Unpopular Opinion Here But Elden Ring Can Be Pretty Damn Boring Sometimes

[Geth Android]

Warning long rant lol

So let me just start by saying it IS a very fun game at times, and I respect the fact the game runs flawlessly (Only had 1 or 2 crashes maybe in 100 hours). I love the satisfying crunch of hitting an enemies flesh, and coming across new enemies is a weird mix of holy cow what is this thing going to do to me and I can't wait to figure out how to fight it. There's a lot of enemy variety compared to most games which I appreciate, and the size of the world boggles the mind. That in itself I do appreciate because I don't have the patience to get killed 30 times stuck in a tough area until I progress like in previous FS games and ER allows me to explore other areas and level up more first.

But...

1. Torrent feels like a necessity to navigate the huge open plains that you'll be aimlessly exploring at times rather than a cool new feature to the FS staple of games. Without Torrent this game would be a massive chore just to get around. Torrent also seems to be too much of a crutch against tough and large enemies due to the speed advantage to just outrun an enemy if you take a big hit and need to backtrack to restore health or to jump out of the way of their attacks.

2. There's little sense of progression in so many ways. In 100 hours I've literally used 3 weapons. It has been so boring just using the same weapon for 30-40 hours at a time. Part of the problem for me at least is that for a Strength build there are so few pure strength weapons that don't do the same basic damage as early game weapons so it feels wasteful committing smithing stones to upgrade new ones for little gain over your previous weapon. Especially when the higher level smithing stones are rare to find. I don't want to invest them into a weapon I'm not sure is much better than my previous one. Maybe my next intelligence build will be better with more variety cause it seems I have 20x those types of weapons compared to strength.

The other thing with progression is there is sweet F-all interactions with other characters, especially pertaining to the main story. Only recently close to 100 hours in did I get some tiny sniff of the story becoming part of the game again and it was basically "You have acquired the 2 items needed to qualify to start the final journey. Go to 'X' place to fulfil your destiny." Uuum ok cool that was it, really??? That's all I get in 100 hours? Would just be nice to have a bit more of a sense of purpose in the game. Exploring the occasional tomb and the odd boss fight here and there isn't enough to sustain this game. Maybe have a few larger structures where there's a band of survivors and they have more meaningful quests. Maybe you have to help rebuild their fort or take down a rival group. Lead a couple of characters into battle to show them how to fight a certain enemy? I dunno, anything to break up the monotony of how open and stale some areas are in this game.

3. This is a minor gripe and maybe hard to overcome in such a massive game where its hard for the devs to know which way people will explore, and easy to miss certain areas and come back to them later; but the boss difficulty seems wildly inconsistent. It seems you are either really overleveled and kill a boss without needing a single healing flask, or they smash you to death in a couple of hits. I'm mostly overleveled for boss fights now and have been for a while. It's just really disappointing when I'm looking forward to a challenging fight and it's over in 20 seconds or so first attempt. Maybe they could have applied an algorithm for a boss randomly being within a certain percentage plus or minus your level, damage output/health etc. And the strategy for tough enemies rarely deviates from roll to the side into their attack which will miss you if timed correctly so that you are within striking distance after the roll and can get a few hits in as they recover from their strike. I did some some twitch streams of later bosses that had a few more attacks but for the most part it feels like I have most bosses figured out before I enter the arena.

Despite the above, I do love the game; easily one of the best games I've played in the last 10 years. But just a shame there's so much downtime and tedium where nothing much is happening story wise or in terms of activities in the world.

[An Irate Walrus]

Y'know what? I can definitely get some credence to the "weapon progression feels limited" criticism. In six runs through the game (PS5/XSX; someone was kind enough to surprise me with a PC copy I've not yet activated), there's been little--if any--reason to experiment with new weapons once I lay hands on a couple that fit my build.

This is generally the case with most Souls games, though; you find a weapon that works, improve the hell out of it, and stick with it like a faithful companion.

In some ways, I don't mind; it feels a little more like a real adventure and less like a loot grind when I can make a weapon function for the entire journey--but I can also see where that would feel boring/dissatisfying to someone who's looking forward to new discoveries.

Like I said, though, this particular concern is a feature rather than a bug of the Souls franchise as a whole (Bloodborne was even worse about it in a lot of ways; I saw very little reason to switch away from my initial trick axe throughout my runs). It's a fair complaint, but I don't know if it'll ever change.

[Geth Android]

Originally posted by An Irate Walrus:

Y'know what? I can definitely get some credence to the "weapon progression feels limited" criticism. In six runs through the game (PS5/XSX; someone was kind enough to surprise me with a PC copy I've not yet activated), there's been little--if any--reason to experiment with new weapons once I lay hands on a couple that fit my build.

This is generally the case with most Souls games, though; you find a weapon that works, improve the hell out of it, and stick with it like a faithful companion.

In some ways, I don't mind; it feels a little more like a real adventure and less like a loot grind when I can make a weapon function for the entire journey--but I can also see where that would feel boring/dissatisfying to someone who's looking forward to new discoveries.

Like I said, though, this particular concern is a feature rather than a bug of the Souls franchise as a whole (Bloodborne was even worse about it in a lot of ways; I saw very little reason to switch away from my initial trick axe throughout my runs). It's a fair complaint, but I don't know if it'll ever change.

If it was a 40 or 50 hour game I think it would be fine, but I think I'm looking at a good 150-200 so it gets repetitive after a while.

What builds have you gone? As a said it looks like there are some more interesting magic weapons and they have some cool sounding abilities attached to them too so maybe a 2nd play through will be better.

[An Irate Walrus]

Originally posted by Geth Android:

Originally posted by An Irate Walrus:

Y'know what? I can definitely get some credence to the "weapon progression feels limited" criticism. In six runs through the game (PS5/XSX; someone was kind enough to surprise me with a PC copy I've not yet activated), there's been little--if any--reason to experiment with new weapons once I lay hands on a couple that fit my build.

This is generally the case with most Souls games, though; you find a weapon that works, improve the hell out of it, and stick with it like a faithful companion.

In some ways, I don't mind; it feels a little more like a real adventure and less like a loot grind when I can make a weapon function for the entire journey--but I can also see where that would feel boring/dissatisfying to someone who's looking forward to new discoveries.

Like I said, though, this particular concern is a feature rather than a bug of the Souls franchise as a whole (Bloodborne was even worse about it in a lot of ways; I saw very little reason to switch away from my initial trick axe throughout my runs). It's a fair complaint, but I don't know if it'll ever change.

If it was a 40 or 50 hour game I think it would be fine, but I think I'm looking at a good 150-200 so it gets repetitive after a while.

What builds have you gone? As a said it looks like there are some more interesting magic weapons and they have some cool sounding abilities attached to them too so maybe a 2nd play through will be better.

First run was pure STR; once I found the GUGS, I 2hed it for the remainder of the game.

After that, I tried a bleed build (this was back before bleed and RoB got nerfed), and never needed to switch away from my first Uchi until I got RoB.

Lately I've been using the Meteoric Ore blade in concert with a frost-ash Uchi; I don't PvP apart from Varre's quest, so I tend to stick to builds that make the road enjoyable for me, without worrying over whether my build will appear sweaty to potential opponents.

[gungadin22000]

Don't feel that the complaint about weapon variety is warranted, really. In all playthroughs I've had of this game, I've swapped weapons around several times to see if the moveset and weapon art was an improvement on my current gear. In my current playthrough I went Reduva - Uchigatana - Eleonora's Poleblade - Bloody Helice/Rivers of Blood, each weapon working differently and allowing for varied fighting styles.

Main complaint about weapons are IMO the smithing stone system, which is balls and can ♥♥♥♥ off. It's very hard to tell if a newly found weapon is an improvement on your current weapon due to there being SO MANY levels of smithing stones and never enough to go around unless you've spoilered the location for the bell bearings, and this goes twice as hard for somberstones.

[königplatzen]

Once you reach Farum Azula and have beaten Goskin Duo, you can basically upgrade any weapon to +24/+9.
When you reach mountain top, you can upgrade any weapon to +18/+6
When you reach altus, you can upgrade any weapon to +12/+4
When you reach liurnia/caelid, you can upgrade any weapon to +6/+2

I'm talking about the bell bearings

[Mr. Nobody]

Pointless weapons is an issue every large open world game struggles with and I don't think I've ever been satisfied with the implementation in any of them.

You have the classic system with static weapon stats and limited upgrading. The problem with that is once you get a powerful weapon, it means 95% of the weapons you find from that point on are weak and useless making exploration unrewarding in most cases.

BotW tried to fix this issue by making weapons break pretty often meaning you need to constantly collect every weapon you can find just so you don't run out. I personally liked this system, but I know a ton of people absolutely hate it.

You have games (like Elden Ring) with a weapon upgrade system. Like OP said, these games usually end up with people just sticking to the same weapon the entire game because it ends up being way more powerful than anything they find and upgrading new weapons means wasting limited resources.

And tbf, ER does try to counter this with smithing stone levels. If you have a +15 weapon those ten level 1 stones become useless so you might as well use them to upgrade another weapon.

[Geth Android]

Originally posted by gungadin22000:

Don't feel that the complaint about weapon variety is warranted, really. In all playthroughs I've had of this game, I've swapped weapons around several times to see if the moveset and weapon art was an improvement on my current gear. In my current playthrough I went Reduva - Uchigatana - Eleonora's Poleblade - Bloody Helice/Rivers of Blood, each weapon working differently and allowing for varied fighting styles.

Main complaint about weapons are IMO the smithing stone system, which is balls and can ♥♥♥♥ off. It's very hard to tell if a newly found weapon is an improvement on your current weapon due to there being SO MANY levels of smithing stones and never enough to go around unless you've spoilered the location for the bell bearings, and this goes twice as hard for somberstones.

Let me put it this way. Most of my early game I was using a curved greatsword with base damage of 136 I think. All other strength weapons I was finding would do between 125 and 135-40 base so why would I throw away the curved greatsword with the upgrades I had put into it already? It wasn't until I killed the tree sentinal and got the halberd that was doing significantly more that it warranted changing weapons.

[Geth Android]

Originally posted by Mr. Nobody:

Pointless weapons is an issue every large open world game struggles with and I don't think I've ever been satisfied with the implementation in any of them.

You have the classic system with static weapon stats and limited upgrading. The problem with that is once you get a powerful weapon, it means 95% of the weapons you find from that point on are weak and useless making exploration unrewarding in most cases.

BotW tried to fix this issue by making weapons break pretty often meaning you need to constantly collect every weapon you can find just so you don't run out. I personally liked this system, but I know a ton of people absolutely hate it.

You have games (like Elden Ring) with a weapon upgrade system. Like OP said, these games usually end up with people just sticking to the same weapon the entire game because it ends up being way more powerful than anything they find and upgrading new weapons means wasting limited resources.

And tbf, ER does try to counter this with smithing stone levels. If you have a +15 weapon those ten level 1 stones become useless so you might as well use them to upgrade another weapon.

Your last point I will pay. But typically I've put those lower level smithing stones into other types of weapons I occasionally use like a bow or staff. They won't help me make an alternative melee weapon viable relative to my current weapon.

I actually didn't mind the system in AC Origins where you could keep the same base weapon and keep upgrading it regularly with a reasonable amount of money, not difficult to find crafting items.

[Valkyrie]

Torrent in my opinion is balanced enough. Get endgame and an attack from an enemy will stick you in place, another will dismount you and until you get up you are probably killed. First thing I do when I see a stronger enemy is dismount, especially if it is a Night rider, or whatever the name. Which is hilarious, since a horse should give you an advantage, while Torrent in combat is more of a liability (safe for fighting dragons early on, to stay clear of their breath attacks).

The monster leveling based on your character is also not a good idea. For me, one of the things about an open world is that you need to realise where to go and what to avoid. It has been true in the early Fromsoft games and is also true in Elden ring. If anything, at some point during the early game, some monsters end up being too weak. Then you have nonsense, like the Crucible knight before Storm castle. Hey, you just learn that some things are better left alone for later.

I do agree with the story telling part. Souls series has been known for great stories, with the worst delivery possible. We kind of expected that GRR Martin would maybe help with this, but in fact, I would dare say that this game has the worst story telling of all entries, probably tied with Dark Souls 2. Both games have such a mess of a plot, that you almost need to forbid yourself from thinking a little, so that you can enjoy the game.

Spoilers about ending:
I still remember when I reached the end of the game the first time. I managed to do Ranni's questline, noticed a blue summon sign, was curious to what would happen and hey, suddenly we released Marika, showed the Golden Order and its outter gods the middle finger and released the Lands Between from the direct interference of any outter god, including the Moon Duddette; not that I did any of that on purpose, or even knew what the heck happened, but hey, I got Ranni, I guess. My friend finished the game and texted me something like: "dude, I killed a whale, now my character is sitting on a chair and they say that things are fractured. The ♥♥♥♥ just happened?"

So yeah, we need better story telling than this

[Geth Android]

Originally posted by Valkyrie:

Torrent in my opinion is balanced enough. Get endgame and an attack from an enemy will stick you in place, another will dismount you and until you get up you are probably killed. First thing I do when I see a stronger enemy is dismount, especially if it is a Night rider, or whatever the name. Which is hilarious, since a horse should give you an advantage, while Torrent in combat is more of a liability (safe for fighting dragons early on, to stay clear of their breath attacks).

The monster leveling based on your character is also not a good idea. For me, one of the things about an open world is that you need to realise where to go and what to avoid. It has been true in the early Fromsoft games and is also true in Elden ring. If anything, at some point during the early game, some monsters end up being too weak. Then you have nonsense, like the Crucible knight before Storm castle. Hey, you just learn that some things are better left alone for later.

I do agree with the story telling part. Souls series has been known for great stories, with the worst delivery possible. We kind of expected that GRR Martin would maybe help with this, but in fact, I would dare say that this game has the worst story telling of all entries, probably tied with Dark Souls 2. Both games have such a mess of a plot, that you almost need to forbid yourself from thinking a little, so that you can enjoy the game.

Spoilers about ending:
I still remember when I reached the end of the game the first time. I managed to do Ranni's questline, noticed a blue summon sign, was curious to what would happen and hey, suddenly we released Marika, showed the Golden Order and its outter gods the middle finger and released the Lands Between from the direct interference of any outter god, including the Moon Duddette; not that I did any of that on purpose, or even knew what the heck happened, but hey, I got Ranni, I guess. My friend finished the game and texted me something like: "dude, I killed a whale, now my character is sitting on a chair and they say that things are fractured. The ♥♥♥♥ just happened?"

So yeah, we need better story telling than this :rarebutterfly:

I wouldn't want a perfect scaling to your level I agree there needs to be a degree of variance and knowing when it's not yet your fight. That's why a random percentage of variance could work maybe.

[Geth Android]

Originally posted by Subluminal_:

After about one thousand hours in Elden Ring, I would agree with you on a few of these points.

Torrent is a travel contrivance. I wish there were more situations where mounted combat was genuinely preferable. The jousting attack style you outlined in point one really is the height of mounted combat in the game. I will say though, that "cheesy" attack style does let you deal with bosses you have no right fighting. I have killed Night's Cavaliers far earlier than I should have with hit 'n run tactics.

Also, I genuinely wonder if there is a game that makes horse combat interesting. But that's a separate issue.

Progression can be a bit slow, at least on your first playthough. My first character took 250hrs to beat the final boss. Everything after that usually takes about 80hrs. More if I'm trying a "bad" build. I promise you that the game speeds up significantly when you finally get the hang of it.

And I can say that this is the game you NEED to play with the wiki open at all times. It helps you travel around more efficiently. I know playing an open world game like it's a research project isn't everyone's definition of fun, but it at least speeds the process up.

Also, build variety hinges on a few things IMO:
- You don't really care about being optimal.
- You're willing to use gimmick weapons.
- You don't care about PvP.
- You have to put the effort into making the build fun.

I've run a few nonsense gimmick builds. I will say that weapons can be interesting even if they don't have super high AR. I recently tried a fist weapon build. Fist weapons are genuinely terrible. However, they have a really interesting moveset IMO so I kept going. When you aren't worried about optimal AR, optimal roll catching, and you want to use a weapon or weapon class on a whim, the game opens up again. I understand that's not for everyone, but it's something you could attempt if you choose to stick with this game.

You have to run a build knowing it's probably going to be bad but it's at least going to be interesting. At least that's how I managed to get about 1000hrs of entertainment out of this game.

Overall, I do think what you've written is fair criticism. Even as someone who really enjoys this game.

Yeah that's kinda my point, I wish there was more of a challenge. I know I could opt not to use torrent but I really detest losing an hours worth of runes because I get cheesed by an op attack and can't recover in time to avoid their follow up one.

I'm not going to wiki everything (in fact I've only looked up stuff in catacombs where I didn't know how to get certain loot). I don't want to play the game perfectly, but I don't want to be weak either as I haven't finished a FS game before. Hit a wall around 20 hours in on BB and DS3 which was annoying as I loved both games.

I think I'll enjoy 2nd and 3rd playthroughs using sub optimal weapons and stats but for now I just want a relatively pain free run where I can have some fun smashing some dudes with a strength based weapon for the most part.

[Raubritter]

Main issue is the copy pasted minor dungeons IMO.
I would have much preferred having only 3 dungeons per region (1 big legacy dungeon and 2 of the size of Castle Morne) rather than the same boring catacombs with only 2 types of enemy in it.
After you're done with Limgrave you already don't want to bother with the minor dungeons.

[Geth Android]

Originally posted by Mark Felton Productions:

Main issue is the copy pasted minor dungeons IMO.
I would have much preferred having only 3 dungeons per region (1 big legacy dungeon and 2 of the size of Castle Morne) rather than the same boring catacombs with only 2 types of enemy in it.
After you're done with Limgrave you already don't want to bother with the minor dungeons.

Yeah fair call. Some more larger structures like Castle Morne would be pretty good in adding variety. Stormveil and the Academy stand out after the open world.

[königplatzen]

The weapon upgrades are totally fine. Beside the smithing stones you find, you also find the bell bearings to buy infinite amounts of smithing stones/somber stones.
Those bell bearing's are found always one area later. So, you can select, which weapon, you want to upgrade with the limited stones, but you get infinite stones in the next area.

Basically, if you are in Limgrave, you find some limited smithing stones 1 and 2. You can select which weapon you can upgrade with it.
You can find the bell bearings in Liurnia (bell bearing for normal stones 1 + 2)/ and Caelid (bell bearing for somber 1 + 2), which allows you to upgrade all weapons to +6 (+2 somber).
It's only a matter of runes.

Now, you find some stray smithing stones 3 and 4. You update one or two of your favourite weapons at least to +12/+4.
You can find the bell bearings in Altus (normal stones 3+4 and somber stone 3+4), which allows to upgrade all weapons to +12 (+4)

etc.

The only thing not possible is to upgrade all weapons to +25/+10, because the ancient stones are actually limited. But you can upgrade all weapons to at least +24/+9. That's really ok and allows switching between weapons.

It might be a bit irritating, that you are also able to upgrade weapons with the limited stones to much higher levels than needed for the area. Also, you might not find the bell bearing immediately, but that doesn't change the not so obvious structure, which I depicted.

Originally posted by königplatzen:

Once you reach Farum Azula and have beaten Goskin Duo, you can basically upgrade any weapon to +24/+9.
When you reach mountain top, you can upgrade any weapon to +18/+6
When you reach altus, you can upgrade any weapon to +12/+4
When you reach liurnia/caelid, you can upgrade any weapon to +6/+2

[Xendo]

I like this post. I read through it thinking you were wrong but you changed my mind.