作者：Robert Boyd

为什么《黑暗之魂》能够获得主流成功并且不只是昙花一现？我认为《黑暗之魂》的主要成功是因为它真正区分了感知难度和实际难度。从表面上看《黑暗之魂》呈现给了玩家一个不可能的挑战，但从内在看来，这款游戏基于各种方式去帮助玩家完成一些不可能的任务。

1.市场营销

从第一天起《黑暗之魂》的发行商就将这款游戏定位为一款复杂的游戏。你看游戏的官网的名字就知道了：PrepareToDie.com。而将这款游戏当成复杂游戏进行营销能够在不改变游戏实际难度的前提下提高游戏的感知难度。

2.让玩家制定自己的规则

首先，《黑暗之魂》并未强迫玩家基于任何方式去游戏。如果玩家想要尝试一个重甲骑士，一个身轻如燕的战士或者一个牧师等等都是可以的。游戏将让玩家能够使用自己觉得最舒服的英雄。尽管玩家在一开始可以从一些类别中做出选择，但类型选择只能决定玩家一开始的属性和装备；从那时起的一切都是取决于玩家自己。

3.游戏并不会真正打乱你的进程

《黑暗之魂》让玩家能够根据不同升级道具去分配自己的统计奖励。如此资深玩家便拥有足够的灵活性去创造最终的《黑暗之魂》破坏机。

那么较没有经验且不知道自己到底在做些什么的玩家该怎么办？没关系，游戏设计也考虑到了这点。这里存在一些具有影响力且不依赖于统计的工具，如元素武器，铠甲（虽然铠甲会增加重量但却不具有特定的统计要求），以及名为pyromancy的火焰术，玩家可以使用这些工具将自己带离因为糟糕的升级选择而陷进的问题中。

在游戏中所有升级道具都将提高玩家整体的防御能力，所以不管你选择怎样的道具，你的防御性都会变强。玩家最终都有可能获得最高的统计总数—-也就是玩家可以通过刷任务去弥补自己做出的糟糕选择。

darksouls(from gamasutra)

4.我们共同面对一切

玩家不仅能够彼此战斗，也可以互相帮助，即提供给其他玩家提示或加入其他玩家的游戏中帮助他们抵抗游戏中的boss。

比起其他敌人，boss能够提供给玩家更多soul（游戏邦注：游戏中的货币），而帮助其他玩家便是在游戏中抵抗更多次boss的唯一机会，所以玩家便拥有帮助别人的动机。游戏创造了一种“我们vs游戏”而不只是“我们vs我们”的感觉。

5.一个绝对的非线性世界，但实际上并非如此

从内在看来非线性世界比线性世界复杂得多，因为玩家不大可能知道他们正在做什么，反而更有可能进入他们并未准备好进入的区域。

乍一看《黑暗之魂》便是一个非线性世界，但实际上它比看上去线性多了。一开始一些独立区域都非常线性化—-虽然在各条路径上都有一些等待玩家去寻找的宝物。但随着游戏的深入发展，我们会发现《黑暗之魂》很大程度地依赖于门控。游戏会先为玩家打开部分游戏内容，然后在打开之后的某些区域以及特定的任务和任务系列。

排除教程区域，游戏中设置了玩家为了迎接最终boss需要完成的三大目标。第一个目标便是敲响两个铃铛（每个铃铛都由一个个boss守护着）。玩家将从Firelink Shrine（最初的中心区域）开始，这里有三个玩家可以到达的区域，分别是Catacombs，New Londo Ruins和Undead Burg。

被杀后很快就能复活的强大骷髅守卫着Catacombs，而NewLondo Ruins则充满着无敌的幽灵（除非玩家下咒语或使用特定道具才能将它们杀死）。相反地，Undead Burg拥有着与教程区域相似的敌人，所以这也是一个很好的开始区域。一开始《黑暗之魂》便让角色拥有最低抵抗力，并让玩家以漏洞形式通过游戏的两个铃铛区域，即提供给玩家预示着它们接下来该去向哪里的钥匙。

当玩家敲响两个铃铛时，游戏的第二个部分将从呈现一个被开启的巨大堡垒的过场动画展开。玩家的目标也很明显，即探索该堡垒以及周边区域。这一部分游戏是最线性化的部分之一，即带有两个需要先后完成的区域以及一个可选择区域。这一部分其实也是游戏对玩家的一种测试：如果玩家能够完成这两个区域（游戏邦注：也是游戏到目前为止最难的部分），他们便能够挑战游戏的第三大主要部分，即完整的世界将会呈现在他们面前。

以这种方式去隔开每个游戏区域让《黑暗之魂》比真正的非线性游戏拥有更加慎重的难度曲线。第三部分打开的游戏区域将比第二部分游戏区域更加复杂，而第二部分游戏区域也比第一部分困难。这样的设定可以避免玩家感到困惑或迷失方向。

6.提供给玩家不是太明显的提示

我关于提供给玩家提示的最佳例子便是《Undead Parish》的开始阶段。玩家将遇到一个比他们目前遇到的所有对手都更强大且身着铠甲的野猪。有可能正面攻击将没有效果，但玩家可以选择从旁边的楼梯逃走。

在爬上楼梯后玩家将发现在野猪上方的平台上有一些吸引怪兽的道具。这时候玩家应该做什么便很明显，即将吸引怪兽的道具扔到附近的火力并看着野猪以自杀式地冲进火中。

很少有游戏会呈现给玩家像“尝试着朝火里仍吸引怪兽的道具去杀死野猪！”这样的信息。但是为什么不准确告诉玩家该做什么以引导他们找出答案呢？《黑暗之魂》便很好地做到让玩家能够聪明地解决问题。

7.战斗是可补充的资源

与之前游戏相比《黑暗之魂》做出的最聪明的改变便是调整了篝火系统。之前的游戏《恶魔之魂》使用了一个传统的资源系统，即让玩家可以使用自己能够找到或买到的道具去恢复自己的生命值和魔法点数（MP）。然而在《黑暗之魂》中，游戏将提供给玩家一些治愈药剂。玩家并不能找到额外的药剂，但是每次当玩家在篝火旁休息时他们的药剂便会得到恢复。同样地，游戏将提供给玩家一些咒语并且他们也能在篝火旁恢复这些咒语。

可补充资源的篝火系统拥有一些《恶魔之魂》所不具有的优势。它能鼓励玩家使用所有的arsenal而不只是那些可以通过通过消耗MP去恢复的咒语。这能够避免玩家囤积大量生命值和MP道具，并渲染那些毫不相关的资源系统。这将删除了在玩家拥有较少的药剂时需要通过刷钱和道具去恢复药剂的可能性。通过篝火系统，玩家将能够随意使用所有资源，因为他们知道只要下次休息的时候这些资源便会再次恢复。

8.探索是一种无限资源

《塞尔达传说》拥有可轰炸的墙。《黑暗之魂》拥有虚假的墙。这有什么不同？在《塞尔达传说》中你只能在库存中还有炸弹的情况下去测试墙，但在《黑暗之魂》中，你可以通过任何类型的攻击去测试一堵看似稳固的墙背后是否藏着什么东西。所以玩家将获得鼓励去探索游戏的更多秘密—-因为即使猜错了他们也不会因此受到惩罚。

9.从外观让游戏变得更复杂

通过外观让游戏变得更加复杂是一种较为简单的方法。经典的恐怖游戏《寂静岭2》便是一个典型的例子。从机制上来看，《寂静岭2》是一款非常简单的游戏，但是通过让怪兽和游戏场所看起来更吓人，玩家便会觉得游戏比实际更困难。

《黑暗之魂》的敌人各种各样，并且通常都比玩家角色大。但是在让早前的boss攻击玩家前这款游戏会先让这些boss出现在玩家面前。这是一个很明显的暗示，对于这些怪兽来说玩家是无关紧要的，它们会毫不犹豫地攻击玩家。

然而资深玩家很快便会意识到《黑暗之魂》中许多看起来很吓人的boss其实都是一些最容易对付的boss，它们的攻击是很容易躲避的。通过让boss和怪兽看起来更吓人，它们的感知难度将得到显著提高。

10.并不需要对战斗做出快速反应

大多数复杂游戏都需要玩家做出光速般的反应。但《黑暗之魂》并非如此。《黑暗之魂》中的战斗具有系统性：先阻止后攻击。先闪避后攻击。攻击很缓慢并且如果错过攻击将很容易遭受惩罚。甚至连喝下生命药剂都需要花费几秒钟时间（这与大多数行动RPG不同）。这款游戏将奖励那些保持清醒头脑的玩家并惩罚那些不动脑筋乱摁按键的玩家。

11.推动玩家去探索并打破规则

《黑暗之魂》中的敌人可以对玩家造成巨大伤害。但你知道么，聪明的玩家也可以对敌人创造巨大伤害。不管是能够通过一次进攻就消灭一群敌人的宝剑还是能够远距离屠杀boss的神奇咒语，玩家可以通过各种方式变成《黑暗之魂》世界中最可怕的人。

在游戏早期我最喜欢的击败游戏的技巧便是使用双手按键。即装备能够轻松获取的手斧（游戏邦注：其它早前游戏武器也可以，但手斧是最适合这一策略的）。当你看到一个带有盾牌的敌人时，你可以切换到双手按键模式。手斧拥有一个较高的统计值，所以你的攻击将鸡婆敌人的盾牌，从而轻松战胜他们。在一款经典的游戏中，敌人的盾牌往往是坚不可摧的，但是在《黑暗之魂》中，敌人将遵循着和玩家相同的规则。

擅于观察的玩家将能够找到更多战胜游戏的技巧，如隐藏在主路上的强大武器以及让玩家可以事先到达某些区域的捷径。《黑暗之魂》将给予那些勇于探索并打破规则的玩家奖励。

12.有时候死亡是一种惩罚

在死亡和惩罚的一端，你可能会面临经典的roguelike游戏中的永久死亡，即一次死亡便意味着你需要重新开始游戏。而在另一端，死亡将只是把你带回最近的检查点。

而《黑暗之魂》便是位于这两端之间。如果玩家连续被杀两次，他们将失去现在的灵魂和人性，这是一种很重要（但却可以恢复）的状态。但如果玩家可以成功回到他们上次死亡的位置，他们便不会失去任何东西。同时，玩家可以通过使用特定道具去拿回失去的灵魂和人性，所以玩家可以为了必要情况去保留这些道具。玩家还可以在最近使用的篝火中重生，即在这里他们并不会失去实体进程。

结论

《黑暗之魂》是一款复杂的游戏，这点是毋庸置疑的。但是通过让游戏看起来比实际更加复杂并通过各种方式去轻微降低游戏难度，开发者将《黑暗之魂》的难度设定变得更加合理且公正。而当玩家在此获得成功时，他们也会因为面对着比实际更复杂的内容感到兴奋。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Deep Dungeon: Exploring the Design of Dark Souls

by Robert Boyd

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）