Dark Souls

[Yggdrasil]

Almost nobody seems to remember that Dark Souls was much more harder before. What we have right now in fact is an easier version of the same game.

[Taelus]

What? When was it easier? You mean the patches?

[Yggdrasil]

Yeah, everything took more time and resources to pull off before. They did make the game more manageable with the last patch two patches and fixed a lot of stuff along the way but they also got rid of part of how difficult the game was even if most of that difficulty was unfair at times.

http://darksouls.wikidot.com/game-patches#toc2

[Eusis]

It's really a mixed bag in a lot of ways, and at any rate I don't see remotely analogous to the proposed "easy mode". For the most part the changes were either to address straight up bullshit (first part of Lost Izalith) or to reduce tedious grinding (Twinkling Titanites). Nevermind some of the nerfing, it's possible to argue based on nerfs to Pyro alone that earlier versions are the actual "easy mode", not 1.05, and what they did with the Elite Knight set and Iron Flesh was absurd, and they must've recognized this as the poise for Elite Knight's been reset on the PC version.

[Taelus]

Yeah, I was playing when it came out, and I don't feel like the game is EASIER, there's just less cheese to deal with. It's certainly less frustrating at times, but I don't know if I'd call that difficulty so much as just time-consumptiveness.

[beLIEve?]

i remember after one of the patches that the undead in undead burg were a little nerfed in that their tracking was a bit less they used to run down the steps or jump down after throwing fire bombs and that did make it slightly easier. same with the cemetery you used to walk in there and every skeleton would wake up now it's two at a time. i didn't get to the minotaurs till after that but i seem to remember people saying they were super annoying before the patch for some reason too. 

[Yggdrasil]

Before the last patch the enemies in Izalith were savages. I remember that the Minotours and Capra Demons would go after you with relentless attacks until you were death but now they don't do that anymore (maybe the Minotours still do but I haven't played Dark Souls in a while).

[DPB]

Up to Anor Londo now, gradually going through my stock of humanity summoning Solaire every time in a vain attempt to defeat the bosses here. I'm starting to wish I'd put more points into vitality, I only have 18 and my character feels very fragile.

What's up with the lightning weapons in this game? They seem really unbalanced, they came up with this fantastic system where every weapon is a viable option and even has different animations, but then invalidated it all by making lightning vastly more powerful than everything else. Nothing I have even comes close to the Lightning Spear, and it feels like I wasted a ton of souls putting points into dexterity when it doesn't affect damage anymore.

[Eusis]

What's up with the lightning weapons in this game? They seem really unbalanced, they came up with this fantastic system where every weapon is a viable option and even has different animations, but then invalidated it all by making lightning vastly more powerful than everything else. Nothing I have even comes close to the Lightning Spear, and it feels like I wasted a ton of souls putting points into dexterity when it doesn't affect damage anymore.

I believe they nerfed those somewhat with a patch, but basically lightning is great... to a point. Thing is that the damage is divided among two types, and will never get better beyond upgrading the weapon itself, so once you reach 40 in STR/DEX a weapon that scales to those stats, particularly at +15 will usually be way better. Especially since those can be enchanted.

[DPB]

If anyone's playing the PC version with stereo speakers (not 5.1 or 7.1) you'll want to read this for a fix. Stereo is broken, by default you miss out on most of the ambient sound effects, before finding about this workaround I'd been playing the game in near silence thinking that was how it was supposed to be.

[Yggdrasil]

EpicNameBro - Easy Mode, Do Not Want (1 year special) -- 37min

[Taelus]

If anyone's playing the PC version with stereo speakers (not 5.1 or 7.1) you'll want to read this for a fix. Stereo is broken, by default you miss out on most of the ambient sound effects, before finding about this workaround I'd been playing the game in near silence thinking that was how it was supposed to be.

Thaaaaank you. :D

[beLIEve?]

EpicNameBro - Easy Mode, Do Not Want (1 year special) -- 37min

thanks for posting that i think he makes some solid points. i just thought of another way it got easier after the patch. swapping the targets in auto lock got a hell of lot better after the patch.

[mjrpgfan]

Wouldn't you guys want less grinding and tedium in a game like this? Or does grinding count as difficulty in Dark Souls?

You guys just told me that Dark Souls is more of a strategy game where the main difficulty is figuring out enemy attacks and how to counter them, yet people are complaining about the action? Why don't they play the far more difficult more action oriented games like the ones I just mentioned? Or any of the far more difficult games in this list? There are lots and lots of challenging games out there.. both in terms of strategy, and in terms of action. I dunno, the whole thing is confusing to me.

There's nothing wrong with an easy mode so more players can enjoy the game's content. Gating players out of large amounts of content for the sake of elitist egos is pointless and bad for business. Hard modes exist for players like that.

[beLIEve?]

Wouldn't you guys want less grinding and tedium in a game like this? Or does grinding count as difficulty in Dark Souls?

You guys just told me that Dark Souls is more of a strategy game where the main difficulty is figuring out enemy attacks and how to counter them, yet people are complaining about the action? Why don't they play the far more difficult more action oriented games like the ones I just mentioned? Or any of the far more difficult games in this list? There are lots and lots of challenging games out there.. both in terms of strategy, and in terms of action.

There's nothing wrong with an easy mode so more players can enjoy the game's content. Gating players out of large amounts of content for the sake of elitist egos is pointless and bad for business. Hard modes exist for players like that.

i don't think grinding for souls is all that tedious, it can be depending on how you go about it. i think it does count (toward the difficulty) in a way. imagine you have a survival horror game (cause i think that's what this game does) now take away the story except that little bit of lore you get from items and a few bit bits of info from npc's now imagine how unfulfilling it'd feel without the tension. i can't imagine anyone would want to play that.

i'm not sure what your trying to say with your middle paragraph. i think anyone who's complaining about the action in dark souls is likely going into it two-handed and not paying attention to their stamina gauge cause it takes a second to heft the sword back to your shoulder. you can't block with your shield forever or roll forever either you just have to be on top of you gauges while simultaneously watching your foe. as to why anyone doesn't like this is subjective.

while i certainly don't want to be elitist (i've used easy modes recently) i just don't think the souls games would work that well with an easy mode. it would likely just break the game. the games foundation is difficulty, without it the key ingredient is missing. i think it would lose that which makes it compelling in the first place. maybe it can be done i just don't see what the draw would be without the difficulty.