Projared's Hands on of Dark Souls 2, Character Creation/Etc Discussed

Projared's Video:

Projared has made a video talking about Dark Souls 2.  He talks about how character customization works, the three weapon slots, how the healing will work, etc.

Apparently according to him, the plan by Fromsoft is to bring back a fight mechanic like the Old Monk from Demon's Souls.  The plan is during the mirror knight fight, the boss will summon a player to fight you while the boss still fights you.  

He also talks about dual wielding, and how you get stances and special attacks while dual wielding weapons, while also mentioning how two handing a weapon works.

He has also said kicking is replaced by a shoulder push.

You just literately beat me posting this news.  Well happy that we can fully customize our stats rather than picking from a range of classes.

Good video. So apparently, what will make dual-wielding better isn't necessarily that you have better combos (he did say that, while dual-wielding, alternating between R1 and L1 is better than just mashing R1), but rather that they get a Power Stance which opens up more damage outputs. While not in-depth it sounds like it has a lot of potential.

Also, 3 slots per arm where confirmed. He expressed his worries quite well, I too am worried they don't present too many healing stones in the final game, but it looks like these healing stones will be common.

Also, I'm not sure I get it, but right now the Class system was changed so you get "free" stat points to allocate to your character which will ultimately decide how the game will identify you?

I think the heal stones are not viable in combat, at least that´s what they said.

Hope it does not become as grass in Demons.

In regards to stats, it'll probably be like how stats work in the Fallout games when creating characters.

A Min/Maxer's wet dream.

I think what they said was the Heal Stones were meant to be used out of combat because they take too long to use and heal slowly. Still, it means that a player can easily heal out of combat, a quality that made healing miracles important.

If anything, I'm interested to see how healing miracles are going to work. If they are going to drop Healing Stones, I would guess they would buff healing miracles with faster cast times.

Tolvo wrote:Apparently according to him, the plan by Fromsoft is to bring back a fight mechanic like the Old Monk from Demon's Souls.  The plan is during the mirror knight fight, the boss will summon a player to fight you while the boss still fights you.

That's actually great, I just hope they go further by implementing this in other/different situations as well. Thanks for the news.

I'm not sure how that would work for that boss. The time it takes for an invader to enter your world and the time I expect for the boss to, realistically, perform the move won't seem to coincide.

Seignar wrote:I'm not sure how that would work for that boss. The time it takes for an invader to enter your world and the time I expect for the boss to, realistically, perform the move won't seem to coincide.

Bear in mind that DS2 will actually be server based so the invasion times will likely be smaller..

The enemy won't be released from the boss at the start, it seems like it is supposed to happen mid way through the fight.

So perhaps that is an incentive to try and deal with the boss quickly, unless it happens at a certain health value.  From the trailer, it also seems like it happens as a cutscene so once it starts the invader/NPC is there.

I'm excited about everything I heard, including the life gems (no more healing phantoms?), no parries for dual wielding???, and the power stance.

All sounds great.  I'll be hyped all year.

I'm not sure about the no parry for dual-wielding. It could just be that only specific weapons have the ability to parry on the left hand, like the Parrying Dagger. But, I really want to see the Power Stance in action.

Animaaal wrote: (no more healing phantoms?)

Depends if humanity makes a return.  I can't quite figure how they would get around replacing it with it's lore deeply tied to kindling and reviving you to human, which when you think about it is supposed to refill your health fully for you to transform back.

Interesting to see the tightening of the mechanics to minimize certain exploits in pvp.  Different bs animation with a smaller (apparently) hitbox and the shoulder push being a less effective stagger than a kick.  Will change things some, interested to see how.  What I am waiting to see, is the environment design, traps etc.  Is it just eye candy now?  I've yet to see any presentations that present the environment as something to be accounted for and learned i.e. Depths or Sen's.  That's a big part of the Souls series.

sounds good to me so far, though i'm thinking about maybe bypassing the healing / life gems if it makes it too easy and just relying on a good old fashioned glug of estus.

I should imagine a good few people on here will find it a bit too easy after endless hundreds of hours on Dark Souls, its only natural its gonna be easier than walking in blind without ever having played a souls game, but there's always stuff you can do, or not do to make things a bit more challenging.

steveswede wrote:

Animaaal wrote: (no more healing phantoms?)

Depends if humanity makes a return.  I can't quite figure how they would get around replacing it with it's lore deeply tied to kindling and reviving you to human, which when you think about it is supposed to refill your health fully for you to transform back.

That's an excellent point.

Maybe the game takes place in a time when the firekeepers are being developed and trained.  Maybe part of the story line has something to do with securing the ability to kindle??? idk.

About the mirror knight: I would have preferred if it was an AI, of a randomized character (perhaps the loadout of another nearby player), or potentially your own character. It would be a great way to mock the player, by having the game indirectly saying "I bet I am can kick your *** with your own character".
Nonetheless, fighting a player aiding the boss will be fun, and it would certainly make the boss a challenge to be reckoned with.

I am a bit curious about the "Make your own class thing". What weapon will we have at our disposal? How many stat points do we start out with? (The pyromancer, for instance, starts with 84 stat points, if calculate all the starting points). I can see certain flaws about letting us choose our own stating point (ie, what happens if one does not put stat points in vitality?).

As for the healing. I personally don't hope to see the healing items become common drop items. A thing I really liked, in my first playthrough, was that I needed to be careful about how much of my estus I used. Whether I should fully heal up now, or save it for a later occasion. By the sound of it, we will have plenty of healing options to support us in-between fights.
I am a bit "so-so" should the rumor be true that we can't heal as phantoms. Its not exactly outrageous, so I'll live.

I don't know how the system will work, but I think this "Customize your character" thing will have a couple of restrictions. First, I think there will be minimal requirements to each stat (meaning they can give us less stats to use); secondly, there will be a maximum for each stat in order to avoid min/maxing, especially if we have another dumb stat.

Everything is sounding great so far. I'm not even into the mage class normally, but the mage looked awesome from that gameplay video. Dual wield seems really cool, not being able to parry isn't a big deal(especially since you can hold 3 *** weapons in each hand). I agree with the guy about the life gems, hope they aren't as abundant as grass in demon's souls(I guess it depends on how slow they heal you though, and how much HP each one gives you). I love that they are introducing a boss fight like the Monk from Demon's Souls. It is great news for min maxers that you can start your stats at a blank state, I'm extremely curious as to what the luck/resistance stat will be and if it will actually be useful this time around.

Can't wait!

Seignar wrote:I don't know how the system will work, but I think this "Customize your character" thing will have a couple of restrictions. First, I think there will be minimal requirements to each stat (meaning they can give us less stats to use); secondly, there will be a maximum for each stat in order to avoid min/maxing, especially if we have another dumb stat.

I can see what you mean, but why would they want to avoid min maxing? There would actually be more options then in Demon's/Dark Souls if it was a blank slate, because the best min/max build wont be forced to be made around one of the starting classes. Also, playing with 0 Vitality would be kind of cool. Glass canon builds will be taken to a new extreme.

So far, there's still so much to find out, but sounds great.

He mentions specifics as to the placement of things in your hands. Does this mean we can't have shields in the right hand, not bows or catalysts?

Another thing is the increased slot capacity, this could mean hotswapping will be MUCH harder to do, but with 3 slots it wouldn't be a troublesome thing.

The dual swordsman not being able to parry (with the starting equipment) is pretty disappointing. People choosing that class can't/might not be able to block or parry. So in tight areas the class would be highly ineffective.

The only heavy weapons we've seen are the halberd and the greatsword. The greatsword seems to be like the bastard sword, as it has no thrusting attacks that we have seen. It seems like it is very fast on the first hit, like monster hunter, but it has an incredibly long recovery frame.

I want to say I like the new halberd, but it looks bad in terms of moveset. The R2's look decent, but the window of the first hit is dreadfully long. Unless it's used as a defensive mechanism or a wake-up attack it looks disappointing.

The sorcerer's attacks look solid, and cast time appears to have been increased. The strafing also seems a lot faster with the sorcerer and the dual swordsman. Rolling has kind of been a grey area for the gameplays so far, so it's too early to judge.

Also, I'm excited that the class system will be more RPG oriented, allowing you to select what you prefer from the get go, allowing for multiple characters to be made and tried in the tutorial before finding your niche.

All in all, the game is looking pretty great, nothing unexpected from FROM on this move, they really pulled out the big guns.

saw a screen shot of the guy twohanding a shield, so no worries about resticted weapon placement.