Erik Kain wrote on how Dark Souls 3 achieved the highest selling launch in the series and exploded in popularity without making changes or compromising the experience. He writes:
"It’s grown in
popularity without changing, too, which is important. Rather than ratchet down the difficulty of the game’s combat, or
make its lore less obscure, From Software has
continued to dish out a challenging experience. I would argue that the success
of Dark Souls III is not in spite of
its difficulty, but precisely because the experience has remained uncompromising. We gamers have not
been tempted by an easy mode, and no easy
mode was necessary to broaden the game’s appeal.
To me, this
simply underscores and enforces my previous position: the Souls games, and whatever else From Software devises, do not
need to bend or compromise to widen their appeal
to a gaming demographic that doesn’t appreciate them. Not because they should be or the 'elites' but because they are obviously
games that a growing audience can appreciate."
Kain is right about the essence of Souls. Dark Souls 3 remains old school
difficult and its lore is still obscure. But the game has changed the Souls
experience in many subtle and complicated ways overall. Changes in the health
system, quest dialogue, the stats system, the knight starting class, and boss
fights illustrate how the series has shifted from a slower methodical game to a
fast incredibly demanding assault.
I. Health
Dark Souls 3 has a much less masochistic health system than
its predecessors. In Demon's Souls, the player starts in body form and has 100%
health. If he dies, he goes to soul form and has 50% health. The player can
regain 100% health by killing a boss, a successful invasion, or using a rare
consumable item called the Stone of Ephemeral Eyes. Alternatively the player
can lock their health at 75% in soul form by locating and equipping the Cling
Ring. The ring is in the first area of the game but can be easily missed, thus
requiring the player to advance through the game with 50% health or playing
very cautiously when body form is achieved in order not to have his health
halved again.
Since Demon's Souls, From Software has experimented to make the
health system better and less brutalizing. Dark Souls had no health penalty on
death which was much too easy. Dark Souls II had the player lose 10% of his
health each death until he reached 50% fully hollowed form. To regain human
form, he could use a rare consumable called the Human Effigy or a successfully
invade and kill someone to regain human form. If the player ran out of
Effigies, he could go to the Shrine of Amana in a late game area to regain
human form. Like Demon's Souls, the player could make sure their health didn't
drop below 50% by wearing the Ring of Binding. It was located in the first area
of the game but could be easily passed by. Bloodborne once again cut health
penalties on death and tried to make up that by having incredibly hard hitting
and fast bosses, unlike bosses in Demon's Souls which were generally slow,
lumbering tank and spank bosses at the end of incredibly long and difficult
levels.
Dark Souls 3 found a great compromise that was difficult
without being masochistic like Demon's Souls, easy like Dark Souls 1, or
tedious like Dark Souls 2. Defeating a boss and using the rare consumable Ember
items allowed a player to have 100% health. Dying immediately reduces the
player's health to 75%. The DS3 system is difficult and punishing without going
overboard. The lack of needing a ring to maintain 75% health frees up a whole
ring slot that was taken up in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 2. While the player
in DaS2 had 4 ring slots available, DeS only allowed for 2 slots, so losing
body form was a massive game penalty. Although there was no health penalty in
Dark Souls 1, equipping the Ring of Favor and Protection increased one's health
and if removed, it broke. The ring shackled most melee builds in order to equip
better armor and have more health, endurance, and equip load. Dark Souls 3 does
away with this by providing a challenge with its health system without cutting
off depth of customization. No rings shackle the player and the health system
is difficult without being masochistic. Bosses can be defeated with 75% health
and if need be, the player can use an Ember to have 100% health.
II. Quest Dialogue
NPCs in Dark Souls 3 repeat key locations in their quest
dialogue infinitely. Leonhard repeats the location of Rosaria's Fingers if one
asks him. Contrast that with the Crestfallen Warrior in Dark Souls who will
only repeat himself once regarding the location of the two Bells of Awakening
before he tells the player to leave. Given that Dark Souls 3 is more linear
like Demon's Souls, the player doesn't need to have repeated directions given
that he can easily memorize and come upon different covenants. Memorizing quest
information with little repetition has been a reality since Dark Souls 1. But
if a player does not pay attention, they're going to look up the information
regardless, so allowing NPCs to repeat themselves explicitly is not the
greatest sin.
Given how difficult and obscure meeting Kaathe was in Dark
Souls 1 to join the red invasion covenant the Darkwraiths, its in the best
interest of the game to make the directions to play multiplayer simpler so more
people can play online faster. Most people will not jump into the abyss and
fight the 4 Kings before placing the Lord Vessel with Frampt on their first
try. Dark Souls' quest to find Frampt makes for opaque and interesting lore
that one uncovers on multiple playthroughs. But overall it hampers newer and
less skilled players from being able to join in on multiplayer.
Despite the repeating quest dialogue, Dark Souls 3 continues
the trend of having little direction to solve some quests. When coming on
Irythyll, if the player does not have the doll item, he cannot enter the new
area. There is a wall holding back the player telling him that he needs a doll
to pass through. The player now knows what he needs but does not know where it
is. This is very similar to Dark Souls 1 yellow fog walls. They said,
"Sealed by the Great Lord's power" but did not say what item was
needed to unlock them. Those function more as a band aid to keep the player
from exploring late game areas and herd him towards the Lord Vessel item. But
they are similar enough and show that DS3 keeps the series a bit opaque
concerning quests. This allows for some good backtracking in the linear and
dense levels with plenty to explore.
III. Stats and the Knight Starting Class
The biggest change in Souls overall has been the stat
system. Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1, and Bloodborne had a very basic system. To
optimize PvE encounters, the player needed to first level Endurance and their
primary attack stat to dodge more, attack more, equip better armor, and hit
harder. This gave the player more useful survivability from dodging and armor
rather than leveling Vitality (health) which the player didn't really need to
level until after the 2nd or 3rd boss. My favorite adage from a veteran Souls
player went something like "Level up endurance over vitality early on. You
need to be able to dodge and attack more. If you're getting hit a lot to the
point where you need more health then you suck."
Dark Souls 2 introduced a much more deep and difficult stat
system. It separated equip load from Endurance and placed it in the Vitality
stat while Vigor influenced one's health. Dark Souls 3 adopted this system with
a few new tweaks. Now players have more decisions to make regarding stat
choices. Does the player want to dodge more, hit harder, wear better armor, or
have more health? If the player wants to branch out to any casting then he now
has to dump stats into Attunement to raise his spell slots and Focus Points as well
as the primary spell stat, such as Intelligence or Faith. Now the system is
more deep, allowing for more ways for the player to express his intention
towards what kind of build he wants as well as pushing him to play multiple
times to try out more than just basic melee builds.
In order to offset more difficult stat decisions in Dark
souls 3, Endurance and dodging as a whole has become very easy. With the Knight
class in DS3, historically the noob starting class as it has high health and
very good armor, a player can roll 7 times in a row before needing to let one's
stamina regenerate. The player can also panic roll very easily in DS3. The
character model takes half a step before endurance regenerates enough to allow
the player to roll again as long as he spams the roll button. The armor has
incredibly good poise and defense and does not make the player fat roll. In
fact, the knight armor is some of the best armor in the game for the 50-70%
equip load threshold. The difference between an above 50% and below 50% roll is
negligible making the knight armor great for tanky medium characters. Giving
Knight armor to a player right when they start out is rather easy.
The Knight Class in Dark Souls 1 offered many more penalties
to the player. The armor causes the player to fat roll wherein the player
slowly recovers from a roll after his invincibility frames end. The only way to
wield a weapon without fat rolling is to remove all but the leg armor, exposing
the player to more damage. Most importantly panic rolling is not easy in Dark
Souls 1. The player takes a step and a half before being able to dodge roll
again, leaving the player open to attacks.
IV. Bosses
Although these two cases make Dark Souls 1 appear to be the
more difficult game, comparing the two knight classes without discussing them
in the context of the game is incredibly misleading. The fight against the
Asylum Demon and Iudex Gundyr, opening fights as well as design archetypes for
their respective games, contextualize how the changes in the starting classes
work in their games and illustrates how Souls has changed overall.
The Asylum Demon is slow and lumbering, generally attacking
once with a long wind up that the player can easily dodge if they're patient.
The player must only wait for the boss to attack before dodging and then
attacking the boss about 3 times. Gundyr on the other hand attacks furiously.
His windup is much faster off his first attack and he usually combos into a 2nd
much slower move in order to throw off the player's expectations. The player
must dodge twice before attacking and can only get off 1 or 2 attacks before
having to dodge again.
Dark Souls 3 is a much faster beast wherein bosses attack
quickly, combo, and are open to very few attacks. In order to offset this
faster design, the class with the great starting armor and high health does not
fat roll and can dodge 7 times in a row along with easy panic rolling. Dark
Souls 3 makes dodging much easier and less punishing, thus easier, in order to
offset how much more difficult the bosses are in general.
V. Compromise and the Spirit of Souls
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