Eldon's Ring of Law, developed by FromSoftware, will be launched at the end of this month, and Bandai Namco has hosted a media pilot experience. In addition to playing, xiaobian also visited The producer of "Eldon's Ring", Kitao Taidai, and asked him to talk about the design of "Eldon's Ring".
Q: Why doesn't Connect allow players to ride horses?
A: Online play does not allow the player to ride a horse, but wants the player to focus on the goal of knocking down the boss in a specific area. We wanted players who connected to the line to move together to challenge the boss, rather than playing each other, so players couldn't get too far away.
Q: This time, the player plays the role of the protagonist who actively returns to the junction to compete for the throne, rather than passively involved, will this affect the ending?
A: The phased ending about whether the protagonist's ending is king involves spoilers so it cannot be elaborated, compared with the past, the motivation of the protagonist played by the player this time is stronger than the way in which the past was involved in the event, and we will let the player take the initiative to complete some goals and then achieve multiple endings.
In addition, NPC dialogue events are basically independent, but there are also NPCs that affect the plot.
Q: What are some mysterious footprints on the coastal area in this experience?
A: There are some mysterious footprints wandering in the game, mainly to let the player know that the special creature "Dung Golden Turtle" will appear, so that the player can wait here, and if they can knock it down, they will get the item.
Q: The game has seen a lot of system designs that want to be friendly to non-"soul" players (teleportation points, horseback riding, etc.), but in fact, the essence of the two experiences is still a hardcore challenge experience, the monsters are more tricky, how does the team consider the kindness of new players and the challenge of satisfying fans of the series?
A: We also want more players to play than a regular group of fans, so we hope that the less action-savvy players will finish playing this time, and we try to think about how to make the game more interesting.
But like the very important values in Dark Souls, overcoming difficulties and getting a sense of accomplishment in the game, we also develop it in this way, so if we change the game too simply, we will lose the main values, so we do not directly make the game simpler because we want more players, but increase the soul, stealth action, or multiplayer to reduce the difficulty.
In the past, it was not easy to get the connection props in Dark Souls, but this time the difficulty of obtaining the connection items has dropped a lot, hoping to reduce the difficulty.
Q: In this first experience, the Tree Guard changed to a novice Nyingef patrol, rather than going around the entire map like the previous experience version, what is the purpose of this change? Is it for the new subordinate Ma Wei? Or is it that the "pick-up" aristocracy in the beginning was not strong enough? Also, I would like to ask who decided to put the tree guard there? For players with lower levels, are there any tips for attacking him?
A: Because the closed beta version is a limited area, the amount and location of the enemy at that time are suitable for the method at that time, and there will be different configurations in the official version. Whether it is a tree guard or other enemies, it is not to bully the novice, but to change the position of the enemy in line with the range of the game.
At the beginning, the player will encounter him, mainly to let the player experience that there are very powerful enemies in this world, because this time there is a fairly high degree of freedom, if you really can't win, in fact, it will be recommended that the player first go around to other places to practice, and then come back to fight the tree guard.
Q: How long is the whole game? Will there be other, more challenging missions after completing the game once?
A: We try to adjust as much as possible, hoping to play within 30 hours, because the size of the map this time is very different from the past, so players will want to take a detour, and all kinds of attempts, so I believe that the gap in the number of game hours per player will be very large. This time, there is no new mission design for the second round, but as in the past, the inheritance ability will be stronger after starting the second round, and I hope that players can try more places that are not played in the first round, or other ways to play.
Q: In the actual experience this time, there are magician towers that play puzzle gameplay, is there much content of this puzzle play?
A: This time in order to make the process of exploration more interesting for players, so there are puzzles like the magician's tower, or painting, the way to play painting is treasure hunting, the player will get a painting, the player has to go to the designated place from the hint in the painting, you can get some props. But none of these are mandatory mechanisms to be solved, and we hope this will be an interesting mechanic for players.
Q: I would like to ask if the production team has received many players in the experience version who react to different professions and have a very different degree of difficulty in playing, what is the opinion of the production team on this, and what adjustments have been made in the official version?
A: At the beginning of the game, choosing different classes will indeed have different difficulty levels depending on the different classes, but this is also related to the profession that the player is good at, but the intensity of the magician is indeed relatively high when the test is closed, we also received these comments, but it was too late to adjust at that time, but we do have adjustments for magic and combat skills now.
But rather than directly weakening the magician, we are more concerned about the fun of the overall game, for the overall power of the magic, the flight distance we will consider, another focus is how the enemy will react when attacked from a distance, we are making these two adjustments simultaneously.
In the beginning, it must be more advantageous to attack from a distance, which we also know, so we don't have to weaken the magician, but it is undeniable that we did find some magic or combat skills that were too strong after the experience version.
Q: In the media experience, there will be a large number of areas that encounter negative conditions, but there are also messages from npCs mentioning the "antidote", curious whether the player can change the negative effects of the curse in a specific area by changing the landscape?
A: It is possible to change some of the terrain, such as making a foothold in the swamp, but there is no way for the player to disappear the entire swamp.
Q: Defensive counterattacks don't seem to be able to cause heavy enemies to collapse in balance, so will this move be useless in the later stages?
A: Useful at the beginning of the game, because the main purpose of defensive counterattack is not to make the enemy lose balance, but to allow the player to enter attack mode immediately after defending to inflict damage on the enemy, so it is also useful in the later stages.
Incidentally, one of the most mainstream ways to play Dark Souls is to build a shield, and the difference with Dark Souls is that because of the addition of jumping and horseback riding this time, this time I hope that the shield can have an active meaning, so there is such a design. However, on top of this, the ability value is still quite important.
Q: How is the server configured, and have you considered cross-platform connectivity?
A: The specific location of the server can not be revealed, but the player can choose to connect with the same region or the world, do not consider the reason for cross-platform connection is technical problems, this time is also because of the addition of the next generation of console version, only to consider that the same series of platforms can play with each other.
Q: Dark Souls 3 has reported a security vulnerability in the PC version of multiplayer mode, and players are concerned about whether this will affect the multiplayer mode stability of Eldon's Ring of Law?
A: After we received this report, there is an investigation and improvement, there will be news released in the near future, we have found a solution, but it will take some time, so the opening may be after the "Airdon Circle of Law". In Eldon's Circle of Law we also have a boosted environment that we hope will satisfy the player.
Q: Is there any way to recommend how new players can play?
A: It will have a great influence on the way the player plays, if you are willing to fight melee, you can choose a swordsman and use a medium shield to fight. If you want to fight from a distance, choose a magician. In addition, increasing the level and weapons can effectively increase the player's damage.