From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[toroid]

1. Does anyone actually get DS lore? I played DaS and DS2. For me, it's totally surreal world, I don't get ANYTHING that's happening in it.

I mostly get Dark Souls 1's lore, I think. I thought DS1's lore was very skillfully handled. It was encrypted and concealed in a way that was conducive to being logically decoded and comprehended if you seriously give your attention to reading item descriptions and listening to the dialogue, and then put some thought into how all of that information should tie together. You need to fill in the blanks in a lot of cases. If you're expecting the lore to be simply handed to you in bite-size pieces then you'll definitely be left wondering why you're not being fed. There are a lot of youtube videos focused on interpreting the lore in DS1, the conclusions they reach are usually very logical. Example

Dark Souls 2, on the other hand, seems more derivative, lazy and unoriginal. There is a lot of material that is literally copied from Dark Souls 1 and pasted into Dark Souls 2. This may indicate that Drangleic is Lordran.. or it may indicate developer laziness. Dunno really, I keep getting thrown off by how sloppy and unpolished the lore of DS2 is. Or maybe I just haven't fully pieced it together yet.

 

[Murk]

MapMan praetor

Current super optimized armor set up is havel arms n legs + jesters robe + gyrm greathelm or minotaur helm from dlc 2 (more poise but less armor/resistance).

All 3 gyrm helms are awesome tho. I usually run around in havels legs n arms with royal soldier breastplate and the regular gyrm helm (with the two horns). Black witch stuff is great too (sept the boots, chaos boots > black witch boots) because of how much elemental resistance you get. You will look like a weird hand-me-down store mannequin if you just pyle on "best resistance" shit tho.

Armor is weird -- you want some poise out of it to be able to eat a hit and keep swinging, but the threshold is high (well over 100) so unless you can stack poise over a hundred focus more on elemental resistance as those are % based. So, stuff like 'caster' shit is p good.

Alonne captain armor is great all around armor with good elemental stats and good phys/poise, so maybe try that. In the end tho, you'll see what looks/feels good. This also depends on how much weight you can carry .

Or, be a real man and chain gimp it up.

Kanedias nice link, I was curious what exactly 'Fume' meant and if it meant 'gas' or was some kind of social title that coincided with the word... but no, just means smoke. How... disappointing.

 

[MapMan]

1. Does anyone actually get DS lore? I played DaS and DS2. For me, it's totally surreal world, I don't get ANYTHING that's happening in it.

I mostly get Dark Souls 1's lore, I think. I thought DS1's lore was very skillfully handled. It was encrypted and concealed in a way that was conducive to being logically decoded and comprehended if you seriously give your attention to reading item descriptions and listening to the dialogue, and then put some thought into how all of that information should tie together. You need to fill in the blanks in a lot of cases. If you're expecting the lore to be simply handed to you in bite-size pieces then you'll definitely be left wondering why you're not being fed. There are a lot of youtube videos focused on interpreting the lore in DS1, the conclusions they reach are usually very logical. Example

Dark Souls 2, on the other hand, seems more derivative, lazy and unoriginal. There is a lot of material that is literally copied from Dark Souls 1 and pasted into Dark Souls 2. This may indicate that Drangleic is Lordran.. or it may indicate developer laziness. Dunno really, I keep getting thrown off by how sloppy and unpolished the lore of DS2 is. Or maybe I just haven't fully pieced it together yet.

Hey, thanks! This is a really great channel. I admit, I didn't put enough effort into understanding DS lore. I didn't care enough, I didn't have time, I was more focused on gitting gud. Doesn't matter. But that's the reason I don't go around saying DS lore is this and that, I have no right to do it. What I can say and what I know, is that DS world and lore is very intriguing. I love mystery, I love discovering unknown. That's why it's so appealing to me. It's almost a magical feeling. No one handed me the gameplay mechanics or the lore on plate, I had to discover everything, the world, it's history on my own. Even the item descriptions are awesome, often speaking of history and unknown circumstances. And now being done with my first playthrough I'm fine with someone else putting the pieces together. It's a really "magical" setting for me. Wish we would get more games that intrigue us, the players, to search for answers and uncover mysteries. Bonus points if it's not overly convoluted, with plot holes and shoddily put together

 

[Murk]

And vaati claims another two innocent souls

my god, your face! it's gone hollow...

 

[MapMan]

And vaati claims another two innocent souls

my god, your face! it's gone hollow...

Hah! Is there some consensus in the community about the guy and I just did a faux pas?

 

[Murk]

No, not really. Most of the "real" community loves him -- but codex is codex and here we hate first and maybe change our minds later if you turn out to be a tranny.

I am not a fan of the dude but I'm not gonna shit on you for enjoying his videos. They are, in my opinion, overly dramatic fanfiction with loose correlates in a setting that is intentionally obscure (and obtuse) and so trying to get a "official lore" down is... pointless. To say that his version is the 'correct one' is to give him too much credit. Most of his shit is obvious but some of it is... well, he usually prefaces it with something like "I think ____" so you can make up your own mind there.

 

[praetor]

he used to be ok, mostly putting to video theories that the community put together, but then when DaS2 was coming out he has shown his true colours as a complete shill... his DaS1 videos are mostly worth watching, imo. as kanedias said multiple times, he was just good at putting to video those community theories. just don't give him too much credit and you're ok. his later stuff is garbage. iirc, i've heard good things about TerraMantis and DaveControlLive, and iirc even SilverMont has some lore videos. so there are alternatives...

 

[Murk]

I also have a personal bias in that I just can't stand his voice.

 

[toroid]

And vaati claims another two innocent souls

my god, your face! it's gone hollow...

Hah! Is there some consensus in the community about the guy and I just did a faux pas?

Vaati is expressing his own interpretation of (like Mikayel said) an intentionally obscured presentation. Some people disagree with it, and other people just don't understand how Vaati can arrive at his conclusions without taking excessive liberties with the lore. Most of his DS1 lore videos are very logical and well made in my opinion so I enjoy them for what they are. It's definitely good to see others' perspectives as well to help form a more complete picture.

 

[StaticSpine]

I also have a personal bias in that I just can't stand his voice.

And I like his voice

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

I am not a fan of the dude but I'm gonna shit on you for enjoying his videos.

Corrected.

 

[Murk]

u r all a gays

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

Is it true that the last giant is teh giant lard? I read about it on iTubes. Vaati pls confirm.

 

[Kanedias]

Random rant time:

I keep hearing how people want Poise to be buffed yet again and I find it quite annoying. I'm of the opinion that they don't know what they are talking about and a buff to poise would be horrible for the game.

Right now, two handed weapons generally break poise, with the 2h r2 doing it every time (unless the enemy is on an hyper armor animation). These people get upset because they have 100+ poise and some 2h light weapon staggers them, and they want to tank the attacks instead. Now the problem is that if this happened, havelgyrm shitters with light weapons would become the new meta and would reign supreme. If you had light armor and a light weapon, they could simply wait for you to make an attack and mash R1 the moment you do so, forcing you to eat an unavoidable combo. No skill required at all.

Dark Souls 1 was different because of two main things, the first one is that either the Wolf Ring or heavy armor was in nearly every build, so the opponent tanking a hit didn't mean you eat an unavoidable combo, and the second one is that the ones that didn't use it could use toggle escaping to make low poise play viable. Of course, toggle escaping is not present in this game

Buffing poise would do nothing except killing light builds and force everyone into poise stacking and prevent havel shitters from being punished for their mistakes and godawful spacing

Poise is already quite useful because it makes your opponent have to two hand if they want to interrupt your attack, thus limiting their moveset. I don't think it should be better than this.

Heavy weapons, the weapon class that is more balanced around tanking enemy attacks and having high defenses in general, weight a fuck ton, restricting your armor choices while a light weapon lets you equip heavy armor much more easily. So again this hypothetical buff to poise changes nothing. If people want heavy weapons to be more viable, they need more hyper armor frames, like in Demon's Souls.

Feel free to give your thoughts if you care about the topic.

 

[praetor]

if by "buff" they mean making it like DaS1 or better, then i agree with you wholeheartedly. but if by "buff" they mean lowering the breakpoints so that, say, 50poise has it's uses and you don't need well over 100 poise to see any benefit vs anything but daggers, then i agree with them 'cause currently they might as well remove the poise from all light-medium armours

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

838 Havel Gyrtle here. 163+ poise and sun sword with SO/buff. I can eat a single 20 poise damage 2h hit while mashing R1. I am really good at this game. Should I switch to Manslayer/Chaos Blade? 150 counter is so gud.

if by "buff" they mean making it like DaS1 or better, then i agree with you wholeheartedly. but if by "buff" they mean lowering the breakpoints so that, say, 50poise has it's uses and you don't need well over 100 poise to see any benefit vs anything but daggers, then i agree with them 'cause currently they might as well remove the poise from all light-medium armours

Poise numbers are obviously designed around PvE. Having a small amount of poise helps with shit like poison statues/arrows/shrine of amanda magic spam. You don't need that much in PvE to get through some mobs either.

One thing they need to do is re-balance poise damage on strong/roll/run attacks. It's impossible to poise through flamestone dagger/any dagger 2h r2 pokes even with 191 + Iron Flesh. And yet, I can eat 4+ 1h longsword R1s.

 

[DragoFireheart]

838 Havel Gyrtle here. 163+ poise and sun sword with SO/buff. I can eat a single 20 poise damage 2h hit while mashing R1. I am really good at this game. Should I switch to Manslayer/Chaos Blade? 150 counter is so gud.

Magic/Fire/Lightning/Dark Chaos Blade buffed with Crystal Magic Weapon/Flame Weapon/Sunlight Blade/Dark Weapon is best. Straight Sword mashing is fun but it loses to 2-handed buffed Chaos Blade if they space you correctly.

 

[Murk]

Poise is currently too obfuscated. Basic 1h r1s mostly make sense (for most weapons; some weapon classes and unique weapons still don't follow any set rule/pattern). Once you 2h, or go into rolling/running attacks tho shit's out the window with any logic.

I think they'd be better fixing it so that it follows some kind of fucking logic. The problem is that currently you have to basically stack poise to see ANY use or just forget it outright. If you plan to use a slower weapon then you're gonna get knocked out by faster attacks. Poke attacks are particularly notorious about this -- and if the person has NO poise at all then even something like a throwing knife will stagger them out of say... a run attack.

The current general trend is this for 1h r1 attacsk 1:3. For every 1 poise break on weapon you can break up to 3 poise on an enemy. If they made it so that formula was consistent across 1h, 2h, r1, r2, etc. it'd be more useful. Effectively, two-handing and attack type wouldn't change the poise-break modifier on your attack -- it'd always be some flat value. I realize that would be "less realistic" but I don't actually care about that.

This way 61 poise would be able to eat a sunsword's 2h r2 and still not be interrupted. If you don't agree with the value of 1:3 then sure, whatever, change it to 1:4 or whatever value you like, but currently poise is an all or none game and it's usually not worth it.

 

[praetor]

Mikayel
nothing follows any logic in Team B's world poise, defences, upgrades, damage from infusions, buffs, resins. nothing! there's 0 consistency with their "systems". they just put ad hoc numbers here and there so you can't figure out anything because there's really nothing to figure out because there's no system underneath it all. here and there you'll find something that resembles some logic (like the 1:3 poisebreak for 1HR1 attacks you mention), but then whenever you go testing it's just one giant, huge clusterfuck of inelegance and inconsistency. my math brain rages whenever i see a thread somewhere testing stuff and the stupid bonkers results they yield

 

[Murk]

The most infuriating part is that there's a skeletal framework of something systemic... and then it just falls apart.

AR is another one. No clue how damage is derived. A 2h r1 from any weapon on a person who has 0 armor (using clutch rings) does more damage than the total AR. Also, you can have negative armor -- tho it doesn't show up. Two clutch rings = -40 armor, and that does matter -- you take extra damage. A person with 20 armor and -40 armor takes too much of a damage difference than say 20 armor and 40 armor.

I said this before and I'm sorry if I'm getting repetitive, but considering how the game gives you a fucking excel sheet's worth of stats... it does fuckall in trying to make sense of any of it.

Gimme ma d&d where I know the numbers inside and out <3

 

[Servo]

Finally got this game the other day and have already played for 20 hrs or something retarded. Now I realize why I kept putting it off.

First impressions:

• Opening cinematic is very cool, but the following cutscene is boring. I mean the old ladies talking in the tree house. They're sufficiently creepy and all but ffs get ur cutscenes outta mah dungeon crawler.
• One loooooooooooooooooooong haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay (with some other hallways off to the sides). This tutorial shit is gay. But it doesn't stop there. Even once you get to Majula there's only one way you can go. I didn't find any branching paths until the Cardinal Tower.
• Majula is nice but the characters are all pretty boring. The pigs suck.
• The fire breathing lizards suck.

 

[Murk]

You have 2 routes you can take from majula right at the start (forest or heide's tower of flame) -- then when you get about 13k souls you get a third route (or if you get other 'fall damage reduction' shit if you want to go the longer route) and there's a 4th route when you get another 'key item'.

 

[toroid]

• One loooooooooooooooooooong haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay (with some other hallways off to the sides). This tutorial shit is gay. But it doesn't stop there. Even once you get to Majula there's only one way you can go. I didn't find any branching paths until the Cardinal Tower.

There are actually six areas directly connected to Majula, though you only have access to two of them from the very beginning. Four after equipping the ring.
(Not including Things Betwixt.)

 

[Murk]

• One loooooooooooooooooooong haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay (with some other hallways off to the sides). This tutorial shit is gay. But it doesn't stop there. Even once you get to Majula there's only one way you can go. I didn't find any branching paths until the Cardinal Tower.

There are actually six areas directly connected to Majula, though you only have access to two of them from the very beginning. Four after equipping the ring.
(Not including Things Betwixt.)

huh? I can count 5 if I consider

Spoiler

grave of saints and gutters as two separate things [both accessed same way, so whatev], then fofg + heide + misty woods

but what's the sixth?

 

[Servo]

You have 2 routes you can take from majula right at the start (forest or heide's tower of flame)

I thought Heide's Tower was a dead end. Will have to check again.