From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[DragoFireheart]

How do you guys get the items laying on those magma rocks in the iron keep? I have seen some barrels with water in it and thought rolling into them helps me, but it doesnt work at all..

Flash Sweat and hauling ass is how I got the one near the bonfire. Have to go all Super Mario on it. Must have died 5 times trying.

Still cant Beat the smelter demon.

You have to be good at rolling or he's gonna just stomp your ass. His swings are delayed: ignore the noise he makes and WATCH his weapon.

I'm pretty saddened that they went for the Demon's Souls PvP again.

I'm pretty sure this game is Demon's Souls 2 w/ Dark Souls elements.

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

I have no idea how they managed to nerf everything except rolling/pyro. This game is for magic/pyro spamming acrobats with crystal enchanted animu greatswords.

Also, From pretty much nailed their target audience:

http://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/Flying+Feline+Boots

 

[DragoFireheart]

I have no idea how they managed to nerf everything except rolling/pyro. This game is for magic/pyro spamming acrobats with crystal enchanted animu greatswords.

Halberds didn't get nerfed, they got buffed. DAT COPTER

Also, Hexes replace Sorcery as the go-to magic. Spam those Dark Orbs!

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Which is kind of interesting, given how shit Dark Orb used to be (at least in my experience).

 

[DragoFireheart]

Which is kind of interesting, given how shit Dark Orb used to be (at least in my experience).

Dark Orb was ass in Dark Souls 1 while Dark Bead broke the game.

Here, Dark Orb is pretty good while Dark Hail is decent but not game breaking anymore. It's easy to have 70+ Dark Orbs later in the game for spamming. Dark Orb hits fairly hard, casts quickly, and only takes one attunement slot.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Having finished all the basics I need, I'm currently putting levels into Faith anyway so I can try out Hexes. Seems like Hexes have a major advantage already in that they get the best benefits from two stats in terms of derived stats.

EDIT: Also, as I think someone mentioned already, do get yourself a Gyrm Greatshield before heading out to Iron Keep. It certainly makes life easier there.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Having finished all the basics I need, I'm currently putting levels into Faith anyway so I can try out Hexes. Seems like Hexes have a major advantage already in that they get the best benefits from two stats in terms of derived stats.

Just note that as you raise faith/intelligence to continue talking to the Hexer guy that sells you some of the first Hexes outside Huntsman's Corpse.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

do i really need a token of fidelity for every fucking single duel in blue sentinels areas?
so to get cracked orbs i need not only win a duel but first put a summoning sign, get summoned, beat a boss hoping that retareded host doesnt get killed in the meantime? fuck that shit. how is that covenant even suposed to work?

i really like the idea of invading sinners but might leave and go to the blood brothers.

on the other hand i just invaded sinner in shrine of ammana, i spawned just before 3rd bonfire, and as host was slowly walking in the water towards bonfire after hard battle with those priestess i two-shotted him with GRS. Feels good man

 

[Hobo Elf]

The whole covenant system is mostly just a well meaning idea coming out completely half baked. So many good ideas but very few of them are executed well or in an interesting manner even.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

well ratfaggs and midgetfuckers works rather well and are kind of fresh air in souls games eventhough their members are massive faggots.

sunbros are sunbros

champions and abyss covenants are good pve challenge ( and abyss can be massive pvp challenge )

dragonbros are good if you want fair 1vs1 duels with no way to gank

blood brothers works and are always busy. only that retarded win to lose ratio seems fucked up.

way of blue lost its meaning after first week. who wants to be helpless faggot waiting for another player to deal with invader?

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

My new char has never sinned but I keep getting invaded by arbiter spirits. This happened when I while a member of Way of Blue/Blue Sentinels too.

 

[CyberWhale]

 

[80Maxwell08]

Well Namco has now said the PC version won't look like that old demo.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/236430/discussions/0/558751364434651204/
Goodbye cool looking lighting.

 

[Kanedias]

well ratfaggs and midgetfuckers works rather well and are kind of fresh air in souls games eventhough their members are massive faggots.

sunbros are sunbros

champions and abyss covenants are good pve challenge ( and abyss can be massive pvp challenge )

dragonbros are good if you want fair 1vs1 duels with no way to gank

blood brothers works and are always busy. only that retarded win to lose ratio seems fucked up.

way of blue lost its meaning after first week. who wants to be helpless faggot waiting for another player to deal with invader?

The thing with wins and loses is just visual, probably implemented for bragging rights (and to scare people who get invaded by glowing phantoms)

My phantom looks like this (warning: photo captured by potato)

 

[Tribal Sarah]

i've done earthen peak, heides, wharf, shadey woods, the lost tower, huntsmans, a whole bunch of areas. The game doesn't have the same sense of purpose/momentum as the 1st part of DS had. I beat that snake thing at the top of earthen peak, and it was a meaningless battle. I had no idea who that boss was or what the point of it was. I'm getting bored of it.

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

i've done earthen peak, heides, wharf, shadey woods, the lost tower, huntsmans, a whole bunch of areas. The game doesn't have the same sense of purpose/momentum as the 1st part of DS had. I beat that snake thing at the top of earthen peak, and it was a meaningless battle. I had no idea who that boss was or what the point of it was. I'm getting bored of it.

That's because the game STILL doesn't spoonfeed you lore/storyline. PLUS the purpose is there - find the 4 old ones. There are pretty much 4 paths leading out of majula. All these paths lead to a giant bad dude at the end that gives you an old soul. BUY A BOOK AND READ UP ON IT BITCH.

On topic of graphics:

AH PAYUD FOR DA PRETTYZ WHERE MUH GRAPHIX HURR DURR CANCELLING MUH PREORDER FUK U FORM

:kwanzania::kwafuckyeah::patriot:

 

[Tribal Sarah]

i've done earthen peak, heides, wharf, shadey woods, the lost tower, huntsmans, a whole bunch of areas. The game doesn't have the same sense of purpose/momentum as the 1st part of DS had. I beat that snake thing at the top of earthen peak, and it was a meaningless battle. I had no idea who that boss was or what the point of it was. I'm getting bored of it.

That's because the game STILL doesn't spoonfeed you lore/storyline. PLUS the purpose is there - find the 4 old ones. There are pretty much 4 paths leading out of majula. All these paths lead to a giant bad dude at the end that gives you an old soul. BUY A BOOK AND READ UP ON IT BITCH.

On topic of graphics:

AH PAYUD FOR DA PRETTYZ WHERE MUH GRAPHIX HURR DURR CANCELLING MUH PREORDER FUK U FORM

:kwanzania::kwafuckyeah::patriot:

Fuck off

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

I had no idea who that boss was or what the point of it was.

actually Mytha has quite a lot of lore, she is kind of fun to fight boss ( if you dont summon Jester to rape her with pyro) and enemies in earthen peak were lore wise rather well-suited.

the point was to take elevator up and get to the lake of lava well maybe earthen peak/harvest valley was at the bottom of mountain and iron keep was at the top of it before it sunk into volcano?

 

[Kanedias]

i've done earthen peak, heides, wharf, shadey woods, the lost tower, huntsmans, a whole bunch of areas. The game doesn't have the same sense of purpose/momentum as the 1st part of DS had. I beat that snake thing at the top of earthen peak, and it was a meaningless battle. I had no idea who that boss was or what the point of it was. I'm getting bored of it.

There's actually a reason for most stuff you do, and the lore is very subtle and interesting, but I did notice the game doesn't give you enough at first. Most of your first playthrough feels a bit like aimless exploring because of this. Once you play through the whole game once and think about the lore, the story will become clearer, and the journey will seem more interesting.

I think the culprit here is the Emerald Herald, who has too few meaningful lines of dialogue. She's very chatty, but she doesn't actually say much, and what she says won't have any meaning until the end of the game. The cat is much more insightful in that regard, and is the NPC that offers the most insight about the lore/story. They should have merged the two characters, or have the cat act as the "guide" and eliminate the Herald, letting you level up at the bonfires.

 

[Surf Solar]

Been doing some pvp all Day long and I am starting to See why people put hundreds of hours into this. When everything works and is stable, its fun! Have ranked up to 2 in the Bell covenant winning many fights and ofcourse also losing some, but the Ratio speaks in my favor! :D Upgraded all my important gear to Plus nine, the sword and crossbow to Plus ten. I then totally forgot I didnt visit tthe undead purgatory, killed the Boss and joined the covenant after I killed some poor fucker in Iron keep who wanted to the knights there. Then Made some duels in the Arena, maybe twenty, and won twelve. I feel so proud. and I Do this without needing any bullshit oneshot magic with a simple longsword and dodging. Yay. It seems odd that you can use that shieldbreak Animation whenever you like and it staggers the opponent.. But its a nice way to punish people turtling all the Time behind their shield. Sometimes I am Bit guilty and I jst Hit the opponents shield with my sword when he is low on health, so the elemental damage tears him doown. :O man I kinda wish the multiplayerexperience was as smooth as this when I played it on PC (dks 1 I mean)

 

[Invictus]

Jesus it is butthurt paradise over in the Steam forums, to me it basicaly boils down to this; the CES build is dead and done with all its beautiful cobwebs and intricate stoneworks and clutter (cut from development for performance and artistic issues) and the whole lighting system is probably dead too. This I belive was mostly a design decision (which should have helped the FPS too) because the darkness required you to switch from you playstyle to accomodate the torch and that hurt 2 handed and ranged builds and to be honest gave you an unfair disadvantage having to roll around and switch to perhaps a different weapon that the one you are used to and have upgraded.
From is very good at giving you options on how to play in the way you like it, from melee, magic, ranged, items etc so it is understandable they had to make that compromise for the sake of performance and player service.
Oh and I bet there will be mods that use ENB lighting with heavy shadows and high contrast in less than a month as well as retextures which remove the mossy feeling of places like Forest of Fallen Giants in favor of the CES look
I do business with japanese people and they are straightfoward to a loss; that doesn't mean they always tell you everything it is just that they say what they can assure and might hold back on other stuff but they never promise what they won't deliver...
Remeber in the PC date release; higher resolutions, hi res textures, 30 or 60 FPS options depending on your rig and M&K controls
Nothing more
And you know what? I am fine with that
I bet they can tweak up things like draw distance, popups and a more stable FPS but you have seen the system requirments so don't expect much

 

[Echo Mirage]

Most of the Butthurt threads are started by the same handful of people. Most of which are started by OCASM and filled with the same false advertising crap every day of the week. All the other posters, much like myself, never followed the game to begin with and only saw the game for the first time when they either played it on the consoles or watched it on twitch TV. So they don't give a damn about any downgrade and welcome the 60 FPS and better textures.

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

Final boss died from 2 casts of chaos storm and 2 casts of flame swathe. It took about 1 minute. Fuck pyromancy.

I think the culprit here is the Emerald Herald, who has too few meaningful lines of dialogue. She's very chatty, but she doesn't actually say much, and what she says won't have any meaning until the end of the game. The cat is much more insightful in that regard, and is the NPC that offers the most insight about the lore/story. They should have merged the two characters, or have the cat act as the "guide" and eliminate the Herald, letting you level up at the bonfires.

NPCs are mostly useless as most "lore" comes from item descriptions.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/113409-from-software-on-dark-souls-ii-s-graphics-downgrade.html

There's been a lot of talk concerning the graphical quality difference before Dark Souls II's pre-release materials (which, aside from an overall different atmosphere and larger emphasis on the torch mechanics, showcased a title with significantly higher quality lighting and post-processing effects) and the retail version, enough to convince From Software to issue a brief, non-commital statement on the situation:

"Throughout the game development process, a game is constantly being balanced not only in game playability, but also in the realm of resource management,” From told MCV.

“A developer is always challenged with creating the most rewarding gaming experience while delivering continuity in graphical quality, gameplay dynamics, and balance within the game. The final version of Dark Souls II displays the culmination of this delicate balance and we’re very proud of the positive media and fan reception for the game.”
​

That's not exactly forthcoming, but according to an undisclosed source close to development cited by Forbes' contributor Erik Kain, the real reason the title has downgraded visuals in the final release is because of the difficulty the developers had getting their new engine running at an acceptable framerate on consoles:

“This is what it comes down to: a playable framerate. The early builds that the screenshots came from were playable but only just so. The game was not in a state where it could be sold at that point. I strongly suspect that they were focusing heavily on delivering a top-notch experience on PC and underestimated the challenges the new systems would pose on PS3 / Xbox360. That’s my analysis, anyway. But, factually, the early builds played like Blighttown the entire game.

“I sincerely don’t think they intended to deceive, but in the end they sacrificed a huge amount of graphical fidelity at the very end of development because they couldn’t resolve the framerate in any other way. They had to promote the game with screens and trailers, but at that time even they had no idea they were going to have to drop the settings so much, I suspect.

“I want people to know the truth. I know a lot of people just feel lied to, but I think the reality is a bit different. It doesn’t mean they handled it properly, but I think they made the only decision they COULD make in the end. The game would have been much worse without the change (as in, many would call it unplayable and broken.)”
​

As far as I know this is the only publication (although I suppose "blog" would be more correct) that cites this source directly, and Kain doesn't really have much of a history concerning rumors and insider scoops (that's not to say he's intentionally deceiving here, but there's no track record to check against), so I wouldn't really take it as gospel, but it certainly makes some sense, especially considering the rather erratic (but playable) framerate in the final title.

 

[Tribal Sarah]

i've done earthen peak, heides, wharf, shadey woods, the lost tower, huntsmans, a whole bunch of areas. The game doesn't have the same sense of purpose/momentum as the 1st part of DS had. I beat that snake thing at the top of earthen peak, and it was a meaningless battle. I had no idea who that boss was or what the point of it was. I'm getting bored of it.

There's actually a reason for most stuff you do, and the lore is very subtle and interesting, but I did notice the game doesn't give you enough at first. Most of your first playthrough feels a bit like aimless exploring because of this. Once you play through the whole game once and think about the lore, the story will become clearer, and the journey will seem more interesting.

I think the culprit here is the Emerald Herald, who has too few meaningful lines of dialogue. She's very chatty, but she doesn't actually say much, and what she says won't have any meaning until the end of the game. The cat is much more insightful in that regard, and is the NPC that offers the most insight about the lore/story. They should have merged the two characters, or have the cat act as the "guide" and eliminate the Herald, letting you level up at the bonfires.

It's not the lore so much as the lack of direction. In DS1 there were clear goals from the start, which was to ring the bells. In this one it seems to be wandering and endless boss fights, which is ok, but maybe they could have added something in to break that up.