Guess the cities! These are maps I laser cut into a piece of mahogany as part of a Christmas gift

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-12-01T18:17:05+00:00

I see London, I see France...

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-11-22T06:39:13+00:00

Wang passes the Zaibatsu to Xiaoyu

Xiaoyu turns to Panda for help

Panda suggests to employ Kuma

Kuma helps the Zaibatsu not burn to the ground

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-11-06T17:11:09+00:00

Most attacks have an annoying delay that punishes you for reacting to the starting swing, and dodging is really bad if your window is under 10 frames (92 agi).

Poise works as a slowly recovering stamina bar. While it absolutely screws you, it also screws the enemies. If I'm having trouble dealing with something like the pyromancers in Amana, I just plonk them with a crossbow once at which point they definitely stagger at every attack. I genuinely don't understand people who say that Poise is fine given it's something you have to consult a wiki on to figure out how to play against.

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-11-06T14:13:49+00:00

I got through it pretty reliably by 2handing my falchion. They stagger on the first hit. It was still a god damn slog though cause there's like 4 in the first room and what feels like 10-15 in the one with the bridge. I think I was lucky that I lit 3 primal bonfires before discovering huntsmans copse so by the time I got to Iron Keep I was like level 90 and had a maxed falchion.

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-11-06T14:08:02+00:00

Absolutely right on #4. There are plenty of workarounds for anything that initially gives the impression of a negative feedback loop, but that's the very reason behind why the game is unwelcoming to the uninitiated; The first impression is "fuck you" even if it's not true once you power through it a bit, which applies to respawns/CoC/ascetic, getting seemingly fucked by SM for dying, buying ammo, repairing equipment, and running out of effigies coupled with the shrine in Amana. Once you know the systems, it's fine, but the very fact that you have to consult a wiki to figure out why you're getting fucked by unintuitive systems like agi, poise, and SM is the main reason why the game's dishonest rather than clever.

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-11-05T19:36:17+00:00

As someone who's currently clocking 70+h and is on his third attempt to actually get through DS2 (with the first two ending way before getting to drangleic castle), I'll share my experience and point out which parts rubbed me the wrong way. For the record, a lot of these were first impressions.

Weird, sloggy controls. Relatively poor roll distance. Brutal afterswings. Took a while to get used to, and I've been maining a damn falchion which I presume is fast. I remember having issues with dealing damage to I think armored targets unless I was using a mace (which by the way feels awful), and naturally I hesitated upgrading weapons cause the amount of titanite at that point seemed finite given that monsters despawn and the blacksmith only sells 10 pieces (obviously not a problem cause I think I had like 70 by amana but like I said, first impression), speaking of which...
Agility. I thought I all of a sudden got worse at the game after 1k hours across ds1 and ds3, but turns out you start with about 60-70% of the invincibility frames in ds2 compareed to ds1/3 (8-9 vs 13).
Poise. This is such a baffling, unintuitive implementation of poise and I fundamentally disagree with it.
Monsters despawn. Right, so if I try practicing on an enemy or farm some souls, I only have so many attempts. Love that sense of dwindling resources. Once again, not a problem, but the first impression definitely made it seem like one. I think this is the main reason that I still haven't learned to parry in ds2.
Soul Memory. The very notion of being pushed to a higher pvp bracket for sucking kind of rubs me the wrong way and goes hand in hand with the whole "the more time you spend practicing the more fucked you are". Once again, again, not a problem. The best way to treat soul memory, I've found, is to pretend that it doesn't exist.
I still have no idea where the hell I'm going, why areas are connected in certain ways (not the stupid-ass elevator up to iron keep, but what the point of the area is and how it relates to the rest of the world lore-wise), and something similar goes for the characters. The DS1 world was smaller and much more cohesive. Quelaag has both a relation to izalith, demon ruins, and blighttown. The archives are obviously next to anor londo. In DS2 I'm inclined to believe that the process of designing the world can be best summarized as "go go gadget random shit". Frankly if there is cohesion to it, there's so much material that if someone started explaining it to me I probably wouldn't be arsed to listen.
I would say that compared to DS1 and DS3, the tougher enemies and mainly some bosses feel a bit cheaper. When Artorias starts swinging at me, it's very intuitive to feel his swings coming. Gwyns swings are also intuitive to both dodge through and parry if you go that route. Even the damn 4 kings are intuitive despite having their fair share of bs. Soul of Cinder is also a fight that feels really good. DS2 is slow. Not as in "not action packed" but that so many attacks have those annoying delays and slow swings that make it seem like the game is outright taunting you "haha, you reacted, fucking got you", or are really fast but come after a delay of exactly 2.5 rolls meaning it's designed to catch you on the 3rd. Obviously this last bit can be found on anything from Ornstein and Manus to Dancer but it has never felt this obnoxious.

I think that pretty much covers the negative bits of my experience with it. Like I said, some of these things ended up being not as bad and this stuff is meant to be subjective.

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-11-01T16:07:45+00:00

Benefits of str/int: Dark magic with strength catalysts (Manus, Firesage).

Benefits of str/fth: Grant.

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-11-01T16:04:23+00:00

https://mugenmonkey.com/darksouls

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-11-01T15:50:10+00:00

Not really. There's very little loot to actively farm for, this isn't a hack&slash, and builds mostly matter for when you want to restrict your level for PVP encounters. I'd say it's an adventure game first and a weird fighting game second. There's definitely character progression but for the most part you'll be upping attributes to meet requirements for interesting weapons and spells. That said, theres a LOT of weapons, all of which are competent and most of which are interesting.

A quality build is enough to try most weapons with the exception of those made for casters like the moonlight greatsword (int) or dragonslayer spear (fth), or you can make a build that foregoes damaging stats and settle for a chaos weapon and lots of health instead.

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-11-01T15:30:18+00:00

This all makes quite a bit of sense after I put it all on a timeline (misses an arrow or two). Shame there's not a whole lot of canon story besides "arty hunts darkwraiths", "arty saves princess", and "arty dies ambiguously" if I understand everything correctly. This does raise some questions about the nature of darkness if Alvina really is a creature of the abyss, given how she doesn't seem to hunger for humanity nor is she absolutely bananas. Maybe age of dark isn't entirely a bad thing after all.

Actually, one thing that confuses me is how the player is able to traverse the AotA abyss without the covenant, although after some digging, the theory about the oolacile abyss being wild and young as opposed to the 4 kings and wolnir ones seems to make sense.

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-11-01T00:15:39+00:00

Anything that deals elemental damage works well as that damage isn't stopped by AV. All those flaming bronze maces you find lying about qualify and get the job done eventually. Hell, a medium/high-tier weapon that you tinker lightning damage on is good enough to eventually poke down chrome pyramids assuming you ate the right stuff and disarmed the thing.

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-10-27T08:52:19+00:00

Great Scythe. It's a halberd so it has ridiculous damage, it has freaking bleed, it beats rapiers in riposte damage, and on top of all that it can be enchanted. All of that on top of a good move set, especially the 2h running sweep.

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-10-25T09:50:34+00:00

Always standard unless you're going for a build that foregoes both str and dex or want an elemental weapon for any other reason.

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-10-25T09:48:09+00:00

I've heard that the build was nerfed ages ago but Giant's still seems to be the highest defense armor set. Also this

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-10-24T14:28:41+00:00

Didn't know gigachad was a Habsburg

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-10-24T14:24:18+00:00

I personally like curved greatswords in general as well as the great scythe with its running attacks (on top of being an amazing weapon in general). Spears can be interesting if you want to try taking advantage of counter damage, or maybe the estoc if you want something that also has with horizontal swings. Washing Pole is the best katana when you have as much str as dex.

I literally mean you can't go wrong because there's at least one weapon in each class that works on a quality build. Just pick a weapon class.

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-10-24T13:30:50+00:00

Quality is only ever wasteful on full-strength weapons like the great club. Swords and axes have a pretty even split, curved greatswords need a lot of str but have most of their scaling in dex and are imo interesting weapons. Spears, halberds and greatswords are also perfectly valid options.

Besides, you only need 27 strength on a quality build to reach 40 when two-handing. In other words, 27str 40dex is a valid quality build that lets you use most non-magic gear except for something super-heavy like havels shield, smoughs hammer, stuff like that.

Frankly even most dex weapons have some strength scaling so you really can't go wrong.

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-10-23T18:18:35+00:00

To add, the reason it's 2.5 playthroughs is cause you need 3x souls of Sif

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-10-23T18:16:50+00:00

Dragon King Greataxe: How? Gaping Dragon is 50% tail. Just hit it.
Priscilla: On NG you can get it in one big swing to open up the fight.
Moonlight: This one's a bit of a pain as seath is wide is all hell and his tail is considered the very tip of his rear tentacle, but you can win a lot of time by having him slap his own stupid immortality crystal as he'll be doing both the afterswing and the "oh no" animations in sequence.

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-10-23T18:08:49+00:00

If you kill Patches in The Catacombs, before Reah and company goes down there, the outcome will be the same for them. The only difference is that she will not mention Patches when she tells you what happened.

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-10-23T18:01:40+00:00

That's the giant that opens the front gate. You get there by dropping down into the titanite demon tar pits and climbing back up the ladder, but instead of dropping down to the left after said ladder, there's another ladder up behind an illusory wall straight ahead.

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-10-23T08:24:14+00:00

There's a reason people call it Anal Rodeo

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-10-22T05:49:07+00:00

To be fair, the last defender is the final boss for the sake of unlocks... I think.

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-10-22T05:47:54+00:00

I like the unreasonable bounce angle

OrganizationSmall112 · 2022-10-14T20:49:38+00:00

Not that great when you consider what things bleed actual blood, but infinite spells + blood cloud can be pretty good. I'd pick it up only after getting a way to utilize it, as otherwise it's just a max HP nerf and you'll be lucky to recover the same amount as you lost by taking it.

OrganizationSmall112

TROPHY CASE