From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[Whisky]

Found out my work contract is actually a week longer than I thought. As a result, I have money.

Bought Dark Souls II.

Going to play as Deprived.

Real men procure their own weapons on site.

 

[Invictus]

I have the feeling that parrying was nerfed on the bigger shields to give the lighter builds an incentive for shields that were actualy used for parrying instead of having a 2 ton greatshield flick arround a gretasword.
I personaly suck at parrying and the more weighter combat in DS2 is by far one of my favorite changes; not only does it rely more on a slower approach but its mechanics feel a whole more realistic and fun.
The reworking of poise still baffles me and certain enemies can stun lock you like in Demon Souls in a single blow but everything else is great

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Found out my work contract is actually a week longer than I thought. As a result, I have money.

Bought Dark Souls II.

Going to play as Deprived.

Real men procure their own weapons on site.

1. Start as deprived.
2. Only notice that you have your starting armor in your inventory halfway through the first zone.
3. Join the champions covenant upon arriving at Majula without knowing what it does.

This was my way of starting the game, and I am satisfied with the difficulty. I actually had enemies stop spawning in some sections of the Forest of Fallen Giants because I couldn't get used to the new roll having less iframes, only one estus flask, didn't have a shield, even the shittiest enemies would 2shot me after I stacked up some death penalty, and I was dual wielding the starting dagger without being able to backstab safely. The roll iframe changes make playing shieldless without a commitment into roll-improving stats pretty hard. Beginning enemies in DS2 are also more dangerous than in previous Souls games - they're more aggressive and tend to have at least one fast attack without an obvious tell, which really hurts if you can't afford to get hit at all.

So what I'm saying, is that it is a true souls experience and I wholeheartedly recommend this route to any experienced player.

 

[Whisky]

I ignored the starting armor, it's not very good anyway and I wanted an authentic scavenge playthrough.

Though I also ignored the dagger, because I felt like it. "Two-handed", Trek-fu unarmed attacks and ass-punches were all I needed at the start.

 

[Kanedias]

Promising.

Here's with DOF on:





The DOF clearly needs some work, it's too strong, and torches are too bright, but it looks very nice otherwise, I can see this stuff evolving in the future and improving the atmosphere of the game even further.

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

Devs rely on Depth of Field too much these days...

Spoiler

 

[nimateb]

Like someone already said, it's crazy that you basically can't press mouse buttons repeatdly or in combination with some keyboard keys, jumping attacks and bashes don't work (I do them with the keyboard), they basically don't test the game before selling it, I don't know if this is on par with the windows mouse cursor appearing in the game like in DS1 but it's pretty bad nonetheless.

On the game itself, I just had an O&S experience with them bitches sentinels, I didn't find the entrance to Heidi's Tower so I fought them right after Pursuer and boy did they made for an intense fight, 9/10.

 

[Invictus]

Finaly got home to download the PC game and it runs flawlessly on my system; I use a PS2 gamepad with the 360 emulator and everyting good, even got Durante's new fix working and it looks oh so good.
The SAOO effect still needs a lot of work on outside areas but otherwise it is magnificent
I feel really bad for all the people having tecnical problems...

 

[Murk]

The Pursuer is so awesomely dickheadish. The way he stands, the stupid red light in his eyes, the comic-like disproportionate legs to upper body ratio. He's like some bully there to fuck with you. Had great fun ramming a ballista in his face then fucking him up after a sweet dodge.

Got to the front of Blue Cathedral. Saw a ton of notes saying "friend ahead"

Jesus I knew From likes to recycle ideas but... yeah.

 

[made]

How does it compare to DS1 in terms of performance? Does it need Durante's fix again?

 

[Murk]

Not for me, it runs better than DS 1 even on max settings. I am not using a fix of any kind; just install + play.

My rough stats: AMD a10-5757M (quadcore, supposedly up to 3.5ghz), 8gb ram, radeon 8570M 2gb card -- all on a laptop.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

Promising.

Here's with DOF on:





The DOF clearly needs some work, it's too strong, and torches are too bright, but it looks very nice otherwise, I can see this stuff evolving in the future and improving the atmosphere of the game even further.

syan kinghts have lighting attack? wtf. never ever used on me in my +200hours in DS2. anyone knows about other rare attacks?

we are getting there...

From decided to make OIK more difficult fight by blinding players

also new bindigns

 

[Multidirectional]

How does it compare to DS1 in terms of performance? Does it need Durante's fix again?

Stable 60 FPS on my GTX460 on vanilla max settings. Way faster than DS1.

 

[Volrath]

Also PC bros, learn to love the rings of life and soul protection. There really is no point to going hollow.

Spoiler

Except for talking to certain NPC's

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Also PC bros, learn to love the rings of life and soul protection. There really is no point to going hollow.

Spoiler

Except for talking to certain NPC's

Yea, Life Ring can be repaired for 3k Souls (practically nothing), so one should think of their stash of those as extra lives.

 

[Jaedar]

Great soul Embraced.

Spoiler

srsly, that was it? A mound of corpses at the bottom of poison city. PRIMAL bonfire kindled! What does that even mean? Either I'm missing something or this game has a bad story.

 

[Hobo Elf]

On the other hand losing a precious ring slot for something that gives you no statistical bonuses is lame and if you are a bad enough dude then you won't die anyway.

 

[AngryEddy]

Great soul Embraced.

Spoiler

srsly, that was it? A mound of corpses at the bottom of poison city. PRIMAL bonfire kindled! What does that even mean? Either I'm missing something or this game has a bad story.

Your last assessment is right.

Spoiler

Once you kindle primal bonfires, you're done with the area.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

On the other hand losing a precious ring slot for something that gives you no statistical bonuses is lame and if you are a bad enough dude then you won't die anyway.

Yea, generally I tend to whip out the life rings only when I'm doing stuff like making difficult jumps or something similar.

 

[Jaedar]

On the other hand losing a precious ring slot for something that gives you no statistical bonuses is lame and if you are a bad enough dude then you won't die anyway.

I just use the ring of binding and walk around with 80% max hp all the time.

 

[Kanedias]

The Rotten has some nice lore to it, it will become more clear when you beat the game, maybe. The lore is a bit more hidden than in the first game, so it feels very... aimless when you first play it.

 

[Jaedar]

The Rotten has some nice lore to it, it will become more clear when you beat the game, maybe. The lore is a bit more hidden than in the first game, so it feels very... aimless when you first play it.

Aimless certainly is the word. You're just told to kill 4 big soul guys. Who are they? Nobody remembers. Where are they? Eh, wherever you go, you'll run into them.

 

[Shadenuat]

That's not aimless. Aimless will start when you'll actually kill them. As well as a lot of running and stupid copypasta.

 

[Visperas]

You only need to use a white soapstone sign and if the coop succeds you come back as a human with full estus and fully repaired equipment. That makes effigies completely useless and the game way easier.

 

[Surf Solar]

Good luck getting summonend at levels out of the way or higher soul memory though.