Why Elden Ring feels "Dead".

[Holy Athena]

I've seen many posts saying Elden Ring feels "dead" to many.

I'm not saying this game is bad. It's not. I'm not saying you can't enjoy it. You can. I am. But I do agree the game feels dead, and empty, despite there being so many things to interact with.

(Note: I want to say early on, that people keep getting caught up in the "dead" comment and post title, to me that isn't even much of a problem, though I do agree it feels that way. For me personally my problem is the pacing, which ties into the dead feeling. )

Quite honestly I feel like it's because of the genre they put Elden Rings in. Open World, and how they went about dealing with the Open World.

Nobody can argue that it's obvious they simply put their Dark Souls formula into an Open World map and called it good. There is literally no innovation or difference between Elden RIng and any other Dark Souls except a larger open map as far as I can tell.

Everything is very "static" or on rails, and the pacing is off entirely.

Yes there is "pacing" in Open World games, but it isn't the same as a non open world game.

Pacing in an Open World game is what is the player receiving in terms of rewards or their time spent for where they are, based on the difficulty and level they are, and that dungeon is supposed to be?

A bad pacing in an Open World game is going into a super difficult dungeon that takes hours, for a steel dagger that's worse than your starting weapon 40 levels ago and nothing else, and when the whole game is like that, well.. the game has horrible pacing, and that's exactly what Elden Ring is like.

I'll explain more..
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This is where the problem is. This is why it feels "dead" to many. Including myself.

When people buy Open World games they are looking for many things, in most cases though most people are looking for a world which interacts with the player in some way, and reasons to do what they're doing, reasons to explore, and to get rewarded for taking risks, and exploring the game. Elden Ring doesn't do any of that, and the reason is because of how horrible the pacing is setup.

I'm going to use Morrowind as an example. This is probably before some peoples time reading this, but Elder Scrolls Morrowind was an open world game, that did NOT have level syncing. It was setup exactly like Elden Ring, in terms of enemies strengths and abilities and difficulty of dungeons was static. The placement of items and everything was static, etc.

I'm going to use Morrowind to explain what "pacing" is in an Open world game, and why Elden Ring gets a massive F in that category.

In Morrowind, I could run down a trail and find a cave that was easily beatable, then find another along the same path where the enemies drop kick me out the front door while laughing. Determining what cave or area I can deal with and coming back later is part of Morrowind, as well as Elden Ring.

However, if I use the games mechanics, skills, and my own characters abilities masterfully I might be able to get through that very difficult and higher level area and reap the reward in the end, or at least partially some of it, and it will be beneficial for me. It could be a powerful weapon, powerful spell, or just a ton of loot that's well worth the risk.

This is good pacing. Going into higher level area's, or area's where you should be will reward you with appropriate rewards.

Not so in Elden Ring.

In Elden Ring, 90% of the dungeons are skippable. You get almost nothing of value. Beating a harder monster, minion, boss, won't net you anything more than beating a low level easy to kill monster, or at least what you get is pitiful in difference. THe resources, materials, or drops you get in those dungeons are things you can easily farm up in the open world as you constantly reset the map by sitting at a site of grace.

Elden Rings Open World entices you to go to low level area's and just farm weak mobs, because you'll get 10x more out of that for your time spent, than fighting even in dungeons equal to your level. That's bad pacing.

This worked in older Dark Souls games because they were not Open World. Your 1 and only objective was to get to the end of the story, the end of the path. Open World games are meant to be explored, and thus reward the player for exploration. Elden Rings does not.

Getting a new Ashes of War from a boss is nice, but most of the time it's pointless, or worse useless for you and what you're playing as, but unless you already know what you're wanting, or needing and where it is, most of the dungeons will end up being pointless wastes of time, which just encourages the player to skip them anyway, or at best, look it up online to see if it's even worth their time, and that just feels bad.
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Because the pacing is off, the open world "on rails" feeling just makes the whole world feel dead. Unlike other Open World games where you're rewarded for exploring, and the open world interacts with you (even Morrowind, a very static game 22 years ago had more interaction in the open world than Elden Ring does). Elden Ring does not.
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As I said. The game isn't bad, but I believe if they want Elden Ring to be the Open World Dark Souls game, they need to do more than just drop the same DS formula into a larger map, slap on the "Open World" sticker and call it a day. They need to figure out how to give that Dark Souls gritty dark, and punishing experience, while at the same time, not taking away from what most people are looking for in an open world kind of game.


TLDR:

Master.Yoda99 summed up my post brilliantly so I'll put it here.

I agree. The open world of Elden Ring feels dead and empty. It doesn't interact with you. This game is just a re-hash of Dark Souls but set in a bigger world. It feels like you are just riding a horse around, grind for runes/XP, and then level up. Aside from the main story bosses, all other bosses serve no purpose to the storytelling, they are just there as "something to fight against". The side quests don't even have proper stories. There is no dialogue choices and your actions don't affect the outcome of the quests. The side quests "appear" interesting only because the NPCs speak cryptically and mysteriously. Otherwise the stories are really simple and there is nothing to take home about.

The game has really nice visuals and the art direction is superb. But in terms of combat, Sekiro is better. Elden Ring's combat feels more annoying than challenging. The roll and parry have input delays, and almost every attack from the big important bosses is an AOE, it is a cheap and artificial way to inflate the game's difficulty. The strange thing is Elden Ring isn't really harder than Sekiro. I beat Margit after 7 tries, and I beat Godrick the Grafted after 3 tries. But back in 2019 it took me 20 tries to beat the first major boss in Sekiro and I had fun. The fight with Margit and Godrick were just so bloody annoying due to the input delays in rolls and dodge.

[Gnasty Gnorc]

didn't read because you don't understand what dead game means.

[Holy Athena]

Originally posted by Bang Howdy:

didn't read because you don't understand what dead game means.

what surprise, the first response gets a clown award. XD

Whatever your definition of a "dead game" is, is irrelevant to the point of the post, plus, if you didn't read it, how would you know I don't know what "Dead" means? Or what the post is even saying?

lawls... stupid is stupid, is stupid...

[Asteroth]

wierd cuz im finding all kinds of things to do npc's to interact with quests to do verging storylines.. hidden secrets and dungeons... plenty of enemies and enemy types.. everything i want from an open world.. so.. yea.. wierd..

[Gnasty Gnorc]

Originally posted by Holy Athena:

Originally posted by Bang Howdy:

didn't read because you don't understand what dead game means.

what surprise, the first response gets a clown award. XD

Whatever your definition of a "dead game" is, is irrelevant to the point of the post, plus, if you didn't read it, how would you know I don't know what "Dead" means? Or what the post is even saying?

lawls... stupid is stupid, is stupid...

"whatever your definition of a dead game is, is irrelevant"

No...it's...not?

You said the game is dead. A dead game literally means two things.

1-it's not being updated anymore.
2-people aren't playing it anymore.

It doesn't mean that you personally think there isn't as much content as World of Warcraft.

Imagine calling someone else stupid when you literally are trying to bend the definition of words to fit your own narrative.

[fiese Fee™]

feels not dead for me.

[Snefru]

I applaud you for taking the time to type all that up. I just happen to be enjoying it for what it is, not concerned with what it isn’t or comparing it to other open world games (to which I play about all of the pc ones that aren’t an mmo). It’s different than most. Good or bad? Just what it is. Maybe I’ll get tired of it before finishing or maybe not. At the moment I’m having fun except there’s no run toggle.

[76561198041896520]

Maidenless arent you?

[Holy Athena]

Originally posted by Bang Howdy:

Originally posted by Holy Athena:

what surprise, the first response gets a clown award. XD

Whatever your definition of a "dead game" is, is irrelevant to the point of the post, plus, if you didn't read it, how would you know I don't know what "Dead" means? Or what the post is even saying?

lawls... stupid is stupid, is stupid...

"whatever your definition of a dead game is, is irrelevant"

No...it's...not?

You said the game is dead. A dead game literally means two things.

1-it's not being updated anymore.
2-people aren't playing it anymore.

It doesn't mean that you personally think there isn't as much content as World of Warcraft.

Imagine calling someone else stupid when you literally are trying to bend the definition of words to fit your own narrative.

There are different meaning to the word dead. A game feeling dead, and a dead game are two very different things.

But in all your glorious arrogant ignorance you won't ever learn many things in your life because you think you're a perfect intelligent being that knows everything.. Sucks to be you.

Maybe if you took the time to be humble, and sat down to listen to what others had to say, you might learn something...

Like the very huge difference between those two meanings for starters, which is pretty basic logic that you failed at like a clown.

[Čmaroljub Grozni]

People have been praising BotW for its open world which was utter ♥♥♥♥ and worse than what we have here. If you want to play a snoozefest where the majority of the world is literally nothing then that is the perfect game for you.

This world has similar issue in that it is too big with too little content. Random churches are spread out to fill the empty space, some enemies here and there for you to do stuff and occasionally, if you're lucky, you run into a dungeon. It isn't remotely as bad as BotW was but could it use at least 50% more content in addition to what we have now? Yes, at least add like random caves for the players to do something.

The issue imo is that the world is just too big. There was no need to make it this big. The smaller areas, the legacy dungeons, are amazingly build with a lot of care put into every detail but the overworld is just bland. I've ended up using fextralife interactive map to navigate my way across the world 'cause I got bored looking for stuff in an empty ocean that is this world.

It isn't just Elden Ring, to be fair. Most modern open world games do this. You get a giant world with barely anything in it.

[Gnasty Gnorc]

Originally posted by Holy Athena:

Originally posted by Bang Howdy:

"whatever your definition of a dead game is, is irrelevant"

No...it's...not?

You said the game is dead. A dead game literally means two things.

1-it's not being updated anymore.
2-people aren't playing it anymore.

It doesn't mean that you personally think there isn't as much content as World of Warcraft.

Imagine calling someone else stupid when you literally are trying to bend the definition of words to fit your own narrative.

There are different meaning to the word dead. A game feeling dead, and a dead game are two very different things.

But in all your glorious arrogant ignorance you won't ever learn many things in your life because you think you're a perfect intelligent being that knows everything.. Sucks to be you.

Again, you're wrong. A game feeling dead has literally nothing to do with the amount of content in game.

What you're trying to say is literally that the game doesn't have enough content for your personal liking in an open world setting. And that's fine. You're 100% allowed to have that opinion.

To claim that you can use the term "dead game" to define that is what makes you wrong.

[Janthis]

+1, it feels like a singleplayer MMO with tough combat and crappy rewards (so far). At least it looks pretty.

[Holy Athena]

Originally posted by -i.Asteroth:

wierd cuz im finding all kinds of things to do npc's to interact with quests to do verging storylines.. hidden secrets and dungeons... plenty of enemies and enemy types.. everything i want from an open world.. so.. yea.. wierd..

Helps to read though honestly..

[Gnasty Gnorc]

Originally posted by Holy Athena:

Originally posted by -i.Asteroth:

wierd cuz im finding all kinds of things to do npc's to interact with quests to do verging storylines.. hidden secrets and dungeons... plenty of enemies and enemy types.. everything i want from an open world.. so.. yea.. wierd..

Helps to read though honestly..

Nobody wants to read because literally it's just you whining about not enough content in an open world game, and calling it incorrectly "dead".

[DS: Artorias of the Abyss (PS3)]

Yeah guys, elden ring needs 50 cities, 70 villages, and 500 total non hostile npcs and 30 characters that you can date.
Also the game sucks ass because I want rewards, I want a reward for blinking cuz everything else is haryd and I on like hard things :((((
Who tf grinds in a souls game? Why would you skip a dungeon?? Do you not want more content? Guess I'm crazy for liking boss fights, I'll go talk to a therapist after this, cya later

[Merque]

Agree with OP on most points. Another aspect of the whole "dead" thing is also, that the entire world is just a response to your characters actions. Nothing happens unless your characters activates something or kills something or gathers something. This game fails completely at creating the illusion of a world that does NOT revolve entirely around your character.

As you said, this works fine in a linear game that works like a theme park. In an open world, you need to have some resemblance of a daily life or activity going on. And that is where the pure souls formula just doesn't work anymore. It needs to be tweaked and adapted - plus I personally feel there is no harm in having settlements where NOT everyone just wants to kill you on sight.

Anyhow I too enjoy the game so far - I agree that most treasure finds after mini bosses are kinda pointless for me too but I do like the challenge for its own sake so that is ok with me.