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Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin; For: PS4, XBone, PS3, 360, and PC
Topic Started: Dec 7 2012, 08:11 PM (875 Views)
ZetaStriker
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It's Like You're Carrying the Weight of the World~
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So I've been playing this a lot lately, on PC with a mouse-and-keyboard setup. I've been loving it so far, although I do admit that there were a few things it does much worse than its predecessor. The gameplay is still great fun, and I think most of the levels - maybe the Black Gulch aside - seem pretty well designed. But there's a little less imagination in the world design, and because the opening cutscene focuses on the generic main character, we're not given as good an introduction to the world as we got in the original Dark Souls' epic cutscene.

That said, this article dissecting the story was fucking amazing, and salvaged some of my respect for this sequel.

I just rounded off my last great soul after the spider fight . . . and stupidly missed the exit and walked away from the primal bonfire. I'm running a Cleric, rocking a +10 Raw Homunculus Mace. That thing just wrecks bosses, it's amazing. Lightning Spear is also a fun spell, but it's Emit Force that constantly surprising me with its usefulness. Such a massive hitbox, it's beautiful.
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Homeless One
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Veda Terminal

"Two steps forward, one step back" is pretty much the best summation I can give of Dark Souls 2. Still a great game though, in my opinion.
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ZetaStriker
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It's Like You're Carrying the Weight of the World~
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I've been playing really slowly in Dark Souls 2, and still haven't beaten the game. But this was announced, which was cool:

[utube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ioo0ukZ6P-4&feature=youtu.be[/utube]

DLC is confirmed to start rolling out starting July 22nd, with three releases confirmed. The "Lost Crown" DLC will each have new areas to explore, filled with new enemies and bosses. Each one is also linked to some of the old kings you hear about during the game, so they'll probably expand the lore relating to them. The Crown of the Sunken King seems to be what 99% of the trailer is made up of, and is the first release. Then comes The Crown of the Old Iron King on August 26th, and finally The Crown of the Ivory King on September 24th. No prices have been announced yet, but I get the feeling these will be the equivalent of selling three mini versions of the original game's Artorias content instead of just one big expansion.
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Akito10
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Norman freakin' Jayden

I hope the Season Pass includes Dante from the Devil May Cry series and Doritos XP rewards.
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Homeless One
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Veda Terminal

It'd just be DmC Dante.
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Akito10
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Norman freakin' Jayden

Homeless One
Jun 4 2014, 11:04 AM
It'd just be DmC Dante.
Spoiler: click to toggle
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Posted Image Ovan
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ねぷは..自由だ!!!

hah, it's sad that it's easy to know exactly what would be there.
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Posted ImageHobbes
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Stuffed Tiger / Philosopher

Enhanced version of DSII incoming for PS4/XBone/PC incoming, PS3/360 will get it too:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=v0GxBZcVmHc

Pics and details (sorry for the mobile link):
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=140298292&postcount=1
Edited by Hobbes, Nov 25 2014, 10:00 PM.
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ZetaStriker
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It's Like You're Carrying the Weight of the World~
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Balance changes make me skeptical. My buddy informed me that my build got nerfed really badly just to appease people playing the multiplayer. I only want to PvE, and having the uses and damage of my lightning bolts reduced is pretty crippling.
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Posted ImageNeko
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Noir

ZetaStriker
Nov 25 2014, 07:45 AM
Balance changes make me skeptical. My buddy informed me that my build got nerfed really badly just to appease people playing the multiplayer. I only want to PvE, and having the uses and damage of my lightning bolts reduced is pretty crippling.
This so much.
I thought it was just that the DLC area enemies were ridiculously strong, but even in the normal areas the lightning spells were nerfed bad.
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ZetaStriker
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It's Like You're Carrying the Weight of the World~
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That was my entire build too. The Homunculus Mace is good, but I might as well have just focused of Str or Dex and gone full melee for all the good my lightning spells now do me. They struck a decent balance before, but now? I also don't get how nerfing lightning balances anything. It just makes them worse than sorcery, and I don't see why that needed to happen at all. Hell, lightning should be strong. It wiped out most of the dragons.
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Akito10
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Norman freakin' Jayden

I always found Souls PvP a joke. It's a PvE game with an unbalanced multiplayer part put in. Only Co-Op should have been in. Fucking with the core game for a shitty add-on isn't really cool.
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Homeless One
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Veda Terminal

Maybe the new story elements will explain what the hell the Throne of Want actually was, exactly.
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BadBoiu
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A Nintendrone living a Lie

It's heavily implied it's the Kiln of the First Flame or at the very least built upon it as the new location where the fire can be linked.

Also to lightning guys, Faith was heavily nerfed. It wasn't just because of PVP but also because people could just sit back and cheese every boss with lightning bolt spams from a safe distance. I never really understood this because as a mage build that's the entire point but I guess the devs only want people to use range attacks as a backup and not a primary combat style.

They originally intended only to reduce the number of casts while increasing the damage output but instead it was bugged and the damage got reduced as well. The end result being a lower number of casts combined with the spells doing less damage. I believe the cast time was also increased but don't quote me on that one. The damage bug has yet to be fixed AFAIK.
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ZetaStriker
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It's Like You're Carrying the Weight of the World~
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I might even be okay with it if damage was upped, it's the double whammy that sucks. I also don't think most bosses were able to be cheesed that way. The majority of the time you get locked in a sort of arena with them, and have to throw bolts in between their attacks.

Well, if you solo them like I do. If you summon help, then you can cheese as much as you want. XD
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Akito10
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Norman freakin' Jayden

Been playing the Scholar version on 360, offline.

I'm up to Harvest Valley, just about done with the area and the game hasn't really challenged me too much. The challenge has usually come from the gangbang design of most areas. Enemies just pop out of nowhere, and you're rarely one or one or two on one, but like 4-5 on one and you're scrambling to contain the situation. The bosses even fit this mold. I heard tales about how tackling the Chariot as a Sorceror would be horribly difficult, but once you kill the Necromancer ressing the skellingtons in the area, it's easy as pie. The only really, really hard fight for me so far had been the Gargoyles, and it was the most egregious example of this problem.

Area flow is okay. Nothing really stands out like they could in Demon's or DaS though. This may change in the end-game and once I get to the DLC. For now I'm a level 80 or something sword mage, rocking a magic echanted mace and wrecking most face I come across.

It's an okay game that's marred by being the follow up to an amazing game.
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Homeless One
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Veda Terminal

I feel area flow actually got considerably less plausible after reaching Drangleic castle.
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ZetaStriker
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It's Like You're Carrying the Weight of the World~
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I heard they improved lore elements this time around . . . adding more to item descriptions, placing enemies in ways that make narrative sense, etc. Did any of that play out for you?
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BadBoiu
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A Nintendrone living a Lie

Homeless One
Apr 23 2015, 04:28 PM
I feel area flow actually got considerably less plausible after reaching Drangleic castle.
First 10 seconds. Don't even get me started on that shit.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=L-DMfrYZYsI
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Akito10
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Norman freakin' Jayden

ZetaStriker
Apr 23 2015, 04:57 PM
I heard they improved lore elements this time around . . . adding more to item descriptions, placing enemies in ways that make narrative sense, etc. Did any of that play out for you?
I think the hard changes like enemy placement effect only the next-gen and PC versions of Scholar. I so far haven't noticed any differences since my first attempt with the vanilla PS3 version I played a bit of the ways in to.
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