Dark Souls - 75% Off On Steam

Fair enough. All I remember was after beating the first big demon (took about 15 tries for me to down him) I stumbled around a bit until I found a graveyard with a couple of skeletons who repeatedly ripped me a new one until I got so frustrated I uninstalled it :) I also remember the port was one of the worse I have ever seen - zero effort was made to make the configration and keyboard mappings etc even remotely useable. Not only that but the ingame help referred to xbox buttons…

I'll give it another shot though, it deserves a fair chance when I am in a better mood.

Yeah, this game is stupid. I died on the first boss about 15 times too. Then after I bought a new controller and beat him I ran down to the ruins or something and half the enemies don't even attack you and the other half you can't damage. It's like someone hit the game designers with a stupid stick! So after I bought a new controller and ran back up I went and found the graveyard and the skeletons took ages to kill and didn't give much more xp than the zombies in the ruins. So i wen't back there and farmed zombies for 2 hours until i rolld off the edge trying to hit one and threw my controller at the wall and uninstalled.

I might try it again some time when they make more durable controllers and patch out all the stupid stuff like respawning enemies.
 
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So I decided to give this a go (at this price) to see what all the fuss is about.

I did enjoy Blade of Darkness pretty much back in the day and the atmosphere will certainly appeal to me, but I predict the checkpoint save system will be a huge issue…

Going for a completely single player experience when I get some time to actually play it.

Any recommended mods other than the resolution and control fixes ?

I assume everything mod wise installs via the Steam workshop these days ?

(Edit: Apparently no to both questions downloaded DSFix seems enough to start with)
 
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There again the game was hard because you were in completely the wrong area. If you had ignored the ruins and the graveyard, and gone up to the undead burg (which an NPC does direct you towards in one of the few pieces of guidance you ever get in the game), it would have been much easier and more fun.

Yeah, this game is stupid. I died on the first boss about 15 times too. Then after I bought a new controller and beat him I ran down to the ruins or something and half the enemies don't even attack you and the other half you can't damage. It's like someone hit the game designers with a stupid stick! So after I bought a new controller and ran back up I went and found the graveyard and the skeletons took ages to kill and didn't give much more xp than the zombies in the ruins. So i wen't back there and farmed zombies for 2 hours until i rolld off the edge trying to hit one and threw my controller at the wall and uninstalled.

I might try it again some time when they make more durable controllers and patch out all the stupid stuff like respawning enemies.
 
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so I finally gave up and bought this game… and this is the only time, I can absolutely not figure out how to quit the game… I have tried alt + f4 and it quits, but I am not sure if it saves or not, it kind of just dies.

anyone knows ?
 
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press "end" then the right arrow until you select the game options then select quit game… then press a couple more buttons…

No seriously… Hilarious bad port. I laughed on the little white cursor they didn't even bother hiding.

Generally speaking, don't waste time on this game without the DSFix and DSmfix mods…

Seems you can go wrong with 7,49 after all ;)
 
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aa well I heard it was bad... but this is worse then bad... it even crashes with DSFix so I am kind of at lose now.
 
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@GothicGothicness
What kind of options did you enable ? (i.e FPS unlock is said to cause crashes...)

It looks and performs rather nice for me and the mouse fix helps with the horrendous jittery camera.

Its the tedium of retracing parts of the level and killing the same 12 pushover enemies to get to the boss that will kill you again that will probably (almost certainly) make me put this aside.

No time for this kind of tedium these days :)
(But I admit I already suspected that and was just satisfying my curiosity)
 
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I managed to get it to run now at least. Now I'll try to understand how the combat system and so on works...
 
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Check out the Dark Souls impressions thread here in General for more information on gameplay and links etc. http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15214

I completed it on PC with mouse and keyboard, so am probably an exception to the rule as far as input choice is concerned. It's not that difficult to navigate once you've set up your own control scheme. I used right click for back (b button) on basic menus for example.
 
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The combat system is pretty good actually. Its obvious were the Witcher 2 got its inspiration from although I consider this significantly better but a bit clunky probably due to the bad port job (the mouse fix, err, fixes 95% of this with a bit of fiddling).

Such a pity they had to go with this contrived/gamey/grindey design instead of offering a straight up Action RPG… The level design, vertical exploration and Monster design are pretty damn good. Atmosphere was not as good as I was expecting but that may be a side effect of the gamey feel and a bit of tuning on the sound field would probably go a lot of way. Also I am only on the Undead Burg so it probable gets much better further on…

All in all I may give it some time on the more leisurely weekend mornings when it doesn't feel like such a waste of time (I'd rather spend some time on my book on a weekday ;) ).

They could at least let you level up without respawing the whole level :roll:
 
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Well, I am starting to get the hang of it a little now, and I am starting to understand now why it has received so much critical acclaim, some parts of it is brilliant even with the limited keyboard + mouse controls.....
 
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The combat system is very well thought out and tactical. Almost ponderous.
What got me going was the stability and tuning brought by the DSmfix mod (and rebinding the "lock on" button on R so I can insta-set/unset it. Also changed the lock flip to mouse direction instead of wheel on the mod).

After that it is just observation, patience and good utilization of the level design… nice!

Although as in the Gothics you gotta know which parts/enemies to tackle depending to your level in the game and level of player skill (goes without saying that I always loved that bit). That black knight felt kinda heavy for my 19-20 level knight (Did drop a sweet shield though, not to mention what he was guarding)… 5 times I had to kill the same enemies to get to him… 5… at least he was closer to the fire than the bleeding taurus… :-/
 
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The game is really brilliant!

But it is tough to play with keyboard and mouse for sure.

Is there any fix for the character turning around when moving the mouse a little, in the middle of a combat? This has happened for me many times in tense combats and causing me to die needlessly.
 
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The game is really brilliant!
But it is tough to play with keyboard and mouse for sure.

If they keep me playing despite the Grind they must have done something right ;)
Generally if a game keeps killing and killing me without me feeling frustrated but eager to get there and try again(Like the Gothics or Stalkers i.e.) its a win with me…. I am actually starting to get used to the respawning so that it doesn't break immersion that much anymore o_o

Is there any fix for the character turning around when moving the mouse a little, in the middle of a combat? This has happened for me many times in tense combats and causing me to die needlessly.

Are you locking on the enemy ? Do you use DSmfix ? if so how did you configure lock switching from the mods Gui ? Usually a bit of tweaking does the job but it is device dependent. i.e for my logitech gaming mouse I have the sensitivity from the mod to max but the camera speed to 2 from the game options. That results in a rather slow mouse look speed but a very stable and controllable camera and a very predictable lock switch…

Edit: if you haven't yet tried downsampling from the DSFix ini (use an as high as you can get away with res there, while keeping your monitors native one on the game options) and have a decent card, try it in conjunction with the SMAA for a very nice sharpening of the image… Looks pretty good.
 
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Thanks, I will try that. I think this game would be much less good without the respawning. I mean it is not like everything respawns at random when you run back and forward and so on.

The thing which is so brilliant is that both the respawning and dying and so on, is all part of the mechanics of the game, if you want to take a huge risk you can avoid resting/dying for a long time, and see no respawns at all.

If the things wouldn't respawn after you rested, then you could rest often and use your souls etc very easily, it wouldn't produce the same tension and risk. Also you can actually use the respawn to grind and get stronger if you want to making it possible for even not so good players to complete each area.
 
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Well yes, it is obvious that this is a very core mechanic and changing it would completely change the game in addition to needing a complete rebalance. Also true that the game resulting would be much easier and more difficult to balance.

I just don't like this kind of design and prefer a more classic/realistic approach as i.e. in the Gothics and Witchers. I completely see how the game would have been a much lesser success without the mmoish appeal (tying very well I imagine with the online aspect the people seem to enjoy very much) of this sort of gameplay. (Would it even appeal to the Japanese then ?)

I don't particularly feel the threat from the resting respawns up to this point. The base enemies respawned are basically canon fodder (if you try to wade into them instead of a tactical approach and there are 3 of them together I guess they can do some damage but I have to actually try to make myself play like that. If those two Black Knights otoh respawned I'd have probably fainted ;) )

It feels like drudgery going through them again if you don't want to grind. The real danger/penalty seems to be on death when you are anxious to recover your bloodstain. I am ok with that and the extra amount of decision making in how much humanity you want to hold when in a dangerous area vs the benefits etc.

To be fair though the way the Bosses and Minibosses are balanced does not force you to grind too much. There are several ways to leverage the environment and acquire equipment via exploration or trade to get the job done, relatively painlessly and discovering that is a pretty big part of the fun. A bit (or quite a bit ;) ) of grinding though is mandatory especially if you want to splurge at the trader :)

Bottomline: I am enjoying myself despite disagreeing with the core design due to some very strong elements (as I was saying above) and an overall addictive and entertaining experience. Would have appreciated some lore early on the game tying the respawning thing to the world/condition of the npcs (may still be forthcoming of course) and allowing my mind to wrap around the "strange rules" of this world sooner. I more or less have acclimatized to it by this point though and it does not bother me much.
 
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I think the game is too barebones for my tastes, but it's certainly excellent if you're into what it does - as it does that very, very well.
 
You will definitely reach the point where this is no longer the case. Basic enemies in later areas can easily kill you if you let your guard down, and there are a number of areas where the killing the boss is easier then surviving all the enemies and other obstacles leading up to him.

I don't particularly feel the threat from the resting respawns up to this point. The base enemies respawned are basically canon fodder (if you try to wade into them instead of a tactical approach and there are 3 of them together I guess they can do some damage but I have to actually try to make myself play like that. If those two Black Knights otoh respawned I'd have probably fainted ;) )
 
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