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Dark Souls II - First review

Randam

Member
Well, it was always a pain in the ass having to run to Vamos or the giant blacksmith. If they're in the same place or not vendors should be sitting on a warp point like Andre.

for me, that was something, that defined dark souls.


I want this game to so hard and inconvenient as possible,

i still miss my item burden from demon's souls too.

If somebody got a Katana by killing the Burg merchant then they probably knew about the existence of repair boxes.

well, was the 3000 souls costly repair box one of the first things you bought?
I didnt.

and I know of a lot of people, who killed the merchant without ever speaking to him.
but that all doesnt matter.

now you will never have those situations.
being somewhere with a broken weapon or being stuck in an area your not supposed to be yet.
now you just can warp everywhere from the beginning.
 

YeSp

Neo Member
I like that they are bringing back some of the concepts from Demon's Souls.
The warping mechanic doesn't bother me one bit as it still is an open world (You can still wander in area's I should not be in) I don't see what all the fuss is about.

Both ENB and Vaati love the game so Im not worried at all about the endproduct.
 

Sanctuary

Member
Also, can't wait until it's revealed that the PC version uses the same textures as the console again. You'll just be able to natively raise the resolution of those shitty textures without requiring DSfix.
Should still be worth it though if it's not capped at 30fps natively again.

Glad they put this in. One thing I hated about the first is you couldn't respec. I hope the item isn't too rare lol

Sigh. Whenever I see comments like this, it just makes me think of people that played Dark Souls because they heard from Mr. Jones next door that if you want to be a "real" gamer, that's the game to play.
 

Sanctuary

Member
Die Dark Souls II ... Die.

The Dark Souls II. The.

MV5BMTcxNjQ5MDA1MV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjg3MzcyMQ@@._V1_SY317_CR5,0,214,317_.jpg
 

yuraya

Member
Sigh. Whenever I see comments like this, it just makes me think of people that played Dark Souls because they heard from Mr. Jones next door that if you want to be a "real" gamer, that's the game to play.

I don't see what the big deal is. If someone is halfway through a game and decides to change their style of play they should be allowed to do so without having to restart the entire game. There is a difference between a game that is punishing and a game that turns into a chore. RPG games should always have respec. Especially if they have pvp elements. Just my opinion tho
 

Steez

Member
well, was the 3000 souls costly repair box one of the first things you bought?
I didnt.

and I know of a lot of people, who killed the merchant without ever speaking to him.
but that all doesnt matter.

now you will never have those situations.
being somewhere with a broken weapon or being stuck in an area your not supposed to be yet.
now you just can warp everywhere from the beginning.

Meh, I was typing a paragraph on how unlikely it is to be stuck with a broken weapon in Dark Souls, but you've already embraced the negativity, so whatever.
 

Sanctuary

Member
I don't see what the big deal is. If someone is halfway through a game and decides to change their style of play they should be allowed to do so without having to restart the entire game. There is a difference between a game that is punishing and a game that turns into a chore. RPG games should always have respec. Especially if they have pvp elements. Just my opinion tho

Quoth the modern gamer evermore.
 

Randam

Member
Meh, I was typing a paragraph on how unlikely it is to be stuck with a broken weapon in Dark Souls, but you've already embraced the negativity, so whatever.
It isn't impossible.
Never happened to me.
And I bet not many got stuck in the tomb of giants before obtaining the lord vessel.
But it happened to some.
And for me, staying in front of that yellow fog gate and realising I had to fight my way out and then to accomplish that was an awesome experience I don't want to miss.
 

yuraya

Member
Quoth the modern gamer evermore.

It doesn't make a difference If someone spends 100 hours playing the game with 3 toons or someone spends 100 hours playing the game with 1 toon. The end result is the same. The person with 3 toons isn't more hardcore than the person with 1. Besides they said the item is rare so it most likely will involve grinding souls. Either way there is nothing dumbed down about it.
 
I think someone already said this in this thread but: please, let people play the game however the fuck they want. Warping and respeccing has NOTHING to do with you, in any way, shape or form. Don't want to use it? Perfect, but don't pretend you're better than anyone else for this.
 

jimi_dini

Member
I don't see what the big deal is. If someone is halfway through a game and decides to change their style of play they should be allowed to do so without having to restart the entire game.

Restarting would be a problem, if the game wouldn't train you to be really good at it, but it does - which means you should be able to create a new character and stomp through half of the game within 1-3 hours.

My first DS-playthrough was 120 hours or even more than that. I can now run through almost all of the game without hassle.
 

eot

Banned
I think someone already said this in this thread but: please, let people play the game however the fuck they want. Warping and respeccing has NOTHING to do with you, in any way, shape or form. Don't want to use it? Perfect, but don't pretend you're better than anyone else for this.

That's a bad argument because having or not having those options is going to affect how they design the game. Additionally, actively abstaining from using a certain mechanic is not equivalent to that mechanic not being there. It's why people who like permadeath want it built into the game instead of them telling themselves they'll delete their save if they die or whatever, it's not the same.
 

Principate

Saint Titanfall
Restarting would be a problem, if the game wouldn't train you to be really good at it, but it does - which means you should be able to create a new character and stomp through half of the game within 1-3 hours.

My first DS-playthrough was 120 hours or even more than that. I can now run through almost all of the game without hassle.

Honestly what kind of bullshit is this. Not everyone has copious amounts of free time. I must have created at least 8 Dark souls characters. I don't see how decreasing the number would somehow lessen this game in any way.

Sounds like complaining for the sake of complaining.
 

Bedlam

Member
It doesn't make a difference If someone spends 100 hours playing the game with 3 toons or someone spends 100 hours playing the game with 1 toon. The end result is the same. The person with 3 toons isn't more hardcore than the person with 1. Besides they said the item is rare so it most likely will involve grinding souls. Either way there is nothing dumbed down about it.
No, the end result is not the same. The prospect that every skill point can be redistributed at a later point in the game takes away from the sense of consequence that each skill point decision has in these games (and older cRPGs).

I always liked the fact that I have to live with my mistakes because that is what makes the good decisions meaningful. It makes character development in general meaningful. If there's the possibility to optimize the shit out of your character stats mid-game, then that's all meaningless and boring. What used to be a build essentially only becomes a loadout. It also decreases replayability.

I'm going to be blunt: convenience features like this one (and others like quicksaving etc.) destroyed modern gaming for me. By extension, "I don't have time, let me do everything quickly"-gamers have destroyed gaming for me. I think many of these features fundamentally undermine game-design. And no, "don't use it" is not a solution to my problem.

Can we please stop with this elitist nonsense?
Call it whatever you want. I completely understand him and agree with his comments.

Here's another example of a convenience feature that lessened the experience for me: aRPGs having introduced the pet that let's you sell your loot without leaving the dungeon.

It has nothing to do with elitism. It's about not enjoying how most of today's games are built.
 

Bedlam

Member
truth. i'm not nearly as disturbed about where the developers may've taken this series as i am about where a portion of it's fanbase already has :) ...
Yeah, me too. But my worries concern the influence of the "I heard this game is cool, but I don't have time so therefore features X,Y and Z are shit and need to be changed"-part of the fanbase.

- "I don't want to backtrack at all"
- "I want bonfires right before bosses so I don't get punished when I don't succeed"
- "I couldn't find the stairs so please make the path more clear next time"
etc.

These are things I've read in DS threads and all of these things are examples of why I'm not interested in modern games of that kind. So I don't think this has anything to do with elitism.

This behaviour is completely incomprehensible to me. If the game has spots where you are required to warp to save yourself (La Mulana style) I can understand. But if it's limited to bonfires, why not?
If I could've just warped out of Blighttown at the bonfire, my experience there wouldn't have been anywhere near as intense as it was. Just one example. There need to be lows and highs. That's what makes an experience interesting. Struggling through Blighttown, desperately wanting to get out of there and in the end making it out into the sunlight again.
 

spliced

Member
The one concern I would have with respecing is having hordes of people respecing to the latest flavor of the month build for PvP.
 

Jarsonot

Member
After beating Sen's and getting to Anor Londo I had no idea what was going on. I didn't realize I could go back to Sen's, so I was in this strange new place with (as I saw it) no options but to forge ahead.

I had shit I wanted to do. Upgrade some stuff, buy some stuff, etc, but nope - push on!

And then shortly thereafter I ended up in the painted world, and the realization that I was now stuck THERE is something I still remember to this day. Just... Oh shit, where the hell am I.

I called my friend who was also playing, though wasn't as far, and without spoiling anything I just told him that I got somewhere I couldn't get back from, and then from there I, ACCIDENTALLY, went someplace else I couldn't get back from. I was lost, bewildered, and worried.

Loved it.

So yeah, I'm still holding out hope that maybe it's still possible to feel trapped and far away from home. I will never forget the painted world because of that feeling it gave me. I do believe it would've been much different with the safety net of warping back to mommy.
 

yuraya

Member
No, the end result is not the same. The prospect that every skill point can be redistributed at a later point in the game takes away from the sense of consequence that each skill point decision has in these games (and older cRPGs).

So you are saying that quiting your game and loading a different save file is more hardcore than having one dedicated save file with a character that can do everything (PvP, PVE, ng+, etc)??? Sorry but the end result is the same. If this is indeed a rare item than people aren't going to use it to optimize a few skill points. They are going to use it to completely change their builds. There is nothing wrong with it imo.
 

Bedlam

Member
So you are saying that quiting your game and loading a different save file is more hardcore than having one dedicated save file with a character that can do everything (PvP, PVE, ng+, etc)??? Sorry but the end result is the same. If this is indeed a rare item than people aren't going to use it to optimize a few skill points. They are going to use it to completely change their builds. There is nothing wrong with it imo.
Again: no it's not the same (for me) because the act of distributing a skill point has no sense of consequence to it anymore. And yes, that's within the playthrough. The prospect of having to start a new game in order to build a new character is essential in that respect.

Also, I don't give a shit about terms like "hardcore" or "elitism." All that matters to me is how intense my personal experience with the game is.
 

Screaming Meat

Unconfirmed Member
No, the end result is not the same. The prospect that every skill point can be redistributed at a later point in the game takes away from the sense of consequence that each skill point decision has in these games (and older cRPGs).

I haven’t played it, but was there something similar in DeS?

I always liked the fact that I have to live with my mistakes because that is what makes the good decisions meaningful. It makes character development in general meaningful. If there's the possibility to optimize the shit out of your character stats mid-game, then that's all meaningless and boring.

I kind of agree with this.

What used to be a build essentially only becomes a loadout. It also decreases replayability.

If anything, I think stat redistribution will promote more NG+(++++ etc.) playthroughs, which is probably why they included it.
 

Jarsonot

Member
So you are saying that quiting your game and loading a different save file is more hardcore than having one dedicated save file with a character that can do everything (PvP, PVE, ng+, etc)??? Sorry but the end result is the same. If this is indeed a rare item than people aren't going to use it to optimize a few skill points. They are going to use it to completely change their builds. There is nothing wrong with it imo.

I think, for me, the difference is having to play through the game AS a Mage is different from playing through as your trusty old fighter, then switching to a badass Mage.

It made me actually play as different characters. I had to beat the world and bosses as a STR fighter, DEX guy, Mage, etc.

To each their own and all, but to me there's a difference there.
 

Kouichi

Member
Call it whatever you want. I completely understand him and agree with his comments.

Here's another example of a convenience feature that lessened the experience for me: aRPGs having introduced the pet that let's you sell your loot without leaving the dungeon.

It has nothing to do with elitism. It's about not enjoying how most of today's games are built.

I'm not bothered by his arguments. I'm bothered by his jabs towards someone for supporting a new feature.

It's the typical elitism in the Dark Souls fanbase.
 

NIN90

Member
Reviewing a Souls game (or any game with an interesting online component) offline.
My head is full of fuck.
 

yuraya

Member
The prospect of having to start a new game in order to build a new character is essential.

That depends on how rare the item is in the game. If say a merchant sells the respec for 500k souls than it might be easier to restart the game and rush back to your current point instead of grinding those 500k souls. Either way I doubt it will be easy to obtain it.
 
Sigh. Whenever I see comments like this, it just makes me think of people that played Dark Souls because they heard from Mr. Jones next door that if you want to be a "real" gamer, that's the game to play.

I suppose Mr. Jones passed that information to you before getting to us mere mortals. Me and Jones are waiting to you in the bottom of depths to school your ass you while you secretely spam "praise the sun!" orange soapstone messages. Don't be so insecure, let us all enjoy our game!
 

NIN90

Member
Are we seriouly debating about the option to respec?
You know what makes options so great? You can choose and it makes everybody happy.
 
No, the end result is not the same. The prospect that every skill point can be redistributed at a later point in the game takes away from the sense of consequence that each skill point decision has in these games (and older cRPGs).

I always liked the fact that I have to live with my mistakes because that is what makes the good decisions meaningful. It makes character development in general meaningful. If there's the possibility to optimize the shit out of your character stats mid-game, then that's all meaningless and boring. What used to be a build essentially only becomes a loadout. It also decreases replayability.

I'm going to be blunt: convenience features like this one (and others like quicksaving etc.) destroyed modern gaming for me. By extension, "I don't have time, let me do everything quickly"-gamers have destroyed gaming for me. I think many of these features fundamentally undermine game-design. And no, "don't use it" is not a solution to my problem.


Call it whatever you want. I completely understand him and agree with his comments.

Here's another example of a convenience feature that lessened the experience for me: aRPGs having introduced the pet that let's you sell your loot without leaving the dungeon.

It has nothing to do with elitism. It's about not enjoying how most of today's games are built.

someone gives his opinion of a certain design choice, saying it doesn't bother him, the reaction he gets is "says the modern gamer" => if you read between the lines, he's not objecting about the design choice, but the opinion of that person, as if him liking that design choice makes him LESS a gamer, because that's what modern gamers are to some apparently

don't get me wrong, i absolutely HATE some modern games, but if someone likes them, fair game to them, i won't think of them any less

everyone gets something out of a game differently, ranging from people hating to people adoring, and the Souls series is no different, maybe even more so than any other series i've seen
 

Bedlam

Member
That depends on how rare the item is in the game. If say a merchant sells the respec for 500k souls than it might be easier to restart the game and rush back to your current point instead of grinding those 500k souls. Either way I doubt it will be easy to obtain it.
Let's hope so.

I know guys like me sound a bit irrational and defensive but it stems from the fact that there's virtually no other contemporary game franchise out there that does things like the Souls games. When these particular games change to please the mainstream gamer and introduce features that led to me not enjoying many modern games anymore, well, then there's nothing left to play for me in the genre anymore whereas there are already countless RPGs of all kinds out there that have all these convenience features desired by many players. Instead of wanting to change that one game series to your needs because you want to jump on the infamous Souls-train (or whatever other reason), you could just play one of the many modern rpgs out there instead (I'm not talking to you specifically here, rather in general).
 

Gbraga

Member
I don't mind respec (assuming it's actually rare), but warping from the start still makes me really sad and I can't get over it.

Oh well.

Can't wait to learn more about the story in Dark Souls II as well, I wanna see how it connects to the first. Also, being able to follow the community will be a new experience to me, I started Dark Souls this year, so I'm just playing as much as I can until the second one comes out, but with Dark Souls II I'll be able to play it for a long ass time. Even if we get DS3 in 2 years, that's 2 years playing the game instead of a few months.

Assuming I don't dislike it, of course. In that case I'll just go back to Dark Souls after a couple o playthroughs.
 
Sigh. Whenever I see comments like this, it just makes me think of people that played Dark Souls because they heard from Mr. Jones next door that if you want to be a "real" gamer, that's the game to play.

This constant circle jerking over how hard the Souls series is and how "modern gamers" are casual scrubs who just don't get it is completely ridiculous. Sure the games are challenging and that's an important part of what makes them good, but a) it's only a small part of the equation and b) the games aren't even that hard.

If you just want play a game that's hard, go play I Want to be the Guy or any random crappy NES game or just see how many nails you can pound into your hand before you pass out.

Developers are going to make the games they want to make, not the games you want them to make, and I'd wager 10 nails in the hand that they're a lot better at it than some random idiot on a message board.
 

Bedlam

Member
This constant circle jerking over how hard the Souls series is and how "modern gamers" are casual scrubs who just don't get it is completely ridiculous. Sure the games are challenging and that's an important part of what makes them good, but a) it's only a small part of the equation and b) the games aren't even that hard.

If you just want play a game that's hard, go play I Want to be the Guy or any random crappy NES game or just see how many nails you can pound into your hand before you pass out.

Developers are going to make the games they want to make, not the games you want them to make, and I'd wager 10 nails in the hand that they're a lot better at it than some random idiot on a message board.
I'm sure that's not what he meant. At least I didn't read it as a circle-jerk over how hard the Souls games are but rather how they are portrayed in "mainstream" circles.
 
Sigh. Whenever I see comments like this, it just makes me think of people that played Dark Souls because they heard from Mr. Jones next door that if you want to be a "real" gamer, that's the game to play.
When asked about one's favourite aspect of Dark Souls, I wonder how many return with "Wiki crawling for an hour to plot out the exact character build I want before starting the game". So when I read comments like this, it makes me think of people playing Dark Souls and not really taking to what it did well, just that it's a "hard" game so anything to make it less tedious is somehow negating that.
 

jimi_dini

Member
Honestly what kind of bullshit is this.

I was saying that the "restart from beginning" isn't that big of a problem, because when you know the game, you can get yourself a pretty good weapon within 10 minutes of playtime and beat almost all the bosses without dying. I did that. There was not much time involved. However the first playthrough takes quite some time, but it trains you to get good at the game. When you change the playstyle (magic to melee for example), the game changes and you will have to learn some bits again to get good. Which means it makes sense to restart from the start.

Sure, you could level up the wrong specs and fuck up your game that way. You could also kill an important NPC in Demon's Souls and fuck it up as well. So? Is that a problem? It's what made those games great. Everything was permanent.

Not everyone has copious amounts of free time.

Oh god, not the "free time" argument.

If you don't have "coupious amounts of free time", then you probably don't have time to learn another playstyle or even learn the game at all. How is it even possible that you played through it 8 times without having plenty of time?

Dark Souls is definitely not the right game for people with not enough time on their hands. Without enough time, you won't be able to learn it and such players would probably also get angry about having to start from a bonfire everytime they die. Which means you could use exactly that argument to defend the implementation of checkpoints in front of boss rooms, having enemies to not respawn anymore, save states, no backtracking, respawning or even invulnerable NPCs, stopping invasions, invulnerability items as microtransactions ("gotta beat that game, got no time anymore to try again and get good") and all sorts of other things. Which means transforming an awesome game into another of the mass-appeal focus-tested it-will-take-20-hours-to-beat-this-game stuff that is out there.

Using your argument one could even defend the implementation of multiple save slots per character, because "I could fuck something up, which means I would have to restart again, got no time for that lol".

At least the required item seems to be rare in Dark Souls 2, but that's exactly how I imagine the franchise to get destroyed at some point.

Shouldn't you even argue that the item should not be rare? Because well, "can only respec once every playthrough, want to be able to respec all the time", right? And what about only having one chance to get back your souls? If you don't manage to get them back on first try, you will probably have to "waste" time to get them back by killing enemies/helping other players to kill bosses and so on - what a waste of time, why not keep them there forever, right?

Dark Souls even let you revive NPCs for a price. Just use your argument "takes too much time to get those souls", so why not make the NPCs invulnerable to save those people time? Or make it a microtransaction?
 

Bedlam

Member
When asked about one's favourite aspect of Dark Souls, I wonder how many return with "Wiki crawling for an hour to plot out the exact character build I want before starting the game". So when I read comments like this, it makes me think of people playing Dark Souls and didn't really taking to what it did well, just that it's a "hard" game so anything to make it less tedious is somehow negating that.

Making video games less tedious is bad now

ok
If convenience features take away from certain aspects of a game that many view as essential, then yes, it can be a bad thing. I gave numerous examples in my posts above.

Sometimes tediousness is necessary to make the experience feel meaningful and rewarding. It's also why bonfires shouldn't be placed right before boss gates, for example (I know there are very few single instances where this was the case, it wasn't the rule though).
 

E92 M3

Member
Yep, this was known already. It can go to -90%

So what do you do in the hypothetical situation where you barely have health and need to beat a boss? What recovers healthy, only humanity?

Brutal. Now you have to plan out even more carefully your build in order to wear good equipment early or get a significant advantage during fights with a little bit of extra stamina.

I like it, it sounds like it's going to be much harder to master than DS1.

Don't think I like the equip load being a separate stat - kinda kills the first playthrough experimentation. Though respeccing does make more sense now.
 
Oh god, not the "free time" argument.

If you don't have "coupious amounts of free time", then you probably don't have time to learn another playstyle or even learn the game at all. How is it even possible that you played through it 8 times without having plenty of time?

Dark Souls is definitely not the right game for people with not enough time on their hands. Without enough time, you won't be able to learn it and such players would probably also get angry about having to start from a bonfire everytime they die. Which means you could use exactly that argument to defend the implementation of checkpoints in front of boss rooms, having enemies to not respawn anymore, save states, no backtracking, respawning or even invulnerable NPCs, stopping invasions, invulnerability items as microtransactions ("gotta beat that game, got no time anymore to try again and get good") and all sorts of other things. Which means transforming an awesome game into another of the mass-appeal focus-tested it-will-take-20-hours-to-beat-this-game stuff that is out there.

Using your argument one could even defend the implementation of multiple save slots per character, because "I could fuck something up, which means I would have to restart again, got no time for that lol".

At least the required item seems to be rare in Dark Souls 2, but that's exactly how I imagine the franchise to get destroyed at some point.

Clearly people who want [thing that is ACTUALLY GOING TO BE IN THE GAME] also want [a bunch of dumb bullshit] because this guy said so. Pack it up casuals.
 

Cizard

Member
I don't mind respec (assuming it's actually rare), but warping from the start still makes me really sad and I can't get over it.
.

The warping isn't a huge problem as it seems like it basically takes the archstones system from Demon souls and applies it to a Dark Souls open world. I'd probably have preferred it to be more like Dark Souls as well but I don't think it'll change much to have it available from the get go.

I hope the re-spec item is at least a one time use thing that you can only get once per game. Being able to re-spec all the time would ruin the bosses. This boss is weak to magic? just re-spec! I kinda think that like Jarsonot that's kinda something you have to play through the whole game with if you want the advantage of having magic on that one boss. Not just go "I'll jus re-spec". And yeah sure it's just options and I can ignore it but you also have the option to not play the game.
 
If convenience features take away from certain aspects of a game that many view as essential, then yes, it can be a bad thing. I gave numerous examples in my posts above.

Sometimes tediousness is necessary to make the experience feel meaningful and rewarding. It's also why bonfires shouldn't be placed right before boss gates, for example (I know there are very few single instances where this was the case, it wasn't the rule though).

I agree with you to a point, but I also believe that the "meaningfulness" of the experience isn't automatically undermined by something like a respec or an earlier fast travel option. I believe it's possible to design a system where if a player takes the wrong path they aren't completely screwed over by their mistake while still maintaining the integrity of the exploration of the game. Ditto with respecs. It existing as an option doesn't flat out invalidate decisions you make along the way in character progression, especially if it's a late game item which is rare which I suspect it is.

Basically, I'm saying that they can keep the things that make DS great while still getting rid of the frustrating tedium of the experience. It's all about how it's implemented. But tons of people seem to immediately backlash at the idea of respecs or fast travel as if the existence of those things is bad regardless of implementation, which I think is a pretty limiting perspective, design wise.
 

jimi_dini

Member
Clearly people who want [thing that is ACTUALLY GOING TO BE IN THE GAME] also want [a bunch of dumb bullshit] because this guy said so. Pack it up casuals.

I'm just following his argument.

He argues that not all players got enough time and I'm applying that to all sorts of mechanics in Demon/Dark Souls. Why only use the argument against one of those mechanics?

Restarting the game, because the player decided to raise the wrong stats == "waste of time"
Earning souls to revive an NPC, that the player killed == "waste of time"
Losing souls because the player made an error and got killed twice in a row == "waste of time"
Losing against a boss and having to replay 5 or 10 minutes to try again == "waste of time"
Having to level up again after getting hit by a certain attack of one of the Demon's Souls bosses causing a de-level == "waste of time"
Losing souls and replaying parts of the game because the player was killed by an invader == "waste of time"

The first one is a minor annoyance compared to everything else that "wastes the player's time"

I doubt that he is happy with the Dark Souls 2 item, because it's rare. His argument goes further than that and wouldn't really help such players. "Wat? I re-speced, but I made an error, now I can't anymore, what a waste of time"

I actually don't have a problem with THAT specific item in case it's really rare and also not available as microtransaction.
 
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