Dark Souls II Director Apologizes For Calling Game "Accessible"

[Branindain]

All I want is that feeling of being completely lost when I start the game. Not knowing where to go, who to trust, who to kill, what skills to invest in,... To be guided by just my own instincts and morality.

You can't get me any more invested and immersed in a game than by simply spawning me in the game world, explaining to me the basic controls and leaving me to figure out everything else on my own. If my in-game avatar is a complete stranger to the world around him I do not want any wallhacks, aimbots or any of that "all-mighty invisible guiding hand" bullsh*t telling me where to go and what to do. I want to feel lost, scared and helpless until I figure out where am I, who are my enemies, who are my friends and who am I. And because of it my sense of achievement will be that much greater when I finally come to the point where I can in one hit slice off the head of that monster that made me run for my life at the beginning of the game.

This, so very, very much this. This is the essence of a Souls game. People who complain about Souls games are obviously not looking for this in their games, and therefore don't understand what we see in it. Which is fine, of course, though I wish they wouldn't respond by characterising us as casual-hating elitists all the time. It's actually the friendliest game community I've been a part of.

 

[Turner Shanks]

I loved Dark Souls, the only problems I had with it were a few UI ones:

I'd like to be able to see stat comparisons of weapons and armor to what you have equipped at shops.
I'd like to be able to see what the stats of an item are when upgraded (very difficult to tell if a new item will be better than your upgraded equipment when it is still level 1).
I'd like the Covenants to be expanded upon in both explanation and effect. I played through almost all of my first play through simply joining the next covenant I came across, never really knowing what they actually did. Even after knowing what they did, I really just leveled the Chaos one for the Pyromancies.

There's probably a lot more of these kind of problems, so hopefully changes to these are what they are referring to.

Press square/X (I think that's the correct button) it switches the view of the item from list of all to description to stats. Descriptions help hint at any special effects, and the list of stats will outline in bright blue and red numbers what statistics are better or worse about the equipped item compared to your current. The only thing it can't help with is knowing if the moveset will mesh better with your style or not. It tells you about this command at the bottom of the screen.

You can see the differences of an upgraded item by viewing the stats page when highlighting it for upgrade, you can only see the immediate upgrade stats, but it's easy to extrapolate from there and that aside each item follows a very similar ascension path to every other item of the same class (greatshield, short sword, etc.).

Covenants are pretty terribly explained, but if you read the descriptions of each covenants unique item (which you can usually find well before joining) you can get an idea of what they might do. ex. read about the eye of death description and it says

"Online play item.
Lure phantoms from other worlds.
(Only Covenanter can use the item while Hollows cannot)

The dreadful Eyes of Death spread disaster
across neighboring worlds. Phantoms lured
to the host world may end up as victims,
allowing the Eyes of Death to multiply,
and leading to further proliferation of bane."

We can get a good idea from this on what it does and can take that further by joining the covenant and trying it out. (no penalties for joining then leaving a covenant so long as you do it through Oswalds "leave covenant" dialogue choice.)

It doesn't do a great job of telling what items belong to what covenants, but you usually find them nearby the covenant leader, and can see what you use because it will usually be the "offer X" option to the leader.
Sometimes it is more of a puzzle, like figuring out how to get a sunlight medal (if you EVER partner with a sunbro inside or outside the covenant you get one, there's a big hint, and you can even get some offline) and once you get one it gives it away in the description.

of course it doesn't tell you that covenants are nearly useless offline, but that's not the way the developers intended for the game to be played, which could probably use a warning or something on the first startup...



Sorry for the wall of text, tl;dr the game addresses all of these 'problems' and just requires some problem solving ability, or pressing square.

Not to say Dark Souls is flawless or perfect, it has many problems and indeed some of those involve being too obtuse about mechanics, but it certainly has fewer problems than many people seem to keep saying it has.

 

[Zeriah]

Spoiler

I loved Dark Souls, the only problems I had with it were a few UI ones:

I'd like to be able to see stat comparisons of weapons and armor to what you have equipped at shops.
I'd like to be able to see what the stats of an item are when upgraded (very difficult to tell if a new item will be better than your upgraded equipment when it is still level 1).
I'd like the Covenants to be expanded upon in both explanation and effect. I played through almost all of my first play through simply joining the next covenant I came across, never really knowing what they actually did. Even after knowing what they did, I really just leveled the Chaos one for the Pyromancies.

There's probably a lot more of these kind of problems, so hopefully changes to these are what they are referring to.

Press square/X (I think that's the correct button) it switches the view of the item from list of all to description to stats. Descriptions help hint at any special effects, and the list of stats will outline in bright blue and red numbers what statistics are better or worse about the equipped item compared to your current. The only thing it can't help with is knowing if the moveset will mesh better with your style or not. It tells you about this command at the bottom of the screen.

You can see the differences of an upgraded item by viewing the stats page when highlighting it for upgrade, you can only see the immediate upgrade stats, but it's easy to extrapolate from there and that aside each item follows a very similar ascension path to every other item of the same class (greatshield, short sword, etc.).

Covenants are pretty terribly explained, but if you read the descriptions of each covenants unique item (which you can usually find well before joining) you can get an idea of what they might do. ex. read about the eye of death description and it says

"Online play item.
Lure phantoms from other worlds.
(Only Covenanter can use the item while Hollows cannot)

The dreadful Eyes of Death spread disaster
across neighboring worlds. Phantoms lured
to the host world may end up as victims,
allowing the Eyes of Death to multiply,
and leading to further proliferation of bane."

We can get a good idea from this on what it does and can take that further by joining the covenant and trying it out. (no penalties for joining then leaving a covenant so long as you do it through Oswalds "leave covenant" dialogue choice.)

It doesn't do a great job of telling what items belong to what covenants, but you usually find them nearby the covenant leader, and can see what you use because it will usually be the "offer X" option to the leader.
Sometimes it is more of a puzzle, like figuring out how to get a sunlight medal (if you EVER partner with a sunbro inside or outside the covenant you get one, there's a big hint, and you can even get some offline) and once you get one it gives it away in the description.

of course it doesn't tell you that covenants are nearly useless offline, but that's not the way the developers intended for the game to be played, which could probably use a warning or something on the first startup...



Sorry for the wall of text, tl;dr the game addresses all of these 'problems' and just requires some problem solving ability, or pressing square.

Not to say Dark Souls is flawless or perfect, it has many problems and indeed some of those involve being too obtuse about mechanics, but it certainly has fewer problems than many people seem to keep saying it has.

Sorry but no it really doesn't address the problems. Being able to see one level of an upgrade is not enough. A weapon going from level 1, to level 2 is not enough information to correctly compare it to highly upgraded items, especially when paragim scalings also change as you go up. I would have to potentially waste several items upgrading it to get a good idea or use the Wiki. Not to mention this can only be done at a bonfire/blacksmith.

Pressing X on an item at shop merely tells you the stats of the item, it does not compare them to what you currently have equipped (completely different then comparing an item in your inventory screen). Meaning you have press X see the stats of the item, exit out of the shop, go into your inventory and compare it to the stats of the item you have equipped. This becomes basically impossible if you intend to compare more than a few of the important values (such as the dozens of resistances and defense types).

What you say about the covenants is true, but it doesn't change the fact they could have done a better job. Most people ignored them until late into the game, even if they do intend to pvp.

These extra hoops add nothing to the game. They were far from enough to ruin the game for me (I have every achievement and played through the game 3 times), but it was enough to irritate me sometimes. My point was that these are probably the 'streamlining/accessibility' changes they were talking about. They would take nothing away from the 'core' experience and would just make the game better for everybody.

 

[madeus]

"First of all, we apologise [sic] ..."

Apologies for saying this, but note that "apologise" is a valid spelling in British English, and Edge is a British magazine. (I've been staring at the word for so long now it looks weird.)

 

[Church185]

I think the idea of explaining a large portion of the game with item descriptions is bad.
There should be other ways to communicate that info. Like books and notes lying around or extra dialogue with NPCs.
And I think at the end of the game the player should actually have a little bit better understanding of the world than Dark Souls offered.

How would reading that note or book be any different than reading the item description? The story of the world isn't meant to be told to you, it is meant to be interpreted by you. One of the reasons the game is still so popular today is because people are still finding out new things about it or coming up with theories about why things are the way they are. Demon's Souls told a direct story, and no one really talks about it anymore. Any time you hear about it, it is always in relation to Dark Souls.

 

[Church185]

Sorry but no it really doesn't address the problems. Being able to see one level of an upgrade is not enough. A weapon going from level 1, to level 2 is not enough information to correctly compare it to highly upgraded items, especially when paragim scalings also change as you go up. I would have to potentially waste several items upgrading it to get a good idea or use the Wiki. Not to mention this can only be done at a bonfire/blacksmith.

Pressing X on an item at shop merely tells you the stats of the item, it does not compare them to what you currently have equipped (completely different then comparing an item in your inventory screen). Meaning you have press X see the stats of the item, exit out of the shop, go into your inventory and compare it to the stats of the item you have equipped. This becomes basically impossible if you intend to compare more than a few of the important values (such as the dozens of resistances and defense types).

What you say about the covenants is true, but it doesn't change the fact they could have done a better job. Most people ignored them until late into the game, even if they do intend to pvp.

These extra hoops add nothing to the game. They were far from enough to ruin the game for me (I have every achievement and played through the game 3 times), but it was enough to irritate me sometimes. My point was that these are probably the 'streamlining/accessibility' changes they were talking about. They would take nothing away from the 'core' experience and would just make the game better for everybody.

The way weapon information is displayed was intentional. You aren't meant to be comparing raw numbers, because every weapon has it's strength and weakness. You were meant to pick a weapon that you liked the moveset of and stick with it. Through raw numbers you can see that the Demon's Great Axe is the hardest hitting physical weapon in the game, but it also has terrible range and a wonky moveset, meaning you are going to have to work around the weapon. On top of that, I don't seem to recall any games that just show you what the stats of a weapon would be fully upgraded without actually upgrading it.

I do agree that the online components of the game could have been explained better.

 

[Sordin]

Well I'm really looking forward to Dark souls 2 and have a really good feeling about it. Would be better if they could let us pre-order it for PC.

 

[hazydawn]

How would reading that note or book be any different than reading the item description? The story of the world isn't meant to be told to you, it is meant to be interpreted by you. One of the reasons the game is still so popular today is because people are still finding out new things about it or coming up with theories about why things are the way they are. Demon's Souls told a direct story, and no one really talks about it anymore. Any time you hear about it, it is always in relation to Dark Souls.

Because the idea that an item tells me about itself is ridiculous and lazy to me.
There's far too much interpretation about trivial item location and description that leads nowhere in dark souls.
There are other, more creative possibilities to create a little bit of ambiguity and space for interpretation than by placing an occult club with the hidden havel euqipment for instance.

 

[Church185]

Because the idea that an item tells me about itself is ridiculous and lazy to me.
There's far too much interpretation about trivial item location and description that leads nowhere in dark souls.
There are other, more creative possibilities to create a little bit of ambiguity and space for interpretation than by placing an occult club with the hidden havel euqipment for instance.

The key phrase here is "to you". There a ton of people, including myself, who think their minimalist approach to storytelling is brilliant. How would propose that they do better? What are these other, more creative possibilities? NPCs do have dialog that expand the story, and sometimes they will only give you the information if you have completed a certain event of have a certain item. Having me read books and notes lying around has been done in damn near every game out there. It doesn't seem very creative to me.

 

[hazydawn]

The key phrase here is "to you". There a ton of people, including myself, who think their minimalist approach to storytelling is brilliant. How would propose that they do better? What are these other, more creative possibilities? NPCs do have dialog that expand the story, and sometimes they will only give you the information if you have completed a certain event of have a certain item. Having me read books and notes lying around has been done in damn near every game out there. It doesn't seem very creative to me.

I know very well that this is my personal opinion, thank you. And while many people like you prefer the way it is I also read many people complain about the lack of storytelling in this game.

Of course it's been done but it's still better than the item telling you about itself. Because if you go for an approach where the player is thrown into a situation he doesn't understand and get's little to none information I feel the little ge gets should at least come from a realistic source. Otherwise I could assume the player character has psychic powers, that he can somehow read the aura of items or that there must be a little inscription on said items he can read all this stuff about. It makes no sense.

 

[Twitchy Wyche]

Of course it's been done but it's still better than the item telling you about itself. Because if you go for an approach where the player is thrown into a situation he doesn't understand and get's little to none information I feel the little ge gets should at least come from a realistic source. Otherwise I could assume the player character has psychic powers, that he can somehow read the aura of items or that there must be a little inscription on said items he can read all this stuff about. It makes no sense.

I assumed that the item descriptions tell you about the item's history or whatever, because your character was telling you about it. Your character lived in the world before the game starts and would therefore know all about the different countries, pantheons, and legends. He's heard Smough grinds the bones of his victims and would never become one of Gwen's knights, he's heard of the watchers of the forest that hunt intruders in their masters name, he know's the legend of how Gwen's first born fell from godhood. With some of the crazy stuff, maybe he heard it from the other inmates of the asylum, gibbering about a world of snow full of things that don't belong, or demon worshipers who give humanity to these foul creatures.

Just gotta interpret it however you see it. If you don't like it however, then that's just too bad for the rest of us, because I doubt anything we could say would actually just make everything you played suddenly have the same context we got from it and your complaint about it would be completely gone; it really just sounds like you disagreed with how they presented it.
Which isn't wrong; other game's lore and stories are not wrong because we like how Dark Souls did it, just like how Dark Souls is not wrong because of the way they did it.

 

[chinangel]

"First of all, we apologise [sic] for using the word 'accessible' and misleading the fans," Tanimura told Edge.
Read more at http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130686-Dark-Souls-II-Director-Apologizes-For-Calling-Game-Accessible#rqCOpA3UgTlqEOHg.99 "In an effort to reach out to our hard-core fans we have implemented a controller made of razor-blades so that only the truly dedicated are able to even play Dark Souls 2."

Cop out. A REAL Dark Souls 2 controller would be made of razor-blades and stinging scorpions. That are on fire. And made of hate. And every time you die the controller forcibly removes a random organ.

THAT is the Dark Souls experience.

 

[SuperfastJellyfish]

Gamers are the biggest babies the Earth has ever seen.

 

[Worgen]

"First of all, we apologise [sic] for using the word 'accessible' and misleading the fans," Tanimura told Edge.
Read more at http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130686-Dark-Souls-II-Director-Apologizes-For-Calling-Game-Accessible#rqCOpA3UgTlqEOHg.99 "In an effort to reach out to our hard-core fans we have implemented a controller made of razor-blades so that only the truly dedicated are able to even play Dark Souls 2."

Cop out. A REAL Dark Souls 2 controller would be made of razor-blades and stinging scorpions. That are on fire. And made of hate. And every time you die the controller forcibly removes a random organ.

THAT is the Dark Souls experience.

The stinging scorpions of fire and hate weren't deemed cost effective.

 

[Someone Depressing]

The first time I played Dark Souls, I never restarted. Sure, I put points into things I shouldn't have. No, I didn't know what they did.

But damnit, it was my proudest moment as a nerd gamer.

I can't wait for head-bangy-on-wally Super Super Kawai Fun Japanese 2. Dark Souls 2.

 

[Zeriah]

The way weapon information is displayed was intentional. You aren't meant to be comparing raw numbers, because every weapon has it's strength and weakness. You were meant to pick a weapon that you liked the moveset of and stick with it. Through raw numbers you can see that the Demon's Great Axe is the hardest hitting physical weapon in the game, but it also has terrible range and a wonky moveset, meaning you are going to have to work around the weapon. On top of that, I don't seem to recall any games that just show you what the stats of a weapon would be fully upgraded without actually upgrading it.

I do agree that the online components of the game could have been explained better.

I still disagree. At best what you say is only relevant to weapons. It does not apply to armor and it does not apply to shields. Even with the weapons it doesn't help much. There are usually a few weapons of each playstyle that sit above the others. There's many weapons with similar movesets and attack speeds/range but just don't have quite the same damage. There's also some weapons that have amazing movesets but have much less damage, something you might not realize the extent of if you are comparing it to a fully upgraded weapons. Finally and most importantly paragim scalings change sometimes when you upgrade weapons. You also cannot compare Dark Souls to most other RPGs. In most other RPG's Weapons and Armor go up in quality, usually being superior in every way to their predecessors but in Dark Souls, one of the best fast weapons in the game is available to you 20 minutes in but you wouldn't know it without upgrading it a bunch first.

This system was not intuitive and it doesn't add anything to the game. I liked fast weapons, there were a bunch of fast weapons with similar movesets and I did not know which one to pick. I had to go the Wiki to see which one to choose and the choice was then pretty easy, the Uchigatana. A weapon that I obtained 20 minutes into the game, which I largely ignored early game due to my low Dex at that point and continued to ignore because I was comparing a level 1 weapon to my level 5 Quelaag's Furysword. This is not something I could have decided upon without either wasting a whole lot of mats or going to the Wiki.

Are you really saying you wouldn't prefer to know these things easily, in game without wasting mats or using an external source? These kind of issues are exactly the kind of ways Dark Souls can be improved without changing the experience, or making it 'easier'.

 

[Turner Shanks]

I still disagree. At best what you say is only relevant to weapons. It does not apply to armor and it does not apply to shields. Even with the weapons it doesn't help much. There are usually a few weapons of each playstyle that sit above the others. There's many weapons with similar movesets and attack speeds/range but just don't have quite the same damage. There's also some weapons that have amazing movesets but have much less damage, something you might not realize the extent of if you are comparing it to a fully upgraded weapons. Finally and most importantly paragim scalings change sometimes when you upgrade weapons. You also cannot compare Dark Souls to most other RPGs. In most other RPG's Weapons and Armor go up in quality, usually being superior in every way to their predecessors but in Dark Souls, one of the best fast weapons in the game is available to you 20 minutes in but you wouldn't know it without upgrading it a bunch first.

This system was not intuitive and it doesn't add anything to the game. I liked fast weapons, there were a bunch of fast weapons with similar movesets and I did not know which one to pick. I had to go the Wiki to see which one to choose and the choice was then pretty easy, the Uchigatana. A weapon that I obtained 20 minutes into the game, which I largely ignored early game due to my low Dex at that point and continued to ignore because I was comparing a level 1 weapon to my level 5 Quelaag's Furysword. This is not something I could have decided upon without either wasting a whole lot of mats or going to the Wiki.

Are you really saying you wouldn't prefer to know these things easily, in game without wasting mats or using an external source? These kind of issues are exactly the kind of ways Dark Souls can be improved without changing the experience, or making it 'easier'.

With all due respect, I still disagree in return.
I can see where you're coming from, but for me an 'in game wiki' of item upgrades would cause the experience to lose something, the way I currently play (played I suppose, given I know the game inside and out now) was I found a weapon, tried it out a bit, swung it around, and if I liked it I upgraded it and used it until one I liked the feel of more came around, raw numbers had nothing to do with it until I was looking for an edge on two weapons I liked a similar amount.

Hell I can't think of any game that would let you peruse a list of upgraded item stats, it just seems silly to me in any game. The upgrades don't really matter a whole lot until you reach New Game+ or PvP anyway, and you can buy the titanite you need to hit +10, and by then you know what kind of scaling bonuses you're getting into before you break out the hard to get stuff.

So yeah, I at least can say I would really prefer to not know how an upgraded weapon would turn out easily, because I can figure it out myself if I get really curious, and I like to avoid judging items on a min-maxing numbers game style as much as I can. If I wanted to compare spreadsheets all day I wouldn't be playing a video game...but I know that philosophy isn't for everyone.

 

[Kenbo Slice]

He should not have to apologize. Just because some of your fans don't want to share their precious little game doesn't mean you should give in to them.

 

[chikusho]

He should not have to apologize. Just because some of your fans don't want to share their precious little game doesn't mean you should give in to them.

You know, alienating the people who keep you in business is not a very smart move.

 

[Kenbo Slice]

He should not have to apologize. Just because some of your fans don't want to share their precious little game doesn't mean you should give in to them.

You know, alienating the people who keep you in business is not a very smart move.

Yeah but they weren't gonna alienate anybody. There's a mode for hardcore fans and a mode for newcomers. They've said that right from the start.