FromSoftware’s “Elden Ring” has taught us something

Games Halo Infinite
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Your 1. Point is and always was true.

It’s developers and publishers that pushed GAAS, early access, MTX etc on the consumers.

We never asked for any of this nonsense.

It is pure developer and publisher greed.

It A. Allows them to make more money upfront while limiting development costs. I.e. if an early access/GAAS
Bombs and doesn’t recover they can simply cease development immediately without ever delivering a complete experience. Leaving the development potentially years unfinished means those are years they didn’t have to fund it. And yes paid games can be GAAS just like F2P.

And B. With MTX being sold and using unethical and possibly immoral psychological tactics, they can extract far, far more revenue per player than a normal base price tag+traditional DLC/expansion sales model. Giving players literally less for more money.

Combine these concepts together and yeah gaming is absolutely worse off because of it.

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H5 fanboy detected.
1212

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Elden Ring’s level design makes Halo Infinite’s campaign look like a low poly rip of Canada from Google Earth, with some generic hexagons, rocks, and trees spammed across the map, and various fan made Halo 3D assets sprinkled around. Unappealing to both look at and explore. Feels uninspired, unnatural, unrealistic, and lazy. Every part of Elden Ring really expands on the world building, and you get really immersed into the world. Always something cool to look at.

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Just because talking points and world views are repeated, doesn’t mean they’re 110% objective.

Even the staunchest most vocal of Infinite critics discuss the controversies and negativity of the game alongside their desire to see the game improve for the better.

What’s constructive about everyone saying the same thing from the same perspective? It’s a place of discussion, so I’ll contribute to that discussion from my perspective.

I’ve played Devil’s Advocate and take that stance a lot for the sake of discussion, but I’m not even playing that role here. Most of what I stated was actually critical of the direction 343 had been taking and suggesting my own patronage to this game is time limited.

I’d say they haven’t had a great track record, but it’s barely been a good one at best.

However just because things have not been stellar overall doesn’t mean that every last aspect about every entry that 343 put out is bad. It’s imbecilic to accept the idea that just because “343i” is slapped on the box that every last bit of the games they released is 110% bad and -10% good.

Halo 4 was an awful step for Halo in terms of gameplay, sandbox, (arguably) art design, and focus shifts that favored trends over established mechanics. Graphically it was a marvel how impressive the visuals were for a late stage 360 title, the revamped Reach engine was probably the best engine used in a 343 title to date, and Spartan Ops was years ahead of the curve to what we’re seeing now represented in seasonal story telling.

MCC was an utter train wreck of a title multiplayer being solidly unplayable for the better part of a year upon launch, with graphical hiccups and even poor optimization causing some of the single player aspects to be unplayable as well. Fast forward and it’s one of the most robust and fleshed out collection of titles available to players, some titles reverted to their original glory through painstaking tweaks and others receiving modern overhauls alongside dev encouraged mod support. The MCC isn’t just a needed replacement for players who want to play older Halo titles after servers were shut off, it’s the best way to play them bar none.

Halo 5 was a tone deaf break from what made Halo Halo. Leaning heavier towards then modern tropes and forming monetization and gameplay around them alienating core fans in favor of attracting new ones. Making a visual mess that couldn’t decide whether it favored fidelity or stable FPS values, and introducing the weakest generic campaign to date. I can’t speak much to the positives of this title, but I credit H5 where it’s due in the department of a robust Forge mode, consistent and fulfilling updates, and a pronounced effort to right some wrongs such as a firefight mode (which wasn’t great) and an expanded customization suite.

These are obviously watered down talking points and we could go much deeper, but even though you know these games weren’t great to various degrees, surely you recognize there are good intrinsic aspects to them?

Vocal minority suggests that these unpopular ideas get some traction when it’s actually the opposite that’s happening.

An overwhelming majority of the time people such as yourself often misconstrue/misunderstand and/or oversimplify/generalize (or worse, purposefully misrepresent) what the differing person is saying on the basis of drumming up divisiveness or vitriol rather than accept the reality that someone has a different position on the matter.

I’m in no way “incessantly defending the concept of F2P”. I’ll admit I like the idea of playing a game that I don’t have to pay for, especially at a time in my life where financially I don’t have a lot of scratch to spend on myself or my entertainment. I can’t spend $60 on a several new titles a year or even afford $15 a month. Occasional discounts/deals, F2P and already owned titles are what I lean towards to get my gaming fix, hell I recently sold off some appreciated items on Steam just to afford D2 Witch Queen because I won’t have any funds to put into gaming until August budget wise.

There are drawbacks, particularly in development of titles giving Devs/Publishers the idea that a subpar product can just be released and patched later that shouldn’t be ignored.

Monetization is a concept that is hit or miss, and honestly it’s rather esoteric across the board and even within games themselves. I could point out how a game gets it right, but also how that same game gets it wrong. Releasing a game incomplete is pretty unilaterally bad, but monetization can have so much nuance within a single title.

If this were true, then F2P wouldn’t be as pervasive as a trend as it is.

There’s a spectrum of examples of F2P titles that range from near perfect to abysmal failure much like there’s a spectrum of examples of P2P titles that range from near perfect to abysmal failure.

I mean honestly, this isn’t black and white. This entire discussion is various shades of gray.

——————

I understand that you’re a staunch opponent to F2P, and I’m more so a middle ground/acceptor of it rather than a proponent opposite your stance. But calling someone a shill for a differing stance is just low my guy, especially when it doesn’t even fit the definition or the narrative. If you have a problem with what I’m saying, just discuss it rather than vilifying me personally. Contextually pointing out what you have an issue with can lead to some constructive discussion and a better understanding of each other’s stances even if we still don’t see eye to eye.

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I haven’t played ER and I’m not interested for it but it has an insane amount of content compared to Infinite lol and its the same price so it really makes you think if you’d rather a boring 5 hour campaign in a dead open world or a massive single player game that people claim takes hundreds of hours to complete.

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The game being free does allow new players into the franchise… However, Xbox Gamepass is cheat af and allows new people to play the game.

Also, with the awfully designed true skill matchmaking, it’s not like you can even play with new friends.

None of my friends are on my skill level, so get completely destroyed. Why? Because the game matches them against full teams of Onyx players when they play with me. Thanks 343i, I can’t even play with my friends now.

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Do when I saw them try to sell players one of the default color reds three different times I knew is was going south quick.

Now we have repeated content in stores and in the weeklys. Like damn how strapped for content is 343 that they have to hide it all until the next season. They are being very frugil with content to the point where they decided to take 50 of the 60 default generic colors from Halo 5 and hide them behind a timegated paywall.

Players have to wait months or years just to get the damn color they can simply use in other halos right now and on day 1 of those games.

Stingey uncreative studio really

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If you played Elden Ring on a PC I don’t think you would call it well made or polished. Infinite runs much better.

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Actually, that was how AAA-rated games were released. Complete, well polished, well tested, fully featured and great. I won’t say titles because we all know what great games are.

A player looting mechanic has now been entered. We put out a game with little more than the buggy, malfunctioning title, add a cosmetic shop, and loot them with nonsense. We made up a “battle pass” and got even more money out of them for it. Then calmly and with our pockets full, we give them some crumbs.

I think the players deserve this. We’ve taken the bait and now all the companies want their share. Let’s be more demanding with the money we pay and let’s not make someone rich who doesn’t deserve it.

Elden Ring deserves all the praise and I wish them great success for a job well done. It is worth every dollar paid for it.

Ps: Hi Jake_Teh_Nub. Polishing gaming on PC is difficult due to the myriad of different hardware. You’re not going to compare the graphical complexity of Elden Ring with that of Halo Infinite? Any mediocre PC should be able to run Halo Infinite without problems, it has nothing to do with it.

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It’s got some stuttering issues, but they aren’t too bad.
The campaign in Infinite stutters too if I recall.
However, Infinite has far more issues than stuttering, content or otherwise.

I didn’t, and it’s not the fault of other players that publishers became even worse than before.

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The issues are fixed for the majority of people. That was a very short-lived issue.

If skipping or stuttering happens now, it’s likely on the user’s end, not the game’s.

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Sorry. It is not an accusation to the players. What I want to say is that many times, nowadays, we players take for good games that we would not have justified in any way before.
That we have become accustomed to paying for mediocre games and it is beginning to seem good to us.
That we should be much more critical and not pay for what is not worth it. If we did it this way, the publishers would necessarily have to improve.
If we buy it all, we are lost.

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Not directly, but people have defended this decline over the last decade.

Companies only keep doing this because they get away with it.

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Companies keep doing it because it works and no one’s stopping them, that’s true, and people are getting used to mediocre, overpriced games, that’s also true, but you can’t put the burden on all of the players because of the players who are buying things.

Most of those who are buying things don’t even come to sites like this or even the bigger sites, and the ploys publishers are using were created to normalize games with less content and to trick people into spending more.

By telling us to be more critical and not pay for things that aren’t worth the price, you’re just preaching to the choir.
Whatever the solution may be, that’s not it at all.

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Thank you for this. You pretty much put into words why I find the Halo community so annoying. Most of the time, there are things people talk about, could be something that’s controversial, but there’s always gotta be that one guy who has to make the person with the opposing opinion look like a villain. Sure, it’s fine to disagree, but it really discourages people to speak out their own opinions if they always feel like they’re gonna get blasted in the process, be it name calling, insults, etc. And in the case of the Halo fandom, it’s always gotta be the fans of 343’s Halo games get called out for being stupid and dumb, when in reality, most of them just want to just discuss why they like their Halo game, and they will 99% of the time get scrutinized for it. It’s not their fault for liking a 343 Halo game, they just like playing it because it’s fun for them. 343 Halo fans shouldn’t be criticized for simply liking the 343 Halo games, because it is not “they” who are the ones that made the game.

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But they’re not the same game. So no reason to compare it other than it having a successful launch while Infinite didn’t.

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Do you know how it feels to be constantly shunned by the overwhelming majority of Halo fans? You feel like you can’t say your own opinion because you’ll get insulted by people. I can take it just fine, and the problem isn’t disagreeing, but it’s the elitism and gatekeeping that somehow happens, and it stops poeple from having good, genuine discussions. It’s this sort of attitude that keeps people from growing and learning from another’s perspective. It’s for this reason why I get annoyed with fandoms. The majority of people are upset because this one guy has a different opinion? Think about how that makes the other person feel. I get upset because that one guy is discouraged from sharing his opinion, because it creates an echo-chamber of the same opinions being shared. The Halo community should be more open to different opinions because I’m really tired of people like you being so uptight because someone dares to disagree with something. Doesn’t matter how many forums he posts on. Anybody with any opinion should be welcome to the Halo forums, because after all, this place is made for discussion, and should not be discouraged in favor of berating and insulting individuals, who only want to contribute to the discussion.

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When it comes to content, I think it’s reasonable to compare different games.
More often than not, they’ll have something that can be compared.
You can compare their maps, activities, bosses, etc.

Not only that, but for Halo Infinite and Elden Ring, they’re both open-world games.
Infinite might even be AAA.

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Yeah, but both games work with completely different mechanics.

One is first person, one is third. I just don’t think it’s fair to compare them and use this comparison to trivialize Infinite’s developmental troubles.

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Which isn’t very relevant.
No one’s saying that Halo Infinite’s combat should be like Elden Ring’s, that it should’ve been third-person (though I’d like to see a third-person option in campaign and custom games), or that it should’ve had fake walls.

I think it’s unfair yet fair to compare them.
For both of them:

  • It was their first open-world games (the Souls games are close in some ways to open-world games, but they’re more like multiple levels combined).
  • They had several games before they made them.
  • They had about five years to work on the games.
  • They drew inspiration from Breath of the Wild.

However, for 343, they had to work with Microsoft’s contractor limits (though, I don’t see why they didn’t just hire people instead of getting contractors).
Aside from that though, 343 had help from several studios (The Coalition, SkyBox Labs, Certain Affinity, Sperasoft and Atomhawk), which may have been good or bad.

For FromSoftware, they developed Sekiro and Elden Ring at the same time.