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Cicadalek posted:So has there been any big lore roundups of DS2, along the lines of this one for DS1? As I'm playing through the third game I'm trying to put the lore of the entire series together in my head, but a lot of Dark Souls 2 is still a mystery to me. Like why Nashandra is fighting you for the Throne of Want, or what exactly Vendrick took from the giants, or how the 4 bosses got their hands on what seem to be the Lord Souls. It's all still kind of confusing after 2 playthroughs. A lot of it is unclear merely due to bad writing, some of which they fixed up with SotFS. The best that anyone can tell is that the "prize" was both the Giants (who were twisted into golems or used in Aldia's experiments) and the Throne of Want itself. The Throne, we'll presume, can grant you what you wish - even the linking of the fire - but Vendrick was either unwilling or unable to use it. It's evidenced that Vendrick and Aldia both wanted to break out of the destructive cycle of Ages of Fire followed by Ages of Dark, so it's possible he could've been able to access it, even without the Giant's Kinship, and simply decided against it. Aldia ultimately turned to grisly experimentation to try and figure out a way out of the dilemma, causing Vendrick to exile him. In any event, Nashandra wants the Throne because she is a splinter of Manus and represents pure desire/lust/greed; she's unable to do anything except to crave more, which is why even being Vendrick's wife wasn't enough. My guess with the four Old Ones is that Vendrick, at some point in time, defeated their previous holders (some mention is made of this) and assumed the power of the Lord Souls to become the King of Drangleic. Over time, he lost them, either through deliberate experimentation (granting some of it to the Lost Sinner in what was probably Aldia's initial attempts to create a new First Flame) or just losing them due to the influence of Nashandra and his own Hollowing, which caused them to be assumed by new masters. It's unclear whether the current Old Ones are the ones that Vendrick is mentioned having subdued, or if there were an entirely different group of Old Ones that he defeated and took the Lord Souls from.
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Apr 21, 2016 18:53
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Kerrrrrrr posted:I still haven't figured out why I'm blocked out from summoning/being summoned 98% of the time. I was going through Earthen Peak, Iron Keep and the Gutter/Black Gulch all this weekend and it was just empty. I really hope I don't have this problem in DS3 No idea when or how this happens. Might be when you defeat a boss (hallowed, sunbro'd, or whatever) that you incur an "Effigy Burn" effect. You'll want to nullify that at a bonfire if it's giving you grief. NT Plus fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Apr 21, 2016 |
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Apr 21, 2016 19:02
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Cicadalek posted:So has there been any big lore roundups of DS2, along the lines of this one for DS1? As I'm playing through the third game I'm trying to put the lore of the entire series together in my head, but a lot of Dark Souls 2 is still a mystery to me. Like why Nashandra is fighting you for the Throne of Want, or what exactly Vendrick took from the giants, or how the 4 bosses got their hands on what seem to be the Lord Souls. It's all still kind of confusing after 2 playthroughs. Just a warning, that writeup you linked gets multiple basic facts wrong. Captain Oblivious posted:It's always a bad idea to judge a game by the first couple weeks of euphoria. Give DS3 time, I expect opinions will cool. It's more of a Bloodborne game than a Dark Souls game in many ways. That's true, but there are loads of little design things that are in DS1 and DS3 that weren't present in DS2. It's inconsequential, but for example you have to wonder about DS1 and DS3 having the same starting gesture loadout, and DS2 having a different set of default gestures. Kicking. Lack of powerstancing. A more linear beginning to the game. Individually they don't matter that much, but all together it makes DS3 feel like a direct sequel to DS1.
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Apr 21, 2016 22:01
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I played DS3 just to do the intro area recently coming straight out of SotFS and it was so bizarre playing a game more like DS1 than DS2 in 60 fps. The first thing I noticed was dodge rolling having more of DeS / DS1's .. floaty-ness?
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Apr 21, 2016 22:38
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Brannock posted:Just a warning, that writeup you linked gets multiple basic facts wrong. Yeah it jumps to a lot of conclusions. I just wanted to know if anyone had even attempted a writeup for DS2 of similar size and comprehension. I guess there's still a lot of gaps in DS2 that don't really ever get filled in. I get the basic story of wanting to escape the curse and the cycle, but a lot of lesser, but still significant details never really get addressed.
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Apr 21, 2016 23:35
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Cicadalek posted:Yeah it jumps to a lot of conclusions. I just wanted to know if anyone had even attempted a writeup for DS2 of similar size and comprehension. Not a writeup, but check out the VaatiVidya videos. Play them in the background or something.
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Apr 22, 2016 01:55
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So why is DS2 considered the red headed step child of the three games? I haven't played any of them. Just wondering if I should bother upgrading my DS2 to Scholar or go straight for III.
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Apr 22, 2016 10:43
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Rasmussen posted:So why is DS2 considered the red headed step child of the three games? I haven't played any of them. Just wondering if I should bother upgrading my DS2 to Scholar or go straight for III. people really don't like how its world isn't visually interconnected like ds1's is and the story is kinda vague i guess and the adaptability stat isn't too balanced i really like it tho
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Apr 22, 2016 10:59
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Rasmussen posted:So why is DS2 considered the red headed step child of the three games? I haven't played any of them. Just wondering if I should bother upgrading my DS2 to Scholar or go straight for III. It wasn't directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki. Like, that's the main reason. A lot of people worship him, and when they learned that he wasn't directing DS2 they immediately decided it was a bad game. You'll hear complains about bad hitboxes, lore, linearity, etc. but you'll find that stuff in all the other games too. People are overly critical of DS2 in good part because of some notion of it being created by "the B-team" etc. and it's pretty dumb. The game does have a slightly different feel from DS1, the combat and animations feel like they have more weight behind them (which you might like or dislike) and they made a couple of really dumb decisions (hello, Soul Memory and ADP) but if you drop the notion of "b-but it's not DS1  " it's an incredibly good video game.Scholar of the First Sin adds some really neat stuff, makes some zones a bit cooler and... completely ruins one area. It looks better, has the DLC stuff built-in and in general does a good job of being the "definite" version though.
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Apr 22, 2016 11:00
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That's cool, like I said I haven't played any of them so I have nothing to compare anything to. Cheers fellas.
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Apr 22, 2016 11:05
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DS2 is a really good game with a few dumb ideas in it, but there was no way it could ever be a beloved sequel to the most hyped game of the century. It sadly also fails in some critical aspects to be that sequel directly, not only in terms of too high expectations, and that sours some people a lot. I would say so far that DS3 is a better DS1 sequel than DS2 was, and it might be the better game in most aspects you could think of (we'll have to see how things develop, really, I only scratched the surface as far as DS3 goes so far), but that does not make DS2 a bad game. It all depends on what you want from it, if DS2 had been the sequel to Demon's Souls, it would be lauded all over the world. Because it keeps (or, in how the real timeline works, reintroduces) some ideas from DeS which really should have stayed out (consumable healing in huge quantities, max life reduction from death, world separated in branches) while being far more accessible and well-polished.
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Apr 22, 2016 11:10
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soul memory complaints are massively overblown
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Apr 22, 2016 11:38
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Aside from world design and 'lore', DS2 does have a few wonky design choices which turn me off it a little. Alot of its difficulty comes from enemies with cheesy attributes like near-infinite poise, super tracking, etc. like the Fire Salamanders and nearly every DLC enemy which are extremely tedious to fight, there's a severe lack of memorable or novel boss encounters outside of the DLC and a huge glut of embarassing failures like Dragonrider and Covetous Demon who should barely qualify as sub-bosses and especially in SotFS there's a good number of areas which are just tourture to fight through due to the combination of terrain, snipers and hordes of enemies coming at you. Arguments about elevators and sea levels aside, the weak world design does end up affecting the game more directly too, there's a severe lack of the dark fantasy horror atmosphere DS1 and DS3 have and as a result the enemies and bosses are far more standard fantasy in their design: instead of fighting giant slime man with the corpses of previous NPCs protrouding from his body as puppets you fight a giant spider (with two heads!). There's alot of times where you'll go 'gently caress this lovely rear end cheating piece of poo poo game' but not alot of times where you'll go 'what the mother-effing christ ...  '
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Apr 22, 2016 11:42
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I thought the Throne of Want was just the Kiln of the First Flame by another name. Like I'm certain my character's been lit on fire and is just ashes at this point. E: I still haven't done the DLC and second ending so I could be way off. Also would like if folks keep spoilers for that ending under tags.
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Apr 22, 2016 11:51
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Rasmussen posted:So why is DS2 considered the red headed step child of the three games? I haven't played any of them. Just wondering if I should bother upgrading my DS2 to Scholar or go straight for III. The world design is clearly inferior to DeS, DS1 and DS3 for the reasons mentioned by the posters above. That said, after all the patches it is mechanically a loving amazing game where a whole bunch of playstyles are fully viable and reasonably balanced for PvE and PvP alike. Dark Souls 3 has a long way to go before it can compete in that department, and Dark Souls 1 has archaic mechanics in comparison.
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Apr 22, 2016 13:01
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As far as "open world design" goes, DS2 beats the absolute pants off of DS3. Part of what made me enjoy DS2 was that, after a bit of practice, you could go and beat any of the Old Ones in any order you'd like and even skip all the way past to Drangleic Castle if you were willing to put up with staring at the Rotten's face for 20 minutes. DS3, by comparison, is two narrow corridors that meet up again, then branch into two narrow corridors that meet up again, and then a single, long corridor to the ending. It's dull to always play through High Wall every single time, without variation, when starting a new character.
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Apr 22, 2016 14:06
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DS2 also has pitably sad, weak, and forgettable bosses on the whole. How often do you see people say to play it just for the DLCs? I can't think of one DS2 boss that favorably compares to the Pontiff or O&S.
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Apr 22, 2016 14:14
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DS2 as we have it was cobbled together from the canned wreckage of an overly ambitious former director's vision. If you can find images of some of the leaked original level layouts, you'll understand why it feels so clunky now.
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Apr 22, 2016 16:21
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GodspeedSphere posted:DS2 also has pitably sad, weak, and forgettable bosses on the whole. How often do you see people say to play it just for the DLCs? I can't think of one DS2 boss that favorably compares to the Pontiff or O&S. I haven't found any of the DS3 bosses to be that memorable or fun, to be honest, beyond Dragonslayer Armor and Nameless King. Potentially good ones like ODK are ruined by unbearably awful cameras that shove twenty pounds of demon polygons in front of your character, even when not locked on. Pontiff was forgettably easy once I figured out which of his attacks I could parry. The game shoves enough Estus down your throat to forgive just about every mistake you make instantly. At least with Smelter Demon I had to figure out the single safe attack where I could drink, whereas with Pontiff and Aldrich I just rolled away once or twice and drank to my heart's content because of the lack of delay on Estus healing and the much faster animation.
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Apr 22, 2016 16:29
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Your Computer posted:
Which area do you feel it ruined? I kinda felt it screwed up the pacing and vibe of Amana a bit and the removal of half the Lions kinda made Shaded Woods feel off, but the addition of a few of the headless wolverine fucks in Earthen was probably the most annoying part for me with a sword and boarder. But aside from that I felt SotFS was a massive upgrade to the game itself and I honestly liked almost every decision they made with it
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Apr 22, 2016 17:04
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I want to play DS2 again and see if I get into it this time, but I'm having controller issues. I have multiple controllers set up for flight sims and I connected a dualshock 3 with scarlet crush drivers, but DS2 is not detecting it. Is there a way of getting it to work that doesn't involved unplugging every device that isn't a gamepad?
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Apr 22, 2016 17:10
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Elerion posted:The world design is clearly inferior to DeS, DS1 and DS3 for the reasons mentioned by the posters above. I agree with this. Once you know how adaptability works, DS2 handles great. It was a huge improvement when it comes to weapon movesets and playstyle variety. While it had some questionable world design decisions like where the hell is Iron Keep when you look at Earthen Peak, it had an amazing range of levels to play. I love DS3 but it feels quite different from DS1 and 2 when it comes to PvE because is drat fast and a lot of the enemies move like Bloodborne monsters. To me would be so hard to say wich game I like more since all three have great strong points like DS1 world, DS2 variety and powerstancing or DS3 NPC interaction (seriously it has a LOT of NPC questlines that affect others), weapon design and so.
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Apr 22, 2016 17:11
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Sard posted:DS2 as we have it was cobbled together from the canned wreckage of an overly ambitious former director's vision. If you can find images of some of the leaked original level layouts, you'll understand why it feels so clunky now. Any idea where I'd look for these? The ground up redesign midway through development and the wholesale repurposing of assets associated with it are both mentioned in Design Works interviews but I haven't seen any images that detail changes to levels in particular.
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Apr 22, 2016 17:53
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Your Computer posted:
What area was completely ruined?
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Apr 22, 2016 19:05
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Carl Seitan posted:What area was completely ruined? Iron Keep courtyard is pretty impressive in how hosed it is
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Apr 22, 2016 19:08
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Rasmussen posted:So why is DS2 considered the red headed step child of the three games? I haven't played any of them. Just wondering if I should bother upgrading my DS2 to Scholar or go straight for III. I will be flamed for this, but SOTFS is probably the best Soulborne game. It just gets everything right, and BB/DS3 lack several things that made it so good. It's the little things like the small white soapstone, the super-quick summons and PvP, the more responsive movement (adaptability stat is the only blight on this), cleaner, while simpler visuals that don't look so busy or plastic all of the time. The DLC areas are especially well done. DS3 is a great game but it's too sentimental and relies too much on DS1. There are too many literal copy-pasted areas, items and armour, complete with low resolution textures. I'm not going to say this is the final verdict set in stone for me, but the honeymoon period for 3 has to be the shortest for me so far. It lacks a bit of DS2's secret sauce, and amplified its uglier aspects (linearity is the big one. It's a giant A-to-Z game). DS3 will be GOTY but in my view it didn't need to exist. FROM should have moved on after BB.
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Apr 22, 2016 19:27
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multijoe posted:Iron Keep courtyard is pretty impressive in how hosed it is That was always a shitshow and the current version isn't bad if you don't try to run straight through it. Bringing a large club helps a lot but isn't necessary.
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Apr 22, 2016 20:02
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I was talking about the Iron Keep courtyard, yeah.dis astranagant posted:That was always a shitshow and the current version isn't bad if you don't try to run straight through it. Bringing a large club helps a lot but isn't necessary. I actually think one of the great things about the Souls series is that you can run past almost everything, it's a big reason the games are so popular with speedrunners. The change feel like a "gently caress you" to people who try to play like this, or indeed, any other way that "extremely careful". It's not hard or anything if you take it slow, turtle in the entrance and pull enemies with a bow, but it's going to be suicide if you try to do it any other way which is pretty bad design since the series in general prides itself on the many ways you can approach a situation. One of the main reasons I think the area is bad (other than the hilarious enemy density) is that it's literally programmed to be bad. It's the only area in the game, and as far as I know the only area in any of the Souls games where half the enemies react to an aggro "trigger" instead of aggro range. It's painfully obvious if you go stand in front of the drawbridge and angle your camera up to the room past Smelter's exit door. The guy meters away from you on the other side of the drawbridge won't aggro, but if you wait a bit you can see a guy from the next room over (with the turtle who smacks a hole in the walkway) come running. He's guaranteed to start running once you reach the drawbridge and unless you know about this crazy trigger condition you'll be "ambushed" by him, and you have no way of knowing since he comes running from a different room with no line of sight. And that's just one example. Rest of SotFS pretty good tho.
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Apr 22, 2016 23:34
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If that bothers you so much you will HATE 3.
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Apr 23, 2016 00:07
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Sard posted:DS2 as we have it was cobbled together from the canned wreckage of an overly ambitious former director's vision. If you can find images of some of the leaked original level layouts, you'll understand why it feels so clunky now. I'd love to see these screenshots.
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Apr 23, 2016 00:13
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Zedsdeadbaby posted:It lacks a bit of DS2's secret sauce, and amplified its uglier aspects (linearity is the big one. It's a giant A-to-Z game). It's honestly the part about it that I like the least. It's dull to go through the exact same areas in the exact same order in the exact same way on multiple characters. DS2 offered variety: go get Dragonrider to hurl himself off a cliff and the world was your oyster after that point. Weapon balance is also hosed beyond belief in DS3, to the point that there's about zero reason to ever use anything other than the Lothric Knight Sword, the Dark Sword, or the Estoc in either PVP or PVE, which severely limits character variety given how awful magic is this time around (aside from Pyromancy, which is currently hilariously broken). I really can't imagine playing through the game more than maybe twice.
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Apr 23, 2016 00:31
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One thing I miss about DS2 is just being able to sidestep some attacks. DS3 enemies have completely insane tracking, particularly on charge attacks that are obviously meant to gently caress up your dodge/parry rhythm. I never had much of a problem with rolls in DS2 because you could sort of glide around and sidestep and backstep lots of attacks. DS3 without a shield/spells is just a lot of tapping circle in specific rhythms with no additional strategy beyond whatever is going on with the level design.
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Apr 23, 2016 04:34
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Vermain posted:It's honestly the part about it that I like the least. It's dull to go through the exact same areas in the exact same order in the exact same way on multiple characters. DS2 offered variety: go get Dragonrider to hurl himself off a cliff and the world was your oyster after that point. Weapon balance is also hosed beyond belief in DS3, to the point that there's about zero reason to ever use anything other than the Lothric Knight Sword, the Dark Sword, or the Estoc in either PVP or PVE, which severely limits character variety given how awful magic is this time around (aside from Pyromancy, which is currently hilariously broken). I really can't imagine playing through the game more than maybe twice. I did a second playthrough despite having all these reservations. I can confirm, it's boring and I can't recommend it.
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Apr 23, 2016 04:39
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I just got into the first two Dark Souls recently and in both, aside from finishing them once, my only real ambition to get Havel's armour and thereafter dong people with his donging stick.
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Apr 23, 2016 05:12
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multijoe posted:Iron Keep courtyard is pretty impressive in how hosed it is Wha? I loved this section, I mean, yeah, it was super hard, but way less annoying than Shrine of Amana. Isn't the game supposed to be hard? EDIT: I'll grant that the aggro mechanic here is slightly inconsistent, but actually most of the enemies in the game are on triggers, just much smaller ones. If you don't believe me, go back and play the Undead Crypt or Drangleic Castle, few of those enemies are purely aggroed on LoS/Distance. Comte de Saint-Germain fucked around with this message at 12:59 on Apr 23, 2016 |
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Apr 23, 2016 12:54
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Comte de Saint-Germain posted:Wha? I loved this section, I mean, yeah, it was super hard, but way less annoying than Shrine of Amana. Isn't the game supposed to be hard? Your Computer summed it up pretty well but I like Dark Souls for being 'tough but fair', a million Alonne Knights zooming towards you at reletavistic speeds because of the area's arcane aggro triggers whilst greatbow snipers take tracking potshots at you may be tough, but it's not very fair or indeed fun. As you say, it's not the only area which does it, and it annoys me in a few other areas too but it's by far the most egregious offender.
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Apr 23, 2016 13:10
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Why don't you just pull them back to the hall? They'll keep coming one by one and having a strike weapon will destroy them (also stone ring). That zone isn't designed for running through it rolling while the enemies just stare at you. I know some people hate bows but IK is still better than Shrine of Amana, Iron Passage or frigid outskirts.
Guillermus fucked around with this message at 13:20 on Apr 23, 2016 |
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Apr 23, 2016 13:18
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multijoe posted:Your Computer summed it up pretty well but I like Dark Souls for being 'tough but fair', a million Alonne Knights zooming towards you at reletavistic speeds because of the area's arcane aggro triggers whilst greatbow snipers take tracking potshots at you may be tough, but it's not very fair or indeed fun. As you say, it's not the only area which does it, and it annoys me in a few other areas too but it's by far the most egregious offender. Fair enough, it may just be that it's one of the areas that really catered to my playstyle and I felt properly rewarded for creeping through the levels. It's the opposite of sections of the Brume Tower for me, where it seemed like they really wanted me to speed-run and jank around enemies. EDIT: One of the things I liked better about the Scholar version of this area was that all the ranged units could be closed with. In the version before, some of them would be way out of reach and could only be engaged at range. You just can't charge them, you need to use the level to LoS block them while you deal with the waves of melee units until eventually you get in close and "revenge!!". Comte de Saint-Germain fucked around with this message at 13:22 on Apr 23, 2016 |
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Apr 23, 2016 13:18
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Guillermus posted:Why don't you just pull them back to the hall? They'll keep coming one by one and having a strike weapon will destroy them (also stone ring). That zone isn't designed for running through it rolling while the enemies just stare at you. I know some people hate bows but IK is still better than Shrine of Amana, Iron Passage or frigid outskirts. IK boss is the Smelty Demon so you'll end up going through the area a lot, Amana has the lovely frog 
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Apr 23, 2016 15:53
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Flinger posted:IK boss is the Smelty Demon so you'll end up going through the area a lot, Amana has the lovely frog IK Boss is Old Iron King. Smelter Demon is an optional boss and there's a bonfire at like 30 seconds of the Old Iron King fight. You can progress through the game, come back to Smelter Demon with better weapons and destroy it whenever you want.
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Apr 23, 2016 18:20
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