As the latest in the Orthodox Souls series, Eldon's Battle Design follows the Dark Souls series, which is a high-stakes battle with a variety of weapons. Of course, there will still be some difference between the strength and weakness of the weapons, after all, you can't make the stick and the giant axe in the boss have the same output. Interestingly, however, the difference between the strengths and weaknesses of the different types of weapons is delicately balanced, all weapons are "usable", and when you strengthen the stick to +8 or +9, it will also allow you to beat the level.
On top of this, the qualitative change and the new war ash system of the "Ring of Law" have greatly expanded the gameplay of a single weapon. The freely changing weapon attributes and special combat skills have completely broken the inevitability of "warriors are stunned", and now you can become a magic warrior with a staff and a large sword, or a Debuff stream despicable warrior whose sword is smeared with poisonous mist.
At the same time, it also allows players to use their favorite weapons to cope with almost all combat situations, and the Eldon Ring of Law weapon system can be said to truly realize the so-called "sword of the brave, that is, the real sword of the brave", even if it may not be a sword at all. And the last battle system that made me feel "can be what I want to be" should be Capcom's Dragon Doctrine.
On the other hand, the fusion of the torso value of "Only Wolf" can be said to be the finishing touch that makes this system perfect. In the past Dark Souls series, the high risk of combat and the existence of energy slots made attack a behavior that consumed both resources and easily put the player in danger, which made players more inclined to conservative gameplay, and the priority of avoidance and defense was often much higher than that of attacks, not to mention slow "heavy attacks" and combat techniques.
How to balance the benefits of heavy and light attacks has always been one of the problems that action games have to face. Especially in the face of such a high-risk combat environment as the soul system, the benefits of the high mobility of light attacks are often higher than the additional damage caused by heavy attacks, after all, it is only exported if you are alive. The solution to this problem is for most games to have a different type of attack than a light attack, such as assigning various attributes, the nature of the strike, or becoming one of the components of the combo.
So how did Dark Souls deal with it? They choose to do something about "toughness". Heavy attacks can inflict more impact on the enemy, thereby reducing the enemy's ability to move, and if you make a move at the right time, you can directly interrupt the enemy attack, causing an extra hard straight. The idea is good, both to increase the benefits and at the same time to allow heavy attacks to be a means of reducing risk. But unfortunately, the past toughness mechanism requires players to master the timing and situation, which belongs to a medium and high-level skill, and for heavy weapons such as large swords and giant swords, the difference in toughness brought about by light and heavy attacks is actually not significant, and the usual light attack, big hard straight time release technique or maximum output slashing may still be the attack strategy that most players will naturally adopt.
Even though the FS Society's efforts to improve this mechanism can be seen from Soul 1 to Soul 3, there are many more types of hard straight types alone. However, for the player, the judgment required to use this mechanism and its reward are still much worse than the tie A tactics. The Old Man's Ring cleverly combines the torso value system of Only Wolf on the basis of toughness, which is actually similar to monster hunter's stun or deflation - making toughness a cumulative debuff. Depending on the weight of the weapon and attack, in addition to being able to inflict hardness on the enemy, the enemy's torso value will be accumulated additionally, and when the torso value is full, the enemy will enter the "execution state", which is a special hard value, the player can choose to take the opportunity to make up for the state, execute to give the outbreak, or use other means of maximizing output.
This gives the player a clear enough indicator: as long as the heavy attack is hit, it can accumulate more torso points. The key awareness that "even if the heavy attack is not a small hard straight or interrupt attack is not hit, this action will be more helpful to the next battle" makes the presence of attack methods other than light attacks, namely heavy attacks, combat skills, jump slashes, and defensive counterattacks, greatly increased. At the same time, like "Only Wolves", the enemy's torso value will gradually recover over time, which gives the player the urgency to "maintain the torso value", which in turn increases the player's desire to attack in disguise. Use light attacks to maintain torso values when small hard straight, and heavy attacks to effectively accumulate torso values when large hard straights - this system thus achieves a delicate and perfect logical balance in offensive strategy.
While Old Man's Ring still needs to be strengthened in terms of the numerical balance of this system, its expansion of combat thinking can be said to be an extremely perfect leap forward for a soul game that emphasizes free combat and regards combat strategy as a puzzle-solving experience. In addition, even players who love shields and defenses, Yinggao is also very friendly to take care of, the new defensive counterattack of "Old Man Ring" has no bad damage and torso value, lifting the shield is no longer a pure passive behavior like in the past, "blocking the attack" can also become a reward, which is why I think defensive counterattack may also be one of the design highlights of this combat system.
Although I blew the Old Man's Ring flying in the main text, when you think about it, whether it's torso value or defensive counterattack, we can find similar mechanics in many other action games, such as the Monster Hunter mentioned in the article. Rather, these "new" systems in Old Man's Ring give me a feeling closer to "this way" than amazing. But given that Dark Souls has never been a pure action game like Monster Hunter, and its experience may still be more focused on level puzzles and strategic planning than the thrill of combat, I still want to give a big thumbs up to the change of Old Man's Ring.
Although I have a high opinion of the mechanism design, this time "Old Man Ring" is in the boss skills and AI design, I am going to complain about it. Extremely unfriendly to melee combat, the boss has a short attack gap, strong pursuit ability, brainless reading commands, and super bad perspective locking, which is really getting more and more angry. But the flaws are not hidden, and I also found a wife in the game. So, "Old Man's Ring" is really great!