Dark Souls(Demon's Souls successor)

[eot]

Finished this game! Overall impression is that I loved it, but I wish the game gave you a better sense of direction. Spent too much of my time not knowing how to progress the main path after being burned out on exploring side stuff. Those moments felt like dead air, and it ended up nearly boring me if I didn't have a couple of forum peeps and friends giving me tips on where to go next. Other than that, great game.

 

Also, Artorias is best fight.

 

I know the boss is bullshit, but its theme ain't.

I can't listen to that, it does too good a job of reminding me of that fight.

[Griddlelol]

I tried out a new character with a str build last night. Started as deprived because I didn't know what other stats I might want. Sprinted and grabbed the zwiehander to kick things off.

It's hard to use! However, after dying on the first boss once (as I was using the sword with two hands and not blocking) I threw some pine resin on it and I only had to dodge the deamon once. One R2 hit, followed by a dodge and two R1 hits and I'd killed him. I can understand why people love these powerful weapons. They just eat through health bars.

I also got invaded! I was just in the undead parish and a guy wearing all of smogh's armour and using his hammer came to say hi. I managed to get off 3 backstabs with the zwiehander but it barely took his HP down. Then a shitty zombie I had accidently aggro end earlier hit me, I was staggered and got hit by the giant hammer before I knew what was happening. The level parity seemed massively off, but I suppose if no one is playing then it doesn't matter!

One last thing, the zwiehander has pretty poor stat scaling, and most bosses are vulnerable to either fire or lightning but also have resistances. Which is better to use? Or would it be a good idea to have two weapons and not try to make one a jack of all trades like I did with uchigatana?

[Gormongous]

One last thing, the zwiehander has pretty poor stat scaling, and most bosses are vulnerable to either fire or lightning but also have resistances. Which is better to use? Or would it be a good idea to have two weapons and not try to make one a jack of all trades like I did with uchigatana?

 

I'm SL140 and most of the way through NG+ and the lightning zweihander +5 is still the best weapon in my arsenal. My claymore +15 is only just starting to catch up at 50 STR and 30 DEX. So many things in the game have resistance to fire, it'd probably just be better just to have a pyromancy flame or something in the rare cases when fire's useful. Once you get the zweihander up there in terms of damage, it's able to stagger most enemies with one R2. By the time it's fully upgraded, it's able to knock all humanoid enemies flat with one R2 and kill almost every single one with a second R2, including Black Knights. It's an unbelievably powerful weapon and pretty much ended my NG game in terms of combat-based challenge. 

[Bjorn]

I also got invaded! I was just in the undead parish and a guy wearing all of smogh's armour and using his hammer came to say hi. I managed to get off 3 backstabs with the zwiehander but it barely took his HP down. Then a shitty zombie I had accidently aggro end earlier hit me, I was staggered and got hit by the giant hammer before I knew what was happening. The level parity seemed massively off, but I suppose if no one is playing then it doesn't matter!

 

It's a twink, someone who maintains and intentional low level and runs through the game to get the best gear and upgrade, then invades low level people and destroys them.  DS2 has tried to fix this by implementing Soul Memory, which is your total accumulated souls, whether spent, lost or held.  And that's all that's used for matchmaking, not level at all.  It stopped twinks, but it brought its own problems as well.

[Griddlelol]

To be honest I don't mind twinks in DS. The only thing that made me curious is that he had regenerating HP. Is that a spell or a ring?

[eot]

Sanctus shield gives HP regen, but it's quite slow (2 HP / s). He could've used a miracle too.

[Griddlelol]

I assume it was a miracle. It was pretty fast.

I upped the zwiehander to +4 and slapped some pine resin on it. The gargoyles were a joke. The first one took 1 R2 and 2 R1s, the second just took 2 R1s. Although I was two handing it when I used to R1 attacks since I felt safe. This sword is pretty fun to use. It's a totally different play style compared to my dex build which was very conservative. I can afford to just go all out because the boss battles are over so fast.

I don't regret going dex first time around, it meant I had to actually learn the fights. I had to block and roll at the correct times, but with this sword I feel like I could have lucked my way through the bosses. However I think I'll prefer the tanky (well, will be eventually) super hard hitter character.

The sad thing is, I would never have been able to use this build correctly without playing through once. It's incredibly dependent on Havel's ring. The slow roll is just pointless!

[Sno]

http://www.siliconera.com/2014/05/20/dark-souls-1-will-remain-functional-gfwl-foreseeable-future/

I'm not sure what to make of this.

[Dewar]

GFWL is not going to be terminated in July, there has been no official announcement at least, just an accidental FAQ that was posted then removed a few hours later. I'm really tired of "news" sites reporting it as fact.

[Gormongous]

After a really long boss fight where I only swung when I thought I had a shot at Kalameet's tail, I decided that I didn't need two Obsidian Greatswords in my bottomless box just for charm points. I killed Artorias and Kalameet tonight, I can kill Manus and Gwyn tomorrow, so that'll be me finishing up NG+. I had a lot of fun the second time around and I'm glad I did it, but I cannot imagine for the life of me why anyone would do it more than twice. I'd much rather go the way of Bjorn and make a new character who plays completely different.

[Griddlelol]

I'm still playing my zwiehander build. So much fun to have a completely different play-style. I'm finding that I'm not using my shield on boss fights now because rolling costs way less stamina and I need that for my zwings. It's weird, I planned to play essentially a crazy tank character with access to Faith, but I'm turning into more of a ninja than my Uchigatana build which was essentially a badly designed turtle. 

 

I do have a question for SL1 runners though: Do you bother with a shield? As I mentioned previously, I'm not using it much now, and I feel with a SL1 run a shield is asking to get smacked down a lot. Do you dual wield or something? I tried the dual wielding once and it felt incredibly awkward to me. 

[N1njaSquirrel]

I personally bother with a shield. The heater shield is your best friend. I think I also changed to the tower shield to defeat the 4 kings. I don't duel wield in general as I feel naked without the comfort of being able to block. In general you don't get smacked down that much. Also the Flip ring helps a lot. Get that ASAP.

[Lork]

I'm still playing my zwiehander build. So much fun to have a completely different play-style. I'm finding that I'm not using my shield on boss fights now because rolling costs way less stamina and I need that for my zwings. It's weird, I planned to play essentially a crazy tank character with access to Faith, but I'm turning into more of a ninja than my Uchigatana build which was essentially a badly designed turtle. 

 

I do have a question for SL1 runners though: Do you bother with a shield? As I mentioned previously, I'm not using it much now, and I feel with a SL1 run a shield is asking to get smacked down a lot. Do you dual wield or something? I tried the dual wielding once and it felt incredibly awkward to me.

Grab the grass crest shield ASAP. It's good enough to block smaller enemies if you keep it upgraded, and while blocking most attacks from bosses is futile, there's no reason not to have it on your back giving you that extra bit of stamina recovery at all times.

[Griddlelol]

Oh, I totally ignored the grass crest shield before because of the 95% block. Now that I barely block its other aspects are looking good.

[Griddlelol]

This is way off topic, but I tried out Resident Evil 4 today. Immediately gave up and went to Dark Souls again. RE4 controls like crap! 

[Gormongous]

Welp, I just beat NG+ and think I'm done with Dark Souls for good. It was an interesting playthrough, but I really missed there being no surprises with the gear (especially the boss weapons that all performed pathetically next to my Lightning Zweihander +5 and Claymore +15 even when fully upgraded) and watching my character grow into the build I'd planned for him. It was nice to go through the game with near-absolute knowledge and watch my build kick unlimited ass, but I couldn't imagine doing it twice or more, not with my loadout already having stayed the same once through the game. I just need the RPG element there, even though it's not really the main attraction in Dark Souls. I'm looking forward to a month or two catching up on TV and reading, maybe playing some Civilization V, before coming back to Dark Souls II.

 

Actually, speaking of my Lightning Zweihander +5 and my Claymore +15, I'm still not completely convinced that I'm aware of all the factors going into damage output. My Zweihander does 650 damage on paper, 325 normal damage and 325 lightning damage. My Claymore does 529 damage, 257 normal damage and 272 from scaling. That said, the Claymore still out-performed the Zweihander, from what I can tell of the floating DPS numbers in combat, in every single situation on which I took notes in both NG and NG+. Even a supposedly lightning-weak enemy like first-stage Smough took around 200 damage from the Zweihander's R1 and 250 from the Claymore's R1. I can't explain it, except for hints here and there on the internet that certain parts of a weapon's moveset add additional ATK to a weapon? I've played enough Dark Souls that I'm more okay with a weapon just "feeling better", but I'm still very curious in the end.

[Bjorn]

Actually, speaking of my Lightning Zweihander +5 and my Claymore +15, I'm still not completely convinced that I'm aware of all the factors going into damage output. My Zweihander does 650 damage on paper, 325 normal damage and 325 lightning damage. My Claymore does 529 damage, 257 normal damage and 272 from scaling. That said, the Claymore still out-performed the Zweihander, from what I can tell of the floating DPS numbers in combat, in every single situation on which I took notes in both NG and NG+. Even a supposedly lightning-weak enemy like first-stage Smough took around 200 damage from the Zweihander's R1 and 250 from the Claymore's R1. I can't explain it, except for hints here and there on the internet that certain parts of a weapon's moveset add additional ATK to a weapon? I've played enough Dark Souls that I'm more okay with a weapon just "feeling better", but I'm still very curious in the end.

 

It's because of how defense works.  When you have a weapon with 2 damage types on it, both damage types hit their respective defenses separately.   I don't remember exactly how defenses work, but it's close to be a flat reduction.  So if something has enough defense to block 200 damage, it's going to block 200 damage no matter how much or little you do.  So split damage ends up getting destroyed by even average defenses against at least one of the damage types.   Enchanting a weapon with an element also got majorly nerfed by one of the early patches.  Pre-patch, lightning weapons were godly.  There was no reason to ever not enchant a weapon with lightning.  Post-patch, for most builds, the only reason to enchant a weapon was if you didn't want to put the stats into Str or Dex to get the scaling up.  So enchanting was great for pure mages/clerics, but generally terrible for pure fighters.

 

Dark Souls 2 seems to have hit a better balance on this.  Infusing a weapon still splits it's damage, but there are now buff spells for all 4 element types (magic, fire, lightning and dark).  The buff spells all add flat damage plus a percentage of the element currently on the weapon (30 or 50 percent depending on the spell).  An infused weapon in DS2 will almost always be weaker than if it were normal, until you use a buff spell, at which some weapons can become considerably more powerful, but only for 60-90 seconds.  There are also more weapons that have innate elements in them.  These can also be infused, which lowers their physical damage, but raises their elemental damage and raises the scaling of the element, allowing you to focus the damage in some weapons into the element rather than physical. 

 

I'm just a few hours into my NG+ run on DS2, and I have to say it's quite a bit of fun.  DS2 adds enemies, some bosses drop different items and in general has different/better loot in NG+ vs NG.  So it keeps that next playthrough fresher than DS1 did.

[Griddlelol]

I ventured into the ash lake today with my zweihander character. Man that place is beautiful. Not sure what the point of the covenant down there is though.

I also beat quelaag - the only boss I used a summon for on my first play through. Felt pretty good!

Oh also, the flip ring is so cool.

[Bjorn]

I ventured into the ash lake today with my zweihander character. Man that place is beautiful. Not sure what the point of the covenant down there is though.

I also beat quelaag - the only boss I used a summon for on my first play through. Felt pretty good!

Oh also, the flip ring is so cool.

 

The Dragon Covenant is for dedicated dueling.  You put down a dragon sign, get summoned, and whoever wins gets a dragon scale, which nets you ranks in the covenant. 

 

The flip ring used to work if you were sub 50-percent load, but they eventually nerfed it to...25 percent?  I think?  At the pre-patch level, everyone wore it in PvP and the iFrames it gave people made them much, much harder to kill.

[Griddlelol]

Awh 50% would be great.

So the covenant is pretty much pointless for me. No real online capabilities.

[Latrine]

You get some cool stuff just for joining it though.

[Griddlelol]

You get some cool stuff just for joining it though.

I didn't notice getting anything when I joined. I'll have to go back and check my inventory.

[Twig]

I finally tried playing this yesterday and discovered the controls are broken for me and can't find anything on the internet suggesting anyone else has a similar problem.

 

I'm using a 360 controller (which is what I want to do), and if I press forward on the stick, I only move at walking speed. If I slightly angle the stick, I run. So basically I only walk if I'm trying to move directly forward. As you can imagine, that's immediately frustrating. I also can't use up on the d-pad to access the little quick menu for items and such. It just won't light up the slot like every other direction does. I can use all four directions while in the full menus, but for that quick access menu it just doesn't work.

 

Please tell me someone else has experienced this.

[Griddlelol]

I experienced something similar...

All my inputs were inverted. Not going to tell you anything you wouldn't have already guessed, but I reinstalled and it worked fine after.

[Twig]

Inverted? That doesn't sound very similar! I guess I can try reinstalling, but it's such a very specific problem that I'm not too optimistic.