it looks like Dark Souls will soon be like Dragon Age 2 - overhyped and undercooked. I can taste the tears of them fanbois already, and its delicious.
we can surely agree that we would all like to see Dark Souls attain as great a presence as The Elder Scrolls. How it gets there is a worthy matter for debate, but it’s certainly a noble task.
Why can we all agree on that? I’m secure enough in my opinions that I’m okay if some people don’t like something that I like. I’d love for the studio to be successful, but that isn’t what he said.
I still think any talk of “challenge” needs a fundamental discussion on what it means in the context of videogames, and what makes it good. I don’t like it when people casually refer to Dark Souls as “difficult.” It’s a specific kind of difficult that’s very annoying.
I’m willing to concede the obfuscation. It’s obnoxious for those of us who don’t want to invest the time, but it’s cool when it works (through the guidance marks or external discovery on Internet forums). There’s room in the world for one series like that. I don’t want to kill something that a subset of people really cherish just because it’s a slight inconvenience to me.
You have to work out how vital is an incomprehensible UI to the Souls experience and so on.
If you don’t have to leave the game to ask questions on a forum, or look up a wiki, it’s not really a Souls experience.
There are ways they can explain certain mechanics or parts of the game better in game, than having to rely on third party sources of information. Considering the best part of the game is the very first play through when you know nothing of the game and you have that sense of discovery. If they can explain the mechanics of certain things better in game, then I feel the game will be ideal.
I would like Dark Souls to remain tough, but I would prefer the systems and mechanics to be clear. The tools at my disposal should be well documented and understandable, but how to use those tools to overcome a problem should be a challenge.
This. Exactly this.
To play devil’s advocate: a lot of good games are like this. They don’t all have to work the same.
Normally I’d agree with you. I seem to be moving toward games like that in general. But I can see it from the other perspective.
Seconded. One area that pissed me off about Dark Souls was how they hid bonfires behind hidden walls. Not walls that could be distinguished by someone paying attention, but the only way would have been walking around hitting them and hoping that you found something.
Making it difficult is fine, but making it so that no one would find something important unless they were psychic or looked at a guide is another matter.
Those bonfires weren’t that well hidden. 3 hidden bonfires come to mind: catacombs (which you can see through a crack in a wall), sen’s fortress (which is also visible if you search the place) and darkroot garden (which is also visible around the wall).
So, no random wall whacking needed.
Well, excluding Lost Izalith… (I finished the game without finding it and just read about it on some forum later).
Awww…Rock8, you never beat 3-1. Bummer.
I really wouldn’t mind explaining things “a bit” more in game. White/Black world tendency for instance really needed more in game explanation. As long as the core game play and exploration doesn’t change, I’m fine.
The only large changes I would welcome is perhaps a more varied, less pattern based AI attack sequence structures, and varied locations of trash mobs after death. Not knowing exactly where every single bad guy is would keep things fresh. I wouldn’t change bonfires, Bosses, difficulty, etc. The game is near perfect as it is.
Hrm, then again… would random attacks and random spawns AND death resets push the frustration threshold overboard?
Late response, but…
Demon’s Souls was actually worse in this regard. The fodder between boss fights was easier, and the boss fights were harder. I think the transition to Dark Souls was a good one, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the trend continued even farther in the sequel (evening out the difficulty a bit).
I would guess that you’d have more luck if you point more points into Vitality (you should not be getting one shot). It’s a super important stat, especially early on, that’s easy to overlook. Stat allocation is a place where they could do with some better messaging.
What worries me most for increasing accessibility is that Dark Souls is such an understated game that gets by on its smart level design to teach players how to play, rather than explicit tutorializing. I’m also a huge fan of the way both Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls establish their worlds. Instead of explicit exposition, you just see how the world has decayed, and learn how it worked from there.
I think it’s a shame advertisements have shaped the impression of the series as one exclusively about difficulty. The games are so strong on so many levels. I don’t know if I’d particularly mind much if the sequel was easier. I think there’s a lot of subtle messaging and mechanics work they could do to make using a wiki substantially less important, but still maintain the oppressive feel of the world in gameplay and presentation. I’m nervously optimistic.
I think the AI uses fuzzy logic to choose its attacks. Most enemies seem to have multiple states / attacks they can enter based on their positioning, but tend to favor specific tactics. I’m not sure how you’d get their attacks more random as long as you’re using prebuilt animation-based attacks. I guess if each enemy had more attacks it’d be more random, but that’s just increasing the learning curve per-enemy. Maybe fun, but I’m not convinced.
Random enemy placement seems like a great idea for an individual level. But I think part of the joy of the game is when you need to traverse through an area you know, how enjoyable it is to utterly obliterate everyone there. A randomly placed level with good rewards would be a great place to make the best grinding spot, however, since it’d make grinding much more interesting.
Dark souls was originally going to have wandering black knights. So I think if they brought that idea back it would be wonderful. Don’t need to randomize the enemies. Maybe make the chance of a black knight appearing determined by soul level, amount of humanity carried, amount of souls carried. Kind of a risk vs reward system.
Not that anybody cares, but I did not mind the constrained spaces or the brutal bosses. Whenever anything was too tough I just enlisted help from other players. Or I would help other people and see how to take on the upcoming boss characters. To that end, I beat the Capra Demon and I may have been the worst Dark Souls player ever. The problem was I just could not find my way around, I would just constantly get lost and really have no idea where to go next. I would literally would wander around in circles for hours. Maybe 10 years ago I could take on a game like Dark Souls but my gaming time is limited so I clearly need hand holding like navigation assistance and that seems antithetical to the design of the game.
Using a co-op companion to get through areas might have made it harder to make a mental map of the area. It was for me. When I did my second playthrough, areas I’d gotten help felt like a completely new zones. I had a strong mental map for everywhere else.
I’m sure some psychologist has done studies to the effect that you learn an area better when exploring it on your own then you do being led. (I don’t want this to sound like “You were playing it wrong” because you weren’t. I wonder if the decision to not include a map was driven by the developers not playtesting what it felt like to be co-opted through an area.)
All interesting points