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Ignacius · **05-15-2014, 11:54 PM**

(05-15-2014, 08:26 PM)synaesthetic Wrote: What I mean by "F2P dominance" isn't that they're making the most money or have the most customers, but that there are almost no optionsÂ if you want to avoid F2P games.

I like XIV okayish. It's not bad. It's fine. It's not terrible. I mostly play because of my FC; if it weren't for them I would have quit a while ago. I don't care for WoW because I don't like the player character options or the art style, and it has a cash shop now. I don't care for EVE because zzzzz. I don't care for FFXI because it's a trainwreck, having the worst parts of both EQ1 era games and modern MMOs. I don't care for ESO because roflroflroflroflroflWHAT. I don't care for Wildstar because I don't really care for the art style and the combat is just a slightly better version of GW2's without the circle strafing.

So right now, I don't really like any of the P2P options. I don't have any other options. There just aren't any if I want to play something different, so I'm settlingÂ for XIV. I don't love it, but what are my other options? Games I dislike far more and games that are F2P.

I don't like F2P games. The only one that I consider even halfway decent is RIFT, and I don't really like RIFT's art style and the combat system is just as dull as XIV's (though at least there's more stuff to do). I'd probably happily trade XIV for RIFT if my whole group followed me there, but other than that the main differentiating factor is that the people I like playing with are in XIV and my character is super cute, and I can't make a character in RIFT that really resonates with me (though my RIFT!Aeriyn does come close... ish).

So what am I left with choice-wise? A massive mess of F2P games. I don't like F2P; I don't want a game nagging me to buy stuff. I want to pay for my use of the game resources and that's it. I don't want to see ads for "sales on bullshit in the cash shop" every time I log in. I don't want to see other players running around with shit I can't get unless I spend real-life money. I don't want to deal with the possibility that PvE endgame progression is solely dependent on how many times I swipe a credit card. I don't want to deal with trolls, botters, futa elins, hackers and griefers. P2P MMO communities are bad enough; F2P communities are typically a cesspit.

So what are my options? Play a game I don't really like from the list of P2P Endangered Species, or don't play MMOs at all. If it weren't for the social aspect that I don't get in my actual life due to being poor, I'd probably choose the latter...

Look, let's be fair, subscription games aren't an endagered species. Â There SHOULDN'T be a lot of them out there. Â F2P MMORPGs suck for a reason; the companies that develop them really have very little reason to keep you playing. Â Like traditional games, they make money selling the product, so once you buy it they make another product. Â Subscription MMORPGs NEED you to continue to play month after month to make the rent.

With that said, how many games can any developer continue to develop at a high level of quality for years on end? Â MMORPGs aren't like normal games that are sort of one-and-done, then you move on to the next. Â A good MMORPG can fund your company for over a decade if you do it right. Â So I'd say any company can maybe keep one going at a time and only the best of developers can maintain that standard for very long.

Given those two factors, it's a small wonder that there aren't many that remain; most developers simply do not have what it takes to keep up and many of the developers that do simply aren't prepared to commit yet. Â It used to be that there were more subscription MMORPGs, but even companies with as good a track record as Bioware couldn't pull off what Blizzard pulled off.

As it stands, we're probably looking at a sort of caste system, with F2P games sort of absorbing people with less money who simply can't pay for subscriptions (but can drop a few bucks every now and then for P2W gear) while people with more regular income will play the better subscription games. Â The trouble is that you'd better be damn sure you can hang with the big kids on the playground if you want to go that route, because subscription MMORPGs are resource hogs and you're trying to slug it out with Blizzard and Square.

Of the games out now that are subscription only, I've played WoW, EVE, XIV, and I'm beta-ing and have pre-paid for Wildstar (which I'll probably relate the rest of my experience with at the end of beta). Â I've had fun in them all to some degree or another, but it isn't like I'm going to pay sixty dollars a month to play them all (or not, considering how much free time I actually have). Â I limit myself to two, which at present is going to be XIV and Wildstar (until Warlords of Draenor comes out, in which case I will probably swap whichever one is less interesting for WoW again).

Then again, maybe that's just a bias. Â The F2P games I've at least tried out over the years haven't been all terrible, but they dry up quickly. Â I simply see that a game is free to play and have my usual cynical reaction. Â "Nothing is free. Â How are these people going to try to get my money?" Â That might not be fair, but it's simply an ingrained reaction from having played a few F2P games and instantly getting the idea that you need to spend money to have fun rather than have skill.

But I asked the question a while back in this thread. Â What development companies out there have the juice to make a high-quality MMORPG and develop it for years that aren't already in the arena? Â From Software? Â Nintendo? Â Rockstar? Â It's not a long list of people that could make a great MMORPG that we could feasibly play for years.

Everyone else might as well not even try; most people can't afford more than one subscription at a time and most companies can't really hope to make a game better than World of Warcraft for any length of time. Â So subscription games might have to fill niches, with EVE filling their own small corner of the market, Square getting their Japanarpeegee people together, and Wildstar looking to be the game that scoops up the disaffected hardnosed leeters WoW shed when they went a lot more casual in Wrath of the Lich King. Â Lord only knows what cracks in the pavement there are left to fill; and everyone else might as well sit back and wait to see how it plays out. Â It looks like WoW is going to finally disappear not due to a WoW-killer, but simple time and erosion.

Maybe, with Titan being sort of hinted at turning away from an MMORPG and with WoW probably on its last expansion or two, another company can make a play for the top spot. Â Then we can all hate them instead of Blizzard.

FreelanceWizard · **05-16-2014, 12:01 AM**

(05-15-2014, 08:02 PM)Flickering Ember Wrote: I am going to straight up say that I loathe FTP with every fiber of my being. (...) The day the subscription model dies is the day I'm quitting MMOs.

I quit Champions, SWTOR, and EQ2 when they went F2P. In fact, I was enjoying SWTOR but quit specifically because it went F2P. IMO, F2P brings two horrible things: a desire for monetization at all costs, and a terrible community. The first is pretty easily seen by looking at the Champions and especially SWTOR cash shops. Both games swore subscribers would never need to lay out actual money to get new content, but both games have carefully calibrated their "subscription credits" so that you ultimately need to plunk down cash if you want to get content as it's released. While EQ2 has resisted this, it has a pay to win element (XP potions) that rubs me the wrong way. In the end, the game gets a variety of roadblocks designed to annoy you into paying money (SWTOR's limit on hotbars, anyone?) -- even if you're a subscriber.

The community aspect is rather more subjective, but in my experience, F2P games have particularly ugly communities, both in and out of game. Since there's no barrier to entry to play, players have basically no "skin in the game," so to speak. If their account is banned, they'll just make a new one. They have little attachment to the game, so they troll and otherwise act horribly, feeling that the game's but a trifle. Not all players of F2P games are like that, certainly, but in my experience, it's enough to make the games no longer fun to play. The increased activity of trolls and the reduced support free players get also seems to wound the RP community. As bad as it sounds, subscription fees keep out the riff-raff. Smile

That said, I'm not opposed to cash shops for appearance items only. I think TSW did that quite effectively. In fact, I think TSW actually has one of the better business models from a player's perspective. You have to invest in the game, ensuring you have at least some commitment, but if you subscribe, you get all content at release "for free" (i.e., from your subscription token credits) and usually have spare credit available for other purchases. I can't speak to how effective the model is at funding the game itself, however, though as I periodically get e-mails from them announcing new content, it must be working fairly well. Smile

synaesthetic · **05-16-2014, 12:20 AM**

Most people can't afford more than one subscription, they bitch about it being $15 a month...

... and then they go blow $60+ per month in the F2P game cash shop on sexy outfits and power boosts.

Sorry but I find the usual arguments against subscription games to ring quite hollow.

Zyrusticae · **05-16-2014, 12:54 AM**

Going away from the usual business model discussion for a bit, I thought this looked promising, so I'm posting it (though as an instanced action RPG it technically doesn't qualify as an MMO, I'm pretty sure nobody cares to make that distinction anyway):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc08kd29n4I

This is the closest thing to a Cuhraaazee (i.e. Devil May Cry, Metal Gear Rising, God of War, Bayonetta et al.)-style action RPG I've ever seen. Most action RPGs have this sort of plodding pace ala Tera or Dark Souls - even Dragon's Dogma has a much slower pace than a lot of those kinds of games, and it was made by staff that worked on Devil May Cry. The emphasis on fast action and crazy-high combo chains really feels like a character action game.

Granted there's a lot of games I've never touched (like C9 or Dragon's Nest), but even from second-hand footage it's plain that they have a lot of janky elements, which Black Sheep does not appear to share (also, what is with Korean games and using Black in their name somewhere? Black Desert, Black Gold Online... Heh), at least at first glance. Looks like a more refined version of Vindictus, really.

Man, so many neat things coming out of Korea that I won't get to touch for years. Dammit all. Sometimes I really do feel like I was born on the wrong side of the planet.

synaesthetic · **05-16-2014, 02:35 AM**

tbh I like the "plodding pace" of TERA, Monster Hunter and Dark Souls because it places a lot of emphasis on avoidance, observation and skillful tactics rather than quick combo mashing. Very fast paced hack-and-slash games like DMC don't have (and can't have) the same level of skill-based challenge that games like DS or MH, or even TERA to a degree.

Humans just can't really react that quickly, so the avoidance mechanics are downplayed in favor of swarming the player with zillions of monsters to slaughter, but you aren't going to get oneshot by them.

Games like DMC or MGR Revengeance have a lot more in common with tab-target, even though they "feel" faster and more dynamic, they really aren't. They're rife with lock-on, auto-aim-assist, juggle combos that the computer basically does for you, and it's not about dodging so much as it's about killing everything before it overwhelms you.

They can still be fun, but I definitely prefer the deliberate avoidance-based games. Anyone remember Bushido Blade? That game was awesome. It felt incredibly slow compared to Street Fighter style tournament fighters, but it was much more skill and tactics based, when a single hit had a very high chance of killing you.

TheLastCandle · **05-16-2014, 02:43 AM**

Hell, I still pull out Bushido Blade II now and then. My yari-armed Kaun was unstoppable back in the day. I wish there was another game like it today.

Ignacius · **05-16-2014, 08:34 AM**

(05-16-2014, 12:20 AM)synaesthetic Wrote: Most people can't afford more than one subscription, they bitch about it being $15 a month...

... and then they go blow $60+ per month in the F2P game cash shop on sexy outfits and power boosts.

Sorry but I find the usual arguments against subscription games to ring quite hollow.

Holy shit, are people dropping that much money in those games? Â How frequently are they doing that, do you think?

I mean, yeah, in that case, if you're bitching about subscriptions yet tossing more of that into a F2P game for gear, you need to reevaluate your reasons for playing. Â F2P games have one and only one advantage over the subscription games I've played: they're FREE-TO-PLAY! Â If you're actually dropping more money in a F2P game than 15$ a month, you've somehow missed the point.

Ignacius · **05-16-2014, 08:43 AM**

(05-16-2014, 02:35 AM)synaesthetic Wrote: tbh I like the "plodding pace" of TERA, Monster Hunter and Dark Souls because it places a lot of emphasis on avoidance, observation and skillful tactics rather than quick combo mashing. Very fast paced hack-and-slash games like DMC don't have (and can't have) the same level of skill-based challenge that games like DS or MH, or even TERA to a degree.

Humans just can't really react that quickly, so the avoidance mechanics are downplayed in favor of swarming the player with zillions of monsters to slaughter, but you aren't going to get oneshot by them.

Games like DMC or MGR Revengeance have a lot more in common with tab-target, even though they "feel" faster and more dynamic, they really aren't. They're rife with lock-on, auto-aim-assist, juggle combos that the computer basically does for you, and it's not about dodging so much as it's about killing everything before it overwhelms you.

They can still be fun, but I definitely prefer the deliberate avoidance-based games. Anyone remember Bushido Blade? That game was awesome. It felt incredibly slow compared to Street Fighter style tournament fighters, but it was much more skill and tactics based, when a single hit had a very high chance of killing you.

I think I brought that up a few times earlier in the thread. Â I loved Bushido Blade, not just because of the pace, but because of the finality of the fight. Â It was great knowing that, even when your opponent was down, one false move could kill you instantly. Â So you had to be wary at all times even in combat. Â You know, like in a real sword fight.

Another game I liked for something of the same reason was Tenchu, a ninja game series by From Software a long time ago (I think PS1). Â Tenchu wasn't a ninja game like Ninja Gaiden. Â You were pretty worthless in a straight up firefight, especially against the enemies you were up against. Â So the game focused heavily around stealth mechanics and ambushes. Â You had to infiltrate castles by climbing the walls and avoiding detection, hiding in shadows, and silently dispatching your enemies. Â You know, like a real ninja.

I think that's why I liked Steel Battalion so much even though I still think Armored Core was a better made and more fun game. Â Steel Battalion had a massive control panel for a controller, the mech you piloted felt massive. Â Turning too quickly destabilized you. Â Your windscreen could be cracked and dirty, forcing you to wipe it off. Â Components of your mech would be damaged, forcing you to shut them off and do without. Â Mechs aren't real, but I imagine that's what really being in a mech would be like.

Not entirely sure how concepts like that would work in an MMORPG, where latency is such a big issue. Â Bushido Blade-style vulnerability might not be possible until the whole civilized world is connected by fiber optics.

Parth Makeo · **05-16-2014, 12:56 PM**

(05-16-2014, 08:34 AM)Ignacius Wrote: Holy shit, are people dropping that much money in those games? Â How frequently are they doing that, do you think?

I mean, yeah, in that case, if you're bitching about subscriptions yet tossing more of that into a F2P game for gear, you need to reevaluate your reasons for playing. Â F2P games have one and only one advantage over the subscription games I've played: they're FREE-TO-PLAY! Â If you're actually dropping more money in a F2P game than 15$ a month, you've somehow missed the point.

There is an explanation though. Ever heard of the Less is More Idea?
Let's say FTPMMO1 has the following average of items on the shop.
5$ Boosters that last a week for 30% increase.
2.50$ crate keys to unlock lock boxes.
1$ per ingame like token to "gamble" on lottery styled boards with odds never in your favor
and cosmetic items ranging from 5$ for one item to 50$ for a whole set.

Now because the ingame store restricts the items to only be available on the store (With small exceptions of games that offer minor versions of exp boosts and such) people feel compelled to buy them at random times. Made worse by the fact that some items can only be obtained though the lottery system...made even FAR WORSE that those said items in boxes and lotteries are only around for say....2 months only before being replaced. Making them EVEN HARDER TO GET AND FORCING PEOPLE TO BUY MORE TO GET IT!

In time they can gamble anywhere between 25$ to 150$ alone. And no, the items in boxes and lotteries usually have no counterpart to obtain in the cash shop. the next example is Elsword's Ice Burners.
http://elwiki.net/w/Ice_Burners
You will see that a lot of the sets can't be obtained anymore and the entire ice burning thing is more or less a lottery with the starting price is 1$ per burner. The odds of obtaining a certain armor piece for the character you play is about 1/5 on top of the ludicrous RNG it has.Â

These free to plays are only masking the hideous forced buying through manipulating people's "drive to obtain all the lewts" mentality. The core essence of an RPG is to kill a monster and grab it's loot (which is another reason why FF13 sucked hard...) which then you use to kill stronger monsters for stronger loots.
in an MMO some of those loots are cosmetic and not so much needed but a "want" because it either looks pretty or it is only here for a limited time (See the Mists challenge mode armor.)

So when people say 15$ a month is too much, they are masking their shame of spending 55$ a month on useless shit and they know it. Plus most of the people who said that as well just feel like they NEED to play 15$ worth of a game to get the full experience....which is false. I pay 12$ a month for the FF14 game and i still think i got my share of content for what limits it has for characters.

People just are stupid to realize they spend more when no limit is given to them on a "store".

Ignacius · **05-16-2014, 01:17 PM**

So a F2P game is like an Indian casino? Â There's no cover charge to get in and you don't have to gamble or buy anything to be in there, but once they hook you in, they get to you gamble and charge you way too much for drinks that you think you'll be able to pay for with your winnings that you'll actually never get because you can't count cards reliably in a six-deck shuffle at the blackjack table and those slot machines are ALWAYS sure they take in more money than they pay out?

I mean, I'm assuming.

synaesthetic · **05-16-2014, 02:27 PM**

That's actually a really good analogy.

Zyrusticae · **05-16-2014, 02:58 PM**

(05-16-2014, 02:35 AM)synaesthetic Wrote: tbh I like the "plodding pace" of TERA, Monster Hunter and Dark Souls because it places a lot of emphasis on avoidance, observation and skillful tactics rather than quick combo mashing. Very fast paced hack-and-slash games like DMC don't have (and can't have) the same level of skill-based challenge that games like DS or MH, or even TERA to a degree.

Humans just can't really react that quickly, so the avoidance mechanics are downplayed in favor of swarming the player with zillions of monsters to slaughter, but you aren't going to get oneshot by them.

Games like DMC or MGR Revengeance have a lot more in common with tab-target, even though they "feel" faster and more dynamic, they really aren't. They're rife with lock-on, auto-aim-assist, juggle combos that the computer basically does for you, and it's not about dodging so much as it's about killing everything before it overwhelms you.

They can still be fun, but I definitely prefer the deliberate avoidance-based games. Anyone remember Bushido Blade? That game was awesome. It felt incredibly slow compared to Street Fighter style tournament fighters, but it was much more skill and tactics based, when a single hit had a very high chance of killing you.

I absolutely cannot disagree any more than I do.

These games all have their own unique skillsets. You are patently wrong about Metal Gear Rising, for one example - being able to parry is ABSOLUTELY required if you want to be able to S-rank the game. Button mashing will get you nowhere. You have to be able to utilize Zandatsu effectively, know your enemies' movesets basically by heart, and be able to react on a moment's notice all at the same time. Trying to no-damage Monsoon is possibly one of the single most difficult things you can do in all of gaming, simply because of how good your timing must be with your parries.

Devil May Cry, meanwhile, puts a heavy, heavy emphasis on making the most of your entire moveset in order to bring up the combo score multiplier, something that is most definitely NOT a simple matter, in addition to your usual avoidance mechanics. Trying to argue that it does not require 'skill' just because it has less emphasis on simply dodging attacks is foolhardy AND false. To actually get a high score you essentially have to never be touched; you might not LOSE just because you got hit once or twice but for players who are trying to actually be, you know, good at the game, a single hit can warrant a restart at the last checkpoint.

It's a very different skillset from Dark Souls or MH (where your success is determined heavily by your ability to decide when to attack) and Tera is its own ball of wax since it mixes up action game-style hit detection with standard MMORPG elements. If anything, these games are much easier and simpler to play, especially once you know the movesets of your enemies, as it becomes a very simple matter of "avoid attacks; can I attack now? y/n" as your overall moveset is very small. Dark Souls in particular is exemplary of this as, once a player understands the game, there is essentially no challenge left, hence why they do all these crazy challenge runs like the Soul Level 1 run, the No Deaths/No Bonfire runs, and stuff like that.

And while Bushido Blade is indeed a very nice concept fighter, trying to say it requires more skill than Street Fighter is raw bullshit. Street Fighter has its own set of required skills and tactics that are very different from Bushido's. They are different, but they are in no way lesser. It's an especially absurd statement with regard to fighters as most of what determines how much skill you actually need is created by other players, hence the skill ceiling is literally determined by how strong your opponents are. Such a statement betrays a level of bias that is completely beyond rationality. You might prefer those kinds of skillsets but that doesn't suddenly make those other skillsets you do not prefer any less valid.

So, to summarize:
[Image: PgUFtZi.gif]

It's one thing to say you prefer things a certain way, but you should not apply a value judgment to things that are inherently subjective. Doing so invites ridicule and criticism from others who hold the very opposite of your values and doesn't help your points stand any stronger. (And before someone calls me a hypocrite, the F2P vs P2P argument is one that is couched inherently in real-world finances and can be qualified with money, player spending habits, and developer patching habits.) What qualifies as "skill" (or rather, what you consider "skillful") is most certainly one of those things.

Ildur · **05-16-2014, 03:24 PM**

Clearly achieving a high rank because of combos or whatever requires some form of skill, but isn't it an optional part of the game? If I go play DMC right now, do I need an S rank to beat all the bosses and finish the game?

Meanwhile, in games like Dark Souls you do need to learn the patterns and when it's a good idea to attack with your character's current setup of weapons/spells. It's not an option between "you can mash the button and proceed" or "you can carry out a complex chain of hits in a particular order in order to get a bigger rank!". You either learn to deal with the attack patterns or you get stuck.

Which I think is what Aeriyn was saying: you don't need much skill, in any of its many shapes, to 'beat' the game. Unless you do. I have no idea how DMC and the like work. Maybe if you don't have full S ranks on all stages you get the Very Depressing Ending or something.

Ignacius · **05-16-2014, 04:07 PM**

Having played these games, I can definitely say that Devil May Cry takes far less skill to complete than any of the Dark/Demon Souls games. Â Even after you learn attack patterns in the latter games, that doesn't necessarily mean you'll time it all correctly. Â It's much less forgiving than Devil May Cry.

To be fair, though, Devil May Cry is meant to be far more forgiving; it's essentially meant to be half spectacle. Â Capcom weren't trying to make an intentionally difficult game the way From Software was, Capcom just made a relatively difficult game for their time period because they're Capcom and they have a tendency to make games a smidge more difficult than what's out there. Â From Software were, intentionally, making a hard game thus it is harder, a bit like when Treasure made Ikaruga.

Bushido Blade is a very difficult game and requires a lot of skill simply because, in the end, there is almost zero forgiveness. Â The skills may be different, but Street Fighter's series is definitely easier than Bushido Blade, mostly because if you screw up in Street Fighter, you can fight your way back (usually). Â In Bushido Blade, screwing up generally occurs a split second before you lose, because you only need to screw up once.

On the other hand, that analysis is a little more flawed, mostly because Street Fighter and Bushido Blade are built on PVP, and PVP is by definition hard for about half the people playing. Â Of the two, Bushido Blade took longer to learn to be successful, but it's hard to judge the difficulty of PVP games because all you have to do to make the game easy is to get halfway up the curve.

Still, in the end, while a lot of things can define how hard a game is, ease of gameplay boils down to one, single, absolute value: Â forgiveness. Â The less forgiving a game is with your mistakes, the more difficult it will be. Â While different games may be more difficult in different ways, there is an absolute value of easiness. Â So yes, because Street Fighter and Devil May Cry will allow you to advance in the game with a greater amount of mistakes, they are pretty definitively easier to beat.

That's not to say they're not good games or successful at what they do. Â A game being harder to beat doesn't necessarily make it better. Â It isn't like Capcom tried to make a pair of the hardest games ever made and failed, they intentionally designed them to be precisely as difficult as they are. Â Dark/Demon Souls can become a somewhat joyless and mechanical process; Devil May Cry had an intentionally built-in factor of "Ooooh.... Ahhhh...." Â And I don't think anyone here is going to say Street Fighter wasn't a good game because you couldn't die in one hit; that simply wasn't the point of the game.

Zyrusticae · **05-16-2014, 05:53 PM**

(05-16-2014, 03:24 PM)Ildur Wrote: Clearly achieving a high rank because of combos or whatever requires some form of skill, but isn't it an optional part of the game? If I go play DMC right now, do I need an S rank to beat all the bosses and finish the game?
[snipped for length]

This is almost entirely besides the point. I was particularly responding to this:

(05-16-2014, 02:35 AM)synaesthetic Wrote: Very fast paced hack-and-slash games like DMC don't have (and can't have) the same level of skill-based challenge that games like DS or MH, or even TERA to a degree.

Bolded by me for emphasis.

This is simply a patently false statement. Whether or not the game requires it is immaterial; the game is STILL more than capable of possessing the same level of skill-based challenge and even more so because the mechanics are actually deeper. It's even false to suggest that Dark Souls is less forgiving; certainly at its base level it is less forgiving for actually getting through the game, but trying to S-rank a Platinum game or DMC is easily a match for a Souls games' level of challenge.

The rules change when you make such an attempt: you can only make so many mistakes before you just have to start over. You have to have a level of systems mastery well beyond that which is required to simply 'beat' a game, and to say that the games are easier or cannot have as much skill-based challenge because that baseline exists is simply disingenuous. The Souls games essentially force a rule on the player that says "you can only make this many mistakes before you die" while removing any semblance of 'difficulty settings'; trying to S-rank a character action game is essentially the same thing, only without the sudden death (and even then, there are difficulty settings designed to kill you very, very fast).

To put it another way: if you put the same limitations on the player between a Souls game and a character action game (you die in 'X' amount of hits), the latter will easily breach the former in difficulty simply because there are so many more game elements to keep track of, both in terms of the player toolset and in terms of what the enemies actually bring to the party. A lot of Dark Souls' difficulty, for example, comes from the player actually being limited in what they can do. Your weapons only have a handful of attacks; most of these attacks have lengthy windup and recovery times; your roll has a limited number of invulnerability frames; EVERYTHING you do costs you stamina.

That's one aspect of difficulty, and it's perfectly valid, but a character action game derives part of its difficulty from the fact that the player has a HUGE toolbox and must learn to utilize it effectively. A Souls game effectively hamstrings the player off the bat in the name of making things difficult (which itself is only a means to draw the player into the world further), which is simply not what a character action game is designed to do. It's because of this that Dark Souls fails to retain any semblance of challenge once a player has attained systems mastery; it's not actually a particularly deep game mechanically, it just does a good job of limiting the player to make things difficult and unforgiving.

Anyway, I hope that helps bring across where I'm coming from. From where I'm standing I just can't bring myself to agree with such an absolute statement. Such games can and do have an incredibly high level of skill-based challenge. Perhaps you have to actively seek it to find it, but you can't just deny that it exists.

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