Adventures in Lordran - or tales of brave Sir Onion

Kamar

Biggest thing to understand is that DS2 is different, like nearly as different as Demon's Souls (and sort of feels like it was going back to some Demon's Souls stuff moreso than DS1, to me). Mechanics are familiar but work different, weapons are the same but tuned different, poise is the same but not quite the same, etc. Thrusting weapons are weak in PvE for DS1 and DS3, but roflstomp PvE in DS2, for a random thing off the top of my head. Split damage weapons are almost always superior, because of the differences in how defense is calculated. Two-handing is almost always superior for all weapons; you get 2x strength for stat purposes, but no scaling benefits from that double strength, instead you get roughly 20% more damage regardless of weapon type. Iframes are governed by a stat, ADP (and ATN to a lesser extent).

Just, weird different. Don't assume you know anything or you'll end up frustrated. Just in a tactile sense, Bloodborne feels more like the other two Souls games than DS2, even.

Morninglord

Better to think of iframes as governed by the stat Agility. Which goes up when you put points into ADP and ATN. But not every point of ADP/ATN gets you a point of Agility. ADP gives you more Agility than ATN per point spent. Agility gains suffer diminishing returns, meaning you need more and more ADP or ATN to raise Agility.

cB557

You start with less i-frames than the fat roll in DS1 has, so the first area is gonna be all staggering and footsies as your tools for avoiding damage. The enemies are all tuned for those to be slow and staggerable, so if you go in knowing that it should be manageable. Going in on my first time, trying to dodge stuff with rolls, caused a lot of pain.

At 88 agility, you'll have the same amount of frames as the DS1 fat roll. At 96, the same as the mid roll. At 105, the same as the fast roll.

If you go all the way up to 116 you can have more i-frames than even the backflip ring in DS1 would give you, but the amount of points of adaptability and attunement it takes to get another point of agility really spikes after your agility reaches 110.

I guess at this level of detail I should just link you the fextralife page on agility. They've got a chart on there that shows you at what levels of agility you'll get another i-frame. You can just look at, decide how many frames you wanna go for, and just level agility to that amount.

Mr Fuzzbutt

I like to cheese Dragonrider first thing and pump all the souls into adaptability and pretend the game starts then.

Morninglord

Oh and weight changes your roll distance.

You can technically fast roll with 69% weight but this means you will be rolling basically in one spot without moving. That means you will not be outside of many attacks hitboxes when your iframes run out. You wont be able to escape outside of many enemies reach either, so you'll have to repeatedly dodge through multiple hits in many combos to get away. Attacks with long range will also be able to punish your rolls easier. You can still "dodge" in that you get all your iframes, but you aren't really escaping.

On the other hand if you have almost no weight you end up rolling too far and can be too far away to even punish enemies after dodging their attacks. They recover by the time you hoof it over to them and start swinging.

I found a good point was around 30-40%.

I've run a 69% high agility build before. It works. It's just not as effective as high agility 30-40%. You have to put a lot more work in to stay alive.

You know what's even better than iframes? No longer being where an attack is. It's like auto-dodging for free!

Kamar

I actually like short rolls for controlling my position, but you also lose significant stamina regen in DS2 as your carry weight % gets up there. From the wiki:

• 0% equipment load: 0% slower stamina recovery => 52.6 base stamina recovery
• 10% equipment load: 3.5% slower stamina recovery => 50.82 base stamina recovery
• 20% equipment load: 5.0% slower stamina recovery => 50.1 base stamina recovery
• 30% equipment load: 10% slower stamina recovery => 47.82 base stamina recovery
• 40% equipment load: 17.5% slower stamina recovery => 44.77 base stamina recovery
• 50% equipment load: 30% slower stamina recovery => 40.46 base stamina recovery
• 60% equipment load: 40% slower stamina recovery => 37.57 base stamina recovery
• 70% equipment load: 55% slower stamina recovery => 33.94 base stamina recovery
• 80% equipment load: 65% slower stamina recovery => 31.88 base stamina recovery
• 90% equipment load: 80% slower stamina recovery => 29.22 base stamina recovery
• 100% equipment load: 100% slower stamina recovery => 26.3 base stamina recovery
• 110% equipment load: 125% slower stamina recovery => 23.38 base stamina recovery
• 120% equipment load: 150% slower stamina recovery => 21.04 base stamina recovery

cB557

My first playthrough I was around like, 60% equip load, I think? And that ended up being a real good sweet-spot for rolling through an enemy's attack leaving me in position to backstab them.

Morninglord

Yeah its good for that if you want to be aggressive. But if you want to get out of a big long sword using bosses combo attacks you are dodging more than once so it might not be everyone's cup of tea. Also leaves you vulnerable when things go south and you are surrounded by lots of enemies and want to just get the hell out of there to a clearer space. You are much less likely to be able to get away from all the overlapping attacks.

It's really up to you guys I found the best mix of everything (every possible use of a dodge) was around the point I mentioned. That's also coincidentally around where the good breakpoint is for stamina regen. Notice it jumps from 17 to 30% from 40 to 50! Quite a lot.

Brovid Hasselsmof

I think I might have to conclude that Dark Souls is not for me. I haven't played it since finding that hydra, because every time I consider it I just think "Ugh, they're going to make me fight that thing aren't they." And I know it will take a bajillion tries to even figure out how I'm supposed to fight it, and I'll have to get past those ice monsters every time, and they're really easy but fighting them all takes so long.

It really feels like a game that is actively trying to make you not want to play it. And I understand that is engaging for some people but I do not have the discipline or drive to stay at it. I like games where it's hard to progress until you figure out what you need to do and then you move on to the next problem. I feel like all my progress in this has been due to luck and I'm not getting any better at it.

It's a bummer because I think it's a very cool game, I really like the aesthetic, and I've enjoyed understanding some Dark Souls memes now. It feels like a game I could enjoy if I was playing it with someone else and passing the controller, but alone it just feels like a chore.

Beef Avenger

The hydra is completely optional

Morninglord

Hydra isn't required right now you can come back much later when you are a lot stronger with no issues.

Speed Racer

Platy wrote: »

Apparently Miyazaki couldn't bring himself to stop the artist who designed Gwynevere because that particular artist poured his heart and soul into Gwynevere's design

"I thought it would be really wonderful to have a sweet caring mommy giantess character, don't you wish YOU had a giant mommy? BUT ANYWAY I DEFINITELY DIDN'T GIVE HER THE BIG BAZONGAS THAT WAS SOMEONE ELSE"

Elendil

also it's the same artist's fault priscilla, the maiden in black, and friede are barefoot

i tried to stop him

cursedking

Woof, ds2 is easily the hardest start I’ve had in a souls game so far. Completed giant forest but was a slog.

Elendil

the beginning of dark souls 2 works very hard to ensure your character sucks until cardinal tower at the earliest

your stats are bad, all the gear is bad, about half the starter sets are bad, you get no estus, your dodge frames suck

leveling is super fast and you can fix the iframe issue after your first boss, but the early early game can be frustratingly limited

if you try to actually fight dragonrider with a starting dagger, the dagger will break long before he's dead

Kamar

Elendil wrote: »

the beginning of dark souls 2 works very hard to ensure your character sucks until cardinal tower at the earliest

your stats are bad, all the gear is bad, about half the starter sets are bad, you get no estus, your dodge frames suck

leveling is super fast and you can fix the iframe issue after your first boss, but the early early game can be frustratingly limited

if you try to actually fight dragonrider with a starting dagger, the dagger will break long before he's dead

Explorer can do it, you start with magic ooze and repair powders!

...as someone who almost always pokes him to death that way, I do not recommend poking him to death that way.

Madican

I spent a lot of my early time in DS2 Scholars farming the troll in the forest river. Hug the butt, watch for him to do his sit animation, back up, hit him until he stands, repeat until he's dead. Nets some good souls and shards.

cB557

Going for first thing dragonrider is also handy since you can pick up the ring of binding while you're there.

Peas

Dragonrider Cheese (DS2: SotFS) 1:03
https://youtu.be/kLsuL3uAV9Y

Pulling the levers just makes him harder

Brovid Hasselsmof wrote: »

I think I might have to conclude that Dark Souls is not for me. I haven't played it since finding that hydra, because every time I consider it I just think "Ugh, they're going to make me fight that thing aren't they." And I know it will take a bajillion tries to even figure out how I'm supposed to fight it, and I'll have to get past those ice monsters every time, and they're really easy but fighting them all takes so long.

It really feels like a game that is actively trying to make you not want to play it. And I understand that is engaging for some people but I do not have the discipline or drive to stay at it. I like games where it's hard to progress until you figure out what you need to do and then you move on to the next problem. I feel like all my progress in this has been due to luck and I'm not getting any better at it.

It's a bummer because I think it's a very cool game, I really like the aesthetic, and I've enjoyed understanding some Dark Souls memes now. It feels like a game I could enjoy if I was playing it with someone else and passing the controller, but alone it just feels like a chore.

Hope things would go better the next time you try again (it's fine if you don't). I think at this point it would be alright to use cheat engine or watch a playthrough to get a sense of what's possible. From my observation you play in a too honorable manner which hurts you big time in a world like Dark souls

Madican

Hydra only looks difficult. In reality it's probably the easiest miniboss in the game since once you get close enough it stops spitting water and starts doing multi-head lunges. Only those heads do not lock onto you, they just kinda go wherever. So after you cut off a few you can literally stand there and it will never hit you.

cursedking

Man I really dig this "enemies stop spawning after a while" mechanic in DS2. Since the areas I've been in haven't been too long between bonfires at least, it's given me a...weird reason to want to just re-run sections until the enemies stop showing up. It's very pleasing to me to now have several empty areas and running back and forth is just totally peaceful.

Morninglord

It also surprisingly can make the game harder because it means there is a limited amount of souls in the game, so if you lose your souls a lot trying to get them back....bad luck, there's no more. Drops also. Of course you can use a seed or join the covenant of champions for infinite respawn, but I like that due to the nature of how you level in the game limited respawns technically make it easier in the short term....but also not entirely a reward.

Beef Avenger

I dislike the finite enemy respawns because if I’m struggling with an area and then beat it by virtue of it becoming easier then I am denied the satisfaction of beating it by overcoming the challenge

Also why I hate adaptive difficulty that can’t be turned off

Elendil

it's also annoying because DS2 does rare loot drops to a frankly ridiculous extent

cursedking

It’s not something I think I’ll do in every area, but it is something I’m enjoying in the early game to get my initial build together, I went from like 40 sl to 70ish in lost bastille after getting greatsword

cB557

Beef Avenger wrote: »

I dislike the finite enemy respawns because if I’m struggling with an area and then beat it by virtue of it becoming easier then I am denied the satisfaction of beating it by overcoming the challenge

Also why I hate adaptive difficulty that can’t be turned off

I thought this would bug me a lot, but in practice the enemies that got despawned were the groups that I had already gotten on lock, and it just made it a bit faster to get to the stuff that was actually what was killing me.

Peas

They tend to despawn when I couldn't get enough of their drops
Also once I know the mechanic exist I have to fight this sick urge inside me to "clean up" the area

Olivaw

The despawn thing really bugged me in DS2 because on paper it makes the game easier, but in practice it just made it so I couldn't grind anymore, which removed an avenue to actually making the game easier

Madican

Olivaw wrote: »

The despawn thing really bugged me in DS2 because on paper it makes the game easier, but in practice it just made it so I couldn't grind anymore, which removed an avenue to actually making the game easier

Covenant of Champions will stop this mechanic and you can turn it on/off as you please

BahamutZERO

the part that bugged me was mostly the way it made it even harder to collect the myriad rare drop pieces of armor and weapons and such

Mr Fuzzbutt

Olivaw wrote: »

The despawn thing really bugged me in DS2 because on paper it makes the game easier, but in practice it just made it so I couldn't grind anymore, which removed an avenue to actually making the game easier

I've heard this sort of comment before but I don't think it's true. The way levelling costs increase exponentially and the flat amount of souls you get in a given area means that grinding is a horribly inefficient way to increase your power.

The best ways to level up are to kill bosses and progress to harder areas with more souls dropping. And if you've cleared all available paths and are stuck on one roadblock and levelling up is the only way you can think of to progress, bonfire ascetics on easy but soulful bosses are probably most efficient.

cB557

Or just get yourself summoned a few times.

Madican

Giant King was my go-to. Just pumped those Ascetics into farming him

PiptheFair

enemies depopulating is also directly in conflict with the games central premise of stagnation and lack of agency/impact on the part of the player

so many fucking baffling decisions went into DS2

Platy

So this is why I kept running into SL 250+ guys when invading

Elendil

BahamutZERO wrote: »

the part that bugged me was mostly the way it made it even harder to collect the myriad rare drop pieces of armor and weapons and such

damn these drop rates are like 3% how many times do they respawn

fromsoft: oh they don't

Morninglord

Covenant of Champs also gets you the best ring in the game.

What do you mean you don't like punching things? *completely baffled expression*

cursedking

Peas wrote: »

They tend to despawn when I couldn't get enough of their drops
Also once I know the mechanic exist I have to fight this sick urge inside me to "clean up" the area

this is exactly me. I feel like now it's my job to just make all these areas completely empty.

Also, I realize that this is kind of Dark Souls' deal. But I really have no idea what the fuck is going on in DS2 or even what I am doing. Like, in DS1/3, it's vague, but you have very clear objectives, especially after you ring the bells. Get the lordvessel, fill the lordvessel, link the fire.

The emerald herald told me to get some souls but like, where and why and who? Where am i even going? It just feels very...listless and disjointed.

Like, I killed the sinner, who felt like a normal run of the mill easy boss, but her soul was Big, I guess?

cB557

You've come to Drangleic chasing rumors that there, you can use souls to stave off hollowing and possibly prevent it entirely. Once you get there, you're told that to do that, you should seek the king, but that your soul is too weak and shitty to do that right now. So, you should travel the land hunting various great souls, to take their power for your own.

Peas

I kinda like the idea that the end game opens up if you somehow got enough souls instead of going the traditional route

How much souls you need?

1 million souls