Dark Souls 2 on PC confirmed to have artificial difficulty

From once again has showed that they cannot code anything right for PCs. The PC version of Dark Souls 2 is simply bugged to the point I'd call it game breaking. Everything in the game was coded around its framerate, meaning that if you play on 30FPS, the game plays normally, but if you crank it up to 60FPS, which is a standard on PCs, the whole thing goes apeshit and many things happen twice as fast - the weapons' durability degradation, enemy animations, probably even rolling i-frames... Want some proof? Here:

Also, this reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkSouls2/comments/2517i8/durability_bug_is_linked_to_framerate/

No wonder it's PC gamers who are complaining, to the console gamers' surprise, who had absolutely no problems with the game whatsoever - they just got a broken version. It also looks like the devs have no intention (or more likely any idea how) to fix it. Way to go, FromSoftware!

Don't people play this because it's hard? Well now it's even harder. They could put a landmine inside the game box that explodes when you open it and Dark Souls fans would call it hardcore.

Suck it up :P

git gud

True, it makes the game harder, but that's not the point here. The point of this post is to uncover sloppy job FromSoftware did.

Im not casul, m8.

I thought they made the game harder on purpose, now I feel robbed :S

I, too, thought those things were made on purpose, but after going through numerous threads on various forums, I noticed that console players didn't have a problem at all with the durability. Then I knew, it had something to do with the PC version. Then I discovered the reddit thread where it was clearly proved by cheat engine readings and people comparing both PS3 and PC versions they own. Again, weapons decayed faster on PCs. Then I found the video on Escapist forums. That was the final proof. PC version is a broken pile of crap and we should demand at least a partial refund.

That's odd I've been playing the game for some time and now I'm at the Lost sinner boss fight but I've had not these issues. And let me tell you something so far it's easier than dark souls and this goes without saying that I'm a member of that covenant that makes the game harder.

My only issues with the game are fan overheating and mouse lag, God damn that mouse lag. I had to change the attack buttons to Q and E.

The second one is easier, I'll give you that. But probably you've had those issues because they're directly connected to the 60fps framerate. Unless you locked it on 30fps to mimic the console experience, lol.

So the fan going crazy is also a universal problem? I thought it was only my PC, as it hadn't been cleaned in a while.

It's a good game and I wouldn't ask for a refund, at least it was playable; hell, I have a reason to replay it now.

I locked the framerate to 30 and yes, melee combat is significantly easier, feels more like DkS 1 and thus a lot more fair. I never landed backstabs on mobs but now they're almost constant

Wow. Just wow. You convinced me to try to play the game again and see it for myself. Any easy way to lock the framerate at 30FPS? I know there's a setting in Nvidia cards, but I have an AMD one and don't have such a thing.

DXtory or MSI Afterburner have a frame limiter option; I'm using DXtory trial atm

Can this be patched?

@uninspiredcup:

I think they would've had to rewrite the mechanics from grounds up to make it independent from the framerate, so I highly doubt it.

I've put a ton of hours into the PC version and I haven't encountered any of those issues. Game plays exactly the same as it did on console in my experience.

I was under the Impression that the whole point of the Souls games was to be Artificially Difficult..... :o

I'm mean.... Thats what being "hardcore" is all about right ?

I managed to lock the framerate at 30fps. I'm really impressed at how much the gameplay has changed. The combat feels entirely different - heavier, slower, more precise, not really different from DkS1. I suggest that you do the same. I know, it's a poor workaround, but until the devs fix that, it's the only way to experience the game the way it was meant to be.

No people play it because its a deep RPG. Not just because its "hard" .

@faizanhd

Theres a Thin Line between Deep and Complex and RPGs are definately on the wrong side of it........ But sadly its not that simple....... Dark Souls is also an Action-RPG so there is a layer of actual Depth in there somewhere.

Considering most pre-2000 gamers don't even consider D&D RPGs complex , I'd have to say no RPG ever made is complex.

If a PC release didn't work so well on DS1, DS2 is sure as hell gonna have some sort of issues. Along with hackers, yet another reason why I'm glad I stuck with the X360 version.

Yup, it was expected. I bet nobody expected the game to run twice as fast on PC than it did on consoles, though.

@faizanhd

Depends..... The system maybe complex but if the majority of the the results come down to RNGs and Dice Rolls then the game effectively kills its own complexity, then theres games like Final Fantasy (XIII) where it seems complex at 1st but the reason its like that is because theres a clear tactic to winning so the developers try to bury it under layers and layer of complex statistical systems to disguise the flaw....... Some people notice it... Most people don't.

Yeah, there's gotta be more to this. I've been playing on the PC version alone since it came out and I've had no issues. Near as I can tell, it plays exactly like my PS3 version.

Edit: Minus, of course, the massively improved framerate and resolution.

-Byshop

There is difference between being hard and bad design choices named as "hard game for cool kids" .

The game is good but it is clearly not what is standard on PC . I found controls not so responsive when playing on keyboard . Then there is Xbox controller prompts all over the place . This isn't 2008 .

Any game designed for analog sticks and played on a keyboard is a bad time, and vice-versa.

@Black_Knight_00

True.... Its a tool, not a toy ! ;)

I've noticed some stuff that are suspicious. Mostly hits that seen to be out of sync. Plays mostly well.

Dark Souls 2 is easy until NG++

Lol "Deep." Just stop please. Block...block...attack...block

A deep RPG, not a deep MELEE COMBAT SIMULATOR. As an RPG it's indeed very deep lore and story-wise (both are complementing each other).

Wait, Dark Souls has a story?

Yeah. It's just presented in a very obtuse manner. Look up some of the lore speculation videos on YouTube, if you're curious.

@xxninja666xx

Its a complex RPG..... Not deep.

you should judge a game by the actual game play not by the stats that govern them.

The RPG Elements act like a sort of 2nd Barrier. Usually games only have a single barrier, The controller.

RPGs have two.... The controller and the stats. Making me fiddle with a bunch of stats and numbers doesn't change that Dark Souls is still a simple Block-Attack-Block-Attack action game.

You can do the exact same thing with Super Mario.... Adding RPG Elements doesn't make something deep... It just makes it complicated. Its a formality the game forces you to put up with to get to the actuall gameplay.

Wait, wait. Speculation sounds really bad. What do you mean by "obtuse"?

The story of Dark Souls is delivered primarily through item descriptions and the occasional piece of dialog. Very few things in the game are ever certain, the writing leaving just enough room for interpretation, meaning there's tons of little things that are left on the player to fill in for themselves. That mostly applies to the surrounding lore than the main story itself, though. There's a lot more certainty in what's going on there, lot more hard evidence to support the prevailing theories about it, especially with how Dark Souls 2 often directly references things.

That sounds like lore and that's fine, but by story I mean the bare string of:

Protagonist > Motivation > Antagonist/Obstacle > Events > Payoff

Without those bareboes components, I can hardly call it a story, or a plot. I mean, what is the Dark Souls dude doing exactly and why? I only played a little Demon's Souls and all I remember it telling me was "All was well in the world, and then a guretto eviru happened. Now go and kill things."

Yeah, I would describe it as "lore" more than story. It's a rich world, but very little happens in the context of your playthrough beyond the actions you take and a few limited conversations. There is a lot of information about the world to find, but it's hard to think of it as story when most of it is about the mythology of the world.

That being said, it didn't make the game feel lacking. The lack of personal interaction in the game goes a long way to contributing to the bleak and lonely feel the game's atmosphere has. It's similar to System Shock 2 in that way, except SS2 had more of a story in that much of the "lore" items you found were personal correspondence that created a narrative of what happened.

-Byshop

Going off-topic here, I found a great video summing up my and the small minority's letdowns with Dark Souls 2. There is some nitpicking of course, especially the emphasis on the first issue, but it's otherwise a fantastic critique.