Screenshots!

[Mosher]

It's annoying, because most of the enemies I'll face are trivial and no threat and all... but then all of a sudden I run into a ridiculously overpowered enemy who quickly kills me, and I have to start the whole thing over again. Infuriating.

There are no enemies in the game that are overpowered. Every attack can be parried (at least partially), and every attack can be dodged.

Yea, dying and loosing all experience(souls) accumulated 10 times in the same portion of the game gets old fast. And backtracking to spend the souls you gathered would make all enemies respawn. So at some point it just felt like a game of memorization.

The trick is to not care about your souls. I regularly lose 100,000-150,000 and I could not care less - you can ALWAYS get your souls back, and, besides - the thing that matters most in Dark Souls is your own skill, rather than stats. People have beaten the game staying at level 1 the entire time.

Yeah, still working on my Dark Souls game. I'm getting there I think... Painted World, then onto fight Ornstein and Smough! It really is an amazing game somehow. Although you really need a controller and maybe that PC fanmade patch that fixes the graphics a bit. It really reminds me of Castlevania Symphony of the Night, which might explain why I like it. And the setting is very good. Finally some fantasy that isn't just boring high-fantasy with supermagic everywhere. It is kind of hard... But not really at the same time. You just need to take your time and learn. I'm the kind of guy who absolutely hates checkpoints and redoing the same stuff over and over again. Yet in Dark Souls, it doesn't feel like these things are a problem, you always seem to be discovering or learning something no matter what you are doing. Everything is satisfying, not a chore.

Spoiler :

I play on keyboard/mouse, and it's tolerable for the most part with DSfix and DSMfix. And yeah, I understand you there; I very rarely get bored of clearing through trash mobs I've already cleared through, since every fight is fun and every fight has the potential to kill you if you act stupid.

Good luck on Ornstein and Smough, they can be real bastards. If you're on PC, I might have a character around Anor Londo that can help.

Don't kill Priscilla in the Painted World

EDIT: Also, if you want maximum poise for your weight, I would swap to Havel's gloves and Havel's legs and then throw something light on your chester/head. Can I see a screenshot of your Status menu?

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Yessir.

Thanks!

BTW, here's a few from my Single Player Minecraft world. I'm running Forge 1.6.4 with the following mods:

Millenaire (adds NPC villages based on 5 11th century cultures: Norman, Hindi, Mayan, Japanese & Byzantine)
IndustrialCraft II (adds all kinds of high-tech goodies, mainly machines & tools to make mining and material processing much more efficient)
Twilight Forest (adds a new haunted fairytale forest dimension where it's always twilight)
Portal Guns Mod (Lets you think with Portals... In Minecraft)
Torajima's Chococraft (adds Chocobos and related items from the Final Fantasy games to Minecraft)
Modular Powersuits (adds customizable power armor you can build IN A CAVE! With a BOX OF SCRAPS!)
Dungeon Pack: Adds all kinds of additional cool and crazy dungeons to the game (with loads of loot)
Damage Indicators (gives you a heads-up display of the targeted mob, or player's current health)
Craft Guide (adds in-game crafting recipe guide)
Rei's Minimap (best minimap mod, and something I wish that VANILLA Minecraft had).

Anways, first up is an exterior shot of my Twilight forest base. As my luck would have it, my twilight portal at my main base came out in the middle of a Dark Forest biome, which has a thick, nigh-indestructible leaf canopy (think Mirkwood from the Hobbit), but rather than cursing my fate, I used a stack and a half of Industrial TNT and the mining Laser from Industrial Craft II and had some highly explosive fun, resulting in the clearing you see here, with the Aztec-Style house I built around the Twilight Portal:

Spoiler :

Twilight Forest Base by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr

Next up is a more recent pic of one of the buildings that the Mayan Village of Balmku (which I have high reputation with) built for me for the measly cost of 3 Deneir Or (1 d Or = 4096 d) and a crapload of stone and other materials that I sold them. I decided to pimp my pyramid out by changing the somewhat dull original stonework into something more interesting, add some Modular Powersuits mod light disks (shot from the power fist) for exterior (and interior) lighting and add flames to the top (all Mayan & Aztec Pyramids gotta have flames somewhere on them, IMO):

Spoiler :

Balamku Chak Muul by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr

I'm wearing armor that is a hybrid of 3 different mods: The body and legs are components of the modular powersuit, fully tricked out with diamond plating, heatsinks (give the same advantage as fire protection enchantment), elite battery (capable of storing 2 megajoules of energy), run/walk boost in the legs and Jetpack/glider combo in the torso. The boots are long-fall boots from the Portal Guns mod (indestructible, same armor rating as diamond boots and negate ALL fall damage) and the helmet is the Mayan crown you get as a reward for completing the Mayan creation quest in the Millenaire mod. It is equal to the diamond helmet in armor rating, indestructible and is enchanted with Respiration III, Protection IV and Underwater affinity II.

I am also wielding my custom enchanted Norman Broadsword (base damage is half a heart greater than diamond sword with the same durability) with Sharpness V & Looting III enchantment (courtesy of my Advanced Enchantment Table from Enchanting Plus). I used my anvil to name it "Andruil".

 

[Zack]

There are no enemies in the game that are overpowered.

Did I also mention that Dark Souls fanboys are really obnoxious?

 

[Mosher]

Did I also mention that Dark Souls fanboys are really obnoxious?

You being bad at a game doesn't make me a fanboy

Every trash mob in the game can be one to three shot pretty easily if you're level appropriate.

I'm guessing you found a black knight in the Undead Burg and thought you had to kill him and kept smashing your head against the proverbial brick wall, and then gave up on the game?

 

[Zack]

You being bad at a game doesn't make me a fanboy

Every trash mob in the game can be one to three shot pretty easily if you're level appropriate.

I'm guessing you found a black knight in the Undead Burg and thought you had to kill him and kept smashing your head against the proverbial brick wall, and then gave up on the game?

No, but like I said. Uppity and obnoxious.

 

[Mosher]

No, but like I said. Uppity and obnoxious.

Excuse me for trying to explain some of the game design's philosophy to you.

Generally when someone makes a statement that isn't true it's okay to try and clarify a bit for them, but I guess that you have your head stuck so far up your ass it isn't worth trying.

I guess everyone who enjoys a certain game is obnoxious because you got stuck and gave up too easily?

If I can inquire, which "overpowered" enemy got you stuck and forced you to stop playing the game?

 

[Zack]

I guess everyone who enjoys a certain game is obnoxious because you got stuck and gave up too easily?

Maybe it's because I get a ton of condescending "you're just so bad lol" flak because Dark Souls isn't my cup of tea? It's like a religion the way people revere it.

I'll probably try it again at some later point, but I need a break from it.

 

[Mosher]

Maybe it's because I get a ton of condescending "you're just so bad lol" flak because Dark Souls isn't my cup of tea? It's like a religion the way people revere it.

I'll probably try it again at some later point, but I need a break from it.

You haven't actually said anything up to this point about you not liking Dark Souls. Your only complaint was that there were enemies that were too hard for you, so you stopped, which kind of leads into those "you're just so bad lol" comments.

People being rude to you about the game is only made worse by the fact that you act rude to people who like the game and might want to discuss it a bit.

 

[Zack]

You haven't actually said anything up to this point about you not liking Dark Souls. Your only complaint was that there were enemies that were too hard for you, so you stopped, which kind of leads into those "you're just so bad lol" comments.

People being rude to you about the game is only made worse by the fact that you act rude to people who like the game and might want to discuss it a bit.

If you actually read my post, you might have seen that my actual complaint was having to go through the easy parts over and over again. Running into a powerful enemy that kills me is the symptom. I was voicing my dislike for the mindless repetition of defeating the same trivial enemies ad nauseam, not the difficulty.

Anyways, back to the point of this thread. I always find it funny when I'm just casually having a conversation with someone, while my party is soaked in blood. (DA:O)

Spoiler :

 

[Kozmos]

Dark and Demon Souls only difficulty comes from how fundamentally broken and unfinished the game is. I'm not just talking about how crappy the PC port was, everything...AI (who can't even see Z ) textures, feet sliding, lack of IK, PS1 era particles and pixels the size of your fist, absurd balancing, clunky controls, lack of any kind of decent text explanation for anything. Then I come online and see people praising it like it was the the best thing since sliced bread and I just want to shoot myself in the head or leave for Mars.

 

[Dell19]

When I first got EU3 I tried playing Venice and didn't really get what I was meant to do as the nearest Italian nations are in the HRE whilst last time I formed Italy as Milan I ended up being destroyed by Bohemia (after I took out Austria early). So this time round I decided to expand in a different direction...

The first war against the Ottomans involved blocking the straights but the second one actually saw some legitimate land battles. Austria and Aquiliea have been my allies from the start with Aquiliea being far more helpful although at least it keeps Venice safe.

Algiers are in a PU with the Mamluks so I might leave them alone from now on to see how long they can hold off the AI. Unfortunately Austria are at war with Transylvania so they might not last much longer.

The Eastern Roman Republic:

Spoiler :

 

[Heretic_Cata]

Anyways, back to the point of this thread. I always find it funny when I'm just casually having a conversation with someone, while my party is soaked in blood. (DA:O)

Tell your dog to clean up the mess !

<snip>

Save Uber-Transilvania !
Attack Poland !

 

[Mosher]

Dark and Demon Souls only difficulty comes from how fundamentally broken and unfinished the game is. I'm not just talking about how crappy the PC port was, everything...AI (who can't even see Z ) textures, feet sliding, lack of IK, PS1 era particles and pixels the size of your fist, absurd balancing, clunky controls, lack of any kind of decent text explanation for anything. Then I come online and see people praising it like it was the the best thing since sliced bread and I just want to shoot myself in the head or leave for Mars.

You obviously played prepatch Dark Souls. Everything there you listed has been fixed, except for the text explanation thing. The lack of exposition in terms of story and lore, with all of it being in item descriptions, in dialogue, or implied, is one of my favorite things about the game.

Spoiler :

This is a screenshot I took earlier today. What are you talking about, it looking bad?

 

[Kozmos]

It was way later after release and third party modifications aside that fix some of the developers horrendous graphical and audio laziness, it mostly still plays like garbage because certain elements are hard-coded haha. AI was most definitively not fixed and the combat mechanics remain simple and abusable to the extreme. (which you know forms the core of the game) While you can argue the merit of lack of hand-holding to some extent for gameplay and story purposes, the fact is that when you get down to crafting and such becomes nigh infuriating due to scarcity and scatter of materials and craftsmen. I doubt anyone played too much with it without consulting online guides.

The game when it came out was trash and still is to a most significant degree. Competent developers would consider it a late alpha, gamers today will of course accept almost anything and developer standards have dropped so very goddamn low. The game had potential if it was actually finished, Demon Souls was very promising and had decent VA and audio engineering as well. But the studios was forced to slap it together with lard and ship due to various problems. You would think then with Dark Souls they would improve, but somehow production standards dropped even further and there are some glaring copy-pasta content from Demon Souls if you know how and where to look. You would expect more from Japanese developers considering they know how to code and rely less on legions of interns.

 

[Mosher]

It was way later after release and third party modifications aside that fix some of the developers horrendous graphical and audio laziness, it mostly still plays like garbage because certain elements are hard-coded haha. AI was most definitively not fixed and the combat mechanics remain simple and abusable to the extreme. (which you know forms the core of the game) While you can argue the merit of lack of hand-holding to some extent for gameplay and story purposes, the fact is that when you get down to crafting and such becomes nigh infuriating due to scarcity and scatter of materials and craftsmen. I doubt anyone played too much with it without consulting online guides.

I really don't know what you mean by bad AI. The AI is amazing at what it does, especially some of the NPCs in the Forest zone.

Again with combat mechanics being easily abusable... I also really don't know what you mean. Any sort of play style is counterable easily.

Crafting is not a necessary part of the game and not recommended until after you've gotten a feel for the game and you get plenty of materials in your first run to upgrade your equipment all the way up. Materials aren't even scarce; you can buy most of them and those that you can't have high drop rates.

I haven't run into any of the problems you've described in my ~180 hours of Dark Souls. Could you provide some examples of bad AI or anything else in your experience with the game?

 

[Rub'Rum]

Did I also mention that Dark Souls fanboys are really obnoxious?

Then I come online and see people praising it like it was the the best thing since sliced bread and I just want to shoot myself in the head or leave for Mars.

The moment contempt and thinly veiled insults rear their ugly heads, the discussion is not worth it anymore.

 

[cardgame]

From what I understand, it's a terrible console port that requires a gamepad because the devs cannot into PC.

So I haven't touched it.

 

[Kozmos]

I really don't know what you mean by bad AI. The AI is amazing at what it does, especially some of the NPCs in the Forest zone.

Again with combat mechanics being easily abusable... I also really don't know what you mean. Any sort of play style is counterable easily.

Crafting is not a necessary part of the game and not recommended until after you've gotten a feel for the game and you get plenty of materials in your first run to upgrade your equipment all the way up. Materials aren't even scarce; you can buy most of them and those that you can't have high drop rates.

I haven't run into any of the problems you've described in my ~180 hours of Dark Souls. Could you provide some examples of bad AI or anything else in your experience with the game?

I'm not sure how, even in the first hour you can see the enemies can't navigate obstacles and get stuck on geometry. You can cheese through most enemies by simply finding a semi-elevated position or getting them stuck on something and jabbing them to death as they keep running with that horrible animation they usually have. Collision is also busted on major parts of the game, meaning you can break the game in several entertaining ways. Clipping, shadows and other textures flipping out, badly put together seams in level design...the whole game screams of lazy, lazy, lazy.

Game elements wise I forgot what was kind of damage type/weapon was the only one worth having or upgrading. Everything rest was simply not worth it. The enemy AI is not equipped to deal with you other than by arbitrarily raising their attack so it breaks your stamina. Stat-wise...you only needed to buff Poise and Stamina I believe otherwise it's stun-lock death.

I've played lots of stuff and to me this seems like another mostly generic(some aspects of the game are interesting, but it pales in face of all the other problems), half-baked games I've seen long ago and many times. My study (CS and IT) and friends in game development allows me a degree of insight into the technical aspects of the game and I can gauge how sloppily this was put together. By all means, you and plenty others might enjoy the game, but if you evaluate the game critically...it is a shambling mess. Anyway my intention was not to insult anyone, it was just my personal frustration at wasted potential. Game on, comrades.

 

[Mosher]

I'm not sure how, even in the first hour you can see the enemies can't navigate obstacles and get stuck on geometry. You can cheese through most enemies by simply finding a semi-elevated position or getting them stuck on something and jabbing them to death as they keep running with that horrible animation they usually have. Collision is also busted on major parts of the game, meaning you can break the game in several entertaining ways. Clipping, shadows and other textures flipping out, badly put together seams in level design...the whole game screams of lazy, lazy, lazy.

I've never actually encountered an instance of an enemy being unable to navigate the level geometry. If they get stuck, they move back and find a way around it in every instance I've seen.

Most enemies that are possible to cheese by getting to elevation will also try and jump attack to close the distance; but gaining advantage in terms of height is a legitimate tactic in an actual melee fight, so...

And, again, I have not experienced any problems with clipping or shadows messing up. The graphics in this game are seriously really good and it's rare that I encounter any problems with them.

Game elements wise I forgot what was kind of damage type/weapon was the only one worth having or upgrading. Everything rest was simply not worth it. The enemy AI is not equipped to deal with you other than by arbitrarily raising their attack so it breaks your stamina. Stat-wise...you only needed to buff Poise and Stamina I believe otherwise it's stun-lock death.

Almost every single weapon in the game is viable if you spec it right; and enemy AI does not receive arbitrary attack raises. They use weapons that you can get and go off of the same upgrade path. There is no such thing as one weapon that makes every other weapon not worth using, since almost every weapon has a unique moveset that makes a, say, zweihander completely different to use from an uchi.

If all you did was buff Endurance and stack Poise armor, then I would be surprised if you got past the Bell Gargoyles. Poise does nothing but keep you from being staggered, and phys dam reduction is largely nonexistent in the game asides from blocking with shields or weapons. Dexterity reduces the number of frames something takes to complete and increases damage on weapons that scale with dexterity, strength increases damage with strength weapons; attunement increases the number of spells you can have at any one time, Vitality is health, etc... stacking poise and endurance and leveling up no other stat is pretty awful build-wise. You can avoid being stunlocked just by utilizing rolls and your shield.

 

[Sonereal]

the whole game port screams of lazy, lazy, lazy.

FTFY. Ports to PC typically are awful, except the Metal Gear one apparently.