[HN Gopher] The Boschian Horror of 'Elden Ring' ___________________________________________________________________ The Boschian Horror of 'Elden Ring' Author : keiferski Score : 210 points Date : 2022-03-19 12:03 UTC (10 hours ago) (HTM) web link (artreview.com) (TXT) w3m dump (artreview.com) | dash2 wrote: | Let me save you a click: | | * Elden Ring is a bit like Bosch, Dore and Caspar David | Friedrich; | | * Elden Ring is an open world game. | UberFly wrote: | Somewhat related: Here are the hyper-resolution Bosch scans | mentioned in that article: http://boschproject.org/#/artworks/ | sharmin123 wrote: | 127 wrote: | If you get the chance, get the art books for these games. They | are really something. | ng12 wrote: | This has always been the best part of FromSoft games. People talk | about the difficulty first but I think that absolutely takes a | backseat to the visuals. The art direction and atmosphere are | absolutely unparalleled. I honestly can't think of another game | who's world captured me like the first Dark Souls did. | | There's a quote from an interview with Miyazaki I really likes | which underlines how carefully crafted the world is: | https://imgur.com/zO6CcDq | Razengan wrote: | > _I honestly can 't think of another game who's world captured | me like the first Dark Souls did._ | | Check out Darkest Dungeon | | Slay the Spire | | Everything by Amanita Design (Machinarium, Samorost) | thaumasiotes wrote: | You're recommending Slay the Spire for the lore? It doesn't | even _have_ lore. | x0hm wrote: | How?? This is insane. Dark Souls is the most absurdly plain and | boring looking game that ever somehow defined a genre. | whateveracct wrote: | Have you played Blasphemous? Definitely inspired by Dark Souls. | I think its world is even more entrancing despite it being a | hand-drawn pixel art side-scroller. It draws on Spanish | folklore and Catholicism, which I really liked. | | (Don't forget to play it with the Spanish voice acting - | superb) | ng12 wrote: | Thanks for the rec. I'm only familiar with it because it was | referenced in Dead Cells. | k_sze wrote: | You make me really regret throwing away my Demon's Souls disc | when I was depressed years ago. I now have all of the Dark | Souls games and Sekiro, no Elden Ring yet. | | But having all the games would probably allow me to more fully | appreciate the art's evolution. | Trasmatta wrote: | If you have a decent gaming PC, you can now emulate the | original Demon's Souls at 60FPS, which is great. The Demon's | Souls Remake is really good too, but if you're primarily | interested in looking at the progression of the art, that | Remake took things in a somewhat different direction (as it | was made by a different team). It's incredibly faithful | gameplay wise, though. | | Be sure to check out Bloodborne as well. | UncleMeat wrote: | This is one of those reasons why I wish there was an easy mode. | There is great value in the games beyond just the system | mastery. | gghhzzgghhzz wrote: | There are plenty of easy modes available. It's not a settings | option though, it's a play style. It really is a wonderfully | well designed game. | kabdib wrote: | So far this appears to be a "choose your own difficulty" | game. I've deliberately chosen to "git gud" at melee, since | I've always sucked at melee. Could level to 99 and just | blast through things, but where is the fun in that? | | Elden Ring has taught me calm and resolve in the face of | overwhelming odds. Also, the value of a battle honestly | fought. It's a great teacher, and an amazing game. | extrememacaroni wrote: | One of the things that cause immersion to spike for me is | exactly the difficulty, or rather "this enemy just kicked my | ass, WHAT do I need to do to beat it? what do I need to | change, are there other areas I did not check, any clues I | may have passed by" etc. | | If the game is too easy chances are I'll zone out and "play" | it, in a very inert way just watching what happens. | | Not a Souls-like, but the game where I saw this at play the | most is TeS Oblivion (not sure if it also works in Skyrim), | as soon as I started playing it as a battlemage with the | Tower sign (it takes away auto regen of magicka). Lots of | content in Oblivion I felt was filler that I just went | through out of inertia, but playing a battlemage with no | magicka regen? Survival depends on the potions you craft and | any other helpful items found along the way. Suddenly even | the most boring dungeon became interesting and potentially | helpful in the long run because it could contain helpful | loot. Those ayleid ruins with the crystals that help a ton | with magicka? Godsent rather than long and samey. | | Of course I eventually leveled up enough to become OP and the | game ended up being a chain of filler stuff once more, but | that was several tens of hours into the playthru. But those | first tens of hours were an amazing experience, where I | needed to carefully plan out and scour the world for items in | order to hope to survive. | UncleMeat wrote: | Do you start each of these games with SL1 runs? Likely not. | | This means that you are engaging with the game in an | optional way that makes the game easier (leveling up). You | do not have to do that. In what way is somebody engaging | with the game in a different optional way that makes the | game easier unacceptable? | | What it sounds like you want is for the game to sit near | the top of an individual players' capabilities. What if | making the game optionally easier achieves that for some | people? | extrememacaroni wrote: | Watching a playthrough is the easiest optionalest option, | also one that is doable from start to finish by the | largest number of gamers. Such an extra-inclusive option, | all games should feature it. "Watch the bots play". | | With your philosophy, you get games with pointless | difficulty systems like Skyrim & co. Sliders that range | from "enemies die in one hit" to "you'll spend half an | hour hitting this boss before it dies because now it has | hitpoints defined by your_level * 9999999999". None of | the bosses in Souls games take half an hour to fight | unless you do something exotic like SL1 runs, if you're | not done with a boss in a couple of minutes chances are | something's wrong with your build, because otherwise your | skills are good, else you wouldn't survive for 2 minutes | with a Souls boss. | UncleMeat wrote: | > None of the bosses in Souls games take half an hour to | fight unless you do something exotic like SL1 runs, if | you're not done with a boss in a couple of minutes | chances are something's wrong with your build, because | otherwise your skills are good, else you wouldn't survive | for 2 minutes with a Souls boss. | | I spent several days on O&S. Two hours would have been | fun and I would have felt a sense of accomplishment. In | the end, I cheesed it by pinning Smough to the broken | pillars. | setr wrote: | He meant the battle itself ends in roughly a few minutes. | The number of battles and attempts could be much longer. | | It's a major deviation in difficulty definitions between | fromsoft and difficulty sliders -- the usual increase in | difficulty is to just bump the stats, which typically | just means you have to play perfectly for longer | durations. | | Fromsoft just asks you to play perfectly for a minute, | maybe two (and honestly not that perfectly). | | Eg I'm playing triangle strategy atm, and the hard mode | difficulty bumps their stats so high that the strategy | ultimately devolves into some kind of cheesing in many | cases (and then spend 15 minutes executing that cheese | because the enemies are taking chip damage). At the same | time, normal mode (apparently) is easy enough to just | plow through, so I'm pretty much stuck if I want an | actual challenge -- and that's hardly a surprising state | of affairs. | eldenringthrow wrote: | dharmab wrote: | There's a few places in Elden Ring where you can trivially | and quickly farm and overlevel your character. | UncleMeat wrote: | Isn't that _worse_ than an easy mode? The outcome is the | same but it takes hours rather than seconds and the | locations where you can quickly farm levels are not obvious | in game and require you to look up advice online. | kipchak wrote: | A potential upside is that because it's tedious, you'll | probably want to do it for only as long as necessary | before trying again so the difficulty is somewhat | adjusted to the player's need, and you don't actually | change how enemies behave - the mechanics of the game are | still the exact same, your numbers are just a bit bigger. | When I imagine an easy mode I would figure making changes | for how things work would be necessary, like having a | boss' attacks be more predictable. | gretch wrote: | You don't have to farm levels. You just go do something | else that naturally results in levels or loot making your | character stronger. Since all of the game is wonderfully | designed, it's never a situation where you run off and | "kill 10 bats" that people might have in mind due to | precedents set by e.g. world of Warcraft. | | Also, few ppl understand this, but community knowledge is | actually a core part of the design philosophy. That's why | there's player messages and blood stains built into the | game. It's not a dirty thing in this game to look stuff | up or ask for help. There's a huge community and | comradary aspect to the game. | kache_ wrote: | The difficulty is part of the artform | UncleMeat wrote: | _Part of._ The context for this discussion is the | atmosphere, lore, and art. That is independent of | difficulty. | | And further, it is clearly not the case in any of the | soulsborne games that the difficulty is tuned perfectly for | each player. If that were true, there would be no interest | in SL1 runes or there wouldn't have been patches | rebalancing of Lost Izalith in DS1 or summons wouldn't be | an available option. | jibe wrote: | The difficulty and risk of death and loss is | intrinsically intertwined with the atmosphere. There are | many other games with amazing dark art, but without the | actual fear of death from the game system, they have less | impact. | deckard1 wrote: | You're going to need a guide to understanding the lore | and atmosphere. The hard mode is not contained to the | game play. Bloodborne, for example, has the atmosphere | change based on certain unlocked events and paths you | choose to go down. Even if you notice the change in | atmosphere, you're not going to understand how it fits | together with the story. | | I'd just watch a YouTube walkthrough if you don't want to | play. Playing the game, alone, is not enough to fully | appreciate any of the Souls games. | Filligree wrote: | For many people, this level of difficulty is just | impossibility. | qwertycrackers wrote: | I feel like people who say this sort of thing just have | not actually played these games. I understand that in | theory, a game could require extremely good reaction | times or complicated inputs which make it exclusive. But | Elden Ring is definitely not hard in that respect. In | fact, part of the difficulty is that all the animations | are long and you can't cancel them. This actually removes | the need for good reaction time -- you have more than | enough time to hit a button when you know you will need | to. | | The "difficulty" really arises from the need for game | knowledge -- you have to keep dying until you figure out | the right weapon, right spell, or right attack which | works well against a particular encounter. And find all | the places you can upgrade your weapons and tools and | such. After you do these things, the game is in fact | quite easy. Hunting around and gathering this stuff is | the core fun of the game and I can't see how this is | exclusionary toward anybody who would want to play. | | I suppose there is a segment of people who would like to | see images of the game without doing that but honestly... | just watch a Let's Play. That way you don't even need to | pay for the game. | UncleMeat wrote: | > I feel like people who say this sort of thing just have | not actually played these games. | | I think this is uncharitable. You can look at completion | rates on Steam for some data. I personally stopped | playing the xbox360 version of DS1 because the goddamn | giants in Lost Izalith kept respawning (something that | was mercifully changed with patches). I'd have kept going | if I had the patched (and easier) game. | dkersten wrote: | > You can look at completion rates on Steam for some | data. | | I think we have to accept that not every game is for | every person. How adamantly FROM Software fans defend the | difficulty shows that this style of game is greatly | appreciated by many and, while it sucks to not be into | that if the rest of the game looks good to you, I think | we just have to be ok with the fact that ok maybe this | game was made for people who are into that. | | Personally, I appreciate that FROM Software basically | force me to learn their games mechanics rather than | button mashing my way through, even if it is very | frustrating in the moment. I know I'm not good enough to | persevere if I could just play in easy mode, and I would | have missed out on some truly exhilarating moments. I | understand that that's just me and everyone is different, | but I mean, there's plenty of games out there, not all | have to cater to everyone. There are certainly plenty of | games that I think look really cool but ultimately I | don't feel are for me (most multiplayer games, really. | Even if they look awesome, I just don't have the | dedication for it). | | This is also why I think its important to watch gameplay | videos before you buy, so that you know what you're | getting yourself into. | UncleMeat wrote: | I do agree that not every game is for every person. I'd | prefer it if the games could be made easier, but FromSoft | can do what they want. What I find frustrating is that | asking for this feature produces intense backlash in many | communities. | | I'm not asking to be able to button mash my way through. | Perhaps this is a problem with terms. I'd like a "hard | but doable for me" mode. That mode is tuned lighter than | the default tuning of the game as released. | | Consider that the games already come with many various | forms of hard mode. You can do NG+ runs that are harder. | You can do SL1 runs that are harder. You can put all of | your souls into Resistance and waste your character. If | the game shipped without level ups and everybody was | forced into SL1 runs, would that make the game better? | Surely for _some_ people that 'd place the difficulty | right at their boundary of "hard, but doable." But for | you (or certainly me) that'd be a frustrating wall. | dkersten wrote: | > What I find frustrating is that asking for this feature | produces intense backlash in many communities. | | I can understand it though. I mean, leaving aside whether | or not adding an easy mode actually affects the game for | those who don't want to play in it. Its kinda like, the | developers created a game that, as it stands, appeals to | person A. Person B wants changes made or added to the | game so that the game appeals more to them. Of course | person A is going to be upset that others want the game | changed to suit those other people, when it works | perfectly fine for person A as is. | | For me, I know that adding an easy mode would affect my | experience, but the reason for that is a me problem: | because I know I don't have the tenacity to persevere if | I have a choice to just play in easy instead (yet I also | know that being forced to persevere has led to some of | the greatest satisfaction I've gotten from playing | games). That's my problem, though, but for me its like | yeah well the game as is suits me, so.. please don't | change it. Of course I totally understand that this is | just me and that others could enjoy the game much more if | this were added to the game, and I should just work on my | self control in that area. | | But I totally get it, especially if this is the _only_ | thing that prevents someone from enjoying a game that in | every other way would be enjoyable to them. | jrootabega wrote: | The controversy (or rather the online dialogue about a | controversy which may or may not really exist) over game | difficulty is kind of a smaller proxy battle in a larger | culture war, as well as a topic that tends to come up | when megacorps can use it for self-promotion. e.g. | Microsoft/Double Fine and Psychonauts 2. Have they said | anything whatsoever about Elden Ring accessibility? | grogenaut wrote: | Please continue to tell me that I'm having fun | incorrectly. | | I'm 46, I have well over 10k hours in hundreds of video | games. Been gaming since I had an Atari and games had no | directions or guides like Indiana Jones. | | Having difficulty that I don't enjoy in a game is the | number 2 reason after "it didn't click" that I abandon a | game. | | There's literally nothing that stops me from reading a | novel or watching a movie or walking through a museum or | a world historical site to gate keep that experience. | Games is the only one where we say "you must enjoy | frustration or read spoilers to progress". Just gate | keeping that great artistic vision. If it is art worth | the experience it shouldn't behind a wall saying "get gud | to enter". Let people experience it how they can or want | to or have time to. | | We're no longer charging quarters based on deaths but | that still has it's tendrils in our artform. | | To be clear I die a ton in games, I also appreciate it | when the game is like ok buddy you tried you can go | forward like gta5/gth2. I died 10 times to gremlin | shamans in valheim yesterday, but that isn't gatekeeping | some artwork, and that game has creative mode. | TuringTest wrote: | "I would enjoy Ulises more, if only James Joyce had | published a 3rd Grade version alongside". | | Sometimes it's worthwhile to keep an artistic vision as | intended, even if not everyone will enjoy the work for | it. | ng12 wrote: | For my part I don't enjoy games where the gameplay is | just something you do to experience a story. Last of Us | is a good example. Great story, great atmosphere, bored | to tears playing it. If Dark Souls were easy I would | probably feel the same. | | It's also important to appreciate how difficult it is to | balance a game especially when your character's power | level increases throughout the game. Most games that have | a hard mode are lazy: bosses just have more health or | enemies suddenly get headshots all the time. The game | needs to be balanced around an intended difficulty level | to make it compelling. It takes a lot of talent to make a | good difficulty curve, as proven by the lame ripoffs of | Souls games that have come out over the years. | vvillena wrote: | I mostly agree... and I'd still argue that the FromSoft | games kinda fail at the "knowledge gathering" phase. | Walking into a boss that kills you in less than 20 | seconds means very little knowledge can be gathered, and | sometimes it takes minutes to go back and try again. This | is a specific thing that Hollow Knight does pretty much | perfectly: you can keep most bosses at bay, because the | focus isn't usually to survive, but to find openings | where you can safely do some damage. | | Needing game knowledge is a great approach to game | design. Dispensing such knowledge in the random way | FromSoft games do is not. And this goes beyond just the | combat aspect. Equipment and items in FromSoft games | usually have non-discoverable hidden effects that at best | turn the game into a weird puzzle, and at worst draw | parallels to graphic adventure games of old. Case in | point: Father Gascoigne in Bloodborne. You can find a | music box that staggers the boss if you use it during the | battle. It makes some sense from a lore perspective, but | it's pure bullshit from a game perspective. | wpietri wrote: | > you have to keep dying until you figure out the right | weapon, right spell, or right attack [...] Hunting around | and gathering this stuff is the core fun | | Different things are fun for different people. That | sounds pretty tedious to me, a long slog of arbitrary | "guess what the game designer is thinking of" puzzles. | Especially when it's all built around killing, something | that just doesn't interest me much. To each their own, I | guess. | kipchak wrote: | Most of these that I've come across are fairly intuitive. | For example stone enemies being resistant to slashing | damage, or dark ghosts being weak to holy damage. There's | also typically a workaround, for example a jumping attack | with a small slashing weapon does more physical damage. | wpietri wrote: | I believe you, and it sounds like that is fun for you. | | Maybe I can explain by analogy. I'm very fond of the | author Raymond Chandler, who wrote noir mysteries. I love | his work, and especially the way he uses language. But I | don't care at all who did it. The artificial puzzle | aspect of mysteries just doesn't interest me. | | It's the same deal here. I get people like this kind of | thing. I'm just saying I'm not one of those people. It | sounds like I might appreciate the aesthetics of the | game, so if I could play through it on easy mode, I | might. Sort of the way I read through a mystery and am | allowed to ignore the whodunnit aspect. | kipchak wrote: | I definitely get that it isn't for everyone. I'm not | familiar with that author but I can relate via House Of | Leaves and only really liking parts of it. | | Looking at it from the opposite side, some people have no | problem with the gameplay, but pay little attention to | the aesthetics or dialogue and lore or item descriptions. | For them they can instead look up YouTube videos or Wiki | articles to explain things. I don't think it's a bad | thing those alternatives options exist, but I think | adding say a logbook like in Outer Wilds would cheapen | the experience for people who really want to get immersed | in the world. | | I think practically watching a playthrough or just | modding the game to make your character OP is the best | workaround. | vvillena wrote: | I agree. If I wanted to guess weird side effects of items | when used in different ways, I wouldn't play Elden Ring. | I'd play Monkey Island. | MisterBastahrd wrote: | Not even close. | | Welcome to the 70s and 80s where there was no such thing | as savegames for the most part and you got 3 deaths | before starting over. This is no different. A boss is | just a level of sorts. You learn the mechanics and then | you beat the boss and move on. Do it enough times and you | can do it in your sleep. People have been playing | ridiculously forgiving and easy games where there's no | cost of failure so long that they don't even know what a | merely challenging game is. | UncleMeat wrote: | Difficulty systems in the 70s and 80s were famously for | eating quarter rather than based on any actual game | design philosophy. Not exactly a comparison I think is | worth making. | | The "just learn the boss" argument is also somewhat | frustrating given how frequently there are long ass walks | back from bonfires to boss doors. Dying a bunch to learn | the tells and attack timings is much less attractive when | it takes minutes to go from a death to your next attempt. | Compare this to something like Hotline Miami where you | are playing again _instantly_. Much better option there. | Levitz wrote: | There is absolutely nothing wrong with a product not | catering to everybody. Even moreso when we are talking | about a work of art. | zasdffaa wrote: | > There is absolutely nothing wrong with a product not | catering to everybody | | certainly agree | | > Even moreso when we are talking about a work of art. | | why does art get special consideration? | UncleMeat wrote: | Sure. And there is similarly nothing wrong with a product | adding options to cater to a wider audience. I don't | think many of the people asking for easy mode think that | Miyazaki is a _bad person_. But I 've certainly been | called some pretty nasty things for suggesting an easy | mode. What I'd like is for people to be able to express | their preference without being attacked for being | perceived as scrubs. | Jensson wrote: | There is no game with multiple difficulty options where | hard mode is as well designed as in fromsoft games. It is | therefore reasonable to conclude that adding easy modes | significantly detracts from the experience of hard mode | options. You can argue all you want about how in theory | it shouldn't affect hard mode experience, but that goes | against everything we see happening in practice. | | So for the people who likes hardmode, you are extremely | greedy when you want to remove the only game offering the | hardmode those people want, you can just go and play any | of all the other easy mode games while they have no other | options. You are a part of the majority who is catered to | in almost every game going to the minority asking them | why they don't cater to you as well, of course they get | angry. | UncleMeat wrote: | > There is no game with multiple difficulty options where | hard mode is as well designed as in fromsoft games. | | I don't believe this is true at all. Heck, you can look | at the patches put into the various games to see places | where FromSoft agreed that they botched something. I | don't think anybody thinks that Bed of Chaos is the good | kind of hard. | | And Soulsbourne games _do_ have multiple difficulty | options. NG+ exists. SL1 exists. | darkteflon wrote: | I'm always surprised to read things like, "please change | the difficulty so I can appreciate the art." The | difficulty is the art - you can't just carve it out. It | couldn't be done even if Miyazaki wanted to do it. You'd | lose the essence of the art because so much hangs on the | challenge: the failure, the success, the relationship of | the player with the game. | | Instead, the real solutions to the mechanical challenges | that Soulsbornes throw at you are sprinkled throughout | this thread. | Jensson wrote: | > I don't believe this is true at all. Heck, you can look | at the patches put into the various games to see places | where FromSoft agreed that they botched something. I | don't think anybody thinks that Bed of Chaos is the good | kind of hard. | | The fact that they patch the experience of their hardmode | helps my case, not yours. It shows that they care deeply | about the experience of their hardmode players, since | everyone is forced to play it they have to care about it. | While other developers just say "if you find it too hard | just play on easy", fromsoft has to actually fix their | games when they mess it up. | | > NG+ exists | | NG+ isn't a higher difficulty, its just continuing the | game with yoru current character. The monsters have | higher stats than the first run, but so do you since your | character is higher level. | | > SL1 exists | | Deliberately choosing to not use certain options in the | game makes every game harder, yes, but that isn't a part | of difficulty options and the game isn't designed around | SL1 runs. | archagon wrote: | On the other hand, Celeste is an example of a brutally | difficult game with much lauded accessibility options. | It's not the same as "easy mode", but the results are | similar. | kaesar14 wrote: | Very well put. And the feeling of accomplishment of | conquering a boss is shared by _everyone_ who plays this | game. Beating Radahn or Malenia in ER or The Nameless | King in DS3 or O&S in DS1 was always a magnificent | feeling and one that everyone else in the community knew | and appreciated when found in one another. It would | cheapen it so much if I knew you could just turn a slider | down and really diminish the community experience. | | Agreed, go play something else if you want an easy game. | This ain't it. | bontaq wrote: | Yep, and that is miyazaki's feelings as well. | | "We don't want to include a difficulty selection because | we want to bring everyone to the same level of discussion | and the same level of enjoyment," Miyazaki said. "So we | want everyone ... to first face that challenge and to | overcome it in some way that suits them as a player." | | "We want everyone to feel that sense of accomplishment. | We want everyone to feel elated and to join that | discussion on the same level. We feel if there's | different difficulties, that's going to segment and | fragment the user base. People will have different | experiences based on that [differing difficulty level]. | This is something we take to heart when we design games. | It's been the same way for previous titles and it's very | much the same with Sekiro." | | It makes some sense, the constant in the world is the | bosses, so you have to change yourself in some way to | beat them. If you suck at souls games, like I do, that | means a lot of studying to finally win. But then I'm | content that I've beaten the same thing everyone has. | | Quotes from https://www.gamespot.com/articles/heres-why- | dark-souls-blood... | xipho wrote: | Streamers (e.g. MoonMoon's playthrough) are pointing out | that if you go "everywhere" and do "everything", truly | immersing yourself (as perhaps intended), and you don't | rush from boss-to-boss that that "difficulty" is greatly | reduced to non-existent. Yes, some very hard spots, but | far less than one would assume from the outset based on | quick overviews. There are also builds that greatly | reduce difficulty making some "impossible" bosses | trivial. | jrootabega wrote: | Hmmm...I wonder if that's something you would have to | deliberately do. In Witcher 3, the world was so huge and | engrossing that, just by exploring and participating in | it, I outleveled quests, and had a very hard time | catching my quests and world progression up to my power | even when I tried to. Enabling enemies to scale to my | level wasn't the best solution, since it just meant that | instead of everything being easy, everything became | equally hard. | xipho wrote: | He is defintely deliberate about it, from what I can | tell. | chrsig wrote: | I doubt this is true, as much for many people, they're | not willing to invest the time to overcome the challenge. | Which is fine, but they're not the target audience, and | that's also ok. | jcutrell wrote: | Which ultimately means the game becomes a step more | towards exclusive, for better or worse. Probably for | worse. | bsder wrote: | However, "difficulty" is Souls games has two parts. One | good--one bad. | | 1) There is the "Git Gud" part. This is fine. Having some | difficulty in executing game actions is fine. Having to be | alert to even low-level enemies is fine. | | 2) There is the "WTF do I upgrade?" part. This is bad. | "Poise" was the canonical example where if you didn't | understand it you would get turned into paste by enemies | with _no idea why_. Having to read a full treatise on the | web before starting a game is _not_ something you should | have to do. | | To be fair, most RPGs suffer this problem, but the Souls | games suffer it worst because the enemies hit very hard. I | think the Souls games would benefit a lot from being able | to freely reallocate your points in skill until you hit | some level (10-15-20?) that then locks them in. "Hey, I got | pasted by that enemy. Maybe I should adjust my skill points | and see what that "poise" thing does on the next pass." | 1_player wrote: | In fact, death is an intended game mechanic of Soulsborne | games. The highs of overcoming a challenging foe is much | greater if victory isn't handed to you on a platter. And | the game philosophy of the Dark Souls series has always | been one of the protagonist being little more than just a | mindless undead, unfit to live, let alone wear a crown. | | The difference is whether you see death as a set back and | learning experience, or just a complete failure that | frustrates you. It's a matter of mindset. | | But in general the difficulty of Soulsborne games is | overstated. They're mechanically simple, combat is fair | (RNG isn't a big factor), with plenty of opportunities to | make the game easier. Just level up more. Now with Elden | Ring you can choose to go elsewhere, and come back later, | stronger. This game isn't about easy victory, so easy mode | has no place existing. A piece of media doesn't have to | cater to all audiences. | bitlax wrote: | deergomoo wrote: | I'm the same, I tried so hard to like Bloodborne because I | was so enthralled by the universe and lore. But I just could | not have fun playing it, or more specifically the fun I did | have was swiftly undone by frustration. | | I can enjoy difficulty when I don't have to redo things I've | already done; I'm fully on-board with something like a Super | Meat Boy or a Hotline Miami, which are also games where death | is expected and a core part of the loop, but when dying to a | boss involves trekking back through 5-10 mins of low-level | enemies I very quickly lose interest. | | Am I suggesting all games should account for my very specific | tastes in difficulty in games? Absolutely not, but I sure | wish that one did. I'm also not sure I buy the argument that | the mere presence of an easier mode would somehow invalidate | the enjoyment of those with more skill and patience. | hibikir wrote: | As it happens, Elden Ring takes care of the specific | problem you mention by having save points, or some | temporary respawn point, ahead of pretty much every tough | boss available. This is done even for many optional bosses: | You will respawn 10 seconds away from the fight. It will | still not help when, instead of a boss, the wall is a | slightly stronger low level enemy, and there might be an | example or two of this problem in a few side dungeons, but | it's nowhere near as common a problem as in their earlier | games. | | Now, this often means said bosses are often quite a bit | tougher than in earlier games, but you don't have to go | through a 10 minute dungeon to get to them every time you | die. | fartcannon wrote: | I realize you're not asking for help in Dark Souls, but | should you ever find yourself playing it again, I feel like | I should tell you that you can run past nearly every | standard enemy in pretty much every FromSoftware game. I | often play the game sections in reverse. Sprint through | looking for the next safe spot, then after activating it, | work backwards to the previous safe spot. | djsavvy wrote: | Sounds like you might enjoy the Ori games (Ori and the | {Blind Forest, Willow of the Wisps}). | | Not exactly the same genre as the ones you mentioned, but | some challenging combat (at times, not throughout) that | doesn't involve slogging back if you die. | glogla wrote: | While Ori is similar genre, I think it doesn't have the | sheer depth of lore and world-building that pulls many | people into Souls games. | | Hollow Knight on the other hand does. | bananaoomarang wrote: | > I can enjoy difficulty when I don't have to redo things | I've already done; I'm fully on-board with something like a | Super Meat Boy or a Hotline Miami, which are also games | where death is expected and a core part of the loop, but | when dying to a boss involves trekking back through 5-10 | mins of low-level enemies I very quickly lose interest. | | Sekiro and Elden Ring are both much better here in terms of | checkpointing close to bosses, though it's still not always | just right outside it often is. Indeed I remember a few | very tedious routes in Bloodborne and Dark Souls. It just | didn't bother me quite so much because I enjoyed optimizing | them also! | | With Elden Ring also at least there is always other stuff | to do/explore (at least so far for me at ~50 hours in) so | you can come back later. | Zababa wrote: | There was, Hoartfrost stomp, Sword of night and flame and | Royal knight resolve, but they got patched. You can always | downgrade or use cheat engine. | chrsig wrote: | I strongly feel the opposite. The difficulty is what makes | you spend time with the game, and truly appreciate each bit | of progress you make. Without the suffering, you can't truly | appreciate what you find around the next corner. | UncleMeat wrote: | Imagine you were forced to do a SL1 run on your first play. | That'd be more difficult. You would suffer more. Would you | appreciate it more? I suspect not. | | The sweet spot is when something is challenging for the | particular player and they are able to overcome that | challenge through growth. But because each player is | different, it is not possible for a single tuning to hit | that sweet spot for every possible person. | chrsig wrote: | > Imagine you were forced to do a SL1 run on your first | play | | I don't think that's quite a good comparison -- because | leveling up is literally a method to overcome the | difficulty. Grind. Get Good. Kill some foes, run back to | the bonfire. Kill them again, run back to the bonfire. | | Eventually killing them becomes trivial, as a combination | of muscle memory and leveling up. | | Some might even call that practice. | | It's an unwillingness to invest time into practice that | hinders people from enjoying more of it, not the inherent | difficulty. And this goes for a great many things, | sports, music, painting, programming, woodworking etc. | | It's also totally ok that people don't want to invest the | time -- I'm not making a value judgement here. | | For a sports analogy: I don't want to invest time in | practicing (or even learning about) basketball. As a | result, I'm horrific at it. I'm quite fine with that. It | does however mean that a decent chunk of popular culture | is inaccessible to me. | UncleMeat wrote: | "Just grind" is, in my opinion, the argument that proves | all of this gatekeeping is garbage. Grinding achieves the | same thing as an easy mode except it takes hours of | mindless low-engagement gameplay to complete. Grinding | has widely been considered bad gameplay for more than two | decades at this point. | | If the game didn't have RPG mechanics and there was no | mechanism to just make the enemies deal a smaller | percentage of your health pool or to make your attacks | deal more damage then I'd be much more amenable to the | "the game is flawlessly tuned according to the | developer's vision and that should not be touched" but it | obviously isn't since every single player will arrive at | each encounter with different character and weapon stats. | saiya-jin wrote: | There is another point by people like me - I _really_ | would love to experience this game, but I don 't have | life to waste in yet another largely meaningless | grinding. I have 2 kids to raise, wife to attend, work to | work, real hobbies like sports to do. I've definitely | grown out of putting insane hours of my life into gaming, | and not going back, ever. | | This one-fits-all-or-goodbye approach means I'll miss | this game, forever. And just as you say - only | damage/defense stats would need to be tuned a bit and I | could approach it. Why would that hurt anybody wanting to | play it on harder level is beyond me... | Jensson wrote: | > Why would that hurt anybody wanting to play it on | harder level is beyond me... | | Two reasons, first people can't control themselves. Just | like people have a hard time not eating a cake sitting in | front of them they also have a hard time not using easier | difficulty modes, even when they would enjoy the harder | ones more. You can't just tell these people to control | themselves, to them this is a really important part of | the game and adding difficulty options hurts their | ability to enjoy the game. Not using easy mode is as easy | as not eating so much and get fat, if you could solve the | issue that easily then 50% of the population wouldn't be | obese. | | Secondly is development, if you add easy modes most | testers will run the game through on easy, and the game | will mostly be designed around easy. Hard mode gets run | to see that it is possible, but not to see that it is | enjoyable, meaning that in basically every game with | multiple difficulty modes the hard mode is a boring | slogfest. Fromsoft games is a breath of fresh air here, | they are hard without being boring, that is its major | selling point. | mariusor wrote: | For me "easy mode" was watching people playing on Twitch. It | got me a "good" understanding of the story and let me enjoy | the world, without the stress of having to actually play the | game. :) | pimeys wrote: | I've been totally sucked into the Twitch Elden Ring | streams. BarbarousKing having his fourth playthrough | already, and I'm still watching the first one. A magical | game I'm going to try myself when it works well with Proton | on Linux. | Polycryptus wrote: | I've heard that it works fairly well on Proton already. | In fact, perhaps even better than it does on Windows in | some regards as a result of Valve having implemented some | mitigations for things the engine does incorrectly in | Proton. (Thanks to a desire to have the game work | properly on the Steam Deck) | | I haven't tried yet, though, as I'm playing my way | through the Dark Souls series proper before giving Elden | Ring a try. | gambiting wrote: | Also really, just look up strategies. In all of these games | nearly every boss can be cheesed in some way. Really, | there's no shame in looking it up. | oneoff786 wrote: | I would find that pretty shameful personally. | tshaddox wrote: | Honestly, just watch videos of people playing the game. If | you find someone who doesn't annoy you, this can be a great | experience. | oneoff786 wrote: | When I was a kid, being invited over to watch your friend | play a single player game was the peak of lameness. | Streaming culture seems very odd to me unless there's | something noteworthy about the streamer. | soared wrote: | Elden ring doesn't have an explicit easy mode, but you | definitely can play it in easy mode. You can outlevel weak | enemies, play with mage, and for bosses just summon in other | players to kill them for you. | UncleMeat wrote: | "Just grind to level up" is, in my opinion, a _way_ worse | system than "go to the menu and select 'easy mode.'" The | effect is roughly the same but takes hours of boring | gameplay rather than five seconds of menuing. | | I'd be much more receptive to the "no easymode" argument if | the games didn't have RPG elements at their very core. | dkersten wrote: | My experience with the game has been that I've been over- | levelled for almost all bosses (and the ones I wasn't | were all optional), just by exploring the world. The game | is designed so that if you get stuck somewhere, you can | go do something else and come back later. If you | stubbornly hammer your head against the one challenge or | focus purely on the critical path, then I feel the | difficulty is self-inflicted. | | For example, some of the early bosses I've heard people | complain about, Margit and Crucible Knight, I beat first | try without much difficulty at all because I explored the | starting areas thoroughly before reaching them and was | naturally overpowered. I plan to actually play again when | I'm done and purposely _not_ level just so I can | experience the challenge. | | Speaking of self-inflicted, I've also seen a ton of | people (eg on Reddit and Youtube) complaining that | they're being one-shotted by bosses with their high level | characters, but when they share their stats, they pumped | everything into a damage dealing stat and few (or often | NONE!) into their health. Of course they're being one- | shotted if they don't increase their health. Again, this | difficulty seems completely self-inflicted. | | There are some truly hard bosses, for sure, but with a | game as huge as Elden Ring and with as much value for | money as Elden Ring is, I think people just have to make | peace with the fact that unless you're dedicated to | overcoming the challenges it presents, you may not see | every bit of content the game has to offer. FROM Software | certainly are ok with that. | gambiting wrote: | >> Of course they're being one-shotted if they don't | increase their health. Again, this difficulty seems | completely self-inflicted. | | Unfortunately it happens to the same people who will | shout the loudest that "BUT THE GAME DOESN'T TELL YOU | THAT YOU HAVE TO DO THAT", as if somehow that should | validate their (wrong) choices in the game. It's a role | playing game. That's what the RP stands for in RPG. If | you are role playing someone with inhumane strength but | no health whatsoever, then you have to accept | consequences of your choices. Like the other comment said | - games require a certain level of literacy, not just in | terms of actual reading but also in terms of | understanding what the stats actually mean. | UncleMeat wrote: | This can still fail, though. Consider DS1. | | Resistance is a stat you can put points into. It does | virtually nothing. Little in the game will make it | obvious that putting points into Resistance will be a | waste. "Well, you made bad choices" is not a perfect | defense against this. | ReptileMan wrote: | There is always trainer and offline mode | honkycat wrote: | Games have literacy in a way books have literacy. | | I would not recommend a casual reader pick up "A Brief | History of 7 Killings" but it is still a great book. | | Fromsoft games have an author, Miyazaki, and that author | has the right to decide how their work is presented and | engaged with. | | Honestly I agree that there should be an "accessibility | mode" but I understand why it is not in there. Musicians | don't include a "kids bop" copy of their albums | UncleMeat wrote: | Yet we also translate books, even when recognizing that | translations will always interfere with an original | vision. | | Miyazaki has the right to set whatever difficulty he | wants. My complaint is less with FromSoft. I've resigned | myself to the fact that they'll never release a game with | difficulty that is accessible to everybody. My complaint | is more with the community, who sees any discussion of | "hey the monster design and lore and scenery look cool | but I can't get past the Asylum Demon" as some sort of | threat and responds with vitriol. The discussion here has | been largely positive but _even here_ I 've got somebody | who decided to just respond "git gud." You can imagine | how it goes on reddit or twitter. | eldenringthrow wrote: | >My complaint is more with the community, who sees any | discussion of "hey the monster design and lore and | scenery look cool but I can't get past the Asylum Demon" | as some sort of threat and responds with vitriol | | Because it is a threat, you are effectively arguing | against that which makes the games what they are, | ignoring the perfectly legitimate workarounds which could | achieve any level of difficulty you desire (Cheat | engines, asking for help, learning the game, etc.), and | on top of all that, you gaslight by saying that your | issue is not with the game difficulty / fromsoft itself | (Despite the fact that this entire comment chain started | off with you explicitly stating that), but with the | "community" who rightfully disagree with your take. | cmorgan31 wrote: | As someone who has declined in gaming skills as I lose | free time I've adopted just using mods on PC versions. It | removes the online aspect of the game but allows you the | chance to explore the world. I'll be in the retirement | home paying someone $20 to update the mod engine for | Elden Ring 3. | ng12 wrote: | I think the fear is that one day the FromSoft suits will | demand they start making their games easier so they can | sell more. A fear that's pretty reasonable: they've | already made one or two Elden Ring bosses easier with | patches. | UncleMeat wrote: | I'm not aware of anybody who wants the game to be made | easier with no option to maintain its difficulty. People | are generally asking for optional difficulty settings. | [deleted] | ren_engineer wrote: | easy mode is magic and using summons, you can literally beat | any souls game without attacking a single enemy, but the | challenge is 100% part of the entire game philosophy | | >"I do feel apologetic toward anyone who feels there's just | too much to overcome in my games," Miyazaki told me. He held | his head in his hands, then smiled. "I just want as many | players as possible to experience the joy that comes from | overcoming hardship." | | >"I've never been a very skilled player," Miyazaki told me | recently, via Zoom. He was sitting in his office, a book- | lined room in the Shinjuku ward of Tokyo. "I die a lot. So, | in my work, I want to answer the question: If death is to be | more than a mark of failure, how do I give it meaning? How do | I make death enjoyable?" | | source - https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of- | interest/hideta... | ng12 wrote: | There really is, but I would also proffer that the difficulty | is a little important because it makes you afraid of the | world and makes your achievements meaningful. A tour of | Lordran wouldn't be as enjoyable. | | That said, I think this is what Elden Ring was going for. | There's a massive amount of content such that you can avoid | fighting a tough boss until you're strong enough. | dkersten wrote: | The difficulty certainly adds a level of tension and | atmosphere that other games simply don't have. | | For the most part, outside of some specific bosses, the | games aren't actually _thaaat_ difficult, they 're just | uncompromising and they punish mistakes. I feel that the | Dark Souls 1 marketing focusing on the difficulty so much | was a detriment to the series really. Don't get me wrong, | the games are definitely not _easy_ , but most of the | content can be experienced without too much challenge if | you're methodical and take it slow. | mook wrote: | > <snip...> the games aren't actually thaaat difficult, | they're just uncompromising and they punish mistakes. | | I find that phrasing interesting, as I would consider | punishing mistakes part of being difficult, since I'm | terrible at execution. | | (Not saying any particular game should accommodate me, of | course.) | dkersten wrote: | Well, what I meant by that is that in FROM games, even | the weakest enemy can kill you if you're complacent, but | beating or avoiding said enemy is incredibly easy. | | I've watched a ton of beginners to FROM games play | Bloodborne on streams and there are a few common trends I | noticed. For example, players often tend to rush into an | area without first observing what's actually there. They | get punished for this by getting ambushed or surrounded | or whatever. Its not that the area is hard, but the | player gets punished for the mistake of rushing in | without first taking a good look around. Players also | rarely look up... and FROM games love to hide enemies | above you. | | Another mistake I saw a lot is that players see something | that looks scary, get scared and back away. Or they get | hit, panic, and back away. But instead of just backing | away enough to get out of range of the enemy and then | stopping, they continue to back away... right into | another group of enemies. They get punished for this | mistake. | | Actually, panic was a major cause of death. | | Consider also that you can basically run through any | region or level without engaging in _any_ enemy, all it | takes is some understanding of the required spacing and | to not be afraid of them. Yet the first time I go through | an area, I certainly fear the danger the enemies | represent. So the regions aren 't actually all that hard, | when you really look at it. | | The enemies also tend to hit hard, especially bosses. So | its harder to just shrug off an attack and brute force | your way through. You often have to take a step back and | take some time to learn the attack patterns, the | openings, etc. | | Not that there aren't some truly hard situations or | bosses, where even these things are taken to the extreme, | because there certainly are, but most of these tend to be | optional. Although admittedly there are a few throughout | the series that aren't, so I'm definitely not claiming | the games are easy. Because they are not. | oneoff786 wrote: | I think nobody cares about those. Levels with enemies | tend not to be that hard at any point in the game. | Surprise enemy ambushes are funny. Dying can be fun. | Nobody ever feels like they hit a wall on the levels. | | It's the bosses that frustrate people. They break a lot | of norms and falsely make people think it's a stats | problem. | | My issue with dark souls is that it encourages high | variance play styles if you're not good. Biggest weapon, | dodge around and hit the boss in just a few spurts. | Allows you to succeed if you suck but does nothing to | really improve your skills given enough tries. | | Sekiro was much better. It forced you to get competent to | succeed. Many bosses were serious inflection points in | difficulty and you just felt so much cooler when you | nailed it. | danbolt wrote: | I think the punishing elements of the games would be a | lot better received if the larger enemies and bosses | weren't as tanky. Or, I've noticed a lot of frustration | (that prevents the eventual sense of achievement) comes | from having to competently hit/dodge a big armoured boss | 10-12 times (rather than 3-4). | | It starts to feel like an unearned slog, or at worst, a | Skinner Box if you luckily pull it off after the nth | time. | ascar wrote: | You can actually progress until the main capital without | killing a single enemy. Like 70% of the games world. | | I started as a Wretch and arrived completely under leveled | and without gear at the first boss, which felt nearly | impossible to beat so I just started adventuring. At some | point you get blocked by a barrier that requires you to | defeat two main bosses. I was actually a bit disappointed | about that. | tyrantalope wrote: | If you're referring to Margit and the other boss after, | you can skip those. I did by accident. There's a hidden | path I won't spoil. | ascar wrote: | I was talking about skipping Margit (which is boss 1) and | all bosses after. But at the capital after the Dectus | lift you will get blocked. I don't wanna spoil too much, | but that's basically as far as you can go without killing | anything. | gtsnexp wrote: | What book is he talking about? | ng12 wrote: | Most likely the Art Book, they put one out for each game. | ascar wrote: | Posted further down in another comment this seems to be the | full interview: | | https://www.giantbomb.com/profile/7force/blog/dark-souls-des... | | However, the translation differs a bit (e.g. zombie instead of | undead dragon, which actually makes more sense). | anothernewdude wrote: | The aesthetics remind me of this version of Flammarion: | https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flammarion-color.png | Trasmatta wrote: | 100%. There are plenty of games that capture the challenge and | difficulty of FromSoft's games, but very very few that capture | the atmosphere and world building. Their work is very | reminiscent of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus in that respect | -- and I think that's entirely intentional, as Ico is what | inspired Miyazaki to go into game design. | | Nioh, for example, is a great series that's even more | challenging than Souls, and with an even more in depth combat | system. But the atmosphere, world building, and level design is | just nowhere near FromSoft's level. | mhitza wrote: | I would definitely add Hollow Knight to that list. | meowface wrote: | That's a great quote: | | >I remember when I was drawing the Undead Dragon, I submitted a | design draft that depicted a dragon swarming with maggots and | other gross things. Miyazaki handed it back to me saying "This | isn't dignified. Don't rely on the gross factor to portray an | undead dragon. Can't you instead try to convey the deep sorrow | of a magnificent beast doomed to a slow and possibly endless | descent into ruin?" | eawoifjaiowepfj wrote: | This is rich, maybe Miyazaki just has different judgment than | me but Dark Souls is one of the grossest and gloomiest games | I've played due to the immediate application of gross-out | body horror. | | [0] is the Asylum Demon, which is literally the first boss in | Dark Souls. | | Bloodborne cranks the gross-out factor up to 11 with [1] and | [2]. | | [0] https://i.ytimg.com/vi/6qCB_x7KQR8/maxresdefault.jpg | | [1] https://bloodborne.wiki.fextralife.com/file/Bloodborne/lu | dwi... | | [2] https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kXCskueejFY/XLlAKLB- | nmI/AAAAAAAAd... | Trasmatta wrote: | I think that quote gets misinterpreted a bit. I don't think | Miyazaki is against the gross out factor entirely, but he | doesn't want that to be the sole characteristic of the | design. | | Ludwig (your second example) is, I think, a perfect example | of this. He's one of the most disgusting designs they've | ever made, and yet when he stands during his second phase, | and the music swells, you get an immense feeling of the | grandeur and power of Ludwig before his fall to the | disgusting creature he became: | | https://youtu.be/7n1qe2ZSTPA?t=102 | | That being said, I think FromSoft's designs sometimes ARE | "just gross". But it's an admirable guiding principle, even | if they don't always hit it. | mariusor wrote: | And now we got the God Skin Duo... gulp... | michaelscott wrote: | This idea of a fallen-from-grace character is a common motif | when it comes to Miyazaki, but it's so effective every time | and always adds a dimension to the games' lore. To this day, | I think Gehrman in Bloodborne is my favourite boss fight | because it's simultaneously a test of everything you've grown | into over the course of the game yourself, and also the | conclusion of this man's painful, long and tragic existence | sascha_sl wrote: | That's funny, because Dark Souls 2 make the same mistake. Much | more focus on enforcing difficulty, and none of the | connectedness of Dark Souls 1, though the nonsensical world | also makes thematical sense to some degree (the game is | essentially about universal dementia). The Dreg Heap in Dark | Souls 3 does deliver on this concept much better though. | | If you need any indicator the team behind Dark Souls 2 | misunderstood Miyazaki's vision, the global death counter in | Majula is all you need. | vlunkr wrote: | Dark Souls 3 is even less interconnected that Dark Souls 2. | And difficulty is hard to measure, but IMO nothing in ds2 is | as difficult as the Ringed Cities, and there aren't bosses | with 2+ phases. Did Miyazaki misunderstand his own vision | when he made ds3? | ng12 wrote: | Yeah, I have a strong dislike for DS2. It's not even that bad | a game, I would probably enjoy if it didn't have the Dark | Souls facade. | | Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro are three of my all time | favorites. So far feeling favorable towards Elden Ring but I | would still rank it below those three. | Shaanie wrote: | The interconnected world is solely in Dark Souls 1 though, | none of the other souls games (or bloodborne) has it. | WilTimSon wrote: | I think a lot of people on forums focus on the difficulty and | gameplay aspects because they're easier to have a conversation | around. But, as a big fan of the 'series', I've always been in | it mostly for the unparalleled aesthetic and atmosphere. | Firelink Shrine in and of itself is one of my favorite | locations period, because it's like a complete inversion of a | typical fantasy game hub - almost dead, surrounded directly on | all sides by danger, full of secrets, populated by NPCs that | are either gravely depressed or dangerous. It's this strange | isle of safety that isn't necessarily welcoming. Also, as I | found out in my first playthrough, magic spells sent from that | stupid bridge reach Firelink, killing AFK players who triggered | the enemy. Ahem... Not that it happened to me. | dkersten wrote: | Bloodborne was my first (I've since played Demon's Souls, | Dark Souls trilogy, Sekiro and now Elden Ring too) and the | atmosphere is what drew me in. Sure, the gameplay and the | challenge kept me playing, but the atmosphere is what made it | special. Over time, as I started to unravel more and more of | the lore and storylines, that's what really got me addicted, | but that took time. The gameplay alone wasn't enough, I | almost gave up on the game initially, but the atmosphere and | visual aesthetic really stuck with me. I've since bought a | bunch of the art books on ebay too since I just love the | Souls and Bloodborne visual design so much. | | Now that I'm heavily mentally invested in their games, I am | enthralled by their deep yet vague stories, but I'm | constantly impressed by the visual creativity and aesthetic | sensibilities. That screenshot in the article is incidentally | an area I screenshotted myself just yesterday, although mine | was more about the shadowy silhouettes of the statues in the | foreground (not really shown in the image in the article). | skatanski wrote: | I can one up this. The obscured story told through items | descriptions and vague dialogue feels like a meta game on | its own for those who really want to venture in. To me it | felt like I was rediscovering games again, reminded me of | playing old games like Lands of Lore, Black Crypt or Ultima | for the first time, strange sense of wonder. Never thought | I'll get this feeling again after so many years. | wolverine876 wrote: | > I think a lot of people on forums focus on the difficulty | and gameplay aspects because they're easier to have a | conversation around. | | I think that's true for many topics. Some people evaluate | developers based on lines of code because it's hard to | evaluate the value of the code. In sports, athletes are | evaluated based on how fast they run, because it's easily | quantifiable and understandable, even if that's not | especially important to the job. People tend to focus on | flaws, IMHO, for the same reason. | | And I think it's especially true in the arts. When people | don't know what to say, when it makes them uncomfortable, | they find the flaws - easy to talk about, and it dimisses the | uncomfortable thing from the conversation. What makes art art | is hard to define, unquantifiable, and often challenges our | understanding. | Trasmatta wrote: | I thought it was a bit odd to list the credit under each piece of | art to "Hidetaka Miyazaki". He's the director and sets the | creative vision for just about everything in the games, but the | actual art is done by a talented team of artists and designers. | Sad to not see them get any credit for their amazing work. | arketyp wrote: | I genuinely wonder, were that whole team to be replaced, | whether the art would come out much different. | mhh__ wrote: | It's a bit like Hans Zimmer scores, we'll never know other | than that Zimmer is basically the creative director of a very | large bunch of people. I think he dictates the mood rather | than actually writing every melody. | Trasmatta wrote: | Miyazaki tries not to be too heavy handed when working with | designers and artists, so a lot of this is their personal | creativity shining through: | | > Miyazaki: Yes, according to the artists it was, but I | think, If your instructions are too specific, the designs you | get will be somewhat devoid of creativity, so I try to give | them just the most basic, essential information before | handing it over to the artists imaginations, which inevitable | eclipse my own. But my initial instructions are certainly | abstract. For example, when designing equipment I'd simply | say "Make Something you can trust your life to on the | battlefield, or "Make something that has enchantments to | protect you." I think the artists probably didn't know what I | was talking about half the time. Haha. | | > Waragai: That's true | | > Miyazaki: I'm sorry. Haha. Of course, If I don't get what I | want, then I start giving more specific descriptions, and I | might even start drawing things on the white board, but even | then I'd never go so far as to say it has to be this colour | or this shape. I don't want the designers to just become my | tools. Of course, It doesn't always go as I want, but I think | that's probably due to me not getting the best out of the | artists, and this is something I want to get better at in the | future. | | https://www.giantbomb.com/profile/7force/blog/dark-souls- | des... | danbolt wrote: | I really appreciated a GDC talk from one of the designers of | _GoldenEye 007_ who was very critical of auteur theory. [1] He | seemed very understanding of the multifaceted nature of big | games. | | [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1Fx18cppZk | [deleted] | colechristensen wrote: | A whole lot of art, even famous old pieces, has been done at | the direction of a famous names who get the credit but much of | the actual strokes done by skilled technicians or apprentice | artists. Credit is hard when you're mixing someone directing | with a sense of taste and people executing that vision with | varying levels of creative input. | nohuck13 wrote: | Can a frontend developer explain to me about the disabled two- | finger zoom on this page? Is my mental model that zoom is between | me and my mobile browser, not something that should be disable | able, just hopelessly naive these days? Or is the platform not | doing this, and the browser is? | | I just want to zoom in on the picture of 3m-wide Garden of | Earthly Delights... | cma wrote: | Facebook, an image sharing site, does this too on their mobile | site version... why? | shmde wrote: | Two finger zoom is working fine for me. I am using Chrome on | Android with the "Force enable zoom" setting enabled. | DangitBobby wrote: | In FireFox it's under the accessibility options. | pfooti wrote: | It's just a mobile thing due to pixel scaling. In the overflow | menu, of the browser bar, check the "desktop site" box and you | can zoom in. | nohuck13 wrote: | You'd expect touch-gesture zoom to still work under pixel | scaling though. You'd expect to just see a downsampled image | up close, plus normal-looking text up close, right? | | Here even the text doesn't zoom. | martythemaniak wrote: | To appreciate Bosch, Great Art Explained did a very in-depth | video of of the Garden of Earthly Delights: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBG621XEegk | k_sze wrote: | Thanks. You just made me discover more great educational | YouTube channels. | Trasmatta wrote: | This is amazing, I had no idea they could use infrared scans on | paintings like that to get a glimpse at previous iterations. | mrbonner wrote: | Me: dying for a hundred times at the same spot. I just wish those | "soul" games are more accessible to mortal like me. I'm an avid | gamer (FPS) but those games are taking a toll in my confidence. | Playing them feels like doing a chore, repeatedly. I tried | Bloddborne because the atmosphere and art works are fantastic but | couldn't even get over the first level (or act?). I really wanted | to give Elder Ring a try but, the horror of doing chores :-) | AmericanChopper wrote: | Elden Ring is the easiest one of these games by far, you don't | have to play it the "hard way". If you want to get through the | game just play a sorcery build and level up a bit. With summons | you'll be able to get through many bosses without even getting | hit. | tomrod wrote: | Elden ring is a lot of fun once you get the horse. | | My typical approach for open world games is: find travel | mechanism, explore, find items OP to my current level, figure | out how to level up, then have fun. | | Elden ring is a _huge_ world and I 'm really enjoying it! It is | my first souls game, and I've learned that you shouldn't care | much about the bank balance of runes/souls/gold/etc. | Taylor_OD wrote: | It's funny because I cant play FPS for the same reason. Getting | killed by actual preteens over and over while occasionally | getting a kill here and there isnt fun for me. I've been okay | to good at FPS and it came from suffering 100's or 1000's of | deaths and slowly getting better. | | With FPS it is not worth it for me because I'll never have as | much time as a kid to dedicate to the game. With Soulslikes at | least I can memorize the boss moves and eventually get by or go | level elsewhere and then cheese the boss. | | The frustrations of the genre feel very similar to me but | soulslikes I have options on how to get better. | knolan wrote: | I'm the same. I love the look of it all but I can barely manage | to make progress in something like Hollow Knight never mind | Souls games. | | With work and family and ageing I don't have the time, patience | or reflexes for this type of game unfortunately. | | I really enjoyed Jedi Fallen Order, which is ostensibly a Souls | type game. I managed most of the game on regular difficulty | before one boss bested me and I was able to drop to easy | difficulty. | | I get that the desolation and feeling of hopelessness against | insurmountable odds (and finally overcoming) is part of the | gameplay loop. I just can't do it. | vmladenov wrote: | I started with Bloodborne after mostly playing FPS and | adventure games like Uncharted. Gave up twice in frustration. I | think learning how to step back and do visceral attacks, which | the opening area gives you space to learn, was critical. Now | it's my favorite game ever. | | Also the game is designed around collaboration. People are | supposed to discover things and share what they learned on | wikis / Discord / etc, and help each other with cooperative | multiplayer. | Zababa wrote: | I'm not sure about the Boschian connection, but most of what's in | Elden Ring isn't really "new". The vast majority of what's in | Elden Ring is themes that From Software have been using for a | long time, starting with Demon's Soul for some. I'm not sure | about the origin of most though. Spoilers ahead, so don't read if | you want to discover everything by yourself. | | The most obvious one is as always the idea of stagnant water at | the bottom that becomes corrupted, which from what I understand | comes mostly from the asian religious ideas about impurity. I'm | not sure if it's coming from Shinto or Buddhism, or something | else, but there's always something about stagnant | water/stagnation being "bad", and water at the bottom "washing | away" impurities on the way and being the "worst". That's where | the usual poison lake comes from. It's also a strong idea in | Sekiro, with immortality coming from the heavens (with the divine | dragon) and being corrupted on the way down (with the | centipedes). Here in Elden Ring we have the lake of rot, the | deeproot depths, and the bottom of the Haligtree. | | Then there's the idea of a fallen empire hiding behind illusions. | In DS1 Anor Londo was the prime example of that: everything is an | illusion, that you can break. This was used here in Raya Lucaria: | the Rennela that you fight is an illusion put here by Ranni, | which mirrors Gwynvere/Gwyndolyn, and Fillianore. Rennela and | Fillianore both hold an egg. I'm not sure about the reference | here, there's the same theme in Angel's Egg by Mamoru Oshii, but | maybe there are deeper origins. | | There's the idea of some people living a corrupted form of life | that still try to live their life "in peace": in Demon's Soul | there's Maiden Astrea in the valley of defilement asking you to | leave them alone, in DS1 there's the inhabitants of the painting | (with Priscilla asking you to leave them alone), in DS3 the | painting makes a comeback, with its inhabitants that want to rot | in peace. In Sekiro, there's the monks in Senpo Temple, that | acceeded to a corrupted form of immortality and are being | devoured by insects/corrupted by centipede. There's the same in | Elden Ring with Fia and those who live in death, and in a way the | Haligtree people. | | Lots of ideas are refinement of previous ideas: Rykkard seems to | be a refinement of Aldrich as a "person in the world", and of the | King of the Storm/Yohrm in terms of gameplay (Serpent Hunter is | way more interesting than Storm Ruler). This one is a bit of a | stretch, but Ranni's questline with Blaidd reminds me of the | questline with the Painter and Gael. Both are about partially | revolting against the order of this world to find a way outside | the influence of the fire cycle/equivalent in Elden Ring. The | smith at the hub is also an improvement: he gained a real | personality, a real purpose. We meet again the last giant of his | species that's already hurt when you meet him and removes one of | his limb. Giants keep transforming into trees. Sorcerers doing | too much research keep ending up in weird places (brain of | mensis, the end of Sellen's questline). We went from giant crabs | (there's a hilarious PC Gamer article about this) to giant crabs | AND giant lobsters. There's something about Miquella (arm coming | out of a coccoon, removed from a tree) and the curse-rotten | greatwood, though I don't see much else about it. Maybe I'm | missing some cultural references, maybe a DLC is coming, maybe | it'll be refined in a next game/ | | All of that to say, it's nice to discover who Hieronymus Bosch is | and what he did, but I wish the article instead focused on From | Software themes and where they come from. Where do girl with eggs | come from? Why are giants always corrupted in some way? What's | the history of impurity in asian religions, and how did it | influence From Software? We now have 7 games: Demon's Soul, Dark | Souls, Dark Souls 2, Bloodborne, Dark Souls 3, Sekiro, Elden | Ring. They slowly went from niche hits to a specific audience to | a mainstream appeal. They come from a country with a rich | culture, that's often seen through the lens of "weird Japan". | They appeal to people through the gameplay, but also through the | themes, the visuals, the gameplay. I think it's time to take them | seriously as pieces of art by themselves. | sergiotapia wrote: | >Where do girl with eggs come from? | | Miyazaki seems to have been inspired by Angel's Egg. I never | read a quote, but the similarities are there. | | https://youtu.be/fIhKqaNp4Dc?t=3035 | cyberpunk wrote: | > The most obvious one is as always the idea of stagnant water | at the bottom that becomes corrupted, which from what I | understand comes mostly from the asian religious ideas about | impurity. I'm not sure if it's coming from Shinto or Buddhism, | or something else, but there's always something about stagnant | water/stagnation being "bad", and water at the bottom "washing | away" impurities on the way and being the "worst". That's where | the usual poison lake comes from. It's also a strong idea in | Sekiro, with immortality coming from the heavens (with the | divine dragon) and being corrupted on the way down (with the | centipedes). | | Hi, friendly neighbourhood hackernews buddhist here. That's not | from us. Washing away your 'impurities' seems like a foolish | idea, since there's no you to have them. Also, we don't really | get along with anything like immortality or heavens either. | Impermanence is kinda..... obvious?. | | Either way, as a (very) casual gamer with kids and not enough | time as it is, I'll probably skip these. :} | giraffe_lady wrote: | I'm not a buddhist so in no position to refute but there is a | temple near me that I have been to several times for non- | religious reasons. There is a water basin by the entrance | that people use to wash their hands and faces as they enter. | | I understand theologically this must not be a "ritual | purification" but as an outsider I definitely can't tell the | difference. | Trasmatta wrote: | I'm not a Buddhist, but one of the themes in many of | Miyazaki's games is suffering caused by an endless cycle of | life, death, and rebirth. There's a major focus on breaking | that curse, and accepting death in many of his games. My | completely naive, outsiders perspective is that this might | possibly be analogous to samsara and nirvana. I think this | theme is particularly present in Sekiro, which has explicit | Buddhist themes and imagery, and where the main character is | constantly reborn, and seeks to end that cycle. | | But yeah, I'm not a Buddhist, so I would absolutely be | interested in a Buddhist's interpretation of the games. | Miyazaki pulls from many sources and inspirations, and I | think Japanese Buddhism and Shintoism are both present in | there (as well as a myriad of inspirations from Western | culture and history as well). The games are honestly an | amazing example of the immense creativity that can come from | a melting pot of ideas from many different cultures. | m10i wrote: | Berserk - which inspired these Souls games - is also highly | influenced by Boschian art. | mLuby wrote: | Second time in a month that "Lonely Tree" painting from 1822 has | been in a HN game analysis article. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30414470 ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-03-19 23:00 UTC)