Board Thread:Dark Souls II/@comment-24.8.54.69-20140324145355/@comment-209.6.18.53-20140717195034

That is great that you handled them. I died more times in a pit of 7 dogs then I did with the gargoyles because my build wasn't designed to be rushed by 7 fast attacking dogs and a dude who breaks my shield like it was butter. Of course the pit is too deep to fall and is intended for later. I was later. I was about 30h into the game. I had 75% health from dying and with the ring on, I still died. I mean, WTF is the point of having a ring which protects you from falling and from your max health availability you can still die? If you are going to do that route, make it an instant death without the ring from any health and then if the ring is on, drop it to 95% of whatever health you have remaining. There are serious design flaws when your health bar drops after deaths. This is just one example but another is much more fundamental. Why bother investing at all in health when it is just taken away? I get the crap about Demon Souls and no, I didn't play that game and I am really glad DS1 changed that. I don't understand why DS2 went back to something like this. It isn't FUN. It is trying. Punishment is trying to get back to your body after you fall which can be very very hard. Less health means raising VIT is almost useless. Who cares about an extra 4HP? Oh but wait! I can put a ring to fix the problem which shouldn't have been there to begin with. Sure. I can do that and I do exactly that, but the game would still be hard without the loss of health and it would be so much more FUN. That is the point right? Not to rage quit at all the bullshit? Also, I have to say, when a health bar reaches 0, whatever it is dies. That is the rules. That is what you call fair. When a health bar reaches 0 and then dings up a bit (almost like a rounding error or something) and you need that one last little hit to get it, that is bullshit. Particularly when you drop health in regular intervals, the interval is definitely smaller that what you have been dealing, you strike it once, see the remaining and wind up for another (killing) strike, it connects but doesn't kill the critter, and you die because you are now wide wide open with no stam. That is not fair at all. That is not tough either. That is cheap bullshit. It isn't even a design flaw. It is unexpected and breaks the rules. Now to get onto my huge pet peeve. The controls. It was hard enough getting my xbox to pick up the kick movement. I cannot for the life of me get guard break to trigger. I cannot get a jump attack to regularly trigger. Sure, I can get them about 10% of the time but pressing the two buttons at the same time almost never does what I want it to do. Why are these things? The kick was fine. It even had a bit bigger window to dual-press but still, multi-event actions on consoles is so hit or miss. Computers it is really easy but consoles seem to have a huge problem. It would be really nice if I could remap it to say, y or something but try it out 20 times. I get 18 shield bashes and an unexpected leap forward. That is not useable in the game because if you do it and it pulls off, their guard doesn't break but most of the time you get a shield bash and are wide open. I dare someone to say that I just need to learn how to do it. I have been gaming for 25 years. I know how to use a controler. I cannot get this to reliably do what I want it to do and that isn't fair or balanced. That is horribly flawed so I don't do it. I don't see many people doing it. I think everyone came to the same conclusion. It is too risky to try out certain moves because the upside is negligible and the downside is catastrophic. This isn't to say that I don't like the challenge. I really just hate it when the game so obviously hates you. It seems to know what actions you are going to do before you do them, like you did a key press which triggers off events faster than you can start the event itself. Between that and those really really annoying levels where you are just walking along but that camera wasn't in the right angle to see the little tiny chunk missing leading to instant death with no recourse. So now I can't even enjoy wondering around the beautifully designed level. I have to make sure I am not walking into a tiny or large hole which isn't highlighted and blends in quite well with the background. It isn't hard. It is cheesy bullshit and more annoying than fun. In addition, raged attacks which do the same damage as melee needs to stop. Crossing that bridge is almost guaranteed instant death. Then you get a bonfire next to 3 archers who can somehow fire twice as fast than you ever could. Again. It isn't fun. It is just bullshit. Also, why is there a safe place right next to 3 enemies? How is that safe? It breaks the game dynamic and is so far, the only bonfire between 1 and 2 which has enemies sitting right beside it. You need to kill 3 archers 15 times for it to become safe which is boring as hell and totally didn't need to happen. So why did it happen? Well... perhaps people were too complacent at the safe zones? Maybe we just needed to get mixed up a bit and expect danger when the game explicitly tells you repeatedly that these are safe areas? Please. You know what you do? You make a second level in the tower where the guys are and you camp up above them. They purposefully did this. Does it make the game harder? Not really. Does it make it more of a challenge? No. It makes it a grind and not fun. DS1 was really fun. It is like they took the tree boss from DS1 and just ran with it. "How can we make these levels not really difficult but just really anoying? How else can we mess with players besides making enemies not die when their health reaches 0?". The tree boss was the worst fight in all of DS1. It wasn't fun. It was a slog. For a lot of this game, I am feeling the slog bit far more. Some parts are really fun. Some parts I just ask myself why they did this on purpose when they didn't have to. Getting rushed by 3 dogs can be lethal. Getting rushed by 3 dogs and a spirit is really tricky. Getting rushed by 7 dogs and a spirit is just death and frustrating.