Who knew Casper would be the racist uncle of Sep7agon

Dude no one gives a shit. Stop making threads.

Put that mirror down

I will say Majula is the best hub out of all three tho

But fuck the three OP pigs

Does it not feel like Christmas for anyone else?
Just not feeling it this year

Why is it that every FromSoftware game has to have a poison swamp level

It’s like Miyazaki won’t let one be released without it

Back to sucking on Miyazaki’s teat with DS3
Feels pretty good so far although this game channels the Bloodborne aesthetic a bit too heavily

Quote from: Aether on December 22, 2019, 04:28:41 PM

This is why I hesitate to visit the hospital. The cost of medical care in the US is astronomical. I had a seizure a couple of months ago most likely due to an electrolyte imbalance and it cost over 5K even though I only stayed a couple of hours. I think the ambulance ride alone was probably 3K. And I didn't have insurance at the time so it's all on me to pay.

It's such an awful thing to do for people with mental illness. Slap someone with a bill for thousands, that surely won't make them any more suicidal than they already are.

While insurance """helped""", between two separate accounts I was still responsible for something like 20% of the cost (around 2k). Fuck anyone who tries to argue that the average person can handle interactions with insurance coverage when these companies go out of their way to make it difficult as possible to get things covered.

And yeah; my primary emotion the first couple of days was regret. I regretted doing what I did to cause the entire chain of events, but I also regretted getting help. I felt like I was being punished for choosing life, which is not great. And that was BEFORE I got the bills.

Quote from: Ingy on December 22, 2019, 05:08:54 PM

Wow that’s really fucked up
They’re forcing you to pay for being mentally debilitated

How are you handling it

I am paid up now thankfully, unless I get a surprise bill for some random tylenol I took when I was blacked out. All it took was wiping out my savings and any extra money I made over the latter half of the year.

Glad that’s not hanging over you at least

Quote from: Ingy on December 22, 2019, 03:21:22 PM

Quote from: Aria on December 22, 2019, 01:51:43 PM

Quote from: Dan on December 22, 2019, 01:27:28 PM

Quote from: Aria on December 22, 2019, 11:27:39 AM

Yours allows you access to the internet? Lucky.

Yep. Have you been to a psych hospital?

Once earlier this year, although mine was involuntary. Miserable experience altogether; cost me thousands of dollars I didn't have, and they barely did any counseling because it was over a weekend. I was basically forced to watch Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell movies for 10 hours a day. Would have been better for my psyche to just send me home tbh.

It was involuntary but you still had to pay?

Yep. Before insurance, the 4 day stay was $5,000. That's not including ER, either ambulance, doctor, bloodwork, etc.

Wow that’s really fucked up
They’re forcing you to pay for being mentally debilitated

How are you handling it

All my friends are dead

currently there's a lot of RP shit to handle in Off topic Bnet

We may die first in activity but god abandoned that place long ago

Alright because it pissed me off so bad, I'm going to make a list of complaints

1) The combat is slow and clunky

Half of what makes DS so good is the combat. DS2 says fuck all that. Every time I roll, parry, or drink, I feel like a new DS game has come out by the time I actually perform the action. Dodging and parrying at the last second is impossible so you just have to wait until the enemy finishes a flurry attack and then R1 spam them. Goodbye nuance. Forget having to decide between striking, dodging, drinking, or parrying. Now you just take turns backing away and hitting each other

2) Level design

Jesus fucking Christ this is why I quit. Remember that sneaky double fake wall leading to the Great Hollow in DS1? Now they're everywhere and sometimes they lead to literally nothing. The levels are boring and uninspired. Nothing catches your eye and leads you to where they want you to go. The levels don't loop back on themselves and when they do, it's in a pointless manner. Progression through the level is meh at best. Some times the paths branch off to side areas but it's really hard to tell which one is the main way and which one is just a side area

3) Boss runs

It was a legit strategy to run past everything to get to the bosses in DS1. Now the levels are designed in such a way that you can't skip by the enemies and you have to kill them before reaching the boss. If you do try to run past them and enter the fog wall, they can stagger you out of entering the fog wall. I have died more times getting to bosses than to the bosses themselves.

4) THE BOSSES

"What did DS players like about the first one?"
"Uh bosses?"
"Yeah that's good, we'll put them every 5O feet in this one"
"Should they have lore significance or be unique in any way?"
"Nah"

5) The lore

This one makes me the most sad. DS1 had a rich world where every item gave insight to the world. Item placement had meaning and the items NPCs used had meaning too. I have 24 hours played and things still aren't coming together for me. They give you an item from the first game, tell you this comes from Lordran but everyone has forgotten the name. And every item is like this. How did Lordran fall, what survived, how long ago was this? They don't bother with any of it. And I don't give a fuck about any of the lore in this new world because it's all disconnected. By the time I got to the Lost Sinner, I had no idea who she was or why she was there. Three areas later and still no mention of her. Pretty piss poor way to treat a character who holds one of the four lord souls.

6) Story telling

DS1 had good structure. You arrive in a strange land and are told to ring two bells. On the way you discover more about the gods and this undead curse. By the time you get the lordvessel you have a pretty good idea of the stakes and factions at play. Gathering the four lord souls, you learn more about the first flame, gwyn, and the implications of what you are doing. By the end, you understand most of the world and why you're doing what you are doing. In DS2, you're told by some woman to collect the lord souls for some reason. Everybody's forgotten about the first flame so it seems like the world is going to die off anyway yet you're still gathering these souls for some reason? Places don't have any significance. Here's a poison windmill. Here's an undead prison. Why are they here? Why are you visiting them? Because we had to make a game that's why.

7) The constant reminder that dark souls is hard

I thought having a "prepare to die" version of DS1 was cringy enough but DS2 takes it to another level. First time I died I got the "welcome to dark souls" trophy. First NPCs I reach and she's banging on about how much I'll die over and over. DS2 misunderstands what makes DS1 great. Miyazaki himself said that difficulty was never the point of DS. This game seems to think that hard is giving the players loads to deal with and stripping them of the tools they need to deal with them. The game doesn't test particular aspects of your skill or give you a unique challenge to overcome. It just thinks that making you die to cheap shit makes the game hard and a hard game = a good game

Nitpicking

Some chests have traps but there's no way to check. No real interesting NPCs or factions. Constant references to DS1 that make no sense. Weird ADP stat that increases drinking speed. Doesn't add any new challenge except for being another stat to dump points into.


Overall it's just not fun and worse, not rewarding. I remember after defeating Ornstein and Smough in DS1, you were greeted with the sight of amazing chest ahead, the lighting, the music, the soft voice of a goddess telling you you did it, and the lord vessel. There are no moments like that in DS2. DS1 was hard but fair. This game is hard. I wanted to continue playing DS1 even in its toughest moments. I do not want to continue this game and probably won't

Put up with this shit until the lava place but now I’m done thanks Miyazaki

Ye but I can't so I wish for the next best thing: death

God the make up sex is going to be so intense