Menu
What's new

Dark Souls II Info, spoiler free.

Komuflage

Komuflage

Insider
Hello, as all Demon's and Dark souls fan here probably know, Dark souls II is in the making, and is being released next year.

However I personally would like to get some more info about the game, but at the same time I don't want anything spoiled.

In order to make any sense of that, it basically means that the mechanic behind things: How summoning is going to work, if they've made any significant change to the target system, if they swapped out some stats and so on would be ok, but things about the game itself, new bosses, items, lore and so on, should be kept out of here.

Thing is, I personally know pretty much nothing about Dark Souls II, I've tried to stay away from it as much as possible, to avoid spoilers. However some things have been to tempting to find out, and most often that results in reading a few spoiler.

Hence this thread is a request to all you fans here on the site; if anyone could be so kind to link to a website, or put in a quote, that don't include spoilers it would be much appreciated.
Also if you have the time to answer any of the questions here, please put them in a 'spoiler' (Second icon from the Right in the toolbar)

Anyway, I'll start of by just asking these few things:
Is gfwl removed, or will the game be plagued by it?
Any changes to how the summoning system works?
Any change to combat system: New moves?
New/removed stats?
Do they skip Item burden for DS2 as well?
Do the game have the more simplistic upgrade system as Dark souls, or is it closer to the more complex system of Demon's souls, maybe somewhere in-between, or is it completely reworked?

So that's pretty much what I would like to know, so if anyone have enough time, and is kind enough, I would much appreciate some answers :rolleyes:

now there is a few ways to write the answers, but I would suggest that you write down the question, and then underneath it a 'spoiler-box' that contains the answer. That way, if someone only wants to read the answer to a specific questions, they can avoid getting the other things spoiler.

An example could be:
Is gfwl removed
Yes (put name here) said on twitter (link) that the game will not feature gfwl.
 
Empire²

Empire²

Insider
I confess, I have not really looked into Dark Souls 2 that much. I only ever got the PC port of DS1, which, as many of us know, was absolutely dreadful. Got maybe 5 minutes into it before getting utterly confused by the awful controls and camera, which put me off from playing any more.

I'll keep an eye out for any info, and post it here, might I stumble upon something new!
 
Scarecrow

Scarecrow

Insider
I have participated in the Dark Souls 2 betas, and i'd happily contribute what i can to this thread, spoiler free. This also means that I may have information regarding more subjects, but i will not post them in this thread. If you have a question about something specific, just send me a PM and i will try my best to answer it. Alternately, if it is something that is considered non-spoiler (Story info, covenant info, map info etc are considered spoilers. Mechanics and the likes, are not) you can ask in this thread. Keep in mind though, I obviously don't know everything.

Summoning: Pretty much like it works in the original Dark Souls it seems, in the way the soap stone is used. However, there is a new smaller version of the soap stone one can use as well. I'm unsure as to what exactly it does differently. There is also a time limit for how long you can have a phantom summoned (The smaller soap stone might just have a shorter time limit?), probably to prevent people from ganking, but also make it so that others won't complete an entire level for you. The time limit in the beta however was quite large, at least for the regular soap stone.

Invasion: Red soapstone, Cracked Red Eye Orbs making a return, which probably means Red Eye Orb is back too. As far as I remember, you have a time limit when invading as well. It seemed about as long as the summon phantom time limit. Probably other Covenant specific stuff as well, but none that I experienced in the Beta.

Target/Combat system: The target and combat system has gotten some changes it would seem. In the original Dark Souls you would always attack towards your targeted opponent, even if you were pushing the left analog stick in the opposite direction. In Dark Souls 2, the targeting remains the same, but you have to aim where you attack yourself. Even if you have an opponent targeted, you have to anticipate his moves, and aim with the left analog stick in the direction you want to attack. You also have now three equipment slots for each hand, instead of two like in the original. You can now be interrupted when backstabbing/riposting, and you can take damage when doing so. Riposting an opponent will first make him fall to the ground, then you can chose to walk up and go for the riposte attack. These are the first changed that comes to mind, however i might add in some more if i can think of them.

Stats: The stats are a lot like they were. However there have been several changed here. As far as I can remember, the stat: Resistance is out, because it was deemed a waste to actually invest in it. Dex no longer affects the casting speed of spells and miracles. Instead, a new stat has been introduced: Agility. Agility determines "Action speed". Increasing it will make you roll faster, make you raise your shield faster and make you use spells and miracles faster. The equipment load also effects your rolling speed (As far as i remember), but this is not the sole factor anymore. There are probably some other changes to the stats as well, but these are the ones i can think of right now.

Item burden: It's something I'm unsure about, but as far as I remember, it is like the original Dark Souls. This means; No item burden. (As far as I remember! I'm actually a bit uncertain about this)

GFWL: I do not know. I played the PS3 Beta. However, I'm quite sure that i read somewhere that it would be removed. I will try to find the link and edit it in later.

Upgrading: I'm sorry, i did not try the upgrading, nor did i think about it. Not sure if it even was in the Beta to be honest. Want to know if there are any changes to the upgrading system as well.
 
Tessaya

Tessaya

Insider
GFWL won't be in, even Windows has announced it will cease to exist (and plague us), current 2014.

Red, Gold and Blue phantoms are confirmed, as is a more "obvious" system. Maybe there will be 3 main covenants (helper, attacker and sunbro) and some lesser ones ?

Concerning combat moves, there is now proper moveset for dual wielding. Froms the videos I watched it seems you can land less attacks with a full stamina bar (from ~5 in Dark Souls to 3 maybe 4) but the roll costs less too. Enemy now have more moves too. There are new spells too.

for some gameplay commented from ign. I couldn't find the screen with the "Will you join the blue phantoms ?" line, but it I happen to do so in the future I'll post it here.
 
Komuflage

Komuflage

Insider
Scarecrow said:
Target/Combat system: The target and combat system has gotten some changes it would seem. In the original Dark Souls you would always attack towards your targeted opponent, even if you were pushing the left analog stick in the opposite direction. In Dark Souls 2, the targeting remains the same, but you have to aim where you attack yourself. Even if you have an opponent targeted, you have to anticipate his moves, and aim with the left analog stick in the direction you want to attack.
Click to expand...
Will you attack the exact direction you hold the stick? And will you still face the enemy.
For instance let's say I target someone, and I hold the stick at 7/8 a clock, this should mean that my character is moving away, but also strafing a bit to the left, from the targeted creature.
Will my character still face the enemy, as in Dark souls, or will it be running with his/her back towards the enemy?
Also, if I hold the stick at 6 a clock, and attack, will my character attack in the opposite direction of the enemy. (Like then you're dead angling.)

Scarecrow said:
There is also a time limit for how long you can have a phantom summoned
Click to expand...
Will you still get some sort of reward IF you don't complete the boss before you're sent away?
I would assume that IF you only get a rewards for killing the boss, people will only put their signs in front of the boss fog gate, which imo actually sounds like a good thing, that way people are "forced" to at least complete the level up to the boss by them self. And ganking won't be as much of an issue.

Scarecrow said:
You also have now three equipment slots for each hand, instead of two like in the original.
Click to expand...
Hmm, kinda ruins the point of fitting a build doesn't it? Since you'll be able to fit Shield, Talisman, Catalyst, and Weapon, Pyro, Bow/crossbow. In other words, one of each.


Scarecrow said:
You can now be interrupted when backstabbing/riposting, and you can take damage when doing so. Riposting an opponent will first make him fall to the ground, then you can chose to walk up and go for the riposte attack.
Click to expand...
How will these interruptions works? First thing that came to my mind was simply that, if someone parry you, you'll need to press a button within a time limit to interrupt him?

Does this also mean that you can hit enemy's on the ground even with normal/heavy attacks?
It's something that really bugged me in Dark souls, that if a opponent was facing the ground, you could not hit him before a certain point.

Tessaya said:
as is a more "obvious" system. Maybe there will be 3 main covenants (helper, attacker and sunbro) and some lesser ones ?

Concerning combat moves, there is now proper moveset for dual wielding. Froms the videos I watched it seems you can land less attacks with a full stamina bar (from ~5 in Dark Souls to 3 maybe 4) but the roll costs less too. Enemy now have more moves too. There are new spells too.
Click to expand...
I don't like the idea of a more "obvious" system, that's exactly waht they said about the crafting system from Demon's to Dark souls. Personally I like that it's not obvious, ads some mystery to is.

About the stamina; that sounds like a step in the right direction, just mashing R1 with a high stamina bar was very boring in Dark souls. However that you can roll more is a bit alerting, worried that pvp will be just people rolling around everywhere :p

That enemys have more moves seems great though, mean it'll take longer to learn an enemy.

Anyways, thanks for well written responses, this was just what I was looking for.

Oh also, is magic more balanced now? Both in Demon's and Dark souls, magic turned a quite challenging game to a facerolling game, where you could kill most bosses in 1-3 spells.
Also, are they still using the Charges system for spell? Or is it back to a Mana poll, or something else?

Also last thing, Will you still be able to perma kindle a bonfire to give you a lame amount of estus flask, thus removing the challenge? (As in Dark souls where you could have 20 flasks)

And ofc if anyone else has some questions they're free to ask them.
 
Last edited:
Scarecrow

Scarecrow

Insider
Komuflage said:
Will you attack the exact direction you hold the stick? And will you still face the enemy.
For instance let's say I target someone, and I hold the stick at 7/8 a clock, this should mean that my character is moving away, but also strafing a bit to the left, from the targeted creature.
Will my character still face the enemy, as in Dark souls, or will it be running with his/her back towards the enemy?
Also, if I hold the stick at 6 a clock, and attack, will my character attack in the opposite direction of the enemy. (Like then you're dead angling.)

Will you still get some sort of reward IF you don't complete the boss before you're sent away?
I would assume that IF you only get a rewards for killing the boss, people will only put their signs in front of the boss fog gate, which imo actually sounds like a good thing, that way people are "forced" to at least complete the level up to the boss by them self. And ganking won't be as much of an issue.


Hmm, kinda ruins the point of fitting a build doesn't it? Since you'll be able to fit Shield, Talisman, Catalyst, and Weapon, Pyro, Bow/crossbow. In other words, one of each.


How will these interruptions works? First thing that came to my mind was simply that, if someone parry you, you'll need to press a button within a time limit to interrupt him?

Does this also mean that you can hit enemy's on the ground even with normal/heavy attacks?
It's something that really bugged me in Dark souls, that if a opponent was facing the ground, you could not hit him before a certain point.


I don't like the idea of a more "obvious" system, that's exactly waht they said about the crafting system from Demon's to Dark souls. Personally I like that it's not obvious, ads some mystery to is.

About the stamina; that sounds like a step in the right direction, just mashing R1 with a high stamina bar was very boring in Dark souls. However that you can roll more is a bit alerting, worried that pvp will be just people rolling around everywhere :p

That enemys have more moves seems great though, mean it'll take longer to learn an enemy.

Anyways, thanks for well written responses, this was just what I was looking for.

Oh also, is magic more balanced now? Both in Demon's and Dark souls, magic turned a quite challenging game to a facerolling game, where you could kill most bosses in 1-3 spells.
Also, are they still using the Charges system for spell? Or is it back to a Mana poll, or something else?

Also last thing, Will you still be able to perma kindle a bonfire to give you a lame amount of estus flask, thus removing the challenge? (As in Dark souls where you could have 20 flasks)

And ofc if anyone else has some questions they're free to ask them.
Click to expand...
You attack in the exact direction you point the stick towards, yes. If you press the stick towards six o clock, running backwards/back peddling then you will attack in that direction.

It seems that your character is facing the target most of the time, but if you hold the stick long enough in one direction, or just move far enough in one direction, he will turn that way and start running normally while still targeting the enemy, until you run out of target range. At least thats how i remember it, i might be off there though.

I don't think you get a reward if you do not complete the boss. So you will not be revived nor get a lot of souls for taking out the boss. You still get souls for killing enemies however. Also, phantoms can get item drops now (?). This might have been a bug or something, i don't really know. But i got an item drop when i was summoned, and it was clearly not the player who dropped it (Unless weird massive, yet unnoticeable lag). This is regarding REGULAR summon however. Will be different for other covenants.

I agree, i find it a bit weird that they went for three slots in each hand. It was still Beta then though, this might change for the final product based on feedback.

When i was talking about interruptions, i was thinking of interruptions from other enemies/players. In Dark Souls, when backstabbing/riposting you would be invincible from attacks from other enemies/players. Now, you can be attacked, and thus interrupted by other enemies or players, while you are performing a backstab/riposte animation.

You can not hit enemies with normal/heavy attacks when they are on the ground. This is just how the new riposte system works. When you get a prefect parry (normally knocks their weapon away, and they stagger/stun in Dark Souls) you knock them to the ground instead. By walking up and pressing normal attack, you do the riposte attack just like in original Dark Souls, except now you do it when they're knocked down, kinda like an execution attack (Damage is still around the same like original Dark Souls riposte damage I'd say).

The enemies generally has more moves now yes, making them more unpredictable. Its a very hard game. It seemed harder than what Dark Souls was for the first time.

Don't know about the balance of magic, but they do use the same kind of charge system like in original Dark Souls.

Don't know about kindling and amount of estus. However, you do have something called life crystals/gems now. They are a common consumable item drop, that heals for a small-moderate amount, but much slower. I'm not sure how i feel about this though, they were abundant in the Beta, and having healing available was never an issue. The game was still rock-hard though(They turned on extra difficulty for the last hour as well, which was hell. Like NG +++++ or something).

Always happy to help. I'm so damn excited about this game that sharing information about it helps the wait.
 
Komuflage

Komuflage

Insider
Scarecrow said:
You attack in the exact direction you point the stick towards, yes. If you press the stick towards six o clock, running backwards/back peddling then you will attack in that direction.

It seems that your character is facing the target most of the time, but if you hold the stick long enough in one direction, or just move far enough in one direction, he will turn that way and start running normally while still targeting the enemy, until you run out of target range. At least thats how i remember it, i might be off there though.

I don't think you get a reward if you do not complete the boss. So you will not be revived nor get a lot of souls for taking out the boss. You still get souls for killing enemies however. Also, phantoms can get item drops now (?). This might have been a bug or something, i don't really know. But i got an item drop when i was summoned, and it was clearly not the player who dropped it (Unless weird massive, yet unnoticeable lag). This is regarding REGULAR summon however. Will be different for other covenants.

I agree, i find it a bit weird that they went for three slots in each hand. It was still Beta then though, this might change for the final product based on feedback.

When i was talking about interruptions, i was thinking of interruptions from other enemies/players. In Dark Souls, when backstabbing/riposting you would be invincible from attacks from other enemies/players. Now, you can be attacked, and thus interrupted by other enemies or players, while you are performing a backstab/riposte animation.

You can not hit enemies with normal/heavy attacks when they are on the ground. This is just how the new riposte system works. When you get a prefect parry (normally knocks their weapon away, and they stagger/stun in Dark Souls) you knock them to the ground instead. By walking up and pressing normal attack, you do the riposte attack just like in original Dark Souls, except now you do it when they're knocked down, kinda like an execution attack (Damage is still around the same like original Dark Souls riposte damage I'd say).

The enemies generally has more moves now yes, making them more unpredictable. Its a very hard game. It seemed harder than what Dark Souls was for the first time.

Don't know about the balance of magic, but they do use the same kind of charge system like in original Dark Souls.

Don't know about kindling and amount of estus. However, you do have something called life crystals/gems now. They are a common consumable item drop, that heals for a small-moderate amount, but much slower. I'm not sure how i feel about this though, they were abundant in the Beta, and having healing available was never an issue. The game was still rock-hard though(They turned on extra difficulty for the last hour as well, which was hell. Like NG +++++ or something).

Always happy to help. I'm so damn excited about this game that sharing information about it helps the wait.
Click to expand...
Sounds great, few things that I worry about, but not to big of a deal.

Does anyone know whatever it'll be Peer to peer like in Dark, or 1 region server as in Demon's?
Dark souls had some big problems with lag and "Failed to summon" due to no region lock and the peer to peer system.

Also ty for sharing, got some of the things I've been wondering about cleared up at least :D
 
Tessaya

Tessaya

Insider
If it's "good" we won't know until much too late, but there is no way it could be better that a controller : analog controls are unbeatable with that style of gameplay.
 
Balgin the Dwarf

Balgin the Dwarf

Insider
Scarecrow said:
Summoning: Pretty much like it works in the original Dark Souls it seems, in the way the soap stone is used. However, there is a new smaller version of the soap stone one can use as well. I'm unsure as to what exactly it does differently. There is also a time limit for how long you can have a phantom summoned (The smaller soap stone might just have a shorter time limit?), probably to prevent people from ganking, but also make it so that others won't complete an entire level for you. The time limit in the beta however was quite large, at least for the regular soap stone.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately for me this can often mean standing around trying to summon someone for an hou and a half because the connection system just doesn't like letting people play together :(. I really hope they improve the summoning system because it's current itteration is an utter nightmare.

Psychomorph said:
All I want to know is if mouse/keyboard is good.
Click to expand...
I'd like to know this to. I do not have (and cannot afford) a controller so I was playing Dark Souls with keyboard and mouse myself too.
 
Last edited:
Komuflage

Komuflage

Insider
Balgin the Dwarf said:
Unfortunately for me this can often mean standing around trying to summon someone for an hou and a half because the connection system just doesn't like letting people play together :(. I really hope they improve the summoning system because it's current itteration is an utter nightmare.
Click to expand...
Depending on how you look at it, the summoning system wasn't that bad. What was bad however, was that there where no dedicated server, rather we had to use p2p connections, and combining that with no region lock, can make connecting to other players a real nightmare.
 
Scarecrow

Scarecrow

Insider
Just thought I'd post this here:

A lot of Dark Souls 2 information piled together in this video, and it mainly regards mechanichs and the likes of it. In the description of the video you can see what is being talked about where.
 
Down8

Down8

Insider
Here are my impressions without spoilers.

I completed my first playthrough as Dex melee, high agility build on PS3 and the game is great. My clear time has been around 55 hours, with some coop action, no farming, a fair amount of exploration, and skipping an optional area I couldn't discover.

In some aspects the game is tougher and more unforgiving than the first. The scarcity of healh items in the beginning, the health reduction with every death, the high amount of nasty enemy ambushes and the more stamina consuming actions make a challenging run even for a seasoned veteran like me.

PROS:

- The same challenging and fair,skill driven game. The upgrades help but you can beat the game at level 1,
- Huge and varied world. Larger that the DS1, and that's something.
- Fidelity and accurate portrait of the series spirit, but some innovations
- New stats that alow the player too have more character build posibilities, making the game highly replayable.
- Some areas look great even for PS3 with great artistic direction.
- Enemy despawn after killing them a lot of times makes more difficult to farm and makes the resources limited.
- New game+ mode with new enemies, weapons,armours and items.
- Dual weapon wielding mechanics.
- Backstabs are harder to perform.
- New covenants, with nice and devious surprises. :-D

CONS:

- Parry atacks harder to perform.
- Few areas not good looking.
- Enemy despawn after killing them a lot of times are not going to please people experimenting with builds.
- Some bosses are too easy but there are great ones too.
- In PS3 the framerate is not too great but playable.


The game is so addictive I don't want to play any other game at the moment. But I want to enjoy my 2nd playthrough on PC with better graphics and framerate without having played too much. This time they have said they are taking care of the PC version to be good, I hope the deliver.

I'm going dual swordsman ( with thrusting swords) without shields on my second playthrough. That will be a fun and challenging run, sacrificing defense and shield for mayor melee damage output . Maybe I will use a shield in some nasty spots but that's it.

Now you have two combat stances when dual wielding:

- with the first you can attack with the two weapons alternately allowing faster combos than single wielding.
- with the second you can attack with the two weapons at the same time increasing your damage dealt.


If you are a fan of the first game and Demon's souls, you are not going to be disappointed.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top

Home|Games|Media|Store|Account|Forums|Contact




© Copyright 2019 Bare Mettle Entertainment Ltd. All rights reserved.