That’s sad. The game suffers from it because perfect contol is so important.
that one bug rips me out of immersion every damn time, was really hoping it would be gone.
KiloOhm
1723
It seems to be happening to me MORE than before. :(
I rarely had it happen before, now it’s at least a couple of times per session. It hasn’t killed me yet but I’m sure it will at some point.
Question about summoning: Tonight I was in front of the Anor Londo boss trying to summon some help. A regular stream of summon symbols appeared, but it took 20 or so attempts before someone came into the game (and we beat the boss!!). Do I see summon spots for all players, or just those within my level range? I wonder if the 20 failures were because I was summoning players out of my level range.
Here is the cover of the Japanese box. Just the back of an Elite Knight sitting at a bonfire.
Should just be for players within your level range. It’s not unusual to fail summons, though, as I’ve been summoned by someone in the next room and had it fail over the course of a really drawn out notification (ie the other player summons, nothing happens, then a minute later “summon failed” and my sign reappears). On the bright side, I’ve never been kicked out of a game once summoned or invaded, so it’s rock solid in my experience once you get in.
For Anor Londo, though, you were comparatively lucky since the only thing more common than helpful summons there is invasions. I have yet to make it to the boss fight without 1-5 invaders of all varieties, even for players that have already opened the doors.
Apparently Gaping Dragon is really easy if you’re level 29, take your time, and have a weapon that does decent damage. I don’t know how anyone manages to get by in this game without repeatedly farming darkmoon garden. There’s so much stuff to spend souls on compared to Demon’s Souls. Blighttown isn’t bad so far but I’ve only made it to the first bonfire and haven’t encountered any mosquitoes.
I’m well past Blighttown, and I’ve pretty much never farmed anything. I think I’ve earned less from the Darkroot Garden farming spot than I spent to open the door. Gaping Dragon was, admittedly, a bitch and a half for me.
The mosquitoes are a pain in the ass, but honestly never bothered me all that much once I realized I could just soul arrow them every time they got close. I can see them being a nightmare if you aren’t invested in sorcery.
Speaking of sorcery, is it ever useful at all in PVP? Every time I’ve tried using it so far, my opponents have just rolled out of the way. The only time I actually hit anyone is when they’re distracted by someone else.
If you picked up the Iaito in Blighttown-1, its basic attack is an overhead slash that hits the mosquitos more easily than most other melee weapons. That helped me with the frustration when using a melee focused build.
I totally do not understand the design decision to have four different blacksmiths with exclusive upgrade paths. You already gate upgrades with embers. All it does is mean that if you can’t find the Catcombs blacksmith (and I would have missed him if I didn’t check the wiki) you can’t put fire damage on your weapons. Other than that it’s just an annoyance of running around trying to figure out which guy adds lightning damage (turns out it’s the Giant, but I somehow missed it in a sweep of the four and had to check the wiki). After you’ve got that memorized it’s just an annoyance of running around to the correct guy. Not to mention that having one blacksmith sitting alone working in a demon and undead infested nightmare land is slightly plausible, but having four is just ridiculous.
Right now I think that’s my least favorite thing about the game.
The blacksmith thing is totally unnecessary, and it makes it easy to overlook the value that a big fire weapon can bring to your arsenal even with a lot of levels in a melee character. More than a few of the harder bosses crumble before a fully upgraded fire zweihander, greatsword, or greataxe, and I’m willing to bet that (&&&( dragon could use a lesson from the electric version of that so I’m building one just for him. Fucker.
Also, they are a good opportunity to use your lock on with the bow to quickly dispatch them, and Blight Town is totally different once you get a fog ring and can just skirt conflict altogether.
I understand the Blacksmith thing, even if it is incredibly frustrating. The designers didn’t want anybody to be able to get lightning gear until you complete the first third of the game. Once you reach the blackie that does lightning upgrades, and it’s a BITCH to get to him, he is ready to upgrade to lightning without having to give him an ember. Lightning stuff is still the best class of damage for a lowish level or first run character, it just annihilates the scaling of other branches until you have at least 35 points or more in the relevant stat.
I understand the progression logic, but I think it’s inferior to simply having an ember at that point that you bring back to the blacksmith. You should be able to bring back “seed” items that allow more things to be sold by him so you don’t have to go through four different steps and a bunch of running around to upgrade a particular weapon. That’s not interesting to me, it just gets in the way. I thought the +5 upgrades being available at bonfires was a great step in the right direction, but I’m not sure why late game/NG+ I’m still running around like an idiot to tune up my gear.
Either way, the ability to obtain late game items has not been effectively gated from determined griefers, and that’s the nature of the beast (go ahead and run around as a human on the way to the Gargoyles as a <20 and get ready to meet some maxed equipment every now and then).
That is really the big failing of the blacksmith gating. If you haven’t already modified to +6 on the normal path, then your in for a 10 minute plus run back to the woods. Of course when you get back to Andre, you realize that you forgot to stock up on large shards, so its back to Anor Londo <eats bullet>
kerzain
1736
Invasions are frustrating. When they happen to me I seem to get killed in one hit, whether I block or roll or run, ir doesn’t matter (I missed my parries the couple times I tried on those encounters). When I try to invade other people, there’s a sword sticking through my chest before I’ve even finished loading the zone and have control of myself.
Everything else about the multiplayer seems really fun though, the co-op (except when we’re invaded and killed in one hit), and the message/ghost system is cool.
Hanacker
1737
One guy bowed to me before he killed me in one hit. I guess that was nice.
Oh, and how do I use gestures on the PS3? It looks like it’s supposed to be associated with tilting your controller but I can’t figure it out.
Press select and the gestures menu comes up. You can have 6 gestures linked to the different SIXAXIS motions that are in that dialog box. Select the motion cue you would like to edit with Triangle and then select the gesture you would like the motion to trigger with X. Then to actually use the gesture, you hold down X in the game, and perform the motion with the SIXAXIS. It will trigger a gesture, probably not the one you want :)
In conclusion, just press Select, pick your gesture, and press X to execute it without doing all the motion hibbidy jibbity. I usually only set bow to a gesture, so I can pull it off quickly without needing to go through the menu.
The Lord Vessel is the key here. Once you have that it’s mostly trivial to travel around (Catacombs blacksmith not included, but hey, that’s the one with the fire upgrade, so it needs to be tough imo).
I don’t find the blacksmith challenges any worse than say, running back to the Capra Demon or the repeated treks into New Londo. Much less worse, as a matter of fact.
The lord vessel doesn’t fix the problem, which is that there are too many steps with no purpose in terms of game challenge in crafting, which is part of the upgrade system still being poorly presented in game so that it requires online explanation not as a cool “discovery” but because it’s messy. So lightning is a regular upgrade through +10, then you need the lightning to get it to +5 which is its max form. This will use regular titanite, and will require different blacksmiths for the modifications. Then fire is a regular upgrade through +5, at which point you need a different titanite to get it +10 after modification gates which (blessedly) require only the one blacksmith. But he’s camped out in Satan’s asshole of a level with no nearby lordvessel access.
It’s not a challenge, it’s busywork while juggling a messy system. It’s probably one of the key reasons why I would never recommend to anyone that they play the game blind, and that’s a shame because they made progress from DS1 but not enough.
In contrast, finding efficient routes to difficult bosses is pretty much a key concept of the game. They can overdo it at times (I think the Ruins pre-water removal can be a bit griefy, and I don’t get the lordvessel/bonfire distribution in the Catacombs/Tomb at all, but nothing to compare to 1-4 and the bonus elevator ride of fuck you in Demon’s Souls).
