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Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin |OT| Your weapons are weak, old man

Corpekata

Banned
I know nothing about the npc sidequests. Is it obvious when you have to summon one for a boss in order to continue/complete there quests or is it easy to miss.

They will generally appear in the rough area where you physically encounter them, but some can be a bit obtuse. You should see the signs if you're human so the safest bet is to attempt your first boss runs as human since you should find the signs easily, at least if you want to avoid using a guide. Generally there will be comments on the ground mentioning where summons are located so you can have an idea even while Hollow.
 

Neoweee

Member
I know nothing about the npc sidequests. Is it obvious when you have to summon one for a boss in order to continue/complete there quests or is it easy to miss.

It's pretty easy to miss, unfortunately. The only way to "know" is that either of those two NPCs are available to summon for a boss. If you see them, use them for the boss, and don't let them die. If they die, reset the boss fight (warp out, or die yourself), and re-summon. The two NPCs are
Jugo of Bernhart (big blue sword) and Lucatiel of Mirrah (female renessaince fencer)

Honestly, I would never attempt to do them on the first playthrough. Do it later, and use a guide. They're easy if you are looking at a guide, but you shouldn't be looking at a guide your first time.



So, I'm reading this a lot.

Can someone make at least a few example about what these "hundreds of changes" are?


There is a giant Reddit thread for Changes as people compile them. The lists are incomplete/imprecise, and I don't want to link the entire thing for the sake of discovery being a part of the game, but here is in-progress list for Huntsman's Copse. I note a few mistakes (vague descriptions, using plural for 1, etc.)

Huntsman Copse
When going into a room with the big pit, the thief above you drops down now. (Note, there are two up there now. So even though one drops down. One will still jump up when you go on the roof.
Hollows and enemies inside the room have been moved about a bit.
A club wielding thief is now also behind the wooden door that you get attacked through after trying to open.
The club wielding thief that was around the corner above the bonfire is now around to corner where the body is that you pick stuff off. His attack will now knock you off the edge if you get hit while looting the body.
There is now a Giant Basilisk in the base of the area with Ricard's Rapier. Also a torch hollow.

Bridge Approach bonfire
The thief that was behind the tree just before the Small Orange Burr has been changed to a tree on the right instead.
There is a new, super fast hollow straight across the bridge. He's hard to kill, but his drop seems to be special. You can get multiple different, sometimes pretty good items from him. This needs more testing obviously, can be done later.
Dropping down into the cage thing that contains Soul Spear now also contains a Syan Knight guarding a chest; the chest contains a Sublime Bone Dust.
The position of the thiefs before the bridge that you need to pull lever for has changed, one of them also has a dog now.
On the way to the undead chariot, when you pick up the notched whip, skeletons appear behind you.
2 Hollowed undead are hanging off the bridge in front of the boss gate and climb up.
The Estus flask shard that was to the right is now a fire seed.
In the Executioner boss fight, the first necromancer is close then before when you start.


Undead Lockaway Bonfire
The undead lockaway key is now up on the ledge where there was three thiefs and a lizard. Now there is only a body containing the key, and Merciless Roenna Spelling? invades up there.
Dropping off too the small ledge from where the Undead Lockaway key is, the body on the ledge now contains a Flamberge.
The body that used to contain the Undead Lockaway key in the small room below, now contains 2x Flame butterflys.
There is another super fast hollow in this area too.
Creighton is now joined by two skeletons! They sit either side of him in a similar position; I guess to emphasis the fact that he would die in here if you didn't set him free.
The second Necromancer has moved locations, he is now where Combustion is, and shoots at you while you run along the ledge opposite.
On the ledge where the Necromancer used to stand is a body with items: 40 Lacerating Arrows, 1 Human Effigy and 3 prism stones.
Further into the area, where you can pull the lever to open the grate inside the caves, is a Lizard and a body containing a Estus Flask Shard.
The Skeleton Lords boss fight has changed: they now summon many more skeletons, but the one that summons Bone Wheel ones only summons two; so thank god.
You can summon Creighton to help with the boss, he's in the room with the skeletons. First or second room?
 

addyb

Member
Thanks guys. So will these summon signs be labelled differently to other players. So I wouldn't make the mistake of summoning a human helper. Also can you summon an npc and human at the same time for a boss battle?
 
The Shaded Woods is infinitely better in this version, but I miss that huge lizard guy.

Having
Vengarl's armor be just above Vengarl's head was a nice touch.
 
Picking up my copy after work. Not sure when I will get to it, I want to finish Bloodborne first. But still, looking forward to having it in hand :3
 

Corpekata

Banned
Thanks guys. So will these summon signs be labelled differently to other players. So I wouldn't make the mistake of summoning a human helper. Also can you summon an npc and human at the same time for a boss battle?

I think all of the NPCs have titles like Of Area or The Adjective so generally it is easy to spot them (and their apperance tends to load a lot faster than player).
 

addyb

Member
Thanks for the info guys. Sorry I know this isn't really the thread but who has dark souls for pc and if so what mods are must haves. I know it released as a shabby port but heard the lovely modding community made it good :)
 

Lanrutcon

Member
It's pretty easy to miss, unfortunately. The only way to "know" is that either of those two NPCs are available to summon for a boss. If you see them, use them for the boss, and don't let them die. If they die, reset the boss fight (warp out, or die yourself), and re-summon. The two NPCs are
Jugo of Bernhart (big blue sword) and Lucatiel of Mirrah (female renessaince fencer)

Honestly, I would never attempt to do them on the first playthrough. Do it later, and use a guide. They're easy if you are looking at a guide, but you shouldn't be looking at a guide your first time.






There is a giant Reddit thread for Changes as people compile them. The lists are incomplete/imprecise, and I don't want to link the entire thing for the sake of discovery being a part of the game, but here is in-progress list for Huntsman's Copse. I note a few mistakes (vague descriptions, using plural for 1, etc.)

Huntsman Copse
When going into a room with the big pit, the thief above you drops down now. (Note, there are two up there now. So even though one drops down. One will still jump up when you go on the roof.
Hollows and enemies inside the room have been moved about a bit.
A club wielding thief is now also behind the wooden door that you get attacked through after trying to open.
The club wielding thief that was around the corner above the bonfire is now around to corner where the body is that you pick stuff off. His attack will now knock you off the edge if you get hit while looting the body.
There is now a Giant Basilisk in the base of the area with Ricard's Rapier. Also a torch hollow.

Bridge Approach bonfire
The thief that was behind the tree just before the Small Orange Burr has been changed to a tree on the right instead.
There is a new, super fast hollow straight across the bridge. He's hard to kill, but his drop seems to be special. You can get multiple different, sometimes pretty good items from him. This needs more testing obviously, can be done later.
Dropping down into the cage thing that contains Soul Spear now also contains a Syan Knight guarding a chest; the chest contains a Sublime Bone Dust.
The position of the thiefs before the bridge that you need to pull lever for has changed, one of them also has a dog now.
On the way to the undead chariot, when you pick up the notched whip, skeletons appear behind you.
2 Hollowed undead are hanging off the bridge in front of the boss gate and climb up.
The Estus flask shard that was to the right is now a fire seed.
In the Executioner boss fight, the first necromancer is close then before when you start.


Undead Lockaway Bonfire
The undead lockaway key is now up on the ledge where there was three thiefs and a lizard. Now there is only a body containing the key, and Merciless Roenna Spelling? invades up there.
Dropping off too the small ledge from where the Undead Lockaway key is, the body on the ledge now contains a Flamberge.
The body that used to contain the Undead Lockaway key in the small room below, now contains 2x Flame butterflys.
There is another super fast hollow in this area too.
Creighton is now joined by two skeletons! They sit either side of him in a similar position; I guess to emphasis the fact that he would die in here if you didn't set him free.
The second Necromancer has moved locations, he is now where Combustion is, and shoots at you while you run along the ledge opposite.
On the ledge where the Necromancer used to stand is a body with items: 40 Lacerating Arrows, 1 Human Effigy and 3 prism stones.
Further into the area, where you can pull the lever to open the grate inside the caves, is a Lizard and a body containing a Estus Flask Shard.
The Skeleton Lords boss fight has changed: they now summon many more skeletons, but the one that summons Bone Wheel ones only summons two; so thank god.
You can summon Creighton to help with the boss, he's in the room with the skeletons. First or second room?

Link to the reddit please. Can't find it.
 

derwalde

Member
can anyone please tell me: the
mimic chest
in
earthen peak
, what does it contain? i died from poison the moment i slaughtered it.
 

Nephtes

Member
I feel like a terrible person. I already have full Elite Knight set and I haven't even gotten to the first boss.

It's too easy to cheese that respawning
ogre
they added for 1000 souls a pop in
Forest of Fallen Giants
...

I'm a monster... I must be stopped... :(
 

Tarkus

Member
And that just works? No Dark Souls-y catch?
You can go from a brute dual wielding 2 Smelter Hammers to an elusive mage that can cast all spells with ultra damage. The minimum values in each category will be your starting class stats. You can redistribute as you see fit.
 

Takuan

Member
Starting as a deprived is rough. Can't use shit but the dagger and that breaks ridiculously fast thanks to our friend durability bug. There are also a lot more enemies than I remember.

Yeah, I wasn't quite expecting to be this handicapped. I thought, at the very least, that I'd be able to club fools Flintstone style. And yeah, I was surprised how quickly that broken sword, well, broke. Thankfully, ~3500 souls later I was able to wield a better broken sword!
 

-tetsuo-

Unlimited Capacity
It doesn't break ridiculously fast at all.(probably because I am used to the PC version heh) I never had trouble with it, not to mention you can get the fire sword in 5 mins.

It certainly does. I went from Majula to the first bonfire in FoFG, up the ladder and I didn't even kill all the enemies in that arena and it had 5 durability left when I went through the fog door. I was trying not to rest at the bonfire so that enemies wouldn't respawn but I am now forced to do so. Also, I don't know where the fire sword is and NO DO NOT TELL ME HOW TO FIND IT :D. Also, I probably couldn't use it. Deprived, remember?
 

idonteven

Member
I remember that place pre-nerf. Well I suppose at this point it's been buffed like everything else, but at least they don't have the insane range they used to have.

im just waiting for them to stop spawning because i keep dieing at the end no matter what
 

-tetsuo-

Unlimited Capacity
There's a shitload of enemies if you're doing a full clear (you only need to kill 1 in that tower area normally). What walls were you hitting? It is out in the open.

The dagger just doesn't have much durability. 40 or so, right? So you have room for 70 regular hits getting down to 5, which sounds about right to kill that many enemies without wailing on corpses or walls. That's really down to the regular durability system, not the bug, as only a handful of the durability would have come from the increased corpse/wall penalty. The real culprit there is the increase enemy count over what was already a large number of hollows, if you're going for a full-clear.

The real issue with the durability bug is in that next hallway. I had to learn to stab rather than swing at walls.

Dude that is the equivalent of going from the first bonfire to the Taurus demon in DS1 and having your weapon break trying to kill him. Or like, half of a level in Demon's. I fought like 15 guys TOPS and my weapon is about to break? How can you think this is the intended behavior? I had to spend some levels to be able to use some weapons that I didn't really want to just because I HAD to. It is stupid.
 

ironcreed

Banned
Are you kidding me? The combat is miles better in Bloodborne, at least for me!

I was clearly talking about the framerate and how that it plays so much better as a result. But yeah, the fast quick-step combat in Bloodborne is fantastic. Although I do still prefer the balance and diversity of the Souls series now that the dust has settled. I just like the freedom to play how I want, instead of being shoehorned into a particular style. And having that freedom at 60 fps makes a world of difference. Here is to hoping they do the same for Dark Souls 3.
 

ArynCrinn

Banned
Yep. I swear to god if people didnt know Miyazaki wasnt involved, half the complaints in this thread would vanish into the fucking ether.

lol

Dark Souls II wouldn't be called Dark Souls II if Miyazaki was involved, and if he was (if Namco didn't just want to cash grab for a franchise sequel and waited for him to finish BB) Dark Souls II would be a completely different game as it is now, as proof by BB.

Fact is, Namco is the real scam here because they simply wanted to cash-in on the hype of the "brand" by making this game for the money, instead of waiting for BB to be finished and then letting the full force and creativity revist the Souls series after a lengthy hiatus after DS1. Truth be told Souls needed a long break after DS1, and after BB, the team would have been able to totally rethink and analyze the totality of a new Souls in a much fresher and more defined direction after their work on BB.

At this point, I'd rather the next Souls game take a LONG break until Miyazaki has another game under his belt whatever that may be. IMO
 

Tengrave

Member
Having the ability to summon 3 other phantoms makes some of the bosses push overs. Doing PVP with multiple phantoms is excelliant
 

ArynCrinn

Banned
Dark Souls 2 is a cashgrab now? What the fuck.

Having a lesser team do a game they clearly did not have the ability to do of the same quality of the originals, because Namco knew Miyazaki was well into BB dev....what other reason would there be? If they wanted the truly best product, why not wait until AFTER BB was finished?
 

ironcreed

Banned
lol

Dark Souls II wouldn't be called Dark Souls II if Miyazaki was involved, and if he was (if Namco didn't just want to cash grab for a franchise sequel and waited for him to finish BB) Dark Souls II would be a completely different game as it is now, as proof by BB.

Fact is, Namco is the real scam here because they simply wanted to cash-in on the hype of the "brand" by making this game for the money, instead of waiting for BB to be finished and then letting the full force and creativity revist the Souls series after a lengthy hiatus after DS1. Truth be told Souls needed a long break after DS1, and after BB, the team would have been able to totally rethink and analyze the totality of a new Souls in a much fresher and more defined direction after their work on BB.

At this point, I'd rather the next Souls game take a LONG break until Miyazaki has another game under his belt whatever that may be. IMO

Quand+je+r%C3%A9vise+la+cause+en+droit+des+obligations+ins%C3%A9rez+votre+b%C3%AAte+noire.gif
 

VinFTW

Member
lmao, the DS2 hate is seriously so ridiculous. The game is incredible.

Glad to see most of you guys are enjoying it. Hope those who were swayed against it because of absurd downplaying of its quality picked it up anyways and is enjoying it.

Can't wait to pick up a copy soon and play through it for the billionth time.

Hows it run on PS4? Any issues?
 

Screaming Meat

Unconfirmed Member
Damn these evil companies and their unquenchable lust for money.

EDIT: Oh, wait. Isn't ArynCrinn the poster who thinks he's some kind of psychic mega-troll FOR SCIENCE or something?
 

Mogwai

Member
lol

Dark Souls II wouldn't be called Dark Souls II if Miyazaki was involved, and if he was (if Namco didn't just want to cash grab for a franchise sequel and waited for him to finish BB) Dark Souls II would be a completely different game as it is now, as proof by BB.

Fact is, Namco is the real scam here because they simply wanted to cash-in on the hype of the "brand" by making this game for the money, instead of waiting for BB to be finished and then letting the full force and creativity revist the Souls series after a lengthy hiatus after DS1. Truth be told Souls needed a long break after DS1, and after BB, the team would have been able to totally rethink and analyze the totality of a new Souls in a much fresher and more defined direction after their work on BB.

At this point, I'd rather the next Souls game take a LONG break until Miyazaki has another game under his belt whatever that may be. IMO

Cash grab is an overstatement. But if Miyazaki had directed DS2, it wouldn't have had:

- bonfires every 5 minutes
- lack of intricate level design with useful shortcuts
- Estus flasks AND consumable healing items
- Soul Vessels spammed all over the game
- Inconsistent durability system that's only critical for weapons and not armors
- encounters like Ancient Dragon

Whether those points are bad for DS2 is not my point. It's just what I would expect Miyazaki to have done differently compared to Shibuya/Tanimura.
 
Having a lesser team do a game they clearly did not have the ability to do of the same quality of the originals, because Namco knew Miyazaki was well into BB dev....what other reason would there be? If they wanted the truly best product, why not wait until AFTER BB was finished?

This is pretty insulting. Companies should be able to make several games at once if they have people for it. Should From just fire everyone who isn't in Miyazakis perfect team who can do no wrong? Should Namco fire the Soul Calibur team and wait until the Tekken team is ready to make a Soul Calibur game? Should all other Nintendo games wait until Zelda is done? Should Blizzard put all their developers on WoW alone and never make a new game?

You're not even trying to argue, you're just trolling the "B team" story.
 

Steel

Banned
Oh god.... Man I have my complaints against Dark Souls 2 but the amount that people use the B-team card and "game is trash" line is just silly. Completely overshadows the fact that Dark Souls 2 is a good game in its own right, flaws and all.
 

Grady

Member
lol

Dark Souls II wouldn't be called Dark Souls II if Miyazaki was involved, and if he was (if Namco didn't just want to cash grab for a franchise sequel and waited for him to finish BB) Dark Souls II would be a completely different game as it is now, as proof by BB.

Fact is, Namco is the real scam here because they simply wanted to cash-in on the hype of the "brand" by making this game for the money, instead of waiting for BB to be finished and then letting the full force and creativity revist the Souls series after a lengthy hiatus after DS1. Truth be told Souls needed a long break after DS1, and after BB, the team would have been able to totally rethink and analyze the totality of a new Souls in a much fresher and more defined direction after their work on BB.

At this point, I'd rather the next Souls game take a LONG break until Miyazaki has another game under his belt whatever that may be. IMO

What are you going on about. Alot of folks actually enjoy this game more then bloodborne. Even the critics hold them next to each other in quality. I would rather have a dark souls game every year rather waiting four years for a game. I spent months playing this game. 1 week with bb and almost have platinum and will probably have no reason to play it again. Bloodborne is amazing in its own right, but each game stumbled in its own way. Bb fails hard in the replayability category, which dark souls 2 excells in.
 

Ayt

Banned
lmao, the DS2 hate is seriously so ridiculous. The game is incredible.

Glad to see most of you guys are enjoying it. Hope those who were swayed against it because of absurd downplaying of its quality picked it up anyways and is enjoying it.

Can't wait to pick up a copy soon and play through it for the billionth time.

Hows it run on PS4? Any issues?

A lot of the hate makes me think of Steam reviews where you see things like a person giving a game a "Not Recommended" and next to their name it shows that they've spent like 512 hours playing the game.
 

F0rneus

Tears in the rain
Dark Souls II isn't anywhere close to Bloodborne's quality. But I just bought it and took off work all day. Still a fucking outstanding game that destroys pretty much everything else, in my eyes.
 

ArynCrinn

Banned
This is pretty insulting. Companies should be able to make several games at once if they have people for it. Should From just fire everyone who isn't in Miyazakis perfect team who can do no wrong? Should Namco fire the Soul Calibur team and wait until the Tekken team is ready to make a Soul Calibur game? Should all other Nintendo games wait until Zelda is done? Should Blizzard put all their developers on WoW alone and never make a new game?

You're not even trying to argue, you're just trolling the "B team" story.

You do understand From isn't that big of a company of tons of employees like Ubi/ect... And yeah, Miyazaki being the only director who put them on the map, plus the contrast between a Souls directed by him vs. a Souls not, it seems pretty concrete in my view.

How did it go when Itagaki stopped making NG, what happened to that game?

Studios CAN make more than one game at once if the people in charge know what's up, but this clearly was not the case with this game. No matter how you want to argue it.

Edit: And for the record, I'm not implying DSII is a terrible game, it's a "good game" worth playing on it's own merits, as long as you don't go in expecting the greatness of the previous two.. But, for the long time vets of the two previous, there's a massive backlash at a the literal super steps backwards, that until DSII defined the series (challenging but fair, etc).
 
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