Why Elden Ring's Success Makes Ubisoft Devs Mad 

Margit is DESIGNED to make people realize they NEED to explore the world. Patches legit sells an item which bounds him to the ground. From didn't compromise their design philosophy and gave players a massive list of options. You can make the game as easy as you want.

When Fromsoft made Elden Ring they asked themselves “what did our players like the most from our previous games?” and then they actually applied that into their game and then it became a good game. Now these other big gaming companies who ignore their playerbase are confused on why it is such a good game.

One thing that gets reiterated multiple times by the most important game designers in the history of gaming, you hear that a lot, is how good level design should use subtle visual clues to guide the player without handholding him. No big red arrows pointing in a direction. This way, the player will have a sense of accomplishment in finding stuff, thinking he discovered things himself, despite the developer actually guiding him. Elder Ring looks like a freaking masterclass in that respect. Developers should actually take notes. A great example is **MINOR SPOILER*** when you fight the dragon. You don't have a map with GTA arrow pointing you in a direction with a "dragon boss fight" blinking sign. You just casually ride your horse then you see a bunch of people gathering. You obviously move towards them to see what they are doing, and suddenly this big dragon flies down from the sky and incinerates them. Those people serve no purpose other than giving you a visual clue to guide you towards that spot and start the boss fight in a cool looking way.

The first 10-20 hours of Elden Ring were brutal for me due to it being my first souls game… it required a lot of patience but I finished the game… the learning curve was a vertical line but it was worth it… the games a masterpiece!

I love how we sometimes come to Asmons videos for some kind of game commentary/reaction but sometimes we get a monologue on the failings of the public/college school system in America

Elden Ring actually introduced difficulty settings without introducing difficulty settings in the menus. If you find a boss too hard, explore a different part of the map, farm runes, level up. There is no location gating or level gating so you can level up as much as you want and make the game easy/difficult as per your need

Margit is more than just a boss, it's a game statement and it's a great user experience, as it stops that urge to just plow the game to the end, and if you're willing to brute force it, then your input has to be the best.

UX is supposed to make the game easy to play, NOT win. The graces and games dialogue can get any attentive player to the end but it’s on the player to figure out how they want to play and then make their specific character stronger. Steep learning curve, but the most rewarding. Elden Ring is a masterpiece

Ubisoft criticizing ER is rich. Imagine devs from a company that have been remaking the same 2 games for 2 decades criticizing another developer.

Elden ring did something that old school games made me love, you get cool and powerful looking things from skill and exploration rather than the news feed update for new store items

What i found to be the most shocking thing is how much i was conditioned by the gaming industry to follow quest markers... Elden Ring was an experience unlike any, in this game i was actually free to do what i wanted pretty much. When i got stuck at godrick i explored other areas and got rewarded with level ups, items, secrets, and eventually the tools to beat Godrick. I cant explain how great that moment felt to me, like a real achievement. I know i know, people actually can club godrick down without armor and just a club, but thats not the point. I felt rewarded for once in a big way, which many other rpgs cant do for some reason. Follow quest here, beat that easy boss there. Press this, press that, you guys know what im talking about right? Honestly i wish more games would not hold my hand like that. Exploring a good designed world on your own without guidance is just incredibly fun. Best game of the year for me. And no i have not played any soulsborne game before, Elden Ring was the first and it blew my mind.

Who is back watching this After Elden ring wins GOTY?

Elden ring is one of the few games that came out these past 3 years that is truly deserving of a 60 dollar price tag, no missing features, no live dripfeed services, no cut content repackaged as DLC. It’s crazy they are hating on it

I love the conversations people have about Margit, how Patches sells an item that helps, that Margit has delayed attacks that are hard to read, and people talking about what level they were able to beat Margit at. Isn't it obvious to see the community here? People are TALKING about a boss they all had to face collectively, we all shared this experience. There is a community with all of us giving advice, helping, and sometimes roasting each other just a bit. You don't get that with the first boss in a Ubisoft game.

Originally when we got a Ps5 we also bought Elden Ring for my dad because he is a Dark Souls Veteran and because he has played almost every Soulsborne game. Eventually I watched him play, sitting next to him on the couch. It quickly became a habit, and because I was really invested and he encouraged me to, after a week I started playing too. Week after week we would watch eachother play the game. We would both get amazed by the sheer size and depth of the game. We would share new things, places, weapons and secrets we had found while searching on the internet and we'd help eachother out. So many memories. I even eventually surpassed him in progress eventhough that was the first souls game I had ever played (granted he doesn't have as much time for the game as I do). At this point this game has become tradition to us and we bonded more with the help of Elden Ring. After that I got to playing Bloodborne for the first time. Now in 2024 we are playing the Demon's Souls remaster still helping eachother out and finding new things. He even gets to bring up things about the game he still remembered. So all in all this game is the greatest game I have ever played, has become tradition in my household and introduced me to a new game genre. Simply Amazing.

Agreed, for sure. This was my first ever Souls-like and I didn't know about Margit. I tried to beat him many many times and became frustrated, gave up for a week, came back and realised that I was going about the game in the entirely wrong way. I have since 100% completed its achievements and cannot love this game more than I do. The only 'User Experience' issues are that there are people who haven't played Souls games and need to figure it out for themselves ahah

Lets put it this way, Ubisoft devs have to look really hard to find something bad to say about Elden Ring. But when you play a Ubisoft game you have to look really hard to find anything good about it at all.....

Bless Miyazaki and his teams. Thank the stars we have a game developer head who actually puts vision and direction and fans ahead of many of the trends of modern gaming.

8:06 "Do you know how you graduate business school? You quit and you start your own business" LMAO

Fromsoft. Concerned about play. AAA publishers: concerned about pay.

I have 80 hours in elden ring playing blind and I’m still finding huge castles, dungeons, caves, enemy types, etc. and I’m just blown away by how well they did on this. I’ve loved all there games since dark souls 1 and they never fail to amaze.

"imagine getting taken to task by a furry.... I mean this guy just got UWU'd into the DIRT." holy shit that was 100% top shelf comedy gold Asmon.

"It looks good enough, and that's good enough" I wish more devs thought like this

Bro Elden Ring is the only game in the last decade that released fully finished, without micro transactions, and actually included the price tag’s worth of content that it promised AND more. A masterpiece, truly something special and a rare gem in today’s gaming scene

Elden Ring reminds me of a game from the 90's. It's a great game that is great on release day. No microtransactions required, straight out the box ready to play.

Ubisoft being described as an "Open world sandbox generator" is just the best thing I've heard all year.

As someone who literally came into elden ring as someone who’s never played a game like this. My “open world games” are ocarina of time and majora’s mask or Spider-Man 2 on the GameCube. This game was this BEST GAME I’ve ever played. I’ve never been so immersed into a game before. It was the hardest/easiest game I’ve ever played. The first sentinel and Margit are the best examples. You go at them hard af and get your ass beat. You explore, learn, and gain xp and come back for either a badass fight or you’re OP for that boss and beat their ass like they did to you. If you have a problem with this game tbh I don’t respect any of your other gaming opinions.

I literally bought this game 5 days ago - I remember seeing it and thinking "Blimey, £50 and not even reduced in the steam summer sale...maybe I should leave it". Bought it in the end and I've never been happier with a choice. I can see how the price tag is justified, no micro transactions, huge open world with breath taking views, fantastic characters and gameplay, tons of hidden or secret spots to explore and discover. I've so far sunk 32 hours, im level 70 and I plan on maxing out and finding everything I can. So many modern Western developers don't hold a candle to the brilliance of this game. I've never played a Dark Soulsesque game so this was a breath of fresh air. Needless to say I've got my sights on Dark Souls 1-3 once I complete this game.

Maybe this outs me as an old man, but what I love about elden ring, and the soul series generally, is it feels like playing a game from before the internet existed. The game is so obtuse and unintuitive sometimes that, even if you go online and read everything about it, it feels like there is always more hidden in the depths. Before the internet was in wide use, if a game had secrets or cheat codes or cool quirks, it wasn’t always common knowledge. It was playground rumor, something a kid told you his older brother told him. You never knew if it was true or BS, and because instructions were passed down imperfectly by word of mouth, half the time your info was only half right. Every time you discovered something it was exciting. Finding Ash Lake in the first Dark Souls was mind blowing, because it was a whole new zone hidden behind multiple secret walls and definitely off the main path. Finding a new bombable wall in the original legend of Zelda was amazing, finding the code to play the card game in the original final fantasy was amazing. I enjoy the recent FarCry games as almost interactive movies, but do I ever go do the 500 clearly-marked side quests? No, never. When it’s all laid out like that it’s a chore, not an adventure.

You can just tell that souls-like games typically respect the player's intelligence and ability to improve. They say "You can do it" just by existing. Where as the Ubisoft mold for open world design says "You don't know what you're doing, you need us to tell you everything". And I say this while having enjoyed Far Cry, Watch Dogs and Assassin's Creed titles in the past.

To be fair, the game puts a world boss right in the path you're suggested to take specifically yo teach you to not always take the obvious path. If you can't get past it, check your options, explore elsewhere for a bit before you come back

It's a huge map, there are many larger maps but almost all of them are tiny with long distances between the content, not elden ring, elden ring It's huge and full of interesting things to explore.

I don't even want to beat Elden Ring, I just love running around doing my own quests shaping my own experience in a world that is gorgeous. It's like a virtual D&D game without dice.

Elden Ring is great in a lot of ways. I am glad the game is hard and doesn't spell everything out. Like old games. Like original Zelda, Mario, and many more were simple in concept, but challenging for everyone.

I have never played a From’ game before ER, and I’m in love with it. I had avoided every other souls like game, for fear of being more frustrated than anything but i wanted to suck it up and give it a try. As a complete noob, i found my way after the first 10 hours and now I feel super confident going forward with trying other From’ games. Couldn’t agree more with the “engineered without monetization in mind”, its one reason why I don’t really buy a lot of games anymore. Valheim, and Pillars of Eternity are the only 2 RPG’s I have bought since Skyrim came out! So ER really hits home with me, it is just genuinely made for gaming.

I am in college for Game Design you are absolutely right here our teachers have a one-track mind of how to do things. We have learned bottom-of-the-barrel concepts and they expect us to know everything. I get most of my information from RU-vid and it is ten times more helpful than any teacher at my school. The state of the industry is in need of a change. Elden Ring in my opinion is a game changer and I have never played Dark Souls previously. I love it!

A company gave players what they want, instead of telling them what they want. The companies that don't like that, are probably the same ones that could learn the most from it.

The biggest thing for me is the sheer size of the world and how there's a boss or dope item literally everywhere without it being stale and how Ubisoft would've sold all of that for an extra $40 as a season pass. The game feels like it's got all the DLC in there already at launch like it should be.

I wish there was a sort of “quest log” that would keep track of all the NPC quest lines I’ve encountered. It can be tough if your schedule will sometimes mean you can’t play for a few days. Coming back I pretty much lost all my memory and just level up and kill random things and go to random places, and then if you do something else you could cut off completing that initial quest entirely. I somehow messed up the quest to get Irina’s letter to her father. He’s just not at the castle period, and she’s already dead so I can’t really “restart” so I feel bad 😭

I went from watching Asmons struggling with platforming, to the deep psychological implications of knowing your audience. The whole “bottom of the barrel people teaching bottom of the barrel mentality” is so true. If they knew how to be successful in their field, they wouldn’t be teaching. They’d be in the field. Just finished my Junior year of College, hopin to Direct/Write films, and it’s crazy how much that applies, like you said, to any concentration really.

The dead space games had the best ui integration I've seen. Just brilliant, and designed in a way that kept you immersed in the game instead of looking all over the screen at different bars and icons

The thing is, having an fps drop every few minutes - or in my case once every few hours - being the main concerning issue/bug on release is pretty phenomenal.. if we look at nearly ANY release in the last 2 years, you'd see "massive frame drops" listed on a massive bug-list, absolutely dwarfed by much more imposing issues. They made fun of themselves twice as hard as they tried to insult elden ring.

I actually think that Margit the Fell omen was a masterly made prop. Because the new player is almost *forced* to retreat from Margit and start *exploring* the map. It is meant as the first lesson of „if you can’t beat him, go somewhere else and try again later (besides the tree sentinel ofc). So the developers have created a nicely made wall for new players to really stop them and say „hey we have made this open world, so please take a look at it.“ and the nice thing is that the player doesn’t even think about the developers here. He subconsciously gets the idea to explore the map to become stronger. He does not realise it was intentional. What I find frustrating for me (love the game btw) is the little story exposition. I would have liked if the game would tell us just a tiny bit more about what is going so I do not have to go to google and RU-vid to fill my curiosity. Because many of these lore points are not just overlooked on the way, but can actually only be found at random somewhere on the map.and they had the perfect character for that: the Maiden. She asks us to stick along with us, but we do not actually interact with her at all besides 3 times near the point of grace. In my mind she would have been a perfect character who tells us stuff about the world as we explore it. We go somewhere and she says „ah yes this place I remember blablabla.“ and if you don’t like it you can tell her to shut up and then everything is like it is not. But as for now the story is sadly not at all engaging for me. I play it solely for the gameplay and difficulty. It would have been nice to also feel like we are really chasing a story there. But we’ll maybe they improve it on the next try.

I never felt myself as a hardcore gamer. Neither when I was playing Age of Empires as a seven year old kid on my slow windows 95 PC nor when I played days in a row on my beloved x360. Maybe a little bit at the point I played CoD as a professional on tournaments when I caught myself skipping school in favour of training with my CoD clan.. But nowadays I am the epitome of a casual gamer. After weeks of Oblivion, Skyrim, Mass Effect, Fallout (list continues till the end of days) and all kinds of open world RPGs I must admit: Elden Ring truly is one of the best games I ever played. PERIOD. It is my first fromsoft game and it won’t be my last. I am amazed by the amount of creativity the devs put into this masterpiece. The best UX I ever made with a game. And the graphics are wonderful. Show me another game where you’re able to look in whatever direction you want and it looks like a beautiful painting. This game is delicious! Yummy.

One thing I noticed immediately is the lack of a mini map with Elden ring. When a game has a mini map I spend half the time looking at a small corner of my screen to see if Im walking the appropriate path as opposed to actually looking at the game. As for user experience Elden ring takes a unique approach. Similar to Sekiro you as the player have to unlearn what souls games have taught you. And its immediate too. Tree sentinel is almost impossible without perfect play, yet 20 seconds away you can get a horse that makes the fight manageable. It truly gives the player variety to their approach. So from something as simple as UI to complex as UX, Elden ring does have a freshness to it that stays true to the souls format but still offers something new and unique.

I don’t think I laughed any harder after reading those ubisoft dev tweets. To come from Ubisoft and have the sheer audacity to complain about stability, graphics, quest design, and network connection is fucking crazy.

I’m a developer. You are absolutely correct about UX being all aspects of user experience. We often storyboard many flows of potential user paths through an app. UX gets entangled with UI because in most software the distinction is more subtle since the whole app is interacted with via UI. In games there is a whole portion of the app that we don’t think of as User Interface. The controller, mouse, keyboard, menus, and HUD elements are what we usually think about as user “interface”. A UI is just one element of the total User Experience.

No lie, the quest system isn’t “bad” its just weird and niche. It’s easy to just bypass something in a quest entirely because of lack of information or just following a quest can be a bit of a challenge but I wouldn’t say its bad. I have gotten super mad at the fact that it takes me hours to finish a simple questline without a guide but at the same time I kinda have myself to blame because character dialogue really does just be like “Hey GO NORTH DUMMY I think summ might be there idk”

The fact that the *only* major complaint about Elden Ring is frame rate issues, and that those aren't even close to game-breaking, speaks miles as to how good it is. Even personally, my only complaint that could be placed on the game itself is that locking on when faced with groups can be an annoying experience because the game tends to not pick the close enemy right in front of me, but instead snaps my camera to a guy 20 feet behind him or someone 270 degrees to my left and on a ledge 10 feet above me.

Western AAA 'Strong female character': Explains for 10 minutes why she is strong, has overexaggerated musculature to show she is strong; proceeds to be weak and shallow character design that no one cares about. Elden Ring Strong female character: "I am Malenia, blade of Miquella. I have never known defeat"; proceeds to beat your ass for 5 hours straight without further elaboration.

I think so many people have been burned by unfinished games, it's refreshing to see a game of this magnitude release complete, and be this good out of the box.

The amount of times I’ve screamed at my tv while playing this game. The amount of times I’ve called the devs bitches for enemy and boss design/placement. The amount of times I’ve shut this game off mid fight, because of that one “bullshit attack”. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, because that feeling you get when you overcome those barriers is second to none.

UX designer here and I can clarify that ux revolves around the research and data that informs the functionality and intuitiveness or ease of use. Essentially the way to validate usability and great user experience revolves heavily around user testing and iteration. I believe FromSoft purposely makes their games very cryptic and does not provide the most guidance which Is why there might be ppl saying "oh the ux is terrible, I don't understand where I'm suppose to go, what is this story, where did this npc go, Yada yada". However fromsoft does this by design, understanding ux is also understanding your primary target audience and THAT is huge in the decision making of the ux and ui.

As a full time UX designer I have to say Elden Ring is the first game in years to make me feel emmersed and feel like im building my own path in a pre-built story and world. I have never felt that in a single Ubisoft title. Not to mention that Ubisoft UX is often predatory in order to entice you to spend money. As someone who breaks down experiences for a living, Elden Rings sole focus has been to make you experience the world and its rich story with almost no nudging. Thats the best way to respect both the player and the developer, make it about the work they put in and not the money the company gets out of it. I understand that in basic UX terms of accessibility this game may seem unfriendly, but it truly isnt. It just takes time for you to understand its approach to world building and progression. Which i think its why it is refreshing and new for so many people. You actually have to learn new things for once.

"It's not a problem of user experience, it's a problem of user inexperience." THIS

They're mad because they dont get it.

Margit is when the game takes off the tutorial gloves, you need to be sufficiently good or to have explored enough to have good gear and levels to beat him. If you can't beat Margit even with summons you should go try something else in the world, you have all of Western Limgrave and the Weeping Peninsula to explore as a noob, you can do bits of Mistwood too if you avoid the forest proper. Explore, learn level up and find some better loot. Then try Margit again. Elden Ring is probably the most forgiving soulslike from FS, there's pretty much no point that's a 'Git Gud' wall like O & S that I've experienced so far.

This is my very first Souls game, and I made the mistake of throwing myself at Margit way too early. Little did I know that I'd have to defeat like five or six field bosses before I was even remotely prepared to take on the big guy, and even then he was still a challenge. Even then I don't think that this is bad game design or anything. These games are all about exploring and growing stronger to face stronger challenges.

Ubisoft: "Hey, can you stop working so hard, you're making us look bad"

It has been over 10 years since I've found a game that I like this much. I'm 120 hours in and not even close to being done. It's a great game.

Elden Ring proved how bad EA and Ubisoft are as companies. I will always support the creators of Elden Ring. The game is absolutely incredible. Huge map design, the exploration is just so good.

Elden Ring is my favourite game of all time. My grinding FEELS meaningful. The story FEELS deep and impactful. I FEEL immense satisfaction when I beat a tough boss. The game is a 10/10 for me.

Elden Ring was designed to make you learn from mistakes. And being able to push through and beat it says a lot about a person. They don’t give up and do what it takes to make it

I have been playing video games since they first began (yeah pong, I'm old lol). Elden Ring is not perfect but the pros far out way the cons. I would go as far to say this game is the best designed game I have ever played and believe me I haver played them all. The combat system alone is a thing of beauty. Sad to see these salty cry babies instead of supporting the gaming community and taking notes like they should.

The thing that made Breath of the Wild so good, even though it ended up having its own serious problems, is something that it has in common with Elden Ring: That being that its so much fun just to explore. Every interesting landmark had something to find, had a reward for you. In Elden Ring, your reward was the reason you were playing the game in the first place: A boss. The fact that you get a unique piece of loot basically every time was just a bonus, the boss was the real reward. The problem with Breath of the Wild was that its design elements were at odds with each other. Getting a new weapon didn't feel like a reward because by your next fight, it was likely to just break, so ultimately, getting into combat felt like a punishment. Either way, BOTW and Elden Ring don't fill your map with useless shit that only serves as a distraction from the core gameplay. If your core gameplay is good, I don't want to be distracted from it. Ubisoft open worlds are just checklists. They make it clear from the get-go in their games that the intervening landscape between you and your goal is pointless. I'll be happy if Elden Ring makes the Ubisoft formula go extinct completely.

The only UX issue I would like to see improved is spell selection. Cycling through spells to find a specific spell when you are getting your shit pushed in is a bit difficult, but I can live with it. The game is great. I suppose it's just a UI issue.

Ubi would also sell golden seeds and sacred tears in the store too

If you have a massive open world, and the boss the glowing lights lead you to beats you up, that's GOOD user experience. It's teaching you three things early on. 1: there will be challenges you probably can't face yet, it's okay to turn back as it is an open world. This is further cemented by Melina literally talking to you the next time you sit at a bonfire after fighting Margit and apologizing, telling you she was testing you and taking you to the roundtable hold, where many NPCs show you how you can get stronger. This is a MASSIVE hint that you should not be fighting Margit yet, and an excellent form of conveyance. 2: This will not be a linear game, if you expected hand holding, too bad. Following the golden light is A path, but not the OPTIMAL path. If you take the advice of Melina and hold off on Margit, you can travel up to three areas (limgrave, the weeping peninsula, and caelid) before you have to face Margit, and you can even just go around the castle if you figure it out and go to liurnia. In these places are upgrade materials, gear, and even a special item that makes Margit easier to fight if you go in the right cave, one that forces you to notice it with an invasion and a fog wall. It's even guarded by a dragon and the undead to draw curiosity. Even before this, there is a tutorial prompt at the FIRST CHURCH telling you how to upgrade your weapons, reminding you of an easy way to increase your power even before going to the hold. The winding path this leads you on makes Margit easier both through gear, levels, and experience fighting weaker mobs. 3: It is possible to beat challenges you weren't meant to face yet through determination and hard work (this lesson is exclusive to the stubborn types who play for an hour or two to beat Margit on their first run right away). To simplify it to "the game throws you at Margit first and he isn't fair" cheapens the game. Also, while it's true a souls veteran will catch on to this quicker, if a game about secrets and discovery held your hand right at the beginning, it would cheapen the experience. Fromsoft is talented at conveying hidden ideas through indirect means. I don't want it to be made more obvious and straightforward for the sake of "accessibility" or "UX." That argument is how you get your character talking to themselves like a crazy person, or a fairy shouting "hey, listen."

Margit made me explore more of the map and every so often I'd go back to him, the difficulty made killing him way more rewarding. I think Godrick being not too bad afterwards is because Margit already got you to explore and understand the game more.

As someone with nearly 7 thousand hours in the souls series when I first fought Margit I said "No I'm going anywhere else first." Because I chose wretch and had to climb my way tooth and nail to get the gear to be able to face Margit at a decent level with okay weapons. The user experience of Elden Ring absolutely has the ability to be a game on the difficulty level of sekiro, or you can spend 10 hours exploring the areas and have a much easier souls experience. The one bad thing about Elden Ring is that it's probably the end. Most developers won't put down all the effort Miyazaki does, and when they're done updating Elden Ring, creating dlc, etc. That's likely it for a long time. The last great game of an era.

I never understood how people didn’t realize they need to explore the world more before fighting Margit. If you’ve ever played a FS game they never make a fight THAT hard fresh outta the gate. I noticed how difficult he was and was like let me go explore all of Limgrave and the peninsula and come back. Once I came back I whooped his ass in one try lol.

Those devs playing Elden Ring? They'd cry that the game doesn't tell them how to leave the starting zone, that there's no mid combat pop-ups telling them how to dodge with 7 pages of text. Those devs are only good at mobile games that require single button presses to play in the background for them.

If you play Elden Ring you can feel the passion of the developers. Something that went missing with a lot of games recently

A great example of something similar was Ghost of Tsushima. Great game, good open world, and what did Japanese devs say on it? "We wish we would have done this. Good job." No hate, no flaming, just admiration. But I would wager there were a few that werent too keen on the game. I honestly couldnt find much of them lashing out though. Elden Ring deserves every bit of praise AND criticisms. But it doesmt deserve this bs

The best UI is diagetic UI. Think Artyom's watch from Metro 2033 where a small indicator light glows whenever you're fully hidden in the shadows. Sure, it's a little silly because someone might see it in real life, but it works well and removes one more thing from the UI clutter.

Elden Ring: DLC, downloadable (extra) content. Western Games: PTC, Pay to Continue (the story costs extra)

I’ve been playing Elden Ring for 25 hrs and holy fucking shit! Game is a masterpiece if you like it or not. When I went underground and saw the sky (Underground) for the first time I- Was fucking stunned! I’m glad I paid 60 dollars just to see this magnificent piece of art!!! I somehow still feel like I’m ripping them off..

its been a breath of fresh air to have an open world that just lets me explore insteqd of bombarding me with level gated main quests, fetch side quests, and shit like collectible icons and 3000 bandit camps

See I hit margitt and realised I was nowhere near beefy enough to challenge him yet. Even the oldest school final fantasy games had the rpg wall or grind, where you need to run off and explore or grind a few levels before challenging the boss again? Why do these devs forget one of the most basic concepts of an rpg. A harder area that needs a beefier character to get through?

FromSoftware graphics aren’t that wonderful, but what they do with them is impressive. Just getting to Anor Londo, is always so beautiful, making it to the kiln of the first flame, or just the dark nature every game they’ve made gives off. It’s so good looking honestly

I also am a SOULS rookie. And this game has whooooped my ass. Margit haunted me for a few days. But u all r right: i searched caves, i grinded out rune and gear hunting. Just plain explored and hunted and revealed as much of the map as i could. And along the way i learned how to play, learned my style. And when i finally beat Margit, i immediately went on to Godrick and beat him on my 2nd try. Then i felt savage so i then beat the Tree Sentinel on my 2nd try as well. After getting destroyed and destroyed and destroyed, i finally got patient, the game slowed down, and i started winning… alot. Its been very rewarding. Such a deep and well thought up game. I cant stop preaching its good name to one and all.

I’ve had Elden ring crash a couple times on me while loading into a zone or randomly. But that hasn’t bothered me in the slightest. This is still by far the most finished/polished game on release in a very long time.

I am so happy Fromsoft proves sticking to your philosophy AND managing to deliver a game that holds up to modern expectations. Ubisoft were brutal in the AC 2 and AC Brotherhood regarding not getting detected. Why can we not have a challenging original game that keeps its identity, but with options INGAME to solve the objectives creatively. Oh wait.., Fromsoft did!

26:10 I agree with this, i think the best example is the UI in Dead Space, where all the HUD elements are built-in to the game, and you don't have to stop the game to access any menus. I think that's the best there is.

Personally, Elden Ring is my first ever Souls game. I've watched highlight videos, streams, and speedruns but never experienced it myself. Yes, it took my bashing my head against that first boss like 20 times before I realized, It's ok to go explore and come back. Did a whole bunch of running around, grinding, looking at some build tutorials, and in general just enjoying the game. Now I'm 4 different characters with a combined 45 hours and I love how different all of them play. Whether it's a pure STR, INT, FAITH, or STR/DEX (looking forward to trying ARC now with the buffs). And I can't wait to make more. My only complaint would be a log of what the cast says so I can look through it for quest hints, but that's because I mash to much through dialogue and miss things, that's not the games fault.

I have over 50 hours on Elden ring so far an I have not even fought the first boss, it's been a blast exploring every inch of the map and dying 1000 times, game is a legit 10/10 and I never even thought of the fact there isn't any stupid micro transactions.

My problem was as soon as I learned I could just skip bosses to access more areas I did that for almost every boss and side boss until I got to the point that I forget what I had skipped and couldn't 100% the game like I would normally want to.

I will never understand the Sunday dad graphic geek mentality where they just buy a game, crank it to max on their 3k rig, and then play 10 hours and quit. But hey, at least the graphics were amazing! Who cares lol. Graphics is literally the last thing that matters. Art style and gameplay is so much more important to instead of quitting after 10 hours of "woah such amazing graphics on 4k look at that! BatChest"

Elden Ring ACTUALLY let's me do what I want. Want lore? Read the descriptions. Side quests? They're out there if you look. PVP? We got that (no P2W). it's also great because of the fact that it changed the formula. I'm tired of playing the same game just made by different devs, with different characters.This game also takes effort to beat, effort to understand the themes, and I can put 150 hours in before I've explored every nook and cranny. Chefs kiss to elden ring.

Asmongold: "At the end of the day, gamers just wanna play a good game." Asmongold moment later: "I don't play these games. I don't know the ubisoft game." This speaks for itself lmao

I absolutely love this game! I just wish I wasn't so bad at it, I've made it all the way to the beast clergyman and have been stuck there for months 😭 his second phase is HARD

As a Souls player, the only issue I really have with Elden Ring is the same issue I have with all the other Souls games - the target lockon. If you're 1 on 1, it's usually fine, but you're usually fighting groups. With groups, it's really easy to get surrounded, or even just ended up locked into the wrong enemy. I'm at the point where I'm fine with tactically switching targets and being situationally aware, but I didn't get there until DS3. Before that I more or less played without target lock. Besides that, most people's issues seem like they're more to do with not reading the tutorials or checking out the help button. Oh, and XBONE also has performance issues, so it's not really a PC thing. Thankfully it seems a lot better now.

Fromsoft is one of the only developers at this budget level making consistently good games that respect the intelligence and competence of their players almost to the point of being actively hostile. It's almost like starting a job you're not QUITE qualified for and everyone immediately trusts you to handle your shit and just leaves you to it. Some people disintegrate and some people learn quick, flourish, and feel like a badass. I've been through enough adversity in my life, including dark souls 1 lol, to have confidence in myself that I can handle anything It took me almost five hours to beat demon of hatred in Sekiro. At no point during those five hours did I even so much as entertain the thought, "maybe I can't do this." It sucks that a lot of people don't seem to have that much faith in themselves.

I disagree that having realistic animations and good voice acting doesnt improve your experience. Maybe it doesnt significantly lift the bar all that much but when its done badly it can seriously throw off the entire experience. Assassins Creed Valhalla has some terrible animations and voice acting and it annoys me to no end. It just feels so robotic and artificial while a game like Elden Ring really immerses you in the experience. I hate how im supposed to be a human in Valhalla and yet my guy is able to jump 20 feet in the air to perform a dive of the valkerie or when he dashes he dashes like 10 feet in one direction. The real cutschenes look good but the ones you get when mostly just dialog is happening is are atrocious

In defense of the motion tracking, there is the Left for Dead 2 vs Back for Blood comparison, and the zombie stumbling around and reactions were very important for immersion.

Stability improved dramatically within few weeks of the release. Elden Ring isn't a "git gud" game like Dark Souls instead is a "git gud nuff" and find another way. I have enjoyed this game massively and the only thing I would add is a diary because I often forgot what was I doing with some NPCs. lol

I love that elden ring did the open world so well. There's something down every corner you turn and you can access nearly all the world(haven't made it to the top past the erdtree yet) without even beating godrik. Like following the geography and caves everything is accessible from a low level just takes the guts to make it. I respect that so much. And when you get to those areas the game reminds you shouldn't be there but it's such a win to even make it there.

There are a lot of devs or game designer that just forgot that a game is supposed to be fun I'm actually studying how to make games in a school and i admit that asmon is right, most of our teachers are clueless and just wants us to make a game with great visuals, with messages behind everything, they want us to program something really complicated just for the sake of difficulty. And then the games are shit because we don't have time to work on the really important part : having fun

Game Design school do teach in a very school like manor. However imo, in game design, once you learn something and master it, you THEN should learn to break it in interesting ways to create interesting games. Not all rules should be broken for obvious reasons but occasionally a few should

Some people that I know gave up on elden rings the first few hours that they've playes it because it was just too difficult for them. ER was my first souls game that I pushed myself to complete even though it was difficult for me at the time since I was a big noob that wanted to avoid any large size bosses or npcs. But after running into the dragon agheel (?) and being in absolute terror, dying countless times even while on horseback, I finally managed to kill him. I kid you not, I had the biggest confidence boost in a long time that became my drive in killing off nearly all bosses in ER. This game is so unique to me that it has taught me many things in which the greatest achievement can come at the cost of pure effort and consistency. Something which many other games don't do for me at all