Dark Souls II Billboard Points to March 2014 Release

[Canadish]

Really, you can't just alter the enemy health and damage output to make the game easier? Because that would certainly make the game a hell of a lot easier if your character could take more than a few hits without dying.

The argument that they would have to change the very nature of the game is absolute bullshit. Sure, if they wanted to make it as easy as possible they'd have to remove all the traps, ambushes, pitfalls, and so on, but that doesn't mean that removing those is the only way to do so. The only thing they'd probably have to add to the game for the easy mode is maybe an actual pause button or a way to save away from the bonfire. Otherwise, numbers are the only thing they'd have to change, which I don't think would take that much more time and effort.

You could make some of the enemies do less damage I suppose, but it's a thin line between that and making the whole game a cake walk. Dark Souls difficulty is extremely over hyped. It's just unforgiving of mistakes and doesn't point you in the right direction.

All it takes is a bit of patience and not getting flustered because you mess up and lose your 5000 souls and 2 humanity to the Taurus or Capra Demon. You've got to learn from the mistakes you make, because that's just where the joy of the game comes from. Dark Souls is more like a puzzle, rather then a visceral action experience.
Thinking about it now, an easy mode is somewhat in place already with the Summon System. That at least has the benefit of encouraging the community to work together in jolly cooperation however, probably the games other main virtue.

However, I've seen people play this and give up. 9/10 times the reason people do give up is because they just go the wrong way and run into a high level area and insist it must be the only route because of how modern games have trained them. The two parts of the game people often cite as truly, hairpullingly hard are Blighttown and the Anor Londo archers.
Blighttown is just a pain because of technical factors and the Anor Londo archers...they're bullshit. Terrible, sadistic design on part of the team, but an exception within the game.

Read what you wrote, "Difficulty is not the issue. Making the game more easy would dent the game's virtues" obviously difficulty is the issue. Trial and error is how a lot of people learn successful methods, so you're basically saying it's not fair that some people can learn the methods quicker now that there will be an easier mode of difficulty...that just sounds like the worst excuse ever for hiding that you don't want regular gamers or just casual gamers joining your community. The game still has the hard mode, so you can still experience the game in it's "difficult" mode, henceforth the game still holds onto it's virtues for being a hard game.

People who didn't make the cut, so to speak, ***** and whine. Because nowadays everyone is entitled to everything, that each experience should be tailored to their tastes. Most of the games nowdaays do that. Go and play those

So being exclusive is okay in this community? Dark Souls is a video game, and video games, as you pointed out before, spawn communities. So why, WHY ON EARTH would you want to keep a community excluded from other people whom genuinely want to play the game, but can't because they lack the skills. You say you want to have a community, but you refuse to allow the community to grow, that is not a good thing, and you're being an excluding dick by whinging about how Dark Souls 2 having an easy mode will be a detriment.

You either climb the wall, watch people climb the wall, get a ladder, walk around the wall, destroy the wall. If you specialise, you die. A good community does not exclude people. It's generally considered that people in the gaming community want to be seen as good community right?

Also, if you want a tough game, Predator Concrete Jungle on normal difficulty.

Please please please, STOP.

I don't know where you, or people like you get this assumption every time Dark Souls comes up. Dark Souls, nor it's community are elitist. The game is open for all, we're happy for new people to join. We love our community. It's big, friendly, helpful and funny. New blood is always great fun, fresh playthroughs and stories are the best ones.
But that does not mean the developers and the community have got to bend over backwards to pander to people who don't want to try.

You don't compromise who you are to become more popular, do you?

Fun is a hard thing to define, but whatever it is about Dark Souls formula, it just works. I'd love to have a big community, but not at the cost of turning Dark Souls into ANOTHER bland RPG. Dark Souls isn't locked behind some giant pay wall, it's there for anyone who is willing to give a bit of time and careful thought. It doesn't take some insane skills or reaction times, it doesn't need some monster PC rig to get the "true experience". Just some patience. You're expected to mess us, it's even said in big red letters on the box. That's all part of the journey.

We don't need 200 Skyrim's on the market, not even if it makes the most people feel warm and fuzzy about being given a pat on the head by the game.

We're not excluding you. But we're not changing for you either.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

I wonder if it'll need GFWL? As I'll probably be getting it on Steam it'll be a double DRM hit

 

[ciancon]

Soooooooo far away! Whatever happened to releasing it this year? That being said, if it does end up being released on the next gen consoles....wait, no one's gonna care about the Xbox One...if it does end up getting released on the PS4 and it's noticeably better then yay!

 

[Quazimofo]

On the plus side, it gives me time to finish the first game. I love it but I still haven't made it through yet.

For starters, I haven`t finished Dark Souls. I enjoy it, but I find it too long.

Those damn ninjas... I can barely see their movements...

Ditto. Part of the reason I had a problem with beating the damn game is because I just can't for the life of me beat the 4 kings, and I am just cautious when it comes to the demon firesage. the asylum demon gave me hell, so I really want to have allies for that fight so i dont break one of the only functioning controllers I have left. Just couldn't find allies. Haven't tried Nito yet but I just never got around to leveling a holy weapon.

 

[Turner Shanks]

Something I constantly see left out of the difficulty discussion (seemingly in favour of throwing around a single argument on both sides) is co-op.
Co-op is why Dark Souls can't have an easy mode, it's a huge aspect of the game and adding easy mode would cause serious harm to it:

1. It would split the community into easy mode players and hard mode players, thus removing quite a few potential co-op buddies on either side.

2. We can't just integrate them into one server because hard players will be disappointed if summoned into an easy game where they play whack-a-mole for the lazy host, and easy players will be frustrated if summoned into a hard game where suddenly they die easy and can't do much damage.

3. One of the reasons co-op is so popular in this game IS the difficulty, the idea that if you can't overcome a trial alone you should call for help, even if we get past the above two issues somehow we still have not as many people wanting to summon help because the game is now easily achievable for them.

Honestly I love the co-op community in Dark Souls (Warrior of Sunlight to the rescue!) and the idea of it being fractured or damaged by a easy mode seriously worries me.

One final point unrelated to the above; most of the times I have died in Dark Souls (which it isn't most by a massive margin but still more than any other death) is by falling, how does one easy-mode that without rebuilding the areas? We could give easy-mode players fall-control permanently, but that doesn't stop the bottomless drops and in some cases would be more annoying than anything else. Forgetting about my footing was my greatest danger, and that's something a simple easy mode can't fix.

 

[FFP2]

Aww I thought that it was coming out this year...

It better not be a cross generation release.

 

[Erttheking]

why the fuck would you make ads for a product that wont come out around year later?

this is the kind of shit that forces a publisher to expect to get these insane ammounts of money and fail in recovering half of what they spend for adverts.

what a bunch of dumbasses.

To let people know that it's coming out and let word of mouth start spreading it around? That and to let the fans know when to expect it.

Also one billboard isn't exactly expensive.

 

[bug_of_war]

Please please please, STOP.

I don't know where you, or people like you get this assumption every time Dark Souls comes up. Dark Souls, nor it's community are elitist. The game is open for all, we're happy for new people to join. We love our community. It's big, friendly, helpful and funny. New blood is always great fun, fresh playthroughs and stories are the best ones.
But that does not mean the developers and the community have got to bend over backwards to pander to people who don't want to try.

You don't compromise who you are to become more popular, do you?

Fun is a hard thing to define, but whatever it is about Dark Souls formula, it just works. I'd love to have a big community, but not at the cost of turning Dark Souls into ANOTHER bland RPG. Dark Souls isn't locked behind some giant pay wall, it's there for anyone who is willing to give a bit of time and careful thought. It doesn't take some insane skills or reaction times, it doesn't need some monster PC rig to get the "true experience". Just some patience. You're expected to mess us, it's even said in big red letters on the box. That's all part of the journey.

We don't need 200 Skyrim's on the market, not even if it makes the most people feel warm and fuzzy about being given a pat on the head by the game.

We're not excluding you. But we're not changing for you either.

I wasn't trying to insinuate that everyone whom plays Dark Souls is an elitist, but when you people who write this:

People who didn't make the cut, so to speak, ***** and whine. Because nowadays everyone is entitled to everything, that each experience should be tailored to their tastes. Most of the games nowdaays do that. Go and play those

It starts to seem as though this is a club that is very protective of their egos and metaphorical dick rubbing. Fun is a hard thing to define, but Dark Souls obviously has something to it that made people want to play it, unfortunately for some the difficulty was too steep to enjoy playing it. An easy mode isn't going to destroy the games integrity or make it a regular run of the mill RPG, the people whom loved the challenge will still be able to say that they played it on the "real" difficulty level, whilst those whom are unable to play the game will get a chance to do so without wanting to rip their hair out. Nobody is asking that the community change, all people are asking for is the chance to play a game. Nobody is asking Dark Souls to become Skyrim, all some people are asking is that they be given the chance to play a game, and from what I've heard the easy mode will not turn the game into a hack and slash, it will simply give people more time to react and learn the methods needed to be good at the game whilst the health of the enemies will be reduced. You still have your game that requires patience, it'll just also have a mode for those whom need more time to learn.

Lets go with an example, Resident Evil games often only give you Easy and Normal difficulty before you finish the game first time round, this is so that people can learn the mechanics, learn the enemy tells, and generally get better. Then, the professional difficulty is unlocked, which makes the game MUCH more difficult and requires quick thinking. That's called progression, and I bet you that after Dark Souls 2 is out, and lets say 1 quarter of those people play it on easy, people will finish it and then go back to it and play it on the hard difficulty for a completely new and more fun game.

No, not all games should pander to everyone, but I've never heard of an introduction of an easy mode making people whom never wanted to play the game decide to play, all it will do is make the people whom originally wanted to, but couldn't, have a chance to play the game and have fun.

 

[lRookiel]

I like how some people are like "Oh it's a year away why would they put a billboard up now". Obviously have no fucking clue how marketing works.

From ONE SINGLE BILLBOARD Bamco now have their PAID advertising as well as FREE advertising on gaming sites/forums like the escapist, steam forums etc. I've already seen multiple threads about it, an entire year away and already word of mouth about the game is spread a shit load in one day.

Go and type "dark souls 2 billboard" into google right the fuck now and look how many sites have put up threads about it. So yeah, somehow I think bamco are gonna get their moneys worth....

 

[Ulquiorra4sama]

I like how some people are like "Oh it's a year away why would they put a billboard up now". Obviously have no fucking clue how marketing works.

From ONE SINGLE BILLBOARD Bamco now have their PAID advertising as well as FREE advertising on gaming sites/forums like the escapist, steam forums etc. I've already seen multiple threads about it, an entire year away and already word of mouth about the game is spread a shit load in one day.

Go and type "dark souls 2 billboard" into google right the fuck now and look how many sites have put up threads about it. So yeah, somehow I think bamco are gonna get their moneys worth....

If only we had some kind of high-speed information highway where people could spread updates about the things they're excited about quickly and without trouble.... ah, but there i go out on another dreamy tangent.

OT: FUCK YES! I can't wait! Genuine hype has been pretty scarce lately, but for once i'm actually excited about a new release. Let's just hope they won't churn out so much marketing for it that they need to sell 5 million copies to earn from this. I like the mystery approach to marketing better anyway because i get easily fed up with trailers, screenshots etc.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

...an entire year away...

Hey hey hey! It's not an entire year away, no reason to be so pessimistic!

 

[Ukomba]

I'm sure it'll be a great, well selling game that, never the less, looses money. I'll get it at least.