From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[DragoFireheart]

Brigand Armor seemed like most eastern oriented to me.

The hood looks like the best choice. Might tweak some of the other pieces, but this is a good start.

May you enjoy many virgin women when you go to paradise.

EDIT:

http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkSouls2/comments/2548p7/pc_theory_on_cheaters_secretly_being_moved_to_a/

I have used trainers and cheat engine, not going to sugar coat it. And after a few days from using them I noticed a distinct lack of summon signs and invasions always failing. Made new characters and checked many areas only finding 1 or 2 in a day and for a while was incredibly confused. Recently however I have begun asking everyone I have been able to summon or be summoned by and after 3 days I have 16 responses and every single one of them admitted to cheating. I also have a friend who cheated and a friend who hadn't. Summoning signs for the non-cheating one never show up, even with the ring and near identical SM. Signs from the cheating friend show up instantly in any area with no ring usage at all.

Take this how you want but my theory is a Titanfall style cheater's server. I said secretly in the title because no word of this is anywhere and logging in works like it always has, but now I can only connect with other past/current cheaters.

Edit: I already know cheaters deserve what they get, please just discuss things relating to the theory at hand.

EditEdit: Also everyone I asked rarely saw summon signs and could never get invasions.

EditEditEdit: Just for future reference, I have no desire to defend my actions or get out of the blacklist/ban server. Stop posting like I'm acting like I did nothing wrong or defending myself. I did cheat and I don't really care, just sharing something interesting.

 

[praetor]

I meant since the weapons are fast with low scaling (since dex is shit) and low base damage they make good Mundane candidates.

no, they don't have low scaling, the scaling is shit. next to no dex weapon is better Mundane. it's actually pretty easy to calculate if a Mundane infusion is worth it (if 0.5*base damage + scaling>170 the it's not worth it (@20 min stats))

btw, the Insolent set is quite crusader-ish (plus it's Insolent!). Creighton's is also from that general area. mad warrior is quite realistic (except the helm, of course ), but that's a bit too far east.

 

[DragoFireheart]

no, they don't have low scaling, the scaling is shit. next to no dex weapon is better Mundane. it's actually pretty easy to calculate if a Mundane infusion is worth it (if 0.5*base damage + scaling>170 the it's not worth it (@20 min stats))

I'm a little confused by what you are saying and/or I'm not reading it correctly. You're saying that because dex weapons have such shit scaling that pretty much all of them are good candidates for the Mundane infusion?

Insolent and Creighton's were others I was eyeing. Dingy could work too.

 

[Kuhrazy]

I've never played this but I'm a bit curious about the online... so basically if I try this game, other players will jump into my game and kick over my sandcastles and steal my girlfriend? That sounds too scary for me, at least if I suck in a normal 1p game nobody will laugh at me.

 

[praetor]

no, they don't have low scaling, the scaling is shit. next to no dex weapon is better Mundane. it's actually pretty easy to calculate if a Mundane infusion is worth it (if 0.5*base damage + scaling>170 the it's not worth it (@20 min stats))

I'm a little confused by what you are saying and/or I'm not reading it correctly. You're saying that because dex weapons have such shit scaling that pretty much all of them are good candidates for the Mundane infusion?

no, you're not reading correctly. next to no dex weapon, i.e. maybe only a very few of the weapons that are considered "dex weapons", is better mundane than it is normal @40dex. feel free to use the very simple formula i gave you to confirm it. mundane is only good for very specific weapons, it has nothing to do with str, dex or attack speed

 

[Shadenuat]

I've never played this but I'm a bit curious about the online... so basically if I try this game, other players will jump into my game and kick over my sandcastles and steal my girlfriend? That sounds too scary for me, at least if I suck in a normal 1p game nobody will laugh at me.

There are rules, and you also can summon help. Or just jump from a cliff with Ring of Life Saving and start again (or use a few items which can banish PKer or make monsters attack him... and you can heal spam, while they can't). And it's not like every one is a master swordsman riposte beast in PvP. You can finish the game offline and poke around monsters and learn to parry, and then try again online.

 

[DragoFireheart]

no, they don't have low scaling, the scaling is shit. next to no dex weapon is better Mundane. it's actually pretty easy to calculate if a Mundane infusion is worth it (if 0.5*base damage + scaling>170 the it's not worth it (@20 min stats))

I'm a little confused by what you are saying and/or I'm not reading it correctly. You're saying that because dex weapons have such shit scaling that pretty much all of them are good candidates for the Mundane infusion?

no, you're not reading correctly. next to no dex weapon, i.e. maybe only a very few of the weapons that are considered "dex weapons", is better mundane than it is normal @40dex. feel free to use the very simple formula i gave you to confirm it. mundane is only good for very specific weapons, it has nothing to do with str, dex or attack speed

So then dex weapons are pure shit and nothing will save them?

Have you had any luck with the Curved Great Swords?

 

[Old Hans]

Im so disappointed in the majority of areas for this game.

Iron Keep felt like it was designed for the sole purpose of being a pvp playground with no redeeming qualities for exploration.

Drangleic castle was a total letdown with nonsensical layout complete with areas that looked like they were copied from some old kings field design document. Better have ENB installed to hide those big empty square rooms. The door that opens into an empty closet was my favorite.

Shaded woods felt like it was inspired from the old ps2 BERSERK games complete with the worst fog effect ive seen since the 90s.

Forest of the Giants looks like it was supposed to be bigger, but then they blocked off areas with rubble so you end up seeing these long expanses of unfinished level design. That whole place has so many unavoidable eyesores like the low res trees and repeating textures that can only be remedied with a stronger depth of field.

I honestly think Dragon's Dogma did Dark Souls dungeons better than this game. Complete with personal lantern, no torch needed! HOORAY

 

[Kanedias]

http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkSouls2/comments/254ty1/soul_memory_tiers_and_exact_ranges_for/

Soul Memory tiers uncovered.

 

[Malpercio]

Actually, in terms of art design, Shaded Woods is the closest thing to Undead Burg.

Also, somewhat surprisingly, the foggy area is quite cool, and does induce a nice sense of paranoia as you try to explore it without getting backstabbed by a ghost.

It's quite fun to mistake other player shadows for enemies, ahah.

 

[Murk]

DragoFireheart I think Praetor is saying that most of the dex weapons have good dex scaling and so are not worth turning mundane; you would get more use out of them if you pumped dex to 40.

I think he's using a double negative so it's coming off a bit wierd.

---


I don't know if I get agility or if hit boxes are weird. Grab attacks by bosses have retarded hit boxes and will grab you even if you are nowhere near the actual animation; fine, whatever, they are slow and can be dodged. It's not "fair" but it's not "hard" either (cyclopses/shreks, Mytha, rotten, and Pursuer come to mind).

With low agility (on my sl 1 char) it seems that you get hit even when the animation doesn't make sense. I would roll through the attack and only clearing it would a hit register. Maybe it was lag? But I was not summoned or summoning. My assumption is because the low agility I have very few i-frames and so get hit more frequently. This bothers me because the mechanic doesn't match up with the visuals/animations. I'm not sure I _like_ agility, I almost think the previous version of weight = roll speed was better. But I guess very few people have sub-90 agility.

Soul Memory sucks for any low level character; completely breaks the game for PVP. I got invaded by people who are level 100+ and I'm just trying to pick up a fucking dull ember =(

 

[Kanedias]

Namco Q&A on the Steam forums.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/236430/discussions/0/558755529569809677/#p1

 

[Tripicus]

I've never played this but I'm a bit curious about the online... so basically if I try this game, other players will jump into my game and kick over my sandcastles and steal my girlfriend? That sounds too scary for me, at least if I suck in a normal 1p game nobody will laugh at me.

During my first NG run, I was invaded a grand total of 6 times, ignoring anything related to Bellkeeper and Ratbro areas. I'm not good at PvP, but it wasn't a hindrance to me.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Hitboxes in general are kinda bad, markedly worse than DaS1 at the least. It's very obvious to me as a greatsword enthusiast, where I use the Zweihander's 2HR1 on a group of dogs or spiders, and the blade simply passes through some of them without doing anything. On the other hand, my mastodon halberd seems to have a much larger hitbox than the size of the blade would indicate.

On the other hand, when it comes to boss attacks, I think a lot of it is just animation problems - DaS1 had that with Havel occasionally as well, where his tracking one-handed overhead swing would kill you while seemingly hitting the ground far away. That's just the animation bugging out and not a bad hitbox - you got hit fair and square, you just couldn't see it. One obvious place where this happens in DaS2 is Old Dragonslayer, where his double upwards thrust tracks, and occasionally hits you while he's facing away.

All that said, while I like most changes to stats in DaS2, I don't particularly like the unclear way AGI affects rolling. The idea of needing to invest in a stat to make rolls better is a good one, but the execution is weird. Roll distance scaling almost linearly with equip load is great, on the other hand.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

 

[DragoFireheart]

Hitboxes are so fucked in this game that you need 110 AGi to cope with it.

 

[praetor]

hitboxes are beyond fucked. the worst of DeS and DaS1 doesn't even compare with the milder examples in DaS2. shit's retarded, yo. since they toned down i-frames on rolls, they should've made hitboxes better, not worse. it's like they did it on purpose to show hardcore and difficult the game is

 

[DragoFireheart]

hitboxes are beyond fucked. the worst of DeS and DaS1 doesn't even compare with the milder examples in DaS2. shit's retarded, yo. since they toned down i-frames on rolls, they should've made hitboxes better, not worse. it's like they did it on purpose to show hardcore and difficult the game is

I refuse to believe they were incompetent on this. They must have purposely made hitboxes terrible.

EDIT: I meant incompetent.

 

[Murk]

Invisible wall/hitbox collisions on archery is way worse than before. I'll have arrows sticking out of a wall that are like 3 feet away from the wall (not exaggerating) when trying to snipe.

Also, never saw that shield roll attack before. Huh. I usually kill them on the ledge to give me more time with their long walk/jump.

I think the game is entering the dreaded "arbitrary difficulty" zone more and more. I'm OK with the "throw more enemies at them" logic, as much as I rage when Darklurker starts dual fire-orb bombarding, but the game is no longer playing "fair" where your judgment actually applies.

I was under the impression my judgment was off because of agility, which has that stupid "real time action + stats = hit mudcrab in morrowind for 0 damage because lol you missed" effect, but this may be due to the hitbox bullshit. I know agility lowers your i-frames and I was blaming that, but that it was stupid that I can clear the attack and then afterwards it still registers.

For how _precise_ this game requires you to be it sure gives itself margins of error.

Also, fuck lag in PVP. I die from getting hit from like 6 feet away.


SL 1 adventures; was having difficulty with Rotten (running out of stamina during his 3 part attack) and not being able to roll away from his self-centered explosion which one-shots me. So, I figured "fuggit, yolo" and went naked with the ritual ring that lowers HP and red tearstone. Burnt myself in the flames since I was getting one-shotted or one hit then combo chained anyway and figured i might as well get more damage.

What the fuck, I destroyed him. I was already at 29% load before so my boost to stam use/regen/rolls from being at 7% load couldn't have been THAT much better but I guess my "fuckit" attitude won over. Was oddly satisfying to beat him nude (no resins either, just +10 mace).

 

[toro]

Also, fuck lag in PVP. I die from getting hit from like 6 feet away.

This is one huge letdown for me. Having a shitty ISP is basically ruining PvP for me.

On the bright side, I've managed to kill two bell bros with one hit. DKH is simply awesome.

 

[Random]

Dark Souls II, to me, is a huge disappointment. It feels like, for every step forward the new developers took, they took one or two more steps back with their other design decisions, art direction, etc. I hate to admit it, but I just don't care enough to even finish NG. I'm at Aldria's Keep, and I feel like the game has only been getting worse since the Lost Bastille (and the Ruins Sentinels were probably the first symptom of the decline). Drangleic Castle looked fucking sick - I was getting seriously hyped when I climbed those stairs and fought my way through the hordes to get inside. Then, it just fell flat, with the player getting to explore literally 3% of the entire castle in a linear progression with mediocre bosses. There were similar issues with other areas, promising so much and failing to deliver. The other big problem I have with the game is that it cheats to create nonsensical difficulty with its hitboxes and enemies rotating 180 degrees with their attacks and so on. I've seen far better critiques than I can produce, though, so I won't turn this into an essay.

tl;dr: DSII is a let-down. I will say that it's probably better than most games these days, and there are a few improvements over DS1 that I do appreciate, but the other "improvements" come with their own issues. Overall, it's just not as solid and cohesive a game as DS1 in my unqualified, unreliable, and uneducated opinion.

 

[Murk]

Ruin Sentinels theme is p dope tho: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XbotgRkGr0

gets p epic around 1:15

I fought them early on in my first play through -- I went Last Giant, Pursuer, then Ruin Sentinels. At the time I thought it was cool and neat -- later I got very bored with "giant humanoid + ridiculous reach weapon" formula. But the first time, was p cool.

edit: p p pp p p pppppp

 

[Gozma]

Does the DaS1 phenomenon that got called a "dead angle" hit (why did they copy completely unrelated Guilty Gear terminology?) still happen? I thought that glitch was a big tipoff about their MMORPG style netcode because they can't actually maintain proper hitbox collisions.

Edit - if you don't know what I'm talking about, the essence of it is that when you hit another player in PvP (this may happen to some degree in coop against monsters, too) the game compares the angle of rotation of both players to see if the player that's struck is able to block the attack. Normally this does stuff like make it so if you hit someone in the back while they are facing in the other direction with their shield up, the game knows to let the attack go unguarded. But because of the hitbox-agnostic way they implemented it, this also has the rather insane side-effect that you can hit someone through their guard if you are facing away from them; e.g. if you run up to someone that's guarding, turn around, and do a 360 degree attack like Wrath of God, it will ignore their shield.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

So basically:

Giant Memories are basically all the bad things about DaS2 condensed into a small area. Thankfully the only required one is very short, and basically only contains a very easy bossfight.

Ancient Dragon is truly awful. The only challenge of the fight is avoiding his huge AOE, which by itself is not very difficult. But then, sometimes he'll actually move in the air before breathing fire, which is impossible to anticipate as far as I know. So, I'd do fine against him until he'd randomly decide to fly forward and center the blast on my head. Ended up 2handing a Gyrm Greatshield, which let me block two ticks of the fire in the worst case scenario. I'd say he's worse than Bed of Chaos, but fortunately he's optional and doesn't drop anything of import.

On the whole, Dragon Shrine has some pretty challenging enemies for a melee character, plus the whole area is absolutely gorgeous. Pity it's so short and linear.

Vendrick is just sad.

Watcher/Defender seem pretty good from my few attempts. Their presentation is terrible, they're not intimidating at all, Defender has an extremely dull moveset, and the music is very forgettable. But the fight itself is quite fun, like a much more technical O&S.


Random thought: Pursuer's Greatsword has a nice moveset, especially the 1HR1, and it's surprisingly fast for such a heavy weapon.

 

[toro]

But then, sometimes he'll actually move in the air before breathing fire, which is impossible to anticipate as far as I know.

You have to stay in front of him and then you can anticipate all his moves. It's a contra-intuitive boss like Sif: in that case you had to rush him always, in this case you have to bait him (by standing right in front of his nose).

Also, the ancient dragon is not so stupid: from the air he can breath fire under him, in front of him and on long range. But once you learn his pattern, is quite easy. I beat him naked with a BKH. He drops an Giant soul.

Bed of Chaos was not optional that's why the comparison doesn't stand.

 

[Random]

I continue to be amazed at how Bed of Chaos is such a FUBAR clone of the Dragon God fight. But this topic has been discussed to death.