Sword of Moonlight > Beginner and other Nonsense

Dark Souls get

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Verdite:
Hadnt discovered this until today (yeah I was shocked too) and I really enjoyed reading your recorded ups and downs.

While I know the thread is already coming up for 5 months in age, i'd like to comment on a few sections of the post that I agreed with.

"So your weapon gets dull of course... you sharpen it, but it also breaks. And say if its at 50% then the next swing has a 50% chance of the weapon breaking in two! I think that would present way more interesting scenarios too. Add an element of chance..."

Something that bothered me in Dark Souls was the mythical durability on some weapons. I could pierce a wall with a rapier a few times to chip off 1 durability. I'm gonna be brave and say From designed these simple durability elements for people who just wanna forget the basics of combat and focus on harvesting enemies because thats what Dark Souls is all about. Defeating enemies is simple in Dark Souls yet threatening. A true fighter knows when to avoid and when to initiate combat because he knows his weapon isnt made of graphene during such times. Unfortunately this game offers little in the way of avoiding conflict.
You are the predator in this game, really.

"Likewise if you don't wear a helmet... your head should not be protected by the armor stat of your boots. If you are hit in the head, well lights out. You'll find that this approach radically simplifies things in the defense dept. No longer do you have to factor every piece of equipment into your game's balance."

The overall defence system is something that I think comes from game series like Final Fantasy where the main character's face has to be shown at all times. Helmet-less characters seem popular, probably due to easier facial recognition. Not practical for fighting games.

"If your helmet is at 50% then there is a 50% chance that the next hit will go through it. Higher for pierce, lower for smash of course. Then you're mortally wounded unless you have something up your sleeve. "

Again, factoring in realism is really immersive, but players who just want to fight, numbly enjoying crushing their enemies wont think about being careful. Being careful takes away the fun. If you're not thinking about outsmarting your opponent.

Equipment should have 3 different 'damaged' textures that can be easily swapped on / off instantly (using something like paledit) like in Rival Schools (ps1) the characters expressions are done through swapping their face textures.

"Finally rolling is retarded. It's not worth wasting buttons on, and being invincible while rolling is just cheese. "

Wouldnt surprise me if the rolling idea came from a designer who was an eastern martial artist or had a fascination with it. Wheras a boxer knows to stay on his feet for manouverability, facing his opponent at all times. Rolling exposes your back too easily.

Holey Moley:
You are right. This is old. But I do like the broken weapon idea. My concept of weapon grades is basically F is 50% or so, like in school here in the states. I don't think it should be an automatic 50% and the weapon is broken, but if you hit something that can equal the weapons output then it should be 50% odds.

I like the idea of broken weapons. I guess it would be something like disarm, in that the broken piece of the weapon would have to go somewhere when it breaks. Then you'd have to go collect it if you intend to repair the weapon.

I had the idea of the weapon being scrap after it hits the last damage grade. But maybe it should be scrap only after it breaks. Scrap that you can still use the bottom half of as a half weapon. This is actually a plus, because changing the type of item the weapon is from weapon to non-weapon is even trickier.

The broken piece could be part of the scabbard and just hidden inside the scabbard when in use.


As for rolling. I think Dark Souls does rolling just because it is super easy to implement. You'll notice that if you roll to the side, you first turn to the side, and then roll forward, so there is just one animation. That's the same reason the game uses the free movement setup instead of a traditional tank one. It's also an excuse for slight of hand invincibility. Which props of the power fantasy. Which feeds the egos of the players. Which feeds the deep pockets of the publishers. That said, it's still retarded, so there is just no helping it.

Tuck and roll is not such a bad maneuver. It just needs to be advanced, and only available to light infantry. Not to mention that casually rolling around with sharp implements demands an improbable degree of credulity.


Last but not least. Game over because a weapon pierced your warn out armor and charted a course straight through your heart is not as cruel as it seems. It teaches you to protect your weak points. It gives the player literal weak points. And is not at all different from part breaking that appears in a few of the Armored Core games. Couple it with magical healing which is almost always a given in these kinds of video games, and its very manageable, even for a mere mortal.

Plus role of the dice is nothing new to video games. This (part breaking) is one of the few places where chance makes perfect sense. The chance element is basically, you never know what to expect, and that is called "replayability" in my book.

Holey Moley:
Wal-mart was having a clearance sell of some kind while I was grocery shopping last weekend. I picked up a copy of Dark Souls II for $11 and Alien Isolation for $16. The Alien game is Nostromo edition with some kind of built in DLC that includes playing on the original Alien set as Ripley. Oddly the Alien game manual was French Canadian only. Is there like no standards? Best of all is there are no Best Of crap on the boxes, I will not buy a game with that stuff on the box, I just don't want the hideous boxes lying around.

I also got a Deadly Premonition bundle off the PSN for $10. It's a game people like that is Twin Peaks like. Thought I'd give it a try. So my dance card is totally full, even though I usually don't get into games anymore. But I've been so caught up working on SOM lately that I haven't had a chance/want (wont?) to do anything else.

My impression of DSII is it's pretty lackluster and the videos I've seen just make it look really depressing to play, like in a bad way (dumb ideas as far as the eye can see... unlimited vistas of utter stupidness)

But it's From Software, so $11, whatever. It's probably my only chance since I wouldn't look for it used, or make room on the disk drive for a digital download/copy/install (that's probably like 100GB right there or something. Games are stupidly huger than they should be at this point)

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