DS2 was legitimately trying to offer something new and push back against a lot of the tactics players fell back on.
Lots of the combat complaints were designs to offer new challenges to long time players: the infinite stamina, gang fights, and attack tracking existed in DS1 and Demon's in the form of every boss fight; they just started applying it to normal encounters. They are all there to help mix up the strategy that existed effectively for 95% of De and DS1 encounters: circle towards the back of an enemy and go for a backstab, dodge roll on any attack (in any direction, it's irrelevant).
Adding more forced gang fights (which existed in both De and DS1 pretty extensively) adds variance because it forces the user to control space more effectively, pick their backstabs more timely, and actually pay attention to which direction they dodge roll.
The attack tracking was mostly just an animation change; in the first two games, enemies would lift their sword, feet planted, then on the swing, would instantly snap turn to face you. They just changed it so that they enemy spins to track you, then locks in place on the actual swing. Couldn't really tell you which is more "fair", but I would agree that the animation looks better the old way. I do believe that the spin is a remnant from the older builds of DS2 where you had to specifically roll to avoid attacks (roll left or right for overheads or backwards for side swipes) as there was almost zero invincibility frames. It probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but I'm glad they switched back to the i-frame style, even with the more limited frames (hybrid).
Everyone keeps saying that DS2 is "cheap" and "unfair" yet almost all agree that in the long run, it's easier than DS1 by quite a bit.
I will admit that DS2 has the least memorable bosses of the 3 games. And it has the biggest divide between the best and worst looking areas, but I'd still say that the art also has some of the best looking areas in all of the games. The lighting in some areas is unmatched. I personally think DeS is as ugly as can be; boring armor and weapon designs, flat boxy primitives abound, and a stupid mishmash of Western grimdark with hammy anime elements. DS1 is unmatched though.
DS2 is not as good as DS1, but it is light years better than 99% of games and offers some truly thrilling and excellent areas. The Forest of Fallen Giants, Lost Bastille, Iron Keep, Drangleic Castle, No Man's Wharf, Huntsman's Copse and every area from all of the DLCs are excellent levels. The PvP areas are such a great idea for integrating other players directly into the world. Heide's Tower of Flame, Majula, Dragon Aerie offer visuals greater than any other in a DS game. The magic system overhaul and balance is better than any of the other games.
For me personally, Dark Souls II suffers from not going far enough from the elements that could help distinguish it and heighten the strengths it already had. The areas that did stand out or offer something unique to the game as opposed to being a retread of what the prior games presented, were either too short or too easy. Take No Man's Wharf: the boss fight there could've been genuinely cool if they implemented two simple patterns, namely
the water inside the boat rising substantially faster than it does now
and
having the boss switch sides so players wouldn't auto-pilot through it by focusing the slower half with the clubs
. But they didn't. The main setpiece there with the
Pharros Stone
was conceptually neat and original for a Souls game too, were it not for the fact that
the game's contrast values are completely jacked up to the point darkness
is no longer an obstacle to overcome at any point in the game. As much as I enjoyed No Man's Wharf, ultimately it felt like nothing more than missed potential that could've been alleviated entirely if the developers were a little more confident or daring with the standards established in previous iterations. Same could be said about other areas too: Heide's is very visually pleasing, but far too flat in terms of level design.
The Gutter
could've been tense, but included no alternatives to what made
Blighttown / Tomb of the Giants / New Londo Ruins
a hellhole to traverse through. That, and literally no legitimate threats in the encounters. I really liked
The Black Gulch
from a thematic standpoint since it contained eerie creatures, but you could run through that place in less than 15 minutes. Would've been much better if that entire segment took place in that area as opposed to dividing it in two lackluster halves. I could bring up even more instances, but you get the point.
Gameplay-wise, Dark Souls II also fell flat relative to its predecessors. On its own it's still a satisfying and fairly competent game compared to the competition, but for every necessary nerf to exploitable features (like backstabs), positive evolution (such as the lighting) or for every welcome piece of streamlining (like the inventory or smoother online integration) there'd be something far more detrimental to DS II's combat or general flow. The majority of the bosses being either pedestrian (including even more humanoid bosses in the DLC for some reason) or heavily flawed in execution (too familiar or simply terribly designed like the one in
Doors of Pharros
), numerous instances of the level design feeling disjointed or cumbersome to navigate, inconsistency in the animations for less satisfying impacts, underutilized mechanics (like the torch which also could've been made more intuitive), NPC's hardly having a storyline of their own, forced delays for actions like bringing up your character menu in Majula (which was already avoided in Demon's) and so forth. There's a number of nice ideas that I could be mentioning, but they almost always lack that extra attention to detail or overall polish. And that's ignoring the artistic vision that they ruined post-downgrade.
Ultimately, I found Dark Souls II to be a waste of time (regardless of the enjoyment I got out of it) coming off of the original and something I don't think I'll ever be willing to revisit it. I wanted to give it another chance if the DLC was discounted during the holiday sale, but Scamco decided to be greedy fucks instead because they know it's a popular series with a devoted, borderline fanatic fanbase. The fact they're also squandering the goodwill the name gathered over the years with a full-price " "definitive" " edition - which is seemingly implementing nothing but negligible new features or so-called upgrades - also doesn't sit well with me, regardless of the game's actual quality, but it sure makes me even less inclined to pay them any kind of money for a large portion of content I haven't played. Bloodborne approaching makes this even less appealing, cost of entry be damned.
Ubi's partway through fixing the Dead Kings DLC problem: it's been added to the standard edition post-release subs (i.e. the subs currently on sale), so if that's you, you're good to go! That was two hours ago, though, and it's 5pm over in the land of Ubi HQ, so I wouldn't be shocked if some are left waiting until tomorrow.
(Posting this separately as I don't want to risk inadvertently undoing a ModBot edit.)
Soul Calibur has clone characters, Tekken has clone characters and Street Fighter is the king of clones and while this one is recycling it isnt straight up same clone as many character clones in other games. Take a seat.
EDIT: She is more like Dural from VF than a straight up clone anyways.
1953: NATO vs Warsaw Pact (STEAM) + STEAM TRADING CARDS
Strategic War in Europe (STEAM) + STEAM TRADING CARDS
The Campaign Series: Fall Weiss (STEAM) + STEAM TRADING CARDS
Legions of Ashworld (STEAM)
Storm over the Pacific (STEAM)
World War 2: Time of Wrath (STEAM)
Cubesis (STEAM)
Yeah, that's why they specifically refer to it as "In-Home Streaming", its only meant to work within a network. Its a great feature though, and based on the information in this thread I can't wait to see where this feature ends up: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=969563. Valve may not want to get into the hardware business, but it would be great if they could push for the development of a low cost streaming device running SteamOS, optimized for in-home streaming.
Soul Calibur has clone characters, Tekken has clone characters and Street Fighter is the king of clones and while this one is recycling it isnt straight up same clone as many character clones in other games. Take a seat.
EDIT: She is more like Dural from VF than a straight up clone anyways.
You would have a point if I said it was acceptable in those other games. Except I didn't. Take a seat.
Dural isn't the right way of handling it either: instead of strictly taking a moveset from one character, it does so from multiple characters. Both are bad and lazy.
You would have a point if I said it was acceptable in those other games. Except I didn't. Take a seat.
Dural isn't the right way of handling it either: instead of strictly taking a moveset from one character, it does so from multiple characters. Both are bad and lazy.
Looking at your avi I kinda deducted you were okay since you had Ryu's crotch and Ken's going full force for the crotch but that's alright. Still less lazy than other efforts on other games.
Looking at your avi I kinda deducted you were okay since you had Ryu's crotch and Ken's going full force for the crotch but that's alright. Still less lazy than other efforts on other games.
Displaying dumb, knee-jerk assumptions could be viewed as wrong.
Like me hypothetically making a claim that you're overly defensive about DOA5's shitty character practices - which are in fact even worse than the shitty practices from competitors - when someone voices disapproval, just because you like their digital tits. But clearly I am not one for passive-aggressive remarks or needless sarcasm.
For me personally, Dark Souls II suffers from not going far enough from the elements that could help distinguish it and heighten the strengths it already had. The areas that did stand out or offer something unique to the game as opposed to being a retread of what the prior games presented, were either too short or too easy. Take No Man's Wharf: the boss fight there could've been genuinely cool if they implemented two simple patterns, namely
the water inside the boat rising substantially faster than it does now
and
having the boss switch sides so players wouldn't auto-pilot through it by focusing the slower half with the clubs
. But they didn't. The main setpiece there with the
Pharros Stone
was conceptually neat and original for a Souls game too, were it not for the fact that
the game's contrast values are completely jacked up to the point darkness
is no longer an obstacle to overcome at any point in the game. As much as I enjoyed No Man's Wharf, ultimately it felt like nothing more than missed potential that could've been alleviated entirely if the developers were a little more confident or daring with the standards established in previous iterations. Same could be said about other areas too: Heide's is very visually pleasing, but far too flat in terms of level design.
The Gutter
could've been tense, but included no alternatives to what made
Blighttown / Tomb of the Giants / New Londo Ruins
a hellhole to traverse through. That, and literally no legitimate threats in the encounters. I really liked
The Black Gulch
from a thematic standpoint since it contained eerie creatures, but you could run through that place in less than 15 minutes. Would've been much better if that entire segment took place in that area as opposed to dividing it in two lackluster halves. I could bring up even more instances, but you get the point.
I'm going to have to disagree with you on the torch thing. I do not think that the contrast levels were jacked, they were set to play how the designers wanted. No Man's Wharf isn't supposed to be dark enough that you need the Lockstone to see anything, that Lockstone is there because once lit (or carrying a torch) the black monkey demons hide away indoors. It's there to avoid enemies, not make everything easier to see. The Gutter is designed to be difficult to navigate due to its labrinthine nature, and inability to tell where you've been or where specifically you're going. The torches are there not so much to give you the ability to see, but to track the level, where you've been and where things are.
I also disagree on the length of levels...what materially would have been gained by making the Gutter and Black Gulch into a single level? So that you wouldn't have had to see the fog door or Law and Order Chime Titling? What difference does it make? That level is short. Good. Density and brevity over bloat. The mechanics/gimmick of that level are about as drawn out as it should be.
It's one thing I noticed that kind of confounds me about this criticism of DS2: people complain that the levels are too short and don't seem to develop into anything, yet the game is longer as a whole. Also that there are too many easy bosses. If you're paying attention though, you'd realize that there aren't as many mid-level fog gates and very few one-time normal enemies in comparison to DS1. Basically, the designers looked at the overall flow of the game and said, hey, instead of having a Black Knight here that you have to fight once, let's do some new art, a new enemy (easier boss) put a fog gate there and call it a boss. Same for mid level fog gates; instead of putting a mid level fog gate and continuing this town tile set, let's put a mini-boss here and create a new theme for the second half. So instead of getting one level theme for X-units of content, you get X/3 unit sized different looking levels.
I mean, I'm sure the Demon's Souls fans were disappointed they didn't get more cardboard box grey castle walls, but I appreciate the different landscapes.
Gameplay-wise, Dark Souls II also fell flat relative to its predecessors. On its own it's still a satisfying and fairly competent game compared to the competition, but for every necessary nerf to exploitable features (like backstabs), positive evolution (such as the lighting) or for every welcome piece of streamlining (like the inventory or smoother online integration) there'd be something far more detrimental to DS II's combat or general flow.
The majority of the bosses being either pedestrian (including even more humanoid bosses in the DLC for some reason) or heavily flawed in execution (too familiar or simply terribly designed like the one in
This is true. I'll echo something I've read on GAF when someone said that it was like the designers read that the Artorias fight is the best fight in the entire series (which it is), so they decided to make every fight like that. But then you look at the DS1 bosses and they are mostly humanoid(esque) too (ie-big biped with a big weapon): Taurus, Capra, 3 Asylum Demons, Priscilla, Iron Golem, O&S, Gwyn, Artorias, Manus, and 4 Kings aren't far off), and all of them are the best fights in that game too.
Yeah, the funneled pit design in a few areas was weird. Ditto for the one Bastille exit. What's weirder is that it doesn't seem to even need to be that way. Nothing really would have been lost if you could have gone backwards.
, inconsistency in the animations for less satisfying impacts, underutilized mechanics (like the torch which also could've been made more intuitive), NPC's hardly having a storyline of their own, forced delays for actions like bringing up your character menu in Majula (which was already avoided in Demon's) and so forth. There's a number of nice ideas that I could be mentioning, but they almost always lack that extra attention to detail or overall polish. And that's ignoring the artistic vision that they ruined post-downgrade.
Sure, but most of these had very little impact on the actual playing of the game. A bigger criticism that I'll give DS2 is that there appears to be much less in the way of unique movesets for different weapons. I'm not even talking about special attacks, I mean the standard movesets for the normal weapons. In DS1, usually there would be a standard set for a given weapon type, but each weapon would have a variation on the swing timing, swing style, or two-hand/one-hand switchup. In DS2, it seems that almost all weapons of a given type swing the exact same, with only reach, stamina, and damage variants. I get that they probably had memory constraints to deal with, what with all of the dual wielding animation sets and additional power stance movesets, but for someone like me that never dual wielded, the culled variance was noticeable. I also miss the "sloppy swing" animations that existed when you didn't have the stats to wield something, but I get that they are kind of superfluous (and rightly should have been the first to go when making room for actual gameplay advancements).
Ultimately, I found Dark Souls II to be a waste of time (regardless of the enjoyment I got out of it) coming off of the original and something I don't think I'll ever be willing to revisit it. I wanted to give it another chance if the DLC was discounted during the holiday sale, but Scamco decided to be greedy fucks instead because they know it's a popular series with a devoted, borderline fanatic fanbase. The fact they're also squandering the goodwill the name gathered over the years with a full-price " "definitive" " edition - which is seemingly implementing nothing but negligible new features or so-called upgrades - also doesn't sit well with me, regardless of the game's actual quality, but it sure makes me even less inclined to pay them any kind of money for a large portion of content I haven't played. Bloodborne approaching makes this even less appealing, cost of entry be damned.
Ubi's partway through fixing the Dead Kings DLC problem: it's been added to the standard edition post-release subs (i.e. the subs currently on sale), so if that's you, you're good to go! That was two hours ago, though, and it's 5pm over in the land of Ubi HQ, so I wouldn't be shocked if some are left waiting until tomorrow.
(Posting this separately as I don't want to risk inadvertently undoing a ModBot edit.)
i've had my older brother playing AoE2 after all these years when he was around during christmas time. he was so ecstatic and he immediatley went into making his own scenario for my other brother to try and play.
2 or 3 days later, the scenario is maybe half done and he has my other brother give it a go. it makes him rage quit.
Well my plans of GTA V fun for the end of March are dead seeing as Pillars of Eternity is out 2 days later. Nothing, absolutely nothing is getting in the way of that.
I've said this a million times now (okay, four or five), but a PC port of Nuts & Bolts with Workshop support for the sharing of blueprints makes too much sense not to happen.
I have so many steam keys of things. I forgot to do NOTHANKS. Goodness gravy please don't thank me!
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I'm going to have to disagree with you on the torch thing. I do not think that the contrast levels were jacked, they were set to play how the designers wanted. No Man's Wharf isn't supposed to be dark enough that you need the Lockstone to see anything, that Lockstone is there because once lit (or carrying a torch) the black monkey demons hide away indoors. It's there to avoid enemies, not make everything easier to see. The Gutter is designed to be difficult to navigate due to its labrinthine nature, and inability to tell where you've been or where specifically you're going. The torches are there not so much to give you the ability to see, but to track the level, where you've been and where things are.
I also disagree on the length of levels...what materially would have been gained by making the Gutter and Black Gulch into a single level? So that you wouldn't have had to see the fog door or Law and Order Chime Titling? What difference does it make? That level is short. Good. Density and brevity over bloat. The mechanics/gimmick of that level are about as drawn out as it should be.
It's one thing I noticed that kind of confounds me about this criticism of DS2: people complain that the levels are too short and don't seem to develop into anything, yet the game is longer as a whole. Also that there are too many easy bosses. If you're paying attention though, you'd realize that there aren't as many mid-level fog gates and very few one-time normal enemies in comparison to DS1. Basically, the designers looked at the overall flow of the game and said, hey, instead of having a Black Knight here that you have to fight once, let's do some new art, a new enemy (easier boss) put a fog gate there and call it a boss. Same for mid level fog gates; instead of putting a mid level fog gate and continuing this town tile set, let's put a mini-boss here and create a new theme for the second half. So instead of getting one level theme for X-units of content, you get X/3 unit sized different looking levels.
I mean, I'm sure the Demon's Souls fans were disappointed they didn't get more cardboard box grey castle walls, but I appreciate the different landscapes.
I don't see how you can claim the contrast levels weren't excessively tampered with. Take a look at how the game used to look like during the initial reveal and (more importantly) the playable beta builds. Using the torch was a necessity there during specific parts; whether or not this was enjoyable is a different discussion altogether, but there were many complaints about this which evidently lead to what we know as the final result. Everything is visible in the retail version of Dark Souls II even in its darkest pits; it has nothing to do with my TV calibrations because every other game (that doesn't suffer from crushed colors) looks suitably dark nor with the in-game brightness being too high, because I left it at default as per the game's own recommendation. There's many signs of the torch mechanic haphazardly being forsaken by the developers too, what with the numerous pointless sconces scattered about even in bright environments like Forest of the Giants. Never mind particular rooms / hallways / whatever of a given environment not having meant to be clearly visible, with how they lack detail. And while I do agree that FROM Software likely did this to eliminate the glaring weakness of carrying a torch in order to somewhat safely wander through locations that lack illumination, with a bit of foresight they could've made it function practically rather than how it behaves now. Like the ability to drop the torch on the floor (only to pick it up later) and thus having a dynamic of trying to stay inside the light's radius for visibility, or streamlining igniting one as opposed to running back to a sconce or opening up a menu. A solution could've been very simple.
And to clarify: I may have paraphrased it poorly in my earlier post, but what I meant with
The Gutter + The Black Gulch
was to make it more unified in its vision as opposed to fracturing it into an uneventful
Blighttown-wannabe
and interesting scenery that was criminally short. The former didn't envoke the maze-like feeling nor a sense of verticality, I could see through the environment with minimal torch usage and the latter was also very linear to add insult to injury. No Man's Wharf was also very clearly meant to be darker than it ended up being as mentioned above precisely because of those lanky creatures you mentioned (which you can also easily spot from afar), but I'll refrain from repeating myself due to differing opinions.
This is true. I'll echo something I've read on GAF when someone said that it was like the designers read that the Artorias fight is the best fight in the entire series (which it is), so they decided to make every fight like that. But then you look at the DS1 bosses and they are mostly humanoid(esque) too (ie-big biped with a big weapon): Taurus, Capra, 3 Asylum Demons, Priscilla, Iron Golem, O&S, Gwyn, Artorias, Manus, and 4 Kings aren't far off), and all of them are the best fights in that game too.
Recycled Asylum Demons were indeed a lowpoint, even if their design was sound. But I disagree with some of the other examples you listed; somewhat humanoid yes, but they were often grotesque or animated noticeably different from one another as to not have them blend in. A Taurus does not look anywhere close to or move like Manus, 4 Kings do not look anywhere close to or move like Artorias, and so forth. Very distinct silhouettes and all that jazz. Now look at Dark Souls II: waves of cookiecutter dudes in armor or in case of the one in
Doors of Pharros
, a trip down memory lane (only executed worse) with how it not-so-subtly relies on an existing template. There needed to be more instances of the
Demon of Song
or to a lesser extent the
Executioner's Chariot
and less repeat scenarios. The
triplets
were fine by the way as a novelty, but then they tried to relive that moment with less of an effect during subsequent boss fights.
Yeah, the funneled pit design in a few areas was weird. Ditto for the one Bastille exit. What's weirder is that it doesn't seem to even need to be that way. Nothing really would have been lost if you could have gone backwards..
Yup, it sticks out with the more traditional locations like the Bastille. If the inability to walk backwards for example matches up with the aesthetics, it wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb, but often the only thing standing in your way is knee-high rubble or a very small hill. They're silly immersion breakers.
Sure, but most of these had very little impact on the actual playing of the game. A bigger criticism that I'll give DS2 is that there appears to be much less in the way of unique movesets for different weapons. I'm not even talking about special attacks, I mean the standard movesets for the normal weapons. In DS1, usually there would be a standard set for a given weapon type, but each weapon would have a variation on the swing timing, swing style, or two-hand/one-hand switchup. In DS2, it seems that almost all weapons of a given type swing the exact same, with only reach, stamina, and damage variants. I get that they probably had memory constraints to deal with, what with all of the dual wielding animation sets and additional power stance movesets, but for someone like me that never dual wielded, the culled variance was noticeable. I also miss the "sloppy swing" animations that existed when you didn't have the stats to wield something, but I get that they are kind of superfluous (and rightly should have been the first to go when making room for actual gameplay advancements)...
Different preferences and all that, but the janky animations did take me out of it. I understand why they went for motion capture, given that it's a painstaking process to animate attacks / characters / etc. manually, but enemy reactions didn't 'feel' right a lot of the time for me (made worse by clashing audio and wonky hitboxes) on top of basic movement animations like walking bothering me. It lacked weight at times, which the first Dark Souls usually didn't suffer from. And you're absolutely right about unique movesets too: I completely forgot about that shortcoming.
It is admittedly somewhat unfair of me to judge a game's quality over a publisher's questionable ways, but it does make me look back at the game less favourably. Your mileage may vary, evidently. Splitting up the DLC was also pure greed on their behalf, made worse by it looking none too enticing for me.
I've said this a million times now (okay, four or five), but a PC port of Nuts & Bolts with Workshop support for the sharing of blueprints makes too much sense not to happen.
