Return on Investment: Time and Loss in Dark Souls

Dark Souls is my first encounter with From Software's masochistic brand of Action RPG gameplay. I can see the elements that have made it a critical success, but I don't think it's for me; at least not based on the first few hours worth of frustration.

Why? Time is a finite resource, that's why. I can't get back the two hours and two thousand souls that I just lost to a dragon after finally besting the Taurus Demon. If I invest four hours in a game, I expect to have made four hours worth of progress: not a solid two hours of progress and then an hour and a half trying to consolidate the following thirty minutes' worth of work. Worse yet, what if you fail like I did? At least I made it to Lordran.

Three letter word: begins with R, ends with UN

I may have felt differently if the game held my hand just a little bit. In the opening zone, you are told the basics of combat through a series of text messages, but any abilities outside of attacking and blocking are left for later. The parry system: fair enough, not essential at start-up. Magic and miracles: maybe hit us with that knowledge sooner rather than later (read: I still don't know how to use either).

On the bright side, the punishing combat system is easy to pick up and - as you may have read from others - you only have yourself to blame for your mistakes. A few agonising input errors aside and slaying the undead hordes makes for some addicitive, though painstakingly-paced fun. I say that because if you rush in, you'll be dispatched faster than it will take to utter a four letter word. You have to bait your foes - one-by-one if possible - if you want to survive. Your enemies will take every chance to ambush you and this is at times countered by cryptic messages left by other players. Some of the messages I've seen are plain nonsensical; sure, you only have preset phrases and text to choose from, but what does "Praise the sun" have to do with a fort filled to the brim with murderous skeleton warriors? Stuffed if I know, but when you read "Behind," you'll know your time is at an end.

It may be due to the lack of narrative pretense or perhaps the lack of gore, but I've felt nothing akin to dread in Dark Souls. I've felt acceptance and - at times - agony, but I know what my enemies are here to do. There's no conspiracy running parallel to my character's quest through Lordran, there's no grey area here: survival is the only objective.

Really? You have no interest in killing me? That's refreshing!

It works, but I don't have the time lose the amount of progress I've lost so far again... and again and again. Perhaps in contradiction to my previous statement, I'm opting to start again. I want that Master Key - I hate being taunted by locked doors - and I want a little bit more agility. If the new class and equipment strategy works out for me, maybe I will find the time.

Is anyone else toughing it out with Dark Souls? Any hints?

Tags: Dark Souls

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Gage Lawhon

October 11, 2011

I am currently in the Philippines with the Peace Corps and Dark Souls is one game I've been utterly drooling over. I hope to play it myself come Christmas. I don't have much advice to give outside sharing my plan: roleplay a bit.

Get in the mind of your character- who ARE you? And then play as if you were a real person on a doomed quest. It might put you more in the methodical playstyle that others have advocated for the game. And its just kind of fun.

I'll be looking forward to your future conquests and defeats :D

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Tristan Damen

Thanks, Gage. I'll persist and share more of my tribulations in future.

Jay Henningsen

I mentioned this somewhere else, but the approach I take is that I either explore/advance or I gather souls, but I never do both at the same time. When I'm ready to explore and find the next bonfire or boss, I spend all my souls first so that incidental losses are kept at a minimum.

I started a bunch of new characters as well. What I discovered is that classes with offensive magic like the sorcerer and pyromancer have an easier time in the beginning, but their starting stats make it harder to wield that cool new weapon you just found (especially with the sorcerer.) I wanted to be able to wield nearly anything I found, so I started over as a warrior and that ended up being my favorite character so far. Plus, you really only have to clear the first two areas after the tutorial (undead burg, undead parish) before you can find someone to sell you spells. Once you've done these a few times, it's not that big of a deal.

With the gigantic bosses (and even some larger, non-boss or mini-boss enemies) that kill you outright in one or two hits, this is often true no matter how much armor you're wearing. Consequently, it actually makes the fight easier if you take off all your armor (you can keep your shield), because you'll be much faster and more manuverable. This is especially true of the Asylum demon in the tutorial area. If you're an armored melee character (like the knight or the warrior), taking off your armor makes the fight 10X easier, because you can essentially stay behind him/away from his weapon the whole time.

As far as tension, I got tense after a few boss kills and wandering through the next area for nearly 30 minutes before finding another bonfire, especially after nearly stumbling into a few black knights and other non-normal enemies.

General hints: take it slow and explore around every corner and smash every breakable object. There are many shortcuts you'll find that link far away areas to more accessible locations that will make your life easier if you find them. There are vendors that sell you useful items that are sometimes in hidden/hard to find locations. If a vendor sells a key, buy it before you go much further.

If you get to the point where you know the path to a boss from the closest bonfire and you're sick of killing your way there over and over, you can often run right past the enemies and you're safe once you traverse the white light.

Thanks, Jay. There's a whole post worth of hints right there! Consider me naked for the next boss fight lolololol

Rob Savillo

October 14, 2011

Interesting thoughts! Dark Souls does something that I feel may be alien to many players (and Demon's Souls did this, too): Progress is not necessarily measured in the number of souls you hold or the level of your character. Progess isn't even necessarily measured in how far you've traversed this digital landscape.

Progress is instead best measured in your personal growth as a player, i.e., your familiarity with the controls, how your character moves and reacts, how enemies move and react, etc. These observations and "lessons" (for lack of a better term) should teach you to be able to read new encounters without having to trial-and-error your way through. And when you best a dangerous situation on your first try based on past knowledge from other aspects of the game, that's a truly satisfying experience.

I hope you stick with the game! There's nothing else quite like it in this day and age.

October 16, 2011

I'm not quite done with it. Finally got the Drake Sword, so the grinding will be a wee bit easier. I appreciate your perspective on this monster: should make the setbacks a little easier to suffer.