Dark Souls 2 (PC/PS4/XB1/PS3/360)

[Deadgye]

This game is fucking stupid =/

edit: Died while I was posting this, went to post this and guess what? Died right by my bonfire because someone thought it was smart to put archers in aggro range of respawning. /rage

Hahaha, I know exactly where you are. I saw that they would respawn there and killed them until they stopped respawning so that I wouldn't have to deal with them.

[Krazy]

Am I the only one thinking most of these bosses are just way too easy?
Aside from Ruin Sentinels and Gargoyles the most I've died on a boss was once. and that's with absolutely zero help.

Not any different from the first Dark Souls. I only remember dying on Ornstein & Smough, Bed of Chaos and Gwyn.

[Veikuri]

Hahaha, I know exactly where you are. I saw that they would respawn there and killed them until they stopped respawning so that I wouldn't have to deal with them.

Wait you can kill monsters and they won't respawn? What wizardry is this?

[Souj]

Not any different from the first Dark Souls. I only remember dying on Ornstein & Smough, Bed of Chaos and Gwyn.

Eh... in ds1 I couldn't beat bosses simply by strafing around them like I can 80% of these bosses.

And yeah, I found that second exit from skeleton lord room after going back to it lol. Not sure how I missed it the first time cause I was sure I walked around the whole room.

What's up with the area past the chariot boss? The npc only says the place isnt for me. He a covenant dude like the guy in the fire tower?
And I can't wait until I have these place names memorized lol.

[Zzsark]

I still haven't figured out what the number is (if its standard or varies mob to mob) but if you kill them some number of times they wont respawn. Some seem to take much less than others. I wish the dogs still spawned by the blacksmith because they were popping out HEs like it was going out of style.

[Deadgye]

Think I finally found a decent dex weapon. Turned one of the boss souls into a Warped Sword. 15/25 req, E/A scaling, 130 counter, 25 poise. Its move set is similar to the scimitar or falchion. Upgraded it to +1 with a petrified dragonbone, which increased base damage and scaling. With 16/26 my longsword+5 is 168+77, while the Warped Sword+1 is 119+70.

[Zzsark]

I must have this sword. Do you remember which soul it was? Also, where do you get the ember for the 2nd blacksmith?

[Deadgye]

I still haven't found a single ember.

Spoiler: show

Soul was the one from the boss in the boat.

Also fuck the gulch.

[Datonare]

I'm also running a dex build, as I loved the katanas and such in DS1, especially with the bleed effect on it. Unfortunately I haven't ran across any yet, but I did get the black knight halberd recently and... god damn this thing is a beast.

[fantasticdan]

Where do you find the item/npc/whatever to modify weapons to a different path? I'm still using the fire longsword from the beginning of the game because I haven't found anything else that scales with my dumb pyro/hex build.

[Zzsark]

Ok so speaking of the boss on the boat... after I beat him I went into that room and clicked on the "move me to the next area item" before I opened the chest in that room. After the CS I couldn't get back on the boat. Do I have to go back to No-Man's Warf to get in that room?

[samalis]

Rat King covenant is the best thing ever, oh man this is hilarious.

[Krazy]

Flame Swathe is an amazing Pyro spell. You cast it and a ball of flame instantly appears on the target and explodes. I also found some enemies you can farm Sunlight Medals from. I used a Bonfire Ascetic on the bonfire in

Spoiler: show

the Fire Keepers' Dwelling. They drop from the Falcon Knights that appear there now.

[Arelian]

Absolutely fuck Iron Keep and

Spoiler: show

Smelter Demon.

Fuck it so hard.

[Kuishen]

Rat King covenant is the best thing ever, oh man this is hilarious.

My friend is having a blast doing it and unlocking more traps and everything. It's absolutely the biggest troll thing in the game, he killed a guy with the wall spikes that you activate by hitting a button that's behind the chest on the upper ledge.

Spoilers below are for stuff fairly far into the game/secret covenant.

I myself messed around with the Bell Keeper Covenant and had fun pvping there. Now I'm in the

Spoiler: show

Brotherhood of Blood

covenant. As for how to unlock it/get the guy to talk to you, here's my theory (this also answers your question Souj):

Spoiler: show

It's the small creepy faceless dude after the Chariot boss, and I believe in order to get him to let you into the covenant you have to have invaded and won a couple times with Cracked Red Eye orbs, because that was the only difference that made sense between my friend and I, and it didn't give him the option to join. Joining the covenant grants you access to the dueling arena via the 3 statues in that same room, and winning a Duel gives you a Cracked Red Eye orb. I think the covenant affects Tokens of Spite in some way too but I haven't found any way to "rank up" in the covenant yet, but I am thoroughly enjoying the duelist arena and invading people. The guy also sells some very interesting items regarding pvp.

Xbox Live servers have been taking a dump since mid-day tuesday and it's very annoying. I'm assuming that is the cause of clicking a summoning sign and it immediately going "Summoning failed. The summon sign is no longer there." and also the COMPLETE LACK OF INVASIONS. I've been invaded a grand total of once and I'm 31+ hours into the game. Granted I haven't been human for a large portion of that time but that shouldn't be skewing it that much. Invading isn't completely broken since I've invaded other people at least like 15 times with Cracked Red Eye orbs, and some other times that were covenant related, but something is definitely borked. On top of, you know, just going offline from both Live and the game servers periodically and not being able to get back on.

Overall, I think the game is a straight up improvement on Dark Souls 1 in pretty much every aspect. I haven't noticed the movement thing that other people have mentioned, and the textures look just as good as 1 to me (xbox 360). There are a few bosses that have absolutely made me want to rip my hair out. One in particular I must have spent an hour and a half on:

Spoiler: show

The medusa-esque chick in the poison heavy area past the Skeleton Lords. Her entire arena is covered in poison muck that when you dodge through makes your poison meter rise even more because it coats your body, it also gives her a significant regen effect, she herself doesn't do anything too threatening but the enviroment is just dicks.

I love that there are so many different/paths directions to take all at once, it grates on the OCD in me because I want to explore everything but it's all really well designed. The bits of lore I've gleaned for myself seem even more epic than most of the stuff in Dark Souls 1.

Also Heide Knight Sword +10 is pretty freaking amazing. I do want to try and use the Black Knight Ultra Greatsword just because it looks so goddamn badass. I just finished getting the 4 "lord" souls and am making my way into the place that unlocks, the atmosphere in said area is spot on.

EDIT: Also the sheer amount of bosses is amazing, I love it.

EDIT: Here's a rant for you though:

My friend and I were both told, on separate occasions from different employees, that the Gamestop we pre-ordered from was going to do midnight release. We show up at 10:20 pm, there's one other guy waiting there for Titanfall and the place looks dead inside. The mall security guard walks by after like 10 mins and asks if we're sure they're doing midnight release, we tell him that we were told yes. He says he'll call the manager and let us know the next time he walks past. We wait for another 15 mins, decide to just leave because still nobody inside the store, the security guard confirms that it's not happening as we pass him on our way out.

We're pretty pissed, but we decide to hit up another nearby Gamestop in hopes they can somehow get us our copies. We show up, that store is open and has a few people in it waiting, but they inform us that they can't give us our copies because they have the exact amount of Collector's Editions needed and they don't even have any extras of the regular black armor edition (for me) for 360. So now we're just livid and we had to wait until 10AM the next morning. Didn't even bother chewing them out because it wouldn't have done anything but we're both never shopping at that particular store again.

All they had to do was just tell us that they weren't doing midnight release there and we would have gladly gotten it at the other one.

[Souj]

man, they made the crystal lizards really hard to get this time around. I've only seen 3 so far and only managed to kill 1. the one in the forest and the one in the poison place are both real quick to suicide off the ledge.

[Kuishen]

Yeah I've only been able to kill like 2, they're a bitch to kill.

[gaira]

just getting started on first playthrough, happy fedex decided to show up with the game today!

trying to play mostly blind 1st time through. i've got a sorcerer with 2x soul arrow, 1x great soul arrow, a falchion, and some blue wooden shield atm. doing fairly well just exploring. i know i missed something in the forest but haven't found the way yet. got to the 3rd bonfire and then can't find the way beyond that.

was worried at first with the movement changes, and i still don't know why they made it less responsive overall, but have mostly adjusted to the new system i think.

looking forward to many more deaths to come.

[Kuishen]

Oh btw, to the people who were all "just wait and see how it affects gameplay, stop complaining, blah blah blah" about the monsters not spawning anymore after you kill them a certain number of times:

It's a stupid fucking mechanic.

It's only happened to me for a few mobs near the beginning of the game, but now that area is half empty and it's absolutely retarded. If bonfire ascetic's were more readily available, you might have a case but I've seen maybe 3 so far and I've been thoroughly exploring, there's also a merchant that sells like... 1? I think.

[Souj]

Here's a question;
Why do you need monsters to spawn so much?


and where do you get the ember so I can start using these souls to upgrade weapons?