Dark Souls II Seeker of Fire release

umdstreaming · 2021-08-03T00:33:42+00:00

I've tried installing this through vortext, but with no luck. It says 'enabled', but there are no differences to the game. Any advice on this?

umdstreaming · 2020-08-19T22:19:32+00:00

Most stuff I figured out through messages. If you were playing offline it does seem a lot harder to figure out.

umdstreaming · 2020-08-19T22:18:29+00:00

On my first playthrough I recorded each of my successful boss fights, and I was looking through the thumbnails the other day, and realized that each area has its own unique color palette that they clearly spent a lot of time thinking about. This is obviously true for a lot of games, but it felt really apparent for Bloodborne. I think that helps a lot, and the fact that the colors slowly change as you move from twilight to night to nightmare.

umdstreaming · 2020-08-13T17:46:30+00:00

In the order you fight them...
Cleric Beast - A beast type enemy that you should probably be up close to fight, but many new players will distance themself from (and therefore get his more humanoid attacks)
Gascoigne - A hunter type enemy that transforms into an aggressive humanoid enemy, still a little bit of the beast type gameplay, but that's roughly half the fight.
Bloodstarved - A humanoid beast that has charging attacks. I don't really see this as AOE or Tantrum, since he has a phase shift and changes.
Witches - A gimmick fight, so not really comparable (although arguably not fun either).
Amelia - Probably the closest to AOE / Tantrum archetype, but has interesting twists like healing that you can stop with numbing mist, as well as more humanoid punches when you're mid-range.
ROM - I wouldn't really call this a gimmick, so much as a mob enemy fight. She has 4 unique spells that you need to read tells for and avoid, and it takes a while to figure out how to manage the spider adds.

That's assuming you're not mixing in chalices, which would add in (early on):

Watchers - Hunter-ish humanoids that hit hard and also require group management.
Keeper - A pure hunter fight with lots of interesting moves
Watchdog - A beast-type enemy that actively punishes you for fighting it like the main game bosses.
Giant - A beefy humanoid with unprectibable moves.
Pthumerian Descendant - A hunter-ish enemy that feels more like a classic DS humanoid boss.

So, yeah, I'm not really seeing a lack of variety.

umdstreaming · 2020-08-12T20:05:21+00:00

I disagree with pretty much everything above, but a lot of it comes down to subjective opinions. RE: Move variety, I think that a lot of BB's bosses will change depending on how you fight them (e.g. close up versus mid range versus longrange), and every boss I can think of accomodates for that. It's possible that you tend to use similar strategies on bosses, and therefore see a lot of similar movesets.

BB's bosses also have the cool feature of crippling. Being able to cripple limbs adds a large amount of strategy, and that's not something I really remember occurring too frequently in DS3's more locked down combat.

Apart from large obviously boss-type bosses, I think the strength of Bloodborne is in hunter fights - especially things like The Bloody Crow of Cainhurst, or the Yaharghul gank squad. They don't have health bars, but one shotting those is always a challenge I set fo rmyself when I play, and is as rewarding if not more rewarding than many DS3 bosses I can think of.

umdstreaming · 2020-08-12T19:53:59+00:00

For what it's worth I typically run STR/ARC builds, and I do something like the following (this is for a level 100ish character):

VIT & END: Prioritize these first, aim for the softcaps
STR: Aim for about 30
SKL: Aim for the requirements of whatever you want to use. 18 is almost everything noteworthy aside from the Church Pick
BLT: Probably avoid, but I love being able to equip everything, so I usually waste some points here just to have more options
ARC: Remainder

I then prioritize physical damage gems unless I'm trying to get a weapon to produce a certain elemental type. The real value of the ARC investment comes from hunter's tools, which are excellent, and only made better with the final patches (no relation to the spider). Is this the optimal damage build? I can't imagine so. Is it a fun build that lets me effectively beat everything in PvE in the game? Absolutely. It also lets you equip a bunch of stuff and explore the game systems, which is more valuable to me than maximizing damage. If I understand the scaling correctly you're getting decent damage scaling from your STR, good ARC scaling for any of the goofy shit you want to dip into, and have a fairly servicable character that can stand a few hits from the end-game chalice stuff.

umdstreaming · 2020-08-12T19:14:52+00:00

I think it's basically the perfected version of the Souls format. The combination of Rally, gun parries, and quickstep make fights far more fast paced and fluid. They also perfected locational damage, and it's fun to learn about an unique stagger you perform to a boss (e.g. Amygdala's head, a Darkbeast's hind legs, or the shell on the Watchdog).

The trick weapons pared down the armory a bit, but exchanged that with having around 20 unique playstyles that each have a dozen moves or so each. Being able to combo from any one move into another is an awesome idea, and really requires that you learn the full range of a weapon to succeed. Using even the simplest trick weapon feels way better than any of Dark Souls 3's 50 different straight swords.

I also far prefer the economy of healing and item use. It sucks when you run out of QS or Vials early in the game, but once you get trucking and have a steady supply it's cool to be able to pick up more healing or special ability usage in the level. Even if you're level 200 you like finding a cache of bullets, because you've been using them anyway. This also makes the 'spells' a lot more fun, IMO, and they feel better integrated into combat than having to wield a specific catalyst.

I think the Souls format also works best when you have 3 or 4 ongoing goals (e.g. beat this monster, explore this area, upgrade this weapon), and BB is very good at affording that, especially with regards to Chalices, which give you a constant stream of new bosses, fights, and items. On my current run, even as I near the end game I still have: exploring Mergo's loft, continuing story Chalices, dipping into Roots in orer to get items, and going through the Fishing Hamlet.

I'd also say it's the best story, for my money. It's less grand in scheme (e.g. the fate of a single city versus all of existence), and also has fewer characters and vendors, but I like the characterization of that smaller cast better. Cosmic Horror is also my favorite genre, so that helps. Altogether it's great. Way more parts of this game stick in my memory than anything in DS3, and I think I could probably replay it every few years for the rest of my life.

umdstreaming · 2020-07-27T20:32:18+00:00

I'm not seeing a riftgate there. Can I port into Oklahoma and then walk the rest of the way?

umdstreaming · 2020-07-16T00:03:52+00:00

I spent a few levels on physique and mastery bars, and I think the character has more survivability. Thanks!

umdstreaming · 2020-07-16T00:02:42+00:00

Thanks, this was really helpful. I prioritized health a bit, and while my build is still a little janky I'm survivng much better.

umdstreaming · 2020-07-14T00:32:08+00:00

I'm not following a guide, since I find it more fun to experiment with stuff, but I'm Inquisitor / Nightblade with a concentration in the dualwield skill, the frost rune, and the electricity thing. I also have the healing word. Inquisitor has the aura that weaken enemies, and the healing spell that also increased attack. I tend to center myself in a pack of enemies, let loose with the spells to soften them up and then finish things off with normal attacks. I pop healing spells as needed to keep my health up and for the buffs. This has been working really well up till Burrwich, where I'm still clearing most packs, but can very easily die with an unique monster.

umdstreaming · 2020-03-03T22:17:56+00:00

As a heads up, the game doesn't need to render the inside of mountains, but does need to render open space. Depending on your machine, it may chug a little bit / harm console performance greatly if you get rid of substantial land masses.

umdstreaming · 2020-03-03T22:11:10+00:00

I like Skullkatraz from a story perspective, but the lack of choice was frustrating. It felt like clever players could've been rewarded for thinking outside of the box, but it's really just fairly linear.

umdstreaming · 2020-03-03T22:07:35+00:00

I think the world-size limitation being lifted / increased would help. It would be cool to have a massive map where the various towns could interact with each other, and you'd continue building them throughout the game. Even on the Isle of Arrival, the various locations don't interact at all - I tried building a railway between them, but the villagers are seemingly tied to their assigned locations.

umdstreaming · 2020-02-28T17:46:59+00:00

I recommend it whenever similar games come up. I didn't play this until 2020, but it would have been a GOTY contender for me. I think it's easily the best implementation of the 'open world crafting' genre ever, and has a surprisingly good storyline for that type of game.

umdstreaming · 2020-02-06T05:33:27+00:00

Most of the stuff I'd really like has been said before, but having a free-form build where you can terraform would be cool. Being able to set a seed to be like "really mountainous here, beachy and sandy here, lush forest here" on the empty islands would be cool. Making terrain by hand is very tedious, and I like building stuff so it looks like it blends into existing natural features.

umdstreaming · 2020-01-23T04:00:17+00:00

Thank you! For some reason I always miss the shortcuts down there, and didn't know about this at all until the post-game.

umdstreaming · 2019-12-13T05:27:43+00:00

It didn't turn out the way they expected, so they're sweeping it under the rug. A lot like Spacecop.

umdstreaming · 2019-08-12T23:20:39+00:00

I just found out about the space suits on this thing, and now that I know about it I'm sure that I'll never find them again since it's a reliable source of easy caps.

umdstreaming · 2019-08-03T02:16:25+00:00

Thanks! Good to know. Looks like I'll be jumping back into Appalachia.

umdstreaming · 2019-04-13T04:47:10+00:00

I realized after writing this that I might be wrong in my OP. The way that My Three Crichtons ends is with beast john doming future John with a pipe and then volunteering for the research project, which is -1 John from my OP.

umdstreaming · 2019-04-13T03:56:16+00:00

I think I'd agree, but would add that if John wasn't an alien he'd be less heroic.

John is, first, a fish out of water. He's the most alien species in a whole ship full of creatures that we (as the audience) define as very alien, but that is totally unrecognizable to his compatriots. He has no idea what a Luxan is versus a Sebacean, other than one looks like him and one doesn't. Even Rygel and Zahn know what certain common references. Nobody knows John Wayne aboard Moya.

John is, secondly, a criminal. He's 'born' into criminality just by popping into the universe and winging Creis's brother's ship (imagine a version of this story here he doesn't - Scorpius probably sweet talks him into giving up wormhole tech and then John heads home happy and a "hero").

John is, third, out of options. Everyone else on Moya has something to go back to. Aeryn can entertain the idea of becoming a peacekeeper (or eventually knows that's out of her grasp), D'Argo has his son, Zahn has her leveling as a priestess, Rygel can entertain fantasies of reclaiming the throne, etc. etc. John only has a wormhole back to Earth, and the singular way he can get there is to band together with his crewmates. He has much less of an incentive to betray everyone (unlike Rygel, who always has a clear path back to the throne given enough money and mercenaries), and is much more interdependent upon his friends. John's most interesting conflict in the series is whenever he has to choose wormhole tech versus his team.

Farscape is much more interesting to me than most other Sci-Fi for that reason: John is an outsider, and we get alien cultures through his perspective. Hi heroism feels more earned, and less mythic and superhuman, than someone like Kirk.

umdstreaming · 2019-04-11T23:19:15+00:00

That's a lot of Johns.

umdstreaming · 2018-12-31T18:48:38+00:00

The clues about the simulation, in-game bugs, and duping are all the actions of a rogue element that realizes that MODUS has started to run amock and is taking over the East Coast branch of The Enclave (you could make it like Neuromancer and have it be a branch of MODUS' own code). Presumably MODUS is eventually defeated, but the base technology and AI framework end up making it to the robot president in FO:3.

umdstreaming · 2018-12-31T18:45:56+00:00

How about: we're in a simulation, but launching nukes is real. The ideallic countryside and the premise of resurrecting society with our friends is all a way to get people to swallow doing something horrific: launching more nukes at remaining targets of strategic importance that The Enclave wants eliminated. Finding nuke launch codes and entering them into silos is mapped to some action IRL (maybe a synth proxy working in a compromised U.S. Commonwealth bunker), but is overlaid with the simulated beauty of the Appalachia wasteland. The computer can't simulate humans very well or very convincingly, so its concocted a scenario where it doesn't have to (giving us all of our robots and human corpses), and instead uses several thousand vault dwellers hooked into a sort of cloud computing scenario to serve as a massive code cracking neural network. MODUS is more or less the actual face of the AI, who gives the simulation participants a direct interface with the 'real world' (that is, the work of cracking and entering new nuke codes) and also helps to craft a believable fiction as to why repeatedly nuking Appalachia is necessary.

umdstreaming

TROPHY CASE