... Which irritates me as well, I'm not especially happy that PC gamers need to wait a month since that's the platform I want.
While it doesn't change anything, I will say that I am a bit disappointed that they apparently haven't done a radical revision of the feasibility of magic (at least from how this sounds), as the article talks about the great melee system and the balance between armor, dodging, blocks, staggers, etc... which implies this is still the major focus of the game, and that a simple "I will roast everything with fireballs right from the start" approach hasn't really been balanced into the game. Though to be fair I have wondered if such a thing is even possible given that so much of the game's difficulty relies on it's melee centric nature and forcing perfect (or near perfect) timing with a viable build and/or strategy for each boss. I guess being able to rely entirely on magic and ranged attacks would make things too easy from the perspective of the developers, but for mage fans, it's kind of a let down... we'll see what happens when it comes out though, this is admittedly me reading into things based on what the article says and focuses on.
Well in terms of magic, there have been some tweaks to improve the systems. From what I've heard there are items that will set you number of available casts back to full, you can upgrade catalysts now, and the attunement stat increases casting speed along with the number of spell slots, instead of dexterity. There are probably a lot of other little secrets that can be found in the game to make a pure mage build viable.
As for waiting for the PC version, I'm fine with it. The original port was atrocious, and From Soft is taking the time they need to ensure that this time the PC version is a good one. It is rather annoying that its delayed, but at least they're delaying for the right reasons.
Soooo, why did this review have the promo screenshots instead of actual in-game screens? http://imgur.com/a/PVf6k
Sure game play may be great but this is a crazy downgrade from the stuff at E3, hell it's a downgrade from Dark Souls,even Demon's Souls looked better.
If this is truly the case, then I would imagine the E3 shots were from the PC version which has not been released yet. But that could be a stretch as the difference is rather large. *shrugs*
I don't know if I like invasion being a constant threat now. There needs to be some room to breath and not be afraid of someone fucking your shit up. I'd rather they just did what Demon's Souls did and cut your health bar in half when in hollow form.
This just feels a bit too much. I guess I can always play offline, but that'll mean not getting the entire experience. I wish they handled this differently, because this one aspect is making me very stand offish whether or not I wanna get this game.
if you burn a human effigy you sever the link between online and offline. it makes it much harder to do pvp but also makes co-op harder to do (you have much less communication between one another so less summon signs). of course, human effigies are very rare and valuable, more than humanities ever were. Also, i should warn against severing world links with burnt effigies, as some bosses are cheap to the point of being near impossible solo. i mean, one boss 10 hours in has EIGHT combatants if you dont work fast, and you will face three first, then three again, then two for the last round. But, on the other hand, the covenant areas that function like darkroot forest have enemy invasions nearly every 30 seconds (i got invaded in the area before the boss fight stated above by 2 people at the same time) so its up to you. In my opinion, invasion spamming is much less frustrating than cheap bosses, which dark souls 2 seems to have plenty of.
OT: Dark souls 2 is fantastic, but some of the bosses are so cheap that i wouldnt expect them from a developer thats been on the forefront of fair difficulty. 3 boss characters with individual health bars that all have massive AOE attacks? check. a boss fight where its possible to be mauled by 8 mini-bosses in the same fight? check. This is the first souls game where i want an update to these bosses that fundamentally changes their structure, as a new playthrough seems very unappealing due to them. also, fall damage is rediculous, and you can be killed by 10 foot falls. FROM software seems to have run out of ways to increase the difficulty, so they just put tons of cheap rules and bosses into the game. This is finally reinforced by the simply preposturous notion that enemies in a zone disappear if you die without killing the area boss 15 times. this destroys the flow of supplies and upgrading materials that has been in souls games since demon's souls. now, shopkeepers will not restock materials, so make every titanite shard count. all in all, little design decisions mire what still somehow manages to be the best souls game, and possibly one of the best games of the sub-HD (720p)generation.
I'm not sure if anyone here has played it or can shed some light on this but I have a question and I am hoping for some enlightened soul to help me out.
I played Dark Souls on the 360. I was greatly enjoying it...except for how freaking bad the technical issues got. How in the hell a game can be released on a console with such shitty frame-rate issues at times just baffles the hell out of me. Anyway, it eventually frustrated me so much that I just said "fuck it" and dropped the game (for those of you wondering, it was the "Hellkite Dragon; the red dragon that burns the bridge you attempt to cross). The lag in that section got so bad that I could not effectively fight, rendering the game kind of impossible to play.
So I'm wondering if DSII suffers from these same frame-rate issues on the 360 (the reviewed copy was a PS3 review)?
From a guy who has it on PS3... It does have some framerate issues so far (about 2 hours in), but nothing that stops it from being playable. It dips from 60 to 30 or 25 sometimes, but there has been nothing like Blightown so far.
Anyway, my first impression are positive. There are lots of small changes that I like, and some of the more annoying, time-wasting stuff has been streamlined, which is always a plus. Game does have slightly more cheap areas than Dark 1 or Demons so far, which is worrying but not a deal breaker. Looks freaking gorgeous too, and has a great soundtrack. Can't comment on the online, as it didn't seem to be up when I played... Also, there are bugs. Nothing game breaking so far, but they exist. The structure of the tutorial could really use some work, though; I completely skipped the combat tutorial without realizing I did so until later. XD
60 fps? I'm playing on a PS3 as well, and though I am no expert, it seems to run at a smooth 30.
Other than that, I mostly agree. Dunno if there are cheap areas so much as areas we are really actually new to. But I haven't found those areas any cheaper, I was just less prepared. Anyway, the first true spike was fun as I actually found the clearing that was shown on previews. Up til then, my soldier class was handling it fairly well, and it was a small mercy that the white knight couldn't be bothered to join in as I tried to fend off 4 hollow soldiers with a dagger.
The game does look good, and I don't think there's a visual downgrade from those images. I do think they're kind of vertically sliced, though, since the game does look better indoors than outdoors; and all of the early footage's indoors.
You're also right on the tutorial. I find it amusing that it reminds me a bit of The Great Hollow, which baffles me as to why they chose one of the most trial and error bits of the first game as inspiration. And I am still struggling with the new stat allocation.Vitality seems as much a vital stat as it is a useless one. only raising the equip load and some minor HP makes it useful for tank builds, but is also a bit of a waste. But maybe endurance was overpowered in previous games. And the levels are either downright massive or there are fewer bosses in the game.
It does seem to be at 30 most of the time, but there are some spots (where there is little on the screen) where it appears to go to 60 somehow. Dunno why, it just does.
And there are, without a doubt, some cheap areas, like the bit near the tutorial area with the two troll things near the boat, one of which is completely impossible to spot before he aggros.
And yeah, Vitality seems to be a Resistance-style junk stat. I avoid upgrading it as much as possible, and I seem to be doing fine so far.
And there are more bosses in the game than it lets on at first. Yeah, it takes you a long time to encounter a boss in Forrest of Fallen Giants, but you can encounter two bosses really quickly in Heide's Tower of Flame.
Despite being a fan of Dark Souls, I haven't been following this too closely, so a lot of things will probably come as a surprise as I play it. I just want to know how consistent is the frame-rate in this one? At times, the original, particularly in Blighttown got pretty bad. The most interesting thing to me about this one is that it looked like the enemy have some more varied AI going on.
The engine is new, and as such it seems to run comparatively silky smooth on my PS3. If they don't screw it up like with the previous release, those of the PC master race are in for a treat, but console scrubs like me seem to be getting a constant 30fps.
AI is noticeably better. The very first enemies you find threw me in for a loop, being some sort of monkey dog that kept dodging and running while I hacked at it. Then it turned and attacked and suddenly I see it had led me to the rest of his pack, who proceeded to chew me up without much ceremony. Likewise when I hit the forest (that level we all saw on previews) was finding "these zombie underlings are not so bad" until I hit a clearing and it was a backrollfest while I tried my damndest to keep five of them at bay, while another one sniped down on me. And I only had a broken sword and a dagger to choose from.
Top among all that is the fact that I can outfit my characters with Stalin's moustache. I hereby call the bolchebro as a thing.
That sounds pretty awesome. Stupid finals happening now which are cutting into my playtime. Oh well, whatever, it's good to hear that they are making improvements over the franchise.
Playing through the game as a Swordsman right now. The temptation to just say screw it and take up a shield is there, but I have been enjoying the power stance a little too much... even if the game raises a huge middle finger to anything that can't block. That's Souls for you.
Also, that pirate-viking ship place is at least TWICE as worse as Blighttown ever was. Seriously, fuck that place.
Hmm, getting more and more concerned. I was unhappy with the evasion in Dark compared to demon's (until you get the ninja flip that is almost game breaking). Never used a shield in either game. (other than final level in Dark of course with parrying shield/dagger, yea, I'm cheap like that).
If D2 is balanced for shield use it also means that later playthroughs will be nearly impossible because stamina and poise only take you so far.
Or did I misread, is two handing tough but possible?
Playing through the game as a Swordsman right now. The temptation to just say screw it and take up a shield is there, but I have been enjoying the power stance a little too much... even if the game raises a huge middle finger to anything that can't block. That's Souls for you.
Also, that pirate-viking ship place is at least TWICE as worse as Blighttown ever was. Seriously, fuck that place.
Hmm, getting more and more concerned. I was unhappy with the evasion in Dark compared to demon's (until you get the ninja flip that is almost game breaking). Never used a shield in either game. (other than final level in Dark of course with parrying shield/dagger, yea, I'm cheap like that).
If D2 is balanced for shield use it also means that later playthroughs will be nearly impossible because stamina and poise only take you so far.
Or did I misread, is two handing tough but possible?
Well, evasion is certainly an option if you want to go that route. I've been putting more points into Adaptability and it's been working out rather well. The shield thing is more or less just a holdover from Dark Souls, where I'd never go around a corner without having my shield up. In that game dual-wielding was certainly not an option - so naturally in DS2, it took some getting used to. Also...
Early on I joined a covenant not knowing what it did... only to learn later on that it increases the damage all enemies inflict on you and prevents you from summoning white phantoms.
I'm having a great time, I don't quite understand all the nitpicking but then I'm a tragic for this series. I decided to go full macho and play Deprived, THEN I joined the Champions covenant without realising I was making it even harder on myself, it got pretty brutal there but god it was fun. Still, I've decided to reroll a Cleric and cut myself some slack.
The main thing that's changed for me is that my first character has always been a go-with-the-flow, jack-of-all-trades. I don't set a target, I find something I want and I chuck points in there until I can use it (hence choosing the Deprived). He gets crushed in PvP of course but I don't care. However, this game demands a bit more specialisation because classes are so low in their weak stats, on;y having 2 or 3 points, that it becomes impractical to get a shield on your mage, or a spell on your warrior, because you have to pour so many points in to get that stat up to speed. So that's weird for me, but wouldn't bother most people who actually play their classes properly.
Quick question though. I'm Australian, I bought the game 12 hours ago and haven't been able to take it online all day. Are our servers not running yet? Or is there likely an issue at my end?
From what I hear, FromSoft made several tweaks to the game's engine and made the framerate much more consistent. I couldn't tell you first hand though, since I'm waiting for the PC version to come out.
Playing through the game as a Swordsman right now. The temptation to just say screw it and take up a shield is there, but I have been enjoying the power stance a little too much... even if the game raises a huge middle finger to anything that can't block. That's Souls for you.
Also, that pirate-viking ship place is at least TWICE as worse as Blighttown ever was. Seriously, fuck that place.
Hmm, getting more and more concerned. I was unhappy with the evasion in Dark compared to demon's (until you get the ninja flip that is almost game breaking). Never used a shield in either game. (other than final level in Dark of course with parrying shield/dagger, yea, I'm cheap like that).
If D2 is balanced for shield use it also means that later playthroughs will be nearly impossible because stamina and poise only take you so far.
Or did I misread, is two handing tough but possible?
What I gathered on dual wielding (which the game does NOT explain):
You can seemingly equip any combination of two weapons at any given time.
All weapons (so far) now have the possibility to block and parry, provided you two hand it. so, with the swordsman (which seems the most tailored for dex builds even if you don't dual wield) you can dual wield the scimitar and parry with it like you would with a shield. So, parrying will be cumbersome while dual wielding, and unless there's eventually a parrying dagger, you can only parry by either 2 handing one of the weapons or switching to a shield.
The dual wield seems designed to be maximized with two similar weapons. With my swordsman ( who starts with a scimitar and a shortsword), once I found a second short sword, I saw that dual wielding shortswords gives you a new stance (hold triangle/Y till it changes). when in that stance, the damage output is seemingly doubled, and there's a very devastaing slowish 2 weapon swipe by pressing L2/LT.
EDIT: Ok, the stance change works with different kinds of weapons, it seems, it's mainly a stat requirement. To be able to use a weapon in dual wield stance, you need the base stats+half the base stats. So, to dual wield a sword that has 10 str and 10 dex requirement, you need 15 str and 15 dex.
So dual wielding is more viable, and the devs seem to be taking some lengths to push you forth out of your confort zone, considering the only starting class with a shield is the warrior. But I think dual wielding is viable, once we "unlearn" what we've been learning for the past 3 years. And if not, you can just as easy buy a shield in the hubzone and switch. Dark Souls was always about some adaptability as well, after all.
I like how you can just go somewhere else if you can't beat a boss almost all the time.
While dark souls had me sitting in front of ornstein and smough for hours, grinding the game to a screeching halt, I can just say nope to that pursuer and explore 3 other giant paths instead.
With the exception of the ruin sentinels, most bosses you need to beat to get to a new area are easy or there are ways for you to find to make them easier or you can just fight another boss that gets you to that area.
The hard bosses like the lost sinner don't lead to a new area so you can hold out on fighting them while dark souls would have put that stuff between you and progression.
It's a lot more fluid and less frustrating.
Even if you're a newbie and can't beat the first boss, you're not stuck on "level 1" at all and can explore big parts of the game, much more than dark souls allowed and you could do a lot before the gargoyles there.
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