i got really close twice!! i can never close the deal in dueling games like thhis
I mean personally I donāt even bristle at this being called the best game ever which is itself very uncommon for me but thereās plenty to complain about, because complaining is beautiful and elden ring is a land of contrasts
4 Likes
as @broco can attest to
EDIT: this was in response to my own post about never closing the deal in dueling games lol
1 Like
Bloodborne as I recall had another very lopsided narrative where there were tons and tons of folks you could encounter prior to the werewolf priest guy and if you didnāt encounter them and beat him outright as I did you felt like you had no idea what was going on, even though they only really provided information on Yharnam and very little on the eventual situation with the old ones, it just didnāt feel right without them
I remember being even more confused when Old Yharnam ended in a dead end
3 Likes
Controversially I would like them to automagically mark bosses on my map when I encounter them and grey out the icon when I kill them because this isnāt that different from marking discovered locations and itās basically what we all do with the skull icon anyway.
3 Likes
for what itās worth, the game is incredible and the best thing iāve played in years just for giving me thirty hours of that demonās souls 1-1, march 2009 feeling
and iām also a huge mark for overpowered ācheeseā when thereās a large variety of it (see my title)
11 Likes
I really liked that the big dungeons were actually big. in dark souls they always have these great evocative names and then theyāre all just little rinky dink areas that only take any effort to progress through because every single fight is some bushido blade shit
9 Likes
idk i really bristle at attributing the consistent approach theyāve taken to quest design since demonās souls to a mistake or a lack of follow through. i think they do want it to be this obscure, the communities pouring over every detail and building their wikis is just part of the vibe now
i totally get any player who finds it frustrating but elden ring feels like From executing a well-iterated idea at the top of their game ā the quirks are probably intentional at this point!
8 Likes
hey you two would probably get along by the way if you wanna come over this weekend
100% agree with this. I did not start feeling fatigued until near the very end, when I started wikiāing shit. āI seem to be close to the end and this game is huge, may as well try and cram in as much as I can first time.ā This was a mistake, this made shit drag, completing quests did not enhance my enjoyment. Theyāre all From Soft shit, I get more out of the ambiguity than any kind of resolution.
Like, all those Dark Souls playthroughs where Iād just bump into Siegmeyer occasionally were far more enjoyable than following a checklist on a wiki so I could get an additional 3 lines of text and a peek at a dead body. I aināt ever doing that shit again.
(Donāt look at how many fextralife tabs I have open right now, theyāre all in incognito tabs, that means they donāt count. Also that site kinda sucks for this game right now, thatās kinda awesome.)
So Iām fine with the quest design, I think missing shit is good, Iām pretty sure labeling these characters bits as something other than quests might be more accurate/make it easier to accept them for what they actually are (doomed people) but, well, here we are, I guess theyāre quests.
13 Likes
yeah i guess part of the issue is that calling them quests completely flattens out any differences between whatās necessary vs. whatās essentially just for flavor. that combined with how mysterious everything is means i donāt know what i need to do to progress and what i should just, likeā¦let slide.
1 Like
yeah my wiki-ing has been constrained to āwhere are all the whetbladesā and other core functionality unlocks that i somehow stumbled past in a murder haze
i did look up a boss strat on fextralife early on and it said margit had an attack called āsummon toddās momā
8 Likes
gonna get real pissed off if i make it to the final dungeon and i have to fight all of the robot masters again before facing dr wily
8 Likes
Yeah, I mean I donāt really care about āmissableā characters or quests or whatever per se. What I donāt like is stuff like when a character you meet at the beginning of the game says āI will meet you at the Temple of Whatever at Steveās Great Big Treeā and 70 hours later I walk into some room somewhere and a red phantom invades and I kill them and only a later conversation with someone on here reveals that was the same person Iād forgotten about meeting and it was supposed to be a dramatic conclusion to a quest I didnāt know I was on. Or when the wolfman says āIāll meet you at Steveās Big Forgotten Cityā and I get there and he isnāt there and Iām like āoh, ok. Is it broken?ā So I do the big forgotten city and then later while popping over to Big Blacksmith to buy some Depressing Ore heās like āI put the wolfman in jail for some reasonā and Iām like āoh, right. Ok. I guess that was supposed to happen?ā
These things donāt feel like gothic vignettes of doomed characters; they feel like they forgot to finish making the game
8 Likes
Reading the Wiki is the only way to make sure I donāt miss out on all the optional boss fights I hate anyway.
3 Likes
I agree and also think that āstuff i donāt understand happening for no reasonā is a pretty good vibe. I get more annoyed just knowing that itās supposed to be something more.
If i had no idea then iād feel comfortable not paying that much attention to it lol
1 Like
One nice thing about the story remaining vague is that it cuts down on the āMaybe you really are the chosen one who will do whatever big thing needs to be done in the world.ā I guess some of that canāt be avoided because you actually are going around and affecting the world in major ways (by killing everyone, because itās a video game). But I wish my character could continue to feel like a nobody somehow.
I forgot to mention that my favorite thing about VarrĆ©ās quest is where you find the invasion finger item.
5 Likes
wolfman showed up for me but he was like āi guess we canāt do anything here right now idk let me know if you find anything outā and i liked that. he seemed to be as confused about the questline as i was.
8 Likes
Im realizing too much spooky bullshit and no balance is what I really want. Itās what ties this game to symphony of the night. Its what makes it feel like an actual adventure instead of a ride.
The only times Iām not having much fun is when I feel the GAME DESIGN in the form of encountering early areas I missed at level 60.
Every time I slow down I just find a whole new frontier. Iām getting so much value out of this game its stupid.
I think Im not specialized enough. I just got a really good wand and boy howdy Im realizing the power of int magic, having a crisis of faith over here. What a cool problem.
7 Likes