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Manatee Cannon posted:You're forgetting the obvious added boundary of the fact people need to be in the Way of Blue for sentinels to be summoned, thus shrinking the invasion pool immensely but ok sure everything is about red phantom invasions. Why would people stay in way of the blue if they never get invaded? And yes, everything is about red phantom invasions in this case because the invasion mechanics are built off them. Way of the Blue exists to help people fend off red phantoms. Sentinels exists to punish red phantoms and also protect Way of the Blue members. Red phantoms being incredibly rare makes both of those covenants functionally useless.
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May 17, 2014 20:21
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BlackFrost posted:I dunno, now and then I still get summoned to help pubbies against invaders. It's very rare, but not any more rare than it was in the beginning of the game. Yes, but the question is, how many invasions are taking place where the person being invaded is not in Way of Blue, or when no Sentinel gets summoned? (Due to network issues, availability, phase of the moon, etc.) From the viewpoint of a red phantom, there's a lot of factors that have to click to even have a shot at ranking up that way. Manatee Cannon posted:Which is dumb, but it does mean that the scarcity of that particular item doesn't affect any covenants at all so you never really need them. That is, if you're content with only ever fighting in the arena. But a lot of people join that covenant in order to engage in invasions, and I think the expectation is that that's intended to be the primary activity within that covenant. It's also a bit trickier for Sentinels... you still have arena duels, but unlike bloodbros, bluecops use up their token when they enter the arena. If they fail, they lose the token and get no orb. Being summoned is rare in my experience (twice in the course of about half a playthrough before I switched to the bell covenant), and of course you have to win to get a token. Invading via cracked blue eye orb doesn't give a token, just rank points.
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May 17, 2014 20:23
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TipsyMcStagger posted:Can someone please do a good write up on what the gently caress ratbro/sunbro/bluebro/whatever-bro convenant actually do/Does? Ratbros summon players into your world so you can kill them for Sunbros widen your co-op range and reward you with a lovely shield, the good sword, and the ultimate offensive miracle. Blue/red bros invade sinners/players and are rewarded with some items and spells that would be easier to acquire in NG++ Dragon covenant duels people for scales so they can use the dragon form. The other blue covenant that you join in Majula summons blue-bros as backup when you get invaded. You get rewards by killing the invader yourself, don't know what you get though. The covenant of champions makes the game harder and gives you awestones when you kill red phantoms, which you can turn in for a ring that makes you barehands deadly weapons. Bellbros let you gank players for chunks. It and the ratbros are the only PvP covenants worth joining. The abyss covenant is a PvE covenant that rewards you with Hexes. Flytrap fucked around with this message at 20:28 on May 17, 2014 |
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May 17, 2014 20:23
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:
It's weird that the bloodbro tokens aren't necessary to engage in the arena. Doesn't the covenant leader basically say that you use them to enter the arena?
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May 17, 2014 20:26
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BlackFrost posted:It's weird that the bloodbro tokens aren't necessary to engage in the arena. Doesn't the covenant leader basically say that you use them to enter the arena? You need to have one, but it's not used up. Then again you can't join the covenant without having one, and as far as I know there's no way to use them up other than their innate use (which is fairly pointless), so they might as well not be relevant.
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May 17, 2014 20:30
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:You need to have one, but it's not used up. Then again you can't join the covenant without having one, and as far as I know there's no way to use them up other than their innate use (which is fairly pointless), so they might as well not be relevant. I guess they don't get used up since you can only get a limited amount of them without access to the arena in the first place. Bluecops arena item can be acquired in infinite supply.
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May 17, 2014 20:32
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Internet Kraken posted:Way of the Blue exists to help people fend off red phantoms. Sentinels exists to punish red phantoms and also protect Way of the Blue members. Red phantoms being incredibly rare makes both of those covenants functionally useless. That's a fair point. Blue Sentinels are however clearly worse off and in more dire need than red phantoms though because, as I said, there's an added layer of restriction on them. Even just being able to be summoned to any invasion would go a long way towards fixing them, even though that won't happen. And I don't agree that invasions are built around the old red phantom ideas, there's a reason PvP is largely set to areas and duels now and bog standard invasions languish in irrelevance. edit: hell, the entire concept behind the blue covenants is a gently caress you to red phantoms and that's all they even exist for, to screw you for invading Hyper Crab Tank posted:That is, if you're content with only ever fighting in the arena. But a lot of people join that covenant in order to engage in invasions, and I think the expectation is that that's intended to be the primary activity within that covenant. I'm not arguing that point, I'm saying they aren't necessary for any covenants. Whether people feel it shouldn't be that way doesn't matter, because it is. Manatee Cannon fucked around with this message at 20:38 on May 17, 2014 |
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May 17, 2014 20:35
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Honestly, with Blue Sentinels, half the time my assistance is cancelled because the world master dies to the red phantom before I even load in.
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May 17, 2014 20:39
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The tales of woe about invading is making me want to do something nice like dropping some/all of my supply of red orbs for the next person to invade me (you can still give items like that, right?). I'm never gonna use them so it would be cool to make someone's day. The only problem is I don't think I'd be able to tell if I was giving them to someone who'd appreciate the gift or not.
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May 17, 2014 20:42
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Internet Kraken posted:This is where the Souls games get confusing for me since its not exactly clear on what it means to be Hollow. There seem to be two states in the curse; undead by retaining your mind, and mindless undead known as hollows. The process of turning into a hollow is called hollowing. Also, when you lose your humanity you are called hollow even though you still have your mind. Plus the games suggests that the process of becoming a mindless hollow is irreversible, but you can reverse being hollow itself. Not the mindless kind of hollow, just the not human kind and also When the darksign goes on you, your life force and humanity slowly start evaporating away with every experienced death until you turn into a gibbering zombie that mindlessly lashes out at others in order to get their souls to ease the pain. There's a spectrum between happy undead and a proper hollow, but the player characters are special. They're always on the very brink of going completely cuckoo, but can anoint themselves with humanity or whatever to restore that surface veneer of sapience and sanity until they get crushed again. It's a gameplay concession, I'm sure. Calling the frumpy version of the PC a "Hollow" is pretty confusing, true, but even the NPCs don't go "ahhh, a zombie!" but more like "jesus, are you alright? you look like you're running on fumes!" Undead NPCs in Dark Souls tend to have one remaining straw left, this one obsession or goal or hope that keeps them from going full jerky. Crestfallen Warrior lost it when the PC undermined his conceited view of the prophecy being a con and hanging out in the Shrine being the best of all possible options. Siegmeyer lost it when the PC proved to him time and time again that he, a veteran knight adventurer, couldn't pull his own weight when things got tough. Laurentius petered out when he wasn't worthy of the Chaos pyromancies the PC had flaunted at him - probably the sole reason he kept going, considering that he ended every conversation with "let me know if you find anything weird, alright?". It could be said that the only thing keeping the PC going is the player - when the character gets deleted in frustration, they've slipped past the boundary.
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May 17, 2014 20:42
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:There is clearly some point in between "grand total of zero red phantom invasions in an entire playthrough" and "players can't progress through the game because of invasions". The game would not become an unplayable mess with a functioning eye orb system. Hyper Crab Tank posted:The fact that the covenants are in the game at all is, I hope, clear indication that From Software did intend them to actually be used, and designed accordingly. Dark Souls 1 was not perfect in how it handled it's invasions. Low-level invasions in particular drove some people away from the multiplayer aspects and they never unhollowed, or they even dropped the game completely. And yes, I know some here in this thread will say that they thought being invaded by some twink when they were fresh out of the Asylum and getting killed in an unwinnable fight was super fun and anyone who didn't think that is just a stupid scrub. But clearly not everyone thought that was fun. The number of people who flipped out when it became known that there would be no DaS1 style "hollow == opt out of multiplayer" mechanic in DaS2 is a good indicator of that. And From is not a bunch of idiots who write those people off as a stupid scrubs. They want people to play their game and engage in the multiplayer aspects. One of the things From talked a lot about was them wanting to make the game more accessible. And this seems to be From's attempt at making the game more accesible for those player who opted out of multiplayer before. Their intention seems to be restrict how often invasions happen in a New Game by making Darkwraiths work for their Cracked Red Eye Orbs. Given that From put quite some effort into making NG+ more interesting to play through and made cracked eye orbs infinitely purchasable in NG+, the idea likely was for the majority of invasions to happen in NG+.
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May 17, 2014 20:51
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You, the player, stop from going fully hollow because you're the right type of crazy. The type who looks at impossible odds and the threat-and act--of dying and says "should I fight the Hellbeasts naked or dressed up as a pretty butterfly?" Everyone else is stuck in a hellhole that aims to destroy everything they hold dear. You couldn't be happier.
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May 17, 2014 20:53
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scamtank posted:When the darksign goes on you, your life force and humanity slowly start evaporating away with every experienced death until you turn into a gibbering zombie that mindlessly lashes out at others in order to get their souls to ease the pain. And more than that, the Knight from the asylum goes hollow after handing over his quest to you, thereby giving him nothing then dying in such a state ends up with him going hollow. And the two bodyguard clerics in tomb of the giants have failed completely at keeping their beloved priestess safe and assume there is no way out of the hole they were tricked into (which I would have loved to see how Patches managed to fool three people at once into). Personally I always kept the truth from Laurentius after seeing what happens the first time because he's just such a nice dude  .
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May 17, 2014 21:00
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Manatee Cannon posted:That's a fair point. Blue Sentinels are however clearly worse off and in more dire need than red phantoms though because, as I said, there's an added layer of restriction on them. Even just being able to be summoned to any invasion would go a long way towards fixing them, even though that won't happen. And I don't agree that invasions are built around the old red phantom ideas, there's a reason PvP is largely set to areas and duels now and bog standard invasions languish in irrelevance. So what would making it easier to get blue eye orbs actually accomplish? If bloodbros can't get cracked red eye orbs easily, there will be very few sinners - basically just people who murder NPCs - and if Bluekids don't get invaded, then the other half of the Sentinel equation is broken too. In a weird way, fixing the Brotherhood of Blood is fixing the Sentinels.
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May 17, 2014 21:02
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Manatee Cannon posted:That's a fair point. Blue Sentinels are however clearly worse off and in more dire need than red phantoms though because, as I said, there's an added layer of restriction on them. Even just being able to be summoned to any invasion would go a long way towards fixing them, even though that won't happen. And I don't agree that invasions are built around the old red phantom ideas, there's a reason PvP is largely set to areas and duels now and bog standard invasions languish in irrelevance. I'm just saying giving blue sentinels an infinite use orb wouldn't actually help them since their problem is they can't find sinners in the first place. loving up invasions is a design choice I can't agree with because I consider it a integral part of the series. Thing is, I don't think you're correct about From wanting invasions to be irrelevant. If they did, Way of the Blue wouldn't exist in the first place. Nor would it be positioned at the start of the game. I just think they hosed up the design of the system as a whole. On paper, farming red eye orbs out of the arena doesn't sound bad. If I recall correctly basically nobody used the arena in Dark Souls, so they probably wanted to encourage people to use it. That's it. They didn't want invasions to become so rare they literally never occur. I mean its all speculation since none of us actually work for From, but I don't think they intended for invasions to end up this way.
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May 17, 2014 21:04
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I've played around 100 hours in NG on different characters and I still haven't been invaded once. It's really bumming me out since I really like invasions. At least the bellbros exist so I can get some early PvP going.
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May 17, 2014 21:09
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Not really sure anymore if you guys are only talking about NG, but I have never had problems finding an invasion as a Blue Sentinel. Invasions being less frequent in New Game really isn't a flaw.
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May 17, 2014 21:09
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AndroidHub posted:And more than that, the Knight from the asylum goes hollow after handing over his quest to you, thereby giving him nothing then dying in such a state ends up with him going hollow. And the two bodyguard clerics in tomb of the giants have failed completely at keeping their beloved priestess safe and assume there is no way out of the hole they were tricked into (which I would have loved to see how Patches managed to fool three people at once into). Personally I want to know how they got to Patches without killing Pinwheel. Did... did they climb over the coffin?
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May 17, 2014 21:09
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My what a coincidence, I just posted a video about the soul/hollow stuff and how it relates to game mechanics yesterday. I was probably talking out of my rear end for half of it, though. So, greatbow talk: does anyone else use them? I find them delightful. I think the Alonne greatbow is the one I've been using, but I wasn't sure if any of the other (two?) greatbows are different/better in any substantial way.
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May 17, 2014 21:14
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Flytrap posted:Personally I want to know how they got to Patches without killing Pinwheel. Did... did they climb over the coffin? It's weird and suggests the layout might've been different earlier in development. Or that Pinwheel was out of the house and wizarded the lid shut while he was at Nito's, trying out this week's version of his body splitting ritual.
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May 17, 2014 21:14
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Clearly, it was just you fighting your memory of Pinwheel because you actually had met him before at Starbucks.
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May 17, 2014 21:16
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King of Solomon posted:So what would making it easier to get blue eye orbs actually accomplish? If bloodbros can't get cracked red eye orbs easily, there will be very few sinners - basically just people who murder NPCs - and if Bluekids don't get invaded, then the other half of the Sentinel equation is broken too. In a weird way, fixing the Brotherhood of Blood is fixing the Sentinels. You're not wrong but that wasn't something I was disagreeing with in the first place. Giving the blue cops an infinite use orb as a pity gesture was meant as a joke anyway but whatever. Internet Kraken posted:I'm just saying giving blue sentinels an infinite use orb wouldn't actually help them since their problem is they can't find sinners in the first place. loving up invasions is a design choice I can't agree with because I consider it a integral part of the series. Thing is, I don't think you're correct about From wanting invasions to be irrelevant. If they did, Way of the Blue wouldn't exist in the first place. Nor would it be positioned at the start of the game. I just think they hosed up the design of the system as a whole. On paper, farming red eye orbs out of the arena doesn't sound bad. If I recall correctly basically nobody used the arena in Dark Souls, so they probably wanted to encourage people to use it. That's it. They didn't want invasions to become so rare they literally never occur. I don't think they want it to be irrelevant, per say, it just is. I do think that their focus was elsewhere and even if it was easier to invade normally it'd still take the backseat. For starters, the rewards for it are minimal compared to the other covenants. fake edit: well, not covenants. There isn't even a normal invasion covenant. That's a decent giveaway on the shift in focus.
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May 17, 2014 21:17
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Cowcaster posted:Clearly, it was just you fighting your memory of Pinwheel because you actually had met him before at Starbucks. Lol, as if Pinwheel would make an impression on anyone. You probably just accidentally bumped into him and he just vanished into nothingness and "YOU DEFEATED".
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May 17, 2014 21:19
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Lunatic Sledge posted:My what a coincidence, I just posted a video about the soul/hollow stuff and how it relates to game mechanics yesterday. I was probably talking out of my rear end for half of it, though. These are really silly but also are really awesome. Keep up the good work. 
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May 17, 2014 21:19
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I personally think there should be uncracked orbs, invasions for everybody, free, and let no one go away unsatisfied.
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May 17, 2014 21:21
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Need more BLOM Can any lore wizards conjecture some significance to these bird/Horus statues in the Heide Tower/COB?
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May 17, 2014 21:25
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Recent Dark Souls-ing has given me the hankering to try Demon's Souls again. And man, as great as the game still is, it is pretty drat rough around the edges in some ways. Like the UI, for instance, which is pretty terrible. Makes me appreciate DS2, for all of its (what I consider) faults. But I did enjoy picking back up my Blueblood Sword guy. I love that weapon.
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May 17, 2014 21:26
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Here's a nice comeback win I had in the stream I just did. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y0Ob5ldaxU
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May 17, 2014 21:38
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I invaded a guy just in time for him to run past me and start to walk through the fog door. He didn't make it in. The black knight greatsword is a beast. 
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May 17, 2014 21:41
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Internet Kraken posted:I'm just saying giving blue sentinels an infinite use orb wouldn't actually help them since their problem is they can't find sinners in the first place. loving up invasions is a design choice I can't agree with because I consider it a integral part of the series. Thing is, I don't think you're correct about From wanting invasions to be irrelevant. If they did, Way of the Blue wouldn't exist in the first place. Nor would it be positioned at the start of the game. I just think they hosed up the design of the system as a whole. On paper, farming red eye orbs out of the arena doesn't sound bad. If I recall correctly basically nobody used the arena in Dark Souls, so they probably wanted to encourage people to use it. That's it. They didn't want invasions to become so rare they literally never occur. Eh its not a wrong way to look at why way of the blue is at the start but is kinda narrow. You could also view way of the blue as that covenant you can always turn to if things are getting wild for whatever reason. But anyways I feel way of the blue is a pretty dull covenant since its all about passiveness. Waiting till a red phantom invades, then waiting on that blue phantom to assist you. Just not an interesting group to be in when other covenants have more interesting perks. Really feels like they could cut off way of the blue and have blue sentinels be the anti-invader faction.
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May 17, 2014 21:45
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There's another gameplay mechanic which no one has mentioned in this discussion - burning human effigies. The fact that they also gave you a way to completely turn off invasions for a while suggests to me that they definitely expected them to be more common than they actually are. As it is I can't imagine a situation where burning an effigy would be worthwhile.
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May 17, 2014 21:53
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Drakes posted:Eh its not a wrong way to look at why way of the blue is at the start but is kinda narrow. You could also view way of the blue as that covenant you can always turn to if things are getting wild for whatever reason. I suppose. I don't like Way of the Blue either since it lacks an identity of its own. By joining it you pretty much declare "oh gosh I'm so weak and bad if only a big strong sentinel would come protect me!  ". The covenant itself being completely passive doesn't help with that. I think it would be better if Way of the Blue had nothing to do with Sentinels. Instead, WoB members can either recieve help from other WoB members or aid them. The covenant would be a bunch of people banding together in defense against invasions, including Sentinel ones. Think then more people would be interested in it.
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May 17, 2014 21:54
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Regy Rusty posted:There's another gameplay mechanic which no one has mentioned in this discussion - burning human effigies. The fact that they also gave you a way to completely turn off invasions for a while suggests to me that they definitely expected them to be more common than they actually are. As it is I can't imagine a situation where burning an effigy would be worthwhile. Burning effigies makes sense if you get invaded a lot. But unless you're a sinner and possibly also wearing the ring that puts you higher in the invasion queue, that never actually comes up.
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May 17, 2014 21:54
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I've said it before and I'll say it again: Way of the Blue and the Blue Sentinels should not have been two separate covenant. They should have been a single covenant and Targray should just give you the sentinel ring/sell you blue orbs if you meet the requirements. That way, the number of people in the covenant who are valid targets for backup calls would be drastically increased.
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May 17, 2014 21:57
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Why does the global volume in windows get lowered whenever I get invaded? Is it possible to disable?
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May 17, 2014 22:02
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Lemon Curdistan posted:I've said it before and I'll say it again: Way of the Blue and the Blue Sentinels should not have been two separate covenant. They should have been a single covenant and Targray should just give you the sentinel ring/sell you blue orbs if you meet the requirements. That way, the number of people in the covenant who are valid targets for backup calls would be drastically increased. I thought those were the same covenant at first. Then I talked to the Crestfallen dude some more and got incredibly confused and now I can't keep which one is which straight.  Also: To those who stream and/or record DSII, is there any way you guys have found to stop OBS (or whatever) from murdering the game's framerate or are your computers just that good enough? I can stream literally anything else on this thing but I try to do Dark Souls II and all of a sudden it's a huge problem.
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May 17, 2014 22:04
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ClaytonClaw posted:Why does the global volume in windows get lowered whenever I get invaded? Is it possible to disable? Because Windows thinks multiplayer events in DaS2 is a skype call, basically. Open up your Windows sound settings to the Communications tab and select the "Do nothing" option. Color Printer posted:To those who stream and/or record DSII, is there any way you guys have found to stop OBS (or whatever) from murdering the game's framerate or are your computers just that good enough? I can stream literally anything else on this thing but I try to do Dark Souls II and all of a sudden it's a huge problem. I think my computer's just good enough, but a couple questions: 1) are you trying to stream at 60fps? 2) Have you tried lowering DaS2's video settings?
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May 17, 2014 22:05
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King of Solomon posted:I think my computer's just good enough, but a couple questions: 1) are you trying to stream at 60fps? 2) Have you tried lowering DaS2's video settings? Nope, streaming at 30. I don't think I've ever streamed anything at 60 FPS. I think lowering the video settings (which are mostly at Medium already) is the only thing I know of that I haven't tried. I was just looking for another alternative but I might be out of luck there.
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May 17, 2014 22:09
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quote:I'm just saying giving blue sentinels an infinite use orb wouldn't actually help them since their problem is they can't find sinners in the first place. loving up invasions is a design choice I can't agree with because I consider it a integral part of the series. Thing is, I don't think you're correct about From wanting invasions to be irrelevant. If they did, Way of the Blue wouldn't exist in the first place. Nor would it be positioned at the start of the game. I just think they hosed up the design of the system as a whole. On paper, farming red eye orbs out of the arena doesn't sound bad. If I recall correctly basically nobody used the arena in Dark Souls, so they probably wanted to encourage people to use it. That's it. They didn't want invasions to become so rare they literally never occur. I have to agree with this, Way of the Blue just feels like a half finished idea thrown in early in development and just sort of forgotten about.
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May 17, 2014 22:17
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So I feel like I'm getting close to the end of my first play through. I have been using the drangleic set the whole game and I'm now trying to figure out what a good upgrade would be. I just have no clue what a good upgrade to the drangleic poo poo would be.
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May 17, 2014 22:18
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