Re: Games Discussion Thread
So at this point it should come as no surprise that I got pretty heavily into Dark Souls II. And while I got over my obsession (mostly), I've still got some thoughts about it I'd like to share.
i honestly was disappointed with it. there are even more traps that will kill you without fair warning, as well as numerous issues with latency, lag was a given in pvp in demon's souls and dark souls, but its worse now that they've tried to compensate for it.
before a laggy back stab would consist of them running past you to back stab you, now it consists of them running to where you were 3 seconds ago, and you getting magnet handed mass effect style back to them. not to mention the issue with phantom hits- when the host was laggy and would be hitting you where you used to be- happening more often now, pvp has gotten more random and less skillful.
also the introduction of adaptability has some issues as well, before if you wanted to dodge an attack you just had to wear light armor, now you have to level up a skill, which causes an issue. one of the main reasons heavy armor is a disability is that it weighs you down, but with the skill defining the strength of the roll, you can wear heavy armor for the defense boost, and still not be penalized. also poise is useless for the most part.
on top of that the game has gotten easier, the game starts you off with only 1-2 estes- which i thought was amazing- but then compensates for that by placing the bonfires closer together. this creates an issue when you get more than enough esteses to move between bonfires, by making the game easier depending on which order you tackled the levels. on top of that half of the "hard" bosses have bonfires literally a 30 second walk away, which takes what little challenge in the area away once you get to the end.
and lastly there is no good defense for magic, specifically lightning and dark. the fact that both dark and lightning damage scale off the same skills and fire doesn't scale of anything means that someone can, and often does, gain an advantage by using those three types of spells. most bosses are weak to either lightning or dark, and there is no good armor which is resistant to both. because of that you will often run into people using either dark or lightning imbuements on the weapons, which since you cannot defend against it, gives spell casters an easy button in all situations, against pve just use long range spells, and in pvp they can just use the imbuements.
all in all still enjoyable, but as soon as i finished my third play through, i simply didn't want to play anymore. dark souls was a game i sunk literally hundreds of hours into- yes i have no life- but this game i don't even want to play the dlc, regardless of how fun it seems.
ps: soul memory, a new stat in dark souls 2, ruins player interaction, before summoning and invading were dependent on level, now its based on a stat that includes the combined worth of all the souls you have ever used, or lost. which means that before invaders were generally at your level or lower than yours, now if you lost to many souls, you can be invaded by a higher level player, or if you play the game to long, you stop being able to connect to other players. eventually you will have to make a new one if you want to either commit jolly co-operation, or if you wanna enjoy some pvp.
