I get the feeling the Age of Dark, the Age of Man, was poisoned by the kindling of the First Flame.
Wasn't everything archtrees and dragons before the Age of Fire started? My understanding of things was that the darksign was starting to crop up everywhere, so Gwyn rekindled the First Flame in an attempt to stave off whatever was coming.
As far as I can tell, the Ash Lake is a taste of what the world was like pre-Kindling. However, the darksign only cropped up after the kindling, so no, the undead were not around prior to the First Sin.
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
I want to participate in this conversation, but I'm not sure if I should, since there are relevant plot points from DS3 that inform my view of DS1.
Even though DS3 stuff is mostly just adding evidence for earlier theories, there would be implicit spoilers in whatever I mentioned by virtue of mentioning X points instead of Y points.
So, spoiler tag that doesn't mention anything directly from DS3, makes sense without DS3, but isn't really how I thought of the story before I played DS3:
What we know of the undead curse, the flame, the Age of Dark, etc. can paint a pretty unflattering picture of linking the Fire and the BS the gods are selling.
In DS1, we see that as the flame fades, the undead show up. Certain humans start coming back from the dead when killed. These humans linger on proportionate to their drive, their Humanity (fragments of the Dark Soul), and their raw power.
The gods want undead to link the flame to continue the age of fire, but Kaathe tells us this is a trick, a deception, a subversion of the true way of things in which the Dark should come and Man should grow strong.
Putting these together, perhaps humans are immortal in the absence of the flame. Which raises the question of what the Darksign is, exactly, if not the cause of undeath--perhaps a curse on powerful humans made by Gwyndolin, the Dark Sun, the last god in Anor Londo and the primary driver of the deception that linking the fire is for the good of all?
There's of course the question of whether humans in the Dark are immortal beef jerky or immortal and normal, which would seem to depend upon what happens to the Dark Soul when the lights go out? You could say that our normal fleshy bodies only arise from Flame (since you sacrifice some of the Dark Soul to a bonfire to unhollow), or it could be that the hollow state is the middle ground between 'mortal because of flame' and 'immortal in the dark', i.e. the Flame literally dries us out into husks.
In which case offering humanity/dark soul to the flame maybe, I dunno, gets you a reprieve from the curse or something?
I could build a stronger theory and replace some of these parts with DS3 spoilers, but that'd be cheating and definitely against the thread rules.
Kamar on
+2
NEO|PhyteThey follow the stars, bound together.Strands in a braid till the end.Registered Userregular
I get the feeling the Age of Dark, the Age of Man, was poisoned by the kindling of the First Flame.
Wasn't everything archtrees and dragons before the Age of Fire started? My understanding of things was that the darksign was starting to crop up everywhere, so Gwyn rekindled the First Flame in an attempt to stave off whatever was coming.
As far as I can tell, the Ash Lake is a taste of what the world was like pre-Kindling. However, the darksign only cropped up after the kindling, so no, the undead were not around prior to the First Sin.
I've admittedly never gone diving into the deep lore, is there even a solid timeline on what order things happened in? Just rewatched the DS1 intro, the Age of Fire started after Gwyn and friends killed the dragons, so unless you're talking about the kindling as a separate event from the age of fire I am somewhat confused. And if it was a separate event, and the darksign wasn't popping up yet, what had him so spooked about the fading fire to go Kindle it?
:edit: just tried googling for a timeline, assuming these people know what they're talking about the undead were showing up before Gwyn went for the extra crispy recipe.
NEO|Phyte on
It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing... And take away its pain.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
I get the feeling the Age of Dark, the Age of Man, was poisoned by the kindling of the First Flame.
Wasn't everything archtrees and dragons before the Age of Fire started? My understanding of things was that the darksign was starting to crop up everywhere, so Gwyn rekindled the First Flame in an attempt to stave off whatever was coming.
As far as I can tell, the Ash Lake is a taste of what the world was like pre-Kindling. However, the darksign only cropped up after the kindling, so no, the undead were not around prior to the First Sin.
I've admittedly never gone diving into the deep lore, is there even a solid timeline on what order things happened in? Just rewatched the DS1 intro, the Age of Fire started after Gwyn and friends killed the dragons, so unless you're talking about the kindling as a separate event from the age of fire I am somewhat confused. And if it was a separate event, and the darksign wasn't popping up yet, what had him so spooked about the fading fire to go Kindle it?
Age of Fire would be 'age where the Lords with the Lord Souls rule, and the flame is healthy, after beating the dragons'.
Kindling is a specific event within the Age of Fire, when Gwyn sacrifices himself to extend the Age of Fire instead of letting the flame fade naturally into the Age of Dark.
Presumably, the power of the gods and their Lord Souls are tied to the Age of Fire and the First Flame, in the same way the power of humans and their Dark Soul seems tied to the Dark. So he feared humans rising up to rule, instead of being their worshipers.
Kamar on
+2
KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
I get the feeling the Age of Dark, the Age of Man, was poisoned by the kindling of the First Flame.
Wasn't everything archtrees and dragons before the Age of Fire started? My understanding of things was that the darksign was starting to crop up everywhere, so Gwyn rekindled the First Flame in an attempt to stave off whatever was coming.
As far as I can tell, the Ash Lake is a taste of what the world was like pre-Kindling. However, the darksign only cropped up after the kindling, so no, the undead were not around prior to the First Sin.
I've admittedly never gone diving into the deep lore, is there even a solid timeline on what order things happened in? Just rewatched the DS1 intro, the Age of Fire started after Gwyn and friends killed the dragons, so unless you're talking about the kindling as a separate event from the age of fire I am somewhat confused. And if it was a separate event, and the darksign wasn't popping up yet, what had him so spooked about the fading fire to go Kindle it?
The Age of Fire, after the defeat of the Dragons, is the Age of the Gods/Lords. The Age of Dark, after the flame went out, was meant to be the age of man. But Gywn feared the Dark, feared man; Gwyn is, after all, a God of Sunlight. When the flames started to fade, it signaled the end for the four Lords. The Witch tried to use her own soul, her own "flame", combined with her magic, to make a new first flame, but instead she created the fire of the Chaos, which birthed demons. With no other options, Gwyn traveled to the First Flame, and "linked the fire", which seems to indicate that he linked the fate of the First Flame with his own soul. As a powerful soul, it could keep the flame burning long past when it should have gone out, but in doing so, he subverted the fate of the world, and time and space began to unravel. This is, it seems, why some humans would die only to return to life, and die again and again in an endless cycle until they became hopeless and Hollowed.
The entire reason to kindle the flame was to stop the Age of Mankind from starting.
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
0
Dr. ChaosPost nuclear nuisanceRegistered Userregular
edited April 2017
Took DS2 out for a test spin.
New interface/HUD looks great and performance so far seems a lot smoother than DS1.
NEO|PhyteThey follow the stars, bound together.Strands in a braid till the end.Registered Userregular
Yeah, DS2 runs miles smoother than DS1. Kinda makes me wish they'd go back and do a 'we're sorry we phoned in this port the first time' DS1 remaster
It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing... And take away its pain.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
+1
Dr. ChaosPost nuclear nuisanceRegistered Userregular
edited April 2017
Kind of torn between creating a new character or just straight up recreating Sir Hamm.
I like the idea of the latter and making him look progressively older and tired as I go through the games.
DS1: Young and youthful. Optimistic for the future.
DS2: Receding hairline with shaggy "I've seen things while out there" woodland survivalist beard.
DS3: Bald and "this shit again? How do I die permanently?" levels of graying.
Started the DS2 DLC. I do not have fond thoughts about the chick who summons Velstadt over and over and over. At least the boss after her was really easy, but I'm glad I had a couple of weapons equipped for when they started breaking.
Now that I don't NEED a shortcut down to her room, is there one or was the intention to always run back through all of the drop offs?
+2
Dr. ChaosPost nuclear nuisanceRegistered Userregular
Also decided I'm going to really give PVP a shot in this one.
Was pretty honorable in the last one, probably going to be a lot of invasions this time around to go along with my new berserker hobo gameplay style.
Started the DS2 DLC. I do not have fond thoughts about the chick who summons Velstadt over and over and over. At least the boss after her was really easy, but I'm glad I had a couple of weapons equipped for when they started breaking.
Now that I don't NEED a shortcut down to her room, is there one or was the intention to always run back through all of the drop offs?
Elena, and yeah she's a horrible boss. I used up SO much humanity trying to kill her, fighting both of them at once without someone to take at least a little bit of her attention was just too much for me to handle.
Halfway down to her there is a secret room with a bonfire. It's on the level above the 2 drake knights in the back hallway.
Started the DS2 DLC. I do not have fond thoughts about the chick who summons Velstadt over and over and over. At least the boss after her was really easy, but I'm glad I had a couple of weapons equipped for when they started breaking.
Now that I don't NEED a shortcut down to her room, is there one or was the intention to always run back through all of the drop offs?
Elena, and yeah she's a horrible boss. I used up SO much humanity trying to kill her, fighting both of them at once without someone to take at least a little bit of her attention was just too much for me to handle.
Halfway down to her there is a secret room with a bonfire. It's on the level above the 2 drake knights in the back hallway.
I got Elena down real easy actually. Took like 3 tries. The key was on the third try I had a real player along with Benhart. I fucked Velstadt up but good while Benny and the Jets Phantom took the boss apart. Nice and easy that way.
Dragon was way easier without summons and you could easily spam tries at him cause of the nice bonfire, so that part of the DLC was actually fun.
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KlatuAussie Aussie AussieOi Oi OiRegistered Userregular
I've been invaded at times when I was sure I shouldn't be able to be invaded. ie Hollowed. I'm not sure if any of the covenants can invade you even when you're hollowed out but it's always red phantoms and i'm always taken by surprise. They're not NPC invasions either, one time was in Dragon Castle place and he spent all the time hiding behind the NPCs, god I wish I had had a seed of the giants to deal with him. The other one was on my way to Scorpion boss in shaded woods, both times hollow af. Meh.
I've been invaded at times when I was sure I shouldn't be able to be invaded. ie Hollowed. I'm not sure if any of the covenants can invade you even when you're hollowed out but it's always red phantoms and i'm always taken by surprise. They're not NPC invasions either, one time was in Dragon Castle place and he spent all the time hiding behind the NPCs, god I wish I had had a seed of the giants to deal with him. The other one was on my way to Scorpion boss in shaded woods, both times hollow af. Meh.
So yeah, invading still happens haha.
You can be invaded while hollow in DS2
+1
KlatuAussie Aussie AussieOi Oi OiRegistered Userregular
I've been invaded at times when I was sure I shouldn't be able to be invaded. ie Hollowed. I'm not sure if any of the covenants can invade you even when you're hollowed out but it's always red phantoms and i'm always taken by surprise. They're not NPC invasions either, one time was in Dragon Castle place and he spent all the time hiding behind the NPCs, god I wish I had had a seed of the giants to deal with him. The other one was on my way to Scorpion boss in shaded woods, both times hollow af. Meh.
So yeah, invading still happens haha.
You can be invaded while hollow in DS2
I... honestly did not realise that ... wow. TIL I guess. So, other than playing offline, can you "protect" yourself against invasions? Not that I mind, I was mildly annoyed at being invaded in shaded woods, but it was only a few mins worth of extra trouble.
Burning a human effigy at a bonfire will "sever" your connection to other worlds temporarily including the ability to summon other players, not sure about npcs. Beating a boss of an area makes it so you can't be invaded in that area anymore as well so you can go back and explore at your leisure. Chameleon is always a favorite to waste their time as well, just have to be convincing.
Due to the limited Cracked Red Eye Orbs, invasions in NG tend to be rather rare except for hackers--also pretty rare. Once you get to NG+ they'll have the Red Eye Orbs to invade forever.
Also being human increases your chance of being invaded by Forlorn at various points in the game but all normal red phantom invasions happen regardless of humanity. Which I'm actually glad for because I missed a bunch of those in 1 (and 3) due to not being human/embered.
KlatuAussie Aussie AussieOi Oi OiRegistered Userregular
Oh yeah, forgot about burning the effigy. You're right of course.
My daughter was watching me play the other day, and she saw me summon someone in. She asked what was going on and I told her, she just nodded and watched. On another boss I summoned a Sunbro and she asked why this one was yellow instead of white, explained again and while I was explaining the Sunbro praised the sun. She knew about gestures and asked why I didn't have that one, I answered because I was in the Bell cov (farming for the mad set and blade) and I had to explain the difference between covs.
Sunbros help people with fighting the monsters. Bellbro (for ease of explanation to her) protect the belfry and kill invaders. Why would I want to stop people from ringing the bell? Well, only the princess and prince were allowed to be in the belfry (other than the puppet protectors) and I'm a wannabe protector, so I have to be up here too killing ppl that want to ring the bell. Told editted story about forbidden love between the lovers, and she said that I should stay a bellbro cause that story is beautiful. 3 days later i'm in a new cov and she notices the eye symbol. I'm Dragonbro (everyone is a bro for ease of explaining to her haha) now. Does that have a nice story? No, I just duel people, to become more dragony. That's silly apparently, and if I'm not a bellbro, I should at least help people as a sunbro and be yellow and praise the sun. While I don't disagree, I want the greatsword!
So I'm playing Demon's Souls, doing 4-1. And I don't know how anyone can call any area from a Dark Souls the 'worst area ever in a Souls game' when this shit exists.
It's SotFS Iron Keep, except you can't reach the archers to melee them and the melee mobs roll and combo instead of settling for one hit.
And I poked my toe into 5-1 yesterday, and it was 'like Blighttown, but actually painful' so I'm looking forward to where THAT goes...
As someone who was playing 4-1 like two days ago, I have no idea how you could be having those problems. I got a little frustrated with the rolly skeletons, but I'm not sure I ever got hit by an arrow. Then once I had the falchion everything died in a few hits and it was easy farming.
Now, if you're talking about the flying manta rays shooting those giant spears, I can start to understand.
As someone who was new to the whole Souls series, 4-1 was absolutely the hardest of the zones you could get to from the Nexus for me. So many deaths to rolly skeltons and manta ray spikes from above.
As someone who was playing 4-1 like two days ago, I have no idea how you could be having those problems. I got a little frustrated with the rolly skeletons, but I'm not sure I ever got hit by an arrow. Then once I had the falchion everything died in a few hits and it was easy farming.
Now, if you're talking about the flying manta rays shooting those giant spears, I can start to understand.
Yeah, I was talking about the manta ray spikes when I mentioned archers, forgot there were actual archers in the area.
Yeah, those can be bullshit. Make sure you have the Thief Ring on, I believe it makes it harder for them to target you. I just started rolling out of any combat if I heard the firing noise, wait for them to wander off then reengage. It was only really bad on the last bit heading for the boss.
Man...there was so much in the way of NPC interactions I missed in DS1.
Last time I saw him was in Anor Londo and that was it.
Problem is for most NPC interactions you need to have the wiki to their page constantly open. 2 is a bit easier in this respect as it usually involves find them, buy X amount of items from them/bring them something/have the right stats/summon them for 3 boss fights, talk to them again.
Man...there was so much in the way of NPC interactions I missed in DS1.
Last time I saw him was in Anor Londo and that was it.
Problem is for most NPC intersections you need to have the wiki to their page constantly open. 2 is a bit easier in this respect as it usually involves find them, buy X amount of items from them/bring them something/have the right stats/summon them for 3 boss fights, talk to them again.
And then 3 brings you right back to the old 'hope you have a guide for this' ways.
It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing... And take away its pain.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
Putting aside the malicious design elements, the camera clearly can't cope with the area. I've had my camera completely freak out and jump all around, had lock-on grab someone further away, 90 degrees from me, and on the other side of a pit instead of the guy directly in front of me, had it hang up on stuff, etc., etc.
Honestly, with 4-1 and 5-1 both sucking, I'm nearing 'nah, I'll replay DS2 instead'.
edit: Which is quite a goofy sentiment, since DeS seems to resemble DS2 more than any of the others. Including the incredibly frustrating first playthrough.
Kamar on
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KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
I'll be honest, I always have a wiki open anyway when I play Souls games. Hell, I research the fuck out of them to find what gear I'd like to aim for before I ever start playing one . . .
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
+3
Dr. ChaosPost nuclear nuisanceRegistered Userregular
edited April 2017
I usually never look into wikis or strategy guides unless I get absolutely stuck or want a certain understanding of certain gameplay mechanics (like covenant overviews and where to find them)
So pissed at myself for buying and starting Dark Souls II after I had done so well on abstaining from anything new before clearing out my library abit but in the middle of it now and started dual wielding and damn is that a stamina sinker.
Going to have to alternate between pumping points into strength (for axes) and endurance. Also, going to have to get used to actually dodging now since I spent most of the latter half of DS1 blocking hits and shrugging off attacks with a shitload of estus, armor and vit.The challenge really seemed to fall straight off a cliff after awhile as a tank. This was pretty much the final boss' attempts to actually hurt me:
I'll be honest, I always have a wiki open anyway when I play Souls games. Hell, I research the fuck out of them to find what gear I'd like to aim for before I ever start playing one . . .
Yeah, the way the game is designed it's practically mandatory. The way the death system fucks you over for winging it, the poorly designed UI, the poorly explained game mechanics, the stuff you can easily miss. It all encourages you to look up first, do later.
I'll be honest, I always have a wiki open anyway when I play Souls games. Hell, I research the fuck out of them to find what gear I'd like to aim for before I ever start playing one . . .
Yeah, the way the game is designed it's practically mandatory. The way the death system fucks you over for winging it, the poorly designed UI, the poorly explained game mechanics, the stuff you can easily miss. It all encourages you to look up first, do later.
The only reason I completed Dark Souls on PC two years after its release was by hacking. It took another two years to go back and finish it for real. Wikis (and playing offline) are the only way I can enjoy the Souls series.
I'll be honest, I always have a wiki open anyway when I play Souls games. Hell, I research the fuck out of them to find what gear I'd like to aim for before I ever start playing one . . .
Yeah, the way the game is designed it's practically mandatory. The way the death system fucks you over for winging it, the poorly designed UI, the poorly explained game mechanics, the stuff you can easily miss. It all encourages you to look up first, do later.
I went into Demon's Souls anticipating a roguelike that plays out in real time, and that's more or less what we got - it's not terribly demanding in execution, but the way it works is thoroughly opaque. I didn't feel bad at all using a wiki as a reference to the underlying mechanics on my first playthrough, since it's almost expected in roguelikes (Nethack in particular is my point of reference). I did try not to spoil myself on things like areas, enemies, bosses.
Demon's especially goes out of its way to punish the uninformed player for some reason (soul form and world tendency), which is kind of baffling.
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Dr. ChaosPost nuclear nuisanceRegistered Userregular
I used to find being invaded annoying.
Now that I'm the one doing it? Kind of a guilty pleasure.
I'll be honest, I always have a wiki open anyway when I play Souls games. Hell, I research the fuck out of them to find what gear I'd like to aim for before I ever start playing one . . .
Yeah, the way the game is designed it's practically mandatory. The way the death system fucks you over for winging it, the poorly designed UI, the poorly explained game mechanics, the stuff you can easily miss. It all encourages you to look up first, do later.
"Mandatory" is a bit of a stretch, I think. I mean yeah if you want to get every item and do every npc quest line and max all the covenants, sure.
But you can absolutely beat the game without looking things up. I've done it three times.
The death system doesn't fuck you over for winging it, all it does is make you lose whatever souls you had on you at the time. If you have no souls you can just run out past enemies grabbing all the items you see then dying, with zero penalty whatsoever. Hardly a punishment.
The UI isn't poorly designed, it works fine. Top left is health and stamina, pretty standard. Bottom left is equipped weapons, spells, and items, positioned to match up with the d-pad direction you press to switch that particular slot. Bottom right is soul counter. Inventory is a bit of a mess if you just leave it higgledy piggledy sure, but it's not much work to dump stuff into the storage box that you don't need to keep your personal inventory streamlined. You can even press select on any equipment information screen to get a description of what each stat does.
The game mechanics aren't poorly explained. There are messages in the starting area that tell you what each button does, then you experiment with them to see how they work. More esoteric things like poise and invulnerability frames aren't required to know about explicitly in order to play well, since you'll just get a feel for how they work as you get better at an enemy type as you play them. "Oh, if I dodge at this point of the attack I don't take any damage, even if the sword goes through my player, neat." "Aha if I hit the enemy's shield with my greatsword twice they go into a kind of stagger animation then I can do a counter attack." "Hmm I used to get interrupted when I was hit while casting fireballs but now that i've put on this heavier armor it happens less often."
The game mechanics aren't poorly explained. There are messages in the starting area that tell you what each button does, then you experiment with them to see how they work. More esoteric things like poise and invulnerability frames aren't required to know about explicitly in order to play well, since you'll just get a feel for how they work as you get better at an enemy type as you play them. "Oh, if I dodge at this point of the attack I don't take any damage, even if the sword goes through my player, neat." "Aha if I hit the enemy's shield with my greatsword twice they go into a kind of stagger animation then I can do a counter attack." "Hmm I used to get interrupted when I was hit while casting fireballs but now that i've put on this heavier armor it happens less often."
It's just a series that asks a lot of the player.
Text on the ground that just says press this button to do this thing is a terrible tutorial.
Understanding poise and i-frames are absolutely required to play well. If you don't know to roll through a boss's attacks you're gonna have a lot of trouble getting close with enough stamina left to do decent damage. If you're having trouble with enemies that are staggering you to death, knowing that you can wear heavier armor to get staggered less is really important information. And I question the ease of figuring them out that you claim. I-frames? You're talking about getting the precise dodge timing right accidentally, and doing so repeatedly such that you can notice what's going on. As for poise, how'd you be able to tell it was the armor? It could be the armor, it could be the enemy, maybe leveling up makes you stagger less, ect. This one is at least sorta intuitive so one might be able to figure that one out.
Fume knight down, and I think he may be my absolute favorite Guy In Armor Souls boss. Of which DS2 has many. He killed me more times than I could count, mind you, so this may be some sort of weird masochism thing. It really was just a matter of learning his, like, six different moves, how to dodge each, which I could punish with one hit, which I could punish with two, and which I could safely drink estus in. Problem is, I don't learn fast.
Also I beat him wearing only a hat, four rings, and a morning star. Armor didn't seem to be making a dang bit of difference other than hurting stamina regen.
Now I'm on the Burnt Ivory King and I don't like the fight one bit. Thematically I get it, but wow if I wouldn't prefer a version that let me skip the intro bit and just do one on one with the boss.
+5
Dr. ChaosPost nuclear nuisanceRegistered Userregular
From way back, my favorite Demon's Souls difficulty quote:
I’ll tell you what happens in Demon’s Souls when you die. You come back as a ghost with your health capped at half. And when you keep on dying, the alignment of the world turns black and the enemies get harder. That’s right, when you fail in this game, it gets harder. Why? Because fuck you is why.
I actually really like the 'pool of blood' things that spawn a dozen echoes to show you how everyone died to the exact same thing. Those should have come back.
Posts
Even though DS3 stuff is mostly just adding evidence for earlier theories, there would be implicit spoilers in whatever I mentioned by virtue of mentioning X points instead of Y points.
So, spoiler tag that doesn't mention anything directly from DS3, makes sense without DS3, but isn't really how I thought of the story before I played DS3:
In DS1, we see that as the flame fades, the undead show up. Certain humans start coming back from the dead when killed. These humans linger on proportionate to their drive, their Humanity (fragments of the Dark Soul), and their raw power.
The gods want undead to link the flame to continue the age of fire, but Kaathe tells us this is a trick, a deception, a subversion of the true way of things in which the Dark should come and Man should grow strong.
Putting these together, perhaps humans are immortal in the absence of the flame. Which raises the question of what the Darksign is, exactly, if not the cause of undeath--perhaps a curse on powerful humans made by Gwyndolin, the Dark Sun, the last god in Anor Londo and the primary driver of the deception that linking the fire is for the good of all?
There's of course the question of whether humans in the Dark are immortal beef jerky or immortal and normal, which would seem to depend upon what happens to the Dark Soul when the lights go out? You could say that our normal fleshy bodies only arise from Flame (since you sacrifice some of the Dark Soul to a bonfire to unhollow), or it could be that the hollow state is the middle ground between 'mortal because of flame' and 'immortal in the dark', i.e. the Flame literally dries us out into husks.
In which case offering humanity/dark soul to the flame maybe, I dunno, gets you a reprieve from the curse or something?
I could build a stronger theory and replace some of these parts with DS3 spoilers, but that'd be cheating and definitely against the thread rules.
:edit: just tried googling for a timeline, assuming these people know what they're talking about the undead were showing up before Gwyn went for the extra crispy recipe.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
Kindling is a specific event within the Age of Fire, when Gwyn sacrifices himself to extend the Age of Fire instead of letting the flame fade naturally into the Age of Dark.
Presumably, the power of the gods and their Lord Souls are tied to the Age of Fire and the First Flame, in the same way the power of humans and their Dark Soul seems tied to the Dark. So he feared humans rising up to rule, instead of being their worshipers.
The entire reason to kindle the flame was to stop the Age of Mankind from starting.
New interface/HUD looks great and performance so far seems a lot smoother than DS1.
(on PC)
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
I like the idea of the latter and making him look progressively older and tired as I go through the games.
DS1: Young and youthful. Optimistic for the future.
DS2: Receding hairline with shaggy "I've seen things while out there" woodland survivalist beard.
DS3: Bald and "this shit again? How do I die permanently?" levels of graying.
Now that I don't NEED a shortcut down to her room, is there one or was the intention to always run back through all of the drop offs?
Was pretty honorable in the last one, probably going to be a lot of invasions this time around to go along with my new berserker hobo gameplay style.
Elena, and yeah she's a horrible boss. I used up SO much humanity trying to kill her, fighting both of them at once without someone to take at least a little bit of her attention was just too much for me to handle.
Halfway down to her there is a secret room with a bonfire. It's on the level above the 2 drake knights in the back hallway.
I don't know how active the community is in DS2, but some of its pvp hooks are easily the most fun I've had in souls PVP.
The fuckin' rats man
I got Elena down real easy actually. Took like 3 tries. The key was on the third try I had a real player along with Benhart. I fucked Velstadt up but good while Benny and the Jets Phantom took the boss apart. Nice and easy that way.
Dragon was way easier without summons and you could easily spam tries at him cause of the nice bonfire, so that part of the DLC was actually fun.
So yeah, invading still happens haha.
You can be invaded while hollow in DS2
I... honestly did not realise that ... wow. TIL I guess. So, other than playing offline, can you "protect" yourself against invasions? Not that I mind, I was mildly annoyed at being invaded in shaded woods, but it was only a few mins worth of extra trouble.
Due to the limited Cracked Red Eye Orbs, invasions in NG tend to be rather rare except for hackers--also pretty rare. Once you get to NG+ they'll have the Red Eye Orbs to invade forever.
Also being human increases your chance of being invaded by Forlorn at various points in the game but all normal red phantom invasions happen regardless of humanity. Which I'm actually glad for because I missed a bunch of those in 1 (and 3) due to not being human/embered.
My daughter was watching me play the other day, and she saw me summon someone in. She asked what was going on and I told her, she just nodded and watched. On another boss I summoned a Sunbro and she asked why this one was yellow instead of white, explained again and while I was explaining the Sunbro praised the sun. She knew about gestures and asked why I didn't have that one, I answered because I was in the Bell cov (farming for the mad set and blade) and I had to explain the difference between covs.
Sunbros help people with fighting the monsters. Bellbro (for ease of explanation to her) protect the belfry and kill invaders. Why would I want to stop people from ringing the bell? Well, only the princess and prince were allowed to be in the belfry (other than the puppet protectors) and I'm a wannabe protector, so I have to be up here too killing ppl that want to ring the bell. Told editted story about forbidden love between the lovers, and she said that I should stay a bellbro cause that story is beautiful. 3 days later i'm in a new cov and she notices the eye symbol. I'm Dragonbro (everyone is a bro for ease of explaining to her haha) now. Does that have a nice story? No, I just duel people, to become more dragony. That's silly apparently, and if I'm not a bellbro, I should at least help people as a sunbro and be yellow and praise the sun. While I don't disagree, I want the greatsword!
Which sounds pretty fun!
But the setup to it is some serious work, he's edits, extracting and repackaging assets...
There's a thread on reddit about it
Man...there was so much in the way of NPC interactions I missed in DS1.
Last time I saw him was in Anor Londo and that was it.
It's SotFS Iron Keep, except you can't reach the archers to melee them and the melee mobs roll and combo instead of settling for one hit.
And I poked my toe into 5-1 yesterday, and it was 'like Blighttown, but actually painful' so I'm looking forward to where THAT goes...
Now, if you're talking about the flying manta rays shooting those giant spears, I can start to understand.
Yeah, I was talking about the manta ray spikes when I mentioned archers, forgot there were actual archers in the area.
Problem is for most NPC interactions you need to have the wiki to their page constantly open. 2 is a bit easier in this respect as it usually involves find them, buy X amount of items from them/bring them something/have the right stats/summon them for 3 boss fights, talk to them again.
And then 3 brings you right back to the old 'hope you have a guide for this' ways.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
Putting aside the malicious design elements, the camera clearly can't cope with the area. I've had my camera completely freak out and jump all around, had lock-on grab someone further away, 90 degrees from me, and on the other side of a pit instead of the guy directly in front of me, had it hang up on stuff, etc., etc.
Honestly, with 4-1 and 5-1 both sucking, I'm nearing 'nah, I'll replay DS2 instead'.
edit: Which is quite a goofy sentiment, since DeS seems to resemble DS2 more than any of the others. Including the incredibly frustrating first playthrough.
So pissed at myself for buying and starting Dark Souls II after I had done so well on abstaining from anything new before clearing out my library abit but in the middle of it now and started dual wielding and damn is that a stamina sinker.
Going to have to alternate between pumping points into strength (for axes) and endurance. Also, going to have to get used to actually dodging now since I spent most of the latter half of DS1 blocking hits and shrugging off attacks with a shitload of estus, armor and vit.The challenge really seemed to fall straight off a cliff after awhile as a tank. This was pretty much the final boss' attempts to actually hurt me:
Yeah, the way the game is designed it's practically mandatory. The way the death system fucks you over for winging it, the poorly designed UI, the poorly explained game mechanics, the stuff you can easily miss. It all encourages you to look up first, do later.
The only reason I completed Dark Souls on PC two years after its release was by hacking. It took another two years to go back and finish it for real. Wikis (and playing offline) are the only way I can enjoy the Souls series.
Demon's especially goes out of its way to punish the uninformed player for some reason (soul form and world tendency), which is kind of baffling.
Now that I'm the one doing it? Kind of a guilty pleasure.
"Mandatory" is a bit of a stretch, I think. I mean yeah if you want to get every item and do every npc quest line and max all the covenants, sure.
But you can absolutely beat the game without looking things up. I've done it three times.
The death system doesn't fuck you over for winging it, all it does is make you lose whatever souls you had on you at the time. If you have no souls you can just run out past enemies grabbing all the items you see then dying, with zero penalty whatsoever. Hardly a punishment.
The UI isn't poorly designed, it works fine. Top left is health and stamina, pretty standard. Bottom left is equipped weapons, spells, and items, positioned to match up with the d-pad direction you press to switch that particular slot. Bottom right is soul counter. Inventory is a bit of a mess if you just leave it higgledy piggledy sure, but it's not much work to dump stuff into the storage box that you don't need to keep your personal inventory streamlined. You can even press select on any equipment information screen to get a description of what each stat does.
The game mechanics aren't poorly explained. There are messages in the starting area that tell you what each button does, then you experiment with them to see how they work. More esoteric things like poise and invulnerability frames aren't required to know about explicitly in order to play well, since you'll just get a feel for how they work as you get better at an enemy type as you play them. "Oh, if I dodge at this point of the attack I don't take any damage, even if the sword goes through my player, neat." "Aha if I hit the enemy's shield with my greatsword twice they go into a kind of stagger animation then I can do a counter attack." "Hmm I used to get interrupted when I was hit while casting fireballs but now that i've put on this heavier armor it happens less often."
It's just a series that asks a lot of the player.
Understanding poise and i-frames are absolutely required to play well. If you don't know to roll through a boss's attacks you're gonna have a lot of trouble getting close with enough stamina left to do decent damage. If you're having trouble with enemies that are staggering you to death, knowing that you can wear heavier armor to get staggered less is really important information. And I question the ease of figuring them out that you claim. I-frames? You're talking about getting the precise dodge timing right accidentally, and doing so repeatedly such that you can notice what's going on. As for poise, how'd you be able to tell it was the armor? It could be the armor, it could be the enemy, maybe leveling up makes you stagger less, ect. This one is at least sorta intuitive so one might be able to figure that one out.
Also I beat him wearing only a hat, four rings, and a morning star. Armor didn't seem to be making a dang bit of difference other than hurting stamina regen.
Now I'm on the Burnt Ivory King and I don't like the fight one bit. Thematically I get it, but wow if I wouldn't prefer a version that let me skip the intro bit and just do one on one with the boss.
Can't walk two inches without slipping in it.
I actually really like the 'pool of blood' things that spawn a dozen echoes to show you how everyone died to the exact same thing. Those should have come back.