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[ItJustWorks]

Well Erdtree definately killed the idea of actual progression, and felt like there would always be a certain scaled difficulty level regardless of how much you leveled, or how many scadutree fragments you found.

In which case...you essentially have us leveling for little reason. You aren't really an RPG, But your mechanics aren't good enough to be a pure action game either...

The base Game atleast had a better baseline sense of progression considering you start with nothing, and everything you find is an improvement. Not the case with Erdtree. They did better with this in Old Hunters.

Hot take: the gaming community grading FROM games on a curve is hurting the medium. They are obviously behind in many regards but we pretend they are trying to do as much as say...the witcher 3 or something. They aren't.

If Kai Cenat can play a FROM game but probably isn't invested enough to play a witcher game. That should tell you something about the dude bro friendliness of FROM games.

 

[ItJustWorks]

I like exploring dungeons and beating up monsters in them.

And that's about all the games offer.

 

[SaintALia]

On one hand OP, I can see the argument you're making.

On the other hand, I assume you didn't play any game older than the PS2 generation. Because Souls games can be considered light weight difficulty/bullshit wise in terms of videogames pre PS3/360. Like, just completely ignoring PC and arcade games which can be pretty fucked up(god damn, the puzzles and bullshit on some old 90's PC games man, and bullet hell, 'obviously-reading-my-input-fighting-games)., some console games were just messed up.

Hell, I can give examples of two rpgs. One game I got a hold of back in the day was 7th Saga I think. First enemy I ever fought, I almost died. I think I fucked up somewhere and went back into the village came back out and died on the second enemy, thought I was supposed to die. Seems that was just how the game was.

The second game that comes to mind was The Immortal on Genesis. If ever there was a bullshit ass bullshit game. You talk about traps and bullshit nonsense, yeah, nothing I've seen in Souls games compares to that.

Actually, that's one of my problems with SOuls games. It can sometimes be way too obvious when there's a trap.


From what you're saying though, maybe you should avoid RPGs in general? Souls games are actually quite simplistic in how they do RPGs. Have you ever played a cRPG OP? .

 

[Roman Empire]

On one hand OP, I can see the argument you're making.

On the other hand, I assume you didn't play any game older than the PS2 generation. Because Souls games can be considered light weight difficulty/bullshit wise in terms of videogames pre PS3/360. Like, just completely ignoring PC and arcade games which can be pretty fucked up(god damn, the puzzles and bullshit on some old 90's PC games man, and bullet hell, 'obviously-reading-my-input-fighting-games)., some console games were just messed up.

Hell, I can give examples of two rpgs. One game I got a hold of back in the day was 7th Saga I think. First enemy I ever fought, I almost died. I think I fucked up somewhere and went back into the village came back out and died on the second enemy, thought I was supposed to die. Seems that was just how the game was.

The second game that comes to mind was The Immortal on Genesis. If ever there was a bullshit ass bullshit game. You talk about traps and bullshit nonsense, yeah, nothing I've seen in Souls games compares to that.

Actually, that's one of my problems with SOuls games. It can sometimes be way too obvious when there's a trap.


From what you're saying though, maybe you should avoid RPGs in general? Souls games are actually quite simplistic in how they do RPGs. Have you ever played a cRPG OP? .

OP would lose his shit if he ever played a game like Outward. That game doesn't hold your at any point and the first mission is literally you needing to get your shit together in 2 in-game days or else you'll be evicted and banned from your village due to an inherited debt from your late parents.

 

[Shake Your Rump]

Why would the charred corpses make you think that the dragon that burned them is endlessly swooping overhead to do the same to you?

In order to even reach the first boss, you have to cross a bridge that has a dragon endlessly swooping overhead, shooting flames. So, yeah, you will absolutely know that the later bridge with charred remains is the result of a dragon. You've already seen it happen!

 

[M1chl]

Stunning and brave

 

[hemo memo]

On one hand OP, I can see the argument you're making.

On the other hand, I assume you didn't play any game older than the PS2 generation. Because Souls games can be considered light weight difficulty/bullshit wise in terms of videogames pre PS3/360. Like, just completely ignoring PC and arcade games which can be pretty fucked up(god damn, the puzzles and bullshit on some old 90's PC games man, and bullet hell, 'obviously-reading-my-input-fighting-games)., some console games were just messed up.

Hell, I can give examples of two rpgs. One game I got a hold of back in the day was 7th Saga I think. First enemy I ever fought, I almost died. I think I fucked up somewhere and went back into the village came back out and died on the second enemy, thought I was supposed to die. Seems that was just how the game was.

The second game that comes to mind was The Immortal on Genesis. If ever there was a bullshit ass bullshit game. You talk about traps and bullshit nonsense, yeah, nothing I've seen in Souls games compares to that.

Actually, that's one of my problems with SOuls games. It can sometimes be way too obvious when there's a trap.


From what you're saying though, maybe you should avoid RPGs in general? Souls games are actually quite simplistic in how they do RPGs. Have you ever played a cRPG OP? .

While I appreciate the nostalgia for older games, let's be honest - a lot of their difficulty stemmed from outright bullshit design. Limited lives, no saves, cryptic objectives, and unfair enemy placements weren't challenges, they were artificial barriers to pad out playtime.

Souls games, unfortunately, inherit some of these bad habits. Their obtuse level design, punishing checkpoints, and reliance on trial-and-error memorization create frustration, not genuine challenge. The illusion of depth masks shallow combat and repetitive encounters. Their popularity speaks more to lowered expectations in modern gaming than any inherent quality.

So, yes, maybe avoiding overly difficult RPGs is wise. Asking for better game design that respects the player's time and intelligence, instead of glorifying masochistic experiences from the past.

 

[Bonfires Down]

I think it comes down to how rewarding a person finds it to overcome the hostile, unforgiving world and combat. For me the juice is not worth the squeeze.

 

[Codes 208]

I actually find their methods ingenious. Lets say theres a fork in the road and youre not sure where to go. The game nudges you one direction by increasing the difficulty of the opposite road

But if you do go through the harder road, you can sometimes get end game material early on. Like a risk vs reward system

 

[Ogbert]

Nah, they’re all well designed.

That said, Elden Ring is a bit too oblique.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Most of what you complained about applies to any proper RPG. Vast majority of table-top games also require you to learn rules beforehand, as well as some meta elements.

 

[Tg89]

Get good bud. Some of the best designed games of the last couple decades.

 

[Josemayuste]

I'm sorry OP, but:

 

[TropicanaTwista]

Meh, I think some of the things are poorly designed but nothing you really listed. I actually felt Demon souls was probably the most forgiving. Maybe it was because I was already accustomed to souls games, only playing the remake on PS5, but kind of felt in that game you could have tackle any "level" in any particular order. Also feel like complaining about getting a master key is a little silly because you go to areas you're not suppose to be. Like what did you expect it do to? I would say a better example of that complaint is being able to go to the catacombs right away, which I felt had a pretty similar difficulty to blighttown and if memory serves, really didn't require anything to enter.

For me in those games, it's really the side quests. I've beaten every souls game, outside of ER, and I honestly couldn't tell you if I completed a side quest without a guide. It requires the player to remember so many obscure things that is very poorly explained and not easily tracked. Like it's been years since I've played, but if not mistaken you need to do some gesture in front of something to get to the area in DS3 to get where the nameless king is. I remember seeing that in a guide and saying to myself, I would have never figured that out if I played this game for years.

Also not surprised on the amount of people just saying to play Ubisoft games or they went less hand holding blah blah because their precious FROM/souls games get criticized. Like, multiple things can be true. They don't hold the players hand very much at all, but it doesn't mean it's perfect and being completely obscure is best solution. I look at games like the latest Zelda entries on switch and something like animal well. They give you a map, but don't really tell you where to go, it's up to you the player. But, they make it easier to track with markers or even a pencil if you're stuck in an area or there is something to come back to. I just wish FROM would get a little more modernized. Just having a quest log would do wonders. They don't even have to tell me even a little bit what I need to solve, just knowing I started some type of quest/side mission would do wonders.

 

[SaintALia]

.

While I appreciate the nostalgia for older games, let's be honest - a lot of their difficulty stemmed from outright bullshit design. Limited lives, no saves, cryptic objectives, and unfair enemy placements weren't challenges, they were artificial barriers to pad out playtime.

Souls games, unfortunately, inherit some of these bad habits. Their obtuse level design, punishing checkpoints, and reliance on trial-and-error memorization create frustration, not genuine challenge. The illusion of depth masks shallow combat and repetitive encounters. Their popularity speaks more to lowered expectations in modern gaming than any inherent quality.

So, yes, maybe avoiding overly difficult RPGs is wise. Asking for better game design that respects the player's time and intelligence, instead of glorifying masochistic experiences from the past.

I guess that's an argument to consider. However I have to disagree on casting such a wide net on all challenging games. There is bullshit design of course, but then you clever design that take into account player skill, reaction time and experience and design around that.

I don't recall that much trial and error in Souls games I've played(Dark Souls, Dark Souls 3, Sekiro), they tend to telegraph a lot, which is why I said they can be pretty transparent in what traps lay in wait for you because it's sometimes so blatantly obvious if you've played previous games. Now, telegraphing and actually getting past those challengings is something different, as the games can have some frustrating design elements that can force you to play a certain way. Of note, more Souls games require you to take a more aggressive approach in play which I'm not entirely fond of. But that's a different topic.

But yeah, I've grown up on arcade games, PC adventure and rpgs and older console games, so the 'bullshit' inherent in Souls games doesn't seem as unfair to me. Though perhaps I'm too desensitised to the bullshit of videogames over the years. I can't quite agree with 'bad game design habits' of that sort for Souls games though, not entirely anyway, I have other bones to pick with the series.

 

[Killer8]

The main flaw you highlight re: needing to explore various avenues to make progress are the games' biggest strengths in my opinion. It gives a sense of options to a game that normally (once you get onto a certain path ie. playing through a level) is actually fairly linear - Elden Ring notwithstanding, although even that is quite linear to a degree if you follow the bread-crumbed path. You need those points of divergence and opportunities for the player to poke and prod at the game until they find a way forward, because those are what create a strong sense of player agency. You might not really have that many options before you, but the game still manages to create an impression of being in control, which is ideal for an RPG. It also adds to the meta-game where you spend time outside of the game reading the wikis and planning out and discussing your next move.

I agree on the story and the lore in the games being esoteric dogshit though.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

While I appreciate the nostalgia for older games, let's be honest - a lot of their difficulty stemmed from outright bullshit design. Limited lives, no saves, cryptic objectives, and unfair enemy placements weren't challenges, they were artificial barriers to pad out playtime.

Souls games, unfortunately, inherit some of these bad habits. Their obtuse level design, punishing checkpoints, and reliance on trial-and-error memorization create frustration, not genuine challenge. The illusion of depth masks shallow combat and repetitive encounters. Their popularity speaks more to lowered expectations in modern gaming than any inherent quality.

But Dark Souls 1 got almost everything right. They gave actual comprehensible names to stats, instead of meaningless arcane symbols like in DeS. Difficulty progression was mostly fair. Truly bullshit enemies were few and far between. Most traps could be detected and avoided if you didn’t YOLO everything. Bosses gave you time and space to breathe and organize, they didn’t have endless combos and attacks triggered by your inputs. Hell, the poisonous swamp could basically only kill you if you let it - you could happily stroll in it and farm titanites for minutes on end before needing to rest at a bonfire. Big enemies were slow, as their bulk would let you correctly guess. Dual bosses and bosses with multiple phases were the exception, not the norm.

All or that went out of the window quickly in the name of “challenge”. Elphael in ER is exactly what happens when a fantasy board game master decides to ruin the game for everyone and throws all the worst monsters on the board at the same time with no rhyme or reason. I did that once - when I was eight years old. And From’s poisonous swamps have become one the worst jokes in the industry.
They had nailed an almost-perfect formula. Then they decided to revert their game design to the late 80s. No other game would be given a pass for that kind of design.

 

[digital_ghost]

So Ubimad that Ubishit at souls games.

 

[Pandawan]

"
a well designed game shouldn't require ANY sort of external guide. It should be self sufficient, a whole in itself, and the player should be able to organically discover things as he progresses, providing he puts in a REASONABLE amount of effort and patience.

Souls games just don't cut it in this regard.
"

I've never used any guides and have completed all the Souls games.

 

[Hotel Security]

Let me preface this by saying that a well designed game shouldn't require ANY sort of external guide.

Right from the start, this thread is entirely based on one person's bizarre definition of "good design" that really isn't used by anyone else.

It's a somewhat manipulative tactic, right? The OP really wants to say "I don't like games that require external guides" (which itself is silly) but he doesn't want to come out and say it. He wants to hide a personal opinion behind some sort of faux analysis of "good design." So he tries to divert the discussion to be about the developers but it's really about himself...though he doesn't want it to be about himself.

Plus the gripe really only applies to completionists since they're the only ones who really need an external guide for Souls...someone just trying to get through a Souls game can just plow through the areas. So his "bad design" only means "bad design for folks who want to get everything." Is there such a thing as "conditional" bad design? I'm pretty sure there isn't.

Even sillier in that there's tons of great games that require some sort of look-up...so apparently ALL of these are bad design too. OP's writing off a lot of the industry with this stance.

They're a gigantic middle finger to modern game design and I am here for it.

More importantly, they're a middle finger to people like OP who just want their games to be easier and hold their hand more. They can't say that so they hide behind the "It's bad design!" stuff but I'm glad Miyazaki laughs in the face of this nonsense.

 

[Katajx]

I don’t think you need guides for them. The modern gamer is just used to having information spoon-fed to them.

You don’t have to see and/or do everything. The sense of exploration and rewards can be fun. Take it at your own pace, and come back and try again later until it clicks.

 

[TexMex]

You're right. No one ever completed a Souls game without a guide. Absolute requirement.

 

[Seyken]

The first thing that you did wrong was using Demons Souls as your main example, which was pretty much the prototype for everything that came after and that got iterated and refined on.

Second, the Souls formula is literally the most copied formula in the last decade. It spawned a whole genre (another franchise that did this was the Arkham series), a ton of copycats that mostly try and fail to live up to the originals (Lies of P is an exception) and you have the gall to call it "badly designed"?

You sir, have objectively bad taste and a serious case of skill issue.

 

[tomato shrub]

On the contrary, soon FROM will be the last developer which still understands player agency and natural exploration design in the AAA space. No I'm not gonna read the OP as the premise is so fundamentally flawed.

 

[Kataploom]

What you don't consider is that the quality of a design is relative to its context and the problems it solve, so I think souls games are amazingly designed because the purpose of many bs decisions is to kick your balls, but some decisions sometimes are against game base, like those that punish player for dying in a game design to die a lot and learn from last time, like in Dark Souls 2 and Sekiro, those are actually bad mechanics and go against main design purpose imo, everything else seem granularly tuned in order to be as balanced within design goals properly

 

[Jimmy_liv]

Let me preface this by saying that a well designed game shouldn't require ANY sort of external guide. It should be self sufficient, a whole in itself, and the player should be able to organically discover things as he progresses, providing he puts in a REASONABLE amount of effort and patience.

Souls games just don't cut it in this regard.

These games are kind of a mess, and currently playing Demon Souls have just confirmed that to me. Right from the get go the game overwhelms you with possibilities (builds, stats, weapons, special item of choice, etc.). I assume any choice should be viable since there's nothing indicating the new player one is better than the other. However, in Dark Souls, for example, it wasn't quite as straightforward.

As my "special" starting item, I chose the Master Key, since I assumed it would be the most useful, allowing me to enter areas that otherwise would remain inaccessible (a perfectly reasonable assumption). Turns out, it is quite the worst starting item a beginner can choose, because you're NOT SUPPOSED to access certain areas early. I ended up going to a "late game area" where they ripped me apart.

You would probably say to me that the fact that I was getting my ass kicked should've been sufficient sign that I wasn't supposed to be there that early, but the thing is, every fucking area you go at the beginning you get your ass kicked, so how in the world is the player supposed to know which one is the correct? Why would a game allow me to enter an area I'm not supposed to be in yet? It's just terrible game design.

In Demon Souls things are even worse. I entered the first area of the first world, obliterated everything there and defeated the Phallic boss or whatever that chit is. Then there was the bridge section, which I did immediately after. I can't begin to describe how frustrating it was, how long it took me to get to the Tower Knight and defeat him. I progressed to the second world and couldn't advance too much because I was getting crushed.

I started watching Fighting Cowboy in YouTube and, turns out, you aren't supposed to do the bridge section that early. You're supposed to jump to world II, grab some items, but not do the whole level, then jump to the LAST world and do it complete, then return to the bridge area in world I, then go finish the World II, etc. Again, how the F am I supposed to know all that? Shouldn't the second world be the logical path after finishing the first world? It is just terrible, terrible design.

Then there are so many finicky aspects in the traversal and combat that are just ridiculous. Bridges going down out of nowhere as you cross them, in areas full of enemies, incredibly narrow hallways that barely allow you to hit enemies with your sword, dragons that come out of nowhere and torch everything, items located in pits which you're supposed to "traverse" by letting your character fall in an exact position, and I can go on and on.

And the games are just so... esoteric. Jesus, did Aleister Crowley directed this? What in the world is "tendency", "faith", "intelligence", 100 different items, many of them with obscure descriptions. It feels like I'm going to summon the devil or something. "This weapon levels with this, but this other one with that, etc.". "In order to get X sword you must shoot that dragon with arrows 500 times in X angle as he flies". I just want to slay some mofos, cut with all the crap.

Bloodborne, on the other hand, was a bit special. Things were much simpler. It didn't feel that overwhelming. The game is more or less linear and while you can go certain areas sooner or later, it isn't as critical as the other games. Combat is direct, raw. It still suffered from shitty level design in certain areas (that Memphis bs, then the other late area with the hidden bell-ringing hoes), but the art style and presentation is so eye candy that makes those headaches worth it. I ended up getting the Plat and 100% of BB. But as far as From games, I'm done with them forever. They're just not worth the amount of time and frustration. I don't know how in the world they're so successful critically and commercially.

Git gud

 

[RoboFu]

I have never used a guide for anything and best all the souls games... there is only one explanation... I am gaming Jesus!!!

 

[Kumomeme]

Wrong Miyazaki...