Dark Souls II Hi-Fidelity Screenshots Removed From Steam

[JagermanXcell]

I have a massive grin on my face right now. I can't wait to see how the Dark Souls fans come justify this. (if it is true.) I'm expecting a lot of denial and "gameplay is all that matters." arguments.

Though I do hope it isn't true. I don't hate dark souls, I just really don't like the fanbase.

I'm immensely disappointed in From and how the game turned out visual and lighting wise. Playing the beta and then revisiting the SAME area from said beta to see the jarring downgrade in lighting killed me inside.
BUT I'd be lying if I didn't say the game wasn't fun as hell and pretty gorgeous in comparison to Dks1.

I also have yet to see the console community really up in arms about it, yeah we were pissed, but we got over it in a flash (those same people are moving over to PC anyways because why not, more Dark Souls!). We're currently more fixated on getting From to fix the broken poise mechanics than lol graphics... especially when you consider modders are probably getting their itchy fingers ready to turn the PC version into the E3 gameplay.

Dark Souls 1 was shit plenty areas too... at this point you gotta take these things with a grain of salt.

inb4 that one elitist shows up, telling me to get over it.

 

[CharrHearted]

And now I'm laughing my ass off at all the PC elitist cry babies on here crying and pointing their fingers at consoles, claiming its their fault, and which a lot of you are claiming the game isn't worth a buy if it isn't in "SUPERULTRA GRAPHICAL MODE ACTIVATE OMG" I beat dark souls 2 in a few days, its not that spectacular, a forgettable story, a ton of bosses and plenty of dying. Thats. About. it.

Seriously PC elitists, try to enjoy a game for once in your life without sounding like an over opinionated spoilt rich kid?

 

[CharrHearted]

-snip-
.

You clearly haven't seen the vast majority of dark souls elitists. When someone new asks a question about an item? Get good is the response, A person asks how to beat a boss? Nope, just get good. Thats the dark souls fanbase's answer to everything, just "get good, one person clearly wants help from other fans and they just barrage him with noob comments and tell him to somehow out of nowhere to just get good, isn't that unfair? Not to mention if you don't play a souls came your classified by dark souls fanboys as casual. Hows that NOT elitist?

 

[Grabehn]

I couldn't care less about this just because of two reasons:

1- I don't play these games
2- Someone IS going to put out a "OMG EXTREME HD ALL OF THE HD" mod that will probably look better than anything the devs could do.

 

[lacktheknack]

Don't put hi-fidelity shots if it does not show what the PC version will be. I hate deception.

They aimed for it and missed, so they changed the screenshots to be accurate. Where's the deception?

OT: Daw. I wonder what broke the camel's back in the end.

 

[SadisticBrownie]

Eh, I love the Souls series but they've always been really ugly. While I'd never not play cause of that, there's no real reason for them to be as demanding as they are, even on console - it's just poor optimization.

 

[Dandark]

-snip-
.

You clearly haven't seen the vast majority of dark souls elitists. When someone new asks a question about an item? Get good is the response, A person asks how to beat a boss? Nope, just get good. Thats the dark souls fanbase's answer to everything, just "get good, one person clearly wants help from other fans and they just barrage him with noob comments and tell him to somehow out of nowhere to just get good, isn't that unfair? Not to mention if you don't play a souls came your classified by dark souls fanboys as casual. Hows that NOT elitist?

Really? I hardly ever see that, when I was new and looking for help myself about the first game I usually just found helpful advice. The only time I've seen the kind of thing your talking about is when someone made a topic on a forum somewhere bashing the game with untrue comments or stupid stuff like "The first boss is unbeatable, this game is terrible your all nerds for playing this crap" because they didn't realize you need to run away from the first boss. When they ignore the camera focusing on a door that opens as a giant monster jumps down while your unarmed and the glowing orange text on the floor saying "get away" then I imagine some people may just angrily respond with get good.

Mostly the community is alright, it's just that fans really overhype the games, especially the difficulty.

 

[bunnielovekins]

Pretty sure I'll be buying this when I have money, and still would if it looked worse than demon's souls.
Fortunate that I never played the beta really, or I'd be disappointed. Darkness mechanics are cool, but I'll bet they get old after about 5 minutes; they did in the tomb of the giants.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

And this is why people should stop pre-ordering games. The entire business plan of today's publishers depends on pre-orders, so of course they're gonna try to deceive you into pre-ordering. And this is a PC game for fuck sake. It's available digitally at any time. You don't need to pre-order it. It isn't going anywhere.

 

[The Lunatic]

It's unfortunate to see a promising PC game get held back by the consoles.

 

[Quellist]

I didn't really care until I read how the dynamic lighting system was tied into gameplay. Shiny graphics I can do without but when a central mechanic is just removed I get a bit miffed. Think I'll pass on this for the time being.

 

[Strazdas]

Don't put hi-fidelity shots if it does not show what the PC version will be. I hate deception.

bullshots[footnote]A technical term for bullshit screenshot[/footnote] have been a standard practice for years now. i remmeber seeing them back in 2006 for games like Mafia II and so on. Its really whats strange is that they actually went back and fixed it afterwards. thats the first time i heard about company caring for honesty to that level.

It's unfortunate to see a promising PC game get held back by the consoles.

Unfortunate but not unexpected. Basically anything that came out on 360/PS3 for last 3 years were holding the PC version back.

or is the engine so wonky that they just can not get a good frame rate even on pc but then again how did they make the trailers and beta gameplay if that was the case...

Was beta gameplay live? because trailers can be prerendered quite easily to the point of allowing it to render the script for a day or needed. (and more, ect)

 

[Lex Darko]

I played the beta on PS3. I was sad to see the downgrade visually. But I'm not sad that the game isn't as dark. Torches sound cool in concept, but it made using bows nearly impossible because you have to two-hand bows. And there's still a super dark Tomb of the Giant like area in the game and I don't think anyone will say they wished everywhere was that dark.

Also while comparing the beta to the retail I can also say that the retail game plays much much faster than the beta did. This is probably the reason for the downgrade. Dark Souls played slower than Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 2 Beta played slower than Dark Souls but retail Dark Souls 2 plays as fast as Demon's Souls.

Torches and light still play a role in the game but it is no longer a dominate mechanic in the game.

On the screenshot changes I think it is far more ethical of Bamco and From to change the old screenshots on the steam page instead of leaving them up and being deceptive.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

I have a massive grin on my face right now. I can't wait to see how the Dark Souls fans come justify this. (if it is true.) I'm expecting a lot of denial and "gameplay is all that matters." arguments.

Though I do hope it isn't true. I don't hate dark souls, I just really don't like the fanbase.

Gameplay IS ultimately what matters, but it doesn't justify the practice of showing off graphical detail that isn't present in the final product. From/Namco-Bandai doesn't get a free pass for this, but they're still not on my bad side just yet.

That aside, Dark Souls II is a good game, but it has disappointed me on things other than the graphicss.

 

[FancyNick]

The downgrade is disappointing to say the least but at least they had the decency to change images to reflect the current product. I've played the game on 360 and it's still pretty great. Honestly, if the whole game was as dark as the The Gutter (unsure if that was the original intention with the dynamic lighting system) it would be pretty obnoxious.

 

[Branindain]

I have a massive grin on my face right now. I can't wait to see how the Dark Souls fans come justify this. (if it is true.) I'm expecting a lot of denial and "gameplay is all that matters." arguments.

Though I do hope it isn't true. I don't hate dark souls, I just really don't like the fanbase.

What exactly is it you don't like? I can tell you, from the inside, it's about as good a fan base as I've been a part of. We get characterised as "elitist" yet if you need help and put a query out there you will get a number of detailed, helpful, friendly responses. Compare that to so many other games (like WoW for instance) where daring to ask a question instantly marks you as a worthless noob to be sarcastically misled at best, and randomly abused at worst. Also, if you look at some old Souls threads, I think you'll find that if there's hostility in there it's usually being brought in from outside, from one of a number of passionate haters who believe their taste is objectively right for some reason.

And for my part, I genuinely don't give a flying fuck about graphics and never have, which is why I was content to buy the PS3 version in the first place. I guess PC Master Racers are likely to be annoyed though.

You clearly haven't seen the vast majority of dark souls elitists. When someone new asks a question about an item? Get good is the response, A person asks how to beat a boss? Nope, just get good. Thats the dark souls fanbase's answer to everything, just "get good, one person clearly wants help from other fans and they just barrage him with noob comments and tell him to somehow out of nowhere to just get good, isn't that unfair? Not to mention if you don't play a souls came your classified by dark souls fanboys as casual. Hows that NOT elitist?

Yep, that's elitist all right, and it's pretty in line with the attitude I attributed to WoW players. Those kinds of people are unpleasant. But unlike you, I simply haven't seen that attitude in my extensive interactions with Souls fans. Not even a little. Feel free to tell me which website you found these idiots on so I can avoid it.

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

Well this is unexpected. I know several youtubers that held off doing LPs of this awaiting the grossly incandescent PC version. *insert The Price is Right fail music*

Mild spoilers

Spoiler

On the other hand no amount of graphical prowess will make up for how poor the ending is. Your time up until that nonevent may be pretty fun so its not all bad. The final boss is even kinda scary which is a step up from "press L2 to win", and the "amazing talking turd" which were the previous two. The plot/lore/npcs/bosses are a step back...and off a cliff compared to the previous entries in the series.

Spells look awesome though, as do several locations.

The gear looks nice though, with plenty of cloth physics. Gear is also mostly pointless other than for fashion souls. The returning weapons all have different movesets, which are the same as their base weapon type.

I just started a new game as a mage as I skipped magic my first time through until endgame. I picked up a few pyromancies was all but required because sometimes you need an aoe ._.

Casting eats at your catalyst's durability now, which is a legitimate problem. I understand giving it low durability to discourage me from beating people with it but when I need to spam soul arrow to take out a handful of hollows I don't want to see my staff is close to breaking. This is especially a concern as unlike weapons, you don't get access to a back up staff, or the means to repair a broken one until a little ways into the game.

I would imagine there are plenty of Mega Mule asshats invading new players that love nothing more than to spam acid attacks at every sorcerer they find in the starting areas knowing that if they break their staff (and they don't know where to get another one) then they are SOL until they unlock the blacksmiths shop.

Personally I'd rather just go back and play DS1 a few more times. DS2 was more of an chordeal than a game.

Playing with no shield or armor drastically changes things up though. I did wuss out and summon the npc for the Dragonrider fight because I'm not pro at ninja dodging giant halberd swings yet and I didn't wanna have to burn an effigy after my learning curve. I'll learn after I get that sweet sweet Ring of Life Protection ^_^

I'm hoping the game grows on me because as it is I don't really even want to go on to NG+ on my first file to see the various changes. I anticipate playing mage at least up until Lost Sinner fight. I really don't want to have to iframe my way through the game but that fight will be pretty crazy without a shield + getting a cast off before she dodges or tears into me.

 

[SinisterGehe]

I never get it. Studios Make their models and textures in HD format anyway. Why is it so hard to map upscale the UVmaps on to the HD textures instead of tom 720p compressed ones? You do have the old textures, you don't just throw them away. Like you have to make Normal, Illu, and depth maps in HD anyway for them to not cause massive artifacts.

I understand lighting engine and filters. Since those require major coding.

Well I hope that they are honest about it.

 

[DeadEyeDan]

It's still a fantastic game which looks great, and runs a lot smoother than the original did.

For people to completely write it off now that it doesn't look quite as good as early demos then they'll be missing out on such a great experience over such a petty reason.

 

[Cybylt]

According to people who played older builds with all the shiny effects still ine it's because they haven't yet nailed down how to pull off the pretty without severe dips in the frames per second, with one tester describing it as going into "seconds per frame."

Well this is unexpected. I know several youtubers that held off doing LPs of this awaiting the grossly incandescent PC version. *insert The Price is Right fail music*

Mild spoilers

Spoiler

On the other hand no amount of graphical prowess will make up for how poor the ending is. Your time up until that nonevent may be pretty fun so its not all bad. The final boss is even kinda scary which is a step up from "press L2 to win", and the "amazing talking turd" which were the previous two. The plot/lore/npcs/bosses are a step back...and off a cliff compared to the previous entries in the series.

Spells look awesome though, as do several locations.

The gear looks nice though, with plenty of cloth physics. Gear is also mostly pointless other than for fashion souls. The returning weapons all have different movesets, which are the same as their base weapon type.

I just started a new game as a mage as I skipped magic my first time through until endgame having a few pyromancies was all but required because sometimes you need an aoe ._.

Casting eats at your catalyst's durability now, which is a legitimate problem. I understand giving it low durability to discourage me from beating people with it but when I need to spam soul arrow to take out a handful of hollows I don't want to see my staff is close to breaking. This is especially a concern as unlike weapons, you don't get access to a back up staff, or the means to repair a broken one until a little ways into the game. I would imagine their are plenty of Mega Mule asshats invading new players that love nothing more than to spam acid attacks at every sorcerer they find in the starting areas knowing that if they break their staff (and they don't know where to get another one) then they are SOL until they unlock the blacksmiths shop.

Personally I'd rather just go back and play DS1 a few more times. DS2 was more of an chordeal than a game.

Playing with no shield or armor drastically changes things up though. I did wuss out and summon the npc for the Dragonrider fight because I'm not pro at ninja dodging giant halberd swings yet and I didn't wanna have to burn an effigy after my learning curve. I'll learn after I get that sweet sweet Ring of Life Protection ^_^

I'm hoping the game grows on me because as it is I don't really even want to go on to NG+ on my first file to see the various changes. I anticipate playing mage at least up until Lost Sinner fight. I really don't want to have to iframe my way through the game but that fight will be pretty crazy without a shield + getting a cast off before she dodges or tears into me.

I really think all the story and style issues can be attributed the loss of a single creative vision being replaced by a team. I hope Miyazaki's latest project has him as the driving force though he said himself that the reason he didn't take the helm again was because he wasn't sure what he could add to the Souls games from there.

But there's one huge advantage it certainly has over its predecessor, it's a finished game and doesn't have the bullcrap slog of everything post Anor Londo. How terrible everything that came after Ornstein and Smough is really hard to overlook. 2 might not have the highs of the previous game but it sure as hell never goes as low either.

On a more personal note, I'm incredibly pleased with the move from being totally gear based to being more build and play style based. Dark Souls entire play strategy was getting just enough stats to equip something, be it weapon or spell, and then pumping endurance and vitality for the rest of the game because lol stat scaling, damage type? What's that?

Yep, that's elitist all right, and it's pretty in line with the attitude I attributed to WoW players. Those kinds of people are unpleasant. But unlike you, I simply haven't seen that attitude in my extensive interactions with Souls fans. Not even a little. Feel free to tell me which website you found these idiots on so I can avoid it.

If I had to take a guess, sounds like /v/ and occasionally /vg/ "Git gud" is a pretty constant refrain from people who don't actually know anything but want to feel like they do.