Be Excellent To Each Other

Annoyingly, the xbox version did tell me how to kick bad guys. What it didn't tell me was that if you start as a wanderer, the sword it gives you doesn't let you kick people. Spent ages trying to work that out.

I expect, like many of this game's design flaws, someone will be along in a minute to elevate this to mythology and explain how it makes the game better.

Having wasted my money on it I will try to persist to see if I can like it, but from what I've seen so far I can't fathom what made this so awesome. .

People rave about how great the combat is, but unless I use the target-locking system I can't hit shit (might be due to impossibly bad mouse handling), and while target-locked I can't break away if I'm getting my nuts kicked. It's clunky and unpleasant.

Might just take some getting used to, but also might just be crap. We'll see.

I really can't imagine it working with a mouse/keyboard. Really very much so.

I also can't see it working if you're the type to get easily angry.

It's the same game. i.e. there's no code in the 360 version to turn off the mouse cursor. There's no code in the PC version.


Nor, indeed, does the PC tutorial tell you to use WASD. Instead, you get prompts telling you what to press on the gamepad. Because it hasn't changed. It's the same game, designed for the same controls. It's unplayable with a mouse.

No one said that it does. I think you're missing the point here.

I may have had beer, but fuck the haters!!!

Meh, Played it up until the Gargoyles. Aside from the GFWL popups appearing rather than Xbox Live ones (and the fact I goonishly started it off without saving enabled...), I wouldn't have known I wasn't playing the game on the xbox - it's just as good as it was on the xbox (that is to say, game of the generation. With the possible Try not to fart). People asked for Dark Souls, they got it, pretty much exacly as it was with a few bits and bobs on the side. And if they expect to play a game fundamentally designed around a gamepad with a mouse and keyboard...

Because it's never been done - well - before?

I'd imagine that more than one person has paid good money for the game of the back of the 360 / PS3 reviews and probably expected some effort to be put into it.

If it was £15, then yeah, okay, you could perhaps understand it. But it wasn't, it was a full price game, so it's not unreasonable to expect it to work well.

Imagine how good it could have been without one-hit kills (until you learn the hit pattern after tediously retracing your steps five times after dying). Or with a camera that wasn't shit in the Capra Demon battle.

Or without a mouse pointer on the screen.

*waves*

Meanwhile, the £35 I spent on Skyrim is some of the best value vs. enjoyable play time I've ever had. The odd buggy quest in such an epic game is more than acceptable, but even then I'm not going to get lightheaded and call it the game of the generation, or even game of the year.

Dark Souls is unmistakeably a magnificent game. Not providing proper controls is equally unmistakeably a piss-poor attempt at porting a game.

Worst. 40,000th. Post. Ever.

I will persist, if only because my desire for VFM outweighs my immediate frustration at how badly it's been set up. I managed with FF7 anyway, although that was (fuck me), 14 years ago.

I remember playing Space Harrier in the arcades and thinking how ace it was. Imagine my joy when I got it for the C64. It wasn't anywhere near-like the arcade in terms of the graphical prowess or the booming music, hell, it didn't even have a funky hydraulic chair. I was just happy to be able to play it.

Funny how times change.

You guys are probably all lame. Apart from DAVE.

I didn't even mean to capitalise that

Somehow I've wound up in bed with a burger abs chips (with. Chip spice). Carry oh

Carry on, obviously

Seriously if I die in my sleep, avenge me. It was some shite takeaway in York. They can't do takeaways properly here. Dirty takeaways I mean. Burger and chips stuff. The Indians and Chineses are great. Avenge meeeeeeeeeee!

Ian is also the man in this thread not just Dave. Definitely gonna attempt to not die in my sleep now.

You try and make it use that control scheme you end up with a completely different game. The mouses strength is aiming. This isn't a game which was designed about aiming - see how fundamental the lock on is to the games combat because what it asks of you is not the ability to aim at an enemy but rather to not be killed by it. There are enough games that focus on camera control (most FPS games for a start) this does something different, and something that does not play to the strengths of Keyboard and mouse because the mouse is rather redundant.

Finesse in moving is more of a requirement, and that isn't provided by WASD+shift (and that's saying nothing of the knots my fingers tied themselves in what with needing quick access to 8 buttons outside of those needed for movement.). Mouse and Keyboard is just the wrong tool what the game was designed to be, and so it's not at all surprising that it's a complete abortion. And that's before considering that chances are quite high that no developer there had ever used such a control scheme.

If you want to play a flight sim, a suitable stick is generally regarded as a requirement. Mouse and Keyboard... less than ideal. If you want to play a racing game, A wheel and pedals are generally a good idea. Mouse and Keyboard, not so much. Games designed for a pad tend to require a pad. Change the design to something that works on a mouse + Keyboard and you have something completely different in the same way that a driving game would more closely resemble driving a car in battlefield or something like that. (Or indeed, like that joke of al quake mod I played back in the day which used direct input from the mouse to control the cars steering.)


If you mind losing the money due to getting something you didn't expect, then read reviews. Pretty much every review and preview of the PC version I've seen seen would've given enough information.


It works at least as well as the other versions. For less money. It was asked for by a lot of people. It was provided. If what was asked for was "Dark souls, with mouse controls, fancy graphics and a new networking system" nothing would've been released because the risk would've been too high*. If what was asked for was "Dark souls really cheap" nothing would've happened either.

It may be that you'd prefer that. But then maybe it was a bit daft for PC gamers to request en-masse something that is rather fundamentally a console game made by console developers with no cultural understanding of PC games and expect it to be a PC game. Me? It's the same game as it ever was with some extra areas, and as such I'm rather fond of it. It's been a long, long time since I've liked a game as much as this one for the actual game found inside. So I'm rather happy it was released even though I didn't sign the petition due to it's daftness.

* - and a little alien, too. By and large, Japanese gamers aren't hung up on the technical aspects of graphics and Keyboard and mouse controls are just not used there.

Do the old wired 360 pads work on pc?
If so I could lend one to cg

Yes, they work - It's what I'm using.

There are some games I've liked, other games I've loved, and some I've thought to be utterly fantastic. But I've never defended a game to the level of bizarre fanaticism seen in Mr Dave. This game can seemingly do no wrong. If it's shit, it was meant to be shit, and it's your fault for failing to appreciate that the shitness is somehow awesome. I don't even think the developers reckon it's that good.

I think it's Stockholm Syndrome caused by the game being so fecking hard.

It is a hard game, no arguments there, but the enjoyment for me came through learning how to best it.

Not quite; it's alright to admit that some aspects of the PC port are shit but you should be satisfied to have given them £40 because it's a bit hard and they don't know what they're doing. It's a cultural thing y'see; and anyway the Japanese don't care about mice so why do you? Or something.

Perhaps less enjoyment would be gained if one of the things you had to learn was "how to disable the second monitor".

Can't even remap the keys to the number or symbols keys on the keyboard. Alpha characters only.

Stumbled on to the point where I have a club and a shield, only to be immediately annihilated by the dungeon demon thing. Based on the damage I inflicted though it should be killable this time, so I'll go back later and try again.

Windows+P to 'Computer only' worked btw, ta

You'll thank me less when you see what it's done to your desktop icons.

Did you go for the deprived class? That's a bold move for a first-timer. It's basically 'make the game difficult for me' mode.

Yep, he seemed like the most chipper of the bunch. Plus there's something about even stats that I like.

My icons are fine btw Grim... I only have a few and they don't span across the extended desktop. Changing modes just to play is still pretty annoying.

If you've paid £40, you're a total moron. what with that being considerably more expensive than what they charge for the game.

I'd be a whole lot less forgiving if they hadn't said right from the very start exactly what the port was going to be, take it or leave it. It's not like they tried to dupe anyone. I've now played up to the end of blighttown. It's the same game, but slightly better, in that it drops considerably less/fewer FPS than the xbox did. It's not like they've given something worse than the console version, so I don't really see any reason to get overly annoyed.

And what part of "The game is not designed for use with mice" do you not get? Perhaps they should add in kinect controls as well. Maybe also the ability to control it with a steering wheel. And they'd be equally as unplayable as the mouse controls, because like mouse control, it's not how the game was designed.

Perhaps Nintendo should release a copy of Super Mario Bros controlled by the mouse. Move the mouse right to walk right. Move it left to go left. Yeah, that'd be awesome wouldn't it, forcing a design not made for a mouse onto a mouse. Or maybe, just maybe, trying to do such a thing would be incomprehensibly stupid, and so they wouldn't bother and stick with controls that do work.

Or for a real world example. Forza 4 with Kinect. You're using the wrong control system and it's uncontrollable. And that's despite quite a lot of effort going in to get it to work. It's just fundamentally incompatible.

From now on, I'm only going to rate games based on how they can be played with my feet. Because that's a sensible way to judge things.

Defending a game you happen to think is one of the best ever is "bizarre fanaticism" now?

It's a testament to how much some people have enjoyed this game that they're willing to take time out of their day to bang their head against the metaphorical brick wall of trying to help people to like it more. That shouldn't be discouraged.

ETA: @Mr Dave

If you're happy with a port that doesn't take into account some of the basic differences between two platforms then fine, but personally I wouldn't be pleased at something that cost full price and had been half-arsed like that. What the developers said or didn't say beforehand has little relevance to my mind because paying customers shouldn't be expected to research the experience and stance of the team behind any product before forking over their money. That's just me though (and a few others in the thread it seems) but if you're pleased with what you got then that's cool. Your expectations seem pretty different from others here so that's that.

And all your gibbering about foot-controlled Mario games or whatever is irrelevant, but you seem to be enjoying your spluttering outrage there so who am I to stand in your way?

Whoa, Whoa, WHOA! Whoa.

We just blindly buy games from what box cover looks like these days without, at the very least, reading a review or summats? Moar fule you.

Surely there's a difference between defending an actual game and defending a(n arguably) flawed implementation of said game? The context of the current discussion is the latter not the former but your post here conflates the two I think.

So you'd rather it wasn't released then, because the design is incompatible with one of the PCs input methods.


It's only in response to the spluttering outrage of the idiots who demanded a console game was ported and then got irate when they got a console game.

So, if someone doesn't do some amount of research they shouldn't be allowed to complain about a 'faulty' product? Wow.

Because half-arsing something or not releasing it at all were the only two options ever? This isn't some nonsense that a guy made in his bedroom and stuck up on the internet for free, this is a proper product made by a professional studio that they're charging real actual money for. They could've put out a port that was done properly and they didn't, that's their choice and the fact that you keep blaming other people for expecting anything more than 'recompile and release' is the bit that I find bizarre.

As for the control method I'd be more understanding about it if they'd slapped a big fat ONLY PLAYABLE IF YOU'VE GOT AN XBOX CONTROLLER FOR YOUR PC! disclaimer all over the thing but there's no mention of that whatsoever on the Steam page. Keyboard/mouse is the default controller for games on the PC because it's the hardware that you know everyone running that platform definitely has so there's a completely understandable and valid expectation on the part of PC owners that a game will at least work with the keyboard and mouse. The same way every Xbox game works with the Xbox controller and not, I dunno, the Rock Band drum set or something. If you're going to buck that expectation then the responsibility is on you to communicate that to your customers and blaming them for not somehow knowing you're going to do it is nonsense. It's the reason Kinect games have a big purple stripe on them and massive "REQUIRES KINECT SENSOR!" label on the box, because MS know they can't assume that someone knows that extra hardware is required so they go out of their way to let you know.

I've not read on here that it's faulty just that it's a shoddy port that doesn't support keyboard and mouse and some monitor stuff (ok, I didn't really understand that bit).

Nothing that wouldn't/hasn't have been picked up in the reviews I dare say.

So, yes, do a bit of research before you drop £40 on any consumer product.

I just don't agree that it's acceptable to port a game without making a decent fist at adapting the control system, and I don't agree that Dark Souls is a game that only works with a pad. Better with a pad, sure - but from the sound of things it's terrible with KBAM, and that could and should have been addressed, especially if you're charging full price at retail.

What Bamba said. Any valid points Dave might make are lost in the mouth-foaming froth of his fanaticism.

Who did the conversion? Was it in-house?

Some investigation:
By doing the following things :
1- Hiding the mouse cursor using the mod thing
2- Using Logitechs mouse utility upper to assign specific keystrokes to buttons. (if you don't have a mouse with plenty of buttons, give up - you're going to need quick access to a lot of functions while moving)
3- Rather vitally - turning the mouse sensitivity in the game down considerably.

I got something more playable.

Anor Londo (with the exception of the boss, I haven't gone in there yet) basically gave me no problems.

However, it falls apart massively when you come to fight something where you don't want to lock on (say, for instance, the golems in Sens Fortress, or detachable parts). Because the expectation is for the mouse button to hit where your camera is aimed - but the game doesn't do that, it hits where your character is aimed (that is to say, you're aiming using the WASD keys)
Aside from not doing what you expect - which is a rather big problem - 8 directions are not enough to correctly target what you want to hit much of the time.

Making it more compatible with the PC control scheme for non locked on combat (That is, shift the aim function from the movement control to the camera control) would rather impact on the combat and the balance of the game. It's at that point things get expensive to fix and what you end up with is a different game.

(It also doesn't cope particularly well with target selection while locked on)

Don't be a dick, man.