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Robert Boyd, designer of Cthulhu Saves the World and Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 carefully explores the design of the popular but often misunderstood action RPG hit.
Dark Souls has gained a reputation for being an excruciatingly difficult game. Yet despite that, the game has seen a great deal of success, both commercially (selling over a million copies in the U.S. and Europe as of the end of the publisher's last fiscal year) and critically (with a current Metacritic rating of 89).
Why has Dark Souls achieved mainstream success and has not remained merely a cult favorite? I'd like to argue that a major factor behind Dark Souls' success is the disconnect between its perceived difficulty and its actual difficulty. Dark Souls presents itself as an impossible challenge to the player outwardly, but inwardly, the game is subtly designed in many ways to help the player achieve the impossible.
(Note: this article includes a few spoilers.)
1. Marketing
The publisher of Dark Souls actively sought to brand the game as a difficult game from day one. Just look at the name of the game's official website: PrepareToDie.com. Marketing the game as being extremely difficult increases the game's perceived difficulty without changing the actual difficulty at all.
2. It lets the players make their own rules
After stacking the odds against the player (with a huge, hostile world), the game starts stacking the odds back in the player's favor. First things first -- Dark Souls doesn't force the player to play the game in any particular way. Want to play a heavily armored knight, a light-on-her-feet warrior, a mage, a priest, or all of the above? Sure thing. The game lets you use the style of hero that you feel most comfortable with. Although the player chooses one of several set classes at the beginning of the game, class selection only determines the player's starting stats and equipment; where you go from there is entirely up to you.
3. It's difficult to truly mess up your stat progression
Dark Souls lets the player allocate their stats bonuses from level-ups however they wish. This gives the expert min-maxer a great deal of flexibility to create the ultimate Dark Souls destroying machine.
But what about the less experienced player who doesn't know what they're doing? No problem -- the design has taken that into account as well. There are several effective tools available to the player that have little to no reliance on stats, like elemental weapons, armor (armor increases weight but doesn't have specific stat requirements), and powerful fire magic called pyromancy, that the player can use to dig themselves out of the hole they've created with poor level-up choices.
All level-ups give a slight boost to the player's overall defense, so no matter what you choose, you're always getting slightly more resilient. And it's possible to max out all stats eventually -- so in the end, poor choices can be fixed with grinding.
4. We're all in this together
Although it's possible for players to fight amongst themselves, players can help each other, both through posting hints for other players and by joining other players' games to help defeat Dark Souls' many bosses.
Bosses give drastically more souls (the game's currency) than normal enemies do, and helping another player is the only way to defeat a boss more than once -- so the player has a definite incentive for helping out others. The game creates a feeling of "us vs. the game" and not just "us vs. us."
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I enjoy that sensation of fiero, but I do think there's a difference between earned pride and wholly synthesized emotions. Should good games strive to be more "honest" about their systems?
The first game was not so heavily marketed as hard, but it was considered so by general players and reviewers. I still don't understand why people though it was so hard (they should play Shiren someday), but you could see that is how the game was perceived by the general audience.
So they just rolled with it. I haven't played the second game, but it seens it is similar to the first one in terms of difficulty, so I take people will perceive it as hard too (although they might be more used to gameplay this time, making it seem easier). I think overall they are honest about the game.
I'm guess I'm just not clear about in what sense the game is misleading in any of this. I would rename this article "How Dark Souls uses conventions of 8/16-bit game design and demonstrates that there are subtle ways to guide players without constantly holding their hands (and gamer's seem to like it)."
There are some notable exceptions, e.g. most Elder Scrolls games, where the game scales enemies by level. If you level noncombat skills, when you come up against an enemy you're in deep trouble.
About all the "perceived difficullty" really changes is the player expectations-people are more aware they need to be patient with this game.
I have to disagree on that one... it seems to me like they made Dark souls much more forgiving. The self-replenishing healing flask (instead of 1-use items) is one example, another example is how in Demon souls you can't hope to block attacks by a boss, but in Dark souls you can block *almost* every boss attack with an heavy shield. And the shiny gecko respawn if you miss them, and so on.
Each of these changes are good, you should be able to use skills you train with the normal enemies on the boss, farming herbs was just annoying and the one-chance geckos were just frustrating. But they all made the game easier too, especially after the patch.
Haha, I didnt know you could do that, I never used the enemy lure. I just killed the boar from the set of stairs going down inside, since he doesnt fit in. Or shoot at him from the top. Then jump down on him for the finish, targeting his weak point (the back) for MASSIVE DAMAGE.
Then theres the intentionally difficult checkpoints. Bonfires were a problem for me in areas like Sens fortress (where it was far + well hidden), and in other areas of the game where they are just too far apart (like between Firelink Shrine and New Londo Ruins). This makes the game really hard in sections, and if you're anything like me you who spent over two hours just trying to beat Smough and Ornstein its freaking annoying to make the journey to the boss again and again. Why not just let the player quicksave if they want, why pad the game so unnecessarily? I also feel sorry for any people who killed important NPCs because they were scrolling through text boxes (i for instance struck the pyromancer in Blighttown BY MISTAKE), and have had to suffer for it. Thats just bullshit man. You should be able to make peace with some NPCs if you did things like that by mistake. What do you think Robert, brilliant due to carefully placed checkpoints, or a flaw in the design?
#2 - Pretty sure it tells you somewhere that weight affects your speed. If not, it's something that should be quickly figured out by the player since it makes sense (heavier = slower).
#3 - Not seeing a problem here. I disagree with you that they make resistance appear more appealing - even early on, Str/Dex/Int/Faith all increase your offensive capabilities and give you access to more equipment and Vitality clearly boosts your survival capabilities (especially early on when your max health is low). I guess you could make the case that Resistance might look more appealing than Endurance but again, I'm not seeing a problem (resistance might be the least useful stat but it's still not worthless).
#4 - There's no deceit involved there since they're up-front about what those stats do. And actually, dexterity does increase casting speed of many spells. I would like it if they made Strength boost maximum weight & Dexterity increase attack speed in the sequel.
I agree with you that some of the bonfires are poorly placed. Oh and actually, if you accidentally hurt an NPC, there's a way to get them to stop being mad at you (costs souls though).
It's that kind of ambiguity that makes discovering things for yourself that much more rewarding. Exploring the inner mechanics of a game is good fun, and it's much more interesting than simply having it spelled out for you.
C'mon, not telling me how parry/riposte works or that it even exists isn't rewarding, its infuriating.
Not telling the player that to perform backstab they can't be blocking (the backstab is taught before you get the shield in asylum) isn't something i want to "discover".
I didn't know there was a jump (dashjump) in the game until I got to Anor Londo.
A game like this should, nay, must provide the player with -all- information of gameplay and controls because it places all the responsibility on the player.
This isn't about "handholding", those are basics the player must know if the game expects to wash its hands in innocence about his failure.
The game is obtuse, sure not simons quest obtuse, but obtuse nonetheless, unnecessarily so.
It all could have been fixed with either a proper manual (not the 5 page booklet I have) or some sort of codex/encyclopedia ingame that you can fill.
But I believe now that the game was purposefully designed like this to drive the sales of the official strategy guide that came out with the game at 10$.
The game does tell you, just before the Aslyum Demon.
"Not telling the player that to perform backstab they can't be blocking (the backstab is taught before you get the shield in asylum) isn't something i want to "discover"."
Absolute rubbish. You get a shield before you get a non-hilt weapon in the asylum. With most weapons, you can't attack while blocking.
"But I believe now that the game was purposefully designed like this to drive the sales of the official strategy guide that came out with the game at 10$."
That's a really needlessly cynical thing to say.
Which was true, but more importantly there was the part about sub penalties at 1/2 and 1/4 of the max weight. While Dark Souls demands a lot from its audience, it has more than enough secrets what with all the covenants, hidden bonfires (which is kind of pure evil to begin with), hidden areas (Painted World, one of the cooler places) and whatnot, that there's no justification for hiding mechanics.
I can understand your frustration with the game, but really, if you bought BOTH the 360 and PC versions I'm a little surprised at the amount of negative comments it seems to get from you. (No offense you are certainly entitled to your opinion).
I probably experienced a similar level of frustration at about 60 hours into the game... things seemed "obtuse" probably because I was trying to play the game based on how I wanted to play it (brute force) rather than paying attention and trying to respond/react to what the game was throwing at me.
I "feel in love" with the stupid Drake Sword (then the Lightning Spear), and my Elite Knights armor and Pyromancy and tried so hard to brute force everything (and whenever I died I would complain about the game not being "Fair")... Instead I should have been trying different weapons/ armor sets, learning different moves (based on weapon types) and coming up with better strategies on how to face enemies.
As soon as the light went off (probably during/after the O&S fight) I started to understand what all of the fuss was about for this game. You see so much variation in how people decide to play (Stealthy Faith Builds, Heavily armored Magicans, "Naked" barbarians dual wielding ZweiHanders) because of the nuances, and those nuances make all the difference. Knowing what I know now makes this such a great experience... come to think of it, lemme start a new Dex build and try using the Balder Side Sword everyone seems so keen on.
I bought the game twice because I see the potential in it, also out of professional curiosity as a designer. There is a lot of praise I have for From's art-design and level-design team.
I have an inherent problem with controllers so I had the vague notion that the PC version would be better in terms of control for me, and I was right (sort of, after installing at least 5 mods and fixes for mouse etc.)
"...I was trying to play the game based on how I wanted to play it (brute force) rather than paying attention and trying to respond/react to what the game was throwing at me."
This is my largest point of contention with the game because I don't like that design philosophy.
If a game gives me meaningful choice in building a character I expect to be able to play it the way I want.
Compare this to the well-hated DeusEx:HR bosses that were -only- beatable by brute force, and players specializing in social or stealth were woefully caught off guard.
Would you suggest to them to "adapt"? I.e. Grind for cash and buy some weapons + typhoon so you can two-shot the boss?
No, that game was slammed for its lack of choice in boss encounters.
Yes, DS might provide you with nuance to your combat, like sneak builds, etc. But I don't think, and correct me if i'm wrong, that you can defeat Gaping Dragon by backstabbing it and stealthing.
The problem I have with this game is that it wants me to play it a very specific way, an "optimal" way, even though it gives me the illusion of control and all that other unnecessary stuff. I'd rather it would drop the pretense.
@Danny Baxter
The tutorial messages were patched in later, I'm not sure at which point or if only for PC.
Fact is at release they were not in the game (360).
On the backstab, my mistake - i confused it with the strong attack message, in that case, the backstab is not at all mentioned ingame or explained that it will only work on certain enemies but not on others (humanoid + boar according to wiki).
What i meant by "blocking" is guarding with your shield, not actually taking a hit, you can certainly attack while guarding with your shield, but you can't backstab. The first time i accidentally backstabbed i had no idea what i just did, and tried again, with my shield up, and just flailed at the mob, then died (boar).
You can defeat Gaping Dragon by sneazing on it...
Kidding aside, being agile is very helpful in beating Gaping Dragon unscathed. The game supports a great variety of play styles thanks to its incredible gameplay depth, but you cannot expect to beat every boss with a single strategy (like backstabbing). How boring would that be. No, you have to use the many tools that are available to every build and find a creative solution to beating each different boss.
Not to be dismissive, but perhaps Dark Souls is not the right game for you. I think when I just kinda "gave up" fighting my way (which was the way I was conditioned, the whole "find the single optimal weapon, armor, spell, strategy, and rinse/repeat for all enemies in all situations", I really started to have fun.
in a single playthru in some situations, I don Havels and steamroll thru enemies with a Zweihander... other times I'll circle-strafe stick and move wearing gold hemmed armor and using Combustion, other times I'll chuckle while blasting enemies off ledges using "Emit Force"...(BTW if you haven't run through the game with a faith-based build I highly recommend it, it was loads of fun). Anyways, You can do any of those things above with a single build, this game is less about stats than it is about gear (although one could argue that spending your upgrade Shards can mean doing some "grinding")
Anyways, I've played thru Gaping Dragon at least 10 times (and offered summon/help at least another 10) and really it sorta follows one of Dark Souls normative strategies (the ol' Circle Strafe, Counter Attack) Not to mention the fact that he's got that big juicy tail just wagging it in front of your face *hint hint*... but some folks like to opt for the High Damage/ High Risk Strategy of going for his head and then dodging, other folks take the easy way and go for his flank (counter-attack). Some folks use magic, some summon archers to snipe him, some people use Lighting Resin which "is good against Dragon Family Foes"... (and on and on)... Anyways I think this is a game that is indicative of multiple play styles, but anyone not willing to experiment and adapt may think of it as a slog... just my 2 cents.
"Not to be dismissive, but perhaps Dark Souls is not the right game for you."
I consider a lot of games to be "not for me" (Ninja Gaiden, just about 90% of platformers, etc.) nevertheless I respect the games and their design.
With Dark Souls its different.
I feel the game is mechanically flawed and designed to be inaccessible to foster a sense of specific accomplishment that caters to a type of player I feel very reluctant to agree with.
The game has notoriously fostered a hostile, elitist, almost cult-like community around itself that denies any rights of criticism because of it.
"Anyways I think this is a game that is indicative of multiple play styles, but anyone not willing to experiment and adapt may think of it as a slog... just my 2 cents."
Multiple play styles? Maybe, if we stretch the meaning a bit, yes.
There are only two ways to avoid damage in the game: blocking, and dodging.
Either your character blocks or dodges enemy damage, because things like parries/ripostes for example do not work on 90% of bosses (it works on Gwyn afaik).
In the end, either you are going to run an agility build or a poise build.
How you deliver damage to the boss is a trivial question as long as you can either mitigate or avoid the damage.
The "play style" only pertains to the choice of the above mentioned: agility or poise.
There is no role to be played, and the character building is trivial to the gameplay at best. It's more of a "flavor" than a play style choice.
Its my opinion that the game's praised combat is actually its weakest point by being so incredibly dull and simplistic.
I have more criticisms, but I think I've been going on about this long enough.
I can see from your avatar that you are a fan of the game, and I don't want to deny your enjoyment of it in any case.
At its core, Dark Souls is really a game about carving your own path through a lonely, hostile world. There's an obvious intended sequence of progression, but the game feels huge and open and multifaceted, even when you're unknowingly following a set path. Veteran players can sequence break through sheer knowledge of the world: if you're up to the challenge, nothing is preventing you from, say, fighting the Four Kings as one of the first bosses in the game, and the sprinting jump ability you have is surprisingly similar to Super Metroid's wall jump in that it's a mechanic that's never explicitly mentioned to the player that potentially opens up new areas. And just like Super Metroid, Dark Souls uses its atmosphere in very intentional ways to feel a lot more confusing and difficult than it really is.
I'm bummed that Metroid is so neglected these days, but as long as the Souls series keeps going, I'm confident that that particular itch will get scratched.
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20111010/90386/9_Things_ We_can_Learn_a
bout_Game_Design_from_Dark_Souls.php
If you're comparing these games to metroid/zelda/sotn, it's important to note that (generally) those games mainly gated your progress by way of needing special items or powers such as a double jump, a raft or a spell, whereas in the souls games (and in King's Field), the typical gate you will face is strong enemies, weak gear, or lack of skill.
That said, I much prefer having difficulty as a gate instead of an item checklist. There's something very thrilling about exploring (and surviving) dungeons & caves you have no business being in, especially when you find powerful equipment well ahead of the 'designed' curve -- it rewards exploration and good play. The opposite of this would be the approach taken by Oblivion, where the world levels up with you -- the world becomes flat and uninteresting once you realize there is no real sense of danger.
While both games have a conceptually similar framework, their execution is what separates them. When you balance the difficulty of your game on the edge of a knife player decisions matter that much more. With Dark Souls, every choice has legitimate weight and consequence at both the micro and macro level. Dark Souls is a game wholly dedicated and designed around the concept of deliberate intent. SotN, on the other hand, is all about providing superfluous and artificial choices while failing demand that they be explored, let alone, even understood. Which is why it a much more accurate spiritual successor to Super Metorid than SotN or any number of the other Metroidvanias could ever hope at achieving. It's about making every single piece matter.
For me, Dark Souls ends after the Painted World and Anor Londo as I hate the last quarter of the game (Last Izalith, Valley of the Giants, Crystal Caves) They weren't as rewarding as they were more about being built on a cheap twist with very few checkpoints. My favorite level was Sen's Fortress (with Painted World a close 2nd) as I thought that it encapsulated the best parts of Demon's Souls design. It was focused, challenging and rewarded the players who got through it with a quick shortcut through the trouble spots.
Supposedly the PC version of Dark Souls was updated even more then the PS3 and 360 and added in more warp zones and re-balanced some items. But I haven't played it yet and I can't confirm that or not.
"Demon's Souls" and "Dark Souls" both do an engagement curve very well. That is, each level is a small obstacle course with areas of low intensity punctuated by occasional bigger/unique enemies leading up to a major boss. It doesn't just try to ramp the excitement up to 11 and keep it there. It instead offers a "cool down" period after every boss.
I remember me and a buddy trying to do multi-player for hours and never managing it (many others had the same problem). It was one of the most convoluted multi-player systems ever in modern gaming (Made it easy to get my money back too since it was effectively a misleading feature that is defective).
Really to me the only thing (aside from the bosses which are great designs) that was actually hard in the game was having the patience to stay in the same location, fighting the same enemies that you already mastered over and over and over and over again for hours just to get low levels of level-up points and find another bonfire that is sometimes hidden to invisible walls, really!?
That re-spawning mechanic (as opposed to a modern dynamic one) is just lazy for me (speaking as a developer from a technical standpoint) especially when you require such a high level of attention just to get past even the meekest of enemies you've already mastered due to all of them having the ability to kill you in a microsecond. The in-game menu system was also hideous and for no purpose whatsoever you couldn't be in a Xbox Live party (private only) while playing. There's loads more strange / poor design decisions& floors I could point out if I had the time.
I do however admire some of the old-skool qualities to the game & their bravery of sticking to their guns and being different in a environment where everything is handed and explained to you to the last detail.
Also, I'm kind of curious what you mean about the respawning being "lazy from a technical standpoint." As another developer, I don't think there's anything "lazy" about it; it's the way it is because of design, not because of engineering limitations.
@Anthony
Hey Anthony,
While I accept that Skyrim and DS aren't meant to be the same game, the advertising and visuals describe it as an RPG and Open world which makes the comparison valid. DS is not open-world, open choice the further you get maybe, but not open world (as said on the box).
Also as far as multiplayer is concerned, the box (on the xbox version) does not say anything about the restrictive / broken nature of the co-op. It doesn't tell you before purchasing that the multiplayer is only for invading people 100 levels below you or aiding with bosses.
As far as challenge is concerned, challenge I don't have a problem with, completed many challenging games from NES right down to the 360. Un-fun / Unnecessary repetition I do. A recent example for me would be Final Fantasy 13, far from the best in the series (way too much video) but I found the battle system / tactics (come 3rd disc mind) made up for the repetition / patience required to level up your characters as you often have to in most RPGs just to challenge some of the hardest enemies in gaming (Neochu or Tonberry anyone).
Once I've figured out how to beat an enemy type I don't won't to fight it over and over again in the same arena for hours on end just to attempt that boss on top of having misleading features that don't work or are intentionally gimped.
In saying so however, I respect the fact that there are obviously many people that find that the DS flavour of gaming loads of fun and you know what, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
@Muir:
Hi Muir,
I think saying that someone comparing DS and Skyrim is like comparing Mario and GTA is a little ridiculous to be fair. Mario doesn't contain any cars, isn't top down and doesn't even have the same visual style / target. Both DS and skyrim have swords & sorcery, similar enemy types in some places (skeletons & dragons), have levelling up systems, have combat, and so and so on and so on. Also reviews and award shows categorise / speak of them in the same category / genre (I think Gamespot said they prefered DS to Skyrim even), whereas that would never happen with a cutey platform game and a violent Top-Down crime spree game (even if your referring to their latest 3d incarnations), so I think my comparisons are perfectly fine.
In saying that, that doesn't mean I expected, wanted or believed they were meant to be the same game in terms of goals and challenge (I wouldn't have bought DS if I did). I expected a lot of dying. The fact is the execution is better in one game more so then the another regardless of their core goals.
For me, fighting through the same enemies continuously just to attempt a boss again isn't fun. It was acceptable in the NES days where memory was sparse / technically challenging and you had to leave the machine on overnight otherwise you'd have to start over from the beginning only to find your console crashed. But in 2011/12, nah thanks, maybe if I was 12 again and had all the time in the world, but that's for a very specific demographic.
My technical point comes from the fact that having a dynamic environment where people and enemies go about their business and can be found in different states / places depending on the time, day, situation or actions of the player is a lot harder and more technically impressive then then just loading / reloading everything to it's start state each time you save / start the game.
While I think most games have dumbed-down these days and there is way too much spam saving / auto-saving and therfore can understand why some people really love what DS is about, the above isn't the answer for me it just leaves a lot to be desired. But there is positive lessons that I will take from DS (and maybe a few concepts I may even borrow ;) that I'm grateful for despite not rating execution compared with it's ideals as highly as some.
The first time I played Dark Souls, it took me about 15-20 hours to ring the two bells. When I tried replaying it with a new class, it took me about 3-5 hours to do the same thing. My stats weren't any better the second time, but I had a greater understanding of the game's world & systems and I had already developed techniques to easily take down enemies that were once very challenging. Player skill is drastically more important in Dark Souls than your stats.
I was talking mainly about mechanics (but also look / feel), Mario & GTA, completely different in all respects. DS and Skyrim, not completely different in all respects, only different mainly in execution. But it's just my opinion anyway. We may have to agree to disagree but I'm sure there are things in DS and Roberts article that we can benefit from in our own development endeavours. Cheers! :)
@Robert
Hello Robert.
Well admittedly I've happily watch a few youtube videos of Let's Plays of Dark Souls and they seemed to have a much better time with the game then I had so perhaps that's true, but what I also found is there just wasn't enough core gameplay help / information (as someone else has mentioned here already). And if it is present it's (intentionally or otherwise) well hidden.
In the case of my friend's experience with it, while I managed to find how to obtain magic in the game by accident (just from continuing to talk to NPC even though the sentence read very conclusive) which made things more enjoyable and quicker getting from a to b (that spell where you can knock dudes off the edge, very cool / handy). But unfortunately he never found out how.
What you have to realise about this dude in question is he's the type that consistently gets about 90% of every game's achievement (For example completing Dead Space 2 on crazy-fool difficulty) and he's far more patient and has completed far more tougher games then I have, yet he hated it more then me. It turns out he knew less about the game and it's mechanics than I did (thanks to youtube).
So there you go, whether it's misunderstanding, hidden mechanics & / or the somewhat mis-advertising there's no denying that depending on what you expect, find, read or watch regarding this game (in terms of knowledge) it's going to be a huge factor in how you find it and a lot of that has to do with how it's presented and executed in the first place in my opinion.
The problem for me is I don't like the idea of having to 'watch youtube videos or go on the internet' just to learn how to do basic things like jump, obtain magic or not grind. That's the developer's job. I had to constantly do those things and although it made things more flowing I didn't really feel like I was gaining anything, just felt like I cheating or something, which on 'From Software's' part is just lazy to me.
In any case, it's a good piece that is revealing in some aspects and I'm sure I and others will benefit from the lessons within your article and the game (or at least it's ideals) itself which does have some merits regardless of whether I'm misinformed or otherwise. Thanks. :)
"The respawning mechanic is incredibly important in Dark Souls to create an emotional impact. You feel real tension as you're playing precisely because you stand to lose progress if you screw up [...]reward only has meaning if there is risk. Contrast that to Skyrim, an incredibly casual game where you never feel tension for any reason ever."
The risk however is only you wasting more time. I.e. time-investment.
It's the most primitive of risk mechanics.
Dark Souls lacks permanent consequences like other Roguelikes do, it has no risk worth taking.
Dark Souls doesn't restarts you from the beginning, its too smart for that, it knows that everyone would just quit the game on their first death in that case, because its design is based on repetition and lack of flow.
Instead it gently disciplines you by letting you run through half an hour of game one more time, which is on the threshold of being "bearable".
The game is deliberately wasting my time with this.
Skyrim doesn't have any risk, because the game isn't about reward through risk. It has completely different reward-mechanics.
No, reward doesn't get meaning through risk, thats just plain crazy-talk.
"The risk however is only you wasting more time. I.e. time-investment.
It's the most primitive of risk mechanics."
That's a bad argument. Depending on a person's point of view, all video games can be seen as a "waste of time." Is it any less of a waste of time to make constant progress through a video game than it is to practice a certain area until you master it? Absolutely not... it depends on your preferences.
From my point of view, a game that allows you to barrel through it without putting up any resistance is a waste of time. I like to play games that aren't afraid to punish me when I make mistakes, that make me feel tension, and that actually feel rewarding when I've mastered them. Games like Skyrim do none of that, so Skyrim is wasting my time.
"Dark Souls lacks permanent consequences like other Roguelikes do, it has no risk worth taking."
That's an illogical argument. You're saying that if risk doesn't exist in an extreme form, it shouldn't exist. So you think video games can only be at one extreme of the spectrum or the other? No, I think a balanced approach is better.
"Skyrim doesn't have any risk, because the game isn't about reward through risk. It has completely different reward-mechanics."
Perhaps you could make the argument that Skyrim offers a different type of "reward." But you can't argue that it has any tension. And reaching goals in Skyrim simply doesn't carry the same sense of accomplishment. I'll take Dark Souls over Skyrim any day because Dark Souls feels like a real adventure. Exploring in Skyrim is a mundane task, in Dark Souls every new area is exciting.
I know there are people who want easily consumable video games that exist just to make them feel like powerful warriors, and I guess for them Skyrim is a great product. But for me, a person who wants to feel tension and excitement from video games, Skyrim's design philosophy is a failure. Dark Souls shows how it's done.
In one sentence you say its all relative, two sentences later you say Dark Souls is how it should be done.
Look, I am ready to concede to either of your rhetoric, but pick one.
If you want to discuss how Dark Souls is the superior game in design, thats ok, but then you need to concede that some things aren't relative and not just opinion. And I will continue to highlight how DS has mechanics designed to artificially lengthen and pad out game-time (most DS players agree with me btw)
If you want to say that its all relative and down to opinion, thats fine too, but then the discussion is over, as I have no intention to discuss your, or my, taste.
You can't have it both ways.
PS: I precisely argued that Skyrim has a different reward-mechanic than DS.
Skyrim isn't an inferior experience because of it, its just a different experience.
"In one sentence you say its all relative, two sentences later you say Dark Souls is how it should be done."
What I meant is that's how it should be done *for me.* Obviously it is all relative. Certainly a lot of people feel like they are entitled to make progress through a game... they want to play a game as though they are watching a movie, where if they don't make rapid progress they feel the game is wasting their time. For those people I guess Skyrim is great. But I think Dark Souls has proved there's a healthy amount of people out there who agree with what I'm saying, who want to feel some excitement and tension while playing and who don't mind doing a section over if it's because they didn't do it right the first time. Dark Souls shows how to design games for those people. We need more games like it.
"If you want to say that its all relative and down to opinion, thats fine too, but then the discussion is over, as I have no intention to discuss your, or my, taste."
It's not that I want to say it's all relative. It IS all relative, that's just a fact. Saying that there is one correct way to design games is like saying that there is one correct way to do art. No matter how well established a rule is, it'll be broken sooner or later.
"PS: I precisely argued that Skyrim has a different reward-mechanic than DS.
Skyrim isn't an inferior experience because of it, its just a different experience."
I don't really know what Skyrim's reward mechanic is supposed to be. I suppose it has something to do with freedom... well, since I think freedom is overrated in games, and I'm looking more for an experience that provides tension and excitement, it's an inferior experience for me. That's not to say that I don't like some degree of freedom, but Dark Souls provides just the perfect amount. I think that too much freedom usually comes with the problem of padding with repetitive environments, and Skyrim certainly has a big problem with that as far as I'm concerned.
There are many things I think Dark Souls does better than Skyrim... the combat system, art design, creature design, environment design, story, music, bosses... I could talk in detail about why I feel each of those is done better in Dark Souls. But the thing I love about it the most is that it breaks that terrible rule of "don't punish the player" that so many modern games adhere to. Most games are designed to be easily consumed, but in turn that makes most games a forgettable experience, and I'm sure I'm not alone on that. I think Dark Souls was a wake up call to a lot of people, a reminder that when the challenge from old school games was lost, something very important was lost. There's a reason why it has a very large and growing cult following. I'm hoping that we'll see more games recognize this and take the lead from Dark Souls.
I'd like to point out two more interesting angles. First, Dark Souls liberally makes use of tough enemies and traps which do not respawn. This creates tense moments, difficult fights, or "cheap" sequences that don't feel repetitive because the player must only endure them once. Whether it's a giant ball rolling down a staircase, a poisoned blow dart in the back, or a high-level wizard surrounded by minions, the feeling of victory can persist even when repeating the same content as the player runs easily by the spot of their epic battle.
Second, Dark Souls has had several patches which are designed to simultaneously tone down the best strategies and decrease difficulty / hassle overall. On the one hand, additional fast travel points and optional area skips have been added, enemies drop significantly more souls, it's easier for low-level characters to wear heavy armor, bosses drop the Homeward Bone and Humanity items that ensure you can safely return to the bonfire to spend your wealth, and curing the "curse" status (called out by many reviews as the toughest part of the game) is much easier. On the other hand, items and spells that allowed the player to boost their defensive stability and poise stats to simply ignore boss attacks while mashing the attack button, and the elemental weapons that allowed level 1 players to out-damage level 100 players, have been nerfed. PvP still has a long way to go, but the single-player content feels less like there is a "correct" character development path than ever and wastes a lot less of the player's time, which is a very difficult trick to pull off.
s/ This fits with an earlier interview (can't find the link, sorry) where Miyazaki mentions that the Master Key shortcut through the forest was added late in development, as a way for frustrated players to skip the Depths and Blighttown.
In a historical genre context, it's eminently fair and only moderately challenging. I think people forget how absurdly unfair and truly brutal older titles really were.
This is when the design of the game really shines through, and it's why I consider DS to be a masterpiece. I've never played a game that I felt was so well designed. Though it's been mentioned in this thread several times I'll restate it here... DS is not for everyone. If you like the classical RPG model DS is definitely not that and if you never reach that "moment" when you start to understand the game at a deeper level, I can see how this game may never feel right. Not sure if there's a way that From Software could decrease the time between feeling awkward and clicking with the mechanics.... hard to say if it's even possible without diluting the experience.
First, bombable walls are almost always marked with cracks, although there have been games with falsely marked walls though. If that's not enough, there is usually a way to check walls (usually by attacking them, but also by holding a spin attack ready and pressing against a wall). The point about Dark Souls still stands, but Zelda games have been extremely good about not punishing players for missing secrets.