Dark souls II - PC Thread

calex71 · 25-04-2014 4:05pm

Burning Eclipse wrote: »

If I'm remembering the name right it was the Covenant of Champions. No idea what it's about.

You'll not be seeing a summoning sign any time soon while in that one , it disables co-op as well as making the enemies harder.

Burning Eclipse · 25-04-2014 4:26pm

calex71 wrote: »

You'll not be seeing a summoning sign any time soon while in that one , it disables co-op as well as making the enemies harder.

Typical Souls game so. Join an inconspicuous covenant, get punished by the game. Sounds like I'm playing hard mode for the next few hours. :cool:

I also wasted a human effigy... burned it at a bonfire, thinking it would restore my humanity... nope! Also, am I right in saying bonfires restore your weapons? That's new.

Damn it feels good to be lost in one of these things again!

Kiith · 25-04-2014 4:30pm

Yeah, bonfires repair your weapons, as long as they are not broken. Have to visit the blacksmith if they are broken.

Burning an effigy means no invasions for a time iirc.

calex71 · 25-04-2014 4:31pm

Burning Eclipse wrote: »

Typical Souls game so. Join an inconspicuous covenant, get punished by the game. Sounds like I'm playing hard mode for the next few hours. :cool:

I also wasted a human effigy... burned it at a bonfire, thinking it would restore my humanity... nope! Also, am I right in saying bonfires restore your weapons? That's new.

Damn it feels good to be lost in one of these things again!

Ah ha but you see unlike DS1

there is no penalty for leaving a covenant by joining another

at least that I know of and you can just talk to

the cat in majula

to leave properly.

Mickeroo · 25-04-2014 4:31pm

Burning Eclipse wrote: »

Typical Souls game so. Join an inconspicuous covenant, get punished by the game. Sounds like I'm playing hard mode for the next few hours. :cool:

I also wasted a human effigy... burned it at a bonfire, thinking it would restore my humanity... nope! Also, am I right in saying bonfires restore your weapons? That's new.

Yeah that's correct, you only need to repair them if they actually break. I wasted a few effigies that way too.

Falthyron · 25-04-2014 4:33pm

Same guy who released the DSFix for Dark Souls 1 has released a mod to fix problems and offer greater visuals for Dark Souls 2. You can get it here: http://blog.metaclassofnil.com/?tag=gedosato

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar · 25-04-2014 5:05pm

it's going to take me ages to realise it's not dark souls 1, i keep running into groups of enemies expecting to be able to roll my way around and slash slash slash

YouSavedMyLife · 25-04-2014 5:32pm

Wow! Arrived at a boss door to find about 16 summon signs on the ground :eek: Seen one or two at most on the PS3 version. This is very good indeed. Also summoning is super fast.

krudler · 25-04-2014 6:17pm

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

it's going to take me ages to realise it's not dark souls 1, i keep running into groups of enemies expecting to be able to roll my way around and slash slash slash

The movement is much more floaty alright, not as instant as DS1

Mickeroo · 25-04-2014 6:20pm

YouSavedMyLife wrote: »

Wow! Arrived at a boss door to find about 16 summon signs on the ground :eek: Seen one or two at most on the PS3 version. This is very good indeed. Also summoning is super fast.

It was like that on xbox on the first day too.

Big Knox · 25-04-2014 7:20pm

Mickeroo wrote: »

It was like that on xbox on the first day too.

I played PS3 day one and this has much more options to summon. The areas are absolutely full of them. The player instances / server shards seem to be much larger on the PC version which is good news.

I've played in human all the way to the Lost Bastille now and every area has been full of summon signs from the bonfires right up to the boss fog being loaded with them.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar · 25-04-2014 7:40pm

you know what... I actually hate this combat

it's so slow, it's unresponsive

it's everything I gave up on in dark souls every time I tried to play a non dex build

Mickeroo · 25-04-2014 7:45pm

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

you know what... I actually hate this combat

it's so slow, it's unresponsive

it's everything I gave up on in dark souls every time I tried to play a non dex build

That will go away once you level

ADP and get your Agility high, roll speed and that is no longer under the DEX stat

Big Knox · 25-04-2014 7:46pm

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

you know what... I actually hate this combat

it's so slow, it's unresponsive

it's everything I gave up on in dark souls every time I tried to play a non dex build

If you're trying to play a quick build just get your agility to 100+ through either Adaptability, Attunement or both and it will be as you remember it from DS1.

20 adaptability with base ATT with mose classes gets you around 90 - 100 agility which is more than enough but you can go higher. A lot of people like to have agility around 110 to maximise the iframes of the roll.

Edit: Agility also increases the speed you use your flask and items and cast spells.

johnny_ultimate · 25-04-2014 7:59pm

Just a heads up to get the **** out of the Covenant of Champions. I spent the first couple of hours of the game in it and it was a real slog, at least as a caster. Amazed I got as far as I did tbh (three or four bosses).

One benefit though is that it's a serious baptism of fire and will prepare you well for the rest of the game - you really need to learn the mechanics, which is of course beneficial when you finally leave for one of the less masochistic covenants.

YouSavedMyLife · 25-04-2014 8:10pm

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Just a heads up to get the **** out of the Covenant of Champions. I spent the first couple of hours of the game in it and it was a real slog, at least as a caster. Amazed I got as far as I did tbh (three or four bosses).

One benefit though is that it's a serious baptism of fire and will prepare you well for the rest of the game - you really need to learn the mechanics, which is of course beneficial when you finally leave for one of the less masochistic covenants.

I also think it disables white signs in your game so you can't summon for help. Could be wrong though. Ill get around to playing a champions run at some stage but i'm enjoying the coop on the PC version at the moment since i did next to no coop during console version.

I enabled post processing with Durante's mod and it makes the game look alot better, but it also makes the game dark.

No mans wharf

area after tower of Heide was so dark that i actually walked off a ledge to my death twice :eek: Looking forward to seeing how dark (mid game area spoiler)

The Gutter and Black Gulch

will be.

Grimebox · 25-04-2014 8:25pm

Where did you lads purchase this? As much as DS1 drove me insane, I'd like to start on a clean and give this a shot

3wayswitch · 25-04-2014 8:43pm

Grimebox wrote: »

Where did you lads purchase this? As much as DS1 drove me insane, I'd like to start on a clean and give this a shot

Bought it from Amazon today. €35 and I got the pre-order bonuses too.

Grimebox · 25-04-2014 8:57pm

3wayswitch wrote: »

Bought it from Amazon today. €35 and I got the pre-order bonuses too.

That's not too bad. It looks graphically identical as the last one so I assume it runs similar enough? I had framerate issues at times with the old one

johnny_ultimate · 25-04-2014 9:06pm

YouSavedMyLife wrote: »

I also think it disables white signs in your game so you can't summon for help. Could be wrong though. Ill get around to playing a champions run at some stage but i'm enjoying the coop on the PC version at the moment since i did next to no coop during console version.

Yeah I'm sure it's a fine option for those looking for an extra challenge or a new twist. For most players' first play through though I'd say it is far from ideal and not the best way to enjoy the unique sense of discovery, challenge and exploration that you only really get during that precious first go.

Kiith · 25-04-2014 10:33pm

God it runs so much better than the PS3 version. Everything is silky smooth.

Killed those 3 pigs first time...boo ya! :pac:

calex71 · 25-04-2014 10:56pm

Kiith wrote: »

God it runs so much better than the PS3 version. Everything is silky smooth.

Killed those 3 pigs first time...boo ya! :pac:

"Give us silky , give us smooth"

The three little pigs will have their vengeance be sure of it , I know they caught me napping more than once

YouSavedMyLife · 25-04-2014 11:11pm

Back to back invasions with the Bell covenant. I get about 3 seconds to do something in my world before I'm summoned. Its ****ing great. Only had 1 laggy enemy in about 20 or so invasions.

PC version is better in every way...

Robert ninja · 25-04-2014 11:40pm

Grimebox wrote: »

Where did you lads purchase this? As much as DS1 drove me insane, I'd like to start on a clean and give this a shot

I got my copy on Kinguin. Be careful, those are Russian keys. Hella cheap, but you need to use a VPN to activate them on steam.

Grimebox wrote: »

That's not too bad. It looks graphically identical as the last one so I assume it runs similar enough? I had framerate issues at times with the old one

So far no framerate issues on this one for me. On DaS1 even with the fanmade fix, if you entered the Steam overlay it would revert back to 30 but felt like 20fps (alt-tabbing seemed to fix that). On DaSII I'm getting 60fps constant and with 120hz monitor it feels even more responsive. Visually... it's pretty lacking. Dunno why they downgraded it visually so much even on PC -_- But there's already fixes, tricks, patches and mods taking care of some of the things people are complaining about. Haven't tried any of them and I cannot downsample thanks to 120hz.

So far the game is cool! Lacks the atmosphere of DeS and DaS1, though. Luckily controller works perfect

L3 for jump is strange, though. Loading times are so fast I don't even get to read any of the load-screen tips XD. Summoning is super fast, too. Tempted to get a second SSD just for games like this to make em' even faster.

_Puma_ · 26-04-2014 12:13am

DS2 caught me out before i even launched the game. Was downloading it in the background and playing a really intense multiplayer game of company of heroes and got booted from it when DS2 finished downloading for some reason.

Rolled a swordsman but instantly disliked dual wielding so rerolled a knight. Using a DS3 with motionjoy and had a problem at the start with my shield always being raised. Thought this couldn't be right so restarted motionjoy and the game and seemed to sort it. Thought for a minute that they had messed around with the block mechanic.

Got as far as mijula place, joined some covenant and went down the tunnel and killed 2/3 giants in the tower area. Its a souls game alright.

Cravez · 26-04-2014 12:48am

My first character is a sorcerer and don't have the strength to wield a shield yet but I'm doing a dagger/catalyst dual wield combo and have to say i'm finding no shield gameplay ok so far.

Robert ninja · 26-04-2014 1:10am

_Puma_ wrote: »

Using a DS3 with motionjoy

These drivers are a little better than motion joy IMO. They're actual drivers and not a lame webpage that you load. I've heard MJ being accused of being malware since it phones home to a Chinese server or something and needs an online connection. It also has to be 'run' which is weird - the drivers I linked are actual drivers and will work in the background all the time. I use xpadder for actual re-mapping of buttons if the game doesn't support it being done in-game. I only use that for Silent Hill on PC, though.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar · 26-04-2014 9:45am

message to the pursuer

**** YOU
**** YOU
I WILL DANCE ON YOUR GRAVE
I WILL DANCE ON THE GRAVES OF YOUR CHILDREN

Harps · 26-04-2014 10:50am

How big is the download on steam? I'm sitting at the airport waiting to get home at the moment so hoping I'll get to play it later if the download isn't too big

Spear · 26-04-2014 10:56am

Says 12 gig of space in use.

ancapailldorcha · 26-04-2014 11:15am

So the port is good then? I'm sitting in front of my laptop tempted to buy it on Steam.

Kiith · 26-04-2014 11:52am

It's not perfect, but it's pretty damn good. Definitely looks and plays better than it did on the PS3 anyway. It was crashing on launch for me at first, so i had to change a setting in my AMD control panel, and had a few issues getting my joypad to work properly (though that's cause it's a cheap pad), but other than that it's been great.

So far, i've sritten a useful message, helped a few people kill bosses and invaded 3 people. I never bothered with co-op before, but it really is a whole lot of fun.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar · 26-04-2014 12:15pm

i haven't been invaded at all yet. there's just about 50k people playing, what gives

johnny_ultimate · 26-04-2014 12:34pm

Are you hollow or human?

Didn't get invaded much at all TBH throughout, even as a human. There's a few areas you will get invaded, though, and said invaders will troll the heck out of you

calex71 · 26-04-2014 12:52pm

Invasions are rare during NG due to some "anti-twinking" measures they put in in place, the details of which escape me now I'm looking for the article I read about it in.

NG+ was a different story for me, I was getting invaded regularly even in spots I wouldn't expect to be.

Lone Stone · 26-04-2014 1:38pm

Any good places at the start to grind some souls ? My fepin weapon keeps breaking its really anoying, not to fond of the health reduction when you die, i dont remember that in any of the other ones

Mickeroo · 26-04-2014 1:43pm

Lone Stone wrote: »

Any good places at the start to grind some souls ? My fepin weapon keeps breaking its really anoying, not to fond of the health reduction when you die, i dont remember that in any of the other ones

Used to happen in Demon Souls.

If you get summoned to help another player and are successful

you should regain health/humanity

calex71 · 26-04-2014 2:11pm

Should we mention the rings of

soul/life protection

to the PC players yet ?

Robert ninja · 26-04-2014 2:48pm

So I applied the GeDoSaTo patch. Managed to downsample even on 120hz monitor. I get mostly 60fps but fluxuates between 60~57. Once dropped to 55. I noticed it right away (used to 120fps so my eyes catch drops) so I booted up Dxtory to make sure and that's where I got these numbers. I'm ok with that small FPS drop for the graphical enhancements it gave - the shadows on my cloak and detail all around look very crisp.

I also applied the PS3 button icon mod which can be found here: http://www.nexusmods.com/darksouls2/mods/6/?

Handy since I use a DS3. No more dumb 360 prompts. Now all they need to do is add KB/M buttons!

YouSavedMyLife · 26-04-2014 2:53pm

calex71 wrote: »

Should we mention the rings of
soul/life protection
to the PC players yet ?

Nah. I never used the Drake Sword in DS1 because of how game breaking it was and i vow never to use that ring unless they make it unable to be repaired. It defeats the purpose of Dark Souls

Robert ninja wrote: »

So I applied the GeDoSaTo patch blah blah blah

Its good isn't it? Unfortunately i had to disabled SSAO because it had the effect of leaving scan lines across my screen. Barely visible but annoying enough to make me want it turned off. Also steam achievements popping up made the whole screen turn very bright white. Can be disabled in game settings.

Also thanks for the heads up on MotionJoy having malware. Was using it for the last year and got the odd BSOD and my crashing tool was pointing at its drivers. Not a massive problem to be honest but now i just feel dirty having it installed on my system. Switched to Xinput Wrapper today. Cheers

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar · 26-04-2014 2:56pm

drake sword isn't that gamebreaking. it's a bit nooby for a first play through cos you don't know where to go for upgrades and stuff, but on your second playthrough you can have a longsword or even BSS upgraded to kick the snot out of a drake sword in no time at all

Robert ninja · 26-04-2014 3:29pm

YouSavedMyLife wrote: »

Its good isn't it? Unfortunately i had to disabled SSAO because it had the effect of leaving scan lines across my screen. Barely visible but annoying enough to make me want it turned off. Also steam achievements popping up made the whole screen turn very bright white. Can be disabled in game settings.

Odd problem with the scan lines. Maybe you should leave a comment to Durante about that. It might be your monitor and the resolution settings.

The steam overlay fecks up the GeDoSaTo so you have to disable it. Even if you never accessed the overlay, steam achievements still pop up so I'm guessing that's what your problem was.

YouSavedMyLife wrote: »

Also thanks for the heads up on MotionJoy having malware. Was using it for the last year and got the odd BSOD and my crashing tool was pointing at its drivers. Not a massive problem to be honest but now i just feel dirty having it installed on my system. Switched to Xinput Wrapper today. Cheers

I used to get BSOD which is actually what made me start to really look into what Motion Joy was. It bluescreened whenever I disconnected the DS3 from a wired connection to the PC, which at the time was quite a lot because I had a finicky wire. Yeah the Xinput wrapper seems to be working fine for me on DaSII.

It's always hard to move the camera while sprinting with a controller but I found an odd way to position my fingers. Right thumb on circle/B and my right index finger on the right analogue stick in an arched claw style grip, where my palm will be closer to top of the controller almost touching the shoulder buttons. Not accurate camera movement, but I can still pan around a little bit when sprinting - I always need to be in control of my camera :P

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar · 26-04-2014 4:40pm

im kinda stuck now

i can't think of anywhere to go except the boss fight at lost bastille and I've had my ass handed to me so often today trying that fight in my and other peoples worlds that I just can't face them again

im trying to remember if I found dark souls 1 this confusing the first time

--edit

lol, summoned 2 lads and destroyed the fight

i guess all that leveling up I did the last few hours helped

still lost though

YouSavedMyLife · 26-04-2014 4:46pm

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

im kinda stuck now

i can't think of anywhere to go except the boss fight at lost bastille and I've had my ass handed to me so often today trying that fight in my and other peoples worlds that I just can't face them again

im trying to remember if I found dark souls 1 this confusing the first time

There is an area/s that is "supposed" to be tackled before the Bastille but alot of people miss it on their first playthrough, myself included. How to get there

After you kill the Dragon Rider in Heide's Tower speak with the female cleric at the bonfire and exhaust all her conversations. She will then move to the path between Majula and Heide's and can open another path for you for you.

Spent about an hour and a half trying to install SCP Xinput Wrapper :S After loads of troubleshooting and a tonne of safe mode restarts turns out all i needed to do was install the Microsoft Xbox360 drivers before i ran SCP. Finally can get back to defending my bell!

Retr0gamer · 26-04-2014 4:47pm

I've been telling people motioninjoy is Chinese malware for years. It's a bitch to fully get off your system as well.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar · 26-04-2014 5:01pm

YouSavedMyLife wrote: »

There is an area/s that is "supposed" to be tackled before the Bastille but alot of people miss it on their first playthrough, myself included. How to get there
After you kill the Dragon Rider in Heide's Tower speak with the female cleric at the bonfire and exhaust all her conversations. She will then move to the path between Majula and Heide's and can open another path for you for you.

i already met her in lost bastille, i'm wandering around a new area in bastille that opened up after the boss fight but I'll check out your location after, thanks

---edit

was thinking of someone else, yeah met her. opened path. thanks

_Puma_ · 26-04-2014 5:48pm

Robert ninja wrote: »

These drivers are a little better than motion joy IMO. They're actual drivers and not a lame webpage that you load. I've heard MJ being accused of being malware since it phones home to a Chinese server or something and needs an online connection. It also has to be 'run' which is weird - the drivers I linked are actual drivers and will work in the background all the time. I use xpadder for actual re-mapping of buttons if the game doesn't support it being done in-game. I only use that for Silent Hill on PC, though.

Cheers for the heads up. Had never noticed that the program needed to be connected to the internet for it to work. Managed to get that driver working ok, so time to nuke motionjoy.

Harps · 26-04-2014 7:27pm

Well my very first experience with this game is getting stuck on the video settings page for two minutes not being able to figure out how to confirm settings because its showing xbox controls, as long as the gameplay holds up I wont care but showing keyboard controls when I blatantly don't have a controller plugged in is elementary

Let the fun and/or misery begin then!

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar · 26-04-2014 9:35pm

I see they took a look at sens fortress and thought "nah, we can do better"

--edit

that platform in earthen keep

where you have to do the dash/roll/jump thing to reach the room with the poisonbite ring.

i died getting off it, left about 40k souls on the ledge. as I was going back for them I forgot whether I had to roll or jump, ended up doing nothing and running straight off the edge. that's just mean

Harps · 27-04-2014 12:30am

Can't say I'm a huge fan of the intro section, it took me over an hour before I even saw an enemy and there's too much talking and aimless wondering about. It feels very familiar so far though, a lot of the same themes in the early game and a lot of similar gameplay mechanics. Promising signs so far but I'm hoping it gets a bit more focused as so far I haven't the slightest clue where I'm meant to be going

My first death was rather boringly through forgetting that the jump button has changed so I ran straight off an edge, first proper death to a big knight thing in Heide's Tower

Performance wise - running it at max settings on my laptop and haven't dropped below 60fps once so far can't complain there, the lighting and shadows are hugely disappointing though after the early trailers

Dark souls II - PC Thread

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