ROFL the Giant Memories

[Ǵ̶͓̂͑lí̴̤̀̄́tcĥ̸]

And I thought some of the other game design was bad. Memory of Vammar is pathetic.

The more I play the more I realize this game is a pitiful shadow of its former self made by a bunch of incompetents. Pretty much everything post King's Ring has been just...sad. There are good points on the game no doubt, enough for me to want to continue playing. But some of the enemy designs and areas of the game are so glaringly bad it makes me wonder how drunk these f*cking idiots were when they created them. Speaking from a strictly melee perspective.

Drakekeeper with the Great Hammer. Pathetic design.

Turtles with Dual Hammers in the Dark Cov. Pathetic design (for the same reason as Drakekeepers, also in that they are designed with similar movesets to a PC with the same weapons and poise but have no stamina). Great Hammers can probably flatten these guys but as a dual wielding Dex build they are ridiculous.

Pretty much the entire Memory of Vammar. The Death Corridor with like 7 Golems, including two mages with homing rockets of death. Don't even get me started on how hard it is to roll past these when every f*cking Golem slam from a mile away stuns you for half a second. Even when I'm on the rooftop to the right, whenever I get to the edge to jump off and bumrush the next area, one happens to slam somewhere underneath me and stun me just in time for a fireball to blow me off the roof.

Then there's the infamous ones like the almost guaranteed Cyclopse death in Aldia's Keep (first time anyway).

This was never Dark, or Demon's Souls. Those games were hard, they wanted you dead, but they made it almost always your fault. The only real exception I can think of being the first encounter with Seath.

This game just randomly has ♥♥♥♥ kill you with no logic behind it whatsoever. Hopefully (and I sincerely mean this) some of the cretins that were responsible for some of these glaring moments got fired, or are on their way out the door. They had 2 other games that were successful before, and they STILL f*cked up. Either they're too incompetent to be able to stay on and contribute to another title, or it was sabotage.

These situations are relatively few and far between in an otherwise decent game, but when they happen, they are mind-numbingly unbelievably stupid.

Off to try and kill some coochi-faced golems again.

[Tirigon]

Originally posted by MR.hyde:

Originally posted by Tirigon:

My brother is playing in Full Havels (except Smelter Demon Helm) and has Havels Shield + some greatsword and he's breezing through everything. I dont think he has ever dodged except against grabs and some magic and that sort of thing, and he has no trouble at all. That's his first character in his first souls game.

sounds like he read up some guides and walkthroughs... well das1 is on sale now, let ur brother play it and tell him to not use any guides. lets see how far he gets ;)

He doesnt use any guides, all his knowledge comes from either stumbling upon it or me telling him. He was just like "I want to play a big guy with heavy armor and a shield", and I told him how you can find one of the best (i.e. havel's) so he uses this now.

But anyways, that's not really what I meant.

My point was that even a completely inexperienced player could beat almost everything easily just by having a good shield, whereas even a fairly good player like I am (I dont mean to brag, but like I said I did manage a SL1 playthrough, so I dare say I know what I am doing) will struggle greatly without one.

That was never the case in DS1 - sure, a shield did make things easier, that's kind of its point, but it wasnt the difference between a game that is more difficult than DS1 and a walk in the park, but the difference between dying 40 times or 15 times until you knew how to beat the challenge, and for an experienced player it was mostly useless (my SL1 playthrough for example mostly used the stamina regen shield while twohanding my weapon, or parrying against silver knights. Actually blocking was few and far between, and even on those occasions I knew I could have done it without and just felt like playing a little more relaxed).

TL;DR:
Blocking in DS1: Situationally useful, otherwise somewhat helpful but less effective than dodging or parrying
Blocking in DS2: Easy mode I WIN button about 90% of the time

[Tirigon]

A lot of this is due to enemy's huge tracking, mostly. In DS1, dodging was superior than blocking because you would get behind enemies and could always hit them many times. But now, when almost every attack hits in a 270 to 360 degree area and tracks better than a laser-guided missile, you have to dodge each attack, so blocking with a good greatshield is simply the less stamina-costly option.

Maybe it's true that this uber-tracking is only due to the FPS bug speeding up things on 60.

But since that's the default and can only be limited with 3rd-party tools, it's still a part of the game.

[SundownKid]

Originally posted by Zaik:

Your mistake is that nobody is intended to play this game without a ranged option.

Crossbows are to be used by strength builds(I think the heavy crossbow needs like 7 dex? Avelyn is like 12 or something), long/compound/etc. bows are meant to be used by high dex players, and obviously spellcasters are just fine on ranged options.

This, pretty much. There's really no reason not to have ranged attacks unless you're stubborn - ALL builds in this game can support ranged attacks now that the Crossbow has been given an aiming reticule. Therefore it's not the devs fault that you don't use ranged, it's yours.

[G-Spot Warrior]

As another primarily melee player, I can relate to a lot of this. The Giant Memories have some really cool atmosphere, though; while it wasn't designed well, would be great to see something like that in a future Souls game.

[Tirigon]

Originally posted by SundownKid:

Originally posted by Zaik:

Your mistake is that nobody is intended to play this game without a ranged option.

Crossbows are to be used by strength builds(I think the heavy crossbow needs like 7 dex? Avelyn is like 12 or something), long/compound/etc. bows are meant to be used by high dex players, and obviously spellcasters are just fine on ranged options.

This, pretty much. There's really no reason not to have ranged attacks unless you're stubborn - ALL builds in this game can support ranged attacks now that the Crossbow has been given an aiming reticule. Therefore it's not the devs fault that you don't use ranged, it's yours.

One of the beautis of DS1 was that you could play the way you want.
DS2 takes that away.

Originally posted by ReaperTeh:

As another primarily melee player, I can relate to a lot of this. The Giant Memories have some really cool atmosphere, though; while it wasn't designed well, would be great to see something like that in a future Souls game.

The time limit on them sucks. Without it, I might at least try to kite them around, separate them etc.. (solo giants are actually easy as f*ck), but as it is that only results in being sent back.

[SundownKid]

Originally posted by Tirigon:

One of the beautis of DS1 was that you could play the way you want.
DS2 takes that away.

I don't feel like Dark Souls was playable "the way you want"... bows were weak, and crossbows were even worse. Greatswords were far and away the most powerful for PvE and everyone else was gimped. Close combat with a Zweihander basically obliterated everything and there was no need to use ranged. In this game there is an actual need to switch up your weapons.

[Tirigon]

Originally posted by SundownKid:

I don't feel like Dark Souls was playable "the way you want"... bows were weak, and crossbows were even worse. Greatswords were far and away the most powerful for PvE and everyone else was gimped. Close combat with a Zweihander basically obliterated everything and there was no need to use ranged. In this game there is an actual need to switch up your weapons.

Bows and crossbows didnt do really good damage,, but still enough to play with them if you wanted to... and seriously, their damage is STILL crap even in DS2 (my +10 bow deals about 250 damage, while my Heide Knight Sword deals 350, attacks waaaay faster and is usually powerstanced with an equally strong Katana......)

Zweihanders weren't op. Yes, it was possible to play with them, if you felt like it, but you werent forced into it (in fact, I considered them to be inferior to my weapons and mostly used halberds or katanas). That's what PLAY AS YOU WANT means.

And yes, there was no need for ranged. That's exactly what I meant - you arent forced into a certain way of doing things.

[MR.hyde]

Originally posted by Tirigon:

Originally posted by SundownKid:

I don't feel like Dark Souls was playable "the way you want"... bows were weak, and crossbows were even worse. Greatswords were far and away the most powerful for PvE and everyone else was gimped. Close combat with a Zweihander basically obliterated everything and there was no need to use ranged. In this game there is an actual need to switch up your weapons.

Bows and crossbows didnt do really good damage,, but still enough to play with them if you wanted to... and seriously, their damage is STILL crap even in DS2 (my +10 bow deals about 250 damage, while my Heide Knight Sword deals 350, attacks waaaay faster and is usually powerstanced with an equally strong Katana......)

try the bow of want, it is the best bow in my opinion.

[private sex ed tutor]

So you made a bad build and now instead of fixing the problem (which is very, very easy) you're complaining on the forums

[IT'S_OVER_ANAKIN]

Finished whole game dual wielding dex, ♥♥♥♥ off with you blaming the game because you're bad OP

[JayXan]

to be fair, they've been making these games since 1994. Some better than others. You can see my lets plays of them that I am doing right now at http://www.youtube.com/mrjayxan

[Zvy]

I can't recall the giants posing any issue whatsoever even at base adaptability and minimum iframes. The drakekeepers are definitely badass though. Takes some practice so I thought learning them was fun.

[Dark-Master.Barbzilla]

Originally posted by Zaik:

Your mistake is that nobody is intended to play this game without a ranged option.

Crossbows are to be used by strength builds(I think the heavy crossbow needs like 7 dex? Avelyn is like 12 or something), long/compound/etc. bows are meant to be used by high dex players, and obviously spellcasters are just fine on ranged options.

Even as Str, i don't see why you wouldn't just go with the Dragonrider bow, the dex req isn't too outlandish, and the bonus elemental is nice, though farming the extra bones could be one fair argument, with the likes of BonfireA, it becomes more trivial.

I somewhat agree with you on the point. The PvE player was intended to have some form of option for any situation (thus from brining the builds away from quality imo), but focus enough to damage tough enemies and bosses faster than they kill you. Where this fails in functionality is that the game is by design a PvP based game, which means optimised characters, and once you start breaking into stat variences, there usually isn't a reason not to carry some kind of ranged weapon, but I can see the counter point just as easily from the PvP player's perspective.

[MR.hyde]

Originally posted by Dark-Master Barbzilla:

Originally posted by Zaik:

Your mistake is that nobody is intended to play this game without a ranged option.

Crossbows are to be used by strength builds(I think the heavy crossbow needs like 7 dex? Avelyn is like 12 or something), long/compound/etc. bows are meant to be used by high dex players, and obviously spellcasters are just fine on ranged options.

Where this fails in functionality is that the game is by design a PvP based game

i disagre! if it were a pvp based game we had dedicated servers, we had regularly balance updates, we had cheater protection, we had ladders, we had a whole lot more if it were pvp based game.
in my opinion the pvp part is the thing that keeps the most players going after they beat the pve part and i admit that it is fun since i do pvp alot too but to say it is a pvp based game is simply wrong ;/

[Kibbles]

Nice essay, I give it a 9/10.