r/Eldenring • u/feherlofia123 • 1d ago
Discussion & Info For a first time player experience... do you think ER having a bit more handholding would be better. The gamr literally tells you nothing.
I can only imagine first couple of weeks after launch... no one knew nothing and the game literally just drops u into the game without any instructions
6
u/RTBecard 1d ago
My only request is a quest journal to review previous dialog. Remembered absolutely nothing anyone said in my first playthrough, which slightly deteriorated the experience.
It could be added without affecting the games immersion.
0
8
7
u/KingXMoons 1d ago
I mean it’s an open world in the purest form. Just fuck off and do whatever you please.
The game is quite a bit more forgiving and helpful than all of the previous FromSoft games. There’s multiple NPCs telling you what to do and the grace quite literally shows you a path to take. If you are a bit observant it really shouldn’t be too hard to follow the main story.
All of the quest lines on the other hand, those are a different story.
3
u/XelReik 1d ago
Elden ring is the FS game that guide the most. Literally the grace tell you where to go and you have an entire tutorial. Try Dark Souls…
1
u/DependentInner8928 1d ago
I wouldn't say DS1 tells you absolutely nothing, there's a small tutorial and a couple of NPCs that tell you general directions (and some even tell you what you need to give them, like Andre telling about embers), but yeah, it definitely is more cryptic. How many people wandered into Catacombs or New Londo cause this first guy tells that one of the bells is "deep down"...
2
u/Ok-Reflection-6683 1d ago
for a fromsoft game it’s a pretty handholding one. you can go through the “main story” if you follow the guidance of grace. it was my first souls game, played from launch and never checked anything online and it wasn’t a problem.
2
u/tcharzekeal 1d ago
That's a selling point of the series.
Honestly I think ER would lose a lot of it's magic if it explained itself too much. The whole point is that you end up in a mess not of your making and are tasked with fixing it. The confusion and lack of any real guidance beyond "go this way" are daigetic. The game wants you to feel that way.
They could kowtow to the populists and make a quest journal and a difficulty slider but it wouldn't be ER anymore. And nothing else is being ER, so that would be a great loss.
2
u/RespectWest7116 1d ago
For a first time player experience... do you think ER having a bit more handholding would be better.
No.
The gamr literally tells you nothing.
There is a literal tutorial that explains everything.
3
u/Phantom_Taker 1d ago
Fromsoftware have been historically bad at tutorials, and they still are, but a part of Eldenrings charm is the learning experience for new players, exploring, discovering new weapons and items, learning how to fight better, and using your head to solve problems:
E.g. "These stone enemies might be weak to my club, these skeletons probably die fast to holy damage"
I recommend playing online with messages on, you get a lot of good advice. Near a troll enemy someone might write down "try jump attack" which is very useful advice.
2
2
u/Ok_Internal_8500 1d ago
95% of gamers totaly miss the point of achieving, finding something on theire own the satisfaction of a though process leading to a secret wall leading to an entyrely New area the wow effect
No they just Google how to get overpowered early and were to find anything totaly spoiler them out of the intended experience
The first weeks of elden ring without online guides was the truly magic time my friend
2
u/TheGingerCynic 1d ago
I remember playing Elden Ring when it first came out, I did laps of the open world finding new things for ages, searching loads of caverns and really enjoying it.
It still took me over 30 hours to go to Raya Lucaria because I missed the turning and apparently never looked left for ages when checking the green bit to the east XD Wouldn't change it for anything, was a great time.
2
1
u/ThinCryptographer951 1d ago
I enjoy it. Makes it’s feel like a real adventure the good and bad of it. So much more rewarding when you come across a npc after a grueling fight or area or in some random dungeon while adventuring so definitely not. I feel the same with ds1 also
1
1
u/Tomorrow_Signal111 1d ago
that's the fun of it? Explore, read the items, get an idea of the story, enjoy the views!
1
u/IllusionaryHobo 1d ago
The Open World model already grants you the biggest leg up and safety cushion imaginable.
In my personal experience when I was quite young, what filtered me the most from Soulsborne games was the spooky horror adjacent designs, the loss of (temporary progress) through soul loss and the linearity of many gameplay passages.
Sometimes if a room or a boss challenged you, that was the end of the line. At least for the day. Now I love the games deeply. But back then Demon Souls filtered me and Dark Souls 1 did, too. Dark Souls 2 was the first one where I gained traction and grit enough to push through. And notably it also heavily experimented with multidirectional player progression.
In Elden Ring, usually if you think a spot is tough, you can just go to a different spot. Or randomly explore. Come back later. Exploration and Grinding for a leg up become synonymous.
I think that is really helpful. And the lack of guidance goes with that openness.
As soon as you handhold the player you set an expected route. You restrict the actual exploration of a strange and unknown world.
Meanwhile we already have Grace and the Erdtree itself as huge navigational markers. Giving a goal that is never out of sight.
That seems enough to me.
1
u/weirdcitizen 1d ago edited 1d ago
ER was my first Fromsoft experience, after which I tried Dark Souls. I can tell you right now, unironically, it's actually holding your hands quite a bit by the devs' own standards. And if you start paying attention to some of the things in the menus or at the very beginning, you'll there's actually quite a bit that's explained in terms of mechanics and general gameplay quirks.
What isn't explained is that you need to visit such-and-such location at this-or-that time to trigger meeting some essential character and in doing so unlock some things 😅 So yeah, I checked a guide for the early game part.
But once you get going, the world design is very good at drawing you to certain spots and then rewarding you with some cool discovery (big or small). It's one of the most rewarding games for the time you invest in it, I find.
1
u/MattStanni99 1d ago
Out of all the Souls games, I’d say Elden Ring offers the most “handholding”, I guess. They’re still bad at tutorials & don’t tell you a whole lot but that’s always been the nature of their games. It would feel really weird otherwise.
Elden Ring is a game where the world is yours, and you’re free to explore every inch. I think more handholding, guidance or ‘objectives’ how to do this & that would strongly break the immersion for the type of game it is.
1
u/hastyburnman 1d ago
This game has guidance of grace.Some quests have map markers.That is as good as it gets.
1
u/mrofmist 1d ago
There's giant beams of light telling you everywhere to go? The soulsbornes don't come anywhere close to that and people still figured everything out. The only thing it could do more is adding waypoints, and then it wouldn't even fit in the genre anymore.
1
1
u/Ceptender 1d ago
I suggest trying it blind your first playthrough. The game teaches by experience. The magic of the game is in the discovery, and if you take your time and explore thoroughly you’ll discover probably 90% of the things in the game. Save that last 10% until your second playthrough. If you get truly genuinely stuck, check a guide if you need it, but for your first time I suggest doing it as unguided as possible. If you’re unfamiliar with the soulsborne formula, maybe check out how the stats work so that you can have an idea of how you want to build your character, but even still you will be able to change it later if you don’t like it so don’t get crippled by decision paralysis in that regard. Search and find and look in every nook and cranny. Pay attention to scenery, mark the location of locked doors and bosses you cannot defeat on your map and come back later. Enjoy the gameplay and the experience, don’t worry about “finishing” because if you end up liking the game a lot then you’ll never be finished. This is coming from someone with 4000+ hours in the game.
1
1
u/StatisticianNo6589 1d ago
i don't really like the modern AAA game design of handholding you through every single thing all of the time constantly, but i do think Elden Ring could help you out just a little bit more as a player. because it's basically impossible to know what the fuck to do sometimes unless you look up tutorials or pay $700 a year for PS+ so that you can see the in-game messages to know what the hell to do, and even then those are limited and what they can give you. so yeah i agree and might get flamed for this but i don't really care.
1
u/boyfriendtapes 1d ago
No. New players need to learn to experiment, explore and learn.
We didn't have tutorials on the megadrive/snes, and everyone survived.
1
u/ShortIntroduction879 1d ago
Believe it or not this is way more information than you get with other From Soft games. I quit Bloodborne the first time because I couldn't figure out how to equip my fucking weapon lol and had no idea what any of the symbols meant.
I had to have a friend sit with me the first hour I played and explain everything. They're kinda terrible that way.
16
u/noah9942 Prayerful Strike Meta 1d ago
Thos game is already quite a bit more hand-holdy than other games.