1921

(Should I be pleased or worried that ElGuapo has a similar analysis to mine?)

You’re right that the ‘challenge’ is a unique brand some of us don’t care for. I can tell you that those feelings never go away in the first playthrough, but they do become manageable.

The game has fans for various reasons. If you’re just looking to drop in and out, you’ll probably appreciate it for the world, the spectacle, and most of the combat (eventually). I drove myself forward to understand the game. You’ll have to decide how much you want to work at it.

1922

I find its a gamers mental state that has a lot to do with the souls series not physical dexterity or anything like that. If you are used to succeeding in games by mashing retry and retrying the same strategy over and over again hoping to twitch right or get lucky the game is going to be very frustrating. The pve game is actually very slow generally plenty of time to block and learn an enemy’s pattern and a large window to attack in.

Just wondering did you go into the graveyard instead of up the path to the right?

in regards to the barrel there is plenty of warning. You can see the barrel and the dude behind it from several vantage points before the stairs. It was only a surprise beccause you blindly ran up some stairs.

1923

The game certainly has a bit of a curve and to an extent there can always be “one shot deaths” (if you decide to go glass cannon with no armor or vitality), but Dark Souls is all about observing, learning and trying new things. Did you learn something from dying? Great, now go put on your big boy pants and apply that knowledge to similar encounters you face. Dying is not failure, it is an opportunity to learn.

Read the messages from other players (please activate your bullshit filter) and if they suggest you watch out, or try kicking, backstabbing, employing falling swings or similar, then you may want to heed the advice. Or think about what you’re doing and why it isn’t successful, because there is ALWAYS a reason for why you’re struggling and it’s because you’re doing something wrong.

Does this sound like too much work? Then Skyrim is always a mouseclick away.

1924

The barrel is a good case study for one of the reasons why they designed the game this way. It creates camaraderie through shared misery. You’re not supposed to get hit by the barrel, die, and then get past the barrel the next time. That would be fucking stupid. You’re supposed to either:

  1. Read a warning from someone else before you walk up the stairs. This gives you a little burst of joy that someone helped you.
  2. Leave your own warning to future players using the orange soapstone. This gives you a good feeling for helping others.

Later you’re supposed to join a forum and bitch about how you spent all that time trying to get past the monsters only to die to the barrel. At that point, a wise old guru will tell you that you can run past all those enemies. Depending on your personality, you might think that revelation is awesome or stupid. But it’s still building that shared community. Again, I assume this is less valuable for people who just want to zip in and out of the game to get through it quickly.

1925

I think that more than difficulty you’re being victim of the lack of levelling scale. It’s an open world, so if you go a wrong direction you can face unkillable monsters. At the start there’s basically one direction where you are supposed to go (up). In that case the game would be fairly easy.

1926

It’s not misery, though. The game pokes and prods at you until you finally learn to take absolutely nothing for granted. I’m guessing you won’t go blindly sprinting into the unknown ever again.

1927

I quible with the veterans about statements like these. My lowest points in the game were often when I knew exactly what I needed to do, but either couldn’t execute it or didn’t have the patience to tolerate it. Certain boss fights, getting to the next campfire in Blighttown, etc. There was no eureka moment.

Otherwise, you guys are correct. There are often easier ways.

I harp on this because like Wolff said, mindset is critical. You must prepare for some frustration and tedium.

1928

Or pay attention and not get hit by the barrel the first time. Dark souls does very very little with zero warning. It might feel cheap but guaranteed there are environmental cues to indicate you should be cautious for every danger. Note I am not talking about player messages. From burn marks, to skeletons, to statues the clues are there but so many games have taught us to ignore subtle hints with huge directional arrows as a replacement.

1929

Wow the vets come out of the woodwork anytime there is some dark souls white knighting to be done!

:D

1930

I believe the biggest one (besides muscle memory and proper execution) is finally discovering the blacksmith and figuring out how to upgrade your weapons. This alone makes the game insanely easier. Poor play will still kill you but if you play well then things simply fall over dead.

I’m relatively new to DS. It kicked my ass pretty handily early on and I probably would have given up if there weren’t thousands upon thousands of posts on many forums exhorting its virtues. A few short months later, I’m now a convert and love the game to death.

edit: wow, the typos

1931

I’m not going to try and convince you to play the game since everyone gets different things out of games (I found the combat in Skyrim to be boring, for instance, so we’ll have to agree to disagree on that front), but here’s some reasons I enjoy this game…

The layout of levels and placement of enemies is static, but the attacks enemies (and bosses) use are random. Combat is pretty dynamic (some fights more than others). You can develop strategies for fighting an individual enemy type, but once you add in multiple enemies, or enemies of multiple types, the system really allows for a lot of variability from play to play.

This isn’t as simple as the game being unfair when you’re new to an area. This isn’t “I Wanna Be The Guy”. You can mitigate the vast majority of the surprises in the game by playing carefully. You’ll learn to turn every new corner with your shield held up. You’ll be making sure you have exit routes planned in case stuff goes wrong. In that specific instance, you’ll learn to look before you walk (the barrel is in plain sight and clearly dangerous if you look up at it before attempting to ascend the stairs). There is a skill to tackling new areas in Dark Souls, and all of it plays back into the theme of the horrible oppressive nature of the world.

This isn’t that uncommon of a sentiment, but I still think it’s a confusing viewpoint. The death system is nicer than in most games. Sure, you lose all the souls on you, but in most games you lose everything you gained since your last save. You should be investing your souls as soon as you’re able to keep them from being lost unexpectedly, and if you’re doing that you won’t lose that many souls when die. On top of that, you keep ALL your items when you die, including those you found since your last campfire. This allows you to try risky things to get a great item and keep that item if they don’t work out. The majority of the souls you get are from bosses (usually right next to a campfire) and from items which you can keep till you are ready to invest them in a level-up.

I get the impression your frustration might have come more from having to replay through an area. For the most part, replaying through areas can go much faster as you get better at dealing with their various encounters. Maybe this isn’t something you’re into, but I find mastering the space between two campfires to be extremely satisfying. Being able to quickly dispatch everyone on the way without even taking a hit is a great feeling.

So that’s why I like the things you did mention, but I also like a lot of things you didn’t. Dark Souls is startlingly quiet. Outside of the intro, there’s very few direct storytelling devices like cutscenes. Few people talk to you the entire game. But it still has a strong sense of place, story and progression. It just all comes from the art of the levels and how they’re laid out. It’s a game that tells its story in game centric way (sort of like Super Metroid).

I’m also a big fan of action-combat-y games (not sure there’s a good classification that includes Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden, and God of War style-games with Dark Souls), but I prefer playing slow burly characters in fighters (in Street Fighter, I stick to E. Honda). Dark Souls is one of the few games in this genre with a fun, satisfying, and deep combat system that lets me put on extremely heavy armor, wield a giant sword (that takes multiple seconds to swing) and still manage to kill the last boss.

Finally, I love the internet integration. At first, seeing the other souls wandering around, the bloodstain messages, and the red souls showing you where you can die seems gimmicky, but all of them play into the story and the gameplay well. The red souls and the bloodstains help you deal with stuff like the barrel, give you hints on how to take out bosses, or lead you to hidden areas you wouldn’t otherwise find. All of them play into the story of this journey you’re going on having been attempted and failed immeasurable times by hundreds and hundreds before you.

I hope this didn’t come off as defensive. Dark Souls is one of my favorite games and I probably enjoy talking about it way too much.

1932

I think that’s open to opinion!

The game pokes and prods at you until you finally learn to take absolutely nothing for granted.

This is a good explanation for why there are fanatics about these games. Just remember that some people didn’t expect to be taught something about mainstream games or get prodded until they learned a lesson. They thought they were signing up for a run-of-the-mill “hard” game. I think it’s best to lay out what’s happening from the perspective of a new player so they can understand why they’re frustrated and decide whether to continue. Empathy goes a long way, but it may be tough to channel it when you’re on your 16th character.

1933

Seemed like a good post to me. I appreciate veterans explaining to new players why they like certain things that might not work for others. I know even when I disagree with something, I get less upset when I understand it.

1934

Tim: I agree, Dark Souls’ measured indifference to your presence in its world is certainly not for everyone. It does not care that you’re there, it does not care if you beat it or even make it out of the tutorial. Its rather obtuse interface and precise controls that take a bit of time to master are also roadblocks that have to be overcome, but ultimately I’m glad I did for many of the reasons porousnapkin shared above. While I enjoy many, many games that hold my hand and tell me where to go, I’m glad something like Dark Souls exists because it is a breath of fresh air. It is not a misery for me… not even a little bit.

1935

It doesn’t need to be a misery for you. You just have to understand why it might be one for others if you mean to try to help them.

I would never try to take away your unique gaming experience either. Just remember that sneering at quest arrows and handholding doesn’t help new players. Many gamers might read your paragraph above and sign up enthusiastically without quite understanding what it means. I’ll never forget how flabbergasted I was when I first played this game, after listening to Souls fans crab about Skyrim melee combat for an entire year, and all I felt was that I was playing Mega Man all over again. Taste has a lot to do with it.

1936

Fucking porousnapkin just made me reopen my Gamefly envelope. I reserve the right to bitch in this thread though!

1937

Getting good at Dark Souls reminds me of mastering Descent. At first I was terrible with that ship, rolling, losing orientation, bumping into walls and getting destroyed by everything. But slowly I mastered it, and the joy at being able to fly it like a pro, executing impressive maneuvers with style is a fantastic feeling. Then I saw others bounce of it and I felt sympathy for them, but I wanted them to persevere, to feel that sense of achievement that I did. I’m still a long way from mastering Dark Souls, but it’s a familiar feeling.

That early “instadeath” with the barrel though, I’d say you’re supposed to die there the first time - it’s entirely intentional, because it teaches you a valuable lesson as others have said, and that is to be observant, take it carefully, and be prepared. There’s a reason it happens during the prologue / tutorial, after all. When I replayed it a day later, I dodged it easily.

1938

I had the exact inverse experience recently. I mostly grew up on PC games and missed out on a lot of the old platformers until I was older. Just recently I got Mega Man 9 which was my first Mega Man without an X in the title. I’ve been telling my friends how much the structure of the game reminded me of Dark Souls. They both have a linear introductory period (in Dark Souls it’s longer, I consider it all the way through to at least when you ring the first bell), followed by opening up to a bunch of areas. Each of those areas contain bosses who give you special abilities (in Dark Souls, they give you special unique souls for upgrading weapons) that make the subsequent areas much easier. They also both contain challenges that on the face of them seem simple (like jumping over one bullet or stepping out of the way of one attack), but that over the course of the game are mixed together until having to do all of them at once becomes a comedy of errors. And finally, both of those games are the most satisfying games to replay I think I’ve ever played. The feeling of mastery you get when you’re barreling through levels you know in Dark Souls and Mega Man seems unmatched to me.

Right now the connections are looking a bit superficial, but when I was playing MM9 it made a lot of sense. I guess I missed out on all the old games people say this is a throwback to (which is fine, I never enjoyed challenging games until I was an adult).

1939

I dislike talking about Dark Souls using the standard terminology for a difficult game – “learning curve,” or “slowly mastering it.” I think there’s a huge mental hurdle at first for some people. Once a player accepts what the game is doing (if he ever does) then yes, there is fairly linear progression in skills and understanding of obscured mechanics, with a few spikes for certain boss fights.

Now try La-Mulana.

Like I said, this is how you’re supposed to play the game! The shared frustration and encouragement from veterans is part of the design. You’ll be back with a flood of questions and complaints, and you’ll get more tips and advice than you’ll be able to handle.

1940

I just recently played with two of my friends who just started playing DS and it was a lot of fun watching them learn the game. I found that the main hurdle my friends had to overcome was impatience. They would see something shiny and run up to grab it without looking around. They would try to squeeze in a hit on an enemy instead of waiting for him to finish his attack. They would stroll around without having their shield up only to get hit by an arrow or a freaking poison dart or a barrel. They would attack a bunch of enemies (often without realizing there is a bunch of enemies) instead of pulling them one by one with an arrow.

The game never tells you to slow down and be more methodical and, well, act scared. The game is not about trial and error, not about learning the layout, etc. Every time you die you should ask yourself “What have I done wrong?” and most of the time there is something you should have done differently to prevent what happened. And if you continue employing these “good practices”, you won’t die the next time the game throws something new at you.

That’s the game’s main challenge and that’s what some people can’t or won’t do. Some people are naturally more impatient and will most likely not enjoy this game. And that’s fine, no game is universally loved by absolutely everyone.