[remote]

my one concern about enemy spawns is how this might affect the longevity of staying in and enjoying the world and pvp or co-op without running out of resources and effectively being forced to start over or begin another ng+

far too early to say anything conclusive though
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letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[TXTSWORD]

Man the rate at which you guys are surpassing me is upsetting - and I'm playing every second I'm not working. I stayed up really late last night and went into work tired, too :(

Last thing I did was clear Lost Sinner which actually gave me a pretty hard time - which is probably because I'm really slow and for all my armor he still two shots me... and my weapons are garbage so I have to rely on my miracles and it's realllly easy to get punished right to death with a poorly timed miracle.

Also joined the bell bros covenant and seriously wasn't waiting 10 seconds between invasions. If you need Titanite Chunks this is the covenant for you!

Ah, and I opened up the path by the scottish fella with the blue ultragreatsword. At what point is a good time to plunge myself into the well? I tried and died as shit even with the cat ring

[Felix]

TXT you're basically right where I am and I've been averaging like 4 hours a day since tues

[mauve]

lost sinner was a pretty fun fight, i realized what it was halfway through and just stripped all my armor off mid-battle, opting for rolls and my greatshield all day instead. this turned out to be the right solution!

also once you've beat that go check out the equipment shop in town again.

lighter weapons are proving more useful than they were in dark souls 1, which is good because they kinda sucked there. this time around the halberd too slow for anything that actually moves.

starting to get some serious weapons back, found the black knight halberd too, which i'm not sure I'm going to bother getting the stats for due to its weight/my difficulty upgrading anything.

and yeah i think i'm around 15-16 hours atm?
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twit

[Relevant]

Re: Looking Glass Knight: The Mirror Knight aka The Looking Glass Knight was a disappointment I fought him three times but he never summoned another player just a npc.

From DJ: I added spoiler tags to this.

EDITED BY CURATOR

[analogos]

spoilers ;__;

[analogos]

[remote]

changing up your approach to battle is good, but also pump dat adaptability

try the halberd in this game and do a running attack. the cyclone you become is just br00tal
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letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[analogos]

i had an idea of how ADP worked based on some pre-release info but wasn't sure on the details enough so i've been hesitant on it. i might start putting more focus on it soon as it'd be pretty appropriate for my build

two-handed heavy attack does that too right

[remote]

yes but it actually swings around and lands a couple more hits with the running attack

i'm sure people will learn but right now it's a pretty good stunner for an opening attack in pvp
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letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[analogos]

i kind of want to respec my stamina back down a bit now that i have the cloranthy ring. END is a lot less of a go-to stat to pump in general now i think

[mauve]

yeah i'm fully aware of the nature of spacing and pre-emptive attacks; hello i'm a fighting game player. many boss-class enemies don't seem to leave gaps large enough for you to really attack with heavy weapons now anyway, so even if you do you're probably going to just trade hits and that's not in your favor. you can roll them and get the opening you need but it's usually not worth it, especially since you really don't want the rolling attack usually.

halberd is good in this game, because:
- one-handed, your r1 attack that is purely vertical, and the second followup r1 does a ton of damage relative to how quick it is.
- the one-handed running or backstep attack is a nice, wide area attack that's a good starter for a larger followup after. (the r2 is specifically there so you can do it off a backstep without getting the running attack, which you don't always want)
- two-handed the r1 combo hits a pretty wide area in front of you and can unload (gaplessly? nothing's escaped yet) pretty substantial damage. I'm usually breaking 800-900 on it.
- two-handed dashing and r2 attacks leave you wide open afterwards but cover a huge area and do the equivalent of about 2.5 normal hits worth of damage quickly. fantastic finisher, if you know it'll finish.
- the range is really good, so you can pretty easily just bait, walk out, and punish.

downside are that it's too slow for some encounters, but this game is encouraging you to diversify your weaponry via durability anyway, so it's a keeper in my book. they're basically good weapons for heavy armor types because you're not going to roll on reaction to everything but patiently space them out instead.

i want to get my claymore going as a backup but upgrades are making me seriously sad.
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twit

[remote]

my backup weapon is still the fire longsword, though i also got a uh... royal greatsword? it's kind of like the flamberge. not too bad. halberd is such a satisfying main weapon for my playstyle.
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letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[OffalAl]

halberd seems kind of ridiculously overpowered in this game to be honest
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[remote]

really? :/ there are a lot of really powerful weapons. i just like the halberd's moveset a lot.
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letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[OffalAl]

yeah, given how low the stat req is, that moveset is just devastating. sounds like we're rolling the same weapon set so far, by the way
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[analogos]

[remote]

once i started doing blood cult duels i noticed a whole bunch of them are wielding this big double-tipped glaive thing and... well, that made me feel like my halberd was not giving me a terribly uneven advantage. dunno how they got it, but yeah! might be worth checking out once i get one.
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letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[OffalAl]

have been basically playing this game stat-blind because i can't actually read any of the numbers or finer text on this terrible crt (lol), so everything is reduced to 'low, high, or just right'. just looked up what adaptability actually does and woah.


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[remote]

basically i expect ADP alone to raise the standard pvp level cap to anywhere from 160 to 180

(assuming matchmaking works in roughly the same way)
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letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[mauve]

if you preordered ds2 on psn, you can get your preorder weapons now by redownloading it and selecting the 'free' version when it asks you to pick a version. (and then canceling the actual game download in the download manager) they're all shit. some of them are covered in shit too. i think the best i could say is that they are a starting class equalizer, since now everybody's got something.

analogos: for any boss wherein heavy attacks work, i've been using my halberd. any attack where i haven't been able to pull off punishes via roll safely, i've switched off. it's pretty much that simple.

at any rate i'm thinking of upgrading the claymore and using that instad because goddamn do i love the claymore moveset too. not sure if i will though.
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twit

[OffalAl]

[analogos]

[analogos]

does anyone else miss kicking at all? i kind of wish unarmed/gauntlets still had it at least.

[Felix]

Curved & straight is a hugely fun combo but I'm a little disappointed I'm overusing the falchion for the third game in a row

something I do in every game with "soul" in the title apparently if you count hwang/assassin in soul calibur

[mauve]

where are the katanas i haven't found any katanas

iaito please
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twit

[DJ]

[Broco]

I haven't had much time to play this yet (only beat two bosses so far) but I'm pleased with my basic axe I bought from the blacksmith. It's the fastest/lightest-feeling axe in a Souls game so far, almost like a heavy katana, and its wide swing plays well with my often-no-lock-on style. I'm considering switching to the halberd (particularly as I chose Warrior to be able to use high-stat weapons if I find one I like) but I'm not sure the moveset is doing it for me. (I do like that you can try out movesets without needing to meet the stat requirements in this game.)

I think I might keep using the axe until I find something I really like. That being said, if Large Titanite Shards are as rare as somebody mentioned, maybe I should go for the bigger damage output...

[mauve]

my weapons being only +5 and +3 have not proven to be a liability yet at all, and the damage calcs in this game seem completely different from demon's/ds1, so being a little low on AR is not as terrible as it once was. just that, if i get the shards, that sucker's shooting straight to +8 and everything will die.
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twit

[remote]

yeah, mine is currently +8 and... yeah
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letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[ChairTax]

I don't like the halberd's moveset so I'm swinging the Drangleic sword and pumping str/dex till I find the claymore. Not so concerned with getting a good build, just something that feels good and looks cool.

Claymore is my spirit animal in that regard

[mauve]

getting a good build on your first char is futile anyway!

i just like the moveset personally
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twit

[diplo]

Moving around and doing stuff feels odd even after 7+ hours. Physically it feels closer to Demon's than Dark to me, without the former's floaty sensation that was most sensed when falling from heights. Haven't yet bothered to de-equip everything to see if there's the retention of Dark's three-tier equipment load. I'm carrying about a third of my limit and don't seem to be that quick-footed.

Something about how this games' environments are set up makes me think of late 90s/early 2000s WRPGs in a way that Demon's and Dark never did. I guess some people are throwing a fit because it doesn't look as good as it was supposed to, or something, but I'm pretty into it, barring a couple of vistas in the forest that seem like they shouldn't, um, be seen.

Am I supposed to be able to level up? Am I supposed to be able to use torches? Can't for the life of me figure out how to do either unless they're blocked off for a good while, and I can't imagine that's the case. Not yet bothered by the torch dilemma because there hasn't been a place where I've needed more light.

I'm glad that what appears to be the second boss thoroughly ruined me twice before I took a break because boss #1 a.k.a. Dumbo Stomper was totally underwhelming

[mauve]

[remote]

movement feels odd and heavy until you start pumping up adaptability, which will eventually restore a more comfortably familiar feeling of agility
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letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[OffalAl]

see, even diplo missed the herald!! >:/
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[DJ]

I'm seriously keeping score now w.r.t. the number of people who straight up missed E.H.

EXPLORE YOU FOOLS I mean this in a nice way
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[OffalAl]

yes, explore everything that looks like a tree stump thoroughly. >:/

i wonder if From are ever going to teach their enemies to be smart enough not to dive off of cliffs all the time. super hilarious farming tactic in that vein (until they stop spawning obviously) is to run from a bonfire in huntsman's copse all the way to the end of the bridge before the boss fog, and jump left or right onto a ledge. you are now untouchable, and the enemy parade that was following you, unable to deal with all the bridge traffic, will just go for a dive.
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[scratchmonkey]

You might have to accept at this point that she might be just a little too hard to spot in her starting position considering how many people have missed her. And these are people who have played a ton of Souls, it's not like we're all running straight out of town wearing an askew saucepan as a helmet.

(What I'm saying is how did this bug wriggle through the net? I blame QA.)

(j/k)

[Felix]

I uhhhhh still haven't had any exploration issues that couldn't be blamed on poor contrast

anyway, I just clocked the 18 hour mark! jesus! that's >4 hours a day! finally nailed the gargoyles after being intimidated by them for what now seems like too long. haven't gone back to fight the lost sinner or chariot yet, but in the meantime I've found both the merwoman and the rotten (fuck yeah the rotten). aside from some curiously blocked off paths in the shaded woods (which looks as bad as if not worse than the rest of the forest-y areas, dammit) I think I was correct when I surmised that I'd gotten a disproportionate amount of mid-game exploration in yesterday and my available routes are starting to narrow again, up to a point.

I finally got my strength high enough to use a shield with 100% phys block, and after feeling like I wasn't able to do enough damage to a coupe of these bosses, started to spend titanite indiscriminately because it didn't seem like I was going to get any dramatically more powerful gear anytime soon. switching off between a few different weapons now. I'm having a real hard time getting anything to go over 300 damage, even so. I should probably just get over it.

I used the flexile sentry soul to make the 1h warped sword because it looks like Quelaag's but those boss weapon powerup items seem really rare...

[remote]

you guys i can see the emerald herald plain as day and i think if there's ever any issue with "poor contrast" it's just... part of this game's look?

idk
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letterboxd | last.fm | steam