Understanding Dark Souls difficulty

[Casual Shinji]

Look up information on the internet if you're really stuck.

This is what confuses me. I see complaints that an easy mode cheapens the experience or holds your hand, then I see people say "go look on the internet" and you specifically say with the right strategy, (X) is easy.

I don't get why it's okay to be spoonfed information from the internet if easy mode is bad. You're promoting assistance. You're promoting the secrets and tactics of the game be given away.

Most of the information people look up online regarding the game is acquiring a special weapon or piece of armor; Something that requires you to offer up a Boss soul.

Apart from one Boss, there's no information that will make the game easier. You're still gonna have to muscle your way through the Bosses to get the souls that grant you stronger equipment. And even with the right strategy, which one might have looked up online, you still have to stay on your toes and keep a close eye on your enemy, yourself, and your surroundings.

The reason an easy mode would cheapen the experience is because the difficulty and the setting go hand in hand. You accept the difficulty and frustration because the setting is one of nihilism, hopelessness, and immeasurable odds. And this sensation that the setting is infused with only works because of the difficulty. By lowering the difficulty you would be lowering the believability and sincerity of the setting, because the difficulty is the main tool by which the setting communicates with you, since there's hardly any dialoge or exposition.

 

[zinho73]

Why some people climb mountains? It is a mix of a personal challenge, the joy of the sport itself and the knowledge that not everyone can do it. That's the Dark Souls experience.

And yet, you can get all those things even if someone is able to drive to the top from the other side.

I still don't get why it matters to anyone how someone else is playing the game.

Well, I can only redirect you to my reply to the same question a few posts above. you might not agree with the reasons, but they are there.

 

[zinho73]

Look up information on the internet if you're really stuck.

This is what confuses me. I see complaints that an easy mode cheapens the experience or holds your hand, then I see people say "go look on the internet" and you specifically say with the right strategy, (X) is easy.

I don't get why it's okay to be spoonfed information from the internet if easy mode is bad. You're promoting assistance. You're promoting the secrets and tactics of the game be given away.

From my perspective, I agree that an easy mode cheapens the experiences and acomplishments of the game but I also agree that there's nothing wrong with asking for help. The reason why I think its ok to ask for tips or look things up is it offers assistance in the form of knowledge but it still requires a person to rise to the challenge. In this way a mode isnt being added to the game where everyone is expected to beat it, instead each individual is better armed for the encounters. Knowledge is just another weapon in the players arsenal and they have to make use of it to win

Very well explained. Dark Souls manages to achieve a sense of community that few games have. It is way more interesting to help each other to beat the odds.

You may argue that you prefer to beat the odds alone in an easier setting and that's fine, but there's no denying that what Dark Souls provide is different and fans are willing to preserve that difference as the easy button can be found in practically every other game around.

 

[zinho73]

*currently stuck in Tomb of the Giants* I desperately need a mini map. That place is literal hell.

But yes, no game satisfies me more than conquering a huge milestone in Dark Souls.

You are at the single worst place to go before you get the warp feature. I don't wish actually having to climb out of there on anyone.

If you didnt use any bonfire in there yet you could always homeward bone out though.

I've got the Lordvessel, but I'm struggling hardcore to get to Nito, even with the skull lantern.

You can rush past most skeletons once you know their position. I wouldnt recommend actually fighting them though because against those skeletondogs even i have problems. One mistake against them usually ends up with me being dead :/

Get the light miracle or the maggot.

 

[Burst6]

But that just means the lack of save point introduces meaningless backtracking. In any case, it becomes a waste of time. Instead, the game should just have a bonfire close to every boss. When you face a boss, you want to keep fighting it and learn the strategy to beating. Having to run/fight through the same bunch of enemies doesn't really add anything of value - especially if you loose health on the way because you don't want to spend more time than necessary getting back to the boss.

Other than this though, Dark Souls is an amazing game.

It's not meaningless. It's supposed to be a punishment for dying that has a trick to alleviate most of it. An aspect of the game is dying and being punished for it. It's not really much of a punishment if you appear right at the entrance of the boss.

This is what confuses me. I see complaints that an easy mode cheapens the experience or holds your hand, then I see people say "go look on the internet" and you specifically say with the right strategy, (X) is easy.

I don't get why it's okay to be spoonfed information from the internet if easy mode is bad. You're promoting assistance. You're promoting the secrets and tactics of the game be given away.

Making the mechanics of this game easy will make the secrets useless because you don't need them. There's no need for that shortcut if you finish that level in one go. If you just tell the secrets it's still an obstacle. It will be much easier but it will still pose a challenge and the battles will still be exciting.

Besides the game justifies giving away secrets and tactics. There's the whole floor message mechanic and some of these secrets are impossible without the combined information of a player base. There's a whole hidden level that can only be accessed by going to another hidden level and getting an item from it. Combined with how massively scattered the story is i think FROM wants people to look things up. There's a guy on youtube who made several videos explaining the lore of the world and i didn't know a good half of it even after 3 playthroughs.

 

[zinho73]

It's cause the simple thought of accessibility to others will invalidate their status as "hardcore" gamers and they'd lose the ability to look down on "casuals" the moment the game gets an easy mode.

OP: First off, Dark Souls isn't hard. Its tedious, bland, and a little grindy, but its certainly not hard.

Some of you guys might want the tediousness of the game, and that's fine. But you might want to think that there are others that want to play the game without the tediousness it currently possesses, and the option of removing that tediousness is just that, an option, you don't have to take it, but there are certainly others that will. There's nothing wrong with that. Hell, it's more beneficial for the developers to do that since it'd make the game more accessible due to the current state of the market. It could increase the number of customers from just a small niche of circle-jerking fanboys to a lot more.

If they put in the OPTION to remove the difficulty, hell they could make easy mode perma-undead mode, and just remove it for story purposes when required to save for server issues.

Also, those 4 skills you have placed at the original post, every single person who plays fighting games and/or ARTSs a lot have those.

Well, if it isn't hard you don't need it to be easier, you want the game to play differently: more fast, with lots of save points, less backtracking and maybe a minimap. This is not making the game easier, this is making the game be something that it is not.

See, I don't think that people that are advocating an easy mode even know what they want from the game.

Dying less? It is a integral part to the setting, to the story and to the game mechanisms.
Enemies with less health? You would still need to learn to navigate the map, which is much more difficult than the battles.
Minimap? that would completely destroy the sense of dread and the amazing exploration.
Easier bosses? Man, most of them already have several easy ways to beat and you can always call for help if you are really stuck.
More information? This is not even related to difficulty and even most fans of the game think that the game might improve somehow in that respect.
Less backtracking? It is a design choice, that exists to train you, if you don't like it, this is not the kind of game for you.

People say that Dark Souls players are a selfish elite. But wanting to transform the game into a different thing because you want to, I don't know, use cool armor sets (because you really don't want to experience the sense of achievement that the game is all about), sounds to me something much more selfish and narrow minded.

I understand you wanting an easy mode in uncharted because the game is about the story, or in a sports game or in a fighting game. But when the point of the whole design is to overcome the difficulty, asking for an easy mode sounds silly.

The easy mode is already in the game, it is just not a button - it is in the gameplay mechanisms! This is fudging brilliant and yes, it can be improved, so I want From Soft putting all their focus in making this feature better and not transforming it in a mode, as every other game around.

 

[Mirroga]

Wouldn't that way of thinking apply to every game? And I mean the different difficulty based around the gameplay. It's always either timing or technique.

And IMO, the problem with today's difficulty is that it gives players too many chances. My say to that is, KEEP IT! And then give us your old-style difficulty as the hardest difficulty.

Let's not forget enticing the whole world to accept games as an actual acceptable media means that they have to cater to people with less motor skills. As for the hunger of the hardcore gamers, isn't that why games like Dark Souls and Super Meat Boy are made?

 

[zinho73]

Also, those 4 skills you have placed at the original post, every single person who plays fighting games and/or ARTSs a lot have those.

They might have, but if they do, they apply it in a totally different way and certainly not mixed together.

Fighting games might require patience, but it is for training not for exploration and planning. And they certainly do not need lateral thinking. Most of all, they require memorization and reflexes.

Real Time strategies requires mainly reflexes and planning and also a really good knowledge of the building trees, knowledge of the map, etc.

If you are approaching Dark Souls thinking the skill set is similar to this kind of games I'm not surprised that you want an easy mode.

 

[zinho73]

Making the mechanics of this game easy will make the secrets useless because you don't need them. There's no need for that shortcut if you finish that level in one go. If you just tell the secrets it's still an obstacle. It will be much easier but it will still pose a challenge and the battles will still be exciting.

Quoted for truth.

 

[lapan]

snip

I think you misquoted me, i wasn't the one wishing for a minimap.

 

[zinho73]

Reading some posts of this thread (and others) it just occurred to me that most people that are asking for an easy mode do no want an EASIER to play Dark Souls - they wan a FASTER way to play it, passing everything on the first try, without any backtracking and nothing of this nonsense of upgrading things, learning the timing of the combat and discovering secrets.

They want another game with a Dark Souls skin...

 

[zinho73]

snip

I think you misquoted me, i wasn't the one wishing for a minimap.

Oh, boy. Sorry for that. I will try to correct it.

 

[Ledan]

Fully agree. I've always though Dark Souls was closer to a platformer than to a fighting game. It isn't about fighting, it's about solving the puzzle. Over and over again.
Walk out of spawn point, kill crosbow skeleton. Jump down stairs and kill skeleton. Walk down stairs and fight skeletons. The enemies have distinct "types" with patterns to defeat them. Dodge, block, slash, hack. It is about the puzzle solving.

 

[zinho73]

*currently stuck in Tomb of the Giants* I desperately need a mini map. That place is literal hell.

But yes, no game satisfies me more than conquering a huge milestone in Dark Souls.

You are at the single worst place to go before you get the warp feature. I don't wish actually having to climb out of there on anyone.

If you didnt use any bonfire in there yet you could always homeward bone out though.

I've got the Lordvessel, but I'm struggling hardcore to get to Nito, even with the skull lantern.

Also, are you aware that exists a bonfire a little bit ahead the first one that bypasses some of the skeleton dogs?

 

[TrevHead]

I would say that everyone atleast watch that video because it makes the point better than any of us guys can.

The devs made this game with an artistic / gameplay focus, where every element comes together to make a near perfect game for those ppl who like this sort of thing. I would show a YT video that makes this point about Darksouls where the guy in the video mentions a German word meaning all the elements work together perfectly (i'm hoping someone else can link it).

Personally I think ppl are confusing elitism and gamers who are purists. An elitist would say that they don't want casuals stinking up the place, a purist would say yes please play this great game but within the confines of what the developer intended. The problem is that it's quite hard for purists to bring their arguments across when others automatically chalk them down as elitists. So in the end many purists just revert to saying get off my lawn rather than waste their time.

Purist or elitist whatever you feel DS gamers are, it doesn't mean that their own views and wants are any less than other gamers, and I don't see why one game which is catering to them should be watered down to suit others tastes, especially when their are plenty of other games to play.

Easy mode to many DS players is like EA wanting to put in capture the flag in Mirrors Edge 2 or co-op in Dead Space 3. PPl who like the originals react the same way, they aren't against co-op or capture the flag but don't want it in those 2 games because it goes against the original focus, to bring examples of other games which have co-op is mostly meaningless unless it's an exact clone, DS is unique to no direct comparisions can be applied.

If the Souls series hadn't been this big thing we wouldn't even be having this conversation, but the fact that it has proves that there is a sizable chunk of gamers who want this type of experience.

 

[Ryotknife]

snip.

first you say im oversimplifying the combat, next you say you like the simple combat. I do not like simple combat, which is also why i never finished playing Fallout3 as every weapon basically feels the same and shooting things becomes extremely boring after a few hours (despite the fact that i thought that FO3 had better environment and story). Skyrim require a hell of a lot more thought with combat than demon souls ever did, especially with stealth, archery, or magic (melee not so much).

Reaction time is not the same thing as thought. I dont think a person would say that Dance Dance Central requires a lot of thought. Honestly combat in dark/demon soul is similiar to that of QTE.

The witcher 2 has a much better combat system that is both varied and difficult.

you know how i beat the tower knight in demon souls? not by learning his attack pattern and successfully dodging it, but by turning off lock on and swinging like a blindfolded kid looking for the pinata. never got hit once. wooo, look at all of the thought that required!

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

snip.

first you say im oversimplifying the combat, next you say you like the simple combat. I do not like simple combat, which is also why i never finished playing Fallout3 as every weapon basically feels the same and shooting things becomes extremely boring after a few hours (despite the fact that i thought that FO3 had better environment and story). Skyrim require a hell of a lot more thought with combat than demon souls ever did, especially with stealth, archery, or magic (melee not so much).

Reaction time is not the same thing as thought. I dont think a person would say that Dance Dance Central requires a lot of thought. Honestly combat in dark/demon soul is similiar to that of QTE.

The witcher 2 has a much better combat system that is both varied and difficult.

you know how i beat the tower knight in demon souls? not by learning his attack pattern and successfully dodging it, but by turning off lock on and swinging like a blindfolded kid looking for the pinata. never got hit once. wooo, look at all of the thought that required!

Sorry, written at way too early in the morning.

What I meant by simplified I meant by your number of options, so you don't have 20ish abilities to throw around in combat, it's a matter of using what abilities you have well and effectively.

Seriously though? QTE? Did you not read anything I said about positioning? Or even play the game? Considering you cite DMC as a good game for combat when it's very largely based around your ability to press a preset series of buttons in sequence. The fact that you're able to move and generally NEED to move around to avoid dying makes it very different from a quick time event. Oh, and also the fact that you need to decide for yourself when to press the buttons. Sorry, how is it similar again?

I assume that you are aware of what an exploit is? Which is what you got on the tower guardian. However if you wish to claim that isn't unique and the whole game is like that, please help all of the people having trouble with the game by telling them the solution to all of their problems is charging in and swinging repeatedly

 

[RomanceIsDead]

Why some people climb mountains? It is a mix of a personal challenge, the joy of the sport itself and the knowledge that not everyone can do it. That's the Dark Souls experience.

But you can just as well rent a helicopter to take you to the top or let someone carry you up there. That fact does not take away the accomplishment of climbing a mountain by yourself, just as the existence of lower difficulty settings doesn't diminish the "bragging rights" of higher ones.

LOL. Climbing a mountain =/= beating a videogame. When I beat Through the fire and flames on expert mode guitar hero...here comes the shocker...people who played on easy mode could still listen to me brag and understand that it took skill. What you are asking for is childish. Not just you the whole community that doesn't want an easy mode. They don't want an easy mode because they all have this mentality that games today are too easy and that its not fun if its easy..blah blah blah nobody cares bro.

You make it sound like its the olympics and we are taking the high jump bar and lowering it 2 feet and telling all the best players to compete at a height we all know they can jump. This is so not the case. There will still be the hardcore players on their hardcore community forums discussing their accomplishments. All those incoming noob players that can't pick easy mode cause you won't allow it arn't going to play the game like you given enough time. They are going to outright quit after the first few levels. In fact, easy mode will only benefit you since a greater community means more money for developers and better future games with even greater challenges.

Just cause I can't solve the 4x4 rubik's cube and I can only solve the 3x3 doesn't mean I can't appreciate your ability.

 

[Ryotknife]

snip.

first you say im oversimplifying the combat, next you say you like the simple combat. I do not like simple combat, which is also why i never finished playing Fallout3 as every weapon basically feels the same and shooting things becomes extremely boring after a few hours (despite the fact that i thought that FO3 had better environment and story). Skyrim require a hell of a lot more thought with combat than demon souls ever did, especially with stealth, archery, or magic (melee not so much).

Reaction time is not the same thing as thought. I dont think a person would say that Dance Dance Central requires a lot of thought. Honestly combat in dark/demon soul is similiar to that of QTE.

The witcher 2 has a much better combat system that is both varied and difficult.

you know how i beat the tower knight in demon souls? not by learning his attack pattern and successfully dodging it, but by turning off lock on and swinging like a blindfolded kid looking for the pinata. never got hit once. wooo, look at all of the thought that required!

Sorry, written at way too early in the morning.

What I meant by simplified I meant by your number of options, so you don't have 20ish abilities to throw around in combat, it's a matter of using what abilities you have well and effectively.

Seriously though? QTE? Did you not read anything I said about positioning? Or even play the game? Considering you cite DMC as a good game for combat when it's very largely based around your ability to press a preset series of buttons in sequence. The fact that you're able to move and generally NEED to move around to avoid dying makes it very different from a quick time event. Oh, and also the fact that you need to decide for yourself when to press the buttons. Sorry, how is it similar again?

I assume that you are aware of what an exploit is? Which is what you got on the tower guardian. However if you wish to claim that isn't unique and the whole game is like that, please help all of the people having trouble with the game by telling them the solution to all of their problems is charging in and swinging repeatedly

refusing to use lock on....is an exploit.....

might want to rethink that one.

an exploit would be finding a glitch in the wall during the armored spider boss where you can hit the boss but the boss was incapable of hitting you with projectiles. No i did not do that.

 

[zinho73]

Why some people climb mountains? It is a mix of a personal challenge, the joy of the sport itself and the knowledge that not everyone can do it. That's the Dark Souls experience.

But you can just as well rent a helicopter to take you to the top or let someone carry you up there. That fact does not take away the accomplishment of climbing a mountain by yourself, just as the existence of lower difficulty settings doesn't diminish the "bragging rights" of higher ones.

LOL. Climbing a mountain =/= beating a videogame. When I beat Through the fire and flames on expert mode guitar hero...here comes the shocker...people who played on easy mode could still listen to me brag and understand that it took skill. What you are asking for is childish. Not just you the whole community that doesn't want an easy mode. They don't want an easy mode because they all have this mentality that games today are too easy and that its not fun if its easy..blah blah blah nobody cares bro.

You make it sound like its the olympics and we are taking the high jump bar and lowering it 2 feet and telling all the best players to compete at a height we all know they can jump. This is so not the case. There will still be the hardcore players on their hardcore community forums discussing their accomplishments. All those incoming noob players that can't pick easy mode cause you won't allow it arn't going to play the game like you given enough time. They are going to outright quit after the first few levels. In fact, easy mode will only benefit you since a greater community means more money for developers and better future games with even greater challenges.

Just cause I can't solve the 4x4 rubik's cube and I can only solve the 3x3 doesn't mean I can't appreciate your ability.

Climbing a mountain was used as a metaphor not a comparison.

Also, I'm not allowing or not allowing anything, I'm just saying that an easy mode is a bad idea and that the developer resources could be better used elsewhere. Plenty of easy game on the market, just one that menages its difficult using game mechanisms. I would like to keep that one.

Please, read the thread as I'm not going to post what has been said over and over again, but long story short, I don't think the community will grow with an easy mode because people that don't like the game now will probably like it even less if its easier because there will be no sense of accomplishment, no reason to explore and the game will feel short and pointless.

The difference between a Dark Souls with or without a difficulty setting would be subtle but important, like the difference between a metaphor and a direct comparison.