[Brooks]

Yeah I guess they're supposed to be a LoZ shout-out. Pretty good one, as they go

[Tulpa]

[Talbain]

New Spoilers - Beat first "Prime Soul"? Don't actually know what that does... doesn't seem like it did anything actually.
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[OffalAl]

[Felix]

the generic zombie thing is really only an issue on one of the four-ish paths through the early-mid game. The issue is that new players won't necessarily discover the other three until they're most of the way through that one and have already gotten stuck or frustrated a couple times (particularly as that one path loops in on itself at one point, furthering the impression that it's the only one available to you).

[mauve]

yeah i heard about that dlc thing.

i actually think a couple of the dlc weapons are fairly decent, now that i've sunk time into the game? but none of them are particularly good and they're not going to be a win game button for sure.

was also hearing you can just make that file and it acts like you got the dlc.

[OffalAl]

yes indeed
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♟♟
♝♞

[Ronnoc]

[Toptube]

[Robosaurus]

[Iacus]

[Iacus]

Also, after 10 or so hours of playtime, most of the time in human form, I've never been invaded once by human players. Not that I'm complaining, since I don't like invasions, but I've also never been summoned for the knights of blue even after wearing the guardian's ring for a long while. I'm starting to think there may be something wonky with invasions in the pc version.
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Guayaba 2600

[Tulpa]

[Talbain]

I was invaded 3 times in pretty rapid succession on my Cleric in the later game. I was Hollowed and invaded by a "Grey Spirit."

I've taken some lovely screenshots of me as a barrel in various locales.

I continue to be impressed by the game's sheer scale. I'm a bit annoyed that I still can't find any good spells though.
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[Toptube]

I've found that getting summoned to help with a boss is kind of a waste of time, since most people don't survive long enough anyway. Out of about 10 summons for a boss, where I was the shade, only one time did the host live long enough for us to kill it. I died one of the ten times, because the boss was mid stomp move, right by the fog door when I came through it.

It's a little jarring but also interesting how much rolling has been nerfed. It is quite a bit more difficult to roll and avoid damage. You can't roll through attacks anymore. You actually have to roll completely clear of them. Due to this, there are some encounters which I can't imagine beating, without a large shield. Hmm.


*I don't like that you can wear so many rings.

[Toptube]

Quelaaren says "Hi".

[parker]

I like the washed out look of the game, especially when you're in some grey stony area. I'm in Lost Bastille and I think I'm finally getting the hang of a souls game, it was an uphill slog till now though. It's weird to finally start having a clue as to what the hell anyone is ever talking about in these threads. I'm playing a pirated copy so no multiplayer but for once I actually did mean to buy it, I just can't afford it right now.
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[sponkmonkey]

I succumbed

Let's hope my CPU can handle this better than Dark Souls
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[CubaLibre]

[Felix]

you get more iframes around 95 or 98 agility, yeah. makes a big difference in terms of being able to roll through stuff; definitely worth chucking the 5-10 points into attunement / adaptability.

the roll length/speed breakpoints are 70% and 55% equip load though I don't think those affect iframes.

[scratchmonkey]

They don't, just speed and distance. And yes, you want to get up around 95 Agility to get them rolling i-frames.

The netcode is great, the reason you aren't getting invasions is that there's no infinite-use invading item in the game and the consumables used to invade are finite in NG. 99% of the invasions and Drangliec PD reprisals (woop woop it's the sound of the police) take place in NG+.

That said, there are a couple areas where there's always PvP going on, related to other covenant activity.

I've still gotten a couple red invasions thus far in my game and surprisingly won them both.

[Talbain]

Certain places for Sorcerers seem to be an utter cakewalk at this point, and others are tense the entire way through. What's really bad is getting lost and running out of spell uses. Or at least that's been the biggest concern of mine thus far.

Also yeah, I have noticed dodging being a lot easier as my Agility has increased. I don't think anybody's sure of the exact frame data but it definitely makes a difference. You actually can roll through things if you get the timing right. You are definitely 100% invincible during certain frames of the rolling animation. It feels different from the original Dark Souls though. Wearing light armor also helps a lot.

Though anecdotal, I have found putting lots of points into Stamina a lot less useful. That said, this is on a caster; I'm sure it's different for melee.

I'm more than a bit peeved that Sorcerers become really good but only after they get certain items/spells. It would be nice if they offered some gear/spells in-between garbage and exceptionally useful.

Also Felix, I thought the break points for rolling were 30%/55%/70%?
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[CubaLibre]

Man these Sentinels are the business.

The Bastille absolutely obliterates my weapon durability. I basically timed out a boss battle with two phantoms helping me because all our weapons broke...
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Let's Play, starring me.

[mauve]

durability on slashing type weapons grinds down really fast on armored enemies this time around
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twit

[Toptube]

[scratchmonkey]

[Talbain]

[scratchmonkey]

That's all Agility, as I understand it.

"Speed" is the wrong term perhaps, it's more that you roll a longer distance with a lower equipment threshold.

[Talbain]

The AI still seems to be very bad at handling you fighting them when you aren't targeting. It becomes really easy to backstab most enemies this way.

By the way, here's another question about AGL - does it affect hit recovery animations and how fast you get up if you get backstabbed?
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[Iacus]

[TXTSWORD]

[CubaLibre]

[GcDiaz]

Dark Souls 2 changed the weapon infusion system, first by calling it weapon INFUSION, then by making it so "enchanting" your weapon via elemental stones is akin to a permanent Resin application. Real plug-n-play, no prior reinforcement required. Just talk to McDuff with the stones you want, you can swap one for another easy as that. Addon elemental damage will scale with the weapon's current and future + level. Physical scaling takes a hit as usual.
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Steam/PSN/Xbawks: GcDiaz

Let's bring sexy back!

[Broco]

[Felix]

Blunt is really good in this one. Particularly where you are right now.

[CubaLibre]

Time to buy some small shards and make myself a morningstar I think... and put some lightning on that halberd...

Would an elemental infusion ever be a net negative? viz. are there any monsters with such severe resists that the phys reduction of an elemental weapon would net out to less damage than if you had never infused? Reason to carry a backup with a different infusion I'm thinking...

Also are there Faith and Int based weapons for casters?

Also been pumping my Attunement to actually use this pyromancy flame I found. I didn't realize this game even had pyromancy! Since there's no pyromancer main character. I thought they'd just got rid of it.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[scratchmonkey]

Cubes, there's an elemental weapon that's pretty easy to get very early; you probably just missed it. You're at about the point where more start to appear. And yes, you can infuse at any point, there's some weirdness in terms of some weapons having elemental scaling at different levels; it's pretty basic compared to the Dark Souls system, which is a big improvement (also you can't really go wrong if you're building for PvE).

There are Faith (kinda) and Int infusions, as well as weapons that scale off the stats themselves.

Most folks have 2 "main weapons" that they swap out depending, having two different elemental infusions can be good and a good rule of thumb is to have one be a Slash type and the other be a Strike type -- as you've noticed, armored enemies reduce the durability on Slash weapons super-fast and Strike weapons are way more effective as well. Actually, I feel like Strike is too good, you can really pump up a basic mace with any character and it'll be good for the entire game.

[sarsamis]

I'm doing pretty well with that fist weapon still. I think I have it at +7 now. Seems to do a fair bit of poise damage.

I switch to a whip or a bastard sword when I need more range.

[Talbain]

Cuba, as far as I can tell, yes, certain enemies in different areas in the game have ridiculous amounts of resistance to certain elemental types. I would strongly recommend carrying around a non-infused weapon as your base weapon and an infused weapon for enemies that are strong against physical, because they are most assuredly weak against something non-physical. Also, FTH and INT increase your elemental damage and thus the best way to have high non-physical damage is directly tied to those stats (Dark and Fire are tied to INT primarily while Fire and Lightning are tied to FTH - there's a bit of crossover between the two stats, due to Hexes/Pyromancy)

Also, most enemies that are strong to physical are extremely weak to backstabs. I cannot figure out for the life of me how parrying works in this darn thing so I have no experience with that.

Also scratch, I think the primary reason that enemies in this game are so weak to blunt weapons is because so many of them are armored. Which makes sense, but yeah, the distribution certainly seems off with regards to balance. Chase ranges seem much greater than before as well as the frequency of enemies attacking in groups, which seems to make Ultra XXXX weapons a lot better due to the fact that they tend to break poise in a single hit.

Alluring Skull can be very useful in situations where you're outnumbered. In fact a lot of times it can trivialize those encounters.

[Broco]

Re: blunt weapons (spoilered out for those who prefer to play without prostrats): The problem is that nonarmored enemies are not particularly resistant to strike damage. There's little reason to use a slash weapon for PvE since some enemies have resistance to that, whereas strike damage has no such resistant enemies that I've noticed. Even Covetous Demon who is the fleshiest boss that ever fleshed is not resistant to strike.

[Talbain]