Whips and caestus are such fun weapons to use.
I personally interpret that remainder 10% to be about the way they did nothing to make Iron Keep less stupid as hell.
if you mean the weird elevator up to hell, no i like that. If you mean the level itself though, yeah actually. I think that level is pretty annoying in both versions and scholar adds some hard NPC invaders that make it worse
I also thought it was cooler when heide knights were scattered around the world. and i didnāt like a couple of other minor changes that arenāt even worth mentioning. Itās mostly better.
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Yeah I meant the level itself being just a line of enemies you have to fight to get anywhere. I love the elevator, thatās a mystical element of the weird videogame world that is DS2.
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i think scholar is great and prefer it
however! i would recommend if possible you play through the game vanilla first if you think youāll like it enough to play it more than once; scholar is robbed of some marginal amount of its humor and mischief if you donāt have the original to contrast
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honestly the biggest issue with scholar is that it doesnāt include the original. it makes most sense to me as an āarrangeā mode which happens to be preferable to the original
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the original has some stuff that feels legitimately broken though, like bonfires you canāt rest at because there are enemies close enough for you to be killed by them. maybe thatās just in v1 before any patches idk. at least they fixed looking glass knightās deafening thunderclap that doesnāt respect volume settings
there is one in sinners rise and one in the gutter wearing a feathery helmet. you just have to seek them out as theyāre buried further into areas rather than chilling at entrances/main paths, same with some NPC encounters like lucatiel and creighton
i have literally no opinion of the connecting elevator (itās too bland and nondescript to feel significant) but yeah both earthen peak and iron keep are sucky areas imo. itās the part of the game i have least affection for. if thereās anything interesting about them itās only in the way they frustrate spatial intuition, where youād expect climbing the peak to reward you with greater cognizance of your surroundings as you reach the top, Ć la senās fortress, but instead it only becomes more cramped and claustrophobic; or how your first view of the keep is this grand, towering, layered structure completely belying that most of its interior is one flat, high-ceilinged floor with a couple of side corridors and no windows
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The choice to skip Smelter Knight is cool IMO. Also itās the last gasp of ātraps and gimmicks everywhereā From level design that we didnāt really see again in the series after that
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2 has the best gestures as well.
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my favorite is the one where you point to them, then do the draw your finger across your throat menacingly thing
itās called āDecapitateā and you learn it from a talking disembodied head
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Do yāall play without the lock-on? I played the first years ago at an old friendās, it bugged him and another friend of ours when I refused to use it. I only got past the 2 gargoyles this way, but I thought it was really fun.
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somewhat situational, but yeah, especially for demonās and dark1 which only allows you to roll in 4 cardinal directions while locked on. i think unlocked is often optimal since it gives you a more versatile range of movement, so iāve learned to hold the controller in a horrible claw so i can camera control and roll at the same time
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Locked off at MOST times if Iām not a mage, because if I was a mage Iād be casting spells and using a spear, and editing my posts repeatedly
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Yeah, itās best used to solve specific targeting problems or you can keep it on if you are going with a greatshield and never need to roll (keeps your shield pointed in the right direction).
One of the reasons locking isnāt as useful as From probably thought it was is that medium shields arenāt as useful as they thought, either. Theyāre both pseudo-central features that are all over the initial gameplay trailers of DkS but not much in evidence in streamers playing it. In DkS1 I like to upgrade a medium shield purely to avoid getting one-shot by Bed of Chaosās ridiculous hitboxes when I get there, and havenāt found a real use for it elsewhere.
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i use it unless playing a heavy weapon build or fighting one of the monsters (lookin at you, abhorrent beast) where itās more harm than help
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ah yeah i guess i also think itās cool how Earthen Peak is the only area that begins with a boss fight, before you find the first bonfire
with elden ring iām most looking forward to seeing if and how from advance their spooky forest craft
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Itās a strange feeling to be eagerly awaiting a game like Elden Ring, a game which I have literally no information about. Kinda reminds me of being a kid in the 90s, with the only available information about new games coming from magazines you were reading for free at a local book store.
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on melee characters, I do pull out the shield for quelaag, ceaseless, bed, and any boss that deals extraphysical damage, but itās so unlikely for me to be running a character that heavy rolls that when I want to block 100% of an attackās physical damage, itās always the better option to just roll instead, or itās simply a case of shield being too heavy to equip.
currently the way I play the most is by two handing a strength-only weapon and keeping a shield on my back that i switch to at regular intervals to block group attacks
tangent
Shields are such an interesting risk-reward item to meā¦ their usefulness is so situationally granular that I find myself shifting through several shield phases as I play. Blocking a hit, losing stamina, getting put into shield stun, potentionally getting guard broken or critically hitāitās all fucking worse than dodging!! BUT!!! Human size enemies are minus on block! Minus by almost the perfect amount of time upon deflection of an attack to walk right around and do a fully invulnerable backstab animation! Wow! Game Design! This has never been explained before!
So in tight corridors and groups of enemies, shielding is extremely risky but potentially highly rewarding! And everyone telling me ālol just two hand the whole game why would u even use a shield everā was fucking wrong! Especially with fucking Four Kings who will absolutely punish you if you canāt roll perfectly (or at all). Choosing to block and take a little bit of magic damage is waay safer than taking a risky dodge and potentially dying to one hit.
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IIRC this actually varies by the size of the shield even. The bigger your shield the more enemies will be slightly stunned when they hit your shield. There is a single shield even that has the deflective properties of the great shields yet still has the parry move instead of the shield bash.
Was interesting to see the chart of how the frame data of your parry move varies as well between the different shield sizes and those that are explicitly noted to be better to parry with.
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