Support NeoGAF

[Drizzlehell]

Although that just remains within the realms of hope when you hear about things like this:


No, let's not take cues from the most successful, the most critically acclaimed open world games of 2022, let's just scoff at it and criticize its design elements. Yeah, that makes sense.

This is why Ubisoft open world games, and every other game that follow the same formula, will always remain hollow, unimaginative, dull experiences that progressively erode my enthusiasm for video games as time goes on. Western devs need to loosen up and start putting more trust in player's agency and ability to discover the game on our own, instead of fussing over the nebulous content that they created for the game, and desperately trying to drag us by the collar to every corner of the map just to make sure that we're gonna see everything. Because in their arrogant assumption they think we're just too dumb to find certain things on our own.

And that's why most open world games fucking suck and I hate playing them. Yeah it's a bit of a hyperbolic statement because most of those games have some good shit in them that's tucked away on those giant maps, but it only makes it so much more frustrating that the element of discovery is just completely absent from those games. There's a reason why disabling the HUD in most open world games suddenly makes them 10 times more fun to play but the problem is that most of those game's design is tied to their quest markers and map icons. To the point where some of them become needlessly obtuse if you disable those HUD elements. It's an incredibly lazy design and more western devs should start copying the philosophy of Elden Ring.

 

[64bitmodels]

Although that just remains within the realms of hope when you hear about things like this:


No, let's not take cues from the most successful, them most critically acclaimed open world games of 2022, let's just scoff at it and criticize its design elements. Yeah, that makes sense.

This is why Ubisoft open world games, and every other game that follow the same formula, will always remain hollow, unimaginative, dull experiences that progressively erode my enthusiasm for video games as time goes on. Western devs need to loosen up and start putting more trust in player's agency and ability to discover the game on our own, instead of fussing over the nebulous content that they created for the game, and desperately trying to drag us by the collar to every corner of the map just to make sure that we're gonna see everything, because in their arrogant assumption they think we're just too dumb to find certain things on our own.

And that's why most open world games fucking suck and I hate playing them. Yeah it's a bit of a hyperbolic statement because most of those games have some good shit in them that's tucked away on those giant maps, but it only makes it so much more frustrating that the element of discovery is just completely absent from those games. There's a reason why disabling the HUD in most open world games suddenly makes them 10 times more fun to play but the problem is that most of those game's design is tied to their quest markers and map icons. To the point where some of them become needlessly obtuse if you disable those HUD elements. It's an incredibly lazy design and more western devs should start copying the philosophy of Elden Ring.

it didnt happen with BOTW what makes you think it will happen with elden ring

 

[RoboFu]

Ehh even elden rings open world is the same repeated set points over and over with a few scattered mobs that are somewhat unique.

 

[Drizzlehell]

it didnt happen with BOTW what makes you think it will happen with elden ring

Although that just remains within the realms of hope

 

[The Cockatrice]

What makes Elden Ring open world special? It's just Dark Souls zones stuck together on a big map with a ton of nothing to see in between those main areas such as the Academy. Also, open world design sucks.

Give me a map like Dark Souls had, or Deus Ex games have or Prey has or God of War has and I'll be happy. I mean look at the recent linear games released, people are all over them because the open-world fatigue is real and that includes ER as well.

 

[Saber]

They won't. They will make generic garbage games and then move on when fail.

 

[64bitmodels]

It's just Dark Souls zones stuck together on a big map with a ton of nothing to see in between those main areas such as the Academy.

Give me a map like Dark Souls had,

where's the problem here?

 

[Fess]

There's a reason why disabling the HUD in most open world games suddenly makes them 10 times more fun to play but the problem is that most of those game's design is tied to their quest markers and map icons. To the point where some of them become needlessly obtuse if you disable those HUD elements.

Yeah. I disabled everything in Hogwarts, at first, and just finding the next class room quest was like playing Myst. And with the markers it’s like playing a kids game. It’s extremely offputting and it really highlights how incredible the map design in Elden Ring is, there you get hints so subtle that you don’t even realize you got a hint and think you found it all by yourself.

 

[Drizzlehell]

What makes Elden Ring open world special? It's just Dark Souls zones stuck together on a big map with a ton of nothing to see in between those main areas such as the Academy. Also, open world design sucks.

Give me a map like Dark Souls had, or Deus Ex games have or Prey has or God of War has and I'll be happy. I mean look at the recent linear games released, people are all over them because the open-world fatigue is real and that includes ER as well.

You have an uncanny ability to completely miss the point.

Also, you're wrong about the highlighted part.

 

[balls of snow]

I too like delving into the similar tiled dungeons and fighting the same boss but now theres two of them. Get on it western studios!

 

[lughnasadh123]

Or they could continue doing their own thing that has led to their own massive success. No one has to copy anything and honestly it's not going to happen for good reason.

 

[64bitmodels]

I too like delving into the similar tiled dungeons and fighting the same boss but now theres two of them. Get on it western studios!

western studios have been doing that for years, look at skyrim!

 

[Fake]

What Japan have that western don't.

I never got worry about From Software or Nintendo games.

 

[64bitmodels]

What Japan have that western don't.

a culture that promotes actual creativity and expression rather than just getting money and getting it fast

 

[Teletraan1]

western studios have been doing that for years, look at skyrim!

Even worse look at Oblivion. Those oblivion gates were the same fucking thing every time.

I don't understand people claiming that Elden Ring's overworld was empty or had repeated tile sets for dungeons but praise the fuck out of BotW like it didn't have that but 100x worse. There was something to do every 5 feet in Elden Ring, things I totally missed on my first playthrough.

Also people need to go back and play DS1 again. I did recently and holy shit that game is small in comparison. Nostalgia goggles are a hell of a drug.

 

[Drizzlehell]

Yeah. I disabled everything in Hogwarts, at first, and just finding the next class room quest was like playing Myst. And with the markers it’s like playing a kids game. It’s extremely offputting and it really highlights how incredible the map design in Elden Ring is, there you get hints so subtle that you don’t even realize you got a hint and think you found it all by yourself.

Exactly this. A smartly designed game would put some visual queues to get the player's attention more organically to the things they need to pay attention to in order to progress, but that just takes too much time and effort. Better to just slap a quest marker on the screen and call it a day.

Although funnily enough, when they do eventually try to funnel the player towards the goal without a quest marker, they usually do it with gimmicks like "squeezing through a tight crack in the wall", which has its own set of problems. People often just flat out misunderstand its purpose too (HINT: squeezing through cracks is not used as a hidden loading screen). I remember those old director commentaries from Valve games that explained various design tricks used by level artists to sort of catch player's attention towards the goal. Stuff like a piece of debris or a broken ladder, or even a light source to indicate where they need to go next. Really subtle stuff that unfortunately becomes more complex to design as the size of the map increases, which is probably why so many open world designers rely on those quest markers and compass icons.

 

[Ogbert]

Seriously, I bow to no man in my love of Dark Souls, but why in God’s name are people claiming ER’s open world is interesting?

It’s sprawling boring nothingness with copy and paste dungeons and mobs.

It gets amazing at the precise point it returns to its roots in the legacy dungeons.

 

[dorkimoe]

I’d rather never hear about this game again

 

[kingyala]

Although that just remains within the realms of hope when you hear about things like this:


No, let's not take cues from the most successful, the most critically acclaimed open world games of 2022, let's just scoff at it and criticize its design elements. Yeah, that makes sense.

This is why Ubisoft open world games, and every other game that follow the same formula, will always remain hollow, unimaginative, dull experiences that progressively erode my enthusiasm for video games as time goes on. Western devs need to loosen up and start putting more trust in player's agency and ability to discover the game on our own, instead of fussing over the nebulous content that they created for the game, and desperately trying to drag us by the collar to every corner of the map just to make sure that we're gonna see everything. Because in their arrogant assumption they think we're just too dumb to find certain things on our own.

And that's why most open world games fucking suck and I hate playing them. Yeah it's a bit of a hyperbolic statement because most of those games have some good shit in them that's tucked away on those giant maps, but it only makes it so much more frustrating that the element of discovery is just completely absent from those games. There's a reason why disabling the HUD in most open world games suddenly makes them 10 times more fun to play but the problem is that most of those game's design is tied to their quest markers and map icons. To the point where some of them become needlessly obtuse if you disable those HUD elements. It's an incredibly lazy design and more western devs should start copying the philosophy of Elden Ring.

you cant copy art.... why do you think in all this years western films and animations have never reached the stories and creations of japanese manga nad anime.. you just cant copy art like that.. it takes natural talent to do that

 

[Ogbert]

Even worse look at Oblivion. Those oblivion gates were the same fucking thing every time.

I don't understand people claiming that Elden Ring's overworld was empty or had repeated tile sets for dungeons but praise the fuck out of BotW like it didn't have that but 100x worse. There was something to do every 5 feet in Elden Ring, things I totally missed on my first playthrough.

Also people need to go back and play DS1 again. I did recently and holy shit that game is small in comparison. Nostalgia goggles are a hell of a drug.

Point taken, but to be fair, BoTW has a sandbox physics engine to goof around with.

It’s also a beautiful world which is fun to spend time in, as opposed to the demoralising solace of ER.

But as I say, I take your point, as BoTW is my favourite game of all time and I remain confused as to why I found ER’s open world take so dull.

 

[StueyDuck]

I'd prefer they'd get inspired by the only good recent open world that wasn't copy paste for 1/3rd of the game and bloated with filler copy dungeons

RDR2

 

[Drizzlehell]

Seriously, I bow to no man in my love of Dark Souls, but why in God’s name are people claiming ER’s open world is interesting?

It’s sprawling boring nothingness with copy and paste dungeons and mobs.

It gets amazing at the precise point it returns to its roots in the legacy dungeons.

Because it doesn't hold your hand and allows for more player agency.

Not saying that it's not a bit limited in the sense that it doesn't really let you interact with the world in a way that doesn't involve hitting monsters and collecting loot, but to say that it's boring and there's nothing in it is just flat out wrong and says more about the player than it does about the game. It's like saying that a sandbox space game like Elite is boring and there's nothing to do because it just drops you into a huge open galaxy with no specific directions or a tutorial. It's just not that kind of a game. It's up to you to figure everything out and discover what's out there. It's the complete opposite of a western open world game which always leads you towards your next goal with a carrot on a stick.

 

[64bitmodels]

bloated with filler copy dungeons

It’s sprawling boring nothingness with copy and paste dungeons and mobs.

bro where are these copy paste dungeons i NEED to know

 

[Fake]

a culture that promotes actual creativity and expression rather than just getting money and getting it fast

That was a self answer, but pretty much the ideia.

 

[Laptop1991]

Open Worlds mean Bethesda and Obsidian to me, their open worlds have never sucked imo lol, i love them all, but some OW games do get bloated with good and bad content, AC Valhalla is like that.

 

[StueyDuck]

bro where are these copy paste dungeons i NEED to know

The layouts are slightly different but if you've played elden ring you'd know exactly what that meant

Also there are blatant copy/paste bosses in elden ring as well that's not even remotely arguable

 

[ungalo]

The open world choice is more neutral than people make it out to be. You can make an open world to give a little more autonomy, or because you want your environment to be unified and seamless for whatever reasons, usually for the credibility of the world it brings or your hability to make more content and re-iterate on certain ideas.

In fact it's just about games having very generic mechanics, worlds, writings, it's games being patchworks of ideas without desire to push them to a certain level that's the problem. Maybe open world are costly and non open world games have a little more flexibility by nature, probably, but i don't think they are so much more interesting than open world in the AAA field.

As for Elden Ring, it works because it revolves around the unknown. If an open world game wants to immerse you in a mysterious world, it would definitely have to take inspiration. But it's still a very specific type of game, other than that there are many other ways to do a good open world game i think.

 

[Beastclaw Raider]

Elden ring's open world is nothing out of the usual. What makes elden ring good is the gameplay, what is this

 

[worldwithpyramids]

The fact that so many people here don't realize how Elden Ring's world is different shows you that western devs will never bother. People are fucking clueless.

 

[Fbh]

They won't.

BOTW was a massive critical and commercial success and seemingly the only thing most open worlds devs got from it was to continue doing the Ubisoft formula but adding a glider.

Elden Ring will be the same. I expect them to add a horse that can jump or the repetitive dungeons instead of all the good aspects

 

[ungalo]

People's takes here are crazy. We are 1 year after the game launched and people are already rewriting history. ER owes its reputation to its open world 100%.

 

[JCK75]

When I play olden ring all I can think about is how awesome a Castlevania game in this style would be

 

[SteelCurtain 59]

I'd rather games make good open worlds than copy Elden Ring's bland/repetitive open world

(honestly I'd rather games realize that every game doesn't need to be open world but that's another point entirely)

 

[Supple]

As long as Gamebryo and Euro jank exists, they will continue to make open-world games that suck.

 

[acm2000]

elden ring open world is just a big load of nothing like most others

 

[Ogbert]

Because it doesn't hold your hand and allows for more player agency.

Not saying that it's not a bit limited in the sense that it doesn't really let you interact with the world in a way that doesn't involve hitting monsters and collecting loot, but to say that it's boring and there's nothing in it is just flat out wrong and says more about the player than it does about the game. It's like saying that a sandbox space game like Elite is boring and there's nothing to do because it just drops you into a huge open galaxy with no specific directions or a tutorial. It's just not that kind of a game. It's up to you to figure everything out and discover what's out there. It's the complete opposite of a western open world game which always leads you towards your next goal with a carrot on a stick.

Sure, it tells you what the player values in From Games.

Cumulatively, I’ve beaten DeS, DS and DS3 tens of times. I absolutely adore their intricately designed dungeons and the ability to replay with different builds. Undead Burgh is, in my opinion, the greatest single player zone ever designed in video games.

ER was good fun for about 15 hours. Randomly running around the map, hugging the edge to maybe find a cave where one of the same 4 bosses is waiting, is not an incredible journey of discovery. It’s bloat.

The game diluted what makes From games so amazing.

 

[SteelCurtain 59]

The fact that so many people here don't realize how Elden Ring's world is different shows you that western devs will never bother. People are fucking clueless.

Ah the old "you guys aren't smart/good enough to understand why this game is so good"

 

[lh032]

Elden Ring indeed has amazing world design, sadly the enemy/boss variety is very lacking.
Seems to become an issue once you are 50% into the game progress

 

[Art The Clown]

Im not an open world fan but Elden Ring did it right for me enough to play it on multiple platforms and NG+ them to all hell.

I would still take a game like Bloodborne or even Dark Souls 1 to it but it is a masterpiece IMO.

 

[Wildebeest]

They won't. Whatever bandwagon they think they are jumping on, they will hit the delivery five years late and fundamentally miss the point of what the bandwagon was in the first place.

 

[bbeach123]

Idk , I like the big empty world with many well design (legacy)dungeon . Huge landmark you can see from faraway so you know where to go without anything tell you to get there .

Game doesnt need to be engaging all the time . I appreciating the boring walking part too . Make it feel like an adventure.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Ehh even elden rings open world is the same repeated set points over and over with a few scattered mobs that are somewhat unique.

This. It’s a great game but not the Revolution of open world design we were hoping for. Still too bloated, not enough depth for my taste.

 

[killatopak]

Wtf are these takes?

Enemy variety and unique dungeons are the last thing I think about as problems. Fuck it, I don’t even think of them as a problem.

The first map alone probably has more unique dungeons and enemy variety than 99 percent of all games. Like wtf?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Elden Rings open world is boring AF. It's dead. It doesn't react to the player.

It may be better than many western open world games but the low bar raised minimally with Elden Ring (and BotW).

Let's hope everyone is aiming higher...significantly higher.

 

[MagnesD3]

Yeah most humans have no clue why something is good or not, 0 taste...



Elden Ring is master class game design and most will never get why.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Elden Ring indeed has amazing world design, sadly the enemy/boss variety is very lacking.
Seems to become an issue once you are 50% into the game progress

Compare it to other open world games like Horizon and Ass Creed. The enemy variety isnt even close. I’ll give them a pass on the recycled bosses because theres so many goddamn boss fights.

 

[Generic]

West bad east good

 

[rabbity-thing]

They won't.

BOTW was a massive critical and commercial success and seemingly the only thing most open worlds devs got from it was to continue doing the Ubisoft formula but adding a glider.

I get that people really like BOTW's open world, but for my money, it was pretty bad. There was simply too much land and not enough to do in it. I don't think, for a second, that if a non-Nintendo game utilized a similarly empty open world that it would see even a fraction of BOTW's success. BOTW's map could have been 1/3 the size and still have been just as effective.

 

[ungalo]

Sure, it tells you what the player values in From Games.

Cumulatively, I’ve beaten DeS, DS and DS3 tens of times. I absolutely adore their intricately designed dungeons and the ability to replay with different builds. Undead Burgh is, in my opinion, the greatest single player zone ever designed in video games.

ER was good fun for about 15 hours. Randomly running around the map, hugging the edge to maybe find a cave where one of the same 4 bosses is waiting, is not an incredible journey of discovery. It’s bloat.

The game diluted what makes From games so amazing.

Most Souls players loved Elden Ring i think. Most people here played the others games. Obviously it's what you like about it that conditions the use of the word "diluted" where other people might be calling that "adding things".

Because personally i really like worldbuilding and the feeling of being lost in something unfathomable and in that sense if Dark Souls, with all its great (and very bad, let's not forget about it) segments , is some kind of olympic pool Elden Ring is an ocean. It doesn't mean that at some point you will not understand how the game works design wise, because obviously, things are going to repeat themselves there is no question about that, this is how the world's design give context to all of this that keep the game fascinating until the end i think.

The talent of From Software can express itself in many different ways. I think that even in the recycled content it sometimes does, the small dungeons for example, from a template of 4 different kind of dungeons have a whole variety of little design ideas and gain in complexity the more you advance, and there are not that many. I think it was well managed design wise.

 

[killatopak]

It's dead. It doesn't react to the player.

What exactly do you mean by this? Explain it specifically.

Triggering Radahn’s festival. Finishing the festival triggers a map change and allows you to unlock 5 huge completely missable maps. That’s a SINGLE skippable event.

Environmental destructability? There’s a lot and opens up various hidden stuff, short cuts and sometimes even a full dungeon.

Quests and NPC consequences? There’s like multiple ways branching paths. All NPCs are killable and will have an effect on you and the world in small and big ways.

Take note, I haven’t even finished the game and only halfway through. I dunno what else in store for the second half.