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Dark Souls III - E3 Demo Impressions

Ratrat

Member
The Vaatividya video claims Dark Souls 3 started development near 2 and Bloodborne. 3 teams? And he can oversee 2 projects at once.
 

Houndi101

Member
The Vaatividya video claims Dark Souls 3 started development near 2 and Bloodborne. 3 teams? And he can oversee 2 projects at once.

I had to assume that he just messed up his words and meant that the development started a year before Dark Souls 2 ended
image.php
 

J4g3r

Member
The Vaatividya video claims Dark Souls 3 started development near 2 and Bloodborne. 3 teams? And he can oversee 2 projects at once.

Yup, Miyazaki also gave an example of when he did this in the past: Demon's Souls and Armored Core: For Answer.
 
This has probably been posted elsewhere but here's some info from the new Famitsu interview:
>
-If the story of Dark Souls 1 was killing the gods, DS3 is about killing the kings.

Killing kings? like getting their souls aka four lords bosses mechanics? In the trailer the crown was dark, alive

-Story takes place after DS2 but you don't need to have played the previous games to understand it.

Damm, thats harsh I am not surprised your previous actions wont be noticed.
-Features returning from DS2 include the number of weapons and rings you can equip in addition to bonfire warping and jump button remapping.

Not sure how to feel about that, four rings were a nice touch, I hope it have a weight limit



Exactly.
They did 1. It was great.
They did 2. It wasn't as great. They learned.
They did Bloodborne. They learned more.
They're already showing us how 3 uses 1 as a base more than 2.

It looks like They are basing their settings around Dark Souls 2 due being more accesible to the audience than Dark Souls, I hope it wont meant bonfires everywhere.

The Vaatividya video claims Dark Souls 3 started development near 2 and Bloodborne. 3 teams? And he can oversee 2 projects at once.

2999374-8194131681-dont-.jpg
 

Neoweee

Member
It sounds as if they were doing prototyping and design work until the release of Dark Souls 2, then started ramping up to full development.

Pretty much everything they've announced sounds fantastic so far. They're being pretty judicious with what elements they pick from Dark Souls 1, 2, and Bloodborne.
 
Warping killed tension in some parts of BloodBorne.

Getting kidnapped into unseen village was an amazing moment.Creepy place with incredibly tough enemies.

But naaah you can warp out of it almost instantly to avoid any difficulty spikes and plan a different route through hunter's dream.

Same exact thing with Nightmare frontier...Fuck warping.It dilutes the experience because you never felt stuck or overwhelmed by any location.

Yeah. And I'll point out that getting kidnapped into Unseen Village is such an amazing moment because initially you can't warp out. It's mysterious and terrifying and so fucking cool when you're playing it like a Dark Souls level, where you can't just escape at will. Once you find the lantern a good part of that feeling dissipates and it becomes the ideal spot to farm for twin shards.
 

tcrunch

Member
DaveControl (the demo this time, already linked the 1-on-1 interview)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-GpnF7jIJk
@15:23 - In the presentation Q&A, they said hub-wise the game is like Dark Souls (so Firelink Shrine type hub). Then when he asked Miyazaki 1-on-1 in his interview, he said there would be a "safe place" like Bloodborne.
@19:53 - There is a statue trying to cut off its own head.
@23:25 - Miyazaki was confused when someone brought up soul memory and asked them to clarify what they meant by soul memory. Also there's another aspect to matching besides soul level in DS3 that they mentioned but would not reveal. [my note: be wary of translation issues]
@30:31 - Both Miyazaki and the translator called the dragons in the demo "stone dragons". (this confirms Fextralife's reference to the stone dragons)
 
Warping killed tension in some parts of BloodBorne.

Getting kidnapped into unseen village was an amazing moment.Creepy place with incredibly tough enemies.

But naaah you can warp out of it almost instantly to avoid any difficulty spikes and plan a different route through hunter's dream.

Same exact thing with Nightmare frontier...Fuck warping.It dilutes the experience because you never felt stuck or overwhelmed by any location.

yep, the moment i realized i could just warp out of Unseen Village all tension was gone, and tense situations is what i look for in these games. for me it was a failure in game design. don't care what Miyazaki or whoever says.

and yeah the "just don't use it then" excuse is pretty lame.. when i see it's an option, all tension is already gone. i want the game itself to force me to try and survive.. it's why i love this games! if i wanted to ignore game features and artificially create a challenge for myself, i'd try to beat Skyrim without saving or something.
 

Get'sMad

Member
yep, the moment i realized i could just warp out of Unseen Village all tension was gone, and tense situations is what i look for in these games. for me it was a failure in game design. don't care what Miyazaki or whoever says.

and yeah the "just don't use it then" excuse is pretty lame.. when i see it's an option, all tension is already gone. i want the game itself to force me to try and survive.. it's why i love this games! if i wanted to ignore game features and artificially create a challenge for myself, i'd try to beat Skyrim without saving or something.

This is ridiculous. Unseen Village is pretty late in the game and you just can't wonder into it early on.....

Unless you're talking about the getting knocked out by the sack guy part and taken there but you can't access the entire area at that point.
 

epmode

Member
This is ridiculous. Unseen Village is pretty late in the game and you just can't wonder into it early on.....

?

Some bag-dragging enemy brought me there very early in the game, after he murdered me. I had to avoid some of the enemies there since I couldn't do very much damage at the time.
 
Not sure why people are second guessing how long Dark Souls 3 development has been going on. They could have been outsourcing concept art and assets for it for years as far as we know without any main production team being involved. One obvious reason for it not being a public demo or hands on appears to be that they do not have anything like a final UI.
 

Get'sMad

Member
?

Some bag-dragging enemy brought me there very early in the game, after he murdered me. I had to avoid some of the enemies there since I couldn't do very much damage at the time.

You can't explore the entire area then and its different than when you encounter it later on.
 
yep, the moment i realized i could just warp out of Unseen Village all tension was gone, and tense situations is what i look for in these games. for me it was a failure in game design. don't care what Miyazaki or whoever says.

I didnt get the tension of that scenario because of that feature, I was expecting to run away from a path or something then being unable to enter that zone until the red moon
 

Get'sMad

Member
My thing is this

Demon's Souls owns
Dark Souls owns
Bloodborne owns

They are all similar in the way Souls games are but I like how Miyazaki hasn't done quite the exact same thing in terms of how you access and explore areas in each one. Dark Souls is my favorite out of all them (and probably my favorite game of all time) and yeah I think would be awesome if the new one used the same formula of bonfires and warping as it but I like how he's seemingly experimenting and combining elements from each (including the maligned DS2) in this one (from what we know so far anyways). Like a lot of people I kind was like "why am I not more excited" when this game was first confirmed the other week but after all the details from e3 I couldn't be more excited.

anyways...I just really love how much everyone loves and cares about these games!
 
Because they can't choose to add challenge by themselves or don't like other to be able to play differently.
Well... no. In Dark Souls, the ability to warp was a reward, specifically imbued into the game design to make finding shortcuts and secret paths feel rewarding in itself as well. In Dark Souls II, since you can warp from the get-go, the level design is less intelligently put together since they don't give you any reason to try to find shortcuts since you can warp anywhere you want. That's the main concern here.
 

Neoweee

Member
Well... no. In Dark Souls, the ability to warp was a reward, specifically imbued into the game design to make finding shortcuts and secret paths feel rewarding in itself as well. In Dark Souls II, since you can warp from the get-go, the level design is less intelligently put together since they don't give you any reason to try to find shortcuts since you can warp anywhere you want. That's the main concern here.


Dark Souls 2 is less put together because of a change in direction for the game halfway through development. The DLC has warping from the start, and has is extremely well put together with regards to shortcuts and secret paths.
 

UrbanRats

Member
Well... no. In Dark Souls, the ability to warp was a reward, specifically imbued into the game design to make finding shortcuts and secret paths feel rewarding in itself as well. In Dark Souls II, since you can warp from the get-go, the level design is less intelligently put together since they don't give you any reason to try to find shortcuts since you can warp anywhere you want. That's the main concern here.

In Bloodborne you can also warp from the get go, and the level design is pretty damn intricate and good.
 
Warping killed tension in some parts of BloodBorne.

Getting kidnapped into unseen village was an amazing moment.Creepy place with incredibly tough enemies.

But naaah you can warp out of it almost instantly to avoid any difficulty spikes and plan a different route through hunter's dream.

Same exact thing with Nightmare frontier...Fuck warping.It dilutes the experience because you never felt stuck or overwhelmed by any location.

THIS!
 

convo

Member
Warping killed tension in some parts of BloodBorne.

Getting kidnapped into unseen village was an amazing moment.Creepy place with incredibly tough enemies.

But naaah you can warp out of it almost instantly to avoid any difficulty spikes and plan a different route through hunter's dream.

Same exact thing with Nightmare frontier...Fuck warping.It dilutes the experience because you never felt stuck or overwhelmed by any location.

Too bad you are in the minority, no one will bother remembering your complaint because a lot of people don't ever think of backtracking. Amazing moments and feelings are not the main point of souls games for some people sadly.
 
In Bloodborne you can also warp from the get go, and the level design is pretty damn intricate and good.

Again, Bloodborne has great level design, but its world design is drastically simpler than Dark Souls 1's. Just because it's better than Dark Souls 2 is in that respect doesn't mean it's on Dark Souls 1's level.

I don't get this whole "tension" thing. Never felt this in any of the games, warping or not.

You've never felt tension while playing a Souls game? Really?
 

Zaventem

Member
Imru’ al-Qays;169197177 said:
Again, Bloodborne has great level design, but its world design is drastically simpler than Dark Souls 1's. Just because it's better than Dark Souls 2 is in that respect doesn't mean it's on Dark Souls 1's level.

I understand what you're getting at but advanced players just avoided sitting at X bonfire in the first game to homeward bone back to the place they wanted to speed up where ever they were going.
 
I understand what you're getting at but advanced players just avoided sitting at X bonfire in the first game to homeward bone back to the place they wanted to speed up where ever they were going.

And that's a perfectly viable strategy for advanced players. It's also a strategy that no first-time player would ever consider employing when bungling his way through Blighttown - "oh, finally, a bonfire! I'll just not rest at it so I can homeward bone back to Firelink whenever I please!"
 

Ratrat

Member
Tension is the fear having to tediously run through a conquered area for 2-3 minutes and then make your way back.
 

Giever

Member
Having the option to warp makes the game feel too gamey. That's seriously how I feel, and I could go into more detail at some point I guess, if I get grilled on it, but yeah.

It makes the world feel less real, less like it's an actual place, and makes me enjoy exploring far less because of it. I felt the same way once I got the Lordvessel in Dark Souls. It was a bummer.
 

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
That's not really the case, not even in Miyazaki's own words. They're definitely abandoning a few of the things people disliked most about 2, but saying it is more like 1 really requires some jumps. Agility is out, and that's about it mechanically that has been dumped.
4 rings, 3 weapons, dual wielding, etc. A lot of DSII mechanics were really good improvements and I actually missed them going back to DS 1 the other day.


Nobody cares, everyone wants warping from everywhere once you've been there and lit the bonfire so the whiners have won, it just something to accept.
Irony detected
 

Renekton

Member
Getting kidnapped into unseen village was an amazing moment.Creepy place with incredibly tough enemies.

But naaah you can warp out of it almost instantly to avoid any difficulty spikes and plan a different route through hunter's dream.
It's about pacing. BB levels are carefully constructued to be self-contained and initially windy until you uncover the shortcut. It works out in nice ebb and flows of tension and relief, hence the critical reception and sales. If you want really prolonged dread, FROM is not going to give you that anymore, not especially with your familiarity + muscle memory with the Souls formulae.
 
Tension is the fear having to tediously run through a conquered area for 2-3 minutes and then make your way back.

Tension is going down to the Depths and Blight Town for the first time knowing you can't return easily until you complete it or decide to dedicate the time to getting back.
 
It's about pacing. BB levels are carefully constructued to be self-contained and initially windy until you uncover the shortcut. It works out in nice ebb and flows of tension and relief, hence the critical reception and sales. If you want really prolonged dread, FROM is not going to give you that anymore, not especially with your familiarity + muscle memory with the Souls formulae.

I think it's way too early to proclaim that From has decided to move beyond prolonged dread as a design goal (Forbidden Woods is a perfect example of Bloodborne aiming for prolonged dread, though I think it's not a very good level), and it's downright bizarre to suggest that some sort of new Bloodborne level design philosophy involving "a nice ebb and flow of tension and relief" has anything to do with that game's critical reception and sales, except insofar as that design philosophy has been fundamental to the Souls series since the beginning.

I do agree that prolonged dread has been on the decline in the series, and that Bloodborne seems to have regularized the placement of shortcuts that might have been more unpredictable in Demon's and Dark Souls. I'm not sure that it's symptomatic of a change in design philosophy aimed at minimizing prolonged dread in order to drum up critical reception and sales, though. We haven't had a true Souls game since Dark 1, so it's difficult to say what trends are representative of the direction the series is going and what trends are just representative of the peculiarities of Dark Souls 2 and Bloodborne.
 

Clevinger

Member
They should just make bonfires warpable after you defeat the area's boss. The people who want to warp and avoid tedium still get to warp before half the game is over and the people who want to feel tension getting stuck in a dangerous place get a decent chunk of that too.
 

Renekton

Member
Imru’ al-Qays;169238632 said:
I think it's way too early to proclaim that From has decided to move beyond prolonged dread as a design goal (Forbidden Woods is a perfect example of Bloodborne aiming for prolonged dread, though I think it's not a very good level), and it's downright bizarre to suggest that some sort of new Bloodborne level design philosophy involving "a nice ebb and flow of tension and relief" has anything to do with that game's critical reception and sales, except insofar as that design philosophy has been fundamental to the Souls series since the beginning.
Why would it be downright bizarre? Pacing is one of the most critical elements of game design whose quality is acutely reflected in critical reception.

Forbidden Woods is an interesting example. It's longer than normal making it a sole standout. It could be possibly good for a one-time pacing change but not for the entire game.
 

Dresden

Member
a souls title with no bonfires, lamps, or warping would be pretty amazing. Just one place that you'll spawn from. You should also drop all your gear and equipped items if you die, and piece by piece they will disappear or turn to ash if you die on your way there.
 

Xiraiya

Member
They should just make bonfires warpable after you defeat the area's boss. The people who want to warp and avoid tedium still get to warp before half the game is over and the people who want to feel tension getting stuck in a dangerous place get a decent chunk of that too.
I actually really like that idea a whole lot. Especially if there was a story reason as to why/how the death of an Area's boss affects the Bonfires tied to that area.
Anyway, all of this is a non issue that isn't worth debating, it would be a concern if we had no idea who was directing the game, but I'm sure it'll all work out just fine.
 

HoJu

Member
a souls title with no bonfires, lamps, or warping would be pretty amazing. Just one place that you'll spawn from. You should also drop all your gear and equipped items if you die, and piece by piece they will disappear or turn to ash if you die on your way there.

also if you die 100 times then your save data gets deleted.
 
Why would it be downright bizarre? Pacing is one of the most critical elements of game design whose quality is acutely reflected in critical reception.

I'm not sure that's true with Souls games, though. The critical reception seems not to track very well the actual differences between the games so much as it seems to track the gaming press's growing familiarity with the series. I don't think we can point to any particular pacing changes in Bloodborne and say that these are the reason for the game's critical and commercial success, since I don't think the gaming press tends to be sophisticated enough to notice these subtle changes in the series's formula and they're certainly not sophisticated enough to accurately convey these changes to the gaming public. This is the kind of stuff that Souls fans notice months after the fact, it's not the sort of stuff that games journalists notice and articulate in their launch-day reviews. These games are light-years ahead of the gaming press's ability to talk about them.

Forbidden Woods is an interesting example. It's longer than normal making it a sole standout. It could be possibly good for a one-time pacing change but not for the entire game.

Bloodborne is such a short game, though, that I think Forbidden Woods counts for more relative to the game as a whole than a single area might in Dark Souls 1 or 2. Forbidden Woods is Bloodborne's only example of prolonged dread (since Yahar'gul is too hectic, Upper Cathedral Ward too short, and Nightmare of Mensis has too many checkpoints), but even in Dark 1 it's really just the Depths-Blighttown and Sen's-Anor Londo paths that simulate that sort of feeling. It's not a constant in DS1, it's something that's used judiciously and brilliantly to accentuate the player's feeling of descent into darkness or ascent to the heavens.

I think Forbidden Woods is doing something similar: it's the inflection point between werewolves, leather tricorns, and saw cleavers, the "the blood is foul" and "if it moves, you can be sure it's a beast" Bloodborne from the trailers, and the descent into Lovecraftian madness that constitutes the game's second (and final) act. It's a literal descent into madness, all downhill, that starts with werewolves and moves to snakes and culminates in Byrgenwerth. I think Forbidden Woods is Bloodborne using prolonged dread for dramatic effect in much the same way that Dark Souls did with Blighttown. I'm certain Dark Souls 3 will have a similar section, the question is if it'll be effective if you can just teleport out of it.
 

Renekton

Member
Imru’ al-Qays;169248372 said:
Bloodborne is such a short game, though, that I think Forbidden Woods counts for more relative to the game as a whole than a single area might in Dark Souls 1 or 2. Forbidden Woods is Bloodborne's only example of prolonged dread (since Yahar'gul is too hectic, Upper Cathedral Ward too short, and Nightmare of Mensis has too many checkpoints), but even in Dark 1 it's really just the Depths-Blighttown and Sen's-Anor Londo paths that simulate that sort of feeling. It's not a constant in DS1, it's something that's used judiciously and brilliantly to accentuate the player's feeling of descent into darkness or ascent to the heavens.

I think Forbidden Woods is doing something similar: it's the inflection point between werewolves, leather tricorns, and saw cleavers, the "the blood is foul" and "if it moves, you can be sure it's a beast" Bloodborne from the trailers, and the descent into Lovecraftian madness that constitutes the game's second (and final) act. It's a literal descent into madness, all downhill, that starts with werewolves and moves to snakes and culminates in Byrgenwerth. I think Forbidden Woods is Bloodborne using prolonged dread for dramatic effect in much the same way that Dark Souls did with Blighttown. I'm certain Dark Souls 3 will have a similar section, the question is if it'll be effective if you can just teleport out of it.
BB, DS1 and DS2 are different from each other the more I experienced it. BB right from Central Yharnam takes great pains to imprint on you the shortcut system. It's so consistent with that formula even for Forbidden Woods that you become comfortable and settled. By midgame, it's almost telegraphing the shortcut to you because you're so in tune.

On the other hand, DS2 seemed to go for a 2-tier difficulty system. It's punishing as an experienced Souls player going in blind. But if you FAQ up and read where are the bonfires and fire longsword, it's like playing a different game.
 
D

Deleted member 22576

Unconfirmed Member
a souls title with no bonfires, lamps, or warping would be pretty amazing. Just one place that you'll spawn from. You should also drop all your gear and equipped items if you die, and piece by piece they will disappear or turn to ash if you die on your way there.
Whoaaaaaa


Yes please
 
a souls title with no bonfires, lamps, or warping would be pretty amazing. Just one place that you'll spawn from. You should also drop all your gear and equipped items if you die, and piece by piece they will disappear or turn to ash if you die on your way there.
also if a boss kills you then your HP is halved and the boss' HP is doubled

also if an invader kills you then you can't level up unless you kill someone else

also if you teleport then five capra demons spawn right at the site of the bonfire you've selected

also if you don't buy the game at full price then miyazaki comes to your bedroom and makes you feel sexually inadequate

My body is ready.
 
D

Deleted member 22576

Unconfirmed Member
Dresdens idea would be cool in a procedural game. If you lose all your items then the map would reset anyway. That sounds like fun.
 

Ratrat

Member
Tension is going down to the Depths and Blight Town for the first time knowing you can't return easily until you complete it or decide to dedicate the time to getting back.
Neither are that big. You can run from Gaping Dragon to Firelink in 2-3 minutes.

I don't care a great deal either way. I find the open-endedness, options and gameplay variety in DS2 really fun. This "tension" thing feels like something you only experience on your first Souls game anyway.
 
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