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[Culise]

Max health reduction on death = will not play until reviews

Funny.  To me, it looks like a step back to its roots in Demon's Souls.  The optimum way to play through that game was to play in Soul Form (World Tendency shifted to Black every time you died in Body Form in that world, making the level even harder on top of reverting you to Soul Form), which locked you to only half of your HP, and getting back into Body Form and full HP was itself a tricky thing to accomplish since you only accomplished it through defeating bosses, taking advantage of multiplayer (either helping them defeat a Demon or invading and killing them), or rare items.  A gradual loss of humanity/maximum HP seems quite mild by comparison.

I am so tired of listening to people whine about Dark Souls II looking too hard. It's a Souls game. High difficulty is one of the primary defining features of the experience. I'm just glad that From actually wasn't listening to the people who don't understand this, as was feared earlier on.

If you don't like it, then either don't play it or get good.

Eh, I wouldn't put in quite those terms.  I can understand complaints about artificial difficulty, after all, but really, I haven't seen much of that in the Souls games.  Except for being unable to aim spells or crossbows at a distance beyond target locks.  Really, what's up with that?  What if I don't want to have to carry a bow with me just to aim? >_<

EDIT: Ah, you already said that's what you hated about Demon's Souls.  Ah, well, to each their own.  Don't think of it as a loss of half of your HP in Soul Form; think of it as a bonus of twice your HP in Body Form.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Eh, I wouldn't put in quite those terms.  I can understand complaints about artificial difficulty, after all, but really, I haven't seen much of that in the Souls games.

Artificial difficulty, you say?

Except for being unable to aim spells or crossbows at a distance beyond target locks.  Really, what's up with that?  What if I don't want to have to carry a bow with me just to aim? >_<

Boy, have I got some good news for you!

[Culise]

Except for being unable to aim spells or crossbows at a distance beyond target locks.  Really, what's up with that?  What if I don't want to have to carry a bow with me just to aim? >_<

Boy, have I got some good news for you!

Normally, I don't watch video (p)reviews, but that promise...well, if I wasn't still unsure about the game, I would definitely be certain after.  In both of the previous games, my first build always prioritized sorcery.  Being able to not only pull that off, but go primary sorcery is going to be so much fun. :3

Though, I'm still a little leery on the increased invasion rates.  I'm very, very much a single-player person.  Well, that's what offline play exists for. ^_^

[nenjin]

My only gripe about difficulty in DS was putting difficult monsters right before a difficult boss fight. After your 10th or 15th time killing them and getting to the boss weaker than max strength, you begin to hate the developer logic that said "The bar on this boss is pretty high. Let's raise it even higher by weakening the player before they get there."

The monsters usually aren't tough but just like everything else in DS, you get penalized for a momentary lapse of concentration. And when you've been trying to do the fight for 4 hours...having to execute AGAIN against these stupid guardian mobs does get irritating. The first couple of times, fine. The 5th time? Fuck off.

[majikero]

I'm pretty sure by the 3rd time, you can easily clear out the mobs before a lapse in judgement or concentration kills you.

[WillowLuman]

ninja'd 2x

Dark Souls is good. The PvP has some major problems, but I think it had difficulty down solidly. Any deaths in the game are your fault in some way, and once you get good, you won't die constantly in PvE. Loss of souls, which are needed to get stronger, and of the ability to call for help were good incentives to avoid dying. It was a massive improvement over Demon's Souls.

Here's why reducing your Max Health on death is just bad design. If you half someone's health for dying, and don't allow it back until they beat the thing they died from, they just become more likely to fail. And since you can be invaded while hollow, someone who dies once is likely to just get camped by invaders who they can't beat because they have twice as much health. It's not a case of LOL U WNIY NUEB GTFO I TOO LEET HARDCORE 4 U, it means that to progress through the game at all you have to already be a master of the game. You can't keep doing something until you learn to get it right, because every time you fail it gets twice as hard. The end result is not fun, but frustration.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

That might be a legitimate argument if it was at all how the game worked. You lose 10% health on death, up to 50% loss. You can regain this by burning human effigies. Anyway, the health reduction isn't an insurmountable obstacle. There are even common non-estus healing items now. It's more than doable. It's almost too easy, really.

[Sindain]

Here's why reducing your Max Health on death is just bad design. If you half someone's health for dying, and don't allow it back until they beat the thing they died from, they just become more likely to fail. And since you can be invaded while hollow, someone who dies once is likely to just get camped by invaders who they can't beat because they have twice as much health.

Isn't that kind of the point? To actually penalize people for dying? I mean, there's really not much to penalize with and not make the game harder in the process. Unless you introduce hats or something, I guess.

Also, I think people should probably stop complaining about the invasions during hollow until we know how they work...
Its possible that the chance of getting invaded while hollow is very small, and even if it isn't, the whole "camping" thing probably isn't going to happen very often. Because of what I know about Souls PvP tells me that all the PvP is probably going to be concentrated in one or two areas, like it was in both DaS and Demon's Souls. Though to be fair, this could also mean that you might have to arm up with a small army of allied phantoms just to make it through said areas >.>.

[WillowLuman]

That might be a legitimate argument if it was at all how the game worked. You lose 10% health on death, up to 50% loss. You can regain this by burning human effigies. Anyway, the health reduction isn't an insurmountable obstacle. There are even common non-estus healing items now. It's more than doable. It's almost too easy, really.

Except you still progressively lose Health every time you die, and human effigies are a limited resource. I'll have to see just how limited, but if it's like Humanities in DS1 without the DLC, then this will turn into league of legends in terms of accessibility to new players.

Making someone increasingly more likely to die as punishment for death is just plain stupid. Loss of all money/xp, phantoms, and status effects is plenty motivation to avoid death.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

That might be a legitimate argument if it was at all how the game worked. You lose 10% health on death, up to 50% loss. You can regain this by burning human effigies. Anyway, the health reduction isn't an insurmountable obstacle. There are even common non-estus healing items now. It's more than doable. It's almost too easy, really.

Except you still progressively lose Health every time you die, and human effigies are a limited resource. I'll have to see just how limited, but if it's like Humanities in DS1 without the DLC, then this will turn into league of legends in terms of accessibility to new players.

Making someone increasingly more likely to die as punishment for death is just plain stupid. Loss of all money/xp, phantoms, and status effects is plenty motivation to avoid death.

No it isn't. It's 50% at worst. That's not even that bad. You are over-reacting. As I said before, anybody who isn't willing to rise to the challenge of Dark Souls should stay away from Dark Souls. It has never been about accessibility and never should be. There are plenty enough casual games on the market for those who dislike a trial.

Edit: And furthermore, what are you even on about with motivation to avoid death? All of those things are going to make you more likely to die. There's a lot more factors going on than health. In a game like this, any penalty for death is going to make you more likely to die, as it should. If you fuck up, you have to deal with the consequences.

[nenjin]

That might be a legitimate argument if it was at all how the game worked. You lose 10% health on death, up to 50% loss. You can regain this by burning human effigies. Anyway, the health reduction isn't an insurmountable obstacle. There are even common non-estus healing items now. It's more than doable. It's almost too easy, really.

Except you still progressively lose Health every time you die, and human effigies are a limited resource. I'll have to see just how limited, but if it's like Humanities in DS1 without the DLC, then this will turn into league of legends in terms of accessibility to new players.

Making someone increasingly more likely to die as punishment for death is just plain stupid. Loss of all money/xp, phantoms, and status effects is plenty motivation to avoid death.

No it isn't. It's 50% at worst. That's not even that bad. You are over-reacting. As I said before, anybody who isn't willing to rise to the challenge of Dark Souls should stay away from Dark Souls. It has never been about accessibility and never should be. There are plenty enough casual games on the market for those who dislike a trial.

No offense dude, but you're coming off like an elitist dick. This isn't the Candy Crush forums. People can like Dark Souls and wish it were different without conforming to your "Hardcore or fuck you" dichotomy.

I get you're defensive about the kind of game play you like. You don't need to be a jerk about it.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

All I'm saying is that this is silly. There are certain types of games for certain experiences. The Souls series has always been on that far end of difficulty that makes it low accessibility by default. I'm not saying less hardcore things are bad by default, but that is not the essence of this series. It's going to be really hard, and will fuck you over if it can. You're going to have to put in more effort than with most games to get into it. I don't know why anybody was expecting anything different.

[nogoodnames]

Having played the Beta during the open network test, I'll say that I barely even noticed the health reduction, and I wasn't trying particularly hard to preserve my humanity.

I for one welcome an increased penalty for death. It`s far too easy in dark souls to just rest at the nearest bonfire and do suicide runs to grab items or beat bosses.

[WillowLuman]

ninja'd several times.

No it isn't. It's 50% at worst. That's not even that bad. You are over-reacting. As I said before, anybody who isn't willing to rise to the challenge of Dark Souls should stay away from Dark Souls. It has never been about accessibility and never should be. There are plenty enough casual games on the market for those who dislike a trial.

I'd appreciate it if you didn't talk like a condescending elitist. I've beaten DS at least 4 times now, even with a punch-only pants-only build. Fun in hardcore games should come from learning to master them, not from "ooh look at the body count." Sure, every mistake will increase that body count, but this seems inflationary.

Having played the Beta during the open network test, I'll say that I barely even noticed the health reduction, and I wasn't trying particularly hard to preserve my humanity.

I for one welcome an increased penalty for death. It`s far too easy in dark souls to just rest at the nearest bonfire and do suicide runs to grab items or beat bosses.

This is more meaningful. I'm still afraid it might be a step backwards into Demon's Souls, though. I guess I'll have to wait and see.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'd appreciate it if you didn't talk like a condescending elitist. I've beaten DS at least 4 times now, even with a punch-only pants-only build.

If that's the case, I'm wondering what your issue with the game is. Why in the world would you refuse to play until after reviews over a single mechanic if you know you can get past it?

Fun in hardcore games should come from learning to master them, not from "ooh look at the body count." Sure, every mistake will increase that body count, but this seems inflationary.

But that is what this does. It requires you to get better in response to dying. It isn't inflationary, it's incentive. There's got to be some kind of real cost to dying or the player won't put much effort into avoiding it.