Game Anatomy: Combat and Design, Dark Souls Part 3

Image copyright From Software and Namco Bandai

There’s a lot to say, about combat, so as a warning, this one is going to be long.

Combat in Dark Souls does a lot of things right, and not just because that’s most of what the game is.  There are a lot of combat games that don’t really grasp the nuance of how to make combat as good as Dark Souls does it, because there is no singular reason for it being so good.  Dark Souls combat is not only greater than the sum of its parts, its parts are pretty damn good to begin with, and it makes sure those parts are polished to a keen shine.

For the purposes of this article, I’m going to focus on combat as a whole.  I could use any of the bosses as a demonstration, Hell, I could write a whole article on each boss, but that would be time consuming and I have other things to write, and I haven’t had dinner yet.  The one thing I’m not going to go in depth too much about, however, is difficulty.  Dark Souls is hard, but it’s difficulty is based on something other than just the combat, and I don’t feel it’s appropriate to discuss it here.

So, one thing that elevates Dark Souls over every other action RPG is its game feel.  Game feel is a semi tactile feeling of playing the game (it has nothing to do with the emotional “feel”), specifically about how much the game feels, or handles, like it’s supposed to.  Game feel, according to the author who coined the term, is made up of real-time control, simulated space and polish.  The idea is that the game needs to respond correctly, work how it looks like it should, and it should do those things well.  It’s a combination of controls, hitboxes, graphics, character models/sprites and just about every other thing.  It’s not just about making sure when the sword hits the enemy it does damage, but that the attack has weight and that the damage is properly communicated to the player.  Dark Souls has really, really great game feel.

First, Dark Souls has mostly clear hitboxes.  There are invincibility frames while dodging, but these are pretty clear when they appear, since the frames appear like the weapon and the dodging model are not connecting.  The second part is that when the attack connects, both mechanically and visually, it looks like damage is done.  Imagine fighting a Hollow.  When doing damage, a sword swing connecting won’t just hit, but it will have a nice, visceral squish sound and have the Hollow be physically moved by the blow with a nice spray of blood, which allows for a follow up attack.  Bigger enemies take more damage to stagger, but they have the weight and power to look like they need more.  This use of hitbox and animation also play into the actual mechanics themselves, since an enemy that looks like it’s been staggered by a player’s blow (or another player, or the player themselves) can be hit with a follow up.

Compare this to another action RPG, like, Witcher III.  Witcher III is great, but the combat lacks the tactile response that Dark Souls has.  Geralt’s sword swings don’t feel terrible, they have good impact and clear hit detection, but they lack the sheer polish of Dark Souls.  It doesn’t have the squish of the sword tearing through flesh, the knockback and blood spray when an enemy is staggered, nor do the animations have the same weight and power of the blow.  Sure, Geralt is built for grace instead of strength, but even using the Dancer’s Curved Swords has the blades looking more like they’re going to slice right through flesh more than anything Geralt has in his arsenal.

Game feel isn’t everything, however.  There are lots of games with great game feel, but if they don’t have the means of making it work, it doesn’t matter how good the game is.  Combat in this game has some of the most epic fights in any action RPG.  It captures the feeling of it just being, as Dan from Game Grumps said, “you versus an entire army of undead.”  It’s not just bosses that make the game’s combat good, it’s that each different enemy has its own tactics and abilities and each encounter requires more than just plowing through with the best attacks.

Image copyright From Software and Bandi Namco. Still, those boss fights are epic as fuck.

First, one of the best parts of the game, is that each encounter can be tackled in more than one way.  Sure, there are optimal solutions, and unfortunately, some builds are better than others, or require more work than others, but each encounter can be won with pretty much any weapon, style or spell based on how the player reacts to the attacks and abilities of the opponents.  Second, most of the encounters through the game are extremely well built, requiring the player to combine knowledge with actual game skill in order to beat them.  Yes, there are perhaps too many ambushes in the game, but outside of Archdragon Peak (which is just bullshit), this isn’t too much of an issue throughout the game.

By having a wide variety of options in combat that are effective, if perhaps not the most optimal, this means that the game is going to have a wide variety of combat encounters throughout the game.  Just because all of the Hollow enemies in the High Wall of Lothric fight the same as the ones in Lothric Castle, doesn’t mean Lothric Castle is a retread of the first zone of the game.  Since Lothric Castle is the end of the game (well, supposed to be), it places the enemies in places where they can cause more devastation to the player, and requires them to use different tactics than they would on the High Wall.

Sound design is something that gets overlooked in a lot of games, at least in importance, but not in Dark Souls.  Sound design is imperative to the game.  First, of course, are the great sounds the game makes when something is struck by an attack.  It makes it feel like damage is actually being done.  Plus, Dark Souls III adds in new sounds for critical hits, with a nice, thumping bass, which sounds in between the sicking slice of guts being torn open and the crash and thud of a visceral attack.  The game also uses audio cues from the enemies to train the player when to avoid damage.  Each attack has a slightly different sound to them, thus helping the player know how to respond.  This is much more pronounced with bosses than it is with regular foes, but it’s still there.

However, the best part of the sound design is the music.  As in, there isn’t any.  As a means of adding to the surreal, apocalyptic atmosphere, music only plays when in Firelink Shrine, or when fighting a boss.  There’s a mechanical reason to it too.  Since music doesn’t show up until the boss, it’s there to teach the player about the sound cues, and so the player can listen for the enemies and know where they’re coming from.  It also helps keep the adrenaline up, too, since it adds to the uncertainty of the world, thus making sure the player is never quite at rest, so when they do get into a fight, they won’t be murdered as easily.

Game Anatomy: Souls and Stats, Dark Souls Part 2

OK, so this is a direct continuation of the last post I did on this subject.  In a lot of ways, it really is the exact same post as the previous one, but I had to break it up for space reasons.  If you haven’t read it, you can read it here.  Also, I had to break it up for my own sanity.  It was getting really, really long.  Now, moving on.

Image copyright From Software and Namco Bandai  Reposted for continuity’s sake.

Right, so allowing the stats to overlap, while also having their own unique properties, does a lot to make sure that the character is never going to get screwed over by how they allocate their stats, provided they make a point of specializing.  There is an argument that can be made that cost of raising stats should be based on the stat, rather than the character’s level, but From Software also wants to make sure every choice made counts.  This does mean that a wide spread of abilities will hinder tinghe character, and it’s hard for the game to communicate this directly to the player.  Still, the way the rest of the game is built, a badly made character isn’t automatically going to lose, either.  Arin’s build on Game Grumps is probably a good example of that, but there are people who have beaten the game at level 1 with no weapons, so this is probably a pointless digression.

As a personal preference, I’m a little upset it’s harder to branch out into other things, especially now that I’m on my second run through the game and would like to experiment a little bit with magic, but I can also see why the game was developed the way it was.  I want to run a Sorcerer or pyromancer for my next run, but I’d like to play with the magic a little bit, first.

Stats, however, aren’t the only thing souls are used to purchase.  Souls aren’t just experience points, they work as gold, too, since buying ammo, tools and reinforcing weapons require souls.  This makes souls that much more important, in the long run, than just existing as a means to bring up stats for the character.  It means, early on, when the player first gets 20,000 souls, should they buy that expensive key, or should they level up a few times.  It’s a good choice, which is actually kind of a microcosm for the whole risk vs. reward that the whole game is based on.  It’s not just big purchases, either.  Arrows cost money, and the better arrows require more souls, and if arrows are important to a character, it could mean the actual difference between how many times the player levels up when going back to Firelink Shrine (yes, this exact scenario happened to me, but it involved buying Dragonslayer Great Arrows, so, perhaps it’s a little bit extreme).

It’s the same for buying magic, upgrading weapons or transposing large souls into new items.  Is it worth the hard earned experience points to get better equipment now, or is it more important to wait?  This idea is a central concept to the whole game, too.

Map design in Dark Souls is based around the acquisition of souls.  Part of it is about whether or not it’s worth it to go back and pick them up after being killed, and that’s something that will get covered, but another major thing is whether the player has picked up enough of them that they’d be willing to go back to a previous bonfire, thus resetting the enemies, just to make sure they don’t lose what they’ve gotten.  Dark Souls isn’t an easy game, and sometimes, From Software likes to drop ambushes on a player (or all the time in fucking Archdragon Peak).  Without the knowledge of what’s going to happen next, a lot of the time, it might seem safer to walk back to a bonfire, just to level up, than try and venture to the next bonfire.  The whole design of the levels asks the player the question “how much is that sack of experience points you’ve got worth to you?”  Is it worth risking an ambush and burning through resources to make it through, or is heading back and resting, leveling up or picking up some more stuff, more important?  It’s the whole reason why when something dies in Souls games, they stay dead until the area gets reset when resting at a bonfire (also to encourage players to explore instead of farming “lucrative” spots near bonfires).

Souls are the game asking just what something is worth to a player, and how much it’s worth to them.  Are stats more important than weapons?  Is venturing further worth the greater risk of dying?  Is all that experience worth going back for, because that place is hard?  There’s a reason the player loses all of their experience  when they die.  It’s not a punishment, it’s a question: why did you die, and is it worth it to get back what you’ve earned?  If it is, it’s possible the player is going to walk away with even more Souls than they had when they lost them in the first place.  If not, then maybe they weren’t ready for that part of the game yet.  It’s a masterclass in level design.

The final word on souls I’m going to say, since I’m already at over 2,000 words now, is that souls also offer one of my favorite narrative, in-universe justifications for why enemies come back whenever the area gets reset.  Since everything is undead, it doesn’t matter, they’ll always come back.  It’s kind of hilarious in a way.

Game Anatomy: Souls and Stats, Dark Souls Part 1

So, I finished Dark Souls III, beat all the bosses and found all the covenants.  Whether or not I decide to get all of the endings depends on how much I want to deal with the whole damn Lord of  Hollows bullshit.  I’m currently playing New Game + (or Journey 2 or whatever) and that’s pretty cool.  It’s been a bit since I did a game anatomy, so, I’m starting with this bit, which flows through all of the big From Software action RPGs, at least since Demon Souls.  I don’t know if King’s Field does anything like that.

Image copyright From Software and Namco Bandai

Souls act as the currency in the Souls games, as well as in Bloodborne (sure, “blood echoes,” whatever, same concept), and in a lot o ways, souls are just regular old experience points.  Kill a monster, get a set number of dropped points, move on and kill more monsters.  Once enough points are accumulated, then a level can be obtained.  It’s not quite the same as most RPGs, where the experience automatically levels up the player, instead levels are gained by purchasing stats to improve.  It’s not a new idea, but it’s rarely been used as intuitively as it has here, and this is one of the things that makes the Souls games work so well.

Most games that use the “experience points as currency” format generally have a large problem of being really complicated, and tend to get in the way of building characters.  It’s not a hard and fast rule, but generally, most skills or abilities have a cost, and that cost is rarely well balanced.  It’s mostly bad in table top games, where a lot of the time, skill in stabbing a bad guy is the same as skill in cooking.  It makes it where when building and leveling up a character, the player has to make sacrifices based on what should be two separate systems, instead of actually making choices based on what kind of character they want to build.  Even in games where combat skill and noncombat skill are actually separate systems, a lot of the time what can be bought by experience points means making unnecessary sacrifices in the name of what the player needs, rather than what the character wants to be.

Image copyright White Wolf. Pictured, one of the worst examples of that.  “Animal Ken” costs just as much as “Persuasion,” “Academics” and “Firearms.”  Also, it was really hard to actually find a blank one of these through Google Image search, even when searching for blank sheets.

The concept is generally less of a problem in video games than in table top, since video games tend to make sure combat and noncombat are separate systems, and that the player has access to the basics that make up their character from the beginning.  Looking at that character sheet above, making a cop would require the player to split their skills between Firearms, Athletics, Streetwise, Persuasion, Empathy, Investigation and Intimidation, and those are the basics.  A video game keep the systems separate enough that the player wouldn’t have to buy the ability to run right at the beginning.  However, progression systems that require the player to buy stuff with experience still often require a player to not have access to everything they should have, or need, of at least without grinding.  The issue isn’t specialization, it’s that rarely is the specialization well optimized for the player to have what is needed to fulfill the sort of character they need.  Look at the Elder Scrolls, where magic is split across 5+ schools of magic, weapons across 3, and skill in one of them doesn’t improve skill in another.  The issue isn’t actually specialization, but that the skills are disconnected and require the player to focus on all of them, or cut out things that would be useful for the point of a character.  For instance, depending on the character’s fighting style, the ultimate warrior might be the ultimate swordsman in Skyrim, but completely fail if they pick up a two handed sword.

Dark Souls doesn’t fall into this trap.  Yes, there are issues with specialization and making it difficult to branch out, but that’s another issue entirely.  The souls allow the player to buy what they need, as they need it, and they do so in a way that makes it so the player can shift into different, but related abilities with ease.  A combat based character who focuses entirely on combat stats isn’t going to have issues moving from a one handed weapon to a two handed one (yes, yes, Equip Load does mitigate this somewhat), or picking up a different style of weapon.  The stats that work with weapons help with any weapon, the stats that work with spells work with (almost) any spell and then the other stats keep the player alive.

The purchased stats allow for the players to branch out and experiment while still remaining within their archetype.  It does this by being clear what is happening to the player’s stats, by directly showing how the change in stats will alter their damage, HP and spellpower, but it’s also done by making sure that it’s the stats that are related have some crossover.  Sure, a dexterity based weapon is going to get better mileage out of a higher dexterity than strength (without infusions…), but that doesn’t mean that the strength is going to hurt.  The extra strength is going to add extra damage, no matter what weapon the player is swinging around and vice versa.  Yes, there are some exceptions, mostly with ranged weapons, but that’s not a general rule.

Sure, there are games that do this.  Oblivion, for example, strength adds damage to melee attacks, and Intelligence and Willpower do something for spells.  However, this is mitigated by the fact that there are three types of weapon skills: blades, blunts and bows.  Sure, a skilled bladeswoman with a high strength will do extra damage with an axe, but her base damage will be lower, since her blunt skill is lower.  In Dark Souls, if she picks up, say, twinblades, her high strength is still going to add extra damage, not as much as it would with a high dexterity, but it’s still there and it’s going to always have the same base damage, no matter what.  Not as good, yes, but not completely useless, and that distinction is what’s important.

So, I’ve written almost 1100 words on this already,and I’ll pass that before I finish, but I have more to say about souls, Dark Souls and stats, so I’ll be back to discuss more later in the week.

It should be better: Uncharted 4 Review

Image copyright Sony and Naughty Dog

This is something of a difficult review to write.  Not because it’s taken me by surprise, but because it’s not going to make a lot of sense.  Uncharted 4 features by far the best writing in the series and solves several huge problems with combat that’s plagued the series since the beginning, and it’s also by far the worst in the series.  Ultimately, it’s boring, frustrating, lacks any real challenge and by this point, feels rote and unnecessary.

Uncharted 4 follows Nathan Drake as he’s pulled into one more adventure after supposedly retiring for good.  This time, the perpetrator, introduced via flashbacks at the beginning of the game, is Nathan’s long lost, and never previously mentioned, brother Sam.  Thought dead while trying to find the treasure of Henry Avery, Sam was locked in a South American prison for 15 years, only recently escaping in order to recapture the treasure.  In over his head, and indebted to a drug lord for half of Avery’s treasure, valued at $400 million, Nathan has to help his brother get out of trouble, while dodging the mercenary company Shoreline and their former partner on the Avery heist, Rafe Adler.

There’s a lot to this plot, but, ultimately, it’s not really about the treasure or the adventure, it’s all about Nathan, and what his life is supposed to be.  Can he actually be happy living in a house with Elena and not globetrotting the world, getting into gunfights?  Is Drake doomed to a life of loneliness, dying alone in an empty house?  It’s an interesting character study, which leads to some of the best character moments in the series, not just between Nathan and Elena, but Nathan and newcomer Sam.  Everyone, even Sully, gets a lot of character development throughout the game, with all of them asking difficult questions about who they are and what they want out of life.

Surprisingly, the game does a good job of answering these questions in ways that work within the world, and not in a condescending, Hollywood type of way.  Things aren’t wrapped up in a pretty bow at the end of the game, but the characters deal with tough questions about who they are, and come away stronger in a way you don’t see in a lot of mainstream entertainment.  Not to spoil too much, but the issue isn’t about whether or not Nathan should live domestically with Elena (since she wants adventure just as much as he does, it turns out), but how to do that in a way where their relationship isn’t torn apart, and they don’t wind up getting shot at every time they show up somewhere.

This is something of the problem.  The writing is fantastic.  It’s leaps and bounds beyond anything Naughty Dog has ever done, and really, most game or even movie studios do for a piece of media about action set pieces.  The cut scenes look beautiful, they’re so well acted, the animators definitely deserve some sort of award and the cinematography is more than serviceable.  It’s also the only thing that kept me playing through the game.

So, most of the game is just more Uncharted, and it’s not very good Uncharted at that.  Platforming, solving puzzles, climbing on giant stuff, it’s all the same stuff that’s been in every version of the game, but this time, it just feels lazy.  There’s no challenge to this version of the platforming, all of the puzzles are easy enough that I could almost sleep through them, and they honestly just feel like huge breaks between cut scenes.  Engagement in the platforming sections are limited.  Like I said, there’s no challenge.  Uncharted games have always made it clear where to go and what to do, and that’s not really an issue I have, it’s that there’s nothing different.  Even with the grappling hook and rope mechanic, it doesn’t do anything different or interesting.

At least, until the gunplay starts.  Combat is where this game shines, because for the firs time in series history, it combines the Gears of War-inspired cover based shooting with actual platforming.  The bad guys flank Drake, use the terrain and come in from different directions to encourage moving from one place to the next, always trying to climb, jump and run around the opponents.  The platforming and movement is further incentiveized by being able to jump on opponents, taking them out instantly (technically, it’s a flying tackle, followed by a punch and the player has to jump from a higher area, so it’s not exactly Mario style jumping, but it’s close) or using the rope to swing into an unsuspecting mercenary and take them out with a single blow.  It makes combat fun and dynamic, and manages to marry the platforming and combat elements of the game in ways that the series has never managed to do, nor has its imitators, like the new Tomb Raiders.

At the same time, though, combat is frustrating.  In all seriousness, I actually died more times beating Uncharted 4 than I did playing Dark Souls III.  The game isn’t challenging, it’s just cheap.  Most enemies, unless taken down by a flying tackle or a stealth kill, take almost as many shots as Nathan does to put down, and combat always sees Nathan outnumbered about 10 to 1.  Combat is exhausting, and many combat sequences go on for multiple sections of the map, making it impossible to find a place to breathe in between them.  It’s also so frustrating to deal with.  Enemies always have the tactical advantage, whether it’s with gear or terrain, and that’s not counting the advantage of being outnumbered.  Nearly every gun fight, from the time they’re introduced, features at least one sniper (generally two) and a guy with a high powered weapon and heavy, heavy armor.  Armor guys take more shots to kill than Nathan, are generally only stunned by grenades and generally kill him faster since they have shotguns or miniguns.  Snipers are at least fragile, but they’re always far away, always guarded, and can kill Nathan faster than anything else in the game.

Here’s the thing, it looks great, it plays great and it’s got a great story.  Unfortunately, it’s just not that fun to play.  Yes, gunplay finally manages to put in the platforming, that’s wonderful, Naughty Dog finally caught up to themselves in 2003 with Jak II, but there’s a lack of engagement in the gameplay that just has been growing ever since Among Thieves came out.  In a lot of ways, this would have been so much better as a film.

Games in the Classroom: Teaching Games

I’m taking a short break from Game Anatomy.  A couple of reasons for this.  First, I need to do some research on a couple of items I want to write about, but I also need to finish a couple of games before I write about them.  This includes Dark Souls III, but I’d also like to finish Twilight Princess HD, since I have a bit to say about that in regards to it, Wind Waker and Ocarina of Time (and Majora’s Mask if we have time).  Also, this is an idea that’s been bouncing around in my head for years, and it’s something I’m somewhat ready to write about.  We’ll see if that supposition is correct.

I’ve mentioned my former day job as a journalist on this blog before, but I don’t know if I said that when I quit my first newspaper job, I moved into education.  Mostly, I wasn’t happy  in journalism, but I also felt there was more I could do as a person as a teacher than as a journalist.  Also, journalism was getting in the way of the writing I actually wanted to do, but the first two are a lot more important.  Anyway, since getting involved in education, I’ve noticed that games are an important part of learning, and I’ve been trying to find ways to bring games into the classroom, from utilizing game design elements in my lesson plans to actually attempting to teach a video game in in the classroom.  One of these, so far, has been more successful than the other.  It’s kind of surprising which one is which.

This past year, I took a week to teach to a group of seniors, as a test, the first episode of Life is Strange.  Life is Strange is an episodic neo-adventure game not unlike the Walking Dead or new King’s Quest games featuring a girl named Max Caulfield who can alter time.  There are several decision points in the game, and using the ability to alter time can change these decisions.  Each decision can change how the story goes, but, as the story goes on, altering the past can also alter what options Max has.  It’s not super complicated, it’s just that she can remember everything she’s done, so sometimes she can get new options if she’s seen something enough times.  It’s very cool, and I used it to approach literary analysis in a different way.

Image copyright Square Enix. Also, she really doesn’t look like that in the game.

One of the things I was observing with my students was a difficulty approaching analysis of literary devices and themes.  I wasn’t sure if the issue was technical on their part, instructional on my part, or just a lack of engagement.  My actual findings on this are a going to remain secret, but I had a feeling that a video game would help ease people into it.  My first thought being that my kids would have more interest in a video game than a 200 year old book (although I think my kids responded quite well to Frankenstein), my second being that an interactive medium would allow for a greater element of engagement.  Books are definitely an interactive medium, at least more so than television or film, but they are not at the level of a game.  Third, I really had an idea that the changing of story, the concept of actual, if limited choice, would allow the students to really understand literary analysis if I focused their analysis on the choices.

So, my first idea was to teach the Rachni choice in Mass Effect.  It’s a weighty choice, and it feels bigger than it actually turns out (ugh, Mass Effect 3, what don’t you ruin?), but it also required a lot of set up and buy in from the audience.  Certainly, when the player is right in the game, it’s great, but to throw a bunch of kids, many of whom don’t play video games like I do, or at all, into something like that, it wouldn’t work.  So, I needed something that required a small amount of games literacy, and would also require a limited amount of buy in for the students to get involved.  So, I did an adventure game, which is about as simple as far as gameplay mechanics goes.  All of the interactions with the game are done simply and are easy enough for everyone to understand.

Ultimately, there were about three things I learned.  First, this game has the word “fuck” a lot more than I thought, but still less than I heard in the halls when I was a student.  Second, buy in and engagement are not as hard as they seem.  Many of the kids were sucked into the game right away.  It doesn’t have the best dialogue or story, and honestly, the main characters kind of suck, but it feels fun and has a very teenage appeal.  Third, literary analysis is still difficult, no matter how sucked in you may be, and additional instruction was still required.