It’s taken From Software more than a year, but it’s addressed the durability bug that’s plagued Dark Souls 2 since its release in early 2014.
A patch went live for the PC version of Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin this morning, and while there are no official patch notes, it appears to be the update From Software promised a few weeks ago, which included this important change:
Fixed issue whereby weapon durability was decreased drastically when used on enemy corpses, friendly characters, etc. (Especially apparent for users running the game at 60 fps as the durability decrease rate was linked to the frame rate).
I’ve downloaded the patch, and can confirm it works as advertised. Despite slamming my overpowered maces against the wall over and over, their durability barely went down at all.
I’m coming for you, Smelter Demon!
I’d imagine the patch should be live for other versions of the game soon too.
These durability changes are only happening on PC and Scholar of the First Sin because it specifically impacts running the game at 60-frames-per-second.
As for whether people are being banned for using a fan-made patch that fixed this problem already, that remains unclear.
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19 responses to “Dark Souls 2’s Most Annoying Bug, Finally Patched One Year Later”
I haven’t played with the bug but was it really that big of a deal? For me, durability was never a problem, especially in Bloodborne where weapons were cheap to repair and required hours of abuse. To me, it sounds like the greater risk of weapons breaking would be more in line with the cautionary approach the series has with caring consideration of weapon usage and management.
Durability was definitely a factor in DS2 – I remember not being able to complete some stretches of enemies with only one weapon because durability ran out (launch PS3 version).
If I’d had to deal with that bug, having multiple weapons run out in the course of normal play would have been frustrating.
I honestly did not have a problem with durability in the standard version. I don’t think I ever used that durability healing item either.
On the PS4: Forest of the Fallen Giants: Playing as the Swordsman I could clear the river area at the first bonfire, almost clear the next area up the ladder and one weapon would break, by the time I’d cleared it completely next weapon would be broken. Carrying a third weapon would just get me to the next bonfire.
At that early stage of the game repair powder isn’t viable. I hear it’s not as bad for strength weapons but once you hit armoured enemies it a bit of a joke. I gave up and decided to wait until they fixed it.
I mean, you could work at it and get through but for a game that already relies on cheap mobs to inflate the difficulty compared to the first I personally didn’t particularly feel like it was worth it.
I never had much of a problem, but I always ran a high STR build with a relatively-slow, heavy weapon.
I went double swords.
In SotFS, it’s a much bigger deal. I finished the original without much issue – had a few weapons break, but nothing to complain about; but with the increased number of enemies in SotFS, it’s extremely noticeable. I went from Majula bonfire to the bonfire with Malentia in the Forest of Fallen Giants (ie. skipped the first bonfire in FoFG), and went through my starting broadsword, and a sword I found on the way, and a mace I found on the way. I had to run past the last group of enemies at the top of the stairs/bottom of the ladder, just to prevent that mace from breaking.
Why not murder everybody until they don’t respawn?
This seemed like cheating to me, but I definitely did it intentionally in areas that were giving me trouble. And unintentionally in a couple.
I did it intentionally in areas that had NPCs.
DS2’s despawning mechanic was meant to limit the farming that went on in DS1, from what I read, and to make boss-runs easier if you were having trouble. I only saw it happen once in my original playthrough – with the statues in the Mirror Knight hallway, because it took an inordinate number of attempts for me to beat him. Doing it intentionally sounds… well, boring, if I’m honest.
I certainly agree that durability could be a little faster to degrade in Bloodborne (having downed five bosses and had to repair my weapons all of one time), but not to to the extent that a broadsword breaks after about 60 swings.
It really does. I was playing Sotfs for a couple of hours and my weapons died very, very, very quickly, despite using bonfires multiple times.
I was half expecting the fix to be an increase to the durability reduction rate with a conversation like:
“Hey, people are complaining about the speed at which your durability goes down.”
“You’re right, there is a bug in the durability loss rate. It’s way too slow.”
Fix: it now works that way at 30fps…
I was half expecting From Software to just release a new edition so we’d all have to buy the game yet again.
I just finished my first play through of Scholar of the First Sin, and while I did notice my weapons almost breaking a lot when this wasn’t the case for the PS3 version, I have to say it wasn’t that big a deal. Made using repair powder more useful, and forced me to use multiple weapons. Having said that, it will be a great weight off my shoulders not having to worry about weapon breakage in my second play through.
Is it out for console versions yet?
Nope, sadly.
Just finished it on my second character last night and started my third character tonight and the durability is still horrid.
Santier’s Spear is going to take forever to make now…