ELDEN RING - Review Thread

[Ozymandias]

I still have no idea what Scarlet Rot does exactly, and I love it. Every time I see it, I get scared. A stupid status effect has more impact than what most games do. You know what happens when the game doesn't tell you exactly how much damage a spell does? It makes you try them all just out of curiosity. 10 years and the UI/UX of these games is basically the same. Maybe that's the point.

 

[pappacone]

you guys should stop saying that "they" used the word "shit" or any other over the top criticism, only one of them did and not in the same series of posts

 

[DailyCalmSpirit]

I still have no idea what Scarlet Rot does exactly, and I love it. Every time I see it, I get scared. A stupid status effect has more impact than what most games do. You know what happens when the game doesn't tell you exactly how much damage a spell does? It makes you try them all just out of curiosity. 10 years and the UI/UX of these games is basically the same. Maybe that's the point.

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See, to me that just reads like "it wastes your time trying a bunch of stuff you don't like to find the one you do."

Like, just add a damage number. There's enough immersion-breaking stuff in the game that this wouldn't do any less to that.

 

[Ozymandias]

See, to me that just reads like "it wastes your time trying a bunch of stuff you don't like to find the one you do."

Like, just add a damage number. There's enough immersion-breaking stuff in the game that this wouldn't do any less to that.

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But how do you figure out what you like without trying most things? If there was a damage indicator (that by itself depends on so much more stuff) then you would also need a speed and aoe indicators for example. Then you have all this info, yet, the spell still might not look as cool as you thought.

You can also conclude for yourself that a Comet is stronger than a Pebble, or a big ball of fire is stronger (and slower) than a small ball of fire, or that more Int or Faith requirement means more power. I don't know, it is its own thing and requires a bit of thought from the player.

And its not like things are obtuse to the point of being stupid. We have Poison and Freeze for example, and it does exactly what you expect. Big sword is strong and slow. Most things do what they seem to do just by their name or looks.

 

[trashbandit]

I still have no idea what Scarlet Rot does exactly, and I love it. Every time I see it, I get scared. A stupid status effect has more impact than what most games do. You know what happens when the game doesn't tell you exactly how much damage a spell does? It makes you try them all just out of curiosity. 10 years and the UI/UX of these games is basically the same. Maybe that's the point.

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It's poison that kills you faster.

 

[SunBroDave]

Me coming into this thread to finally read the reviews now that I've finished the game

 

[CloudWolf]

Yes.

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Guess that one's on me for clicking through it thinking it was about the menu hotbar lol

 

[LumberPanda]

Jesus, I was not expecting this dumpster fire when I clicked on the thread.

If there's anyone who should be allowed to criticize the game and receive zero controversy, it should be other developers who crunched really hard at their own game and have professional experience in the field expressing those opinions on their personal twitter account.

I don't care if you disagree with them, it's not "toxic". Y'all acting like Taylor Swift fans every time someone says they aren't a fan of any particular song.

But how do you figure out what you like without trying most things? If there was a damage indicator (that by itself depends on so much more stuff) then you would also need a speed and aoe indicators for example. Then you have all this info, yet, the spell still might not look as cool as you thought.

You can also conclude for yourself that a Comet is stronger than a Pebble, or a big ball of fire is stronger (and slower) than a small ball of fire, or that more Int or Faith requirement means more power. I don't know, it is its own thing and requires a bit of thought from the player.

And its not like things are obtuse to the point of being stupid. We have Poison and Freeze for example, and it does exactly what you expect. Big sword is strong and slow. Most things do what they seem to do just by their name or looks.

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Many ARPGs seem to be able to describe what spells do and how their damage algorithm works. Meanwhile, I'm sitting in game "experimenting" on figuring out why the heck I would bother with Dark Flame Blade - it doesn't tell me the fact that it might do %HP damage or how much faith I need for it to be a better choice than just using Lightning Armament. Weapons tell me their exact scaling and what type of damage they do; spells give me a mediocre description and a minimum stat requirement.

 

[Lumination]

.

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I love that your response to their post that the mystery is the fun is spelling out the mystery lmao.

 

[Disco Infernal]

Jesus, I was not expecting this dumpster fire when I clicked on the thread.

If there's anyone who should be allowed to criticize the game and receive zero controversy, it should be other developers who crunched really hard at their own game and have professional experience in the field expressing those opinions on their personal twitter account.

I don't care if you disagree with them, it's not "toxic". Y'all acting like Taylor Swift fans every time someone says they aren't a fan of any particular song.


Many RPGs seem to be able to describe what spells do and how their damage algorithm works. Meanwhile, I'm sitting in game "experimenting" on figuring out why the heck I would bother with Dark Flame Blade - it doesn't tell me the fact that it might do %HP damage or how much faith I need for it to be a better choice than just using Lightning Armament. Weapons tell me their exact scaling and what type of damage they do; spells give me a mediocre description and a minimum stat requirement.

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Devs should be given a pass to shit on other devs and reviewers? The takes keep on coming.

 

[GwyndolinCinder]

Me coming into this thread to finally read the reviews now that I've finished the game

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did the same thing, and just left

 

[Lumination]

Wait, we're STILL talking about that horizon dev shit? Let people shitpost, who cares? No one's honor was besmirched. I can't believe ya'll still on about ethics in game development.

 

[Disco Infernal]

Wait, we're STILL talking about that horizon dev shit? Let people shitpost, who cares? No one's honor was besmirched. I can't believe ya'll still on about ethics in game development.

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It's continuing because people feel like if you shitpost on Twitter, people shouldn't shitpost back to you. Apparently some people are new to Twitter.

 

[Drek]

But how do you figure out what you like without trying most things? If there was a damage indicator (that by itself depends on so much more stuff) then you would also need a speed and aoe indicators for example. Then you have all this info, yet, the spell still might not look as cool as you thought.

You can also conclude for yourself that a Comet is stronger than a Pebble, or a big ball of fire is stronger (and slower) than a small ball of fire, or that more Int or Faith requirement means more power. I don't know, it is its own thing and requires a bit of thought from the player.

And its not like things are obtuse to the point of being stupid. We have Poison and Freeze for example, and it does exactly what you expect. Big sword is strong and slow. Most things do what they seem to do just by their name or looks.

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Why do they give us weapon damage then?

Is it an intentional design choice to give casters less info to figure out their toolset despite having a finite FP pool to then try it out? You can test a dozen different weapons and never need to use a pot or a site of grace to restore, but if you're trying to test out spell effectiveness you need to waste a bunch of time learning basic scaling of damage.

The Souls games and related IPs have always required the player to try out their tools to learn range, swing paths, timing, etc.. That would exist regardless of how they present spell information. The experimentation isn't the issue, the experimentation threshold demanding so much more work of player A just to get to the same point as a different build/class for player B is.

 

[LumberPanda]

Devs should be given a pass to shit on other devs and reviewers? The takes keep on coming.

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If by "a pass" you mean "they're allowed to air their opinions without harassment, brigading, death threats, and being the centre of childish discourse by man-children who've made a video game that hasn't even been out for two weeks their whole identity" then yeah absolutely they should be given that pass. Even if their opinions are wrong.

 

[JoJo'sDentCo]

If there's anyone who should be allowed to criticize the game and receive zero controversy, it should be other developers who crunched really hard at their own game and have professional experience in the field expressing those opinions on their personal twitter account.

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I wouldn't really say they started the conversation with level-headed discourse. Those devs were being kinda hyperbolic and childish. The response from a lot of people was disproportionate though.

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

There are multiple posts on the Elden Ring subreddit with 15,000+ upvotes and hundreds of comments, all shitting on these "salty developers." I'd almost guarantee that they got a massive, completely improportional backlash on Twitter itself.

And, I mean, I honestly can't blame them for being a bit "salty." These people have spent years of their lives trying to make things like UX, Quest Design and Accessibility improvements for their games and here comes the supposed "NEW GOAT!!!!" that either doesn't feature those things, or does but doesn't do it well. Then, after that, legions of people begin to post about how games like Horizon Forbidden West are suddenly "open world Ubisoft trash," that deserves its place in the dirt.

Imagine how disheartening it must be to code and implement ground-breaking new accessibility features - as we've seen in many recent 'Ubisoft trash games' - and have your work be seen as garbage in comparison to the game where "Should it have a pause button," is an actual thing that people genuinely debate over. For people to look at your years of experience refining UIs and making intuitive systems to make the user's experience better, and post shit like this in response. For people to look at the in-depth quest you spent weeks designing - with many hours spent with actors, animators and more and go "actually it's complete shit" compared to Souls games. Games where Yardtool, The Gardened says "Seek me over there, in the Pillowed Lands" and then randomly dies because you spoke to Florrick of Belgianbun first.

Couple that with the years of nigh-on constant "backlash," towards "liberal SJW American devs," from many of the very same people and, honestly, I'd be surprised if no-one on that team was even a tiny bit salty. People fail to realise that there are people behind the "UBISOFT TRASH BATTLEFIELD 2042 BAD HORIZON = SHITTY HANDHOLDY GAME!!!!" narratives, they simply see them as faceless masses who are simply there to give them what they, and they alone, specifically want - market forces, creative visions and business pressures be damned.

Yeah, sure, it is unprofessional to publicly dunk on another group's work like that - but that can be dealt with by their respective employers if they see it as a problem. To people on the ground the only thing you should really do is ignore it, not vow to 'boycott Guerilla Games' or shout at them on Twitter.

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All of this.

 

[Disco Infernal]

If by "a pass" you mean "they're allowed to air their opinions without harassment, brigading, death threats, and being the centre of childish discourse by man-children who've made a video game that hasn't even been out for two weeks their whole identity" then yeah absolutely they should be given that pass. Even if their opinions are wrong.

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No one should be posting like petulant babies on Twitter. They don't get a pass for doing so just because they're developers who happen to be posting like petulant babies. And no one should ever get death threats on Twitter regardless.

 

[LumberPanda]

I wouldn't really say they started the conversation with level-headed discourse. Those devs were being kinda hyperbolic and childish. The response from a lot of people was disproportionate though.

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Exactly. How "someone was childish on twitter about a video game" justifies the discourse in this thread and the hate they received for it still baffles me. Like that's clearly a "that's a dumb opinion, moving on" situation right?

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I think it's justified to be childish because they're obviously heavily involved in those games and worked super hard and it's reasonable to be somewhat impacted emotionally, even if it's healthier not to be, by how those games were received. They put in so much work on UI/UX, quests, etc., which Elden Ring is very minimal in, and so I can imagine why that would feel like everything you crunched on is worthless. Right or wrong, airing that out on your personal twitter account isn't harmful.

A consumer complaining the same way would have put their emotions heavily into a video game, it's unhealthy to be emotionally invested into a product like that. These developers crunched hard, it's reasonable for them to be emotionally invested.

[Removed quote and argument with troll that was here]

 

[pappacone]

I wouldn't really say they started the conversation with level-headed discourse. Those devs were being kinda hyperbolic and childish. The response from a lot of people was disproportionate though.

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only one of them was hyperbolic

 

[JoJo'sDentCo]

only one of them was hyperbolic

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2 IMO

 

[Disco Infernal]

Exactly. How "someone was childish on twitter about a video game" justifies the discourse in this thread and the hate they received for it still baffles me. Like that's clearly a "that's a dumb opinion, moving on" situation right?


The fact that you describe them as "petulant babies" for mild video game discourse, meanwhile the contributions you've made in this thread, is massive irony.

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Because calling out reviewers for overrating a game that scored better than yours is so mature? Amazing we still have people defending shitty behavior that we wouldn't tolerate from anyone else. It is in fact possible for devs to critique constructively rather than do so like you'd expect from a troll or fanboy.

 

[WetWaffle]

Fucking wow.
This makes me not want to go back to Horizon.

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Considering you already paid for it, I doubt they care. Not to mention how asinine your statement is.

 

[LumberPanda]

Because calling out reviewers for overrating a game that scored better than yours is so mature?

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Never said it was, don't strawman or gaslight me.

Amazing we still have people defending shitty behavior that we wouldn't tolerate from anyone else. It is in fact possible for devs to critique constructively rather than do so like you'd expect from a troll or fanboy.

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You literally called them "petulant babies" twice in your last post. Someone airing out frustrations the way they did does not justify your behaviour in this thread, regardless of whether or not you agree with them. "It is in fact possible" that you need to take a step back and understand that "those are some dumb tweets, moving on" would have been completely reasonable behaviour "rather than do so like you'd expect from a troll or a fanboy".

 

[Drek]

Because calling out reviewers for overrating a game that scored better than yours is so mature? Amazing we still have people defending shitty behavior that we wouldn't tolerate from anyone else. It is in fact possible for devs to critique constructively rather than do so like you'd expect from a troll or fanboy.

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A review industry that gives Elden Ring the scores it got when the PC version shipped and still is broken, when the PS5 version periodically deletes saves, and where the "best" experience is forcing the PS4 version on a PS5 has no credibility.

Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying Elden Ring despite its technical and design flaws, but the gushing over it from reviewers exposes just how susceptible that part of the industry is to hyperbole, group think, and all the ills that go with it.

They aren't giving users a real idea what the quality of the game is because they avoided discussing the performance of the game as well as various other technical and gameplay failings. If the games reviews press wasn't just an apparatus of corporate PR it'd be a valid issue to question the ethics of most major publications.

Imagine the car enthusiast press saying 'this car is so much fun to drive, gets great gas mileage, and is incredibly reasonably priced! Everyone should buy one!" while knowing full well that the car routinely has brake failures.

Its not a big deal because its just video games, but then reviewers shouldn't generally be taken seriously because its just video games and they lean on that crutch to not actually engage in the consumer protection/advocacy role most serious reviews media is expected to present.

 

[Disco Infernal]

Never said it was, don't strawman or gaslight me.


You literally called them "petulant babies" twice in your last post. Someone airing out frustrations the way they did does not justify your behaviour in this thread, regardless of whether or not you agree with them. "It is in fact possible" that you need to take a step back and understand that "those are some dumb tweets, moving on" would have been completely reasonable behaviour "rather than do so like you'd expect from a troll or a fanboy".

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The irony of accusing others of gaslighting and then claiming the troll-esque tweets were just "airing grievances".

 

[Plum]

I mean, if you've spent a massive amount of effort on something and a significant amount of people are resonating more with something seemingly "low effort" the correct answer is to reflect on why that is rather than lashing out, and maybe realise it's actually far more complex than it seems given the amount of games that have tried what the Souls games are doing lore-wise and failed to make people care like they do.

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There's a difference between people simply liking x over y, and people intentionally ignoring and shitting on people's work simply because of they didn't like the overall product.

Like, when people post this kind of shit and say "LOL IF UBISOFT MADE ELDEN RING :D :D :D"

They're not making some well-intentioned, well-thought-out point about Ubisoft's modern UI design, they're just shitposting based on what they 'think' Ubisoft games actually are. Same goes for Horizon Forbidden West or any other game that people have deemed to be "Ubisoft trash."

This is what an actual modern Ubisoft game looks like:

...and you can turn the vast majority of that stuff of, because *gasp* - it's not essential or forced. It's there to help you if you want it, but because hardcore From people see "help," as an insult, the above is what they see the games as.

Yes, a lot of people think Elden Ring is better than HFW or Far Cry 6 or whatever. I'm very much inclined to agree. However, I'm not one to say that the entire game and all the elements within it are crap because I prefer the way Elden Ring does things. To do so would be as silly as saying Horizon Forbidden West's graphics are crap because they don't like quest markers.

It's especially bad when accessibility is one of the features being "dunked on," here. There's a very 'under-the-surface' theme of games being made accessible making being bad and/or unnecessary. When photos like the above get 50k upvotes on Reddit there's no acknowledgement that "I don't like your overall design philosophy, but I can commend your dedication to making your game accessible. It's "I don't like your overall design philosophy so I'm going to downplay your work as I think it makes games worse.

Yes, a few developers made some snide comments. That's not amazing. But if you look at the actual context - which is years of belittlement, comparisons to "Micheal Bay," and implications of 'getting woke, going broke' - then is it really that shocking? Do we really need to indundate them with countless DMs, hate messages, 50k+ reddit posts and forum threads?

 

[Disco Infernal]

A review industry that gives Elden Ring the scores it got when the PC version shipped and still is broken, when the PS5 version periodically deletes saves, and where the "best" experience is forcing the PS4 version on a PS5 has no credibility.

Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying Elden Ring despite its technical and design flaws, but the gushing over it from reviewers exposes just how susceptible that part of the industry is to hyperbole, group think, and all the ills that go with it.

They aren't giving users a real idea what the quality of the game is because they avoided discussing the performance of the game as well as various other technical and gameplay failings. If the games reviews press wasn't just an apparatus of corporate PR it'd be a valid issue to question the ethics of most major publications.

Imagine the car enthusiast press saying 'this car is so much fun to drive, gets great gas mileage, and is incredibly reasonably priced! Everyone should buy one!" while knowing full well that the car routinely has brake failures.

Its not a big deal because its just video games, but then reviewers shouldn't generally be taken seriously because its just video games and they lean on that crutch to not actually engage in the consumer protection/advocacy role most serious reviews media is expected to present.

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Their tweets weren't about PS5 or PC crashes. And to be fair, reviewers weren't seeing the crashes or save losses. Same way Returnals reviews weren't affected by the same issues.

 

[NinjaScooter]

Because calling out reviewers for overrating a game that scored better than yours is so mature? Amazing we still have people defending shitty behavior that we wouldn't tolerate from anyone else. It is in fact possible for devs to critique constructively rather than do so like you'd expect from a troll or fanboy.

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its also possible for fans to do that, yet nobody holds people here to that standard. What those devs said about Elden Ring was petty, yes, but it was also so fucking tame compared to what is said in this forum (and in this thread even) about games/developers on a daily basis, so what is all the pearl clutching really about? Because they were "unprofessional"? Because they had the audacity to put their real name/face to their comments instead of being anonymous randos spouting incendiary shit on a message board?

 

[LumberPanda]

The irony of accusing others of gaslighting and then claiming the troll-esque tweets were just "airing grievances".

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Ok, so you're just trolling at this point, ignored, hopefully others do the same and the thread can go back to something that isn't just childish flaming, witchhunting, and harrassment.

 

[Disco Infernal]

its also possible for fans to do that, yet nobody holds people here to that standard. What those devs said about Elden Ring was petty, yes, but it was also so fucking tame compared to what is said in this forum (and in this thread even) about games/developers on a daily basis, so what is all the pearl clutching really about? Because they were "unprofessional"? Because they had the audacity to put their real name/face to their comments instead of being anonymous randos spouting incendiary shit on a message board?

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People shitting on devs, reviewers or games like a fanboy routinely get actioned by mods here. Rightfully so.

 

[NinjaScooter]

People shitting on devs, reviewers or games like a fanboy routinely get actioned by mods here. Rightfully so.

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If people said the thing these developers said about Elden Ring on this message board, they would absolutely not get actioned by mods. In fact if people said what these devs said about Elden Ring on this message board, in this very thread, it would probably go largely unnoticed.

 

[JoJo'sDentCo]

I think this thread has run its course...

 

[Morrigan]

A review industry that gives Elden Ring the scores it got when the PC version shipped and still is broken, when the PS5 version periodically deletes saves, and where the "best" experience is forcing the PS4 version on a PS5 has no credibility.

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Wut. The tweets were not even about those things, for one, and for another, if the reviewers did not encounter those issues, why on earth would those things affect their review score? Saying they have no credibility because of that is ridiculous and insulting to the reviewers, who are individuals.

 

[Disco Infernal]

If people said the thing these developers said about Elden Ring on this message board, they would absolutely not get actioned by mods. In fact if people said what these devs said about Elden Ring on this message board, in this very thread, it would probably go largely unnoticed.

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People in review threads who question review scores as if there's an agenda at play or insinuate the reviewers are incompetent based on their scoring are in fact routinely moderated.

 

[Rowsdower]

I don't want to get dragged into this, but reading the three tweets, it didn't seem like the devs were shitting or throwing shade on FromSoft? Seemed to me that he was being more passive-aggresive towards game reviewers, stating that certain elements (in their view) got a pass when they felt their work was just as good or better. Which is a whole conversation in itself, one I've seen numerous times here on Era (Belda anyone?) At least that's how I interpreted it, maybe I'm wrong, I dunno.

Edit: Well that tweet below is definitely salty lol.

 

[JoJo'sDentCo]

If people said the thing these developers said about Elden Ring on this message board, they would absolutely not get actioned by mods. In fact if people said what these devs said about Elden Ring on this message board, in this very thread, it would probably go largely unnoticed.

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This is kinda lazy dev rhetoric, but yeah, most of what they said wouldn't be bannable.

 

[NinjaScooter]

People in review threads who question review scores as if there's an agenda at play or insinuate the reviewers are incompetent based on their scoring are in fact routinely moderated.

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"routinely"? For something as tame as what was said in those tweet? lol yeah right. Seen any EDGE thread lately?

This is 100% less about what was said, and more about who said it, because that allows people to stoke these stupid fanboy wars.

 

[En-ou]

He thinks that albeit Elden Rings UX being bad, the game still got stellar Reviews. If i work hard for years and years on a certain aspect of a game and another game comes out, get's praised as the next big thing, while the aspect you are working on is bad, i'm sure as hell would be furious and voice my opinion where i want.

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That would be quite stupid. No one is saying ER is so good because of its UI.
That's like if you composed music for a movie that had a shit story and thus lower than average reviews and another movie has godtier writing but meh music score. And now you're complaining that your movie should get higher praise.

 

[Disco Infernal]

I don't want to get dragged into this, but reading the three tweets, it didn't seem like the devs were shitting or throwing shade on FromSoft? Seemed to me that he was being more passive-aggresive towards game reviewers, stating that certain elements (in their view) got a pass when they felt their work was just as good or better. Which is a whole conversation in itself, one I've seen numerous times here on Era (Belda anyone?) At least that's how I interpreted it, maybe I'm wrong, I dunno.

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That is aimed directly at From.

 

[DrROBschiz]

Just skimming the page and already saw someone post that the reviews were all momentum/groupthink/mass psychosis for giving good scores despite the performance issues

I am like... Mother fucker the answer to your question is in the reviews themselves.

There is no conspiracy or bizarre mental phenomenon or virus infecting peoples brains or some industry-wide collective malfeasance

 

[Rowsdower]

That is aimed directly at From.

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Yea, that one is bad. So is the response as well.

Social media was a mistake.

 

[Disco Infernal]

Yea, that one is bad. So is the response as well.

Social media was a mistake.

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Without question social media is bad. The tweets were dumb, the responses were dumb. But what makes Twitter worse is even if they did post constructively, they would have been attacked by From fans.

 

[FliX]

Temporarily locking the thread due to high number of reports.

[edit]
At this point, everyone is aware of the Elden Ring review scores. Since this discussion has gone completely off the rails, it is permanently locked to further posts.