Prepare to Die by Simple AI - Dark Souls and Difficulty | Design Dive

[@Preytorcam]

God... Imagine trying to beat Dark Souls while fighting enemies that could plan, adapt, and make intelligent decisions.

[@kameronschadt5246]

Insatiable Chaos well then, ideally it wouldn't be a dark souls game in the first place it's like he said, it's more about the environment and understanding the world than the AI actually knowing what the hell it's doing. if the focus WAS on smarter AI, then you're not really looking at the world with the same discerning eye because you're so much more focused on trying to unravel the enemies' strategies. There's a lot that I like about Dark Souls, but I don't really feel like it can have smart AI without changing into something that's not really dark souls

[@Preytorcam]

Kameron Schadt I’m not saying it’d be a good thing. I just imagine it would make the game terrifyingly difficult, more so than it already is.

[@Preytorcam]

Kameron Schadt I’m merely gawking at the insane concept rather than suggesting it’s implementation.

[@kameronschadt5246]

nah, I get what you mean. Personally, I think it'd be cool if they could strike a balance between smarter AI and good level design

[@VaunaKiller]

You've basically described invasions mechanic :)

[@ianhamlett8839]

18:20 The five or so Black Knights on the way to Gwyn train you for every one of Gwyn's attacks. The weapons they're carrying are not chosen at random. I kept running past them so I could have another crack at the boss as quick as possible, this was a mistake. Everything is there for a reason. If you parry every knight, Gwyn is nothing.

[@falapadieu]

Woah... good for you to discover it. That's actually smart of the developers, giving players a sort of tutorial for the boss without them even realizing it.

[@meyes1098]

The weapons they have aren't random, they're literally the black knight weapons... And no, parrying the black knights won't help you parry gwyn, if you need help parrying gwyn, maybe you should try another tactic, because gwyn is literally the easiest enemy in the game to parry :)))

[@tomtommerson6320]

@@meyes1098 I mean if you can parry a black knight then you can parry Gwyn. So they do help you prepare by practicing test 3 for test 2

[@gregorymilligan6266]

I clocked about 3000 hours in dark souls and did almost everything there is to do and I still struggled with Gwyn as I was slowing down to the end of my hardcore playing. Just one of those things lul.

[@SpacePrez]

@@meyes1098 But the black knights in the other locations of the game have randomly chosen black knight weapons. That's his point.

[@uncoolperson]

I played Bloodborne when my [partner] died. I definitely understand what it's like, and how weirdly therapeutic it was.

[@dannybaloi]

I started playing dark souls in the darkest period of my life too... I feel that effect too. I think it comes from the fact that you are constantly exposed with decay and tragedy, mostly tragedy instead of evil, evil is something you can control, tragedy is inevitable, you just have to accept it, just like the things that are in the past. It teaches you to embrace that which is so hard to embrace... and move forward.

[@skrotosd]

Same here, I didn’t lost someone in that period, just myself. I find myself again in the light of a bonfire, i found the courage to throw away 15 years of study to just do what i like.

[@misledflyer68]

good god, imagine if the AI was programmed to often remix their attack patterns, that'd be terribly difficult...

[@orcman44]

Or if they were programmed to adapt to how you played... Fighting Ornstien and Smough when they can learn how you fight... That would be a real nightmare.

[@mrwindupbird101]

That actually reminds me of the final Valkyrie from the newest God of War (spoilers) Basically there's 8 standard Valkyries, they all have a similar moveset along with a few moves specific to them (one has shielded wings, one has an AoE attack, etc) but after you beat all of them and there's a final one and she's all of them in one. All together she has something like 20 or 30 individual attacks and she'll mix and mash them in just about every way. This was exceedingly difficult for me because I'm used to Dark Souls style bosses and I was looking for patterns in whole movesets, not individual attacks. She might rush you, follow up with an AoE and then do her fly up/crash down grab attack, or she might just spam her grab attack 5 times in a row. You never know.

[@quite1enough]

That would be much more interesting

[@MsMelia]

@@quite1enough play the newer souls bosses, then come back and talk to me.

[@TheOrian34]

@@MsMelia Cries in crucible knights.

[@patbone1990]

My best friend and I played this game all the time. We put off killing the final boss to pvp for months. It was wierd, I literally stopped and thought "im actually really happy, im having loads of fun." Then we eventually decided to kill the final boss. He made a big jk about how all the game only tells you one piece of advice "in lordran, level up and kindle at bonfire". It was the last memory I shared with him. He committed suicide a day later. Dark souls will always remind me of my friend. I always have a hard time going through with fighting the final boss on each dark souls game.

[@AIandGames]

This is both a lovely and tragic story. I'm sorry for your loss and appreciate you sharing. It sounds like you really made the game into something rather unique for the two of you. Have you read the You Died book? There are some fun as well as touching stories of how players engage with the original Dark Souls in there. It's nice to see how players interact with the game in different ways and what it means to them personally. I realised only after completing the book that my experience is another chapter of that story.

[@PaintBottle]

Thank you. both of you. For sharing your stories with dark souls. I love to hear other peoples experiences with the game no matter how happy or sad the stories are. And thanks for mentioning the book that I now need to get my hands on. To me too dark souls ended up being something more special than just a challenging game even tho i did buy it just to try and tackle the difficulty. I personally had very long periods of feeling lonely before I played the game. Can't say how close from depression it was but probably not far. the way DS handles it's atmosphere and world building especially during early game areas hit me hard. I felt like I was experiencing my own feelings and problems through a game. Dark souls ignited a spark of self-examination in me that both helped me to overcome my personal problems and even made me enjoy the solitude to some extent and most importantly it helped me understand myself. Also no other game, movie, book lesson have ever managed to manifest the importance of rising up and trying again better than this game has and that is also something I very much needed back then. Today even after several dozens of playthroughs dark souls never fails to give me that warm feeling of home whenever i start a new character.

[@rickywiddicks]

I get the warm home feeling when I play ds aswell

[@trod146]

@Crawcrawc are you a special needs child?

[@ghoulbuster1]

it isn't prepare to die edition for nothing

[@dabooben3677]

Lets play "find the mouse on screen"

[@EMalachi]

There it is!

[@THExRISER]

@@EMalachi Where?

[@AbThere]

THE RISER there

[@THExRISER]

@@AbThere There where?

[@AbThere]

THE RISER look under

[@wilhelm_mordgesicht]

Yeah, I can totally relate, I started Dark Souls my senior year of college, and I quit because I was angry and acting like a total fool and a child. My relationship fell apart a few months later, I graduated, and once back at home I hibernated and finally beat this game. It meant a lot to me. It felt like I was rekindling the flame within myself to go out and try again, take the fight to another adventure and start out on my adult life. Great game thanks for the video! Subscribed

[@Highnorthy]

It’s always great to hear the simple but refined theory behind making a game like dark souls! Looking behind the illusion of experience just playing the game.

[@daver1975]

From a fellow Scot, well said there at the end pal, and I'm sorry for your loss first of all, but also I'm gonna watch all your videos now! Great chat

[@diablerietandino1941]

I gotta say that my personal experience is the complete opposite of yours. I find it better to vent my frustrations at a game . It keeps my head clear and I never feel tempted to vent at another person, that's the beauty of the medium for me. The occasional yelling and cursing at my screen is cathartic honestly.

[@bakarenibsheut12]

@Carl Marchiano The Assassin's Creed games are pretty easy to me. It's actually really difficult to die in the first four games because of your insanely large health bar and the enemies' weak attacks, unless you jump off a really tall building.

[@devin5201]

Oh I just realized ''Land of the lords, Lordran'' it's just Lordland said with a thick japanese accent.

[@JungleJuiceJoey]

Lol

[@collinkruger5476]

I love the personal story at the end. It's real, and heartfelt, and I'm glad this experience has brought closure. Thanks for sharing.

[@Triptweeze]

I really like the way you describe the complexities of this game. This is what makes this development team and this series my favorite. Thanks for sharing that story as well.

[@ssatva]

This was a magnificent watch, and I'm still buzzing with some of the design and psychology observations you've put together here. This is some important territory to paw through, in the intersection of player perception, reward schedules, feedback, semantics, the narrative effect of systems, and finally, how we as people are impacted. I'm not a coder, I'm a designer and writer, and this exploration was exactly the reason I'm subbed to your channel and am looking at what I can contribute via Patreon (I am poor atm but some stuff is worth it). So thanks for the thought and effort that went into this. I expect that the more people think about what you've put together here, the more they will get out of it... rather like the topic. And thanks for sharing the personal circumstances and impact; it's important to have a more complex and nuanced perspective on how games affect us, and the personal angle really brings home the way we read into, and are impacted by, these designed experiences. Which is something creators need to take our responsibility for seriously, but simple narratives of good/bad effects don't actually result in responsible thinking. In my big messy web of overlapping interests, there's a lot of awareness of the stories we tell ourselves, and how they impact and are impacted by the systems we interact with. Psychologically, personality is increasingly definable by 'role', which is a sort of system with a strong narrative element. The way we consider ecological and technological policies and solutions is entwined with the narrative of nature and the human place in it; are we engineers of a machine, are we in a relationship with another complex organism, etc. In business language, there is an almost frantic attempt to assign a meaning to narrative, but there is a strange hollowness to it as the center collapses into the algorithmic blunt instrument of 'shareholder value', which is itself a narrative some are beginning to critique. There is a of thinking about narrative right now, I think it's becoming clear how central it is to how we as dangerously smart apes do shit. And it all of it, the simple story is very understandable; and is missing the point. In terms of paying attention, and really looking at the nuances of our experience and ideas, we kinda all need to 'git gud'. Again, thanks! Fascinating video.

[@JonoSasson]

Thanks for sharing your story at the end there, mate! Goes to show how deeply personal our connection with games are, for better and for worse. We could all stand to be a bit more introspective about our relationship with video games, I hope it encourages more people to think about it. Keep up the great work.

[@AIandGames]

Thanks for watching dude. Glad you enjoyed the video.

[@fragrantwinter8233]

Damn. All I can say to your final topic is... Thanks for sharing Tommy. I'm glad it's ended well for you at this point.

[@SirValiantIII]

Just watched this on Father's Day here in the US. I'm tearing up and had to go hug my dad. Beautiful video!

[@jackgude3969]

28:10 - I was not in a great place when I started the souls games. I feel this so strongly. I do this thing with all the souls games where I play them over and over obsessively until I can save everyone. Sometimes I just restart as soon as I mess up and someone dies. The little girls in Bloodboarne broke me. In Sekiro I spent several days trying to beat Shura on my first playthrough and when my friends would ask me why I was still fighting the same guy I would say "I gotta save him". I never really thought about this until now, but suddenly it seems incredibly obvious why I spend so much time and energy trying to "save" everyone. Thanks for sharing your story

[@ZeroThe2nd]

Hey, we do give a f*ck. My condolences, even though late. I think it's great you managed to pick yourself up and learn a valuable lesson about yourself as you made this video. You're awesome, remember that ^^

[@AIandGames]

No... YOU'RE awesome! :D

[@DirefulPot]

I really appreciate the candor and integrity with which you approached this video. Not only did it teach me a little about a game series I adore, but it revealed something really important about games and how they interact with our psychology. Thanks so much, and I'm glad you could achieve some degree of closure while entertaining and informing me.

[@slaughterround643]

A quick little annoyance with your video; be sure to remember to hide your mouse cursor when you hit 'record.'

[@slaughterround643]

Recording softwares will do it for you

[@Supernova094]

I was soo focused with what he's saying , didn't even realize there was a mouse cursor flying around.

[@AIandGames]

That's exactly what happened. :)

[@Mangakan_desu]

@Brotmeister lol

[@salgadev]

I really appreciate what you did here, I am glad I came looking for AI and that I came back with tears. I was feeling very sht about myself by the time I started playing it, losing a job, being alone and almost broke but by the time I finished it I had been brought back to my feet. I for one felt so many things playing it and it's crazy to think "it's just a game" but my friend with depression also plays it and has been literally changed afterwards. Much respect mate.

[@Fedethedangerous95]

I'm just at the beginning of the video but I want to say this entire format seems really, really interesting and I love your accent, sounds a lot like a scottish guy whose channel is also one of my favourites

[@christopherclark589]

absolutely loved your video. Honestly breathtaking and heres why: I was sitting listening to every word until you mentioned your concise direrction applied to this game. I stopped for a second and realised I DID THE EXCAT SAME THING. 1. (2016) Dark souls 2: After having to come back from my new life in New Zeland due to my fathers failing health and start my professional career from scatch (worked in a phone shop as couldnt get hired anywhere else) 2. (2018) Darksouls 3: During the time i worked the hardest and longest ive ever had at any job as head of operations (12 hour shifts, 7 days a week almost) 3. (2018) Darksouls 1: Just before starting my dream job while waiting on an official start date and doubting if i would ever managed to get my contract signed I am so sorry for your loss, and understand what its like to lose a family member. Thank you so much for this amazing video and i cant wait to dive into all your content as i have just seen your channel!

[@AIandGames]

Thanks for watching, it's been great to see so how many people have engage with these games in a similar manner . I do plan on doing a follow-up about Dark Souls 2 - which I started playing a couple months after this video was launched - which is more about how I learned to let go of my issues with the franchise in part due to how they differ from one another.

[@EdwardMichael3]

thanks for sharing your personal story. sorry for your loss. hope you're looking forward to sekiro

[@blcdrg]

And just like you, when i played Dark Souls for the second time in a lapse of profound depression, ansiety, stress and other stuff, i learn the real meaning of the sentence "Don't you dare go hollow, friend!".

[@JamieD1298]

Don't forget the saying of "Praise the sun"

[@queen_marika057]

It's amazing just how many stories there are about Dark Souls helping people through very difficult times. Video games can change lives. I know the Souls games changed mine. Welcome to the best damn community in gaming!

[@poppinlochnesshopster3249]

Left 4 dead AI does not target solo players, this is a myth. I'm 5000 hours in.

[@Yetipfote]

u want scholarship, bruh?

[@poppinlochnesshopster3249]

@@Yetipfote Nah, but once you've played a game so long you become so good that it's hard to quit, I can pump it up to the highest difficulties and still chill out while playing, can't do that in any other game :P

[@lcmiracle]

I can say that mostly it's just because the player character tends to be the one in front of the group so tend to take the blunt of the attacks from the common infected.

[@Jar0815]

First things first. As a long time player and watcher of DS analysis and lore videos congratulations for your take on it. You did a great job with your video. But for the last part you gained my honest and true respect. Thank you for being so open with your feelings about, what is most likely the most difficult time in someones life. The loss of a loved one. Putting your grief in Dark Souls is at first glance an odd choice. Like you said: Its a game about repetitive death and rebirth. But this game is so much more than simple entertainment. It changes you and the way you live your life. If I remember correctly it was in one of vaatividya's videos. He said something like: In the world Dark Souls everyone hollows. With every death the process of hollowing continues. The player dies over and over again. But you only completely hollow, if you stop playing the game. With that in mind, you overcame the process of death and of your own hollowing. DS is an emotionally loaded experience. You struggle, you get lost, you're frustrated. All this pain you have to suffer through leads to nothing if you give up. If you continue and overcome those obstacles, you get rewarded with a feeling of progress, accomplishment and truly earned success. All this build up pain gets released in a positive and fulfilling way. Every DS player knows these feelings by heart but your playthrough must have been the most brutal experience this game has to offer. I don't envy you for it but I am proud of you for pushing through. You earned that victory against Gwyn. Go on and seek your own sun.

[@sockatume]

Thanks for talking about that stuff. I think the ways we react to games are an important way we can reflect on how we’re dealing with the world. I have some complicated feelings about a similar time and how that is reflected in how I was approaching the hobby.

[@johnny5805]

Dark Souls is so old skool that i'm surprised it doesn't have 3 lives, a high score table and a soundtrack by Jeff Minter.

[@kalebgetoffit3529]

It’s insane how similar our situation is. I started playing dark souls for the first time before my dad died but I didn’t have the resolve to complete it until after he passed. He was 42 and I still miss him everyday yesterday was my first Father’s Day without him and I’ve found myself beating the shit out of some demons and bosses for kicks I guess but I understand how you said it feels like nobody gives a shit and that life keeps going. Both very true.

[@THExRISER]

Haven't watched this yet,but I'm sure Tommy will mention that one simple and obvious fact that most people don't actually notice,and once they do notice it,the game becomes a whole of a lot easier... The fact that that the enemies/bosses choose their attacks based on the distance between them and the player.

[@willpautz]

In regards to the story at the end: First off, thank you for sharing. It takes courage to tell the world that you've suffered with feelings of frustration and anger. It is obvious that you have been pulled from that dark place and have found great motivation to continue to be productive and create. This is going to get a little preachy, but I just mean to say that I know how you've felt and your story resonates with me. I, too, have been in this dark place before under different circumstances, but I was pulled from it and brought into peace. God speaks to us in different ways, and ever since I had my "born-again" moment, I have never been the same. I'm really glad that you are offering an encouragement to others after delivering very intelligent information regarding Dark Souls' difficulty mechanics. I am on my second playthough of the game and this helps to put things in perspective. Thanks again for your AI insights. God bless you. I hope that you are still doing well.

[@Grimm141]

Hey Tommy, I just subbed for your video on your new video about lootboxes and micrctransactions(from Jim Sterlings reddit) but what I wanted to say you pulled on my heartstrings about what you were saying in relation to your father's passing and how Dark Souls, in it's own albeit frustrating way, helped you get through that difficult time in your life. Sometimes we all need to escape from reality a bit..I started the souls games with Dark Souls 2 so I spent the first 10 -15 hours getting fucking destroyed before I got a handle on the mechanics then the gameplay loop clicked for me and I was sucked in.

[@evilagram]

I'd rate the video a "Meh" at best. I like the pointing out of short, medium, and long-term goals, that's a neat psychological concept, as was pointing out how dark souls thwarts those with the way it handles death, but a lot of this was a disassociated rant on difficulty that didn't seem to have an overarching point. It was divided between supposed toxicity, the value of difficulty, and how dark souls isn't actually that hard and is actually guiding you in a postive way. You did cover the AI a little, which is cool, but remarking that it's not a particularly intelligent AI is kind of a no-brainer. I don't think anyone, even fans of the game would say that the series has intelligent AI, nor that it tries to or cares. The AI frequently has broken pathfinding, and generally just runs at you and does a random attack from its arsenal. Trying to say that people find it intelligent because it's so tough (because it has more health and deals more damage than you do) is kind of missing the point. The AI doesn't need to be intelligent any more than a megaman boss needs to be intelligent. It's about the AI having moves that are designed to be challenging to avoid, and difficult to find opportunities to attack against; Then the AI being placed relative to the environment so it is difficult to deal with them (such as by placing a wall on your right side so swinging attacks will bounce off the wall, requiring thrusting attacks) The classic bungie study of people finding hard AI more intelligent is always neat, but totally unnecessary here. Dark Souls AI does not need the illusion of intelligence at all, it simply accomplishes its task and that's enough. FPS AI tends to rely on behaving intelligently more, because Dark Souls combat works fine on a flat plane with no obstacles, but FPS combat implicitly requires obstacles and cover to work, because it's based on line of sight, and your only means of blocking line of sight are with cover (no dodgeroll, no shield, most games have hitscan projectiles). To that extent, FPS AI needs to move around intelligently, use cover intelligently, and flush you out of cover intelligently in combination with good level design to actually work, which is a much higher bar for AI, even if it's a pretty low bar for us (or it could just work like Doom or Quake, which let you dodge enemy projectiles). Overall issue is, you didn't talk about the actual design of the game much. You didn't talk about how any enemy was designed. You didn't talk about the level design, you didn't talk about the way the attacks were designed, the stamina system, the item system, levelup system, world progression structure, and countless other smaller details. You're all, "It's difficult to approach this game, so much has been said about it" You're right, there's a lot that has been said about the game, but there's so much more left unwritten that it's practically criminal how much Dark Souls has actually been ignored. More has been written about dark souls than probably any other game in the critical space, but maybe only 10% of what there actually is to say about Dark Souls has been said.

[@kameronschadt5246]

Eh, gonna have to disagree with you there. For one, "it's practically criminal how much Dark Souls has been actually ignored." It's been done to DEATH on the internet, it even has it's own subgenre as far as the gaming community at large is concerned. It's been analyzed to hell and back, and for good reason, but I don't feel like there's anything left to be ignored about this game. I will agree that he didn't touch on design as much as he could have, but he still noted things like the learning effect that Dark Souls' respawn system has on understanding the world. You say that he didn't cover the actual design, but he was explicitly stating that you learn about the design of the levels and enemy placement through constant death and rebirth, and having to start right back at the beginning and enticing the player to find shortcuts and to look at the level around them with a more discerning eye. Punishment should always be a learning experience, but he touches on the fact that it's exacerbated through the central design philosophy of Dark Souls. I'm also not sure where you're coming from about the "supposed toxicity", because I believe he only mentioned "toxicity" once. As for the difficulty, I feel less like he's ranting about the difficulty and more noting how it's not actually THAT hard, but challenging in an unorthodox way that takes a lot of new players off-guard. More to the point, however, he notes that it's almost a detriment to the game's image to label it as such a difficult game by focusing on the enemies and challenges in front of you. Yes, this is a game, you need to have a focus on those, but Dark Souls puts just as much focus on the world and aesthetic feel as well. The AI isn't actually all that challenging in terms of behavior, and that's GOOD for this game, because it works into the system that is put in place and that the player must learn about in order to traverse the world without unneeded roadblocks. You're not just fighting against the actual enemies in front of you, but also the world itself: bottomless pits, poison swamps, huge architecture with traps that require careful timing. It's all put in place so that a player who just tries to blast their way through without any prior knowledge will just fail again and again, yet also feels rewarding and makes the player feel like a master of the game when they do start to understand how the levels work. Does he say any of this outright in his video? Not all of it, but that's kind of reflecting the nature of Dark Souls itself: it doesn't tell you everything. You have to seek out the information you want and discover what the world has to offer for yourself. By noting things like the base rewards system and the mechanics of respawning in this game, he's touching on the fact that the game is about exploration. You explore to find new items, souls, bosses, and other story paths, and THAT is what makes the game awesome. It's not about the difficulty, the difficulty is just there to encourage the exploration.

[@evilagram]

Yeah, every single games critic who has written anything after 2011 has written about dark souls, and yet despite everything everyone has written, only maybe 10% of the actual things worth talking about in dark souls have been covered by critics, who are more content to repeat everyone else's points and not bother to talk about the things passing them by every second they play the game. If you think the game has been done to death, you haven't played it. For example, find me a critic who talks about why Bed of Chaos is actually a bad boss. Find me a critic who reviews the level design of any given area in the game, or who comments on the general level design patterns across the game. Find me a critic who talks about the relationship between stamina, attacking, dodging, and shielding. Find me a critic who discusses, or better: diagrams, the interconnectedness of the early areas and all the different ways you can progress, who discusses how dark souls 1 limits your capability to warp to only specific bonfires, making pathfinding to your actual destinations still a difficult task. Find me a critic who analyzes the way secrets are hidden across dark souls, the "secret language" that is built up over the course of the game. Find me a critic that can actually explain all the different ways dark souls subtly points you towards learning how the mechanics work. Find me a critic that explains the designs of the enemy movesets and how they're used in combination to complement one another. There's stuff littered on the ground waiting to be discussed. He should have said what you said in the video. This isn't a game, this isn't prose. This is a critique. If he didn't say it, if it doesn't come across, then that's on him. In a critique it pays to be simple, direct, and to the point, which he generally did not do. I don't agree that the game is "about" exploration. A lot of people want to say, "Nah, dark souls is actually about this other thing besides difficulty, and it's only difficult in service to this other thing which is the actual thing that makes it good" almost like people are ashamed to admit that difficult things are fun. There are any number of linear NES games that are more difficult than Dark Souls, and they don't have that exploration aspect going for them. There's plenty of garbage games with new items, bosses, areas, and other story paths. Those things can add to a game, but they can't replace a good core combat system (or platforming, stealth, racing, or whatever the core mechanics are). There's a saying, "As a beginner, dark souls is hard, as an intermediate, dark souls is easy, and as an expert, dark souls is average." Beginners tend to perceive the games as being impossible, because they are intimidated by its reputation, intermediates want to flash their bravado by saying the game everyone calls difficult is easy, and people who are more mature recognize that it's actually pretty challenging, but there's harder stuff out there. I think it made sense for the marketing team to label the game as hard, because compared to most modern games, it's pretty hard. There's harder out there, certainly, but difficulty is something people enjoy about games, something that is intrinsically enjoyable for us as people. The article that the video cited misses the point that difficulty is older than video games, and also that computer games prized themselves on difficulty on a parallel evolutionary scheme to arcade games. Arcade games were just an outlet, a crucible, where difficulty was magnified by the monetization scheme, in a way that oddly bred a certain type of good game design. Arcade games needed to be difficult to force you to pay money to continue; they needed to be fair, so you'd never leave the cabinet because of something you felt wasn't your own fault; they needed to be fun, so you'd continue to play them; they needed to be easily understandable, so you could pick them up and play them quickly; and they needed to be over in 30 minutes or less, but still have a reason for someone who cleared the entire game to keep coming back to it. The human instinct towards difficulty and rewards is far more ingrained in us however, and games (even single player games) were difficult before computers existed. People went rock climbing for entertainment purposes long before we made games. Ski slopes are labeled by difficulty, with skiing down a Black Diamond slope being a mark of pride too. Consult Raph Koster's book: A Theory of Fun. There's like, a pathological denial that a big factor in the reason people like dark souls is because it's hard among some people.

[@JonoSasson]

Chris Wagar If that's what you're looking for in a video about Dark Souls then I'm not exactly clear why you're demanding it of AI and Games. Don't blame Tommy for your need to consume content and ideas that differ from the channel's objectives. I think your expectations are misaligned, and if you don't believe the game has been fully explored then why not explore it yourself?

[@evilagram]

It says design dive, not "AI of Dark Souls" like his other videos do. I am working on that. I write a lot. critpoints.net/ I'm also looking into a ton of other games as well, and I can't write about everything. That and I want to see other people do good games writing too, step up their game.

[@kameronschadt5246]

Not sure why it has to be a critic that talks about all those things. I've seen critics, and lets play people, and friends on forums who have all talked to death about likes and dislikes and what they've noticed and analyzed about how Dark Souls is as a game. If you're talking about things being unsaid about Dark Souls on a more mainstream platform, then yeah, I guess it hasn't been talked about as much in that sector. I do respect what you mean on the difficulty, and maybe to some degree the game is about difficulty. But I still argue that the difficulty is directly connected to exploring the game world because a lot of initial difficulty comes from not understanding the rules that the world sets since the game doesn't tell you all the rules. Take the ghosts that require you to use a transient curse to fight for example, or the ring back at the asylum that you need to get if you want to move easier at the bottom of blighttown. Hell, even factions like the Forest Guardians can be a strange and frustrating experience for new players just because they don't understand that there is essentially a "turf" faction that exists to punish players trying to get through the area to Sif. There's no shame in a game having difficulty to its main credit, yes, but personally I like it when a game isn't just about "being difficult" and nothing else. I feel like focusing on difficulty when it comes to Dark Souls is doing it a disservice given the amount of effort the developers made in designing everything else, from the world design to the subtle storytelling. Besides, the difficulty can be a detriment to it when it's an unfair difficulty, like the aforementioned Bed of Chaos or the part in Anor Londo with the silver knight archers. Does that mean the difficulty is bad? Of course not, but I don't feel like it should carry a game on its own. With all that said though, it probably was the right move for the marketing team to focus on the difficulty given the public opinion on difficulty in modern video games at the time (and even now to some degree) I personally don't have a problem with people liking Dark Souls because of the difficulty, and depending on how you look at it, it can be pretty hard. I just feel like the difficulty is way overblown compared to the rich lore and atmosphere it offers, and thus it overshadows those aspects that I like so much more. I'll admit, it probably doesn't help that I get frustrated at games a lot more easily than some other people, and I gave up a couple of times trying to play this one. But I've got three playthroughs down now, so there's definitely something that it's doing right that appeals to me

[@grahamwalker2168]

Thanks for sharing your personal story. Your honesty and vulnerability shows how important it it to be able to open up and talk about difficult emotions instead of allowing them to control us, our behaviour and our relationships. I appreciate this comment is 15 months late!!

[@RyanHaha101]

Loved your content and your ending message. Offering others a visceral look at your emotional state and potentially showing “weakness” shows a lot of strength. I hope younger kids see this and take something away from it. Subscribed and excited to check out more of your channel!

[@howmanyyums654]

Fantastic ending. Very beautifully worded. I'm happy to hear you were able to overcome it all, praise the sun 🌞

[@benjamincarr9119]

I’m late to the party, but I’m glad I showed up anyway. Thanks for the vid. Don’t you dare go hollow!

[@NeutralNinetails]

I playing ds1 for the first time and getting out of sen's fortress was one of the most rewarding moments in gaming for me.

[@themusicguy1989]

Great video, totally not what i thought it was when I clicked it. I thought that it was Dark Souls played by a simple AI. Turns out that it taught me a lot. I'm an aspiring game developer, made me realize that I definitely need to replay this game.

[@OfficialDireProductions]

wheno and s theme came on my heart dropped and my ptsd kicked in

[@snek616]

I'm legitimately still impressed that to this day, we as a community come back to darksouls with a new character every single year. Practically making our own holiday almost, but it just shows our passion for it

[@jamestyrean]

Hey man, thanks for this video. You really touched something in me in me with the epilogue, and I think I needed that. Cheers

[@Gnurklesquimp]

That bungie AI experiment kinda makes complete sense though, how smart or stupid something is is relative to what one is capable of: If something is capable of taking a hit, they don't actually have to use cover as intelligently. If they are also faster or deal more damage, their charging tactics that are usually seen as stupid are more likely to be effective, and could actually be wiser than playing defensively without applying much pressure. Of course there's still room for flanking ai and stuff, when it comes to actually improving the AI rather than building the rest around it's limitations.

[@izzya3987]

Quite insightful. The last few minutes was the best part of the video.

[@xXDameanXx]

that mouse that appears on screen.... cannot be unseen

[@geberlan]

Sorry for your loss, man. Take care.

[@RandomNorwegianGuy.]

Dark souls. The kind of game that is really only difficult on the first playthrough. I found Dark Souls (all of them) to be difficult on my first playthrough, not purly because of enemy difficulty. But because I didn't know where to go, so the game kept me very tense until I reached a shortcut or a bonfire. But that element is completely gone after the first playthrough.

[@JohnDoe-cr2cv]

19:16 breadcums great vid btw

[@gravious]

Great video, i've been intimidated by the souls games since originally trying (and failing spectacularly) to "get" what it was about, but a recent love of Bloodborne has made me curious about them again and your video has shown me that it's definatly me, not the game at fault. i think i'll have another go at it :) Also, thanks for sharing your personal story while playing, people don't realise the game is only part of the experience, people's perception and preconceptions bring a lot to the fore as well.

[@AIandGames]

+Gravious I totally understand that intimidation, to a point that many people I know have refrained from playing for the exact same reasons. I'm on the other side: I've only played DS1. I would really love to try Bloodborne. Gonna try and save up for a PS4 so I can also cover PS4 games in case studies. 😀

[@robotic2000k]

Somehow I found the footage of super mario gameplay with dark souls boss fight music, unnerving...

[@HecmarJayam]

Thank you for sharing your story. Beautiful video.

[@PostiHDx]

Not Dark Souls, but I really feel like Bloodborne made me a lot more patient even in real life. I'm not getting angry as fast anymore and accepted failure as part of progress. Kinda strange getting this kind of a positive effect from a game. Probably one of the reasons why it's still my all time favorite game .

[@hrnekbezucha]

Black knight sword and gold-hemmed black set is a sure path to victory.

[@countinshteve5219]

audio normalization is really cool

[@kurtwesterman4315]

"I needed to aim myself at something, to focus all my attention and determination on a single point [...] and smash the shit out of it." god damn right.

[@ace8099]

Awesome video, I loved it! Thank you for making it

[@quinnlaya331]

next project, make a neural network that allows smough and ornstein to work properly together. Where smough wont run into pillars and ornstein would learn to time your (chosen undead's) rolls when evading smough. Then create another ai to play the chosen undead and let them fight.

[@hairlessgrizzly559]

I finished playing Dark Souls 2 a week ago. Now that I've played a Dark Souls game, I love it. There was always something to go after. Get that OP weapon to annihilate every living being in your path. Kill that one boss or enemy that's giving you trouble. It was amazing. I loved it so much, I defeated every single boss. It was hard, but fun. I failed so much, but never quit. Dark Souls definitely deserves all of its recognition

[@piotrw3366]

Great video. It seems like this game is designed as a path to mastery. You could put 70h into learning some skill. You will try, you will fail and the core notion is fail fast and often to learn faster by doing. Keep learning instead of quitting to achieve success. It seems like a really good game design.

[@henrygabriel2527]

how is this guy not more popular

[@elgigante7081]

The way I see it, Dark Souls is a game anyone can play all you need is patience and perseverance.

[@TheBlackDeath3]

A nitpick: negative reinforcement is not the same thing as punishment. It's a very common mistake.

[@KaiserAfini]

Very well thought out and eloquent video, excellent job.

[@stonecarrier2688]

I would love to see the psychological affects of video game types. I have used games as a release and it can be painful.

[@notsogreatsword1607]

Managing blocks is something that you will eventually learn is a choice. Blocking is a choice. You can drop it from your skill set and replace it with dodging. Both use stamina but only one provides complete protection when successfully employed. Dodge. Don't Block. It's my mission in life - at least as it relates to Dark Souls - to get new players to understand that blocking is a bad habit that you don't want to pick up. I used to be a blocker. I wore out my L1 button blocking. Now I have trouble blocking. I can't do it. I can dodge and parry. If I'm going to be in the way of an attack at all I will be trying to parry or in the middle of my s during a dodge. standing there with your shield up taking chip damage and not positioning yourself for a counter becomes silly feeling once you know you don't have to get hit at all. Sekiro and Bloodborne will not tolerate an addiction to blocking. So just don't.

[@Kyleology]

Thank you so much for pointing out that Dark Souls isn't that difficult. It's just punishing, which is totally different.

[@TheOrian34]

I never ended up parrying in Dark Souls 1, the final fight was difficult but interesting.

[@NiraSader]

Most of the difficulty of the series lies in pattern recognition, trying again and again while learning the enemies’ movesets, how to dodge them, remembering area layouts and enemy placements, etc

[@curtisbrown547]

heavy armor isn't a mistake unless you don't build for it. poise in Ds1 is sooooo strong

[@rockshawen]

‘Dark Souls’ literally means humans, it’s about us, not the gods or demons. We are the focus and we make up our experiences just like In real life, literally no other game has influenced like this, all the friends and lessons I learned will impact me to this day. Hell I even got into Berserk, because my friend was telling me the influence it had. I can honestly say that no other pieces of media had a profound impact on me. That impact is that while we humans are weak, petty, arrogant, sinful creatures... we keep getting back up no matter the circumstance, no matter how hopeless it is. Humans are the only creatures to stare into the abyss and yell “I!” At the top of our lungs. Where gods, angels, demons and other races gave up in the world, humans persisted despite the curse on the land. If that isn’t inspiring/beautiful then I don’t know what is.

[@lrmcatspaw1]

Dark Souls is not hard once you accept that dieing is part of the learning process. Let me give you one example that I think explains this best: Manus. Manus is by far the most aggressive boss in dark souls. If you try to"just fight him" constantly, it will be very hard to pick up on his patterns since some of them are quite similar. If you just block/dodge for 3-4 minutes you will learn all his attacks to the point where you can tell what he will do almost 100% of the time. The the boss becomes only a question about patience. Personally I almost never play like that because I enjoy the fervor of risk. But I did try this 2-3 times and the game is easy (really easy) once you learn those. OFC there are some cases where this does not matter, like bed of chaos.... but you can just use firebombs there.

[@Robert399]

Minor point but "negative reinforcement" is a term which is misused by basically everyone who's not a psychologist. It's *not* punishing behaviour you want to discourage - that's simply punishment - it's rewarding behaviour you want by removing something undesirable, the classic example being telling a child, "if you do _____ you don't have to do your homework this evening."

[@zoidsfan12]

What makes dark souls fun is being able to memorize their attack patterns and just get into that flow state. I've beat ds1 6 times give or take an ng+, I love coming back because I play early parts of dark souls in my sleep. I spent way too long playing the game... SL1 was probably the most fun challenge run, shields only sucks, black knight greatsword speedrun is the fastest I have managed to beat the game at about 3 and 1/2 hours. Course I was using some skips and glitches in that run.

[@sirreginaldfishingtonxvii6149]

First up I want to compliment you on this video, it's really great! :D Second up I wanted to tell you that your accent is amazing. You probably get that pretty often, but still.

[@leighsherval1023]

One of the best videos on KZbin

[@rhrabar0004]

Love your design dives!

[@kombinezon]

Ehh Dark Souls ... I've started to understand that game after getting stuck in the Undead Burg and shelving it for a few months. It made me realise what I need from a game to be entertained and that got me back into playing video games after few years of hiatus. Also now I know that Dark Souls, just like all games, is just Tetris With Extra Steps. Cool vid :)

[@bluepiggaming204]

21:22-23:20 excellent two minutes.

[@travismudd3564]

Ay stay strong my dude.....sorry I'm not good with words.

[@vaninda1751]

great video man, spot on

[@rhrabar0004]

You're a smart and accomplished dude!

[@jacobjimenez3240]

4:45 Mad because it's the wrong boss music 13:40 IT'S ABOUT GODDAMN TIME

[@maniacmatt7340]

Amazing video. Loved it

[@andremorim4952]

Excellent video

[@TheGoondas87]

At 9:30 , I have to disagree with this statement. Its very easy to create an "artificially difficult" game by simply increasing enemy damage and minimizing player health like you mentioned. But to create a game the is properly more difficult (such as making the enemies smarter and redesigning level layouts to favor enemies) takes a lot more work. Any game that increases difficulty simply by making enemies do more damage and making them bullet sponges is cheap and lazy.

[@evilmarc]

I love the trial and error style combat of the souls series. The one thing that made me dislike 1 was what a lot of people really like, the map. I didn't like getting lost and wasting time wandering around. I should go back and play it with a guide or something. I beat 2 and loved it. I also beat 3 and it was ok. Planning on playing Bloodborne sometime in the future.

[@AIandGames]

Next up for me is probably Dark Souls 2. It's interesting watching how the series has evolved from the outside and the reaction to it. Dark Souls 2 seems to get a bad rep for some reason. I'm excited to get a feel for it myself.

[@happytouch2671]

evilmarc its not trial and error. Its only your fault when you died

[@kcbsuiejd]

if that title doesnt sound like a Cyberpunk Bandname, i dont know what does

[@mr.e2643]

"Git gud, a term often used to berate inexperienced players" no my friend, it is meant as encouragement to obtain proficiency, to rise to the challenge, going from a frail doomed undead to a living god. It is not meant as an insult. You CAN overcome the impossible. If it has HP, it can be killed. The only real obstacle is yourself. I apologise if anyone over the years has taken "git gud scrub" as an insult, it was not meant to be.

[@15OgLoc]

Dark Souls changed my life, let that sink in.

[@Wuuff]

What does the sink want from me though, its been knocking at my door for 3 days and im scared

[@pedroscoponi4905]

A lot of people describe using dark souls as a means of dealing with some form of grief or frustration, and considering that's not what happened to me I find that really interesting. In fact, I think the worst thing I can do to myself when I'm in a dark hour is start playing a fromsoft game! XD

[@gusonian8637]

This video is a masterpiece

[@1SWINZ1]

I enjoyed the video, so thank you. Really amazing story at the end! But I just have one pet peeve... The meme that retro games were only hard because they needed to make money is false. I mean, a distinction needs to be made here: they were challenging because they were games, they were stupidly difficult because they needed to make money. A "game" is a competition that is played according to a set of rules. A "competition" is a challenge. Games are inherently challenging. This doesn't mean that they all need to be stupidly hard, just that challenge is an essential component that makes games, games. This is why I roll my eyes every time I hear the "Retro games were only hard cause money" meme. It's as if people have been spending so much time playing non-games like Gone Home and Dear Esther that they've thrown away literally thousands of years of knowledge and forgotten what a "game" actually is.

[@AIandGames]

My bad, when I discuss difficulty and making money it's largely in the context of old arcade games which is very much where difficulty settings became a commercial realisation. It's not clear in the video (I realise that now), but it's a big part of the reality of it (see Parkin's article I link to on Eurogamer).

[@redseagaming7832]

Dark Souls a masterpiece that is all about patience timing if you rush through the game you're going to have a hard time. Just level up grind level up and the game becomes easier it's funny I keep having to remind people this. The fastest I've been able to beat this game is 15 hours from start to finish I remember when my first playthrough took 250 hours

[@NM-ty3wb]

Every first playthrough on ANY game should be challenging. Darksouls is actually terribly easy the second time you play it. (Unless your friends carried you through the game cause you were unwilling to learn.) It's so easy that it feels like a glitchless speedrun. Ultimately, adapt and you will not only succeed, but thrive.

[@robowarrior4677]

poor lad, sorry for your dad passing

[@Anubis2358]

I never figured out how to parry reliably in DS 1 or 2, I just got really good at frame perfect dodges and back stabs, mostly by dying a lot.

[@jahsiahandrews8510]

I know the comment is old, but it's actually really simple once you figure it out. Attacks have three parts, the wind up, the strike, and the cool down. What you have to do is get as close as possible to the opponent and press the parry button the second the actual strike part of the animation begins, when they're actually bringing their weapon towards you.

[@gabrielmoura7146]

Be safe friend, dont you dare go hollow.