FromSoft sort of brought it upon themselves with their design philosophy to be fair, going back at least as far as Dark Souls. Selling a DLC and having it locked behind a convoluted puzzle you wouldn’t figure out without a guide was certainly a choice, for example.
Not at all convoluted, dark souls seemed very simple, just deliberately constructed to prevent player progression or exploration without any good reason to.
Here is a game. Do not play the game.
The controls were not great, as far as I remember. The first zombie I encountered could just tap me out unless I dodged it correctly and I hit it like 10 times and nothing happened and then it got boring.
I guess 11 strikes kills it? Yeah I’m not going to do that for 3 hours without any reason to.
There was no lore or intro to show why I should care about the game or it’s characters or anything.
Does the story get interesting? Because the gameplay was trash and nothing indicated that it was going to get better as the game progressed.
In all the games, your roll speed is determined by your equipment load. You may have picked a starting class that had heavy load, and thus a slow roll. You can take off armor to lower your load.
I think all the games after ds1 show you the percentage of your equip load.
I like the idea of Soulslikes. I want to like playing them (some of them, I do: Hellpoint, The Surge, the Jedi games). But I can’t bring myself to slog through it just to say I did. It’s not fun or worth it to me.
I did the same when it first came out, gave it another try during covid when the remastered version came out, absolutely loved it. Got all achievements even :P
But that’s literally the point of these games compared to everything else that’s out there.
I don’t think that’s entirely true. There are lots of people who play them mostly for the challenge of learning and beating the (mostly) well designed bosses.
Where else do I get cryptic puzzles and unforgiving exploration without a map full of markers?
But the bosses are only half the game if that. The getting to the bosses and exploring an unforgivable world is so core to the experience that you can’t just overlook it.
There are also a lot of games out there like monster hunter that focus on quick boss action.
Outer wilds has a great story but no combat and Subnautica has way too much resource gathering and open world grinding a la Minecraft.
The fromsoft Souls games are still the place for unforgiving exploration and combat. They shouldn’t have to compromise on the unique experience and simplify it for everyone and ruin what makes them good.
If you try to appeal to everyone you loose what makes you special and become generic. Look at resident evil 6 for the perfect example.
( I do have to note I’m all for accessibility options, giving more people access is very important, but it shouldn’t change the core game into something else. Just play a different game, we have so many options nowadays it’s overwhelming. )
They shouldn’t have to compromise on the unique experience and simplify it for everyone and ruin what makes them good.
When was this ever about compromising the vision or changing the games? I thought this was about the use of guides while playing.
I’m perfectly happy for all the players who spend thousands of hours scrounging every surface, making conspiracy-boards out of item descriptions and feverishly figuring out every hidden secret in these games by themselves.
It’s still completely valid to enjoy all the rest the games have to offer and look at the wiki for how you access the secret area with the hidden boss.
Tangentially related, I played over 30 hours of Elden Ring before learning there were Map Fragments. The first one I found was way up north. I just assumed the world map was supposed to be dogshit.
I wasn’t happy for having gotten through without them, I was honestly just kinda pissed that they didn’t do some minimal nudging towards the first one.
The graces pointed me up the gulch to the north, after first pointing to the encounter with what’s-her-name. They did not at any time point at the map fragment. It wasn’t big and glowing, it was quite tiny when I finally went back to investigate.
Maybe something they’ve changed with patches 🤷🏻
Also it’s “marked” on the unrevealed map, but unless you know what the mark means, it doesn’t look anything like a map.
It is very fun if you want to be sure that you aren’t missing anything the game has to offer. You never know when a game may put something very obscure in a very limited timeframe.
In the case of elden ring or from software games in general NPC’s are usually so cryptic that solving the puzzles/quests would take you a lot of trial and error which isnt very fun for me.
It is very fun if you want to be sure that you aren’t missing anything the game has to offer.
You’ve hit upon the crux of the issue, in my opinion. FromSoftware games in general are built on exploration and discovery, finding crazy cool stuff in some dark corner of the game is a big part of the experience. However, for discovery to be properly rewarding you have to allow for the possibility that the player will just miss the stuff you’ve hidden. Indeed, in a blind playthrough of Dark Souls you’re likely to stumble upon a bunch of different secrets and still miss 50% or more of them.
That’s gonna be excruciating if you insist on “100% completing” the game. It kind of goes back to older days of gaming when there was no internet and no guides, and you just played the game and were happy when you saw the credits, and had no idea you even missed anything. I feel like modern games with their map markers for everything and completion percentages visible have kind of changed the way many people approach games.
Not to say there’s anything wrong with using a guide, play the game how you like. And there is definitely an argument that if you bought the whole game, you’d like to experience the whole game.
I’d love a Morrowind type journal to log some of that, totally get I can write things down outside the game, I’d just like to have that option in game especially as I can tend to jump around games and put them down for some time. They’re almost there with the player map markers and NPC markers, even just having the ability to make notes in game would be big for me.
Its still kind of outside the game but steam has an in-built notes tool in the game overlay. I’d argue its still closer to being an ingame tool as it stores the notes per game. I don’t really use the tool much but I wouldn’t be surprised if it also works with non-steam games that you may have acquired through alternative means.
The game is like 90% content that I enjoy with a small annoyance I can skirt around by reading a few wiki pages. I come to these games for satisfying combat, not obtuse quest lines you can miss without precognition.
I usually try myself and if I can’t progress a quest, I carefully read the wiki to the point on where I’m currently stuck. I never do that for bosses unless it’s a gimmick fight. Like anybody remember that giant, you could ONLY beat by picking up a sword, on a corpse, behind a pile of stuff, in the very same boss battle arena and then quickly equip it mid fight? Something like this sounds neat on paper, but plays horrible if you have people not knowing this fine detail.
There are some things you just can’t do without a guide/wiki. For example the achievements of “collect every weapon/ring”.
Also, the NPC quests are just undoable. There are basically no hints as to how to do them, and there are many ways to permanently lose the quest. Doing correctly a NPC quest going blind as an average player consists of plain luck.
It isn’t. Having to look up everything about a game to know how to play doesn’t make a fun game. I quit games with convoluted solutions. I’m not a Dark Souls player for that reason.
It’s really not that difficult to go through these games with minimal guide use. If you’re looking to 100% them, then yes, a guide is essential to use. And you always have summoning in boss battles, and ER added npc summons too. Once you just embrace the games with an open mind , they become more enjoyable.
I do like the paper instruction booklets that more complicated games used to come with, but that was introducing game elements so that you could use them in the game.
It seems like dark souls games require you to literally follow step by step what another person did or you can’t even play the game.
Is there any lore to those games? Maybe I’ll just treat them like a novel if the lore is good?
But I never heard anyone saying oh the story is so good for elden ring. All I hear is gosh Melania or bull-man is so difficult it took me 68 tries following this guide until I got to their second form.
Because tons of people play those games right? Why are they playing a game that requires so little creative input from the player?
The way everybody talks about it, it sounds like you just walk from one boss to the next boss, follow the guide for that boss and then follow the guide to the next boss.
It’s a big open world. You can just wander off and see what you find. Lots of caves and catacombs, but also some big dungeons, a couple swamps, a horrifying lake of rot, a horrible place with giant dogs and birds the birds are worse, a forest with bears, and more. At least two large areas are just completely missable/skippable.
You don’t need to “follow a guide” for the bosses. People write them and they can be useful if you get stuck. But, like, you can figure it out. Old man tries to hit you with club. Don’t let him do that. Then he pulls out a hammer. Don’t let him hit you with that. You can look up the details for like “He takes the hammer out at 60% health, and usually throws a dagger and then jumps” but you don’t really need to look that up. You just see it happen. Though sometimes the wiki is useful for like “Is this boss immune to poison?” questions
Huh, interesting. Yeah I think I’m asking about all of these details so much because I want to play it, I’m coming around trying elden Ring, especially if it’s more open world than I got the impression of from all the Reddit posts haha
It’s very open but at the same time not level gated. As in you can stumble into areas where enemies are much stronger than before. Hell, they literally put a super strong boss in the field just outside the first door to the first area designed to beat the ever living shit out of you in an effort to teach you “yeah, he is too much, go explore somewhere else”
Haha, rad. Thanks. I like it when things are not level locked, sneaking around big baddies that I definitely can’t do anything about until I’m forced to level up
Yeah, a guide will say like, “okay, first go to stormveil. To do that you’ll have to kill Margit. Go more or less north from the start.”
Between the start and Margit is like, easily 5+ hours first time for a decently experienced player. There are tons of caves and miniature dungeons and other cool things to explore. The individual challenges, you’re more or less doing yourself. Unless you’re watching a video walkthrough. No comment there. Imma let people enjoy their way. Some guides include tips for certain particularly brutal areas, or build ideas of you’re struggling, but those are absolutely not required to play the game, and if anything removes some of the sense of satisfaction from overcoming.
Then, there are things like the interactive map. Elden ring is a huge open world. Really all of the souls games are open, non-linear, and thoughtfully connected worlds, but elden ring is the only one of call " open world". If you really want to see just how dense the world is, and how little using a general route guide actually ruins for you, I encourage you to take a gander at it before playing. The world is FUCKING HUGE.
I think one of the coolest things with FS games is, the level of hand holding you get is pretty much what you want to look for. You CAN watch a video walkthrough and follow it step by step, sure. You can read a general route guide to have a bit of bearing. You can just use the interactive map, to uncover things you may not otherwise. And, if you’re so inclined, you can raw dog the Panda Between, just you and your own wits.
I should definitely be jumping into the open world version of these games, since exploration and character development. is what I enjoy most in any game.
Think of guides in FS games more like MapQuest directions. It’ll tell you to take a left at a certain exit, but not all of the traffic between here and there. You gotta navigate that bit on your own, just here’s a sign post to follow.
As far as lore goes, that’s one of the most compelling things about the games. They’re absolutely oozing more from every possible orifice. The worlds are so dense and thematic, and the lore isn’t spoon fed with excessive cutscenes and talking, it’s largely given to you environmentally. Placement of items and enemies, item descriptions that feel like they’re telling you bits of legend. Stuff like that.
You should take a gander at the YouTube account VaatiVidya. He does deep dive lore videos on most or all of the FS games, and shows the in-game sources for most or all of the lore he covers. It’s remarkable how much they tell you with so little.
I think most people have used guides, but I wonder how much guide people use. Take me for instance, I play blind as much as possible, but I look up a guide to see if there are any weapons that I can miss in a playthrough.
Think of it less as “at the 20% mark you’ll need a guide” and more “you’ll probably only FIND 20% of the game your first playthrough without a guide” - you’ll find the critical path, you’ll beat the game, but without a TON of tenacity, you won’t complete a lot of the side quests, and probably won’t even find some. You probably won’t really have a grasp on what conditions you need to get an ending you like, etc.
All of it CAN be found, can be done, without a guide, and you’ll probably have a blast doing it, it’s just a matter of the time and commitment you want to/are able to put in.
I typically play the FromSoft games without a guide the first time through, then look up what I missed for subsequent playthroughs.
You don’t really need to follow a “build” guide because it’s not really that kind of game. There are a lot of weapons to choose from, and some choices in rings, but it’s not like Path of Exile where you have a ton of interconnected, semi permanent changes.
I mean, a lot of the “build guides” online are just trash from youtubers and whatnot trying to get clicks. You don’t need to follow a complicated youtube video to get “Raise HP and Stamina, get a big spear, get a big shield, stab baddies.”
Do you know Path of Exile? Go look at how that game works. You really want to follow a guide there or you’re likely going to find halfway through that your character is too weak, and you’re too poor to reset it. Other games that are close relatives to Diablo2 often feel like they need build guides. They often have mutually exclusive build choices and a lower player-skill factor.
Eh, if you want specific endings you need a guide or you can spend hundreds of hours finding and talking to each npc after each boss fight. I don’t have that kind of time and I don’t like getting locked out of things because I only talked to the creepy dead looking guy five times instead of six.
But the game itself is still worth it despite not being able to play it without someone telling you how to play it the entire game?
There’s so many good games that are fun to explore and progress through, why stick with one that you can’t even play unless you follow instructions minute by minute?
I know this game was popular, so there must be some reason.
It’s not about REQUIRING a guide to do anything, it’s that if you’re trying to do one specific thing, or have a bit of assistance navigating exactly where you’re supposed to go next, they’re indispensable.
I definitely could have played elden ring without a guide. Problem is, the world is HUGE, and there are many endings with specific requirements. I don’t have hundreds of hours to pour into one game, even one I’m quite enjoying. I also want to see more of the plot, and that tends to require seeing multiple endings or other specific, exclusive, quest lines. All of which is just more approachable with a guide.
Some of the fun in from soft games comes from the exploration, but a lot of it is mechanically focused. Git gud. That, and being steeped in a fascinating, dark world, tend to be what keep me coming back. A guide helps keep me from feeling too frustrated just wondering where I should go.
So there’s obviously hundreds of hours of not-main content in the elder scrolls games, but if you spent enough time, you’ll find the majority of it without following a guide.
I spent hundreds of hours in each of them.
Does that work with all of these side quests in elden ring, or do I still need to know to walk back and forth against a certain tile three times before lighting a torch to access a lot of the side quests?
It’s less esoteric than that. There’s rhyme and reason to all of the individual steps of the quest lines, but sometimes if you aren’t thinking juuuuuust like the devs want it can be a bit of a leap.
I haven’t played it since launch, but apparently they’ve added map markers for NPCs you have already met, that’ll make it significantly easier to understand what they’re wanting you to do, I think.
No problem, bud! Elden Ring is a good start for the series, imo, because it’s as open as it is. If you enjoy it, honestly, go back and give the dark souls series another shot after understanding their design philosophy a bit more.
As much as I love the world of elden ring, nothing will compare to the level of interconnected labyrinths that connect back on each other so elegantly that dark souls 1 has. Enjoy your time!
Quest guides like what Belgdore is talking about just tell you who to fight/talk to if you want to finish certain quests or get certain endings. It doesn’t tell you how to fight your battles and usually doesn’t even cover how to get there (unless its especially arcane – looking at you Millicent).
Further, the best part of these kinds of games (at least IMO) is the adventure itself. Working through a zone to a boss and then learning how to overcome the boss is the fun part. It’s the part of the game that makes you hone your skill as a player and “git gud”. Quest guides… stat build guides… pretty much anything short of a zone walkthrough or boss mechanic overview won’t help you with that.
Okay, I definitely like exploring new areas and finding out what’s going on, and kicking ass of course.
I can only remember posts about how to technically defeat this or that regarding elden ring, so I thought that’s all there was to it.
Especially because there were so many posts, but none of them reflected anything except the technical mechanics of dodging after this fire ring or whatever.
I never look at “how to beat certain bosses” guides, usually it’s very hard to understand anyway and I have much more fun learning the bosses movesets myself…
Not to say there isn’t a lot of trial and error dying, oh there is a lot of that.
So you’re only the second commenter here who said you don’t need a guide for elden ring, and definitely the only one that says there’s " no need for a guide at all".
Do you mean to get to the next boss you don’t need a guide but you still need a guide to fight the next boss?
Not the guy you replied to. I think I’ve looked up guides or tips for bosses like… 3 times in all of the from soft games. Bosses are largely puzzles to be figured out. They’re some of the most engaging moments of gameplay, and, barring gimmick bosses, reading a guide for them still doesn’t do the work of beating it for you anyway. They’ll just give you some things to look for and some general advice, then the rest is on you.
So you can progress through the game without a guide if you first follow a guide to build up a character, that means you won’t get your ass handed to you every minute?
So you can progress through the game without a guide if you use a guide first to build a super strong character?
That still doesn’t seem like a very fun game mechanic.
Is that what people mean when they say it’s a souls-like game? A game you can’t play unless you follow a guide?
Or is it more like just fight a boss than another boss and another boss in increasing difficulty?
Because I played another crabs treasure, but eventually had to lower the difficulty and then quit because at that point I’m just doing stupid fetch quests to fight bosses that I literally have to fight dozens of times just so I can make sure to dodge .7 seconds after they raise one of their legs two dozen times?
Not even that, most souls games will have at least a couple of decently accessible items that will help you turn down the early game pressure if you want to make progress without having to do the whole git gud routine for every next corner in the road with a stone troll sitting on it.
Git gud means repeating confrontations over and over and over until you get used to the minute differences in the enemies movements and timing, and then just doing that for the entire game?
Or is it more like wow grinding until your level increases? Cuz that never grabbed me either.
So do these games have a compelling story or is it just a series of enemies that go from like half a second Dodge opportunity to a tenth of a second Dodge opportunity?
“git gud” in fromsoft games covers a few important skills.
The most important is just paying attention. Way back when Dark Souls 1 was out, people would say the traps in Sen’s Fortress were “bullshit trial and error gameplay”. It’s a narrow hall with a pressure plate, and when you step on it darts shoot out of the wall at you. This can kill you. But if you pay any attention at all you can see the clearly raised pressure plate, and the holes the darts come out of. You can then just roll through the trap or use a shield to block the darts. It’s easy if you notice it. Many of the enemies are placed in ways that if you look around and go slow, you’ll see them with plenty of time to plan.
The second most important skill is probably staying calm. There’s a part in the first game where I fell through a hole and landed surrounded by death lizards. If I had panicked, I would’ve died an especially horrible death. Folks would describe that as “bullshit”- you fall a long way and then suddenly lizards and poisonous gas! But I didn’t panic. I looked around, found the stairs, and ran the fuck away. Once I had a little distance, I was able to kill the lizards. They’re not especially fast or deadly on their own, but their poison gas will ruin your day if you let it. But panicking would get you killed there. There’s also Stormgate in Elden Ring, where you can easily draw the attention of like ten dudes. You know what the answer is there? Run the fuck away. Don’t get tunnel vision. Don’t button mash. Turn around and run.
Third is probably resource management. This is closely related to staying calm. Most of the games have Stamina as a resource. If you just button mash you’re going to have a bad time. You need to not over extend. You’ll have a bad time if you empty your stamina and can’t block or dodge. There’s also spells and heals to manage. You probably don’t want to blow all your big spells on trash. Basic stuff.
Lastly, there’s the stuff everyone talks about and thinks is super important: Recognizing enemy moves and reacting in time. It’s kind of overblown. Most of the enemies attack a lot slower than they feel when you’re in a panic. Plus, you can really mitigate a lot of this by building towards your strengths as a player. I can’t parry, so I don’t try and don’t rely on it. If you’re not good at dodging, probably slap on a tower shield and heavy armor. You don’t really need especially good reflexes to win with a shield + spear build. Magic can also do it, if you’re decent at spacing. And if you really get stuck, use a summon.
People act like you need lightning reflexes to play these games and you really don’t.
From the start you can kind of go where it points you. It will try to teach you without words “you don’t have to fight everything you see.” You can just go around things.
There’s like 3 or 4 little side areas right near the start. The map kind of points you north to a big castle, but you can fuck off to the southern area if you want. Or go to the horrible wasteland. Or figure out how to skip the whole castle and go to the big lake area. Or skip that, too, and go to the nice autumn area. Lots of choices. Not linear.
Okay awesome. Thanks, I think I’m going to try it.
I definitely hated the controls and confining movement of dark souls 1 when I tried it, but maybe I’ll enjoy the more rapid response of a modern open world type thing.
Git gud is definitely more the first kind of grinding more than the second
Basically the theory that even if it’s like bashing your head against a brick wall, it’s gonna be extremely cathartic when you finally manage to knock that wall down
I’m not a fan of guides, i think i would rather watch someone play the game. But to find specific things in elden ring, you either play the game 20 times and find it or you just don’t. The thing that i really don’t understand is guides on youtube that are: how to get overpowered soon in eldenring. And things like that. That’s just godmode or similar cheats, but with extra steps. Why not just download some mods with the stuff you want or whatever, because you’re still not really beating the game, you follow someone’s instruction to play “his game.”
Most players use guides to play that game?
Is that common these days?
It doesn’t seem very fun.
FromSoft sort of brought it upon themselves with their design philosophy to be fair, going back at least as far as Dark Souls. Selling a DLC and having it locked behind a convoluted puzzle you wouldn’t figure out without a guide was certainly a choice, for example.
Case in point: I played dark souls for 30 minutes and then gave up.
Did not seem worth it.
30 minutes is not nearly long enough to get to anything convoluted.
Not at all convoluted, dark souls seemed very simple, just deliberately constructed to prevent player progression or exploration without any good reason to.
Here is a game. Do not play the game.
The controls were not great, as far as I remember. The first zombie I encountered could just tap me out unless I dodged it correctly and I hit it like 10 times and nothing happened and then it got boring.
I guess 11 strikes kills it? Yeah I’m not going to do that for 3 hours without any reason to.
There was no lore or intro to show why I should care about the game or it’s characters or anything.
Does the story get interesting? Because the gameplay was trash and nothing indicated that it was going to get better as the game progressed.
Were you trying to kill the zombie before you get a weapon in the tutorial?
This was years ago, and the controls and camera were so janky I didn’t play very long, so I really can’t remember, it just felt like the beginning.
I am checking a playthrough. I remember beating this asylum demon and all of these items.
The controls were so slow and confining, I stopped playing after the asylum demon. I didn’t feel like stutter rolling 100 times for every boss.
In all the games, your roll speed is determined by your equipment load. You may have picked a starting class that had heavy load, and thus a slow roll. You can take off armor to lower your load.
I think all the games after ds1 show you the percentage of your equip load.
Ah, that’s probably it, I can get pretty pack rat until I know anything about the game and what’ll be useful or not. Thanks.
I like the idea of Soulslikes. I want to like playing them (some of them, I do: Hellpoint, The Surge, the Jedi games). But I can’t bring myself to slog through it just to say I did. It’s not fun or worth it to me.
What do you mean by the idea of soulslikes?
What is the idea that you like about them if you don’t like the slog?
Is the slog not the idea of souls likes?
And what did you like about the three games you mentioned that made you slog through their entire games that was different than elden ring?
I did the same when it first came out, gave it another try during covid when the remastered version came out, absolutely loved it. Got all achievements even :P
I’m believing it now that so many people have explained how much they like the games to me and why.
Even watching the beginning of this playthrough to see how far I got through dark souls 1, which was just to the asylum demon, it looks awesome.
I think I just really would have liked some explanation of any of the gameplay mechanics in a summarized form that I didn’t have to hunt for.
But I’m going to start with elden ring, because I do like open worlds, and I’m just going to see how that grabs me.
Did you play DS1 remastered on the switch?
Nah, pc gamer here, I honestly can’t imagine it runs very well on Switch :/ especially when you get to Blight town
Maybe that was part of the problem I had. I figured since it was an older game it wouldn’t be a big deal.
I’ll definitely try the PC version next time.
You can hardly judge a game this size based on a single boss fight :P
I definitely didn’t judge it on the boss fight.
But that’s literally the point of these games compared to everything else that’s out there.
Where else do I get cryptic puzzles and unforgiving exploration without a map full of markers?
I don’t think that’s entirely true. There are lots of people who play them mostly for the challenge of learning and beating the (mostly) well designed bosses.
Outer Wilds? Subnautica?
But the bosses are only half the game if that. The getting to the bosses and exploring an unforgivable world is so core to the experience that you can’t just overlook it.
There are also a lot of games out there like monster hunter that focus on quick boss action.
Outer wilds has a great story but no combat and Subnautica has way too much resource gathering and open world grinding a la Minecraft.
The fromsoft Souls games are still the place for unforgiving exploration and combat. They shouldn’t have to compromise on the unique experience and simplify it for everyone and ruin what makes them good.
If you try to appeal to everyone you loose what makes you special and become generic. Look at resident evil 6 for the perfect example.
( I do have to note I’m all for accessibility options, giving more people access is very important, but it shouldn’t change the core game into something else. Just play a different game, we have so many options nowadays it’s overwhelming. )
When was this ever about compromising the vision or changing the games? I thought this was about the use of guides while playing.
I’m perfectly happy for all the players who spend thousands of hours scrounging every surface, making conspiracy-boards out of item descriptions and feverishly figuring out every hidden secret in these games by themselves.
It’s still completely valid to enjoy all the rest the games have to offer and look at the wiki for how you access the secret area with the hidden boss.
Morrowind?
Lunacid
Tangentially related, I played over 30 hours of Elden Ring before learning there were Map Fragments. The first one I found was way up north. I just assumed the world map was supposed to be dogshit.
I wasn’t happy for having gotten through without them, I was honestly just kinda pissed that they didn’t do some minimal nudging towards the first one.
The first one is a big glowing item by a big stone marker that the graces point you to. It’s also marked on the unrevealed map.
The graces pointed me up the gulch to the north, after first pointing to the encounter with what’s-her-name. They did not at any time point at the map fragment. It wasn’t big and glowing, it was quite tiny when I finally went back to investigate.
Maybe something they’ve changed with patches 🤷🏻
Also it’s “marked” on the unrevealed map, but unless you know what the mark means, it doesn’t look anything like a map.
It is very fun if you want to be sure that you aren’t missing anything the game has to offer. You never know when a game may put something very obscure in a very limited timeframe.
In the case of elden ring or from software games in general NPC’s are usually so cryptic that solving the puzzles/quests would take you a lot of trial and error which isnt very fun for me.
You’ve hit upon the crux of the issue, in my opinion. FromSoftware games in general are built on exploration and discovery, finding crazy cool stuff in some dark corner of the game is a big part of the experience. However, for discovery to be properly rewarding you have to allow for the possibility that the player will just miss the stuff you’ve hidden. Indeed, in a blind playthrough of Dark Souls you’re likely to stumble upon a bunch of different secrets and still miss 50% or more of them.
That’s gonna be excruciating if you insist on “100% completing” the game. It kind of goes back to older days of gaming when there was no internet and no guides, and you just played the game and were happy when you saw the credits, and had no idea you even missed anything. I feel like modern games with their map markers for everything and completion percentages visible have kind of changed the way many people approach games.
Not to say there’s anything wrong with using a guide, play the game how you like. And there is definitely an argument that if you bought the whole game, you’d like to experience the whole game.
I’d love a Morrowind type journal to log some of that, totally get I can write things down outside the game, I’d just like to have that option in game especially as I can tend to jump around games and put them down for some time. They’re almost there with the player map markers and NPC markers, even just having the ability to make notes in game would be big for me.
Its still kind of outside the game but steam has an in-built notes tool in the game overlay. I’d argue its still closer to being an ingame tool as it stores the notes per game. I don’t really use the tool much but I wouldn’t be surprised if it also works with non-steam games that you may have acquired through alternative means.
Didn’t know that! Steam has some really nice features, steam input alone is amazing so I’ll definitely give that a try.
I’d rather just play something else than use a guide. That’s one step away from just watching a play through on YouTube.
The game is like 90% content that I enjoy with a small annoyance I can skirt around by reading a few wiki pages. I come to these games for satisfying combat, not obtuse quest lines you can miss without precognition.
I usually try myself and if I can’t progress a quest, I carefully read the wiki to the point on where I’m currently stuck. I never do that for bosses unless it’s a gimmick fight. Like anybody remember that giant, you could ONLY beat by picking up a sword, on a corpse, behind a pile of stuff, in the very same boss battle arena and then quickly equip it mid fight? Something like this sounds neat on paper, but plays horrible if you have people not knowing this fine detail.
There are some things you just can’t do without a guide/wiki. For example the achievements of “collect every weapon/ring”.
Also, the NPC quests are just undoable. There are basically no hints as to how to do them, and there are many ways to permanently lose the quest. Doing correctly a NPC quest going blind as an average player consists of plain luck.
Okay, thanks
It isn’t. Having to look up everything about a game to know how to play doesn’t make a fun game. I quit games with convoluted solutions. I’m not a Dark Souls player for that reason.
It’s really not that difficult to go through these games with minimal guide use. If you’re looking to 100% them, then yes, a guide is essential to use. And you always have summoning in boss battles, and ER added npc summons too. Once you just embrace the games with an open mind , they become more enjoyable.
I do like the paper instruction booklets that more complicated games used to come with, but that was introducing game elements so that you could use them in the game.
It seems like dark souls games require you to literally follow step by step what another person did or you can’t even play the game.
Is there any lore to those games? Maybe I’ll just treat them like a novel if the lore is good?
But I never heard anyone saying oh the story is so good for elden ring. All I hear is gosh Melania or bull-man is so difficult it took me 68 tries following this guide until I got to their second form.
Because tons of people play those games right? Why are they playing a game that requires so little creative input from the player?
This is not true at all.
The execution of the gameplay is very fun. It is extremely satisfying to defeat many of the bosses.
Exploration can be fun, though using a guide minimizes this.
So there is exploration in elden ring?
The way everybody talks about it, it sounds like you just walk from one boss to the next boss, follow the guide for that boss and then follow the guide to the next boss.
And there’s a hundred bosses.
It’s a big open world. You can just wander off and see what you find. Lots of caves and catacombs, but also some big dungeons, a couple swamps, a horrifying lake of rot, a horrible place with giant dogs and birds the birds are worse, a forest with bears, and more. At least two large areas are just completely missable/skippable.
You don’t need to “follow a guide” for the bosses. People write them and they can be useful if you get stuck. But, like, you can figure it out. Old man tries to hit you with club. Don’t let him do that. Then he pulls out a hammer. Don’t let him hit you with that. You can look up the details for like “He takes the hammer out at 60% health, and usually throws a dagger and then jumps” but you don’t really need to look that up. You just see it happen. Though sometimes the wiki is useful for like “Is this boss immune to poison?” questions
Huh, interesting. Yeah I think I’m asking about all of these details so much because I want to play it, I’m coming around trying elden Ring, especially if it’s more open world than I got the impression of from all the Reddit posts haha
It’s very open but at the same time not level gated. As in you can stumble into areas where enemies are much stronger than before. Hell, they literally put a super strong boss in the field just outside the first door to the first area designed to beat the ever living shit out of you in an effort to teach you “yeah, he is too much, go explore somewhere else”
Haha, rad. Thanks. I like it when things are not level locked, sneaking around big baddies that I definitely can’t do anything about until I’m forced to level up
Yeah, a guide will say like, “okay, first go to stormveil. To do that you’ll have to kill Margit. Go more or less north from the start.”
Between the start and Margit is like, easily 5+ hours first time for a decently experienced player. There are tons of caves and miniature dungeons and other cool things to explore. The individual challenges, you’re more or less doing yourself. Unless you’re watching a video walkthrough. No comment there. Imma let people enjoy their way. Some guides include tips for certain particularly brutal areas, or build ideas of you’re struggling, but those are absolutely not required to play the game, and if anything removes some of the sense of satisfaction from overcoming.
Then, there are things like the interactive map. Elden ring is a huge open world. Really all of the souls games are open, non-linear, and thoughtfully connected worlds, but elden ring is the only one of call " open world". If you really want to see just how dense the world is, and how little using a general route guide actually ruins for you, I encourage you to take a gander at it before playing. The world is FUCKING HUGE.
I think one of the coolest things with FS games is, the level of hand holding you get is pretty much what you want to look for. You CAN watch a video walkthrough and follow it step by step, sure. You can read a general route guide to have a bit of bearing. You can just use the interactive map, to uncover things you may not otherwise. And, if you’re so inclined, you can raw dog the Panda Between, just you and your own wits.
Okay, that’s great to hear.
I should definitely be jumping into the open world version of these games, since exploration and character development. is what I enjoy most in any game.
Thanks
Think of guides in FS games more like MapQuest directions. It’ll tell you to take a left at a certain exit, but not all of the traffic between here and there. You gotta navigate that bit on your own, just here’s a sign post to follow.
As far as lore goes, that’s one of the most compelling things about the games. They’re absolutely oozing more from every possible orifice. The worlds are so dense and thematic, and the lore isn’t spoon fed with excessive cutscenes and talking, it’s largely given to you environmentally. Placement of items and enemies, item descriptions that feel like they’re telling you bits of legend. Stuff like that.
Okay, cool. I do like that kind of world building.
I had no idea elden ring was open world at all so that’s a surprising and welcome revelation.
You should take a gander at the YouTube account VaatiVidya. He does deep dive lore videos on most or all of the FS games, and shows the in-game sources for most or all of the lore he covers. It’s remarkable how much they tell you with so little.
Oh, that’s awesome, I’ll get into that after I play the game myself, thanks for the recommendation. I’ll save this comment
I think most people have used guides, but I wonder how much guide people use. Take me for instance, I play blind as much as possible, but I look up a guide to see if there are any weapons that I can miss in a playthrough.
Same. I consider myself a purist when it comes to guides, but… I need my giant sword lol
A few comments have mentioned they play blind as much as possible. How much is it possible to play the game blind?
Is it after 20% of the game you have to use a guide no matter what?
Think of it less as “at the 20% mark you’ll need a guide” and more “you’ll probably only FIND 20% of the game your first playthrough without a guide” - you’ll find the critical path, you’ll beat the game, but without a TON of tenacity, you won’t complete a lot of the side quests, and probably won’t even find some. You probably won’t really have a grasp on what conditions you need to get an ending you like, etc.
All of it CAN be found, can be done, without a guide, and you’ll probably have a blast doing it, it’s just a matter of the time and commitment you want to/are able to put in.
I see. As long as the main quest itself isn’t literally hidden and impossible to find without a guide, I’m fine.
Yeah, 100%. There are some much more obvious signs posts around the main quest stuffs.
I typically play the FromSoft games without a guide the first time through, then look up what I missed for subsequent playthroughs.
You don’t really need to follow a “build” guide because it’s not really that kind of game. There are a lot of weapons to choose from, and some choices in rings, but it’s not like Path of Exile where you have a ton of interconnected, semi permanent changes.
I feel like dark souls games are the only time I ever hear about build guides, what kind of games require build guides if not the dark souls ones?
Man, I guess I should just try playing elden ring already haha.
I mean, a lot of the “build guides” online are just trash from youtubers and whatnot trying to get clicks. You don’t need to follow a complicated youtube video to get “Raise HP and Stamina, get a big spear, get a big shield, stab baddies.”
Do you know Path of Exile? Go look at how that game works. You really want to follow a guide there or you’re likely going to find halfway through that your character is too weak, and you’re too poor to reset it. Other games that are close relatives to Diablo2 often feel like they need build guides. They often have mutually exclusive build choices and a lower player-skill factor.
Oh, I found Diablo 2 totally fine. I played that for the first time maybe 6 months ago? Really fun.
I don’t know path of exile. I’m going to look into elden ring now though.
Interest is piqued since people are telling me it’s more open world than it seems from youtubers and crap like you’re talking about.
Eh, if you want specific endings you need a guide or you can spend hundreds of hours finding and talking to each npc after each boss fight. I don’t have that kind of time and I don’t like getting locked out of things because I only talked to the creepy dead looking guy five times instead of six.
But the game itself is still worth it despite not being able to play it without someone telling you how to play it the entire game?
There’s so many good games that are fun to explore and progress through, why stick with one that you can’t even play unless you follow instructions minute by minute?
I know this game was popular, so there must be some reason.
It’s not about REQUIRING a guide to do anything, it’s that if you’re trying to do one specific thing, or have a bit of assistance navigating exactly where you’re supposed to go next, they’re indispensable.
I definitely could have played elden ring without a guide. Problem is, the world is HUGE, and there are many endings with specific requirements. I don’t have hundreds of hours to pour into one game, even one I’m quite enjoying. I also want to see more of the plot, and that tends to require seeing multiple endings or other specific, exclusive, quest lines. All of which is just more approachable with a guide.
Some of the fun in from soft games comes from the exploration, but a lot of it is mechanically focused. Git gud. That, and being steeped in a fascinating, dark world, tend to be what keep me coming back. A guide helps keep me from feeling too frustrated just wondering where I should go.
So there’s obviously hundreds of hours of not-main content in the elder scrolls games, but if you spent enough time, you’ll find the majority of it without following a guide.
I spent hundreds of hours in each of them.
Does that work with all of these side quests in elden ring, or do I still need to know to walk back and forth against a certain tile three times before lighting a torch to access a lot of the side quests?
It’s less esoteric than that. There’s rhyme and reason to all of the individual steps of the quest lines, but sometimes if you aren’t thinking juuuuuust like the devs want it can be a bit of a leap.
I haven’t played it since launch, but apparently they’ve added map markers for NPCs you have already met, that’ll make it significantly easier to understand what they’re wanting you to do, I think.
Interesting. Well I’m excited to get started, so thanks for all the context
No problem, bud! Elden Ring is a good start for the series, imo, because it’s as open as it is. If you enjoy it, honestly, go back and give the dark souls series another shot after understanding their design philosophy a bit more.
As much as I love the world of elden ring, nothing will compare to the level of interconnected labyrinths that connect back on each other so elegantly that dark souls 1 has. Enjoy your time!
Quest guides like what Belgdore is talking about just tell you who to fight/talk to if you want to finish certain quests or get certain endings. It doesn’t tell you how to fight your battles and usually doesn’t even cover how to get there (unless its especially arcane – looking at you Millicent).
Further, the best part of these kinds of games (at least IMO) is the adventure itself. Working through a zone to a boss and then learning how to overcome the boss is the fun part. It’s the part of the game that makes you hone your skill as a player and “git gud”. Quest guides… stat build guides… pretty much anything short of a zone walkthrough or boss mechanic overview won’t help you with that.
Okay, I definitely like exploring new areas and finding out what’s going on, and kicking ass of course.
I can only remember posts about how to technically defeat this or that regarding elden ring, so I thought that’s all there was to it.
Especially because there were so many posts, but none of them reflected anything except the technical mechanics of dodging after this fire ring or whatever.
I never look at “how to beat certain bosses” guides, usually it’s very hard to understand anyway and I have much more fun learning the bosses movesets myself… Not to say there isn’t a lot of trial and error dying, oh there is a lot of that.
I can get it for one or two really hard puzzles in a game, but elden ring at least had no need for a guide at all
Eh, maybe after they added the NPC icons to the map. At launch, there was basically zero chance you’d complete any NPC quests on your own.
So you’re only the second commenter here who said you don’t need a guide for elden ring, and definitely the only one that says there’s " no need for a guide at all".
Do you mean to get to the next boss you don’t need a guide but you still need a guide to fight the next boss?
Did you play elden ring without a guide?
Not the guy you replied to. I think I’ve looked up guides or tips for bosses like… 3 times in all of the from soft games. Bosses are largely puzzles to be figured out. They’re some of the most engaging moments of gameplay, and, barring gimmick bosses, reading a guide for them still doesn’t do the work of beating it for you anyway. They’ll just give you some things to look for and some general advice, then the rest is on you.
Sounds good, I’m definitely going to give elden ring a shot.
Usually just to figure out a build that lets them explore without getting completely merked
Yeah yeah git gud and whatever but some folks just want to see the cool story without having to become a dodge rolling master.
So you can progress through the game without a guide if you first follow a guide to build up a character, that means you won’t get your ass handed to you every minute?
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So you can progress through the game without a guide if you use a guide first to build a super strong character?
That still doesn’t seem like a very fun game mechanic.
Is that what people mean when they say it’s a souls-like game? A game you can’t play unless you follow a guide?
Or is it more like just fight a boss than another boss and another boss in increasing difficulty?
Because I played another crabs treasure, but eventually had to lower the difficulty and then quit because at that point I’m just doing stupid fetch quests to fight bosses that I literally have to fight dozens of times just so I can make sure to dodge .7 seconds after they raise one of their legs two dozen times?
Looking at you, samurai sushi crab.
That got pretty boring.
Not even that, most souls games will have at least a couple of decently accessible items that will help you turn down the early game pressure if you want to make progress without having to do the whole git gud routine for every next corner in the road with a stone troll sitting on it.
Git gud means repeating confrontations over and over and over until you get used to the minute differences in the enemies movements and timing, and then just doing that for the entire game?
Or is it more like wow grinding until your level increases? Cuz that never grabbed me either.
So do these games have a compelling story or is it just a series of enemies that go from like half a second Dodge opportunity to a tenth of a second Dodge opportunity?
“git gud” in fromsoft games covers a few important skills.
The most important is just paying attention. Way back when Dark Souls 1 was out, people would say the traps in Sen’s Fortress were “bullshit trial and error gameplay”. It’s a narrow hall with a pressure plate, and when you step on it darts shoot out of the wall at you. This can kill you. But if you pay any attention at all you can see the clearly raised pressure plate, and the holes the darts come out of. You can then just roll through the trap or use a shield to block the darts. It’s easy if you notice it. Many of the enemies are placed in ways that if you look around and go slow, you’ll see them with plenty of time to plan.
The second most important skill is probably staying calm. There’s a part in the first game where I fell through a hole and landed surrounded by death lizards. If I had panicked, I would’ve died an especially horrible death. Folks would describe that as “bullshit”- you fall a long way and then suddenly lizards and poisonous gas! But I didn’t panic. I looked around, found the stairs, and ran the fuck away. Once I had a little distance, I was able to kill the lizards. They’re not especially fast or deadly on their own, but their poison gas will ruin your day if you let it. But panicking would get you killed there. There’s also Stormgate in Elden Ring, where you can easily draw the attention of like ten dudes. You know what the answer is there? Run the fuck away. Don’t get tunnel vision. Don’t button mash. Turn around and run.
Third is probably resource management. This is closely related to staying calm. Most of the games have Stamina as a resource. If you just button mash you’re going to have a bad time. You need to not over extend. You’ll have a bad time if you empty your stamina and can’t block or dodge. There’s also spells and heals to manage. You probably don’t want to blow all your big spells on trash. Basic stuff.
Lastly, there’s the stuff everyone talks about and thinks is super important: Recognizing enemy moves and reacting in time. It’s kind of overblown. Most of the enemies attack a lot slower than they feel when you’re in a panic. Plus, you can really mitigate a lot of this by building towards your strengths as a player. I can’t parry, so I don’t try and don’t rely on it. If you’re not good at dodging, probably slap on a tower shield and heavy armor. You don’t really need especially good reflexes to win with a shield + spear build. Magic can also do it, if you’re decent at spacing. And if you really get stuck, use a summon.
People act like you need lightning reflexes to play these games and you really don’t.
Got it, thanks for explaining. That makes the games sound a lot more approachable.
Is there any exploration or world building to elden ring or is it strictly a linear progression from enemy to stronger enemy?
Elden Ring is a huge open world.
From the start you can kind of go where it points you. It will try to teach you without words “you don’t have to fight everything you see.” You can just go around things.
There’s like 3 or 4 little side areas right near the start. The map kind of points you north to a big castle, but you can fuck off to the southern area if you want. Or go to the horrible wasteland. Or figure out how to skip the whole castle and go to the big lake area. Or skip that, too, and go to the nice autumn area. Lots of choices. Not linear.
Okay awesome. Thanks, I think I’m going to try it.
I definitely hated the controls and confining movement of dark souls 1 when I tried it, but maybe I’ll enjoy the more rapid response of a modern open world type thing.
Sounds like I was just being a negative Nancy!
Git gud is definitely more the first kind of grinding more than the second
Basically the theory that even if it’s like bashing your head against a brick wall, it’s gonna be extremely cathartic when you finally manage to knock that wall down
Hahah thanks for the description, that I totally understand.
I think most players use guides for most games that are more complex than, say, Mario.
Although not necessarily following a guide for every step, usually just looking up stuff that they have questions on.
I’m not a fan of guides, i think i would rather watch someone play the game. But to find specific things in elden ring, you either play the game 20 times and find it or you just don’t. The thing that i really don’t understand is guides on youtube that are: how to get overpowered soon in eldenring. And things like that. That’s just godmode or similar cheats, but with extra steps. Why not just download some mods with the stuff you want or whatever, because you’re still not really beating the game, you follow someone’s instruction to play “his game.”
Personally I’ll use a guide if I’m really stuck but otherwise I try to go blind. And I use the wiki to find out where to get cool weapons
I haven’t met a gamer younger than me that doesn’t use a guide for every fucking game. Even the ridiculously easy ones.