From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

Not really an option, as I don't have a PS4 yet and don't plan on getting one until I can get a good one real cheap. I'm playing on PC.

Dragon's Dogma covered multiple roles extremely well. The mechanics are designed around the player having two complementary pawns with him. Basic vocations: a well-rounded hardy defensive Fighter with a shield; an agile Strider with daggers and a bow (who can specialize in climbing large enemies to stab weak spots and deal damage from range); and the Mage, a generalized magic-user with offensive, buff, healing, and utility spells. Specialized vocations: Warrior, a less-defensive, offense oriented version of Fighter; Ranger, a more ranged-focused version of Strider; and Sorcerer, which gives up healing and some utility for damage and debuff specialization. Hybrid vocations (player only): Magic Knight, your classic spellblade class; Mystic Archer, the ranged version of this; and Assassin, a powerful combination of Fighter and Strider, with some drawbacks.

It worked really, really well. It's just a shame the Souls games don't have much room for genuine build diversity. In DS2, the DLCs basically guarantee

 

Dragon's Dogma is my biggest sore spot, as it's my favorite game of the last 10 years, sold well globally, and Capcom refuses to give us the MMO and / or a fucking sequel. I'm probably in the minority, but I think it completely obliterates the Souls series in gameplay for the exact reasons you stated, while Dark Arisen matches them in terms of atmosphere. Personally, I liked heavy armor in Dark Souls 1, but the PvP crowd fucked it all up. Once From started balancing everything around PvP, build diversity went down the shitter, with Dark Souls 3 being a complete joke. It got heavy armor nerfed harder and harder in subsequent gamea, ninja flipping nerfed (kinda ridiculous, but fuck it was fun), miracles nerfed to the fucking ground in 2, Santier's Spear obliterated, the list goes on. Only Katanas went untouched.

It's tough to compare them side by side though, as DD is balanced around group gameplay, and stats play a big role. Fighters and Warriors can get their defenses up so that most attacks barely leave a scratch. If this were achievable in Souls games, the light armor, roll only crowd would throw a bitch fit for the ages. Could you IMAGINE if Souls games had Perfect Blocking where a Block would consume 0 Stamina? The PvP asshurt would be an unstoppable freight train.

I think the comparison of how unique every class felt in DD compared to builds being samey in DS is a testimony of comparing RPGs vs Action Games, with a well designed RPG always feeling more unique than being built around action / twitch skills.

 

What pisses me off isn't that we didn't get the MMO, but that there's an MMO instead of a proper sequel.

Yes, I agree that muh PvP balance has had a huge effect on Dark Souls mechanics, to the series' great detriment. The focus should be on PvE and co-op first, and PvP fourth. I realize there's a raft of people who only or mainly play for the online experience, and that's great, but that raft can fuck off down the river if they expect the game to be balanced around PvP. Online is supposed to augment the primarily single-player, exploration- and difficulty-based main game, not dominate it... but there you go.

Despite all the allowances and compromises made for PvP, DS3 is routinely trashed as having the worst PvP in the series. It's widely agreed that if not for Soul Memory, DS2 would be the favorite (and probably still is, anyway). Go figure.

 

Good. Fuck PvP and Multiplayer. Keep that shit separate, or don't cater to it.
Souls should have been about killing bosses, not other players.

 

to be fair, pre-patch miracles trivialised PvE to the point it wasn't fun. back then i started a miracle character just to see what the fuss was all about and as soon as i got the basic lightning spear it was game over. they dealt an insane amount of damage and you got 20 of them. it felt good for a bit roflstomping everything like Zeus, but it got boring very quickly. the decision to nerf it was correct, the way they did it wasn't (as it usually is with From and balancing shit, regardless if it's for PvE or PvP they fuck it up more often than not).

similarly it was for hexes, resonant souls and weapon were even more stupidly powerful and accessible way too early (you just need Dragonrider dead). but of course, From being From the nerfhammer destroyed them completely (now it's pointless to even consider using resonant weapon as dark weapon is just as good but lasts longer and requires less stats. lol)

the Int nukes like Vortex and Geyser trivialised pretty much every boss. 2-3 casts and boss dead in less than 30 seconds. it was stupid (and they had pretty much no use in PvP so you can't blame it on the PvP crowd. just like lightning spears)

Santier's (along with the mundane Avelyn) is actually one of the few rebalances where they got it right. made mundane with the old damage calculation it was just retarded. 400-500dmg per hit, and the 2HR1 does something like 4-5 fast hits in a single combo. now it's a perfectly viable and usable weapon (although with the raw path, as mundane is now obsolete unless you plan on playing at really high soul levels) that doesn't outclass anything and everything. it's actually a very very good weapon (and i personally use it constantly, both in PvE and PvP)

they were actually buffed (iirc, they got a higher counter and/or critical rating)

 

So...the Japanese developers buffed a Japanese sword.
Nothing to see there folks.

 

Nerfed to hell, yet some of the most fun I've ever had in a videogame
Miracles, I mean. At least they were "only fun while it lasted" and not just garbage out the door .

http://darksouls3.wiki.fextralife.com/Way+of+White+Corona

 

Is it me, or does the female body model not look as good as it does in DS1? It looks a lot more mannish and bulkier to me in DS2. I remember it looking much more feminine in DS1.

 

So I was joking with Blaine about when he was going to post his fist-only no damage ng+7 fume knight fight or whatever, and decided to see if I could find something equally silly on youtube.

I didn't.

I found worse.

Fume knight. Company of Champions. NG+7. No damage taken. At soul level 1. Using a broken ladle.



50 fucking minutes. Jesus christ. That's dedication.

 

The Autism is strong with that one.

 

Scrub fucking rolled, 2/10.

 

Finished it today. 100% completion all bosses down yada yada

I definitely enjoyed it more than DS1.

Better looking
Much more content (although I'd prefer if some of that content didn't exist)
Bigger number of fun and challenging bosses
Better enemy AI
Better item enchanting system (now if I want to make my item fire-based I can do it with a single item without having to grind upgrade stones of a different color like in some Korean MMO)
Much more challenging game overall

Only things that were worse were the controls (but I got used to them like just I got used to the original's shitty KB & M controls) and that the game really did lack originality (some zones and enemies were literal copy pastes from DS1 with a fresh coat of paint)

The "DS2 sucks" circlejerk I keep seeing all over the place never ceases to amaze me, but then again - I played SotFS with all DLCs, so maybe the original DS2 was a steaming pile of shit. I guess I'll never know.

 

Nah, haters will find their way into having ALWAYS loved vanilla just to spite. You can't reason much with people who spew the word CLUNKY like if they never had played any game before 2009.

 

Is it me, or does the great machete have an odd moveset / hitbox? I tried using it for a bit, and I missed a guy at point blank range.

 

There's a circlejerk like that for every game on the planet, my dude.

Why people side with one particular Souls game over another, however, depends on a number of factors. You've just sided with the "DS2 is better than DS1" camp, perhaps inadvertently, and are already a participant in the circlejerk. Welcome to the club!

 

Bros, what is the best use for souls in this game? Since I ran out of shards to upgrade weapon and shield, I keep levelling up. That way I have reached level ~100 or so, and it starts making little sense to up the stats even more. Currently I am sitting on ~30K souls after beating gargoyles in Belfry Luna and do not really know what to do with them.

 

100 isn't really high in DS2, keep levelling up.

Buying all the rare stones from chloanne is another good way of spending souls

 

Just go ahead and level everything (with FTH and INT being lower priority, and ADP and ATN just high enough to reach 105 AGL) up to 40 unless you're extremely keen on keeping your Soul Memory/level at a certain point. 40 is the efficiency soft cap for almost everything non-magic related, with the exception of VIT perhaps, though VIT still tapers off noticeably.

40 STR/DEX will allow you to use basically every weapon and shield in the game with very nice scaling, many in power stance and some large weapons in 1H rather than requiring 2H. 40 VIG/END allows for generous health and stamina bars. At least 15-20 each of FTH and INT will allow you to use some weapons with FTH and/or INT requirements, and provide better scaling of elemental and infused weapons. If you get up to 30 FTH/INT, you can use hexes and pyromancies very effectively for specialized purposes such as quickly farming certain bosses.

Personally, I like to collect all the armor sets and weapons just to have them and try them out, so that's an idea for your extra souls.

 

Yeah, 40 str and 40 dex is a good point for a quality build. You can use nearly every weapon one handed with that.
Another thing I noticed - katanas appear to have an odd delay after the second swing. Its really off putting. I was planning on making my new character like my first DS1 character (wanderer start, uses dex weapons, mostly katanas, knows pyros and miracles), but I'm not sure anymore. Might use rapiers or curved swords instead.

 

Being drawn back to playing through this again. Whilst all the Souls games have their merits, this was the one which really hit the spot for me.

 

Ok, I will keep levelling up then. Thanks for the tips.

 

Go for 40 STR and just enough DEX to equip weapons you want at first. DEX scaling is much weaker compared to STR so getting it up to 40 won't make a big difference. Soft cap for VIT should be 29 if i'm not mistaken, no need to go higher than that. To get 105 AGL raise both ADP and ATT to 25. 5 spell slots is good to have even if you don't use any other magic besides Pyromancy, which is exactly what I'd recommend for first run, fuck the other magic types really. Have a crossbow handy for occasional situational ranged use. VIG and END are fine at 20 to start, raise those later.

For me it's easiest one to replay because it provides the best package of both single player and online play. My prediction is that it's gonna remain most active online years down the road. PVP is loads of fun even when I'm getting my ass kicked because I get too see so many varied builds people come up with.

 

In scholar, maybe. The original is a desert.

 

Who gives a fuck at this point?