From Software The Dark Souls Discussion Thread

[Ninjerk]

I'm playing Dark Souls for the first time, about 20 hours or so in. I don't normally touch action rpgs, like many other codexers I imagine, but the game just plays gorgeously. Seriously impressed.

Actually, I think I fell in love with it from the opening video, which is pretty bizarre for me! The whole package just fits. From what little I've seen so far, the art direction, sound, setting & writing have all been spectacular and--something which is quite a feat in the fantasy genre--full of personality.

I've had a couple of irks... I picked up a giant axe which is over-sized to a stupid extent and I'm worried equipment is going become increasingly absurd at higher levers. Games for windows live has given me grief but I don't imagine the developers had much choice regarding the PC port in general. Multiplayer has been iffy and slightly spoiled by annoying invaders. At the same time, however, my character was unable to effectively wield that axe due to low strength and could only perform a single, off-balanced swing with it. Considering how ruthless combat can be, it was quite cool that the game also deemed the axe too ridiculous for use (although I fear that won't last long). Likewise, I'm also very impressed at the way the game has intergrated multiplayer (and a number of other mechanics) into the setting in a non-egregious way. It could be a lot worse!

I think this game is going to be a classic.

Wait till you see the Dragon's Tooth.

 

[dunno lah]

lol what about snorlax's hammer?

 

[Ninjerk]

lol what about snorlax's hammer?

The funny thing about the Dragon's Tooth is how... surprising it is.

 

[dunno lah]

I'm not...following.

 

[praetor]

If a game like dark souls is going to have mandatory platforming sections, then it better be damn near perfect, on the contrary; controlling your character in platforming sections in dark souls is like controlling a drunk old guy with a black dildo stuck in his ass. Anor londo with that fucking church where you have to walk cautiously as fuck over some fucking paper thin support beams while fighting several guys that can knock you off while they attack, and where you will randomly knock yourself off when attacking unless you have a lucky streak, was a rage inducing example of extremely bad game design inbetweeen otherwise excellent game design. And I won't even mention the following section with the two archers.

duuude... the painting guardians are soooo easy to dispatch it's extremely lulzy you're raging at that. just bait them with a bow and they'll suicide more than half the time. or just block them until they fall. the archers are annoying, yes, but if you didn't learn to parry and/or roll through shit by that point, you really really should (or just be cheap and poison their ass with arrows). there's plenty of tools the game gives you to make these encounters painless, but this isn't bethesda so don't expect quest compasses

I also hope that you get randomly knocked off edges. I think 80% of my deaths are of these type, and more often than not, they just feel cheap. Like "hahaha, i troll you, you die!".

randomly? in hundreds of hours of playing this game i've never been knocked off "randomly".

 

[Commissar Draco]

Two stupid questions: Is this on PC? Is Single play campaign any good?

 

[Ninjerk]

I'm not...following.

The power level you need to get the dragon's tooth relative to what you've (probably) fought so far.

Two stupid questions: Is this on PC? Is Single play campaign any good?

There is a port that I've heard is decent but requires mods, and there is no singleplayer/multiplayer split. It is one gameworld, and depending on whether you are human or hollow (like a revenant or very articulate zombie) you may have hostile players invade limited sections of your world and if you get a certain item you can summon other players to help you slay bosses.

 

[praetor]

Two stupid questions: Is this on PC? Is Single play campaign any good?

yes on both accounts. get a gamepad (apparently it's playable with kb+m, but i wouldn't subject myself to that again) and durante's dsfix and you're good to go (the only other "mods" out there are a "mousefix", a "connectionfix" (to easily connect with bros on your friendslist) and texture mods)

 

[aris]

If a game like dark souls is going to have mandatory platforming sections, then it better be damn near perfect, on the contrary; controlling your character in platforming sections in dark souls is like controlling a drunk old guy with a black dildo stuck in his ass. Anor londo with that fucking church where you have to walk cautiously as fuck over some fucking paper thin support beams while fighting several guys that can knock you off while they attack, and where you will randomly knock yourself off when attacking unless you have a lucky streak, was a rage inducing example of extremely bad game design inbetweeen otherwise excellent game design. And I won't even mention the following section with the two archers.

duuude... the painting guardians are soooo easy to dispatch it's extremely lulzy you're raging at that. just bait them with a bow and they'll suicide more than half the time. or just block them until they fall. the archers are annoying, yes, but if you didn't learn to parry and/or roll through shit by that point, you really really should (or just be cheap and poison their ass with arrows). there's plenty of tools the game gives you to make these encounters painless, but this isn't bethesda so don't expect quest compasses

I didn't think of using a bow, I did try to throw knifes at them while they were throwing at me, but since the developers thought it was a good idea to give them a greater throw range than my lock-on-target range (another example of bad game design), that couldn't be done. So I took them on in melee, at first I tried to block like you said, never worked. So I engaged them in melee and probably fell of 30 times in a row while engaging in the attack animation. I'm completely fine with that there are no "rails" to hold you while you walk on thin ledges, but that you will randomly fall off while standing still and performing an attack is a fucking disgrace, and again, bad game design. I also randomly fell of the ledge to my death a lot of times while trekking back to firelink shrine through undeadburg while fighting the melee guy who for whatever stupid reason stands on a 40 cm wide ledge leading out of the tunnels, right outside the door yet right outside of sight. It's like being perfectly content with a lot of platforming in really really badly designed platforming gameplay.

I also hope that you get randomly knocked off edges. I think 80% of my deaths are of these type, and more often than not, they just feel cheap. Like "hahaha, i troll you, you die!".

randomly? in hundreds of hours of playing this game i've never been knocked off "randomly".

Maybe you don't remember your first times. You can get used to driving a really bad car that handles like an ass and do less mistakes, doesn't mean that it's a good car.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

gaudaost listen, it's fine. You wasted a lot of time falling to your death in stupid ways, and you're angry about it. That doesn't make those areas badly designed. You complain about "platforming", but having to walk straight on a narrow ledge does not constitute platforming. As a matter of fact, against the two archers it's easy not to fall off by hugging the wall, the difficulty lies more in fighting one of them in such a narrow space, and yes, not making yourself fall via swinging your weapon (although you can make the knight fall off just by pushing him off while blocking). And yes, knowing your weapon's moveset enough to not fall from ledges by swinging it is a skill that the game requires occasionally. Again, this isn't platforming, and isn't bad design. Incidentally, not being able to lock on and use throwing knives or magic at great distances isn't bad design either, it's a balancing method - they're supposed to be short range weapons. Not like it matters, since those narrow walkways in the Anor Londo cathedral are quite easy, I think you're the first person I've seen complaining about it.

Dark Souls does have annoying elements related to character movement, but they're mostly about getting randomly stuck on small protrusions in the ground, which is annoying as fuck and a problem with the engine rather than with the design per se. The Great Hollow is particularly obnoxious, if you want to go up through it, there's a point where you literally need to walk on air for a bit because your character seemingly can't step over a tree root lower than knee-level. Blighttown has its share of these as well.

Two stupid questions: Is this on PC? Is Single play campaign any good?

Yes. Most people will tell you to play with a controller, but with dsmfix it's easily playable with kb+m, especially if you're not used to controllers. The mouse controls still take some time getting used to, but it plays fine afterwards.

 

[praetor]

I didn't think of using a bow, I did try to throw knifes at them while they were throwing at me, but since the developers thought it was a good idea to give them a greater throw range than my lock-on-target range (another example of bad game design), that couldn't be done. So I took them on in melee, at first I tried to block like you said, never worked. So I engaged them in melee and probably fell of 30 times in a row while engaging in the attack animation. I'm completely fine with that there are no "rails" to hold you while you walk on thin ledges, but that you will randomly fall off while standing still and performing an attack is a fucking disgrace, and again, bad game design. I also randomly fell of the ledge to my death a lot of times while trekking back to firelink shrine through undeadburg while fighting the melee guy who for whatever stupid reason stands on a 40 cm wide ledge leading out of the tunnels, right outside the door yet right outside of sight. It's like being perfectly content with a lot of platforming in really really badly designed platforming gameplay.

so in short, you suck. you can try to blame it on the game but "i did't think of this" and "didn't think of that" is plainly your fault. in the hours you played you could've noticed that you do not stand fucking still when you attack. youa re dumb. there's no way around it. you attacked in the wrong direction on the wrong position on a very thin ledge (when you had other options to deal with the situation). i played that section drunk a few times and fell dozens of times and lost hundreds of thousands, probably millions of souls (and who knows how much humanity)

and that fucker in firelink is annoying, and also lead to my untimely demise quite a few times, but that is anything but "badly designed platforming". i was careless and paid the price and that is fine (the game isn't perfect and could use many tweaks and altered design, but your examples reek of butthurt while playing carelessly or raging)

Maybe you don't remember your first times. You can get used to driving a really bad car that handles like an ass and do less mistakes, doesn't mean that it's a good car.

i don't usually drive cars with autopilots, so i'm not quite sure what you're talking about

but seriously, what the fuck do you mean by "falling randomly"? i could understand if the game had many "fall through the geometry" bugs, but they're so rare they're barely worth mentioning (never happened to me, personally, but i've seen them). maybe i'd even grant you "fell from a ledge because lock on switched targets after i dude was taken care of", but that's pretty much it. unless "randomly" in your language means something else entirely

 

[aris]

apologism and fanboyism, I see nothing more. I love this game, but it has its faults, and you haven't been able to dispute the specific shortcomings in game design/game engine that I pointed out. Of course I had noticed that the character moves while executing the attack movement, that's not the problem, the problem is that the character fucking falls off while attacking, which could and should easily be avoided. And you have of course the great hollows, which is also objectively bad, but at least optional so I didn't complain about it.

My point stands, either get better at platforming or less platforming in dark souls 2.

 

[praetor]

apologism and fanboyism, I see nothing more. I love this game, but it has its faults, and you haven't been able to dispute the specific shortcomings in game design/game engine that I pointed out. Of course I had noticed that the character moves while executing the attack movement, that's not the problem, the problem is that the character fucking falls off while attacking, which could and should easily be avoided. And you have of course the great hollows, which is also objectively bad, but at least optional so I didn't complain about it.

My point stands, either get better at platforming or less platforming in dark souls 2.

almost everybody agrees TGH is pretty bad (for the reasons Cowboy Moment pointed out above). i haven't been able to dispute anything because not even you seem to know what the fuck you're talking about. you keep repeating "randomly fall from ledge blablah" yet you haven't given a single example of these "random falls" (like i said, i suspect "random" to you means something entirely different than what it really means). and avoiding falling while attacking is fucking trivial if you pay attention where you're standing, which attack you're performing, in which direction etc. there's even videos on YT of people performing frigging' acrobatics in Sen's on that last ledge between those 4(?) blades! stop trying to blame the game for your lack of skill/patience/whatever (and, again as Cowboy Moment pointed above, walking on a straight ledge is not fucking platforming)

 

[aris]

You could also have a game where you have to control your arms and legs independently as well as your ear flaps to keep you in balance, while you control your wrist and your elbow independently to hit the guy with different buttons, a little bit like KWOP. By the same arguments that you use, I can't say that this is bad game design, because I'm simply not good enough to play the game.

It's perfectly possible, hell, even probable that I'm not good enough to play dark souls effectively. But being good at a game is fucking useless unless you're a pro gamer, and it's especially useless in dark souls. What I'm telling you that the platforming sections (yes they are platforming sections, you aren't merely walking unhindered on a straight platform) severely reduced my enjoyment of the game: A game that was clearly built for ARPG combat with precise telegraphed attacks in mind, and not with platforming in mind. And enjoyment is ultimately the sole reason for why I play games. Of course that is subjective, which is true for pretty much all game related things. And I will say so until I go to my fucking grave.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

I'm not even sure what you're complaining about at this point... Is it supposed to be bad design that attacking with some weapons moves you forward? Combos would be really fucking awkward if it didn't, as successful attacks tend to knock enemies back a bit. Moving forward with an attack also forces you to be more careful, as if you miss or are blocked, you're more likely to get countered.

Frankly, the "not good enough" idea is very weird to me, since that section is honestly quite easy if you're careful and patient. Here's a dude who died over 500 times throughout his playthrough, and even he manages it with little difficulty:

Skip to around 3:40.

I'm fine with you not liking it, but bad design it is not. Archers are a pretty asshole move by the level designer, but it's still not bad, just difficult. Also, it's not platforming no matter how you try to spin it.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Two stupid questions: Is this on PC? Is Single play campaign any good?

yes on both accounts. get a gamepad (apparently it's playable with kb+m, but i wouldn't subject myself to that again) and durante's dsfix and you're good to go (the only other "mods" out there are a "mousefix", a "connectionfix" (to easily connect with bros on your friendslist) and texture mods)

And if looking for the single player campaign to stay single player, it's supposedly a bit more work for the PC version due to GFWL hijinks and needs you to disconnect your interwebs. In that sense it's easier to play on the console, since you just need to not log into PSN when playing (for example).

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Two stupid questions: Is this on PC? Is Single play campaign any good?

yes on both accounts. get a gamepad (apparently it's playable with kb+m, but i wouldn't subject myself to that again) and durante's dsfix and you're good to go (the only other "mods" out there are a "mousefix", a "connectionfix" (to easily connect with bros on your friendslist) and texture mods)

And if looking for the single player campaign to stay single player, it's supposedly a bit more work for the PC version due to GFWL hijinks and needs you to disconnect your interwebs. In that sense it's easier to play on the console, since you just need to not log into PSN when playing (for example).

Can't you just create an offline profile on GFWL?

I wouldn't do it anyway though, messages and bloodstains are fun, and the game is clearly balanced around them to some extent.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I wouldn't do it anyway though, messages and bloodstains are fun, and the game is clearly balanced around them to some extent.

Not worth having to deal with the mere existence of other people.

 

[Elwro]

I also randomly fell of the ledge to my death a lot of times while trekking back to firelink shrine through undeadburg while fighting the melee guy who for whatever stupid reason stands on a 40 cm wide ledge leading out of the tunnels, right outside the door yet right outside of sight.

Not 'randomly'. This is one of the places which is piss-easy when you realise you can do thrusting attacks, and can be infuriating otherwise.


One thing they really need to fix is fighting on slopes, though.

 

[Average Manatee]

gaudaost

Channel your inner DSP. Let it flow

Two stupid questions: Is this on PC? Is Single play campaign any good?

Yes. Most people will tell you to play with a controller, but with dsmfix it's easily playable with kb+m, especially if you're not used to controllers. The mouse controls still take some time getting used to, but it plays fine afterwards.

KB only is better than KB/M

 

[Commissar Draco]

Some people like to play their games in figurative undarwear; which means playing how you want, pause it and make a coffee or some pushups. Besides have enough of bydlo during work; playing games to exterminate them all relax.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Two stupid questions: Is this on PC? Is Single play campaign any good?

Yes. Most people will tell you to play with a controller, but with dsmfix it's easily playable with kb+m, especially if you're not used to controllers. The mouse controls still take some time getting used to, but it plays fine afterwards.

KB only is better than KB/M

I tried both and KB/M with dsmfix is much better. Unmodded, keyboard only is indeed superior.

 

[SerratedBiz]

Some people like to play their games in figurative undarwear; which means playing how you want, pause it and make a coffee or some pushups. Besides have enough of bydlo during work; playing games to exterminate them all relax.

I hear Farmville is mind-numbingly relaxing, try that.

 

[Heresiarch]

Some people like to play their games in figurative undarwear; which means playing how you want, pause it and make a coffee or some pushups. Besides have enough of bydlo during work; playing games to exterminate them all relax.

Three things:

1. It is possible and legit to play pure single player without being invaded and possibly trolled.

2. The game is absolutely worth it. Get a controller if you can, Souls games are praised for their precise, lethal combat, and you want a precise control method (controllers in this case) to enjoy that. KB/M is fine with the fix, but playing Souls with KB/M is like playing FPS with a controller.

3. You can't pause in this game. Although AFAIK for 200 hours of gameplay there is no random attacks if you're standing in a cleared, safe area so you can safely bang your GF or have dinner while leaving the game idle, you should note that you can't STOP KILLING ME BIG ASS DRAGON LET ME FIND MY HEALING POTIOARRRRGH

 

[Elwro]

If you want to take a break, you can always exit the game and when you come back later you start from exactly the same place. This game uses something which can almost be called "continuous save".