After selling 1200 W, the old man ring also began to be blackened by more people

Since "making players suffer" has always been a feature of soul games, players who like this type are relatively niche.

However, the new soul system "Eldon Ring", which is jokingly called the "Old Man Ring" by players, breaks this convention.

Hidetaka Miyazaki and George Martin, the two gods of death, worked together to build

Less than a month after the launch of The Old Man Ring, the SALES OF THE PC version is expected to exceed 12 million copies, and the popularity of Steam online and major live broadcasting platforms is still unabated.

The peak of the old ring online peak is more than 950,000

Compared with the less soul-heavy "Only Wolf", it has only received 5 million sales worldwide under the bonus of the best game of the year in 2019.

Moreover, the old man ring currently has a clearance rate of more than 17% of players, which is also much higher than that of "Only Wolf" in the same period. In today's soul game circle, even if you don't count the cloud players, the influx of new people has exceeded 10 million (PC + console).

The "Only Wolf" first three weeks of clearance rate is just over 10%

These data prove two things:

1. The old man ring is not only bought by more people, but also more people who play seriously; 2. This time the soul game is really out of the loop.

For veteran soul players, the "Eldon Ring" is a double-edged sword. The good side is naturally attracting more like-minded partners, and the bad side is that the atmosphere that the small circle has built up for many years has become sour.

As a result, the collision and friction of new and old players, the onlookers eating melons and watching the drama, so that the old man ring that was sold for less than a month gave birth to many "black spots".

01

Single-player games even have chains of contempt?

When former Soul players introduced themselves to each other, they always reported how many hours they had suffered and completed a difficult challenge, such as "In a few minutes, with some weapon, killed a certain boss" - this is a kind of master identity logo.

It used to be like this – Source @ Nasu Peach

However, in the old man's ring, there seems to be signs of "not talking about martial arts".

Now it is like this - the source B station UP main hammer game

The fundamental reason for the change is that the Old Ring is now an open world, and players can run to the later map to pick up powerful weapons and skills through parkour, dragging corpses and other means.

Coupled with a variety of difficulty-reducing systems, players can naturally arm themselves to the teeth, and then summon little brothers, jam the terrain, and throw a big move - easily cut the boss that should have tortured the player to death.

According to the past experience and habits, a considerable number of soul veteran players are still practicing shield counterattack and reciting skill sequences in the face of the boss omen known as the "novice quality inspector", and the new players next door have gone to the next level.

The status quo of the old man ring of the social security society: do not play the main line, enjoy the detour

"Such a beautifully designed BOSS... It's a pity. "A lot of veteran players have made similar sentiments.

And with the advancement of the game content, two factions of play have gradually formed in the player group: one is the hardcore play with the BOSS, the other is the skipping style of play that relies on the new system to reduce the difficulty, and even the two factions have a chain of scorn.

If the anchor plays like this, the bullet screen will most likely be accused - the source B station UP main little black-kuro

This arrogance of accusing others of how to play single-player games, although it only exists in a part of the population, but also slowly spreads to the outside of the circle through live barrages and forum messages.

02

For a plate of vinegar, wrap a meal of dumplings

The anger of playing soul games in the past came mainly from Hidetaka Miyazaki's malice. For example, in many anchors and video authors' anti-defense collections, those who are trapped and killed, who are sneaked by mobs, and who are taught by the BOSS to be human and other wonderful moments.

Many of the points that make players angry about the old man ring come from outside the game.

First of all, on the day of release, due to optimization problems, the phenomenon of frame drop, stuttering, flashback, etc., made players who had been looking forward to it for a long time or admired angry. Eldon's French Rings reported a 40% negative rating on Steam on Feb. 25, recreating the launch day of Cyberpunk 2077.

Hidetaka Miyazaki was the closest to falling from the altar

In addition to the initial optimization problems, some of the "not distracted" designs in the game also make new and old players have a poor experience.

For example, there is no prompt list for side lines, the map guide style is minimal, and the information of NPC lines is sparse, so that new players look at the open world with a confused face and only want to ask where the way is.

For the old players, it is the boss's fast and slow knife, grasping and tumbling, changing moves to restrain, interrupting and drinking medicine and other combat mechanisms, and the torture is much higher than that of the previous soul boss.

Where you roll, the boss will poke there - the source B station UP main hammer game

What makes countless players even more defensive is that a large number of bosses and mobs are equipped with "AI pre-read player buttons". This is similar to the prejudicial restraint of "you come out of the stone, I will come out of the cloth, you out of the scissors, I will come out of the stone", which is really a bit tricky.

Putting aside the previous chain of scorn for playing style, the pre-reading mechanism makes many players who like to challenge themselves feel painful, and when everyone understands it, they find that they can play with AI like a cat.

Attacking against the wall and the air, the enemy will also dodge

How similar

This is equivalent to saying that the boss and the mob can predict any action of the player, if you don't recruit the little brother, if you don't use the skin skill, the boss can abuse you all day long - figure this out, can you not be angry?

03

Hidetaka Miyazaki is a bit of a masterpiece that can't be held back

The main reason why "Eldon's French Ring" has the highest pass rate in history is that the new game mechanics take care of players, allowing them to obtain such high sales and online numbers in a short period of time.

Foreign anchors pass the "Eldon Ring of Law" within 1 hour

On the whole, the Old Man Ring can indeed be called the masterpiece of Hidetaka Miyazaki, and the advantages and essence of the soul system games have been inherited and enhanced.

Collection of the essence of the works of the past generations

However, as Hidetaka Miyazaki himself said in an interview: "The team decided from the beginning to make 'Eldon's Legal Ring' the largest work to date, and thought that the company's expertise was enough to cope with a project of this size... But in the end, it turned out that the project was larger and more complex than expected. ”

For example, the aforementioned summoning system is obviously a bold attempt by the development team to diversify the battle, and it also provides great help for players who play soul games for the first time.

For more tolerant players, this innovation is worthy of recognition, but in the eyes of more demanding players, this is a bit of a "dumpling for a plate of vinegar" feeling. Especially in the later part of the game, players can get the super powerful summon "Bionic Teardrops", and after having it, playing boss becomes a completely two-game game.

King Eldon (Bionic Teardrop) and his little brother (player)

So the root of all the contradictions has been found - most of the boss design in the game is to default to the "player opens the call", and then design the action and AI.

As the game enters the later stages, the player's experience begins to decline more significantly. In particular, the powerful summoner goes to the front to carry the boss, and the player stands behind to mend the knife, but this gameplay has lost the sense of oppression and performance effect of the soul system when facing the boss directly.

Of course, the difficulty of the game can be "chosen" by the player himself.

04

Is going out of the loop a good thing or a bad thing?

The high difficulty threshold of soul games has isolated mass players from the circle for many years. But interestingly, with the accumulation of word-of-mouth from generation to generation, soul games have begun to become more and more out of the circle.

From the "rise up to spread the fire" to "hesitate will lose" and other terriers spread, and then to the "Lord of Mystery" and other popular online articles on the soul of the game tribute bridge section. It is not difficult to see that the circle of soul games has become inevitable.

Of course, while out of the circle, the external traffic not only brings new heat to the game, but also has an impact on the niche comfort zone. For example, old players who are stereotyped and stubborn will be ridiculed as "old toys" and "old people" by newcomers or outsiders, so the indigenous people in the niche circle layer show further exclusivity.

So should the Eldon Ring of Law be out of the loop? This is certainly unavoidable for Hidetaka Miyazaki and game manufacturers, even if the number of new players is larger, which in turn changes the original game ecology - such as the recent popular old man ring training on Taobao, equipment currency trading, etc.

These can actually be given away and traded by other players...

Although these current situations make it difficult for old players to adapt, whether it is more frequently criticized by outsiders or the familiar game atmosphere is changed, it will be the long-standing status quo of the "Eldon Circle of Law"