Aye get ready for exploits world ! For a feedback about the game that i played 200H : - Quality builds (STR/DEX builds) suck - Dark build (30 int / Faith) faceroll everything - Adaptability is useless (got one char with 40 one with 9, can't see any difference) - Infuse weapons or lose (dark chaos blade for the win) - Any stat above 50 is pretty much useless - STR scales much better than DEX but not as good as infused weapons - FIRE scaling is FAITH + INT (max 60, could be any) - LIGHTNING is FAITH - MAG is INT - DARK is lowest from INT/FAITH (maxes out at 30/30) - As long as u're below 70% weight u're good - Rolling pretty much evades any spell... The good thing is that u don't really have to farm like a moron anymore in the game : - For Souls : just get the king ring and farm the giant lord with bonfire ascetics (u also get twinkling titaine), u can do it an infinite number of ways (as u get 1 ascetic in the memory) - For materials : Farm dragon aerie with bonfire ascetic, there's no boss in the zone (u gotta defeat the boss before reusing ascetic normally) and there's a ton of crystal lizzies that give u everything u need. Note that if u miss a lizzie just come back after u hit the bonfire, they respawn as long as u haven't killed them.
They say adaptability is the new resistance, however others say that it affects how soon you can cancel and animation into a dodge or how quick estus flasks are used. As for stats over 50 being useless -- what else is new? It was the same in the first game, as anything over 40 started giving diminishing returns and after 50 you'd get something like 1 to your damage rating every 2-6 levels when upgrading a stat like dex. What's the max difficult level in Dark Souls 2? In DS1 it was NG+5 (I believe), after which mobs didn't become stronger any longer. If it works the same in DS2 and you can chain-acquire bonfire ascetics, doesn't that make the new anti-farming system sort of useless? Just how strong is dark magic compared to the other types? Does it still deal stamina damage?
Max level is NG7 in DS2. U don't need to farm as u get auto drops by lizards and they always respawn till u kill them, so they created dragon aerie to get all ur needs (i think in one run there u can get one boss weapon to +5 and one rare weapon or 2 pieces of armor to +5). There's a finite amount of ascetics u can get per run tho (around 10) as i haven't seen a place where u can use one ascetic to get 2 (just the boss giant u get 1 for 1 so u can farm him an infinite amount of time). note that if u use an ascetic, the whole zone remain +1 level, so at NG+ it's NG++ etc... and there's a huge gap between the two. Dark magic facerolls everything still, i pretty much one shot kill anyone with great resonance soul but i haven't tried it against hardcore pvp'er who exploit like shit and play with their lag to backstab you from 15 feet away (while still facing u). For what i've tried, so far : GRS (dark) does around 1500dmg to a player (insta kill 90% of the time) unless he's using great magic barrier or behind a shield that has high dark resistance (rebel or that's bout it) -> I can cast 22 of these and they go fast + u can cast 3 or 4 before ur stamina's drained. Pyro : forbidden sun, i did around 1k dmg to a dude in full havel / demon (high resistance) -> I can cast TWO of them only and that's with a saint hood and 40 ATTN -> range is shorter, it's slower too and it drains all ur stamina. Magic : Soul Geyser. It should do around 900 -1200 dmg to a player but it's so slow that i doubt u can ever land one hit on em. I use crystal soul spear which does around 500 dmg with my INT char and it tracks quite nice (already killed people running around corners). Faith : Great lightning is about the same than soul spear. I never tried the 65 FAITH spell tho. Dark doesn't drain anything, unless u're using the Abyss seal (like me) in which case it drains health everytime u shoot (around 30-50 i'd say). DARK also has 'profound still' which prevents anyone to cast a spell. It can also allow u to cast resonant soul on a dark chaos blade for lolesque damage. EDIT : finally, for PVP, infusion is everything. It's completely ridiculous that a fucking longsword, infused with chaos fire or dark or whatever, does the same damage than a freaking giant 2 hander, just because STR/DEX scale like shit. Dude with a LS can lend 10 hits on ur face before breaking stamina and u can either block, hoping to have enough stamina or parry if u're good enough (and lag doesn't fuck u up). Also, rolling evades any spell and most attacks too, so u get morons with fast weapons poking u and rolling away and u can't really do anything unless they fuck up and u catch them when they complete their roll (assuming the lag makes it so that the game ACTUALLY UNDERSTANDS U HIT THE FUCKER 5 TIMES) -> the fast rolling morons are usually the ones with the shittiest lag, that's how they kill u. In the eseence -> Magic is to kill noobs. If u face a good player u got no choice but go melee cuz he'll evade everything u throw at him (quite easily too).
I remember reading that NG+7 in the original DS was considered a rumor -- that after NG+6 the difficulty didn't actually go up and that NG+7 was considered the first NG+ that didn't increase difficulty, which is why it was considered the max difficulty or something similar. Never really checked though. I don't suppose you expect a nerf to hit Dark magic soon? They did nerf the DWGR in DS1 because it was too powerful after all. How does GRS casting speed compare to the roll animation duration? How hard it is to make GRS finish casting at the exact moment the other player finishes their roll?
Dark Souls 2 is now live on PC. Technically speaking it is a much superior port than its predecessor was. What strikes me still is that Drangleic is rather well lit for a Souls game. Blacks are seemingly not black enough, and the places I have visited so far are devoid of that grim, dark feeling so prevalent in the first Dark Souls where you could not see much farther beyond your character's limited cone of light. The cause of this may be a technicality on the one hand (the use of a new lighting model), and, artistically, on the other, the new world of Drangleic itself being very different to former Lordran. But I have yet to dive deeper in the game to be able to really tell, and I will take my sweet time for this for sure. Edit: That Dark Souls 2 is apparently not dark enough in dark scenes can no longer be said once new, darker areas opened up for me. Please discard my first impressions above.
It's live? Wonderful, that means you can answer a few of my questions: In DS1 default keybinds for PC were retarded: Spoiler O -- toggle lockon IKJL -- camera up/down/left/right H -- light attack U -- heavy attack LShift -- block Tab -- parry LAlt -- toggle 2-handing (Alt + any key were pinging windows and giving error warnings) End -- open menu Q -- interaction E -- use item V -- Switch right hand C -- Switch left hand F -- Switch item R -- Switch spell Arrow keys -- menu select (WHY?! Who runs about or uses camera controls while the screen is obscured by menus?) Enter -- menu confirm Backspace -- menu cancel Insert -- menu function 1 Delete -- menu function 2 Page up -- switch menu right Page down -- switch menu left They could've just as easily been: Spoiler F or MMB -- toggle lockon Arrow Keys or Mouse -- camera up/down/left/right M1 -- light attack (hold) M1 -- heavy attack (hold) M2 -- block (heavy attack if not shield) M2 -- parry (light attack if not shield) V -- toggle 2-handing Esc -- open menu E -- interaction Q -- use item 1 -- Switch right hand 2 -- Switch left hand 3 -- Switch item 4 -- Switch spell W/A/S/D or Mouse -- menu select (in the main menu the mouse was off-target, in the ingame menus the mouse didn't work) F or M1 -- menu confirm Esc or M2 -- menu cancel Z or MMB up -- menu function 1 X or MMB down -- menu function 2 E or MMB left -- switch menu right Q of MMB right -- switch menu left It was like they were trying to map the controller defaults directly to the keyboard. They could've just asked any PC gamer what the default control scheme should be, or just looked at a PC-only game, or even a good PC-port. Did they do that for DS2? Or are the default controls still the same? Are keybinding options still severely limited? Is manually binding the mouse still an issue? Does Alt+Key still ping windows? Are screen resolutions still locked to widescreen-only? Are bloom and depth of field now optional? Is AA now optional? Did they fix particle effect lag? Did they really restrict texture, HUD and control scheme mods? Did they do anything about cheaters?
The extent of my knowledge regarding keyboard and mouse controls is extremely limited. I played DS1 with gamepad, same with DS2. In fact, I would not recommend otherwise. For what it is worth, keys can be remapped entirely in the keybinding menu, and menus are mouse-controlled for nongamepad users. 4:3 resolutions are supported. Blur, DOF, and AA are optional. While DS1 suffered from major performance setbacks caused by alpha effects and particles and was locked at 30fps, I have not encountered any performance spikes whatsoever in DS2 and frame-rate has always been a steady locked 60fps on my mid-range gaming rig. I know nothing about DS2 mods except that Durante has released something already. I believe DS2 is VAC-supported.
If it helps any I made plenty of screenshots of the in-game menus (keybinding and video settings): http://imgur.com/a/81wO3.
Oh cool, thanks! Hm... Strong attack / parry activated by double clicking the respective mouse buttons? If they have sprint as hold for running and tap for rolling, then why didn't they do the same with the mouse buttons? Shift + M2 to use items, Shift + M1 to interact with environment? Thankfully, that's a lot easier to rebind then the specific function that listens for whenever a key is tapped of held (I assume it's impossible to just hold a button during they keybinding button selection prompt to get "Hold X" binding for an action). They did similar stuff for weapon switching, but with Ctrl instead... What the hell are they trying to achieve? New enlightenment in game keybinds? Auto-walk/dash, two completely unneeded keybinds. Jump is now separate from dash (for no real reason, it worked very well as it were). Lockon key is still the same key that resets camera, which screws up your camera angle if the game can't find anything to lockon on. Arrow keys to swap equips, which is something that has already been partially bound to the mouse. Some other things... These keybind defaults are hilariously terrible! And just what is lock guard?
yes i can play nowwwwwww, when they don't make me play dota! I am thinking about Faith/int pyromancer but not sure
I am getting slightly pissed that my sorcerer still has not gotten a second sorcery spell yet; I am stuck with two slots of soul arrows. Maybe I should have known better that such a build requires a solid game plan since you are so weak early on. Edit: I got hold of a few more sorceries now. Pyromancies turn out to be strong as ever.
I'm baffled at how easy it is to get the 55% cast speed and 3 attunement slot rings. The rest of the rings are garbage anyway. Except the Ring of Life Protection. Because I'm terrible at this game. >_>