I consider it an exploit as you effectively deny monster any kind of attack, rendering yourself invincible. This fight turns into entirely different story in turn-based mode :)
There was bug with timer on at least that one well. Well with Luck recharges once a month, but if you save game and reload, timer starts anew. Best way is to train your characters 1 at a time when they are ready to level up (1 week per char = 1 month for whole party) and then drink from well again. I found about that bug after spending over half of year on newbie island, waiting for this well to recharge.

Well now, you have just rekindled my interest in the game. More xp for iron man? That sounds great! Perhaps I should give the game another try

Just for the record, I enjoyed the challenge of Demon's Souls, I wouldn't have been playing it if it was unenjoyable to me. I assume the same is true for most fans of the series.

I'll clarify. I don't hold it against people who enjoy the series one bit. That's what games are about - enjoyment and fun.
My comment was regarding those who use their ability at the game to somehow feel superior to others.

Fair enough. Enemies that are just there to die arn't so much fun as ones that put up a serious fight. Made the world feel more real and realistic to me anyway.

To me that adds only boredom, the part about having to go through the same jumps and fighting the same enemies, just because you had to load a save game from far away, not where the action happened.

I recall also many saying they hated Far Cry 2 because if you died during a mission, you had to drive all the way from your safe house (I think those were the only place where you could save the game in the console version), which can sometimes take quite a long time. However. since the PC version had also save-anywhere, I would simply save the game when I arrived to the location where my objective was, so if I failed the mission, I could skip the driving part over and over again.

At this point I'd mention that I hardly ever use quick save. I guess I don't necessarily save that often, only at parts which I personally consider as key points, like before a big fight etc. I'd hardly ever save during a firefight, only before or after it.

I dislike the idea of using the save game system as some kind of means to increase "difficulty" to the game, because normally that just means having to replay the boring parts over and over again until you get to that boss fight or whatever.

Was it Resident Evil where you had to collect some typewriter tapes or something which allowed you to save the game at save points, one tape per save? I hated that since there's no way of knowing how much I'd need those tapes later in the game and how many you will find anyway. Should I conserve or just use them? I shouldn't have to think about something like that, just in order to save the game.

Another thing which makes me favor save-anywhere is that it is simpler and easier to comprehend. If I save a game at some point, then I know I can restart the game from that point later on, no matter what.

Quite many times games have oddball systems where you have some kind of "checkpoints" which are not real save points, and on top of that you have the real savepoints. Sometimes it is hard to make the distinction, and when I exit the game, I am surprised to find out that I couldn't continue the game from the last checkpoint or anywhere near around it, but all the way from the very beginning of the level (e.g. if the game gets properly saved only when you enter a new level).

Why can't those checkpoints be also proper savepoints? Why do they work only as long as you let the game run? I don't see any logical reason for that, it is just irritating and confusing, making me unsure whether it is safe to exit the game, or should I keep playing for another 15 minutes just to find a proper savepoint. Or even leave the game running if I need to go elsewhere, just so that I don't lose the checkpoints.

There are still PC game genres where there usually is no option to save anywhere. For instance all the flight sims, space combat games (Wing Commander series), racing games etc. PC gamers don't seem to mind the lack of save-anywhere on those kinds of games, but occasionally there may be complaints that there is some Independence War mission which has very long periods of waiting, and then intense fighting at the very end of the mission, where you then fail.

Yeah, in turn-based mode this is an impossible battle. There are several areas that become easier or harder based on how you deal with them. I don't see dodging ranged attacks in real time as gaming the system, since if you screw it up you take the hit. After all, the monsters do it too (including the dragon)!

I think the game is designed with the idea that you'll use real time and turn based as needed; for example the cluster swarms of monsters in certain areas just beg for you to either dodge among them in real time or to pull a few off at a time (again in real time).

Anyway, to each their own, and I think we both understand the other's position. Thanks for the tip about the well; I'll have to try that next time, just to save real life time.

The most legitimate use of save scumming is on games where some things have a percentage chance of actually working and you have no control over the outcome. If failure costs you bad and technically it's just down to the game deciding that you never had any chance of success then why should you accept that?

Screw up a spot of lock picking in Skyrim? Tough luck butterfingers! Better buy some more lock picks.

Wasteland 2 decides that you fail for no other reason than because it can? Reload.

It's that simple.

Games like Age of Wonders, these games are so unbalanced and the AI so random that you can't really predict anything. Especially if you are playing the 'bad' guys it seems. One minute you are doing OK the next you get completely slaughtered, and when you replay that same section with the exact same moves as before you get a completely different result. What worked before does not work again. It is so random.Thankfully the game allows you to save whenever you want and you can have more than one save, so its still an OK game.

It is still absurd to me, and quite hypocritical, that some games get hazed for being unbalanced yet others get praised for it, becoming untouchable to criticism. It fully depends on what the Masses thinks. If the majority praises the unbalance it becomes 'the best game in its genre', if they disapprove it becomes 'the worst game ever in its genre'.

Unfortunately the 'Dark Souls'-superiority complex is common in the gaming community.
Not surprisingly it is kids and teens who are responsible for creating and spreading it.

With Dark Souls these people suddenly realized they like a challenge...but only in a Dark Souls game, not in other games. They still play all their other games on Easy or Normal, yet whine about games being either too easy or unbalanced. Not realizing its the default unbalance that makes Dark Souls so enjoyable to them: what is fair and unfair is subjective.
Its this hypocrisy that really gets to me.
However its not just kids and teens who represent these hypocrites, its game critics and journalists as well.
I expect this kind of behaviour from kids and teens, but not from adults, and certainly not gaming professionals.

This is not unique to Dark Souls in any way, every genre and franchise has its group of obnoxious elitists. Even in the genre closest to me, sim racing, you don't have to look hard to find this kind of snobbish superiority complex.

People don't make a lot of sense. Or they do, and it's just silly and/or depressing.

What's coming to mind is my experience playing Super Meat Boy. First got it, got pretty much nowhere, deleted it for something like a year. Then I came back around to it, with no expectation of progress whatsoever. It just bugged me. And so, I played, and played, and played. It took 90 godsdamned hours, but I finally beat it all.

But here's the thing. Beating that doesn't make me superior. To me it just means that anyone who doesn't have some kind of physical impairment, anyone who's willing to torture themselves long enough, can eventually get through it. Looking at it now, I don't think "Man, I am so much better than people who can't do it." I just think that I'm a fucking idiot for spending so much time on something I stopped enjoying maybe an hour or two in.

That's interesting view. One of reasons why I like RPGs is that they usually allow you to tune your own challenge. If you want it hard - you play it underleveled, if it is too hard - you play it overleveled (one of the reasons why I avoid games with no-respawn, with level-scaling or with very low/grindy level caps).

In non-RPO games, if they are inconveniencing my fun with too much reaction-based mechanics, I simply turn on godmode and enjoy exploring the game. I hate cheating in my favorite genre (RPGs) but I don't mind using cheats in other genres. I just wish more games boasted having easily accessible cheats (like IDDQD), I'd buy more of them just for the relaxation factor.

You are spot on there. Its probably the same for everyone.
People don't cheat in their favourite genre because those games become more about the experience, not necessarily the goal, where you don't really mind loosing the game and having to start over.

Man you sure got your money's worth from Meat Boy though, that must have required a high degree of patience.

Back on topic. The same people also assume that the only reason you give up on a game is because you think its too difficult. Yet when you read threads about people quitting games it usually has nothing to do with the actual difficulty, instead it revolves around things like bad mechanics, bugs & glitches, uninteresting storylines and so on.

Some people have more patience for certain genres and games than others do. I can grind for hours on end around a track in MotoGP but can't stand grinding in RPGs like Dark Souls, my closest friend is the exact opposite...he will grind in WoW for days just to get a new mount in his collection.

Ultimately its a failure to recognize other gamers as individuals. Something we need to change.
Some in our gaming media do a good job of portraying gamers as individuals, like GiantBomb. Even TotalBiscuit had to make videos explaining the fact that he is an individual and not some god, puppet or robot. However most gaming media presents gamers as being of one mind, like some hive collective. This needs to change.

If you want a game with easily accessible cheats. I note that VVVVVV has options for invincibility and slowdown in the menu (though the game will not let you enter Time Trial or No Death Mode with them on), as well as options to unlock every mode.