Dark Souls II Beta Info

[Ishal]

The information comes from EpicName,Bro a prominent youtuber in the Dark Souls community. He lives in Japan and was invited to the TGS Bamco booth to play the game.

Spoiler

TLDR if you don't want to watch the video.

1) Biggest thing to take away from this is that it appears being hollow won't stop invasions. You can now be invaded at any time regardless if hollow or in human form. This makes sense since they are trying to play up the online mode due to now having dedicated servers

2) Covenants are better with more emphasis on gameplay. One covenant exists to provide "protectors" to players being invaded. Ex. If I'm a member of this certain covenant and I get invaded, another player is automatically summoned to help me. The covenant that the bodyguard is in is also playable.

3) Summons have time limits set in place. White phantoms are only around for a certain amount of time. The more enemies the phantom kills causes the time on the bar to shrink. This is likely to keep players from carrying others.

4) Attunments effect casting time
5) Parrying has a bit of a wind up, as in if you try to parry right at the end of a swing you'll still get hit.
6) Enemies are more aggressive
7) Combat seems to be a bit slower

This info comes from the video and is from the beta version, so is subject to change. But it all sounds good so far.

 

[Pink Gregory]

It's a real shame that some of Dark Souls is essentially locked off by a 'pay for online services' pay-gate on consoles. Seems it'll be even more so with DSII.

Still, sounds interesting. Hopefully there's perhaps an item, rather than a covenant, that reduces invasions, I can see people becoming irritated with that unless the developers pull some sort of selective matchmaking technique.

 

[Ishal]

It's a real shame that some of Dark Souls is essentially locked off by a 'pay for online services' pay-gate on consoles. Seems it'll be even more so with DSII.

Still, sounds interesting. Hopefully there's perhaps an item, rather than a covenant, that reduces invasions, I can see people becoming irritated with that unless the developers pull some sort of selective matchmaking technique.

Well, its not going on PS4 or Xbone so I'm not sure. Is the playstation network for the ps3 going to be slapped with a fee as well? I heard it wasn't.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

1) Biggest thing to take away from this is that it appears being hollow won't stop invasions. You can now be invaded at any time regardless if hollow or in human form. This makes sense since they are trying to play up the online mode due to now having dedicated servers.

Bleargh. That sounds dreadful. I didn't mind invasions, but I enjoyed them on a limited basis and as an accepted risk when I wasn't hollow. This will absolutely shred the atmosphere of the game for me.

Interest in Dark Souls 2...plummeting...

 

[deleted139124]

DELETED

 

[Ishal]

snip

I've considered DS to be MMO-lite. With seeing other players walking around and being invaded/summoned for multiplayer. It sounds like they are going more too the MMO side of the spectrum with this game. I get where you're coming from, loved the atmosphere of the game, but I also loved its multiplayer. So I'm neutral on this at the moment. I suspect things might change.

snip

You might be able to just unplug it and play that way, maybe. I'm not sure. It sounds like what they are trying to do reward players for being in human form instead of being hollow all the time. I can see why people might not like that though.

Still early, something might be changed.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I've considered DS to be MMO-lite. With seeing other players walking around and being invaded/summoned for multiplayer. It sounds like they are going more too the MMO side of the spectrum with this game. I get where you're coming from, loved the atmosphere of the game, but I also loved its multiplayer. So I'm neutral on this at the moment. I suspect things might change.

It was, but with a few niche exceptions even MMO propers don't have 100% round the clock non-consensual PvP. I don't know how many people here have experienced that, but it's stressful and exhausting if you're not actively seeking it out. The games that do offer it, and offer it in a well balanced and appealing format, tend to primarily shine as playgrounds for the emergent game play that non stop PvP combat can create. They're not highly focused dungeon crawls punctuated by tricksy bosses and praised for their somber and melancholy atmosphere and indirect storytelling. Having Dicksmasher101 blast into view every 22 seconds tends to disrupt that, and more than mildly.

 

[ERaptor]

1) Biggest thing to take away from this is that it appears being hollow won't stop invasions. You can now be invaded at any time regardless if hollow or in human form. This makes sense since they are trying to play up the online mode due to now having dedicated servers

Well, since you can probably jsut play offline to prevent that, it wont stop me from liking the game. The MP was only a tacked on inbalance anyway. (Oh, you're just finished that area? Let me introduce you to Mr. Maxed out Armor over here.)

Everything else sounds fantastic tough.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Well, since you can probably jsut play offline to prevent that, it wont stop me from liking the game.

Well, that's *a* solution, but don't you lose quite a lot taking that route? The presence of other spirits, flickering away near the fires, and all the written messages...the little snatches where you'd see how people died...it was all quite evocative, and added significantly to the atmosphere. Even the occasional invasion was beneficial as well, as it created yet another dimension of hostility and pressure. There's just a wide gulf between "occasional invasion" and "invasions all the time lulz", which can cause serious issues. Anyone who has spent any time on a PvP server knows how prevalent and insidious griefing can be.

 

[ERaptor]

Well, since you can probably jsut play offline to prevent that, it wont stop me from liking the game.

Well, that's *a* solution, but don't you lose quite a lot taking that route? The presence of other spirits, flickering away near the fires, and all the written messages...the little snatches where you'd see how people died...it was all quite evocative, and added significantly to the atmosphere. Even the occasional invasion was beneficial as well, as it created yet another dimension of hostility and pressure. There's just a wide gulf between "occasional invasion" and "invasions all the time lulz", which can cause serious issues. Anyone who has spent any time on a PvP server knows how prevalent and insidious griefing can be.

That's actually quite true. Well, maybe some Modding could help that, or they add teh option to prevent invasions. Dark Souls Difficutly was exactly up my alleay. Invasions however are jsut random Di*ks coming into your game, usually a lot better equiped and stated, to annoy you. Also, like usual, i found the general attitude of most PVPers in DS to be...a bit harsh to say the least.

 

[-Seraph-]

Yea count me in as one of those not all that happy about getting invaded while hollow.

I never liked invasions much to begin with, but I was willing to put up with the risks when I went human, and was fair enough. The game could be tedious enough as it was, having random people invade even when you are hollow just takes that tedium to a whole new unwanted level. PvP always felt kind of haphazardly tacked on to begin with, so unless they have mad significant improvements to it, this just sound terrible for those who are in it for the solo experience.

Having to go offline to avoid that just seems like a rather crap compromise as you miss out on the online features that were pretty good. Then again who knows, this might not turn out too badly, but I'm gonna remain dissatisfied until more information or personal experience sheds more light on this.

 

[Windcaler]

I managed to catch ENB's video earlier and theyre interesting changes. I really like the parry and attunement changes.

The invasion thing, that bugs me. While someone can play in offline mode Ive always hated that thats a necessity for avoiding trolls and twinks. That was an issue they needed to get fixed but so far as we know nothing has changed on that front.

On the opposite side with summons Im actually quite happy about that. First off, its stops carrying and makes players rely on further skill. Secondly it will limit those people that purposely group up for 3v1 vs invaders and for a Darkmoon blade like me that really sucks. The guilty must be brought to justice and 3v1's made it nigh impossible to do so.

Also, no word of a duelist covenant. I am sad

 

[Ishal]

Anyone who has spent any time on a PvP server knows how prevalent and insidious griefing can be.

Yeah... but though it may be griefing, its still nothing compared to THAT level of griefing. In ToR and GW2 I've been jumped by 6 different players and just plowed into the dirt. You'll never get that level of grief from a game like Dark Souls.

But, its true, it can get grating. I've been in Sen's Fortress and been on a mission with a clear goal of what I wanted only to have it stopped by douchecanoe87E invade me, believe me, I get it. But, that said, I think the people at FROM get it too. I highly doubt that they'll just make a system where people can get griefed constantly. There are lots of ways to remedy that with gameplay too. The indictment system could be tailored to really punish griefing in any number of ways. Also, a significant cooldown could be placed on players who have been invaded, allowing for a large period of time to pass before it can happen again. Also, there might be covenants or even items in the game to hinder invading players or even stop them from invading. Perhaps and item that curses them or halves their health when they enter your world?

We'll just have to see.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

1) Biggest thing to take away from this is that it appears being hollow won't stop invasions. You can now be invaded at any time regardless if hollow or in human form. This makes sense since they are trying to play up the online mode due to now having dedicated servers.

Bleargh. That sounds dreadful. I didn't mind invasions, but I enjoyed them on a limited basis and as an accepted risk when I wasn't hollow. This will absolutely shred the atmosphere of the game for me.

Interest in Dark Souls 2...plummeting...

Personally, I really like the change. To me, being hollow was always an iffy subject, in the game. As I understand it, being hollow is bad. Being hollow is what you do not want. But then the game itself makes it so being hollow is beneficial to you. To me, the whole concept was a bit jarring. A desperate enough Undead would still attack a hollow in hopes of finding even the faintest shred of humanity.

But your max HP is also cut little by little, the more you die. So you're incentivized to get away from being hollow and being human because not only is being hollow no longer beneficial to you, but you're severely disadvantaged in the event of an invasion. I really like it because it removes the ludonarrative dissonance(hot term of the week, but I don't know any other way to call it) present in Dark Souls, caused by the safety that hollow form grants you. You're now given a reason to get as far away from that as possible, both in terms of story and gameplay, mending that rift.

Personally, I think this Way of the Blue(working name, dunno what it's actually called) should all be one covenant. You get phantoms summoned automatically to help in your time of need, but you can also be summoned to help others out. A form of family that takes care of its own, if you will.

I also feel torn on the anti-carry measures placed on white phantoms. It severely hampers the ability for friends to play the game together. For me, they're interested, at best. They could turn out very well, or very poorly.

There's also a bit about how rolling speed is no longer tied to your equipped armor. This is new that excites me greatly.

I was worried at first, what with how they're treating Dark Souls II like a AAA title. But the more I hear about the game, the more excited I get. As far as I'm concerned: CHOO CHOO! No brakes on the Hype Train!

 

[ERaptor]

Personally, I really like the change. To me, being hollow was always an iffy subject, in the game. As I understand it, being hollow is bad. Being hollow is what you do not want. But then the game itself makes it so being hollow is beneficial to you. To me, the whole concept was a bit jarring. A desperate enough Undead would still attack a hollow in hopes of finding even the faintest shred of humanity.

But your max HP is also cut little by little, the more you die. So you're incentivized to get away from being hollow and being human because not only is being hollow no longer beneficial to you, but you're severely disadvantaged in the event of an invasion. I really like it because it removes the ludonarrative dissonance(hot term of the week, but I don't know any other way to call it) present in Dark Souls, caused by the safety that hollow form grants you. You're now given a reason to get as far away from that as possible, both in terms of story and gameplay, mending that rift.

I see what you're saying. But the thing with being human was, apart from getting invaded, you were only profiting. If you take that away, what reason is there to have being hollow in the first place? If they keep the other mechanics intact, the drop chance for items decreases and you take more damage from elemental hits. But to me, the getting invaded thing was the one major reason i wasnt human all the time. Also, i would see a problem with humanity farming. I saw people on Youtube running around with inventory-humanity in the 3-digit area. Personally, i like it more when you really consider staying hollow, even if you coudl potentially become human. It added that extra bit of tension in the first game, apart ofc from the fact that you drop humanity when you die.

Also, in my eyes pvp should be optional, especially in a game like Dark Souls. You cant really balance it. If they port over the System, you'd be invaded in your Tutorial Armor by a Guy wearing full Stone Set. It adds a random difficulty-factor to an otherwise skilldriven game. Also, the encounters in DS were crafted to be challenging, but doable. I can think of a hefty number of rooms where a random-guy appearing would be plainly unfair. Take for example the narrow Walkways in Sen's Fortress. Even IF you can face the guy without being blindsighted, if he wears a heavy weapon, he can drain your stamina and force you to roll to your death. That may be stuff PVP-comitted people find awesome, but i want to experience the game and especially it's story without some 13 year old running around and ruining my fun. If i want that kind of stuff, i play COD.

And also, there's the issue of camping. Were you spend hours clearing a section, and then Captain Noob-basher falls from the sky to cave your face in. I seriously had to attempt 50 damn times to kill the Red Dragon in the Undead Fortress. Everytime i was standing on the bridge a dude came running down the thing, tossing Magic or Arrows at me. And that's a fight where one step puts you into the instakill fireattack.

 

[00slash00]

1) Biggest thing to take away from this is that it appears being hollow won't stop invasions. You can now be invaded at any time regardless if hollow or in human form. This makes sense since they are trying to play up the online mode due to now having dedicated servers.

Bleargh. That sounds dreadful. I didn't mind invasions, but I enjoyed them on a limited basis and as an accepted risk when I wasn't hollow. This will absolutely shred the atmosphere of the game for me.

Interest in Dark Souls 2...plummeting...

Plummeting because of this? I hate pvp and always played as hollow to avoid it, but you can always just play the game offline. Doesn't seem like a huge deal to me

 

[Exius Xavarus]

I see what you're saying. But the thing with being human was, apart from getting invaded, you were only profiting. If you take that away, what reason is there to have being hollow in the first place? If they keep the other mechanics intact, the drop chance for items decreases and you take more damage from elemental hits. But to me, the getting invaded thing was the one major reason i wasnt human all the time. Also, i would see a problem with humanity farming. I saw people on Youtube running around with inventory-humanity in the 3-digit area. Personally, i like it more when you really consider staying hollow, even if you coudl potentially become human. It added that extra bit of tension in the first game, apart ofc from the fact that you drop humanity when you die.

I'm not entirely understanding this whole paragraph. The more hollow you become, the weaker you become. You, as a player, can kill those hollows. They weren't spared from you, why should you be spared from others because you're hollow. Becoming hollow is a bad thing. You don't want to be hollow. The fact that hollows can still be invaded removes the rift in story and gameplay by making it so that being hollow is no longer beneficial to you, thus making hollow form less and less of an appealing choice. It was never meant to be an appealing choice, to begin with.

Also, in my eyes pvp should be optional, especially in a game like Dark Souls. You cant really balance it. If they port over the System, you'd be invaded in your Tutorial Armor by a Guy wearing full Stone Set. It adds a random difficulty-factor to an otherwise skilldriven game. Also, the encounters in DS were crafted to be challenging, but doable. I can think of a hefty number of rooms where a random-guy appearing would be plainly unfair. Take for example the narrow Walkways in Sen's Fortress. Even IF you can face the guy without being blindsighted, if he wears a heavy weapon, he can drain your stamina and force you to roll to your death. That may be stuff PVP-comitted people find awesome, but i want to experience the game and especially it's story without some 13 year old running around and ruining my fun. If i want that kind of stuff, i play COD.

PvP is optional. Play offline. I'm sorry if that rubs you the wrong way, but that's how the game was designed. They're only playing within the rules of their world. PvP is a part of the world. If you cut out PvP, you're cutting out part of the experience. I think this is where we're gonna have to agree to disagree, because I don't believe you should be able to cut out whatever online element you want, for the sake of your convenience. If you want to cut part of the online out, you should cut all the online out. You either get a hampered experience or you play the game as it was intended to be played. If someone invades you, they're simply another monster to fight. The only difference is that you're no longer fighting a programmed AI, but another, much less predictable entity. I'm hoping that they fix the PvP in that you don't have to master the lag in order to fight properly. Fighting games don't have that, FPS games don't have that, I don't think Dark Souls II should have that. But it only reinforces the game being skill-driven, as it the game can only test your skill so much with its AI. Your mettle is truly tested against others, whether they're more or less powerful than you are.

I also forgot to discuss another point with Guppy in my last post, so here it is:

It was, but with a few niche exceptions even MMO propers don't have 100% round the clock non-consensual PvP.

ConquerOnline and Heroes of Three Kingdoms do. As soon as you're high level enough, you're fair game. Of course, in Conquer, there are measures that prevent the highest level players from needlessly preying on the weak, but PvP is a constant thing that's always active. Same thing in Heroes of Three Kingdoms, but to a more severe extent. If you're neutral, other players can still kill you, but at a penalty. If you join Wei, Wu and Shu can attack and kill you with no penalty whatsoever, regardless of your level. Obviously, the same thing applies to the entire faction triangle.

Even R.O.H.A.N.: Blood Feud has persistant PvP. Particularly where a Dhan or Dekan is concerned, as they can turn on Assassination Mode and kill with impunity. When they turn that mode on, every player appears as a monster to be slain for experience, with no penalty to them. While on the other side of that same coin, they also appear as monsters to be slain. Except the player in Assassination Mode also runs the risk of losing their equipment, if killed. But there are no level restrictions to stop high level players from thrashing new level 30s. These are just examples I have personally played(for several years, in fact), but I'm sure there are more proper MMOs that have 'round the clock, non-consensual PvP.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I also forgot to discuss another point with Guppy in my last post, so here it is:

It was, but with a few niche exceptions even MMO propers don't have 100% round the clock non-consensual PvP.

ConquerOnline and Heroes of Three Kingdoms do. As soon as you're high level enough, you're fair game. Of course, in Conquer, there are measures that prevent the highest level players from needlessly preying on the weak, but PvP is a constant thing that's always active. Same thing in Heroes of Three Kingdoms, but to a more severe extent. If you're neutral, other players can still kill you, but at a penalty. If you join Wei, Wu and Shu can attack and kill you with no penalty whatsoever, regardless of your level. Obviously, the same thing applies to the entire faction triangle.

Even R.O.H.A.N.: Blood Feud has persistant PvP. Particularly where a Dhan or Dekan is concerned, as they can turn on Assassination Mode and kill with impunity. When they turn that mode on, every player appears as a monster to be slain for experience, with no penalty to them. While on the other side of that same coin, they also appear as monsters to be slain. Except the player in Assassination Mode also runs the risk of losing their equipment, if killed. But there are no level restrictions to stop high level players from thrashing new level 30s. These are just examples I have personally played(for several years, in fact), but I'm sure there are more proper MMOs that have 'round the clock, non-consensual PvP.

It was, but with a few niche exceptions even MMO propers don't have 100% round the clock non-consensual PvP.

You actually missed a couple. Shadowbane for one, off the top of my head.

There is no major MMO that allows for global, persistent, non-consensual PvP. Even EVE has its safe areas.

 

[IFS]

Well this is the first bit of news I've heard that makes me concerned for Dark Souls 2, mostly the pvp stuff. I tend to just do whatever build seems fun so I also tend to get wrecked by pvp players who are specced purely for it, and this change sounds like its going to make griefing really bad. Granted I like the invasions aspect to Dark Souls, it provided a nice counterbalance to the advantage of being able to summon people (in addition to other interesting aspects), but now it sounds like summons are hampered, and invasions are multiplied. And to those saying that I could just play offline I don't want to miss out on all the other online features (messages, seeing phantoms, extra estus, etc) as they add to the atmosphere and gameplay and besides that I like to have my ps3 online so I can see when my friends get on.

I seriously doubt they can keep invasions interesting enough with this change, as 9/10 of the invasions I have been through tended to be not. That 10% was often fun enough to be worth it (even though I lost most of those anyways) but I don't see this change widening that percent. Hopefully the other changes will help that, the server change in particular ought to at least make it more fair (hopefully fewer lag backstabs from in front of me) if nothing else. The covenant with the autosummon in response to an invasion sounds like a decent start at least, providing they don't have the same summon restrictions as normal summons do (otherwise it would become useless to a lot of players over time) but depending on how close the invader ends up to you the person might not finish being summoned in time to help, so I doubt that its really going to help that much.

As for the summons timer it depends on how long the timer lasts, really its not going to stop carrying though as the summoner could just go fetch another summon (or the same person if they're trying for coop with a friend) which seems like it would make this an annoyance at best. Really I don't get why they're so opposed to someone carrying another player through the game, it lets players who might otherwise not be interested get in on a great game without having an easy mode.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

You actually missed a couple. Shadowbane for one, off the top of my head.

There is no major MMO that allows for global, persistent, non-consensual PvP. Even EVE has its safe areas.

Yeah, I knew there would be more, those were just examples I used to play. I never knew Shadowbane existed.

I didn't see you mention anything about safe areas, so apologies if I missed that somewhere(because I still don't, save for the recent reply). I was merely pointing out that there are proper MMOs with persistent, 'round the clock PvP. You can't play offline and cut the other players out; you play with other players or not at all. If you leave a safe area then you're fair game. Some of them are even more brutal than the way the Souls games do it, like R.O.H.A.N. and Heroes of Three Kingdoms that allow super high levels to trash level 30s only just entering PvP. Twinks can do it, sure, but they have to go through special measures or be really, really good at the game to make that happen(don't mistake that for me supporting them, though, please).

It might be that I didn't play Dark Souls online often(my shitellite internet isn't suited for playing games online, so I'm only online if I'm at a friend's), but I never really found anywhere that PvP shouldn't be allowed to happen. To be perfectly honest, I don't particularly mind. Personally, I'm all for invasions being possible in hollow form. If you don't like it, fair enough. I can see where the people who don't like it are coming from. It's just my belief that people shouldn't be allowed to cut certain online components while keeping others, simply for the sake of their own convenience. That's wanting to have your cake and eat it, too.