Dark Souls - Pretend To Be Good!

I have recently finished my Dark Souls III no shield dual wield playthrough and it got hard as balls, especially towards the end. When I played the first Dark Souls, I went giant armor or Havel's stuff, greatshield and Zweihänder all the way. It's the easiest, cheesiest way to beat Dark Souls. And I felt a little guilty, because according to the various comments sections of the interwebs, using a shield means you suck. Using powerful gear means you suck. Everybody can totally beat this game at Soul Level 1 simply by "gitting gud" and Dark Souls is actually super easy unless you suck at it, blah de blah. Yeah, about that...

The fun thing (to some) about the internet is how you can talk shit all day without ever having to back it up. I've seen invaders, phantoms, sunbros, the reflections and bloodstains of other players and you know what they all had in common? Fucking shields. Lots of greatswords and other cheesy setups, too. Lots of them also summon friends and AI buddies to help with the difficult boss battles. Why? Because it fucking works and because Dark Souls gets so much harder if you actually play the way you pretend you do on the internet.

This joke gets put down near every single butt in the entire game.

The Souls community is a bunch of whiny bitches, whose high-pitched cries make the communities of games like Call of Duty or League of Legends almost tolerable by comparison. One feature in this game is that you can invade other players' sessions to kill them. Monsters won't come after you or hurt you when you invade - all you do is run after the guy who fights all these enemies and stab him in the back, ideally while he is distracted and cannot defend himself. This is the basic idea of pvp in Dark Souls. Ironically, people who love to invade have made up this stupid honor code. Because invading people against their will to kill their characters is somehow honorable now. You are expected to play a little bow animation at the beginning of a fight you never wanted and you are not allowed to heal or summon a friendly player to help you. Doing so earns you the eternal scorn of the pvp community or something.

You suck if you use certain items the community deems too powerful. You suck if you play with friends. You suck if you use a shield. You suck if you heal in a pvp match you never wanted in the first place. Oh and "Dark Souls was never supposed to be cheesed with powerful items and co-op, this is not how a Souls game is meant to be played", yada, yada, yada. Because the fact that all of these items and features exist clearly shows they're not meant to be used, apparently. Here's what the Steam forums have been like since day one:

If you equip weapons and armor or defend yourself in unwanted pvp, you suck!

Of course it's also possible to "flag" yourself for voluntary pvp. You put down a pvp sign and anyone who wants to fight you gets to summon you and then you can be as fucking "honorable" as you want. But people don't want a fair fight, they don't want to duel somebody who is prepared for them. They want to invade the session of somebody who is ass-deep in monster hordes and can't fight back, then bitch when the invaded player heals, summons friends and does whatever it takes to make the invader's life miserable. Because it's only dishonorable when the other guy does it. Sounds like a social experiment more than a video game.

Having finished the game without a shield and using mostly the relatively crappy dual claws, I believe that the Souls games don't even reward "skill" or fast reactions that much. It's more about memorizing the game. I didn't breeze through certain areas or defeat bosses after a few failed attempts because I'm oh-so talented. I did it because I memorized shit. Attack patterns and monster positions. Go down that corridor and something drops down on me from the ceiling, stay away from the boss lady when she arches her back like a cat, because she will grab and oneshot you, that sort of thing. There used to be a time where games were heavily criticised for that kind of gameplay (i.e. you keep dying until you memorize everything) and Dark Souls gets praised for it. Funny. :D

And still just winning by the skin of my teeth.

The next time you feel like throwing the controller through your screen or strangling your cat in frustration at one of the many boss fights in Dark Souls, just remember that the vast majority of people who brag about how easy they thought the game was, how they could solo everything on the first try with no gear and no level-ups, are full of shit. Dark Souls means learnin by dying. And if you feel the need to cheese it by summoning helpful players or using an ultra greatsword, just go for it. Most people do - and that shit wouldn't be implemented if it really was against the spirit of the game in some way.

And following my own advice, Claire and I have decided to co-op all the way through with each other on NG+! Well... that and the way of the dragon, because fuck soloing that shit. Besides, I am clearly overestimating the range of my melee weapon. A lot.

So prepare those hate posts on the forums, get ready to start bitching, because if you invade us we're gonna gank the everloving shit out of you, we're gonna heal as much as we want, we're gonna sit and wait in a spot that doesn't have any traps or monsters for you to use against us and the only gesture you'll get in the end isn't a bow, but a fucking golf clap when your dead ass gets sent back to your own session. And if we're being perfectly honest, there's a 75% chance you won't get to see any of that, because the shitty netcode makes it impossible to see animations in the first place.