Understanding Dark Souls difficulty

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zinho73

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Due to a supposed mistranslated statement of the Dark Souls designer, a lot of people were talking about a more easy and accessible Dark Souls experience "so everyone could play the game".

Well, I got news, everyone can play the game now, exactly as it is.

Dark Souls is not difficult because it requires inhuman skill (like some platformers). In fact, in that regard it is much easier than any super Mario game.

Dark Souls is difficult for many people because it requires a skill set that is lost to gamers nowadays (and most people in general):

. patience;
. lateral thinking;
. observation;
. experimentation;

It is a unique experience because while playing you do not evolve your character as much as you evolve yourself as a player. It is unbelievably rewarding to decipher the innumerous secrets of the game. That's the game, the discovery. The game is not about running around killing monsters.

It is insanely awesome to see that something that looked like impossible a few hours ago you can now do with your eyes closed (well, maybe one eye closed).

Putting a minimap, an extensive tutorial and save points on the game would not make the game easier - it would be creating another game - one that is simply not nearly as interesting or innovative.

Dark Souls is a unique, intelligent new experience, we really should not be trying to make it equal to other thousands of games.

I understand the frustration if you want to experience the setting but thinks the experience is too hard. But, honestly, have you even tried? Most people shy away from the game because of its fame alone.

A friend of mine have arthritis and cannot play most fight games and platformers and, after a little bit of effort he finished the game twice already.

I am not a very accomplished player also. I can't memorize patterns very well, I can't do a combo in a fighting game for the life of me and cannot drive in a straight line in racing games. And I completed the new content for the game dying only twice.

The famous super uber difficulty of Dark Souls (and Demons Souls for that matter), can be easily conquered by rethinking yourself as a gamer, being more methodical in your approach.

Some people say that an easy mode doesn't hurt because you doesn't have to play it. But the fact that Dark Souls have only one setting of difficulty works as a watermark, a parameter for your successes and failures.

This is what makes people to come back to the game - discovering the new ways to kill a boss or getting the most difficult equipment should be a reference to all. Why? Simply because there's no game that does it now. Comparing notes, efforts and challenges is part of the game. Some things in the game are meant to be very hard to discover and an easy way around it just kills the sense of accomplishment that is so impressive in this game.

Hell, the game became huge mostly because of its style and difficulty. Why try to make something so innovative into another triple A title with all the trappings that executives think that are required for a game to succeed?

In any case, the discussion is moot because lazy people are already cheating their way into the game, making everything supereasy. Which would be fine, I think, if they weren't bringing their fake accomplishments online, to the multiplayer component of the game.

But this is people for you. There will always be someone ready to spoil everyone's fun on the behalf of their fun. We cannot do much about this, unfortunately.

What we can do is enjoy one of the greatest games of all time in the way that made it one of the greatest games of all time: difficult, but conquerable.

Capcha: comfort zone. So true...
 

KFalcon

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This is true.

I think games these days hold your hand for a lot so people have become lazy. For example: Prince of Persia (2008) - theres a button which pretty much tells you exactly where and how you can reach where you need to go and in the boss fights it tells you exactly what to press and when. In the PoP trilogy, this didn't exist and it was fun to figure out how you can make it to X ledge and how to defeat certain bosses. As you pointed out, many games have more checkpoints hints etc to help which adds a certain level of easiness and I think it makes you a bit more mindless as well.

I picked up Dark Souls the other day, and I can safely say I was one of the people you mentioned who forgot about the skill set you need for this game, but now I'm starting to enjoy the game because I realized that this game requires you to adapt and be patient for the openings etc (this was applicable to many older games).
 

BlueberryMUNCH

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Yeah you're right. It's not difficult; just requires practice and patience.
God I love the game.

Thing is, I don't think anything else on this matter can be said outside of this video..
So yeah. It cannot happen. If they want a more 'accessible' game...don't make it a part of the Souls series.
KFalcon said:
I picked up Dark Souls the other day, and I can safely say I was one of the people you mentioned who forgot about the skill set you need for this game, but now I'm starting to enjoy the game because I realized that this game requires you to adapt and be patient for the openings etc (this was applicable to many older games).
Welcome to Dark Souls! Check out the channel I linked; the guy's amazing.
 

King Billi

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I don't think Dark Souls is above having an easier difficulty.

As long as the original difficulty is kept intact I don't see why this should be a big deal.
 

yaydod

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I do agree with about the skills set and all that BUT (and this is a big sweaty one) i would appreciate that the game explains some basic stuff like, what does this allegiance give me? What does this symbol mean in the black smith upgrade part? OOH goody i got a buff .... what does it do (more accurately by how much does it increase)?

It is true it is fun to stroll around and find things out by your own, true, but i find it slightly obnoxious if you have to check out FAQs to get basic info.

Other thing I would like to see improved is the dodge response, when i press the button once with no direction i want to dodge back and when i press it again while pressing the analog stick all the way to the left, i do NOT want to dodge roll strait in front of me T.T

And last rant is about boss damage, I don't mind 1 hit kills if i can dodge them, I do mind when the same attack can take away 1/4 of my life and the next same hit, instant death with full health, this is very obvious against the "fire giant" (boss right after the fire spider boss)

I do like the game but it frustrates me to no end when people call it "world crushing hard", no it is not a game that is that hard, not easy yes but most of the difficulty comes from the total lack of info on some important things, very unintuitive and especially OBNOXIOUS level design (how many times you were stuck in an area for a while and after 4/5 back tracks, OOH there was a stair/ladder here, i luve you bad design <3 )


So basically the game is not bad, and actually fun (more like, this ****ing game won't beat me) but it could use some optimization on several points to make it allot better.
Who cares if there is an option for difficulty level, that would not be a horrible thing actually ( low difficulty lvl : monster do lower dmg, maybe a bit less health, thats it).
 

zinho73

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King Billi said:
I don't think Dark Souls is above having an easier difficulty.

As long as the original difficulty is kept intact I don't see why this should be a big deal.
Not above, no. The problem is that the difficulty is so integral to the game experience that it would not be Dark Souls anymore. It would play like a totally different game.
 

zinho73

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To yaydod:

yeah, the game is not perfect, but some of this stuff is actually not really related with the difficulty per se, although they can add to frustration.

The whole covenant thing I guess was poorly implemented - more mysterious than it should be and less rewarding than it could be.

The delay on the dodge can also be annoying.
 

zinho73

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Also to king billi: and I guess that Dark Souls already has an easy mode: it is called time. People just don't have the patience to understand the game anymore.

capcha: bee line. Very appropriate, that exactly how people want their games nowadays. Nothing wrong with that, but we should not want all games to provide the same experience, the same level of challenge, etc.
 

aguspal

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I dont know man.


For the little I TRIED (key word) to play the pc version of this game, it seemed a tad boring. But I only played around 10 minutes or so, I didnt gave it much of a chance... But then again, thats because I dosnt really seem to want that chance, because of the fucked up camera controls, the ingame cursor (I LOL´D when I saw that. Classic) and Then theres the whole XBOX buttons instead of the pc ones... Umm, yeah. Bad port much? I could deal with Binary Domain pretty quickly, in fact It was only the first half an hour or so that I couldt dominate the controls, after that I was more then fine and completed it in the hardest difficulty with little trouble (Then again thats not saying much, the game is rather easy. Very.)


For a game thats famous for its difficulty, I excepted the pc port to have accuarate controls, at the very least...
 

lapan

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yaydod said:
I do agree with about the skills set and all that BUT (and this is a big sweaty one) i would appreciate that the game explains some basic stuff like, what does this allegiance give me? What does this symbol mean in the black smith upgrade part? OOH goody i got a buff .... what does it do (more accurately by how much does it increase)?
That's what the status screen is for and if you level up, it displays the changes a stat gives you in the level up screen.

Other thing I would like to see improved is the dodge response, when i press the button once with no direction i want to dodge back and when i press it again while pressing the analog stick all the way to the left, i do NOT want to dodge roll strait in front of me T.T
Dodge usually works fine if you are locked on on the enemy. you have to be careful not to press it more than once though, because it won't be cancel-able.

And last rant is about boss damage, I don't mind 1 hit kills if i can dodge them, I do mind when the same attack can take away 1/4 of my life and the next same hit, instant death with full health, this is very obvious against the "fire giant" (boss right after the fire spider boss)
It depends on how it hits you. If it scrapes your side or hits you with the very tip of its attack it obviously does less damage than when it hits you head-on.
 

zinho73

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aguspal said:
I dont know man.


For the little I TRIED (key word) to play the pc version of this game, it seemed a tad boring. But I only played around 10 minutes or so, I didnt gave it much of a chance... But then again, thats because I dosnt really seem to want that chance, because of the fucked up camera controls, the ingame cursor (I LOL´D when I saw that. Classic) and Then theres the whole XBOX buttons instead of the pc ones... Umm, yeah. Bad port much? I could deal with Binary Domain pretty quickly, in fact It was only the first half an hour or so that I couldt dominate the controls, after that I was more then fine and completed it in the hardest difficulty with little trouble (Then again thats not saying much, the game is rather easy. Very.)


For a game thats famous for its difficulty, I excepted the pc port to have accuarate controls, at the very least...
I guess the main problem is that the game really needs a controller. I cannot imagine playing it any other way. If you manage to get one, give the game another chance.

The port for PC was really much more like an emulator: you can play the game exactly as it is on consoles on your computer. It is still the best version of the game (specially with the resolution fix), but I understand that it might not be enough from the perspective of a joystickless PC gamer. :)
 

aguspal

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zinho73 said:
aguspal said:
I dont know man.


For the little I TRIED (key word) to play the pc version of this game, it seemed a tad boring. But I only played around 10 minutes or so, I didnt gave it much of a chance... But then again, thats because I dosnt really seem to want that chance, because of the fucked up camera controls, the ingame cursor (I LOL´D when I saw that. Classic) and Then theres the whole XBOX buttons instead of the pc ones... Umm, yeah. Bad port much? I could deal with Binary Domain pretty quickly, in fact It was only the first half an hour or so that I couldt dominate the controls, after that I was more then fine and completed it in the hardest difficulty with little trouble (Then again thats not saying much, the game is rather easy. Very.)


For a game thats famous for its difficulty, I excepted the pc port to have accuarate controls, at the very least...
I guess the main problem is that the game really needs a controller. I cannot imagine playing it any other way. If you manage to get one, give the game another chance.

The port for PC was really much more like an emulator: you can play the game exactly as it is on consoles on your computer. It is still the best version of the game (specially with the resolution fix), but I understand that it might not be enough from the perspective of a joystickless PC gamer. :)

"Joystickless PC gamer" haha, thats funny now that you said it. Its a bit weird too because I started gaming with a PS1... But I always want to play my PC games with the classic keyboard + Mouse. I just think it has to be that way (Luckily I dont like fighting games/ Hack and Slash games so no problem with those).

Maybeeeee someday I will plug in my joystick for PC and give this game another chance, I guess.
 

zinho73

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aguspal said:
zinho73 said:
aguspal said:
I dont know man.


For the little I TRIED (key word) to play the pc version of this game, it seemed a tad boring. But I only played around 10 minutes or so, I didnt gave it much of a chance... But then again, thats because I dosnt really seem to want that chance, because of the fucked up camera controls, the ingame cursor (I LOL´D when I saw that. Classic) and Then theres the whole XBOX buttons instead of the pc ones... Umm, yeah. Bad port much? I could deal with Binary Domain pretty quickly, in fact It was only the first half an hour or so that I couldt dominate the controls, after that I was more then fine and completed it in the hardest difficulty with little trouble (Then again thats not saying much, the game is rather easy. Very.)


For a game thats famous for its difficulty, I excepted the pc port to have accuarate controls, at the very least...
I guess the main problem is that the game really needs a controller. I cannot imagine playing it any other way. If you manage to get one, give the game another chance.

The port for PC was really much more like an emulator: you can play the game exactly as it is on consoles on your computer. It is still the best version of the game (specially with the resolution fix), but I understand that it might not be enough from the perspective of a joystickless PC gamer. :)

"Joystickless PC gamer" haha, thats funny now that you said it. Its a bit weird too because I started gaming with a PS1... But I always want to play my PC games with the classic keyboard + Mouse. I just think it has to be that way (Luckily I dont like fighting games/ Hack and Slash games so no problem with those).

Maybeeeee someday I will plug in my joystick for PC and give this game another chance, I guess.
I'm a fan of the keyboard and mouse myself, but I'm beginning to understand that some control schemes on certain games are simply much better with controllers. I guess that's to be expected when we want varied experiences, but takes some getting used to...
 

yaydod

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lapan said:
yaydod said:
I do agree with about the skills set and all that BUT (and this is a big sweaty one) i would appreciate that the game explains some basic stuff like, what does this allegiance give me? What does this symbol mean in the black smith upgrade part? OOH goody i got a buff .... what does it do (more accurately by how much does it increase)?
That's what the status screen is for and if you level up, it displays the changes a stat gives you in the level up screen.
I think you misunderstood me, for example the harden spell for pyro, it says that it increases your defense etc.. but it does not show up in the stats, and when a buff shows up (like the one on the dragon sword) i didn't see any variations in stat screen either.

lapan said:
And last rant is about boss damage, I don't mind 1 hit kills if i can dodge them, I do mind when the same attack can take away 1/4 of my life and the next same hit, instant death with full health, this is very obvious against the "fire giant" (boss right after the fire spider boss)
It depends on how it hits you. If it scrapes your side or hits you with the very tip of its attack it obviously does less damage than when it hits you head-on.
The funny part is that i failed dodge his previous attack but i was next to his "arm" not under it, healed up back to full health, after failing another dodge (still full health) he kills me with the same attack animation.
 

Smertnik

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zinho73 said:
Not above, no. The problem is that the difficulty is so integral to the game experience that it would not be Dark Souls anymore. It would play like a totally different game.
Whatever the case, how does it matter in any way? A difficulty setting is merely an option - it's not like you would have to use it yourself.
 

lapan

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yaydod said:
lapan said:
yaydod said:
I do agree with about the skills set and all that BUT (and this is a big sweaty one) i would appreciate that the game explains some basic stuff like, what does this allegiance give me? What does this symbol mean in the black smith upgrade part? OOH goody i got a buff .... what does it do (more accurately by how much does it increase)?
That's what the status screen is for and if you level up, it displays the changes a stat gives you in the level up screen.
I think you misunderstood me, for example the harden spell for pyro, it says that it increases your defense etc.. but it does not show up in the stats, and when a buff shows up (like the one on the dragon sword) i didn't see any variations in stat screen either.

lapan said:
And last rant is about boss damage, I don't mind 1 hit kills if i can dodge them, I do mind when the same attack can take away 1/4 of my life and the next same hit, instant death with full health, this is very obvious against the "fire giant" (boss right after the fire spider boss)
It depends on how it hits you. If it scrapes your side or hits you with the very tip of its attack it obviously does less damage than when it hits you head-on.
The funny part is that i failed dodge his previous attack but i was next to his "arm" not under it, healed up back to full health, after failing another dodge (still full health) he kills me with the same attack animation.
I guess you mean Ceaseless Discharge. I usually lure him over the cliff because he is very hard to defeat otherwise thanks to his high damage. He oneshots you even with some of the better armors.
 
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King Billi said:
I don't think Dark Souls is above having an easier difficulty.

As long as the original difficulty is kept intact I don't see why this should be a big deal.
It completely goes against the whole spirit of the game. The game is about being without any kind of solid assistance (why they opted for no online "co-op mode"), in a world that is mysterious and where you can only rely on your wits. Add an easy mode and you may as well throw in a map, or perhaps a companion.
 

aguspal

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zinho73 said:
aguspal said:
zinho73 said:
aguspal said:
I dont know man.


For the little I TRIED (key word) to play the pc version of this game, it seemed a tad boring. But I only played around 10 minutes or so, I didnt gave it much of a chance... But then again, thats because I dosnt really seem to want that chance, because of the fucked up camera controls, the ingame cursor (I LOL´D when I saw that. Classic) and Then theres the whole XBOX buttons instead of the pc ones... Umm, yeah. Bad port much? I could deal with Binary Domain pretty quickly, in fact It was only the first half an hour or so that I couldt dominate the controls, after that I was more then fine and completed it in the hardest difficulty with little trouble (Then again thats not saying much, the game is rather easy. Very.)


For a game thats famous for its difficulty, I excepted the pc port to have accuarate controls, at the very least...
I guess the main problem is that the game really needs a controller. I cannot imagine playing it any other way. If you manage to get one, give the game another chance.

The port for PC was really much more like an emulator: you can play the game exactly as it is on consoles on your computer. It is still the best version of the game (specially with the resolution fix), but I understand that it might not be enough from the perspective of a joystickless PC gamer. :)

"Joystickless PC gamer" haha, thats funny now that you said it. Its a bit weird too because I started gaming with a PS1... But I always want to play my PC games with the classic keyboard + Mouse. I just think it has to be that way (Luckily I dont like fighting games/ Hack and Slash games so no problem with those).

Maybeeeee someday I will plug in my joystick for PC and give this game another chance, I guess.
I'm a fan of the keyboard and mouse myself, but I'm beginning to understand that some control schemes on certain games are simply much better with controllers. I guess that's to be expected when we want varied experiences, but takes some getting used to...

Agreeded. I too understand this, but even thougt I just KNOW I will have a better experience playing the game with joystick, I just wanna use the good old Keyboard/Mouse.


Again, it helps that I usually avoid the games where the joystick is considerated a must use, such as fighting games and Hack and slash, plus I dont like them so why would I want to play them in the first place, lol. And I guess some racing games, too, except I DO like those and for one occasion I did use a joystick (Flatout 1 and 2, great games)...


But I get the feeling this is getting off topic. Shame because it was a fun conversation, XD.