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How would you improve elden ring?

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Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Maybe an easy mode?



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Zuzu

Member
I think there's lots of improvements that need to be made to boss balancing. Many bosses are too easy with spirit summons but absurdly hard without them. Either they need to remove spirit summons and balance the bosses better around solo play just like in all other souls games or they need to redesign some of the bosses to fit better with the spirit summon system.
 

SHA

Member
Please give this post some meaning by being far less vague, I'd love to know what you mean but right now it has no meaning
It's a boss game, everyone you fight is basically a boss, some takes hours to beat them, but that doesn't mean you got good at this game, you're just memorizing your moves, you could figure out how to beat this game just from seeing a walkthrough without even touching the controller, it's not a skill based game, there's no evidence the players who've beaten this game are pro players.
 

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
Worst take of the day award goes to:
It's a boss game, everyone you fight is basically a boss, some takes hours to beat them, but that doesn't mean you got good at this game, you're just memorizing your moves, you could figure out how to beat this game just from seeing a walkthrough without even touching the controller, it's not a skill based game, there's no evidence the players who've beaten this game are pro players.
 

SHA

Member
Worst take of the day award goes to:
Watch Asmongold, he said it's not hard, my nephew said the same thing, I saw grandpas on YouTube making excuses about how this game is so hard, they don’t want assistance, well, good luck with that.
 

Soodanim

Gold Member
It's a boss game, everyone you fight is basically a boss, some takes hours to beat them, but that doesn't mean you got good at this game, you're just memorizing your moves, you could figure out how to beat this game just from seeing a walkthrough without even touching the controller, it's not a skill based game, there's no evidence the players who've beaten this game are pro players.
The game is fighting bosses but learning to fight bosses doesn't make you good at the boss fighting game?

Learning game mechanics to overcome challenges presented to you is essentially the point of any game.

Apply your logic to any game in the world and tell me how it's any different. Seriously, please do it. Explain how anything you've said doesn't apply to Ninja Gaiden or DMC on the PVE side or the PVP to any PVP game that exists. Pick your favourites of all time.
 
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Had to make sure I didn't post here already since this thread was bumped. I am going to basically say the same thing as before: An official 'randomizer' mode that unlocks after beating the game. As a matter of fact, all open world RPG-style games should offer this option. It randomizes items, enemies, and bosses.






It can keep a game feeling fresh for years.
 
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Chiggs

Member
I'd include a coupon for free pizza and wings from the establishment of your choice.

Nothing to improve the actual game, however. It's good the way it is.
 

ByWatterson

Member
It's a boss game, everyone you fight is basically a boss, some takes hours to beat them, but that doesn't mean you got good at this game, you're just memorizing your moves, you could figure out how to beat this game just from seeing a walkthrough without even touching the controller, it's not a skill based game, there's no evidence the players who've beaten this game are pro players.

"You didn't get good. You just practiced, became more knowledgeable, and conditioned your reflexes to perform."

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MagnesD3

Member
Elden Ring is probably the best game ever made but due to its size and ambition it definitely has area's in which it could improve for a sequel.

1. Enemy Level Balancing: Right now its really hard to control how difficult an area is supposed to be for a player due to grinding or just exploration, as a result alot of area's that are supposed to put up more of the fight can be insanely steam rolled during certain parts of the game. One egregious example that comes to mind is Fortissax, the build up is epic but where he is located in the game just is almost impossible to be at an appropriate lower level to fight him. The type of solution I would go with is to have enemies level up with you to some degree every 5 levels, things like what the expected level for the player should be for that area could influence how this works as well, they could even have Tier brackets they could hit that would cause them to gain new move's or different/more difficult behavior's to deal with depending on what Tier they have entered into (besides just gaining some health and attack). With it being every 5 levels the player will still obviously feel the progression and become stronger but it helps keep in line the intended difficulty for certain areas and even helps keeps player's on their toes upon return trips to older area's due to behavior changes.

2. Summoning Balancing: Another thing that is currently incredibly overpowered (but really cool) are the Enemy summons in Elden Ring. For a sequel I would want them to adhere to your build more as a means of balancing and progression. For Example I would have the Grave Glovewort upgrade now only apply to increasing the Summon's Health and some Attack Power but for the summon to gain better attack behaviors, more enemies summoned for a group or unique properties they would have Scaling Tier with Stat Thresholds that the Player must meet or some condition (like wearing certain clothing/weapon) to get the best results out of a Summon. This makes summon's more interesting since they adhere to your build (not having everyone just pick Mimic Tear) while keeping them all technically usable as long as you can pay the Mana requirement.

3. More Horse Options: I love torrent but I would love to have progression throughout the game involving improving him maybe with upgrades or some sort of saddle or special moves, something, give me a reason to feed Torrent. Honestly I want your moveset to be a little more involved on horseback as well with maybe a few new move's for weapons while on horseback, some builds around it would be dope as well. Also let us remap the click in on and off for torrent.

4. More Wondourous Physic Options: love the wonderous Physick but cant stand you only can use 2 ingredients the whole game, they need to let the player play around with this more and be more open to possibilities. Id love for their to be upgrades that you could get that let you combine more than just 2 together for let you have multiple different physic potions. Personally Id create a system similar to choosing your Red vs Blue Estus, so after finding all the upgrades you would have a few options, you can have up to 3 different physic potions with 6 ingredients to play around with the more ingredients in a physic the less time it lasts (max amount of ingredients in a physic is 4).

5. Make Great Rune's more impactful/interesting, when you use a Rune Arc it should definitely matter and have build ramifications, it was really disappointing that only 2 of them actually did anything and they were pretty basic. Hell even giving you exclusive access to special weapon arts while active or something could be really cool, there's alot that could work.

6. More interesting Crafting Stuff: Give more stuff to Perfume Builds and Pot builds, one of my favorite surprises was finding the Perfume Bottles and realizing how it made those crafting items Ive picked up actually useful even though not necessary.

7. Dont be afraid of giving bosses a Second Health Bar: We have summons and a ton of advantages going in our favor with an open world, its a tragedy that Maliketh or Horah Loux didnt get a second health bar, its late in the game Main bosses typically deserve a second health bar alot of the time, these fights should not be pushover's.

8. Add the cut Bestiary with lore: There are so many cool enemies that you discover in this game, I know originally it was going to have a bestiary and that just seems like such a great idea to learn more about the world and how to approach difficult foes. Id even be fine if you slowly obtained information on them somehow.

9. Add a light Journal for NPC's: It's very hard to naturally hit an NPC's quest fully in this game without a guide and I think its a shame that it's like that because these are some of my favorite NPC's ever almost all are unforgettable except maybe Diallos lol. Im not saying you just spell it out but you have the part of the dialogue you had when you first encountered them that hints the most towards their next location remain in the NPC journal to help guide the player to search for an area similar to what they mentioned.

10. Elden Ring II just add an Easy mode so they stop nerfing these incredible bosses: There has been a bad trend lately with From Software of nerfing bosses for no good reason, AC6 they went way overboard, Im fine with things that clearly feel unintentional like bugs getting patched but the bosses just being difficult is there for a reason in these games and there are plenty of ways to circumvent it, just give them an easy mode so I dont have to see Elden Beast nerfed or Baltius nerfed again please its not worth them being lesser when they were so perfect originally.


11. Dont Ask if I want to Revive Torrent or keep the hit Triangle button when entering combat, the answer is yes or Im busy right now, get that annoying crud out.

12. No more Godefroy's: I understand repeating miniboss's or remix's (poor ulcerated tree spirit lol) but Main Story bosses should be untouched sacred cows, it diminishes how epic they are in every sense when you just randomly find a slightly remixed version of them out in the wild, takes you out of the game.


Anywho that should do it for my big changes improvement wise, Im sure im forgetting some stuff but the biggest ones are here either way I just hope we get ER 2 within 5 years.
 
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Arachnid

Member
Personally, I would have preferred a darker tone. A horror setting like Bloodborne is more enjoyable to explore for me than a high fantasy setting. Feels too grim Lord of the Rings for me, personally.

Also, do better in the co-op. I shouldn't have to be re-summoned every time we enter a new dungeon. We should also both be able to use mounts. These basically outright killed co-op for me.

Otherwise, I don't think I would change a thing.
 
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Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
I'm glad most of the people making suggestions in here aren't game developers.
most people might get offended here but gamers great ability to suck all the fun out the game if you left them alone…..100% time I trust devs waaaaay more than gamers.
 

elhav

Member
1. Smaller game world: While the scope can be awesome, it can also be daunting. I think some areas could have been severely toned down, and the game would feel more tightly designed and polished as a result.

2. Less recycled bosses: Kinda connects to the first problem. If the world wasn't so massive, FROM wouldn't need to recycle so many bosses. They feel much cheaper when I find some of them as semi-regular enemies etc.

3. More skill based difficulty, less bullshit based difficulty: I think Sekiro is very difficult, but fair. Because once your skill improves, you can see substantial changes against bosses and enemies. In Elden Ring the bosses can be a stampede, and learning their patterns doesn't always help, especially if you don't have enough Vigor for example (1 hit kills, vaguely telegraphed attacks, giant hitboxes and cheap deaths). Which leads to the next problem

4. Late game bosses and using broken spells/weapons: The late game difficulty can suck ass. And because it sucks ass, most people just use builds and broken stuff like the mimic tear, because otherwise the game just stays frustrating and loses its fun. All weapons and spells are not born equal. It was always so in FROM games, but never so blatantly as in Elden ring. It means finishing the game with your own preferred build is usually not an option for the average player, unlike past games, especially if you don't like using summons.

5. Being able to somewhat gauge an area's difficulty level: While I respect the sense of discovery and awe of finding a whole new area or secret, I don't like finding it just to realize I'm completely overleveled. Happened to me with Radahn, and so one of the best fights of the game was boring. Happened many other times, but that time was the most frustrating. It would be useful to find some way of telling players the area's difficulty level. Otherwise half of the areas can be too easy or too difficult.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I dont think you can. It is what it is. An open world souls game. It does exactly what it sets out to do.

I just dont think it works for me because i prefer the metroidvania design of the souls series. This feels kinda unfocused and even the linear levels like the castle feel way too sprawling and big. It felt like Dark Souls 2 on steroids instead of something more intimate like Bloodborne or Demon Souls.

The thing is that this game is such a massive success that they will never go back to that. And honestly, I kinda dont want them to. They tried to do something different with this game and in a world with safe and unambitious sequels, I can respect that. It's not for me, but not everything has to be for me. I am playing Dragons Dogma 2 and i much prefer that kind of a game that isnt overly punishing and leaves all that souls formula/tropes behind for a more laid back and fun action adventure experience. Lots of different combat moves. Easier boss encounters. Constant NPC companions and a simple but rewarding XP upgrade system. I grinded the crap out of ER and even resorted to using some souls this dude dropped for me and even at strength at the lvl 50 soft cap, the combat just never became fun. You cant fix or improve that. it's built into the game design. It is what people like about the series.
 

Yoda

Member
Probably remove the open world. I think Sekiro hit the sweet spot in terms size vs. attention to detail. Giant spaces for me to use my mount feel like a waste.
 

Chiggs

Member
I honestly have to laugh at people complaining about Elden Ring's recycled bosses. First of all, the game has some of the most ridiculous enemy variety in any game EVER. I don't think people even remotely appreciate its variety. Compare it to another popular title, like Breath of the Wild, or Dad of War...not looking so good for Link or Kratos when stack-ranked against Elden Ring.

Secondly, there's generally a story/lore reason for some of the allegedly "recycled" bosses, and for the ones that don't have that, they're mostly optional.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
I honestly have to laugh at people complaining about Elden Ring's recycled bosses. First of all, the game has some of the most ridiculous enemy variety in any game EVER. I don't think people even remotely appreciate its variety. Compare it to another popular title, like Breath of the Wild, or Dad of War...not looking so good for Link or Kratos when stack-ranked against Elden Ring.

Secondly, there's generally a story/lore reason for some of the allegedly "recycled" bosses, and for the ones that don't have that, they're mostly optional.
Exactly my thought.
 
Reduce the number of catacombs by half, and add their rewards to the remaining catacombs.

Remove the Mountaintop of the Giants entirely, relocating the Fire Giant and forge to the end of the Forbidden Lands.
 

elhav

Member
I honestly have to laugh at people complaining about Elden Ring's recycled bosses. First of all, the game has some of the most ridiculous enemy variety in any game EVER. I don't think people even remotely appreciate its variety. Compare it to another popular title, like Breath of the Wild, or Dad of War...not looking so good for Link or Kratos when stack-ranked against Elden Ring.

Secondly, there's generally a story/lore reason for some of the allegedly "recycled" bosses, and for the ones that don't have that, they're mostly optional.
That's the thing, the enemy variety in Elden Ring is incredible, but having to fight those seemingly special enemies again and again, makes them mundane. They feel like they stretch the experience instead of complimenting it. Happy you enjoyed it, but me and many others preferred it when Souls games were more focused and had less fluff.

Lore can always be changed you know. I'm sure FROM tweaked the gameplay to fit the lore and vice versa all the time during development, so I don't find it a good excuse.
 

SHA

Member
I honestly have to laugh at people complaining about Elden Ring's recycled bosses. First of all, the game has some of the most ridiculous enemy variety in any game EVER. I don't think people even remotely appreciate its variety. Compare it to another popular title, like Breath of the Wild, or Dad of War...not looking so good for Link or Kratos when stack-ranked against Elden Ring.

Secondly, there's generally a story/lore reason for some of the allegedly "recycled" bosses, and for the ones that don't have that, they're mostly optional.
It's megaman on limbo, very recycled, very specific way to beat each boss.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
That's the thing, the enemy variety in Elden Ring is incredible, but having to fight those seemingly special enemies again and again, makes them mundane. They feel like they stretch the experience instead of complimenting it. Happy you enjoyed it, but me and many others preferred it when Souls games were more focused and had less fluff.

Lore can always be changed you know. I'm sure FROM tweaked the gameplay to fit the lore and vice versa all the time during development, so I don't find it a good excuse.
And you think game like Bloodborne didn't have reused enemies and bosses? They reused Blood Starved Beast multiple time including on the DLC.

90% of all game reuse enemies, no matter its linear or open world.
 

elhav

Member
And you think game like Bloodborne didn't have reused enemies and bosses? They reused Blood Starved Beast multiple time including on the DLC.

90% of all game reuse enemies, no matter its linear or open world.
Of course it's okay to recycle enemies, and even bosses to some extent. It's just that in Elden Ring a big chunk of the "optional" content is a rearrangement of the same bosses/mini bosses at the end.

These catacombs and mines for example might be optional, but the game largely requires you to go and explore to level up against some of the insane later bosses, or get upgrade stones from the mines, so most people will play them.

My point is that if the game wasn't so insanely huge, it wouldn't need to have these same bosses, but I see how some people prefer to have this quantity. I think they could have used the time and resources to better polish and balance the really interesting bits by chopping off like 50 percent of those repeating optional areas.
 
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Less lore, more straightforward story, cinematic style.

Match or improve upon Demon’s Souls graphics.

Make bosses unique instead of repeating them as regular enemies. Make the game shorter.

Fine tune the challenge. It’s not bad, but once you get good you don’t die and risk losing your runes very often, which leads to the later half being much easier than the first.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
Of course it's okay to recycle enemies, and even bosses to some extent. It's just that in Elden Ring a big chunk of the "optional" content is a rearrangement of the same bosses/mini bosses at the end.

These catacombs and mines for example might be optional, but the game largely requires you to go and explore to level up against some of the insane later bosses, or get upgrade stones from the mines, so most people will play them.

My point is that if the game wasn't so insanely huge, it wouldn't need to have these same bosses, but I see how some people prefer to have this quantity. I think they could have used the time and resources to better polish and balance the really interesting bits by chopping off like 50 percent of those repeating optional areas.
Even tho Elden Ring huge open world the amount variety is unmatched to any other game out there…. show me any other open world game that has same vairety as Elden Ring?

God of War even tho had the twice the budget and it wasn't even full open world game had pathetic amount of variety.


In your logic FROM should have never done open world because reuse content? Again 90% all videos games reused content no matter if it’s linear or open world….FROM pervious games like Bloodborne and Sekiro had it as well even tho they were not open world.
 

elhav

Member
Even tho Elden Ring huge open world the amount variety is unmatched to any other game out there…. show me any other open world game that has same vairety as Elden Ring?

God of War even tho had the twice the budget and it wasn't even full open world game had pathetic amount of variety.


In your logic FROM should have never done open world because reuse content? Again 90% all videos games reused content no matter if it’s linear or open world….FROM pervious games like Bloodborne and Sekiro had it as well even tho they were not open world.
Rightfully so everyone criticized the lack of bosses and enemy variety in God of War, so I don't see the point in bringing it up.

I didn't say they shouldn't have made an open world Souls game, I'm actually glad they did. I only think that the game world could have been much smaller and would still be very impressive, and wouldn't need as much repetition.

The fact that other open world games commit the same sins does not exempt FROM from similar criticisms, as much as I appreciate them and think they are the best game developers in the business. Sometimes less is more. Especially in open world games
 

RaduN

Member
Painfully simple and obvious:
- quick save outside enemy awareness
- remove the absolutely retarded grace loss/revovery gimmik that even carries through saves. This must be some of the most retarded way to force constant backtracking and artificially stretch gameplay time and at the same time cancel any desire to explore and test things out.
One of the worst design choices in recent memory.
 

IAmRei

Member
- More town maybe
- more customization armor / dress, i feels like elden ring fashion is not as compelling as dsrk souls, especially in armor side, maybe because i like medieval rather than eastern europe
- performance
 

Fredrik

Member
* A camera that zoom out when fighting big bosses.
No more staring at the toes of Fire Giant and not noticing that he’s about to swat you like a fly with his shield.

* NPCs with a life.
The animals have some sort of walk path which kinda makes it seem like they have a life. But NPCs are static like statues just waiting for the player to trigger a quest progression.
 

Pejo

Member
  • Sheathing animations and stances for all weapons.
  • Recruitable companion NPCs (hard to kill but permadeath)
  • Even more weapon types.
  • Pet classes/skills (necromancy, charm, beast tame, puppetmaster)
  • Customizable dwelling and a customizable carriage for travel
  • Transmog/vanity slots
  • New game minus (I don't know what this would actually mean but it sounded cool instead of New game plus)
Also, my chaotic evil choice - bring back World tendancy and make it even more obscure what changes/effects it.
 

Boneless

Member
Terrible points in OP that would ruin the game.

In terms of improvements.... story, ranked pvp, invasions into single player.
 

LakeOf9

Member
Remove the repeated bosses, remove the repeated mini dungeons, make either respeccing easier and not tied to a consumable, or switching classes easier. Generate loot that's only relevant and usable for the player and the class they have. Have something in the way of actually populated settlements (I am surprised FromSoft got away with not one actual city in the whole game). Cut out a lot of the bloat (the game is roughly 20-30% longer and bigger than it needs to be). Fix some of the story bosses (such as the ones that spam projectile attacks from multiple enemies on screen, or ones like the final boss which are obviously designed around Torrent). Make the online co-op less annoying, less obtuse, and not tied to an actual consumable holy shit.

There's a lot you can fix in Elden Ring. It's a very good game but there's so much it can improve with a follow up. I hope FromSoft actually address the shortcomings.
 

Fredrik

Member
New game minus (I don't know what this would actually mean but it sounded cool instead of New game plus)
Lol I like this!
Like new game plus but your stats is split in half and it takes twice as long to level up. Could make the map mirrored as well, a variant of upside down castle in Symphony of the Night; 👍

Journey 2 bored me to death, I beat all bosses on the first try. Half through it I quit and haven’t bothered doing it again. No challenge.
 
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Giving it objective markers on the mark and explicitly telling the player where to go and what needs to be done and where to progress the story through UI checklist. I could be an outlier but being a diehard fan of From games, Elden Ring didn't quite click for me for the reasons that people praised it. Or better don't do any of that but revert open world design and get back to wide interconnected cohesive worlds seen in DS1, Bloodborne 1.
 
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