"Eldon's Ring of Law" is the deserved king of the recent gaming industry, and the touch editors are no exception, indulging in it, writing the "Old Man Ring" night talk for nearly two weeks. Coupled with some early experiences and reviews, we've written a lot about it. Now, a month after the game is released, the editors have either completed the level or are on the way to a fast level. After dozens of hundreds of hours of play, do you have some more comprehensive ideas and understanding of the game? Do veteran Soul players and relatively less "old" players feel differently about this work?
To this end, two editors with different experiences and emphases in this area sat together and had a conversation about the experience that Eldon's Circle of Law brought to them. Mr. Yang Zongshuo's own experience in action and open-world games is quite rich, and he has played "Blood source curse" and "Only Wolf: Shadow Death Twice" in the "Soul" series. At present, he has been swimming in the world of Eldon's Circle of Law for 100 hours and has just completed the level. Teacher Zhu Siqi is a "soul" game lover, the whole series has passed, not long ago happily got the platinum trophy of this work.
This conversation took place before the 1.03 update, but we also added some discussion about the new version after the update.
Atmosphere and open world
Zhu Siqi (hereinafter referred to as "Zhu"): As a unique open-world game, what is the overall atmosphere of "Eldon's Ring of Law" for you?
Yang Zongshuo (hereinafter referred to as "Yang"): Very good. The world (actually just Nyingef) is beautiful, and the backstory of the Fragment Kings fighting each other is not bad. More importantly, there are so many things to explore on the map, I went to Stoneville from the beginning of the guide, hit halfway and came out to visit the Sobbing Peninsula, the atmosphere of these 3 locations is completely different, and my mood of exploration is also very different. Even in the later stages, each map has its own characteristics.
Zhu: I also feel that the world atmosphere of Eldon's Circle of Law, especially the representation of the consequences of the fragmented war in the backstory, is a relatively new aspect. When I went to Red Lion City, I never broke through the bridge, and along the way I was riding horses, trebuchets, crossbows... Guns and bullets rain. The outskirts of wangcheng are also full of barracks artillery craters. Although there are similar scenes in the previous game of the "Soul" game, some of the designs in this game are not exactly part of the level, but also serve the worldview. At the same time, I also saw a lot of relatively passive enemy configurations, which were relatively rare before. From the Sacrificial Bridge to The City of Moen, there were many creeps, including a sitting mountain demon who did not take the initiative to attack, but looked like they had just escaped, and even had a kneeling next to his dead companion. This kind of scene is difficult to see in the previous game.
In addition, the number of NPCs in this game is particularly large, and their intersection is also more than in previous works, so it seems that the plot is a bit complicated, and you may accidentally realize that some NPCs know each other - they may belong to the same camp, or there may be new hatreds between each other, which will make me feel quite interesting in the process of walking the plot. Even NPCs who have basically no plot, such as businessmen and even mobs, sometimes just sit there playing the piano and playing the flute, which will make me feel that it has added a lot of complicated charm to the whole journey.
Some of the creeps in the scene do not take the initiative to attack, as if immersed in the afterglow of their own battles
Near the Mirage Magician's Tower, there is an earthworm face crying at the tombstone, and the reason for this is unknown
YKN: NPCs build the tone of the world a lot, and their stories are rich and intertwined, but I think that also raises some questions.
Eldon's Ring of Law is an open-world game — let's not talk about the definition of "open world" or the difference between it and "open world" in the narrow sense, it has at least a huge map where players and NPCs can run around, and you are very likely to miss a side NPC on the way. They may not have much of an impact on the plot (Tailor Burke), they may play an important role in the plot (Serena, Half Wolf Blaise, Puppet Master Selvis), or even open an important branch line related to the ending (Irena, Millison in Moen City), if you are not careful, you may miss a lot, and most of the NPCs you can name have extremely close and deep connections, involving the whole body. I believe more than one person stumbled and trampled Millison to death.
Especially in the later part of the game, every decision and every move I make, such as whether to do a certain branch line, whether it is done well or not, whether any NPC accidentally dies, will affect the world to a different end. Deciding the fate of the world is a big deal, but it's bound to my thoughts... There are even some things I can't resist. I played "Broken Star" Ratahn very late, just for fear of missing an important side line. Without looking at the raiders, this pressure will crush me.
Wish: Will other games give you that feeling?
Yang: You can't hack NPCs in most other games... NPCs don't die for reasons other than the plot. In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, you may also do a bad side quest, but doing a bad side quest will do much less damage than The Eldon Ring.
Zhu: That is to say, there are too many uncertainties that will cause you to do this line badly, far more than normal open-world games.
Yang: Yes, and it's hard for me to actively circumvent it without looking at the guide.
Some side NPCs can easily be injured by mistake, especially in large maps in the wild
Zhu: At this point, old players may feel that many things are ancestral. Missing NPCs and important side quests, for example, is part of the game experience as "suffering" is. Not many people in the original Dark Souls were able to save Solar without watching the Raiders, and at the beginning of Dark Souls 3, few people could find that the sculpture in the corner of the Church of Yu'er Shika was mimetic. These are not problems of not being careful or blind for a while, but the game is designed to embarrass you. In the work "Eldon's Ring of Law", the old thief is still quite benevolent, and more than half of my side lines are made up after completing the level, and most of them will not be affected by the progress of the main line.
However, this really does not mean that the Eldon Ring of Law continues this design is completely reasonable... Can't be an old stubborn with a mouth full of "ancestral"! Souls is a basically linear process in its predecessors, and the map is not so large, and a player who is particularly critical or curious can knock on every wall along the way. But the world of Eldon's Law Ring is too big and too rich, and finding someone in a three-bedroom, two-hall apartment and finding someone in an old castle manor is not a level of difficulty or feasibility.
In version 1.03, the location of the NPC that the player has seen will be marked on the map, I think the experience is a little improved, but it does not have much effect on finding people, at least the Patch of Sunshade City I rely on myself to meet...
Whether or not NPCs can be found is sometimes based on luck under the open-world map
Yang: Yes. Irene the Raven in Bloodborne Curse is also not easy to find at first, having to turn over a window with a lot of barrels. But at that time, there were only a few roads in front of you, and the area to explore was such a large piece. If you really can't do it, you will turn it everywhere, and you will always turn it there. Eldon's Ring of Law is different, I have ten thousand places to go, even through traps and portals in the early stages to run to the late map. So, I felt like I needed a "notebook," not necessarily a to-do list, but something to keep track of the key plot and NPCs.
Zhu: "Eldon's Ring of Law" does have some basic functional deficiencies, such as not being able to remember which dungeon was finished and which one was not finished, and the location of the portal is not clear, so you have to play the icon yourself (but if you bump into it in battle, you can't mark it). Also, the very basic "one-click cancellation of all markers" in the open world map, it did not give the light pillar marker to do this function, but did the icon, I think it is quite confusing. After all, there are obviously more times when the guiding cursor needs to be removed, and it is very torturous after the map is fully opened...
But I'm still in favor of removing the "canned" open world mission guidelines. Under that guidance, I probably spend half the time running from A to B, with the shortest straight-line distance between various question marks, with neither surprise nor fun in the process.
Yang: Right. I think the so-called "canned" open world guidance is a bit too strong, but the Eldon Circle of Law guidance is a little too weak, and we may need a more eclectic way of guidance. For example, Souls of Tsushima uses the direction of the wind to suggest what to do next, which is equivalent to blending the mission guide with the whole game atmosphere. In the "old man's ring" it is made into a light that elicits a blessing, and I think I can strengthen the part of the light. You can also ask NPCs to say a little more about where they're going next, in a clever way... And not just "I'm going on a tour.".
Some NPCs are haunted and more difficult to find
Zhu: Speaking of open worlds, is Eldon's Circle of Law a standard "open world"? It feels more like a huge field box with a lot of small boxes.
YY: As I said before, it depends on how we define the "open world." The game industry has yet to give a big and complete definition of "open world", and our current impression is based only on the face of games that claim to be "open world". If a game looks like Zelda Legends: Breath of the Wild, it's probably open world, and that's true for The Witcher 3 or Ubisoft games, but can we say that games that don't look like them are not open worlds? Death Stranding is also very open-ended, but we rarely hear anyone mention it because it's so hard to be defined by something formulaic or copied or imitated. The problem with Eldon's Circle of Law is similar to its own. This atypical open world is usually a little particularly prominent, "Eldon's Ring of Law" is combat, "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wilderness" is a map interaction (although we always take it as an example, but "Zelda Legend: Breath of the Wilderness" is not a typical open world), "Death Stranding" is based on... "Death Stranding" is based on what, it is really powerful.
Battle-oriented exploration process
Zhu: The Eldon Ring also adds a system for collecting materials, which is also more common in the open world. Players cook and make things, but the feeling is that the store function is taken apart, and everyone buys Molotov cocktails and antidotes in other games. These elements have not essentially changed my gaming experience, except that they make me feel that this worldview is more "yang" and the fader is more like a living person. I don't know what your feelings are about that.
Yang: I don't think I need this system at all. I didn't feel the irreplaceability of it throughout the game, and I barely made a single item (Alexander branch line made an oil jug).
Zhu: There is no antidote to moss?
Yang: No. I either resisted hard or used prayer to detoxify and scarlet corruption. If you look at the other works in the Soul system, Bloodborne Curse and Only Wolf, they all do some subtraction. "Only Wolves," in particular, basically gave up all kinds of exploration, that is, put the combat system first. You can even pass the level without any ninja tools, or just one or two ninjas. Props play an auxiliary role after all. The Eldon Ring of Law is adding again... But these things are still not of much use.
Zhu: I see. When we say that the production system is not of much use, we are not saying that it does not improve much on the open world experience, but that they do not help the combat system much, that is, the necessity is not so high when fighting. After all, compared with other open worlds, the "Soul" game still pays much more attention to combat than others.
Yang: Right. Frankly, there's very little interaction between the player and the map in Elden's Ring of Law, and you rarely actually interact with the map compared to games like Zelda Legends: Breath of the Wild or Red Dead Redemption 2. Battle comes first.
Zhu: Can you give an example of this interaction you are talking about?
Yang: Fishing! There were a lot of rivers in the narrow space, but I couldn't fish.
In the open-world games we are familiar with, interaction with maps is an important part, such as the classic pepper picking on the snowy mountains in Zelda Legends: Breath of the Wilderness, which encourages you to explore the map, and Marvel Spider-Man also encourages you to swing in various places. Such guidance rarely appears in Eldon's Ring of Law, and there is little interaction with the map. Most of the time, the Eldon Ring of Law exploration just allowed me to find a wider variety of enemies and fight in different areas. Or rather, improve your abilities and thus fight better.
Lieonia of a Thousand Lakes... Can't fish, but there are big lobsters!
I myself call this design "battle-oriented", that is, all your activities are ultimately in the service of combat. It's very simple to play through the level, just fight Greco and the Queen of the Full Moon, and then be a Ten Mile Po Sword Saint in the tomb of Gui Orron... Then go to the royal city to "open the matchless", why should we go to Gehrid or Mount Gemmel? Because there are new breeds of enemies and bosses waiting for us.
But we can't say "this is not an open world game", or "This is an open world game", these things in Eldon's Circle of Law can only be done by FromSoftware that has made "Soul Blood Wolf", this accumulation is too deep, I think we should not evaluate it by "is it a good open world", but say that this is a good "soul" game, and it integrates well with the open world.
Zhu: So you think, before we talk about the open world, it should be clear that Eldon's Ring of Law is still a game with the combat experience as the core, which makes its open world design as much as possible to serve the combat experience, rather than saying that it really serves exploration?
Yang: Yes, I think so. Of course, this is just a point of view, and it is normal for everyone to have a different point of view. And I'm not saying that the boss combat experience is higher than the exploration map, the exploration map is also part of the battle...
What we now call the "because of the open world" pre-skipping raiders – let me put it bluntly, the Mage went to get the Meteorite Staff, Rock Balls and Famous Knife Moon Cain in the early days, and even the parkour upgrade + 9 knives – the only purpose of doing this is to make it easier to fight, will you spend a lot of effort to get the Master's Sword in the early days of Zelda Legend: Breath of the Wilderness? I won't anyway.
If in other open-world games, I would most likely have used this type of "skipping class" in the early stages to get a horse, a motorcycle, or a retinue. They make my exploration a little bit smoother, but in Eldon's Ring of Law, you get a very strong weapon, which is the biggest difference I think is from most open-world games on the market.
Zhu: After all, it is a battle-oriented.
On the other hand, the game gives you a lot of alternate options. For example, if you want to go to the yatan plateau, the most important map in the middle of the period, there are actually two ways to go, either get two runes to take the big elevator, or go up from the valley bottom secret village. I think it's a trick to prevent you from finding important props because of exploration errors. There are also plenty of somewhat difficult portals that allow you to skip certain feeders or go straight to certain maps.
So, I feel like the production team took into account the possibility that players wouldn't get something, they wouldn't see an NPC, but they still didn't do it particularly friendly... When you want to advance the plot through backup means, or advance exploration, you will find that you may have better skills than others, or you may need to find a guide.
In the game, it is often possible to go through different routes to the same destination
YY: I think what the production team should do is to try to keep me from missing an NPC, to get a prop more smoothly, rather than preparing me for the back road – and sometimes not preparing the back road.
Zhu: But I do feel that Eldon's Ring of Law is more interesting than the open-world games I've played before, and it makes my enthusiasm and curiosity about the map almost continue through the level. Even if it is platinum now, I still want to run to see it when I see that some places are blessed with sparse blessings. This weakly guided open world gives me a good overall experience, and of course, there are details that can be optimized.
Yang: I don't really like exploring maps...
Zhu: That's a bit of a hassle. There is a very hidden level suppression system in Eldon's Law Ring, especially the main line of the big box court will have difficult faults. This is forcing you to explore in disguise. I understand that players who are accustomed to the original "one way" experience will be a little disliked, after all, you can naturally upgrade by exploring the map, and you don't need to take the initiative to force yourself to explore and become stronger.
By the way, when you were chatting before, you still think that the advice system of this work is more useful, why?
Yang: It's possible that this is not so appropriate... I've always felt that the advice system is very two, and there is not much difference. But Eldon's Ring of Law is completely different, I have so many places to go, and the cramped space is so big that I am afraid of missing something, which is a very, very useful system.
Zhu: I am afraid of death, and I am grateful every time I see the prompt of "there was an ambush before". When I played Bloodborne Curse before, the random dungeon was very sinister, and I was saved many times by advice, as well as when I ran pictures in some of the hades cemeteries in The Eldon's Circle of Law. So for me, the advice system has always been an important part of improving the gaming experience. And "Eldon's Ring" and "Bloodborne Curse", when playing alone, can be safe and bold to open the line, there is no burden, so I not only read, the message is more positive.
Yang: To put it more, the stereotyped sentence form of the advice system is very charming, I don't know why...
Next, it's useful to think clearly
Box and mechanism design
YY: After talking about the open world part, let's talk about something else. For example, "Soul" is a classic box level. Is the box design of this work higher than before?
Wish: Of course! I feel that "Eldon's Ring of Law" is the one that I have been most shocked and frightened in the process of exploring the map, and I feel very strongly. That sense of depth and complexity really makes me feel that it is the highest design standard in the history of maps. Do you have a map that impressed you?
Yang: The sewers of Wangcheng and some large and medium-sized ghosts hit the dungeons on the wall... I hate them, but the design is really good, there are jumps, there are fights, there are mazes, and the room with 3 rounds in a row is too shocking.
There is a fake evil omen fat man corpse in the "Ghost Hitting the Wall" cemetery
Zhu: Speaking of jumping, the original "Soul" series also had the need to fly the cornice to the wall, but at most it was some more malicious levels, such as the beams of the original Arnold Lund, the road of the double bow in the royal city, and the jumping music of the big tree cave... It's a purely difficult design, you're walking in a very narrow place, and a bunch of mobs in front of you are sniping you, or you're beaten up as soon as you fall somewhere.
But the idea of "Eldon's Law Ring" is to make the three-dimensional sense very extreme, you may jump over a low railing and find that there is a whole new world in front of you, a picture can be three or four floors around, there are countless beams, countless roofs can go. The Gelid Divine Tower is a good example, you have to fight the west side of the Dragon Tomb like Spider-Man, walk from the branches to the outer edge of the tower, climb all the way up and down to the inside of the tower, and then jump down from the inside of the tower... Regardless of the enemies inside, the psychological pressure brought about by the complexity and height of the map alone is far more than many previous works. The mood when jumping is very exciting.
The Galid Divine Tower made me, a person who is not afraid of heights, run out of fear of heights
Yang: What impressed me more was that after the picture of the volcano mansion was played with the god skin boss, there was a lift that would let you go up to the second floor of the church, but the second floor was a circle, a cycle of dead ends, I was looking for half a day to follow up, and finally found ...
WISH: Jump out from the balcony.
Yang: Yes, but my habitual thinking can't think of jumping out.
Zhu: Because there was no jump before.
YYO: It's only a small part, but I do feel that just adding jumps allows the production team to design and create maps more fully.
However, the production team did want players to feel that "we can jump" in some places. For example, I remember that there was a broken platform in the Rea Lucaria Mine, the running distance was very short, and the default running jump had to hold down the circle and then press the fork, jump with one finger, and finally on it was a discolored forged stone 3 or 4, which was of little use.
The jump in "Eldon's Ring of Law" is still relatively rough, the whole jump feel is not very good, how far to jump, jump to the edge will not slide down, is not particularly good. So, when I fall to my death and lose Lune because of these problems, I have a strong sense of frustration, and this frustration is not because I didn't jump well or I wasn't good enough, I was very weak.
So, subjectively, I think we probably don't need that much dancing... We can feel the fun of jumping in other games, such as "Azure" or something. I've said before that I don't like the White House in "The Hollow Knight", and although I admit that the White House is not bad, I also skipped it (mainly skipped), but is it necessary to appear in "The Hollow Knight"? Not necessarily. I think it should be more of a reward level, like "Path of Pain", rather than a necessary condition for a true ending.
Wish: The necessity is debatable, but I think the old thief should really enjoy the jumping music, only to pile up so much... There are many places in this work that make me think that the production team must be very satisfied with a certain design and use it desperately. Look at the mud trucks in the Hero's Graveyard that were moved from Dark Souls 2, that's called intemperation...
(To be continued)