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When I said armor, I meant poise, etc.

You don't have to guess at who has what anymore then you have to guess how much range enemies have. Huge hulking enemies will always have "armor" (or poise in DS case) making it imposible for light attacks to break their attacks. Human sized enemies can be interrupted via normal means, giant beasts that are taller and meatier then the player cannot. It's fairly logical and consistent across all 4 titles.



Nuh uh! when you get hit in an stg, you blow up and explode and stuff. When you shoot an enemy in an stg, some of them *gasp* have more hp, and don't explode! They don't even get flinched or have to wait a second to move again like the player! Totally bullshit, they play by completely different rules.



No, it's the same as in Dark Souls. You just watch your enemies and poke/punish at the right times. I fight armored enemies in Demon's the same say I fight high-poise enemies in Dark Souls, and most enemies with high poise/armor are different from eachother anyway and require different tactics, etc.

I don't know why I ever gave you another chance. Just as it seems like maybe you're willing to have a semi-intelligent discussion, you devolve into false equivalencies and missing the point as usual. Poise and armor aren't the same, they may as well be considered opposites. And you clearly do not understand what it means for enemies to exist outside of the player's limitations, otherwise you wouldn't have made such an asinine comparison.

What can I expect from a guy who thinks CPS games being internally rendered at 12:7 means that they were made to be played in 16:9? You're about as clueless as they come.

Ah yes, as soon as you can't make an intelligent response, it's back to "damn you are so dumb, I can't argue with you".

You can't argue because you're wrong.



Poise that can't be broken, as it is for many builds, and hyper armor are effectively the same.

If I have a light build and don't have enough strength to break poise, then an enemies attacks can never be interrupted.

If an enemy has hyper armor, then they're attacks can never be interrupted.

The result is the same.

The only difference is that in Dark Souls you have some options for breaking enemies poise, but they are limited based on how you build your character and what type of enemy you are fighting. They are not available to all playstyles.



No, you don't. The enemies are designed around the player. The fact that giant enemies have differnt attributes from humanoid entities and thus "play by different rules" means nothing: what's important is that they are both balanced around the player and telegraphed. Which they are.

Saying "I hate Demon's Souls because I can't break the poise of a giant monster" is silly. The monster was designed to be fought differently then the rest of the enemies. IT's abilities are logical given it's nature. It's abilities are telegraphed by it's form. It's abilities were balanced to be 100% consistently overcome by players who take advantage of its natural tactical weaknesses. There is no problem other then an extremely subjective "it would make me feel better if I had this extra option". Yes, extra options are nice, but in this case it's far from a deal breaker.

Does every single thing in the game universe need to play by the same rules as the player? As long as they are balanced, they do not. Not everything can work by the same rules as the player. A trap door is just as much an obstacle as a monster, but both cannot "play by the same rules". A giant monster having different attributes for its moves (in this case, hyper armor) is not an unpardonable sin: it's something that makes the monster different, and whether it's good or bad depends on how its executed (balancing, telegraphing, consistency, etc.)



For a moment, I was thinking you were a decent person whom one could have a friendly discussion with. Guess I was wrong.

That is a pretty effing big difference. It gives the game an entire dimension that is absent from its predecessor. Of course it depends on how you build your character, but that's hardly a bad thing considering the stat-based nature of the game. You can at least account for how you'll be able to tackle larger enemies beyond assuming that they will probably be able to eat through your attacks and equipping a heavy weapon/rolling around like a moron. "Extra options" are more than just nice, they create the variety necessary to make a deeper game.

They do, but it's purely on the large scale of what many different players will pick ultimately. If you're playing a light build, as I said, then you're essentially playing the same combat scheme as demon's souls against them, since you can't break their poise. There is nothing wrong with this because the enemies were designed to be fun when fighting both ways.

Personally, I do enjoy the David Vs Goliath style of dancing around larger foes in the classic speed vs strength battle. There's nothing really wrong with that playstyle, and many action games in the past have done similar match ups with armored enemies (compare, for example, fighting the non-armored Razor Claws and Mad Predator boss's, vs the armored Power Loader and Alien Queen boss's in Capcom's Alien Vs Predator). Again "plays by different rules" is a really subjective and weird complaint. If every enemy played by the same exact rules, they'd all be some variation of the same knight and would have to have similar movesets and attributes to avoid being stunlocked. Huge hulking enemies would have to have massively faster attacks, would play the same as normal sized enemies, and that bit of strategic variety would be lost. An enemy having different attributes is perfectly fine and possibly even a good thing depending on whether it's properly balanced, telegraphed, etc.

Poise is a good thing, but saying that having to fight enemies in a different way then breaking poise is really subjective. There's nothing inhernetly wrong with the way Demon's Souls handles it. Lots of games have enemies who have different armor/hyper armor/poise/whatever properties for different enemy types, and there's nothing wrong with it in those games either. Dark Souls is just better in that regard because it gives more options to heavier weapons. But for light weapons and dexterity builds (imo where the game shines) Demon's and Dark both work perfectly fine for fighting armored/high-poise enemies because the enemies are properly balanced.

Also one last post to clarify this "outside the players limitation" thing.

An enemy being able to do something the player can't do (in this case, a hyper armor equipped attack) is completely fine from a game design perspective. Unless it's a straight up mirror match, all enemies can do things the player can't, to an extent. Some have more unique abilities then others. Some enemies in some games can flip gravity or clone themselves or run up walls. Hyper armor, and any other enemy unique ability is fine so long as it's well balanced, telegraphed, intelligently applied, etc.

What would be the problem is if enemies could abuse those unique attributes and abilities. If an enemy had a near instantaneous attack that was armored, and completely random, relegating the fight to luck. That would be a problem, because the enemy has something the player has no way to deal with. That would be beyond the players "limitations".

Another example would be if dealing with the enemy attribute caused other problems, such as making the fight repetitive (ie you have to do the same thing over and over to beat them) or slowed down the pace of the game so that that enemy took way too long to kill, etc.

This isn't the case in Demon's Souls. There are multiple ways to fight armored enemies (ranged attacks, poking before their slower attacks wind up, waiting for them to attack and punishing, getting behind them or to their sides to attack blind spots, etc. etc.), which partly come from the fact that these enemies also have unique weaknesses to balance out their unique strengths (slower, less mobility, longer attack start up, longer attack recovery, etc.). As for pace, most of them don't last any longer then you would expect a slightly larger and stronger singular opponent to last. They are certainly not luck based either!

So yes, the enemies in Demon's Souls are not outside the players limitations. They can do things the player cannot do, as countless enemies across almost all action games can, but they are fine due to balancing etc. etc. Poise is an overall improvement that adds more to the games, but there's no philosophical issue with "enemies being outside player limitations" in Demon's Souls.

You are only making this even more obvious that you do not get what I am saying. I am not asking for all different enemy types to have the same capabilities; that's not only impossible, but undesirable. What I do want are enemies that offer a variety of different challenges, but don't resort to doing things that go against the logic of the game.

In Dark Souls you have a stat that determines your ability to both guard against and beat heavy attacks. You can build your character around this and plan your fights around this. From the beginning of the game you know this, and your understanding of how it works can be used to your advantage.

In Demon's Souls, there's a hyper armor attribute on certain enemy attacks that you can potentially guess is there, but you don't really know until you try to beat it. It basically forces trial and error, and there are only a few ways to beat it anyways. This reduces variety in playstyle and forces you to put yourself in a bad situation even if you're a good player.

If the enemies in Demon's Souls followed the same logic that you do, you wouldn't have to worry about this because you could beat enemy attacks by simply playing well and correctly timing your attacks. As long as your build supports it, this is the case in Dark Souls. But this could not be any further from the case in Demon's Souls, where your ability to beat hyper armor is determined solely by the weapon you have. This is not to say that you can't beat enemies with hyper armor in any other way, but you can't deny that Dark Soul's approach to this allows for more variety in strategy. The reason it does this is not just because you have a poise stat, but because your enemies do, as well; you can estimate just by looking at an enemy how well they will resist strikes and be right most of the time, without having to worry about whether or not they can just tell you to eat shit.

It's so much more intuitive to have a stat you can keep in the back of your mind while playing rather than a move property that is basically arbitrary. It creates a more balanced game with more variety, and as a result, more depth.

Okay, good. Now we're on two completely different (and more relevant) issues then the "limitations" thing: telegraphing and strategic variety.

For telegraphing, I actually think the telegraphing is fine. Enemies hyper armor is telegraphed by their size and girth as well as the massively longer start up of their attacks. I would argue there's no more trial and error involved with understanding who has hyper armor and who doesn't then any other aspect of Souls combat. You could argue that knowing which attacks will do the most chip damage (and kill you as a result) or which will break guard, or which will possibly track your dodge roll more, are all just as much trial and error if not more.

As for strategic variety, it is true that Poise increases the variety for overall playstyle, allowing heavy, slow weapons an ability to fight these enemies better. But again: From the perspective of a normal-light weapons build, having these hyper armored enemies present in the game results in more variety then if these enemies were excised altogether. Because, when using normal-light weapons, these enemies are perfectly well balanced (IMO) and are fought differently from other enemies, thus providing more strategic variety. Again, I can't speak for heavy weapons, but with normal-light, there are also a variety of ways you can fight these enemies, from abusing their mobility, to abusing blind spots, to simply poking them when they are safely in "neutral" states and punishing wiffs.

Again, I acknowledge poise is a better option due to the options it gives to heavy builds. But hyper armor isn't the completely game breaking "kusoge" bullshit you made it out to be in the past. Nor does it completely destroy variety. It just makes heavy weapons less fun against a few enemies But that's hardly a massive deal breaker IMO.



Personally, I find a number impossible to keep track of. Especially considering you don't know what numbers the enemies have either. But again, I play light-normal builds. So it might as well be the same combat engine as DeS to me*.

*don't take this completely literally, I know there are more differences then just that.

I think you're misunderstanding what poise is as a stat. poise isn't a stat you can level up, it's an attribute armour has. wearing armour with high poise just means you can tank through some attacks and not have your attack interrupted. it does not mean you have more of an ability to interrupt other peoples attacks.

no one has come around to what you are saying, you have just back peddled quite a lot. no one ever disagreed that NG may have been / probably was an influence on the souls games. earlier this wasn't your point though, you said souls combat was just NG with added stats - which is just not true.

the things you have said to be the same in NG and souls, i.e. the fact that regular enemies can easily kill you*, could be said to be the same in the armored core games. if anything, once you disregard the actual mechanics of the combat I'd say armored core is more similar to souls than NG. in armored core the regular enemies are just as deadly but this challenge can in some way be circumvented by "levelling up" your mech however this will only work to a certain degree and at some point you will need to raise your own playing skill level or "git gud".



*you've also said that they both force you to block and play defensively but I really disagree with this. in souls blocking is always the third best thing you can do when an enemy attacks you. it's always better to either parry or dodge, the only worse option than blocking is taking the hit.

I like how in Last Raven enemy AI is made that they counter your current mech setup in behaviour/attacks.

Thanks! Except it doesn't change anything about what I said at all, because I knew this already. Whoops.



Your opponent's poise sure does.



I have not backpedaled at all, everything I've said makes perfect sense if you are willing to see it.



You and Blinge were both arguing this exactly, earlier. Don't act like you weren't.



Ideally, you would never have to block in NG, either, but attack recovery and enemy placement makes this more or less impossible to achieve in practice. Thankfully, the game is designed around this and gives you ample ways to defend yourself from this situation with - wait for it - dodges and parries.

That it is more realistic to not be forced to block in Souls just proves that it's easier.

I still don't think you are really understanding what I mean, but at this point this is no longer worth pursuing. At least you can understand why I think poise is a much better solution, even if you aren't really getting what the issue is with hyper armor as it's implemented in Demon's Souls.

Ultimately, I don't care if you or anyone else agrees with what I'm saying. All I ask is that you at least try to understand it.

yes but you do not get told poise of your enemies, so it's exactly the same trial and error guessing game that you were complaining about with hyper armour in demon's souls.



please quote or link to the post where I said this....

Not only can you feasibly guess what kind of poise each enemy has, but you also aren't limited to breaking armor with a heavy weapon. You can also use this consistent rule between player and enemy to your advantage and equip armor with high poise, if you so wish.

so you can't find a quote of me saying ng was not an influence I take it?

I still feel like you're missing the point comparing dark souls and 3d NG, that doesn't mean I think ng is not a possible influence. but as I said earlier it's just guess work trying to claim something as an influence on something else, only the developers can know.

for me the only similarities between the games are a focus on combat where all enemies are dangerous and the use of the third person perspective. it's a possible influence, but not to the point where I would say it was the one over riding influence on the game. and certainly not to the point where I would say souls combat is just NG with stats, as you said earlier.

On the contrary, I think you don't understand the points I've made. You haven't really acknowledged or conceded on pretty much anything said by anyone else. Regardless of how reasonable it is.

I've addressed 3 aspects of the game design around the issue in depth. Telegraphing, strategic variety, and "player limitations". If there is any other aspect of the issue you've been trying to argue that I haven't stated my opinion on or addressed, you haven't communicated it at all. That's your fault, not mine.



I think I could give the very same above advice to you. Try actually trying to understand or accept another persons opinion or point of view instead of throwing your hands up and saying "YOU CLUELESS PLEBEIANS CAN'T UNDERSTAND MY ENLIGHTENED GAME DESIGN WISDOM WHY AM I EVEN TRYING" when somebody won't perfectly agree with your own opinion. Based on some of your responses, you've drastically misconstrued and misunderstood a few of my posts at this point, as well as responded rudely, so if anything I should be the one demanding understanding right now.

There are some objective elements, but game design is heavily subjective in many areas. Somebody not agreeing with your particular opinions and preferences does not necessarily count as "not understanding" them.

I don't care if you agree, dude. The problem is when you are clearly not getting what I'm saying and misconstruing it to make it sound like I'm the idiot.

I do have a few other things I'd like to discuss on this particular topic, but your primary interest seems to be in proving me wrong rather than actually trying to get what I'm saying. That you choose to be insufferably asinine about it is only making it worse.

Again, you are the one who does not understand, and cannot respond to half the points made.

If you have anything else to say, say it. Because you haven't communicated anything additional in previous posts, compared to what I've already addressed.



Oh, I'm asinine? Because I tried to argue that a game that I (and everyone else here) likes isn't a worthless "kusoge" as you so eloquently put it? And I'm insufferable because I tried to continue responding politely even after you insulted me?

Grow up.

*edit*

Holy shit, what a fucking stupid thing to say. "your primary interest seems to be proving me wrong rather then trying to get what I'm saying"? Holy shit it's almost like trying to prove the other person wrong is how argument/debate works. It's almost like that's what you've been trying to do to everyone else this whole time, in arguing that a game they like sucks.

I can respond to every last point if I want to, but I am choosing the more important ones on purpose. Maybe you should think about why that is.

I have been more than polite with you dude, it is you (and frankly, everyone else) who is out to antagonize me, not the other way around. I have only ever matched your rudeness in a vain attempt to get things back on topic.

Because it's totally impossible to disagree with someone while simultaneously understanding why they think the way they do. The two are mutually exclusive.

This is exactly what I'm talking about, dude.

I said nothing rude until you called me clueless. A joke about STG logic (which you also "didn't understand") was perhaps the only thing that could be construed as rude, and it was a joke. Your response was completely infuriating and rediculous pretentious (much like many of your other posts, but I did my best to ignore that and give you the benefit of the doubt, up until that point).



No. We have merely been trying to argue that a game we like isn't a "kusoge'. You, on the other hand, have relentlessly argued the point, refused to concede or acknowledge anyone elses point of view, and now, when you can no longer respond cohrently, fall back on "you just don't understand".

No, we understand your posts perfectly. We disagree. Deal with it.

Jokes are supposed to be funny. Moreover, there's a time and a place for everything, and I kept any semblance of joking out of this thread. It's you who is bringing up past arguments.



But also dead accurate, given how angry you've gotten over it. I wouldn't have brought up any past discussions if you hadn't, you only have yourself to blame.



That wasn't even the original discussion at all. You saw an opportunity to put me in a harder situation than I already put myself in and took it. What you didn't count on was me responding.



That's not the root of the issue, and I seriously hope you don't think it is.

Blinge was the only one who responded remotely antagonistically, and perhaps Immyr at some points. But hey, when you say someone's favorite game is basically a rip off of another game ("NG with stats") they *SURPRISE* might not take kindly to it.



Not accurate at all. You completely misunderstood what I meant by the stg reference and then threw up your hands with the pretentious "YOU FOOLISH PLEB CANNOT UNDERSTAND MY ENLIGHTENMENT" from an intellectual high ground which you have done nothing to earn. One that you've been maintaining since the beginning of the thread.

It's clear to me now that your only reason for posting in these threads is to spread your "theories" and then throw a tantrum and tell everyone they just don't understand when everyone understands but disagrees.



Wrong. You referenced Demon's Souls being shit twice in this thread. I let it go the first time, but the second time I felt like responding. I knew you'd respond, because you respond to everything. Except points you can't argue anymore, as this very moment is proof.

On poise you bring up player limitations: I address it. In depth. You ignore.

You then bring up telegraphing and strategic variety, I address both. In depth. You ignore, and then throw out the "you just don't understand" card. You brought up nothing that I did not adress. If there are any other points you wish to make, you have not communicated them. Again, your fault, not mine.

If you have anything else to argue on that point, just spit it out. Like you should have several posts ago. I think you don't though, and simply can't acknowledge the counter-arguments you've received.

All this bullshit could have been avoided if you just said "okay, I get why you're okay with Demon's Souls hyper-armor. It personally still bugs me, but I get where you're coming from". Naw, Demon's Souls is still a kusoge and everyone else "just doesn't understand" what you've been saying.



Oh really, I guess that just makes this even more pretentious then.

I understood it perfectly. I even directly addressed it:



Which you ignored once you realized that you were talking about something else entirely than what I was, and that what you thought I was saying and your piss poor example of it were both stupid.



That still wasn't the original discussion.

It became a part of the discussion the moment you brought it up.



No, I adressed it in depth:



This applies to the (adimttedly exaggerated) stg example. Stg enemies do not "play by the same rules" as the player. They cannot move in the same way the player can. They cannot use bombs like the player can. They can survive more hits then the player can. In some games, they can even do things like change the environment (R-Type, Gradius, etc.), make themselves immune to bullets, etc. Likewise, the player plays by different rules then the enemies. They can shoot bullets at unreactable speed to give more of a sense of power. They get invulnerability after a hit is taken, etc.. If enemies had unreactable bullet speeds like the player, it would be unplayable.

"playing by different rules from the player" is something all enemies do to an extent. All enemies (outside of mirror matches) have different attributes and abilities from the player, which necessarily have their own "rules" and limitations for the sake of balance. Hyper Armor isn't an example of a rule being broken, it's an example of a unique attribute or ability belonging to the enemy which has been carefully balanced and telegraphed in the same way most other things in the series are telegraphed. It works within the game's context, it's not "outside the players limitations" or an example of "enemies playing by different rules" at all. It's a unique attribute, that's all.

So there you go, 3 responses to the same point. Hardly "ignoring".

And again, let me stress, that what I posted above is the most logical follow up to the line of thought "enemies playing outside player limitations".

If you're going to say "I meant something else" you didn't communicate it. At all. It is not the other persons fault if you do not express your ideas in an easily understandable way, and thus lead them in a different direction. If you have something to say, say it. But throwing up your hands and saying "you don't understand" is a concession of not being able to argue or not being able to communicate. Or both. It's also really irritating.

I put a lot of effort into responding politely, addressing your points, and trying to succinctly express my point of view. To go through 5 fucking pages of that, and someone still won't acknowledge a single thing you say, and then caps it off by calling you clueless and saying you can't understand...what a slap in the face. Dayum.

I do get why you're fine with Demon's Souls: because you play in a way that it doesn't really effect you. Great. But why settle for a game that basically forces you to play in a few basic styles over a game that gives you more freedom in how you tackle these obstacles? You even agree that poise is a better solution overall. The misunderstanding is in how Demon's Souls does a poor job of allowing its stat based nature to create significant variety in the way Dark Souls does. It's trying to do things best left to regular action games where you don't have anything obscuring the balance between player and enemy other than skill level.

I realize that in practice Dark Souls is not that well balanced of a game, but it has the right idea at least. Demon's Souls is both poorly balanced and misguided.

Okay, fine. You're actually communicating now (and acknowledging something, wow!). I can forgive some of the above (I don't hold a grudge).



Because, to me, there's a lot of great thing that Demon's Souls does besides that. Level design, boss fights, many enemy encounters and setpieces, etc. etc. It's also not like light-normal weapons limit you to one build. There's a ton of weapons that can fall under that umbrella, and then there's also things like magic, etc. for more variety.

Hell, you can still have a lot of fun with heavy weapons. It's not like every enemy in the game has hyper armor. It's a particular subset of enemies, not the whole game.

I know a number of people who consider the level design superior in Demon's Souls, compared to Dark Souls, and for them, that's enough to make it their favorite title in the series. Of course, that's a bit subjective (which game has better level design).

Great, wonderful. But my point is that if you were to re-balance Demon's Souls with a Dark Souls type of system (but obviously one that's more balanced) it would be a superior game. As it stands, it's basically a proof of concept that needs a lot of gaps filled in to be great, let alone good.