Regarding Dark Souls

[Rob]

Hi people,
Over here @Komuflage asked what was troubling with me about Dark Souls on the PC, following application of the 60fps and 1080p hacks, and using the Xbox controller...

Just like @Psychomorph, I gave up with Dark Souls 1, but I'm trying to keep an open mind about Dark Souls 2, given that they've actually designed it with the PC in mind. Fingers crossed and hope for the best!!!

Anyway, ready for a wall of text? You asked for it!!!

Pretty much my only major problem with the Dark Souls port was the graphics. I found the controls on the Xbox controller to be incredibly unintuitive and irritating, but something like that wouldn't have stopped me from playing it enough to really get into it - I know that sometimes it takes some time to get used to controls, a bit like with The Witcher 2 (which is fantastic... apart from the unfortunately poor-quality shadows).

Obviously the graphics were awful before unlocking the higher resolutions, but even at 1920x1200 I thought the game looked awful. Sure, it was being displayed at a higher resolution, but the graphical fidelity just wasn't there. The number of polys was way too low, the textures looked really flat, and the "high res" texture mods didn't really improve things at all. Making a "high res" texture pack for this game seemed a bit like flogging a dead horse, so to speak. I suppose that makes sense, because if Dark Souls was intended to played at low resolution on hardware with limited power (consoles), then why would the devs invest time & money making the graphics better than the game would ultimately be played at? Consequently, it was made with poor quality models and textures.

Further to the 3D graphics, I just couldn't live with the poor quality HUD either. In particular, the text and avatars looked distinctly pixelated and fuzzy. In fact, I think the ongoing annoyance of the HUD is what finally made me put Dark Souls down and never pick it up again.

All in all, I thought the graphical quality was more in the realms of games released around 2006, e.g. games that immediately come to mind are Oblivion and Dark Messiah of Might & Magic. If Dark Souls had been released prior to 2006 then I would have been happy. Alas, it was released in 2011 (or 2012 for PC), which left it way way below par, at least for me. As time moves forward expectations rise and games have to be of better quality in order to stay acceptable to me. To put it in perspective, along with Dark Souls, games such as The Witcher 2 and Deus Ex Human Revolution were also released in 2011. If you look four years back to 2007, we saw the release of The Witcher, Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed. Just thinking about that really puts Dark Souls to shame... at least in my mind.

And that really saddens me. I went into Dark Souls knowing not to expect wonders graphically, given that it's a port, but hoping for a fantastic gameplay experience given all of the rave reviews. I'm sure that it was a great game for anyone who could play it without the graphical and control issues constantly niggling at them.

And I know I'm coming across like my view is that games have to have fantastic graphics in order to be playable. I know that that's not the case. There are loads of indie games out there that have poor graphics, but I think are truly great games nevertheless, because they're not trying to be something that they're not - the fact that they've got poor graphics doesn't matter, e.g. Defenders Quest to name one. And there are good ports too, such as The Last Remnant (2007-2008), which is probably the best example of a console game that was successfully ported to the PC, with appropriately acceptable graphics. I just felt that Dark Souls just didn't stack up, and was a massive disappointment to me. Let's see what Dark Souls 2 brings...

 

[Scarecrow]

Rob, first of all i want to urge you to buy it on a console if you own one. You are REALLY missing out on a GREAT game if you avoid this one. If you have a PS3 at that, you might want to pick Demon's Souls up as well, it's spiritual predecessor.

Second of all, there is actually a modding community for Dark Souls on the PC, don't know exactly how big though. You might want to check out http://darksouls.nexusmods.com//? and look for mods fixing UI, textures, qualities etc etc.

I recommend you to try it out some more even it doesn't turn out perfectly for your problems. It's really a gem among RPG's imho. The controls itself is something you will get used to after a while, and it will feel very natural. You don't strike me as someone who is put off by a challenge (in fact, no one on the forums does), so don't let that stop you. It's an incredibly rewarding experience.

I have beta tested Dark Souls 2, and all I can say is that it's bloody difficult, and it's great. I'm really looking forward to the full release, and i believe it has the potential to be better than the original Dark Souls.

 

[Komuflage]

About the graphics, I don't think much can change that, it never bothered me, I don't really care much for that stuff, but each to his own.

Personally I love the controller for Dark souls. (And Demon's souls) It's kind of the sole reason I played Demon's souls as much as I have.

If the controller is something you don't like, then I don't think it's much that can change that unfortunately, but I would like to know if there is anything specific you don't like about them?

Like I said, personally I really liked them, it really felt like the phrase "Easy to lean, hard to master".
Blocking, Parrying, Light attack and Heavy attack, (+ 2 "utility" attacks) quite simple per se, but there is a huge difference between a skilled and a bad player.

The target system is also something I really like, although I prefer it in Demon's souls, as you could actually target different parts of larger creatures. (Head, chest, L-leg or R-leg) Something that was really annoying in Dark souls, since while fighting bigger monsters, you would target their chest, which often was 2-4 meters above you.

Nonetheless I actually think the combat controls are very tight, it fellt like every time I took a hit, it was my fault.


Something that ruined The witcher 2 for me was the imo, bad controls. Were you would auto target a enemy, and your normal attacks wear mostly acrobatic leap attacks, hence I felt I didn't have much control over my character, I could spam LMB and he would just leap around by himself, auto-targeting as he seemed fit.

 

[Komuflage]

Rob, first of all i want to urge you to buy it on a console if you own one. You are REALLY missing out on a GREAT game if you avoid this one. If you have a PS3 at that, you might want to pick Demon's Souls up as well, it's spiritual predecessor.

Second of all, there is actually a modding community for Dark Souls on the PC, don't know exactly how big though. You might want to check out http://darksouls.nexusmods.com//? and look for mods fixing UI, textures, qualities etc etc.

I recommend you to try it out some more even it doesn't turn out perfectly for your problems. It's really a gem among RPG's imho. The controls itself is something you will get used to after a while, and it will feel very natural. You don't strike me as someone who is put off by a challenge (in fact, no one on the forums does), so don't let that stop you. It's an incredibly rewarding experience.

I have beta tested Dark Souls 2, and all I can say is that it's bloody difficult, and it's great. I'm really looking forward to the full release, and i believe it has the potential to be better than the original Dark Souls.

In all honestly, If he didn't like it on PC, with a Xbox controller, chances are he aint gona like it on console, since the controller is the same, and the graphics are worse, and there is a lot of performance issues.

 

[Pilluminati]

Bought it when it was launched on PC. Terrible performance, mouse cursor centered on the screen and always visible, hack required to fix locked frame rate, resolution 1024x720 (there was no fix for that then).
The game was very fun, and I really liked it, but the port was one of the worst I've ever seen. Going to give it a second try in the near future as it's probably a lot more playable now with all the mods & patches(?).

 

[Rob]

Rob, first of all i want to urge you to buy it on a console if you own one.

I'm afraid not - I'm PC through and through (Windows/Linux/Mac whatever). Saying that, I can see the purpose of consoles from a family/social perspective - wii etc. Just not for anything more serious.

You are REALLY missing out on a GREAT game if you avoid this one.

That's why I'm so bitter about the PC port.

Second of all, there is actually a modding community for Dark Souls on the PC, don't know exactly how big though. You might want to check out http://darksouls.nexusmods.com//? and look for mods fixing UI, textures, qualities etc etc.

Yes, that's where I went straight away - I've been frequenting the nexus modding forums for years. Whilst they've got some great stuff there, nothing they could provide sorted my primary gripes I'm afraid... unless there have been some major improvements in the past couple of months?

I have beta tested Dark Souls 2, and all I can say is that it's bloody difficult, and it's great. I'm really looking forward to the full release, and i believe it has the potential to be better than the original Dark Souls.

Good to know! I'm determined not to prejudge Dark Souls 2 based on my experience with Dark Souls.

If the controller is something you don't like, then I don't think it's much that can change that unfortunately, but I would like to know if there is anything specific you don't like about them?

Like I said, personally I really liked them, it really felt like the phrase "Easy to lean, hard to master".
Blocking, Parrying, Light attack and Heavy attack, (+ 2 "utility" attacks) quite simple per se, but there is a huge difference between a skilled and a bad player.

The target system is also something I really like, although I prefer it in Demon's souls, as you could actually target different parts of larger creatures. (Head, chest, L-leg or R-leg) Something that was really annoying in Dark souls, since while fighting bigger monsters, you would target their chest, which often was 2-4 meters above you.

Nonetheless I actually think the combat controls are very tight, it fellt like every time I took a hit, it was my fault.

Again, that's exactly why I was looking so forward to Dark Souls, and so disappointed with my experience. Saying that, I'm really glad that people such as yourself had such a good experience. I'm all 100% for games going in this direction, gameplay-wise.

Something that ruined The witcher 2 for me was the imo, bad controls. Were you would auto target a enemy, and your normal attacks wear mostly acrobatic leap attacks, hence I felt I didn't have much control over my character, I could spam LMB and he would just leap around by himself, auto-targeting as he seemed fit.

I see what you mean. I think the justification for that is that The Witcher 2 wasn't trying to achieve that. There was so much else that was fantastic in The Witcher 2, particularly the role-playing, game world and graphical aspects, that there was less impetus for them to focus on creating an overly challenging combat experience, which would have inherently involved a different control system as you point out. Personally, I find it quite hard to criticize the Witcher 2 too much, given that I've enjoyed the Witcher series and books so much, but I certainly agree that it would have been interesting to merge it with a more hardcore combat experience.

 

[tiny lampe]

Something that ruined The witcher 2 for me was the imo, bad controls. Were you would auto target a enemy, and your normal attacks wear mostly acrobatic leap attacks, hence I felt I didn't have much control over my character, I could spam LMB and he would just leap around by himself, auto-targeting as he seemed fit.

This, so much this. I WANT to enjoy the Witcher II but Geralt's tendency to perform spinning attacks that leave him fully open forced me to stop playing.

In my opinion Dark Souls' controls are good because you know what to expect. Pressing a certain button makes the character perform a light attack, pressing another button makes him perform a heavy attack. It's good because it's reliable. Personally I wish the Witcher II had such controls, it would be so much easier to enjoy.

So, I'm also interested: why do you dislike Dark Souls' controls Rob?

 

[Rob]

So, I'm also interested: why do you dislike Dark Souls' controls Rob?

Honestly, I think it's because I hadn't got used to them.

I'm quite definitely a keyboard&mouse person. Console gamers often don't believe that anyone can perform better using keyboard&mouse than using a controller (which surprised a bunch of Xbox controller users when I thrashed everyone during a Dirt 2 competition at a tech convention a few of years back... which I'm not bragging about - I don't consider myself to be that good at Dirt 2 and certainly didn't expect to place...)

Saying that, I've got no problem using whatever input device a game is made to be played with - if it's made to be played with a controller then super... I'll use a controller.

As I said above, the controls weren't what really drove me away from Dark Souls. I think I just hadn't played for long enough for them to become second nature, given that they were so different from anything else I'd ever played.