Dark souls II - PC Thread

Robert ninja

So lads, I've had my ass handed to me online quite a lot, which is normal... this is Dark Souls after all. But... this is my first playthrough of the game, I haven't followed any build guides, haven't even completed the game... and yet... does the competition online seem a lot less aggressive? I mean, I'm winning way more than I did back on Demon's Souls or DaS1 for a first playthrough.

I've honestly just cobbled together a faith/strength build (one of my faves) and I'm using dual cestus... from what I skimmed on the forums a bit... I think I've chosen the worst build out of all (magic and dex is where it's at, right?). But I'm just pummeling the feck out of some people online. Has the competition gotten weaker now that the game is more popular... or have my 500 combined hours of DeS and DaS1 just finally made me *gasp* good at the game for once? (probably not).

Still can't parry for my dinner, though. I swear to god I dunno what the timing is online with PvP. Maybe it ain't working because I'm trying to parry with my hand?

J_E

Dual caestus is very powerful in this game.

Grimebox

I think my game is bugged. I managed to beat the last giant on first attempt.

TomCo

Just beat

Old Dragonslayer

. Disappointed they didn't take the opportunity to give some good background on his soul description.

Cravez

Cydoniac wrote: »

Dual caestus is very powerful in this game.

Yep I'v been using Dual Caestus with power stance and by god is it so satisfying pummeling players into the ground!

Cravez

To be frank, so far I'v found the bosses much easier in this compared to Dark Souls 1. I think it may be because co-op is so heavily emphasized within the gameplay now. Generally the regular mobs within the areas are awkward/less predictable than the bosses.

Now I'v only recently completed The Lost Sinner boss fight so I'v probably only dented the surface of the game so maybe there are harder boss fights down the line.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

im trying to remember the boss fights to see how hard they were.... having trouble

this whole game is kinda...forgettable

i've barely played since sunday... with dark souls 1 I played it 3 times straight through


--edit

jesus, I do use that ... thing a lot don't I

Cravez

While the boss fights seem easy so far, I also had worries about the game at first but I'm actually really starting to enjoy it now. I remember you said previously in regards Dark Souls 1 that co-op wasn't your thing, which Dark Souls 2 seems to be more geared towards which may be causing the dislike? It took me a while to get into it but now after a while it's grown a lot on me.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

nah the co op is actually what im enjoying the most, im finding it difficult to get summoned though sometimes

i've been bouncing back and forth between moments of loving it and just being bored and playing it so I can finish it and read the main thread on here.

im sure ill grow to love it in time, I probably built it up too much in my head before release.

I've actually wondered if a good chunk of the reason I'm not warming to it is because they removed the Balder Side Sword.

pricks.

Mickeroo

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

nah the co op is actually what im enjoying the most, im finding it difficult to get summoned though sometimes

i've been bouncing back and forth between moments of loving it and just being bored and playing it so I can finish it and read the main thread on here.

im sure ill grow to love it in time, I probably built it up too much in my head before release.

I've actually wondered if a good chunk of the reason I'm not warming to it is because they removed the Balder Side Sword.

pricks.

There's a

Ricard's Rapier

knocking around, not the same thing at all but it was my go to DEX weapon for a lot of the game. Also if you have a DEX character it's worth infusing it with poison or bleed since those now scale with DEX. There's also a fair few decent katanas in the game.

As for the game overall, I played to the middle of NG++ to get all the achievements and that and it really isn't as memorable as the first game for me either, plus most of he bosses were pretty easy. Definitely do NG+ though, it was better than the first play through.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

i have the uchi and im using the varangian too, both upgraded to +10

didn't realise poison and bleed scaled with dex, ill look into that. so far I've only found the uchi and the blacksteel katanas, blacksteel seems kinda ****ty compared to the uchi.

Mickeroo

Yeah I farmed for ages to get a Blacksteel Katana because it has the best scaling of all the Katanas (S scaling) but I've ended up using the Manslayer as my main PvP weapon now. Katanas are a bit too slow in this compared to the first game, and DEX weapons do fairly pathetic damage overall but I refuse to cave and start using magic.

There's also a few Greatswords that scale with DEX rather than strength too btw.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

yeah i had a look through my inventory for good dex weapons and didn't really find any, i guess i've just been unlucky with drops or not paying attention to item locations

ah well

i more than likely will do a ng+ or just roll a new character so I'll have plenty of time to look around

Mickeroo

Have you tried dual wielding any of the DEX weapons? They've introduced his thing called Power Stancing -

you need 50% over the minimum requirements for each weapon, so say a sword needs 10 STR and 20 DEX you need at least 15 STR and 30 DEX to power stance it. If you have the stats, equip the weapons in each hand and hold down the button for two handing (y on xbox at least), rather than two handing the left weapon your character will change his stance and do a whole new moveset involving the 2 weapons. You can do a lot of damage this way but obviosly blocking is not an option anymore.

It can also be done wit all the large STR weapons too, just about anything really.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

yeah I tried the power stance with my two katanas and it didnt work.. she just dual handed the left, I didnt really want to go googling too much so I kinda let it be

Kiith

You feel like a badass power stancing...until you try it on a boss. I've never been good enough at dodging to not use a shield against most bosses.

Great fun for trash though.

Duggy747

I see this game is getting the blame by the usual culprits as to why that pupil stabbed the teacher on Monday

The Telegraph

Downing Street has said that it will do everything possible to prevent a repeat of the murder of Ann Maguire, as it emerged that the teenager accused of stabbing her is a fan of a violent video game marketed with the slogan “prepare to die”.

:pac:

Cravez

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

yeah I tried the power stance with my two katanas and it didnt work.. she just dual handed the left, I didnt really want to go googling too much so I kinda let it be

Did you hold the Y button rather than press it? At first I was pressing it wondering how the **** to get it working but when I held Y and my characters stance changed then.

Mickeroo

Kiith wrote: »

You feel like a badass power stancing...until you try it on a boss. I've never been good enough at dodging to not use a shield against most bosses.

Great fun for trash though.

I destroyed

The Rotten

power stancing a rapier and blackstel katana, killed him in abut 3 or 4 hits. Found it to be suicide against most other bosses though.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Cravez wrote: »

Did you hold the Y button rather than press it? At first I was pressing it wondering how the **** to get it working but when I held Y and my characters stance changed then.

yeah, she dual handed the left weapon instead of the right so it must just have been a requirements issue

i've leveled up a bit since then so i'll try it again later whenever I get around to playing

J_E

Has anyone ever gotten anything out of Way of Blue? Just never seems to work for me. Don't think I've ever been called as a Blue Sentinel either.

Kiith

I was summoned to help someone once as a Blue Sentinel, but they were backstabbed as i was porting in. I took about 50% health off the attacker before i was sent back. Rarely happens in early game, as very few people invade until they get into better PvP convenants.

Mickeroo

Kiith wrote: »

I was summoned to help someone once as a Blue Sentinel, but they were backstabbed as i was porting in. I took about 50% health off the attacker before i was sent back. Rarely happens in early game, as very few people invade until they get into better PvP convenants.

That covenant is fairly broken unfortunately, it's great fun when you do get called to protect someone but it hardly ever happens because there's not many people invading early in the game and also, very few people stay as blue apostles for their entire play through.

Kiith

Yeah, i already left it i think. Definitely going to join one of the PvP covenants on my current character, and be as much of a total dick as i can possibly be.

Nothingwill be too low or cheap for me :P

Mickeroo

Kiith wrote: »

Yeah, i already left it i think. Definitely going to join one of the PvP covenants on my current character, and be as much of a total dick as i can possibly be.

Nothingwill be too low or cheap for me :P

I highly recommend the

Bellkeepers

it's loads of fun and the best one for trolling people. Plus you get a

titanite chunk

everytime you win!

I'm in the

Dragon Remnants

now though so I just spend my time duelling. I prefer it to the Blood Bothers as you can actually heal if you want, so when the host wusses out you're not at a disadvantage.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Mickeroo wrote: »

I highly recommend the

Bellkeepers

it's loads of fun and the best one for trolling people. Plus you get a

titanite chunk

everytime you win!

****ing hate you bastards

Grimebox

Can you only summon people when you are human? I still can't get online. I want to summon a NPC if possible

calex71

Grimebox wrote: »

Can you only summon people when you are human? I still can't get online. I want to summon a NPC if possible

Have to be human for NPC summons also.

J_E

Wish From didn't mess up on a few things in the PC version.

For once I wish GFWL was back in place. I miss talking to people after a fight, asking them what gear they had, congratulate them, etc. No feature in place for this because Steam isn't set up right.

Also, some really stupid censorship on names. It didn't even give me an indication my actual character name would be used. "Jamie" is hardly distinguishable. No option to change it, which is extremely annoying. No way to tell who you just played even, except for quickly checking the players list on Steam and hoping you found the right person if their name is different, then not even being able to send a message... Also, the amount of times I have to see "K***ht" that's just a poor filter if it can't see that the word is clearly knight. Just looks stupid. No mic button either as far as I can see so if you have voice chat on, it's going to play out everything.


They did so well in terms of performance improvement but it's like they just don't 'get' how PC gaming works.

Robert ninja

I just equipped some heavier armour since I've been going around in priest garb with some light leather armour. I put on a full set of this heavy stuff that's double the physical defence and only half the magic defence of my previous set... and I can still roll run and roll at my usual speed! Is this normal? I'm at 65% load I think, I was previously staying under 50%.

I haven't even invested much into the stat that lets you carry more either...

J_E

Robert ninja wrote: »

I just equipped some heavier armour since I've been going around in priest garb with some light leather armour. I put on a full set of this heavy stuff that's double the physical defence and only half the magic defence of my previous set... and I can still roll run and roll at my usual speed! Is this normal? I'm at 65% load I think, I was previously staying under 50%.

I haven't even invested much into the stat that lets you carry more either...

70% and over is fat roll, under 70% is a gradual scale.

calex71

:eek: It's there at last http://www.qwertee.com

Not my work but I will be acquiring one right this minute

J_E

Just bought the "I Will Not Die" tee.



Gorgeous!

calex71

Cydoniac wrote: »

Just bought the "I Will Not Die" tee.



Gorgeous!

I didn't even see that one on the phone....... back i go to get that too :pac:

Cravez

Invading players in the Bell Tower is a lot of fun, being invaded while you're in it is not so fun

I lost 200k souls!

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

praise the sun ordered, yay

_Puma_

Got my first few invasions in the Bell tower. Had a really good duel with a guy, second invader was nice enough to stand aside while I was fighting the 1st guy, managed to kill 1st guy and promptly bowed to second guy. He just ran behind me during the bowing animation and stabbed me in the back :pac:

ProjectColossus

Goddamn bell tower. Every attempt to summon help for the boss fight goes like this:
Looking into bell tower area through the pharros lockstone hole, see a summon sign on the ground. Run into belltower area to summon sign, try and use it, and it either disappears before I can activate it, or I get a message saying it's gone. Turn around to retreat, fog wall is already up. Invaded, killed usually, humanity lost. Grind humanity from sentinals boss, repeat.

Maybe I'll just have to come back later when I'm way overpowered and do it offline.

Mickeroo

ProjectColossus wrote: »

Goddamn bell tower. Every attempt to summon help for the boss fight goes like this:
Looking into bell tower area through the pharros lockstone hole, see a summon sign on the ground. Run into belltower area to summon sign, try and use it, and it either disappears before I can activate it, or I get a message saying it's gone. Turn around to retreat, fog wall is already up. Invaded, killed usually, humanity lost. Grind humanity from sentinals boss, repeat.

Maybe I'll just have to come back later when I'm way overpowered and do it offline.

Have you met any of the magic vendors yet? I think the both sell Rings of Life Protection, would remove some of the tedium.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

yep, the belltower bastards are bastards. i was delighted when I finally got that done



so i'm in drangleic castle now... perhaps a little spoilery

I just killed everything in that ****ing horrible room with the 5 sentinels and the stone statue guys, the two giant statues at the far wall both lit and raised their torches.... so now what. I didn't see or hear anything happen, they just lit them and that was that. i'd already opened the passage.. will it become apparent in time?

Mickeroo

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

yep, the belltower bastards are bastards. i was delighted when I finally got that done



so i'm in drangleic castle now... perhaps a little spoilery

I just killed everything in that ****ing horrible room with the 5 sentinels and the stone statue guys, the two giant statues at the far wall both lit and raised their torches.... so now what. I didn't see or hear anything happen, they just lit them and that was that. i'd already opened the passage.. will it become apparent in time?

Six doors should have opened yeah? First one on the right is where you continue through the castle. You need to kill the stone guys right beside the doors to get hem to open.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Mickeroo wrote: »

Six doors should have opened yeah? First one on the right is where you continue through the castle. You need to kill the stone guys right beside the doors to get hem to open.

yeah that was the first door I opened, im talking about the two giant statues at the far corner of the room. if you kill one of the small statues near them they move and light the torches they're holding, like the two dudes at the front door of the castle, but nothing happens that I can see

Mickeroo

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

yeah that was the first door I opened, im talking about the two giant statues at the far corner of the room. if you kill one of the small statues near them they move and light the torches they're holding, like the two dudes at the front door of the castle, but nothing happens that I can see

I actually don't think they do anything, there's a few random torches like that in the game. Did you have a look in the room at he back left corner with the hole in the floor?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

yeah, saw that. homeward boned back cos I didnt want to rest at a bonfire and spawn all those ****ing sentinels again
forgot homeward bone also respawns enemies. died 9 more times

Mickeroo

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

yeah, saw that. homeward boned back cos I didnt want to rest at a bonfire and spawn all those ****ing sentinels again
forgot homeward bone also respawns enemies. died 9 more times

Did you find the NPC down there?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

yeah, met him earlier in the haunted ruins. didnt have the stats to learn dark so he wont talk to me

Mickeroo

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

yeah, met him earlier in the haunted ruins. didnt have the stats to learn dark so he wont talk to me

It's nothing to do with stats (that's the merchant in Huntsman's copse), you just need to find him in his 3 locations before he'll speak. I can tell you where the third one is if you like, you've already missed it if you're in Drangleic castle.

J_E

Have you guys seen the ENB mods for this? It's not perfect yet but it really does recall that 'old' lighting system. That and a texture mod and you could have something really close to the pre-release game.

There are a few variations of it going around, some are your typical overblown overbloomed filters that ruin the game but there are some that are exceptional and actually make torches properly useful again.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Mickeroo wrote: »

It's nothing to do with stats (that's the merchant in Huntsman's copse), you just need to find him in his 3 locations before he'll speak. I can tell you where the third one is if you like, you've already missed it if you're in Drangleic castle.

ah, no yer alright. ng+ and all that. thanks

Grimebox

I'm paying for my sins in a past life

Reports of some previously VAC banned players are unable to play online in Dark Souls II

We are aware of this issue and it is not intended. Dark Souls II is VAC secured, but VAC bans from other games should have no bearing on our game. See Valve's documentation here: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7849-Radz-6869
We are working with From Software towards a resolution and will continue to update this space as we have more information.