Dark Souls Impressions - The FINAL Update

As someone already mentioned, Kindling your Estus is very helpful. I didn't even know it was a thing on my first ever playthrough. I'd reccommend saving your humanity for kindling, and not using them to heal.

Dark Souls 2 is trash. We don't speak of that game here.

Soul memory and the lack of a full red eye orb. Why, From?

and the addition of poise was bad

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Dark Souls 2 is trash. We don't speak of that game here.

Soul memory and the lack of a full red eye orb. Why, From?

and the addition of poise was bad

But didn't poise fix the massive stunlock problem that I hear plagued DS1?

Dark Souls 2 is trash. We don't speak of that game here.

Soul memory and the lack of a full red eye orb. Why, From?

and the addition of poise was bad

I preferred DS1 poise but DS2 has been patched so much that it's really not that bad anymore.

I didn't play it long enough to see it patched

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Dark Souls 1 was overall better, but there were a few things in Dark Souls 2 they did right, such as replacing the kick with the poise break for the shield. Discourages someone always holding it up. Same with backstabs I think.

Oh Verb

Never ever consume Firekeeper Souls, they're used to boost the substance of each Estus sip

Game never tells you that and once you use it, you can't take it back

Oh Verb

Never ever consume Firekeeper Souls, they're used to boost the substance of each Estus sip

Game never tells you that and once you use it, you can't take it back

The description of the first one literally tells you this.

Oh

easily overlooked*

Oh ya speak of the devil, special attacks.

That's why they added durability. There are some exceptionally hard hitting weapons in that game. The game would play itself for you if you could spam those specials to your heart's content.

So make it so only special attacks drain durabilty--not regular attacks. I don't fucking know.

It's not a fun mechanic either way.

Lol he said fun.

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I can't wait till you get to the

Not really a spoiler but just in case

Spoiler

Archers

Spoiler

pls no

Dark Souls 1 was overall better, but there were a few things in Dark Souls 2 they did right, such as replacing the kick with the poise break for the shield. Discourages someone always holding it up. Same with backstabs I think.

Truth. DS2 improved on many things. Instant invasions, ladder controls, shield break, better weapon upgrading, warping and so forth. Disagreed on the backstabs though. Two-step backstabs are not as fun and have considerable downsides. You miss a backstab in DS1 due to latency? You just swing in the air (or even cancel it right away) and nothing happens. Same scenario in DS2? Your character does the slow and exaggerated swipe/grab move in thin air which completely prevents you from moving while your opponent can do whatever. I'm glad they're going back to the old system for DS3.

Yeah that makes sense I suppose.

Verb, do you know what your goal is (story-wise/ingame-wise)?

Dark Souls 1 was overall better, but there were a few things in Dark Souls 2 they did right, such as replacing the kick with the poise break for the shield. Discourages someone always holding it up. Same with backstabs I think.

I always felt the kick was better for balance. With no poise-BS DS2 needed some form of turtling, and shields were pretty balanced in that aspect in DS1. Sure you can sit there doing jack shit behind a shield, but only if your shield was 100% phys reduc and the enemy weapon was 100% phys would that be sustainable. Also shield turtling is about as benign as strategies get, considering you aren't harming your opponent. So nuking shields with a free stun and special attack with that poise break thing was pretty overkill in a game where any and all weapons in the meta had mixed damage and countered shields anyways. Partly why DS2 meta is so aggresive.

I suppose it is nice that the poise break comes at the cost of a long wind-up, but kicking was so close range it was virtually the same risk IMO.

I remember when I first playedthis. When I asked for help on bnet I just got getgud thirty times over :c

Pretty much.

10/10 community.

Verb, do you know what your goal is (story-wise/ingame-wise)?

Not really, but I'm gonna trust Flee and just assume that I'll get a better grasp of what my goal is later on.

Playing now.

Just want to say that I agree a lot with Sandtrap:

And most importantly, right now, you're in a section of the game that I call the make or break point. Admitedly, Dark Souls starts off slowly in a bit of a slump. And this is because you're still dealing with the difficulty slope and learning the game. And this seems to hold true for most people, generally. As of yet, you have no direction and little in the sense of a goal.

This make or break point for the game extends up to the Taurus demon and just a little bit past him. After, and assuming that you pass a certain section of the game just a little bit past Taurus, for some particular reason, the game suddenly sucks you in. Or at the very least, most other players.

I was stuck on the berg and Taurus demon for a good 5 hours on my first playthough, nothing I did worked and even quadrupling my level didn't help much, it took at least 5 hours for me to finally beat him and I was really starting to regret buying the game at that point; but afterwards, goddamn did I begin to enjoy it, once you're good enough at handling enemies and bosses you can start looking for the more subtler parts of the game and just overall enjoy it more ince you're not frothing with rage at the same section - at that point if you're sick of one area you just walk somewhere else and on the way find something wonderful, you never know what but once you find it you're glad you did.

Yeah, quitting early. Made a dreadful mistake, and I'm not happy. I have better things to do right now anyway.

Also as me and my brother discovered, it is worth killing the black knights, but you have to get lucky - we both had fantastically fun playthroughs because of it.
—
And in DS2, did anyone else roll full Vengarl's with powerstanced greatswords? that's how you make the game fun.

Yeah, quitting early. Made a dreadful mistake, and I'm not happy. I have better things to do right now anyway.

Also don't get too hung up on loosing souls early on, there's plenty of time and enemies to make up for it.

I just noticed that there's no real way to pause this game, either.

Which is fucking stupid as fuck, and I don't give a shit what anyone has to say about that.

"But Verb! The developers did that on purpose to make the game more challenging!"

sigh

The reason the pause feature exists is because real life happens. Sometimes, you just have to take a shit. Sometimes someone wants to talk to you. Sometimes you just have to take a quick step away from the game you're playing. It's not about giving the player an unfair advantage--it's not about being casual--it's literally a fucking courtesy.

Your personal life has far more value than this game's tryhard gimmick of being challenging--and yet, the game still punishes you for having other stuff to do. Because if you can't pause when you need to, you're going to die.

"But Verb, dying isn't that big of a deal, because the game auto-saves all the time! Just get your souls back!"

Yeah--but what if you've already died once? Doesn't matter--the game expects you to sit there and put your real life on hold. Recover your souls, or lose them forever--pfft, PAUSING? What are you, a fucking CASUL? XDDD GIT GUD FAGOT LOLOL

That's pretty unforgivable.

I remember when I first playedthis. When I asked for help on bnet I just got getgud thirty times over :c

Pretty much.

10/10 community.

Verb, do you know what your goal is (story-wise/ingame-wise)?

Not really, but I'm gonna trust Flee and just assume that I'll get a better grasp of what my goal is later on.

Playing now.

you get told in the tutorial area...

you get told in the tutorial area...

Yeah, in extremely vague terms that mean almost nothing to me--if you're talking about the intro cutscene.

In other words, no, you actually don't get told shit.

You wander out of the asylum and start killing things for... some thusfar undisclosed reason. I'm sure I'll figure it out later, but it's just kind of fucking odd that they don't make your motives clear right away.

I'm not saying that's bad--but don't tell me they tell you anything at the beginning, when they obviously don't.

you get told in the tutorial area...

Yeah, in extremely vague terms that mean almost nothing to me--if you're talking about the intro cutscene.

In other words, no, you actually don't get told shit.

You wander out of the asylum and start killing things for... some thusfar undisclosed reason. I'm sure I'll figure it out later, but it's just kind of fucking odd that they don't make your motives clear right away.

I'm not saying that's bad--but don't tell me they tell you anything at the beginning, when they obviously don't.

Spoiler

In the tutorial area you meat a guy dying (the same guy who gives you the estus and whatnot, he's dressed as a knight) he tells you his goal was to ring the two bells of awakening*. Since he obviously is going to fail he asks you to finish his mission.

Spoiler

*I can't recall what the bells are really called

Also I haven't heard his line of dialogue in a while, so it's not 100% accurate, but it's somewhere around there.

Spoiler

In the tutorial area you meat a guy dying (the same guy who gives you the estus and whatnot, he's dressed as a knight) he tells you his goal was to ring the two bells of awakening*. Since he obviously is going to fail he asks you to finish his mission.

Spoiler

*I can't recall what the bells are really called

Also I haven't heard his line of dialogue in a while, so it's not 100% accurate, but it's somewhere around there.

His whole spiel honestly brought up more questions than it answered--answers I expect to find as I keep playing, but as of now, it's still a pretty nebulous task.

This is what he says:

"Regrettably, I have failed in my mission. But perhaps you can keep the torch lit. There is an old saying in my family. Thou who art Undead, art chosen. In thine exodus from the Undead Asylum, maketh pilgrimage to the land of Ancient Lords. When thou ringeth the Bell of Awakening, the fate of the Undead thou shalt know."

So, basically, "Do this thing, because my family says so, and something will happen."

...Not really a lot to go off of, mate.

Spoiler

In the tutorial area you meat a guy dying (the same guy who gives you the estus and whatnot, he's dressed as a knight) he tells you his goal was to ring the two bells of awakening*. Since he obviously is going to fail he asks you to finish his mission.

Spoiler

*I can't recall what the bells are really called

Also I haven't heard his line of dialogue in a while, so it's not 100% accurate, but it's somewhere around there.

His whole spiel honestly brought up more questions than it answered--answers I expect to find as I keep playing, but as of now, it's still a pretty nebulous task.

A lot of important things in souls games can be as small as a weird texture. If you don't pay much attention, it can take a while to piece everything together.

Spoiler

In the tutorial area you meat a guy dying (the same guy who gives you the estus and whatnot, he's dressed as a knight) he tells you his goal was to ring the two bells of awakening*. Since he obviously is going to fail he asks you to finish his mission.

Spoiler

*I can't recall what the bells are really called

Also I haven't heard his line of dialogue in a while, so it's not 100% accurate, but it's somewhere around there.

His whole spiel honestly brought up more questions than it answered--answers I expect to find as I keep playing, but as of now, it's still a pretty nebulous task.

This is what he says:

"Regrettably, I have failed in my mission. But perhaps you can keep the torch lit. There is an old saying in my family. Thou who art Undead, art chosen. In thine exodus from the Undead Asylum, maketh pilgrimage to the land of Ancient Lords. When thou ringeth the Bell of Awakening, the fate of the Undead thou shalt know."

So, basically, "Do this thing, because my family says so, and something will happen."

...Not really a lot to go off of, mate.

>when you're undead and trying to leave the asylum, head to the land of the ancient lords and ring the bells.

>when you're undead and trying to leave the asylum, head to the land of the ancient lords and ring the bells.

Yeah. "Do this thing, and something will happen."

I think you're confused. I already know what my mission is--but that doesn't actually tell me anything.

What is my motivation for doing this? All I have to go off of is "something will happen."

Like... all right then?

I just noticed that there's no real way to pause this game, either.

Which is fucking stupid as fuck, and I don't give a shit what anyone has to say about that.

"But Verb! The developers did that on purpose to make the game more challenging!"

sigh

The reason the pause feature exists is because real life happens. Sometimes, you just have to take a shit. Sometimes someone wants to talk to you. Sometimes you just have to take a quick step away from the game you're playing. It's not about giving the player an unfair advantage--it's not about being casual--it's literally a fucking courtesy.

Your personal life has far more value than this game's tryhard gimmick of being challenging--and yet, the game still punishes you for having other stuff to do. Because if you can't pause when you need to, you're going to die.

"But Verb, dying isn't that big of a deal, because the game auto-saves all the time! Just get your souls back!"

Yeah--but what if you've already died once? Doesn't matter--the game expects you to sit there and put your real life on hold. Recover your souls, or lose them forever--pfft, PAUSING? What are you, a fucking CASUL? XDDD GIT GUD FAGOT LOLOL

That's pretty unforgivable.

They did that because the game is connected online so there is really no pausing it. What with the chance of being invaded, getting called to another world, etc.

Though offline yeah, that does seem like it should be a feature.

Not everything is a try hard mechanic >_>