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[SousaVilla]

I agree that dks2 is probably the most nonlinear of the series, especially after scholar of the first sin made easier to get the unpetrifying branches. With bonfire ascetics you could fight one of the four main bosses several times and even reach drangleic faster (this was used for speedruns of the game in vanilla, dont know how its now) You even have three dlcs with late game content.

But comparing dks 1 and 3 doesnt seem resonable to me. All playthroughs of dks3 seem to go in the same overall direction, while in dks1 I would always try new things, like going for the catacombs or to new londo early, killing queelag before the gargoyles, going to the undead parish through darkroot, etc. At every point in dks1 there were multiple places to go and choices to make, the same is not true for dark souls 3. Other than the dancer skip and the two branches (farron/cathedral and anorlondo/irythil dungeon) which are obligatory anyway, there isnt much choices to make.

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

my argument is basically: power players don't engage with the game in a natural way, and if you go by 'good' players who aren't following builds or doing trick runs the game doesn't actually have near as much going on.

Another way to say that is: the gulf in variety between explicitly trying to game the system as much as possible, vs just playing normally is very significant.

[s0]

i rarely follow builds from a wiki or do trick runs (like low level runs or stuff) and i still take slightly different paths through dark souls 1 every time i play it lol. i actually took the "alternate" route into blighttown on my very first playthrough without realizing it.

also even considering that, the game is still less linear than 3 lol.

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

I've only played 3 once so I'll admit im probably wrong about that

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

anyway the only truly great souls game ive played (so far, havent rly sunk into des yet) is bloodborne

[s0]

usually my build in a souls game is: focus on 1 damage stat (occasionally 2), get a cool looking weapon with good scaling and select armor according to fashion souls criteria.

[s0]

anyway the only truly great souls game ive played (so far, havent rly sunk into des yet) is bloodborne

the only truly great souls game i've played is all of them except maybe dks2.

[s0]

but even dks2 is above 95% of other video games for me. i think it's safe to say that souls games are my favorite games ever.

[SousaVilla]

my argument is basically: power players don't engage with the game in a natural way, and if you go by 'good' players who aren't following builds or doing trick runs the game doesn't actually have near as much going on.

Another way to say that is: the gulf in variety between explicitly trying to game the system as much as possible, vs just playing normally is very significant.

True, but the game was designed to be replayed several times. You have ng cycles, multiple endings, obscure npcs quests, hidden areas, etc. Also, most rpgs are built for replayability, since the game will permit different and unique builds, which most beginners wont bother with. Unless you're playing the game with a guide you're going to miss things and will want to see them, so I gather if you enjoy a souls game you'll replay the game at least once.

Your approach of nonlinearity only accounts for first time players, and ignores the fact that a game may appear linear to a beginner and be nonlinear for someone that has been playing a lot (and vice-versa). Since this is a thread with more than 300 posts about the games, there'll obviously be a tedency to focus on the latter.

But even then your logic doesnt fit. In my first playthrough of dark souls 1 I made all the way to the middle of the catacombs before going to undead burg. I know several "normal" players that did graveyard runs to grab itens and found the zweihander, or did a little exploration in the new londo ruins and found a firekeeper soul, or used the máster key and fought havel before going to the undead parish. Even a "normal" player realizes that they didnt followed the "expected" path and this feels thrilling, because you're always wondering how far can you go, how dangerous the path is, if you're supposed to be there or if there's another place you should have gone first, etc.

Talking about "trick builds" and "challenge runs" is also misleading. Sometimes you just want to be a badass ninja or something, but maybe you only found a good katana later in the game, so when you replay the game you decide to grab it early to make your ninja dreams come true. This is not min-maxing is just a natural consequence of the way rpgs have multiple builds. When I was just a "normal" player in my second playthrough of dark souls 1 I decided to focus on dexterity and to grab an early unchigatana and this changed completely from my first playthrough (heavy shield + heavy sword). This is not power gaming, its just having fun with possibilities, something a lot of beginners also do.

[quantumpotato]

i rarely follow builds from a wiki or do trick runs (like low level runs or stuff) and i still take slightly different paths through dark souls 1 every time i play it lol. i actually took the "alternate" route into blighttown on my very first playthrough without realizing it.

also even considering that, the game is still less linear than 3 lol.

My friend who loaned me DS1 did this as well. I think that's very cool how it can happen.

[Tumetsu]

Back on the build variety and limited gear in early game. It is true that DkS3 suffers from it too. I made sorcerer character some time ago and the only spell I used before reaching Grand Archives was Magic Weapon's variants since most other early spells felt pretty much useless. My friend played as pyromancer and he got relatively soon Chaos Fireball with significant bigger damage output than I. While sorcery hasn't been that interesting in any of souls, I thought it was least fun in DkS3.

[s0]

I did my first dks3 playthrough as a pyro and I completely missed the Izalith area and Karla, i.e. I finished the game without any of the good pyromancies and only got a chaos gem very late.

[The Armorman]

Play Demon's Soul's

[s0]

No

[The Armorman]

[SousaVilla]

On the topic of nonlinearity in the series, all three of the dark souls games mapped: https://www.reddit.com/r/darksouls3/comments/4hf35v/i_mapped_out_how_the_different_areas_and_bosses/

[NuSan]

I made a picture to show how I see world connectivity in From's games :

Basicaly, Demon's souls and Dark souls 2 both use a simple tree with no loops.
Darks Souls 1 and Bloodborne use loops and hubs, but only Dark souls make a real use of it by locking the warp away from the first half of the game.
Darks Souls 3 is the worse (in my opinion) as you can only reach about two paths at the same time, and no loops.
Of course, other things can be important too, like connectivity inside each level. In that regard, Darks Souls 3 is a lot better than Dark Souls 2 levels.

[s0]

i think dks1 has the second weakest level (not world) design after dks2. THERE I SAID IT

[NuSan]

Yeah, DS1 levels had some flaws. Maybe it's nostalgia, but I find those flaws charming. Levels in Bloodborne and DS3 are a lot more refined, but it sometimes feel like a recipe, with shortcuts exactly at the proper place. The levels from the DS3 DLC were a bit less streamlined, so I liked them a lot.

[SousaVilla]

From the same developers of Lords of the Fallen. It looks interesting, but clunky like LotF. Lets hope is going to be better.