'Elden Ring' Discourse Continues As Players Express Frustration Over Missing Entire Tutorial Area
Ohhhh, Elden Ring. The hot takes about FromSoftware's latest critically acclaimed open-world adventure will simply not stop flowing, particularly when it comes to its design. Over the weekend, game developers from other companies became the target of ridicule after taking public potshots at the game, but before that, another game developer kicked off a debate about the first five minutes of the game when joking about the way Elden Ring handles its tutorial.
Last Wednesday, Bruno Dias, a developer at Failbetter Games, joked about how at the start of Elden Ring, players are almost certainly murdered and teleported into a cave. There, a ghostly NPC and a developer message reading "The Cave of Knowledge Lies Below" will point players towards a hole that contains the game's combat tutorial. To the left, however, is a golden door that marks the start of the game proper. Many players opted to skip the big scary cave and head towards the inviting golden door, unintentionally skipping the guide on how to play the game entirely.
For FromSoft veterans, missing the tutorial isn't a huge deal, as Elden Ring plays very similarly to other games in the Dark Souls series. It could be a bigger problem for new players, however, leading to yet another debate about the accessibility of FromSoft games, with some arguing that the design of the opening area encourages new players to explore and others arguing the game should make the tutorial area less hidden.
In many ways, the discourse of Elden Ring echoes that of Dark Souls when it first began growing popular. Many players (yours truly, included) first took a stab at Dark Souls because of the hype, but the game's unforgiving difficulty and obtuse design elements turned some off. Elden Ring certainly recaptures that feeling, although it does offer players a reprieve by allowing them to simply go somewhere else if they hit a difficulty wall. Furthermore, if players are truly getting stomped because they missed the tutorial, they can always fast travel back to the starting location to complete it whenever they want.
At any rate, it's obvious we will not hear the end of discourse surrounding Elden Ring's difficulty and design any time soon. One shudders to think about the hot takes that will fly once new players finally encounter Radahn.
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MCC1701
On the last article on Elden Ring I mentioned it's always amusing to watch people try and stir the pot and find things to complain about. Sounds like sour grapes again from game devs of competing studios/games.
Is this a genuine issue? Eh, I guess it comes down to if you missed it or not and had a hard time. The game won't let you progress past that area until fully installed so I imagine most of the people playing day one were funneled there regardless. If you did miss it, you can always warp back at any time and the controls are simple enough if you just push random buttons to see what they do(IE crouch is for sneaking).
IMO the biggest argument on the side of "it's fine" is that the game encourages and rewards exploring everything. If it wasn't a tutorial but instead just an item in a pit with a ladder out, I'd put the onus on the player if they miss it. I wouldn't mind if they tweaked it a bit to encourage people to jump in, but either way I view this as extremely minor.
Cimyr
Honestly, this is why I avoid my critiques of these games for a long time after I play them.
Because I truly do enjoy playing these games, and the difficulty can be enraging, but especially now with Elden Ring I do love just running about smashing bosses and collecting cool loot.
However, ever since the earliest souls game, I feel like people have taken the "Its a hard game, it wont hold your hand!" mentality and essentially warped it into "The game can do whatever it wants, you cant be mad or criticize something in it, because it's suppose to be hard. Ever."
And I dont believe that FromSoftware should be exempt from criticism of their game just because "Its suppose to be hard.". Elden Ring is fantastic, but it isnt without its problems. However trying to talk about any problems that may exist right now, isnt going to work at the moment. Any complaint you have about enemy/boss difficulty, area layouts, dungeon designs, will all be hand waived that you just have to "Git gud".
Because sure, the game is beatable if you try and try and try. Still doesnt excuse when something of bad design does show up, you know?
WarLordM
How about they unfuck the PC port and then we can nitpick all their strange choices. Like, I just want to play this game without buying a console.
Rynjin
…There's nothing fucked about it though? It runs great. I get occasional stuttering on my low-spec rig but that's like, not the game constantly stuttering for a while it's just I hit a certain part of the game and get micro-stuttering for maybe two seconds and then it's fine?
WarLordM
The problems with the game aren't dependent on specs. Who gets worse stuttering is dependant on so many factors its basically random. The reason the issues exist are a combination of poor shader implementation and anti-cheat software. You are having a normal amount of luck, but I'm not taking that dice roll, not for $60 anyway
Rynjin
Eh…even if you have bad luck and it stutters, you can always refund it. Trust me, you'll notice within about an hour of booting up the game, and even if you go over the 2 hour limit a bit Steam support is actually really good at refunding you if you just say it's from technical issues. I tried to make the Resident Evil 4 PC port work for about 4 hours before quitting and they still gave me my money back.
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