The Evolution of Souls Healing (& why I still prefer Grass)
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- Опубликовано: 1 июн 2024
- From Software's Miyazaki era games have experimented a lot with healing mechanics and in this video, I talk a bit about them and the ramifications eachnew system has on the larger gameplay experience.
I also crater my subscriber numbers by arguing that Grass is the best system they've made.
Chapters:
0:00 - Introduction
02:42 - Demon's Souls
12:56 - Dark Souls
23:55 - Bloodborne
37:43 - Sekiro
47:47 - Elden Ring
52:01 - Closing Thoughts
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While I understand feeling down on Elden Ring's overall handling of healing as a repeat of Dark Souls 3's, I think it warrants mentioning that the additions they made quite fit for the type of game that it is. Namely killing packs of enemies in the open world would consistently restore healing charges and there's even scarab types that are made for restoring healing and magic charges. All of that makes exploring large parts of the open world seamless without having to stop for refills every few seconds.
I also really like the fact that upgrading the number of heals requires more seeds when going higher and higher and furthermore there's more seeds in total than there are upgrades so you are incentivized to explore the open world for them more and more but at the same time you aren't punished for missing a couple along the way.
Lastly I wanna mention my favorite part which is the flask of wondrous physik. Honestly I lowkey wish it was the only flask in the whole game and all charges you get go for it and you get to fine-tune what each charge does lol. It too incentivizes exploring to find more uses for it though in its case you have to trade out one utility for another. Makes landmarks like the minor erdtrees worth seeking out.
There is literally nothing wrong with ER's healing system.
Elden Ring has good healing. I’m glad they brought back “ashen estus.”
Scarabs in principle are a great choice for the open world but dang were they absolutely useless *in my experience*. I have never been in a situation where I was in desperate need of a refill, since there are so many sites of grace and since killing packs refills as u mentioned
It would b really cool if the physik were the only flask now that u put that idea in my head
@@jordanbrown3816 Their use is mostly for legacy dungeons where you don't get charges back from killing regular enemies. In the open world I found they serve a nice atmospheric presence in certain locations where their abundance is an interesting sight, and I'd mostly go after them if I'm at full charges but not full health so I'd heal then kill one to get the charge back.
Something I would add is that the upgrade materials for the flask of tears are all located at recognisable landmarks like churches and golden saplings, so they're not hard to find while still rewarding you for exploration.
It also makes it alot easier to remember their location, so you're less likely to be in situations where you're at the end of the game without a fully upgraded estus flask, and don't know which Estus Shards/Undead Bone Shards you missed.
@@jordanbrown3816 Ashen flasks are a humiliation ritual.
I feel many of demon's souls' mechanics are unfairly considered outdated because of how the series has changed without people seeing any of the merits of those mechanics. It is a masterpiece
Demon's Souls is the best to ever do it, what can I say?
THE LOATHSOME WEED EATER!!!
>:)
THE CONTEMPTIBLE CUD CONSUMER!
ruclips.net/video/j4Ph02gzqmY/видео.htmlsi=wJ8-_w-vPe9V_6n-
This video was made in early 2023, hope it still holds up!
As someone working on my own.. Let's say *take* on something with a bit of Souls in it, I found this to be very insightful. We set our mechanics long, long ago. But these thoughts are always very insightful, and more people should try to think for themselves.
Was this a patreon only video or did you delay releasing it for other reasons?
this video is the reason why pve only + casual pve cant make informative videos on souls games.
In ER you heal from killing a goup of enemies in overworld and killing beetle in legacy dungeons which has massive ramifications when played whith taunter's tongue on when you are low on flasks and you see invasion message you are presented with the opportunity and a risk: "do I attempt to kill this group before invader catches up with me and gangs me for extra healing or not" "do I run past enemies to quickly kill a beetle to get healing while being sniped by npc's/invader" etc. Overall the best healing system fromsoft has ever made as it provides you with a chance to get back healing based on your skill alone unlike the "preparing adventurer" of demon souls where the combat is just resource trading and the one who grinded more wins. Get your weapon so strong you 1 shot everything or get 99 grass here is your deep and thoughtful game design but if you measure locations in estus flasks hit trading really is only approach to combat you can see lmao
In bloodborne (which is talked for 5 mins before regurgetating same opinions about Demon Souls and DS over and over for 20 more mins lol) raling isnt even worth amount of damage you lost in the end game unless you go full grind mode and this dude is saying it heals you lmao.
@@user-kd6uv3gp7q most people don't play pvp
@@Ghorda9 bruh most people who play ER rn play pvp
I always felt like the grass mechanic made the game WAY easier and made me not worry so much about resource management, especially on my first run. That's exactly the opposite feeling I have on an old school Res. Evil game where I am constantly stressed out about bullets. Consequently, I didn't really have to learn any boss patterns because I could always hold enough grass to just heal my way through anything that didn't one shot me. And if I was running out of grass, I could farm grass while also farming some souls to help level me up.
I do think the way the game series later went on to handle boss fights affected the way the healing system works, the reason why elden ring and sekiro both just uses ds3's estus is cause that's how they've been able to better balance the boss battles, around specific number of heals, especially in sekiro which is the most boss battle oriented game, hell even armored core 6 kinda has estus.
In the older games boss battles were not the focal point of the games, but for ds3 and onwards it is.
Good point.
Estus is also a much more intuitive system to operate in the middle of a hectic fight than Grass is where you need to cycle between 8 different variants
And the whole DS3/Elden Ring thing of having to die 20, 30, 50 times to learn a boss moveset and master it would be a nightmare with grass, it would force players to make save backups to restore whenever they run out of grass.
@@mattmediaplays or not use it at all when learning
@@Ghorda9 You just brought back so many bad memories of trying to learn Bloodborne bosses and opting to not heal if I got hit too many times early in the fight.
I would say that is true for DS3 and Sekiro, but I do think they brought the magic of exploration from DS 1 and DS 2 back to Elden Ring and just kept since everyone was used to it and generally has a well received approach.
Seek grass.
The best aspect with the grass is more related to the ecosystem of Demon's Souls. Every world has it's own resource that has a high drop rate. Healing, Upgrade Material, Mana restoring, status ailments.
The first world dropping a bunch of grass means you'll be stocked up to heal once you dive into the other areas.
I think you're understating the degrees of decision making the Estus system provides on a moment-to-moment basis. An understated but ever present layer of choice introduced with the Estus system absent in grass is the dilemma of maximizing the healing potential of a swig by permitting your healthbar to remain fractioned until then, closing the distance between life and death despite retaining more potential heals, or swigging for safety. With grass you can pick and choose the degree of health regained via grass permutations. A limited cap of heals also introduces an ever-present dilemma of pushing through an area/boss while running critically low on heals or returning to a bonfire, which doesn't occur terribly often in Demon's Souls unless you're a hemp fiend. Sure, the presence of tangibly finite healing resources provides anxiety in resource loss but what does that provide on a macro-experiential scale exactly? You run dangerously low on heals so you're forced to grind. You could write that off as another player-agnostic design decision made by the world, and it certainly is, but grinding in a game for most people rips any layer of immersion and enjoyment in an session. And what of the reverse? You just brute force your way through late game with a trenchcoat of high-grade grass strains, never having to worry about low heals during a boss fight. Estus is just so much more tactically and experientially interesting that it's difficult for me to support your angle.
I think for Bloodborne it would've been more ideal if there was at least 5 minimum blood vials given to the player for each run, so that if they burn through those only then they'll start burning through their stack. It'd also make it so running fully out won't leave you stranded on the next attempt but instead get to try with 5 vials for free and given the option to go farm for more.
They essentially did that in the DLC before Ludwig fight, theres a bloody corpse that has 5 blood vials every time you reload the area
@@sasaki999pro What's funny is the amount of attempts I'd die early against Ludwig before I even spent those vials so the net result was my inventory would grow over time XD
for real. the blood vial system isn't too bad until you completely use up all your resources and have to spend an hour farming them out again. have a set minimum number restocked on every respawn would have been a good compromise
@@lonelykitchen Skill issue.
@@CalebDekkeri got the platinum before you even heard of the game. stay mad zoomer
I definitely love the way Lies of P does it, getting to recover your last flask after running out is such a great way to incentivise proactive play
Not only that, you actually get a few decent buffs for having zero Pulse Cells. It's so good
Don't worry Aseir Dragons Dogma 2 is coming to fill all your grass healing needs
when you really think about it, I should make a lot of Dragon's Dogma videos 🤔
@@AesirAesthetics I was on the stream when you said you were going to play DD1 for "A look at" so I'm not being baited by this hint!
It's never too late!
lol@@cyberninjazero5659
I need more fish than heals thanks to Rook 🤣
We'll be healing with this one, fellas...
❤❤❤
The fabled grass video finally came out? Helllll yeah brother 😎
They said no one can be enough of a hater to make this video but I proved them all wrong
I just assumed this idea was lost to time. I can't believe it's really here.
im suprised you didnt like the combo in DS2. I found that it reminded me of a Demon Souls 2 more than a Dark souls game. Life gems had me exploring and clearing out levels, especialy in early game before you have many flask.
even later in the game with how "slow" the healing of a flask was; the player was incentivized to look for larger windows to use a flask for larger "more immediate" (relatively), and in some cases would require a larger understanding of the encounter to use a flask mid fight, or have the player only use a flask in between encounters while exploring.
Some Counterpoints:
1: you can teleport from the beginning in demons souls for farming. In Dark souls you were stuck in a place. So the blight town experience alone with limted anti-poison items was more harsh than the healing system in DeS.
2. The weight of grass items was no big deal. No one is giving grass items away because it is very light in comparison. So there is not really a decision to make.
3. I was never low on grass in demons souls. The limitations of heal items are higher in dark souls, especially at the beginning and the midgame.
The only big difference is the farming.
The implementation of the DeS healing system is better in bloodborne because of the cap but iI still find it not that great. Farming is an uninteresting penalty for the player in my opinion. Loosing souls for too much healing or spawning new enemies would be better. Or just make farming more interesting.
I had been in the estus camp until I played bloodborne and saw how keeping an inventory of my healing items informed the long term play experience rather than just the short term decisions between checkpoints
until you're forced into farming blood vial cause you died more than 4 time to a boss, basically punishing the player for trying to learn the moveset of a boss
Estus basically does the same thing but better. You don't need to farm it.
@loubloom1941 it literally doesn't, it's a short form resource management up until to reach the next bonfire, it lacks the long term resource management , immersion and exploration of a dungeon like demon souls and bloodborne had.
Only thing against those games is u had to go back to the hub after every level which isn't a huge deal since it can act as a palate cleanser before delving into the next level.
(Note the immersion of the level was still good in ds1 because bonfires were still pretty far apart, ds2, ds3 suffer from too many checkpoints and forced to going back to the hub)
@@ni9274
only happens if you spam healings mindlessly in a failed attempt/doomed runs.
kinda funnels you into a certain playstyle of more of an observer hunter/witcher everytime you encounter a new enemy or a new boss, you observe their moveset and behaviour carefully and safely without just rushing in and jumping in first. once done reading the prey, only then do you move in for the k^ll. pretty cool stuff.
recently playing Last Faith and it is the same case here, ppl whining about limited healings in this meteoidvania too while spamming healings mindlessly. it even adds some tension in the game too, "instead using 2healings right now to a full hp bar, i should probably op in the next room see if it has the checkpoint that would heal me for free" etc
@@btchiaintkidding7837except no because how do you tell if an attempt is doomed? Well you have used all your healing, so you are telling me not to use anymore healing when this happens.
Healing items are reactive not proactive and unless you are near some other form of healing you use them at the rate you take damage not at the rate the player chooses to.
Great video, gave me context I lack as someone who only started playing these games in 2020. You have a great narrating voice too. Concise, direct.
I should have noted that in Dark Souls, you can commit a humanity to a run.
I still maintain that the costs in Demon's Souls are much much greater, but I should've noted this regardless.
Whereas I prefer the later games, I really like hearing the opinions of those who rank Demons Souls as their favorite souls game... There's something that I inherently respect about that
:)
There is an old saying in my family "thou who art patient art chosen to one day receive the blessing of Aesir's grass healing video"
Praise the moon grass that I survived to see this day 🙏🙏🙏
wise saying, your family is truly blessed
Been looking forward to this video!
enjoy!
@@AesirAesthetics Thank you! Enjoyed the video and found it interesting how much this actually affects how the game is made, how a grass system requires a lot of balancing and can't be shoved into DS1, same how an Estus/gourd/tears system wouldn't work in DeS. I wouldn't mind seeing them try a grass-like system again in a future Fromsoft game! I really appreciate the addition to the discussion, even if I disagree on some take aways (Bloodborne and Elden Ring mainly haha)
Anyway thanks for the video!
@rizon98 glad you liked it and agreed with everything I said in it :)
(especially my Bloodborne and Elden Ring take aways )
@@AesirAesthetics Yup that's exactly what happened haha
Nevertheless, even if I disagree I do also think videos like this bring a ton of value and you presented everything really well!
Ideas I especially enjoyed like being in the presence of the Erdtree healing you, instead of regular healing in ER or the parasitic healing idea in Sekiro. I'm all for some innovative healing systems!
Thank you for putting these feelings I’ve had for years into words, feels so validating that other people think that having access to more healing isn’t an affront to god or something
Also should be titled as "I have a right to be wrong".
lol
hey i am really busy rn, but i love videos talking about demon souls, and it is really underappreciated, thanks, left my like and subscription will watch it later!
I've been waiting for this hot take! Lol
I actually think that estus was good because of how it made bonfires really feel like your sanctuary and it really felt like it was your little goblet of fire that you had refilled at the closest bonfire. It felt and extension of the warmth of the bonfire and thus was a useful tool for setting tone and themes. Otherwise I'm fine with grass or blood vials or whatever.
One of my friends is a big fan of Souls games and a big fan of grass. Unfortunately, it slows down his reaction time and so he's never made it too far in any of them, but he seems to have fun all the same.
Lol
You're a sneaky fellow, the lead-up to this video made it sound like you were preparing the mother of all baitposts, but actually this is a great look into the design of these games. Great video!
lol, thanks
Thanks for the vid
Another banger thanks!!
Just finished Lies of P and I'd say I really enjoyed how it basically mixed both Estus and Rally systems together. The game is not as laser focused as Bloodborne on the player aggression part, so you're always free to choose between healing methods depending on what spot you're in. You could just use a pulse cell to recover that 20% of HP you lost, but it would be more benficial to just smack an enemy a couple of times instead. Add on top of that being able to recharge the 1 last pulse cell through attacking and you get these great, tense moments where a Boss is at relatively low health but you're also out of healing, but you pull through with a combination of attacking to recover health and recharging just 1 extra pulse cell.
You know, I gotta get to Lies of P already
I think your argument that grass is a resourse managment system where in the player can be starved falls apart the second the player realizes they can just farm grass, or goes to Latria later then other areas and thus bound to be stocked on Grass already anyway. You cant starve me when I'm already well supplied.
Resource managment doesnt really matter much when the resource isnt actually rare, and pretty much none of the grass types are rare. Resident Evul 1 actualky requires you manage and make real decisions on reaources because theres only so many healing items and bullets in the game per run. Theres no way to grt a bullet back once its been fired. Its gone forever. Thats actual reasource managment. I dunno anyone who calls usijg potions in Final Fantasy resource managment and the grasses are basically Potions, High Potions, Mega Potions and Gigs Potions.
You cant starve me out in Latria when I took 45 minutes to grind out a nunch of grass in 1-1.
Its literally why Bloodborne put a cap on how many you could carry at any given time because no amount of attempting to starve the player will work in the face of patience and if these games teach anything its patience.
And the second Bloodborn puts a cap on how many i can take into the field with me i just start wondering why this isnt an estus type system because grinding for Vials isnt rewarded but i have to spend my Blood Echos on them or grind for them which is both a money &/or time sink. You're just wasting my time now.
I just dont see how a hugly stackable infinitly available resourse really needs to be managed all that much. If i run out i just leave and get more.
Agreed. On top of grass being easy to farm, every time I had to farm for grass, I also gained souls, which made me stronger. If anything, the grass system teaches you that if you are struggling, you should spend a bit of time leveling up instead of learning the boss patterns, whereas in Dark Souls I felt more encouraged to keep trying until I learned how to fight the boss, not just outlast it.
i think one aspect of the shortcut / loop based single bonfire level design is that once you KNOW there is a loop, even if you die, you can run to recover your souls, unlock the shortcut, and get a free rerun of the level. an important indication that you're supposed to do this sort of thing is that enemies de-aggro at a certain point (although in DS2, enemies basically never de-aggro, and you don't even get Iframes when walking through a fog wall or opening a door or chest or what have you. some of my least fav things about DS2..). so, even if a player can't *quite* clear the area of all enemies and items in its entirety with 5 estus, they can still manage. for similar reasons, once you face and beat an area, you aren't forced to fight every single enemy again in order to speedrun through the area to pick up items or open doors.
I love Demon's Souls but can't say that resource management contributed to my sense of anxiety.
But I would love to see a system similar to DS1's but where the heals filled by each checkpoint varied and kindling used a very finite resource (maybe ~10 per ng) and only increased heals filled by 1. I wonder if having to ration such a finite resource would add to my sense of anxiety like grass did for Aesir.
Maybe :)
Didn’t Dark Souls 3 bridge the gap between the two systems by having certain enemy kills refilling your estus? Either way, I think that under ideal design circumstances, both systems can work equally well.
Yeah, both DS3 and ER do that. I like that mechanic as a "best of both worlds". Because I *hate* farming for healing items.
@@childofcascadia Farming is only really tedious in the early game since you're not as well equipped to farm efficiently. I always felt that if I had to farm in the early game, I should take a break because I must have been doing something wrong to hit a wall so quickly. Sometimes farming becomes a way to better acquaint yourself with the mechanics, like learning parry timings for tough enemies like the red eye knights which drop stronger grass (lol) or bloodborne's scourge beasts and ogres which drop many vials at once.
It's an absolute crime youre not in the 100,000 subscribers club yet...I have no doubt it'll come brother. By far my first favorite game essayist and still favorite game essayist\youtuber💪💪💪
thank you :)
One of the only people who actually has something insightful to say. Too many people just talking about what happens in games instead of saying anything of substance.
Glad to see I’m not the only one that prefers the grass system.
Great video! Ultimately, I think I still prefer DS 1's implementation of estus over grass, BUT I would be very interested in another iteration or refinement of the DeS item burden and grass systems
Totally!
IDK. I dont have as much time to game as I did back in the day. I dont want to have to farm healing items because I literally dont have the time to do it, and it will make it less likely I play the game. I mean, I love all of From's games. But they are already tough, and getting thru areas/bosses (esp playing blind 1st playthru) is going to take multiple tries as-is. And if you happen to have a bad run, you can be forced to go farm healing. I dont like having to stop progression to go get more healing.
Bro dropped a nuclear hot take. Never thought I'd hear someone defend demons souls healing for an hour but here I am
lol
This is an incredibly smart essay and a fascinating listen.
Excellent video!
I had no strong feelings about grass when I played demon souls(PS3). I was never short on copious amounts of grass even without farming at all. But I only played demon souls after having played dark souls 1-3, Bloodborne and elden ring. So by the time I got to demon souls, it was an absolute cakewalk. But if it was my first souls game, I think the ability to run out of grass would have had a bigger impact on me.
I wish everyone had the experience of Demon's Souls as their first souls game, and the experience of being destroyed with no more grass.
Wish grass was better implemented (strict top cap for example) but still think it's highs are the best in the bunch.
Sorry for taking 8 months to respond btw
Many many people had a terrible time with grass in demon souls, I don’t play these games to farm items, same with bloodborne, on your first play through hours might be spent farming this is boring. It’s that simple and I hope it never comes back.
Grass video out let's gooo!
I don't think I ever had any issue with weight via the moongrasses. I had 99 half-moons by the end of the game and was constantly chugging them just because you can't grab a bundle without taking all at once.
I find the estus system of later titles, especially the modern system, to be far superior in a few senses: allowing a trade off of rechargeable HP or MP depending on your playstyle. It doesn't require farming to replenish, it also is limited in power based on placement in the game and how effective a player is at searching for the items to upgrade their flasks.
The grass, as cool as it is to haul around literal hundreds of charges of healing is, when you're starting off in the game and don't know much better about things, you're constantly short on grass until you pick up on how to play, and then you're drowning on it.
I kind of like DS's healing pebbles, being a pseudo-finite source, with flasks being either a fall-back for those who prefer the stones, or as a first resort for those who like to hoard them. The other souls games tend to have items as well, such as humanity in ds1 and embers in ds3. I personally like the risk-reward of the lumps of flesh in Elden Ring, having many strategic uses, such as using the emblem of rot to boost your attack by poisoning yourself with it. Just a shame there are a finite amount per run of the game, not even being a rare drop :/
I actually would like a deeper look at DS2's healing, since it seemed to try and be the hybrid of Dark and Demon's Souls' systems.
And was DS3's system really that bad(ly implemented)?
I will say this is one video topic I have never seen, and an opinion I've never really heard, so this will be interesting
King's Field II aka King's Field US makes for a great case study in this debate, sort of. Alexander starts the game relying on what little grass he can gather for healing (and I for one didn't find it easy to break the economy as you alluded to in your retrospective of the game), until around the time of the first boss (depending on whether you discovered the Dragon Fountain early or not), and then you have the Dark Souls 2 system of having to gradually increase your flask stock. By that time, however, a player who plays to the strengths of the game will fall back on the Dragon Fountain, even if they have but a couple crystal flasks in their possession. It's the sensible thing to do, but it removes some of that early game tension and makes your exploration of the island of Melanat way more stilted, at least until you unlock the sealed gates (which is the point at which the transition from one healing system to the other would've really made sense and elegantly so, as the Dragon Fountain is functionally a proto-Firelink Shrine from then on, and your HP will be high enough for individual Earth Herbs to start feeling less valuable as a healing resource). If that doesn't showcase the merits of grass and Estus depending on the game's framework, nothing will.
On a side note, I wasn't a fan of how a single MP flask could amount to several HP flasks via Earth Heals (although I did like how you were initially locked out of refilling your MP), which you can learn pretty early on (it would've made some more sense if the Earth Crystal was somewhat hidden away or if it scaled exponentially with Magic so that it started out weak, and even then it would have to cost more MP), and I really didn't care for the second Dragon Fountain on the eastern side of the island.
Great video! A small correction re: Sekiro, Breath of Life (the heal on kill skill) isn't just found in Mibu, its also an unlock on the first shinobi skill tree. So you can get it fairly early on if you prioritize it. Putting that aside though, both it and the BoL: Shadow technique you get from Orin are explicitly Shinobi techniques and not connected to the Dragon Immortality. Its apparently just meant to represent the Shinobi being able to refocus and breathe easier when they make a kill, and also probably ties into the whole "Shinobi abilities are empowered by killing and absorbing negative karma" thing. Not really explicitly parasitic, especially since the Ashina tree has a similar thing for posture recovery, more just showing the fighter in question being able to treat killing more pragmatically and not losing their cool in fights rather than literally draining the health out of the people they kill. I also like the gourd and medicine since story-wise they are further evidence of all the ways Ashina has been trying to find ways of extending life and creating immorality, which ties into the stagnation themes, and also why the Shogunate would be so eager to put the kibosh on them.
There are 2 Breath of Life skills.
One is on the Shinobi upgrade tree, the other is a reward for defeating O'Rin
@AesirAesthetics Yeah I know, I mentioned that. But both have the same description of being shinobi techniques rather than tied to the Dragon Immortality.
@@MrOrdinaryundoneoh sorry, I misread your comment as "it isn't found in Mibu".
It's late here I am 😄
It would have been very interesting to play with the idea in one of the games, where the Estus gets taken away. And you'd be in some place functionally similar to Latria. With less hope until you can restore your Estus.
Sounds like you prefer the level design and consumables loot farming rather than the healing itself.
There's quite a bit of texture and verticality in the overworld of Elden Ring. The clip you used to say it was uninspired and flat was literally from a lake.
I think a problem people run into when they talk about Elden Ring and level design (specifically that of the open world) is that they look BACK on it from a position of having replayed it. That is, most ppl apt to discuss it are going to have replayed it.
This leads ppl to undermine the incredible sense of discovery that coincided with that first playthru, when you literally didn't know what was around any given corner. They instead say, well, i can go back and replay ds1 and the level design' etc., etc., all the while failing to appreciate that while replayability is awesome (i've played ds1 countless times) the first experience should still be considered primary, as it were
Bloodborne's healing's only flaw was when you completely run out of Blood Vials. Except in that case, Blood Vials are great because they further incentivize the Rally mechanic, since you would rather use the Rally mechanic to get back health than use your limited Blood Vials.
If only the game was designed so you don't completely run out (like by making enemies drop something like a Blood Vial fragment that can be converted to a Blood Vial when you go back to the Dream or something).
Imagine if rallying with full health filled your blood vials instead
I think my issue with issue with the grass system is that if you run out, you're just boned. You're just SoL and being forced to grind is your only option. If enemies had an adjustable rate of dropping healing items depending on how many you had in your current inventory, that could certainly help. Maybe that could be abused if you were using Stockpile Thomas, but I'd rather something that helps the player keep going forward than something that could effectively force a player to go back and backtrack.
Maybe there could be some kind of middle ground, such as having a limited amount of flasks, but STILL give small healing items along the way. I think getting a "pick me up" grass could certainly help mitigate the Estus Flasks that don't heal you all the way but you don't want to be wasteful, but you could also give less overall flasks to compensate as well. Personally speaking, I think Dark Souls 3 having an Ashen Flask is something I care less for because I hate magic builds being screwed over so much. If Dark Souls 3 had the Amber herb system of Dark Souls 2 while also having Ashen flasks but in a way I proposed above by it healing less than a flask ever could, I think that could really help.
I don't particularly care for the balance of being a caster = "you shouldn't need heals" because unless you're a miracle build carrying heal on you, you're kind of screwed? Or you have to go in as a mixed caster, but never a full sorcerer. While I do find being a mixed user is very fun (especially in Elden Ring) I just wish I didn't have to gimp my health to have more casts. It's weird.
Meh, just go the Nioh route: 3 cures by default, basic cap at 8, plus passive skill to up hold limit and healing effectiveness.
Now you have an unfinished resource that is still refilled through exploration and enemy loot.
I think what's sorely missing from the BB discussion is what most people are leaving out when they praise rallying: A lot of the times, the scenarios that make you use a lot of blood vials are not typical enemy encounters. But bosses. Where rallying sometimes is ill advised (cause BB is still plagued by 'press the dodge button at the right time' combat design, even though it does not fit at all) or worthless because the enemies deal so much damage and aren't even done with their combos, that taking any hits at all is a death sentence. The only times when I farmed blood vials was when I spent hours on bosses. And that's not even cause I was great at rallying on normal enemies, it just wasn't that needed.
What song is playing at the 6-7 minute mark?
So, to understand the plus point of Sekiro's seemingly unnecessary healing abundance, we would need to understand the learning curves of CounterStrike VS PUBG, so in CSGO you get very shorter intervals between the major skill development i.e the aiming and recoil control. while in PUBG, the intervals between fighting players is way longer, even completely avoidable till the very last stage, which makes it extremely hard for new players to get better at shooting. they'll depend on positioning and ghost sniper tactics. So for Sekiro, leaning the dance of parrying fast is paramount to enjoying the game. so without reasonably abundant healing to keep being in the moment of action, the game would have suffered players being ripped off from developing the parrying skill, when the intervals between them is any longer, since parrying needs repeated muscle memory on the rhythm.
it's amazing how much I love demon's souls, whenever I see it and feel content I'm in awe of how they managed to turn the remake into such a travesty that I never played it. How the hell did you get me to skip demon's souls?
Even though I still personally prefer the Estus system in DS1, i also really love Moon Grass healing in DeS and actually consider it fitting for that game. Course DeS is probably my favorite game of all time so I’m biased in favor of it lol
Demon's Souls PS5 seems to have fixed the issue you had with healing grass not being capped at less than 99 of each. You can only carry 50 of crescent moon, 50 of half moon, 25 of late moon, 25 of full moon, 10 of new and dark moon grass. While still a lot, by having them all severely capped instead of being able to carry 99 of each the risk of decreasing all challenge that the game has to offer is marginally subdued compared to its PS3 version. Running out of grass in the remake is a much more cruel reality, but it also means any excess grass you pick up can be stored safely to Stockpile Thomas in case you're worried about completely losing grass in any way if you've been playing extremely well. On PS3 all grass types had a weight of 0.1. This was adjusted accordingly on PS5 so that possessing 25 full moon grasses on your character would weigh you down as much as a set of armour would, which mitigates the risk of capped grass types allowing the player to carry as much armour as they want. In fact, the remake has made carrying armour that much more penalising than on PS3 because of the weight rebalancing, and because of these changes the grass healing mechanic has become, in my opinion, superior to Dark Souls Estus, whereas I would have had the opposite opinion were there only a PS3 version.
I haven't played the remake so I can't attest to the qualify of this fix.
Seems interesting though
I don't have time to watch the whole thing yet, but I'll get to it. So here's the nuances as I predict them, and look forward to discussion presented, as I'm in Camp Estus:
Estus
Auto reload at checkpoint
No farming
Finite amount makes any upgrade (Kindling, Shards, Bone dust, etc) a meaningful progression
- Also makes player more aware and necessitates learning enemies to make the healing last
Not menu fiddly: You only have 1 healing item in your toolbelt, you're not going to mistake it for another, unlike Half Moon and Full Moon grass. Grass also ties up more toolbelt slots.
Grass
Can be farmed, and thus overstocked, making any fight you win, fully recoverable.
Limit was on DeS carry weight. More grass for healing, less loot. Want to carry more stuff? Invest in Carry weight.
Modular healing amounts makes healing off chip damage, or topping off, not so "feel bad": "I've lost 20% of my HP, so using an Estus (that heals 70%) is a waste"
Since it's a dropped item, you can partially restock during a run through, giving you more healing (though Souls' handles this with random, unpredictable recharges through various systems.) This lets the designers place some healing to help your first run go smoother, and dying makes it harder.
DeS larger areas need more healing. There's no shortcut to, or archstone immediately before, a boss, except for most of the Arch Demons and Phalanx.
I don't know how this changes your opinion of sekiro's healing but you can also get breath of life from the Shinobi esoteric text, which you get from sculptor almost immediately
You can but since it's optional I chose not to count it because it's not a core healing mechanic like the mandatory one in Mibu is
Farming and buying healing was bad and it was less bad in Bloodborne. Dark Souls 1/3, Sekiro and Elden Ring's finite amount of flasks are perfectly fine because you still have to play well enough to not burn through them in a level. Meanwhile you could stock up in grass and spam the heals anytime you take too much damage.
Bloodborne greatly punishes your healing spam if you can't rally the damage back or use one of the visceral healing runes and risk the extra damage you could take while fishing with the stagger. For Bloodborne it's really only a problem if you're running back to a boss and have to avoid some annoying enemies on the way back but Bloodborne has an abundance of short cuts so you can generally avoid this problem. Also we can't forget how buying items becomes more grind happy as you progress through the story. For some reason.
I think Dark Souls 2's life gems were neat as an idea but you had the Demon's Souls problem of just being able to buy as many as you want and spam them safely when you have enough agility.
Mana flasks are one of my favorite additions to the Soulsborne formula. Demon's Souls had the spices and made magic spam too powerful. The limited casts in Dark Souls 1 and 2 were a bad direction since it made caster builds have a hard limit unless you use an herb in 2. In Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring, casting is so powerful that you genuinely have to limit the player's use of casting and make them choose between having more healing to deal with dodge mistakes or casting your magic.
In Elden Ring you can button mash equip unequip on that medallion that slowly restores HP to fully heal. It gives you like 3 hp every mash instead of every second. That's a thing you can do.
for real?
lol
@@AesirAesthetics You could do the same with the regen ring in DS3.
This has made me want to play Demon's!
It must be hard walking with balls that big between the legs... Really fascinating analysis: surprisingly succinct and straight to the point (I'm not joking, this topic could have easily spiraled into pointless narration but you've kept the focus) compared to countless others. Clearly driven by personal experience in the business. You've earned a new subscriber
thank you :)
I respect your preference, but I dont feel grass is objectively the best system. It ends up just being annoying when you run out and a chore to farm. It doesn't really add anything to the experience other than a bit of frustration (for most).
That being said, I dont personally mind the grass system THAT much. It doesn't ruin the game for me. Once you know how to farm and where to buy it, its not that bad. Still, it's far from ideal.
33:00 I don't know why you were saying that Bloodborne's level design is more linear, comparing it to the Painted World's shortcut-based design, when I found Bloodborne's level design consistently built in shortcuts and piecemeal exploration starting from one lantern. It did take Demon's Souls approach of having a starting lantern/archstone and generally requiring the player beat the area boss to get the next one, but leaned far harder into shortcuts than Demon's Souls ever did.
I'm also a bit surprised you didn't talk about the Blood Rapture rune, since that has a similar function to Sekiro's breath of life skill, just on visceral attacks, pushing the player more towards parrying (something which I argued in a reply to another comment is my take on the main point of rallying)
The Blood Rapture Rune is not a core healing mechanic, so it wasn't essential mentioning it, but I do like it.
It takes the risky vs reward combat to the limit
Your grass argument would have a point if full moon grass wasn't easily farmable very early on. Or available from Patches later in the game when you have more souls than you need. The problem with comparing Demon's Souls to a survival horror game is that Demon's Souls isn't one on a mechanical level. In fact the Estus system is closer to a survival horror because at least my healing flasks are limited during a run. Grass is infinite and the only price I have to pay is annoyance.
It could have been interesting to have a grass system but with finite amount of grass in the world, but that would in turn conflict with the multiplayer design so it wouldn't work either.
All of these healing mechanics (except maybe DS3) are easilly abusable with kindling, vendors and other healing items.
@@AesirAesthetics No. DS1 just wasn't balanced, the mechanic itself wasn't abusable only the abundance of items, and humanities and blessings, were rare enough, especially in the early game, to disincentivise farming for them.
DS2 is its own separate story.
Sekiro is like DS1 but with even stricter limit on consumable healings.
Elden Ring is also equally strict.
Demon's Souls grass system is the worst one to compare to survival horror mechanics because of the abundance of grass and farming spots for end game level grass, to the point where you easily became basically invincible. Especially when paired with Second Chance.
Damn it's crazy how one single mechanic can change the entire scope of a game
Another major issue with estus is combining it with mana restoration. Like how you loser you ability to heal in order to be able to attack more as a mage. With gasses you can buy spices so its not a problem.
I think the "Ashen Estus" works out fine since mages are not as exposed during combat so they dont need to heal as much but I also feel like it's a really boring solution to the mana question
So what do you think about the Wondrous Physick?
I really like it and I'd be interested in seeing an Elden Ring which exclusively uses it.
Customizing the healing sounds like an interesting idea
I love the Souls formula but I'm ready for something different. Give me a no s dogde and no automatic flask refills.
Awesome. I love how survival-ish Demons feels. Playing DS1 with only humanity or DS2 with only gems has a similar feel.
I've never done an "only-humanity" run of Dark Souls 1 but now I wanna!!!
i never liked the grinding of heals. just makes the gameplay more tedious imo. in bloodborne i just opted to use the cummm dungeon and stocked up on vials to avoid having to go out and do mindless grinding if i ran out.
I appreciate the time you put into making a video supporting an objectively unsupportable opinion
thank you😄
Elden could maybe have small, medium, large saps to pick up from enemies. They could've also added food healing but make you over encumbered to act as digestion and have it 5 sec for small, 10 sec for med & 15 sec for large or redo food as lifegems where it slowly and gradually heals. Just spit balling so idk how they'd work lol
I preferred Ds1 to DeS healing, as well as to Ds2&3's. The only issue is kindling 20 Estus is complete overkill. Instead of kindling being 5>10>15>20 with each humanity, it'd be much better as 5>7>9>10 or 5>8>10>12.
I fundamentally disagree, but I am interested in seeing your opinion
Enjoy!
Before I watch the video: First off, I prefer Demon's Souls to Dark Souls, that being said I prefer Estus. Grinding for or buying Grass sucks, and I think being able to carry so much Grass of varying healing quantities can trivialize the game. Yeah you can kindle bonfires, but there's a limit to how much you can do that, and its an option to make the game easier whereas I have to stop myself from using all my Grass if I want a challenge. I think something like bloodborne might actually be the best middle ground since there's a limit to how much you can carry, but enemies can still drop it so you don't have to stop and rest if you don't want to. I didn't really like how DS3 did it since you feel overpowered by the end of the game if you collect all the upgrades which is the problem I had with Demon's Souls and Elden Ring is just annoying because I feel like I have to go out of my way to find all the upgrades so I can keep up with the ridiculous damage output.
After watching: that was really good, and I really like your take on how each game does its healing. I appreciate the nuance and I do think you got me to respect Grass a little more.
Legends spoke of this vid... I don't believe it...
believe it baby
Although I prefer Estus, I do not believe it is objectively better. People who like Grass have reasons to like Grass, and for those who like that system, I'm happy for them
ruclips.net/video/ug_0zCIwYZM/видео.html you might have already seen this but the bit about armor in dark souls and demon's souls reminded me of this talk from josh sawyer, specifically at 8:04 where he talks about damage mitigation vs avoidance, tanking damage through heavy armor vs dodging everything (and how this is often poorly done!)
In sekiro I started liking the game more when my death blows would regain a little bit of Health
Same!
I maintain it's the better healing mechanic in Sekiro
I haven't watched it yet, but I will say of my own worthless opinion: It's hard not to prefer grass/life gems/etc in my mind. The idea of resetting brutal difficulty areas to restore your healing or being able to continue forward and make progress instead.. I'd rather the area continue without resetting things. If I make an error and die, then sure, you can punish me by resetting things. Sometimes [often times in Elden Ring] the reset feels like a punishment.
Just a little note before I make a post watch comment, Dark Souls pretty heavily buffed heavy armor as well. Wearing full Havel's/Giants'/Stone armor can you make basically any character an unblockable wall that will just soak hits and move forward. I'm sure you know about that, but I think with how much estus you can stack for a certain boss or trial, the developers kinda knew how potent the healing along with armor is.
Sorta unrelated but I wouldn't be surprised if the developers tested bosses and levels with relatively extreme conditions, not necessarily a "0 grass test" or an "expected level range" test for any of the games, I'd imagine they tested a lot more general conditions. Just using dark souls as an example, I almost guarantee you they tested fighting the four kings with a character who had the lowest vitality stat. I say that because it's a bit too perfect how much the heavier armors and poise stacking can help with that boss, it's the main way people beat them on Soul level one runs and whatnot. I'd imagine they probably did "no level" tests of each area, no weapon or low weapon upgrade tests, and so on just to kinda simulate the random decisions players could make.
For Sekiro, as much as I think a more "grass" focused system would hurt it, you're kinda right. I'm a big fan of sekiro mechanically so changing the gourd to be something else sounds like it could go wrong quick - but I have my own suggestion that might fit your ideas a little bit. What if prayer beads were your gourd? Keep the vitality upgrades separate, but spread out a few extra beads as "flask" upgrades throughout the world. I'd say make wolf do a relatively shorter "prayer" animation akin to using the homeward idol. Still make it unsafe to use mid fight however - ideally there'd be more pellets or something akin to help you heal mid fight, and make breath of life standard from an earlier point as well. Instead of healing health directly, it'd refuel a resurrection charge instead. Of course, if we want it to be a more traditional flask replacement, make it heal hp directly, but make it have relatively low charges throughout the entire game, but maybe full heal. I'd say max like 5 uses?
Ultimately I think what I suggested for sekiro would be a decent middle ground base for future games. Give the player a refilling healing item per checkpoint, but make them limited somehow. Whether it be slow to use, low top cap, just being inefficient, something to make it not the dominant healing resource, and to instead encourage use of the consumable healing item more often. At the same time, the limited consumable healing should be made to be generally more efficient, more health gained, shorter use time. That way there would always be a sort of cost to using either, use up your slow refilling healing after an encounter, or your more efficient not refilling one? Do I go for this slow use time refill once I die or succeed healing mid fight or use the safer limited alternative? Stuff like that could maybe fit into fromsoft's more mechanically oriented direction while still keeping the elements of their precursors intact.
Aw man, I'm so ready to watch this video run the numbers and objectively determine which healing system is the superior one. ... HEY WAIT A MINUTE!
there's no objectively superior system, they all have different pros and cons and impact what the best practices of scenario direction are.
The best one is whichever one you like the best.
I think Demon's Souls has better scenario direction than the other Souls games and I can trace that in part to the healing mechanic, which is why Grass is my favourite
Nice.
Very nice
Demon's Souls: Limited consumables healing
Dark Souls: Rechargeable Estus healing
Dark Souls 2: why not do both lol
The stance I like to take in this discussion is that the estus formula is a better GENERAL direction for healing in these games, but also something I hope From Software is willing to sacrifice going forward if it is in conflict with other aspects of their creative vision. Like they did with Bloodborne. I hated the vial farming as much as everyone, but it was the non-repleneshing nature of healing resources that forced players to consciously engage with the rally mechanic, which was an essential prequisite for the enemy/boss designs, and for the entire gameplay loop of Bloodborne, to not be jarring. With how Elden Ring feels like the swan song of the traditional Souls formula, From Software will likely bring lots of unorthodox ideas to the table for their future games, some of which hopefully also challenges the status quo of their approach to healing.
Demon Souls is the only game where there is flexibility in healing preparation. You mention the Adjudicator Shield being able to circumvent grass, but the healing ring in conjunction with a blessed weapon +3 really changes the way you can play the game. No longer are you funneled to a single setup of healing, you can circumvent the poison effect entirely in 5-2. The blessed upgrade only worked on specific weapons but that was the sacrifice you took with exploiting the HP mechanic. This is just one example of the flexibility Demon Souls has over its successors that made it more replayable and memorable even though it has the smallest amount of content compared to its successors. Compare this to Elden Ring which I completed twice and never want to touch again because of how insanely boring the builds and bosses are due to their lack of deviation from one another.
I still get a lot of joy from Elden Ring, but I feel like between the Wonderous Physicks and Talismans and such, that there was a giant opportunity to explode the build variety on offer which I dont think they really utilized
@@AesirAesthetics For some reason most of the fan base love to have flavour differences in builds rather than stuff that can drastically change the way you play the game. I know I'm in the minority when it comes to that. For example I think the two ring slots in DS1 is better than four ring slots because the rings in DS1 can supercharge specific parts of your build.
I feel like every so often you should just release a new video essay where you give your classic shpeal for why grass > estus. That way you can make sure that I personally don’t forget why you prefer grass over estus, as I’m sure my forgetting deeply worries you.
lolllll!!!!!!!!!
I wanted to formalize it in one video so I never need to bring it up again.
For the same reason, I'll probably end up doing a Kegare video
monster hunter mega potions, rolling to i-frame. tail cuts i smell inspiration kings field and monster hunter crossed by blood into a third person dungeon crawler.
You're wrong about what the problem with Demon's Souls healing is. The problem isn't that you might need to grind for it, the real problem that everyone (myself included) comes from the fact that you CAN grind for them. I never ever felt like I was short on healing items, even when I was a new player because it was just too easy to load up. My only deaths came from times when I was denied an opportunity to heal, such as falling to my death, getting one-shot, or improperly reading the situation against an aggressive group or boss. That is what makes Demon's Souls healing system broken.
Yeah, you could disengage very easily in some fights to top off your health with almost no risk. You can stock up on 99 New and Dark Moon Grass and just heal off any damage if you wanna be cheeky about it.
These arguments can become interminable, it’s just so subjective. I will say your analysis is really sound, do you design games yourself? Because you seem to think like a game designer, and a good one!!…. I’ve never given much thought to why but my favourite Fromsoft game ever is DS3, which runs counter to all your excellent points. Maybe it’s because my first game from the studio was Bloodborne, so I enjoy a more aggressive play style, but while I did find the amount of estus I had during DS3’s late game to be a little on the too generous side, lowering the stakes a little, I still adore the game, its pace, its design, the shortcuts, the boss fights and lore, for mine it’s kind of a masterpiece. And I don’t know, maybe it’s just me but I always find the first couple of levels in all Fromsoft games to be far more difficult than the late game, by the late game I just seem to get into a flow state where I can feel the rhythm of the fights and enemies which I struggled with early (like Knights) I can dispatch flawlessly without breaking a sweat.
Anyway you made me think about the games differently so thanks for an excellent analysis, even if I disagree with most of it!
Well this is a very………. unique opinion
lol
Hey Speaks against the Estus Flask Fundamentalist Order. Confessors attack!
ps. Thanks for the video.
lol, thanks :)
I like the grass cause I’m deadass smoking while playing so when my ego gets but I need some of that grass healing
Rather than building elden ring around healing it should have been built around travel. What if enabling a grace for fast travel took a level, so you would choose between fast travel and leveling up and which ever one you did the next would be more expensive