From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[meanwhileInPoland]

please tell me you have some spy equipment to record that shit

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

Dunno man... how is it gonna be different from all the footage available on the net? (not that i've watched any)
Aside from word "cyka" every couple of seconds.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

aaa ok i hoped for some new footage than the level from trailers(castle +undead soldiers) and the one from beta(forest+ruins+lots of skeletons)

 

[Heresiarch]

lol those newbs are just so horrible. But I guess it's exactly these newbs who can enjoy the game to the fullest. For me the difficulty seems easy so far, especially since I'm so awesome that I can solo Ornstein and Smough with STR knight/INT wizard/DEX samurai/DEX pyro.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

Played the shit out of the demo version (total of about 4 hours out of 7 that I spent there). First off, it's your standart presentation version, so: no stats and inventory screen, no levels other than the cathedral, no character customization, no item drops.

If you, like me, have been intentionally avoiding info about this game, then here are the general changes:
- riposte animation is gone! Enemy just fall on their asses and let you land a swing (only managed to hit once even with fastest weapon on that dual wielding guy)
- Kicking and jumping attacks are gone! (or just unavailable in this demo for whatever reason), although I've managed to pull off some kind of pushback - punch during a mad R1 combo.
- You're no longer invincible during backstab animation, you take damage but it's reduced, you cannot be interrupted though.

As for impressions if anyone fucking cares:
- All weapon's fast swings feel a LOT faster in comparison to DkS. Which, as speculated above may be due to new Agility stat. In which case it's gonna be kind of a primary statistic. Strong attacks, feel much slower and kind of more pointless than before.
- After-swing recovery time feels longer especially if you don't land a hit with almost every weapon. Remember how in DkS 1 you were sort of staggered for a few ms when missing with a halbert type of weapon? Now, it seems like all weapons have this feature, so, think carefully.
- Sorceries are a bitch to land (seriously D=) although, I only managed to kill the boss with the sorc dude.
- NO CONTEXT TOOLTIP WHEN YOU SELECT MAGIC. WHAT FAGGOTRY IS THIS
- It felt a little less responsive than DkS.

(Also, if youre a complete dipshit like me and thought it was coming out only on PS4 then know that its coming out on PS3 as well. Godfuckingdamnit im gonna buy it someday)

Now back to ignoring this thread.

 

[Kanedias]

No jumping attacks? Ugh. I hope it was simply due to it being a demo or the controls having changed or something, as jumping attacks were great. As for kicks the "pushback" you mention seems similar to Demon's Souls version of the kick which was a sort of shove, if I recall. Maybe it is just something related to controls, then.

Anyways, I found another video where you can see the wheel skeleton boss fight better

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjE1MzA3MjMy.html

Check minute 10:06

Conclusions: There is no true boss, it's a gauntlet. Damaging any undead in that room seems to deal damage to the total HP. Skeletons may be immortal and not contribute damage to the total HP bar while the necromancers are alive, not sure. Also those necromancers seemed to be able to cast some type of Dark Magic. Interesting, we never had that type of boss fight in the Souls series yet, and it looks challenging without phantoms, those were a lot of skeletons.

 

[Heresiarch]

- After-swing recovery time feels longer especially if you don't land a hit with almost every weapon. Remember how in DkS 1 you were sort of staggered for a few ms when missing with a halbert type of weapon? Now, it seems like all weapons have this feature, so, think carefully.

Finally, this is a very good thing because you can't just randomly slash at the air anymore, especially in PVP. It's actually realistic too, because swinging or stabbing stuffs as heavy as 2 to 5 kg but not hitting anything will force you to spend your own strength and effort to stop the inertia.

 

[Kanedias]

Dark Souls 2 "Into the Light" comic announced


I don't know how I feel about this... I can't find the right word... Oh, I found it:




In all seriousness, the way they convey the story in Dark Souls is amazing, and I feel like this clashes so much with that. And if they really wanted such a tie in, they should have tried to get the author of Berserk out of his hibernation or something. Bleh.

 

[Heresiarch]

Dark Souls 2 "Into the Light" comic announced


I don't know how I feel about this... I can't find the right word... Oh, I found it:




In all seriousness, the way they convey the story in Dark Souls is amazing, and I feel like this clashes so much with that. And if they really wanted such a tie in, they should have tried to get the author of Berserk out of his hibernation or something. Bleh.

That manga doesn't look bad actually.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

they should have tried to get the author of Berserk out of his hibernation

dude that autistic fucker cant even finish berserk

unconfirmed rumors based upon leak from beta and collectors edition stuff : ds2

Spoiler

will tie in the worlds of demons and dark souls

 

[Hobo Elf]

Considering that Sony owns the Demon's Souls IP they can only go for loose connections. It's all superficial anyway and doesn't add / remove anything.

 

[Morgoth]

At some point I'd be interested in a first-person dungeon crawler. King's Field reboot is highly overdue.

 

[WalmartJesus]

Considering that Sony owns the Demon's Souls IP they can only go for loose connections. It's all superficial anyway and doesn't add / remove anything.

Pretty much.

The Demon's Souls connection will only be aesthetics like a more bleak/foreboding setting or maybe paying homage when it comes to enemy and boss design.

 

[Elwro]

Installed the beta. It's unfortunate the servers will only be on for 2 hours; I will surely confuse myself again with the time zones...

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

new footage from beta. i dont know what were those monsters in last 30 seconds but the gang rape looked great anyway today is 12.10 so some of you playstation3 faggots will play ds2 beta for couple hours

 

[dunno lah]

So...invaders cannot use levers anymore. So they can't do stuff like, uhh...flipping the catacomb bridge anymore?

 

[Elwro]

I can't login yet and people are already posting footage from the beta?

 

[Morgoth]

^^

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

MUST.

IGNORE.

CANNOT.

GET.

HYPED.

 

[Elwro]

Aaaalright. Played the last 2 hours.

For me, multiplayer worked (only a bit) for about 20 minutes or less. I managed to invade one person. I saw many signs but was never able to summon anyone. I was also never summoned myself, only got to the 'you're being summoned' stage. And at some point I ceased to be able to even leave summoning signs and invasion always ended with a 'can't find a world to invade' message; presumably because other players also weren't able to leave their signs.

You can only (try to) invade while human. But you can leave your summoning sign while human or hollow. You also see summoning signs no matter whether you're human or hollow.

There are two types of summon signs you can see (and two types of stones): small and big. Small ones supposedly summon 'shades' who help you for a short time. Big ones, I'd guess, should work just as in Dark Souls but I couldn't test them.

I tried the dual wielding class. (A frequent NPC opponent too.) Fluid and nice. But I couldn't figure out how to block with any of the 2 weapons. I guess you don't, you just whirl your way around the opponents.

Vertical design seems to be in. There are a few ways around the level that we got, apart from the 'walk everywhere' option you can jump down in various places. Unfortunately I found 2 places in which the character couldn't climb a knee-high obstacle; one time I was denied an item and the other time it blocked passage to another part of the level. Hope they fix this because it really looked ridiculous.

Darkness is a big thing. You can light a torch, but only at bonfires. Then you carry it (regardless of what your 'official' left-hand item is) and can use your items in the bottom slot as you please. (Even signs.) You can even climb a ladder and still keep holding it. But if you roll in a watery area, or change the left-hand item, the torch is gone. I don't see any other way to light it. Vision is important especially since it's very easy to fall down in various pits (not necessarily lethal).

I felt a touch of the true DS spirit when after fighting a formidable opponent, a huge guy with two sickles, which you really have to spend some time on if you play solo (which was the only option for me) with a Dex char, and whom I thought to be at leat a mini-boss, I encountered another one like him and realised he's just a 'normal' monster :D

The graphics seem a bit sharper. Architecture looks great.

To discover secret passages, you no longer hack at walls, but 'use' them.

I know where the Zweihander is :D I also found two armor sets, one in a trapped chest, and an ultra sword "Pursuer's Greatsword".

 

[Nicolai]

Played for 1.5 hours, fun beta. Those butcher/sickle dudes were pretty hardcore, I only killed one of them before deciding to avoid the rest. Did you get to the Executioner's Chariot boss, Elwro? He kicked my ass a few times before I figured out how to take him out.

 

[Elwro]

Nope. I only got to the area with the second bonfire and explored around that. (Got both to the bottom and the top of the first structure, I think.) I lost too much time trying to use the multiplayer options.

I also decided to run through the sickled dudes eventually but couldn't find my way later on. I found some closed domes with items inside and also a bridge which looked inaccessible. I couldn't look properly because I was running away from sth like 7 opponents Could you give me some pointers where I should run towards, in case there's a 2nd run of the beta?

edit:
also: drinking an Estus Flask takes longer now.

 

[Nicolai]

Yeah, sure. The beta is back online on the 27th, but I don't know if it'll be set in the same area? In any case, there's a second bridge to the right of the one you run over to get to the first butcher, but it is only accessible from the butcher's side. So you have to run across the bridge, and then immediately turn right (before the butcher attacks you) and run past a bunch of trees until you get to a path. If you turn right again you'll get to a second stone bridge, go over it and you'll get to a section where you fight some zombies, a goatman and four black phantoms. You'll eventually come to a rickety ass bridge with a powerful black phantom and a boss fog gate waiting for you at the end.

btw: one of the domed houses has an open door and one of the other ones can be accessed through the roof by jumping down from above (the spot where you fight multiple humanoid enemies)

there's supposedly two bosses in the demo, but I didn't find the first one. I assume that he's somewhere in the first area

 

[Elwro]

Thanks! Since the point of the beta was supposedly to test multiplayer I guess they can give us the same area. Who knows. Did the multiplayer options work for you?

I also found no 'proper' boss in the first structure. I'd hazard a guess that I missed some secret door after the ladder to the top. The location was weird: one ninja waiting at the top, another jumping there from a ledge below. And then no options save for jumping down, gaining just a lousy Lifegem in the process. I have a hunch there's something hidden there. (Apart from the knee-high wall that my char wasn't able to climb and which would be a good way to reach the rope bridge.)

Thanks for the pointers on the domed houses, too!

 

[Nicolai]

No probs I didn't explore the first big structure all that well, got killed when I jumped down to the lower level the first time I entered it - had to ditch my torch in favor of a shield and got killed in the darkness, so I picked the other route the next time and headed through the door on the upper level and down the ladder to the bonfire. Didn't return after that and focused on exploring the forest area instead.

The multiplayer features didn't work for me, but a lot of people seem to be saying that the summoning/invading stuff stopped working 30 minutes into the beta, which is when I started playing so I guess that explains it.