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Are Souls games too hard? Completion trophy percentages say "no"
- Thread starter hydrophilic attack
- Start date
plasmawave
Banned
People got gud.
hydrophilic attack
Member
Look. When I started playing Demon's Souls, I complained about a lot of stuff. If there was an easy mode that would have let me respawn at the boss, or keep souls after dying, I would probably have used it. But overcoming those odds (took me over 100 hours) and eventually beating the game using all sorts of scrubby tactics (chiefly shooting bosses with hundreds of arrows where people had posted "safe spot" messages) before finally gitting gud at False King who I beat fair and square after hours of attempts was an unforgettable experience. One that absolutely wouldn't have been the same with the easy mode and accessibility features I thought I wanted.
chronic_archaic
Member
I still want a easy mode. And for reference, trophy data is a poor metric. Do you think all the people who thought Demon's Souls or Dark Souls was too hard or didn't like it bought the other games? It's only as high as it is because these kind of games generally sell to an audience that finishes games in general.
Plus the series introduced a lot of changes (improvements) for the sake of mainstream accessibility- immediate fast travel, localized merchants, streamlined weapon upgrading, etc. None of that permanent health bar reduction curse shit past the first game. All of which I'm personally thankful for.
Bloodborne had like half the stats available compared to other Souls games, and a fraction of the weapons. NPC summons were later patched in. And even then, there's an unofficial easy mode by the name of "Ludwig's Holy Blade".
Bloodborne had like half the stats available compared to other Souls games, and a fraction of the weapons. NPC summons were later patched in. And even then, there's an unofficial easy mode by the name of "Ludwig's Holy Blade".
I don't personally care at all about an easy mode, but it's arrogant as hell to tell someone else that they shouldn't advocate for one if they want.
That was your choice still though. What I don't like is people deciding what others should want in their games.
Agreed. I don't have strong feelings either way, and beating a game using in game mechanics doesn't dilute the experience in any way. I use a lot of NPC summons because of the lore and seeing if there is significance to using certain ones on certain bosses(and not missing events later). I don't feel like summoning has diluted my experience at all. That's just silly.
Oh but they do. If people who played them actually tried to grasp the systems, they'd know. (Or just googled)
...but how many beat The Challenge?
hydrophilic attack
Member
What about people going through the game years down the road or completely offline? NPC summons just started being overused the last couple games.
What exactly would a completely optional mode that adds damage and reduces taken with no other changes do to your or the community's enjoyment?
My post was in regards to you saying the community being exclusionary vs what the developer wants when in fact the devs at the end of the day are the ones making the games and are opting to choose not to include said modes.
You don't need to be online to use NPC summons. They're NPC's.
But hey, if they added that sort of easy mode to the series, it wouldn't stop me from playing. It would just make me tear up a bit inside.
The thing is, veteran Souls players knows that beating a game isn't a badge of anything. Unless you're doing SL1 runs and shit blind, no really cares. We've been around long enough to admit that the games aren't that hard- it's often the people who aren't playing that don't seem to get it.
Orthogonal
Member
I'm not opposed to it either, but I do think that if the artist doesn't want a watered down version of the game to be experienced, then it's their right to make it this way, even if it compromises sales.
dilute player populations for invasions and summons.
I never once stated anything about developer's intentions. I completely understand that their vision is to never include a pause or easier difficulty, etc. I'm saying that it's silly for people that speak up about wanting changes to be shut down by the community so completely. Easy mode is completely unnecessary IMO. What I personally don't like people getting attacked for their discussions on a discussion board, especially when there's evidence that a decent amount of people agree either them.
I was just saying the NPC summons were sparse early on, and not present on a lot of bosses that people would even want to use them for. Instead you get one for Moonlight Butterfly lol.
Quite true. It starts to feel like that after the dogpiling some people get in quite a few of these threads.
The players likely to use easy mode aren't the ones that I would want to invade or summon anyway. I like the satisfaction of a good fight more than winning any day of the week. I do understand your point from the aspect of helping others. In the older games I would commonly go on alts at whatever SL to help with bosses. That was quite fun.
hydrophilic attack
Member
Providing counter-arguments to someone's opinions on a discussion forum is not quite equivalent to attacking them IMHO
The Salt Life
Banned
Not everyone wants to play with possible trolls online. Surely that's understandable
I'm sure there's a forum thread somewhere somehow with people swearing to quit the game because of the Moonlight Butterfly.
EDIT: And now I that remember it, there is the Master Key that lets you skip some of the early shit areas like most of Blighttown.
And that's fine, but outside of a few (most likely satire) posts, all I see is people providing counter points as to why it wont work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM2dDF4B9a4
Even though the vid is about DS2 it can easily apply to all souls games
There are people that didn't solo bosses?
Zen_Arcade
Banned
This assumes that everyone who doesn't beat the game does so because it's too hard and not because they get bored with it.
I've quit playing two games in the OP and neither was because they were difficult.
I've quit playing two games in the OP and neither was because they were difficult.
That Zeus fight in God of War III just drops bodies
hydrophilic attack
Member
Sure. But it could be argued that the difficulty of the Souls games is what actually keeps them engaging throughout, allowing such a high completion percentage
In that case, including a YOLO mode might actually lower the percentage of players who beat the games
That got a laugh out of me irl. Just imagining that someone can GET to MLB and not beat it lol. The first pull in Undead Burg with the archer was harder.
Not all threads are quite so civil as this one, but I understand what you're saying. There were a few really bad ones, especially Bloodborne ones.
My copy was glitched
nailbombxx
Member
Lol I hope you're not talking about the entire time. Most people summon for every other boss at least.
The people in easy mode would be those most likely the ones who need a summon, meaning the players capable of beating bosses for them wouldn't be available to summon and those that would be summoned are likely no better than they are. Then you have to consider the fans of the series that enjoy invading lesser skilled players. We can argue about whether thats ok to do or not but thats been a pretty common mechanic in the souls series for a long time now and changing that would be altering the way the game was meant to be played, as others have said.
If people truly want to see and experience this game without using the easy mode provided to them by the game theres always plenty of streamers. As someone else said, people asking for easy mode don't just want an easy mode, as evidenced by someone complaining about the one that currently exists.
Zen_Arcade
Banned
I also don't think that the Souls games are all that hard. Maybe harder than the average modern game, but nothing crazy.
I just think the whole premise is flawed. I quit way more games because I get bored than I do because they're difficult. There is no way to tell why people quit playing games.
Demon's Souls only player here:
I know that in my case I didn't really bother with the help or invasion aspect. So I once decided to help out someone take on a boss when I was in demon form just to see how it was. It felt good helping out a fellow demon slayer. After that I never bothered. The few times I tried to invade I got wrecked. In all fairness it's because the people playing were likely seasoned veterans because I came to the game about 5 years after release. To me the biggest aspect of online play was just the notes. That to me is the online experience. But yeah on a personal level I did want to fight the bosses on my own just because I was doing all the battling myself anyway so why change that for the bosses on a first playthrough. Not that I would hold that against anyone.
I think morally you're allowed to summon help for boss fights consisting of multiple enemies because that's just leveling the playing field
Wait, people complain about summons? Do they think they're not obvious or plentiful enough or what? First I've heard of it.
Is that general guidelines to not get shamed by the community? I kinda stopped following once it left the DeS boards(which would have been sometime before DkS2 I think). I didn't personally get anymore satisfaction from slogging through Bloodletting Beast and Pthumerian Descendant for hours than if I would have summoned and 2 shot them. Maybe that's why my views differ.
The later Souls games are pretty generous with NPC summons. Like, you can use multiples for certain fights. (Although the bosses sometimes get more health/armor to compensate somewhat)
Icyflamez96
Member
Because people who buy it know what they're getting into.
Jawmuncher
Member
While I believe they patched it later. Bloodborne was really bad about summons at launch. There were barely any available. I recall bloodstarved beast and not much else when I played offline.
No idea I'm not part of the community but more "it's okay you can sleep tonight without crying"
Yeah there weren't NPC summons at launch I think. But besides, Bloodborne is arguably the easiest of the later Souls games, ignoring maybe the DLC and higher-level Chalice dungeons. (BSB is still a right fuck tho)
I picked up Ludwig's my first time through because I liked greatswords and well...
A few bosses are far harder with more summons, but it's stupid that you can have 2 or 3 following you. They even started allowing summons to get through the trash fights in the level which blows my mind.
Ah okay. Well, I got summoned in to a guy on Mergo's Wet Nurse with another. 3 of us on one of the most braindead bosses and the host dies lol. I'm glad they're in because obviously some need them. It would be cool for something like in an extra cosmetic armor for no summon runs or something.
Devilgunman
Member
It's weird using trophies completion to gauge the game's difficulty. The high completion could simply mean the game is good enough for people to stick around to finish it.
Someone in this thread said that because bosses aren't designed around multiple foes that it breaks the game, which I don't necessarily disagree with, although the health addition may help make up for that. They also made the case that a proper easy mode should be applied which dealt less damage to you and gave enemies less life.
True, but then theres still the problem of losing people to potentially invade.
roflwaffles
Member
I can get with this. Sometimes you gotta hit the bathroom or answer the door when a boss is trying to wreck you.
Maxey
Member
But it should only work in offline mode and doesn't let you use consumables or change equipment during combat.
Little tongue in cheek in regards to my comment, IDK personally played every SoulsBorne game offline and solo and never had much of an issue never using summons.
I'll only use summons in the first playthrough if I've reached the point where after beating my head against a boss for multiple days, I'm genuinely considering not playing anymore.
Which is very rare. Even though I've felt like I've come close.
Although in some/all Dark Souls games, there are NPC summons that are tied to questlines. As in you need to use them a certain amount of times or for certain fights to continue/complete their questlines. For swag.
SaviourMK2
Member
I remember when I got that Platinum trophy in FF13. I slept like a baby that day.
That's why I normally use every summon on my first playthrough, all because of missing a stupid armor set or something tied behind a specific NPC's questline.
I feel you there. It was such an empty feeling knowing that my skill/practice in getting the turtles down under 2 minutes would never be put to use again. I vowed to never specifically grind for a Platinum like that again. It actually made me appreciate Disgaea 5's Plat(not having to grind a ton), and I have 100+ hours and still going AFTER Plat'ing it.