So I'm never getting it. =P
Also is the parrying dagger the best off hand for parrying?
Get a Greatsword +10, forgo a shield, and just use the 1-hand R1 attack. You'll get kills enough in PVP because of dumb range.
I mean I'm not *terrible* at PVP but I wouldn't say I'm good at it. An evening of PVP matches on Iron Keep bridge got me to Rank 2 for that sweet as fuck Black Dragon Armor.
Luckily I got the Black Dragon Sword as a drop :x
No please, let the guys in Amana keep spawning. I need my twinkling and old radiant gems.
I wish areas like Dragon Aerie were longer. Maybe I'm forgetting but I felt like areas in Demon and Dark 1 lasted much longer than the ones in 2 do.
Also, yah, the definite overall approach to Dark Souls 2 felt like "more more more". Lots of areas, lots of items, lots of everything.
Which is probably my only real complaint of the game (because it was to the detriment of the quality of most things it affected).
You got more "eh" bosses, more items that all just felt the same, more healing items, more bonfires, and more areas which in turn ended up smaller and smaller.
I think the main part is that it's hard to delineate certain areas, though. Like do you consider all of Shaded Woods one area? I think the numerous bonfires end up hurting the "feel" of the length of areas. The larger areas still feel small because of how the bonfires cut them up. Even when Tseldora, Shaded Woods, Drangleic, Gutter, Lost Bastille, Iron Keep, Earthen Keep are all fairly sizeable areas and still measure up to the other games.
Like Anor Londo really isn't *that* big when you know where you're going, just like every other area in every game. A lot of areas in Dark Souls 1 definitely feel like that. The forest area (forgot the name) is actually suuuuuuper tiny when you consider it as just two big circles with not much really in it. You can run through that area in like a minute flat.
The big areas from Dark Souls 2 definitely size up with the ones from Dark Souls 1, yah, but it's got far more "short" areas to it as well.
Dragon Aerie, Black Gulch, Dragon Shrine, Aldia's Keep, for example, are all suuuuper tiny areas. Black Gulch is actually my favorite of the ones I listed but Aldia's Keep is also really cool even if it's structurally very plain.
I really woulda liked to see how the full game looked with the first lightining engine because I bet a lot of the complaints people have for certain areas that actually have good level design (Gutter, Tseldora, Earthen Keep) would go away if they couldn't notice the less-than-good texture quality. If Dark Souls 1 didn't have that silly ass bloom over everything, a lot of those areas would look like ass. The only time I ever felt the level architecture made it pretty was Anor Londo and even then the castle-proper area is really bland (vs. the scaffolding climbing which is really neat).
. Ultra rare equipment only dropped by 3 eneimes in the whole game. The 4th is a phantom who drops a greatsword if you're lucky.