Elden Ring players form community following disappointment in imbalanced PvP mode
Survey from hardcore players reveals gripes.
Elden Ring players are disappointed with the game's PvP multiplayer and its lack of balance.
One group of fans have even put together a website, eldenringpvp.net, to voice their opinions (as spotted by Kotaku).
"Thank you to FromSoftware for providing some of the most unique and unrivalled multiplayer experiences in gaming! These experiences have cultivated massive communities around a shared love of your games. However, with such an incomparable multiplayer come hurdles for both the players and developers alike. We aim to help both groups," reads a statement on the website.
The group surveyed 10,000 Elden Ring players and the results overwhelmingly reveal how this community feels the game's multiplayer is unbalanced.
Further, 90 percent of surveyed players would play the game more if multiplayer was improved.
Of course, this reflects the community and their specific agenda, comprising dedicated Elden Ring fans. The majority play daily or weekly, regularly play multiplayer, and have put over one hundred hours into multiplayer in previous FromSoftware games.
With so many hours put into previous games, it's fair to say this disappointment in Elden Ring is coming from experts - including well known Elden Ring content creators like ChaseTheBro and Ziostorm.
Besides balance, another major gripe is with glitches and exploits - around 70 percent of respondents feel this impacts the game. A word cloud gives further context, with the likes of bleed and Bloodhound Step being prominent, abilities that are often exploited.
Another major issue is the ease of access of the multiplayer, despite FromSoftware's efforts to the contrary. An article on the site lists a number of small tweaks to improve this.
The website is aimed at providing feedback to FromSoftware from dedicated fans, but it's unclear what the future of PvP will be for the game.
It is predominantly a solo adventure with integrated multiplayer elements. PvP is arguably endgame content, but with the popularity of the game compared with previous Soulsborne games, more and more players are reaching this point.
There's still a chance FromSoftware could add to PvP play through DLC - there are those mysterious colosseums after all.