Dark Souls 2 is sadistic.

[Kopikatsu]

I am actually thinking about making a character from the Depraved class and mimicing the "Boxer" build from DS1. Any cool fist weapons in this game?

The one I know you can get early in the game for 1000 souls is the Cestus. Apparently one of the QA testers beat the game entirely using the Cestus (from the time he got it), so it's definitely a viable weapon.

Additionally, the Company of Champions will give you a ring that greatly increases unarmed damage.

 

[ImperialSunlight]

I am actually thinking about making a character from the Depraved class and mimicing the "Boxer" build from DS1. Any cool fist weapons in this game?

You can buy the claws weapon from the ladder guy from Harvest Valley. Not sure if they're viable or if that's what you're looking for, but that's a thing. Also, if you're using a depraved, the dagger from the tutorial is extremely useful.

 

[Beretta]

Quick note for them looking to fight the Pursuer with help:
The ballista are capable of friendly fire.
Holy cats I saw people 1-shot the host at least 3 times with poorly timed shots, and deliberately at least once.
One try some assmonkey actually killed me and the host with the same volley. Unreal.
So yeah, be warned.
Trust nobody.

 

[Dominic Crossman]

Quick note for them looking to fight the Pursuer with help:
The ballista are capable of friendly fire.
Holy cats I saw people 1-shot the host at least 3 times with poorly timed shots, and deliberately at least once.
One try some assmonkey actually killed me and the host with the same volley. Unreal.
So yeah, be warned.
Trust nobody.

Yeah, that might've been me :S
I thought I might try had help someone struggling with the pursuer and I went in with him and another phantom. The host was toe to toe with the boss and the other was soul spear-ing him at the side, so I decide to end it quickly and go set up the ballista and have it perfectly lined up, press shoot, pursuer lunges for the mage and the host is dead.
I felt ever so slightly bad.

 

[AVATAR_RAGE]

Welcome to Dark Souls.

Please take a seat. May we take you souls? They look rather heavy. Oh and that humanity seems to be a burden too.

Anyway enjoy your stay and don't pet the hydra.

 

[Beretta]

Quick note for them looking to fight the Pursuer with help:
The ballista are capable of friendly fire.
Holy cats I saw people 1-shot the host at least 3 times with poorly timed shots, and deliberately at least once.
One try some assmonkey actually killed me and the host with the same volley. Unreal.
So yeah, be warned.
Trust nobody.

Yeah, that might've been me :S
I thought I might try had help someone struggling with the pursuer and I went in with him and another phantom. The host was toe to toe with the boss and the other was soul spear-ing him at the side, so I decide to end it quickly and go set up the ballista and have it perfectly lined up, press shoot, pursuer lunges for the mage and the host is dead.
I felt ever so slightly bad.

Sadly, it wasn't.
There was no caster in that particular killstreak. =3

 

[Pheo1386]

Swordsman is indeed pretty challenging. I practiced beforehand by completing dark souls 1 in a no-shield run. Actually had a lot of fun with it too!

Making my way through though. Sl123 and just got my last great soul, now it's time to get my ass handed to me by the final leg of the game!

Also, I'm loving this game. Probably the most "metroidvania-y" game I've played since, well, sotn. And I liked sotn.

 

[Pheo1386]

Also, concerning the well;

In the windmill area, you can meet a guy near the bonfire where you burn the windmill to make the snake-lady boss easier. You can break the rickety wooden railing on the next floor up and walk along the side. There you meet a guy who drops a ladder for you to an effigy. Exhaust his dialogue then he'll move to the well. Give him about 12000 souls and he'll plonk a ladder down that all but takes you to the bottom of the well (still a bit of cat-ring style jumping to do).

But BE WARNED, the level down there is dark, difficult and poison central, so bring a lot of moss and torches.

 

[Kitsune Hunter]

When fighting the bosses, don't start attacking straight away, at least wait a couple of minutes by just moving around and dodging so as to memorise the bosses moves so as to know when to attack. In terms of difficulty, much harder than the first one and I'm loving every minute of it.

Quick question about solving glitches, due to a certain glitch in No Man's Wharf, I can't get on the ship, it's not stopping me from progressing as I got to the Lost Bastille by fighting the Pursuer, I just don't like the fact that I'm not able to fight the boss and get the pyromancy flame which I need to fight the Royal Rat Authority

 

[Diablo2000]

I gave up fighting the Ancient Dragon... He can one shot me, I will try to kill him once I play something that ins't a glass cannon of a mage.
On the brighter note Vendrik is now dead, once I got his attack pattern right I was managed to kill him with no major problems, I even didn't take any damage... But then again Vendrik could also one shot me so I couldn't take any damage

 

[cojo965]

So I'm now in Huntsman's Whateveritwas but I don't know where to go for the Branches of Yore.

Copse. Kill the Skeleton Lords to get into Harvest Valley. There are like three Branches of Yore just scattered around the area.

Well now I've seen the fog door behind the waterfall that I suspect houses the Skeleton Lords but have no Humanities (what it's called now is too hard to type) and dangerously low vitality due to hollowing. Any ideas where to get some?

Did you get the Human Effigy on the second story of the Fire Keepers' hut? I didn't find it until I went back to look into using a Soul Vessel, heh.

Alternatively, outside of the Cathedral of Blue is the Ring of Binding, which limits your max health loss from hollowing (super useful if you're a Pyromancer, since it lets you mitigate the drawbacks of using the Dark Pyromancy Flame). If you don't know where that is, it's in the Tower of Flame. From the big room with the three Old Knights, hang left. Kill the Old Knight overlooking the rest of the level at the end of the path to reveal a lever. Pull the lever and the drawbridge'll come down, leading you to the Cathedral and the chest containing the ring.

Yes to both, any other ideas?

You could kill the Fire Keepers for 12 Human Effigies, I suppose. Tho' that means you won't be able to respec until NG+. Although, throwing a Bonfire Ascetic into the bonfire might respawn them.

If you equip the travelling merchant hat (I think thats it, the one Explorer comes with), and kill dogs, they seem to drop Effigy's fairly regularly.

Fan-fucking-tastic, I don't have that hat so murder seems to be the only option.

You can buy the hat from the merchant in Cardinal Tower for like 1800 souls.

Too late, they're dead.

Whoopsie. Bright side, I do think using a Bonfire Ascetic will bring them back.

And what are those if you don't mind.

Rare items (I had 10 of them at the end of the game, although I'd never bought one from a merchant. Had I bought them all, I probably would have ended up with like 27) that raise the difficulty of an area +1. So if you use it at NG, it'll go up to NG+ difficulty. This also respawns all treasure, items, enemies, etc. You can cheese your way to NG+ and higher gear on your first playthrough by doing this.

Okay then, where are the ultra greatswords? I have two so far but want the others.

Uhhh, I don't really know off the top of my head. Aside from boss weapons, there's a Black Knight Greatsword in Iron Keep...

Okay I'm past the petrified pyromancer door but only found one shard, where are they all?

 

[Kopikatsu]

When fighting the bosses, don't start attacking straight away, at least wait a couple of minutes by just moving around and dodging so as to memorise the bosses moves so as to know when to attack. In terms of difficulty, much harder than the first one and I'm loving every minute of it.

Quick question about solving glitches, due to a certain glitch in No Man's Wharf, I can't get on the ship, it's not stopping me from progressing as I got to the Lost Bastille by fighting the Pursuer, I just don't like the fact that I'm not able to fight the boss and get the pyromancy flame which I need to fight the Royal Rat Authority

You can get a Dark Pyromancy Flame. I think it's in the Gutter? It has better stats and scaling than the normal catalyst, but it scales off of how Hollowed you are.

Okay I'm past the petrified pyromancer door but only found one shard, where are they all?

Do you mean for the Flask? Iunno.

http://segmentnext.com/2014/03/15/dark-souls-2-estus-shards-and-sublime-bone-dust-locations-estus-flask-upgrade-guide/

That might help.

How come whenever I try to summon someone it says 'summon timed out' but whenever someone wants to invade me, then it decides it wants to work?

 

[loa]

I am actually thinking about making a character from the Depraved class and mimicing the "Boxer" build from DS1. Any cool fist weapons in this game?

There's only the cestus since claws somehow don't count as "fist weapons".
It has pathetic base damage but insane strength and dex scaling.

 

[sXeth]

How come whenever I try to summon someone it says 'summon timed out' but whenever someone wants to invade me, then it decides it wants to work?

The MP is being really sketchy, I've successfully summoned someone once out of dozens of tries. The tips don't seem to be showing up very well either (often any useful ones have appeared after I wrote my own). Although I've only been invaded once outside of Belfry Luna (THAT appears completely unhindered, as I had to fight off something like seven guys in the short time I was there)

I can see Belfry Luna becoming a major problem with the game over time. Right now its 98% random newbs (for lack of a better term), who probably joined the Covenant without knowing what it even was. Once it gets filled with hardcore PvP types, it's gonna be a mess.

 

[lapan]

You probably are not supposed to fall down the well. I imagine there is another way down there, maybe an illusory wall.

You can survive it with the ring, you just need enough helth. I barely survived it myself.

But if you ignore it for now and explore the rest you will find a ladder merchant later

The MP is being really sketchy, I've successfully summoned someone once out of dozens of tries. The tips don't seem to be showing up very well either (often any useful ones have appeared after I wrote my own). Although I've only been invaded once outside of Belfry Luna (THAT appears completely unhindered, as I had to fight off something like seven guys in the short time I was there)

I dunno, invading and summoning works a shitton better for me than in DaS1. I rarely have to wait for more than 3 minutes now and almost everytime it works.

 

[EclipseoftheDarkSun]

Well, I'm getting slapped around atm by the Pursuer, a very large armored knight who hovers in mid air and charges (flies) towards you, ending with a big swing of his massive sword, occasionally doing three swings in a row and messing your shit up. Died many times and lost 5000 souls after giving up and going off to do other stuff for some cash for equipment, only to die due to carelessness on some minor foe.

I'll get back to him eventually, but he seems to be a case of timing roll dodges perfectly many times over till you can finish him - I've only taken him down 30% at most before dying. He reminds me of Gwyn Lord of Ash or whatever he's called in Dark Souls 1 - I'm still stuck on Gwyn which is frustrating. At least the Pursuer doesn't have a flaming sword is all I can say.

 

[Deadcyde]

You can apparently have a ladder built for you... otherwise you need at least 1k health and to roll off the edge, if you didn't already know. So the ring isn't a necessity.

Otherwise, this game is sadistic because they didn't solve any of the issues in the first one:

Retarded camera and lock on - seriously, i can't lock onto something i can clearly see because of some invisible clipping or some arbitrary distance required? what the hell? the lock on is supposed to be an aid to the crappy control scheme, not a game play mechanic in and of itself

Artificial group fight difficulty - Bad guys generally don't clip each other and can strike through each other as well. All they needed was just enemies that reacted to each others, falling over when struck, forced out of the way by a charge, whatever, but no, same cheaply coded crap.

Hitboxes and clipping that were written by programmers still in high school, (no offense high school programmers) - my favorite is the hippo monster grab from the start of the game, just needs to brush you when he goes for the reach to initiate the grab. Also how enemy strikes are unimpeded by walls, yet if i stand close to a wall i can't even thrust strike my dagger cause it bounces off leaving me open for a strike

Bad guys with "safezones" to make my kills feel cheap rather then earned - for example the second salamander after you jump through the hole.. try standing near the iron door down there, theres enough room for him to corner and stomp you but instead he walks back to his spawn point..wtf.


What gets me is everyone is bitching about the lighting issue, yet these issues i've pointed out existed in the last game.. in fact i said to my gf before the game was even released all they needed to do was remove those issues and I would throw my cash at them for the sequel. With the last two releases I understand, they were fairly small affairs and cheap, so it was forgivable, But now? Now they have a triple A release with annoying early purchase stuff and what not and yet they still wrote the code cheap and lame mechanics.

Then add on that massive user agreement? (Sorry but you agreed to an earlier agreement; You took my money and by doing so agreed i'm assuming ownership over my copy. Feel free to refund me and everyone else if you disagree.)

Then the "calibrations" constantly kicking in at the start of every start up? Not when there's new calibrations either, but every time? It screams online checking in. Not something I'm cool with, especially since you obfuscated it in that stupidly long user agreement. But even so, you couldn't make it a background thing and not lied about what it actually achieves.. Seriously not cool.

So in summary. Not real pleased with the direction. Turning an otherwise great game with atmosphere and story, the victor stones and bonfire ascetics to buff the risk/reward even further, new co op style and messages, and finally Dranglaic being awesome as fuck, into a game that i have to put up with a bunch of stupid shit just to enjoy. Frankly: 75 out of a hundred..

Though if with the next "calibration" they fixed everything i said? Maybe even added in team damage as in enemies can hurt each other, and summoned people can be hurt by the host but not vice versa. But that is a personal preference, just the issues being solved and I would easily give this game a 99 and get over the user agreement and check in crap

EDIT: clarity edits mostly.

 

[lapan]

Retarded camera and lock on - seriously, i can't lock onto something i can clearly see because of some invisible clipping or some arbitrary distance required?

Yes, locking on has a range. if you want to hit someone from outside that range you will need a bow or to manually aim with the goggles. You also cant lock on if he is behind a wall.

Camera is mostly only an issue if you are locked on and next to a wall. You can turn of camera auto-adjustment in the option which helps somewhat

Hitboxes and clipping that were written by programmers still in high school, (no offense high school programmers) - my favorite is the hippo monster grab from the start of the game, just needs to brush you when he goes for the reach to initiate the grab also how enemy strikes are unimpeded by walls, yet if i stand close to a wall i can't even thrust strike my dagger cause it bounces off leaving me open for a strike

It entirely depends on the length of your weapon/the monsters weapon. If you use a bigger weapon like a hammer or greatsword you can do the same and hit through walls. Generally i saw it happen a lot less than in DaS1 though.

Bad guys with "safezones" to make my kills feel cheap rather then earned - for example the second salamander after you jump through the hole.. try standing near the iron door down there, theres enough room for him to corner and stomp you but instead he walks back to his spawn point..wtf.

Enemies have a aggro range, which is common to a lot of action RPGs. I have noticed some pathfinding issues though, like an enemy rarely turning around and attacking in the wrong direction.

 

[Deadcyde]

Retarded camera and lock on - seriously, i can't lock onto something i can clearly see because of some invisible clipping or some arbitrary distance required?

Yes, locking on has a range. if you want to hit someone from outside that range you will need a bow or to manually aim with the goggles. You also cant lock on if he is behind a wall.

Camera is mostly only an issue if you are locked on and next to a wall. You can turn of camera auto-adjustment in the option which helps somewhat

Hitboxes and clipping that were written by programmers still in high school, (no offense high school programmers) - my favorite is the hippo monster grab from the start of the game, just needs to brush you when he goes for the reach to initiate the grab also how enemy strikes are unimpeded by walls, yet if i stand close to a wall i can't even thrust strike my dagger cause it bounces off leaving me open for a strike

It entirely depends on the length of your weapon/the monsters weapon. If you use a bigger weapon like a hammer or greatsword you can do the same and hit through walls. Generally i saw it happen a lot less than in DaS1 though.

Bad guys with "safezones" to make my kills feel cheap rather then earned - for example the second salamander after you jump through the hole.. try standing near the iron door down there, theres enough room for him to corner and stomp you but instead he walks back to his spawn point..wtf.

Enemies have a aggro range, which is common to a lot of action RPGs. I have noticed some pathfinding issues though, like an enemy rarely turning around and attacking in the wrong direction.

Locking on having a range is a silly mechanic (in this instance.) If you can see them, you should be able maintain a visual lock until something impedes your vision/line of sight. Though maintaining a lock on through walls is also kind of a cheap mechanic, perhaps losing the lock once LOS is broken then automatically requiring it might solve that, but my issue is mainly arbitrary range that ignores LOS, but overall the arbitrary range bothers me more then locking on through things

The camera is retarded whether auto adjusted or not. It really needed far more work then it got.

As for the weapon/environment clipping. Are you saying they shouldn't bother with realistic effects because people want to use great swords in corridors? Never mind that they gave us three weapon slots to switch. Why do you think samurai used to carry two swords? Because likely as not it was going to be a crush melee with only room for stabbing or then needed the advantage of a quick draw and strike. Basically it's not unfeasible for them to include decent environmental clipping and it certainly wouldn't take away from the game, otherwise they shouldn't be half assing it. Also, bad guys weapons don't clip, no matter how big/small/whatever, period. That is nonsense.

Aggro range is a stupid mechanic for any situation except when the monster is defending something and so can't traipse too far away. An aggro timer relying on line of sight should be the standard, it's not unreasonable to ask and having a monster relentlessly pursuing you because you can't break line of sight would be great for building tension in fights.

Also, all of these mechanics have shown up in other games.

(edited more thoroughly)

 

[lapan]

The camera is retarded whether auto adjusted or not. It really needed far more work then it got.

I only had troubles with being close to walls, as mentioned, because the character either tends to suddenly turn around and swing in the other direction or it zooms so close you can't see your character anymore. Manually moved or in a reasonable distance it works just fine.

They even improved lockon, you can now lock onto specific boss body-parts

As for the weapon/environment clipping. Are you saying they shouldn't bother with realistic effects because people want to use great swords in corridors? Never mind that they gave us three weapon slots to switch. Why do you think samurai used to carry two swords? Because likely as not it was going to be a crush melee with only room for stabbing or then needed the advantage of a quick draw and strike. Basically it's not unfeasible for them to include decent environmental clipping and it certainly wouldn't take away from the game, otherwise they shouldn't be half assing it. Also, bad guys weapons don't clip, no matter how big/small/whatever, period. That is nonsense.

I'm saying that while it's still a valid issue, at least you can do the same to them.

Aggro range is a stupid mechanic for any situation except when the monster is defending something and so can't traipse too far away. An aggro timer relying on line of sight should be the standard, it's not unreasonable to ask and having a monster relentlessly pursuing you because you can't break line of sight would be great for building tension in fights.

Also, all of these mechanics have shown up in other games.

Changes that big are not very likely to be in what is essentially (though not officially) the third game of a series. I don't mind them losing sight of me after a specific distance, it makes rushing for a boss door possible. Without it, dying would be more annoying.