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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
75 responses to “10 Changes I Want for the Next Souls Game – Dark Souls 4, Bloodborne 2 or New IP”
I want a refined Bloodborne formula using Dark Souls 3 netcode.
Bloodborne could have been a game to play for years on end…but thanks to the worst netcode in video gaming history, it is simply impossible to enjoy a half decent PvP session even with your adversary sitting in the same room as you!
The main improvement that FROM could do to its formula is this:
keep the bloody Peer to peer formula because it is so infinitely better than servers in texas for 95,6% of the world population (you know, the part who did not elect this tretarded blond aberration of an excuse of democratically elected clown) but please inforce a selection option on the amount of tolerable latency between peers….this would certainly mean longer search times to calibrate lots of peers together before pairing them for matches but in the end it woudl mean that instead of having only cross region yay or nay option, you could actually rule out terrible nodes out of the equation even if they are in the same “region” (yes, I play PS4)
in fact, since I moved back to australia, I realized a few things:
1) bloodborne cannot qualify as a multiplayer game at all(*it was already in jeopardy when I played it in canada but now I know: it has the worst netcode known to date.
2) dark souls 3 somehow manages to make it possible to play even when you live on Mars like me. and when you do, you know a few things:
a) Australia has a clearly favored connection to Europe over the US. I can occasionally find players in Germany or France who have an actually good internet connection and who coudl be living withing a 1000 miles from me…probaly all the people who never moved further than their little country’s boundaries cannot understand what this means but try hard nonetheless.
b) Japan has the worst connection know to mankind with Australia (I did not feel like HJapanese players were lagging so insanely badly in Canada but here…despite being so much closer to them…they could live on Jupiter for all I know)
based on this, the MAIN IMPROVEMENT FROM CAN DO IS IMPLEMENTING A PING FILTER IN THEIR NEXT GAME WHILE RETAINING THEIR P2P FORMULA
While creating a dungeon in Dark Souls / Bloodborne sounds amazing, and I’d totally want that in the game, I doubt every creator will take it seriously. Imagine how many creations there will be just filling small rooms to the brim with monsters that build up a status effect.
Nonetheless, however, I really think that idea alone is neat, and while I don’t think they’re going to implement it there’s always room to dream of the possibilities. I just want to make a dungeon where the player has to find all their pieces of gear from chests littered throughout a twisting maze while being stalked by a monster, but the twist is some chests have the armor and weapons they need, and some are mimics, but the player has to make quick decisions to risk it or not or that monster will catch up to them.
I´d really like a boss rush mode, or another mean of fighting already defeated bosses again. Some bosses are a blast to fight and I´d love to go at them multiple times, with different strategies, without having to get into NG+ or creating a new character. They dont even have to give souls or anythign for all I care, but if I want to spend a whole evening parrying the heck out of Champion Gundyr, I should be able to.
Bloodborne´s chalice dungeons were, despite all their flaws, the closest thing we had to this yet. Just take this concept and make the level design less awful or give an option to create a bosses only dungeon, and I could play such a game for months more.
I am currently playing a fresh toon in blood borne and you must admit that low level coop and pvp is much more enjoyable that dks3 because player are not artificially over equipped since you cannot drop stuff in multiplayer
I think this make the game so much purer and enjoyable.
Players who want to twink and grief at least have to work a bit for it instead of getting all the late stuff dropped at their feet from the first 5 min after starting a fresh character (even if password can trivialise the process of playing through the game at low level too but still you have to do it).
The only change I’d like to see is having weapon arts + dual wielding of Dark Souls II (One of the things Dark Souls II actually got right). Although weapon arts were a marvelous addition to the game, I couldn’t help but miss the real dual wielding Dark Souls II provided. The dual weapons were lots of fun though, but no two-handing made some of them almost useless. (Farron Greatsword)
Honestly, if they go towards dungeon crawling (For a Dark Souls game), I’d stick to the trilogy (1, 2, 3)
Nice article. I agree with the less bonfire criticism.
The biggest things l’d like to see in a new Souls game are:
1. Reworked Magic system.
–All spells able to be cast by any catalyst. Less Catalysts but more focus. Staffs for damage and melee potential. Chimes for healing and poise casts, with lower damage. Flames for cast speed and no weight req.
–Ability to map specific spells to R1/R2/L1/L2 for specific Catalysts.
–No more Ashen estus. Make spells cost stamina only.
–Better tracking for spells without the need to lock on targets. As well as no ability to avoid by strafing. Roll or block only.
2. A cohesive story with a quest progression that cannot be broken easily.
–I long to see more purpose and additional life given to the locations so that I know why they are there and what makes them tick. Why do I go there next? What’s the point of the narrative? One of the cool things in DS3 is the Giant who throws the spears. That gave a nice character to the world. But, I don’t know why he was there. I also don’t know why he so easily allies with me. Souls games could use that extra bit of story telling and narrative that ties it all together and makes it more believable and immersive.
3. Perhaps Souls should get away entirely from the leveling up aspect?
–Make your character stronger by equipment/items/spells alone. Get rid of level caps and people shooting for certain level ranges. Make each starting class have more of a factor into how you will play the game. If you want souls to still level up in some way (instead of just being currency) give each class a skill tree progression that replaces or adds to the “Ring” mini-game.
>
Regarding this, I would either like to see:
– a soft level cap. That means there are certain level thresholds which give some kinds of bonus as long as you are underneath them. So you can keep leveling up if you like, but there would be an incentive not to in order to get whatever reward that grants.
– just open up level scaling for non-password play. Could be opt in or opt out, but just flip a switch to be able to coop with anybody that put a sign down in exchange for them gettign scaled down approprietly (also, maybe improve the scaling down system a bit).
Things I want:
1) Alignment system, something like Dark, Light and Neutral for DS game. For a BB sequel it could be Classic Hunter, Beast/Blood Addicted and Church. I agree it would be cool to tie covenants to alignment by giving each 3 covenants. But the main function would be to: (a) tie consequences in the game to your alignment. Killing a friendly NPC could make you dark, refusing to help someone could make you neutral. NPCs would react differently to your alignment. (b) Some spells/items could be tied to alignment. Going dark would debuff or even forbid miracles of light alignment gods but would unlock the dark miracles. (c) make a different ending for each alignment, including who’s the last boss is.
2) A class ‘perk’ system that forces players to commit to certain play styles aside from stats allocation. In Dark Souls what I thought was to have separate Ring and Amulet slots. Amulets would be the situational stuff that everyone will occasionally need, like damage type resistances and less falling damage. Rings would be more “build around” and integral to your character like DS3’s spell caster rings, Hornet Ring and so on. Make Rings upgradable and limit the amount of materials so that in the end players will only use a few rings to great effect. This would add a extra customisation layer to the game while also letting everyone try all the ‘perks’.
3) Limit the number of consumables you may carry. I love in the beginning of the game when you are poor and don’t have unlimited antidotes to heal all the poison, unlimited arrows to snipe monsters at will and unlimited resin to keep your weapon buffed all the time. But then by halfway through the game you usually have so much souls/echoes (specially if you coop a lot) that scarcity is never a issue and healing poisons, repairing equipment and all this feels more like a nuisance than a actual game mechanic. I think a system like Monster Hunter where you must choose all your consumables and have limited slots for then is pretty cool to keep the feeling of limited resources and would fit soul series very well.
4) A better end-game. Sometimes in these games you get stuff by the very end and feels like you don’t have enough content left to enjoy your new found weapons/spells. And the community have shown they have interest in keep playing the game after they beat the final boss, so it makes sense this should drawn more “investment”. Some end-game options could be:
(a) A reworked chalice dungeons. Personally I think there shouldn’t be any fixed levels as playing procedural levels should be the whole point of the exercise. Also I think each chalice run should have been done at once, like a true rogue-lite game. You can’t rest to replenish potions, you can’t leave and dying ends the run.
(b) Reworked NG+. I was thinking a very cool covenant would be one that you join at the beginning of NG+ if you end the game in the ‘dark lord’ final. If you join this covenant the world could be darker in some sense and instead of kindling bonfires you destroy then. The objective of the covenant is to destroy all the bonfires meaning you need to make a NG+ run without resting, dying and farming, like a ironman challenge run. They could rebalance this challenge by giving a estus refill whenever you destroy a bonfire and letting you level up on the destroyed bonfire spot. Reputation would be given based on how far you can get in this mod.
(c) Weekly hunts, Every week select one or a few maps to be invaded by a chaos beast or something. This map would be like the original but maybe would get a few extra mobs and would be incredibly hard and you would have to play as human. I think this sort of thing would be pretty great to make everyone play on the same map. It would give the community a focus when after a while there’s a lot of players playing but in widely different level ranges and in different places so coop gets thin.
5) A polemic wish, I know, but I would like a level cap. Again, I hate how the community tends to dissipate over time because everyone ends up playing in different level ranges and such. I think level caps would help keep coopers together, would make NG+ a actual challenge and would work in favor of build diversity.
I’d certainly never want another FS game with the ridiculous teleporting system the BB had. For the purposes of endgame coop and farming, the extensive system of DS3 is what kept me playing, being able to move to spots I wanted to coop in with ease. But I would be willing to meet you part way with this: A system just as extensive, but with a caveat – lighting a fire requires a world item which you can find, and be selective about using, because of either rarity, or difficulty in obtaining somehow.
For me, though, there is one thing I’ve always wished Souls had: a summon-queue priority system. Put simply, a way for those who “pay it forward” to take a priority position in the queue for summons. If you drop a sign and help someone, then need help, you’ll get a bump over someone who just wanders by and wants to pick up a sign without helping anyone else.
I think the most heated arguments I’ve seen were in the political thread, and even then it was mostly well thought out arguments and education on view points.
As for the Dungeon Master idea, it could be something like Mario Maker handled the user created levels. You make a level and then have to complete it yourself to share it, so it keeps the impossible to finish ones from being used to troll. There’s still impossibly difficult levels that require pinpoint timing and professional skill to finish, but they can be completed.
I’d really like a Demon’s Souls remake. I haven’t played that one, and I’d like to experience it.
Yeah, we don’t actually hate each other here. I’m probably the biggest source of drama in the forum, and even that’s only on a really bad day.
Anyways, back to the topic…
Thinking about it more, if they were to remake Demon’s Souls, I would want one single change: make the Moon infusion scale with both Magic and Faith, instead of only Faith. Like the Quality infusion, it’s the only other upgrade available to both the hardstone and sharpstone trees, but unlike Quality it doesn’t use both stats. Hardstone is Strength (Crushing) and Faith (Blessed), while sharpstone is Dexterity (Sharp) and Magic (Crescent) (it’s surprising how no one notices this). Quality crosses both trees to be Strength+Dexterity, while Moon crosses both trees to be… only Magic? That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. It also doesn’t help that there’s only one weapon in the game with dual Magic+Faith scaling, and it’s the Blueblood Sword (primarily Luck scaling).
Ehh… and maybe add a sorcery catalyst that gets Luck scaling. If only so Luck has a teensy bit more than one single weapon and nothing else going for it. With the way spells don’t have stat requirements in Demon’s Souls, such a thing might actually work out better than it does in Dark Souls 3. You could go just Intelligence for MP and sorcery slots, then Luck for sorcery damage. On that note, with the way Intelligence gives sorcery-restricted slots in DeS, an alt-scaling miracle catalyst wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense. You’d still need points in Faith to get miracle slots, even though the miracles themselves might not have any Faith requirements, and then you’d need points in Intelligence on top of that for the MP. And on that note, a Faith-scaling sorcery catalyst would just be weird, since you’d be running around with full power miracles and sorcery for half the investment. But a Luck staff? Makes good enough sense, at least in comparison.
Oh, why not go for broke. If they remake Demon’s Souls, I’d love to see a DLC. Is that asking for too much? So, I guess that’s all the changes I’d want to see in a remake: remove spellswap (running Firestorm), remove the various duplication glitches, make the Moon upgrade scale with both Magic and Faith, and maybe (not necessary) add a Luck-scaling sorcery catalyst so Luck builds have a little more variety. Then, DLC. It’d be especially nice if any additional content were sold with the game itself instead of separately since it’s so old and all and they’re supposed to give me incentives to buy the game a second time, but perhaps that may be too much to ask for in this day and age.
>
You argue with your family, then you get up the next day and have breakfast together as if nothing
>
Where’s the hate, sister! You are the keeper of the flame, after all 😉
Nah, just joking. It’s just embarrassing.
Fights like that are for Reddit, people can’t go full aggro within the fexus
I am a strong proponent of community made content, that’s where the muscle are if anyone ever executed it well enough.
Anyways, I’ve been waiting for the VIP flame war to commence! When will we see real salt in here!? Got the popcorn ready so I’m a bit disappointed there’s no actual tension 😐
>
If they wanted to prevent user-made farm dungeons, all they’d have to do is randomize bosses and chest/sarcophagus loot. The player can fiddle with the floor plan however they like, but they wouldn’t be able to guarantee abyssal-rank bloodtinge gems or whatnot by putting depth 5 layer 4 bloodstarved beasts on every floor. Plus, it gives the dungeon’s creators a surprise if they ever go through it themselves.
Nothing says a player couldn’t keep re-rolling a specific floor plan until all the variables lined up perfectly, of course, but they can already do that with fully randomized dungeons anyways. Sure, there’d probably be too many empty dungeons to count, but there’d be just as many troll dungeons stuffed to the gills with spider maidens and summoner witches.
>
Hadn’t seen that reply at the time. Sorry. I think the problem here is that Dark Souls rely heavily on environmental storytelling, and how/when/why/where you do that plays a part in it. I agree that adding a climbing-like mechanic could be interesting, but it could not entail the same level of freedom regarding terrain traversal as seen in Assassin’s Creed, as it would probably diminish de dev team’s ability to leverage the environment for storytelling (imo). It would probably be very difficult to pull it off adequately if you look at it from this perspective.
>
I’d love to see this as well. I’d probably sink a good couple of years in it. But I’m kind of “scarred” by Bethesda in this aspect, so if it were ever implemented, I’d like them to take the time to develop efficient and streamlined tools, unlike the ones I have dabbled with before. Also, they would have to make sure not to allow game braking farming of any sort, as it sometimes happens when such features are implemented in online games.
Very valid points, to be sure. On the other hand, I can’t imagine needing a 27% (was that the max DMG%) cursed gem in order to get a trophy. The horror!
>
I might have two possible answers for those.
For sharpstone and things like proofs, those were connected to trophies, so the chore of getting them was something the players who wanted platinums would inevitably need to go through. For vials/grass, you only really run out of those when you’re new and haven’t learned dodge timing yet, and being bad at dodging meant you tended to drop and/or lose your bloodstain a lot. And vials/grass are cheap, but not free. So, instead of being able to simply buy more healing items, new players needed to farm them instead.
For gems, the common complaint was actually that they made PvP too short and easy, and many fight clubs and tournaments tended to not allow gems for that reason. So, there wasn’t a whole lot of incentive to get them except for the sake of having them, or if you just liked random invasions. Or as a side effect of really liking chalice dungeons, which some people do.
I always found it interesring that people complained about farming grass/blood vials/ pure sharpstone but not about the perfect cursed blood gem. Then again these are much more connected to PvP (you really don’t need them in PvE) and I suppose they are easier to find with an online component which I lack (I am mostly a single player fan with odd stints of co-op on PS3), so what do I know.
That being said, as fine tuned as they try these games to be for competitive PvP (patching “broken” weapons and spells well after the games are out), leaving the highest level of damage dealing to the RNG gods doesn’t sit well with me since From is always looking after the tiniest detail and how they sinergise with each other.
Agreed the implementation of the gems was poor, although there are a lot of people that farm them, going by the incredibly long lasting traffic to such guides.
Overall, I think any upcoming game might be better served with a clearer separation of pve and pvp roles, which would allow for Better balancing on both ends. Perhaps some sort of pvp progression system in an arena and rewards gear that works vs players rather than mobs, etc.
I’ve always had the unpopular opinion that pvp should be opt in, but coop should be allowed anyway. I can beat the game by myself, but I like playing with cas and others more, but it’s such a drag when you have to chase around an invader or get killed in an ambush and then have to wait around to find your friends signs again.
If there is to be a farm for items, like gems, it needs to be interesting in more ways than just getting gems. I could not care less for smacking uninteresting mobs to the ground as quickly as possible for hours in order to improve my pvp potential. As an example of a failed farm.
People like different things though and it is usually good to have several ways of acquiring these items.
I disagree, but we are talking in circles because we disagree on a very fundamental level so unlikely to go anywhere further
The difference is that players treated it like an infusion system instead of a gem slot system. As I said before, primary effect or bust. The other, randomized properties added nothing at all to the game. So, in practice, it was an infusion system that tried (and failed) to be a gem system.
If you are going to a restaurant for the main dish and care not at all for the dessert, then it sounds to me like that restaurant could drop the desserts entirely and it wouldn’t affect your patronage. In fact, if they took the time/effort spent on dessert and applied it to improving those main courses, you’d like the place better. Desserts are fine and all, but not every restaurant needs to serve them. Restaurants have different themes, and the most successful ones endeavor to offer the customer a dining experience they can’t get from other places. This is generally considered a good thing, you know. If all dining places tried to do everything, then there’d be no reason for more than the one chain to exist.
What you’re saying here, though, goes in line with everything I’ve been saying up to this point. “Let’s take these ideas, and apply them to mechanics/systems that already exist in the game to improve what the game is already good at.” World tendency, character tendency, upgrade systems, chalice dungeons, and sin. The only odd one out is set bonuses, which I’ve always thought were a preposterous, arbitrary thing wherever they appeared. Yes, equipment can have additional bonuses from some magic placed on them or whatever, but how does that translate to more bonuses appearing out of nowhere when you equip other, similar items? It exists only to encourage the player to finish the set, which keeps them playing (so, it’s pretty much just a MMO/Blizzard thing). Transmog… Nah, I don’t think so. None of those examples you gave change the appearance of your equipment, only what state your character seems to be in (human/hollow, host/phantom, male/female). Note that those changes don’t actually affect anything in combat. Souls is very much a game where equipment matters, and if people were running around in PvP pretending to have a perfectly normal longsword and wearing kind of light-ish armor, but in reality were holding a Ringed Knight Straight Sword and stacking poise to the moon, I’d call BS.
The other stuff though: don’t you see? You’re talking about improving either A) what the series is already good at, or B) things the series has tried before. It’s just as I said.
Log in to leave a Comment