Do you think BOTW2 will eclipse Elden Ring?

By that I mean how you have to spend a lot of smithing stones on every new weapon you find. In order to keep it up to speed with your existing arsenal. As opposed to other games where you just pick up an item and... use it.

Upgrading Weapons is cheap, at least after a patch nerfed the costs. But that is still a needless hurdle. It still requires a time investment, for a weapon you might not even end up liking. This becomes more obnoxious, if you are not at the point where you can get the bell yet for the current 2 tiers yet.

Maybe it is just a preferential thing, but I like it when the process of getting a weapon was

Find Weapon -> Use Weapon

not

Find Weapon -> Teleport to The Homebase thing -> Run to store to buy 12 of each smithing stone -> Back track back to blacksmith -> Get Weapon upgraded -> Use Weapon

And repeat this process for EVERY single weapon you find.

Mind you those stones could be used also to level up your character. 130k runes to upgrade a single weapon to +24, 260k if you want dual wielding. And that might be for a weapon you don't even like. And that cost... is for smithing stones alone.

And yes, you do get some grind spots. But that is still a grind, that is completely unnecessary. In BotW (and probably BotW2) you do not ever need to grind for your weapons.

You're not wrong about needing to invest resources into the weapon build you're going for. I know I had maxed out eleonoras pole blade and then found rivers of blood. Do I take my precious somber stone 9 and level up ANOTHER bleed weapon or do I save it in case they nerf bleed, causing me to chase another build?

But what comes together rather seemlessly is that by the time you're in this situation you've already located between two and three methods to farm runes in large numbers. *ahem Mogwehn*. By that time in the game you have ooenened so much of the game that acquiring stones and runes is not a challenge.

I put my godskin peeler +25 and +10 Eleonora on the shelf and now use Nagagita +21 and +10 rivers of blood... I took them both to their levels in no time based on easy rune farming and acquisition of aforementioned bell bearings.

Investing in the weapon build is something deeper and more engrossing than zeldas more simplified system... I didn't say better. Deeper and more engrossing.

I am gonna disagree on that.

A linear upgrade system adds absolutely no depth to a game. Especially if resources can be farmed, and exist in an infinite supply.

My ideal solution would be one of the following 2,

1. You have a finite ammount of runes you can gather in a single playthrough. As a result, there is a meaningful economy, and every rune spent counts. There is now actual strategy and resource management involved.

2. The upgrade system is seriously toned down. Keep the ashes, but do something about the smithing stones. One thing they could do is have late game weapons start at an appropriate upgrade level. This way items can be used immediately.

Personally my ideal solution would be to eliminate most RPG elements. Something more akin to Sekiro.

@Maroxad: The RPG elements are what moves a lot of us through the game though. I see those Stat catagories and I think of what I want to be and how I want to impact combat. There isn't an ability to just go and use infinite resources out of the gate to upgrade. In fact, the smithing stones are mostly found in rarity until you seek out bell bearings. Those require a willingness to explore the lands between with purpose. I see a build I'm leaning towards and it contains myriad reasons to venture to New areas just to aquire what I seek. Upgrading, in practice, plays out much more rewarding than simply upgrading whatever you want whenever you want. I'm 90 hours in and still don't have all the bell bearings.... That to me equates to still having finite resources for upgrading. It feels very well balanced to me in that regard.

I do agree with the possibly over reaching need to continue upgrading to level 25. Maybe therrs a reason why we upgrade so high, but it does admittedly feel like it doesn't need to be that drawn out.

I would not want to lose the RPG nature of the game. For me it's a perfect blending of player choice, compelling universe, wonderfully unobtrusive side missions and also living with the results of your choices....

To me it felt like I had infinite resources to go through the entire game. The economy of the game was nigh non-existant. It was only a matter of how much time I was willing to waste. Which was none at all, considering how much I hated the game post-Altus Plateau.

Finding the bells was pretty easy for most of the part, I just looked at the map found a cavern entrance and rushed through that.

But yeah I can tell we had completely different experiences. I found the player choice and agency to be a mixed bag, narrative choices were poor, but the itemization was superb. The side missions were atrocious and the worldbuilding to be fairly forgettable. As for the RPG elements, I want them either improved or removed. But at this point I dont have much faith in From to deliver good RPG mechanics.

We are still seeing the same character system we have had since Demon's Souls.