You don't like Dark Souls because you lack discipline

I was excitedly explaining the many reasons to admire and play Dark Souls to a friend who plays games casually. By casually, I mean he plays them all day but doesn't put any thought into them, it is just a mind numbing drug for him. He seems receptive and interested, but is hesitant when I offer to let him borrow the game and give him a tutorial for a head start. I end up basically forcing him to try it, though it's not like I'm holding a gun to his head. I tell him just to try it, it's not for everyone, but he's a guy who likes a challenge so he might dig it (he's a paratrooper in the army).
He begins the tutorial, and right from the start is very methodical and playing very cautiously and smart. He is taking time to thoroughly learn and practice the controls. He is checking every corner, asking if there are hidden secrets and such.
He gets jumped by the Asylum Demon and keeps his cool. He keeps his distance and circles the room. The previous action/rpg he played was Fable III(basically a kids game) and he obviously has some very bad habits from it. He never locks on. I keep reminding him gently that locking-on is key, but he just can't grasp it. He dies two times and starts getting quiet. Third time he finds the door and continues onward. The trolling Indiana Jones boulder creams him, I laugh because it's so classic, but he doesn't find it humorous at all. He says quietly "this game is frustrating". He spends a good amount of time practicing the parry. I explain that you have to do it at the moment that the enemies attack becomes fast. He gets it sometimes but is basically just spamming. I keep telling him that it is good to practice but is not an essential skill.
He dies to the Asylum Demon five or six times because he just can't figure out the lock-on, and he seems to have excessively slow reflexes. He keeps getting slammed and saying "I hit B! I hit B!"
I'm thinking, "Right, it wasn't you, it's the game. A winning attitude."
He finally triumphantly slays the beast, and I hear him emit an audible sigh of relief. I'm looking at him, looking for that post-boss exhilaration, but he is just frustrated. I start babbling about when I first played it, trying to get him excited and in the DKS mind set, but he is clearly not reveling the experience. He gets to Firelink and like myself wanders into the graveyard. He gets diced up pretty quickly and I try to ease him in by letting him know that the graveyard is not the way to go. I tell him that I actually quit the game there because I didn't know you could go elsewhere. He makes his way to the Burg and gets through without too much trouble to the first bonfire. He is doing fine until he gets swarmed by the four Hollows in the alley beneath the merchant because he rushed in and got surrounded. He had did that several times and I explained that he couldn't just rush into a mob, that you have to assess the situation and take things slowly. After the hollows kill him he just says that he can't play this game, it's too frustrating.
I told him that he lacks discipline.

Later we are co-oping in Halo 4 on legendary, and he keeps dying because he mindlessly rushes into enemy mobs. Then he gets frustrated.

This is the second friend I have had pretty much this same experience with. I tell this story to highlight the fact that everybody here is special. Pat yourself on the back.

so far ive only had one friend ive introduced to souls and it has swallowed his entire being, he may spend more time on there than any other game he has. i can usually tell just how people are weather they will like the game or not so i dont even bother trying to introduce it to anyone.

I showed my brother once to convince him (Demons Souls actually) and he never gave it a whirl. He's more of a Skylander type.

I also tried convincing my cousin since he likes a variety of games and similar settings. I don't think he ever tried it either.

I really wanna get a friend or two into it, but I'm so afraid by these horror stories to even suggest it to people

I feel great now! +1 to you, master.

When I was bogged down on my first playthrough, what helped me was seeing some of the PvP videos on youtube etc. It was a light at the end of the tunnel, basically, of all the fun stuff you can do once you get a handle on the basic gameplay. Watching those sorts of videos is a little spoilery (though not as bad as boss fights etc), but if the alternative is they just give up on the game I don't see the harm.

My sister wanted to play Dark Souls for bragging rights. She tells her friends that my favorite game is Dark Souls, and they're always talking about how hard the game is. So, I pretty much said "It's very very easy if you know what you're doing." So, we made a deal. I'll get her through by being by her side when she plays (in real life, not in the game) and make it easy for her mentally if she can get through it physically. So, I pretty much guide her through her stats, letting her know of secrets, upgrading, defense, attack, etc. I pretty much got her to play tank. She's doing really well, and she's almost done with the game. She doesn't play much anymore, since we're both so busy, we just aren't at home at the same time,

but she played Kingdom Hearts, with me at first, and by herself later. She actually got pretty good at that game, and the gameplay and difficulty of that game is fairly similar to Dark Souls. Locking on, timing attacks, keeping track of casts/mana etc. So Dark Souls wasn't a huge jump.

She still got frustrated, like everyone who plays the game, especially the first time, but when I'm there, telling her what to do, giving her words of encouragement, she rarely loses. Sometimes I'll leave her to play by herself or ignore her while she plays, and she'll lose a few times, and she asks me to help her. She usually wins when I watch her play and say things like "Ok, back up. Ok, lock off and run. Time to attack. Get away. Get away. Ok, heal up. Ohh. Keep your shield up. Wait. Don't heal yet. Ok, now heal."

Granted, I'm kinda the voice in her head telling her how to play, which can be a bit taboo, but she's never given me the controller, when I can't help her, she'll just keep trying, even by herself. Like Havel. I couldn't really teach her much myself, since it's hard to explain backstabbing, so she just went after him hour after hour. Only thing I could do was tell her that EVERYONE's been there, unless you're a professional gamer, which I am not, and most people aren't, so she's all good. I remind her that taking a break is a good idea. Get a glass of water or something, which she doesn't do cause she keeps a bottle of water with her at all times... but, ya know.

It usually only takes words of encouragement to get even casuals to play Dark Souls, succeed, and thus, enjoy it. I want to make a video series on pretty much the mindset of Dark Souls, words of encouragement, etc. Mostly a beginner How-To but with more than just physical, but the mental part of Dark Souls.

EDIT: I'm not saying that you did a bad job with your friend. I was teaching my SISTER. I know her. I grew up with her haha! Plus, I'm a math tutor, so I'm used to giving words of encouragement.

It's funny actually, I showed it to a friend who did awfully and couldn't get a grip on being cautious. He'd keep trying to run past mobs and spam attacks and hated the stamina system. Another complained because the online setup wasn't conventional and hated the fact he'd spent money on it.


This was about a month ago. They still play it now. Give your friend time.

I've introduced the game to 4 of my friends. The first made it all the way to Anor Londo, but only because I co-oped with him. He wouldn't have it any other way, he's a very "party gamer" kind of guy. If I had to guess he wouldn't have made it past the Taurus Demon without any help.

My second friend surprised me with his reaction to the game. He loves RPG's and is a decent gamer, but an unforgiving game like Dark Souls is almost too much for him to handle. He is actually doing worse than me in the Burg (it took me 12 hours to reach the Taurus Demon), and he is now stuck on the Taurus Demon. He has ragequit many times, but keeps trying. He's a very diligent guy, however, so I can see him eventually beating the game and getting into PvP.

The third gave up on the Asylum Demon.

My fourth friend is doing amazingly well. His first death was to the Taurus Demon. He basically rushed everything and made it seem like he played the game since release, but that theory was shot down once he reached the Taurus. He doesn't own the game, but he says that he enjoys it more than Skyrim and is planning on buying Dark Souls 2 when it is released.

I have high hopes for my 2nd and 4th friends, as well as my cousin who just started the game and is doing fairly well.

BTM, I agree with your statement that it takes discipline for Dark Souls. The only friends I have that can handle it fit the description.

People just play games for different reasons. I'm sure your friend is disciplined if he's in the army! But maybe he lacks self-discipline? Or self-motivation?

One of the things I like most about the Souls games, versus other games (and other genres, more importantly) is how involved the gameplay is. Playing an FPS (a genre I also like, and which I'm also very good at) is basically just point and press R1. Strafe, aim, press R1. That's all there is to playing an FPS! But playing Souls, you need to dodge, block, parry, mind your lock-on, choose the appropriate attack--R1, R2, Roll-R1, backstep-R1, running-R1, 1h or 2h, etc.--all while managing your stamina. It's very involved!

People who play games just to relax play games where they can disconnect--turn their brain off. Dark Souls is just the opposite! There's some discipline in there, but it's also a question of what you want to get out of playing your game. Some are in it for the satisfaction, others just need a medium to turn their brains off.

(Although... Would I be way off if I said I find it strange how: the people who prefer games and movies and TV that they can turn their brains off to, are usually the ones who don't seem to have it on in the first place?)

Indiana Jones boulder lol. That woulda been hilarious.
I would have loved to watch him meet the Iron Boar for the first time. :affraid:

I introduced one of my friends to Dark Souls.

A few weeks later he became a forest ganker.


There you go.

I feel kinda weird about this kind of stuff. A lot of times my friend just can't get into these kinds of games I think they just lack patience and the likes.

However, other times I think maybe I'm the one who just has too much time on their hands to get good at gaming.

WaLKA wrote:I introduced one of my friends to Dark Souls.

A few weeks later he became a forest ganker.


There you go.

I don't think that's inherently bad. For a while I was laying down summon signs and using summons myself, but that was when I was still relatively new. Now after god knows how long in the forest, I can host solo there and not immediately die.

GenericUsername wrote:

WaLKA wrote:I introduced one of my friends to Dark Souls.

A few weeks later he became a forest ganker.


There you go.

I don't think that's inherently bad. For a while I was laying down summon signs and using summons myself, but that was when I was still relatively new. Now after god knows how long in the forest, I can host solo there and not immediately die.

I thought it was hilarious, if anything else. It's not like I told him to, he just ended up there. Granted I explained PvP and all, but it still got a hearty guffaw out of me.

Oddly enough I was the friend that was introduced to Dark Souls, my friend got the game when it came out and absolutely ranted and raved about it, I was less receptive because I'm not usually acclimated to challenging games.

A couple of months later he brought the game over to my house and essentially told me, "You're gonna play this" after much grumbling I did finally begin, he helped me through the first two areas and then left me to my own devices

After a few (Justifiable) Rage Quits I eventually got into it and proceded to beat the game....after which I instantly wanted to make a PVP build to defeat the many many assholes who had ganked me as a noob...and after that another...and then another...and another....

Long story short...I've beat the game over 10 times, with a combined total of over 300 hours....

This game man...

I have a friend who got demons when it came out long before I got it. He talk about how hard it was but I had no idea what he was talking about. I later stumbled upon it on my own devises and fell in love with it. Shortly after I beat it, was lost in a sticky situation . Once dark souls was out I was at said friends house with another friend and I convinced them that we should build a character together the original friend seemed to enjoy it much more with my guidance but kept trying to slay the red knight and once I convinced him to move on spent hours killing the bridge wyvern with carefully timed spells from the tower. The second friend decided that the game wasn't fun because it was too tedious but he has an xbox so he couldn't play it anyways. After that day the original friend made it to world three before he gave up I told him he needed to upgrade his weapons but he had ate the flamelurkers soul. I later tried to get him to play dark souls but he refused to switch from the game he was playing. A while later I tried to buy his demons souls copy since mine was lost but he wouldn't let me saying that one day he will try it again so idk that's my story.