There is so much potential for covenants in elden ring, we basically have a few that would be easy to implement like Rykard’s Recusants, Mogh’s Bloody Fingers, The Roundtable Hold’s Two Fingers. I think it’d be great to have each covenant have their own hub area with a blacksmith, merchant, etc.
It would also be great to have pve style covenants, like I can imagine a death root covenant that focuses on you being a Dungeon master that adds traps or mobs in catacombs. Or a return of the champion covenants to make the game harder with new rewards
@@emotionaljonxvx honestly, I don't understand why they don't add any covenants, especially with pve covenants. Ds2 is still the best when it comes to covenants
I am not a PvP Player in these games, but I totally agree. Elden Ring made the barrier of entry for PvP really high for some reason. Sure you can be invaded while playing solo, but only if you activate the Taunter's Tounge, which gets deactivated each time you teleport or leave a PvP Zone, which makes it super tedious to keep up. It should be an opt-out system imo, so you need to activate an item to not get invaded while solo. Playing ccoperatively also is quite cumbersome with no Torrent in the Overworld and not being able to transition smoothly from area to area. DS3 was much better in that regard. I think I have done more PvP in DS3 than in ER, while having like 10 times the hours in ER, just bc. the barrier of entry is so low. I remember equipping the Ring of the Darkmoon (not knowing what it does) and getting regurlarely called into PvP brawls which where quite fun, all without having to think about getting to play with others. So yeah I hope Fromsoft adresses these issues in Elden Ring. Covenants would definitely be amazing, both lowering barrier of entry to PvP, providing rewards and role-play opportunities. Spitballing some ideas, bc why not. The Confessors: A covenant that hunts invaders (primarily the Bloody Fingers and the Recusants as these are enemies of the Erdtree), similarly to the Blades of the Darkmoon The Carian Knights: Tasked with defending their Queen Rennala in Raya Lucaria (like the Farron Watchdogs) The Banished Knights: They where legendary warriors respected and called into service even after their banishment because of their battle prowess. They could fill a similar role to the Warriors of Sunlight. Ancient Dragon Cultists: Focused on gaining ancient dragon powers and maybe defending their Dragonlord in Farum Azula.
It's definitely a case where they made the call to prioritize something new without maybe considering what they'd be giving up and how it affects what the game would feel like after the initial spectacle wore off. The open world is neat, but it really only works once. And those covenant ideas are badass. Moongrum could sure use some backup.
Oh man I would love a carian covenant, it makes so much sense!!! You could gain consumables that boost your int by 10 for like, 3 minutes. Call them Glintstone Totems, or Moon Ikons.
The cosmology of Elden Ring is so rich and vast, consisting of factions like the Bloody Fingers (followers of Mohg,) the Recusants (followers of Rykard,) Ranni's Darkmoon followers, all the other demigod factions (Miquella, Malenia, Radahn, Godrick,) the Two Fingers, the Golden Order Orthodoxy, the Frenzied Flame, the ancient dragons, the underground factions like the Nox, and Those Who Live in Death, all fighting with one another and with complex relationships to navigate as a player. Not only that, the larger story of Elden Ring is about the meddling of the Outer Gods who want control of the Lands Between, and we see their influence in places like the Rot Palace deep in the underground. There are so many weapons, armor sets, spells, and items you can collect for your character, so that you can feel like you belong to one of those above groups, but ultimately they feel more like a costume than suitable roleplaying when there's no multiplayer feature to back it up. All I want to do is share my cool character with other people but there's only like 3 ways to do that and none of them involve any substantial roleplaying! If I could join someone's world as a Moundmaker Frenzy guy, or protect Farum Azula against intruders as an Ancient Dragon loyalist, or invade Bloody Fingers as revenge as a blue, that would go a long, long way towards making the multiplayer reflect the amazing roleplaying potential of the PvE.
I’ve just started playing Dark Souls 1 and I can confidently say yes despite not even finishing the game The Roundtable and Volcano Manor alone have so much potential for covenants even if they are the only ones to get them And that’s ignoring how your endings could be tied to your covenant
There's some datamined assets that suggest they definitely intended to implement covenants, but I can only assume the sheer scale of the game forced them to pool their manpower and resources into developing everything else first and ship it out with perhaps the most barebones multiplayer system in the franchise. Even Demon's Souls had it's world tendency system, ER has... rune arcs... The coliseum update gives me some hope (read; copium) that a multiplayer overhaul is on the books but I wouldn't hold my breath. Yura's phantom not even being the right colour when he helps you kill Nerijus really exposes just how strapped for time they were when it came to polishing the multiplayer systems and how the game explains its functions to the player.
The game was and still is clearly unfinished. The NPC quest lines were outright broken on release, and then they were hastily “finished” with a few weird encounters. Online mechanics are busted, as if they were retrofitted to the game by an unpaid modder. I honestly think this is their last soulslike game with online features.
one idea I had for improving Covenent in a future game was to give each a unique passive buff for both pve and pvp. In pve or when you the host, the buff can be active while using an ember like item. In pvp the buff is automatic so long as your perform the task of your Covenent, ie: if u rosaria's finger, buff only when invading, and if u sunbro, buff only when summoned for help, not when doing somthing else like invading as a sunbro. These Covenent buffs essentially act as greatrunes but u can use them in pvp even when not the host, (mind u the 25% flat health buff is common for all when u use the ember like item) Some unique buffs could be: 1. Sunbros get a healing buff to their miracles and flasks, they get a passive healing aura that heals companions when close (note does not heal the user, just nearby allies, like that one dress in elden ring) 2. Invader covenet gets a bootleg bloodborne rally mechanic, since they always getting ganked, I thought this would be fitting for them 3. Mad phantoms could get health regen for every kill, useful since they can kill enemies in the world unlike typical invaders (i would personally completely rework them so that there is actually an incentive to summon them) Another system id like is a sin system, so when u do somthing cringe like invade someone successfully or kill innocent merchants or perform tasks thats against your Covenents goals, like invading as a sunbro, u rack up sin that paints u as a target to the adjudicators (darkmoon Covenent), repeated offense will also lower ur rank in the covenant making some offerings void. Another thing would be the reward scheme for the covenant. Make it a shop with differnt teirs, each teir have new sets of items like reskin armor, weapons, new ash of wars, spell varients and rare consumables, even spirit ashes, all paid with the Covenent item that way people can just get what to want and ignore what they dont like. This will make them more commited to the Covenent and the get worthwhile rewards for their efforts
I am (not so) secretly hoping there is just a battle royal zone in the DLC where you can fight forever. Go in as a team, go in solo, ride torrent, get chariots, do castle sieges, everything in one spot. An endless war in a shadow land.
The majority of players doesn't care about the multiplayer. The only time I cared about the multiplayer in souls games was in Dark Souls 1 when I got invaded and it was this insanely novel and exciting thing.
That's kind of my point. A lot of people don't engage with multiplayer and I think that's a shame. I'd like to see the games embrace a system they've had implemented for almost 15 years in a way that incentivizes players of all styles to want to engage with them. I don't blame anyone for not caring about it as-is, even if I find it to be immensely rewarding personally and obviously so do a lot of people. All I'm advocating for is for the games to be the best they can be for every type of player.
If PvP was as integral to the design of the game as you claim, then there would not be an option to play in offline mode. Now I'm not saying they should ignore PvP, but it's clear that's not what made the game such a huge success.
Hey, success for some is failure for others. For FromSoft and their investors, Elden Ring is a big success on a critical and financial level. For anyone who loves multiplayer, it's a bit of a failure. I'm making these videos because I'm very worried FromSoft and players will look and see that you don't strictly need multiplayer and that it will continue to be devalued or removed altogether. I'm advocating for a minority which has been sorely overlooked this time around, so I'm gonna make the strongest argument I can. I don't disagree offline is a valid and perfectly complete experience, as is solo play. Those options don't need much work, so I don't bring them up as much. Multiplayer, however, is a major weakness of Elden Ring. And I think if they did focus more on multiplayer and helping to on-board new players into PVP and other systems, it could further enhance those experiences and make it even more of a success on all fronts.
I always liked playing as a blue in Dark Souls 3. And yeah, playing as a blue is pretty dead in Elden Ring. The opportunities are extremely rare. And yeah it's because there are no covenants.
Yeah, needing a person to be hosting with a phantom and then also get an invader and then the call goes out for a blue is such a bad way to get reliable summons. I loved being a Blue in Dark Souls 2 with their own invasion item. Wish they would have carried over invading the guilty into 3 and Elden Ring.
Thanks, I'll certainly do more video-specific content in the future, but for a lot of these talking pieces I like to keep them simple. Then again, we are beholden to the algorithm, so we'll see what RUclips dictates.
From Software has forsaken us invaders, they care naught for us. We put in the work to make their game more dynamic for other players and they give us nothing in return
I really liked hearing your perspective on how they prioritized travel on torrent over multiplayer to add a sort of give and take, and I agree with most of your points. I'm not one who cares much for invasions, but I enjoy them as an option and I enjoy the change to making them a risk for forgoing the convenience of travelling on torrent in order to play coop with a friend. While the different multiplayer fingers and blue/white rings added soft covenant ideas, I really think Elden Ring was a missed opportunity for incorporating covenants. The massive open world makes for fun cat and mouse situations. It also sucks they took away the seed of a tree of giants type items for the game, although that's also a fair give and take for converting to only having invasions if the host has a cooperator. One of my problems with Elden Ring is that in switching to Open World, they didn't compensate enough with the richness of the world's livelihood. By this, I mean interactable and lively communities and NPCs within the game like towns and traders and more living factions like the Roundtable Hold and Volcano Manor. In my first playthrough, I had high expectations of Volcano Manor to fulfill this when I reached it; there was a new hub of interesting NPCs with their own agenda and storylines, and they even seemed to have their own invasion covenant. I imagined Volcano Manor feeling like a Dark Brotherhood questline with unique assassinations and rewards (which they did partially with a few armor sets). But then they didn't have a real covenant, and a couple bosses later they were all gone. This was devastating. I understand that part of the themes of FromSoft games is the presence of death and feeling isolated in a dying world, but I think especially with an open world game it's important to have the immersive livelihood or remnants of such in the game. I'm not saying that Elden Ring needed fully lively and populated towns at every turn like Skyrim or Witcher, but it needed smaller remnants of people worth ruling over as Elden Lord to compensate for the vastness of an Apocalyptic world and an Open World souls game. One thing I understand is the idea that incorporating covenants and making unique rewards for those participating in online play would be gatekeeping those unique rewards from offline players, which I commend. So Idk what rewards or incentives I would recommend for the idea of covenants in ER, but I like them choosing not to gatekeep cool rewards or make it a multiplayer grinding simulator like Lords of the Fallen. But maybe they could have implemented more things like Varre's questline where you have an ingame, offline option to complete the covenant ranks immediately/quickly as well as online options that take more time and investment which could have been fun for many people. Though like you say, without proper rewards or incentive in that case, there's no longevity to it other than showing your skill off to others (in which case, use the colloseums now) or inconveniencing others and halting their progress. To answer the question, no I don't think covenants being added in the DLC would fix Elden Ring. I think the intention was to keep from gatekeeping cool rewards and to create a sense of risk in online multiplayer while giving single players the option to opt out of invasions in order to streamline Elden Ring's popularity. Which I think was highly successful in that way. But at the same time, there are design flaws in the base game and this aspect of online play incentive and covenants that Elden Ring missed out on. The only way to fix that would be massively overhauling the base game which would really change experiences of the game, and I don't think the game leaves room for that kind of alteration or ambitious patching from the devs as is. I think Miyazaki learned from the successes and failures of Elden Ring's open world experience and design in his approach with the DLC, making it more compact and adding more vertical exploration as opposed to long stretches of empty land with no rewards that beg the player to hop on Torrent and skip through to the next interesting area. In the future, I hope to see covenants brought back to the games as well, and more life in the world.
I feel pretty much the exact same way about the Open World and, in regard to covenants gatekeeping rewards, they had ways in previous titles to gain the reward items via farming from monsters or other enemies while offline. It wasn't nearly as interesting, but at the very least you could get whatever the cool item is if you couldn't/didn't want to participate in multiplayer like that. The Volcano Manor messed me up my first time around. I thought, with all their talk and all the open hostility toward the erdtree, that siding with them would result in other characters and questlines being damaged, but nope. Instead of engaging in the quests and getting neat armor and weapons, I made my way to Rykard and killed him, thinking I would now lead the manor. Turns out that actually the manor is over and I'll have to go through another NG cycle to get it right. Broke my damn heart.
Why the hell not. It's not like they have to write new code or add new assets. It's all already in the ds3 which is ER's core engine anyway. Best case they add activity. Worst case it accomplishes nothing without any cost anyway.
@@emotionaljonxvx Well the code and most of the assets are there, and they've shown that they care with them implementing the pvp separate damage scaling; so I wouldn't consider it too much effort.
@@nothingness217 You've got a point. I'm always sick at the idea of how easy it would be to increase the total player count by changing a 4 to a 6. Like, sure there are more steps than that, but also it's just that.
I feel like the density of the new area would treat it better if implemented covenants. Supposedly it will be more dense with richness of details and also be at least the size of Limgrave. Considering known details of areas, that's a pretty impressive Limgrave sized map. I speculate it will be more like the entire Altus Plateau. Overall it sounds like a possible better opportunity especially if the alternative power system takes priority to reduce overleveled players ruining fun.
The lack of 6 player PVP has actually ruined my life in a really silly way. I lost my main hobby basically overnight and I've been sort of lost ever since. I was going to be an Elden Ring streamer, but alas I lost the will to fight. I've finally worked myself up to making content around it though a toll was taken in the interim. Still, it's rough out there.
@@emotionaljonxvx I feel you. I played DS3 religiously on PC like 6k hrs invading and when ER was about to come out DS3 servers went down for like a month and when they came back every time I would connect with someone online the game would crash to desktop every time. SAD and when ER came out and had these stifled pvp mechanics I was like ... DS3 > ER 😭 but I still have 2500 hrs in ER... Hoping the DLC brings bike life into PVP. SOOO much potential.
Thank you for making this style of videos! Positive Incentive to PvP is one of the major ball drops of this game. I feel it's one of the major reasons after 2+ years of being out, many invasions devolved into a grief or be griefed experience. The lack of roleplay or lore reasons to be cooperating or invading makes it hard for new players to understand the charm these mechanics have. Maybe less of them would hate invaders and even try it out! Ds3 turned me into this style of PvP and it's become my favorite way to game. I very much miss the Covenants. There is so much more to PvP than griefing your enemy. Be the invader people want to leave their TT on for and WOW them! ⚔ 🎉
I agree. Elden ring should’ve had it. I think I remember Miyazaki specifically answering a q/an and said there wouldn’t be any before the release.. I forgot what he was going for but just seemed like something they could’ve fleshed out even better in a online open world game
As a Blue I wish the Hunter had more meaning than just being a blue! But to have more covenants in Elden ring is a tricky situation because what would be the purpose for the other fractions? Bloody Finger is mohg and it makes sense with okina and varre and rykard has the rescusants with bernahl and others. The blues are only known as hunters and nothing else. Maybe a golden order or a frenzy fraction but I can't really think of any other reason to have other fractions! Now you are right maybe the dlc will add more reason to have covenants and I'm curious to see if they do I just wonder how they will work it in the game and make it have purpose in the process.. great video BTW
So I'd say the purpose of other factions (and covenants in previous titles) would be to give unique rewards for participating in multiplayer that helped distinguish your character. Basically what I loved about covenants was how they made me make builds around the theme of that covenant, which in turn encouraged me to participate in multiplayer while reinforcing the lore of the game itself. Sort of a self-perpetuating system. But I do agree with Elden Ring it's a little more obtuse because the game has not been built with those interactions in mind, though I feel a similar system could easily have been/could be added. For example, having Hunters invade Bloody Fingers and disallowing Hunters from joining Mohg or the Volcano manor. Essentially, forcing a choice per character that encourages players to choose a form of multiplayer. Mostly, I think Elden Ring focuses too much on letting every character do everything and, by extension, strongarming players to do everything with every character. It just gets a little exhausting and makes each character feel the same, at least for me.
With how expansive the world is I was hoping any DLC would add a new layer onto the existing world. Could be new consumables like star shards spread throughout, new night only mini bosses in old areas and.... Come one we should have forced invasions in Moghwyn palace and Volcano Manor, unless your part of those covenants and are willing to invade. Then of course a hunter covenant could be attributed to Ranni or Iji. Something to make NG+ more interesting on top of the new content. Hell, add a Messmer covenant that's true neutral. It comes in as a third party whenever a hunter is summoned and choose a side or kill them all.
Elden Ring already has two ideas for covenants they could have expanded on, the Recusants and the Bloody Fingers. That was a major dropped ball. Also, the blue cipher ring shouldn't have been an item you could buy, that should also have been a covenant. They could have also implemented how the Blue Sentinels worked in DSII, or the Nemesis system in Bloodborne or something. Imagine if Leyndell or Elphael had an Aldritch Faithful/Watchdogs of Farron type area-defense covenant, THAT would have been amazing, since those two areas are already hotbeds for PvP activity. A world of opportunity and ideas, missed out on. Hopefully the DLC will rectify this mistake.
Concepts covenants: 1set: knight covenants Redmane knights PvP focused or invasion protection in caelid Lynndel knights Sun Bro’s essentially coop and assistance Cuckoo knights Also possibly invasion protection around lunaria 2nd set: basic factions The golden order Again sunbros so coop n assistance The merchants of the great caravan Possibly trade faction based around gaining metarials and crafting The duelists of the colosseum Straight PVP fight clubs The carian academy Again based around invasion protection but more broadly could be a way to gain more powers
Expanding multi player is not just PvP - expanding cooperative gameplay is another way to look at making the game fun for everyone. Invasions are fine but the game doesn’t give you the option to have cooperative gameplay and not also still get invaded. For example, my wife or friend wants to play and I want to help, here comes an invader just because I’m there playing cooperative. I’ve set passwords and all that but it doesn’t stop invaders. So play how you like it, enjoy but perhaps consider other aspects of multiplayer. ✌🏼
You're absolutely right. I tend to fixate on PVP because it's the most interesting aspect of the game for me but cooperative covenants are just as important. The invasions centered around cooperative play is a counterbalance to the advantage gained through having additional players, especially because having multiple targets tends to severely damage enemy AI behavior and their effectiveness. I get why people don't want to get invaded, it's just that cooperation is balanced via invasions. It's something I encourage people to look at as a unique benefit of these games versus any other series, but I understand the frustration it can cause. All said, I want better cooperative play just as much. I want these games to be bigger and better with each iteration and multiplayer of every kind is Elden Ring's weakest point.
@@emotionaljonxvxI can tell you that for the new and inexperienced player, you can tell me all day long that invasions are a balance for cooperative play, when the two could be exclusive. It was decided that PVP is given more priority over Cooperative play by ensuring that cannot have one without the other; make it optional. From my perspective, a new player has a hard enough time learning the game that an invasion can make the experience frustrating not fun. And before anyone says, just get better, sure and for the pro PVP players out there have fun with that sentiment, but for others they’ll more likely to quit and never come back; is that fun? ✌🏼
I'd say there's a ton of nuance to how PVP and cooperative multiplayer works in these games but specifically I think confronting players of any experience level with a difficult or frustrating experience is not unique to PVP. I think Margit is far more likely to get people to quit than an invader, especially considering what you have to do to actually be impacted by an invader. And as far as considering which parts of the game is actually part of the game or should be optional, I don't think any part of the game is any more or less vital by itself. Making PVP entirely optional when the system is based on involuntary action would only diminish the opportunity to use the system, which would in turn disincentivize those players to play. That's really the point of my video and my biggest frustration with this game. I am someone who wants to invade and I don't think it's a system that has been given proper attention this time around. Is my desired experience worth any less than someone who wants to "just play the game?" I also just want to play the game, in a way that enables me to impede the otherwise predictable progress of the PVE. It's the most unique thing the games do, so making it "optional" is only going to diminish its value. The systems are linked and cannot be easily separated without damaging what gives them their value. Really, all I want to get across is that people who don't want to be invaded are not any more or less valid than people who want to invade. It is okay for inexperienced players to get their butts kicked by an invader with way more experience. There are cooldown timers and ways to get around it. Hell, they can just run away from them. No enemy in the entire game is capable of stopping the player from just running into the boss fog and forcing the invader out. This game is not built to be fair or unfair. It is built to let people experience a world and the hardships therein. Hardships that help to validate the experience and make it worth your time. For me, the more multiplayer interactions, the better. Making any of the systems opt-in or harder to use just damages that experience.
@@emotionaljonxvxI am a strong believer in playing however you want to play and enjoy it, and boss fog walls don’t really apply in open world boss fights where there are plenty of them. The sentiment of getting but hurt because you got invaded while trying a said open world boss isn’t a fun experience for everyone, yourself excluded and that’s okay. I think there’s balance in having PvP with the people who want it but then my only option for anyone who doesn’t is going offline oh and there goes cooperative play with it. Agree to disagree I guess and perhaps I’m in the minority and I’m not a new player, I have played casually since just after launch but I can tell you that I’ve had mixed experiences with being invaded and summoning help with an area leading up to a boss fight. Personally, what are arenas for and why were they expanded? To give the PvP fans something else, mean while cooperative play is more or less the same. My only happy aspect of helping others is I can get a rune arc when they “win” so “yay!” 😂but at the end of the day enjoy playing however you like 👍🏼✌🏼
Just thought about how the in game censoring fucks up rp elements to this day. You can't even name yourself "knight" without 3 certain letters being censored. They also do it for any word containing ho. It's the worst censor system ever
Yes and I think they should take it a step further. Using Dark Souls as an example, offering dragon scales to the Everlasting Dragon grants the ability to allow the player to transform into one. Imagine allowing the player to transform into a Misbegotten, Omen, Beastman, Mohg blood mutation, Giant, or maybe kindred of rot. There are so many possibilities that joining covenants create, and also allows for team based pvp. All the chaos can be solved by making attacking players part of the same covenant a type of shunned act, thus breaking the covenants. Also unlike DS 3 breaking them should have more harsh punishment.
I would really love to do more PvP in Elden Ring but lack of incentive or meaningful rewards is a major bummer no cool unique items or spells big sad. I do invade but more like a defense way like for example defending Miquella's tree as Haligtree Knight was really fun for me using the enemies in area to my advantage since typically it’s a 3v1 fight so really immersive feeling battling along side Haligtree soldiers and Cleanrot knights etc.
Theme builds are a great way to stay engaged in the game. Elden Ring gives basically no incentive to do anything with multiplayer, actively punishing it in a lot of ways. It's a really hard backstep from DS3 and I can only hope that they won't make the same mistake in the next title 5+ years from now. It's gonna be a long, dull wait.
Here's an interesting fact for you. I had to make an alt account on steam to play ds3 for the auto summon covenants. Old steam accounts for some reason could not be auto summoned. I was never a blue or wolf on my main no matter how long I waited at the right levels. I made an alt with the same stats and I was summoned constantly
I've had my share of really strange issues with auto summoning in covenants in DS3. Lot's of timeouts and "Failed to Invade" messages when my red orb or another character or another account could work fine. Not the most reliable system, but it worked for me 90% of the time. Wish From would have put more time into those systems than making me marathon run for trash behind one thousand dogs.
im still aad that the base game seemed to have covenants until very late in development only to drop them all along with most of the more involved npc plotlines.
I'd also like to say that soul memory was fucking based. I had no idea until recently revisiting dark souls 2 but damn it's such a better system than what we have now. I just wish instead of agape ring we had an option at a certain high tier to stay there or something. It's around 3 million souls.
I've always thought it was a great idea, but I agree they needed better control methods. The Dark Souls 2 team had some bangers and I feel they didn't get proper recognition.
I hope and wish, because after everything is discovered, found, beaten, and figured out there will still be something fun to do but it probably won’t come I have a feeling for some reason
I'm definitely gonna do a video about it but I have wished so badly for that. Just use Limgrave or any other zone as a hundred+ player endless battle where when you die, you can re-enter or leave and anyone can join whenever. Just battling forever against all odds, with covenants to decide factions and level brackets per zone. My god, I could spend an eternity...
covenants would definitely add life to online play and pvp, but i really doubt it would happen since bloody fingers and recusants are like mini-covenants, and yellows and blues only got their multiplayer item. and i don't think fromsoft would change stuff in base game.
The DLC seemingly being far more compact than the base game might make covenants viable. Other than dungeons and legacy dungeons there's very little reason to co-op with other players in the open world due to how tedious it is to traverse the open world on foot.
I wonder if its because of the DLC that covenants weren't introduced up front. Like there's some overlap between DLC and main game. So much of the same seems set up for covenants. Like the Recusants! You literally join their group and are sent off to kill other Tarnished
I think what really happened was they just decided to focus on the new things and sort of forgot about the old standards. It makes sense from a development standpoint, assuming they were trying to see what they could pull off in the open world, whereas ground they had already walked may have seemed less exciting. But hey, the DLC is their chance to fix all that.
@@emotionaljonxvx Thats just as likely I think. Definitely there was probably a lot of pressure to fill the world with loot. And any covenant rewards would increase dev time or less loot in the world
Catering to last gen low powered consoles is the problem. We need more robust pvp, higher player counts, opt-out rather than opt-in, covenants, so much more than we got.
I always appreciate when devs make the effort to release things on more platforms but I agree that if it's ever a limiting factor that diminishes what the game could be, it's not worth the sacrifice. I'd love for every game I played to work on my GBA but I wouldn't trade competent processing and visuals for the convenience.
Based on an interview one of the developers gave prior to release, it sounded like they couldn’t have multiple Torrents so players would always get kicked off of him if someone entered their world. Poor Torrent can’t have friends. :( As a dedicated Sun Bro, I was deeply saddened that covenants weren’t in the game. Though, now that I think about it, I wonder which demigod would have the equivalent of the Warriors of Sunlight. Either way, \[T]/ BTW, people who say you shouldn’t be “forced” into PvP clearly know nothing about Souls mechanics. PvP was always an opt-in system online. Your world was closed to other players, both summons and invaders, unless you chose to play in soul/human/ember form. By playing in the diminished form, you had less HP, FP, and stamina with a closed world. Soul/human/ember form was a “power up” form of your character (that’s why it got restored if you beat a boss), gave you more HP, FP, and stamina as well as opening up your world. You could close your world again by killing yourself in an area where you could easily retrieve your souls. I don’t know how people managed to establish the “forced into PvP” narrative when we have four Souls games showing that is an opt-in system.
Yeah, there are certainly some variations between games as to the exact mechanic but generally speaking you get invaded in exchange for something else or as a consequence for trespassing, etc. Dark Souls 2 just had invasions all the time and you had to burn effigies to keep invaders away, which I personally thought was a really neat idea. Dark Souls 1 had humanity, which didn't make you stronger but did give you the ability to summon phantoms for assistance. And I think Dark Souls 3 really had the best system with the embers and higher priority for invasions with Co-op, but never fully removing it from solo so long as they were embered. It made a lot of sense and I miss it. As far as the no multiple torrents thing, I have no idea what the limitations were but it seems like the sort of thing that if the Seamless Co-op mod could figure it out, they could make it work if they had wanted to. Of course I understand development priorities and whatnot, still just has a lasting impact on how comfortable the game is to replay.
Dark souls 2 didnt get the memo for opt in pvp then. You have to opt in for NOT geting invaded. But fr tho, having to perpously die after the game forces you into a state for pvp is just bad design. Thats why they got rid of it. Simply getting a 30 percent health buff is no way enough of a buff to the player to justify and invasion from a more experienced player and one that has all the enemies in the level on their side against you. (Incase of solo invasion) However if ur summoning people into ur world for help, then its fair to have another player invade as counter balance.
decreased player cap ,opt in system ,insane damage with little effort (before the changes) ,lack of covenants and many others made ER PvP lack luster in a alot of aspects, Sure adding covenants would be nice but there are alot of changes needed to improve the PvP especially converting Opt in to Opt out but i don't think they will ever do that Which is a shame because it has alot of potential but im still somewhat hopeful
Yes but it won't. Basic design decisions are not going to be altered from vanilla. Sadly. Roleplay was the main reason I loved covenants. They deepened the lore of NPCs, made you feel more a part of the world, and gave a sense of "lived-in-ness" to even a dying universe. Something about ER's lore doesn't hit the emotional highs of souls (imo). I don't think most ER players feel enough loyalty to, or passion about, the factions that exist in its world to roleplay as believers of them. When you said the cipher rings boil down previously lore-rich concepts to their mechanics, I feel this is true of a lot of the game. The memes of Souls have just been repeated in ER without much apparent investment on FromSoft's part.
Anyone else having a hard time replaying it. There's no surprises left, I know the game inside and out. It's hard to really enjoy it again. Gonna wait till may to start a new build. Anyway, great vid. Subbed.
Also... those 2 things are totally different... they used to make games without internet access... AND not all ppl HAVE internet access... ive been one of those ppl before
I certainly don't think Elden Ring should require internet access. It has a completely functional offline mode and I wouldn't want them to take that away under any circumstance. That's not really what I'm talking about here but I understand your concern.
The only point i really disagree with is that torrent should be available in multiplayer, it would be a logistics nightmare in so many ways, and would make pvp extremely annoying and cause even more network instability and lag, i could see allowing it outside of combat or without an invader present but that would make the issue of Torrent “safe-spotting” even worse so it just isn’t worth the possible small gains And maybe it’s just me but i actually quite like all the walking, me and my girlfriend recently spent a few hours meandering around liurnia while i led her to secrets and items and she explored the beautiful area for the first time the only annoying part was having to be re-summoned to go in and out of dungeons and when i ran out of resources:/ even the half dozen or so invasions were all enjoyable except for one super cheesy bleed shortbow build
I do think invaders should also get the horse. Seamless co-op mod made it work pretty, well, seamlessly so I don't think it's really a technical limit. Game plays like butt anyway, so I'd prefer to at least go 100mph. And the walking can be great. Nothing wrong with enjoying the game the way you like it. I tried to get my girlfriend to play but she said horse or bust, and the needing to constantly resummon basically put the final nail in that coffin.
I can only play offline, and I would like to add some things. I was quite dissapointed by ER's handling of PvP honestly. My main complaint with the previous games' Covenant systems was that they locked offline players out of many interesting and good rewards, say Darkmoon Blade, Wolf Knight Curved Word etc. I really disliked the preferential treatment of Online players. However I have the exact opposite problem with ER. Its like they favour the solo offline play much more than coop or online play like you mentioned. What I want is a system where neither of the playstyles are punished or rewarded. What I wpuld like to see is Covenants giving rewards that are only relevant in PvP. Say a covenant like 'Ancient Dragon Worshipers' maybe the item they are rewarded essentially turns their body to stone in PvP with certain buffs and debuffs. Or maybe the bloody fingers could reward you with some aspect of Mogh's Great Rune that grants you some blood related perks in invasions. However it would also have to reward the host for coop and getting invaded. My idea was some sort of proof of punishment that the host gets if they win an invasion they can use it in any coop session to buff their cooperators. Idk but something like this may be interesting.
So in Dark Souls 3, you can farm all of the covenant reward items from enemies usually in the area where you join the covenant. The Darkwraiths drop Pale Tongues, the Ghru drop Swordgrass, the Silver Knights drop Proofs, etc. You don't need to play online to get any of them, which was a really thoughtful addition that I guess maybe a lot of players don't know about. And Mohg's great rune is actually the only one that works in PVP in Elden Ring. When you have it active and invade, you get 3 uses of a unique item (similar to the Phantom Bloody Finger) that can be used to get a buff under blood loss conditions. It's far from perfect but it's a nice little addition that I would have loved to see given more attention.
@@emotionaljonxvx I do know about farming the Covenant items. However its pretty damn annoying farming 30 of them. Like u complained about having to farm for invasion items in ER, like it can be done better. Currently iirc Mogh's great rune only benefits bleed builds, which tbh is a dime a dozen, but if it gave a general useful buff to all builds. The buff can be strengthened by proccing bleed. That would give it more general utility. Secondly it would be a consumable item or a reusable item, that could work with Mogh's Rune.
Yeah, farming is awful in all of these titles. I appreciate them giving an option, but it would be a lot better if you could just complete a quest or kill an NPC or something to skip past the grind. And for Mogh's rune, it is just bleed centric. It's a thematic but not all that practical implementation that shows they've clearly given some consideration to the idea but haven't gone all the way yet. Hopefully the DLC will give us a little more.
Very much so. I appreciate the way they did the DLC update in Bloodborne where the League became available to everyone (though the items for the other two additions were still DLC only). It was still a nice gesture and I'd prefer they patch it as much as possible without requiring purchase, just as an appreciation of the game's success and longevity.
I personally hate open world games when talking in an action context, because exploration is an entirely separate mechanic that doesn't benefit from all the other features. Elden Ring is 10/10 for me like every other souls game, but it's broadly a big disappointment on a lot of levels. I don't like taking a long time to replay the game and I don't like collecting materials. Far prefer a denser experience.
Yes, covenants are the perfect opportunity for solo hosts to get invaded organically which is something I really miss in the games. I hate all the whiners who ruined this aspect of the games for the silent majority of players who actually enjoyed the occasional invasion during their playthroughs. Certain convenants could have the potential to be invaded by others, with rewards on offer for winning. For whiners, they could still have random offline invasions by npcs for those covenants so they can still get their rewards
My expectations are very low for SotE PvP. We already have evidence of 4 player cap outside the arena being maintained. And, overall, the marketing push for this DLC seems to be that it's ER... again! More of everything, literally! And more of everything doesn't, of course, pair very well with structural change. To put it differently, we might be as likely to get covenants/faction multiplayer as seamless co-op. I do still hope there's some kind of PvP iteration, if not novelty, in the DLC, however minor. Just not something that's gonna grab people like the swamp and gank city did. ER is and will remain as the "really big Souls, with a horse!", that's the selling card. That's what shot the game into the popularity stratosphere. Ironically, ER could've been the game in which From unified tryhards and casuals in the same systems, because if PvP had a positive impact, it's target audience would be a potential +20 million players. But no, neophyte invaders try the finger from Varré in Liurnia and likely arrive somewhere to get mauled by hitbox overflow and "accidental" frame trapping. On the other hand, co-op players eternally complain that invaders constantly interfere with their progress/immersion, which is understandable when they get rot potted in Limgrave before they even fathom what kinda game they're playing. If anything... good luck to SotE in not further worsening this fractured dynamic with giant pots and gatling crossbows.. Never mind "improving" it.
Oh yeah, you're absolutely correct. There's no way they're going to do anything even remotely close to what I'd like to see. They outright do not care, and not in the way where they're purposefully ignoring something out of spite or ignorance. Just in the way that they have an artistic vision as game developers, not players. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the team at FromSoft didn't actually play the game at all. It's sort of like a musician listening to their own music. Sure, they make music they'd like to listen to, but when you know every detail of what you made, your appreciation as a listener is forever altered. I'm generalizing, but you get it. So expecting a change that benefits players with content essentially generated by other players seems like it could be literally impossible with how they've formed their vision. All of these videos are really just to commiserate with disenfranchised players who feel like the game is leaving us behind and hope that just maybe Shadow of the Erdtree might throw us a bone. It's just cathartic to talk about every way Elden Ring went wrong for myself and for others, and what I'd like to see. But I don't want anyone to get false hopes, just to hope for the best while expecting them to be dashed. I'm confident the DLC will be a fun enough ride that people will forget what they wanted to change and then we can all reflect a few months after and look back on these conversations and say "Right, they still didn't do anything about that" and so on and then we can all say "Next time!" Basically, talking about Elden Ring is more fun for me than playing it and hopefully I can entertain others to the same effect.
@@emotionaljonxvx I do think so too. At the end of the day, this stuff is more or less an extended cope. At least it's enjoyable. Since we refuse to let it go (it's been 2 years), we have to vent somehow.
I think they are i don't see the logic to show so many side characters? If is no covenant idk what it is, hell the main trailer only show bosses and pve. Why the dlc show a lot of ncp then. I think cuz there covenant based, + in the trailer they said " blood most be spill" (blood of your fellows )
I understand why you want to play co-op and all that, it just seems like you are missing the point of the beginning of the game. In the opening cut scene you are a tarnished with no nobility or what not and FINALLY receive the grace, it is structured as being you, not them. You do make valid points, but Elden Ring is not Souls, or BB. It is elden ring. Could you imagine if they didnt have any co-op or pvp in the game? People would lose their proverbial shit. I mean most people that PVP did lose it to make them do the coliseum. I for one, hated having to invade 3 people just to continue the questline in the game. BUT it was teaching the mechanic in a way. And yes you could just jump off acliff etc, or cut the finger etc. As for losing access to fast travel and mount, just imagine, one person is NG+ or say NG+7. Your buddy who is just arrived as a tarnished, who's map and grace points would you use? The host? THe visitor? Does the visitor or host get to keep the grace points of the Host or visitor? There is game play breaking mechanics that could be seen as a work around of a game that is the whole point of say exploration. I also understand WHY you lose the mount and fast travel. It isnt like mob density, hp, mechanics etc change when a co-op person joins. Not all systems are great and I understand your frustrations. But it is kinda risk reward. Do you use co-op and have a "easier time killing" versus "mobility". ALso have to remember you are the first Tarnished to return in a long time. You make valid points in everything you talk about it is a gripe that YOU dislike. Should there be better systems sure, but to force other systems on people that DONT want it, is the same issue you are having being forced into a system you dont like. I believe ELden RIng was a game that favored solo, over Co-op but they gave that option to people that felt if they needed help they could summons someone in for assistance at x,y,z kinda like the summons spot before bosses with NPC's if you are friendless. All in all though there is validation in the covenants systems would be nice in Elden RIng, and would be great to see, the travel issue, i see as a big game breaking mechanic (for bad) so I understand why they restricted BOTH. Anyhow just my 2 cents on the matter.
Yeah, everything I'll ever put in a video will almost certainly just be my take. I'd hate to think I'm the authority on what a game should and shouldn't be, and I just want to present what I love about the series and what I hate in the most persuasive way I can. When focusing on Co-Op or the open world or PVP all I really care about is the way I feel about the game a few years out. As it stands, I strongly dislike Elden Ring when compared against the other souls games, and a lot of it comes down to how much of a chore I find it to play and how I'd like them to change it. Obviously, I don't get to decide and I want everyone to get everything they want from the system. I'm just of the opinion that I can't be alone and I am very worried for the future of these games and how I play them, as I see my preferred playstyle disappearing entirely. Appreciate the thoughtful comment and always happy to get into it
covenants would be great, so would more player slots. HOWEVER the real problem that needs to be fixed before all else is restoring solo invasions. Everytime you pass a threshhold where you cannot use torrent, you should be at risk for invasion. I say this not as an invader, but as a person who wishes they could be invaded. And if you suggest using taunter's tongue you aren't qualified to enter this discussion lol
Yeah, immediately excluding like half the player base from invasions is a really great way to make sure it's really annoying to invade. The ember system in 3 worked just fine and I don't really understand why they felt the need to change it. I suspect, like with every other multiplayer miss, they just didn't think about it at all because they were focused elsewhere.
I miss those silly guys and their super edgy look. Random NPC invasions are a really cool mechanic to substitute for another player where they aren't available, like in offline play. Dark Souls 2 had a lot of great ideas and I wish more would have made their way into Elden Ring.
@@emotionaljonxvx DS2 was fire for his pvp. Those npc invaders spawn were unpredictable. The sense of being persecuted in your journey and overcoming it was fun
Yeah, it was a really smart move that filled the same type of function as player invaders. I've always pined for them to add a feature where you can upload your build to be accessible for NPC random invasions, letting you place yourself permanently in the game even when you aren't around. The Great Jar Warriors have sort of this idea, but they're broken and I hate them.
Answer...to what? The multiplayer already got their totally free DLC last year. Covenants were not included. Obviously in the arena mode which catered only to people who cared about multiplayer...they didn't include covenants. Why not do it then? Also, DS3 isn't even the best one, because where the hell is the Dragon covenant? The game with the most interaction with and content related to dragons...didn't have a Dragon Covenant. Fabulous. Covenants aren't important in Elden Ring, and requiring membership and offering of items is just more stupid grinding. I'm glad covenants aren't a thing, because this way there's no requirement to farm for Proof of Concord Kepts because Blue Sentinels and Darkmoons were that broken for that long. I hope I never have to do that again in a Fromsoft game, ever.
I get where you're coming from. I'm not trying to advocate for them adding more grinds to Elden Ring and I completely agree that Dark Souls 3's covenants were far from perfect. What's most important to me is that sense of character building and commitment that a covenant can offer, where you dedicate a character to a specific multiplayer style. Really, I'm just interested in the incentives for people to interact with multiplayer, but I have no interest in them implementing something that people wouldn't want to interact with. I think Elden Ring has lots of areas for improvement and I think covenants were a cool feature in previous games that they never got quite right. Rather than them abandoning them, I would have liked to see them further develop the system. Obviously, for anyone who is perfectly happy without them and has no interest in being incentivized otherwise, this really doesn't apply. Just a thinkpiece about things I miss and would like to see explored further.
I don't think it's quite that drastic, but 1% of 20M is 200K and that'd get you full rune, a rune scimmy, and a glory with cash to spare. I'd take that deal.
It's sad but true. Elden Ring is an incredible game, no argument, but I am a firm believer in critiquing the things you love. It's not perfect and, in a lot of ways, it is worse than previous entries. Better in a lot of ways too, but far from perfect. At least we still have a DLC to look forward to. I never feel comfortable truly judging a FromSoft title until it's complete.
Covenants were never fun for me, dark souls 3 had the best one I think but it was always this pvp thing that just seemed out of reach. If there was a way to adjust levels to balance things and make matchmaking easier I would see it working amazingly well. But if covenants return I just want it to have a pve element and gear for rewards. Maybe just recolors
I'm always trying to encourage people to get into PVP even if it doesn't immediately interest them. It's something that took me a while to acclimate to but once it clicked it rewired my brain in a way that made everything about the games even more interesting. Still, I understand people's hesitation. I just want everyone to get every single ounce of joy these games have to offer, as there is simply nothing quite like them.
Ultimately NO, Covenents should not come back if they are jusy gonna function like they were in dark souls series. The way certain npc are set up it feels like they clearly wanted covenants like the souls series but decided in the end not to put it in, instead opting for a more pve oriented questlines, examples being the recucents. This makes it far more easier to actully get the rewards those npc yeild rather than grinding pvp sessions. The rewards for Covenents mostly sucked and From never properly found a decent reward scheme to keep players commited to a Covenent long term, thats why ds3 allows u to switch anytime u want cause theres no point to being loyal, theres no worth while rewards. If they were just gonna reuse the Covenent reward scheme from ds3 again, itd be shit. Its better it doesnt exist and we have pve oriented questlines instead which is better for offline players as well. Elden ring is however missing some critical pvp concepts present in other games, that is: 1. Normal solo invasions (should be an item that players can opt into) 2. zone based invasions like aldrich faithful and forest hunters (should be a place without torrent and can affect solo hosts) 3. PvP boss like old monk and halflight (optional) Theres no point in Covenents if ur not loyal to it, its just normal pvp/pve but with extra set dressing and nothing more. So NO, elden ring doesnt need covenants, it needs more multiplayer items and gamemodes
I think you make a great point that I certainly glossed over. Dark Souls 3 managed to streamline covenants, making them both easier to use and a lot less rewarding to engage with. The benefit was we had invasion territories and easy access to all the multiplayer functions, but a notable downside came with having essentially zero lore impact and a pretty not amazing grind for some items. I really appreciate the way Elden Ring streamlined the item obtaining for every equivalent quest, even if I am irked that I don't feel like I'm making many actual choices. All in all, I'm definitely wanting covenants to be better than they've ever been. Some form of competent advancement where they retain the high commitments of Dark Souls and capture the high multiplayer functionality of Dark Souls 3.
No covenants ? Game is trash af so what play thru copy paste bs for 120 hrs then what uninstall ? The point of the game is to get the shineys and clap noob cheeks with a busted ass broken build
Like in Dark Souls 3, I'd want them to include ways to get the items offline too. None of what I'm suggesting is for people to have to play online or engage in PVP, just for them to have more incentives to do so.
No thank you... all covenants did, was FORCE ppl to play online to unlock everything... ive NEVER played elden ring with anybody else. Besides the varre quest. And i INSTANTLY exited to my world.... all that being said. Im STILL able to use everything the game has to offer. Id rather NOT have to play against other ppl online to be able to do so
In Dark Souls 3 they added ways to get the covenant items from enemies in the area. I definitely don't want people to be locked out of covenants but I think it's over-simplifying the covenant system to say it forced people to do anything. If Elden Ring were to add anything similar, I would want there to be a system that let you get the rewards without the standard interfacing. I'm only advocating for covenants as an interesting way to incentivize multiplayer, not punish offline or solo players.
I disagree with your argument on pvp, if someone doesn't want to have to fight another person pvp style, they shouldn't have to. If you want to play with other people, go play an MMO. My RPG is just that, MY RPG
I mean, that's certainly one way to look at a game with incorporated multiplayer. MMOs come with a lot of baggage and, to be clear, I am not advocating for people who have no interest in multiplayer to be forced into playing online. This game has an offline mode for exactly your preferred playstyle. I think we might be coming at the problem from different angles but I appreciate the discourse. Maybe give the PVP a shot with a few friends. As bad as its reputation can be, getting a group together and pulling invaders can be really fun way to learn the ropes and break out of the standard gameplay loop. For me, PVP improved my solo gameplay by helping me better understand the mechanics. That's really why it's so hard to go play another game. These games let you use the same builds and characters for single player and multiplayer, without having some silly microtransaction hellscape or live service battle pass dogging you at every turn trying to get your money for BS cosmetics or to remain competitive. It's a truly unique experience that no other game offers.
Alternatively you dont have to play the game if you dont like being invaded. Frankly, people complaining about it are being pussies. I dont even PvP but invasions were fine. They were fun and part of the experience. If its so unbearable play a different game or go into offline mode. Easy. Thats your opt in.
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Theres nothing I want more for pvp than a frenzied mound maker covenant
LET CHAOS TAKE THE WORLD!!!
"Chaos, Chaos!"
The answer is simple... Yes.
There is so much potential for covenants in elden ring, we basically have a few that would be easy to implement like Rykard’s Recusants, Mogh’s Bloody Fingers, The Roundtable Hold’s Two Fingers. I think it’d be great to have each covenant have their own hub area with a blacksmith, merchant, etc.
It would also be great to have pve style covenants, like I can imagine a death root covenant that focuses on you being a Dungeon master that adds traps or mobs in catacombs. Or a return of the champion covenants to make the game harder with new rewards
I hate that there isn't an Ancient Dragon Covenant headed by Lansseax.
Right? It's incredibly frustrating to have all these very interesting factions and to not be able to join a single cause.
There so so SO totally should be. It sucks that they make all these factions to not do anything with them.
@@emotionaljonxvx honestly, I don't understand why they don't add any covenants, especially with pve covenants. Ds2 is still the best when it comes to covenants
I am not a PvP Player in these games, but I totally agree. Elden Ring made the barrier of entry for PvP really high for some reason. Sure you can be invaded while playing solo, but only if you activate the Taunter's Tounge, which gets deactivated each time you teleport or leave a PvP Zone, which makes it super tedious to keep up. It should be an opt-out system imo, so you need to activate an item to not get invaded while solo. Playing ccoperatively also is quite cumbersome with no Torrent in the Overworld and not being able to transition smoothly from area to area.
DS3 was much better in that regard. I think I have done more PvP in DS3 than in ER, while having like 10 times the hours in ER, just bc. the barrier of entry is so low. I remember equipping the Ring of the Darkmoon (not knowing what it does) and getting regurlarely called into PvP brawls which where quite fun, all without having to think about getting to play with others.
So yeah I hope Fromsoft adresses these issues in Elden Ring. Covenants would definitely be amazing, both lowering barrier of entry to PvP, providing rewards and role-play opportunities.
Spitballing some ideas, bc why not.
The Confessors: A covenant that hunts invaders (primarily the Bloody Fingers and the Recusants as these are enemies of the Erdtree), similarly to the Blades of the Darkmoon
The Carian Knights: Tasked with defending their Queen Rennala in Raya Lucaria (like the Farron Watchdogs)
The Banished Knights: They where legendary warriors respected and called into service even after their banishment because of their battle prowess. They could fill a similar role to the Warriors of Sunlight.
Ancient Dragon Cultists: Focused on gaining ancient dragon powers and maybe defending their Dragonlord in Farum Azula.
It's definitely a case where they made the call to prioritize something new without maybe considering what they'd be giving up and how it affects what the game would feel like after the initial spectacle wore off. The open world is neat, but it really only works once. And those covenant ideas are badass. Moongrum could sure use some backup.
Oh man I would love a carian covenant, it makes so much sense!!!
You could gain consumables that boost your int by 10 for like, 3 minutes. Call them Glintstone Totems, or Moon Ikons.
The cosmology of Elden Ring is so rich and vast, consisting of factions like the Bloody Fingers (followers of Mohg,) the Recusants (followers of Rykard,) Ranni's Darkmoon followers, all the other demigod factions (Miquella, Malenia, Radahn, Godrick,) the Two Fingers, the Golden Order Orthodoxy, the Frenzied Flame, the ancient dragons, the underground factions like the Nox, and Those Who Live in Death, all fighting with one another and with complex relationships to navigate as a player. Not only that, the larger story of Elden Ring is about the meddling of the Outer Gods who want control of the Lands Between, and we see their influence in places like the Rot Palace deep in the underground. There are so many weapons, armor sets, spells, and items you can collect for your character, so that you can feel like you belong to one of those above groups, but ultimately they feel more like a costume than suitable roleplaying when there's no multiplayer feature to back it up. All I want to do is share my cool character with other people but there's only like 3 ways to do that and none of them involve any substantial roleplaying! If I could join someone's world as a Moundmaker Frenzy guy, or protect Farum Azula against intruders as an Ancient Dragon loyalist, or invade Bloody Fingers as revenge as a blue, that would go a long, long way towards making the multiplayer reflect the amazing roleplaying potential of the PvE.
'The blood of your fellows...'
I’ve just started playing Dark Souls 1 and I can confidently say yes despite not even finishing the game
The Roundtable and Volcano Manor alone have so much potential for covenants even if they are the only ones to get them
And that’s ignoring how your endings could be tied to your covenant
A missed opportunity to say the least. God, I love Dark Souls.
There's some datamined assets that suggest they definitely intended to implement covenants, but I can only assume the sheer scale of the game forced them to pool their manpower and resources into developing everything else first and ship it out with perhaps the most barebones multiplayer system in the franchise. Even Demon's Souls had it's world tendency system, ER has... rune arcs...
The coliseum update gives me some hope (read; copium) that a multiplayer overhaul is on the books but I wouldn't hold my breath. Yura's phantom not even being the right colour when he helps you kill Nerijus really exposes just how strapped for time they were when it came to polishing the multiplayer systems and how the game explains its functions to the player.
The game was and still is clearly unfinished. The NPC quest lines were outright broken on release, and then they were hastily “finished” with a few weird encounters. Online mechanics are busted, as if they were retrofitted to the game by an unpaid modder. I honestly think this is their last soulslike game with online features.
Title is finally asked at 14:06
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one idea I had for improving Covenent in a future game was to give each a unique passive buff for both pve and pvp.
In pve or when you the host, the buff can be active while using an ember like item.
In pvp the buff is automatic so long as your perform the task of your Covenent, ie: if u rosaria's finger, buff only when invading, and if u sunbro, buff only when summoned for help, not when doing somthing else like invading as a sunbro.
These Covenent buffs essentially act as greatrunes but u can use them in pvp even when not the host, (mind u the 25% flat health buff is common for all when u use the ember like item)
Some unique buffs could be:
1. Sunbros get a healing buff to their miracles and flasks, they get a passive healing aura that heals companions when close (note does not heal the user, just nearby allies, like that one dress in elden ring)
2. Invader covenet gets a bootleg bloodborne rally mechanic, since they always getting ganked, I thought this would be fitting for them
3. Mad phantoms could get health regen for every kill, useful since they can kill enemies in the world unlike typical invaders
(i would personally completely rework them so that there is actually an incentive to summon them)
Another system id like is a sin system, so when u do somthing cringe like invade someone successfully or kill innocent merchants or perform tasks thats against your Covenents goals, like invading as a sunbro, u rack up sin that paints u as a target to the adjudicators (darkmoon Covenent), repeated offense will also lower ur rank in the covenant making some offerings void.
Another thing would be the reward scheme for the covenant. Make it a shop with differnt teirs, each teir have new sets of items like reskin armor, weapons, new ash of wars, spell varients and rare consumables, even spirit ashes, all paid with the Covenent item that way people can just get what to want and ignore what they dont like. This will make them more commited to the Covenent and the get worthwhile rewards for their efforts
I really wish they'd add this. Multiplayer needs love.
I am (not so) secretly hoping there is just a battle royal zone in the DLC where you can fight forever. Go in as a team, go in solo, ride torrent, get chariots, do castle sieges, everything in one spot. An endless war in a shadow land.
The majority of players doesn't care about the multiplayer. The only time I cared about the multiplayer in souls games was in Dark Souls 1 when I got invaded and it was this insanely novel and exciting thing.
That's kind of my point. A lot of people don't engage with multiplayer and I think that's a shame. I'd like to see the games embrace a system they've had implemented for almost 15 years in a way that incentivizes players of all styles to want to engage with them. I don't blame anyone for not caring about it as-is, even if I find it to be immensely rewarding personally and obviously so do a lot of people. All I'm advocating for is for the games to be the best they can be for every type of player.
If PvP was as integral to the design of the game as you claim, then there would not be an option to play in offline mode. Now I'm not saying they should ignore PvP, but it's clear that's not what made the game such a huge success.
Hey, success for some is failure for others. For FromSoft and their investors, Elden Ring is a big success on a critical and financial level. For anyone who loves multiplayer, it's a bit of a failure. I'm making these videos because I'm very worried FromSoft and players will look and see that you don't strictly need multiplayer and that it will continue to be devalued or removed altogether. I'm advocating for a minority which has been sorely overlooked this time around, so I'm gonna make the strongest argument I can. I don't disagree offline is a valid and perfectly complete experience, as is solo play. Those options don't need much work, so I don't bring them up as much. Multiplayer, however, is a major weakness of Elden Ring. And I think if they did focus more on multiplayer and helping to on-board new players into PVP and other systems, it could further enhance those experiences and make it even more of a success on all fronts.
@@emotionaljonxvx I think your worry is well justified because the game has sold 23M+ with a 94% rating despite this major weakness.
Este hombre no sabe que son los beneficios a largo plazo
Nope, but keep coping scrub.
I always liked playing as a blue in Dark Souls 3. And yeah, playing as a blue is pretty dead in Elden Ring. The opportunities are extremely rare. And yeah it's because there are no covenants.
Yeah, needing a person to be hosting with a phantom and then also get an invader and then the call goes out for a blue is such a bad way to get reliable summons. I loved being a Blue in Dark Souls 2 with their own invasion item. Wish they would have carried over invading the guilty into 3 and Elden Ring.
excelllent. i enjoyed your discussion being full audio without tie ins to hehaw video spoof moments to validate the qualify of content.
Thanks, I'll certainly do more video-specific content in the future, but for a lot of these talking pieces I like to keep them simple. Then again, we are beholden to the algorithm, so we'll see what RUclips dictates.
Perfect lunch break video.
The arenas update should have added covenants 🤦♂️
From Software has forsaken us invaders, they care naught for us. We put in the work to make their game more dynamic for other players and they give us nothing in return
It certainly feels that way. Maybe the DLC will sate us.
I really liked hearing your perspective on how they prioritized travel on torrent over multiplayer to add a sort of give and take, and I agree with most of your points. I'm not one who cares much for invasions, but I enjoy them as an option and I enjoy the change to making them a risk for forgoing the convenience of travelling on torrent in order to play coop with a friend. While the different multiplayer fingers and blue/white rings added soft covenant ideas, I really think Elden Ring was a missed opportunity for incorporating covenants. The massive open world makes for fun cat and mouse situations. It also sucks they took away the seed of a tree of giants type items for the game, although that's also a fair give and take for converting to only having invasions if the host has a cooperator.
One of my problems with Elden Ring is that in switching to Open World, they didn't compensate enough with the richness of the world's livelihood. By this, I mean interactable and lively communities and NPCs within the game like towns and traders and more living factions like the Roundtable Hold and Volcano Manor. In my first playthrough, I had high expectations of Volcano Manor to fulfill this when I reached it; there was a new hub of interesting NPCs with their own agenda and storylines, and they even seemed to have their own invasion covenant. I imagined Volcano Manor feeling like a Dark Brotherhood questline with unique assassinations and rewards (which they did partially with a few armor sets). But then they didn't have a real covenant, and a couple bosses later they were all gone. This was devastating. I understand that part of the themes of FromSoft games is the presence of death and feeling isolated in a dying world, but I think especially with an open world game it's important to have the immersive livelihood or remnants of such in the game. I'm not saying that Elden Ring needed fully lively and populated towns at every turn like Skyrim or Witcher, but it needed smaller remnants of people worth ruling over as Elden Lord to compensate for the vastness of an Apocalyptic world and an Open World souls game.
One thing I understand is the idea that incorporating covenants and making unique rewards for those participating in online play would be gatekeeping those unique rewards from offline players, which I commend. So Idk what rewards or incentives I would recommend for the idea of covenants in ER, but I like them choosing not to gatekeep cool rewards or make it a multiplayer grinding simulator like Lords of the Fallen. But maybe they could have implemented more things like Varre's questline where you have an ingame, offline option to complete the covenant ranks immediately/quickly as well as online options that take more time and investment which could have been fun for many people. Though like you say, without proper rewards or incentive in that case, there's no longevity to it other than showing your skill off to others (in which case, use the colloseums now) or inconveniencing others and halting their progress.
To answer the question, no I don't think covenants being added in the DLC would fix Elden Ring. I think the intention was to keep from gatekeeping cool rewards and to create a sense of risk in online multiplayer while giving single players the option to opt out of invasions in order to streamline Elden Ring's popularity. Which I think was highly successful in that way. But at the same time, there are design flaws in the base game and this aspect of online play incentive and covenants that Elden Ring missed out on. The only way to fix that would be massively overhauling the base game which would really change experiences of the game, and I don't think the game leaves room for that kind of alteration or ambitious patching from the devs as is. I think Miyazaki learned from the successes and failures of Elden Ring's open world experience and design in his approach with the DLC, making it more compact and adding more vertical exploration as opposed to long stretches of empty land with no rewards that beg the player to hop on Torrent and skip through to the next interesting area. In the future, I hope to see covenants brought back to the games as well, and more life in the world.
I feel pretty much the exact same way about the Open World and, in regard to covenants gatekeeping rewards, they had ways in previous titles to gain the reward items via farming from monsters or other enemies while offline. It wasn't nearly as interesting, but at the very least you could get whatever the cool item is if you couldn't/didn't want to participate in multiplayer like that.
The Volcano Manor messed me up my first time around. I thought, with all their talk and all the open hostility toward the erdtree, that siding with them would result in other characters and questlines being damaged, but nope. Instead of engaging in the quests and getting neat armor and weapons, I made my way to Rykard and killed him, thinking I would now lead the manor. Turns out that actually the manor is over and I'll have to go through another NG cycle to get it right.
Broke my damn heart.
Taunter's tongue should increase rune rewards by 30% or PvE damage by 20% and be usable only while online
Why the hell not. It's not like they have to write new code or add new assets. It's all already in the ds3 which is ER's core engine anyway. Best case they add activity. Worst case it accomplishes nothing without any cost anyway.
It would certainly cost at least something in development time, but if they wanted to I think it would be time well spent.
@@emotionaljonxvx Well the code and most of the assets are there, and they've shown that they care with them implementing the pvp separate damage scaling; so I wouldn't consider it too much effort.
@@nothingness217 You've got a point. I'm always sick at the idea of how easy it would be to increase the total player count by changing a 4 to a 6. Like, sure there are more steps than that, but also it's just that.
I feel like the density of the new area would treat it better if implemented covenants. Supposedly it will be more dense with richness of details and also be at least the size of Limgrave. Considering known details of areas, that's a pretty impressive Limgrave sized map. I speculate it will be more like the entire Altus Plateau. Overall it sounds like a possible better opportunity especially if the alternative power system takes priority to reduce overleveled players ruining fun.
I miss auto summon DS3 covenant invasions sooo much. Also 6 player PVP...
The lack of 6 player PVP has actually ruined my life in a really silly way. I lost my main hobby basically overnight and I've been sort of lost ever since. I was going to be an Elden Ring streamer, but alas I lost the will to fight. I've finally worked myself up to making content around it though a toll was taken in the interim. Still, it's rough out there.
@@emotionaljonxvx I feel you. I played DS3 religiously on PC like 6k hrs invading and when ER was about to come out DS3 servers went down for like a month and when they came back every time I would connect with someone online the game would crash to desktop every time. SAD and when ER came out and had these stifled pvp mechanics I was like ... DS3 > ER 😭 but I still have 2500 hrs in ER... Hoping the DLC brings bike life into PVP. SOOO much potential.
Pues vuelve al dark souls 3 hablan como si no pudieran jugar dark souls 3 como si elden ring lo impidiera 😂😂😂
@@emotionaljonxvxPues vuelve al dark souls 3 hablan como si no pudieran jugar dark souls 3 como si elden ring lo impidiera 😂😂😂
Thank you for making this style of videos! Positive Incentive to PvP is one of the major ball drops of this game. I feel it's one of the major reasons after 2+ years of being out, many invasions devolved into a grief or be griefed experience.
The lack of roleplay or lore reasons to be cooperating or invading makes it hard for new players to understand the charm these mechanics have. Maybe less of them would hate invaders and even try it out! Ds3 turned me into this style of PvP and it's become my favorite way to game. I very much miss the Covenants.
There is so much more to PvP than griefing your enemy. Be the invader people want to leave their TT on for and WOW them! ⚔ 🎉
I agree. Elden ring should’ve had it. I think I remember Miyazaki specifically answering a q/an and said there wouldn’t be any before the release.. I forgot what he was going for but just seemed like something they could’ve fleshed out even better in a online open world game
As a Blue I wish the Hunter had more meaning than just being a blue! But to have more covenants in Elden ring is a tricky situation because what would be the purpose for the other fractions? Bloody Finger is mohg and it makes sense with okina and varre and rykard has the rescusants with bernahl and others. The blues are only known as hunters and nothing else. Maybe a golden order or a frenzy fraction but I can't really think of any other reason to have other fractions! Now you are right maybe the dlc will add more reason to have covenants and I'm curious to see if they do I just wonder how they will work it in the game and make it have purpose in the process.. great video BTW
So I'd say the purpose of other factions (and covenants in previous titles) would be to give unique rewards for participating in multiplayer that helped distinguish your character. Basically what I loved about covenants was how they made me make builds around the theme of that covenant, which in turn encouraged me to participate in multiplayer while reinforcing the lore of the game itself. Sort of a self-perpetuating system. But I do agree with Elden Ring it's a little more obtuse because the game has not been built with those interactions in mind, though I feel a similar system could easily have been/could be added. For example, having Hunters invade Bloody Fingers and disallowing Hunters from joining Mohg or the Volcano manor. Essentially, forcing a choice per character that encourages players to choose a form of multiplayer. Mostly, I think Elden Ring focuses too much on letting every character do everything and, by extension, strongarming players to do everything with every character. It just gets a little exhausting and makes each character feel the same, at least for me.
With how expansive the world is I was hoping any DLC would add a new layer onto the existing world. Could be new consumables like star shards spread throughout, new night only mini bosses in old areas and.... Come one we should have forced invasions in Moghwyn palace and Volcano Manor, unless your part of those covenants and are willing to invade. Then of course a hunter covenant could be attributed to Ranni or Iji. Something to make NG+ more interesting on top of the new content. Hell, add a Messmer covenant that's true neutral. It comes in as a third party whenever a hunter is summoned and choose a side or kill them all.
Elden Ring already has two ideas for covenants they could have expanded on, the Recusants and the Bloody Fingers. That was a major dropped ball.
Also, the blue cipher ring shouldn't have been an item you could buy, that should also have been a covenant.
They could have also implemented how the Blue Sentinels worked in DSII, or the Nemesis system in Bloodborne or something.
Imagine if Leyndell or Elphael had an Aldritch Faithful/Watchdogs of Farron type area-defense covenant, THAT would have been amazing, since those two areas are already hotbeds for PvP activity.
A world of opportunity and ideas, missed out on. Hopefully the DLC will rectify this mistake.
Concepts covenants:
1set: knight covenants
Redmane knights
PvP focused or invasion protection in caelid
Lynndel knights
Sun Bro’s essentially coop and assistance
Cuckoo knights
Also possibly invasion protection around lunaria
2nd set: basic factions
The golden order
Again sunbros so coop n assistance
The merchants of the great caravan
Possibly trade faction based around gaining metarials and crafting
The duelists of the colosseum
Straight PVP fight clubs
The carian academy
Again based around invasion protection but more broadly could be a way to gain more powers
Expanding multi player is not just PvP - expanding cooperative gameplay is another way to look at making the game fun for everyone. Invasions are fine but the game doesn’t give you the option to have cooperative gameplay and not also still get invaded. For example, my wife or friend wants to play and I want to help, here comes an invader just because I’m there playing cooperative. I’ve set passwords and all that but it doesn’t stop invaders. So play how you like it, enjoy but perhaps consider other aspects of multiplayer. ✌🏼
You're absolutely right. I tend to fixate on PVP because it's the most interesting aspect of the game for me but cooperative covenants are just as important. The invasions centered around cooperative play is a counterbalance to the advantage gained through having additional players, especially because having multiple targets tends to severely damage enemy AI behavior and their effectiveness. I get why people don't want to get invaded, it's just that cooperation is balanced via invasions. It's something I encourage people to look at as a unique benefit of these games versus any other series, but I understand the frustration it can cause.
All said, I want better cooperative play just as much. I want these games to be bigger and better with each iteration and multiplayer of every kind is Elden Ring's weakest point.
@@emotionaljonxvxI can tell you that for the new and inexperienced player, you can tell me all day long that invasions are a balance for cooperative play, when the two could be exclusive. It was decided that PVP is given more priority over Cooperative play by ensuring that cannot have one without the other; make it optional. From my perspective, a new player has a hard enough time learning the game that an invasion can make the experience frustrating not fun. And before anyone says, just get better, sure and for the pro PVP players out there have fun with that sentiment, but for others they’ll more likely to quit and never come back; is that fun? ✌🏼
I'd say there's a ton of nuance to how PVP and cooperative multiplayer works in these games but specifically I think confronting players of any experience level with a difficult or frustrating experience is not unique to PVP. I think Margit is far more likely to get people to quit than an invader, especially considering what you have to do to actually be impacted by an invader. And as far as considering which parts of the game is actually part of the game or should be optional, I don't think any part of the game is any more or less vital by itself. Making PVP entirely optional when the system is based on involuntary action would only diminish the opportunity to use the system, which would in turn disincentivize those players to play. That's really the point of my video and my biggest frustration with this game. I am someone who wants to invade and I don't think it's a system that has been given proper attention this time around. Is my desired experience worth any less than someone who wants to "just play the game?" I also just want to play the game, in a way that enables me to impede the otherwise predictable progress of the PVE. It's the most unique thing the games do, so making it "optional" is only going to diminish its value. The systems are linked and cannot be easily separated without damaging what gives them their value.
Really, all I want to get across is that people who don't want to be invaded are not any more or less valid than people who want to invade. It is okay for inexperienced players to get their butts kicked by an invader with way more experience. There are cooldown timers and ways to get around it. Hell, they can just run away from them. No enemy in the entire game is capable of stopping the player from just running into the boss fog and forcing the invader out. This game is not built to be fair or unfair. It is built to let people experience a world and the hardships therein. Hardships that help to validate the experience and make it worth your time. For me, the more multiplayer interactions, the better. Making any of the systems opt-in or harder to use just damages that experience.
@@emotionaljonxvxI am a strong believer in playing however you want to play and enjoy it, and boss fog walls don’t really apply in open world boss fights where there are plenty of them. The sentiment of getting but hurt because you got invaded while trying a said open world boss isn’t a fun experience for everyone, yourself excluded and that’s okay. I think there’s balance in having PvP with the people who want it but then my only option for anyone who doesn’t is going offline oh and there goes cooperative play with it. Agree to disagree I guess and perhaps I’m in the minority and I’m not a new player, I have played casually since just after launch but I can tell you that I’ve had mixed experiences with being invaded and summoning help with an area leading up to a boss fight. Personally, what are arenas for and why were they expanded? To give the PvP fans something else, mean while cooperative play is more or less the same. My only happy aspect of helping others is I can get a rune arc when they “win” so “yay!” 😂but at the end of the day enjoy playing however you like 👍🏼✌🏼
Just thought about how the in game censoring fucks up rp elements to this day. You can't even name yourself "knight" without 3 certain letters being censored. They also do it for any word containing ho. It's the worst censor system ever
Thankfully all caps bypasses the censor, so I'm bombarded by a lot of really belligerent names as loudly as possible.
@@emotionaljonxvx I had no idea about that, thanks
Yes and I think they should take it a step further. Using Dark Souls as an example, offering dragon scales to the Everlasting Dragon grants the ability to allow the player to transform into one. Imagine allowing the player to transform into a Misbegotten, Omen, Beastman, Mohg blood mutation, Giant, or maybe kindred of rot.
There are so many possibilities that joining covenants create, and also allows for team based pvp. All the chaos can be solved by making attacking players part of the same covenant a type of shunned act, thus breaking the covenants. Also unlike DS 3 breaking them should have more harsh punishment.
I would really love to do more PvP in Elden Ring but lack of incentive or meaningful rewards is a major bummer no cool unique items or spells big sad.
I do invade but more like a defense way like for example defending Miquella's tree as Haligtree Knight was really fun for me using the enemies in area to my advantage since typically it’s a 3v1 fight so really immersive feeling battling along side Haligtree soldiers and Cleanrot knights etc.
Theme builds are a great way to stay engaged in the game. Elden Ring gives basically no incentive to do anything with multiplayer, actively punishing it in a lot of ways. It's a really hard backstep from DS3 and I can only hope that they won't make the same mistake in the next title 5+ years from now. It's gonna be a long, dull wait.
Here's an interesting fact for you. I had to make an alt account on steam to play ds3 for the auto summon covenants. Old steam accounts for some reason could not be auto summoned. I was never a blue or wolf on my main no matter how long I waited at the right levels. I made an alt with the same stats and I was summoned constantly
I've had my share of really strange issues with auto summoning in covenants in DS3. Lot's of timeouts and "Failed to Invade" messages when my red orb or another character or another account could work fine. Not the most reliable system, but it worked for me 90% of the time. Wish From would have put more time into those systems than making me marathon run for trash behind one thousand dogs.
im still aad that the base game seemed to have covenants until very late in development only to drop them all along with most of the more involved npc plotlines.
I’m worried they’re not going to add covenants which would be the worst
I'm also very worried. In fact, I'm basically certain they aren't going to change anything I want but I have to keep hoping.
I have never player the other dark souls games but idea of covenants in elden intrigued me i really want to be part of some kind of moghgwyn faction
I'd also like to say that soul memory was fucking based. I had no idea until recently revisiting dark souls 2 but damn it's such a better system than what we have now. I just wish instead of agape ring we had an option at a certain high tier to stay there or something. It's around 3 million souls.
I've always thought it was a great idea, but I agree they needed better control methods. The Dark Souls 2 team had some bangers and I feel they didn't get proper recognition.
I hope and wish, because after everything is discovered, found, beaten, and figured out there will still be something fun to do but it probably won’t come I have a feeling for some reason
I am scared my hopes will be dashed, but I hope all the same.
this game has so much potential for pvp, i really hope fromsoft comes in clutch for the dlc
One thing i wish we had was a constant connection server Style multiplayer
I'm definitely gonna do a video about it but I have wished so badly for that. Just use Limgrave or any other zone as a hundred+ player endless battle where when you die, you can re-enter or leave and anyone can join whenever. Just battling forever against all odds, with covenants to decide factions and level brackets per zone. My god, I could spend an eternity...
covenants would definitely add life to online play and pvp, but i really doubt it would happen since bloody fingers and recusants are like mini-covenants, and yellows and blues only got their multiplayer item. and i don't think fromsoft would change stuff in base game.
Yeah, I'm wishing but I have no real expectation that they'd do it.
*_Ds3 covenant farming PTSD intensifies_*
The DLC seemingly being far more compact than the base game might make covenants viable. Other than dungeons and legacy dungeons there's very little reason to co-op with other players in the open world due to how tedious it is to traverse the open world on foot.
As long as trophy-related items are not tied to covenants… then YES!
I wonder if its because of the DLC that covenants weren't introduced up front. Like there's some overlap between DLC and main game. So much of the same seems set up for covenants. Like the Recusants! You literally join their group and are sent off to kill other Tarnished
I think what really happened was they just decided to focus on the new things and sort of forgot about the old standards. It makes sense from a development standpoint, assuming they were trying to see what they could pull off in the open world, whereas ground they had already walked may have seemed less exciting. But hey, the DLC is their chance to fix all that.
@@emotionaljonxvx Thats just as likely I think. Definitely there was probably a lot of pressure to fill the world with loot. And any covenant rewards would increase dev time or less loot in the world
Catering to last gen low powered consoles is the problem. We need more robust pvp, higher player counts, opt-out rather than opt-in, covenants, so much more than we got.
I always appreciate when devs make the effort to release things on more platforms but I agree that if it's ever a limiting factor that diminishes what the game could be, it's not worth the sacrifice. I'd love for every game I played to work on my GBA but I wouldn't trade competent processing and visuals for the convenience.
Based on an interview one of the developers gave prior to release, it sounded like they couldn’t have multiple Torrents so players would always get kicked off of him if someone entered their world. Poor Torrent can’t have friends. :(
As a dedicated Sun Bro, I was deeply saddened that covenants weren’t in the game. Though, now that I think about it, I wonder which demigod would have the equivalent of the Warriors of Sunlight. Either way, \[T]/
BTW, people who say you shouldn’t be “forced” into PvP clearly know nothing about Souls mechanics. PvP was always an opt-in system online. Your world was closed to other players, both summons and invaders, unless you chose to play in soul/human/ember form. By playing in the diminished form, you had less HP, FP, and stamina with a closed world. Soul/human/ember form was a “power up” form of your character (that’s why it got restored if you beat a boss), gave you more HP, FP, and stamina as well as opening up your world. You could close your world again by killing yourself in an area where you could easily retrieve your souls. I don’t know how people managed to establish the “forced into PvP” narrative when we have four Souls games showing that is an opt-in system.
Yeah, there are certainly some variations between games as to the exact mechanic but generally speaking you get invaded in exchange for something else or as a consequence for trespassing, etc. Dark Souls 2 just had invasions all the time and you had to burn effigies to keep invaders away, which I personally thought was a really neat idea. Dark Souls 1 had humanity, which didn't make you stronger but did give you the ability to summon phantoms for assistance. And I think Dark Souls 3 really had the best system with the embers and higher priority for invasions with Co-op, but never fully removing it from solo so long as they were embered. It made a lot of sense and I miss it.
As far as the no multiple torrents thing, I have no idea what the limitations were but it seems like the sort of thing that if the Seamless Co-op mod could figure it out, they could make it work if they had wanted to. Of course I understand development priorities and whatnot, still just has a lasting impact on how comfortable the game is to replay.
Dark souls 2 didnt get the memo for opt in pvp then. You have to opt in for NOT geting invaded.
But fr tho, having to perpously die after the game forces you into a state for pvp is just bad design. Thats why they got rid of it. Simply getting a 30 percent health buff is no way enough of a buff to the player to justify and invasion from a more experienced player and one that has all the enemies in the level on their side against you. (Incase of solo invasion)
However if ur summoning people into ur world for help, then its fair to have another player invade as counter balance.
I'm watching this in tears. Since they didn't add covenants
decreased player cap ,opt in system ,insane damage with little effort (before the changes) ,lack of covenants and many others made ER PvP lack luster in a alot of aspects, Sure adding covenants would be nice but there are alot of changes needed to improve the PvP especially converting Opt in to Opt out but i don't think they will ever do that Which is a shame because it has alot of potential but im still somewhat hopeful
Yes but it won't. Basic design decisions are not going to be altered from vanilla. Sadly.
Roleplay was the main reason I loved covenants. They deepened the lore of NPCs, made you feel more a part of the world, and gave a sense of "lived-in-ness" to even a dying universe. Something about ER's lore doesn't hit the emotional highs of souls (imo). I don't think most ER players feel enough loyalty to, or passion about, the factions that exist in its world to roleplay as believers of them. When you said the cipher rings boil down previously lore-rich concepts to their mechanics, I feel this is true of a lot of the game. The memes of Souls have just been repeated in ER without much apparent investment on FromSoft's part.
I pretty much agree entirely. Hence, I make videos to opine and dream of the road not taken.
Hence, I subscribed!
Mohg really feels like he should be a covenant now that I think about it
Right? Why join a blood cult without perks?
Anyone else having a hard time replaying it. There's no surprises left, I know the game inside and out. It's hard to really enjoy it again. Gonna wait till may to start a new build. Anyway, great vid. Subbed.
Also... those 2 things are totally different... they used to make games without internet access... AND not all ppl HAVE internet access... ive been one of those ppl before
I certainly don't think Elden Ring should require internet access. It has a completely functional offline mode and I wouldn't want them to take that away under any circumstance. That's not really what I'm talking about here but I understand your concern.
The only point i really disagree with is that torrent should be available in multiplayer, it would be a logistics nightmare in so many ways, and would make pvp extremely annoying and cause even more network instability and lag, i could see allowing it outside of combat or without an invader present but that would make the issue of Torrent “safe-spotting” even worse so it just isn’t worth the possible small gains
And maybe it’s just me but i actually quite like all the walking, me and my girlfriend recently spent a few hours meandering around liurnia while i led her to secrets and items and she explored the beautiful area for the first time
the only annoying part was having to be re-summoned to go in and out of dungeons and when i ran out of resources:/
even the half dozen or so invasions were all enjoyable except for one super cheesy bleed shortbow build
I do think invaders should also get the horse. Seamless co-op mod made it work pretty, well, seamlessly so I don't think it's really a technical limit. Game plays like butt anyway, so I'd prefer to at least go 100mph. And the walking can be great. Nothing wrong with enjoying the game the way you like it. I tried to get my girlfriend to play but she said horse or bust, and the needing to constantly resummon basically put the final nail in that coffin.
I can only play offline, and I would like to add some things. I was quite dissapointed by ER's handling of PvP honestly.
My main complaint with the previous games' Covenant systems was that they locked offline players out of many interesting and good rewards, say Darkmoon Blade, Wolf Knight Curved Word etc.
I really disliked the preferential treatment of Online players. However I have the exact opposite problem with ER. Its like they favour the solo offline play much more than coop or online play like you mentioned. What I want is a system where neither of the playstyles are punished or rewarded.
What I wpuld like to see is Covenants giving rewards that are only relevant in PvP. Say a covenant like 'Ancient Dragon Worshipers' maybe the item they are rewarded essentially turns their body to stone in PvP with certain buffs and debuffs. Or maybe the bloody fingers could reward you with some aspect of Mogh's Great Rune that grants you some blood related perks in invasions.
However it would also have to reward the host for coop and getting invaded. My idea was some sort of proof of punishment that the host gets if they win an invasion they can use it in any coop session to buff their cooperators.
Idk but something like this may be interesting.
So in Dark Souls 3, you can farm all of the covenant reward items from enemies usually in the area where you join the covenant. The Darkwraiths drop Pale Tongues, the Ghru drop Swordgrass, the Silver Knights drop Proofs, etc. You don't need to play online to get any of them, which was a really thoughtful addition that I guess maybe a lot of players don't know about.
And Mohg's great rune is actually the only one that works in PVP in Elden Ring. When you have it active and invade, you get 3 uses of a unique item (similar to the Phantom Bloody Finger) that can be used to get a buff under blood loss conditions. It's far from perfect but it's a nice little addition that I would have loved to see given more attention.
@@emotionaljonxvx I do know about farming the Covenant items. However its pretty damn annoying farming 30 of them. Like u complained about having to farm for invasion items in ER, like it can be done better.
Currently iirc Mogh's great rune only benefits bleed builds, which tbh is a dime a dozen, but if it gave a general useful buff to all builds. The buff can be strengthened by proccing bleed. That would give it more general utility. Secondly it would be a consumable item or a reusable item, that could work with Mogh's Rune.
Yeah, farming is awful in all of these titles. I appreciate them giving an option, but it would be a lot better if you could just complete a quest or kill an NPC or something to skip past the grind.
And for Mogh's rune, it is just bleed centric. It's a thematic but not all that practical implementation that shows they've clearly given some consideration to the idea but haven't gone all the way yet. Hopefully the DLC will give us a little more.
Also, another comment for the algorithm to get you more subscribers. Invaders unite!
If they do they need to do it in such a way that everyone has access to them since not everyone will buy the dlc.
Very much so. I appreciate the way they did the DLC update in Bloodborne where the League became available to everyone (though the items for the other two additions were still DLC only). It was still a nice gesture and I'd prefer they patch it as much as possible without requiring purchase, just as an appreciation of the game's success and longevity.
Compared to other souls games ER feels so barebones the open world feels so empty shouldve just made it linear the glazing of this game is crazy
I personally hate open world games when talking in an action context, because exploration is an entirely separate mechanic that doesn't benefit from all the other features. Elden Ring is 10/10 for me like every other souls game, but it's broadly a big disappointment on a lot of levels. I don't like taking a long time to replay the game and I don't like collecting materials. Far prefer a denser experience.
@@emotionaljonxvx agree, not a bad game in any means just disappointing
Yes, covenants are the perfect opportunity for solo hosts to get invaded organically which is something I really miss in the games. I hate all the whiners who ruined this aspect of the games for the silent majority of players who actually enjoyed the occasional invasion during their playthroughs. Certain convenants could have the potential to be invaded by others, with rewards on offer for winning. For whiners, they could still have random offline invasions by npcs for those covenants so they can still get their rewards
Agree with everything you said. Subbed
The answer is simple… totally yes of course , plssss we need those!!
My expectations are very low for SotE PvP. We already have evidence of 4 player cap outside the arena being maintained. And, overall, the marketing push for this DLC seems to be that it's ER... again! More of everything, literally! And more of everything doesn't, of course, pair very well with structural change. To put it differently, we might be as likely to get covenants/faction multiplayer as seamless co-op.
I do still hope there's some kind of PvP iteration, if not novelty, in the DLC, however minor. Just not something that's gonna grab people like the swamp and gank city did. ER is and will remain as the "really big Souls, with a horse!", that's the selling card. That's what shot the game into the popularity stratosphere.
Ironically, ER could've been the game in which From unified tryhards and casuals in the same systems, because if PvP had a positive impact, it's target audience would be a potential +20 million players. But no, neophyte invaders try the finger from Varré in Liurnia and likely arrive somewhere to get mauled by hitbox overflow and "accidental" frame trapping. On the other hand, co-op players eternally complain that invaders constantly interfere with their progress/immersion, which is understandable when they get rot potted in Limgrave before they even fathom what kinda game they're playing.
If anything... good luck to SotE in not further worsening this fractured dynamic with giant pots and gatling crossbows.. Never mind "improving" it.
Oh yeah, you're absolutely correct. There's no way they're going to do anything even remotely close to what I'd like to see. They outright do not care, and not in the way where they're purposefully ignoring something out of spite or ignorance. Just in the way that they have an artistic vision as game developers, not players. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the team at FromSoft didn't actually play the game at all. It's sort of like a musician listening to their own music. Sure, they make music they'd like to listen to, but when you know every detail of what you made, your appreciation as a listener is forever altered. I'm generalizing, but you get it. So expecting a change that benefits players with content essentially generated by other players seems like it could be literally impossible with how they've formed their vision.
All of these videos are really just to commiserate with disenfranchised players who feel like the game is leaving us behind and hope that just maybe Shadow of the Erdtree might throw us a bone.
It's just cathartic to talk about every way Elden Ring went wrong for myself and for others, and what I'd like to see. But I don't want anyone to get false hopes, just to hope for the best while expecting them to be dashed. I'm confident the DLC will be a fun enough ride that people will forget what they wanted to change and then we can all reflect a few months after and look back on these conversations and say "Right, they still didn't do anything about that" and so on and then we can all say "Next time!"
Basically, talking about Elden Ring is more fun for me than playing it and hopefully I can entertain others to the same effect.
@@emotionaljonxvx I do think so too. At the end of the day, this stuff is more or less an extended cope. At least it's enjoyable. Since we refuse to let it go (it's been 2 years), we have to vent somehow.
I think they are i don't see the logic to show so many side characters? If is no covenant idk what it is, hell the main trailer only show bosses and pve. Why the dlc show a lot of ncp then. I think cuz there covenant based, + in the trailer they said " blood most be spill" (blood of your fellows )
We can only hope
I understand why you want to play co-op and all that, it just seems like you are missing the point of the beginning of the game. In the opening cut scene you are a tarnished with no nobility or what not and FINALLY receive the grace, it is structured as being you, not them. You do make valid points, but Elden Ring is not Souls, or BB. It is elden ring. Could you imagine if they didnt have any co-op or pvp in the game? People would lose their proverbial shit. I mean most people that PVP did lose it to make them do the coliseum.
I for one, hated having to invade 3 people just to continue the questline in the game. BUT it was teaching the mechanic in a way. And yes you could just jump off acliff etc, or cut the finger etc.
As for losing access to fast travel and mount, just imagine, one person is NG+ or say NG+7. Your buddy who is just arrived as a tarnished, who's map and grace points would you use? The host? THe visitor? Does the visitor or host get to keep the grace points of the Host or visitor? There is game play breaking mechanics that could be seen as a work around of a game that is the whole point of say exploration.
I also understand WHY you lose the mount and fast travel. It isnt like mob density, hp, mechanics etc change when a co-op person joins. Not all systems are great and I understand your frustrations. But it is kinda risk reward. Do you use co-op and have a "easier time killing" versus "mobility". ALso have to remember you are the first Tarnished to return in a long time.
You make valid points in everything you talk about it is a gripe that YOU dislike. Should there be better systems sure, but to force other systems on people that DONT want it, is the same issue you are having being forced into a system you dont like. I believe ELden RIng was a game that favored solo, over Co-op but they gave that option to people that felt if they needed help they could summons someone in for assistance at x,y,z kinda like the summons spot before bosses with NPC's if you are friendless.
All in all though there is validation in the covenants systems would be nice in Elden RIng, and would be great to see, the travel issue, i see as a big game breaking mechanic (for bad) so I understand why they restricted BOTH.
Anyhow just my 2 cents on the matter.
Yeah, everything I'll ever put in a video will almost certainly just be my take. I'd hate to think I'm the authority on what a game should and shouldn't be, and I just want to present what I love about the series and what I hate in the most persuasive way I can. When focusing on Co-Op or the open world or PVP all I really care about is the way I feel about the game a few years out. As it stands, I strongly dislike Elden Ring when compared against the other souls games, and a lot of it comes down to how much of a chore I find it to play and how I'd like them to change it.
Obviously, I don't get to decide and I want everyone to get everything they want from the system. I'm just of the opinion that I can't be alone and I am very worried for the future of these games and how I play them, as I see my preferred playstyle disappearing entirely.
Appreciate the thoughtful comment and always happy to get into it
Great video!
covenants would be great, so would more player slots. HOWEVER the real problem that needs to be fixed before all else is restoring solo invasions. Everytime you pass a threshhold where you cannot use torrent, you should be at risk for invasion. I say this not as an invader, but as a person who wishes they could be invaded. And if you suggest using taunter's tongue you aren't qualified to enter this discussion lol
Yeah, immediately excluding like half the player base from invasions is a really great way to make sure it's really annoying to invade. The ember system in 3 worked just fine and I don't really understand why they felt the need to change it. I suspect, like with every other multiplayer miss, they just didn't think about it at all because they were focused elsewhere.
I would like them to put the forlorns in the dlc
I miss those silly guys and their super edgy look. Random NPC invasions are a really cool mechanic to substitute for another player where they aren't available, like in offline play. Dark Souls 2 had a lot of great ideas and I wish more would have made their way into Elden Ring.
@@emotionaljonxvx DS2 was fire for his pvp. Those npc invaders spawn were unpredictable. The sense of being persecuted in your journey and overcoming it was fun
Yeah, it was a really smart move that filled the same type of function as player invaders. I've always pined for them to add a feature where you can upload your build to be accessible for NPC random invasions, letting you place yourself permanently in the game even when you aren't around. The Great Jar Warriors have sort of this idea, but they're broken and I hate them.
Answer...to what? The multiplayer already got their totally free DLC last year. Covenants were not included. Obviously in the arena mode which catered only to people who cared about multiplayer...they didn't include covenants. Why not do it then? Also, DS3 isn't even the best one, because where the hell is the Dragon covenant? The game with the most interaction with and content related to dragons...didn't have a Dragon Covenant. Fabulous.
Covenants aren't important in Elden Ring, and requiring membership and offering of items is just more stupid grinding. I'm glad covenants aren't a thing, because this way there's no requirement to farm for Proof of Concord Kepts because Blue Sentinels and Darkmoons were that broken for that long. I hope I never have to do that again in a Fromsoft game, ever.
I get where you're coming from. I'm not trying to advocate for them adding more grinds to Elden Ring and I completely agree that Dark Souls 3's covenants were far from perfect. What's most important to me is that sense of character building and commitment that a covenant can offer, where you dedicate a character to a specific multiplayer style. Really, I'm just interested in the incentives for people to interact with multiplayer, but I have no interest in them implementing something that people wouldn't want to interact with.
I think Elden Ring has lots of areas for improvement and I think covenants were a cool feature in previous games that they never got quite right. Rather than them abandoning them, I would have liked to see them further develop the system. Obviously, for anyone who is perfectly happy without them and has no interest in being incentivized otherwise, this really doesn't apply. Just a thinkpiece about things I miss and would like to see explored further.
It HAS to.
I really, really wish that were true.
No, it's terrible for people who don't care about pvp, and that's like 99% of the the people who play the game
I don't think it's quite that drastic, but 1% of 20M is 200K and that'd get you full rune, a rune scimmy, and a glory with cash to spare. I'd take that deal.
how are covernants negatively affecting solo players? Unless you care about pointless achievement hunting they offer no downside
Nice man!
YEA!
Dark souls owned replayability. Elder ring just doesn't have it. Even tho the game is incredible.
It's sad but true. Elden Ring is an incredible game, no argument, but I am a firm believer in critiquing the things you love. It's not perfect and, in a lot of ways, it is worse than previous entries. Better in a lot of ways too, but far from perfect. At least we still have a DLC to look forward to. I never feel comfortable truly judging a FromSoft title until it's complete.
Covenants were never fun for me, dark souls 3 had the best one I think but it was always this pvp thing that just seemed out of reach. If there was a way to adjust levels to balance things and make matchmaking easier I would see it working amazingly well. But if covenants return I just want it to have a pve element and gear for rewards. Maybe just recolors
I'm always trying to encourage people to get into PVP even if it doesn't immediately interest them. It's something that took me a while to acclimate to but once it clicked it rewired my brain in a way that made everything about the games even more interesting. Still, I understand people's hesitation. I just want everyone to get every single ounce of joy these games have to offer, as there is simply nothing quite like them.
Ultimately NO, Covenents should not come back if they are jusy gonna function like they were in dark souls series.
The way certain npc are set up it feels like they clearly wanted covenants like the souls series but decided in the end not to put it in, instead opting for a more pve oriented questlines, examples being the recucents.
This makes it far more easier to actully get the rewards those npc yeild rather than grinding pvp sessions. The rewards for Covenents mostly sucked and From never properly found a decent reward scheme to keep players commited to a Covenent long term, thats why ds3 allows u to switch anytime u want cause theres no point to being loyal, theres no worth while rewards.
If they were just gonna reuse the Covenent reward scheme from ds3 again, itd be shit. Its better it doesnt exist and we have pve oriented questlines instead which is better for offline players as well.
Elden ring is however missing some critical pvp concepts present in other games, that is:
1. Normal solo invasions (should be an item that players can opt into)
2. zone based invasions like aldrich faithful and forest hunters (should be a place without torrent and can affect solo hosts)
3. PvP boss like old monk and halflight (optional)
Theres no point in Covenents if ur not loyal to it, its just normal pvp/pve but with extra set dressing and nothing more.
So NO, elden ring doesnt need covenants, it needs more multiplayer items and gamemodes
I think you make a great point that I certainly glossed over. Dark Souls 3 managed to streamline covenants, making them both easier to use and a lot less rewarding to engage with. The benefit was we had invasion territories and easy access to all the multiplayer functions, but a notable downside came with having essentially zero lore impact and a pretty not amazing grind for some items. I really appreciate the way Elden Ring streamlined the item obtaining for every equivalent quest, even if I am irked that I don't feel like I'm making many actual choices.
All in all, I'm definitely wanting covenants to be better than they've ever been. Some form of competent advancement where they retain the high commitments of Dark Souls and capture the high multiplayer functionality of Dark Souls 3.
No covenants ? Game is trash af so what play thru copy paste bs for 120 hrs then what uninstall ? The point of the game is to get the shineys and clap noob cheeks with a busted ass broken build
Nope I hate when games lock items behind PVP. I don't like it when games force you to do PVP.
Like in Dark Souls 3, I'd want them to include ways to get the items offline too. None of what I'm suggesting is for people to have to play online or engage in PVP, just for them to have more incentives to do so.
No thank you... all covenants did, was FORCE ppl to play online to unlock everything... ive NEVER played elden ring with anybody else. Besides the varre quest. And i INSTANTLY exited to my world.... all that being said. Im STILL able to use everything the game has to offer. Id rather NOT have to play against other ppl online to be able to do so
In Dark Souls 3 they added ways to get the covenant items from enemies in the area. I definitely don't want people to be locked out of covenants but I think it's over-simplifying the covenant system to say it forced people to do anything. If Elden Ring were to add anything similar, I would want there to be a system that let you get the rewards without the standard interfacing. I'm only advocating for covenants as an interesting way to incentivize multiplayer, not punish offline or solo players.
First
I disagree with your argument on pvp, if someone doesn't want to have to fight another person pvp style, they shouldn't have to. If you want to play with other people, go play an MMO. My RPG is just that, MY RPG
I mean, that's certainly one way to look at a game with incorporated multiplayer. MMOs come with a lot of baggage and, to be clear, I am not advocating for people who have no interest in multiplayer to be forced into playing online. This game has an offline mode for exactly your preferred playstyle.
I think we might be coming at the problem from different angles but I appreciate the discourse. Maybe give the PVP a shot with a few friends. As bad as its reputation can be, getting a group together and pulling invaders can be really fun way to learn the ropes and break out of the standard gameplay loop. For me, PVP improved my solo gameplay by helping me better understand the mechanics. That's really why it's so hard to go play another game. These games let you use the same builds and characters for single player and multiplayer, without having some silly microtransaction hellscape or live service battle pass dogging you at every turn trying to get your money for BS cosmetics or to remain competitive. It's a truly unique experience that no other game offers.
Alternatively you dont have to play the game if you dont like being invaded. Frankly, people complaining about it are being pussies. I dont even PvP but invasions were fine. They were fun and part of the experience.
If its so unbearable play a different game or go into offline mode. Easy. Thats your opt in.