How about you **** off?

@zdragonlord: DS2 had a story? :P I felt the plot was so thin and vague that there might as well have been none. The gameplay is good enough to supplant it.

I've been flagging all these posts that show up.

Then most likely what you faced was someone with high stats in Int and Faith and he used the Climax spell. It's way too over-powered, especially with the addition of spices (which I think are bullshit). But even Great Resonant Soul can hit for a hefty amount of damage with a 30/30 split in Int/Fth and sorcery boosting gear.

I would have preferred they stuck with DS1's sorcery and not tried to make things more stylish. For now the best thing to do against a hexer is just dodge. Don't even bother trying to block their spells; if it doesn't kill you it'll still eat through your health.

"how do i play to be good at multiplayer"

Stop dying.

Heavy armours reflect mostly physical damage and most of them don't have a high magic resistance. Also, all I can say for facing a hex player is... dodge.

Reported for illegal promotion.

Don't know if you've done it yet but I know these guys are a hassle. Just got back to them on NG++ and having a tough time getting used to them again. The best advice I can give you is look up strategies on the wiki, or do what I do and equip physical damage armor with some magic defence gloves/leggings, the Mask of the Child and Grass Crest shield to boost stamina recovery, and cast Power Within at the beginning after dropping down into the Abyss. Then just stick as close as you can to one King and whittle at him from behind. Use two-hands but switch and guard or roll when he performs a swing attack. If he thrusts then stay behind him and nail him. The goal with this strategy is not to relent and when you're not dodging or blocking, you're attacking.

Cheat, so you can be an asshole to others online? No thanks.

You do realize this is illegal.

How many times did you turn the camera angle to check a specific location at any place? You can still run through the parish without even glancing in her direction. What's more, how many people progressed to kill Nito or went and cleared another area before they decided they needed Andre, or knew that Petrus kills Rhea?

You do realize there's Soul Vessels that can reset your stats? You don't need to delete a character and start over. They completely negate the consequences of permanence that DS1 punished and rewarded you for.

DS2 really isn't more difficult. The only difficulty in DS2's enemies is the glitchy aim-lock - they could be halfway through an attack and change direction suddenly, completely bullshitting any law of motion and momentum that both Demons and DS1's enemies obeyed. Where DS1's enemies were unpredictable in their patterns, DS2 are completely methodical and easy to predict and counter, and it makes it doubly worse that every boss basically has the exact same move-set, so you don't have to learn anything new. If we're talking pure gameplay then the bosses have no unique move-set and the only challenge to most fights is that they have minions or a cheap, glitchy aim-lock that follows you through on the strike, often giving the enemy a hit that otherwise shouldn't have connected

The Mirrah Greatwsord requires 28 Dex and completely dominates even against the best STR weapons. And since even a character with 20 in Int or Faith has access to ranged sorcery it doesn't matter if you choose a STR or Dex build because there's really no difference except in how you play.

I built up a Dex character in DS1, with 25 Int, and still the Great Heavy Soul Arrow did shit all damage against enemies, whereas in DS2 you can have 20 Int and completely destroy everything in your path. Spices and that lack of dedicating stat points to certain builds completely negate and destroy the point in building sorcery or cleric classes. And you can wear 70% of your total load before being penalised in your movement in the slightest, whereas DS1 penalized you greatly over 25%. I tested this myself and for DS2 there's no difference in reactions from someone just below 70% load and someone without armor on. Which means STR builds can run around in medium-heavy armor and still be as nimble as Peter Pan, and have access to sorcery that hits like a cruise missile.

You forgetting the difficulty in obtaining slabs and chunks? There were only 3 normal slabs per playthrough, with an enemy that had a 0.3% chance of dropping one with 410 item discovery (max). The only difficulty in farming titanite in DS2 is that you'll have to use an ascetic and that's just a cheap way of artificially increasing difficulty. Whereas if you needed another slab you had to defeat Gwyn and start an NG+. The Ascetics just completely undermine that and it's ridiculous when I can finish a playthrough with 20 slabs. DS1's difficulty came in moderation, planning, psychological torture, actually difficult bosses, and punishing terrain that was treacherous to fight on.

Phantoms might be unable to heal in DS2, but what's the point when the bosses are so goddamn easy? The only boss I had trouble with solo'ing was Velstadt because he was truly a challenge. Bosses like the Lost Sinner in NG+ would be piss easy if it wasn't for the addition of the Phantoms, which just made the fight a chore, rather than enjoyable like most of DS1's bosses were. In all honesty, DS2's bosses are forgettable and boring.

Havel's Ring didn't make much of a difference when I still had to constantly switch around my equipment. Also, there were only two ring slots, so using Havel's Ring meant you only had room for one other ring, whereas DS2 lets you have four. Not to mention 3 weapons per hand and 10 belt items.

Getting staggered in DS1 was a whole lot more risky and punishing. Not to mention that a lot of enemies could parry you and backstab you, making them much more lethal than DS2's enemies who seem incapable of that.

Enchantments such as Magic Weapon lasted much shorter in DS1 and there wasn't a ring that greatly increased your physical attack.

@amillionhp: That's if you knew how to get it, which many first time players didn't. It was hidden and out of the way of the natural progress of the game. Whereas you're compelled to talk with Chancellor Wellager at every opportunity because of his wares that he sells across each playthrough. Without the wiki you'd still stumble upon Wellager in NG++, whereas you actually have to search for Rhea after the Tomb, and if you don't revisit the Undead Parish you can miss her entirely and she disappears from the game.

The levelling in both games is different too: SL90 is easy to come by in DS2, whereas you'd be in the region of 60k-70k souls per level in DS1 by then (I'm SL141 and have to pay out 133,068 souls to advance). The requirements are a lot more lax with higher levels than 141 in DS2 being only ~40k souls; you're comparing apples and oranges.

Reaching NG++ in DS2 is really easy. The difficulty has been toned down by a huge margin from the first game with the introduction of items like the ascetics, double summoning, bonfire placement, and spices. Overall level design doesn't include anything treacherous like Anor Londo or Sen's Fortress were either. Not to mention how much of a joke Nashandra is. At least Gwyn put up a fight, she just stands there and lets you smack her around.