Thread: Elden Ring

  1. #2041
    Quote Originally Posted by omeomorfismo View Post
    thats not something balanceable, ranged would be always superior, thats not something that could ever change...
    It is. Make range damage do dogshit. Make it have no tracking so you have to aim, etc. But I digress. That's not what I'm interested in. I'm interested in at least not feeling like heavy 2h melee is the worlds' largest liability.

    Past souls games felt like you could beat any boss by just having reflexes and a proper main stat/scaling weapon combo because every boss had issues tracking and had ample room for punishing attacks of all varieties (not just jump/roll r1 spam). It didn't matter what you used. About the only thing that really sucked were sword and shield builds because shields did nothing to counter boss attacks. You'd get staggered immediately no matter what.

  2. #2042
    Quote Originally Posted by korijenkins View Post
    A major issue with this game and a reason I view anyone giving it a straight up 10/10 as a total hack is the range in quality of the boss fights. Some are comically easy to the point of not being fun. Others are "hard" in that they cram in so much bullshit with windows to attack/pot that are miniscule and sometimes don't even happen, and a few really well-designed ones.

    The boss fights are basically either easy jokes, stupid mechanics being spammed to prevent you from doing anything, duo fights that shouldn't exist because they end up becoming spamfests by the bosses, or well-designed fights. I enjoyed Astel, Elden Beast, Godrick, Malenia (to an extent). Absolutely hated every duo fight and and Maliketh.

    A major issue with the fights as well is how easy they immediately become as soon as you give the dumb AI something else to focus on. Summon 5 shield skeletons, fight instantly over because you can just nuke without repercussion. It's a sign of a poor fight design imo.
    Yeah, I hear you. I enjoyed Godrick, Magritt/Morgott, Renalla ph2, Radahn, Godfrey (the spirit, haven't gotten to the man himself), some of the Evergaol duels before I figured out each and every single one of them came back as normal mobs, there's a bunch of good bosses here... but there's also a bunch of unfun shit like Revenants, cat statues and any and all gank/duo fights even if some are less bad than others. Mind this has been true of every From Soft games, even their best games RE boss design (IMO Sekiro and DS3) have had their shares of reuses and stinkers. Can't win them all when every game has so many bosses.

    And indeed, as an addendum to what I said about ranged not being punished the AI also has a hard time dealing with several enemies. Well most of them, some foes are clearly smart enough to do so, for instance Crucible Knights have an attack when they start to swing at whatever's in front but actually do a 180 and smack you in the face while you're backstabbing. There's a tell so it's not bullshit which I like but still, most enemies are very exploitable due to their AI being specifically designed to handle dueling the player in melee.

    I don't think it a crippling flaw or anything. But I do think it a flaw that in a game with so many possible builds, it some feel unaccounted for by the devs in terms of designing counters to them. They're super focused on making melee duels harder than ever but that's it. A big strength of Sekiro is that it basically had one build and the entire game is designed around it, allowing all enemies to be tailor made to your moveset. This IMO leads to far more satisfying fights, even if at the detriment of customizability. And of course when they do throw a boss that breaks the mold like Demon of Hatred, oh boy does it feel out of place.
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  3. #2043
    Immortal hellhamster's Avatar
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    LOL. Some dude just beat the game and all major bosses with only butt stomps.


  4. #2044
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    Quote Originally Posted by BeepBoo View Post
    I started a new character with the intent of going magic this time around... and are you fucking kidding me? This game is an entirely different experience with fucking OP assed magic. Margit? First try with basically no dodging and only FP potions. Godrick? Same shit. Open world clearing? Glintstone arc says every enemy or group of enemies is a joke.

    What the fuck is wrong with fromsoft? Where is the balance?
    Fun? Also magics traditionzlly op in many settings. If anything most games downplay it in the name of balance

  5. #2045
    Quote Originally Posted by BeepBoo View Post
    It is. Make range damage do dogshit. Make it have no tracking so you have to aim, etc. But I digress. That's not what I'm interested in. I'm interested in at least not feeling like heavy 2h melee is the worlds' largest liability.

    Past souls games felt like you could beat any boss by just having reflexes and a proper main stat/scaling weapon combo because every boss had issues tracking and had ample room for punishing attacks of all varieties (not just jump/roll r1 spam). It didn't matter what you used. About the only thing that really sucked were sword and shield builds because shields did nothing to counter boss attacks. You'd get staggered immediately no matter what.
    Thats not balancing, thats just needing more time and hits to kill, the safeness of ranged remain exactly the same....or you are making ranged resources simply not enough, making then melee compelling....
    12/6/2009 -23/11/2020 rip little deathstalker Ferretti. proud forsaken, enemy of the livings

  6. #2046
    Quote Originally Posted by Tech614 View Post


    Or you just like the sound of your own hyperbole so much you can't help but keep spamming it.
    Now that is some pot calling the kettle black stuff right there if I have ever seen some.

  7. #2047
    Quote Originally Posted by omeomorfismo View Post
    Thats not balancing, thats just needing more time and hits to kill, the safeness of ranged remain exactly the same....or you are making ranged resources simply not enough, making then melee compelling....
    I don't think nerfing range into the ground is a good idea, if anything bows need a buff as they've been useless as anything but baiting tools since DS1. But I do think the enemies should be designed around ranged combat about as much as around melee, given that it's a prominent build option. Most foes will, depending on capabilities, either block or try to strike you first if you bumrush them in melee. If you use magic those with shields usually block for all the good it does them, but most others just blindly march into your OP lazor of death. The enemies are designed around counterplaying melee but not magic, again save for the exceptions who are so aggressive they close the distance before you can cast. More enemies should try to dodge, use spell wards, that sorta thing.

    There's no silver bullet here of course, actually implementing that sort of design takes time, effort and proper balancing so as not to revert the situation. But it just feels weird to have the game be so meticulously crafted around giving melee a proper challenge with many and varied attack patterns and ranged just ignores most of that.
    It is all that is left unsaid upon which tragedies are built -Kreia

    The internet: where to every action is opposed an unequal overreaction.

  8. #2048
    A well equally-balanced game is deeply uninteresting. Usually bad game design too.

    Player desire does not have to be met by the gameplay expression at all.
    Last edited by Fencers; 2022-04-10 at 05:07 PM. Reason: Let me rephrase that.

  9. #2049
    Quote Originally Posted by Fencers View Post
    A well equally-balanced game is deeply uninteresting. Usually bad game design too.

    Player desire does not have to be met by the gameplay expression at all.
    Especially in a mostly single player game. "Balancing" a game often just means "removing fun", sometimes its necessary in MP games but in SP games you should just let it rock. I mean yea technically ER is "MP" but nobody is taking the MP competitive enough to warrant balance changes. And hell since the discussion is about ranged magic, ranged magic is mostly worthless in the pvp aspect of the game anyways.

  10. #2050
    Quote Originally Posted by SavoirFaire View Post
    If this isn’t game of the year/gen/decade then I’m anxious to see what could unseat it. Even with its flaws I’d call it a 10/10 without hesitation.

    After 160 hours I’ve put it aside, and really look forward to the DLC. It can’t come too soon.
    Agreed, there's just too much good for it not to be.

    I'm going full addict with it at the moment

  11. #2051
    Quote Originally Posted by BeepBoo View Post
    Yes, but melee wasn't always utter dogshit. It is now, so the fact that magic still gets to be faceroll while melee seems to be hardmode is kinda infuriating to someone like me who typically hates magic.
    Magic was always supposed to be the easy mode while melee was always supposed to be kind of the standard difficulty. It's up to you to decide if you want to play the easy mode or not.

    If you chose to use magic without limiting yourself, you don't really get to complain about the game being too easy, same as if you decide to play solo melee you don't really get to complain about the game being too hard.

    The game is as easy or hard as you want it to be, you can't blame it for your own choices

    As it stands, melee is really fun and well balanced, with the exception of fighting stuff like double watchdogs. But even most duo bosses are perfectly feasible as a melee character
    Last edited by ONCHEhap; 2022-04-10 at 05:34 PM.

  12. #2052
    Quote Originally Posted by Jastall View Post
    I don't think nerfing range into the ground is a good idea, if anything bows need a buff as they've been useless as anything but baiting tools since DS1. But I do think the enemies should be designed around ranged combat about as much as around melee, given that it's a prominent build option. Most foes will, depending on capabilities, either block or try to strike you first if you bumrush them in melee. If you use magic those with shields usually block for all the good it does them, but most others just blindly march into your OP lazor of death. The enemies are designed around counterplaying melee but not magic, again save for the exceptions who are so aggressive they close the distance before you can cast. More enemies should try to dodge, use spell wards, that sorta thing.

    There's no silver bullet here of course, actually implementing that sort of design takes time, effort and proper balancing so as not to revert the situation. But it just feels weird to have the game be so meticulously crafted around giving melee a proper challenge with many and varied attack patterns and ranged just ignores most of that.
    the main problem is that designing against range is still designing against melee, until you want to implement that 1 or 2 stuffs that are so specific that become stale after the 3° boss...
    thats just a not solvable problem...
    12/6/2009 -23/11/2020 rip little deathstalker Ferretti. proud forsaken, enemy of the livings

  13. #2053
    Quote Originally Posted by omeomorfismo View Post
    the main problem is that designing against range is still designing against melee, until you want to implement that 1 or 2 stuffs that are so specific that become stale after the 3° boss...
    thats just a not solvable problem...
    To add to what you are saying here;

    There is a way to solve this by using symmetrical elements. Such as all player options or encounters having both a ranged and melee necessity. Many games do this already such as a game where an encounter has an airborne enemy only reached by the player's ranged option but is immune to ranged at X point requiring the player to engage in melee.

    This is a pretty common design. Especially in design templates where the player has limited or no control over their character loadout or "build", so to speak. Limited linear game design.

    Nothing wrong with limited linear gameplay- Witcher 3, Red Dead Redemption 2, Last of Us, Horizon Forbidden West, Tomb Raider, Moster Hunter, and others use varying degrees of limited linear game design to great effect. Most MMORPGs in the Post-Warcraft style, "theme park MMOs", are strictly limited linear.

    Again, a great tool to use in making games. Though it is merely a design and philosophical choice on behalf of the game creators. There are game design elements that go against this though- such as Path of Exile, Diablo 2, Black Desert, Cities Skylines, and Elden Ring. Genre doesn't even matter to the design model.

    The design of Elden Ring is perfectly fine with allowing the player to beat the game at level 1 in 20 minutes as level 999 in a thousand hours. From Soft do not care if you ever use a summon, find the illusory walls, or run into a random lobster hiding in the mud to grab a butterfly.

    From Software doesn't care a wit if a player totally 'solves' Elden Ring.
    Last edited by Fencers; 2022-04-10 at 08:01 PM.

  14. #2054
    Quote Originally Posted by ONCHEhap View Post
    Magic was always supposed to be the easy mode while melee was always supposed to be kind of the standard difficulty.
    Sure. Then standard difficulty in this game is harder than it has been in other souls games and I dislike that. And it's harder for reasons I think are bad.
    same as if you decide to play solo melee you don't really get to complain about the game being too hard.
    Except I do for reasons stated above. I've not had as much trouble being a 2 hand colossal weapon user as I have in this game. Damage output sucks, windup sucks, trading sucks, bosses are heavily geared away from what a greatsword needs, etc.

    As it stands, melee is really fun and well balanced, with the exception of fighting stuff like double watchdogs. But even most duo bosses are perfectly feasible as a melee character
    You act like all melee offers the same experience. That's definitely not the case. My arcane bleed build friends have absolutely no problems. A few power stance colossal builds also actually get to do meaningful damage, even if they're just boring jump attack spamming.

    Again. I don't really care what's successful or not. I care about the specific archetype I favor being as effective as it has always been, and due to a smattering of reasons, it's not.

  15. #2055
    Quote Originally Posted by starstationprofm View Post
    Dunno how you can compare these games, Witcher and Cyberpunk have an actual story. Elden Ring is just a recycle of Dark Souls, which they've done in literally all of their games so far.

    Like yeah no shit when the only thing you focus on is combat, the combat's gonna be good.

    And even then they still have laughable crap like flying enemies getting stuck in 3D pieces and dying.
    Sekiro and Bloodborne don't have a lot in common with Dark Souls storewise.
    "stop puting you idiotic liberal words into my mouth"
    -ynnady

  16. #2056
    Quote Originally Posted by starstationprofm View Post
    Dunno how you can compare these games, Witcher and Cyberpunk have an actual story. Elden Ring is just a recycle of Dark Souls, which they've done in literally all of their games so far.

    Like yeah no shit when the only thing you focus on is combat, the combat's gonna be good.

    And even then they still have laughable crap like flying enemies getting stuck in 3D pieces and dying.
    Not every game developer is also the writer.

    That is rare where they do both like a Kojima or something.

  17. #2057
    I would enjoy some form of;

    - Boss Replayability
    - Chalice Dungeons-like mechanic

    Sometimes I just want fight a certain boss again for the fun of it without starting the whole game. Or I would just like a 15-20 minute dungeon romp with a boss at the end.

    Would really enjoy some kind of implementation to this end. Maybe combine the two; random Chalice dungeon and random boss at the end.

    I think it would be a lot of fun.

  18. #2058
    Quote Originally Posted by omeomorfismo View Post
    the main problem is that designing against range is still designing against melee, until you want to implement that 1 or 2 stuffs that are so specific that become stale after the 3° boss...
    thats just a not solvable problem...
    I dunno, specific dodges or closing attacks that they'd do in response to ranged attacks would not necessarily impact melee combat. In turn they can add depth to ranged combat to counter this, such as bows gaining a variety of possible ways to shoot them (quickshot, multishot, long draw, etc.) suited to counter some boss maneuvers. Spells already have that to a large degree with some spells/incantations being quick casts while other have Final Fantasy tier long-winded animations.

    I'm not saying it would be an easy job or if it's even feasible for From to implement that. But it would definitely enhance the game/genre if the same attention was given to ranged combat as to melee. There's not much sense in offering such a smattering of combat options but then laser focusing on one or two while the others are kinda just there. Not when the entire rest of the game is otherwise so meticulously designed.
    It is all that is left unsaid upon which tragedies are built -Kreia

    The internet: where to every action is opposed an unequal overreaction.

  19. #2059
    This is easily the best PVP I have played since Quake Arena.

    The build depth, arts of war, attribute distribution, break levels, frame counting; genius gameplay.

    It seems impossible on one level that From Soft made this game.

  20. #2060
    Well speedruners have finally reached the point where they have to kill 0 mobs and bosses to beat the game. True pacifist ending. Now its not much more than zipping around the map.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTc469QNrBM

    Surprised there were a whole bunch of tricks discovered since last time.

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