Dick Souls

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Using controllers? What are you, someone's fuckin' grandma? REAL Souls players only use the Kinect. With their hands tied behind their back.

 

[Shocksplicer]

Kind of off topic, but it only just occurred to me: where is Critical Miss set?

The clue is in the title.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comicsandcosplay/comics/critical-miss/7560-1

Soooo... The Internet?

 

[Nurb]

Hardcore players? For beating Dark Souls games? PFFF, Try NES Ninja Gaiden, you casuals!

 

[sageoftruth]

A comic that perfectly encapsulates why I'll never be interested in the Souls series.

I go by the fighting game mean: Any game genre or series with a fanbase more cancerous and dick-waving elitist than the fighting game community is more than I can handle. Hence, I avoid MOBAs and Souls games. XD

There is a perk however. Basically, that you can have a good time playing this without ever interacting with a single human being, unlike fighting games, where the single player is nothing more than training for multiplayer.
Thankfully, if there's one major commonality between the two, its that their multiplayer community fades with time. I played through the original Dark Souls last week, and barely ran into a single person. The game has plenty to offer without the thrill of besting another human in combat.
Of course I probably don't need to warn you to avoid the online community at all costs. They are indeed a cancer of the internet.

Of course, if multiplayer is what you play games for then yes, avoid at all costs.

 

[balladbird]

A comic that perfectly encapsulates why I'll never be interested in the Souls series.

I go by the fighting game mean: Any game genre or series with a fanbase more cancerous and dick-waving elitist than the fighting game community is more than I can handle. Hence, I avoid MOBAs and Souls games. XD

There is a perk however. Basically, that you can have a good time playing this without ever interacting with a single human being, unlike fighting games, where the single player is nothing more than training for multiplayer.
Thankfully, if there's one major commonality between the two, its that their multiplayer community fades with time. I played through the original Dark Souls last week, and barely ran into a single person. The game has plenty to offer without the thrill of besting another human in combat.
Of course I probably don't need to warn you to avoid the online community at all costs. They are indeed a cancer of the internet.

Of course, if multiplayer is what you play games for then yes, avoid at all costs.

Is that how it goes? I researched the games when the hype started to build around them, and it seemed like the multiplayer elements were a pretty important component of the gaming experience.

Either way, I freely concede that my knee-jerk reaction is an unfair one. I love my fellow gamers, but whenever matters of e-penis come up... *exhausted shrug*

 

[sageoftruth]

A comic that perfectly encapsulates why I'll never be interested in the Souls series.

I go by the fighting game mean: Any game genre or series with a fanbase more cancerous and dick-waving elitist than the fighting game community is more than I can handle. Hence, I avoid MOBAs and Souls games. XD

There is a perk however. Basically, that you can have a good time playing this without ever interacting with a single human being, unlike fighting games, where the single player is nothing more than training for multiplayer.
Thankfully, if there's one major commonality between the two, its that their multiplayer community fades with time. I played through the original Dark Souls last week, and barely ran into a single person. The game has plenty to offer without the thrill of besting another human in combat.
Of course I probably don't need to warn you to avoid the online community at all costs. They are indeed a cancer of the internet.

Of course, if multiplayer is what you play games for then yes, avoid at all costs.

Is that how it goes? I researched the games when the hype started to build around them, and it seemed like the multiplayer elements were a pretty important component of the gaming experience.

Either way, I freely concede that my knee-jerk reaction is an unfair one. I love my fellow gamers, but whenever matters of e-penis come up... *exhausted shrug*

I guess it depends one what you play for. Not everyone looks for the same thing in games. I like overcoming challenges, exploring and role-playing, and I was able to get all of those by playing through Dark Souls without meeting any humans, except for that one guy who invaded me once. If you've got a competitive streak, you might feel less fulfilled playing without any human interaction.

There's also the covenants, which are mostly designed to set you up for multiplayer experiences. There are certain items and faith-based skills that you won't be able to acquire without completing covenant missions, such as aiding other players in completing areas, or invading other players depending on the covenant you're working for. That was a shame for me, but it hardly affected me since my characters didn't really have a use for any of those things (who needs a lightning spell when my character's faith is crap?). If you're a completionist, that will probably be very annoying. Thankfully, some of the items, like a ring of partial invisibility can be acquired other ways. Make of it what you will.

 

[Darth_Payn]

If it's not the difficulty of the Souls games that's keeping me from playing them, it's the toxicity of the fanbase They sound worse than 12-year-old CoD players.

 

[Silvanus]

If it's not the difficulty of the Souls games that's keeping me from playing them, it's the toxicity of the fanbase They sound worse than 12-year-old CoD players.

Well, would you necessarily have to interact with those people in order to play the game? The creators themselves don't seem to be guilty of such elitism.

 

[Valiance]

If it's not the difficulty of the Souls games that's keeping me from playing them, it's the toxicity of the fanbase They sound worse than 12-year-old CoD players.

Honestly, your first play-through can be (and probably SHOULD be) single-player only.

The game is really good, and the multiplayer is entirely optional.

 

[archvile93]

I'm a pretty diehard Dark Souls fan, and the idea that people think the only thing that makes it special is that it's hard is the worst. I would say it's best to go into it with not a lot of information and such because a lot of the game is about a sense of exploration, but I think caring about your reputation as a player is fucking stupid.

It's not the difficulty that discouraged me from ever playing these games. I did beat super mario bros 1 and 2 (the real one, though that second was on the virtual console so I could avoid being sent back to level 1.) My issue is that the difficulty is effectively random, and it rubs salt in the wound when you fail. It's bad enough the game gets harder every time you die (since if you couldn't beat it now surely you can with half your max health and enemies that attack five times faster), but then when you actually figure the game out you can get invaded by characters with end game equipment very early in that are essentially unbeatble at that point. Specifically the way I understand it is while you can't invade a player you have a level advantage over you can have a gear advantage, and there's nothing stopping you from creating a new character and handing him your main endgame characters's best gear and slaughter begginning players with complete impunity. I could be wrong since I've never played, but it certainly didn't encourage me to pay 60 bucks to find out. It also didn't help that I'm a PC gamer and if there's one thing I don't trust it's Japanese games on PC. Plus the mouse and Keyboard support is generally described as awful.

 

[Broderick]

I'm a pretty diehard Dark Souls fan, and the idea that people think the only thing that makes it special is that it's hard is the worst. I would say it's best to go into it with not a lot of information and such because a lot of the game is about a sense of exploration, but I think caring about your reputation as a player is fucking stupid.

It's not the difficulty that discouraged me from ever playing these games. I did beat super mario bros 1 and 2 (the real one, though that second was on the virtual console so I could avoid being sent back to level 1.) My issue is that the difficulty is effectively random, and it rubs salt in the wound when you fail. It's bad enough the game gets harder every time you die (since if you couldn't beat it now surely you can with half your max health and enemies that attack five times faster), but then when you actually figure the game out you can get invaded by characters with end game equipment very early in that are essentially unbeatble at that point. Specifically the way I understand it is while you can't invade a player you have a level advantage over you can have a gear advantage, and there's nothing stopping you from creating a new character and handing him your main endgame characters's best gear and slaughter begginning players with complete impunity. I could be wrong since I've never played, but it certainly didn't encourage me to pay 60 bucks to find out. It also didn't help that I'm a PC gamer and if there's one thing I don't trust it's Japanese games on PC. Plus the mouse and Keyboard support is generally described as awful.

Sorry for butting in, but I feel as if I need to pop in and say my piece. I am pretty much on board with what the other guy said. I mostly play for the atmosphere and world. The gameplay is pretty good, but just seeing new places and finding out their importance within the world was a very unique experience.

As for the difficulty aspect, there are some things I have issue with in what you said. With Dark Souls 1, you did not lose maximum health when dying(although this did happen in the second game as well as Demon souls), nor did enemies get faster with every death. The game does have it's unique bloodstain system, in which if you die, you leave a bloodstain on the ground and you lose all the souls(xp/currency) you have on you. If you get back to the spot where you died, you can pick up all of your souls again. If you die before picking it up however, you lose it all. So it isnt that the game is punishing you hard, it just punishes you for making the same mistake twice in a row. It actually has a pretty nice difficulty curve, the problem is that a lot of players tended to try and go to areas that were meant for better geared/higher level characters early, and got their butts kicked(the graveyard in dark souls 1 is notorious for this, considering it is near the start of the game).

As for pvp, again you are somewhat wrong. There is no system set in place to trade equipment between your own characters. The only way to do that would be to have two copies of the game running at the same time on different consoles/computers and summoning one of your characters so that you can trade between them. You are right though that people can only invade people higher than them(the only exception being the covenant that kills player killers). You are also right that people are only restricted by gear and soul level when invading. Usually with these types of people, they are players that played the whole game at a very low level, so they accumulated a lot of higher end gear on a lower end character legitimately. Of course there are hackers, but fortunately there are less of them nowadays.

The pc port was pretty botched. Like it functioned quite well, but there were little to no options to be able to choose from graphically or otherwise, and the pc controls sucked quite hard. A modder actually fixed most of these issues with a very popular mod thankfully. I am in the camp that thinks third person games such as dark souls plays better with a controller anyways. It is pretty easy to just get a usb controller and plug it in. Of course, I understand that not everyone wants to do that, and that the pc controls shouldn't have been botched in the first place.

Anyways, sorry for butting in and making this long winded response. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the game, let me know! I understand the game(and some of its players) has a somewhat negative reputation in some circles. So if I can do anything to help ease any concerns you might have, feel free to contact me.

 

[Solo-Wing]

I'm trying to decide if playing Dark Souls with a Rock Band controller or a steering-wheel and pedal set would be more intuitive.

Ask this guy. He might know.

 

[Dango]

snip

Actually the only games where it gets harder if you die are Demon's Souls where dying in "human form" effects tendency, making the enemies harder, and Dark Souls 2, where you gradually lose health. I don't like Dark Souls 2, but in Demon's Souls you can change tendency to make the game easier, albeit in a kind of roundabout way (Helping people beat bosses while being summoned). Also invasions are restricted by level, and there's no way to pass gear onto your own lower level characters. You could hack, or you could go through the whole late game at a low level to get really good gear, but either way most people aren't willing to do that. The best PvP as far as I'm concerned is either two people at very high level or PvP builds that are completely impractical and just meant to leave an impression. I think Dark Souls 1 is the most "fair" of the Souls games, and yeah, the port has issues (I never really had any aside from a 30 FPS max), and mouse and keyboard support isn't great, but since when do 3D action games have good mouse and keyboard support? Would you play Devil May Cry with mouse and keyboard?

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

A comic that perfectly encapsulates why I'll never be interested in the Souls series.

I go by the fighting game mean: Any game genre or series with a fanbase more cancerous and dick-waving elitist than the fighting game community is more than I can handle. Hence, I avoid MOBAs and Souls games. XD

There's a secret some people don't know: you can actually play the game instead of just reading nonsense about it on the Internet.

The appeal of this game IS about feeling how good you are. I've never seen this game discussed outside the context of its difficulty, how tough it was on the player and how good you were to complete it.

It's the ultimate elitist's game.

 

[DementedSheep]

A comic that perfectly encapsulates why I'll never be interested in the Souls series.

I go by the fighting game mean: Any game genre or series with a fanbase more cancerous and dick-waving elitist than the fighting game community is more than I can handle. Hence, I avoid MOBAs and Souls games. XD

There's a secret some people don't know: you can actually play the game instead of just reading nonsense about it on the Internet.

The appeal of this game IS about feeling how good you are. I've never seen this game discussed outside the context of its difficulty, how tough it was on the player and how good you were to complete it.

It's the ultimate elitist's game.

The you haven't been seeing many of the discussions about it because a lot people talk about how amazing the boss fights are (in terms of being interesting) or the music, atmosphere and lore. Yes, a lot of the playbase are up themselves and it's annoying but there is more to the game than difficulty and "prepare to die".
Although it's worth noting that there are more co-opers than invaders.

Jim Sterling did a video on this recently an I agree with him on it.


The beginning is joke btw.

 

[Erttheking]

If it's not the difficulty of the Souls games that's keeping me from playing them, it's the toxicity of the fanbase They sound worse than 12-year-old CoD players.

You do know that half of the in games covenants are dedicated to helping other players during boss fights right? The other day I helped around half a dozen people kill the Curse Rotted Greatwood.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

The appeal of this game IS about feeling how good you are. I've never seen this game discussed outside the context of its difficulty, how tough it was on the player and how good you were to complete it.

It's the ultimate elitist's game.

Apparently, because people who enjoy the game in different ways are, well... enjoying the game instead of posting on the forums.
For them Dark Souls is something different.
For me the ultimate Dark Souls moment is when I become so mesmerized by something, that I forget to fight. And Dark Souls does that a lot. But there's no point in speaking about such moments because they work best on the unaware person. Spoilers, duh.
Most of the stuff one can discuss about the game besides the "git gud" part is spoilerific to some extent. That's the nature of the game - it's ultimately about discovery. And that's why you don't see it much.
Best thing about Dark Souls is the deep and atmospheric world that you learn to know by heart. Let's put it this way.

It's really not about discovery. It's about fighting shit. There are actual games about discovery, but they are unpopular. If Dark Souls did not have "fighting cool shit" as the main activity, it too would be unpopular.

 

[archvile93]

snip

Actually the only games where it gets harder if you die are Demon's Souls where dying in "human form" effects tendency, making the enemies harder, and Dark Souls 2, where you gradually lose health. I don't like Dark Souls 2, but in Demon's Souls you can change tendency to make the game easier, albeit in a kind of roundabout way (Helping people beat bosses while being summoned). Also invasions are restricted by level, and there's no way to pass gear onto your own lower level characters. You could hack, or you could go through the whole late game at a low level to get really good gear, but either way most people aren't willing to do that. The best PvP as far as I'm concerned is either two people at very high level or PvP builds that are completely impractical and just meant to leave an impression. I think Dark Souls 1 is the most "fair" of the Souls games, and yeah, the port has issues (I never really had any aside from a 30 FPS max), and mouse and keyboard support isn't great, but since when do 3D action games have good mouse and keyboard support? Would you play Devil May Cry with mouse and keyboard?

Preferably no, but I also wouldn't pay $120 for one game, and no I wouldn't use the controller for much else, assuming I used it for anything. If the game has at least decent M & KB, then I can at tolerate it enough to look past the somewhat akward controls. If they're horrible then that's a deal breaker.

 

[Lillowh]

I'm trying to decide if playing Dark Souls with a Rock Band controller or a steering-wheel and pedal set would be more intuitive.

Ask this guy. He might know.

Using controllers? What are you, someone's fuckin' grandma? REAL Souls players only use the Kinect. With their hands tied behind their back.

I mean, if we're on the topic of dick waving contests someone pretty much did nearly exactly that.
That's using a program called "Voice Attack." He beat the entire game using it, and that comes with the inherent delay of speaking as well as the delay the program itself takes to interpret and execute the commands.

It's really not about discovery. It's about fighting shit. There are actual games about discovery, but they are unpopular. If Dark Souls did not have "fighting cool shit" as the main activity, it too would be unpopular.

You're confusing games who's only component is discovery along the lines of gone home with something that has a very rewarding component of discovery based on the world and level design along the lines of a Super Metroid/Metroidvania, or a Zelda game in the shade of 1 and Link to the Past onward (mostly).

Yes, to say it's not about the combat is far too reductionist from an outside perspective. The combat is a core component of the game, and can be very rewarding in a variety of ways (hand eye coordination, strategy, perception, etc), however it's understandable that mentally it would take a backseat to some players. It provides a constant force to persevere against and get to those elements that those discovery games have, but alongside something that is also mechanically satisfying, or at least satisfactory.

Much like a fantasy adventure novel, the conflict is the driving force behind the progression of the main thread of the tale. Vast or striking environments pique your interest and you look to learn more about them and the ones who inhabit it. The game's director, Miyazaki, has stated a lot of his inspiration has come from reading western fantasy novels. However, English was not his first language so pieces and details were lost in his reading of the stories, leading him to find connecting lines to create a more cohesive if less explicitly solid narrative. Item descriptions in dark souls are often vague, maybe one or two sentences referencing a place, event or person. Keen observation of where the items where found, the surrounding environment of the itme, what other items they could possibly relate to, and who they were found on piques a set of intrigue in certain people and becomes their passion about the game. While there are games where a similar take on doing things is the main purpose, like Gone Home, they are often much shorter, smaller in scope, and quite different thematically. For something unique to the medium of video games, observance of your environment and mentally mapping areas lead more perceptive players to obscured or cleverly placed pathways, appealing to a group of people who enjoy being rewarded for their sharp awareness.

The combat is a draw for many players, and is thematically and conceptually important for building certain aspects of the world. For a good number of other people, it's not, and is there to serve a purpose to work towards what they want from the game. The real meat for many lies in what they want to take out of the game.

 

[SixMaJin]

It's really not about discovery. It's about fighting shit. There are actual games about discovery, but they are unpopular. If Dark Souls did not have "fighting cool shit" as the main activity, it too would be unpopular.

Have you actually played the game? Dark Souls IS about discovery, that's why people love the interconnected leveldesign in Dark Souls 1, that's the number one reason i played the game, the difficulty is merely, let me use GlaDos words to describe it: "note that any appearance of danger is merely a device to enhance your testing experience. "
Exploring new areas is so much more rewarding, for any underestimated enemy or careless step could mean the end of your way. Every aspect of the game is about exploration, not only is it very nonlinear, you also have to dig deep to get to the actual story of the world, you have to explore all possible enemy-movements, you have to explore the different ways your weapons and armor make you able to fight those enemies.