Demon Souls / Dark Souls

[Delphouneso]

Worst part is I saved getting platinum until after the game to cheer me up if we lost, now I'm more annoyed about this than the result.

I'm currently debating whether it'll be quicker to finish this playthrough and rush through to Anor Londo in NG+3, or start a fresh game but have to kill Capra, get the ember from Depths, farm souls for a +10 weapon then get to AL all whilst being low level. Or throw my PS4 out the window.

[Delphouneso]

 

It's over. It'll be a while before I come back to this I think, having to do that extra playthrough for one weapon was a drag and completely quashed any desire I had to do any fun runs or challenges. Not least because I made much harder work of Gwyn on NG+2 than necessary, I think only a glass-cannon run at Ludwig has taken me more attempts at a boss.

DS2 now I guess?

[Delphouneso]

Spare a thought for those of us not playing Elden Ring. I've just started DS2 and first things first someone please tell me effigies are super common items? I wasn't a fan of the humanity system in DS1 and basically just played hollow 90% of the time, but it appears that's going to result in me playing through this game at half HP, which might get annoying.

[Designer1]

1 hour ago, Delphouneso said:

Spare a thought for those of us not playing Elden Ring. I've just started DS2 and first things first someone please tell me effigies are super common items? I wasn't a fan of the humanity system in DS1 and basically just played hollow 90% of the time, but it appears that's going to result in me playing through this game at half HP, which might get annoying.

iirc, there are quite a few vendors dotted around and plenty of places to find them.

They also drop from certain mobs but the rate is quite low.

Always worth having a look at the Fextralife pages for full details.

https://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/Human+Effigy
 

Quote

Human Effigy
"A warm, soft, shadow like effigy. Use this item to reverse Hollowing. It also weakens the links to other worlds, invasions and most cooperation.
Peer closely at an effigy, and one begins to perceive a human form, but whose form it takes depends on the person looking."
Human Effigy is a type of consumable in Dark Souls 2.

 

[Delphouneso]

I guess what I was hoping you'd say was 'don't worry there's a ring you can get that severely lessens its effect'. It seems they're not quite as rare as humanity was at least. Parry windows so far seem super generous, having to wait for enemies to fall over before riposting is a bit awkward though. Majula kinda reminds me of Red Dead Redemption for some reason.

[Designer1]

3 minutes ago, Delphouneso said:

I guess what I was hoping you'd say was 'don't worry there's a ring you can get that severely lessens its effect'.

There is.

The Ring of Binding.

[Designer1]

6 minutes ago, Delphouneso said:

Majula kinda reminds me of Red Dead Redemption for some reason.

One of the best hubs for me - love the music.

[Delphouneso]

On 13/03/2022 at 13:21, Designer1 said:

There is.

The Ring of Binding.

Just got this. I was pleasantly surprised because I was convinced that chest was going to be a mimic as a punishment for attacking a passive soldier. Spent some time farming to buy the Uchigatana as soon as I saw the blacksmith had it for sale, which took a while because I started as deprived so also had to level the stats to use it whilst only being able to use a dagger, and now I'm not even sure it's any good and it broke after literally one attempt at a boss. Maybe it's the game telling me to explore new weapons and not just use what I used in DS1.

[jacketspuds]

On 16/03/2022 at 16:17, Delphouneso said:

Just got this. I was pleasantly surprised because I was convinced that chest was going to be a mimic as a punishment for attacking a passive soldier. Spent some time farming to buy the Uchigatana as soon as I saw the blacksmith had it for sale, which took a while because I started as deprived so also had to level the stats to use it whilst only being able to use a dagger, and now I'm not even sure it's any good and it broke after literally one attempt at a boss. Maybe it's the game telling me to explore new weapons and not just use what I used in DS1.

DS2 is the only Souls game where I really enjoyed being a Sorcerer. Get Intelligence and Faith up and smash everything as a Hex build.

[Delphouneso]

The start of Black Gulch is some of the most stupid shit I've experienced in a Souls game.

[Delphouneso]

The Smelter Demon boss run might actually be worse than the run to Capra Demon. I'm noticing running through enemies generally seems way less effective in this game, I don't know whether there are more enemies, less bonfires, less shortcuts or something else but running back to your body rarely seems to end well.

Another thing that feels off and I can't quite put my finger on why is the feedback when you get hit, it just seems to be lacking some how. I genuinely wouldn't know I'd taken damage half the time if I didn't notice my HP going down. 

[Daweii]

36 minutes ago, Delphouneso said:

The Smelter Demon boss run might actually be worse than the run to Capra Demon. I'm noticing running through enemies generally seems way less effective in this game, I don't know whether there are more enemies, less bonfires, less shortcuts or something else but running back to your body rarely seems to end well.

Another thing that feels off and I can't quite put my finger on why is the feedback when you get hit, it just seems to be lacking some how. I genuinely wouldn't know I'd taken damage half the time if I didn't notice my HP going down. 

If you're playing the Scholar of the First Sin version of Dark Souls 2 then there are 100% more enemies.

That specific version of Dark Souls 2 has no rhyme or reason to enemy placement. Every area from the original Dark Souls 2 has 5-10x the amount of enemies in Scholar of the First Sin. 

[Delphouneso]

1 hour ago, Daweii said:

If you're playing the Scholar of the First Sin version of Dark Souls 2 then there are 100% more enemies.

That specific version of Dark Souls 2 has no rhyme or reason to enemy placement. Every area from the original Dark Souls 2 has 5-10x the amount of enemies in Scholar of the First Sin. 

I am. That's interesting to know. Smelter Demon took me two attempts but I must've died 20 times getting to the second attempt, there are so many enemies in that room and their aggro range (and running speed) is insane.

[Delphouneso]

Finished the main story today. I can see why this is the least loved of the series but I kind of enjoyed it, maybe because I had lower expectations going in. Its flaws are pretty obvious, there are a bunch of unecessary downgrades in quality of life stuff from the previous game, mechanically it's the worst in the series, but there's a bunch of cool stuff in it and atmospherically the game felt really good, although it's a shame most of the bosses were kind of underwhelming and forgettable. I like how abundant crafting materials were too, the lack of slabs/blood rocks/etc in other games forces you into picking a weapon early and sticking with it but I had a lot of fun playing around with different weapons in this one before mostly settling on splitting my time between the Warped Sword and the Partizan.

I do feel like the hp loss when hollowed thing kinda put a dampner on the whole experience. I just found myself constantly checking how many effigies I had and debating whether or not to use one (particularly once you start needing them for the Dark Chasm thing - side note: haven't beat the Darklurker yet due to dwindling effigies), it's just an unnecessary complication. I did play the whole game with base vigor though so when hollowed basically everything one shot me which maybe amplified how annoying it is.

Lastly this game needs a spam filter. It's not something that usually bothers me but this was by far the worst of the FS games I've played in terms of the number of soapstones and bloodstains cluttered everywhere, and you can't perform certain actions whilst the tooltips are on the screen. Reading 'therefore try but hole' for the 100th time whilst you're trying to switch to two-handing isn't funny, it's just annoying.

Anyway, onto the trophy hunt. I briefly scanned the trophy guide and I'm sure I read something about co-op so I'm hoping it doesn't involve online play or if it does that there's a workaround.

[Delphouneso]

1 hour ago, Delphouneso said:

Lastly this game needs a spam filter.

I mean just look at the state of Vendrick's boss room:

[Delphouneso]

Darklurker down. Might've been my favourite boss so far if it weren't for the effigy farming required and having to get past Havel and friends before every attempt, really tarnished my experience. Also spent ages (and a bunch more effigies) dragging Lucatiel through the Rotten three times only to discover I can't complete her questline anyway because I already spoke to her at Aldia's Keep, so I guess I have to do it all over again in NG+? Which is pretty annoying.

[Delphouneso]

Farming sunlight medals isn't fun so I decided to crack on with the DLC before it completely ruined my enjoyment of the game. Finished the Sunken King (was okay, Elana was a good boss, the other two not so much), started the Old Iron King and then I met the blue Smelter Demon, or rather the corpse run to him, which might even be worse than that of his previous incarnation. Might be the first time I've ever walked away from a boss (I'll go back later) but for the two attempts I had at the boss itself I probably died 15+ times trying to run back to it. This game really doiscourages running past stuff. Reaching the end of my tether I reluctantly forged on expecting more of the same only for the Fume Knight to rise out of the ground and save the day. Probably the best boss in the game and one of the better balanced bosses in the series.

It doesn't quite have the aesthetic appeal of something like Artorias but in terms of mechanics it's really well designed and basically serves as the punisher of bad habits. Get greedy? Dead. Panic heal? Dead. Don't manage your stamina well enough? Dead. Varied moveset, unpredictable combo lengths, and a second phase which is basically the first phase but faster and more punishing with some added hard to dodge new attacks. Enjoyed that one, and in the end made it look easy (kind of a weird first phase). Almost made me forget I still have 24 sunlight medals left to farm.

[Designer1]

17 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

No deaths?! **** me

I've died about a thousand times already and I'm only just out of the asylum

Yeah, it was the same for me (and I would imagine most people) on my first playthrough.

[dubbs]

Is the collectors edition which has DS 1, 2, and 3 in worth getting or are their better versions individually? It's about £28 on Amazon at the moment. I've got DS 2 already but thinking the other 2 must be worth £14 each surely?

[Delphouneso]

 

Quite possibly the worst experience I've had in gaming. There was a 7 month break between starting and finishing the platinum after I reached my wit's end at the first attempt (probably somewhere around Iron Keep). Pretty sure I won't be picking this one up again. Onto DS3..