From Software The Dark Souls Discussion Thread

[Lyric Suite]

I though Dark Souls 2 was teh decline?

 

[ghostdog]

DS2 is better in some ways, worse in other. All and all another good souls game.

 

[dnf]

I though Dark Souls 2 was teh decline?

It's a great game, don't listen to the haters.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

I though Dark Souls 2 was teh decline?

I like to compare it to Fallout 2. Your opinion will depend on why you liked the first game. There's certainly a lot of fair criticism one can level at DaS2, but it is certainly better at maintaining a consistent level of challenge, and cutting down on easily abusable gameplay elements.

It's also worth pointing out that a lot of negative opinions about DaS2 come from hardcore PvPers, whom From kind of fucked over by introducing an anti-twinking measure that ended up screwing over PvP matchmaking altogether. Which sucks, but if you don't care about PvP, the game is probably much better than reading the Codex' DaS2 thread would lead you to assume.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Well, i'll wait for some steam sale for that.

Meanwhile i'm going to start over on Dark Souls except i'll play it online. Will make a knight to use miracles and have some good starting equipment to deal with invasions (plus i'm already familiar with melee which will help). Will also try to be human as much as i can.

 

[trym88]

DS2 is at least as good as DS1. It has more content (especially with the DLCs). It has several really hard bosses (more than in DS1). Combat overall is more interesting with the introduction of powerstances and better enemy AI. I think there is even more equipment/spells you can choose from. The level design is at least as good as in DS1. Voice acting is still top notch. There is no obvious reason why it should be worse than DS1 (at least for me).

I guess the whole problem is that people already know the game and mechanics now. So the experience you have in DS2 won't be the same new/unique experience you had with DS1. I would bet that if everyone had started with DS2 before DS1, they would tell you that DS1 is weaker than DS2. DS2 is just more of the same fun, they didn't change the formula so don't expect a new experience.

 

[toroid]

in my 90s and everything is starting to feel like a breeze.

That's why I suggested playing at a low soul level. It's much more interesting because you have to really know the game to do well, instead of using bloated stats as a crutch.

DS2 is at least as good as DS1. It has more content (especially with the DLCs). It has several really hard bosses (more than in DS1). Combat overall is more interesting with the introduction of powerstances and better enemy AI. I think there is even more equipment/spells you can choose from. The level design is at least as good as in DS1. Voice acting is still top notch. There is no obvious reason why it should be worse than DS1 (at least for me).

I guess the whole problem is that people already know the game and mechanics now. So the experience you have in DS2 won't be the same new/unique experience you had with DS1. I would bet that if everyone had started with DS2 before DS1, they would tell you that DS1 is weaker than DS2. DS2 is just more of the same fun, they didn't change the formula so don't expect a new experience.

I can't entirely agree with that. DS2 has more content but it definitely lacks thoughtful design and focus, and it feels too structured and sterilized and bland; it feels like a cash-in with no creative investment. The combat elements are more complex, but what's the reward, better pvp? Oh boy I love lag-based combat. The atmosphere and intrigue that dripped from (the majority of) DS1 is completely absent in DS2. I can't even muster the interest to finish DS2 because the progression feels utterly unrewarding to me.

I can get totally absorbed in what DS1 has to offer, but DS2 just feels like a toy and a soulless imitation. DS1 is a far more cohesive experience that's representative of the passion that went into making it. DS2 is just a game.

 

[trym88]

I can't entirely agree with that. DS2 has more content but it definitely lacks thoughtful design and focus, and it feels too structured and sterilized and bland; it feels like a cash-in with no creative investment. The combat elements are more complex, but what's the reward, better pvp? Oh boy I love lag-based combat. The atmosphere and intrigue that dripped from (the majority of) DS1 is completely absent in DS2. I can't even muster the interest to finish DS2 because the progression feels utterly unrewarding to me.

I can get totally absorbed in what DS1 has to offer, but DS2 just feels like a toy and a soulless imitation. DS1 is a far more cohesive experience that's representative of the passion that went into making it. DS2 is just a game.

And DS1 has thoughtful design and focus throughout the whole game? I only wanna mention lost izalith and kiln of flame which were pretty boring/poor designed... Yeah at least in PVE the combat is more fun, don't know about PVP because I play offline. If they had been able to maintain the atmosphere the game has until anor londo, then I would definitely agree about DS1 having better atmosphere but they hadn't. So in the end the DS1 atmosphere is in my opionion a little better at most. Besides that, replaying DS2 on NG+ is much more rewarding because of new enemy types and equipment you can obtain. The only thing I can say for sure is that DS2 PVE is HEAVEN for combatfags :>

But I agree with you that DS1 seems to have more of a golden thread throughout the connection of the areas. DS2 areas seem more like cobbled together. They should make a DS3 with combined strenghts of both games but won't happen

 

[Grimlorn]

I though Dark Souls 2 was teh decline?

It offers challenge in the PvE stuff, but the story and characters are even more minimalist than in the first game. Just leaves the player a lot less invested in the game imo.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Just noticed that i'm gaining a lot more humanities from killing enemies, not as drops, they just get added to my counter. Is this an online feature? I remember that happening very rarely on my offline game.

 

[Jasede]

http://www.reddit.com/r/darksouls/comments/1ai3wn/dark_souls_science_the_mechanics_of_obtaining/

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

I'm pretty certain the PC version of Dark Souls shipped with at least patch 1.05, so I doubt you're experiencing the doubling of soul drops from v1.04 (version shipped on NA/EU console release). Are you getting the overkill bonus for killing enemies in one blow while dealing more than 150% of their total health in one hit? I assume you're probably backstabbing and riposting early foes, dealing enough damage to score the 20% overkill bonus.

Edit: Whoops, read "humanities" as "souls". Being awake for 22 hours straight is bad for my brian.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Fascinating. Getting 10 souls per level this way is mighty boring though. Might as well farm rats. But its a good thing when you are just wading through pointless trash before killing a boss.

Been walking around as human the whole time, no invasion yet. But i'm still very low level. Maybe i should try invading somebody instead.

 

[nimateb]

DaS2 doesn't have the world design, animations, art direction, and lore/area cohesion (yes I know that DaS1 wasn't perfect on this) of the first. Still a fun game.

 

[Gozma]

You get "liquid" humanity (the thing that is in the counter in the top left IIRC) when you kill monsters (it's cumulative, not random) in an area where the boss is still alive. It has some complicated equation I forget because it doesn't matter since at some point they apparently massively increased the drop rates of "solid" humanity from shit like rats (humanity as a drop that you use from inventory to gain liquid humanity and also heal yourself). I think originally they meant for humanity to be a fairly precious resource that you could mainly get more of from PVP, but then they were like nah that sucks and blew it up. Also you can use the common solid humanity items to heal yourself when you're invading someone else, when you aren't allowed to drink estus.

I have no idea why they undermine their own design decisions so much but they do.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Ha, my first invasion, at level 28. Guy was basically invulnerable, every hit of mine took 6 points of health at best from him. I still managed to chip away one fifth of his health but then he one shotted me with a backstab. Must have had some rad equip. That or there are some serious cheaters in this game. I was checking the guilty book you get from the guy on top of the bell tower, and there's a guy in there that was like SL 120 but had 99 on every stat. Don't they have some kind of method to prevent this kind of stuff?

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

Oh yeah... Even if they're not cheating, they can twink so hard it almost seems like they are. You can become a darkwraith at SL1 and invade n00bs in Undead Burg with +123123 equipment.

Currently, FROM can't do that much about cheaters even in DaS2.

 

[Utgard-Loki]

Ha, my first invasion, at level 28. Guy was basically invulnerable, every hit of mine took 6 points of health at best from him. I still managed to chip away one fifth of his health but then he one shotted me with a backstab. Must have had some rad equip. That or there are some serious cheaters in this game. I was checking the guilty book you get from the guy on top of the bell tower, and there's a guy in there that was like SL 120 but had 99 on every stat. Don't they have some kind of method to prevent this kind of stuff?

no, enjoy your genuine souls experience.

 

[Bahamut]

Ha, my first invasion, at level 28. Guy was basically invulnerable, every hit of mine took 6 points of health at best from him. I still managed to chip away one fifth of his health but then he one shotted me with a backstab. Must have had some rad equip. That or there are some serious cheaters in this game. I was checking the guilty book you get from the guy on top of the bell tower, and there's a guy in there that was like SL 120 but had 99 on every stat. Don't they have some kind of method to prevent this kind of stuff?

DS1 is cheater heaven, with DS2 they went on soft baning spree for using mod dll's or messing with character stats, or save scumming,

iirc there is some kind of mod that can be used to blacklist some players

 

[praetor]

^DaS2 hackers are 1000 times worse than DaS1. they'll do all kinds of retarded shit like killing important npcs, teleporting you into unreachable areas or crashing your game and other gamebreaking stuff... most of the cunts in DaS1 just used infinite hp/stamina and could be killed with gravity (and some even with bleed)

plus, they don't really ban hackers using dll injectors or modding stats, but only people who are registered being in a SM tier lower than one they've been in before, so you can get banned for using save backups. From are as terrible at programming as they are good at designing

 

[Lyric Suite]

This game is wierd. I loaded my save game last night and i essentially spawned into an invasion, except instead of a player there was this weird crab thing, which dropped a twin humanity when i killed it. It was still all red like invading creatures are. Wonder if i exited the game while somebody was trying to invade me and when i got back in the game there were left overs from that attempt. Are there summoning spells in this game? That might explain the crab.

Game is a LOT easier this time around. Guess "gitting gud" was not such a good idea after all. But the design is so tight that i'll probably finish this game many times in years to come. Hopefully once i get bored with this play through i'll forget everything and on my next one the experience will be fresh again.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

This game is wierd. I loaded my save game last night and i essentially spawned into an invasion, except instead of a player there was this weird crab thing, which dropped a twin humanity when i killed it. It was still all red like invading creatures are. Wonder if i exited the game while somebody was trying to invade me and when i got back in the game there were left overs from that attempt. Are there summoning spells in this game? That might explain the crab.

That was a Vagrant, an "evil" one in particular. They come into existence when bloodstains with large amounts of humanity go without being recovered spawning the Evil Vagrant into other player's worlds in a designated Vagrant spawn point near to where the bloodstain was. Seeing these things was incredibly rare, except whenever some folks decide to force the spawn of Evil Vagrants near the Anor Londo archers...that was popular for awhile. Evil Vagrants with the red glow, like the one you encountered, spawn from large quantities of forfeited humanity.

There's also Good Vagrants that spawn from certain items dropped in worlds that are never picked up. First these turn into Drift Items and spawn in "nearby" player's worlds. If they aren't picked up, they'll eventually become a blue-colored Vagrant that drops "rare"consumables (like Divine Blessings or coins).

 

[Lyric Suite]

Fascinating. I like how they integrated the online part into the game. Wonder what the results would be like if somebody were to take that idea and use it in a more complex RPG.

 

[toroid]

Even after playing several hundred hours I've managed to not see a vagrant even once. They're so freaking rare.

 

[Jasede]

I've never ever seen one and those images of them really freak me out.

You know... From needs to use their artistic talent to make a horror game. Horror is like the king of genres when it comes to being artful since they require perfect art design, perfect level design and perfect sound design to work well. I know From can do this, they made Tower of Latria 2.

Bit of a tangent, but I really wish there were more *good* horror games. Horror is so hard to do. Making someone feel uncomfortable or disturbed is much harder than you would think, it seems. Whenever this topic comes up I try to think of some good horror games and I can only ever come up with Silent Hill 2 (amazing!) and Thief 3's Robbing The Cradle level.