Dark souls 2: Wishlist

Story
I would like for there to be a little more to the main story line. You have an awesome intro weaving an awesome start to a story, and then that's it. You have all these areas with no real story to them, and if there is story it takes hours of research and discussion to even guess at it. And the 20 second ending is a huge dissapointment in terms of story. I wouldn't mind there still being some obscurity to finding out certain parts of the story, but I don't want the entire story to be drowned in obscurity. Especially the ringing the bells part, they could have added a lot more to that but instead it's just a quick cut scene of an ogre opening a gate, they could have at least tied in the boss or some enemies.

I want more out of the NPC's. It seems like almost all of them have like 2-3 minutes of content and that's it. I like how a lot of them have storylines that arn't neccessarily part of the main story line and they're doing thier own thing, but I would like more then a few lines and a mediocre reward item. And more interaction, other then Patches you don't have much interaction other then listening to thier lines. Maybe some more in-depth sidequests, 2 npc's feuding and trying to get you to take sides would be cool.

Some story to the differnt areas of the game would be cool. Like the huge church in the parish, it's really cool but you learn nothing about it. Or some lore about the tomb of giants. I'd be happy with some a few passages in a book or on a wall or something you can read and at least find out a little bit about significant areas. Or at the very least it would add a little bit of atmosphere to an area.

Gameplay
All weapons should have at least 3 moves. I love battle axes, but having one move really ruined it for me in DkS. I also want to see the power of the base weapons be more leveled. I like to use the weapons you don't see in other games as much, but it seems like a lot of them are underpowered compared to the more popular swords and spears with no advantages to level the playing field. Like the claws. They made it a lot better with DkS, but it's still there. I want all the base weapons to be usable without feeling like I'm disadvantaged using them. And I want more special weapons that arn't swords. And the item weapons need fixed, the knives are worthless after the burg, and firebombs are towards the end of the game.

I would like to see the blacksmithing expanded upon. While I enjoy upgrading stuff, I would like to be able to customize my upgrading a little bit more instead of just picking one path and being stuck on it. Like being able to make your weapon faster while sacrificing some damage or adding one part fire damage and one part bleed damage. And in all honesty, how is this the only game in the world that has elemental magic with no opposite? How do you have fire with no ice?

I would like to see the leveling system changed. I like how you have to pay for levels, but I hate how it forces you to specialize to have a solid character. While I'm generally a strength/dexterity guy, I would like to have access to some magic and have it actually be useful in the later levels. I did like how pyromancy gave you the option to have access to some magic while still being able to focus on strength or dexterity. I think an awesome idea would be some magic spells leveled to other stats, like some strength or dexterity or vitality magic.

I would love to see the option of difficulty levels. That way you can ease in the new or not so good players, and give the veterans more of a challenge. I often feel like I would like to bump up the difficulty at times, especially the speed and aggro level of enemies. I just seem to fly through the first and second play through now. I know you can do "challenges" and stuff to make it harder, but I want that challenge of doing everything I can with the full assortment of gear just to squeek by. And while NG+ and all that helps, it takes quite awhile to get to NG or NG+, it would be just as easy for them to have a difficulty level selection without compromising the game.

I want more atmosphere. Demon souls had a lot of atmosphere, and there was actually stuff going on. You had miners in the mines, guards patrolling a prison full or prisoners, soliders guarding a castle. While I enjoy the world of DkS, a lot of areas don't seem to have much atmosphere. It seems like almost everybody and every enemy in the game is just sitting around in some area waiting on you to get there.

Online
Backstabbing should be limited to daggers. That way you can still have the sneak aspect available, but it will help prevent 75% of PvP being a strafing match to see who can lag behind who for a backstab first. I hate it when I'm owning somebody and almost have them finished off and they manage to back stab me with a full sized weapon and take 3/4's of my health in one move because my game lagged or I was momentarily distracted by an enemy. Or maybe have a ring that reduces 1/2 your health but allows backstabbing. Point is, I thing backstabbing is way to overpowered in pvp.

I liked the idea of the covenants, but I would like to see more out of them. I feel like if they cut down on the number of covenants and focused more on thier content and interaction they would work better. It seems like several of them were kind of redundant, and that others are basically side quests or just another way to pvp. I would like to see some feuds between covenants, and for them to have a little more to thier purpose and for them to have more affect on the game itself. Other then online pvp none of them really have any affect on the game itself.

Every weapon has 8 moves. 1hr1, 1hr2, 1hroll attack, 1h running attack, 2hr1, 2hr2, 2hroll attack, 2h running attack

If backstabbing is limited to daggers, how will anyone punish mages?

Snuggles: just because you think a weapon should be stronger, it doesn't mean it actually would be in real life.

Claws vs a Katana for example. The claws have multiple blades, which means any force you put in to an attack is spread out between each blade(it's why multi-blade razors are safer than single-blade ones, and why it's possible to stand on nails if there's enough of them). Because of the way they're held, it's also harder to get good leverage and therefore exert less force. A katana on the other hand only has 1 point of impact, which when combined with better leverage gives it better cutting power.

At least I'm pretty sure that's how it works.

Snuggles wrote:*Snip*

I pretty much agree with all your points.

More well told story, rather then a pile of text windows.

Backstabs limited to the smallest of weapons.

More NPC's to make it feel like a world rather then just hollow rooms with enemies waiting for you like you are the most important thing in the universe.

More variety in weapons, because pretty much all players use the same weapons unless they are trying to be themed or doing a challenge run and that's just not interesting when you are forced to use 1 or 2 weapons to just play smart.

More variety in upgrades is a good thing to, I want to see elemental armours!


Only thing I disagree with is the convents being reduced. The nine represent the 9 alignments you can follow. My only change would be allowing the player to pick an alignment at the start and get a variety of buffs and debuffs for each option.

Again, how then to you intend to stop me having 30 wog casts or 80 gcs and just spaming it until you die. Most builds wouldn't be able to bs me to stop it and piviot canceling would severely hamper those that could.

Forum Pirate wrote:Again, how then to you intend to stop me having 30 wog casts or 80 gcs and just spaming it until you die. Most builds wouldn't be able to bs me to stop it and piviot canceling would severely hamper those that could.

Well thats easy then, I have a spare dagger in off-hand for one.

Or then I would question how you managed to get to NG+6 at only level 70 in the first place.

With wog dealing 1200 damage per cast and emit force 800 (which they can) its not too difficult, the NGs after NG+ are actually easier because I have more casts of the damage spells.

So every build has to have an offhand dagger? That costs a weapon slot, does like no damage on builds without dex and is what is called centeralising. When every build has to have a specific weapon/item/spell to deal with 1 thing, the thing that requires the response is called a broken element. Broken elements are, well, broken. They're way overpowered. The fixes to broken elements are to remove them or to increase the number of ways to deal with them.

The bsing is a mechanic designed, in part, to deal with mages by providing a way to punish the faster spells. By removing it except for in daggers you make mages entirely to powerful. By removing faster spells, you make mages useless. Thus logic dictates the mechanic must stay or magic must go.

Forum Pirate wrote:With wog dealing 1200 damage per cast and emit force 800 (which they can) its not too difficult, the NGs after NG+ are actually easier because I have more casts of the damage spells.

So every build has to have an offhand dagger? That costs a weapon slot, does like no damage on builds without dex and is what is called centeralising. When every build has to have a specific weapon/item/spell to deal with 1 thing, the thing that requires the response is called a broken element. Broken elements are, well, broken. They're way overpowered. The fixes to broken elements are to remove them or to increase the number of ways to deal with them.

The bsing is a mechanic designed, in part, to deal with mages by providing a way to punish the faster spells. By removing it except for in daggers you make mages entirely to powerful. By removing faster spells, you make mages useless. Thus logic dictates the mechanic must stay or magic must go.

Magic should go.

I like to consider my post to be more of a brainstorming session then solid design elements. While I think several of my ideas have some serious merit, they are definately in need of work on how to implement them. I enjoy the Souls series, but I also like change, and any sequel has room for improvment.

And while I find any arguments relating to the realisticness of stuff to have a certain amount a validity, this is a video game where you can wield an axe as big as yourself and fight dragons and use magic.


While I don't think that the story needs spelled out every step of the way, I still want to see some more story. The intro weaves such an interesting story, and then from there it's all vague connections and obscure clues that require weeks of debate on a message board to connect. And especially the ending, it was so disappointingly short. I think putting a little more into the main story and then leaving stuff like lore and NPC's and certain area's as having more obscure stories would be fun. Even just small stuff, like statues having names on them or paintings on the wall that are connected to something from the story. Like a book that has a passage or 2 about the capra demon, or some passages on the gravestone of artorias.

As far as weapons go, my main concern is usability and variety. If you're going to put metal claws or a whip in a game, make them worth using or at least good enough to get by with. And somebody who would be using claws or whip in battle would most likely be very skilled with them. I was totally stoked on making a fire whip, but the result was decidingly mediocre. And a lot of weapons are killed by thier lack of moves in thier moveset. My main example being the battleaxe, it's very repetitive and unflowing chop motion just make it not fun to play with. Demon's souls battle axe had a 2-3 moveset that was rather fluid, and the long sword in DkS is rather fluid even when it goes from the last move back into the first. And scaling kills a lot of weapons to. As much as scaling makes a weapon, it kind of pushes you to use the few weapons with a or s scaling. I honestly feel like scaling hurts the game in certain ways, but at the same time it's part of what makes the series what it is and I wouldn't even try to replace it.
They also need to make dual wielding better. I'm not sure why they insist on making the left hand the designated shield hand. Why can't they just assign shield commands to the shields, since the shields don't really have an attack function? Of course there would need to be some limitation to what you could dual wield, since two great axes would be a little overpowered, but 2 longswords would be cool, or 2 katanas. It would obviously need a lot of work, but it's the one thing I've heard people talk about the most.

As far as magic goes, I just want to be able to build my warrior character but still have the ability to use some magic. Kind of like what they did with Pyromancy. And depending on the kind of magic and how it was scaled, I don't see why you couldn't have a strength or dexterity magic. It would obviously be a limited selection and you wouldn't be able to rely soley on it like a mage. And I don't see how any spell would be any more powerful then one leveled up with intelligence scaling.

As far as elements, I don't need 10 of them, I would just like to see them have a little more connection to the world. I understand the fire from the intro, but I don't really see the connection to lightening. And there's no area in the game that really favors one or the other. I sort of like how a faith weapon helps you out in the catacombs, but thats about the only place you see any real connection to the elements or beliefs in the game. I know it would kind of kill the specialization many people enjoy in the game

Backstabbing is entirely overused and rediculously overpowered. Parrying and riposte don't bother me, they require timing and have limitations. But backstabbing has no limitations and no timing. My favorite part of the souls series is the combat, and I think the online aspect of Souls is great, but when half my pvp's are me holding my shield up and being unable to make any moves because the second I swing my weapon I'll get backstabbed for 3/4's my health just doesn't seem like it's enriching my game play or solving any issues. And I don't see the realisticness of it, hitting somebody in the back with a sword does 50% more damage then hitting them in the chest? And maybe it's a new thing I just havn't ran into or I just don't see the issue, but I never felt like I needed a backstab to defeat a mage. I just assume that avoiding thier spells was considered part of pvp skill.

As far as covenants go, I don't want them to be required to finish the game, I would just like more to them then getting a few levels and a reward item or 2. Some covenants that are sworn enemies would be fun, or joining a certain covenants makes certain types of enemies your allies, like a covenant that made the random black knights your allies. And I think in thier current form there are to many covenants doing basically the same thing. It seems like half of them make co-op easier, and the other half are for invading. Do you really need the way of the white, the princess guard, and the sunlight warriors? I feel like the sunlight warriors could have covered all 3.

Not a really big thing, but I hope they make the co-op specific covenant, should it exist, not make your phantom so damn bright. It hurts my eyes lol.

The "intro" so to speak when you get summoned kinda bugs me too, it's just not my style.

I'm not really worried about the claws specifically, they're just a weapon I have rarely seen in pvp. I loved the whip just because I've never seen it in another game and thought it would be cool to use.

Aa far as the magic, you have weapons that scale with faith and magic, and yet they don't quite match up to a strength build's weapons. It'd be the same thing, a strength magic would not be as strong as a intelligence scaled magic. I'm not really even worried about using the type of stuff I want in pvp, more for pve applications. They wouldn't even have to necessarily be an attack magic.

Try Castlevania Lords of Shadow, pretty good game.

Sloth9230 wrote:Try Castlevania Lords of Shadow, pretty good God of War clone.

Personally I hated that game. They need to make a console sidescroller again like they did for the Nintendo DS. Those games were just like Symphony of the Night and wonderful.

I'd say it was more of a DMC clone. Could you move the camera? I forget. I see no reason why they can't continue to make both types of games, though they should release mirror of fate on PSN or for the VITA/PSP :evil: I have a 3ds, but I prefer playing games from the same series on the same system.

Anyway, I'm sure someone already mentioned this but: Bring back the sorting system from Demon's Souls!

Acarnatia wrote:On the evolving weapons idea-while I actually adore evolving weapons, (Dark Cloud was awesome) it really just doesn't fit for the Dark setting. Furthermore, I think that will be too difficult to balance if not all weapons have that option. While I think it's a great idea, I think it will not work for Dark Souls 2.

It might not fit the DS universe but man the more I think about it the more I'd like to see it. I always thought they lost a good chance to do something great with the broken straight sword upgrading to the GSoA. What if you would have had to actually use the broken straight sword for a while XD Seems like a good way to add organic difficulty to me =) and it would have made equiping the GSoA that much sweeter.

On the issue of realistic applications of weapons: It's really kind of a moot point and something Snuggles even addressed in his post.

Snuggles wrote:
And while I find any arguments relating to the realisticness of stuff to have a certain amount a validity, this is a video game where you can wield an axe as big as yourself and fight dragons and use magic.

And while I realize there is a sense of "realism" to the Souls series and it's a big part of what makes it great, also consider the example he used of a fire whip.

A whip may not be a particularly effective or lethal weapon, but would a whip imbued with the fire of power be? You can't say because it doesn't exist.

If I had a normal sword, a sword that sets you on fire, and a sword that sends electricity through your body there would be no question as to which is the worst of the 3. But we know that same logic doesn't necessarily hold true in the Souls universe. What is a +15 weapon anyways? It's a nonsensical question because it doesn't exist. So any speculation as to what weapons would be most effective IRL is pointless. And is ultimately mostly a result of moveset and scaling as pointed out with the example of battleaxes.

Ok, here's one; Ethereal Ember

Ascends a +5 weapon into an Ethereal Weapon

Ethereal weapons have no scaling, but ignore sheilds and half of the armor value of the target. An +5 Ethereal Claymore would deal 257 damage (same as a +15 Claymore without Scaling).

Ethereal Sheilds can block Ethereal Weapons, but gain no stability or defense bonuses.

Using a Transient Curse allows the blocking of Ethereal Weapons with any sheild.

Sure, you deal less damage, but they have to sacrifice a buff or be chipped to death.

Slarg232 wrote:Ok, here's one; Ethereal Ember

Ascends a +5 weapon into an Ethereal Weapon

Ethereal weapons have no scaling, but ignore sheilds and half of the armor value of the target. An +5 Ethereal Claymore would deal 257 damage (same as a +15 Claymore without Scaling).

Ethereal Sheilds can block Ethereal Weapons, but gain no stability or defense bonuses.

Using a Transient Curse allows the blocking of Ethereal Weapons with any sheild.

Sure, you deal less damage, but they have to sacrifice a buff or be chipped to death.

Allowing any weapon to bypass shields and armor would be monumentally overpowered, no matter how many negatives you plug into it.

The mlgs in demons ignored shields, and most armor. It was entirely unhelpful unless one was fighting a turtle because it was really weak.

Noob-of-Artorias wrote:

Slarg232 wrote:Ok, here's one; Ethereal Ember

Ascends a +5 weapon into an Ethereal Weapon

Ethereal weapons have no scaling, but ignore sheilds and half of the armor value of the target. An +5 Ethereal Claymore would deal 257 damage (same as a +15 Claymore without Scaling).

Ethereal Sheilds can block Ethereal Weapons, but gain no stability or defense bonuses.

Using a Transient Curse allows the blocking of Ethereal Weapons with any sheild.

Sure, you deal less damage, but they have to sacrifice a buff or be chipped to death.

Allowing any weapon to bypass shields and armor would be monumentally overpowered, no matter how many negatives you plug into it.

How so?

There needs to be a counter to everything, sheilds are no exception. Also, it's a trade off; do I slaughter Turtles with it, or do I actually get some damage? Because connecting with 250 damage ain't very helpful against a Rolly-Polly-Olly who has 1000 health, while he's hitting you for 700.



Edit: Also, I never knew the Shottel was overpowered.