jfc this is the most boring fucking game I've ever played in my life. It's not fun getting one-shotted by something that you don't know about until after its killed you at least once. There's nothing interesting about worldbuilding that's all made up of intentionally vague YoU hAvE tO fIlL iN tHe BlAnKs YoUrSeLf nonsense. There's nothing noteworthy about weapon upgrades that require you to look up a guide to see what's worth investing materials in and what's not.
And already some of you have doubtlessly gone down to comment "lmao git gud". Motherfucker it's not about difficulty. You know what was a difficult fucking game? Sekiro. That game is hard as balls and I absolutely love it, precisely because its designed in a such a way that it fixes everything about Dark Souls that sucks.
In Dark Souls, every single time you rock up to an enemy, you know exactly how you're going to defeat it. You're going to learn the patterns of its attacks, dodge at the appropriate time, and hit it in the intervals between. This is interesting once, but doing it over and over again for fifteen bosses is boring, repetitive bullshit.
In Sekiro they fixed this. Instead of literally just dodging every single attack, you have a dozen different defensive options that you have to learn and apply to different attacks. Instead of knowing how every single enemy encounter is going to go down, you have a bunch of different ninja tools that have different effects that you can experiment with.
And yet the geniuses of the gaming sphere all bashed their head cavities together and decided that SEKIRO was the bad one. The best game in the whole fucking genre, now sidelined because these morons confused a repetitive grind for difficulty. And as a result Elden Ring, which was supposed to be the masterpiece of the whole thing, is just another bland endurance test.
It's okay to not like Dark Souls.
I feel like if everyone just took a deep breath and accepted that it's okay to not like Dark Souls we could head off millions of years worth of arguments about Dark Souls.
It's not for everyone and that's oikay.
yeah but then what would we talk about on gaming subs? poor treatment of developers? gambling mechanics designed to exploit the nuerodivergent? mainstream games with plotlines that reinforce harmful beliefs in our culture? it's easier to just argue about popular games instead.
You make a good point. Hold on I'm going to write 3 pages on how you don't appreciate the sublime storytelling of Dork Souls and also git gud. ; )
I usually just go with Alpha Animals. Haven't played Rimworld in a few months actually.
I personally like the mods that just add additional complexity for no good reason, like Rimatomics or Hygiene where you gotta make sure all the doodoo butts stay clean and you also don't expose your colonists to mountains of sewage.
I can't play Rimworld without Dubs hygiene after getting used to it. Adds a lot of immersion starting with them shitting in an outhouse or taking a nice relaxing bath after a long day of butchering the corpses of raiders to keep the human leather flowing.
One of the last big updates seemed to cause a conflict with the main pregnancy/child mods to where it doesn't allow anima grass to generate during meditation and I really miss having it. Apparently Rimjobworld still works but I've never felt compelled to add sex crimes to my games.
I got into Dwarf Fortress for a bit until it became clear how buggy it was
is Rimworld a little less glitchy or no?
Damn, that thread necro.
Never got into DF, but Rimworld is pretty good in that regard. I haven't played it in a little bit, but I don't remember it being especially buggy.
oh shit I don't even know how I wound up in a two year old thread. my bad
Excuse me, I basically live in the Anor Londo casino. One of these days I'm gonna hit the 5.2 million soul jackpot on Solaire Slots, I'm telling you!!
Fking feds dont realise that they dont need political hot takes to split the left
All they need is just some guy posting "hmm um guys i think kirby games suck and you are dumb for liking it"
Don’t talk shit about Kirby!!! Super star is my shit :wojak-nooo:
Kirby and the Crystal Shards ruined other Kirby games for me. It was my first Kirby game and to this day I still miss that high the combo abilities gave me 😔
Nobody likes dark souls there are only various levels of delusional stockholm syndrome esque defense of it
Sigh looks like we got another one, when will the pain this series has caused end??
people never enjoy the process of learning a skillset and using that skillset to overcome a challenge :very-intelligent:
You're very mad seeming about this, almost as if defense of Dark Souls has, in a way, transmuted itself into a defense of Self, curious. What was once a shitpost is now being given new birth
Curious, those who are mad seem to be those most ardent in its defense, curious indeed :chairman-moa-panic:
today we learned that people take it personally when you call them delusional for liking something
And yet persist in insisting that they are not, in fact, mad, which is in itself a form of delusion :very-intelligent:
it's been a very reddit moment right here :gamer-gulag: :heated-gamer-moment:
No incorrect millions of people simply have broken brains this is a very serious opinion of mine
Dark souls is objectively amazing :shrug-outta-hecks:
did you get this posting style from 4chan? this is embarrassing
It's called a shitpost and I learned it from watching you, mom, I learned it from watching you
merely pretending
I don't play souls games and even I can tell you're either trying to :bait: or an idiot
It's literally a shitpost but then people started taking it quite seriously in a very "how dare you insult my treats my good Redditsir" way so I kept going
you're delusional and have Stockholm syndrome if you like x series
bad take
LOOOOL you fell for my epic trollYeah okay buddy :cringe:
I'm sorry but if you read my posts as serious all I can say is you might need to lay off the Reddit a while it's done something to you
I like dark souls because I have a lot of fun playing it idk what else to say :blob-no-thoughts:
I just stopped playing video games after 2010
apart from some multiplayer stuff like tf2
so I don't even know what you're talking about OP
I'm not even joking tho
last 1-player videogame I played was Goldeneye007 for the wii, back in 2011. And even that was because my friends were into the multiplayer
I pirated skyrim back in 2013? Played for 30 seconds and decided it looked boring as fuck and uninstalled
Since then it's been strictly multiplayer games and replaying old gamecube/wii titles. Breath of the wild is the only one that I sort of want to play
Breath of the wild is the only one that I sort of want to play
Funnily enough, BotW is a souls-type game but actually has as a storyline that doesn't involve 20 hr YouTube videos of lore speculation
BOTW pulls out the good bits from Souls' design and matches it with the good bits from Zelda. 10/10 game a da yeaaaaaaaaa.
I pirated it and played with an emulator for a while and I couldn't get in to it. Some things were neat at the start but the world was so sparse of content it just ended up feeling empty.
Same here. I felt bad for not liking it because everyone gave it GOTY, but I literally didn't have time to figured it out because I am old now :chomsky-yes-honey:
I'm sure if I had hours and hours to figure out basic survival things, I would enjoy it but that's life I guess
Absolutely GOOD post.
I play extremely hard games, I love a challenge. I beat Masters level twitch streamers in Apex Legends using the mozambique as a primary weapon.
Dark Souls is so boring. Even the basic ass enemies are just timers that insta kill you for not waiting around. You wait 10 or so seconds until he does the one (1) move where he can be hit one (1) time. Then you stand back for 10 seconds until he does it again. On the third time he dies.
You can't sneak in a second, risky, high skill attack. Or you just die.
Dark Souls is peak Japan-brain: The hardest part is dealing with how bored you are during most of it, because it punishes you for trying stop being bored by making you more way more bored than you already were. Eventually you learn to endure the baseline level of boredom because you know it can only become more boring. Even the exciting parts are exciting because you are desperately trying to avoid a massive dose of boredom.
So wait to establish your opinion as valid you said you're good at a totally different game that's multiplayer and therefore requires a completely different mindset while playing? Why?
You can absolutely build your character in such a way that you can tank hits from monsters to get a second attack in.
Not every game is made for everyone. It's weird that everyone seems to have to have a strong opinion on souls games instead of just not playing games you don't like
why?
Because every time you say you don't like dark souls, someone says it's because it's too hard
I play other third person fighting games and they are usually about getting good at timings and parries and shit, not spending a lot of time waiting
There is just not a lot going on with many enemies. You stand back and maybe roll, which is very easy, until they do the stupid kayfabe move that allows you to somewhat damage them, which is also very easy. It just takes fucking forever watching some boring fucking skeleton with a sword swing it around
I also don't like ARMA because... despite the mechanics being very good, you mostly stare at fucking trees. I know why it's like that I just hate it. But at least ARMA has an excuse.
Dark souls could be "wait around and play safe OR play on the edge like a street fighter pro"
Did you like not level up your health at all when you played. I've never been one shotted by any enemy in any game in the series unless I'm speed running through the game as a level 10 naked lady
Alright it's like a 2 shot, you die the second time you try not to wait around for basic ass enemies to request that you punch them
And it's not like you even get anything out of rushing it, so it's the same situation whether you get one warning or zero warnings: you have to wait around or you'll lose
Personally I like Dark Souls because it rewards curiosity, patience, obsessive experimentation, anticipation and of course jolly cooperation
It juggle multiple vibes and themes while maintaining a coherent gameplay design, and the narrative hints at an entire universe just out of sight and actually rewards you if you're paying attention lore wise
The controls give your character a weight and solidity that makes combat FELT, instead of that vague feeling where your character is just a ghost sliding across some polygons
The "grind" as you call it is a testbed for different play styles, a way to build experience, get certain timings down, build anticipation and create some consequences for impatience and recklessness, which compliments the "weighty" feel of your player character
Level design is quite literally genre defining, music subtle and perfectly timed for maximum effect
It's a damn good game, and DS2 is even better
I never played Dark Souls, but I recently tried Elden Ring due to hype around it and holy shit was it a bad game for me. I expect at least some scenario and dialogue, you know ? and not too much grinding. Disappointed on both counts, it just sucked. So I'm not gonna try Dark Souls.
I'm with you. I never liked any Souls game except Sekiro but my friends promised me Elden Ring would be the one I loved. I didn't.
Need more of a story hook than just "go do stuff" to get invested in going and doing stuff in the game anyway.
I honestly think this is a big dividing line for people. I personally don't care about a story and will stop playing games that have too many unskippable cutscenes or long, annoying lines of dialogue.
Some people just want to play games that are fun and that's all, some people want an engaging storyline and gameplay can take a backseat to that. My wife loves the witcher but i found it to be boring, the combat was so easy even on the hardest difficulty and the ai can't even play the card game properly.
Some people just want to play games that are fun and that’s all,
I mean, this is the killer for me. If your game has no or bad story, but makes up for it with sick gameplay, then that's a 10/10 design for me. The gameplay for Dark Souls just Aint It Chief as far as I'm concerned.
Souls games just give you a vibe and that's all they worry about. It's great if you're of the type that gets immersed solely by atmosphere.
Like fucking bloodborne is absolutely incredible at that, from sound design, to subtle weird changes in enemies as the game goes on.
I'm curious, what do you mean by grinding? Imo, the only real grinding required is upgrading a second or third weapon to higher tiers before you unlock the materials in the Roundtable Keep shop. Unless you count all of the side dungeons as grinding, I guess.
And already some of you have doubtlessly gone down to comment “lmao git gud”. Motherfucker it’s not about difficulty. You know what was a difficult fucking game? Sekiro. That game is hard as balls and I absolutely love it, precisely because its designed in a such a way that it fixes everything about Dark Souls that sucks.
In Sekiro they fixed this. Instead of literally just dodging every single attack, you have a dozen different defensive options that you have to learn and apply to different attacks. Instead of knowing how every single enemy encounter is going to go down, you have a bunch of different ninja tools that have different effects that you can experiment with.
Did you try a Magic build? That may be more your style.
Anywho, I do think that what you're asking for out of Dark Souls is something fundamentally different than what it actually is. In my opinion, Sekiro shares far more with older games like Tenchu, the Ninja Gaiden series, & maybe just a little bit w/ Metal Gear Rising than it does with most other games in the "SoulsBorne" lineage. It is at base a "Ninja Game" first & foremost, and I think it really only gets considered as similar to the rest of From Software's catalogue due to shared developer parentage, and similar control formatting.
Conversely, it's well known that the "Souls'" both Demon & Dark, are spiritual successors & reimaginings of the old King's Field games. Now anybody who knows anything about the history of JRPGs could tell you at a glance that King's Field is obviously a console-centric adaptation of old Wizardry & Ultima-style CRPGs, in particular Ultima Underworld. In fact FromSoftware themselves specifically cite the commercial success of the Japanese port of the original Wizardry game for their 1990 pivot to videogames development (previously they made commercial business software). Just as well, Hidetaki Miyazaki has expressed in the past that he draws just as much influence from TTRPGs like Dungeons & Dragons as he does other videogames in terms of his own games design philosophy.
Put another way; although this is rarely addressed in discussions of the games themselves, the "SoulsBorne" series in fact shares a direct "genealogical-design" link with Morrowind & Skyrim. Which I think is probably most self-evident in Elden Ring & reveals the whole game about why that specific game seems to work so goddamn well. They've been perfecting, incrementally, what Bethesda has been fumbling with trying to implement wholesale for the last 20 years; which is the question of how to correctly adapt the Ultima-Wizardry CRPG framework to console gaming.
This also, I think, explains what some of your problem in "getting into" Dark Souls might be. A lot of people try to approach the games like they're action games & get clowned on, they're not. They're Western-Style RPGs that happen to have been developed in Japan, and you need to approach them with that mindset I think, in order to really get any mileage or enjoyment out of them as games.
My love of TTRPGs and the Souls series goes basically hand-in-hand. They really do feel very similar, down to having to learn a whole system to be able to play them adequately.
draws just as much influence from TTRPGs like Dungeons & Dragons as he does other videogames in terms of his own games design philosophy.
It really shows. Old school D&D, before they invented rests and gave everyone a ton of magic powers, was largely about smart use of your resources. You had only so much HP, so much healing, so many spell slots, and you had to stretch that until you could get to a safe spot where you could hole up for 8 hours straight. And the whole time each encounter was using up your resources, so you had to try to be smart and tactical about how you were fighting, what challenges you took on and what challenges you evaded. Dark Souls nailed that deliberate, measured gameplay. Especially early on you've got to be thinking about what you're doing and where you're going so you can make it to the next bonfire before you run out of arrows or estus or whatever. It's one of hte most dungeon-crawly dungeon crawler games out there.
Damn, the effortpost looks good on you, comrade :stalin-heart:
Sekiro shares far more with older games like Tenchu
Turn Sekiro into an openworld Tenchu game. PLEASE.
It could be so perfect. I also really want to see ninjas interpreted in their daytime unmasked hidden in plain sight activities.
Anyway good post. I haven't played the other Souls games though don't shoot me!
Put another way; although this is rarely addressed in discussions of the games themselves, the “SoulsBorne” series in fact shares a direct “genealogical-design” link with Morrowind & Skyrim.
Indeed, people forget that Demon's Souls was meant to be a direct competitor to Elder Scrolls, I don't know what was Sony thinking though
becomes a bit of a chore later on
I feel this. I'm about 270hrs in and haven't finished the game bc it's just gotten so long. I still have to do Haligtree and Farum Azula. My biggest complaint about the endgame is the lack of new enemy types. Fighting the same enemies I was fighting 200hrs ago but with better stats doesn't feel good.
it does get very tiring by the time you get to the mountaintops, but this is more of problem with open world games repeating content to fill in the gaps and less an issue with Souls games in general. it felt just as tiring in Breath of the Wild, for example.
Yup, exploration in the beginning was the peak. Especially wandering into Caelid too early or stumbling upon an elevator that goes underground
It’s not fun getting one-shotted by something that you don’t know about until after its killed you at least once.
then pay attention so you know about it before it kills you. there are very few true surprises, mostly its stuff that you blunder into if you're not watching out.
There’s nothing interesting about worldbuilding that’s all made up of intentionally vague YoU hAvE tO fIlL iN tHe BlAnKs YoUrSeLf nonsense.
some people like to interpret
There’s nothing noteworthy about weapon upgrades that require you to look up a guide to see what’s worth investing materials in and what’s not.
literally any upgrade is acceptable, it doesnt matter which you choose.
That game is hard as balls and I absolutely love it, precisely because its designed in a such a way that it fixes everything about Dark Souls that sucks.
Yeah, surprisingly when they spent 5 years making 4 other games in the genre in between Dark Souls and Sekiro, they learned a few things about making games in that genre. surprising :shrug-outta-hecks:
And yet the geniuses of the gaming sphere all bashed their head cavities together and decided that SEKIRO was the bad one.
I've literally never heard this opinion once in my life and I've been a fan of the Souls games since 2012. I've always said that Sekiro is obviously the best one
then pay attention so you know about it before it kills you. there are very few true surprises, mostly its stuff that you blunder into if you’re not watching out.
Very often what I'm talking about is a combo attack that stun locks you until death while fighting a boss. Your only chance to dodge it is after you know it exists, and unless the AI bugs out and it whiffs the attack you're not going to know about it until after it's killed you with it at least once.
Yeah, surprisingly when they spent 5 years making 4 other games in the genre in between Dark Souls and Sekiro, they learned a few things about making games in that genre. surprising
If they learned about the genre, why do they keep doing the same shit in DS 2, 3, Bloodborne and Elden Ring? Why is Sekiro the only one where they seem to have done something different?
It is possible that I'm just surrounded by wierdos who don't like Sekiro.
Very often what I’m talking about is a combo attack that stun locks you until death while fighting a boss.
idk, attacks in dark souls 1 are all so telegraphed its hard to understand what you mean. in elden ring sure, maybe theres some stuff like this because the game is designed to be legit hard and expects you to die a lot. but in dark souls 1 there are very few things which can kill you at no fault of your own. everybody winds up their windups before attacking lol
If they learned about the genre, why do they keep doing the same shit in DS 2, 3, Bloodborne and Elden Ring?
I'd say they clearly applied a lot of what they learned in Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring. Dark Souls 2 is the only one that kind of regresses from a game design standpoint and that's because it wasn't made by the main team.
What fights are you getting combo's to death in? Bosses in DS1 don't really combo that much. The biggest offender I can think of is Artorias with his triple sword slam, but that's not even really a combo, just repeating the same move over and over
If they learned about the genre, why do they keep doing the same shit in DS 2, 3, Bloodborne and Elden Ring?
In fairness to Miyazaki, I got the impression he didn’t want to do DS3, and he was occupied with Bloodborne while DS2 was in development. There’s a proven formula in the series that’s iterated on in Bloodborne and Sekiro, and to an extent Elden Ring. ER is where I feel it’s stagnated too much, and I wouldn’t be sorry if they stop making Souls-likes altogether.
You’re going to learn the patterns of its attacks, dodge at the appropriate time, and hit it in the intervals between. This is interesting once, but doing it over and over again for fifteen bosses is boring, repetitive bullshit.
In Sekiro they fixed this. Instead of literally just dodging every single attack, you have a dozen different defensive options that you have to learn and apply to different attacks. Instead of knowing how every single enemy encounter is going to go down, you have a bunch of different ninja tools that have different effects that you can experiment with.
I could be wrong, but this to me sounds like you haven't been experimenting with different builds outside of melee dodge-focused builds. The reason that Sekiro is able to have so many options within the bounds of a single build, as you've lined out, is because it builds its entire game around the single build it grants you. Dark Souls has a multitude of builds, allowing for a multitude of playstyles, but that does spread a single build's combat thinner than Sekiro's combat. On the other hand, if you don't like the single build in Sekiro's playstyle, you probably don't like to play Sekiro, since you can't spec out of the build.
In my limited experience, Dark Souls grants you more options to approach a fight than Sekiro, but Sekiro centers its gameplay around a single build and therefore is allowed to expand the options granted in it's actively-experienced combat. In Dark Souls, it allows more ways to approach the game, but you have to invest time into the one you prefer in order to make it work, and that does end up creating routines, but also lets a wider range of players experience and enjoy the game.
Dark Souls is a more accomodating game, whereas Sekiro is a more tuned game. Both are valid ways of approaching game design. I don't see why we have to pit two titles from the exact same developers but with different design approaches against each other?
