The Important Dark Souls Choice No One Knows About

[@DoktorTaiko]

Back in like 2013 I wanted to try out the soul duping and a friend wanted to tell me how. Me: Why isn't it working? He: Oh you're playing a female character, you need to two-hand the weapon. Me: Why is that? He: I don't know, who cares? But I cared. And it took me nearly ten years to find the answer to my question long forgotten. Thanks Cata for finally taking the burden of not knowing of my shoulders :D

[@catalystz]

Hahaha, thanks so much, Taiko! That is super cool. Glad you found the answer! ^^

[@jf-may]

I had the exact same problem and just swapped to a black knight halberd on my right hand, it seemed like just a coincidence, never knew it was this!!!

[@therandomdickhead5744]

Small world ay

[@BeeTheBee]

Did you mean him or her? This is bugging me so much :(

[@DoktorTaiko]

@@BeeTheBee Him :)

[@InfernoPlus]

Some potential insight on why female animations don't have cancel windows. Almost all of the c0000.esd active state 0 (player idle) is coded with special input checks that are usually labeled like "IsLeftHandAttackFromIdle()" or "IsParryFromIdle()" These checks differ from the rest of the active state checks which are labeled "IsLeftHandAttackFromCancel()" or "IsParryFromCancel()" The input checks that are labeled with "FromIdle" (or some variation like that) don't actually care whether or not there is a cancel window and will just happen. This is because From probably decided that "Well... the idle state should probably always be cancelable so let's just make it work that way in the ESD and not worry about cancel windows at all" In the case of the item dupe bug I guess it was just an oversight and they forgot to apply that change there. Source - I've written a lot of ESD lol

[@catalystz]

I see. Thanks for taking the time to write up this insight. I personally know nothing in regards to the inner workings of the ESD, so this is really interesting!

[@ivanpr9525]

This guy remade Halo inside Dark Souls, he's a real expert

[@GameGuide2020]

@@ivanpr9525 I second this, Inferno knows his stuff.

[@aligg6029]

nerd

[@ENCHANTMEN_]

You missed one important advantage a female character has over a male one: hurt sounds that aren't terrible

[@lxdm26]

what do you mean aaaauuuugghhh

[@mitchsz]

Male moanings in DS1 = gachiGASM

[@KaiserMazoku]

Clearly someone doesn't do BDSM runs

[@monosophy691]

I playedd a dude in ds1 just for those noises

[@aoneko6813]

Male hurt sounds tend to make me laugh out loud when hit so i like them :)

[@Sacomoponycam]

0:42 I heard it as "End if action x is Cute," and was confused as to how they defined cute actions and why they stopped the other animations.

[@prismaticc_abyss]

Its a japanese release after all, need them kawaii emotes

[@silasstryder]

Reminds me of how in Titanfall 1 playing as a female was advantageous as the hitbox matched the 3d model and female pilots are smaller than male pilots and the movement/wall-running animations made female pilots a harder target to hit. This happened because they didn't initially plan on having female pilots in the game and added them last minute so they didn't have time to make a custom hitbox that matched the male pilot's as well as match the male pilot's animations.

[@HaggisDruid]

Damn for real? I never knew that lmao, I love the Titanfall series, even have the og special edition titan statue. To think there was a hitbox difference and I never knew, damn. Woulda definitely exploited that haha.

[@DragoonCenten]

It's kinda crap when different models don't have hitboxes that make sense even if it affects gameplay, so I'd say it worked out well.

[@cinderluna]

Ive heard so many trans girls stories start this way lmao

[@PotatoPatatoVonSpudsworth]

This reminded me of some of the ancient warrior tribes in Mongolia, where women became the warrior class of society because they were superior jockeys due to their size and weight.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Another size related thing is in the Elder Scrolls games. Taller characters run faster, because they have longer legs. With some playable races (but not all) there are difference in height between the female and male model. But in context to Titanfall: The different characters in Apex Legends have different models and thus different hitboxes.

[@fedeposada]

Cata, this editing is insane. The timeline of the frames was brilliant, I understood everything perfectly.

[@catalystz]

Thanks so much! I spent a decent time on making them so it makes me very happy they helped convey the information. I will also be able to reuse them in the future in different contexts!

[@sachahjkl]

@@catalystz you can be proud of yourself, outstanding video

[@xrayjohnson6972]

@@catalystz Yeah dude, don't take this the wrong way but saw the topic of the vid, saw the view count and was like "How The Fuck". Then I saw the animations and it's less than you deserve. Will watch more, lovely stuff

[@SamsarasArt]

It's crazy how workarounds have been created for every drawback. The amount of scrutiny in speedrunning dark souls is wild.

[@catalystz]

What's crazy to me is how the game is a decade old and yet still MAJOR new strategies, facts, and glitches are being discovered.

[@ttchme9816]

@@catalystz they are a small thing to non fans, a big thing to die hard ones. Example : The great magic shield vs Kalameet breath attack, nothing to a normal playthrough but everything to the speedrun community. And that shit is not even a glitch, just someone who somehow actually tries the defensive sorcery....

[@blankblank4949]

wonder how many amazing things we will learn about elden ring over the years, kinda makes me wanna keep a backup of ver 1.0 just so i can have fun with it later

[@Dravianpn02]

Do it!

[@holschermarc]

Great idea

[@Kill3r12341]

Definitely do it

[@RapWolf]

Why backup? The game is on steam where you can just downgrade version

[@blankblank4949]

@@RapWolf yeah ur right, i guess i just dont trust that option will always be available

[@HeroSword_P]

This reminds me of how Elite characters in Halo 2 multiplayer were at a disadvantage because their heads were hunched forward so landing headshots on them was slightly easier, especially from the side.

[@mashedmentality]

Do I love dark souls? Yes. Do I care about whether my character is male or female? No. Did I learn about something I didn’t know and was entertained? Absolutely.

[@DizzyEyes94]

Hot damn what an uncharacteristically diplomatic comment for KZbin I love it~

[@gundamdetractor337]

here comes the they/them 🙄 ok bro we get it.

[@mashedmentality]

@@gundamdetractor337 that’s you projecting fool. What I said had nothing to do with gender politics

[@mollypolly8631]

@@gundamdetractor337 what are you even talking about

[@15xlr]

​@@mollypolly8631bro is schizophrenic 🔥🔥

[@Greywander87]

At first I didn't understand why the female character's quicker slow down would be bad. It seemed like it would make your character more responsive, and anyway you could just run for an extra few frames so that you stop in the same spot, but save a frame or two in the process. But I'm guessing it has to do with stamina usage. Any time you stop sprinting, you slow down, and a male character has a slower slow down, and thus maintains their higher speed for longer. You're not slowing down because you intend to stop, but because you've run out of stamina and can't sprint any longer. Over the course of a run, this could add up to a few seconds.

[@Amir0]

Animation Blending is responsible for the difference in acceleration/deceleration. Blending also happens to effect root motion, so when it comes to transitioning from another animation under less motion, the smaller the blending window on the new animation the better. This applies in DeS, DS1, DS3, and Sekiro as they all have their animation systems designed similarly. The ESD/Beh(For DS3/Sekiro) can also effect root motion with conditional movement speed modifiers and transition speeds.

[@catalystz]

I see! Thanks a lot of clearing this up, Amir. I knew about acceleration/deceleration memes also being present in DeS in a strong capacity, but had no idea that they did not adjust things in DS3 and Sekiro. I am also aware that there is a different number of frames saved depending on which animations are following the speed-up and what angle you might turning at.

[@Whiterun_Guard69]

@@catalystz ááaaá ,Aá

[@Baconomics1]

Wait so it was changed only for DS2?

[@JellyJman]

@@Baconomics1yes actually, they adjusted it for Dark Souls 2 version of the engine but then since DS3 used the Bloodborne version of the engine they didn’t change it for that.

[@Samura1313]

How is animation blending in DS2? Seems like many of the complaints people have about ds2 animations have some relation to the occasional rough blending it has

[@marcodragon4995]

I knew that the female animations were slightly different and had a small issue where they wouldn't smoothly transition to and from the proper idle animation, but I had no idea that the underlying code for their animations could be so impactful!

[@marieb73304]

Rest of youtube : e l d e n r i n g Cata : let me tell you about this idle animation of female character in dark souls 1 Love your content man! Keep it up 😎

[@thecompanioncube4211]

My man is fully invested in DS1 in the best possible interpretation of the word fully

[@catalystz]

Thanks a lot! I will of course be covering Elden Ring speedrunning once it develops as well, but I really wanted to get this out before ER came out 😌

[@marieb73304]

@@catalystz No worries man, I really enjoyed your video :) Keep it up

[@achillesreyskens2774]

It’s nice to watch something knowing I’ll not get spoiled for no apparent reason.

[@ARTEMISXIX]

Ironically I prefer this since I do not want to spoil myself for Elden Ring while playing it

[@birdflox1337]

8:23 "Female idling cannot be interrupted" put that on a shitty Facebook meme

[@postplays]

One of the first things i noticed when i made a female in DaS was a subtle sway in their gait. Its more obvious when two-handing a greatsword. The female pelvis is tilted slightly forward, along with being wider and heavier, giving them a different gait than men. Its a nice touch.

[@catalystz]

They definitely did spend some time on creating the distinct female animations, but it is also clear they probably added them quite late, resulting in the things I covered in the video.

[@electricechoemporium]

I once experienced backstabbing being way harder to perform with a female character than a male one, and also found a few other people on the internet experiencing the same thing. Is there any evidence or explanation for this, or was it just placebo?

[@pegleg2959]

Lmao

[@aetherius6221]

Holy shit lmao

[@AoifeForrester]

I am consistently impressed by your camera work and in depth explanations for game mechanics.

[@archanfel650]

14:00 The turn around option cancel was specifically patched. It used to be used with the dragon head stone for item dupping using the breath attack.

[@Archimedes.5000]

It can still be used by falling from a small height right?

[@neofromthewarnerbrothersic145]

I'm not into speedrunning myself (just fascinated by the lengths speedrunners go to), but the editing, animations, sound, and just overall presentation in this video is top notch. Well done sir.

[@Snickersnek]

Wanderer set has a fuzzy cute collar with female avatars. Checkmate.

[@alarageref2481]

Female pyromancer is some of the best fashion souls until late game fite me

[@RanOutOfSpac]

MAAAAN, I knew I wasn't crazy when I figured out two-handing weapons made soul duping easier (or more specifically, possible) for females. In my experience, two-handed R2's made the timing trivial compared to rolls and R1's. After that, chaining the "use soul' animation for soul duping was the way to go.

[@Hyperdisk]

I'm not a technical savvy individual. However this video did a wonderful job breaking down stuff without making me feel overwhelmed. Lovely job

[@ingridrumbaugh1450]

This is such an impressive video!!! I'm a software engineer so I'm always interested in the detailed technical stuff. You made it easy for almost anyone to understand what's going on! Love it!

[@TheBobblefighter]

I can't believe Dark Souls lied to me again boys

[@catalystz]

We never learn...

[@capperbuns]

The weapon toggling makes you faster because they are made to have priority over almost all animations

[@gordo6908]

everyone runs faster with a knife

[@zoidsfan12]

Bro I actually feel so vindicated now. I use the confirmation box dube glitch in nearly every run. And when I would play female characters would think they patched the game or something due to it not working quite right.

[@BlazeStorm]

Clear explanations and great animations, great job on this vid!

[@catalystz]

Thanks a lot, Blaze!

[@claraestrada5080]

i spent part of the video thinking "why do i suddenly wanna play Risk of Rain 2?" then i realize the vid uses the same music and it was tugging at my subconcious (i noticed at 7:30 forward).

[@StephenOwen]

The overlaying of the data fields for the running section was so slick and well done.

[@Simte]

Great upload Cata, I am so happy this beautiful game continues to be explored.

[@SxfetyPin]

FromSoft seems to really have strange bugs when it comes to gender in their games; (Thankfully, this was patched after a long while) In DSIII, if you were a female character and you were hit while Sprinting, it would count as a Counter Hit. This never occurred when playing as a male. I can't even begin to imagine the other discrepancies between the two genders in other FromSoft titles.

[@akashjoseph6649]

There will be a good amount, just like how it is in real life

[@genbeuden2114]

@@akashjoseph6649 My man here, trying to have debate about gender in youtube comments on a Dark souls video

[@marlonyo]

Sekiro has the most

[@bungiecrimes7247]

@@akashjoseph6649 for both or for only one? Are we choosing sides here?

[@procow2274]

Final fantasy tactics has differences to

[@supersymm3try]

Damn I love your slick graphics Catalystz really gives your videos a high quality feel

[@catalystz]

Thanks a lot! I try my best.

[@GMPranav]

Those graph animations OMG. Cata you are a God.

[@OfficialMaxGames]

Your videos have gotten so good especially the editing

[@catalystz]

I always strive to improve! Thank you for being on this journey with me.

[@TheFinagle]

As a non-speedrunner there is an advantage to the faster acceleration and deceleration of running and that is finer control of your movements. Its quite small though and you wouldn't really notice it, but it can be subtly important in reactionary moments.

[@hnaht321]

I remember watching lobos doing some challenge run, when he couldn't get some boss cheese to work. Then all of a sudden he yelled, "OH I'M A GIRL, I HAVE TO TWO-HAND IT."

[@Lumigle]

I am impressed of the editing quality of your videos!!!

[@coryyoung7544]

The male character in nioh 2 would almost always miss the axe high stance combo(3rd hit before slam) and the kusarigama whirlwind first hit because the hit box is to high. But female characters miss ground stabs/slams more often. Just an idea to look into if you want.

[@IIoWoII]

The animation at 3:38 is really funny out of context

[@henseltbrumbleburg3752]

Man your production quality is incredible

[@Brad294]

Just wanted to say I like how you're using Risk of Rain 2 music in the background during the Confirmation Box Duping section (and possibly other areas, it's quiet music). Good taste!

[@PIKL_Creep]

Imagine using a vpn to prevent people spying on you yet you still use Windows. Something funny I thought of while watching your sponsor.

[@NatetheNerdy]

At the start, I was a little worried. FromSoft games are great to me because there are so few differences between sexes. I'm glad to see it's just some wonky code, and not really a noticeable difference to a casual player. Great video!

[@catalystz]

Funnily enough, the DS3 Alpha actually had differing hitboxes and memes like that. Glad all of that has been scrapped.

[@_-Lx-_]

Demon Souls and DS2 sadly have a few gender locked items (though with DS2 you can jump into the magic trans coffin easily), other than those and these coding oddities this series is luckily very equal in most ways. In fact I'd say aside from those few unfortunate exceptions this series is actually pretty progressive in terms of gender, which is cool.

[@NatetheNerdy]

@@_-Lx-_ I can't remember, what are the DS2 gender locked items? I knew DeS had some.

[@ratlinggull2223]

@@_-Lx-_ sadly, even now they still make a mummy woman tend your bonfires

[@DemoniteBL]

@@_-Lx-_ Huh? But it's common for games to have equal options for both genders. I can't think of any other game where gender matters. I guess stuff likes romances in Mass Effect, but that's not a (dis-)advantage, that's just about preferences.

[@aspacelex]

"Gender has no bearing on ability"

[@wanderer13__]

2:00 You used a soundtrack from Haven, didn't you? Danger - "Do we glow too?"

[@Lucifronz]

2:15 That's some god-tier editing work there.

[@catalystz]

Glad you enjoyed that shot, it was so much fun working on it.

[@SpaceManFive]

If I'm not mistaken, the reason for the difference in movement speed transition for female characters seems obvious to me if female characters didn't get cancel animation transitions like male ones did. The speed change curve for male characters looked smoother, while the one for female characters looked sharper/more abrupt. I'm guessing that's due to the presence or absence of the cancel animation transitions. Male characters likely have smoother transitions (that also take longer) due to having animation transitions, with female characters likely having sharper transitions (that are faster) due to *not* having more fully developed animation transitions. At least, that's my guess from my understanding of the info presented here.

[@AaronJR9119]

That's pretty cool that I found that same duping problem when I was playing as female and solved it the same way. (I changed to dual wielding and worked as normal)

[@Effective_doplar]

Great video, I finally understand why I see stored rolls trigger on blocks.

[@avalonjustin]

I love these in-depth sorts of videos, it's cool to learn about the programming differences in a game.

[@limprichard3]

Liked and comment for the algorithm! Great video as always Cata! I love watching your informational videos. Your speedruns are always a hoot too! Keep up the good work, you deserve success!

[@quippits3201]

The only thing here that's going to effect a casual player is the speed ramp-up for dashing. So I guess I'll stick to female characters.

[@arabidllama]

Some seriously cool video editing in this one!

[@SnaccHBG]

The editing is insane 🤩

[@AppleOfThineEye]

Shoehorned sponsor ends at 11:19

[@alternamasaki429]

I have always loved the quality of his videos and how they get better every time. Awsome content, i could understamd everything mentioned immediately

[@DuckAllMighty]

I'm just a casual Souls player, and never even knew there where differences between male and female. SO I have no idea why I started watching this video, and thought I would quickly click away from it, but it's strangely interesting to get to know these mechanics. Well done vid, really nicely presented in a really easily understandable way for some of us people, that don't know much about animation tech and programming.

[@catalystz]

Thank you very much for the kind feedback. I am glad you found the video interesting and thanks for giving it a shot!

[@VoidGivenForm]

The refunct music at the start took me back, thank you for this amazing video

[@Jacob-df5hr]

Your editing is so good wtf

[@MusicFreak0426]

Hearing the Ark theme at the end was like a cherry on top.

[@antoniogranados7552]

ily plz never stop uploading

[@LoLLacker]

This video is pure quality, great job!

[@Heyderic]

Incredible video like always!

[@catalystz]

Thank you very much, Deric!

[@SCDJMU]

Holy crap your editing skills have improved so much, great video, Cata.

[@sucio-]

I really like ur inclusion of real world examples and the weird little niche scenarios actually being impactful, cool

[@therealgorg]

Fantastic stuff, wonderful work!

[@Kpsla]

"The reason for this [male and female accelerating differently] is unfortunately unknown." Didn't you already explain that the models have different blend frames for their jog animations? That's the reason. It takes the male character longer to transition from their jog to their dash because it has more blend frames.

[@timzy11ful]

no its because men are stronger

[@hazeltree7738]

@@timzy11ful Uh... I just want to point out, the male accelerates *more slowly* It's not to do with strength, if seems more like weight. Men, on average, will have a larger build and weigh more, therefore taking longer to accelerate and keeping more momentum Females, however, usually have a smaller and lighter build. That results in faster acceleration, but also faster momentum loss

[@oonmm]

​@@hazeltree7738 Bro.. The guy you responded to already made his case clear, there is obviously nothing more that could possibly be added when he laid it all out like that. :'D Though being real for a second, that mass you're talking about really doesn't have a negative effect on neither acceleraion or speed. The extra muscles and longer legs will be more benneficial than what the extra weight is detrimental to both speed and acceleration. It won't really start to matter before you get way outside the average physique - but taking only a certain kind of outliers into account wouldn't make any real sense for this. I do get your point, but you're over estimating the effect, while under estimating the benefits - that's all.

[@johndisandonato]

Cata, you keep outdoing yourself! Loved the editing, and a lot of the info I didn't even know 😅

[@catalystz]

Thanks a lot John, I am very honored by your words!

[@OctomusPrimes]

You’ve outdone yourself again. Amazing video!

[@KrudlerTheHorse]

Your videos are so informative and professionally done. You got a sub+

[@joehanson1187]

Loved the editing

[@thegk-verse4216]

Really the best moment to make use of this knowledge

[@ArtsieFrog]

I fucking called it!! Ages ago I was telling my friend that playing as a female was slightly different than the male and felt faster. This was back when the games weren’t popular. 360 days mate-

[@justrandomstuff6828]

I kindda new that, in DS3, i always pick female, because of the running animation, looks cooler

[@catalystz]

I liked switching them around after a while until we realized male was faster 😠

[@BiggRobbStout]

Man the editing on point

[@draculactica]

This is so cool! I always felt like there were some nearly imperceptible differences in feel between playing the two models. Very neat to know that there are indeed some

[@AEastrolabe]

Another amazing video ! The presentation is great, keep up the good work Cata !

[@crow__bar]

Very informative video with great visuals as always cata, and an even better sponsor transition lmao

[@ZoeBateman]

I love videos like this that talk about minor differences in things that most players will never notice, so fun learning about the quirks of game design and development

[@picklejho69]

4:33 sudden Northern Englishman

[@catalystz]

I have hung out with too many gentlemen of that origin 😂

[@ladyinwight]

this editing is insanity

[@heyfell4301]

I first noticed there was a difference when I got into item duping glitches. I realized that I simply couldn't do the classic item dupe glitch with a female character, but it worked basically all the time when I was male, rolls, backsteps, even parries were enough go dupe a Soul with a male, but it refused to work with a female no matter how many frames the animation had. For a long time I played only male characters for that reason, until I noticed (during a gitchless playthrough where I picked female exactly to avoid duping) that, FOR SOME REASON... the glitch worked just as fine so long as the gal was holding any heavy weapon on her shoulder. To this day I didn't know why that was, this video is a good clarification, but it's not like I use that glitch anymore, since it was fixed (for the most part) on the remaster.

[@Ruew]

TIP: when using the boss soul dupe. You know how you need an animation to do it like rolling or attacking with a heavy weapon? The actual usage of the soul is one of them. Right after the souls is gone in your hand and you are about to go back to idle animation, use the soul, go to inventory use estus, then the soul and you are doing it again, way faster, way easier due to the animation of the consumption of the soul. Hope it helps! EDIT : DO NOT USE IT LIKE NORMAL!!! I mean to not actually normally consume the soul and then do it NO. First roll or attack with a heavy weapon THEN use it and when the animation of consumption plays, once the character's fist closes and you receive the souls for the boss soul then use it go to items use estus and then the soul. BTW: an early boss soul is the moonlight butterfly. Gives 1200 souls per usage. I usually go after queelaag after that because she has 8000 souls per usage, iron golem 14000 then sif 16000 but you could use the souls from moonlight butterfly to get crest of artorias and try sif. Good luck!

[@JellyJman]

10/10 for using the Haven OST alone. Very insightful stuff too! Thanks for the video. 😊

[@zakarylorrain7422]

This is my first episode. This stuff is fascinating thank you for this.

[@Ratched64]

is the ARK: survival evolved Genesis 2 music playing in the background at 5:26??? ugh the memorys. time to sink another 6k hours

[@laufendlich]

The quality of this video was blasting!

[@Ccberry98]

11/10 editing. Great video :)

[@causticwanderer3329]

Female characters also have lower starting resistances to males in the og version of dark souls. That was changed in dsr.

[@georgecook4291]

This video has phenomenal production value

[@pentag0th630]

The edit is amazing 0.0

[@thomasdavis3933]

Great video for one of my favorite games I’ve ever played. You earned a sub

[@grandmasterthefuriousfive7487]

Love Dark souls, have not seen ure channel before just subbed

[@Dsmky117]

that was the best 2 minute intro i have ever seen. I really want to watch this video now

[@SomeIdiota]

Love to see you get sponsored, man!

[@catalystz]

Thank you very much! I appreciate you watching the video ^^

[@dotdotdot1000]

this is 2.5 half a presses tier (this is a compliment)

[@what3207]

cool infos and great editing

[@jakezepeda1267]

Interesting. Nice editing :)

[@RedMo46]

Massively under rated channel ✌️ keep up the amazing effort and content