Dark Souls 2 is sadistic.

[Rylot]

Well that was anti-climactic. I restarted with a mage character and went around lighting all the urn things in the 'Things Betwist' area (I killed all the enemies just so I could concentrate on running as fast as possible) and it didn't do anything. Since I had to do it with one torch and cut it pretty close I was hoping for some sort of reward. Guess the developers don't think it's that praise worthy.

 

[Trollhoffer]

Yeaaah, but iunno how good that is. I mean, there were people arguing that the player character was the Furtive Pygmy for the longest time until the DLC came out and it turned out that the Furtive Pygmy is (probably) Manus.

When nothing is really set in stone, erryone gets something wrong.

That's part of the point. In interpretive lore, there is rarely a truly correct or incorrect answer. Sometimes, players will be wrong -- and that's also part of the experience. It's less about working out right or wrong answers and more about being invested in the process of drawing connections and interpreting elements of the game. We still don't know if Solaire is actually Gwyn's son, after all, and the pendant? Don't get me started on that -- it was an absolutely amazing hoax that provided such a great deal of investigation and conversation that, even amounting to nothing, it contributed to the experience of the game. It made the implication that there was still something you hadn't worked out, or didn't understand, or hadn't unlocked. And because it was always nothing, it gave the sense that Dark Souls was infinite and unsolvable.

And that is awesome.

Yeah, and that's something that really bugged me. As noted in the OP, I like being the tank and stacking as much defense as possible. But in Souls, it's not really a viable playstyle. Everyone 1-2 shots you regardless of armor (Although this might just be because of the Champion guild. Going to try turning it off and see how it goes). Same deal in Torchlight 2. Eventually even having max resits isn't enough to save you from dying instantly, so the only viable class really becomes ranged DPS. Which I hate. Hate hate hate hate HATE. MAGIC IS FOR WUSSES. REAL MEN USE CAESTUSES.

Plenty of different styles of play are viable in both Souls games I've played. Evasive, aggressive builds are certainly optimal in both, but that only counts in PvP at a high level and for PvE runs where the player wants to be absolutely optimal. Both games can be completed completely reasonably with any of the many good builds. So far, I've found the Souls games to be less punishing when it comes to suboptimal builds, because plenty of the suboptimal builds are still really good, and that extra bit of optimisation only matters in corner case scenarios.

In particular, Dark Souls 1 did one hell of a lot for tanky builds with the poise system. That didn't change the fact that taking a hit was still worse than dodging it (and when will it not be?), but the very fact that there was a poise system for both players and NPC enemies meant that using heavy weapons was an excellent choice for permission strategies and quicker weapons were still optimal for DPS strategies. The Souls games, while ultimately imperfect, do a really good job of enabling a variety of different style of play. If you want to tank with a great shield, heavy armour and the biggest weapon you can find, you can do so and win the game without being unduly punished for choosing a "suboptimal" strategy.

My comment was correcting the assumption that a shield defense strategy was optimal; that a starting shield is absent from the knight class in Dark Souls 2 seems to be a reference to the optimal nature of dodges in previous games and the heavy weapon permission strategy I was referencing before. That's pretty interesting -- it seems as though FromSoftware want to more clearly draw distinction between the warrior and knight classes, and have therefore chosen to make the warrior the go-to for a flexible combat build, while incentivising knight players to use those heavy weapon permission strategies. To me, that says that FromSoftware is trying to encourage build diversity, and I see no reason why that wouldn't be supported in the system by trying to broaden what counts as an "optimal" build.

And that is the point of my rambling paragraphs.

 

[Vrach]

No, I'm not talking about the difficulty of the game.

In Majula, there is a large well with a bunch of very obvious items placed on various planks inside of it. Attempting to jump down the well will result in your immediate death. Right beside this well is a cat that sells a ring that supposedly lowers falling damage for 13400 souls. So, after a good 2-3 hours, I grinded the souls to be able to purchase this ring so that I could get at those sweet, sweet items (Even had to kill the White Knight in the Forest of Fallen Giants)

But the ring didn't help. The fall still instantly kills you even with no armor on. You probably need the Sorcery that does junk to fall damage. I am very the sads now.

Have you played Demon's/Dark Souls? The "reduces fall damage" thing doesn't stop a lethal fall, merely makes a non-lethal one hurt less. Most items/spells that had that effect specifically mentioned it in the description.

F.ex. http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/cat-s-ring

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

I ordered it practically a year ago and Amazon hasn't deigned to start shipping it yet.

Which I'm fine with, as I may just cancel the order anyways.

I have been waiting for this game for a very long time, but having seen vids of most of the bosses...I am greatly disappointed.

Spoiler

The only way I will enjoy the game, is if new game plus makes them have better ai. 90% of them are unable to even turn to face you if you circle them, most barely attack you aggressively or often, and most from a design perspective are just humanoids 2-3 times your size. Like all but a few of them. The ones that aren't are especially easy.

At least the guy I watched kill them in under 90 seconds, suffering barely any attacks his way, made it look boring as hell.

Not even mini bosses, as one of the big 4 (the big red one) was hands down the easiest boss in the series. I mean its a least a tie with Allant inside the Old One for being completely rediculous.

I honestly wondered if some of the bosses were literally blind like the Old Hero, the Lost Sinner in particular probably is but unless there are at least 4 others that are blind too this game has SERIOUS ai problems for bosses.

There were a few that seemed AWESOME though. The frog in particular was the only one that I thought "YES! THIS IS A SOULS BOSS! FINALLY!"

Of course I haven't seen ALL of them, just 24 or so of them, but at least 2 major ones. Compared to Dark Souls were I loved EVERY BOSS, and Demon's Souls where I loved all but a few...its a dramatic drop in my anticipation.

I didn't see the ending, or any environments, just a lot of 90 sec - 4 min clips on youtube by the same guy. I'm really hoping that the levels are awesome, and the bosses at least good from a lore perspective.

I wouldn't have spoiled mysefl that much if I hadn't played ONE clip of a boss and been like "really? That was a fucking boss?" and then another and another going "wow lame. lame. lame. dammit these are stupid."

I honestly couldn't believe what I was watching.

I saw another very long video showing off various armors and weapons, though nowhere near all of them.

The armors for the most part look awesome! The weapons as well.

Whips in particular have a totally redesigned move set that seems way better. Idk about stats, but they seem fun at least.

Lances...look dumb. I assume they are meant to be like greatspears but they look like something out of Dynasty Warriors, and if they don't have like knock back or something they are gonna be hard to use.

I only saw one curved sword, the Falchion. Its moveset was different, and not something I would want to use. Its a shame because my favorite weapon in Demon's Souls was the Kilij.

Daggers look a little better.

The new Scythe weapon class "reapers" were VERY underwhelming. It you liked the great scythe, you are gonna hate what they did to its moveset.

Halberds changed a little, or at least one of them has. Running 2H attack is like a running 2H R2 inserted of an overhead chop now.

The large club looks awesome, as do a lot of the greathammers in general.

Katanas seem unchanged, or at least the Uchi/Washing pole.

I didn't really have a favorite weapon in Dark Souls, but I most recently did a +15 Halberd. It was all I really needed.

I'm glad that I know the cat ring isn't enough to go down the hole though. Saves me a death.

 

[bigwon]

My impression 5 hours in...

Doesn't quite sink it's hooks in you like the 1st one, but it's still pretty good.

I'll just focus on what's bugging me because everything else i'm probably loving! Although after writing what I did it seems quite negative anyways.

- The level design isn't up to par. It doesn't click like the original, everything just sort of feels thrown together and bland in comparison. I personally loved fire link as the 1st games hub, how it started out empty leaving your imagination going on what all these ruins were and what you were about to get into. and the 3 initial pathways (catacombs, new londo ruins, undead burg) really worked for me. In the new game it's like blahhh, shiny pretty place with your typical shop vendors and cloaked prophet chick who is conveniently on hold to level up your character and exposition dumps. It just feels like the developers divided into teams to make each level and then came together and found the best compromise to paste them together..... in comparison

-seemingly bland characters that seem to serve nothing more the exposition dumping. In dark souls 1 I loved how all of the characters you've met were relatively substantial. They felt authentic in the game, insane as any lost soul in a time warped, screwy hell hole would be (I personally loved the cackling after their little cryptic incoherent tangents). In the new game all of the characters i've met are for the most part tropy and uninteresting. I feel like the game is self aware of this and throws in that character that oddly looks like solaire (The SunBro! Jolly Cooperative fellow!), but is void of life, the stagnant air passing through while he gets replaced by d&d text dumps.

it actually seems like this awkward expositiony characters stuff might be more off putting then the originals hidden gem like approach.

-and the hit detection seems weird to me...hehe... like getting hit when a blade swipes the floor next to you (boss fight and not splash damage, at least i think) that could just me being silly though.

Overall in the original, despite having the least clue of wtf was going on I was quite immersed in the whole thing. I imagine that the design of the original (lore and how it's story was told through the environments) was so well done that I picked up that sense of being in an authentic place, subconsciously i would dare to say. Their'll probably be case studies examining these 2 games...hehe

I'm disturbed how worked up i'm getting over a video game

 

[Kopikatsu]

Well that was anti-climactic. I restarted with a mage character and went around lighting all the urn things in the 'Things Betwist' area (I killed all the enemies just so I could concentrate on running as fast as possible) and it didn't do anything. Since I had to do it with one torch and cut it pretty close I was hoping for some sort of reward. Guess the developers don't think it's that praise worthy.

The reward is that now you can see well enough to not fall off the runway. That's totally a plus.

 

[TheDudeMan14]

No, I'm not talking about the difficulty of the game.

In Majula, there is a large well with a bunch of very obvious items placed on various planks inside of it. Attempting to jump down the well will result in your immediate death. Right beside this well is a cat that sells a ring that supposedly lowers falling damage for 13400 souls. So, after a good 2-3 hours, I grinded the souls to be able to purchase this ring so that I could get at those sweet, sweet items (Even had to kill the White Knight in the Forest of Fallen Giants)

But the ring didn't help. The fall still instantly kills you even with no armor on. You probably need the Sorcery that does junk to fall damage. I am very the sads now.

You win this round, Dark Souls. (Let this be a lesson. Don't bother grinding for the cat ring).

But on the topic of difficulty...I feel kind of useless trying to go the tank route. For some reason, greatly upgrading my equipment to the Old Knight set increased the damage some enemies did to me. It seems like the only point of armor is Poise, because it certainly isn't for protection. At least I found a Soul Vessel and Greater Soul Arrow if I want to play the 'right' way and cheese everything to death (Which is how Gamestop suggests beating difficult enemies, I guess). Makes me sad, yo.

I don't know if this has been said before, I haven't read the whole thread. But

Spoiler

The ring works, I don't know what you're talking about. I even did it with only 80% of my overall health (I don't know if fall damage is calculated by overall health, or what your current reduced health is). I would try the jump again if I were you, jut try and land on the first beam and don't jump just fall off into the well.

 

[Rylot]

Well that was anti-climactic. I restarted with a mage character and went around lighting all the urn things in the 'Things Betwist' area (I killed all the enemies just so I could concentrate on running as fast as possible) and it didn't do anything. Since I had to do it with one torch and cut it pretty close I was hoping for some sort of reward. Guess the developers don't think it's that praise worthy.

The reward is that now you can see well enough to not fall off the runway. That's totally a plus.

Eh, maybe the brightness is really jacked up on my tv, because I haven't really had a problem seeing. Even in the dark tunnels with the Turtle Knights.

 

[Slycne]

I'm stuck on the Pursuer Boss (A big flying Knight with a sword and shield) because I just can't do enough damage and I have no stamina or health.

There's a super easy way to win that fight.

Spoiler

There are a pair of balista on the far side of the room. Kite him over to the opposite side where you start, and then quickly run up behind one of the balista. If you do it right he'll come approaching you from the firing arch. One hit from the balista will knock off 90% of his HP, and it's a simply matter to smack him once or twice.

 

[The Dead Singer]

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

Nope, there is no other way.

You CAN survive the fall with the ring, but you need a ton of health/resistance before you do, judging by the way the game arranged the bonfires in it, it's one of the last areas you're supposed to visit before you start going to previously-unavailable places.

 

[Kopikatsu]

I'm stuck on the Pursuer Boss (A big flying Knight with a sword and shield) because I just can't do enough damage and I have no stamina or health.

There's a super easy way to win that fight.

Spoiler

There are a pair of balista on the far side of the room. Kite him over to the opposite side where you start, and then quickly run up behind one of the balista. If you do it right he'll come approaching you from the firing arch. One hit from the balista will knock off 90% of his HP, and it's a simply matter to smack him once or twice.

That...made the fight really easy, yeah. Took a few tries though because he kept dodging to the side just before firing the arrow.

I've stopped finding a point to souls after beating Pursuer though. There are no merchants who sell anything that I need at the moment, and leveling only gives veeeery small increases to stats now despite being under level 50. So...what do I do with them?

 

[loa]

If it's anything like dark souls 1, heavy armor increases your poise so enemies don't knock you down with a hit (which makes you invincible) so you eat their entire combo, taking more damage if you don't care about positioning or shields.
It's good if you have that heavy ass weapon with a slow attack so no one can interrupt you when you swing it.
Only the heaviest of armors allows you to actually poisetank anything meaningful so you should focus only on putting as much armor as you can without doing fat rolls.

 

[Grimh]

Man I can't help but think that well is a reference to the one in Firelink from the first game.
The one people were tricked into jumping down by other players or just to try it out.
Except this time you can survive and there's loot down there as well!

God I want to play this so bad, I hope so dearly that it gets delivered to me in time so I can play it all throughout the weekend.

 

[sXeth]

To be absolutely fair, Dark Souls 1 only has the barest bones of a directed story -- the vast majority of the narrative meat is in the player's interpretations of what they observe in-game. I suspect a proper judgement can't be made until one is well into the game, far enough to have experienced enough content that lines begin to be drawn. The lore of both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls was a riddle with no true answer, and the story was nonlinear owing to its interpretive nature.

Basically, the best way to answer "is the lore or story good in Dark Souls 2?" is by measuring whether it asks you to interpret your observations or whether it serves literal lore up to you. The former is in character for the series and is where much of the praise comes from. That doesn't make the lore "good" in any of the games, but given the interpretive nature, players will tend to use interpretations that fall in line with their own tastes. But again, that takes time; any player needs both to experience content to contextualise the information provided, and to have to inclination towards interpretive lore in the first place.

In Dark Souls 1, by the same point, I had a relative idea of what to do, allegedly why I was doing it, and a vague direction of where to do it, and why I was an undead anyways. Not a damn clue who half these people were or anything, but the gist of some sort of narrative was established. In DS2, you're cursed, cause it says so. You go to Draegniaa, cause it said so. You must collect 4 mysterious souls, cause some chick of unestablished importance said so, to see the King, cause she told you to. Maybe it'll pick up in tonights session, but there's been no narrative hook, no indication of an objective given (I don't mean quest markers or anything, even a "Hey, you should seek the master of the caves") or established reason for why anything including my character is doing any of this. Also, unlike DS1, it hasn't even bothered to address the existence of the phantoms/other Hollow at all.

 

[Skeith2005]

Hidden just in case. Nothing plot-related spoiled.

Spoiler

It's possible to survive the fall with the ring from the cat, but you still need a huge HP pool (I think I read somewhere that around 1300 should work) and remember to take off all your armor, as that increases fall damage.

Or, if you're patient, at a certain point later (I've yet to get there myself), a ladder will be built to go down there.

 

[Mikejames]

First impressions of 4 hours or so are that it seems a sort of half-hearted effort. Less put into the story, less focused in level design, less variety in baddies, and a more padded out pacing (it took me 2 hours to hit a boss fight).

Wait, so the story's even less direct than, "There are two bells, ring them and something might happen?"

Shame if there's less focus on variety as well. The first Dark Souls had an amazing bestiary.

 

[Kopikatsu]

First impressions of 4 hours or so are that it seems a sort of half-hearted effort. Less put into the story, less focused in level design, less variety in baddies, and a more padded out pacing (it took me 2 hours to hit a boss fight).

Wait, so the story's even less direct than, "There are two bells, ring them and something might happen?"

Shame if there's less focus on variety as well. The first Dark Souls had an amazing bestiary.

So far, the story has been as stated. 'You're cursed, seek out powerful souls, speak with the King'.

Anywho, what's up with The Gutters? I can't seem to progress after the first fog wall (It's a pit filled with treasure n' enemies, sure, but there isn't really anywhere to go from there). The cave beside that area had a giant insect in it that didn't move or attack...and killing it didn't seem to do anything. So I'm at a loss. Because it's either do that, fight the Old Dragonslayer, fight Flexible Sentry, or fight whoever that boss of Lost Bastille is.

All of the listed bosses kind of wreck me. I've beaten all of them as a White Phantom (I've noticed that everyone I've partnered with is a mage. So I do all the dirty work while they just sit back and deal way more damage than I could possibly hope to achieve from total safety), but I can't seem to find any summon signs despite other people being able to summon me just fine. (Yes, I'm human when I go looking for signs)

Also, I feel the need to restate the thread title. 'DS2 is sadistic'. "Oh hey, a boss that involves fighting an infinitely respawning army of small enemies! This seems like a job for the Halberd, since it has a wide swing and can easily hit many enemies at once!". If you feel like this is a reasonable path of logic, you are a terrible person. Because the Halberd's attacks pass over the heads of the enemies and it's swings are so wide that you hit the statues littered about and get staggered.

Edit: I got Old Dragonslayer's health down so low I couldn't see his health bar. Then he insta-killed me with a grab. qq.

 

[Trollhoffer]

In Dark Souls 1, by the same point, I had a relative idea of what to do, allegedly why I was doing it, and a vague direction of where to do it, and why I was an undead anyways. Not a damn clue who half these people were or anything, but the gist of some sort of narrative was established. In DS2, you're cursed, cause it says so. You go to Draegniaa, cause it said so. You must collect 4 mysterious souls, cause some chick of unestablished importance said so, to see the King, cause she told you to. Maybe it'll pick up in tonights session, but there's been no narrative hook, no indication of an objective given (I don't mean quest markers or anything, even a "Hey, you should seek the master of the caves") or established reason for why anything including my character is doing any of this. Also, unlike DS1, it hasn't even bothered to address the existence of the phantoms/other Hollow at all.

I'll have to withhold complete judgement until I get my hands on Dark Souls 2, but I'm not really buying your point here. The way you describe the story sounds very similar in presentation to Demon's Souls, and not that far off Dark Souls. Except in Dark Souls, we can replace some of that text with "find two bells, because a mad person said so". I'm not seeing how the nonstory of Dark Souls 2 is worse than the nonstory of Demon's Souls or Dark Souls.

Mind you, you're not the only one I've seen make a comment like that, and to some extent I understand. But I think you're also making a biased set of calls based on a complete experience of Dark Souls and a very early experience of Dark Souls 2. Dark Souls 1 was not exactly tightly directed in direct narrative terms, and there was almost no story unless you actively went looking for it beyond the introduction. So when people say they don't like the story in this one, I wonder what kind of game they were expecting, because these games have never served up their delicious segments of lore so easily.

 

[Falcondynamite]

First impressions of 4 hours or so are that it seems a sort of half-hearted effort. Less put into the story, less focused in level design, less variety in baddies, and a more padded out pacing (it took me 2 hours to hit a boss fight).

Wait, so the story's even less direct than, "There are two bells, ring them and something might happen?"

Shame if there's less focus on variety as well. The first Dark Souls had an amazing bestiary.

Edit: I got Old Dragonslayer's health down so low I couldn't see his health bar. Then he insta-killed me with a grab. qq.

Dood... The Last Bastille fight is really tough to do solo. If you're having a hard time with Orn...Old Dragonslayer, then you may want to consider getting help because the Three Sentry's are damn tough. Then the one right after them in Sinners Rif feels like an upgraded more aggressive Old Dragonslayer.

Old Dragonslayer you need to stay on the offensive and stick to his right. If he jumps back, chase him with Shield up, you give him more room you're just strengthening his spear's reach. Have a decent shield strong enough to survive his combo's and you should be good to go (the leather shield works pretty well, or how I like to call it the pancake shield).

Good luck.

 

[Kopikatsu]

First impressions of 4 hours or so are that it seems a sort of half-hearted effort. Less put into the story, less focused in level design, less variety in baddies, and a more padded out pacing (it took me 2 hours to hit a boss fight).

Wait, so the story's even less direct than, "There are two bells, ring them and something might happen?"

Shame if there's less focus on variety as well. The first Dark Souls had an amazing bestiary.

Edit: I got Old Dragonslayer's health down so low I couldn't see his health bar. Then he insta-killed me with a grab. qq.

Dood... The Last Bastille fight is really tough to do solo. If you're having a hard time with Orn...Old Dragonslayer, then you may want to consider getting help because the Three Sentry's are damn tough. Then the one right after them in Sinners Rif feels like an upgraded more aggressive Old Dragonslayer.

Old Dragonslayer you need to stay on the offensive and stick to his right. If he jumps back, chase him with Shield up, you give him more room you're just strengthening his spear's reach. Have a decent shield strong enough to survive his combo's and you should be good to go (the leather shield works pretty well, or how I like to call it the pancake shield).

Good luck.

I haven't found the Trio that difficult to be honest. I can kill two of them by myself, but that's all I got.

Yes, I realize the irony in saying that they aren't tough yet I can't beat them on my own.

Easier fight than Slim anyway.

Edit: Really dumb question. Where do you get the Orange Soapstone? I still don't have it...