Elden Ring is the anti-Ubisoft open-world game and I love it for it

Yeah, the core gameplay is strong enough. So that I can tolerate it.

Same thing with Mount and Blade: Warband, a game I dearly love. Excellent mechanics, but annexing the same castle layout got tiring after a while.

These games can get away with it. Because their mechanics are still solid enough like you stated. Ubisoft games can have good mechanics, but the games that utilize good mechanics are never the ones that feature these open worlds.

It is an open world RPG. Skyrim is an open world RPG.

It has magic and melee combat. Skyrim has magic and melee combat.

The time period is medieval. Skyrim is medieval.

There a strong focus on exploration and finding nooks and crannies for weapons, spells and armor. Skyrim did the same.

There are dragons across the world that can be slain. Skyrim revolves around dragons and the killing of dragons around the world.

Points of interests populate the map upon visiting. Skyrim did the same but you can fast travel to all of these points of interests.

Like every other RPG, there is side questing via exploration. Skyrim has loads of sides quest that are experienced via exploration.

But you are here asking how it is REMOTELY reminiscent of Skyrim. 🙄

so what would you do to improve it?

tbh i'd say out of all the npc interactions you could pick, that one is one of the most believable lol.

you meet a woman who tells you about a big rebellion at her father edgar's castle, she's had to flee, you rock up and find it on the verge of collapse, occupants have lost. there's what looks like a last stand between soldiers and rebels who finish the remaining off, edgar's held up in a tower on his own, says he wants to see his daughter but can't leave the castle, something about a weapon needing to be safe. you go kill a boss who's took that weapon, rescue it, go tell edgar then he leaves to meet his daughter.

compared to situations / interactions like this, that one is comparatively mundane lol

And since you're not an automaton you know what context is?

Because you didn't even answer the question.

I agree with your sentiment. To me, the world is lacking believability even within its own lore. Despite the world being some strange post apocalyptical medievalesque location, NPCs act as if the world is a normal space in which people live but there is nothing livable in the world. Almost everything is wrecked, ruined and littered with hostile creatures and abominations. It just an abstract disjointed fantastical composition of ideas with a story running parallel to it. It just becomes something that you accept because most of the world is practically dead and irrational. 🤷🏽‍♂️

@Macutchi said:

@PurpleMan5000 said:

@Macutchi said:

i've thought about this a bit whilst playing er. how much, if any, of that sort of thing could you add without compromising what makes these games so great.

i mean the game is already very immersive, one of the most i've played in a long time. open world survival. everywhere is hostile territory, danger and death around every corner, high risk / high reward type gameplay. it does really grip you.

throwing civilisation in there could really change that. you'd have safe zones. and they would have to be done in a way that fits with the game lore. believable people with believable lives are hard to do. potentially you'd do more damage to immersion if they didn't feel authentic and fit well with the game design. truman show style npcs like so many other open worlds suffer from.

and you'd have to rethink the way the story's told too. maybe a clearer overarching narrative, one which links these towns / people. souls "plots" have always been mysterious, told anecdotally. more of a back story. like a lot of cryptic secondary sub plots vaguely interlinked. you'd probably have to go less implicit and more explicit in the story telling.

maybe you could change when these games are set. they're always post apocalypse or catastrophe. civilisation in tatters, evil running amok by the time you're introduced to fix things. maybe if the game was set just pre-catastrophe and you were there to save these great dynasties, locations and civilisations from being destroyed, maybe that could work. but still think it could risk compromising on too much of from's fundamental game design philosophy.

it's interesting to think about

Well, a couple of days ago, I delivered a letter to an NPC in a fort. To reach him, I killed every single moving thing outside and inside the fort, including both the besieging force and his own soldiers. He thanked me for the letter, but said that he had to remain at the fort. Said nothing about his soldiers all being dead. Nothing about the interaction made a single bit of sense. Why would there be a fort without a village to defend? Why would the mindless army this man leads attack me when their leader doesn't seem to be bothered at all by my presence?

so what would you do to improve it?

tbh i'd say out of all the npc interactions you could pick, that one is one of the most believable lol.

you meet a woman who tells you about a big rebellion at her father edgar's castle, she's had to flee, you rock up and find it on the verge of collapse, occupants have lost. there's what looks like a last stand between soldiers and rebels who finish the remaining off, edgar's held up in a tower on his own, says he wants to see his daughter but can't leave the castle, something about a weapon needing to be safe. you go kill a boss who's took that weapon, rescue it, go tell edgar then he leaves to meet his daughter.

compared to situations / interactions like this, that one is comparatively mundane lol

That's the same event I was talking about, actually. I just tried to keep the description as generic as possible to avoid spoilers. The reason I don't think it works is that the land completely lacks civilization. The castle isn't protecting anything or anyone. It just has soldiers inside of it defending land that doesn't have people in it.

And regarding the photo, I could totally see this world's church making Mitch McConnell pope.

I literally answered your question and you decided to exclude it in your response. You clearly didn't like the answer and it is very obvious that you do not know the meaning of the word reminiscent.

Of course I didn't like the answer because it's something a robot would type.

The context is the OP stating his criticism of the game and you answering its "core design" is very reminiscent of Skyrim. When I asked you how it is similar, you made a bullet points of things that apply to quite literally hundreds of games. Your point kind of goes hollow if you point a specific game only for said arguments to apply to a myriad of others.

You should have simply summarized: Hundreds of medieval RPG's share the same core design.

Breath of the Wild was already the anti-Ubisoft open world game. Elden Ring is a "Wild-like" open world game.

Context you say? This was the context of my comment

Stop being a fanboy and being offended by stupid stuff. You are coming across as fool, which is very unbecoming.

Yes, context. You said "this is a very accurate summary of the game's core design" then proceed to say it's reminiscent of Skyrim. Then when prompted to answer you go "Well, you slay dragons and explore the map and stuff", well no shit, that's practically every medieval RPG. If you single out Skyrim, it must be because it's particularly similar. If it isn't and is just one of hundreds of examples, your entire argument is dumb.

And learn how to present your arguments properly. Don't you teach game design? If that's how you teach kids how to develop games, I hope they drop out of your class. If that's how you describe core design, let me have a good laugh. Champ doesn't even teach this and is far more articulate and better at presenting his thoughts than you are.

Argument? There was no argument being made on my end.

You literally asked "How is it remotely reminiscent of Skyrim?". And I told you.

You are trying to argue with me about this game being reminiscent to Skyrim. And even now you still don't know the meaning of the word, otherwise you would not be trying to argue foolishly. But, because you were personally attacked by the comparison you are taking the textbook fanboy approach. 🥱

Now, you are trying to go after my profession after you made an ass of yourself all because you were offended by Elden Ring being reminiscent of Skyrim. 😂

@pyro1245: man I can't wait to get there. But I'm taking my time. I'm at level 30 and still in the desert level. I like doing as many side quest as I can before moving forward.

"There was no argument to be made on my end", yet he keeps arguing with hollow points, sidesteps the counter-arguments and digs himself further in a hole with the typical Pedro deflections.

Nah, I attack your profession because when you mentioned "core design" so I thought you might provide some insight on things that I might have missed about the game's design, but now I see your credentials when it comes to game design are as good as the average forum goer lol.

Nope! I have only listed reason the game is reminiscent once and never referenced it since. There is literally no deflection occurring on my end. Listing points of why a game is reminiscent of another game is not an argument. It is an explanation of the term reminiscent. You thinking that I am arguing, further solidifies that you don't know the meaning of the word reminiscent and you continue to argue because you were upset and now trying your best to safe face after making an ass of yourself.

Despite your question being answered and the answer not being to your liking, in your hurt state you now have deflected to my statement prior to me stating that the game is reminiscent to Skyrim, in an attempt to deflect from the fact that you literally asked me how is it reminiscent to Skyrim.

So, are you done being a fanboy and making a absolute ass of yourself?🤔

Didn't read. Sorry.

@Juub1990: Doesn't matter, you already made an ass of yourself.🤷🏽‍♂️

Lol.... That got off the rails....

I think the point is: Skyrim would have been a much better game if it had Dark Souls combat and a more interesting world design.

This I partially agree it. One of the devs from Guerrilla Game said From didn't know how to design quests, and he's right. This shit belongs in the 90's. For instance, some wizard asked me to deliver a potion to a girl (whose name I had been told once and completely forgot after because she left the Roundtable Hold after talking once).

I finally found her hiding out in the middle of nowhere. Spoke to her, didn't even get the option to offer the potion. I fast-travelled and returned hoping it would trigger something, she was gone. I found her again at the Roundtable Hold, this time the option to offer the potion triggered.

Characters just stand there, do nothing and just feel like they're here for the player to speak to. Unlike in a game like Skyrim where they maintain some semblance of believability by having jobs, schedules, conversations with other characters and a personality that sometimes goes beyond surface level (though rarely).

The dead, decaying world is just how things are lol. A dead world should still "live" if you catch my drift. The world in Elden Ring is too static in too many respects to feel alive.

The questing is particularly weak in the game because of the obtuseness in the execution. Because the game's strength is in other gameplay elements such as exploration and character customization such RPG stats, armor and weapons, most players would not pay much heed to the NPCs dialogue. This makes the questing being almost reliant on players memory a bit problematic. At the bear minimum recalling dialogue could have alleviated this if the desire to not have quest logs or markers was preferred.

Elden Ring is going to be almost locked to being static because of the core design of death resetting the world. Fromsoftware can venture into making the world more dynamic but they have stuck to this formula to the point that the design is etched in stone.

@PurpleMan5000 said:

@Macutchi said:

so what would you do to improve it?

tbh i'd say out of all the npc interactions you could pick, that one is one of the most believable lol.

you meet a woman who tells you about a big rebellion at her father edgar's castle, she's had to flee, you rock up and find it on the verge of collapse, occupants have lost. there's what looks like a last stand between soldiers and rebels who finish the remaining off, edgar's held up in a tower on his own, says he wants to see his daughter but can't leave the castle, something about a weapon needing to be safe. you go kill a boss who's took that weapon, rescue it, go tell edgar then he leaves to meet his daughter.

compared to situations / interactions like this, that one is comparatively mundane lol

That's the same event I was talking about, actually. I just tried to keep the description as generic as possible to avoid spoilers. The reason I don't think it works is that the land completely lacks civilization. The castle isn't protecting anything or anyone. It just has soldiers inside of it defending land that doesn't have people in it.

And regarding the photo, I could totally see this world's church making Mitch McConnell pope.

i get what you mean. it's like characters in the game are on a totally different plane of existence, totally unrelatable, and the onus is on us to try and rationalise them.

or we can just choose not to think about it all too deeply, focus on just playing the game and view npcs as nothing more than puzzles / mechanisms to unlock new parts of the game. it does take effort but they don't really work any other way. i've finished bloodborne several times. not got a clue really what the story is, but i still loved the game. like most of from games its plot is difficult to decipher and generally indifferent to you. i feel the idea is you make the story.

the point i was getting was i'm not saying they're entirely incompatible but i just don't know how you'd introduce plot and civilisation without significantly detracting from the core design at the heart of these games. i do think it's interesting to think about, would probably make a good thread topic

@Macutchi said:

@PurpleMan5000 said:

@Macutchi said:

so what would you do to improve it?

tbh i'd say out of all the npc interactions you could pick, that one is one of the most believable lol.

you meet a woman who tells you about a big rebellion at her father edgar's castle, she's had to flee, you rock up and find it on the verge of collapse, occupants have lost. there's what looks like a last stand between soldiers and rebels who finish the remaining off, edgar's held up in a tower on his own, says he wants to see his daughter but can't leave the castle, something about a weapon needing to be safe. you go kill a boss who's took that weapon, rescue it, go tell edgar then he leaves to meet his daughter.

compared to situations / interactions like this, that one is comparatively mundane lol

That's the same event I was talking about, actually. I just tried to keep the description as generic as possible to avoid spoilers. The reason I don't think it works is that the land completely lacks civilization. The castle isn't protecting anything or anyone. It just has soldiers inside of it defending land that doesn't have people in it.

And regarding the photo, I could totally see this world's church making Mitch McConnell pope.

i get what you mean. it's like characters in the game are on a totally different plane of existence, totally unrelatable, and the onus is on us to try and rationalise them.

or we can just choose not to think about it all too deeply, focus on playing the game and view npcs as nothing more than puzzles / mechanisms to unlock new parts of the game. that's what i do. i've finished bloodborne several times. not got a clue really what the story is, but i still loved the game. like most of from games its plot is difficult to decipher, info-lite and generally indifferent to you. i feel the idea is you make the story.

the point i was getting was i'm not saying they're entirely incompatible but i just don't know how you'd introduce plot and civilisation without significantly detracting from the core design at the heart of these games. i do think it's interesting to think about, would probably make a good thread topic

Hypothetically, if there were a castle town near each of these castles and forts (maybe the people are enslaved and forced to fight people like you) and when you cleared the castle, you free the people, unlocking merchants, maybe a few quest lines to help rebuild, etc., what gets lost from the game? I guess you no longer would be able to grind runes at the castle, but otherwise? I don't think you would need to change the overall plot of the game. You would just need to add some lore behind the bosses at the castles and the towns that they are subjugating. And a little more lore for the minor bosses would not be a bad thing at all, imo.