Only because I have little else to add to the discusion, Skyrims Dragons are more in line with Wyverns, since they have only four limbs, two legs and two wings (which they can use as fore-legs). Actual dragons (as for as terminoligy goes) have six limbs, four legs and two wings.
As to the actual discussion... yeah, I dont really have one...
Why? Does it matter if no other game does it that way? Doesn't that make it, you know, unique?
But yes, just like pro-easy mode proponents, DS has to behave like every other game - I forgot.
Either way, no thanks. I'm quite happy with what they did.
If you don't like it - go play EVERY FUCKING GAME other than DS and quit whining on this board about how much you hate having options for shielding.
You say, I could just lower my shield - I say you could just lock on.
Again, your arguments are terrible at best and you are obviously only here to tell people how wrong they are and how right you are - just like every other thread you make. Face it, people like the Souls games, can function quite well within the game's pre-determined and finely tuned parameters, enjoy tooling around with various builds strategies far more than you do and no amount of internet whining is going to change that.
Do I even have to link to the Jimquisition talking about Dark Souls' easy mode? Nobody loses if Dark Souls has an easy mode. There's literally a "casual" mode for Bayonetta, that didn't stop one single player from enjoying Bayonetta's combat. I want an actual "hard" mode for the next Dark Souls because the game was so easy.
Because there's a reason no other game does that as it limits you. The lock-on doesn't always work. I got hit in the back so often is I came up to a corner and there was an enemy just around it because the lock-on would work about 50/50 of the time. So I click the lock-on button, proceed backing up, and my fucking character turns around getting hit in the back instead of backpedaling because my character didn't lock-on. That wouldn't be an issue with a simple adjustment to the controls that takes away literally nothing from the player.
It's just like 3rd-person shooters need a shoulder swap. Shield combat needs to let you strafe and backpedal with a shield up, that's why every other game does it that way.
You act like my complaints of Dark Souls are full of shit. Funny that Dark Souls II has adjusted (and hopefully fixed) everything that I said was straight-up broken about it from fire magic needing a stat to enemy AI.
Yeah running into random dragons was real fun in that game. Even the smaller stuff was a good challenge on lower levels, it made for a fun time.
That being said, I can't rightfully give DD any awards for Dragon fighting when this glorious boss exists...
Just feels so good. One person, one giant fucking dragon,, and a big place to fight in. It's a lot less flashy than DD but it feels a whole lot better when you finally win.
See, that fight there just doesn't do it for me. Dragons are among the mightiest of all the creatures of legend, and a fight with a dragon should be legendary in every way. It simply being difficult to defeat is not enough, the battle has to look legendary. The flashiness is essential. You need things like climbing onto the dragon to strike at its weak spots, then hanging on for dear life as it flies into the air and tries to shake you off. The site of the battle must also be epic, like a burning city being ravaged by the mighty beast, or a volcanic mountain range where it makes its lair.
However challenging the battle in that video is (and since it's Dark Souls, it's probably nigh-impossible), it fails to give the impression of what fighting a dragon should really be. The dragon in that video could have been replaced with something else with the same attacks without making a difference in how things played out. A dragon's very presence should be awe-inspiring, its every motion full of both grace and power. You should feel honored that such a magnificent creature would deign to do battle with you, a mere mortal.
EDIT:
Severian said:
Dragon's Dogma is probably one of my all time favorite games. I wouldn't have beaten the original 6 times+ and gotten every achievement otherwise. THIS is a dragon fight of epic proportions and truly how it should be done! Skip to about halfway to get your socks blown off.
Not relevant for the discussion but: Look into some Mods around Skyrim's dragons. There are actually a bunch of very good ones that make dragonfights a lot more interesting. I totally agree tough that vanilla dragons in Skyrim are horrible push-overs.
@Topic
It was mentioned allready, but Dragons Dogma has a great combat system, but everything around it is either "Meh" or varying shades of bad/strange. (Pawns not shutting the fu*k up, all NPCs not shutting the fu*k up ((which is extra upsetting if they have like 2 lines. "MASTERWORKS ALL, YOU CANT GO WRONG")) boring Quests, unfocused storyline and very unrefined mechanics in general, especially fast travel.). This sounds a lot worse than it is, the game is a ton of fun. But the combat system along with the world design is pretty much the single column holding this construct up.
Now, im gonna put my combat rant in spoilers, since some people havent played it yet and i dont wanna spoil the bestiary too much:
I totally agree Phoenix, that combat in Dragons Dogma is fantastic. However, ironically enough i find especially the "wild" dragons the worst to fight, right after a certain alter Enemy (Oh, im getting to those soon, dont worry.).
First of all, the Moveset isnt that gigantic. It has the usual stuff one would expect from dragons, claw and tailswipe, fire breath and grab attacks. Pretty much the only novelty is the brainwashing-thing. Dont get me wrong, the fight itself is awesome. I fought my first drake in the forest outside the Goblin-Fortress, and leaping from a giant boulder onto its wings, to let it crash down to the ground was fu*king legendary. But in terms of pure attacks, its not exactly Bruce Lee in his new found dragon form. The thing that makes the combat one of the worst in the game however, is its health. 9 freaking bars! Seriously, if you're not really overleveled at this point in the game, it takes around 20 minutes to get even half of these things empty, and keep in mind that you are only one instadeath grab-attack away from having to do the fight again from scratch. I got really tired after my first 2 dragon kills. However, since you need the damn things for equipment-improvements, i couldnt really just skip them wihtout loosing out on good loot. So i pretty much started cheesing the fights with my Magic Archer (Letting the Pawns tank while i spam Magic Arrows on its weakspot).
Thats not the only case. The other beasts with serious healt issues are the ogres. Appearantly they're weak to fire and blows to their head or back, but even if your mage actually gathers the 3 brain cells Capcom implanted in every pawn and uses some decent fire magics on the guy, it will take you around 30 minutes to kill one of these dudes early game, and thats not counting his wrestling-moveset, where half of the attacks will two-shot every Class but heavily armored Warriors. It doesnt help that the game makes you fight these dudes exclusively in tight spaces early on.
Last but surely not least, these goddamn Basilisks. Im gonna spoilerception this since its story relevant:
You encounter your first Basilisk in the story, its fought in the main city. The game doesnt warn you that this happens at a certain point, and thus its hard to stack up on items that protect you from putrifying after getting hit by its Gas. And i can guruantee you, this chicken will make you regret every damn healing item you didnt pick along. It spams that goddamn Gasattack like every 10 seconds, and if you cant heal or dodge it, its an instakill.
All in all, the game boasts some really infuriating artifical difficulty, by either plopping unreasonable amounts of health onto the things, giving them unfair status effects, or just plain putting you into situations where you die at least twice before realising that you either miss a bunch of items or you werent supposed to be there yet.
Take the above with a bit of salt, if you look at the game purely on paper it sounds a lot worse than it is. The Combat is solid enough to keep you at it for hours, but there certainly are some issues they could improve for a sequel.
See, that fight there just doesn't do it for me. Dragons are among the mightiest of all the creatures of legend, and a fight with a dragon should be legendary in every way. It simply being difficult to defeat is not enough, the battle has to look legendary. The flashiness is essential. You need things like climbing onto the dragon to strike at its weak spots, then hanging on for dear life as it flies into the air and tries to shake you off. The site of the battle must also be epic, like a burning city being ravaged by the mighty beast, or a volcanic mountain range where it makes its lair.
However challenging the battle in that video is (and since it's Dark Souls, it's probably nigh-impossible), it fails to give the impression of what fighting a dragon should really be. The dragon in that video could have been replaced with something else with the same attacks without making a difference in how things played out. A dragon's very presence should be awe-inspiring, its every motion full of both grace and power. You should feel honored that such a magnificent creature would deign to do battle with you, a mere mortal.
That's exactly my feelings, slashing at a huge beasts legs (dragon or not) should not be how these type of fights play out. I don't feel it has to be "flashy" as I don't consider Shadow of the Colossus to be flashy but it is fucking epic as hell. That's what a fight like that should feel like. A lot of combat systems for games are designed mainly with you fighting things of human size (slightly bigger is fine), but when you apply that combat system to a fight vs something huge, it just doesn't translate well. That is why you have to slash at the creature's legs or whatever. Dark Souls has this issue as do many other games like Kingdoms of Amalur as well, the big fights just don't work out well. Even God of War has the same problem, the QTE animations look great but the actual gameplay of hacking the creature is just weak.
It was mentioned allready, but Dragons Dogma has a great combat system, but everything around it is either "Meh" or varying shades of bad/strange. (Pawns not shutting the fu*k up, all NPCs not shutting the fu*k up ((which is extra upsetting if they have like 2 lines. "MASTERWORKS ALL, YOU CANT GO WRONG")) boring Quests, unfocused storyline and very unrefined mechanics in general, especially fast travel.). This sounds a lot worse than it is, the game is a ton of fun. But the combat system along with the world design is pretty much the single column holding this construct up.
RPGs focus on combat way too much so the weak story and characters aren't that bad if you're mainly fighting. Now if Mass Effect had bad characters and story, then Mass Effect would be a much worse game because you spend so much time not fighting. Games like Dragon's Dogma and Dark Souls, you can really just fight if you want. Hell, I know I spend more time in my fucking inventory in Dragon's Dogma than listening to NPCs.
I didn't read the rest as I'm probably at the halfway point so I don't want anything spoiled, I just visited the Duke and did a few quests from there. Let me know if its cool or not to read through it as I saw when I quoted you that you had a shit of stuff in there.
It was mentioned allready, but Dragons Dogma has a great combat system, but everything around it is either "Meh" or varying shades of bad/strange. (Pawns not shutting the fu*k up, all NPCs not shutting the fu*k up ((which is extra upsetting if they have like 2 lines. "MASTERWORKS ALL, YOU CANT GO WRONG")) boring Quests, unfocused storyline and very unrefined mechanics in general, especially fast travel.). This sounds a lot worse than it is, the game is a ton of fun. But the combat system along with the world design is pretty much the single column holding this construct up.
RPGs focus on combat way too much so the weak story and characters aren't that bad if you're mainly fighting. Now if Mass Effect had bad characters and story, then Mass Effect would be a much worse game because you spend so much time not fighting. Games like Dragon's Dogma and Dark Souls, you can really just fight if you want. Hell, I know I spend more time in my fucking inventory in Dragon's Dogma than listening to NPCs.
I didn't read the rest as I'm probably at the halfway point so I don't want anything spoiled, I just visited the Duke and did a few quests from there. Let me know if its cool or not to read through it as I saw when I quoted you that you had a shit of stuff in there.
Its a double spoiler, dont look at the second spoilered part, since that would cover something you didnt encounter yet. Otherwise it just talks about the dragons you allready mentioned and one Enemy you most likely allready saw.
And long before Dark Souls and Dragon's Dogma there was Yiazmat [http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Yiazmat_%28Final_Fantasy_XII%29] in FF12. I can't think of a single boss (dragon or not) that is a more gruelling fight, you were doing incredibly well if this fight was over in less than an hour and a half.
I'm still yet to play DD (it's part of a ridiculously long back catalogue) but one of my favourite dragon fights was actually from Skyrim
against Alduin at the end, almost purely for the setting (Sovngarde). The gameplay may not have been as good as other games but I've never had a more visually incredible dragon fight in a game that I can remember.
Yeah running into random dragons was real fun in that game. Even the smaller stuff was a good challenge on lower levels, it made for a fun time.
That being said, I can't rightfully give DD any awards for Dragon fighting when this glorious boss exists...
Just feels so good. One person, one giant fucking dragon,, and a big place to fight in. It's a lot less flashy than DD but it feels a whole lot better when you finally win.
Kalameet's fight itself wasn't nearly as hard as I was led to believe, but I really wanted the sword you get from cutting his tail. There are on a few openings where you can reach his tail with melee weapons, because it will always be too high for you to reach or he'll turn too fast to face you. I finally got lucky, one time when he sat down to do his laser attack I ran behind him and blindfired a crystal soul spear and it cut his tail off.
Dark Souls is such a thrilling game, and I can't wait for the sequel.
I like Dragons Dogma (One of the few games i have a platinum trophy for) but I didn't really like how you just sort of run out of enemies that are a challenge eventually. For example my first fight against the drake involved an epic battle over a full day night cycle whereas the most recent involved me killing it within thirty seconds.
Personally I prefer MH where even at high level monsters can still tear you apart if your having a bad day or on a good day you can defeat a monster that had been giving you trouble without taking a scratch. It just feels more natural than just having a set of stats.
That said it is nice to be able to crush enemies that gave you trouble a few hours ago under your foot almost without noticing.
Dragon's Dogma's Ur-Dragon fight is really cool. Fighting with Arisens from all over the world to take it down in tandem is a great idea from a design perspective.
Combat failed you say? I guess thats why people still play it, opening up new ideas and setups with what the game has for people to utilize no matter how unviable they seem.
Wait you're comparing Dark Souls the video game to Transformers the movie?
Sorry I had to go lay down....
My point is people enjoy the combat for what it is, what they can make of it. From succeeded in what THEY were going for not what YOU wanted.
Saying its FACT that they failed is dumb. In your OPNION you just don't like it, you like DD's different approach at combat, go play DD!
There, have to go lie down again.
And long before Dark Souls and Dragon's Dogma there was Yiazmat [http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Yiazmat_%28Final_Fantasy_XII%29] in FF12. I can't think of a single boss (dragon or not) that is a more gruelling fight, you were doing incredibly well if this fight was over in less than an hour and a half.
I have one friend that actually did the fight. I got bored of the game before I got to Yiazmat (I did like 40 hunts maybe). From what he said and what I read about the fight, I really had no interest in doing the fight as it's just long. I read that you can beat Yiazmat as level 1 due there being a save point right there; of course, it would take forever.
Spacewolf said:
I like Dragons Dogma (One of the few games i have a platinum trophy for) but I didn't really like how you just sort of run out of enemies that are a challenge eventually. For example my first fight against the drake involved an epic battle over a full day night cycle whereas the most recent involved me killing it within thirty seconds.
Personally I prefer MH where even at high level monsters can still tear you apart if your having a bad day or on a good day you can defeat a monster that had been giving you trouble without taking a scratch. It just feels more natural than just having a set of stats.
That said it is nice to be able to crush enemies that gave you trouble a few hours ago under your foot almost without noticing.
That's mainly a scaling issue, which so many RPGs have. I wish the damage you can do stayed relatively the same over the course of RPGs and you leveled up gaining new skills or abilities, which is what makes you stronger. Yeah, at the start you can only shoot one arrow at a time that does 50 damage but then you get the skill to shoot 10 arrows at once. Damage increase, for example, is so ridiculous in Borderlands making enemies just a few levels higher than you such bullet sponges while enemies a few levels below you are jokes. Or I think more games should use a level system that just goes up to 20 so you can never be so ridiculously strong against the game's toughest foes.
Xcell935 said:
Phoenixmgs said:
Xcell935 said:
Combat failed you say? I guess thats why people still play it, opening up new ideas and setups with what the game has for people to utilize no matter how unviable they seem.
Wait you're comparing Dark Souls the video game to Transformers the movie?
Sorry I had to go lay down....
My point is people enjoy the combat for what it is, what they can make of it. From succeeded in what THEY were going for not what YOU wanted.
Saying its FACT that they failed is dumb. In your OPNION you just don't like it, you like DD's different approach at combat, go play DD!
There, have to go lie down again.
My point was that you can't prove a game is good by the amount of people that play it, much like the movie that makes the most money is not the best movie of the year.
I have listed so many issues with Dark Souls that are just true about the game. It seems From has fixed everything I said was broken about the game with DS2 from what people have said of the beta. If From didn't think those things were broken (or at least needed fixing) then why would they fix them? It's hard to say From succeeded when they have fixed so many things; wouldn't they just be refining instead of fixing if they succeeded? I require solid RPG mechanics from an RPG and DS failed heavily in that regard. There's so many basic things wrong with DS that should not even have made it out of the conceptual/design phase (like an unlimited inventory) let alone in the game and DS is not the 1st game but the 2nd game. So, I don't have much confidence in From making a solid RPG, maybe they can now with a different director.
It's very much like I don't have any confidence in Naughty Dog making a solid 3rd-person shooter because they have failed 4 times now with implementing proper TPS mechanics into their shooters. Do people enjoy and still play Uncharted and The Last of Us? Sure, but they have very definite shortcomings with regards to their mechanics. You can't even change the fucking camera sensitivity in those games (and the camera is sluggish as hell), which was what you fucking aim with in a TPS.
I may indeed be too harsh on DS but others are blind to the game's flaws or fail to admit they are there.
Oh god the more you go on and on about this game the more it becomes readily apparent that you have absolutely zero clue what you're talking about. Can you please refrain from making any more statements about Dark Souls that you haven't thoroughly researched? That would be really helpful.
If you can have a mage use his magic stat for melee combat, what would be the point of playing just a melee fighter when you can both fight and use magic really well as a mage? It's not about DnD but simple balance issues.
To me, climbing onto a gigantic creature to attack its weak spots is flashy. It's extremely dangerous, probably unnecessary if you have a ranged weapon, and incredibly awesome looking.
But now that it's no longer 3am where I am, I'd like to go back to comparing those two videos from my previous post: the battle with Kalameet in Dark Souls, and the final boss battle of Dragon's Dogma. Keep in mind that I have never played either game, and am only addressing how the battles look. I will spoiler each section to avoid walls of text. Also, since the Dragon's Dogma video is the final boss fight, there could be some actual spoilers in here.
I greatly prefer the look of the Dragon's Dogma dragon, Grigori, over Kalameet's. Grigori's design is much simpler, but oftentimes simpler is better. Kalameet is this big, black, spiky... thing with a weird glowy bit on his forehead. His horns are too long, his snout is too narrow, and I can't even see his eyes. I'm not overly fond of the design of Grigori's head either, his mouth is a little bit too big and his eyes are too small, but the design is better than Kalameet's. What I'd like to draw particular attention to, though, are the dragons' respective wings. Kalameet's are far too small and bony, they don't even look like he could glide with them, let alone fly. Grigori's wings, on the other hand, look like proper dragon wings. Perhaps a few too many alar phalanges, but they seem big enough to support his weight. Furthermore, they look properly intimidating. If this dude flew overhead, his wingspan would block out the sun. And as a final note, I must say that I really dig the whole "glowing maw" thing that Grigori has going on. You can see the fire lurking in his gullet whenever he opens his mouth.
The battle with Kalameet takes place in a damp hole in the ground. That's it, just this big sinkhole with a bunch of puddles, it's boring. The site where Grigori is fought, however, is fantastic. The ruins of a mountaintop keep, soaring high above the clouds, and ending in a volcanic wasteland. The middle section, in particular, is my favorite, the large outdoors area with the ruined towers and bridges above a deep chasm and ringed by mountains. This is the sort of large, open area where a dragon would be the most dangerous, able to soar overhead and rain dragonfire upon you. The final area is sort of meh, but the crater of a dormant volcano is more open and interesting to look at than the sinkhole where Kalameet is fought.
The fight with Kalameet is just a simple slugfest from beginning to end. The player smacks at his shins while avoiding or blocking his attacks until the battle is won. There is no variation to this formula throughout the entirety of the fight. Meanwhile, the battle with Grigori is a far more visually interesting multi-stage affair. I could do without the "chased through a corridor" and "head stuck in a doorway" bits, but things pick up after that. The player races through the ruins, across crumbling bridges and up aging towers, while desperately trying to avoid a rain of dragonfire. Atop the last tower, the player comes across some balistae that he can use to strike back against his foe. Next the player finds himself on Grigori's back, hanging on for dear life as the dragon flies higher and higher while trying to shake him off. Then some weird glowy stuff that I don't understand happens and they both fall to the ground. After the two impossibly survive the plummet, the player's friends inexplicably show up (teleportation magic?) and the final stage begins. While this part is similar in style to the Kalameet battle, it's more interesting to watch since the player has to strike at Grigori's weak spot to damage him instead of simply hacking at his shins over and over. I really have to complain about the player's allies, though. They show up out of nowhere for no reason that I can discern, and spend the entire time shouting stupid, obvious advice. I know that they're a core part of the game, but this really seems like it should be a one on one, mano e draco battle, especially given the lines that Grigori is saying to the player. Which reminds me, I really like how Grigori is taunting the player throughout the whole battle, dragons should be proud creatures that look down on all other beings and let them know it.
What exactly have they fixed? The games are still very much similar. They've changed the UI, they've added a penalty for death, made it so you can get invaded all the time, reworked a bunch of various stats, added heal over time consumables and consumables that replenish some of your spellcasts, which indicate a different direction with spell usage. Were those the things you thought were broken?
I believe how well your armor actually works now scales with Resistance, so any build that wants to go armor heavy will now require investment into Resistance to make it worth it.
Phoenixmgs said:
Items (like the Wolf Ring) allowing builds to do things that a certain build shouldn't be able to do.
Can't say for sure if there will still be some absurd rings in the game or not, but they are putting a strength requirement on heavy armor now, which means you won't for example see dexterity build running around in absurdly heavy armor because their endurance let them do so anyway. And endurance no longer gives equip load, this is instead handled by a different stat, which exclusively raises your equip load. So they are really forcing you to invest in stats to use high-level equipment.
Phoenixmgs said:
Being able to put an element on a weapon thereby negating the need for stat investment.
All upgrade paths now scale with certain stats, so lightning scales with faith, and fire with intelligence. As far as I know there will no longer be any overpowered at low levels, underpowered at high levels, way of upgrading your weapons.
Phoenixmgs said:
- Give the enemy somewhat decent AI. I shouldn't be able to circle strafe an enemy for a backstab. Why is Dark Souls like the only game that allows you to hit an enemy in a group with an arrow and only that enemy comes to you?
Judging by reports of people who have played the beta, the AI seems to be far more aggressive. It is far harder to get behind your enemy, many enemies have attack which they will use if they sense you are behind them, they have a tendency to attack you in groups and follow each other, and will also follow you much further and aggressively if you run away.
I hope I put of your fears to rest. I don't agree with all of your criticisms, but I also found all the mentioned things worthy of improvement, and it seems as though they are doing so...Hurray!
To me, climbing onto a gigantic creature to attack its weak spots is flashy. It's extremely dangerous, probably unnecessary if you have a ranged weapon, and incredibly awesome looking.
The fight with Kalameet is just a simple slugfest from beginning to end. The player smacks at his shins while avoiding or blocking his attacks until the battle is won.
I don't see climbing a huge creature flashy, but just a necessity. You have to get to its weak spots and sometimes climbing is the only way. Either do that or don't fight it. Shadow of the Colossus would be so bad if you could hit the Colossi with 100s of arrows to defeat them.
That's the exact problem I have with most big fight in games. I've said this so much but hitting a dragon over and over again in the legs is just not the way to beat a dragon and not satisfying either.
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