DARK SOULS 2- Praise the sun

a post on the Dark Souls facebook page is leading me to believe we'll only have 2 hours to play the game tomorrow night. If that's true, then boo....
 
Dr_Tom said:
a post on the Dark Souls facebook page is leading me to believe we'll only have 2 hours to play the game tomorrow night. If that's true, then boo....
Click to expand...
yeah i saw that, i didn't post it because it sucks ass. oh well 2hrs are better than the 0hrs that i'll be playing it lol.
 
So played for 2 and a half hours... I'm going to post what I don't like first.

-Dual wielding still uses the Dark Souls 1 control scheme, so it still sucks.
-One-handed swings still take too much endurance and it still takes 66% or more endurance to complete a five-hit combo.
-Many enemies are still dumb and ferociously aggressive, so tactics are pretty similar to DS1's.
-Targetting and camera work is still bad (can't move the camera while locked on).
-No smart-targeting, if you aren't locked on, you're going to be whiffing like Link from OoT.
-Endurance is likely to be more valuable than anything else like prior. And like DS1, two-handed weapons and two-handed wielding will yield better results per point of endurance than one-handed swings.
-Many monsters still don't stun and many of them can still turn 180 degrees and hit you when you run past them during their swing animations.
-Ripostes (L2 parries), seem completely useless now.

Good stuff:

-Armor now has stat requirements and it appears to have some scaling.
-Backstabs are harder to pull off.
-There seems to be one generic dodge-roll now, so running around in light armor doesn't seem to offer better dodge rolls like before. One downside is that dodge rolling seems to have less or no invincibility now.
-Armor actually reduces damage compared to DS1. Health may have some better value now.
-New items restore lost spell usages and a new heal over time item in the form of Lifestones.
-Another new item called Human Effigies restore you to human form and can be used outside of bonfires. One downside to the beta is that there isn't enough of them so you'll still be running around in undead form a lot. At this point, I feel like they should just ditch the mechanic, now you're creating a stacking penalty and unless you can balance right by offering enough Human Effigies for players to acquire, you'll end up skewing the balance once again like in DS1.
-New torch mechanic. If only they could balance it properly...
 
Windstar said:
So played for 2 and a half hours... I'm going to post what I don't like first.

-Dual wielding still uses the Dark Souls 1 control scheme, so it still sucks.
-One-handed swings still take too much endurance and it still takes 66% or more endurance to complete a five-hit combo.
-Many enemies are still dumb and ferociously aggressive, so tactics are pretty similar to DS1's.
-Targetting and camera work is still bad (can't move the camera while locked on).
-No smart-targeting, if you aren't locked on, you're going to be whiffing like Link from OoT.
-Endurance is likely to be more valuable than anything else like prior. And like DS1, two-handed weapons and two-handed wielding will yield better results per point of endurance than one-handed swings.
-Many monsters still don't stun and many of them can still turn 180 degrees and hit you when you run past them during their swing animations.
-Ripostes (L2 parries), seem completely useless now.
Click to expand...

I agree dual wielding isn't what I would hope it would be, but for different reasons. With the Dark Souls control scheme it works just fine, I just don't like that it eats stamina as fast as it does for as little damage comes out of each hit.

Stamina will be important but more so just management of it and not necessarily maxing it asap. With the new stats/level screen they split the endurance stat that raised your stamina and your carry load into stamina and vigor meaning if you're putting points into your stamina bar, you're losing out on more than you were in the previous game.

the parries not working the same is really going to hurt how I played Dark Souls 1. Back stabs are also much harder to hit in a game by yourself. If you're running with other people though, it's not any more difficult than it was in the first Dark Souls.

Good stuff:

-Armor now has stat requirements and it appears to have some scaling.
-Backstabs are harder to pull off.
-There seems to be one generic dodge-roll now, so running around in light armor doesn't seem to offer better dodge rolls like before. One downside is that dodge rolling seems to have less or no invincibility now.
-Armor actually reduces damage compared to DS1. Health may have some better value now.
-New items restore lost spell usages and a new heal over time item in the form of Lifestones.
-Another new item called Human Effigies restore you to human form and can be used outside of bonfires. One downside to the beta is that there isn't enough of them so you'll still be running around in undead form a lot. At this point, I feel like they should just ditch the mechanic, now you're creating a stacking penalty and unless you can balance right by offering enough Human Effigies for players to acquire, you'll end up skewing the balance once again like in DS1.
-New torch mechanic. If only they could balance it properly...
Click to expand...

Most of this I agree with, but I want to clear up what you said about the dodge rolls. There are still different dodge rolls. At least 2 I found, fast and medium. Invincible frames on all dodges have been decreased for sure though. With the new stats set up though there is the new agility stat that says it affects evasion. So it's possible(didn't get to put too much in here and test too much of it) putting points in here will increase the invincibility frames or something along those lines.

Another thing you didn't touch on that I think should be mentioned is the defenses. Your physical defense and magic defense don't automatically rise not matter what you put your levels into. You specifically need to put points into resistance if you want better defenses. Something to keep in mind.
Basically when it comes to leveling, it seems From Software wants you to plan ahead and specialize this time around.
 
Windstar said:
-No smart-targeting, if you aren't locked on, you're going to be whiffing like Link from OoT.
Click to expand...
I don't want smart-targeting. Learning to fight enemies and hit with your weapon at specific angles and ranges without locking on was a valuable skill in Dark Souls to help with spacing and to avoid backstabs. Smart-targeting seems like easy-mode dumbing down to me.
 
Synalon said:
I don't want smart-targeting. Learning to fight enemies and hit with your weapon at specific angles and ranges without locking on was a valuable skill in Dark Souls to help with spacing and to avoid backstabs. Smart-targeting seems like easy-mode dumbing down to me.
Click to expand...

Problem with the lack of smart-targeting is the problems that cropped up in DS1 where certain weapons were clearly better than others for handling multiple targets (See Longsword two-hand R2) or just flat out better for everything because they have wide swinging arcs. You also run into issues with hit-boxes on weapon swings and more.

Speaking of which, R2 swings got hit hard in the beta. The longsword R2 two-hand swing is slower than zwei-hander two-handed R2s, and doesn't lunge forward nearly much anymore. Not to mention a smaller hit-box.

Then of course the issue is with a lack of smart-targeting it means you have to lock-on to every creature and you can't adjust the camera when doing so.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back