Elden Ring 2

[Victor]

the truth was in front of us all along

[HOBO]

how the hell is switching weapons one of the the cool things the game’s Ui makes basically impossible

@BunchesOfBees

but every time you bring up something bad about a Souls game you wind up having to defend the audacity of not liking like two or three things forever and can never talk about anything else again

This is some real clown show shit. You are using extreme hyperbole in every other post you’ve made on this topic. Plenty of folks have criticized this game and not gotten the (rather polite, imo) pushback you have. Maybe there’s a reason for this?

[Tegiminis]

For your ??? I propose BioWare. Almost every RPG of theirs from the “classic era” (Baldur’s Gate through Dragon Age 2, I’d say) follows either this structure or is completely linear:

1. Mandatory linear tutorial intro
2. Hub world which spokes into 3+ distinct interrelated stories that are mandatory to complete, but in whatever order you feel like
3. Converge to a conclusion which is mostly or exactly the same regardless of your choices; differences are minor

It’s one of the big three RPG design tropes, and for good reason I think. It’s a good way to tell both a narrative and smaller character stories at the same time! You spend so much time doing “mandatory sidequests” for your buddies you get attached to them, and then the game puts it all in danger to motivate your over the finish line.

[miffy]

(post deleted by author)

[BunchesOfBees]

All right, when the Elden Ring debate gets TOO HEATED it’s clearly time to go to bed. No hard feelings, everyone. We are after all only guilty of loving video games too dang much

[Victor]

Big Boggart is the protagonist of Elden Ring.

[Cerium]

The real elden ring debate starts here

[GherkinForce]

the big failure of the ‘quest design’ IMO is that it took me 100 hours to find out there’s a talking monkey character

[HOBO]

Wait what

[vodselbt]

Boc! I think he’s more of a ratty thing than monkey.

[skelephone]

If you look real close Boc is straight up a lanky monkey it’s adorable

[HOBO]

How did I forget….

Probably cuz it took me that long to find him too

The way people were dropping hints about him I was looking up in trees, expecting to find an owl like that kings quest motherfuker

[Tuxedo]

@BunchesOfBees

the reality of switching out a big roster of spells is that it’s just not practical because of how tightly tuned the game is and how poorly designed the spell UI is.

It’s been made a lot easier since the change in Dark Souls … 3? Which makes a long press on an item/spell button cycle you back to the first item/spell in your roster

I actually never cycle through spells the old way anymore since this is much more convenient: I know that a long press always leads to Glintstone Pebble, a long press + a short press to Carian Slicer, a long press + two short presses to Loretta’s greatbow, etc

I don’t think the games have ever communicated that this feature exists though

[cylindrome]

@BunchesOfBees

I think at some point after there’s a layer of patina over my experience I might go through and do the hallowed second playthrough—sword and board the entire thing to tackle all the bosses I ruthlessly cheesed, look up all the story stuff I missed so I actually get to see what the game was about, etc.

that’s funny because i’m very consciously trying to have the opposite approach: take my time (been going 1-3 days between sessions from the start) and do all the deep excavation now, while the novelty and conversation around it are still motivating. then once i know where the most inspired content is, plot an “essential” course that i can remember for future playthroughs.

what’s been amusing is finding out how much of my work is already done: tedious roadblocks often have cheeses and skips; you can spice up the early hours tremendously if you know which teleporters to take. i got a kick when it turned out the part of altus plateau i most enjoyed returning to (the tibia mariner part with the really gorgeous view of the erdtree) is actually exactly where you come out if you take the iron maiden warp (which is also the most entertaining way to get up there)

[BunchesOfBees]

Ahahaha yeah I had absolutely no idea this existed. Still sounds pretty fiddly but at least it’s in there. Much like “sort items by latest” (truly From’s greatest secret) it’s pretty easy to play the game without knowing it exists

[robo]

Elden Ring recreates the magic of finding warps in Mario and of discovering VLOOKUP in Excel.

[toups]

I feel like there’s a conflation between UI/UX. a UI can be great without being intuitive or explaining everything clearly. elden ring’s UI has an enormous learning curve but I actually think it’s very powerful and fast once learned. that makes it a good UI to me… and honestly, for a game I’m gonna be spending more than 20 hours with I really want the UI to prioritize efficiency over ease of learning. I have plenty of time to learn the UI… I don’t want to be fiddling with an intuitive but inefficient UI for that long. they don’t always have to be at odds, but with a UI this complex there is almost always a tradeoff in practice.

[bib]

i love the UI too, and i also love that it was a little abrasive when it came out in 2009 but someone over there loves it enough that it just never changed at all

ok though i doooo think a little more attention to spells in particular would be welcome-- it doesn’t have to be a monster hunter selection wheel (that would be nice…) but even just being able to set spells to those four quick slots would do a lot. as it is, like, your 5/6/7/8th spell slots are just too unwieldy to deal with imo

(i mean ok i guess the answer is you put the threeish spells you actually use in the first slots you can snap back to and the more situational stuff further out but i just think they should have let you put them in the quick slots ok)

[wourme]

Elden Ring - The secret of Melina's Accord

[VastleCania]

I love the menus in this game deeply. I would compare it to the absolutely loathsome menus of Nioh 2, which serve many of the same functions but are spread out in a billion different places and are impossible to remember. There are also a hundred million more things to do in the menus in Nioh 2, of course, so it’s not a great comparison, but even just looking through my inventory in that game makes me gnash my teeth for some reason.

This game is a joy because I don’t really want to be in the menus that much anyway, and when I do use 'em I can just…go where I need to. Plus I like browsing through all my weapons and shit. It was a little confusing at first managing the 2-3 panes but they’re so informative.

My absolute favorite thing this game does menu-wise is when your horse dies and you try to resummon him and it pops up this big “YOU SURE YOU WANNA DO THAT ITS GONNA TAKE A POTION” which defaults to “NO” and you gotta switch it over using the d-pad. This is my favorite interaction for four reasons:

1. Consent is important. If you’re going to use a potion, you better ask.
2. It made me grip the controller in the weirdest fucking way because, as it came up, a big tree jerk was trying to smash me with a hammer, so I had to keep moving while answering the question. It felt good to hold a controller this way for 2 seconds
3. It made me feel like a badass to pull it off. It’s the only menu that makes me feel cool to be able to navigate it while someone is trying to kill me.
4. I let my horse die, and I should be punished for it.

Is it a weird decision? Absolutely. Is it extremely memorable? Definitely. It’s hands down one of my favorite experiences I’ve had in this game full of really great experiences.

Anyway I was just pondering this and needed to post it.