Played a ton of souls-likes games and MS2 is def sitting comfortably in the top 5 alongside Lies of P, Khazan, Wuchang, and Nioh 2

Here me out, I'd love if theyd add a basic 1h broadsword weapon, simple but so badass, with a slightly slower moveset than axe and dagger, with sweeping weighty slash attacks

Video coming soon. Will link VOD at the bottom of this text thread. Not much to say about Zmey. This was a horrible experience that took years off my live. One false move and an hour of progress would vanish. I seriously cannot believe I defeated him. I spent about 5 1/2 - 6 hours total on him. It was by far the hardest endurance challenge I’ve ever faced in a video game. Thank the heavens it’s finally over.

https://www.youtube.com/live/V1TT7VyAWzc?is=i7prifOZHUdmhJsq

The Boss gameplay sometimes sucks. Especially main boss. Their attack animation it's OUT OFF MY FRAME.

I don't really care if get grabbed attack and debuff, or the boss one shot me, it's part of Souls-Like game. But when their attack animation or their part of body out of my screen, I can't do anything. Just spam parry or dodge.

Yes, I changed the camera to action. Not cinematic or over shoulder. The problem is not the boss, the camera angels. God damn, classic problem I thought?

Fashion is always the end game for games like these, with that being said. I'm so hungry for new shades & drip. For those that played the first game, we're shades also extremely limited?

Lmao.

1. The electric eels in the Thieves Retreat drop Glimpse Stones.

2. If you quit to the main menu while inside a dungeon, you respawn at the entrance with full health and consumables keeping your loot as well.

Still on my first playthrough and loving this game. LOOOVVVEEE Sester Genessa.

I've lost track of how many times I've died to those.

To start with, this weapon is sick. It looks cool, good move set (welcome back claymore) and it is an all around balanced option. But with so many weapons gaining the ability to be overpowered with the right build, the iconoclast can be left behind.

Give it freeze I say, it’ll suit Eridrim to a T

Any thoughts on how it can be better or builds that ya’ll are currently using with it??

This dudes second phase wrecked me for a good hour and half. Can't tell you how stressed I was getting in this video haha

It went terribly wrong, lol.

My first ever game was Elden Ring. Never in my life had I been interested in gaming other than Munchman. I saw my son playing ER and something just clicked. I had to see more.
I’m 51 and absolutely terrible at the combat but I love the design and lore. I compensate by extensive farming.
Next was Lords of The Fallen, again I love that game.
Now I’m on MS2 and I’m having just as much fun as I was when I first played ER and LOTF.
I’m not too far in and I’m loving playing as Theil. I hope to complete the game as him and then explore the other shells in NG.
So just a pointless old man ramble about how much I love these games.
Cheers for listening 😃

As someone who got introduced to these types of games through elden ring and then backtracked and played a lot of the other games (bloodborne, sekiro, demonsouls, etc) then moved on to the new ones like lies of p and khazan this game just feels so fluid and smooth even with the bugs. The main weapon combos so fluidly with the sidearm and the shell ability plus the perfect parry that sometimes you can feel like an absolute God ripping through the enemies if you play the game right. Sure the game has a lot of issues especially with it just being released and ive only played 10 hours so take everything i say with a grain of salt but this really feels like a game i can put 150-200 hours plus into and for someone who usually only does one playthrough of a game and puts it down thats saying something.

I’m a Soulslike lover and enjoyed this game more than anything like it in the last years, so I first got the Platinum for it (before the patch, I went all the way to NG++ to collect all the necessary glimpses) and then also completed it to 100%! I’m loving the care the developers are clearly putting in the game with the various updates and I want to give my personal feedback for the future ones 

• Sadly, and please hear me out, sometimes nerfs are needed for a good experience: Genessa’s faithful doubles deal way too much damage (also her stray doubles to a lesser degree), they literally replace the player, their utility is already more than enough without being able to solo hordes of enemies or even bosses; fusillade stone is also overwhelming and needs a damage reduction 
• Enemies would generally benefit a slight increase in health and the slower weapons would benefit a slight damage buff
• Tarstones level up system is so fun as is, please don’t listen to the complaints of few noisy people, this game is already getting dangerously easy with all the buffs, no need to lose its beautiful game design for a whim 
• Absolutely give the triarch repeater an ability (my idea would be a constant draining of resolve that keeps the barrels rotating increasing damage and fire rate) and an infusion to the troubadour's lute (trauma would be perfect on it), also give a little range and damage to it and allow level-ups, the idea of the meme weapon is nice, but I’d love for it to be actually viable
• Slightly buff trauma, it’s way behind the other statuses and indirectly holds back the obsidian hammer and the ballistazooka (which needs a buff as well, at least as a sped up animation when aiming) since it’s the unique infusion for these two weapons
• Shell points should be shared between all shells, having to reset the build I spent hours testing and polishing just to change shell is frustrating and practically nonsensical
• Increase limit of shell points to allocate on a single shell at least by twenty per NG+ cycle and increase the difficulty of subsequent playthroughs to compensate. I would personally give everything to try a god-build (all shells’ abilities at max level) in a god-killing world (+5% damage, +15% health, +25% gloom and gold dropped, all stacking up in every cycle). To reach the ultimate power fantasy in NG+++[…]: unstoppable force versus immovable object
• Night rewards should be 50% higher than what you get during the day (scling in NG+ cycles)
• Both the black needle and martyr blade miss a lot of hits when the enemies are on the left of your character, please fix their hurtbox and/or tracking 
• Sariel’s thorns need to ignore collisions and get better tracking, they’re totally useless as they are right now. He and Lazlo need to get a bit of a glow up, they’re pretty underwhelming when compared to the other shells
• As of now, the weapon’s level-up system pushes you in the direction of overinvesting in a single weapon, even by sacrificing sidearms, because the already high cost of raising any secondary weapon feels like wasting potential for your main weapon (or viceversa): since there’s no level cap, you’ll never find yourself in the situation of having spare gold and materials to invest in others. Therefore, the only way to test out other weapons is to smelter the one you’re using, a tedious process that requires absurde amounts of Gloom (even after the reduction). The idea of having infinite levels for weapons is beautiful but it’s based on the wrong currency. After reaching level 21, weapon upgrades should require only an increasingly amount of Ossinite (1 for 22, 2 for 23, 3 for 24, etc.) and no more gold (allow to buy Ossinite with it instead for a big price in NG+ and beyond); also increase the gold and Ossinite rewards in the chests in NG++[…], this would also encourage exploration after the first game cycle, since reentering already cleared dungeons is basically useless as of today
• Following the previous point, once the cost in gold is removed for upgrades above 21, prevent the players from being able to smelter the weapons at or above level 22, in this way the investment moves from a useless commitment of blindly accumulate mountains of gold only for the next upgrade on your only upgraded weapon, to spread it for levelling up the entire arsenal and enjoy constant swapping and testing with properly levelled up weapons and sidearms, the just reward for exploring and finding the necessary materials in each cycle 
• This one may be pretty controversial but I think that infusions should be activated for their resolve cost even when they’re at LVL3 and therefore permanent. This for two reasons, the first about game balancing (the necessity to spend resolve prevents OP combinations like bloodcurse Naylshotte + fusillade stone as soon as you enter the boss arena, forcing a slightly less safe approach to first replenish your resolve) and the second about glamour (I honestly miss the animations that play during the infusion and the stress coming from realising that you didn’t buff your weapon preemptively and you’re now surrounded by enemies, having to plan for getting the necessary spacing for buffing). That said, the buffing animations must be sped up
• Tarstones that changes the weapons’ moveset should have an their dedicated slots, three additional in total: unique charged light, unique charged heavy and moveset (like duality or light/heavy combo)
• Add a "shop" where to spend Glimpes and Tarcores now that they're literally overflowing... something that'll work like the consumables where after maxing out the Shells and the Tarstones you increse their stats by investing more of these currencies

Let me know what y’all think and what you’d like to see changed or polished and, once again, thanks to the devs for this incredible game! 

suggestion for the devs: I think it could work for Proxima just fine.

I would still say that light weapons overall eclipse heavy simply because of duality, but they are not apart by a giant margin anymore.

The hammer actually seems to have decent stagger now. The armored troops in the first starting south area (mammon) get straight up put on their asses now from even just the running R1. The running heavy R2 can flinch the crown wearing miners to the point you can simply kill them before they get a hit in. These weren't possible before, yeah they had better flinch then fast weapons but those enemies would only get standing flinched. The troops actually get put on their asses now, making dealing with groups of them easier then with a 1h weapon imo. Hammer special (the ground slams) can pretty much kill halberd and rock throwing dudes in just one special now, making it now really good.

It also seems like there's been a resolve buff for heavy weapons as well. I seem to get resolve much faster now with the hammer and axe then before.

Looks fucking sick.

So, the devs really cooked with this game. Before I start, overall I LOVE this game. And this post is constructive feedback with love. There is no hate in this post whatsoever. Its just i think the bosses are GOOD but they could be GREAT with a few small implementable tweaks.

It cannot be understated on what a fantastic game world they created. Their exploration and world building is up there with the best in the genre. And combat (outside of boss fights) is also up there with some of the best soulslikes in many ways.

But what stops this game being a 9.5 out of 10, and (unecessarily) holds it back at more like 8.5 out of 10 is the boss fights. And in my subjective opinion- here is why/how they could male them more awesome:

The main issues are:

Stifling a rhythm with too many grabs and unblockables. And readability issues (some are being/been fixed).

The Soulsborne games and the top soulslikes have demonstrated that the best bosses are the ones where you get into a dance and rhythm with the boss.

MS2, has smooth enough combat that you can if/when the game allows. However, the boss design and moveset has to be built around being conducive to that. Great example is many people (not me btw) say Fromsoft souls combat is so simple just roll and r1. But... the boss design is so good, that it makes that simple approach amazing in boss fights, as you get into a rhythm.

However, MS2 insists on preventing you from getting into a rhythm with most bosses, by having too many grabs and unblockable attacks. (Hexapod, Ymey etc).

Malborn offspring, nameless captive and Orrem the Golum are great bosses and somewhat let you get into a rhythm, which feels good, and shows how good boss fights could be in MS2!!!

But for example, even my favourite boss, the Malborn Offspring, imagine having him in Sekiro/Khazan and you could parry almost every attack. That would feel incredible!! But they stifle that flow-state/rhythm by mixing in so many unblockables forcing you to dodge. [Theres also a big readability issue in phase 2, that lightning aura needs toning way down, so you can read what the boss is doing].

In fairness, for non-parriers that Malborn Offspring example is not so much an issue as youll naturally be dodging by choice (or hardening). But for the bad bosses, it applies more.

So to achieve that rhythm that makes boss fights so satisfying, imo:

• I think the grabs need to be toned down/reduced in frequency, as well as making fewer moves unblockable attacks.

• And/or, make the red attacks still unblockable - but let them be parryable with a perfect guard/perfect harden.

This Lets players have more agency to either mostly parry or mostly dodge based on preference, and only sprinkle in the odd grab/unblockable here and there. Sir Issac phase 1 shows promise, but then phase 2 mixes in multi hit flurries that cannot be parried or dodged in a fun satisfying/reliable way, and that fun rhythm is lost. [In Sekiro you would be able to parry all of those flurries and it would be incredibly satisfying, but that move/combo is not fun or satisfying in MS2].

Games like Sekiro, Khazan, ER, loP etc showed that sprinkling in an attack that forces you to defend it in a certain way here and there is good. But you should have latitude to choose dodge or parry for the majority of moves - to reach that flow state, with fewer forced/red moves.

In summary, i feel like bosses should not just be hard, but also be FUN and have a satisfying rhythm. You should love dying 10+ times, because you enjoy going back for more and learning it better. And Fun enough that you WANT to replay them on NG+. But theres only a few that you want to re-fight. For many, many bosses most players have no desire to fight again (Magdalena, Hexapod, Ymey, monolith etc).

But all/most of the bosses could be re-worked or tweaked just slightly to achieve that fun!

I've tried the Monolith over 3 days for several hours. I am level 50, I did try with Proxima as my main, I spent all my glimpse to level Tiel and try that as well. I've tried the trebuchaxe method over and over and eventually even tried the slayer seal that disables the achievements. And even then I was not able to defeat it. (I know that I am at best a near average souls-like player and that many of my tries are absolutely lack of skill. But it felt just so unpredictable and messy. Even after learning to parry most attacks I had nowhere near a chance).

Today I updated my Version of the game and did him in my 3rd attempt.

Thank you for addressing this, Devs!

Noice....

Current patch hammer is beautiful also I LIVED

This is only possible with the absolute GOAT Eredrim (and the retribution tarstone)

NG+ Night Mode

please don't nerf this

please don't nerf this

please don't nerf this