Dark Souls and grinding done right

[Danbo Jambo]

To me, if you have to "grind" then the game isn't made right.

Levelling up should be a reward for indulging in positive ativities such as quests. Games shouldn't be work or a chore, and the player should actually feel like their character has grown and developed. You can spend a lifetime sweeping roads and still be a roadsweep at the end of it, only by stretching and improving do folk "level up", and for me games should reflect that to some degree.

 

[Fappy]

Over the weekend I was listening to people debate the Star Fox invincible mode, and they brought up Dark Souls as an argument. Saying that if Dark Souls had an easy mode, then it would completely defeat the purpose and even the majesty of the game. To which I was screaming at the screen that Dark Souls has an easy mode already.

Spell casting, ranged weapons, over leveling, that one sacrificial ring thing that lets you keep your souls when you die. There are a ton of options that make the game easier and you know what....that's why Dark Souls is so brilliant. The challenge is only as hard as you want it to be, and you can dynamically change your difficulty at any time merely by changing your equipment.

To be fair, I think you need a certain degree of system mastery to accurately gauge what is and what isn't an optimal choice when building your character. Sure, you can limit yourself as much as you want, but that doesn't change the base difficulty of the game. For people who haven't played the game before, following a GameFaqs guide and getting the Drake Sword/Sword of Quelaag and Elite Knight armor (or just go full-on sorc/pyro) early isn't going to make the game that much easier than it would if they went in blind.

 

[StreamerDarkly]

To me, if you have to "grind" then the game isn't made right.

Levelling up should be a reward for indulging in positive ativities such as quests. Games shouldn't be work or a chore, and the player should actually feel like their character has grown and developed. You can spend a lifetime sweeping roads and still be a roadsweep at the end of it, only by stretching and improving do folk "level up", and for me games should reflect that to some degree.

I feel like this isn't a very accurate assessment of grinding in Souls games. By fighting enemies multiple times you learn their attack patterns, what type of damage they're vulnerable to, areas of the map where they overwhelm you, how easily they can be staggered, dodged, etc. You're becoming proficient at the map itself rather than just the boss fight at the end of it.

For experienced players and the god-tier gamers, the Souls games don't require any grinding at all - you'll be sufficiently leveled to deal with the bosses as you encounter them. For the average player, we end up over-leveled on the first couple playthroughs because we're still learning and most areas / bosses will require multiple attempts. Even then you can still lose out on upgrades by failing to recover those precious souls after a death! There's enough RNG in these games that it's really not just repeating the exact same thing every time.

When people say they gave up on Souls games because they were too grindy, what they really mean is they didn't have the patience / inclination to git gud. That sounds really obnoxious, but I don't have a better way to say it.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

I feel like this isn't a very accurate assessment of grinding in Souls games. By fighting enemies multiple times you learn their attack patterns, what type of damage they're vulnerable to, areas of the map where they overwhelm you, how easily they can be staggered, dodged, etc. You're becoming proficient at the map itself rather than just the boss fight at the end of it.

For experienced players and the god-tier gamers, the Souls games don't require any grinding at all - you'll be sufficiently leveled to deal with the bosses as you encounter them. For the average player, we end up over-leveled on the first couple playthroughs because we're still learning and most areas / bosses will require multiple attempts. Even then you can still lose out on upgrades by failing to recover those precious souls after a death! There's enough RNG in these games that it's really not just repeating the exact same thing every time.

When people say they gave up on Souls games because they were too grindy, what they really mean is they didn't have the patience / inclination to git gud. That sounds really obnoxious, but I don't have a better way to say it.

The trouble is mate that you often spent AGES just walking to you're objective, and partaking in the same fights over & over just got tiresome. It felt work-like, it felt chore like. You knew nothing fresh was coming, and - even though you were levelling up in the process - it didn't feel rewarding because you were doing the same things.

So we go back to the boss to learn his patterns, we spend another 5 min fighting, die, and then it's another trek back from the bonfire to the boss having the same fights all over. The repetitive nature of it really ground me own, which is such a shame as DS has such a unique charm, feel and atmosphere.

But I much prefer games where I feel as if I've moved something on or progressed in some way. DS was too much like work for me unfortunately.

I do think Bloodborne & DS3 look as if they've moved forward in this way though, and I'm definitely gonna try them in a year or two.

 

[Benpasko]

Bloodborne really nailed the gear unlock thing.

I totally disagree, I hated how Bloodborne handled gear (And generally just hated Bloodborne). It made loot totally unexciting, because you know enemies are never going to drop anything interesting. Plus the dearth of equipment variety meant missing a single hidden path would just devastate your build beyond repair, because there are only 2 weapons for you in the entire game. (I ran a dex/arcane build, and I'm still mad)