Polygon: How Dark Souls II will make life even harder

I will say this is an awesome crow eating for everyone afraid it was going to appeal to some kind of Skyrim crowd. Especially considering that FROM is publishing it themselves in Japan, there was no reason to believe the core game would be compromised. I had faith from day one. :3

Given how Dark Souls balanced itself out with certain aspects, I assume anything that sounds a lot harder will still work out well.
 
I swear I spent most of the first game as undead and minimum health because I was bloody awful. Taught me to play better at least!

Looking forward to this!
 
Well... sounds pretty fucking scary to me lol.

Never played a Souls but the masochist in me has always wanted to. A friend gave me Dark Souls (x360) but i didn't want to start completely unprepared.... can anyone recommend a good video series to sort of train my noob ass so I understand the basics, do's and don'ts? Much appreciated.
 
I swear I spent most of the first game as undead and minimum health because I was bloody awful. Taught me to play better at least!

Looking forward to this!


Yep, liked the half health thing, even if it was really 75% health cause everyone always used the ring. I don't even mind the white phantom duration.


The invasion thing can fuck right off as right now it sounds like one massive negative with no positive about it if you don't like doing it.
 
Well... sounds pretty fucking scary to me lol.

Never played a Souls but the masochist in me has always wanted to. A friend gave me Dark Souls (x360) but i didn't want to start completely unprepared.... can anyone recommend a good video series to sort of train my noob ass so I understand the basics, do's and don'ts? Much appreciated.

Epic Name Bro.

All you need to know.
 
If you watch ENB's video, he mentions that weapon elemental damage now scales with stats as well. Magic and Fire on Intelligence, Holy and Dark on Faith and bleeding and poison on Dexterity.

Which means you cannot make a level 10 character hit for 600 damage with a chaos +5 weapon anymore.
 
Hopefully there's a covenant that prevents invasions, or some way to just banish them out. I played the first two Souls games completely solo, and have no desire to break the trend now. I do like the messages/bloodstains, I just hate all of the co-op/invasion stuff.
 
We don't know if there's a specific item to allow to invade someone even when he is hollow
We really don't know anything besides there will be invasions even when hollow,it seems too early to say something negative at this stage
You're right. I just hope it doesn't translate into griefers heaven.
 
I like everything I am reading here. So hyped for this game.

The timed white phantoms sound like good idea. I just hope that there will be items, covenants etc that allow for increased or unlimited white phantom time for some coop with friends. Maybe in NG+?

Also, love the fact that you can get invaded while Hallow now. During my first playthrough of DS I would stay Hollow for most of the game in fear of invasions and only go human for summoning help for difficult bosses. Thereby, I missed out on a big aspect of the game and multiplayer component as well as some single player NPC invasions that add to the story and lore. So I am liking it that this time around I don't get the option of staying Hollow to avoid invasions. Again though I hope that there are options to limit or prevent invasions via items or covenants for people who might choose so. I sure as hell won't this time around!
 
If you watch ENB's video, he mentions that weapon elemental damage now scales with stats as well. Magic and Fire on Intelligence, Holy and Dark on Faith and bleeding and poison on Dexterity.

Which means you cannot make a level 10 character hit for 600 damage with a chaos +5 weapon anymore.
Lightning with faith too I think he said. This all sounds interesting to me, and doesn't lightning and faith make sense from a lore pov too? The effigy shield is high lightning protection iirc.

It all sounds like pyro is now just under magic too? With fire under INT, this is all good news if so, a highly useable magic like Pyro in DS not being tied to a stat just made it too good imo.
 
So instead of playing hollow and doing the odd co-op I play off-line until I clear the area boss and then go on-line to do some co-op. Guess that'll work. I do worry that this will just kill off the casual co-op scene in the game entirely though.
 
All of that sounds awesome. Hard to pick just one thing to comment on. Well, I will say I absolutely hated on stats work in Dark Souls and I'm glad they are retooling them. EDIT: Especially if they are balancing weapons and magic damage better. Sounds like exactly what Dark Souls needed.
 
Yeah.. Forced PvP *might* be a reasonable option if they could balance the opponents with just the soul levels.. but they don't know how to do that. They just don't :p

Also, they would need to make every item have a "minimum soul level" to kill the item exploits in PvP or some silly stuff like that which doesn't fit in to the game at all.

I truly did not enjoy getting griefed in Blighttown by level 1 invaders who had stupidly good equipment and against who I had no chance. This needs to just go. PvP was fun when it was between two equal opponents, but most of the time it wasn't.

If they really intend to leave this in the game, I guess I have no chance but to play offline, or use a firewall or some mod to block incoming connections to the game. Anyone know if the multiplayer is still P2P based so I could potentially lock out everything else but the main server from the game?
 
Yeah.. Forced PvP *might* be a reasonable option if they could balance the opponents with just the soul levels.. but they don't know how to do that. They just don't :p

Also, they would need to make every item have a "minimum soul level" to kill the item exploits in PvP or some silly stuff like that which doesn't fit in to the game at all.

I truly did not enjoy getting griefed in Blighttown by level 1 invaders who had stupidly good equipment and against who I had no chance. This needs to just go. PvP was fun when it was between two equal opponents, but most of the time it wasn't.

If they really intend to leave this in the game, I guess I have no chance but to play offline, or use a firewall or some mod to block incoming connections to the game. Anyone know if the multiplayer is still P2P based so I could potentially lock out everything else but the main server from the game?

No P2P, Dedicated servers this time.
 
Once they can keep the frequency of invasions down I'm cool with the hollow thing . Right now I'm just getting a vision of constantly being invaded over and over again , especially in the early months of the game . It's like legitimately trying to beat SSF4's story mode with Arcade request on.It's not that I don't want PVP just not every 5 mins ...
 
Possible to be invaded while hollow? Awwww yeahhhh!

The only thing I hope they fix is when you can't exit/enter a area while someone is trying to invade you. That was pretty stupid, especially when it lagged and refused to let you exit a area for like 5 minutes.
 
Sounds hard for the sake of being hard... which is dumb.
Kinda like some of the artificially hard moments in Dark Souls. I'm not expecting much from this either, difficulty-wise that is.
 
  • Possible to be invaded while hollow.
  • White phantoms now have a limited duration, may have to leave sooner if they do too much work for the host player.

I fucking hate these two. The co-op aspect of this game was the absolute best part of it and now they are fucking with it. I really hope there are ways around it that aren't a pain in the ass. My friend and I basically played the first game together and it was amazing. The invading aspect isn't too bad but I worry it will deter people from playing online.

I don't know about these too. Seems like artificial difficulty that doesn't add to the game one bit.
 
I have a feeling the only people who will be around to be invaded are going to be invaders with a load of people playing the game unplugged. That's sad if it happens.
 
Yeeees! this sounds awesome. No more running away from invaders, that's the way it should have been from the start.

Nice to see these newer stat parameters, I remember reading that there is no longer invincible rolls, that alone makes things much harder.
 
I know people who got boosted through pretty much the entire game of Dark Souls.

I'm happy that white phantoms may only help you for a few minutes.
I remember reading that there is no longer invincible rolls, that alone makes things much harder.
The fuck? Link?
 
I know people who got boosted through pretty much the entire game of Dark Souls.

I'm happy that white phantoms may only help you for a few minutes.

The fuck? Link?

Same. Even though we don't really know just HOW limited the duration is.

Co-op made Dark Souls REALLY easy. Ornstein and Smough, for example, was like a completely different fight with a human partner there to help compared to going solo.
 
You can tell all the people who only dabbled and never finished Dark Souls. They are the ones complaining about the hollow invasions or limited coop.

Anyone who beat it, probably learned to gain comfidence to fight on their own and handle invasions.

I was kind of worried they wouldnt be able to intimidate me any more, though. I was clearly wrong. These changes are designed to throw down the gauntlet to everyone who beat Dark Souls.

Challenge accepted.
 
These changed, I like it!


Hopefully the "do too much" threshold is just to prevent people from beating the gamefor you. my two friends and I are already planning on an epic co-oping.
 
I'm guessing the time limit is there to prevent ganking. Still don't like it. There's got to be better ways to counteract gankers than to nerf legit jolly cooperation.
 
You can tell all the people who only dabbled and never finished Dark Souls. They are the ones complaining about the hollow invasions or limited coop.

Anyone who beat it, probably learned to gain comfidence to fight on their own and handle invasions.

I was kind of worried they wouldnt be able to intimidate me any more, though. I was clearly wrong. These changes are designed to throw down the gauntlet to everyone who beat Dark Souls.

Challenge accepted.

Uh, no. I finished Dark Souls, and actually had a good time fighting against the invaders occassionally, but the problem is that they couldn't balance the game around the soul levels.

Just started the game, wearing crappy starter gear and entering Undead Burg for the first time = Soul Level 1

Played for 300 hours, boosted through the game 2 times by White Phantoms, gifted all the maximum enchanted/whatnot gear you can wear, 99 Humanity in the bags ready to be popped = Soul Level 1

Yeah, that is a fair match :p

And come on, who thinks the players will not outsmart FROM again?
 
I'm guessing the time limit is there to prevent ganking. Still don't like it. There's got to be better ways to counteract gankers than to nerf legit jolly cooperation.

The time limit is probably there because a lot of White Phantoms carried the host player in Dark Souls, they want to make it harder I guess. Gankers might not be too much of an issue because this new covenant can be summoned when an invader arrives.

Interesting name change though, Way of the Blue, isn't it just the Blade of the Darkmoon? they do the same thing.
 
You can tell all the people who only dabbled and never finished Dark Souls. They are the ones complaining about the hollow invasions or limited coop.

Anyone who beat it, probably learned to gain comfidence to fight on their own and handle invasions.

Nah a lot of people kept playing it just for the co-op. Me included. It's a totally different skill set learning the beat the game and playing vs other humans. I can do the former with ease but the latter is beyond me. My reflexes are just not up to it anymore. Even without all the mules and cheats I don't stand a chance 1v1.
 
Hmm, SPECIAL animations... I'm thinking the roll will still have i-frames, but animations like the backstab won't.

I hope rolling counts as special animations. This new skill parameter allows you to roll faster, something must have changed I think.
 
The time limit is probably there because a lot of White Phantoms carried the host player in Dark Souls, they want to make it harder I guess. Gankers might not be too much of an issue because this new covenant can be summoned when an invader arrives.

Interesting name change though, Way of the Blue, isn't it just the Blade of the Darkmoon? they do the same thing.

No, Blade of the Darkmoon HUNT the guilty, not protect people from invader.
 
lol, it's impossible for me to hear "artificially difficult" without cracking up.

I'm all for co-op nerfs. Number one way to spoil the original.
 
You can tell all the people who only dabbled and never finished Dark Souls. They are the ones complaining about the hollow invasions or limited coop.

Anyone who beat it, probably learned to gain comfidence to fight on their own and handle invasions.

I was kind of worried they wouldnt be able to intimidate me any more, though. I was clearly wrong. These changes are designed to throw down the gauntlet to everyone who beat Dark Souls.

Challenge accepted.

Eh, no? I finished Demon's Souls and Dark Souls and I'm trepidatious on the point of hollow invasions too.
 
Top Bottom