Understanding Dark Souls difficulty

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Sorry for the double post, but edits don't send notifications.

If this is true then Dark Souls has a hell of a lot of "filler". The game is, what, 80 hours? Longer? And you say that the reward is in the observation of things, using surroundings, patience, etc.. but when you do figure out the key to defeating that enemy you still have to carry it out. What's the point? You know how to kill him and yet you have to dance around him with the controller, and do it every time you encounter him. This is what I call the "grind" and turns me off these kinds of games. If the intellectual rewards are so great, let me move on after mastering them, and not applying them hundreds of times in incredibly tedious ways to satisfy the demands of poor game design.

The game isn't 80 hours of grind. In fact it's a pretty short game. People spend 80 hours on it because they're slow to learn or because they take their time to do things. Usually, you go through a level very slowly, checking for traps, secret areas, ambushes and so forth. Sometimes you die, and go back (which is faster because now you know where to go and what to expect). A second playthrough is less than half the duration of the first, because you know stuff - that's where the game's length comes from, not from the insane amount of time you spend in combat or whatever.

And I assure you, there's very little grind. Monsters are placed pretty rarely (an example: the dungeon Sen's Fortress has a grand total of ~15 monsters you really have to fight to finish it) and killing monsters over and over for drops is only if you've screwed something up - the game does have drops scattered around that you can find with a 100% probability, and with a little exploration they're most of what you need to upgrade your weapon. As for grinding for stats, there's really no need to. It is possible to finish the game at level 1.

You must have a higher tolerance than me. The first big monster I came across in the dungeon with some sort of giant hammer, I realised I had to dodge and attack. But that tactic took off a tiny slice of health and the game expected me to do it about 20 times more to be able to kill him. Why? It was at that point I said 'f*ck this' and asked my friend if he had something less repetitive that I could play. Not because I'm lazy or impatient. Hell I play tedious, painfully hard adventure games most of the time because I enjoy it.

 

[Captainanorach]

Apart from telling him where to go and the controls, I let my brother play Dark Souls saying how hard it was.

He's 10 BTW... The little git got all the way to the Taurus Demon without dying and it proceeded to smash him into the ground.

I was amazed and he rubbed it in my face :-(

It goes to show that with a bit of observation skills it's not a difficult game, it's just that modern day gamers are experiencing easier more hand holding gameplay a la COD series. They expect it to be easy and that's why Dark Souls punishes them for it.

I'm not calling out noobs or anything like that (it killed me a dozen times in a few hours) you just have to tap into a more old school way of thinking.

 

[zinho73]

You must have a higher tolerance than me. The first big monster I came across in the dungeon with some sort of giant hammer, I realised I had to dodge and attack. But that tactic took off a tiny slice of health and the game expected me to do it about 20 times more to be able to kill him. Why? It was at that point I said 'f*ck this' and asked my friend if he had something less repetitive that I could play. Not because I'm lazy or impatient. Hell I play tedious, painfully hard adventure games most of the time because I enjoy it.

If you read the sign on the ground you would have noticed you're supposed to run away. You can't beat him like that.

During the actual fight he starts with about 60% hp due to you plunging on his head, then dies in about 5-6 hits because you get a much better weapon.

There is no boss in the game whose health you have to whittle away like that. If that happens, something is wrong and you should check for it asap.

Welcome to the club. As I said on a few posts ago, I actually killed the bastard and gave up on the game, thinking that a monster with this much health was a terrible idea.

Then I realize I was the one to blame and came back to the game. Fourth playthrough and still having fun. I made a point to just watch videos from the areas I already cleared though.

 

[zinho73]

I was playing the new tekken tag and thinking about this discussion. I actually gave up on the game because I cannot beat arcade mode on easy to watch the end movies.

I got frustrated because I really wasn't expecting that since I beat Tekken six all right just mashing buttons and learning a total of two moves per character.

That's how I like my fighting games: randomly mashing buttons to see something awesome happens with beautiful end movies.

Then I asked myself: do I really want that Tekken Tag 2 get an even easier mode?

And the answer is a resounding YES, I DO. So, I empathize with people wanting an easier Dark Souls.

BUT, and that's a big BUT, I also realize that I'm completely wrong, because as it is, Tekken is the kind of game that incentives the player to learn the moves (yeah, even noobs). Tekken Tag is not more difficult than DOA4 in easy mode, it just requires something that I'm not in the mood to do: take one character and learn a few of his moves (I want to play the whole roster). If I do that , I bet I can breeze through arcade with fewer restarts than in DOA 4.

That kind of game is necessary because it taps in another layer beyond instant gratification. It is nice that we have this option: more technical and also more flashy fighting games. It is good for the industry and it is good for us, gamers.

So, I... hm... will just have to wait for DOA 5.

 

[Arina Love]

Most of the information people look up online regarding the game is acquiring a special weapon or piece of armor; Something that requires you to offer up a Boss soul.

Apart from one Boss, there's no information that will make the game easier.

Yeah, no. I'm sorry, but I already know that much is bullshit.

And how is that?

Name me one Boss that is easily defeated by looking up the info, apart from Ceaseless Discharge.

Most/all of them. If you want one particular example, I couldn't beat Capra Demon until I knew I could run up the stairs, hide in the corner and wait for him to fall off.
And let me continue.
Iron Golem is easily defeated by making him fall. You have to know he's going to fall.
A large part of the difficulty in the Bed of Chaos fight goes away if you know to quit and reload, if you know you can jump into it, and if you know you can use ranged attacks on the left orb.
Information is what kills Gaping Dragon - knowing when to attack and what to attack. There's no dodging or blocking in that fight - just running around and hitting.
Gwyn is weak to parries - know that, fight's much easier.
You can summon Beatrice for Moonlight Butterfly and she can easily solo it, you only have to chug potions now and then.
And so on. A lot of bosses just require you to know what to do.

But the entire game is built on the idea of information as a difficulty barrier. Your remark is very, very strange considering the online features and how deeply set they are within the game, how easily you can finish it on your 2nd playthrough, and the fact that there's ways to play the game that are incredibly easy... if only you knew about them. Invisible walls, mimics and loyd's talismans, backstabs, the Rusted Iron Ring and entire Asylum revisit etc etc. The actual combat difficulty can be figured out easily for normal enemies and all bosses telegraph their attacks very strongly.

except sense of accomplishment is subjective and same scale don't really apply to everyone. i for one get same sense of accomplishment in every game i play be it easy or hard.

You may think you do, but I severely doubt it. Sense of accomplishment is proportional to amount of effort invested. If you don't have the patience to practice a game until you learn it, that's fine, but don't tell me you're just as happy when you successfully finish deriving a complex function as you are doing 2+2.

in fact i will get even more satisfaction from easy things than from hard things filled with frustration. if i'm facing with complex function and solved it all i would think is "eff that and good riddance and i'm not going to do that again", no sense of accomplishment whatsoever only frustration.
So yeah in case you didn't know all people are different.

 

[lucky_sharm]

sniped

well i don't want to be at you "level" i'm comfortable at my own. i don't really care about your accomplishments and what you been through to achieve them nor do i care for some sort of "steet cred" for making it to the end.
as i said before easy difficulty not equals easy win. If done right it provides interesting game play with greater margin for errors.

Its fine if you dont want to raise yourself up to be a better player and beat Dark souls. Thats your choice. I also never said you had to care about my accomplishments, I still care and thats all that really matters.

However I disagree with you on a fundemnetal level. From the early days of gaming easy modes have been in our games and they have always been the mode that anyone can complete. In 27 years of gaming I do not recall a single game where easy mode enhanced the gameplay for me but I do have to admit that is subjective at best. I think this is just a case where we are going to have to agree to disagree.

However Im still a bit confused. Why do you want to play dark souls if you already know the difficulty level is one that you're uncomfortable with?

I want to play it because i played it at my friend's for about 2 hours and it was good concept and i liked gameplay but i didn't like the difficulty. So if they gonna patch in easier mode i will buy it.
Same as Catherine i really liked concept but i was not buying it because how hard was Japanese version before patches were introduced. After patches i bought it and was able to enjoy it immensely.

But they DID patch Dark Souls and made it easier. They changed enemy mob placements, increased souls gained from killing bosses and enemies alike, increased item drops, nerfed a few aspects of PVP, reduced enemy agro, among other things.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I was playing the new tekken tag and thinking about this discussion. I actually gave up on the game because I cannot beat arcade mode on easy to watch the end movies.

I got frustrated because I really wasn't expecting that since I beat Tekken six all right just mashing buttons and learning a total of two moves per character.

That's how I like my fighting games: randomly mashing buttons to see something awesome happens with beautiful end movies.

Then I asked myself: do I really want that Tekken Tag 2 get an even easier mode?

And the answer is a resounding YES, I DO. So, I empathize with people wanting an easier Dark Souls.

BUT, and that's a big BUT, I also realize that I'm completely wrong, because as it is, Tekken is the kind of game that incentives the player to learn the moves (yeah, even noobs). Tekken Tag is not more difficult than DOA4 in easy mode, it just requires something that I'm not in the mood to do: take one character and learn a few of his moves (I want to play the whole roster). If I do that , I bet I can breeze through arcade with fewer restarts than in DOA 4.

That kind of game is necessary because it taps in another layer beyond instant gratification. It is nice that we have this option: more technical and also more flashy fighting games. It is good for the industry and it is good for us, gamers.

So, I... hm... will just have to wait for DOA 5.

This is why the play time for the best fighting games isn't measured in hours or days, it's measured in years. And I'd imagine that there will still be playing Dark Souls years from now too. You can't just put them on easy and blast through an unsatisfying play, or just button mash your way to victory against even half capable opponents and then get bored of the game. There is so much to be said for a rewarding engrossing experience that takes a little time, patience and dedication.

 

[chikusho]

Alright, only really read the first thread of the page, so if someone made this example earlier, I apologize, but seriously though..

If you think all games should have an easy mode, would you also say that all movies should have a PG13 version? Should all literary works have the story retold in simpler language? Should all poetry come with explanations or interpretations of the work?

The difficulty and vagueness of Demons and Dark Souls is inherent to the experience. Video games has the potential to be the most immersive medium for creating experiences, atmosphere, setting moods and widen the players world view, morality and humanity, and everything a game-developer adds or keeps out of their creation are tools that fill very specific functions.

An argument that was made in the video linked earlier (argument made by someone else) was that, and I'm paraphrasing, "who are developers to tell gamers what's fun". What I'm saying is that more people need to understand that games _does not have to be fun_. A game can be so much more than the simple joy of viewing life bars shorten. If an average player isn't in to that, that's fine, stick to what you love and more power to you. But not every experience needs to be catered to you. Just take a look at Spec Ops: The Line, a game that has literally turned every other war game on it's head in an effort to comment on the average gamers lust for violence.
I'd explain it in my own words, but since Extra Credits has already made such an admirable job, I'll just link to their take instead:
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/spec-ops-the-line-part-1
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/spec-ops-the-line-part-2


The point is, while I still admire Dark Souls to be one of the best gaming experiences I've had, I wouldn't label it as a "fun" experience. Most of the time spent in the game I was scared shitless. But the sense of accomplishment, the sense of discovery while viewing the _VERY_ brutal design of the world and most importantly, the patience and caution I learned to employ to be able to view all that is _key_ to what makes dark souls great.

My 2 cents, anyway. Melt them down and spend them on 4 cents if you like.