DARK SOULS 3

Did it have too many bonfires?

Absolutely, yes, indeed, most definately it did, hmhum, that is correct.

Lets talk about that.....

*Cheerful music starts playing*

Yeah, it did. But it also was the easiest souls game without accounting for that, so no big deal.

Yes.
Boss bonfires are a horrible choice.

No, the basic enemys are much harder then other souls games and they realised people would just run past everything anyway when you died

The only bonfires should've spawned in boss rooms and at the very beginning of the entire zone, like Demon's Souls.

They fucked up.

Honestly this

It did the Bloodborne thing where bosses drop bonfires.

Much like everything else it mindlessly took from BB, this was a bad idea.

Dark Souls 2 and 3 could've both benefitted greatly by having teleportation of bonfires locked behind some near mid-game mechanic.

Like in DS1 you had to ring both bells, beat O&S, and acquire the Lordvessel.

In DS2 they should've made it that you had to light all the primal bonfires before you could teleport.

In DS3 they should've made it so that you have to beat the Dancer for some object that would allow transportation.


I tried playing Dark Souls 2 without using bonfires for travel, and HOLY SHIT that game is completely different. It feels like an actual adventure. I could only imagine what a no bonfire run on DS3 could be like.. I've never used any of the world linking on DS3 because it was all dumb as shit and not needed.

the issue with boss bonfires is that it's clear the game was originally designed around making your own bonfire. The game was marketed as such, it was a big marketing point. so you'd have boss bonfires, and the odd static bonfire here or there. but they scrapped it so you have shit like Dragonslayer Armor Bonfire and the Archives bonfire in the next room

it's to help cooperation

>wanting pointless backtracking

Yeah, no.

I mean, they could hagve just used the lordvessel mechanic again. that you find it, specifically. both DaS2 and 3 drop the ball here, because both have the lordvessel.

in 2, it's shattered in the majula house basement, (and there is a larger full model under the map)

and in 3 it's at the start of high wall in the room you spawn in

How do we convince from to fix this shit in the trilogy edition?

>pointless
teleporting is a luxury in 1. it's your reward for reaching the endgame, so you can go back to the areas that used to have the golden fog that you mightve ran into before, without all the backtracking.

it trivializes level design to have instant warping from the start, because that encourages one way level design like the latter half of tseldora, and means you can make linear level design because nobody will ever hoof it back from irityhyl back to high wall.

>I tried playing Dark Souls 2 without using bonfires for travel, and HOLY SHIT that game is completely different. It feels like an actual adventure.

This one hundred percent. Every play though I do in DS2 I try to do a no death no bonfire run. Without bonfires you actually need to manage your weapons durability, and keep some spares handy when your good ones are near breaking. There is a great deal of repair powder strewn throughout the game to help you keep your weapons in good condition but you can use the small soap stone to help others and upon success all your estus is refilled and equipment durability is replenished. The game feels much more like an adventure than just carelessly going from point to point.

Das3 was too linear and boring, which is why warps were necessary from the start.

So they made the game a boring slog running back and forth through areas you've already been a bunch of times, just so they could "reward" you by letting you skip it eventually.

How is this a good thing?

wouldve felt less linear if we had to backtrack back to high wall when we wanted to go there.

Going backwards along a line doesn't make it any less linear.

spot the cancer killing video games

The only reason why DaS1 teleporting even existed is because FROM basically new the second half of the game was a linear unfinished mess and without it it would be an absolute shit ton of backtracking. Crystal Cave should have extended all the way over so you could drop down into izalith, at the very least, and ToTG should have also connected somewhere.

Even Bloodborne didn't have it this bad though. DaS3 has so many pointless bonfires.

so you dont have to go from anor londo all the way back down to the bottom of Demon Ruins by foot, and allows you to streamline any other backtracking you want to do. it makes things easier for you in the endgame. how is that not a reward? what part of that is foreign? Your reward for getting that far is something that makes your life easier

what are shortcuts

Did it have a few too many bonfires, yes.
Did those bonfires break up level progression, in nine times out of ten, no.

It was part of why 3 is so piss easy, there were so many checkpoints that dying felt inconsequential. No risk of losing souls because you ran into a bonfire right away and could go spend them and then come right back and continue where you left off.

Whereas in DaS bonfires were spaced far so you had to make hard decisions sometimes of whether to run back or keep going.

well thats because Bloodborne's lampposts were basically the same as archstones in DeS. they had no functionality aside from teleporting you to and from the dream. it was BB archstones with DaS interconnectivity, and it worked.

Eh, I tend to find that in most cases bonfire placement in 3 is roughly similar to those in 1, and I had roughly as many instances of "should I keep going?" in either game.

Most of the cases of overlapping bonfires in 3 result from area connections where the game pretty much lays a starter bonfire close to a boss bonfire, except the only thing between the boss bonfire and the first bonfire of the new area is whatever bridge/tunnel/corridor/elevator that connects the two, making it effectively a means of culling empty travel time.

>Whereas in DaS bonfires were spaced far so you had to make hard decisions sometimes of whether to run back or keep going.
This isn't really true, bonfires in 1 are only really slightly more spread out than they are in 2 or 3. You will honestly find a couple in each area.
The real difference is that most bonfires are hidden from sight and require you to actually explore to find them, which is where the whole hard decisions you brought up comes into play.
>second sens bonfire
>darkroot basin bonfire
>second blighttown bonfire
>parish bonfire past the dragon
>hidden demons ruins bonfire with dying spider tits
>depths bonfire that required a key
>hidden bonfire in catacombs
>hard to find bonfire in ToTG
There are a lot of bonfires in 1, but on your first run you won't figure out where a lot of them are. In 2 and 3 I can't think of a single instance where the bonfire isn't just right in front of you.

2 was my first Dark Souls game, and I missed quite a bit.

>The first bonfire in FotFG
>The exploding barrel/wall shortcut to the tower bonfire in FotFG
>The blacksmith bonfire in Lost Bastille
>The bonfire & tree shortcut in the Hunstmans area
I can't remember some others now, but I missed quite a bit on my blind playthrough.

I vaguely remember this really stupid and borderline useless hidden bonfire in 2 near that tower where the FUCKIGN ARCHERS spawned right next to the main bonfire

There was also that one before the boss door in the windmill area that really didn't need to be there at all.

>Great Archives: 1 bonfire
>Smoudering Lake: 1 bonfire
>Untended Graves: 1 bonfire
>Oceiros Garden: 0 bonfire

There are other examples, but the only places where there were wayy to many bonfires were Lothric Castle and High wall of Lothric.

DaS3 had a bit too much bonfire placement but it was in no way ridiculous.
DaS2 had the most ridiculous bonfire placements.
WHO THE FUCK HIDES 1/4 OF THE BONFIRES BEHIND SECRET WALLS!?
AND THE OTHER HALF ARE PLACED IN RIDICULOUS PLACES NEARLY UNFINDABLE

There was that one bonfire in drangleic castle before the dragon riders where you had to go down a ladder then open a wall.

>that bonfire in Brightstone Cove Tseldora that's located in a room that inevitably floods with spiders

Grand Archives*
>Smouldering Lake: 3 bonfires
>Untended Graves: 2 bonfires
nice try

and you're acting like boss bonfires don't exist

>Smouldering Lake: 1 bonfire
There were 3 or 4
Untended graves was just the tutorial area, it was already tiny and yet there's another bonfire in the tutorial
Oceiros' garden had a shortcut and it was a really small, shitty area anyway.

Grand Archives was the only good area in DS3.

underrated post

>boss locations don't get a name
>it's just "Boss Name"

This is a microcosm of everything wrong with DaS3

>counting the Smouldering Lake
Bad example. If you count it by itself, the area is basically a large open area with three side corridors. It needs to be coupled with the Demon Ruins to make up the size of an actual proper area.

I would rather mention Cathedral of the Deep and the Catacombs. Irithyll Dungeon/Profaned Capital too.

>and you're acting like boss bonfires don't exist
Here's a counterpoint to that: Of what relevance are boss bonfires to the discussion?

>Of what relevance are boss bonfires to the discussion?
A discussion about whether DaS3 has too many bonfires? Hmm I'm going have to think hard here, you wouldn't have any ideas, would you?

Well I sort of presumed the unspoken question and actual relevant discussion behind the thread was wether or not those bonfires actually detract from normal level progression across the game.

The raw amount of bonfires by itself is honestly kind of irrelevant.

Apart from those bonfires located at dead ends or otherwise unleavable areas, DaS3 would be a much better game with boss bonfires removed.

This is literally one of the least problematic "bad" bonfire placement. There's no enemies or challenges in between them, they don't make the game easier in any way.
Wanna know why it's like this? Two reasons:
One: bonfire always appear after you kill a boss
Two: online. There can be no summoning in a bos arena area, therefore the first bonfire would have zero online things. The second bonfire is there to allow easier and more interactive online in the Archives area.

A lot of tension came after you beat an area boss, knowing that the task at hand still wasn't complete.

Sure in DS3 you get to sit down, refill your estus, maybe go ahead and port back to town and jerk yourself off

But, the other Dark Souls games, you complete that boss.. And, you've got to either decide to continue forward in hopes of something welcoming, or.. Use a bone/backtrack to refill and then continue your journey again from there.

Going from No Man's Wharf boss on the boat to the next bonfire in the Lost Bastille was one of the most nerve racking journeys I'd been on, and look back.. With the shortcut that opens from the dock at the start, it really woudln't have even been that big of a deal if I had died on the way, but the tension was still there because the game didn't hold my fucking hand.

You are correct, but then again I honestly cannot recall any instances in the first or second game where the game actually put you in danger directly after a boss fight, unless you count "well I ran through all the enemies to reach the fog wall so I can't safely make the way back on foot".

Actually, scratch that. There's the Hellkite Drake flying over the bridge in 1, and Vengarl's body hiding in the Primal Bonfire chamber in Tseldora in the base version of 2 [if memory doesn't fail me]. I guess your mentioned example regarding No Man's Wharf could also be a thing but I reckon with the reorganization of areas in SotFS it isn't a thing that tends to happen anymore.

In that sense, boss bonfires feel more like small quality of life improvements than any serious case of dilutting the challenge or anything similar.

I agree.
This is my major problem with the Souls games and why I admire Demon's Souls the most, with Dark 1 in second.
In design principle, Demon's did not make design decisions just to deliberately grant convenience to the player. Items had weight, levels were at times really long, some weapons and magic were basically unfair, demons became stronger the more you died. There are obviously some bad design decisions in DeS, but overall it felt like a consistent world.
It felt like a world that did not exist for the player, it just existed and the player happened to be there. In every subsequent game they added some convenient things or removed "troublesome" ones, they would care about that kind of thing over what made sense in the world. And that just ends up dampening my experience of the game world and the journey.
Does anyone agree with me on this? I feel like most people on Sup Forums care more about the PvP meta and convenience, and think, for example, that item burden was shit, though I felt it was an essential component of this kind of design principle...

How would we even backtrack too high wall don't the demon/gargoyle things fly you down from high wall

oh now it makes sense

Same way you do it in anal rodeo

I somewhat agree, but demons souls is just too imbalanced now. The weapons upgrading system blows dick, it seems they didn't design the game with it in mind so if you get a +10 weapon you can rape the entire game. I remember doing that with the kilij one run and it was just hilariously broken. My first run however was with a +2 halberd and an unupgraded magic sword makoto and that felt like the real way to play the game looking back on it, but at the same time felt like a test of sanity.

honestly this

DS3 is casual trash.

Yeah, that's true. I suppose back then no one really knew how to play the game or how it worked, at least not at first, so lots more people ended up playing inefficiently (me), which I think is a much better experience.
To be honest I kind of find that understanding how those things work and knowing about min-maxing and such can be distracting. I might even say it's almost like looking at a minimap instead of exploring the environment in some modern game. That's a bit of a far comparison... but you probably get what I mean.

How are you this boring?