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Vermain posted:Part of the issue is simply that the only truly universal defensive option in most of these games is dodge rolling (and spacing, if we're being generous), so bosses have to be designed to only assume dodge rolling. It follows that the only way to make a single input more challenging is to increase the speed or make subsequent rolls harder to predict the correct timing for, which is why Elden Ring has bosses with 7-hit combos and gigantic AoE shockwaves. Sekiro's a really good argument for making blocking and parrying an innate part of the player's toolkit ala Nioh 2, as it'd let them slow down the pace and put more emphasis on choosing the appropriate defense for a given attack rather than speeding up the attacks to a comical degree. In ER jump has iframes, guard counter with both 2H weapon and shields - which you can give infinite guard stamina - are incredibly powerful and there's a ton of Ashes that do meaningful counter and dodge moves. You can also parry nearly every remotely humanoid boss.
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Mar 15, 2022 02:46
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Orv posted:In ER jump has iframes, guard counter with both 2H weapon and shields - which you can give infinite guard stamina - are incredibly powerful and there's a ton of Ashes that do meaningful counter and dodge moves. You can also parry nearly every remotely humanoid boss. What I mean by "an innate part of a player's toolkit" is that the player always has access to them, regardless of build or equipment. In Nioh 2, you can dodge, block (with mild differences in effectiveness depending on the weapon type, but it's always a 100% block against physical damage), and use one of three flavors of parry depending on your chosen Guardian Spirit type. This ensures that, regardless of what you choose to use or how you choose to build, the developer can always count on the fact that the player has the ability to do all three things, and can make bosses with attacks that are best dealt with one of those defenses to create variety and add challenge to fights.
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Mar 15, 2022 03:00
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Vermain posted:What I mean by "an innate part of a player's toolkit" is that the player always has access to them, regardless of build or equipment. In Nioh 2, you can dodge, block (with mild differences in effectiveness depending on the weapon type, but it's always a 100% block against physical damage), and use one of three flavors of parry depending on your chosen Guardian Spirit type. This ensures that, regardless of what you choose to use or how you choose to build, the developer can always count on the fact that the player has the ability to do all three things, and can make bosses with attacks that are best dealt with one of those to create variety and add challenge to fights. You can always dodge, guard counter, parry and jump in ER. Granted, open hand parries are extremely hard to do. Like I get what you're saying, From makes kinda the one game, even Sekiro just trades dodging for parrying at a base level. I just think you're really underselling the options ER provides.
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Mar 15, 2022 03:02
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Orv posted:You can always dodge, guard counter, parry and jump in ER. Granted, open hand parries are extremely hard to do. There's a significant difference between "you have three defensive options that are good, but more appropriate in certain situations" and "you have three defensive options, two of which are extremely high risk or low reward without the proper tools." You can two-handed block and guard counter off of that, sure, but that is almost always a losing proposition in terms of trading.
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Mar 15, 2022 03:04
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Vermain posted:There's a significant difference between "you have three defensive options that are good, but more appropriate in certain situations" and "you have three defensive options, two of which are extremely high risk or low reward without the proper tools." You can two-handed block and guard counter off of that, sure, but that is almost always a losing proposition in terms of trading. I mean I think 100% physical block at all times is bad design, to be fair. Nioh straight up has better Souls combat than Souls does but it's a giant mess sometimes and it has much, much worse boss design for several bosses in both games.
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Mar 15, 2022 03:05
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RBA Starblade posted:I missed this lmao I got the first shard (additional heal) like 2 hours in in the forest of giants (and got immediately killed by the "oh hey we're gonna spawn a boss on your rear end for this" trap), then nothing for a long, long while until i got one at hour 7 or 8 in the other forest with the foggy part. P sure i only found a third shard in Huntsman's Copse which i only found access to well over the 10 hour mark. So yeah, 2 additional heals in 10 hours But please, go off and embody the typical caricature of an internet Dark Souls fan 
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Mar 15, 2022 12:34
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Mar 15, 2022 12:42
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Please, go ahead and explain. I still have a good quarter or so of the game left, so if there's anything to know that could improve the rest of my time with it, i'm all ears, because i very much do want to enjoy it.
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Mar 15, 2022 12:49
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https://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/Estus+Flask+Shard Explore like, literally at all. Also buy a shitload of gems and use them.
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Mar 15, 2022 12:50
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The real estus flask was the small white soapstone
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Mar 15, 2022 12:55
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Vermain posted:Part of the issue is simply that the only truly universal defensive option in most of these games is dodge rolling (and spacing, if we're being generous), so bosses have to be designed to only assume dodge rolling. It follows that the only way to make a single input more challenging is to increase the speed or make subsequent rolls harder to predict the correct timing for, which is why Elden Ring has bosses with 7-hit combos and gigantic AoE shockwaves. Sekiro's a really good argument for making blocking and parrying an innate part of the player's toolkit ala Nioh 2, as it'd let them slow down the pace and put more emphasis on choosing the appropriate defense for a given attack rather than speeding up the attacks to a comical degree. Even DS2 had problems around the edges due to equip weight affecting dodge distance. Combined with some wonky hitbox durations it means even with your Adaptability sitting pretty at the high 90s or w/e the sweet spot is you can still eat a bit more poo poo than you'd expect because you simply can't remove yourself from the danger zone quickly enough. Honestly I didn't feel like DS3 was too fast for the most part. Almost all of my issues were down to bad design choices. Pus of Man enemies aren't hard because the game moves too fast, they're just a badly thought out enemy that in all likelihood was haphazardly recycled from cut content. Etc. Orv posted:Also buy a shitload of gems and use them. This is the more important point than ragging on someone for missing shards (especially if they're playing Scholar let's not forget that version makes most of the early ones locked behind petrified dudes). Dark Souls 2 runs off of life gems waaaaay more than Estus. Eventually you reach a point where you have the luxury of choosing between one or the other as you see fit, but really early on life gems are your first and foremost source of survival. The single most important thing to do in DS2 is to exhaust Malentia's dialogue so she packs up and moves to Majula, at which point she sells infinite life gems. John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 13:03 on Mar 15, 2022 |
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Mar 15, 2022 13:00
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I have referenced that list to make that previous post, there's no way i could've remembered the name "huntsman's copse" on my own, lol Here's how the game went so far: Get through tutorial, enter Majula, do some Forest of Giants until boss (+1), go back and make a detour to Heide, go through to the harbour, find a branch there and take it back to the statue near Benhard i found at the very start to unlock NPC, beat boss at Harbour and realize it's a dead end, go through formerly petrified NPC to Shaded Woods, eventually find another shard (+1), get blocked at shrine of winter and the king's door, go to shaded ruins, get poo poo on by curse jars go back to Majula and down the hole, go through Grave of Saints, through the Gutter ( i missed a shard here the first time through because the map is obfuscated and reaching the later half locks you out of the first half - only found it much later when i came back for a thorough sweep), get to Black Gulch and get pissed off by statues go back to Majula, google where else to go, find out an NPC relocates to the rotunda after Heide but you never find out because there's no reason to ever walk through there again after clearing Heide, finally find Huntsman's Copse and another shard (+1), find the Coliseum, then Harvest Valley and nope out of Poison City for a while to go back to Shaded Ruins, spend all my branches there for not much gain, beat boss and go through Doors of Pharros, abandon Tseldora at the very start bc i wasn't in the mood for spiders watched the Happy Souls video on youtube as a pick-me-up and "remembered" about the crow's nest at the pursuer boss fight and finally got to lost bastille (I never got here earlier because the desk thingy in the harbour boat showed no prompt to me despite searching the room. Looking back on it, it's probably due to my DS1 habit of always pressing start for the menu whenever i set down my controller, so asto not accidentally smack an NPC in the face. The problem is that i don't always notice right away that the menu's still open when coming back since you can still walk around, and prompts don't show up with the menu open, so that's probably how i missed the boat ride to the bastille) finally find my fourth shard at roughly 20+ hours into the game, ayyy, now i'm at the amount of Estus that the first game starts you off with! i'll cut this short here but i explored like, literally at all, and except for the Gutter, i usually picked an area clean as best as possible before finishing it I have a lot of gems but they're only good for in-between-fights healing, since i eat poo poo every single time when trying to use them in combat. Nanpa posted:The real estus flask was the small white soapstone 
HenryEx fucked around with this message at 13:16 on Mar 15, 2022 |
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Mar 15, 2022 13:13
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HenryEx posted:I have a lot of gems but they're only good for in-between-fights healing, since i eat poo poo every single time when trying to use them in combat. How are you eating poo poo trying to use gems in combat but not estus? 
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Mar 15, 2022 13:21
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John Murdoch posted:How are you eating poo poo trying to use gems in combat but not estus? The game is not the problem, as per usual. Which to be clear, I am absolutely fine with people being bad at Souls et al and will happily help when people ask for it, it's when they do this whole "I don't want to actually learn but here's why everything is bad" deal that we get occasionally.
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Mar 15, 2022 13:28
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John Murdoch posted:How are you eating poo poo trying to use gems in combat but not estus? Especially when using gems is faster than Estus unless you've levelled your agility stat really high. There's a ton of legitimate complaints about Dark Souls 2 even if I do think some of it is overblown but when I see "I can only heal twice before needing to find a bonfire!" and "I can't see what other enemies are doing, I'm too busy locking on to one target and not removing my lock-on!" then the problem isn't with the game, it's with the player misunderstanding basic mechanics.
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Mar 15, 2022 13:53
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Orv posted:In ER jump has iframes, guard counter with both 2H weapon and shields - which you can give infinite guard stamina - are incredibly powerful and there's a ton of Ashes that do meaningful counter and dodge moves. You can also parry nearly every remotely humanoid boss. Does the jump actually have i-frames? I know some no-hit runner said so but it felt like he was misspeaking and that jumping allows you to physically avoid certain attacks completely. After Bloodborne they really should've done away with the roll as the dodging move.
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Mar 15, 2022 13:54
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Groovelord Neato posted:Does the jump actually have i-frames? I know some no-hit runner said so but it felt like he was misspeaking and that jumping allows you to physically avoid certain attacks completely. It does have actual iframes, yeah, more than medium dodge even. As usual when From introduces a new thing in a Souls line sequel they leaned a little too hard into it. The thing that keeps it from being The Best Option is that brief pause on landing where you don't have iframes. Orv fucked around with this message at 13:59 on Mar 15, 2022 |
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Mar 15, 2022 13:55
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Also I feel like ER and bloodborne share the similar quirk in that most bosses are actually easier if you dodge into them than trying to dodge away from them Maybe that worked as well in the older souls games but dodging wasn’t really responsive enough to really take advantage of it
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Mar 15, 2022 14:35
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CharlestheHammer posted:Also I feel like ER and bloodborne share the similar quirk in that most bosses are actually easier if you dodge into them than trying to dodge away from them There's only a few bosses across the games where the best move isn't dodging into an attack and they're basically specifically built to stop that.
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Mar 15, 2022 14:41
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I can’t think of any bosses that punish you for dodging in. I can think of some that punish you for sticking on a bosses rear end but that’s a different thing and usually doesn’t involve much dodging
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Mar 15, 2022 14:45
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There's some bosses that have extremely long lingering hitboxes on some attacks or long combos that can punish you pretty horribly for rolling in - Black Knife Ringleader's whirling death thingie or Commander Niall in general come to mind.
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Mar 15, 2022 14:51
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CharlestheHammer posted:I can’t think of any bosses that punish you for dodging in. The multimob boss in 3, I've suddenly forgotten the name, dumb hat dudes. Basically any boss with a grab, thanks to From's phenomenal grab hitboxes. Sir Alone's super combo. Arguably even Four Kings, easiest boss once you understand the trick has not one but two heavy dodge in punishes. That's just off the top of my head.
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Mar 15, 2022 15:51
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HenryEx posted:I got the first shard (additional heal) like 2 hours in in the forest of giants (and got immediately killed by the "oh hey we're gonna spawn a boss on your rear end for this" trap), then nothing for a long, long while until i got one at hour 7 or 8 in the other forest with the foggy part. P sure i only found a third shard in Huntsman's Copse which i only found access to well over the 10 hour mark. How did you not find a lifegem in ten hours That aside, it's okay to not like the game but you missed like six shards and what sounds like all the bone ash if you're up through Pharros (also wow you're gunning it lol), you should go back and look around. The first shard you can get is in Majula if that helps. HenryEx posted:i wish online existed, but they haven't put in NPC that summon you afaik so no soapstone heals This does really suck though since DS2's real strength is the extension of all the multiplayer systems it does RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Mar 15, 2022 |
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Mar 15, 2022 15:59
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SlothfulCobra posted:Gameplay-wise, I totally missed the Emerald Herald for like the first few hours of the game, and I also missed the connection to Giants' Forest (which I think is more supposed to be the "first" area?) I've seen a few people post stuff like this elsewhere about Souls games and it has me wondering how some players just don't seem to explore places. I'm looking EVERYWHERE* for free loot so I dunno how people managed to miss a cliff path to an area and a character just chillin' by a bonfire. DS2 was my first Souls game and though Heide's is the obvious route I explored and found the cliff route to the forest where the enemies weren't 3x my size. *this is how I got hosed up by pigs in Majula. Oh and I have to say even though people pan the poo poo out of it, I played the game primarily using life gems because I was able to tank loads of stuff by popping a few and having my health just top itself back up again. Estus overrated. Life gems OP. *edit: the weapon degradation being linked to the framerate and therefore degrading twice as fast at 60fps was complete poo poo though. From please lern2code. Olympic Mathlete fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Mar 15, 2022 |
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Mar 15, 2022 18:15
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Even if you do notice the path to Forest, it's got that weird airlock mechanism which ultimately doesn't really do anything but I've seen it cause some confusion/trepidation in new players. Hell, even being a DS1 veteran and thoroughly exploring everything I managed to straight up miss the first Forest bonfire because it's tucked off in its own little spot on the river and you've fought all of like 3 hollows at that point. (Which coincidentally do a good job of drawing you away from said bonfire.)
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Mar 15, 2022 20:10
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I sure do like shields, timing your blocks is fun, and it's more realistic as to what combat is like rather than constantly doing somersaults or cartwheels. Sadly, the PVP players do not like it, and the game devs don't like it, so shields kept getting nerfed. Olympic Mathlete posted:I've seen a few people post stuff like this elsewhere about Souls games and it has me wondering how some players just don't seem to explore places. I'm looking EVERYWHERE* for free loot so I dunno how people managed to miss a cliff path to an area and a character just chillin' by a bonfire. DS2 was my first Souls game and though Heide's is the obvious route I explored and found the cliff route to the forest where the enemies weren't 3x my size. I checked a video to jog my memory of Majula, and the first time you go there, the Emerald Herald is facing away from the player covered in a brown cloak on a brown cliff, so she blends in with the background and the contrast with the coast makes it harder to see her, and you wouldn't really have any reason to go up right on the cliff.
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Mar 16, 2022 04:48
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SlothfulCobra posted:I checked a video to jog my memory of Majula, and the first time you go there, the Emerald Herald is facing away from the player covered in a brown cloak on a brown cliff, so she blends in with the background and the contrast with the coast makes it harder to see her, and you wouldn't really have any reason to go up right on the cliff. This does sound like a player problem and please believe me when I say I'm absolutely not an apologist for Souls games. I've only ever completed DS2 (ignored the DLC despite owning it) and got bored of every other one I've played (1, 3 and Bloodborne). DS2 was my first Souls game so maybe I was looking around more than other people would? I wanted to make sure I hadn't missed anything particularly as this was the first 'normal' looking section of the game after emerging from the weird tree cave into the light and the first bonfire.
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Mar 16, 2022 11:37
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She's like a few steps away from the bonfire, facing the edge of a cliff. You can see her easily if you go and light the bonfire. I really don't understand how anyone could miss her unless they were wilfully not paying attention or doing a no bonfire run or something. Everything in Manjula is landmarked well enough, better than Firelink Shrine in Dark Souls 1 and 3 even. Mainly because Dark Souls 1 has Griggs and Big Hat Logan hide away in a corner you're not likely to notice unless you are coming back to Firelink Shrine from the Undead Burg and Firelink Shrine's design in 3 is samey and it's easy to miss multiple NPCs there if you don't check all of the corners. In contrast, Dark Souls 2 NPCs in Majula are either near the bonfire, in a building or standing near a monument. I get people don't like Dark Souls 2 and it's not even my favorite Souls game but some of the criticism I see about the game is down to the player misunderstanding mechanics, not exploring or straight up blaming the game for their own mistakes and not the fault of the game itself.
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Mar 16, 2022 12:02
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How does one get bored of Bloodborne lol
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Mar 16, 2022 14:15
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DS2 is one of their more creative areas imo, the forest of thieves/shaded woods(invisible thieves) is such a good idea but flawed execution. That is kinda all of DS2 especially when you play Bloodborne which was in development at same time. I still think its an excellent game, it's just sandwiched between DS1 and Bloodborne, which makes it look worse than it actually is.
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Mar 16, 2022 14:46
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Also about half of the poo poo people claim DS2 did wrong because b-team doesn't understand game design are actually sins DS1 happily committed first.
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Mar 16, 2022 14:50
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Groovelord Neato posted:How does one get bored of Bloodborne lol I had a save file corrupt when I was most of the way though and the realisation that I'd lost all that effort made me shelve the game for a while. Then when I went back to it I had forgotten how to play it well so I was getting clowned. Every time I've attempted to pick it back up I stop playing after a few hours. It's not that the game itself is boring, I was just not in the mood to play through it again. The reward centre of my brain isn't set up for Souls games. *edit: I have that cumdungeon page on my phone still from months ago so I'm hoping at some point to have the motivation to basically cheat my way through it to the point I was at to finally finish the thing. Olympic Mathlete fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Mar 16, 2022 |
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Mar 16, 2022 14:51
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John Murdoch posted:Also about half of the poo poo people claim DS2 did wrong because b-team doesn't understand game design are actually sins DS1 happily committed first. This bugs me so much. Stuff like mob ambushes, group fights, tracking enemies, nonsensical geometry/geography, bad hitboxes. Literally all of From's games.
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Mar 16, 2022 14:53
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dark souls 2's gimmick of getting attacked by 15 dudes with greatswords every time you opened a door or turned a corner got really old 2 hours in but they kept doing it for the whole game. i still enjoyed it somewhat but its my least favorite.
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Mar 16, 2022 14:55
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ASenileAnimal posted:darks souls 2's gimmick of getting attacked by 15 dudes with greatswords every time you opened a door or turned a corner got really old 2 hours in but they kept doing it for the whole game. i still enjoyed it somewhat but its my least favorite. It happens like four times. Two dudes? Sure, plenty. E: Also, again! Dark Souls 1 ambushes you with multiple dudes around corners within like fifteen minutes of starting the game. Orv fucked around with this message at 15:04 on Mar 16, 2022 |
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Mar 16, 2022 14:57
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I can see getting bored of bloodborne if you are running the chalice dungeons
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Mar 16, 2022 15:02
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everyone who hates dark souls 2 hates it because they bought it day one and blasted through it 60 hours per week and got burnt out while i restrained myself for 6 years and finally completed it in 2020 and it was great
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Mar 16, 2022 15:11
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Well the problem with that is the DS2 MP was stellar back at launch. It has never been matched because it was the only game with Small White Soapstone.
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Mar 16, 2022 15:31
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I completely missed heide's for most of my first playthrough. Got all the way to the gate and despite looking around didn't see the thing to pull to open it. Got there way later and waltzed through lol
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Mar 16, 2022 15:53
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JollyBoyJohn posted:everyone who hates dark souls 2 hates it because they bought it day one and blasted through it 60 hours per week and got burnt out while i restrained myself for 6 years and finally completed it in 2020 and it was great It was my first Souls game and I played on PC release and I was hooked. https://youtu.be/RD448x8iitk
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Mar 16, 2022 17:30
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