Dark Souls II |OT2| Prepare to Vengarl

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Darth Zandatsu said:
Look at this beast.
kwEACYg.jpg


Predator Samurai HYPE
Click to expand...

That is cray
 
So boss weapons are pretty useless in this game? Every single one is worse than my current weapon is. Even after upgrading one of the boss weapon it's still weak.
 
Sickbean said:
You mean the
Bastille Key to open up where the torches are?

Already done that, still seems too hard. Maybe I just need to man up. Killed Artorias at SL1 in DS1 after all. Probably just going soft.
Click to expand...

What are you finding so hard about that fight? Honestly, I found it somewhat disappointing.

I did like having a boss fight where
the boss would actually try to roll away from your strikes, but beyond that, I found her overly predictable and easy to anticipate. It was one of the more disappointing boss fights in the game because I had heard people mention it as something particularly strong. I found it honestly underwhelming. I lit the torches beforehand and I think it would have been far more interesting had I not. I'll make sure I leave the setting dark in future playthroughs.

If I'm being honest, that fight is like a poor man's Artorias.
 
Zeliard said:
What are you finding so hard about that fight? Honestly, I found it somewhat disappointing.

I did like having a boss fight where
the boss would actually try to roll away from your strikes, but beyond that, I found her overly predictable and easy to anticipate. It was one of the more disappointing boss fights in the game because I had heard people mention it as something particularly strong. I found it honestly underwhelming. I lit the torches beforehand and I think it would have been far more interesting had I not. I'll make sure I leave the setting dark in future playthroughs.
Click to expand...

Like I said, I'm probably just going soft after having not been challenged at all yet. The only boss I've died to more than once so far is The
Belfry Gargoyles
, and that was only really cause I wanted to solo them.
 
Anyone know a good farming spot for effigies? I burned through like 15 in <1 hour because of a damn optional boss. Frustrating as hell and super hard, but I'd want to try and conquer this boss probably once I've gotten further in the game.
 
In all seriousness Stick, its the best way I have found to deal with her. Just watch out for the long thrust. That shit will clip you if you go to roll into it and will do a ton of damage.
 
Sec0nd said:
So boss weapons are pretty useless in this game? Every single one is worse than my current weapon is. Even after upgrading one of the boss weapon it's still weak.
Click to expand...

I'm currently using the A
rced
S
word
from the F
lexible
S
entry
soul to great succes. Great base damage (when upgraded, starts out meh) + C/A scaling make it great for my quality character.
 
Vorheez said:
How consistently did you guys find
petrified dragon bones
? Was it enough to fully upgrade any weapon or (hopefully) 2?
Click to expand...

From what I've heard from those who have finished the game, it's relatively rare. So be wary when
upgrading boss weapons. You should find enough to fully upgrade one weapon, but again, be careful about the one you choose.
 
EatChildren said:
I think I'm about halfway, if the total boss count is to be believed. So far there's a lot I like more than Dark Souls, and I'm really super happy with a lot of the changes they've made.

I'm a bit torn on the general aimlessness and more abstract open world this time around though. Much more so than Dark Souls your objective is whimsical, undefined, and the game as a whole more relaxed on where you go and what you do. Delving into the unknown and straying off the path, wondering if you're going the right way, is essential for these kinds of games. But I felt Dark Souls most of the time did a pretty fantastic job of gently guiding you in the "right" direction either by having overly powerful bosses and enemies imply you're in a later game area, the main quest separated into three "acts" of objectives so you had an idea of what you should be doing, and some doors/paths blocked off until you got the right key/trinket/person to open the way. You had plenty of breathing room and were encouraged to explore, but always found yourself naturally on the right path getting shit done.

Comparatively Dark Souls II seems as aimless as you can get. "Get big souls", that's it, and this objective lasts through a major chunk of the game as you eat through boss after boss wondering where you should be going or if you're heading in the right direction. Or if there even is a "right" direction, which there doesn't appear to be. While this seems to be the intention, almost totally disregarding narrative or objectives in favour of a sandbox-like open world of boss hunting with the freedom to kill in any order you want, I'm finding this aimlessness to result in weird difficulty skewering. Like it's super easy to feel the game is following a natural difficulty curve as you eat up bosses in one area, then you realise you missed another area and most of the stuff there is super weak, bosses in particular not all that challenging. Or then a super hard boss is thrown in the mix, and you're not sure if it's necessary to move forward or option or what.

I guess this is maybe the point, the bonfire teleporting encouraging you to do a lot of jumping around, but structurally I'm not sure I like the difficult curve and world pacing as much as Dark Souls, even if I might be enjoying the game as a whole more.
Click to expand...
This is exactly why Dark Souls is the better game. This one does a lot of stuff right but there is simply too much and no direction. Dark Souls 1 is a much more cohesive while dark souls 2 feels too much like a videogame.
 
Sec0nd said:
So boss weapons are pretty useless in this game? Every single one is worse than my current weapon is. Even after upgrading one of the boss weapon it's still weak.
Click to expand...

I find the
Watcher Greatsword
to be decent for a mage knight build. I doubt it's the best weapon for one but you usually do a decent amount of damage with it and I personally love the moveset. Plus
the special ability for it lets you buff the weapon.
 
Zeliard said:
From what I've heard from those who have finished the game, it's relatively rare. So be wary when
upgrading boss weapons. You should find enough to fully upgrade one weapon, but again, be careful about the one you choose.
Click to expand...
Right on, thanks. I decided to go with the
Giant Stone Axe
because
The Last Giant
was my favourite boss and seemed a good choice for a strength build. Moveset is a little disappointing, but at +3 it's within the same range of damage as my +10
Greatsword
so I think it should be alright.

Has anyone used the
Giant Stone Axe
yet with any real success? How is the scaling fully upgraded?
 
Sec0nd said:
So boss weapons are pretty useless in this game? Every single one is worse than my current weapon is. Even after upgrading one of the boss weapon it's still weak.
Click to expand...

Defender's Greatsword is working out pretty well for my faith build. S scaling in lightning, self-buffs with Sunlight Blade (or whatever is close to it), claymore's moveset and speed. Two problems with it - you need 15 petrified dragon bones to upgrade it, and getting it means you miss out on the best medium shield in the game.

Fahrenheit said:
Losing my mind! Who is the 4th souls? I got
Sinne, Iron King, and Rotten. I thought Freja was but her soul is a regular soul
Click to expand...

You have all four,
Freja's
isn't labeled as such. If you picked up the red residue on the floor after the battle and got the 'embraced the soul' message, you're good to go.
 
Fahrenheit said:
Losing my mind! Who is the 4th souls? I got
Sinne, Iron King, and Rotten. I thought Freja was but her soul is a regular soul
Click to expand...
There is a red spot on the ground in the room where
Freja
was. That's the great soul. you prolly didn't pick it up.
 
One gets soul weapons by trading souls with a specific merchant right?

You can't choose what kind of soul weapon any more?

Dang, I was hoping to make my twin blades special. Awesome move set but it feels like I'm poking with a swab.
 
Dresden said:
Defender's Greatsword is working out pretty well for my faith build. S scaling in lightning, self-buffs with Sunlight Blade (or whatever is close to it), claymore's moveset and speed. Two problems with it - you need 15 petrified dragon bones to upgrade it, and getting it means you miss out on the best medium shield in the game.



You have all four,
Freja's
isn't labeled as such. If you picked up the red residue on the floor after the battle and got the 'embraced the soul' message, you're good to go.
Click to expand...

dimb said:
There is a red spot on the ground in the room where
Freja
was. That's the great soul. you prolly didn't pick it up.
Click to expand...

ItAintEasy said:
There was something Freja's room you might have missed.
Click to expand...

So where do I go?
I thought it was the door in shaded woods but it doesn't let me in
 
Jaeger said:
So, I screwed up major tonight.

I had the Smelter Demon dead to rights, one hit left. Ran in and got one hit KO'd. NOw, I'm farming for Effigy, and got killed. Lost the 22,000+ Souls that were in the room with Smelter ass-face.

:(
Click to expand...
I don't see the screw up.

Btw.: I am sitting on almost 30 effigies.
 
Fahrenheit said:
So where do I go?
I thought it was the door in shaded woods but it doesn't let me in
Click to expand...
You're probably checking out the wrong door.
From the forkroad bonfire head up the stairs and left I think. There is a small path up the hill on the left side.
 
Seriously...what the fuck. I've been in the Dragon area farming those knights for the Black Dragon Shield for fucking ever now...I've already had to use a bonfire ascetic and still no dice. Like what the fuck :( I'm using the +1 ring to boost item find and still no dice.
 
Robot Pants said:
This is exactly why Dark Souls is the better game. This one does a lot of stuff right but there is simply too much and no direction. Dark Souls 1 is a much more cohesive while dark souls 2 feels too much like a videogame.
Click to expand...

I can dig that, and it's weird because that video game feel isn't necessarily bad, but is made more obviously unintentional. It's not like the game screams out features or systems. If anything, Dark Souls should feel more videogamey due to its more obvious structuring. But the aimlessness of Dark Souls 2 exposes some weird design imbalances and obtuseness that I'm not sure works in favour.

The game as a whole just seems to be one big hodge podge of bosses and areas, all of which I'm really enjoying, but together weirdly aimless and disjointed compared to Dark Souls.

I tried to explain it to my housemate and probably did a bad job, as he couldn't fathom why a more open world would be worse than the structure of Dark Souls (he has no interest in playing either, mind you), but I thought Dark Souls did a fantastic job of giving you the illusion of an open world with the freedom to explore yet just the right amount of non-intrusive guidance to steer you towards your goals. You could still piss off and explore multiple areas, try bosses in non-sequential order, and even tackle optional challenges, but the difficulty scaled pretty nicely with your progression and there was a good sense of "That area is really hard, so I know if I return to it later I can conquer it, but I CAN try and do it now", whereas Dark Souls 2 is more "HERE IS A BIG WORLD FILLED WITH BOSSES. GO KILL 'EM, CHAMP". The "get big souls" objective is also far more abstract and meaningless for so much of the game than ring the bells, fill the vessel, conquer.
 
Dresden said:
Defender's Greatsword is working out pretty well for my faith build. S scaling in lightning, self-buffs with Sunlight Blade (or whatever is close to it), claymore's moveset and speed. Two problems with it - you need 15 petrified dragon bones to upgrade it, and getting it means you miss out on the best medium shield in the game.



You have all four,
Freja's
isn't labeled as such. If you picked up the red residue on the floor after the battle and got the 'embraced the soul' message, you're good to go.
Click to expand...

What shield is this if you don't mind me asking. I've been hunting for the Black Dragon Shield farming the guys, but it's not working out so hot.
 
Killed the
Ancient Dragon
(bonus boss spoiler) on my second try. Wasn't hard at all. Playing a tank really pays off in this game. The Gyrm greatshield is incredibly powerful. It can even block
the dragon's flames
if upgraded enough :lol.
 
Vorheez said:
Wow, seriously? That's actually a little upsetting... Haha

One thing I love about the Soul series is the sense of camaraderie and eagerness to help one another. I always made it a habit to send a message and thank whoever helped me, it was great and gave me a sense of sharing the suffering with a stranger. But whatever, try to invade the bastard and smash him, thats all you can do I guess
Click to expand...
I remember back when the only available English version of Demon's Souls was the Asian release.

Every single pvp encounter people bowed before battling, and they waited for you to deal with whatever enemies you were fighting and heal before attacking you.

Still, there's enough good people in the game such as yourself to maintain the quality of the community I believe.
 
You guys complaining about the lack of inter-connectedness... what did you think of Demon's Souls?

It's true that the areas aren't interconnected. They brought back the hub system from Demon's Souls, basically. It's just that instead of using Archstones you manually walk to each zone and then progress further along those paths. It's totally fine with me. I did like the interconnectedness (can't come up with a better word, sorry... it's late XD) of Dark Souls, that feeling when you found the Valley of Drakes again from one side or another was really nice, and it was great to peer in the distance and think "If I can see it, I can actually go to this place" with almost no exception.

But, I started with Demon's Souls, and the hub system has merit too. What I dig the most about Dark Souls 2 so far is the sheer amount of secrets and hidden nooks and crannies. It's amazing how rich in secrets this game is, and exploration is very, very well rewarded. It's so nice to revisit an area and go "ooooooh" when you find a hidden path you hadn't found before. Some of those secrets are obscure, sure, but that's why you have the message system; I admit I didn't find them all by myself (though I was proud when I did :D) but read just about every message I could find and my eyes lit up every time it unlocked something hidden.

Darth Zandatsu said:
The Emerald Herald will tell you that
you aren't strong enough, but if you wish to proceed you can do it so.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I did get that the first time I reached this place, and that scared me so I went back, but I wasn't sure if I was actually "locked" in or not. Can you actually finish the game by going directly to Drangleic Castle without acquiring any Great soul? :O

Zocano said:
Anyone know a good farming spot for effigies? I burned through like 15 in <1 hour because of a damn optional boss. Frustrating as hell and super hard, but I'd want to try and conquer this boss probably once I've gotten further in the game.
Click to expand...
Which boss? Is that the
Darklurker? I noticed I needed to burn an effigy every time I visited the Abyss, but I only died twice: once in the first dungeon (got mobbed by the phantom turtle knight and pyromancer), and once in the third (Havel and Ricard ganked me, bastards XD). But the boss itself went down in my first try. It did do some massive dark magic damage at some point, but that's the only time I was ever in danger. Pro-tip: firestorm absolutely wrecks this boss. Try pyros?
 
EatChildren said:
You could still piss off and explore multiple areas, try bosses in non-sequential order, and even tackle optional challenges, but the difficulty scaled pretty nicely with your progression and there was a good sense of "That area is really hard, so I know if I return to it later I can conquer it, but I CAN try and do it now", whereas Dark Souls 2 is more "HERE IS A BIG WORLD FILLED WITH BOSSES. GO KILL 'EM, CHAMP". The "get big souls" objective is also far more abstract and meaningless for so much of the game than ring the bells, fill the vessel, conquer.
Click to expand...
I feel like this is a big issue with the game, but part of it just happens to lie with most of the game being flatly trivial when it comes to difficulty. It's really hard for there to be a sense of progression when you can just coast through multiple bosses and areas in a row.
 
Hi all, Dark Souls II server for PlayStation3 and Xbox360 will be switched off according to the time frame below for a short maintenance in order to fix some errors.
Don't worry, that won't be long: you'll die again before you notice.
March 20th 6:30pm - 8:00pm JST
March 20th 9:30am - 11:00am GMT
March 20th 5:30am - 7:00am EDT
March 20th 2:30am - 4:00am PDT
 
EatChildren said:
I can dig that, and it's weird because that video game feel isn't necessarily bad, but is made more obviously unintentional. It's not like the game screams out features or systems. If anything, Dark Souls should feel more videogamey due to its more obvious structuring. But the aimlessness of Dark Souls 2 exposes some weird design imbalances and obtuseness that I'm not sure works in favour.

The game as a whole just seems to be one big hodge podge of bosses and areas, all of which I'm really enjoying, but together weirdly aimless and disjointed compared to Dark Souls.

I tried to explain it to my housemate and probably did a bad job, as he couldn't fathom why a more open world would be worse than the structure of Dark Souls (he has no interest in playing either, mind you), but I thought Dark Souls did a fantastic job of giving you the illusion of an open world with the freedom to explore yet just the right amount of non-intrusive guidance to steer you towards your goals. You could still piss off and explore multiple areas, try bosses in non-sequential order, and even tackle optional challenges, but the difficulty scaled pretty nicely with your progression and there was a good sense of "That area is really hard, so I know if I return to it later I can conquer it, but I CAN try and do it now", whereas Dark Souls 2 is more "HERE IS A BIG WORLD FILLED WITH BOSSES. GO KILL 'EM, CHAMP". The "get big souls" objective is also far more abstract and meaningless for so much of the game than ring the bells, fill the vessel, conquer.
Click to expand...

Thinking about it, I tend to agree. I always loved in DaS1 where you are told that your fate is to live out your undead days in a rotting jail, then told that the "chosen undead" will make a pilgrimage to Lordran. For about 2 minutes the game makes you think that your story will be unique and special but then you get to Firelink and crestbro just bitches and moans about another "chosen" undead come to ring the bell. (oh and by the way there are 2 bells to ring you PoS, better get to it). When you put yourself in the shoes of your character you feel pretty lousy after a start like that but at least its better than eternal jail.

DaS2 started off strong with the opening cinematic and the starting area but after that it is very aimless.
I was waiting for the emerald herald to give me some new dialog every time I came back to Majula and just nothing every time. Even when she showed up at points in the game outside of the Far Fire she really never said a whole lot.

At some points it almost seems like a theme park MMO and I would equate it to the Outlands in the Burning Crusade xpac for WoW. You have a bunch of cool environments and, by themselves, they work great. However, as soon as you get a flying mount and travel over a land of big fucking mushrooms and 2 seconds later your in a desolate mountain range with spikes everywhere you start to see some cracks in the design. This idea didn't really hit me at first for DaS2 because the areas were so bad ass, but on my second play through now the cracks are starting to show with how the areas are not very connected.

Still a sweet game, if only for the fact that we got dedicated servers this time. I can't tell you how much fun it has been to co-op and invade/duel.
 
CountAntonius said:
Hi all, Dark Souls II server for PlayStation3 and Xbox360 will be switched off according to the time frame below for a short maintenance in order to fix some errors.
Don't worry, that won't be long: you'll die again before you notice.
March 20th 6:30pm - 8:00pm JST
March 20th 9:30am - 11:00am GMT
March 20th 5:30am - 7:00am EDT
March 20th 2:30am - 4:00am PDT
Click to expand...

I wonder if they will release a new calibrations file.
 
EatChildren said:
I can dig that, and it's weird because that video game feel isn't necessarily bad, but is made more obviously unintentional. It's not like the game screams out features or systems. If anything, Dark Souls should feel more videogamey due to its more obvious structuring. But the aimlessness of Dark Souls 2 exposes some weird design imbalances and obtuseness that I'm not sure works in favour.

The game as a whole just seems to be one big hodge podge of bosses and areas, all of which I'm really enjoying, but together weirdly aimless and disjointed compared to Dark Souls.

I tried to explain it to my housemate and probably did a bad job, as he couldn't fathom why a more open world would be worse than the structure of Dark Souls (he has no interest in playing either, mind you), but I thought Dark Souls did a fantastic job of giving you the illusion of an open world with the freedom to explore yet just the right amount of non-intrusive guidance to steer you towards your goals. You could still piss off and explore multiple areas, try bosses in non-sequential order, and even tackle optional challenges, but the difficulty scaled pretty nicely with your progression and there was a good sense of "That area is really hard, so I know if I return to it later I can conquer it, but I CAN try and do it now", whereas Dark Souls 2 is more "HERE IS A BIG WORLD FILLED WITH BOSSES. GO KILL 'EM, CHAMP". The "get big souls" objective is also far more abstract and meaningless for so much of the game than ring the bells, fill the vessel, conquer.
Click to expand...

These are the impressions I had of the game: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=104760780&postcount=19658
 
Is there actually a point to light all these torches? Except for some nice lighting effects. I probably hava played too much Zelda but I always expect something to happen when I light all the torches I can find in an area.
 
Despera said:
I remember back when the only available English version of Demon's Souls was the Asian release.

Every single pvp encounter people bowed before battling, and they waited for you to deal with whatever enemies you were fighting and heal before attacking you.

Still, there's enough good people in the game such as yourself to maintain the quality of the community I believe.
Click to expand...
I mentioned I had that one guy that invaded and killed me when I just wanted to
talk to Darkdiver Grandahl
, immediately jumping down to his area once I saw the invasion message hoping he wouldn't see me. I later saw I was sent a message just reading "pussy" that was dated around the time I made those posts.

Fuck these clowns.
Persona7 said:
I wonder if they will release a new calibrations file.
Click to expand...
"Ha ha, no more random respawns back to human after summoning!"

Actually that sounds more like a fundamental coding issue that'd need to be addressed with a full on patch. I imagine calibrations are just tweaking the stats, nothing that really goes very deep.
 
Huh, I need to check on all the trophies but this might actually be a platinum I want to go for. Just about getting a bunch of junk and finding covenants now, though I need to check to see if
there's a trophy for that damned Ancient Dragon fight.
If so... ooof, at least that was the sort of thing I'd want to do anyway just because it's a significant piece of content, even though it seems to share the same fundamental design flaw of
the King Vendrick fight
in that it's more about an enemy that can destroy you really easily and has quite a bit of health, but has an absurdly simple set of patterns so it's more like an endurance test to not screw up.
 
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