There's an entire genre that's about maneuverability as defense: "bullet hell" shootemups. (Also known as "danmaku" or "curtain fire".) You know, the ones about flying a little spaceship through these huge, complicated patterns of slow-moving bright pink bullets.
And my experience of playing Dark Souls was all about "dodging around like a maniac and not being where enemies were putting their weapons".
I mean, if you want to constrain it to FPSs, yeah, there's not much like it. But there are a hell of a lot of games whose primary strategy is "Be Where The Bullets Are Not".
That's Dark Souls 2. Dodging in DaS1 is less I AM FUCKING INVINCIBLE and more I AM INVINCIBLE for a very short amount of time and oh please please let me be out of range by the time my limited invincibility frames run out, plus your dodge is shorter and you can wear a lot less stuff before your rolls get slow. The only way to get DaS2-like dodging in DaS1 is with the dark wood grain ring.
On the other hand, you can parry much more reliably in 1 and I've killed dark knights simply by parrying them 4 times successively. Or you can backstab, since the enemies don't turn as quickly as they do in 2.
I'll agree that a lot of strategy in DaS 1 and 2 comes from careful positioning, given that replenishing your health puts you at a considerable danger while you sit immobile drinking estus and can be interrupted at any time by an attack. However, I find that the two games have a definitely different feel to them, even though they're woven from the same cloth. Another thing is that the camera in DaS2 is much, much faster, due to being truly mouse controlled - you can turn as fast as you can swing your mouse (I still recommend using AutoHotkey to bind mouse buttons to keyboard buttons because otherwise you get lag on attack, due to the game waiting a frame or two to check if you're not double-clicking, since you can bind different actions on single and double click; it's not the end of the world, but it's annoying). In 1, not only is m+kb absolutely unworkable, the mouse has a negative acceleration applied and you can't turn any faster than with a joypad.
I like both, but if you play a long enough time these small differences start getting really obvious.
Also, I haven't seen someone mention the Serious Sam games, so there.
Actually I've only one I've been playing is DS1. As an armor-avoidant high dex thief type because that's generally my play style - see my love of being a tiny spaceship dodging giant bullets. Non-boss combat consists mostly of me rolling around like crazy until I can backstab. Also mouse and keyboard isn't any kind of option because I do 90% of my gaming on a console.
And that's somehow not super annoying and unreliable? What about titanite demons or bonewheels or mobs ganging on you? What about those tiny tiny ledges in Sen's? What about the archers in Anor Londo? What about the spiders and the mosquitoes and those toxic-spitting things in Blighttown? What about the demonic dogs? What about tiny spaces? Capra Demon?
Er.. I'm not expecting an answer to all of those, but I am curious how you pull off the playstyle in general. Do you mostly use ranged attacks?
I'm not saying it's impossible. Heck, there's speedruns where you can see people just rushing past every enemy and then stabbing the boss in the butt (i.e. the one true strategy for every boss in DaS) with some minmaxed weapon.
I guess I'm just noting it won't be fun for me to play that way at all. Well both not fun and nearly impossible.
Ranged attacks are a definite part of it! I love sneaking around and sniping and am generally peeved that it refuses to let me do that to bosses. I was ECSTATIC when I finally found the dude in the undead burg who sold me a bow. Blighttown bugs, I deal with by a combo of shield and a targeted magic missile; I diversified into a few experimental spells and liked that.
I also haven't played in a while; I got to a point where I couldn't make serious progress in any of the avenues currently open to me, and then the keeper of the initial bonfire got killed, and I accidentally used what the internet tells me is the only item that could bring her - and the flame - back. I really didn't want to continue and I also really didn't feel like starting fresh.
Also use the environment! Pull gangs of mobs into a place where there's room to pick them off one by one, or just circle around and lose them. Aggro a mob, vanish around a corner, and beat heck out of it as it rounds the corner and tries to figure out where you are. Hell, I cleaned out ALL the dragons in the dragon valley by cheerfully abusing having an arrow range longer than their aggro distance...
Comments
There's an entire genre that's about maneuverability as defense: "bullet hell" shootemups. (Also known as "danmaku" or "curtain fire".) You know, the ones about flying a little spaceship through these huge, complicated patterns of slow-moving bright pink bullets.
And my experience of playing Dark Souls was all about "dodging around like a maniac and not being where enemies were putting their weapons".
I mean, if you want to constrain it to FPSs, yeah, there's not much like it. But there are a hell of a lot of games whose primary strategy is "Be Where The Bullets Are Not".
That's Dark Souls 2. Dodging in DaS1 is less I AM FUCKING INVINCIBLE and more I AM INVINCIBLE for a very short amount of time and oh please please let me be out of range by the time my limited invincibility frames run out, plus your dodge is shorter and you can wear a lot less stuff before your rolls get slow. The only way to get DaS2-like dodging in DaS1 is with the dark wood grain ring.
On the other hand, you can parry much more reliably in 1 and I've killed dark knights simply by parrying them 4 times successively. Or you can backstab, since the enemies don't turn as quickly as they do in 2.
I'll agree that a lot of strategy in DaS 1 and 2 comes from careful positioning, given that replenishing your health puts you at a considerable danger while you sit immobile drinking estus and can be interrupted at any time by an attack. However, I find that the two games have a definitely different feel to them, even though they're woven from the same cloth. Another thing is that the camera in DaS2 is much, much faster, due to being truly mouse controlled - you can turn as fast as you can swing your mouse (I still recommend using AutoHotkey to bind mouse buttons to keyboard buttons because otherwise you get lag on attack, due to the game waiting a frame or two to check if you're not double-clicking, since you can bind different actions on single and double click; it's not the end of the world, but it's annoying). In 1, not only is m+kb absolutely unworkable, the mouse has a negative acceleration applied and you can't turn any faster than with a joypad.
I like both, but if you play a long enough time these small differences start getting really obvious.
Also, I haven't seen someone mention the Serious Sam games, so there.
Actually I've only one I've been playing is DS1. As an armor-avoidant high dex thief type because that's generally my play style - see my love of being a tiny spaceship dodging giant bullets. Non-boss combat consists mostly of me rolling around like crazy until I can backstab. Also mouse and keyboard isn't any kind of option because I do 90% of my gaming on a console.
And that's somehow not super annoying and unreliable? What about titanite demons or bonewheels or mobs ganging on you? What about those tiny tiny ledges in Sen's? What about the archers in Anor Londo? What about the spiders and the mosquitoes and those toxic-spitting things in Blighttown? What about the demonic dogs? What about tiny spaces? Capra Demon?
Er.. I'm not expecting an answer to all of those, but I am curious how you pull off the playstyle in general. Do you mostly use ranged attacks?
I'm not saying it's impossible. Heck, there's speedruns where you can see people just rushing past every enemy and then stabbing the boss in the butt (i.e. the one true strategy for every boss in DaS) with some minmaxed weapon.
I guess I'm just noting it won't be fun for me to play that way at all. Well both not fun and nearly impossible.
Ranged attacks are a definite part of it! I love sneaking around and sniping and am generally peeved that it refuses to let me do that to bosses. I was ECSTATIC when I finally found the dude in the undead burg who sold me a bow. Blighttown bugs, I deal with by a combo of shield and a targeted magic missile; I diversified into a few experimental spells and liked that.
I also haven't played in a while; I got to a point where I couldn't make serious progress in any of the avenues currently open to me, and then the keeper of the initial bonfire got killed, and I accidentally used what the internet tells me is the only item that could bring her - and the flame - back. I really didn't want to continue and I also really didn't feel like starting fresh.
Also use the environment! Pull gangs of mobs into a place where there's room to pick them off one by one, or just circle around and lose them. Aggro a mob, vanish around a corner, and beat heck out of it as it rounds the corner and tries to figure out where you are. Hell, I cleaned out ALL the dragons in the dragon valley by cheerfully abusing having an arrow range longer than their aggro distance...