Dark Souls II

iamanengine

From the bonfire go left past where the Basillisk pops up but before the Red crystal lizard, there is a double door there with mage and a spider, there is a hole in the wall on your right, hop through there, then there's a door on your right, go through there and go left over the bridge

Hopefully that explains it fully.

Burning Eclipse

Cydoniac wrote: »

Who knows what went down. That could have been running on beefed up PC hardware. They claim the game in general was choppy. Funny enough there is or was a glitch in the game that reverts the Mirror Knight fight to one that looks more like the original, with rain effects. I think they could have tried a lot harder to be honest, some of the textures are cringey and you can clearly see the repeating patterns, especially the dirt.

I'm positive it was running on PC Hardware. This glitch you mentioned sounds very promising. If that code makes it to the PC version, Durante should be able to find it, and replicate it across other areas. Now I'm really hopeful I'll get to play that version of the game again.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

If it was running on a dev machine then it would have had a lot more ram to play around with.

I have a lot more RAM to play around with... why not put it to work

J_E

Burning Eclipse wrote: »

I'm positive it was running on PC Hardware. This glitch you mentioned sounds very promising. If that code makes it to the PC version, Durante should be able to find it, and replicate it across other areas. Now I'm really hopeful I'll get to play that version of the game again.

I have a lot more RAM to play around with... why not put it to work

I wouldn't be hopeful to be honest. It could just be a leftover thing. I doubt the lighting is in the game any more or in a usable implementation.

Having said that I'm pretty sure someone will figure a workaround way to change the lighting dynamics, that along with a HD texture pack will probably restore it a bit.

krudler

iamanengine wrote: »

Brightstone Cove is by far my least favourite area in this game. It's not even particularly difficult it's just really annoying and boring.

A lot of the areas are really forgettable tbh

iamanengine

I can't remember if I asked this before or if I meant to but, how viable would a bow only run be? Maybe a bow/crossbow only run.

Might make things interesting as I've now done a dex, fai and caestus only playthrough!

J_E

iamanengine wrote: »

I can't remember if I asked this before or if I meant to but, how viable would a bow only run be? Maybe a bow/crossbow only run.

Might make things interesting as I've now done a dex, fai and caestus only playthrough!

.

Cydoniac wrote: »

With poison arrows you can take down pretty much everything. I imagine bosses and hordes of enemies would be a little harder. For example, Rat Authority would be a real pain I bet.

iamanengine

Cydoniac wrote: »

.

Awesome, gunna give it a go, start with short bow and then try speed run to get the Dragon Rider bow I assume would be the handiest way.

Any other good bows in the game you can get early?

J_E

iamanengine wrote: »

Awesome, gunna give it a go, start with short bow and then try speed run to get the Dragon Rider bow I assume would be the handiest way.

Any other good bows in the game you can get early?

I found the Long Bow to be pretty good for dex scaling. Still use my +10.

I believe the Black Bow is amazing if you were to do it in NG+.

Mickeroo

Yeah hunter's black bow is great.

Sgt Hartman

I use a Dragonrider bow myself. A bit slow but packs a real punch.
Since ditching my Greatsword and using a +10 Lightning B@stard Sword+10 with Sunlight Blade I'm having much more success in pvp. I couldn't hit a bloody thing with the Greatsword. The Pike is also quite useful and underrated in pvp.

Eggy Baby!

iamanengine wrote: »

Brightstone Cove is by far my least favourite area in this game. It's not even particularly difficult it's just really annoying and boring.

Terrible art design too. Looks bland and crappy and the enemies are pretty generic zombie farmers/spiders/spider zombies/mages.

Mickeroo

If you get the Magic Shield in undead crypt go to McDuff and infuse it with faintstone, it will then have 100% Magic resist. Very handy for PvP. It's very light too so you can have it as a back up to a 100% physical shield too.

Same is true for Havel's and Rebel's Greatshield but they're too big for my character to be lugging around.

J_E

did a bit of brotherhood of blood with the butterfly hat on, went back to claim my rank up...

"That hurts - that hurts"
Wait, what am I doing wrong? By the time I realised he went hostile. I think this is a sign to move onto Journey 3...

Really though, in ways I think I'm done with this game, I just want the last few achievements. I love it but compared to Dark Souls it can't stand up in terms of being memorable and iconic. I could hum every track off the Dark Souls OST no problem. Struggle to remember more than half of them in DS2. Don't think that's necessarily to do with the number of bosses either. Just get this nagging feeling all through the game that it could have been better. Textures, music, transitions between areas. Love the combat system and online and the game was a blast but down the years it'll probably be DS1 everyone still plays for the funny runs.

calex71

Cydoniac wrote: »

did a bit of brotherhood of blood with the butterfly hat on, went back to claim my rank up...

"That hurts - that hurts"
Wait, what am I doing wrong? By the time I realised he went hostile. I think this is a sign to move onto Journey 3...

Really though, in ways I think I'm done with this game, I just want the last few achievements. I love it but compared to Dark Souls it can't stand up in terms of being memorable and iconic. I could hum every track off the Dark Souls OST no problem. Struggle to remember more than half of them in DS2. Don't think that's necessarily to do with the number of bosses either. Just get this nagging feeling all through the game that it could have been better. Textures, music, transitions between areas. Love the combat system and online and the game was a blast but down the years it'll probably be DS1 everyone still plays for the funny runs.

I'm the same I got all the achievements by doing the unpatch and jump on NG++ then went back to see what the patch had fixed, think I've seen all I care to see of it, I know they said there will be no dlc so not sure why I'm holding on to it, if they do release dlc it would annoy me if it was like the 1st game where you had to play through to a point to access it as I don't really want to with DS2

krudler

Cydoniac wrote: »

did a bit of brotherhood of blood with the butterfly hat on, went back to claim my rank up...

"That hurts - that hurts"
Wait, what am I doing wrong? By the time I realised he went hostile. I think this is a sign to move onto Journey 3...

Really though, in ways I think I'm done with this game, I just want the last few achievements. I love it but compared to Dark Souls it can't stand up in terms of being memorable and iconic. I could hum every track off the Dark Souls OST no problem. Struggle to remember more than half of them in DS2. Don't think that's necessarily to do with the number of bosses either. Just get this nagging feeling all through the game that it could have been better. Textures, music, transitions between areas. Love the combat system and online and the game was a blast but down the years it'll probably be DS1 everyone still plays for the funny runs.

Same, and DS2 has far more areas that are a complete chore, Brightstone, Shrine of Amana, Dead Man's Wharf, Shaded Woods,the Pharros place are all dull or annoying areas. DS1 flowed together much better, I'm doing NG+ on 2 at the mo and have already forgotten which areas I should be going to next and most of them I just want to get through as fast as possible as it really gets better once you get to Drangleic Castle and the giant memories.

Digital Solitude

If you look back at the areas you really enjoyed and the bosses you loved fighting, DkS2 has way more than DkS1 for me, I know everyone's will be different

richymcdermott

Dark souls 2 is an odd mix if brilliance and bit of a letdown.

My biggest concern with dark souls 2 is that it borrowed to heavily on dark souls 1 bosses and they opted for more bosses than memorable ones with some bosses like the jabba the hut boss that did not even feel it belonged in the world of dark souls.

Bosses like

rat who was basically sif, nashadrada who was a female nito, the scorpion girl who was very similar to nito, king vendrick an undead gwyn, ornstein shadow making a return.

I would of preferred the new directors and designers to put more thought into there design of enemies and bosses and come up with there own ideas than borrowing from a game that just put there bosses to shame.

As I stated above some bosses and enemies felt so out of place even for a game like dark souls which is full of fantasy. What made dark souls so great was that enemies and bosses had meaning and were they where was for the lore of the story. I could not help but feel dark souls 2 guys decided just to throw enemies needessly without any sense or purpose.

Besides the combat and online improvement from dark souls dark souls 2 wont be remembered like ds1 was , kinda releaved I am not the only one who feels this way

krudler

richymcdermott wrote: »

Dark souls 2 is an odd mix if brilliance and bit of a letdown.

My biggest concern with dark souls 2 is that it borrowed to heavily on dark souls 1 bosses and they opted for more bosses than memorable ones with some bosses like the jabba the hut boss that did not even feel it belonged in the world of dark souls.

Bosses like

rat who was basically sif, nashadrada who was a female nito, the scorpion girl who was very similar to nito, king vendrick an undead gwyn, ornstein shadow making a return.

I would of preferred the new directors and designers to put more thought into there design of enemies and bosses and come up with there own ideas than borrowing from a game that just put there bosses to shame.

As I stated above some bosses and enemies felt so out of place even for a game like dark souls which is full of fantasy. What made dark souls so great was that enemies and bosses had meaning and were they where was for the lore of the story. I could not help but feel dark souls 2 guys decided just to throw enemies needessly without any sense or purpose.

Besides the combat and online improvement from dark souls dark souls 2 wont be remembered like ds1 was , kinda releaved I am not the only one who feels this way

That's it exactly, I don't dislike DS2 in the slightest, there are some things it really improved on but I really agree about the bosses, a lot of them were retreads or just shoved in there.

YouSavedMyLife

Please name some bosses that you feel where just thrown in anywhere. I can think of a few myself but I'm curious to hear what you guys think

I feel Dark Souls 2 is a better game but it borrows heavily from Dark Souls 1 and this is what lets the game down. None of the areas felt like a chore to me. No area was as bad as Blighttown and Lost Izalith.

Was gonna type more but i got lazy lol:o

iamanengine

I wouldn't say that there are many unnecessary bosses just thrown in but it's almost like they become unnecessary because of how weak or easy they are.

Like ffs the only one of the 4 great ones that put's up much of a fight is the Lost Sinner. Once you get the other 3's move set down at all they are a joke.

The 2 dragon rider's boss after you meet Nashandra is just stupidly easy so far along in the game.

Nashandra herself is a huge let down as a final boss and I found the Throne Watchers incredibly easy, these are the last 2 bosses in the game and I think they took 2 attempts each.

That said, I still love this game and intend to play it a lot more, but some areas are beginning to grate me. Huntsman's Copse and Brightstone mostly.

krudler

YouSavedMyLife wrote: »

Please name some bosses that you feel where just thrown in anywhere. I can think of a few myself but I'm curious to hear what you guys think

I feel Dark Souls 2 is a better game but it borrows heavily from Dark Souls 1 and this is what lets the game down. None of the areas felt like a chore to me. No area was as bad as Blighttown and Lost Izalith.

Was gonna type more but i got lazy lol:o

The giant rat, you already fought a load of them, here's a big one that's basically Sif in rat form. even the Lost Sinner felt like fighting Artorias again.

The fights I liked where the Old Dragonslayer, whatever the big dude in Undead Crypt was called, The Lost Sinner, the Sentinels annoying as they were was a good fight.
Off the top of my head I'd say I fought maybe 7-8 bosses solo the rest were co-op, some were still tough enough others were stupidly easy if you got someone who was a caster using soul spears or great lightning or something. Must try a no summon run and see how that works out.

iamanengine

krudler wrote: »

The giant rat, you already fought a load of them, here's a big one that's basically Sif in rat form. even the Lost Sinner felt like fighting Artorias again.

The fights I liked where the Old Dragonslayer, whatever the big dude in Undead Crypt was called, The Lost Sinner, the Sentinels annoying as they were was a good fight.
Off the top of my head I'd say I fought maybe 7-8 bosses solo the rest were co-op, some were still tough enough others were stupidly easy if you got someone who was a caster using soul spears or great lightning or something. Must try a no summon run and see how that works out.

To be fair I have found that any boss + a summon makes them very easy. Doing a no summon run does ramp up the difficulty quite a bit, especially against the likes of the Sinner and the Sentinels.

Mickeroo

The trouble with this game is the only bosses that are really difficult on your own are difficult because there's mutiple enemies in the arena with you (Lost Sinner is only hard on NG+ and beyond imo). Just seems like a cheap way to make them hard to me, the only one in the first game like that I can think of was Nito.

richymcdermott

The bosses that felt out of place where Jabba the hut and medusa looking girl where the poison area where.

Ornstein

to me did not belong in dark souls 2 as his story was already told.

Old dragonslayer was fine the first time as a boss but you fight another one exactly the same except with the help of another similar dude with a bow, why the need for mulitple bosses the same ?


Sentials were fun the first time around but again making an apperance in the castle ruins it for me for there uniqueness.

Same goes for the twin dudes on the ship that are just outside the door in the forest.

Rat that fights like sif , I am sorry I do not find sympathy for a rat like I did with sif.

Then there are bosses that are just plain weird that might aswell been fightning normal enemies like

million rats in king rats domain

and

the worshippers where the spiders where

.

The chariot executioner

also all felt really strange and not even a boss fight.

But outside of even the bosses there is alot of question marks in ds2 I do not understand even when I didnt know the lore of ds1 I never asked why.

For instance why is a

demonic frog

singing in the shrine ?
Why does the cursed have to make there way to a castle without any reason ?
Why did the queen want me to all of a sudden after how many years to kill a

hollow king

?
Who or why was the

girl in the cage in the castle

locked there ? And who were the girls in the shrine of amana ?

For me there were no memorable moments , npc , bosses ,covenants , armour ,weapons or areas compared to dark souls


No solaire
No spider girl npc that was my queen ( :pac: )
No artorias
No anor Londo

But despite this I could never say i dislike my time with dark souls 2 I had a blast with it and should everyone one else , it may not be a fundmental leap forward but by god I would sink another 80-100 hours if dark souls 3 came about :L.

Just hope next time around ds1 designers and miyazaki come back.

Danonino.

This all sounds very familiar, when souls came out it was compared heavily to demons in the same kind of way.
The game definetely was made easier for the first play through compared to souls 1. The bosses that gave me the most trouble were the optional ones or solo artempts . The bonfires were too common and the ability to warp to ALL of them was a poor choice in my opinion. It made the areas less memorable and means you pass through an area once and that's it.

The game had me sucked in from the first minute until the end and I've pvp'd far more in this game already. As for areas being boring or whatnot I honestly can say that on the first play through every area was awesome. Except msybe heides tower and the blue chapel area, it felt really out of place to me, Like it should have unlocked around the sane time as the undead purgatory.

Whoa rant much....
Long story short I say give it some time, there seems to be a LOT more focus on ng+ and PvP this time around. At least the arenas are fun this time

ShaneU

richymcdermott wrote: »

For instance why is a

demonic frog

singing in the shrine ?
Why does the cursed have to make there way to a castle without any reason ?
Who or why was the

girl in the cage in the castle

locked there ? And who were the girls in the shrine of amana ?

Pretty sure it was the first girl you meet that was singing .

BeerWolf

iamanengine wrote: »

To be fair I have found that any boss + a summon makes them very easy. Doing a no summon run does ramp up the difficulty quite a bit, especially against the likes of the Sinner and the Sentinels.

Sinner was piss easy - just use a 100% phy res. shield and you're sorted

YouSavedMyLife

richymcdermott wrote: »

The bosses that felt out of place where Jabba the hut and medusa looking girl where the poison area where.

Ornstein

to me did not belong in dark souls 2 as his story was already told.

Old dragonslayer was fine the first time as a boss but you fight another one exactly the same except with the help of another similar dude with a bow, why the need for mulitple bosses the same ?


Sentials were fun the first time around but again making an apperance in the castle ruins it for me for there uniqueness.

Same goes for the twin dudes on the ship that are just outside the door in the forest.

Rat that fights like sif , I am sorry I do not find sympathy for a rat like I did with sif.

Then there are bosses that are just plain weird that might aswell been fightning normal enemies like

million rats in king rats domain

and

the worshippers where the spiders where

.

The chariot executioner

also all felt really strange and not even a boss fight.

But outside of even the bosses there is alot of question marks in ds2 I do not understand even when I didnt know the lore of ds1 I never asked why.

For instance why is a

demonic frog

singing in the shrine ?
Why does the cursed have to make there way to a castle without any reason ?
Why did the queen want me to all of a sudden after how many years to kill a

hollow king

?
Who or why was the

girl in the cage in the castle

locked there ? And who were the girls in the shrine of amana ?

For me there were no memorable moments , npc , bosses ,covenants , armour ,weapons or areas compared to dark souls


No solaire
No spider girl npc that was my queen ( :pac: )
No artorias
No anor Londo

But despite this I could never say i dislike my time with dark souls 2 I had a blast with it and should everyone one else , it may not be a fundmental leap forward but by god I would sink another 80-100 hours if dark souls 3 came about :L.

Just hope next time around ds1 designers and miyazaki come back.

Covetous Demon was kinda random, but it didn't feel out of place. Medusa woman has a tonne of lore behind her with Gilligan explaining most of it. She fits.

I agree with you on Old Dragonslayer. But it seems to be a nod to Heide's tower being Anor Londo but him being there isn't explained at all. He also seems to have Dark powers which opens lots of speculation about him having been consumed by the Abyss like Artorias. But we killed him before he could fall to the Abyss so that's a pretty weak argument.

Dark Souls also had repeating enemies :P 2 if i remember correctly...
Agree on the big Rat/Dog. Filler boss for sure.

I like the other rat boss, chariot and church enemies boss. They added a different approach to boss fights and it was refreshing. Not saying they where good fights but i like them for their uniqueness alone.

The demon frog was singing to lure people to their doom. He was mimicking the girls in the shrine who guide undead so they sing to them to bring peace to them....or something lol.

Reason your going to the castle is to find Vendrick because the Herald says that he peered into the very essence of the soul and may have found a way to break the curse. But then you find him and hes demented. Yeah. Dark Souls lore beats Dark Souls 2 lore.

Also there can never be another Solaire or Artorias because these characters have left such a....mark on our heart? :pac: That nothing will ever come close to them. Same reason i think Sephiroth is the best villain ever in a video game, even when he isn't :P

Temptamperu

I think im playing a different game than all of you guys :O

Retr0gamer

Ornstein in DS1 and 2 was just an illusion. Pretty sure the real Ornstein was consumed by the abyss.