Dark Souls

[Saturnine Tenshi]

Maybe it was because I was playing a dexterity-pumped thief. I didn't realize until later the near uselessness of dexterity. Who'd have known that thieves don't favor dexterity? Funny, that. : \ I didn't feel like starting over.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

That's not true. Dex builds just take forever to get good. In Demon's Souls playing the Royal class is regarded as the easiest way to start.

[Saturnine Tenshi]

Maybe I didn't get far enough for it to be useful. Far as I was, it was pretty damn useless. Playing it now, I remember another reason why I loathed it: dying means you go all the way back to the last boss you fought. Just sort of supplanting modern game design for punishment.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

How else would it work?

[Waldorf and Statler]

The one battle I feel was complete fucking bullshit was the one against the dragon hunter and the fatass.

[Saturnine Tenshi]

@FDS: With save points or proper checkpoints.I don't think doing something for a challenge excuses decade-or-two-old game design.

 

I'm hoping to happen across a large mace. There are never enough of those.

 

Edit: I riddled the Tower Knight with a salvo of arrows. Our first encounter had him splash me across the cobblestone with his shield. But is it all right to discuss the first game in this thread?

Edited November 15, 2012 by Saturnine Tenshi

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

It does have check points though. You just talked about them. Besides that the mechanics wouldn't functiion within the scope of the online play and other shit

[Saturnine Tenshi]

Okay. Then it should have them closer to the bosses. I don't consider those post-boss checkpoints legitimate checkpoints so much as they're used to partition the level between bosses. It would function fine if they weren't seeking to pad the game's hours and add that sought-after "difficulty". Though I'm not sure where difficulty ends and poor game design begins here, but I'm going to go with the latter. As far as the hour padding is concerned, I'll surrender that it's fairly common throughout the industry. Whether that excuses it is another thing.

 

I just can't see backwards level design somehow being excused for the sake of a supposed challenge.

[TheMightyEthan]

Tedious != challenge.

 

Disclaimer: I have not played this game, just talking about the idea in general.

Edited November 15, 2012 by TheMightyEthan

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

Okay. Then it should have them closer to the bosses. I don't consider those post-boss checkpoints legitimate checkpoints so much as they're used to partition the level between bosses. It would function fine if they weren't seeking to pad the game's hours and add that sought-after "difficulty". Though I'm not sure where difficulty ends and poor game design begins here, but I'm going to go with the latter. As far as the hour padding is concerned, I'll surrender that it's fairly common throughout the industry. Whether that excuses it is another thing.

 

I just can't see backwards level design somehow being excused for the sake of a supposed challenge.

 

I suck therefor the game is designed badly. So all games before this generation were badly designed because they had fewer checkpoints and didn't load you save whenever you wanted?

[TheMightyEthan]

Okay. Then it should have them closer to the bosses. I don't consider those post-boss checkpoints legitimate checkpoints so much as they're used to partition the level between bosses. It would function fine if they weren't seeking to pad the game's hours and add that sought-after "difficulty". Though I'm not sure where difficulty ends and poor game design begins here, but I'm going to go with the latter. As far as the hour padding is concerned, I'll surrender that it's fairly common throughout the industry. Whether that excuses it is another thing.

 

I just can't see backwards level design somehow being excused for the sake of a supposed challenge.

 

I suck therefor the game is designed badly. So all games before this generation were badly designed because they had fewer checkpoints and didn't load you save whenever you wanted?

 

Yes, that is exactly what he said.

Edited November 15, 2012 by TheMightyEthan

[Saturnine Tenshi]

I think you're just being contrary for the sake of it at this point, FDS. I'm not even saying it's a bad game (or saying it isn't a great game for that matter), but poor level design is poor level design however you want to spin it. I'll concede that it probably isn't my type of game as I haven't the slightest penchant for punishment; that does nothing for the state of the game.

 

I've more to say, but I don't feel inclined to really put my heart into it if you're just going to resort to flippant, haughtier-than-thou replies. You should dismount before engaging people in conversation every now and then.

 

Edit: I suppose I should add that they've addressed this to an extent with the bonfires in Dark Souls. So at least they've acknowledged their mistakes and learned from them unlike many a dev.

Edited November 15, 2012 by Saturnine Tenshi

[Waldorf and Statler]

Yeah Dark Souls's bonfires are nice. The main downside of them is to always try and find a bonfire nearby a boss, which there tends to be one. Anor Londo only has like 2 bonfires in its main castle but everything is so interconnected it ends up being not a big deal.

 

Now the Demon Ruins I couldn't find the bonfire so dying in there was a rage-quit moment as the only near bonfire was in the beginning.

[deanb]

The combat is pretty well designed within the game, but the death/"checkpoint" mechanic does kinda suck. You die, you lose the XP/Cash you spent the first run making, until you then repeat the same stretch you just completed, killing off the same enemies in the same spots, in the hopes of then recouping the souls, and if you die again it means re-repeating the same stretch/enemies until you do advance. Losing all of your souls upon death also means that you generally aim to avoid risk too, so if you're down to just 1 flask you're not going to be jumping around the corners too quick, which means going back, re-bonfiring then repeating the level to the new section and taking out whatever is new around the corner.

Phalanx was probably one of the better bosses/levels for this between the two games since you opened up a short-cut midway through the level, thus cutting out the need to repeat the whole stretch of the level as and when you die (especially if you die to the boss).

 

It's an entire topic of it's own though with "difficult for the sake of it" kinda games. The combat alone works well enough, the complete failure upon death is unneeded.

[FMW]

I just started this game! I feel like I'm doing okay so far, because the reputation has be playing EXTREMELY carefully. I bought an Xbox controller for use on my PC exclusively for this game, because it an experience I want to have in it's fullest. I have zero complaints about the PC version so far, except I can't figure out how to exit and get to the title screen. My method for leaving the game is to alt-tab away and then close the program off the task bar. Surely there's another way, but I tried all the buttons on the controller

[VicariousShaner]

Have you tried pressing escape on your keyboard?

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

Press start and go to the options menu. Quiting the way you are doing could fuck up your file.

[FMW]

Upon booting it up I realized... how on earth am I supposed to tell if I've messed up my file or not? And who cares? What's five or six failed explorations of Undead Burg really matter anyway? It's still trying this same level over and over again, regardless.

Edited January 8, 2013 by Frosted Mini-Wheats

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

It gives you a warning when you turn the game on again, actually. It even does this when you have to quit due to framerate issues as a result of the dsfix. Which is why I enabled automatic backups.

Edited January 8, 2013 by Faiblesse Des Sens

[toxicitizen]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA1s9v2Ab8w

 

Looking pretty good. I'll really have to properly dig into Dark Souls this summer. 

[Waldorf and Statler]

saw it earlier. It's looking damn good. I hope that armor isn't some low level armor that gets quickly changed. Also the trailer made it seem like the game would have a better story so I can't wait.

[Mr. GOH!]

Holy fuck, you guys, this game is brutal. Not sure I have the time or patience to replay every single fight every time I die.

[FMW]

Dark Souls is the action game for me.  I'm not normally into action games.  I do not have very good reflexes, and I do not do well with particularly complicated controls or extended combo strings.  But Dark Souls actually moves at a pretty measured pace, and there are like only three inputs that matter.

 

I'm also a big fan of how small scale most of Dark Souls is.  Most video games have issues with scale.  Sometimes enemies become entirely trivial as the player becomes too powerful.  Sometimes it's because they throw "THE END OF THE WORLD" around as if upping the stakes will save an otherwise rotten narrative.  Dark Souls does pretty well with keeping the animations grounded, keeping every fight relevant, and making "THE END OF THE WORLD" actually matter by showing the decay of this universe in every area and enemy.  This is the best depiction of the end of a world in a video game since Metroid Prime, and I think it's probably even better.

 

Lastly, the art is just awesome.  It's like the Japanese development team started out with a bucket of western fantasy tropes but didn't know how to use them right.  So we ended up with all these wonderful/grotesque variations on boring standards like skeletons or dragons or whatever.

 

So I could do without some of archaic design (Oooh, I got a key!  Time to do a sweep of the entire world to find the one locked door I can go through now.  Again.) and I REALLY wish this game came with a manual that explained how the stats and mechanics work (I just tried kindling and as far as I can tell it did nothing for me) and it's a super hard game to get into.  But now that I'm in I'm pretty happy with it.  Probably my favorite action game.  Combos suck.

[Mal]

While there is nothing much yet due to the embargo on the PC version, but stuff coming through the cracks seems to indicate a much better PC version this time around. No idea if the lighting thing is a thing or not but we'll see in a few days.

[toxicitizen]

It's starting to look like the improved lighting won't be in the PC version either. Most videos and screenshots showcasing it have been removed from the Steam store page. Sucks but hardly a deal breaker for me. Gameplay is king for the Souls games.

 

But yeah, in the last couple days there's been rumors of people with early copies claiming the PC version has extensive graphical options. Would be nice if true. It's clear that the game suffered visually as a result of the modified lighting so if these options can at least help mask some of those imperfections I'll be satisfied.

Edited April 5, 2014 by FLD