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Dark Souls II |OT| The Dark Souls of Dark Souls

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Gazoinks

Member
I'm going to be starting as Warrior or Explorer, I think. I want to be able to try out as much stuff as possible on my first playthrough.
 

SJRB

Gold Member
Got a message that the stream has been flagged for staff review when I opened it. I have no idea if this means it might get yanked soon or what.

It probably will. There's always people who, for whatever salty reason, report a streamer who's playing a game before release date. Those reports end up at Twitch and they'll take the stream down.

Unless of course Namco / FROM have stated it's totally cool, but that's usually not the case.


Loved the firebomb death.

It completely destroyed the framerate though, I thought the game froze up on him. But perhaps it was his capture card messing up.
 
Alright, game is out, can we please get official word on PC version?

Not that I would break if it was so far away. I'm stubborn, more so in the face of adversity like holding the PC version ransom.
 

Kai Dracon

Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
Could any single individual successfully complete Dark Souls (before the Earth is rendered inhabitable by the Sun evolution on the Main Sequence) given the following constraints:
-- PvE gameplay, offline-mode exclusively
-- No access or appeal, whatsoever, to external help in any form (written, oral, online, Divine inspiration, etc.). "External" defined as anything that is not part of the game's standard documentation which ships with the game, or intrinsic to the game's programming, e.g. hints, prompts and help guide.

P.S.: This is not a criticism, per se. Dark Souls happens to be one of the very best games I have ever played.

I'm currently finishing up a playthrough of Dark Souls in preparation for next tuesday. Here's the thing; to a large degree the game is designed around online messages. It's built for players to help one another out through the game - but not necessarily relying on external sources like wikis. Demanding offline mode is a bit akin to insisting honest play only happens when the player cripples themselves by refusing to use a core mechanic the game is built around.

For my playthrough, yes, I can honestly say I played through perhaps the first 70% of the game without looking at an external source. Because time is an issue, I -have- consulted a wiki towards the end with regards to keeping an NPC alive to make life easier, and where to farm one weapon upgrade resource.

Both Demon's and Dark Souls can be pretty much final boss'd by pure soul grinding. On your first playthrough, you will eventually become overleveled if you keep pumping soul levels. I think even without in-game messages, a player could strong-arm their way through the bosses without it requiring more than 100 hours of play. On the other hand, the game is full of complex, nuanced NPC story paths, secrets, and strict requirements for creating many resources like advanced weapons.

But I don't think the game is really much more opaque than a lot of classic PC RPGs that could require multiple playthroughs in order to master their systems and experiment. I kinda suspect we have become gradually conditioned to big games designed to be played through once, gathering all the collectables and whatnot, then shelved. The Souls games are designed much more like an older kind of game, where it was meant to be played many times and gradually understood. Today, that kind of design ethic seems to come across as "impossible to complete" to a lot of people.

Actually, Dark Souls is probably not as imposing as Demon's Souls in this regard; the World Tendency system could be genuinely difficult to figure out.
 

BRKsEDU

Neo Member
I'm currently finishing up a playthrough of Dark Souls in preparation for next tuesday. Here's the thing; to a large degree the game is designed around online messages. It's built for players to help one another out through the game - but not necessarily relying on external sources like wikis. Demanding offline mode is a bit akin to insisting honest play only happens when the player cripples themselves by refusing to use a core mechanic the game is built around.

For my playthrough, yes, I can honestly say I played through perhaps the first 70% of the game without looking at an external source. Because time is an issue, I -have- consulted a wiki towards the end with regards to keeping an NPC alive to make life easier, and where to farm one weapon upgrade resource.

Both Demon's and Dark Souls can be pretty much final boss'd by pure soul grinding. On your first playthrough, you will eventually become overleveled if you keep pumping soul levels. I think even without in-game messages, a player could strong-arm their way through the bosses without it requiring more than 100 hours of play. On the other hand, the game is full of complex, nuanced NPC story paths, secrets, and strict requirements for creating many resources like advanced weapons.

But I don't think the game is really much more opaque than a lot of classic PC RPGs that could require multiple playthroughs in order to master their systems and experiment. I kinda suspect we have become gradually conditioned to big games designed to be played through once, gathering all the collectables and whatnot, then shelved. The Souls games are designed much more like an older kind of game, where it was meant to be played many times and gradually understood. Today, that kind of design ethic seems to come across as "impossible to complete" to a lot of people.

Actually, Dark Souls is probably not as imposing as Demon's Souls in this regard; the World Tendency system could be genuinely difficult to figure out.

The World Tendency system was amazing, I wish they brought it back!!!
 

Gorillaz

Member
@stream watchers, I don't want any details about anything, just tell me this:

Does it seem like a worthy successor to Dark Souls? Y/N

Stopped watching it for a bit because I didn't want to be completely spoiled, this isn't a "spoiler" per say but something about the AI I noticed


I will say this, enemies do feel more aggressive and set up traps more then they did in DS1, most of the traps in DS1 were pretty much where items were or dead ends, where as now they are setting up and plotting shit everywhere
 

SJRB

Gold Member
@stream watchers, I don't want any details about anything, just tell me this:

Does it seem like a worthy successor to Dark Souls? Y/N

Totally. It's pure Dark Souls: encounter a new enemy, die, encounter again, learn, defeat, progress. Rinse and repeat. Learn to adapt to seemingly overwhelming odds and situations by planning and paying attention.

It's very cool, but also a test of patience and the streamer seems to start getting annoyed and I can't really blame him.
 

Kai Dracon

Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
The World Tendency system was amazing, I wish they brought it back!!!

Oh, I am not saying it's bad. I rather liked it. But for new players who don't consult a wiki, it may be hard to figure out why it is happening and what pure black or pure white actually accomplish in-game.
 

UnrealEck

Member
Got a message that the stream has been flagged for staff review when I opened it. I have no idea if this means it might get yanked soon or what.

It means some jelly people flagged his channel so now it doesn't show up in the directory (under whatever game he's playing).
It's meant to go under review for it to be unflagged and put back in the main directory, but Twitch admins only give a crap about popular channels or channels that stream stuff they're not supposed to.
 
Oh, I am not saying it's bad. I rather liked it. But for new players who don't consult a wiki, it may be hard to figure out why it is happening and what pure black or pure white actually accomplish in-game.

Hated it, personally. Obtuse and nonsensical. Would have been better if tendency was effected by actions the player chose to do, as opposed to involuntary stuff that doesn't always make sense. Invade someone? Makes sense to move WT towards black. Die? I don't understand why that moves your WT at all. My opinion, of course. I like the idea of the player's actions effecting the world, but I'd prefer the causes and effects to be more concrete like turning Anor Londo dark.
 

GuardianE

Santa May Claus
I am very excited.

Did they rebalance things after the beta? Is Agility still the best stat in the game, being linked to overall movement speed?
 

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
Hope DSII has a wider selection of maces and warhammers this time around. That weapon type was really lacking in the first one.
True. Same with naginata-type poles. We had the Black Knight Halberd, which was badass but kind of heavy and demanding stat-wise. I liked the war scythe's design a lot in Demon's Souls, it looked pretty much like a naginata, I hope it makes a come back in Dark Souls II.

Definately. I'm interested if whips made it in too, they were pretty useless in DS1 which was a huge shame.
They kind of were, yes, but still fun to use as a lolweapon. It was a shame that they couldn't backstab/riposte. I mean, I get that you can't stab with a whip, but you could do a backstab with a fist, so they could have had some special animation like using the whip to strangle or choke the enemy from behind to serve as critical hit. It would have already made the whip less useless, hah.

I think I saw that whips are back but I'm not sure. I doubt they'd have less variety than DkS1 though, so I'm optimistic.
 
What's the word on how magic works in this game? Is it like Demon's Souls with a MP meter, or like Dark Souls with limited uses?
Same as DS1, but there are consumable items to give more uses.

Also more options like first person aiming (like bows) and R1/R2 different strengths of same spell. Pyro is now tied to Intelligence as part of sorcery (iirc there is a story reason for there separation in DS1)
 

Conezays

Member
Thanks so much for the link to the stream. Only watched a few minutes but I couldn't be more hyped for this. Not sure if I'm going to be able to hold out for PC version...bahhhh, give us a release date already!
 

Kai Dracon

Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
Hated it, personally. Obtuse and nonsensical. Would have been better if tendency was effected by actions the player chose to do, as opposed to involuntary stuff that doesn't always make sense. Invade someone? Makes sense to move WT towards black. Die? I don't understand why that moves your WT at all. My opinion, of course. I like the idea of the player's actions effecting the world, but I'd prefer the causes and effects to be more concrete like turning Anor Londo dark.

I think their logic with death = dark was as the opposite of boss killing = white. You fail in the world, die as a human, and bring more darkness into it.

I like the concept of it but if anything akin to it is used again, it could use better execution.
 
Hated it, personally. Obtuse and nonsensical. Would have been better if tendency was effected by actions the player chose to do, as opposed to involuntary stuff that doesn't always make sense. Invade someone? Makes sense to move WT towards black. Die? I don't understand why that moves your WT at all. My opinion, of course. I like the idea of the player's actions effecting the world, but I'd prefer the causes and effects to be more concrete like turning Anor Londo dark.

That's exactly my thoughts on that.
 

Sickbean

Member
@stream watchers, I don't want any details about anything, just tell me this:

Does it seem like a worthy successor to Dark Souls? Y/N

After an hour of watching the steam - 100% yes.

I wasn't all that worried about the game after playing the beta, but the stream had completely quashed all my fears. It's pure Dark Souls.
 

Astral

Member
I'm kind of disappointed that there isn't a
shrouding kind of spell. Being stealthy and sometimes practically invisible was really fun in Demon's Souls. Stealth was a lot less viable in Dark Souls.
 

Bento

Member
Are there any videos of the tutorial area? Probably going to play as a Deprived on my first playthrough but want to see if there's any weapons to be found early on or if I'll have to slay some boss with only my fists >_<
 

Fhtagn

Member
It's a spoiler if there isn't a hidden body spell (and a spoiler if there is, but I assume there is one, so not as much) so please don't say stuff like that without a tag.
 
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