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

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My mastadon halbred tended to degrade at an alarming rate when faced with larger swarms of enemies, but i always had a back-up weapon in another equipment slot, so it never really ended up being an issue.

Also, i guess all the DLC is out, is it? Worth playing? Should i dive back in?

Can i look forward to being ganked horribly by hackers? Did the multiplayer ever devolve into that?

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I haven't had too many issues with ganking. There are a few hotspots that attract them but I've only had a few encounters that were ridiculous and of those, a couple could've been due to a phenomenal lag imbalance. That said, I do tend to overgrind due to suckitude so my soul memory is probably higher than average for given areas (if I understand the system correctly it'd be those in a given range of soul acquisition who were in the same place as me) making for fewer matches.

Even the fights where I get creamed, I at least try to put up a fight and people are generally fairly sporting. I about died laughing when I was obliterated and my opponent threw down the mournful-sounding "Sorry" carving.

The only frustrating area for me (PVP-wise) was Belfrey Luna, so I eventually did that zone offline.

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The only frustrating area for me (PVP-wise) was Belfrey Luna, so I eventually did that zone offline.

 

I hated the Belfrey Luna until my second character, when I had a material-heavy equipment build necessitating that I grind for titanite chunks, which has to happen as part of the Bell Keepers. I'm not very disposed to enjoying PvP, but the sheer number of fights in which I participated and how good-natured ninety percent of the participants were really made me have fond feelings for the area, even when I went through later as part of another covenant.

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I love the Bell Towers, so, so much.  Probably ended up being some of my favorite areas in the game, and by far my most memorable PvP.  Does anyone know if the expansions have any new dedicated PvP zones?  I really ought to pick them up soon. 

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I haven't had too many issues with ganking. There are a few hotspots that attract them but I've only had a few encounters that were ridiculous and of those, a couple could've been due to a phenomenal lag imbalance. That said, I do tend to overgrind due to suckitude so my soul memory is probably higher than average for given areas (if I understand the system correctly it'd be those in a given range of soul acquisition who were in the same place as me) making for fewer matches.

Even the fights where I get creamed, I at least try to put up a fight and people are generally fairly sporting. I about died laughing when I was obliterated and my opponent threw down the mournful-sounding "Sorry" carving.

The only frustrating area for me (PVP-wise) was Belfrey Luna, so I eventually did that zone offline.

So generally it doesn't seem like it's broken down in a ton of hacking or anything? No flagrantly impossible behaviors? That's good to hear, i guess.

I really enjoyed the PVP while i was playing and managed to handle myself pretty well most of the time, so that in itself wasn't really an issue. (I probably won more fights than i lost, at the very least.)

 

What about more subtle things like people being way too powerful and well equipped for the the soul memory range you're matching into? That was a thing people seemed really worried about happening last i played.

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My mastadon halbred tended to degrade at an alarming rate when faced with larger swarms of enemies, but i always had a back-up weapon in another equipment slot, so it never really ended up being an issue.

Also, i guess all the DLC is out, is it? Worth playing? Should i dive back in?

Can i look forward to being ganked horribly by hackers? Did the multiplayer ever devolve into that?

I'd say it's worth playing. It's been a step up in terms of difficulty, with a couple of ridiculous bosses. I've not finished the Ivory Crown yet, but my general impression has been that it's stern but fair. (I've lost far too many souls through my own stupidity, and ledges).

I've been on the 360, so not sure if there is a problem with hackers. There are a couple of areas where I have been getting invaded an awful lot but they've never been obviously cheating.

I love the Bell Towers, so, so much. Probably ended up being some of my favorite areas in the game, and by far my most memorable PvP. Does anyone know if the expansions have any new dedicated PvP zones? I really ought to pick them up soon.

I'm not sure if they are dedicated areas in the dlc, but there are certain areas where you are probably going to get invaded at least every other run.

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So generally it doesn't seem like it's broken down in a ton of hacking or anything? No flagrantly impossible behaviors? That's good to hear, i guess.

I really enjoyed the PVP while i was playing and managed to handle myself pretty well most of the time, so that in itself wasn't really an issue. (I probably won more fights than i lost, at the very least.)

 

What about more subtle things like people being way too powerful and well equipped for the the soul memory range you're matching into? That was a thing people seemed really worried about happening last i played.

The questionable encounters I had were primarily in Belfry Luna. One was phenomenally overequipped for the level (seemed to have massive stats in faith, intelligence and strength/vitality when I was somewhere around L60). Another, the invader was moving so rapidly around the area I'd take a step and he'd be on the opposite side, the next step he'd be behind me backstabbing. I put that one down to potential lag.

 

With few exceptions, those invading have bested me with skill or smarter loadout. I griped about Belfry, but many were very sporting. One guy was attacking until another invader came, so he backed off to spectate, moving to get a good view of the action and gestured appreciatively when I won; we proceeded to have an epic duel worthy of an action movie. I only won because I snuck out a well-timed fireball between jabs. So BL, I guess, is simultaneously my most hated and most loved area.

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Decided to forge ahead tonight with my wimpy, namby-panby, knock-me-down-with-a-feather mage. Miraculously, I managed to kill both bosses in the Iron Keep on my first attempt, and my general flimsiness meant that even trash enemies were giving me a tough time, making for a more engaging experience overall.

 

Quick Q: Will I, at some point, be able to get a stave or chime that can cast both spells and miracles? 'Cos that would be sweet. Also, what is a good melee weapon to fall back on? My Str and Dex attributes are pitiful, as you might expect, but I have got just enough to wield a mace, which is a weapon I'm very comfortable with. Anything better?

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So i got the DLC and loaded up my NG++ character aaaaand of coouurse the quest starts are deep into the game, well alright...

Anyways, kept playing and got to and played through the first DLC area and really, really loved it.

The area design of the Sunken King area is some of the strongest in the whole game, i think. (Aside from a few oddities, like an admittedly cool and elaborate bridge-forming puzzle that exists only to reach a kind of not totally necessary bonfire.) I particularly enjoyed the sequence where you are introduced to invulnerable phantoms watching over their sleeping corporeal selves, the game trying to illustrate that by destroying their sleeping forms, you can then harm the invulnerable phantom forms. You are then are subsequently put into a room with more of the aformentioned invulnerable phantoms, but no corporeal forms in sight to attack. First order of business was sniping a witch up on an upper level and then running in and kiting the phantoms away from a ladder to make room for climbing it before they could knock me down. Safe on that second floor, there's another phantom to avoid pulling, another witch to kill, and a switch to shoot with an arrow. Then i just bolted past the phantom and through an opened door not exactly knowing where it was going to take me, and i found myself in a room with narrow walkways, bottomless pits, and three more invulnerable phantoms. The sleeping bodies i was looking for were also all lined up along the walls. Running around frantically with four of these giant phantoms chasing me as i smashed the sleeping forms one by one was kind of amazing. By the time i was done, two of the phantoms had fallen off the walkways into the pits and the other two were fairly easy to dispatch, as were the other phantoms still out in the main area. The whole sequence seemed to just play out beautifully though, trying to keep up with this barely controlled chaos.

 

I mean, and that DLC keeps changing things up, you cycle through like a half-dozen distinctly different kinds of scenario before that thing is over.

 

Those bosses though... The dragon is a good fight, it has some peculiar resistances and an absolutely miserable corrosive affect against melee weapons, but it's an entirely new fight and it's largely well executed. The other two fights just seemed kind of lazy, with one literally just being a trio of generic NPC's with tons of health, and the other having a fairly banal set of attacks while also repurposing enemies from elsewhere in the game as summons. (Including Velstadt for whatever reason.)

Anyways, I'm going through the second DLC right now, nothing's clicked quite the same way so far, but it's still a very good piece of content and i understand its boss fights are quite excellent.

It struck me that these areas are also just absolutely enormous, several times as large as any other individual area in the game, and actually evoking some of what i loved about the first Dark Souls and felt was missing in this sequel, the way you're presented with views that tease and hint at where you're going while also showing you where you've come from. They feel like absolutely monumental, cohesive environments. On another point however, if you're of the opinion that Dark Souls 2 has too much focus on humanoid enemies, these DLCs definitely don't seem to shift away from that.

I understand people are really thrilled with the third DLC, so i'm definitely looking forward to getting to that, but from what i've played so far, it feels like From has again done right by the DLC model. The add-on for DS1 was fantastic, and these seem to be too.

I've also had a few genuine player invasions occur since i started playing again, but i haven't died yet, so i feel pretty good about that. One invasion occured just as i had spawned into an area, so with a world state full of freshly spawned enemies, of course i immediately used a Seed of the Tree of Giants. It took only about 20 seconds for the invader to die, and i never even saw the dude.

Dark Souls (2) is GREAT.

 

Edit: I'm into the 3rd DLC and i'm still finding it really great, From really went above and beyond with these add-ons. These areas are enormous and challenging, though i still think the area design is cleverest in the first DLC.

 

I'm really loving the cheekily elaborate AI scripting they give to the NPC invasions that occur within the DLC areas. For example, one attempts to camoflauge itself amongst some barrels and backstab you as you walk past, while another attempts to ambush you, and when it fails and its health falls low, it flees into a very hostile area and waits next to some powerful enemies. From's created scripted challenges built around the same kind of dirty tricks that are common in the online metagame, i was quite amused with that.

 

The bosses have just been absolutely brutal though, they've improved since the first DLC, but i'm still just getting wrecked. I think i have to chalk that up to these being bosses balanced for the endgame while i'm playing on an NG++ character and have no prior experience with them.

Still, these are great add-ons. I really liked Dark Souls 2 to start, i wasn't as disappointed with it as some people were, but i'm thrilled to come back to it and have such fleshed out add-ons.

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So i finished the third DLC and i guess i'm done with the add-ons, more or less, because there are a few things where i would have to be much further in the main game progression to take on. That said and done, reflecting back on the add-ons, the second add-on was probably actually the best one overall. Just a very strong, consistently designed area with some interesting challenges and relatively few failings.


The third DLC is probably actually the least enjoyable of the three, i'd say. It does some really fun stuff with the Dark Souls story and there are definitely some really entertaining battles, but the spaces have a very bland appearance to them, they're very lacking in detail. This third DLC also has the least creative approach to getting more mileage out of its environments, where rather than winding back through those locations through newly created paths, you sort of flip of a switch and suddenly a bunch of previously inaccessible chests are accessible and you just have to play through the exact same route again. It feels like From was kind of running out of steam by the time they got to this one. While a lot of the mechanics used in the first two DLC's are unique to those DLC's, a lot of the stuff being done in this third one feels like a reprise of ideas from elsewhere in the game.

 

Still, loved playing these DLC's enough that i've gone and started a new playthrough. That thing about needing to get much further into the main progression to do everything in the DLC? Definitely going to do that.

 

I love the Bell Towers, so, so much.  Probably ended up being some of my favorite areas in the game, and by far my most memorable PvP.  Does anyone know if the expansions have any new dedicated PvP zones?  I really ought to pick them up soon. 

 

Not PVP, exactly, but each of the DLC's has an area that is specifically balanced to only be completable with co-op assistance, sort of a series of Dark Souls raid zones. The first two are honestly kind of lame, but the one in the third DLC is really wild, it's set in a massively wide open area inside of a blinding snow storm. It's a very interesting challenge. I gave it a few tries, but i definitely didn't finish it.

Edit: Oh wow, was doing some reading about the DLC and this is a very interesting detail - If you haven't bought the DLC, you can still participate in those co-op zones. You have to track down the areas with the quest starts, and just outside of the locked doors there will be a special spot where you can leave a summon sign and have it appear inside of the DLC area, just outside of the co-op zone, for other players who have bought the DLC.

If anybody without the DLC wants to try this, the DLC starts are past the Rotten and Old Iron King primal bonfires, in addition to the Shrine of Winter acting as the start for the third DLC. Give the Shrine of Winter co-op zone a look, it's by far the most interesting of the three.

 

Edit: Correction - the second DLC pack actually has two separate co-op zones.

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Now announced for PS4 and XBone (and PC (again)) -http://www.polygon.com/2014/11/25/7278217/dark-souls-2-ps4-xbox-one-release-date

I didn't buy the DLC because I could see this happening. What is surprising is how close it's coming out in relation to Bloodborne which seems a bit mad but at least it means by the time I'm finished with the proper Miyazaki game I can pick up the worst Souls for about £20 hopefully.

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Yeah - I have been pretty disparaging of these HD remakes but when someone pushed me on what ones I would play I said Dark Souls and Earth Defence Force.

 

I guess I will be putting my money where my mouth is.

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Whelp, I might actually get this. 

 

Fingers crossed for a DeS, DS remake too. If the PS4 had the suspend/resume feature like the Xbox, I think I'd never stop playing the souls series.

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I still haven't bought the DLC, so I guess I'll just wait for this to come out now.

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I'm just hoping the PC version of this update is delivered as another content pack for the base game so they don't split the userbase.

There's still enough people playing it right now that the online features work essentially as is intended, but you cut that userbase in half, things would fall apart pretty fast.

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Well, I'm glad I haven't bought the DLC yet. 

 

It seems I've completely run out of steam on NG+ with my first character, who I'd specced into a bit of a jack-of-all-trades only to rely almost exclusively on the same mace I picked up for a few pennies at the start of the game. I think I got a bit too comfortable with him in PvE (still went all to pieces in PvP though)

 

So, decided to play around by making a witch specced mainly into magic, with almost no armour but a quick roll and quick casting speed. She was okay, but it was a very slow start to the game, and a lot of the time I was legging it away from enemies, having run out of spells to cast. She's currently perched in the entrance hall of Drangleic castle, but fighting from range is a bit tedious for me and I don't really have any spells that are "fun" yet, just lost of variants on magic bolt.

 

I felt like I needed some light relief, so I decided to make a strength character, thinking it'd be both easy and empowering to simply bonk enemies over the head with a big stick and watch them fall. But, again, at the start of the game that really wasn't happening. Didn't seem like I could stagger anyone effectively, I couldn't even swing the big club yet, and both my stamina and roll were awful. That guy has picked up speed like a landslide though, and I've now got the damage output and poise that I can just wade in, tanking hits and laying waste to anyone nearby. I *love* that I can redirect overhead swings with this club! 

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I feel so conflicted on the need to have to rebuy Dark Souls 2 again on PC. I understand that a lot of work went into porting it up to PS4/xbox1 but I can understand the saltiness of people who had already bought the PC version, double dipping on your user base less than a year in kind of sucks. 

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If this is cheaper for people who already own DkS2 then I might consider it, but I think I'll just wait for the DLC to get discounted. Now if they did this for Dark Souls instead, then we'd be talking!

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I feel so conflicted on the need to have to rebuy Dark Souls 2 again on PC. I understand that a lot of work went into porting it up to PS4/xbox1 but I can understand the saltiness of people who had already bought the PC version, double dipping on your user base less than a year in kind of sucks.

Most games with any significant post-release support are doing these "Game of the year" editions now. *shrug*

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I feel so conflicted on the need to have to rebuy Dark Souls 2 again on PC. I understand that a lot of work went into porting it up to PS4/xbox1 but I can understand the saltiness of people who had already bought the PC version, double dipping on your user base less than a year in kind of sucks. 

 

I feel it needs reiterating though, that Dark Souls' ambitious online systems work because there's a critical mass of players. There is no universal quick match there, there are multiple covenants with complex interactions that require members of each to all fulfill similar conditions simultaneously, there are multiple PVP zones - both informal and prescripted - that people can search for fights, there is co-op built around somebody happening to see your summon sign in the place you put it, and it's all further divided up by soul memory ranges and the NG/NG+ divide.

Playing it again recently, Dark Souls 2 still feels populated and functional at the roughly 5000 daily players it has on Steam, but i seriously wonder if that will still be true if there's another sharp drop-off. If this GOTY release is a separate new version of the game on the Steam store, they're potentially splitting the playerbase and harming the experience for everyone playing on the PC.

That is the concern i think people should have.

 

Though, seriously, they should be offering a discount to people who bought the season pass. I'm not demanding more stuff for free, the add-on content From has been doing for the Dark Souls games is fantastic and are well-earned dollars for From, but if a large majority of the cost of this new package is implied to be because of the add-ons people may already own... You know...

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The problem isn't that it's just a new SKU containing all the old content, it also contains several small upgrades like expanded multiplayer and apparently some new story content that won't come to the original version. I liked Dark Souls 2 a lot, but I'm not going to pay full price to get a few tiny new features. If there's a discount for people who bought the original + the DLC or it's on sale down the road then maybe I'll reconsider.

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The problem isn't that it's just a new SKU containing all the old content, it also contains several small upgrades like expanded multiplayer and apparently some new story content that won't come to the original version. I liked Dark Souls 2 a lot, but I'm not going to pay full price to get a few tiny new features. If there's a discount for people who bought the original + the DLC or it's on sale down the road then maybe I'll reconsider.

 

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the wording in the Polygon article, but doesn't it explicitly say that current owners of Dark Souls 2 will get the 1.1.0 update (read, all the "upgrades" to the base game apart from the DLC campaign) free of charge?

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I was confused because I saw a tweet from Patrick Klepek claiming that people would need to buy the new version. Digging up a little more on it, their messaging regarding the PC version has been a little confusing.

 

 

Clarification - Existing Dark Souls II owners will receive a patch to implement some new features on April 7 2015 - Not the full DLC packs.

 

 

@ShiverMeRivers1 We'll have lots more info in the next month regarding PC versions/upgrades/etc. so stay tuned :)

 

So yeah, it's kind of wait and see exactly what's happening at this point.

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Yeah, the wording about what exactly they're doing on the PC side of things has been super confusing.

On the whole, it certainly doesn't seem that they're just updating the visuals or anything, the trailer they put out had new voice-over and footage of new fights in new areas that do not exist in either the DLC packs or the core game, and there's been some murmurs that they may be folding some of the features that have been talked about for Bloodborne back into Dark Souls 2.

Whatever it ends up being, it sounds like a fairly significant update. However, the way things are being worded makes it sound like some of it is going to be patched into existing versions and that some of it is potentially going to be exclusive to the new versions on PS4 and XBO, which leaves the PC version in a really murky place with the possibility of two similar versions of the same game appearing alongside eachother and negatively affecting the online experience for both.

(It's also worth noting that the trailer they put out does not look like a significant visual upgrade, it looks about par with the PC version. It's probably not going to be a massive visual overhaul that suddenly makes the game look like the early preview builds everybody got so up in arms about.)

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