melmer

Dark Souls 2 (Dark Souls successor (Demon's Souls successor))

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So far I've found at least one (nautically-themed) area where using the torch made a huge difference.

It was never so dark that I couldn't see without it so I didn't bother. That's a cool area though, and the dynamic between the jar throwing guys and the archers is neat.

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I just got there in my game and was surprised to find that you can use the torches to intimidate some of the larger enemies, which is a neat little touch.

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Other light sources work as well.

With a lockstone you can turn on a lighthouse.

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Also, coming upon a hallway that is just flooded with bloodstains and warning messages from other players and then proceeding to nail it on the first try will never not feel awesome.

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For the dark levels, make sure you've got your in game gamma set correctly.  If you've got it towards the dark end of still being able to see the left image, the game is much better.  Also, if you TV/Monitor supports full range RGB, check that it is set on both your gaming platform and the display.  I replaced my PS3 late last year, and had apparently forgot to double check a bunch of the video settings on the new one, and it was set to limited RGB range.  When I changed it to Full range, it was a massive difference in the depth of the blackness.  The torch went from being optional to an absolute necessity.  I just went through one of the darkest levels on the PC last night, and had to constantly have my torch out, whereas on the PS3 when I went through it, the torch was nice but not strictly necessary. 

 

I decided to go pure caster for my first PC character.  It's fun, but I think ultimately I love melee characters so much more in Souls games. 

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Oh, another thing that PC players will never realize is so blessedly wonderful is the load time for co-op and PvP.  I'm getting into other people's worlds before the loading screen had even started on the PS3.  And I haven't had a single connection error out on me.  Even after the patch on the PS3, I still had connections error out once in a while. 

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I joined the Blue Sentinels, and wow is that fun. I've never been one to invade people's games in Dark Souls, but I love the feeling of getting called on to protect a newer player. The fact that I get humanity and souls each time it happens only makes it all the better.

 

Also, I'm pretty glad to be leaving No Man's Wharf. That place creeped me out. Then again, this is Dark Souls, so I'm sure whatever's next won't be any better.

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I joined the Blue Sentinels, and wow is that fun. I've never been one to invade people's games in Dark Souls, but I love the feeling of getting called on to protect a newer player. The fact that I get humanity and souls each time it happens only makes it all the better.

 

Also, I'm pretty glad to be leaving No Man's Wharf. That place creeped me out. Then again, this is Dark Souls, so I'm sure whatever's next won't be any better.

I was thinking about joining that covenant, seems like a cool concept. I'm kind of liking not getting invaded very much at all my first playthrough, though. 

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I just got to The Gutter

 

where the torch isn't required, but is really helpful. I have to say, I think it's a lot of fun to methodically move through the level, lighting all the sconces or whatever. It's like Blighttown but you're able to improve the area systematically. And with better framerate!

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Of the half dozen or so areas i've seen in the game so far, No Man's Wharf has been my favorite.

 

What do i need to have the guy on the docks be willing to talk to me? Also, the guy you can sell junk items to disappeared when i returned to the area after a visit back to Majula, does he show up in Majula like a lot of the other NPC's seem to?

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Of the half dozen or so areas i've seen in the game so far, No Man's Wharf has been my favorite.

 

What do i need to have the guy on the docks be willing to talk to me? Also, the guy you can sell junk items to disappeared when i returned to the area after a visit back to Majula, does he show up in Majula like a lot of the other NPC's seem to?

He's a sorcery dealer, so I'm guessing a high intelligence? He talked to me right away, and I'm doing sorcery.

 

Not sure about the guy that disappeared. I haven't seen him in Majula, and I sold a bunch to him, but haven't checked back.

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re: merchant

I found the merchant again in a new area with a lot of poison. Kind of hidden again.

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I considered posting this in the Quitter's Club thread, but I'm not sure I've actually reached that point yet....

 

I've just got the first of the four lord souls (I think that's what they call them in this game?), and I have to say I'm really disappointed. There are several things about the game that I absolutely love. The pvp/coop/humanity changes are really cool, the npc interactions as they gather in the hub town are surprisingly interesting, the boss fights are challenging and feel genuinely, intrinsically rewarding. And yet.

 

DS1 felt like a really amazing, intricately interconnected, densely constructed lego set. This game feels like they got a bunch of different lego sets, mixed them together, and dumped them on the ground. Sure, there are some interesting pieces here and there, but the overall feeling is (to me) so much less cohesive / tonally consistent. And it's massive! Granted, I've been pretty thorough and done a lot of pvp/coop/covenant stuff, but just getting the first lord soul has taken me 41 hours. The sheer volume of content has forced me to acknowledge how much I hate some of their design decisions: The illusory walls are not interesting. You either spend a lot of time ramming your face into walls while mashing a, or mash a whenever you see a message on the floor (ineffectually 99% of the time), or look at a walkthrough, none of which feels at all satisfying to me. The jumping/falling puzzles are tremendously annoying (or at least way too frequent) - jumps over gaps where you're given a decent amount of maneuverability can be pretty cool, but so much of the time in this version you're given very little space to work with and have to make a pretty specific angle, when the controls and camera are decidedly not suited to platforming. There are several item pickups that involve stacking fire resistance, running out to the item, hopefully picking it up before you die, and moving on to the next one. Wow, so interesting. Crystal Lizards. Item repairing. I could go on.

 

Do any of these things dominate over the experience? No, not really. It's not that I'm frustrated, it's worse: I'm bored. I almost always enjoy the moment-to-moment combat, but I just don't feel compelled to keep playing, which is fucking bizarre to me, given how insanely excited I was for the game to come out.

 

Edit: This all actually must have been discussed in the earlier pages of this thread, which I intentionally ignored before I had the chance to play it on PC. I'll be going back to read them now.

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Of the half dozen or so areas i've seen in the game so far, No Man's Wharf has been my favorite.

 

What do i need to have the guy on the docks be willing to talk to me? Also, the guy you can sell junk items to disappeared when i returned to the area after a visit back to Majula, does he show up in Majula like a lot of the other NPC's seem to?

 

Merchants

 

You need an 8 Intel to talk to that guy, and then once you exhaust his dialogue he moves back to Majula.

You will have multiple opportunities to Wheel and Deal with the glorious Gavlan. He will ultimately settle down in one spot, but it won't be Majula. And you have to find him in each spot to get him to move to the next. He's not that hard to find though, you can always hear him chugging his beer when you get close. That sound freaked me out the first time in No Man's Wharf.

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I'm having this weird experience with the game where i'm not sure if the game is significantly easier than the original Dark Souls, or if this is just the result of me having experience with Dark Souls, but i've gone through several areas in the game without dying and defeated more than half of the bosses i've fought on my first try. (Just past the Lost Bastille now, with some exploration into the areas below Majula as well.) Certainly, the game isn't easy, i don't feel like it's giving me an easy time, i am definitely dying a lot. It's possible i may have done some areas slightly outside of the optimal order, but the game still overall feels easier than the original, i think. Of particular note, the move repetoires and AI patterns of both the normal enemies and the bosses seem to be very small and predictable, relative to the original game.

Granted, my last experience with Dark Souls was the Oolacile areas on NG+, and NG+ Artorias was probably one of the toughest and most complicated fights in that game. Even starting new characters in that though, it always felt like Undead Burg was really the only area that you could expect to go completely smoothly.
 

I've heard some rumblings to the effect that NG+ is the "real" Dark Souls 2 playthrough, with remixed gameplay beyond just stat buffs. I'm wondering if From consciously made the normal playthrough a bit more lenient. (I understand a number of the bosses were actually nerfed in a patch that was applied to the console versions prior to the release of the PC version.)

 

The sheer volume of content has forced me to acknowledge how much I hate some of their design decisions: The illusory walls are not interesting. You either spend a lot of time ramming your face into walls while mashing a, or mash a whenever you see a message on the floor (ineffectually 99% of the time), or look at a walkthrough, none of which feels at all satisfying to me. The jumping/falling puzzles are tremendously annoying (or at least way too frequent) - jumps over gaps where you're given a decent amount of maneuverability can be pretty cool, but so much of the time in this version you're given very little space to work with and have to make a pretty specific angle, when the controls and camera are decidedly not suited to platforming. There are several item pickups that involve stacking fire resistance, running out to the item, hopefully picking it up before you die, and moving on to the next one. Wow, so interesting.


Genuinely curious here, because this block of text here could - almost completely unchanged - apply to the first game, so if you were fine with them there, why do they bother you now?

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I'm not really clear what the mechanics of the Rat King covenant are, even after reading about it. I have a feeling that members of that covenant are reaping a bunch of kills off of confused players, i definitely died in there.

I also stumbled into one of the bell towers and, while the NPC at the door was explaining his covenant to me, i was invaded. Then i was invaded a second time while fighting the first invader, while the NPC was still describing his covenant to me. I won the first fight, and the join dialogue popped up in the middle of the second, leading me to die immediately at the hands of the second invader.

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Rat King details:

 

When you join the covenant, you receive a ring. Wearing that ring in one of the two Rat areas (Grave of Spirits? And Doors of Pharos) pulls unaffiliated people into your world to be punished. There's a lot of opportunities to manipulate the environment using stones of Pharos, and the NPCs are all on your side.

Killing the person grants you a rat tail and a Pharos' lockstone. If they make it through to the end of the area, they're rewarded with a Pharos' lockstone.

So far I've killed 9 people or so, ranging from easy to pitched battles. It's a ton of fun. For me. No idea what it looks like on their side, I didn't get pulled into another world when I came through that area.

 

I've just reached the Gutter for the first time, and managed to go a different route and missed the first bonfire there, so I've got a looong walk back.

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I'm having this weird experience with the game where i'm not sure if the game is significantly easier than the original Dark Souls, or if this is just the result of me having experience with Dark Souls, but i've gone through several areas in the game without dying and defeated more than half of the bosses i've fought on my first try. (Just past the Lost Bastille now, with some exploration into the areas below Majula as well.) Certainly, the game isn't easy, i don't feel like it's giving me an easy time, i am definitely dying a lot. It's possible i may have done some areas slightly outside of the optimal order, but the game still overall feels easier than the original, i think. Of particular note, the move repetoires and AI patterns of both the normal enemies and the bosses seem to be very small and predictable, relative to the original game.

It seems like the early game can vary in difficulty a lot depending on starting class, where you choose to go (not having the Ring of Binding in Lost Bastille makes it pretty rough) and your choice of gear. For me it started off being tougher than Dark Souls, for a while after that it got easier as I was clearing out areas I should've been in earlier, but now that I think I'm in the midgame it feels harder than Dark Souls again. It doesn't seem like you can overlevel as much (post Anor Londo you become overpowered IMO), because the dimishing returns on health and stamina come earlier. I guess I haven't hit roadblocks as big as the standout ones in Dark Souls, but the original game was actually the one where I beat most of the bosses in one or two tries. This game has a more consistent level of challenge I think. I don't know if the champion's covenant actually makes a noticeable difference, but so far I'm finding it just challenging enough.

 

I overlooked the vitality stat for a long time, so I went shirtless to keep my equip load down. Now I've discovered that armor actually gives a decent amount of damage mitigation (it scales too!) and I don't know why I ignored poise for so long.

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Rat King details:

 

When you join the covenant, you receive a ring. Wearing that ring in one of the two Rat areas (Grave of Spirits? And Doors of Pharos) pulls unaffiliated people into your world to be punished. There's a lot of opportunities to manipulate the environment using stones of Pharos, and the NPCs are all on your side.

Killing the person grants you a rat tail and a Pharos' lockstone. If they make it through to the end of the area, they're rewarded with a Pharos' lockstone.

So far I've killed 9 people or so, ranging from easy to pitched battles. It's a ton of fun. For me. No idea what it looks like on their side, I didn't get pulled into another world when I came through that area.

 

I've just reached the Gutter for the first time, and managed to go a different route and missed the first bonfire there, so I've got a looong walk back.

 

The Rat King covenant, neat idea, but terrible execution. 

 

I don't think the covenant needs a player defender, enemies, plus traps. A defender should basically never lose, unless actually engaging people in an honorable duel.

Grave of the Saints can be more interesting, but the Doors of Pharos is just ridiculous. It's like they made a gank squad for people who don't like to make friends.

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I've never won a non-NPC invasion in DkS2 :(. The odds seem stacked against you in the places where you get invaded the most, but I might also just be bad at PvP. I did win a few in Dark Souls though.

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I just got invaded for the first time. The guy didn't even bother to bow or anything and just tried to backstab me as I bowed. Anyway, I still won, so whatever. It happened just before the

 

Gargoyle fight, which just seems like the laziest boss fight design so far. "You liked fighting two gargoyles last time, how about a bunch of them!"

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I've never won a non-NPC invasion in DkS2 :(. The odds seem stacked against you in the places where you get invaded the most, but I might also just be bad at PvP. I did win a few in Dark Souls though.

 

 

I've had one win in three invasions so far, two of which happened at the same time as per my above story.

 

 

It seems like the early game can vary in difficulty a lot depending on starting class, where you choose to go (not having the Ring of Binding in Lost Bastille makes it pretty rough) and your choice of gear. For me it started off being tougher than Dark Souls, for a while after that it got easier as I was clearing out areas I should've been in earlier, but now that I think I'm in the midgame it feels harder than Dark Souls again. It doesn't seem like you can overlevel as much (post Anor Londo you become overpowered IMO), because the dimishing returns on health and stamina come earlier. I guess I haven't hit roadblocks as big as the standout ones in Dark Souls, but the original game was actually the one where I beat most of the bosses in one or two tries. This game has a more consistent level of challenge I think. I don't know if the champion's covenant actually makes a noticeable difference, but so far I'm finding it just challenging enough.

 

I overlooked the vitality stat for a long time, so I went shirtless to keep my equip load down. Now I've discovered that armor actually gives a decent amount of damage mitigation (it scales too!) and I don't know why I ignored poise for so long.

 

I was starting to feel the game start to catch up with me shortly after i made that post, to be fair. It definitely gets harder.

 

Expanding stat scaling out to most of the gear is a pretty big system change, one i quite like, and it definitely makes armor better than it was in Dark Souls. Contrast that with recovery on most actions being slowed down a ton from Dark Souls, and i guess it's easy to see how the game could either be really easy or really difficult based on pre-existing playstyles. (Somewhat related, did the internet really ever come to a consensus on whether or not the adaptibility stat is worth investing in?)

I've also been having a ton of problems with titanite supply, namely that i just can't find any. I wasn't really finding any weapons early on that emulated the ones i liked from the last game, so i ended up using my titanite on a bunch of random things without realizing that you apparently don't run into any enemies that drop it, nor do you find shops with an unlimited supply, until much further in the game. So now i'm kind of stuck using sub optimal gear just because it's the gear i had happened to have upgraded. It's entirely possible i brought that completely on myself, but titanite feels more rare than it was in the last game.

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