next »

[jamesprimate]

just got some time to spend with the newer DLC and FUUUUUMEEEE KNIIIIIGHT  such a bastard. playing through hard DLC now is so raw because all my characters are like NG++ so there is no way to ease into it after being away from the game for a bit, its just BRUTAL DEATH OVER AND OVER

anyway, im really impressed with the DLC, they made DS2 pretty much on par with Dark Souls in my opinion. as much as i hate fume knight, it reminds me of how much fun the really cruel, unfair fights were in DS1, which is what made the game awesome for me. so hate/love. fuck you fume knight.

[DJFloppyFish]

the harder fights are always the more interesting ones, especially once you learn your roll timings.

that said, I'm waiting for scholar of the first sin for dlc. AUGMENTED ITEM DESCRIPTIONS SON.   

[Nuprahtor]

AUGMENTED ITEM DESCRIPTIONS SON.   

What does that even mean?

[jamesprimate]

http://www.polygon.com/2015/1/15/7551225/dark-souls-2-patch-110-scholar-first-sin-release-date

[s0]

i thought the dlcs got progressively worse to be honest. the first had a++ level design and did some genuinely new things for the series with the environmental puzzles. the 2nd was still pretty good aside from fume knight and some of the mob fight rooms and the 3rd was honestly kinda meh.

i mean theyre still better than most of the base game (and i don't hate the base game!) so theres that.

itd be cool to see a dark souls 3 by the same team and see what they come up with. i feel like if they continue in the style of the dlcs they could step out of dks1's shadow. don't forget that dks2 is tanimura's very first game as a director.

[Dragonmaw]

apparently (at least according to that blog that was linked) there is still a bunch of unused map data in dks2 that indicated it was going to originally be more open and connected than it ended up being

[Boreal]

Fuck Scholar of the First Sin.  Incredibly scummy move by FROM/Bamco.

Anyways, playing DaS, getting consistent invasions but tons of lag spikes.  Is it just me?

[s0]

apparently (at least according to that blog that was linked) there is still a bunch of unused map data in dks2 that indicated it was going to originally be more open and connected than it ended up being

yeah. like how you could originally go from shaded woods straight to drangleic castle and skip the shrine of winter (as well as like half the game). i wonder why that was removed. the game is pretty much split into 2 "acts" anyway and it would have been neat to let experienced players skip most of the first act.

(as an aside i also don't get why fragrant branches are removed from the inventory on ng+)

[Raptor85]

well, the shrine of winter skip was HIGHLY unintended, much like the one up by earthen peak that's another big out of bounds skip (just not nearly AS big) it required going outside the intended bounds of the area (similar to the kiln skip from 1.0 dark souls) so i do get them patching that.

but yeah, 2 was definitely lacking the branching paths and shortcuts that made the world so cool in dks1, in 1 for instance every major obstacle or area had some alternate way a skilled player could get past it, most of them intended (only unintended skip i can think of right now is skipping the ceaseless fight because you can actually pretty easily just roll from rock to rock without dying in the lava, there's a major skip in darkroot also thats unintended but it's a backtrack and only really useful when invading)...hell 99% of the early game aside from the two bells is optional for a skilled player.

though NOTHING in 2s map layouts bothers me more than the shrine of winter, while it's not the only case of this in 2 it's definitely the biggest case of something RETARDED keeping you from progressing, in this case an ankle-high rock wall seperating one half of the game from the other that for some ungodly reason even though it's well within jumpable height you arent intended to just jump over it. i mean, at least in 1 there was a magic barrier that the lordvessel needed to unlock. there's actually a good 3-4 places in dark souls 2 where they had to patch in invisible walls because the barrier blocking you from progressing was jumpable in height.

plus i'm still highly fucking confused as to where iron keep and the dragon areas are in relation to everything else, plus how you go down about 400 feet from sea level going to the wharf then end up somehow above sea level at the bottom. (and dont say it's an underwater cave, because you clearly sail a ship out of it just fine and can sail back in)   I loved that in dark souls 1, every major area of the game is visible from the other areas and you could clearly see their physical relations to each other

[s0]

well, the shrine of winter skip was HIGHLY unintended, much like the one up by earthen peak that's another big out of bounds skip (just not nearly AS big) it required going outside the intended bounds of the area (similar to the kiln skip from 1.0 dark souls) so i do get them patching that.

not what i was talking about. the map data suggests you used to be able to access drangleic castle through the aqueduct in shaded woods. theres also an old interview with tanimura where he says sth like "players are going to be able to start halfway through the game if they can handle it". its all in the tumblr post linked a few pages ago.

by "originally" i meant "during development". should have been clearer i guess.

there were also going to be opportunities to fight bosses early tho whats remained of that are only the pursuer in the first part of forest of giants and the underwhelming ng+ freja fight. :/

btw i also wonder why they removed the much nicer looking spell icons from the beta and replaced them with the old ugly ones.

[DJFloppyFish]

AUGMENTED ITEM DESCRIPTIONS SON.   

What does that even mean?

Numerous write ups about scholar of the first sin mention additional/enhanced item descriptions being one of the new additions to the re-release. The tired emoticon is supposed to indicate my reluctance to repurchase a game I bought only a year ago.   

Fuck Scholar of the First Sin.  Incredibly scummy move by FROM/Bamco.

I don't blame from or bamco for cashing on the same trend every other company with a 2014/3 release has been doing. its whatever, they gotta make their money somewhere. If it's especially gross to you, just don't buy it. Maybe I'm contributing to a negative trend but w/e. Augmented item descriptions.

not what i was talking about. the map data suggests you used to be able to access drangleic castle through the aqueduct in shaded woods. theres also an old interview with tanimura where he says sth like "players are going to be able to start halfway through the game if they can handle it". its all in the tumblr post linked a few pages ago.

What the hell. Man, it's crazy how ambitious DS2 ALMOST was. Between that and the scrapped torch system, the game really took some serious turns during development.

I finally preordered Bloodborne today. I get the feeling some people might find that stupid, but I honestly trust From to deliver something great, and having discovered the Souls games only last year I want to show them some love before Miyazaki's recent outing becomes a dirt cheap used game. 

[s0]

btw, the ceaseless skip was actually intentional or at least known to the devs. miyazaki acknowledged it in an interview before the skip was known among the playerbase iirc. ill see if i can find the quote.

EDIT:

Although it's extremely difficult and I doubt anyone will ever discover it, I seem to recall there being a way to progress through the game without killing him, although in truth, it's more of an exploit than a valid method.

from the design works book


EDIT2: it would have been so rad to see the rest of drangleic from the dragon airie. i still can't believe they missed that opportunity. also yeah the location makes fuck all sense haha. one explanation ive heard is that the "corridors" connecting the areas actually cover more distance than they appear to (i.e. the world is larger "in universe" than it is ingame). the distance models for heide's tower of flame and majula (from heide's) lend some credence to this theory but i still think it's wack even if its true. i'd take cramped lordran over drangleic any day.

[jamesprimate]

scale is the hardest thing to really do well, imo, as one little thing that doesnt "feel" right ruins it. DS1 pretty much nailed it to a degree that i think will be hard to top. not just by future souls games but by games in general. Except for stupid valley of teh drakes which really could have been bigger, or at least done in a way so it LOOKED bigger or not so "conveniently sized". considering how amazingly scaled things like ash lake, blighttown and crystal caves were, having such an awkward area so centrally located was a little weird imho.

but yeah, i amend my previous statement: the dlc brings DS2 up to the ENJOYMENT level of DS1, but not the to its art or mood obv

[Raptor85]

that's crazy, i didnt know the devs knew about the ceaseless skip before players started doing it, not sure why they thought players WOULDNT try to roll between the rocks though, seemed kinda an obvious thing to try just to see if you could.  and agreed, i was pretty annoyed that all you could see was clouds from the dragon shrine/airie, made dragonleic feel even more disjointed and thrown together than it did even before that, and that says a lot after the utter confusion that happened the first time i saw iron keep and wondered why there's a giant bowl of lava magically floating i the sky above the tower i just climbed.  with how bizarrely the areas link up and the complete lack of shortcuts they really should have just said fuk it and instead of connecting hallways just used a nexus like in demons souls to warp you to the start of each area.

[Nuprahtor]

I kinda like this unusual connections between the locations, it feels eerie, like, in Dark Souls 1 time was convoluted, and it Dark Souls 2 time and space was convoluted, like your character wanders through old places of Lordran, shattered and connected really messy

[Boreal]

I don't know, I personally dislike that instead of just saying "it's a game, suspend your disbelief" FROM decided to embed the whole concept of respawning enemies, multiplayer and shit into "time convolution".  Calling the poor world design of DaS2 "space convolution" is really pushing it.

It reminds me of the time someone tried to say that the frame drops in Blighttown were a metaphor for the Chosen Undead's reluctance to enter such a vile place.

[Dragonmaw]

they didn't, though. the time bit was just in reference to multiplayer (all different worlds, fractured in time)

the game doesn't ever offer an explanation for resurrecting enemies, except for hollows (who are afflicted with darksign, so thus immune to permanent death, supposedly)

[s0]

I don't know, I personally dislike that instead of just saying "it's a game, suspend your disbelief" FROM decided to embed the whole concept of respawning enemies, multiplayer and shit into "time convolution". 

i actually think that's hella neat

[s0]

that's crazy, i didnt know the devs knew about the ceaseless skip before players started doing it, not sure why they thought players WOULDNT try to roll between the rocks though, seemed kinda an obvious thing to try just to see if you could.

i think there are actually several intentional exploits in dark souls 1 and demons souls (or at least exploits that were deliberately not fixed). that's kinda part of miyazaki's philosophy. im gonna try and find the interview where he talks about it.

scale is the hardest thing to really do well, imo, as one little thing that doesnt "feel" right ruins it. DS1 pretty much nailed it to a degree that i think will be hard to top. not just by future souls games but by games in general. Except for stupid valley of teh drakes which really could have been bigger, or at least done in a way so it LOOKED bigger or not so "conveniently sized". considering how amazingly scaled things like ash lake, blighttown and crystal caves were, having such an awkward area so centrally located was a little weird imho.

demons souls also does it very well

[DJFloppyFish]

boletarian palace feels huuuuge