Bandai Namco will stream a 15-minute gameplay of Elden Ring on November 4th

Legend · Nov 05, 2021, 05:37 PM

Quote from: kitler53 on Nov 05, 2021, 03:59 PMokay, so i'll put my explanation in spoilers just in case banana comes back to the thread and doesn't want to read anything. i'll double spoiler anything specific things shown in the eldin ring trailer if you want to read the more generic bits

..but i will say that my explanation is not entirely influenced by the 19 minute trailer but also by seeing how fromSoftware's games have evolved over time (from demon's souls to bloodborne. i didn't play seikro yet) and probably just a sprinkle of wishful thinking.

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i've never particularly loved open world games. i think relative to linear you can make pretty big sacrifices in gameplay. open worlds to date and generally been wide open expanses of space while linear games are highly crafted. the main point to this is linear games (and especially fromSoftware game) leverage the environment as a way to influence gameplay. you can position the player into various "shapes" that impact gameplay. hide a bot behind a corner for instance for a sneak attack. open world can do things do this a bit but they are much more limited and being in a wide open expanse the player can always run, kite, or snipe a difficult enemy. it's what i do and it a big part of why i don't enjoy open worlds.

now don't get me wrong,.. open worlds have their strengths. you just can't do "exploration" and "multipath" in a linear game. and let me just say it,.. if you aren't making a game that leans heavily into having into exploration and or a game that can be beating "in any order" than you shouldn't make an open world game.

it's why the ubisoft format is soo dumb. even though i did enjoy horizon the player was just as channeled as a linear game. go here. do a thing. now go here. okay, i could ride my dino bot through a wide variety of patches of grass on the way from A to B but that doesn't really justify the use of open world.

fromSoftware is a master of world design. they always have been and it still amazes me to this day how well crafted the interlinking between levels was done in dark souls. yes the game channeled me out of the gate but once you unlocked all the locked path it is ridiculous how easily and naturally you can traverse the entire world.

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taking a look at the trailer i don't think eldin ring does anything particularly unique in the "overworld". i see a lot of the same troupes you'd see in any other open world game. large expanses of open fields dotted with "points of interest" that you can make a choice to engage with or just ride past. even if you do engage with something i didn't see anything to suggest you can't (just like any other open world game) just run away. what i saw i think i still see that "the enemy is rooted to this position" concept. i highly doubt that dragon they showed will chase you into the far corners of the map if you try to run away. it's a open world troupe i'd love to see die but i don't think eldin ring is the game to do that.

still, i think it will be a bit more unique than the typical open world game we've been playing. i complain a lot about the large open expanses of "grass". i see this in basically every open world game i've played. skyrim. horizon. zelda. witcher. red dead. GTA isn't exactly fields of grass but still the general idea is applicable.

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in the eldin ring video there are hints of traversal being not entirely following that "go anywhere" format. i haven't played and i don't think it will be as extreme as death stranding but the general concept of traversing the open world is a challenge is something i think was hinted at. those "spirit springs" or whatever suggesting traversing up is not a think you can always do. but traversing down is something you can do anywhere. pair that with the detail that in the very first gameplay teaser they should off a jump function i think we'll find the open world is a bit of a 3D platformer.

don't get me wrong,.. this isn't competition for mario galaxy but still...

but the point i want to harp on is this. to date every fromSoftware game has been basically a linear game expect that it doesn't always feel like that. fromSoftware's combat system hits a lot of the same notes as "open world". it's about discovery. for all the complaints people have about how hard the game is they really aren't. the combat needs to be discovered,.. discover where the sneak attacks are going to come from,.. probe for weaknesses,.. change your strategy and suddenly a combat situation that feels impossible suddenly becomes easy. it's a combat system rooted in discovery and exploration.

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so this is where i think eldin ring's dungeons are going to be innovative and something that gets copied from here on out.

i get it legend. this is not the first game to do "them". loads of open world games have "them". at this point i'd even say a majority of open world games have "them". it's not about their existence,.. it's about their design.

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for any open world game i've personally played the dungeon is a hard switch from open world to linear. you traverse an open world in an somewhat explorative way (even though most games just put a fudgy dot on the map to tell you exactly where to go) and once you get there you'll find a door. as you traverse the door guys like me will see the long hallways or cut scene that transitions the game from unloaded the open world and loading the "level" or "chapter" or whatever that could just as easily appear in an uncharted game..

so let's back up a second and acknowledge a hard fact. the souls game have a persistence that just doesn't exist in other games. when you are dropped into the main area of the original dark souls you can look over the cliff and see the plague lands. ..and you may have seen that recently discovered "glitch" where you can safely drop directly into the plague lands from that first fireplace. it's a path that i'll bet even fromSoftware didn't know existed and yet their technology or architecture allows it. every bit of backdrop in the souls game is traversable land that you can get to and fromSoftware (by design) allows players to discover these hidden links between areas.

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so when the eldin ring video makes a simple statement like "storm grey castle ... connects seamlessly with the surronding lingrave region"
@11:50

...i absofuckinglootly believe them. and this is how fromSoftware throws out all the worst troupes in open world gaming and delivers something the entire industry should be trying to emulate.

...because i had a terrible experience in horizon on this exact point. at several points in that game i "discovered" things that clearly the developers didn't intend for me to find. and what was my reward?!?!? invisible walls or in 1 case a glitched game i had to exit out of. i was required to hit certain checkpoints in order to be allowed to proceed.

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elding ring won't be that. they highlighted 1 very simple example of this at the gate but i fully expect much more realized versions of this in the game. the narrators states "dungeons are complex and multi-layered meaning they can be tackled from a number of roots." @15:20

in a game like zelda or horizon the exploration is centered on this statement:

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explore the world to find the door to the dungeon.
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this is a very carefully reworded statement but in eldin ring it's this statement:

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explore the world to discover a door to the dungeon

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eldin ring looks set to bring open world to the actual dungeons themselves. no hard transition from open to linear. rather i think the dugeons are going to be designed like onions or spider webs. a series of obstacles that can be overcome with multiple paths that each need to be discovered. some paths will be obvious to ensure even the most casual player and make progress but more serious players will be rewarded for their diligence by finding unique approaches to move past an obstacle. so much of this idea is already baked into how fromSoftware does level design on their already released games but i think eldin ring takes it to a whole new level. i wouldn't be surprised if each dungeon has dozens to hundreds of paths a player could navigate to get from the overworld to the final boss once the community goes in and finds tons of exploits that even the developer didn't entirely plan for. and this is all supported by that persistence that exists in their games.

anyways. i put too much work into this essay. as such i am discarding any of your contrary opinions in advanced as dumb and stupid. i am of course right and always will be.

i don't think a gameplay trailer can fully communicate the ideas that we'll find in this game. these ideas aren't as simple as "look,.. a jump button". these are complex ideas that will take the player hours to unravel how it makes us feel to play the game. i just think this game will take the core concept of why open world gaming exist and make it much more fully realized then we've seen so far.

I'll keep my response brief and limited to just predictions of how the game will handle things.

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kitler53 · Nov 05, 2021, 09:01 PM

Quote from: the-Pi-guy on Nov 05, 2021, 05:02 PMI think as a tl;Dr: you could have said

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That Elden Ring looks like it will do open world purposefully.

The open world isn't solely a walkable hub to linear levels, but rather it's very interconnected.

i mean, sure. it's a bit of an oversimplification for what i was going for but i can also agree with your statement.

Quote from: Legend on Nov 05, 2021, 05:37 PMI'll keep my response brief and limited to just predictions of how the game will handle things.

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I got the opposite impression of traversal being like Death Stranding. The trailer seemingly showed fall damage is significantly reduced and the spirit springs are just a simple automated ladder. Would be really cool if it had a similar ethos to Death Stranding though. That game certainly avoided the trope of the open world just being an expanse of grass.

The underground dungeon only had one way in and looked pretty linear. Reminded me of chalice dungeons. I would not be surprised if they are relatively "cheap" content just to pad out the world while only primary dungeons like the castle are the big webs that Fromsoft is famous for.

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