What Are You Playing Right Now, Part 2: Daggerfall

[Rodin]

I think the fight is meant to be yet more subtle tutorial, meant to teach you how to control a fight against multiple enemies. The problem is, such fights have already appeared and taught tactics that don't quite work due to the area design, makinng it hard to adjust to. Plus all three enemies are very fast, meaning that if you don't get away from the door and take out the dogs quickly you'll be staring at 'You Died'.

On the other hand, once the two dogs are gone it's a very fun fight. Would probably beat the Bell Gargoyles for 'best Dark Souls boss I've actually beaten' if the dogs weren't there, and it proves that the bosses don't have to be four times your size to be fun fights. It's like how the best boss fights in DMC3 weren't against the giant demons, but the fast and aggressive Vergil.

Some of the most fun I've had with Dark Souls was the Bell Gargoyles fight in the Daughters of Ash mod, which made the very simple change of increasing the gargoyles health significantly and bringing the second one in earlier. Where in the original game you simply made sure you had a good weapon and deleted the first gargoyle before the second spawned, you now had to actually LEARN how to fight against both gargoyles at once. It was far harder than I expected and massively entertaining.

[Anonymouswizard]

Some of the most fun I've had with Dark Souls was the Bell Gargoyles fight in the Daughters of Ash mod, which made the very simple change of increasing the gargoyles health significantly and bringing the second one in earlier. Where in the original game you simply made sure you had a good weapon and deleted the first gargoyle before the second spawned, you now had to actually LEARN how to fight against both gargoyles at once. It was far harder than I expected and massively entertaining.

Well I'm not good enough to have ever managed to defeat the first before the second appeared, so I'll pass on that particular difficulty upgrade.


In Torment I've finally managed to recruit Fall-From-Grace and Ignus. Now I just need to remember if Ignis can teach any other spells before I turn him loose and flee Sigil before he starts burning the place down. Oh, and I think I might have completed the Unbroken Circle, I'm going to check again in a few levels but Dak'kon got a massive stat boost.

[Yora]

It's not about being good enough, but knowing where to find broken weapons and how two upgrade them very early on in the game. When you watch speedruns, peole spend the first 15 minutes running all over the place with the master key to collect stuff, and then kill bosses with two hits without having leveled up their stats.
Almost all bosses are easy when you only have to hit them twice.

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah, suicide running for the Great Scythe at the start of the game then upgrading it as much as you can lets you shred the early bosses, plus it has a super cheesy moveset, the two handed R2's step forward and wide sweep is great for safely taking out smaller mobs.

[Rodin]

I'm not even talking about cheesing them with weapons from later in the game. The early bosses in the original Dark Souls have a low enough HP pool that simply focusing your early levels into damage and upgrading your weapon is enough to destroy them very quickly. The first boss to have enough HP to really show off its moveset is the Gaping Dragon.

[Anonymouswizard]

It's not about being good enough, but knowing where to find broken weapons and how two upgrade them very early on in the game. When you watch speedruns, peole spend the first 15 minutes running all over the place with the master key to collect stuff, and then kill bosses with two hits without having leveled up their stats.
Almost all bosses are easy when you only have to hit them twice.

Yeah, unless you don't know that stuff because you're avoiding information as much as possible. The most I'll do is run to grab the Zweihander because the early game has almost no Greatswords.

Plus sounds like it takes the fun out of the boss fights to be honest.

I'm not even talking about cheesing them with weapons from later in the game. The early bosses in the original Dark Souls have a low enough HP pool that simply focusing your early levels into damage and upgrading your weapon is enough to destroy them very quickly. The first boss to have enough HP to really show off its moveset is the Gaping Dragon.

Oh look, the people with decent hand-wye coordination have an easier time with the action game and cam kill things quicker

In all seriousness I never said the early bosses were hard, in fact I can beat the Bell Gargoyles fairly easily now. Just that I have the skill to beat the first one fast enough so I do tend to end up fighting both at once anyway. The bosses don't get truly difficult until Ornstein and Smough, barring the Capra Demon until you get rid of the dogs.

But yeah, the Dark Souls series should have an easy mode (and an extra hard mode). Maybe ban the easy mode players from playing online, or some other drawback so we don't get the 'full Dark Souls experience' but can still get an enjoyable challenge even if we can't beat the Pursuer after our sixtieth attempt because there's one attack we just can't successfully dodge.

[starks97]

Because i love sports games i play almost all sports games like NBA 2K19, MLB The Show 19, Madden NFL 19 and other cars games but my favorite is PES 2019 playing it every day season after season, it's the best soccer game.

[Yora]

I think the only relevant skill to kill bosses super quick is knowledge of how to upgrade equipment and stats in the most efficient way. Not the skill to hit and dodge quickly without mistakes.

[Rodin]

I think the only relevant skill to kill bosses super quick is knowledge of how to upgrade equipment and stats in the most efficient way. Not the skill to hit and dodge quickly without mistakes.

Yes, this. Experience with the bosses helps so you know how to dodge their attacks.

I should also note that I am only talking about the first game here. From Dark Souls 2 onwards they learned the lesson from the first game and made the early bosses have enough HP that an experienced player can't just crush them. In all of the games it's still the case that a speedrunner can kill them in seconds, but that's speedrunners for ya.

[Anonymouswizard]

I think the only relevant skill to kill bosses super quick is knowledge of how to upgrade equipment and stats in the most efficient way. Not the skill to hit and dodge quickly without mistakes.

Both are important. It's just that compared to many action games precise timing is less important and things like stamina management and having the right build are more important.

Yes, this. Experience with the bosses helps so you know how to dodge their attacks.

Cool.

So what helps with having slower reaction times and worse hand eye coordination than your average gamer?

Like, I can go into a fight with a higher Soul Level than recommended with more heavily upgraded equipment than advised and still die sixteen times before I have to shut the game off. So maybe yelling 'git gud', 'just learn' and 'your complaints are invalid' isn't going to ****ing help somebody who's having legitimate problems beyond 'hasn't played the game to completion sixteen times'.

[Rodin]

Both are important. It's just that compared to many action games precise timing is less important and things like stamina management and having the right build are more important.



Cool.

So what helps with having slower reaction times and worse hand eye coordination than your average gamer?

Like, I can go into a fight with a higher Soul Level than recommended with more heavily upgraded equipment than advised and still die sixteen times before I have to shut the game off. So maybe yelling 'git gud', 'just learn' and 'your complaints are invalid' isn't going to ****ing help somebody who's having legitimate problems beyond 'hasn't played the game to completion sixteen times'.

Why are you trying to pick a fight here? I've offered zero criticism of anybody's ability and I AM one of those people who goes into a Souls boss fight 30-50 times on a first playthrough getting wrecked.

I never yelled 'git gud' or 'just learn' or 'your complaints are invalid', so stop putting words in my mouth. My PERSONAL experience with the early bosses of Dark Souls as someone who has played the game to completion sixteen times is that once you reach that level of experience/skill the early bosses have an unusually low HP pool compared to the rest of the franchise. When I first played the game I think it took me about 20 times to beat the Taurus Demon, and almost certainly a similar amount of time to beat the Bell Gargoyles. On coming back to the game after playing Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne, I discovered that those games have a much higher skill requirement. A mod that increased the difficulty of the original game was therefore welcome. To me. I make no suppositions about what would be fun for somebody else.

And if I offended with my post in some way, be sure that was never my intention.

[Triaxx]

My experience was entirely with a free copy on XboX Live gold, so maybe there was some explanation in the manual, but the lack of basic instruction was kind of irritating.

I wouldn't want hand holding, but a gentle nudge would be okay. Some slightly less malevolent architecture to say go here next! Or even a short command list of things you can do. Like the old school fighting games.

[Zombimode]

I am currently on Expeditions Viking.

There are many good things that can be said about this game. I'm enjoying it quite a bit, but all in all it doesn't come together quite as well as Conquistador.

[IthilanorStPete]

Picked up Rome 2: Total War on the Steam sale, partly due to comments earlier in this thread. I've started the grand campaign, currently focusing on mopping up the Etruscans before (probably) moving south against Carthage.

[Anteros]

Picked up Rome 2: Total War on the Steam sale, partly due to comments earlier in this thread. I've started the grand campaign, currently focusing on mopping up the Etruscans before (probably) moving south against Carthage.

Speaking of Total War, Three Kingdoms has been enjoyable. The Romance mode with heroes adds a lot of character to the game that a lot of older Total Wars were missing for me.

[Resileaf]

Picked up Rome 2: Total War on the Steam sale, partly due to comments earlier in this thread. I've started the grand campaign, currently focusing on mopping up the Etruscans before (probably) moving south against Carthage.

If you follow the chapter objectives, you'll be asked to spread in every direction at the same time. Follow those objectives at your own risks!

[IthilanorStPete]

If you follow the chapter objectives, you'll be asked to spread in every direction at the same time. Follow those objectives at your own risks!

That's good to know! Still, Carthage seems to makes sense, since I already have a presence in southern Italy. How hard of a target are they compared to the Venetians and whoever else is in the north?

[Zevox]

Picked up Rome 2: Total War on the Steam sale, partly due to comments earlier in this thread. I've started the grand campaign, currently focusing on mopping up the Etruscans before (probably) moving south against Carthage.

Yeah, that's how I played the early game as Rome as well. Get control of Italy and the nearby islands, then go after Carthage, since you're encouraged to by the initial objectives - plus they're none too friendly towards you anyway.

That's good to know! Still, Carthage seems to makes sense, since I already have a presence in southern Italy. How hard of a target are they compared to the Venetians and whoever else is in the north?

Not very. The one thing to be warned of is that Carthage will drag two other nations into war with you, since they're their vassals: Libya and Carthago Nova. Carthago Nova is out west, having some territory in southern Iberia (Spain) and that end of North Africa, so there's little need to worry about them until you expand further in that direction, but Libya is more nearby and will give you trouble. Personally I wound up not needing to deal with them too much since I'd made nice with Syracuse, and they wound up landing a sizable army in Africa just after I took Carthage (the city) and used that to sweep across Libya while I dealt with hunting down Carthage's other territories to the west, but I did have to fight off a couple of their forces that landed on Sicily before that.

By contrast, once you start fighting your northern neighbors, it's sort of a cascade effect. Most wars you start in that direction will anger other nations in that area, probably resulting in wars with them, until eventually you wind up conquering most of Europe. Which isn't to say don't do it by any means, but I think holding off until you're confident you've handled Carthage and Libya - or have enough armies raised to fight on both fronts simultaneously - is wise.

[Lord Raziere]

playing Pokemon Mega Adventure with Randomizer mode turned on. I got a Ninjask as my starter which I named "Jirflyra" then caught a primeape which I named "Kuribrawl", four other pokemon: Yukisune the alolan ninetales, Motianne the spoink, a female spiritomb, and a sliggoo. having the randomizer on really makes catching pokemon a bit more difficult because of their catch rates, but I realized that due to its random nature, I can probably catch any pokemon at any level anyways. either that or I can come back to certain areas to catch a pokemon with a next ball anyways. it certainly makes battling more interesting than knowing what the trainer automatically has and having the best counter to it. it shakes things up for certain, I like this.

[Resileaf]

In Dragon's Dogma, I managed to beat Daimon, a DLC boss you're expected to fight somewhere in the vicinity of lvl 100, at lvl 66, without needing to use a wakestone. I am ridiculously proud of myself for that.

[PraetorDragoon]

In Dragon's Dogma, I managed to beat Daimon, a DLC boss you're expected to fight somewhere in the vicinity of lvl 100, at lvl 66, without needing to use a wakestone. I am ridiculously proud of myself for that.

Impressive.

Even more impressive to me as I cannot push through the early portion of the game. I am at the beginning of the Wyrm Quests section, and I feel zero interest to continue.

[Anteros]

I couldn't even make it out of the first town in Dragon's Dogma. Maybe I would have liked it if I gave it more of a chance, but everything was just so bland and generic. It's almost universally loved though, so I'm sure it's just my personal taste, or I just didn't play long enough to get invested.

[Man_Over_Game]

I couldn't even make it out of the first town in Dragon's Dogma. Maybe I would have liked it if I gave it more of a chance, but everything was just so bland and generic. It's almost universally loved though, so I'm sure it's just my personal taste, or I just didn't play long enough to get invested.

You, like many others, probably tried the "Chase the Thief" and "Explore the Well" style of quests, and those ones are terrible. The thief-chase just isn't fun, and those damn lizardmen in the well are ludicrously hard. The game gets significantly easier once you get past them.

Also, look up some guides on how to flesh out your team. One important thing of note is that enemies are naturally drawn to attacking the main player, which is a problem if you're a Mage and you make your primary slave have Guardian tendencies while being a tank. Guardian means that they're inclined to stay near your side, which is a major problem when that means the tank is taunting enemies while standing near you.

Stick to fighting wolves and goblins, don't fight harpies without ample ranged damage, and you'll be fine. And, uh, if you ever get attacked by a griffon out of nowhere (specifically near the major town), best just to run. Once you get to the big town, there's a section to the north, across a river, where the difficulty gets ramped up, fighting things like Dire Wolves and other nasty things. Don't try going that direction unless you're sure you're strong enough (and you have missions telling you to go there).

The game starts out kinda slow until you join the caravan to travel to the big city, which is roughly when the real game starts.

[Anteros]

You, like many others, probably tried the "Chase the Thief" and "Explore the Well" style of quests, and those ones are terrible. The thief-chase just isn't fun, and those damn lizardmen in the well are ludicrously hard. The game gets significantly easier once you get past them.

Also, look up some guides on how to flesh out your team. One important thing of note is that enemies are naturally drawn to attacking the main player, which is a problem if you're a Mage and you make your primary slave have Guardian tendencies while being a tank. Guardian means that they're inclined to stay near your side, which is a major problem when that means the tank is taunting enemies while standing near you.

Stick to fighting wolves and goblins, don't fight harpies without ample ranged damage, and you'll be fine. And, uh, if you ever get attacked by a griffon out of nowhere (specifically near the major town), best just to run. Once you get to the big town, there's a section to the north, across a river, where the difficulty gets ramped up, fighting things like Dire Wolves and other nasty things. Don't try going that direction unless you're sure you're strong enough (and you have missions telling you to go there).

I never even made it to the point where I had a team at all. I did the tutorial, ran around the starter town a bit, got bored, and quit. Honestly, I just never gave the game a fair shake...but something about the intro just bored me.

[NRSASD]

I fell back into the Mount and Blade trap. Help! It's too much fun!

[Rodin]

I never even made it to the point where I had a team at all. I did the tutorial, ran around the starter town a bit, got bored, and quit. Honestly, I just never gave the game a fair shake...but something about the intro just bored me.

I was the same way - the game never grabbed me and the random pawn dialogue was obnoxious. The world (at least in the starting zone) felt like it lacked personality.

[Erloas]

So I managed to beat my first game of Civ 6. I ended up just winning on high score. It took me the first half of the game to figure out a lot of what was going on, so I'm surprised I managed to win. I was going for a science victory but ended up with the last space mission ending about 15 turns after the end of 500 rounds and no way to speed it up. Needed 3 space ports in cities but only had 2, so couldn't do the last stage in parallel.

One nation was ahead of me on points and had a lot of culture and religion, luckily for me they declared war on me near the end and I was able to take 4 of their cities fairly quickly, enough to give me an edge on score. Though I still ended up taking a lot of warmongering penalties for taking their cities even though they started the war. Like that the destroyers can now take cities, carrier and missile cruisers to flatten the city then destroyer to capture it. It also looks like cities and ground units don't have AA defenses by default like they do in 5, which is nice, means I don't have to keep resting the bombers.

[factotum]

I was the same way - the game never grabbed me and the random pawn dialogue was obnoxious. The world (at least in the starting zone) felt like it lacked personality.

I managed to get as far as defeating the Big Bad (took me about 26 hours), only to find that the game seems to continue after that point and gets much harder.

[MinimanMidget]

I managed to get as far as defeating the Big Bad (took me about 26 hours), only to find that the game seems to continue after that point and gets much harder.

I got 16 hours in. I really wanted to like it, but the combat just gets more and more grindy as you go.

[PraetorDragoon]

You, like many others, probably tried the "Chase the Thief" and "Explore the Well" style of quests, and those ones are terrible. The thief-chase just isn't fun, and those damn lizardmen in the well are ludicrously hard. The game gets significantly easier once you get past them.

Also, look up some guides on how to flesh out your team. One important thing of note is that enemies are naturally drawn to attacking the main player, which is a problem if you're a Mage and you make your primary slave have Guardian tendencies while being a tank. Guardian means that they're inclined to stay near your side, which is a major problem when that means the tank is taunting enemies while standing near you.

Stick to fighting wolves and goblins, don't fight harpies without ample ranged damage, and you'll be fine. And, uh, if you ever get attacked by a griffon out of nowhere (specifically near the major town), best just to run. Once you get to the big town, there's a section to the north, across a river, where the difficulty gets ramped up, fighting things like Dire Wolves and other nasty things. Don't try going that direction unless you're sure you're strong enough (and you have missions telling you to go there).

The game starts out kinda slow until you join the caravan to travel to the big city, which is roughly when the real game starts.

Well, I made it to the big city, and got into some ****ty dungeon with some undead which is somehow even less exciting than the stuff before. Its like the game doesn't even try to be interesting.