Quote from: MarKhan on June 07, 2018, 12:19:43 PM

Quote from: Ian on June 07, 2018, 12:15:43 PM

This is for the best, their recent policing was so out of place with what they’ve been known for. I don’t like Valve/Steam but this is a step in the right direction.

Well, provided this isn’t a troll story.

Step in right direction or not, result totally depends on how Valve gonna implement it. And Valve is fucking lazy.

Also it`s a post from Valve employee, so unlikely that this is a troll

English, while it is a simple language, can seem complex in this sense. Step in THE right direction. THE result. Valve IS going to implement it.

Think of it as asking a question with your sentence "What IS Valve going to implement?" Valve IS going to implement such and such etc. What direction? THE right direction. What result? THE result. You also use the grave accent ` symbol instead of an apostrophe ' which faces the other way.

what a scholar

Quote from: Verbatim on June 07, 2018, 02:03:36 PM

Quote from: Naru on June 07, 2018, 01:49:05 PM

so i finished NGE and well. i think i didnt get the one scene of you know who doing you know what.

are you talking about EoE, or do you still have to watch that

still gotta watch the movie. im guessing thats where that, uh, certain scene took place?

Yeah

post thoughts when you do

Crying and not fighting for your place in the world is inherently unamerican.

i was being ironic fuck america lol

If you're going to allow a minor thing like that to make you quit playing the game forever that's really bad.

it's not a minor thing if you know it's gonna be a recurring theme across the entire game

that's the original reason why i quit the first time, because during the tutorial, it hit me that this was that one game with the toxic multiplayer, so i was like wow okay fuck it i'm not gonna put up with this

Try reading my whole post.

i did, it was mostly incomprehensible gobbledygook as usual

Ok... play co op then. Just don't cry about being invaded.

this is america and he can play co-op and cry when he gets invaded all he wants to

Nothing wrong with sucking at games, but quitting because somebody killed you in PvP is pretty fucking gay.

i don't necessarily disagree, but if you're not having fun even when you're playing with a friend, that's pretty bad

"I am half serious" I see, I see....

to clear it up, it's just a PS1 game

studio ghibli did all the art for it and animated the OP and stuff

ignore that

if MAL weren't broken for the past week or so, i'd be able to make the 1998 list pretty much right now

Your friend needs to be tougher if some loser online sending him a message causes him to stop playing a game. Why buy a game like Dark Souls to only play co op anyways? There's no challenge.

if "challenge" is the ONLY reason to play dark souls, you must not like the game that much

maybe you're interested in the story or the lore, maybe you enjoy the gameplay but you get frustrate way too easily, or maybe you just like teamwork—if the developers gave a fuck about how you played the game, they wouldn't have allowed you to co-op the entire game

i also have a friend who's getting the game on switch, and he's only doing so to co-op it with me so i can basically fight all the bosses for him, because he's fucking terrible at games and he knows it, but he still wants to play it with somebody who doesn't suck so he can at least know what the game is all about

and invasions are the kind of thing that would probably cause him to give up, he's already apprehensive over the lack of a pause feature, so i'm hoping he's able to keep it together too

Quote from: Verbatim on June 06, 2018, 08:42:45 PM

Quote from: challengerX on June 06, 2018, 08:37:25 PM

I'll never understand how you can take pleasure from ruining somebody's game.

but you do

I'm not having this argument again lmao invading someone does not ruin their game. You can just be hollow if you don't want to be invaded. Or if you know you can take everybody on and you're a high enough level offer humanity at the bonfire. It's a simple system, and while it's not great it's pretty good.

what do you mean "it's not great" it's flawless maybe you just need to get good

---

<- Previous update: ...Consider giving up, skeleton.

---

Recap:
- Explored the rest of the Catacombs
- Found Gravelord Nito in the Tomb of the Giants

Current missions:
- Kill Nito
- Explore the Great Hollow
- Explore the Demon Ruins
- Find and kill the Witch of Izalith

---

I think we're about due for another one of these, huh? Let me just take a second to refresh you guys on where we're at.

The last time I updated (back in August), I found the secret passageway to Gravelord Nito's chamber in the Tomb of the Giants. No boss fight commenced shortly thereafter, because Nito was hiding inside of his coffin, and apparently, I can't hurt him when he's in there. The only thing I could do in this room is join his covenant, which I had no intention of doing.

Instead, on a complete whim, I went back down to that one room where I killed Pinwheel, I found myself another way into the Tomb that I had previously missed. It's a pretty large area with a lot of shit going on, but it's extremely dark and I got my asshole torn apart by a bunch of skeletonized gorillas or some shit before I could find a bonfire.

One of the first things I did to help navigate myself through this place was switch my Pyromancy Flame for my other magic wand of choice: the Oolacile Ivory Catalyst that I got from that nice lady in the Darkroot Basin. I know using magic is more or less frowned upon, but not to worry—I did not intend to use any offensive spells; just cute gimmicks and utility spells. I have just enough attunement slots for all the things I wanted to use: Cast Light, Hidden Body, and Aural Decoy, and just enough Intelligence invested to use them.

Cast Light is pretty indispensable, and my favorite spell to use in dark areas where it's hard as fuck to see shit. It surprisingly helps a lot more than you'd perhaps expect it to, and it makes me feel like I'm using a Wand-Lighting Charm, which makes the Harry Potter fan in me feel all giddy inside. One little trick I like to perform before leaving the bonfire is set up a light and immediately re-sit at the bonfire to instantly replenish the spell, effectively giving me 4 uses rather than the standard 3. I'm sure nobody has ever thought to do anything like this but me, an intellectual.

Hidden Body is cool, because it makes it so some of the more dimwitted enemies can't tell where you are for a brief period of time. And in the Tomb of the Giants, there are a lot of dimwitted enemies. In particular, the bonewheel skeletons that everyone seems to hate so much? Works like a charm on them, and I'm pretty happy that I came up with that solution on my own. I never really had too many issues with the bonewheel guys anyway—I carry a greatshield, after all, so their attacks glance pretty easily off of it. It only sucks when they gang up on you, but with Hidden Body, I don't even need to worry about that shit.

Aural Decoy is what I meant by "cute gimmick." The moment I bought this thing near the beginning of the playthrough, I could tell that it was probably one of those spells that everyone thinks is completely pointless, but I thought to myself, "I'm gonna find a use for you." And I did—it's actually a pretty good pinch tool for those situations where you'd like an enemy to move his ass out of the way without having to fight it, but again, it only works on stupid enemies. I haven't used it very much, but it's still a satisfying trick to pull off whenever I do.

As for the Tomb of the Giants itself, I'm afraid I don't remember every detail of it, since I cleared it so many months ago, so I'll just go over the biggest events.

So, I'm sure everyone remembers that prick who pushes you off the cliff, right? The one who asks you if you're a cleric, tells you about a "treasure" at the bottom of the cliff, and then asks you to take a peek?

Here's the thing about that guy—I knew exactly what he was about to do, and I wouldn't have let him do it if the game didn't give the event trigger such a deceptively wide area of effect. I get the impression that being kicked down here was nothing but a good thing, though, so it wasn't really a big deal. Even so, as soon as I got back up there, I wanted so much to just kill the guy, just on principle, but I ultimately decided against it. Since the game has permadeath in terms of the NPCs, I'd rather not do something I might completely regret later.

It was in the pit where I discovered that one maiden—the one from WAY back—the one who entered the Catacombs with an entourage of Way of White dudes. Those dudes went hollow, so I pretty much had to put them out of their misery. She gave me a spell I don't remember the name of because I'll probably never use it, but it was still a cool little game moment I guess. Kinda weird for the game to suddenly pull a damsel in distress out of nowhere, but I'll take it. That's probably the best way to use that trope, really—a random thing that happens on the side, rather than having it be the main quest. I don't know if that was an intentional subversion, but it works for me.

This area has some fucked up looking enemies, too. I saw what looked like a bunch of totem poles made up of skeleton parts and dirt? Weird shit. They're not even difficult, but they're very slow and freaky looking.

A couple of hidden bonfires later, I eventually came upon what appeared to be the critical path to Nito's boss door, so the next section is pretty foggy for me and I don't remember much. All I can say for sure is that the trek to Nito is one of the longer and more tedious boss runs in the game, and I wasn't having a great time with that, especially since I don't particularly enjoy the strategy of just running past every enemy I see. I try to fight everything, mostly for the souls, but I eventually decided I was wasting too much time with that and just ran past everything. Feels kinda stupid, and it's one of my least favorite aspects of the game. It's kinda fucking lame.

At least the scenery in this section of the game is beautiful, though. I linked that one screenshot earlier with the big trees and the green foggy atmosphere.

The room just before Nito is insane, because it's a big cramped-up cave that's swarming not only with Pinwheel guys, which are just regular enemies now I guess, but also these baby skeletons that gang up on you like anklebiters, and I believe they can poison you, too. And they all respawn. During my boss runs, these guys were just nuisances more than anything. Avoiding all their magic blasts can be tricky when you're trying to reach the fight as soon as humanly possible, and since you're forced to take fall damage going into Nito's lair anyway, it's definitely a section that keeps you on your toes. I actually like this part, and I didn't mind running past anything here, because they can still blast you if you're not paying good enough attention.

And then I made it to Nito. For whatever reason, he wants to fight me now, even though I was 100% ready and available to fight him several hours ago back when I found the hidden passage to him, but oh well.

My first attempt, like with most of my attempts, wasn't really much of an "attempt" at all. I only had two helpings of Estus left, so I knew I wasn't gonna stand a chance, so I took the opportunity I had to just feel him out and get a sense for how he fights.

Turns out, he's a big lumbering idiot who lets his minions do most of the work for him. His legion of lesser skeletons ganged up on me and set me packing in less than thirty seconds—the last thing I spotted was Nito performing an attack that caused a lot of collateral damage to his own army.

That all happened last year. After that first attempt, I had intended to take a momentary break from the game—maybe a week or so—but "a week" wound up turning into nine months. WHOOPS.

I'm back now, though, and I'm excited to show you what I've been able to accomplish in the past couple of days.


Just a few more left now, my friends:


The Demon Firesage is probably right around the corner, and the Centipede Demon sounds like something that would be lurking down in the Great Hollow, if I were to guess. All the rest sound like endgame material, except for the Stray Demon, which I'm not too sure about.

good mechanic

i thought you were looking for a TV

Quote from: Verbatim on June 05, 2018, 01:39:44 PM

reddit is awesome

Yeah there's a nice variety sometimes, it's a good place to lose a couple of hours when I don't wanna sink too deeply into TVtropes.  Not sure why some people dislike it, but hey like it matters.

people just don't like the community/culture (and neither do i, really)

that's all they base their opinion on though which is dumb

really good website

lame as fuck