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[Retropunch]

They said there'd be no DLC, but a lot of Players asked for it. Me included, because the DLC for the first one was fantastic.

I agree, and it's actually rather interesting that DLC isn't actually always hated if it's done right. DS DLC was more like small expansion packs though (as it should be) so I guess it's a lot different.

I'm kinda happy about the Lighting bolt miracle, just because it was pretty overpowered. I've always disliked it when games allow you to create an entire build around one spell and DS seems like one where it should be even less allowed.

[Sergarr]

Didn't they finish saying "no dlc expected" like a month ago?

Given that the game pops up a giant dialog box that says "checking DLC..." every time it starts, did anyone actually believe that?

hilarious

[Sordid]

They said there'd be no DLC, but a lot of Players asked for it. Me included, because the DLC for the first one was fantastic.

They nerfed Lighting Bolt Miracles in the patch, really hard. Some Damage nerfs and the casts were now cut down to like a third of what they were before. I'm pretty pissed since I had prepared a Paladin to tackle the DLC, and without Lightning half my build is basically useless.

Either gonna have to start a new Character or jump to another build with a Soul Vessel.

Or you can stock up on amber herbs from Ornifex to restore those casts.

[The Darkling Wolf]

Haven't had a chance to log in and check yet, but I'm running like, 4 lightning bolts, a greater lightning bolt and a sunlight spear right now, so I can't imagine it being that hellish of a nerf.

[highzealot]

According to the patch notes and other people, lightning spears' damage was supposed to be increased to compensate for a heavy nerf in number of casts but they messed up. My faith character has a lot of attunement and I was reduced to 10 normal lightning spears. From what I hear, without all those points in attunement, they got reduced to 3 so it makes sense that damage was supposed to be buffed.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

I just got this yesterday, died in the tutorial area where you can get bumrushed by one of those big Cyclops-lookin guys while walking down that goat trail. I was one of those guys that everyone said would get caught by that. I actually remember that discussion clearly, and remembered it as he picked me up and ate me.

Deleted two characters after ~2 hours of gameplay due to losing a body and sucking in general.

God damnit dark souls.

[nogoodnames]

Well I finally went back and finished my first playthrough after taking a break from the game. I feel like I missed a lot of things, and of course there's the DLC now, but it looks like I can still do things before moving on to NG+. I have to say, that final boss was a pain in the ass, at least as a member of the company of champions.

Overall I think the first game was better. That may just be because it was my first experience with the Souls series, but I don't think Dark Souls 2 managed to hit the highs of its precursor. It's still a great game in its own right, despite some questionable design decisions.

[Sordid]

I just got this yesterday, died in the tutorial area where you can get bumrushed by one of those big Cyclops-lookin guys while walking down that goat trail. I was one of those guys that everyone said would get caught by that. I actually remember that discussion clearly, and remembered it as he picked me up and ate me.

Deleted two characters after ~2 hours of gameplay due to losing a body and sucking in general.

God damnit dark souls.

Yeah, the cyclops-hippo-ogres are really gimmicky. They're tough if you're trying to fight them the wrong way and completely trivial once you know the gimmick.

Spoiler: The gimmick (click to show/hide)

Roll towards him, not away from him when he attacks. Then, as long as you're vaguely behind him, he'll keep doing his sit attack. If he backs into a wall or otherwise makes it impossible to stay behind him, the recovery from his sit attack gives you heaps and heaps of time to put some distance between him and you, kite him away from any obstacles, and repeat the process. Like so: http://gfycat.com/EvenAllBrahmancow

Overall I think the first game was better. That may just be because it was my first experience with the Souls series, but I don't think Dark Souls 2 managed to hit the highs of its precursor. It's still a great game in its own right, despite some questionable design decisions.

You should go back to DS1 for a while before you make a call like that. I did and I found it nowhere near as great as I remembered it. It didn't have quite as many bullshit oversized hitbox issues as DS2 has, but that's about it for the list of things that DS1 did better IMO.

[nogoodnames]

Oh I have been playing a bit of DS1 off and on recently and I'm confident in my assessment.

The biggest factors for me were level design and the feel of the world. While DS2 had more consistently good levels and nothing nearly as bad as the worst levels of DS1 (ie Izalith), they were not as good or memorable as the best of DS1.
As far as the setting, with Dark Souls you were given a very clear picture of the world and your place in it in the opening cutscene. It felt mythic. With DS2 you are basically just told "you don't know what this place is or why you're here, just get souls and stuff". There's also the interconnected nature of the world in Dark Souls. In DS2 the levels feel disjointed and unconnected, which is made worse by the fact that you can warp between bonfires from the start. I understand they were going for something closer to Demon's Souls' hub system, but in my opinion it was a step back.

There are also several design decisions I think were for the worse. Soul memory is the worst offender since it completely screws with multiplayer dynamics.

In the end though, I trust my unconscious reaction to the games as the best gauge of how I like them. With Dark Souls I was immediately hooked and went through several playthroughs just messing around with different character ideas. With Dark Souls 2 I stopped playing after a couple months. Maybe I was just burnt out, but something feels off about DS2. Aside from all the points I mentioned above, it just doesn't feel as good to play as DS1.

I could go a lot more in depth, but I think I've summed up all my main reasons. As I said, it's still a good game and I liked it, just not as much.

[nenjin]

I'm with nogood on this. I was not hooked the same way as DS1. Can't drink the sauce twice in a lifetime? Maybe. But his points about the area designs, the story and the interconnected world are all spot on and reflect my impressions from my first few hours of the game. I always lose heart at some point in Souls games, but with DS2 it wasn't even that a fight looked unwinnable. I just kinda set it aside...instead of the manic 40 some odd hours I put into DS1 in a week. Is DS1 better? At some things, way worse at others. Is DS2 better? Same story.

[Neonivek]

You should go back to DS1 for a while before you make a call like that. I did and I found it nowhere near as great as I remembered it. It didn't have quite as many bullshit oversized hitbox issues as DS2 has, but that's about it for the list of things that DS1 did better IMO

Really? What about the Tighter game world and less reliance on single out of the way blended switches required to advance?

As well I just found Dark Souls 1 to be the more interesting game overall when it comes to how the locations, bosses, and enemies seem to fill in the game's story without an over reliance on in game items to tell it. A lot of the bosses in Dark Souls 1 felt like they had a reason to be there (Most but not all) and quite a few of the optional bosses were deeply interesting.

Dark Souls 1 did a lot of things right that Dark Souls 2 doesn't do... But Dark Souls 2 does its own things and is somewhat of an upgrade.

Certainly more then enough there for someone to honestly believe Dark Souls 1 was the superior product without it being an extreme case of opinion.

I think of them as equals myself. Dark Souls 1 was the better "experience" while Dark Souls 2 was better in the gameplay department (it FINALLY removed the jello movement).

[Retropunch]

For me, Dark Souls 2 seemed like a much more straight forward affair in both level design and generally. Items were better explained, you could eventually 'beat' areas, some of the mechanics which were a little bit tricky were simplified and the general feeling of 'mystical confusion' was gone.

Whether you like that or not depends. I thought the feeling of the first game was fantastic because of the 'mystical confusion' element and no clear directions, however a lot of my friends hated that and only finally 'got' Dark Souls with DS2. Secondly, I really do feel that the games are so similar that playing DS2 really just feels like an extension of DS1, so you can have worn yourself out by that point.

As there will inevitably be a DS3, I'm just hoping they don't go further down the path of DS2. They've probably got the balance about right for DS2, but if they carried on further with that it'd go 'too far'.

 

[Yoink]

Man, I really need to toughen up and play this game again. Maybe after I finally get around to "finishing" Dragon's Dogma after losing my save data a couple of times...

[Culise]

My gods, the title is completely right.  I decided to try to get back into this again, since I haven't been able to get into it the way I did Dark Souls and Demon's Souls before, and one of the things I did this time was download a third-party utility to remap all the controller keys so that I could use my controller with a PS2-derived layout instead of the mandatory Microsoft defaults.  Gods, but it's so much more fluid now.  I mean, I still can't jump-attack worth a darn, but I don't have to worry nearly as much about the keys displayed on the screen not matching the controls anymore (which kept throwing me for all sorts of loops) because I still have all the controls for the first two games memorized. 

EDIT:
And I didn't die five times in the tutorial area this time with my new Deprived.  It's, like, a miracle. :^_^

[Coolnesstod]

Hey, have any of you guys on here been banned from Multiplayer on the PC version of Dark Souls 2 for any reason? One of my friends (Not I, I have it for Xbox) has been banned after getting one of his save files uncorrupted after the game itself updated and Corrupted his save files. He was banned from all Multiplayer in Dark Souls, saying he was in violation of EULA and stuff. It also says the bans will never be lifted.