Dark Souls I, II and III

[Alex79]

I have yeah, but I haven't had a bow! I've got a crossbow but I'm all about the proper bow haha.

[KSubzero1000]

That's weird. Don't know what else to tell you...
http://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/Short+Bow
Are you sure you didn't find the Crossbow in the Forest of Fallen Giants instead?

[Alex79]

Oh yeah I didn't mean I got the crossbow from the chest, just that I'm sure I've opened it (at the top of the ladder in the merchant room, right?) and I haven't got a bow in my inventory. I'll double check when I get home that I did open it!

EDIT - hang on I'm talking about a different chest aren't I! I'm not sure I opened one in the blacksmiths shop Will report back later! I have my Vita at work with me so might just check on remote play at lunch time haha.

[KSubzero1000]

If I remember correctly, the chest with the Short Bow is on the ground floor, and not at the top of the ladder!
Report, report, report!

[Alex79]

So yeah I found a bow at last. It was in the chest in the blacksmiths shop Can't believe I missed that! Only managed about half an hour of play last night so I just did some grinding with the massive knights in Heides Tower Of Flame. Back to NMW tonight to polish off the Flexible Sentry then onwards to the Bastille.

[Alex79]

I beat the Old Dragonslayer and the Flexible Sentry last night. Neither were tricky, both went down first try. I'm enjoying the game more I think the second time around. Are any of the boss soul weapons worth having in DS2? I spent the latter half of DS1 using Quelaags fury sword, but first time round in DS2 I didn't bother with any boss soul weapons as none of them really appealed to me. I might forge the curved sword from the Flexible Sentry soul though, is it worth it?

[macstat]

So I finally gave in and bought Dark Souls 3 (polish distribution had nice sale... less than 20 euro for main game).
I'm pleased to say that this time its PC port is ok. Its not amazing cause its still tied to 16:9 resolution and i don't want to dabble in files too much cause im worried about getting a VAC ban, so i just play with huge black bars on the sides .
There's a funny story tied to that screen ratio thing. While i was looking for solutions to that 21:9 thing i found a video where it was explained why From refuses to unlock 16:9 screen ratio. So apparently enemies that are beyond your line of sight are rendered less often, which makes sense since it would be a waste of computational power especially on consoles. But problem is they defined "line of sight" as fixed 16:9. If you watch the video you will notice that enemies on the edges of the screen have just a handful of frames.
So it totally makes sense that they don't want to enable players to see that cause it would just look like they release buggy and unfinished product. I also assume that this "fixed 16:9" logic is tied to game engine, so changing it to some sort of "scaling of field of view" would be very costly. So i get that, im not mad ... im just disappointed that they did that in the first place .
Here's that video i was talking about with time-stamp to that issue https://youtu.be/30CoVM-HSQQ?t=3m50s

On the other hand playing on steam controller is amazing, since i can combine movement and combat of controlers with camera movement of a mouse. It really helps when i enter a room and want to quickly look left and right to check for ambushes. So i guess that's the plus of playing on PC .

Im only 3 hours in so im yet to contribute anything to that discussion But hey, im glad that i didnt spend those 3 hours fighting Gundyr Maybe there's hope for me after all .

[Stanshall]

I've never played a game where I've been so aware of enemies in the distance being animated with fewer frames. It looks quite funny, actually, when it happens. It's usually when you have an enemy or two up close and some in the background. It's like Ray Harryhausen, as CJ from Twin Humanities often references. Anyway, your post about ratios made me think about those wonky frames.

[macstat]

Guys, a question. How should i read weapon damage from different sources ? If i found Deep axe which has 103 in both physical and Dark does it mean it does 206 damage assuming no resistances on target ?

[Stanshall]

My instinct is to call you an utter heathen, friend, but in the spirit of compassion that this world needs right now, I'll walk the high road.

In short, you're right! Scholar is a significant improvement over vanilla DS2 in many ways but the opening areas are now really quite obtuse and unnecessarily difficult. Having battered all the Souls games many times, I went back to Scholar again recently and was staggered at how frustrating those early areas are, especially Heide's Tower of Flame. However, pretty much everything afterwards is better and the game starts to flow in a much more satisfying way. Honest.

As for the Heide's aesthetic, I think it looks great but it would also mean more to you if you had played more of Dark Souls. In fact, I would strongly recommend you finish that first. Capra is probably about 20% into the game and you have so much brilliant stuff to come (and a bit of shite) that I would really suggest you go back before you take on Scholar. I actually played DS2 before DS1, but after Demon's, and it has a special place in my heart, but Scholar is emphatically better in almost every way.

[Alex79]

I don't know about this, I didn't find the early areas of Scholar particularly more challenging than vanilla. I really liked the Heides Tower section, and those big giant enemies are so slow they're not difficult to circle strafe and dodge attacks. I think it's a big improvement over the original. I'm only as far as (I forget the proper name) the woodland area where you fight the scythe welding enemies but so far so good. When the giants are grouped together you can just aggro them with a bow to lure them out. There are times where you seem to get totally mobbed by enemies though, I can see how that would be frustrating. It does turn a bit Benny Hill, as you say. Properly great game still, though.

[KSubzero1000]

I agree with Stanshall's assessment of SotFS. It really feels like the best possible version of such a fundamentally flawed game. Plus the DLCs are fantastic! Hope you'll stick with it despite the annoying parts.

I also second his recommendation of finishing DS1 first. Sorry to hear about your technical issues, though. Sound design is indeed very important, but wouldn't it be easier to use headphones you plug directly into your TV? That's what I do. There are some very affordable models out there and it would be a universal solution. You wouldn't have to worry about controller compatibility any more. Just a thought.

[Stanshall]

When you alert the Heide knights, it's basically the game telling you not to bother with that spoke for another few hours. I also find a couple of those Old Knights pretty tricky, especially the two-handed sword guys, just so much arc.

[Chopper]

I'd agree with the folks who say to play DS1 first; DS2 is almost universally recognised as a much inferior game (though threre's a significant minority who name it their favourite, too) and I feel that it fails on all the traditional Souls measures, such as level design (particularly with enemy placement), boss design, thematic cohesiveness etc.

DS1 has some low points too, but it would be a pity if it suffered as a result of you playing DS2 first (souls fatigue etc) as it's a genuinely great game.

I actually thought about resinstalling SotFS this morning when I read this thread, and then thought of where I left off (I finished the original on PS3) and was immediately discouraged. Unlike the others I don't believe it improves as you go along; it's a host of too many enemies placed too close together in the late game too.

[Alex79]

I've had a cracking afternoon. It's definitely the weakest of all of the From games I've played so far, yet still leagues ahead of almost everything else I've ever played.

Exactly how I felt about it. Although I do need to replay Demon's since its the only one I've never been back to, and I was in quite a dark place personally when I played it. Interested to see how it holds up years later and with a different frame of mind.

[Scrustle]

I've been playing through the Ringed City DLC and there's something I wanted to ask about it, if anyone can help. So, spoilers.

Spoiler: show

Right now I've just got past the fight against the giant who summons all those NPCs and a player character. Watched the short cutscene after and did a bit of exploring in that new area, but nothing major there yet. I don't want to go too far since I think I'm missing something.

I'm wondering where that dragon went. I fought it on that bridge and it fell down the cliff. I gather I'm supposed to find where it's fallen to be able to finish it off, but I have no idea how to get there. Tried dropping down from various points, and I always just died. So where do I go? Can I even get to it yet? Or am I even too late?

Also wondering if there's any point to defeating that Dragon Slayer Armour that's hanging about in the swamp. It doesn't seem to be guarding anything from what I can tell. I've tried fighting it a few times, but not managed to take it down yet.

[James]

Sadly, I haven't played either DS3 DLC. After starting and leveling up a fresh character on the PC version, I just can't work up the enthusiasm for it. Maybe I'll try this weekend, and if I do I'll be sure to come back here to discuss, but my feelings towards DS3 have only diminished with time.

[KSubzero1000]

So I finally started Dark Souls 3 today. Still in the beginning castle section and getting massive Demon's Souls / Boletarian Palace vibes. I'm more lost than the moon in winter and I love it!

[Scrustle]

I beat the final boss of The Ringed City. Took me so many tries, but I finally did it! That was a whole lot of stress over one extremely hard boss. A really damn good one though. Really climactic and satisfying to beat. I was on my last attempt before giving up and summoning help too, but I finally did it in the end. Still ended up eating through loads of embers though, which are really hard to come by in the end-game.

I'm not saying I've finished this DLC though, since I decided that now that boss is done, I would just look up where to find that damn secret boss. It's in a really obscure place, but one that I was inches away from finding myself. But I gave it a single attempt, not really expecting to get close to beating it. And sure enough, this thing is ridiculous. I've got a feeling that I'm not even going to bother attempting to do this solo. Doesn't seem like a boss that I would have a good time trying to do that with.

Overall I've really enjoyed this DLC though. It follows on from the first one really well. So I think if people thought of both of these pieces of DLC as being two parts of a whole they would have a better impression of the first one. Maybe if they sold them both as one package like they did with Bloodborne.

[Chopper]

Hah, congrats! I've never beaten the final boss in any of the Souls DLCs. Despite having the season pass, I haven't felt motivated to play this one at all. I think Souls burnout has finally occurred.