Death Mechanics and Dark Souls

[TheSaw]

I honestly didn't find Dark Souls as hard as everyone says it is, sure it was hard but not a game that can break people like some people say. I did have some questions answered by a friend, but just "Oh, I just go to x, should I go this way?". I suppose each person will find something harder than another person, but all in all, I love Dark Souls and it was my 2011 GOTY. Spent 180 hours on it, about 150 hours on one character. I also love the characters you meet, and how they look, including how the bosses look (Nito most certainly looks like a badass). I liked how hidden the story was, most of it was left up to the player to figure out or even fill in. Like the endings, since there's two it's up to you to decide which ending is "good or bad".

-

Heh that last paragraph reminds me of why I quit PVPing in WoW. I eventually reached this point where I stopped giving a shit. I was no longer mad when I died, or we lost, or I personally failed; I just totally stopped caring and went with it. But, then I realized I'm not having fun and I don't care about the result, why am I doing it at all? I quit a couple days later, never looking back.

I basically feel like that about all of WoW, kinda sad really.

 

[Denamic]

Oh, look at that.
You died again.
Better get back to your remains that's splattered all over that floor over there by the boss.
You're close now, and you're doing quite well against the enemies on the way.
Well, FUCK YOU! PHANTOM INVASION! HAHAHAHAHA!

I don't even know why I love this game.

 

[scorptatious]

I'll admit, as much as I'm enjoying Dark Souls at the moment. I do get somewhat annoyed at some points in which I have to go through hordes of minor enemies that have the potential of killing me if I mess up just to get to a boss I'm having trouble with.

Super Meat Boy is a pretty good example of not making death too big a deal. If you die, you spawn back at the start of the level literally a second later. And the levels themselves aren't too long either, so the flow of the game isn't broken.

 

[katsabas]

Well, I think that Yahtzee won't be able to get into D's S or DS it's his schedule. He only has a week for every game. Unless you do some real progress on the first few days in such a timetable, trying to play any of these 2 games is a lost cause.

 

[Carnagath]

If you died at the Taurus Demon more than twice, you're definitely doing it wrong. Google the fight and you'll see there's a very clever and easy way to beat it.

Regarding the online mode, it is actually not a big deal. It's the same thing as in Demon's Souls, plus some player factions that you can join, but which will most likely make no difference to you if you just want to beat the game once. I personally kept my console disconnected while playing Dark Souls, because the main thing online does is make every single boss fight a cakewalk. If you are playing on your own, every boss has some sort of strategy, but with 3 other people you just all stand there and spam heavy attack, and you WILL be tempted to summon others before new bosses due to fear of the unknown. So, in my opinion, it's better to play it offline.

 

[TheomanZero]

I agree with Yahtzee that Extra Lives are the primary reason life systems still exist. They're very convenient as a reward -- they always seem valuable, even if they're so abundant that they aren't really; they're not unique, so you don't have to think of something new for each one; and since life systems are essentially obsolete now, you can give out as many as you want without significantly affecting the game's difficulty.
I think another reason Mario and Sonic in particular keep the Extra Lives is that you need a motivation to collect coins or rings, since 100 of either is an extra life. Of course, rings also serve as a health system, as do coins, in the 3D games. The Galaxy games were actually on to something good, by adding Star Bits (which served as ammunition) as the basic collectible and making the health-restoring coins relatively scarce. In 3D Land, the only way they reward you for anything is extra lives and coins (which, since they don't heal you or anything, are nothing but partial extra lives) -- bouncing on multiple enemies, grabbing the flagpole, having extra time, etc. I guess in that sense, SM3DL is similar to some modern First Person Shooters, in that they lack a good way to reward the player.

 

[Polite Sage]

Dark Souls had bullshit difficulty in some parts that didn't give you any chance unless you knew what was already coming. Demon's Souls was better in this regard. Example:

Demon's Souls: You get a checkpoint after a boss fight. Hmmm, there is a dragon flying overhead that bridge, maybe I should turn around and go somewhere else or try to run through it as fast I can.

Dark Souls: No checkpoint after a boss fight. You are probably out of potions and then a dragon mini boss comes out of nowhere and one-shots you. The checkpoint is AFTER the huge dragon. And the dragon always camps at the same place and the dmg it does is completely random.

There are other similar problems too like the Capra Demon boss fight or Anor Londo ramps where the outcome is decided by sheer luck.

Also, online was severely cripled with the dumb covenant system (and poor servers before updates). In Demon's Souls you had two online summoning items; co-op stone and the invasion stone which were both rather easy to acquire and getting online was easy. In Dark Souls you have 4 different invasion items, some of which are almost impossible to get without a walkthrough and the co-op item which is also very easy to miss.

 

[Warachia]

I like the "something snapped" part. That's so true. It's like the 5 stages of grief:

1. Denial: This game isn't so bad, I can do it. This will be easy!

2. Anger: FFFFFUUUUUUCCCCKKKK!!!! YOU FUCKING COCK MONGER! DIIIEEEEEE

3. Bargaining: Ok, ok, what if I just try 1 more time? Then you'll let me beat it? What if I swap these rings, will you let me pass?

4. Depression: I'm fucked. This whole game is fucked. I should stop playing, this is just pathetic.

5. Acceptance: Whatever. Fuck it, here I go again. Just dodge here, swing there... HEY! I WON! WWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!


Yep. Honestly though, that's pretty much me fighting Ceaseless Discharge for about 1.5 hours (in around 3 or 4 sittings). Fuck that fucker. God fucking damnit. *cough* Anyway, I did eventually start playing other, easier games, and I just haven't had the urge to get back into Dark Souls and finish it off... one day I will.

That's pretty appropriate, although I find it also applies to other things in games, like maze/ teleporter sections in JRPG's, where my enjoyment gets jettisoned into space.

Although I'd replace the last one with "Acceptance: I died. Oh no. I won. Hurray." It was when I realized I had that mindset that I stopped playing dark and demon's souls, I was having no fun, gained nothing for beating them, and didn't even feel any challenge because I didn't care if I won or lost. Also terrible design, but mostly the first issue.

 

[Warachia]

Dark Souls had bullshit difficulty in some parts that didn't give you any chance unless you knew what was already coming. Demon's Souls was better in this regard. Example:

Demon's Souls: You get a checkpoint after a boss fight. Hmmm, there is a dragon flying overhead that bridge, maybe I should turn around and go somewhere else or try to run through it as fast I can.

Dark Souls: No checkpoint after a boss fight. You are probably out of potions and then a dragon mini boss comes out of nowhere and one-shots you. The checkpoint is AFTER the huge dragon. And the dragon always camps at the same place and the dmg it does is completely random.

There are other similar problems too like the Capra Demon boss fight or Anor Londo ramps where the outcome is decided by sheer luck.

Also, online was severely cripled with the dumb covenant system (and poor servers before updates). In Demon's Souls you had two online summoning items; co-op stone and the invasion stone which were both rather easy to acquire and getting online was easy. In Dark Souls you have 4 different invasion items, some of which are almost impossible to get without a walkthrough and the co-op item which is also very easy to miss.

How about that bullshit in demons souls where they hid bottomless pits behind ninety degree turns in narrow hallways? Or a guy with a pickaxe that takes away half your health behind a pile of rubble? Or how about how you were screwed on the flamelurker if you only wanted a melee character?
Not like dark souls was that much better with some bad choices that could win awards in terms of bad design, it's like the games were barely playtested, let alone balanced. The sad part is it doesn't take much to fix them, and I know they won't.

 

[Marik Bentusi]

I have to say I'm surprised that I was surprised at how Rayman: Origins and SPESSMAREENE handled death.

I shouldn't be surprised because I'm used to dying in games and restarting the level, but it made me realize how generous checkpoint systems have become. Rayman made me realize again what it's like to restart a level and getting better at it until you're good enough to pass, and Spacemarine's difficulty levels very honestly said: "You'll die sometimes/frequently/all the time" or something like that.
That made me install an older game I remembered was kinda frustrating, but I played it despite having <10fps and half of that in firefights: Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. And now I've gotten more used to FPS and my computer can handle it without any problems, but suddenly I find my inner self bitching about the terrible AI, stupid checkpoint system and silly difficulty mechanic that basically says "You get a bit of health if you reload your last checkpoint, sooo.... go ahead and reload a checkpoint every time one is created, k?"

But Rayman: Origins reminded me that not all of these are terrible design decisions. It's how games used to be. And, somehow, that makes finishing them more rewarding and memorable as long as the frustration is overshadowed by the fun all in all.

 

[Warachia]

lol Yahtzee, you never went through the horror of the Tomb of Giants. That was way more scary than any Amnesia moments or Silent hill moments. I remember u said once something along the lines of that the kind of horror that makes you wonder what is ahead or behind IS the best -if not only- kind of horror.

It is indeed a shame you never went past the first boss, while by no means i can declare myself a pro gamer, i killed that boss in the second try. And by a shame i dont mean by your skills or tastes, no, i mean that if u kept playing you would start an odessy of awe, horror and even pity of the less fortunate than your already unfortunate character.

The crystal cave, the hydras, the secret beach, hell, the catacombs and tomb of giants all of them make you fully think you are inside there, making the best of your resources in order to stay alive and by al means to think fast of a strategy to come out victorious. But also to reveal the story, although simple, very inmersive.

I would by all means suggest to play the game past the gargoyles twin bosses, after those you would have got a hold of the game. But patience is required, even i that spent more than 120 hours in demon souls had a hard time in the way to the gargoyles.

The tomb of the giants is scary? Really? Ok, that's your opinion, I found it to be one of the worst levels in any game I've ever played, it's even worse if you were using a ranged character because you don't know where your targets are to shoot them, not to mention having some areas that lead to dead ends and hiding the way you are supposed to go is just bullshit.

That aside, it's probably a good thing he didn't get too far, otherwise he'd run into the knight twin boss (executioner and dragonslayer), one of the worst bosses in game history, because it wasn't designed to work well with this type of gameplay, and often I'd find myself losing, not because of something I did, but because I would get stunlocked by one, then the other, and so on.

I do understand what they were going for, they were trying to tell a story through their environments and thus get you further immersed into the game, but interesting ideas don't necessarily make a great level.

On a side note, if you don't know the trick with the first boss, it's completely understandable dying to him multiple times, I didn't know it, because the game never tells you that you can do it, so he just kept knocking me off the side.

 

[WolfThomas]

The original Aliens Vs Predator (the 2000 game, not the abortion released last year) was criticized because you had to start the level over if you died. And the human and alien characters died if an enemy so much as noticed them. An update added a very interesting mechanic to satisfy these complaints.

They gave you a limited number of "saves" based on the play difficulty. So now choosing to save or not was turned into a strategic gameplay element instead of an obligatory extra button push every time you passed a save point, or every 30 seconds in the case of games with quicksave like doom3.

If you screwed up and saved in the wrong place there was a chance you couldn't beat the level and had to start over. If you were too conservative then you had to go pretty far back to your last safe location.

It was a great way to modernize the gameplay while still retaining the tension inherent in the "make one mistake and lose" situation and a very long level.

There was a similar mechanic in Hitman : Blood Money, on easy you could save as often as you wanted, normal you had seven saves more than enough to do the level but enough to stop you saving for everything, on the higher levels you had less, on the hardest difficulty you had to do it all over again.

 

[Terramax]

The thing is dark souls isn't about pure skill, it's more about patience.You have to pace yourself, keep your shield up, and keep yourself from getting greedy.

What kind of payoff are you looking for? The locations are nice and varied ranging from ruined castles, swampy shanty towns, crystallized libraries, and icy worlds inside paintings.

Dark souls isn't a game to have fast paced awesome soundtrack because it goes against the atmosphere. What music there is is there to help the atmosphere.

The combat is already tight, and there is a massive variety of unique weapons to choose from. There are 17 different categories of weapons that each fight differently, and each weapon is usually different from the others in the same category. Also this is the only game i ever played where straight swords and scimitars fight differently, and the only game that actually implemented rapiers properly.

Dark souls is a different game. It's slow and rewards restraint, cautiousness, and preparation over just skill. It's different from a lot of other challenging games that reward reaction and speed. It's a niche game. It's not lacking in payoff, it just goes about it a different way.

But it doesn't really reward restraint and caution because there is no way to survive other than trial and error. The game is simply guess work.

And whilst the locations are great to look at, I don't find it a payoff enough. I've seen similar locations in other games (Ico, Vagrant Story). I'm not saying the soundtrack should be thumping, but it could've at least have been something like Vagrant Story (a game that does patience and strategy right).

And I don't consider the combat tight either. Arrows that glitch through enemies yet hit you, attacks that sometimes richoches off walls, other times glitching through it, my man rolling around when I don't tell him to, attacking enemies when I'm pressing the guard button.

During that second boss on the bridge, depending on where you land after you attack from above, you're pretty much cornered and unable to escape half the time. Why can't you roll under his legs? Why isn't the bridge's area big enough to manauver around him?

The game simply choses when you live or die. The game might as well just reset the console at random and it wouldn't be any different.

 

[Dresos]

I see a lot of whining about Dark Souls being "unfair" and even "broken" but really the online component with players leaving messages to one another is to make it easier for others to see traps and hidden enemies and since all your experience stays were you died and mobs doesn't magically respawn I've noticed nothing unfair about Dark Souls. If you die time and again I'd say that's just because you refuse to learn...

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

You only enjoy life because it will eventually end?

I find that... sad.

 

[Angel Molina]

"...and something seemed to snap inside my head."

0_o
I don't post very often... But I am genuinely worried about your mental state, please do take it easy...

On a less depressive and more jesting note: you just made the quote of day! Congrats!

...But seriously, take a break.

 

[Luciella]

lol Yahtzee, you never went through the horror of the Tomb of Giants. That was way more scary than any Amnesia moments or Silent hill moments. I remember u said once something along the lines of that the kind of horror that makes you wonder what is ahead or behind IS the best -if not only- kind of horror.

It is indeed a shame you never went past the first boss, while by no means i can declare myself a pro gamer, i killed that boss in the second try. And by a shame i dont mean by your skills or tastes, no, i mean that if u kept playing you would start an odessy of awe, horror and even pity of the less fortunate than your already unfortunate character.

The crystal cave, the hydras, the secret beach, hell, the catacombs and tomb of giants all of them make you fully think you are inside there, making the best of your resources in order to stay alive and by al means to think fast of a strategy to come out victorious. But also to reveal the story, although simple, very inmersive.

I would by all means suggest to play the game past the gargoyles twin bosses, after those you would have got a hold of the game. But patience is required, even i that spent more than 120 hours in demon souls had a hard time in the way to the gargoyles.

The tomb of the giants is scary? Really? Ok, that's your opinion, I found it to be one of the worst levels in any game I've ever played, it's even worse if you were using a ranged character because you don't know where your targets are to shoot them, not to mention having some areas that lead to dead ends and hiding the way you are supposed to go is just bullshit.

That aside, it's probably a good thing he didn't get too far, otherwise he'd run into the knight twin boss (executioner and dragonslayer), one of the worst bosses in game history, because it wasn't designed to work well with this type of gameplay, and often I'd find myself losing, not because of something I did, but because I would get stunlocked by one, then the other, and so on.

I do understand what they were going for, they were trying to tell a story through their environments and thus get you further immersed into the game, but interesting ideas don't necessarily make a great level.

On a side note, if you don't know the trick with the first boss, it's completely understandable dying to him multiple times, I didn't know it, because the game never tells you that you can do it, so he just kept knocking me off the side.

Heh well regardless of what class you were and whatever weapon you were fond of, the tomb of giants didnt let u see more than one feet ahead of you. I can assure you, being a piro-sword specialist or a dex-bow one had lil importance there.
You couldnt see the mobs to kill them? well yeah no one could, even after getting the lamp it was a tricky situation. And ironically i used the bow (not my favorite and i barely used it thro the game) and ranged spells a lot in that area combined with the sword for final blows. It was all about strategy and ofc, being carfeul enough to not fall into your death. But, the two bonefires there so near from eachother eased a bit the situation.

As for Ornstein and Smough, i infact got thro those bosses in the first try. And mostly because of paranoia, After the whole castle and the rough re-introduction to -dont open chests before you find out if they are alive or not- i figured i would need help for the next boss, whatever it might be. I called upon one blue-gold-phantom and the sun knight phantom, so i had an IA and another player to help me out, or at least distract the bosses while i atked.
The player phantom died almost inmediatly, so i was left with the IA, which helped alot as a distraction and allowed me to kill the bosses efficiently.
In NG+ i got cocky and killed them myself in what amounts to be the 5th time or so. Again its not bad design its strategy.

And the first boss, well they DO tell you that jumping over them is entirely a possibility, since well, the mini boss you have to fight for the first time in the tutorial.
Or if it didnt ocurred to you, if u watched one of the trailers they show that, so it all sumed up to:

-Go thro the fog
-Walk the bridge, having a feeling something is wrong.
-See the mino jump at you
-Panic
-Run back where you came from
-Notice stairs and in panic climb them.
-Notice that you are in the same position as the tutorial boss
-Idea to jump and strike at the boss forms and you execute it.
-Done. Half life of boss gone
-Avoid getting hit. Climb, repeat.
-Boss dead.

 

[Living Cover]

I've been playing a lot of Dark Souls lately (just got past the bell gargoyle(s), altough I feel like I cheated using both of those two knight guys you encounter) and enjoying the hell out of it. I only get frustrated when I die due to mistakes made when out of combat, like falling off a cliff by pressing the wrong button.
Never happens when I'm fighting, then I just accept it, and have another go. I don't get jaded and just stop caring about the death, I get slightly annoyed and worried that if I die on the way back, I won't see those souls again. This aids to make every death matter and to learn from my mistakes and not make them again.
And the sense of acomlishment is pretty damn awesome when you finally manage to take down the current boss encounter.

Which is funny, since I recently decided to finish Assasins Creed: Brotherhood, and the damn game almost made me break the controller out of frustration. No, I haven't finished it (AC:B). And I won't do so either in any foreseeable future.

 

[NamesAreHardToPick]

For the first time against Taurus, I went by the rule of "if you can roll between its feet, that's probably how you should be taking it on" and killed the thing on my second try without any of that elbow-off-the-top-rope stuff.

Catacombs was a miserable place to fight through and the Tomb of Giants was so much worse, which is really the appropriate vibe for trekking through increasingly underground gravesites. It's an epic chore to deal with, enough to be worth dropping the conceit of your "character build" and load up on the proper stuff for that job: miracles and holy weapons. The worst is losing your shield or two-handed stance in order to hold a lamp as you go through the dark....

 

[Sparrowsabre7]

Wait...Yahtzee... what? I thought one of your major beefs with the Mario series was its blind adherence to the lives system and now you're saying you like that? I am confused...

EDIT: HA HA DISREGARD THAT DIDN'T READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE BEFORE POSTING T__T'