Far East Travelers represent! Bonus points for semi-long hair for that Leon Kennedy swag.
You can get rid of the smile in the character creator though.
DARK SOULS II Announced - [PC/PS3/360 - PR in OP]
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Far East Travelers represent! Bonus points for semi-long hair for that Leon Kennedy swag.
You can get rid of the smile in the character creator though.
Riposte
Member
What you are asking for is a less demanding game because of your arbitrary excusing of certain challenges. Frustration is a not bad thing.
Couldn't agree more and that is what makes this game great. Sure beats 99% of action games today where you run mashing buttons and doing qt events.
It's all strategy. I am playing this now and my character is using a pike and I can't tell you how many times I have missed an attack and got punished for it but you can bet I didn't make the mistake again lol.
I hope they overhaul character creation abit as currently the choices look so bad.
JeTmAn81
Member
That's just it. Running through the area again isn't a challenge, it's simply rote repetition that has to be gotten out of the way before you can pursue the next thing you haven't actually figured out yet (beating the boss). Honestly, if the levels were randomized it would make a lot more sense because then that would be something new to navigate. But no, it's a pointless two minute slog through a bunch of been there, done that. There is literally nothing the player can do to change the state of the game during that time. It's superfluous to the current objective, so why does it exist?
This kind of thing does make more sense earlier in the game, when a new player could use extra chances to practice the combat system. But later in the game it's simply a drag, something to be trudged through as quickly as possible that might as well be performed by a robot. This is the kind of things interactive media gives us the opportunity to eliminate.
And what's more, frustration IS a bad thing. Frustration with the game, that is. Frustration at yourself for being unable to overcome a challenge is your fault, but when the game wastes your time, that's frustrating and it's never a good thing.
Yes.
I spend way to much trying to get my guy to look decent only to find they still look very bad in-game.
They should try to include some decent presets to just to get things going faster.
The challenge is not to run the same area again and again, it's doing the area and defeat the boss in one go, while increasing your effectiveness each time you go through the area which in turn will improve your chances at the boss.
That's the objective, simply defeating the boss isn't. At the point that you can reload at a boss a player might as well keep running for one lucky run and get to the boss with a good amount of Estus flasks without issue. Plus as mentioned the great majority of the boss have a bonfire 1~2 minutes away at worst.
Also this allows you to gain souls, and with some level-headed thoughts you can easily pick the souls you lost, use the item to return to the bonfire and gain a good amount of levels. Redoing the areas is only a waste of time if the player is hasty and decides to focus just on killing the boss instead of strategically retire at times to gain levels.
Games don't all have to be about instant gratification, redoing the (often short) areas serves not simply as a punishment but as an opportunity for self improvement and to decide on priorities.
Phonomezer
Banned
Yes.
I spend way to much trying to get my guy to look decent only to find they still look very bad in-game.
They should try to include some decent presets to just to get things going faster.
WHy bother, you see your face about zero percent of the time.
It's just bad design to him. Finishing the level and boss in one go.
Game also gets more difficult every time to use the bond fire. I believe this also happens when being defeated.
Like I mentioned before, it doesn't even matter if you finished the level before. You can still get killed very easily by trying to rush through. This is an important thing to note when considering the overall goal of the game.
The role-player in me simply will not let me play without being satisfied with the look of my guy.
Phonomezer
Banned
Hmm true. I was like that with my second character, was annoyed when the first helmet I got covered my face completely, lol.
I played Demon's Souls on the PS3. I played Dark Souls on the 360. I'd be willing to try Dark Souls II on the Wii U.
And I disagree and was explaining why.
I don't recall the game getting harder after using the Bonfire and I never heard of it. Any link to that?
And trying to rush it (and I did that myself quite a few times) is the wrong way of approaching things, it falls under improving your strategy, if you're rushing and getting yourself killed that's your own fault.
With that said in 10 attempts it might work once, and with an option to reload bosses once is enough, there is simply little motivation for the players to improve themselves if they can just keep blindly rushing at it until it works once and you can simply stay around and reload the boss after.
Since there's a PC version there's a chance you might just be able to swap textures yourself after mods!
Its easy to miss if you wear armor
Ha, that's nothing, check any male characters. Specially the place where you should have your heart. Protip: It isn't pretty.
SJRB
Gold Member
I never saw my character's face again after equipping the first helmet.
Anyway, it's a damn shame the image on the DSII website is so small, I could totally use a Dark Souls II wallpaper. The Edge cover is awesome too.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Which can literally mean anything.
The fur screams Skyrim to me.
Its Eddard Stark with a helmet lol
Then spend your valuable, valuable time on something easy. Please. I'd rather they not screw up the game I like to sell it to people who have no interest in it.
Lucent
Member
Yeah it depends on how they allocate the points. My Macroeconomics teacher decided to have our grade be entirely made up by 4 tests that are 100 points each and a paper that's 300 points. If you somehow screwed up that paper...
But yeah it just all depends.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
No its not conflating, when its the developers that generally dont seem to understand the difference between the two.
The series is a personality test.
Doesnt need all the handholding garbage that most other titles have these days.
Imagine a personality test if it explained every single question to the taker.
That is the reason why people are worried and rightfully so.
But since games don't have to set you back any further than the beginning of the boss fight, apparently they shouldn't be allowed to. We all know it's more important for game designers to avoid displeasing the focus groups than for them to stick to their principles and make the game they want to make. The customer is always right!
Everytime I see complaints like this I get reminded of this picture.
I guess after Skyrim you can replace Kotick with Todd Howard and Bethesda.
evilromero
Member
Why would I want to simulate an experience where my environment changes each time I go out? Tell me when in my life I might encounter such a thing and why it would be necessary in a game that is simulating a brutal fantasy world? You think an element of randomized environments would make it better but really that's just cheap level design. The world in DS is fantastic. It's beautiful, mysterious and engrossing. The environment is meant to be traversed multiple times. It allows the player to make a deeper connection to everything, which adds another layer of emotion and meaning. I don't want it any other way. There are plenty of games out there for you that cater to what you're describing. DS is not that game.
And ours isn't? The Souls games provide a refreshing, moody challenge in a sea of generic thrill-a-minute fail-safe borefests. They're like the anti-Prince of Persia (2008)
I can't stand the Monster Hunter games. Him being apart of that series is bad news for me.
Well he is not going to up and change it into Monster Hunter.
Sir Ilpalazzo
Member
Tomohiro Shibuya didn't direct any Monster Hunter games. He was a head graphic designer, or at least that's what MobyGames says.
victreeb3l
Member
i would love to get into this series but i dont think im hardcore enough to play through this. the best gamers i know have gotten their asses kicked repeatedly. i just love how its a very dark fantasy setting. very oppressive atmosphere and kinda horror-ish too, which is different from the lush and colorful blizzard fantasy stuff. i hear this one will be a little more friendlier? thatd be great. i loved the trailer for this.
This may be me just speaking in hindsight but the game wasn't THAT hard was it? The only parts of the game I remember being downright sadistic were the Tomb of Giants and that FUCKING WELL in the Painted World. Ornstein and Smough as well, if you go at it solo and getting cursed sounds like it sucked (it never happened to me). After beating it once, getting to Anor Londo is pretty easy even on a new game, especially since you can skip all of the Depths and most of Blighttown.
Riposte
Member
I wouldn't mind if he looked to Monster Hunter as inspiration in the area of character progression.
It's not just you. The discovery, learning how to play, learning all the various enemy types and their movesets, learning how to get a good weapon, that is the game. The difficulty comes from the knowledge base you need to succeed in the game. It doesn't come from the technical skill required, which is honestly not very much.
So tie all character progression to killing monsters and crafting and remove all need for exploration? I don't think so.
Yes, it's not that hard, but it's still a lot of fun, and trying new equipment and builds has kept me playing it for about 300 hours by now. I may not discover new things, though I do find some stuff on occasion, but that core combat is so perfect and so much fun, I can play it forever.
Riposte
Member
Before I comment on your interpretation of what I said, what is the current need of exploration?
Not original poster, but finding loot, shortcuts, hidden paths, secrets in general, I'd imagine,
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Monster has no real progression. Since its not character based, but equipment.
When one says character based it usually refers to things like level / stats.
JeTmAn81
Member
I don't mean it would be a better game, just that requiring you to rerun the level makes more sense if there is a new challenge each time. As it is the levels are like intricately designed puzzles and figuring out a successful path is great fun. But rerunning it over and over is liking having to solve the same puzzle when you've already figured out the solution.
Do you mean you want to get rid of SL entirely?
I like the mix of equipment and SL progression, particularly the unique equipment. Rather then just equipment.
Riposte
Member
They both are ultimately the same thing: persistent stat/strength adjustment relative to the environment. Perks, gear, levels, mech parts, unlocked techniques, etc.
What makes Monster Hunter excellent is that character progression is kept in check by monster progression. (Btw, I don't mean to glorify the grinding aspect of MH which appears eventually with low drop rates of whatever crafting material. I don't want to see Soul bosses as indefinitely repeatable.)
Ah, so if this is what he meant, then only the first would be really relevant: loot. I don't necessarily mean to destroy loot (and in Souls games loot comes in more forms than equipment). However it would be a fun thought exercise to change every piece of loot into a meaningful encounter.
I don't like how SL works, but it doesn't need to go away entirely to fix what I don't like about it.
Lucent
Member
Yeah I agree with you though. They need to stick to what the game is about. If they fix things that aren't really broken, they're hurting the game. If they did that every game would be the same. And then I'd die.
Jake Tower
Banned
I'm thinking there needs to be easier to manage co-op so us 'hardcore' players can go in and hand hold guys like you to at least show you it isn't as hard as rumor makes it.
I'm thinking there needs to be easier to manage co-op so us 'hardcore' players can go in and hand hold guys like you to at least show you it isn't as hard as rumor makes it.
Yep. Easier co-op is my number one. I've had friends scared away who eventually tried it and didn't find it so bad. If someone considers themselves a fairly involved gamer and has trouble, they are probably just giving it the wrong approach. I believe just about anyone could get to learn the systems and get through with minimal frustrations, outside a few trickier parts of course.
victreeb3l
Member
I'm thinking there needs to be easier to manage co-op so us 'hardcore' players can go in and hand hold guys like you to at least show you it isn't as hard as rumor makes it.
lol i would be so for that. ill put DS1 on my gamefly queue and see how i stack up. maybe it isnt as brutal as i imagine it to be
...hopefully
It's easy to get frustrated early on even, since it's possible to go the wrong way at the start, and quite a few people end up going 'holy shit, why is this so hard so early on?' but when you find out the right way to go and such it's not bad. Speaking to NPCs multiple times is a good way to find out helpful info.
Jake Tower
Banned
The other thing that could be done to make DS2 more 'accessible' is to allow NPC dialog to repeat, or have selectable topics, or a journal, or something.
So many players claim to not know where to go at the beginning, but the Crestfallen Warrior at Firelink Shrine literally tells you exactly where to go and what to do. Once. If you speak to him again, you just get his generic greeting. You have to pay attention and remember it. So maybe 'dumb it down' so NPC advice/directions aren't as easy to miss through inattention.
Yes, this is the difference between accessibility and difficulty. It doesn't ruin anyone's game to have NPCs provide this information more readily, but it totally helps people out. Them repeating valuable information in some way or another would certainly help.
TheBryanJZX90
Member
Dark Souls respects your time more than any other game. In something like Call of Duty or Halo 4 you can consistently be horrible at the game, have a k/d under 1, but the game still rewards you with progress bars and increasing numbers and meaningless unlockables. The game is artificially giving you a sense of progression, giving you a gold star and saying "good job" even though you cost your team the match. You're just trading your time for a "level up" that has nothing to do with your actual skills. Dark Souls, if you're paying attention, is constantly teaching you to be a better player. In exchange for your time you are the one actually getting better at the game, getting stronger, not your avatar. That seems like a much more meaningful use of my time than some random level up.
You do die frequently if not careful but it's not as hard as some people are making it to be, especially if you compare it to other hard games, not to mention it's still an rpg so levels can still make the game easier if you want, and the game is slower than typical action games and bosses' AI patterns are pretty static, and you generally fight them one on one, so you'll find the hardest bosses to be the ones that come in pairs, but there aren't a whole lot of those.
The game is pretty methodical so once you get familiar with a map and enemy attack patterns it gets easier.
Not to mention summoning someone will make just about any boss a joke, assuming at least 1 person is competent enough.
If they do make co-op easier in Dark Souls 2, it would be nice if bosses were adjusted for it, and had some kind of capabilities of fighting 2 or more players at once. As it stands now, any single boss in Dark Souls basically just picks a target and is way more open to attack when there are two players.
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