How Dark Souls (accidentally) Taught You Cowardice 

Love the videos. I was wondering if you were going to go over Immersive Sims games like Deus Ex , and Arcane games like Dishonored 1/2 and System Shock?

This is what cryptic language is like but I really like it. Doesn't work too well in text form to be shamefully honest.

Considering the amount of work it takes to make a video, I'll understand if it isn't done. Still, It be nice if you could put a little card with the title of the game that's on the background, although some of these are well known, there are still titles that happen to be outside our radar at the moment but still look attractive when they show up.

I Made a new Intro for your Channel. Do you Like it?

Is "Entry Level Strategy" the same as "First Order Optimal Strategy"?

Starscream is the goat. Behind sound wave ofc

Starscream is the best transformer, no question.

Peak cinema referenced

That movie isn't that great, but that line is the pure essence of Starscream right there!

I'm unashamedly a defensive player that uses safe beginner strategies, often times if the game requires me to play risky in order to proceed I'll lose all motivation to play, my strengths are in patience and preparation, I'd much rather spend 20 hours farming resources and level ups, or exploring the map for secrets and security bonuses than learn how to get good enough at the game where you can win with starter equipment and abilities That being said I don't dislike all games of skill, I grew up on games like donkey Kong country 1 and other janky NES and SNES games that I've gotten good at with practice, but the game has to be fun enough to justify getting good at it for me to bother I beat dark souls 1 after exploring everything and maxing out pyromancy with a level 15 hand axe that I used block strats to great effect with I beat smough and ornstein first try by backing away from them endlessly until they gave me openings, I even killed smough first because he was the bigger slower target for my fireballs to hit, after he was dead ornstein wasn't that bad because I had the patience to punish him I see many players with great skill in risk taking, and I appreciate their skill but many of them lack patience, I think you need both skill and patience all games require some of both, I just happen to prefer to lean on patience

I know uhh... A friend that discovered he could rearrange them and still chose to use only one. But couldn't be me

I also uhh... know a friend who failed to figure out the clown puzzle in jubilife, and ended up grinding his turtwig to level 25...

It took me 3 years to find out what a box was ...

Now I know why the EXP Share item in recent games spreads the points to your entire party.

Well, many kids didn't even properly comprehend the concept of catching pokemon and using multiple ones when playing for the first time.

Exactly, thank you. Some people are seeking the adrenaline rush kind of playstyle that comes with aggressive combat, while others will enjoy controlling the pace, coming in and out of enemy reach with the use of shields and dodging. Some people are slower and calculative, others are fast and agile. There are so many different tools and playstyles, how can someone claim that some are "wrong" or universally "less fun"?

@@BigBadWolframio I guess you could consider sustainable fun? Perhaps both strategies start out equally fun but one becomes extremely rote and boring by the end??

@@MartinPurathur I never got bored of killing enemies with that strategy, I almost leave DS1 before I got a good shield because rolling or parrying is too hard for my reflexes and I hated the frustration I felt. Did two full playthrough with sword + shield and heavy armor.

​@@BigBadWolframio Dodging was not part of the beginner strategy outlined in the video.

@@Puerco-Potter I would assume the same won't hold true if you took a study on a large section of dark souls players

This interests me. If the big dumb two hander was boring for you in DarkSouls - which was the playstyle, if any, that did stay fresh and interesting for you?

This! I get frustrated really easy, and won't invest time in a game I have to "get gud" in without a gentle learning curve. I like challenge, but never way over the challenges I had before. Also I don't play multiplayer games, I hate that I have to spend 500 hours in a game before having fun. I like to take stuff at my own pace and wining the minimum necessary in story move is enough for me to get my brain rewards chemicals flowing...

Exactly! I see people deeming only certain strategies worthy. If you use a shield, you're playing the game wrong. Use magic, wrong. Call in phantoms to help in bossfights, wrong. I've even seen people say that playing the game at soul level 1 (playing without leveling up at all) is the superior way to play Dark Souls. There was even a full essay video going around trying to prove that point. Great that people like it I guess, but I personally don't see the fun of having way less cool equipment options, doing less damage to enemies, having no health and being killed in one hit more.

​@@Puerco-Potter In that case, Dark Souls isn't actually too bad with a sword and board play style, or as a mage.

@@tigerfestivals5137 is not, I finished 2 playthroughs like that already.

This is what happened to me in Elden Ring. I used the standard Halberd for over half the game until my friends convinced me to switch to what would become a better halberd after enough upgrades.

@@patrickporter4440 I actually think the weapon upgrade system goes against the developers' intent to hoard as many unique weapons and playstyles as your build will allow. I always use cheat engine (offline of course) to get ALL of my weapons to the general upgrade level of the area, so I can switch play-styles without much investment, and actually use the cool things I find.

I think even without upgrade systems, you still often see the same thing in that the time spent learning a particular weapon/build/whatever is itself the sunk cost and so people often stick to the simple, reliable stuff they got access to early in the game solely because they've already gotten used to it and don't want to have to relearn a new thing they've found halfway through the game when the baseline difficulty is much higher.

Something I'd like to add to this is that Dark Souls 2 went around this problem by generously giving you enough upgrade materials. By the time I got past the first Great Soul, I had two weapons upgraded to +4. But then of course the game slaps you back by reducing weapon durability so you are almost forced to have an extra upgraded weapon.

That's why I love Terraria. There's no such thing as levels in that game, so if you want to just change your build completely, you can just do it immediately if you have the items. Extremely flexible for experimentation.

A glossary of moves, with video, is really helpful with that, so a player can go refresh on what they're capable of on demand.

DS3's answer to it was to make the shield completely useless.

I know I felt it with Sif, especially the 720 degree swing. I could block the first hit, but the second always cut through and knocked me down.

@@Soumein That's interesting, that was the only boss where I dropped the shield, I actually even dropped most of my armor.

I grinded and got enough armor and stamina to shield or survive that hit, then estus. The shields strategy can be challenging sometimes with the kitting plus potions management.

I agree! Unless you are building your character for blocking (greatshields, stamina, equip load, etc) you probably learn the limits of using shields really quickly. I began using shield + sword or spear to make it through the early game but even capra demon is a tough boss to beat with the boring "block, attack" playstyle. I soon learned to swap between shield and 2 handed to deal more damage, mix up blocking and rolling, etc. I think there was a nice balance between blocking, roll-dodging and parrying. Blocking and parrying let you keep your positioning while rolling often makes you move away from the boss and requires you to get back in range. blocking has a higher stamina cost while parrying is riskier but incredibly rewarding. Elden ring did a lot to improve this with guard counters and jump-dodging giving even more options. If you learn to use all of them its really fluid. I remember jumping to dodge low horizontal attacks than turning that into a jumping attack only to block the incoming blow and guard counter the boss, breaking his stance.

So you agree?

Counterpoint, losing stamina and getting reduced damage from magic is still way better than getting full damage.

Punishing and teaching are not the same thing If you want people to learn, you can't just say "all you were doing was wrong, go back and grind until you get good at this completely new thing you never used" and expect the vast majority to do it If what you say is "all you are doing is wrong, go figure out something else" it's even worse Here's a plate, you use it like this, it's good for this and it's bad used this way

​@@AnterasPL No when u can just dodge and not only get 0 damage you also waste less stamina

@@roggonval But for the price of using more stamina, you get the assurance that you will not take damage or that it will be reduced. If you dodge, you still have a chance to take full damage.

its mostly sekiro and especially bloodborne clowns that do that since the game only has melee and are as deep as a puddle compared to elden souls rpg systems.

@@flamingmanure Sekiro's combat system is a couple trillion times deeper than DS's shallow as a puddle combat mechanics but hey, you do you.

@@flamingmanure This mentality of "You're playing the wrong way" exists in all genres. RPG, FPS, turn-based strategy, I've been told I'm playing the wrong way because I'm not using the universally accepted meta strategy.

​@@johnhighway7399not really tho. It's more fun, but way more simple. Like 1 defensive option, block/deflect, and the R1 as the primary offensive option. In comparison souls have R1s, R2s, L2s on a weapon and general spell combos as offensive option, and Rolling and blocking as defensive option. Sekiro is just more fun due to the simplicity.

True in a game known to throw alot of scripted bullshit your way its better to shield up

I don’t associate fighting with “slow and methodical”. That’s how you become a Mike Tyson quote

He's saying, try something new. You'll probably enjoy it. Probably more than what you are stuck with, that is, if you are able to learn it. Of course if you suck at it, you'll die over and over and go back in your shell

@@charlesoseigyawu6670 "Probably". Yeah, no. That's a stupid way of thinking.

@@cibo889 I don't know what world you live in, where everything is set. And there's no room for chance. Thinking without leaving room for opposite outcome? Right, that sure is smart

Your friend is an absolute psychopath. I have to try this.

glass cannons are the best playstyle! especially with fast builds

Reminds me of my DS1 Artoris cosplay way back when. Had to pump endurance in order to roll with both versions of his greatsword equipped.

your friend plays like me... why add hp when i could add more damage or stamina

I do this exact thing, I make endurance my primary stat up to the hard stamina cap, then all my accessories are to boost defense, stamina, and regen. lastly, my weapon is a heavy thrusting sword so it does poise damage, but is still quick. I often switch to 2 handing it when I need to attack tho so there's extra insult when they find out I spend most of my time dodging still but can become a brick wall in an instant

Elden Ring made medium shields even better by giving access to a skill you can put on them that gives them a small shield's parry window, Carian Retaliation. It only uses FP when parrying magic projectiles.

I always used a great Shield because of the fact when they're fully upgraded they have the highest stability and reduce damage to almost nothing combine with your own high endurance and body armor your opponent was tickling you and rolling around while you're ripping them apart also magic killed any reason to fight especially in Dark Souls 1 one of the Invaders I fought ran all the way across Anor Londo just to get to me and I one shot him that was the whole battle

Positioning is the most advanced mechanic in souls games. It lets you get in extra hits when others would rather roll or block. This applies the most to ds1 where bosses telegraph their attacks more clearly. Parry is the high risk high reward mechanic that has been a thing since the Zelda games - it's just so uninteresting to me. Later souls games focused more on fast and hectic fights and you had to rely on rolls/parries more.

@@pramitpratimdas8198 By later you mean just DS3? Because Bloodborne is not comparable to the DS combat mechanics and Sekiro PUNISHES morons who try to dodge everything.

I'd argue that while getting good isn't the reason to play, what it _is_ is a tool that enables whatever else you're hoping to achieve in the game.

@@boobah5643 not... really? the way adam and I are referring to getting good as "adopting risky, advanced strategies for additional performance in lieu of stable but low-reward beginner strategies". if my goal doesn't require any additional reward to achieve it (or the time required to develop the technique isn't something i want to spend) then it serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever. if you insist that it *does* then you're still not thinking about those other motivations for their own sake, which is what i want people to do. think about *why* someone plays but doesn't care to learn advanced styles of play and *still* has genuine fun with the game they play.

U got a hobby that involves learning something? If yes, r u happy being mid at it? Prolly notk

There can be many reasons for playing a game, but players collectively taking the path of least resistance is a known outcome. An easy strategy not having a path towards more diverse play is a problem in context of that overall tendency of players.

@@charlesoseigyawu6670 you people are exhausting. how many ways can you reword "gettin gud funn!" as if that's a valid response to "sometimes there are other reasons to play that people find more compelling" or even "good execution is not the only valid path to victory". as for your question im mid at a lot of things i quite like(d) and its fine. i will never attain mastery over a lot of things and that's okay. there's no medal waiting for me if i flawlessly defeat whatever your favorite souls boss is with no shield or whatever.

This was literally my exact experience and it was sort of frustrating. Whenever I wanted to use a different party member I always had to grind to make sure they were a decent level and it was just never worth it. Persona 5 definitely did way better with its party members.

Persona 4 also had the issue that your party members would only do their follow-up combos (e.g. "Twin Dragons" for Chie & Yukiko) if both of them were in your party. For that reason I always had Chie & Yukiko and rotated the third slot between the others. In P5 (along with the great Exp sharing you could unlock) you only needed one of them.

wait until you see the persona Q games. No exp share and like 2-3 games worth of party members. Very cursed. And this is coming from someone whose favorite atlus game is Q2

Naoto is great but it feels like every time I want to change a party member I have to change my entire team comp or I'll have massive weak spots

Chie and yosuke also have the tarukaja and sukukaja skills so they're nice for the "buff the mc to oblivion" strat

As an ultragreatsword fan, yes big swords are absolutely the easy mode weapon. They're really fun, but there are so many enemies you can just stunlock rather than having to think about. Including more bosses than you'd think.

Yay! a fellow shield user, I absolutely love shields. Doesn't matter what my build is, I almost always integrate a shield either for parries, blocking, counters, buffs or actual dmg. Although my favorite is a great shield with a fast weapon or actual poker. Ironically in PVP I rarely block and usually try to combo all the different types of attacks with an occasional block instead of dodging to throw an opponent off.

I feel Elden Ring was a fantastic step in the right direction when it comes to Sword and Board in souls games. DS1 and Demons Souls Sword and Board (maybe with a bit of magic/pyromancy) was my absolutely favorite playstyle and I feel like its viability was kind of lost in the later games like DS3, but Elden Ring brought it up back. Part of why I love the souls games so much is the slower, more methodical and cautious approach to the game where you can wait for the right moment to strike. I'm not the biggest fan of the more aggressive, reflex based style that games like Bloodborne and even DS3 focused on more. I have other action games I can play if I want that.

@@Crazymerc22 For what it's worth, Sword and Board was absolutely viable in DS 3. Sure it's a bit harder because attacks generally had more "guard damage", but if you mix blocking with dodging you got a very fun stamina management game where you have to balance green bar efficiency with how comfortable you feel about dodging any given attack... And then you pickup the Dragonslayer Shield and just break the entire rest of the game in half.

I hate using shields in Dark Souls, but I used one for most of my first Elden Ring playthrough. They finally made shields fun. The flipside is they made dodging less fun with excessive use of delayed attacks. You win some you lose some I guess.

@@EllaKarhu yeah, that was a bit lame imo.

Agreed. In my opinion, Adam's "analysis" here is a messy and inarticulate rehashing of Hbomberguy's analysis from years ago. He's not saying anything new, and he seems to misunderstand why others have spoken negatively about shield strategies.

Yeah the false assumption here is that everyone wants to play the universally accepted meta strategy. No, some players just like to play their own style and play at their own pace. I really disagree with a lot of the suggestions here: 1. Force players out of the sword and board style - This is exclusion. It makes no business sense to dump a huge chunk of the demographic who like a particular style. 2. XCOM 2 - Forcing a fast and risky style was a very controversial decision in the community. I don't know why he used this as a "good" example. 3. Difficulty spikes - I'm under the impression that is ideally avoided in game design, I don't know why he's suggesting to intentionally create one.

@@One.Zero.One101 Because he's repeating opinions he doesn't understand. His argument about Dark Souls is literally just a badly plagiarised version of Hbomberguy's video about Dark Souls 2, restated poorly, and with an air of objectivity that Hobomberguy didn't have as he was just stating his opinion.

Mr youtuber probably hasn't heard of the spike Timmy and Johnny archetypes from Mark Rosewater's iconic blogpost. They do apply to other games, not just mtg. He seems to be a spike, they are historically known to be the most insensitive type.

@@pramitpratimdas8198 I feel like he is more of a Johnny. Spike is win focused and will do anything no matter how bland to get the win. Johnny is much more interested in devising their combos and set ups to try and win in a way that feels good to them. Timmy is just "I like big thing hear me smash" and doesn't care how many times they get their ass beat.

​@@kid14346Everyone really does have their own unique personalities I believe. But people like this youtuber who doesn't understand that only rubs people the wrong way.

Dude, my first ever win in Apex involved me wandering around with my team across the entire match, right before we stumbled on the survivor of the last group fight, when my brother shot him to death.

I've done this too lmao, the last teams got trapped outside the ring on the opposite side of a giant wall

@@alexharvey7660 And remember Apex is a massively popular sport in-universe, so millions of people watched the match unfold on their TV as a couple Legends wandered around, going "Hey you want this scope? I've got the 3x already but if you don't I prefer the 2-4x.", bumbling around until they win by default as the actually exciting teams die to spicy air a couple hundred yards away.

@@Snickersnek this is so funny to me xD

I manage to win a game without teammates from the start and without damaging or killing anyone. Hell I didn't even see the last enemy or enemies and its the last ring I just suddenly got the champion.

I guess compared to the optional content it isn't an understatement to say that the main story is gentle

He didn't mean that "the game is easy", he meant that the average difficulty of the game keeps rising very gradativelly from the beggining and onward

That's the bigger issue that can go unspoken. One person's "gentle difficulty curve" is easily another person's "this isn't fun anymore and I hate everything."

@Jaspertine that's why I gave up on elden ring after several playthroighs. The curve feels unnaturally fucking miserable and makes the game no fun. Besides the fact it's a bloated mess

@@Jaspertine Likewise, one person's "fair and balanced difficulty curve" can be another person's "this isn't fun anymore because it's too easy". Difficulty is inherently subjective and no game will satisfy everyone, but no game has to.

Yeah this was something I was going to talk about but cut - if Celeste, for example, forced you to go all the way through the basegame before you could do the hard stuff, it might lose the interest of better players - I've certainly felt that with mario games! I think the key in the games that do this I've enjoyed the most is to make this "hidden" stuff not actually that hard to find if you're confident enough to go off the beaten path, making it really more of a psychological gate than a physical one.

@@ArchitectofGames Why was it cut?

my gripes from FO3 when the best side quest where hard to find, to stumbled with, or in the edge of the map, refering to hbomber take on FONV. points of interest that has landmarks that piques players' curiosity w/ visual language or visual cues or more so the quest interconnects that leads you to that sidequest like Vault 22 in FONV

Nah that’s completely unnecessary, if you actually care dabout the game after beating it you could have easily soppeted the ability to change campaigns or searched if there are secret harder levels. Those are a thing in every mario game, from 2D to 3D and any in between. No game has any obligation to give you without effort the higher challenge you personally demand, coming from someone who prefers more challenging games/difficulties. 3D Land never owed you the harder challenges, nor did it obligate you to take the easiest route to the end. If you choose that and immediately deopped the game before even knowing it’s 100% your fault. And it’s not any big mystery at all, it’s not like you nedd to get a secret code exclusive to your cartridge to unlock it, just had to look at the menu or google if there was something else and you could have played one of the best experiences in platform gaming i’ve ever had. Like why did you ever assume the game was supposed to give you for free a secret hidden content? That defeats the meaning of secret and hidden completely! It isn’t a secret if almost everyone knows it is it?

​@@minecraftgravityguyI don't see how it is wrong to ask for a hint that there might be more ,not a direct message telling you look this is where you need to go at least that's how you make it so it . And secret control usually isn't supposed to be secret for the most part after all it's out there to be found at some point defeating the idea of it ever being a secret.

I likes those kind of playstyles. I tried a tower knight build using a greatshield. It's very satisfying to block the iron golem and Smoughs attacks.

True. It's not as though someone could measure fun and say with a straight face "this style of play is funnier, this style is less".

Based. This videos takes on souls games are terrible, seems like they don’t understand the aooeal of certain builds and playstyles at all (coming from a guy that never tried shield builds but understands that they can easily be very fun for others).

He is kinda right in that case. DS1 shield/sword playstyle is boring and kinda repetitive. But sound design, animations and a fresh experience would make any first playthrough fun regardless of gameplay. Even like basic mage with the most basic gameplay lock on - press R1 to win, using the same 6 slot spells with the same animations. Once you finish game, you start to realize how actually tedious, repetitive and boring to navigate through dark souls locations. The only thing, that keep things fresh is breaking intended level progression and build variety + pvp/coop. Dont get me wrong, dark souls games are good. I just dont think they good in RPG aspects like character stats or enemy weaknesses.

@@Edgariki "boring" is not a factual category. Using 2 handed weapons and dodge is just as repetitive as any other play-style, but all games are repetitive (it's called "the game loop"). But boring? Can you really say what is boring and what is not, based on facts and not sentiment?

@@vagabundorkchaosmagick-use2898 Exactly.

My first playthrough was with a 2h Zwei and I got bored of it very fast. I don't know how he can claim with a straight face that it's the most fun build

@@pramitpratimdas8198 It appeals to our ape brains to whack bad guys with large sticks

Strength build is literally the "hah i win" build in souls lol (theres a reason Giant Dad was a popular build not just for its meme status). You get big damage, can wear heavy armor so you take less damage and you stagger enemys before they can even hit you and you dont need much strategy besides wacking things with big sticks

@@cherryrook8684 As if it was just that easy. Stop being one of those naked dudes only equipped with bonks.

​@@pramitpratimdas8198I don't find using the ultra greatswords fun but just stressful for myself. I don't like how slow it is but I do like the bastard sword. It's almost like people have their own preferences or something and some youtubers can't understand that.

"I'm the gamer now"

Too bad people don't want loading screens anymore

untill you get a computer that is too great, and you don't get the time to read the hints.

​@@bibbobellaI like the loading screens with "proceed" button prompts, so you can read the last promt and continue when you're ready and also use loading screens to take a short break. I haven't seen one in a while, though

i love how interactive they were and informative like the FO4 loading screen

“Tilt the analog stick to move”

Going into any fromsoft game forum/subreddit with any kind of problem is just a waste of time because basically every time the response is just "git gud" while they're acting as if they said the most funny and logical thing in the world. 🙄

“Here’s a Role-Playing Game game.”

Precisely. The only "intended" way to play Dark Souls is "however you damn well please". Adam is copying other, more famous youtubers in his analysis here, and doing a bad job of it.

if those 3 enemies are dogs, however, that fear is justified.

I think a mistake a lot of people make is not being able to identify when to drop a game. There is a real learning curve and sense of satisfaction that can come from mastering combat in the Souls games, but you’re probably not going to have that feeling if the process of getting there feels like a massive chore. There’s no shame in dropping a game if you don’t like its core feel; spend your time getting better at a game that isn’t just going to be work.

Didn't think I'll ever see you in a comment section on a random Adam Millard's video. Nice to see you I guess!

Why would you start with gunner? It's lack of mobility options is absolutely crippling, I dropped that class after the tutorial level, and didn't look back

@@nillanapier1161 Just wait until you play at higher hazard levels and see what a lifesaver the shield is.

@@ad480p no, I know, the shield is a really great tool, and there are 1 or 2 level types where it makes playing soldier a decent choice, but for most levels, dies it really compare with the scout's grappling hook, the diggers's drills, or all the fun and creative stuff you can do with the engineer's platforms?

I decided that after promoting all classes at least once, I decided to stick with gunner, I just like using big guns. his whole specialty is being able to fight all types of bugs effectively. Driller can easily clear grunts but can struggle against bigger things, and the pistols are kinda weak when there's flying or ranged enemies that are out of reach of the flamethrower. Scout generally has weapons that can deal high burst damage making him great at decimating bigger bugs like the Praetorian. but they usually struggle against swarms of grunts. Engineer can control very large areas with all the tools at his disposal, but he needs the room and time to set up a defensible position, and to me he feels like he doesn't have as much ammo to play with.

Sadly Guard Counter is mostly useless in Elden Ring. Even with perfect timing, bosses are so relentless sometimes that they start their next attack chain right after one ended, making it impossible for some weapons to guard counter without trading damage. But Elden Ring Bosses are an issue for another day.

​@@BenedictVo nah block counters are pretty good. Skill issue

​@@BenedictVo you are not supposed to follow up on every attack. The biggest change ER brought with boss design are bs combos that you have to watch out for as they are difficult to just block/roll away from. Either jump to avoid horizontal attacks or just get a safe distance. This has been the case since Margit

Parrying in Dark Souls is a borderline glitch mechanic with how it's designed, so I can't blame you. I personally love parrying mechanics in games, but in Dark Souls I just don't bother.

More or less the same for me but I had one of those Moments (TM) and decided to play on the highest available difficulty despite not having played the game before. Blade Wolf ground me down and built me back up from scratch, and when I reached Mistral, I had a great power fantasy experience kicking her ass first try with my new skills. My friends told me to quit throwing myself at Blade Wolf and lower the difficulty, but in taking him down, I learned skills that made the actual boss for that arc nearly trivial. Monsoon was still awful to fight. Fuck Monsoon and his memes.

Coolest boss fight in the game for that reason

Monster Hunter sucks. It is too easy. Dark Souls is harder. Period.

@@brojakmate9872 Difficulty is subjective, I find the opposite to be true for me to a certain extent

The only difficulty in Monster Hunter are the controls. It's like playing the first PC port of Dark Souls with a mouse and keyboard, except MH developers decided to make it their shtick, for some unfathomable reason. Directionally-locked attacks, huge wind-up and wind-down on attacks, inability to run without suffering through a sheathing animation, etc. Like, if you could at least change the direction of attacks mid-combo, that'd be something, because some weapon types basically don't function without combos and hoping a monster jumps back into your attack range so you won't have to restart the combo is not "difficulty". Or you can just get a lance and poke down every monster while taking exactly zero damage.

@Lecherous Lizard the beauty of opinions is that they cant be right 😂 the controls might take a bit to get used to but i find them to be very comfortable. It just sounds like you're not getting into the intended groove of the combat, its not for everyone 🤷🏾‍♂️

@@Mhopson968 I played MHW up until Barioth in the Iceborne. The combat before that point was a bit annoying, but doable, but when I had to kill Barioth... let's say that being stuck in an attack animation for like 5 seconds when the monster attacks once every 3 seconds, is not a pleasurable experience by any metric. So my options from that point onward was to either play coop or completely change my playstyle and switch to, say, lance, because none of the standard tricks did shit or were fast enough to do shit. Hell, once I even got hit by Barioth's stupid shoulder bash when I was BEHIND him, so I ended up getting carted in a situation where I should've been able to get a combo off without any danger as the monster was recovering for a whiffed attack. So, no, you'll have to excuse me, but this isn't a matter of "opinion".

Doesn't it also have bleed tho?

For the most part, like resists like. Don't burn a Dragon, Don't poison a rot goddess and definitely don't try to bless God.

yea mastering the common knowledge, its the simple things. unless if, the player isnt widely exposed or familiar w/ rpg genre.

But if you pair it with another katana with a different damage type you can just do quick strikes in power stance. My second katana is a bleed uchigatana. As long as you aren’t just spamming transient moonlight and use other parts of your move set, you can make quick work of her.

Rennala isn't just resistant to magic damage, her magic resistance is the single highest resistance any enemy in the game has to any damage type. 86%. If your attack would deal 100 magic damage to her, she loses 14 hp.

Don't know if it's really such a bad design not to give you a text prompt about the stamina regeneration with shield up with how easy it is to notice if you're monitoring your stamina bar, as I think that lessons you learn yourself by practice stay better in your head than what you read in a tutorial popup

I mean, Nameless King is effectively the game’s hidden super boss. If you didn’t have issues until him then I would assume you got through like 90% or more of the game. If your argument is that there is depth to the shield playstyle, then I’m not sure if like the last boss in the base game is a great example.

bloodborne fanboys cant really find anything fun other than melee, and choose to impose that laughable sentiment on everyone, same really for the sekiro fanboys but to a far less extent, both games are as deep as a puddle and only have melee weapons for the most part, which is why i hear the most bitching about souls' ocean level depth in rpg systems and mechanics from seki-borne fanboys, adam being one of the biggest of them.

​@@flamingmanureIt's a shame because I like Bloodborne for its uniqueness and being different from DS. They're good for different reasons and shouldn't be the same.

no reason other than…. Fun?

@@pasta-and-heroin is it really fun to do a glass cannon build if your using the safest combat method? It just seems like an easy way to get frustrated to me.

Tank mage is so much fun.

And then there's me that runs shield mage.

First Dark Souls didn’t let you waste stamina when casting spells, you could easily get to raise int to 30 early on (soft cap for the starting staff) and then focus on health, or dexterity/strength, if you needed poise, the wolf ring was a nice investment without being encumbered

nah, it's still outclassed by the BFG, which it shares extremely limited ammo with. It's good at single-target kills, but those are really easy anyway, while the BFG clears half the room, which is a lot better in DOOM: Eternal

@@legathar8558 The DLC has a lot more tight corridors so it's way harder to get the maximum value out of the BFG.

@@furgel7717 it doesn't really. It's tighter, sure, but there aren't any corridors. You can no longer take out an entire arena with one BFG shot, but taking out half an arena is still extremely good and better than taking out a single enemy marginally quicker than you could otherwise

@@legathar8558 I specifically said that you get to kill more large ones, not that you will clear rooms any better. Removing more bulletsponges from the same ammo is still very good.

Beg to differ. DS1 was my very first souls game and I breezed through it holding a shield up the entire time until Ornstein and Smough repeatedly kicked my shit in. Very much felt like a beginner tool I was relying on until I was beaten over the head enough to learn how to roll.

@Cenfre no some of their attacks should be dodged and some should be blocked. Blocking is a part of the base kit. Standard tool, and to use it properly requires not holding it all the time and minding stamina management. Blocking is very much a core mechanic In ds1. It's the reason a lot of people didn't like ds3, because there is no nuance and rolling is so much stronger than every tool in the kit that there is no reason to use anything else.

@@asdfghjkllkjhgfdsa8725 Whether you consider rolling easy or not, blocking is easier than rolling, and every advantage it gives you(other than ease of use), can be replicated without a shield by being better at rolling, and when you don't need to block you can focus more on offense since you have a free hand, so veterans tend to gravitate to a dual-wielding or 2-handing style over using shields.

@@soleo2783 how is blocking easier but rolling gets every advantage that blocking does... and better offensive capabilities. your logic seems broken. Truth is in ds1 they're both easy once you know the game and there are times when one has advantages over the other. They both require skill to use properly. Neither is more fun or appealing to me. They work together to form well made combat mechanics

@@asdfghjkllkjhgfdsa8725 Its simple, blocking is more forgiving in timing than rolling is, your punishment for blocking early is that you regen less stamina, your punishment for rolling early is getting hit, straight up. Rolling making it possible to deal more damage is seperate to how easy it is to use. Lets not pretend otherwise, theres a reason beginners tend to turtle behind shields at first, it's objectively easier mechanically than rolling, with less risk.

I was never able to beat FTL, reached the final battle 5 times, then just give up. I can spend that amount of time on a game to not get any serotonin out of it. The only way I am playing again if it's ported to android, so I can play for 5 minutes every day to actually get good...

@@Puerco-Potter Yeah, it's a hard game where the final battle is even harder. Took me a few tries to beat it counting only actually reaching it. You can use a similar strategy against most enemy ships (except boarding against automated ships), but since the final battle is in three phases with distinct and unique dangers, you need to have a counter strategy for each phase. And if you fall behind at any point, you're dead.

FTL highlights a way that roguelikes have it easier here. The biggest switches in strategy come when you change ships (and most non-starter ships have glaring weaknesses), but whenever you switch ships you're starting over from level 1 with easy enemies and a low time investment if you fail. They also get to gate these ships behind challenges like he talked about.

@@davidbrickey8733 Yeah, roguelikes don't have those long investments in specific strategies since they usually base themselves on starting over from the beginning more or less frequently. That on its own encourages variation and trying new things. Speaking of the challenges, I like that there are two ways to get the ships. Either by completing a run, or by doing the ship-specific quest, which can be rare to even encounter in the first place.

"you start with other setups that naturally work better with other strategies, so there's a lot of variation to be found naturally." same thoughts.

this. one of the best aspects of the game are the many possible playstyles, it makes no sense to remove the one that isn't overpowered and is more accessible.

When a skilled player plays dark souls 1, they may as well actually be invincible. To the point that a common veteran strategy for runs is to use the master key to head straight to quelaag and kill her first. Then kill Ceaseless Discharge. Use the massive pile of souls from having killed 2 mid-game bosses to boost yourself straight into end-game stats within the first half hour of the game. If you're not satisfied from there, just go back to the asylum to kill the stray demon in the basement... point is, Dark Souls 1 is a game where builds only matter for those who don't know the game well enough to win without them. The methods you learn to defeat each boss are universal, every build can utilize them. Because the gameplay flow of Dark Souls is inherently defensive. You don't learn how to win. You learn how to avoid losing, because that guarantees you will win in the end.

@@dontmisunderstand6041 What a reductive viewpoint. Builds are only for people who don't know how to win without them? No, they're actually one of the most compelling parts of the game, as with any rpg. There are many who enjoy speeding right through the game with red tearstone and zweihander, as you would suggest. There's nothing wrong with playing that way. However, pretending that it is the only way an experienced player might enjoy the game is just silly.

@@noahduncan5998 You missed a very crucial word there. Builds only *matter* for people who don't know how to win without them. They're *for* everyone, but they don't affect everyone equally.

@@dontmisunderstand6041 Semantics. If a player values the build crafting aspect of the game, then it "matters" to them, whether or not they "need" their build to beat enemies.

Here's the thing tho, especially in Dark Souls 1: 1.Grabs were rarer 2. Alternate damage types are rare 3. You do drop shield to attack, but plenty of people never realise that having it up slows stamina recovery 4. People can pump Stamina to become an immovable object 5. The amount of first-playthrough players who use two-handing actively is depressingly low. Especially since the bonus strength you get isn't that obvious

It's also an objectively stupid statement because Elden Ring's shields are massively OP. You can and should block everything in Elden Ring. If you try to block anything in Dark Souls 1 your guard gets broken and you die.

@@dontmisunderstand6041 Yeah his point was, from what I gathered, that elden ring fixed the issue where noobs relied entirely on the noob trap of using a shield for every situation they came across and elden ring just enhanced that problem instead of fixing it. If anything the souls games did it better because shields were still useful throughout but you had to learn when not to use them. There is never a situation in elden ring where you shouldn't block except a grab and even then you can strafe most while blocking. The stamina cost is so much higher and riskier in souls games I really don't see his argument at all

@@Vifts Except they didn't fix anything in Elden Ring. Adding one or two alternative ways to attack doesn't matter one bit, because the combat system is fundamentally too simple for it. You have three ways to defend yourself: dodge, block and parry. Having ashes of war outright prevents you from being able to parry, because it's occupies the same exact action slot and if you don't use a shield, then you can't block either, so all you can do is dodge. And from there you're back to the old attack once or twice -> dodge -> attack once or twice -> dodge pattern. And then the game gives you 100% damage resistant shields at the start of the game _(not as the starting equipment, but before the first major boss)._ I tried dual-wielding and two handing at first, but it was just so damn boring having to dodge every time somebody sneezed at me, I started using a shield in the offhand instead. And in Dark Souls 2 I'd run around with a Claymore instead, so clearly something's not right.

It's almost as if the video is under researched. He probably didn't check other playstyles or ask other souls players with different builds. It's absolutely crazy to me that he thinks shields are for noobs only when it's probably the most preferred style. Hell why would fs add guard counter to shields instead of going the sekiro or bb route in ER?

Or you can outright start with it, if you're feeling a bit weeby. And then just dual wield it with the other one you find at the start of the game, because why the fuck not?

Or if you want to kill Yura, the Nagakiba.

oh likewise Dragons Dogma vocations are cool

Yeah Monsoon is the fight that goes 'Have you learned how to parry yet? No? Well you're gonna" And then you learn parry is spammable and suddenly you're smacking yourself because you never learned the move that makes the game waaaay easier.

All of these things were stuff I considered during the writing process! - you might not agree but here are my thoughts (mostly pulled from my drafts so excuse any copy/paste errors): - Dark Souls 2 notably was very stingy on shields for starter classes and big on giving them other strategies as a direct reaction to the homogeneity of 1 and this is great, but consequently DS2 has a fairly rough early game for first timers (dying to the big ogre at the start over and over again isn't too fun!) I think doing both, giving players that easy option but also encouraging them to abandon it is the thing that distinguishes Elden Ring's approach. ( you could, however, argue DS2 is intended to be played after 1 and so it can afford to be a bit less forgiving earlygame). Dark Souls 3 is generally a bit better on both fronts, though with the caveat that shields are across the board fairly bad and generally not worth using imo. - Guard counters *are* strong, but I don't think they're any stronger than, say, sorceries or bleed builds or any of the other top-tier strategies in elden ring. What matters is that guard countering pushes more cautious, defensive players in the direction of more active play by virtue of how powerful they are. The problem with shields (in my opinion, of course) was never that they were too powerful - they weren't! It's that they promoted a style of play that wasn't really inline with the rest of the game, so guard countering offering an incentive to break out of that is all good to me. - The key point here is "used alongside dodges", encouraging players to dodge is great - the problem is that in DS1, players had little to no incentive to dodge or parry because of how powerful blocking was and the relative abundance of 100% physical block shields. Making shields a little worse so as to make dodging a more efficient use of precious stamina was one of the things the dark souls sequels did really well! (DS2 nerfing stamina regen based on how encumbered you were, and DS3 nerfeing all stamina regen items are other key factors to consider) - I can't think of many situations where a spirit summon can solo a boss you're at the correct level for - but I do agree they're pretty overpowered. I think the key example here though is that in order to make the most of them as a new player, you've got to try and get as much damage in on a boss before your summon dies, encouraging more aggressive, risky play rather than passivity. Ultimately, the idea of "hey, a most powerful or at the very least most reliable strategy is always going to exist so you might as well ensure it's fun" is something I've covered in other vids but maybe it did deserve a mention here!

@@ArchitectofGames Oh, the right spirit summon can solo a LOT of bosses haha Tiche, Omenkiller, Crystalian, Rot dog, Skellies, imps, etc. Level them up to your current gear level and they can basically win fights for you. Other than that tho, you can hang back and spam the boss with any sort of ranged attack for an easy time I think everything you said is fair, but I still don't think the changes made in ER DS3 or DS2 nerfed shields that much. Not as good as DS1 obviously, but I'd say they can still be around that level of power or even passivity for new players

FromSoft vets call every build easy and honestly they’re right That’s why branching out is advantageous

PS4? It doesn't work on PS4, only on PC.

​@@vagabundorkchaosmagick-use2898 You can Quickswap on console by quicktapping the Weapon Wheel button, but only between the last two equipped weapons (almost sure that came on an update)

Seriously, though the entire From Soulsborne series is kinda embarassed of or disenscentives shields, I'm not sure that's a good thing.

@@dood292 Not OP, but I can try: same as a dodge-based playstyle. Figuring out the bare minimum to pump into your stamina so you can absorb hits vs how many to put in health and damage stats, learning which attacks to merely sidestep and the ones to block, deciphering the proper shields for situations, the right weapons to pair with them, when to two-hand and go fully on the attack, and spotting the openings for a guard counter in ER. As well as good Ash skills for your shields and weapons for each situation.

@userofyoutube Most fun one in context of the video is the fact that you need to drop your shield in DS constantly if you want them to work at all (which is something Millard says supposedly started to be a thing with ER), because you regenerate stamina much faster when the shield is down - if you don't drop block you will be out of stamina after second, third attack max against anything other than basic hollows. The most ignored part by most shield critics is that because of much more precise movement when shield is up shield users are most predisposed to very careful maneuvers around enemy attacks - if you are using shield, you should not eat all attacks - you move inch out, inch in between enemy attacks, getting away from their damage frames like in fighting game. This allows you to save tons of stamina, with shield being your movement tool and safeguard if you make mistake, not main defence. Then, you need to know which attacks should be blocked and which one will break your guard. You need the same thing with block as with dodge - you need to know windows to attack and use your defensive option (putting shield up isn't instant, same as dodge, and doesn't have invu frames as beginning of dodge have). Because of different stats on each shield they add additional level of equipment customisation for each fight/play arena. You need to switch shields between arenas if you want to have maximum effectiveness (fire-resistant shields for Izalith, magic resistant for Archives, heavy and stable shields for heavy hitting enemies etc.). This is something two-handed builds don't do at all.

Completely agree with you. Depending on which from game, using a shield can get really fun late game when bosses deal a ridiculous about of stamina damage. Along with damage you cannot block, using both block and roll is the most fun playstyle for me personally. In Elden Ring it certainly isn't the easiest playstyle either. Distance and burst builds are usually going to be the easiest.

I honestly had a hard time getting into this video of his because he straight away talked about the shield in dark souls 1 and then gave a ton of misinformation. This is one of the rare videos I feel is a miss from him. Which is sad his quality is usually much higher. Too much misinformation in this video.

It's because dark souls gave every edgy rpg neckbeard the excuse to prove that they were better at imaginary problem solving.... but in reality was just a janky mess. The community at large is pretty self-important and kinda cringey. Think about lore analysis. How many videos you scroll past with clickbait titles that you know will just tell you stuff you noticed on your own?

'My life has no value' - no warrior of any skill whatsoever. The whole point is to kill your opponent, not distract him for a few moments by shoving his sword through your chest.

The "problem" with shields is that most new players will just spend the entire game hiding behind them and never try anything new. You're actually the perfect exemple of this, you're so reliant on that playstyle that you literally refuse to play a game that doesn't have it. I'm totally not judging you or anything, but I feel like that probably goes against fromsoftware's vision for their games and I completely understand that they have somewhat nerfed that playstyle to encourage more build diversity and experimentation (not that the shield playstyle isn't viable or anything in ER or DS3, it can actually be one of the most broken builds if done correctly). On a side note, if you have a PS4/5 I really recommend you at least try Bloodborne, I have a feeling you'd love it. And if not that's ok, but I feel like you're missing out if you don't even try just because it changes up the way you play.

@@davidantunes9900 Oh I should clarify, I didn't mean it to come across like 'How dare they, I'll never play Bloodborne for speaking ill of the shield', I more meant that because they went down that route it's lower on my list of games to play. It was more disappointment than anything, like if they made a new Monster Hunter game and decided to remove lance as a weapon entirely in place of weapons like dual blades. It's not so much a matter of being reliant on a shield, it's just that I happen to find that style of gameplay to be the most entertaining to use. I don't do it because it's easy, I do it because it's fun, that's why I tend not to switch up when against an enemy strong to shields, I generally like the challenge of playing with that kind of disadvantage. It's not all I use either, I'll use rolls and ranged tools as needed to support whatever shield build I'm using. I've done things with two-handers, with dex, I've dabbled with magic and bows and the sort, they're all neat tools to use, but the shield tends to be what brings me the most satisfaction, so I end up going back to it in the end. I also prefer to use things like swords and halberds over lances because using the 'poke behind a pike' strategy becomes a bit dull for me over time, and it's more fun using strategies where I have to lower the shield to do damage.

@@davidantunes9900 I enjoy shield play more than anything else. Am I not supposed to have fun?

@@Cellidor I totally get it, and don't get me wrong I was never trying to invalidate your playstyle, at the end of the day it's your free time and money that you spent on the game and you should enjoy it however you want, the only important thing is that you have fun.

This reminded me that there's a flip side to the beginner-strategy problem: when the game has a single strategy that, if you master it early, will carry you through the entire game, while punishing all the others-effectively giving those other strategies no reason to exist except as traps for players who haven't learned the One True Strat yet. In this case, staying light enough to do the fast rolls. I haven't seen what _Elden Ring_ is like yet, but I've heard it's doing the same thing they've been doing since _Bloodborne_ where most of the bosses make you execute frame-perfect dodges just to exploit the I-frames because all their attacks are basically AOEs and the only way to physically get out of their way is by hanging out at the other end of the room being useless. And at least _Bloodborne_ caught on that shields and armor are useless in a game with those types of encounters and took them out entirely.

@@stevethepocket Finished both ER and Bloodborne, don't know what you're talking about AOE attacks in bloodborne specially as an issue, in fact due to the aggressive playstyle of the game, you learn pretty early not to evade but to counter, that's why when you're locked on to a boss you don't roll but sidestep making it easier to get up close instead of distancing from the boss. In ER there's a bunch of bosses that act like that but nothing than can't be countered. The majority of the bosses and all of Fromsoft games can be killed by an aggressive and on the nose playstyle, that's how I always play anyways and that's why I think Bloodborne and Sekiro are the best games from them.

​@@stevethepocketIt sounds to me like playing the heavy shield knight is hardmode, and playing weightless backstabbing thief is easy mode, by your logic. I beat the game as a heavy knight with a shield, no rolling at all. But if that's too hard for you people maybe you should think about trying a different playstyle... yes I'm being saucy because I'm tired of people talking down other gamers for how they want to play. I beat Smough/Ornstein and Gwyn as a fat rolling knight with a shield and I don't care what others think. Stuff you people.

Same! I hated dark souls till I learned to block then punish, the game became fun all of a sudden, because I actually could do stuff without feeling like I will die the next frame and loss everything...