Author Topic: Dark Souls  (Read 21783 times)

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #40 on: May 09, 2016, 05:56:34 AM »
And get a simple infusion on anything else, and you can spam it at full power because you only need 1 FP for Weapon Arts.

Offline Risada

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #41 on: May 09, 2016, 08:26:34 AM »
*rocking a Dragonslayer's Greataxe +5 in spite of usually disdaining heavy weapons*
*massacres his way through all the early game bosses that frustrated him so much with L2 attack*

WEAPON ARTS ARE USELESS THEY SAID

WASTE OF FP THEY SAID

EAT LIGHTNING EXPLOSION, BITCHES!

And don't forget Farron Ring for a small reduction in the arts's FP cost.

Weapon Arts are awesome.

*looks at Wolf Knight's Greatsword with glittering eyes*

Offline Kuroimaken

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #42 on: May 09, 2016, 12:39:55 PM »
And get a simple infusion on anything else, and you can spam it at full power because you only need 1 FP for Weapon Arts.

My backup off-hand is a Simple Cestus.

For parrying.
Kami darou ga akuma darou ga, ore no michi ni tateru mono NASHI!!

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Offline Nunkuruji

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #43 on: May 09, 2016, 02:26:36 PM »
Btw, any of you guys on PC/Steam? I need some (save scum) trade partners  :smirk

Look me up, same name

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #44 on: May 09, 2016, 02:42:40 PM »
I don't trust the sound of that. :P

Offline Risada

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #45 on: May 09, 2016, 02:46:47 PM »
I don't trust the sound of that. :P

Sadly I have to agree.

Dark Souls on PC is bound to attract all sorts of hackers...

Offline Nunkuruji

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #46 on: May 09, 2016, 03:49:52 PM »
You just backup the save prior to making a trade, and do it in a 2-step process, so there isn't so much of a trade as there is a copy.
Save backup/restore is even encouraged by Namco.
This is the 'legitimate' way to avoid wasting hours flipping bits on a counter, while avoiding using actual cheat/hacks - not my cup of tea.


Offline Risada

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #47 on: May 09, 2016, 03:57:06 PM »
You just backup the save prior to making a trade, and do it in a 2-step process, so there isn't so much of a trade as there is a copy.
Save backup/restore is even encouraged by Namco.
This is the 'legitimate' way to avoid wasting hours flipping bits on a counter, while avoiding using actual cheat/hacks - not my cup of tea.

I am aware of that - I do that on the PS4 for other games.

By hacking I mean real hacking - infinite poise/health/stamina, insta proc on bleed, etc...

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #48 on: May 09, 2016, 04:06:26 PM »
I'm not even sure what you need partners for, though. xD

Offline Risada

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #49 on: May 09, 2016, 04:13:14 PM »
I'm not even sure what you need partners for, though. xD

Nunkuruji wants to dupe items on PC, basically. One will hold the items while the other backups their save and gives the first all items.

This is how you make a megamule, BTW.

Offline Nunkuruji

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #50 on: May 09, 2016, 04:39:27 PM »
Yeah, can basically dupe into a mule, but it's mostly OCD, and I want to have a fairly complete NG0 save for when the DLC comes out.
Biggest general benefit is being able to bootstrap friends new starting classes, avoiding tedious consumable farm, and the fact that slabs can't be farmed in this one :shakefist.
At this point I've collected all but a few mutually exclusive items, and the NG++ items.
There's just a few things I want to collect before starting the next cycle.

I think megamule more accurately refers to particular edited save files to have maximum of everything. I think some of those even had edited stat values, like more HP than actually possible, and even weapons with impossible upgrade values  :-\

Offline Risada

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #51 on: May 09, 2016, 04:42:21 PM »
Yeah, can basically dupe into a mule, but it's mostly OCD, and I want to have a fairly complete NG0 save for when the DLC comes out.
Biggest general benefit is being able to bootstrap friends new starting classes, avoiding tedious consumable farm, and the fact that slabs can't be farmed in this one :shakefist.
At this point I've collected all but a few mutually exclusive items, and the NG++ items.
There's just a few things I want to collect before starting the next cycle.

I think megamule more accurately refers to particular edited save files to have maximum of everything. I think some of those even had edited stat values, like more HP than actually possible, and even weapons with impossible upgrade values  :-\

So mule it is.

And while I agree on having a save "DLC ready", I don't know if I played on PC if I would mule my way through... I am feeling kinda lazy, lately...

Offline Nunkuruji

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #52 on: May 09, 2016, 06:47:28 PM »
The act of muling in DS is typically used to build pvp characters well after you've already completed the game. It just gets tedious hunting everything down again.

The problem when the DLC is launched, is that if I'm already in NG++++X, the DLC becomes brutally hard. This was the case for me previously, as my characters were well aged and progressed. They've had a pattern of making the DLC difficulty very hard in comparison, and it was frustrating as hell running them for the first time so deep into NG+.

Thus, I'd like to have a NG0 checkpoint to roll back to, without much care that I've lost much of anything.

I certainly wouldn't spoil the game running a mule in a first run. I actually finished DS3 at just SL30. 20 Vig, 25ish Dex Warrior using Scythe. Enough of a challenge without getting OHKO'd constantly.


Anyhow, back to the point. If you're looking for a hookup of a particular weapon or what not, look me up.


Offline Kethrian

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #53 on: May 17, 2016, 12:28:13 PM »
You'll wanna use the Late Pledge button on the page for this one.  Dark Souls - The Board Game!
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Offline PlzBreakMyCampaign

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #54 on: February 18, 2017, 11:33:58 AM »
The best thing DS2 did was at least slow down your movement if you poised an attack, so one could not abuse it for a backstab as per DS1. That's probably all they needed to do to fix the legacy DS1 poise system.
No the problem was with backstabs, not poise. You could use all the poise you wanted in DS1 and never feel any problems. You could also fish for backstabs naked and suddenly realize something's fishy about the backstab system. That's what needed adjusting, not poise.

DS2 was bad. 40% of the game was behind one switch on one tile that looked like a light. Tons of mechanics were broken: no dead NPCs, no ladders, etc I beat the whole thing with 100% slow completionism (50hours) like the dev's imagined and then realized that the light was back there. I didn't have the heart to go through the whole game again. It's like they just threw out the wonderful level design of DS1 "because warpz" and then wondered why people call DS2 the black sheep.

Dark Souls on PC is bound to attract all sorts of hackers...
"Hacks" are great. They allow hyper agression, weapon switching, 1 stamina runs, etc.

Cheaters (infinite hp pvp) are not. You can just cap the HP and check for online damage effects while allowing all the great offline (or online) hacks.

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #55 on: February 18, 2017, 04:13:14 PM »
The level design in two was a mess. Walk between places? Congratulations! They've joined up in ways that don't make any damn sense. All sense of scale is totally gone.

Offline Kethrian

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #56 on: February 19, 2017, 03:38:12 AM »
The level design in DS2 was great.  It wasn't like DS1, however, which is why everyone complains about it.  Think about it, every transition path/elevator/tunnel between areas is actually just a fast-forwarded representation of days or possibly weeks of travel time.  We're talking about that huge map in the mansion's basement, where you're traversing the entire kingdom through your journey, lighting primal bonfires at the far edges.  And the DLCs took place in other kingdoms entirely!  Of course when you don't have a level layout where every area intersects every other area you don't have the shortcut porn that DS1 has.  That layout is really just another bit that DS2 took from Demon's Souls (along with hollowing reducing max health, a ring to counter said health loss, consumable healing items, talking to an NPC to level up ... ).

DS1's layout is the one that really made little sense.  Other than obvious jump cuts to distant areas, the main game is one small area probably no more than 1 mile in diameter, because you can literally walk from one side to the other in far less than an hour (ignoring enemies) even though it's a windy path.  I mean, DS1 could fit almost entirely within about a 20 x 20 city block square.  That is much smaller than the game makes you think it is.

DS2 was bad. 40% of the game was behind one switch on one tile that looked like a light. Tons of mechanics were broken: no dead NPCs, no ladders, etc I beat the whole thing with 100% slow completionism (50hours) like the dev's imagined and then realized that the death->broken right was back there. I didn't have the hear to go through the whole game again. It's like they just threw out the wonderful level design of DS1 "because warpz" and then wondered why people call DS2 the black sheep.

I'm going to have to disagree with you.  NPCs could indeed die (and if you mean hollowed NPCs, no there weren't 'stories' for the NPCs where you help them and they hollow out on you, but that's fine, it shouldn't be trying to copy the first game in every detail), there were lots of ladders (you could buy some from an NPC!).  Powerstance actually worked to make dual wielding actually good!  The paths branched out and could be tackled in several different orders, though they did put some blockers in place to actually keep people from losing track of all the available path options.  Because the land is huge and sprawling, bonfires are all teleportation points, simply to save you time, otherwise everyone would be bitching about how far you have to keep backtracking.  The ability to speed climb ladders, as well as the ability to slide down or just drop off were great additions.  The ability to roll in more directions, especially while locked on, was a huge improvement.

Yes, it definitely has some weaknesses.  Fall damage was worsened when it should not have been.  There should have been more bosses and enemy types that weren't humanoid.  Dex weapons were nerfed a little too much.  You can't make a proper left-handed character (DS1 is still a far worse offender, however).  Arguably, the DLC bonus areas, which are DESIGNED FOR SUMMONING FRIENDS, absolutely suck to try and solo your way through, but at least you can either just skip them entirely, call in allies (they give you NPC summon signs, just in case), or try to be a badass and attempt to solo.

I guess, ultimately, DS2 is more a spiritual sequel to Demon's Souls than it is a proper sequel to DS1.  And anyone who doesn't like (or never played) Demon's Souls, or vastly prefers DS1 over it, won't like DS2 nearly as much because of that.
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Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #57 on: February 19, 2017, 10:13:31 AM »
The level design wasn't great, and no amount of 'well a kingdom is big' justifies half the WTF going on. Heide's is basically in the middle of an ocean, yet you can walk straight into a cave that leads to a harbour in some sort of cliff face? Walking out of the back of Aldia's house somehow leading to an area far removed from anything else that, by positioning, would be perfectly accessible if not outright on top of the woods or Majula? Or the way to get to the Iron Keep being to ride up an elevator? The Doors of I-can't-remember pretty much marks the most ill-conceived area I've had the misfortune of playing through.

And the size completely works against it, because there doesn't seem to be any rationale for half the areas and their connections to anything else. It doesn't help matters much that the actual gameplay of the levels tends to make playing them frustrating: Iron Keep's SotFS super radar knights (and the "What the fuck" gauntlet in front of Alonne), the damn "spitting poison everywhere" path right after the bit with interesting platforming (which of course has corrosive pots everywhere and ring durability in the game they gave Soul Memory to)...

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I'm going to have to disagree with you.  NPCs could indeed die (and if you mean hollowed NPCs, no there weren't 'stories' for the NPCs where you help them and they hollow out on you, but that's fine, it shouldn't be trying to copy the first game in every detail), there were lots of ladders (you could buy some from an NPC!).  Powerstance actually worked to make dual wielding actually good!  The paths branched out and could be tackled in several different orders, though they did put some blockers in place to actually keep people from losing track of all the available path options.  Because the land is huge and sprawling, bonfires are all teleportation points, simply to save you time, otherwise everyone would be bitching about how far you have to keep backtracking.  The ability to speed climb ladders, as well as the ability to slide down or just drop off were great additions.  The ability to roll in more directions, especially while locked on, was a huge improvement.

Most of my recollection of NPC's is limited to "I hate having to summon you idiots and keep you alive when I want to solo the boss just to progress a story". :T

I didn't get the point of powerstance and thought it just looked stupid. Dual wielding in general isn't implemented in most games in a way that actually makes it remotely interesting and powerstancing is every bit as bad: use any two weapons with generic animations! Be superior to using one weapon because the attacks' wild flailing means more attacks and any dropoff from not two-handing is countered by the worst designed rings in the game!* Not actually a well-implemented version of dual wielding at all. For all its limitations, the double weapons in DSIII stand out more for being unique, I just wish they'd put the damn gold and silver tracers into the game.

And where they improved things, they managed to find something else to go break. The ladder speed running into the fall damage, the estus availability and then the utter mess of ADP, better rolling but the worst parrying out of the three games. Hollowing making you turn green for some completely inscrutable reason. This also being the game where the run animation makes it look like you're trying not to shit yourself is also not a point in its favour...

Some of the petrified guys are in just outright bizarre places in SotFS and there for no other reason than to screw with the player. Straid being frozen when every other person you freeze will immediately attack you is just misleading, but the stone guy blocking the woods, stone guy blocking  getting to the Ruin Sentinels, and the random stone guy before the two trolls in Things Betwixt? Just weird.

*PS: Dex, weaker? With the Ring of Blades, Flynn's Ring, outright attacking faster, being easily doubled up, buffs not scaling, being more easily able to divert points into ADP (no need for END to use heavy equipment) to get better iFrames?

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You can't make a proper left-handed character (DS1 is still a far worse offender, however). 

Majestic Greatsword. Going to Brume Tower as early as I could to get that thing was a pain, and it's probably the only thing I wish they'd kept in DS3 from DS2 that they haven't aside from the blue guy's armour set. If I can go pick up Artorias' sword, let me use it in the left hand GDI.

Offline Kethrian

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #58 on: February 19, 2017, 08:54:40 PM »
If you look at those transitions as literal, of course they don't make sense.  But nobody would want to spend hours in game running between zones just so they could get a more literal definition of the distances between areas.  So abbreviate it down to a 30-second run through a tunnel or an elevator ride that would in reality just be the first 1% of the journey.

I will agree, SotFS really screwed up a ton of enemy positioning that had been better in the original.  Only a couple of those changes actually made sense, like putting the Heide Knights in the Heide's Tower zone, and making the enemies around Straid actually just ignore you now.

If you don't like summoning NPCs for boss fights just to progress their stories, then don't.  I've never had a hard time keeping them alive through the boss fights, myself.  Maybe it's just my playstyle.

Powerstance is very effective in PvE if you practice using it just a little.  Both weapons swing simultaneously and in the same area in front of you so they both hit the majority of the time.  Yes, they could have spent a bit more time doing more animation sets for them, but what they did have at least worked.  I did a run dual-wielding maces, and it was awesome.  Definitely switched over to sun sword and shield whenever I was invaded, however, because that was what I had the best success rate with.

Ladder speed fall damage?  WTF are you talking about?  I've never taken damage from moving on ladders.  And what's wrong with the estus flask?  1-12 uses, depending on how much you improve it, and you have soulgems for backup if you run out.  The only problem is that there may be TOO MUCH healing available.  Adaptability was a bad stat, yeah.  But because you could actually respec in the game (not in DS1!) you could actually test out multiple builds and fix mistakes on where you spent your stats.  Parrying in DS2 had an advantage over DS1 because it was the same timing for both PvE and PvP.  Once you learned the timing in DS2, it was very reliable no matter who you fought, while DS1 had you learn one timing for enemies, and a wholly different one for other players.  That's just fucked up.  Hollowing colours were more corpse-like than the red demon colours in DS1, which I think is what you should look like, a corpse, not a mummified red demon.  Or maybe your colour contrast is just off and it looks super green on your settings?

All those added petrified guys in SotFS was dumb, I will wholeheartedly agree.  Why block progress to more areas and force players down a more linear path?  That did not make sense.  And I mentioned earlier how some of the enemy layout changes were badly designed, or feel totally out of place, and only a few were actual improvements.

Dex is weaker because it scales worse than Str on equivalent weapons.  I tested it out myself.  Sun sword is the best example, because it 'should' have equal scaling in both, but Dex is always 30% weaker.  And that reduced benefit to damage for Dex actually applies to all Dex-based weapons.  The fact that you need rings to bring it back in line shows how much weaker it is.

Artorias' greatsword isn't the solution to the left-handed problem.  For every other weapon in the game, you can't backstab or riposte while playing left-handed, and you do less damage.
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Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #59 on: February 19, 2017, 11:12:47 PM »
You're not dismissing the Earthern Peak thing as "just a journey shortener". That's an elevator going up from a windmill in clear scenery. Heide's? You're in the middle of a damn ocean and... walk forwards into a tunnel that leads to a harbour cave? Go from someone's house to super elevated peaks that would be completely accessible from any of the previous areas unless we start pretending that directions are meaningless? It's not convenience to have a bunch of totally disconnected areas where the whole environment says "these connections cannot possibly make sense".

And it's lazy design. Take Hunstman's Copse -> Earthern Peak -> Iron Keep. Even if these transitions made logical sense, the areas are completely lacking in any sort of thematic design. They're just random areas joined up with no thought for why they should be connected. Some areas have sensible connections (the stuff below Majula, the Lost Bastille and No-Man's Wharf), others... remind me why the Doors of Pharros are remotely connected to Tseldora?

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If you don't like summoning NPCs for boss fights just to progress their stories, then don't.  I've never had a hard time keeping them alive through the boss fights, myself.  Maybe it's just my playstyle.

Because it requires me to summon to get items/story when I want to solo a boss. Siegward in DSIII is pretty similar, only there's actually a reason and good writing behind it. It's obnoxious in DS2.

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Powerstance is very effective in PvE if you practice using it just a little.  Both weapons swing simultaneously and in the same area in front of you so they both hit the majority of the time.  Yes, they could have spent a bit more time doing more animation sets for them, but what they did have at least worked.  I did a run dual-wielding maces, and it was awesome.  Definitely switched over to sun sword and shield whenever I was invaded, however, because that was what I had the best success rate with.

Not saying it's ineffective, I'm saying it makes no sense, looks bad, and doesn't actually contribute.

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Ladder speed fall damage?  WTF are you talking about?  I've never taken damage from moving on ladders.  And what's wrong with the estus flask?  1-12 uses, depending on how much you improve it, and you have soulgems for backup if you run out.  The only problem is that there may be TOO MUCH healing available.  Adaptability was a bad stat, yeah.  But because you could actually respec in the game (not in DS1!) you could actually test out multiple builds and fix mistakes on where you spent your stats.  Parrying in DS2 had an advantage over DS1 because it was the same timing for both PvE and PvP.  Once you learned the timing in DS2, it was very reliable no matter who you fought, while DS1 had you learn one timing for enemies, and a wholly different one for other players.  That's just fucked up.  Hollowing colours were more corpse-like than the red demon colours in DS1, which I think is what you should look like, a corpse, not a mummified red demon.  Or maybe your colour contrast is just off and it looks super green on your settings?

I was contrasting things they improved with things that they made... well, worse. So ladder speed was an improvement, fall damage was worse. Estus flasks have more sensible availability but the ADP and speed thing is bad, along with lifegems. There's a consistent inability in the game to improve on one area without worsening it in some way. Parrying has a weird animation and for some reason knocks people onto their ass, plus the timing for a proper riposte is even tighter for... some reason. The point with parrying is that it was fiddled with and came out looking worse with bad animations. Can't say I notice anything about PvE/PvP timings (if they're the same, something's wrong--ping would interfere) because I'm too used to different weapons needing different timings.

Hollowing is blatantly green:


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Dex is weaker because it scales worse than Str on equivalent weapons.  I tested it out myself.  Sun sword is the best example, because it 'should' have equal scaling in both, but Dex is always 30% weaker.  And that reduced benefit to damage for Dex actually applies to all Dex-based weapons.  The fact that you need rings to bring it back in line shows how much weaker it is.

No, Dex is actually better because DS2 has basically no percentile bonuses. Buffs are a flat value, Ring of Blades is a flat value, Flynn's is a flat value, stat scaling is a flat value (also changes by weapon). But the damage calculation shares things with DSI and DSIII: there's diminishing returns for a higher damage stat over whatever armour is in place. So even if strength scaling is in general better, it doesn't matter, because strength weapons already had higher base damage to begin with and it does less.

What makes dex weapons stronger (ignoring the stat benefits by not needing endurance or poise or anything) is their attack speed. The difference between a STR and DEX weapon in pure damage decreases as you add buffs because of the diminishing returns, so the buffs benefit the weaker weapon more. The weapon with initially inferior damage attacking more often then ends up doing more DPS. On top of more DPS, it takes less stamina to swing, less stats to use with a better roll, and is more likely to complete without being staggered or parried. But then go add powerstance on, and you have two weapons both benefiting from these static modifiers hitting twice at once and being far better than any strength weapon.

But that's not all: each weapon has a fixed poise value (plus the ring that buffs poise damage). What's best to shred poise? Not big weapons, quick weapons, due to that damn ring that can be swapped on if you find an opponent with heavy armour. So the thing that makes slow and heavy weapons viable is countered harder by fast weapons than heavy weapons.

It's the game's maths. Dex is better. Buffed powerstanced katanas are OP. :T

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Artorias' greatsword isn't the solution to the left-handed problem.  For every other weapon in the game, you can't backstab or riposte while playing left-handed, and you do less damage.

Well, I can't see another reason you'd want to wield left-handed? Artorias cosplay is the only rationale I can see for not making the game more complicated than it needs to be by adding in ambidexterity.