Current Events > Just started playing Dark Souls 2.

(+) Yeah! (+)

aldias keep is the most disappointing area in dark souls to me. from the outside it looks like a spooky atmospheric haunted mansion, but then you go inside and its basically a big hallway with a bunch of pointless skippable rooms

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Well I killed the Ancient Dragon. It took a lot of tries but the real annoying part was getting past the second big knight with the hammer.

What kept killing me is the jumping flame attack. People online said to run toward the tail but I could never make it. So eventually I took all my armor off and got it next try.

Now is the time for finishing some stuff up. It seems like I have The Pilgrims of the Dark and some Ashen memory stuff left, plus the DLC and I'm done. I got the items needed to access the DLC. About long does the DLC take?

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Now that I've played through most of this game... what's so bad about it in comparison to the first? Was it just improved that much in three revision?

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Jabodie posted...

Now that I've played through most of this game... what's so bad about it in comparison to the first? Was it just improved that much in three revision?

Bad enemy placement, linear level design, durability issues (fixed in scholar), derivative story, bad spell balancing, and copy paste bosses.

It had good parts too, but those were the main complaints.

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Derivative story as in very similar to the first? And copy/ paste you mean copy/ paste from the first game? I don't mess with magic, and I do think the level design is weak with only a handful I'd call good/ memorable. I didn't find the enemy placement bad aside from a handful of areas, personally.

My biggest complaint is probably that the game's bosses are pretty easy (but maybe I've just gotten good?) and that some of them are kinda just gimmicks.

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Jabodie posted...

Derivative story as in very similar to the first? And copy/ paste you mean copy/ paste from the first game? I don't mess with magic, and I do think the level design is weak with only a handful I'd call good/ memorable. I didn't find the enemy placement bad aside from a handful of areas, personally.

My biggest complaint is probably that the game's bosses are pretty easy (but maybe I've just gotten good?) and that some of them are kinda just gimmicks.

Derivative in that it's too similar to the first, yea. And copy/paste I mean things like most of the bosses being "guys in armor" without as much creative variety as in DS1. They may have fixed magic in scholar but IIRC pyromancy was useless and hex magic was OP.

By bad enemy placement I mean an over-reliance on lots of enemies as a challenge rather than having to be smart against better enemies.

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That's fair enough on the enemy placement. I didn't mind it so much except for a few s key areas.

I'm enjoying the story well enough, even if it is a repeat of "get four big souls then replace king" spiel. And I imagine the original intent was to show an "Age of Dark" which is pretty cool. In some ways the repetition may have been a thematic choice, but idk. I'll have to watch some lore videos whenever I finish.

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I will say though, the backstory of DS2, what's up with the King and Nashandra, and how you play a part in it is pretty cool. Probably my favourite of specifically Dark Souls

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My main misgivings with ds2 is:

Level design is a huge step down. Areas are more plain, smaller, and linear.

Enemy placement is bananas. Way too many people and way too much focus on group fights which never felt good until DS3

The story is really fragmented and inconsistent, nothing feels connected with each other and there are a ton of characters and places which are brought up and are not only never mentioned again but also never even attempted to be explained. DS and Bloodborne never did that so poorly

Bosses are way too easy outside of a handful of good ones like Looking Glass Knight and Fume Knight

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The DLC, though, is the best in the series.

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SSJKirby posted...

I will say though, the backstory of DS2, what's up with the King and Nashandra, and how you play a part in it is pretty cool. Probably my favourite of specifically Dark Souls

I love the backstories of the DLCs as well.

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Any tips on beating Darklurker with a melee character? All I've gathered is to use the Rebel's shield and fire resin. I'm might leave him until after the DLC since burning an effigy and going through one of the Dark Chasms pisses me off quick.

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ultimate reaver posted...

Bosses are way too easy outside of a handful of good ones like Looking Glass Knight and Fume Knight

There are also just too many of them. Something like Prowling Magus should never have made it into the game.
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Jabodie posted...

Well apparently this soldier's rest bonfire is a dead end and I've been dueling this Dennis fuck for no reason lol

Gives you access to Seeds of a Tree of a Giant, which makes enemies hostile to invaders. Useful when invaders are being little bitches and running away to hide among mobs.

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Well after many tries, I killed Vendrick. And much to my surprise, he told me to "seek the crowns" which is a DLC thing I believe. Fitting I killed him right before moving onto the DLC.

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Jabodie posted...

he told me to "seek the crowns" which is a DLC thing I believe.

Nah, he just wants you to go to the dentist.

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Jabodie posted...

I don't have it. I'll play it when it goes on sale with the dlc after I beat this one.

Fire fades edition has been 20 bucks or less for years now.

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Makeveli_lives posted...

Fire fades edition has been 20 bucks or less for years now.

Is that the Deluxe edition on Steam?

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I think I'm just going to take the L on Darklurker. Maybe in a future playthrough, but I would probably have to do a bunch of grinding for dark resistant gear to get it done and I know in the end I would feel deeply unsatisfied.

Edit: I would probably do it if the run up didn't annoy me so much. Spending a humanity then accidentally falling in a while taking on annoying blue guys have that take a like 8-9 hits is just too frustrating, and successfully getting to the boss is too time consuming. So if I do it, it will be with a strategy that is extremely easy and trivializes the fight as much as possible.

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she's weak to lightning if that helps

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SSJKirby posted...

she's weak to lightning if that helps

The real problem is that I'm getting one shot by off screen attacks when she splits. And I'm already pissed by the time I get to her from getting through the chasm. If I didn't have to go through the chasm, I would probably have this done in five tries or so. But there's a good chance I'm going to die just trying to get to her, and I find all three areas annoying af because I have to kill all these annoying enemies and avoid falling into pits.

If I do this on this file I'll most likely fuse charcoal resin and stack dark resist so I can get a reasonable reduction in damage. It looks like a fully upgraded Dark set with Dark Quartz Ring + 3 and the Dispelling Ring + 1 will get me over 25% reduction by themselves, and with default Dark Set and Dark Troches I'll have ~70% Dark Resist. The rings are in the DLC, and the Dark Set I can pick up from around the base game. Typing it out, this is probably what I'm going to do.

Edit: I'll probably use Charcoal Resin in the fight. I bought some a while ago and she's also weak to that. My Faith/Int are too low for infusion to be useful.

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Jabodie posted...

Is that the Deluxe edition on Steam?

I don't game on pc

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why aren't you playing sekiro: shadows die twice

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SoundNetwork posted...

why aren't you playing sekiro: shadows die twice

I will eventually. But my PC is a bit outdated with it's GTX 760. If I upgrade just my GPU to a 1060 or something I can probably run more recent games pretty decently but I need to set aside some money for that.

Anyway, I made some headway into the Sunken City DLC. I got to two fog gates: one at the end of a walkway (after going through a small swampy area with black dinosaur things and inserting the big coin) and one up high. I'll probably tackle the gates later today, but overall it was a really cool level.

I also picked up the Dark Set I was missing and found the Dark Quartz Ring + 3 just exploring. Picked up some Dark Troches with some extra souls I had. So once I finish the second DLC I'll be trying to fight Darklurker again.

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These NPCs for the Gravedigger and friends are totally useless smh.

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And that's the first DLC done. Pretty cool, and the last boss was pretty fun. Looking forward to the next one (Iron Crown, I think).

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Man, Fume Knight takes like no damage.

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Holy shit this is the hardest boss by far. At least twice as hard as anything else in this game.

Edit: I'm getting to second phase consistently but I'm not used to the move timings. They're so different and the damage is still really punishing. Plus the health is so high. It feels like two bosses in one.

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Fume Knight is generally considered the hardest boss in the game, and one of the best in the series

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In the end I resorted to player summon phantoms. I think I could have done it if my ADP was higher, as when I died usually I just mistimed the roll, or I just overestimated how much time I had to drink Estus.

I probably summoned another player like 5 times (and maybe ~15 or so solo tries). In the I took off my backup weapon, shields, two handed my Longsword+10 with gold resin, and dodged through attacks with the Chloranthy Ring. I was originally trying to use the mace for better damage, but it was too stamina hungry for how much I needed to be dodging. The last guy came in with a giant club that he was two handing. In my failed CoOp attempts I learned that it is very important to aggro the boss when your partner gets hit so they have a chance to Estus safely. Even with the Co Op partner, the boss wasn't easy since its difficulty comes from insane burst damage.

In my last couple attempts I was actually learning how to dodge through all the second phase attacks. But it was probably like my 15th attempt when I learned that he can actually do a four hit combo. Anyway, this is the first boss I think I've needed to use Phantoms to win in Dark Souls 1 or 2. All the other bosses I'd try the NPC summons and they would turn out useless.

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So overall I'd say that the boss is pretty cool, but imo he has too much health. He has a pretty varied moveset, huge range on his attacks, two forms, very difficult to block effectively, and shits damage. I don't really think you need to make it an endurance test on top of that by giving him a huge health bar.

Maybe if my AGL was a bit higher I would feel differently. Either way, my next levels are without a doubt going into ADP after that experience lol. Tomorrow I'll go into that glowing armor, then move on to the next DLC (and maybe fight Darklurker).

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So they really made the walk to Alonne like this, huh?

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A friend and I wrapped up Fume Knight the other day

I don't see how you're supposed to solo that one. He's so damn aggressive and he hits so hard, we actually had to plan for switching off aggro to each other just to make it through

Cool boss though
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And they also gave this boss a shit ton of health smh.

MarqueeSeries posted...

A friend and I wrapped up Fume Knight the other day

I don't see how you're supposed to solo that one. He's so damn aggressive and he hits so hard, we actually had to plan for switching off aggro to each other just to make it through

Cool boss though

With very good patience and high AGL/ADP I could see it.

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MarqueeSeries posted...

A friend and I wrapped up Fume Knight the other day

I don't see how you're supposed to solo that one. He's so damn aggressive and he hits so hard, we actually had to plan for switching off aggro to each other just to make it through

Cool boss though

I did it at Soul Level 1. Its just a lot of patience and timing.

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I'm currently farming the run up to Sir Alonne for a few levels while I get the enemies to despawn. Got the first room cleared, now going to farm the second room.

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Jabodie posted...

And they also gave this boss a shit ton of health smh.

MarqueeSeries posted...

A friend and I wrapped up Fume Knight the other day

I don't see how you're supposed to solo that one. He's so damn aggressive and he hits so hard, we actually had to plan for switching off aggro to each other just to make it through

Cool boss though

With very good patience and high AGL/ADP I could see it.

Yeah I had an ADP of 4 lol. +10 tower shield and enough END and you can block his whole combo

Even better with Havels shield for the fire res
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the pvp in 2 was the best in the series
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MarqueeSeries posted...

Yeah I had an ADP of 4 lol. +10 tower shield and enough END and you can block his whole combo

Even better with Havels shield for the fire res

Yeah, I was thinking from a beginner's perspective. All of Fume Knights attacks are reactable so it's not too surprising to know people who have mastered the game can beat him with terrible stats lol.

Anyway, after around 5 tries got Alonne down. I think I'll try Darklurker a couple times then move on to the final DLC.

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Took Darklurker down in a couple tries with all that Dark Resistance. Now to the final piece of content before I fight the final boss(es).

Edit: I hope it's a little easier than the Old Iron King stuff <_<

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Ah... I see I have to make this dog visible.

Edit: So am I being taken to the realms that existed before Drangleic, where it is now? Or am I being sent to other kingdoms which have fallen elsewhere?

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Do you not have a job or something? How'd you get through this much content in 4 days?

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Makeveli_lives posted...

Do you not have a job or something? How'd you get through this much content in 4 days?

No, I'm still working on my PhD. All my research is simulation based so I'm basically just generating data from a virtual machine between semesters and running through a bunch of games.

Edit: Once I'm back to Austin I'll have a lot less time to play games with school and my girlfriend. I haven't no life'd videogames this hard in a long time lol.

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Jabodie posted...

Edit: So am I being taken to the realms that existed before Drangleic, where it is now? Or am I being sent to other kingdoms which have fallen elsewhere?

After Manus was defeated in the first game, his soul was splintered and given personas and represented different parts of him. Drangleic, and the 3 DLC's all feature a shard of Manus given form.

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Well, just finished the last DLC. Used all three NPCs on the pets with no shame, since getting to that boss is such a pain in the ass. (And used an NPC on the King with some shame, but mostly because I was having trouble with the knights in the beginning). Another cool level. I think the backtracking aspect would have worked better had this been in the main game with a couple levels between. But still enjoyable. The bosses in the Old Iron King were way harder though (aside from maybe the Pets if I fought them solo).

All that's left is the Throne of Want, I believe. Then watching lore videos to learn about all that lore in the item descriptions.

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Reindeer Fuckland is the worst area in any of the games. I just ignore the double pets fight nowadays
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UnholyMudcrab posted...

Reindeer Fuckland is the worst area in any of the games. I just ignore the double pets fight nowadays

If I replay this game, I'm probably not going to deal with any of the optional bosses in the DLC tbh. They're all a pain in the ass.

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And that's a wrap! As would be expected the throne of want bosses were really easy compared to the DLC bosses. Finished the game in style with the King's set.

Good ass game tbh. Maybe the highs aren't as high as Dark Souls 1, but the lows also aren't as low imo. I'll probably make another thread with my overall thoughts.

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Also Vendrick is a really good character. These games always make me wish I could see these civilizations at the height of their power. But I suppose the idea is that I should look to more standard fantasy for analogues, and for the story/themes it is only the ending (and new beginning) that really matters. Like what did Gwyn's rule actually look like before the flame began to fade? I suppose a normal pantheon of gods doing things gods do in myth. And similar for Vendrick, ruling over some great kingdom as Aragorn probably ruled as king.

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