The Beacon Fire: Dampening the difficulty of Dark Souls?

From Software announce the inclusion of The Beacon Fire - a device that acts as a checkpoint, healing station, and meeting place for other players | Raiding Party

[Focker420]

Sounds interesting, as long as the difficulty remains unforgiving.

[rdgneoz3]

They said it was gonna be even harder >:)

[BlackTar187]

I hope that its harder and this doesn't take away from the difficulty.

[TenSteps]

I need sleep I thought I read The Bacon Fire and got hungry

[Kakihara]

I'm someone who didn't even get close to finishing Demon's souls due to the unforgiving difficulty but I have to say, this does sound like a bad idea to me.

Most of the fun of Demon's souls for me was the fact that dying sent you right back to the start of the level. I'm glad each level had shortcuts you could open up but the best times I had in the game were the feeling I'd get when I'd been playing for about forty five minutes without dying or opening up a shortcut and knowing one slip up would ruin it all.

If these checkpoints are as rare as the shortcuts in the first game it could probably work, otherwise I think it'll ruin it. Demon's souls wouldn't even have been THAT hard of a game if it had a forgiving checkpoint system.

[Petro]

Hmm... you guys do know that Dark Souls has no "levels" It's open game type. If you didn't have these checkpoints the game would always send you all the way to the beginning. So this ain't that different system from what Demons Souls had.

[Kakihara]

Ah, didn't know that. Okay then that sounds fine.

[ChronoJoe]

Well it seems this one will have more accessible co-op functionality and Demons Souls was easy as hell in co-op so you can just make use of that to reduce the difficulty, in short.

[KingDustero]

There isn't a need to worry at all. There are no longer levels in the game. The whole world is open now. So these are here so one doesn't have to start back where they begin the game every time they die.

These fires probably won't be near any major bosses or anything. So you still have a lot to go through again if the boss beats you.

I can't wait for the game. Every new screenshot and piece of info makes me even more hyped for me.

From Software already has my money.

[buckley]

It's all in how they implement it. The existence of a "Beacon Fire" doesn't mean it's gonna be in the middle of a short section. It could be the equivalent of the beacons you used to warp back to the Nexus in Demon's Souls. Just sounds like a slightly cooler way to explain it and give it more use and purpose.

[videoxgamexfanboy]

To me demons soul wasnt that hard after the first boss. once i figured out hot to use combat it got pretty easy for me. of coarse that second play through is another story...

[buckley]

I kinda feel like the word "difficult" is often used incorrectly to describe Demon's Souls. It's challenging, but it's more that you need to learn how it wants you to play it. It does require a lot of patience, though.