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From Software Dark Souls 3

Hyperion

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who cares if he's like Gwyn?
Anybody who doesn't want rehashed bossfights care. Actually, scrap that. I forgot you're that guy who preferred roll-R1 spams bossfights.

He also rage quit the Tower Knight fight in Demon's Souls because he was too stupid to hit the head after knocking him down. After trying and failing to damage 3 of 4 targets you can lock on, to boot. With the experience of literally every other Souls game under his belt. Oh, and he cried because he took damage when a 150 foot tall full plate clad behemoth fell on him.


Pretty sure he meant the blade of Aldrich's scythe is the Gravelord Blade, minus the Toxin quality. It's not the true Lifehunt Scythe, which is why it only exists as a miracle. The description of the Miracle indicates he never found / devoured her. I assume he wanted the Lifehunt Scythe to destroy some Gods.
Oh. Well, the Gravelord Sword and the Lifehunt Scythe is two different things completely unrelated to one another. The former is wielded by, you guess it, Gravelord Nito, while the latter is wielded by Priscilla. Now that I think about it, it doesn't really make any sense why do we get Lifehunt Scythe miracle from transposing Aldrich's soul. Was it because he perceived Priscilla in his dream?

Yeah, I was just confirming what Orma meant by having Nito's weapon. Assuming he's correct, of course. I would imagine he can only manifest the Lifehunt Scythe temporarily because he only dreamt it. The little details are always fun.

As a side note, ever since I'm allowed to give ratings, I can no longer highlight, and quote sections of posts. Hitting quote brings up the quote box, but never appears after clicking it. Only works using the reply button. Something wrong on my end, or is it for everyone?
 
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Seaking4

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Quoting no longer works after your account becomes 1 year old. The training wheels come off and you have to do things the hard way. As compensation, you are given the ability to rate posts.
 

Arnust

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Wow. TheSentinel 's deal is criminal. Alright, let's go. I see an Agree and I'll lose faith in humanity.
I don't see it.
latest

And with that is what he'll attack most of the fight.

Also, Dark Souls 2 is also guilty of rehashing Dark Souls 1.
So to get this straight; DS2 gets shit for being a sequel, but DS3 only does for being a bad sequel. Copy that.

Was it because he perceived Priscilla in his dream?
You wouldn't understand. It's lore, you see. Deep lore. It's also part of the lore that the miracle sucks ass.

Hell, not to mention it doesn't have just 2, but 4(!) endings. Meanwhile, Dark Souls 2 takes a year to get that second ending option available. Although, unfortunately, the path to those 4 endings are absolutely linear with not much option on how to get to them.
I mean, one ending requires to go to the best area in the game, then you can press a button in a small time frame, the other is the normal one, and the other is doing a questline that isn't all that complicated. It doesn't matter because it doesn't have any gameplay difference, and narratively they amount to the same except Londor.

Aldia - To face this boss, you must first meet the Scholar at all three locations he appears. You must then defeat King Vendrick, followed by the Queen Nashandra. This allows Aldia to become accessible at the Throne of Want, triggering an alternate ending by defeating him then leaving the throne. The player can still achieve a normal ending by claiming the throne. - Wiki

Gathering all the crowns (a year? lol) is an optional questline, albeit with quite the payoff. Remember when you could opt out of optional things and still have a full experience?

Having said that, Dark Souls 2 and 3 should never have been made, and Dark Souls 1 never needed any sequel, just like Demon's Souls and Bloodborne don't need any sequel. But it was part of the contract, and as a conclusion, with the exception of Primordial Serpents and Velka, I think the Ringed City served perfectly well, with the final boss fight being almost poetic in the way it has 2 absolute nobodies fighting at the end of the world. It's a shame however that it did not implement a new ending.
Yeah, fighting a big cool looking dude in a hill is pretty cool. You did it with the SOC too. And it's *surprisingly* similar to Artorias. And Kos. Aren't those, like, some of the most popular bosses among fans? Huh. It must be a coincidence, for sure.

how does Dark Souls 3 rehash dark souls 1?
You can always play the game with the head out of Miyazaki's ass and find out, that or looking back in this very thread.

The only "difference" that Dark Souls 2 has compared to 1 and 3 is that it's complete shit.
Well, at least it's one less kid to send hatemail in the arena.
 

agentorange

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Codex 2012
Demon's Souls rehash:

The Firelink Shrine is the Nexus, the thrones are even laid out in the same manner as the archstones.

In the Dark Firelink Shrine you find the Maiden in Black.

The gauntlet before the twin princes at the top of Lothric Castle is the exact same as the gauntlet before the Penetrator in Boletarian Palace.

The return of the Storm Ruler. This one in particular is annoying to me because the Storm Ruler in Demon's Souls was specifically suited to killing the Storm King. The Storm King, a giant manta ray which in itself is quite unique, flies above a wide open plateau and the only way to reach him with the shockwave caused by the blade, it's quite spectacular and unlike anything else in the game...in Dark Souls 3 you fight a giant in a small square room and have to use the Storm Ruler because I'm really not sure.

Irythyll Dungeon is a smaller, less complex version of the Tower of Latria complete with nearly identical wardens.


Dark Souls rehash:

A bumbling onion knight.

Taurus Demons, Capra Demons all over the Demon Ruins.

Ornstein is back again. (2 also had this but 3 certainly shouldn't have done it again)

Ask Lake is now the Smoldering Lake. Absolutely none of the atmosphere of the original location but enjoy some giant crabs and a giant ballista that's like the thing you used to kill the Dragon God in Demon's Souls.

Asylum Demon is back.

Everyone loved Artorias so let's have every boss be Artorias, missing the point that what made the Artorias fight special was that none of the other fights Souls 1 were like that.

Also Sif is a meme so let's now have a ton of stuff about wolves and the Abyss Watchers who are basically a bunch of mini-Artoriases.

You end up in Anor Londo again somehow.

Complete destruction of the intriguing mystery of Gwyn's first born. You get to find out that he's Goku and he rides a dragon, ebin as fuck.

Those imps that carried you to Anor Londo and seemed a mysterious part of the city now carry you to the Undead Settlement for no apparent reason, and also to the Ringed City.

Painted World

Funny thing is that the one interesting part of Dark Soul 3's story, the idea and imagery of all of history compacting at the end of time, is all but ignored through most of the game until you are teleported to the Kiln of the First Flame at the very end. In fact this idea of contracting space and time is handled far better in 1 through the use of the interconnected world, as you are travelling vertically through the stratified history of that world. Ringed City could have done something similar but instead you jump off ledges for the first hour, go through two swamp areas, realize that Gwynevere Filianore was dead the whole time and Anor Londo The Ringed City was an illusion then fight another Artorias.
 
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agentorange

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Codex 2012
Those imps that carried you to Anor Londo and seemed a mysterious part of the city now carry you to the Undead Settlement for no apparent reason, and also to the Ringed City.
This is all the way back from Demon's Souls where the Gargoyles carry you from the Fool's Idol to 3-2.

True, but those were the gargoyles that you then fight in the second part of Tower of Latria. Like the gargoyles that carry you to Anor Londo in Dark Souls 1 are then fought in Anor Londo. In both cases they seem like they are part of the world. In 3 they appear twice from nowhere and disappear to nowhere. This seems like a nitpick but it really annoys me for some reason. Maybe because it's yet another departure from the world connectivity that made 1 so special, and a general example of the "more stuff but less care given to all the stuff" that affected 3.
 

Sentinel

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Well, at least it's one less kid to send hatemail in the arena.
Oh, this explains everything. You're a PvP faggot. Your kind fucking killed the franchise and invasions, and only your subhuman kind actually like Dark Souls 2. Because of you they shifted PvP focus from invasions to arenas. You're the reason they babysit people so much in DkS3 with 5 fucking phantoms and endless summons whenever an invader is present. Thankfully Bloodborne is still fun to invade in.

It's funny though that you didn't actually tackle any of my points, merely the broad statements or questions that I posed before actually explaining why you were wrong. Shows how deep in denial you are about DS2. Don't worry, I'm sure those 60€ you spent on release, and then another 60€ when the SotFS came out were perfectly justified.
 
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Black Angel

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latest

And with that is what he'll attack most of the fight.
But does his moves exactly the same as Nito's, though? Seriously, I never paid attention to him being a rehash of Nito aside from the mass of skulls. It wasn't until you guys pointed out how he had 'Nito's weapon' that I'm starting to notice it. His moveset doesn't scream it all that much.

So to get this straight; DS2 gets shit for being a sequel, but DS3 only does for being a bad sequel. Copy that.
You're missing the point. What I meant was that people keep pointing out how DS2 was 'original' when it was also rehashing 1 in a much more obvious and, thus, bad fashion than 3. And like I said, I'm not defending 3's rehashings and panderings but at the very least it included the most important piece of Souls mythology for a better continuity (Lords of Cinder).

I mean, one ending requires to go to the best area in the game, then you can press a button in a small time frame, the other is the normal one, and the other is doing a questline that isn't all that complicated. It doesn't matter because it doesn't have any gameplay difference, and narratively they amount to the same except Londor.
Doing the one that requires an entire questline does give a gameplay difference (free Soul Levels). And how does they narratively amount to the same? I have to admit, I didn't like how they presented the Link the Fire ending where it fades to black instead of that bright flashing light they show in 1, or how the End of Fire ending goes against 1's version because it literally snuff out the Sun, but the Unkindled ending could've mean anything and obviously not the same with Link the Fire (an assumption based on the obvious would be that the Ashen One became the new Firekeeper or something similar).

(a year? lol)
The Leave the Throne ending was added with Scholar of the First Sin update, released on April 1st 2015. So, yeah, a year later after the initial release (March 2014). What are you talking about?

Also, to add more nitpicking to agentorange's post
Dark Souls rehash:

A bumbling onion knight.
*sigh* why does it a bad thing, again? This time he had better story and questline. In Dark 1, you just help Siegmeyer, again and again, with no payoff whatsoever aside from Titanite Slab from his daughter. Siegmeyer was, unfortunately, an incompetent knight.

Meanwhile, for every time you helped Siegward, he will help you with something more substantial. You help him figure out how to deal with the elevator's mechanism, and together you fight that Asylum Demon in Undead Settlement. You help him from that well in Cathedral of the Deep, he help you by saving Greirat in Irithyll. You help him escape from the Irityhill Dungeon, and he helped you for the final time with Yhorm's fight.

Taurus Demons, Capra Demons all over the Demon Ruins.
Well, it's called the Demon Ruins for some reason. They're also not alive, and instead preserved like some mummy or something. Besides, there's the Ghrus, which can be seen as a type of Demons since they can use Pyromancies.

Ornstein is back again. (2 also had this but 3 certainly shouldn't have done it again)
If by that, you meant the Dragonslayer Armour, then aside from an identical design he's a completely different boss with completely different moveset and combat style, unlike the Old Dragonslayer that's the exact same boss with the exact same moveset and combat style. His greataxe and greatshield suggested that the Dragonslayer Armour was something else entirely since they were "once formed part of the armour", so I'm actually curious what he actually looked like before he got his weapons.

But if you meant by that Ornstein's set and weapon found in Archdragon Peak, then yeah that's a fucking big fuck you from them to us since the description talked about how Ornstein literally left Anor Londo for some fucking reason, which means Dark Souls 1 is somewhat non-canon in that regard.

Also Sif is a meme so let's now have a ton of stuff about wolves and the Abyss Watchers who are basically a bunch of mini-Artoriases.
Aside from the Abyss Watchers being a bunch of Artorias's fanboys, I don't see how the wolves thingy in Farron Keep being a meme about Sif. If anything, those wolves in Ariandel seemed more like the meme about Sif.

Seriously, making sequel is a mistake. Remember, guys, in the past interview they talked about how they're not too keen on the idea of making sequels. Dark Souls 1 should've ended on Dark Souls 1. They should've moved on to making new IPs and just generally new stuff to keep the creative juice flow smoothly.
 

Seaking4

Learned
Joined
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Messages
362
Well, at least it's one less kid to send hatemail in the arena.
Oh, this explains everything. You're a PvP faggot. Your kind fucking killed the franchise and invasions, and only your subhuman kind actually like Dark Souls 2. Because of you they shifted PvP focus from invasions to arenas. You're the reason they babysit people so much in DkS3 with 5 fucking phantoms and endless summons whenever an invader is present. Thankfully Bloodborne is still fun to invade in.

It's funny though that you didn't actually tackle any of my points, merely the broad statements or questions that I posed before actually explaining why you were wrong. Shows how deep in denial you are about DS2. Don't worry, I'm sure those 60€ you spent on release, and then another 60€ when the SotFS came out were perfectly justified.

They shifted PVP focus from invasions to arenas? What? You really have no idea what you are talking about. Also I love how you are bashing Dark Souls 2 because Dark Souls 3 has a worse invasion system. Good stuff.

No one tackled your points because they are stupid and because you say stupid shit like Dark Souls 2 had linear levels where you die plenty of times and your proof is the intro video. What do you want people to say in response to that? Everyone thinks that video hits way too hard on the Dark Souls is hard feeling.
 

Sentinel

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Ommadawn
Well, at least it's one less kid to send hatemail in the arena.
Oh, this explains everything. You're a PvP faggot. Your kind fucking killed the franchise and invasions, and only your subhuman kind actually like Dark Souls 2. Because of you they shifted PvP focus from invasions to arenas. You're the reason they babysit people so much in DkS3 with 5 fucking phantoms and endless summons whenever an invader is present. Thankfully Bloodborne is still fun to invade in.

It's funny though that you didn't actually tackle any of my points, merely the broad statements or questions that I posed before actually explaining why you were wrong. Shows how deep in denial you are about DS2. Don't worry, I'm sure those 60€ you spent on release, and then another 60€ when the SotFS came out were perfectly justified.

They shifted PVP focus from invasions to arenas? What? You really have no idea what you are talking about. Also I love how you are bashing Dark Souls 2 because Dark Souls 3 has a worse invasion system. Good stuff.

No one tackled your points because they are stupid and because you say stupid shit like Dark Souls 2 had linear levels where you die plenty of times and your proof is the intro video. What do you want people to say in response to that?
People were pushing for PvP focused areas since Dark Souls 1 came out. From's response to this was arenas. Since people were also complaining a lot about invaders ruining their games, From figured that if people wanted to invade and do PvP, they could just do it in arenas, so they butt fucked invaders hard in Dark Souls 2, and doubled down on it in Dark Souls 3, so as to make the experience as soft as possible. It's really not hard to understand.

And that's your misrepresentation of my point, not my actual point. Try getting some reading comprehension. Unless of course, you have no actual way to counter it, in which case you just straw man it.
 

Seaking4

Learned
Joined
Sep 4, 2014
Messages
362
Well, at least it's one less kid to send hatemail in the arena.
Oh, this explains everything. You're a PvP faggot. Your kind fucking killed the franchise and invasions, and only your subhuman kind actually like Dark Souls 2. Because of you they shifted PvP focus from invasions to arenas. You're the reason they babysit people so much in DkS3 with 5 fucking phantoms and endless summons whenever an invader is present. Thankfully Bloodborne is still fun to invade in.

It's funny though that you didn't actually tackle any of my points, merely the broad statements or questions that I posed before actually explaining why you were wrong. Shows how deep in denial you are about DS2. Don't worry, I'm sure those 60€ you spent on release, and then another 60€ when the SotFS came out were perfectly justified.

They shifted PVP focus from invasions to arenas? What? You really have no idea what you are talking about. Also I love how you are bashing Dark Souls 2 because Dark Souls 3 has a worse invasion system. Good stuff.

No one tackled your points because they are stupid and because you say stupid shit like Dark Souls 2 had linear levels where you die plenty of times and your proof is the intro video. What do you want people to say in response to that?
People were pushing for PvP focused areas since Dark Souls 1 came out. From's response to this was arenas. Since people were also complaining a lot about invaders ruining their games, From figured that if people wanted to invade and do PvP, they could just do it in arenas, so they butt fucked invaders hard in Dark Souls 2, and doubled down on it in Dark Souls 3, so as to make the experience as soft as possible. It's really not hard to understand.

And that's your misrepresentation of my point, not my actual point. Try getting some reading comprehension. Unless of course, you have no actual way to counter it, in which case you just straw man it.

Ya the response to this was the belfry locations and the rat king covenant. That was the response. You're conveniently leaving that out of your argument. Those were PVP focused areas and were the direct result of distinct covenants working as intended.

"Dark Souls 2 is just a fucking mess. Its only pro is equipment variety. From a design stand point, the entire game is a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of "challenge" that Miyazaki talked about in Dark Souls 1 interviews. They mistook challenge for difficulty. Miyazaki's Souls games have you explore and use the environment to get past situations. Dark Souls 2 has you bruteforce your way through the narrow linear environment to get past situations. If you actually try to deny this, all you have to do is watch the Dark Souls 2 intro - the entire thing is "lol you'll die over and over and over again!""

Give us examples of that. That's not misrepresenting your point. Or you can give us a Hiver style strawman rant. Whatever you prefer.
 

Arnust

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Dec 22, 2016
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Spain
You're missing the point. What I meant was that people keep pointing out how DS2 was 'original' when it was also rehashing 1 in a much more obvious and, thus, bad fashion than 3.
Not really. The thing is, DS3's "callbacks" were, ultimately, uneccesary. DS2 throws some hairs and explanations, but never being completely explicit when DS1 is the subject. No one is going to say "Lordran!" out loud. And if you don't like it, it's fine of course, but that's keeping the story tied to its foundations for just wanting more of that. Which is mostly what we are divided about.

*sigh* why does it a bad thing, again? This time he had better story and questline. In Dark 1, you just help Siegmeyer, again and again, with no payoff whatsoever aside from Titanite Slab from his daughter. Siegmeyer was, unfortunately, an incompetent knight.

Meanwhile, for every time you helped Siegward, he will help you with something more substantial. You help him figure out how to deal with the elevator's mechanism, and together you fight that Asylum Demon in Undead Settlement. You help him from that well in Cathedral of the Deep, he help you by saving Greirat in Irithyll. You help him escape from the Irityhill Dungeon, and he helped you for the final time with Yhorm's fight.
Because it didn't need to be an onion knight, bumbling, clumsy and with a name starting with Sieg-. It's THAT simple. Somethign like what DS2 did with Patches -> Pate would have been appreciated. Or like what Hawkwood did with the Crestfallen Knight. Please do explain why it needed to be the same character in a parallel situation. Nevermind how Siegmeyer is a lot more interesting writing wise; Undead as he is, his only driving force is risking his life and dying for his adventure, and doing what you're "supposed" to do as a game's player character, helping him only will make him ultimately lose his mind. And regardless, even on his "best" ending he'll have an undetermined end in the hands of his daughter. Did she kill him when he was mad or not? Was it because of being an Undead? We'll never know.

Siegmeyer is in to kill his friend, he gets stuck a couple of times for being dumb as a rock, then if you do everything right he'll come with you to kill his friend (which would happen regardless because you HAVE to), and then dies of exhaustion. What did we learn from this?

The Leave the Throne ending was added with Scholar of the First Sin update, released on April 1st 2015. So, yeah, a year later after the initial release (March 2014). What are you talking about?
Nevermind, I thought you referred to it being an overly long process. Then again, I don't think the amount of endings matters as much as the pathos to it and the final boss.

Doing the one that requires an entire questline does give a gameplay difference (free Soul Levels). And how does they narratively amount to the same? I have to admit, I didn't like how they presented the Link the Fire ending where it fades to black instead of that bright flashing light they show in 1, or how the End of Fire ending goes against 1's version because it literally snuff out the Sun, but the Unkindled ending could've mean anything and obviously not the same with Link the Fire (an assumption based on the obvious would be that the Ashen One became the new Firekeeper or something similar).
5 levels in the early game don't amount to that much, really. It's also the starting point and you *could* fuck that up.

All the endings except the Lord of Hollows will let the cycle go on. In the "The End of Fire" endings, it'll just take longer. One day tiny Flames will dance across the Darkness, like Embers Linked by Lords past...

Well, at least it's one less kid to send hatemail in the arena.
Oh, this explains everything. You're a PvP faggot. Your kind fucking killed the franchise and invasions, and only your subhuman kind actually like Dark Souls 2. Because of you they shifted PvP focus from invasions to arenas. You're the reason they babysit people so much in DkS3 with 5 fucking phantoms and endless summons whenever an invader is present. Thankfully Bloodborne is still fun to invade in.

It's funny though that you didn't actually tackle any of my points, merely the broad statements or questions that I posed before actually explaining why you were wrong. Shows how deep in denial you are about DS2. Don't worry, I'm sure those 60€ you spent on release, and then another 60€ when the SotFS came out were perfectly justified.
Nah, fanboys like you killed it. I've easily spent more time PvPing in 3, and by the way, I played DS2 and then SOTFS after DS3, before that Dark Souls 1 which I played in about two years now. So I guess I'm sad for not having "killed" the franchise on time.

Having a good Online structure, both Arenas, Duels and Invasions, will make them all as viable. Not learning on the previous game's successes and failures doesn't. For example, take the Watchdog covenant. It guards a minuscule area that people will spend a minimal time on comparatively, and with how matchmaking works, you've got to stay out of leveling intentionally to not spend way too much time for some shit rewards, anyway. Because DS3 covenant rewards are taking the piss. They are either shit or absolutely neccesary for some playstyles. This makes PvP interactions way more desperate in general, thus less fun overall.

Invaders in 2 are in a good spot. Hosts can't resummon ad infinium, Phantoms won't be able to heal, Hosts don't neccessarily have more health than you. With "+% damage to hollows" being more common, invaders sometimes get the chance of stomping Hollow hosts. Arguably, their biggest downgrade is the absence of a Red Eye Orb or Orbs at all in the game, which does limit interaction to an extent. It's not TOO much of an issue because you can always save scum a character stacked with Broken Orbs or just get more by some casual dueling, farming common drops and or buying it outright. But you haven't mentioned that, because you have no idea of what you're talking about. :D

Invading in Bloodborne? Did that shit hit you in the head so hard that you got a contusion or something?
 

Sentinel

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Ommadawn
Well, at least it's one less kid to send hatemail in the arena.
Oh, this explains everything. You're a PvP faggot. Your kind fucking killed the franchise and invasions, and only your subhuman kind actually like Dark Souls 2. Because of you they shifted PvP focus from invasions to arenas. You're the reason they babysit people so much in DkS3 with 5 fucking phantoms and endless summons whenever an invader is present. Thankfully Bloodborne is still fun to invade in.

It's funny though that you didn't actually tackle any of my points, merely the broad statements or questions that I posed before actually explaining why you were wrong. Shows how deep in denial you are about DS2. Don't worry, I'm sure those 60€ you spent on release, and then another 60€ when the SotFS came out were perfectly justified.

They shifted PVP focus from invasions to arenas? What? You really have no idea what you are talking about. Also I love how you are bashing Dark Souls 2 because Dark Souls 3 has a worse invasion system. Good stuff.

No one tackled your points because they are stupid and because you say stupid shit like Dark Souls 2 had linear levels where you die plenty of times and your proof is the intro video. What do you want people to say in response to that?
People were pushing for PvP focused areas since Dark Souls 1 came out. From's response to this was arenas. Since people were also complaining a lot about invaders ruining their games, From figured that if people wanted to invade and do PvP, they could just do it in arenas, so they butt fucked invaders hard in Dark Souls 2, and doubled down on it in Dark Souls 3, so as to make the experience as soft as possible. It's really not hard to understand.

And that's your misrepresentation of my point, not my actual point. Try getting some reading comprehension. Unless of course, you have no actual way to counter it, in which case you just straw man it.

Ya the response to this was the belfry locations and the rat king covenant. That was the response. You're conveniently leaving that out of your argument. Those were PVP focused areas and were the direct result of distinct covenants working as intended.

"Dark Souls 2 is just a fucking mess. Its only pro is equipment variety. From a design stand point, the entire game is a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of "challenge" that Miyazaki talked about in Dark Souls 1 interviews. They mistook challenge for difficulty. Miyazaki's Souls games have you explore and use the environment to get past situations. Dark Souls 2 has you bruteforce your way through the narrow linear environment to get past situations. If you actually try to deny this, all you have to do is watch the Dark Souls 2 intro - the entire thing is "lol you'll die over and over and over again!""

Give us examples of that. That's not misrepresenting your point. Or you can give us a Hiver style strawman rant. Whatever you prefer.
Sure. Whenever I reference Dark Souls 2, I'll be talking about the SotFS. I did not play the original.

So the immediate example that comes to my head about a "Miyazaki" design is Central Yharnam in Bloodborne, the area with the mob and a beast being burned in a cross. Now the player arrives and there are tons of enemies - a lot of people probably just went charging in and died overwhelmed by all the enemies, but if you bother exploring, you'll notice that at the start of that section there is this side path that lets you pretty much avoid them all. In this case, the player gets past a challenging encounter (I say challenging to a first time player) using the environment, not actually fighting a mob of enemies. The mob is merely a distraction - it's bait.

This design is also prevalent in Dark Souls 3 - the area in Irithyll of the Boreal Valley, for example, just after Pontiff Sulyvahn. You have these giant enemies and the casters firing shit at you from up above. A distracted player probably just charges in, goes up the stairs and attracks the 2 NPC Drang Knights along with all the casters, dying. But if he actually bothers exploring, he'll notice that you can sneak up behind the casters and pretty much chain backstab them, and then deal with the NPCs in an open area, with no one else bothering you. I could give you more examples, because I know there are more, but I'd have to either replay Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne, or watch a playthrough of DkS3.

Now for Dark Souls 2 - the typical encounter: Heide's Tower of Flame. The circular area where you pull the 2nd lever that raises the platform inside the Dragonrider boss arena. Here you're pretty much forced to aggro 2 or 3 giant enemies that have tons of HP and hit very hard. There is no way to aggro one of them - I tried arrows, alluring skulls, throwing knives - their AI seems to be a network. If one of them is attacked or detects you within range, the others will come chasing. Is there a way past this encounter that isn't a) skipping it; b) fighting these annoying as fuck enemies with DkS2's shit healing system? No, there isn't. You have to bruteforce your way through the linear level design. There is no exploration involved to overcome a challenge. It's health sponges with triple your recovery time for the sake of "it's so difficult bro im very hardcore haha upvoted" gaming e-cred.

PS: Let me add here for the sake of contrast. Bloodborne - Upper Cathedral Ward. Inside the Cathedral, in what I guess is the main room, with the stairs that lead down to the main hall where 3 or 4 werewolves roam the area. In this area, if it were in Dark Souls 2, you probably wouldn't be able to aggro each one of them individually. But butter my butt and call me a biscuit, because this isn't Dark Souls 2, you can actually do it.

Another example: Shrine of Amana. Is there an alternative route to deal with the absolute retarded bullshit in this level? No, there isn't. You have to bruteforce your way through the linear design of the level - and even the deviations that the layout takes are solely to give you an item, but even these deviations are frustrating to navigate because the water slows you down and you can't really see if there's a fall in the water or not unless you have a torch out. The only situation where this isn't frustrating as hell is if you've dealt with every enemy in the area - which in itself is not a very fun experience. If you decide to skip past the annoying enemies, which was always a tactic you could use in DkS1, 3 and Bloodborne, the AI seems to just chase you forever and you cannot grab those items without it being a suicide mission.

Yet another: Drangleic Castle. That area right before the King's Gate that leads to Nashandra and the throne, that has all the Ruin Sentinel copies and the phalanx (?) guys. What exactly is the purpose of having this many enemies in this area? I think it'd be perfectly fine if each door unlocked a different enemy, but instead, each door unlocks the same dude, and before unlocking each door you have to fight a 1v2 or 1v3. It's tedium. There's like 6 doors. That's what, 20 enemies in a tiny room? Why? This problem is aggravated because the enemies seem to retain the speed that Dark Souls 1 enemies had, but the players speed is way too slow.

Example number 4: Iron Keep. This area is a straight line to the boss (Smelter Demon). You'd think "oh, that can't be too bad". However, the enemies here have, again, incredible aggro ranges, and it's a constant 1v2 with great archers supporting from the distance. You'd think - "oh, certainly they designed this level so that you can deal with this guys in a more comfortable fashion, right?". No, they fucking didn't. And the entire area is very narrow paths with laval on both sides, and lots of archers. It's not fun to navigate, and there isn't even any good loot in there unless you're a zweibro.

I'm not saying that Dark Souls 2 is all bad, or that Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 are all good (Dark Souls 3 has some very Tanimura moments, particularly in the first part of Ashes of Ariandel), but holy shit - Dark Souls 2's bad moments are something else. It wouldn't be so bad if it managed to reach Dark Souls 1 or 3's peaks, but it doesn't. Even the DLC areas suffer from poor pacing and some incredibly shit areas (Eleum Lloyce's entire optional path *wink* *wink*), despite Sunken King having brilliant level design and something I wish they had done more.

Now I suspect you're gonna say "you're just mad because you died lol". not at all. I don't mind dying as long as I feel the AI is fighting fairly and I'm learning. I died some 27 times to Midir. I'm not even ashamed to admit that I died 16 times to Living Failures in Bloodborne because that boss is so fucking boring that I'd just lose focus (yes I figured out about the sweet spot on the tree on my 2nd run). But with very rare exceptions, I never felt Dark Souls 2 presented me with fair encounters.

PS: I forgot to mention the incredible tracking that every dark souls 2 enemy has. It's so ridiculous that the enemies literally slide as they rotate on themselves as you circle around.
 
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Sentinel

Arcane
Joined
Nov 18, 2015
Messages
6,632
Location
Ommadawn
Invading in Bloodborne? Did that shit hit you in the head so hard that you got a contusion or something?
?
Invading in Bloodborne is literally Dark Souls 1's invasion system except the host is almost always fucked no matter what. Invading Nightmare of Mensis is Sen's Fortress no2. Nothing like watching the host immediately panic as you come in.
 

Black Angel

Arcane
Joined
Jun 23, 2016
Messages
2,910
Location
Wonderland
DS2 throws some hairs and explanations, but never being completely explicit when DS1 is the subject. No one is going to say "Lordran!" out loud.
Shalquoir's dialogue and NG+ drops. Those ARE being explicit because they're about the Lords Souls, which by the way a DS1's subject. If they're not screaming "Lordran!" (okay, not exactly Lordran but you get it) out loud, then I don't know what is.

Siegmeyer is in to kill his friend, he gets stuck a couple of times for being dumb as a rock, then if you do everything right he'll come with you to kill his friend (which would happen regardless because you HAVE to), and then dies of exhaustion. What did we learn from this?
Aside from not being able to figure out the elevator, trapped in that well is because he was tricked by Patches and god forbid you can get imprisoned in a fucking dungeon. If anything, it was Siegmeyer who's dumb as rock for not preparing himself to deal with Blighttown, or wasting his time thinking on how to deal with the Silver Knights.

Then again, I don't think the amount of endings matters as much as the pathos to it and the final boss.
It fucking matters when the predecessor gave you options.

5 levels in the early game don't amount to that much, really. It's also the starting point and you *could* fuck that up.
How can you fuck that up? Aside from missing Yoel completely (which I did on my first playthrough)....
 

Shadenuat

Arcane
Joined
Dec 9, 2011
Messages
11,955
Location
Russia
Playing. So far reached past harpy witch and 3 harpies, where 2 knights were resting. Don't like bedtree of chaos and don't want to fight it.

Don't hate the game, but lose patience with every new level. Started game as asassin because he had my favorite weapon and shield from DS2. Someone make me stop mashing R1 with estoc.

I am stunlocking most mobs 1 on 1 with estoc or ice sword two-handing, and with bosses I hit them while rolling every time something is twitching on the screen. The ice dog I more or less understood since he was simple, but other stuff I seemed to just power through. Am I just bad? I don't understand all the 360 tracking moves and enemies seem more like automatons... many of them remind me of Drake Knights from bastion in Dark Souls 2.
 

Arnust

Savant
Joined
Dec 22, 2016
Messages
680
Location
Spain
It's so good that it is both the most dead Souls game and the one with the lower rating.
Yet it's the one where it's easier to find people, DS3 exempted for being the msot popular and with the passwords thing. You try and get into coop without DSCM. And you'll find TWO people in a full day.

It fucking matters when the predecessor gave you options.
This isn't Fallout though. All endings *mean* the same, but the endings are variables.

How can you fuck that up? Aside from missing Yoel completely (which I did on my first playthrough)....
Do anything to aggravate Yuria like being stupid enough to be a sorcerer and needing Orbeck, healing your Hollow status or killing her for my favourite fashion in the game (Billed Mask, Black Knight chest, Gauntlet/leggings alternating between hers and Black Knight).

Aside from not being able to figure out the elevator, trapped in that well is because he was tricked by Patches and god forbid you can get imprisoned in a fucking dungeon. If anything, it was Siegmeyer who's dumb as rock for not preparing himself to deal with Blighttown, or wasting his time thinking on how to deal with the Silver Knights.
What did we learn from this?

Shalquoir's dialogue and NG+ drops. Those ARE being explicit because they're about the Lords Souls, which by the way a DS1's subject. If they're not screaming "Lordran!" (okay, not exactly Lordran but you get it) out loud, then I don't know what is.

Shalquior dialogue somewhat referencing the Four:
Are you going to see the Old Ones?
Those four who have grown so incredibly ancient.
They must have sprouted quite a thick coat of moss by now.
For heaven's sake, no-one even knows their names anymore!
Imagine that! Hee hee hee hee!
Yes…Nothing like yourself.
For you…have a most pleasant scent, that grows nicer with each passing day

Once, people tried to round up the Undead and hide them away from the world.
They thought that imprisoning the Undead would solve the problem.
They created a towering bastille to contain them, but in the end, it did no good.
The Lost Sinner lives deep within the bastille.
The fool. Trying to light the First Flame…

Why do people try so hard to be beautiful?
We cats are born beautiful, of course. Hee hee…
The human ego…How many ugly iron castles has it erected?
And they don't even see the folly of their ways.
But that's what makes watching humankind so delightful.
It reminds me of someone who lived long ago.
A vainglorious liar who ended up hurling himself into the flames.
Now he's Ichorous Earth, if I'm not mistaken.

You've seen that gaping hole here?
Well, there's nasty little vermin down there.
Although who you seek is even further below.
And has been down there for a very, very long time.
He's plumb Rotten by now, I'm sure! Hee hee hee…

Men develop the most peculiar fascinations.
Sometimes their fascinations seem to take control.
Till there's very little man left. Hee hee hee…
Oh, it's like that awful traitor long ago.
He coveted what he did not have, and it drove him mad.
What a curious conundrum. Hee hee hee…
The Writhing Ruin keeps searching as we speak.
Searching for its heart's desire.

You've really got to make a HUGE stretch to relate them, except in the Sinner's case which isn't really the same thing anyway. Without acknowledging the NG+ Lord Soul drops which are rather in Easter Egg territory, the connections are the ones you want. In the other hand, DS3 tends to be quite obvious or it thinks it isn't.

Hell, some are even ambiguous. It's not very sure if it talks about Aldia or Seath or Duke Tseldora. If anything, the themes are what tie it the most. Decay, Pride, Covet, Foolishness.
 

Seaking4

Learned
Joined
Sep 4, 2014
Messages
362
Well, at least it's one less kid to send hatemail in the arena.
Oh, this explains everything. You're a PvP faggot. Your kind fucking killed the franchise and invasions, and only your subhuman kind actually like Dark Souls 2. Because of you they shifted PvP focus from invasions to arenas. You're the reason they babysit people so much in DkS3 with 5 fucking phantoms and endless summons whenever an invader is present. Thankfully Bloodborne is still fun to invade in.

It's funny though that you didn't actually tackle any of my points, merely the broad statements or questions that I posed before actually explaining why you were wrong. Shows how deep in denial you are about DS2. Don't worry, I'm sure those 60€ you spent on release, and then another 60€ when the SotFS came out were perfectly justified.

They shifted PVP focus from invasions to arenas? What? You really have no idea what you are talking about. Also I love how you are bashing Dark Souls 2 because Dark Souls 3 has a worse invasion system. Good stuff.

No one tackled your points because they are stupid and because you say stupid shit like Dark Souls 2 had linear levels where you die plenty of times and your proof is the intro video. What do you want people to say in response to that?
People were pushing for PvP focused areas since Dark Souls 1 came out. From's response to this was arenas. Since people were also complaining a lot about invaders ruining their games, From figured that if people wanted to invade and do PvP, they could just do it in arenas, so they butt fucked invaders hard in Dark Souls 2, and doubled down on it in Dark Souls 3, so as to make the experience as soft as possible. It's really not hard to understand.

And that's your misrepresentation of my point, not my actual point. Try getting some reading comprehension. Unless of course, you have no actual way to counter it, in which case you just straw man it.

Ya the response to this was the belfry locations and the rat king covenant. That was the response. You're conveniently leaving that out of your argument. Those were PVP focused areas and were the direct result of distinct covenants working as intended.

"Dark Souls 2 is just a fucking mess. Its only pro is equipment variety. From a design stand point, the entire game is a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of "challenge" that Miyazaki talked about in Dark Souls 1 interviews. They mistook challenge for difficulty. Miyazaki's Souls games have you explore and use the environment to get past situations. Dark Souls 2 has you bruteforce your way through the narrow linear environment to get past situations. If you actually try to deny this, all you have to do is watch the Dark Souls 2 intro - the entire thing is "lol you'll die over and over and over again!""

Give us examples of that. That's not misrepresenting your point. Or you can give us a Hiver style strawman rant. Whatever you prefer.
Sure. Whenever I reference Dark Souls 2, I'll be talking about the SotFS. I did not play the original.

So the immediate example that comes to my head about a "Miyazaki" design is Central Yharnam in Bloodborne, the area with the mob and a beast being burned in a cross. Now the player arrives and there are tons of enemies - a lot of people probably just went charging in and died overwhelmed by all the enemies, but if you bother exploring, you'll notice that at the start of that section there is this side path that lets you pretty much avoid them all. In this case, the player gets past a challenging encounter (I say challenging to a first time player) using the environment, not actually fighting a mob of enemies. The mob is merely a distraction - it's bait.

This design is also prevalent in Dark Souls 3 - the area in Irithyll of the Boreal Valley, for example, just after Pontiff Sulyvahn. You have these giant enemies and the casters firing shit at you from up above. A distracted player probably just charges in, goes up the stairs and attracks the 2 NPC Drang Knights along with all the casters, dying. But if he actually bothers exploring, he'll notice that you can sneak up behind the casters and pretty much chain backstab them, and then deal with the NPCs in an open area, with no one else bothering you. I could give you more examples, because I know there are more, but I'd have to either replay Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne, or watch a playthrough of DkS3.

Now for Dark Souls 2 - the typical encounter: Heide's Tower of Flame. The circular area where you pull the 2nd lever that raises the platform inside the Dragonrider boss arena. Here you're pretty much forced to aggro 2 or 3 giant enemies that have tons of HP and hit very hard. There is no way to aggro one of them - I tried arrows, alluring skulls, throwing knives - their AI seems to be a network. If one of them is attacked or detects you within range, the others will come chasing. Is there a way past this encounter that isn't a) skipping it; b) fighting these annoying as fuck enemies with DkS2's shit healing system? No, there isn't. You have to bruteforce your way through the linear level design. There is no exploration involved to overcome a challenge. It's health sponges with triple your recovery time for the sake of "it's so difficult bro im very hardcore haha upvoted" gaming e-cred.

Another example: Shrine of Amana. Is there an alternative route to deal with the absolute retarded bullshit in this level? No, there isn't. You have to bruteforce your way through the linear design of the level - and even the deviations that the layout takes are solely to give you an item, but even these deviations are frustrating to navigate because the water slows you down and you can't really see if there's a fall in the water or not unless you have a torch out. The only situation where this isn't frustrating as hell is if you've dealt with every enemy in the area - which in itself is not a very fun experience. If you decide to skip past the annoying enemies, which was always a tactic you could use in DkS1, 3 and Bloodborne, the AI seems to just chase you forever and you cannot grab those items without it being a suicide mission.

Yet another: Drangleic Castle. That area right before the King's Gate that leads to Nashandra and the throne, that has all the Ruin Sentinel copies and the phalanx (?) guys. What exactly is the purpose of having this many enemies in this area? I think it'd be perfectly fine if each door unlocked a different enemy, but instead, each door unlocks the same dude, and before unlocking each door you have to fight a 1v2 or 1v3. It's tedium. There's like 6 doors. That's what, 20 enemies in a tiny room? Why? This problem is aggravated because the enemies seem to retain the speed that Dark Souls 1 enemies had, but the players speed is way too slow.

Example number 3: Iron Keep. This area is a straight line to the boss (Smelter Demon). You'd think "oh, that can't be too bad". However, the enemies here have, again, incredible aggro ranges, and it's a constant 1v2 with great archers supporting from the distance. You'd think - "oh, certainly they designed this level so that you can deal with this guys in a more comfortable fashion, right?". No, they fucking didn't. And the entire area is very narrow paths with laval on both sides, and lots of archers. It's not fun to navigate, and there isn't even any good loot in there unless you're a zweibro.

I'm not saying that Dark Souls 2 is all bad, or that Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 are all good (Dark Souls 3 has some very Tanimura moments, particularly in the first part of Ashes of Ariandel), but holy shit - Dark Souls 2's bad moments are something else. It wouldn't be so bad if it managed to reach Dark Souls 1 or 3's peaks, but it doesn't. Even the DLC areas suffer from poor pacing and some incredibly shit areas (Eleum Lloyce's entire optional path *wink* *wink*), despite Sunken King having brilliant level design and something I wish they had done more.

Now I suspect you're gonna say "you're just mad because you died lol". not at all. I don't mind dying as long as I feel the AI is fighting fairly and I'm learning. I died some 27 times to Midir. I'm not even ashamed to admit that I died 16 times to Living Failures in Bloodborne because that boss is so fucking boring that I'd just lose focus (yes I figured out about the sweet spot on the tree on my 2nd run). But with very rare exceptions, I never felt Dark Souls 2 presented me with fair encounters.

I didn't play Bloodborne so I won't touch the first part of your post.

Heide's Tower of Flame is an introductory style level that features a branching path right in the middle. There is one part where you fight one enemy and immediately after doing so you have to fight *gasps* 2 enemies at the same time. That's what you are complaining about?

After you beat the Dragonrider, the Heide Knights start patrolling the area and you can find yourself in a scenario where you fight more but that would be the fault of the player for not picking a better time to attack.

Example 3: I somehow knew you were going to use the Iron Keep as an example which is funny because it is one of the worst possible examples you could give to support your argument. It is most certainly not a straight line to the Smelter Demon like you said. That is undeniable false. Right from the entrance there is a branching path to the right with a hidden wall that allows you to sneak up on an enemy ahead of you. Afterwards, you have the option of going to the Smelter Demon or skipping him entirely (can't have a straight path to a boss if the boss is actually optional) and going through the fire chamber and using the Belfry Sol bonfire. So that's a terrible example. Even after that, there is another branching path that gives you two more ways to progress through the area before reaching the final bonfire and the Old Iron King. The Iron Keep actually does a good job of providing the player which a variety of ways for progressing through the area. As for the loot, you also get the Ring of Blades + 1 in there.

Example 2: The room following the King's Gate bonfire has all those enemies so that you can kill them and open the soul doors/activate the golems to brighten the room. In general you are fighting two common weak enemies at the same time before unlocking a door and revealing a Ruin Sentinel. The room exists for some loot and so that you can access another bonfire right in front of the third dark chasm of the abyss. Once you realize what is happening in there, it should be a fairly easy room to clear. The 'tougher' enemy in there is 1/3 of a boss that in all likelihood you fought much earlier in the game. You're example is a massive exaggeration of what happens in that room and is an example of one room in a much larger area.

Example 1: I agree that Shrine of Amana is a disappointing area in terms of level design. It has several branching paths (one right at the entrance, one with Vendrick's armor, the cave, and walkway with the chest at the end of it) but none of them change how you proceed through the area. It's all right exploration but it does leave something to be desired. That being said, people make it out to be far worse than it actually was.

I'm happy that you ended up enjoying the Midir experience after all:

Finished the DLC. 2 shit fights (Midir and Demon Prince),
 

Urbanolo

Augur
Joined
May 12, 2014
Messages
320
Can I say fuck Midir? Only boss I haven't killed in DaS3 and I have no intention of ever trying again. I'd rather fight Ludwig and the Orphan in a double tag than attempt to fight this fucker again.

Why didn't you kill him though? He telegraphed his attacks more clearly than most other bosses, doesn't have 3000 hit combos and beside the HP bloat wasn't that bad. I would say he was actually the best boss in the Ringed City DLC. Gael was much more interesting visually, but he suffered from what most other DS 3 bosses suffered - billion hit combos, and you frantically rolling away for 30 seconds before you can hit. Demon Prince was just boring.

Here's my DS 2 fanboyism talking, but really, you can design a great humanoid boss that isn't just Artorias - lite, look at Fume Knight. Most of his combos are 3 - hit chains, not counting FUGS bait, but it's still intense.

If I had to say who was the worst boss in the game (except gimmick bosses like ancient wyvern/Yhorm that are absolutely shit tier) it would be Oceiros. It was actually the most frustrating thing ever on my SL 10 +2 weapon run, because of his 0 frames start - up charge with the strangest hitbox. He's shit on a normal run, because he's braindead easy, and he's shit on low lvl/low dmg runs because he's bullshit.

Other than that DS 3 bosses were pretty good, but some questionable gameplay desing decisions, like too much estus and seemingly unlimited stamina, dragged them down a lot.
 

Arnust

Savant
Joined
Dec 22, 2016
Messages
680
Location
Spain
Can I say fuck Midir? Only boss I haven't killed in DaS3 and I have no intention of ever trying again. I'd rather fight Ludwig and the Orphan in a double tag than attempt to fight this fucker again.
Were you in NG+ and with a Hyper Armor build? Because I was. Fuck Midir harder. I find almost baffling that SOMEHOW the Ancient Dragon of DS2 is more interesting, excluding visuals of course.

Demon Prince is what makes me not spite The Ringec City completely. The zenith of the melee duo fight, added to a good second phase, and maybe most of all, SOME closure about something, for a change.
Now if it wasn't in FIRELINK SHRINE and its boss weapon wasn't trash, it'd be on my Top 5 for sure.
 

Sentinel

Arcane
Joined
Nov 18, 2015
Messages
6,632
Location
Ommadawn
Well, at least it's one less kid to send hatemail in the arena.
Oh, this explains everything. You're a PvP faggot. Your kind fucking killed the franchise and invasions, and only your subhuman kind actually like Dark Souls 2. Because of you they shifted PvP focus from invasions to arenas. You're the reason they babysit people so much in DkS3 with 5 fucking phantoms and endless summons whenever an invader is present. Thankfully Bloodborne is still fun to invade in.

It's funny though that you didn't actually tackle any of my points, merely the broad statements or questions that I posed before actually explaining why you were wrong. Shows how deep in denial you are about DS2. Don't worry, I'm sure those 60€ you spent on release, and then another 60€ when the SotFS came out were perfectly justified.

They shifted PVP focus from invasions to arenas? What? You really have no idea what you are talking about. Also I love how you are bashing Dark Souls 2 because Dark Souls 3 has a worse invasion system. Good stuff.

No one tackled your points because they are stupid and because you say stupid shit like Dark Souls 2 had linear levels where you die plenty of times and your proof is the intro video. What do you want people to say in response to that?
People were pushing for PvP focused areas since Dark Souls 1 came out. From's response to this was arenas. Since people were also complaining a lot about invaders ruining their games, From figured that if people wanted to invade and do PvP, they could just do it in arenas, so they butt fucked invaders hard in Dark Souls 2, and doubled down on it in Dark Souls 3, so as to make the experience as soft as possible. It's really not hard to understand.

And that's your misrepresentation of my point, not my actual point. Try getting some reading comprehension. Unless of course, you have no actual way to counter it, in which case you just straw man it.

Ya the response to this was the belfry locations and the rat king covenant. That was the response. You're conveniently leaving that out of your argument. Those were PVP focused areas and were the direct result of distinct covenants working as intended.

"Dark Souls 2 is just a fucking mess. Its only pro is equipment variety. From a design stand point, the entire game is a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of "challenge" that Miyazaki talked about in Dark Souls 1 interviews. They mistook challenge for difficulty. Miyazaki's Souls games have you explore and use the environment to get past situations. Dark Souls 2 has you bruteforce your way through the narrow linear environment to get past situations. If you actually try to deny this, all you have to do is watch the Dark Souls 2 intro - the entire thing is "lol you'll die over and over and over again!""

Give us examples of that. That's not misrepresenting your point. Or you can give us a Hiver style strawman rant. Whatever you prefer.
Sure. Whenever I reference Dark Souls 2, I'll be talking about the SotFS. I did not play the original.

So the immediate example that comes to my head about a "Miyazaki" design is Central Yharnam in Bloodborne, the area with the mob and a beast being burned in a cross. Now the player arrives and there are tons of enemies - a lot of people probably just went charging in and died overwhelmed by all the enemies, but if you bother exploring, you'll notice that at the start of that section there is this side path that lets you pretty much avoid them all. In this case, the player gets past a challenging encounter (I say challenging to a first time player) using the environment, not actually fighting a mob of enemies. The mob is merely a distraction - it's bait.

This design is also prevalent in Dark Souls 3 - the area in Irithyll of the Boreal Valley, for example, just after Pontiff Sulyvahn. You have these giant enemies and the casters firing shit at you from up above. A distracted player probably just charges in, goes up the stairs and attracks the 2 NPC Drang Knights along with all the casters, dying. But if he actually bothers exploring, he'll notice that you can sneak up behind the casters and pretty much chain backstab them, and then deal with the NPCs in an open area, with no one else bothering you. I could give you more examples, because I know there are more, but I'd have to either replay Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne, or watch a playthrough of DkS3.

Now for Dark Souls 2 - the typical encounter: Heide's Tower of Flame. The circular area where you pull the 2nd lever that raises the platform inside the Dragonrider boss arena. Here you're pretty much forced to aggro 2 or 3 giant enemies that have tons of HP and hit very hard. There is no way to aggro one of them - I tried arrows, alluring skulls, throwing knives - their AI seems to be a network. If one of them is attacked or detects you within range, the others will come chasing. Is there a way past this encounter that isn't a) skipping it; b) fighting these annoying as fuck enemies with DkS2's shit healing system? No, there isn't. You have to bruteforce your way through the linear level design. There is no exploration involved to overcome a challenge. It's health sponges with triple your recovery time for the sake of "it's so difficult bro im very hardcore haha upvoted" gaming e-cred.

Another example: Shrine of Amana. Is there an alternative route to deal with the absolute retarded bullshit in this level? No, there isn't. You have to bruteforce your way through the linear design of the level - and even the deviations that the layout takes are solely to give you an item, but even these deviations are frustrating to navigate because the water slows you down and you can't really see if there's a fall in the water or not unless you have a torch out. The only situation where this isn't frustrating as hell is if you've dealt with every enemy in the area - which in itself is not a very fun experience. If you decide to skip past the annoying enemies, which was always a tactic you could use in DkS1, 3 and Bloodborne, the AI seems to just chase you forever and you cannot grab those items without it being a suicide mission.

Yet another: Drangleic Castle. That area right before the King's Gate that leads to Nashandra and the throne, that has all the Ruin Sentinel copies and the phalanx (?) guys. What exactly is the purpose of having this many enemies in this area? I think it'd be perfectly fine if each door unlocked a different enemy, but instead, each door unlocks the same dude, and before unlocking each door you have to fight a 1v2 or 1v3. It's tedium. There's like 6 doors. That's what, 20 enemies in a tiny room? Why? This problem is aggravated because the enemies seem to retain the speed that Dark Souls 1 enemies had, but the players speed is way too slow.

Example number 3: Iron Keep. This area is a straight line to the boss (Smelter Demon). You'd think "oh, that can't be too bad". However, the enemies here have, again, incredible aggro ranges, and it's a constant 1v2 with great archers supporting from the distance. You'd think - "oh, certainly they designed this level so that you can deal with this guys in a more comfortable fashion, right?". No, they fucking didn't. And the entire area is very narrow paths with lava on both sides, and lots of archers. It's not fun to navigate, and there isn't even any good loot in there unless you're a zweibro.

I'm not saying that Dark Souls 2 is all bad, or that Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 are all good (Dark Souls 3 has some very Tanimura moments, particularly in the first part of Ashes of Ariandel), but holy shit - Dark Souls 2's bad moments are something else. It wouldn't be so bad if it managed to reach Dark Souls 1 or 3's peaks, but it doesn't. Even the DLC areas suffer from poor pacing and some incredibly shit areas (Eleum Lloyce's entire optional path *wink* *wink*), despite Sunken King having brilliant level design and something I wish they had done more.

Now I suspect you're gonna say "you're just mad because you died lol". not at all. I don't mind dying as long as I feel the AI is fighting fairly and I'm learning. I died some 27 times to Midir. I'm not even ashamed to admit that I died 16 times to Living Failures in Bloodborne because that boss is so fucking boring that I'd just lose focus (yes I figured out about the sweet spot on the tree on my 2nd run). But with very rare exceptions, I never felt Dark Souls 2 presented me with fair encounters.

I didn't play Bloodborne so I won't touch the first part of your post.

Heide's Tower of Flame is an introductory style level that features a branching path right in the middle. There is one part where you fight one enemy and immediately after doing so you have to fight *gasps* 2 enemies at the same time. That's what you are complaining about?

After you beat the Dragonrider, the Heide Knights start patrolling the area and you can find yourself in a scenario where you fight more but that would be the fault of the player for not picking a better time to attack.

Example 3: I somehow knew you were going to use the Iron Keep as an example which is funny because it is one of the worst possible examples you could give to support your argument. It is most certainly not a straight line to the Smelter Demon like you said. That is undeniable false. Right from the entrance there is a branching path to the right with a hidden wall that allows you to sneak up on an enemy ahead of you. Afterwards, you have the option of going to the Smelter Demon or skipping him entirely (can't have a straight path to a boss if the boss is actually optional) and going through the fire chamber and using the Belfry Sol bonfire. So that's a terrible example. Even after that, there is another branching path that gives you two more ways to progress through the area before reaching the final bonfire and the Old Iron King. The Iron Keep actually does a good job of providing the player which a variety of ways for progressing through the area. As for the loot, you also get the Ring of Blades + 1 in there.

Example 2: The room following the King's Gate bonfire has all those enemies so that you can kill them and open the soul doors/activate the golems to brighten the room. In general you are fighting two common weak enemies at the same time before unlocking a door and revealing a Ruin Sentinel. The room exists for some loot and so that you can access another bonfire right in front of the third dark chasm of the abyss. Once you realize what is happening in there, it should be a fairly easy room to clear. The 'tougher' enemy in there is 1/3 of a boss that in all likelihood you fought much earlier in the game. You're example is a massive exaggeration of what happens in that room and is an example of one room in a much larger area.

Example 1: I agree that Shrine of Amana is a disappointing area in terms of level design. It has several branching paths (one right at the entrance, one with Vendrick's armor, the cave, and walkway with the chest at the end of it) but none of them change how you proceed through the area. It's all right exploration but it does leave something to be desired. That being said, people make it out to be far worse than it actually was.

I'm happy that you ended up enjoying the Midir experience after all:

Finished the DLC. 2 shit fights (Midir and Demon Prince),
I see there I wasted my time on that post. Thanks for completely misquoting me however, got a laugh out of it. Especially because I didn't even mention Demon Prince once. Goes to show how much of it you read (or misunderstood).
Just as a note, Demon Prince is indeed fucking shit and the worst fight of the entire DLC. Sadly for you, that doesn't make Dark Souls 2 any better. Demon Prince might be shit, but at least he's still somewhat relevant to the story of Lorian.

EDIT: Actually, fuck it. I'm going to reply one last time, but I am pretty sure your ability to read might halt your full understanding of what I'm about to say, or maybe it will be your constant misquotations and over simplification of my points. But I'll try once more. It's the last time, I promise.

Heide's Tower of Flame is an introductory style level that features a branching path right in the middle. There is one part where you fight one enemy and immediately after doing so you have to fight *gasps* 2 enemies at the same time. That's what you are complaining about?
No, that's not what I'm complaining about. Here's what I said: Here you're pretty much forced to aggro 2 or 3 giant enemies that have tons of HP and hit very hard. There is no way to aggro one of them - I tried arrows, alluring skulls, throwing knives - their AI seems to be a network. If one of them is attacked or detects you within range, the others will come chasing. Is there a way past this encounter that isn't a) skipping it; b) fighting these annoying as fuck enemies with DkS2's shit healing system? No, there isn't. You have to bruteforce your way through the linear level design. There is no exploration involved to overcome a challenge. It's health sponges with triple your recovery time for the sake of "it's so difficult bro im very hardcore haha upvoted" gaming e-cred.
If all you get from that is "you're mad because you have to fight 2 enemies? lol git gud" I'm sorry I can't help you further.

To your second paragraph:
Example 3: I somehow knew you were going to use the Iron Keep as an example which is funny because it is one of the worst possible examples you could give to support your argument. It is most certainly not a straight line to the Smelter Demon like you said. That is undeniable false. Right from the entrance there is a branching path to the right with a hidden wall that allows you to sneak up on an enemy ahead of you. Afterwards, you have the option of going to the Smelter Demon or skipping him entirely (can't have a straight path to a boss if the boss is actually optional) and going through the fire chamber and using the Belfry Sol bonfire. So that's a terrible example. Even after that, there is another branching path that gives you two more ways to progress through the area before reaching the final bonfire and the Old Iron King. The Iron Keep actually does a good job of providing the player which a variety of ways for progressing through the area. As for the loot, you also get the Ring of Blades + 1 in there.
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I'm sorry, my bad. You're right, it's not a straight line to the smelter demon, you have to turn right once. Being optional content doesn't excuse it being shit. I'm sorry but that excuse doesn't fly.
A lot of my post was also about enemy placement, which you conveniently ignored.

As for your paragraph about the King's Gate room, I'm not sure what to say. It was extremely annoying for me, I looked up videos just today - first guy I open says this "this is pretty much the most annoying area in the entire game". Watching ENB's playthrough, he also wasn't very satisfied with it. Maybe it was just me that thought it was shit though.

Feel free to misquote me some more, I'm not gonna bother reading the reply.
 
Last edited:

Seaking4

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I see there I wasted my time on that post. Thanks for completely misquoting me however, got a laugh out of it. Especially because I didn't even mention Demon Prince once. Goes to show how much of it you read (or misunderstood).
Just as a note, Demon Prince is indeed fucking shit and the worst fight of the entire DLC. Sadly for you, that doesn't make Dark Souls 2 any better. Demon Prince might be shit, but at least he's still somewhat relevant to the story of Lorian.

Wow. I'm impressed by how stupid you actually are. I included that last thing as a joke* but I guess you are just going to ignore every other part of my post. I mean I get it. You were talking out of your ass so you have to do your best to deflect but this was a pretty piss poor attempt.

How much I read? I literally went point by point with you and I addressed the specific points I felt were relevant to the discussion we were having. Clearly the person who didn't read the post was you.

*I kept the part about Demon Prince because I didn't want to have to quote you directly but I guess that was too difficult for you to understand*
 

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