Dark Souls II - Beta Impression @ AnalogAddiction

SpoonFULL · October 16, 2013

I perfer M&K and that is a personal perference since I spent the majority of my life using a keyboard and mouse for working.

I find it difficult to handle a controller because I have to use both of my hands to press specific buttons and my brain is not used to that.

As for Dark Souls, I played it with M & K with superior control over the camera and freedom to assign different buttons for different functions.

I does not matter what we used to play Dark Souls with, the important thing is that we all enjoyed this marvellous adventure.

sakichop · October 17, 2013

Thrasher said:
You know if the Logitech control center wasn't such a glitchy program and my extra logitech mouse buttons themselves weren't so flakey, I'd do the same.

Can't argue with that, although LGS is much better than set point was.

At least I haven't had to uninstall it to get games to work.

Also the profiles for each game seem to be working well. When I switch games it reassign the buttons properly. So far.

But yes I'm leery and waiting for problems. None so far though.

Thrasher · October 17, 2013

G700 - That's one impressive mouse!

Deleted User · October 17, 2013

I'm using a G700, and yes, it is great, but the overall package is buggy as hell. I've had a few different problems with it but nothing really gamebreaking. It's a beast. I love it.

sakichop · October 17, 2013

JDR13 said:
All I can say is that your perceived difference in the camera never impacted the game for me. Remember, DS was made for consoles first with no plans for a PC version, so however the camera pans on the PS3 is how it was intended.

I'm just used to being able to move the camera very fast. I have no doubt that they designed it that way. Maybe it's not a limitation of controllers at all but ive never played 3rd person console game that had as responsive of a camera as my pc. Admittedly thought that list is extremely small. (demon souls briefly, Uncharted and dragons dogma.)

JDR13 said:
I know a lot of gamers, and the majority of them go for comfort over # of buttons on their mouse. The mice with 10+ buttons are more of a gimmick than anything, and I've hardly met anyone who actually likes them. vurt's comment above hits the nail on the head.

I can't agree with anything Vurt said.

Why would you think the g700 isn't comfortable. I've used many mice and find it to be the most comfortable IMO. ( which is one reason I own it)

JDR13 said:
I'm not saying there aren't some people who like their mouse covered with buttons. I just think they're a niche group.

Not sure you've seen or used the g700 but it's hardly covered in buttons and the buttons are laid out very well.

Admittedly I usually only use 9 buttons + the dpi switching key for headshots or other situations that require a high amount of precision.

The rest can easily be mapped to my keyboard. (merc stealth) It has oversized WSAD keys surrounded by 25 well laid out keys that are all easily reachable with 1 hand. It's fully programmable for macro's (which I've never tried yet) and remapping keys so if the specific game doesn't allow full rebinding I can change the key on the keyboard.

JDR13 said:
I didn't say "could", I said "needs". Big difference. Sure, you could map every single action to a different button, but most of the time it's completely unnecessary.

That's why I said it was a loaded question. You could play most of these games with 4 button controller, you would just have to go in to menu and radial wheels more. I just don't care for that.

But really how can having more available buttons be a bad thing? Don't like to map everything to a specific key then don't but it's sure nice to have the option if you want to.

JDR13 said:
For example, I just started replaying the end of Mass Effect 2 (PC version) again, and that game has 3 completely different functions (Use/talk, Cover, and Sprint) assigned to a single key. I remember thinking that seemed odd to me at first, but then I came to understand that it just made sense. There really wasn't any need to have them mapped to separate buttons, and it's the same way when it's done in other games the majority of the time.

I won't argue this but I prefer to be able to map to separate keys. doesn't mean I'm right but it is my preference.

JDR13 said:
I don't think controllers are better for third-person games, I just don't agree with your particular reasoning of why M&K is better. I prefer M&K for the majority of games I play. I think Dark Souls plays better with a controller though.

I can respect that, my initial post though was to Vurt who definitely said controller is better for 3rd person games and actually went on to say that keyboard sucks for 3rd person. I can't agree with that at all.

If responsiveness, accuracy and more available input options aren't why you prefer K&M, then I be interested in hearing what your reasons are.

sakichop · October 17, 2013

vurt said:
Mouse/keyb sucks for third person games. With a controller you can move the stick slightly to sneak/walk slow and gradually walk faster and fully to run, not possible with a keyboard/mouse, you would need like 4-5 keys to switch between different speeds (usually you can't, there's just run/walk (and sometimes sneak in RPG's) in games that are done for Mouse/keyb).

I've yet to find a situation in a 3rd person game where accelerating slowly was useful.

Being able to sneak, walk and run is plenty. I've never wanted to run away from a monster at medium speed.

If your talking racing games that's a different story, but then I prefer my racing wheel.

vurt said:
Even if a mouse can have 15 buttons they're not very accessible or even useful for most people. Good luck remembering what they all do since they're mostly sitting on a row on the side, can't see any color coding or anything.. learning to play the guitar is probably less of an effort than getting the full use of a 15 button mouse!

Again, the g700 buttons are laid out well and fully accessible.

I've been primary gaming on M&K for 20+ years I have no problem remembering keys or buttons.

Conversely I often find myself hitting the wrong buttons when I use a controller which is why it's plain silly to make a blanket statement that K&M suck and controller is better for 3rd person.

It's going to differ greatly depending on the individual.

Maybe you care to state why you think a controller is better, beyond being able to accelerate and that you can't remember buttons if there are too many of them.

Really if K&M suck and controller is better for all 3rd person games there's got to be more to it than that.

sakichop · October 17, 2013

Fluent said:
I'm using a G700, and yes, it is great, but the overall package is buggy as hell. I've had a few different problems with it but nothing really gamebreaking. It's a beast. I love it.

Are you using LGS or setpoint and what problems did you have?

I remember having to actually uninstall setpoint because it crashed some games but I haven't had any problems with LGS but any heads up to any potential problems is always appreciated.

SirJames · October 17, 2013

SirJames said:
I dunno… I'd give controller a solid chance. It'll win in the end.

I find looking around with a mouse at 30fps feels horrible, but the camera rotation speed with the controllers analogue stick is perfectly designed for 30fps and consequentially feels nice and smooth.

If, like me, you've been playing FPS games with a mouse and KB since Half-life then, without thinking, you do actions like flick the mouse for a 180 degree turn and you get 4 or 5 choppy frames. Doing your natural mouse+kb style feels MORE foreign than its native control scheme.

So, I learned to use a controller with this game and it was kinda fun seeing how bad I was at using it too. Those tightrope sections like sens and anor had me wiping my clammy palms on my pants every 2 steps. I couldn't go from standstill to full run confident that I'd go in a straight line.

But here I am today, very confident with the controller but dark souls is still the only game I've used it with.

ALSO: controller kicks ass for slouching in your chair, legs up on the desk, etc

Just totally ignore these points for the rest of the thread?
There is no way keyboard and mouse, regardless of its ample buttons, will work better with this game.

Just take my word for it. Here, some "qualifications"...

I will !@#$% destroy you with your crappy mouse controls.

JDR13 · October 17, 2013

sakichop said:
I can't agree with anything Vurt said.

Of couse you can't, because it doesn't jive with your argument. I think what he said is valid for most people though.

sakichop said:
Why would you think the g700 isn't comfortable. I've used many mice and find it to be the most comfortable IMO. ( which is one reason I own it).

I didn't say anything about the g700. I'm talking about mice with a lot of buttons in general. If they were preferable to the majority then more people would own them. It's that simple.

sakichop said:
That's why I said it was a loaded question. You could play most of these games with 4 button controller, you would just have to go in to menu and radial wheels more. I just don't care for that.

No, it wasn't a loaded question at all. It was quite straightforward actually.

sakichop said:
But really how can having more available buttons be a bad thing?

Who said that it was a bad thing? We were talking about "needing" more buttons not having them available.

sakichop said:
I won't argue this but I prefer to be able to map to separate keys. doesn't mean I'm right but it is my preference.

It goes against common sense, but if it's your preference then it's not "wrong".

sakichop said:
If responsiveness, accuracy and more available input options aren't why you prefer K&M, then I be interested in hearing what your reasons are.

Again, I'm only talking about Dark Souls not games in general. DS doesn't need more available input options, and I didn't feel any benefit in terms of responsiveness or accuracy from M&K in the PC port.

JonNik · October 17, 2013

SirJames said:
First up, controls. They suck. Seems better suited to plain keyboard controls. I've been trying to learn the default mapping but I was wondering if there might be some 3rd party software that I can use to get controller working. Any tips for making the control better?

Secondly, the graphics renderer…. D3D doesn't seem to work.

Yeah, I was afraid the controls would be a problem for most people (probably me included) nowadays. I remember them being a challenge back in the day and they were pretty much par for the course back then. Still did not keep me from enjoying (and finishing 2-3 times) the game. Just added a bit to the learning curve.

Bummer about D3D though. I'll buy anyways at some point (nostalgia you see

) and I hope there is a work around or something… Tried the GOG forums ?

JDR13 said:
All I can say is that your perceived difference in the camera never impacted the game for me. Remember, DS was made for consoles first with no plans for a PC version, so however the camera pans on the PS3 is how it was intended.

I can't (or really care to

) add to the controller vs m+k debate, but I have to point out that one of the things that made the game comfortably playable (that I was able to with DSmfix) was smoothing out and slowing down the Camera… I suspect its still a bit faster and more responsive than a controller, but the way they had "tuned" it was so sensitive and all over the place that the most minute movement (and heaven forbid moving it while walking/running) produced a horrible insufferable jerk. I had migraines at about 30 mins in and it painted the game very negatively in the first hour or so (should never had tried it without DSmfix). So JDR definitely has a point here…

That said I am perfectly comfortable in the game with m+k after the first few hours. Not once can I say that I was killed by the controls (and not by my own inattentiveness, stupidity or lack of reflexes

). The only problem is the rather dumb distance based lock but I learned early enough to disable the instant it causes problems...

GothicGothicness · October 17, 2013

I think there is only one way to settle this, let's arrange some PvP k+m against controllers, and see who wins!

vurt · October 17, 2013

sakichop said:
I've yet to find a situation in a 3rd person game where accelerating slowly was useful.

It's great in all areas with heights where you can fall to your death if you're not careful, you can use the speed you feel comfortable with, not just run or walk very slow/sneak. Very hard to play without it, after being used to it, good luck playing any type of platformer (Tomb Raider, Mario etc, which requires analog and very precise movements). Yes, it's not a requirement in this game, but that doesnt mean it's not often useful and also extremely convenient to have.

The whole discussion is stupid, it's obvious that Mouse/keyboard is the better controller for FPS games and aiming, for third person games a analog gamepad is the better choice, flight sims are best with a flightstick. Etc, etc.. There's no contest, just people who refuse (or can't afford / isnt willing to spend money or isnt interested in learning) to play with anything else than what they have, so they feel they have to defend it. Spend same amount of time with both controller methods, and get equally good at them, then come back.

SirJames · October 17, 2013

JonNik said:
Yeah, I was afraid the controls would be a problem for most people (probably me included) nowadays. I remember them being a challenge back in the day and they were pretty much par for the course back then. Still did not keep me from enjoying (and finishing 2-3 times) the game. Just added a bit to the learning curve.

Bummer about D3D though. I'll buy anyways at some point (nostalgia you see ) and I hope there is a work around or something… Tried the GOG forums ?

Yeah, I have, and I've had a decent amount of success. Still not starting playing it, however. But I saw the loose brick!

By forcing Vsync in nvidia control panel and changing audio from "miles positional 2d" to "direct sound 7" its smoothed out the mouse and actually feels MUCH better than before.

D3D has broken menu for everyone, it seems, and no one uses it.

A lot of people recommend the glide wrapper for 3DFX to get the correct 4:3 aspect ratio @ 1080p, but OpenGL has "toon shading" which gives the graphics a celshaded look and makes it look about Borderlands quality. Very nice.

"Line Width": 4
"Shade Mode": Toon Shade + Textures
and the "Toon Colour" not selected works without issues and looks nice

GothicGothicness; said:
I think there is only one way to settle this, let's arrange some PvP k+m against controllers, and see who wins!

Hey, that sounds like fun, but I think, really, whoever is the "host" will win until we get those darksouls2 dedicated servers. But even then I'll be 250 ping from Australia. Beats invading a 450ms in Europe though.

I have a level 119 logged out in the township if you wanted to have a mess about. That's my highest level guy and my finest build! I don't play NG+, I just start a new build. I would if it had new items like "Heart of Fury" mode in Icewind Dale 2. That was brutal.

JonNik · October 17, 2013

SirJames said:
By forcing Vsync in nvidia control panel and changing audio from "miles positional 2d" to "direct sound 7" its smoothed out the mouse and actually feels MUCH better than before.

D3D has broken menu for everyone, it seems, and no one uses it.

A lot of people recommend the glide wrapper for 3DFX to get the correct 4:3 aspect ratio @ 1080p, but OpenGL has "toon shading" which gives the graphics a celshaded look and makes it look about Borderlands quality. Very nice.

Hey, very nice to know, thanks!

Glide, heh, that takes me back. Now that you mention it I might have played it like this back in the day too (not 100% sure)…

Wulf · October 17, 2013

I opened the controller issue in earlier post because it is/was an issue with many DS players, even the dev's admit awareness of the issue.

I have no problems with any controls, pads, mice, keyboards etc' - but built into DS was a jittery, over sensitive mouse with no other purpose than to hinder the precision of the gamer's control. It is the developer that chose this function and naturally gamers of all differing abilities have had to adjust to it.

In DS2-beta, i can see that the dev's have implemented a mouse sensitivity slider in the settings menu, lets hope it work for those that need it.

sakichop · October 17, 2013

JDR13 said:
Of couse you can't, because it doesn't jive with your argument. I think what he said is valid for most people though.

It's deeper than that. If your growing tired of the discussion just say so.

JDR13 said:
I didn't say anything about the g700. I'm talking about mice with a lot of buttons in general. If they were preferable to the majority then more people would own them. It's that simple.

I thought we were talking about why I prefer K&M over controller. At least that's what I originally posted and you responded to.

If we want to talk about what mouse most people prefer I won't pretend to know. Apparently you know though.

If we want to follow the majority then let's put down our m&k and controller and start playing on our tablets and phones.

JDR13 said:
Who said that it was a bad thing? We were talking about "needing" more buttons not having them available.

No, you were talking about needing them, I simply said it was my preference to have them.

JDR13 said:
It goes against common sense, but if it's your preference then it's not "wrong".

I doubt it's common sense as that would require that nearly all people know it and I would bet most don't know or care about binding multiple actions to the same key or not.

JDR13 said:
Again, I'm only talking about Dark Souls not games in general. DS doesn't need more available input options, and I didn't feel any benefit in terms of responsiveness or accuracy from M&K in the PC port.

Again, we are having two different discussion then, my original response was to the assertion that all 3rd person games are better with a controller. Which was posted by someone else.

DArtagnan · October 17, 2013

Time for popcorn

sakichop · October 17, 2013

vurt said:
It's great in all areas with heights where you can fall to your death if you're not careful, you can use the speed you feel comfortable with, not just run or walk very slow/sneak. Very hard to play without it, after being used to it, good luck playing any type of platformer (Tomb Raider, Mario etc, which requires analog and very precise movements). Yes, it's not a requirement in this game, but that doesnt mean it's not often useful and also extremely convenient to have.

I can see your point there, I was thinking about 3rd person rpg's, but I still think it just comes down to your skill and what your comfortable with.

I'm skillful enough with K&M that I had no trouble navigating logs,planks, planes, etc. In tomb raider and never even gave a thought to needing to be able to vary my speed.

If you can't navigate it maybe that speaks more to your K&M abilities that the controller being better.

vurt said:
The whole discussion is stupid, it's obvious that Mouse/keyboard is the better controller for FPS games and aiming, for third person games a analog gamepad is the better choice, flight sims are best with a flightstick. Etc, etc.. There's no contest, just people who refuse (or can't afford / isnt willing to spend money or isnt interested in learning) to play with anything else than what they have, so they feel they have to defend it. Spend same amount of time with both controller methods, and get equally good at them, then come back.

Well if you say so. I will from this day forward only play each genre of game with Vurts approved control method list.

DArtagnan · October 17, 2013

vurt knows best, obviously

SirJames · October 17, 2013

vurt said:
It's great in all areas with heights where you can fall to your death if you're not careful, you can use the speed you feel comfortable with, not just run or walk very slow/sneak. Very hard to play without it, after being used to it, good luck playing any type of platformer (Tomb Raider, Mario etc, which requires analog and very precise movements). Yes, it's not a requirement in this game, but that doesnt mean it's not often useful and also extremely convenient to have.

Walking slowly is also more quiet. You can use it to sneak up on enemies and get in a backstab before they can turn around. (like the Black Knight guarding the Blue Tearstone Ring in the Undead Burg, for example)

vurt said:
The whole discussion is stupid, it's obvious that Mouse/keyboard is the better controller for FPS games and aiming, for third person games a analog gamepad is the better choice, flight sims are best with a flightstick. Etc, etc.. There's no contest, just people who refuse (or can't afford / isnt willing to spend money or isnt interested in learning) to play with anything else than what they have, so they feel they have to defend it. Spend same amount of time with both controller methods, and get equally good at them, then come back.

I agree.

edit: But I don't find the discussion stupid.

Dark Souls II - Beta Impression @ AnalogAddiction

SasqWatch

sakichop

Guest

Wheeee!

Deleted User

Guest

sakichop

Guest

sakichop

Guest

sakichop

Guest

SasqWatch

SasqWatch

SasqWatch

SasqWatch

serial &#120054;&#120056;&#120045;&#120045;&#12004

SasqWatch

SasqWatch

Inquisitor

sakichop

Guest

DArtagnan

Guest

sakichop

Guest

DArtagnan

Guest

SasqWatch

serial 𝓶𝓸𝓭𝓭&#12004