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They really need to do something about running past enemies in Dark Souls

I love it and am 99% sure it's intentional. There's always a point when you get so used to dying in a particular area that you memorize the spawn points of the enemies and can use it to your advantage. You can always work backwards and grind once you get to the next bonfire. It's one of my favorite features of the series.
 
It's good that you can do it, but it's just a bit too easy.
Skip fights if you already know the level or when you're trying to get high level items early own is great and should be a Part of these games.
 
And boy oh boy I'd really enjoy having to fight everything in Anor Londo over and over again because Biggie and Smalls kept tearing me a new one in NG+.
 
its part of the excitement you have a bunch of souls but like 1hp left you better run past everyone to get your ass to that bonfire
 
I think Bloodborne got it right with blood vials. You have to kill enemies to get them, but if you have enough you can just run past them if you know the area well enough. Good luck grabbing items though because you'll have a horde ready to pounce on you right as you do.
 
Letting me run past everything after dying to a boss is a very welcome thing.

And even then, if you're not careful, sometimes you'll get spanked. Goddamned climb to Maneater in DeS comes to mind. LOL
 
No way, it's fine the way it is. Some enemies I can run past have a long reach and hit me on way past, others do give chase.

OP should play blind folded if he wants more of a challenge.
 
Hobbes211 said:
You're probably not, it's been forever since I've played DS3, but he immediately came to mind as a boss that I died at a million times in that game. It's probably not a great example in this case, but the principle stands that if you actually fight the enemies on the way back to the boss you get rewarded in the end for it. Or you can run past everything if you want to, and wonder why things are hard later on.
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She breathes ds. :p
 
They really don't.

Seriously, if they ever "fix" it, I'm out. They tried in Dark II, thank god the enemies in that game are really weak, but Dark Souls III enemies with no fog invincibility would have destroyed the replay value to me.

Replayability is such a monumental part of the games, I'll kill everything multiple times on my first playthrough (my first time through Dark Souls III took me ~130 hours), I'll kill everything on my second playthrough, even in some other playthroughs trying different weapons, but if I'm forced to do it every time, it'll be such a huge turnoff.
 
DragonKnight said:
I am very hesistant for From to address this. Souls is a series where you will die time and time again. Nothing is more annoying than to keep dying and having to clear out the same enemies over and over again.

I play the games "honestly"--i clear out all the enemies in an area once and only once. If i die after that, best believe im running past all the enemies.
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Yup same. I mostly just play souls like games for the boss designs and boss fights so the faster I can get to those the better :)
 
I think its a great feature of the game. The horrible horrible alternative is the Devil May Cry style of invisible walls that pop up at every encounter and dont let you move on till you kill everything.

The freedom to traverse the levels in any way you see fit is what makes the Souls games so good.
 
It's one of the best features of the game.

Once you learn the area and open the shortcuts, you can run to the boss quickly. So then you spend time learning the boss. It's a great design and not even close to a flaw.
 
1) Is being able to very easily run past enemies a design flaw?

No. It helped to keep me motivated in some areas. After multiple deaths and signs of frustration it was "run to the boss and finish the area" that kept me going.

2) If so, what's would be a good way to fix it?

Never fix it, it's not a flaw
 
Hopeford said:
For the record, I wouldn't wish having to fight against every enemy on every boss run on anybody. I think my issue is more that during regular play you can easily run past most enemies and they'll eventually leave you alone given boundary boxes, plus they almost never catch you.

I think what I'd really want is for enemies to have a sprint that they could use to catch up to you. Would make normal play more fun for me, although that would admittedly fuck with boss runs so I don't know.
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You're in luck! There's the Aggression Mod out for Dark Souls.

Oh by the way, it's hellish.
 
I agree, an easy way is to make the last enemy drop a key so that way you have to kill all the enemies once but after that are free to run past.
 
I don't see how that makes the game better, or honestly how you would really achieve that in a fun way that suits the series.
 
My biggest gripe is that the enemies feel like they were just dragged and dropped in their positions, standing there stupidly for all time until the player intervenes. It feels contrived.

Bloodborne made a half step forward by giving some of the enemies patrol routes to walk along, but there's a lot of room for improvement.
 
It's good design IMO, it gives you freedom and makes you feel less like you're playing a game. Plus if you just run past all enemies you aren't getting souls to level up and eventually you'll get your ass kicked harder than you ever had.
 
Hopeford said:
Love the games to death, but one thing that I think might sincerely be a bit of an issue is how easy it is to just ignore enemies and run past them. Like, this is the biggest reason to me why no Souls game has felt as difficult to me as the first one - everything became pretty trivial once I realized I could just "It's fine" my way past enemies to wrap the level around my head.

I don't pretend to know a good way to solve this, but I was playing the DLC for DS 3 and it's like...well, I love the series still, but once you've played a game in the series and have mastered the art of "It's Fine"ing they become a lot, LOT easier and not in a way I think was intended.

Guess two main topics to discuss here are...

1) Is being able to very easily run past enemies a design flaw?

2) If so, what's would be a good way to fix it?
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I only played Bloodbone and in that you can run past enemies to your own detriment because eventually you'll have to fight somebody and you'll be really under levelled.
 
I think it's fine as it is.

Run past enemies=less souls gained=less souls/shards to level up character/weapon=you better be skilled enough to take on the boss.

It's great for speed running, veterans who don't need to kill enemies because they already have a thousand playthroughs and can fight fine underleveled, people who wanna break the game i.e run to an overpowered weapon/NPC to kill for a weapon.

Should keep it as is.
 
That's how I play. Fighting trash over and over isn't much fun in any game, let alone Souls where you make one false step and you're back staring at a loading screen again. Demon's Souls has the most unforgiving/relentless trash, all the other games made it a lot more doable.
 
That's what the bosses are for. Being able to bypass enemies is a learned skill in the games and can bite you in the ass if you're not careful. Not allowing you to do so would be a restrictive design choice that hurts the game.

There's nothing stopping you from self-imposing the challenge of not fleeing if you think that's how it should be.
 
Just use checkpoints if "run past everything" is intentional design. It's just irritating and makes the game far worse than it should be.
 
afternoon delight said:
Agreed. I think it should be put to a vote and I think you'll lose OP. Runnings fun!

And as someone currently fighting ol Seath The Scaleless again I'm not fighting all these goddamn moths and golems to get to the bottom of the pit each time.
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Fuck that level. Lord almighty.

Running past enemies makes perfect sense in the context of the game's design. It's the same reason enemies have "zones" that they won't leave, even if you try to kite them. Each area is its own little encounter zone, and the player is given proper freedom as to how to tackle it.
 
I like it the way it is. Making me fight every single enemy would be tedious, especially after multiple attempts to make it through an area. Keep it the way it is.
 
theechrisfox said:
That's how I play. Fighting trash over and over isn't much fun in any game, let alone Souls where you make one false step and you're back staring at a loading screen again. Demon's Souls has the most unforgiving/relentless trash, all the other games made it a lot more doable.
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Yup, it's part of why I hate corpse/boss runs so much. Stop wasting my time, Souls.
 
You should develop some self control. Nobody is forcing you to run past those enemies. Why should other people suffer because you hate the freedom to choose.

Are you one of those "take fast travel out of games" people too tc?
 
More power to you OP.

Personally I can't even remember how Undead City between the three hunters and The One Reborn even looks like since my second run.
 
It is not broken because

1. You will be under-levelled if you don't kill the mobs on the way
2. You need to know the route to run or you will most likely die
 
I think it's a flaw in their level design to be able to do it so easily not that it's doable. Important difference there.

The people saying "oh, well you won't really be able to get items" seem to not have played the games very attentively. 90% of the items are just kinda on the ground and you get locked into a very brief invincible animation picking them up. Death has no meaning when you don't "lose" for just running through everything.

The solution isn't to make the enemies just chase you or force you to do anything but to change level design to make it less easy to do.

Also the people saying that they just wanna fight the boss makes me sad. Yet another reason on the giant pile of reasons why Demon's Souls is still the best is because the bosses are as much a part of the "level" as the level is a part of the "boss". They're structured in such a way for it to be a contiguous challenge. One of the most obvious reasons why is how the checkpoints (archstones) are always the "start" of the level and are simply that. There's nearly 0 free-bee shortcuts right to the boss. The only one in the game is in the most appropriate location for it to be: after the longest and most arduous level of the game.

Basically I think it's a necessary evil in game design that's just exacerbated by the level design that has generally been very simple and easy to run through starting with Dark Souls.

Man, Demon's Souls is so good.
 
It's a natural sign that you've mastered that area. You know the layout, you know what enemies are where, you know the shortcuts, you know that you don't need to creep around cautiously because you've gained the skills and experience to do so

It's not a flaw. You've earned that ability to run through
 
Gbraga said:
Once per character/NG cycle, that's the problem with this idea.
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No that's the beauty of the idea, NG is by far the best game cycle.

Changes are coming, if I wanted to play a game that just regurgitates the same ideas over and over I'll play DS3.
 
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