The reality of Elden Ring

[Shoah Kahn]

The game world is only there as an obstacle for the player, and is more an ally of the enemies than it is an actual, realised, logical game world that players and enemies alike have to obey the rules of. Enemies are all but coded to abuse the level geometry that they can freely ignore, and just use it as a shield through which to hit players with impunity. Meanwhile, players have to endure the jank of negotiating these obstacles, and even platforming over them in sequences that would give Mario a stroke.

Combat boils down to finding the cheapest way to defeat opponents, with actual skill barely even registering as a determining factor in battles; and "sportsman-like" fighting almost always ending in the player's demise. Enemy weapon hurt boxes extend so far beyond what the players see on screen, that it's like offline latency; and most enemies all but ignore the rules of stamina and poise -- encouraging, if not forcing players to abuse enemies' rote, predictable, input-reading patterns.

Loot is 99% worthless and nonsensically demarcated -- hidden chests containing junk consumables; corpses in hard-to-reach place holding trash; equipment drops which are 99.9% rune pawn; dungeon bosses dropping fodder -- all make exploring the map rather pointless.

Boss fights are all about chipping health from inordinately fast-moving sponges, and adhering to a very strict pattern, from which any deviation results in death. Very few, if any bosses have a sense of accomplishment attached to their defeat; almost all evoke a feeling of exhausted relief, or just an exclamation of, "Was that it?!".

World ambience and atmosphere are sorely lacking for such a famously atmospheric series; the weather being the only element imbuing what could be described as sense of foreboding or eeriness. Even the OST is a half-step back for the calibre expected of the 'Souls' catalogue.

The sub-systems, like crafting and upgrading, are either utterly pointless or lazily realised, respectively: Crafting consumables is a waste of time; equipment upgrading is needlessly capped at +10 (despite +25 placeholders being in the game) -- conspiring to render the core motivations for protracted play, moot.

Progression is so laissez-faire in its implementation, that the player can, literally, walk from the starting area to Caelid, stand atop a cliff and AFK while the EvE battles level them into infinity... and that is but one of such regions where this kind of thing can be accomplished; making it a feature, not a bug. Moreover, with how easily runes are lost, it demotivates players from levelling up "naturally" as they progress the story: in lieu of just abusing Caelid style exploits.

The DLC feels tacked on and almost less like it belongs in the ER world than Nightreign looks like it does. Despite the vanilla map having hectares of space for the DLC region to occupy, or just be contiguous to, the DLC is completely enisled from the main area; as well as being so poorly balanced -- even after two years of development -- that a DLC-specific stats boost system had to be cobbled together to buff players for the increased damage output and sponginess of enemies; a system that was implemented so as to cynically pad out play time with busywork. This, instead of simply allowing players to upgrade their equipment past +10!

Co-op, again, was hamstrung by inane restrictions which haven't had relevance for the series since, arguably, Demon's Souls; as well as an invasion model that is roundly considered the worst in the 'Souls' series -- encompassing the worst experience for both co-op (players invaded incessantly) and invader (can only invade co-op sessions). Albeit, later patched to be more tolerable, the millions of downloads of a free community mod by then, had already made a mockery of FromSoft's "boomer" take on how 'Souls' co-op should work.

Finally, Nightreign: A rogue-like asset flip of ER, being hocked as a rather blatant cash-in on the 20M+ installed ER userbase; instead of the add-on to ER that, by all rights, it should have been, and that players would have welcomed with open arms (as distinct from the wishy-washy receptions it has so far received).

NB: ER is still as good as it gets in most 'Souls' departments; even if only as a sum of its parts. These are just ruminations of fact which I made before people move on to NR and then, presumably, ER2. #JustSayin.

[Lord Bob]

Sir, this is a Wendy's.

[Sparhawk 59]

ok

[Majrick]

Now you tell me, 1114 hrs wasted on a game that I never realised I wasn’t enjoying. Thanks bro… I was just about to go NG+

[An Irate Walrus]

The Reality of Trolling Communities for Games You Don't Own:

Loneliness.

[LuckyCheshire]

Originally posted by Shoah Kahn:

#JustSayin.

Say it, don't spray it.

[Fineous🔥]

I blocked OP long ago.....But as the pious man i am im going to give him a second chance.

Greetings, OP.

Originally posted by Shoah Kahn:

Extremly long negative take about Elden RIng.

Ok, thanks for blessing us with a fresh Elden Ring hot-take, OP. I didnt know i needed this so badly until i read it, now i finally know the

Originally posted by Shoah Kahn:

The reality of Elden Ring[/i]

Now back to my block list, im not smart enough to have someone who typed his five letter name wrong....I would suggest you to go from Shoah to the correct Shao, but im sure you have your reasons for this.....

[dimm_ddr]

I am new in the community, is there a decent review of the game that counter some of the OP points? I am not saying that I agree with OP, but I neither disagree, as I simply don't have enough experience. Sure, I could and most likely will experience the game for myself, I already started it. But I would also appreciate a decent take on why the game is actually good. Just to be clear - I am not saying that someone must provide anything like that. Just if anyone has any links to already existing thing that seems to be objective. In the modern world finding something not from hater or funboy is very time consuming for anything remotely popular, unfortunately.

[Shoah Kahn]

^ Never rely on reviews (especially paid presentation, commercial ones), or peoples' opinions on whether something is good, bad, ugly, or whether or not you should patronise it -- play the game yourself.

ER is certainly worth the time -- it's as good as the genre gets... But, my points still stand; and I wager that you will likely concur with most of them once you approach my tally of gameplay hours.

[LuckyCheshire]

Originally posted by dimm_ddr:

I am new in the community, is there a decent review of the game that counter some of the OP points? I am not saying that I agree with OP, but I neither disagree, as I simply don't have enough experience. Sure, I could and most likely will experience the game for myself, I already started it. But I would also appreciate a decent take on why the game is actually good. Just to be clear - I am not saying that someone must provide anything like that. Just if anyone has any links to already existing thing that seems to be objective. In the modern world finding something not from hater or funboy is very time consuming for anything remotely popular, unfortunately.

The guy is just trolling. I'm not going to give a comprehensive rebuttal, but I can give a brief synopsis about each point from my subjective perspective.

Game world: Overstated. The game environment can be a little difficult to work around in certain places, but it hinders enemies as much as it does you. Don't back yourself into a corner and you'll be fine.

Combat: Totally incorrect.

Loot: Wildly overstated. You do vary rarely get trolled by the developers by a chest containing a single mushroom or some such, but that's not common. Not all rewards are going to be equal, but exploration even for its own sake is fun for most people.

Bosses: Totally incorrect, except for the subjective opinions, which are subjective and diametrically opposite of how I feel.

Ambiance: A little overstated. The OST does tend to fade into the background, but no track feels out of place. There are some pretty stunning vistas. No idea where he was trying to go with mentioning the weather.

Sub-systems: Overstated. The crafting systems definitely have room for improvement, but you can tailor your entire build around crafted consumables if you so choose.

Progression: That's... both the advantage and disadvantage of open-world games. You can go basically wherever you want, but you don't always have a clear route forward. There are guidance markers in-game if you get completely lost and don't know where to go next though.

DLC: This section doesn't really make any sense.

Co-op: Actually I agree with him here, bar the random insults at the end. Multiplayer features are not implemented well. The mod he makes reference to, Seamless Co-op, might be a good thing to look into if you have a high likelihood of doing much multiplayer stuff. Not to scare you off, but there is a hacker or group of hackers that have been screwing up saves recently due to an exploit via Linux devices that the company has failed to address. If you don't do any interaction with other players, you have no chance of anything bad happening, it's just something to be aware of. Manually backing up your files regularly is not a bad thing to do though.

Nightrein: A game that hasn't released yet...

Anyway, I suggest that you just form your own opinions about the game instead of listening to either of us. Have fun!

[Artek [General]]

I thought this was legit as some criticisms are somewhat accurate at least, but then the man said something about +10/+25 upgrading system being bad and the troll became obvious.

[AUTISM-0]

"Boss fights are all about chipping health from inordinately fast-moving sponges"

Renalla, Rykard, Mogh, Placidusax, Nokstella, Midra

inodrinatley fast moving MY A$$

[Smufius]

ChatGPT moment

[mpcgannon]

Yeah, well, ya know that's just like uh, you're opinion, man.

[Sanctuary]

long post, but you don't have a mouse icon next to your nickname, so your opinion has been discarded. if you don't find this game fun, then go play something else. don't waste your time on fruitless debates.

for example, I don't like pubg and find battle royale idea stupid because it is too random, too much gambling is involved, but i don't care about it, I don't go to pubg forums to write long ass posts about how much i don't like it

[Vergil]

TL;DR - Skill issue