Elden Ring - It's still not perfect
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- Опубліковано 12 лип 2022
- The Night's Cavalry is the latest in a long line of enemies who were, on paper, apparently meant to cause a lot more trouble for the player.
Song used: Central Village - King's Field OST - Ігри
An odd little note is that in earlier versions of the game text, Mohg actually held the title of "Mohg the Fell Omen". Considering Morgott has the actual voice line referring to the Night's Cavalry as Hands of the Fell Omen though, it's hard to guess if a connection between the them and Mohg was ever actually considered or if the titles just got superficially shuffled around.
Related to this: on my first enemy randomizer run, margit was replaced by "Mohg the Fell Omen" lol
Maybe a fell omen is simply one whose horns haven’t been removed-a royal omen
the insider "Omnipotent" pointed out back in early 2020 in ResetEra that there would be wandering enemies with non-static patrols. This and your video make me think there was hope within fromsoft that, with the open world, wandering enemies could finally be applied. But yeah, in the end Elden Ring's world functions basically like the souls game worlds but with a more open design!
Maybe the hands of the fell omen isn't like we think. Maybe they are the hands that delivered the fell omens to their destinations. Either death or the sewers for royal omens.
Would make sense for knights whose armor was colored black with dried blood.
Sounds terrifying to imagine Fromsoftware's take on a super powerful nemesis-style enemy that just relentlessly pursues the player. I hope they get the mechanic right in a future game, seems like a nightmarish treat for the players!
*Ahem* Pursuer (DkS II)
@@cissuperdroid pursuer was a failed attempt
@@jonnyalec5646 Good attempt though! It's always a scare when it pops up in an area you didn't know spawned it.
@@cissuperdroid the pursuer like most bosses in dark souls 2, was such a pushover
Does no one think the bell bearing hunter is good enough?
It would have been awesome if after killing Morgott an event could start while you are out in the lands a deep and loud horn sounds and a hunting party of the Nights cavalry would come and hunt you down, it would add quite the sense of fear about exploring at night because you would never know when the hunt would begin
I don't know if you read books. But in Silmarillion there's a Vala (god) named Urome, who rides upon his majestic steed Nahar, blows his horn in the face of his enemies and pursues/hunts down foul creatures of Morgoth in the starlit Arda (earth), in that age and time there was darkness, no sun or moon created yet and the lamps destroyed by the dark lord Morgoth.
So in a way i found what you suggested very interesting.
Since in Morgott's point of view we are foul Tarnished and he said he would let Night's cavalry upon us, similar to how Morgoth hates the quendi (the first born elves) because they are chosen children of Eru Illuvitar, so before Urome found the Quendi , Morgoth sent his riders clocked in black to hunt down the wandering quendi in the dark, in mockery of Urome, also so that the Quendi fear the vala and learn better to not approach him.
Since the night cavalry are a good inspiration from Tolkien world's dark riders of Morgoth or the servents of Sauron better known as the nine Nazgul, who also pursued the ring bearer Frodo in Shire, clocked in dark and rode black horses under the cover of night. I feel like it was major missed opportunity from Fromsoft right there to not expand upon the idea even if for a little, so right now it's more of an easter egg or reference. Hopefully they do something about it in DLC.
Exactly!!!
Damn, this is a very good idea!
game really couldve used more random events in general, but From went extra out of their way to kill any sense of random danger with the pvp changes. maybe most of their playtesters didn't appreciate it, but I like being kept on the edge of my seat when I'm dealing with open empty areas like this games loaded with.
If it worked similar to Red Dead Redemption 2's bounty hunter system that would've been amazing
It would’ve been interesting if they implemented a hidden “wanted level” that would draw Nights Cavalry to you. It would intensify the closer you got to the Erdtree along with each main story boss you beat to get there.
While that idea sounds pretty cool, they should avoid what happened in Final Fantasy 15, where enemies just randomly dropped in with very high frequency (too high, in my opinion). It's a tough balancing act, I think.
I wonder how different Elden Ring would feel to play if there was basically a constant increasing chance of being attacked by one of these guys. Like instead of a standard open world game where you can stop and smell the flowers if you want, it would be like every moment you spend out in the open not completing an objective leads to increasing risk. Make the game more like you are being pursued. On some level I think it would be really unique, but I'm not sure I would like it more than what we got.
Wait a minute, they said there will be Need for Speed chases in Elden Ring...
Kill enough NPCs and random... guardian angels weirdos will show up in your world to scare you off into not doing that. The first one is easy, but if you kill too many, maybe two will show and gank you up. Maybe a vow or a price could alleviate their presence.
Easy to avoid, so you know a beginner wouldn't get into trouble (unless they wanted to) and would encourage players to seek other solutions as opposed to just being merciless.
Sounds like a living hell.... I'd play the crap out of it though, would have made for some super stealth content, having to hide in the bushes as 3 knights cavalry stalk the night time streets of leyndell or liurnia barring that I barley used stealth unless I found ANOTHER FUCKING RUNEBEAR
Actually, that tidbit about the Black knights originally supposed to be roaming enemies might explain a glitch from the first game. For those that are unaware there was a glitch where Black knights could have their spawn location reset if they kill you to wherever their currently standing. A lot of people have been chased back to bonfires only to basically be soft locked because they can't defeat the Black Knight that is now spawn killing them, including me on my first playthrough. The thing is this only happens with Black knights. So if they were originally intended to be some kind of roaming enemy who constantly changes location, this might explain that glitch.
i have never seen or heard of this before. do you have a vid or something? because it sounds hysterical
Damn, that sounds fucking horrible and hilarious.
I never encountered that myself, mostly because I never used a bonfire to escape one, but I've definitely heard this one mentioned before actually and it does kinda make sense if this was part of the original intention.
I do remember the parish black knight ignoring my bonfire rest once and was really confused about it
Sounds cool af, but idk, doesn't make much sense when it comes to coding I think unless they intentionally left that in as an easter egg or sth
Just an audible footnote that I found interesting pertaining to the Night's Cavalry, the "Phantom Slash" ash of war tells us that the Night's Cavalry would summon the fond remembrances of their mentors, guiding their strike. Surprisingly wholesome!
Elden Ring jedis
Sounds anime.
Wonder who taught these guys, then. Surely not Morgott himself?
@@jooot_6850 Why not? Morgott himself uses a fighting style based on summoning phantom weapons in a dazzling combo of blows, seems like his knights do a very similar thing.
Odd that they never use the move themselves
The Night's Cavalry will hold a special place in my heart just because they were my introduction to night time bosses. It blew my mind going back through an area I already cleared and seeing a whole boss that wasn't there before
They'd be much better if they got off their horses at will and back on them like the player could. They're pretty much downgraded Tree Sentinels the way they are and usually die in 1 visceral after you dismount them.
@@KerrfuffleYeah, I think these guys should've been way more of a threat. :/
I actually beat the entire game, over the course of 100 hours, without knowing there was such thing as night bosses.
I can sort of imagine the thought process of trying to make a wandering enemy, realizing it'll be a pain to simulate with all the culling the engine does, deciding to make it randomly spawning, realizing the random spawning is glitchy and causes jarring scenarios, deciding to give it safe set spawn points and then just giving up and making it a recurring enemy
I honestly wonder if it's less that the wandering/chasing didn't work well as much as it's that the day/night cycle might have been reduced in scope. Beyond a few enemies that only spawn at night, I can't really think of much reason for the day/night cycle to even be in there. But if there were originally supposed to be murderous horsemen inspired by the Nazgul chasing you down after you defeat Margit, it stands to reason that there was supposed to be a lot more impact on whether you're doing things during the day or at night.
@@DolthraI do think it's doubly made redundant by the ability to freely pass time at Sites of Grace. I know I personally would get my ass whooped by a Night's Cavalry or Death Bird and then immediately just pass time to day when I respawned, lol. If they wanted to make it a more prescient threat and force players to deal with it they could have removed the ability to pass time, but I do think it's for the better that it's there, because then the alternative if you don't want to deal with the extra enemies is just to camp in a safe area and leave the game idling.
Thus I think the saying "a game is never really finished" sort of fits here because deadlines and systems are very much a ineritve process that needs a lot of focus and elden ring is a game with a lot of systems so I'm not suprised some are more developed than others
@@ExaltedUriel The only time I have ever seen these guys is when I pass time specifically for the purpose of spawning them. The game sets the time to daytime whenever you die.
I honestly felt like Elden Ring was was the perfect game for this concept, with vast open fields you can ran away from enemies in.
Making your way through a field of very dangerous enemies was always a thrilling experience, but i was always left wanting more. Like accidentally agro-ing a dragon leading to it chasing you through different regions, and even finding you far away as it searches for you. Or the Night Cavalry ganging up on you at midnight as you get closer to Lyndell
@tecklefob I am kind of sad that the system of random encounters has seemingly not been developed that much since Skyrim. The sense of adventure provided by some unique, one-time encounters that can pop up anywhere is nothing to scoff at.
Problem is that it just turns the early game into bullshit where instead of learning, you just hope to not get stuck with some enemy.
True, but also the hardest games to implement this in.
That's a balancing and development nightmare, we're years away from being able to implement that kind of detail. The game was already hugely ambitious (and not airtight) as it is.
You know how ambitious it was for eldin ring to become open world, it could have been a battlefield 2042 if it was not made the way it is, a open world dark souls was like a joke in 2019
Ironically, the DLC to _Dragon's Dogma, Dark Arisen,_ has the character of Death kind of stalking you through the entire Island that the DLC takes place in as soon as you find Death for the first time. If there's ever an abundance of corpses, enemies that feast on those corpses, or Death himself, have a chance to appear. It's sounds very similar to the mechanics FROM wanted to put into their games, but never did. It's extremely cool.
Chad comment love dark arisen
You could also feel that death has entered the map because the screen distorts and the terrifying music begins to play. Man, I miss Dragon's Dogma.
Necrophages were terrifying when I first entered bitterblack isle
Can’t wait for them to finally perfect this “wandering enemy,” concept. I can imagine it will keep people on their toes more than they already are.
Edit: there seems to be a lot of weird presumptions being made in the replies of my comment. I’m not advocating for an unreasonable wandering enemy mechanic that would make the game unreasonably difficult. Fromsoft is more than capable of balancing it and even making it radiant and perfect. I understand a lot of people may be craven and not up to the challenge but many of us are.
Maybe they thought it overlapped too much with things like invaders in the previous games?
I'm thinking people would complain about those enemies ruining their experience, like they did with everything hard in Elden Ring
@@DefinitelyNotAMachineCultist forlorn flashbacks
@@k.m.m.a81 Forlon a.k.a. Dullahan Murder-Waifu.
@@glorytoukraine5524 the usual casuals *smh*
That was one of the bigger reasons Morgott's threat didn't line up at first for the Nights Calvary, they just seemed like special bosses instead of hunters tracking you down. Imagine if it was more of a Nemesis type of enemy where when night time came they'd just blindside you randomly. Only issue with that would be players running towards grace sites to advance the time of day.
As I was watching the video I kept thinking "FromSoftware hasn't gotten this idea to work but Capcom has... sort of." Mr. X from RE2Remake and Lady D from RE8 don't exactly have true free roaming and they're confined to specific maps but they will hunt you from one end of their stomping grounds to another if they detect your presence.
The "players running towards grace sites to advance the time of day" so as to avoid night time danger actually reminds me of Darkwood. Staying out at night in that game isn't just dangerous, it is inevitably lethal if you don't make it back to your hideout in time. Even then you'll spend all night fighting to defend your base from a horde. Of course Darkwood isn't entirely unique in that regard. The Kingdom games also have enemies spawn after sundown on most nights (the only real freebie nights are right after a blood moon) with your own forces automatically retreating inside the walls for protection. At first it's not a big deal to the player as they can just bribe the little greedlings to go away but after enough nights the bigger greed start joining the nightly attack and they can't be bribed.
Anyway, that diversion is just to say that players fearing and actively avoiding being out at night isn't a new thing nor should it be seen as something inherently bad for game design.
The Persona series games have a literal grim reaper (just like in DeS) that will come after you if you stay in a map for too long. That could work too, you’d have some urgency to explore at certain times because otherwise you’d start to be hunted. Imagine having that in Latria or the poison swamp lol
@@vwts"oh no,i sense death",**rattling chains,FUCKING RUN!!**. That used to scare the shit out me and still does. I mean even the enemy model is super scary. After i got strong enough i solo'd that bitch for revenge. How dare he attack me while I'm like lvl 8.
Honestly, as long as they hinted at chasing you or showed up at miscellaneous points showing that they're hunting you, I'd have been more than cool with a fixed point where they catch up with you and there's a scripted battle after a cutscene where they finally close in.
Fun fact; supposedly the Nemesis system is patented, so other developers aren't allowed to use it unless they skirt around the patent.
That confirms it, that Morgott line had me wondering whether the Calvary was meant to have more of a prominent role in gameplay than they did.
"COWER IN FEAR OF THE NIGHT!.............in a few key locations..."
@@OHG_Fawx "Cower in fear over how they can be tricked into jumping off ledges and bridges"
@@OHG_Fawx "Cower in fear. Of the night. (Terms and conditions may apply)"
@@OHG_Fawx sounds like something from a Monty Python sketch lol
Darn… What a shame. That line both makes sense, and sounds a tad toothless. :/
Wonder if one day, we really will get a Mr. X-style dynamic enemy that hunts you down in a Soulsborne.
We had the Pursuer in DS2
It would be awesome or Nemesis system from Shadow of Mordor. But alas, I think Mr.X worked only because it was such closed spaces and map.
Thought the same thing. An enemy that is actively looking for you and trying to track you down in the open world. That would be so unnerving.
@@tielessin Private Kowalski from Fallout New Vegas will hunt you to the end of the Earth
@@zachariahtrench7863 Not the same, pursuer only shows up in a few specific spots and you just kill him like a boss. Mr X. actively wanders the map and if he sees you, starts chasing you down.
I love the way From has nurtured this series. They're constantly trying to get their ideas to manifest as technology and skill allow them to do more and more. Iterating on ideas and sticking to them to try and fix them in the long run, but not forcing a system they haven't gotten working into the game just because they've wanted it for so long. Great stuff. I know they aren't perfect and unfinished/polished stuff gets is all over the series, but that's not all quite the same, and you don't have to be perfect to be respectable.
I think a „wandering“ enemy could work in that way, that it has multiple fixed spawn locations and whenever you Respawn it switches to a different one. That way it can’t accidentally interfere with other encounters but it still has a sense of wandering around, at least until players find out all their possible locations and know where to look for them.
Or if they had done some form of AI invasion that worked differently from the other AI invaders in the game. Maybe no invasion warning or something like that just to make it more like they're hunting you.
First half sounds like Forlorn
So basically like Wandering Legendaries in Pokémon?
That is literally the Pursuer from DS2
@@apassionatenerd.3564 no its not. persuer has fixed boss locations.
Imagine if they'd made this work though. How much more alive would the open world feel if after you defeat Margit the Night's Calvary actively hunted you through the Lands Between? (I very much understand why they didn't, the logistics intuitively seem painful, and that's as a very junior dev with no game design experience, so I'm probably underestimating. But it would have been cool. :P)
Edit: If youre considering reading the replies, don't bother, it's mostly devolved into trolling and pointless arguments. (Gotta love youtube.)
It still sort of works for me to be honest. All of the Night's Cavalry encounters are on the main roads going through the Lands Between. The "highway" going from Castle Morne, through Raya Lucaria and Leyndell all the way up to the Consecrated Snowfield has almost all the encounters. Additionally there is one on the main road leading to Redmane Castle. So to me it felt like they were riders sent out from Leyndell to patrol the main routes and hunt you down.
The only outlier is the Dragonbarrow Night's Cavalry, which is on the little side bridge instead of the main one leading to the Bestial Sanctum, but that's I guess because the main bridge is taken over by Flying Dragon Greyll.
exactly my thoughts
Yeah not a single random event in open world is seriously disappointing
@@justanenglishcommentpassin644 yeah that's the biggest missed oppurtunity of the game imo, the open world doesn't feel alive. It feels more like a massive level from previous games than an actual open world if you know what I mean
Souls games aren't designed for wandering enemies. Imagine a high end boss ending up in crucial part of early game.
You know you've reached the peak of sitting on a computer all day when one of the youtubers you watch has uploaded a video 24 seconds ago
Does this mean we win UA-cam?
@@BarnyWaterg8 "are you winning, son?"
my soul is leaving my body and entering my screen
Within my first couple of hours of playing Elden Ring I had an interesting experience. I didn't have my horse yet, I picked Wretch, I was very weak and didn't know much about this game beyond "it's big dark souls". I was lost in Limgrave at night, fighting some random godrick soldiers, still trying to shake off the soulslike rust. Suddenly, I get clobbered by this black knight who seemingly showed up out of nowhere, and, to my surprise, was an actual boss. I obviously died to him, and for the next several hours exploring at night time was genuinely tense and felt very unsafe, knowing there are threats like this lurking out there.
Discovering how the Night's Cavalry actually works was immensely disappointing. That first encounter was a great experience I wanted more of, and it turned out to just be an accident.
Much like you, my experience with the DS series was very limited, and I received a similar surprise battering from that Limgrave knight! After my initial clobbering, I tried (unsuccessfully) to defeat him for 5 hours straight. I guess that speaks to the learning curve of the game, since in my second play through I managed to strike him down on the first attempt. ☠️
Them being called Nazgul in the files is really telling of the amount of inspiration GRRM took while writing this, and that they serve Morgott (which is a letter off from Morgoth) is telling. The story coalesces so many themes from nature/trees, alchemy, and middle earth style shit like this that it's truly inspiring how it's made to fit together
The Nazgûl are so terrifying in both the LoTR books and movies, so it's a shame that the Night's Cavalry didn't live up to the scariness factor of being relentlessly hunted down, like Margit's post-defeat voiceline suggested.
CTRL+V
Or Martin is a hack.
Yeah, let's call it inspiration.
I don't think he designed the enemies and their models...
Between the music, the exclusivity of nighttime, their designs, and the speed of their fight, these guys are some of the most memorable enemies in the series imo.
It feels almost as if you're being hunted by a faction more powerful than yourself, and each one you kill is an attempt at survival.
The first one I found was on the weeping peninsula, and the way he emerges out of a structure as if he's making an appearance onto a stage left a lasting impression on me.
They are fucking cool.
There's one on the bridge in limgrave leading to weeping pennisula that I encountered first, really cool even if it was just passing the bridge. It felt like it was waiting for me and if I wanted to go east through limgrave, I would have to get through him.
I avoided the one in the Weeping Peninsula because I was in no way ready for it. Being a higher level now with a better handle on mounted combat, I need to return and fight him properly. I did try to fight him, but I hadn't realized he's only there at night, so I was thinking that either he got patched out or I was meant to encounter him before clearing out the castle.
@@SolaScientia yea u can go back and kill them at any time in ur playthrough. Think theres 5 of em. Something like that.
And it's kinda funny how easy they ended up being, the flail version is literally unable to hit you (aside from their charge-spin attack) if you just run straight at it, and then past it while on torrent.
Completely forgettable enemy for me. Easy fights, easily skipped, easily forgotten.
no lore or plot really attached to them either.
Did kill a rider but not the horse once, which was neat
Man I hope they manage to make this work one day. Especially if it’s one specific enemy you build up a rivalry with throughout the whole game. Make them the second to last boss, imagine the DRAMA
Genichiro be like
@@ethanwashington6789 Yeah this guy's explaining Genichiro to a T, especially with that 'second to last boss' comment.
@@ashenbonfire he's a total pushover though not much rivalry just you butt fucking him once you get your mojo back
@@ashenbonfire not really, you just duke it out with genichiro a couple times. He doesn't follow you and you don't build any real rapport with him as he's off getting his own sword most of the game
so... bossfights with the same enemy over and over again until the final one? dang idk man I haven't seen that in elden ring
Through all of these wandering guys there is a one, who will pursue me forever in my nightmares. And u didn't mentioned him - Forlorn, the one and only who has the most (I think) spawn points through the from's games and who really pursues the player
BTW his design also seems being made with inspiration of nazguls
Forlorn DEFINITELY, he was the only one that actually felt like he was pursuing me. His loads of spawn points and totally random nature to his spawns made him feel like a deep frustration on some of my play throughs.
I dunno man, they overused Forlorn to the point he felt more like the game's Team Rocket lol. Less of a threat every time but he just wouldn't quit, bless him
@@BastardMan that's true, he didn't exactly, uh, scale up well. But he was the only one who felt like he was actually after you.
I still love in Otzdarva's no hit run video where he has a segment dedicated to what the fuck, forlorn can invade here, why does this game hate me
The intersection of this, that they were possibly intended as wandering enemies, and that they are the culmination of FromSoft's attempts at mounted enemies is a really fascinating point, imo. More than other enemies, the Night's Cavalry are the current fruits of many years' of labor in several different endeavors.
I remember on release, me and my friend froze this guy and he came off the horse while the horse was still alive, except they had textures that were still connected and stretched immensely.
At any rate, they're fantastic and one of the best designs in the game. Truly reminiscent of the Nazgul they were inspired by, and they evoke the same sense of dread.
same happened to me but we were playing on Seemless, so I figured that explained it
I'm sure the issue was always loading zones. we know enemies have a hard time going outside of their designated areas. furthermore having these enemies not get bugged into walls would be hard with the more organic nature of the worlds map, especially with how fluid and unique the movement of combat can be.
When I first saw the Night Calvary, I was ecstatic because they looked just like the ring wraiths from lord of the Rings. But outside of that, I’m really surprised they might very well be tarnished, with their gold eyes and all. Also, the fact that they summon their horses, similar to how we summon torrent makes me think that the horses are not simple horses. Hopefully FromSoft nails the following enemy because that would make for an interesting game system... sort of like the Majima everywhere system but more terrifying.
Thing is that they're not tarnished, as tarnished don't have the grace of gold in their eyes anymore.
Imagine if FromSoft made a level in a future game where a Nemesis-like boss pursues you throughout - only you can’t kill it until you destroy a special item like with Seath
Maybe in one of the future DLCs they can try to make a wandering enemy a reality, I would think it would be less of a hassle if it is relegated to a smaller DLC map rather than the larger map of the main game.
The dlc takes place in a grand library the size of a city. Making too much noise draws The Librarian...shhh!
Hello, Zullie. During a playthrough of Elden ring, I saw Hewg on all fours, making pig noises. When talked to, he said "Don't worry, it's nothing", or something along those lines. Neither he, nor Roderika had dialogue discussing this phenomenon, and it was over once I rested at the grace. Is there any way to check if such an animation and voiceline exists for Hewg's character, and if there are any triggers for it? I have never encountered this at any point later in my subsequent playthroughs
it was probably his praying animation and you misheard whatever what was going on around as pig noises
Hewg uses the same base model and animation set as the Scaly Misbegotten enemies, and that sounds like one of their common idle poses. I'm not sure what could have misfired to make him use that animation, but he definitely has access to it.
@@ZullietheWitch that makes a lot of sense, actually. Maybe it accidentally triggered this animation, and the engine mistook it for the prayer pose, which triggered the dialogue, but not the dialogue option, since the event itself hadn't happened
@everyone I'm just gonna go with a cosmic ray flipping a bit in memory to make him pose that way lol
I think I actually had the same yesterday. I left my character next to Hewg for a little break and when I was in the kitchen I heard this strange sound and went back because I was confused what it was.
Love your style ^^
The background music, the simple text and visuals to underline everything.
Truly, there is beauty in simplicity.
Like a grande pizza margarita 🤌
I think it’s also worth noting that the Irithyll Knights also fall into this category.
The idea of a foe pursuing the player at night trough the lands sounds terrifying and awesome at the same time, having to deal with this foe depending on the environment and gear is very interesting.
When I first heard Morgott say that line I expected something to randomly chase/attack me at night time. Would have been cool if the Nights Cavalry would hunt you down at night. Still, I love fighting those dudes
Amazing and insightful as always zullie, thanks to you we're all learning so much about the games design behind the scenes!! ❤️🥰💯
The eerie background music on your videos really complement them so much, no matter what type of video it is.
I always loved the night's cavalry's design, but not the bosses themselves, too tedious for me.
Agreed
Horseback fighting and dragons are the worst.
me too, i'd probably bother more often if they'd drop more runes. fighting two of them was more than enough for me, it's just not worth the effort
Bit of the opposite for me, horse back for these guys and the dragons has lead to some of the more intense encounters.
"Too tedious" was a common trait for elden ring bosses in my experience
I love the whole Nazgûl esthetic they have, truly one of my favourite bosses
down to there even being 9 of them in total in the game
@@umbranex9274 I thought there were 10?
@@Jormyyy There are 9 encounters, but 10 total Night's Cavalry, because one of the encounters is a duo.
@@Jormyyy There are, I think they're counting the duo in Snowfield as one. Ten riders for ten fingers => the 'hands' of the Fell Omen.
"What if we take the Nazgul horses but put the Nazgul capes on the horses?"
I forget how good Kings Field music is and then I watch these videos and it all comes flooding back.
It's actually an interesting idea to create a condition where the enemy always walks/rides towards the player, no matter where they are on the map. I imagine pathfinding to be the main issue here, too many factors prevent this from being able to work. They would need to create a laundry list of AI rules for the npc to follow to keep it from constantly killing itself or getting stuck. Pain in the butt.
As it's a singleplayergame the enemy wouldn't have to be actually loaded into the world until it's close to the player. Could just set some kind of timer based on distance and make the enemy appear whenever it hits 0.
On the other hand though....random 2300 souls every now and then wouldn't be bad
I love the Night’s Cavalry, their armor set is one of my favorites too. I’d like to see them eventually nail the wandering enemy mechanic.
Man I love King's Field's OST. So much menace and mystery.
I will never forget my first Night's Cavalry encounter, I was doing some light farming of the enemies near the bridge for the last 15 minutes or so when it had hit night time and the next go of killing the enemies on the bridge just as I was about to hit the last enemy I exploded into a pile of dust dying in 1 hit from the nights cavalry running up and doing the leaping slam on me from behind then casually walking away. I didn't see another night's cavalry for like 10 hours and I was terrified the whole time of what caused him to attack me the first time
I like the way your videos appear ominously in my recommendations. Theyre popping up, i'll view the whole image and the title and the Thumbnail are always fitting, interesting and dont feel like clickbait. Everything is written in normal letters, not in captions and all. There doesnt seem to be a real structure in your upload schedule which sounds like a bad thing at first, but the better it is If you upload, because i dont expect anything at the moment. Always a pleasure, thank you Zullie. Sincerely.
I'd like to see more Night Cavalry spawns. Like, **way more**. It'd be cool if they just spawned on roads near your location during nighttime, patrolling between graces as it hunts for you. Having something that really makes you think twice about wandering at night, let alone using the main road. Also make their aggro range way bigger to suggest that they're scouting for you. Maybe making groups of them kinda like the one in the snowfields too.
respawning boss, and at random areas, a percent chance encounter at night.. it would terrify me in a great way :)
I might be afraid to play even if FROMSOFT did this with deathrite birds, night cavalry, and that grafted scion that teleports while spitting poison and screaming(that one is the true nightmare fuel)
I'm surprised that no one is bringing up forlorn in this discussion. That seems like the closest implementation of a wandering enemy that can attack you at almost any point and I think the fact that forlorn was received poorly when sotfs released that they haven't done any true wandering enemies.
I was looking for this comment. This confirms Best Souls 2 is THE DEEPEST LORE.
The Kings Field Soundtrack was a nice mix in to the video . Great choice !
Honestly ur channel is really cool and I even remember watching ur channel when I played dk3 (I'm currently playing demon souls remake lol)
New sub!
You telling me they've been attempting to fit a Nemesis-like enemy into this series? Thats amazing! I hope they accomplish this eventually as I would love to be terrified of that.
Imagine after defeating Margit, whenever night falls, there's a chance that a knights cavalry will spawn near try to track you down and chase you.
For better or worse, I do hope From ends up commiting to the Wanderer/Pursuer boss concept in on of their future titles. It seems like something with the potential to create very unique dynamics.
Also, heh.
Oh yes, "heh", you can never forget it, Lautrec.
These are one of my favorite enemies in the entire game. I love their move sets and the soundtrack that follows them into combat.
Love that you mentioned the song used.
Wouldn't be necesarily hard to fix, they makes these types of enemies spawn in a single or specific areas with a 100% chance, that's what makes them predictable, better make one of them spawn in like 10 or 20 different areas with 5% or 10% spawn chance than only in 1 or 2 areas and a 100% spawn chance. that would give the sensation that they are unpredictable and somewhat "patrolling" the world, because I know is very hard to the engine just calculate an enemy out of your sight travelling in all of the map. But who knows what the FromSoftware developers have in their enigmatic head (just notice ds2 horrible design)
It would be pretty insane to have an enemy tracking you down the entire time. And you’d get some kind of visual or audio alert that he’s near, so you’d have to run or hide, because fighting him would be certain death because he’d be a really powerful enemy. This would actually help prevent people farming, or at least add another element to it!
Was Alien Isolation kinda like that?
@@Leonidas1210vc alien isolation had a dual AI system that knew where you were at, at all times. it was pretty busted
Zullie you always surprises me, keep the great work.
stumbling upon them for the first time was definitely a memorable moment, wouldn’t change anything about them
The issue I imagine is that Fromsoft and Miyazaki usually adhere to an internal standard of fairness. A roaming miniboss that can just randomly ambush you will lead to a lot of sudden and unfair feeling deaths, so either the difficulty of the enemy has to be scaled back to be more appropriate to their role, or you upgrade them into a more strictly defined role but lose on versatility.
I don’t think it unfair in the sense that running into a trap and dying is unfair. As was stated in the video they would’ve only appeared at night. So the first time the player encounters them it would be at night making them a lot more cautious about the time.
@@sanguisbumb6138 but in this scenario, you didn't run into the trap, the trap ran into you while your minding your own business.
@@apassionatenerd.3564 A way to make it more fair is if they anounce their presence first.
Like a loud hunting horn blaring in the distance, giving you a heads up they will spawn and hunt you down, giving you time to stop what you are doing and prepare or run.
The biggest issue I think is that even if they figured out how to make them free roam randomly, it would be extremely frustrating to a player that's trying to track they down for the gear they drop. To avoid this frustration they would need to not have unique drops but that would remove what makes them cool.
I really think min maxing has ruined gamer brains. Having hard to access gear from rare spawns that you may not see until several hundred hours into the game is cool. Not everything should be able to be tracked down, triangulated and found immediately. Get me?
@@germanrud9904 I hear ya, but I think it's fun to do themed builds for pvp and it's annoying when getting the gear you want for a build depends on rng after you've already gone through the trouble of finding where it is to begin with. People who use the wiki to find where stuff is are just ruining the fun for themselves.
Im gonna be honest, I can't tell which I prefer.
The feeling of thrill being chased by Night's Cavalry wherever you go.
Or the safety that I'm not.
A way fromsoft could do it is give the illusion of being pursued. Every so often the enemy would wordlessly spawn some distance away, somewhere on the player’s calculated route, and attempt to intercept the player. Sometimes the encounters would be programmed so that the player could flee, sometimes they could see it coming a mile off and proactively evade it. But sometimes its AI would be cranked up enough a fight would be inevitable. You would finally have to face your fear. And god help you if more than one spawned
Honestly having a mechanic for roaming enemies that regularly invade or ambush the player is such an interesting mechanic that it would probably need to be a core element of the game and designed around it. It's a killer idea but it's so big that fromsoft would really need to alter their design philosophy to make it work.
skyrim already did it though
Well, Breath of the Wild has Yiga Clan members just attack you with no warning in most areas (note that they don't appear on Death Mountain, in Korok Forest, inside populated towns, or inside the area of some Shrine Quests, most notably Eventide Island).
Ah yes, the boss that struggles with his moveset just as much as you struggle to land a hit. First time i met him i thought that without the horse i'll finally help him to become a boss, but... unfortunately, he summoned the horse right back.
Music is always on point Zullie
I love them. They are fun to watch and fight. I was so surprised when Cuckoo Knight turn into one in the nighttime!
Cool concept of enemy, but is too bad that they decided that when you die it turns to day and you have to pass the time again. So annoying.
"Still not perfect"
Their hit boxes agree
The Elden Ring DLC is called Shadow of the Erdtree, so the area might be permanently really dark if the area is always dark, due to it being in a shadow, this seems like the perfect place to have enemies that chase you wherever you go as you restore lost graces to be beacons of light in the shadow. However, with each grace that gives a zone of safety, more enemies will pursue you in the darkness to try and snuff out the light-bringer. Another neat touch would be using incantations like Order's Blade (I think that's what it's called) to grant the player an increased area to see, as well as an incantation for shields, if there is one. Alternatively, because I'm pretty sure there is at least some amount of time travel in fromsoft games, we leave the lands between past the Haligtree to enter its shadow occupying a land of eternal darkness. Sounds very similar to some Dark Souls ending where you refuse to link the fire. This is just me spit-balling some random ideas I came up with, I don't really expect this to be the DLC, but it's still neat to think about
Awesome content as always 👍
I really like the idea of a random enemy that's designed to literally chase you down to the ends of the earth if you trigger combat with it. Like, imagine an enemy in Elden Ring that could literally hound you across the ENTIRE map of the game, and the only way to stop it is for either you to kill it or for it to kill you. That would freak people out, and be a really fun idea.
Revenants are sort of capable of this but if you think running from one is a viable strategy you’re likely to die before exiting its residence
I still think DS2 pursuer was a pretty good idea which should have been fleshed out more. I distinctly remember meeting one in the Huntsman's Corpse and later in Sinner's rise. Its a terrifying learning experience.
There was one in the tutorial area by the coffin for gender change it was terrifying
I played DS2 straight away after beating DS1 + DLC, so I came in overconfident. The Pursuer absolutely kicked my ass! But eventually I learned his pattern and by the end he was a minor inconvenience. I think he's a great demonstration to players that they are improving and getting better with time.
Loving in King's Field music used in this video 😍
It all comes together! When Margit says “cower in fear of night” i initially didn’t think much of it but it makes sense if there were deadly enemies that sought after you at night
Wow, when you showed that they had actual eyes, it became incredibly unsettling. Really uncanny as:
-You wouldn't expect them to have them (like DS1 Black Knights)
-Their eyes are clean compared to the eyes of the vast majority of the enemies
-Yet keep that golden color that doesn't make them human
They are strangely implied to be good looking, which is so unlike the rest of their design.
The golden color isn't necessarily inhuman. There's a snippet of text in the character creation menu that references it, calling it "The gold of grace shining in the eyes of the people of the Lands Between." It seems to represent the ability to see the guidance of grace from the Erdtree, which the Tarnished lost.
@@ZullietheWitch They may not be inhuman in the Elden Ring universe, but IRL they would be. Either way their existence clearly rubs me the wrong way
When your company's enemy placement is so on-point you can't introduce a random element for fear of throwing the whole thing off.
I'm willing to call that a mark in their favor.
from software has grown so much and still has the potential to do even more
In the previous video I commented to ask that the knight cavalry horse cloth be removed to show what’s underneath - my wish was granted, thank you so much I am forever a subscriber
They need to remake ds2 and have it so that the pursuer invades you forlorn style at random times and you get a warning on screen that just says 'someone is hunting you', would be terrifying
Man, I really wish From would hire some competent software engineers. It's kind of embarrassing how such artistically beautiful games can have such half-baked ideas in their games nearly a decade after the initial concept.
I think it's more that even simple-sounding ideas like 'enemies that patrol the game world' rapidly turn out to be incredibly complex when you get into the murky details. Enemies take up a lot of your memory budget, so you have to keep track of where to load them in and deload them. You don't want enemies that *actually* follow the player across the entire world, because that would quickly become very unfun, so now you need to block out go/no-go zones. You have to grapple with the fact that the game world is inherently broken up into chunks to make multiplayer sessions feasible. And the Night's Cavalry now need pathing/navmesh capabilities for vastly different kinds of terrain that wasn't designed for them.
And this is all while you're trying to make the rest of the game! I think what the retail game does strikes a good balance between being practical and the original idea of some elite force doggedly hunting you down.
It makes me feel like they're less competent than I initially thought, since other games have done this years ago. It could be that their engine can't do that idea so easily, but they've had all this time since 2009 to adapt their engine to work with the idea. I guess it just isn't a high priority for them.
How fitting that you uploaded this the same day I got yeeted off a cliff by one that refused to fall off a cliff himself,
Curse you Night's Cavalry in the Forbidden land. At least you gave me a kinda funny clip to record you spider horsed sonnova gun!
This would have made Elden Ring FAR more terrifying. No boundaries and hard locked on you imagine adding a no grace mechanic during the chase. And each kill of the calvary would make a stronger one appear next time.
Great video - absolutely right on Morgott's threat, would make more sense if they had roamed, as if tracking for you
To this day the black Knights are the most memorable minibosses from ever created. The design in my eyes is flawless. I figured they went the same way with the crucible Knights and even though I rocked that set and the blade of odorvis in my playthrough the black Knights are still superior.
Prey (2017) had a similar mechanic to a "wandering enemy." For those who've played, I'm talking about "The Nightmare" encounters. More a boss than anything, it could follow you around from map to map. Through doors and loading sequences. It's a pretty tough fight the first time since some of your Psionic neuromod powers are not yet available. Fortunately the there's a few turrets you can setup to help you.
It's worth the pain if you're kill it bc the resources more than make up for the ammo spent killing it. If it does show up and you're not ready, the game does give you the option to make it go away (or attract it) with a special piece of gear.
If nothing else, the inspirational concept of "make a badass knight that pursues the PC" very well may have contributed to their final forms looking so cool.
Gosh, what an awesome idea for From Software to strive towards. It would make their appearing a lot more exciting and scary at the same time. It would most certainly give off the Nazgul impression if they were wandering the Lands Between looking for the Tarnished who is trying to become the Elden Lord, like how they were looking for Frodo in LOTR. Wow! Thanks a ton for this video, Zullie.
I think that they should have done a Yiga Clan-esque approach, where after defeating Margit, the Cavalry can randomly appear near you at night and attack you. Defeating the Cavalry would give you an Ash of War at random from a select pool, and you’d only get duplicates after the pool has been emptied. This could keep their importance as bearers of AoWs.
Kings Field ost is a mood very fitting.
Night's Calvary really woke my ass up when I first started Elden Ring. Just when I started getting comfortable with my journey of poking and bonking goblins and soldiers, night falls on the bridge.....then I see a massive red bar. The loading bar is on my brain trying to process this, and then as I turn the camera, this huge massive knight veiled in black is like right on top of me. I was horrified, but I welcomed the surprise. XD Very good initial impression of the badassery of this game's recurring bosses.
I'm glad you posted about this because I had the weirdest thing happen with this enemy type and I don't know if anyone has seen it. Black fireball incantation dealing a deathblow on a jumping blacknight carvery horse not only insta kills the ridder but makes the horse itself an invincible but still interactive NPC just hanging out. Its incredibly odd but I caught it and uploaded the clip for proof.
The initial design of the wandering reoccurring enemy idea reminds me of the Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor/War games, where orc/uruk captains (boss type enemy) can sometimes hunt you down when you are just exploring and wandering around or even ambush you in the middle of a big fight, all completely unscripted. Some people may dislike it, but I love this type of design.
They do patrol chokepoints like bridges and narrow passes, so it works well enough
I'd love an individual enemy that wanders a larger section of the map and that way randomly encounters you in many different places. It's a great concept in theory. Another fun idea would be a true nemesis who keeps stalking you. In Elden Ring, you're always pursuing your enemies. Turning it around would be a hell of a lot of fun.
Imagine the anxiety of knowing those scary individuals are hunting you down relentlessly.
I hope From manages to make this concept a reality.
In Castle Morne territory, the Night's Calvary does wander enough that you can be in your inventory by the merchant near the site of grace, hear boss music, wonder what's going on, and get absolutely jump scared by something smashing you out of your inventory.
One of the many things I love about FromSoft is their clear intent to not give up on an idea they love.
Mounted enemies, Flail weapons, Sneaking, etc.
Just because it didn't pan out in their first attempt, or even second or third, they don't give up on trying to make it a reality later.
Minecraft has phantoms spawn near you if you haven't used a bed for too long. Phantoms are actually really important late-game since they drop an item needed to repair elytras which allow you to glide.
I wonder if a Soulsborne game could do something similar, maybe a curse you acquire through a quest and have to cleanse by advancing that quest.
I like how they keep on trying, shows their not willing to give up on it.
I wonder if a code somewhat like this could world. They could do do it like:
-Roll a number between 1-1000.
-Set the goal at like >950 or something.
-If the number is satisfy, check if the time is night.
-If the time is night, check if the player is outside and not in a cave or smt.
-If both are satisfy, check for suitable areas near the player.
-If there are suitable areas, play a sound to notify the player a night cavalry is coming.
-If the player remains in the area a certain period after the sound has been played, choose a random area outside of the player view and spawn in a night cavalry.
-The night cavalry will be given extremely long tracking range and will aggro on the player immediately, given the feeling that they has been pursuing the player from afar.
-Once the night cavalry has reach a certain distance to the player, give it back normal tracking and a normal fight with a night cavalry will begin.
Of course this is not the best way to do it but I feel like it could make the concept of the player being randomly pursue by an enemy works.
I's say that the pursuer was the closest we got to perfection since is a boss that actually inspires fear (specially if you encounter him in the tutorial area or the rooftops before his actual fight), I think the best we could've gone about this is mapping this types of bosses to have unlimited follow range within an specific area of the game kinda how resident evil does with their bosses( best example would be the the tyrant from 2 remake during the police station area) in this fashion they avoid having to map an enemy the follows you and stalks you through the whole map because that would be some insane work. Hopefully they will perfect this dynamic because it would fit the gameplay a lot and it would make it 10x more thrilling.
The randomness of the Forlorn's invasions are quite fitting for wandering fighter clad in black too