but not any more than anything else in the series (or anything in that game, even). They even turn Dante getting stabbed with something every game into a recurring gag.

Less of an IQ test and more like acclimating yourself to a higher sea-level country with less oxygen in the air.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I only saw the intro for DMC1, but the sword in the chest is obviously intended to be a bait and switch. Dante is introduced as some regular dude, gets impaled by the sword, you are supposed to assume he is dead but gets up again because he is a supernatural being.

It's very awkard, like something out of a third rate b movie, but i get the point.

 

[Ravielsk]

The only thing that is different about Elden Ring is that it's more difficult. That's literally the only distinction. And the fact there's more to understand about the game, whether it involves more trial and error or not, means there's more to "learn".

Wrong. On pretty much every level. The amount of "knowledge" Elden ring demands of the player is about the same as any action RPG, maybe even slightly less if you want to be pedantic and include games like morrowind into that category. The problem is the level of pedantry in acquiring said knowledge. You do not need to learn only if a attack is dodgeable but also the exact angle and frame at which it is dodgeable. This linearly increases the amount of time wasted figuring this out and would be under any other context considered hollow filler.

So?

Your last point about input lag is both irrelevant (you can make the same argument when it comes to other games) and false (FromSoft games are designed for console hardware, which is fairly standardized).

First off a problem being applicable to more than one game does not stop it from being a problem. Second most games are not so tight with their timing that input lag would be a factor. Even games like Bayoneta, DMC or GoW have more lenient timing for their dodges and parries than Elden Ring does.
Finally what good is standardization on the Playstation or xbox platform when you play one PC?

 

[Lyric Suite]

You do not need to learn only if a attack is dodgeable but also the exact angle and frame at which it is dodgeable. This linearly increases the amount of time wasted figuring this out and would be under any other context considered hollow filler.

It's filler to you, it's complexity to me. Dark Souls always had a degree of "physicality" to it, which in way is what makes the game feel a little bit more grounded than a mere button masher or something like Street Fighter etc.

Nioh was like that too. On the first boss, i had trouble understanding why i would keep getting hit even though it felt i successfully dodged his attacks. I then realized what was happening is that the ball would fall to the ground after his spin was complete, hitting me in the head if i happened to stand under it. So what i had to do is learn the correct timing that would allow me to position myself away from the rebound. You can see it in my video of the fight:



When he spins around, you need to make sure your dodge lands you close to the ball on the left, so you don't get hit by the one on the right bouncing down. And then there's another type of spin he does where you have to dodge into him so you don't get hit again by the ball falling into the ground, this time in front of him.

In FromSoft games, this kind of "spacial" awarness is pretty much an element of the combat system. On some level, it's probably unavoidable anyway if the game is 3D, but obviously since it's there it appears the developers are designing the game with that factor in mind. In Elden Ring, you can dodge entire combos just by positioning behind the boss. I remember when i fighting the Dancing Lion there was one attack that almost drove me crazy. It's basically the one where he bobs the head left and right which always seemed to be able to get me every time i dared to punish him after certain attacks. It drove me nuts as i felt there was no way around it. Turns out all i had to do is make sure to get behind him, where i was pretty much safe from it.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I'm also not sure whether it's the same thing. Having to redo something because you got unlucky with the RNG isn't exactly the same.

I've spent more time playing roguelikes than anything else. While they obviously contain an immense amount of RNG, blaming it for your loss is like blaming your bad luck for losing at Scrabble. Outside of some incredibly rare circumstances it's always the player's fault for lacking knowledge or playing carelessly. Top players can consistently streak wins in most decent roguelikes.

I actually find RNG more annoying in action games these days, as even if you know how to play around it, that generally means being passive and waiting for an opening, which is infuriating. Watching some boss spaz out for 2 minutes straight before I can safely attack is worse than an unskippable cutscene of the same length because the whole time you know it's just bad luck to even have happened.

 

[Silverfish]

It's very awkard, like something out of a third rate b movie

DMC is pretty unabashedly Kamiya's take on 80's Hollywood cheese.