From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[meanwhileInPoland]

None, since it's counted as a key too, and disappears on restart even if you don't use it.

you cant even upgrade it. the last time i was so dissapointed in Souls games was when Ornstein helm did not have his red plume things that matters in Souls games

 

[Murk]

That whole bit was p dope; the bound guy was some joke about the animu cliche of the male protagonist tying himself up at night when he sleeps near a girl so "she feels safe"; this dudebro was chained and the "key" fit directly into his fucking face. There's got to be some more backstory to that -- what a twisted little detail.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Shrine of Amana is a great level. Really beautiful and atmospheric, and actually has some original gameplay mechanics and encounter design, never before seen in a Souls game. Also, if you're careful, there's only really one cheap segment, where you can't ambush mages from behind cover of some sort - the one just before the third bonfire, with the two archdrake knights. Its only real problem is that it's too linear, although it's more like a semi-open area rather than just a corridor.

Replaying NG now, and finding that I actually like a lot of the levels individually, taken on their own, they're certainly up to DaS1 standards. Their problems lie in how they're so disconnected from each other, and how some feel kinda artificial - much like Sen's Fortress, in fact. Of course, Sen's Fortress was an area specifically created to challenge adventurers heading to Anor Londo, so it made sense there. It doesn't really make sense in Iron Keep, Earthen Peak or Drangleic Castle.

 

[Silva]

Replaying NG now, and finding that I actually like a lot of the levels individually, taken on their own, they're certainly up to DaS1 standards. Their problems lie in how they're so disconnected from each other, and how some feel kinda artificial - much like Sen's Fortress, in fact. Of course, Sen's Fortress was an area specifically created to challenge adventurers heading to Anor Londo, so it made sense there. It doesn't really make sense in Iron Keep, Earthen Peak or Drangleic Castle.

Yup, pretty much this.

Hey Cowboy, are you still playing with GEM and Gedosato ? I turned GEM off because its lighting was too exagerated to my tastes (it made Majula moody twilight look like a brilliant sunset). But I kept Gedosato just for the DOF effect. I use it around 1.09 or something.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Replaying NG now, and finding that I actually like a lot of the levels individually, taken on their own, they're certainly up to DaS1 standards. Their problems lie in how they're so disconnected from each other, and how some feel kinda artificial - much like Sen's Fortress, in fact. Of course, Sen's Fortress was an area specifically created to challenge adventurers heading to Anor Londo, so it made sense there. It doesn't really make sense in Iron Keep, Earthen Peak or Drangleic Castle.

Yup, pretty much this.

Hey Cowboy, are you still playing with GEM and Gedosato ? I turned GEM off because its lighting was too exagerated to my tastes (it made Majula moody twilight look like a brilliant sunset). But I kept Gedosato just for the DOF effect. I use it around 1.09 or something.

Yeah, although I modified GEM's default SweetFX settings, because it makes everything look too desaturated for my tastes. But I do use it, if only for gameplay reasons, as it forces you to actually use a torch in darker areas, as it should. Couldn't even walk over the pier in No Man's Wharf without a torch, and couldn't see the Lost Sinner at all outside of lock-on range, which to me suggests that the setting correctly alings with what the game believes your vision range to be.

Also, dark areas like Huntsman's Copse look way better with it. The forest in there is spooky as fuck when you can't see more than a few meters ahead, but with default settings it looks like shit.

 

[Silva]

Cowboy Moment , that makes sense. Do you mind putting your files here so I could use them ? I have no idea how to edit Sweetfx settings. Thanks in advance.

By the way, I see a DLC coming along the way which correct many problems with the game right now. Lightning being one of them.

 

[Murk]

Bros, what's the best place to farm spices? I'm told brightstone cove for the white hollow mages (skeptics) and shrine of amana?

 

[Kanedias]

The Belfries give the most spices, 3 Simpleton's on Sol and 3 Skeptic's on Luna. The issue is that farming Skeptic's on Luna means you have to kill the Gargoyles every time. I never tried Amana, but the White Hollow Mages in Tseldora do drop Skeptic's Spices, and the Leydia Witches at the start of the Undead Crypt drop both types of spice.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Cowboy Moment , that makes sense. Do you mind putting your files here so I could use them ? I have no idea how to edit Sweetfx settings. Thanks in advance.

By the way, I see a DLC coming along the way which correct many problems with the game right now. Lightning being one of them.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/8bws3u

Just replace your original GEM files with these. Try only using the SweetFX first, I don't think I did anything to the GEM specific one, aside from disabling some stuff I found extraneous.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

Spoiler

 

[Murk]

The Belfries give the most spices, 3 Simpleton's on Sol and 3 Skeptic's on Luna. The issue is that farming Skeptic's on Luna means you have to kill the Gargoyles every time. I never tried Amana, but the White Hollow Mages in Tseldora do drop Skeptic's Spices, and the Leydia Witches at the start of the Undead Crypt drop both types of spice.

Thanks bro; I donno if I wanna fucks with the damn gargoyles on my sl1 guy again. Especially if they'll be doing more damage since they already almost kill me in a hit. I may just stick to the damn mages.

Does burning an ascetic increase drop rate? please be yes

 

[praetor]

The Belfries give the most spices, 3 Simpleton's on Sol and 3 Skeptic's on Luna. The issue is that farming Skeptic's on Luna means you have to kill the Gargoyles every time. I never tried Amana, but the White Hollow Mages in Tseldora do drop Skeptic's Spices, and the Leydia Witches at the start of the Undead Crypt drop both types of spice.

mages and witches have pretty low drop rates for spices since the patch (or maybe it's the RNG at work... for me, and some others when i searched the net, they dropped more stuff before the patch without item drop gear than now with it). amana is the best for skeptic's. 2 per ascetic that you can get in 2 mins, plus you can kill dem knights for the twinklies

so i read somewhere on-lain that the softcap for dark/fire bonus is 30 fth/int and softcap for mundane is 20 of the lowest stat
again, nobody seems to know for sure, so do you guys have any idea about dat?

30 for fth/int and 30 for mundane

 

[Cyberarmy]

I farmed Leydia Witches for spices, they nearly all dropped at least one for me with ring and jester head.

 

[praetor]

30 for mundane softcap? you're sure? i read lots saying the softcap is at 20 and after that its diminishing returns, 30 for mundane is way too high :/

it's 6/7 per level up to 20, then it's 3 per level, after 30 it's 1. and having at least 30 in all stats is a very very hefty investment so no, it's not "too high"

 

[praetor]

a very very hefty investment is actually the definition of too high. so it goes down half after 20, which seems to be the soft middle-cap, then. any reason to raise that up any further? i see none

ah, i misinterpreted your "too high" as meaning that it's too good

3/level is still on par with dex and str. if you're thinking of the SL150 PvP meta, going past 20 is pretty much pointless, but with the way SM works, any SL*** meta is pointless fingers crossed for a patch removing the SM travesty

 

[Murk]

Cyberarmy any word if the jester hat has higher item disco rate than the prisoner' hood? I sport that for weight.

So, SL1 playthrough nearly complete. Beat Nasty-Andrea and now only Darklurker to go. I will probably cry a bit on that fight but we'll see how pyromancy holds up. I've only fought him/her with my weirdo quality duder who was using a greatsword. I was unable to farm enough spice to use great light bolt; got it down to 22 faith -- need to drop it to 12. Guess I'll do that in NG+ where I assume I'll need those spells.

Longwinded thoughts on difficulty and patterns to come later; for now it was definitely easier than DS1 (doing an SL1 run) mainly because of a lack of Manus. I had difficulty (on my SL 1 char) with a lot of bosses in DS 1 but none so bad as Manus.

When I got to the Aerie, I killed the mook dragons by poisoning them with a dagger. The one fucking dagger in the whole game. Seriously? There's one fucking dagger (and one fucking short sword). Meanwhile; you can stockpile Murakumos like nobodies business. Ridiculous.

root you can't use flash sweats + immolation at the same time; but if you are near water you can use that to keep it off

 

[Cyberarmy]

Mikayel
I have no idea mate, since From not like to give us numbers we can only speculate. My best guess is that they are the same.

 

[Murk]

Word. I'm also speculating they stack; I know the falling damage reduction gear and soul bonus gear stacks so I'm guessing item drop stuff does too. Bleh. Farming is a pain for sure. I don't think I'm going to bother; at most I might try to get another Flame Swathe if I'm bored but I doubt it -- it's probably easier to just use herbs and finish the game at this point. I kind of want to level up again so I'm itching to try another char/build. Guess in that sense the game is a success for sure.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Try that Kobolds near first bonfire at Aldia's Keep. They drop some crazy stuff including spells.

 

[Jick Magger]

Imo the story in DS2 is not very interesting not because it's obfuscated (it's not), but because it's simply... not very interesting. It's about a king who triedhard and crazy queen and giants killing everyone. Oh and some experiments with souls, whatever. While in DS1 it's about whole world battling with it's own emminent enthropy which comes just from the nature of how the world was created. No matter how you look at it, DS1 just feels a bit heavier, don't you think? And being undead and people turning hollow makes more sense thematically in a world which eats itself than a DS2 world which seems to have more lore about politics. I know that everyone tried to battle the curse in DS2 too but it just doesn't feel as important.

And the writing itself is... kinda poor, you can replace every line with "ancient legend says but today nobody knows but who knows maybe it's true maybe not".

And it's funny, because it actually tries to address a theme which, if applied correctly, could've been some of the heaviest shit in the series. The idea that the curse causes people's memories to slowly erode away could've been a brilliant thing had it actually been implemented that well into the cast of characters that are introduced. As it stands, that whole aspect of the curse is only explored with Maughlin the armourer and Lucatiel. They should've made the rest of the inhabitants of Majula afflicted with the curse and show how it slowly eats away at them over the course of the game. They get more and more desperate to find a cure; possibly realise just how important human effigies are and start gunning for you (or other NPC's) in order to get them and restore their sanity; completely change personalities due to all the memories they've lost; and basically just become husks who wander around aimlessly, not even remembering where they are.

If anything, this would've worked even better with a plot like Dark Souls, which often has giant chunks of the lore torn out and the rest being told through second or third-hand accounts from extremely sketchy characters.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

I always find it a risky proposition to stake your storytelling effectiveness on players liking certain characters enough to care. DaS1's plot is easy to understand and be invested in without giving a fuck about them; I certainly didn't during my first playthrough (didn't even talk to the Crestfallen Warrior and rang both bells without knowing I was supposed to, herp derp #yolo). I mean, they're good for giving the world more flavor, imparting some information that's difficult to convey otherwise, and of course as merchants/blacksmiths, but I still don't find them very substantial or anything like that.

DaS2 needed to make the world interesting and cohesive, that's the most important thing. They probably would've benefitted from having more location-specific NPCs like Straid, McDuff or Vengarl as well - people who are part of an area's history and serve to make it more "real" in the player's mind. Finding Vengarl's body at the primal bonfire is one of the game's cooler moments, imo, and a nice troll as well.

 

[Murk]

Try that Kobolds near first bonfire at Aldia's Keep. They drop some crazy stuff including spells.

I dicked around there a bit; got 2 affinities, a black knight greatsword, and some other weird item that didn't seem like it fit. Such weird drops.

--

Many NPCs express forgetting but it just sort of blurts out and becomes a cyclical line. There's never a point where one actually goes full hollow or suicides like the original Crestfallen. It's just another line they repeat. Cale, the stone-merchant, and the chancellor all lose their memory (or are currently losing it), but there's no real follow up.

 

[Silva]

http://www.sendspace.com/file/8bws3u

Just replace your original GEM files with these. Try only using the SweetFX first, I don't think I did anything to the GEM specific one, aside from disabling some stuff I found extraneous.

Thanks, Cowboy! Im just beginning a NG+ and will use these settings.

 

[Murk]

So... uhh... what the fuck were the masked play-puppet character things in the teaser/trailer? Just meta-references to phantoms?

 

[Kanedias]

They were reworked into the headless Manikins from Earthen Peak.