作者：Robert Boyd

《暗黑之魂》因其超高难度而得名，但尽管如此，该游戏还是大获成功，名利双收——该游戏发行商上一财年中在欧美的《暗黑之魂》销量超过100万份，它在Metacritic网站也斩获89分。

为何《暗黑之魂》能够如此成获而不仅仅是昙花一现？我认为一个主要原因就是该游戏的成功在于，人们所设想的难度与其实际难度存在区别。《暗黑之魂》从表面上呈现了不可攻克的挑战，但其内在设计却在处处帮助玩家实现这些不可能的目标。

（注：本文含有一些剧透内容）

1.营销

《暗黑之魂》发行商从第一天起就将该游戏定位为困难的游戏，在营销推广中突显游戏的难度，这可以在无需变更实际难度的前提下，增加游戏的感知难度。

2.它让玩家自己制定规则

在在玩家连续撞霉运之后（即让玩家置身于一个巨大可怕的世界），游戏开始给玩家助运。首先，它并没有迫使玩家以特定方式玩游戏。无论你想扮演重盔甲的骑士，轻装上阵的斗士，法师、祭司还是以上所有角色，游戏都能如你所愿。该游戏允许玩家尝试自己想要的英雄风格。虽然玩家在游戏之初只能选择这些职业中的一者，但这种职业选择只能决定玩家的起始状态和装备，之后将向何处发展则可完全听凭玩家自己的意愿。

3.不会让玩家打乱自己的状态进程

《暗黑之魂》允许玩家在升级时自由分配自己的状态加成。这就为高手玩家提供了极大的灵活性，他们能够根据自己所需创造终极必杀技。

但经验不足，不知底细的新手又该怎么办？这也不必担心，《暗黑之魂》的设计也已经考虑到了这一点。针对那些不是很了解状态显示设置的玩家，游戏则提供了基本武器、盔甲（会增加重量但没有特定状态值需求的盔甲），以及强大的火力魔法pryomancy等一些有效工具。这样玩家就能使有这些有限的选择让自己摆脱困境。

所有的升级都会提升玩家的整体防御性，所以无论你选择升级哪种东西，你都会更加张驰有度。最终玩家也有可能最大化所有的状态值，所以总体来看，玩家可以通过刷任务弥补选择上的不足。

darksouls_shot1(from gamasutra)

4.它让玩家产生并肩作战之感

虽然游戏可让玩家彼此争斗，但玩家也可以相互帮助，例如向他人发布某些提示消息，或加入他人游戏共同打败众多boss。

比起普通敌人，boss可提供更多灵魂（即游戏中的虚拟货币），并且在许多情况下，玩家只有借助他人之力才可能打败某些boss，这就为玩家创造了帮助他人的有效动机。这款游戏创造了一种“我们共同对抗游戏”而非“我们彼此对决”的同盟感。

5.看似极为非线性的游戏世界

非线性世界一直就比严格的线性世界更有难度，因为玩家在此很容易迷失自己的方向，不知道下一步该做什么，并且也更有可能踏入一些未曾料想的区域。

《黑暗之魂》乍一看极为非线性，但实际上却比看上去更为线性。一开始，个别区域都非常线性——尽管其中的分支路径隐藏着不少有待发掘的珍宝。但随着游戏总体进程的发展，《黑暗之魂》开始呈现一种分段之感。游戏会逐个向玩家呈现下个区域，特定任务或一系列有待完成的任务。

如果不算新手教程区域，这款游戏中可分为三大主要目标，玩家完成这些目标才能见到最后一个boss。首个目标是去敲鸣两个钟（每个钟都有一个boss守卫）。从Firelink Shrine（最初的中心区域）开始，玩家都有三个去向——The Catacombs、New Londo Ruins以及Undead Burg。

杀死The Catacombs守卫后，强大的骷髅就会复生，而New Londo Ruins则遍布着许多无敌的灵魂（除非玩家被诅咒或者使用了特定道具）。Undead Burg则有许多与新手教程区相似的敌人，显然玩家更容易从这一区域入手。在一开始，《黑暗之魂》就在巧妙的将玩家角色引向阻力最小的所在，在此则通过提供密钥将玩家引导玩家完成这一任务。

在完成鸣钟任务后，游戏的第二部分始于一个过场动画，告知玩家有一个曾被封锁的巨大堡垒现在已经开启。玩家的任务很明显——探索堡垒及其之后的区域。这部分游戏内容是最具线性特点的环节之一，其中有两个必须连续完成的的区域，只有一个是可选区域。这部分内容主要测试玩家的能力：如果玩家可以完成这两具区域（它们可以说是该游戏目前最难的环节），那么他们就可以挑战游戏的第三部分内容，届时整个游戏世界就会向玩家敞开大门（但最后的boss区域除外）。

通过以这种方式划分游戏区域，《暗黑之魂》就体现出了比真正的非线性游戏更容易衡量的难度曲线。游戏第三部分所开放的区域比第二部分中的区域更为困难（第二部分则比第一部分更难），比起一开始就允许玩家探索整个游戏世界，这种做法更有利于避免玩家在游戏中迷失方向或不知所措。

darksouls_shot2(from gamasutra)

6.对玩家进行提示，但不要太露骨

这款游戏在早期向玩家透露信息的方式也是我对它的欣赏之处，在Undead Parish初始阶段，玩家会遇到一个身着盔甲的野猪敌人，它远比玩家之前遇到的任何对手都更有威力。与之正面交锋不会让玩家占优势，但玩家却可以从旁边的一些阶梯中逃脱。

登上阶梯后玩家会发现一些怪物诱饵，接下来玩家该采取什么行动就很明显了——就是将一些怪物诱饵扔到近旁的火堆中，诱使野猪飞蛾扑火般地自寻死路。

当玩家拾起这些怪物诱饵时，较为平庸的游戏可能会向玩家呈现“向火堆丢出诱饵来除掉野猪”这种明显的信息，但这款游戏却并未明确告知玩家该如何行动，而是将他们引向正确的做法，其巧妙设计令玩家感觉是自己想出了解决方法。

7.可补充的资源

《暗黑之魂》超越前作《恶魔之魂》的一大明智之处在于，引进了篝火系统。《恶魔之魂》使用的是传统的资源管理系统，玩家可以使用自己能够找到或购买的道具来恢复自己的命值和魔法值（MP）。在《暗黑之魂》中，玩家可以得到一定数量的治愈药水，但无法找到额外药水。不过，玩家每次在篝火旁休息时，就可以恢复药水。与之相似，玩家也只有一定数量的咒语，他们每次在篝火旁休息时就能使用。

这种可补充资源的篝火系统比《恶魔之魂》的做法更有优势。它鼓励玩家运用自己的所有魔法武器，而不只是能够产生最大MP投入回报的咒语。它让玩家免于囤积大量命值及MP道具，避免资源系统沦为无用之物。有了这个系统，玩家在药水所剩无几的情况下，就不会通过刷任务的途径去找钱和掉落道具。玩家由此可放心使用自己的所有资源，因为他们知道自己下回休息时一切都会恢复原样，他们无需担心管理大量资源的问题。

8.探索就是一种无尽的资源

《塞尔达》拥有可爆破的墙壁。《暗黑之魂》却有伪墙壁。区别在哪？在《塞尔达》中，你只有在仍有库存弹药的情况下才能测试能不能打破墙壁，而在《暗黑之魂》中，你的任何攻击行为（游戏邦注：即使是毫无杀伤力的翻跟斗）也足以检测出看似坚固的墙体中究竟有无隐藏的过道。这可以鼓励玩家积极探索游戏的秘密，因为就算他们的尝试错了，也不会受到任何惩罚。

9.以表面假象掩饰实际难度

让游戏令人感觉很有难度的一个简单方法就是以外表来取胜。这方面的典型案子就是恐怖游戏《寂静岭2》。《寂静岭2》实际上是一款很简单的游戏，但它通过让其中的怪物和场所看起来极为吓人而塑造了一种超过实际情况的难度假象。

《暗黑之魂》中的敌人看起来几乎都十分奇形怪状，并且块头都比玩家角色更大。《暗黑之魂》许多早期的boss是采用从玩家上方朝下猛撞的方式出场，这其中的暗示很明显——在这些怪物看来，玩家实在是无足轻重之物，它们不屑于像捏死一只臭虫一样对去付玩家。

但玩家老手很快就会意识到《暗黑之魂》中的许多看似可怕的boss实际上也是一些最容易对付的敌人，他们只要使用一些很简单的咒语或攻击就能躲过或回击这些boss。通过让boss及怪物看起来具有威慑力，游戏成功提升了其感知难度，尽管其实际难度并没有那么大。

10.战斗并不考验玩家的快速反应能力

许多很困难的游戏都要求玩家能够做出快速反应，但这并非《暗黑之魂》的做法。这款游戏中的战斗更讲究方法：先阻止然后攻击，躲避然后进攻。进攻可以缓慢，但如果失手则可能受到惩罚。即使是饮用命值药水也需要数秒时间（而在多数动作RPG中，喝药水只是一瞬间的事情）。这款游戏鼓励玩家运用智慧占胜敌人，并惩罚那些盲目乱摁按键的玩家。

darksouls_shot3(from gamasutra)

11.敌我双方都有很高风险

没错，《暗黑之魂》中的敌人可以对玩家造成极大危害。但聪明的玩家也能够对敌人造成重创。例如游戏中拥有可以一剑杀死一帮敌人的大刀，也有可以远程向一大批敌人同时施法的神秘咒语，总之玩家可以通过多种方式成为《暗黑之魂》中最可怕的对手。

我在游戏早期中最喜欢使用的“伎俩”之一就是利用双手按钮。配备最易获取的手斧（游戏邦注：也可以用其他的一些游戏早期武器，但手斧最适合这种策略），如果你看到持有盾牌的敌人，就转变为双手操作状态，然后杀向敌人。你不断挥舞手斧砍向敌人，很快就可以敲掉对方的盾牌，这样就可以轻易拿下敌人。在常规游戏是，敌人的盾牌一般都会坚不可摧，但在《暗黑之魂》中，敌人的游戏规则与玩家基本相同。

细心的玩家会发现游戏中还有更多可以利用的技巧，例如主路径中隐藏的强大武器，以及一些不同寻常路的捷径。《暗黑之魂》鼓励玩家探索整个游戏世界并打破常规。

12.有时候死亡会受到惩罚

在死亡/惩罚这个频谱的一个极端中，常规的roguelike游戏会采用这种做法，即只要死一次就会让你从头开始玩游戏。而在另一个极端中，无论你死几次，都可以在上一个关卡中复生。

《暗黑之魂》则采取了折衷的做法，如果玩家连续死两次，他们就会丧失当前的灵魂和人道（游戏邦注：这是游戏中一个重要但可再生的状态值）。但如果他们可以成功返回上次死亡的地点，他们就不会有任何损失。此外，玩家死亡时的灵魂和人道还可以储存在特定道具中（只要这些道具没有丢失）。玩家还可以通过最近休憩的篝火复生，这意味着玩家的体能进展并不会丢失。

总结

《暗黑之魂》是一款困难的游戏，这一点毋庸质疑。但通过让游戏看起来比实际上更困难，并以多种方式微妙地降低游戏难度，开发者们成功地让游戏难度变得更容易掌控。这样当玩家获得胜利时，就会因战胜这些困难而获得更大的快感。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Deep Dungeon: Exploring the Design of Dark Souls

by Robert Boyd

Robert Boyd, designer of Cthulhu Saves the World and Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 carefully explores the design of the popular but often misunderstood action RPG hit.

Dark Souls has gained a reputation for being an excruciatingly difficult game. Yet despite that, the game has seen a great deal of success, both commercially (selling over a million copies in the U.S. and Europe as of the end of the publisher’s last fiscal year) and critically (with a current Metacritic rating of 89).

Why has Dark Souls achieved mainstream success and has not remained merely a cult favorite? I’d like to argue that a major factor behind Dark Souls’ success is the disconnect between its perceived difficulty and its actual difficulty. Dark Souls presents itself as an impossible challenge to the player outwardly, but inwardly, the game is subtly designed in many ways to help the player achieve the impossible.

(Note: this article includes a few spoilers.)

1. Marketing

The publisher of Dark Souls actively sought to brand the game as a difficult game from day one. Just look at the name of the game’s official website: PrepareToDie.com. Marketing the game as being extremely difficult increases the game’s perceived difficulty without changing the actual difficulty at all.

2. It lets the players make their own rules

After stacking the odds against the player (with a huge, hostile world), the game starts stacking the odds back in the player’s favor. First things first — Dark Souls doesn’t force the player to play the game in any particular way. Want to play a heavily armored knight, a light-on-her-feet warrior, a mage, a priest, or all of the above? Sure thing. The game lets you use the style of hero that you feel most comfortable with. Although the player chooses one of several set classes at the beginning of the game, class selection only determines the player’s starting stats and equipment; where you go from there is entirely up to you.

3. It’s difficult to truly mess up your stat progression

Dark Souls lets the player allocate their stats bonuses from level-ups however they wish. This gives the expert min-maxer a great deal of flexibility to create the ultimate Dark Souls destroying machine.

But what about the less experienced player who doesn’t know what they’re doing? No problem — the design has taken that into account as well. There are several effective tools available to the player that have little to no reliance on stats, like elemental weapons, armor (armor increases weight but doesn’t have specific stat requirements), and powerful fire magic called pyromancy, that the player can use to dig themselves out of the hole they’ve created with poor level-up choices.

All level-ups give a slight boost to the player’s overall defense, so no matter what you choose, you’re always getting slightly more resilient. And it’s possible to max out all stats eventually — so in the end, poor choices can be fixed with grinding.

4. We’re all in this together

Although it’s possible for players to fight amongst themselves, players can help each other, both through posting hints for other players and by joining other players’ games to help defeat Dark Souls’ many bosses.

Bosses give drastically more souls (the game’s currency) than normal enemies do, and helping another player is the only way to defeat a boss more than once — so the player has a definite incentive for helping out others. The game creates a feeling of “us vs. the game” and not just “us vs. us.”

5. A deadly non-linear world… except, not really

Non-linear worlds are inherently more difficult than strictly linear worlds because the player is less likely to know what they’re supposed to be doing and is more likely to run into areas that they’re unprepared for.

Dark Souls appears to be very non-linear at first glance, but in actuality it’s a lot more linear than it seems. To start, individual areas tend to be very linear — albeit with hidden treasures to be found in various side paths. But as far as the game’s overall progression goes, Dark Souls has a heavy reliance on gating. The game opens up a portion of the game to the player and then to access the next set of areas, a certain task or series of tasks must be undertaken.

Excluding the tutorial area, there are basically three major goals that must be accomplished in order to reach the final boss. The first goal is to ring two bells (each of which is guarded by a boss). Starting in Firelink Shrine (the initial hub area), there are three areas the player can travel to — The Catacombs, New Londo Ruins, and Undead Burg.

Powerful skeletons that come back to life soon after being killed guard The Catacombs, and New Londo Ruins is filled with ghosts that are invincible unless the player is cursed, or uses a certain item. In contrast, Undead Burg has enemies that are similar to the enemies in the tutorial area and is the obvious choice to start out with. Right from the start, Dark Souls is subtly funneling the character into the course of least resistance, and it continues to funnel the player through the entire two bells portion of the game, by giving the player keys that indicate where they should go next.

After the two bells have been rung, the second part of the game begins with a cutscene that shows the player that a huge fortress that was previously locked has now been opened. The player’s course is clear — explore the fortress and the area beyond it. This portion of the game is one of the most linear, with two areas that must be completed in succession and only one optional area. This section acts as an exam: If the player can completes these two areas (some of the hardest in the game so far), they’re deemed worthy for the third main portion of the game, where the entire world (minus the final boss area) is opened up to them.

By gating the areas of the game in this manner, it allows Dark Souls to have a more measured difficulty curve than a truly non-linear game would allow. The areas opened up in the third part of the game tend to be more difficult than the areas in the second part of the game — which, in turn, are more difficult than the areas in the first part of the game. This helps to prevent the player from getting truly confused and lost like they might if the entire world was accessible right from the beginning.

6. Provide hints to the player, but don’t be too obvious about it

Probably my favorite example of how the game provides hints to the player is early on, at the beginning of the Undead Parish. The player runs into an armored boar enemy that proves to be much more powerful than anything the player has had to fight so far. A frontal assault is likely to prove ineffective, but there’s a set of stairs to the side that the player can escape to.

After a few relatively easy fights up the stairs, the player discovers several monster lure items on a ledge directly above the armored boar. What the player should do soon becomes obvious — throw a few monster lure items into a nearby fire, and watch as the armored boar commits suicide by running into the fire.

A lesser game would have had given the player a message like “Try throwing the monster lure at the fire to kill the armored boar!” when they picked up the monster lure items. By not explicitly telling the player what to do but by leading them towards the answer, Dark Souls allows the player to feel clever for figuring the solution out.

7. Combat is a replenishable resource

One of the smartest changes Dark Souls made over its predecessor was the switch to the bonfire system. The previous game, Demon’s Souls, uses a traditional resource system where the player can restore their health and magic points (MP) with items that they can find and purchase. However, in Dark Souls, the player is given a set number of heal potions to use. Additional potions cannot be found; however, the player’s potions are restored every time the player rests at a bonfire. Likewise, the player is given a set number of spells they can use each time they rest at a bonfire.

The replenishing resources bonfire system has a number of advantages over the way that Demon’s Souls did things. It encourages the player to use all of their magic arsenal instead of just the spells with the greatest return-on-MP investment. It prevents the player from stockpiling huge quantities of health and MP items, thus rendering the resource system largely irrelevant. And it removes the need to grind out money and item drops when you’re low on potions. Through the bonfire system, the player is encouraged to use all of the resources at their disposal, since they know they’ll recover them next time they rest rather than having to worry about hording resources.

8. Exploration is a limitless resource

Zelda has bombable walls. Dark Souls has fake walls. The difference? In the Zelda games, you can only test walls as long as you still have bombs left in your inventory — but in Dark Souls, any kind of attack (even just a harmless roll) is enough to test if there’s a hidden passage behind a seemingly solid wall. The player is thus encouraged to search for the game’s many secrets — because there is no penalty if they guess wrong.

9. Their bark is bigger than their bite

An easy way to make a game feel harder is through appearances. A great example of this is the classic horror game, Silent Hill 2. Mechanically speaking, Silent Hill 2 is a pretty easy game, but by making the monsters and locales in the game look horrendous, the game feels a lot harder than it actually is.

Dark Souls enemies are almost universally grotesque and are frequently much bigger than the player character. But Dark Souls takes it even further with many of its early bosses appearing above the player before crashing down in front of them. The implication is clear — the player is insignificant to these monsters and they won’t hesitate to squash him or her like a bug.

However, the experienced player will soon realize that many of the scariest-looking bosses in Dark Souls are also some of the easiest bosses, with easy-to-read tells and attacks that are easy to dodge and counterattack. By making the bosses and monsters look intimidating, their perceived difficulty is increased even if their actual difficulty isn’t.

10. Combat doesn’t require fast reflexes

Most difficult games require lightning-fast reflexes. Not Dark Souls. Combat in Dark Souls is a methodical affair: Block then attack. Dodge then attack. Attacks are slow, and easily punished if missed. Even drinking a health potion takes several seconds (unlike most action-RPGs, where it’s instant). The game rewards the players that can keep their wits about them and actively punishes mindless button mashers.

11. The stakes are high… for both sides

Yes, enemies in Dark Souls can deal massive damage to the player. But you know what? The smart player can deal massive damage to the enemies as well. From massive swords that can kill a group of enemies with a single strike to arcane spells that can decimate bosses from a distance in next to no time, there are many ways the player can become the scariest thing in the entire Dark Souls world.

One of my favorite “tricks” to breaking the game early on is through the use of the 2-handed button. Equip the easily obtainable hand axe (a few other early game weapons will work as well, but the hand axe is the best for this strategy). When you see an enemy with a shield, switch to the two-handed stance and then just go to town on them. The hand axe has a high stagger stat so, in no time, your assault will knock the enemy’s shield out of the way, allowing you to defeat them easily. In a typical game, enemy shields would be impenetrable, but in Dark Souls, the enemies play by the same rules that you do (at least, until the enemies start to dwarf you in size).

Observant players can find even more tricks to break the game, like powerful weapons hidden just off the main path, and shortcuts that allow access to areas long before they are traditionally reached. Dark Souls rewards the player who isn’t afraid to fully explore and then break the rules.

12. Death is punished… some of the time

At one end of the death/punishment spectrum, you have your typical roguelike with perma-death, where a single death means you need to start the entire game over. At the other end of the spectrum, you have your average game these days, where death sends you back to a recent checkpoint.

Dark Souls finds a happy medium between the two extremes. If the player is killed twice in succession, they lose their current souls and humanity, an important (but renewable) status. But if they can successfully return to the place where they died last time, they don’t lose a thing. Also, both souls and humanity can also be obtained via certain items that are not lost upon death, allowing the player to safely save them up for when they need them (like for the next new merchant). The player also spawns from the most recently used bonfire, meaning that even physical progress isn’t necessarily lost.

Conclusion

Dark Souls is a difficult game; there’s no question about that. However, by making the game appear even more difficult than it actually is and then by subtly lowering the difficulty in a variety of ways, the developers have made the difficulty in Dark Souls manageable — and fair. And when victory is achieved, it is made all the more sweet for appearing to be more difficult than it actually was.（source：gamasutra）