Dark Souls 2 questions

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sakichop

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I thought I'd start a new thread for DS2 questions so I don't fill up news threads with them and incur the wrath of the potato.:lol:

Anyway I was wondering about poise.

Does it work differently than in DS1 or is it broken.

I've been playing for 10 hours and 37 levels and have yet to equip any armor. MY poise is 1.8, yet I rarely ever get staggered or knocked back and can pretty much block every attack even from giants and such.

I remember getting staggered (shield gets knocked back and i stagger) quite a bit in the first game as I ran a low poise character.

I do get stun locked alot does poise stop that and only guard break staggers now, or does it affect both?

Thanks for any info.
 
Well I 'll have to sit this one out(for the time being) as I am still on a play through, and do not like discussing too much on the specifics while on the first one (while still discovering them). But I believe that poise should control the staggering and stun locking. but right now it seems that while shielded with a decent shield you are like a rock. Unshielded you could hardly sustain one hit.

So definitely different than #1 but I cannot tell you if they nerfed it too much or is indeed kinda broken. It is unlikely that something like that would not have been fixed by now if it was not intended but may still be rebalanced? We'll see in the next few patches I guess…

P.S To be fair its not completely useless. I changed from my usual medium armor (vengarl's) to some Gyrm and ironclad very heavy poise mix and let a few heavy hitters take a few swings at me and it does seem like the staggering lasts a bit less (until you run out of stamina of course). Definitely heavily nerfed though and far from the (admittedly) crutch that it was in #1. Can't say I think very highly of all the stun locking in this one though, not a particularly elegant mechanic...
 
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Thanks, I know mystery and discovery is part of souls games, I just wish they'd be a little more forthcoming with info on the mechanics.

Still trying to find out exactly what adaptability affects but there's tons of conflicting info on the web and there description is vague. At least leveling is fast and furious so I can fix any mistakes with point allocation.

My concerns about not having enough souls due to despawning seems to be unwarranted. There are a ton of souls.:)
 
I thought I'd start a new thread for DS2 questions so I don't fill up news threads with them and incur the wrath of the potato.:lol:

Anyway I was wondering about poise.

Does it work differently than in DS1 or is it broken.

I've been playing for 10 hours and 37 levels and have yet to equip any armor. MY poise is 1.8, yet I rarely ever get staggered or knocked back and can pretty much block every attack even from giants and such.

I remember getting staggered (shield gets knocked back and i stagger) quite a bit in the first game as I ran a low poise character.

I do get stun locked alot does poise stop that and only guard break staggers now, or does it affect both?

Thanks for any info.

I don't have anything concrete - I don't think anyone does. This is entirely speculation. I haven't done any "testing", this is just the impressions I've got playing at least 100 duels.

Firstly, blocking with shields doesn't use poise. The Stability value of a shield reduces the amount of stamina it costs to block and you'll only be staggered if you run out of stamina.

As for Poise, best I could work out is to imagine your poise value as its own invisible bar under your stamina that recharges as a % of its total value per tick after a small delay. Say you have 100 poise and the enemy is using a 25 poise damage weapon. If he was using it with 1 hand you'd be staggered on the 4th hit. If he was using it with 2 hands I guess it doubles the value, similar to the two-handed effect on your str, and you'd be staggered on the 2nd hit. If you were in the middle of an attack animation it will hit for even more. Perhaps moving also has an effect, such as moving forward into the blow. It could also be possible that, similar to how you can't sprint until full stamina if your stamina hits 0, you will keep being staggered until the poise bar gets back to full. Also, it might be that if you have 1 poise and get hit with a 35 poise weapon you are not staggered instantly, but your "poise bar" goes to 0 and you enter into the "every hit staggers me" phase until it gets back to full.

On x360 I was a 40str 40dex melee only build and for most the game I liked using the shortsword, but in PVP I found the guys with greatswords were staggering me just one or two hits sooner than I would them so I ended up going with the Claymore (35 poise damage, I think. So 70 with two hands) because its thrusting move is so fast. The zwei was too slow for my tastes and I had both at +10.

The small amount of poise the Giant rings add sort of looks like they have certain poise break points in mind and they're going to assist with being just one hit ahead of your opponent in the stagger race.

So, its definitely different to dks1 where battles would just turn into an R1 spamming competition where 76 poise was all you ever needed to never stagger again. It's still very useful for melee superiority, but its not the be-all and end-all overpowered stat it was in dks1.

I'd be interested to hear peoples findings on the subject because its all still largely unknown and you might accidentally fill in some blanks for me and it will all suddenly make sense!
 
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Still trying to find out exactly what adaptability affects but there's tons of conflicting info on the web and there description is vague. At least leveling is fast and furious so I can fix any mistakes with point allocation.

My concerns about not having enough souls due to despawning seems to be unwarranted. There are a ton of souls.:)

Yeah definitely no problem in souls and leveling, and the game is very open, you have problems in a boss area, you go find your groove in another one then come back more prepared and leveled up. True for number one but at least twice as true for #2. And that is before actually using an ascetic (still have not decided what area I would like to farm for materials, still holding out to see some of the late game ones first).

Also don't forget the soul vessels as a last resort sort of solution (although I usually frown on such mechanics, it beats a newcomer to the series fumbling his build and having to restart I guess.)… Edit: Hmm that is a thought. Although not very useful for the experienced souls player, they can be used for the purpose of testing a little further on, if one is of a mind (will see) as they are starting to "pile up" (I already have 3). You could do a couple of skewed towards a single stat builds to test, then respecc to your original one I guess... Maybe something for run #2 though (I just want to play the game now)...

Firstly, blocking with shields doesn't use poise. The Stability value of a shield reduces the amount of stamina it costs to block and you'll only be staggered if you run out of stamina.

Right, forgot to clear that misconception in the OP. That mechanic is exactly the same as #1. I did have to switch to a Greatshield for my tank this time around mainly because I did not find yet anything as stable as the black or the silver knight shields on mediums (and I don't use parry that much anyways). Stability is definitely needed in this one if you find yourself unfortunately cornered against a group of enemies that do a dozen hits in a couple of secs…

Generally speaking the game teaches you to roll instead of block early on even if building a tank and then switching to the big shields soon. Especially with guard break being so effective and poise seemingly counting for little in withstanding it (need to test this against one of the game's "invaders" or red phantoms. Lack of saves makes comparisons in offline play difficult for a single run).

Thats it for my baseless speculating ;) See you after run #1 ends :)
 
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Thanks for the info guys, wish I had some soul vessels to try things out but I'm still pretty early in the game.

One thing I was wondering if anyone else had there torch blow up and kill you when lighting it. I've asked around and know one I know has had it happen. It's happened to me 3 times at different lighting places.

And no it's not an exploding arrow or bomb. Anyone had this happen?
 
I do know that some of the enemies in No Man's Wharf throw cans of oil at you and if you get struck by a fire arrow while doused in that, it will cause an explosion. Might do the same if you light a torch while having that on you.
 
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I do know that some of the enemies in No Man's Wharf throw cans of oil at you and if you get struck by a fire arrow while doused in that, it will cause an explosion. Might do the same if you light a torch while having that on you.

That very well could be it, i had no idea what they were throwing but that makes sense.
 
Starting to lose steam a little bit. hoping to stick it out to the end.

I'm approximately 50 hrs in and am finding less and less desire to start up the game.

Not sure if I'm missing some things but there doesn't seem to be any direction in the game other than try to find a king. The first game seemed more clear, I always felt like I had a clear goal. First ring the 2 bells and then frampt tells you to collect the 4 souls.

In this game I feel like I just warp to an area follow it to it's boss then warp back to majula and try and find the next area. The levels branch off a bit but feel pretty linear.

Not finding many secrets either, not sure if there just aren't many or if they are just very well hidden. I'm exploring everywhere as I have plenty of time to since i cleared many areas. I've blown up tons of barrels and found a few, used the lockstones and broke several weapons randomly hitting walls and have found very little.

The diablo style mobs are getting old as well. Ok, that is a gross exaggeration but even some bosses now come with several enemies.

It's still a good game but I find myself getting a bit bored and stop playing more often. Something that didn't happen in 240 hrs of DS1.

Oh, also having trouble finding good dex weapons ended up having to up my strength almost even with my dex. Not finding much titanite either.

After reading my own post and all the stuff I can't find I really have to wonder if I'm doing something wrong or seriously missing something?
 
@spoonful,

I had to bind the attack keys to my mouse buttons to get rid of lag, so the game thinks your using the keyboard and doesn't wait to see if you double click.

works best with a mouse with side buttons in my opinion. I used my logitech software and my merc stealth keyboard software but I've heard you can achieve the same effect with autohotkey, though I've not used it as it makes menu navigation harder with mouse.

I know I posted my complete control setup in a thread here somewhere I will look it up.

Here it is.

This is how my controls ended up.

Lmb—light left hand attack/block( shield equipped)
RMB—right hand light attack
Mb4+w— jump attack
Mb5—strong right hand attack
Mb6—left mouse click( for menus)
Mb7—right mouse click( for menus)
C—left hand strong attack/ parry
Q— interact
E— use
L. Shift—walk
L.ctr/ mouse wheel— lock on
R— cycle right hand weapon
V— cycle left hand weapon
Mouse wheel scroll— cycle magic and items
1— enter in menus
2— back in menus
Space—roll/dash/backstep

That's all I think. Not sure how well this would work on a normal keyboard as I have a merc stealth gaming keyboard which has a gaming specific cluster of keys. ( for lack of know what to actually call it)

I'm sure it looks like a crazy setup but it works great and allows me to control everything with out taking my hand off my mouse or WSAD keys, which I hate to do when playing.

It definitely doesn't take 20 hrs to set up and test as jonnik shows it can be much easier but I'm pretty anal and have to have it just perfect for me.
 
@spoonful,

I had to bind the attack keys to my mouse buttons to get rid of lag, so the game thinks your using the keyboard and doesn't wait to see if you double click.

works best with a mouse with side buttons in my opinion. I used my logitech software and my merc stealth keyboard software but I've heard you can achieve the same effect with autohotkey, though I've not used it as it makes menu navigation harder with mouse.

I know I posted my complete control setup in a thread here somewhere I will look it up.

Here it is.

This is how my controls ended up.

Lmb—light left hand attack/block( shield equipped)
RMB—right hand light attack
Mb4+w— jump attack
Mb5—strong right hand attack
Mb6—left mouse click( for menus)
Mb7—right mouse click( for menus)
C—left hand strong attack/ parry
Q— interact
E— use
L. Shift—walk
L.ctr/ mouse wheel— lock on
R— cycle right hand weapon
V— cycle left hand weapon
Mouse wheel scroll— cycle magic and items
1— enter in menus
2— back in menus
Space—roll/dash/backstep

That's all I think. Not sure how well this would work on a normal keyboard as I have a merc stealth gaming keyboard which has a gaming specific cluster of keys. ( for lack of know what to actually call it)

I'm sure it looks like a crazy setup but it works great and allows me to control everything with out taking my hand off my mouse or WSAD keys, which I hate to do when playing.

It definitely doesn't take 20 hrs to set up and test as jonnik shows it can be much easier but I'm pretty anal and have to have it just perfect for me.

Thanks for the detailed reply. I will try the Autohotkey program to bind the mouse buttons to the keyboard buttons, but as you said I am a bit worried about messing up the mouse controls during and after leaving the game with the autohotkey script running!

I just can't believe how From software, after all the mess they made with DS 1, managed to mess up a simple yet critical thing like the mouse timing on PC!
 
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I agree 100%.

Unfortunately most don't seem to agree but I shouldn't have to jump through hoops to play my computer games with mouse and keyboard.
 
Starting to lose steam a little bit. hoping to stick it out to the end.

I'm approximately 50 hrs in and am finding less and less desire to start up the game.

Not sure if I'm missing some things but there doesn't seem to be any direction in the game other than try to find a king. The first game seemed more clear, I always felt like I had a clear goal. First ring the 2 bells and then frampt tells you to collect the 4 souls.

In this game I feel like I just warp to an area follow it to it's boss then warp back to majula and try and find the next area. The levels branch off a bit but feel pretty linear.

Not finding many secrets either, not sure if there just aren't many or if they are just very well hidden. I'm exploring everywhere as I have plenty of time to since i cleared many areas. I've blown up tons of barrels and found a few, used the lockstones and broke several weapons randomly hitting walls and have found very little.

The diablo style mobs are getting old as well. Ok, that is a gross exaggeration but even some bosses now come with several enemies.

It's still a good game but I find myself getting a bit bored and stop playing more often. Something that didn't happen in 240 hrs of DS1.

Oh, also having trouble finding good dex weapons ended up having to up my strength almost even with my dex. Not finding much titanite either.

After reading my own post and all the stuff I can't find I really have to wonder if I'm doing something wrong or seriously missing something?

You're kinda describing my experience with Dark Souls after having played a lot of Demon's Souls.

That said, it's clearly a specific kind of formula that you have to be able to appreciate to enjoy at length, and I'm definitely not a good match for it.
 
Starting to lose steam a little bit. hoping to stick it out to the end.

I'm approximately 50 hrs in and am finding less and less desire to start up the game.

60 hours in and it still eats into my sleeping time ;) What area/section are you up to? Got to Drangleik castle ? (some of my favorite areas come afterwards i.e.)

Not sure if I'm missing some things but there doesn't seem to be any direction in the game other than try to find a king. The first game seemed more clear, I always felt like I had a clear goal. First ring the 2 bells and then frampt tells you to collect the 4 souls.

About as much direction as #1. Collect 4 souls to meet the king and then… Very little difference imo. You need to talk several times with all the NPCs to get the equivalent of the direction of #1, then the herald goads you on a bit. Not really a significant difference at any rate imo.

In this game I feel like I just warp to an area follow it to it's boss then warp back to majula and try and find the next area. The levels branch off a bit but feel pretty linear.

The levels on #1 were less linear overall, but what really made the game feel like a world and not a collection of levels is the overall world design (basically the way the connected as often said). And that as we have discussed is the single biggest step back for #2 . That and early warping makes you feel much less attachment to the world (unless you go looking for it as I do). But still not as bad as Demon Souls sounds in that aspect i.e. and the atmosphere/tone is generally very good athough of a different and less impactful kind than in #1.

Not finding many secrets either, not sure if there just aren't many or if they are just very well hidden. I'm exploring everywhere as I have plenty of time to since i cleared many areas. I've blown up tons of barrels and found a few, used the lockstones and broke several weapons randomly hitting walls and have found very little.

There are quite a few but most of them are hidden behind lockstone activated passages and some furniture. But aside from the Belfries (that I assume you have found) and several off the beaten path doors (Like in the Shrine of Amana) I don't believe there is something as awesome as the painted World i.e. There are also a few interesting mysteries either hidden or in plain sight to deduce. Definitely another area that #1 has an edge though.

The diablo style mobs are getting old as well. Ok, that is a gross exaggeration but even some bosses now come with several enemies.

No problem with crowd control. Definitely not that many at a time anyways. Much better than just solitary enemies with a huge amount of HP that you whack at for an hour on end. The game mixes it up satisfyingly imo.

It's still a good game but I find myself getting a bit bored and stop playing more often. Something that didn't happen in 240 hrs of DS1.

Its definitely a lesser game than #1 but not all that much (sort of from a 9.5, or 9 for the bad port on #1, to an 8.5 on #2 for me)… Burnout maybe?

You played in one go more than I did in 6 months or so (170 hours in 3 runs) and this is the same game essentially…

Anyways, still loving it as much (or maybe a bit more). I have to give them that several of the new gameplay ideas are rather good, but they need to finetune and improve some aspects of it.

I would really like Miyazaki back to directing the design team for #3, after he finishes with the PS4 exclusive though. ;)
 
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I posted this in an unrelated news thread, but putting it here to get more eyes on it (hopefully). Wondering how others feel:

DS2 has started to bore me and I'll tell you why. Do you need to grind to level and kill stuff? Yes and no. You NEED to level certain stats to use specific gear and weapons. And yes, people will say "You can finish it at level 1" which is technically true, but completely implausible for a new or new-ish player. Even with super fighting skills, you can still get ambushed and mobbed and die, forcing you to replay the same areas multiple times. You CANNOT over level and start beating bosses or mini bosses easily. You can be killed by anything at any time.

What gets boring is that it's repetitive. You triumph through a level, beat the boss(es), only to move onto the next level… to do the EXACT same thing. Even more sso as you progress in level, because you become more specialized as you get higher in level. So I go from killing XXXs in a cave setting, to killing YYYs in a forest setting, to killing ZZZs in a castle setting with water, etc. It's a steady learning process more than a grind. You remember shortcuts, or where ambushes are, etc., and combined with brutal combat, you make your way through XXX setting, find the boss and kill it. Repeat.

Gets boring to me after 20+ hours or so.

Yes, there are NPCs, but mostly it's hit Talk over and over until they run out of dialog. You can buy stuff from them, or later you can summon them near boss fights.

Yes, awesome combat simulator. Yes, amazing varied move sets, huge array of different weapons, etc. Yes you can spec all different ways, look really weird, etc. But it's almost 100% a move through the maze, killing things until you kill a big thing, then repeat. It's almost MORE about memorizing the maze/path vs. having a hard time killing things.

I haven't done much PvP except for an odd invasion here or there. After 20+ hours in DS2, I have not been invaded by another human once, just the pre-programmed NPCs. I don't have much opinion on the PvP, but I'm getting bored with PvE to the point that I may never get there. I'm just past Sinner's Rise, BTW.

Yes there's good design, interesting (though frankly opaque) lore. I just wish it had more RP to go along with the repetitive killing.
 
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Yes I agree, my motivation for continuing to play is to conquer the next boss so that I can progress and get better weapons to kill the next mobs and boss.

I am happy with this formula as I am not an expert player and need better gear and weapons to stop grinding (or limited grinding as there are limited respwns). After 30 hours of playing I am at level 46, and just found a Great Sword (oh my word, it is a great sword indeed) and I need to level up to use it!

I also like the discovery of new items and how they function (e.g. binding ring when you are hollow .. etc.). Also management of items, gears and weapons for different foes and regions is a game by itself and which is very captivating.

I like this formula and would not change it for this sort of game.

Feeling bored maybe a sign that you need to play something else, something different along side DS II.
 
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Yeah. That's what I'm doing. The great sword is a crazy commitment as you need to pump STR immensely to use it. Then it's not real easy to use as it's a slow slow swing. I generally understand what you're saying though. I like the game. But I wish there was more interaction and less memorizing and stat crunching.
 
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Yeah. That's what I'm doing. The great sword is a crazy commitment as you need to pump STR immensely to use it. Then it's not real easy to use as it's a slow slow swing. I generally understand what you're saying though. I like the game. But I wish there was more interaction and less memorizing and stat crunching.

Did you play DS1? I haven't played DS2 yet, but it sounds quite, quite similar.
 
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While I love DS 1 and haven't started with 2 yet. I can't help but wounder what it could have become with even more RPG and story elements.
 
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