WingedKagouti on 29/5/2017 at 11:53
A lot of what makes Dark Souls hard is not the actual combat, but rather whether a player spots a certain trick, route, enemy, trap, whatever or not.
Personally I don't like the way combat works in Dark Souls, so I haven't bothered with the series beyond trying the first game for 3 or so hours.
Starker on 29/5/2017 at 12:12
Exactly. It's about not rushing into combat, waiting for openings, conserving your stamina, refraining from button mashing, etc. Basically unlearning everything you learned from action games. This is also why ranged combat (e.g. magic) breaks the game despite all the limits it has.
PigLick on 29/5/2017 at 12:45
Yeh I agree with Kagouti, I have tried to get into Dark Souls a few times, but its just not for me, and I dont think having an easy mode would make me want to play it anyway.
icemann on 29/5/2017 at 14:10
So stuff like quest location markers/way points technically make games easier. In FPS games I tend to switch them off, but in RPGs their kinda mandatory to have on.
Thirith on 29/5/2017 at 14:26
They're only mandatory because they're usually designed for. In Morrowind and games before it, back to the 2D Ultima games and probably beyond, you'd get characters describing how to get somewhere. Modern games tend to leave out the description and just plonk down a quest marker and perhaps even a dotted line on the minimap. For me it's less about difficulty and more about removing an actual gameplay element, because following the game's equivalent of GPS directions isn't a lesser challenge, it's no challenge at all.
Sad thing is that you could accommodate both the people who just want the quest markers and the ones who actually prefer following directions given to them in-character, but most games just leave out the latter.
PigLick on 29/5/2017 at 14:37
After recently playing a lot of SS1, I really appreciate the more old school approach of ingame directions and clues rather than just a mark saying "go here".
Gryzemuis on 29/5/2017 at 15:24
I guess this boils down to the different type of players.
It is 20+ years ago that Richard Bartle wrote his paper on different player-types.
(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_types)
But it still seems relevant.
Inline Image:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e4/Character_theory_chart.svgI don't care about the killing. I don't care about being the best. I don't want to compete with others. I don't care about challenge. I don't care about satisfaction.
I am an explorer. And if I play with other human beings, I want to play with them, not against them. It's no wonder I've played a lot of World of Warcraft. It has the biggest world to explore. And all the PvE is with players against computer-controlled monsters. So there is a little socializing in WoW. But not in Dark Souls. Besides an explorer, I am also a completionist and a hoarder. I like to collect stuff. Even before games had achievements in them. I used to collect mounts and pets, even before that became a thing. In Dark Souls I try to get a copy of every set and every weapon in the game. Just to have it. Not for my achievements on Steam.
I can see why killers and achievers want quest-markers and location-markers and easy quests. They want to maximize their "achievements per hour". I find that boring. They want to feel like they are making constant and fast progress. Socializers probably don't care about these things, they might play games with or without all the help.
As others have said, it is nice if games allow you to enable/disable all the help you can get. I prefer an NPC telling me where to go, over a quest-marker. I want to walk to places through the game-world. No fast-travel. Or if there is fast-travel, make it very limited. E.g. you can go to a horse-and-carriage, like in Skyrim, or a boat in WoW. And there fast-travel. Even the road-signs in The Witcher 3 are too much for me.
To make Dark Souls easier, I don't think quest-markers or other indicators will help much. If you want to make Dark Souls easier, you'll have to make it less frustrating for new players. Or have an easy mode that is less frustrating. A few things I can come up with quickly:
- don't make new players lose their souls when they die twice. give them multiple opportunities to get their souls back. maybe introduce the loss of souls half-way through the game. if the player makes it that far, he'll be ready for the extra challenge.
- don't make your health drop by 50% if you die often. if you die often, it's clear the player has trouble handling the game. making it harder isn't gonna make it more fun. DS3 was an improvement, because embered you have 33% more health. In DS2 a good player has 100% more health than a bad player.
- don't let other players invaded new players. they're having enough problems as it is. getting ganked every half hour isn't gonna make the game more fun. again, maybe introduce this feature half-way through the game.
- allow players in easy mode to summon NPCs or other players, even if they ran out of embers.
- the more players die, the worse they are, make it easier/cheaper to get help. Give them cheap embers. Give them unlimited and cheap golden pine resins, etc.
- when you play in easy mode, give the player a map at the start of the level. make it a vague map. and don't give the player's location when they are moving throughout the map. kinda like what the Thief games did. still give the player a feel of exploration, but don't tell them exactly where they are.
- give the player a way to find out more about mechanics, without reading wiki-pages on the web. E.g. when I fight a new boss, I want to know what his weaknesses are. Sometimes you can guess ("the ice-giant is weak to fire"). But often there's no logic. Using the proper weapon or spell can do wonders. Experienced players know this, and the game gets easier for them. New players are bitten.
catbarf on 29/5/2017 at 15:46
Quote Posted by Starker
Dark Souls has so many things built in the game to help players that I don't see how making it any easier would even work -- the game is already balanced to the breaking point, as can be seen if you overlevel or get a weapon that's too good or use magic. It's so easy to cheese Dark Souls it's not even funny.
The problem is that a lot of these options to make the game easier are hidden away behind exploration, so maybe what the game really needs is a quest arrow that shows you where all the shortcuts and good equipment are? Or better yet, maybe there could be an autoplay option that plays the game for you.
Seriously, though, the game is not that hard. Really. If you don't rush into things, take your time to explore and work out the game mechanics, you can beat most non-optional enemies one on one with ease. The only real exception to this is some of the boss battles and a few tricky bottlenecks and you can get help for a lot of the boss battles.
Would an easy mode ruin Dark Souls? No. Not any more than god mode ruins Doom or savescumming ruins Nethack. But Dark Souls on easy mode would hardly be Dark Souls any more than Doom on god mode is Doom.
I haven't yet played any of the Souls games, but I've been playing a Soulslike (The Surge) and I'm starting to understand why the 'tough as nails' label is a bit misleading. It's tough in that the enemies are capable of killing you very quickly, and the boss fights are tough, and you absolutely will die a lot.
But the game is designed around you dying. It doesn't just revert you to the last checkpoint until you get it right, losing all your progress; it gives you the opportunity to return to where you died and recover your accrued resources. And more importantly, everything is designed around being predictable. All the enemy attacks and boss moves are telegraphed in advance, enemy placements are fixed, and you have a number of block and dodge mechanics to avoid damage. Once you learn that the guy holding up both arms means he's about to do an overhead swipe so duck and then counter for an instakill, it becomes almost easy.
So when the core gameplay loop of the game is 'die, learn, overcome', making it easier would basically be bypassing the gameplay entirely, like making a puzzle game where the solution is spelled out. And then what's the point?
Yakoob on 29/5/2017 at 15:52
Gryz, that is a good point and it leads to the follow up question: "ruin" a game for whom?
The answer is multi-dimensional. For developers, it most likely benefits them by inviting the players. For casual and lower-end gamers, it is also great, as it allows them to play a game they might not otherwise. Hardcore gamers are only affected IF the devs base the design around using the easy mode (i.e. lacking location info since you have quest markers).
However, there is an argument to be made the easy mode has long term repercussions by gradually promoting the simplification of games to appeal to ever broader audiences. The whole development process of Bioshock is a quintessential example, and the "Press F to Pay Respects" joke the epitome of the potential problem.
For me? I like a challenge, but welcome the crutches. I played Bioshock 2 relying heavily on the quest arrow, because I wasn't in the mood for location-hunting, just taking my mind off of shooting some splicers. There is a place for complex, brainy games, as much as dumb, relaxing entertainment
Quote Posted by Thirith
following the game's equivalent of GPS directions isn't a lesser challenge, it's no challenge at all.
True, but it's a very particular type of challenge not everyone wants. As in my example above, I wanted the challenge of fighting enemies and strategizing combat, not navigating a maze.
Thirith on 29/5/2017 at 17:06
Quote Posted by Yakoob
True, but it's a very particular type of challenge not everyone wants. As in my example above, I wanted the challenge of fighting enemies and strategizing combat, not navigating a maze.
Sure, but that's my point: it shouldn't have to be an either/or situation. They're writing and recording dialogue for the character anyway, does it cost that much more to add a few lines that include actual description of how to get to a place? Perhaps I underestimate how much this does add to development costs, but other than that, you could have in-game directions and instructions that can be followed *and* have quest markers. What has happened, though, is that they've removed the former and only offer the latter in most games, and in RPGs especially that's something I genuinely miss.
