The True Genius of Dark Souls II - How to Approach Game Difficulty - Extra Credits

[@cfdj43]

anyone else find it funny how he knew about the fire longsword but forgot it in the let's play?

[@DeRedBaronCT]

Also I think he's predominately an animator [not james] which might or not might be relevant. I know for a while when I started watching James didn't say much at all... at least from what I could tell maybe i'm wrong.

[@derrickshowproductions3010]

Lol the fire sword is overpowered so long as you level that and a longsword with you (some enemies are resistant to fire so youd basically be shooting urself in the foot using it on them) as a alternative. Also I think hes right about spell casting to an extent

[@NotBanned_]

Did you just say dan animates?

[@abyssbun444]

That’s the beauty of Dark souls, everyone has a way of doing things!

[@SpaunnGaming]

When you mentioned character selection I immediately remembered what I've always said about the first pokemon games, and although I've not met many people that agree with this, the way I see it, bulbasaur was 'easy' because it could blitz through the first 2 gyms on it's own, squirtle was 'medium' since could make it through the first with ease, and charmander was 'hard' would struggle against the first. I thought it was probably intentional that the game was designed like that, and even if not, I'd still say that Pokemon red blue and yellow are also great examples of difficulty through mechanics :)

[@ince55ant]

+SpaunnGaming I think i read this years and years ago because its been floating in my head for over a decade. Also it was possible (with some grinding) to get butterfree before the rock gym, and since butterfree learns confusion at same level as evolving it can basically one shot all of brocks rocks. I usually keep one in my team til i get an abra.

[@KokiriKidLink]

How to make Dark Souls 1 Easy: 1. Git Gud 2. Pick theif 3. Ignore your getting good and use the door to Cheese-kill the black knight 4. Get Black Knight Sword 5. Use no other weapon for the rest of the game. Disclaimer : If step 4 fails, Start the game all over again

[@CasshernSinz1613]

Kokiri Kid doing that at the moment. Catacombs finished in a half hour. I feel like a god. Plus I already went through Anor Londo and got the silver knight armor and I grinded like crazy

[@kalvinhobbes5879]

Kokiri Kid >Not farming for a BKH run step up your cheese tactics pleb

[@johstybach]

Step 1: Hacks Step 2: Ban Step 3: Play Skyrim on easy mode

[@personeater2664]

Johsty Bach You've clearly never played skyrim.

[@johstybach]

Pineapple overlord Only played through it around 7 times.

[@alxjones]

The big problem I see with this is that a choice like "which weapon do I use?" is supposed to be a separate choice from "how hard do I want the game to be?". There are people who want to play melee, and want the game to be easier. There are other people who want the game to be difficult, but want to play a ranged or magic user. The only people who can get the most enjoyment out of the game are people who love to use the weapon that best matches the difficulty they will enjoy the most, and because there's no indication that weapon choice affects difficulty, most people will pick the weapon they like the most and end up on a difficulty to easy or hard for them.

[@haleyhorton-loup3257]

I was about to say this very thing. I had an awful time with DS2 because I couldn't get used to enemies auto-tracking, coming in large groups, and not getting stunned in a useful way by heavy weapons. About halfway through the game I was using the bow almost exclusively, which just felt like a chore. Instead of smashing through by wits and timing with a greataxe like I did in the first game, my only option seemed like abusing the limited pathing and sight lines. That was way more of a blow to my pride and enjoyment than simply selecting weenie mode would have been.

[@Biggkenny]

Weapon type and difficulty do seem like they should remain unrelated. I don't know why them being related is seen as a good thing as if male characters had a harder time than females, people would really complain.

[@hapwn]

The big problem I see is people being difficult! 😎

[@TobiasTHolmes]

If they were labelled more explicitly that would void the benefit of players engaging with this system, some might miss it, but if it's just a during play difficulty slider you'd get even less use of it.

[@Tenacityyyy]

I just play alll my first souls playthroughs as pure melee (at least for boss fights cuz thats what i care about most) without ever using summons i do not care how hard it gets when i overcome a boss the feeling is worth the hours

[@SuncrispCore]

How to Easy Mode Dark Souls: Acquire a shield Equip a shield Use a shield

[@WFoong98]

+Suncrisp Drop ye shield!

[@WillowMelody]

+WFoong98 Perfect! You know what I mean?

[@Spenfen]

+Suncrisp >implying that Bloodborne is then inherently harder because shields are absent

[@PFish2322]

+Suncrisp I would say shields are more medium mode because there are so many of them and most people use them. Only using rolls would be hard mode.

[@Rujewitblood]

+Spenfen implying bloodborne is the same game, expect no shields

[@MR-dc4od]

5:08; "Look, if you don't like our normal death penalty, feel free to use this one if you want." Truly, context IS king.

[@raindrain1]

"Intentional pathing bugs left in" Extra Credits, I trust you, I like listening to what you have to say, but I'm not buying this goddamn bridge.

[@selfiestick1589]

Idk why but your commrnt almost killed me

[@LashNSmash]

You forgot the despawning enemy mechanic, where if you kill an enemy enough times they despawn until you bump an area up via aesetic or join cov of champs

[@FangsofYima]

Well the problem with most difficulty settings is all they do is raise hp / damage values which doesnt make the game harder it just makes it longer. Without any change in ai or enemy spawns/placement there is no real change in difficulty. Generally I prefer a game not to have settings at all, just to be designed well throughout and set to a static difficulty. Or someone that really got it right; Crysis, higher difficulty removed crosshairs, enemies spoke in korean etc. But hp values were normal.

[@christianloper9483]

Fangs of Yima I LOVED the way difficulty worked in Crysis. It changed the way some information was given to you without tweaking the behaviors of the AI. I picked Delta from the beginning and it was perfect.

[@tonylott8470]

I think it’s ok to do the “easy normal hard” as long as you provide small descriptions I.e EASY: Great choice for those who just want to see the story NORMAL: the regular difficulty that was designed in the studio. HARD: Great for those who want a tough challenge Now those are vague, but that should be the framework of those descriptions.

[@JM-nothing-more]

you actually missed another aspect of difficulty-adjustment: enemies can despawn if you kill an enemy 12 times, they will no longer respawn on your death, meaning you can face-into-the-wall your way through the game by dying over and over but taking a few enemies down each time

[@Veolynn13]

OH SHIT ZERG RUSH!

[@louisgworld]

Despawning is one of the many problems with Dark Souls two. I fucking hate clearing out zones.

[@JewTube001]

OnnaJ ReverT Yeah I'm surprised he didn't mention that.

[@Zycyzyx]

Except I'd argue it wasn't very skillfully handled - like many aspects of the game relative to it's predecessors. Yeah, you might get a slightly less stressful slog to the boss room; but the actual result of despawning is that souls annoyingly become a finite resource. For me, it just made the game harder and more frustrating. It also kills the flow of levels and ironically works to amplify the repetition of killing the same dudes over and over. Just knowing you can rid yourself of an annoying enemy by killing them X times in a row is enough to sabotage the fun and tension. It's like the worst parts of the last 2 games stretched over the whole thing.

[@PragmaticAntithesis]

If you want another strong example of difficulty adjustment, look at Kid Icarus Uprising. Firstly, the game starts by forcing you to play the first chapter on 2.0 difficulty [easy mode]. This does two things: 1) it makes playing on lower difficulties not feel like cheating (it's the default mode, after all); and 2) it makes it so the player has some context *before* choosing a difficulty. Secondly, there is an intensity "5" gate in chapter 1. Not only does this allure players to the idea of replaying chapters on high intensities, but it also makes it so that the player knows there is an incentive to play on the higher difficulties. Additionally, replaying the chapter on 5.0 difficulty [hard-ish mode] can inform the player as to what raising the intensity _does_ to the levels. Thirdly, the fiend's cauldron has a "try this" marker, which adjusts based on how well the player is doing. If the player wants to not use the marker, they can. It also makes it so players gradually increase the difficulty of their challenges (as the marker is slightly higher than how the player has done recently) so they don't stay on easy mode for too long and get bored. Finally, lowering the intensity is the penalty for death. Yes, *penalty*. The game portrays being forced to play on easy as a punishment for not being good enough to play on high difficulties. This also does two things. One, it adds extra challenge for those who want to beat a level on intensities 8.1-9.0, as they have to beat thew level in one go. This makes the game "harder" without adding near-impossible intensities. Two, forcing the player to play on 1 lower intensity each time they die means the player is less likely to be stuck on an area (as they'll be able to clear it more easily on low intensities). This means the player won't be stuck on a challenge for too long. But equally, having this mechanic as a punishment makes the player less frustrated at it's existence, as it is openly presented to the player (so no "hidden casual mode") and it also makes it less noticeable (the player thinks "Oh, I failed. Now I'll take the penalty and move on" without caring about what the penalty is).

[@fernandobanda5734]

While that method is pretty perfect for Uprising and Smash, it's very narrow in what it can be applied to. You need a game with clearly distinguished self-contained levels that are fun to retry, and you a lot of collectable equipment/goods, as the reward for choosing higher difficulty is getting more/better stuff.

[@PragmaticAntithesis]

Fernando Banda Of course, but a lot of games do fit in the category you stated. There is no one-size-fits-all for anything, and nor is my solution.

[@SunlightBlade]

Great video, thumbs up :)

[@romarjethrocorpuz848]

Oh hey, it's lightning blade

[@RileyJefferson]

Oh bruh

[@xanfennell4308]

Yo

[@Spritesuit]

Kid Icarus had a pretty interesting difficulty system. You could spend currency to *heavily* increase *and* decrease the difficulty. On 0.0-2.0, it's probably the easiest Nintendo game ever. On 9.0? It's called "nothing harder" for a reason. Dying is really painful on higher difficulties (giving it a real weight), but you gain much better rewards (easily paying back the currency you used in the first place) and more powerful weapons. It also has several weapons and powers that can make the game even easier/harder, which *also* depend on the level.

[@kotlolish]

But the problem in this is.. when you lose.. you lose the difficulty. Ergo if you want to clear everything purely 9.0 You better do it flawlessly or else you lost that pay for 9.0 instantly and have to settle for a 8.0

[@Spritesuit]

kotlolish And that adds to the difficulty, doesn't it? Adds a risk and weight to the death of the player. That infuriated me at first (being a lefty, the controls aren't the best), but I understood why when replaying the game.

[@kotlolish]

OOh it does.. it just doesnt feel perfect.

[@grfrjiglstan]

That's still basically the Easy-Normal-Hard system, just with ten different options.

[@DaELFGokulio]

kotlolish Shamus TheKnight Then you explain why the fuck Sakurai felt that he needed to add this shitty system to Smash Bros? Unlike KI where getting better prizes and such help the game, you're not really getting any more benefit by risking coin and time other than trophies, equipment for custom characters and a completed challenge. None of those rewards will make it more likely for you to win a match, so all this system is giving you is a punishment for not having a flawless run. I'm fine with losing money, but if I wanna clear Classic at 9.0 and I fuck up once, why the hell should I keep doing the whole thing over again?

[@MysticDragons]

easy mode is stregnth build with dual wielding clubs, and getting the drangleic armor right after the second boss. Equally, easy mode is when you know every enemy, every place, and every tactic for every boss. You learn that by playing the game normally.

[@ZomifiedHam]

+MysticDragons i recently played Bloodborne on a different system than my main save. on my first time playing, it took me several hours and strategizing to figure out how to get past the first street. yesterday, new game, i explored the entire area without dying (until i got to the pig) then killed Gascoigne my first try. *preknowledge is absolutely easy mode.*

[@fotakatos]

+MysticDragons The thing is that not everyone has the time or patience to learn the hard way.

[@1un4cy]

I was surprised how strong the rapier is on a dex build like wow that damage. I wanted to do dual dex weapons but it was just more efficient to poke with a 2hand rapier than anything else

[@clayxros576]

Dan specifically mentioned how there are people who want to enjoy the game but don't have time to build up that level of skill. The devs put in options for those folks so they could enjoy it too. Did you even watch the video?

[@Stonemask5]

If you don't have the patience to play Dark Souls right, then don't play Dark Souls

[@KenVermette]

I think the Transistor/Bastion games share a far more satisfying difficulty system; you start the game on easy, where you can gauge how the game will be, then when you get the basics down you can buff or debuff enemies at checkpoints. You also get to pick how they are buffed, so you can have them be more difficult in ways that are less frustrating. The screens that tend to manage the buffs are also tied to the loadout selection screens, so if you have a particularly difficult area ahead, you can try divergent strategies or reverse specific buffs if you aren't having a good go; you don't need to go out of your way to see things up. And it's also very clear, you get to be proud of making the game harder, bit you don't feel cheaty by skipping buffs either.

[@thomaspfeiffer8552]

Indeed, Bastion's buffing mechanism is very clever!

[@MrWr0ng]

Bastion is one of my favorite games. The buffing the enemy mechanic was one of the many reasons I loved it.

[@eliotdelacruzkriviski8390]

You're right, Bastion's difficulty system (I haven't played Transistor) via the selection of different "tonics" in the Distillery in the hub world was very compelling because it gave a sense of agency coupled with the gambit of risk-vs-reward. To me, it wasn't "far more" satisfying than DSII, but it definitely deserves emulation.

[@thomaspfeiffer8552]

Eliot DeLaCruz Kriviski It seems you're confusing two features there: The liquors from the distillery are for buffing _yourself_, Ken was talking about the idols in the temple that buff the enemies ;)

[@eliotdelacruzkriviski8390]

You're absolutely right, Thomas Pfeiffer . Thanks for the clarification! I'll remedy my faulty memory by replaying Bastion this weekend!

[@SergioSergio12345]

Metal Gear Solid V is a great example on how to ap"advance" the difficulty There is no difficulty setting, so when you go to the open world, the things you do affects how hard the game is Like to do missions while it is nighttime? Enemies will start to use night-vision goggles Like to kill enemies by shooting them in the head silently? Enemies will start to use bullet-proof helmets Like to go head-on and kill everybody even while detected? Enemies will start to use more powerful weapons to defend themselves and such Just overall great (Though, sadly as I heard, the bosses are still extremely easy...god damn it Konami)

[@linkeffect82]

+sergiocast345 I concur, adapting enemies is a fantastic means for increasing difficulty, though it's a compounding difficulty to make enemies more and more dynamic to work with the player's choices so it's not the easiest mechanism to implement, but in a game like MG5 (not necessarily it's open world nature, but just the context of going up against an armed, military force that in theory should be able to learn and prepare against your character from earlier exploits and victories), it's quite perfect for implementing dynamic difficulty in that style. There is the more simplistic form of dynamism wherein enemies just get tougher and stronger, but that can easily be done so lazily it hurts the immersion for some by making things too ludicrous (Obviously Oblivion is an example). Context in the game though is a very important part of design for choosing how to develop "evolving" mechanisms such as a changing environment and enemies, unless your game is so retro and simple that pretty much anything can go without much damage to immersion (Bonus if the context and tone is goofy/silly , which always helps give designers a little more leeway in how things can work).

[@ShapurTheLegend]

i loved gassing my enemies with sleep gas but now everyone uses a gas mask lol

[@commissarcactus1513]

I love to choke out/tranq everybody in close quarters, which is almost impossible to counter. Nothing slowed me down until they started using those accursed NVG's. (I always prefer nighttime infiltration)

[@crestfallensunbro6001]

one of my favorite things to do when im in a destructive mood is the fight the game's metal gear with nothing but the zorn grenade pistol (i love that little gun :3 )

[@ThomasMurch]

This video reminded me of the Metal Gear Solid games, too ... especially 3, with elements ranging from "you can just snipe one boss before you even have to fight him" to "if you wear the Raidan face mask, the main boss will get confused for a few moments". I do love a game that offers so many options!

[@yourethatmantis5178]

I wonder if he remembers any of this for his DS2 playthrough that just started on extra play?

[@Slayer_Jesse]

+You'reThatMantis i have a feeling this was made after his 1st playsession.

[@hoodiesticks]

This video was made two years ago, and it was written by James, not Dan. I doubt Dan remembers much of it.

[@johnneil3612]

did he?

[@thr33than]

In case you haven't noticed, one of the main reason's fans dislike dark soul 2 is because some of the levels and bosses are seriously unfair. Half of the bosses have extra buddies, so the main strategy is to walk backwards until you see an opening. Not to mention the best way to deal almost 3 quarters of the encounters is to lure enemies away from each other to take them on 1v1, and it gets old very quick. Dark souls' combat system isn't meant for multiple enemies, so it quickly becomes a giant pain in the ass.

[@AshnSilvercorp]

yep... the first DLC's optional boss is a bingo on that... it was designed as a co-op area, but the NPC phantom's die very quickly, and the two melee fighters never stop pursuing you, NEVER... they all also have 3 times the resistance to staggering than you do... it's an insult to people who just want to enjoy a good runthough. However, the 3rd DLC's main boss was well executed, so well that it makes you feel like your in the middle of a mini battle, the game punishes you for not getting at least 3 Knights to deal with the monster spawn doors. The boss could use a power down though as two well timed hits can kill quickly... making it one of those cheap bosses, be with him it is worse because he also has speed... which really makes it annoying for those who don't use shields (I almost never use shields in dark souls 2)

[@thr33than]

You're going to love bloodborne then

[@AshnSilvercorp]

Never owning a PS4 unless someone gives me one, and not a single tear of my eyes will be shed over not playing Bloodborne

[@TheCrazyscarecrow]

Dark Souls 1 didn't do that? Ornstein and Smough, Bellfry Gargoyles, Seath the Scaleless (if you let the clams follow you in), Gravelord Nito, The Four Kings, the Taurus Demon, and the Capra Demon. Dark Souls 1 did the same damn thing, people just don't bitch about it. It had plenty of encounters where you hand to peel enemies from a group too, most of blighttown, most of the depths, the painted world, royal wood, oolacile township, darkroot garden, darkroot basin, new londo ruins, the duke's archives, the catacombs, the demon ruins, and lost izalith are all guilty of that. People bitch about the problems with Dark Souls 2, but overlook the fact that Dark Souls 1 did the same damn thing.

[@AshnSilvercorp]

Dark souls 1 executed these situations very differently though. In most cases, you didn't need ranged attacks to press on. Most multi boss room fights, gave you an easy way to deal with the alternative enemies, Taurus demon, teaches you to look around and notice that you can gain height advantage, as well as the ability to kill the enemies sniping you. The Gaping Dragon taught you to deal with specific enemies that you know have ranged attacks before you get to a boss room. Orinstine and Smogh tell you, bring summons (you can get Solaire offline, and he actually shields most of the hits... unlike the idiot Lucatiel...) Nito Teaches you to actually stay in one place and fight, and let him kill his own skeletons... Capra teaches you how to fight in tight spaces (those stairs! if that room were entirely flat, it would be even worse of a fight) and take height advantage, even with a tiny stair case. Even the poorly designed dragon butt lost Izalith lava pool room teaches you to just ignore enemies that really don't need to be killed... the Gargoyles, teaches you to get rid of one of the duo's fast. Here is how dark souls 2 addresses most multi fights... 2's belfry gargoyles, teaches you to keep backpeddling from 3 enemies at once and wait for an opening after 3 of them all attack at once... Throne Defender and Watcher, bring friends or be forced to backpeddle for ages hoping one doesn't rush you outa nowhere... Elana from the first DLC, eliminate the small enemies and hope she never summons the other boss, and if she does, hope your weapon deals the most DPS in the game to eliminate him fast while avoiding magic spells that can kill you in two hits, while avoiding a 2nd boss's giant bell hammer... the Prowling Mangus (this one isn't hard... it's just this stupid), just plow through everything... the Grave robbers from the first DLC, bring friends, only, or have 3 million healing items, and backpeddle for 2 centuries while taking out an archer, and 2 meleeists... one of them having an extreme amount of defense, yet still having all the speed in the world... The end of the 3rd DLC in the wretched place known as the Frozen Wastelands, with the 2 copy and paste movesets from a boss you faced earlier... while facing 2 at once... :bring friends, 3 million healing items, or die... The only really good multi fight I got from Dark Souls 2 that was actually good was the 3rd DLC's Ivory king bossfight room... because the game made you seek out allies that actually are good rather than NPCs that die in the first half of the fight... Both games have their blunders, but it's obvious 1 executed it far better than 2 in many of the cases.

[@Pharcydeyt]

"You can snipe the dragonrider boss" or make him fall hilariously to his death if you don't flip the switch to the arena

[@87392v]

This video single-handedly allowed me to enjoy DS2

[@Xeloph986]

While i do think that these systems work well for lowering the difficulty for some players, I think they are extremely frustrating for most others. Most Souls fans tend to play the standard knight build with little or no magic usage since they really enjoy the melee combat of the game as it is extremely fun, challenging, and rewarding. What isn't fun is when the game's solution to "making the game difficult" is to throw multiple heavily armored enemies at the player simultaneously. DSII does this constantly throughout the game. The thing that made DS great was that you could tackle almost any situation with whatever strategy you wanted to implement as long as you had the skill to do so. DSII constantly reminds the player that regardless of being highly skilled with your sword you still stand little chance of surviving just because there are almost no decent openings to attack while engaging multiple enemies. As a result it feels as though the game is constantly whispering in the player's ear "psst, just use the bow and methodically pick off each enemy at a safe distance". While this is an effective approach, it is neither a fun or rewarding one. DSII takes away much of the real choice that the first game had and replaces it with calculations.

[@GyprockGypsy]

Yes, god forbid enemies would attack in a MOB, or gang up to be more effective. This isn't a shitty martial arts movie about some hero beating everyone up one-on-one. Maybe try God Hand (also an excellent game) if you're looking for a beat 'em up with character progression.

[@maciejczajka3495]

lol most players are plaing "Tanking Samurai Pyromancer " bulid with random buffs. But i agree with rest of your post :D

[@tacticalf41L]

It's still very possible, it simply takes patience. Most enemies either can't move while executing an attack chain, or move uncontrollably (e.g. charging forward or flying up while doing the attack), so if you can goad one or two of them into that, you can spread the group thin. That's to say nothing of spears, whips, and the big weapons that can flatten an enemy and keep them in place for a good few seconds.

[@Miranox2]

If you're having trouble playing melee, then I'm sorry to inform you that you're not "highly skilled with your sword". I've been playing with a Rapier and no shield for a months and it's easier than almost anything else. It has low stat requirements, can be bought from the Blacksmith for 1200, has extremely high damage and can even parry. Edit: Forgot to mention the first DLC gives you Flynn's Ring (50 atk) just in case your damage wasn't insane enough already.

[@tacticalf41L]

Miranox Actually, the hammer class weapons are better for most of the early game. Thrust weapons do pretty much 3/4 of the damage advertised against armored opponents and skeletons - that is, most of the enemies, and several of the bosses, in the starting areas. Powerstanced rapiers, Old Leo Ring, RoB, Flynn's and a resin can eat through boss health bars though. To each their own, I suppose.

[@combatrobot1443]

And then came the patch that gave Lightning Spear 3 uses. *3 USES. THAT'S IT.* Unless of course you decide to pump attunement to ridiculously high levels, which is a horrible tradeoff considering you SHOULD be putting those level ups into Health/Stamina/Equip Load/Damage Stats. And on that day Miracles stopped being viable. Thanks From Software.

[@the_snakelicious]

Being able to cheese the entire game with ranged spells wasn't a good thing, the Lightning Spears should have 3 uses to begin with, just like the Soul Spears for sorcerer builds.

[@combatrobot1443]

Felipe Rodrigues The difference is that there are numerous attacking spells for Sorcery. Miracles only have the 3 types of lightning spears, heavenly thunder, and that one that requires like 65 Fth to use (no hybrid build is going to be pumping faith to 65 so that's moot anyways). I could see making the Regular lightning spear have like base 6 casts, GLS 4, and Sunlight 2, but knocking LS and GLS down to a base of 3 each is absurd. They're essentially useless for PVE. The only way to get a decent number of uses out of them is to pump ATT to levels nobody should even consider. Before the patch the highest my ATT ever went was 30, but now if I want to get a decent number of uses I have to pump it up to like 50, which is absurd.

[@the_snakelicious]

Quick Man That's because sorcery is focused on attacking, while miracles are focused on healing. If you want to pew pew everything you go with sorcery, not miracles, it should be obvious.

[@combatrobot1443]

Felipe Rodrigues But with sorcery I can't throw lightning bolts. Rule of cool and whatnot.

[@GreedyRadish]

+Felipe Rodrigues You can't make the argument that ranged spells are bad for game balance and then ALSO make the argument that Sorceries are allowed to do damage and Miracles aren't. Your opinion on the second matter would be biased by your opinion on the first. Dark Souls 2 had plenty of healing options, meaning that Healing Miracles were almost entirely pointless. Besides, if I am playing as a Sun Bro, I want to be throwing lightning at my enemies, not using Sorceries.

[@rizreighnand6471]

*Here's the guide of Dark Souls 2:* step 1: git gud step 2: do more "git gud" step 3: do it 100 times

[@AtreyusNinja]

but isnt this the same for any dark souls (even demons/bloodborne/sekiro)?

[@Minipolce]

I'm unsure if this was mentioned in another comment, but I want to mention it here just in case. I believe that you are wrong about Dark Souls 2's difficulty because I don't agree with you that it changes the fundamental problem of difficulty you started the video with. One of the reasons difficulty menus are so terrible at what they're designed to do is that they already assume that the player has experience with the game before they play the game. This is a blatant contradiction between designer expectation and player ability. One of your central theses was that Dark Souls 2 manages to do 2 things: 1. Make players feel less bad about taking an easier route and 2. make choosing difficulty more organic, emergent, what have you. While I'm unsure on the first point, I'm almost certain you're wrong about the second one. Dark Souls 2 assumes, just like those games with difficulty menus at the start, that the player knows enough about the game to know which items/builds/etc. are easy mode and which aren't. While this certainly doesn't require mastery of mechanics it does require one of two things: either 1. substantial game knowledge or 2. substantial experimentation in the face of near-constant failure. Unless someone looks these up beforehand, it seems unrealistic to assume that either of these are easier than just learning the mechanics of the game. And I think you guys know this because you seem to have felt obliged to tell us what exactly easy mode in Dark Souls 2 looks like. You did this, presumably, *because it isn't apparent* what easy mode would be. This isn't to say that Dark Souls 2 doesn't do interesting things with in-game non-menu-based difficulty, I think you're right about that. But to say that it's solved the problem of assuming game knowledge on the part of the player is incorrect.

[@Minipolce]

And just to be clear about the tone of my post: I love you folks. I've been watching this show since it was on the Escapist and look forward to your videos each week. I just felt like your argument deserved a bit of effort to respond to. Cheers!

[@MetaJokeTT]

yeah, it's great and all that DS2 *allows* for that kind of playstyle customization, but *nothing* in the game really conveys that - and Extra Credits especially usually loves well-designed information conveyance. How is Dark Souls 2's difficulty brilliant when Extra Credits had to tell me about it a year(?) after the game came out.

[@Minipolce]

I think that's exactly right. What I love about Dark Souls 2 (and I think EC agrees with me on this) is that it masterfully translates many important player experiences and choices into mechanics instead of menus or exposition. It doesn't get around the difficulty problem though (I actually think this makes their "mechanics as metaphor" point less potent).

[@Sinrus1]

I agree with your second point that the game's easy mode is hidden behind mechanics, but at the same time it does have covenants and items that help you out with the game. If DS 1 is anything like DS 2 then these items/covenants aren't going to be the most hidden things in the game and their power is evident to the player when they first see them.

[@Minipolce]

That's a fair point. Not everything is hidden and the game does do a good job of point out the covenants in particular (especially the anti-player killer ones). Things like skill builds, special items, and their use might be more obtuse. The ring, for example, may not be clear for the player as a replacement for the death penalty.

[@DjinntoTonic]

Doesn't this run counter to your conclusion that players will always use The Most Dominant Strategy over and over again to win? How is it considered "unique mechanical difficulty control" in the Souls games, but anywhere else it's considered "Poorly-balanced class/weapons systems"? This isn't meant as snark, I'm genuinely curious.

[@chaos396]

Because Dark Souls has a reputation of being a bitch, and learning the skill to beat the game straight is about the same difficulty as cheating the system. It's all just about the temperament of the player, there really is no "ideal solution" despite what the hard-cores say. I for one would never play a sorcerer, even though it's easier, because I don't like that strategy.

[@MidnightSt]

I'd actually too like to hear EC's answer to this question. My guess would be that as a new player, you need to discover these strategies, and the time it takes for you to discover them is enough for the game to explain its philosophy, that it is supposed to be hard, and to get most players on board with the idea. So when you discover those easier strategies, players refuse to use them unless they really struggle, because they already agree with what the game is trying to achieve...?

[@wolfpytlak2786]

Let me give you an example: Arthorias bossfight, the dude is really hard, 30+ trys and i can't do anything, yet one day I start to get closer, then I decided that I was going to make it easier, and twinked the hell out of my pj, out of my current gameplay. It took a couple of times but I beat it, and it was so much easier that I regret it, so yeah, I have reasons and methods to control the difficulty of the game acording to my current needs.

[@DjinntoTonic]

I'm not sure how that's any different from poor balance? It sounds like the new method you used is just a superior strategy?

[@wolfpytlak2786]

DjinntoTonic yeah, it's superior, but because more or less everything is an option you end up chosing the playstile that fits your needs and if you abandon it, it just doesn't feel right :S

[@crabman96]

Yeah, 3000 souls, then Scholar of the First Sin came out.

[@yonokhanman654]

In Shulva there is a tree. Next to the tree position thee. Equip a whip and see. Attack the tree and be free!

[@jasdanvm3845]

What are you talking about? It's still 3000 souls.

[@eausterberry]

@@jasdanvm3845 in my game it's 14000 for my SotFS PC steam game

[@qwertyuiop3656]

@@jasdanvm3845 You must be thinking DS2. Were talking about scholar edition. Its 14000. Either way I'm not using things like that to ease the pain. If I want easy I dont play DS

[@Sinclairelim]

But do players enjoy exploiting bad AI and clearly overpowered mechanics? In several games i've become very annoying because once i find an optimal strategy, the game becomes too easy, then to actually enjoy the challenge i must purposely handicap myself, which didn't feel right. I felt i had to nerf myself to actually have a challenge. As if i had to fix the developer's bad dificulty. What about instead throw the player on a medium dificulty and, as the game progresses, allow the player to chose certain plot related events that could increase or decrease dificulty? An option that says, for example, "You can choose to release the demons, allowing you to kill them for good" and imply this will make the game harder, "Or seal them there forever without having to face them", implying this will make the game easier "Or do nothing" implying this will keep the dificulty the same. It would basically be a plot-justifiable way of saying "Hey champ, feel like taking a more dificult challenge? Or do you want to do it the smart way and play it safe?" I feel this wouldn't be insulting, and could allow players to experience then chose their own dificulty.

[@bmartin5525]

+Sinclairelim I feel the same way. The reason why I don't like playing ranged in a lot of games is due to this. I wan't to FIGHT my enemies, not shoot, run away until they deaggro (thats a word now), and then shoot them again. I want to fight, start to finish, without my enemies breaking interest in me and returning (I'm looking directly at that iron boar from Dark Souls 1). Speaking of the iron boar, its good that they gave you that nook to dodge into, but using it to hide until it goes away, hitting it in the back, then going back to hide feels so wrong that I don't even want to call that combat.

[@megaalan12]

+Sinclairelim But you keep playing the game. Even though you handicap yourself, you don't quit. Players are more likely to quit before changing the difficulty setting, but not before giving themselves an added "for fun" challenge. Also, what you're describing is basically a way to change the difficulty setting without going into the settings. In most games that use what you describe, it's inferred that taking the more difficult route will also yield a better reward. So once again, players may be taking on more of a challenge than they wanted. And for story driven players, they will need to play the most difficult way to get the most out of the story, if not all three different ways.

[@ThatWunGroup]

+Sinclairelim I found using the less AI exploitative strategies much more fun. Dark souls 2 was what i started with, and for the first part of the game i was a sorcerer, but then i decided to try using melee short range stuff for a challenge and it was more exciting, so i feel there is already incentive to use melee if you aren't struggling.

[@zeno8361]

Ds2 was extremely easy so no need to exploit anything really. Also I have not seen any really hard games other then Bloodborne which is even harder then ds1. If you need to exploit a game because its too hard then Idk that's just lame. How can it be that hard. Just learn. That's my advice because skill defeats all. Also exploiting in pvp is bad, you are telling your dualist that you are trying to exploit them and that is just cheap. Just get good so you don't have to exploit the game. Make builds in games you can but try to make builds that don't exploit the game and you dualist dishonorably.

[@sephyrias883]

+Sinclairelim Finding out what the "meta" - most efficient tactic available - is, usually cracks every game for me. Especially multiplayer online battle arenas like SMITE, League of Legends, Dota or in general games which focus on being competetive. Once I find out that there is a strategy or a game element that I could use to completely dominate the game, I feel like there is nothing left to do. And then actually using it feels like using an exploit. On the other hand, should I refuse to use the strategy or game element, I start to get angry when constantly having to handicap myself while others don't and beat me because of it. More gameplay and skill focused pvp can keep me in a lot better, though a meta-game exists in those games too, but there you have more tools to work against it and the impact of meta pvp is lower.

[@mxBug]

I have a problem with the assumptions in this video. Difficulty sliders are not the problem, it's the fact that they appear arbitrarily defined and disconnected from gameplay. For example, Kid Icarus: Uprising avoids the mentioned pitfalls just by incorporating the difficulty slider into the game's core feedback/incentive loop. It doesn't have to remove control from the player, nor does it have to pretend that what it's doing is "clever" or subtle. The game starts without any settings prompts, and lets the player get a feel for a default difficulty setting, which is rather low (2.0 on a scale from 1.0 to 9.0). After completing the first chapter, the player is allowed to wager currency to raise the difficulty, with the promise of greater rewards and access to secret areas. If the player fails, they can retry at a lower difficulty in exchange for a portion of their original wager. In other words, there is (1) incentive for the player to quickly and accurately judge their own skill level, (2) visible feedback to the player that allows them to do so without being demeaned, and (3) a mechanism for the player to challenge themselves incrementally, optionally, and at their own pace. Dark Souls could have used the same system, letting the player wager souls at every checkpoint to set their desired difficulty in the hopes of higher soul payouts. It might have even been more engaging and thematically fitting. Who knows, at this point?

[@gingerqueer22]

It's funny you say that, because that's pretty much what Bonfire Ascetics do. Using one in a Bonfire instantly boots the difficulty of the area into NG+. You get more souls, obviously, but the enemy layouts are different and you get invaded by NPCs more often. Funnily enough, DS2 was the only game to ever have a system like this.

[@purpleblah2]

Also, you can summon phantoms to make fights incredibly easy, but it cuts your soul payoff by 1/4th, so if you summon a phantom you lose 10-25k souls, which is considerable. So if you summon even one phantom you lose a big part of your reward, but then you can summon up to two more and make it ridiculously easy and not lose any more.

[@Big0Boss4]

I've logged a decent amount of time into the souls series and I'm pretty sure giving new players the slowest casting staff in Dark Souls 2 isn't going to help them in boss rooms.

[@deldarel]

I think most bullet hells have a very good system as well. Since they're arcade-like it's easy to find out what your actual difficulty is, but that's not all. Even though you pick a low difficulty, the game becomes much much harder. Usually, the final boss at medium difficulty is harder than the first few levels on expert difficulty. But here's the thing that I like the most (and is the only reason why I even mention bullet hells here): They usually add an extra game mechanic: graze. This mechanic rewards you for flying close to the enemy bullets, making them miss you by just a few pixels. This encourages you to play more risky than you normally would and you set your own difficulty this way. Actually, I think that the graze mechanic is better than the dark souls II mechanic since you at least need some knowledge about dark souls II. Also, you conciously pick the mage class because 'it's easier'. This has the same feeling as picking 'easy' in a menu.

[@TheDragonWalrus]

This. Bullet hell games are great examples of how to deal with difficulty. Not only are there incentives through things like graze, which falls into my favorite type of difficulty where you encourage the player to take greater risks in exchange for greater reward (just posted about this), but often have easier and harder approaches backed right into eh level design. Often you'll find a path of least resistance after a few attempts at a level, but that will never be the way to beat the level with the highest score or combo or whatever. I feel this scoring aspect is often seen differently from difficulty, but I think they go hand in hand. Just look at platformers that score your performance one levels like Dustforce or Supermeatboy.

[@MaaveMaave]

I prefer the incentive method, too. Give the player some optional challenges that increase the difficult but increase the reward. Beat the clock, time the combos, take no damage, weaker gear with extra effects, secondary objectives, etc. The challenges and rewards depend on the game.

[@GheyForGames]

right not to swing my dark souls dick around here but going as the sorcerer is the HARDEST way to start the game, especially since the patch were they nerfed the power of all spells, the sorc has only 5 end and vigor and by mid game spells do soo little damage you can only kill a few enemies at a time with all your spells, you are MUCH MUCH MUCH, better using the fire longsword (yes that IS something they got right) and just dump all your souls into hp and endurance until the iron keep, then start using the greatsword and stack on some armor magic is NOT the way to go, MAYBE for SOME bosses but in general you will run out of casts halfway through a level

[@johnkramer2144]

I think this vid MAY have been recorded pre-patch, I dunno.

[@GheyForGames]

Luluko Lamperouge YES that s a thing, but if this is geared towards new players you dont want to have to rely on consumable items as if you run out youre fucked, at least thats how i see it anyway

[@MrMuteghost]

I haven't played the game as a magic user since around launch, and only played recently to play through the DLC, but I didn't play a magic user. But I do know that, at least back when it came out, sorcerer was definitely easy mode. Though if they did nerf it, that's a good topic for another discussion. How having PvP and PvE in the same game world is not all that good for some things. Such as patches that try and balance PvP also effect PvE. They should be independently balanced and that's particularly difficult with as game like Dark Souls. I know it was a huge issue in the first game.

[@malaketh]

It still makes the beginning of the game a bit easier, but as always the difficulty spikes as a magic user very quickly.

[@johnkramer2144]

Each zone is made to kind of ruin certain builds, as with DS1. Magic users will find that area that will, in a way, mess with their play style.

[@cameron0]

Love this video. It's interesting how in the real world there is not a team of game balance engineers making sure that every play style is just as difficult as the next, so in reality it is very much the case that choice, technique and tools all can make things easier / harder and real terms, and yet there's an intrinsic desire in game design to create this strange fiction where choices differ only in style, but not in impact. Also, I love how your content can so often and so easily be mapped over to society/system design.

[@Rhetorical346]

The conclusion of your video is almost completely wrong. If you played the game at release, spellcasting was VERY weak for your first 2/3 of the way through NG. If you don't know specifically which powerful items and spells to get, magic is terrible until NG+. Also at release, the AI summons were very fragile, and almost always made the game harder. For the record, I think the difficulty Max Payne had was the best. Every time you die the enemies get slightly easier, and every enemy you kill makes the game slightly harder. This sliding scale keeps you at the perfect sweet spot where you'll always be pushed until you die at least sometimes.

[@Rhetorical346]

The game is beatable without dying on the hardest difficulty, which permanently maxes out the enemies. Very doable, if you're good.

[@Rhetorical346]

You don't notice it. It's gradual.

[@brotherbarnaby4464]

***** Its not inevitable. The slide is slow and so minute you would need to pretty much beat the game till you noticed it. Its like complaining that the scaling difficulty in an arcade game just leads to inevitable death, which it does but that is due to the fact that arcade games are inherently designed to never end.

[@agreatmanlookingtotheright]

the game has been out since 2 years bro still complaining about its beginning does make you look like you have the days

[@Rhetorical346]

Also the ring of life protection is a rather hidden item that requires either certain stats or a certain path through the game (that is optional) to obtain it early or mid game. Or you could learn about it online. All these points detract from the "dark souls 2 did difficulty right." He should have consulted someone who knew a bit more about dark souls 2 before making the video.

[@matthewhausmann3707]

0:19 sick drawing of "of course"

[@jimmykeffer7401]

Wow! So much detail for a silly gag

[@BloodyRainRang]

"Die for me so I don't have to" 10/10, would consult again xD

[@Darkernorakeln]

No, just no. There is nothing good about Dark Souls 2 difficulty! It had incredibly dull and lazy level design and enemy placements were the worst I have seen in ages. Throwing a bunch of high hp enemies in a tiny room half haphazardly in a single opponent focused game is not difficulty its stupid and lazy. Having enemies spin around their pivot point 360 degree mid attack is retarded! DS2 is inferior to DS1 in almost every way.

[@johnkramer2144]

No, story and enemy design wise, yes Dark Souls 2 lacks miserably. As for technical wise, PvP has improved GREATLY and tracking is a lot better, ESPECIALLY in the DLCs, which you may have or may not have played, but those were *fucking* amazing DLCs, almost comparable to the Artorias DLC when taken as a whole.

[@Darkernorakeln]

John Kramer Didnt play them nor will I, reason I got really bored of the cheap bs and subpar design of the game. I never cared for pvp.

[@johnkramer2144]

Luluko Lamperouge But Alonne for some reason looks more like Artorias. Also, Alva was a GREAT boss fight. I hate to say it, but I had more fun fighting Alva than Sifh,

[@johnkramer2144]

Darkernorakeln Noooooo, the DLCs are SOOO GOOD! D:

[@Darkernorakeln]

Luluko Lamperouge Speaking of wich not a single boss was memorable in ds2, I can still recall almost every single DS1 boss, but DS2? uhmmm giant armored dude, giant armored dudes, giant armored dude, oh a giant spider, oh and the fact that I grinded every single boss at least 5 times in coop... and I still cant recall any of them very well.

[@Kirainian_Gaming]

3:25 “See the world without committing hundreds of hours” Then there’s me, 200+ hours in, still not even at Drangliec castle.

[@ZeroAoAnimations]

How on earth...

[@Kirainian_Gaming]

Zero-Ao Animations I am not good at exploring.

[@mdstevens0612]

the issue with this is that first of all, you still feel like you're 'cheating' or 'not playing the game the way it's supposed to be played' by using these strategies. I propose something different; Dark Souls is a game franchise with one really great feature; The better you are at the game, the easier it is to play. The first game actually handles difficulty much better than the second, if you ask me. It might sound silly, but you could do a few Suicide Runs in Dark Souls 1 and get the Gravelord Sword and Rite Of Kindling, but the thing is... Doing those runs *makes you a better player* I laughed because I got wrecked miserably during my first playthrough, and thirty hours later I hadn't progressed past the burg because I was too scared of enemies, I wasn't very skilled at fighting the Taurus demon and my general feel for the controls was just bad. So after watching those walkthroughs, I did the suicide run through the catacombs, and in the 6 or 7 deaths getting the gravelord sword I really figured out how trivial death is. The more you die, the less afraid of it you are and suicide runs are actually a great way to condition the player to remember that losing their bloodstain isn't the end of the world. Next, when you finally get the Gravelord Sword, have defeated Pinwheel and have the Rite of Kindling, you realise a funny truth; You rarely ever need 20 Estus. Ornstein and Smough is arguably the only boss you'll ever need more than 10 Estus for (at this point, I was 27 hours in and had nearly quadrupled my progress). Playing with the Gravelord Sword also teaches another fundamental concept; the weapon is strong, but slow as shit. And once you've played to about Gargoyle's with it, start a new playthrough. What you'll find out is that every weapon in the game is more balanced, and the hand axe is one of my personal favourites just because of that blissful swing that's so fast.I tried playing Wanderer, then Sorcerer. With Wanderer, I had finished all the way past Taurus in about 45 minutes. With Sorcerer, I finished past Gargoyle's in under two hours. The genius of Dark Souls is that it only punishes playing badly; So just get better at the game. Spend 10 minutes practicing Parries and Backstabs on hollows. The only fault of the game is simply not having wonderful mechanics in place for teaching you how to get better at it.

[@21encrypto34]

Not relying with those op weapons in early make u git gud .. playing with only 5 or 10 estus flask in early make u wiser in the late game

[@falcone5696]

One simple problem though. What if I want to select my challenge level and also to use these mechanics? This simply means that if you choose to be an archer and want the game to not be a complete cakewalk, well though luck. Or if you want to be a melee brawler but it's too hard? Sucks to be you.

[@WalkOnNick]

This! I much prefer a consistent balance that allows me to use every tool given to me without feeling like I'm imbalancing things or cheapening the experience. Bottomline: I never summoned other people again after the first time because it made the levels trivial. I would have liked to summon other people but this difficulty design excluded me whereas difficulty settings would not.

[@silvertheelf]

Btw NPCs are actually named after characters in the lore, side characters that have relations to your character so the NPCs are more than just random characters.

[@laststorm7726]

I love to rewatch these videos, I always learn something from them.

[@gheith001]

Well, since the comments section is on the same topic again, I'm still amazed people are still calling Dark Souls 2 shit because it wasn't Dark Souls 1. When you look at the amount of changes Dark Souls 2 has mechanically made, you will see that Fromsoft had pretty much upped the ante on everything game wise. Combat is WAY tighter and more responsive, yet still has the Souls-like weight and depth to it, changes were made to online mode, healing mechanics were given new and dynamic changes to it, you could buy millions of lifegems instead of being stuck with your infinitely replenish-able Estus's, backstabs are not BULLSHIT, parrying is not BULLSHIT, the additions of dual wielding and powerstancing add a whole new layer to the game that some still have yet to realize, and all the DLC is just incredible. Please, new players, do NOT be mistaken by the die-hard community of Dark Souls, they're not saying Dark Souls 2 is a terrible game, they're saying it's not on the same vien as Dark Souls 1. Dark Souls 2 is an experience you should NOT skip. This aint Deus Ex: Invisible War.

[@Ssilevos1917]

Thank you, I'm glad someone in the comments is actually giving it the credit it deserves. If I wanted to play a game with dark souls 1 scaling difficulty and mechanics, I'd just go play through that again(Not to say those are bad, in fact I do from time to time)

[@Turtlewax63]

Mechanically, I think most soul fans would agree that DkS 2 was an improvement. There were a few big duds, warping everywhere made the world seem less connected and the requirement to go back to Majula for everything was annoying, but in general 2 was mechanically better. The reason we say "good game, not as good as the first" is very much levels. The world was fairly dull and uninteresting and the game's version of difficulty was to throw 5 enemies at you at once. The limited respawn on enemies also turned tense well paced levels into long boring walks. I will agree that Dark Souls 2 did a great deal to improve mechanics, but the world lacked the same spark of genius that made Lordran a fascinating place.

[@ChristopherRoss.]

Turtlewax63 This guy gets it. Nail -> Head.

[@gheith001]

Turtlewax63 That is certainly true, I'm not saying that DS2 is as good as DS1. But the mechanical improvements made playing through all those issues a bit of a breeze. I don't know how to describe, but the constant 60fps movement felt BEAUTIFUL. I had so much control and so many options. The improved mechanics are seriously the highlight of DS2. If DS1 was a 9, I'd place DS2 as an 8.5.

[@EionBlue]

Also to consider, the variety of enemies and the creativity of their design is not as good in DS2 as it is in DS1, where DS1 had plenty of interesting enemies, most of DS2 resorted to "small sized humanoid", "medium sized humanoid" and "giants sized humanoid" as the go to models for every level.

[@morphik2528]

Too bad they took the Ring of Life Protection out of Scholar of The First Sin. Also playing a bow build is not easy mode at all!

[@demacry]

+Daniel Cason (Morphik) I kind of laughed when I saw "bow" was the easiest setting. The early game fr bow-only is so absurdly difficult just because you have to keep spending souls on arrows.

[@GamesDiddley]

+demacry Not only that but boss fights are painfully slow.

[@brohoelikeacholo]

+Daniel Cason (Morphik) they're not talking about maining with a bow, just cheesing when cheesing can be done

[@PFish2322]

+Daniel Cason (Morphik) I've noticed alot of people who play dark souls always say that their build is hardest.My brother chose a sorcerer build and he says thats the most difficult because you never have very much health and the robes you wear block little to no damage. My cousin made a ranged bow guy and says thats the most difficult because of how enemies attack you while your aiming and as well as the armor being kinda sucky. I always stick to the warrior even though I think using a bow that shoots 50 miles away or magic that does 500,000 damage would make life a bit easier...

[@demacry]

Puffer Fish Using a bow can take you pretty far in the early parts of DS but there are also a few ambush spots that are going to absolutely hand your ass to you because you just can't kill them fast enough and kite at the same time. Also the fact that you basically spend 75% of your early game souls on getting more arrows while trying to cheat in a few upgrades makes it really hard if you don't just grind areas for souls. I've only done a bow-only playthrough once and probably won't ever try it again. It's really stupid hard. Mages are easy though, you can just go to the Tower of Blue Flame right away and farm until the zone is empty because there's plenty of bonfires and only 1 ambush site with plenty of room to kite.

[@somerandomperson7878]

>how to make dark souls easy >step one: start as a mage HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA really though that g should be a c

[@PolythenePam0451]

How to make Dark Souls hard: >start as sorcerer How to make Dark Souls easy: >play midgame sorcerer

[@Scarletraven87]

How can sniping a boss from outside its cage be considered part of difficulty mechanics?

[@Micavich]

+Doran Martell It's not, that's just called cheesing the game.

[@JacktheSmack]

+Doran Martell Because they intentionally left it open. They could have put a wall or barricade there. Dark Souls 2 is well known for following a rule system that makes everything consistent. If you think you can do something, even if it feels like exploiting, the game wont punish you for it with invisible walls or health resets or penalties.

[@TheDanteEX]

+JacktheSmack Yes, as Kyle Bosman put it (he was talking about Bloodborne but it applies to all Souls games) "you are always vulnerable and enemies are always vulnerable" so it always feels like a fair challenge instead of waiting until a boss exposes its weak point or other enemy cliches.

[@axebearer]

+Doran Martell In MGS3 you can snipe the End when he's sleeping in a wheelchair, long before the actual boss fight. Who says it has to be a fair fight?

[@Rujewitblood]

+Doran Martell Because if youre smart/creative enough to figure it out, you have that option there for you to use, if you want to. Or you can do it the hard way and take him in meele. Sounds like picking your own difficulty to me.

[@casekocsk]

Resident Evil 4. Died too many times and the game will secretly reduce some enemies. Be too good or too strong, the game will add more enemies.

[@JotaDeeMeO]

Caseko CSK Really?

[@casekocsk]

JotaDeeMeO yup... the game won't tell you though...

[@Ardkun00]

that's a good difficulty system, better than this "discover the easy mode" difficulty system.

[@MrPaint-wq2uj]

@@jakubpluhar4914 i know this is late, but if you kill an enemy 15 times they stop respawning its to stop people from farming.

[@eltsoldier]

Two words: WATER ROOM

[@frufrujaben]

I like EC's analysis. The options he's describing are really what gives Souls game their difficulty curve. Rather than a difficulty line. Multiple combat options, some being safer; usually there is a way to cheese bosses, location memory, etc. These all mean to that difficulty scales a lot with how many different solutions you try. If you try to play only one specific way it's much harder. Unless you go naked+large-club then you always win.

[@swanijam]

"If you ever lower the difficulty, but the player doesn't want it to be lower - you are doing the player a great disservice." >> Dark Souls 2 mob despawns

[@sdobitoo]

they despawn to protect from farming. its like 20-30 times of them diyng...

[@swanijam]

so it's there to keep the game from being too easy (because of farming) by making the game too easy (with despawns)

[@sdobitoo]

its about making zone easier but not ruinung the game

[@animeclubdaveisdead]

Join company of champions get infinite respawns.

[@BFedie518]

it's not about lowering the difficulty, it's about forcing the player to continue moving through the game. Whatever the other results are, that was the design decision behind it.

[@HopDodge]

This video makes no sense. The solution to difficulty is to make certain classes and items overpowered enough to make it easier? That means the only thing making the game difficult is the players own choices. I guess hard mode in Zelda is skipping all the health containers, and hard mode in skyrim is beating the game with just fists. In fact I'd argue that Dark Souls does this worse than other games. Making a class like spellcaster easier than others means that players who want an easier difficulty but also want to play as a melee class are put in the situation of having to choose between fun mechanics and less punishing difficulty. I'd say the best game that handles difficulty is Binding of Isaac, where difficulty is randomized. Let's say a game is too hard because the player gets no good items. The player dies early on and not to much time is wasted. If the game is too easy the player has a blast getting a free win out of it, and the boredom that comes with a lack of challenge is over in about 20 minutes. Characters affect difficulty as well. Is the game too hard? Pick Azezal. Is it too easy? Beat the game a few times to unlock a harder character and play them (???, Sampson, the Lost). If the player finds a difficulty they like, but still fail, they can redo the run using the seed. Dark Souls sounds like a game with terrible balance that requires the player to not abuse mechanics to make the game difficult.

[@HopDodge]

jfarris9875 Restarting when you get a bad first item is so scrubby I can't take your complaint seriously. You aren't really playing isaac anymore at that point. You're rerolling a random number generator until you get something that you want. I guess you could call that easy mode.

[@HopDodge]

Sounds like you need to git gud. Seriously if you quit a run every time you don't get a free win item, then maybe you shouldn't be playing isaac.

[@vgamesx1]

***** I think you need to go outside for a little while... you sound as if you take the thing beyond way too seriously, you know like.. one of those COD players who thinks he's amazing because got a few kills.. also I agree with jfaris, RNG is a much worse way of handling difficulty, since you can have an amazing run because you got a few good power ups one run and then the next 5 rounds you get horribly screwed over in some way, its more of an easy way to extend the playtime of a game just by giving you that randomness.

[@HopDodge]

vgamesx1 Holy shit the salt in that comment. Yeah I'm an mlg noscoper and I totally play Isaac competitively. Grow up. If someone wants to complain that a game is too hard/easy/broken, and they also state that this is because they do something extremely scrubby like rerolling each floor then they don't really have the right to complain. Mekose Abusing game mechanics to make the game easier is exactly what I thought was wrong with this video. Doing it in Isaac completely misses the point. Hard Runs challenge the player, and then they fail. Easy runs allow the player to progress. The better they are the more easily they get rewarded. Rerolling means that the player never gets a difficult run, or at the least decreases the odds by a lot. When you abuse this mechanic the player doesn't see the game as a game, they see it as rolling the dice. Adding items or powerups to a game to make it easier isn't a difficulty setting. It's something every game forever has done. Dark Souls 2 isn't genius for having something that nearly every other game has had forever. That life ring functions almost exactly like a mushrooms or an extra life. It lets you avoid a huge consequence for a mistake. I don't understand how anyone can call that a difficulty setting. That's just blatantly wrong.

[@vgamesx1]

***** yeah because I'm the one who said "Sounds like you need to git gud." and "then maybe you shouldn't be playing isaac." right.. and I happen to be the salty one... last I remember only little kids get upset about people not playing a game the way you like, then tell them to not play the game, oh and I guess that wasn't you then who wrote an entire essay ranting about re-rolling then? such butthurt...

[@lordcommissarspartan]

Ahem... FUKIN CASULS, GIT GUD SCRUB. WOT RINGS U GOT BICH?

[@dabbo4205]

havels and fap

[@lordcommissarspartan]

Giant Dad *DONT FUKIN FORGT UR CHAOS 2 HANDR BASS CANON AND UR GRASS CREST SHIELD*

[@dabbo4205]

i nevur furget

[@kile1885]

do these casuls even praise the sun

[@dabbo4205]

dout it

[@Ouvii]

I like the touhou difficulty selection, which is your run of the mill difficulty select It works because sessions are pretty short even if you beat the game, and they are super short if you are on too high of a difficulty. You are meant to lose the game pretty often, which is no longer a common thing these days in games.

[@user-bv1tv9ef9y]

6:30 easy mode Note: ring of life protection repair is 14k if you play sotfs

[@Crabmaster]

Usually I like Extra Credits, but this one was pretty awful for me. Self-imposed difficulty changes are not genius, they are just a personal challenge effect that has been in pretty much every RPG and Action RPG since freakin' Final Fantasy 1! Going off the logic that "This game's variable difficulty is cool because you can choose to either use easy or harder tools" just doesn't cut it for me, normally it seems logical to just pick the better gear anyway unless you are going for a challenge run. Not to mention your examples of playing the game easier include exploiting a boss down to 1 HP, and also exploiting game glitches such as poor enemy pathing...

[@graphospasm5394]

I agree, making use of poor ai is not how the game is meant to be played and is more akin to cheating than a difficulty change

[@1337pianoman]

The core idea that difficulty adjustment should be handled by mechanics is compelling. But I think dark souls is a terrible example from your description. It sounds overly specific, and also requires small big exploitations (AI pathing), but most importantly, standing and shooting a boss from another room is not fun or worthwhile in any way at all. If you're going to do difficulty adjustment through mechanics, it requires you to effectively make multiple games. Using the dark souls example, you have to make a melee combat game that is compelling, a spell casting game that is compelling, and an archery game that's compelling. If 2 is anything like 1, they succeeded in 1/3. (Skyrim is perhaps better because at least all three types of combat are equally mundane) A far better example of difficulty adjustment through mechanics is what RPGs have been doing for years. You can spend time completing all the quests in every area in order to get to the highest possible level with the best possible gear, and the game will be much easier. Or you can race through the main story arc only, and will generally have a tougher challenge. Interestingly, people like James who want to get fully immersed in the lore are probably going to do all the side quests anyway, so that works nicely.

[@1337pianoman]

As a side note, it sounds like dark souls 2 makes the same mistakes people used to make in the transition period from arcade to home consoles. Specifically, it sounds like death is punishing in the same way or was in the original zelda. You're meant to die in both zelda and dark souls. I get the feeling it's a similar style of game in that it is more planning and practice than improvisation. I assume you probably have to face each boss a few times before you learn how to kill it? If that's the case, you should be reset after each death, so you can retry the exact same encounter, rather than losing humanity (which presumably makes you weaker and therefore changes the encounter to a much harder one). This is as bad as trying to do a dungeon on zelda 1 with full hearts and some pots, failing, and then having to try again on 3 hearts, no pots and probably no arrows or bombs. It's just bad design. Forgivable back then when we didn't know what good design was, not now though.

[@TroidHunter]

Joe Hendrey The "Skyrim combat is all mundane" made me lol. And dark souls 1 more or less had a reset without penalty on death. Demon and Dark Souls II both have a stacking death penalty that gets worse over more deaths, but you can circumvent it via life rings. Dark Souls I, on the other hand, just prevented you from co-op'ing/PvP'ing until you used a humanity. As for the original LoZ, you can reset to a save if you fuck up. The Souls' series doesn't allow that due to it's nature of overwriting your save anytime you do anything.

[@1337pianoman]

TroidHunter "As for the original LoZ, you can reset to a save if you fuck up" only if you're using an emulator ;) even the wii virtual console version (which I played it on) only let you save when you die I think. It's been a while since I last played, but I remember I couldn't just save as soon as I entered a dungeon. That would have fixed the whole game for me. I played some of Dark Souls 1 and I didn't remember it being that punishing, so thanks for clarifying :) Stacking death penalties just seems so dumb in a game like this. Are people supposed to just start out being good at the game? Isn't the whole point to get better as you go? I haven't played number two (or finished number one) so I'll reserve judgement until I do. But it sounds like it'll be a chore =\

[@TroidHunter]

Joe Hendrey I didn't say you could reset to a save in a dungeon, I just said you could reset to a save. To get resources back? Stacking death penalties makes you try a hell of a lot harder to not die than no penalty. You care more about dying and take the game a lot more seriously than you would ordinarily. It sounds dumb, but it's not as bad as you think, unless the player in question is just completely ass at a game.

[@3333218]

You have an interesting point. But RPGs demand too much time. So people like James can't bypass all the grinding bullshit and get straight to the lore.

[@fotakatos]

Oh yeah, bad balancing of classes and allowing exploits is a BRILLIANT approach to including informal difficulty levels. Not to mention how PERFECT it is that you actually need a guide or a good understanding of the game mechanics to even discover the alleged easy mode. :P

[@baconsir1159]

Trust me, it works here. The pvp is still balanced, and it's still pretty hard WITH exploits. Dat Fume Knight

[@oops6876]

I would argue that DS2 is the only game in the franchise that doesn’t have the word “genius” attached. Abominable level design and enemy count/placement. Hit boxes are shit compared to every other game. I couldn’t have fun playing it, it’s just hard for the sake of being hard, not fair and rewarding.

[@maxbrestable]

Making certain elements overpowered = In-depth and complex difficulty management system.

[@maxbrestable]

TooThi72 Glad you agree. Seriously though, I don't understand how so many people are agreeing with this. Sure it, may broaden the Souls games to a wider more "casual" crowd, but there's so much broken with PVP in, Dark Souls2.

[@maxbrestable]

Well, I didn't notice how utterly bad it was until I PVP'd in Dark Souls 2. Rip pvp.

[@maxbrestable]

I don't think the dedicated fanbase and playerbase should suffer to appeal to a wider audience. You're also saying that magic is supposed to be OP? OP stands for overpowered, overpowered in the sense that it makes other components of the game pointless. So you're saying magic is supposed to break the game? Also, use my mind to realize the game is supposed to broken? How about you use your mind to spell full words correctly and use complete sentences and grammar?

[@maxbrestable]

Dark Souls isn't real life...

[@maxbrestable]

I guess I'm not fully understanding. This may because of your lack of attention to spelling. Correct me if I'm wrong here: You compared Dark Souls to real life, then you went back on that saying that I shouldn't actually compare Dark Souls to real life.

[@flamingpenny]

New favorite KZbin channel, hands down. Insightful AF.

[@Ilyesse27]

There is something that bothers me a bit in the video, it's sort of implied that players have no taste for specific gameplay and can switch from melee to caster just to set the wished difficulty and then enjoy the game regardless. I've always played ranged character that relies on kiting, zoning, casting spells, I've always loved wearing cloth armors, pointy hats and long beards, and that for my MMOs, my RPGs, my MOBAs, and even my versus fighting games. Moreover I'm a pretty experienced and competitive player who rely on challenge and accomplishment to get my fun and satisfaction. Dark Souls was quite frustrating by making my beloved gameplay something so underwhelmingly easy and getting around all the challenging mechanics for the reasons you pointed out. No mob was mobile enough or ranged enough to be any hard. Even with a glass cannon build including 5 Vit, no shield, all the life and resistance decreasing items, fully hollowed, alone, it still felt like breaking the rules because the whole game wasn't designed considering the existence of ranged characters. Every gameplay and mechanics should be available at variable difficulties, and I really hope Dark Souls 3 will be able to annoy us casters the same way it's a pain for melee users.

[@ZaXo00]

+Pyrrho I don't think they were implying that the game is actually easier difficulty-wise when playing a ranged caster, so much as that it requires skills that many more people are likely to have in abundance. Many more people are capable of being observant, cunning, and patient than are capable of split second dodges, major stamina/weight management, and effectively understanding the wind up for a variety of weapons. The rest of the things, like drawing enemies to exploit pathing, or using the Ring of Life Protection can be used regardless of your build. So it's not that the difficulty is terribly unbalanced for different builds, so much as that certain builds require skillsets that may be more or less common. That has more to do with the design of games in the industry at large, rather than Dark Souls itself. For example, I myself am much more used to playing in-your-face melee characters in games, and as such, have a significantly easier time playing a melee class in the Souls games than a spellcaster. Where you feel like you're cheating because you find long range so easily exploitable, I feel like I'm cheating because I'm so skilled when it comes to exploiting the invincibility frames in the dodge. If anything, I'd say melee is the form of combat that can be 'broken', because it's really the only way to beat the game at Soul Level 1 with no weapons or armor :P

[@talongreenlee7704]

Try playing a NG+ no bonfires caster build with the crown from the Brume Tower DLC that slowly regenerates spell casts.

[@Chyguy]

I personally loved Dark Souls 2. So many hate it because it was not like its older brothers, but that was to be expected. New dev's, new design. You can't always have what you want. I for one think that more enemies = more thinking. It actually makes a person who has played longer think. Even the hardest monster can be gotten used to on its own, But throw in one or two more? You NEED to think. You can't just swing willy nilly and roll when you see an attack coming.

[@Hikariinu124]

dark souls 1,2 and demons souls were made by the same dev, and produced by the same company (well, Demon's Souls was produced by sony, Dark Souls 1/2 were produced by Bandai namco) but the point is they were not new devs.

[@Chyguy]

William forPrez They were different developers. The team that made Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 1 went onto the project known as BLOODBORNE. A new development team within FROM SOFTWARE was chosen to develop Dark Souls 2 because the original team switched to the yet to be released game. That is where the term B TEAM comes from.

[@BFedie518]

One Finger Death Punch adjusts the difficulty as you're playing well. Since it's almost a rhythm game, they just modulate the speed of the enemies. If you're doing well, they get faster. If you're doing poorly, they slow down (to an extent). It finds a sweet spot pretty quickly, so whether you're really tired or super alert, it adjusts to a level that's fun almost immediately

[@sirreginaldfishingtonxvii6149]

I never thought I'd see "genius" and "dark souls 2" in the same sentence.

[@rohansampat1995]

The game is genius, minus its absolute crap porting. You just suck.

[@LordScrambles]

7:03 "Step 6: If you're struggling with the Dragonrider boss..." "If you're struggling with the Dragonrider boss..." "Stuggling with the Dragonrider boss..." Seriously? Are there really people out there who are so bad that they have to CHEAT to be the Dragonrider?

[@matheusmoreira9951]

Maybe if they are using a guitar hero controller while upside down on a piranha fishtank...

[@ypsiminers]

Here's a concept for a difficulty setting: You choose the difficulty (beginner, easy, medium, hard, expert) at the beginning but can change it later. Contextual difficulty works the same way, but instead of difficulty levels, it's the difference between off, auto, and choice. However, through your own choices in-game, you can make it easier or harder on yourself in a way that makes you feel clever or tough respectively. Probably not a good idea in practice, but it was an interesting amalgam of difficulty settings.

[@SlyTF1]

I play every game on the easiest setting. I couldn't give a fuck less if anyone is mad about that.

[@danielnodland4072]

Same. If they give me an option to get through the story with minimal effort, then I will do it.

[@smilyface4580]

i mostly play on hard if it is possibl

[@dstarr3]

I always go for normal, because generally "normal" is the experience the developers wanted you to have, and the other difficulties are just modifications on their original idea.

[@alicev5496]

Same tbh. I wanna have fun, not wrestle through annoying and hard mechanics

[@LordMareus]

It kind of bugs me how people treat magic as some kiddie-time easy mode. It shifts the game (as was said here) more towards the patience of mapping your opponents' move-set so you can safely blast away. I can understand that this does seem to be a bit easier than the reflexive combat of melee, but it does have balances for its power. Melee weapons don't tend to have cast times, for example. Personally, I am a big fan of magic in games, but I am not fond of crippling my experience with easy mode. I'm not hardcore enough to go with super hard difficulties out of the gate, but I like to start at a good medium and figure out my comfort zone from there. ANYway. I went with an attunement/intelligence build for my first character, but I focused completely on melee spells. Weapon and shield enhancements, Magic Greatsword, Moonlight Greatsword (never used it with magic weapon spells. That was overly OP, and I get why they got rid of the combo. lol). I personally love dual Blue Flame. Most people don't expect in-your-face casters. Love having someone charge in to interrupt my spell just to get a Magic Greatsword in the face. =D

[@LordMareus]

Cloud Seeker The swing speed on weapons is certainly a valid point. As I stated, I took a more straight-forward melee approach with my mage, so I understand the difficulties of melee combat as well. The problem is, your argument breaks down to, "Everything you can do, I can do better," with no real point as to why. The swing time on weapons can be equated to cast time on spells, as well as attack range/radius on weapons being equated to range and/or tracking on spells. You say that melee deals with everything casters do, plus being in direct combat. The traditional caster has to deal with all that, and trying to NOT be in direct combat. Again, different strategies, but neither is inherently better, or has a vast difference in difficulty. Also keep in mind that a melee battle can go on indefinitely if both fighters are good at avoiding damage. Casters also have to factor in the limited uses on their spells, so a melee fighter that is adept at dodging or mitigating spells (i.e. +5 Magic Magic Shield or high Mresist gear) will eventually win by default if the caster is not prepared to duke it out. Despite any of that, I will say that ranged casters have a vast difficulty reduction vs A.I. opponents, since they aren't as good at predicting attacks, and can often just be sniped. Hence why I went for the melee caster. More engaging during the story.

[@LordMareus]

Cloud Seeker I did state that ranged casters have an advantage over A.I. opponents. Not sure if you missed it, or just ignored it. I do apologize for skewing your argument though. Wasn't really helpful. Honestly though, casters aren't the only ones that can pick out enemies. Pick up some throwing knives. Same effect. Like the video was saying, we make our own difficulty. I do find it interesting that you used Shrine of Amana as a reference though. Most of those enemies are VERY hard to single out. Their aggro radius is insane compared to most others, and a lot of the time they tend to come in packs anyway, unless you are at absolute max range. As for the swing time vs cast time thing, you don't HAVE to go with a super slow, mack-truck of a weapon. Have a fast one on hand to deal with high cast speed enemies. Which is more of a PvP thing anyway. A.I. enemies tend to have standard cast times which are, quite frankly, DISMALLY slow compared to player potential. A high speed caster could probably get about 1.8 spells out there in one club swing, and A.I.s are about even with the slower weapons. One swing for one spell. Even "capped" player casting speed isn't quite enough to get two spells in the time it takes to swing the larger weapons. Although, I know that can be a dangerous prospect. Especially if they are lobbing Crystal Soul Spears at you.

[@LordMareus]

Cloud Seeker Fair enough about the swing speed vs cast speed thing. Well stated, and I will concede that. "We are ONLY talking about PvE here and not PvP." I do think we were approaching the difficulty of range/melee from different views. I am looking at both PvP and PvE. Range has a huge advantage in PvE, whether from dedicated casting, bow usage, or just consumables. While melee has the facet of extra aggro due to positioning, making it difficult. No argument there. In fact, I stated from the beginning that I run a melee caster to avoid making PvE too easy. From a PvP standpoint, I would call them more or less equal, assuming all fighters involved have identical (or at least very similar) soul levels.

[@PabbyPabbles]

+Jacob Engholm Get a game > Find a satisfying, valid way to play with its own challenges that you enjoy but that's not the most popular option > Go to the Internet > Learn that YOU'RE CHEEZING IT U EZMODE CASUL NOB

[@nikostsagkournos2783]

+Cloud Seeker I always play as a knight but actually the game balances the difficulty when you play a caster.A caster can die much easier than a knight

[@VechtMalthos]

Another mechanic which accomplishes this: If you can't kill a boss, you have the option of grinding some to level up, making the fight easier.

[@Jimera0]

I'd like to share one game series I think has a great way of managing difficulty; Pokemon. A lot of people say the main series game is too easy, but that's just because they're taking literally every advantage the game gives them and using it, which really is playing on easy mode. If you want a challenge, it's as simple as using less effective Pokemon, restricting your use of items or services, using self-imposed battle restrictions, etc. Because Pokemon games have so much depth there's a jillion ways you can make the game more challenging for yourself if you care to do it. A newer example is also the experience share in the most recent games; when turned on, it increases the amount of experience you receive from battle multiple times, which makes the game much easier. If you don't want the game to be that easy, you just go into your key items and turn it off. That being said, the downside of this depth based difficulty (which is also present in Dark souls 2) is that you can't always both use your preferred characters/playstyles and have the difficulty you want at the same time. It also requires a lot of active participation from the player; they have to consciously tell themselves that they want a challenge and know how to create one in order to get it.

[@maciejczajka3495]

Dude above me is totaly right

[@countoonce]

My problem with that kind of difficulty is that it forces you to constantly be limiting yourself, which isn't as fun for me. I like to be in the state where I'm scraping around for every advantage I can get so I can beat a really hard boss or area. One might think DSII doesn't allow this because of the things listed in the video, and it's kinda true, but there you don't have to limit yourself as much if you want a challenging experience.

[@HS_Diora]

countoonce I'd just like to say how much I agree with this comment. Is it really so bad to say "I want to play a vanilla run, with no rules added, and still have a good time."?

[@Artista_Frustrado]

***** the thing is, Nuzlocke rules are not something the game offers you, that is a way YOU ,the player, had to make outside the game in order of adding artificial difficulty so i wouldn't consider Pokemon as a good example for this topic

[@Lurdiak]

Can't the same be said of any turn based RPG? I'd wager FF6 is quite difficult if you never save, use no potions, wear no gear, and never equip espers.

[@silvertemplar8061]

Dark Souls 2 is remembered for so many great things. Especially the Faraam set

[@wanderingrandomer]

I like that Bayonetta let you change the difficulty on the fly. However, there was so much difference between the settings, so it felt like playing a different game all of a sudden. I usually just play on Normal as a default.

[@DanPeters182]

You missed the thing where enemies start dissapearing after you've run through a level a certain amount of times. It both helps when an area feels too difficult (iron keep) and also stops people from being able to endlessly farm the monsters for certain items.

[@Go1dStee1G4ming]

+Dan Peters This post gave me cancer

[@DanPeters182]

If I'm lucky its terminal.

[@lightningandodinify]

+Dotatchin K you could always join the champions covenant temporarily. There's no sacrifice in switching covenants btw.

[@jamesgrey13]

None of this shit will help you against the Smelter Demon! :D

[@BigRedDal]

Tony James Gilpin Worst. Ever.

[@VenomSnake420]

Skill and not sucking will

[@gutentag3232]

Nobody Noel I'll keep that in mind the next time the broken hitbox kills me :v

[@VenomSnake420]

GutenTag lol u jst suk at the gaem

[@gutentag3232]

ho ho ho, you got me good buddy, I guess I'm just terrible and the hitboxes are spot on.

[@phuturephunk]

Dark Souls 2 was arguably the worst for staying inside From's Tight but Fair paradigm that has been in all the other games. Much of DS2 was ramping up difficulty due to throwing masses of enemies at the player even though the mechanics were tuned towards precise encounters with one and at most two heavies at the same time. You whiffed the ball on the example.

[@cactus9277]

phuturephunk thats arguable. i can see how thatd be your case if you didnt do much ooise damage and couldnt stagger enemies, but if you use any pyro or larger weapons you can interrupt the horde or single enemies out.

[@benk_22]

The noob: oh yea now i am going to beat this ducking game! The guy who beat the hame with a broken sword: am i a joke to u?

[@Slyguy846]

This is a really, really unhealthy thing to think. The game is really exploitable with ranged weapon tactics, and the level design makes full melee builds comparatively unfun and annoying. You know what that is? No, it is not an ingenious difficulty system, that's poor game balance.

[@destrutec1]

me not really, melee builds still beat ranged people in pvp, and it makes sense that melee has more difficulty whit boss right across your face. I love going melee and see no reason to complain, i like the difficulty. If you don't want you can always get some spells to help you.

[@Slyguy846]

I'm a Ghoul Pvp doesn't matter, the fact of the matter is that the game just makes playing as a melee build annoying. It's not the difficulty that bothers me; Demon's Souls made playing as a melee class more difficult than playing as a mage, at least for me, but it didn't have the audacity to fill locations with countless explosive barrels, countless buffed up archer enemies, and melee enemies with often nonsensical movesets, sometimes in hordes. Yet with ranged characters, most enemies have such exploitable pathing that they are utter pushovers.

[@biodegradablewaste3906]

What specific areas are you talking about?

[@Slyguy846]

gunter guntersson Well, it's just not very fun to play a melee character when pretty accurate greatbow archers are shooting you from places you physically cannot get to for a bit, from hard to see angles, or mages in Shrine of Amana. This is a much more prominent problem in SoTFS, though.

[@skaterdude7277]

me SoTFS? i've seen quite a bit of the game, can't recall a part with greatbow archers except in Dark Souls 1. However, range is always an option. Strength has Greatbows, and a pure strength build (generalizing here) would probably love a bow that they can shoot and send foes spiraling away. (gave me an idea for a great bow run.) Dex has regular bows, especially posion arrows. And Faith and Inteligence is all about the range, and there are melee weapons that cater towards those stats so if they run out of spells (something that happens early game cause atunement is low) you can still fight melee.

[@xdan-]

Another youtuber mentioned the flasks mechanic in DS1. Every bonfire gives you 5 flasks by default, and if you're having trouble, you can choose to upgrade the bonfire so it gives you 10, 15 or 20 flasks.

[@pinipoliopuru7450]

Darksouls 2 easy mode guide step 1: Start as a knight step 2: Invest in strength step 3: go to no man's warf or vengril asap step 4: get basic ultra great sword step 5: upgrade that shit step 6: profit

[@neversparky]

I feel like the class-based approach is flawed with delivering the experience appropriate to the players that need them, even more-so than the menu based systems. Not only does it still have the same issue of a player being able to choose the wrong difficulty for themselves, but it often gives players the opposite of what's appropriate to them. A newer player doesn't know the mechanics well, can't tell which class is going to be that difficulty mode that's easy enough for them. If not made obvious by the game, they often choose the weaker character options due to this lack of knowledge, hence giving the makeshift hard difficulty to the ones who would benefit from an easy mode. Conversely, the analytical or experienced players often will choose whatever class is the make-shift easy-mode, as they may end up approaching it as a strategic decision rather than a personalized difficulty, making the game easier for the very people it should give a bit more resistance to. Haven't played dark-souls, but I've seen similar arguments used for the single-player of Pokemon, which can have the aforementioned issues

[@macdongr]

I started a new Dark Souls 3 campaign and chose a sorcerer. I swear, it is super fun being a sorcerer. I had a warrior character and was stuck for a long time on 2 bosses I switched between (the old demon king, dancer of the boreal Valley) after switching to the sorcerer I have been having the best time figuring out my build and looking for ways to up my magic attacks. It's fun figuring out what I'm doing wrong rather than rushing in trying to be better at fighting. I'm not amazing at Dark Souls 3 but I'm certainly not terrible. I just need a lot of practice time which I don't have in my life. I'll finally be able to maybe finish Dark Souls 3. After that, it's on to beat finally Bloodborne which I am almost finished. Just gotta beat Martyr Logarius, Ebrietas, and the final boss.

[@potato1341]

A good example of 'insulting' games are the latest few mario's. In the 'new super Mario bros wii', after you lose 8 lives, they let Luigi take over for you... And still let you advance to the next level...

[@MagnusvonYoshi]

Miyamoto actually talked about that in an Iwata Asks segment. The idea behind it was expressly to be able to skip a really frustrating level. He even added an achievement for people who never encountered the Luigi guide option.

[@Definistrator]

Another good example, in my opinion, is the way Smash Bros. handles difficulty in Classic. Overall, I really enjoy the games, and spending points to make the Classic mode easier or harder (or to continue if you don't beat a stage) doesn't bug me, but I absolutely despise, without any ambiguity at all, being forced to ratchet the difficulty down upon defeat. Often, it happening even once leaves a run feeling sour.

[@MagnusvonYoshi]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that was the point. Being able to do something that hard means being able to do it without ever reaching that continue screen. Forcing you to drop difficulty is itself part of the difficulty. You don't get to try again unless you actually go back and try again.

[@rimasx6]

theAnalyst Agreed. Even though it raises the stakes for losing, it feels like it doesn't let me practice after the mistake so I can make a perfect run later. A lot of times, I died against the Master Core on 9.0 and then turned around and beat it on 8.5. I would feel good about beating it at first, but then I would remember the drop and feel dissatisfied. Like I went and gave it my all but the game was just toying with me.

[@alcaestomora5337]

thats is cuz luigi its better than mario

[@Rotciv7777777]

I love the video but... I don't like that. If I want to play as a fighter? If I don't like rangers and spellcasters? I actually would prefer to master the game with patience, even in several hours and sitdowns.

[@patrolfp1847]

Rotciv7777777 Alright go ahead, but I recommend getting the fire longsword and using that ring. Also I believe you should research on what type of weapon you are going to use, there are many types (katanas, maces, axes, swords, greatswords, ultra greatswords, ect) so you can properly decide what you should invest your stats in. And if you do like close range combat but don't mind a bit of ranged stuff you should pick up some Pyromancies. I could say more but honestly this comment is too long in the first place.

[@Rotciv7777777]

I started the game some time ago as a pyromancer and I was told at the time that they are the easy mode. I'll eventually pick up the trilogy and finish them. Thanks for the help!

[@ince55ant]

Another fun tip is when entering a new area have someone else summon you so you can get a lay of the land before taking any risk. Done this for a lot of DS3 and it was mostly a breeze and i got some clues to branching story paths (whats he doing here? why is the sky different? etc).

[@BigC60]

I dont get this : He doesnt have a lot of time to play, so he will wait for friends so they can kill/tank the bosses for him ??? How is that NOT wasting your time or "seing everything" ?

[@Pedroo.T]

You don't need to play with your friends, you can summon a random person

[@BigC60]

@@Pedroo.T I knew that you could summon random peraon, of course, Im not ignorant, obviously, pfff. Im doing the ng+ now, the game is still amazing in 2020.

[@superafgbg167]

Or just. You know. Start with the warrior class and run past everything and get the greatsword and use it for the whole game.

[@zegreatpumpkinani9161]

Only... Ultra Greatswords are broken in ds2 and don't track right... so you have to know how to play unlocked...

[@GrampaPiggie]

I never thought about any of these difficulty options. Crazy cool.

[@tipoomaster]

They removed some of the easy making stuff in Bloodborne I see. It's my first Soulsbourne game. Not much spell casting and no archery (I think, at least up until the Old Hunters DLC), no ring of life thing. But, maybe they just generally took down the difficulty, because I haven't had much problem so far (up to Rom)

[@Kyrator88]

I believe the video is somewhat incorrect, ranged combat wasn't made to be "easier" and the enemies don't have pathing restrictions and pathing bugs to support that. The pathing restrictions are there because otherwise you could kite all the enemies to a fall and kill them all without effort and the bugs are there because the game had a shitty development cycle and had trouble getting finished and they just didn't get fixed. Magic was overpowered not on purpose but because it just wasn't taken into consideration, if magic being overpowered was a deliberate choice then why did they make all of the DLC bosses incredibly hard to kill with magic as well as nerfing several spells. I dislike the idea of James as a player. He seems to pick the least interactive and easiest way to go through games. In Hearthstone he played secret Paladin to get to legend which is entirely brainless and it seems here he did the same, he played a ranged character that can cheese most of the game due to the enemy AI and when it can't be done he used a mechanic to minimize the risk. At that point it seems it would be better to just straight up have an easy difficulty instead of abusing aspects of the game design for an easy experience.

[@vladimir_ckau]

Like, who the fuck would play chess with E2-E4 starting move, right? Fucking casuals... Always trying to find behavior pattern, which will allow them to play the game easier way.

[@tomjackal5708]

If only you fixed the tiny grammatical error, your comment would be pretty much perfect.

[@redrounin1440]

+Kyrator88 Well, I don't know if it's accurate to say that magic just wasn't taken into consideration. There's dozens of spells, weapons, cloths, etc that are in the game entirely for mages. Several NPC's are mage specific, and of course there's the three stats that are only useful to mages. Also, how hard DLC or other optional bosses are for mages doesn't really support your point. It's common practice in games for the 'main campaign' to be accessible to every playstyle but to still have stand alone areas or optional bosses that need to be tackled in a specific way. Final Fantasy comes to mind. In Skyrim the main story is completable by any character and yet you have huge optional storylines that can only be attempted by a certain kind of character e.g. the dark brotherhood questline. If you watch a lot of extra credits, you may have seen the 'balancing for skill' episode. They talk about having options in games that have a lot of raw power and take little skill to use, but are ultimately less effective than other strategies that require higher levels of sklll. That's kind of the thing with magic in the souls series. it's very powerful but very easy to counter. In pvp you see mages dominating low level play but once you're used to their bag of tricks they're very easy to deal with. Magic is sort of the 'noob tube' of dark souls. And 99 percent of mages out there have at lest one decent melee option for these encounters, though it may require a gear swap. It's funny they didn't talk about bows in the video. Bows (especially with poison arrows) are a very effective 'last resort' strat for any melee build because they don't require any extra stat investment and serve as important tools (especially in the early game) to pull enemies so you can try to fight one at a time. And as far as how James plays, I know it's a little annoying but keep in mind he's trying to play as many games as he possibly can while still being a hardworking professional in his field. Yeah we all know that someone like this is missing out on a lot of the depth of any game he plays, but not everyone has the required 200+ hours required to try every weapon, every build, every new game +, etc. It's just not an efficient approach when he can get 50% of the depth in 10% of the time.

[@tomjackal5708]

Skyrim..... uhhh I think you may have missed the mark on that one. The game is really just not that difficult. And the Dark Brotherhood questline? You don't need a specific type of character for it, you just need decent gear. The stealth in that game is a joke.

[@redrounin1440]

Tom Jackal It may not be the best example, I can't recall for sure because it's been a couple years since playing that game. But correct me if I'm wrong, don't you need pickpocket skill etc to complete that storyline? I know there are a bunch of missions you straight up can't do without a certain lockpick skill or computer hacking skill in fallout. The thrust of my point is, it's not uncommon for games to have side content that's more challenging than the main storyline. Take the star road in super mario world if you want a concrete example. Besides, if you've poured all of your stat points into magic and the boss your facing is strong against magic, there's a really simple solution. Summon someone. Or summonan NPC, or get a weapon with high base damage and infuse it with raw. Or just use magic anyway and it takes a bit longer. The bosses in dark souls are really not that hard either. If you insist on facing a certain boss in a certain way, then you're imposing an extra challenge on yourself. That's fine, and I do it too. But it's not really a reason to complain. Would you do a sl1 no shield run and then complain about the difficulty?

[@JDracovia129]

The Tales of games are really good with changing difficulties since the game is pretty easy throughout, you're not stuck at the really easy pace. I personally start the game at Hard mode, then change it to Unknown when I think "This is too easy." And yet I can still change the difficulty down for those really hard bosses on unknown.

[@AnthanKrufix]

The main issue I'm seeing is that Spellcasters being great starting classes goes against what is usually accepted of spellcasters. If anyone's heard of the term "Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards", it usually means that at the start of an RPG warriors are wielding swords and have enough armor to take several hard hits, meanwhile wizards are lighting matchsticks and can't take a hit from a small rat without running for heals. Then when it comes round to mid game warriors have upgraded to be wielding even bigger swords and have armor able to withstand the mid game enemies with similar efficiency, while wizards are still barely throwing their first fireball and once again die really easily. ..... But then when LATE GAME comes around.... Warriors are wielding massive Zweihanders and are heavily armored enough to stop a truck.... But wizards are calling down the power of God to smite their foes, and said truck gets atomized the second it tries to pass through their forcefield. --- Dark Souls 2 goes against this and instead makes the Wizards progression linear (starting with being able to throw fireballs which can 2 shot enemies, then later on... throwing BIG fireballs) and the Warriors start off needing a huge amount of skill just to not die but later they turn into literally Thor.

[@philliparnesen4493]

Not following someone elses formula for magic users doesn't make their system bad. I for one always felt that was somewhat annoying and backwards. To me, mages should start off stronger and easier to use but fall progressively behind in survivability to the guy in all enchanted rune plate wielding the "sword of ancient darkness" or some shit. Mainly my reason for wanting that is because I like being a caster. And I often play games for story not difficulty. So probably having flexible difficulty playstyles of every sort would be the best but hardest to not do redundantly.

[@MumboJ]

When I first watched this video a few years ago I took issue with the idea of weapon choice as difficulty. Watching it again today I have come to agree on most of the other points, although I still maintain that weapon choice should be purely a matter of style or flavour, and should not dramatically affect the difficulty. What if I happen to enjoy spellcasters or archers because I've just always loved the flavour of those weapon styles, but I also want the challenging play experience that dark souls is famous for? If I wasn't aware that those classes were the "secret easy mode" then I would feel robbed of the play experience I was going for. Someone else mentioned the issue where players feel forced to play the most optimal strategy or essentially handicap themselves, so if the difficulty setting is hidden in the weapon choice or optional exploits, those players may feel unsatisfied if they wanted a more challenging play experience without arbitrarily limiting themselves during play. This is a real and common problem that I see all the time, and formal difficulty settings allows the player to adjust to suit their needs. Personally I've always loved having formal difficulty settings (provided you can change them during play), and until I first watched this video it hadn't occurred to me that anyone would consider removing them. At the very least, include them in addition to the other methods so that you can fine tune the desired difficulty with the preferred playstyle, in case those don't match in your particular game.

[@MumboJ]

Thinking about it, difficulty options could possibly function like presets for the various related settings in a game, such as having quest markers appear on the map, or having enemy health displayed on the HUD, and so on. Many of these settings are already used to adjust the challenge, so having them all adjust to preset defaults based on what difficulty option you chose would also alleviate the issue of having to trawl through a menu full of options deciding what to adjust, whilst leaving open the possibility for fine tuning your preferences if there's something specific you want to change. (Man how I wish I could choose to play Guitar Hero with an Expert difficulty number of notes, but using only the 4 buttons used by the lower difficulty settings)

[@PeterMcleod117]

In diablo II, I regularly switch the difficulty around mid-play using the /players8 cheat, sometimes because I'm overwhelmed, sometimes because I want a challenge, and sometimes because it's a handy way to harvest gems, rejuvenation potions, and experience points.

[@NeoBluereaper]

What about Witcher 2 where the tutorial gives you an idea and recommends the difficulty for you...

[@maciejczajka3495]

Yeach but many people feel offended when game imply they are not a total pro so...

[@mrturret01]

***** Use the combat rebalance mod. It fixes everything

[@sIightIybored]

***** Whatever difficulty you set it as, there is a difficulty curve in most games, because of this progression of skill.

[@Gnomelord0]

I had some trouble with the Witcher 2 Tutorial, so I choose easy because I hadn't memorized all the mechanics, But after about 3 hours playing I pretty much had the whole thing down and I really wanted to play it harder but it was too late. It might be better if they didn't front load you with SO much information.

[@NeoBluereaper]

Gnomelord0 I'm pretty sure the remastered version allows you to retake the arena to get used to combat.

[@simonsalgueiro6217]

This shit happens cause too many people think games are competitions and forget they are there for fun. I play a LOT of games in easy to curbstomp the solo campaing first, enjoy the story and feel op. Its not embarashing at all, i have a lot of fun. Then, after i tried the game that way, i go with the hardest settings. heck i love hard games like X Com or Total War series that have a huge difictulty rise with the hardest settings. But the videogame most hardcore community keeps shaming people who play easy games, as if succeding in videogames (something made for FUN) made them better than you. They jsut suck at real life and need to feel superior somehow. Also, i think you are a bit too much of a fanboy of DS 2 if you believe that thing about the classesbeing done on purpose. It was just bad balance of classes. The only thing they did thinking of difficulty was probably the ring. the rest is like assuming any game does this type of dynamic dificulty mechanic just cause you have the option to fight with bad weapons or armors, or the hard way, etc. So no. DS 2 has no revolutionary difficulty mechanic. hell, all those "special diffitulty mechanics" you said are just picking the best class with the best rush stats, the best weapon and doing things in a specific manner. Thats called meta play. Not "adapting difficulty". So if i want to play a damn warrior with certain types of stats im gonna have a much harder time? Oh yea, DS 2 difficulty system is awesome! NO, just no. DS 2 is ahrd. its ment to be ahrd, thats how it goes. Stop trying to look for more ways of cocksucking the creators. We know the game is awesome already

[@XistenceX1]

I don't really understand how people don't get bored of not being challenged. games have to have a win condition and a loss condition for me. any game on easy or normal have 0 chance at challenging me, so I feel like I've accomplished nothing. but when a game spits in my face regularly and forces me to actually try it's a great feeling. I accomplished something that most people can't, and it feels fantastic completing something that was wrecking you for a while. I don't remember the story of any game that didn't make me try since I wasn't invested.

[@helenanilsson5666]

XistenceX1 Eh, sure it's fun with challenges - but doing hard for the sake of hard alone is overrated. Personally, I like to start on easy and make a goof run. Just run around like a crazy monkey and see what I can do, it's a fun way to get good and quick feeling for the game and its mechanics. If/when it's too easy to be enjoyable, I up the difficulty, either through menu options or by putting self-imposed restraints on myself. Like a nuzlocke-esque run, however that would work in the game in question.

[@ingonyama70]

This is INCREDIBLY helpful. I have to assume the "Easy Mode" build was James' idea, as Squeaky Dan just beat Dark Souls 2 not that long ago. I'm currently struggling in Dark Souls 1 (I beat the armored boar in the Undead Parish with help from watching Side Quest S1, but now I'm constantly getting mobbed by things faster and stronger than me), but with this as a go-to, Dark Souls 2 should be a MUCH smoother ride. In theory. Assuming it's still here when I beat Dark Souls 1.

[@nepnep5853]

To give your "Chalenging vs. Punishing" video a nice bit of love, I'll say this much... Dark Souls 2 is a punishing pile of crap. And here, I'll tell you why. Enemy tracking is broken, with them doing 180s when you try to avoid their attacks, dodging's I-frames are completely nerfed to hell, giving you a very strange and difficult window of opportunity, and basic weapons have the reach of a dagger, meaning until you get a polearm or greatsword, you're fucked against enemies with reach. Movement has gone from weighty to floaty and less responsive, there are more enemies that are straight up unfair because of their speed or reach, and status ailments have been buffed like no tomorrow. And to top it all off, the lore went from deep and mysterious to "lol, we dunno" Try and tell me that this is a worthy successor to Dark Souls, which did everything except servers better than this. Dark Souls 2 was a game made by a man who knew nothing of what he was doing, and never should have existed in the first place.

[@knightofpartyknightofparty5294]

You haven't even played the first game, have you. I can tell by your comment

[@nepnep5853]

knightofparty knightofparty And no matter my answer, it won't change your preconceived notion either. So, trying to dissuade you, or even have intellectual discussion, is a waste of my time.

[@knightofpartyknightofparty5294]

I don't understand how you can have theses complaints that seem exclusively targeted towards ds2 when ds1 is they same if not worse, ds1 bum rushes you alot and the story isn't lol we don't know it's the way it is because it's open and it's not about what happens that is pretty clear it's about what it means

[@knightofpartyknightofparty5294]

Hah and you say I'm the one with the preconceived nation

[@albertoguarnieri5182]

+knightofparty knightofparty While I don't think DS2 is a pile of crap, most of his comments are quite understandable. I think 2 improved on several technical aspects from 1, but the director(s) clearly had no grasp on the tricks to implement difficulty as part of the mood, which Miyazaki showed to understand very deeply. In the end 2 was a fun experience, but had weak personality, no tonal consistency, which was quite possibly the greatest achievement of 1 and Demon's.

[@leeson865]

"Conversely" - Great pun. haha!

[@onefungi5866]

Another good way some games have tackled difficulty in my opinion, is games like Kid Icarus: Uprising. They give the player the opportunity to challenge themselves in a hish-risk, high-reward scenario with the gambling thingy. (Sorry I can't name it, I've forgotten what it was called.)

[@jenniferguajardo1335]

"Die for me so I won't have to." Lol

[@Dakiaty]

I bought DS2 today and I fucking suck xD I really like this dark fantasy setting though, so I'll definitely hang on to it ^^

[@xQc_Enjoyer777]

Have fun and never give up. The game only gets better with each new and unique area!

[@BelartWright]

It gets really good! You should keep with it. There's some areas that are honestly mindblowing.

[@robertblank6252]

Try dark souls one. Honestly, it is FAR better in terms of balance and design and especially lore. Dark souls 2 looks amazing and like a true souls game but it does not play like one at all. This becomes apparent about halfway through the game. The game did not have the original creator Miyuzaki on DS2 so they missed the mark.

[@ShapurTheLegend]

should have played dark souls 1. also everyone sucked when they first got ds

[@velocitydrop9405]

I've played all three dark souls games, and I believe that DS2 is the best intro into the trilogy. DS1 basically requires a manual/walkthrough (although it's probably my favorite).