Dark Souls 2 PC - April 25, 2014

Have not been able to play as much as I'd like recently, so I'm still on my NG playthrough. 44 hours in now, at the end of the last DLC (Crown of the Ivory King). I have to say, I disagree with a lot of people that praised the DLC as I believe that they are all worse than the main game. What in the world is with all the tight spaces?

Frozen Eleum Loyce in Crown of the Ivory King looks beautiful and massive from the outside, but that awe is immediately melted when you start traversing inside and are relegated to tunneling and linear corridors.

Crown of the Iron King was better with more branching paths and open areas, but all the fights again take place in tight areas that are contrary to the design of the rest of the game. The mechanic of needing to find and destroy the Ashen Idols was unique and interesting. It's probably my "favorite" of the three.

Crown of the Sunken King had an interesting premise. I did enjoy the descent through the pyramid to reach the boss at the end. Some of the trap puzzle rooms are ruined again by the tight spaces and enemy placement.

So many areas are designed to force you into a situation to use a certain playstyle, for which my character was not built for. It made the whole experience frustrating. I also dislike the optional ending areas where they made the trek to the boss exceptionally arduous to get through only to reward you with a fight that follows the trend of punishing players for using different playstyles. I am honestly fed up with the gameplay loop in this content that I am not going to finish the Frigid Outskirts and am just going to move on to my NG+ playthrough, and I'm likely going to skip the DLC altogether next time and on subsequent playthroughs.

By the way: I did experiment briefly with a build that maxed out agility with a Soul Vessel, but it didn't get rid of the input delay in this game. Actions are certainly faster and you get more iframes in rolls, but you still can't get a feel for where the iframes are and the input delay still ruins the combat in this game.
 
I also dislike the optional ending areas where they made the trek to the boss exceptionally arduous to get through only to reward you with a fight that follows the trend of punishing players for using different playstyles. I am honestly fed up with the gameplay loop in this content that I am not going to finish the Frigid Outskirts and am just going to move on to my NG+ playthrough, and I'm likely going to skip the DLC altogether next time and on subsequent playthroughs

what playstyle are you trying to do for that Lud/Zallen boss fight that the game punishes you for?
 
what playstyle are you trying to do for that Lud/Zallen boss fight that the game punishes you for?
Dependent on Sorcery. I used a Soul Vessel to rebalance my stats for a decent melee weapon and was able to complete the fight easily. Even with stacking casting speed and having dodge timing down I was still not able to get a casting off before getting smacked once the second pet entered the arena.
 
Have not been able to play as much as I'd like recently, so I'm still on my NG playthrough. 44 hours in now, at the end of the last DLC (Crown of the Ivory King). I have to say, I disagree with a lot of people that praised the DLC as I believe that they are all worse than the main game. What in the world is with all the tight spaces?

Frozen Eleum Loyce in Crown of the Ivory King looks beautiful and massive from the outside, but that awe is immediately melted when you start traversing inside and are relegated to tunneling and linear corridors.

Crown of the Iron King was better with more branching paths and open areas, but all the fights again take place in tight areas that are contrary to the design of the rest of the game. The mechanic of needing to find and destroy the Ashen Idols was unique and interesting. It's probably my "favorite" of the three.

Crown of the Sunken King had an interesting premise. I did enjoy the descent through the pyramid to reach the boss at the end. Some of the trap puzzle rooms are ruined again by the tight spaces and enemy placement.

So many areas are designed to force you into a situation to use a certain playstyle, for which my character was not built for. It made the whole experience frustrating. I also dislike the optional ending areas where they made the trek to the boss exceptionally arduous to get through only to reward you with a fight that follows the trend of punishing players for using different playstyles. I am honestly fed up with the gameplay loop in this content that I am not going to finish the Frigid Outskirts and am just going to move on to my NG+ playthrough, and I'm likely going to skip the DLC altogether next time and on subsequent playthroughs.

By the way: I did experiment briefly with a build that maxed out agility with a Soul Vessel, but it didn't get rid of the input delay in this game. Actions are certainly faster and you get more iframes in rolls, but you still can't get a feel for where the iframes are and the input delay still ruins the combat in this game.
I'll push back a little bit and say that tight spaces are a really big part of what made the souls play style great, in the first place (Demon's Souls). People wanna be comfortable and have lots of breathing room so that they don't die and so that they can flail and do whatever they want. In Souls games, you have to make peace with dying. Its embedded in the lore and the gameplay. And yes, tight spaces and precarious ledges everywhere, mean you may have to switch things up and bit, go even more slowly, use a different weapon, etc.

Even Dark Souls 1 has less tight spaces than Demon's Souls. I never felt in Dark Souls 1, like I NEEDED a thrusting move. In Dark Souls 2, even the base game, an vertical strike is recommended. And indeed a thrusting attack has a lot of utility, as well. Player Vs. environment is a hallmark of the Souls style. And some of the design we see in Dark Souls 2, especially the DLC, make stuff like invasions amazing. Invasions aren't supposed to be a couple of people circling forever and ever in a flat space.


I also find myself using magics in Dark Souls 2, a whole lot more. Lingering Flame pyromancy is very helpful.
The basic dagger with the extra poise damage ring, is one of the best weapons to knock people off ledges (two handed poke). Also, two handing some of the smaller shields, gives you a charging shield push move----also great for bumping people off ledges. You can charge through all but the largest hammers. I had tons of fun doing that in Tower of Latria in Demon's Souls, with the spiked shield.

And don't sleep on the utility of a throwing knife or a magic urn. It can get you that last inch of life from your dangerous opponent.
 
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Dependent on Sorcery. I used a Soul Vessel to rebalance my stats for a decent melee weapon and was able to complete the fight easily. Even with stacking casting speed and having dodge timing down I was still not able to get a casting off before getting smacked once the second pet entered the arena.

the Lud/Zallen fight is annoying no matter what playstyle you use if you don't eliminate or severely injure the first cat before the 2nd enemy jumps into the fight...I like to consume a Brightbug right after entering the arena to increase my damage output along with the various rings
 
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I was thinking about this more and it really highlights for me how good Dark Souls 2 actually is.

In Dark Souls 1, I had very little trouble completing the entire game with a chaos fire spiked club, a basic bow, and some dung pie. As memorable as the art direction is, And as classic as a couple of areas are (blighttown swamp, Sen's Fortress) And even though they made like 5 times as many enemy types as Demon's Souls: You could kinda just pick something and roll with it for the whole game. There's still plenty to like about the areas themselves, especially when doing invasions. But the areas can also be on the small side.

Dark Souls 2 is constantly changing things up on you. Areas are usually large/long. Squeezing you through hallways, pushing you across narrow walkways with no railings to keep you from falling. Ambushes. Boss fights with extra environmental challenges. Honestly I think the Shaded woods is the only truly bad area in the game. Harvest valley isn't graphically pretty, but that windmill tower is classic souls, to the core. Lost Bastille has all sorts of hidden paths and its constantly changing your elevation. Drangleic Castle again, is a constant maze of twisting stairwells with no guard rails, and tight rooms which funnel you into chaos. The base game is actually quite good. Just not always as visually striking as Dark Souls nearly constantly is. But sometimes it is! And the DLC adds like 50% more game to an already large game, its all high level design, and its visually interesting. Crown of The Sunken King even adds environmental puzzle mechanics!
 
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I was thinking about this more and it really highlights for me how good Dark Souls 2 actually is.

In Dark Souls 1, I had very little trouble completing the entire game with a chaos fire spiked club, a basic bow, and some dung pie. As memorable as the art direction is, And as classic as a couple of areas are (blighttown swamp, Sen's Fortress) And even though they made like 5 times as many enemy types as Demon's Souls: You could kinda just pick something and roll with it for the whole game. There's still plenty to like about the areas themselves, especially when doing invasions. But the areas can also be on the small side.

Dark Souls 2 is constantly changing things up on you. Areas are usually large/long. Squeezing you through hallways, pushing you across narrow walkways with no railings to keep you from falling. Ambushes. Boss fights with extra environmental challenges. Honestly I think the Shaded woods is the only truly bad area in the game. Harvest valley isn't graphically pretty, but that windmill tower is classic souls, to the core. Lost Bastille has all sorts of hidden paths and its constantly changing your elevation. Drangleic Castle again, is a constant maze of twisting stairwells with no guard rails, and tight rooms which funnel you into chaos. The base game is actually quite good. Just not always as visually striking as Dark Souls nearly constantly is. But sometimes it is! And the DLC adds like 50% more game to an already large game, its all high level design, and its visually interesting. Crown of The Sunken King even adds environmental puzzle mechanics!
I just went through the entirety of NG+ using nothing but a Mastodon Halberd +10 infused with lightning. Speaking of: now totaling 66 hours with 3 achievements to go (141 hours total including the first toon I accidentally deleted). Have to get halfway through NG++ to buy the remaining Miracles and Pyromancy. Then I'll be prepping to do it all over again in SotFS :dead:.
 
I just went through the entirety of NG+ using nothing but a Mastodon Halberd +10 infused with lightning. Speaking of: now totaling 66 hours with 3 achievements to go (141 hours total including the first toon I accidentally deleted). Have to get halfway through NG++ to buy the remaining Miracles and Pyromancy. Then I'll be prepping to do it all over again in SotFS :dead:.

I hate that they do that as far as Achievements- make you play through multiple NG+ gameplays to get all of them...with DS3 I got 39/43 but to get all the rings for example you need to play through NG+3...getting all the pyromancy and miracle achievements require +2 rank in 2 of the covenants...I'm not a fan of playing beyond NG+...Sekiro and Bloodborne are the only two From Software games I got 100% (they didn't require as many annoying things)
 
I hate that they do that as far as Achievements- make you play through multiple NG+ gameplays to get all of them...with DS3 I got 39/43 but to get all the rings for example you need to play through NG+3...getting all the pyromancy and miracle achievements require +2 rank in 2 of the covenants...I'm not a fan of playing beyond NG+...Sekiro and Bloodborne are the only two From Software games I got 100% (they didn't require as many annoying things)
To be fair, you really only need the souls bosses drop in NG+ to get some of the spells. The ones I'm going into NG++ for otherwise require you to achieve rank 3 in Blue Sentinels and Brotherhood of Blood, and I feel the grind going into NG++ is much more preferable to the grind in these PvP covenants. You need 500 "points" in Brotherhood of Blood to reach rank 3, and you will lose points when you lose duels. You only get +1 from winning a duel. You similarly need 500 kills in Blue Sentinels. I don't have an issue playing NG+ and beyond, but I do with otherwise requiring having to deal with the PvP nonsense in this game.
 
Got the last of the achievements in original. 150 hours total played, 79 hours on the final character. Working my way through Scholar now, 20 hours in. Now that I just got to Iron Keep for my second great soul I got annoyed by how this is connected to Earthen Peak. In Earthen Peak we continue to climb up and up to get to the boss and then take a very long elevator up to Iron Keep where... it's sinking into the ground? How is that supposed to work?
 
Have not been able to play as much as I'd like recently, so I'm still on my NG playthrough. 44 hours in now, at the end of the last DLC (Crown of the Ivory King). I have to say, I disagree with a lot of people that praised the DLC as I believe that they are all worse than the main game. What in the world is with all the tight spaces?

Frozen Eleum Loyce in Crown of the Ivory King looks beautiful and massive from the outside, but that awe is immediately melted when you start traversing inside and are relegated to tunneling and linear corridors.

Crown of the Iron King was better with more branching paths and open areas, but all the fights again take place in tight areas that are contrary to the design of the rest of the game. The mechanic of needing to find and destroy the Ashen Idols was unique and interesting. It's probably my "favorite" of the three.

Crown of the Sunken King had an interesting premise. I did enjoy the descent through the pyramid to reach the boss at the end. Some of the trap puzzle rooms are ruined again by the tight spaces and enemy placement.

So many areas are designed to force you into a situation to use a certain playstyle, for which my character was not built for. It made the whole experience frustrating. I also dislike the optional ending areas where they made the trek to the boss exceptionally arduous to get through only to reward you with a fight that follows the trend of punishing players for using different playstyles. I am honestly fed up with the gameplay loop in this content that I am not going to finish the Frigid Outskirts and am just going to move on to my NG+ playthrough, and I'm likely going to skip the DLC altogether next time and on subsequent playthroughs.

By the way: I did experiment briefly with a build that maxed out agility with a Soul Vessel, but it didn't get rid of the input delay in this game. Actions are certainly faster and you get more iframes in rolls, but you still can't get a feel for where the iframes are and the input delay still ruins the combat in this game.

I don't get the love for the DLCs either - maybe because they're harder? In my opinion that increase in difficulty is "cheap" though because it's mostly achieved by increasing resistances to everything but physical and much higher damage output.
I did like Crown of the Sunken King the most aesthetically and gameplay wise so I usually replay that one on new runs while skipping the other two.
 
2 down...1 to go 🤟

I wonder if the original version of Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls 1 will be fixed?...meaning Dark Souls 1: Prepare to Die Edition (not the Remastered version) and the non-Scholar of the First Sin version of DS2

There's actually a little message in Steam about Prepare to Die edition losing online support forever, so at least that one is toast.
 
There's actually a little message in Steam about Prepare to Die edition losing online support forever, so at least that one is toast.
The community has already created a solution for that quite some time ago.
 
I wonder if the original version of Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls 1 will be fixed?...meaning Dark Souls 1: Prepare to Die Edition (not the Remastered version) and the non-Scholar of the First Sin version of DS2

From Software confirmed that the original version of DS2 will have their online functionality restored...they also confirmed that DS: Prepare to Die Edition will not

"Online features for the base version of Dark Souls II for PC (DX9) will be made available at a later date"

"We have determined that we will not be able to support online services for the PC version of Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition that was released in 2012, due to an aging system"
 
From Software confirmed that the original version of DS2 will have their online functionality restored...they also confirmed that DS: Prepare to Die Edition will not

"Online features for the base version of Dark Souls II for PC (DX9) will be made available at a later date"

"We have determined that we will not be able to support online services for the PC version of Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition that was released in 2012, due to an aging system"
Good. The original is different enough from SotFS that it deserves it. I actually prefer the original to SotFS.
 
Good. The original is different enough from SotFS that it deserves it. I actually prefer the original to SotFS.

I like the SOTFS version better but I agree that both versions deserve to be fixed...the newer version completely changed enemy placement, item placement etc...enemies were also way more aggressive and would chase you down for much longer distances
 
SotFS felt like an odd decision to me. I don't necessarily disagree with any of the tweaks they made, but it seems strange that they bothered. Personally, I like the original's item/enemy placement better.
 
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