it was a simpler time and I miss it
Dark Souls is hard exactly once, on your first playthroughAfterwards you know to abuse poise or just circlestrafe enemies and it's a cakewalk
>>734967747Or, if you played Demon's Souls, it was hard zero times since poise effectively turns off the game and ranged is so much better
>>734967747If you don't parry in Ds1 especially you didn't beat the game.
>>734968283Yeah of course, it's the same way that DaS2 is sleepwalk tier for anyone who played 1 before
>>734967747>videogames are hard exactly once, on your first playthrough>Afterwards you know the mechanics to a tee and it's a cakewalk.Uhh ok?
>>734968436Real difficulty doesn't disappear on repeat playthroughs, zoomie
>>734968376All I remember about playing DS2 was wondering why it was so ugly and the animations were so bad.
>>734968669I can't think of a single game that doesn't get way easier after a playthrough.
>>734968975Pong
>>734968289Not him, I was a shield-nigger in DS1.In DS2 I refused to use shields and armor all together.
>>734968669It does if you know what you're doing.You'd know this if you ever tried to 1cc an arcade game.
>>734969356So what you're saying is the game doesn't immediately become easy after the first playthrough and instead it requires many attempts for mastery? Thanks for agreeing with me :)
>>734967747And that's a good thing.
>>734968669The only way for that to be true is if the game both relies on rapid reflexes and randomization at the same time. Because otherwise memorization and muscle memory solves the first, and acquired skill solves the latter. So like F-Zero could be hard forever, if the course was randomly generated ahead of you with lots of obstacles.
>>734969551It's pretty genius game design how enemies just seem scary but can be completely trivialized once you know your shit
>>734969523You didn't say that
>>734969614I agree. Plus there are multiple ways to fuck most enemies which gives it a lot of replayability.
>>734969620>"real difficulty doesn't appear on repeat playthroughs">AKCHUALLY IT TAKES DOZENS OF HOURS TO 1cc A SHMUP SO THERESorry that you didn't realize you agreed with me :( Try not being contrarian for no reason next time
>>734969741Can you no-hit Dark Souls?
>>734968436fags yap nonsense to feel smart - you haven't noticed before? But that's a whole different discussion about failed normies larping as robots
I still die in Sen's Fortress to the Titanite Demons because of their shitboxes. I've played Dark Souls two dozen times to completion.
>>734969824The fuck do challenge runs have to do with anything? You're wildly fishing for shit to disagree with, no more (you)sThanks once more for agreeing with me
>>734969946>cumsession assepted
>>734969946I'm a different Anon.1ccs of hard shmups are equivalent in difficulty to no-hitting games like Dark Souls.
>>734970049Another equivalent would be S ranking everything in a Devil May Cry game on Dante Must Die difficulty. What I'm saying is that a 1cc is a challenge run, you dipshit.
>>734969258It gets easier.
>dark souls is easy bro you just pick up this sick weapon behind a wall behind a waterfall in a part of the game you never need to go to after running this specific questline with 4 stepsThese games are dead.Any identity or any contribution they ever had to the world of video games has been completely forgotten.Zoomers "play" these games by watching an elaborate walkthrough that lasts 3 hours and another 3 hour VaatiVidya video where he explains how literally everything works in the world to you.You know this game is old and quaint because you wander around an empty world and there isn't a 50 foot tall orc demon doing backflips.I legitimately hate nusouls. The term is "slop".
>>734971312why does your enjoyment of games hinge on not playing games, but only on how imaginary people who don't exist play games?Just kill yourself now, it's not going to get better.
>>734971312I don't even know what are you talking about at his point.Are you more drunk than me or what?
>>734968669The only type of difficulty that would not is either complete randomization, or enemies getting obscene levels of power scaling every time you boot up the game whether it is NG+ or not. Neither of those are "real" difficulty, in fact they are quite artificial.If a game doesn't get easier after you beat it then you have a learning disability.
>>734971312>Any identity or any contribution they ever had to the world of video games has been completely forgotten.They are the most discussed games on /v/, so this is a retarded take.
>>734971312Do you believe that Dark Souls' contribution to the world of gaming was being a mystery box for players to discover things in, and the overdocumentation of the game ruined any of its virtues?
>>734972752fag
>>734968436cuphead is still hard after you beat it
>>734967747that's why we need to go back to new level designs and less rollslop bosses
>>734974497If you finish cuphead and you aren't significantly better at the game than you were when you started, then you have severe brain problems.
>>734972752I very much believe that yes.You're given a dying civilization full of mysteries and things that make no sense with an exponential to the exponential number of ways to play it. The Dark Souls experience has been reduced down to watching a generic gaming video with a dubstep intro where xXz4nzibart_ecksXx explains how to find the coolest weapons and get OP in 40 minutes.I don't blame anyone for the internet existing. It just says volumes about how the demographic of these games is now, and the demographic is "everyone".The year is 2026. This now warrants explaining. Dark Souls where nothing is explained to you and nothing makes sense and it's not even clear that the creator knew exactly what was going on.These people have no idea what you're talking about when you say "these games are hard". Bro just go behind 2 illusory walls and find a hidden chest and take an item to an entirely different part of the game and then farm slugs for 20 minutes until another item drops and then get a sick boss weapon with 300% bleed damage.
>>734967747that sounds like good game design
>>734976680This meme has too much pointless flavor text.
>>734967692Shen fortress was my favorite part, and I actually wish the series had decided to lean much further into the trap-filled dungeon shtick.
It was never about the difficulty for me.
>>734977096wrong.
>>734976552it's literally random
>>734977985What is wrong?DS1 had very slow deliberate combat, more similar to monster hunter.Your stamina was limited, your inputs were buffered.ER has very fast combat and you can spam roll whole day.Size of the arena is irrelevant.
>>734978335you're a worthless retard
>>734977985>the gameplay is corny and not very well designed>objection: here's a big arena in an anime wallpaper with bosses doing triple backflipsUse your brain you fucking bonobo. There's no other response to this.
>>734967747Games are easier after you've already played them!? Color me shocked
>>734967747>Dark Souls is hard exactly once, on your first playthroughThis applies to basically every single hard game ever made, this not a profound insight about souls
Real funny how many zoomers there are who only play moviegames and think it's impossible to retain difficulty after 1 playthrough
>>734976616truth nuke
>>734978731Not him, I still find Contra to be hard as nails. Some games are simply made to steal all of your quarters.
Real funny how this one retarded anon can beat a game and not be any better at it than when he started
>>734978843>brags about still being bad at games he's beaten>brags about being 40+ on /v/Do you have a humiliation fetish?
>>734979147You have never played an NES game
>>734979212Answer the question, boomer
>>734978954No game will ever be as hard as your first time playing. Not Contra, not Castlevania or whatever the fuck. It can still be challenging but you'll always have knowledge of it that'll make things easier
>>734981087Sure, this is why I find the whole "trial and error" narrative to be retarded.To be alive is to learn.If you fail at that you will die.The patens will emerge, and you have to adapt or perish.
>>734968289I was once parried the Silver Knights in Anor Londo for 4 and a half hours to farm souls
>>734981087>as hard asThe assertion is that every game is difficult only once. Not "it gets slightly easier", but that all difficulty is 100% instantly gone as soon as you finish one playthrough
>2009>Sony shitting the bed uncontrollably with the PS3>Microsoft ruining gaming with microtransactions and dudebro bullshit>Nintendo only makes games for soccer moms now>out of nowhere a real fucking video game comes out (Demon's Souls)>is dropped by Sony>barely manages to find an English publisher because Atlus was publishing anything they could get their hands on at the time>has almost zero marketing>gains genuine cult following, popularity is almost entirely from word-of-mouth>sequel comes out a couple years later>is better in every way>the game is actually popular this time because Bamco had money to market it>the waggle/Kinect-only future is avoidedPeople underestimate just how fucking shitty games were around the time the Souls series started. Miyazaki unironically saved the entire industry and I'm tired of pretending he didn't.
>>734983892Bullshit, the Wii unironically had some of the most hardcore games that tested the players skill. Fromsoftware made fake hard that ruined the perception of truly difficult games.
>>734983892Gen Z doesn't know that boss fights in AAA games were literally considered corny and outdated until DS made them cool again.
>>734984053
>>734967747That's true for the other Souls games. Once you know what to look out for, the attacks done, and have a dominant strategy, it takes maybe 1-3 tries at best. Mostly 1, but there's always a chance you're half paying attention and die. Even Sekiro and Elden Ring are like this.
>>734984053>the Wii unironically had some of the most hardcore games that tested the players skillName 5. The Wii was a Wii Sports machine for 99% of the people who owned one and it was a horrible influence on the industry with everyone chasing the "wider audience".
>>734968289while I somewhat agree parrying comes back around to being too strong versus a lot of the game
>>734978380>Size of the arena is irrelevant.It's not the size you fucking retard.Did you really post all of that shit just to miss the point? Are you fucking genuinely thick?
>>734984176Ok:Muramasa the demon bladeRed steel 2Punch outSin and punishment 2Donkey Kong country returns Baroque (different from Saturn version)Fire emblemGalaxy 2 a lot of the timeSonic colorsZack and wikiTrauma teamMetroid prime 3Skyward sword (filtered millions) more than dark souls ever didSsbb single player challengesTons of unique horror gamesAnd that is off the top of my head, like the ps2 you have to look.
>>734984539All shit
>>734984557Ok, name the most hardcore games of the 7th gen. I know the souls games are there, what else?
>>734984308Faggot, having limited room to avoid attacks is relevant. If you can simply sprint away from the boss to avoid AoE it's not nearly as dangerous. Skip the retarded reddit spacing BTW.In many souls games you can simply side step to right to avoid 90% of attacks, but you need to learn the pattern. Stop acting like you are the big fish in a small pond.
>>734984539>MuramasaMediocre gameplay hard-carried by the art style, like most Vanillaware games>Red Steel 2Waggle shit>Punch OutCasual waggle shit>Sin and Punishment 2One of the only good games on the system, but also sold like absolute shit and is not indicative of the console or trajectory of the industry at the time>DKCRIt might be marginally harder than DKC2 and it's a solid enough game, but don't pretend any of these games are hard>BaroqueDecent>Fire EmblemDecent>Galaxy 2The Galaxy games nerfed the movement options to an insane degree, and the special stages in Sunshine were much more challenging>Sonic ColorsA 6/10 Sonic game only fondly remembered because it came out after a string of 3/10 Sonic games>Trauma TeamGreat game>Prime 3Worst Prime game>Skyward SwordOne of the worst games ever made and easily the worst Zelda game, also has no challenge whatsoever so I don't know why you'd even post it>SSBBRNG tripping invalidates any challenge the game might have>tons of unique horror gamesThat genre fell off a fucking cliff after the PS2, what are you talking about?
>>734967692>not getting sens fortress kino again because players complained it was too hard and not fun to die to traps.
>>734985007>red phantoms nerfed because too many people got tricked by the camouflage spell in Sen's Funhouse
>>734978380>Size of the arena is irrelevant.Nta.The size of the arena is very much relevant. How else you could witness the cinematic boss moves? God, I hate ER bosses so much.
>>734985158I'm drunk Anon, excuse my retarded ass.I meant the opposite of what I wrote.
>>734984906There were some creative horror games that fragile dreams and cursed mountain, along with unique silent hill games that deserve more credit.
>>734967692>You're just a guy, pick up your sword and shield and go kill zombies and demons>Flee from fire breathing dragon>Explore abandoned castle>Make your way through the dead skeleton catacombs>Reward from beating the boss is the big titties princess>No subversion, no modern audience appeal, just pure, unfiltered dark fantasyThey really don't make those anymore.
>>734984123ALL OF THE DAY BRO
>>734984709IT'S THE OBSTACLES IN THE ARENA AND THE DIMENSIONS OF THE ARENANOT THE SIZEFUCKINGRETARD
>>734967692Kind of have the itch to play. What build/weapon do I use? If it helps, most of my builds have been STR related.
>>734967692think im going to play it again, i think this time ill do an sl1 fist only by duping dragon stones and running straight to great hollow first thing and getting dragon form
>>734985957Do my first playthrough build, Greatshield + Halberd
>>734986034That does sound like fun, maybe I'll give that one a go.
>>734985862Hold on that thought, I'll grab another drink.But really you should stop with the paragraphs.
>>734967692it was a simpler time and I miss it
>>734968669>I liked the game>It's only hard your first time through though???are you stupid or just retarded
>>734971312Zweihander is right next to Firelink, though.
>>734986482|||WELCOME_TO_QUAKE_3_ARENA|||
>>734967692How do I get into this series? I have played DS1 and Bloodborne but just couldn't get into them, the games look amazing and have a great atmosphere but the game play seems like it was created for cucks who like to get fucked up and run over. >Omg, I love spending 8 hours trying to beat these bosses, man this boss fight and game design is so good. What am I missing?
>>734986482what the hell is that fov>32 players>instagib>q3dm17it was so stupid, but I miss it sometimes
>>734986969What you're missing is that some people actually enjoy spending 8 hours on a boss. If you can't get into it, you can't get into it.
>>734986969just get the big unga bunga weapon and wear heaviest armor while stacking health and the game is pretty easy
>>734976616The message system and co-op built into the game worked to deobfuscate the game in real time as you played. The mystery was always meant to be solved and it was meant to be solved alongside others, not by yourself.
>>734967692DS was the last good game, time for a replay
>>734977985No one likes the Moonlight Butterfly, no one likes the Capra Demon, people only like Gwyndolin because they imagine fucking him, Gargs and Taurus are good. The bosses that are good in Dark Souls, almost all use normal large arenas. Gwyn, Artorias, O&S, all use big boxes or circle arenas.
>>734990498watcha gonna use? i'm so burned out from all souls games. i remember telling myself when i was ateenager that i would play these games until i die but i actually can't see myself going back to any of them anymore
>>734985734OTHERGAME??
>>734986969Keep your weight low. You have different dodge rolls based on your weight limit. Take off and put armor on until you hit your limit for light rolling and then invest in Vitality and Endurance a lot in the early game to keep adding armor while maintaining that light roll. A light roll makes the game way more fast-paced and fun. But armor is also very strong so you have to level Endurance to wear as much of it as you can. The hardest boss for a newcomer is the Capra Demon. The trick to him is to accept that there is no trick and the camera will rape you every time and you just have to run to the right and then up the stairs and hope you can wrangle the camera enough to turn around and kill his annoying mobs. The second hardest comes much later and is basically a giant DPS check.
>>734990198It was a novel idea that was introduced in Demons' Souls and they added it because they were literally just throwing shit at the wall.It was meant to let people fuck with eachother equally as much as helping eachother and they were limited to extremely blunt and awkward communication. People wrote "try jumping" next to a cliff and you had no easy way of knowing if they were full of shit.1000 hours into the game after some close observation and playing with mechanics you figure out that it's technically possible to just drop from Firelink Shrine right into Blighttown.The game is extremely ambiguous and explains nothing to you except for a quick rundown on the bible in the intro. The game is enigmatic.Again, this apparently warrants explaining. This games and everything they ever meant have been completely lost to the sands of time.
>>734967692Why would you miss dogshit games?Fromsoft has only ever made one good game
>>734981404thats honestly the best way to parry. in the newer games you see so many more moves with so many different timings its rough to use em and make it matter
>>734968920damn. You shoulda beat it. bonfire ascetics are the best idea they ever had and they got rid of em. Also having loot you can only get on higher bonfires
>>734968920ds2 looks turbo ugly with dogshit animations and it feels floaty as fuck but everything else about it is really fun. tons of weapons, armors, enemies, spells, rings, consumables, new mechanics. it's like somehow the best and worst souls game
>>734968289Parrying is braindead easy in DS1 and trivializes most encounters cause most attacks are very slow and predictable and the parry window is like 10 frames and if you're somehow off by only a few frames you take only half the damage you would have and get the parry anyways.
>>734971312Reminder that if your first playthrough of every game isn't completely blind, you have never experienced the game.
>>734993574this your game?
>>734976680It hurts how hilariously accurate this is.
It was indeed a simpler time
>>734967692you know you can just...turn on the game...and replay it?
>>734993574clangclang clangBUNG
>>734967747or you get lucky and have the black knight halberd drop and let that single-handedly carry you through the game
Still playing it, never gonna stop
>>734994149kek don't try to pretend like Iishin isn't a top 5 all time boss fightRadahn is close though tbhfam
>>734994259Is it really that much better than the Zweihander?
>>734967692why did he have a fortress built with giant swinging axe blades from the ceiling? what is the purpose of the castle being built this way huh
>>734986969>What am I missing?Getting good.Unironically, anon. You can do it, I believe in you. Stop looking for easy answers and go try again. You will be hooked soon enough.
>>734977985if anything the older souls games made much more use of the arena as a hazard of its own which dictated a lot of the fight design. Like fighting Capra demon in a tiny ass room with a bunch of dogs would be way easier if you instead fought him in a wide open circular arena
>>734994385dont think about it, it just does ok!?
>>734994380I actually prefer the zwei because of constant staggers
>>734994380for me it absolutely is, but both weapons are goated and more than enough to get you through the game
>>734994385>>734994530isn't this an obstacle course or some shit for ppl to get into anor londo
>>734994616yes
>>734994562It’s such a shame how it’s a direct downgrade of the guts sword in Elden Ring. That’s part of the reason I rage quit my first run of ER I wanted big Zweihander bonks and I wasn’t getting them.
>>734994616More specifically it was a trail chamber to become a silver knight. That’s why there’s silver knight armor everywhere.
>>734967747So get a lobotomy retard.
>>734994695: (what the fuck
>>734994762I love the zwei in ER. Works surprisingly well on a quality or dex build, throw an off-stoc or offhand whip and you can handle pretty much everything
>>734994695I’m a retard and I could never consistently do kicks or jump attacks in Dark Souls. Please tell me I’m not alone in this.
>>734995027just takes a bit of practice, specifically kicking Lautrec off Firelink Shrine
>>734995027I was like that for a while, but eventually I wanted to learn how to do them for pvp so I had to learn. Also you can set up autohotkey to kick or jump attack for you.
>onlyafro is trans nowLeveling dex, not even once.
>>734986969You wanna know how you REALLY enjoy the Souls Series? How you actually enjoy them?Stop playing them at 30fps.Playing these games at a stable 60 seriously enhances every bit of enjoyment to be extracted.
>>734967692It was a short-lived renaissance
>>734995003Maybe I’ll boot up that old save. I still need to do a frenzied flame run maybe I’ll do it on that one because I gave Boc a larval tear without realizing that would fuck him up. Isn’t the meta just spamming those heavy thrusting attacks?
>>734995229Not surprising. The only time I ever saw him stream he was dressed up as Haruhi
>>734995501if you play on PC, I'd check out some of those ER overhaul mods. I've been playing through ER Reforged for the past few weeks, and genuinely having a blast
>>734971312>dark souls is easy bro you just pick up this sick weapon behind a wall behind a waterfall in a part of the game you never need to go to after running this specific questline with 4 stepsNice requote from Zero Punctuation
>>734995229please say sike
>>734995582>MMOshitNo thanks, the second something mentions [PROPERNOUN]forging my eyes glaze over and my brain switches off from sheer disinterest.
>>734995582Well I still don’t feel like I’ve gotten the full vanilla experience yet and I don’t download mods until I have. I’ve done a str/fai run a magic run and now I’m doing a dex/arc run. I’d still like to do a pure faith run or a dex/fai run where I use more incantations than buffs and I want a run where I fully commit to the drake warrior thing, maybe that could be one run
>>734995791that's fair, more than enough content to do all that in the vanilla game
>>734995714Sike. I checked his stream and he looks like a dude.https://www.twitch.tv/onlyafroFor now
>>734995027jump attacks are very useful to learn but i have never really needed a kick. maybe it's useful vs shield guys but it's often more plausible to knock on the shield to bait a parry
>>734996259I use kicks to stagger enemies so they're vulnerable to slow attacks, like with a UGS or somethng.
>>734976616>with an exponential to the exponential number of ways to play itmeleemagicpyromancybow and arrow (?)all of them with light load/heavy loaddid I miss some weird mechanic that makes this game incredibly diverse or something? I was thinking on boss order but that doesn't really change the gameplay in a significant way
>>734996885Grok is this realIs this a joke. I legitimately can't tellYes you can hack, stab, slash or alakazam your way through thousands of enemies.The part that made Dark Souls compelling was never really the cool swords but wandering around in a dimly lit swamp for hours and finding a hidden pathway leading to a well that you can jump down and find a hidden vendor that gives you a ring that lets you be invisible fuck itSomeone tell me if this is actually a post that was made on /v/ in 2026 or if I'm dreaming.These games are dead. The primary fanbase is 13 year olds. Everyone that used to be on /v/ has either killed themselves or is old enough to have kids and has no time for video games anyway.
>>734967747geez, you really got them coping
>>734997803So you concede that this game does not have that many ways to be played, okay
Do people seriously require a whole playthrough to figure out that the AI in this game is worse than in Quake 1 and that you can just circlestrafe around 99% of everything? Really?
>>734995027It's pretty common. And then they made it even MORE difficult from DS2 onwards.
>>734997928I... no. You have an inability to read.Even going into the domain of the weapons. The combat system is very deep. There are one handed, two handed, two handed weapons you can one hand, slash, thrust, windup and drop attacks, hammers, maces, infused weapons, special boss weapons and weapons that are both a consumable and a melee. And a thousand other combinations of the aforementioned.You take this and boil it down to "melee".At least Call of Duty fans understand terms like "ADS" and stopping power. They don't classify every shotgun as "shotgun".You sicken me.I can't just say the same thing forever because I'm not going to. These games are a joke.Die a hero and make your last instalment in 2016 before moving onto other projects or live long enough to see yourself become this plebian entertainment.
>>734998228I mean they’re both super easy in Elden Ring, one is a skill and the jump button makes the other simple.
>>734968669massive retard
>>734984176>>734984539I'll add on Mad WorldDe Blob 1+2Sonic and the Secret Rings + Black KnightMario Striker's ChargedNo More Heros 1+2Monster Hunter Tri (because sony called it gay cringe fag shit due to 'being to cartoony in design. just to shit on the original snoy nigger. and snoys still haven't recovered from losing mon hun tri, 4, or gens)The Wii had a fuck ton of real games for core gamers.This idea it was just some 'nothing wagglin' console is pure historical revisionism and lies.
>>734984557>>734984906>...uhhh.....>hurf def dusnt cuntah.Well there it isthe only excuse snoy's have had for fucking 10 years now. Boring.
>>734998259I love the first three entries, but the combat hsa never been "very deep". It is as "standard" at they come, fucking Monster Hunter or Mountain Blade Warband had deeper combat.
>>734986969>What am I missing?To become a FAT boy.
>>734999751The first time I fought Artorias I didn’t know you could interrupt his power up. So I literally beat him at max power.
>>734981413And it isn't true for Dark Souls either. I have many playthroughs of DaS and they were all somewhat challenging. Difficulty was not 100% instantly gone as soon as I finished one playthrough
>>734977096Sweetie, you ruined it.
>>734967692AND MY DRAKE SWORDMY DRAKE SWORDCOULDN'T CUT CREPES HERE
>>734990837First of all, fuck you, I loved the Capra Demon fight. Figuring out how to use the environment to not get crowded in a split second between dodging the dogs and demon was fun. Secondly, the point was to have gameplay diversity. To keep boss fights feeling fresh and different from each other. To feel like you're ACTUALLY trespassing on a creature's lair and have to fight him in its element, like invading some Cyclops' cave or the Minotaur's labyrinth. This gave every boss fight its own identity.Elden Ring fights always feel like you're just entering the coliseum for a 1vs1 duel instead, which WAS the point of Artorias and people loved it, but only because it was in the backdrop of every other boss fight in the game, just a honorable skill based duel between two knights, as opposed to the monsters trying to exterminate you in harsh environments so far. The lesson to take from that shouldn't have been "we must make every fight like Artorias" but rather that you can further elevate a fight like Artorias' by having non-Artorias fights. I remember every single boss fight in Dark Souls, especially Capra Demon and Moonlight Butterfly a LOT more clearly than I remember the Elden Ring boss fights, despite doing the former ones 15 years ago, and the latter some 4 years ago - because they were more distinctive from each other regardless of their "epic duel" element.
>>735000739In a game with a functional camera system you'd have some grounds to stand on for the Capra Demon as a reaction test. But instead the fight is 50% against his dogs and 50% against the camera and is 100% bad. It just doesn't work well. Gameplay diversity is what you chase when you don't have self-confidence in your core systems. Gimmick fights are what you make when you think basic combat isn't enough to hold player attention, so you have to add novelty to keep attention. The thing is, when done right, you don't need those gimmicks. The best Monster Hunter bosses are just straight up normal hunts against really powerful enemies, the gimmick ones like Zorah Magdaros are universally resented. Bosses with obvious round and flat arenas like Morgott and Messmer don't need any fluff to be fun to fight over and over again. They have perfect movesets and interact well with the player's abilities and are just good fights that people will remember forever. You can even integrate gimmicks into this, while still maintaining the basic formula. For example, Starscourge Radahn and the summons.A fight like the Moonlight Butterfly will never be fun because it just basically doesn't intergrate with any of the bits of Dark Souls that are actually fun. It is a pure gimmick that no one wants to do a second time. Its replacement in Nightreign was a straight upgrade.
>>735001449you sound boring
>>735001639Defending lame fights like Gwyndolin's because they're 'unique' is whats boring. Trusting in game mechanics is what makes for interesting experiences. Not relying on gimmicks.
>>734993574You still don't fit in.
>>735001449Anon, can you not realize after reading your own post that you're just a specific type of autist who enjoys one specific type of gameplay? The kind where everything is accounted for and there's no foreign elements interfering? I'm a different kind of autist, I like occasional gimmick fights, I like being forced to adapt on the moment or think outside the box, having the rug pulled out of me, being thrown in a hostile environment, etc. You sound like the kind of player who picks a standard but "top tier" fighting game character and spend all his time perfecting his basic moves and combos, (basically Fox only 1vs1 Final Destination meme) while I prefer picking a low tier gimmick character and coming up with new, unorthodox winning formulas, even if I lose more on average.You like consistent input in = input out with no interference or need to adapt to wild cards, like Monster Hunter or even DMC. Rejoice, the series went exactly in that direction. You got your Elden Ring, you got your 1 vs 1 arena fights. This thread is just for the rest of us who actually enjoyed what Dark Souls 1 was about and how the "level design" was deeply integrated in the boss fight, and the two weren't separate and made in parallel and then brought together. There's no need for a conversation since history already happened. I'm just making it known that what you consider to be the only "objectively correct way to design a game" is not as objectively correct as you think.Also Moonlight Butterfly was plenty enjoyable of a fight. Suddenly this huge glowy creature appears, serene music starts playing, you have no idea what it's going to do. Then it starts shooting light darts, do you use ranged weapons, do you wait? Etc.You're looking at it through the perspective of "a boss fight is only fun if it provides the exact same skill and reflex test experience on every replay!".You probably don't like puzzle games because they're "only hard on the first play-through".
>>734968669Dark Souls is more difficult on NG+6 though.
>>734995003ER loves heavy weapons in general, constant stance breaking trivializes just about every regular enemy and melts most bosses.
>>734997928Every weapon with a different moveset is another way to play the game. And you can mix and match at will. You can even switch things up from stage to stage.You also forgot miracles and dung pies/poison throwing knives.
>>734986969The first time I played any of these was DS (PtDE). I didn't know anything, was just winging it, got completely fucked over already in Undead Burg, and after countless frustrating deaths I just gave up. But people kept talking about the games so a year later I tried again. For real this time, with determination, taking it slow, and also trying to immerse myself in the lore tidbits and descriptions. I think I lucked out with a halberd or pike drop and the increased weapon range helped in the beginning when trying to learn the ropes, then at some point it clicked and I've played all of them now.Obviously it's not going to be for everyone, but I think the first major mistake is trying to get into them half-heartedly.
>>734967692I hate that From Software are the only ones capable of making Souls games but they refuse to make ones like Dark Souls 1, 2, and Bloodborne (never finished DeS). Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring stopped caring about level design the same way, and it's not the worst thing in the world, but it's obviously not nearly as considered. Elden Ring has no "Blighttown", as in no early area everybody gets stuck on. Elden Ring has no midgame difficult boss like O&S, Pontiff Sulyvahn. It doesn't have a big ol poison area where you burn down a windmill to drain the poison, or otherwise other environmental interactions.
>>734967692I wish From hadn't drank the cool-juice and listened to reddit and kept the same pace and style. I still love to play DS1 compared to anything after 3.1 and 2 are the only ones I got all achievements
>>735002529I like a lot of games of many genres. Souls gameplay is one of many types that I enjoy. But because I enjoy it, I know that it can be good and stand alone and for itself. I don't want Total War or DOOM to play like Dark Souls. But I do want Dark Souls to play like Dark Souls because I like Dark Souls. The problem with gimmicks is that they take away from what makes Dark Souls fun: 1.) the exploration, 2.) the combat. Given that only like one or two boss arenas in any Souls game have anything to find in them, the first is basically moot for the most part. So the second is what we're looking at being put to the test. But what gimmick fights do, is take away from that combat experience that is such a good part of these games. It is just fun to actually fight things in Dark Souls. The animations are well made, and your character has a good sense of physics to them and the enemies tend to react well to attacks depending on their weight, etc. Most players will choose to fight enemies that aren't strictly necessary to beat to progress, because they enjoy the combat.It would be fun to fight a boss like Gwyn even in a blank void because he is simply a well-designed boss with a good moveset. He can be beat in a variety of ways with many different builds and acts as a great canvas for player expression. Something like the Moonlight Butterfly just ain't got the juice. Side-straffing projectiles until it lands for no reason so you can whack it in the head just isn't interesting in the same way or at all. There's no energy to the fight. You can do ethereal and threatening at the same time. But here you just don't have that sense of danger. Now, you can have danger, and still have a bad fight. The Capra Demon is a bad fight because it clearly wasn't playtested properly because it doesn't fit the game's mechanics. The camera can't handle the tight walls, so the fight doesn't function right. The gimmick sabotaged the fight.
>>734967692Who is this sen and why does he fortress.
>>734967692Man this game will always be special just like DeS. Popularity among normalfags slowly killed the series.
>>735003001The Moonlight Butterfly fight is a massive lesson in having a back-up projectile weapon for certain occasions, and for rewarding players who do have projectile weapons. I think that's worthwhile in a video game, especially as an earlier boss for most playthroughs.
>>734993574>I don't like souls gameyeah okay why are you telling us this?
>>735003001>But I do want Dark Souls to play like Dark Souls because I like Dark Souls.Clearly you do not. Or rather you liked specific aspects of Dark Souls but not the whole package together, and Miyazaki certainly catered to you later.You mention the gimmick of the boss fight taking away from the "combat" because "the combat is the point of it" and what's where you're wrong. I did not use Cyclops and Minotaur as an analogy in my previous post for nothing. Did you not play Demon Souls? Boss fights were designed to feel like you are actually a hero fighting a legendary monster, like Odysseus, Perseus and whatnot. The fights were not a pure test of combat reflex, but also a test of intuition, wit, and making use of the environment. Because THAT'S how the heroes of legends defeated the monsters, with wit as well, not just perfect martial prowess. The boss fights were semi-puzzles of sorts, integrated in the level design. (hence fights like the Storm King using the Storm Ruler)You enjoy the combat and I agree it's great. That's why you can use it on the dozens of the enemies in the game. The game even lets you use it on other players. But when you make every boss the same 1vs1 test of reflexes and learning attack patterns, the fights lose identity, and to people like me they turn dreadfully boring. I enjoyed the King Allant fight and I enjoyed Artorias fight but I don't want an entire game with King Allants and Artoriases. And of course, the Capra Demon could have "been better", it was clunky because the game itself was still clunky. But the idea was "make it out from a very tight, narrow places with aggressive enemies". Like accidentally finding yourself in a snake nest. Again I'm not getting through you. You clearly like this aspect of Dark Souls and think this is what Dark Souls is supposed to be. It's like powergamers in D&D games who just want to minmax stats and win combat encounters, without actually caring about the roleplay elements of the D&D game.
>>735003001>Capra Demon is a bad fightThis sentiment is the reason why Elden Ring bosses are so bland and unremarkable. You want "honest" boss fights, which are fine by themselves but the way you beat them is the same every time: learn their combos, punish after rolling/blocking in a comfortably spacious arena.Capra Demon is one of the best fights because it fucks you up. Dogs cancel your slow attack animations, you have to frantically run around them and find an opening to kill the dogs, then you have to manoeuvre in this cramped room and maybe use the awkward staircase to your advantage fighting the actual boss. There's no other boss fight in the series like this and I remembered it forever. Same with Taurus Demon who you have to fight on a narrow platform (you can also climb up the castle and try a jumping attack). Or Maiden Astrea who you don't even have to kill, or even Flexile Sentry from DS2 who you have to kill fast because of rising water levels. These are gimmicks done right. Four Kings fuck up your space perception, also very cool boss. And then there's my boy True Allant who fucks up all your expectations about how final bosses work in games.
>>735003904Heroes also said "knuck if you buck" and beat the hell out of monsters with their bare hands, Beowulf vs Grendel, as an example. But that is just joking around. See, for Demon's Souls, that was a game that was all about Fromsoft relearning how to make a medieval fantasy action RPG. It'd been several years since the last Kings Field and the KF4 was an extremely barebones game from a mechanical perspective. It didn't really even have bosses or grand tests of skill in the conventional sense, only the ending does something like that by being a poorly designed gauntlet of too many enemies. So when they came to Demon's Souls, there was not a lot of institutional knowledge at Fromsoft on how to actually make the game. So yeah, the bosses mostly suck. But it was a cheap game made by people who were learning on the job. Its like saying that the dumb healing mechanics or oddities like inventory carry weight were major parts of the vision and not just lessons that Fromsoft learned not to repeat (until Blood-it's actually mid-borne). But in there, we already saw the good ideas start to come through, Old Hero, Flamelurker, Penetrator, and Allant are all good duels in mostly open arenas. Yeah, you got the fucking Armored Spider to deal with, but you also have bosses that are just good combat tests. I get your point, but to me I see it as just immaturity in the game series' identity and design. I don't see those fights as communicating some greater message. I see them as just being Fromsoft trying a bunch of things while they were still unsure of the merits of the systems they had designed and seeing what worked and what didn't on the fly. Over time they learned that they could rely on the mechanical systems that they built up and not have to throw in arena or boss function gimmicks to make memorable encounters.
>>734967692god I miss invading people in Sen's Funhouse
>>734967692What exactly is preventing you from playing this again??People complaining that games haven't been good since "this" and "that" and that they'll never get to do it again. You can just replay it, you can continue playing the games you have for the rest of your life, new shitty games doesn't take away from that.
>>735004573NOOOOOOOO I NEED THE CHILDLIKE WONDER NOOOOO
>>735004717Yes.
>>735004573>againThere's your answer in a word. It's never going to be the same as going in blind to explore a FromSoft world.
>>734971312It's dead due to how players play games (as you've described). And it's dead from an artist/developer stand-point as From themselves have lost their soul. The soul they've had and curated for many, many years prior to DS1. Then, after the success of DS1, they lost it all and never recovered it. From needed to have stayed a small-time dev' as they were prior to DS1. DS1 being so big killed them (ironic and sick fate).What kills me is how no other remotely modern/current dev/studio are like old-From, either. In terms of general soul, atmosphere, detail, leaving the player to find shit themselves, having minimal GUI, minimal music (mostly ambiance etc). I've never considered myself much of a Fromfag (but I do appreciate their old games), but DeS and DS1 are special. And this isn't a "hey bro don't look at guides!" thing, it's a back-and-forth of feedback between the devs and players. From massively shifted post-DS1 and never returned. It's too appealing to be like everyone else now where all you do is just focus on half-assed combat and even worse, the terrible boss design (see: ER) as the vocal knobheads are all about "muh difficulty!". It's perverted and soulless from top to bottom, like the rest of this world and its societies.
>>735004246All of the merits that you claim the Capra Demon has, are countered by the basic playtesting issue that the camera is set too far back from the player to see properly when having to turn in the tight arena because of how camera rebounding works. And even if you turn it off, you get occlusion from things like the vines or trees. The issue isn't being jumped, the issue is that the game doesn't properly do things like turn walls transparent as your camera swings into them. This would have been something that playtesting would have solved. Environmental objects going transparent when your camera clips into them is something most good action games do that DS1 misses. In a vacuum the fight is fine, even good in a basic sense of calling for quick thinking over slow planning. In game the fight is bad because the mechanics of the game don't let it be good. You have to learn to fight against the controls, rather than with them. I'm not a person that is bitter about being walled by the boss, it took me only about 4-5 tries my first run through of Dark Souls. I just don't like the fight because the devs simply didn't learn enough from other games. Elden Ring has its own examples of annoying ganks set in a shoebox. Something like the dual pumpkin head dungeon is just absolute cancer on the level par when you'll first encounter it. Where you have to fight two tanky and aggressive enemies with built in shields covering their main lock on zone in a tiny area. But at least that one has a functional camera because the arena is sized just enough for it to work properly, unlike the Capra Demon fight. It's still a bad fight because it's lazy, but mechanically it is better than the Capra Demon fight. The Taurus Demon fight was good. Margit's biggest flaw is that a clever player can't copy what they used to with the Taurus Demon and knock him off the cliff.
>>734977985Fantastic (albeit brief) highlight on how older games utilised environments, where new games do not. It's the same outside of boss/arenas, too. The world felt hostile and respected the player while demanding respect. Now? Eh just Torrent through it all and there's a grace every step of the way! :)Sad!
>>735005018The problem is that with the design of 1, it becames trivially easy if you played it before, as we discussed ITT. That's a big part of what killed 2, it was just too easy. They tried to alleviate that by spamming enemies everywhere but players didn't like itSo, to keep the difficulty up for veteran players, they made bosses faster and faster
>>735004398>Beowulf vs Grendel, as an example. Hey that was only one boss fight, meanwhile the Dragon fight relied on the anti-flame shield gimmick. >but to me I see it as just immaturity in the game series' identity and design. I don't see those fights as communicating some greater message.Well I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then. It's not about some "greater message". It's about evoking certain feelings and experiences, as well as rewarding certain kinds of players, like that anon said about players who saved up throwing weapons being advantaged in the Butterfly fight. It makes the game feel more like an adventure.1vs1 arena duels evoke exactly one type of experience and reward one type of players. But they're the majority, hence why Dark Souls 3 was pushed in that direction leading to Elden Ring. This is very much the same path that World of Warcraft (and MMOs in general) took with their Raid design but I digress. >Over time they learned Over time they got lazy. It's infinitely easier to put someone in charge of making a boss fight in a void, completely disconnected from the level design, as well as not even trying something fresh and different like Old Monk or Looking Glass Knight. You just give it some 10 hit combo and a second phase or something and people clamor "my god FROM did it again this is PEAK".
>>735005085>The problem is that with the design of 1, it becames trivially easy if you played it beforeThat's NOT a problem. Just make a new game in the same style. Not everything needs to be replayed over and over again. (Plenty of people replay Dark Souls anyway despite it being "easier on a second play-through".)
>>735005243You misunderstand, anon. It's not about replaying the game, it's about the new game being incredibly easy. Dark Souls 2 had that exact problem, I beat most bosses first try because I knew to just hug and circlestrafe them
>>734994050This is how I always approach them and couldn't imagine doing it any other way, the exploration and uncertainty is a huge part of it. I try to discover as much as I can on my own, beat the game, and only them go to check the guides to see what I missed. If you had some friends that played it at the same time, where you could maybe share little bits of tips or info or secrets, I could see that, but outright going to a walkthrough immediately sucks all the joy out of a game for me.
>>735005018>From massively shifted post-DS1>after the success of DS1holy shit, that's just patheticEntire das was just soulless ripoff of des, but worse in every fucking aspect because they tried to aim for the "le hardcore" casual market
>>735005243And with Souls games being pretty sandboxy(esque?) in nature, the difficulty is primarily actually in the hands of the player, not the developer. You have so many ways to tune the difficulty how you like it (within reason). See the many challenges/self-imposed rules. I do this to other games and as far as I can remember, always have, it's great.>>735005354Not sure what this means. rather poorly made post, but, yes, the whole "dude difficult!" and the success alongside it has been a disaster.
Have any of the Souls games had a NG+ that mixed up some of the enemy/trap elements/abilities to fuck with your muscle memory?
>>735006581DS2. You could even use an item to NG+ specific areas.
>>735006581NoClosest things are games with least Miyazaki involvement, des and it's world tendenciesAnd das2, but it only added new enemies and invasions(+spider boss ambushes you long before her zone)
>>735006581DS2 NG+ adds a bunch of additional enemies to pretty much every zone, a couple boss fights are a little different and there's a couple encounters that are completely new. But there's just for NG+1, every NG+ cycle after that one will be the same as NG+1.
>>734967692>Zoomers are now having nostalgia of meme soulsdamn, time goes fast, huh.
>>735006715Proper ng+2 cycle adds new items to castle shop(covenant ones), but you can't get it by just upgrading bonfire
>>734968920you and many othersthey really screwed up with ds2
