From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

Yeah it's ofcourse not as powerful as the Drake Sword, but since I've been using it at the start it really grew on me.. Now that I have the needed stats and equipment load, I'd actually like to use some bigger sword. I loved the Claymore in DS1, where does one find it in DS2? The Drangleic Sword is similar, but it has some weird stat scaling..

 

I dunno, I think I'm starting to like this game more than DK1 despite some pointed out flaws.

Bonfire warping is a really stupid thing to get butthurt about. I suppose if you hated DeS1 but Loved DK1 pre-Anor Londo it would make sense, but honestly it feels like the lead designer tried to combine DK1 and DeS1 together. The way poise is handled along with the difficulty of parries/backstabs is reminiscent of DeS1.

BTW, I started over as a Sorcerer and enemies are a fucking joke, zzzzzz...

Anyways, you know how some weapons have two stats to use properly (Drangleic Sword for example)? Well, I think From was doing the same thing with Hexes needing two stats.

If Sorcery is to Dex (for example) and Faith is to Strength, then Hex is to Quality weapons. Quality magic I guess.

 

Honestly I've felt the framerate drop just about everywhere. Not by too much mind you but I've still felt it.

 

Has anyone tried Lances yet? Curious to know in what way are they mechanically different from Spears.

 

I have seen exactly 2 spears and 0 lances. Can't help you there.

 

There's the Lance you can make out of the Chariot's soul. Can't really try it out though since I haven't the stats to wield it properly.

 

I've seen quite a lot of framerate drop on the 360. Not something I'm bothered about but it is noticeable when it suddenly changes. It's probably worse than it was on DS1

 

I fucking HATE the lag when I warp back to Majula and wait 5-10 seconds to open my god damn inventory.

You can tell From is pushing the limitations of the PS3.

Oh, and despawning enemies makes the game easier. I can purposely farm out problematic enemies to make running back to the boss easier. I have yet to find myself short of souls either.

 

well From finally made gargoyles a good/challenging fight. my shitty mage could not kill them fast enough so at one point there was 5 or 6 of them intense as fuck

what level i should be in shaded woods? i killed that scorpions bitch but those lion faggots are raping my ass. with great soul arrow they take like 4 damage with their shields raised and around 40 with clean shot

also how do i open those doors in basilisks cave?

 

What Gargoyles? In Lost Balliste?

 

yes. IMO they are harder than gargoyles in DS1 and you cant cheese them like maneaters in Des.

 

For that door in the basilisk area you need a key that drops from the petrified beastman near the bonfire.

 

but that't the thing... he put shit from DeS in DaS without ever stopping to think if it would work, when it was obvious it wouldn't. level up at NPC was humongously retarded, and warping from beginning removes a lot of the tension, difficulty and atmosphere. f.e. status ailments, even nu-curse petrification, become barely more than a nuisance from the start because now you can simply warp to a safe location and continue (farming souls to buy a curative etc), and the enemies (and especially bosses) aren't that much better to make up for it

so i guess the talk of streamlining to make it easier was true... (but seriously, ever since the first stream it was obvious how stupid was the limited respawn)

still an excellent game, just shy of it's predecessors "complete package" (that could, but i doubt it will, surpass it with a few patches and maybe a DLC)

 

Poison is deadly: you die without a cure items on you. Same with Petrification with it being instant death is quite nasty. Not Dark Souls 1 nasty, but no more weak poison and more status effects helps make up for it.

Now, if you want situations were you are cursed and at 1/8 your life patch-free Dark Souls 1 with only New Londo as the only way to remove it then sure, I can understand your disappointment.

Here's the thing though: it's EASIER for good players but harder for bad players. Bad players will run out of souls and be fully hollow, while good players will clear areas and be drowning in souls. It's a very... interesting system. I suppose you could say that it rewards good play over bad play.

Contrast that with before where you had to be good for each respawn, but if you were bad you could endlessly farm souls you needed without regard for deaths.

 

the only two moments when i felt i fucked up and went to far and there is no way back in DS1 where at the bottom of blightown(before i knew about shortcut through valley of drakes) and in tomb of giants( went there after killing Penwheel at sls 20?). Glorious moments but lets not pretend that DS1 was like that all the time.


I never cared that much for lore in DS1 before all those lore videos on youtube but right now i fucking need to know more about Iron King/Mytha/Lost Sinner etc. Not even about drangleic but all those ruined kingdoms i visit

 

I don't think they streamlined this game to make it easier. I found this way harder than for example Demon's Souls, and while the despawning of enemies does help when you run to the bosses, in Dark Souls normal enemies never gave you trouble to begin with. Sure, they respawned infinitely, but you could easily run through areas once you knew the layout, ignoring every enemy. I still believe the limited respawn thing is retarded, but I don't think it makes the game easier.

And about the "complete package", I don't think DaS had the complete package either. People praise DaS bosses, for example, but more than half of them were shit, with massive blindspots where they can't hit you, or limited movesets. Sure, a couple of the bosses in DaS2 aren't too good (Old Iron King for example) but none of them is on the level of bullshit that was Bed of Chaos. All of them are legit fights, of varying difficulty (and this time around the difficulty of bosses has a lot to do with what kind of character you're using) and we even have some gimmick fights that are actually good (Rat Vanguard). Areas in general are more polished, too, I didn't see any part of DaS2 that looked unfinished.

Like i said in other posts, what I miss is the world design, I actually love a lot of the areas and even Earthen Peak/Harvest Valley weren't that bad when I played through them (they looked worse on stream) but I miss how everything was interconnected before. Areas still connect now, but it seems like less thought went into it: I still don't know how the hell Earthen Peak connects with the Iron Keep, for example. I don't know what fan theory people will come up with to explain how you take an elevator at the top of a fortress and somehow reach a keep half-sunk in lava.

As for the atmosphere, yes, it's uneven (though some areas like Castle Drangleic are on the level of Anor Londo), but I saw this coming since the DLC. Oolacile doesn't have good atmosphere, in my opinion. I hope that if they make another game they use the basic framework of Dark Souls 2, with the interconnected world of Dark Souls 1, with Demon's Souls atmosphere, that'd be the complete package in my opinion.

And for the PvP, the poise thing is annoying, but it's a bit better now that I understood how it works, and I believe it'll be better once we figure out the different breakpoints. DaS 1 PvP wasn't any better, what with the absolutely broken backstab mechanic. I've gone to a lot of fight clubs organized by Twitch streamers, and that PvP boils down to backstabbing all the time, and even when people use normal attacks they're just trying to set up backstabs.

 

In any case I've been happy with Dark Souls 2 and I think it's a worthy sequel.

EDIT: I'm going to just leave this here...

Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler

http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkSouls2/comments/20paj2/the_moonlight_butterfly_armor_is_hilariously_bad/

 

No Man's Wharf is probably one of the more DaS-like levels in the game, so I liked it a lot (except for the gimmicky zombie-varangian-pirate feeling). Lost Bastille/No Man's Wharf/Iron Keep are probably my faves out of the whole thing. The end-game has really left me disappointed.

 

Parrying in Dark Souls 2 PvP. A change I like is that now you can parry the full length of the weapon.

 

Kanedias have you had success with parrying? I still have not gotten the timing down. I've done it maybe 2-3 times successfully.

 

No, I'm bad at it, I was never too good at it to begin with (in the first game), and it's hard to get it now that you can't tank one hit and parry the second like you used to.

 

I was decent at parrying in the first one. Could usually parry knights and hollows with relative ease. Now I just die horribly when I attempt it.

Enemies really do not tolerate being circled for a backstab. There exist times when they do a slow attack and I can RUN behind them, but no more circle strafing for a backstab.

I find that two-handing a weapon and poking them for high damage and poise to work exceptionally well. It's easy to stunlock many enemy's this way. Longsword R2 is godly good.

 

I was decent at parrying - now I can't really do it well. I sucked at backstabbing - now it seems to be much easier.

Shields - apparently my +10 greatshield can take 15+ drakekeeper overhead mace slams no problem, but any n00b can stagger me with a shield-breaking move.

 

Can't parry/backstab as easily. Longsword R2 pokes anything to death.

Enemies have limited respawns. 3 archers next to bonfire.

We need more PvP! Rat Covenant where host has a whole area to give them a huge advantage.

Great shields can block giant dragon attacks. Stagged by human pushing you.

TROLL SOULS

 

I think the only balance breaking items so far is having the drangelic armor so early on, it makes any melee build virtualy twice as powerfull. I have been doing co op since yesterday and I get summoned in less than 2 minutes for the skeleton lords fight, seems the servers are bursting with players which means the game must be selling really well.
So if any of you guys have finished it, does this game wrap up the Dark Souls storyline as in you think there could not be anything left for DLC or another sequel?