Worth noting it's entirely possible to shoot Kalameet down yourself, it's just very very hard and you only got one shot before you're roasted.
Gough even has special dialogue if you do it.
Twenty Ninjas said:
People who have (maybe) played the game and (maybe) thought Kalameet was a poor boss fight:
Cybyit ("Demon's Souls bosses were far better overall than Dark Souls")
You can put me on the people who like the fight list, all I said was that I feel Demon's is overall better in terms of bosses because of various tricks (usually pretty simple ones, but people generally don't consider them before hand) done before or during the fight. In that regard Kalameet is more akin to Demon's bosses than most Dark bosses are.
You are right that Demon's is super exploitable and Dark fixes a lot of core mechanics, but because of lack of reused bosses, no obvious development fatigue in the final stretch, and bosses implementing mechanics in their intended fashion (looking at you, Gwynn) Demon's comes across as a more satisfying pve experience to me personally.
I just also feel there are cases of dragons being done better in DD even if they're not entirely comparable since the two games have radically different approaches to... everything.
Speaking of Demon's I suggest people check out the popular streamers and youtube guys and get on starting on November 23rd, they're trying a "SoulsGivings" event where them and their fans will try to make things feel like launch again by filling up specific levels on certain days starting with 1-2/2-1 on the 23rd.
So you listed a bunch of games that are (probably) harder if you don't play them on the intended difficulty. Go you. Dark Souls is still one of the hardest games this gen, and listing a few games that are harder than it doesn't prove anything otherwise.
Games don't really have an "intended" difficulty anymore as players are given the option to play on the difficulty they see fit (as you are allowed to change difficulties at any point as well for most games). Normal is intended to give an average gamer enough of a challenge for it not to be a cakewalk. I'm comparing other games' difficulties that are intended to be a challenge to Dark Souls, which is apples to apples, you're comparing apples to oranges.
And the Vanquish challenges aren't set to any difficulty (there's no difficulty setting for them) so the I'd say those challenges are the intended difficulty for the game (which would be closest to the game's Hard setting) and they are harder than Dark Souls.
Metal Gear Online had no difficulty setting obviously as it's an online game and it's a far harder game than Dark Souls. You have the constant knowledge-based difficulty as you playing vs human opponents and the pure skill required is just through the roof.
Of course, XCOM is harder and there isn't even any player skill involved (outside of strategy) as it's all turn-based.
Dark Souls wouldn't even come close to the top 10 hardest games this gen.
Dark Souls appeals to a completely different demographic than online shooters. I've seen starcraft 2 pro gamers have intense difficulty with the game. But I guess they're just not good enough at playing video games.
It doesn't matter what demographic plays shooters. I was using online shooters to show how bad the average gamer is. The majority of people that play shooters have put well over 100 hours into them and don't even understand the most basic concept of how to take and defend an objective, it's the same for every shooter.
I very much doubt a Starcraft 2 pro is going to have much trouble with Dark Souls once they figure it out, which could take some time as Starcraft and Dark Souls require different skillsets.
You can teach anyone to breeze through Dark Souls as long as you stand behind them all the time and explain what to do every step of the way. Otherwise no they won't breeze through the game.
Nope, just give me 15-30 minutes with any competent player and I'll have them breezing through the game. Like I said, you only have to employ a few strategies all game, you just do the same thing over and over again. I made it through Sen's Fortress without tripping any trap and without any help. Just play cautious and you'll be fine.
Either he's a pushover, or he can take you out by himself. You can't have both. Though I wonder what game you have in mind. The only game I can think of where zombies were dangerous alone is Amnesia, in which you didn't have any weapons.
You can have both. Zombies are easy to kill; however, they have that one-hit kill ability as well (like those frogs that curse you). You let up your guard for a second or act hastily and just one zombie by himself will take you out. That is pretty much every Dark Souls enemy but without the one-hit kill ability, they can all do decent damage to you though.
Cybylt said:
You are right that Demon's is super exploitable and Dark fixes a lot of core mechanics, but because of lack of reused bosses, no obvious development fatigue in the final stretch, and bosses implementing mechanics in their intended fashion (looking at you, Gwynn) Demon's comes across as a more satisfying pve experience to me personally.
You were arguing against that very fact and I said I'd take my friends word and the other poster's word that the Demon's Souls bosses were better. Almost all the Dark Souls bosses for me were extremely lame.
Could someone please give Twenty Ninjas a medal or something?
I'm impressed he has managed to discuss with Phoenix for so long. I'm sensing a new record coming up!
Go TN! You can win this!
OT:I found the DD boss fights amazing the first time. The second, third..etc.etc. it was just tedious as hell.
I think I only killed one of every massive ''boss'' as going through the tedious 'climb,slash,fall off' rinse and repeat routine was boring as fuck after the first time.
Apart from boss fights becoming some of the most tedious fights in rpg's after your first run, I found the game pretty good.
Could someone please give Twenty Ninjas a medal or something?
I'm impressed he has managed to discuss with Phoenix for so long. I'm sensing a new record coming up!
Go TN! You can win this!
OT:I found the DD boss fights amazing the first time. The second, third..etc.etc. it was just tedious as hell.
I think I only killed one of every massive ''boss'' as going through the tedious 'climb,slash,fall off' rinse and repeat routine was boring as fuck after the first time.
Apart from boss fights becoming some of the most tedious fights in rpg's after your first run, I found the game pretty good.
There is no winning here, it is an internet fight in the purest sense.
On DD, you gotta mix that shit up man. There are a lot of options for approach, my personal favorite being the Warrior's Arc of Obliteration that with the right build lets you one-shot chimeras and two shot most any other boss monster.
Daimon from Dark Arisen is a really good boss fight as well since he's basically Zod the Immortal from Berserk.
Any game will have a default difficulty it's tuned, tested and balanced around during development. Generally, upping or lowering it will just result in an increase of enemy hit points and damage, with a few exceptions such as Metro 2033's ranger mode.
Dark Souls doesn't have multiple difficulty modes because it's all about how difficult you want to make it for yourself. From summoning 2 players for every boss to doing soul level 1 no shield runs, there's emergent gameplay to suit anyone who wants a challenge. If you're trying to argue that some game's "challenge mode" is harder than a casual Dark Souls playthrough, that's an unfair comparison.
You don't know what difficulty level was the main difficulty level the game was tested and balanced on. All difficulty modes are tested as well. And, difficulty levels aren't just upping and lowering hit points and damage taken as in the case of both Bayonetta and Vanquish. A lot is tweaked with enemy AI in stealth games as you go from level to level.
Vanquish's challenge modes are really nothing but stuff you do in the main game, it's just there's no checkpoints and death means you have to start over just like (oh, I don't know) Dark Souls. It's not that the enemies hit harder or take more damage or anything like that.
Just wow, every game is pretty much as hard as you want to make it for yourself, that's not something only Dark Souls has. You can play through MGS4 going for the Big Boss emblem which requires to beat the game in under 5 hours, use no continues, use 0 health items, have no alerts, and kill no one. I can play through Dragon's Dogma solo on Hard and with whatever restrictions as well. XCOM has Ironman mode where it's basically Dark Souls save system.
Even fucking Kirby is as hard as you make it for yourself:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/3769-A-Different-Kind-of-Difficulty
You want to know what Dark Souls doesn't let you do? It doesn't allow the OPTION to play it on an easier difficulty. I wanted the option to play on a harder difficulty, but that wasn't there. And if you are against Dark Souls getting an easy mode, you're basically just as much as a bigot as those that don't want gay people getting married as Jim Sterling points out here:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/6601-Dumbing-Down-for-the-Filthy-Casuals
Dark Souls wouldn't even come close to the top 10 hardest games this gen.
These things that come out of your head, do you make them up on the spot or prepare them ahead of time? The average console shooter player doesn't play Dark Souls.
It wasn't about whether a shooter player will play Dark Souls or not, I merely brought it up to show how bad the average gamer is. Not to mention most RPG players will think that if they can't beat an enemy, it will be due to being too low a level vs it being on them as that is how the genre has conditioned them over the decades.
I was making the same point George Carlin makes about stupid people, "think about how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are stupider than that."
Nope, just give me 15-30 minutes with any competent player and I'll have them breezing through the game.
You have no way to disprove that either. Dark Souls does nothing but punish the ignorant and the impatient. The game doesn't punish the unskilled except in a very few boss fights. I tell them how the game mechanics work since the game doesn't tell you that and I show them that being patient wins pretty much every fight, and they will be breezing through the game. I don't even need to show something like the riposte because that's too risky for the little benefit you receive.
There's various enemies in the game with grab attacks that just might kill you in one shot if you have low hp. At one time I thought they were dangerous, but as I got better I thought they were pushovers. Never did I think they were both at the same time.
A level 1 goblin hitting you for 2 HP damage when you have 200 HP is both a pushover and not dangerous. An enemy that can one-hit kill you or take a good chunk of health always has danger to it even if they are easy to defeat. All enemies in Dark Souls can hurt you at least decently regardless of how easy they are to kill. You don't need dangerous enemies for atmosphere anyways, which is the whole point. Zombie games/movies/shows can have plenty of atmosphere with enemies that are pushovers all while not throwing several at the character at once.
All together now:
Demon's Souls > Dark Souls in concept.
Dark Souls > Demon's Souls in execution.
You seem to have comprehension problems. I'd advise paying more attention.
All together now:
Horrible concept executed well < good concept executed poorly
I have the option of not cheesing the Demon's Souls bosses (you're main complaint about the Demon's Souls bosses is that they are too easy to cheese) whereas I don't have the option to improve the boss fight design in Dark Souls. What I want is the option to not poke the boss to death, which I can do in Demon's Souls but not in Dark Souls. Sadly the fucking tutorial boss in Dark Souls is one of the best designed bosses in the whole game, it was quite awesome being able to jump down on him and take half his health. Of course, I'd rather have something like that left up to the player to discover instead of showing the player that (but it was just the tutorial). Just because it is actually easier to poke the boss to death in Demon's Souls doesn't matter because I won't be doing that as I won't have fun doing that so it's a non-issue for me. A good boss fight is much more than throwing a bigger enemy at you with more HP that hits harder.
Could someone please give Twenty Ninjas a medal or something?
I'm impressed he has managed to discuss with Phoenix for so long. I'm sensing a new record coming up!
Go TN! You can win this!
OT:I found the DD boss fights amazing the first time. The second, third..etc.etc. it was just tedious as hell.
I think I only killed one of every massive ''boss'' as going through the tedious 'climb,slash,fall off' rinse and repeat routine was boring as fuck after the first time.
Apart from boss fights becoming some of the most tedious fights in rpg's after your first run, I found the game pretty good.
There is no winning here, it is an internet fight in the purest sense.
On DD, you gotta mix that shit up man. There are a lot of options for approach, my personal favorite being the Warrior's Arc of Obliteration that with the right build lets you one-shot chimeras and two shot most any other boss monster.
Daimon from Dark Arisen is a really good boss fight as well since he's basically Zod the Immortal from Berserk.
Since you're only seeing what you want to see, let's make a list, shall we:
People who have played the game and thought Kalameet was a good boss fight:
hazabaza1 (he started the whole Kalameet discussion)
s69-5 (told you to stop comparing games to Dark Souls)
Twenty Ninjas (me)
Kilo24 ("Eh. I'd consider Dark Souls's boss fights as better overall")
Gormech ("Dark Souls Kalameet was better in my opinion just out of style")
Caramel Frappe ("Aahhhhhhh~ my favorite boss to fight against. Kalameet.")
Ragsnstitches ("The most epic 20 minutes in Dark Souls.")
XCell935 ("he ended up being my favorite dragon boss fight in video game history")
Church185 ("Dark Souls is such a thrilling game, and I can't wait for the sequel.")
grimner ("I'd still take most boss fights in Dark Souls over Dragon's Dogma's.")
Dethenger ("Yeah, Kalameet's not that bad. A sturdy boss fight, to be sure")
People who have (maybe) played the game and (maybe) thought Kalameet was a poor boss fight:
Phoenixmgs (you)
The_Lost_King ("not a huge fan of DS myself")
Cybyit ("Demon's Souls bosses were far better overall than Dark Souls")
DementedSheep ("it kinda feels like your just poking at him until he dies")
Of which, 4 like Dark Souls, 3 don't (none of them have played it), and one is neutral.
To clarify I don't think it was a bad boss fight really if I'm comparing it to boss fights in general. It just wasn't as good as the others in the DLC, was easier than I had expected from how he was talked about and for being an optional boss (I'm not trying to be brag, Manus and Artorias kicked my ass an embarrassing amount of times) and I didn't get the epic dragon killing vibe from him. I guess I just found his patterns easier to recognize than usual. Large bosses in general seem to end up being disappointing to me.
I am hope some mod out there changes this thread title to: Dark Souls vs Dragons Dogma. As much as I love and contributing to this online Olympic debate, Phoenixmgs is the only one repeating himself over and over.. it is no longer a argument/debate on what a dragon fight is all about. Without activating my Dark Soul powers, lets break this down to basics and get logical.
Dragon's Dogma: You are clearly a D&D player like I am, but in a LOGICAL D&D fight, you do not climb on dragons, you either provoke them to a fight of "smarts or strength". The DRAKE fight you encountered at first.. DRAKE not Dragon, just so you know, or might even remember on your rants, Yes grats, you encountered a fight on DRAGONS that Dark Souls very rarely brings to the table. Your the man dude. If dragons were a reality, hacking/slashing at the feet is all you can do, until it falls over and you THEN finish it off.
Dark Souls: is a very hard game for me, I am not stupid like you claim we are. Dark Souls proves that being on guard is only half the battle. Sure you can argue that everything is repetitive, but that way you are fueling the rage on this site, makes me think you never played Dark Souls at all, but sat around and watched a budy play it from start to finish on your account.
One criticism I do have of Dark Souls is that the enemies have no personality or intelligence. For some enemies I get this, but for others, including big boss creatures, they shouldn't just feel like a bunch of movesets you have to learn, they should feel like creatures with personalittyies.
And, I can make an educated guess that the intended level of challenge is not Normal for most games.
I didn't say Dark Souls is hard because of challenge modes. I said the base game experience, the one that was intended, is inherently hard and unfriendly. You can't argue that challenge modes in other games are harder because it defeats the context of the discussion, i.e. dark souls as a difficult game in general.
And the intended experience to give you a challenge for games like Bayonetta and Vanquish (and most games) are not the Normal difficulty. Like I said Vanquish's challenge levels are just scenarios from the main game but you have no checkpoints, they aren't made extra hard and they are set on the game's Normal difficulty to boot.
Disclaimer: I am fully in favor of optional difficulty modes for any game that doesn't rely on challenge as a core game mechanic. Any game that allows you to quicksave, has checkpoints, doesn't use death as a learning experience, uses gameplay as a means to tell the story etcetc. would benefit from as many optional dificulty modes as possible.
THAT SAID. Dark Souls isn't any of those. The core function of Dark Souls is engagement: to activate your brain, to make you think of cunning ways to bypass situations, to see all the game has to offer and use it, to experiment and create your own setups for an optimal gameplay style. When engaged, the game is easy: you can summon someone to guide you all the way through the level including the boss. You can be effectively walked through by signs on the ground with a big enough community. You can take your time and get a few extra resources that will allow you to upgrade your items and make your life that much easier. It's only when you want to casually smack the puny monsters with your Giant Sword of Overcompensating without paying attention to what's going on that the game gets punishingly hard even if you're played the game a few times already and know all of its tricks. Engagement is the reason Dark Souls is a good game, and without it it would just be an average game with a crappy storyline and a broad array of useless combat mechanics. Because you're not paying attention to details, you're just using the same combat style you're used to, you're not adapting, you're not thinking. And you're not practicing.
An easy mode takes away the satisfaction of overcoming a difficult challenge and the core function that the game is designed around. Other games, like Devil May Cry 3, can have their selectable difficulty modes. I disagree in Dark Souls' case.
And I couldn't give a rat's ass what you have to say about it. But if you call me a bigot again you're going straight to the mods.
I didn't call you a bigot, Jim Sterling did or at least implied as such, and I'm only agreeing with his opinion. An easy mode for Dark Souls wouldn't change your experience of the game one bit. If there were still cheat devices like GameShark and someone beat Dark Souls with it, it wouldn't affect me in any way.
And your explanation just goes back into hyperbole and elitism. LMAO that Dark Souls activates your brain. You can do the same thing for well over 90% of the game's enemies. I didn't adapt and I used the same combat style the whole game, and the game was a breeze. I was actually punished for practicing as I practiced the riposte in the Undead Burg only to realize it's rather useless, it's just too risky to use over simple blocking and attacking. Whereas in Bayonetta, not dodge offsetting is what is too risky. Just go casually button mashing into Bayonetta and you'll die too.
Your assumption that an easy mode will take away the satisfaction of overcoming a challenge is misguided as well. It may be true for you, but for other players that aren't very good, they will still find a solid challenge on Easy.
Your idea of an "average gamer" was based on online shooters and you completely failed to take into account that different people play different games.
No, I didn't. I just used online shooters as an example. Go play any online game in any genre and you'll find a majority of the people don't understand how to play the game and don't learn from their mistakes. Most players don't understand the basics of LoL for example. I used shooters because of how easy the basics are and even then people don't "get" it.
Former Street Fighter pros and current Grandmaster league Starcraft 2 players aren't good at games to begin with. Gotcha. Maybe I'll tell them that and we'll have a good laugh. Then again, "random guy on the internet said you suck at games" might not be important enough to talk to them about.
Online games are all about being able to quickly learn and adapt. I very much doubt Street Fighter or Starcraft pros had trouble with Dark Souls unless they aren't actually pros. I could understand them struggling at the start but once they adjust and get the mechanics down (as both SF and SC are very much about the mechanics), they should have no problem breezing through the game.
The burden of proof lies on the one who makes the claim.
I didn't say the levels would be MORE atmospheric, I said they would still be atmospheric without enemies. All the enemies in Dark Souls makes it less atmospheric for me as there isn't enough downtime for the enemies to have such an impact on the atmosphere. All your best horror movies and games have those calm periods between the "action" to build up the suspense whereas Dark Souls does not, it's just fight, fight, fight. The buildup is the most important aspect.
It kinda depends on how good it is and how poorly it's executed, doesn't it.
If a boss is supposed to have the option to defeat it by hitting its weak spot, but you literally can't get to its weak spot due to design issues, then yes as it wouldn't just be poorly executed but just plain broken. But just because you can poke the Demon's Souls' bosses to death may be poor design but not broken design. GTA is an example of a poor concept executed extremely well but it's still only as good as its concept.
Most bosses in Demon's Souls are indeed bosses you have to poke to death.
Also, and I may be in the minority here, but Demon's Souls bosses were far better overall than Dark Souls which are largely slugfests. In Demon's every boss was more like a puzzle to be solved, and also it can kill you in two or three hits. Even the slugfest bosses of it (Phalanx, Old Hero, Flamelurker) had tricks to them like the Old Hero was blind and hunted you down by sound, so you could hide your footsteps by wearing the Thief's Ring making him go from this aggressive and agile monster into him blindly walking the hall, occasionally slicing between pillars.
Flamelurker didn't really have such tricks to him, sadly, other than the fact that if you pumped your flame resistance with certain gear you could halve his damage and effectively negate his AoE bursts.
I am hope some mod out there changes this thread title to: Dark Souls vs Dragons Dogma. As much as I love and contributing to this online Olympic debate, Phoenixmgs is the only one repeating himself over and over.. it is no longer a argument/debate on what a dragon fight is all about. Without activating my Dark Soul powers, lets break this down to basics and get logical.
Dragon's Dogma: You are clearly a D&D player like I am, but in a LOGICAL D&D fight, you do not climb on dragons, you either provoke them to a fight of "smarts or strength". The DRAKE fight you encountered at first.. DRAKE not Dragon, just so you know, or might even remember on your rants, Yes grats, you encountered a fight on DRAGONS that Dark Souls very rarely brings to the table. Your the man dude. If dragons were a reality, hacking/slashing at the feet is all you can do, until it falls over and you THEN finish it off.
Dark Souls: is a very hard game for me, I am not stupid like you claim we are. Dark Souls proves that being on guard is only half the battle. Sure you can argue that everything is repetitive, but that way you are fueling the rage on this site, makes me think you never played Dark Souls at all, but sat around and watched a budy play it from start to finish on your account.
Notice how I quickly mentioned Skyrim, Dragon's Age, and Dark Souls all in the same sentence and the Dark Souls fans are that insecure about it they have to come posting about how awesome their game is. Nobody is in here arguing about Skyrim or Dragon's Age.
I don't get all into technicalities of things. If it looks like a dragon, it's a dragon in my book. The "drake" is merely just a smaller dragon in Dragon's Dogma. You can climb on dragons in DnD as one of my friends died from falling off a dragon. If dragons were real, you wouldn't be able to do any damage if you hacked at their feet. DnD is a lot about imagining what's going on like when a rogue sneak attacks a dragon, I feel he cut a tendon or artery, something like that. The description of a sneak attack is literally the rogue hits a vital spot on an enemy.
To get through Dark Souls easy, you just have to be careful. Even as a Dex-based character you can block just about every attack, just assume you can block every attack until proven wrong, you'll be surprised at just how much you can block with just a light shield (which is the only shield I used all game). Just block and then light attack after the enemy finishes their attack; mix in some heavy attacks as you get better and even switch to 2-handed attacks during your attack phase but don't forget to switch back right afterward so you can block. Be conscious of your stamina and sometimes you can't even attack during your "attack phase" due to having low stamina, instead of a attacking just drop your shield to very quickly regain stamina so you can block the next attack. The special moves just aren't worth doing accept for that move kicks down the enemy shield, work the backstab into your fights, but not the riposte as it's just too risky and the backstab is much safer. A great way to regain stamina is to drop your shield between enemy attacks and even between each enemy hit in a chain as you get better and learn each enemy's attacks. You will need some kind of range attack to pull enemies to you one-by-one (have a bow even if you aren't Dex-based just for pulling purposes), always fight 1v1 in Dark Souls. Many big enemies can be cheesed with the bow from far away. You need to pick your main weapon you want to use for the majority of the game and level that up. For example, the Uchigatana or Iaito are the 2 best katanas in the game, I'd suggest using one of those if you're a Dex character. Walk around with your shield up no matter what as that will be extremely helpful in Blighttown and Sen's Fortress. For stats, you should level up Str or Dex (for the type of weapon you want to use), Vit for health, End for stamina, and Int or Faith if you want sorcery or miracles, you also can use fire magic with no stat investment. That's all you have to know about the stats, only have 4 stats to level max, you'll need to bump up attunement a bit to have more spell slots but don't go wild unless you wanna go pure mage. I don't know why you think I watched someone play on my account (check out my Youtube and you'll see I'm very good at online shooters, I even get accused of using aimbots which aren't even possible on PS3).
endtherapture said:
One criticism I do have of Dark Souls is that the enemies have no personality or intelligence. For some enemies I get this, but for others, including big boss creatures, they shouldn't just feel like a bunch of movesets you have to learn, they should feel like creatures with personalittyies.
One criticism I do have of Dark Souls is that the enemies have no personality or intelligence. For some enemies I get this, but for others, including big boss creatures, they shouldn't just feel like a bunch of movesets you have to learn, they should feel like creatures with personalittyies.
That's why I wish Dragon's Dogma was on PC, the fights look so much more interesting, organic and adapative than "die til you learn moveset, kill boss" that's in Dark Souls.
The main difference being that you can tone down the difficulty if you're having problems. You can't do that in Dark Souls unless you first figure out how. And even if you do, you're putting yourself at risk of invasion.
What's wrong with having the option to turn down the difficulty? It's not like Easy mode is going to do everything for you as it would probably just be the player being able to deal some more damage and take less damage (maybe a few extra health flasks). You're still going to have to figure out where to go and how to fight, but you just have more room for error. Easy mode is the right difficulty for some players to have a challenge and still have fun, I don't understand why you don't want to deny lesser skilled players a quality experience.
Yet more assertions you can't possibly prove. Most players think Kalameet is a poor boss fight. Most players suck at online shooters. Most players can't understand the basics of LoL. See the pattern here? You're making up pseudo-statistics to give your reasoning weight. It isn't working.
For the record, most people I played against back when I was playing LoL could very well play at a competent enough level that I didn't have an easy time playing neither normal nor ranked. Now I'm not gonna make the assumption that I played against "most people" that have ever played League of Legends. But neither can you.
My friend is very much into LoL and he's in the process of finding people to play with as he hates playing with randoms. He said barely anyone knows how to play; for example, support characters going for kills, you aren't supposed to kill anyone as support. He even said most people play it like a shooter and go for kills where the in the early stage of a game you're goal is to not die.
Everyone has trouble with Dark Souls on their first playthrough unless they have a walkthrough or guide right next to them. Except you, I guess. Did you use a walkthrough?
I only had trouble in the Undead Burg as that's where I was learning the game. Once I did, it was a breeze. Hell, I didn't even know those frogs in the sewer could even curse you because the only time one of them ever got me was in that tree level. Probably the hardest boss in the game is in the Undead Burg because of the small area and the dogs. Once I took out the dogs, the boss was toast. I don't use walkthroughs besides for some trophies or to 100% a game, but I won't use one on my initial playthrough when I'm just beating a game.
It's not a very good quote considering he omits a lot of bosses (Maneaters, Penetrator, Dirty Colossus, Leechmonger and King Allant) that also have no weak spots or tricks to them and are mostly slugfests in the same vein as Dark Souls' bosses.
But if you're going to blindly take his word over mine then you can have your opinion and we can end this argument as far as I'm concerned.
It's still more than Dark Souls as the only Dark Souls' boss with a "trick" was the tutorial boss sadly. I guess that one early bridge demon boss has a trick to where you could knock him off the bridge I think.
An easy mode has never done any harm to any game ever. Give those NES/SNES games like Contra or Ninja Gaiden an easy mode and it wouldn't take anything away from them.
So you're basing this on hearsay, too. Why am I not surprised.
Also, in the early game it's more about individual kills than the late game, where team fights become predominant. If you can gank well early game you have a huge chance to snowball and become unstoppable later on, depending on item and hero. Going for kills isn't recommended in some scenarios, but it definitely is in others.
You can't let the other team get kills early so the goal is to not die, many people don't understand that. I don't even play the game and I understand that.
But you can use the same plunging trick on the Taurus Demon and the Capra Demon. You can make the Iron Golem fall off the platform you fight him on, killing him instantly. You can make Ceaseless Discharge take a suicidal leap in order to get you, thus leaving him harmless. You can kill either Ornstein or Smough last for a different second half of the fight and different rewards. You can parry Gwyn to death. You need to destroy Seath's crystal in order to remove his invulnerability. You can use Divine weapons to permanently destroy Nito's skeletons. You can headshot Quelaag with arrows, stunning her and doing massive damage.
Dropping down about 10 feet isn't nearly as exciting. Now being able to get on that 2nd level against the Gaping Dragon would be cool. Playing games like Metal Gear Solid and Shadow of the Colossus, the Dark Souls bosses were so simplistic in comparison. Getting a boss to suicide himself feels cheap. Why wouldn't you be able to parry Gwyn? Why wouldn't divine weapons kill Nito's skeletons if they killed skeletons prior to that? Headshotting for extra damage isn't really a trick or anything, it's more of a standard for like any enemy with a head.
Also, and I may be in the minority here, but Demon's Souls bosses were far better overall than Dark Souls which are largely slugfests. In Demon's every boss was more like a puzzle to be solved, and also it can kill you in two or three hits. Even the slugfest bosses of it (Phalanx, Old Hero, Flamelurker) had tricks to them like the Old Hero was blind and hunted you down by sound, so you could hide your footsteps by wearing the Thief's Ring making him go from this aggressive and agile monster into him blindly walking the hall, occasionally slicing between pillars.
Flamelurker didn't really have such tricks to him, sadly, other than the fact that if you pumped your flame resistance with certain gear you could halve his damage and effectively negate his AoE bursts.
Calm down with that, dude. I've already explained that the game still had its sluggers and that the tricks are pretty damn simple but it's just stuff you don't see often which is which is why they stick out. On top of that, stuff that could have stood out to me in Demon's could have become second nature by the time Dark rolled around. Calling them a puzzle was stretching it on my part.
And the things Ninja listed are good examples too, a lot of games have an inconsistency in logic "because it's a boss" and Dark is very refreshing in that the normal rules still generally apply to them. False King, who I generally enjoy more than Gwyn, is very similar in his moveset except you can't parry him and he can de-level you with a grapple. And all monsters in the game have strong and weak points, some just more obvious than others though again it'd surprise you how many times such logic is overlooked.
And I dunno where the topic of an easy mode came into play but I feel the souls games have more thought put behind them than simply adjusting enemy health and damage would change. Also, Souls without the punishment is kind of a shitty game. It's not technically demanding by any means, it has slow paced, simple combat that only requires patience and understanding where and how you made a mistake.
Furthermore, the story is just not there without looking into it which is enforced by retreading ground through multiple deaths in your first go of things.
So what is a souls game in easy mode? A short hack and slash with no real combos to speak of, an ill-explained and shallow plot, and environmental deaths which make for a very, very weird difficulty curve that just goes all over the place.
Calm down with that, dude. I've already explained that the game still had its sluggers and that the tricks are pretty damn simple but it's just stuff you don't see often which is which is why they stick out. On top of that, stuff that could have stood out to me in Demon's could have become second nature by the time Dark rolled around. Calling them a puzzle was stretching it on my part.
And the things Ninja listed are good examples too, a lot of games have an inconsistency in logic "because it's a boss" and Dark is very refreshing in that the normal rules still generally apply to them. False King, who I generally enjoy more than Gwyn, is very similar in his moveset except you can't parry him and he can de-level you with a grapple. And all monsters in the game have strong and weak points, some just more obvious than others though again it'd surprise you how many times such logic is overlooked.
And I dunno where the topic of an easy mode came into play but I feel the souls games have more thought put behind them than simply adjusting enemy health and damage would change. Also, Souls without the punishment is kind of a shitty game. It's not technically demanding by any means, it has slow paced, simple combat that only requires patience and understanding where and how you made a mistake.
Furthermore, the story is just not there without looking into it which is enforced by retreading ground through multiple deaths in your first go of things.
So what is a souls game in easy mode? A short hack and slash with no real combos to speak of, an ill-explained and shallow plot, and environmental deaths which make for a very, very weird difficulty curve that just goes all over the place.
My friend explained a few of the Demon's Souls' bosses to me and they were better than any boss in Dark Souls, mostly likely not Shadow of the Colossus boss "puzzles" but more than Dark Souls.
An Easy mode would still have the same punishments; I am not saying Easy mode should change any of the mechanics but at least have enemy attacks to less damage and allow the player to do more damage (like 10-25% range). For some gamers, having that extra margin for error still gives them a challenge without being so frustrating that they quit. More options are better than less options, that is all.
You pretty much describe all you have to in Dark Souls and yet I get yelled at by saying it's an easy game, with some people saying it's one of the hardest games they ever played.
Twenty Ninjas said:
And thankfully some games don't have an easy mode so you can still be correct in that assertion.
So all the games that have ever been made that have an easy mode all have an easy mode that does no harm? That's probably a mathematical improbability at this point. You act like Dark Souls is so "special" that it can't have difficulty modes. Obviously, it's not that special as I was wanting a Hard mode; well, somewhat decent AI at least. I think Dark Souls is right up there with Uncharted (the 1st one, not the series) for worst AI of this gen. The AI in Dark Souls is the main reason the game is so easy, and I'm not even talking about the exploits like having those people in the forest fall to their deaths either.
No, but he has a reason to be biased, to interpret things his way, to judge by his own understanding and a million other factors that make your second-hand experience and judgements based on his experience laughable at best.
No, I think mostly everyone who has played the game for more than how many matches it takes to get to level 10 understands that the goal is to not die. No one will willingly jump into the enemy turrets without a care whether they die or not, so I'm pretty sure they understand that.
But when you're attacked, there's a decision involved. A decision that can be one of two things
a) run away, in which case you might die, or you might survive
b) fight back, in which case you might die, or you might kill someone and thus get rewarded
This snap decision is the first among many you'll make unknowingly while playing that game. Neither of these is always the right decision. Now will you stop this being so elitist? It makes you look terrible.
I guess I shouldn't have said players don't get that they shouldn't die, but many players don't get that LoL isn't just a normal respawn game like a shooter and early deaths can lose you the game unlike a shooter.
LoL is just like a shooter in many regards. A shooter is ALL about out-positioning your opponent and stacking the odds to your side. You should engage yourself in a gunfight when the odds are in your favor just like you should engage in a fight in LoL when the odds are in your favor (like having your support guy next to you). Most players across all competitive games don't understand that concept of getting in an advantageous position before engaging in whatever. If you pay attention (which most players don't) is that when an enemy player kills you, it's mainly due to them having the advantage before the fight even started. Most players don't pick up on that, they don't learn and adapt, and that is why so many people find Dark Souls hard, they don't get that the game is all about fighting the game's enemies when the odds are stacked in their favor. That is literally the one main trick of the game.
I showed you alternate ways of killing bosses (i.e. "tricks") that not only Asylum Demon has, something that you asserted prior is unique to that particular boss. I don't care if they don't sound cool enough to you. They are there and you can use them. That is the extent and context of the argument.
There's no quality to those alternate ways. I believe you listed 2 enemies that you can make fall to their death, that's almost never satisfying. And, 2 more of the alternate ways were jumping off a 10 foot or less ledge to do the plunging attack, which already are a known thing to do. Doing that against the Capra Demon is probably more trouble than it's worth as you're putting yourself in an even riskier position by trying it.
You pretty much describe all you have to in Dark Souls and yet I get yelled at by saying it's an easy game, with some people saying it's one of the hardest games they ever played.
No, you get yelled at for asserting that your experience invalidates anyone else's as if you are the universal metric by which difficulty is defined.
For many people Souls IS the hardest games they've played because they didn't grow up with the straight up bullshit of NES difficulty. Souls is fair but punishing and anyone with patience and an understanding of where they made mistakes will certainly have an easier time with it than most and that is the point.
It doesn't have the combo inputs of your devil may cry or ninja gaiden, it doesn't have waves of monsters to whittle you down, because that's not what it is and that's not what it's aiming for. It is slow and methodical, it'll kill you whenever you let up or lose focus and it is designed with that being a key piece of the experience. Monsters are meticulously hand placed and balanced to create a universal experience.
The way these games punish may not be the center of the entire experience as many describe but it is a pillar of it, it ties in with the themes and the atmosphere and story. The promise of "Prepare to Die" isn't a threat by the part of the developer saying you are going to lose, because death isn't a fail state in the game, it is a piece of it. But many people associate dying in a video game to failure and think they've lost so they grow frustrated and quit which is the point when they actually have lost.
As someone who's gone through both Demon's and Dark Souls multiple times I say there shouldn't be an easy mode not because of some silly point of pride for having completed them but because anyone who goes through on it is going to have a weaker experience and probably going to dislike the game for it.
I actually died over and over more in Kingdoms of Amalur on a few fights than I did in Dark Souls.
I dunno about all of the games since I haven't played all of the games, but the particularity of Dark Souls' design isn't present in most other games. I dare say repetition and punishment are core gameplay mechanics.
So, just like say Mega Man, which has an easy difficulty that doesn't detract from the game.
You keep saying AI, where circling around and backstabbing has nothing to do with artificial intelligence. It has to do with how lenient the backstab mechanics are and the enemy turn speed. There's no algorithm in here. The AI has problems such as getting stuck and using the old MMO idea of retreating after you ran far enough (which is buggy as they will sometimes keep walking backwards when you're right next to them), but backstab isn't AI related. I've rarely seen people outright master backstabs on their first playthroughs though, or even insisting on using them beyond everything else. Hell, the one enemy that gives newbies the hardest time is nothing but backstab bait. But the game is "easy" because it needs to be judged by your standards.
It has everything to do with AI; I would slowly circle strafe, the enemy would attack and whiff, and I was at their back for an easy backstab. I stopped doing that because it was cheap and it just made the fight last longer. Also, the whole hitting an enemy in a group with an arrow and the other enemies not noticing and the one enemy coming to you. That's pretty bad AI. Dark Souls is easy because it doesn't take much mental or physical skill to play, you can use the same strategy on well over 90% of the game's enemies and the combat itself requires very little skill.
In that they both require strategy for high-level play? No shit. But I wouldn't call it even close to resembling a shooter based only on that.
No player wants to die, and "understanding" that they shouldn't die won't make them any better. It's more subtle things, like what starter item they picked, their position in relation to the turret, the minimap status and their tactical assessment of how long it will take to kill someone and whether they can survive during that time that separates the experienced from the newbies.
Most players think they lost a fight just because they got out-played so they run out and do the same thing over again just trying to execute better not realizing they lost because the odds were stacked against them before they even started fighting. It's not that they don't understand they shouldn't die, it's that they don't understand WHY they died and thus are unable to correct their mistakes.
You talk specifics without knowing the specifics. If I said "there's no quality to Demon's Souls either", would you refute that based on your second-hand knowledge of the fights and your zero actual knowledge of how those ways are executed in Dark Souls because you never bothered to find them yourself? I bet you would.
So here's my rebuttal: that last fight in Dragon's Dogma, which is the subject of this thread, is not good enough for me. It's absolutely dogshite, shallow and lacks quality. I know this because a friend explained it and I trust what he says. That fight is a bad boss fight and the devs of Dragon's Dogma should be ashamed for making it.
Let's see how you deal with your own rationale.
And for the record, jumping on Capra (or at least running up the stairs, killing the dogs and waiting for him to fall down) is the easier and safer way to do that fight, something everyone who has played the game will attest to. And I do mean everyone.
My friend explained a few of the Demon's Soul's fights, they were better than Dark Souls just from objectively how the fight went, not by how they were described with adjectives and flavor. The fight design is just better in Dragon's Dogma just based on what literally occurs; you have to cross a bridge as the dragon is destroying it, you get on the dragon and fly around for awhile to bring him back down, you shoot him down with a mounted crossbow, and then you fight him. It's better than Kalameet where he has 5 or so attacks you just have to learn and avoid. Plus, the dragon in Dogma has more moves than Kalameet. The rest is subjective based on how you feel each fight was executed, but Dogma's design is better. I'm not taking my friend's word on the fights in Demon's on his opinion but based just on how the fight worked mechanically, which is the thing I don't like about Dark Souls bosses, they can be executed as perfect as possible and I still wouldn't like them. Just the same way I don't like GTA because of the mission design, it doesn't matter how well it's executed because the mission design already turned me off.
I'm pretty sure the Capra Demon can hit you up there as I died a bunch running up their and trying to take out those dogs as fast as possible. Once I got rid of the dogs, I ran to the other side to get out of the corner and just owned the boss.
Cybylt said:
No, you get yelled at for asserting that your experience invalidates anyone else's as if you are the universal metric by which difficulty is defined.
For many people Souls IS the hardest games they've played because they didn't grow up with the straight up bullshit of NES difficulty. Souls is fair but punishing and anyone with patience and an understanding of where they made mistakes will certainly have an easier time with it than most and that is the point.
It doesn't have the combo inputs of your devil may cry or ninja gaiden, it doesn't have waves of monsters to whittle you down, because that's not what it is and that's not what it's aiming for. It is slow and methodical, it'll kill you whenever you let up or lose focus and it is designed with that being a key piece of the experience. Monsters are meticulously hand placed and balanced to create a universal experience.
The way these games punish may not be the center of the entire experience as many describe but it is a pillar of it, it ties in with the themes and the atmosphere and story. The promise of "Prepare to Die" isn't a threat by the part of the developer saying you are going to lose, because death isn't a fail state in the game, it is a piece of it. But many people associate dying in a video game to failure and think they've lost so they grow frustrated and quit which is the point when they actually have lost.
As someone who's gone through both Demon's and Dark Souls multiple times I say there shouldn't be an easy mode not because of some silly point of pride for having completed them but because anyone who goes through on it is going to have a weaker experience and probably going to dislike the game for it.
The reason I say Dark Souls is easy it not due to my experience but because I know what it takes to play through the game. You use the same strategy on over 90% of the game's enemies so there's not much thinking involved. You can seriously just block as the enemy attacks, then attack afterward to beat almost every enemy even with a light shield. Just hold your shield up, let them attack, wait for the attack to finish, and then attack yourself. That's it. All you have to learn is to fight enemies 1v1 with that same simple strategy. The combat system is so basic and simple, it's not like you'll have a hard time executing anything unless you've never played a decent fighter or hack and slash. Nier is probably the only game with a combat system that actually requires less skill than Dark Souls. You just have to play careful and you're fine, there's barely even any traps or anything outside of Sen's Fortress, which was really disappointing as well, there could've been neon arrows pointing to all the traps for how obvious they were. I got through whole dungeons and its boss without dying a single time just playing safe and careful, I never thought I was so awesome or anything because I was literally doing the same simple thing over and over again. There's only a few enemies that require some thinking and a few tough bosses but there's always a bonfire right next to the boss so death is no punishment whatsoever as you can just keep running in there hoping to get lucky.
You do realize some gamers will get the exact same challenge on Easy mode as you got on Normal, right? You are better than some players, some players are better than you. An Easy mode will provide the same level of challenge you got on Normal to many gamers. How is their experience a weaker one then?
The levels are varied, your character builds are varied, the enemies are varied, the ways you can kill them are varied, and the various bosses and minibosses do require either good reflexes and timing or careful management of your stamina bar/health (as does combat in general). Above all, the game's a learning experience.
The levels are fine. The enemies are varied but almost all require the same strategy. You can fight those tree enemies, the knights, the forest people, Blighttown spiders, and many more the same exact way you fight those first enemies you face in the game in the Undead Burg. Character builds aren't that different, strength and dex based characters play relatively the same, the fact that I could block just about everything as a dex character with a light shield is very troublesome, that's how a strength based character should play. Bayonetta has more playstyles than Dark Souls. Borderlands builds of the same fucking character play more differently than Dark Souls character builds.
And how do you know for sure if you've never done them? Or how do you know that your experience would have been the same? Care to give an example?
I don't remember, it was probably over a year back.
Nope see my friend said the actual fight is a boring 20 minute ordeal in which you just run around reviving team mates and trying to get at his weak point. And I trust my friend more than you so that makes you wrong, based on how the fight works mechanically. You could say that its design turns me off.
Also it's 13 attacks. Kalameet may not have an extended bridge-running sequence, but at least he makes sure you can't just dodge his fire.
I didn't have to revive a pawn once in the fight, sounds like your friend and his pawns weren't ready for the fight, having to constantly revive pawns is a telltale sign you're underleveled. Also, that's not how the fight works mechanically as my fight was much different and the amount that you have to revive pawns varies greatly depending on level, depending on the actual pawns themselves, depending on the pawns' classes, etc. You see how my description was just what happens whereas you friend's description was what happened to him? The stuff I said was stuff that literally will happen to everyone. You can fight the dragon solo if you want as well so that alone proves that's not how the fight works from a mechanics standpoint. Grigori has more attacks than Kalameet when just counting the main fight itself. The fact that so many variables can happen during the Grigori fight is one reason why it's so awesome, a tornado delivered the final blow to the dragon as I was riding its head. Lastly, I saw the guy in the video dodge Kalameet's fire breath.
And that's not the only thing that matters when talking about difficulty modes. Not that I'll entertain this subject further, you're way out of your league here.
Your way out of your league, you can't even name another game where easy difficulty ruined a game. Mega Man has an easy mode and its challenge is very much similar to Dark Souls requiring trial & error along with memorization (Mega Man is way harder though, yet another current gen game harder than Dark Souls). You wanna know why you can't name a game where easy difficulty ruined the game because easy difficulty is a FUCKING OPTION, you don't have to fucking play on easy if you don't want to. Dark Souls can have a mode where the game literally plays itself and you watch, that wouldn't ruin the game either (like New Super Mario Bros. Wii).
If character builds play exactly the same, why do I have 8 characters who have different builds and get a new experience every time I play one of them? Builds are the only real reason I replay this game - they're why I replay games in general, I like variety and trying out new things. Dark Souls has that in spades, I'm sorry you got the completely wrong impression.
1) Dark Souls has no respec option for some asinine reason.
2) You like to have several different characters that play slightly differently as melee combat is basically the same with Str/Dex builds; Str builds hit harder but swing slower whereas Dex build hit for less damage but faster. I wouldn't be surprised if the DPS for each build ended being pretty much the same. Str build has better blocking, Dex build has better rolling. Not much of a difference. I was disappointed in Dark Souls because my thief didn't play much differently than a typical sword and shield strength character. Whereas say in Borderlands 2, Zero can be built to be the best sniper in the game or the best melee character (and that's just 2 of his 3 skill trees). Magic is the only thing in Dark Souls that really changes what you can do.
You've demonstrated before that you only remember what's convenient for you, so I'm not surprised.
Conspiracy theorist lol. I mentioned before my friend was playing Demon's Souls as I was playing Dark Souls, check my Dark Souls trophies and that's the time period my friend would've told me about the Demon's Souls boss fights. You think I remember but chose to act like I don't remember instead?
Much like your entire experience with Dark Souls was what happened to you, yet you take the objective road for no reason whatsoever other than "I am phoenixmgs and I know better"? Yes, I see that clearly. Like I said, this was to see how you deal with your own rationale. The answer is poorly.
Can you or can you not pull enemies one-by-one with a bow for the vast majority of the game or not? It's not that everyone will do that and have that experience but it's an objective fact that you can do that. That's why Dark Souls is easy, it takes very little thinking or skill to get through the game (mainly due to the game's poor AI).
You only saw the actual fight, not what happens before it. Much like Grigori, there's a part where he breathes fire on you from above. There's no way to avoid that other than teleporting out or quickly running out of the area.
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