What Are You Playing 5: New Thread+

[Anonymouswizard]

In Dragon Age news I've done most of early Denerim, defended Redcliffe, made my way into the castle, and kissed Leliana. Next time I guess it's rescuing the Arl and concluding the romance.

Sadly I got a reminder that the game moved character models around for kisses instead of having the taller character bend down. I know it wouldn't have worked well for dwarven PCs, but I'm in a relationship with somebody half a foot taller than me, and I can definitely say that she doesn't magically lose half her shins when we kiss. It's kind of distracting.

[GloatingSwine]

In Dragon Age news I've done most of early Denerim, defended Redcliffe, made my way into the castle, and kissed Leliana. Next time I guess it's rescuing the Arl and concluding the romance.

Sadly I got a reminder that the game moved character models around for kisses instead of having the taller character bend down. I know it wouldn't have worked well for dwarven PCs, but I'm in a relationship with somebody half a foot taller than me, and I can definitely say that she doesn't magically lose half her shins when we kiss. It's kind of distracting.

Never underestimate what a determined dwarf may achieve by means of a stepladder.

[Anonymouswizard]

Never underestimate what a determined dwarf may achieve by means of a stepladder.

That would make more sense than Alastair/Morrigan/Zevran/Leliana suddenly losing two feet of height.

I mean, a dwarf with a stepladder could be the world's second greatest lover!

[Cespenar]

If you want me to get excited about someone building a world for a fantasy game, then have Sanderson make it. A situation where he can just design an interesting setting but doesn't have to write an actual story or do a lot of character work would be perfect for his skills.

True. Sanderson's gimmicky worldbuilding would work better than most writers with a story-light RPG. Pretty accurate take there, honestly.

GRRM on Elden Ring reminds me a little bit where the FTL guys hired Chris Avellone (I think?) for writing in Into the Breach, of all games. Equally funny.

[Rynjin]

I'll be damned if I can figure out what lore GRRM made. It all seems pure Dank Souls so far.

[Lord Raziere]

I'mma ignore the sanderson opinions I massively disagree with and remark that Elden Ring is about a political power struggle between various lords for who inherits whereas Dark Souls was just about a king who wanted the age of the gods to keep going and did a massive screwup to extend it unnaturally because he was afraid of humanity so.....technically I can see the GRRM in Elden Ring, in that it is kind about of about the same thing as Game of Thrones just.......soulsier.

[Yora]

I now played 6 hours of Elden Ring, and I feel like open world was a terrible idea. As it always is with all games.
So far, nothing exciting has happened. I've been wandering around, looking what's behind the next hill, killing a good number of very easy standard human enemies and very easy wolves. Talked to some NPCs and found the Round Table. I do have reached the first boss but decided to come back later after doing some more exploring of the landscape. I guess I should go back to him now and see what's behind him, but so far, the sixth hour of playing has been identical to the second hour. And the third, fourth, and fifth.
There's a large open world, and it's pretty, but there's nothing at all to do there. The Wall of Boletaria or the Undead Burg had a lot more going on and much more variety.
As opening areas go, this is by far the weakest in the series yet. In the more linear levels of Dark Souls, at least you make progress to reach new areas with new stuff to discover and fighting the same enemies in different environmental situations as you fight through hordes of hollow warriors. I'm not getting any sense of that here.

I'm a few hours in, and I can already say that Elden Ring is Dark Souls 4.

I feel like it's more Demon's Souls 2. Though clearly build on the DS3 tech.

[Cygnia]

I mean, a dwarf with a stepladder could be the world's second greatest lover!

I wish the Discworld games were available on Steam...

[Anonymouswizard]

True. Sanderson's gimmicky worldbuilding would work better than most writers with a story-light RPG. Pretty accurate take there, honestly.

I think I'd only be interested if he comes up with a magic system the game designers implement. I kind of care for the magic systems more than the worlds that go with them, the only reason I want to play the Mistborn tabletop RPG is to play a Feruchemist.

[Taevyr]

I think I'd only be interested if he comes up with a magic system the game designers implement. I kind of care for the magic systems more than the worlds that go with them, the only reason I want to play the Mistborn tabletop RPG is to play a Feruchemist.

Exactly: his magic systems are tight, just the right amount of room for him to break them as the story develops, which are usually at their best when exploring the setting/system: could be relatively easily gamified with some mild further tightening. Worldbuilding would be excellent too, especially taking Roshar as an example.

Come to think of it, he'd be perfect to design tabletop settings/systems. A well-grounded and defined world and magic/general system, an over-the-top epic overarching story that can be ignored safely if the players want to play a more grounded game... I'd certainly give it a try, should he ever (take part in) design(ing) one.

The one problem I'd have to deal with is the overuse of "awesome" and "exploding with X" that'd be in the manual And those don't drag down the books, so it shouldn't trouble a setting book too much

[warty goblin]

Dark Souls games have always been light on story, with most of the exposition being hidden in the background. That said, I never really understood why GRRM was a selling point for the game. His world building has always been incredibly generic fantasy tripe. Where he shines is political intrigue, which is not something a souls game focuses on.

If you want me to get excited about someone building a world for a fantasy game, then have Sanderson make it. A situation where he can just design an interesting setting but doesn't have to write an actual story or do a lot of character work would be perfect for his skills.

It's really too bad that Martin has ended up mostly known for A Song of Ice and Fire, his old Thousand Worlds sci-fi stuff was really excellent, really dark, strange, often beautiful, and full of only mostly terrible possibility*. What Martin's really been a master of for most of his career is turning the setting into a metaphor or representation of the central question or problem of the story, and given free reign this could be fantastic in a videogame. The only thing is that you then need to have a story with an actual central question, which is a thing games fail at most of the time**. Maybe Elden Ring will surprise me yet by having something like that, but I'm dubious.


*This is the setting that indirectly gave us both githyanki and wookies for example.

**One weird exception to this is, ironically enough, the old Cyanide Game of Thrones RPG, which very much had a central question; namely what is the moral value of, and how much risk and sacrifice must you hazard, for other people's children. It just got it by borrowing it wholesale from A Game of Thrones.

That explains my utter apathy towards the game.

Well, I guess it's great for those who enjoy this kind of game *shrug*

The combat is definitely starting to wear on me. I feel that nagging voice in the back of my head again, damnit I can handle a sword better than this idiot onscreen.

[Anonymouswizard]

Exactly: his magic systems are tight, just the right amount of room for him to break them as the story develops, which are usually at their best when exploring the setting/system: could be relatively easily gamified with some mild further tightening. Worldbuilding would be excellent too, especially taking Roshar as an example.

Yeah, it could be really fun.

Come to think of it, he'd be perfect to design tabletop settings/systems. A well-grounded and defined world and magic/general system, an over-the-top epic overarching story that can be ignored safely if the players want to play a more grounded game... I'd certainly give it a try, should he ever (take part in) design(ing) one.

The Mistborn RPG is interesting, but has some balance issues (it's cheaper to start with powers rather than acquire them, for example) and I'm not sure how much he was involved in the actual design. But Allomancy and Feruchemy both translate rather well to a tabletop system, and if I could ever find people interested in it it would be fun to play.

The one problem I'd have to deal with is the overuse of "awesome" and "exploding with X" that'd be in the manual And those don't drag down the books, so it shouldn't trouble a setting book too much

Honestly I wouldn't mind him designing the setting and then somebody else writing the actual story story. Which is probably how it would have to work for a game anyway.

Do we have any information on that Mistborn video game, or is it still stuck in development hell?

[factotum]

Sadly I got a reminder that the game moved character models around for kisses instead of having the taller character bend down. I know it wouldn't have worked well for dwarven PCs, but I'm in a relationship with somebody half a foot taller than me, and I can definitely say that she doesn't magically lose half her shins when we kiss. It's kind of distracting.

They definitely fixed that in Inquisition, because I remember my Qunari Inquisitor bending down to kiss their regular human partner!

[Zevox]

Honestly considering how many lets players/streamers I've seen complain about cutscenes in other games and try to skip the dialogue as much as possible and say things "just shut up let me play the game", I'm pretty sure they know their target audience and isn't people who like to enjoy cutscenes where they don't do anything or tutorials where they go over things they already know. the people who actually take time to read lore and figure out the story of any game are far on the patient end of the spectrum, so Fromsoft just puts that kind of thing into collectables and exploratory stuff where you have to be patient to gather all of that and figure out how this world works and what its about anyways. they make you earn your lore.

There's a lot we could get into from that, but since I'd rather not get into a big discussion of the matter again, suffice to say I am not someone who likes Dark Souls' writing, in terms of presentation or content. I know there are others that do and I've seen their arguments for it, but I cannot agree with them personally. It's fine for others to like it, but my own thoughts on the matter really aren't likely to change. And yeah, if Elden Ring is more Dark Souls than Sekiro in that regard, just one more reason for me to pass on it, alongside the open world aspect.

in DB Fighter Z news, I've practiced with Labcoat 21 some, I think I like how she fights better than Majin 21. but then I'm a person who likes to aggressive start beating down my opponent and keep the beatdown going as long as possible in cycles of pain, and maybe Majin 21 just isn't all that great for that.

Oh, she is actually. Last I heard Android 21 was in contention for strongest character in the game overall, alongside the likes of Broly and Gotenks, and part of that is due to the excellent mixup situation she gets off any combo she ends with her level 3 supers, which is arguably the strongest such situation in the game at this point. Though more broadly basically everyone in DBFZ is aggressive to some extent.

But yeah, cool that you're liking Lab Coat 21 (or Human 21, as I wish they'd called her, since you'd think that her looking like a normal human is a bigger hallmark of that form than her lab coat...). I've been tempted to pick her up and try her out, but honestly, I can't go back to a game with DBFZ's netcode anymore I think. Not since Guilty Gear Strive came out and the trend has finally moved in the direction of fighting games getting good rollback. So I'm in the phase of just waiting for the inevitable sequel which will finally have that, since there's little hope of Namco approving a budget for ArcSys to retrofit it into the first game the way they have with some of their own, non-licensed games.

[Taevyr]

Do we have any information on that Mistborn video game, or is it still stuck in development hell?

It's the first I hear on it, so it probably didn't move forward much.

[LibraryOgre]

Never underestimate what a determined dwarf may achieve by means of a stepladder.

That would make more sense than Alastair/Morrigan/Zevran/Leliana suddenly losing two feet of height.

I mean, a dwarf with a stepladder could be the world's second greatest lover!

My dwarf with Leliana (but far more lesbian)

[InvisibleBison]

Do we have any information on that Mistborn video game, or is it still stuck in development hell?

Apparently it's been canceled.

[Lord Raziere]

Do we have any information on that Mistborn video game, or is it still stuck in development hell?

checked drivethrurpg, it came out in 2013. It has a supplement on Terris, a supplement for Alloy of Law, a supplement for looking at Skaa specifically, and example packs of sheets and heroes.

There's a lot we could get into from that, but since I'd rather not get into a big discussion of the matter again, suffice to say I am not someone who likes Dark Souls' writing, in terms of presentation or content. I know there are others that do and I've seen their arguments for it, but I cannot agree with them personally. It's fine for others to like it, but my own thoughts on the matter really aren't likely to change. And yeah, if Elden Ring is more Dark Souls than Sekiro in that regard, just one more reason for me to pass on it, alongside the open world aspect.


Oh, she is actually. Last I heard Android 21 was in contention for strongest character in the game overall, alongside the likes of Broly and Gotenks, and part of that is due to the excellent mixup situation she gets off any combo she ends with her level 3 supers, which is arguably the strongest such situation in the game at this point. Though more broadly basically everyone in DBFZ is aggressive to some extent.

But yeah, cool that you're liking Lab Coat 21 (or Human 21, as I wish they'd called her, since you'd think that her looking like a normal human is a bigger hallmark of that form than her lab coat...). I've been tempted to pick her up and try her out, but honestly, I can't go back to a game with DBFZ's netcode anymore I think. Not since Guilty Gear Strive came out and the trend has finally moved in the direction of fighting games getting good rollback. So I'm in the phase of just waiting for the inevitable sequel which will finally have that, since there's little hope of Namco approving a budget for ArcSys to retrofit it into the first game the way they have with some of their own, non-licensed games.

Spoiler: Elden Ring

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To be fair, the.....maiden person does seem to be a story person and actually talk to you a lot with unique conversations depending on the circumstances. and Margit had his cutscene intro and has dialogue during his fight. I cannot count the number of times I heard "Put these foolish ambitions to rest" as he killed my character.

like I'm actually surprised at them adding a tutorial and having this much dialogue in the game. the tutorial is an optional cave of course but its still there. though yeah, it is Dark Souls 4 mixed with a lot of open world. if your not into that....okay. more for me.

Yeah, Its possible I'm just not good with Majin 21. I'm simply not good enough for whatever is required for mix ups, I kind of just instinctually mash buttons in certain rhythms that I think work for the character, like I know a certain good combo is a lot of Y's with a B to close distance to go back into Y's for some characters, but I don't think I'm cut out to precisely figure out which exact buttons I need to press for combos.

[Anonymouswizard]

checked drivethrurpg, it came out in 2013. It has a supplement on Terris, a supplement for Alloy of Law, a supplement for looking at Skaa specifically, and example packs of sheets and heroes.

That's the tabletop game, I own it on print and the supplements in pdf. There was also meant to be a video game, but it's been like ten years since the announcement.

So cancelled makes sense.

[Rynjin]

I now played 6 hours of Elden Ring, and I feel like open world was a terrible idea. As it always is with all games.
So far, nothing exciting has happened. I've been wandering around, looking what's behind the next hill, killing a good number of very easy standard human enemies and very easy wolves. Talked to some NPCs and found the Round Table. I do have reached the first boss but decided to come back later after doing some more exploring of the landscape. I guess I should go back to him now and see what's behind him, but so far, the sixth hour of playing has been identical to the second hour. And the third, fourth, and fifth.
There's a large open world, and it's pretty, but there's nothing at all to do there. The Wall of Boletaria or the Undead Burg had a lot more going on and much more variety.
As opening areas go, this is by far the weakest in the series yet. In the more linear levels of Dark Souls, at least you make progress to reach new areas with new stuff to discover and fighting the same enemies in different environmental situations as you fight through hordes of hollow warriors. I'm not getting any sense of that here.

...What? I don't believe you. I genuinely do not. There is absolutely no way you haven't found something more interesting than that. In my first 6 hours of the game, I found:

Spoiler

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-The Wood Sentinel, a GIANT GOLDEN MAN ON A HORSE that you can literally see from the first bonfire
-A large, tough boss trapped in a prison.
-A beast man boss in a cave full of wolves
-A catacomb system filled with traps and weird gargoyle creatures
-A guy who warned me about a dragon
-THE MOTHER****ING DRAGON
-An NPC invade from a guy who shoots blood bullets at you out of his dagger, and the guy who warned you about the dragon counter-invades to help you when he shows up; I'm still using the dagger
-A trapped chest that transports you to a MUCH later game area and traps you there for a while. All of the player messages scattered around just say "I want to go home. I want to go home. I want to go home."
-In said area a boss that summons ghosts to fight you
-A spell that lets me shoot a flurry of laser beams from my eyes at the cost of going a little bit mad
-The base of one of the big glowing trees you can see in the distance, where a boss that is a TREE PERSON that SHOOTS HOMING LASERS at you tries to kill you
-A boss in a cave who looks like a hooded wizard type figure but who throws off his cloak like a ****ing pro wrestler to reveal he's ABSOLUTELY JACKED underneath and then proceeds to beat your ass using a pair of hammers on a chain
-An NPC sidequest where a woman asks me to deliver a message to her father in a castle overrun by strange chimeric creatures; tragedy ensues

And that's just the MOST memorable moments; there are a number of smaller ones where you just find nice loot or whatever.

You genuinely have to be going out of your way to not find anything, to not find anything. I'm 16 hours in now and I can still travel back to the first bonfire, pick a direction, go, and find something I missed the first time.

[Lord Raziere]

Yeah and I've played for six then got stuck in an area where the "too little frames to play" message keeps popping up and kicking me out nevermind, escaped from framedrop castle and I've got:

Spoiler: Elden Ring

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-a jail mine full of fire miners
-a burnt out wasteland
-a burnt down church with a red npc invader with a title that implies she eats tarnished
-a random shack with a painting in it
-a dungeon full of stone imps and fire-trapped hallways with a stone dog boss
-various giants just lumbering about
-graveyards full of golden runes
-a giant bear fighting a bunch of wolves
-a crab beach
-an island that clearly has features on it but I'm not sure how to get to yet I've gotten there and it has this cool dragon church on it
-a snooty noble npc on top of some ruins telling me to go kill a fort for him
-a giant plant that shoots lasers at me
-a church that gave me a potion
-an old woman on a bridge that I think sees the future but is real cryptic about it

that and about linear dark souls games: some rooms in them just become a matter of following a step-by-step disassembly of their forces repeatedly until you know the order and how your supposed to kill each foe right, dying repeatedly until you succeed, and its refreshing to be able to just take them down however you wish in a more open setting. there is some linear dungeons where you have to do that step-by-step disassembling and luring them to your safe corner/backstab murderfield to make sure you get through it all, but its nice to not have to do that at other times.

[Zevox]

though yeah, it is Dark Souls 4 mixed with a lot of open world. if your not into that....okay. more for me.

I like Dark Souls just fine - played through the first two - but it's entirely for their gameplay. And even there, I'm only a moderate fan, there's numerous other action games I like better. I've never played Dark Souls 3, for instance, just because it's never risen the top of my priorities list - there's always been too many other games I'd rather play than another Dark Souls. Sekiro managed to catch my attention because it seemed to be doing some things different from Dark Souls despite being from FromSoft, and I'm glad I did grab that, as I wound up liking it a lot more than Dark Souls (not just due to the story thing, I liked the gameplay a fair bit more as well).

What I don't like, though, is open world design, usually. There've been exceptions, typically ones where you have so much mobility that the world doesn't feel as big as it actually is (i.e. InFamous: Second Son or Spider Man), but generally speaking I'd rather have a more focused world design than a huge one dotted with the kinds of shallow side-content that most open worlds need to fill all that space. So if Elden Ring is basically Dark Souls but with that, it's lower on my priorities list than Dark Souls 3, and since I still have no idea if or when I'll ever get around to getting that game, that probably means I won't ever be bothering with it.

Yeah, Its possible I'm just not good with Majin 21. I'm simply not good enough for whatever is required for mix ups, I kind of just instinctually mash buttons in certain rhythms that I think work for the character, like I know a certain good combo is a lot of Y's with a B to close distance to go back into Y's for some characters, but I don't think I'm cut out to precisely figure out which exact buttons I need to press for combos.

Mix ups are more a matter of knowledge of when and how to do them than skill necessarily. They're basically any situation where you can force your opponent to guess between at least two options that they can't simultaneously defend against, the most common two types being a high/low (attack that must be blocked standing or one that must be blocked crouching) or strike/throw (normal attack that must be blocked versus a throw that must be teched/jumped). You most often can do them when you get a knockdown on the opponent, since you know where they'll be for the moment and can start your attack while they're still getting up. In DBFZ, the best opportunities for this tend to come after using a level 3 super, since they lead to a hard knockdown, meaning the opponent can't do anything but stand up normally. Android 21's is especially good because, if you know how to time things right, she can do far more than the simple high/low option - she can cross over the opponent as well, forcing them to block the other direction. So rather than needing to guess between two options, that quickly becomes four, making it a lot harder for the defender to guess right - and any hit leads into another combo, which might well mean their death considering how much damage they'll have taken from the prior combo into a level 3 super.

As for that last, I have to assume you're referring to the buttons on an X-Box controller? Looking at what that'd be, Y would be medium attacks on the default control scheme, and B heavy attacks... which isn't quite helping me figure out your meaning unfortunately. Eh, oh well. DBFZ makes combos pretty easy compared to other fighting games, but you still have to want to learn them in order to ever do so. And if you don't, still fine, as long as you're having fun, that's what counts.

[Lord Raziere]

I'd say that Dark Souls 3 is definitely the most linear of the souls games, but it doesn't have quality of life stuff thats in Elden Ring. like, one of the changes in Elden Ring to multiplayer is that you don't need to be in some higher human state or ember state to participate in online stuff since this is a different universe where you don't go hollow. like summoning other people to help in Elden Ring I'd say is easier. you can outright just craft what you need to bring in others if you know the recipe. you also don't have stealth in DS3 so no free easy backstabs, nor can you can call up spirits to help you fight bosses in addition to summoning players*. like it definitely feels as if I have more options in comparison to DS3.

Spoiler: *Elden Ring First? Boss

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Like I beat Margit of the Fell omen by summoning a jellyfish and a golden sorcerer npc to fight him, the jellyfish was actually real good because it poisoned him and at the end of the fight I managed to just keep my distance waiting long enough to so that the poison killed him. can't really do that in DS3.

On 21 and combos:
look Zevox, I don't know how to explain it, I just kind of......make my fingers go wild when fighting in DBFZ, and combos just somehow happen. I play Blue Vegeta and the foes just start dying as I beat them down. sometimes I'm aware enough to realize I just beat a foe by blasting them with a ki blast when they're at a sliver of health, but most of the time any combo more complicated than constant light attacks or constant strong attacks is just me hitting the keyboard at speeds too fast for me to comprehend what exactly I just did and finishers that aren't specifically down-right/left then I is something that happens by accident but somehow works. I'm probably just this dumb button masher who'd lose to anyone actually good at the game, but I've actually won matches in ranked using my method. I'm not ranked very high, but I have won them.

[Zevox]

I'd say that Dark Souls 3 is definitely the most linear of the souls games, but it doesn't have quality of life stuff thats in Elden Ring. like, one of the changes in Elden Ring to multiplayer is that you don't need to be in some higher human state or ember state to participate in online stuff since this is a different universe where you don't go hollow. like summoning other people to help in Elden Ring I'd say is easier. you can outright just craft what you need to bring in others if you know the recipe. you also don't have stealth in DS3 so no free easy backstabs, nor can you can call up spirits to help you fight bosses in addition to summoning players*. like it definitely feels as if I have more options in comparison to DS3.

Those aren't exactly things that appeal to me personally. I've always played Dark Souls offline, since I have no interest in its online. Other players popping in trying to kill me sounds like something that would make the experience worse, not better, personally; and I've no real desire to either bring in other players as allies or go be someone else's ally, just to play through the game to the end and win myself. Backstabs and stealth could have some merit, that was in Sekiro and I liked it just fine there, but it hardly outweighs the negative of open-world design in my mind.

On 21 and combos:
look Zevox, I don't know how to explain it, I just kind of......make my fingers go wild when fighting in DBFZ, and combos just somehow happen. I play Blue Vegeta and the foes just start dying as I beat them down. sometimes I'm aware enough to realize I just beat a foe by blasting them with a ki blast when they're at a sliver of health, but most of the time any combo more complicated than constant light attacks or constant strong attacks is just me hitting the keyboard at speeds too fast for me to comprehend what exactly I just did and finishers that aren't specifically down-right/left then I is something that happens by accident but somehow works. I'm probably just this dumb button masher who'd lose to anyone actually good at the game, but I've actually won matches in ranked using my method. I'm not ranked very high, but I have won them.

All good - like I said, as long as you're having fun, that's what matters, not whether I understand your description of how you play.

[Rynjin]

Those aren't exactly things that appeal to me personally. I've always played Dark Souls offline, since I have no interest in its online. Other players popping in trying to kill me sounds like something that would make the experience worse, not better, personally; and I've no real desire to either bring in other players as allies or go be someone else's ally, just to play through the game to the end and win myself. Backstabs and stealth could have some merit, that was in Sekiro and I liked it just fine there, but it hardly outweighs the negative of open-world design in my mind.

It's pretty close-minded to write off open world design as an inherent negative, given that it's the biggest enhancement to the experience the series has ever had. The fun of the series has always been in exploration and discovery more than anything, and this game has that in spades.

It's also the only game where Invasions are entirely opt-in. You don't have to play offline to avoid PvP.

[Anteros]

Apparently there are some security issues with Elden Ring's online mode, so be careful of that.

I haven't tried it yet. Honestly I wasn't planning too. I love Sekiro but the souls games have been a miss for me. Clunky combat controls are not a substitute for actual difficulty. Nor is being vague a substitute for an actual plot. Souls games lean heavily on both of those things.

That said, I've watched a bit of streaming of this game and I might give it a try. The open world solves a big problem I have with the series in that every time you die you have to walk down the same hallway for 20 minutes. Plus the combat looks smoother than other Souls games. Maybe that's just because I'm not playing myself though. One thing I've noticed is that the i-frame on the roll is extremely generous.

[Rynjin]

Rolling iframes have been pretty generous since 3. Arguably 2, but it was tied to a stat (Adaptability) in that one, so rolls kinda sucked natively. 3 tried to marry the faster paced combat of Bloodborne to the more traditional Dark Souls control scheme, to mixed results. Elden Ring fixes a lot of those issues.

It's kind of amazing how much the jump button changes things. Not only does it make jumping attacks more viable, even without the added boss poise mechanic that jump attacks interact with, it also adds further ability to dodge things; attacks that are low enough to the ground cna be leapt over and immediately counterattacked with either a jumping light or heavy from many weapons.

Combined with the addition of Guard Counters making shield-based gameplay more dynamic than simply blocking, and more consistent than fishing for parries, plus the triumphant return of Powerstancing...I'm loving how fluid the gameplay feels.

[factotum]

It's pretty close-minded to write off open world design as an inherent negative

If he doesn't like open worlds then he's entirely justified in taking that into account when judging a game? You might as well tell him it's close-minded to write off omelettes because you don't like the flavour of eggs.

[Rynjin]

If he doesn't like open worlds then he's entirely justified in taking that into account when judging a game? You might as well tell him it's close-minded to write off omelettes because you don't like the flavour of eggs.

It's more like complaining about a cake because it has eggs in it, and you don't like the flavor of eggs. Especially because there are no inherent negatives to open world design, there are just a lot of open worlds done very, very poorly.

Or, I should say, no inherent negatives that really apply here. You could argue an open world is inherently hindering to writing a coherent plot, for example, because the open world elements get in the way of enjoying the story.

But, let's be real, nobody plays Dark Souls for the plot, and the games have never had a coherent narrative.

The only one I can think of for Elden Ring is that it's sometimes hard to figure out where to go. But no matter where you go there's meaningful content that's difficult to distinguish from the "main" line anyway, so eh. And that's often been a problem in From's game's anyway. There's always been at least one spot in a game where they're like "Oh didn't you know? To progress you must return to some place you haven't been for the last 10 hours; killing that last boss opened a door (we did not give even a hint that this was the case)".

[Eldan]

Playing Mass Effect 3 now, so far it hasn't quite clicked yet. Did the prologue on Earth and the first mission on Mars, but can't so far quite put my finger on it. Maybe it's just how you're dropped into the deep end immediately with NO introduction, just bam "Reapers are here, everyone dies now". It kind of ruins the tension if you start with the worst?