Why is the difficulty of these games so absurdly exaggerated?

Why is the difficulty of these games so absurdly exaggerated?

its not , normalfags and redditors like to say it is just so they can circlejerk about actually going through the games , the point of these games has never been the difficulty

nowadays most of its just people who've never played them memeing to fit in

marketting

Pretty fast /Thread senpai.

I've heard Das1 described as "the hardest game ever made" many times

>babies thought Demon's Souls was hard
>Demon's Souls becomes famous for that word-of-mouth
>Bandai Namco took note of that
>based the marketing of Dark Souls 1 entirely around how hardcore difficult it is
>DS1 is a success, people buy into the idea of a hardcore game
>a meme is born

its actually difficult for normies so in a way, it isnt exagerated
ds3 is probably the hardest souls yet

Because games now are so heavily focus-tested and designed for the lowest common denominator that many are shocked to encounter a game that expects the player to learn how to play and git some semblance of gud before they're allowed to progress.

They are more punishing at the beginning because they're teaching you how to play, but once you're past that it's not that hard until closer to the end when the game expects you to have gitten pretty gud.

Described by normalfags and redditors who started gaming with Xbox 360.

I think there's a misunderstanding about the difficulty. The original game was about the unfairness of a world that is stacked against you. Difficulty was just a mean to an end.

Level-design as narrative and world building.

I've just finished a Deprived level one run (and fuck the brothers) of DS3, and I must say I'm fairly disappointed about the game overall. It's an enjoyable game, but there's been a slight slide: where the original gam was about the place, the levels, and the bosses were just one element in there, 3 is all about the bosses, and the space toward them is just traversal to be ignored once figured.

Teleport from the start is a bad thing. Pretty linear. Ability to skip levels once passed through too prevalent.

because little jimmy jumped on the bandwagon and wants to be hardcore

Because a new player cannot kill the first boss in the first encounter

Because they do an amazing job at making everything feel tense. There is a huge psychological element to the game, with the way enemies attack and how intimidating many look, to the level design, to the music.

Talking about mood, with all the issues I have about three, I must say kudos about the boreal dancer. Loved the mood of that boss...

The fact that for so many people here walking sound is integral part of the music speaks volume I think.

they're hard for people who are bad at videogames.

so, y'know, casuals.

Because most people play shit that's way easier and Souls has a good traction to keep even casuals motivated so it's very literally babbys first difficult game.

Bloodborne is actually harder the Souls series. I breezed through DaS2 and DaS3. Just started Bloodborne, Cleric Beast, father Gascogne and Blood starved beast were a breeze as well but fuck you Vicar Amelia. Why does she have so much HP? I can hold up a few mins since her attacks are fairly easy to dodge but I just can't get her HP to zero and I can't seem to trigger viscerals. Any tips to git gud?

>the stage catches on fire as you fight her
>those foot steps
>the music syncs

>Bloodborne is actually harder

Because if you look at the context they're released in, they actually do live up to the memes. Dark Souls is way harder tahn pretty much any and all major AAA game releases.

This is another valid factor in the situation. The more plebs beat the game, the more likely they are to go around bragging about it to seem cool.

What really tickles me is how often these players didn't actually earn their triumph. 90% of people seem fixated on summoning phantoms for everything.

BB doesn't reward you for playing defensively as opposed to the Souls games. The focus is much more on the offensive and for people well versed at Souls the change in emphasis will cause a lot of difficulty at first. That said, find a boss in the series harder or better than Ludwig or Laurence.

>90% of people seem fixated on summoning phantoms for everything.
This xInfinity.
I think it would be interesting for a dark souls game to only have summoning for NG+ and see how many shitbabies can't get past the third or so boss.

because most games don't kill you as often or punish you for dying in any meaningful way

/thread

The difficulty might not be the point of them, and sure, the claims that "Dark souls is the hardest game ever XD" are stupid and the overstatement of the century, but the game was publicized with the phrase "Prepare to die". Hell, it's printed on the back of the game and they named the usual GOTY edition "prepare to die edition".

If people hear it enough from the marketing departament and they think it'll make them superior for believing in it, they will. Why do you think so many people praised fucking Bioshock Infinite as being an "intelligent game"? Because the marketing for that shit convinced people that it was a "smart game for smart gamers ;)" and therefore, you have to play it and say it's indeed smart, or else you are dumb, if you get what i'm trying to say.

Same shit applies to Dark Souls. It's not that fucking hard, people just went with it to feel better about themselves.

I was thinking about this in DS3 too. The world of Das1 felt like a very real place in which you were just a visitor, whereas 2 and 3's worlds just feel like levels to beat

This, I always play a knight in Souls games and the step to bloodborne required some changes to my playstyle. Also enemies are far more aggressive and (without using your gun) aren't easily staggered and you can't chain attack them as easily as in DaS games. They will just keep attacking most of the times.

just so you know you can set the stage on fire before you fight her, I ended up setting the area on fire while the old woman was there and wondered why she wasn't upset I set her church on fire.

Maybe some people really are just fucking terrible at games.

It's not difficult. Just git gud for the sake of redeeming yourself from the gene cesspool you came from.

Reread the OP, dummy

>Find a boss that is harder or better than Ludwig
Abyss Watchers
Pontiff Sulyvah
Dancer of the Boreal Valley
Dragon Slayer Amour
Oceiros the Consumed King
Champion Gundyr
Twin Princes
Nameless King
Soul of Cinder

>Teleport from the start is a bad thing. Pretty linear. Ability to skip levels once passed through too prevalent.

It's no coincidence that the most enjoyable part of the game by far, at least for me, is falling down the bridge in the Catacombs of Carthus and finding the passage into Smouldering Lake and the Demon Ruins. It's genuine exploration like back in DSI, with you going further and further down into the depths of the Earth and having the feeling like you're intruding in a place unthinkably old that might hold who knows what secrets. I only wish that area had a few more level design nods to the first game, so as to say "Look, see? Beneath Lothric and all this new stuff, it's still the ruins of the old world that's all but forgotten".

Just having the diseccated corpse of the Fair Lady, while a nice touch, is simply not quite enough.

They aren't difficult, but compare them to modern games that hold your hand and make sure you always have plenty of healthpacks or even regen your HP while you wait. You can press that counter button thoughtlessly to deal with 80 dudes and never take damage. You can just let some AI deal with it. Or maybe your health pool is just obscenely large. Games just handle it for you.

Games lately have all been on very easy mode and when a normal, casual consumer finally plays on "Medium/Normal", it seems hard. That is to say, Dark Souls is just a game that doesn't play the game for you. It's a normal game that tells you the controls and expects you to figure it out from there as opposed to "Hey, remember to press Y/Triangle. NOW. COUNTER. Look how good you are. You just got a 30 hit combo and killed 8 dudes. You're so good."

I mean it can play itself if you summon, but even then shitters still die constantly.

>Punishes you for dying
>Unique control scheme
>Combat is not mindless
>Does not tell you where to go
>Does not tell you what to do
>First boss of each game requires to to really learn the controls before proceeding
>Pvp is unlike any other pvp, and is hidden unless you know beforehand/afterward.
The Souls series is pretty much the exact opposite of 'normie' games like Halo, CoD, Skyrim, ect. In those games, death is infrequent, and only sets you back to a checkpoint.