From Software The Dark Souls Discussion Thread

Destroy the exploration aspects? How would it do that if you had a bonfire before a boss? Or do you mean that the player would know that a boss is coming when they see a bonfire and would therefore be significantly less wary while exploring? That might apply if we didn't already have the fog doorways warning us...Estus flasks pretty much quarantee 100 % health anyway so the point is moot. Perhaps one will arrive with less flasks but it is a very rare fight that lasts so long that you don't have any more flasks. Especially if you come from a kindled bonfire.

The problem for me is that there is no challenge but the boss. Unless you count overcoming impatience as a challenge. Usually I had already mastered all the normal enemies of the level when I arrived at the boss for the first time so when I had to get there again there is no more challenge left.

Of the ways from bonfires to bosses only the Tomb of the Giants could perhaps be called challenging as those crawling giant skeletons were pretty annoying when you either couldn't see anything or didn't have a shield (using the lantern). I admit that I "zerg rushed" the Tomb of the Giants but that was the only place I did that for reasons other than "I already beat these guys so many times that I'm bored with them".

I do agree about making rushing less viable though.

 

No saves please. I too save scum like mad and so does everybody else.

 

I also like not being able to savescum, but I think a backup saving utility should be mandatory. DsFix does it right, it makes a backup of your save game after a set pass of time (I've set it to 25 minutes). Something like that can't be used for savescumming, and it will save your ass if your save becomes corrupted.

 

Codex will is not if it cannot even resist the option to savescum.

 

I'm less concerned with our temptations than those of the designers/testers who will be building the game under impressions made while save scumming.

 

Which can easily be avoided just by keeping bonfires as save points, as you pointed out yourself.

I'd also argue that the game currently has several elements to its structure which wouldn't be as much of an issue if hard saves where there: Namely, it's too easy to simply miss stuff. When you're an anal-retentive completionist, this means that your nose will be glued to a wiki to make absolutely sure you never say anything wrong (seeing how at times the YES/NO questions can be very confusing) or do anything that might make anything undoable/unobtainable by accident.


Also, one thing that's needed: A damn pause button (as in, it just pauses the game). A man's got to piss sometimes, sheesh!

 

A pause button? What are you, a fucking casul?

But seriously, they probably didn't add a pause button because it's assumed you're always playing in online mode. Quit game works pretty well as a pause button though since the game saves your location and the monsters that are currently dead. It would be sweet to be able to pause when playing in offline mode, though.

 

Personally I'm never online, because fuck other people.

 

Dark Souls 2: Prepare to Pee Edition

 

But the enemies don't move when they don't see you, do they? The game is basically paused whenever no-one is aggroed. At least I never really had any problems with that.

 

Hard saves don't fucking fit the gameplay style of the series, it's that simple. If you want extra protection against file corruption, tell From to institute a multi-layered save rotation system where it keeps at least 3 backup autosaves of your game per profile. It'd be easy to institute.

If you want pauses, you're an idiot who never realized that nothing happens in game unless you've aggroed an enemy or walked through a boss's fog door. And if you're never online, meaning you're never in a position to be invaded, you really have even less room to complain, because that's the only hazard that can appear while your game is running on its own. Or you can just quit to the main menu, a superior choice that prevents every kind of pain possible without losing any progress.

Stop demanding shitty gameplay ruining things that are entirely unnecessary.

 

Pausing during a fight is also useful for RL reasons. Without pause you can either die or go FUCK YOU REAL LIFE DON'T YOU SEE I'M PLAYING A GAME.

 

If you don't play Dark Souls with a week's stock of food and drink, an adult diaper, an unplugged phone and a locked door, you don't know how to play Dark Souls.

 

Then take two seconds to go into the menu and quit the game. Jesus, people.

 

And then have to restart the game every time you have to get up to go do something important for two minutes? As much as I understand no pause option makes the game more difficult, I don't really see how it outweighs the annoyance of having to lose some progress every time someone calls you, or someone knocks on your door or someone wants to tell you something or any other random thing that every normal person has to do at least a few times every day.

 

Part of the fun of the game is navigating a hostile, unknown environment. Knowing that you can just hit the pause button whenever you find yourself in danger and get a quick breather nullifies that somewhat. Yes, you can choose to not do that, but having the option at all cheapens the experience in the same way that choosing where and when you save the game does.

tl;dr it's about immersions and stuff

 

Yeah, I understand the reasoning behind it, it's just a bit annoying when you're in the middle of a big fight and someone knocks on your door or you receive a phone call and you have to decide to either ignore it or die.

 

If it's just for two minutes, you can let the game idle and nothing will happen. If it's longer than that, just suck it up and quit the game. It's not like it takes ages to load games. The only way I can see this being bothersome is if you were waiting to summon/be summoned by someone. Oh, and if you're doing online play, just banish your phantoms and/or slip on the fog ring and hide in a corner somewhere away from invaders. Or hell, you can just stand there and let yourself die, not like it makes much difference beyond losing your human form.

 

Or if you're in the middle of a pretty intense boss fight. Then you can lose whatever progress you made and have to do the entire thing from scratch. More than likely including all the enemies up to the boss.

The problem is time. Contrary to popular belief, not all of us have endless amounts of time to play. If I get a chance to sit down for an hour or two of gameplay, it sucks if 10 - 15 minutes of that time is spent replaying a section. It's not game-breaking, but it's annoying enough that I'd rather have a pause feature.

 

And people call me a popamoler. While this thread proves that the codex is full of decline. Just look at these crybabies, who wants hard saves and pause option in a game like Dark Souls? Do you also want cover system and regenerating health faggots?

 

Because not having a pause feature is why you end up having to restart sections, right?

Bosses are easy if you know what you're doing. They don't take long at all on average. And if you are having trouble beating one, just fucking summon some player phantoms, they'll do all the work for you. Oh, and you fucking popamole loving bastard. Not even ten years ago, back when save points were a thing, you had to pace yourself. "Hm, I just found a save point and I'll have to stop playing in around fifteen minutes. Usually save points are around 30 minutes apart. I should probably stop playing now so that I don't get caught in a bad spot when I have to leave!"

 

If you can't take the minute and a half (max) of time out of your life to fight a boss without being interrupted by something then you probably shouldn't be playing games in the first place. Maybe your busy life would be better suited to Angry Birds?

I can agree with hard saves to protect against bugs and save corruption, but needing to pause in the middle of a fight?

 

I honestly have no idea what makes you guys rage so much. Almost every game can be paused. I don't remember it ever detracting from gameplay in any way.

 

You guys must be pretty anti-social, huh? If someone knocks on my door or calls me, I'm not going to make them wait a minute and a half or more so that I can finish a boss fight first. I'm going to get up, answer the door and lose the boss fight because the game is incapable of playing itself.

I really don't see how the addition of a pause button would absolutely ruin Dark Souls either. It doesn't alter the gameplay. If you weren't going to win a fight you were in when you hit pause, chances are if you unpause it you're still not going to win it.

 

Yes, a pause button would help for that. No, it's not worth it.