Hungry

@Levio: Okay, well Demons Souls and Dark Souls are two different games. Also, you find an item that lets you enchant your weapon with fire damage temporarily to let you kill Phalanx (the slime boss) pretty easy. Even if you can't do fire damage, it just takes some time. Phalanx is so easy you shouldn't really be dying to him. While I think Demons Souls does a worse job of being completely, 100% fair, I wouldn't call it a trial-and-error game either. Dark Souls has maybe 2.5 moments (with one being pretty avoidable, and one I honestly don't know if there is a way to avoid it) that are unfair. Demons Souls has a couple more, but a vast majority of the game is completely fair.

The bottom line is, in neither game do you require trial-and-error or a guide to complete them. D'Souls just asks much more of you than most games do these days, and it won't take a half-assed attempt for a valid answer. Also, I would say Dark Souls vastly improves on Demons Souls in many, many ways. In the gameplay, story, atmosphere, all of it. That is the benefit of being a sequel.

I am glad we could clear all of this up.

@BulimicBalzac:

Yeah, and it isn't even as hard as a lot of people make it out to be. It just punishes you for fucking around and not being careful. Some of the fights can be really demanding (O&S and some of the DLC content). But really playing cautiously and using your brain means you can overcome most bosses with maybe 3 deaths at max.

Either that, or apparently me and all of my friends are gaming gods.

@Levio: I really want to know what version of Dark Souls you are playing, because the block -> retaliate strategy actually works for a vast majority of non-boss encounters in the game. If you can't handle that, I am sorry. This even works with a really slow weapon that is meant to be two-handed but can still be used in one-hand.

@Levio said:

@pyrodactyl: You're posting to tell me how to counter enemies, when my point is that the game doesn't explain how to counter these enemies. Do you seriously not see the irony of that?

lol

That is because the game wants you to figure it out yourself. If a guy is holding his shield up are you really going to say that the game has to tell you that hitting it while the shield is up won't work? Instead of running into a fight and hitting R1 a bunch you should hold your own shield up (or be ready to dodge if you like playing shieldless) and observe the enemy before you start fighting.

@Levio said:

@golguin said:

Except that the games aren't designed around trial and error combat. I don't even know what you're saying. Trial and error is something like saying here are 20 doors and one will lead to the next area while the other 19 are death. Keep trying until you open the correct door.

In your example, which is the "enemy that killed you"? I can pretty much visualize most of the game in my head and the enemies so I'd like to know the area and enemies you are referencing in your example and how its 15 minutes of combat.

You really want me to name specific encounters? How about the shield enemy that can only be hurt by 2 handed attacks? Or the guys with polearms (whom I never even figured out the proper counter to). Or the dragon that pops out of nowhere and sets the bridge on fire while I was fighting dudes? Or the fact that there's numerous unexplained environmental things like the slimes, swirls on the ground, and swirly doors which offer the player zero explanation as to what they are. All of which are at the top of the castle thing before even reaching the first (mostly useless) gate-opening checkpoint.

EDIT: Oh, I sincerely apologize, the swirly-death floor trap near the bottom of the castle, only about 5 minutes in.

lol.

Not a single enemy is impervious to one-handed weapons. Try parrying or attacking when the enemy doesn't have their shield up. Guys with polearms have very narrow attack hitboxes and usually long recovery and easy-to-parry windup. You can just hit them quickly, block and retaliate, parry, or dodge and backstab or even just dodge and attack normally. The bridge with the dragon has scorch marks and when you get near the scorch marks you can hear the sound of heavy wings beating. What is so hard to understand about the slimes? They don't take a lot of damage from physical attack but they are really slow. If you had looked up while moving through the Depths you would have seen them on the ceiling. I have no clue what swirls on the ground are or what swirly doors are, but I don't remember anything of that description killing you or being "trial-and-error." I also have no clue what mostly-useless gate-opening checkpoint you are referring to or what the castle thing is.

Are you playing Dark Souls? Because it sure doesn't sound like you are. Either way, it sounds way too hard for the amount of effort you want to put into playing a game. You should take it easy and observe your challenges before you rush in head long. The fact that Dark Souls punishes careless gameplay is one of the reasons people love it so much.

I honestly can't tell if you are mad at the game for wounding your ego so severely or if you are a huge troll.

@The_Drizzle said:

While i think this is a good idea, in my opinion, the disparity between skills levels is going to be large. Not sure how the balancing and team creation will go, but hopefully it works out.

Yeah I am a little worried about that as well. Considering the average skill level of the people who all played on Saturday I feel like there are some teams that are going to be entirely reliant on how the "best" person on their team plays a position and how they lord over the less experienced players.

I have to agree with everyone saying perma-banning heroes is dumb. Let the only permanent ban be the heroes not yet allowed in Captain's Mode yet.

Also, before I completely commit how much time do we have between teams being assigned and the required number of games ticking up? I think it is a little crazy to expect teams to coordinate and get a good flow if we are assigned a team, and then don't have a week or two to try and get a couple of games in to practice and feel each other out (in the non-sexiest way possible).

@Beaudacious said:

I enjoy how half the people are insulting people who are asking for clarification. I never said it was a bad game, the gameplay isn't hard I agree, the game in general is hard for having to deal with its inefficiencies. If you gave me more control over melee in 3rd person the way WotR or any other melee based game does it would be fine. Instead of being locked into a few animations I'd simply like more control over my weapon, and in a game where this is the main mechanic I think rightfully so. Animation based puzzle combat was ok in 2002, but even Indie developers now can make intricate gameplay systems.

I get the feeling unless I claim this game to be Jesus I won't get anywhere.

You know it is really hard to explain Dark Souls to you when we explain Dark Souls, and you say it is an inefficiency of the game. It is like complaining that you don't have enough control over how your characters punch in a fighting game, because light, medium, and heavy punches just don't fit to the specific parameters you wish they did.

I came here to say that the games we played today were pretty damn entertaining. Any of you forum bros who hang out here that have not joined the Steam group should totally do so. We had a lot of people join us today to play some sweet games and it would be awesome to see more people show up.

Giant Bomb Dota 2 Steam Group

@Dynablade said:

Main Character (Jack) LV 33

Persona: Pyro Jack w/ Agilao, Tarunda, Rakunda, Auto-Sukukaja, Mahama, Mamudo, and Marakukaja

It scares me that you only list one Persona for your main character. You know you can have like, a ton right? And switch them out mid-combat at no turn cost? It is pretty great.

You are grossly underleveled and I have no clue what the rest of your roster is like, but if Pyro Jack is your best then you need better Personas. Get to grindin'! When you analyze a Shadow it displays a level. You should be around the levels of the shadows on the highest floor of the dungeon. I would recommend going to Rise's dungeon and completing it again.

(good job with Tarunda and Rakunda though, they are life-savers in boss battles and there is no Akihiko-style character to be your buff/debuff machine).