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[DJFloppyFish]

bosses can my favorite part of the souls games when they're done well, even better when a good level has a great boss. anor londo is like the ultimate souls level to me for that reason

ds3 sorta suffers in world layout, as does bborne. I guess it's not really feasible to have a good difficulty ramp AND lots of different paths to take early on, but I really miss the DS1's major fork of getting the four lord souls and DS2's rip-off of that early on. someone on this thread once wondered why bborne didn't have the foresty bit act as a central area that flows into others, and i gotta say im a little sad that we didn't get something like that. basically, i want another valley of the drakes. i mean, they already do so many optional areas, might be cool if more optional areas broke progression.

it's worth saying though that dks3 and bloodborne have some of the best levels throughout with very few low-spots, and the tighter focus probably helped with that. even still though, i can criticize something i like.  


edit: lol well this is weirdly relevant, from http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2016/07/08/miyazaki-still-isnt-thinking-dark-souls-bloodborne-sequels/

Miyazaki also looked back on Dark Souls 3’s development, saying he thinks there was room for improvements with the map design. While he believes they’re well-suited for exploration considering how much bigger they are this time, he also feels “that the way the maps connected to each other was a bit weak, narrowing the level of freedom in relation to the order in which players could face the game.”

[s0]

Well the dlcs should at least slightly alleviate the problem of getting stumped on bosses and having nowhere else to go, if the entrances to the new areas are smartly placed.

[tortoiseandcrow]

I remember entering the Profaned Capital and hoping that I'd pop out underneath Lothric. Real lost opportunity there for some interesting map connectivity there, I think.

I'm currently replaying Dark Souls 3 with a self-imposed rule saying that I can't use bonfires to warp between locations (excepting Firelink Shrine). I initially did so because I often felt that bonfire warping gave the game a "lightness" that I felt weakened the game, and encouraged laziness. And I think the game does somewhat benefit from this restriction on a thematic level.

In practice, it's a bit of a mixed bag - not being able to hop between bonfires has given me a much greater appreciation for the design of individual areas, but it's really highlighted exactly how linear the connections are between them. It seems like bonfire warping is almost a crutch for the map design, making it feel denser and more interconnected than it actually is.

[s0]

The individual areas are plenty complex tho. Areas like undead settlement and the cathedral are among the most complex and multilayered in the series. I think the "interconnected" world in dks1 is overrated to be honest. yes it's cool to think and talk about but it also means smaller individual levels and some filler to make the world map pan out (valley of drakes, most of darkroot basin for instance). i think bloodborne hit the perfect balance: mostly linear progression, but with some meaningful branches and excellent level design and quite a few optional secrets.

but idk i started out with demons souls so i don't necessarily view the metroidvania layout thing as being essential to the "souls experience".

[tortoiseandcrow]

Certainly! The sheer depth and complexity of individual areas is really accentuated by playing without bonfire warping. There were definitely times in my first playthrough when I just said "screw it" and hopped around from bonfire to bonfire if I wanted to backtrack through a level. Now that I'm having to fight my way from bonfire to bonfire, I've been much more impressed by the intraconnectedness areas like the undead settlement and cathedral this time around than I was on my first playthrough.

Much of my appreciation for Dks1 is tonal. Lordran feels much more like a "place" to me, while Lothric starts off feeling really cohesive but becomes more and more disconnected feeling the further away you get from the castle. The Lothric Castle/Undead Settlement/Road of Sacrifices/Farron Keep/Cathedral sequence in particular feels really great as you loop around in the shadow of the castle.

But part of my issue with the map layout in Dark Souls 3 is structural - it's a largely linear journey away from where the climax is to take place. The narrative loops back on itself a couple times in a way that the map doesn't. The last third of the game in particular feels quite clunky to me as the game has to awkwardly wrench itself back on course. So while I don't think that having an interconnected world is necessary for the "souls experience", I do think that for Dark Souls 3 specifically it would have benefited from a loop or two in its structure to bring the action back for its climax in a more natural way.

By way of comparison, Dks1 is so tightly knotted that you're already looping back through Firelink Shrine multiple times over the course of the game. It has this recursive three act structure that is strongly supported by the map design, so that even by the end when you've got the Lordvessel and can warp between places, you're naturally returning to the spot where the climax is going to take place.

For the sake of clarity, I'm loosely grouping the acts by critical path like this -

Dark Souls
ACT 1: Firelink Shrine (Bell 1 - Upper Undead Burg, Undead Parish -> Firelink Shrine) (Bell 2 - Lower Undead Burg, The Depths, Blighttown -> Firelink Shrine, via New Londo Ruins)
ACT 2: Firelink Shrine, (etc.), Sen's Fortress, Anor Londo -> Warp back to Firelink Shrine
ACT 3: Firelink Shrine, (etc.), Darkroot Garden, New Londo Ruins, Duke's Archives, Crystal Cavern, The Catacombs, Tomb of the Giants, Demon Ruins, Lost Izalith -> Firelink Shrine, Kiln of the First Flame

Dark Souls 3
Act 1: High Wall of Lothric, Undead Settlement, Road of Sacrifices, Cathedral of the Deep, Farron Keep
Act 2: Catacombs of Carthus, Irithyll of the Boreal Valley, Irithyll Dungeon, Profaned Capital
Act 3: Lothric Castle, Grand Archives, Kiln of the First Flame

[s0]

i think lothric is actually just the area in and around the castle (meaning firelink shrine, lothric castle, high wall and settlement), not the world map as a whole. the world map is supposed to cover a lot more ground geographically than lordran. that's why it feels more disconnected. or at least that's my understanding.

i think dks3 does have too many bonfires btw. they should have used 1 checkpoint per area and handle the rest via shortcuts, a la demons souls and bborne. that's why the cathedral is my favorite area: it's structured exactly like that with everything looping back to 1 bonfire (tho theres also the covenant bonfire).

But part of my issue with the map layout in Dark Souls 3 is structural - it's a largely linear journey away from where the climax is to take place. The narrative loops back on itself a couple times in a way that the map doesn't. The last third of the game in particular feels quite clunky to me as the game has to awkwardly wrench itself back on course. So while I don't think that having an interconnected world is necessary for the "souls experience", I do think that for Dark Souls 3 specifically it would have benefited from a loop or two in its structure to bring the action back for its climax in a more natural way.

i don't see how that is different from other souls games though. you probably return to firelink more in dks3 than you did in 1. every souls game except dks2 ends with you returning to the starting area after you've collected a bunch of mcguffins.

[Alevice]

Its funny that a few of the criticism from DkS2 (fast travel, linearity, many bonfires) seem to apply on DkS3 and not many seem to bat an eye. Admittedly, the levels on DkS2 so far for me havent been terribly interesting (except for maybe forest of the fallen giants second bonfire area)

[s0]

it's because the level design in dks3 is much better regardless.

[Alevice]

Yeah, Im not saying which one is the overall better game (or has the better levels) or anything, I just find it funny that those complaining about those didnt complain again on DkS3. Tbh, I like fast travel better, since it let me tackle more than one place at a time in case I am not prepared to handle one of those levels or whatevs.

[tortoiseandcrow]

i don't see how that is different from other souls games though. you probably return to firelink more in dks3 than you did in 1. every souls game except dks2 ends with you returning to the starting area after you've collected a bunch of mcguffins.

The distinction that I see is in the way in which each game is built (or not) to bring you back, not to the starting area, but to the location that is most central to the narrative.

In Dks1, you're physically looped back to firelink after each bell of awakening (via the church elevator and blighttown/new londo ruins), and again by warping after getting the lordvessel and the lord souls. Each time you come back, it reinforces the centrality and importance of firelink. It is the beginning and end of every journey, and is also the site of the climactic battle. This makes sense - the entire game is built around the linking of the fire, and Firelink Shrine is where that happens.

Dks3 isn't built around firelink in the same way. Instead the game is structured as a tightly built linear progression with pit-stops back at Firelink to check in on characters, level up, and stock up on supplies. Firelink is the only location you ever have a natural reason to return to throughout the game, and it is a matter of routine, rather than the conclusion of a journey (except at the very end). Nothing wrong with this, but it is a meaningful difference.

But Dks3 does have a location that transforms and gains in significance after returning to it, and that is Lothric Castle. Lothric Castle is in many ways the unacknowledged core of Dks3, as the narrative revolves less around the linking of the fire, and more around the decay of the institutions meant to maintain and protect the first flame. In Dks1 the act of returning to firelink shrine feels natural and significant because it is central to both the narrative and the map design. In Dks3 returning to Lothric Castle is narratively significant, but being automatically warped there is awkward and jarring from a structural perspective, compared to the smooth flow of the game up until that point.

What I think a lot of people are reacting to when they wax lyrical about Dks1's map design is the way its structure mirrors and supports the flow of the narrative. Dks3, for all its accomplishments and refinements, has a major point of disconnect between the flow of the narrative and the flow of the map. This is why I say that I think that Dks3 would have benefited from a loop in the map, but wouldn't necessarily have been improved by having Dks1's level of interconnectivity.

[s0]

[gimymblert]

Crab? more like crap!
/kill me

[Mark Mayers]

BIG

MEATY

CLAWS

[s0]

Yeah, Im not saying which one is the overall better game (or has the better levels) or anything, I just find it funny that those complaining about those didnt complain again on DkS3. Tbh, I like fast travel better, since it let me tackle more than one place at a time in case I am not prepared to handle one of those levels or whatevs.

i don't think the fast travel is that horrible tbh. i did prefer how dks1 (get fast travel halfway thru the game) and DeS/bloodborne (one checkpoint per area, the rest handled via shortcuts) did it.

there are some odd bonfire placements in dks3. some areas have bonfires extremely close together, mainly because each boss spawns one when you defeat them. there also some bonfires that you basically never need to warp to. but on the whole it's still better than dks2 on that front

[FrankieSmileShow]

I think all the games had a fast travel system that fitted their structure well enough. I don't think any of the games had real problems there.

Demon's Souls was structured as 5 long branches split into levels which you could advance through in almost any order you liked, so it made perfect sense to have you teleport freely between those level junction nodes.

Dark Souls 1 was built as a network of interconnected areas and finding ways around the world was a big part of its initial exploration. It made sense to delay fast travel until about halfway through the game, when it becomes less about discovering the world's shape and more about tying loose ends. The bonfires were very spaced out, with one particular area having no bonfire at all, the new londo ruins, which they probably decided was thematically appropriate and made the area feel all the more daunting. It was also a good idea for another reason: this area being available from the very start of the game, putting a bonfire there would mean players risk running in, sitting at one of them and then being stuck respawning in Ghost Hell, possibly unable to escape. I remember several people saying something similar happened to them in the catacombs.

Dark Souls 2 was built like Demon's Souls in structure, a bunch of different mostly independant paths coming out of a center, and fast travel from the start meant you wernt essentially locked into one path once youve started on it, and could explore elsewhere when stuck. There were sometimes a bit too many of those bonfires, especially compared to Demon's Souls, but a big part of this is because unlike in Demon's Souls, the bonfires here are not all at these obvious area junctions, but are sometimes hidden or otherwise missable. The game does have a few spots with a couple bonfires too many, but many of those were probably for covenant reasons, or were used as "rewards" for clearing certain challenges (like for instance, killing the smelter demon gave you a bonfire close to the branch end boss that did not require you to run through a PVP invasion area (an option which itself was barred by a pharros lockstone, too)

Bloodborne is a bit more tightly wound geographically speaking than Demon's Souls and DS2, but still was essentially quite linear: Bloodborne's open feel is more due to having many optional areas than its actual game sequence, only having one real "intended" sequence option through the whole game as far as I know, basically a Crest of Artorias-like key sort of deal that lets you skip Lower Yarham and the blood-starved beast. Preventing fast travel would have forced players through very tedious backtracking, without really getting much in return.

Dark Souls 3 was more linear than all the other games, so forcing players to make their way through the game by foot after their initial trek would have been a bad idea. I think that game had pretty good bonfire balance, except for a few silly bits where two bonfires are 30 seconds away from one another, but this usually seemed not to be a gameplay tweak, but just something meant to cut off mostly uneventful walking through short transition areas not really meant to be part of either of the connected levels. Killing a boss always spawns a bonfire, so if there is a mostly atmospheric 1 minute walk from this area's end to the next area, its good to have another bonfire right there. A couple of the extra bonfires were also meant to be "exploration rewards", like the hidden one in the village.

I did enjoy DS1's structure more, it fits right into my gameplay preferences around exploration, but I think in all those cases, the fast travel system just fits the rest of the game pretty well.

[s0]

Idk if I've said this before but the progression Demon's Souls is in some ways more "open" than DkS1. One thing I like about it is how it lets you unlock your build's potential very early on if you know what you're doing. If you're a faith build, you get the blessed mace from 5-1, INT builds get the crescent falchion from 4-1 etc. in bborne and dks3 specifically, it can take forever to get good weapons that scale with your primary stat, simply due to the way the items are distributed.

[Tumetsu]

New DLC announced. Ashes of Ariandel, 25th October 2016





Looks like Painted World of Ariamis to me.

[s0]

looks rad to me

[SousaVilla]

So, the new Nioh demo is out on the psn, has anyone tried yet? Since I havent played the first one I'm looking foward to try it out. From what I heard is more punishing than souls, which I dont know if its good or not.

[s0]

To be honest i didn't like the first nioh demo very much at all. Still I think it has a better chance at being good than every other "souls clone" so far, partially bc it's not actually a clone at all.