Let's Talk Dark Souls II

Matt Rorey: Repeating everything Brad just said, because he was reading chat instead of listening.

Movement def seems quicker.

I noticed you don't do that horrible animation if you try to drink no estus.

Dual shielding, eh Rorie?

Here's an idea. Dark Souls belongs on Best of Gen list.

Extremely excited for this. Tripple dip incoming!

@fiercedeity said:

Anyone who wants to use weapons like the cestus or the claws, for example.

Because how reliant you are on upgrading existing weapons rather than replacing them with new ones, shops are only really useful for getting weapons you can't get anywhere else, and stat comparison on a DPS level is hard to do because a weapons moveset and how much it is upgraded factors in more than its base, unupgraded stats.

So while it's kinda annoying that you can't compare the stats of a weapon in a shop to ones in your inventory, it really wouldn't be that useful anyway.

Me too man. I'm getting these Halo 2 feelings back again from the lead up to this game

Who buys weapons from shops in Dark Souls?

Wait, this is a teen-rated game?

I'm not sure when the last time I was this hyped for a game, I feel like a kid again.

@hayt: I don't think all the souls games unknowables were created equal. Learning the enemies bosses and environment layouts and exploring them as well as discovering neat mechanical interactions is fun.

But while discovery is fun theres an unfair disparity in how easy it is to find the sellers for certain builds in a way that could leave you with 30+ points in int and up shit creak with only soul arrow to fend off the piranhas.

At a certain point as long as you are exploring all areas thoroughly and trying stuff out mostly yourself looking up some stuff in the wiki is fine in my opinion.

I'm sort of confused with the zeitgeist thing. I played Demon's Souls using the English language Chinese import back then it came out in Japan so I know about the fun of working it out for yourself and not having any guide. But people seem to say "I want to play it when it comes out before anything is known" but also seem to at the same time want to be involved in "working it out with other people" which as soon as someone finishes the game (which I am going to give 48 hours, max), will be pretty much like using a FAQ.

If the appeal is playing it without knowing anything about the game that experience is not at all limited to the launch window. Just don't look at FAQs or wikis.

@jedo: You mean, what's up with a PS3 and 360 game in 2014? Age of the systems.

ancient hardware is what's up

Also no rag dolls = LAME

invading being forced = SUPER LAME, Griefers rejoice...

Hey I'd buy a VinnCo guide for Dark Souls 2!

Bring on the pain!!!!

Animation still looks off somehow. Can't quite put my finger on it.

I'm sure I'll get used to it though.

I love how almost everyone on staff is now into Dark Souls, it makes me happy. Now to convert Jeff...

@cptbedlam: Awesome news, thanks man. I was pretty bummed out there for a bit.

@tesla: You can map the jump back to circle (or "b" on 360). First thing I did in the network test beta after failing to do even the most basic jumps across small gaps.

I like a lot of what I heard/saw in this video...except for jump being mapped to L3.

Every input counts in the Souls series, and I imagine getting screwed from an accidental click jump would be a somewhat common occurrence for me. Or having the action of clicking the stick slightly change my run trajectory and send me off a cliff. Yeah...jumping with L3 is a bad idea.

Lately all of the vidoes have been jittery for me but this one was really bad.

Not too concerned about the invasion stuff, but I always thought reducing your health when you die was kind of a shitty mechanic, so I'm not thrilled that that's back.

Ugh. I want to watch, but I want to be completely blind when the game comes out.

I have yet to play the first one. I saw it on the Steam Summer Sale last year and I didn't bite - I regret that now. I've seen it cheaper on PS3 lately... decisions, decisions.

@mormonwarrior said:

In shops?

I can confirm that as well. The game didn't do a good job of communicating what all the grade rankings on strength, dexterity, etc. did to your overall damage on weapons, but it totally communicated everything to you. Much better than Demon's Souls in that regard.

Yes, if you have one weapon equipped, selecting the other weapon will show you whether certain attack/defense powers are higher/lower. There is no way to have both stats be present on the screen simultaneously however, which is a matter of presentation, not core functionality.

Thanks for this video duders. I think Dark Souls 2 has an honest shot at being a legitimately great game. The previous games were okay but they were also sloppy in a lot of ways both graphically and mechanically. At least now they have a lot of lessons to learn from to make it what it needs to be. I'm going to try to be a sorcerer again even though it wasn't very satisfying in the first two what with the lack of spell variety. I'm worried this is going to turn into a Mass Effect scenario where I played all three games as an Adept but found it rather boring and only stuck with it to maintain thematic consistency with my character. Heck I might give these Hex spells they're talking about a shot. Here's to hoping that this game turns out okay.

Agreed. I'm really opposed to fast-travel in most RPGs in general. It hinders the development of a sense of place.

I'm also concerned about the supposed ability to respec. That aspect was already one of the things that ruined Diablo 3 for me since part of the fun of levelling up is the consequential nature of the character progression. When there are little to no consequences to your decisions, that shit all becomes meaningless and less engaging for me.

Armchair designers who want their games evermore comfortable in order to devour as much content as possible while investing as little time as possible often don't understand what makes certain games, such as the Souls games for example, such engrossing experiences. The Souls games became popular because they did things differently from the mainstream, and now that many "mainstream gamers" (and gaming "journalists" who often naturally aren't willing or able to invest a lot of time into a single game) want to be part of the latest thing, they want these games to become more mainstream as well. Many people will bitch at this assertion but it's the truth. I say: if the Souls games don't fit your needs, there's an endless offering of games out there that will. Go play those, let the Souls games do their own unique thing.

edit: I'm not opposed to some improvements such as better explanations for upgrading mechanics and so on. And, for example, I'm glad they changed the stats back to text since I hated the symbols in the network test beta. But many things people criticize don't need fixing, it's just not their cup of tea.

@turambar: I agree with you. The UI could definitely use some improvement, but it's not "total shit", and never actually impeded my experience with the game. Patrick's complaining about comparing items in SHOPS, for fuck's sake. What kind of moran buys equipment?

And I didn't really like Dark Souls, so I'm not a fanboy. Of all of that game's problems, the UI is far from the biggest.

@bicycle_repairman: This actually made me about 200x more likely to play DS2 on release.

Aww look at Brad talking excitedly about getting in at the groung floor and exploring DSII. Warms my heart.

Vinny's watch certainly is jaunty

Maybe the areas ended up being less connected than Dark Souls 1, so they thought it was necessary? Or maybe a lot o people complained about being stuck in Blighttown after beating Quelaag or something.

@bicycle_repairman: I really don't agree with this sentiment everyone seems to be in love with this whole interconnected world Ideal but honestly making the game easier by making me traipse through fodder and thus ending up with more souls; to acend weapons, or try a different area, or get new spells was a big point of annoyance for me.

Never mind the fact that not having more bonfires warpable means that a lot of the Metroid prime connection hallway crap won't get overly exposed.

Also amazon has given 2 pc dates the one in may is a saturday and the other was in an email to a customer that said March 25th.http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/20098/article/report-amazon-confirms-dark-souls-2-pc-release-date/

I bet it is super late but I'm a pessimist.

The thing I'm concerned about in Dark Souls 2 is how they handle split damage and damage resistance given how much post patch pve and bosses seemed to favor weapons of greatsword size or larger. Damage resistance not being a straight percentage or number but some byzantine mechanism that favors really high single resistance hitting damage. Which Is why a Moonlight Greatsword +5 on NG+ will massively outdamge an MLGS +3 on NG becasue those extra attack points don't translate in a linear fashion.

http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=396507

(No I don't understand the maths just the concept behind this blog post)

This is high order bullshit because It isn't immediately obvious and makes faster weapons a joke against many of the bosses. From what I've seen of the beta footage it seems they might have simply mafe the larger weapons worse in moveset to compensate for the trend.

While I think resistance was the same in Demons that game had more and better option for medium and small weapon builds, the Blue Blood sword especially sticking in the mind.

@patrickklepek They made some adjustments to Dark Souls that made the game easier mostly with regard to amount of souls dropped and how good scaling weapons are.

I also have suspicions that they made Four Kings and O & S easier in some ways, Four Kings in how quickly they spawn in and O & S in that Smough isn't constantly doing his ham slam->charge->uppercut the entire battle.

Then again both you and vinny picked strength specialised which is a good way to go. The end of Dark Souls feels rushed and a little easy anyway, Gwyn is also I suspect not meant to be that hard, his death being more of a formality, like the grosness in the belly of the beast at the end of Demons Souls.

(Not in any way impugning Patricks skill in completing the game his videos made it clear he was way better at it than me even on my third go round.)

@turambar said:

There was a way to directly compare the stats of a weapon in a shop with weapons that you own/have equipped?

I forgot to ask them about the camera in the game. I think fall to death very often when the camera was zooming right on to me

I'm not sure i like fact that you can now teleport between bonfires from the start. The fact that fast travel wasnt possible so you had to find your way out yourself was kind of an unique and "joyful" part for me.

Thanks for the vid guys I have zero interest in playing this series myself but it certainly makes for some of the best content on the site. Looking forward to more vinny and brad souls shenanigans.

And to think it was only a couple of years ago I swear the entire gb staff was shitting on this franchise constantly. lol