Difficulty of soulslike games.

[Corty]

Ahh thePruld, good old times.

Hai mai lodato il Sole.... PUTTANA?!

 

[CarburetorThompson]

If you know, you know. It was a fucking weird choice for sure... but it fits the incest family, so I am only 50% disgusted by it.

 

[owotrucked]

I’m a deranged lunatic who liked DS2 best in the whole series, personally. I liked that it was comparatively nonlinear, with multiple viable directions you could go from the very start of the game.

I liked that persistence would unlock a soft easy mode by virtue of making the boss run easier due to finite respawns, which you could turn off to grind with a covenant that they added to compensate for that.

I liked that there was a multiplayer option for short jaunts into other peoples worlds without it being tied to boss fights.

I liked the DLCs, which is the least controversial take on this list

I liked that occasionally you’d run into a boss fight outside of its arena and wished they’d done a little more with that.

I liked that there were cheese strats and non-estus healing items I could use (mostly out of combat) *if I wanted to*.

I finished DS2 long before I finished DS1 because the last portion of DS1 just wasn’t fun for me while the last portion of DS2 still was. After DS2? Most of the things I liked about DS2 were either declared flaws or totally ignored by most. From went a different direction. The games are still good, but let’s just say I haven’t bought any of them unless they were on sale in a loooong time. I don’t know if iterating on and perfecting DS2 (which, to be clear, IS a flawed game) would have made for an objectively better series long term, but I suspect I would have liked it more personally and I doubt I’m alone.

Glad to find another 200 iq chad who likes DS2

DS2 was a lovely buggy shit fest when it released

The bad:

DS2 had many controversial flaws like the ADP stats that simply shouldnt exist.
The soul memory was also a good attempt to stop players from ganking new players with their fully upgraded late game weapons, but it caused problems for multiplayer. Thankfully they fixed some issues with the engraved ring that allows you to play with your friend more easily.

Untold obscure shit like this is what made DS2 suck. The fix for online play (name engraved ring) costs 5500 souls and you kinda have to look for it. Players who didn't look on internet had no way to know about it

There were times when game mechanics were broken like the poise system wasnt fixed until years after release. There were meta catastrophes in the pvp scene like stunlock rapier/dagger spam fest or banana monastery scimitar instant parry spam.

The coding was also tied stuff to framerate, making the game harder if you were on 60 fps instead of 30fps. Issues like jumping height, iframe, and weapon durability loss were affected by it. If you didn't go into setting and switch framerate to 30 fps everytime you launched the game, then you'd just make the game harder for yourself.

On one hand, it ran well on potato pc, but the initial trailer also promised incredibly beautiful graphics. In the end, they had to downgrade it for playstation.

The game design:

If you guys have played wizardry, dark souls 2 was like the action version of it with the same feeling. A bunch of dudes delving into a weird labyrinth with shitty traps, ambushes, and sceneries that didnt make sense. In fact, in the wiki page of King's Field says "They decided to make a dungeon crawling game after playing Wizardry.[1] Souls games, which inherited from King's Field, sort of build upon that feeling.

Yeah DS2 was totally designed with multiplayers in mind, and playing with friends was so awesome. It's litteraly a different game than solo. I bet the devs must have thought: "we didn't work on the online features just so the players would completely ignore it", and so they must have make the crazy assertive decision to shove down multiplayer down the player's throat.

The combat was a lot more deliberate than in DS1. People didnt like it for being 'unresponsive', and it's extremely frustrating when you get ganked by monsters, because your character's scuffed reactivity takes away the player's ability to respond to their sustained aggression without strategy. But I did like the deliberate pace of the game. Every actions and decision holds much more weight. In solo, you have to either pull monsters with range attacks or summon helpers

Watch the 'Wrong Souls' series of InfernoPlus on youtube, it's a 4-man adventure with soul level1 chars on NG+. You can see that the level of adversity that DS2 can offer is just right to have fun with your squad. The only issue is that you have to rerun the zone 4 times for all your friends to advance to the next zone.

The boss I hated the most would be Ruins Sentinel. Having three of those fuckers on your ass is really unfair solo even with the npc summon sign. The first sentinel attacks you solo on a platform, but you have a dps check to kill before the platform crumbles. If you fail, you have to face two more sentinels, which is even more unfair than Ornstein and Smough. In addition, the path to reach the sentinels is quite difficult to rush through.

What's funny is that summoning your friend does increase the HP pool of bosses, so it won't necessarily help for the dps check.

In terms of combat mechanics, they added a lot of awesome stuff like powerstancing and funny moveset like kungfu. In ds2, backstep had iframe which made it a superior option to rolling. The parry hitboxes were also a lot better than in DS1.

DS1 has terribly unbalanced invasion where you get steam rolled, and had shitty mechanics like deadangle shit to bypass shield and parries or toggle moveset switch or toggle escape weird shit.

DS2 pvp had weird backstab fishing techniques due to the netcode being weird peer2peer shit. But there are items to disable backstabs like jester clothes, or a ring. So, it's not as crazy as DS1 pvp janky techs.

In terms of map balance:

I can understand what Sailus says. In ds1 and ds2, it was rare for bonfire to be right next to a boss, because the 'dungeon' was part of the challenge. The knowledge you gained from exploring and learning shortcuts can allow you to speedrun into the boss to reach it with more heals and resources.

However, the boss combat of early souls had always been a test of "can you identify your window of opportunity to retaliate safely against the boss?". And so, bosses from early souls games aren't that impressive. RPGs have always been about statchecks with equipments and stats. Dark souls allows the player to overcome by learning how to dodge if you're a hardcore completionist, but the intended way to win isn't by being naked and dodge everything. Rather, it was to show up with good stats that allowed to survive mistakes, and statcheck the bosses with raw damage and healing.

Thus, bosses served the map design, forcing the player to familiarize themselves with the map layout, so that they can reach the final trial with more resources. It's like, "oh I reached the boss room, but I only have two estus left. Should I go home to spend my souls to level up? Or should I sacrifice a life to scout the boss pattern?" Thus, the boss is in service of the dungeon, rather than the dungeon being in service to the boss.

Running around naked speedrunning through the map with a crowd of monsters following you to the boss room because you know the path by heart is only an extreme case, where you basically have beaten the map.

That's where invaders come into play. They pop up to fuck you on the way to the bosses to spice things up. But I always hated how unbalanced invasions were. I'd find it better if the invaders played a monster with determined build rather than showing up with their +5 chaos zweihander.

Lifegem and easy access to healing in DS2

The out of combat lifegem healing didn't bother too much. They made a good job to make it a slow risky heal that shouldn't be used in combat. The DLC levels were especially designed like long expeditions where you had to make use it, but it didn't really trivialize the encounters because the monsters could 2shot or 3shot you. Getting ambushed or suprised by enemies would force you to use estus instead of lifegems

The lifegems also made sense in multiplayer in the aspect that only the host was allowed to use them. If the host dies, everyone is kicked out, so it's good for multiplayer that the host can survive longer than the rest of the team.

Summons only had a few options to heal. Estus flask is really bad at healing your allies. Healing miracles only purpose was for team heal, in solo play they're a waste of levels.

The pyromancy 'warmth' was similar to a shared lifegem for every player (even invaders), but they were limited in number depending on your attunement stats. You'd often find fight club pvp invaders sitting around a 'warmth' spell to regen after each fights.

So, in practice, your party of chosen undeads only had a limited amount of heal: the host's precious estus flask, a few healing miracles in the priest's slot for combat, and camping fire from the pyromancer's slots.

For the DLC ungodly long expeditions, warmth really felt like your pals and you set camps and rest on your journey.

In conclusion

DS2 was truly an unique experience that captured really well the feeling of dungeon diving with your sunbro homies.

From DS3, I think FromSoft devs were more interested into turning Soulsborne into an action game, leading the franchise away from its dungeon crawling roots.

You can see one of the former dev making their own action game:

 

[SailusGebel]

Glad to find another 200 iq chad who likes DS2

DS2 was a lovely buggy shit fest when it released

The bad:

DS2 had many controversial flaws like the ADP stats that simply shouldnt exist.
The soul memory was also a good attempt to stop players from ganking new players with their fully upgraded late game weapons, but it caused problems for multiplayer. Thankfully they fixed some issues with the engraved ring that allows you to play with your friend more easily.

Untold obscure shit like this is what made DS2 suck. The fix for online play (name engraved ring) costs 5500 souls and you kinda have to look for it. Players who didn't look on internet had no way to know about it

There were times when game mechanics were broken like the poise system wasnt fixed until years after release. There were meta catastrophes in the pvp scene like stunlock rapier/dagger spam fest or banana monastery scimitar instant parry spam.

The coding was also tied stuff to framerate, making the game harder if you were on 60 fps instead of 30fps. Issues like jumping height, iframe, and weapon durability loss were affected by it. If you didn't go into setting and switch framerate to 30 fps everytime you launched the game, then you'd just make the game harder for yourself.

On one hand, it ran well on potato pc, but the initial trailer also promised incredibly beautiful graphics. In the end, they had to downgrade it for playstation.

The game design:

If you guys have played wizardry, dark souls 2 was like the action version of it with the same feeling. A bunch of dudes delving into a weird labyrinth with shitty traps, ambushes, and sceneries that didnt make sense. In fact, in the wiki page of King's Field says "They decided to make a dungeon crawling game after playing Wizardry.[1] Souls games, which inherited from King's Field, sort of build upon that feeling.

Yeah DS2 was totally designed with multiplayers in mind, and playing with friends was so awesome. It's litteraly a different game than solo. I bet the devs must have thought: "we didn't work on the online features just so the players would completely ignore it", and so they must have make the crazy assertive decision to shove down multiplayer down the player's throat.

The combat was a lot more deliberate than in DS1. People didnt like it for being 'unresponsive', and it's extremely frustrating when you get ganked by monsters, because your character's scuffed reactivity takes away the player's ability to respond to their sustained aggression without strategy. But I did like the deliberate pace of the game. Every actions and decision holds much more weight. In solo, you have to either pull monsters with range attacks or summon helpers

Watch the 'Wrong Souls' series of InfernoPlus on youtube, it's a 4-man adventure with soul level1 chars on NG+. You can see that the level of adversity that DS2 can offer is just right to have fun with your squad. The only issue is that you have to rerun the zone 4 times for all your friends to advance to the next zone.

The boss I hated the most would be Ruins Sentinel. Having three of those fuckers on your ass is really unfair solo even with the npc summon sign. The first sentinel attacks you solo on a platform, but you have a dps check to kill before the platform crumbles. If you fail, you have to face two more sentinels, which is even more unfair than Ornstein and Smough. In addition, the path to reach the sentinels is quite difficult to rush through.

What's funny is that summoning your friend does increase the HP pool of bosses, so it won't necessarily help for the dps check.

In terms of combat mechanics, they added a lot of awesome stuff like powerstancing and funny moveset like kungfu. In ds2, backstep had iframe which made it a superior option to rolling. The parry hitboxes were also a lot better than in DS1.

DS1 has terribly unbalanced invasion where you get steam rolled, and had shitty mechanics like deadangle shit to bypass shield and parries or toggle moveset switch or toggle escape weird shit.

DS2 pvp had weird backstab fishing techniques due to the netcode being weird peer2peer shit. But there are items to disable backstabs like jester clothes, or a ring. So, it's not as crazy as DS1 pvp janky techs.

In terms of map balance:

I can understand what Sailus says. In ds1 and ds2, it was rare for bonfire to be right next to a boss, because the 'dungeon' was part of the challenge. The knowledge you gained from exploring and learning shortcuts can allow you to speedrun into the boss to reach it with more heals and resources.

However, the boss combat of early souls had always been a test of "can you identify your window of opportunity to retaliate safely against the boss?". And so, bosses from early souls games aren't that impressive. RPGs have always been about statchecks with equipments and stats. Dark souls allows the player to overcome by learning how to dodge if you're a hardcore completionist, but the intended way to win isn't by being naked and dodge everything. Rather, it was to show up with good stats that allowed to survive mistakes, and statcheck the bosses with raw damage and healing.

Thus, bosses served the map design, forcing the player to familiarize themselves with the map layout, so that they can reach the final trial with more resources. It's like, "oh I reached the boss room, but I only have two estus left. Should I go home to spend my souls to level up? Or should I sacrifice a life to scout the boss pattern?" Thus, the boss is in service of the dungeon, rather than the dungeon being in service to the boss.

Running around naked speedrunning through the map with a crowd of monsters following you to the boss room because you know the path by heart is only an extreme case, where you basically have beaten the map.

That's where invaders come into play. They pop up to fuck you on the way to the bosses to spice things up. But I always hated how unbalanced invasions were. I'd find it better if the invaders played a monster with determined build rather than showing up with their +5 chaos zweihander.

Lifegem and easy access to healing in DS2

The out of combat lifegem healing didn't bother too much. They made a good job to make it a slow risky heal that shouldn't be used in combat. The DLC levels were especially designed like long expeditions where you had to make use it, but it didn't really trivialize the encounters because the monsters could 2shot or 3shot you. Getting ambushed or suprised by enemies would force you to use estus instead of lifegems

The lifegems also made sense in multiplayer in the aspect that only the host was allowed to use them. If the host dies, everyone is kicked out, so it's good for multiplayer that the host can survive longer than the rest of the team.

Summons only had a few options to heal. Estus flask is really bad at healing your allies. Healing miracles only purpose was for team heal, in solo play they're a waste of levels.

The pyromancy 'warmth' was similar to a shared lifegem for every player (even invaders), but they were limited in number depending on your attunement stats. You'd often find fight club pvp invaders sitting around a 'warmth' spell to regen after each fights.

So, in practice, your party of chosen undeads only had a limited amount of heal: the host's precious estus flask, a few healing miracles in the priest's slot for combat, and camping fire from the pyromancer's slots.

For the DLC ungodly long expeditions, warmth really felt like your pals and you set camps and rest on your journey.

In conclusion

DS2 was truly an unique experience that captured really well the feeling of dungeon diving with your sunbro homies.

From DS3, I think FromSoft devs were more interested into turning Soulsborne into an action game, leading the franchise away from its dungeon crawling roots.

You can see one of the former dev making their own action game:

The problem with DS 2 is that it's called DS 2. Call it differently, and it will turn from a shitty DS into an okay game.

 

[Poleg]

They should have given us one or multiple new ending options. That is what made me not even want to bother with it.

It is so fucking disheartening that you slog through the DLC, and then the game ends the same way as if nothing happened.

Yet, here I am, waiting for September so the Baldur's Gate 3 guys give us an extended evil ending. For free. Just because. Shame on you, From Soft.

Yes absolutely, even if it were a bad ending. That it is missing feels kind of weird.

If you guys have played wizardry, dark souls 2 was like the action version of it with the same feeling.

Lmao, now that you say it, it is a pretty good comparison.

 

[Jerynboe]

The problem with DS 2 is that it's called DS 2. Call it differently, and it will turn from a shitty DS into an okay game.

If DS2 hadn’t shit the bed in production and it’s original concept had been properly realized, I firmly believe Dark Souls could have ended up as an anthology series where each game was only loosely connected to the others, if at all. Unfortunately, it was a very flawed game that failed to really carve out a position as DS1’s equal in the court of public opinion. This led to DS3 being very overtly a sequel to DS1 before ending with a not at all subtle declaration that they were setting this world on fire before it starts to rot.

People still think of bloodborne and Elden Ring as part of the same “series” even with the name change. In a world where DS2 had been a universally beloved game, Bloodborne might have been Dark Souls 3 with very few changes needed. If DS2 is about time travel, why not have DS3 be about unreality and cosmic horror? We can follow up with DS4, set in the Far East of the DS world at yet another point in time where the world is unstable due to *things*

 

[SailusGebel]

If DS2 hadn’t shit the bed in production and it’s original concept had been properly realized, I firmly believe Dark Souls could have ended up as an anthology series where each game was only loosely connected to the others, if at all. Unfortunately, it was a very flawed game that failed to really carve out a position as DS1’s equal in the court of public opinion. This led to DS3 being very overtly a sequel to DS1 before ending with a not at all subtle declaration that they were setting this world on fire before it starts to rot.

People still think of bloodborne and Elden Ring as part of the same “series” even with the name change. In a world where DS2 had been a universally beloved game, Bloodborne might have been Dark Souls 3 with very few changes needed. If DS2 is about time travel, why not have DS3 be about unreality and cosmic horror? We can follow up with DS4, set in the Far East of the DS world at yet another point in time where the world is unstable due to *things*

Considering how DS2 was supposed to be an open world game, if DS2 hadn't shit the bed, I'm not sure we would have had DS3, much less Elden Ring. What I mean by that is, those would've been absolutely different games. But it is what it is. They failed and had to stitch a DS sequel out of random parts in a year. I must admit that they did a good job once you know how it was made. But it is still not enough to call it a good DS.

 

[owotrucked]

The problem with DS 2 is that it's called DS 2. Call it differently, and it will turn from a shitty DS into an okay game.

I see your point. It's the usual catch 22 of sequels. Some people want the exact same sauce without any change, while other wants innovation to sequels.

You dont like like FromSoft's innovative pursuit like Sekiro or Elden Ring. You'd rather want a Dark Souls 4 with the exact game mechanics as DS1 if I understand your thread correctly.

Indeed DS2 prolly took the series farther from your tastes.

Still, DS2 inherited some flaws from DS1 but also tried to build upon DS1 to improve some stuffs. It also went into the same original direction of being a spiritual successor of Wizardry. So I can see why the creators could accept it as a DS game.

In addition, the difficulty doesn't challenge you purely on reflex like your criticism about Sekiro and Elden Ring.

In DS1, Taurus Demon is normally fought with a plunging attack to start, but you can also roll between his legs and have him jump from the wall to commit a hilarious suicide. You can do the same in DS2 with the first Dragon Rider in Heide and have him dash off the arena.

A lot of DS2 bosses have modified arena depending on your choice during exploration. There's Mythra who lives in a poison pit. You can either remove the poison or beat the shit out of her.

DS2 Lost Sinner is a boss that you can fight in the dark, which will challenge your unlocked combat mechanics, or you can light up the room if you challenge the belfry tower before with all the crazy PvP.

DS1 Capra Demon ganks you with doggos, but you can dispatch them fast if you run to the stairs. If you take too long, the Capra will jump attack you. DS2's Ruin Sentinel is more or less the same idea. You have to keep the first sentinel on the platform and dispatch it quickly, or the others will destroy the platform to drag you down.

In DS2, there's a fat worm gluttonous dude that you can distract by breaking pots hanging from ceiling. The broken pots will drop a corpse, and the boss will be busy munching on it. Granted he's easy, but you're rewarded for observing and interacting with the environment

In DS1, you have to run away from the Gaping Dragon's vomit, and Smelter Demon also have telegraphed explosion that you should just sprint out of the way instead of rolling.

DS2 Pursuer is the only boss that has a long stun from gettting parried. You're encouraged to use that opportunity to shoot the ballista on him, or you can also just keep beating him.

DS2, there's a boss inside a boat, and if you take too long, the room gets flooded and you're screwed lol. In NG+ there are assassins that gank you too. It's clearly an annoying design agreed, but you can summon Lucatiel too.

DS2 Ivory King will summon a gank squad, but you also have your own gank squad if you free all the frozen soldiers.

DS2 Executioner Chariot is a race to reach a lever, but you get ganked on the way while taking cover. It's still a nice boss tho and the boss' minion also get crushed by the chariot.

All bosses have hitbox issues for their grabbing attacks, who knows why tho...

There are indeed a lot of gank bosses: Ruin sentinels, the gargoyles, the skeleton lords, twin dragonriders, Nashandra's bodyguards, Ng+ Lost sinner and Flexile Sentry, Mirror knight, the hidden abyss boss that clones himself, the three shadow fuckers (havel, katana, and archer) from DLC, Freja and its spiderlings, the Ivory King, but you usually have NPC to help you out. Tbh, in DS1 you also had NPC summons like Solaire and Lautrec. DS2 also have many NPC summons to help your journey. Also, reminder that healing miracles also heal your NPC, which contributes to its viability.

Also, there's a covenant of sunbros who desperately need sun medals


I agree the difficult feels like fucking unfair garbage if you play offline, but it is soloable for the sake of it, and autists keep coming back to do weird runs like no hit run or no walking or items only. So, it's actually quite an enjoyable game.

One important mechanic is not only summoning helpers but also you helping other hosts. You very quickly increase your experience of a map and boss at very little risk. Running around as a red invader also teaches you stuff about the map. You can take crazy risk like parrying bosses without hollowing yourself. In fact I had a lot of fun parrying bosses to flaunt in front of hosts. Grinding a level with your white soapstone teaches you so much about the layout and patterns that you can solo when you return to your world.

Camera locking was a trap in DS2. A lot of gank attacks can be evaded simply by sprinting around with camera unlocked. And in pvp, its very difficult to land a str weapon hit with camera lock on. Even funnier you can change the weapon path mid combo. So in the seemingly rigid clunky game mechanic, there is a lot of player expression.

However, recent souls game have crazy movement/tracking abilities so I dunno if it's still the case for newer games.

The way, I see the direction of FromSoftware, they want to increase the skill expression in their game. I saw that Elden Ring has increased the number of way to respond to attack: Parry, guard deflect, jump, roll, with all different risk/reward. I think that's good to offer more options, and riskier defensive move should allow for more opportunities against bosses.

Btw, in DS2, there was also the fume knight greatsword, which heavy attack grants a blocking+hyperarmor window at the startup I think. It function kinda like a guard deflect.


So yeah, DS2 is a good game and it does follow the same spirit as the predecessor, but it's definitely not the DS you wanted

 

[SailusGebel]

I see your point. It's the usual catch 22 of sequels. Some people want the exact same sauce without any change, while other wants innovation to sequels.

You dont like like FromSoft's innovative pursuit like Sekiro or Elden Ring. You'd rather want a Dark Souls 4 with the exact game mechanics as DS1 if I understand your thread correctly.

No-no, I'm perfectly fine with BB. I wish I could play it. More than that, my favorite soulslike is not even DS but Nioh 1. I fucking love Nioh 1, and it is farther from the difficulty I was talking about then Elden Ring or even DS1. The problem is not that.

When DS2 just came out, I was happy, because I got the sequel. I did not understand what was wrong at that time, cause I wasn't really able to compare it. I just greedily consumed it, since there were no soulslikes. There was DS1, I played it. Demon Souls, I couldn't play it. And DS2. Maybe there was Lords of the Fallen, but it was a stillborn project.

The problems appearead once DS3 came out. I understood one crucial thing. DS stopped being DS. Why? Cause it stopped being innovative. A wrong term, but that's the closest thing I came up with. After Skyrim, after Darksiders, after Mass effects and so on, it gave me this feeling of playing something new. Just like how many other players felt the same. You can't deny DS1 did it. Even though there wasn't really anything innovative or new, it looked fresh. Now Froms don't do anything really new. I know what I will get, and I don't like knowing what I will get. What separate FromSoftware's games from CoD or AC in that aspect now? Nothing. I know what I will get.

BB and DS1 were both made by Miyazaki. And I can see how they are different games. Can I see that BB and DS 3 are different games? Well, not really. Can I see that DS2 and DS3 are different games? Again, not really. They are all kinda sameish. I know I will get extra hard bosses. I know locations will be more or less tunnels, so on and so forth. From what little I saw from Sekiro, again, it's kinda the same thing. ER added openworld, but apart from that is it really new? I honestly don't know since I didn't play it, and only spoiled something about Malenia and saw a couple enemies\spells.

They add fancy new magic(I saw a couple new ones from ER, they look epic), new weapons with cool movesets, and so on. They increase the mechanical difficulties of bosses, but that's basically it. They don't challenge me with something new. They don't challenge me as a player like DS1 did. They stopped innovating, and started doing what Miyazaki hates the most, doing sequels. Cause people want sequels. They keep doing stuff that forces me to learn how to parry, roll, and strike at the right timing, with timings getting shorter with each new game.

So my point is, there is BB that challenges mechanical skills, and I wish to play it. There are Demon Souls, and to a lesser extent DS1 that is kinda between challenging mechanical skills, and your wit. How about making a new soulslike that focuses on challenging your wit? Make bosses easier mechanically, with additional hard ones, but make easy bosses super quirky. Make players decipher hot to beat them. Make players interact with world and npcs to beat those bosses. Something like that.

Lastly, they still add tricky bossess, they still add tricky mechanics, they do. Executioner chariot from DS2 is unusual, Aava, a couple more. But the ratio is completely skewed in favor of bosses that you simply has to beat fair and square, with might or magic. I feel like it's wrong. Soon enough they won't even be able to up the mechanical difficulty anymore, what will they do once it happens?

 

[owotrucked]

No-no, I'm perfectly fine with BB. I wish I could play it. More than that, my favorite soulslike is not even DS but Nioh 1. I fucking love Nioh 1, and it is farther from the difficulty I was talking about then Elden Ring or even DS1. The problem is not that.

When DS2 just came out, I was happy, because I got the sequel. I did not understand what was wrong at that time, cause I wasn't really able to compare it. I just greedily consumed it, since there were no soulslikes. There was DS1, I played it. Demon Souls, I couldn't play it. And DS2. Maybe there was Lords of the Fallen, but it was a stillborn project.

The problems appearead once DS3 came out. I understood one crucial thing. DS stopped being DS. Why? Cause it stopped being innovative. A wrong term, but that's the closest thing I came up with. After Skyrim, after Darksiders, after Mass effects and so on, it gave me this feeling of playing something new. Just like how many other players felt the same. You can't deny DS1 did it. Even though there wasn't really anything innovative or new, it looked fresh. Now Froms don't do anything really new. I know what I will get, and I don't like knowing what I will get. What separate FromSoftware's games from CoD or AC in that aspect now? Nothing. I know what I will get.

BB and DS1 were both made by Miyazaki. And I can see how they are different games. Can I see that BB and DS 3 are different games? Well, not really. Can I see that DS2 and DS3 are different games? Again, not really. They are all kinda sameish. I know I will get extra hard bosses. I know locations will be more or less tunnels, so on and so forth. From what little I saw from Sekiro, again, it's kinda the same thing. ER added openworld, but apart from that is it really new? I honestly don't know since I didn't play it, and only spoiled something about Malenia and saw a couple enemies\spells.

They add fancy new magic(I saw a couple new ones from ER, they look epic), new weapons with cool movesets, and so on. They increase the mechanical difficulties of bosses, but that's basically it. They don't challenge me with something new. They don't challenge me as a player like DS1 did. They stopped innovating, and started doing what Miyazaki hates the most, doing sequels. Cause people want sequels. They keep doing stuff that forces me to learn how to parry, roll, and strike at the right timing, with timings getting shorter with each new game.

So my point is, there is BB that challenges mechanical skills, and I wish to play it. There are Demon Souls, and to a lesser extent DS1 that is kinda between challenging mechanical skills, and your wit. How about making a new soulslike that focuses on challenging your wit? Make bosses easier mechanically, with additional hard ones, but make easy bosses super quirky. Make players decipher hot to beat them. Make players interact with world and npcs to beat those bosses. Something like that.

Lastly, they still add tricky bossess, they still add tricky mechanics, they do. Executioner chariot from DS2 is unusual, Aava, a couple more. But the ratio is completely skewed in favor of bosses that you simply has to beat fair and square, with might or magic. I feel like it's wrong. Soon enough they won't even be able to up the mechanical difficulty anymore, what will they do once it happens?

Doesn't Nioh feels more of an arcade-like action game than RPG? I think I can see why you prefer its combat over the new souls games.

I see souls game very rooted in its RPG origins. And, I think there's a merit to its straightforward bosses for a RPG with stats increases and wide range of build variety. You can roleplay as archer, priest, mage, etc, and choose your own tools to overcome a challenge. Thus, you have an open problem with countless answers. I believe the playstyles allowed in souls game have a much greater range than in Nioh, Sekiro and Bloodborne too.

Giving gimmicks to bosses restrain the number of viable solution to solve the problem. It's a puzzle that demand efforts from the player to adapt, which is indeed engaging and stop the player from bruteforcing their way with a stale solution, but it takes away creative freedom from the player with the justification that this decision of pushing players away from their comfort will make the experience more entertaining for the player.

Pure action games will have an easier way calibrating gimmicks, because 1. the range of tools they provide is a lot smaller, 2. they will make the acquisition of these tools mandatory, 3. they will teach the usage of these alternate tools through gameplay so that the player integrate it and use it with freedom later on. Thus, they will have that toolbox in their pocket when the game demands it. Perhaps in an oversimplification, this can become a push button 'a' or 'b' when the boss flashes blue, press button 'c' or 'd' when boss flashes red. There can also be strategic depth to choose either 'a' or 'b' because they offer different risk rewards.

In the context of the RPG game, what if the player only had option 'e'? He can't pass the gimmick and his build is simply not viable.

These two design directions (the open nature of RPG and restrictive gimmicks) are in tension against each other.

For instance, it's not rare for RPG games to have elemental weakness systems. The worst combination of restrictive gimmick with the RPG genre would be to punish the player for choosing fire mage by giving all bosses fire resistance as gimmick.

You can see how this impact design in souls game. Most of the time, souls bosses gimmicks are usually restricted to the arena and don't interact to the rest of the game mechanics. For instance, sprinting to the lever during the Executioner's chariot in a Takeshi-like race won't demand a specific build from the player. Demon's Soul and Darksouls3 use of Stormruler as a gimmick to defeat a specific boss without heavy restriction on the build.

Arena gimmick also include traversing challenging terrains like the rooftops of Anor Londo, fighting on the scaffolds/beams of a cathedral and plunge to your death at the slightest misstep, getting chased by samurai on shitty grid over lava, running through a shitty area full of statues that spit poison.

In a way, the most original boss in souls game will always be a gimmick followed by a normal phase of straightforward combat. Even the Executioner Chariot second phase is a straight duel with the horse.

There are still some bosses that have daring gimmick that directly punish the player's build. For instance, I discovered in this dude's no walk challenge that DS2 Demon of Song, a boss which is usually unremarkable, actually had two gimmicks: Not only the boss' hitbox is only on his face, but all its attacks are guard breaks, which punishes shield users.

Normally, this doesn't pose any problem, because the game has so many alternative options to overcome this problem. In the self-imposed no walk challenge, this is a hopeless situation that could only be overcome by the runner's insane knowledge and creativity.

I think players sort of dislike restrictions in RPG, but at the same time they love breaking them. Cheesing refers to a player's solution to overcome a challenge in a way that wasn't intended by the developer. That emergent gameplay arise from the freedom given to the player is enjoyable but it's doable for the devs due to its unintended nature.

Perhaps, the only gimmick you can put in such games are self-imposed by the players. In fact, there are a lot of players that adore roguelike or randomizer mods for DS, which completely change the RPG nature of the game to challenge the player in their decision making. But there's no guarantee that RNG won't fuck your playthrough. What if it gives an impossible problem with no solution?

In conclusion, Souls games and Elden Rings are very open in build diversity, just like old school western fantasy RPGs.

On the other hand, you play as a hunter in Bloodborne, and some ninja samurai in Sekiro and Nioh. You can see these action games zero-in on specific playstyles. Bloodborne encourages relentless offense or fishing a visceral because it can refund the fresh hp you lost in the previous few seconds.

At heart, souls combat is not so different from turn based games. The boss gets its turn and wreak havoc, then it recovers and stops, at which point the player has to seize the opportunity to retaliate. Rinse and repeat.

The player are required to identify when it's their turn, not miss their attack, and maybe aim at the correct spot. When it's not their turn, they have to decide on their defensive options, which is limited to parry, block, iframe, and spacing.

So, to really innovate the gameplay in a way that you'd enjoy, you will need Fromsoftware to make a samurai game, a wizard game, an archer game separately and have them coexist in a single action RPG. In fact, Elden Ring DLC added Deflecting Hard Tear and Guard Deflect which emulates Sekiro gameplay apparently.

That's the entire interest of the open action RPG genre. A mage, a shield user, or a mounted jouster will experience the same boss in completely different ways. As a result, the boss battle might appear stale to the viewer, but the players might still have a thrilling experience of using specific spells and the different mechanics they chose.

 

[ZukoMee]

What about when you start speedrunning?

I've just...never understood the appeal to speedrunning. It makes no sense to me, but eh.

I'm dropping soulslike games because theres too much tryhard and not enough fun. ER especially became unfun in the later areas.

I don't care for difficult games. Despite that, I've played all the souls and soulslike games anyway. I did it because they were EVERYWHERE in the media and EVERYBODY WOULDN'T SHUT THE HELL UP TALKING ABOUT THEM. The ONLY ONES I ever finished were Bloodborne and Nioh 2. That's it. I've played the others, and then just lost interest I just don't like difficult games. I find nothing fun about fighting the same thing over and over. I gain no "sense of accomplishment" from beating a tough boss. To me, its just annoying. Wasting time. There's no enjoyment to me. It only makes me angry. Now, I'm probably not the best gamer I suppose. Maybe thats the problem, but I'll never understand the mass appeal "git gud" games garner nowadays.

Also, the communities to most souls/soulslike games are obnoxious assholes. I met some awesome people while playing Nioh 2 that I ran the whole game through with. Ended up NG+8. Whereas on Bloodborne I ended at NG+6. and only got help during my last two playthroughs because the player base was beginning to move on. The other games? I hated the people. Arrogant pricks. The WORST was the people playing Elden Ring and Wo Long. The amount of times I was told to "git gud" when asking for assistance on Elden Ring.....

and Wo Long. I LOVE the Late Han/Three Kingdoms Era history.....but Wo Long was just a mess. I HATED the tier difficulties of the random mobs. I just didn't understand the point of it. Seemed like someone decided even the little random peasant enemies are supposed to cause headaches.

I played Demon Souls, Dark Souls, DS2, and DS3, but didn't complete either of them. Mostly because of this. (fight me):

• Walk of shame
  • Died somewhere? Get fucked, nerd, go walk, find your soul bitch. Oh? Did you reach the boss with 4 estus instead of your 7? Pft, noob. Git Gud. Oh? Now, you reached it with only 2? Oops. Good luck next time. Bwahahaha.

Then there is the issue of bosses becoming bigger and bigger and bigger with every game. It was especially outrageous in ER:

• Giant. Fucking. Bosses.
  • Are you Quentin? No? Bad luck, here, fight this massive, fucking feet; you won't see the rest anyway.
• Elden Beast
  • Worst end boss ever. At least now you can summon your damned horse with the DLC patch. We just needed 1+ year to get this obviously missing function from the final fight.

I can solo Malenia. That doesn't excuse the fact that something is bad. And the DLC is bad. There is a fine balance, and they overcorrected it because Swamplover doesn't want the player base to go in with lvl300 characters and steamroll it. So what if they want to do it? The new leveling system in the DLC? Shit. Go make Sekiro 2, then.

ER was the first souls-like game that totally vibed with me, and I went ahead, collecting all items, all gear, and finding all the bosses. But right now, the DLC is a disappointment, and I won't touch it until multiple patches are added to it.

There is fun, and there is "git gud" trolling. This is the latter.

My uncle is a MASSIVE Elden Rings fan, and he was extremely disappointed in the DLC. Lore-wise it takes a giant shit on itself, then smears it in, and insists that it be told it smells like roses. Gameplay wise, he said it veered into "difficult just for the sake of being time-consuming and nothing else." Even I was confused about the final boss...the Lore was terrible and FromSoft tends to get stupid with lore at times...but that final boss and ending was Game of Thrones last season bad.

 

[SailusGebel]

Doesn't Nioh feels more of an arcade-like action game than RPG? I think I can see why you prefer its combat over the new souls games.

Not really. To me it felt like faster DS3. Also trick weapons, stances. I fell in love with the fluidity of your movements and ability to perform various combos.

It would actually be easier to say what Nioh2 is. It is soulslike +fighting+slasher+diablolike. It is a bloodborne on steroids. You are incentivized to make combos and cancel animations. You are also incentivized to not use critical strikes(visceral attack) right from the get go, just like in BB, and attack the enemy a bit more. The fact all your weapons are basically trick weapons from BB and allows you to change form, and so on. The reason I don't like it is because I don't fight boss per se. I fight his stamina bar so I can stunlock him. At least when I am not delving deep into RPG elements and build making. However the combat here is even more fluid, and there will probably be nothing like that.

As you can see, those bosses can't really do anything, but to achieve this level of skill you have to spend hundreds of hours. BloodBorne also has some bosses like that, like Paarl. If you keep breaking his limbs, he won't do anything. However in BB you simply attack and watch over your stamina. In Nioh 2 you have to constantly press buttons in the right timing so that your stamina won't run out. You have to switch stances to make various combos, you have to use yokai skills, and yokai parry. But I still don't like that I'm railroaded into basically stunlocking every enemy.

Nioh 1 has less combos, it's harder to cancel animation because you don't have yokai parry, but I prefer is since bosses can and will try to hit me, even if I'm a "pro." Nioh 1 combat is closer to fighting Kos, Kos is probably harder than Nioh bosses, bnot sure since I didn't play BB. While Nioh 2 is closer to fighting Paarl, if you are skilled and know what you are doing.

I see souls game very rooted in its RPG origins. And, I think there's a merit to its straightforward bosses for a RPG with stats increases and wide range of build variety. You can roleplay as archer, priest, mage, etc, and choose your own tools to overcome a challenge. Thus, you have an open problem with countless answers. I believe the playstyles allowed in souls game have a much greater range than in Nioh, Sekiro and Bloodborne too.

Giving gimmicks to bosses restrain the number of viable solution to solve the problem. It's a puzzle that demand efforts from the player to adapt, which is indeed engaging and stop the player from bruteforcing their way with a stale solution, but it takes away creative freedom from the player with the justification that this decision of pushing players away from their comfort will make the experience more entertaining for the player.

Pure action games will have an easier way calibrating gimmicks, because 1. the range of tools they provide is a lot smaller, 2. they will make the acquisition of these tools mandatory, 3. they will teach the usage of these alternate tools through gameplay so that the player integrate it and use it with freedom later on. Thus, they will have that toolbox in their pocket when the game demands it. Perhaps in an oversimplification, this can become a push button 'a' or 'b' when the boss flashes blue, press button 'c' or 'd' when boss flashes red. There can also be strategic depth to choose either 'a' or 'b' because they offer different risk rewards.

In the context of the RPG game, what if the player only had option 'e'? He can't pass the gimmick and his build is simply not viable.

These two design directions (the open nature of RPG and restrictive gimmicks) are in tension against each other.

First of all, I won't put Nioh and BB into the same line as Sekiro. They certainly has less range than Souls, but they are nowhere near as railroaded as Sekiro. In sekiro you have sword. That's it. Okay, maybe those ninja things. Two things. Both Nioh and BB have castrated magic system, but they also allow for a wide variety of weapons. It's not like you can only play with sword.

Second. Giving gimmicsk do not restrain the number of viable solutions. As I mentioned in another reply with an example I came up with, how does inverting your inputs don't let you cast spells, shoot from bows, or swing your sword? It does not. If your press block, you attack, if you press right you go left. It is an unusual gimmick that is fresh, will stupefy the player, and the boss don't have to be Midir to make him hard. This idea might be bad and really gimmicky, but I am no game designer. I do not insist on including it as is. I'm just asking to play around with this kind of ideas, develop something that will tackle me in a different way.

Fool's idol in Demon Souls. How does making her invincible until you kill an enemy outside of her arena restricts your solution? Again, develop this idea. Make it better.

How does the option to either straight up kill, or make Iron Golem fall restricst your solutions? In case of Golem it actually adds to your solutions. I understand it's hard to balance, I know. But again, if you take an easy way, what will you do in the future? How are you going to up the diffciulty when every "simple" boss in the future games will be like Nameless King, or Pontiff, or Dancer? Allow players to grind levels how they were able to do it in almost every soulsborne game? Then what is the point of this type of difficulty? I don't know. I think it would be better to try and balance the gimmicks. Not the kind of gimmicks you are talking about, but the ones I am talking about.

Micolash from BB, he was running away during the fight. He was probably frustrating, but don't abandon this idea. Don't just think, well, they didn't like it so instead of Micolash we will add another Ludwig, since they liked Ludwig. Don't. Improve this idea. Make it work. Make it tackle players in a new way. Play around with the arena, play around with restriction and turn this run after Micolash into a new gaming experience.

You can see how this impact design in souls game. Most of the time, souls bosses gimmicks are usually restricted to the arena and don't interact to the rest of the game mechanics. For instance, sprinting to the lever during the Executioner's chariot in a Takeshi-like race won't demand a specific build from the player. Demon's Soul and Darksouls3 use of Stormruler as a gimmick to defeat a specific boss without heavy restriction on the build.

Arena gimmick also include traversing challenging terrains like the rooftops of Anor Londo, fighting on the scaffolds/beams of a cathedral and plunge to your death at the slightest misstep, getting chased by samurai on shitty grid over lava, running through a shitty area full of statues that spit poison.

In a way, the most original boss in souls game will always be a gimmick followed by a normal phase of straightforward combat. Even the Executioner Chariot second phase is a straight duel with the horse.

Yes. Literally what I was talking about. But please, don't make another Storm King. Yhorm is a terrible gimmick, cause it's the same shit all over again. While Midir has a gimmick, his gimmick doesn't tackle different set of skills. And that's why he was made so mechanically challenging, difficult relatively to bosses like Greatwood.

Again, back to Iron Golem example. He has a gimmick that allows you to make him fall. How does it tackle different set of skills? Well, you are afraid of fighting him on the small part of his arena. You fight him in the center, make him fall on his butt, then he kills you. If you think, if you use not your reflexes but your brain, you can put 1+1 together, and come to a conclusion. Can't I just make this motherfucker fall? And I know that this is a stretch, and not a lot of players have come up with this. But this is the same as what I've been keep saying before. Work with that gimmick, and develop it. Make players think. Reward players for thinking.

At heart, souls combat is not so different from turn based games. The boss gets its turn and wreak havoc, then it recovers and stops, at which point the player has to seize the opportunity to retaliate. Rinse and repeat.

The player are required to identify when it's their turn, not miss their attack, and maybe aim at the correct spot. When it's not their turn, they have to decide on their defensive options, which is limited to parry, block, iframe, and spacing.

So, to really innovate the gameplay in a way that you'd enjoy, you will need Fromsoftware to make a samurai game, a wizard game, an archer game separately and have them coexist in a single action RPG. In fact, Elden Ring DLC added Deflecting Hard Tear and Guard Deflect which emulates Sekiro gameplay apparently.

That's the entire interest of the open action RPG genre. A mage, a shield user, or a mounted jouster will experience the same boss in completely different ways. As a result, the boss battle might appear stale to the viewer, but the players might still have a thrilling experience of using specific spells and the different mechanics they chose.

No. To really innovate, I need Fromsoftware to slow down the pace of this turn based game, instead of blindly increasing it. Slow it down. Allow me more time to think, in return, add more options. Add more tools, something beside attack, parry, block, evade. Plenty innovative. We have slower combat, but it's because we need to think more of what to do. What it is? I don't know, I'm not a game designer. I know it's hard, probably impossible to do it. But yet again I say. Is it really okay to simply decrease the time between turns in each new game? What are you going to do when there is simply no reasonable amount of time left between turns?

 

[Bartun]

The thing about Dark Souls is not that it is difficult, but the game PUNISHES you being careless. You can be skilled and experienced, but one slight miscalculation and you're dead. Not only that; if you die, you have ONE chance to retrieve all your souls (Experience points). If you die again, you can kiss those exp points goodbye, keeping you stuck at the same level until you either get better or quit.

Newer games might be just as difficult but not as punishing. The difficulty becomes just a gimmick if you can retry multiple times without consequences.