Improvements that can be made on Dark Souls

To me, for the most part, it's fine. But when it comes to multiplayer, it's quite annoying. Do you sometimes end up getting a random message saying "By rite of kindling, you may now kindle past the normal limit" when you invade someone and they happen to be fighting a boss? What about when you try to get summoned; How long do you have to wait in ANY area to be summoned, or waiting TO summon someone?

There's also the issue with connections during combat. I'm sure you have been "Lagstabbed" quite often. Part of it is the connection to another player, but it is also how the game is simply designed as far as physics go. Players lock-on to you, then they just jog their way up towards you, and they somehow immediately pop up and one-shot you. The animation is fixed and unavoidable or not able to be countered like in the front, where you can parry attacks.

What about those 3-man campers who actually await invaders hours on end just for the sake of it? A lot of players will complain to you about honor when you invade the newbies at the Undead Burg or near the belltower church, yet they are the first ones to exploit the problems I mentioned above.

Also, doesn't it seem that some weapon upgrades are simply better than others? Lightning is the most overused of all, simply because most armor sets are not that resistant to it, and it has pretty high base damage that does NOT require you to scale a certain stat like Strength or Dexerity (what's the difference anyway?), so it's easy to have a powerful weapon like that while still being at Soul level 1.

Alright, rather than make another paragraph, I will make a list. A list that contains things that should be changed to make it more fun for everyone (if not on Dark Souls, then the improvements should be for it's upcoming successor: Dark Souls 2). Woot.

1.) BALANCE THE POWER OF ALL WEAPON TYPES:
Lighting is simply the most useful of all. Fire could have been, but it takes more effort to find the materials for it, and it is stil weaker (mostly because most Armor sets do not have high resistance to Lightning like they do with Fire). Faith-based weapons seem to be only useful against Skeletons and other undead. Black Phantoms are considered part of this group, but a fully upgraded Lightning weapon beats it anyway, especially Occult-type weapons. Overall, make every weapon type have a useful characteristic and not make one more powerful than another. Lighting could have "stun" properties but be weakest, Fire can slowly drain an opponent's health overtime, and Magic could drain a bit of Stamina. Why not?

2.) HAVE DEDICATED SERVERS:
It's most likely that Dark Souls 2 already is addressing this, so we no longer have to rely on our own servers and worry about lagstabs and such. There's not much more to say here. Hopefully we also do not have to wait more than 10 minutes at a time for summons, or having to deal with "failed" invasions.

3.) GET RID OF BACKSTABBING OR CREATE A COUNTER FOR IT:
Even if connections no longer pose a problem, it's still an easy move to pull off mostly thanks to the "lock-on" feature. Or, players can have an attack that focuses hitting from behind. If Marvellous Chester can do a low back-kick that actually functions for this purpose, why can't we, the players, do the same?

4.) ELIMINATE FIXED LEVEL RESTRICTIONS FOR SUMMONS AND INVASIONS:
I know, I know. The whole purpose of having level ranges is so that SL1 players can't summon a SL 710 player, or a SL 334 player invading a SL21 player. But I thought this was Dark Souls: a game where difficulty is natural, and dying is common. Plus, there isn't much difference between low-level and high-level players anyway other than damage and weapons. A SL1 player has the potential to beat the highest level player (I should know because I have done it quite a few times and got hate mail for it).

Anything I missed?

Oh yes. I DID forget something. Armor. Most armor sets are superficial, and hold no distinguishing differences. And it seems that even wearing Giant's Armor or Havel's Armor does not stop you from dying in 2-3 hits. To me, it seems like the Defense stats are gimmicky and are a lie. Fix it. I do not want to wear armor only for looks, but I want to wear armor for benefits.

replicax77 posted...

Really only one thing that matters. Bring back Stockpile Thomas.

Oh yes, another merchant no one really cares for will truly improve the oberall gameplay experience for players. >.>

Most NPCs do not even move their mouths and are pretty much statues. Andre of Astora moves his lips, sure, but it's so off sync. My guess is that he was one of the first NPCs created in Dark Souls, while everyone else was never really bothered with.

Yes, he already mentioned he was causal. But we are talking about improvements for Dark Souls. Does anyone agree? Did I miss anything?

SubTonic14 posted...

Change nothing, because DkS is gaming perfection with no flaws whatsoever, and if you disagree with that, then you're a filthy casul.

Did you read everything I typed, or are you just a fanboy troll? Go grind in the Darkroot areas like a good, angry little boy. Or better yet, how about you have an open-mind and help come up with more improvements, eh?

-.-

SubTonic14 posted...

This game is already perfectly balanced, dude. And if you die to backstabs, then you just plain suck. Get better at the game, casul.

Yeah, you didn't read everything I typed. No one will listen to you now, especially not me. Bye bye.

acangial posted...

AnimeKid1089 posted...

replicax77 posted...

Really only one thing that matters. Bring back Stockpile Thomas.

Oh yes, another merchant no one really cares for will truly improve the oberall gameplay experience for players. >.>

Most NPCs do not even move their mouths and are pretty much statues. Andre of Astora moves his lips, sure, but it's so off sync. My guess is that he was one of the first NPCs created in Dark Souls, while everyone else was never really bothered with.

You are sub Cazul, kid.

Stockpile Thomas would be a tremendous improvement to DKS2 AND they really need to have a better file backup tactic in case your file gets corrupted during power outages. This happened twice to me via power outage and my old PS3 getting red light of death. I shouldn't have to pay an additional $50 a year to back up my save file to PSN cloud that I can only access once a day. It's ridiculous.

Are you joking? I never once had a corrupted file even during power outages, so i dont know you did. And why would Thomas improve anything? All he was good for was Green herbs and carrying excess luggage (oh wait, that's what the Bottomless Box is for). And guess what? Carrying stuff in Dark Souls does not encumber you anymore like in Demon's Souls.

Do me a favor and read everything I typed.

SubTonic14 posted...

Let me be serious like Solid for a second: He's right. This board is the absolute worst place you could ever go to speak about this game in any civilized fashion. Your biggest mistake was showing sincerity and honesty on Gamefaqs. Learn from it and never take this website's community seriously again.

Except for this post. Take this post very seriously.

You and Solid both like wasting whatever precious time you have making stupid comments. if you are not going to help, then just go away. Even if what you say is actually true, it's not like Yahoo Answers or Wiki pages would be any better. But go ahead... tell me what site would be better for my topic? Hm? IGN? Screw IGN.

replicax77 posted...

Alright TC, simma down now. You're starting to get into unreasonable territory. Just because you have never had a corrupted file doesn't mean that sudden power loss can't cause it. Also, do you honestly think that the bottomless box is a better way to handle storage than Stockpile Thomas? Come on, that thing is a disorganized mess. Plus it never once told me that I have a heart of gold.

Disorganized mess? You know, whatever. I don't care. My main concern is the flaws I mentioned at the beginning of the topic. Either all of you agree and explain why, or disagree and explain why, rather than worry about gimmicky duplicate ideas or convincing yourself that the game is flawless. No game is flawless. Period.