How Dark Souls (accidentally) Taught You Cowardice

I have it on good authority that the "donating to good causes" challenge run has a really rare achivement associated with it, just trust me www.patreon.com/ArchitectofGames The Entry Level Strategy on twitter is to post vague, ragebaiting comments that inspire arguments, but gamers aren't ready for that conversation 💅 twitter.com/Thefearalcarrot

"Not to call you a coward Master, but sometimes, cowards do survive..." - Starscream.

"And we all know that one guy with the Level 80 Charizard and nothing else" Or...ya know...that player uh...didn't quite figure out you could rearrange the order of his pokemon, so his starter always came out first and...well...got all the xp. Not that I know anything about that.

I also see a lot of sunk cost fallacy (maybe?) with a starting basic "one weapon, one magic spell" is by the time many players get to a new magic/spell, they've already likely dumped several levels worth of upgrades into the original fireball spell and the new magic does negligible damage in comparison. (and it's almost always fireball, isn't it) these other spells might overall be better fully leveled, but since trying out that new spell actually drops the power you have for several levels, so it's not worth it to branch off and experiment with other combinations. frustrating as a player (I want to use this new thing but I can't kill anything with it now so I guess I can't)

Really tired of people making this blanket statement that 'playing with a shield is inherently less fun than other playstyles', like it's just a universal fact that applies to everyone. I enjoy creating a dodgy curved sword(s) build in FromSoft games sometimes. Other times, particularly in DS1&2, I enjoy going the sword and board route. The slow back-and-forth pacing of 'block and attack' is just as fun and engaging to me as any other playstyle - it feels like the combat version of a chess game. Just because you prefer one playstyle doesn't make the others objectively less fun.

For people who aren't competitive by nature, fun is not always related to the feeling of "conquering" something or being the best at doing certain task. Some players will be motivated to master the harder mechanics, while others will still have fun using the safer ones, so it is pretty unfair to say that the "correct" way to play is the difficult, competitive style of playing. It's one of the reasons why so many people feel like not even trying the Souls games: the community keeps telling them that their fun is wrong, and that making things harder for yourself is the only respectable way to play. The fact that one of the Dark Souls fun builds according to you is a "big dumb two-hander", which I find absolutely dull and boring, is an example of why is risky to tell others what is and isn't fun. I'm focusing on the Souls games since they are the ones I've played from the ones that are mentioned in the video, but this applies to every title.

I felt that DS1 taught me the shield had its limits pretty reliably, between the big enemies that don't recoil and chunk off stamina, enemies that grab, and magic/elemental damage. Elden Ring does it better, of course, but it's not like the lessons weren't there at all.

Periodic reminders of a game's skill ceiling are also key. As someone who gets maybe 10hrs/month to play games, there are so many times I've forgotten about a mechanic I learned in a tutorial six months ago. Tips on loading screens, replayable tutorials, and NPCs that demonstrate advanced strats all help

Shields are fun, what's not fun are when some people try to force these arbitrary self imposed rules on others as the "correct" way to play.

As a lifelong board and sworder, Elden Ring gets a ton of credit for adding some depth to what is unironically my favorite playstyle. They get many points for that.

Sir, I actually disagree. Dark Souls gives you a shield at the beginning, but quickly teaches you not to rely on it. By putting you up against bosses who will smash through your shield and stamina (Havel, Gaping Dragon) or by making the shield less effective (against magic, Moonlight Butterfly). Or by making attacking more tedious, because you lack the stamina after a block (Taurus Demon) If you rely on your shield for too long, the game will punish you. Especially in the later areas.

I honestly never disliked the shield strategy in Dark Souls. To me the game has the feeling of really fighting your way out of a really hostile world and I love playing it in a slow methodical way where I abuse every weakness or spatial advantage in my favor. I like that about the game. It's the fantasy of fighting for your life in a kind of post-apocalypse scenario that makes the games so good and turtling behind a shield is part of that fantasy for me. Also sometimes I feel like I'm the only one that has ever tried using the bow and firebombs and stuff..

And then there's my friend, who builds his characters as what he calls the "glass tank" - he doesn't pump health except for what he absolutely needs to survive chip damage. Everything else goes into his encumbrance, stamina, and weapon stats. You will break yourself on his shield and he will crush you beneath it. Or he'll misjudge an opening and get immediately obliterated by an attack as if he were me, the mage who can delete you with one good solid hit but who takes roughly ten generations to land it. His strategy is to just sidestep and block and he's a right terror because of it. Mine is to hope you never get near me. Neither playstyle is "inherently" more fun because what makes his fun for him is the fact that if they could merely break his guard, they'd win...And mine is that I have an ocean of mana instead of HP and a really good sense of distance and timing on my spells. I don't enjoy his style, and he doesn't enjoy mine.

oh no not this again. shield is a totally valid way to experience the game, primarily on the first playthrough (the most important one) and the game would have a very different feel without it. sekiro and bloodborne work greatly without it but aren't the same game. it adds another layer on the opportunities dynamic and gives more weight to the moments where it doesn't work. also, it would make more harder to people to get into the game.

I've played all the Dark Souls games with every style of build imaginable, and using a medium shield is easily one of the most dynamic and aggressive build options available. It offers a method by which you can safely advance on and attack enemies that you would otherwise have to wait for them to make the opening move, and roll through to get in close, easy access to the parry mechanic, which is maybe the most advanced technique there is in souls, and a more varied move set switching between one and two handed stances, which you aren't really incentivized to do if you are only using a two handed weapon with no shield. This is specially in Elden Ring, where you have access to the shield counter attack. Choosing between 3 defensive options (parry, block and roll) instead of just one depending on what kind of attack you are dealing with is just more interesting inherently. It might be true that hiding behind a great shield and heavy armor and poking with a spear is the slowest, safest way to play these games, but the idea that using any shield at all is passive or boring doesn't hold up under any scrutiny.

7:15 I have actually won a game of Apex with my entire team never damaging anyone. That's mostly because we never found anyone. I assume at the end the other teams where fighting outside the ring and ended up killing each other or something like that.

Fromsoft: Here're an RPG game. You can play however you want. The game is hard, but here a shield so you don't feel too overwhelm on your first playthrough. I'll give several weapon along the way. Try to use it if you want. Dark soul isn't as elitist as people think. Only some fan are.

> Celeste > Gentle difficulty curve Hahah, yes, definitely. Not difficult at all.. 😭

I played Persona 4 recently, and my party members almost never changed from Chie, Youske, and Yikiko. It was a solid healer/damage/support-ish trifecta that didn’t have any major weaknesses. The one time I switched to another character I realized “oh there’s no ability like exp share, so I guess I’m sticking to the original three.” I beat the entire game then with the same 3 people

I'm not really sure if I agree. You've got to manage stamina pretty well to constantly use a shield, which leaves you less to attack with, and you're already using a weapon that's less powerful. If anything, I kind of feel that big swords are the "easy" weapon. They outrange a ton of stuff, deal a ton of damage meaning you can usually kill dudes before they attack, and can hit and run more effectively because of the aforementioned increased range and damage. And if all else fails, you usually do enough damage to just eat hits and heal afterwards. The shield strat works against normal mooks, but often struggles with bosses because they don't flinch and are strong enough to stagger you. This is especially true once you get to boss fights with multiple bosses. And of course, magic is just straight up busted in some of the games. Like Demon's Souls is straight up easy as a mage build.