Joseph Anderson - Elden Ring - A Shattered Masterpiece (Spoilers)
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Gotta love walking into a thread and seeing the pedanticism of "no, they don't read your input, they just instantly cast black flame the first frame of your flask animation!" as if somehow that removes the experience.
I'll have to watch for what he means by 1 since I liked the late game bosses, but 2-4 are my biggest complaints about the game as well.
Pacing, makes fights drag longer than they should and takes away from the back and forth nature that was in previous games.
The part being questioned/quoted is not a salient point. That's why I timestamped it and explained it.
Being able to disagree with content creators is fine if you're willing to put in some effort I think.
I haven't played Elden Ring (probably will eventually, and my fiancé has played it so I know most of the bosses/plot beats/areas), but I love binging Joseph's videos, so I look forward to this.
Most of his lows are there because of the design of the game itself and him refusing to accept the game for what it is though.
If we look at the main things he dislikes:
1. Late game boss design
2. Level balancing in the open world
3. Some recycled content
4. Boring "shrine style" dungeons
5. Poor exploration rewards
Only the first one can be taken as an actual flaw, or "low", and even that is something most people won't agree with. Yes, it is subjective, but throughout this video, he keeps talking about these things like they are facts.
Everything else will be different for all players because it is an open-world game.
The recycled content one is especially stupid, but I have already talked about this in this thread.
The thing is the optional content in ER pales greatly in quality compared to the optional content in the rest of Souls games. I think in Bloodborne something like 40% of everything is completely optional, but the quality matches the rest of the game.
The irony is that the optional content in an open world game tends to get more attention than optional stuff in a linear one. Often, the "meat" of an open world game is in the optional content, and as such it gets a lot more scrutiny. So there is an especially big disconnect between the expectation of quality for From AND the expectations of the open-world format.
holy shit, is this video satire?
Well that makes sense, Cinema Sins of videogames type crap.
Well that makes sense, Cinema Sins of videogames type crap.
FWIW, I found the game to be almost agressively boring, especially at this length. I keep thinking that if I get through this boss, something interesting will finally happen, that if I get to this area, I will finally find something interesting... Initially it's exciting to find new area but soon you realize that it's just recolored rocks with new filter, church, basement, and mine, with none of good writing that can elevate this repetition in other games. City, village? Same, empty and dead, it's just a cover for someone to attack you from. I just grab shiny shin and ride away, because why engage with any of it.
I had to laugh when I met sheep in one of the wells, then of course inevitable flowers and other stuff. But sheep were the funniest in the context.
It's like they made relatively cool world but forgot to put almost anything interesting in it. There are some cool boss fights and cool enemy designs, but I need something more, much more.
Like, most games show you the levels of your enemies. From is "above it", I assume, just like they are above visible map signs. I would respect that if it was truly different with enemies being randomly placed on the map (difficulty-wise), with all dragons being more or less X, gianst Y and so forth, it would be organic. But we clearly have level-based areas, just without numbers, so you can't calibrate how OP you want to become. The enemies are same-y, only in some areas they ate their morning porridge for some reason.
Which is a valid criticism since From are the ones who made the size of the game. After fighting dozens of dragons, multiple erdtree watchdogs, ulcerated trees, wrym dragons, fallingstar beasts, along with many more... at that stage I think it's safe to say they could have trimmed some of the fat.
And as for the dungeons/mines etc.. even just moving the dropdown point on mine elevators to the right instead of the left for mines would have been something.
The dude piggybacked off the success of Mathewmatosis with his Dark Souls 3 critique and has absolutely coasted with overlong nitpicks criticism since. His complete failure to comprehend Silent Hill 2 is an indication of how much he really knows
Yeah, it's a distinction without a difference and responses to that nature fail to understand the problem and point of that criticism.
The Godskin Apostle boss fight is one of the more clear cut examples of this with his fireball, but the problem isn't that the designers have created a mechanism for punishing poor healing, it's that the punishment mechanism is such that the only way to avoid it is to heal when you are comically out of range or to do so at the end of one of his attacks so he's locked into an animation.
The problem with that is that 1. When I'm healing, I'm usually out of range of all his other attacks EXCEPT the fireball, so it's not like I was healing while next to him, I was healing at what is otherwise a safe distance EXCEPT in the case of that one attack, which feels very arbitrary. And 2. Because the only real safe time to heal is while he's doing something else, what this means is that I have to wait for him to start another attack. And there was one comical point in the fight where I am just walking at a distance of 15 feet away from him, doing nothign because I know anything I do will be punished, while the AI also seemingly does nothing, waiting for me to try something so it could punish me.
It results in complete this complete dead space in the fight where I'm not making any decisions because I know the only right choice is to wait and be reactive to what the AI does, which itself seems to operate on the same principle meaning both of us are doing sweet fuck all. That's the problem input reading introduces, it makes you reactive on the boss fights AI in order to accomplish waht you need.
I feel like the odd one where Elden Ring is one of my favorite games of all time and yet some of his criticisms literally mirrored my own. I find it hard to disagree with the video.
Also half of this thread feels like people who know they can't argue and so they just shit on the person who made the video cause it's easier lol
Also half of this thread feels like people who know they can't argue and so they just shit on the person who made the video cause it's easier lol
Yeah, it's an issue for me as well. They don't give you enough runes usually, so why bother? That's why I'd love at least small section that you could clear out as a sense of accomplishment. Make the world in general the way it is, but let me clear small pocket areas for good so I'd want to engage with those enemies. I'm at a level now where I just don't bother unless I have to.
Caelid
Radahn Fight
Volcano Manor
Rykard Fight
Haligtree
Malenia fight
Dragonlord Placidusax
Mohgwyn Palace
Mohg fight
the sewers
the entire lord of frenzy questline
Ranni questline
Fia questline
And a ton of more stuff.
Yup, pales greatly in comparison to the Bloodstarved beast and the Celestial Emissary.
(I adore Bloodborne, but what you're saying is ridiculous).
I do agree with most of his criticism but saying that he's "Done with the series" feels a bit like unnecesary dramatism.
I have a lot of faith in the devs and hope they will eventually find a way to weave in the better elements of Sekiro's combat, such as jumping as a more present defensive option and ways to fight back the waves of attacks in an engaging way instead of running back til the boss stops.
That said, my biggest problem with the game was enemy scaling and the way content (and repetition of it) is spread through the world...which ultimately is a problem in all open worlds and not something you expect they'd perfect with their first entry
For enemy scaling I really was hoping they'd do what they did in Sekiro and spawn in harder enemies in the areas you did later on. They could explain these as some kind of invading force that shows up in the third act.
I have a lot of faith in the devs and hope they will eventually find a way to weave in the better elements of Sekiro's combat, such as jumping as a more present defensive option and ways to fight back the waves of attacks in an engaging way instead of running back til the boss stops.
That said, my biggest problem with the game was enemy scaling and the way content (and repetition of it) is spread through the world...which ultimately is a problem in all open worlds and not something you expect they'd perfect with their first entry
For enemy scaling I really was hoping they'd do what they did in Sekiro and spawn in harder enemies in the areas you did later on. They could explain these as some kind of invading force that shows up in the third act.
Threads about Joseph Anderson's videos always end up being as entertaining as the videos themselves.
So my takes on these issues
1. Not there yet but maybe Ill have something more to say about this when I get this far.
2. Doesn't bother me much. Outside of the truly bonkers endgame areas where enemies feel crazy strong and beefy the majority of the areas accessible from the start have a good mix of easy and tough encounters with the majority being avoidable where needed. Could it be tweaked to be smoother? I suppose but you are given so much flexibility in the open world that nothing feels overly oppressive.
3. The recycled content argument is a pretty low blow. Every game does this and this one still has more variety than most considering how it reuses its assets. It's a massive effort given its cross-gen base. Hitting them for this feels like a really cheap criticism
4. Outside of the visuals I found the dungeons to be awesome. That said I enjoyed the Chalice dungeons in Bloodborne so I am a little crazy in this regard.
5. This is his most ridiculous criticism. The exploration rewards in this game are fucking incredible and one of its best aspects. Will you find stuff you won't use? Sure but thats a limitation put upon by player choice. I fail to see how this should be a knock against the game. What a dumb criticism in my eyes.
Not sure I agree with everything he says in the video particularly stuff about poor exploration rewards, level scaling and recycled content especially in a game this big. But I do sort of generally agree with his assessment on bosses/enemies' more complex movesets and how player characters are able to deal with them. I made a similar post a couple days ago on my thoughts.
Of course this doesnt mean bosses are insurmountable but it does start to make gameplay feel extremely similar boss to boss. Like Anderson says in the video. "Watch 20 hit combo. Hope they dont do that %1 chance combo extension. Attack once, dodge away". In older games this gameplay loop of attack once, dodge away was more due to players having more stamina consumption and less movement capabilities.Now its because enemy design is more in depth than character design.
Without the context of what the player is capable of doing in fights ER has the most fleshed out boss designs(especially late game) that From have ever made. But the act of fighting them can feel a bit boring or unnecessarily frustrating due to how the player can counter them.
Like going back to Bloodborne not only did everyone have the same dodge but something most dont notice is that immediately after dodging, your attack would pull you back towards the enemy to counterattack. This simple change allowed bosses to have fast retaliation in their moveset without it feeling unfair. But in Souls when you dodge away and attack you arent drawn back towards the enemy. The game faces you in their direction but you may at times be out range which means taking precious time to trot up to them and attack while hoping they dont queue up another 10 hit combo or dodge away. Couple this small change with the how the boss designs have evolved and things start to feel a bit weird.
I'm not sure how you fix this problem without making future games more character action like Sekiro or "dumbing down" boss movesets.
Of course this doesnt mean bosses are insurmountable but it does start to make gameplay feel extremely similar boss to boss. Like Anderson says in the video. "Watch 20 hit combo. Hope they dont do that %1 chance combo extension. Attack once, dodge away". In older games this gameplay loop of attack once, dodge away was more due to players having more stamina consumption and less movement capabilities.Now its because enemy design is more in depth than character design.
Without the context of what the player is capable of doing in fights ER has the most fleshed out boss designs(especially late game) that From have ever made. But the act of fighting them can feel a bit boring or unnecessarily frustrating due to how the player can counter them.
Like going back to Bloodborne not only did everyone have the same dodge but something most dont notice is that immediately after dodging, your attack would pull you back towards the enemy to counterattack. This simple change allowed bosses to have fast retaliation in their moveset without it feeling unfair. But in Souls when you dodge away and attack you arent drawn back towards the enemy. The game faces you in their direction but you may at times be out range which means taking precious time to trot up to them and attack while hoping they dont queue up another 10 hit combo or dodge away. Couple this small change with the how the boss designs have evolved and things start to feel a bit weird.
I'm not sure how you fix this problem without making future games more character action like Sekiro or "dumbing down" boss movesets.
I still don't buy that. I'd just wait for them to throw the flame then estus.
Yeah, it sucks when you're in a panic feedback loop, but it really does seem to be cued off distance if you don' just play facefirst into the pattern.
Much like if you shoot an enemy, they'll start a projectile evasion routine where they pace back and forth, then eventually slowly back off. Killed a Crucible knight from a ledge just waiting for him to stop pacing since he'd just drop his shield eventually when the routines reset.
Magic Glintblade is a perfect example of this. The AI will dodge when the Glintblade is created (button press), but not when the blade is actually traveling.
If im not mistaken, they always read your inputs, right? i remember Gwyn launched at you if you tried to heal at a certain distance, but that was not as common as in ER.
I will leave this post here for the argument surrounding input reading. To me, its a very bad implementation of something many games do but here it just feels much worse.
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I wonder if that's intended as a dodge for a melee swing or just weird programming. Don't think anything travels that fast outside of maybe crossbow to require dodging that early at range.
Its absolutely a thing. Sometimes they have a delay, but NPCs could perfect dodge pyromancy or even gunshots.
Maybe people just don't really remember
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This 100%. The Ranni quesline alone and the locations you go to there are better than just about any side content in any other souls game.
There's no "wait for him to throw the flame" with the Godskin Apostle, the trigger is either on pressing square or on frame 1 of the healing animation. Someone had video proof in another thread, Google's making it hard to find, I'll come back later if I find it
Yeah, this thread is wild.
Finished watching the whole video. I absolutely love Elden Ring but I share almost all of his critism of the game expect for the poor exploration rewards. Always felt great to me finding a unique reward in a side dungeon even if I couldn't use it for my build. Great video.
Huh. I guess it just worked for me for magic reasons then.
As a mage build in ER it's funny how often this happens. Thank god for Rock sling. You really notice the input reading with that spell.I will leave this post here for the argument surrounding input reading. To me, its a very bad implementation of something many games do but here it just feels much worse.
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Oh brother.
I think calling half of that stuff is "optional" is kinda futzing it due to the format of ER (technically all legacy dungeons besides CFA and Leyndell are optional), but even if we're counting it, it doesn't change my opinion.
When I say optional, I refer to stuff that is not obviously main-quest content. For being extremely curious and investigative in Bloodborne, you get Old Yharnam, Upper Cathedral Ward, Cainhurst Castle. For the same sense of curiosity in ER you get...Carian Manor, Castle Sol, Shaded Castle, Castle Morne? Another catacomb filled with imps who all behave the same across 200+ hours of gametime? Sure it's a lot of stuff, but it's samesamebutdifferentbutstillsame.gif.
To be extremely clear: I love ER! You don't need to convince me the game is good, and I promise I am not trying to scare potential fans away. I probably have more hours in the game than most on the forum. With that said, the optional content in this game feels more optional, and more "videogamey" than any optional content in a From game has for a decade or more, which is a disappointment AND surprising considering the pedigree.
When From Soft says "open world", I sat right up in my chair because they are known for such crafting such unique spaces. But that's just not really what happened here, and why I think ER will be remembered in the future as a great game with a pretty standard open world after the hype dissipates.
Agreed. In games like this, if enemies are reading inputs as blatantly as in the Godskin Apostle fight it instantly kills the pace of combat. Like for anyone who has ever played a FG single player mode it is blatant that's what's happening.
And I'm not even against input reading happening, but it needs to be less apparent and not happen as often as it does in that fight.
What you were expecting was never going to happen. This game is massive and with it comes some repetition. The optional stuff will feel markedly more optional and video gamey just by nature of the design of the world. Even for a studio as amazing at unique content as From. Even saying that the amount of unique stuff and how the game encourages players to visit these out of the way locations through NPC quests, dialogue, and visual framing is top tier in terms of open world games. Caria Manor, Castle Morne, Volcano Manor, The Haligtree are all unique places regardless of the fact that they fit the castle motif.
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Input reading means the game literally knows what button you pressed, the moment the you press it.
Input reading would literally be you queue roll->heal, and they are already punishing your heal
no they don't. If they are in their "ready stance" (which many bosses have) they will heal punish you - but it's not when you press the button. Using your example it's when your character has put away their weapon.
Input reading would literally be you queue roll->heal, and they are already punishing your heal
The thing is, and I suspect there is a reason he decided to make a video like this, that his opinions have an aura of self-importance, as if he believes what he is saying somehow slipped by everyone else and he managed to discover it with his critical mindset.
He literally is the prototypical Internet critic, something most people decided they want to be sometimes during the past 10 years.
You can be critical without behaving like a critic, I really believe there is a difference. And your opinion is worth a hundred% more if you openly put yourself into it, show some passion and visible subjectivity.
For example, his critique of the fight with Margit (which was called out here already), would be something we could all talk about and laugh at, if he simply admitted that he fought the boss the wrong way, took things out of context and made a boss move seem much worse than it actually is, which he really did do.
Artorias, a well liked boss in DS1 does it pretty consistently on any estus heal. Its always been a thing, but its also always been fine to just leave that range or wait for a real opportunity. Same with enemies insta-dodging as linked before. If people don't like that that's fine, I get it, but Elden Ring is not introducing new concepts or outliers there.
Noah made a point of it in his lengthy Dark Souls video a few days back.
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I stopped watching Joseph Anderson's videos and stopped caring about him as a critic for the exact reasons outlined in that post but I don't have to worship the ground he walks on to think he has some valid criticisms that align with my experience.
"The worst guy you know just made a good point" and all that
"The worst guy you know just made a good point" and all that
I will leave this post here for the argument surrounding input reading. To me, its a very bad implementation of something many games do but here it just feels much worse.
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Yeah, to me the issue isn't that it happens, moreso that it's just so blatant and transparent that it leads to fights not feeling as organic. In all the Godskin fights, if you're behind cover they'll still use the fireball because that's all they're programmed to do 90% of the time. There's no regard for the environment or anything else, just Estus -> fireball.
I felt like I was watching a different video because other than the complaints about repeat playthroughs (which I feel is the case for all open world games), all his criticisms seemed pretty valid and I agreed with almost all of them. And like you, I say that as someone who loves ER and would put it in my top 5 of games I've played in the last 10 years or so.
Okay I gotta ask why are you taking this video so personally?
You basically entered in the thread, said you skimmed around the video, pulled some stuff out of context and got angry and then another came in writing a what they think of the person and you go: "yeah that confirms what I was thinking." As if that's persons thoughts on the guy was fact lol
5 to me is one of his more salient criticisms if anything. Beyond mixed usefulness of talismans and the stingy enemy/armor drops, accommodating to a new weapon in particular that you might find can be a laborious usage of resources that might not be worth the investment. At some point, players will factually be settled into a flow state of what works, and maybe there will be a better weapon somewhere in the world, but that can take a lot of hours of grueling exploration and encounters which is just as likely to be something entirely different that you'd have to respec, spend valuable upgrade materials on, and add onto some additional unspecified time of testing to maybe come to the conclusion that it's better than what you had previously. At that point when laying out the amount of potential sunk cost, the prospect of exploring can become a very menial task if you're only doing so for the incentive that you'll find something that'll be useful for you in future combat scenarios. What's more, this aspect is one of several other criticisms (several of which he outlined) that compounds onto the game's structure. It's probably why this is on the lower end of his grievances because this criticism is mostly a tertiary concern if you're looking at Elden Ring in a vacuum of avatar strengthening highlights.
The whole concept of "player choice limitations" as you describe is something that's usually a knock-on effect of how the game itself is designed, and I say that as someone who will go to bat for something like BOTW's weapon mechanics while recognizing that it didn't work for everyone. You could make a genuine case that Elden Ring does a fairly low effort job to encourage players to experiment and find value in items they'd never think to use, and even if there was no way they could be able to make things 100% pristine in this fashion because that's just how this type of system will inevitably pan out, some of those missteps are notable enough that it is something worth finding ways to improve upon, as I've seen several players (including myself) take similar issue.
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ikr. i adored my time with it, a friend of mine is already doing his third playthrough of it, and we still had similar criticisms.
THANK YOU.
the bolded feels like projection and just attacking him without attacking his argument. reads like armchair psychology. he voiced his opinon once, people liked his delivery and opinions, and he capitalized on it. it isn't rocket science nor inherently bad.
Interesting, I'll definitely see it after work cuz I find strange most points on this list (everything except 3 and maybe 2).
I'll come back to comment on that.
Like I said, its not that it happens and more of how obvious it is that it is happening.
2, 3 and 4 are by far my biggest complains and the reason I enjoy this game way less than previous From games.
Sorry, but you're literally taking things out of context and cherry-picking what's optional to suit your argument. The stuff I named IS optional and a lot of people won't get to see most of it on their first playthrough. If they are extremely curious and investigative they might, just like when they find Old Yharnam, Upper Cathedral Ward, and Cainhurst Castle.
Even if you say Radahn isn't optional (and I didn't name Raya Lucaria for example), you're still left with a ton of stuff. The Haligtree isn't hidden and/or optional? Placidousax? Volcano Manor? Rykard? Fia and Ranni quests? Come on, you're just acting stupid now.
I believe that the open world in ER is among the best in gaming, they crafted so many unique, amazing landscapes and am sure that it will be celebrated even after the hype dissipates. but we'll see.
3 and 4 are actually easily solveable by making the game smaller in scope. The game could have easily been cut a third, even in half, and it would have been huge. You could also auto-generate the dungeon layouts / enemies, but keep the same rewards so that it's deterministic based on where you are.
And for #5, more universal rewards would have gone a long way. Horse upgrades, physik upgrades, free levels, cosmetics, etc.
I don't disagree - for me a lot of it stems from From's choice of narrative design. The lore may be compelling to some, but while I'm actively playing it, I can't even remember half the people or differentiate between the M's, G's, and R's. The quest design isn't great either, and so if I don't care about the story or the side quests, I'm likely not going to care about exploration either to discover NPCs or lore, unless I get some sick rewards.
I understand the criticisms but I had such a blast during my 100% playthrough. I am totally on for anything FROM puts out next. I'm not going to let the faults of ER hold me back from more adventuring goodness in my future.
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