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SoulsERA |OT| So the world might be mended
- Thread starter III-V
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I firmly believe that Dark Souls 3 is the most well rounded Souls game we've seen. BB is a great game and you should play it, but I would focus on DS3 because they play very differently. They have their pro's and con's.
On a mechanical level, DS3 is slightly slower than BB, but not by a whole lot, and in BB there's no shields so it's all about dodging. You can play DS3 without parrying at all (but it makes certain fights and enemies way easier), but BB definitely makes it both easier and more rewarding (and trivializes certain enemies/bosses). BB has great atmosphere, but lacks some charms in the form of build diversity (there's not a lot of different weapons to choose from compared to DS3). BB feels rushed and a little rough around the edges--Chalice Dungeons are a big missed opportunity I could rant about for hours, there's some notable odd dead ends that I think From just forgot to tie up, and Blood Vials are a huge pain in the ass compared to Estus Flasks. DS3 has really refined gameplay, but is incredibly linear compared to previous Souls games--BB isn't a whole lot better, but you have notably more choices in progression than DS3--and the areas once you've figured them out aren't actually that big. DS3 also feels rushed, as there's a few areas in the game that are shockingly short, and seem like From just got halfway through a slapped a boss in there (Profaned Capitol being the worst offender), and at least 1 specific system that feels like From just didn't know what to do with it and gave up (Hollowing). DS3 has some really impressive boss fights, but most of them are in the back half of the game, with the front half being annoying fights or reliant on a gimmick (Wolnir and Deacons come to mind). BB has pretty solid boss fights, but the games difficulty--in my experience--is pretty front heavy (Cleric Beast has an unreasonable amount of health for a boss you fight that early) and back heavy, basically book-ending the game. DS3 feels like a game that just gradually gets more challenging.
Personally, I think DS3 is the best starting point for getting into the Souls games--having played at least some of DS3, BB, DS2:SOTFS, DeS, and Nioh. But you should try both inevitably. They are both great games.
Thank you for sharing. I'm definitely doing both eventually. I was simply wondering if anything about DS3 would 'ruin' my BB experience if I played them in the current order I'm planning, ie DS3 then immediately BB.
And so far, I like the diversify of locales in DS3. The little that I remember of BB, it all felt a little too cohesive, nearly monotonous. The Lovecraftian theme works, but it was a little overwhelming because I remember just seeing the same type of building or architecture all over the place. Really digging DS3 and its more diverse offerings in terms of environment and locations. At least so far.
Bloodborne is really heavy on the Victorian England theme, so you get a lot of environments that fit that feel. The Souls games intentionally try and vary it up with more elaborate environments because it is still a fantasy universe.
One thing I give BB over DS3 (and it's a big one) is each weapon has a transformed attack and charged attack, adds a lot more variety to movesets.
DS3 has charged heavy attacks. It's something I miss when I revisit the earlier Souls games.
Yeah I just realized that after posting lol, I wish it gave a bit more of a tell though.
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Don't forget the Digital Foundry trailer analysis as well.
Not much to go on but it's something.
So i reinstalled DS2 SoTFS, although i've beaten DS2 a few times in the past i never finished a playthrough of this version and also never tried the DLC so...this should be interesting. I'm surprised at how many messages and bloodspot i've seen so far, seems the game is still decently populated on PS4. (also we're at 210mil deaths lol)
The PC version is still pretty popular as well. Played through it not that long ago. DS2 is still the only Souls game I've beaten :x
Could it be it was removed simply because he smashes a baby into the floor?
The game still has a pretty decent population, at least on PS4. I'm currently farming Sun Medals in Drangleic Castle and it usually takes less than a minute for me to get summoned either to do a boss run (Usually Nashandra but also Looking Glass Knight, that boss is awesome when actual human phantoms get summoned to help the boss) or to help them clear the room with the Ruin Sentinels to get the Faraam set. I also get invaded pretty frequently. And by different people, it's not just the same 2 guys over and over
I just wish I had known about the Agape Ring when I started farming for medals. I could've been summoned indefinitely at Lost Bastille and Iron Keep if my Soul Memory hadn't shot up to the roof.
I've played all the soulsborne games on console, and I just picked up DS2:SOTFS for PC. What controller do people prefer for Souls on PC? I have a Steam controller and a DS4.
Are there any must have mods for DS2? Is there risk of getting banned playing online with mods?
Are there any must have mods for DS2? Is there risk of getting banned playing online with mods?
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There was a period where my Xbox 360 controller stopped working and I had to switch over to my Steam controller to play DS2 for a bit. I was...not a fan. I find the right stick to be vital in a game like Souls and even with customization I just couldn't get the feeling right.
Opted for a third party X360 controller for $12 to replace my old one. Worked like a charm. My go-to PC controller.
Phew... been playing with the Steam controller for about 3 hours hours. It's rough. I think part of it is that I forgot how terribly this game controls at the beginning. So clunky, and I have no agility yet. Super gigantic dead zone on the controller with over exaggerated acceleration. Not sure if this is specific to PC, but the camera is swinging wildly all over the place and switching targets, even when I turned off the options that should fix that.
Going to try a DS4 next, since I have them around the house. The third party 360 controller is an option if that doesn't work. So far, I'm not super impressed so far with Souls on PC though! I'm sure it will get better as soon as I level up my character a bit and figure out what controller works best.
Shrine of Amana in SotFS is soulcrushingly frustrating, damn. Everybody complains about Heide and the Iron Keep but this is worse in my opinion. Suddenly you have sorceresses all around spamming homing spells, water hags that jump out of the water and Archdrake knights who hit like trucks, and who can be healed by other sorceresses, all while rolling to your watery death because suddenly the floor ends next to where you were standing.
I have a lingering suspicion this area wasn't as bad in vanilla and all this is part of the SotFS "flavoring". Am I correct?
I have a lingering suspicion this area wasn't as bad in vanilla and all this is part of the SotFS "flavoring". Am I correct?
No question, Shrine of Amana is where I died the most in SotFS. One of the few areas in the game where I died so many times that the game took away pretty much every enemy. The combo of Amana Priestesses and watery floor was just devastating. You have to constantly look down yet also keep aware of the homing soul arrows, never mind the other enemies. It was a balancing act that I just couldn't handle.
Shrine of Amara was considered the hardest part of the vanilla game as well as SOTFS. I actually don't recall what was changed, but it was always hard.
I would wait for DS1 tbh. Going backwards through a series is always rough imo.
It was harder in vanilla. Especially at launch. OMG launch Shrine of Amana was stupid, if only because the tracking of that homing lasers.
That's actually a bad example since the pre downgrade pics from that area are noticeably better. I thought the area with all the dragons looked really nice though, and of course Heide's Tower of Flame.
Dark Souls 2 can be pretty when it wants to.
I died a good bit at the Shrine of Amana as a pure melee character. It's a gorgeous area visually, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't frustrating as hell. Those homing spells are just the worst.
Wow.
Man, it sure sucks trying to solo the Throne Watchers. I've died to them more times than to all other bosses combined at this point. I feel that this fight enhances all the things I hate about this game: the reduction of max life after dying, the awful lock-on system (why can't it simply lock on whichever target is closest to me?), the wonky, tracking sword swipe hitboxes that hit you even when they obviously didn't, the anxiety about running out of consumable items and having to farm souls to get more thus skyrocketting my Soul Memory into the stratosphere locking me out of multiplayer. Hot damn, I need to take a break.
If I don't beat them by tomorrow I'll summon a phantom. I don't want an O&S 2.0 situation here. I ain't about that life anymore. But I also hate how phantoms trivialize boss fights.
Sorry about using this thread to vent guys. It's oddly therapeutic.
If I don't beat them by tomorrow I'll summon a phantom. I don't want an O&S 2.0 situation here. I ain't about that life anymore. But I also hate how phantoms trivialize boss fights.
Sorry about using this thread to vent guys. It's oddly therapeutic.
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Dark Souls 2 is a great game with some very memorable moments, and it is a good looking game (especially with ENB on PC able to actually make the game dark where it's supposed to be.) Only thing graphically that I have an issue with is texture quality, but it is a last-gen game.
I started a Sorcery build in DS1 today, suicided to get the Tin Banishment Catalyst in Blighttown as soon as I got to Firelink. Sorcery is really strong when you can safely stay away from enemies and shoot them to death from far away, and the Catalyst's R2 is a very nice spear attack, but I can't help but feel that this is a rather...I dunno, passive playstyle. Like, doing craploads of damage is fun, but it really is just "stand far away, press L1, nuke everything".
Though it doesn't seem to work as well for bosses, the Taurus Demon was rather resistant to my spells and my dagger buffed with lightning was WAY stronger against him.
Though it doesn't seem to work as well for bosses, the Taurus Demon was rather resistant to my spells and my dagger buffed with lightning was WAY stronger against him.
My 'horde mode' mod for DS1 is coming along nicely. I hope all this shit will just be directly compatible with the remaster XD
That shared damage mechanic from Four Kings is just bullshit. I wanted to use it for the 'wave health', so you could have a rough idea of how many enemies are left, but it's useless.
If you killed an enemy that had 1hp left with 1000 damage, the health bar at the bottom of the screen would take that full 1000 damage instead of just 1. This doesn't matter that much with this particular boss since you can't backstab or parry it, but seeing how many times the fight can turn into a Five Kings or Three Kings because you can hit them while they're dying, it still makes me scratch my head. Especially baffling since I've found a workaround for this and have the health bar just take a certain amount of damage equal to the health of the enemy you killed. It's not as pretty since it only shows damage on the big bar when an enemy is dead (and no numbers), but at least it's accurate. I might just turn this into a mini mod that only fixes Four Kings lol
That shared damage mechanic from Four Kings is just bullshit. I wanted to use it for the 'wave health', so you could have a rough idea of how many enemies are left, but it's useless.
If you killed an enemy that had 1hp left with 1000 damage, the health bar at the bottom of the screen would take that full 1000 damage instead of just 1. This doesn't matter that much with this particular boss since you can't backstab or parry it, but seeing how many times the fight can turn into a Five Kings or Three Kings because you can hit them while they're dying, it still makes me scratch my head. Especially baffling since I've found a workaround for this and have the health bar just take a certain amount of damage equal to the health of the enemy you killed. It's not as pretty since it only shows damage on the big bar when an enemy is dead (and no numbers), but at least it's accurate. I might just turn this into a mini mod that only fixes Four Kings lol
It is a great game and at times it looks very good, specially considering it's a PS3/360 gen game.
The biggest problem with the visuals that I experienced was how flat the game looks at times. The textures are kinda grimey but its flatness is all probably due to the lighting, or lack thereof.
Dark Souls 1 has a very 'pre-baked lighting' look that was very typical of japanese game of the era and I think it works well and it's the reason the game holds up better than 2 in most regards. Considering the game was probably working with a smaller budget they did a great job with what they had.
DS2 was probably going for a more realistic lighting solution if the downgrade is any indication (maybe that's why they created a new engine for the game?), and they had to dial that back so the game could run on the consoles it launched on, and for other reasons since the game apparently had a troubled development. So it doesn't have the careful, very tailored pre-baked lighting that DS1 has and it also lacks the natural real time rendered lighting that current gen games have so it ended up in a weird place in the middle. I love using the torch in that game since it makes the game pop when there's an actual lighting source. Lighting all of the Gutter makes it look 10x better.
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Tbh I find the art direction in DS2 incredibly poor and lackluster compared to all the other ones, the comparison makes the game feels really ugly to me. Art in the other Souls games is really integrated with the overall design, I particularly hate DS2's comtempt for interiors.
Yes! The lighting from torch mechanic is spectacular at times, and really enhances the visuals. Whenever I play DS2, I pretty much always light every torch I can find. Fortunately, in Scholar, they actually do reward you for doing that, to a point. :)
As someone who staunchly defends DS2's visuals in general, that's a good point that I cannot deny. DS2 suffers from two things, aesthetics-wise: an inconsistency in quality (the best-looking parts are gorgeous, but the worst-looking part are legit ugly, uglier than anything else in the series -- the worst places to me being Harvest Valley and Shaded Ruins), and, as you point out, the weak interiors. DS2 has a lot of "empty square rooms". It's not a big deal to me because it's typically just for the occasional hidden bonfire rooms, but it's still quite noticeable. An empty square-ish room with flat walls and equally flat floors and ceilings, devoid of details or decoration or furnishing or even anything ruin-like such as cracks, spiderwebs, god rays shining through the cracks, etc. is a common enough sight in DS2 to be noticeable, and that's too bad. And even when it's not as blatant as the hidden bonfire rooms, the interiors are still generally kind of bare-bone, or at least it felt denser and more intricate in Demon's Souls and even Dark Souls (though I think DS1 has similar issues, especially in places like Anor Londo). There are some interiors that are still nice-looking, like the Sir Alonne boss room, but yeah.
It does, however, shine in terms of greater environmental designs and more "outdoorsy" or "wider" looking areas, such as skyboxes, outside architecture like friezes, etc. That's why my favourite-looking places in DS2 are Heide's Tower, Shrine of Amana, the Iron Keep, No Man's Wharf, or the Dragon Aerie. The backdrops are gorgeous, and the architectural elements such as giant statues, spires, etc. look quite nice too. But then you have Harvest Valley which is really just mushy grey and brown caves. Ick.
Magic get stupid good very quickly. Dusk Crown + Bellowing Ring + Power Within/RTSR. Yes it makes most bosses trivial, but being OP can be fun - I just hope they don't nerf all this kind of stuff in the remaster.
You can be a bit more creative with magic and be a spellsword, using buffs and support spells rather than just pew-pewing everything from afar, you have to be a bit creative, but it's fun. Or my favourite run ever: Miracles and Spells, catalyst in one hand, talisman in the other, no shield, no melee.
I like the way spells are handled in DS1 the best because there's no refill option - You have to be creative and resourceful with your spell uses through a level so you have enough casts to get through the area. Being able to munch 198 spell herbs in DS2 for example kind of takes the fun out of it for me.