FromSoftware, PLEASE make it so people can't put messages near interactable objects!
Constructive CriticismI wish downvoting messages would damage the healthbar of whoever wrote it instead of healing.
I like the idea of it still giving a heal, but maybe also functioning like Shabriri’s woe too, attracting enemy attention
I use the disparage feature as a "troll upvote" i.e. they tricked me into attacking a normal wall? Lol you got me, I appreciate the tomfoolery but also am annoyed
I have a feeling that heavily downvoted messages appear less often. If _all_ that it did was give the author a heal and updated the counter then we'd see so many spammy or low quality ones around. As it stands, I often see a few "liar ahead" messages beside suspicious looking walls that presumably used to have "illusory wall ahead" messages.
Yeah I see those “liar ahead” messages all the time. What’s funny is that I end up checking the wall anyway, even when the original message isn’t there. Who knows if the “liar ahead” guy wasn’t the liar all along??
I like to interpret those as the player is calling the wall a liar
"You lyin' to me wall?!"
tink
"Huh, guess not."
Especially when you see Liar Ahead -> Liar Ahead -> Illusory Wall Ahead. It’s part of the game, a bit of fun and it’s very low stakes so I don’t mind tbh :-)
Yeah I tend to keep my messages in funny / vaguely helpful category
Act like a trumpet horn from an enemy and just make anything nearby instantly see you.
That's a cool idea, not gonna lie.
Maybe it can speed up the attacks of nearby enemies by about 1.3 times too, give them a "bloodthirsty" status?
Make it aggro every enemy in the area you’re in, and make the message leaver take 1.5x damage.
Also make Miyazaki have relations with their mother.
Imagine it "attracting attention" of a certain enemy in a certain spooky wooded area.
IT HEALS YOU?!?!
Yeah and it's definitely come in clutch lol, so many times left with the magic pixel from a heal right before getting hit!
Speak for yourself: all my message appraisal heals come when I'm at full health, especially if I'm in a boss fight and just spent one of my tiny opportunities to attack by healing instead
And the more votes it gets, the more likely it is to appear in-game.
I believe after a certain amount of downvotes the message gets deleted, but the number isn't low
Ive seen a few of those trolling hidden paths voted into the high thousands, if they get deleted the threshold is insane
Always wondered about that - I think the number goes up whether you disparage or applaud a message, so it's just a total of votes.
In the last games they would appear less often but not get deleted but not sure about this one
It definitely won't get deleted, there is one troll message at Manus Metyr with 9999 appraisals since day 1
BRB putting down "dog" in front of every turtle in the game
Right? News to me, lol
Don't. Trolls would just abuse it and downvote every message
I don't. Then trolls would just damage people for sick fun
Until you’re mid boss fight and someone disparages your well-intentioned message and you die. There is a very good reason this isn’t a thing.
As it stands right now it's still a life the message could have saved. Imagine someone disparage your message instead of liking it to give you that 1 heal you needed to kill the boss... so yeah, make decent messages people. It helps everyone. Also I always like 90% of all messages all the time, just a small contribution.
Terrible idea, Elden Ring is hard enough without introducing griefing
I thought about that for about five minutes but it would be completely horrible irl. In theory it’s good, but think of how many trolls there are. I genuinely would just not play online anymore.
It should open up a dialogue window that won't allow you to attack/anything else until you dismiss it
Fight annoyance with annoyance
Or they could make each disparagement lower some invisible score for the player. It'd have to be positive for them to receive heals from applauds, so if they get -999 downvotes they'd need +1000 to get a heal.
I love this idea, it should really work both ways!
But then you’d get trolls just spamming dislike just to piss people off, even if it’s a good message
I wish you could just disable them on the fly like the HUD, instead of having to quit out and restart offline... Would be handy for screenshots aswell
I did my first dlc run offline, and it was actually pretty sweet. I never realized how much my eyes are drawn to anything shiny and white. But obviously I missed an insane amount of stuff. Still worth
I played the main game Offline on my first playthrough, and I am doing the same now with the DLC.
I would love to have an option to turn off messages and bloodstains, I think they spoil the game most of the time...
That’s one thing I just noticed replaying DS2. At least in SotFS, if you lose connection you stay in game. It’s super nice not to get booted to the main menu every time the internet flickers.
Just ignore them. No heals for those folks.
Once you downvoted AND walked off
Sometimes I mistakenly press the wrong button and downvote.
The summon for the Messmer fight is cancer. Not only is it annoying having it IN THE ARENA, asshats have the wherewithal to place messages directly on top of the summon so as to obscure it and make it very hard to activate the summon unless you’re directly on top. If you do this, I hope your house burns down
The confirmation pop up just makes it a million times worse. There is literally no downside to summoning him. WHY DOES IT NEED A CONFIRMATION BUTTON
Imagine having to do this every time for festival Radahn.
Yep, From should do it the same way for signs inside the arenas. We know they can do it. Why didn’t they do it?
You know damn well why they did what they did
Miyazaki nuts every time someone dies to a pop up message, true fact
AND WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE ON NO INSTEAD OF YES
Same with resummoning torrent when he dies. I think Fromsoft just likes to kick balls for no reason sometimes
You can't view what buffs and debuffs your characters has in any of menus i looked at. So you just have to know the icons of them under your hp bar? Who made that decision. What good is the status menu if it does not show the effects my character is under? What is even the point of status menu when everything in there is already present at other places where the information is relevant?
Fromsoft just has terrible UX. Just terrible. The fact that new items being marked got added to their game in 2024, 2 years after the release of their massive game should tell you that.
careful last time a gamedev pointed that out they were harassed by fanboys
I remember that very well and was going to point out but rather not deal with those type of people.
I’m saying! And it doesn’t tell you why you have to figure it out. I beat like three bosses with Baldachins blessing in my inventory and didn’t know what was causing the health debuff until my brother pointed it out.
This time I remembered to remove the debuff.. just in time for the dlc final buff lmao
But meanwhile the summon out side the big boss on Ruah is both outside the door and starts on yes for some reason. I kept hitting no because of muscle memory from Messmer.
I have PTSD from that.
Exactly! I have to go out of my way to summon in this specific instance, just accept it!!
If you do this, I hope your house burns down
In the embrace of Messmers flame
TIL there's a summon for Messmer lol
yep, you can summon Hornsent for his revenge.
he has a whole monologue like Igon does, he's just not as hammy.
You can also summon the female knight who works for Ymir.
yeah I heard about her for that elsewhere but I kinda screwed up that quest, just like Hornsent's own. killed messy before I found the summon to help fight off Leda, just like I didn't meet Ymir & co until after I'd already cleared the keep.
Shit I was just replying elsewhere with the same complaint.
Worst part I think they were trying to be helpful and say 'seek Tarnished'. Oh I'll seek YOU out don't worry
May all their beer be flat and food moldy
There were like 3 messages on top of the Igon summon sign.
Back to offline
Back to offline
Wait can we swap back and forth? I had no idea. Also yeah I'm pretty sure half my deaths to Bayle were because I got bum rushed trying to activate Igon because there's 3-4 player troll messages on top of it.
You can play the game online or offline whenever you want. It's an option at the main menu when you start the game.
It's been there since day one. :D
I went offline to summon Igon for the fight against Bayle the Dread specifically for this purpose. I never once cared about messages and spoilers, I thought it was fun and ignored ones that looked like would be talking about boss fights.
I got repeatedly stomped by Bayle because he starts off so aggressive and I couldn’t get Igon to summon consistently due to the messages being on and around his summon.
It was immeasurably frustrating to deal with.
With that said, I don't understand why some of these DLC boss fights have the summon signs IN the arena rather than directly outside, like in all other cases.
summons outside the arena give the boss a 50% HP buff, summons inside the arena do not. so by placing them there they're basically saying "free plot-relevant summons right here, no downside, please use it".
Yep I just experienced this. Assholes..
They also do this for Bayle unfortunately and I found Bayle far more annoying. Although thanks to the chad dragon slayer summon you can use he ended making it a cake walk for me.
Same with Igon’s summon for Bayle. The amount of times I died just trying to summon him is just stupid.
Fromsoft: “Just use summons if the game is too hard for you lol”
Also Fromsoft: Makes at least three bosses in the dlc that pounce on you too fast for you to summon
I’m referring to
Even worse they’ll put dual signs down
thats a really weird design choice. I hope they do not use that shitty mechanic in their future games.
I HATE messages at fog doors.
If I want to switch to my seal, I have to step away and find a spot without a message just to switch weapons else I stand there switching between "read message," "enter fog," "Read message," "enter fog." I WANT TO SWITCH EFFING WEAPONS!!!
Everyone saying objects take priority over messages are missing this part. It’s annoying as shit when messages are at a fog wall and you try to switch weapons
It’s especially annoying if you buff via a spell and want to change weapons.
Ex: you use a golden vow dagger at the fog door. Left/right to change weapon to your main but oh wait, you can’t because you’re shifting through 30 “weak foe ahead” messages.
also shit like " the key has been used" popping up and negating any button input until you dismiss said mesage sucks ass also.
"Somewhere a door has been opened"
It so awful when you are trying to coop too. Holy you are just standing at the fogwall waiting for the prompt to pop up. And if you spam the button/key you are opening the message 10 times.
People who put a message on top of summon signs inside a boss room should be put in jail
i bet its another "snake?" message, omg its so funny you guys
Snake, therefore edge
That, or the intentionally malicious "try ladder" which is placed in front of a ladder purely because they know it'll waste an annoying second or two for other players.
That only happens on one ladder in the game (Sealed Tunnel), and it's because the interactable object required to climb the ladder is misplaced a few steps in front of the ladder itself. If you put a message in front of any other ladder, the ladder climb option will always be offered first.
I am trying to summon igor for Bayle's fight and I just can't before my ass gets jumped on by that stupid dragon because there's a lot of messages on the floor surrounding his summon sign its so annoying.
I turned off multiplayer just to avoid stupid shit like this
Yeah I ultimately played offline just to get it done.
Reason why I play in offline mode.
The messages are kinda comforting in such a dark single player game to know others are out there doing the same thing, giving hints and tips. I absolutely love the message system
Someone put a message on top of igons summon sign, I was so pissed about it.
Actually, I'm pissed his summon sign is even inside the arena to begin with. Who's idea was that? It's fucking stupid.
Probably FromSoft code way of not increasing boss health without worrying about the summon dying.
couldn't they simply have you activate the summon sign from outside and have the summon appear within the boss arena when you walk in?
Wait what
Any time you summon something outside the boss arena, it increases the boss health. Anything summon inside the arena doesn’t. FS never really makes that clear
Since Demon Souls everytime you enter the fog wall with summons the bosses health increases proportionally with amount of summons. Goes for NPC or real people. The distinction of the fog wall is important because summoning after the wall like in radhans fight or Igon won't increase the health.
Important to know in case the summon is dying in the first few minutes and leaving you with a massive health bar to deal with.
Isn't because he can't walk?
The flesh and blood Igon can't walk, but when summoned in the fight he's in his prime and has all his limbs intact because ghost.
Trying to click on a ladder while getting chased is fun. Finger But hole..
The fucking iron virgin in sealed tunnel...
I always somehow end up doing a slow stupid ass emote
I wish you could see an applaud-to-disparage ratio.
Most annoying ones are when they place them right in front of fog gates or when they place them on top of summons signs (for instance the one in Messmer's arena)
I wish death on every person who puts a message right at the fog doors. MFer, I just want to buff and swap weapons, stop screwing it up.
How about giving messages lower priority than interactable objects?
….They already do this. If you’re able to interact with both the ladder and the message the ladder always takes priority unless you switch it
This.
People like OP whine about a not-problem
I had someone put some stupid waste of a message directly on top of Hornsent's summon sign during Messmer's battle.
Because of its placement though it overrode the true sign for the most part and only gave me a sliver left to interact with properly.
I really want to meet that person.
Just beat Messmer yesterday and the three messages over Hornsent's summon sign pissed me off.
Don't you dare
Try using skill
You don't have the right. O you don't have the right
I'm just trying to do his fucking quest line.
Not entirely true
Messages seem to take over if you go all the way up to a ladder and it's placed right under it
If you take q step back the ladder interactis om top
Incorrect. There is only one ladder in the game where this happens (Sealed Tunnel), and it's because the interactable object to climb the ladder is misplaced a few steps away from the ladder. Everywhere else, the "climb ladder" options always trumps the "read message" option.
It already is like that, but people spam the interact button and open the message before they get to the ladder.
Items and other interactables take priority too. Just don't spam the button and it won't be a problem.
You can already see in the first picture that "climb" has priority over "read message".
Always have been. If you get the message it's because you're spamming the button before you're close enough to actually interact with the ladder.
Run up to ladder, push interact, grab ladder. Every time. Without fail.
Run far from ladder, push interact, get message, cry on reddit. Every time. Without fail. Since DS1.
God I thought I was going crazy reading this post and comments I've never had an issue with this in all ds and elden ring.
I think it was either DS1 or DS2, someone put a message on top of a lever that said "lever!" and people on reddit were screaming crybabies about how the message was blocking interaction with the lever.
Lever wasn't active until you got all the way around the level and activated the lift first. After that it worked fine.
Be wary of ladder and then switch action
If you notice in the pictures you yourself posted, interacting with the environment takes priority over reading messages. If it's only giving you the option to read the message, then you're not in the position where you can interact with the ladders or whatever, so the message being there literally doesn't matter.
This isn't constructive criticism, you're just complaining about something that isn't even an issue.
So I'm the only one who gets the actual action prompt and not the message prompts when I walk up to something? This hasn't been an issue in forever
No, you're not. Summon signs, fog walls, ladders, etc. all have priority over messages.
OP's post shows this too: The character is to far away from the ladder to climb it -> message shows; get close enough -> climb promp shows.
I wonder just how many messages I'm not seeing
People who do this are garbage.
This, plus make it impossible to put messages on top of gold summon signs.
This. Needs to happen
I was watching my friend doing Bayle. There were messages all over the NPC summon. Shit had me dying! "Maybe you shouldn't summon!" Haha
Yes, i was so fcked up when i wanted to summon the NPC against Bayle. Everytime i had to read the shitty message xD
Me trying to buff outside the fog gate but all the messages keep stopping me from swapping items properly.
I just wish you could get an option to disable messages whenever you want without having to quit to the menu to go offline. That way, you can still see messages when you feel like it, and have some coop.
Disparaging should stagger whoever places the message
I literally turned off multiplayer when I started ER because this was happening. Aside from disliking invasions in my single player experience there were just messages on every single interactable I couldn’t be assed really. Still off to this day.
Edit: Turns out invasions are opt in
You can't be invaded if you're playing solo
You have to use an item to opt in for being invaded… you’re not just randomly getting invaded lol
I literally turned off multiplayer when I started ER because this was happening.
This was never happening. Every interactable object (ladders, items, summon signs, fog walls, levers) has priortiy over messages.
The only thing that messages block when they're on an interactable object is switching weapons/shields.
So I'm the only one who gets the actual action prompt and not the message prompts when I walk up to something? This hasn't been an issue in forever
I've died trying to summon Igon thanks to the 15 messages on top of his summon
Random question but since everyone’s here, when you see how many appraises or whatever a message has, does it show the total approve and disapprove, or only number of approves/upvotes? I always wonder if some of these like 2,000+ messages are ALL upvotes or if it combines both
As far as I know the upvotes and downvotes are classed as an interaction. So it combines both. That's why when I see bullshit messages I just ignore and not interact either way!
No matter what you press, if you interact with it, it adds one to the score. It's just all votes added up. You could just look at whether or not it went up when you press disparage.
I didn’t know you could summon Igon for Bayle, cause people put a pile of messages on to of the summon and I couldn’t see it. Especially with all the chaos of that fight.
Only reason I found it was cause i Crit hit Bayle while standing on top of the summon.
The message: "Healing required therefor praise message"
Whoever put a message over Igons summon sign in Bayles arena, I hope you get a kidney stone.
Laughs in lonely offline mode
That's why you play offline. I don't want the feeling of camaraderie with little shits.
Especially in the boss fights like Messmer. You are already getting absolutely thrashed right at the start but the horribly placed NPC summon always has messages over top. You don’t have time to breath in that fight, let alone switch action in a ridiculous summon spot.
Why? The "Switch action" input is right there.
Because, if you notice on the right image, it is only showing the Read Message option, because I am not QUITE close enough to get on the ladder. Getting the interact popup that says read message is easy to mistake for the climb prompt in a hurry. So now you have just opened a message in your face while trying to get up a ladder. It's just annoying. If there was just a 2-meter buffer around all interactable, that's no longer an issue.
Similar problem in my Bayle fight. I initially couldn't find the NPC summon because there were other messages almost on top of it. And it makes it annoying to get the NPC summoned because you have to be more precise. It will always prioritize the Ladder/Summon but unimportant things near enough to make it more difficult or confusing is annoying.
And it ruins the vibe in some important moments.
Archaic and clunky design.
Just play offline, like the pros.
No. The ask is to not make messages be the default action. Ever.
It should be the thing we have to switch to.
I haven't played online since my first playthrough. I forgot how annoying these could be
This reminds me of those messages near coffins on Bloodborne. I've always tried to run past enemies at BL4 runs and got massacred many times : /
Someone put their message right on top of Hornsent summoning sign inside Messmer's room, in the heat of battle I continued to read the message instead of summoning Hornsent. I failed his quest since I defeated Messmer's alone, felt pretty bad about it.
A couple of fixes that would be good: * down votes shouldn't hurt the player who placed the message but they shouldn't heal them either. I see these shit messages all the time but don't down vote them because I don't want to reward the troll who put them down * if From's codebase is such a mess that they can't exempt certain summonable NPCs from buffing the boss health if summoned outside the boss door then how about no player messages show at all during a boss fight? Who the fuck would be looking for "tips" at this time anyway? * make the summon dialog confirmation default to "Yes"!
Dying half the time I tried to summon Hornsent cuz i click the message RIGHT ON TOP OF HIS SUMMON SIGN
Or npc summons inside boss areas.
People have been doing this since DS1 you think they are gonna change their mind now?
I play ps5 and it always gives me the prompt to use the interactable item, or switch to the message? Is that just me because I see this type of post everywhere
this is why i always play offline mode
This has been an issue before ER. At this point, I feel like this is some From Soft inside joke and they get a lot of laughs out of the little things they see posted online. I refuse to believe it isn't on purpose at this point.
Yeah for real nothing frustrates me more than when players do that
This is only a problem with one ladder in the game (in Sealed Tunnel), where the interactable object is misplaced a small distance away from the ladder itself. The ladder interaction will always be primary over the message. The Sealed Tunnel one is so frustrating because, if you don't know that the interactable is misplaced, then you will stand at the foot of the ladder and only get the prompt for the message.
There is a misplaced grace in the DLC (outside Ensis) where I'm sure people have dropped messages to do the same kind of trolling, albeit with little to no stakes. I haven't been online since the DLC was released, so I can't confirm there are messages here, but it wouldn't surprise me.
They do this near the levers too it drives me nuts.
Try lever, but ah, message
Sealed tunnel ladder PTSD
A huge issue I'm sure is evident in other areas but, my God I died TWICE to the greatsword hornsent in midras mansion cause he's in a narrow hall LITTERED WITH BLOODSTAINS AND MESSAGES. Couldn't move my seal to my shield cause of course the same button for moving weapons is the same as "bloodstain" change to message.
I just can’t wait to end this dlc.
I hate it when people put them on top of summon signs that are inside arenas. I already have a small window to touch that crap, I don't need your message to make it worse
I think trolling, as in leaving an "item ahead" or "try jumping" near an edge, is part of these games and the community, since you decide whether to trust it or not and seasoned players usually know what's up. However, this is just being an asshole for the sake of it.
Eh if you want upvotes and a lot of them write good messages. I usually downvote trash like this that gets in my way. Some people probably don’t care but I have one message like 300hrs old and it’s got about 80 upvotes and that makes me smile so idk I care
Try Ladder
Likely you don't have the right!
Switch function and ignore.
Some motherfucker has a message right on top of hornsent summon sign during Messmer fight
No, they just need to make the interactive object highest priority. It should always pop up first.
Sure, the easy way is to just play in offline mode, but there's no way in hell I'm going to do that, even when doing runs where I don't use any summons.
My only complaint about fromsoft in general is the bad UI designs
I entered messmers room without my shield equipped because the ground was covered in so much shit. Fucking annoying.
I wish there was a setting to automatically display messages as you walked over them, and they disappeared when you walked away from them.
right, especially in areas where emergency use might be needed.
I hate them infront of boss fog too lmao
I want to agree I do....but I changed my controls to match former fromsoft games like ds3 for example and it defaults to the interactive objects not messages. that's on ps4.
so L3 jump triangle for sneak/torrent quick dismount X for interact and hold for pouch menu.
haven't had any issue with messages since day 1 to now.
I’m just trying to imagine the smirk on the face of the author of these messages, laughing and smiling like Patches does when he makes a fool out of us.
That's how I lost my runes yesterday lol
Real
Me trying to summon Igon only to keep hitting some guys message
But it prioritizes the action rather than the message so nothing is effected
Just have fun..
No
No
Or Prioritize the interactive stuff over messages.
I’ve been playing offline for about half my playthrough and I’m enjoying it a lot. Sure, I might miss some things but I’m pretty confident in my own exploration skills.
My first souls game and this is one of the reasons I'm offline. I would rather google something if I'm stuck than have to wade through 37 fake messages.
I played the beta for Once Human and it had the exact same issue with in game messages, people are toxic af.
They will NEVER listen when it comes to smaller QOL adjustments like this. While other developers have found ways around the many flaws of souls games combat they are still so stubborn in changing anything so it never will be done. It’s the same combat since demons souls and the same system when it comes to messages. Stubborn as hell
Literally came across a lever today that some asshat jumped on top of and put a message
It’s super annoying honestly.
I wish messages would instantly disappear once you downvoted it.