Dark Souls 2

Tuco_sl said:

Yes. I consider your group of people a protected species.

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sickburnbro

Quineloe_sl said:

That's my current build, on a New Game without any plus yet

how would that work out in pvp?

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Need to upgrade that axe... Slow characters usually don't fare too well; personally, I like the medium roll (<=50% equip load).

I'm still quite far away from the very large amber

I did upgrade to full havel now, sitting at exactly 67 out of 67 equip load

I would guess he meant upgrade it to an entirely different weapon. There are many weapons with far better movesets than a battle axe.

I found Battle Axe to be one of the absolute worst, frankly. So many wide openings it leaves with so little reach - it's like a halberd with none of the reach.

I like it for its high poise damage. I can take out many enemies without them fighting back at all. Also, after using a Balder Side Sword for my first playthrough, which basically trivializes most fights because its so good, I'd like something else.

Quineloe_sl said:

I like it for its high poise damage. I can take out many enemies without them fighting back at all. Also, after using a Balder Side Sword for my first playthrough, which basically trivializes most fights because its so good, I'd like something else.

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You can get a +15 weapon after fighting the Capra Demon. Depths (lg. ember) -> Lew Londo (very lg. ember). Or just make it a +10 Fire Battle Axe a little later.

I won't hate on the axe for PvE, but it's pretty predictable in PvP. Ripostes for dayz.

very large ember from a drained New Londo Ruins, which as I said, I'm not anywhere close to yet.

I also don't get the point of these side upgrades (fire chaos whatever), in my first playthrough, the Balder sword +15 did more damage per hit than any other fast weapon I obtained.

Btw, he asked for a PVE build that won't work on pvp, which I provided I think

I picked up darksouls on PC probably a year late even then, I played it completely blind and unspoiled. I did no character planning, picked a weapon type and just played the game with it. I liked running around with humanity as a challenge to myself, but the pvp was always lopsided. The builds I picked, or the armor I worse, or just the lagged nature of the interaction were unsatisfactory. As I was learning boss fights I'd just flop off cliffs or hide because lifebars wouldn't move, or whatever items they had chosen would take 3/4ths of my life. I was not impressed. Maybe playing at launch with more people and better matchmaking, but I'm not holding my breath. I enjoy competitive games a lot, but I definitely never felt like darksouls pvp was in any way competitive.

Quineloe_sl said:

that's cool, if that works in DS2 I'm sold on online play.

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Just make sure you do it when the save icon isn't doing it's thing. You can ruin your save that way by Alt+F4ing when it's in the middle of saving which it usually does when someone first invades.

Dandain_sl said:

I picked up darksouls on PC probably a year late even then, I played it completely blind and unspoiled. I did no character planning, picked a weapon type and just played the game with it. I liked running around with humanity as a challenge to myself, but the pvp was always lopsided. The builds I picked, or the armor I worse, or just the lagged nature of the interaction were unsatisfactory. As I was learning boss fights I'd just flop off cliffs or hide because lifebars wouldn't move, or whatever items they had chosen would take 3/4ths of my life. I was not impressed. Maybe playing at launch with more people and better matchmaking, but I'm not holding my breath. I enjoy competitive games a lot, but I definitely never felt like darksouls pvp was in any way competitive.

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I think someone said it before in this thread but Darksouls is one of those games where you actually have to read up on it in order to know how to play it right. I finished the game last month and will most likely not play DS2. The game had some nice moments but I found myself continuously asking myself why is this character doing what he does? The game is just really aimless.

Mixtilplix_sl said:

Darksouls is one of those games where you actually have to read up on it in order to know how to play it right.

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/F
/A
/C
/E
/P
/A
/L
/M

Or, you know, that could defeat THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE GAME

You honestly figured everything out in Darksouls by yourself without reading anything?

Quineloe_sl said:

I also don't get the point of these side upgrades (fire chaos whatever), in my first playthrough, the Balder sword +15 did more damage per hit than any other fast weapon I obtained.

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For elemental damage, it's helpful against mobs/bosses that are weak to that element, especially when your stats are low or you don't have access to the higher embers yet. For the others, they are primarily for people who are using a high int or faith build, since they switch the stats that your damage bonus comes from to one of those stats.

Mixtilplix_sl said:

You honestly figured everything out in Darksouls by yourself without reading anything?

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After I had been soul-crushing defeated by Maneater about 300 times I went online to look how to beat him. I also looked up how to enchant items with specific enchantments after getting destroyed in PvP. But that's a lot different than lookin in advance of any experience and basically figuring out step by step what to do and why do it. I had absolutely NO idea how to manage weight in Demon's Souls; I had absolutely NO idea how to surive poison in Dark Souls; I had NO IDEA that you didn't have to go through Blight Town if you didn't want to (that there was a "back door", etc). There are still tons of things I don't understand about both games, even though I've beaten them both more than once.

My point is just this: in Dark Souls the core and most basic gameplay mechanic is death. Death is what teaches you. It isn't a mere consequence of poor activity (as it is in so many other games). So, in my view, looking things up before you absolutely need to does a dis-service to yourself and the game. It's why I find the series special. For example, MM10. Sure. Looked it all up. Secret doors, spoilers, strats. Who gives a shit. It's just one of those games you play for fun. But the Souls' series is not, in my book, about fun - it is about what kind of gamer you are. It is a task, not an enjoyable pastime. You do it to be a certain kind of person.

Anyway, that's why I find the approach you advocate so alien. I retract any negativity, but I simply don't understand why you'd want to approach the Souls games like this. It is like cheating on a personal goal you set for satisfaction.

Drajakur_sl said:

It's just one of those games you play for fun. But the Souls' series is not, in my book, about fun - it is about what kind of gamer you are. It is a task, not an enjoyable pastime. You do it to be a certain kind of person.

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Holy mother of god this is the most pretentious thing I've read on this forum in a long while.

Bullshit. Bull, fucking, shit. I play Dark Souls for fun and no other reason. I would not play games if I did not find them fun. The Souls series difficulty is part of the fun, definitely, but I do not view any part of it as some kind of "task" to get through. Games are meant for pleasure, not for proving something.

Drajakur_sl said:

After I had been soul-crushing defeated by Maneater about 300 times I went online to look how to beat him. I also looked up how to enchant items with specific enchantments after getting destroyed in PvP. But that's a lot different than lookin in advance of any experience and basically figuring out step by step what to do and why do it. I had absolutely NO idea how to manage weight in Demon's Souls; I had absolutely NO idea how to surive poison in Dark Souls; I had NO IDEA that you didn't have to go through Blight Town if you didn't want to (that there was a "back door", etc). There are still tons of things I don't understand about both games, even though I've beaten them both more than once.

My point is just this: in Dark Souls the core and most basic gameplay mechanic is death. Death is what teaches you. It isn't a mere consequence of poor activity (as it is in so many other games). So, in my view, looking things up before you absolutely need to does a dis-service to yourself and the game. It's why I find the series special. For example, MM10. Sure. Looked it all up. Secret doors, spoilers, strats. Who gives a shit. It's just one of those games you play for fun. But the Souls' series is not, in my book, about fun - it is about what kind of gamer you are. It is a task, not an enjoyable pastime. You do it to be a certain kind of person.

Anyway, that's why I find the approach you advocate so alien. I retract any negativity, but I simply don't understand why you'd want to approach the Souls games like this. It is like cheating on a personal goal you set for satisfaction.

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Not looking up tactics on how to beat a boss is one thing but having to look up basics about the game (i.e. "what kind of stat is faith?", "humanity is useful for?" ) is another. The game does a really poor job of showing/teaching the basic concepts so you have to go outside the game to learn about it. That is poor design and also fuck that UI. I guess some people really like that kind of mystery but it's frustrating when it impedes you from enjoying it.

Drajakur_sl said:

My point is just this: in Dark Souls the core and most basic gameplay mechanic is death. Death is what teaches you. It isn't a mere consequence of poor activity (as it is in so many other games). So, in my view, looking things up before you absolutely need to does a dis-service to yourself and the game. It's why I find the series special. .

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It's not though. Death is a consequence we've developed by not being really observant. Off hand, in Dark Souls, I can count on one hand the number of times I was killed strictly due to things completely unforeseen and that I could legitimately say would have taken omniscience to avoid. Sometimes the clues are small, but they are there.

A lot of people talk about the dragon as an example of something that gets a lot of people and isn't avoidable. Well, it is...the bridge is scorched and there are bodies covering it. The scene itself is letting you know something might be wrong If you saw a charred road with smoldering bodies on it in RL, would you strut across like nothing happened? heh, and that's the point, DS is teaching us NOT to treat it like we treat most games, it's teaching us about consequence again, which is sorely lacking in most games (In most games, the "consequence" for not doing something is not getting a reward; so it's kind of like a neutral punishment system. Where DS has a full on negative punishment system. Or, another example, during the arrow traps, a piece of the floor is raised. The first mimic you see in Sen's is not flush against a wall or parallel to one in the center of the room like all the chests in the game were up until that point (You know, like a human would keep stuff). In many of the other traps there are bodies there. For fights? Most bosses will show your their move set as long as your cautious at first and move away a lot. This doesn't ALWAYS work, some fights are just bad at showing mechanics and some areas just have things that fuck you, but MOST areas in DS, there are clues.

Now, I'm not saying I found them. I died like a bitch in almost all those examples hah. But the nice thing about DS for me is looking back? I could see the subtle signs the developers left me. They didn't have some assholes pop up and say "UNDEAD MAN, UNDEAD MAN: That's an X mob, he's going to do Y thing!"...they left it up to me to discern it and made most of the fights fair about displaying them, or clues strong enough that someone really clever could usually avoid it. (Again, not always, some things were just die to learn.) DS brought back the Megaman X learning through showing; it's an art in games that's been lost due to how complex they've gotten but it's great that DS does it.

As for the fun thing? DS is loads of fun for me, not sure what you're smoking man. I agree with Sean on this, I would not play a game "just because it's hard". Difficulty alone does not make something compelling. Smashing your balls with a hammer and remaining concious is probably a difficult thing to do; but I'm not going to prove myself by doing it. DS marries difficulty and fun, that's why it's great. Not because it focuses on difficulty. And part of the byproduct of that marriage is giving the world an aesthetic very few modern games achieve: the feeling like the world is dangerous, like it's a living, breathing place that needs to be paid attention to, or else things will be bad. (The same way you treat the real world, which is why, I think, DS feels so rich, even though it's got a very sparse narrative.)