I’m friends with pate now
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Ok fuckit in joining for MMA Souls ive never committed to a punchies build before
I think this one has my favorite opening cutscene in the series. (maybe second to Elden Ring. he says MAD TAINT in that one) so many fuckin cool images, the melting wife & child the firefly skeleton vortex you apparently have to jump into to enter Drangleic. Also that the opening area is ambiguously in a cavern or in a little pocket universe
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SOULS FRIENDS SOULS FRIENDS SOULS FRIENDS I’m getting THE genuine homework copying experience I would have if I played the game at release and mimicked all your strategies
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i find it really memorable how he was grasping for a way to describe dark souls and just said “it’s like a game, and i think games have forgotten to be games”
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this thread is going to get me to poke at DS2 (vanilla, PS3 (ditching my little CRT it’s absurdly too small for this game (man I hadn’t touched this since I posted those screens over a month ago!))) at least occasionally a few times a week, hopefully. when this came out, I got about 1/3 of the way into it, liked it, but then a relationship took over my life and I hollowed from video games for a few years and didn’t play any subsequent Souls games til Elden Ring. it has a special, fondly unrealised place in my heart…
also this, it was the go-to video escape once my new not ideal work life balance set in and autumn hit idk
I’m at the doorstep of Pursuer. can’t say I’m looking forward to that! or a bunch of bosses really! but game’s cool and I’m looking forward to the Wharf. the surreal maximalist bump spec shaders of Majula’s waters have not lost any of their impact all these years later!
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i HATED Pursuer when i first played but hes one of my favorite fights in the series now. i have his moves down to a science it becomes a fun lil dance. Really satisfying to punch him so many times that he gets stunned. i cant help but use the L2 powerstance combo even though it sucks and usually almost gets me killed
I like that sotfssfsff added more pursuer fights so it seems more like hes actually like, pursuing you it is a little silly you can kill him in his boss arena then less than 5 minutes later be fighting him again in another area
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perfecting the run to the ballista to two-shot pursuer is not unlike figuring out the place to stand to get taurus demon to jump to his death
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“It’s a bit like Zelda in hell” is a good quick description
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I’m having a horrible time, I had a grudge against some sleeping dudes and a pike man on a little bridge so I killed them 12 times but then got killed by, I don’t even rememeber what it wasnt even funny so I forgot. on the way to get my grudge souls back from killing the guys 12 times I got a new grudge against two spear dudes with a shield attack that eats half my stamina when I have my shield out, and I can’t roll backwards unless I wanna go to hell, which killed me twice. all I did last run was use resources lose souls and lie (on the floor, dead) . not a good last couple plays, feeling demoralized again. I’ll come back to it but I mean I’m not even at the first boss I don’t know how I’m going to get anywhere in this shit. my stats are never high enoguh for every weapon I use so I’m levelling those up but my stamina sucks but I keep losing souls lately so I haven’t levellled anything up and good lord I don’t want to start over a fifth time. it just feels so much like work I want it to be fun, like just a tiny bit. and this is the point where i quit every souls game so I guess I need to push through or something. or kill every single enemy until they’re gone forever. I’m going to empty the world of monsters in dark souls 2
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Fwiw ive been a fan of this series for a decade and i have had that exact experience with every single new one ive played (except maybe Elden Ring cuz i could blow off steam in the overworld). there’s always a low period where im like “actually, fuck this game & fuck this series & fuck fromsoft im throwing them in the garbage”
then after taking a lil break from the game (and usually talking shit about it online) i come back & beat the part that was giving me endless trouble in <3 tries and then its like nvm fromsoft baby come back i didnt mean it
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i had to like analyze the royal rat vanguard fight 5 times before i was able to do it. also the platforming in this area and the prisoner ied’s can suck my dick and balls
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this post is nothing compared to daphnys hour long rant I got to hear last night about poise and these guys and how mean dark souls 2 is and never getting anywhere and how everything looks like mottled vomit and how the game would be better if everyone was dead. you are all missing out
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maybe some light cheating is in order, since you don’t have summoning as an option
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I unlocked the ability to summon npcs I just have to make it to the boss without dying
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oh right this game has a fuckload of npc summons
it gets a lot easier if you level up your hp. otherwise it doesn’t
default level up plan is like enough str and dex to hold your weapons, probably in the teens, then enough hit points to tank a few hits, probably in the 20s, then enough adaptability to be able to roll well (like 20?) and then start increasing a damage stat for when your weapons are fully upgraded. but you want to prioritize weapon upgrades over levels
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that plan holds for basically every Souls game including this one, but 2 does have wacky scaling for STR/DEX where you get low but steady gains until 30 points, and from 30-40 you suddenly get massive gains from every point invested. That + the small amount of max HP you get for any stat points make it a lil more viable to go in really hard on a damage stat ASAP
also worth getting Endurance to 20 (soft cap) at some point cuz of how stamina hungry evading/blocking is in this one. going past that isnt really worth it unless youre doing the most bigass of big weapon builds (and you might be better off increasing Vitality at that point just so you can roll farther/dont go into heavyroll territory)
uhhhhhh anyway no one read any of this, i have activated my souls crunch nerd neurons ._.
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yeah i rmemeebr the breakpoint posting for adp and stuff. im paying attention to the stats, i just need to not lose my souls so i can use them to level up more haha
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I think it is an arguable point that DS2 has the roughest early game (mostly due to how borked the dodge roll is until you dump enough stats into it to fix it) but once you get past it it becomes more reasonable feeling. I think I had more difficulty through the first two or so bosses than I did with any other stretch of the game sans one.
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I haven’t noticed the dodge roll being messed up at all because this is the first game I’ve actually tried. seems pretty normal. like what’s fucking me is not the dodge roll, I’m dodging just fine even though everyone’s talking about fucked up iframes I just don’t notice it at all. unless I can’t see behind me and roll into a pit, but like that’s not the dodgings fault
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True, but perhaps if it were at full capabilities you’d be using it more as opposed to whatever else you are doing that is only going so well >_>
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