Dark Souls 2: YOU DIED HARDER

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http://cdn.segmentnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Dark-Souls-2-Logo1.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIVAmgEXvLI

dark souls II may have serious side effects. please see a medical professional if you play dark souls II for more than twelve hours straight. pregnant women, seniors and some people on medication should not play dark souls II.

The first review for From Software's Dark Souls 2 has been published. German gaming mag M! gave the action RPG a glowing write-up.

M! (via NeoGAF) says that it's "the hardest action role-playing game in the world."

More Serafinowicz on DSII

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/video/2014/feb/25/peter-serafinowicz-dark-souls-ii-game-video?CMP=twt_gu

can a n00b like me even play this game? It all just seems so daunting

apparently they've made DSII a bit more accessible for n00bs, less of the "work it out for yourself" stuff, though I would think there will still be a fair amount of that. DS also has a really strong wiki culture which will be replicated for the sequel, I guess.

I'm a terrible video game player and a total n00b at all of it but I love DS so just take your time and let it ~~flow~~

i was a n00bling who got sand kicked in my face by DS but now i'm > HERO OF THE BEACH <

*applauds*

if you need me i'll be in an induced coma so mvrch 11 comes tomorrow

I cracked and pre-ordered it.

i guess only one more week now, huh? for NA folks anyway. psyyyyched.

I'm in the UK, Amazon are saying it will arrive on the 14th...

so who's gonna start off as 2 chainz swords: http://www.ign.com/wikis/dark-souls-2/Dark_Souls_vs_Dark_Souls_2

Fast Travel between Bonfires is now available from the beginning of the game. Players may travel at will between Bonfires without penalty, though doing so causes all enemies to respawn.

it seems crazy to me after playing dark souls, although i guess this is more like demon's souls, right? sort of a mega man setup?

btw wouldn't "demons' souls" be more accurate?

Fast travel between bonfires would address one of the things that I found annoying about the last game. I reached a point where I just couldn't figure out where to go next, and wandering around the various sections of the map on the brink of death for hours turned into negative fun and I just quit. Being able to warp to the different bonfires would have eased my pain considerably.

i started dark souls from a character development pov with the assumption that it would work much the same as demons souls, which was a fair basis, and so i will approach ds2 like ds1. that means probably no 2 sword guy, although it did look cool in the gameplay videos. the great thing with these games of course is that you can go anywhere with any character, the starting classes are just good for starting stats and info. it is annoying that they have split up the stats governing stamina and equip load, but even without helping you carry better gear, stamina is m/l the most important thing in the game, so endurance is still going to be the most important stat. probably i will take sorcerer to start with some magic and then initially build more combat-y stats to be able to use the decent sword and shield i will be hoping to find early on. one variable between demons and ds1 is the power and importance of bows. dex build was much better in demons. i am happy to just skip that to start with tho, you can be fairly sure magic and a sword and shield will be effective.

not that i have been thinking about this or anything

the bonfire teleporting thing makes the movement between areas kind of a hybrid between demons and ds1. my gut reaction is to tentatively disapprove but we'll see.

yeah, i'm a little suspicious of being able to fast travel from bonfires right off the bat in this one. thought the way it was handled in DS1, really making those early game trips between fires dangerous and risky and finally opening up fast travel when the game starts to sprawl, was pretty much perfect. as much as i loved Demon's Souls, Dark Souls' open world was a vast improvement over DeS's overly game-y "choose your level" method imo. but, yeah, this does seem like a hybrid. also brought back from DeS: having to talk to a specific NPC to level.

amazon claims to be delivering my black armor edition and 400 PAGE HARDCOVER STRATEGY GUIDE on march 13; I will be carving out the majority of the weekend to explore. Need to finish DS1 first: y or n?

i also read something about how there is a mechanic (at least at some point in the game) to reshuffle your stats, so you won't even be locked into your character type after leveling up. mostly i'm agonizing about whether to purse a similarly tank-like strategy like i did in DS1 or to try a dex or magic build this time.

i used the wikis to figure out what path to take (at least i started to after initially wandering into the graveyard and wasting a lot of time there) so i was never really frustrated by not knowing where to go. i wonder if that's what they're trying to prevent with the fast travel, to create more viable ways to get through the game?

i did love seeing how the areas connected and finding the shortcuts, hopefully that isn't lost.

yeah, the fiendishly clever interconnectedness of the world design was really the secret strength of Dark Souls

amazon claims to be delivering my black armor edition and 400 PAGE HARDCOVER STRATEGY GUIDE on march 13; I will be carving out the majority of the weekend to explore. Need to finish DS1 first: y or n?

― PSY talks The Nut Job (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, March 4, 2014 5:28 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i pre-ordered mine months ago and just recently got an e-mail confirming a March 13th delivery date. i went in to my account and changed my shipping to 1-day and then back to 2-day (what i had it at initially) and my delivery date is now listed as March 11th. worth a try if you'd like to get it release day.

hm, good idea! i'm prime btw

yup, that worked

good lookin' out

black armor addition = a tin and a CD I will never listen to y/n?

I would have probably bought the full blown special edition if it had been the same as the Dark Souls one, the art book was cool and the intro strategy guide was actually useful but it seems like the DS2 one is standard issue £100 plastic tat for suckers

i think it's like five bucks more for the special edition, figgered fuggit

really? my "black armor" edition didn't cost anything extra, but i guess that's because i pre-ordered way early. the tin case looks pretty neat at least:

http://www.ign.com/videos/2014/02/24/unboxing-dark-souls-ii-collectors-edition

yeah, it was the only option i saw for pre-order. i'm happy to get the soundtrack, maybe i can use it for another mix.

thanks for the tip upthread re: changing shipping to 1-day and then back to 2-day. so weird that it works!

1 WEIRD trick etc etc

yeah, np! found that tip on the internet. hopefully it comes through next Tuesday.

I pre ordered the standard game, might see if I can upgrade to the black armour version...

http://www.edge-online.com/news/prepare-to-dine-inside-tokyos-dark-souls-cafe/

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/19bryayr8456njpg.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPO8l4ir_Jo

pc/steam release is april 25 but who cares right ps3 master race lololo

☼

\[†]/

lol just saw a DSII ad on TV (during an episode of Star Trek, appropriately enough) soundtracked with "Where is my Mind?" by the Pixies

love it

http://www.ign.com/videos/2014/02/14/dark-souls-2-uk-cinema-spot

nice

yeah that was the one!

there's another one soundtracked by Jethro Tull. who's picking the music to these?

anyway, the day is here. hopefully i can get some time in tonight. busy week unfortunately.

plz to report back. I got one half of my Amazon order (records & CDs today) but no DSII. Hopefully by the end of the week...

bummer. looks like my Amazon order is being shipped through UPS and is marked as "out for delivery", so mine should arrive today.

reviews seem solid so far. DS1 range. hard to rate a game like this without proper exposure to multiplayer though.

I'm in the UK, so I think it's due to ship slightly later over here. I'm away at the weekend too!

amazon telling me that game and STRATERGERY GUIDE are on the way; i am wondering if i need to sleep/eat/work for the next week... and more importantly should i finish DS1 first.

mine should arrive today, won't have time to check it out but i'm considering taking the day off tomorrow to get my car fixed and play it. :)

forks, if i were you i would play some DS2 while it's hot so as not to rush through the end of DS1. maybe switch back when you hit an impasse?

yep. plus it's way more fun to play it when it's new and everyone else is playing it in and DYING over and over.

mine comes in the mail today, but i won't have time to play it until friday at least.

man it's crazy how much is already on youtube (not that i watched any of it, i want to go in as blind as possible now that it's here [except for this thread])

this is the tull one i think

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-tl-pJAR4

intrigued by the idea that I can take a break from Dark Souls and come back to it later; I guess they don't seem very mechnically different at the basic level

not sure if ploughing through and trying to do Sif, Nito, 4Kings and Bed of Chaos in the next two days would satisfyingly get it out of the way or drive me insane and make me not want to play DS2 for another year

I think the everyone in the same boat day 1 you died hijinks are probably the key factor either way tho

i loved demon's souls, never got into dark for no real reason, i was resisting this but fuck you people. into the great unknown. faith based build here i come.

this is demons souls-ish in a lot of ways, judging by the beta test i played. you know you want to give in!

I'm thinking I might go for a magician build this time round

i have no idea what i'll do. in games like this i always make the (boring) mistake of not specializing in anything and having fairly balanced stats, although i tend to go for dexterity. i guess it's because i'm not likely to play through the game multiple times with different character builds, so i want to be able to try out most of what the game has to offer in my single runthrough

my strength build seemed to work for me in DS1, i think i need that margin of error that comes with being able to block big attacks without consequence, but i feel like i should at least try something different this time.

Nice thing about this one is you can apparently completely re-spec your character (not sure how this works) a few times per playthrough.

yeah, i'm gonna jump in while it's hot (if only to be able to discuss with you guys) and put DS1 on hold until this gets beaten. it might be 2016!
my understanding is that the respec is a very expensive and very rare item
early reviews are universally positive and most writers mention "after 60 hours of play..." so i think this is gonna be fucking awesome
http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/dark-souls-ii/critic-reviews

the respec thing seems most appealing for NG+...that's what i wanted to do in DS1, to use all those spells and gear that i acquired but couldn't use because of my build.

Pre-ordered this and have it on my PS3 HD waiting to be unlocked at midnight on Friday. I'm both excited and apprehensive.

goddamit UPS, I was here what is this "an attempted delivery has been made" shit

Delivered
Delivered on: Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Package was left in or near the front door

:)

what are the fundamental differences between demon's souls and dark souls

yeah, i'm curious about that as well since i've never played demon's souls.

demons = 5 worlds connected by hub and stages are unlocked by beating bosses, checkpoints before each stage, healing items accumulated while playing
dark = continuous open world, bonfire checkpoints scattered throughout, healing flask which resets at bonfire

from what i can tell ds2 is a combo of all of the above minus the locked stages

so did you have to do the worlds in a specific order, or was it more like a mega man game?

no you can skip around the 5 worlds but the progression between stages is done in order

mega man is not an incorrect way of looking at it.
demons souls is a less complex and fully realized game but still excellent and it has totally the same aesthetic

Lol, there's gotta be like a dozen bloodstains in the main hub area showing people launching themselves off of the surrounding cliffs.

so dark is just less linear? is that more satisfying?

dark is put together like a puzzle. everything in the distance eventually comes to the foreground. the faraway mountain, the castle over the hill, the seemingly bottomless pit are not only actual places but interconnect to the world you are painfully familiar with in ways that, as each connection is illuminated, make you feel like you've discovered a hidden door in your living room that goes back to your fourth grade classroom. that's the secret truth behind dark for me is that it is not so much an adventure game or a fighter as it is a series of complex logic puzzles and games played out at rapid speed while you explore a giant jigsaw world trying to figure out how to connect the pieces so that you can see the final solution.
demons is, again, a bit more like megaman that holds your hand. You do some backtracking but the worlds are separate boroughs, generally unlinking. There's been some worry that 2, with its interlinked "bonfires" or warps leans closer to demons than dark and that's a real concern but most of the reviews i'm hearing suggest that you can actually hoof it from place to place and that interconnectedness is still there... the bonfires seem to primarily be for greater ease of use and less grinding. or maybe not. i won't know until UPS DELIVERS THE FUCKING THING, very annoyed about this.

i died

this is gooood. managed to squeeze in about 6 hours. time for sleep.

me too, got my ass kicked over and over and haven't even reached a boss

so dark is just less linear? is that more satisfying?

― socki (s1ocki), Tuesday, March 11, 2014 7:37 PM

totally, but demons souls level design often outdoes dark souls as far as mood and all that. particularly some of the latter half of dark feels rushed in design

so do i need to warp to the bonfire in majula every time i need to level up?

yep

interesting

i unlocked the blacksmith, hes kind of a dick

if you're checking for traps, don't hit chests more than once. you can destroy some of them and whatever's inside is turned into rubbish. i've done this more than once, hopefully i didn't miss out anything too awesome.

unless there were actually traps in there and "rubbish" is what you get from a destroyed trap chest idk honestly. enjoying the total mystery of this right know.

did pretty well out of the gate, definitely challenging but i'm holding my own. went with a warrior class and will probably go STR because those are the weapons i'm finding. killed the first boss on first attempt but the second one destroyed me roughly 12 times in a row. decided to go off and explore other places and come back to him later.

combat doesn't seem as snappy as it did in DS1 (not a criticism, it still feels great), but i think that's because there's now a stat (Adaptability) that controls the quickness of a lot of your movements. i was a little bummed with the bonfire warping at first, but i'm minding it less and less bothersome. there's still plenty of the shortcut-discovering that i really liked about DS1.

no multiplayer encounters yet. i see soapstone markers and bloodstains, but i haven't seen any invasions or summon signs. don't know if there's a server issue or there's something i need to do or if From set it up so multiplayer is mostly off limits at the beginning.

i was wondering that too about the multiplayer. i did notice a message on loading that mentioned ps3 server maintenance. i think i may have been playing offline, no invasions or summons but i was seeing player ghosts and bloodstains everywhere hmmm

i've noticed some framerate stutter too which is disappointing, giving me flashbacks to skyrim on ps3

mention of frame rate issues here
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-dark-souls-2-face-off

yeah, i wish this looked and ran a little better. not terrible in my experience, but the last gen machines are really showing their age. PC version will probably look great. also holding out hope for a next gen release somewhere down the line.

glad they brought back a sorta hub world, it's nice to have somewhere to go chill in this crazy dark world we live in.

fucked with a faith build for a hour or 2 but decided i didnt want to venture that far into the unknown so rerolled a STR character. forgot how much swearing goes in to playing these games.

getting the special edition in the mail and opening it i felt like i was 'unboxing' a fedora

circa, agreed i'd srsly consider a ps4 if it came out for it. theres no blighttown level lagginess so far at least.

game is beautiful btw, having a hard time concentrating at work cuz i just wanna be playing

i really wanna "unbox my fedora"
/posts taken out of context

xp otm

IT IS HERE
this strategery guide is GORGEOUS, not planning on reading until i beat the area it details but omg
http://www.amazon.com/Souls-Collectors-Edition-Strategy-Guide/dp/0744015472/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1394652357

i spent today playing, the slight differences in the combat (targeting especially) and overall look/feel took some getting used to but now i'm all the way in.

it was pretty rough going at first -- didn't realize that weapons could actually break, so i was down to a single dagger in the forest. also learned that burning an effigy does not reverse hallowing, using it does. still haven't figured out to equip/light a torch because i am an idiot. also noticed some frame rate shit and bugs (i don't about y'all, but i'm getting the thing a lot where the game will go silent during a strike or kill, then the sound effects will trigger a second later) but that stuff generally doesn't bother me.

feel like i'm in the groove now, got through my first boss (the last giant) and most of that castle area. not really sure where to go next honestly, but i'm also enjoying the sense of the unknown.

and i did encounter a trapped treasure chest, but i don't know if hitting it would have helped (maybe though?).

another lesson learned - make sure you talk to everybody as many times as you can!

i haven't had audio problems but i've read others experiencing that, some of them had no audio in the opening cinematic even

weird. i'm on xbox btw, and there's been plenty of soapstone action. and i even have my trusty cloranthy ring already! although it seems like stamina recovery is more forgiving anyway.

still haven't figured out to equip/light a torch because i am an idiot

i'm just getting started myself, and it took me forever to figure this out because the torch doesn't appear in the inventory even after you've picked one up. when you're at a bonfire, press Y (on xbox at least) to toggle between resting and lighting the torch.

i don't understand the purpose of lighting the torch and the sconses, but oh well

i used to be able to do that but then my torch disappeared.. thinking maybe they expire after a while?

yeah, 5 minutes. i lit all the sconses at the beginning but...nothing happened. i was expecting the zelda "you lit all the torches!" puzzle-solving noise to pop up

also, i thought that you were going to be able to bonfire warp to all kinds of areas you hadn't been to yet, but this isn't the case, is it? i'm seeing that i can only go to bonfires that i've already lit. don't mind this at all.

idly reading other forum threads has opened my eyes to SO MUCH DOPE SHIT that i have WALKED RIGHT PAST so now i have a to-do list.

also i have a student worker who is a big gaming nerd so we got nothing done today besides trading souls anecdotes.

so i get that if you die you lose your humanity and you start to get hits to your overall HP. how can you tell what % of HP is cut because of your deaths? i'm not seeing it in the player status or player info menus.

oh duh, now i realize - it's on the HP bar on the main HUD - there's a little indicator that shows where the cap is on your HP.

Like Demon's Souls, there's a ring that bumps a certain % of your health up when hallowed. Very helpful. I've gotten in the habit of dropping a summon sign in front of a boss fog wall before I've even fought him. Let's you see what you're gonna be up against without any risk. If you win, souls + up a few levels in humanity which allows you to summon for your fight.

i started playing demon's souls again (never got too far) tonight.

it's fairly intense haha.

is there like.. a good wiki or something? i don't like to read too much but i've heard some info is croosh.

this is the good one imo
http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/

my god the hollow mobs were just wrecking me again and again until i levelled up a bit. the a.i. is really stepped up too, if you run away most things give chase. i had a chest kill me too (not a mimic). brutal.

It looks like assisting someone else doesn't always return humanity. So many of the mechanics still very opaque, in typical DS fashion.

not sure but i think because you lose your humanity in steps, you also gain it back in steps

very true am0n

idk...i was as hollow as you can be and i was summoned for a boss fight, died during the fight, and came back as human. next time i had only died once (after being human), got summoned again & won the fight, and was still hollow afterward. also won another fight and came back as human, so who knows.

yeah, there's something else going on there. it's definitely not consistent. you do return with estus flasks refilled and items repaired though, that's nice.

man, i was stuck with nowhere new to go for way too long. i knew i must be missing something obvious and sure enough, i just didn't notice the pull lever in the underground tunnel from majula because i'm an idiot. i thought i had to make that contraption work.

then it was some really classic souls business...got through all those giant knights on the first try, got the boss down to one tiny sliver, i died, then promptly stepped off a ledge and lost all my souls.

yeah! i found that area last night. i wimped out and summoned for both bosses, but hey, hard to resist those summon signs when they're there.

that area is awesome! he also killed me when he was one hit away from death but i got him on the 3rd try

it seems like the game really encourages co-op this time around, like with how the Pursuer fight is set up and that nearby area with all the giant armadillo-looking dudes. i'm sure it's possible solo, but so hard at lower levels.

allies can be hurt by those crossbows at the Pursuer fight apparently. i haven't seen it happen, but i'm sure that's led to some pretty funny/infuriating accidents.

how do I check the stat requirements for items this time out? I just bought a shield I can't use properly

anyone else on xbox having bad connectivity issues? it seems like i have to play on offline mode 75% of the time

i got a vague message about connectivity this morning but it worked fine. i mean, i have to restart my router every time i want to connect to xbl, but that's nothing new.

allies can be hurt by those crossbows at the Pursuer fight apparently.

ha, that happened to me (i died). also i'm pretty sure i saw someone parry him? i tried that once and didn't work, and i gave up since missing a parry meant death at the time.

how do I check the stat requirements for items this time out? I just bought a shield I can't use properly

pretty sure the requirements are on the bottom left when you look at the item in your inventory.

terrible newb question, but i never messed around much with multiplayer in dark souls 1 (i know - missing a major aspect of the game) so i don't completely understand it.

i can only be summoned into another player's world if i drop a little sign near a boss? i don't have a sign in my inventory so i guess i have to find it somewhere. i'd like to be summoned, because i'm at 50% HP due to repeated YOU DIEDs, and i don't want to start using up my effigys until shit gets really intense.

yep, an npc gives you the soapstone. there's also a small version that you can find somewhere that lets you be summoned as a shade instead of a phantom, i don't fully understand the distinction yet.

cool, thanks! as you might guess, i'm not too far. i'm 2 bonfires into the forest of fallen giants, exploring the area. managed to get a sweet flame sword and also some ring that raises my stamina regen but also makes the Northern Lights appear around my body at all times. tradeoffs.

it's tough to know when to invest in upgrading your EQ! i know it would be good to reinforce upmy weapons right now, but then i'm afraid i'll win a boss fight, get a sweet new weapon and have no titanite shards/slabs left to use.

i'm liking majula as the hub world. i don't know the hardcore player's perspective on it but i enjoy having it as a nice looking calm place to retreat to.

judging by the previous games i'm assuming shards will eventually be more available and slabs are rare. i was surprised to learn that merchants have finite stock of certain things

i'm digging Majula. nice place to just stare out at the sea and think baout things.

i was in the same boat re: should i upgrade this or wait. i found a sword that i liked (bastard sword) and just said fuck it. if it's like DS1, there will be enough materials around to fully upgrade more than one weapon. good decision cuz bastard sword +4 is currently wrecking shit. still looking forward to the zweihander though.

http://i.imgur.com/Y7oPByy.gif

lol. same here re: bastard sword (although i hedged my bets and took it to +2, it's my current main weapon).

i've been terrible about specializing in stats, hopefully that doesn't turn out to be dumb in the long run. i committed to being a heavy shield/heavy sword warrior lady that also will someday use magic, since i want to at least dabble in it this time. got my INT and attunement up to the minimum and i have a few soul arrow spells, just need to find a staff now.

i upgraded the fire long sword to +4. btw did anyone else's character change gender seemingly at random. i thought it was a glitch and then looked it up and loled. good one, fromsoft!

i was like why is my zombie dude wearing a bra?????

haha. you didn't even climb in that coffin?

started as a magic dude. hoo boy, those initial physical stats are butt. had to play a lot of the game with a dagger and no shield before i could afford to wield a shortsword and crappy shield. eventually got a shield on and got the fire sword and leveled my stats to use it at about the same time and it was a total game changer. things moving pretty smoothly since then. stopped pursuer boss. died maybe 10 times and the mobs between the bonfire and the boss disappeared?!! sellouts! anyway, that's where i had to leave things. getting close with the boss, won't take much more. no margin for error with low phys stats and then half HP on top of that. refuse to summon on 1st run thru unless totally stuck (e.g. little n large first time in ds1).

i have def experience the sound glitches but no other bugs so far. there seems to be a load more of the passive online stuff? coming to an area with tonnnns of bloodstains is hilarious.

mobs stop spawning after you kill them a bunch of times apparently.

they added rewards for people who can a) beat the game w/out dying and/or b) beat the game without using a bonfire. you get rings that make your left and right hand weapons invisible

haha. you didn't even climb in that coffin?

― festival culture (Jordan), Thursday, March 13, 2014 1:23 PM

i did but i thought huh that did nothing i'll come back later. then hours later i'm taking armor off and see zombie boobs

gender reassignment coffin

i am fully human about 0.1% of the time in this game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utqHy0lM1b4

lol

pizzalawyer420

I DIED

I've barely poked my head into the Forest of Fallen Giants and my HP has already been capped at 50%. Not sure I'm enjoying that change to the game tbh

yeah, i played all the way up to the boss of the forest at 50%. i finally realized that i needed to join the blue men group covenant so that i could occasionally be summoned and rewarded, but even after joining i've never been summoned.

yeah, i was confused by that too. Way of the Blue covenant members, when wearing the ring, will have Blue Sentinel covenant members summoned into their world when they're invaded. i think that's how it works.

Have you been wearing their ring? Only just noticed it in my inventory.

yep, wearing the ring! the ring also gives a small HP boost (about 30 HP in my case)

since i never really messed with invading/summoning in dark souls 1, i don't really have a good feel for how often it's supposed to happen.

Tip for you guys struggling with the health penalty. The ring that limits your hollowing health reduction is in a zone right off Majula, Heidi's Tower of Flame. It might be a little rough if you're fresh out of the gate, but it's not a super high lvl area or anything. Might be possible to pull some crazy suicide run. It's by one of the fog doors in the area. Left and up, not right and down.

think you have to get the white soapstone off peter serafinowicz and help somebody kill a boss to do the blue man group stuff, haven't talked to crestfallen sadcase yet to see if it actually works in practice

how do you get to that tower of flame place then? i can't remember finding any other directions off of majula in my initial root around

in what has been a pattern for me throughout the series, i died a bunch of times to pursuer boss, left it, and then beat him first time the next time i played. i ended up in the lost bastille place without necessarily planning to be there, but i seem to be coping okay so i figure i am in the right place. got to the boss(es) and died p much immediately and had to quit there. ring of binding would be sweet to have right now.

just to clarify tho, the Way of the Blue that you join in Majula will only summon others to you when you're invaded, you won't be summoned anywhere. xps

Heidi's Tower is down the long tunnel/stairs off of Majula. looks like it leads to a dead end, but poke around a bit at the bottom.

oh, whoops - of course that's right. i haven't been invaded yet (i think). i picked up the white soapstone just before i finished playing yesterday, so haven't had a chance to use it yet. if i place it a little bit before the 1st boss maybe some fellow newbs will appreciate my assistance.

i've got about 16 hours logged and i haven't been invaded yet either. i think if you invade others, you're more likely to be invaded? i haven't even bothered with that yet.

yeah man, would recommend trying out that soapstone. get some souls, fight experience, and (possibly) some humanity back. no risk, all gain.

The ring that limits your hollowing health reduction is in a zone right off Majula,

oh man, i beat nu-Ornstein this morning and must have ran by there 10x without noticing it!

re: spending all your time hollow and at half health, i highly recommend helping people beat bosses (once you get the soapstone) to regain your humanity (which is why i was so bummed that the servers were down earlier).

lol, so apparently From is saying gaining humanity from co-op is a bug and shouldn't be happening at all.

nooooooo

that's kind of a bummer, then. i guess i should reassess how i use my items, but everything i'm reading is like "save your effigies! don't use them willy nilly!"

so i tend to just be at 50% all the time, maybe using an effigy if absolutely needed (before a boss fight, say)

tbh though, being able to pop to human after a handful of co-op sessions in front of a boss door and then summoning someone for your battle did feel a little cheap.

oh ok yeah there is a Way of Blue and a Blue Sentinel covenant (guy after old dragonslayer boss) which are different, one theoretically summons help if you get invaded, the other automatically summons you to be the help when people get invaded

I've never been invaded so don't know if the first one works properly

i did the other half of heide's tower, nice surprise there

got invaded at the belltower by the covenant ppl there. also was summoned as a grey phantom, which was weird cuz im in way of the blue. i think the ring the cat sells pulls you in when you wear it, like a secret covenant?

that first sinners rise bonfire location... lol

Tip for you guys struggling with the health penalty. The ring that limits your hollowing health reduction is in a zone right off Majula, Heidi's Tower of Flame.

shiiiit i missed that

lol, so apparently From is saying gaining humanity from co-op is a bug and shouldn't be happening at all.

i liked the idea of it reviving in steps, which is how i assumed it worked. oh well. i guess its just for farming then?

lot of benefits. tokens for covenants, souls, scope out a boss w/out risk, refill estus flasks and repair weapons. lot of outcry about this online, but straight up i've been abusing it and it does make the game feel a little broken. i've hardly soloed any bosses. there needs to be some sort of risk or real expenditure involved in summoning help.

idk, this "it's actually a bug" stuff is based off of something they recently said on twitter, in japanese, so there could be some sort of misunderstanding at work here.

phew, two bosses down (last giant and dragonrider dude, who wasn't that hard)

i'm thinking of totally rerolling my stats using that one item. (although...i murdered everyone in the hut at the beginning of the game so maybe i'm not allowed now? i think i remember reading that you had to talk to someone there to use the item. sigh.)

i started as a knight but didn't think about how badly that would cutoff both INT and Faith. i don't want to be a spellmaster or anything but i was hoping to at least be able to cast a miracle or two in a pinch.

you killed them? lol why

too many "heh heh hehs"

so yeah, fuck it, i'm going to be least faithful, least intelligent soul in this terrible land. level 36.

isn't int / faith base requirement 10? thats only a few levels needed

i'm thinking of totally rerolling my stats using that one item

let us know how it goes if you do, i'm curious if you have total flexibility with that. until i get another one i'm saving it for NG+ (unless i hit a wall and just have to level up a neglected stat, of course).

man, that would be a bummer if the co-op humanity thing gets changed, but i can see it making things too easy. it certainly has a lot more edge & tension when i'm agonizing over whether to use an effigy to summon help on a boss, or just to get hp back for a better shot. and here i thought they were just encouraging us to help each other out, haha. if it's a bug that would explain the inconsistency too.

i wonder if anyone's killed the emerald herald yet. guessing there will be hardcore runs on youtube for that.

oh yeah u can revive killed npcs if you go back to where you killed them and pay whatever it costs. might work with the hags i dunno

am i supposed to attack lautrec in the forest of giants?

four ring slots is both luxurious and somehow still not enough.

my original plan was to kill the 3 hags and free the 4th woman in the room. she seemed to be sending subtle hints that she hated her job and i expected a high five from her after i murdered her terrible bosses. but no, after the 3 hags perished the remaining person chased me around the room with a cleaver or something. i even left for several hours and came back, and she was still angry. so i had to kill her.

*dark souls psychopath*

i love touching the blood stains around NPCs around majula and lol at ppl that died cuz they attacked them

Thanks to circa1916 for the Tower of Flame ring info. It's difficult to suicide-run your way to it cuz it's hidden behind a drawbridge and you need to kill the giant armoured knight which guards the drawbridge control before the knight's other giant bastard mates catch up to you. So I ended up grinding combat against roomfuls of giant knights until I finally got to the ring and managed to level up a lot on the way. Then I killed Dragonrider on the second attempt. Felt like a total fucking hero.

Really want to keep playing but my wife is chain-watching episodes of Hart of Dixie on Netflix instead.

DAMN YOU RACHEL BILSON

assuming everyone is deep into dark souls world right now

SKULL DEEP. Man, I love the ambient sound in this game. So many subtle touches.

i've helped out a few people via the soapstone, but i've never once seen anyone else's offer to help me. is there some item i'm missing?

You can put down a summon sign in any state, but you gotta be human to summon others.

If you're human you should almost always see summon signs popping up around boss areas. I have had times where quitting and starting up again seemed to "refresh" things and more summon signs started showing up.

ah, that's right. sorry with newb questions.

finally cleared out the wharf. it shouldn't have been so difficult but i started to get really impatient. eventually i ran through the same areas so many times that the enemies went away and things got easier. kind of a bittersweet victory

Yeah, that's a new mechanic. After you kill enemies a certain amount of times, they stop respawning. Not sure how I feel about it yet.

Just had a mega intense gargoyle boss battle. My summoned bro ended up dying fairly quickly and I had what seemed to be a 15 minute fight against four of them. I managed to pull it off! My pulse was through the roof. True Dark Souls moment.

just doing the wharf now, the first time i was super methodical and got to the boss without a problem, now i'm recklessly trying to get back there and dying again and again (duh).

at least i can finally cast spells for the first time in a Souls game!

Yeah, I had the same issue at the wharf. No deaths on clearing the level, but got destroyed trying to hustle back to the boss. Feel like using the stone to light the area was a waste.

is there another area where you can use the stone? or you mean just spending 4000 souls to buy it was a waste?

either way i know what you mean. i never did manage to clear out the spider monkey house, even after running through the place with a torch. the spidermonkeys are scared by the torch for about 4 seconds, and then they gang up and attack.

Whoever put the soapstone message next to the lever at the chariot boss fight can burn in hell.

The stones can be used at a couple of different spots. Generally for more useful things.

avoiding this thread so i can have more a blind playthrough but i'm enjoying the hell out of this game. i think i like the limited respawn thing for now. also really like majula as a hub that eases the frustration. the demons souls hub did that too but also had a claustrophobic feel to it being enclosed and firelink in dark souls wasnt removed enough from the crap surrounding you.

Yeah this game is dope as hell and I will probably be playing it forever. Cleared four bosses this afternoon. Productive day.

guys i've been trying to beat this dead horse all day

i've only put in about an hour, work has been distracting badly. would play now but tv is unavailable... huge sadface

The Ring of Life Protection changes the entire game!

got my copy today. Will report back once I've given it a go this evening...

ugh, got the executioner's chariot down to a tiny sliver one time (solo) and haven't been able to do it again since. there's so much in this game though, i love it. i'm sure i'm missing as many secrets as i'm finding.

-on my first time getting through the bastille, i was very careful and did a few rounds of co-op on the boss to practice, but i forgot that all weapon degradation and item uses count toward your normal game. so when i finally got a couple of phantoms together to do my run it was a hilarious debacle -- ran out of estus, my sword broke, i'm jumping into menus in the middle of the fight to try to come up with anything, and i come up with...the parrying dagger. really wished i could explain/apologize to the other players (could definitely use a shrug gesture).

-on the way there i was invaded for the first time and actually won, that felt amazing.

Killed the Lost Sinner today on first attempt. Possibly the proudest moment of my 30 years of gaming.

When you get summoned and defeat the boss, your equipment should be repaired and estus refilled. Not so if you lose though. Seems to reliably be the case in my game.

Chariot was a big pain. I attempted it about a dozen times in other people's worlds (1 Win, 11 Losses) before I felt comfortable enough to do it in mine. Summoned some help for it and we managed to pull it off on first attempt. Was pretty lucky.

xp

ah right, clearly i was doing some losing in other worlds.

-accidentally destroying a treasure chest is the worst feeling

-so apparently getting cursed is not a big deal in this game, but poison is no joke.

i got to some shithole called 'the gutter' and died from poison with the bonfire in sight. i never want to go there again.

Getting cursed makes you go hollow, right? So if you were human when you got cursed, that would really suck.

true. on the other hand if you're playing hollow with the ring of binding on, it does nothing.

so i guess if you're actively playing co-op and you get cursed, then your phantoms get banished (or you do if you're a phantom)?

I just got to the Gutter too.

FUCK POISON GRAAARRRGH

vs lost sinner:
with 85% phys shield: 0/20
with 100% phys shield: 1/1

haven't reached the gutter yet but i guess that is the new world 5/blighttown huh? brilliant

is that what's down the well? don't tell me.

I just got to the Gutter too.

FUCK POISON GRAAARRRGH

― bizarro gazzara, Monday, March 17, 2014 3:32 PM

I CRIED

vs lost sinner:
with 85% phys shield: 0/20
with 100% phys shield: 1/1

― Roberto Spiralli, Monday, March 17, 2014 5:09 PM

vs gauntlet of exploding mummies
1/50

So many weapons, hard decisions. I'm pushing STR but so many of the big fuck off swords I want to use scale hard with DEX as much or more. I might go Great Club. Good move set and A STR scaling off the bat.

ha i'm having same problem. i wanna use the drangleic claymore but i don't have the dex. i did two-hand the great club against an invader to great effect, even though i lost it pancaked him flat on the ground

finally defeated that stupid horse (solo) after countless tries. i ended up getting very good at rolling under the spikes instead of standing in the alcoves, and on my successful run i didn't even take any damage, lol. turns out doing so wasn't worth much besides the sense of accomplishment.

now i'm venturing into Harvest Valley, so desolate. i feel like my path choices at this point are poison vs poison.

i dunno, that blood guy had some great dialogue

ha. i admit i killed him and took his hood because i'm not really trying to invade anyone.

oh btw, apparently killing the boss at the same time it kills you doesn't count for anything in this game.

Just beat Mytha the Baneful Queen after a frustratingly poison-soaked couple of hours trying. Now I'm amusing myself joining co-op games and watching players who haven't yet realised the One Weird Tip to dealing with her poison wade into swift and inevitable deaths.

(FUCK A POISON btw)

Yeah, putting your summon sign down in front of that boss seems like it would be an exercise in frustration.

I'm still at Forest of the Giants, looks like I need to put in some more hours!

You guys, the "white ring":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayr-spKR0Sk

Dark Souls 2: YOU GRIEFED HARDER

wow that guy's a dick

Smelter Demon was giving me hell last night. First time I’ve had to redo a boss often enough to stop enemies from respawning. Apparently there's a shield out there that makes this a lot easier, might have to track it down.

Got to experience The Gutter and (lol) Black Gulch last night. Good to see From keeping everyone’s favorite Valley of Defilment/Blighttown template alive. I honestly didn’t mind The Gutter too much. It was the first time I extensively used the torch and it’s kind of a fun mechanic IMO. Black Gulch is a straight up middle finger though. I guess it’s more of a quick obstacle course you need to sprint through before the fog door, but God help anyone trying to FIGHT through that.

I only managed to beat the Smelter Demon with support from co-op helpers. Wasn't thrilled to see the Pursuer pop back up after the Smelter Demon was vanquished :(

Also, I met a guy called stiffmeister666 last night. Not quite pizzalawyer420 but it still made me laugh.

invaders are always like 'DatD1ckwraith' or something (real example)

I went human three times for Smelter, but the summoned help was mostly useless. :/

haha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqlHENpAvMw

So how about that giant, non-aggressive insect in The Gutter. Nobody seems to know its purpose.

isn't one of the starting items a weird egg/larva type thing? Maybe you can offer that up...

i ran around the shaded ruins for awhile before it sunk in that i had no business being there yet, and i'm curious about the silent/sleeping man with the body of a giant scorpion...

i think there's a ring that allows you to talk to that guy.

I haven't had any time to play this since knocking out 3 bosses over the weekend. i'm waaaay back in...wherever you are when you've defeated the two heide tower bosses and the wharf boss.

i'm still just exploring the forest of giants... need a day or two to devote.

i spent less time on skeleton lords and chariot combined than i did getting the lockstone that you have to jump to. the real truth about this series of games is they are at their most sadistic when they make you do anything that approximates platforming.

oh yeah i died a bunch of times trying to do that, then gave up.

Think I'm pretty close to finishing, just going round trying to find anything I missed now. Have had a lot less trouble than I did with first but guessing the final boss will be a real pain.

DS and DS2 do secrets better than any game I've ever played. It's so satisfying to discover a hidden area, and they're always so well integrated.

i'm sure i'm missing lots of explodable walls.

Yeah turned out I missed a load of hidden bonfires near boss fights. Black Gulch is worth exploring a bit more.

yeah. this one makes it even trickier by having some of the secrets accessible by a button press instead of a weapon smack.

i've been missing a lot of obvious stuff 'cause i'll see a path on some initial exploration and think 'hmm, that looks like it goes on awhile, i'll come back later' then totally forgetting about it. i'm into it though, it's nice to be able to come back to an area and have things left to discover, without worrying about making it to the boss.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_BzwEaHBlc

http://i.imgur.com/CjQoCpz.jpg

haha, I've seen that tag a couple of times.

lol i got eaten (and spat out) by the Covetous Demon. it was worth it.

earthen peak is pretty fun.

just started playing this, they certainly didn't dumb it down lol. framerate is pretty crappy so far, not Blighttown bad but not great either. got a good laugh from reading the inscription on the monument by the sea.

I beat the last boss earlier today... and I've only collected three of the four old souls. Hmm.

The story-ending boss, I mean - the one in Drangleic Castle.

Brightstone Cove is such a shit level. Anti-fun.

oh god just got lost down a Dark Souls k-hole

Lol @ the second half of the Iron Keep. Banner day for torturous levels.

I think I'm done for the evening.

cruising along now...2nd half of iron keep was a breeze thanks to a helpful phantom (the only time i've summoned someone outside of a boss fight, just on a whim), and the gutter/grave/gulch was surprisingly not that bad. i didn't light anything in the gutter (do you just have to use flame butterflies?) and somehow made it to the bonfire near the end...that was the most careful i've been the entire game, but the enemies aren't that bad, as long as you watch out for the drops and poison statues.

black gulch is crazy but thankfully short, managed to do the Rotten solo on the 2nd try. now i guess it's time to do the Shaded Ruins for real? i think that's the only open path i haven't gone through.

i feel like i can't quite connect with this just now... need a year or so to acclimate. should maybe just focus on finishing 1.

I'm at the gulch right now! I know most people probably sprint through it, but I want all the treasures, so I've been painstakingly knocking over every statue and drawing the Lovecraftian horrors out of their pits one by one. Hm, I wonder if something like Emit Force could break multiple statues at once.

i haven't tested this out, but supposedly the black pools are flammable.

They are, but you have to be careful as there's one chest that's sitting directly in a pool of the stuff, and will get burned up if you approach it while carrying a torch

Started NG+. Time to first YOU DIED: 30 seconds.

those 3 big gold skeleton fuckers can get tae fuck

Trivia
• If you decapitate one of her heads, You can kick it around like a soccer ball. (Confirmed.)

They're going to make the turning human from a successful summon bug into a permanent feature! Which would be cooler if I didn't use a ring of life protection to stay human all the time already.

yeah that ring is an out of character addition for the series

cool, where did you hear that? i've been doing the ring move for successive attempts on bosses where i feel ok about using co-op, but i usually let it slide when moving through new areas (too much pressure to stay human/warp back to majula to get them repaired, i like being able to die with impunity). and i love helping people with bosses.

that ring would make more sense if you couldn't repair it

btw the old sun ring is my new favorite ring.

I was not aware of this ring until now but it sounds awesome. Will have to grab.

i killed someone in the belfry wearing that and my final kill blow set it off killing me at the same time. a 2nd invader was watching and did a celebratory gesture

Wait, it hurts yourself too when it explodes?

nope, it shouldn't

i was not wearing it, the guy i killed was

where's good to leave a summon sign? Have been playing about with it with not much luck. I'm level 50-something and only 20hrs into the game...

I usually leave 'em by bonfires or by the fog gate in front of a boss, usually with reasonable success. I got more summons once I turned on the option for multi-region play - I think it's turned off by default.

yeah I tried that around Heide's Tower but with no luck. Switching that option is a good hint, thanks!

ending is sorta anticlimactic and i still don't fully get the story. i mean its a bit easier to follow than dark souls but i don't quite get how the 2 games are related. gonna try some of the covenants before heading to ng+

you can stay in new game after you finish, which is a nice change

there's a story?

i liked what they did with however much story was in demons and ds1. there was a pretty simple framework and the detail was vague, some of it that could be pieced together and some of it impenetrable. but for my tastes they struck a good balance. ds2 i have no fucking clue. there isn't any framework, just the vagueness. i couldn't ever imagine myself thinking less of one of these games because of story, but that is i think the main reason that i don't like this as much. don't get me wrong, i still like it a lot. there are other factors too for sure, e.g. it does feel like a sequel/retread far more than ds1 ever did despite how similar that was to demons. and it is easier, in terms of structure and content. it just doesn't inspire dread in anything like the same way.

am reserving judgement until I've played it more, but I see what you mean. From early signs it looks like covenants and online play generally are much better integrated in the game, e.g. the defend the belfry thing for Bell Covenant members.

If you've got some time you can read an exhaustive breakdown of the story and the links between DS and DSII here: http://jcwigriff.com/2014/03/20/dark-souls-2-takes-place-in-lordran-lore/

wow, that link. i don't care about the story that much, but even aside from the DS links (most of which pretty obvious) i still enjoy the general Soulsian vibe that all the real action happened thousands of years ago and you're just digging through the rubble.

i'm at shrine of amana btw, just caved and used a bow for the first time in the game.

these speed runs are getting pretty serious btw:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps8sbAxHMxg

also, a friend of mine pointed out that the climax in the True Detective finale has a total Dark Souls vibe, and he is right.

o yeah, for sure; that was totally on my mind throughout much of the show

there's a story?
― Roberto Spiralli, Tuesday, 1 April 2014 18:02

there was a war with giants, there was a king and queen that fucked things up, ur cursed

i like the belfry sol invasions, that little rooftop area has a playground aspect to it

evil girlfriends seem to be a theme in this game, hmm (see the unhappy scorpion couple).

it does feel like a sequel/retread far more than ds1 ever did despite how similar that was to demons. and it is easier, in terms of structure and content. it just doesn't inspire dread in anything like the same way.
― Roberto Spiralli, Tuesday, April 1, 2014 2:02 PM

i'm ok with it feeling like a sequel since its meant to be one. the lack of dread is somewhat a problem for me too. the devs certainly could've tried to top what came before with grosser/weirder/darker stuff. i guess they restrained themselves on purpose cuz why else would a game in the series garner a 't for teen' rating all of a sudden. kind of a bummer in that respect.

not sure about the forced perspective fight against the big spider

yo when are we getting ilx .webm embedding because wow
http://i.4cdn.org/v/src/1396823666898.webm

purty

404 Not Found

nothing special video but the fidelity was hot shit

got all the way to Brightstone Cove before realising I could get to Huntsman's Copse, which I'm breezing through :-/

Huntsman's Copse, home to the most deceptively simple-looking boss battle in the game. Take down these three fragile Skeleton Lords, you say? No problem! Grrr...

hah that is to follow, currently waling on thieves and those ogres with scythes

I did the same, missed that whole route and by the time I got there I was destroying everything in my path including the Skeleton Lords with their pals. Now at the Crypt, this must be near the end?!?

Those fucking wheel skeletons are the worst enemies in the whole Souls series. I hate those fuckers SO. MUCH.

they're okay if you have a good shield, at least in DS1. I'm a caster in DS2, so they could prove interesting.

I've got a 100% shield but they always seem to manage to roll up behind me.

Take down these three fragile Skeleton Lords, you say? No problem! Grrr...

apparently the smaller skeletons only spawn when you destroy one of the three, with a different type for each one? so it should be a lot easier to take down one skeleton lord and clear out the minions before moving on to the next one.

i just got through the crypt (although i'll have to come back for a certain boss fight), i know this is the endgame but i have no idea how much is actually left.

yeah get all the skel lords low and then kill one by one after defeating each wave of small dudes. the middle one spawns the wheelies.

Fuck. Wish I'd known that before I defeated the Skeleton Lords in both NG and NG+!

i had co-op twice last night with a very polite phantom last night who faith-healed the host even after the boss battle was over, nice touch. :)

nailed those mofo Skeleton Lords, and kicked the Jabba the Hutt guy's tail for good measure

what's the deal with the belfry luna? do i still get invaded when i'm wearing the covenant's ring?

yup

yep

gotcha. when i initially went in there, i thought the little blue guy was my invader and then i saw the actual invader. i was fucking around wasting time by chasing him around a hole before finally starting to beat on him.. got him down to 1/3 health then all of a sudden another phantom invaded and i just kept getting sniped from a distance /:

there should be a ring that lets you invade in miniature size

ring of diminutive aggravation

ng+ immediately killed me. jesus christ

not sure if i have what it takes for ng+, although i really want to respec and try dex + pyromancy. this darkdrift invisible katana needs to be put to use.

i really liked aldia's keep, even if the boss was easy.

i loved that view right before the boss there

yeah that was a nice moment. i think that boss was the first one i beat without dying once, solo at least.

i love how you see those stone pillars extending waaaaay up into the sky, and then you end up taking the elevator up so high that they're off in the distance below.

the lighting in here is really cool too

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/NQ77XCGotlg/maxresdefault.jpg

mastodon raver pants

marshmallow roasting chime!

finally beat the last boss. must have attempted it about 20 times yesterday getting more and more frustrated, wake up this morning and destroy it at the first attempt like it's no big deal. i enjoyed the game overall but it really felt like DS 1.5, a remix/refinement of the first game but without bringing anything new to the table. I should try and play a magic build at some point, have heard that they can be really overpowered after the initial hump though?

lol glitch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kGMu0A-64I

xp I'm enjoying playing a magic build, though I've yet to find any awesome wizard threads so am going around dressed in crappy knight's armour. Doesn't quite have the same cache!

lol.

i finished the game over the weekend too. all of the endgame areas are really great, if short. i eventually caved on the last boss and summoned help, but the penultimate fight against vendrick took many tries and felt appropriately satisfying.

started ng+ with a dex/pyro build to try out all those cool katanas but i'm having a really hard time changing my play style. at the same time it seems boring to go through the game again with the same character, so i think it's time to step away for awhile and make some records instead of playing Souls in my free time.

also i was dumb and accidentally let navlaan out of his cell, and his repeated invasions sure made a few parts way harder than they would have been otherwise.

at the same time it seems boring to go through the game again with the same character

thats why soul vessel is cool, keep the character but change the stats for a new build

that's what i did but i suck with my new build. :(

my old build was strength-based, great shield/claymore/a little bit of magic for range. did basically the same thing in DS1 so it's super ingrained.

oh i see. dex is more dodge-rolling rather than tanking hits. i got pretty good at dodging in ds1 but this game has seems to have some wacky hitboxes. half the time i'm wondering how something that visibly missed me is still taking off health. maybe the in-game enemies have lag now instead of just pvp phantoms connecting thru dialup in lithuania

beat three bosses last night, feelin like a badass. got invaded 2 times in the belfry luna and vanquished them then decided to just check out the boss, fully intending on dying. after killing the first two gargoyles, i started to think "hey i think i can do this!!" and beat them on my first try

fine work

therefore fine work

so my pure melee "idk wtf i'm doing so i'll just put stats in str and end" build is showing its weakness during invasions. most of the time the phantoms will run and roll away from me before i can get in range. and tips on ways i can close the distance?

yeah I had a breakthrough last night, beating The Rotten and that big stupid spider. Now going to the castle. Those swordsmen guys are infinitely respawning, right? Do you run past them?

iirc you have to kill a certain number of them (near the statues) to get the door to open

and tips on ways i can close the distance?
― diamonddave85‌ (diamonddave85), Wednesday, April 16, 2014 10:43 AM

i think theres a pyro that acts like a long range firebomb. otherwise upgrade a bow and shoot poison arrows then watch the invader panic as their health meter rapidly depletes

good ideas, i've just been using the sea bow for killing poison moths and some sniping. i think i'll craft the dragonrider bow and upgrade that

pig secrets!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ2-PICH0Ls

I'd heard of that one, but I had no idea you had to lead the pig so far!

what the hell

dragonrider bow + poison arrows is the way 2 go

^got me through the shrine of amana and a few invasions

beat scorpioness najka on my first try yesterday ...burning through nearly all my lifegems in the process. took about 30 minutes and at no point during the fight did i think i even had a chance

pc version drops today

from namco's current list of pc version bugs:

Game crashes upon start-up

lol

i'm done with the game for awhile but still enjoying watching speed runs and impressive feats like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raFaXLsAqOI

http://i.imgur.com/vp8X0jL.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/0eehavm.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/PZowoC8.png

i messed doing pvp in NG+ for awhile, it's cool and all but i'm the worst pvp'er ever to pvp.

then i went back to DS1 and started a new game with a dex build, and man...i don't like to compare the two games, and i totally enjoyed my time in DS2, but the DS1 engine feels so much weightier and the world is just instantly immersive. it's just as fun as the first time (only way easier).

you should try the dlc this time around if you're doing a new build

definitely, thanks for reminding me.

http://i.imgur.com/zgtW2dz.jpg

drunk-gleic

http://i.imgur.com/V1AEekB.gif

lol

beat this game last night and tried my hand at some pvp covenants and got my ass handed to me. guess it's time to reroll

i was thinking about captain drummond last night and thought it was really cool the way that you get his armor set early in the game and don't really realize it was his until he gives you the helm in one of the giant's memories

also, is the last giant supposed to be the giant lord? similar height, similar groans, similar moveset

I can see this having a very rich multiplayer, but as a single player game... Dark Souls 1 is better :/

Actually, the weird esoteric nature of DS1 multiplayer is probably way cooler too, but if you're into this as a "Fighting Game", DS2 seems to be more multilayered. Time will tell.

agreed, pvp is improved but general atmosphere is lacking

Bearer...
Seek...
Seek...
Lest...

READY TO DIE AGAIN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0YvHBxv-3Y

evidently that's what the good ppl were doing when the scrubs were making DS2. look p good tho.

wow cool

beast

so... what is that?

video game

leaked footage of next Souls game being made by the guys who made Demons & Dark 1, should be revealed at E3 in 10 days time

wow, too much to keep up with.

DLC incoming, first of three, July 22

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_24S4j-jWU

awesome

before it gets taken down

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx8KTIeSnzs

My little brother is going to be kicking himself that he got an Xbone. I told him to wait a year and see how this generation's console wars played out!

looks fun!

PLS SIR MAY I HAVE SOME MORE

how is babby borned how console get pragnent

guess i'm getting a PS4 then huh

u get me one too

i restarted ds2 this week and put in twenty or so hours. 53 level swordsman bopping around huntsman copse just now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9JR-E3UE3s

playing the hell out of this; 87 level. Went back to investigate earlier areas but am as far as black gulch now.

okay, level 125. Fighting through the end of the undead crypt and got a lil' too frustrated. I think I'll be done with first playthru by the time of the DLC.

Are you killing the bell ringer under the stairs? Makes it a lot easier...

Yeah, taking him out with arrows; the issue was the final guy before the king and having to go through ten minutes of fighting seven tough dudes and then losing to the final guy when he was at 1/4 health after a ten minute fight. Finally broke down and brought help and killed him right off. Halfway through the dragon aerie now.

btw, dark souls for 360 is mailorder available for $13
http://www.gamefly.com/Buy-Dark-Souls/146720/?cid=sncan0714

haha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xwc9LE7Pt_4

lol amazing, love how he carries his binoculars around the whole game!

apparently that's responsible for the fast movement glitch (rolling/jumping while using the binocs)?

yep, it's called binboosting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAe442j4eB8

hah there would be a name for it

first dlc is rly fun. good maze-like level design and some puzzle elements thrown in

my level 140 swordsman got to the final baddie and THE SAVE CORRUPTED
and yet i now have a level 80 deprived in the lost bastille. something about this game just makes you want to play through.

did the dlc on ng+. last boss took me 30+ tries probably.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6ytGmFmVOk

sounds interesting, like a super high speed version of getting your souls back: http://www.destructoid.com/bloodborne-s-health-regaining-system-detailed-279546.phtml

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWId6_Pemck

yyyyyeah that will sell me a ps4

one u+k thing to note there is that the bodies roll up under your feet all DS1 style which i am in favor of

ya they brought back ragdoll

'Cleric Beast' reminds me of Manus.

YUMMY

i started messing around with the DS2 dlc, and it feels pretty damn hard on ng+. wish there was some sort of reverse bonfire aesthetic item.

lol u casul (my lil brother who's at ng+8 or whatever said the same thing tho)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IG9afBRnzo

ok i got through the dlc, it was pretty great. couldn't have beat Elana without solid co-op, and i tried to pay it forward by helping people against the dragon (probably the easiest but also the most fun boss?).

i thought it would be a drag having to replay the game in ng+ just to access the dlc (and going through the pit/gutter/gulch again kinda was), but it was pretty fun speeding through huntsman's copse/harvest/valley/earthen peak to get to the next one.

DLC is aug 28 for PS3, yes? and you can't access it without reaching ng+?

as noted above, I restarted the game and have been building a stupidly balanced (all skills at level 21 at the moment) character... not even sure why i'm doing it.

no no, you can access it without ng+. it's way harder to access if you started ng+, because doing so clears out all of your bonfire checkpoints.

Stupidly balanced builds are perfect for Mundane infused weapons, right?

DLC is aug 28 for PS3, yes?

26

the big thing in the new dlc seems to be using the environment to get through situations that would otherwise be near-impossible. and by "environment" i mean things that explode.

This was $30 in Best Buy. I picked up. Need to beat the first one after dropping 50 or so hours into it. Probably don't need this in my life right now.

this sounds like it will be good

http://www.polygon.com/2014/9/18/6359181/dark-souls-2-crown-of-the-ivory-king-tgs-2014

Over the course of the downloadable content, players can gradually accrue followers — allied, AI-controlled characters — who will help them in a battle against a tough boss character.

this is good news, since i cancelled XBL and summoning human help is out.

new dlc is awesome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6OvKFwIza8

Currently on sale for $20 on PSN with PS+.

yeah i will def get the new version on ps4. prob should get a ps4 at some point between now and then

lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-iUcZyEtZc

amazing

i will probably get this for ps4 cuz i can't help myself

yeah me too :(

Bloodborne imminent too!

yeah both. i was skeptical about next-gen ds2 but watched recent footage of it and it looks good in 60fps. the dark areas are actually dark now!

yeah i will 100% get it eventually, have played zero add content, but bloodborne first by god

huh i have no desire to go back to DS2, even with fancy graphics. very excited about Bloodborne though.

Trying to get into this, not sure I liked the changes from DS. Running through empty hallways because I have killed everything in them is giving me flashbacks to the worst and most boring parts of Castlevanias. Level design......eh..... there are some gorgeous areas but on the whole it is way worse than DS, which felt like real places. Seems like they went more Open World with this one, and it feels a bit aimless as a result. From the opening area in DS you could access 2 other areas but from the opening area in DS2 it feels like there are half a dozen paths I could take, almost all of which lead to a locked door. I'm going to try and stick w it as long as I can (currently in Heides Tower of Flame) but at least in the beginning it feels rather slapped together compared to the first game's artful construction.

There are much more pronounced highs and lows in the quality of the area design with this. It probably gets by a lot on how much the base mechanics stand up to repeat play

Heide's Tower is pretty cool looking as an area even though there's not really that much of note there

the transition from Earthen Peak --> Bowser's castle is the most dispiritingly shit bit of world design in the game

I'll probably pick up this new deluxe version once it comes down in price. Never played the add-ons and they're supposedly pretty tite.

the dlcs were better than the main game. still kinda like this one but i feel like i can steamroll through it at this point even with the re-mixed areas of the remaster. the new high framerate is really nice, wish bloodborne had it

it's clear that from software's b-team did most of the work on this but i'd still take a second-rate souls game over virtually anything else. i need to go back and work my way through the dlc once i've finished with bloodborne.

best part of sotfs update so far is the pool of blood mechanic. works the same as a bloodstain however when multiple people have died in the same spot it becomes a 'pool of blood' that when clicked activates all the bloodstains simultaneously. so you get multiple phantoms missing a cliff jump or this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxMw5L4R-aY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQyF7I8Fanc

lol, that's evocative

I'm stuck at the three Sentinels in the Lost Bastille. Haven't beaten the Pursuer either, cos he is REALLY tough and I read he's harder than the Sentinels.

Doesn't feel entirely fair to be fighting three guys at once. I mean you had the Anor Londo duo in Dark Souls but it was a nice big space and the two of them had different moves. I can take down the first Sentinel without a scratch, but the next two is a tough battle. Should I go do something else? The DSII world is way more confusing than the first game so I have no idea where to go next aside from this.

i think you can summon an NPC for that fight (and i'm pretty sure i summoned human help).

you want to take the first guy out on the platform as quick as possible. Definitely do summon an NPC or two; let one of them pull one of the last two enemies away and then focus on the other on the ground.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xrPkE-LWqY
Later in the game, you run two of these at once so you kinda need to learn how to play these guys.

LOL i have to talk to the cat to leave a covenant and then the NPC will be there.

Hmmm that's not it I'm not in any covenants. I found the cell but the summon isn't there.

are you human?

i recall bringing players down and needing to get them over by the prior save point.

Oh yeah I won! The key is to keep both of them in view and taunt them into jumping at you, then dodge and attack whoever's nearest. Also throwing a bunch of firebombs down on them before they jump up to that platform.

Ok now Dark Souls 2 is starting to piss me off. It isn't playing by the rules anymore! The last bonfire I was at _started_ with me getting shot at by crossbow. That never happened in Dark Souls 1. Now I am fighting the same 2-gargoyle boss from Dark Souls 1, only it is FIVE gargoyles. WTF?

heh, i know where you're at. if you stay still, you won't be shot. the instant you start to move, you're fair game.

This game is losing me. The magic is gone from the first one. Level design is through the floor. It's unfair in lots of ways the first one wasn't.

Ok just gave it another shot and made it to the boss w all the skeletons and skeleton wheels. Everyone goes on about how hard the first game is but at least it is fair. This one feels more like going through a room blindly in the dark. I appreciate the more open-ended approach but it also results in some confusing and unrealistic level design. I can think of The Catacombs in Dark Souls and it is pretty clear what area that entails: winding underground burial tunnels where the deeper you go, the more darkness surrounds you. Or the Darkroot Garden: misty forests with tree creatures and sleeping stone giants, with spare ruins and bridges marking places where humans once made their mark. Thinking back to the levels in Dark Souls 2, they all sort of blur together, they may end up going outside or featuring a cave or a ruins or a forest area or sometimes all of the above. Some areas stand out by looking vastly different but most of this is muddy, dark, and very similar-looking. The enemies are more generic, seeming less like a real monster ecology and more like generic bad guys to sprinkle throughout a video game. In the face of the non-linear level design the shortcuts seem to be there mainly for tradition. In the Huntman's Copse I made my way through skeleton caves and came upon a gate that I could not pass. Luckily there were several other exits and I wandered around, snaking behind a waterfall, eventually stumbling upon the other side of the gate, and a switch to open it. Not only did the shortcut open up a passageway that I had only just discovered 2-3 minutes before, but it shaved off a whole 10 seconds of time from my trip. Ugh.

Still, the combat is a lot of fun. Haven't figured out the new parry system yet, but in the first game that took me dozens of hours before I began learning it in earnest. Crowd control can be super annoying but it is a new approach and most of the good things about this game are the new things is tries. I'm sure the more I play this the more I will like it, but the level design in the first game was almost always thoughtful and inspiring.

problem is you're following up with sequel directly after mainlining the first one. not saying the criticisms aren't valid. are you playing the scholar of the first sin upgraded version? they did make subtle improvements of areas, not design-wise but the enemy placement changes make the game seem more thought out

Made it to Drangelic Castle, which looks really nice w the rain, maybe one of the best-looking Souls areas, like the exit from the Asylum in Dark Souls. These F&$%^KING stone soldiers that all come alive and fight you alongside an earlier BOSS BATTLE is bullshit. This game is way cheaper w difficulty than Dark Souls 1.

I am having trouble because there are too many of them and they are all designed to be fought one-on-one, most of them having shields that will block your attacks and thus necessitating melee dodge rolling. Which wouldn't be a problem if the level design wasn't just small boxes stuck together. URGH.

The bosses in Dark Souls 2 are easier than the ones in 1 and a bit lacking in originality. Once I've figured out a few patterns I can take a boss in 1 or 2 tries w most of my health.

It sounds like the production was really chaotic, multiple versions of the game being combined hurriedly, visual elements like the new lighting system falling through, etc. But it's not a bad game, and it sounds like many people like it, so good on From for pulling out all the stops to make it as polished as it is.

It's generally a fair game and still up there on the level with 1. It just has its problem areas. With Miyazaki coming back for the 3rd it is also kind of cool to have a weird entry in the trilogy, like Super Mario Bros. 2 or something.

RE: Drangelic Castle. I know I know I just need to get gud.

you wanna section them off in each room and deal with them carefully one at a time. it's doable.

otm thanks i guess it isn't so cheap after all esp that room w the stairs going around the corner its a good place to trap one or two, the big ones usually get bored and walk away

you're talking about the room with all the Ruin Sentinels, right? that one's crazy, and i didn't realize at first that killing the soldiers was the trigger for opening the doors and unleashing the sentinels. could have handled them one-on-one, but i don't think i ever cleared that room (just did suicide runs to get the items).

i did a lot of farming in that room.

Yeah it's a nice room. Also did a lot of farming w the mastodons, they were a fun enemy to fight.

Kinda sad that the big castle-w-lightning-flashin-across-the-floor scene was only for one hallway leading to the boss. I thought it was going to be a whole big area. Looks really cool in still shots but kinda underwhelming implementation.

Looking Glass Knight was a fun bosses. Most of the bosses are fun and easier than those in Dark Souls. Farmed a little bit, saved up for some Gold Pine Resin, and went on a LONG sidequest back through the foggy forest to find the needed merchant. He was a skull on a pile of dead bodies(?). I love it. After that LGK fell in two attempts.

Currently in the Shrine of Amana. Big jump in difficulty. I hate those magic homing arrows, and the fact that you can't move fast in the water. And the invisible drop offs. And the seemingly random places where you will be moving through and suddenly your armor is broken, or your rings, or something equally upsetting.

It's a beautiful area though! You can tell they tried to put better levels towards the end of the game. At one point I was in a cave and thought there was some music playing in another window. It was crazy noise coming out of a giant mushroom, I think.

you can see the drop offs better w/ a torch

At Aldias Keep I was building up a lot of souls, like 60k, from running up the stairs and killing that large caged basilisk then pulling the dragon statue and taking out the orcs in the long dark hallway with the inhabited paintings. The orcs got me a lot by grabbing and eating me, but it was easy to run in and grab souls before they attacked. Then the large one at the start stopped appearing, cutting down the amount of souls per run by 3000.

I cleared the dark hallway and went down into an acidic pit that destroyed my rings then my armor. I was going to remove my equipment but there were some monsters and I didn't want them to kill me when I was in the menu. They didn't attack me. So I did the stupidest thing, I attacked them, and they all turned and promptly destroyed me, leaving 60,000+ souls in a pit of acid.

Respawned at the bonfire and ran to the entrance of the building. Went to go fill up my coffee. When I got back a swarm of cursed animals destroyed me and my chance to get those souls.

You don't turn your back on these games.

I beat the game tonight and the final boss went down in one attempt. My +10 Halberd and dodging skills made short work of whatever that one monster was.

By the end some of those giant enemies got really annoying. The ones in the Dragon Shrine, the giant ones w infinite stamina. They suck.

Picked up Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin on the cheap from Steam last week. Graphically it looks way more impressive, and I appreciate a lot of changes to enemy placement. At least I was, until I ended up in the basement of Sinner's Rise and what was once a giant pain-in-the-butt monster has now been swapped out for a much faster model that has 4 ARMS each with swords and can attack from the front and the rear.

Made it to the DLC areas in SOTFS. They are really really good! I knew they were hyped to be better than the vanilla game but that is definitely the case.

Now only if I can kill this giant sabertooth tiger...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kr7KDCsIws

i've tried like all of these games inc most recently bloodborne and idk why but there's something about them that just doesn't click with me. i really think it's something about the way it handles - it feels so cumbersome + lumbering. it's def not the difficulty bc there are lots of difficult games that i greatly enjoy. but they tend to feel more kinetic and rapid maybe instead of methodical? anyone have any insight into this bc i'd love to love them but idk they're so dreary and the gameplay is just not fun to me :( :( :(

DS3 and Bloodborne are the fastest, movement and gameplay-wise, but they're not for everybody I guess. Although maybe you're trying to use a slow weapon/build with a fast playstyle? Have you tried using small weapons and light armor?

1) starting with Dark Souls 2 is the worst idea. either start with 1 for the incredible world design or 3 for the modern gameplay (and incredible world design). DS2 is the cheapest, most frustrating entry.

2) moves are slow because they are deliberate. everything you do has weight, there is a commitment to your actions, not unlike the first Castlevania, where the slow yet powerful whip & jump stopped you from slashy slashy your way through the game. you can't play Castlevania like it is Ninja Gaiden.

Dreary is part-n-parcel with this series tho. Love it or leave it!

the feeling of dread and isolation is one of the most special things about this series. they evoke it through the game mechanics themselves, not just the art design. this is where DS2 fails (you can actually perma-kill enemies & the world is unconnected - it is fundamentally different from the other games) but the other games succeed so well. it is in not having a world map, insta saves, or fast travel. it is in how you learn the world and experience it. being at the isolated bottom of Blighttown and being so far from the start of the game, so far from the safety of home. if you traverse to Blighttown via the usual route then you experience a similar panic at The Depths when getting cursed and having your HP now cut in half. yet the game provides a number of methods for the player to overcomes this challenge, it is not unfair about it. fwiw Demon's Souls (the true origin of the series) already featured this cruel misfortune, a penalty it incurs at any death.

in DS2 you are not limited to a scant few healing items (up-gradable via boss challenge ala DS1) but can buy and stockpile hundreds of healing & buff items (tbf Demon's Souls had this too but was much more stingier about it). DS2 has warp-able bonfires from the start of the game because the levels are not holistically planned out in that way (and the other way around). you never get a sense that everything is connected because it isn't.

DS1 is about discovering a world which has a coherent architecture and an integrity to it on both gameplay & story levels. DS2 is about playing more and more levels, more and more variations on the Dark Souls gameplay. which is not a bad thing, and people are free to prefer it. personally i like the first more.

Something I don't know the answer to but would love to learn before (if) the first game finally comes to Switch: if you are, say, cursed by a giant rat or farting frog or whatever, and your HP is halved, do you know how to fix that? Do you know to head back to Stumpville and find the magic orange vine, or is it totally blind trial and error?

good question

For (another) example, I've seen a little bit of youtube gameplay, and someone might say "this enemy is easy to dispatch if you apply the magic flame to the giant sword you could have picked up from the merchant at the bottom of the well," which (in this made up example) would require you to have not only found the merchant, but bought the giant sword, found the magic flame and known to apply it to the sword to fight this specific enemy. How would you know to do that?

trial and error, look it up, or just play the game without trying to min-max every encounter. i haven't played these games still but i've never gotten the impression that they're about that.

It's just that I've seen a couple of examples of (per the above) getting cursed or poisoned and basically being stuck like that until you do (xyz). That seems no fun.

It lightens up in the later games, but there is a for real unforgiving, sadistic, arcane (how does any of this work?!) quality to Dark Souls 1 that won’t appeal to everyone but is absolutely what makes it special.

I was cursed (permanent half health until cured) in the deepest depths against a boss and just could not do it. A zillion tries. Researched online/talked to some friends and found out about the cure. Brutally worked my way back to the top. Got it. Explored some other areas, powered up, and cut my way back down and did it.

Some of this was legitimately painful and dread inducing but the fucking satisfaction you get when you accomplish it has been nothing like I’ve ever felt in video games before or since.

There were legitimately times I couldn’t face that game unless I was drunk.

Curse in DS1 is really the only thing that persists like this, and you meet an NPC early on who can fix it (or sell you can item that can). The only trick might be getting back to him.

I definitely had a similar experience getting cursed in the Depths and having to trek back to get un-cursed, but hey, it taught me you can run by all the enemies if necessary!

getting cursed early on and feeling like this stupid fucking game is actively trying to get you to ragequit is one of the fundamental masochistic pleasures of dark souls imo

curing the Curse is done via the NPC in the church, which is one of the main destinations you are given upon arriving. talk to all NPCs you see and if they are merchants browse their wares. you don't really make it to the curse place without getting to this church. the basement key is actually on some stairs on the way to the church. the game world is layed out in a logistic order, if you are progressing as normally, you will come across the cure long before the curse itself.

as for "this enemy is easy if you apply magic flame to giant sword" imo this is never really the case. if you don't know how to fight and enemy you will get wrecked no matter what item you use. furthermore the time you spend chasing down X "OP weapon" is much better spent fighting the boss, learning how to dodge their attacks.

Well, yeah. There are people who can beat this game in their undies with no weapons ... just like their characters! (Har.) What I don't get is how people figure shit out. Is it just OCD trial and error ad infinitum? For example, if there is a NPC merchant selling a curse cure, do you know that? How? Will he tell you? Is it called "Curse-be-Gone" or something, or is it vague, like Frogsbane or something like that? If you are cursed, how do you know to go back to the merchant? Again, trial and error? How in the world would someone know that?

there are large and extremely well documented wikis for all of this stuff

https://darksouls.wiki.fextralife.com/Dark+Souls+Wiki
http://darksouls.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Souls_Wiki

NPC merchant selling the cure for curse needs only to be talked to. a list comes up w all his items and each item has descriptive text that tells the lore and the game function, telling you exactly what it does.

OK, that clears it up. So you just have to be aware of who has what, should it be needed, and be thorough in your interactions.

there are definitely some bosses with e.g. elemental weaknesses or resistances that make a significant difference. and, as far as getting a powerful weapon, for DS1 in particular if you don't know how to get a strong weapon e.g. drake sword or astora straight sword, the early part of the game is so much harder. doing undead parish with a regular weapon on my first playthru still haunts me.

wikis are an essential (and surely intended) resource for some of the more involved parts of the game. i am sure you could muddle through without them but really no reason.

yeah why bother trying to remember which merchant carries what when you can just check online

Well, for example, I am playing Doom for the first time, and it's tons of fun, but I have been very careful about balancing how much I look up versus how much I discover. Discovery is part of the game, but of course it can be frustrating, and you can lose a lot as well. Looking things up helps, but you ruin that element of exploration and surprise. I guess the challenge is knowing when to stop and look something up and when to just keep pushing through.

My favorite DS1 wiki, it has the appropriate level of austerity:

http://darksouls.wikidot.com/purging-stone

(^looking at that item's in-game text should give you an idea if what you're in for -- the game isn't going to hold your hand, but it's not willfully obscure either)

On my first playthrough I made rules for myself about looking up mechanics but not areas or strategies, unless I got stuck.

The thing that always gets me with all sorts of games is the feeling that I'm missing really awesome and fun parts of the game just because I don't know they exist without looking them up!

You're definitely not going to find or do everything the first time through. Better to surrender to that, the sense of discovery when you do find secrets on your own is great. Althouuuugh I guess I am glad that I looked up certain things (like the Painted World...although that can be a tough cul-de-sac to get out of, so maybe you're not meant to find it the first time through?).

I tend to explore as much as I can then use wikis when stuck/baffled, and to try not to feel bad about doing so! Later runs can be tried with no assistance or with trying to find everything or joining certain covenants etc.

I didn't do much of anything online or with covenants in the original, so that's gonna be the thing in the remaster.

its all about exploring. you always hear about the difficulty or combat but exploring is at least 50% of the game. the world is built so that there are paths of least resistance but also a ton of entirely optional areas that make going back and replaying a joy.

I have a friend who plays a lot of video games and still won't try DS because of its reputation as 'the hardest game ever'. It's really not that hard!

It's very rare that I read a book a second time, let alone several times, and it's a lot easier and faster to read a book than to play many of these games. The idea of finishing Dark Souls or anything like that and thinking hey, that was fun, I'm going to do it all over again from the beginning for 140 hours to see what I missed ... that seems unlikely. That's why I get fomo.

I'm usually the same way, but by the end you've gotten so much better and learned everything, so it's actually really tempting to go back to the beginning and cruise through it. You'll see!

no need for NG when you get to the final boss in DS. as long as you don't kill him you can explore to your heart's content.

Dipped a toe into Dark Souls 2 (First Sin edition, or whatever they call it). Already it just feels and looks ... different from DS1 and DS2.

DS3, I meant.

This game really leans into large groups of enemies, doesn't it? And dark rooms? At least it does so far. Bad reputation or no, it's fine so far (very early game still, haven't hit a boss yet), and I like how even the least loved From game still had some new ideas that made their way into future From games.

There was meant to be a much heavier gameplay emphasis on using torches to light up dark rooms that was somewhat present in one fairly difficult early area, but had to be scaled back because of technical challenges for the rest of the game

Is that why there are things to light everywhere? I think I'm at a dark room area that I should probably light up before exploring.

Huh, so enemies stop respawning after a certain number of kills? Is that to stop you from farming? That's kinda annoying.

Killed the giant, which is a weird first boss. Noticing more glitches and odd janky stuff in this than in any other From game. Between those and the look/design and some aspects of game play, this feels almost like an off-brand knockoff Dark Souls. Still enjoying it so far.

I think it was to make it easier for someone who just couldn't get past a certain section?

I noticed with "Wolfenstein: New Order" (which I finished; it was dumb) that if you die at a certain spot enough times it gives you a prompt reminding you that you can change the difficulty at any time. I think I like that better. But "Dark Souls," to just decide at a certain arbitrary point to make it "easier" (you still have to beat the bosses!) without asking kind of misses the point of "Dark Souls." I'd rather them offer a more powerful weapon or ring you can save up to buy early game than just get rid of spawning, especially since farming, in all these games, is a thing, not least ... to make things easier, by leveling up. I guess there's a reason the no-spawning thing was dropped in later From games.

Is this no-spawning thing the case for the whole game, or just early game? And if they wanted to make things easier for players, then why have the health bar shrink every time you die? I'd much rather have *more* enemies and a full health bar. And honestly, who would play DS2 if they didn't play any of the other games first? And if they played any of the other games, they should know what they're in for.

There's weapon degradation in this too, right? I've been using the fire longsword I got in a cave as I build up my levels, and I could have sworn at one point its life meter was decreasing, but then it seemed to be full again.

It's the whole game, but you can use an item to reset the area (and make them harder!): http://darksouls2.wikidot.com/bonfire-ascetic

I think this was when the conversation around Dark Souls being a difficult game was at its height, so they experimented with a bunch of weird mechanics around it. There's also the 'Covenant of champions', where you can opt in to making the game much harder off the bat, lol: http://darksouls2.wikidot.com/company-of-champions

I think you need to repair weapons at a blacksmith in this game? Which is a pain. Possibly intended to encourage you to carry and use multiple weapons?

That said, I did appreciate the lack of spawning when it came to the Pursuer. I died to him enough times that it was a relief when I didn't have to bother killing enemies at bottlenecks on the way back to the fight.

Still, I still think From got rid of the respawning to make things *harder*, to prevent too much farming. I mean, why would they do this one thing to make things harder, when dying enough to prevent enemies from spawning also means your health bar has been shrinking? Especially at this stage in the game, when humanity is limited, and that (afaict) is the only thing you can use to restore the health bar to its full capacity. And even then, it doesn't even top it off for you! I've also encountered a bunch of glitches and other bullshit that have messed with the game. For example, screwy hit boxes: I've been damaged by enemies when I'm *behind* them! Also, as I was struggling with the Pursuer I learned there was indeed a summon, so I used one of my precious humanities, led him to the battle ... and he got stuck behind the fog gate. Wtf?

The most shocking thing is that this *is* the "fixed" version of the game.

("make things easier" I meant.)

OK, "Sekiro" is still my least favorite, for now, so far, but at least it runs well. This one, the design and execution is just so ... like a Dark Souls knockoff. And speaking of which, at the start of Heide Tower of Flame Power, I'm pretty sure I fell off the path to my death as much of if not more than I died to the giant knights and the white knights (all with pretty impressive homing blades). I need to crank up ADP to get i-frames, right? Because my rolling ain't really getting me far.

Oh, another thing that seems new/annoying with this is ... infinite aggro range? That is, once you engage an enemy, they basically follow you wherever you go, forcing you either to fight them again and again, or (if you're insane) all at once. There's no more option of just running through areas you've had enough of, afaict. I thought I could do that when I was running to the Pursuer fight, and then I learned that you're not invulnerable when you enter fog gates. They just swarmed and killed me before I even got to the boss.

My current strategy, at least at this tower of fire stage, which doesn't seem that long, is to repeatedly clear out an area specifically to stop the enemies from spawning. if they're going to have infinite aggro range, and if the game's going to make you fight them over and over again before you get to the boss, and not let you run past them, and not even give you invincibility when you open the fog gate, then I'm just going to kill them aall and use it for farming until it won't let me anymore. and then I'll have a clear run to the boss.

Invaders loved being able to backstab someone as they were going into the fog gate, lol.

And yeah, you need to level adaptability just to get a normal Dark Souls roll, which was dumb.

Yeah, add that to the litany of pain in the butt stuff that seems to be there just to be a pain in the butt.

Oh, I see, the Pursuer is just going to randomly pop up now and kill me? And now he's got magic ranged attacks? Good one, Dark Souls 2.

Speaking of which, this game seems to punish you for melee builds. Lots of advantages to ranged attacks in general. I guess I should buy a bunch more arrows.

Well, he is called the Pursuer for a reason.

He should be called the Just Randomly Shows Upper Because he is Too Fat to Pursuer Me Through Doorways

visions of fatty...

Another head-scratcher: I understand this version adds a bunch of statues blocking doorways that require a Fragrant Branch of Yore (or whatever), but ... why? Seems like just another example of putting a hurdle in for hurdle's sake.

There were statues in the original version, I think they were just moved around in the Scholar version? Basically the same as locked doors requiring key items in the other games, except they all take the same key. Mostly optional stuff and items behind them I think, but I never really played the SotFS version.

I think they all require a Branch, and those branches are iic both limited and not cheap. And of course there are keys to be found or bought, too!

I'm at Lost Bastille, and so far getting to various bosses exposes you to more BS and often tougher enemies than the bosses themselves, especially if you're clubbing baddies to death with a mace and not firing lasers at them from a distance.

That's what I meant by key item, the branches (but yeah, I didn't love that mechanic, it felt too fraught to use a branch and not know if you were opening up a big path or just getting some optional item).

Lost Bastille was one of the cooler levels I think? But this isn't making me want to replay DS2, lol.

I hope Lost Bastille is not one of the cooler levels, because it's just kind of like a drab castle with lots of dogs and mummies and bullshit. The only point of it existing seems to be unlocking the ember blacksmith.

Ha, maybe I'm thinking of the next couple areas and conflating them into one?

More DS2 BS for the sake of BS. I thought I was coming up to a gargoyle battle, but it turns out I can't get to the (optional?) boss without another lockstone. I did have two lockstones before, but I used them up the first chances I had, once to get into a secret room (the first time) and the second to afaict light up No Man's Wharf, after which I realized a) I really didn't need to do that and b) oh shit, these are consumables? But you're limited to how many you can find or buy, for some reason, which, like the magic branch, imposes a pointless obstacle to progress for no good reason and with no easy/cheap remedy.

Also been finding more and more glitches, usually to my benefit. One of the Ruin Bosses refused to fight me and just kept backing up. A couple of other enemies have gotten stick in corners and stuff. Just kind of slapdash all around, which is surprising, given how fine-tuned all the other From games are, and besides, this edition is *already* a redux version, you'd think it would be less janky.

OK, so I watched a walkthrough, and afaict you used to be required to fight the gargoyles to get a key, but now you get the key without fighting them, plus (again, afaict) if you do use a rare Pharros Keystone to fight them, you get next to no rewards beyond maybe ... early access to the Dragon Tooth club, if that's something you want? That's some poor game design. Now every since time I come across a Pharros lock I'll need to look up whether it is worth wasting it.

Skeleton Lords was a dumb boss fight that kind of underscores the problem with this installment, namely that I presume it was designed as a "gotcha" boss: there's a 10 second gap or so between taking out a Lord (which is easy) and spawning an overwhelming mass of lil' skeletons. Obviously it's only a surprise the first time - the gotcha. And then the second time you know to kill the Lords one at a time, then the skeletons, then a Lord, then the skeletons, etc. It's not hard at all, and all it has going for it is that early gotcha. This seems tied in to the game's BS for the sake of BS; it doesn't make it harder, per se, just more of a pain in the ass, which I don't recall so much in other From games. Plus this one remains technologically wonky, which is to say, *accidentally* difficult. I summoned both spirits to take on the Lost Sinner, just to speed things up, and it's remarkable how much I was somehow damaged by its moveset just standing around watching the NPCs tank it. Didn't help that I was accidentally wielding the wrong weapon, which looked similar to my primary.

How Dark Souls 2 ended up such a mess compared to the other games is a mystery, especially since they fixed and changed a whole bunch of stuff for Scholar of the First Sin and yet it's *still* messy. (I still like the game, it's just so far the worst designed of the whole bunch.)

I'm about to fight the Chariot, which seems like another gimmick, not least because they have an OP NPC phantom with a giant sword guarding the door to the boss.

IIRC Miyazaki and his team only had tangential involvement with this installment, resulting in some of the rougher edges and weird continuity stuff. I quite like its idiosyncracies, it's a bit like Super Mario Bros 2, a slightly strange but nonetheless lovable step-child.

Ugh, this path to the Chariot is such a pain in the ass. I can't wait for all these enemies to stop respawning, because the couple of times in the Chariot arena alone have been annoying enough.

Chariot down. What a dumb boss.

Dark Souls 2 is like one of those Hollywood remakes where the hotshot director thinks they know what made the original good, but then changes or messes with it.

I think one reason I'm enjoying DS2, for all my complaints, is that it's so weirdly all over the place in terms of difficulty that I rarely take it that seriously. That is, lots of common enemies that are (so far) waaaay harder than the bosses. I'm at Harvest Valley, and all the enemies are totally overpowered, and everything is poison, or hard to see, or both. Even the bonfires are essentially poison, which is perverse. So there have been a lot of suicide runs, which are less of any issue since I remembered I had the Ring of Binding, which reduces the health bar decline.

And that Jabba the hut boss at the end of the poison mess was possibly the most pointlessly easy boss in any From game.

Feeling sheepish about the fact that I’m on track to win DS1 for the third time on Switch— my first win was straight DEX, second win was sorcery, this one is Pyromancy which has been fun both in PvE and PvP, handling all invaders handily. I understand poise now! My char is wearing Knight leggings, Eastern gloves, Dust Crown. Dingy top when I want security and Antiquated when I want to look fashion

And yet I’ve never played any other From games. I’m a Nintendo house. So I bit the bullet and ordered a PS4 for Christmas w the trilogy and Bloodborne. Should I just skip DS2 entirely?

Way to go fgti, I love to see it! A lot of people like DS2, but it's definitely the odd one out. Brighter colors, different animation style, just a different feel than all the other games. It's my least favorite and I would go for DS3 or Bloodborne first, but who knows, maybe you'll love it. Although since you love Breath of the Wild, it seems like Elden Ring is going to be your game.

Aw Josh, I really liked the Chariot gimmick boss. Maybe because there are multiple ways to win (just rolling under the spiked wheels, or running to the safe alcoves and fighting the enemies in close quarters there (and eventually the boss), or running the opposite way and letting him run into the pit iirc).

The giant fat slug boss has to be a joke or a fake out, right? I think there's another boss after that (the poison queen) that's more of a real fight.

xpost DS3 and Bloodborne rule, they're the best of the bunch, imo. DS2 really does feel like a cheap knockoff.

The Chariot boss in DS2 is like the 4th boss where the fight/challenge is about everything *but* the boss.

I mean… I like BOTW because it’s the depressing Zelda, you know? Watching previews for Elden Ring, I’m hesitant in my enthusiasm.

If I can nail down what I adore about DS1, it’s the synergy between research and play. One of my favouritest games is ADOM. You can play it, but to advance, you need to do some research. Picking the Master Key in DS1 is like rerolling for Candle birth sign in ADOM. All the awkward layouts in DS1 felt similar— yes, you have to risk death-by-falling any time you want to go from New Londo to Blighttown; yes, same with that awkward ladder ledge between the hydra lake and Darkroot Garden. Yes, you have to consult a guide to figure out about the Rusty Ring, just like you had to consult an FAQ to figure out where to find a boar skull for the witch so you could fulfill the convoluted requirements for an Ultra ending in ADOM. It feels fiddly and like “research” and that’s what I like about DS1. So excited for the others. Wish Demon’s Souls was available for PS4

Bloodborne may be the best of the bunch, from a gameplay and design standpoint, and DS3 is kinda like they recognized what made Bloodborne the best and applied it to the DS model. Sekiro is the biggest detour, though still very much a From game.

Ok yeah, I don't know if any of the other games fully capture the magic of the Dark Souls world design - that top-to-bottom interconnectedness where there are so many different ways to go and break sequence in the first half of the game. Maybe Bloodborne comes the closest? Demon's Souls has the most freedom on the surface since you can select any area through the archstones, but they're not seamlessly joined. And Dark Souls 3 has a few branching paths, as well as large areas that are nice and twisty with shortcuts, but on the whole it's more linear (but my favorite for the pvp). And because it was my first one I had the same experience with deep research, and loved the sense of inscrutability.

My hope for Elden Ring is that it has that same sense of possibility to go in many directions at the start of the game, with the intricate level design once you get there.

I stupidly infused a raw stone to my +8 mace and I think nerfed my strength scaling. And of course there is no easy way to reverse it. Groan.

that top-to-bottom interconnectedness where there are so many different ways to go and break sequence in the first half of the game

I think most of the second-half of DS1, once warp is enabled, is pretty garbagio. Repeat Demon/Lost Izalith/Bed Of Chaos is hilariously stupid, and I can't stand Duke's Archives/Crystal Cave/Bald Dragon. Every time I've done the Lordvessel thing I kinda sigh about what I've got left to do-- aside from the fantastic DLC the second half of the game is such a let-down

But it's mostly because the first half is so so so amazing. There's nothing really like being with Andre and thinking "ok I need to get to the forest cats" or "I need to get to the rat farm in the Depths" and running a little Mapquest in your head about which route is the most efficient.

Totally. It's kinda sad that they're apparently never going to make another game without fast travel.

Apparently in Elden Ring it's at least possible to get anywhere (or most places) in the world without warping, so you can exercise restraint and not use it, but I imagine it's going to take hella long. On the other hand you at least want to travel somewhere by foot/horse the first time, to catch all the stuff in the overworld.

I'm kind of curious how streamers are going to manage walkthroughs with an open world game featuring secrets and tricks in every single vast nook and cranny.

I think the most annoying aspect unique to this game so far is the seemingly unlimited aggro range of enemies. Not only does it make it more or less impossible to run through most bullshit, since you reach your destination with a dozen enemies trailing right behind you, but you can't really kite them anymore, either. I realized there was something I missed in No Man's Wharf, so went back and (inevitably) died do to sloppy impatience, with 10+ souls left behind. I want to retrieve that, so I cautiously make my way back to the point above where I died (after getting overwhelmed by three guys with swords, four dogs, etc.). This time I decide to take out the dogs from above with my bow, so shoot at a couple until I lose track and try to find another enemy to snipe. But while I'm looking, these stupid (smart) dogs had I guess snuck off into a nearby building, ascended a few flights of stairs, and somehow homed in on me at my remote perch and killed me before I could even switch back to my melee weapon. That's some hilariously overpowered aggro range.

Another new thing: non-boss areas behind fog gates. Does this feature in any of the other games? Anyway, I was unhollowed and had summoned a couple of NPCs to follow me around poisonville while I explored. One fog gate near the summons had brought me to a bonfire, so the next time I saw a fog gate I went through with my NPC buds, but this one *was* a boss. Medusa. She was pretty easy, given I knew to light the windmill on fire first, which had I not known that would have possibly made it the biggest bit of From bullshit yet. I think next up is Iron Keep, which iirc is another notorious bit of frustrating BS.

Fog gates to nothing in particular are in most/?all of the games that have fog gates

they definitely existed in DS1, they work as pvp invasion zone delimiters

Weird, I don't remember them at all. Wait, now that I think of it I do remember them a few times, but usually right after a boss, not just randomly found within a single zone, which was the case in Earthen Peak. All it lead to was an isolated bonfire.

I remember those DS2 fog walls, they're weird. In the other games you generally only see non-boss fog walls when doing multiplayer.

DS2 is definitely the difficult sophomore album where they were reacting against the one before. I think they were trying to be different, but also at time there was so much conversation about the supposed difficulty of Dark Souls. Maybe they were leaning into it and trying to up the ante so you couldn't just run past enemies, heal super quickly, enter a fog wall without getting backstabbed, etc? All things that they've since backtracked on.

There might be something to that. I really can't remember, but is this the only From game that gives you a trophy for dying the first time? It definitely leans into, um, killing you. Which is irritating, because humanity (at the start) is relatively limited. Which means if you have 20 humanity stored up, that's only 20 times you can restore humanity, which is a pretty modest number considering how often you (I) die, which in turn dissuades you from reversing your hollowing, so ... why bother?

In DS1, the reasons for reverse hollowing were 1. kindle bonfires, 2. fun multiplayer, 3. better item drop rates (I think?)

I think the first winning build I ran was using Quelaag's Furysword, a chaos weapon (scales with soft humanity). I was mistakenly under the impression that you had to be unhollowed to get the chaos buff, and was always unhollowed as a result. Nope! You can just be a random undead carrying around 10 humanity and it is fine

I tried Bloodborne for the first time last night and was taken aback by the mood of it, all top hats and tramp stamps

In DS2, every time you die you lose a sliver of your max health, a condition which can only be fixed by reversing your hollowing. (Also, unlike the other installments, iirc, reversing your hollowing here doesn't even *replenish* your health.) So in addition to needing to be human to summon NPCs, if you don't occasionally reverse your hollowing you're at an increasingly serious HP disadvantage. Which means the more you die, the harder the game becomes, which is pretty unfair and stupid, because it is already hard, that's why you've died a lot.

Lol yeah, Bloodborne definitely has a steampunk LARPer vibe.

It's interesting that in Elden Ring they seem to have removed any additional drawbacks or incentives around 'hollowing' + multiplayer. It's a straight-up proposition of "you want to summon help, then you open yourself up to invasions." No change in hp or anything as far as we know.

I don't really play video games but I got through ds1 recently and am pretty far through ds3. I guess when I started playing ds1 it was near the 10 year anniversary so tons of people were playing the game again. it took me so long to realize what the blood stains were and the ghost looking figures running around everywhere. Felt like I stumbled upon a singular video game playing experience, I mean yeah, the vibe of ds1 itself is like nothing else, but there was also this huge influx of life in the game. Glad I could co-op most of the bosses and get killed over and over again by invaders

Yeah I enjoyed that about DS1 myself on my most recent playthrough. I say “playthrough” but I haven’t beat Kalameet or Gwyn just yet and don’t know if I will.

I took down Artorias single-handedly and skillfully, then gave myself a break w Manus and summoned two jolly buddies and a dog and it was an easy 90 seconds

I waited around for summon help for Kalameet and none arrived. Offered help and none was taken— can you help a buddy on a boss you haven’t beaten? maybe not. I only beat Kalameet once before and I remember it was hellish

You can, for sure.

Kalameet and Manus took me foreverrr on my first playthrough, very memorable though. Much much easier when I went through again on the remastered version.

I've never played online, but I want to say I didn't always summon NPC help in any of these games, just sometimes (depending on whether or not it was worth the inflated enemy HP). DS2, I'm summoning them every chance I can get, not least because there are so many bosses and so much bullshit everywhere.

I hadn’t done PvP until this month and I loved it.

I pumped all my early souls into a pyro flame that was way overpowered for my soul level. Then I’d invade and do a Fire Tempest (which worked 1 in 10 times). If they lived I’d rush in the confusion and batter them (which worked 1 in 10 times). If they still survived I’d blocky blocky block block until they got a false sense of security/weariness and then surprise them with a one-hit shield-ignoring Combustion (which worked 1 in 10 times).

I got indicted a lot

And I died 7 out of 10 times

Oh also I dressed great. Antiquated shirt plus knight leggings? I looked great

That's always the most important part 100%

I'm at Iron Keep now, which further underscores how this From game, more than any of the others, really emphasizes the need for ranged weapons, not least because running through/past shit is no longer an option.

Heh, on the other hand, cheesing out this huge number of knights with my bow is both satisfying and pretty easy, especially since they're pushovers in combat, too. The weird downside I've found is that by the time I make it to the fog gate I've accumulated a *ton* of souls, so don't feel like entering it to battle whatever is behind it (Fire Demon?) and risk losing it all. So I backtrack and spend the souls to level up, then repeat. Eventually I'll just have to bit the bullet and risk losing a bunch of souls to the boss.

Smelter Demon down. I must admit I've been doing most of the bosses with NPC summons, but to be honest, in other From games said NPCs have been hit or miss in terms of effectiveness, but in this one they've been helping me absolutely destroy the bosses.

Finished up Iron Keep/Iron King (who was stupid; died once falling off the platform). While this is absolutely the worst and jankiest game in the series, I am having a lot of fun just giving in to the ridiculous mechanics of it. Iron Keep, for example, there's a turtle guy way the fuck away, but if you shoot him with an arrow he will steadily make his way all the way across the big arena to where you are. Unless you time it right and lower him on the platform to his death first. Either way, the unerring homing powers of the enemies might work to your disadvantage when it comes to outrunning them, but in terms of kiting, they slowly but surely make their way right to where you are. Which is to say, their doom. Unless they fall off a ledge or something first. Takes time to do shit like this, but when they're scattering easily aggroed enemies all over the place, some with magic arrows that curve toward you, it's better to give in and embrace the cheese.

Come to think of it, you know what's weird? The Pursuer, despite his name, might be the only enemy that *doesn't* pursue you! It just pops up, and you either fight him or you don't and then he vanishes again. This would be a different game (and a bigger PIA) if he followed you until you killed him.

Ah, my dark Christmas present arrived early today, I have the whole trilogy now

I am very seduced by Bloodborne though and am excited to come back to Dark Souls 2 in a couple weeks all shieldless, perhaps

I don't use a shield, I've never been that good at parrying except when absolutely necessary. I'm more a club them over the head kind of player.

I extremely was a DS1 shield user and those days are past, seemingly

I played about ten minutes of DS2 and haven’t felt so appalled at the whiffing of a sequel since.. uh Ultima 8 maybe

Oh, it's a total whiff, but I'm enjoying it in a very low stakes way.

Agreed, but the beginning is especially bad because rolling doesn't even work properly until you level adaptability.

DS3 is the true sequel imo.

Considering how leaps and bounds is Bloodborne I am inclined to finish it and move on to DS3

I am kinda amazed about what DS2 is like on first impression tbh

DS3 is great, I played that before Bloodborne.

So much that's wrong with Dark Souls 2 feels kind of like weird self-owns. Like, we know what works, but just for shits and giggles let's try doing something different and stupid and annoying, just to see what happens. Oh, no one liked that? Fine, let's sort of remake the game and put out a new edition, but still not fix everything, maybe people will like that better. No? Well, can't win them all, this stuff is hard.

(Miyazaki returns for Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne and Sekiro and makes it look easy.)

Though to be fair, Dark Souls 2 was generally received okay, wasn't it? I know there are people that love it, but probably for weird or pointless esoteric reasons. Like, there are probably insane people who like it specifically *because* you have to up adaptability just to be able to get iframes, for some reason.

I was smitten with the opening cinematics, but strike one was the way a crone rolled the “make sure you don’t go hollowwww” around her mouth, and then the mechanics of the enemies were bad bad, and the “tutorial” section was so ugly, and when they did Fan Service Snuggly right off the bat I was just like “WOW NO THIS IS WRONG”

Playing a bad sequel has the possibility to be legacy-souring toward the beloved predecessor so I’m gonna hard pass and skip ahead to DS3 when I finish Bloodborne

Which is great

Yeah, there's a reason I saved it for last. The level design, the enemy design, the bosses, the enemy AI, most of it is pretty half-assed or aggravating (or both). But like I said, it's pretty low stress, like you're playing a free hacked version of a game you found.

You might like Sekiro, which is really well made and definitely in the same From family but still pretty different (sometimes subtly, sometimes significantly) from Souls and Bloodborne (and easily the most challenging of the bunch).

Forgot to mention that I changed my gender in the coffin (I usually play these games female in the off chance my daughters are paying attention, just so that it's not another dude with sword game) and ... it's pretty ridiculous. The first thing I noticed is that I suddenly *ran* like a girl - at least I think that's what it's going for - and then the next thing I noticed is that my death scream is the fakest barely even an approximation of a woman screaming. DS2 even fucked up the female scream sound!

Popped back in after a vacation break, and more than ever I want to know how this mess got made. Like, I know that Miyazaki wasn't really involved, and a certain level of jank is to be expected from any game, let alone one that was reportedly a little rushed and rudderless. But there is some degree of shittiness that's just inexplicable, most notably (so far) the enemy design, but particularly the bosses. For example, I just fought the Royal Rat, which was easy and stupid. Before that was the Cleric Mob (or whatever), which was easy and stupid. There have been a number of bosses which were also easy and stupid (and in many cases easy *because* they're stupid as much as stupid because they were so easy; looking at you, Jabba the Hut). Compare this with, say, "Sekiro," where *everything* is challenge, even many common enemies. But some of the other enemies are just so lazy in their design. Huh, a baddy that looks like a lion but also ... roars like a lion. Or a baddy that looks like an elephant and trumpets like one, too. Snooze.

And the mechanics as well remain weirdly wonky and slapdash. I'm in Brightstone Cove are there are a few things that have happened that remain I guess unexplained. Like, once I went across these spikes by a bridge and it kept making damage sounds but afaict nothing was happening. Another few times baddies shot what looked like double white sparky arrows at me that made a special spark sound, too, but either couldn't reach me (for once) or did nothing. And a couple times I was cursed, and that seemingly did nothing, either, which was a surprise after what happens with curse in DS1. And yet the toxicity of the rats killed me in like three seconds. So odd.

Giant Spider was tougher than the last several, but mostly because even the shittiest bosses here so far seem to take off half your health with one hit.

Lol, cruising through Shrine of Armana further shows off some shitty design. I mean, it *looks* cool enough, but it's so dark, enough so that you really should use a torch. Yet unlike all the previous levels of the game, there's nothing to actually ignite, and because there's water and enemies everywhere your torch keeps going out. That's almost perversely dickish, even for Dark Souls. And the level's progress, pitfalls and all it does a pretty poor job directing you where to go, too. Out of all the From games, this may be the first time I've ever completely missed a bonfire. Not some secret wall hidden bonfire BS. either, just a full-on bonfire location I guess I walked/ran past and I suppose no longer need, seeing as I made it to the next one instead. And some rando enemies and loot in here, too. DS2 reminds me of one of those full-game fan-mods I've seen people play, like Daughters of Ash.

Yeah that was exactly my impression, it felt like a full-game fan-mod

I imagine that it would've been enjoyable when it arrived, with no other From titles in the ether, but I can't imagine playing it for longer than the hour that I did... especially after sneaking peeks at certain boss fights, I'm kinda appalled!

Shrine of Amana was an infamously difficult gauntlet on release, to the point where they patched it and made it easier. I played it but can't remember why exactly -- probably something to do with your movement being slowed in the water and enemies shooting ranged magic at you from everywhere?

Yes. In fact, I killed the Frog Boss on the first try then decided to backtrack to the bonfire I missed, to see what other good stuff I missed, and it was such a PIA that I gave up on it. Wizards shooting homing magic at you, while pretty tough other dudes are swinging at you and lizard people are jumping out of the water at you, and then the occasional giant knight or hippo, and ... whatever. Sooooo much harder than the boss.

literally just lost 100k souls in demons souls to an invader popping up and ganking me as i was summoning a friend
this fucking game

I've become at peace with losing souls. DS2, at least, really seems to throw souls at you, especially at my stage, so if I lose thousands it never feels like the end of the world.

I'm at the level with the bellringers and rocks in the way and magic casters and it kind of sucks and just encourages you to find a way to speed past shit. Iirc this might be the only one of these games that offers NPC summons at the *start* of levels, not just for bosses, which is an admission there's a whole lot of bullshit to clear out and deal with.

Just killed ... I forget his name. Not Vendrick but the guy with the hammer/bell before him? Anyway, unrelated, this game, way more than any of the others, really seems to favor ranged attacks and, based on the items, magic? I keep getting tons and tons of stuff and talking to tons and tons of NPCs I really have no need for. Meanwhile, as a pretty meat and potatoes strength build (though honestly I've leveled up a bunch of stuff) there's really nothing for me. No need for magic, etc, no need to use stones or anything. Just my good ol' mace and a claymore (for when I need to sweep and stab). I have all these awesome strength scaling swords, but they're so fucking heavy I'd rather go for weaker than be forced to fat roll.

Killed the dragon. Yet *another* case in DS2 where the path to the boss was harder than the boss.

Just did Dragonland, too, at least the early part, and it was surprisingly chill and threat-free for something that lets you fight multiple dragons. What a weird game.

I did both dragon worlds, which were oddly empty and easy and with no bosses. Huh. The funny thing was that I went to a different area to check something out after, the place with the lion men, and there was some glitch that made their roar follow me to subsequent different levels I was re-exploring. It was like adventuring in a zoo.

Vendrick is (I think) the first boss I haven't beaten on the first or second try. Granted, there's no summons, and I have often been taking advantage of them, at the least to speed up this seemingly loooooong game. But also what makes it tricky (for me) is that he is like a reverse skill check: he doesn't seem hard, he's not fast and just walks in a circle, but he hits like a tank and swings wide, so it's all about being patient, like a boring dance. Hit, step step, hit, step step. For a long time. I learned about the Giant Souls making him easier/normal, and he's optional, but still.

And now he's been vanquished. What a boring boss. I think there are ... three DLCs to do next? I've heard both that they're among the best in all the games but also at least one of them is among the most frustrating. Also I assume there is at least one final boss to get, as far as the main game/"plot" goes.

Eh, I just went ahead and finished the main game. Man, the final cavalcade of bosses in this is a breeze compared to Sekiro. Here's how I would rank all the From games (not including the DLC for DS2, which I'll get to soon).

Best game: Bloodborne. Hands down, best lore, most surprises, best look/design, best play style, great DLC.
Worst game: DS2. It gets better, but it is so unbalanced. Bosses are easy, levels and regular enemies tough, janky gameplay. But still fine/fun.
Best Dark Souls: Probably the first, but I really liked the third.
Favorite all around: I want to say DS3 or BB, especially with the DLC.
Least favorite all around: Sekiro. It's really well designed but I never clicked with the gameplay or setting or lack of options. Didn't bother with all that epic PIA endgame stuff.
Worst plot: all of them are impenetrable gibberish about cycles and reincarnation and blood and thrones, and I don't care how many youtube videos claim otherwise.

have you played demon souls yet

No, I don't have a PS5.

i'm in endgame of the first runthrough. holds up well but SO MANY OUTDATED PLAYSTYLES and they opted to leave them in.

Today I figured, well, I don't really have time to play much, but I can at least get to the first bonfire of each DLC to save some time later. I start with Sunken King and quickly realize, ugh, one more run through this poison bullshit to get to the warp spot, but I do it and get to the DLC bonfire. Then I move on to Ivory King, which is easy enough, and get to the bonfire. That leaves Iron King, so I zip over to where I need to be, warp, and ... I'm missing a key. I've been pretty good at following along with a guide, nowhere near 100% but getting most of the major stuff, so I wonder how I could be missing something so, well, key. And it turns out they hid the key in with the fire salamanders all the way back toward the start. Lol, what a PIA, those things suck, no wonder I skipped them. I get the Heavy Iron Key, which is easy enough, but decide to stick around and fight them a bit to see what other loot is there and ... man, even end of game and all leveled up, they're tough! Especially for enemies encountered so early in the game.

My only (positive) memory of the DS2 dlc is the Fume Knight boss fight, that felt worth figuring out. But then I hit Sir Alonne and bailed.

Started ... I don't know which one I started. Sunken City of Sorrow or something? So far seems OK, albeit with the usual DS2 hard lean into gratuitous pain in the assery. Moving platforms! Moving poison statues! Level design that literally made me motion sick! Which is the second time that's happened in this game. The first was in the swaying bridge illusion in Dragon Land. This one starts out with a similar crooked fun house illusion that messed with my brain.

OK, this three-on-one boss fight might be the first I jus skip (aside from the gargoyles, I guess, which I may go back and unlock). It's just kind of boring and a pain, and adding Havel just to pancake you is like the stupid icing on the stupid cake.

I know it's not the way the game is supposed to be played, but there is nothing more satisfying than returning to an area/boss you skipped once you are massively over-leveled and just kicking its ass. Looking at you, gargoyles in the Belfry. These DLC bosses, on the other hand, they don't mess around.

I forgot about that 3v1 fight, I thought that was a funny meta-commentary on the common gank squad. :) And I actually remember enjoying it too, it was sort of a puzzle to figure out how to properly cheese/separate them.

It's literally a slog. Run around the arena in circles fast, then go slooow down in the water, then move back up and repeat. Maybe later. I just killed ... I don't know its name, the one that can summon the other one, and/or skeletons. Not too bad, took a few tries to get it down. I think there's a big dragon immediately next. Then I'll move on to a different DLC.

I like when I google for tips, and I see "this 3v1 fight, this giant dragon, this boss that summons multiple helpers, the worst thing you can do is summon the NPCs for help because that just inflates their HP." Sure, that's true, but when a boss can more or less one-shot you or seriously damage you with one hit, imo the more distractions the better when it comes to reducing said HP, wherever it's at, *especially* when there's more than one enemy (who in DS2 have weird hit boxes, and crazy range, and sometimes their weapons hit you through things from across the room, etc.). And especially when so many of the fights, summons or no, hinge on RNG. Playing offline already imo makes things harder - no hints on the ground, no helpers - so not taking advantage of built-in mechanics designed to make up for that seems weird.

File Slumbering Dragon under another DLC that doesn't really seem worth the effort, especially with the broken weapon mechanic built into it. Started the Snowy Realm DLC and ... it's pretty snowy.

I'm liking the snow realm so far. In fact, I'm very proud of the fact that I beat the sabertooth tiger boss on my first try, solo, which is ... not something I usually do. I was about to turn off the game and I thought, eh, should I see what I'm up against? So I just jumped in with no summons and did it (with reduced health, no less). Maybe I got lucky? Fortunately I had made the cat visible first, though I'm sure there are nuts out there that can beat it invisible with a broken dagger in their underwear.

Those ice porcupines may be the most annoying and deadly enemies in any of these games.

On the other hand, the fake white phantom that pretends to be your friend is actually a rare point of levity in these games.

I guess even these DLCs are in a sense unbalanced, because after an entire game's worth of pretty easy bosses, it's like they went too far the other direction and made all the bosses in the DLC hard as hell. Three on one fight! Giant dragon with weapon degradation! Burnt Ivory King and his minions! Double tigers after a shitty slog of a path! Sir Alonne and the Fume Knight! All I can say is: dag. I like the levels themselves, though, fun and challenging, though like the rest of this game they seem to favor range and/or magic attacks, or at least they often seem to penalize melee builds. But the bosses? Ugh. Might just skip and move on to a different game.

Just started this tonight after a couple of previous false starts. It's good so far! Enjoying how many NPCs there are to talk to. Also love the fact there seem to be loads of soapstones etc for a ten year old game

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I saw a video last night, I kinda wanna play it

I still have the central hub music implanted in my memory, it's like an Eno ambient piece

Fgti play it, we can swap notes. I pretty much spent lady night doing the tutorial and the hub, so not really started the game proper.

I was so glad to emerge from the tutorial area into daylight: shades of Elden Ring there. There are a few commonalities with Eternal Ring on this one too!

My local pub, they like to run From playthroughs on the TVs there. The other night they were running DS2 and I was transfixed, seeing a highly familiar interface but completely unfamiliar environments. Idk. I hated the first six hours I played of it, and every time I read about "the bosses" they sound terrible! Maybe some day I'll play it.

I've decided I'm going to stick with it for now.

I generally trust the Bonfireside Chat guys on things like this (even if I don't always agree with them), and they really like DS2 despite having certain misgivings about DS3 (too much unnecessary fan service that doesn't make sense etc).

My local pub, they like to run From playthroughs on the TVs there

The perfect bar doesn't exi--

Seriously, that rules.

I think it would be enjoyable to replay this with the benefit of hindsight, instead of being all excited about The Sequel to Dark Souls.

Things I remember - it feels better after you level adaptability and get a normal amount of i-frames for your roll (still can't believe there was a stat for this), parry timing is super weird, and it was fun to fight the Pursuer and the chariot boss (similar to the chariots in the Hero's Graves in Elden Ring, except you can actually dodge under the spiky axles).

There were a lot of interesting & wacky mechanics, like being able to respawn a boss and put an individual area into a higher NG cycle by using an item.

DS2's nature as a miserable wrong-feeling off-brand janky imitation is part of its strange appeal imo

Fuck the DLC tho

I was thinking today about how the Souls series is a key example of "not a bug but a feature", or rather "leaning into the jankiness and making it a key part of the game".

e.g. the way even as late on as Elden Ring the NPCs stand stock-still like mannequins with very little body or facial movement even when they're speaking is by now part of the whole experience. They could easily have gone full Horizon Forbidden West, but you can tell they kidn of went "nope, people would hate that"

I appreciate that they don't spend their dev time & resources on stupid bullshit like moving mouths.

The generally excellent voice casting/direction/performances are sort of the non-jank glue that hold that aspect of it all together, can't imagine it'd work as well if it was like Steve Blum or whoever being all [bafflingly inappropriate intonation for the line] "I'VE GAHT TO USE MY HEAD AND THINK"

Peter Serafinowicz did some voice work on DS2 iirc

The little bit I played of Lords of the Fallen (still meaning to give it another chance) reaaallly made me appreciate how great the voice acting is in From games.

I think all these quirky From traits that we know and love really show how much time and resources other studios spend/waste on things like cut scenes and facial animations.

My impression of this game so far is that it's really not that far the first game, save for a few obvious differences. The Way people talk about it, you'd think it would be like Super Mario 2 in that it's a totally different game, but no not really

to me it feels like a whole game with the finish of Lost Izalith, though there are undoubtedly some memorable things about it

When you mean the "finish", do you mean the graphics or more the level design?

a bit of both I suppose, it lacks the puzzle-box design of DS1 and the graphics and design seem a bit muddy and dull, but of course it is a game that is ten years old, it wouldn't be fair to judge it by the standard of Elden Ring

No, it wouldn't. I didn't play DS1 at the time; I went back to it after playing Bloodborne, Elden Ring and Demon's Souls.

This is going to sound sacrilegious, but while there's a lot to like about it, it's the one i love least out of all those. Perhaps that's just down to the graphics: there's a grubby patina all over it that I don't really like. I also think, of all the games, it's really unforgiving and obfuscated in what you're meant to be doing and how to do it. It feels egregiously cruel in ways the other games don't for some reason

you mean DS1 right? I think DS2 has a similar but if anything more muddy graphical style, and some of the same "what next?" issues. There's one particularly egregious example of this that springs to mind in DS2.

I'm only a short way into DS2 so it's too early to say. Going into the tutorial I was a bit "I dunno if I can cope with these grotty tunnels, they all look pretty lo-fi and samey" but then I emerged into Majula and thought "Oh this is like the First Step or Anor Londo, it's really pretty!"

I don't really play Souls games for the graphics, mind you, much as there have been some beautiful updates to Elden Ring lately. It's part of that "accepted jank" I get from these games. Plus, I mean, it's a PS3 game that was polished up a little later for the next gen, I don't expect it to be amazing-looking.

I was talking about this with a friend yesterday actually, about how some games *cough God Of War Ragnarok* are beautiful masterpieces with amazing visuals, sound and acting. But ultimately the story was a bit directionless and the game itself was a repetitive sequence of gamey puzzles and tappa-tappa battle sequences. So often I would see an item in an inaccessible place and think "hmm, I wonder how to get to it? there must be a secret path or a hidden door or something", when the solution was almost always to keep walking and you'll get to it in a minute or two.

I think that's the big appeal of the Fromsoft games for me: not just the convoluted lore (which I love), or the difficult battles (which I'm also very into), but the way the levels build on each other, the dopamine hit of working out how to get to a certain place or unlocking a shortcut or a new area. That's largely why Stormveil Castle is my favourite level of any game, it's just full of secrets. I really hope DS2 isn't bereft of all that

Dark Souls 2 is a good video game and the shit it gets is a bit out of proportion. It is the wonky little brother of the group, but it’s still probably better than 95% of whatever else came out for your console in 2014.

TBH the one I felt the most cold on was Dark Souls 3. Some “The Force Awakens” corrective vibes to that one that felt kinda hollow to me.

I've heard people rep for DS2 while saying that DS3 is let down by nonsensical fan service

DS3 is much better than 2. Probably my fave of the series. The coolest areas, the smoothest combat, great atmosphere. Closest to the feel of ER.

agreed. not sure what those people you mention mean tbh dl.

in other news i fancied some old school “crunchy” DS1 vibes so relaunched it for a go round.

rage quit after trying to return and collect a lot of souls and mobs just rng’d the fuck out of me.

agreed. not sure what those people you mention mean tbh dl.

It's the hard opinion of the Bonfireside Chat podcasters I listen to (who are generally very good and OTM and know so much about Souls games). They're fans of DS2 but felt that stuff happened in DS3 that didn't make sense beyond "look, here is a reference from the first game for no apparent reason", to the extent that characters and items turn up that shouldn't exist. They had some mechanical qualms too, but I haven't played enough DS3 to really make my own judgement