Dark Souls II Director Confirms Its High Difficulty

[Headdrivehardscrew]

So, yet again, I end up being labelled as a rabid cultist. Cute.

Well, at least I am still able to look forward to some more, proper entertaining and enjoyable Souls action.

You can't take that joy from me. Only from my cold, dead hands!

Besides, it's not really frustrating if you happen to like it and have your wits about you. Take the worst examples of playthroughs available on just, say, YouTube. Take DSP/DarkSydePhil, for example. While, in his finishing thoughts after 5 hours or so of failing miserably to make sense inbetween all the dying, burping and laughing like a complete madman, he does admit that he's impressed by Dark Souls, that he likes certain things that he obviously does not comprehend, and he also admits that the game is not compatible with him... be it as a person or be it as a person that basically plays games for YouTube money. I was, at times, raging at DSP. I caught myself absolutely enjoying it when he got cursed. Oh, sweet misanthropy. Tickle me just one more time.

In those five hours, he displays an absolute inability to learn a new trick or memorize the most simple things or try something new every now and then. He is not creative. His situational awareness is plain not there. His fighting skills are... sad. His timing is off, and he blames everyone and everything but himself for it. There can be no improvement with a mindset like this. I would not want to hire someone like him. It would only end in tears and bloodshed.

He eventually does look things up, but he still fails to grasp the very basics.

Once one masters the basics, the true, proper game and journey begins. Be efficient. Create a flow in your movement. Indeed, try falling if it makes sense to you. Do not trust every note you read, for people are mostly made up of twats that enjoy ruining your day. Look around. Move carefully. Watch your step. It's a self service sim of gaming bliss. Anyone can turn it to absolute and utter shite with very little effort. I strongly advise against doing that.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

Haha, no. I haven't completed it yet. I am on Ornstein/Smough and trying to beat it with only using my fists. However, I have only tried him twice. Both times I walked right into the enemies weapons. Again, if you pay attention and make good use of the controls, the game isn't hard. I had only died five times prior. 2 of which were on Ornstein/Smough, the rest were from falling to my death.

Uh. OK.

I am intrigued. Care to elaborate why you would do that?

I take it your damage output is about one to two percent of what it could and should be. In a game about becoming one with your weapon(s) of choice, why would you want to go for fisticuffs?

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

Haha, no. I haven't completed it yet. I am on Ornstein/Smough and trying to beat it with only using my fists. However, I have only tried him twice. Both times I walked right into the enemies weapons. Again, if you pay attention and make good use of the controls, the game isn't hard. I had only died five times prior. 2 of which were on Ornstein/Smough, the rest were from falling to my death.

Uh. OK.

I am intrigued. Care to elaborate why you would do that?

I take it your damage output is about one to two percent of what it could and should be. In a game about becoming one with your weapon(s) of choice, why would you want to go for fisticuffs?

A bet. Buddy bet me 300 USD that I wouldn't be able to beat Ornstein/Smough with only fisticuffs.

Oh, wow.

Well, while I myself would not want to try it, no matter if sober or drunk, I would assume it to be perfectly possible... it just takes a very long (and very stressful) time. After all, I know of people that defeated the Stray Demon with a non-upgraded starting weapon. There were tears involved.

Those will be some hard-earned three-hundred bucks.

 

[thesilentman]

I dunno this franchise is starting to sound more and more like a one trick pony of 'hey it's hard.'
Well ok i's hard. what else are you bringing to the table? why would I want to buy this other than it's hard? Is the story good? are the gameplay mechanics intuitive? What type of hard are you delivering? Technical, playable or just controller breaking frustrating with lots of cheap shots.

Now don't get me wrong games with high difficultly are good for the challenge but to make it the entire selling point just seems kind of like they are glossing over the rest of what can make a game good.

Atmosphere. Dark Souls kills with an atmosphere so thick that I can feel it out here. It's been called a horror game sometimes, and I can see why. That feeling that every single enemy is out to get you and violently end you is something that I've not seen done in a while. The brutal nature of the game only accentuates the atmosphere, rather than being the only selling point of the game.

OT- Me very, very likey. After seeing this and the gameplay trailer, I cannot wait for this game. I just need more games that are difficult like this time and time again. Difficulty is one thing that sells a game for me, and I'm glad that they're not compromising it. ;-)

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

For those who don't know, there was a demonstration recently.


Personally I am glad to have the difficulty confirmed, because I was having doubts after watching this character midroll with a number of weapons equipped and not the lightest armour, brush off a skeletal dragon head and stunlock or one-shot enemies without any special effort. I'm happy to believe this was just the demo, in the same way the character's torch blocked 100%.

 

[Broderick]

For those who don't know, there was a demonstration recently.


Personally I am glad to have the difficulty confirmed, because I was having doubts after watching this character midroll with a number of weapons equipped and not the lightest armour, brush off a skeletal dragon head and stunlock or one-shot enemies without any special effort. I'm happy to believe this was just the demo, in the same way the character's torch blocked 100%.

Indeed. I believe those "features" were in place so that they could show off the different weapons and aspects of the game. I am sure certain things like weapon restriction and encumbrance will be implemented in the final product. I am quite interested in the story aspect of the game, but unfortunately we lore fanatics do not have much to go on yet. I remember hearing somewhere that it takes place sometime after gwyn sacrificed himself to link the flame, and before the events of the first Dark Souls. Cant wait to hear more though. I haven't been excited for a game this much in a long while.

 

[chikusho]

And.. why are you assuming that would be the only selling point?

*shrugs* because when dark souls is talked about difficulty seems to be the only issue.

And.. posing that question in this forum is somehow faster and more informative than googling up a Dark Souls review? xD

 

[weirdee]

I thought this was obvious when we saw the footage of enemies countering backstabs.

 

[SlaveNumber23]

...The game wasn't hard? Am I the only one who thought that it wasn't hard? That is like calling Monster Hunter hard. As long as you pay attention, you shouldn't have any issues.

I don't know, its pretty intimidating for new players, I remember finding my very first experience with the game pretty difficult, but once you get going and know what you are doing it becomes pretty damn easy, knowledge is extremely powerful in Dark Souls.

I dunno this franchise is starting to sound more and more like a one trick pony of 'hey it's hard.'
Well ok i's hard. what else are you bringing to the table? why would I want to buy this other than it's hard? Is the story good? are the gameplay mechanics intuitive? What type of hard are you delivering? Technical, playable or just controller breaking frustrating with lots of cheap shots.

Now don't get me wrong games with high difficultly are good for the challenge but to make it the entire selling point just seems kind of like they are glossing over the rest of what can make a game good.

Erm... if the only card Dark Souls had up its sleeve is that its hard, it would be nowhere near the success that it is. Dark Souls offers deceptively deep, complex and smooth gameplay which is also very rewarding. There are no cheap shots, every challenge you can overcome by learning and applying strategies.

 

[Pandalisk]

Going through the demo video now i'll spoiler it if asked. so here goes;

00:41: Huh, its the Armour from the trailer, do we reckon this means there's little to no Armour customization and we'll just be stuck with the one set?

01:17: Awwwh dat' bonfire effect!

01:56: Animation is smooth, character seems a lot more agile than in Dark Soul's for sure

02:00: I'm worried about the characters ability to absorb damage during the opening of the demo where he takes a few hits from the (hollowed?) foot soldier but takes little to no damage but could be that the build they were using to feature the demo was highly leveled.

02:00: Dueling like a baller.

03:10: i'm enjoying the fact that you'll need torches to see in the dark

03:25: Fucking Skeevers infesting my Dark souls

03:40: COUNTER BACKSTAAAAB? Hardcore.

05:07: "Drop stone of healing"...I was fond of the Elixir :/ there had better be a limit to the number of healing stones or were going to have the same problem Daemon's souls had with people walking around with a thousand grasses munching damage away.

05:38: Deflection moves for the giant axes.. not sure how i feel about that.

06:28: knew that bone dragon would get up the moment i laid eyes on it, the Valley of Drakes bone dragon from Dark Souls saw to that.

06:50: Yeah, the "Drop stone of healing" is making me nervous if its anything like the moonlight grass.
Feeling a little ill? Drop it;
07:22: "we want to create nervousness and pressure" Like Dark soul's didn't have enough of that already -_-

08:30: I don't think there being honest here, i bet he would've burst out if you picked up the corpse loot, but shooting gets the same reaction.

09:07: Archers rejoice! fast firing, fast flight time AND you can move. Bout' damn time

10:13: I love the look of the castle of the dragon, i wonder if its the place they showed earlier but called it "the mansion of the dragon"

10:30: so those are Wrymn's not dragons. So prequel or sequel to Dark soul's? could be either still.

11:05: "a Variety of deaths" because Dark souls didn't have enough of that already but i get what they mean, more environmental deaths.

Dark soul's 2 atmosphere wise feels a lot more like Daemon's souls than dark souls to be honest. Not that that's a bad thing.

 

[Frostbyte666]

Ok apparently I hit a nerve with my comments so to those people I apologise for that. But a couple of people I agree with following the common sense (oh look a boulder) and paranoia (this game is out to horribly murder me) routes won't make the game overly difficult. I'm still not overly convinced about it but that's going more into opinion so I'll leave stop here.

 

[Dogstile]

...The game wasn't hard? Am I the only one who thought that it wasn't hard? That is like calling Monster Hunter hard. As long as you pay attention, you shouldn't have any issues.

The way I've heard it was that you solved the game by trial and error, and once you knew what to look for:
http://video.tvguide.com/Robot+Chicken/Hall+of+Memory/336456

That's basically it. The game wants you to learn via the death mechanic what works and what doesn't. The difficulty is generally in the later stages involving timing movements properly, such as in Dark Souls with the library involving the crystal weapons. I will say that Dark Souls does have some cheap shot moments, namely in the ghost ruins.

I still need to get back to that game and try and finish it. University ate my time up.

That's my problem with the game. It isn't an "if you're observant you'll be fine". Its more of a "you will get fucked over because the game will throw an enemy at you that will kill you for making more than one mistake" and you have to learn via dying how to kill said enemy.

Its not hard, its an exercise in how much you can grit your teeth and bear it.

Edit: And yes, I was observant and avoided most of the traps. A lot of the areas are either bullshit or grindy as fuck though. (blighttown swamp, really?)

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

I'm a PC gamer, everything is easy. Cept maybe Star craft 2, why turn a perfectly good RTS into a twitch fest I will never understand....

 

[Jadak]

...The game wasn't hard? Am I the only one who thought that it wasn't hard? That is like calling Monster Hunter hard. As long as you pay attention, you shouldn't have any issues.

No, you're the one only one. I'm sure there are at least 2 others.

 

[Church185]

A bet. Buddy bet me 300 USD that I wouldn't be able to beat Ornstein/Smough with only fisticuffs.

Did your buddy put any kind of stipulation on it? Like fist weapons? or Dragon Body?

If not I might be able to give you a few tips on how to win your bet

 

[NeutralDrow]

Oh...joy. To be honest, I didn't mind Dark Souls being hard (after a certain point, that was the only reason I kept going), but that sounds very much like confirmation that the devs and I don't share the same competing definitions of "difficult" and "frustrating." "Difficult" is only beating the Capra demon after thirty tries, after you learn how to kill the zombie dogs first. "Frustrating" is defeating the Gaping Dragon after two tries, then falling to your death because of a crappy camera and losing all your souls.

I'm still looking forward to this, but it's sounding more and more like the terrible death mechanic has stayed the same.

 

[Ridley1987]

I like to say that the game wasn't difficult. It was rewarding and challenging. A game is hard when you come across things like not being able to control some aspect of it very well. Take the original Devil May Cry, I quit the game cause I found the camera control and movement too hard. Dark Souls was a challenging game, but it wasn't "hard" in my opinion of what makes a game "hard".

 

[DarkhoIlow]

They've already said that they will develop this game for PC as well so I'm happy to hear this.

I managed to play the game half way through with M&K. A few days after I bought a controller to make my life easier (this was before the mouse acceleration fix).

I found the game quite challenging actually so higher difficulty on the sequel is a two edged sword for me.