Hangout 4/25: Dark Souls 2 – IT’s Over

By Shamus Posted Friday Apr 25, 2014

Filed under: Notices 54 comments

Hey everyone, Josh is playing Dark Souls 2 for the very first time right now. Watch it now on Twitch.

I missed the end of the stream, right when JPH showed up and was about to do some co-op with Josh. Someone tell me how it ended!

Anyway. Fun times. Gorgeous game. Looks hard. Thanks for watching.

 


From The Archives:
 

54 thoughts on “Hangout 4/25: Dark Souls 2 – IT’s Over

  1. Daemian Lucifer says:

    The explanation in ad&d as to why you can only wear one finger on each hand is that the magic on them disrupts each other if you wear more than one.Same rason why you cannot have 5 magic capes and similar.

    1. Daniel says:

      Which was fine as far as it went, but it didn’t make a lot of sense in light of wearing that one ring under a magic glove with no issue…

      1. Hitch says:

        Ring magic and glove magic are multiplexed at different harmonics.

        1. Paul Spooner says:

          So, if I’m NOT wearing a gauntlet over my magic ring, the ring should have twice the bandwidth, right? Oh, unless the process turnstile isn’t adaptive… Magic may need a kernel patch… and better documentation.

      2. Asimech says:

        Maybe it’s my training in electronics, where it’s possible to have a device that both causes interference but also can’t tolerate interference from other devices, but this doesn’t sound like a problem in the explanation.

        (By the by, if you ever have pieces of electronics that don’t work together for no apparent reason: One of them causing interference and the other having poor tolerance is one potential reason.)

        Rings are really small, as far as magical items go -> they’re magic item equivalent of “cheap electronics that doesn’t have proper error tolerance/shielding that’s full of kludge”.
        Gloves are big enough that they’re generally stable and can both accept interference without causing problems and don’t cause interference.

        So gloves + ring = okay (unless the gloves were made badly)
        but ring + ring = trouble (regardless of quality, as you just can’t add error tolerance or lower the interference without eliminating the benefit(s))

    2. ET says:

      Ragnarok/Valhalla used to let you have as many rings as you had fingers. Also…you could mutate extra fingers! :P

      1. Sorites says:

        Were there Rings of Extra Fingers?

        Or just a Ring of One Extra Finger which sounded good but turned out useless?

        1. syal says:

          Ring of Ringbearing.

          1. Sorites says:

            I once had a guy come up with a “Two-Handed Sword” – a sword with two hands.

            He tried to put rings on it.

            The DM decided the interference would make the whole thing explode.

            1. Sabrdance (MatthewH) says:

              Oh, come-on -that’s just inviting the players to create a time bomb out of that contraption at some point.

    3. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Though now I wonder why no one is using rings on their toes and junk.They are magical rings that apparently resize themselves to fit anyones finger,so why not toes and penises?

      1. lucky7 says:

        In Pathfinder, there’s a belt that lets you do (most of) that.

  2. StashAugustine says:

    To watch or to play?

  3. I saw Dark Souls II going on just as I was putting the kid to bed and now it’s offline. Is that it? Is Josh experiencing technical difficulties or is it over?

    1. Alexander The 1st says:

      As I recall, the reason he gave up was against the first giant you fight, and having died quite a few times to it – IIRC, it mostly was due to the camera basically preventing you from being able to see the boss.

      1. Sorites says:

        It’s even harsher for people who’ve never played a Souls game and wouldn’t know to break the lock-on. I once watched my sister play, and she spent the first hour learning to always lock-on rather than doing it selectively.

        Then came the Last Giant and stepped on her head about a billion times until she unlearned the first lesson.

        1. Deadpool says:

          Yup. Learning when NOT to lock on is about as important as learning to lock on…

          1. RejjeN says:

            Had no trouble fighting the Last Giant with lock-on myself, after I figured out you could switch lock-on between the legs and the main body I just did that when not trying to hit the thing, which allowed me to see it’s attacks coming well in advance.

            Plus it might have helped Josh to not hug the wall in a third-person game, wall-hugging tends to cause camera issues, just a slight observation I’ve made :P

  4. Sorites says:

    About the first three hours of the stream were absolutely amazing. About the most fun you can have with video games is discovering them for the first time, with a group of people. Watching your streams always comes close to that experience for me, and it’s great.

    Things slowed down the moment Justin showed up, because he was either commentating on his own gameplay which we couldn’t see (“Oh no, oh no! Phew. Okay. Magic is good.”) or trying to co-op with Josh, which ground the stream to a halt as the two tried and failed to manipulate the random matchmaking.

    1. Deadpool says:

      Which is a shame. Dark Souls 2 has a method to simplify this CONSIDERABLY… The Engraved Ring.

      When you put the ring on you pick a God. You can only see Soul Signs from people wearing a ring and picked the same God AND only people with Soul Signs from people wearing a ring and picked the same God can see YOUR Soul Sign.

      It also increases the Soul Memory range in which you can co op.

      It makes co op-ing with a specific friend INCREDIBLY easy… And the Ring is relatively cheap, and sold by an NPC that already starts in Majula…

      1. Sorites says:

        To be fair to Josh and Justin, 4500 souls at that early stage in the game is probably more than they have in their whole SM.

        1. Deadpool says:

          You’d be surprised how quickly souls accumulate…

    2. If this is true, I apologize for ruining the stream.

      EDIT: Actually, the magic part was not me commentating my own play, it was me trading notes with Josh. I played as a sorcerer on my own time, long before I showed up to the stream, and I wanted to talk about the game and what I’d experienced so far.

      1. Sorites says:

        Nah, you didn’t ruin anything. It changed the pace, though; I’m sure as many people preferred the second half as preferred the first half. Having another player around just changed the tone from “Let’s watch Josh explore” to “Let’s discuss DS2 more analytically”.

        Less Let’s Play and more Spoiler Warning, if you know what I mean. But if there’s anything unifying theme of the community around here, it’s “To each their own”.

        1. KremlinLaptop says:

          Yeah. Nothing was ruined, besides I like it when you, Jarenth, Krellen, etc are all around for streams. The thing is with the two of you playing? It means twice as many of you are in the future, sorta unavoidable with how Twitch is delayed.

          …I do think Josh should stream more often, it’s fun watching him play games that I can’t stand to play but find enjoyable to watch.

          1. Hitch says:

            It was an instructive demonstration of the how the multi-player is set up. It’s (at the moment) quite easy to get into a game with a random stranger and incredibly frustrating to connect with a friend you want to play with.

      2. Ilseroth says:

        Yeah I am in total agreement with Sorites; don’t worry about it.

        The concept of showing off the co-op was cool, but you really need to use the Name-Engraved ring right now. The game is too fresh, last night when you guys were trying to join up, there were probably over 100k other people playing it online… not to mention both of you are int he early game still which means it is where *everyone* is, and those new are likely looking for help.

        Yeah 5.5 k for a ring is a decent investment but it would have changed your multiplayer success rate from like a 5% to 80%ish

      3. Humanoid says:

        I was hoping for something different to happen well before you showed up, was already feeling game fatigue long before even switching characters. Unfortunate that it didn’t really work out, but had well and truly switched from properly watching the stream to having-it-on-the-other-screen-while-doing-other-stuff mode.

        Not to say it wasn’t fun banter, but that’s due to the personnel and nothing to do with the game: the stream did absolutely nothing to advertise the game.

  5. Sorites says:

    Nuts, just missed my edit window.

    I forgot to mention that the best thing about the Power Stance is you can use your left-handed normal attack to swipe with both weapons at once (yeah, it’s hard to see if you’re just swinging in the air). It does the full damage of both, and comboes with itself so you can infinite-stagger enemies as long as your stamina holds out.

  6. Watching the archived stream. I also give Jarenth props for a “Stubbs the Zombie” reference.

    Was that game any good? The trailer looked hilarious, and I figured it’d be kind of an undead version of “Destroy All Humans.” I take it things didn’t go well, or they’d be remaking it or something.

    1. Dewwy says:

      I’ve never played it myself but a friend bought it on the xbox arcade after finding a trailer somewhere and thinking it looked really cool.

      Unfortunately the game didn’t run at all and Microsoft appears to have a zero tolerance no refunds policy for anything bought on the Xbox Live Arcade, so unless you can find a PC version and get it running on a modern OS (Which I sincerely hope you do) then there doesn’t seem to be much hope of playing it beyond getting an original copy and Xbox.

      A quick google and wikipedia tells me they took it from the xbox market place in late 2012 due to ‘technical issues’ at which point it had been on there roughly four years. My friend never did get a refund.

    2. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Meh.It was a’ight.Not as amazing as I hoped it to be.

      1. Sleeping Dragon says:

        It’s been a while but far as I seem to remember it was an okay game mainly carried by its humour rather than gameplay.

  7. HeroOfHyla says:

    Watching the recording, at noticed that Josh was having trouble getting the guard break/kick to trigger. I’ve found that the window is much, much smaller than in DaS1. I can get the jumping attack to trigger about 5% of the time.

    1. Sorites says:

      It’s also slightly different. You have to push forward just slightly BEFORE pushing attack, and it won’t work if you hit them both at once.

      Even though the instruction says to hit both at once.

      It’s a bit of a dumb game sometimes.

  8. Deadpool says:

    Pam Fashion Souls? It’d be rough on clothes, but you could dual wield Caestus for the badassedness..

    1. IFS says:

      They would have to be lightning Caestus of course.

  9. Tse says:

    All in all, I liked DS1 more. The combat system is kinda “floaty”, I don’t get the same feeling of precision in what my character does. The new emphasis on fighting multiple enemies at once somewhat botched the combat for me.

    1. Asimech says:

      During the stream the floatiness sounded like it was because you can’t move on right after an attack has landed, you have to watch the animation to the end.

      Which to me sounds like ill-fitting for a game where the focus is on multiple enemies, but I don’t like this sort of stuff in general.

      Actually, a lot of the changes I’ve heard for Dark Souls 2 when compared to what I’ve heard of Dark Souls 1 sound like I should give it a wide berth and go for DS1, assuming it can indeed be installed and played after GfWL goes down for good with the DSfix.

      1. grahams_xwing says:

        I’m not sure this is entirely indicative, but I (on a crazy whim) attempted to get back into DaS1 last night and found that the installation now fails. The log indicated something to do with GFWL updates not initilaisng correctly.
        Didn’t have time to dig much further into it – and it might not be linked, but it’s possible that new installations have been borked by the death of GFWL

        1. Asimech says:

          Aw, bugger. That was my main worry, too. I’ll look into it further before buying or completely writing it off, but I’m not optimistic about this.

    2. Ilseroth says:

      Actually, the opposite is true, but I understand what you are saying.

      In Dark souls 2, they added weight to the attacks. If you miss an attack you have added recovery time. They added some recovery time even if you hit as well. The point is to stop people from spamming attack in both PvE and PvP (which is also why you have less stamina.

      If you didn’t notice you also (once you stop using the knife) do more damage per swing. The concept is simple, less swinging more damage. you have to be considering your stamina and the recovery time and your characters dodging capabilities.

      So the combat isn’t floaty, its weighty. You shouldn’t throw as many attacks around (unless you are using the dagger or fist weapons) but expect to get a little more oomph out of them.

      If you want to make the combat feel a bit more like Dark Souls 1, get around 20 ADP (really you need 97 AGI, may need more or less depending) as it boosts how long you are invulnerable during your dodge roll to equivalent to the mid/fast roll in Dark souls 1.

      Another thing, if Josh reads this. They gave the Scimitar moveset to a different weapon in this game, it is still here and just as fast; just attached to a different weapon. The new scimitar/falchion movesets are designed to be more wide, sweeping motions as opposed to the tight vertical swings the old scimitar had.

      Also, different weapons of the same weapon type have different movesets now as well. Some daggers have a parry, some have a thrusting stab. All weapons do the same things in primary and secondary hands to allow for better dual wielding (so parry dagger in left hand, right hand can be a stabbing weapon)

  10. Thomas says:

    Did anyone keep up the death count to the end? =D

    1. Asimech says:

      If I remember correctly chat said it was 14/30. So 16 deaths with the explorer, 14 with the Swordsman, 30 total.

      1. Thomas says:

        Jeez, the swordsman made such a difference. And that’s even with him apparently getting stuck on a boss?

        1. Asimech says:

          From what I understood, yes. That should include the five or something times he died on the Last Giant. Or whatever that self-disarming thing is called.

          I think he caught up with the Explorer’s point in the game with only four to six deaths in a fraction of the time.

          1. Thomas says:

            He only had two deaths compared to the sixteen when he’d beaten the Explorer’s progress. That was about the time JPH joined in and then he’d reached a new area for his third =D

            1. Asimech says:

              Dang. I knew I was losing focus (the stream started around 01:00 AM for me) but I didn’t realise I had lost it that bad. If I remembered the final death toll correctly, I’m impressed.

  11. Daemian Lucifer says:

    So according to Josh,dark souls 1 is the citizen kane of video games.Well,we no longer need to bother with that question.Thanks Josh.

    1. Humanoid says:

      How does Citizen Kane 2 compare to Dark Souls 2 though?

      1. Hitch says:

        I had to check. I’m amazed The Asylum (Snakes on a Train, Transmorphers, Sharknado) hasn’t made Citizen Kane 2 yet.

  12. Daemian Lucifer says:

    That lady is the one to talk.What the hell is wrong with her faace?!

  13. TMTVL says:

    The general design reminds me more of Demon Souls rather then Dark Souls. I’m having odd problems with the game (screen flickering, random crashes), so I’ll probably just give it a month or two for the worst bugs to get squashed before really putting time into it.

  14. SL128 says:

    I’m guessing the stream is gone forever, but if anyone happens to have it and happens to see this sometime in the future, let me know via Steam or something.

Thanks for joining the discussion. Be nice, don't post angry, and enjoy yourself. This is supposed to be fun. Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked*

You can enclose spoilers in <strike> tags like so:
<strike>Darth Vader is Luke's father!</strike>

You can make things italics like this:
Can you imagine having Darth Vader as your <i>father</i>?

You can make things bold like this:
I'm <b>very</b> glad Darth Vader isn't my father.

You can make links like this:
I'm reading about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darth_Vader">Darth Vader</a> on Wikipedia!

You can quote someone like this:
Darth Vader said <blockquote>Luke, I am your father.</blockquote>

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.