From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[praetor]

why isn't this fucking game on a decent sale yet, I'm not paying full price for the PC version after beating it on the PS3 YES I AM POOR

'twas 20jewros (30 zionbucks) on amazon a month ago. even for my almost-thirdworldia paygrade that wasn't expensive (not too cheap, either. but too expensive to buy another copy for myself )

 

[Jaedar]

So I just got a 1 GB patch of the game. I presume this means the DLC is now on-disk(at least partially)?

Kinda doubt I'll buy it though, unless it turns out to be very amazung.

 

[praetor]

so images leaked of most (all?) the new shit in the DLC (the patch added all of it, people "unlocked" with cheatengine). new armour is cool, some other stuff too (whip sword!), others look meh (2 more variations of avelyn, some weapons that might be cool but probably won't be), spells are megacrap (TWoP... but nerfed to the point of uselessness, SC 2.0 is thankfully not-retarded, hexes get... soul greatsword! so creative!, that new soul beam is apparently crap) etc... there's a thread on reddit

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

the butthurt over nerfed lighting spears is glorious "whaaa ? i cant kill Old iron king anymore with GLS before he even reaches platform?!!!"

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

Team-B man... They better unlock the fucking DLC for people who paid for it or a shitstorm will ensue since cheaters can have all the shit already. Some dude on reddit even has the key to the door.

Things I noticed so far with the patch:

• THE Greatsword has S in STR so... 650 AR at 99/99.
• Helix powerstance works only with itself and other spears or lances. Still does insane damage and you don't even have to mundane it - A in DEX
• Negative poise bug has been fixed. With iron flesh I can get all the way up to 285.
• Sinner's Sword is roughly the same as Pursuer's at 99/99 with 0 sin.
• King's UGS buff took it to 710 AR at 99/99
• Ruler's Sword seems to have received a very minor buff (maybe fix for the soul scaling?)
• No arena healing, in b4 running to use Great Heal Excerpt.
• People on reddit claim that stagger/stun overall has been reduced.
• Red Iron Twinblade is OP apparently.
• Most curved swords STILL seem better mundane with all stats at 99.
• Curved dragon UGS is now at 650 with 99/99. Curved UGS class in general changed. Murakumo > Arced > Curved Dragon now. Before Arced used to be just a tiny bit better.
• Drakekeeper UGS now has S in STR. So finally, we have a decent zwei-moveset UGS.
• Butcher Knife has A in STR and weighs 16 instead of 22.
• Heavy armor nerfs are pathetic... Havel + Gyrm Greathelm is still the best Poise/DEF setup. They'll probably have something better for the DLC...
• Increased physical AR when infusing seems to have been fixed on Barbed Club, not sure about Malformed Skull.
• Hammers seem to have all been made similar... Reinforced Club/Mace/Homunculus Mace have the same AR at 99/99 now.
• BSS still transfers its low stamina drain to other swords/katanas/rapiers when powerstanced.
• Shield Crossbow has 100 physical resist now... They also reduced the stability by 10.
• Grand Lance / Chariot lance are both at 490 AR with 99/99. Chariot has A in STR now.
• Flamberge has S in DEX.
• Defender went down to B in lightning instead of S.
• Monastery Scimitar at S in DEX.
• Partizan has S in DEX.
• Mundane bandit knife now has more AR than mundane shadow dagger.
  
• You can't cancel parries anymore. 2H moveset attacks seems easier to cancel than 1H for some reason.

Overall GS/Katanas are still gonna rule the day IMHO. There's also no reason to drop the numb turtle helix setup. With no healing in the arena, numbness is prob. gonna become more common.

Edit: i just tried the BSS/Rapier infinite stunlock - you can still get a bunch of hits in but the stun animation seems to throw opponents further so it stops around 4-6 hits in. If you can get them against a wall though..... GG.

Edit2: Spear in Right slot and Helix in Left seems to make helix a bit faster and consume slightly lest stamina? GG.................

Edit3: Ok... I just found the first broken thing.... Katana Left - Helix Right - you get katana stamina consumption. FUCKING TEAM B

Edit4: Doing 800-1000 counters with Sacred Oath + Buffs on two helix halberds. Things haven't changed at all.

Edit5: Monastery Scimitar parries on first frame again? I don't even know...

Edit6: I'm seeing a lot of dual lances... I guess mastohelix kiddies are trying new things?

Edit7: Yep now I'm a parry pro again... Monscim+Bandit Knife new meta!

Edit8: Just did a 3.6k backstab on someone with light armor with mundane bandit knife (sacred oath/weapon buff). Awesome strats - parry spam monscim, make them do a jump attack and get a free backstab. GG.

 

[Murk]

What the fucking fuck.

I think I'm gonna pull a Kanedias and drop the game if this plays out as retarded as I think it will.

Greatswords no longer break poise on 1 hit and are no longer guaranteed the 4 hit combo (seems 2 hit is the new rule). They follow the 1:3 ratio as well.

Red twinblade has an AR of 550 with ring of blades +2 (absolutely retarded) and also seems to have a guaranteed 2 r1 combo which is actually more like 4 hits and can easily take off about 1k damage.

also welcome back the days of the mon scim rape with an even more op stabbing dagger. yay.

 

[DragoFireheart]

The nerfs to Lightning Spears and the buff to GRS show how retard From.

 

[Murk]

light spear had too many casts anyway but it doesn't bother me as it's an obvious PvE spell.

This shit is so sloppy; they fixed poise (it seems) to the point that it is consisent but did not remove the ridiculousness of the helix halberd and redid the same mistake they had with the twinblades and mon scim parry frames. Is it really hard to not undo past fixes?

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

The nerfs to Lightning Spears and the buff to GRS show how retard From.

yes, because having 22 GLS and around 40 or 50 LS to spam was not retarded. at least now clerics will have to use their fucking maces once in a while

anyway i can now easily face tank two R1 hits ... its Ultra`s time

 

[Murk]

Ok so poise is fixed (roll around is gone and weapons do the right 1:3 ratio of poise damage), armor is weird (1k armor = ~95 damage less; seems to follow a 1:11 ratio of 1 damage reduced per 11 points of armor, roughly) and UGS weapons do way too little damage for how much their AR is (masto has 150 AR less but does like 40 damage less, and in some cases has less AR than murakumo but does more damage... heh).

Welcome to the world of lance powerstance

also, apparently backstabs and ripostes do less damage randomly (like half as much damage)

and also, souls scale based on level. The gap between levels = you get less souls. So, if a level 150 kills a 300 he gets less than the usual %, but if a level 300 kills a level 150 he gets full % as per 10/37.

Best part of the patch: greatswords are no longer broken pieces of shit (do r2 poke is still real), many weapons are viable, and armor is not as effective it seems

Worst part: mon scim, damage fluctuations, less souls for me when killing higher level invaders/hosts n stuff (i'm at 200mil, just gimme my fucking souls)

FUN FACT: your left hand does less damage than your right. Seriously, it's retarded. Same weapon same attack like 10% less damage just because.


also and also also p.s also p.p.s: praise the hackers -- new items/spells from DLC (mostly generic gameplay but periodically shows items/gear. mostly doesn't look that good)

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

 

[LivingOne]

Not sure if legit but(dlc spoilers ahead):

Spoiler

So a friend of mine was able to hack into the DLC early, and streamed it on twitch. I'd normally avoid spoilers, but I took one for the team here so I could judge the quality of the DLC. This review will have no spoilers, so don't worry about that. If you want spoilers, you'll have to PM me.

Now, on to the review. Level design is excellent. The DLC area is absolutely massive, and you easily get lost in it's many secret passageways and mechanical contraptions. Enemies are brutal and vicious, often suprising you with unique and startling attacks. There are too many unlockable shortcuts to count, and bonfires are few and far between, so you gotta use those shortcuts.

You also cannot warp between the DLC bonfires, which adds another layer of difficulty to the challenge. There are a lot of items. Tons and tons of chests and stuff, due to the nature of how he got into the DLC, he was unable to open the chests. Even if he could, a lot of items still have to be added into the DLC, so they would have been place-holders.

Now, to what I'm sure most people are wondering about, boss design. There are 3 bosses in the DLC. The first one I wouldn't really consider a boss fight, kinda dissapointed in that particular boss fight. 5/10 on the first boss fight. Second boss is much further into the level, took this guy about 3 hours to find it, and even then he had to hack through a door because he was missing a key.

The first real boss you face is what I would describe a deadly mix of the darklurker, nashandra and Mytha, with a bit of gravelord Nito and some completely new shit in there. I won't spoil any of the lore or attacks, but this guy had a powerful build and he gave up after the 5th try and went to bed. It also does some really unexpected shit that is sorta cheap, but scares the crap out of you.

Overall 8.5/10 on this boss.

And that's just the boss you have to beat in order to get to the dragon. Yeah, the dragon's gonna be a badass.

I haven't seen the final boss yet, but it's a dragon. (duh) And that it's only slightly bigger than Kalameet, so no ancient dragon one-shot fuckery here. When the streamer quit, I'd say he was about 2/3 of the way through the DLC, so still a good deal of stuff I haven't seen yet.

Overall, here's my score.

Level Design: 9/10, amazing shit. You'll get lost, over and over and over again.

Enemy Design and placement. 7/10 some clever traps and tricks, but overall too many ganks for my liking.

Boss design. 9/10, if we're just counting the actual real boss. That other thing wasn't a boss fight...

Amount of Content: 10/10, easily more content than in the AOTA DLC.

Overall, I'd give the entire thing so far a 8.5/10. If you're on the fence right now, buy it. They've addressed almost all the complaints people had about the vanilla game's level design and difficulty. There's not fucking bullshit teleporting here, the entire place is one big fucking interconnected maze of mindfuckery. Completely non-linear.

Anyway, I can't wait until the 22nd, and I hope I've helped some of you decide whether or not it's worth $10.

...I can't wait.

I'd say a blind play-through would take anywhere from 5/7 hours depending on how good you are, and whether you had help.

Spoiler

Yeah the graphics inside the buildings were unimpressive. Outside was fucking beautiful though.

Spoiler

I saw the souls for the 2nd and 3rd boss, but does the first boss have one?

No soul. Like I said, not a real boss.


It's not really a spoiler... So I'll just say it now. It's just three a guy with katana, a havel and a guy with a greatbow.

All using regular armour and really lame. Most sad part of the DLC. :p

Spoiler

You also cannot warp between the DLC bonfires

I believe it is just missing codes.


Might be. I really hope not, but it's possible. The way the levels were designed made me think otherwise, because of all the shortcuts that could be unlocked.

It could very well be that though, I know as a matter of fact that there are warp codes for the bonfire, that's how this guy got into the DLC in the first place, he plopped the codes into a homeward bone and it took him there.

http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkSouls2/comments/2b74tr/full_sunken_king_dlc_review/

 

[Murk]

Not much of a review but eh. I saw a chunk of the stream but stopped, IMO it's better to not know what's coming and also it's harder to make an internal map of a place when watching another play.

 

[praetor]

@0:37

 

[Stonewolf]

Wasnt this shit fixed already?

 

[Murk]

one step forward, two steps back

the armor, it does noooothinngggg

best armor in game; be naked and instead of royal soldier ring equip attunement ring and use numb

go win

 

[praetor]

one step forward, two steps back

the armor, it does noooothinngggg

best armor in game; be naked and instead of royal soldier ring equip attunement ring and use numb

go win

so new meta will be everybody in black witch stuff for the elemental near-immunity (with gmb, rings and numb) until that's nerfed into the ground? go go team B (not that team A's balancing efforts were that much better, but at least they fixed more than they broke with each patch...)

 

[Murk]

Numb is beyond retarded. Iron flesh is actually more effective but it lasts 30 seconds WITH the +2 lingering ring. Numb goes over a minute and a half. Physical armor is 1:11 basically, but numb is always ~35% off for all elements. And since poise is pretty much pointless, you never wanna be trading hits with someone in that position. Especially if they're packing a counter weapon (like... say 2 lances that are 160 counter).

But yeah, I am seeing more black witch stuff across the board. And warlock mask, of course.

Earlier today I hit a guy with gmb and numb in alonne captain armor and warlock mask with crystal soul spear for 173 damage. I mean, the counter said i did that much damage but all I saw were the letters G and G.


also don't forget your monscim lulululululul

Only thing left is to have the two new avelyns be OP as shit in the DLC and we're officially back full circle. Sept magic is piontless.

Given how little armor values matter, I am honestly confused as to why the fuck they bothered reducing armor values by like 5 or 30 points each. Just seems like a tedious waste of time.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Dark Souls 2 vs DS 1 article from the developer of the Ultima Ratio Regum roguelike:

http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2014/07/20/dark-souls-2-design-ravings/

Just thought someone might find it interesting.

 

[AngryEddy]

Dark Souls 2 vs DS 1 article from the developer of the Ultima Ratio Regum roguelike:

http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2014/07/20/dark-souls-2-design-ravings/

Just thought someone might find it interesting.

Really, it has "stern competition from Command and Conquer"? whoever wrote that garbage is gonna get an angry email from me, i'll tell you the rest of my thoughts when im done reading this desperately trying to be relevant piece of shit. I can tell you right off of the bat, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. His level design speech is really longwinded. This guy seems to be blowing Dark Souls 1 really hard, I agree the Aesthetics of Dark Souls 1 was miles better, but to literally draw an infinitely complex image and then compare it to a 5 sided image is embarrassing. This guy is dick riding DS1 hard. As I'm reading this nonsense, the reason why this guy wrote so much, is ego fellatio.

If you absolutely have to read this piece of garbage article the summation paragraph is all you need :

"So what went wrong? For the most part I enjoyed my first playthrough, even though some bits left me cold the first time I was playing them. Other parts impressed with their aesthetics or some of their enemies, but upon further consideration their linearity compared to the first game became apparent. The fundamental problems are two-fold – the development team tried too hard to create Dark Souls 2 instead of a new Souls game, and – for whatever reasons – they moved away from the maze-like structure of the first game (at both the individual level scale and the entire world scale) towards a world of straight lines with minimal deviation. Too much of the first half draws from the first game; too few bosses, NPCs or areas feel at all original; and too many regions just boil down to straight lines which try to cover up wildly inconsistent geography. There are many small improvements, but the few major steps backwards are just too significant. After finishing DS2 I returned to DS1 for the first time in six months and instantly fell back into its incredible world. I thought I was certain to want to 100% DS2, and yet nothing from that world actually calls me back. There’s so much to go through to get to the more interesting segments, and even those segments are still just walking from one point to another. I’m sure I’ll revisit it some day, but Lordran, not Drangleic, remains my Dark Souls home."

All of that long winded bravado and he did not once bring up parry spam ruining the MP experience, or gank squads going unpunished. That tells me all I need to know. This writer did not invest enough time in to the game to see the significant flaws that lie within.

 

[Quatlo]

(...)but to literally drawn an infinitely complex image, draw a 5 sided image is embarrassing.(...)

Its very old map of the level, it has been around even before the pc port of Dark Souls 1

I was even able to agree with that article in a few points but then I've got to the part with

Spoiler

Another glaring weakness is, as hinted at above, is that even the levels that lead to each other are not connected! (...) You will note, I am sure, that there is nothing atop this windmill-castle-thing. No lift, no path, and certainly no volcano. Indeed, there is no volcano anywhere even remotely in sight. As you progress through this region (Earthen Peak), you reach the top of the structure and defeat the boss. After that, you get in a lift and go upwards… into the air… and emerge into this area, Iron Keep, a castle within a volcano with lava and flame for miles around.

This guy is an idiot who is riding the "Omg so hard and hardcore game for real men" bandwagon and is probably waiting for some VaatiVidya videos to explain the game's lore for him because he obviously has no idea what the hell he is talking about.
I could point out a lot more glaring idiocies from his raving but its probably pointless.

 

[Raghar]

@0:37

I'm so happy I play offline only DS 1.

BTW why there is a picture of Inue Orihime? She is more lethal than last boss of DS.

 

[praetor]

Quatlo what's so bad about pointing out what is one of the worst examples of geographical consistency in a game world, ever? i haven't read the full article yet (hopefully i'll have enough time for that [and finish the goddamned review] soon enough ), but i don't see why you would discredit the writer and call him a vaati fanboy after he pointed out one of the most idiotic level transitions of the last decade, if not more...

 

[SuicideBunny]

Quatlo what's so bad about pointing out what is one of the worst examples of geographical consistency in a game world, ever?

geographical consistency of souls games is souls lore 101. he's complaining about the lore while at the same time saying that he doesn't give enough of a fuck to read up on it (and admits to be too stupid to think of the reason himself).

 

[praetor]

Quatlo what's so bad about pointing out what is one of the worst examples of geographical consistency in a game world, ever?

geographical consistency of souls games is souls lore 101. he's complaining about the lore while at the same time saying that he doesn't give enough of a fuck to read up on it (and admits to be too stupid to think of the reason himself).

then Quatlo here should've quoted the relevant paragraph relating to that latter part, because nothing in what he quoted alludes to that. quoting 101, i guess

edit: apparently, you can cancel the recovery of a R1 greatsword attack with a parry and the parry will come out as fast as a small shield. pls Team B, stop