From Software Dark Souls 3

[Zlaja]

I mean DS1 is from 2007

Eh, it was released in 2011 (and Demon's Souls was in 2009).

 

[Lyric Suite]

I mean DS1 is from 2007

Eh, it was released in 2011 (and Demon's Souls was in 2009).

The fuck, i wonder what i was thinking of. Damn my rotted brain.

Ok, 2011, but it was hampered by peasant console hardware! I heard people getting 20 FPS in Blighttown lmao i'm glad i played it on superior PC master race. I currently have it at 4k downscaling at 60 FPS. Glorious.

BTW, jokes aside i'd say i'm not entirely sure i liked some aspects of the graphics in DS3. I mean, they were more advanced, but was it me or it was actually harder to make shit out at times. Sort of cluttery if you ask me, and that pop out effect the shit was that all about?

 

[Perkel]

DS3 level design is magnitudes better than DS2 and a bit worse than DS1. The thing about "not being real" is on purpose though. Whole DS3 is basically worlds colliding lorewise due to lords not linking fire and it going almost out. It makes sense. Even you as player are different this time as you are just ash from some previous men who linked fire called by flame itself rather than some wanderer or undead struck by curse.

DS3 has that Muhyazaki effect where things have explanation instead of "let us take elevator up from windmill and arrive in molten lava kingdom".

I wish we got DS2 with original Kingdoms build on top of other kingdoms original design.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Whole DS3 is basically worlds colliding

like literally

Spoiler

 

[Wunderbar]

DS3 has that Muhyazaki effect where things have explanation instead of "let us take elevator up from windmill and arrive in molten lava kingdom".

Muhyazaki just ordered designers to make a bunch of nonsensical levels and then came up with "worlds colliding" explanation in the last week of development.

 

[Perkel]

And it is not just land but time as well as provided by dark firelink shrine, nameless king/gwin king, painted world story of DLC. Lorewise i like it as much as DS1 because it expanded shitload lore in tasteful way without being too expansive for its own good, just enough.

Painted world imho is best part of DS3 lorewise, because it shows you completely separate world trying to detach themselves from main world creating their own cycle trying to survive incoming end of cycles in main world.

If there ever will be Dark Souls 4 it will be probably entirely in painted world as main world gone dark completely which is probably cannon ending going by game events much like linking of fire was cannon ending for DS1.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Well even if that's true i'm not sure i like it. I prefer my games to be somewhat more grounded. Never been a fan of "lol random".

 

[praetor]

DS3 level design is magnitudes better than DS2.

no, it is not. DS3 is even more linear than most of DS2. particularly the DLCs shit aaaaall over DS3. that you're so dumb you can't tell the difference just because "them shortcuts! ya can see the next gothic cathedral in the distance from this gothic cathedral! muh muhyazaki!" is pretty telling...

 

[Perkel]

Well even if that's true i'm not sure i like it. I prefer my games to be somewhat more grounded. Never been a fan of "lol random".

I guess this is matter of a taste. I also prefer much DS world to DaS worlds.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I have yet to play Demon's Souls, so i had to leave it out of the equation. It actually works pretty well on the emulator now but i'm waiting to upgrade my CPU to make sure i get a smooth experience. Right now it works mostly at 60 FPS but halts into a crawl when rolling into barrels for instance.

 

[Perkel]

I have yet to play Demon's Souls, so i had to leave it out of the equation. It actually works pretty well on the emulator now but i'm waiting to upgrade my CPU to make sure i get a smooth experience. Right now it works mostly at 60 FPS but halts into a crawl when rolling into barrels for instance.

Well it is much more classic take but imho it works better. Basically part of the world was taken by "fog" and outside world lost contact with it, some traversed and got back from it telling stories about terrible demons so all kinds of adventurers with different motives tried to uncover what happened.

 

[Machocruz]

While there are criticisms of DeS mechanics in light of later games, when taken as just a good old quest game, it still performs soundly. KF and ST were not combat clinics by any means, neither were the majority of action rpgs and action adventure games I can think of. And as an atmospheric fantasy adventure, DeS has few rivals

 

[Tyrr]

Did anyone recently played DS3 on PC? Is it save to play online or have "modders" ruined multiplayer?

 

[Silverfish]

no, it is not. DS3 is even more linear than most of DS2.

Later on, sure. DS3's early - mid game is pretty open, though. The undead settlement has two main paths that intersect at various points, the Farron swamp can be tackled straight through or circumnavigated from either direction, the catacombs lead into the both the demon ruins and the Boreal Valley, the Valley itself splits off into two very different paths about halfway through and rivals Bloodborne in its ability to circle back onto itself at different points. From Anor Londo on, it's pretty much a straight shot, but DS1 is guilty of that too.

particularly the DLCs shit aaaaall over DS3.

This though, is undeniably true and I'm not that even that big on DS2's dlc.

 

[RoSoDude]

From Anor Londo on, it's pretty much a straight shot, but DS1 is guilty of that too.

What? Dark Souls let you go down four distinct paths after getting the Lordvessel and tackle the Lord Souls in any order you wished. Granted, some of those paths weren't all that great, but it certainly wasn't linear.

 

[Wunderbar]

no, it is not. DS3 is even more linear than most of DS2.

Later on, sure. DS3's early - mid game is pretty open, though.

if by "open" you mean "there's a bunch of dead-ends" then sure.

 

[Silverfish]

What? Dark Souls let you go down four distinct paths after getting the Lordvessel and tackle the Lord Souls in any order you wished. Granted, some of those paths weren't all that great, but it certainly wasn't linear.

Fair enough, but I've always thought of the second half as linear because, while you can nab the Lord souls in any order, the "not quite Metroid" design of the first half is all but gone.

if by "open" you mean "there's a bunch of dead-ends" then sure.

Dead ends that lead to bosses, upgrade materials, covenants and spell vendors.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Did anyone recently played DS3 on PC? Is it save to play online or have "modders" ruined multiplayer?

It's okay, I didn't encounter any of these guys for months. Lag of connection is much more serious enemy.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Fair enough, but I've always thought of the second half as linear because, while you can nab the Lord souls in any order, the "not quite Metroid" design of the first half is all but gone.

It's not gone though, it's just that those later areas are at the extremities so they are essentially dead ends. But they are still part of the world. Like in the Tomb of Giants where near the end you can see Ash Lake in the distance. The feeling everything is interconnected is still there but at the same time it makes sense for those areas to have a "end of the road" kind of feel.

That's why it also makes sense to have bonfire travel at that point where as both DS2 and DS3 made the mistake of making it available right off the bat.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

That's why it also makes sense to have bonfire travel at that point where as both DS2 and DS3 made the mistake of making it available right off the bat.

Yes, this is probably the biggest design flaw.
Also even with bonfire travel active you can't travel to EVERY fire in DS1 iirc

 

[Lutte]

Never understood the amount of obsession DS1 fans put into this shit. It isn't like you see new content every time you go back through old areas. What you really do is run past enemies and pay attention to nothing because nobody has time to waste killing the same thing in the same location again when you've already explored every nook and looted all items. Backtracking in a game like Prey has more value than in anything From made.

From a pure gameplay value perspective, some of the greatest, best designed areas of DS1 in terms of environmental challenges and exploration don't even have any relevance to its overworld map structure and backtracking inducement. You only ever visit Sen's Fortress once for example. Well, you can go back later if you missed something but there is no location other than anal pronto that would make you go through it again.
Firelink Shrine is the area that has the most ties to other areas and it's the ugliest, most boring hub of any From game. There's just no correlation between the amount of lol I'm going through there again and the value actually provided by the map.

Also, the comparisons to metroidvanias are very superficial. Souls don't have power tied unlocks.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Don't give a shit about the "metroidvanian" aspect, not the least because i never played Metroid but i also don't think the idea is to borrow anything from that game specifically, just to follow certain design principles that game had people appreciated.

Thus, all i can say of DS1 is that i liked the design of the world as someone who appreciates good level design in general. Lack of bonfire was crucial to make you feel like you were exploring a real area and made the whole experience very atmospheric. It's absolutely not true that you are forced to go through old areas all the time because the game has tons of shortcuts and it's a pleasure to see how everything just converges together simply because of the talent required to make everything fall together so neatly. Even if you mostly experience the world in sections the fact remains that you are essentially navigating a single giant level and the further you progress through the game the more impressive it becomes.

Bonfire travel just destroys the need to have anything like that as every areas becomes it's own self contained space and there's no point having one area be related with another area, because there's no context trying any of them together.

 

[Lutte]

It's absolutely not true that you are forced to go through old areas all the time

I never said that. Try to quote a part of my message that explicitely say that. I only mention that backtracking is a feature of this, I don't say anything about how much effort or how often you do it.

I absolutely disagree on this sort of design making the world feel more real. To me, Dark Souls 1 is one of the games with one of the least immersive world because the way it is designed to make you feel like you're seeing everything of the world makes you realize how tiny the world is compared to games that abstract the world in which you may not have interconnection between maps, but the abstraction always leaves you imagining that there's more to this place. "I'm only seeing this part of boletaria, there's more to boletaria" vs "I have seen everything of Lordran and by god the entire world could fit a tiny city!"
I have the same problem with open world design ala Bethesda. I feel more immersed playing games like Fallout 1 with abstracted world map/travel and showing only parts of areas than seeing all buildings and coming to the realization I'm in a world in which there's no more than 20 actual beings in an entire city.

Talking of atmosphere, Lordran isn't particularly interesting either for much of it.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Can't say i agree, but i'd like to point out that Lordran is not the whole "world" of Dark Souls. It's just a particular kingdom where all the cursed people end up in. There's plenty of references that there is a larger world where the curse isn't present. Also, Dark Souls is not a full RPG but an action/RPG hybrid so the design of the areas aren't entirely realistic but are mostly gameplay oriented, so there's a limit on how "real" it can feel.

Still, i just like that the entire world is basically one giant level. It not only felt more coherent thematically as every area followed logically from the next but it made exploration more entertaining. In fact i would put emphasis on the "level" part of the equation. The world is basically a big area you are unlocking as you are going along which follows a design principle that is not too dissimilar from that of classic shooters. Which is to say, it's not just a question of making the place feel more real but it's also more interesting from a sheer gameplay point of view. Exploration is a form of interaction. That's one of the reasons why i prefer traditional level design over this "open world" crap and Dark Souls definitely belongs in the tradition where finding your way around an area is rewarding in itself. It feels more "real" in the sense you are actually in engagement with the level itself. I just played Doom Eternal for example and in that game i felt no connection whatsoever with the world because the level design was non existent, so you never felt like you were moving around an actual place, like you did in the original Doom, and considering how abstract the levels were in the first Doom games i'd say probably a better word to use is "concrete" rather than real. Exploration in Dark Souls is "concrete" and thus meaningful, as it is a plethora of traditional games with actual level design.

As for the feeling of size, i think that is mostly dependent on familiarity. All games are limited in how big they can really be, and most of them don't really feel all that vast after a playthrough or two. This is true whether we are talking about Fallout, Baldur's Gate or even stuff like WoW, which felt truly large the first time but it wasn't really all that vast once you experienced all the areas. Same with Dark Souls really. The first time i got to the gargoyles it felt like it was ages but now it's very apparent that things aren't particularly vast at all. Hell, even Daggerfall becomes "small" once you figure out the limits of the amount of stuff you are actually or "concretely" experiencing as opposed to what may be well term as mere "fluff". The layout of dungeons and towns may be different every time but ultimately once you experienced all the art assets and all the interactivity the game is capable of offering you basically experienced everything. The size of the game is spell binding at first but eventually everything ends up feeling relatively small, like in every other game.

 

[Lutte]

Lordran isn't the entire world, but c'mon, you know what I mean. A kingdom shouldn't feel that small (inb4 someone mentions city states). Plus it's the one where every important existence to the world resides in or used to reside in history.
Yeah when you've replayed a game 20 times illusions can break but for me it broke much sooner in DS after you realize the closeness of everything when you start unlocking a few shortcuts and also notice how much of this is really built vertically.
Plus, it shows in the difference of world overview art between games :
Boletaria

Lordran

Or official map representations :
Lordran

Drangleic

Yes, the lordran map is missing a few things, but it wouldn't add much to the sense of scale (mostly the Anor Londo/Archive part, everything else you don't see on the map is on the same area but underground)

Yes, DS2's world makes less sense in traversal within the game but overall the abstract way it is represented, the more horizontal placement and the background view of areas like Dragon's Aerie and Shrine certainly helped make me feel being part of a much larger scale world than DS1. I don't disagree with some of the criticisms like the parts that are too obviously wrong like the transition between Earthen Peak and Iron Keep but that was more caused by rushed development and oversights than something done on intent.
Overall I'm more fond of the approach of DeS or DS2 versus DS1 extremely claustrophobic feeling world in which you have such a great variety of fauna, environments, cultures sitting right next to each other.

It's also clear From isn't that fond of DS1's design by this point either considering they want a larger feeling world in their next game and never really went back to DS1 style design. Whatever it is DS1's fanboy want, they'll never get it again. Suck it down!