Dark Souls 2 Version 1.03/Calibration 1.04 patch notes released

GC - "From Software has released the patch notes for Dark Souls 2 version 1.03/calibration 1.04."

[Number-Nine]

lol. making the game easier....

[raWfodog]

I was going to pick this game up soon but I think I'll wait now. A lot of the user reviews have me thinking that this game is worse than Dark Souls.

[Number-Nine]

It's not a bad game by any means. But it is definitely not as good as Dark Souls or Demon's Souls.

[Thisisjuju]

Im guessing I have to update to play online.

God I wish I completed Dark Souls earlier :(

[jerethdagryphon]

this patch is for casuals luckily ill plat it before then

[Summons75]

Except its better than Dark Souls. It brings in a lot from Demon Souls to make it much more harder and fun. Dark Souls fans don't like it because its more like the superior game in the franchise. You should get it sooner rather than later. Online is always best a month - a year n a half after release because the overflow goes away and the community finally builds and figures things out.

[frostypants]

I'm liking it better than Dark Souls, which felt too nerfy to me (and has major online connectivity problems that will never be fixed). Demon's Souls is still the best though.

[ajax17]

They're all fairly equal in my book. Equal, but different.

[joab777]

Its a great game but damn...it doesnt need nerfs. If anything, it needs buffs. I know everyone says ti join the company of champions, or burn aesthetics...but c'mon...who is playing this anyway. It isnt casual players.

The game itself is amazing and better than dark souls in many ways. But n making the beginning easier isnt gonna make more ppl buy it. Its just gonna upset true fans.

[HighResHero]

Since I'm still working on Dark Souls 1 I'm going to wait too as a precaution.
After already having a large following, hearing their PR reps often talking about how "anyone can play it" was my first sign. I will see if they continue to try to "appeal to a wider audience" throughout the next few months and ask my friend(a huge fan) how the PS3 version is going.
Again, there is nothing wrong with proper balancing, and I'm just being cautious.

[Lord_Sloth]

DeS and DkS do seem like the stronger titles but DkS2 is still a strong game.

[SoulWarrior]

I agree, Demon's Souls and Dark Souls are a little better but not by much

Personally I think this game is a lot harder than the other 2 if you don't use some form of magic, you feel gimped if you only go melee imo

The balance of melee and magic was better in the past 2 games, although magic is still OP, I thought the boss design was a bit better in in DKS1 and DS too

[ThanatosDMC]

I think, it's the lack of range options. They could have added more crossbows so that the STR builds dont have to rely on Avelyn or Hvy Crossbow for distance dmg or knives.

[SoulWarrior]

Eh why the disagrees? But I agree about lack of ranged options.

[Blacklash93]

I think they're overall on the same level. A lot of the art isn't as ambitious, but a lot more fond of DS2's presentational aspects and the areas feel a lot more interesting to explore for me. Enemies are less about swarming and ambushing and the mechanics feel more refined. Plus the framerate is much better and thank god they remapped jumping.

[BlackTar187]

i wish the upgrade system was deeper like the past games.

[Bimkoblerutso]

They all have a unique flavor to them. DS2 seems to put a bigger focus on sprawling exploration and narrative than the past two games. It's got probably the most impressive cast of any Souls game, and the most epic vistas and backstory.

I mean...a legendary King that went mad while warring with an army of vengeful giants from across the sea?

Goddamn epic, dude.

It's not necessarily the best Souls game in the gameplay department, but I love them all about the same for slightly different reasons.

[icewater85]

I duel wielded most of this game. it was hard, but fun. I did use a Bow a lot since I have high Dex. and have to pull enemies instead of just charging in like you can with a shield. I did use a shield on a few bosses after I tried duel wielding first. I didn't use any magic at all.

[JsonHenry]

If you don't go caster of some kind you really are at a disadvantage in this game. Pure melee makes this game so much harder.

[Kenshin_BATT0USAI]

LOL, You kidding? Mage players got nerfed so much.

[yeahokchief]

This is misinformation.

They are nerfing the heck out of magic sorceries and to compensate for the nerfs they have to make bosses a bit easier by bringing bosses down.

This will make all the other classes who weren't sorcerers do a bit more damage but not enough for the game to be "easy".

The game will be harder if you plan on rolling a sorcerer.

Don't spread misinformation.

[Number-Nine]

Could you be more wrong?

[MetaReapre]

I don't know how I feel about this, I mean yea this will make pve very easy but the main gameplay focus in the game is pvp and it won't be harming that at all.

[silvacrest]

unless your a spell caster in PVP, then your f*cked

[BEASELY]

The only update I want - PS4 version with all of the visual enhancements that were dropped. Until then, Dark Souls 3, I suppose. As a multi next-gen console owner, I don't have time for backtracking to my dinosaur systems. I'm ready for new software.

[adorie]

Still waiting on Demon Souls 2. :)

[TheFirstClassic]

THE HELL IS THIS!?! WHY ARE THEY NERFING EVERYTHING AND BOOSTING ALLIED NPCS???

[yeahokchief]

At higher levels, sorcerers are basically running up to bosses with their heavy damage spells and 2 shotting them. They are balancing the game so they can't do this and its more challenging/ fair for all classes.

[TheFirstClassic]

No, why are they making bosses weaker and giving them less health/attack? I'm talking about how they are making the game easier.

[dragongod64]

if they make it harder i am selling the game & telling every one i know not to buy.
they need sales to make more games & if they keep making it harder no one will buy it in the numbers they need to so they can make more.
Put a easy mode in the game "Easy Mid Hard" modes
pay for op offline only wepons, fine with that to
two player offline play / online friend play

[Kivespussi]

Well... Boosting lucatiel at least is great. But why nerf the boss fights? They already were really easy

[ziggurcat]

Because magic is way too OP in this game right now.

I was pure melee up until the last few bosses because I got tired of only dealing a fraction of the damage that magic users were doing despite having both 50str/50dex, and several +10 weapons.

[TheFirstClassic]

Like I said, I'm not talking about nerfing magic. I'm talking about nerfing bosses.

[DafunkyRebel]

No they're making it harder actually for Sorcerers

[TheFirstClassic]

And easier for non-sorcerers.

[ThanatosDMC]

Good thing they're fixing the bug in which you do not become human after a boss.

Glad they're buffing Twinblades. You can have Havel's Armor + 5 and you can just stand there in Warmth and get back stabbed and combo'd and you'd outlast the weapon.

Ring of Thorn and Old Sun ring becomes useless then? I hope they reduce the deterioration rate of the Sun Ring.

Glad that they're lowering the dmg output of Firestorm spells. Lots of Red Phantoms with little to no Int or Fai that can use it to obliterate people. Flash Sweat with Fire Ring +1 doesnt help reduce the severe damage enough.

Wow, they're nerfing the Last Giant. I owned that monster as a lv11 Sorcerer 1v1.

[frostypants]

I think what they are doing is making it so you get a little more max health back each time you help someone online, until you finally get your humanity back. Currently, you either get nothing 90% of the time, or just get full humanity the other 10% (because it's broken all to hell).

[silvacrest]

i beat the last giant with my cobbled together deprived character, first try to, not bragging, just enforcing the point that hes really didn't need a nerf

[DragonKnight]

The only thing I approve of in this patch is nerfing WotG. It could instakill most players. But the rest of this stuff is making the game casual and ridiculous.

[BlackTar187]

What is WotG?

[DragonKnight]

Wrath of the Gods. It's a miracle you can't get until either NG++ or you use a Bonfire Ascetic twice at the first bonfire of Drangleic Castle and talk to the Chancellor. It's OP right now. It can kill most players in one hit if it hits you.

[bloodybutcher]

Wrath of the gods

[MetaReapre]

I agree with that. Wotg was too op.

[BlackTar187]

Amazing to me the N4g system. 1 disagree for asking a question.

This site needs to be fixed to require some input on the disagree button.

[silvacrest]

people will leave disagrees on a whim, dont take it personally and dont ask why you got disagrees in the first place, you will just get more

[LAWSON72]

The last giant got nerfed? Wtf I killed him without even leveling up yet numerous times.
The Sinner was very easy as well. If that wrath of the gods spell is what I think it then I understand its nerf that spell was incredible.
The other two bosses were easy as well. The rat king does a lot of damage?

[BlackTar187]

The last giant 1st boss i beat with out getting hit on my second try. Not sure i did anything even remotely skillfull tbh. Attack feet switch ankle lock on when he raises for stomp rinse repeat dead in 2 mins.

[LAWSON72]

So many disagrees. Do people actually think these bosses are tough? Also, sorry for the bad wording above my stock S4 keyboard is something I have not gotten used to, I think I type to quick and things dont register.

[ThanatosDMC]

They need to replace the Last Giant with one of those Elite Giants before you get Havel Armor. It's not even the "Last Giant"...

@Lawson

Bosses arent tough. Iron King was petarded.

[Master-H]

Flame Swathe needs to be nerfed HARD. The most OP thing i came across in the game, regardless of your int/faith stats.

[DragonKnight]

Wrath of the Gods is worse, believe me. Flame Swathe is easier to deal with because the AoE isn't as wide.

[Master-H]

Perhaps (wrath of god has been a pain even in the first ds), but wrath of god at least requires faith, on the other hand ANY build can use flame swathe.
First time i bought it from straid on my melee character just to try it out, next thing i know, i'm burning multiple bell keeper invaders to a crisp lol

[DragonKnight]

While Pyromancy doesn't require any stats to use, the power is directly related to the level of the flame, and how high your int or faith are. With Miracles or Spells there is also Skeptic and Simpleton's spice which allows you to lower the necessary Faith or Int requirement for the spells. Theoretically, you could get WotG down to a Faith requirement of 10, but I would assume the power would then be drastically lowered.

Flame Swathe is definitely a slower casting spell than WotG though.

[Predaking77]

Boss ahead, be wary of nerfing therefore take it easy.

[frostypants]

Be wary of (not so much of a) but hole.

[bloodybutcher]

Rear ahead therefore use tongue

[ajspeed_14]

finally to to it

[Blacklash93]

People need to learn what "casual" means. A 40-50 hour ARPG journey with lots of stats, exploration, customization, and demands a lot of player initiative and agency isn't a casual game no matter how easy it gets.

[frostypants]

Yeah. People are talking as if now their girlfriends are gonna want to play this instead of Wii Sports.

[DragonKnight]

People also need to learn what context is.

These nerfs are making the game easy for the target audience, hence casualizing it. The people who enjoy these games enjoy the challenge. Nerfing the easiest boss in the game (Last Giant) is making this game way too easy, hence it feels like a casual experience to the target demographic.

This has Namco Bandai's hands all over it trying to bring the casual players into it.

[Blacklash93]

There's no context where that word being anything other misapplied here. A casual game is short and simple, designed around the assumption of quick and unintensive play sessions.

Is a 10-year-old Angry Birds gamer going to be able to stomach Dark Souls 2 like they do Mario Kart? Not likely. There's more than enough to meat here to solidify the experience as a beefy and demanding one. Dark Souls is a series that demands investment, exploration, experimentation, caution, and capable reflexes in order to dig into the game beyond the first few hours (without frequent summons, of course).

Time-commitment and skill are definitely required. What about a 40-50 hour ARPG campaign, asking a lot out of player agency and discovery, is casual? I enjoy Dark Souls, but the difficulty is only a minor part of that. It's still every bit of a high-investment game and easily above the line to be labelled as a hardcore game. It's too bad that the game is straying from the standards of the seasoned players who really enjoy the challenge, but the game is still far from casual despite that.

[DragonKnight]

There is context. What makes your definition of casual the only accepted use of the word? Casual in this sense means lessened in difficulty/challenge.

I can't believe you're going off on a tangent when your comment is essentially splitting hairs. The problem is that the game is being made easier, and when the term "casual" is applied in this instance it's being used in the sense that a casual game is easy. Easy is a relative term. What's easy for one, is hard for another, but the consensus on this game by the demographic that it's targeted towards is that this is the easiest game of the series and it's being made easier.

You want to gripe like some kind of english teaching grammar nazi over the proper use of the term casual, and conveniently ignore ALL of its uses in favour of your strict definition of it, that's your business.

BUT, to that I reply with the following. This patch will casualize this game for fans of the Souls series. If you don't like that I said that, tough. Get over it.

Time commitment does not a hardcore game make. That kind logic makes flappy bird a hardcore game because people will spend obscene amounts of time trying to get further and further in the game. Skill is also relative, and your logic in that area continues to apply to a game like flappy bird.

Are you saying that Flappy Bird is akin to Dark Souls 2? Because so far your criteria of time commitment and skill applies to flappy bird, the only one that's missing is exploration which requires time commitment but not skill.

High investment is also irrelevant.

What's relevant is that the game is being made easier. Damage nerfs, boss nerfs, and NPC ally buffs means that the game is becoming more and more accommodating, less and less threatening. This means you don't have to level up as much, it means you don't have to grind for those souls or items, it means you don't have to use as many Estus Flasks or Life Gems.

THAT is casual. The game is being made easier to play, requiring less total concentration to beat, and the most casual games ever made can be beaten on simple muscle memory alone. Dark Souls 2 isn't there of course, but that doesn't mean that it's not becoming more casual when patches like this release.

[icewater85]

This game is only considered the easiest, because people know how to play the game now. People are using the same strategy they used in Dark Souls and/or Demon Souls in this game which make this game familiar and in a sense easier.

[nix]

no matter how much they nerf i'll still die like 1000 times. ok... 999 times.

[Swiggins]

A much needed nerf to the MLGS, which was an overpowered weapon no matter how you looked at it. I think just removing it's buffing ability would have been enough, but I suppose we'll have to wait and see how slow they've made the swing speed (if it's dark souls 1 level speed then it's too slow)

[jerethdagryphon]

my guess is hell nerf mlgs in the same way they nerfed crystal ring shield damage cap no scaling

[Skate-AK]

Still mad that they butchered the lighting system.

[Veneno]

Why did they have to nerf corrosive urn? That was one of the best ways to fight invaders and not have it take forever.

[Vanfernal]

Royal Rat Authority felt extremely cheap at first, it killed me countless times, then I figured out the trick and it barely touched me and it felt all the more rewarding. Which is how this series works. There's no need to nerf the bosses. As long as a single person exists who beat the game it means that it's not impossible. Not to keen on this patch.

[NewAgeisHere]

The game is awesome, Dark Souls 1 was a bit more original and innovative in terms of world and boss design, but DS2 introduced many improvements that were lacking...especially online connectivity, which is flawless now. All Souls games are special.

[silvacrest]

the boss nerfs are not needed imo, if you really need help with a boss, consume an effigy and get two fellow players to help out

i was planning on getting Wotg but yeah, its still OP

[OmegaShen]

Nelf the Old Sun Ring, so you don't need to learn to dodge. Female mages do less damage? I can stand there an take alot of hits from them.

Didn't they say they would add a item to make it more easy? Why couldn't just do that and not make things weaker.

As for this being harder then Demon's Souls, no. Demon's Souls can be easy if the place is pure white, pure black and the game is harder. But better rewards in pure black (Demon's Souls is harder an 2nd is Dark Souls 1).

[DafunkyRebel]

Royal Rat Authority definitely needs some buffing or at least just get rid of the little rats. Its ridiculous that a Great Souls boss is easier then an optional boss.

[thricetold]

Let me get this straight, in a game that allows you to make YOUR game as hard as you want, you're complaining because someone else might have an easier time now? Are you kids serious? You can burn all the BACK you want and make your playthrough SUPER hard or join the COC and boom, hard as you like it.

What's the complaint? You guys play videogames for all the wrong reasons. "His game is easier than mine, now I don't feel like a bad*ss anymore, sad face."
Or it's " I only like/play this game because it makes me feel good about myself".
you boys are pathetic. Im out.

[TOPRPGNUT]

Will the patch fix:
• the up-chuck-looking graphics
• the stun-lock-happy combat
• the input delay on character actions
• the generic, copy pasta el dante bosses
• the Mugen-esque hit-boxes
• the Magneto tracking of enemy attacks
• the lack of atmosphere
• the largely prosaic level designs
• the bonfire hopscotch game world design
• the lack of cool-looking armour sets
• the forgettable score
• the 15 'continues' limit for enemies
• "soul memory"