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Tuxedo Catfish posted:
I specifically like the souls series combat because it isn't asking me to put up with the ridiculous action speed you sometimes run into in stylish action games. My brain doesn't work like that, I need a nice relaxed pace where I can think about every move for a few instants before I make them.
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Jan 24, 2019 21:38
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:
No, it's not, you're dumb too
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Jan 24, 2019 22:06
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Dark Souls III is a boring slog even though it plays fast Dark Souls II is a very entertaining slog even though it plays slow Bloodborne is no slog at all and the fastest game The only correlation is how much fun you're allowing yourself to have
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Jan 24, 2019 22:11
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DS3 is easily the best game in the series (counting Bloodborne as its own separate thing) and further aided by being the only one with a decent PC port. About the only thing it does wrong is the lovely covenants / invasion mechanics and they backported the worst of that to DS1 in the remastered version anyways.
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Jan 24, 2019 22:23
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You say it's the best game in the series, but can you infuse your Moonlight Greatsword with even more magic and then put another magic buff on that? Can you do the same with two swords that can also cast spells and can be powerstanced for sick moves? Can you have the entire element system available to you from within half an hour through the game? Is playing a naked fist man a completely viable option or will it get you owned again and again? Is poison worth a drat? Is it possible to choose one of fourteen (iirc?) bosses as your first one to fight? Do you have to spend 20 levels to make your roll worth a drat? Wait, don't answer the last one
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Jan 24, 2019 22:34
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Dark Souls 2 has lots of cool build options but the game is such a boring slog that it does not matter. The first 2/3rds of the game is so drat uninteresting.
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Jan 24, 2019 22:38
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What makes it so uninteresting The level design isn't any worse than it usually is
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Jan 24, 2019 22:41
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I feel like it kind of is. or at least, the aesthetic/flavor of a lot of the areas sucks. I hate the gutter/black gulch not because there's poison but because in ds1 upper/lower blighttown made sense and fit with the rest of the world and had interesting story behind it then the gutter is actually just tons of wooden planks and black gulch is... neon green poison everywhere
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Jan 24, 2019 22:45
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Visually, I agree absolutely. They really beefed it on the aesthetics side in DS2.
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Jan 24, 2019 22:47
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Amppelix posted:What makes it so uninteresting Level design feels worse, there are a lot of super uninteresting bosses early on, a lot of areas don't really feel like they make sense near each other, which leads to a world that does not feel great. There are a number of areas that I personally feel are really bad and lazy feeling. All it all it does not give you an exciting beginning of the game, and then you add in that the game controls feel a bit muddy compared to 3 and I'm just done, which is a bit of a shame because I love most of the areas in the DLC (game goes from in my opinion from some of the worst level design to some of the best when you get to the DLC, frozen outskirts excluded) but I hate the idea of having to play through the first 2/3rd of the game to get to the 1/3rd I really like. Edit: Someone said it in the steam thread I think. Dark souls 2 took at lot of things that dark souls 1 did and improve the systems, but made a soulless feeling world out of it.
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Jan 24, 2019 22:49
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To elaborate a little instead of just shitposting: After the initial confusion and misinformation wore off, I actually prefer DS3's poise system to any of the alternatives. Coming from fighting games I'm used to systems where any hit puts you into hitstun, and it always bothered me a little that sometimes enemies would take a hit and keep on swinging, and that this was based on a completely invisible meter. Obviously if Dark Souls worked on fighting game hitstun rules it would make fast weapons even more ludicrously dominant than they are now, but DS3 strikes a good balance, where poise makes heavy weapons better but doesn't mean you have always-on resistance to hitstun. Open-ended level design is cool and all but if movement doesn't feel good, it doesn't matter how interesting something is to explore. (I also think that the Cathedral of the Deep is one of the best levels in any video game, period, and Irithyll is also a ton of fun. So while I acknowledge that there are a lot of lovely swamps, that's hardly unique to DS3, and the the peaks matter more to me in the end.) Similarly, I don't really care about there being many multiple routes through the game because I played the full singleplayer mode from beginning to end twice and then I was basically done with that as an experience, the vast majority of my playtime since has been invasions, sun-broing so I can help newbies and replay bosses, and leveling / gearing custom-built characters so I can invade and sun-bro in sillier, more gimmicky ways. DS3 was also my first game in the series, so I don't really share the "oh I'm so fatigued by DS1 callbacks" thing much to begin with, and when I did make the connections they mostly enhanced the experience anyways. (I was initially sold on playing Dark Souls in the first place by someone who wrote a long, thoughtful take on Gwyndolin as a character, which makes their fate in DS3 hit a lot harder -- although viscerally hating Aldritch is already one of the emotional high points in the game's story based purely on his relationship to characters original to DS3.)
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Jan 24, 2019 22:52
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Coming from fighting games
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Jan 24, 2019 23:01
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Volte posted:This is probably why you like DS3 the best. Absolutely. Like, people complain about it being too fast, but for me DS3 is just about the right for a game that's trying to be stately and "deliberate" (god I hate that word), while the other games feel like molasses. e: Like, when you swing with a heavy weapon in PvP, it's possible for the other player to dodge it on reaction if you're paying attention and on a decent connection. That's not that fast. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Jan 24, 2019 |
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Jan 24, 2019 23:03
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The reason I consider DS3 the worst in the series is probably the exact reason that the people who say it's the best say that: it's too focused on fast-paced combat, moving quickly from encounter to encounter in a linear fashion, with careful exploration being a secondary goal gatekept behind skill checks. Pretty much the entire reason I like Dark Souls in the first place is the exploration, the slow dance combat, and especially slowly opening up connections between all the different places in the world.
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Jan 24, 2019 23:08
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Absolutely. Like, people complain about it being too fast, but for me DS3 is just about the right for a game that's trying to be stately and "deliberate" (god I hate that word), while the other games feel like molasses. Your standard for "this game is just the right speed, any slower is too slow" is "when the opponent is running a slower than average build, it's just barely possible to react to their actions" "People treating Dark Souls as if it's a fighting game" is a meme for a reason. It's you
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Jan 24, 2019 23:10
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Simply Simon posted:You say it's the best game in the series, but can you infuse your Moonlight Greatsword with even more magic and then put another magic buff on that? Can you do the same with two swords that can also cast spells and can be powerstanced for sick moves? Can you have the entire element system available to you from within half an hour through the game? Is playing a naked fist man a completely viable option or will it get you owned again and again? Is poison worth a drat? Is it possible to choose one of fourteen (iirc?) bosses as your first one to fight? Do you have to spend 20 levels to make your roll worth a drat? Every single pro-DKs2 argument is just as conceptual and intellectual as this one. On paper, it's the best game. Dark Souls 2 is the most fun game in the series to read about, tinker with on Mugenmonkey, watch LPs of, etc. That's because you're not reading about movement dead zones, horrible turntable enemies and completely unintuitive parry timings. It's by far the worst to actually play.
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Jan 24, 2019 23:11
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feelix posted:When my goal is to have fun I usually play a game that doesn't feel like complete rear end to control moment-to-moment Fortunately, DS2 has excellent controls. 
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Jan 24, 2019 23:16
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ds2 is the only one where i actively dread revisiting a good handful of the areas instead of just, like, one of them, and that means a lot to me
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Jan 24, 2019 23:20
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feelix posted:Your standard for "this game is just the right speed, any slower is too slow" is "when the opponent is running a slower than average build, it's just barely possible to react to their actions" "People treating Dark Souls as if it's a fighting game" is a meme because of people who want a perfectly flat arena with no environmental hazards and no asymmetric advantages in combat. I ain't that.
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Jan 24, 2019 23:20
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Also I can only take so much of crumbling stone buildings and gravestones. Bloodborne, for all its greatness, suffers a little from this as well, but it more than makes up for it by having the spirit of Dark Souls world design in it which Dark Souls 3 forsakes almost entirely.
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Jan 24, 2019 23:21
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feelix posted:Every single pro-DKs2 argument is just as conceptual and intellectual as this one. On paper, it's the best game. What's a movement deadzone?
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Jan 24, 2019 23:23
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Also it's not "just barely possible", it's literally 60-70 frames of startup on Greathammer attacks, for example. The threshold of reactibility is like 20 frames, and if you're young, practiced, and/or there's an audio cue instead of just visual it can be even lower.
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Jan 24, 2019 23:23
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Nothing says "not treating it like a fighting game" like having spreadsheets of moveset frame data on hand.
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Jan 24, 2019 23:25
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SHISHKABOB posted:What's a movement deadzone?
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Jan 24, 2019 23:45
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Volte posted:Nothing says "not treating it like a fighting game" like having spreadsheets of moveset frame data on hand. It's just a way of expressing and analyzing something that's extremely important to the feel and the balance of any action game. Fighting games make it more prominent and accessible because people have more of a reason to study them closely, but Japanese games in general tend to pay a ton of attention to things like startup, invulnerability frames, and so on. How many times have we had the conversation about rolls in Dark Souls 3 and how powerful they are compared to the other games? Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Jan 24, 2019 |
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Jan 24, 2019 23:46
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Don't give me flashbacks to my overanalyzing Diablo 2 (noted Japanese game) days. Did you know that Increased Attack Speed (IAS) from weapons is treated completely differently than from other armor pieces, so if you have a slow weapon, even a 100 armor-IAS won't get you more than frame quicker, whereas having just a single Shael rune (20 IAS) socketed in your weapon will give you, like, 3 faster frames? Also it's pointless to go above 40 IAS in your Reaper, so you can have it ethereal and spend the last of the possible three sockets on making it indestructible. I guess if you had 60 IAS on it the last frame of the Werewolf's uh notFrenzybutIonlyknowtheGermanword attack animation would be one faster, but you're going from 4/4/4/4/8 to 4/4/4/4/7 for the five separate attacks so you can see how the massive damage bonus from having it ethereal is way more advantageous.
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Jan 24, 2019 23:52
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Simply Simon posted:It's when you push your stick forward, but the character doesn't move, only when you push hard enough. I noticed that coming off a lot of DS1 (the DoA mod) and starting yet another DS2 run the other day, probably for the first time really heavily. Took me like 5 seconds to adapt, but hey, for some people that's a dealbreaker, and I respect that. I'm talking about the turning deadzones which are a much bigger deal
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Jan 25, 2019 00:03
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Dark souls combat was never great to begin with. Making it the focus in this entry was a massive misstep imo because there's better action games out there. I hate fighting games and love rpgs. Dark Souls 1 and 2 were made for people like me. Dark Souls 3 was not.
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Jan 25, 2019 00:22
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While I like some RPGs I think that the genre is especially prone to sloppy design, and in particular tends to create games where tests of player execution are replaced with "did you make this number big enough", which is far less interesting. It's a bad thing if it's purely a question of grinding and getting bigger raw numbers, slightly better if it's a question of optimization and trade-offs, but execution is about making constant decisions while you play, while build decisions are made once. So although increasing the potential for different builds is good, you don't want to lose opportunities for execution to matter in order to get it.
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Jan 25, 2019 00:35
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KingSlime posted:Dark souls combat was never great to begin with. Making it the focus in this entry was a massive misstep imo because there's better action games out there. it's not as if it's a bethesda game where you can pass a 100 speech check or hack a terminal to complete something, basically everything you accomplish you accomplish by combat(or exploring, which is itself full of combat)
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Jan 25, 2019 00:40
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Like it or not, it was an obvious design goal of every game after DS1 to make the combat harder than DS1’s, whether by cutting back on the PC’s capabilities (adaptability, weakening fog door invulnerability, nerfing magic, making shields not be a thing) or by making enemies generally more dangerous (increased numbers, inflated health, increased aggression, increased speed and moves that are difficult to avoid). Sometimes it feels like they let other things fall by the wayside to ensure that this goal came through. If you liked the difficulty of DS1 combat, that design direction won’t necessarily find favor with you.
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Jan 25, 2019 00:51
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I like DS3's faster combat. It's not as focused on aggression as Bloodborne and doesn't put me to sleep like 1. It's a nice balance.
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Jan 25, 2019 01:28
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It's not even the speed that I have an issue with per say. Bloodborne's combat was faster sure but the game felt balanced around it. This same level of balance just isn't achieved in DS3. What other souls game actively encourages you to just run away from most enemies? I can zig zag past and crush most mobs in bloodborne with skilled play. It feels fun to overcome a bad situation that I got myself into by sheer skill and knowledge of enemy movesets. I can dance around the kaizo romhack style DS2 enemies just fine with practice. But toss me three silver knights in DS3 or hell even just two cathedral knights and I'm absolutely hosed on any build even after 300 hours of gameplay. DLC 2 showcases this excellently. Admit it, none of you actually picked off most enemies while exploring the ringed city. You just zipped from point a to point b because gently caress if fighting anything is even worth your time or the sad amounts of souls it drops. There's also the dreg heap which is designed entirely around you running away from poo poo. In the base game, whats up with the gaunlet of silver knights after sullyvhan? That's when I realized ok the game just wants me to avoid combat here, which feels gross. It's like from soft stopped giving a poo poo about well-designed encounters, which is a cornerstone of demons and DS1. Critical reviewers everywhere wouldn't shut up about how well these games ramp you up and how hand-picked the enemy placement feels. DS3 is all about hectic stressful combat and haphazardly placed enemies with weird windup times and a bazillion stamina. Your MC can't keep up. For the record while I might not like fighting games I do love fast paced action games just fine E: I do think the bosses in 3 are leagues better than any boss in 2, at least until you get into the multi life bar anime bullshit that completely takes over the final acts KingSlime fucked around with this message at 03:05 on Jan 25, 2019 |
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Jan 25, 2019 03:00
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I didn't really feel like fighting enemies was pointless until the DLC, and in Ariandel it's only a few specific enemy types. Ringed City gives absolutely everything too much health or incredibly obnoxious gimmicks or both, though, and suffers as a result. e: I also find that playing the game with a heavy weapon makes grouped enemy spawns a lot more manageable. "Straight swords are the best weapon!" is probably true if all you care about is the bosses and duels, but fighting outnumbered with a straight sword is the pits in PvE or PvP.
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Jan 25, 2019 03:03
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The best part of the souls series for me was getting to backstab someone with something called a "Mundane Ladle". No one saw that one coming. Also just lol being a rat with traps. I would knock people off the bridge with a greatbow once they stopped to pick up the pile of dung I left them. For all its failings I probably did end up having the most fun with DS2. But drat it's DLC was daunting. DS1 had the better add-on.
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Jan 25, 2019 03:13
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KingSlime posted:In the base game, whats up with the gaunlet of silver knights after sullyvhan? That's when I realized ok the game just wants me to avoid combat here, which feels gross. The thing is arrangements like this are absolutely wonderful for invasions because hosts are terrified of going into the danger zone. Or sometimes they aren't, and you get really interesting fights. Or they use a Seed of the Giant Tree and you have to prove you know how to get to safety while still blocking them from the exit. It's the same reason that invading in Irithyll Dungeon is hilarious and fun.
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Jan 25, 2019 03:15
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KingSlime posted:DLC 2 showcases this excellently. Admit it, none of you actually picked off most enemies while exploring the ringed city. You just zipped from point a to point b because gently caress if fighting anything is even worth your time or the sad amounts of souls it drops. There's also the dreg heap which is designed entirely around you running away from poo poo. Dreg Heap I agree with, but for Ringed City something clicked on my last playthrough when I realized all the Harald Legion patrol paths just happen to pass underneath bridges and it was a fun exercise stabbing them one by one like it was a stealth game.
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Jan 25, 2019 03:20
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The only mobs I refuse to engage are the giant tree-swinging shaman guys in Farron swamps. They are just not worth the effort imo. Silver Knights are just as easy to kill in DS3 as they are in 1. Parrying is your friend.
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Jan 25, 2019 03:30
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Promethium posted:Dreg Heap I agree with, but for Ringed City something clicked on my last playthrough when I realized all the Harald Legion patrol paths just happen to pass underneath bridges and it was a fun exercise stabbing them one by one like it was a stealth game. This is 100% accurate. But the swamp and like 85% of ring knights I just ran past. Heck, the invasion in the... Dungeon? Crypt?.. the circle place, I just kicked the dude off a ledge, and I don't even know how Lodo died. I think he fell too. I loved those locust preachers though.
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Jan 25, 2019 03:33
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The silver knight bow run in ds3 is cool because you know you have to get up the top as quickly as possible, but the final escape is a bit further than in ds1. You can actually stop to fight each knight alone beginning with the first one at the top of the ramp, although you have to look at the angles of the other arches to work out the safe zones. It has the nice sense of achievement from clearing out a zone in that encounter. Then you open the shortcut and the angles between archers are even more generous on that route.
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Jan 25, 2019 07:05
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