The Pull of Dark Souls II

[Azure23]

I find that page so hilarious that my stomach started hurting.

I am not a fan of backstabbing myself, since I mostly play a facetank type build (heavy armor with a hugeton of poise and tower shield) so there is no need for me to backstab anyone. I just 2h my ultra greatsword and manmoded the majority of bosses in Dark Souls 1.

I haven't gotten far enough in DS2 to have anything to say about it other than you need to dodge a lot more than blocking it seems.

captcha: remain calm. Sound plan captcha!

Unarmed playthrough is true manmode! May I direct you to my post on the manliest dks2 build ever created? The mighty, the magnificent, the mustachioed MAGNUS FLEX!

(basically just a standard str build with the vanquishers seal and gyrm boxing shorts + mastodon gauntlets. Rings are vanquishers seal, stone ring, ring of the giants+2, and ring of blades+2)

Stunlocking and comboing all day long! This build especially destroys slow str builds and casters, and it just facestomps pve as long as you're good at dodging, I usually get my adp to around 2 or so to get those placebo frames!

 

[Sewa_Yunga]

Spoiler: -snip-

Which reminds me, I have yet to be invaded at all. 14hrs played and no invasion at all? I mean, I burned a human effigy once, but that was by accident in Things Betwixt, when I was trying to reverse my hollowing for the first time.

I've had the same problem. My friend (who played the hell out of the game on PS3), told me that, while you can get invaded while hollow, the invasion rates are drastically reduced. Also, there's no whole red eye orb (just the cracked ones).

I'm playing as human most of the time though. Whenever I get killed, I drop a small summoning sign to regain my humanity.
I see lots of other summoning signs too. I got invaded for the first time about an hour ago... By the NPC invader down in the Gutter.
So still no player invasions

Rings are vanquishers seal, stone ring, ring of the giants+2, and ring of blades+2

... Rings can be upgraded?

Spoiler

 

[iniudan]

... Rings can be upgraded?

No they cannot be upgraded, but you can find better version of most ring.

 

[sXeth]

Circle Strafing still DOES work for the most part. You have to literally SHOVE you're body against them and strafe, ive noticed it somehow borks the A.I into allowing you to strafe them easily.

Yeah, hump their leg and strafe to their non-weapon arm (usually right) and most of them are helpless (including several bosses). A few will pull out an AoE-burst style move, then you just roll back and repeat after,

 

[teebeeohh]

i love that you can backstab people with the huge weapons in DS, literally the only thing i looked up on the wiki is how to get the moonlight greatsword for my mage because stabbing people with a sword is nice, stabbing people with a sword twice their size is just my kind of overkill

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Which reminds me, I have yet to be invaded at all. 14hrs played and no invasion at all? I mean, I burned a human effigy once, but that was by accident in Things Betwixt, when I was trying to reverse my hollowing for the first time.

It will come. I didn't get invaded for a long time on my first playthrough, and then it rarely happened. But on my second playthrough? Good Lord, leave me alone! I suck at PvP.

It's fun to know From fixed the whole circle strafe issue... but goddamn i'd be lying if I didn't say they didn't go overboard with certain enemies' tracking.
Especially these skanks late game...

Spoiler

MLG homing+tracking for 8 years soul arrow quickscopers. "Do you even Amana, you filthy melee casual?!"

They're like projectile Heide Knights by the dozens.

"Ha ha, I snipe you from across the map while I hide in the water among the glowy weeds that look just like my hat. Loser!"

Ugh, I remember when I first fought them. "Where the hell is that coming from? How can she see me from all the way over there? And why doesn't my staff have that range?"

So I wasn't just imagining it? Enemies do seem to be able to quick-turn in the middle of strikes and hit me even when I seem to have dodged away in time?

 

[Souplex]

Poise doesn't seem to work for anyone in DSII, not the player, and not enemies. Heide Knights are easily stunlocked.
Just replace circle-strafing with stun-locking.

 

[Grape_Nuts]

Funny thing about this comic, DS1 also had enemies with homing attacks (although they are less prevalent).

 

[Olas]

In all of the hours I have played Dark Souls 2, I am yet to kill one of those. I haven't even tried. With the exception of games such as GTA where I play like a sociopath, I never attack passive characters in games.

I kind of felt sorry for them, sitting there all weary looking.

This kinda describes how I feel about killing Big Daddies in Bioshock. Atlas calls the little sisters "monsters" but I don't see them hurting anyone, and the Big Daddy is just protecting them. I'M the one attacking their guardian for no reason and then after finishing him off deciding on whether I want to harvest them. When viewed objectively I think it's obvious who the REAL monster is.

 

[Deadcyde]

I admit I never understood why people complain about enemy tracking in Dark Souls 2, as turning 180° around quickly, for example, is just a matter of switching your leading foot to the other leg, by shifting your heels position, rest of the body will follow, which include swing already in motion.

Shifting your foot is like one of the most basic part of martial art training, unless your in a discipline that focus on grappling, in which case the most basic training is learning to fall.

No, they literally LITERALLY turn in place like on a top, their arms still raised for 30 seconds at a time to track you.

That called limited animation, for example when you yield a weapon 2 handed weapon left handed, you character doesn't actually put their left foot forward like they should.

If they had proper animation (which is a bit hard considering the number of unwieldy weapon for a human in the game) you would see some proper body movement with those turning on the spot, which are easily feasible in real life.

As for keeping weapon raised for 30 second in the air, that nothing for someone trained, it actually a pretty basic offensive stance in real life. It just that it might seem impossible in Dark Souls due to the exaggerated nature of most weapon. Now as for why player cannot hold a stance, I got no idea.

Have you ever swung a sword? The centre of gravity isn't your centre any more so a simple heel turn is not enough, especially when you've shifted your weight forward to add weight to the swing.. Go.. go try, you can't change direction once you commit to a swing. DS2 ignores this... hell, they even change direction mid air.

 

[Zendariel]

I admit I never understood why people complain about enemy tracking in Dark Souls 2, as turning 180° around quickly, for example, is just a matter of switching your leading foot to the other leg, by shifting your heels position, rest of the body will follow, which include swing already in motion.

Shifting your foot is like one of the most basic part of martial art training, unless your in a discipline that focus on grappling, in which case the most basic training is learning to fall.

No, they literally LITERALLY turn in place like on a top, their arms still raised for 30 seconds at a time to track you.

That called limited animation, for example when you yield a weapon 2 handed weapon left handed, you character doesn't actually put their left foot forward like they should.

If they had proper animation (which is a bit hard considering the number of unwieldy weapon for a human in the game) you would see some proper body movement with those turning on the spot, which are easily feasible in real life.

As for keeping weapon raised for 30 second in the air, that nothing for someone trained, it actually a pretty basic offensive stance in real life. It just that it might seem impossible in Dark Souls due to the exaggerated nature of most weapon. Now as for why player cannot hold a stance, I got no idea.

Have you ever swung a sword? The centre of gravity isn't your centre any more so a simple heel turn is not enough, especially when you've shifted your weight forward to add weight to the swing.. Go.. go try, you can't change direction once you commit to a swing. DS2 ignores this... hell, they even change direction mid air.

The ones that cause most disbelief are the enemies that do overhead attacks with a mace or 2 handed great sword, feet on the same line so no foot forward to change the direction of the stance on even in theory, and they turn 180 degrees when you get directly behind their back. While you could almost accept most of the insanely fast turns some enemies have, that one change of direction is just not possible.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

I admit I never understood why people complain about enemy tracking in Dark Souls 2, as turning 180° around quickly, for example, is just a matter of switching your leading foot to the other leg, by shifting your heels position, rest of the body will follow, which include swing already in motion.

Shifting your foot is like one of the most basic part of martial art training, unless your in a discipline that focus on grappling, in which case the most basic training is learning to fall.

No, they literally LITERALLY turn in place like on a top, their arms still raised for 30 seconds at a time to track you.

That called limited animation, for example when you yield a weapon 2 handed weapon left handed, you character doesn't actually put their left foot forward like they should.

If they had proper animation (which is a bit hard considering the number of unwieldy weapon for a human in the game) you would see some proper body movement with those turning on the spot, which are easily feasible in real life.

As for keeping weapon raised for 30 second in the air, that nothing for someone trained, it actually a pretty basic offensive stance in real life. It just that it might seem impossible in Dark Souls due to the exaggerated nature of most weapon. Now as for why player cannot hold a stance, I got no idea.

I think the problem is that they can turn while attacking which you can't do. If you do a attack with a long windup time, you're stuck turned in that direction for the end of the attack. The enemies aren't limited by that. They start a vertical attack and turn so much while attacking that it ends up being a horizontal slash more than a vertical.

The best example would be the bastard sword. When you use the strong vertical attack, that's it. As soon as you press it, the attack will go in the direction you were facing when you pressed the button. But then the blue bastards with the bastard sword on the bell tower do a fucking spinning attack with the ridiculous tracking. They can literally turn over 180 degrees while swinging vertically.

 

[iniudan]

I think the problem is that they can turn while attacking which you can't do. If you do a attack with a long windup time, you're stuck turned in that direction for the end of the attack. The enemies aren't limited by that. They start a vertical attack and turn so much while attacking that it ends up being a horizontal slash more than a vertical.

The best example would be the bastard sword. When you use the strong vertical attack, that's it. As soon as you press it, the attack will go in the direction you were facing when you pressed the button. But then the blue bastards with the bastard sword on the bell tower do a fucking spinning attack with the ridiculous tracking. They can literally turn over 180 degrees while swinging vertically.

Actually you are wrong with the bastard sword one handed strong attack, you can still turn until the weapon start coming down, I easily get 90° turn with it.

As for the Bell Tower, no npc yield a bastard sword in either Belfry. Closest is two guy with greatsword, which one of the attack, is some kind of roll like attack where they turn around and first strike behind them toward their front.

So actually not sure what your talking about, as you seem to be mixing up stuff.

 

[iniudan]

Have you ever swung a sword? The centre of gravity isn't your centre any more so a simple heel turn is not enough, especially when you've shifted your weight forward to add weight to the swing.. Go.. go try, you can't change direction once you commit to a swing. DS2 ignores this... hell, they even change direction mid air.

Ok might not have used the best word, is wind up is fine then ? It just that wind up is part of the swing, that the basic of faint after all, you do the wind up movement of a swing, but quickly switch to an other swing.

So to be clear during the wind up you can still easily change direction.

 

[Di-Dorval]

Yea I was really surprised when I tried to dodge a slow attack just by moving sideway and the enemies actually spinned in the air to hit me. It shouldn't be in the game. Make the enemy faster don't give them crazy magnet powers.

(The game isnt really hard but its just a stupid thing that shouldn't be there.

 

[XDSkyFreak]

You want to talk broken hit detection? Try Vendrick. Good god that guy is designed to make you cheese him. Oh you can roll through his horizontal swings, but may the sun save you if he decides the arena is a drum and his sword is the stick ... I rolled straigh behind him only only to see the mofo do a 180 with his sword raised so clever guy that I am I roll back past him ... and swiftly get pummeled into the dirt by his sword ... the retarded fuck literaly did a 360 mid overhead swing ...
And they say the guy is just a shell of his former self ... good god in his glory days he must have been like a mix of Neo, Chuck Noris, Jackie Chan and Zorro on steroids.

 

[Czann]

I have this game any of these days. I wonder if being continuously massacred is any fun.