Dark Souls 2 - What i'd like to see

Phoenixmgs_v1legacy

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Sep 1, 2010
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DaViller said:
Monster hunter has pretty much the types of skills your describing through armor skills(there is no leveling in mh other then gear). That said i wouldn't want the same in dark souls.

Doing this would also funnel certain builds to only use certain playstyles (or weapons). For example a dex built with the X% more damage after rolling thing. A skill like that would favorise weapons with good rolling attacks naturally, so weapons that are dex but have shit roll moves wouldn't benefit from that at all even. In the end you might wanna use a weapon that would benefit from the str skill while your forced to level dex to get any damage going. A typical dex build right now has 4 primary weapon choices, the scythe, katanas, curved swords and rapiers (only most common, I know theres more). They all play very different, but they benefit from dex to the same amount, your rolling skill however would pretty much do nothing for the scythe or rapiers (not to sure on those) since theyr rolling attacks suck. This would artificially put certain weapons above others.

Finally the random dodge thing pretty much hinders immersion if you ask me. My character is supposed to represent me, so making my character capable of feats outside of my controll just takes me out of the game. In a game like dark souls a feature like this would feel very out of place and also lead to cheap moments with pvp. In that regard it would feel like adding random critical hits to street fighter or something.
The ideas were just off the top of my head. You need something other than just leveling numbers to make the encounters feel different from the very first one. Most of Dark Souls is spent just leveling numbers. As a Dex build (probably other builds as well), you kinda decide on your final weapon rather early, then you level it up to +14/+15 to get the Dex scaling to A from B. The actual enemy encounters don't change whatsoever.

You wouldn't be forced to take the +10% damage after a roll passive ability, there would be choices, I was just listing one such example. The whole point is leveling Dex or Str for the weapon damage scaling, why would you use a Dex weapon and not level Dex? The game has already forced you to level Dex, I'm just saying to give us some passive abilities that go along with leveling the stats we are already leveling.

I can see people not wanting something like the evasion thing in the game; again, it was just an idea. I also listed several rules along with evasion like it won't even activate if you are blocking or rolling. What about the one-use power idea (something to give you basically a second chance when caught in a bad spot), which actually works perfectly with the bonfire mechanic?
 

DaViller

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Phoenixmgs said:
I believe this whole monster hunter esque skill mechanic just wouldn't feel right in dark souls, it would feel very like a very arbitrary addition. The combat should change based on new enemy types and different eviromental situations you adapt to using your built. Like the difference in fighting with a zweihander in an open space against fast enemys vs fighting strong enemys in a narrow space that hinders your weapon if your careless.

As to the whole special ability thing. It sounds interesting especially in regards to pvp (although it might just as well fuck the whole thing up *cough* dark magic *cough*) but im not realy sold. Im not sure, but I am inclined to rather keeping the game simple so it should only be a rather minor thing (also dont wanna feel to powerfull especially early on). Something like the mage flying around bombarding everything with spells would be to flashy for darksouls rather grounded style.

Lastly theres the issue of equality builts and what unique skills they would get and what unlocks those spells, if for example you unlock your special after 40 points dex, str, faith or int, then these builts would get screwed.
 

JagermanXcell

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Phoenixmgs said:
Baddamobs said:
God damn it, Phoenix, stop derailing the Dark Souls threads! I'd like to go to one thread that is, vaguely, relating to Dark Souls and for you to at least admit that others will have their opinions, and sometimes those opinions don't match your own. Like how the rest of us think Dark Souls 2 doesn't need a massive overall and become just another RPG clone like so many others already out there flooding the market, and think that the system, while needing work, doesn't need to change at the core.
Like, for example, all the talk of 'abilities,' they do exist in the game, but not in a traditional sense: the ability to out wit and exploit an enemies weakness is one the player learns from fighting that enemy; the ability to wield that giant great sword comes from when you finally sink enough points into the strength stat; the ability to learn new and powerful spells and magic come from you finding and learning how to use them. ABILITIES exist, they just don't exist on skill tress. If you want a game with skill trees, that's fine, some people like to have their character all planned out from the offset. I prefer a game that lets me decide what 'abilities' I get to use.
From the Dark Souls II beta, they have at least changed (whether they fixed it or not remains to be seen) all of the just plain broken mechanics of Dark Souls that I complained about.

The enemy AI is so dumb that out-witting an enemy in Dark Souls is just basically exploitation; circle strafe for a backstab, kill an enemy from afar with arrows, pull an enemy at you one at a time, etc.

That giant great sword is going to play just like the slightly less giant great sword you were already using. Mages get new "abilities" due to new spells but even the spell variety is pretty disappointing overall, you mainly just got a more powerful version of spells you already had. Mages got some new things, but melee fighters didn't. What is the problem with say leveling Dex to 20 and getting a 10% damage buff on an attack after a roll? How is that changing the core game in anyway? It's not like I'm asking to add in a combo system or something like that.
But... they did add new things for melee fighters. A lot. From the beta I found that you can now break someones guard and get a free riposte, in other words turtling is now suicidal when up against both melee and magic builds especially if they have a strength weapon with a str stat that not only breaks guard but breaks down durability. You can now dual wield EVERY weapon, then by pressing Triangle (or Y for xboxians) you open up an entirely new move set with whatever weapons you have in both your left and right hand. And they stack dmg, I tested it out on a friend in the last half hour and we found that the dual wield stack against a shield is very punishing. Also it would seem weapons in their same class have different movesets, something I am now very excited for: Knight greatsword and bastard sword (both greatswords) have different stances and attacks. Same for the ultra greatswords: Zweihander has a somewhat similar moveset to the original Zwei from Dark Souls, while the Pursers Greatsword has a moveset more focused on wide horizontal and vertical swings for crowd control.

As for the new spells having powerful versions, I love that feature, because it comes with its costs. The amount of dmg depends on on which shoulder button is pressed and how many hands are used to hold the catalyst/talisman. Lets say you're holding your casting item with both hands and pressing the R2(RT) button, you may want toconsider that you will be doing a stronger hit (as I found can or can nearly 1 shot) but you must re-consider and strategize your attack before hand since the cast time is severely reduced and can be easily dodged. Along with the new edition of moving and aiming with bows, same can now be done with spells, so range can also make for a viable substitution over up close charged risky yet effective spells.

It really all depends though, the way Dark Souls' pvp builds work are very different from traditional "figure out what I want as I play" RPGs. Just from playing the previous game and the beta I already know what builds I want, I'm actually having fun thinking about it even prior to its finished release.

OT: Everything I wanted fixed from Dark Souls will pretty much be in Dark Souls 2.
I'd love to see Demon's Souls' word tendency and complex weapon upgrade system return. No hints of it were in the beta.... there's still time!!!!!!

I'd also like to see more benefits from the covenants in terms of reward. I'd like to see rewards like more weapons and spells from performing covenant related tasks that can help out in the single player. This was not the case in Dark Souls, where it was either too easy to get rewards from covenants or you had to win a ridiculous amount of invasions and have a ton of souls for the right stats just to get, use, and strengthen up a simple weapon buff spell. A spell that only ever came in handy in pvp over pve.

Well... "handy" isn't the right word when we're talking about THAT infamous weapon buff... hilarious is.

 

Phoenixmgs_v1legacy

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Sep 1, 2010
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DaViller said:
I believe this whole monster hunter esque skill mechanic just wouldn't feel right in dark souls, it would feel very like a very arbitrary addition. The combat should change based on new enemy types and different eviromental situations you adapt to using your built. Like the difference in fighting with a zweihander in an open space against fast enemys vs fighting strong enemys in a narrow space that hinders your weapon if your careless.

As to the whole special ability thing. It sounds interesting especially in regards to pvp (although it might just as well fuck the whole thing up *cough* dark magic *cough*) but im not realy sold. Im not sure, but I am inclined to rather keeping the game simple so it should only be a rather minor thing (also dont wanna feel to powerfull especially early on). Something like the mage flying around bombarding everything with spells would be to flashy for darksouls rather grounded style.

Lastly theres the issue of equality builts and what unique skills they would get and what unlocks those spells, if for example you unlock your special after 40 points dex, str, faith or int, then these builts would get screwed.
I'm fine with combat becoming different due to enemy types and environment as many other games rely on that like shooters, stealth games, etc. I just didn't feel that at all in Dark Souls, the vast vast majority of enemies were easily dispatched with simply blocking and normal attacking even with a Dex build, I didn't feel like combat ever changed. For example, when I saw the crystal golems for the 1st time, I figured I couldn't block them as they should be strong and I have a light shield, but I could block them just as if they were a smaller sized enemy. I could even block the knights. Melee combat never evolved for me in Dark Souls.

With PvP, you can simply have the option to disable it. Like I said, the one-time use power would be mainly used to give a second chance after getting caught in a real bad spot, the power at least for Dex characters and mages (I didn't come up with a power for Str characters) was mainly about the movement and relocation than doing damage. A simple change to the power using perhaps all your stamina (or at least half) to do would then make both powers much less powerful and even more defensive and about relocation than being able to do damage, which is what I was going for and not trying to do any kind of super move or great damage.

The power idea wasn't fully thought out. I'd be going for your character ALWAYS having that power (probably based off your highest stat) and not having to get to say 40 points of anything. There can even be an item in the game (like a ring) that lets you pick your power as well so you can be an Int build but like the Dex power better and thus take that power instead. I think the power idea works out great with regards to bonfire mechanic and I'm pretty sure fine tuning will get it to work within the Dark Souls world without feeling like it's from another game.

Xcell935 said:
But... they did add new things for melee fighters. A lot. From the beta I found that you can now break someones guard and get a free riposte, in other words turtling is now suicidal when up against both melee and magic builds especially if they have a strength weapon with a str stat that not only breaks guard but breaks down durability. You can now dual wield EVERY weapon, then by pressing Triangle (or Y for xboxians) you open up an entirely new move set with whatever weapons you have in both your left and right hand. And they stack dmg, I tested it out on a friend in the last half hour and we found that the dual wield stack against a shield is very punishing. Also it would seem weapons in their same class have different movesets, something I am now very excited for: Knight greatsword and bastard sword (both greatswords) have different stances and attacks. Same for the ultra greatswords: Zweihander has a somewhat similar moveset to the original Zwei from Dark Souls, while the Pursers Greatsword has a moveset more focused on wide horizontal and vertical swings for crowd control.

As for the new spells having powerful versions, I love that feature, because it comes with its costs. The amount of dmg depends on on which shoulder button is pressed and how many hands are used to hold the catalyst/talisman. Lets say you're holding your casting item with both hands and pressing the R2(RT) button, you may want toconsider that you will be doing a stronger hit (as I found can or can nearly 1 shot) but you must re-consider and strategize your attack before hand since the cast time is severely reduced and can be easily dodged. Along with the new edition of moving and aiming with bows, same can now be done with spells, so range can also make for a viable substitution over up close charged risky yet effective spells.

It really all depends though, the way Dark Souls' pvp builds work are very different from traditional "figure out what I want as I play" RPGs. Just from playing the previous game and the beta I already know what builds I want, I'm actually having fun thinking about it even prior to its finished release.
These are my criticisms of Dark Souls, not the beta of Dark Souls II, I haven't played it and I don't know the changes other than what people have said in this thread. My complaint about Dark Souls was the melee fighting never changed over the course of the game. I suggested my idea, not saying it's the only idea that will work, but that Dark Souls needs to add new things to melee fighting so you felt like your character was advancing. What you say does sound very promising and much much better than Dark Souls. I found Dark Souls lacking in a lot of key areas.
 

MrBaskerville

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Mar 15, 2011
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More music (like Kingsfield) and more color (like Eternal Ring) that's all i ask for. I really just want more with minor tweaks and changes and plenty of new cool monster designs and items.
 

quickmelt

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Sep 16, 2013
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I was honestly expecting someone complaining about difficulty. I was surprised. Good job, escapist forums.
 

DaViller

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Phoenixmgs said:
DaViller said:
I believe this whole monster hunter esque skill mechanic just wouldn't feel right in dark souls, it would feel very like a very arbitrary addition. The combat should change based on new enemy types and different eviromental situations you adapt to using your built. Like the difference in fighting with a zweihander in an open space against fast enemys vs fighting strong enemys in a narrow space that hinders your weapon if your careless.

As to the whole special ability thing. It sounds interesting especially in regards to pvp (although it might just as well fuck the whole thing up *cough* dark magic *cough*) but im not realy sold. Im not sure, but I am inclined to rather keeping the game simple so it should only be a rather minor thing (also dont wanna feel to powerfull especially early on). Something like the mage flying around bombarding everything with spells would be to flashy for darksouls rather grounded style.

Lastly theres the issue of equality builts and what unique skills they would get and what unlocks those spells, if for example you unlock your special after 40 points dex, str, faith or int, then these builts would get screwed.
I'm fine with combat becoming different due to enemy types and environment as many other games rely on that like shooters, stealth games, etc. I just didn't feel that at all in Dark Souls, the vast vast majority of enemies were easily dispatched with simply blocking and normal attacking even with a Dex build, I didn't feel like combat ever changed. For example, when I saw the crystal golems for the 1st time, I figured I couldn't block them as they should be strong and I have a light shield, but I could block them just as if they were a smaller sized enemy. I could even block the knights. Melee combat never evolved for me in Dark Souls.

With PvP, you can simply have the option to disable it. Like I said, the one-time use power would be mainly used to give a second chance after getting caught in a real bad spot, the power at least for Dex characters and mages (I didn't come up with a power for Str characters) was mainly about the movement and relocation than doing damage. A simple change to the power using perhaps all your stamina (or at least half) to do would then make both powers much less powerful and even more defensive and about relocation than being able to do damage, which is what I was going for and not trying to do any kind of super move or great damage.

The power idea wasn't fully thought out. I'd be going for your character ALWAYS having that power (probably based off your highest stat) and not having to get to say 40 points of anything. There can even be an item in the game (like a ring) that lets you pick your power as well so you can be an Int build but like the Dex power better and thus take that power instead. I think the power idea works out great with regards to bonfire mechanic and I'm pretty sure fine tuning will get it to work within the Dark Souls world without feeling like it's from another game.
Still i think a mechanic like that would not be a good addition. Dark souls is a simple but for that rather deep game and I would like it to remain that way. The game allows for a lot of very different playstyles because of it's great variety in weapons. I for one play mostly dual handing weapons and only using grass crest shield for stam regen, so trust me there are worlds between a katana char with ninja flips and say a zweihander wielding tank with mid or fat roll. I agree with you that a most enemys can be cheesed out by overly defensive play. Theyr trying to fix that in ds2 but i dont think it's possible, if i can cheese my way through monster hunter by shield poking with the lance(although slow as fuck), then I dont think from soft can make a system that I cannot exploit. I still found the game to be very challenging on my first and even second playthrough though, because using different weapons makes the game so different.

I think the way theyr doing in ds2 (if all the stats are properly balanced ofc) is pretty much optimal for the game. Every stat gradually improves a certain aspect of your character while your base moveset remains based on the weapon your using and remains the same. I think that gives players better variety because they aren't funneled into one set in stone style because of theyr stats. Your stats just set the outward frame of your character but your weapons, armor and spells define your playstyle. Your katana moveset may not change but you can always equip a different weapon.

What your describing is basically just a new spell that you get if say your character has more dex then str for example. But it just doesn't fit the game to be honest. In the context of world it would make no sense to me, why would my character (dex in this case) have acces to what is essentially an invisibity spell if he can't do any magic? Or if it's a skill like throwing a smoke bomb on the ground, why can't my knight to the same thing? What im saying is that an str based character already plays different from say a mage, adding some stat based special move would be unnecesary and feel like a very arbitrary addition.
 

WWmelb

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Sep 7, 2011
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Some really awesome ideas coming out of this that i hadn't thought of. As previously mentioned by someone else, the covenants definitely needed to be tweaked, but from all i have read they certainly have been.

More dire consequences and benefits across the board from covenants would be fantastic.

And i reiterate : Some sort of world/character tendency back would be great. I loved playing through Demon's with aim to get pure white and pure black world tendencies.

Aiming for pure white world in all worlds in one play through made that one tense as hell experience, knowing that one death could mean the difference between succeeding and failing. Stupid man eater. Still the most difficult boss fight in Demon's if you don't stealth separate them.
 

Phoenixmgs_v1legacy

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Sep 1, 2010
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DaViller said:
Still i think a mechanic like that would not be a good addition. Dark souls is a simple but for that rather deep game and I would like it to remain that way. The game allows for a lot of very different playstyles because of it's great variety in weapons. I for one play mostly dual handing weapons and only using grass crest shield for stam regen, so trust me there are worlds between a katana char with ninja flips and say a zweihander wielding tank with mid or fat roll. I agree with you that a most enemys can be cheesed out by overly defensive play. Theyr trying to fix that in ds2 but i dont think it's possible, if i can cheese my way through monster hunter by shield poking with the lance(although slow as fuck), then I dont think from soft can make a system that I cannot exploit. I still found the game to be very challenging on my first and even second playthrough though, because using different weapons makes the game so different.

I think the way theyr doing in ds2 (if all the stats are properly balanced ofc) is pretty much optimal for the game. Every stat gradually improves a certain aspect of your character while your base moveset remains based on the weapon your using and remains the same. I think that gives players better variety because they aren't funneled into one set in stone style because of theyr stats. Your stats just set the outward frame of your character but your weapons, armor and spells define your playstyle. Your katana moveset may not change but you can always equip a different weapon.

What your describing is basically just a new spell that you get if say your character has more dex then str for example. But it just doesn't fit the game to be honest. In the context of world it would make no sense to me, why would my character (dex in this case) have acces to what is essentially an invisibity spell if he can't do any magic? Or if it's a skill like throwing a smoke bomb on the ground, why can't my knight to the same thing? What im saying is that an str based character already plays different from say a mage, adding some stat based special move would be unnecesary and feel like a very arbitrary addition.
I found Dark Souls to be a game that thinks its deep hiding behind the fact it tells you nothing about its mechanics and once you figure them out, the simplicity reveals itself, much like Resonance of Fate really.

I did use different Dex weapons over the course of the game, the gameplay didn't change much at all in my opinion, I was still doing basically the same thing. My special move (up and R1 or R2) was slightly different but that was it.

---

So I just popped in Dragon's Dogma and one of the first things I noticed was that I can backpedal with a shield up. I don't get why Dark Souls is, perhaps, the only game where my character doesn't backpedal and strafe with a shield up. Fixing that control issue would improve the game immensely.