Chatting about games

What do people usually consider a Simon says like weakness?

Not sure what you mean, you mean a simons-says like game and what a weakness is?

Something like the infamous doom eternal cacodemon gernade thing.

>Simon Says
Literally all of Sekiro lol.

I've not dug in much beyond my initial full playthrough, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but that game actively resists depth in any way I can see. Sekiro says jump, you jump. It says parry, you parry. It says dodge or mikiri, you sure as fuck better do it. Sure there are prosthetic tools, but they seem to range between useless (mostly) and demolishingly broken (rarely), and the spirit emblem system discourages you from experimenting.

Of course this is all a long way of saying GotY of all years, perfect game, nothing is more satisfying, or whatever it is fans say.

> Sekiro
After you patch the game, it does open up a bit with other options being cool. But it's really hard to feel like you're playing well when there's a giant icon on screen saying "JUMP NOW" only for you to do something else which also tends to have less return-on-investment. Spirit emblems also just neuter it as Triple mentioned. Why they gave you a limited resource to do moves of which you can only have one equipped is beyond me. Such a weird game.

>Simon's says
Or the smarter term that I heard for it - prescriptive gameplay mechanics. It's pretty self-explanatory, but I think it's important to note that game can be designed like this, but also can be made into one by player.

In NGB, you can just Foward Y Ogres with Dabby all day everytime you see them, or you can try different strats depending on situation. That's one example, but every game can be approach like that, hence cacodemon gernade phenomena - it's not even that optimal solution, but it's the first thing that the game tell you to do. Like in the first case, It can make games feel repetitive.

>Sekiro
Thanks, saves me the time shiting on it heh. It's the first thing that comes to my mind. While it has other options, the parries and other counters are just dominant strat. It gets mind numbing pretty fast, because it feels like I'm playing some elaborate rythm game and it's engrained too much into mechanics and combat encounters for other tools to be interesting.

I think there's room for some Simon Says, it just depends on the game. Pulling an example from one of my absolute favorite games off the top of my head, VVVVVV. There's very rarely more than one correct solution to any given room, and the challenge is in successfully pulling off the maneuver or series of maneuvers to get to the next checkpoint. But it's also a very simple game with literally just one player mechanic (reverse gravity), and then a handful of environmental gimmick mechanics that keep each area feeling fresh. The game can demand so much from the player in a Simon Says/Prescriptive mechanical formula because it's only demanding mastery of one very basic idea, and only for a few hours at most.

Then you get to something like Sekiro, a game that lasts 30-40+ hours with a whole bunch of timing-based mechanics that can only ever either be done right, or leave you dead. It's so much to ask from a player in a game that has as little meaningful depth as it can possibly get away with across such a long period of time. Why is a game that's 3-4 times as long as Bayonetta (or insert your favorite action game here) giving the player nearly infinitely less potential for depth?

And don't even get me started on how jacked up the risk/reward in Sekiro is. It's all risk in a game that does it's damnedest to abuse the player into using the most degenerate, inoptimal, unengaging style of play because the reward for playing the way the game wants you to never feels worth it.

> Spirit emblems

See, this was probably the best change that Wo Long made to Sekiro's combat system: The spirit gauge. And I still don't think they went far enough with the system, lol.

If there's a sequel to Wo Long, I'd like to see reasons to want to be on low spirit and/or for the enemy to be in high spirit. Like, say, the weapon switch parry gets more powerful the lower you are on spirit, since it's intended as a reset spirit button. Or maybe enemies get more aggressive on high spirit, but take extra damage when you deplete them. Plus, I think it'd give some organic reasons to actually dodge and block instead of just parry.

>organic reasons to actually dodge and block instead of just parry.

This is one of the main reasons I noped out late in the demo (besides the PC port just being trash): I hated how everything boiled down into just being a parry simulator. Similar reason I noped out of the Lies of P demo after the first boss.

> dabi
In that sense you still made a choice. You saw an enemy, grabbed a weapon you felt would work based on experience/visual input, and choose a move yourself that you felt was good (or you saw a video online haha). A different version would be if they'd actively do a popup before you fight your first Ogre saying "the best way to fight this enemy is x". Then the game is Simon Says.

I think Doom Eternal really suffered from those tutorials. Having a popup explain exactly how to beat a boss is just wack.

> spirit gauge
One thing I will never understand about the system in Sekiro (and Sifu) is that if you play well, your bar is always maxed and you're always one hit away from death basically. Always felt that was weird.

Think the Spirit Gauge was a good idea as they did in WoLong, though as you note it could be expanded upon.

> Dabbi case
That's true, but players can condition themselves to mindlessly equate Ogres = Forward Y, so it may appears like the the game's forcing one solution, when it's entirely player's fault. However, I think even the most boring solution feel way more natural if it's discovered by player instead of handed down by devs, because the opposite scenerio takes away from player's agency and just make him an actor in creators' script.

Or maybe I just found doing it agianst Ogres boring after while.

>Lies of P
It's just the rare case of poorly thought out and executed game. I don't even think they were going for that parry-oriented playstyle instead parrying just happend to be semi-reliable option. I feel like it has too few active frames, especially when taking into account long delayed animations and spastic movement of enemies.

The dodge has fucked up range and not enough I-frames, even framedata is fucked up in this game. If two-handed sword dudes block your attacks, then they have guaranteed attack, because thier attacks are faster than your recovery animation, which can't be cancelled.

It also has a skill tree, so it might be another case of nerfing character's options for "character growth". Maybe those issues will be fixed in final release, but I don't care. I already had little interest in it and demo just convinced me not to bother.

Yeah, and it's so crazy that the dodge is so bad in a soulslike that's specifically copying Bloodborne, lol

Is anyone else familiar with XLHGladiator on YouTube? That's the one I mentioned a few posts up who had a literally 16 year old crazy mode flawless run against Dullahan in Castlevania: Curse of Darkness plus a Dailymotion version lol, and they're apparently still going strong.
https://youtu.be/oKmSB-P-87s

Yeah he's pretty much the OG of action-youtubers. Great player and tends to really just play every game he touches at a good level. Fantastic guy to so I'm told, I know some guys I did Nioh co-op with also played co-op with him and he's just a chill dude.

That's rad, nice to see someone still at it after so long.

IMO:
The secret to action games that makes it the most interesting genre to me, are the enemy hit reactions/states. This is the KEY to high skill ceilings in many games, creativity, uniqueness, strategy, etc. Imagine if all the Medusa head in gow did was just kill an enemy if you get them fully stoned, BUT without the slow down/stone state. It would still be cool, but undeniably less interesting.

> if you play well, your bar is always maxed

In all fairness to Sifu, you're sort of intended to weave between using parries, and slip dodges to recover posture. I haven't finished it (lol), but it was a hell of a lot more dynamic than Sekiro's system of just the parry.

I also liked how Stranger of Paradise had two separate posture bars for each of your sets, and how you could pick between a parry that recovered mana and stole certain attacks, but drained posture and a parry that didn't drain posture, increased posture recovery, and had the safety net of a block, but didn't have those extra bells and whistles from the first. The decisions you made there gave some means of player expression; The soul shield gave extra rewards, but you couldn't use it constantly, and sometimes you wanted to be able to stay in one set longer instead of immediately switching sets when posture got low.

> SIFU
Yeah Sifu is the best, but just in general it's a weird concept for me that using the game's mechanic actively punishes you in a way. You'd think a perfect-parry doesn't fill your posture bar in Sekiro, but it does.

Sifu is fantastic though, please finish it it's super good and the arena free DLC is amazing content too.

>key is hit reactions/states
I actually completely agree with this. That tends to be at the heart of all the games I hold in high regards. And games with few/bad reactions tend to lack depth and replayability.

>stranger of paradise
Such an excellent game.

>Sifu
It’s really weird to see one of the game’s biggest cheerleaders(Mayo) get angry at the game with each update, even though it keeps bringing great things.

>it's a weird concept for me that using the game's mechanic actively punishes you in a way.

I often call Sekiro "boomer design" because its solution to any problem you have is to tell you to just play perfectly, as if that's a sustainable or interesting solution. Like, "perfect parry fills your bar? Well you can't get broken with it so simply party every attack perfectly without fail. ‍" It's kinda hateful, but hateful to no purpose unlike a number of other hateful action games out there.

>Mayo
Lol. Lmao, even.

What do we think of sekiro enemy design in general here?

> reactions
Definitely. I personally got that as a conclusion when playing MGS2 and RE4 back to back - like here you have two legendary games, and the fact that enemies have such unique reactions to your actions really make them better than their contemporaries imo and it is an element they both share.

> Sifunaise
How, in god's name, does he hate the dlc? It is literally a love-letter from the devs. It is free. It is absolutely packed with content. What is there to hate?

> sekiro enemydesign
It's basically three enemies imo. Swordfighter, big monster, demon - there's spins on it, but generally all enemies opperate the same due to the limited structure of the game's combat mechanics. Monsters are weak to some elements, that's the extent of the differences and of course their moveset, but these tend to just boil down to different timings. Not too interested in them tbh. I do like those ninjas that jump around a lot, they're very powerful and agressive.

>those ninjas that jump around a lot

Lol their introduction where they literally divebomb you remains one of my favorite Fromsoftware troll moments.

>sekiro enemy design
Honestly, is dark souls enemy design as a whole THAT interesting?

>is dark souls enemy design as a whole THAT interesting?

Not enough to justify Sekiro's combat tempo and performance demand*, and I think that's the problem with nearly every Fromsoftware game after the vanilla Dark Souls (even the DLC): They immediately leaned into the, "it's so hard and you need to git gud!" reputation they were given, and I don't think either the polish, enemy design depth, or player design depth even remotely improved to justify the increased demands for the player to git that good.

Bloodborne is the only one that I think ever meaningfully transforms the game to support the greater enemy aggression and faster combat tempo (still imperfect mind you, but they did something), and the things that made it work immediately got dropped in future games.

And Sekiro may in fact show off the worst of these lopsided design instincts.

*To be clear, when I say "Performance Demand" or "git gud," I'm referring to how quickly the player goes down, how aggressive enemies are, the capacity to be one shot at any moment, etc. The risk and punishment for the player has gone so high without buffing up what the player themselves can do to compensate for it, or otherwise create scenarios that allow the player to make interesting decisions besides "now hit dodge 8 times in a row so you can punish with 2 attacks."

>sekiro enemy design
"In general" I think they're fine. But specifically, enemies who block/deflect tend be very dumb and easily loopable, due to having very predictable attack patterns after they deflect you. Even the final boss degenerates into bait counter->punish->repeat. I had the same problem with Nioh, the human enemies in that game similarly degenerate into stupid AI loops, albeit for slightly different reasons. I like to think the massively increased focus on yokai enemies in Nioh 2 was their way of addressing the issue.

>The risk and punishment for the player has gone so high without buffing up what the player themselves can do to compensate for it
Big disagree from me, you have multiple lives and unless you're on NG+ you can just hold L1 to defend against most threats. Not to mention deflect is extremely easy to perform (30 frame timing window rofl). If anything I'd say the risk is too low, and the 'charmless' mode should have been the default. Compared to Bloodborne, I think Sekiro is very easy. Certainly I think the risk and punishment are much greater in Bloodborne; no other From game has oneshot me nearly as much as BB.

Is there ANY actual source on the 30 frame (really 15 frames with drops if you were playing on console at launch) window thing? It's on the wiki and I've seen it claimed over and over, but I've never seen any frame data that confirms it. It certainly doesn't feel even remotely that long to me, anyway.

Also I could not disagree more on which game is harder between it and Bloodborne, lol. Bb is tough, but it's not Sekiro "you will get one or two shot and get a resurrection that refills half your health and need to use two drinks to refill the rest and like it" tough.

> divebomb ninjas
Classic.

Not sure those are the ones I meant though. I meant these guys: https://sekiroshadowsdietwice.wiki.fextralife.com/Spear+Adept
Apparently called "Spear Adepts". No clue as to why. Always found them to be challenging.

> dark souls enemy design
Good question. I'd say, maybe. They tend to not really interact with each other and be more secular, i.e. 1v1. You'll rarely fight a black-knight paired with an archer, ogre and demon or w/e. That said a lot of enemies do have many ways to tackle them, from specific hitstun values, weapon interactions, magic, debuffs, ringouts, backstabs - the openness of the system works in their favour. Doesn't mean it's a great system though, as I've always felt combat was the weakest part of the series.

I think the biggest shortcoming of enemies in Souls (and many action games are bad at this) is the lacking movesets of enemies. Most foes legit have 1-2 attacks, which are generally the same anyway. Been playing a bit of MGR:R lately, and its foes are pretty interesting in how many attacks they have. Even a regular grunt has multiple attackstrings, a grab, a hold and sometimes also a ranged attack. You see this in titles like NG:B and its ilk too.

> sekiro loopable enemies
In general block/deflecting enemies can be easily abused yeah, since there's a clear pattern. You attack until they parry, and then you do X to defeat them. You can easily flowchart them. Feel it would've been more interesting if enemies had multiple routes open to them after they deflect, i.e. they go for a grab, a jump, a slash - multiple options.

> sekiro damage values
I have to be honest I'm with Rorc on this one, I always felt the damage values in Sekiro were quite lenient considering how much health you have. The only game in their series where I felt damage values were wack was Elden Ring, where you could easily lose 80% HP from a basic swing.

What I more had issue with was how resurrection didn't allow for what it was promoted, i.e. escaping fights or doing a tactical death to then go for a stealthkill. Most bosses auto-aggro immediately. In general it's just a lame second healthbar.

> charmless
Feel Fromsoft to a degree chickened out here, but also showed a remarkable knowledge of their general userbase. They know most of their players are a bunch of tryhard casuals. Charmless being the default would've seen the entire community get filtered by the first optional enemy.

> oneshot
I really feel this mechanic, outside of very, very specific attacks, rarely has a place within the genre. I always adored the way God Hand did it. If you have more than 1HP left, the next attack will always leave you at 1HP. Nothing sucks more than playing well only to get "oh apparently I'm dead suddenly" moments.

>one shot
Been playing vanquish recently and I think the unknown does it well IMO. It’s a stealthy enemy, and knowing that attack and how it works it sends a shiver down your spine.

Anyways, just to send a send off to mayo: https://twitter.com/atmolis/status/1681608391771160576?s=46

>source on the 30 frame
Welp, I was wrong, it's 6 frames at 30fps. There's actually a fairly recent video about it:


Which means it has tighter timing than Bloodborne dodges. Weird, since it feels like the opposite to me. I guess lingering hitboxes after a dodge are a factor.

>Bb is tough, but it's not Sekiro "you will get one or two shot and get a resurrection that refills half your health and need to use two drinks to refill the rest and like it" tough.
Bloodborne is "you got hit out of your dodge so you die from full health due to instability damage" tough. I get why they made BB like that, but it's still really annoying to walk into Darkbeast Paarl, time your dodge wrong, and be instantly killed by a random paw swipe 5 seconds into the fight.

>I always adored the way God Hand did it.
Yeah I'm a big fan of that mercy mechanic, something like that in BB would be great. Though in Bloodborne it'd have to be separated from HP somehow, maybe just a buff effect that disappears when triggered.

>The only game in their series where I felt damage values were wack was Elden Ring
Elden Ring has crazy scaling as you progress. If you go to a lategame area early you will just get OHKO'd by everything, but then you can also inflate your own defense stats so high that previously deadly enemies barely deal any damage to you at all. #JustOpenWorldThings

>it's 6 frames at 30fps

I thought I heard that a few times, but wasn't confident on it. Hadn't seen this video before, so thanks!

>instability damage

No argument there; instability damage is garbage and I don't know why From keeps using it (I know it's at least in Bb and DS3, maybe the others too?). I didn't even know about it until like last year, which is frustrating because not knowing about it makes it feel like the game is just picking and choosing when to one-shot you, and it's real easy to assume it's just bad luck with critical damage or whatever.

What do people think of bloodbornes enemy’s/ combat design however? It’s a game I really want to play more, really interests me.

Bloodborne is probably one of the most important games I've ever played, and honestly kind of changed my life. It set me on the path to how I view, and play games nowadays.

That being said, Bloodborne and the Souls series combat is pretty rudimentary at its core, largely a timing/positioning game that tends not to have too much (but not none by any means) in the way of tricky decision-making, or more complex interactions than staggered, not staggered, or open for a critical hit. Dodge, block, or (occasionally) parry and then hit when you see an opening. There's some amount of flexibility in how you can avoid certain attacks with good spacing to time a really big hit right as their attack whiffs in front of you (Not that I'm able to do this), or strafing around them, but that's the core of it.

Not that this is a bad foundation by any means, but I do wish that FromSoftware built more on their core mechanics than just cool enemies. Yes, the huge catalogue of enemies is a big reason why a lot of people like these games, but I don't think these goals are diametrically opposed. They definitely did do that somewhat with Elden Ring, but not enough to fully sustain a game that was like, 3 times as big as Dark Souls 3 if you ask me.

>Bloodborne is probably one of the most important games I've ever played, and honestly kind of changed my life. It set me on the path to how I view, and play games nowadays.

Exact same for me; Bloodborne was a critical step on the path to how I think about games today. And wholeheartedly agree with the rest of your post (except about Elden Ring, because I've not played enough to say).

>Bloodborne
I really dislike the level design of the game and how weapons are placed through out it. It's very linear game, so when I want to use certain weapon I have to beat half of the game to actually get the weapon I want, not to mention most interesting weapons are in late-game DLC.

Also, there is no way to reset stats, so I have to plan my build ahead of time for NG+? I could never finish NG+ in those games before getting bored, because character progression is one of the appeals of those games for me and it's compeletely absent in NG+. Like TheFirmament described it, combat is pretty rudimentary and NG+ does nothing to make it more interesting (except for DS2, which tried).

One thing that Elden Ring has going for me with its openworld is that it's not that confined with item progression.

>level design

I would give a lot for a Bloodborne with progression like Dark Souls 1, with the diverse possibility space that offers from run to run. Hell, I'd be happy with Demon's Souls progression, even.

>DS1's world design in Bloodborne
Definitely, wandering into skellies in graveyard is one of unforgettable first time experience, even on subsequent playthroughs there're cool things like beating 4 kings before obtaining Lordvessel to join Darkwraith covenant. It's those moments that I like most in these game and which later games lack.

>DeS.
It's still feels unique after playing all other souls games, mainly, because of how unconstricted by expectations it is. it also has that certain junk experimental feel to it

>It's those moments that like most in these game and which later games lack.

My theory on this is that the closer Fromsoftware gets to just making games like everyone else, the more it highlights just how bad they are at doing so. When they made Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 1, they were making these aggressively weird games that other developers STILL haven't cracked the secrets on when trying to copy them. They're singular and interesting and there are still no other games like them.

The latter games though? Why would I want to play Dark Souls 3 with its "balanced polished gameplay" when I could find a better balanced and polished game a million other places? Why would I want to play Sekiro's shallow version of high-octane action when Bayonetta or Ninja Gaiden are right there? Why would I want to play Elden Ring's "an open world but worse" when the new Zeldas or even other more traditional open world games by other developers have existed and done it better for years and years?

Fromsoftware keeps chasing the rest of the industry at this point, and I don't understand why because they either can't or don't want to refine their method in a way that better supports their increasingly mainstream ideas.

>it also has that certain junk experimental feel to it

No cap, if Bloodborne was exactly as janky and weird as DeS, it would be my favorite game ever.

>Fromsoft's state
Yeah, they're victims of their own succes. The more mainstream their games are, the more flaws of their design it reveals. They also got stale pretty quick. They can make same game over and over, because they have large amount of audience that just wants to mindlessly consume the same uninspired game.


>aggressively weird games
Just look at the games they were making before they became mainstream - Otogi, Kuon, Shadow Tower Abyss, Armored Core, Ninja blades and others. Is there something they haven't made? That's some Roger Corman shit.

> leveldesign BB
I'd argue that it's a bit lackluster compared to it's predacessors. It still has a lot of multilayered enviroments, but generally is way more lineair while also not having any sort of interconnectedness to its world. You can't go off the beaten path easily outside of glitches or a very small instance here and there.

What I do really like about it is how it slowly becomes more crazy in terms of visuals. I vividly recall playing it with a friend over microphone, we were both just playing the game. We both assumed, due to the marketing, that it was just a game about werewolf hunting. But as the game goes on you encounter more and more weird statues and architecture making you think "maybe something isn't quite right here". That slow drip towards full on Cthulhu was masterfully done and might explain why it was a bit more lineair.

> combat
It's extremely basic, but does a lot with what it has. There's still some 'builds' you can do, the health-regeneration on hit is good enough that you can sorta play agressive, parrying is fun, some of the weirder spells are cool and the trick-weapons are very inspired.

> enemies
Great visual design, but as with most Souls games very lacking in application. Most enemies do one thing, tend to have only 1-2 moves each and are rarely if ever intermixed. I'd kill for a Mission Mode where the game goes nuts with enemy combinations, but in general the game is very 'this area only has enemy x'. Even in the Chalice Dungeons sadly, which is where they could've gone ham with it.

> progression
There used to be a glitch that allowed you to basically treat it like DS1, which was great but sadly fixed pretty fast. Made the game way more open-ended. In general I feel the game would've really benefitted from either just having all weapons available as your starter at the beginning, or add them to that pool once you'd acquired them in the main game at least once.

> early 4kings
Once got told about the "efigy run", very memorable. Basically the goal is to immediately get the Efigy Shield in the Tomb of Giants and use the bonfire there. Then you have to climb your way out. It's insanely tense and dangerous, as you're not at all prepared to deal with the monsters. But once you see the sunlight, it's honestly a fantastic and memorable experience that only titles like these can offer organically.

> what happened to fromsoft
Sales I'd say. You only need to look to Dark Souls 3 basically quad-zillioning sales. Dark Souls and Demon'S Souls were unique in how they just thrust you into this dangerous world, but it made a lot of casual enjoyers bounce off hard. I personally already know 5 people in real life that immediately went to the graveyard thinking 'this is the way to go' and just assuming 'i heard the game is hard so this is probably the correct way, but it's too hard for me' - the marketing working against them.

> junk experimental
Especially Demon's Souls went very much against the curve. I always say in art that "rules are just tips that work for most people", and this really had that phylosophy as well. Logic dictates that if you die a lot, it should become easier to edge you forward...not make the game harder and spawn scarrier enemies. Yet DeS did that. And it was refreshing. Sometimes bad design in an ocean of safe and good design can be preferable and even desired.

In general I also feel the series (and the copycats) are vastly focusing on the wrong elements. The magic of the originals wasn't the difficulty, but the sense of melancholy and danger. It wasn't about bonfires and bossruns, it was about finding that campfire after a long journey. It definitely wasn't about the combat. And it most definitely wasn't about having sidequests being so obtuse you needed a guide (something really exemplefied in Elden Bling).

>progression-locked weapons
One feature that helps a lot with this is chalice dungeon glyphs. If you're playing online, and have defeated Blood-Starved Beast to unlock chalice dungeons, then you can use glyph dungeons to obtain any base game weapon in a matter of minutes, even the one that normally requires beating the game. Sadly DLC weapons aren't obtainable in chalices until after you obtain them in the DLC. So there's no way to get the 5 post-Ludwig weapons without first killing Ludwig, which is basically the same as being NG+ exclusive, since Ludwig is harder than the final boss

It's also possible to kill Eileen and unlock the Blade of Mercy before even fighting Cleric Beast and Gascoigne, if you're willing to farm 40,000 echoes in the starting area to afford it at the shop.

>There used to be a glitch that allowed you to basically treat it like DS1, which was great but sadly fixed pretty fast.
If you mean skipping that gate to get into Forbidden Woods at the very start of the game, that's still possible with a different method called "wolf skip". The wolf enemy's grab attack can clip you through walls. But it's pretty annoying and RNG-heavy to get the wolf to do the grab at the right spot and angle while also pressing yourself against the gate.

>The magic of the originals wasn't the difficulty, but the sense of melancholy and danger.
The main value of the difficulty for me is how it pulls you more into the setting. The ambushes in DeS and DS1 punish you for not watching your surroundings, and when you are peeking through doorways and looking for any signs of traps, you are immersing yourself in the game world. ...then DS3 has an enemy literally materialize out of nowhere behind you for a cheap gotcha

>BB enemy design
Normal enemies are so-so, not that different from the Souls games. But I think BB has some superb boss designs. In particular the breakable limbs on some of the large bosses make for very dynamic fights.

The new door problem :

in video games, Especially, In tactical shooters, I always feel that opening a door is a guessing game. I don`t know which way the door opened. Is this door opened by pulling or pushing? How can I know?

Recently, I found something common in a game named "Gloomwood". In that  game, Every doors with a handle on right side is always opened by pulling. However, In my room, It doesn`t work that way. My door`s handle is on the right side, and I have to push it for opening. I live in Asia, So I thought that it would be a cultural thing and, hell no, In a same building, There were two types doors. One is like my room, The other is like ones from Gloomwood.

In real life, You can see a hinge or a push/pull sign so it`s not so difficult to guess. Even if you don`t know that, You just easily do opposite things and could open the door.

But in video games, it can be a one-off chance and sometimes there is no hinge at all.

So, How would we know which way doors opened in video games? Is it usually like Gloomwood, A door with a right-side handle would be opened by pulling?

> glyphs
Sucks that this is basically locked behind PSN+ iirc if I'm remembering correctly, same with the DLC weaposn as you noted being NG+ locked. I really really loved that mace you get in the DLC, always wanted to do a new character with it.

> glitch
Interesting to hear they found another way of getting that done.

> cheap gotcha
The original game was already innovative for having enemies wait around corners, or punish mashing - which was novel at the time. As you note, once players adapted (and honestly, also due to Fromsoft reusing the same traps over and over and over and over again), they started to resort to cheap shots. In my vanilla run of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls I honestly always felt like my deaths were valid, barring the occasional tilting haha. In 2 and especially 3, it often felt like a bunch of cheap shots / trial and error. Elden Ring even moreso.

> doors
It's very illogical and there's no pattern to it. Some games open two ways, others go one way. I prefer sliding doors, very easy to predict haha. Also in the wise words of our hero:
https://youtu.be/_4x9gsQuPY4?t=3

>elden ring open world
Suprised to hear you say that about it, what issues do you have with it? From what I’ve seen and heard, sounds like one of the better games in that genre. Mainly due to exploration.

> I dislikes very popular game
> you're surprised
plz omar, plz.

Jokes aside:

I've made long posts about it in the Elden Ring topic but in general:
- exploration is very dull, at first it's interesting but it quickly boils down to go to x, enter room, kill re-used asset-boss, get random thing you don't need; repeat.
- the dungeons that are there are very lacking in quality since it's such a massive game. The sewer is the best one imo (and it is really good!) but the rest are either really safe or just dull since there's like 150 of them and some big ones.
- it's cute on your first run, but since the world is 100% set in stone and fully revolves around you, on subsequent runs it is dead. Your new run is go to abc to grab xyz and powerhouse through.
- it absolutely breaks the scaling
- it's just a big empty world with very little interaction

Again, not a lot of nuance in this one so take with some salt, the rest is in the Elden Ring topic IIRC.

>plz Omar
Meant to ask tripeSmoon lol.

>Meant to ask tripeSmoon lol.

Well I've only played about 6 hours of ER (up through Margit), so I've only got first blush impressions really. But it's what I said above really: The more Fromsoftware tackles mainstream genres and design concepts (like an open world), the more their jank and overall design disgraces stand out in a miserably distracting way.

For one example, the open world feeling empty and devoid of anything but mostly copy/paste dungeons and crafting materials like Roy mentioned: This isn't a problem that existed in previous games where areas were tighter and emptiness felt authored. Another one is how instead of reconsidering character progression to match the much larger open world, they just stretched the character progression of previous games WAY out in a way that's frustrating (and yes, that's obvious even just from the 6 hours I played).

Overall, the game feels like Fromsoftware on their bullshit, but once again in more frustrating ways since they're pairing their bullshit with genres and design concepts we've seen done better by so many other studios, and without them properly reconsidering their method for making a game to account for the big sweeping change they want to make, like open world.

> margrit
The weird thing is that due to the way the game is structured, and you basically being able to explore nearly the whole world immediately, everyone was struggling with him. Except me. Since I totally ignored him and by the time I got to him (having fully explored the southern island and middle zone first and also the poisoned area) I hit him like 4 times to end his life.

If there's one thing that openworlds struggle with, especially those that rely on combat, it's damage-scaling. Oblivion was dull near the end as enemies leveled with you, so a crab could still be a threat in a sense which made your Hero feel like a chump despite having slain dragons. On the flip side it would avoid situations like the above where you stomp content that's meant to be difficult or feel like you're getting stomped simply since you're too 'low level'.

>negative reception
Wait till they make NG with rpg elements heh. I would certainly complain!

>Old Jewelry's open world
I think it's still better than most open world today - yeah, I know low hanging fruit right there. It's empty, but I honestly like when the open-world is on the emptier side. It's less visually cluttered and distructful. It makes navigation easier, because points of interest are clearly visiable from the distance. I didn't use gps all that much, because of this visual minimalism of sort.

I also like how most items are not gated off by beating by half of the game.

It's definitely bloated, even first playthrough is huge time sink. It would have been better if it was smaller. Weeping peninsula is particularlly pointless, it's just worse Limegrave. Balance took a hit as well, because of it.

God, I never expected to play a role of Fromsoftware apologist, but when the next souls game comes out I'll be first to toss stones at it lol.