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10 Changes I Want for the Next Souls Game – Dark Souls 4, Bloodborne 2 or New IP

Ever since FromSoftware redirected their King’s Field energy to the creation of Demon’s Souls, my gaming world was turned upside down. In creating the “Accessible Hardcore Game“, they reverted a market trend of making games too easy – a trend that ten years later is creeping back into the mainstream. The internet is abuzz with criticism of traditional gaming journalists and their apparent inability to explore difficult games, and developers seem to introduce “cruise mode” and helpful difficulty bypasses all the more often.

Demon’s Souls had little to no explanations, a take it or leave it attitude that punished your deaths and rewarded your success, a complex and one direction upgrade system, and possibly the most grindy trophy a game has ever had (ok, I know it’s not but damn, bladestone!). Then came Dark Souls, which introduced the “mid-level checkpoint” bonfire. Then Dark Souls 2, allowing teleportation across the whole world, skipping to NG+ with an item, and resets of your character stats. By went Bloodborne, doing away with NG+ new items and making upgrades and oaths on-the-fly. And last there’s Dark Souls 3, that features the easiest and simplest covenant mechanics in the series, and allows you to opt out of the most difficult bosses.

Of course, the series evolution is not once towards filthy casulness, but to keep the userbase on its toes FromSoftware, Bandai Namco and Sony will likely have to think outside the box and come up with some new tactics. In this article, I explore where I want the series to go based on what I have enjoyed of the game and of other RPGs.

The Next Souls: Dark Souls 4, Bloodborne 2
or a New IP?

TGS 2018 will mark the 10 year anniversary of the announcement of Demon’s Souls. Will there be a remaster? Is Fromsoftware working on Bloodborne 2? Is Dark Souls really “finished”? Or are they doing something completely different with those sneaky “Console, Dark Fantasy, Realistic” artist recruitment? Whatever the case, the formula is beginning to get stale and the fanservice of Dark Souls 3 and recycling of items, spells and equipment has given it all a sense of looping around that needs to be discarded for the next installment.

These are purposefully “out of the box” ideas – that many will think don’t quite belong within a Souls game. But it’s by thinking against the grain that the series has become the success it is now, so let’s encourage exploration of these concepts!

? Little to no “carry over” Items and References

Bloodborne was fantastic on this regard to highlight the absolute elation that discovery of items, gameplay mechanics and secrets brings out in the community. Sony kept its cards close to its chest, divulging tiny amounts of strategic data and preventing leaks quite successfully. This meant that on launch day, thousands of players went on “the hunt” for everything they didn’t know: which was everything!

The game has so many little secrets that lore enthusiast continue to find discussion room on the smallest of details, whilst those observant of gameplay find an obscure enemy not seen since the game’s previews. In contrast, the new life that Dark Souls had, with its “weird crab things” and “OMG my head is an egg, help!” are all but gone for Dark Souls 3, as we all know exactly what items are going to do, and how to praise the sun correctly. Yes, there’s lore and fun and new interesting mechanics, but the basic concepts of the game are by now so drilled into me that I don’t feel I have to stop and read what an item actually does, or do math on how upgrades work, or fool myself thinking Patches isn’t gonna kick me down somewhere.

I want new things, new mechanics and to do away with the familiarity and the extended previews that reveal most things about the game before it’s out. I want to see random anons within the community sharing on forums, social media and personal blogs that they have just found that an item obtained by completing an obscure sequence unlocks a special cutscene or interaction. I want to accidentally put the Darkmoon Seance Ring on and shock myself as a secret door opens nearby.

dark-souls-4-bloodborne-2-wishlisht-fromsoftware

9️⃣ Less Teleporting, more Shortcutting

Whilst I understand the convenience of fast travel, it feels like it negates the beauty of shortcuts to an extent. In Dark Souls 3, there were some cases with bonfires in such close proximity to each other that it made little sense to even light one. It is true that people rush past mobs to get to bosses, making the shortcuts obsolete, but I’d like to see From introduce not a penalty for teleporting but a reward for NOT teleporting.

Imagine if not touching that bonfire increased your souls gained, or your luck, or your primary stat with a zone bonus for each zone you pass through. This could be balanced by having a minimum enemy defeat count for the buff to go into effect. It would reward explorers and role-players, without harming those who just want to get on with it, and perhaps create farming routes that maximize your chances to get those rare drops.

dark-souls-bonfire-map

8️⃣ Permanent or Hurtful Consequences

So, you accidentally smashed Blacksmith Andre on the face when putting your controller down? Hope you’re ready to beat the game without the smith! This actually painful mechanic has been toned down to NPCs politely asking you to stop it. Alongside this, you may swap covenants on the fly for easy jack of all trades covenanting! These convenience mechanics are not always bad, but I would like to see some real consequences and some more dedicated choices aligned with covenants.

Let’s have actual reputation rather than ranks, add our NPC replies and interactions to a reputation pool, and make each covenant give specific bonuses and detriments on a long and impactful scale of 100 tiers. Let’s divide covenants into groups of good, evil or neutral and bind the player to one choice per playthrough. Make angry NPCs send dark spirits against you if you have hurt them, or haunt your bonfires without letting you light them. Bring back the fear of what to reply to that incomprehensible “yes – no” question that was phrased in a triple negative.

dark-souls-alvina

7️⃣ Set Bonuses

Builds in the Souls series have become cookie-cuttered into a simple meta of Stats + Weapon Tier, with a decreasing importance of Armor. I would absolutely love to see Armor Sets becoming a thing, with bonuses that provide unique boosts. Nioh has experimented with this concept, but I think Souls needs to go all the way – right to the 300+ Sets that give Elder Scrolls Online its amazing flexibility.

Let us pick to mix and match 2 piece and 5 piece bonuses, give us level or stat requirements for the most unique ones, and handle twink builds out of the equation by simple application of itemization progression. Let Rings become Sets, and match the bonuses to covenants. In short, apply Special Effects as set bonuses rather than random pieces, and give us all more reason to go hunt down all the armors in the game.

mad_tinkerer_jerkin-eso

6️⃣ Complex Crafting and Transmogrify

I was very sad to see Armor upgrades go, even though the simplified method of Bloodborne allowed for easy defense optimization. I would like to see a return to armor focus, with actual armor upgrade paths that lead to armor sets. Much like Monster Hunter World, let boss gear grant Set Bonuses that we can then tailor to our builds via upgrades, and allow us to go full mystique fashion by implementing the ability to change the appearance of in-game items and fool our PvP opponents.

Give us reasons to go to NG+++++++ or defeat 100 dungeons to obtain the fabled ember that will unlock the final tier of our sets, or provide a new upgrade path, add a gem slot, or grant a passive bonus. Make me ponder if I want to upgrade my Iron Set to Iron Set of Flame or Iron Set of Poison, because I’m not sure if I want the Flamelurker Bonus (+/- 25% Fire Damage) or the Sewer Centipide Bonus (+/- 25% Poison Rate)

dark-souls-upgrades

5️⃣ Nemesis System & Elites

Diablo 3 has a really fun mechanic, where when someone on your friend list dies, they have a chance to generate an Elite monster in your world called “Killer of [Your Friend]“. This enemy appears out of nowhere, even when you’re fighting something else, and can be very challenging depending on your level and what you’re doing. If you defeat the monster, you get a present to send to your friend.

Souls games could benefit from such asynchronous implementations on bloodstains and echoes. Imagine if watching other players die had a chance to spawn an elite, powerful version of whatever killed them, and if you prevail you gave that person a short-term buff such as a health bonus, or granted them a set amount of souls or an upgrade material. Elites could also be randomly applied around the game, where regular enemies gain irregular capabilities but have a +50% chance to drop their rarest loot pool.

 

diablo-3-season

4️⃣ Environmental Effects & Magic

A deepening of the environmental mechanics to give extra strategic thinking to using magic and elemental weapons. Much like Divinity: Original Sin 2, let’s introduce deeper RPG mechanics such as a rain spell so that we can electrocute and stun an entire boss arena. Let us craft or buy our own traps, creating a “trickster” specialization of environmental magic.

This could deepen Magic usage by creating chain reactions of spells. Such a change could lead to the introduction of deeper status effects, making things like Frostbite lead to “Frozen” where enemy cannot move for a full 5 seconds, but incoming damage is reduced. Or add effects like “Warm“, where enemy will catch on fire and burn for +10% more damage.

divinity-environmental-effects

3️⃣ Boss Rush Arena

Bloodborne tried to get here, but the Chalice Dungeons fell short due to a lack of variances and limited loot. If the next Souls game added Set Bonuses, creating the possibility for versatile and on the fly bonus-based builds, we could all enjoy endgame as we adventure through a Boss Rush to get some ultimate loot. This could be done solo and multiplayer, with cosmetic rewards, crafting rewards, and other progression items such as unlocking merchant discounts.

Perhaps such an arena could be represented as something like the Everfall in Dragon’s Dogma – an endgame adventure featuring tougher versions of familiar monsters.

everfall-dragons-dogma

2️⃣ Asynchronous World Events & Bosses

Demon’s Souls experimented with World Tendency and World Tendency Events from the server, but there was some conflict as players would become unable to manipulate their own tendency if online. I propose we could instead benefit from community progression towards a “meta boss” defeat.

Much like the Ur-Dragon in Dragon’s Dogma, let’s have a worldwide weekly counter for Soul of Cinder – each time it’s defeated it discounts a % from the “Meta” boss, and if the community shaves that healthbar clean we all get bonus items of a thematic nature.

dragons-dogma-dragon

1️⃣ Dungeon Master Mode

And finally, my real dream for Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and any Souls game of the future: The ability for players to create their own levels. Imagine if you could have created your own chalice dungeon, plotting what mobs with what skills would wander within, and giving rewards equal to the difficulty of the situation.

Imagine the community questline creations within such, and the lore explorations and expositions we could all enjoy!

Think of the wonderful events we could organize and enjoy, for months and years after game release, indulging in the great creativity the Souls Community has always enjoyed! It would certainly be an immense hook, and this change alone could keep me playing well beyond where I would have moved onto other games.

game-master-mode

So that concludes my portion of brainstorming for From / Sony / Namco. It’s likely they’ll go ahead and do everything completely different than what I outline, but maybe there will be some inspiration to community ideas as above. What do you guys think? Share in the comments!


If you enjoyed this article, you’ll like to read the Things We Want in Bloodborne 2, Art Souls by PrimeraEspada91, or the incredibly insightful translation of the Titanite Slab by Skarekrow13.

 

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75 responses to “10 Changes I Want for the Next Souls Game – Dark Souls 4, Bloodborne 2 or New IP”


  1. It is correct, in my belief, to keep what the soul games did well. Having said that I also believe there is a component missing and that is a purpose beyond finding slabs and trying weapons. Because that’s all I do. What else is there?
    How about a battleground? Larger battles with objectives, complete with pve – both pve objectives that’ll help the team when completed and soldiers to use for cover and back-up.
    I’m enjoying the pvp to an extent but there is something missing. With like 10 vs 10 spells would become more viable and also great weapons. More builds would generally be of greater use, I imagine.

    Main objective could be to take the enemy keep. Minor ones could be forts along the way and some difficult pve camps that needed clearing. Maybe some sneaky stuff like thieving from the enemy keep? That would be fun, to sneak in and steal something!
    A battle could take hours. Something to dedicate yourself to.

    That idea is from WoW Alterac Valley, but I think it fits. Cause then we’d have 1v1 duel, invasions for a bit of random skirmish, and a battle complete with 1v1 encounters, group skirmishes and full-on battle with a lot of participants.

  2. IMO, some of these changes would make Souls too similar to other RPGs (Warcraft/Blizzard, especially). Sets and set bonuses? Transmogrifying? Nemesis enemies? Boss rush? These are all things other games do, and most of them are arbitrary things that have little to no reason to exist from a story/lore viewpoint (why, specifically, does using multiple pieces of one person’s gear give more magical effects than each piece individually?) I like Souls for the things it bravely did that other games were too scared to risk, and I’d rather it continued to stand out that way. Assuming it continues, that is. It’s perfectly fine for a series to end, and dragging it out past that point tends to make it die a slow and horrible death.

    I’d say, focus more on what Souls did well in the first place, and improve in those areas. Covenants were once a much-loved feature of the multiplayer, and now they aren’t. Go back to what made them good and try again, yes? IIRC, most people actually liked the idea of each covenant in DaS2, it’s just that invading was so gimped that it killed the entire experience. Focus more on things like covenant identity, what that covenant’s goals are, and how they work with the player to achieve those goals. For instance, maybe Path of the Dragon is about people fighting each other over Dragon Scales so they can become bigger, stronger dragons. To this end, the player 1v1s other dragon players (or just dragons in PvE) for scales, which they can use to upgrade their dragon dragon weapons, dragon form/armor, or trade at a covenant exclusive merchant who can give you special equipment for dragon scales, which you can then improve by sinking more dragon scales into. Things like new weapons, shields, armor, reusable items, consumable items, spells, and so on. Which, of course, is all in addition to the normal use of giving covenant tokens to gain rank (which I think should give some cosmetic effect as a phantom in addition to the stuff it usually would, like extra glowy auras). This way, there’s always something to spend all those gosh darned Sunlight Medals you keep accumulating but can’t do anything with, and it gives the covenant a distinct look and theme that people can get behind.

    Asynchronous stuff can be cool, and I think DaS1 did that best… but I think it’s also done best when done anonymously. I don’t generally care when someone on my friends list gets killed by a monster who then decides to kill me. That’s not what I think Souls is about. My character is not some important figure of legend, Lordran isn’t out to get any of the people it grinds down to hollows, and it really isn’t about being the hero. It’s about being the last one standing at the end. When I step into a dark and spooky cave and there’s evidence that lots and lots of people died close by, I’m gonna be a bit more cautious than I usually am. And if one or two of those enemies happens to be a bit ghostly and glowing red but the game doesn’t outright explain why, and I’ve only ever seen that particular kind of enemy before in areas where people died frequently, I might start to put the pieces together at some point. It’s the gradual buildup to that final “Aha” moment that I think sums up the Souls experience, at least for me. (Outside the multiplayer, I mean.) When you finally realize why something is happening, and use that to overcome it and dive just a little deeper.

    Beyond that, ehh… I do want reasons to continue playing after beating the game, but I don’t want them to be the same reasons that I play other games. If that’s the case, then why would I even bother playing Souls over anything else? Where’s the newness? The fun? The actual reason to try things I haven’t before? It’s all so much nonsense, the way everything starts to run together and games start doing things because people liked those things in other games, never quite realizing that by copying those other games they’re only becoming inferior, second-rate versions of them instead of being what people started playing them for in the first place. And that’s why old fanbases freak out when a series goes “casual” and starts to look like Skyrim, or Diablo 3, or all the series that don’t exist anymore for precisely that reason, because those games try to appeal to people who aren’t familiar with very many games and haven’t played the ones those new, soulless games are shamelessly imitating. On the other hand, that’s also why old fanbases freak out when an established series suddenly changes its formula, because “I liked this series for reasons X, Y, and Z, but you got rid of it,” i.e. the complete opposite of the previous problem. (Except, apparently it’s okay if you do that but just change the name and call it a new IP, which Fromsoft figured out really quick.)

    I guess I have an unpopular opinion though, so that’s fine. Technically speaking, the dedicated fanbase is always the minority compared to the entire playerbase.

  3. >
    Sorry for double posting but, yes, this is a problem. It’s come to the point where I actually avoid watching trailers for games I know I’ll want. But it’s really hard to avoid getting spoilers. Sometimes the spoiler is in the headline of an article, or the thumbnail of a video somewhere. I think it’s fine to showcase gameplay but pleeease keep story elements close to the chest.

  4. Thanks for the article. I sure do really want to play another Soulsborne game.FromSoft has been mysterious about the 3 games they are working on,

    “So there are several titles that we are currently working on […] Some of those are dark fantasy, some of those could be a mech [game] – that’s one thing. The second thing is that one of the new titles I’ve been working on will probably comply with the expectations from the fans in straightforward manner.

    “The last thing is that another title will probably be a little bit weird. When we actually announce the title, probably fans will react with ‘oh, what the hell is this very weird game that Miyazaki has created?’” – Hidetaka Miyazaki

    But what are they? One might be a new Soulsborne. For now, we must patiently wait.

  5. I’d like to see open-world DkS, yes, but not Assassin’s Creed-like… I really think open world games need to evolve drastically and I really think Ubisoft doesn’t have the answer to that…

    Will do! ^^b

  6. That’s not the point. The marketing for the game was giving out information – and it spread it to the whole community. It killed initial community discovery and it was a shame.

  7. >

    I do believe you have the choice of not viewing that information.
    And things would probably go back to forum threads if you didn’t.

  8. Miyazaki should’ve taken hints from some of the Castlevania games, like SotN. Also, there should’ve been things to keep every playthrough fresh like a hidden ending that gives you the option to start another playthrough normally or one of several tangents. A tangent would have the player doing a new playthrough, but with several twists. Using DS3 for example, when you get to firelink shrine, all of the lords of cinder are present except ludleth and the abyss has corrupted every location. The only way to prevent the abyss from consuming the shrine is to find and kill ludleth for his ashes and bring them back so that a new age of fire can quell the abyss. When you teleport out of the shrine, you will appear at a random bonfire. Old areas are transformed by the abyss and have new enemies, bosses, and items. In this tangent, all bonfires but the one you appeared at will be gone. This is probably the hardest tangent, but it has some of the best items in the game that you can’t find anywhere else. All the covenants will have an interactive object at their location that will transport you to the area where you fought Gundyr (similar to how you touch the painting fragment to go to the painted world of ariandel). There, you will fight a corrupted version of the NPC from where you got the covenant from (for warriors of sunlight, you’ll fight an NPC in sunbro armor). Once you kill the NPC, the covenant will become available in its original location. DLC areas are unaffected. Co-op is strongly encouraged for this tangent.

  9. i dont want only ten changes, i want thousends of them.

    i want something totally new. if i see about similar gameplay/spells/lore next game i will totally freak out. for me it was a really downside that DS3 had so much weapons/arrmor/spells from the previous games.

  10. 10) I wouldn’t say “little to no” but definitely tone it back from DS3’s level of callbacks, and definitely give the new game enough content to forge it’s own identity.

    9) I really like shortcuts, but I think teleporting exists because the vast majority of Souls players just run past enemies after their first few playthroughs. Make running past enemies less viable. (Seriously, what kind of man-eating monsters are going to let you run by without giving chase?) It’s kind of immersion breaking to run past a dozen silver knights guarding Anor Londo and not have them chase you down. I would love to see the face on one of those speed runners who ran past the entirely of Anor Londo’s knights to get to O&S, only to have them enter the fog gate behind them mid fight.

    I’m not sure about granting a passive bonus for having not rested at bonfires. That seems really abuse-able. Just tone back the number of bonfires to the point where we actually feel relief from finding one again.

    I think warping between bonfires needs to still be in the game at some level, but more like DS1 and only allow warping to a fee hub-like bonfires, or just have so few bonfires that warping isn’t that big of a deal.

    8) Agreed.

    7) I don’t know about set bonuses. It feels too game-y.

    6) I don’t know if I would go as far as to have a “crafting” system, but definitely more armor customization.

    As far as this goes, I had an idea of having a separate “enchantment” system. This system would effectively replace infusions. The idea is that you would find or buy “enchantments” and apply them to your gear.

    Enchantments are magical auras that grant a piece of equipment a magical buff. Examples would be “Fire” which would add fire damage to weapons or fire defense to armor or “HP Regen”, which would grant you a small HP regeneration buff while you wore the gear.

    All pieces of equipment would have a number of enchantment slots (possibly no slots for particularly strong pieces of equipment) and an “enchantment affinity” which would determine how powerful the enchantments you placed on that gear would be.

    For example, Havel’s might have no slots due to its already strong stats, but Knights armor may have one or two slots that give you a small effect, while robes would have many slots with stronger affinities.

    It would work like bloodgems, except the power of the effect would be based on the equipment it was attached to.

    5) Sounds cool. I’d make sure to have offline equivalents just so people who play offline can still have the experience. I had an idea for an optional boss that is comprised of all of the souls you have lost throughout your playthrough. If you lost 100K souls, you could go reclaim them from that boss, but the boss’ power would scale with how many souls you had lost.

    4) Just more different magical effects would be nice. A spell that lights the ground on fire for a short duration to dissuade pursuers would be cool.

    3) The ability to pay a chunk of souls to “reform” a boss so you can fight it again would be cool. This way people can’t just farm a boss repeatedly to get a ton of souls.

    2) I’m indifferent here. This feels game-y to me. I prefer group challenges that feel more tangible. Something like raid dungeons that are designed to be handled by multiple players at one time. Imagine running through a dungeon with minibosses for average mobs and have some superboss that you need 3-5 buddies to take down. I would definitely feel more accomplished doing something like that than getting a random gift because the community killed Soul of Cinder 1 million times this week.

    1) Would be cool, but also difficult.

  11. Some great ideas, please keep sharing them! :D

    Also @bobthehollow would you like to translate this? I put it on the translation basket if you have the time! May be a good read for some users.

  12. Things i want mash together
    From Demon
    -story and world tendencies

    From Ds1
    -just enough bonfires

    From Ds2
    -ng+ and below additions
    -adjustments every month to keep pvp fresh
    From BB
    – NO DROPS/Transfers

    i dont mind how they approach the story but something new, abstractness, symbolism, even a new genre with the right mechanics. BB did it right by starting fresh and proves From can do it again. More focus on covenants/pvp/backhistory on characters.

  13. I agree with alot of what has been said here. Ill add my two cents to the mix.
    I always play souls games with a pvp focus and so I would like to see more relevance focused on PVP side of the game. Better covenants is a good way to start, with actual rewarding rewards. I would also like to see a wider variety of weapon classes and types. I’m also interested in seeing new kinds of magic systems in souls games.. we have had the same types since demon souls essentially maybe time for a change.
    Finally what I would really like is if Fromsofts next game not suffer from the poor netcode that has dogged us throughout the series.
    Id love to see Dark Souls 4 or Demon souls 2- not really a huge fan of bloodborne but ill play whatever it is of course.

    Ravnazrael

  14. Good article. If I was to make design changes from DS3 to DS4 I would:
    Change online interaction so you wouldn’t be invaded unless you equip a special item with its own slot. This way you could play online in areas you’ve cleared, casual/new players could do co-op without invaders, and the actual invasions could be more severe when enabled.

    Make covenants with more diversity. Maybe have warring groups like DS3, mad phantoms who kill everyone, enemy ranks who are weakened but the only group who aren’t attacked by npcs, and some sort of treasure hunt to find special chests exclusive to other worlds.

    Make magic more versatile. Allow holding all spells for a short time. More variety in elemental effects and how spells travel. Trap spells like mines etc that last a limited time, to keep them from being OP. None damaging spells like tag target, decoy, sense life through walls a short distance, clouds for visual cover, etc. And target indicators like with bows.

    I second the idea of more shortcuts and less fast travel points. Maybe have save spots and travel spots as separate things. Make the world really feel connected.

    A less rigid system. For example, in DS3 you need specific catalysts for each school of spells that will produce a confused fail animation if you choose the wrong type. This made cycling through a sword, pyro flame and sacred chime in one hand in addition to passing ‘caressing tears’ when choosing attack pyromancies in the spell selection. An ordeal of micromanagement mid battle. Have spells assigned to a catalyst so pyromancies only appear when your flame is out. Or simply make all catalysts support all schools of magic yet be stronger for one type.
    Have big two handed swords and smaller one handed swords; no need for everything to be swappable. Big weapons trade better shield defense for range and power.
    I know DS is extremely customizable with many options for each weapon but it gets to the point of being over-complicated to choose a weapon. I want to choose a bow and have it ready to fire with 2 hands, press the weapon cycle arrow once and be ready to block and dagger, press it again and ultra great sword. Pick my flame and burn things without worrying about accidentally having a miracle selected.

    Have distinct antagonist(s). DS3 has the player running around like a mad wo/man for some vaguely defined ritual. Have greater focus on how Sullivan usurped the throne with the power of the profaned flame and oppresses the people. Give the player a reason to fight. Soul of Cinder was a cool boss fight but random and anticlimactic from a story perspective. The DLCs did a much better job in this area.

  15. Ah….the eternal conundrum of the fault…the weapon or the hand using it? Making information available is fine. Whether or not a player rush to it before even trying is his/her problem.

    I had a dream that one day we would have an Assassin’s creed-like open world in the souls world with the gameplay of FROM soft and the connectivity of an MMO…maybe not just yet though…

  16. >

    How about for those who want to play the game without using a guide, because you know, that’s still a thing.

  17. So what if I share secrets? I didn’t make extended item description videos a whole month before launch.

    The point is that the developers are giving really early access to outlets and people and allow them to stream and share the entire game. Thus we didn’t get to, as a community, discover the game because the way it was promoted was to show us gameplay and secrets.

    Bloodborne had a wiki, the wiki is very useful. Still we, as a community, discovered many things the first weeks of launch because we hadn’t already seen the first fifteen hours of footage a month before, and the game hadn’t leaked online completely. Same with dark souls one.

  18. >

    That still leaves the fact that the person asking for more secrets is the same person about to give everyone else the answers for free.
    Though, this is really more of a general observation than a personal criticism.
    If a developer fills a game with secrets, it leaves the question of who those secrets are for…
    Are they for the general community, the majority of which will use pre-chewed information to track everything down…
    Or are the secrets just for the veteran clique that’s already stoked to hunt them all down before the rest can?

  19. No that’s not what I want. What I am saying is that we all know the game too well by now, dark souls recycles a lot of content and that makes mechanics easy to guess, npc questlines very predictable. And Namco has provided such expanded early access that secrets aren’t secrets. They had put the entire first hour of gameplay up a month before release.

    Bloodborne had only a few leaks and was new, and it wasn’t being streamed a full week before release, so the community could discover things at launch. We have had wikis since demons, but the magic of community discovery didn’t fade away by them, or Bloodborne wouldn’t have been as it was.

    This has nothing to do with the wiki and more to do with pre release streaming and item recycling.

  20. Go off script, chase a unique vision, and ignore what everyone else wants. I’d settle for whatever comes outta that.

  21. >

    You long for a time where there was a constant supply of secrets to uncover.
    And yet wikis can use up that time faster than was ever true for the beginning of video gaming.
    Who still needs to consult that friend who knows that trick to beating that boss, when the wiki has everything?
    The best strategies, the hidden items, they’re made available almost as soon as the game comes out, breaking the mystery.

  22. I’d like the world to be more open. I think… And more traveling, exploration. Not sure of the implications to that.
    I like a solution to the permanent backpedaling going on. It’s hard to be aggressive and that’s too bad. It’s just annoying to always chase people around, and if they don’t want the fight I suppose they could keep running until they got sick of it.
    Feels like some weapons, like great weapons and also greatswords and such, were made to be walked into. I do, all the time, but still they need better offensive options as they’re so slow. They do massive damage but on a good connection (improved connectivity is also on the list, of course) someone can outplay an ultra great weapon completely. Because great weapons just have to swing in your general direction and hope you just stepped in for an attack! I’d like more varied and better attacks for all those weapons I think. Only good weapons are light. They’re the most fun to play wih and against. Great weapons got poor offensive options and to compensate they got overbuffed damage is my opinion.
    The excessive running attacks are also a bit of a problem, but not as large as it is very punishable.

    Afterthought: Why don’t large weapons have a few quick attacks that isn’t a combo but a deterrence from coming to close isntead of this massive damage? I suppose people want real short fights, but I think I’d like a bit longer ones that’s less deadly. But I dunno. I dunno if that would be good. But I’d like to be able to act faster but at the same time don’t destroy my opponent too quickly. I want a more intricate, and yet simple, combat system! Not sure what that means though.

    In all, I think I don’t know what I want actually. I liked this game but I feel I’m missing some good fights because of a few mistakes sometimes. Fights that could’ve been fun to play a bit longer if something silly didn’t happen. So I guess I’m for adding more varied moves to all weapons, improve connectivity, lessen damage overall and compensate with better offensive options at all times, as well as good answers to offenses. Make it harder to defend but more options, maybe…

    I’m very torn on what I want from a game so I’m not sure about any of these wishes but improved connectivity, especially for the spacing game that’s the most interesting part of the whole combat system.

  23. If they ever make Dark Souls Online I’ll be so addicted. I’d love it, personally. The world is great and the dungeons could be epic.

    Some of these changes are much more subtle than appears, for example imagine the cleric set has two piece bonus +1 miracle slot, five piece +3 miracle slot
    That mechanic is already in game from armour with special effects, but we would instead see the bonus from mixing set pieces and create more of them. Could be fun


    Rakuyo

    I don’t follow. We as a community explore and discover. Yes give us more secrets so we continue to explore and discover. Makes perfect sense?

  24. >

    That’s a rather ironic statement coming from a wiki admin.

    Fextralife exists to crack and centralize all that information, making looking through endless threads a thing of the past.

    It seems a little unfair to the developers to ask them to craft hundreds of secrets, if our job is to grind them all up again.

  25. That was actually very good. I’d welcome all of these into their next project, as long as it’s a new IP. If it’s BB2, for instance, it could change the game too drastically. Do you think they could turn their formula into a decent MMO? I’m really curious as to what would come out of it…

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