Demon's Souls

[DakAttack]

Re: Demon's Souls

I think I just spent about an hour on the dragon god archdemon. Even with the guide, I felt like it was rather unclear as to what I should be doing, but I figured it out. It's even clearer now that I'm done with it.

For some reason, I decided, instead of knocking down the walls myself I'll let the boss do it. Which worked on the top level if I was quick enough, but that back-fired on the bottom level where instead of punching he sets everything on fire. The punch has a crazy area of effect. I first walked in, said 'ooh crystal lizard' and was KO'd by a single punch. At one point he smashed me with his supporting claw. The time right before I finally defeated him, I walked up to his face, swung, and the animation sent me off the ledge beside him. I didn't get angry though, I realized that it would happen to me, if anymore.

You know what I think really killed everybody? I think they all slid across relatively flat geometry and into all the fucking canyons and bottomless pits all over the place. I don't know how many times I've slid down something that I've either walked on before, saw a spirit player walk on, or something that looked flat.

[DakAttack]

Re: Demon's Souls

I just finished up with Old Monk in offline mode. I attempted it three times online, and each time I felt like Atlus' QA department completely overlooked this part of the game.

The first two players didn't defeat me, but the third one did. None of them shouldn't have beaten me, but it seems they all had at least lag on their side. It made the fights extremely difficult, because they were always closer or farther than they looked and could heal without me being able to stop them. The fights became extremely long healing sessions.

None of the enemy players could inflict any real amount of damage. Their magic was always weak, their melee weaker, and their homing soul arrows simply irritating at best. The third player really knew what he was doing, but shouldn't have won anyways. First thing, he casts Anti-Magic Field to block all my magic. Good move, but I have the melee power to make up for it. He attempts a few God's Wraths, but he's never close enough. Next thing I know, he's got me bleeding, poisoned, and plagued, by switching weapons in and out that have different effects. Extremely well done, but it's not enough. After I manage to back stab him, I'm damaged by something as he's laying on the ground. After a little maneuvering, I realize that even with the anti-magic field in effect, the homing soul arrows are still attacking me, and what's worse, they're completely invisible. After a few more minutes, he manages to overwhelm me and kill me.

After that, I unplug the internet and proceed to take the easy way out. He's extremely tame in offline mode.

I'm almost done with the game, only a few more stages and I'm done. I'm not sure if I'll bother continuing with NG+. I think I need to let my blood pressure settle back down for a few days.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Demon's Souls

Atlus USA just translates and publishes games, they have no involvement in the game's other functions.

From Software developed the game in cooperation with Sony, neither of which seemed confidant enough to bring it over to the states, so when gamers expressed interest, Atlus USA picked up the rights to publish in the US and did the localization and published it. Issues that need to be addressed with the game itself are complaints that would need to be taken up with From Software.

But I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say that From Software is probably relatively inexperienced with online games and thinks the people that play their games are perfect little angels that can do no wrong. They're totally wrong, of course, and US gamers will more than prove it.

[DakAttack]

Re: Demon's Souls

My apologies. I'm familiar with From Software through Armored Core, but I'm not up to date on any of the recent iterations. I believe Armored Core might have had online capabilities beginning around a year ago, though.

They released several patches to the game before it ever hit stateside to remove a few exploits from the game, so it isn't just US players that'll exploit everything. So far, every player I've interacted with, good or bad, has played fair. Oddly, the Old Monk battle was the only one I've encountered that kind of lag with, so the experience may chance for others. I've had several players break into my game, and though it does tend to become a heal-off, I always had the opportunity to be precise and overwhelm them.

Just today, I was standing at an archstone waiting for a few souls to recruit, when another player broke into my game. For some reason, he spawned in front of me and proceeded to search ahead of me. I ran up behind him, stabbed him in the back, and tossed him off a cliff. Pretty awesome for me, but I can only imagine how frustrated he was.