- Joined
- Jul 29, 2004
- Posts
- 9,940
If you help him "divorce" his waifu he probably gives you the ring and a bunch of other crap anyway.
Dark Souls 2 Thread
- Thread starter Lagduf
- Start date
If you help him "divorce" his waifu he probably gives you the ring and a bunch of other crap anyway.
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2004
- Posts
- 9,940
Did you also notice you can run at any distance while locked on an enemy? Or that you can hold O and "run" up ladders? Or aim crossbows?
Some other improvements worthy of note.
PS: fuck the chariot boss...fucking hate that guy.
Last edited:
A few things I have mixed feelings about after taking my time in NG.
1) Bonfire ascetics & spices: I gave into temptation and farmed 6 copies of Soul Geyser when I found it and tried it (thanks re-spec). I also had a heap of spice so I took the INT requirement down from 64 to 50. So here I am in the first playthrough with 6 copies of the pimpest sorcery (without needing the proper stats) and I feel very dirty..
2) Despawning enemies: I've done this twice now on the crowded paths to two of the (very annoying) optional bosses and at the time it was appreciated. Invasions on the way were almost enjoyable.
3) Being invaded after the boss is dead: Meh. I'll never really enjoy invasions, but I can live with them. Just don't gesture spam or PM abuse when it was a Jihadist in the Bastille that did all the leg work.
4) Soul memory: I haven't found this to be a huge problem yet... but souls lost or not spent shouldn't count towards this stat. If I want to park at the Ruin Sentinels for jolly co-op then unspent souls shouldn't push me out of the range of the average player passing through.
The most annoying thing to me is the FUCKING shield break, frames much??? I've been chain staggered by some of the limpest enemies in the game and it did not make me happy. I don't remember the effect in Demon's being quite so exaggerated.
1) Bonfire ascetics & spices: I gave into temptation and farmed 6 copies of Soul Geyser when I found it and tried it (thanks re-spec). I also had a heap of spice so I took the INT requirement down from 64 to 50. So here I am in the first playthrough with 6 copies of the pimpest sorcery (without needing the proper stats) and I feel very dirty..
2) Despawning enemies: I've done this twice now on the crowded paths to two of the (very annoying) optional bosses and at the time it was appreciated. Invasions on the way were almost enjoyable.
3) Being invaded after the boss is dead: Meh. I'll never really enjoy invasions, but I can live with them. Just don't gesture spam or PM abuse when it was a Jihadist in the Bastille that did all the leg work.
4) Soul memory: I haven't found this to be a huge problem yet... but souls lost or not spent shouldn't count towards this stat. If I want to park at the Ruin Sentinels for jolly co-op then unspent souls shouldn't push me out of the range of the average player passing through.
The most annoying thing to me is the FUCKING shield break, frames much??? I've been chain staggered by some of the limpest enemies in the game and it did not make me happy. I don't remember the effect in Demon's being quite so exaggerated.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2000
- Posts
- 13,188
Spoon, the chariot boss was easy as fuck. Why do you hate him? Getting to him is more annoying than killing him, to be honest. And I figured out those assholes and was backstabbing them with unction over and over.
Regarding the shield break/chain staggering-this is the thing I hate most about this game. Too many enemies stacking on each other and flailing away at me and it takes me too long to recover. Dark Souls did not have this problem and was plenty challenging. And to top it off, the game design is inconsistent for enemies damaging each other. If the Executioner Chariot can run over all those skeletons and crush them while you're making your way down the hall, this means enemies can hit each other.
Then, when a bunch of common enemies, like rogues or exploding zombies, stack on each other and attack wildly, they don't hit each other but they hit you?
This game needs some more patching to hit that sweet spot where there is no frustration from wonky systems, there is only frustration from difficult, well designed challenges.
Regarding the shield break/chain staggering-this is the thing I hate most about this game. Too many enemies stacking on each other and flailing away at me and it takes me too long to recover. Dark Souls did not have this problem and was plenty challenging. And to top it off, the game design is inconsistent for enemies damaging each other. If the Executioner Chariot can run over all those skeletons and crush them while you're making your way down the hall, this means enemies can hit each other.
Then, when a bunch of common enemies, like rogues or exploding zombies, stack on each other and attack wildly, they don't hit each other but they hit you?
This game needs some more patching to hit that sweet spot where there is no frustration from wonky systems, there is only frustration from difficult, well designed challenges.
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2004
- Posts
- 9,940
Yeah I'm talking about NG+ with a dex build...on the first playthrough the difficulty was pretty fair on that guy.
Some of these bosses that tormented me as a dex build are going down for me like a 2 dollar hooker with this soul geyser spell...but when they are magic resistant? fucking look out, boy.....some of the easiest bosses as a dex build become the biggest PITA ever as a magic user...so respeccing is like flipping a coin over.
Or maybe STR builds are the way to go (as usual in souls games).
Speaking of STR builds, has anyone been able to powerstance 2 Avelyns? Just the idea of hitting something with 6 firebolts all at once sounds pretty hilarious.
Some of these bosses that tormented me as a dex build are going down for me like a 2 dollar hooker with this soul geyser spell...but when they are magic resistant? fucking look out, boy.....some of the easiest bosses as a dex build become the biggest PITA ever as a magic user...so respeccing is like flipping a coin over.
Or maybe STR builds are the way to go (as usual in souls games).
Speaking of STR builds, has anyone been able to powerstance 2 Avelyns? Just the idea of hitting something with 6 firebolts all at once sounds pretty hilarious.
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2004
- Posts
- 9,940
I don't disagree with you, but I'd like to hear why and compare reasons.
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2000
- Posts
- 13,188
On a design level, it's like From Software fell in love with the whole 'Prepare To Die' philosophy.
They've gone overboard. From not distributing good gear on a first playthrough until very late, taking away enemy respawns unless you do something special and annoying to reset the zone, enemies that stack on each other while they spam attacks and don't hit each other but can be hit by other environmental elements (poison spitters, chariots, etc.), boss souls trading for weapons that are shitty unless you level stats you wouldn't normally bother with when you could be using those souls to boost levels, environmentally annoying shit like poison spitters, curse jars, and unnecessary flaming puddles in constrictive boss zones when the boss absolutely doesn't need them, the whole human effigy system of diminished returns on HP and NPCs like Manscorpion Tark that you want to interact with but can't unless you buy certain items that all but require walkthroughs to know to purchase beforehand, I've had it up to here with this game.
I expect these games to be challenging. But this game is fucking annoying. There are a ton of annoying, tedious game elements that limit the player and prohibit them from doing things without going through WAAAAY more trouble than they're worth in most cases. My best weapon is the Heide Knight Sword +5. I got that weapon 20 hours ago. If I want anything better, this game makes me jump through 40 times the flaming hoops the last one did.
What is good about this game is buried by all the annoying shit that makes it not fun to progress through. It's not even that it's a chore. It's that an irritating chore to play this game. They shit the bed so much here.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2004
- Posts
- 9,940
I think we are in agreement here.
And don't even get me started on the amount of content that is completely restricted to online PvP; shitty, laggy, online play with emotionally stunted manbaby fuckwaffles in a race to get 500 fucking kills for Wrath of the gods in one covenant and hundreds of other fights for some other shit in other covenants.
Who has that kind of free time? Nobody should: life is too short!
The fact that you simply MUST drive some enemies to extinction pretty much says it all, doesn't it?
It isn't so much a feature as it is an excuse for shitty enemy placement/distribution.
The previous skills you learned (like stat distribution, weakness exploitation and utilizing the game worlds topography has taken a back seat to just grinding away mobs with the most OP shit you can find....such a strangely "american" approach that was thankfully lacking in the previous game.
So many bad things from demons souls carried over in this game...like an imbalance in classes.
With Demons Souls in NG++++ there was only one way to fight a boss: get behind him and firestorm that shit down!
Dark Souls did away with that, and now here we are again: dropping most bosses (even the last boss!) with 4-5 soul geysers.
My first dex build playthrough rendered entirely pointless as an exercise in futility.
Don't bother learning anything or timing a parry (which they also fucked up as well)....just get a soul vessel and dump 64 points into magic ASAP, break the game off your knee and be done with it.
Also,
It looks like From has finally reached the bottom of what turned out to be a somewhat shallow well of creativity with their bosses and level design.
Squishy dragon rider with halberd, 2 dragon riders at the same time, another huge spider, dragons, jabba the hut, 3 cheapass suits of armor attacking you at the same time, ornstein(again)...it all felt so stale.
In DS1 bosses were hard but fair, in DS2 the gargoyle fight is just trash unless you use magic, lost sinner on NG+ is almost impossible without summoning and ranged magic. Honestly, that fight is absolute garbage.
It's almost like they said "fuck it, just add soul vessels and limit the enemies so the player can work around our fuckups".
Deaths in DS1 presented you with opportunities to improve and adapt, while the only thing you learn from your deaths in DS2 is what a huge waste of time DS2 is.
And don't even get me started on the amount of content that is completely restricted to online PvP; shitty, laggy, online play with emotionally stunted manbaby fuckwaffles in a race to get 500 fucking kills for Wrath of the gods in one covenant and hundreds of other fights for some other shit in other covenants.
Who has that kind of free time? Nobody should: life is too short!
The fact that you simply MUST drive some enemies to extinction pretty much says it all, doesn't it?
It isn't so much a feature as it is an excuse for shitty enemy placement/distribution.
The previous skills you learned (like stat distribution, weakness exploitation and utilizing the game worlds topography has taken a back seat to just grinding away mobs with the most OP shit you can find....such a strangely "american" approach that was thankfully lacking in the previous game.
So many bad things from demons souls carried over in this game...like an imbalance in classes.
With Demons Souls in NG++++ there was only one way to fight a boss: get behind him and firestorm that shit down!
Dark Souls did away with that, and now here we are again: dropping most bosses (even the last boss!) with 4-5 soul geysers.
My first dex build playthrough rendered entirely pointless as an exercise in futility.
Don't bother learning anything or timing a parry (which they also fucked up as well)....just get a soul vessel and dump 64 points into magic ASAP, break the game off your knee and be done with it.
Also,
It looks like From has finally reached the bottom of what turned out to be a somewhat shallow well of creativity with their bosses and level design.
Squishy dragon rider with halberd, 2 dragon riders at the same time, another huge spider, dragons, jabba the hut, 3 cheapass suits of armor attacking you at the same time, ornstein(again)...it all felt so stale.
In DS1 bosses were hard but fair, in DS2 the gargoyle fight is just trash unless you use magic, lost sinner on NG+ is almost impossible without summoning and ranged magic. Honestly, that fight is absolute garbage.
It's almost like they said "fuck it, just add soul vessels and limit the enemies so the player can work around our fuckups".
Deaths in DS1 presented you with opportunities to improve and adapt, while the only thing you learn from your deaths in DS2 is what a huge waste of time DS2 is.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2000
- Posts
- 13,188
Dude, this is gospel truth.
The game just doesn't want to give you the opportunity to learn or even spend time getting stronger. Kept dying? Well, rather than making it easier by giving you the opportunity to get stronger by grinding, we're going to make it easier by TAKING AWAY THOSE ENEMIES THAT KEEP KILLING YOU!
Except that it only really makes the game harder because now you aren't nearly leveled up for the next part of the game.
There are two things they could do to fix this shitty mess and make it marginally tolerable.
1.) Infinite respawn at Bonfires. Why the fuck would they change this? It's one of the truly great things about the first game.
2.) The Human Effigy diminished returns system. It is horrible.
I could deal with everything else, but these two changes are inexcusable.
Also, i totally agree with everything else you said.
They ruined the Parry system. It's really bad now.
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2004
- Posts
- 9,940
In this game finite respawns are a good thing. TRUST ME.
If you can even stand this game up until lost sinner NG you'd know exactly what I'm talking about.
The problems run too deep to be corrected with something like infinite bonfire spawns.
As for me I think I'm getting pretty worn and sick of gaming....gonna spend more of my time at the gym, learning a new language, and learning to model and render 3d objects for a personal project of mine.
If you can even stand this game up until lost sinner NG you'd know exactly what I'm talking about.
The problems run too deep to be corrected with something like infinite bonfire spawns.
As for me I think I'm getting pretty worn and sick of gaming....gonna spend more of my time at the gym, learning a new language, and learning to model and render 3d objects for a personal project of mine.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2000
- Posts
- 13,188
Will have to respectfully disagree with you on this count, but it doesn't really matter because no way in fucking hell I'm NG+ing this bitch.
I probably won't even finish it right now. Wasting too much time hating it when I should be playing games I might enjoy more.
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2004
- Posts
- 9,940
Accept it as a casual experience and make your peace with it....there's no denying the hard work they put into stages like majula, vendricks castle, dragon aerie, and aldias manor, etc....all of them are very interesting and beautifully designed locales.
Just skim the surface of the game with its cool items, spells, stages, etc and you'll be fine. Dig too deep and you'll find a lot of shit though.
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2013
- Posts
- 840
To be fair, you can buy those spells on NG++.
Agreed either way you look at it. 500 PvP matches is insane and the game isn't good enough to compel me to play through most of NG++.
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2002
- Posts
- 46,757
The spells just become available from an existing vendor in NG++?
What item is up in the tree in the Girl Scorpion battle? I didn't get it - the girl scorpion has to break the tree? I didn't notice it in the fight because I was...fighting the boss, lol.
What item is up in the tree in the Girl Scorpion battle? I didn't get it - the girl scorpion has to break the tree? I didn't notice it in the fight because I was...fighting the boss, lol.
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2004
- Posts
- 9,940
Flame butterflies (ie: nothing of importance).
genjiglove
So Many Posts
No Time
For Games.
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2003
- Posts
- 15,080
Wow, I've been getting into the first game lately but I don't know if I even want to bother with DS2.
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2004
- Posts
- 9,940
nope.
and even more annoyingly, no equivalent of the dark wood grain ring either. =/
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2004
- Posts
- 9,940
Blacksmith Ornifex.
You rescure her in shaded woods (Scorpioness stage) and she reappears at the bottom of brightstone cove (in the room full of peculiar dolls like the one priscilla had).
