What started this ''Dark Souls is hard'' meme?

What started this ''Dark Souls is hard'' meme?
>you can summon phantoms to help you with bosses
>you can get great weapons pretty early
>farming titanite and humanity is piss easy
>it's not even necessary you can get plenty of those by just playing normally
>you can get all the souls back + souls of the enemies you killed on your way back so death not only doesn't have serious drawbacks it's actually kinda beneficial

it's a more forgiving game than Gothic even Sen's Fortress is not that hard I mean what kind of fucking retard can't deal with obvious pressure plate traps and swinging blades? Is gaming in such a shit place that a regular game is hailed as some torture test?

>What started this ''Dark Souls is hard'' meme?
Casuals and normalfags, just like they always do.

I think that Bartholomew trailer.

The game lacks a good tutorial and leaves you on your own very early. It takes most people until O&S to even figure out all the controls, if they ever do. The game is obtuse. If it properly showed you all the options available to you, it wouldn't be considered hard.

It's their retarded campaign ever since Demon's Souls. People bought into it, so they decided to stick with it.

I beat DS1 without dying on my first play through

I didn't even know that you could die honestly

>lacks a good tutorial
>messages every 10 steps in Asylum telling you exactly what you can do

what more could a tutorial offer? Give you a free + 10 Zweihander?

Yeah, because looking up controls in the menu or reading the messages in the tutorial area is really fucking hard.

yeah man shit dude I played through all soulsborne games with just the tip of my dick and literararay one shot every single enemy I don't get this meme

motherfuckers didn't play enough Ecstatica
that shit was torture.

How long has it been since you've actually read those tutorial messages? Watch a new player go through that "tutorial." It's fucking nothing.

It was one of the few games that punished you hard for running into a situation without thinking about it. So naturally people banged on about the PREPARE TO LE DIE meme.

Doom on Nightmare difficulty is harder.

Unless the player skips those messages or has your IQ there is no way he won't know what to do. Even Skyrim holds the player's hand less I didn't know I can shield bash until 2 hours later, in DS1 I knew all my moves before tutorial even ended.

>Is gaming in such a shit place that a regular game is hailed as some torture test?
Yup. Also people who don't play much games exaggerate the difficulty of pretty much everything, although this is not a recent phenomenon.

Spending 5 minutes pressing every button on your controller is all the tutorial you'll ever need.

Why people don't do this at the beginning of every single game is beyond me.

*last generation

It came at a time when most games had literally no penalty or consequence for dying, you just try again. Now it seems to be coming back.

>Hand holding
>quick, concise tips that the players have to actively look for and read
Might as well call manuals hand holding

>punished hard
Not even that

>you can summon phantoms to help you with bosses
I think that's pretty cheap to do on your first run.

>look for
>all the messages are in narrow hallways player has to go through anyway

kill yourself

>using a feature offered by the game is cheap

ok

Is not hard, but keep in mind that when it came out for Xbox, AAA gaming was basically Ubishit open world interactive movie shit. Most AAA games were not about learning a system or solving a problem. Most games were about feeling like a badass in some brown postapocaliptic world

In the great scheme, DS is average to easy, specially compared with old games, the indie rougelike flood and the (very) few good japanese games made to this day.

So you spend five minutes holding B+stick direction, releasing B, and then quickly mashing B hoping to discover how to jump?

Because.
>shitty frame rate makings combat slow and clunky
>poor hit boxes leading to frustrating and unfair deaths,(ps two webms with a patched and fan patched onetime only enemy does not excuse the other 99.9%)
>90 % of the weapons are useless and with out checking online there is no real way to predict what will be good due to limited upgrade items.
>online was/is ass depending on the day.
>invasions are a cool idea but other wise hurt a player who doesn't want there character to look like shit but don't want to be online. (hurr durr just unplug, sorry I shouldn't have to)
> bullshit enemies that never get stunned and hit for to much damage
>gang ganking in some tight areas
>blight town
>bed of chaos
>all the times that you get killed with no sign posts like the dragon on the bridge leading to trial and error over skill.
>Die loose "money" game glitches out on way back due to incompetency on part of the devs and you fall through the floor and lose them all.

I could go on but we all know "it's hard" because while fun it's a piss poor excuse for a game that relies on it's own "im a shitty game" meme to selll copies.

There is a reason people like 3 the best, It's the closest to a fixed game.

To be honest it's not easy either. It's challenging and it punishes you for your mistakes instead of allowing you to get off scot-free if you mindlessly rush into every encounter.
Neckbeards who say "man I dont get it im such a good gamer this game is piss easy i never died lol blighttown moving bridges? just use a claymore and parry lmoa" perpetuate the "so hard" meme by using it to inflate their sad egos.

It's been a while. What I do remember though is that I had a solid grasp of combat by the end of tutorial.
>actively look
>huge glowing orange messages on the ground
No.

>Might as well call manuals hand holding
Ah, so you are just baiting at this point.

It's still a conscious process of seeing the message, getting close to it and reading it which is the exact opposite of hand holding you brain dead subhuman shistain

>What started this ''Dark Souls is hard'' meme?

18 year olds who didn't play anything before 6th gen.

Dark Souls isn't hard, it just separates people that can learn mechanics from people who can't.

Congratulations, you passed.

>What started this ''Dark Souls is hard'' meme?
It was "Demon's Souls is hard."

It was 2009.
And it was hard.

If you remember what the gaming landscape was like in 2009, Demon's Souls was a breath of fresh air.
Cruel air that forgave nothing and kicked sand in your face when you fell.

Dark Souls made the formula more forgiving and easier to work, then it blew the fuck up and got ported to PC, and sparked a mainstream interest in challenging games.

So is Dark Souls hard in 2016? Nah, probably not.

But Demon's Souls was hard in 2009.

Because it's a game that doesn't literally take you by the hand and play itself for you while you just watch in an era where games are exactly that.

Dark Souls isn't hard, it's just an actual fucking game.

Name five hard games

It really is when you compare it to other contemporary games.

cute

>Start sprinting
>Accidentally jump
"Wait hold on how did I do that?"
>Stubbornly repeat what I did more and more closely each time until I get it down
This is how you learn to do anything in life and people have forgotten that it also applies to vidya.

>r-reading is challenging me! ;(

americunt spotted don't you have a high school to get shot dead in?

>being THIS retarded

Die Hard
Die Hard 2: Die Harder
Die Hard Arcade
Die Hard Trilogy
Die Hard Trilogy 2: Viva Las Vegas

Indeed. With summoning bosses are literally (really, not shitting you) easier than Wind Waker bosses.

However, a lot of difficulty comes from shit gameplay, glitches and trial and error. Things you just can't really help.

5/10 games in my opinion. Not more. NeoGAF loves them, though.

Comparatively vs other games at the same gen yes, vs something like Metal Slug no.

Because From Software literally marketed the games to appear hard.

FAGGOT

>run off a cliff and die
>wooooooooooow

You're the only one who finds reading challenging you retarded faggot. I didn't say anything resembling that in any of my posts. Just that completely optional quick tutorial messages that you actively have to trigger are the exact opposite of hand holding. Neck yourself cunt

>actual fucking game
No, you're wrong. Dark Souls is a good game but its not normal.

Oh man you called me an idiot. That really hurt my feelings.

I have no idea how you can defend the tutorial in that way. If you wanted to argue that the abbreviated tutorial was a selling point I'd see where you're coming from. But disagreeing with the opinion that the tutorial didn't hold much information is kind of crazy.

>trial and error
>in first DS

like when?

Also it puts you I to shitty situations stacked entirely against you. Like a giant on a fucking catwalk.

It is all relative, specially if you wanna be an internet tough guy, but off the top of my head:

Catherine, Order of Ecclesia, FarCry 2, R-Type Delta (multiple bullethell could fit here), Ninja Gaiden Black, FTL

Because Namco Bandai marketed the games to appear hard.
Fixed that for you buddy.

i said it's an actual game, not that it's normal, because normal games nowadays are not games, they're glorified walking simulators with context based actions where you can't even fucking jump unless there's a button prompt for it

I think it's simply because if you're stupid enough to get killed you potentially have the chance to lose all your souls.
Not many games have that punishment for dying.

Dodonpachi Daioujou WL, Mushi Futari, ADOM, Wizardry 4, Gradius 3

>Watch a new player
why the fuck would anyone do that aside from having a laugh at their expense

The tutorial teaches you everything you will ever need to do to beat the game though. The problem DaS has is that there are many stats and things that are left unexplained and are inherently difficult to get a grasp on without a guide or extensive cooperation with multiple people, but the latter is almost impossible nowadays.

My whole thing is: People play games differently. Basically meaning, they have different strategies and can handle certain situations better than others. Some are better than others at games. With Dark Souls, it is completely trial and error. Some people can progress in the game without troubles while others struggle immensely before getting good. But the stupid thing about this is that, if you aren't good at Dark Souls, you're automatically judged.

DS1 has mandatory death during the first seath encounter.
If you are going to bullshit at least make it believeable.

>What started this ''Dark Souls is hard'' meme?

After the PC port, Dark Souls had a huge playerbase on consoles but not because of "the epic hard game" it had a huge interesting world and an interesting combat system.

After the PC port generation Twitch got to play it. It became the "hardcore gamer" game plenty of memes and shitposts. People were overhelmed by the idea that a game can punish you for bad gameplay. Generation twitch couldn't play trough it because they are a group of shitters, they watched their favorite streamer play it and their little teenagers brains made 1 decision: "omg this game is so hardcore bcs Im shit at it xD but my favorite streamer did it omg he is such a harcore gamer hrere your donation xDD"

PC gaming died after 2007, if you would describe it:

League of Legends, twitch.tv , Dark Souls

shut up

Souls games aren't HARD games, they're challenging and unforgiving games. Much of the original design philosophy behind them was for the player to learn from their mistakes, and to overcome those obstacles. It's the modern day equivalent to the older Megaman games. The game is challenging and death is usually quick and unforgiving, but once you've figured it out, it's usually fairly simple and straight forward.

Hehe, what a NOOB, not knowing enemies are ghosts after climbing. He should git gut. :D

Btw. visit my channel; Madara666.

Everywhere? Learn what trial and error means. Go back to NeoGAF until then. Tip; there is an example in the webm you quoted. Usually you always get blocked by enemies, however, at certain times (like after they climbed up), you just phase through them. Player can't know this, can lead to error as seen in video.

Thanks, dude.

Actually they're just unpolished turds. That's where all the difficulty comes from.

No one thinks you're cool because you found dark souls easy. Anyone saying they picked up dark souls and immediately aced it without any prior experience in demons souls is lying. It's only easy mode now because they've made so many soul games so we're used to the mechanics.

fuck you, nigger

>not knowing enemies are ghosts after climbing
It was still in the climbing animation.

>triggering an attack animation that RUNS FORWARD right next to a ledge
Stupid regardless. Hitting the enemy would have probably meant flying off into the void anyway.

yeah it's not like its reputation for being hard existed so long that the version with the DLC bundled was literally called "prepare to die edition" or anything

Uchigatana such a hard weapon it really requires tons of prior experience to blitz through game with it.

This is incorrect. Namco Bandai began promoting Dark Souls as a hard game in the West with the Bartholomew trailer along with the Prepare to Die website. This was specifically for the console release of Dark Souls 1. Lots of reviewers and games media praised Demon's Souls for how difficult it was, and Bandai being the company they are, latched on to that concept for their PR campaign. They completely missed the real reason why most of the people enjoyed Demon's Souls.

Dark Souls used to have actually readable threads where people actually discussed things and talked strategies.

Then the PCfats got the game and it became a bait and shitpost contest, so you have a point.

Dark Souls is manageable if you've played videogames before. How someone can play DMC3 then have trouble with DaS is fucking beyond me.

>please don't let me find anything out for myself

Whew buddy, comin' in with the HOT opinions. Here's your (You).

Fucking this. Also, the hole difficulty in Souls games comes from the unusual timing on enemy attacks. They wind-up and It's either a second too long or a second to early, compared to the most action games where enemies take a swing and just attack.
But the moment you realize that, It's just a matter of patience and observing the patterns.
It's no fucking wonder people who know how to play games prefer a good roll and a two handed weapon because that's all you really need

This

Bandai Namco are the worst publisher in the industry right now and they kept riding the retarded "ONG SO HARD" train until the very fucking end.

Meanwhile look at how Sony marketed Bloodborne.

Im getting flashbacks of some (literally) autistic 40 year old who made a series of youtube videos about how he got stuck in Undead Asylum because he read the "Go right ahead" message from the wrong direction and thought it was telling him to go back inside and he got stuck.
Does anybody else remember these?
I dont even know if theyre still up, I cant seem to find them.

Order of Ecclesia was a good fucking game. Got my shit smashed by the crabby boss a bunch of times, and he's like the second boss. I'd say it's about as hard as Dark Souls though.
Haven't played the rest

At first, I tried DS for a about 10 hours and I gave up in rage. It took me almost 3 years to try again and now I love it. I realized that most all other games had taught me to be impatient and aggressive, which is stupid. DS requires patience and observation (at least at the beginning), which is what was true about some of the old games I played as a kid (I was remained of the patterns of the disappearing blocks in Mega Man 2, for example)

Is not a hard game, is just that all other modern games have failed miserably. It looks hard in comparison.

It's a console game

People used to modern games that are piss easy. If you released it in 2003 it would be average if not a little on the easy side difficulty wise.

>completely trial and error
The shitter excuse every time. Dark Souls mechanics are consistent throughout the whole game, mastering basic parry timing will let you parry everything in the game without too much difficulty. If you can parry a black knight, you can parry most everything else. Every boss fight follows similar principles outside of the few gimmick fights. Environment deaths only number 1-3 per checkpoint at most, there are fewer LOL TRICKED locations than people like to believe. If by trial and error you mean you actually have to have a little experience with the mechanics to do well in, and that requiring a little practice and repetition, well welcome to actually developing a skill for once in your life. There's no magical psychological uniqueness that prevents certain people from understanding the game, they're just bad because dark souls is all about timing, the actual execution is rather slow and easy considering how slow most things attack.

Yup because every new player knows that the uchi and zwei are available almost immediately. I bet you used a wiki and took the master key you casual.
DMC3 and dark souls play entirely different.

that's great but every dark souls game has outsold bloodborne massively

IS there a way to Play darle souls in coop without having to repeat each level for each player?

I think your question reveals a real lack of understanding in terms of marketing psychology generally- though I don't question your understanding of the game or the playerbase at large. The first answer to your question of what started the hard meme is the advertisers. The firm responsible understood that difficulty and controversy can engender an in-group. This creates through hype alone, a dedicated fanbase, and eventually sales. Cynical as it may seem, sales are what really started this. I am a pretty big fan of the Souls series, insofar as I have put many hours into it, but from that first Gamespot trailer with the trans girl ages ago, it was evident what they were doing. Its all really a lot like those horrible marathon stickers people put on the back of their cars. Just another way to elevate yourself above others- this was just an instance in which that was used to sell a video game. pic related is one of those fucking stickers.

Dark Souls 3 sold a combined total of 3 million copies within it's first two months.
Bloodborne sold a total of 2 million copies on the PS4 alone in it's first two months.

I would feel it's safe to say Bloodborne would have done equally well, if not better, if it was available on more than one platform.

You clearly didn't read what the fuck I wrote. You just saw "trial-and-error" and started bashing away at your probably worn out keyboard covered in drool and rage-spit. ANYWHO, like I said, other people are good at these kind of games while others aren't. I'm much better at the game than I was back in May. Do you want to know why? Because I learned from my mistakes. That's what trial-and-error means. It's a basic elementary term. If not, basic psychology 101. Please open a fucking textbook.

Because Dark Souls is on every platform and has become a huge IP?
Are you retarded?

If you use magic you're a fucking casual STR is the only non baby build.

He made a video about DS2 as well because he didn't see the door leading from the hut in Things Betwixt so he didn't know how to progress.

Yes. Trying all input sequences and buttons isn't the first thing you do on a game?

I think Dark Souls is considered hard because it's been the first mechanically sound, well-designed game in a rather long time that doesn't hold your hand excessively, becomes trivial after a certain point, or requires some kind of gimmick to maintain its level of difficulty.
In other words: it's a game that does difficulty right in that it's neither entirely unforgiving nor laughably easy at any point in the game, which is something very few games achieve.

The fact that there's no considerable drop in difficulty anywhere in the game combined with the fact that it's - for todays standards - certainly decently hard, leads to people claiming it's incredibly hard.

>dude just input fireball motions and konami codes until you figure out how to jump lmao

>DMC3 and dark souls
That's not the point. There's a certain "attunement" one develops from beating games with wildly different control schemes, which was common with PS2 games.

What I'm saying is that if you've played the PS2 generation extensively then getting a grasp on DaS gameplay isn't difficult.

Or you know he could try to roll from a run and discover that it's a jump instead

3 is the worst one. The entire game is just a protracted and roundabout way for you to make a character for pvp. Then the game turns into the same rabbit hole of metabuilds and typical FGC shite

Faith is the manliest build in ds3 desu. To do any damage with lightning spears you literally need to get the double hit on them

>Game on every platform outsold game on one platform

shocking

I don't know the games are challenging but aren't the hardest thing ever. Just beat bloodborne and never died more than twice on a boss with two exceptions. And I thought that one was supposed to be the hardest of the lot.

Made me kek