Does anyone else feel like the difficulty in these games is overrated? Not in a "these games are easy" way...

Does anyone else feel like the difficulty in these games is overrated? Not in a "these games are easy" way, but as in people always praising or arguing about the difficulty rather than many of the other aspects that make these games great.

What i liked most about these games is the exploration, the atmosphere, the mysterious world, the story and ofcourse the RPG gameplay. I like how unpredictable the world feels. By unpredictable i don't mean mobs attacking you out of nowhere, but like finding secret areas or the interaction with certain objects, etc.

Now with most of the DLC they release lately it seems like they're more focused on just making every area as hard as they can, as if that's the only thing that's still important to them.

>What i liked most about these games is the exploration, the atmosphere, the mysterious world, the story and ofcourse the RPG gameplay. I like how unpredictable the world feels. By unpredictable i don't mean mobs attacking you out of nowhere, but like finding secret areas or the interaction with certain objects, etc.

Agreed

>Now with most of the DLC they release lately it seems like they're more focused on just making every area as hard as they can, as if that's the only thing that's still important t

Not to be a dick, but it wasn't that bad OP. The angels and phantom archers were a hilarious treat

I admittedly haven't even played the DS3 DLC yet, i was just basing it from most of the comments i've read about it here and people saying how it's not even worth exploring anything and it's best you just skip all enemies and rush straight to the boss

They should have dynamic difficulty like RE4 had. Overly difficult games are just a waste of time.

It's not so much that the games are punishingly hard, the reason the difficulty curve gets praised is because they didn't hold your hand whatsoever, at a time where obnoxious patronizing hand holding was about at its peak. Breath of the Wild isn't even that hard either, but people kept calling it "reminiscent of dark souls" because if you run in unprepared you could get your ass whooped easily and the game doesn't stop you every 5 seconds to tell you how to attack

It's STILL kind of a novelty to not constantly hand hold, but the souls series came at the right time and was a bandaid the industry needed

I and 2 where a challenge the rest was easy

Anything you like in this game is because of the difficulty. Exploring is rewarding because it takes effort to get anywhere.

they just feel like normal difficulty

dying a bunch in videogames used to be a normal thing

How was the difficult dynamic? Haven't played RE4 before so I dont know

That's the genius of it, Capcom never told anybody but RE4 changes difficulty setting automatically depending on your performance.

As proof, speed runners exploit this mechanic and lose on purpose to make the game easier when they need it to be.

That's pretty cool actually. Is it just giving enemies more health or are there other changes?

I think it was only on enemy numbers and maybe enemy types I cant remember.

Actually OP, in the 8 years since Demon's Souls released, you are the only person to have expressed these sentiments.

Dark Souls difficulty serves a purpose: to make the world feel dangerous and you more like a badass when you over come it. Difficulty is there to enhance the atmosphere/exploration. If it's difficult for the sake of being difficult (like DSII often seemed to be angling too), it's not as good.

Gotta love it how everytime someone posts a "am i the only..." there also always that guy who tries to be a smartass about it.

Id had people always going on at me to play these games, how they are super hard and shit and eventually i tried them and i just dont get it, the only way these games are hard is if you play like a retard and run into the middle of a swarm of enemies or something

The way i see it these games are only difficult for normies who find it hard to comprehend RPG elements and are used to just to running into the middle of a battlefield and no scoping people or some shit, if you have any experience in RPGs beforehand + a little bit of common sense then these games really arent difficult at all, sure the bosses can kick your ass easily but it just takes practice to learn their patterns, like everything takes practice, i wouldnt really call that "difficulty", its no different to learning how to drive a car around a tight corner in a racing game at the highest speeds or whatever

dont get me wrong though, they truly are great games for the ambience, immersion, lore and exploration aspects, combat is enjoyable too but id say the difficulty is absolutely overrated

I'd rather have DaS style difficulty than broken difficulty options, like in Automata.

the games aren't good because they're hard. but if they were less hard, they'd almost certainly be less good. in most cases the difficulty is simply a result of other design goals. examples:

level designs are meant to convey the effect of their environment just as much as the visuals and audio. blighttown doesn't just look like a rickety shantytown teetering over the edge of a lethal drop into a poisonous swamp - it actually is that. as a byproduct, the games happen to be a bit harder than one where environments are safe, constrained corridors with fancy skyboxes

the notion that basically any enemy at-level with player should be able to quicikly kill them makes every fight meaningful, and every decision within that fight important. as a byproduct, the games happen to be a bit harder than those littered with autopilot trash mobs

omitting a map/minimap/etc. encourages player to directly examine and interact with the environment, taking note of landmarks, seeking out shortcuts, and etc; well-hidden secrets, that sometimes go as far as entire areas, then reward player's sense of curiosity. as a byproduct, the games happen to be a bit harder than those where every objective is clearly marked for you

the virtue of these games isn't in being "hard," but in not letting "it might be hard" get in the way of good design decisions, and each game's overall intent

this guy has it spot on, soulsborne games are a hotspot for console normies who struggle understanding how health bars work and thats where all the "difficulty" shit comes from

if you genuinely think dark souls games are that hard then you are just fucking shit at video games, simple as that

Good post

>expressed these sentiments.

Aren't you a bit young to post here?

>Aren't you a bit young to post here?

>Playing DS3 for the first time
>Kept myself spoiler free because I already completed everything else except bloodborne.
>Fight against Iudex Gundyr
>Ah its DS2 all over again with these fucking knights
>Turn into the giant chaos monster, flings me across the area like a wet newspaper
>Scared the shit out of me
I haven't felt like that since the tomb of giants, thanks From.

I wish I still felt like you did. I loved series since DeS and I think DS3 is the best overall but the since exploration and mystery has been lost. In the DS3 and even more so BB I ended up just running through a lot of areas and avoiding fights and skipping items because realistically they wouldn't be worth my time. Most of the time I'm either finding weapons/armor I will never wear or consumables for a few extra souls. I know there is lore to read behind these items but I have never been very interested in Souls Lore.

>playing DS3 for the first time
>hear everyone praising Gundyr and what a great boss he is
>finally encounter him after a while
>20 seconds after i enter his arena he gets glitched in the walls/rocky area and falls to his death

Wow great boss fight scrubs, beat him on my first try and wasn't even that hard

please keep posting. i'm interested to see the size of your fedora folder

>please
>i'm interested

Most of the people who go on about the difficulty are he same types who think there are only specific ways to play the games and if you do anything else it doesn't count.

Of course its not hard, its the first boss. The first boss I died to was pontiff sulyvahn.