From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[CrimsonAngel]

Demon souls was harder, but that is more down to having more bullshit moments and explaining it self even less then demons souls.

 

[felipepepe]

In Demons Souls I died less than 5 times in the first playthrough.

Unless you played as a mage and following a guide, I call that ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT.

 

[DragoFireheart]

In Demons Souls I died less than 5 times in the first playthrough.

Unless you played as a mage and following a guide, I call that ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT.

5-1, 5-2, Maneater, and Flamelurker come to mind.

EDIT: 5-2 is a god damn nightmare for blind playthrough.

Yeah I call bullshit too.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

 

[Invictus]

Just picked up my copy and while I made my way from my car to the store I saw a guy with a big bag from the sam store and with what looked like the collectors edition from across the street. As he caught me looking at his bag I opened my arms in the parise the sun gesture and he laughed out lod and returned the gesture. Such geeky delight to all Souls fans toda)!

 

[praetor]

5-1, 5-2, Maneater, and Flamelurker come to mind.

EDIT: 5-2 is a god damn nightmare for blind playthrough.

Yeah I call bullshit too.

i still don't understand what's all the fuss with flamelurker? you can find the purple flame shield in the first frigging level after the tutorial, and after you acquire that it's pretty much game over. he gives you plenty of opportunities to heal, there's plenty of scenery to exploit and once he goes "full retard" he's even easier with all the AoE spam. only the Allant "praise" baffles me more. 5-1 is plenty straightforward and 5-2 is annoying, not hard (unless you play it in pure black WT), with the only "standout" moment being the 2 giant depraved + shaman... that you can pull 1 by 1 anyway.

and there are no skeleton beasts in DeS so it cannot be harder (played DeS first, found DaS significantly harder and 1000 times more interesting in every way)

 

[Kanedias]

The new hollow soldiers are fucking brutal. This game is harder than Dark Souls and Demon's Souls, at least at the beginning. I picked Bandit, which has low ADP, and raising my shield took ages.

And I repeat, the Hollow Soldiers don't mess around. Enemies are really difficult to parry and backstab, too. I really like the game.

There are some nice traps, enemies have a much better moveset than the early enemies in Dark Souls, and there are some nice details, such as the enemies being able to open doors or break them, etc.

 

[DragoFireheart]

The new hollow soldiers are fucking brutal. This game is harder than Dark Souls and Demon's Souls, at least at the beginning. I picked Bandit, which has low ADP, and raising my shield took ages.

Heh. Don't neglect that adaptability!

 

[Jasede]

In Demons Souls I died less than 5 times in the first playthrough.

Unless you played as a mage and following a guide, I call that ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT.

5-1, 5-2, Maneater, and Flamelurker come to mind.

EDIT: 5-2 is a god damn nightmare for blind playthrough.

Yeah I call bullshit too.

I died like 20 times to Flamelurker alone!

In my defense: no spells, all STR, no shield, Final Destination

 

[DragoFireheart]

I died like 20 times to Flamelurker alone!

In my defense: no spells, all STR, no shield, Final Destination

AKA: You fought like a man.



And if you played your cards right, you get the Dragonbone Crusher as your reward.

 

[felipepepe]

Flamelurker wasn't much of an issue for me, but that red-eyed knight staircase in 1-3, the trail full of skeletons in 4-2 and the spiral staircase with a red phantom tentacle head guy in 3-2... goddamn. Not to mention dumb deaths like that hole on the floor in 3-1, the invasions, and even just falling trying to get an hard-to-reach item.

I correct my statement, even with a guide, dying only 5 times in your first playthrough is absolute bullshit.

 

[Avellion]

In Demons Souls I died less than 5 times in the first playthrough.

Unless you played as a mage and following a guide, I call that ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT.

My playstyle could be summarized like this. Fight with an int scaling falchion (the one you find in 4-1), light armor, use magic to maintain buffs. And progress with caution and alertness, like holding the shield up. In combat I would just stunlock everything to death.

Regarding the 3 Red Eye knights, they gave me a lot of trouble, and even forced me to heal (not that that was an issue though when I had dozens of grass stored up), I recall using divide and conquer to beat them. It involved quite a bit of pulling though.
Once I had gotten to 4-2. Skeletons would stop being a threat. I also remember quite a few of them falling off the map.
The Mind Flayer at the staircase had the EXACT same AI problems as all the other mind flayers. Making them piss easy. Though that guy certainly slowed me down a bit (since my favorite strategy roll out of the way would probably get me killed), he never got me.

Regarding dumb deaths. I proceeded carefully, especially in dark areas, ambushes and the likes were not a problem.
I never played during prime time. I played on the US servers, and I live in europe. Furthermore, most invaders were really incompetant back when I played my first run. Though one did actually manage to get me.
Those marks on the floor made it relatively easy to know where to fall.

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

Caution + thief's ring = piece of cake souls

On topic though, they really blew it with the instant travel anywhere option. It really kills the gameplay for me. Dark Souls had that i'm-fucking-stuck-in-blighttown-cant-go-back-im-fucked-feeling up until anor londo and it was glorious. Especially when you find a shortcut. M-muh pacing, m-muh exploration.

 

[praetor]

Caution + thief's ring = piece of cake souls

On topic though, they really blew it with the instant travel anywhere option. It really kills the gameplay for me. Dark Souls had that i'm-fucking-stuck-in-blighttown-cant-go-back-im-fucked-feeling up until anor londo and it was glorious. Especially when you find a shortcut. M-muh pacing, m-muh exploration.

agreed on everything. DeS had so much cheese built in, it's not even funny. i find it harder to believe someone on the codex died 20 times on the same boss than someone dying 5 times in the entire playthrough. what are you, james from gamefront?

 

[Kanedias]

I never found Flamelurker hard because I realized that

1) He lets you heal, if you unlock and run away he never reaches you on time, since grasses are so fast
2)You can always punish his big explosion attack (the one where he roars and does a slower AoE)

So my strategy was basically rolling away and then turning around to smack him whenever he did that move.

P.S.: I already died a stupid amount of times in Dark Souls 2. I don't really have much problem with the bosses but the enemies are much harder than DaS normal enemies, especially since stamina management is harder. It seems to regen slower, even if I have a cloranthy ring, and the bar is quite small.

One of the early areas has some really nice mechanics

Spoiler

It's a port in a cave, really dark, and you fight some sort of hollow vkings and some creatures from the deep. The creatures from the deep can bleed me out in 3 hits and they have quite a long reach, but they're scared of light - if you have a torch, they cower and don't attack. The problem is that the vikings throw jars of oil at you, so if you have your torch out you take a massive amount of fire damage and you get stunned. If you don't have your torch, the creatures from the deep attack you, but the oil becomes less of a problem (though they do have archers that shoot fire arrows so it's still challenging)

I had a lot of problems there, mostly gravity related, though there were also a lot of ambushes.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I plan to start as Explorer. They have really good starting stats.

I heard the pre-order items are ass.

They sell a better shield in Majula for 1500 souls.
You can also find what's basically the same shield (with minor stat differences) at one of the starting areas. So yeah.

Btw Majula's art direction is even better when you play the game. I really love that place.

That's nice. This way they're collector items instead of fucking the balance.

 

[MapMan]

I'm late to the party and im finishing up DaS as we speak. I really like the game but it's not as hard as proclaimed by all the popamolers say. It's my first playthrough and I unknowingly choose the deprived which caused a really big difficulty spike. I died everywhere almost instantly and had no idea where to go or what to do. This resulted in me spending a lot of the im the new londo ruins, trying to complete it. On the upside I found the jagged ghost blade, which outclassed everything else I found for like 50% of the playthrough. When I caught up with standard classes (by getting some armor, shield and the jagged ghost blade) the game became much easier. Bosses went down easily, some even in first try (without any guides or tutorials!) and most of my deaths was either caused by laziness, accident or an ambush. I'm still unsure how the weapon mechanics work (scaling, upgrading) but I pretty much now steamroll through areas (for example, two latest locations: tomb of the giants and demon ruins) and easily kill all opponents(1-3 hits for most enemies). It makes for a nice sense of progression but the game lost some of its soul (hurrr). At the beginning it was really hard to reach a new bonfire or make some progress (by opening a door, finding a key etc) and each new enemy you encountered made you think twice before you engaged it. You had to learn it's moveset, it's weaknesses and strenghts and then with a bit of luck I could move forward. I hope DS2 will succeed in bringing a more consistient experience, with less of a difficulty spike at the beggining and a slight difficulty increase as the game progresses, as opposed to a regress in difficulty.

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

First boss is a test to see if you can dodge attacks. Shields are fucking useless here... Damn, I'm so used to playing with a shield in DaS.

I'm liking the level design so far. The fact that you have to memorize all the locked doors for opening them up later. There doesn't seem to be an obvious path ahead.

 

[Kanedias]

The level design is much better than I thought. Playing it myself made me appreciate it more. The areas are so challenging! I'm really liking the change of pace, how rare Titanite is, etc. It has a much different feel from the other games, here your resources are more limited. I just finished an area where I had to summon an NPC phantom to help me tank some creatures, otherwise I was dying every time :/

 

[Average Manatee]

In Demons Souls I died less than 5 times in the first playthrough.

Unless you played as a mage and following a guide, I call that ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT.

If you don't count stupid stuff It was about the same for me in both DkS and DeS. By stupid stuff I mean I died like 8 times in the Undead Burg trying to jump from the bridge to the Blue Tearstone ring. Yeah...

I never found Flamelurker hard because I realized that

1) He lets you heal, if you unlock and run away he never reaches you on time, since grasses are so fast
2)You can always punish his big explosion attack (the one where he roars and does a slower AoE)

So my strategy was basically rolling away and then turning around to smack him whenever he did that move.

Flamelurker was a cakewalk for me since I always traveled with the thief ring on. Simply hit him and run away, he can't find you. Worked on like half the bosses in the game.

Only boss that can really be called a challenge is the Maneaters. Maybe False King, if you still haven't figured out how to dodge by the end of the game.

 

[Invictus]

Been playing the game and just beat the first boss
So far I am really liking the game and enjoying most of the changes:
The combat seems more ploding than Dark Souls, I don't know if that is caused by having a starter character but it is both slower and deadlier; the whole 10% death penalty is harsh but somehow makes you be extra careful.
Speaking about combat I HATED how the changed the moves set for the longsword by removing the super useful (especialy for corridors) thrust but so far so good, the speed of blocking with a shield and the stunned animation for running out of stamina are annoying but help me have a better balance with stamina usage and recharge
The game look good and I can only hope we do get better lighting for the PC version
I wasn't particulary worried but I have to agree with Praetor that having to go to Majula for leveling is mood breaking and annoying especialy at the start of the game where I might break things up to go back to Majula for leveling.
I don't know if From would be willing or able to patch it but I would really love to go back to leveling on the bonfires.
One change which I don't like but I understand and even appreciate is the limited respawns; I am one of those old school gamers who doesn't mind grinding sessions but now I understand that it is one change that works for the best since it pushed you out of your comfort zone and makes you keep moving forward

 

[felipepepe]

The new game is awesome, killed 2 bosses so far. I thought that the teleport on bonfires would be popamole, but they aren't so far. Instead of a somewhat linear path that keeps oppening shortcuts, like Dark Souls, the map here keeps branching in various ways...

Also, changes like making 100% shields not available easily was great.

 

[Kanedias]

The PvE aspect has impressed me, it's much better than I thought it'd be from having watched the streams and such. It also harder than both Dark Souls and Demon's Souls, in my opinion. The bosses haven't been too hard, but the normal enemies are brutal, and they're really well placed on the level themselves.

That's not what I'm going to talk about, though!

Invading

The Brotherhood of Blood, the new invader covenant, does not sell cracked red eye orbs and they don't give you an infinite red eye orb, either. You have to enter an 1v1 arena fight with someone else from the covenant, and you get one cracked red eye orb every time you win. The arena seems to change between a handful of different maps at random, and it varies from covenant to covenant - the Blue Sentinels have a similar arena mechanic but their arena maps are different. In the match, everything is allowed, you can heal with estus, etc.

What surprised me is that when you're actually invading someone else, you cannot heal. Estus are disabled, lifegems are disabled, everything. I believe you can only do so with miracles, I have tested the consumables and they didn't work. Hosts and phantoms can heal, of course, so this makes 1v2 or 1v3 situations extremely hard to win.

Anyways, I have done several duels with other people from the covenant, and used those orbs to invade. All in all, PvP has disappointed me greatly. It seems extremely buggy, somehow. Remember the lack of poise in the Network Test, where poise was supposedly "not implemented"? Well, nothing changed. Poise works for PvE, but it doesn't for PvP. My character currently has 55 poise, and opponents could stunlock me with small one-handed weapons, on the first hit.

Another worrying thing: I was fighting this person who had a greatshield and a halberd, and we started circling each other. He seemed to be one of those turtles that barely attacks, so I tried to play around with the guard break move, to I learn its range and such. Well, I messed it up and did a normal r1, which lagstabbed the opponent. I don't know how it happened, as we were circling each other in the same direction, with a bit of distance between us, and both of us were locked on so no backs were exposed, but it happened. It also looked like it had skipped that startup animation that backstabs now have.

Maybe this is just day 1 bugs, who knows, but it surprised me a lot.

 

[CrimsonAngel]

*snip*

Hey cunt for brains put that in a freaking spoiler tag some us are still not able to get the game and i would like not to be spoiled by edgy retards who cant work spoiler tags.

Yes that means stupid little gifs to.

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

I was running naked through the ruins to avoid the sentinels and ended up killing Old Dragonslayer by accident. Pursuer is unbeatable so far though.