Dark Souls II Catch-All

Man, those spamming corporate shills are really hitting the board hard these days!

With the favorable previews rolling in I really don't want to wait almost a year for this one. Where's my DeLorean?

IMAGE(http://modernfarmer.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/plant-whisperer-hero.jpg)

Ha! Demiurge, I'm happy to see you getting paid for giving us feedback we'd probably have heard on the podcast or read on the site otherwise. Belated congrats on your new gig, and thanks for the insight into your demo experiences.

And more on-topic: good goddamn, this game's really looking as though it's on the right track!

ianunderhill wrote:

Ha! Demiurge, I'm happy to see you getting paid for giving us feedback we'd probably have heard on the podcast or read on the site otherwise. Belated congrats on your new gig, and thanks for the insight into your demo experiences.

And more on-topic: good goddamn, this game's really looking as though it's on the right track!

Thanks!

Okay, serious question: What would have you concerned about Dark Souls II right now?

Less optional exploration and content.
The amount of optional stuff; npc's, "mini-quests", items etc. you could find in DeS and DS was pretty incredible.

Even if you would mostly be able to find some of these with a guide - unless you are insanely thorough - it added even more to do in multiple playthroughs

Demiurge wrote:

Shameless self-promotional link alert! Here are my impressions.

I really can't wait for this to come out. Want want want.

Is it just me or does anyone else feel like Demiurge isn't representing PC Gamer but GWJ regardless of where he writes? It just makes me feel that he will be able to give the PC Gamer mag some GWJ style.

I just don't want to have to mod it to make it look okay at 2560x1440. DSfix has some issues and isn't perfect with DS. I'm guessing they're going to get the resolution and texture thing right this time. However, I am really hoping that they will include UI size and transparency sliders. I really don't like the gigantic UI when playing on the PC in front of a monitor.

Gimpy_Butzke wrote:
Demiurge wrote:

Shameless self-promotional link alert! Here are my impressions.

I really can't wait for this to come out. Want want want.

Is it just me or does anyone else feel like Demiurge isn't representing PC Gamer but GWJ regardless of where he writes? It just makes me feel that he will be able to give the PC Gamer mag some GWJ style.

The truth is, yes, that's exactly what I'm doing. Goodjer pride!

Demiurge wrote:

Okay, serious question: What would have you concerned about Dark Souls II right now?

My concern has always been the absence of Miyazaki and his unwavering vision of the series thus far. The demos and impressions coming out of E3 have been very reassuring, but I'm trying to keep my expectations in check knowing that the game has a new director.

I don't think I've actually seen anything concerning in the gameplay videos released so far. It all looks pretty great.

Demiurge wrote:

Okay, serious question: What would have you concerned about Dark Souls II right now?

Let me step back to the beginning. What had me concerned before was "new creative talent + bigger budget" and not having any idea whether Namco-Bandai was just shooting to further cash-in on the increasing popularity of the series or looking to advance things we all love about the game. Right now, my concern is pretty much limited to "lore-y business, mostly". Combat's looking like it's getting even more varied, the game looks great graphically, and style/design wise, it looks like we're going to be getting more of those moody environments that lent a sense of historical depth to the areas in the other Souls games. Yes, there's plenty we haven't seen, but what we have seen looks just right to me, and this is a game I care about enough to go Goldilocks-bananas on with criticism.

So, what concerns me about lore stuff? Just not knowing how the story is going to be presented to the player this time out. This is probably based on a mix of knee-jerk cynicism and latent concerns about overly mainstreaming the game. The beautiful thing about how lore worked in Dark Souls was that the player could engage with it as much or as little as they cared to do. Folks who just wanted a gritty hard-as-hell action-RPG got to play it as such. Those of us who wanted to do the NPC quest lines and dig through item descriptions to flesh out the world and add the mental gymnastics of role-playing into the mix got our rich story experience. If they jettison that approach in favor of something more forthright and linear, we'll probably still have a cool game come March, but losing that flexibility strikes me as a loss to not one but two camps of players.

Otherwise, it's just a bunch of fiddly stuff. If you've spent even half as much time obsessing over Dark Souls as I have, chances are you've found out about changed/cut/incomplete content that would've been really cool - stuff like Oscar of Astora being a counterpart/rival to you character and serving whichever serpent you didn't, or more fleshed-out covenant functionality, or humanity actually having an impact on NPC interactions, or or or. To boil it down, I'm hoping that the greater budget results in us receiving a more complete product than before. Maybe that sounds wishy-washy in the face of my "but I want a vague, optional interpretation-suited story!" talk, but in context of this series...well, I don't think it's impossible. Here's hoping the positives we've seen so far carry over into the stuff we have yet to see.

Some new details via Famitsu: http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkSouls2/c...

Looks like there are going to be more offensive Miracles, I might try a Faith build in DS2.

Restoring spell count is a real buff to casters, not that they needed it. I generally would melee my way through every area and only use my spells on bosses or to progress past a particular sticking point.

Demiurge wrote:

Okay, serious question: What would have you concerned about Dark Souls II right now?

GFWL. We hates it precious, we hates it forever. Keeps kicking me out of Dark Souls.

Demiurge wrote:

Okay, serious question: What would have you concerned about Dark Souls II right now?

The multiplayer aspects. The demos shown so far have no indication how the online systems will work. I fear that Namco will go too far in catering to the "friends list/party chat" requests that a number of folks are making. I really think those arguments are more a symptom of the age of the two current souls games and the online problems that plagued Dark Souls than an inherent flaw in the game design. In fact I think the unique character of its online play is one of its great strengths - when that system is lively and functioning.

Nowadays veterans that are still playing are at the point where looking for a different experience that they can share with friends, and newer players starting recently are finding a lower population to play with and most likely have someone in particular they'd like to play with as there aren't tens of thousands of players available anymore. For the first group making "friends" play eventually accessible but limited in some fashion seems reasonable, for the second group making sure the online world is well-populated and functional is probably enough. Too often in Dark Souls the peer-to-peer system would choke and leave someone isolated and confused as to why they aren't able to engage in online play. To word it somewhat roughly I don't want Namco to confuse the fallout from technical flaws with complaints about design flaws and try to fix one by "fixing" the other.

imbiginjapan wrote:
Demiurge wrote:

Okay, serious question: What would have you concerned about Dark Souls II right now?

The multiplayer aspects. The demos shown so far have no indication how the online systems will work. I fear that Namco will go too far in catering to the "friends list/party chat" requests that a number of folks are making. I really think those arguments are more a symptom of the age of the two current souls games and the online problems that plagued Dark Souls than an inherent flaw in the game design. In fact I think the unique character of its online play is one of its great strengths - when that system is lively and functioning.

Nowadays veterans that are still playing are at the point where looking for a different experience that they can share with friends, and newer players starting recently are finding a lower population to play with and most likely have someone in particular they'd like to play with as there aren't tens of thousands of players available anymore. For the first group making "friends" play eventually accessible but limited in some fashion seems reasonable, for the second group making sure the online world is well-populated and functional is probably enough. Too often in Dark Souls the peer-to-peer system would choke and leave someone isolated and confused as to why they aren't able to engage in online play.

Yeah, I strongly support this concern. While imbiginjapan's perspectives and mine are different with what we want out of multiplayer, I don't want to see the game play sacrificed for ease of grouping. I like the Demon's Souls model of multiplayer where I can definitely summon a friend to play with me, but they may get snagged by someone else etc.

I would be very sad if they allowed premade parties.

I'm going to go against the grain here. I feel like most of the people that play are just cheating the co-op system anyways. On the podcast they even talked about using a hack so they could join together more easily. I'm hoping that they make it so you can have preference to summon people on your friends list. If people are doing it anyways, why make them jump through hoops.

Edit: What would people think about a completely separate mode designed for co-op? The difficulty could scale according to the amount of players.

EvilDead wrote:

I'm going to go against the grain here. I feel like most of the people that play are just cheating the co-op system anyways. On the podcast they even talked about using a hack so they could join together more easily. I'm hoping that they make it so you can have preference to summon people on your friends list. If people are doing it anyways, why make them jump through hoops.

Well, Demon's Souls doesn't make you jump through any hoops. I just really don't want to see them take out the summon system and restrictions. I don't want to see pre-game lobbies or anything like that.

IMAGE(http://i.qkme.me/3r0vrm.jpg)

EvilDead wrote:

I'm going to go against the grain here. I feel like most of the people that play are just cheating the co-op system anyways. On the podcast they even talked about using a hack so they could join together more easily. I'm hoping that they make it so you can have preference to summon people on your friends list. If people are doing it anyways, why make them jump through hoops.

This hack appeared on PC almost 2 years after Dark Souls had been released on consoles. It's especially necessary because of the low population of the game nowadays and the awful peer-to-peer online infrastructure. Anything that gives you the possibility of seeing any summons at all is a boon.

In Demon's Souls it was fairly easy to play online because the server based structure meant that tons of signs were visible all the time. People didn't complain much about playing or not playing with friends because if a friend was online it was likely you'd see their sign and have a chance to summon them.

When Dark Souls was originally released (and really to this day), it was much harder than intended to play with anybody at all because the peer-to-peer structure cut players off from large portions of the player base. It was at that point you heard people complaining a lot more loudly - they couldn't find anyone to play with, let alone people on their friends list.

What I absolutely don't want to see is to make it so you can log on to Dark Souls II, invite a couple friends to create a party, and then jump in together. Dark Souls shouldn't have those sorts of guarantees. And No party chat for gorm's sake.

Edit: Eeek, Dakuna Agrees with me! The apocalypse approaches!

Demiurge wrote:

Okay, serious question: What would have you concerned about Dark Souls II right now?

I'm concerned that people are using the word "concerned" too much when talking about a sequel to a video game that was itself essentially a sequel. As good as Dark Souls is and even though I'd be satisfied with more of the same, I don't mind getting something a little different.

Latrine wrote:
Demiurge wrote:

Okay, serious question: What would have you concerned about Dark Souls II right now?

I'm concerned that people are using the word "concerned" too much when talking about a sequel to a video game that was itself essentially a sequel. As good as Dark Souls is and even though I'd be satisfied with more of the same, I don't mind getting something a little different.

I am concerned concerning your lack of concern!

I'm with Dakuna on this one.

The co-op system for the Souls game is unique, and in itself presents as many challenges as it solves. Communication. Coordination. Weapon/spell selection. In many ways its a puzzle in itself. I'm sure we've all died on co-op session when couldn't get the puzzle right.

Allowing conventional parties will mean allowing players to miss out on one of the most important parts of the Souls experience. In addition, I suspect that allowing parties will effectively neuter the game, making it much too easy.

To EvilDead's point, people may have found ways to 'game' the game, but that doesn't mean that the developers should effectively reward them for that (and at the same time punish the players who don't cheat). We wouldn't think of rewarding cheaters in other games so why do so in this one?

There are dozens of games out there that allow people to co-op conventionally. It would be nice if this one maintained one of its key points of difference and real sources of joy.

EDIT: In addition, a conventional co-op system would effectively render the invasion mechanic pointless. Again, working out how to tackle a BP is part of the 'puzzle'.

Latrine wrote:
Demiurge wrote:

Okay, serious question: What would have you concerned about Dark Souls II right now?

I'm concerned that people are using the word "concerned" too much when talking about a sequel to a video game that was itself essentially a sequel. As good as Dark Souls is and even though I'd be satisfied with more of the same, I don't mind getting something a little different.

Different isn't bad. Poor implementation is, particularly when there are two really excellent games before this one. In my mind, a sequel should expand on the successes of its forerunners. Getting a canned one-dimensional story or thematically worthless generic lobbied multiplayer are things that would feel really wrong after what we've seen so far. That's not to say there isn't a way to do certain things better (and quite clearly so in regards to multiplayer especially!), just that there are expectations of quality relevant to previous things that, while certainly imperfect, had some real strengths to them.

@ianunderhill and latrine

I think what we're all saying is that we want the game to continue to evolve whilst retaining its unique elements.

I want a Souls game that continues to chart a different course to 90% of the big game releases.

I happened to listen to the Giant Bomb podcast for the first time in forever. They were talking about the DS2 demo. They were saying that backstab and parry are no longer crazy powerful. You aren't invincible during the animation and enemies will gang up on you if they see you going for it. I'm actually cool with that. It means you should really only use it when you are down to one enemy. I'm not all that good at getting a backstab or parry, anyways. I'm more into using your shield to block and then waiting for the right moment to strike or staying just out of range and then striking after the enemy's last swing. That sort of combat seems more real to me, anyways.

Anyways, I'm cool with those changes.

detroit20 wrote:

Allowing conventional parties will mean allowing players to miss out on one of the most important parts of the Souls experience. In addition, I suspect that allowing parties will effectively neuter the game, making it much too easy.

I'm really having a hard time reading this as anything other than "Oh no! People won't be forced to play Dark Souls 2 the way I think they should."

If you think that being able to choose and communicate with your co-op partner makes the game too easy, then don't! There's no way that they'll remove the ability to hit a button and be teamed up with a random jacktard on the internet. You'll still be free to have the same moment of dread you remember fondly from Dark Souls when your co-op partner summons in wearing a sack on their head while dancing and spamming "HELLLLOOOOOO!" statues.

If other people choose a co-op experience that is different from your ideal it is not negatively affecting your game experience in any way, shape, or form. Why on earth should you be concerned with how they choose to enjoy the game?

I love so much about Dark Souls. FROM really did a wonderful job of ignoring anything else that other devs were doing and executing an amazingly original game design.

Since I love so much about it, I hope they keep a lot of the design intact. The mood, the combat, all the multiplayer aspects, the exploration - some of the best exploration in decades, imho - and of course the challenge.

I don't like all the reports about the area where you have to use a torch in one hand, and I hope that's just one little bit, because it seems like a lazy way to mix things up, and was already somewhat done in Dark Souls.

But overall I'm very positive about DS2, thanks to the glowing impressions coming out of E3. All this talk makes me want to go back and play Dark Souls some more, really.

Elycion wrote:
detroit20 wrote:

Allowing conventional parties will mean allowing players to miss out on one of the most important parts of the Souls experience. In addition, I suspect that allowing parties will effectively neuter the game, making it much too easy.

I'm really having a hard time reading this as anything other than "Oh no! People won't be forced to play Dark Souls 2 the way I think they should."

If you think that being able to choose and communicate with your co-op partner makes the game too easy, then don't! There's no way that they'll remove the ability to hit a button and be teamed up with a random jacktard on the internet. You'll still be free to have the same moment of dread you remember fondly from Dark Souls when your co-op partner summons in wearing a sack on their head while dancing and spamming "HELLLLOOOOOO!" statues.

If other people choose a co-op experience that is different from your ideal it is not negatively affecting your game experience in any way, shape, or form. Why on earth should you be concerned with how they choose to enjoy the game?

That made me laugh. Yeah, I think it's rather silly to worry about. If they add the option to work with friends it's not really going to take away from the game in the same way that the auction house did with Diablo III. I feel like the AH crossed the line. I think that did cheapen the experience as much as I didn't want to admit that.

You'll always be able to solo DS2 which will be the core experience. If you're calling in people for coop, you might as well be able to play with your friends. I do hope that they don't include any sort of text or voice communication in the game, however. You shouldn't be able to communicate with people you don't know except through gestures. If random partners could text stuff to you, that would destroy the coop. You could just set up chat with friends separately through the PC or game system.

Elycion - I don't particularly disagree with your post, since I did team up with some Goodjers for small parts of Dark Souls, but I will say that part of the uniqueness and joy of Dark Souls' multiplayer was the amazing lack of jacktards on the co-op side. I had a few who weren't very good, and early on I wasn't a super helpful phantom myself, but overall something magical happened where the co-op community was really, really great.

I'm sure the design of the game selects for a certain kind of player, as well as volunteering to help through the summoning sign system, but it goes beyond even those things. I think the inability to communicate actually added to the experience and to the tone of the community. It was like being in an old silent film featuring wandering ronin teaming up, complete with formal bows, etc.

I enjoyed the co-op community so much that I spent hours and hours playing with others just because it was so fun and emotionally rewarding. Putting down your sign is very similar to certain group aspects of MMOs.

In fact, I'd love to see a mostly single-player game try something close to WoW-like dungeons and even raids one of these days, probably as optional, but very rewarding, content. Dark Souls would be a natural place for this to happen.

Tuffalo: Random partners text things to each other on 360 all the time, although it's not the majority of the time. People will indicate tactics for O&S, or trade items, etc.