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The sacrifices are the kids people used to drag along the road to the Cathedral for Aldrich to eat. Hawkwood and Anri both allude to it. A neat touch that area has is that all the "crosses" strewn around are actually more like crescent moons on a pole than proper crosses - because Gwyndolin/Aldrich would be represented by the darkmoon symbol. It's also really quite beautiful. I can't think of another zone in the series that had the same kind of pleasant daylit woodland vibe going on. It's almost tranquil, full of warm earth tones that the series rarely uses. Maybe the section right before Hemwick if you go there before nightfall. There's some good levels in DS2, but the entire Tseldora path is quite lackluster (and its extremely washed out color palette doesn't help matters) and Shaded Woods is no exception. The concept of the misty forest is cool and at first it looks nice, but the layout is just so uninteresting. It's a big box with trees scattered around and a couple paths along the side. You pick your way up out of there and into the ruins. Ruins of what? Did the lion guys build these? The scorpions? The invisible guys? Why are those guys invisible? What ruined...whatever was here before it was ruins? Are these just really old buildings or did someone smash them up on purpose? Farron is an ugly obnoxious zone but you get a real sense of what it is: an old stronghold of an undead warrior cult that considered themselves heirs to Artorias's crusade against the abyss, but ironically themselves fell into darkness together with their land. Even the basic layout of the zone has more interest, it's bigger, more varied enemies, more varied terrain, a number of little spots where you can tell someone sat down and thought about how the player could be motivated to explore this lovely dump: the white tree, the soup, the ladder, the three flames, Dusk's cave, the mushrooms, the grue vs darkwraith fight. Shaded Woods has the trap floors, some statues to unfreeze, and some NPCs with quests to progress, and that's a good step, but it's just lacking meat. It's the bones of a good level. It's also pretty small with a very short, uninteresting critical path but a lot of levels in all the games have that problem.
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Apr 4, 2017 18:21
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skasion posted:Farron is an ugly obnoxious zone but you get a real sense of what it is: an old stronghold of an undead warrior cult that considered themselves heirs to Artorias's crusade against the abyss, but ironically themselves fell into darkness together with their land. This may just be a point of divergence in terms of personal priorities, because while Farron Keep is more well thought out in terms of map layout and visual storytelling, it's absolutely garbage in terms of gameplay, and the color palette is like a dagger to the eye. What matters most to me in any area I'm in is if I'm having fun with the core gameplay loop (engage in combat and explore); secondarily, whether the area is aesthetically interesting or pleasing to the eye. Shaded Woods is a relatively small area with simplistic graphics that are 2/3rds hidden by thick fog, but it works: the whole area feels much bigger than it is, and it's one of the most menacing areas in any of the DS games because of its gimmick, making it both highly memorable and highly enjoyable to play through. edit: sorry, meant to get back to this: Night Blade posted:If anything, DS3 rolls are a little too good, as you can spam them if you mistime them and still get a bullshit dodge in certain circumstances. I'm actually curious about this. I played DS2 extensively, pvp mainly and I never noticed any decrease in the game's responsiveness, ESPECIALLY when it comes to rolls. DS3 rolls are more spammable because of their low Stamina cost, but it constantly feels like there's a few frame delay on my end when pressing the dodge key in DS3 versus DS2 where it never gets acknowledged in time. It might actually be a result of a bug from DS1 that somehow never got ironed out, where a specific series of inputs (something like a shift to a diagonal direction from a standing cardinal direction, followed immediately by a dodge roll) will end up eating the dodge roll input entirely, but it's hard to say. I saw Distortion2 struggling with it when he was practicing on Kalameet for a DS1 run a few months ago. Vermain fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Apr 4, 2017 |
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Apr 4, 2017 18:59
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KingSlime posted:Maybe not downright worse but a lot of DS3, specifically farron, cathedral, and catacombs, are equally drab and unfun. The profaned capital is also a giant wet fart. Smoldering Lake is also loving awful, as is the stupid jail area Yeah but what about them is unfun. I had a lot of fun in smouldering lake, because I enjoyed the huge change in gameplay from the normal killing a monster because it's in your way. I can understand why it wouldn't be fun, because killing those crabs was pretty tedious. But it felt reeeaaal good when that giant worm got taken out by the ballista. It makes me wonder about why the carthus skeletons have a big ballista pointed at the door to the old demon king and his piles of demon corpses, and the entrance to the demon ruins. I agree about profaned capital though. It had such a ominous name, with an extremely huge and cool boss. I expected something a lot bigger and maybe a bit cooler. They should have called it the profaned manor of yhorm cause that's all it was. It had one of the most insane enemies in the game though, that loving hand monster. Vermain posted:DS3 rolls are more spammable because of their low Stamina cost, but it constantly feels like there's a few frame delay on my end when pressing the dodge key in DS3 versus DS2. It might actually be a result of a bug from DS1 that somehow never got ironed out, where a specific series of inputs (something like a shift to a diagonal direction from a standing cardinal direction, followed immediately by a dodge roll) will end up eating the dodge roll input entirely, but it's hard to say. I saw Distortion2 struggling with it when he was practicing on Kalameet for a DS1 run a few months ago. I've been having a real problem adjusting to rolling in DS3, not that big, but it just feels weird. Maybe like what you're saying.
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Apr 4, 2017 19:08
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I actually liked Smouldering Lake my first time through, but the Demon Ruins can go gently caress themselves.
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Apr 4, 2017 19:09
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I tried to use prism stones to figure out where the gently caress to go in demon ruins but they didn't stick around after death so gently caress prism stones. I was also hoping for a bit of a wider view, like Izalith, not just a labyrinth of tunnels.
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Apr 4, 2017 19:11
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"let's revisit the players favorite zone" said satan as he loaded up lost izalith and decided how to bring it to ds3
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Apr 4, 2017 19:17
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Vermain posted:This may just be a point of divergence in terms of personal priorities, because while Farron Keep is more well thought out in terms of map layout and visual storytelling, it's absolutely garbage in terms of gameplay, and the color palette is like a dagger to the eye. What matters most to me in any area I'm in is if I'm having fun with the core gameplay loop (engage in combat and explore); secondarily, whether the area is aesthetically interesting or pleasing to the eye. Shaded Woods is a relatively small area with simplistic graphics that are 2/3rds hidden by thick fog, but it works: the whole area feels much bigger than it is, and it's one of the most menacing areas in any of the DS games because of its gimmick, making it both highly memorable and highly enjoyable to play through. It doesn't work for me unfortunately. The invisible guys in Shaded Woods are irritating at best - they're no different from any other human enemy, except you can't lock on. The other enemies are nothing special either - the lions are slow, boring backstab practice, and the basilisks are basilisks. There's nothing particularly exciting to explore, just a couple side rooms with loot. Most of all, any attempt to suggest that there might be something out there beyond the mist falls flat for me because I know there isn't, and the game doesn't even make an effort to convince me there is. Compared to Farron, where you can go up the ladder and get an actual perspective on where you are and where you're going, it feels to me like someone was late coming up with a skybox.
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Apr 4, 2017 19:26
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Minrad posted:"let's revisit the players favorite zone" said satan as he loaded up lost izalith and decided how to bring it to ds3 I just want a big cool view, like when you first step out of the bell tower behind quelaag and you can see the giant dome of the city in this humongous cavern.
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Apr 4, 2017 19:33
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SHISHKABOB posted:I just want a big cool view, like when you first step out of the bell tower behind quelaag and you can see the giant dome of the city in this humongous cavern. Yeah. Demon Ruins is pretty lacking in content. The demons themselves are also a goofy lovely design, they remind me of the flying guys from Mirrormask.
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Apr 4, 2017 19:34
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skasion posted:Yeah. Demon Ruins is pretty lacking in content. The demons themselves are also a goofy lovely design, they remind me of the flying guys from Mirrormask. I think those were the goat people that you found in the swamp. All the demons are dead, except for, like, 3, that I know of.
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Apr 4, 2017 19:37
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skasion posted:It doesn't work for me unfortunately. The invisible guys in Shaded Woods are irritating at best - they're no different from any other human enemy, except you can't lock on. I'd say that them being almost completely invisible and very difficult to detect at range ahead of time makes them quite different from any other human enemy.
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Apr 4, 2017 19:38
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 The hand monsters are literally the DS2 hippo ogres with different heads
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Apr 4, 2017 19:41
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Compare this fundamentally different area in dark souls 2 to farron keep, a place whose highlights include the varying ways you can leave it
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Apr 4, 2017 20:22
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Also, compare the dumb elevator to descend from a tower into a volcanic crater in Earthen Peak->Iron Keep to the giant ladder that you climb down to go from a flooded woodland into a flooded swamp that's somehow directly below it in Crucifixion Woods->Farron Keep
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Apr 4, 2017 20:37
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Silhouette posted:Also, compare the dumb elevator to descend from a tower into a volcanic crater in Earthen Peak->Iron Keep to the giant ladder that you climb down to go from a flooded woodland into a flooded swamp that's somehow directly below it in Crucifixion Woods->Farron Keep  it's not like nature doesnt do weirder poo poo
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Apr 4, 2017 21:12
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Huh, went to fight the burnt ivory king and he got "stuck" and non responsive so everyone just wailed on him until he died guess I'll have to co-op to try to see/do the whole fight e: fuckin' frigid outskirts 
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Apr 4, 2017 23:09
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Playing Dark Souls 3 has gotten me interested in playing DS2 again for some odd reason. However, its been quite a while. Is there an easy way to tell what progress my character is in, other than what bonfires I have available to teleport to? I'm on something like NG+5.
Node fucked around with this message at 09:25 on Apr 6, 2017 |
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Apr 6, 2017 09:22
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Node posted:Playing Dark Souls 3 has gotten me interested in playing DS2 again for some odd reason. However, its been quite a while. Is there an easy way to tell what progress my character is in, other than what bonfires I have available to teleport to? I'm on something like NG+5. I guess you could count the Boss Souls that you have? Like, if you have 4 for the Lost Sinner, but 5 of the Pursuer, that means you haven't killed the Sinner yet. The bonfires does seem like it would be a much easier option tho. I'd just start a new character personally, but I've always enjoyed building a new character in NG much more than struggling through NG+ with an old one.
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Apr 6, 2017 12:30
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Gerblyn posted:I'd just start a new character personally, but I've always enjoyed building a new character in NG much more than struggling through NG+ with an old one. I find the first half of NG+ is usually much easier and faster than NG save for the occasional boss (and in the case of DS2 only, extra tricky phantoms). Having all your estus, proper stats, and all your gear upgraded makes a big difference. It isn't until the back half of each game that NG+ difficulty really picks up again.
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Apr 6, 2017 12:38
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Node posted:Playing Dark Souls 3 has gotten me interested in playing DS2 again for some odd reason. However, its been quite a while. Is there an easy way to tell what progress my character is in, other than what bonfires I have available to teleport to? I'm on something like NG+5. There's the map in the manor that Cale the cartographer is in, which lights up at spots where you kill important bosses. Each of the lord souls, the last giant, probably some others. It might be a little tough to figure out which is which, but majula is on the coast near where Cale is standing, and the Last Sinner and Last Giant are pretty close by and near each other.
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Apr 6, 2017 12:45
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Replaying DS2 with a self imposed challenge: as soon as possible, kill every boss using all 4 types of magic in each fight. It's been pretty fun as opposed to doing a straight forward sorcerer or hexer and it's getting me to play around with a lot of spells I never tried before, I'm liking it. Combustion's actually pretty nice if you want it as a melee range option in your otherwise ranged kit, as opposed to using pyromancy to shore up your melee dude's lack of range in DS1.  One thing I've noticed, though: Does DS2 host player messages on a server somewhere? Every message I see has like, 50 ratings minimum and usually upwards of hundreds of ratings, and every single thing is marked. It's kinda boring and makes the game feel 'solved' and like everyone's been everywhere already. I was doing a third playthrough of DS3 recently, before the DLC came out, and I ended up finding an illusory wall I had missed in my first two playthroughs thanks to a message in a spot I hadn't seen marked before. I really enjoy that sense of discovering something new, but in DS2 with the omni-present messages it doesn't feel like that ever happens.
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Apr 6, 2017 22:32
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Minrad posted:
I feel like it has to, because I often start playing after not having done so for a while and find that my messages got some votes while I was offline.
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Apr 6, 2017 23:16
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You only get one Pursuer Soul per play through. The rest of the time, you'll get twinkling or improved rings.
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Apr 7, 2017 05:17
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Started playing this again. Spent about two hours in Lost Bastille attempting to use a small white soapstone to regain my humanity. I failed. Either I would die in a stupid way or the host would die in a stupid way. It was still a lot of fun though!
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Apr 9, 2017 01:35
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I had the same experience except I died stupidly once trying to help against the Ruin Sentinels and then couldn't get summoned again  Just a bad time to put down the sign I guess.
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Apr 9, 2017 08:25
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Welp, 2 years on and it looks like my main Steam account is still softbanned for having used DS2Fix when I first ran it - no summon signs in Forest of Fallen Giants. Guess it truly is permanent. Talk about petty.
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Apr 10, 2017 23:31
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Wanted to find a pic of some old fashion souls for a friend, ended up finding a screenshot with perfect timing from when I found out that you can't idle on the bridge
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Apr 11, 2017 07:24
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Weird YouTube person Hbomberguy spoke for longer than an hour about why he thinks DS2 is good and it's pretty interesting: https://youtu.be/SRTfcMeqhig Mind you, I'm pretty sure I actively disagree with more than half of his points and I expect most watchers will (because his opinion of "holy poo poo DS2 did almost everything right and also DS1 was actually kind of bad sometimes" is pretty crazy nuts if you ask me), but it's still a fun watch if you like longform analysis with bits of eclectic British humour thrown in.
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Apr 16, 2017 12:24
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His "why Bloodborne is genius" video is a good watch. In fact some of his points about how playing BB can "fix" someone's approach to older souls games is right since I appreciate DS2 much more after going the agressive nature of BB.
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Apr 16, 2017 17:13
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Hbomberguy owns and I really like DS2 so I gotta get to that video ASAP.
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Apr 16, 2017 23:54
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Minrad posted:
Do you know what place this is a photo of?
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Apr 17, 2017 00:04
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Dropping a 2 hour argument why Dark Souls 2 wasn't that bad in tyool 2017 seems a little much, and from what I hear a significant portion is it's some british kid taking and refuting points from some other youtuber's review of DS2.
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Apr 17, 2017 01:22
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DOUBLE CLICK HERE posted:Dropping a 2 hour argument why Dark Souls 2 wasn't that bad in tyool 2017 seems a little much, and from what I hear a significant portion is it's some british kid taking and refuting points from some other youtuber's review of DS2. Scorching hot take, my man.
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Apr 17, 2017 01:26
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I think its about time to play dark souls 2 again.
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Apr 17, 2017 01:32
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Dark Souls 2 bad video gamey levels were the worst part of it but without that would they have been able to make the enemy layout actually good in scholar of the first sin? Something to think about folks.
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Apr 17, 2017 01:34
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It's not a good video.
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Apr 17, 2017 01:54
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I watched some of and that guy sucks my rear end. See ya.
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Apr 17, 2017 02:03
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Hot take: Hbomberguy's video is good and I agree with a lot of what he said. He gives DS2 too much credit, especially for things that are probably just coincidences, and there are some specific things that I don't agree with (for example: while there are things to critique about DeS's healing system, his critiques are not the correct ones, and Bloodborne's blood vials are godawful.) Calling out that one three year old video for being bullshit was also a good idea.
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Apr 17, 2017 04:23
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Work Friend Keven posted:I think its about time to play dark souls 2 again. I already did. Though I got distracted by other stuff at around the undead crypt. Maybe I just didn't want to go back to alida and deal with all those goddamn ogres.
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Apr 17, 2017 04:36
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DS2 is the poo poo game of the series because it's the only one I need to buy twice just to sunbro (or play with loving anybody at all).
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Apr 17, 2017 05:18
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