Nope. Entire first run was without looking shit up. I missed some items that would have made some parts easier I looked up in later runs, but I never really got frustrated with the game on it's own. I ended up summoning for ores and smores, on my first run, but that's why summoning is there.
I can't imagine one thing in the game that is just game breakingly hard that you need to look up. My goal in my first run was to search every nook and cranny, see what items do and whatnot.
Nope. Entire first run was without looking shit up. I missed some items that would have made some parts easier I looked up in later runs, but I never really got frustrated with the game on it's own.
I can't imagine one thing in the game that is just game breakingly hard that you need to look up. My goal in my first run was to search every nook and cranny, see what items do and whatnot.
I don't know guys, are there any other options for people seeking a game with a similarly grim aesthetic (i.e. Assassin's Creed doesn't work) and similarly weighty combat and controls as Dark Souls, but without the more punishing aspects? I'm at a bit of a loss so I can see why some people would want such a game. I'm sure I'm just unaware of what's out there.
Also, there does indeed seem to be some mixed messages going around about the difficulty. On the one hand, people seem to love how they get punished for death by having to replay parts of levels (It's like an NES game!). On the other hand, people downplay this aspect by noting that the amount you actually have to replay to get to where you were is only a minute or so. If the replay required is so short, it may seem like a glorified loading screen.
I wonder what the first adventurer from the comic would do when confronted with the upgrade paths and covenant mechanics, when logic and deduction don't help shit to understand anything.
What is confusing about upgrade paths? There is no in game tree but the blacksmiths show you what they can upgrade and what each upgrade will do. It's easier to just look up a picture that someone else made, but that's true for most games.
Covenants, I dunno. They're hardly crucial to the game; I never bothered with them. Most of them are simple though. Gravelord is confusing but Forest Hunter is explained and the Chaos Servant is pretty evident.
1: These mechanics seem strange. Perhaps I should investigate and ask my knowledgeable friends on the Internet for advice before I commit any irreversible actions.
I don't know guys, are there any other options for people seeking a game with a similarly grim aesthetic (i.e. Assassin's Creed doesn't work) and similarly weighty combat and controls as Dark Souls, but without the more punishing aspects? I'm at a bit of a loss so I can see why some people would want such a game. I'm sure I'm just unaware of what's out there.
Also, there does indeed seem to be some mixed messages going around about the difficulty. On the one hand, people seem to love how they get punished for death by having to replay parts of levels (It's like an NES game!). On the other hand, people downplay this aspect by noting that the amount you actually have to replay to get to where you were is only a minute or so. If the replay required is so short, it may seem like a glorified loading screen.
The hard mentions are certainly understandable, but for players like myself who are far from naturals with the more unforgiving games, the Souls never made me nearly as hateful as some of the DMC or Ninja Gaiden on the big boy/girl modes. And again, the Souls games let you manufacture your own "easier" mode. For starters, fire up Demon's on Royalty or Dark on Pyro and you will get what you came for. The "tutorial" bosses will crush your spirit, but they were meant to crush everyone the first time out of the gate. You'll get over it quick once you experience your first extended taste of the atmosphere.
This is all that I want. I played Dark Souls for about 8 hours and enjoyed it, but at the end of my time I still didn't feel like I understood half of the systems or mechanics.
Also please let us use party chat and/or co-op with friends properly. Part of why I stopped playing is that 99% of the time I'm on my xbox, its to hang out and talk with friends. Its not like ot actually deterred anyone who wanted to "cheat" from doing so anyway.
What is confusing about upgrade paths? There is no in game tree but the blacksmiths show you what they can upgrade and what each upgrade will do. It's easier to just look up a picture that someone else made, but that's true for most games.
Some ascensions being at +5, others at +10, wtf does raw damage do. The whole separate damage scaling with elemental (fire vs chaos, magic vs enchanted). The whole system is so obtuse, so illogical and badly explained.
And I don't even want to get into the different blacksmithes (some of which can be easily missed), confusing people even more (can't I ascend this because I'm missing components, or because I'm missing embers, or because this is the wrong blacksmith) etc etc.
I've watched a ton of blind playthroughs and some of the comments from thoughtful, intelligent players were eye-opening. The game itself explains so little.
Some ascensions being at +5, others at +10, wtf does raw damage do. The whole separate damage scaling with elemental (fire vs chaos, magic vs enchanted). The whole system is so obtuse, so illogical and badly explained.
And I don't even want to get into the different blacksmithes (some of which can be easily missed), confusing people even more (can't I ascend this because I'm missing components, or because I'm missing embers, or because this is the wrong blacksmith) etc etc.
I've watched a ton of blind playthroughs and some of the comments from thoughtful, intelligent players were eye-opening. The game itself explains so little.
The sad part is, if they end up explaining nonsense like Raw upgrade path in the next game (or heaven forbid remove some of the useless ones) people will explode with "ugh I can't believe they ruined the game by making it so casual!!!"
Raw damage removes scaling, you can check that by looking at the stats. Fire vs Chaos is weird but Magic vs Enchanted is also reflected in the scaling.
Splitting up embers among blacksmiths is annoying though. I get the idea of hiding certain upgrades until you find the blacksmith, but it would be easier if they could all do it once you find them. Getting to the blacksmith in the Catacombs can be a pain without that huge shortcut.
It's weird that Dark Souls gets shit for it's crafting system when it's not that complicated. I don't want to dismiss the complaints about the crafting because crafting in general is obtuse in most games but...it is.
Raw damage removes scaling, you can check that by looking at the stats. Fire vs Chaos is weird but Magic vs Enchanted is also reflected in the scaling.
Splitting up embers among blacksmiths is annoying though. I get the idea of hiding certain upgrades until you find the blacksmith, but it would be easier if they could all do it once you find them. Getting to the blacksmith in the Catacombs can be a pain without that huge shortcut.
It's weird that Dark Souls gets shit for it's crafting system when it's not that complicated. I don't want to dismiss the complaints about the crafting because crafting in general is obtuse in most games but...it is.
I think it's shat upon not because it's too complicated, but because it's not well explained. That leads to confusion, leading to people thinking it's more complicated than it actually is - that's the exact reason why explaining things well is so important and many are hoping that future Souls games are less obtuse and improve in that area.
I actually think in a lot of ways craftings improved in Dark Souls over Demon's Souls, you don't need to hoard up on a ton of crafting materials when all that's REALLY important are the higher level ones you have, IE you don't get screwed out of an AGI upgrade because you don't have a damn Spiderstone Shard, even though you have piles of Pure Spiderstone. It's just they kind of fucked it up in the other way by spreading it across multiple blacksmiths, one of which is in a VERY annoying area to reach and in a position to potentially get killed by enemies. Dark Souls II consolidating it all into one or two smiths again wouldn't be a bad idea.
To be honest, I don't recall. I did end up asking questions on NeoGAF after I completed sections, like "What does this do." I distinctly remembering wasting the item that got you health flasks in the beginning.
There is just such a balance between giving the players all the tools they need without having to go online and turning the game into another handholding me too fest. Not sure how to best do this, to be honest. An NPC data dump or over explainy tutorial seems out of place.
1: These mechanics seem strange. Perhaps I should investigate and ask my knowledgeable friends on the Internet for advice before I commit any irreversible actions.
Souls games have so many features ALREADY in the game to remove the difficultly I can't see how they can simplify anything more without cutting into the things that make the games unique. There's already summoning (you can have 2 other people join our game to help), overleveling (this is still an RPG, just grind more levels and cheese your way through if you have no skills), blood spots (see exactly how someone else died so you can avoid it), and player messages (leave a warning to others that a trap lies ahead). I wouldn't say I'm a pro at games, I suck at fighting games, I get poor kd ratio in COD but I bought both Souls games at launch and have completed them both twice.
The games do have a problem with clarifying some of their game elements but those aren't problems that require a new director or a new direction. I think with Dedicated servers most of the problems with Dark's covenants are automatically fixed. Then there's just clarifying weapon upgrading and 99% of the difficulty is gone. Joining covenants should still be an out of the way secret - they're pacts with deities and should spread via word of mouth and that feeling of "Wow how did that happen? How do I be one of those/get to do that!" I had that feeling when I saw someone cast lightning bolt against Queelag and I immediately wanted to be a Sunbro.
Admittedly for a lot of stats there can be a lot to them that's only ever properly revealed through really getting into the system and breaking it down, but we should have it more concretely communicated how scaling works, use easy to understand icons (though Dark Souls DOES use way more intuitive icons than Demon's Souls did, which still trip me up), and maybe make it clear when it's a point of diminishing returns. Acutally, I suppose it's not so bad relative to some other RPGs, some actually just don't explain anywhere at all what some stats do exactly, but they do tend to be JRPGs where you can relatively easily ignore the stats and do well.
To be honest, I don't recall. I did end up asking questions on NeoGAF after I completed sections, like "What does this do." I distinctly remembering wasting the item that got you health flasks in the beginning.
There is just such a balance between giving the players all the tools they need without having to go online and turning the game into another handholding me too fest. Not sure how to best do this, to be honest. An NPC data dump or over explainy tutorial seems out of place.
A simple text box pop up could teach these things.
"Use humanity items to gain humanity. Use humanity at bonfires to reverse hollowing and become human. While human, summon powerful phantoms to fight alongside you and kindle bonfires to gain additional Estus. Can be invaded by enemy players while human."
hey now I bought demon souls, and dark souls twice, it doesn't mean I like them or play them tho. (too hard, so I welcome the more like skyrim dark souls 2 )
What i love most with DS is that there is so much to look up on. There is actual secrets in the game. I was almost more looking forward to going online and checking different wikis for info on stuff I either overlooked or had not reached yet. I don't think I had that feeling this generation. The last time was FFXII. Why can't this be the game that makes you search out to understand it. I don't want everything explained, I want to feel lost in this amazing world, its the part that made it so good. For me its not the difficulty thats the best aspect, I think I would enhoy it as much if it was easier, it is the lore, setting, history, monsters and weapon/armors that pulls me in like no other game this generation.
A simple text box pop up could teach these things.
"Use humanity items to gain humanity. Use humanity at bonfires to reverse hollowing and become human. While human, summon powerful phantoms to fight alongside you and kindle bonfires to gain additional Estus. Can be invaded by enemy players while human."
You need to make people do something new in order to make them remember. So, I'd couple you getting your first humanity with a place where you need to turn human to proceed, for example. I'd still keep it to a minimum though.
What a lot of people forget about the fact the games are so vague/ambiguous with so much mechanical and item uses, is that is what facilitates such a strong community. Without that people wouldn't need to communicate and interact with each other as much, it would remove a huge amount of what made the Souls experience (from gamer to gamer) so great. One of the rarities this gen.
hey now I bought demon souls, and dark souls twice, it doesn't mean I like them or play them tho. (too hard, so I welcome the more like skyrim dark souls 2 )
Don't worry, it's mostly speculation and falsehoods anyways. There is no reason to believe they would kill their biggest selling point and the reason behind its popularity. At worst, it won't have Skyrim's god awful combat.
What a lot of people forget about the fact the games are so vague/ambiguous with so much mechanical and item uses, is that is what facilitates such a strong community. Without that people wouldn't need to communicate and interact with each other as much, it would remove a huge amount of what made the Souls experience (from gamer to gamer) so great. One of the rarities this gen.
Don't worry, it's mostly speculation and falsehoods anyways. There is no reason to believe they would kill their biggest selling point and the reason behind its popularity. At worst, it won't have Skyrim's god awful combat.
A simple text box pop up could teach these things.
"Use humanity items to gain humanity. Use humanity at bonfires to reverse hollowing and become human. While human, summon powerful phantoms to fight alongside you and kindle bonfires to gain additional Estus. Can be invaded by enemy players while human."
Hah, I've said almost the exact same thing before. This little blurb on a couple more soapstone messages would have allowed Dark Souls to make a whole lot more sense to newbies.
What a lot of people forget about the fact the games are so vague/ambiguous with so much mechanical and item uses, is that is what facilitates such a strong community. Without that people wouldn't need to communicate and interact with each other as much, it would remove a huge amount of what made the Souls experience (from gamer to gamer) so great. One of the rarities this gen.
Maybe I started way too late in the game's life but what sense of community might have been fostered among some was squandered by a tidal wave of NG++++ assholes who were virtually guaranteed to invade your game the second you became human.
Really, the challenge is more a glue that binds it together and makes it more rewarding, or perhaps an essential spice rather than a core ingredient. It's just hard enough that everything feels like an accomplishment, rather than just some thing you did.
Maybe I started way too late in the game's life but what sense of community might have been fostered among some was squandered by a tidal wave of NG++++ assholes who were virtually guaranteed to invade your game the second you became human.
Yeah, I have to admit I have alt+F4'd if I got an invasion just as I became human, especially if I was out to kindle bonfires. Sorry, but I'd like to at least accomplish THAT MUCH before you come in to fight with me rather than waste a humanity for you to stomp all over me. Though I'll also alt+F4 if you're a hacker because fuck you for not playing fair, I don't need to bother either then.
While I agree that the gathering and use of Humanity and covenants are a vague, there is nothing wrong with weapon upgrading.
You look at the upgrade window, you see the letters go up and down (which you should've figured by now mean scaling from S to E by plain leveling up and watching your stats. If you just blindly dumped points into STR without paying attention, can't help you there), so you know which you want. That's it.
So what if you don't know how many levels a weapon can get before you upgrade it to a different path? Do you complain that Pokemon is too vague and obtuse because you're not told ahead of time which evolves at what level and when they learn moves?
Hm, I'd say I disagree. For example, players playing the main game safely play a lot differently than people who are speeding through the game for the 5th time or whatever. If you find the game is really difficult and are playing it safe, you might armour up and have a great shield up for half the game while you spear poke your way safely to victory. This kind of combat goes hand in hand with the difficulty, but it's a lot different (and IMO, not as fun) as faster paced PvP combat which has nothing to do with how difficult the game is.
Really, the challenge is more a glue that binds it together and makes it more rewarding, or perhaps an essential spice rather than a core ingredient. It's just hard enough that everything feels like an accomplishment, rather than just some thing you did.
I wonder if people who played Demon's and Dark Souls feel differently than people who just played Dark Souls. Demon's Souls for me took forever and I played without any phantoms and in PBWT, so beating things was quite the accomplishment and felt rewarding. Dark Souls though, was a lot easier for me and I don't think I had much trouble playing through the game at all. I definitely didn't find it to be that difficult, but I didn't enjoy it any less.
Really, the challenge is more a glue that binds it together and makes it more rewarding, or perhaps an essential spice rather than a core ingredient. It's just hard enough that everything feels like an accomplishment, rather than just some thing you did.
Yeah, I have to admit I have alt+F4'd if I got an invasion just as I became human, especially if I was out to kindle bonfires. Sorry, but I'd like to at least accomplish THAT MUCH before you come in to fight with me rather than waste a humanity for you to stomp all over me. Though I'll also alt+F4 if you're a hacker because fuck you for not playing fair, I don't need to bother either then.
I wonder if people who played Demon's and Dark Souls feel differently than people who just played Dark Souls. Demon's Souls for me took forever and I played without any phantoms and in PBWT, so beating things was quite the accomplishment and felt rewarding. Dark Souls though, was a lot easier for me and I don't think I had much trouble playing through the game at all. I definitely didn't find it to be that difficult, but I didn't enjoy it any less.
there's no way demon's didn't prepare me for dark. dark has about the same difficulty curve/spikes that demon's did, but there was definitely less of an adjustment period with the 2nd game. the bosses are pretty much the same difficulty wise (except smough/ornstein).
i'd really like to hear the opinion of someone who's played the games in the opposite order.
there's no way demon's didn't prepare me for dark. dark has about the same difficulty curve/spikes that demon's did, but there was definitely less of an adjustment period with the 2nd game. the bosses are pretty much the same difficulty wise (except smough/ornstein).
i'd really like to hear the opinion of someone who's played the games in the opposite order.
That's pretty much the general consensus I think. I just wonder if people who played Demon's first found the apparently difficulty of Dark Souls to be that big of a draw. Even before the game was released I was kind of shrugging at all of the "prepare to die" marketing, I just wanted more Souls. Maybe for others who played both it was more important.
The 6 different health replenishing consumables in Demon's weren't enough? I mean Dark Souls was way easier IMO, but I think I found myself running out of Estus way more often than running out of Grasses.
Some ascensions being at +5, others at +10, wtf does raw damage do. The whole separate damage scaling with elemental (fire vs chaos, magic vs enchanted). The whole system is so obtuse, so illogical and badly explained.
The game doesn't shove the explanation in your face whether you want it or not like a lot of modern games, but that doesn't mean it badly explains it. Some modifications of weapons happen at different times, that's easy to find out just by upgrading weapons so there's nothing confusing here. Raw weapons do exactly what the stats screen says they do when you upgrade; they increase the base damage but lower the bonus damage you get from stats. There's literally a screen that tells you exactly that. Same with the elemental weapons. There's literally a screen when you go to upgrade them that says they remove stat scaling but give some flat rate of non-physical damage. There's nothing illogical or unexplained going on, all it requires to understand is to read.
That's nothing in the end since grass is almost infinite after some point.
No inventory weight limit was a bigger deal in my opinion. Remember when you tried to pick up some mystery glowing thing in Demon's Souls and had to empty your whole backpack just to see what it was?
Oh it's a new armor set. Wait can't I just port back to Nexus and store my stuff? Nope. That armor is history once you've touched it with your filthy hands. See ya in NG+ then.
Maybe I started way too late in the game's life but what sense of community might have been fostered among some was squandered by a tidal wave of NG++++ assholes who were virtually guaranteed to invade your game the second you became human.
I'm just talking about community coming together and figuring all this stuff out. At first it was a awesome puzzle that we all solved by playtesting and reporting back and experimenting, very rare these days as a whole. And you can still see it with new players asking for help with all kinds of stuff, albeit now it's a bit different.
A simple text box pop up could teach these things.
"Use humanity items to gain humanity. Use humanity at bonfires to reverse hollowing and become human. While human, summon powerful phantoms to fight alongside you and kindle bonfires to gain additional Estus. Can be invaded by enemy players while human."
What a lot of people forget about the fact the games are so vague/ambiguous with so much mechanical and item uses, is that is what facilitates such a strong community. Without that people wouldn't need to communicate and interact with each other as much, it would remove a huge amount of what made the Souls experience (from gamer to gamer) so great. One of the rarities this gen.
Better explanations of basic mechanics wouldn't really kill the community aspect.
To be honest, explaining humanity, bonfires, and the basic idea behind a covenant over and over again to newcomers was just cruft, but discussion of the actual zones, enemies, builds, items, and such felt meaningful and interesting.
I just think we can all agree that with a new director we aren't quite sure what he means when he says "understand."
Because this game garners such strong support from its fans, any deviation from the formula is scary because as we have seen, deviation from the formula in games over the last 10 years usually means easier and dumbed down. The Souls games have been an oasis of truly challenging and unique gameplay on consoles...A rarity.
As such, we would rather them just say "MORE OF THE SAME!" And 85% would rejoice...10% would be secretly happy about it, but drone on about something new...and 5% would say something like NOOOO GIVE ME AN EASY MODE.
Of course. One reason why Dark Souls is highly appealing to me is the insane sense of flow the game has. Really no forced interruptions anywhere. I definitely want to see that aspect maintained in future Souls games.
Hell, you could do it without a regular pop up. While resting at a bonfire, have a text box pop up in real time next to whatever option you have highlighted that explains that specific option. So when highlighting kindling, a box pops up next to it that says "Cost: 1 humanity. Bonfire will be permanently kindled and grant additional five Estus upon resting at it. All other players in area will gain one additional Estus." No additional button presses or diving into additional menus needed in this case
Of course. One reason why Dark Souls is highly appealing to me is the insane sense of flow the game has. Really no forced interruptions anywhere. I definitely want to see that aspect maintained in future Souls games.
Hell, you could do it without a regular pop up. While resting at a bonfire, have a text box pop up in real time next to whatever option you have highlighted that explains that specific option. So when highlighting kindling, a box pops up next to it that says "Cost: 1 humanity. Bonfire will be permanently kindled and grant additional Estus upon resting at it. All other players in area will gain one additional Estus." No additional button presses or diving into additional menus needed in this case
Or maybe just something like pressing select to turn on / off a little help text.
Doesn't the PC version have something like this when going through character stats? Like a highlight over INT, DEX, etc with a little description? I remember seeing something like this.
Or maybe just something like pressing select to turn on / off a little help text.
Doesn't the PC version have something like this when going through character stats? Like a highlight over INT, DEX, etc with a little description? I remember seeing something like this.
Every version has that. The problem is that the descriptions weren't terribly well written in some cases, and it was only for base character stats, not item statistics, bonfire functions, or anything else.
Improving that function would make the game more accessible without ruining anything.
Understanding the base mechanics was never my problem with the Souls games. It was just figuring out how to use those mechanics to get past certain parts. How the fuck was I supposed to know the
Taurus Demon is weak to fire? Or that you can get a cool sword by shooting the red dragon's tail?
Or that you can summon NPC assistance when in body form?
Now as to how to make that shit more straightforward, I just hope they don't do it in the form of pop-ups and loading screen hints. That shit is what I hate most about this console generation -- games teaching players in tacky ways that talk down to the audience. I thought Demon's Souls had one of the best tutorial levels this gen, since it works exactly how a normal level works. The nexus and tutorial level even had all those built-in messages giving tips the same way other players give you tips. I don't remember seeing an area like that in Dark Souls (other than its own tutorial). I just hope they find a way to make the game more straightforward that actually feels properly integrated within the world. What happened to the days when in old school RPGs you could just read signs or talk to characters that would give you gameplay tips?
Look, a lot of the reason people like the Souls games in the first place is because they are some of the only games left that let you discover things on your own and say "Oh man I didn't know that!" Features and mechanics feel way cooler when the game doesn't blurt them out to you. I'm trying to go through my second Dark Souls file with zero Wiki assistance, and it'd be nice if Dark Souls II made that easier.
