Dark Souls 2: Then, and Now

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Wayne: Oct 18, 2014; He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself

FicusArt posted:

Old Iron King. I wanna see some enchantments on those weapons

Some Jerks posted:

Go for the Iron Keep. It should be entertaining to watch Wayne running around on fire.
...
Perhaps taking a swim in it too?

Keep is recorded, and when it comes to lava, there is indeed both :supaburn:

and

for your viewing pleasure. Due to cruddy Internet and that Ben and I are streaming tomorrow, the rest of session 3 will be up Wednesday, then #4 will be up next week. That one will probably be 3 updates, since the Copse -> Valley -> Peak -> Keep is probably the longest route of the four. There weren't any votes on weapons, so I try something different for each part to show off different styles.

Now, if any of y'all want to vote on weapons, let me know, and during next session's update I'll post all the normal-titanite stuff I have. With Iron Keep cleared a merchant finally starts selling unlimited regular titanite shards.

# ? Jan 26, 2016 09:40

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# ? May 18, 2024 18:22

double nine: Aug 8, 2013

re: weapons; use all of them!

(though especially the boss weapons from purgatory/copse)

also new episode is up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhVhYCv6Efs

# ? Feb 2, 2016 23:32

Wayne: Oct 18, 2014; He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself

double nine posted:

also new episode is up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhVhYCv6Efs

Thanks for the assist.

I've been crazy busy since last time, between working extra shifts and being sick (and sometimes both on the same day :negative:

); today I thought I had time to finish the update, so I uploaded the video on Mog's channel to add it to the playlists, and then didn't get back home until halfway through my brother's and my stream tonight about 2 hours ago. :v:

And I'll definitely count that as a vote for the Chariot Lance. I actually did make it in the attempt to show off how you can out-counter the Alonne Knights, but didn't know you couldn't enchant it, so I used something else.

Anyway, the official update! This is pretty much all of session 3, the only thing left is the bonus video I mentioned a couple times, it'll go up in between this update and the next one (when Mog and I record audio for the Iron Keep route).

Speaking of bonus videos and Belfries, I haven't caught my SotFS backup character up to Mog yet, which means I haven't done Belfry Sol. If you want to do some PvP for the next session's bonus video, either there or on PvP Bridge, let me know your SM (he's currently at around 300k with an Agape Ring, so anything higher is doable, up to the ~800k Mog ended at) and when a good time would be for you. You can post here or on Steam (the_right_wayne). It'd be cool if we could get a Fight Club going. We probably have until next weekend available given how many episodes we'll have.

11, Sinner's Rise
First Old One down! Sinner is probably the first one the game points you at, with both early-game routes leading to her, and she's always been the toughest one for me. Swapping the trio of Aldia Frakundead for a single Flexile Sentry makes the route to her a lot less intimidating.

12, Belfry Luna
And that's that. Unfortunately we couldn't get any goon PvP for Belfry Luna, but I tossed in some of the more interesting fights I was in while we're talking to close out the video.

Bonus: Talking Time Two
As soon as I'm done with this, it's off to edit in connecting annotations. Figure that's a good way to help people that want to see it. Do you think I should include the dialogue updates before the session is over next time? No good answer between avoiding spoilers, versus people who watch the episodes when they first go up not having the full dialogue immediately....

# ? Feb 3, 2016 06:37

KeiraWalker: Sep 5, 2011; Me? Don't worry about me...; Grimey Drawer

As far as funny invasion stories go...

I was at the top of the Gutter one time, right near the first bonfire. I'd just fetched my souls after falling off farther down, and had warped back up to get my bearings and decide what to do next, when I get the invasion pop-up. "Great," I think, "what kind of rear end in a top hat invades here of all places?"

As it turns out, to my great delight, my opponent had appeared on the opposite side of the chasm halfway to the second bonfire, from which there is no way to actually get to the first bonfire. Now, the two of us can see eachother... so I just plop down and watch in amusement as the invader, apparently determined to reach me against all odds, runs around like some kind of butt monkey trying to find a way to cross the chasm. The only way I know of is to go farther down and around from where he's at, and I think this dawns on him at some point after about a minute and a half of floundering. But while I'm keeping an eye on him with my binoculars, he fucks up a jump and falls to his death before he even reaches the halfway point between us, providing me with a tidy sum of souls and a greatly appreciated fit of laughter.

# ? Feb 3, 2016 15:00

Angrymog: Jan 30, 2012; Really Madcats

Of course the classic invader dickery in DS 1 is in the catacombs and twisting the bridges.

# ? Feb 3, 2016 15:37

double nine: Aug 8, 2013

One thing that I don't understand is why they disable the dark sign when an invasion is happening. If I don't want to engage with an invader give me an out - if I have my bloostain then I can just jump off a cliff, but if I don't then I'm terrified of losing.

# ? Feb 3, 2016 16:05

Angrymog: Jan 30, 2012; Really Madcats

double nine posted:

One thing that I don't understand is why they disable the dark sign when an invasion is happening. If I don't want to engage with an invader give me an out - if I have my bloostain then I can just jump off a cliff, but if I don't then I'm terrified of losing.

The thing is that you can always choose not to engage with real invaders by playing offline, or as I understand it, burning human effigies either blocks invaders or greatly reduces your invasion chance. And well, as the old lady at the start says, "You will lose your souls. All of them."

# ? Feb 3, 2016 16:10

double nine: Aug 8, 2013

# ? Feb 3, 2016 16:14

Dragonwagon: Mar 28, 2010; And that, as much as anything else, led to my drinking problem.

double nine posted:

One thing that I don't understand is why they disable the dark sign when an invasion is happening. If I don't want to engage with an invader give me an out - if I have my bloostain then I can just jump off a cliff, but if I don't then I'm terrified of losing.

Isn't using the darksign the same as dying?

# ? Feb 4, 2016 00:53

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Dragonwagon posted:

Isn't using the darksign the same as dying?

Nearly so. You lose all your accumulated souls, but you don't lose your place on the hollowing track and aren't counted as dying for the purpose of things like retrieving a bloodstain or the no-death ring.

# ? Feb 4, 2016 01:09

Wayne: Oct 18, 2014; He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself

Whoa, has it been 3 weeks?! So sorry about that, folks. If we're being honest, and each part is 25% of the whole, it was 2 parts being overworked, one part just plain not feeling well, and one part editing Earthen freaking Peak :argh:

. But all done now, and my schedule is finally changing next week with the small business I work for hiring some more drivers, so we should be back on track!

First, the oft-referenced bonus video:

Cut Content Bonus #1
I play music over footage of course, so apologies to those of you in Germany.

I tried a couple different tricks to sneak it past the audio filter, but it's really advanced these days. It couldn't find Original Sin after I set up a combo of lowered pitch, stretching (and thus slowing) the track about 5% and having the background sounds of battle, but it got the other 2, and I originally had It's a Sin by the Pet Shop Boys, and had to replace that one since it's banned basically worldwide (did you know we're up to 220+ countries?). Probably for the best, heh. I'm willing to do more videos like this in the future if there's some interest, so let me know what you think.

13, Huntsman's Copse
Interesting differences between the two versions in this level, most of which aren't shown off until the second video, though. We don't gain any levels since this is the first stage in a new spoke of the wheel of progress, so the enemies aren't worth very many souls.

14, Undead Purgatory (there's a lot going on in that image, full version here)
Well, the first half the video is the second half of Copse (plus the actual boss fight), but if I didn't name the episode such, there wouldn't be an Undead Purgatory video. :sweatdrop:

We show off the two different ways of dealing with the chariot (the "intended" method, plus attacking it directly). Mog also brought up something I'm curious about : have any of you actually had trouble with the Skeleton Lords? I typically fight them first of the four routes (often my 3rd boss) and have never had a problem with them, but apparently some people find them really tricky. Of course, I'm the last person to complain about trouble with certain boss fights after that Sinner footage. :v:

OK, so with that: as always, weapon votes for session 5 are welcome. We had one last time for the Chariot Lance, that'll definitely show up. In addition, next time I'll have a list of weapons to ask y'all which ones we should infuse with Raw and Mundane, since those are very important in a low-stats run (which this ended up being so far).

And speaking of invasions as we have been, I'm now up to 600k SM, but still willing to do some PvP to add to a bonus video later if anyone's interested (here, Steam (the_right_wayne), or Twitch (BroopGamers) all work if you want to set up some time). If you're closer to 800k/1 million, you can probably join us for Rat Covenant next time, you can talk to me or Mog if you'd rather do that.

# ? Feb 25, 2016 09:05

double nine: Aug 8, 2013

I fundamentally disagree that killing all 3 skeleton lords quickly is a mistake. It is the best and fun way to do this boss. Kill em quick, then have fun with the mob. Double fun if you have summons who start panicking.

also surely the best part about the lizard's staff is that it has a knob on the end?

also also: weapon requests: craftsman's hammer. Alternatively one of you use the shield crossbow (because WTF would you use it?) and someone else do the charriot lance

double nine fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Feb 25, 2016

# ? Feb 25, 2016 22:19

Angrymog: Jan 30, 2012; Really Madcats

I can use the crossbow as I'm using one already. I'm almost done recording gutter, but I'll sort it in my downtime.

# ? Feb 25, 2016 22:58

Angrymog: Jan 30, 2012; Really Madcats

Starting my dive for the puzzling stone sword. http://www.twitch.tv/angrymog

# ? Feb 25, 2016 23:45

double nine: Aug 8, 2013

So about weapons, given the lack of feedback on this, a suggestion. Roll a die with each update "chunk". 1 is a dagger that hasn't been shown before. 2 is straight sword, 3 axe, 4 curved sword etc...

# ? Feb 27, 2016 12:20

Wayne: Oct 18, 2014; He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself

double nine posted:

So about weapons, given the lack of feedback on this, a suggestion. Roll a die with each update "chunk". 1 is a dagger that hasn't been shown before. 2 is straight sword, 3 axe, 4 curved sword etc...

Yeah, that's a good idea. I'd been doing something like that informally, showing off something new when there wasn't a request; but it'll be fun to have a system for it. The only drawback is limited upgrade materials, we couldn't do something like that at all prior to this session because of the finite number of shards, and offline your twinklies/bones are extremely limited until lategame.

I do use the lance and hammer (much moreso the former) in the Gutter session, except for the Rotten, do something a little different for him....

And vis a vis the Skeleton Lords, 9x2, I'm planning on Asceticing them when I can to get their cycle 2 prize, so I'll show off the "fun" way of dealing with them then. :smithicide:

But for now, part 2 of 4 of the Iron Keep route, with Harvest Valley! DS2 split the "poison level" into two, Valley and Gutter/Gulch, with the former having the Swamp's openness and mix of big and small enemies and the latter... being really obnoxious. We have a fair bit to talk about after the session, so I move in some more Covetous Demon footage (sadly, neither of us gets eaten, I couldn't get him to do it) and doubtlessly contraband tapes of desert sorceresses.

15, Harvest Valley 1
Harvest Valley is kind of a "filler" level for me. Nothing too memorable, and it's short, especially if you skip past the tricky parts (though SotFS made it a bit more tempting at least by putting more loot in the poison gas areas). If you like going this route first like I do nowadays, the poison is definitely a big nuisance.

16, Harvest Valley 2
I sort these updates such that the recording session is the number, and each video increments by letter. So yeah, this was update "D". Couldn't resist. :v:

Covetous Demon gets mocked a lot, but he does do a lot of damage and he's one of the few enemies that resists strike. It's also a little weird that you meet Lucy so much sooner than you can summon her, I imagine quite a few people ran around looking for her sign for Mytha (or Jabba if SotFS was their first experience with the game) instead of at least one entire dungeon later.

Also, if you'd like to see a weapon, let me know if you want to make one Raw or Mundane (the latter is a weird infusion that halves the base damage but adds a scaling value based on your lowest stat). The former are for hard-hitting weapons with no or low scaling, and the latter is for fast weapons that have little base damage to lose.

Raw: Old Knight Ultra Sword (remember the big guys in Heide's Tower with the broken-off giant swords? One of those), Gyrm Greataxe (can't let ol' Gavlaan down), Blacksmith Hammer (ditto Lenigrast), Malformed Skull (the top half of a dragon skull), Great Machete (the jailers' scythe-on-sticks)

Mundane: Any dagger/twinblade (you can pick this category and I'll pick the best one, probably Dragonrider twinblade for the latter for example), Shotel (remember Lautrec?), Melu Scimitar (blinged-out curved sword), Blacksteel Katana (before anyone calls heresy, I'll never have the Dex to make it good

), Handmaid's Ladle (Ladle OP!), Estoc

I also have at least one of every stone, so if you want to add Fire/Dark to a weapon that'll probably be better than its physical scaling for me, so feel free to suggest that too.

# ? Mar 1, 2016 07:12

Angrymog: Jan 30, 2012; Really Madcats

I have moved to the puzzling stone sword and the chariot crossbow. You'll see them starting from Shaded Ruins.

# ? Mar 1, 2016 20:28

Wayne: Oct 18, 2014; He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself

Angrymog posted:

I have moved to the puzzling stone sword and the chariot crossbow. You'll see them starting from Shaded Ruins.

I love the "Puzzling" appellation, like your character can't fathom why somebody would make something like that. Even the description is basically "f'n magnets, how do they work?"

Anyway, this is just a heads-up that the deadline for PvP is Friday. I'm free for another couple hours tonight, tomorrow evening, and some time Friday night depending on how things go here (I'm switching ISPs, should go without a hitch but you never know). Still Central US time of course. My SotFS Khafet has around 700k SM, but I have one lower, and could probably borrow my brother's from his blind stream if you're in the low millions. I'm "the_right_wayne" on Steam if you want to set it up. :black101:

# ? Mar 3, 2016 02:03

Wayne: Oct 18, 2014; He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself

The delay this time was a technical problem; we lost our audio from the first recording session of Iron Keep, and we'd already decided to make the next batch of episodes 1 Earthen Peak and 3 Iron Keep (the former being just short enough to not justify splitting and the latter being just long enough to not fit cozily into 2 updates). Also wanted to allow time to see if anyone wanted some goon PvP, but as noted we've somehow managed to make the one LP thread nobody wants to interact with. :sweatdrop:

Anyway, we redid Iron Keep and it's ready to go now, so here's the first video of it, following Earthen Peak. These thumbnails are brought to you by :supaburn:

17, Earthen Peak
Ah, here's the reason the last update was so long in coming. Earthen Peak was a pain to put together, with lots of little differences between the versions and a few major ones (like the Manikin that rushes to close the portcullis in Scholar, he rarely gets away with it in the original). And yeah, it just had a really awkward runtime and there wasn't much to really put in or take away, so....

18, Iron Keep 1
You ever get the feeling the Iron Keep route came last and From just kind of started stealing ideas? From Mog's Pokemon chat to us almost literally fighting Medusa to Bowser's Castle now... toss in the fact there aren't any landscapes from any of it in the Artbook, and it makes you wonder. Well, it's still an interesting stage, and refreshingly straightforward (even though like 75% of the entire enemy layout's been changed). This video takes us through Smelter Demon, famously nasty roadblock for early players but not so bad now.

And check the previous post if you'd like to see any of the weapons listed, and if so which infusions you want to... well, infuse them with!

# ? Mar 9, 2016 08:49

Vil: Sep 10, 2011

Wayne posted:

but as noted we've somehow managed to make the one LP thread nobody wants to interact with.

I lurk! Don't have much to add though, and despise PvP with a passion so I wouldn't be participating myself.

# ? Mar 9, 2016 21:34

Wayne: Oct 18, 2014; He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself

Vil posted:

I lurk! Don't have much to add though, and despise PvP with a passion so I wouldn't be participating myself.

Aww, thanks. And I can definitely understand not posting when you can't think of much to contribute, that's one of the dangers in doing a pretty exhaustive LP, heh. I just really like the whole forum "thing," where everybody has a shared frame of reference to keep things on track and have a point of mutual understanding, and can discuss things in a much more organized way than social media, it's why I'm on SA in the first place; so it's just a little frustrating to not have that happen in our own thread, y'know?

19, Belfry Sol
Back with more Iron Keep! I had a lot of fun with the Belfry [del :3:

] Sol video, hope you do too even if you don't like PvP.

~~20, Iron Keep 2~~ Gotta re-upload!

Also, if anyone's been sitting out the PvP (I know early on there was some interest in going after Mog) due to SM ranges, we're now past 1m and will probably be hitting the 1.5 bracket by or by the end of Drangleic Castle. That's probably still too low for those of you who don't have a dedicated PvP character (and are thus the ones we'd prefer to fight against with our own less-than-optimal builds :sweatdrop:

) but I wanted to remind you that we're slowly but surely rising in SM.

Wayne fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Mar 15, 2016

# ? Mar 14, 2016 19:59

FicusArt: Dec 27, 2014; Why would I draw dudes when I could be drawing literally anything else?

In the Iron Keep 2 video, the video desyncs from the commentary at like, 15:52 or so, when the character just stares at the camera, while you guys keep talking about things that happen increasingly later in the video.

# ? Mar 14, 2016 20:03

Wayne: Oct 18, 2014; He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself

...how on earth did that happen? It has the fixed audio, and the stuff I added to the end of the PvP version video which is the final one (crow gifts and whatnot), but not the stuff I cut out like that (since like you noticed, it has the right commentary). :psyduck:

I'll switch the video to private and fix this, many thanks for pointing it out so quickly!

Edit: Found it, I pulled in the video track we used for our first recording session, not the one with the audio we ended up using. Gotta re-render and re-upload, luckily with the new ISP it shouldn't take more than a couple hours.

Edit 2: Argh, I ducked the wrong audio too, going to have to redo the whole thing then. I have plans tonight, so the second Iron Keep video probably won't be up until tomorrow. :argh:

Wayne fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Mar 14, 2016

# ? Mar 14, 2016 20:21

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

I recall you were wondering about the strange staff the one witch phantom uses in Belfry Sol, but the thing is that that's not actually a staff. Instead it's the Spitfire Spear; the black textures on Belfry Luna/Sol enemies just obscures the normal appearance of various weapons.

# ? Mar 15, 2016 05:26

Angrymog: Jan 30, 2012; Really Madcats

re: PvP, it's not something I really enjoy either. I don't avoid it, but I rarely seek it out either. So that's why I haven't really been advertising my recording times.

re: the strange staff; at the time I just assumed that it was a staff because she's dressed as a witch, and yes the shading they use for the Belfrey NPCs obscures the detail.

# ? Mar 15, 2016 12:30

Wayne: Oct 18, 2014; He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself

OK, fixed it. Thanks again for the prompt notification, Ficus!

20, Iron Keep 2
So you've heard my take on Iron Keep (fun but silly) and Mog's ( :mad:

), what's yours? Too challenging? Too video-gamey? Not enough lava?

Angrymog posted:

re: PvP, it's not something I really enjoy either. I don't avoid it, but I rarely seek it out either. So that's why I haven't really been advertising my recording times.

Ahh, OK. You had some PvP stuff on Twitch and we talked about it a bit, so I figured you were OK with it. Now I feel bad for volunteering both of us, then! :sweatdrop:

Well, for anyone who like Titchy Gren has a thirst for blood, my Scholar Khafet is keeping pretty close to Mog's SM and I'm usually game for it. :black101:

# ? Mar 15, 2016 18:51

Angrymog: Jan 30, 2012; Really Madcats

It's more I don't really care about serious PvP. I had a bout of Dark Souls 1 where I made a level 8 character and do stupid cosplay with them, but PvP just for the sake of it doesn't really interest me much.

# ? Mar 15, 2016 20:42

double nine: Aug 8, 2013

You were talking about a gimmick npc who doesn't have the stats to wield his weapons and I have news for you: there is one. Havel the Rock.

Specifically, if you fight him he will occasionally stand still and not do anything at all for a few moments. That's when he is trying to one-hand his greatshield as a weapon - but it requires 50 strength ... and Havel only has 40 strength. So the ai doesn't know what to do and just gives up for a while.

# ? Mar 15, 2016 22:07

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Iron Keep reminds me of some of the crazier shenanigans you can get yourself up to in Dwarf Fortress. You didn't discuss it much in the videos, but the whole story of how it was flooded with lava after they found the Smelter Demon is a textbook DF-style endgame scenario just as if you'd dug into Hell and had to deal with a bunch of demons.

# ? Mar 16, 2016 05:53

KeiraWalker: Sep 5, 2011; Me? Don't worry about me...; Grimey Drawer

Regarding the huge freaking disconnect between Earthen Peak and Iron Keep, there's actually a mod for the original PC version of the game what alters the skyboxes for both areas to provide a more sensible transition. It places an enormous volcanic edifice behind the windmill (thus also providing a reasonable justification for all the poison gas in the Harvest Valley area--it's sulfur dioxide), and the Iron Keep itself sits visibly within the peak's caldera (suggesting that the fortress was built inside the dormant caldera which later became unstable).

Gotta love the modding community. There are a handful of DS2 mods I wouldn't want to play the game without.

Edit: As for Iron Keep itself, I definitely feel like it's too videogame-y in terms of design. You can make up justifications for why it is the way it is until you're blue in the face--like most of the keep being a big smelting pit since the Iron King was obsessed with metalworking, or whatever--but when you get down to brass tacks, there doesn't seem to be a single part of the place what was designed with practical use in mind.

As a videogame level, I guess it's not bad. I always found the enemy placement in a couple of areas rather obnoxious, but it can lead to amusing situations, like dunking invaders into the lava as Mog suggested. I may or may not have also mentioned one invasion I had there which left me laughing pretty hard. Going into the big open room at the start, with the furnace and the suspended bridge, an invader had perched himself directly across from the entrance up near that knight on the top balcony.

Now, the problem was he had a greatbow and kept sniping at myself and my cooperator as we tried to approach the far side of the room, along with the enemies that had yet to be killed. And then it hit me... I had not yet fought the Smelter Demon in this playthrough. The fog gate was still in place, and the closer side of the bridge had already been dropped.

"...gently caress it," I say to my compatriot. "Go for broke!"

Cue the two of us making a mad dash across the bridge while being pelted with arrows the size of lances, me leading the charge and knocking Alonne knights aside as I go. The only obstacle remaining between us and the fog gate, then, is the Alonne Captain in front of the door, and I pretty much just start wailing on him with the BKG in a race to kill him as quickly as possible since I'll never make it through the fog without getting stabbed in the back. Obviously our invader realized what we were doing the moment we hit the bridge, and had dropped from the balcony in pursuit.

So the Alonne Captain is dead, and I mash my face into the fog gate as quickly as humanly possible. The invader has closed enough distance to put us in firing range from the bridge, but as he fires another arrow, my character's 'traverse the fog' animation finally starts, and the projectile disappears harmlessly into the fog along with me.

All I can do as Smelter's health bar pops up, along with the departing phantom message, is let out a triumphant cackle. Better luck next time, douchenozzle.

Not a wholly impressive story, but in the moment it was hilarious, and it's the small things like this what make the game worth playing.

KeiraWalker fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Mar 18, 2016

# ? Mar 18, 2016 03:25

KeiraWalker: Sep 5, 2011; Me? Don't worry about me...; Grimey Drawer

Oh. For weapons, I wanna see something with a Raw infusion. I don't think I've ever witnessed one in action.

# ? Mar 19, 2016 00:38

Wayne: Oct 18, 2014; He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself

double nine posted:

Specifically, if you fight him he will occasionally stand still and not do anything at all for a few moments. That's when he is trying to one-hand his greatshield as a weapon - but it requires 50 strength ... and Havel only has 40 strength. So the ai doesn't know what to do and just gives up for a while.

Didn't know that! I figured it was an AI bug, you see something like that most often with the NPC Forest Ganker hollow thief; and there I assume it's because she can't path a way to backstab you; but not something like that. Heck, I didn't even know NPCs in DS1 had stats, I just figured they had assigned values for HP and defense and such. It's definitely that way in DS2, it was only after playing Iron Keep again on stream with another character when my joke about "NPC invaders with 3000 hp" was actually about right for Sharron. :v:

NGDBSS posted:

Iron Keep reminds me of some of the crazier shenanigans you can get yourself up to in Dwarf Fortress. You didn't discuss it much in the videos, but the whole story of how it was flooded with lava after they found the Smelter Demon is a textbook DF-style endgame scenario just as if you'd dug into Hell and had to deal with a bunch of demons.

Yeah, we mentioned the Iron King/Smelter/Ichorous Earth in our first commentary track, must not have the second time. And you're exactly right, that's one of my favorite bits of the Iron Keep section. Even if it is a bit derivative for the story to be "They dug too greedily and too deep and ~~found~~ became a Balrog," heh.

KieranWalker posted:

All I can do as Smelter's health bar pops up, along with the departing phantom message, is let out a triumphant cackle. Better luck next time, douchenozzle.
Not a wholly impressive story, but in the moment it was hilarious, and it's the small things like this what make the game worth playing.

Ha ha, hey, if you can't kill the jerkwraith, denying him his kill is the next best thing.

The rewards are so paltry for invading in DS2 people basically only do it if they want to troll people (and I like how DS2 reflects that by how they changed the covenant in-game). I did run into a couple of reds (and red signs) in Belfry Sol that seemed to be inspired by the "Bellfree'd" thing (invading to help hosts kill greys) but if you watched the PvP part of that video, one of the times it happened the guy immediately went to kill the host rather than lose to me, so even then. :v:

And as for the first bit, props to a modder for putting that much time and effort into helping keep some immersion!

KieranWalker posted:

Oh. For weapons, I wanna see something with a Raw infusion. I don't think I've ever witnessed one in action.

I show off some raw and mundane weapons in the Tseldora videos! I was also under the weird impression somebody requested daggers, but I don't see that now. Well, either way, next week there'll be some knife-fightin' in the shaded woods.

...but for now, things get dark in this LP. Luckily, I mean that only in the literal sense. One update this time, due to audio problems in the second one I need to fix. Speaking of audio, apparently aware I praised it last time, YouTube's audio analyzer thing apparently can't tell the difference between Mozart's Requiem (which I used over the PvP at the end) and Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman." This is on Mog's account so I didn't want to file a dispute on her behalf, but... yeah. What do you even do with that, is there a "Uh, no it isn't" option? :sweatdrop:

21, Grave of Saints
Anybody else completely miss this level their first time through the game? I know I did! I got the Cat Ring and just dropped down ledges until getting to the Gutter, and never thought twice about the pit again. Finding it was pretty disappointing, too-- Toxic Mist (the boss soul trade with Straid) is amazing, but even in 2014 there was basically no PvP to be had, and what little there was was other part-time Ratbros racing to the door for their tails. The other level is quite a bit more interesting....

# ? Mar 22, 2016 18:32

Wayne: Oct 18, 2014; He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself

OK, here we go. Going behind the curtain a bit, what happens is Mog and I record post-commentary together but with separate Audacity tracks, and she sends her audio to me to sync up and balance and all that. The problem this time was no matter what I tweaked with the usual settings, I was drowning her out or her volume peaked too high. I eventually straightened it out by not using the compressor and manually tweaking some of the low spots. Also while I was at it, I added a slight Right ( :911:

) pan to me and a left one to her, I heard that's a common podcast trick to make it sound more authentically like you're listening to two people talk. So let me know what you think about that (or if you even noticed :sweatdrop:

).

Anyway, part 1 of the Gutter! The LP gets darker still.

22, The Gutter 1/2
Anybody knows who at From had the bright (...heh) idea of combining Blighttown with the Tomb of Giants? :mad:

And while you'd expect the zone to be easy to make up for the fact most players will probably be going through it with a torch in the off-hand (and thus preventing shields and catalysts unless you put them in your right hand), it's actually pretty tricky, with the mutant dogs and their high Poise in particular being an issue. Luckily, everything besides them in here is hollow, so break your Old whips, alluring skulls, Holy Water urns, etc. out, or... stumble through it like we did! :gibs:

# ? Mar 24, 2016 02:47

The Protagonist: Jun 29, 2009; The average is 5.5? I thought it was 4. This is very unsettling.

Angrymog what is the cat with shoulder blade tentacles in your av because that is ringing some ancient childhood memory bells

# ? Mar 24, 2016 03:02

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

I'm surprised you two had so much trouble with the Gutter, considering that most of the enemies are jokes to fight. The dogs can be annoying, but generally by this point the player likely have some sort of one-handed ranged option (spells or crossbow). The only reason they might not is if they headed to the Gutter as their first destination, in which case they're experienced and know what they're doing. If they really need both hands but still want to light torches, they've most likely got a supply of Flame Butterflies that have been dropping like mad (and which are sold by a vendor they've probably seen by now).

The only time I had any trouble with the Gutter was the first time I encountered it, when the game was first released. But I quickly got the idea that I'd need to do some mapmaking by virtue of lighting torches, and of course my packrat instincts had grabbed me a bunch of Flame Butterflies, so it became a nice slower-paced area to wander through between the Grave of Saints and the Black Gulch underneath.

^^That's a displacer beast from D&D - the art has changed a number of times but the concept itself is pretty old.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 16:00

double nine: Aug 8, 2013

The ladders are stored in the same place that the lord vessel was stored in Dark Souls 1.

Also I forget - did you visit the fire lizards yet?

double nine fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Mar 24, 2016

# ? Mar 24, 2016 16:52

KeiraWalker: Sep 5, 2011; Me? Don't worry about me...; Grimey Drawer

I don't think they've properly visited the fire lizards? But I'm not 100% sure myself.

As for hollowing, I've actually got a mod for that too. I kind of hated the rotting corpse look--mostly for the green skin--but there's a mod to make your half-way hollowed appearance look freshly dead instead of like something that's been rotting for weeks. You basically turn gaunt, pale, and your eyes go lifeless. Then when you're fully hollowed, you look mummified as in the base game, but without the green tint. There's a version of it what gives your character the open wounds of the vanilla game during the partially hollowed stage, as well.

There's a related one that makes the blacksmith Lenigrast look like the partially hollowed state from that mod too... basically I really don't like how everything in Dark Souls 2 turns green. I actually have very few mods installed which aren't purely cosmetic; the only one I can actually remember off the top of my head is just a Durazno Xinput wrapper to make the control stick movement behave like it did in Dark Souls 1, instead of snapping to the 8 cardinal directions. I also swapped the left bumper and trigger around since I'm playing with an XBone controller and the bumpers on that thing aren't particularly comfortable to hold down for any length of time.

The same mod support exists for SotFS, but (bearing in mind I haven't been able to 100% confirm this) From seems to have been kicking people who used ANY sort of hook/injector tool for the game which uses a DLL file--be it post-processing effects, Xinput wrappers to remap controller inputs, even just FRAPS or OBS game capture--into a pool of 'soft-banned' players that can't interact with the larger player base. You could be invaded, but were unable to invade others or do co-op with anyone not in the banned player pool, allegedly. There doesn't seem to be much recent information on it, but if it is true, I'm sure there are enough people on the 'soft-banned' server by now that nobody would ever notice a difference.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 13:49

Angrymog: Jan 30, 2012; Really Madcats

We haven't done the firelizards yet.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 13:56

Migishu: Oct 22, 2005; I'll eat your fucking eyeballs if you're not careful; Grimey Drawer

I'd like to thank you both for doing this. I played through DS2 when it first came out, but never played the DLC (even though I was one of those idiots that got the collectors edition with the season pass).

It's good to see what has changed. I'm looking forward to the rest.

# ? Mar 26, 2016 00:30

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# ? May 18, 2024 18:22

Wayne: Oct 18, 2014; He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself

NGDBSS posted:

I'm surprised you two had so much trouble with the Gutter, considering that most of the enemies are jokes to fight.

I'm overselling it a bit because it's really not a very interesting level. Lots of cool ideas, meh execution, and the only reason I didn't harp on the copy & paste of the poison statues is because of the next level, heh. We each only die a couple times to things that aren't platforming-related.

double nine posted:

The ladders are stored in the same place that the lord vessel was stored in Dark Souls 1.

Also I forget - did you visit the fire lizards yet?

Exactly, the item box. :razz:

And I "visited" them while I was farming Awestones (wanted to get the First Dragon Ring before you meet Tark to make it a little less redundant), but they're an absolute pain to fight normally and I didn't realize Asceticing Cardinal Tower to re-fight the Last Giant would include them, too. So nothing like 4000hp bruisers with infinite poise and tons of damage, eh? Mog and I have talked about doing a "roundup" video before going to Drangleic Castle, they'll probably be in that.

KieranWalker posted:

As for hollowing, I've actually got a mod for that too.
...
The same mod support exists for SotFS, but (bearing in mind I haven't been able to 100% confirm this) From seems to have been kicking people who used ANY sort of hook/injector tool for the game which uses a DLL file

I'm 100% with whoever made that mod, there's way too much of a jump between "normal human" and your first degree of hollowing-- you instantly get the decomposing skin, giant sores, white eyes, etc. It should be a lot more subtle.

And yeah, I'd heard that too, I saw a thread on Reddit with a bunch of guys who got kicked for [what they claimed was] using a controller mod to remove the dead zone, and it uses Xinput which triggered whatever detection From uses. Some of the more spiteful users claimed it was them being upset at HD texture mods, and to be fair it is kind of hard to justify a blanket ban that includes a lot of harmless mods, and not do anything about blatant hacking and cheat engine stuff. Either way, just hearing about it was what made me switch from a PS2 controller with a USB attachment to an actual (well, 3rd-party :v:

) XBox one.

Migishu posted:

I'd like to thank you both for doing this.
...
It's good to see what has changed. I'm looking forward to the rest.

Aww, you're welcome. :hfive:

Glad you like it!

# ? Mar 26, 2016 19:05

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Dark Souls 2: Then, and Now

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