From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[DragoFireheart]

All this butthurt is jut because the PC release isn't simultaneous; obviously the consoles would look worst than PC footage, but they still look great and exactly as was advertised in console gameplay videos.

Dick move was what Rockstar did, using PC footage on GTA V when there isn't even a PC version announced. Making a multi-platform release and using the better footage is perfectly ok.

i feel like everybody is giving a free pass to From because everybody is a hypocrite on this site (it's totally wrong when "bad" companies do it, but it's ok when "good" companies do it), because in every other case when this happened the company was bashed. and then i'm the dark souls fanboy

All rabid fan bases are retarded, they get caught up in the zeitgeist, you'll need to give it about 6 months by which time the hype will die down. Only then will any reasonable discussion about the game take place.

Either you're trolling or just dumb.

i feel like everybody is giving a free pass to From because everybody is a hypocrite on this site (it's totally wrong when "bad" companies do it, but it's ok when "good" companies do it), because in every other case when this happened the company was bashed. and then i'm the dark souls fanboy

Free pass on WHAT? I told you, the game I'm currently playing looks just like the PS3 footage they released. There was better looking footage? Yes, but it will have a PC release, with confirmed better texture and effects, so what's the drama? The Twitcher 3 and Dragon Age 3 will also look better on PC than on consoles, as every PC port ever does. That doesn't mean they are lying by using PC footage.

If the PC release comes and the game doesn't look as good as the trailer, THEN you get rightfully butthurt.

 

[Kanedias]

I have criticized the game a lot and I don't believe the lighting is as bad as the screenshots show.

By the way, for anyone who's playing the game and completed Earthen Peak:

Spoiler

How the fuck does Earthen Peak connect with Iron Keep? You reach the peak of a giant windmill fortress thing, take an elevator UP and then....lava everywhere? Huh.

 

[Kanedias]

I completed Earthen Keep and Shaded Woods (the two areas I hadn't liked the art direction of) and the area that's after Shaded Woods is excellent. I love the art direction of that one, I hadn't seen that area before.

The lighting there is also perfect.

Btw a lot of /v/ dwellers were complaining about the bosses, I really don't get it. They are quite challenging, and they have fun movesets... They have a lot of moves, and they're much better than for example Demon's Souls bosses. I really don't know why some people were criticizing them, they seem to be more than fine. Some of them also have interesting mechanics that make the fight more fun without making it gimmicky.

 

[DragoFireheart]

I completed Earthen Keep and Shaded Woods (the two areas I hadn't liked the art direction of) and the area that's after Shaded Woods is excellent. I love the art direction of that one, I hadn't seen that area before.

The lighting there is also perfect.

Btw a lot of /v/ dwellers were complaining about the bosses, I really don't get it. They are quite challenging, and they have fun movesets... They have a lot of moves, and they're much better than for example Demon's Souls bosses. I really don't know why some people were criticizing them, they seem to be more than fine. Some of them also have interesting mechanics that make the fight more fun without making it gimmicky.

Probably because they pirated the game and didn't get the patch for the graphical update.

 

[dunno lah]

Maybe they've just gotten so good at dodging after 3-5 years of playing the Souls games...

 

[Forest Dweller]

/still reading about graphics.

 

[Invictus]

Beat the second boss and loving the game so far.
The whole Adaptability is the king stat is kind of right though; I am going for a quality build and I raised it so far to 18 and now the fluidity of my character's movements (dodging and using items) is almost the same as DK and the game feels much tighter now...rising my shield still takes a little to much especialy after a roll or an attack but I am guessing I will leave Adaptability at 20 and focus on my other stats
Does anybody know if the devs changed the death penalty from 10% per death to 5% or is that an effect from the Life Ring?

 

[Trash]

/still reading about graphics.

Welcome to Codex v.2014

 

[Jick Magger]

Btw a lot of /v/ dwellers were complaining about the bosses, I really don't get it. They are quite challenging, and they have fun movesets... They have a lot of moves, and they're much better than for example Demon's Souls bosses. I really don't know why some people were criticizing them, they seem to be more than fine. Some of them also have interesting mechanics that make the fight more fun without making it gimmicky.

This is /v/ you're talking about, Kanedias. FromSoftware could've made the most perfect entry in the series and /v/'d still be full of morons desperately nit-picking at each individual misstep they made as evidence that the game sucks in a desperate attempt at being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian, and the typical faggotry of the fanbase who gloss over legitimate complaints over design flaws with "GIT GUD FAGET "

 

[Hobo Elf]

Lets not forget that most of them are doing it as a defense mechanism because they won't be able to play it for another 6 weeks.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

/still reading about graphics.

Welcome to Codex v.2014

They talk about graphics in GD as well? Can't see how you'd know otherwise.

 

[Whisky]

I completed Earthen Keep and Shaded Woods (the two areas I hadn't liked the art direction of) and the area that's after Shaded Woods is excellent. I love the art direction of that one, I hadn't seen that area before.

The lighting there is also perfect.

Btw a lot of /v/ dwellers were complaining about the bosses, I really don't get it. They are quite challenging, and they have fun movesets... They have a lot of moves, and they're much better than for example Demon's Souls bosses. I really don't know why some people were criticizing them, they seem to be more than fine. Some of them also have interesting mechanics that make the fight more fun without making it gimmicky.

Dude...it's /v/. They're absolute shit now. They wouldn't know critical if is slapped them in the face, posters are only in three modes: blind contrarian, blind nostalgian or corporate shill.

This is a board that now has regular topics about how Oblivion was such a great game because it had an amazing atmosphere, which Skyrim ruined and sucks as a result.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

posters are only in three modes: blind contrarian, blind nostalgian or corporate shill.

Just like the 'dex, then (just exchange "corporate shill" for "developer fanboy")

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Contrarianism is not blind, for we are its eyes.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

 

[Whisky]

posters are only in three modes: blind contrarian, blind nostalgian or corporate shill.

Just like the 'dex, then (just exchange "corporate shill" for "developer fanboy")

Eh, to an extent. Codex has problems with contrarianism, but people here eventually get called out on it, otherwise we wouldn't mock Skyway so much. Plus, no one here suddenly likes Oblivion now that Skyrim came out, that absolutely floored me when I saw thkse topics on /v/

Also, we do have shills, they're just a lot less subtle and get Planted/Banned pretty quick (unless they're entertaining). There are quite a few topics saying, "Hey, check out my free MMO!" that have been deleted.

 

[Gozma]

Game looks like a PC port of something from PS3/Xbox360 with all the graphics sliders turned to the lowest setting. The walls and floors look like they come from before the era of normal mapping/ambient occlusion/whatever it's called that they do to textures to make them look a little 3D.

I doubt it was an intentional bait-and-switch though, just Japs coming up on a "company will go under if we don't ship" deadline created by a big marketing investment and throwing everything out the window that wasn't nailed down.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

/v/ has a bigger userbase with a more general mindset. You have the guys who think Skyrim pales compared to the majesty that is Oblivion, and those who think Oblivion is a piece of shit that can't be compared to Morrowind. So while you won't be laughed at for posting about a game from 1993, there are also hype threads about the latest AAA (s)hit.

 

[Servo]

What am I looking at? The levels are similar?

 

[Surf Solar]

What am I looking at? The levels are similar?

It's apparently the same level.

Can anyone who is already playing it actually provide some opinion how the actual gameplay is?

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Is there really any truth to Patch 1.01 improving the lighting? I get the feeling it's all bollocks, otherwise the internet would have already exploded.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Is there really any truth to Patch 1.01 improving the lighting? I get the feeling it's all bollocks, otherwise the internet would have already exploded.

I'll confirm it for myself tonight if felipepepe and Kanedias isn't enough.

 

[Invictus]

Hey what about me bro? I say the game is damn good and the graphics look good enough so believe the hype

 

[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.

I must take most of this back... I did more PvP and found the issue.

In Dark Souls, when I couldn't/didn't want to toggle out of a combo, I'd block instead of rolling away (I just got used to that). Here, since blocking isn't instant, it doesn't let you escape a stunlock. If you mash roll instead, you escape it, and I've been enjoying PvP much more since I realized that. The lack of backstab fishing is refreshing, and the guard break critical is incredibly fun. All weapons still seem to break too much poise, though. I know some degree of poise works because my arrows didn't stagger several of the people I invaded, but melee weapons seem to break a ridiculous amount of poise.

Also, I found out about another mechanic - in this game, if you run out of stamina, it regenerates much slower, so yeah, do not run out of stamina! Always leave a little left. During this period of weak stamina regen, the character can be seen breathing heavily, as if tired. Stamina management is much more important this time around.

 

[DragoFireheart]

And don't forget adaptability!

 

[Hobo Elf]

Got a message that my preorder had come. I had 15 minutes time to run back home and get money and then run to the city, into the shopping center, all the way up to the last floor and get the game before the shops closed. I succeeded.