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Hidetaka Miyazaki sees death as a feature, not a bug

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Re: Hidetaka Miyazaki sees death as a feature, not a bug

#81

Post by awild »

DanHulton wrote: post #19
markus_zhang wrote: post #16

I heard about these gamed and watched a few hours of gameplay each. I was unconvinced and closed the YouTube tabs after it became too boring. I guess I have to play it to feel it? But most of the games I enjoy playing are fun to watch. Duke3d and Baldurs Gate are two examples. Can someone elaborate why Dark Soul is actually fun to play, and more importantly why sold for so many copies? I read other comments and the t…

Very simply, no other game series does the "mastery" thing so well. The game is both wide and deep, and even though there's superficially a leveling system, it won't save you if you can't actually play. This raises some accessability issues, definitely. I'd love to see Fromsoft games take that challenge on next. (Or another studio, there are plenty of great Souls-like games out there.) Especially as I'm getting older…

Hades really scratched that itch for me. It's very easy to get going and have fun, but requires investment to completely finish it.

I'm pretty terrible at most games so it took me quite a while to actually finish a whole run, but it was a lot of fun once I did.

Re: Hidetaka Miyazaki sees death as a feature, not a bug

#82

Post by Bancakes »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #73
lmm wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that definition, "getting good at game mechanics" is so broad as to be meaningless, and "need to be rather competent in their demanding mechanics" is no explanation at all.

The basic combat mechanics of FromSofts games are specifically blocking, parrying, rolling, stamina, and general movement, along with all the different forms of attacking, casting and item consumption. Most of the difficulty of FromSofts games comes from mastering these mechanics, and then learning every boss encounter individually. To say the games are mechanically easy just seems like such a nonsensical take to me.…

What? You don't have to 'learn' any bosses. You can beat all bosses by just striking a few times and rolling away. You don't have to learn any patterns or cheeses or weaknesses. IMO that's not a fun way to play.

You make souls games out to be "memorize the trick" simulators. No, no, no. That's the unfun approach.

Re: Hidetaka Miyazaki sees death as a feature, not a bug

#83

Post by marginalia_nu »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #73
lmm wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that definition, "getting good at game mechanics" is so broad as to be meaningless, and "need to be rather competent in their demanding mechanics" is no explanation at all.

The basic combat mechanics of FromSofts games are specifically blocking, parrying, rolling, stamina, and general movement, along with all the different forms of attacking, casting and item consumption. Most of the difficulty of FromSofts games comes from mastering these mechanics, and then learning every boss encounter individually. To say the games are mechanically easy just seems like such a nonsensical take to me.…

Most of the difficulty is in using the tools at the right times. This completely permeates the design of the games.

At first the game will show you an enemy with his back turned, and you will discover that this initiates a devastating backstab.

Miyazaki has shown you a new tool, but in doing so has also given himself a new tool for manipulating you: A few moments later, the game will show you an enemy with his back turned, and you'll probably mindlessly rush in for the rewarding backstab, only to be bum rushed by an enemy hidden behind a corner that kicks you off the cliff. You really don't stand a chance at reacting to this, and yet again meet see the familiar "You Died"-screen.

This is the dialogue I speak of, it's easier to point out in level design but very much also exists with in the combat system. Some players will probably miss this aspect and think it's just cruelty. Like, how could you have known? Well you absolutely could have known by being being more careful and looking around that corner before taking the bait.

The combat in general works like that as well. First you're shown enemies that are susceptible to one particular strategy, and then the next, you're shown enemies that are not. The difficulty isn't executing, but coming up with an appropriate strategy for the situation. And the games are very cleverly designed to shut down one-size-fits-all approaches to combat. There are no universal combos to memorize because they don't want you to merely go through the same motions, they want you to engage with what is happening on a more direct level.

Re: Hidetaka Miyazaki sees death as a feature, not a bug

#84

Post by deltaonefour »

sergiotapia wrote: post #39

No other games give me this feeling of melancholy, longing and revisiting once glorious places that are now dead and faded. Elden Ring is his magnum opus and I don't know how he tops this. What a tremendous achievement. If you haven't played Elden Ring, give it a try - you may be surprised how absorbed you are.

Shadow of the colossus did that for me.

The thing with souls like games is that the locations are loaded with enemies and challenges. It adds to the game play but makes the places feel too video gamey and breaks the immersion.

Re: Hidetaka Miyazaki sees death as a feature, not a bug

#85

Post by deltaonefour »

jquery wrote: post #20

The difficulty isn’t particularly high, it’s just high for a mainstream AAA game in the year it was released, and was probably the first time many in the generation of Dark Souls encountered actual challenging gameplay. There are much, much more punishing games out there from the mainstream (Ninja Gaiden and Nioh) to Indie (IWBTG and Super Meat Boy). I think Dark Souls is celebrated less for its difficulty and more f…

I think it's because the difficulty sits in the right zone where you don't need extraordinary effort to complete it, but you need just the right amount so that you feel accomplished.

The world building is icing on the cake, but not the main idea imo.

Re: Hidetaka Miyazaki sees death as a feature, not a bug

#86

Post by Osmose »

AllegedAlec wrote: post #79
Osmose wrote: post #34

I think Miyazaki's games are great and I enjoy them myself, but the continued (even in this article, somewhat) framing of accessibility features as ruining the artistic vision of hardship is a little disingenuous at this point. Many disabilities make games several times more difficult than they are for people without them, and a difficulty slider or increased stats help level the playing field so that the games can b…

Yeah, that sucks for those people. I don't think framing it as a moral failure on Fromsoft's side is right though. It's an artistic decision, not a 'haha, go fuck yourself you armless twats' one.

It's not one or the other. It's both an artistic decision to leave no remote possibility of altering the difficulty, and a moral one to exclude folks whose disabilities make the game vastly more difficult than it is for others. They're responsible for both.

Re: Hidetaka Miyazaki sees death as a feature, not a bug

#87

Post by rewgs »

DanHulton wrote: post #19
markus_zhang wrote: post #16

I heard about these gamed and watched a few hours of gameplay each. I was unconvinced and closed the YouTube tabs after it became too boring. I guess I have to play it to feel it? But most of the games I enjoy playing are fun to watch. Duke3d and Baldurs Gate are two examples. Can someone elaborate why Dark Soul is actually fun to play, and more importantly why sold for so many copies? I read other comments and the t…

Very simply, no other game series does the "mastery" thing so well. The game is both wide and deep, and even though there's superficially a leveling system, it won't save you if you can't actually play. This raises some accessability issues, definitely. I'd love to see Fromsoft games take that challenge on next. (Or another studio, there are plenty of great Souls-like games out there.) Especially as I'm getting older…

Couldn't have said it better myself. I got into Dark Souls 3 last year and have only fallen in love more and more with the genre. Like many, I absolutely hated it at first, but as time went on I started to "get" it. Now I don't really have any interest in playing anything else, including previous favorites like Breath of the Wild and Skyrim.

At this point the only (Souls-like) From game I haven't played is Sekiro.

Re: Hidetaka Miyazaki sees death as a feature, not a bug

#88

Post by caconym_ »

wyager wrote: post #14

I bought ER the other day after hearing rave review and was super disappointed. I ended up returning it after a couple hours. * Visuals: Disappointing. Looked like a cheap free-to-play MMO. Cheap-looking textures, stock-looking characters, bad rigging (e.g. characters holding things in unnatural poses), etc. * Controls: Unpleasant. Controls felt very sluggish. If this is supposed to make the game more challenging or…

I think the main thing you're missing is the actual game, presentation aside. You touched on controls, but I don't think you've grasped how complex and finely tuned the combat sandbox is, or how it enables different styles of play depending on equipment choice. When you're deliberate in your gameplay, it doesn't feel sluggish at all, but if you're just mashing buttons it definitely will.

There's a reason Fromsoft games are so popular, and it's not because they're on the cutting edge of AAA presentation—it's because they're so tightly designed, and in turns challenging and rewarding if you put in the work to engage with them. Most other, superficially similar games feel downright sloppy in comparison.

Unfortunately, engaging with them is a leap of faith on the part of the player, and I can definitely see why some aspects of the presentation would be off-putting.

Re: Hidetaka Miyazaki sees death as a feature, not a bug

#89

Post by rewgs »

TheBozzCL wrote: post #23
markus_zhang wrote: post #16

I heard about these gamed and watched a few hours of gameplay each. I was unconvinced and closed the YouTube tabs after it became too boring. I guess I have to play it to feel it? But most of the games I enjoy playing are fun to watch. Duke3d and Baldurs Gate are two examples. Can someone elaborate why Dark Soul is actually fun to play, and more importantly why sold for so many copies? I read other comments and the t…

Avid Dark Souls fan here. Somebody in another comment said it... but they're not action games. They're puzzle games. The satisfaction of playing a Souls-like is in trying a challenge over and over again, recognizing the patterns and actions that will get you through it. The game puts a challenge in front of you, and through practice and tenacity you get through it. It's almost never unfair. Most of the time, if you f…

Chiming in to say that I think DS3 is the best intro the series. I tried a couple, including Bloodborne, and swore them off claiming I hated them. But then I tried DS3 and for some reason the whole thing clicked. It benefits from the faster gameplay and lessons learned from Bloodborne, but is a bit less difficult than Bloodborne, and still gives you a shield (very useful for newer players).

Re: Hidetaka Miyazaki sees death as a feature, not a bug

#90

Post by krige »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #77
lloda wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get better as in knowing what to do, not so much about fast reactions or very precise timing of the controls, etc. Those help if you want to beat the games 'the hard way' but there are always easier ways. The gameplay is more about finding what those are, rather than banging your head against the wall trying the same approach over and over, which is a trap some players fall into.

> but there are always easier ways. The gameplay is more about finding what those are Many FromSoft fans would not agree that this is what the gameplay is about. They’ve always put easy modes into their games, but the game designers really want you to just keep practicing until you get it. Many of the boss encounters they’ve designed are also specifically about fast reaction times and precise timing of the controls.…

That entirely depends on the weapon you have chosen. I can guarantee that if you choose greatswords / ultra greatswords and gear up with that choice in mind, the game pace slows down tremendously as you one-hit a lot of the opposition and withstand many blows that would outright ragdoll other builds.
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