Is this game actually hard or is it all just pussies that grew up with their hand held by tutorials and button prompts?

Is this game actually hard or is it all just pussies that grew up with their hand held by tutorials and button prompts?

Also what class should I play as first?

its not hard once you get accustomed to it. its basically a rhythm game when you boil it down.

pick something without magic, save that for another playthrough

It's hard in that you'll die a lot. But if you take things slow and think about what caused you to die then you'll make steady progress.

Pick whatever class looks cool to you. Your class only matters for the beginning of the game. You can customize any class to do anything later.

the latter, it's exactly why it got so popular
it respects the player's intelligence, atleast moreso than most modern games
class doesn't matter much, just pick whatever

>ha! Newbies and their hand held tutorials!
>hey what class should I pick?

Fag

It's hard for today standards, It's not Nes-hard by any means but more like PS2-hard.

It's challenging but fair. It's not a game that's designed to be really hard, just engaging. Anyone who bitches about the difficulty is being a contrarian.

it's not that hard. it just punishes you for being a retard and rewards you for actually taking the time to think, unlike most games nowadays that hold your hand and give the player a "you're special!" power fantasy.

pick a class that doesn't use heavy armor so that you don't fatroll and don't take the master key if it's your first playthrough. class doesn't really matter though, so just do what you want.

Which armor set is he wearing? Is it just the elite knight?

Its a hard game for sure, but its not NES Castlevania or Zelda hard.
If you want a challenging experience, don't pick a magic class, magic breaks these games in half with how overpowered it is.

i had this argument with my bud earlier, whats easier in DS1; heavy armor/poise or high int spells?

depend if you're playing with gamepad or mouse+kb

Not hard, but takes some patience. Which, most people these days don't have.

That reminds me, I should start a new playthrough.

Dark Souls is not hard, but the later games in the series can be - notably Bloodborne and DaS3. The problem with DaS is that it's way too easy to get overpowered early on, and enemy/boss health is too low. You can pretty much oneshot 75% of the enemies in the game with an R1 from any large weapon. Anything you don't instantly kill will be staggered/pancaked anyways so you can get off a few more free hits. The parry window is also far too generous, and many enemies that would otherwise be difficult are trivialized by parrying.

DaS2 has a similar problem but at least introduces some more multi-enemy encounters, as well as more large enemies that can't be instantly killed. It's also harder to parry and the base roll is weaker without stat investment.

DaS3 just has every enemy poising through your attacks and tearing you to pieces, so you have to treat everything like a boss (hit once, roll away etc...). The bosses are faster, more aggressive and have wider movesets than any of the other Souls games.

Bloodborne just suffers from having excessive healing. Every enemy hits like a truck to compensate, but that doesn't really fix the problem. Most bosses can two-shot a player with moderate VIT investment, and some bosses can straight one-shot squishier characters with certain combos or attacks. In general BB is MUCH more forgiving of mistakes than any of the Souls games - especially early on - because you have so much instant healing at your disposal

It's a rhythm RPG for the first few hours of the game.

It's only hard because of its unintuitive design, clunky combat and animations, stats that doesn't get explained and many other mechanics that they won't explain but will cause you to die and backtrack a big fucking lot.

After you grind enough to be at a level in which you don't have to go through the slow shit rhythm game, everything becomes a breeze.

Play thief, get something other than master key. Class only gives you default equipment, you can pick either dex weapons or str weapons, level up endurance for better equipment and stay below 25% of weight. You can run around naked and nothing happens, pretty much all you have to do is go behind an enemy and trigger the backstab animation.

>muh NES
Excellent shitpost. Also, magic isn't anywhere near as overpowered as strength builds in any of the souls games. The only people who think magic is broken are autistic retards that want to believe they're HARDCORE for clearing the game with a dragon tooth or something

It's a game that was lazily designed.

Heavy armor imo. The first time I played the game I didn't even know how to dodge, just tanked shit with a greatshield and circle-strafed to avoid the rest.

Magic gets pretty strong later on but there are plenty of tight corridors/fast enemies that are annoying and you can still die sometimes if you dodge poorly.

Fans just mistake clunky controls and poor mechanics as "hard"

Yeah it is hard.

>spends 5 seconds trying to walk up the stairs
>rolls backwards instead of sideways
>gets mad and calls the controls clunky
Was dobson or some other autist playing?

Heavy armor is easier to make and use, you can get good armor at the start of the game and use a zweihander for insane damage, a sorcerer build is shit for the first half of the game, you're a glass cannon that will die a lot if you don't know how to dodge until you get the good logan spells. The sorcerer build is the stronger in PvE but needs a lot more grinding than a tank build.

whats clunky or poor mechanically about that webm?

Was going to post this

Pyromancer, master key

what exactly are you trying to prove with this webm? the i-frames ran out, he dodged in the exact direction of the knight's attack, AND he was still in range of it.

it's not THAT hard.

It has its own set of rules and mechanics that are somewhat unique.

Learning these rules is most of the difficulty first time around, but once you do you're mostly set for every other game in the series.

It doesn't hold your hand. Sometimes the checkpoint is far from the boss. Sometimes the boss is way way harder than the level.

but it's not *that* hard, and it does provide you with the mechanics to make it easier. If you use shields, pyromancy and summons you can make it easy as shit even without looking at a FAQ to get the really broken stuff. If you decide to solo it as a 2h melee warrior you're going to have a much harder time.

Yes, it's actually fairly difficult if you don't read up on what to do beforehand and before the game finishes beating its mechanics into you. Play as a knight and make sure you have a decent amount of VIT and END.

>magic isn't anywhere near as overpowered as strength builds
>Not having to get near the enemy to kill them isn't as OP as having to get near them to kill them
>Being able to kill things things in 2-3 hits isn't as OP as being able to kill them in 5-6 hits
You sure I'm the shitposter here?

Actually Pyromancer/Tank is the easier mode, pyromancies are as strong as magic but needs less experience to get stronger, just use iron flesh, an electric zweihander and piromacies and the game is a walk in the park.

>strength builds
>killing enemies in 5-6 hits
off yourself, no one is falling for your shitty bait

it's A LOT harder than the average PS2 game

I mean, if you have a long weapon like the BK Halberd it doesn't really matter whether you're 20 feet away or 5 feet away; they can't hit you regardless. And 2h strength weapons one-shot or poisebreak pretty much everything in the game so I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. I've played every souls game multiple, multiple times and in every instance the easiest runs were pure STR with great hammers/UGS/halberds or whatever, with maybe the sole exception of pre-nerf Hexes in DaS2

Go the wrong way and you'll get punished for it. My 1st time playing I tried go thru graveyard. Then I figured out the other path was much easier.
Bosses can be cheap shits, and some monsters. If you don't have anger issues or get frustrated easily just take your time. Learn attacks. Get killed cause it'll happen, a lot. No worries. You can usually get your souls back. Unless the Iron Golem tosses you off the building and your souls spawn in a death pit, ha ha... fucker.

I made it to Anor Londo before I just couldn't anymore. I already have high enough blood pressure as is. Cheap ass Silver Knight Archers and Smough & Ornstein fight made me lose the will to play anymore.

You can play as anything you want.. but only if you follow these set rules!!!!

eh kind of. Maybe on the default difficulty setting. fucking Kingdom Hearts on Proud Mode is harder than Dark Souls.

are you retarded?

>it's not hard once you get used to it and it stops being hard
>it's not hard once you stop dying

are you people retarded?

>the game gets easier once you get comfortable with its mechanics
>HUURRR YOU GUYS ARE STUPID

?

>every single game should have a low skill ceiling so I don't have to get good
Please off yourself, you are the cancer killing video games

fair enough but that's you being picky

the average PS2 game, or PS1 game, or SNES game for that matter, isn't as difficult as DaS period

It demands endless attention and caution from the player.
As long as you provide both, only a handful of bosses could really be called hard.

I'm legitimately not baiting, sorry you're in denial about magic being busted.
You have to hit everything twice as much with magic than you have to do with physical attacks.

I've played every Souls except DaS1, through my experience magic has always royally raped shit, as opposed to physical attacks, I don't understand how you two are having such different experiences with it, is it just because when I play, I don't invest every single level into str or what?

Not really. It's no harder than the first Kingdom Hearts or DMC1 on normal difficulty.

I found it a lot harder than DMC1

andagain, those are not the average PS2 game in terms of difficulty

The game isn't mechanically hard. That's a fact. It does not demand much of your reactions or execution. It's merely a matter of patient, observant play.

Well, the issue with "average" is that it's hard to gauge. All you'll end up with is a no true scotsman-ish scenario

Kingdom hearts is baby shit. Cept for 3rd riku fight. DMC1 is not bad cept Nightmare boss fights. Dark Souls is just tedious. Fucking throw you in unfair situations you wouldn't expect but once you know its alright

Its easier in that sense yes. But whats fun is that DS1 allows for it. DS3 doesnt do it the same way entirely.

the game isn't that hard, but shit like tomb of the giants if your doing a blind playthrough is fucking fag shit

Its pussies who never played a game before the 360 came out that complain.
It's only challenging by todays standards

It's not hard, it's challenging like most older games. People that think it's hard were obviously born after 2000

yea you're a fucking retard for pointing out the obvious. wow, a game isn't hard until it stops being hard. nice one.

It's not hard, but it requires thought. Start Knight if its your first time through. Pick up the Zweihander in the firelink graveyard asap and rush the STR to equip it 2h, then dump a fuck ton into health. Keep a shield unequipped until you get the Grass Crest Shield, then keep it on your back. Avoid tight engagements and use your superior range and godly stagger to keep yourself safe.

oh so it's not mechanically hard. it's just hard in a different sense...so it's hard

It's more that the game controls like an action RPG at first glance, so people tend to rush blindly in. Stamina, timing, defense, parrying, attack speed, all these things matter, and failing to take them into account will get you killed.

Class really doesnt matter. Neither does equipment if you are good.

Pretty sound advice here. The game shines as a STR daddy your first time around/

This. The game gives you the tools to succeed in any situation, light attack, strong attack, backstab, parry, shield, poise, etc.

Hard games in the NES/SNES era don't even hold your hand that much.

pic related is harder

no but has some stupid features
>get cursed
>have to spend 6000 souls to cure it
FUCK YOU

Dark Souls is hard but fair and absolutely more challenging than anything released in the same generation and compare it to 'Nintendo Hard' games. Then yeah, it probably seems easy. But those games are just hard. Not hard and fair.

Why do you need us to tell what kind of class to play? You some kind of pussy who needs his hand held?

Oswald sells some for 3000. Not so bad

yeah but most new players won't come across him until the endgame

I wish they would stop balancing shit for pvp.

people that jerk off the "difficulty" are retarded

it's an atmospheric action game that expects you to learn from your mistakes

once you figure out how to beat something it's pretty easy

Barbarian
No it's about as hard as loz ocarina

Retards think trial and error is hard.

>it's not as hard as hard NES/SNES games therefore it's not hard

oh ok

>Also what class should I play as first?
Pyromancer

if you died more than 10 times while playing dark souls then the game is hard. end of story.

If you kill 3 skeletons (1-2 hits each) in the tomb of the giants, that's 6,000 souls. That's nothing. It's basically free.

read their post

>the average PS2 game, or PS1 game, or SNES game for that matter, isn't as difficult as DaS period

How difficult is DS compared to the God of War series on the top difficulty?

It's hard for people who played Ocarina of Time and can't stop z-targeting.

This is actually a very fair assessment. Except Bloodborne; cannot comment as I've never played it.

>trial and error

That's the most common excuse when you've got zero patience. There's just enough trial and error in Dark Souls as in Super Mario Bros. on NES.

What are you talking about? Most people will walk right in front of him after killing the Gargoyles

Why'd you post a pic of Bloodborne?

Silver Knight Archers aren't even that hard. As long as you're moving in any way whatsoever that isn't in a straight line towards you, they literally cannot hit you.

OP, this guy is the biggest bro. If you heard of that meme knight Solaire, he's nothing compared to this dashing knight.

Your assessment of DaS1-3 is right, but the healing in BB is intentional. For the most part, if you get hit, you can heal about 75% of it over your rally window. Damage is super bursty to compensate for healing, and as this guy said, you'll get 1 shot real quick by a lot of things. That's how the game's balanced. You have super strong mobility and the lifesteal rally mechanic to keep you alive. Don't expect to ever trade hits with any mob, unless you're using a heavy weapon.

I don't feel it's a gameplay flaw. Your movement and positioning is more punishing than any other title in the series, even if you do have more tools to move efficiently.

technically i think it's supposed to be one of the late game bosses, but you can't get his armor except in a dilapidated state

...

...

>For the most part, if you get hit, you can heal about 75% of it over your rally window
Nah, fuck off. Maybe on the beginner bosses, but the bosses towards the later half of the game are so aggressive that it completely trivializes the rally mechanic. Ludwig is a great example. It's so pointless that I don't even know why they bothered including it, since BB largely uses the same one-hit roll away formula that the Souls games do.

20 blood vials is way too many and the runes that increase it are just a fucking joke. Player damage is high enough that you can pretty much get hit at every available opportunity and as long as you don't get combo'd you will still win

>You can play as anything you want.. but only if you follow these set rules!!!!

Give some examples of what you mean.

As someone who loves turn-based games, Dark Souls is way too real-time for me. Don't have the patience for it.

I also don't like the unexplained, random level design

Just pick whatever class you like, I'm assuming since you said no tutorials you aren't going to min max stats on your first playthrough, and honestly considering your first statement I'm surprised you asked for suggestions on what to do.

You can beat the game as any of the classes, I'm assuming you aren't going for a 120 build since I think those are probably long dead by now. Just try everything and pick what you like, if you want to min max do it later. Ignore the idiots saying to avoid magic and stuff, going all melee isn't going to be harder really, and in the end it's mostly a preference. No need to go out of your way to avoid using specific things if you don't even know why.

thank you for acknowledging that 2 and 3 are harder than 1. i can't believe how many people think 1 and demons are the hardest

It's more tedious than it is hard.

It's more confusing than hard.
Once you realize it's 3 times easier with a bit of poise and 100 times easier with tons of poise, it's average.

Well no fuck you have to follow the rules of the game, what kind of retarded statement is that?

>Myth: People just like Dark Souls because it's hard
Reality: It's not that hard of a game - but it DOES require some skill, and some patience. You have to learn to juggle light attacks, heavy attacks, rolling attacks, jumping attacks, shielding, 2-handing VS 1-handing, backstabs, parrying/riposting, different types of magic, etc. Most people are used to games like Wind Waker where you have a ton of health and there's never really any risk of dying, and you just walk right up to the enemies and press B and they just die in one hit. So they turn on Dark Souls, die to the first enemy in the game, deem it "shit", crap their diaper, have mommy return the game to gamestop for them, and then they go on metacritic and spam zeroes for a month straight, hyperventilating and screeching REEEEEE the entire time. That's the type of person who perpetuates this idea that Dark Souls is all about the difficulty. Nevermind the great level design, the great bosses, the great atmosphere, the great story that isn't invasive like most modern games are. Nevermind all the amazing weapons that all feel different, and all the different types of builds you can create, offering thousands of hours of replay value. And nevermind that it's great for single-player, speedruns, and PvP (competitive and co-op). Just ignore all that, it's a bad game because some autistic piece of shit on the internet who sucks at video games said so. But the reality is, the only real criticism of the game is 30 FPS and bad texture quality. Other than that, it's remarkable in every category.

>Myth: Dark Souls is easy
Reality: Nobody thinks you're cool. People think they're going to come on Sup Forums, say DaS is easy, and everybody will just start sucking their dick and worshiping them or something. The reality is that it's a mid-high difficulty game. People beat the game 10+ times, then they start saying how easy the game is. Oh you mean like every game you've ever beaten 10+ times?

1 is the easiest to me, for sure.

Demon's Souls was hard because it was very obtuse for new players to learn the UI and mechanics. Had some bullshit like the lizards that don't respawn.

Dark Souls fixed most of Demon's problems by having a superior tutorial section and a much superior UI. Some mechanics will take learning. Nobody knew what poise did for a couple days. Also new players keep going to the graveyard instead of the Burg.

Dark Souls 2 was rushed and done by a different director, the game was basically designed to be difficult and remove any and all crutches, but that ended up forcing the player to play too slow and safe. PvP is considered the best.

Dark Souls 3 was too easy, honestly at least Dark Souls 2 attempted to change the formula.

One is a fucking joke, half the bosses cant even hit you if you stand directly in front of them

Dark Souls 3 looks like such shit oh my goodness

The piss sky

Most people will use the homeward bone they give you and never even know he exists.

>DaS2 was rushed
>DaS wasn't
kill yourself you fucking retard

>Dark Souls 3 was too easy

If 3 is too easy, what does that make DeS and DaS1?