From Software Elden Ring - From Software's new game with writing by GRRM

[cvv]

What makes Nioh 2 the better game and why would I want to replay it 3 times? What's missing if you just play to the end credits/do the NG post game content/secret bosses?

Nioh 2 is a direct upgrade in p. much everything. There's almost no reason to play Nioh 1 unless you squeeze N2 dry and still want more. It's just like Remnant 1/2, there's no reason to play the first game whatsoever.

Also I struggled with early Nioh 1 bosses too because you still retain your souls memory and it's hard to adapt to a new system (just like when we started playing Sekiro). Nioh is very much inspired by Dark Souls, with many similar features, but the combat is almost entirely its own thing - more satisfying and way better balanced I'd say. You just have to ease into it and you'll be richly rewarded.

As for replaying, hardcore players claim the fun only starts around NG+3 (Way of the Demon). I mean... ok. But I rarely go beyond NG+1 (Way of the Strong), I just like the vanilla experience. Further on its almost entirely about grinding, crafting and autistic build minmaxing and that's not for me.

 

[Multidirectional]

But I rarely go beyond NG+1 (Way of the Strong), I just like the vanilla experience. Further on its almost entirely about grinding, crafting and autistic build minmaxing and that's not for me.

Crafting? I never bothered with it except for crafting tools like amulets or special ammo from rare materials I get from disassembling shit, once I invest in that blacksmith patronage upgrade enough. Not sure what you mean by grinding because to me the most fun way to play is to rush to highest levels as fast as I can. That count as grinding? I don't feel like you really need to do autistic minmax either until highest levels. And I never farm for equipment with special star bonuses I want. Bonuses I can easily temper on items are plenty for me. Of course it's nice if a piece drops with star bonus that is good for your build but I don't obsess over it. Just using shit that drops along the way while I'm progressing was always good enough. Though I never reached Depths yet, I kept stopping at Underworld floors a little below 100. Bosses do become real cunts there lol, I have to resort to Clay Bell of Beckoning cheese on a lot of them.

 

[Multidirectional]

You're being a bit vague here and I don't want spoilers. I'm trying to understand if this is a DMC situation which is the same game but they change the enemy encounters or if it's a Dark souls 2 situation where there's significant changes in what you will encounter that mixes up the gameplay

Isn't me being vague exactly what you want if you don't want spoilers? Also I'm not sure why you would give a fuck about spoilers like that. I put it in spoiler tags just to avoid making my post huge. And if knowing what is changed in NG+ is too much of a spoiler for your then I don't know how to answer your question. Especially since I don't really know that much about DS 2 NG+ as I never played through it. I found those HP bloat red phantom enemies lame and dropped it before finishing Forest of Fallen Giants. Either read the list or don't.

 

[cvv]

That count as grinding? I don't feel like you really need to do autistic minmax either until highest levels.

On Demon and Wise (never got to Nioh) I was spending a significant time with crafting and grinding mats, gear and plans. Same for tubers and streamers I saw playing all the way to the WotN. Maybe you can do completely without crafting and grinding in difficulties between Demon and Nioh but that's the only way I could do it and that's what I saw everywhere I looked.

 

[Suicidal]

DMC 5. I don't think any of the previous games even came out on PC (don't own any console, never have).

There is a DMC HD collection for PC that has DMC 1-3. DMC 2 is garbage, so you can skip it. 4 is in PC too.

I'd actually advise against skipping DMC 2. While the game is pretty bad, it's also short and can be over with quickly and playing it makes you appreciate what comes after a lot more. Since it's included in the HD collection, it's not like you pay any additional money for it.

 

[Multidirectional]

On Demon and Wise (never got to Nioh) I was spending a significant time with crafting and grinding mats, gear and plans. Same for tubers and streamers I saw playing all the way to the WotN. Maybe you can do completely without crafting and grinding in difficulties between Demon and Nioh but that's the only way I could do it and that's what I saw everywhere I looked.

That sounds weird to me as there's no way I'm that fucking good. Did you have a bunch of life leech on your build and made sure you're doing different types of elemental damage to keep causing Confusion? Cause that's the main things that I like to always make sure I have.

 

[Hell Swarm]

You're being a bit vague here and I don't want spoilers. I'm trying to understand if this is a DMC situation which is the same game but they change the enemy encounters or if it's a Dark souls 2 situation where there's significant changes in what you will encounter that mixes up the gameplay

Isn't me being vague exactly what you want if you don't want spoilers? Also I'm not sure why you would give a fuck about spoilers like that. I put it in spoiler tags just to avoid making my post huge. And if knowing what is changed in NG+ is too much of a spoiler for your then I don't know how to answer your question. Especially since I don't really know that much about DS 2 NG+ as I never played through it. I found those HP bloat red phantom enemies lame and dropped it before finishing Forest of Fallen Giants. Either read the list or don't.

Does it add additional content like the phantoms or is it the same game but a bit harder?

DMC 5. I don't think any of the previous games even came out on PC (don't own any console, never have).

There is a DMC HD collection for PC that has DMC 1-3. DMC 2 is garbage, so you can skip it. 4 is in PC too.

I'd actually advise against skipping DMC 2. While the game is pretty bad, it's also short and can be over with quickly and playing it makes you appreciate what comes after a lot more. Since it's included in the HD collection, it's not like you pay any additional money for it.

DMC2 is worth playing for the visuals. Dante is a downgrade from DMC1 but playing as Lucia offers an original experience and it's worth playing. Before DMC3 added Vergil her and Trish were the original alt play styles. I wish they would bring Lucia back but they've buried her as hard as possible.

 

[Multidirectional]

Does it add additional content like the phantoms or is it the same game but a bit harder?

I guess Cursed enemies are kind of like phantoms. Except I'll take a guess that phantoms don't drop better loot. Hell, there is no better loot in DS2 NG+ aside from these ring upgrades, as far as I know. There's also remixing of encounters in general and giving enemies new moves, making them faster. There's also better equipment with much cooler bonuses on it starting to appear, additional equipment slot is unlocked. Kind of like unlocking amulet slot. There's more shit being unlocked with each difficulty bump. I doubt DS2 NG+ has more changes than in Nioh 2. Seriously I don't see how me telling you this is any different from you just reading the damn list I posted. What difference does it even make knowing NG+ changes beforehand, aside from giving you things to look forward to? "Muh spoilerz" shit in this case just seems dumb to me.

 

[cvv]

On Demon and Wise (never got to Nioh) I was spending a significant time with crafting and grinding mats, gear and plans. Same for tubers and streamers I saw playing all the way to the WotN. Maybe you can do completely without crafting and grinding in difficulties between Demon and Nioh but that's the only way I could do it and that's what I saw everywhere I looked.

That sounds weird to me as there's no way I'm that fucking good. Did you have a bunch of life leech on your build and made sure you're doing different types of elemental damage to keep causing Confusion? Cause that's the main things that I like to always make sure I have.

Well maybe you are. Maybe you gidded gut in Nioh specifically.

IIRC never used life leech and as for confusion, is it still a thing in N2?

Dunno, unlike you I don't doubt my skillz in Niohs, I know for a fact I kindda suck.

 

[Multidirectional]

IIRC never used life leech and as for confusion, is it still a thing in N2?

Pretty sure that would be the reason then. Bonuses that let you heal while attacking and Confusion are significant. I don't see myself doing anywhere near as good without them. Seems like your "minmaxed" build basically sucked.

 

[cvv]

IIRC never used life leech and as for confusion, is it still a thing in N2?

Seems like your "minmaxed" build basically sucked.

It was minmaxed by me so yes.

 

[cvv]

 

[DJOGamer PT]

i don't think FromSoft has ever had any interest in terms of emulating action games like DMC

That could've been true, had they never made Sekiro

I do not buy this notion there is a way action games "ought" to do things

I guess you also do not buy the notion that there is a way role-playing videogames should do things?
That there are fundamental characteristics it should try to respect

least of all with using DMC as the metric to use.

So does this mean that from now on you'll never use Doom as your metric whenever you talk about fps?

don't want FromSoft combat to turn into turbo twitch arcade mode.

It already is
The difference is it lacks the mechanical intricacy of the best arcade games

Even Sekiro didn't go that way

Yes it did
Sekiro was pretty much Fromsoft's MGR

Part of it is the flash

You didn't have this problem with Sekiro
DMC is flashier on purpose because of its scoring system focuses on style
But when comparing to the other games in the genre, Sekiro isn't that far off DMC, it seats neatly on the spectacle figther niche

part of it is this aspect of complexity in performing the action which just doesn't have any lure for me.

Very few are the moves in DMC are actually complex to perfrom
The complexity comes from the moves mechanical design (their properties and purpose)
But even for figthing games where the action is complex to perform in and of itself, I honestly fail to see why it's a lesser design approach as opposed to defeating enemies by way of sheer memorization
In fact, the other way around makes more sense: it forces players to analyse the moment and the action he wants to take, it reinforces the component of mastery and the higher disparity of risk/reward makes the action more intense

I tried Nioh 1. Not a bad game but i also wasn't particularly impressed by the combat system.

Not enough rythm autism I wager...
And you don't need to go to NG+ for the game to "get good", the game is good from the start
Don't mistake "difficulty" degree for "mechanical design" quality

Overall, the more we discuss this the more it consolidates the opinion that you don't like figthing gameplay
You like the particular strain of simplistic action mechanics with little depth and restrictive "simon says" enemy design, that FromSoftware has settled for
And it doesn't matter how much exaggerated these design elements become with each subsequent installment and much how much they clash with the design fundamentals of fighting gameplay, because ultimately you don't like the latter and think the former is more engaging

 

[Silverfish]

DMC 2 is garbage, so you can skip it.

Don't skip DMC2. It's peak comedy.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Overall, the more we discuss this the more it consolidates the opinion that you don't like figthing gameplay
You like the particular strain of simplistic action mechanics with little depth and restrictive "simon says" enemy design, that FromSoftware has settled for
And it doesn't matter how much exaggerated these design elements become with each subsequent installment and much how much they clash with the design fundamentals of fighting gameplay, because ultimately you don't like the latter and think the former is more engaging

He's autistic and looks at these bosses as ways to break a puzzle. Instead of playing the games and enjoying the puzzle he wants to take a sledge hammer to them and go "look how easy that was to break!" Likely the reason he likes souls games at all is because they can be broken so easily so you can effectively play them like 3rd person JRPGs where you collect the highest quality equipment and spells and 1 shot the final boss.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Honestly, at the end of the day the problem lies with the fact that From keeps on placing a greater focus on this "fast and brutal" style of combat and enemy design they've been enamored since Bloodborne, without further developing the combat mechanics of the playable character to better accommodate this shift
Which is funny because the Weapon Arts system was a step in the right direction, but for some reason they barely developed it for ER
If they had kept the pace and style of combat that worked so well on DeS to DS2, then the overall simplicity of the combat wouldn't be so jarring

Fucking hell
Remember when these games challenges were primarly enjoyable and not tryhard bullshit?

 

[Hell Swarm]

Honestly, at the end of the day the problem lies with the fact that From keeps on placing a greater focus on this "fast and brutal" style of combat and enemy design they've been enamored since Bloodborne, without further developing the combat mechanics of the playable character to better accommodate this shift
Which is funny because the Weapon Arts system was a step in the right direction, but for some reason they barely developed it for ER
If they had kept the pace and style of combat that worked so well on DeS to DS2, then the overall simplicity of the combat wouldn't be so jarring

Fucking hell
Remember when these games challenges were primarly enjoyable and not tryhard bullshit?

Weapon arts are a big problem in and of themselves. If they were stuff like spinning slash and impaling thrust I wouldn't have an issue. But then you have bloody slash and whatever Elden beast's sword is called. Weapon arts should not be clearing the room with 1 button press. Especially not when you have PvP still in the game and an invader is expected to be able to dodge these things times 3.

 

[Odoryuk]

Fucking hell
Remember when these games challenges were primarly enjoyable and not tryhard bullshit?

I remember when Demon's Souls and Dark Souls were considered tryhard bullshit. And people whined back then as well.

 

[Multidirectional]

Dark Souls 1 is tryhard bullshit only to noobs who only knew popamole that was pervasive at the time it came out. And the fucking retard gaming journos of that time made all this stink about it like it's the hardest game ever. It wasn't, it simply forced you to actually pay attention to what you were doing. To people like me it felt like a bit of step back to design of games from 90s - early 2000s and it didn't feel harder than them. "Tough but fair" described it perfectly. But of course if all you've been playing was shit like AssCreed then Dark Souls will feel like omg hardest thing ever.

 

[Hell Swarm]

The "it's ultra fucking hard bro!" doesn't even come from the actual game. It comes from the demo at some convention where everyone blew smoke up it's ass because Demon's souls was just the right level of 'indie' game the journos love to promote and it was getting a sequel.

 

[Ravielsk]

Honestly, at the end of the day the problem lies with the fact that From keeps on placing a greater focus on this "fast and brutal" style of combat and enemy design they've been enamored since Bloodborne, without further developing the combat mechanics of the playable character to better accommodate this shift
Which is funny because the Weapon Arts system was a step in the right direction, but for some reason they barely developed it for ER
If they had kept the pace and style of combat that worked so well on DeS to DS2, then the overall simplicity of the combat wouldn't be so jarring

Fucking hell
Remember when these games challenges were primarly enjoyable and not tryhard bullshit?

Paradoxically if they tried to go back to this less "tryhard" design philosophy the very same people that are currently fellating would drop them like a bag of dog turds. From has unfortunately fermented for themselves an audience of people who use the amount of... how to say it "hardship(?)" the game inflicts upon them as a measure of quality. So a return to basics would almost certainly be meet with groans of dissatisfaction at best and accusations of being buck broken at the worst.

 

[Odoryuk]

Honestly, at the end of the day the problem lies with the fact that From keeps on placing a greater focus on this "fast and brutal" style of combat and enemy design they've been enamored since Bloodborne, without further developing the combat mechanics of the playable character to better accommodate this shift
Which is funny because the Weapon Arts system was a step in the right direction, but for some reason they barely developed it for ER
If they had kept the pace and style of combat that worked so well on DeS to DS2, then the overall simplicity of the combat wouldn't be so jarring

Fucking hell
Remember when these games challenges were primarly enjoyable and not tryhard bullshit?

Paradoxically if they tried to go back to this less "tryhard" design philosophy the very same people that are currently fellating would drop them like a bag of dog turds. From has unfortunately fermented for themselves an audience of people who use the amount of... how to say it "hardship(?)" the game inflicts upon them as a measure of quality. So a return to basics would almost certainly be meet with groans of dissatisfaction at best and accusations of being buck broken at the worst.

Weird to say this after Elden Ring, their easiest game yet, recieved so much praise. You're not talking about tryhardness or difficulty, you're just sad they're not returning to their slower battle system (they won't).

 

[Reinhardt]

finally finished swamp shithole. red shithole next.
witch wommyn was very easy. slow and predictable. proper depiction of dress-wearing person when you engage them in melee. got hit literally once in both phases combined. her castle was really annoying tho with all that roof hopping and masked trannies. fuck this "verticality" shit.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Weird to say this after Elden Ring, their easiest game yet, recieved so much praise.

Demon's souls is easily the easiest game in the series. It's difficulty is in maybe 3 bosses and being dumb enough to walk into traps. It's loved not for it's difficulty but because the adventure is good. The difficulty problem would be fine if the adventure was worth the difficulty but it's not any more. No one wanted to ride along empty fields collecting flask/scadu upgrades then run into a boss that 2 shots you any way. The argument has always been 'From has sacrificed everything at the expense of Boss fights and those Boss fights are no longer balanced around standard game play but gimmicks". They always had the issues with some play styles trivializing the game and expecting the player to be smart enough to not use those options if they didn't want to do that. A dynamic self imposed difficulty system. The issue comes from the player base now not being smart enough to self regulate and instead of From saying 'your problem not ours' they get into an arms race with them. They're trying to make bosses for streamers like Lobosjr who is playing Elden ring for 7 hours a day every day of the week. How the fuck can any developer expect to match that? And better yet why the fuck would you want to? It's like making a MMORPG strictly for raiders, bypassing anything but raid bosses. Which the guilds raiding beat in a week tops and go "Where's my next boss!? When's the next expansion!?" and any one wanting to literally anything else is left out in the cold.

If you want to play Demon's souls with the magic falchion you can pick up in 4-1, you can beat the entire game no problem. It's stupid powerful, has low stat requirements and requires you dodge 1 attack to loot it. It will beat all of the early game like a hot knife through butter. Want to use magic to nuke everything in like 3 spells? Again. No problem. If that's how you have fun then by all means enjoy that game play. But for many of us these games are hollow immitations of what they once were. We went from amazing adventures in dark fantasy lands to 'How do I dodge you're 20 hit combo' and having to push L1 to unleash the apocalypse from our buttholes to deal 30% of a bosses health again and again. And it's such a complete 180 in design philosophy and game quality it's hard to look at Elden Ring and Demons souls as the same series. It's fine if From want Elden ring to be weapon art based, but if that's what they want then they need to stop making Demons souls +1+1+1+1+1 and start looking at similar flashy action games and make Demons souls + Nier Automata + DMC + Nioh + Lies of P + Lords of the fallen.

 

[Strange Fellow]

To each his own. If you ask me, the legacy dungeons in the base game contain some of the best level design they've ever done, and the open world in the DLC was a delight to explore and gave me all kinds of Dark Souls 1 vibes. The combat is faster but they still do everything well.