Dark Souls & Other Souls-Likes

I used the Craftsman's hammer for my first, and like most of my 2nd playthrough, until I got Mirrah's Greatsword. So yeah, you aren't the only one to think it was good.

I thought this might be of interest to some of you other Souls Fans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M2Y-R18Mo0

Yeah I'm excited as f*ck.

I was talking about this in the XIV linkshell the other day and I'm so excited for this. It is no secret now as to why Kadokawa got in on this early and "bought" From Software. They are funding the next gen souls game, which could possibly be a PS4 exclusive, or a new IP and be cross platform... but most signs are pointing towards a PS4 exclusive to help sell the new console and bring a (most likely) great game to it as well.

If you watch either of the videos I linked below, I highly recommend watching VaatiVidya's for a more in depth analysts of the screens that were released, as well as why all the theories floating around are pointing in the direction that they are. Keep in mind we won't know exactly what is happening until From Software / Kadokawa confirms it, so until then we have two options: Demon's Souls II, or, Beast Souls or something along those lines.


And a little bit of the past, when From Software were releasing hints of a development project named "Project Dark", which of course turned into Dark Souls.

Extremely excited ds1 was one of my fav games of the generation but i didn't like ds2 largely due to how pvp was handled but miyazaki is on this? then my hype is over 9000!

Yea, now that I understand why the team was split, it makes sense why Dark Souls II is what it is.

I've always felt like it was a student project that used Dark Souls assets. The level design didn't feel dark souls'ish to me, but the textures did. Some mechanics were removed / left out of the game (like alternating bumpers to get out of a grab quicker), and bosses although were difficult (and now nerfed), didn't have "secrets" like cutting tails off for a weapon. Surprising really, since the new developer worked on Monster Hunter.

The battle system felt very similar to Dark Souls, but it wasn't balanced like it should have. The delay on healing was worse at times it felt for me, or it just ignored the button press all together. I personally do not agree with the lifegems, and that they stack on top of eachother. I understand some people need a way out, and I never did abuse them like they kinda wanted you to do... but I don't like that they had it as an option. It just ruins part of the feeling for me.

I really am against what they did to magic, it really needs to be a fair balance between spells and melee, especially for PvP. If using one gives you an advantage that lets you clear the area over another, it's not balanced IMO. Bows are really bad at this since you can just buy as many arrows as you want and clear out enemies at a safe distance. It really just comes down to playing preference I guess, and I really loved bows in DS1, but in DS2 they seemed way to OP.

Also, only a single ember to rule them all? A single blacksmith that handles them? The imagination it required to accomplish this is zero. There was such a beautiful purpose of finding an ember in DS1, and although might have not been done as well as it should have in DS1, it was made extraordinarily worse in DS2. This isn't just embers btw, it's all items. This goes back to what I said that DS2 was designed by a "student", as items were just scattered around a zone without purpose. They weren't placed there with the intent of lore. You cannot convence me that Havel's Armor ended up in The Gutter, behind a locked door with poison statues shooting at you and you find a "corpse" in a pot. That. Isn't. Lore.

Some will argue that you found his armor in chests in Anor Londo, and some weird occult club that was in a mimic, but Havel was gathering weapons and armor that were strong against the "gods", the gods being Gwyn and the rest, and he was locked away in his tower before he could act on it. You find his armor with purpose, you find everything with purpose. If you visit Darkroot Basin and get close to the Hydra, you find a corpse of a knight laying in the water where he died challenging the beast. If you visit the Valley of Drakes you'll find the body of a Bandit trying to get across the bridge and died from the 4 blue drakes. If you go into the depths of blight town and walk up the tree trunk into a little room, you find the corpse of a deprived, with nothing to his name, possibly died from trying to run from the monsters in the swamp, or even got poisoned and didn't have the armor to resist it, and didn't know there was a hidden wall that would of gave him a bonfire if he only knew. The body of a thf trapped in a room trying to escape the relentless assault of the undead dogs and the undead bandits. The mage trapped in the room with whatshisname, why is one alive and the other dead? Is he really good? Why is he not trapped in a pot and left to die? The body of a wanderer, probably died to toxin blowdarts. The body of the cleric in the catacombs, died from falling off the ledge perhaps, or tried to jump down safely but found that they were trapped from the bonewheel skeletons.

Dark Souls II does not feel like this to me. It's not that Dark Souls II is a bad game, but even with Demon's Souls I feel purpose and intent with every decision. I may not understand it the moment I come across it, but I eventually do with time. DS2 doesn't feel like that, it feels like loot was placed with no intent. Finding the body of Havel, or someone who stole his armor, dead in The Gutter, just is one of the problems I found with treasure placement, it just is the one that stands out the most for me honestly.

Finger's crossed for Project Beast at E3.


inb4 Fallout 4 Announcement takes the wind out of everyone's sails.

Kali I pretty much agree 100% with everything you said. While I did like DS2 as a stand alone game I personally feel it did not hold up well as a Souls game. I came here to post VaatiVidyas video about Project Beast but Kal beat me to it. Pretty good supporting evidence about that becoming a new Demon Souls game (especially at 5:09) and as he said I'm pretty hyped and hoping for more news at E3. I would love for Demon and Dark Souls to split off into their own games similar to CoD Modern Warfare / Black Ops, but not necessarily a yearly release.

Dark Souls 2 is kind of what I feel another vindication of how objectively superior games don't make for a objectively superior experience.

Dark Souls 2 looks better, plays better, is better balanced and at least in my case, better in Multiplayer.

But I still don't feel like it's a better game overall. It's like the Oblivion to Morrowind comparison.

I don't want to bloat up this post with a huge Fedora-worthy diatribe about how the more artistic merits of DS1 and DeS trump the By-Committee-Design-and-Refine approach to DS2.

It's weird because I disagree with a lot of what Kal is saying about bad design decisions in DS2, but we arrive at the same conclusion. DS2 is the weakest of the Souls series.

I feel like i've been using the flame sword for a long time.
is there nothing better for a 1hander?

Depends entirely on your build I think.

Most of the Boss-forged weapons are quite good though, I don't know if you've gotten to Ornifex yet though.

Felt like DS II was way too easy. Especially the bosses.

Dark Souls 2 is mechanically better, for the most part. Magic, Ranged and melee are all viable. And the game really really wants you to use diversity or be challenged for not doing so.

I hate what they did with rolling i-frames while giving many bosses attacks with very large hit boxes that are nearly impossible to roll through without enough Adaptability. Most of those attacks are an instant guard break as well.

DEX scaling also needs to be fixed. Badly.

For example:
Curved Dragon Greatsword has a B/S STR/DEX scaling.
40% of my scaling damage comes from STR at 30STR/40DEX

But they fixed scaling in Dark Souls 1, so I'm confident it'll be adjusted soon enough.

I prefer Dark Souls' story myself. Although I don't find Dark Souls 2 to have as weak a story as Kali seems too. Some treasure locations are a little wonky.

I think, by comparison, Dark Souls 2's story is largely weaker. I enjoy both but Dark Souls is in a different class.

As far as balance goes, I'd be happy if they nerfed the ***out of dark magic. Nothing else can shave off 80% of my HP, except quick-cast Dark Orb. My physical attack will start first, and they'll still beat me to the punch. Everything else I'm largely cool with, but Dark Magic is infuriating.

I like hurling lightning spears.
:)

But as far as I am....iono what the story even is really. Just running around trying to kill 4 dudes

Lightning spear takes way too long to cast... I just think that's cause of it's dramatic animation.

The story isn't nearly as cohesive as Dark Souls 1. I'm torn between thinking Drangleic is either a Kingdom built on top of Lordran, which is popular but also contradicted in Item descriptions. If the item descriptors are to be believed, Drangleic is actually (or once was) Vinheim, home of the Dragon School sorcerers.

Or, Theory 2 is that Dark Souls 2 and the events are just a paranoid/semiprophetic delusion of The Chosen Undead in Dark Souls 1, as his/her mind was collapsing in the Undead Asylum. Making Dark Souls 2 a Prequel.

Bonus round: The Final Boss of Dark Souls 2 is a familiar face, but you can't figure it out without reading the soul/boss soul item descriptions.

Then why is the lord vessel found in the basement, shattered on the floor?

I don't see it being possible as a prequel. The last ancient dragon in ash lake was protecting her last few eggs in her nest by the bonfire, acting as the firekeeper for that bonfire. Then they eventually hatched, and grew. It would of took thousands of years for this, and that is why the names of lands have changed.

The theory for why the Lordvessel is in Majula is that the Lord Vessel is what Vendrick stole it from the "Land of the Giants", Lordran.

I personally think Drangleic is more complicated than that. Lordran was supposedly just one City right? Drangleic is supposed to be an Entire Kingdom... New Game + Reinforces the idea that Lordran and Drangleic are in the same general region. How Else did the Souls of the Old Ones get there? (And the Theory of Seathe's Corpse in Dukes Archives/Freja Boss zone)

As for Dragons, I don't think the Ancient Dragon is an Everlasting Dragon... It drops a Giant Soul, not an Ancient Dragon Soul (Which you can obtain from a true Everlasting Dragon). I think it's a guise like Gwynevere. The Dragons of Dragon Aerie are Wyverns.

praise the apocalypse

----

Console gamers die 150,443 times per hour in Dark Souls II. That’s 2,507 deaths per minute, or 42 every single second.

The Pursuer dies 735 times every hour, or 12 times a minute.

Eight percent of deaths are from fellow gamers making trouble. Every minute, 360 players get struck down by a human opponent. That’s six every second.

9,588,094,633,279 souls have been lost. 227,596,671 deaths total.

40,879,048 deaths from falls.
3,737,709 deaths from traps.
17,881,289 deaths from other players.
149,142,628 deaths from enemies.
13,274,384 deaths from 'other'.

I was pretty sure that Lordran was the name of the continent/country. Anor Londo, New Londo, Oolacile, etc were all cities within Lordran.

Drangleic seems like it could be a city-state like Anor Londo, within Lordran.

I was sure the Dragon's in the aerie had 4 legs, making them dragons and not wyverns, but I picked them all off with lightning so I didn't get up close my first time through.

We know there was a single dragon with a nest in DS1, so over the several millennia they would be able to repopulate, especially if Anor Londo and the giants/gods that hunted them were all distracted with a nasty curse or something eroding their society.

I think there's a good story there, really. It's just poorly executed. I'm really hoping some DLC comes out to flesh out the past events a little more, like the Abysswalker story did for the original.

To me the main story seems pretty cut and dried. The king is tricked into a war, the Dragons ally with humans against the Giants, and the lord souls exercise their influence over the world once again.

As for Havel's armor, I was thinking it was locked away with the statues there guarding it.

My biggest question is this:

What happened with the undead curse after DS1? Does linking the fire end the curse for that age? Kingdoms have risen and fallen repeatedly since then. Is the undead curse continuously in existence throughout, or is it brought about again by each looming Age of Dark? Knowing the answer to this would clear up a lot of things for me.

Actually, I need to point out, and it's a very, very, very big spoiler, so I'm going to spoiler tag it, and anyone who responds to it should do the same...




Havel's Armor isn't actually the Armor of Havel himself. The Greatshield and the Dragon Tooth on the other hand, are Havel's personal arms. The Armor itself is just what his soldiers wore.



Two Legs, and Long Bat-Like wings. It's a Wyvern.

Spoilering the big twist.

And again, the fact it isn't Havel the Rock's armor specifically has no bearing on why it's there. It's still powerful armor surrounded by an obvious trap.

There's the possibility that if the curse of the undead is lifted when the fire is linked, and reappears when the fire begins to fade and turn to another age of dark, that Havel never died. If the curse was lifted he very well could have survived in some convoluted timeline where the chosen undead never encountered him. He would return to himself in a new Anor Londo with most if not all of the deities, which he may or may not have been plotting against, dead or gone.

Anor Londo is also home to the Giants of DS1. Havel's men and the giants of DS1 would naturally be allies. So if we assume that the giants of Anor Londo are the same as the invaders of Drangleic, simply afflicted with varying states of curse and hollowing to warp them, then I think we could explain the location of the the Havel's set and accessories in DS2.

My theory:
The Giants want the Lord Souls, and a few of the invaders made their way to the gutters and the black gulch to obtain Nito's former Lord Soul. One of Havel's men fell in the Gutter and the Giants hid his valuables and booby trapped the room they were in, then locked it. That could be why the key to get it is held by the giants.


I really love piecing crap like this together. I'm probably wrong on most of this, but it's fun to try and figure things out and hear others' ideas.

AS long as you didn't break it, all you have to do is rest at a bonfire.

The first dagger is pretty damn awesome for shankin' people as a sorcerer too btw.

I am assuming you never played Dark Souls then?
Dark souls taught me to never jump off anything without full health.
The more I look at that image the more it makes me laugh, as I don't really know what you were trying to attempt, you roll with such purpose you almost had me questioning myself if I had missed some super secret ledge or something.

In the early stages I just killed the enemies surrounding the bonfire until they stopped re-spawning (15 kills or so), otherwise I also found my weapon in danger of breaking before then next bonfire.

Enjoy the many more deaths that await.

The fall damage appears to be linear now instead of by %, that's why you notice the difference; what this does is allow you to eventually fall farther and not just have this arbitrary cut-off point where you die instantly that is maybe a foot further than taking off half your health; but early on it makes the falls hurt more.

Also, Adaptability might affect fall damage. Not sure, haven't personally tested it myself, but adaptability affects quite a few things.