Dark Souls II

[Kafein]

http://imgur.com/a/Nbo0o#1

I'm going to blame that on why I felt so confused geographically and lost on my first play through.

DkS 2 has two parent games. Demon's Souls and Dark Souls. Oftentimes, DkS 2 made the bad choice of copying DS and not DkS. This is why you have farmable healing items. This is why the world is not interconnected but rather a collection of independent paths. This is why most enemies are humanoid. This is why we have mechanics like SM that work out of min-max situations.

There's really no reason to get lost in DkS 2 though. Except in Shaded Woods, of course. The game never requires you to have an idea of where you are globally, you just have to know where you are locally, "between bonfires".

[IR_Kuoin]

I was able to skip the credits!!!!!!!

[SixThumbs]

The game never requires you to have an idea of where you are globally, you just have to know where you are locally, "between bonfires".

I was never really lost within the bonfire areas but thematically and an over-arching goal just weren't there on the first play-through.

I enjoyed Dark Souls' intro where it's not really about you, or at least not framed as such, you are just an inhabitant in the world. Then you merrily wander around when some guy mentions something about ringing bells and things build up from there.

Right off the bat in Dark Souls II you have the three "firekeepers" standing around breaking down the 4th wall right out of the gate and every so often you get a throwback and reference to Dark Souls that really just weren't needed.

[Kafein]

It's unfortunate that they try so hard (and mostly succeed) to bring back DkS memes, yeah.

[Banok]

+ BoB arena has like 70% tryhard builds.

This is true, but if you make a low soul memory build tryhard build back then you can get mostly even fights there and stay around whatever soul memory level you want.

I'd rather make new characters its very quick when you know how, and that NG+ pvp where everyone is SL300 looks boring as fuck.

shame you cant go NG+ and reset soul memory, would be fucking hard but more fun to me.

[IR_Kuoin]

That moment when the obvious hacker goes to switch out his invis ring and body armor so he wont die that easily after healing 3 times.

[Polobow]

Anyone tried this?

[IR_Kuoin]

Save backup is just like a trainer. I started using a trainer in Dark Souls 1 so I could make my PvP characters faster, took me around 3 hours to finish them but god damn was it boring doing it. Pretty much removes all the "fear" of dying when you can just boot up your old save.

[Tennenoth]

Save backup is just like a trainer. I started using a trainer in Dark Souls 1 so I could make my PvP characters faster, took me around 3 hours to finish them but god damn was it boring doing it. Pretty much removes all the "fear" of dying when you can just boot up your old save.

Considering I just died on an NG+4 no deaths run, this would have removed all of the fear entirely. I had only the Guardian Dragon, The Giant Lord & Nashandra to go to beat the game without dying, Dlion had played his arse off trying to keep me alive in sticky situations, we killed at least 15 invaders throughout that time and it all ended abruptly about ten seconds after entering the Guardian Dragon's boss area. (Son of a bitch did a jump back & then straight fire breathed me, I blocked it out of instinct, breaking my guard and it then hit me two or three more times to kill me... )

But yeah, in short, that tension, elation and sheer adrenaline I would never have felt if I could just  beat a boss, back up the save and then go at it again. I might have failed but I would have preferred to fail than cheat my way through!

[TheAppleSauceMan]

Any recommendations on any good end-game weapons? Right now I'm running a Lightning Defender Greatsword +5 with 40 points in literally every stat. Definitely not bad but I'm always interested in improvements 

[IR_Kuoin]

Whatever you feel is necessary, personally I have around 6+ weapons on all my chars. that I switch depending on the type of enemy.

[Rhaelys]

Considering I just died on an NG+4 no deaths run, this would have removed all of the fear entirely. I had only the Guardian Dragon, The Giant Lord & Nashandra to go to beat the game without dying, Dlion had played his arse off trying to keep me alive in sticky situations, we killed at least 15 invaders throughout that time and it all ended abruptly about ten seconds after entering the Guardian Dragon's boss area. (Son of a bitch did a jump back & then straight fire breathed me, I blocked it out of instinct, breaking my guard and it then hit me two or three more times to kill me... )

But yeah, in short, that tension, elation and sheer adrenaline I would never have felt if I could just  beat a boss, back up the save and then go at it again. I might have failed but I would have preferred to fail than cheat my way through!

No deaths for the illusory ring only requires that you kill Nashandra and any bosses you need to get to her. Same thing for no bonfires.

[Tennenoth]

No deaths for the illusory ring only requires that you kill Nashandra and any bosses you need to get to her. Same thing for no bonfires.

I know. I'd killed the Pursuer & Giant before I decided to do the no deaths run, then I followed;

(click to show/hide)

Dragonrider
Flexile Sentry (Could have skipped since I killed the Pursuer)
Ruin Sentinels (Also could have skipped them since I killed the Pursuer)
Lost Sinner (Great Soul)
The Rotten (Great Soul)
Scorpioness Najka
Prowling Magus and Congregation
The Duke's Dear Freja (Great Soul)
Skeleton Lords
Covetous Demon
Mytha, the Baneful Queen
Old Iron King (Great Soul) (Skipped the Smelter by going through the furnace)
Demon of Song
Velstadt, The Royal Aegis
Twin Dragonriders
Looking Glass Knight
Throne Watcher & Defender

Then I died on the Guardian Dragon to get to the Dragon Aerie...

Give or take in that order anyway. Looking at it now, I can't see any I could have skipped besides the ones I marked, which was when I really got serious about the whole no deaths run.
I could viably have farmed souls to get through the Shrine of Winter, but I really can't be arsed to farm something like 10 million souls in boss souls

[Banok]

450K soul memory arena and check this guys HP

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This is after I did a riposte with a +10 dagger 40 dex, and a few hits also.

then he just stun locks me.

also I took damage earlier from the hit I PARRIED, wtf. I dont think dex builds are viable at all tbh, except maybe dual poison whips but that looks boring as fuck to play.

[SixThumbs]

I don't know if the BoB arena takes SM into account all of the time. It seems like it generally tries to match you with people around the same amount but even at 275k SM I still ended up seeing havels and people that had equipment a lot further into the game.