The much-anticipated Eldon's Ring of Law will be released on February 25. Recently, A9VG tried to play the official version of the game for several hours in advance, and interviewed the Kitao Taidai producer of FromSoftware with a number of domestic media, asking him to answer many questions we care about, the following is the interview transcript.
——What kind of feedback did the official receive from players after the last network beta test, and what changes were made in the official version?
Kitao Taidai: After the test, we received a lot of praise from players and the media, so we felt very at ease, so we can continue to work hard to adjust the game. Feedback about players is mainly two parts, on the one hand, the game balance, such as magic is too strong or a weapon is too weak, adjusting the balance is a relatively late job in the game development process, to the last moment before the game release will continue to polish and optimize, this time we will make detailed adjustments according to player feedback; on the other hand, the game mechanics are related, such as novice teaching and other mechanisms, because we are already familiar with the game in the development process, so we will think that players are also familiar with and understand the game, Through this test, we got a lot of feedback from players about how difficult to understand, so we will adjust the teaching for beginners, the text description of props and items, etc., so that players can more easily understand the game.
—— After the previously developed Bloodborne Curse and Only Wolf accelerated the pace of battle, The Eldon's Ring of Law chose a relatively slow pace this time, is this choice to fit the theme of the game?
Kitao: The Eldon Ring is a work based on Dark Souls, in which players need to wear heavy armor and other equipment, plus it is also a medieval fantasy style, so the movement will be slower. In Bloodborne Curse, the player wears a cloak, the class is a hunter, has different weapons, and moves lightly, so the attack is also faster than that of Dark Souls. Dark Souls 1 and 2 are indeed slower, and when Bloodborne Curses, players will feel that the attack action suddenly accelerates, and when dark souls 3 comes, they can't directly change back to the previous 1 and 2, so it's actually faster than 1 and 2. The battle rhythm of The Ring of Eldon is similar to that of Dark Souls 3.
Why did "Eldon's Ring of Law" come up with the idea of adding an open-world element? How do you combine soul games with open worlds?
Kitao: At that time we wanted to be able to create a vast world full of mysteries and adventures, so we chose such a large wilderness open world as the theme of the game. As for how to combine the two, there are many types of open worlds, and they cannot be generalized. Initially, we did not choose a reference from the various open-world games, but expanded based on Dark Souls, and then let players explore in such an open world, whether it is well integrated may be judged by players after release. The core gameplay of the game is still designed with the battle as the center, and in the open world environment, players will have a richer choice of how to approach the enemy and fight. In the past, Dark Souls was based on dungeons, but this time we added the open world to do a lot of new experiments and configurations, but also to let players maintain the previous combat experience, which is the part of our painstaking efforts.
Eldon's Ring of Law is still a challenging game, many powerful enemies will make people feel stressed, how to let players reduce the pressure to play is the theme we try. In the past, in the "Dark Souls", the player will lose his soul when he dies, and he needs to run back to get it back, the underground labyrinth of "Dark Souls" is not so difficult, but the open world map of "Eldon's Law Ring" this time is very troublesome, so we will set up a system that allows players to re-challenge in more difficult locations to adjust the game in this way.
—— In the demo experience, we found enemies that only appear at night, what is the specific impact of the day-night cycle system on the game?
Kitao: As a big premise, we actually want to change the game in a day-and-night way. In the early stages of game development, we actually thought about trying to make the day and night have completely different enemies or other mechanisms, but later found that players may feel that playing during the day and night will have a feeling of being forced to get stuck in the game, and the player will feel that this is very troublesome, so finally choose not to let the day and night difference affect the game. There are still some parts that will affect because of the difference between day and night, the first is the prop, because the prop will shine, so sometimes it is not easy to find during the day, so it will be relatively easy to see at night. Another part is that it is not easy to be detected by the enemy, and it is easier to hide at night, especially in rainy weather, and it is easier to hide from the enemy.
——The freedom of the game is very high, you can go to many places in the early stage, is the difficulty difference between each region very large, is there an official recommended process strategy order?
Kitao: If you start by heading from Nyingef to Galid on the other side, it will be difficult for early players to attack due to the strong enemies there. We recommend that the order of comparison be to collect various items and complete various events in Nyingover, and then go to the Stoneville area. Of course, if you go from Ningafu to Galid at the beginning, try to challenge the strong enemies there, and after rising to a high level and collecting a lot of powerful items, it is no problem to challenge Stonewell's boss in a relatively strong state.
Many people will find FromSoftware's games difficult, and players have two voices for such games, one is that they think that such a challenging game is fun, and the other is very eager to get through but unfortunately can't beat it. How do you view this phenomenon as a developer, do you think that the current difficulty is just right, or do you want more people to go through it? Specific to the Eldon Circle of Law, what efforts or plans have you made to face such a situation?
Kitao: We also know that many players think that games like Bloodborne Curse and Only Wolf are very difficult, and from the perspective of the development team, we never considered making very hardcore games, games that only some players can enjoy, and we actually want players who are interested in these games to enjoy them. We're sorry for some players who want to play but find it too difficult to meet their expectations, and we hope to make games that more and more people can enjoy. "Dark Souls", "Bloodborne Curse", "Wolf: Shadow Death Ii" is the biggest feature of "the sense of achievement after overcoming difficulties", and this is also the part that we hope players can enjoy when playing, we feel that removing difficulties is not the right way, how to attract more players to challenge, this is the subject we have been working on. Allowing players who are not good at this game or who are good at playing other games can also overcome this difficulty through a variety of different means, which is a point that FromSoftware attaches great importance to. We will not make enemies that are absolutely undefeated, some at first glance can not be beaten but in fact can rely on experience, thinking or strategy to defeat, this time "Eldon's Ring" also has the design of the soul, multiplayer play and other difficulty reduction mechanism, multiplayer play situation is more likely to appear than "Dark Souls", you can easily ask others for help, these selective elements are what we joined, hoping to let more people play our game.
——In the past, the Soul series may have started with gameplay and then created a plot with the gameplay, but this time you are working with Gorgy R.R. Martin (note: the author of Game of Thrones) to create a plot first, and then do the gameplay, will this process change bring some changes to your game development? Do you have any insights to share with Gorgy R.R. Martin?
Kitao: This time, as in the past, it was decided to play the game before creating the story. First of all, after Gorge R.R. Martin decided on the big framework of the worldview story, we designed the action and all the gameplay, to integrate this gameplay into the worldview framework, and then to complete the details of the game world step by step. We worked with Mr. Martin in a different way than we've done in the past, writing not the stories that players will see when they play Eldon's Circle of Law, but the mythological stories of the more distant times that preceded those stories. The part that FromSoftware is responsible for is the post-mythology, which is the story of the main axis of the story, because of the way we make the game, so this kind of cooperation will appear.
If It was FromSoftware who made the game first, and then asked Mr. Martin to write the story, then in order to match the fun of the game, he must cooperate to write such a story, which will become Martin needs to be modified all the time, and it is not necessarily so attractive, so they did not take this approach, but Martin first wrote the mythological part, and then we wrote the story that happened in the subsequent world, and then cooperated with the gameplay of the game.
Martin wrote a story better to understand how to reflect the part of this game, in the game of the world players can see the characters, such as Marlenia or other demigods, these demigods actually appear in the myth written by Martin, the mythology part is very his style, is very entangled, human entanglement story, such a part will actually be shown in the "Eldon Ring". In games like Blood curse in the past, those bosses shouted and rushed to slash people as soon as they appeared, but this time in "Eldon's Circle of Law", these bosses will first talk to the player's character, showing some of the feeling of the world described by Gorge R.R. Martin.
How does FromSoftware balance the RPG and ACT parts in Eldon's Ring of Law, such as which parts have to test the player's skills and which can be greatly reduced in difficulty with items and upgrades?
North End: The Eldon Ring is a more RPG piece, and we wanted to have more RPG elements than Dark Souls, rather than an action-adventure like Only Wolf. Elements of RPGs in Eldon's Ring of Law include level-ups, weapon enhancements, etc., as well as different factions of weapons and magic. Settings like Bloodborne Curse that make the game easier by using a music box are also included in this game.
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Kitao: I can't just say no. We love making levels like this that connect in unexpected places, so there will be ones in this game, but we want players to try out all sorts of routes and find locations like this in their own way.
- While playing, we encountered various forms of dragons, attacking in different ways and in different forms. What role does the dragon play in The Ring of Eldon?
Kitao: Although the game is not designed with dragons as the main axis this time, there are some scenes with themes designed with dragons as the main theme.
We found that the golden line on the blessing point will roughly guide the player to where to go next, in areas where these blessing points are not open, what is the way to guide the player to explore the unknown area?
Kitao: Deliberately did not place any very strong guidance on what the player must do. The golden thread of the blessing point is only a guiding clue, in addition to the auxiliary means such as a bird's eyepiece to observe other places. In addition, we are looking forward to the message function that everyone will use after the official launch of the game, and the messages placed by many players in the game can bring different changes to the game experience.
——The development of "Eldon's Law Ring" this time, do you think that this open-world form has any advantages over the relatively closed design form of the previous Dark Soul series? Or is there any idea or idea that can't be realized in the past that can be realized in this "Airdon's Circle of Law"?
Kitao: Although it is not an advantage, our original preset game is mainly divided into two parts. One is the open wilderness, and the other part is the underground labyrinth, which is as intricate and undulating as Dark Souls, and the wilderness part was expected to be very flat. Later, starting with Mr. Hidetaka Miyazaki, including the interest of all the development teams, we slowly made the plain into a form with a high and low difference, hoping to create a very three-dimensional environment with a very high game density. Although this will also be related to the player's gameplay, I still hope that players who have played Dark Souls in the past can experience the freshness in this experience. The way the environment in the game is designed is different, and the actual game experience will be completely different, for example, I have been using a straight sword myself in the past, this time in the "Eldon's Ring" found that there are more ways to get close to the enemy, so I tried a variety of weapons, I hope that old players can also try more different ways to play.
—— I met a total of 12 NPC characters in a few hours of experience, which was already the case in the early days, so are there more characters coming later, and will so many characters make the story more difficult to interpret and more complex than the previous soul series?
Kitao: Actually, as you just said, players will encounter quite a few NPCs early in the game, but these NPCs will never see him again if they don't see them this time. There are a lot of NPCs in this work, and through the narration of these NPC fragments of the world, players can construct the appearance of the whole world by themselves. We think it's possible that there's a situation like "who is this NPC?", but overall the game's story should be easier to understand.
——FromSoftware's past few soul series games, can present a very wonderful visual and play experience in a limited scale relatively closed map, will the use of open world maps this time lead to more difficult design? Or whether it will cause the content in the subsequent map to be diluted, like some other open-world games, and finally use non-repetitive content or piles of materials and materials, resulting in a decline in the experience of the game. How did your team handle this?
Kitao: This time the part of the underground labyrinth follows the technology of the past Dark Souls, and the density of the underground maze game is still very high. When it comes to open-world, FromSoftware doesn't like repetitive tasks like running errands and collecting footage, and it's not about criticizing or contrasting other open-world games. We want to focus on the combat experience, players may get a good combat experience in this game, you may go to a certain level on the map will encounter a thrilling and thrilling battle, experience this battle to get the corresponding items or experience points, it will attract you to further explore the map and encounter more ferocious battles. We felt that running errands and repetitive stuff wasn't the fun part, and all the open wilderness gameplay that we had belonged to FromSoftware's own concept, which was a combat-centric gameplay experience.
- What is in the game that Mr. Hidetaka Miyazaki is fully involved in, or is it something he proposes to be added?
Kitao: Mr. Miyazaki is the director of the game, so in fact, the game starts with a world view, and almost every part of the game is something that Mr. Miyazaki himself says he wants to do, or something he participates in. For example, gameplay, art design, music, action, narration will be involved, and even many of the NPCs' lines are involved by Mr. Miyazaki, I hope you can look forward to it.
- What are the unique features of the PS5 version of Eldon's Law Ring?
Kitao: This PS5 version of Eldon's Law Ring adds haptic feedback, which is also the first challenge for FromSoftware. Haptic feedback function can make it easier for players to immerse themselves in the game world and game experience, if you have PS5, you can try to use PS5 to experience and feel the game experience brought by haptic feedback.