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Edge 249: Dark Souls II. To be more "direct," "straightforward," and "understandable"
- Thread starter Visualante2
- Start date
How dull would it be to have everything explained in a straightforward manner. The intrigue of the world and its few characters would be stripped away. The beauty of the lore in Souls games is that it demands that the player piece the information together, fill in the blanks, speculate, and use your imagination. It's a game full of questions and mystery that make your mind wonder, and that's a beautiful thing. It's especially refreshing in a time where so many games rely on long cinematics and exposition overloaded with dialogue and information that is often ham-fisted and convoluted.
When Demon's Souls came out, it offered a completely unique experience and approach to gameplay that flew in the face of current gaming tropes--no hand-holding, no explanations--and a serious challenge based on rewarding perseverence and struggle and sense of accomplishment. And sadly there are people who insist on missing these fundamental aspects that make Demon's and Dark Souls what they are. So, you get your easy mode, checkpoints before each boss, explanations for everything etc. and what are you gonna be left with? Whatever it is, it's not what made Demon's and Dark Souls special in the first place.
NervousXtian
Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
I just hope they actually flesh out the last 2/3rds of the game, unlike the shit that was the last bits of Dark Souls.
Great games that really could use a good dose of focus, especially if they keep that focus on what makes the games great.. hint it's not that they are hard.. it's atmosphere.
Great games that really could use a good dose of focus, especially if they keep that focus on what makes the games great.. hint it's not that they are hard.. it's atmosphere.
IrishNinja
Member
you're right, looking at it again. it's why i initially just called it a bad write-up.
but there's some messages in there - evilore's quote etc - that i think heavily lean in that direction. my point with "the last thing you want to hear from namco" was just that, what they're talking about absolutely leans in that direction - again i don't think edge was taking a logically leap connecting that dot.
i think a few of those had the makings to be pretty good areas, they just felt rushed was the problem. i don't know how much we know about the development cycle, but based on the quality of both demons and the first 2/3 or so of dark, i feel safe saying those areas just weren't ready.
you remember how we never got the giants area in demons (from the hub world)? same kind've impression i got.
Oh come on, Tomb of Giants wasn't terrible. Inching through the dark with a lantern and just seeing the eyes of 3 skeleton dogs was pretty awesome. It needed a bit more lead up to Nito but I still liked it.
edit: played it on the PC with the new DLC warp points, so maybe that affects how I feel about it.
edit: played it on the PC with the new DLC warp points, so maybe that affects how I feel about it.
I did, and it was amazing. And that's the key. If the game had just led me to it I wouldn't have been nearly impressed, but the genuine sense of discovery I felt when I just stumbled across it on my own with no forewarning was incredible. I would hate for the series to lose that sense of discovery and mystery going forward.
Dark Souls is one of my favorite games of all time and I feel the black knight archers suck. The problem is that when you block the arrows, it pushes you away from the direction you're facing, not in the direction of the arrow. As a result, if you're looking in towards the wall when you block the arrow, you die. You're forced to dodge through and if you don't have the damage potential to take out the archer quickly, it's really easy to get knocked off as you block his attacks.
On a second playthrough of the game, I rushed up until that point in about 3 hours time, and proceeded to faceroll against him for over a half hour until he cooperated. Is it doable? Sure. It's simply unfairly difficult compared to anything else in the game, IMO. I can't think of any harder segment in the game.
On a second playthrough of the game, I rushed up until that point in about 3 hours time, and proceeded to faceroll against him for over a half hour until he cooperated. Is it doable? Sure. It's simply unfairly difficult compared to anything else in the game, IMO. I can't think of any harder segment in the game.
Riposte
Member
How do you determine it to be cheap? Aside from you, personally, getting flustered by it.
I am happy to hear this. i have not played demon or dark souls. i was about to rent dark souls just last week but wasn't in the mood to muck through the learning curve.
I am down for some challenging but approachable high/dark fantasy... that cg trailer got me pumped. can't wait!
I am down for some challenging but approachable high/dark fantasy... that cg trailer got me pumped. can't wait!
When did I say I wanted any of that? I just want to be told a story that doesn't require I read through a bunch of item descriptions. And even when they DO tell you a story, the steps you have to take are often so specific that you wouldn't really know what to do unless you are told. Examples:
Keeping the Onion Knight alive
Keeping the Sun knight alive (I keep calling him the wrong thing I'm sure)
Completing Logans storyline
And keep in mind, I don't really dislike the fact that it's so specific. It's the fact that none of the specifics are even hinted at. It's mostly guess work and sheer dumb luck. Like attacking a random wall somewhere. Part of me did enjoy the vagueness of it all but a little more clarity would've been nice. I never really cared about why I was doing what I was doing. I was just going through the motions. I just happened to LOVE the motions because the gameplay was so solid.
Accessible isn't "everything I don't want to hear." If they said "hey we changed the combat to make the enemies feel like paper dolls and it's now like God of War" then I would definitely be up in arms. But they still say they want to maintain the spirit and difficulty of the original, which I think is what most people want. A new feature they did mention, dedicated servers, is a huge addition.
Look at Fire Emblem. The staple of that series is permadeath, where if your character dies, they are lost forever. Recently, they added a new mode that gets rid of this feature. It is still in the main game, but the option to try something different is there. I believe the new FE has received a lot of acclaim. Dark Souls doesn't even have to take a big of a leap as that. There are many things they could change or adjust that would make it more accessible without destroying the difficulty such as explaining crafting, revamping the humanity system, making multiplayer easier to participate in (dedicated servers may fix this), explanations about how stats work, information about equipment load (Which armor can I wear and still maintain fast roll? Gimme a green number here!) etc. Instead, the game tells you amazingly relevant information like "BACK BUTTON = GESTURE." I think Dark Souls is a great game, but there is room for improvement.
The Tomb of the Giants was great with the right helm. Otherwise I fucking hated it.
AcceptableGhost
Member
The anor londo archer part is great level design (all of anor londo is pretty good). The only bad spot in Dark Souls is lost izalith for being boring and easy (with a shit boss to boot).
Agree. I think it's a great area. One of the defining moments for me in Dark Souls was going through the Catacombs, barely holding my nerves together after having faced all that it threw at me, only to arrive at this nightmarish place that truly felt like an abyssal tomb. The sense of dread was unreal.
Holding up the skull lantern for the first time was a definite 'whoah!' moment. So cool.
vikingvessel
Member
How is this any different than every other section in every other game where you risk not getting it right the first time and have to approach it again with a new strategy? It is completely doable and the anti-hype is silly when you eventually realize how obvious the solution is. Maybe I do not read about enough games, but why is this series expected to change by so many in order to meet their entry requirements, as opposed to seeking out something else that already does? I wish I wasn't such easy meat in PvP, though I wouldn't suggest they soften it up for me when I am simply not interested in making the effort.
The bed of chaos is another one. The rare instance where player progress resumes postmortem is now considered admission of failure? That is right up there with the complaints of how Miyazaki faked us out with the Pendant lore and folks being upset with the mega Characters FROM sent out to have fun with the folks who had the game early. FROM dark fantasy has always been a bit sinister. I thought that was a plus and the other developers being accused across the board of delivering the same calculated experiences was the problem.
It was a general statement (see the preceding "there are people..."), not specifically aimed at you.
IrishNinja
Member
Tomb was prolly the least of the offenders, yeah
sure, dedicated servers is excellent. demons ran much better.
and that absolutely is the last thing i want to hear, because again that means sacrificing design choices at the game's core for something that worked in elder scrolls, an entirely different series.
accessible, straightforward etc coupled with the direct quotes clearly paint a more welcoming difficulty, which by nature throws off the delicate (and somewhat masterful) balance of the game. again, does it necessarily follow that's exactly what will go down? no, but there's clearly room for concern.
i agree with much (if not all) of what you're saying here fork, and if i implied prior that i thought the series was perfect: i do not. i likewise recognize a scale that exists between some feeling the souls games don't tell you anything and say navi/Fi spelling out how to walk down a staircase, i'm not saying there's no room for a medium there.
again, the wording + change of directors does not paint that picture for me, and while it was nice having namco back dark souls with advertising & multi-plat release, they're in about my top 5, if not 3 this gen for generally making moves i find ill-advised at best, anti-consumer at worst. what i'm saying is: it's not going to take much to shake my faith in them here, sadly.
also: okay stats maybe, but you figure out which armor you roll with by staying somewhere and rolling! i like some level of discovery/sorting things out here, personally. like, i figured out in demons that i had better stats for ATK/etc when i was dead because i hit things and they died easier. tricky shit was figuring out that the stat benefits from my shield carried over while i was dual-wielding.
sure, dedicated servers is excellent. demons ran much better.
and that absolutely is the last thing i want to hear, because again that means sacrificing design choices at the game's core for something that worked in elder scrolls, an entirely different series.
accessible, straightforward etc coupled with the direct quotes clearly paint a more welcoming difficulty, which by nature throws off the delicate (and somewhat masterful) balance of the game. again, does it necessarily follow that's exactly what will go down? no, but there's clearly room for concern.
i agree with much (if not all) of what you're saying here fork, and if i implied prior that i thought the series was perfect: i do not. i likewise recognize a scale that exists between some feeling the souls games don't tell you anything and say navi/Fi spelling out how to walk down a staircase, i'm not saying there's no room for a medium there.
again, the wording + change of directors does not paint that picture for me, and while it was nice having namco back dark souls with advertising & multi-plat release, they're in about my top 5, if not 3 this gen for generally making moves i find ill-advised at best, anti-consumer at worst. what i'm saying is: it's not going to take much to shake my faith in them here, sadly.
also: okay stats maybe, but you figure out which armor you roll with by staying somewhere and rolling! i like some level of discovery/sorting things out here, personally. like, i figured out in demons that i had better stats for ATK/etc when i was dead because i hit things and they died easier. tricky shit was figuring out that the stat benefits from my shield carried over while i was dual-wielding.
To be honest, there's always that sweet spot which is amazing when hit right between accessibility and complexity, easy and hard. Problem is that whereas a lot of older games might've been erring towards hard too much, now games are more and more erring on ease to the point where it's just boring. Or IS challenging but not really in a way that's very interesting.
With that said a lot of that IS in the controls, King's Field is kind of a pain to control compared to Demon's Souls, even if it does have more hilarious instant death traps (I think the only time you'll die so quickly after starting a game that's TRYING to be reasonable is when you're a complete game newbie running into that first Goomba in SMB1).
vikingvessel
Member
Is the developer supposed to act upon this so that you do not have to work at it, as opposed to you choosing to rent something else more in line with your lack of interest in a learning curve? If you were kidding, I fell for it.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
Those pitching a fit about weakening of the series if it's the same quality, or the people in here pitching a fit trying to weaken the series if it's the same quality?
The difficulty from Dark Souls comes from it's inaccessibility. The inaccessibility is quite literally the point of the game. The learning process, learning enemy move sets, when to attack, when to block and dodge, learning your own weapon's move set, mastering stamina consumption, learning how to make a good weapon, learning to navigate the levels without any sort of map, quite literally is the game. If you took the learning process out, you'd be left with a mediocre action RPG with no puzzles, a small world, and while the lore is great, it's also inaccessible as well.
The reason people find Dark Souls to be difficult in the first place is because of the inaccessibility, because of the knowledge base you need to obtain through trial and error. Once you get that knowledge base the game isn't hard on a technical, mechanical level. The game isn't fast paced. It doesn't require super quick reflexes. The enemies don't come at you unrelentingly.
TOAO_Cyrus
Member
When you get close you have to time your roll just right to avoid the last arrow before the archer switches to melee. Half the time in my experience it doesn't even switch which means your fucked. Lately I have taken to using poison arrows and avoiding the risk all together.
Yup that's happened to me several times. You roll up to him and he still shoots another 1-2 arrows. You need to get pretty lucky in predicting his shots at that point.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
2 hilarious points. You just basically explained monster hunter which you hate apparently.
Also the last 2 likes of yours about doesnt require super quick reflexes and enemies dont come at you unrelenting is a bit false. Since depending on your setup / play style fast reflexes is necessary. And enemies will friggin chase you and unless you already know the pathing / turn around point of said AI the chances of you getting beaten down by the stronger types that they leave in the game is pretty good for a new player.
Exactly, gamers these days expect everything to be handed to them now and have it wipe their asses for them. Seriously attitudes like that is whats wrong with the world today and not just gaming.
There are no Black Knight archers, only Silver ones.
In regards to the game not explaining its mechanics, I got a great idea. How about they put all the information you need to know in a paper booklet and include it with the game. Like an instruction manual of sorts. It would be nice if videogames came with those things and actually had more than 10 pages and were in color and didnt give generic helpful tips like "hide behind cover to regenerate health" and "save often to not lose progress". How would I ever know that saving often is a good thing to do? Thanks instruction manual.
Sir Ilpalazzo
Member
It's not about luck so much as it is timing. If you time it right and roll up against the wall, it's not too hard to use your invincibility frames to get through the arrow.
If the archer on the left shoots, that's a different story, and I've never had to plan around that since that's only happened to me twice over the eight playthroughs I've done.
If you are a real badass, you'll parry the arrows. That way you don't get knocked back or damaged at all.
HDgaming42
Member
Incoming mini-map / radar? Sure sounds like it.
Not a direct analogy by any means, but this reminds me of what AC could have been before play testing. I think I read somewhere that it was "up to the player" to put some serious work into finding targets. You had to actually dig up your own dirt--find clues and piece them together as to where they might be. You might get a picture of them and have to recognize the architecture behind them. You'd have to eavesdrop conversations. Eagle vision was a must--not just for picking out which guy in a group of four was your target. For world traversal you'd have to look for pigeon nests and feathers (sorry, it's been a looong time) to know where you could safely jump off a roof...
Whether it tested poorly or the studio got spooked--in an effort to make the game "more accessible" they dropped that and just gave you a minimap and stuck damned icons for everything on it. In turn the game was criticized for its lack of variation! Get mission--run to icon on map, kill him--rinse and repeat.
But AC as a series went on to become a big money maker--and critically acclaimed.
I'm in the (minority?) who felt ME1 was great (with flaws) but that ME2&3 suffered on a whole for straying from the initial direction of 1 towards a more "accessible" and "streamlined" experience. (And I don't give two shits about ME multiplayer, so that's out.)
I hope they're not focusing on expanding the Dark Souls' audience in the same fashion that ME did. I never thought that series would culminate in a corridor-shooter deus ex machina--who knows what they'll do to Dark Souls...
Money. Ugh.
Not a direct analogy by any means, but this reminds me of what AC could have been before play testing. I think I read somewhere that it was "up to the player" to put some serious work into finding targets. You had to actually dig up your own dirt--find clues and piece them together as to where they might be. You might get a picture of them and have to recognize the architecture behind them. You'd have to eavesdrop conversations. Eagle vision was a must--not just for picking out which guy in a group of four was your target. For world traversal you'd have to look for pigeon nests and feathers (sorry, it's been a looong time) to know where you could safely jump off a roof...
Whether it tested poorly or the studio got spooked--in an effort to make the game "more accessible" they dropped that and just gave you a minimap and stuck damned icons for everything on it. In turn the game was criticized for its lack of variation! Get mission--run to icon on map, kill him--rinse and repeat.
But AC as a series went on to become a big money maker--and critically acclaimed.
I'm in the (minority?) who felt ME1 was great (with flaws) but that ME2&3 suffered on a whole for straying from the initial direction of 1 towards a more "accessible" and "streamlined" experience. (And I don't give two shits about ME multiplayer, so that's out.)
I hope they're not focusing on expanding the Dark Souls' audience in the same fashion that ME did. I never thought that series would culminate in a corridor-shooter deus ex machina--who knows what they'll do to Dark Souls...
Money. Ugh.
No, I mean that when you roll through the arrow and you're touching the black knight, he will sometimes prime another arrow or two instead of switching to his sword. If you've got a slow weapon, you won't be able to hit him before he lets it off, so your only chance is to dodge roll through it again.
Sir Ilpalazzo
Member
That's what I mean. It's tense, but you just have to wait a few feet away from him and keep dodging his arrows until he pulls out his sword. It's not a big deal if you don't run right up to him.
XANDER CAGE
Member
But those are the parts of Dark Souls that are accessible (crafting aside). Learning how to move and attack and block is very accessible in the Souls games. I believe the difficulty stems from mastering the techniques and applying them to the situations the game throws at you.
The things that are inaccessible are the obnoxiously translated menus and descriptions, the multiplayer, the covenants, and so on. The overall difficulty too, might be daunting, but if they maintain DS2's difficulty while smoothing out the learning curve for new players or something I will not mind in the slightest.
I hate Monster Hunter because of the world design specifically. I hate the fact the fact that every one of the main areas is a series of completely unconnected rooms each of them pardoned off with an obnoxious load screen that basically guarantees the game has absolutely no flow.
Every enemy telegraphs their attacks extremely clearly. All of them.
Enemies do not come at you unrelentingly. When you kill a monster, aside from the skeletons in the catacombs, they stay dead. The don't endlessly respawn like in Ghosts and Goblins and NES Ninja Gaiden. You are not constantly bombarded with enemies like you are in those games. Aside from Minibosses every room has the same amount of enemies in the exact same locations.
twinturbo2
butthurt Heat fan
This may not be the best example, but I think Forza Motorsport 4 has a few things I like about accessibility. Newbs and casuals can just have fun while having all the assists and the racing line on. The hardcore can turn the assists off and get rewarded with more game money to buy more cars faster, plus there's the whole leveling up of the car marques thing to get free upgrades.
My point is, let the casuals have fun, and dangle incentives on higher difficulties to encourage getting better at the game. That would probably be a win-win all around.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
I hate Monster Hunter because of the world design specifically. I hate the fact the fact that every one of the main areas is a series of completely unconnected rooms each of them pardoned off with an obnoxious load screen that basically guarantees the game has absolutely no flow.
Every enemy telegraphs their attacks extremely clearly. All of them.
Enemies do not come at you unrelentingly. When you kill a monster, aside from the skeletons in the catacombs, they stay dead. The don't endlessly respawn like in Ghosts and Goblins and NES Ninja Gaiden. You are not constantly bombarded with enemies like you are in those games. Aside from Minibosses every room has the same amount of enemies in the exact same locations.
You should have said no "monster boxes" or basically as you explained now endless spawns.
Let me see:
- If you go to the left first, you are pretty much dead.
- Because of some weird (glitched?) blocking dynamic, you "bounce" against the wall when blocking the arrows and certain melee attacks from the enemy. Naturally this is the first time you will notice and care about this behavior.
- Uncooperative archers: If the right archer doesn't change its stance to melee or if it starts defending long enough, the other archer may move and start attacking.
Why cheap? Because they are not your fault. That's the big difference: The game is punishing you because you didn't know (or worse, you were unlucky) and the only possible way to know is dying. Very different than the rest (most) of the game, where you can avoid get killed by doing some "homework" and not being stupid.
See above, and save the aggressiveness for someone else.
vikingvessel
Member
This is something I would definitely like to see improved upon going forward from FROM. There is little variation on return trips/playthroughs. I want to sweat again.
I hear
poison arrows
There are other solutions too, that's just the easiest and requires only patience. Trying to melee them isn't a bright idea though.
I'd love to see a Nethack-like series of generated dungeons, where the goal is to ascend (descend?). This shouldn't be the whole game, mind, but it should be a part of the game for those who want a new or separate challenge every time they play. The bosses should be like the Old Monk from Demon's Souls. Hehe.
I think it's possible to strike a balance like this in Dark Souls II, just not easy. One way to do it might be to give the main story a very gradual difficulty curve and simple progression, but put a very large portion of the game's more difficult, satisfying content in side-branches. Completing said branches would be necessary to get the real details of the story and the true ending.
vikingvessel
Member
Isn't a great rush though, when you realize that the arrows brushing you back are essentially spears. Time to consider a new approach on your way back from the bonfire again.
EatinOlives
Member
Maybe NG+ should have something like altered locations of enemies, like those armored hog bull things right smack dab in the middle of Undead Burg that catches you off guard. That'd be great.
Yeah it's pretty awesome. Having dudes literally shooting spears at you is pretty awesome, but it's just so satisfying to get past that part. I remember standing up and taking a long break after getting past them. I spent hours on them before I figured out some of their obvious vulnerabilities. Really frustrating, but really satisfying when you finally take them down.
I want to play that game.