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Dark Souls is a bigger, less polished version of Demon's Souls. It has a problem with hidden information that can only be discovered through trial-and-error. De

Dark Souls is a bigger, less polished version of Demon's Souls. It has a problem with hidden information that can only be discovered through trial-and-error. Demon's Souls was like this too, but the scope was small enough that it didn't cause big problems. Not sure what there is to praise about the character builds. In both games there's an easy and obvious way to get a bulletproof character: plow everything you have into vitality and endurance. The difficulty of Dark Souls (which is harder than Demon's Souls) should be applauded, but it's really quite disorganized, and there seems to be a lot of misplaced praise out there for the trial-and-error, but this part of the game really just sloppiness. It needs better clues - dialogue, books, inscriptions on walls, etc. The soapstone sign system is just pure laziness. Trying to play it off as some genius design choice is degenerate. There's a reason both titles give the wiki URL on the PS3 cases..

robdor 13y ago
I disagree that a high vit + end build is bulletproof. I'm absolutely certain that most anybody could destroy that build easily in PvP. One of the great things about the build system in Dark Souls is a build that is great for PvE may not be a great build for PvP.
- roarroar 13y ago
  Okay, so it's bulletproof for PvE.
  - autarch 13y ago
    It's really not though. At least for me, I find that there's a balance between giving and receiving damage in the boss fights. While having higher vitality (more HP) lets you survive longer, unless you can also dish out a lot of damage the fights can become incredibly difficult. Basically, the question is how many times you can hit the boss by taking advantage of their timing versus how many times you screw up trying to take advantage of their timing. If you have more HP you can screw up a few more times but if you're not dealing much damage you end up having to avoid screw ups for a long time in some boss fights. Then there are the fights like the Four Kings where you really want to be doing higher DPS or else things get really messy. Personally, I found the easiest build for PvE to be a sorcery build focused on high DPS. With a high enough intelligence you can deal a lot of ranged damage, which makes avoiding being hit that much easier.
    - roarroar 13y ago
      A Fire Uchigatna+6 or +7 makes Four Kings easy if you have 20 estus flasks and plenty of vitality. Since this weapon doesn't scale with stats you barely have to alter your build to use it. I'm not saying it's the only viable build, nor the only fun one. I'm saying that the builds aren't exactly a work of genius, which is I suppose unavoidable when on your first run there are basically zero clues as to what's to come. For example, how are you supposed to know that Four Kings will need high DPS? A better way to do all this would be to foreshadow every boss in some way. For example, NG being a very cut-down version of the game with simplified, shorter areas and weaker bosses, with NG+ being the real deal deal. This is basically how everyone who really loves the game plays it anyway: bumble around through your first play-through, then on the second and third goes you can start making more conscious choices, since you have some idea of what's to come.
      - vacri 13y ago
        This is basically how everyone who really loves the game plays it anyway No, it's not - NG+ is much easier than NG, because you start decked with all your previous equipment. People who really love the game do NG runs staying at level 1. I've put in lots of hours, and NG+ is dull because you already have anything and can go anywhere. The challenge is gone.
        roarroar 13y ago
        Do you bother trying to understand what was meant before replying? How, after reading my post, was your take away "everyone plays NG+" (something anyone who plays the game knows is false)? The point is that people replay the game knowing what is to come, with everything already foreshadowed, and consequently being able to make much more informed choices. Whether you happen to be on NG+ or not is completely independent of this statement, and wasn't intended to be implied, which is why I said "second third playthroughs" in that sentence not "NG+". It's like you read just one phrase out of my post and responded to it out of context to prove some kind of point.
        13y ago
Joe-Z 13y ago
I fully agree with you on the hidden information problem. So many people seem to kind of praise this though. I, for one, started 3 characters and with every one of them I ran into a problem at around the time when the lightning spear becomes too weak. Pretty much the only option I saw was to craft a weapon, but the crafting system just isn't explained at all. The only way to learn something about the crafting is, as you said, trial & error, which is just frustrating, especially if you have to sacrifice rare resources for that. Basically if you want to play the game without the wiki (which still feels a bit like cheating for me) you either have to put in insane amounts of effort (I mean come on, it's still only a game!), or you're fucked. I really hope Dark Souls 2 is better in offering at least basic explanations of the friggin' game mechanics. </rant>
octaveguin 13y ago
Diablo 2 was arguably terribly designed similarly - character builds required external information to progress to the harder difficulties. Not to mention what I'm sure the designers weren't intending at first - repeat farming over and over of the same content. In the end, this became what made it such a huge hit. The fact that you had to study character builds made a sort of meta game. Minecraft is another example where you have a wiki tabbed while you play. And lets not even get started on dwarf fortress - the awful UI is the game. I believe the metagame is whats at work in all these. A lack of tutorials and good ui feels somehow more authentic and rewarding.
- roarroar 13y ago
  It reeks of autism. You know it's bad because it forces you out of the game to look at some web page. It's basically showing total contempt for the aesthetics and fantasy of the game in favor of the endless cataloging and retrieval of pointless information.
  - vacri 13y ago
    This is just not true. You can play the game fine without the wiki, and I did so on my first playthrough... with a kb+mouse. You just can't min/max without the wiki. And if you want to PvP, then sure, you need to min/max... but if you're PvPing, you're going to be going to a wiki anyway.
    - roarroar 13y ago
      What's not true? I didn't say you were forced as some kind of hard requirement to use the wiki - just that the use of the wiki forces you out of the game and that it is clearly designed to be used in conjunction with a wiki. It should be taken as read that it can be played without it. I mean, who wrote the wiki? The requirement for guessing and repeating segments is just so high that it detracts from the experience. This isn't about knowing every little detail for "min-maxing" either - it's about basic organization to make discovery of information systematic rather than being a sheer time sink. So tell me: how do you figure out that for the Demon Firesage - located in a fiery area, covered in fire - the weakness is.. fire? Trying a bunch of stuff, in this case totally counter-intuitive. What reason would you have to think Gwyn can be parried, when no other boss in the game can be? By trying a bunch of stuff and stumbling upon it since, again, it is counter-intuitive. In other words: by having complete and utter contempt for the value of your own time. It completely takes away from the sense of fantasy, as well. The whole point with these open world games is to feel like you have the freedom to make your own choices. But if you know that your best best is to go everywhere and pick up every item you can then it feels like janitorial work, not a grand adventure.
simias 13y ago
I agree, I love both games but it's casual nethack as far as I'm concerned: it's very difficult to enjoy the games without a minimal amount of spoilers. I went blind for my first run in both games, and while I could finish demon's souls with a minimal amount of grinding I hit a wall in DaS because some upgrade paths are simply dead ends. Leveling up resistance, for instance. Certain weapon's upgrade paths. And you have no way of knowing that before you get destroyed in the next dungeon because "hey, occult weapons are useless! Tough luck".
- guizzy 13y ago
  Indeed. The OP's link praises the way the game branches at the very beginning and teaches you to go up first, but the way up was not nearly as obvious to me as it seems to have been for him. I had to use a walkthrough. Most RPGs, when they take you out of a tutorial, have you facing the way you need to go. It's very unintuitive (and I'd say bad design) to force me to do a 180 right from the start and go the opposite way from where I'm facing. It might just be me being dense, but it took a while before I realized that the skeletons on the way down were not just the game being "difficult" but purposedly unfair at that point.
  - sullichin 13y ago
    Well, one way has incredibly durable skeletons who can kill you in two hits, and another way has the same enemies that you fought in the tutorial... It's not that obtuse.
    - guizzy 13y ago
      Of course once I went up it was obvious that it was where I needed to go, but I needed a tutorial to tell me there even was another way but down. The guy by the bonfire does mention something of the sort, but I thought he was referring to the ruins right next to the bonfire. When you spawn after the tutorial, you spawn facing the slope that goes down.
zerohm 13y ago
there seems to be a lot of misplaced praise out there for the trial-and-error, but this part of the game really just sloppiness. I have to disagree. I thought the "here is the whole map, figure it out" aspect was brutal but brilliant. Dark Souls is the modern equivalent of Zelda for NES. You immediately have access to paths you have no business entering at the start of the game. But that makes it all the more gratifying when you come back later and concquer that path. With ever advancing quest logs, way points, and real time navigation arrows, it's nice to see game designers go with the opposite approach.
- roarroar 13y ago
  So what's your argument? You think it's kind of like Zelda? So what? Did you even read what I said? It's problematic in Dark Souls precisely because of how big and complex it is. Demon's Souls is cut out of the same clothe - but it is smaller and simpler, so these things don't become a pressing issue. None of the qualities you list, e.g. having access to deadly areas, are against what I'm saying. It has nothing to do with "guest logs, way points and real time navigation". None of that is necessary to fix the game. I can't play games like Skyward Sword where there's some asshole computer jumping out of your sword dropping the most ball-achingly obvious hints. What's needed are carefully placed clues, of which there are very few. I think it's fair to say that the game is deliberately counter-intuitive in ways that serve only to waste your time.

robdor 13y ago

I disagree that a high vit + end build is bulletproof. I'm absolutely certain that most anybody could destroy that build easily in PvP. One of the great things about the build system in Dark Souls is a build that is great for PvE may not be a great build for PvP.

roarroar 13y ago
Okay, so it's bulletproof for PvE.
- autarch 13y ago
  It's really not though. At least for me, I find that there's a balance between giving and receiving damage in the boss fights. While having higher vitality (more HP) lets you survive longer, unless you can also dish out a lot of damage the fights can become incredibly difficult. Basically, the question is how many times you can hit the boss by taking advantage of their timing versus how many times you screw up trying to take advantage of their timing. If you have more HP you can screw up a few more times but if you're not dealing much damage you end up having to avoid screw ups for a long time in some boss fights. Then there are the fights like the Four Kings where you really want to be doing higher DPS or else things get really messy. Personally, I found the easiest build for PvE to be a sorcery build focused on high DPS. With a high enough intelligence you can deal a lot of ranged damage, which makes avoiding being hit that much easier.
  - roarroar 13y ago
    A Fire Uchigatna+6 or +7 makes Four Kings easy if you have 20 estus flasks and plenty of vitality. Since this weapon doesn't scale with stats you barely have to alter your build to use it. I'm not saying it's the only viable build, nor the only fun one. I'm saying that the builds aren't exactly a work of genius, which is I suppose unavoidable when on your first run there are basically zero clues as to what's to come. For example, how are you supposed to know that Four Kings will need high DPS? A better way to do all this would be to foreshadow every boss in some way. For example, NG being a very cut-down version of the game with simplified, shorter areas and weaker bosses, with NG+ being the real deal deal. This is basically how everyone who really loves the game plays it anyway: bumble around through your first play-through, then on the second and third goes you can start making more conscious choices, since you have some idea of what's to come.
    - vacri 13y ago
      This is basically how everyone who really loves the game plays it anyway No, it's not - NG+ is much easier than NG, because you start decked with all your previous equipment. People who really love the game do NG runs staying at level 1. I've put in lots of hours, and NG+ is dull because you already have anything and can go anywhere. The challenge is gone.
      - roarroar 13y ago
        Do you bother trying to understand what was meant before replying? How, after reading my post, was your take away "everyone plays NG+" (something anyone who plays the game knows is false)? The point is that people replay the game knowing what is to come, with everything already foreshadowed, and consequently being able to make much more informed choices. Whether you happen to be on NG+ or not is completely independent of this statement, and wasn't intended to be implied, which is why I said "second third playthroughs" in that sentence not "NG+". It's like you read just one phrase out of my post and responded to it out of context to prove some kind of point.
        13y ago

Joe-Z 13y ago

I fully agree with you on the hidden information problem. So many people seem to kind of praise this though. I, for one, started 3 characters and with every one of them I ran into a problem at around the time when the lightning spear becomes too weak. Pretty much the only option I saw was to craft a weapon, but the crafting system just isn't explained at all. The only way to learn something about the crafting is, as you said, trial & error, which is just frustrating, especially if you have to sacrifice rare resources for that. Basically if you want to play the game without the wiki (which still feels a bit like cheating for me) you either have to put in insane amounts of effort (I mean come on, it's still only a game!), or you're fucked. I really hope Dark Souls 2 is better in offering at least basic explanations of the friggin' game mechanics. </rant>

octaveguin 13y ago

Diablo 2 was arguably terribly designed similarly - character builds required external information to progress to the harder difficulties. Not to mention what I'm sure the designers weren't intending at first - repeat farming over and over of the same content. In the end, this became what made it such a huge hit. The fact that you had to study character builds made a sort of meta game. Minecraft is another example where you have a wiki tabbed while you play. And lets not even get started on dwarf fortress - the awful UI is the game. I believe the metagame is whats at work in all these. A lack of tutorials and good ui feels somehow more authentic and rewarding.

roarroar 13y ago
It reeks of autism. You know it's bad because it forces you out of the game to look at some web page. It's basically showing total contempt for the aesthetics and fantasy of the game in favor of the endless cataloging and retrieval of pointless information.
- vacri 13y ago
  This is just not true. You can play the game fine without the wiki, and I did so on my first playthrough... with a kb+mouse. You just can't min/max without the wiki. And if you want to PvP, then sure, you need to min/max... but if you're PvPing, you're going to be going to a wiki anyway.
  - roarroar 13y ago
    What's not true? I didn't say you were forced as some kind of hard requirement to use the wiki - just that the use of the wiki forces you out of the game and that it is clearly designed to be used in conjunction with a wiki. It should be taken as read that it can be played without it. I mean, who wrote the wiki? The requirement for guessing and repeating segments is just so high that it detracts from the experience. This isn't about knowing every little detail for "min-maxing" either - it's about basic organization to make discovery of information systematic rather than being a sheer time sink. So tell me: how do you figure out that for the Demon Firesage - located in a fiery area, covered in fire - the weakness is.. fire? Trying a bunch of stuff, in this case totally counter-intuitive. What reason would you have to think Gwyn can be parried, when no other boss in the game can be? By trying a bunch of stuff and stumbling upon it since, again, it is counter-intuitive. In other words: by having complete and utter contempt for the value of your own time. It completely takes away from the sense of fantasy, as well. The whole point with these open world games is to feel like you have the freedom to make your own choices. But if you know that your best best is to go everywhere and pick up every item you can then it feels like janitorial work, not a grand adventure.

simias 13y ago

I agree, I love both games but it's casual nethack as far as I'm concerned: it's very difficult to enjoy the games without a minimal amount of spoilers. I went blind for my first run in both games, and while I could finish demon's souls with a minimal amount of grinding I hit a wall in DaS because some upgrade paths are simply dead ends. Leveling up resistance, for instance. Certain weapon's upgrade paths. And you have no way of knowing that before you get destroyed in the next dungeon because "hey, occult weapons are useless! Tough luck".

guizzy 13y ago
Indeed. The OP's link praises the way the game branches at the very beginning and teaches you to go up first, but the way up was not nearly as obvious to me as it seems to have been for him. I had to use a walkthrough. Most RPGs, when they take you out of a tutorial, have you facing the way you need to go. It's very unintuitive (and I'd say bad design) to force me to do a 180 right from the start and go the opposite way from where I'm facing. It might just be me being dense, but it took a while before I realized that the skeletons on the way down were not just the game being "difficult" but purposedly unfair at that point.
- sullichin 13y ago
  Well, one way has incredibly durable skeletons who can kill you in two hits, and another way has the same enemies that you fought in the tutorial... It's not that obtuse.
  - guizzy 13y ago
    Of course once I went up it was obvious that it was where I needed to go, but I needed a tutorial to tell me there even was another way but down. The guy by the bonfire does mention something of the sort, but I thought he was referring to the ruins right next to the bonfire. When you spawn after the tutorial, you spawn facing the slope that goes down.

zerohm 13y ago

there seems to be a lot of misplaced praise out there for the trial-and-error, but this part of the game really just sloppiness. I have to disagree. I thought the "here is the whole map, figure it out" aspect was brutal but brilliant. Dark Souls is the modern equivalent of Zelda for NES. You immediately have access to paths you have no business entering at the start of the game. But that makes it all the more gratifying when you come back later and concquer that path. With ever advancing quest logs, way points, and real time navigation arrows, it's nice to see game designers go with the opposite approach.

roarroar 13y ago
So what's your argument? You think it's kind of like Zelda? So what? Did you even read what I said? It's problematic in Dark Souls precisely because of how big and complex it is. Demon's Souls is cut out of the same clothe - but it is smaller and simpler, so these things don't become a pressing issue. None of the qualities you list, e.g. having access to deadly areas, are against what I'm saying. It has nothing to do with "guest logs, way points and real time navigation". None of that is necessary to fix the game. I can't play games like Skyward Sword where there's some asshole computer jumping out of your sword dropping the most ball-achingly obvious hints. What's needed are carefully placed clues, of which there are very few. I think it's fair to say that the game is deliberately counter-intuitive in ways that serve only to waste your time.