Author Topic: Dark Souls  (Read 21779 times)

Offline Raineh Daze

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Dark Souls
« on: March 29, 2016, 07:44:14 PM »
http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=16461.msg303376#msg303376

I honestly didn't like the Looking Glass Knight. It's... well, let's face it: by this point you've fought the Pursuer (too many times in SotFS since it won't go away), the Dragonrider, more Dragonriders, Ruin Sentinels... it's hard to get excited for another knight boss. Particularly when the quality of summoned invaders (and the return of DSII's annoying habit of having so many enemies involved in everything) varies so much.

I think the person summoned when I fought lasted all of about ten seconds as I threw lightning at him.

Anyway, what confuses me about Sinh: why buff those defences? He was already a hard boss, made harder with the flight and toxic. More than double the HP and resistance against the one thing that should have been a weakness was idiocy.

Offline Kuroimaken

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #1 on: March 29, 2016, 07:59:55 PM »
The simple answer? It wasn't Miyazaki behind it.  :p
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Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #2 on: March 29, 2016, 08:04:54 PM »
The simple answer? It wasn't Miyazaki behind it.  :p

That's the 'how'. What I want is the 'why did the replacement director think this was a good idea'. :P

Offline Kuroimaken

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #3 on: March 29, 2016, 08:19:14 PM »
Because he also thought rehashing DkS1 bosses and assets was a good idea.  :p
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Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #4 on: April 01, 2016, 05:55:50 PM »
AHAHAHAHAH, FUCK YOU, RAIME. I WIN.

Even if I ended up stripping naked to do it.



Definitely improved the fights in the DLC... well, aside from Sinh. The humanity cost made that such a pain, though.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2016, 05:57:57 PM by Raineh Daze »

Offline Nunkuruji

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #5 on: April 05, 2016, 03:38:03 PM »
LGK is only really interesting when considering the multiplayer summons, just as per DeS Old Monk.

Sinh... like all the dragon bosses, very easy to kill with a bow, first encounter with him was NG++.

M. definitely gets props for the atmosphere of design, but BB's multiplayer, covenants, and chalice dungeons were such a disappointment.

For what DS2 lacks in the atmosphere of design, makes up for in currently being the best designed in terms of combat mechanics and multiplayer.

Hopefully DS3 will surpass all its predecessors in all aspects.

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #6 on: April 05, 2016, 03:52:50 PM »
Quote
Sinh... like all the dragon bosses, very easy to kill with a bow, first encounter with him was NG++.

"Things I don't have maxed when doing a Faith build in NG, with this as the first DLC I do". :P

I also tried to avoid changing playstyle for any bosses. Ended up doing it for the Fume Knight only, so... two-handed sword for everyone.

---

They managed to screw up half of DSII's multiplayer anyway. The ranks for Brotherhood of Blood and Blue Sentinels are inflated to ridiculous levels, Blue Sentinels' summoning being reliant on other people being close enough in soul memory, never joining another covenant, being invaded, and your wearing a particular ring...

And the only infinite source of Cracked Red Eye Orbs is... a duel arena. Which has no form of level matching. Good job, that...

Offline Nunkuruji

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #7 on: April 07, 2016, 01:25:18 PM »
The DLC content was designed to be harder than post-game, and expects you to be that well equipped.

Even as a faith build, you should be able to manage a lightning infused bow to get faith scaling, though I'm not sure how much better that would play out against Sinh's resists. The arrows themselves could be another element.

BoB and Sentinel ranks were indeed a grind.
CREOs could be PvE farmed from torturers.
Soul Memory was a colossal failure that they at least halfway addressed with the Agape Ring.
Arena was changed to be level matched.

Still far far far superior multiplayer experience than Bloodborne. M. fucked that all up imho.


Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #8 on: April 07, 2016, 01:33:47 PM »
The DLC content was designed to be harder than post-game, and expects you to be that well equipped.

Even as a faith build, you should be able to manage a lightning infused bow to get faith scaling, though I'm not sure how much better that would play out against Sinh's resists. The arrows themselves could be another element.

Yeah, it was harder, but given that even by the end of the game I hadn't gained the upgrade materials required to have maxed that along with the things I was actually making use of, I'm not sure how that addresses my point. Unless I'm supposed to go with crappy equipment until I got the stuff I wanted that takes twinkling titanite/don't upgrade anything but weapons...

Quote
BoB and Sentinel ranks were indeed a grind.
CREOs could be PvE farmed from torturers.

I can't even seem to find a definitive answer for how BoB ranks even work. It's annoying.

And exactly how well does this game handle grinding against enemies? Particularly in an area that does not contain bonfire ascetics?

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Soul Memory was a colossal failure that they at least halfway addressed with the Agape Ring.

Only the part of it that meant you could prevent outlevelling in PvP. So the least important flaw with it.

Quote
Still far far far superior multiplayer experience than Bloodborne. M. fucked that all up imho.

Never played it, and of course 'there's worse' doesn't excuse the inanity here.

Offline Nunkuruji

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #9 on: April 07, 2016, 02:37:29 PM »
There were a few areas that were easily farmable with Bonfire Ascetics for materials. Dragon Shrine and one or two of the Sanctum areas.

In BoB every win is +1 towards your rank, every loss is -1 to your rank. Thus you must have a positive W/L ratio to rank up. The setback is brutal, and is basically why there is a lot of venom towards try hard arena noob setups that try to get easy wins through cheesy tactics.

To prevent enemies from despawning, you join the Covenant of Champions in Majula. Enemies can then be farmed indefinitely without bonfire ascetics.

The series comparison is made, as the spirit of the series is really at its 5th iteration with DeS, DS1, DS2, BB, DS3. They shouldn't be making backwards design decisions by the time of the 4th (BB), so I will complain :)

Soul Memory was bad for everyone, except people who understand how to abuse it (like me). It was intended to protect low level players from being invaded by twink players. However, the two terrible side effects were actually making it worse for unskilled players who lost or wasted a lot of souls on deaths or bad decisions, and ruining matching for end game players who didn't necessarily want to level up without end. It has been well established and well known that there's an end game meta level that people revolve around for co-op and pvp matchmaking. Agape ring kind of fixed this, but it was still a late and bitter solution.


Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #10 on: April 07, 2016, 02:56:30 PM »
Pretty certain there was nerfing towards farming the sanctum for materials. Don't know about Dragon Aerie, though, but I know the Sanctum was nerfed (also that having to spam bonfire ascetics to max upgrade a weapon in the area before the boss that I need the weapon for is not good)

I met a guy with a lightning halberd in the bridge arena earlier. I rather imagine that counts.

Quote
To prevent enemies from despawning, you join the Covenant of Champions in Majula. Enemies can then be farmed indefinitely without bonfire ascetics.

Which of course has its own downsides. Everything and its mother having unreasonable health and defence on NG difficulty. Heaven help you if you actually burned an ascetic somewhere you want to farm before that. Consumables dropping from despawning enemies is... poor design in all regards.

Quote
The series comparison is made, as the spirit of the series is really at its 5th iteration with DeS, DS1, DS2, BB, DS3. They shouldn't be making backwards design decisions by the time of the 4th (BB), so I will complain :)

Right... and I said I haven't played it, and its flaws in no way justify DSII's flaws. And though it's the same general series, it's not the exact same game, so more radical changes are to be expected.

Quote
Soul Memory was bad for everyone, except people who understand how to abuse it (like me). It was intended to protect low level players from being invaded by twink players. However, the two terrible side effects were actually making it worse for unskilled players who lost or wasted a lot of souls on deaths or bad decisions, and ruining matching for end game players who didn't necessarily want to level up without end. It has been well established and well known that there's an end game meta level that people revolve around for co-op and pvp matchmaking. Agape ring kind of fixed this, but it was still a late and bitter solution.

Which means that it completely failed to do anything it was meant to do. Then the part that got fixed was the part with the least actual problems.

Offline Kuroimaken

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #11 on: April 07, 2016, 04:28:51 PM »
Huh. I played Bloodborne for a pretty good while and honestly have no complaints about its multiplayer mechanics...
Kami darou ga akuma darou ga, ore no michi ni tateru mono NASHI!!

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Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #12 on: April 07, 2016, 04:49:54 PM »
Huh. I played Bloodborne for a pretty good while and honestly have no complaints about its multiplayer mechanics...

I think a friend of mine mostly called them odd.

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #13 on: April 11, 2016, 09:13:12 PM »
I'm enjoying three so far.

Offline Risada

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #14 on: April 16, 2016, 10:25:46 PM »
I'm enjoying three so far.

Got mine yesterday. Will play it seriously tomorrow.

A pity magic was nerfed beyond usage. Only pyromancy can hold its own mid-late game.

But this will not stand between me and the Moonlight Greatsword. Those weapon arts are nice.


Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #15 on: April 16, 2016, 10:33:05 PM »
I'm enjoying three so far.

Got mine yesterday. Will play it seriously tomorrow.

A pity magic was nerfed beyond usage. Only pyromancy can hold its own mid-late game.

But this will not stand between me and the Moonlight Greatsword. Those weapon arts are nice.



Magic is a coward's choice. :p

And now I go back to dying repeatedly and wondering why I get summoned as a Blue Sentinel so fucking much. xD

Offline ketaro

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #16 on: April 17, 2016, 12:22:58 AM »
Like gosh the Farron Greatsword you can make from the Abyss Watchers' soul, it's L1 attack sequence is the most beautiful thing :D

That boss is also an awesome fight, even moreso when you can stand back and watch them kill themselves  :lmao

Offline Kuroimaken

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #17 on: April 17, 2016, 11:14:23 PM »
FUCK YEAH! TAKE THAT WOLNIR, YOU CHEATING MOTHERFUCKER!

Fun fact: I dealt the killing blow to that asshole ALMOST at the same time as they cast the final vote to impeach our current president.

(OK, there's still one more voting session to go, but.)
Kami darou ga akuma darou ga, ore no michi ni tateru mono NASHI!!

Give me internets. Now.

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #18 on: April 17, 2016, 11:21:40 PM »
FUCK YEAH! TAKE THAT WOLNIR, YOU CHEATING MOTHERFUCKER!

Fun fact: I dealt the killing blow to that asshole ALMOST at the same time as they cast the final vote to impeach our current president.

(OK, there's still one more voting session to go, but.)

It gets worse.

The absolute hardest part of Wolnir is realising what the fuck you need to do--then trying to get his right arm. xD

Offline Nunkuruji

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Re: Dark Souls
« Reply #19 on: April 18, 2016, 09:00:30 AM »
lol, he was no problem. Weak point was pretty obvious. Might have been harder if his attacks didn't hit the summons.

Funny thing is, I almost missed picking up the tome because I didn't fall for the spook trap. Pulled out a torch, which lets you see him at a distance, and shot him in the face to kick things off.

I've been using the Scythe since I found it. Wrecked Abyss Watchers with roll catches, wrecked Deacons with running sweeps, and again multiple weak point hits on the right hand with sweeps. Love this weapon.