@tkuvesi: There has to be some level of quality control though, when people can just re upload existing mods... or lie... some trusted developer and IP protection for them needs to be in place. It's either that or a policy that works really well for returning garbage mods. I don't think the majority of mods will get critically reviewed which also leaves it open to user review abuse. There are too many issues with identifying worth while mods and I don't think everyone should charge for a pet project or a half assed amateur project.
@Oni: I would love the option for paid mods, assuming there was some quality control. I mean most mods aren't that great, and don't deserve it, but small developers could build ontop of rich game worlds and not rely totally on donations to make it a full time job. What does t hat mean? Quality expansion packs that can be made in reasonable time frames without all the rough edges that most hobbyist projects end up with.
@xantufrog Theres also an equal amount of people thinking "is this it?". The game has plenty of polish and strong shooting mechanics, but completely underwhelming on the open areas, the instances, the amount of content, the story... They already have expansion packs planned too and I can't help but think they pulled a lot of the end game content to sell us something.
@golden1elite Fresh? Its like borderlands with out a seamless game world to run around in. Its like halo but with out the personality and diversity in gameplay, its like World of warcraft with no world and 4 instances.
They took some of the best components of halo/borderlands and failed to understand why they work. The FPS is not challenging and the bosses are a massive chore to kill. Theres no diversity in the maps, the classes, the single player is padded with traveling to get back to the point your previous mission left off.
This game feels like it wasn't finished and rushed the rest of the way out, and the expansions probably have the meat of the game they meant to ship. Like they cut the content and spent a year polishing what they had. Any one thats played halo can probably finish most of what this game has to offer in a weekend in its current form. Any competent FPS player, will likely get bored quick because even CoD still offers more compelling gameplay even after 30 copies. Any MMO fan probably is going to go play a proper MMO/planetside...
@Vylsith @waahahah @GSGuy321 I read your entire comment, and disagree with most of what you said. Leveling up that fast in wow probably means your playing a lot and focused on leveling. Its does take months to level if you just want to enjoy the experience and explore. There's no attachment to your character. And with high leveling raiding... its easier to get gear on a regular basis. This is especially true with WoW raiding...
The free roam while may have a point, its completely negligible and considerably pointless. Its more of a nuisance than anything, the missions aren't seamless in the open world, and communication isn't available to people around you. It makes the entire open world basically pointless with the mechanics the way they are now. They would have been better with more strikes... a lot more and more intricate ones.
I don't think you understand what I meant about mission modifiers, just changing difficulty only makes the enemies larger bullet sponges. Think of the black eye skull where you could only recharge shields via melee attacks. Otherwise I haven't noticed differences in enemy abilities, spawns, ammo drops... just an increasing amount of bullets to kill them and a lot less to kill me... then I get some more gear and its like playing it on easy again.
This isn't an MMO in any way. Comparing it to MMO grind fest is useless because most mmo's offer a lot more to grind, a lot more ways to do it... It borrows a single idea from them where the loot grind is designed to be spread out over weeks instead of days. It fails miserably in this aspect because the base game's replay ability is severely repetitive and limited. The content just doesn't support the time they want you to invest in it it. The weapons/player class don't do enough to differentiate themselves to make it fun to build a class. And waiting for content/patches for poor design is silly. I can say that about every game that was bad.
I'm not complaining that it isn't like a standard game. I'm complaining about its failure to bring a lot of the core mechanics from other styles to bring a competent hybrid game. The only thing this game does right is the FPS mechanics and the co-op... but halo did a better job at both of those, with the skull modifiers + difficulty levels basically is the same thing as strikes but more replayable, has a survival mode fireflight, and tons more to the competitive realm too. Its like bungie wanted to combine borderlands + halo together and mix in a little MMO so random people will be fighting along side you and what we got was a completely bare bones version of all 3 only stripping them of the best aspects and missing why the mechanics work so well for each individual game. We've got classes, but their pointless, open world but its pointless, strikes that have low replayability, and a item grind that's slower than most MMO's...
@Vylsith @GSGuy321 This isn't an mmo, Its got an endgame but with no months of building a character for it, or even a point to it. In fact i think their are some MMO's that are easier to progress in. And MMO's have a lot more to offer, even running some of the same instances the classes are a lot more complex and enjoyable to customize and master.
There needs to be a lot added to this game for it to have good replay value. For instance the free roam is entirely pointless and the story missions are constantly breaking immersion by returning to orbit. You can't easily join another person, even if they are on the same mission as you, you'll watch them run down a hall and disappear instead. You'll kill a boss, the mission will end, and then the next mission you'll have to run back there... Theres no continuity to the story and open areas and the people you meet there are just passing through and can be ignored.
And what your left with is strikes... at least on the co-op side of things. It would be like getting a copy of world of warcraft but you can only access instances... you'd be bored at the end of the first month. So what if they want to add a couple of raids in... Thats not going to change the grind fest that needs to happen first to access the raids, or once the raids are completed, they won't be any more repayable then the crap that's already in the game. The strikes need a random aspect to it, and something like the mission modifiers like in halo, classes need more abilities that are customize-able, the weapons need to be expanded alot... and I think equip-able weapons need some serious revision.
There was too much focus on production values and not enough on game mechanics that would actually create a fun, dynamic world to keep coming back to. It might not be everyone's cup of tea... but that's because we expect more from games. Whether your looking at this from an fps, rpg, mmo, the game pulls in a few mechanics but failes to get any of them right. The game mechanic that works well in this game is the enemy ai...
@edward_footlong "Most of the people who seem to have negative opinions have them because someone else did" This is a massive generalization that really can't be backed up. Or maybe they feel the same and someone else articulated the problem so its easier to use that as a reference.
Your also failing to understand the difference between demons souls hub design and dark souls 2 hub design. You've taken them out of context and comparing them as 1:1 assuming because people didn't like dks2's hub then ds hub must be bad as well. DS had a different way of connecting different worlds via a hub. Dks2 didn't have a hub it just had a single spot you could level up at and where most of the shops were. It went from dks1 model where the level was completely connected so when you found a shortcut it felt great. To linear expanding levels and the ability to instantly teleport around. And since you could no long level up at the barn fire you constantly had to teleport back to spend souls. Leveling up became an incredibly intrusive mechanic. It wasn't bad in ds because there was no dks1 to compare it to as well as the way the world's connected through the hub you had to travel back any way. dks1 even had a similar hub for shops all being near a central location for the most part.
You can't just compare a single game mechanic on its own, you have to look at how it effects the entire game experience and dks2 is really a step backwards from dks1. For instance a single dulll ember for all upgrades has totally different different effect. If you miss it you get no element upgrade as where as dks1 your more than likely going to find a couple to allow you to upgrade some elements.
If you played other souls series your ability to pick up on subtle details like the stamina regen rate with the shield a lot easier. Darks Souls 2 fails to really even attempt to teach players anything about the basics. And the souls series is not a fun game when you don't know the basics very well. Learning the depth of the shield mechanics mid fight isn't exactly fun but dark souls doesn't really leave much room for error. So failing to understand the shield mechanics your might miss the lesson while being murdered.
People don't generally understand the difference between teaching vs hand holding. Even dark souls has some mechanics to teach players in a more piecemeal way. For instance dark souls didn't just give the player the shield at the beginning. Your run into a hallway where you'll be hit with in arrow if you just try to rush with the shield lying off to the side. This is a brilliant teaching mechanic. It doesn't really tell you to use the shield. But it creates a scenario where it encourages the player to choose to use the shield.
I felt like dark souls 2 expected players to know more, probably because of dark souls 1. The reviewer walking into dark souls 2 first is probably being overwhelmed with new information where something like the shield mechanics are easily missed if your not used to the normal game.
@BlindHorse The game isn't challenging, its just completely obscure, If you've never played any of the dark souls games there is no basic steps to learning the game, they aren't really provided in game except for button actions. Your supposed to discover the mechanics. The fact that learning is the difficult part of the game means any new comers that don't know the basics by heart are going to be learning the hard way through 3/4's of the game. The other part of the difficult is memorizing patterns and waiting for a moment to strike.
Once you know the game... the game is generally pretty easy and what made the original dark souls so great is the atmosphere, fear of death, and discovering the lore and story. Dks2 failed to really add to the story, and barely tried to explain any characters motivations. All the item descriptions set up lore and back story but I eventually had to look online to figure out what was going on... only to find tons of theories. Now to some extent that's fun but dark souls 2 has a lot more to fill in than its predecessors.
The game has an absurd learning curve and is no very approachable by new comers. Most people don't even get through the souls games without having to do some research and reroll once they hit that 3/4 mark and realize they're character sucks, they missed some really good items... There is a huge pattern that no one seems to notice... but the souls series doesn't click with people until their second time playing. Know how to play? Great now you may enjoy your game.
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