I never died in Dark Souls.

[The-Traveling-Bard]

So I just finished Dark Souls and I have not died once.
Umad?


Well okay, of course I have died in Dark Souls. Who doesn't?
But I have died more from cheap shots, and instant kills than I have actually died by combat.
How did people believe come to the idea that this game is hard? I didn't find it too hard. I find it cheap, and has to be a fucking child by playing dirty.


Run around a corner, and get shoot by an arrow from a blind spot that you can't see unless you turn your camera first. Then you fall off a cliff and have to re-do 20 minutes of the game.

Whut...? That's not hard. That's cheap tactics. I hope that Dark Souls 2 moves away from this immature design. Of course this problem could be avoided if we could look around corners. (Which totally should be a thing! If you don't pay attention to your environments. You pay the price!)

I love, LOVE the difficulty of the game, but the cheap tricks has got to go.

Also the lack of a *real tutorial system* that explains basic mechanics. I don't know where people got this idea if things like how to run, how to cast spells, etc. It makes the game hard, but I find it's quite silly.

I was in blight town, and that's where I figured out how to run, and only by looking it up at google after watching a video on youtube of some guy running in Dark Souls. I'm sorry, but this is just completely wrong. I don't understand how people think that not explaining the basic control/mechanics of a game makes it more challenging. Also since you had to press two buttons at once to run. It was going to be highly unlikely for me to accidentally discover it.

It shouldn't be the Internets job to explain your game's basic controls.

Before people rage and say. "You just want things spoon feed to you!"
Please notice how I said basic mechanics/controls.

Things like the Poise mechanic. I no problem figuring something like that out on my own.
Upgrading weapons/armor. I could have figure this out on my own.

I don't want everything explain, but the basics/controls are nice. Again.. it took me to look it up on google on how to cast spells/Miracle.


The story.. I LOVE the lore of Dark Souls. I think it's interesting, but I wish more of it was explained. I also like the mystery but some things could have been more straight forward, and more explained. Again I had to look up plot points on google to help understand things. (Maybe I am missing since the "Elites White Knights." have told me before that the game does fine explaining things you just have to look for it.)

Either than that. I love, LOVE this game.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Dark Souls might not have beaten you, but basic grammar appears to have


Also, you don't have to press 2 buttons to run.

 

[I Stomp on Kittens]

Weren't the basics and controls explained as soon as you started? I didn't really feel it was cheap but I see where you are coming from. That first encounter with those dragon archers still gives me nightmares

I like that the game forces you to slow down and tread carefully on mysterious grounds and it just feels too darn good to overcome any kind of challenge in that game.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

Snip

The game tells you how to run just before you first meet the Asylum Demon. Did you not read the orange marks on the floor?

Also why not turn the camera first?

The game can be cheap sometimes, but these were bad examples.

 

[shrekfan246]

Also since you had to press two buttons at once to run. It was going to be highly unlikely for me to accidentally discover it.

...

You hold a button. While pushing the movement stick. Don't know where you got "two buttons at once" from.

Seriously, am I the only person on the entire planet who messes around with the buttons to figure out what does what before I start actually digging into the meat of a game?

Oh, and the Asylum gives you the button prompts for all of the basic actions if you actually read the messages on the ground. Like running, or casting spells.

And it's not a hard game. It's a game that doesn't care about you.

When people say "hard", they usually mean something like Devil May Cry or Diablo on the highest difficulties, where enemies are massive walls of damage-spongy evil and can shave off all of your health with an errant step. They don't usually mean the Castlevania style of difficulty, where everything is elaborate and deliberate, and if you don't know what's coming up next you'll probably fail, but everything is surmountable with enough care and attention.

I won't say there aren't "cheap shots" in Dark Souls, but practically everything can be off-set if you're just careful and know how you should proceed. Turning a corner without your shield up is a bad idea. Strafing around enemies without paying attention to your surroundings will likely send you flying off a cliff. Blighttown is stupid. The Anor Londo Silver Knight archers are unfair.

 

[hazabaza1]

Run around a corner,

There's your problem.
There's a comic about this somewhere but I can't remember it.

I don't know where people got this idea if things like how to run, how to cast spells, etc. It makes the game hard, but I find it's quite silly.

what
WHAT

Literally one of the first signs you get says "Hold *button* to run". How do you fuck that up? How?

And for spells and miracles, from what I remember basically all of the casting equipment have a pretty blatant description in the menu that they need to be equipped to do so.

 

[ThePuzzldPirate]

I love how many people love to complain about Dark Souls difficulty(cheap, fair doesn't matter) and than completely talk out of their ass. If your going to ***** about a game please PLEASE do your research because when you don't, your argument can be completely dismissed. It's even worse when it comes to the fact that so many people are late to the party yet talk like it just came out. There is entire communities/thread dedicated to helping either the player or the games shortcomings, I suggest looking them up. XD

(me not being serious by the way, don't take offense.)

 

[Windcaler]

*snip*

Im pretty sure you havnt even played the game, let alone beat it since you dont seem to have the slightest grasp on the games mechanics. Please dont come here trying to troll the dark souls community. We like actual discussion not guesswork framed in hyperbole

Edit: Heres a look at the right and wrong ways to play the game and it mostly comes down to your attitude and approach. It also covers the idea of trial and error gameplay or otherwise known as artificial difficulty

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oYLhAZvjvU

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

So I just finished Dark Souls and I have not died once.
Umad?

Never died in Dark Souls? Wow...oh wait.

Well okay, of course I have died in Dark Souls. Who doesn't?
But I have died more from cheap shots, and instant kills than I have actually died by combat.
How did people believe come to the idea that this game is hard? I didn't find it too hard. I find it cheap, and has to be a fucking child by playing dirty.

LIES! YOU DID DIE! THE THREAD TITLE IS A LIE!!!

 

[Launcelot111]

The tutorial does enough. The only thing that the game doesn't tell you at all that I really wish I had been told was how to jump, and you only need to do that a small handful of times. The rest might not be obvious, but with a modicum of fiddling, it's pretty easy to pick up.

Many of the cheaper sections can be made much easier with prudent use of a bow, though it is a bit of an issue that arrows are hard to come by and that trial and error does not mesh well with limited and obnoxious to replenish resources. The only thing I've found thus far to be both truly cheap and unimprovable with a bow is Smough chaining his charging shovel attacks together for an unavoidable instakill at times.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Dark Souls is a challenge compared to the various games in its "genre" though in quoting that word I'm saying that I feel the "Souls" series is a subgenre of RPG. Games today are somewhat neutered in difficulty, though there are options in some to ramp it up, the difficulty isn't so much skill based as its more health in enemies and less in the player's. Dark Souls rather ramps their difficulty up with skill, timing and awareness. It has a learning curve a lot of gamers probably won't be comfortable with.
Its not super easy, not super hard, just a radical shift in direction from the gaming "norm".
And hell, dying is the funnest part of the game for me.

 

[USSR]

Seriously, am I the only person on the entire planet who messes around with the buttons to figure out what does what before I start actually digging into the meat of a game?

No.
I thought everyone did that....

 

[shrekfan246]

Seriously, am I the only person on the entire planet who messes around with the buttons to figure out what does what before I start actually digging into the meat of a game?

No.
I thought everyone did that....

All the times I've had to ask that question in the last week or two, you'd be surprised how many people apparently don't.

 

[runic knight]

bright orange glowing marks on the floor that give prompts to read and tell you the basic movements. Hard to miss unless you run straight by them.

as for the game being cheap, I think it is very fair. It is just designed for the deliberate rather then the bold. You run out there eager for excitement, you get stomped if you don't know what is out there. You take your time, almost every trap has a tell. I will admit some feel very cheap (Anor Londo archers come to mind) but most are avoidable, even on the first playthrough, if you go slow, keep your guard up and keep an eye on your surroundings. A perfect example that I just went through last night was an elevator shortcut. After 2 others I found (Oolicile content), a third one had an enemy riding it to get a cheap shot it, that is, if you let your guard down.

Things aren't cheap if you don't expect it, things are cheap when they are inherently unavoidable or unfair. Seath's first meeting may fall into this one, as a scripted death, but surprisingly few traps or enemies do besides. Though a Ring of Sacrifice and a orange prompt to "use ring" would have been all that was needed to remove even that complaint.

-------------------

All the times I've had to ask that question in the last week or two, you'd be surprised how many people apparently don't.

It is the latest generations of games with their hand holding tutorials, pampers some people so much they get used to it so when they play a game that doesn't do it, they whine. Or, they are so used to them, they rebel against that and ignore any hints because they assume all the controls to be uniform or blatantly obvious.

-sigh- I'll put away my cane and "when I was young" stories now...

 

[Alcaste]

I find that Dark Souls has very few real 'instakills'. What are you doing entering a new area without a good shield up? Dark Souls doesn't care that you want to be drizzt, if you wanna duel wield magic scimitars then get ready to pay the price.

Dark Souls is a very deliberate game. It's hard set in its mechanics, and uses them in the gameplay - Unlike a lot of games where the mechanics don't seem to mesh well with the game at all (It would be like if Dark Souls had a precision multi-platform jumping puzzle, for example.) Cheap shots happen because you didn't observe first. If you don't want to take the time to learn the game, then the Capra demon will smash you.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

It's a third person game, you can look around corners with clever positioning.

Whenever I thought the game was being cheap, I always thought this, "What would I do if I were in their position?". It would be the exact same thing they usually did. Attack from behind, in a swarm, from a distance before you see me. Snipers don't announce their position before they shoot, assassins don't warn their victims they are behind them, angry mobs don't all line up to attack one at a time like they're nameless mooks in a Jet Li movie. Dark Souls is one of the few games where my enemies act near enough to how I would act(in a broad sense) were I in their situation.

It gives means you have to work to separate your enemies, always be careful of your surroundings in any place where enemies could hide and make judicious use of choke points and stabby weapons. I love you, my Winged Spear.

If you don't want to take the time to learn the game, then the Capra demon will smash you.

Now, to be honest, even if you do learn the game he's a son of a ***** to kill because you have to execute the necessary actions near perfectly and sometimes your fingers just aren't up to the task. I don't think a lot of people killed him on their first try their first play through.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

"I don't know how to play patiently and plan out my moves."

This is you, OP. Those times you died are entirely your own fault. The whole point of the game is playing cautiously because everything is so deadly.

Also the lack of a *real tutorial system* that explains basic mechanics. I don't know where people got this idea if things like how to run, how to cast spells, etc. It makes the game hard, but I find it's quite silly.

And this? You do know about this thing called, oh I don't know, a manual? You know the thing that lists all the controls? Or how about the first 10 minutes of the game which is literally just tutorial messages on the ground everywhere telling you the controls?