I disagree with this. I think Dark Souls does tell you which are approachable or not. It’s just not as obvious as other games. Some games will have a sign for the player that says “this path is dangerous” but DS doesn’t. It has characters talk about venturing into the catacombs. It has characters point out the aquaduct is the path to the first (and at the time the only you know of) Bell of Awakening. It tucks the elevator into New Londo behind the bonfire, where stuff will be later but you won’t see yet. It also tells you a lot about locations in item descriptions.
That’s…false.
The very first NPC you find at Firelink Shrine tells you there are two bells - one above, and one far below. It strongly implies both are equal options. There are at least 3 ways out of Firelink Shrine; one happens to go below, just like your friend the NPC said, to New Londo.
For players still acclimating to the basics of the combat, New Londo is a terrible novice experience. It requires perfectly tight positioning on teensy platforms barely visible through the water, and relies on limited items to even make a single attempt through the ghost-ridden area. That is a ton of mechanics that would be fine to slowly introduce players to, but it’s like putting the “Allspice Turducken while in a tornado” level of Overcooked first.
Then you’re talking about the Catacombs? The area whose entrance has infinitely respawning skeletons? Give up, man.
Dark Souls’ failure isn’t talking through NPCs - dozens of games that give your character a radio do just that. It’s from literally lying to you with misleading tripe and having no interest in any form of teaching - be it Half-Life 2’s nonverbal teaching or any verbally direct form. I had to play games by other devs, imitating the better parts of their formula, to learn FromSoft is just uniquely TERRIBLE at it.
Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
Like I said, Ne Londo has the first blacksmith you can get to, so going there isn’t bad, and that’s before the ghosts. Yeah, you’re going to need to back out once you get to the ghosts. If you try to force your way through that then yeah, it’ll be bad, but that one is really obvious you shouldn’t be doing it.
I talked about the Catacombs a lot, in how it failed. I think you ignored it. It’s supposed to be approachable for new players, but it failed, mostly in the escape. The necromancers are solvable with a divine weapon. They can’t revive skeletons killed by them. You’re supposed to back out of it at the very start, but return once you get a divine weapon. Again, it failed at what it was supposed to do, but the goal was for struggling players to go there are get the Rite of Kindling. That’s why Pinwheel is such a joke. He’s supposed to be fought early.