From Software Dark Souls II poll

[Jaedar]

I don't understand those who sequence break in Dark Souls. I can't speak for others, but for me the boss fights are the main attraction. Why on earth would I wish to skip any of them?

It's not necessarily about skipping them, but about taking them on in a different order.

Doing pinwheel as the first boss in the game, and 4 kings before going to Anor Londo leads to a very different experience than doing them in the "intended" order.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

Sequence breaking in Das 1:

Tutorial- asylum demon (unskippable)

Sequence breaking in Das2:
Tutorial- fight last giant/persuer/ornatein/dragon rider/royal ratvanguard/rotten/ najayka/dragon riders in drangleic castle/ ava kings pet as your first boss

 

[dr. one]

So when it comes to actually exploring the world, there's a huge difference between the guy who got to Quelag through the depths and blight town, and the guy who got there through the darkroot basin past havel, or better yet through new londo. A major difference in what you'll have already fought against, what spells and equipment you'll have access to, etc.

But this example is kinda all there is - Undead Burg/Parish and the available routes connecting it to Blighttown is pretty much the whole of DS1´s interconnectedness, at least from the perspective of how it affects routing (visual connections don´t). There´s also the Lost Izalith shortcut and that´s it.
I don´t think areas like Sen´s + Anor Londo (including Ariamis and Duke´s), Oolacile or Great Hollow + Ash Lake are much, if at all, different from Catacombs - Tomb since all of these also feature single access points. I mean, I´m not sure if the fact you can get to Anor Londo without setting foot in Depths is something that sets it apart from, say, Shaded Woods, which you can reach without setting foot in, say, Forest of the Giants.

Personally if I had to describe why I consider DS2´s world layout (how areas are aligned with each other) less impressive than in the predecessor, it would boil down to three points:
a) lack of equivalent to DS1´s central loop (Burg/Parish, Depths, Darkroot, New Londo, Blighttown) - I don´t think the loop itself is necessarily a must have requirement for world layout to be on par with DS1, it´s just that I don´t think DS2 features anything comparably cool
b) linear post-Shrine of Winter area sequencing
c) skyboxes usually improperly, or not at all, reflecting adjacent areas

When it comes to the amount of routing possibilities though, taking the presence of DLC trilogy into account, I consider the game ripe with more than DS1, at least when it comes to content available pre-Shrine.
The paths to Great Souls may come with mostly linear area sequencing, but they all can be unlocked really early and bonfire warping is available from the start which opens the pre-Shrine parts to all kinds of progression antics and the first two DLCs also provide an element which was quite missing in comparison with DS1 - a possibility to delve into areas not required to open the game´s big progression gate (1M SM bypass aside), á la Catacombs or Great Hollow, except without dead ends. All three DLCs can also potentially notably mix up the otherwise mostly linear post-Shrine progression, or can even be fully left to post-endgame, opening possibilities to take advantage of late game vanilla items without going to NG+.
On top of that, the game has more areas to begin with so for most of the time there´s just more stuff to pick from.
At the very least, personally I can say that decisions of which area to tackle next come up way more often when I´m playing DS2.

I don't understand those who sequence break in Dark Souls. I can't speak for others, but for me the boss fights are the main attraction. Why on earth would I wish to skip any of them?

It's not necessarily about skipping them, but about taking them on in a different order.

Which I´d say is something DS2 is just as, if not more, open about.

 

[Jaedar]

I don't understand those who sequence break in Dark Souls. I can't speak for others, but for me the boss fights are the main attraction. Why on earth would I wish to skip any of them?

It's not necessarily about skipping them, but about taking them on in a different order.

Which I´d say is something DS2 is just as, if not more, open about.

While it is probably true there are more orders you can take on the bosses in in DS2, it is not the same.

To make a poor example: Oblivion has more dungeons than morrowwind, so therefore it is more open!

Dark souls 1 lets you fight four kings pretty much out the gate. You will lose, but you can try. The sequel doesn't really have anything like that, because all the hard bosses require beating several bosses beforehand, so you'll always be at some minimum power level(unless you willingly throw away the souls). It is of course nowhere as bad at oblivions level scaling, but it is a very deliberate design to keep players from going places they're not supposed to be able to beat yet.

 

[pakoito]

Dark souls 1 lets you fight four kings pretty much out the gate.

You need the Covenant of Arthorias, so you need to kill Silf, so you need access to Darkwater Basin. And I can't remember if the entrance to 4k wasn't locked behind another event in Old (New?) Londo. It's not as straightforward as you make it sound.

You can kill the necropyromancer and access the Tomb of Giants at low level. I would know, I spent 30 hours there after just killing the Gargoyles -.-

With the key you can also access the Spider Queen and one of the late game covenants.

 

[Jaedar]

Dark souls 1 lets you fight four kings pretty much out the gate.

You need the Covenant of Arthorias, so you need to kill Silf, so you need access to Darkwater Basin. And I can't remember if the entrance to 4k wasn't locked behind another event in Old (New?) Londo. It's not as straightforward as you make it sound.

Yes, you need to kill Sif(hence the "pretty much"). Darkwater basin access is no problem since you have to go through new londo anyway, don't even need the master key. To unflood new londo, you only need to kill the npc with the key.

It is straight forward, but also almost impossible for a new character. That's the point.

 

[dr. one]

Dark souls 1 lets you fight four kings pretty much out the gate. You will lose, but you can try.

I´d agree on Four Kings being something DS2 doesn´t really have a true equivalent of, but it´s also the only such example I can think of. The encounter is rather specific in that it´s strongly designed as DPS race where lack of good or upgraded equipment makes a huge difference (a questionable design imo, at least in how it was implemented, but that´s another topic) and it also happens to be an encounter leading to a covenant which may make it desirable to tackle it early.
Besides this sole case I don´t see any other encounters where I wouldn´t say it´s at least arguable whether DS2 offers something similar or not.

Hence,

The sequel doesn't really have anything like that, because all the hard bosses require beating several bosses beforehand, so you'll always be at some minimum power level(unless you willingly throw away the souls).

I think you´re selling DS2 a bit short here.

First, how hard a boss turns out is fairly strongly affected by character build used and specific player´s skillset, so while both games may feature few examples where most people would probably easily agree on being difficult (O&S, Fume Knight) or easy (Pinwheel, Covetous Demon), I´d say that majority falls into a middle within which difficulty ranking would be nebulous, partially also because experience with DS1 might skew the perceived difficulty of some encounters in DS2 when trying to do comparisons.
Keeping the above in mind, in DS2 you can, for example, kill Dragonrider (which I´d say is, along with Last Giant, a close equivalent to DS1´s Taurus Demon or even Asylum Demon), use the acquired souls for cat ring and beeline either for Elana or Freja while having to fight only 1 or 2, respectively, other bosses on the way to them. Killing Dragonrider also opens the path to Copse, so if you feel like, you can fight Executioner´s Chariot as your second boss in the game, or Fume Knight as your sixth (which is not very different from fighting O&S or Artorias as early as possible).
Even when looking at more natural path through the early game I´d say both Pursuer and especially Ruin Sentinels are quite notable jumps in difficulty when tackled right after Last Giant without going anywhere else.
Bonfire ascetics and Covenant of Champions are also relevant factors.

Four Kings aside, I don´t think the two games are really all that different in this regard.

Where I think DS2´s early game differs more, in the "level scaling" context, is the lack of minibosses present outside of boss arenas. Both games are pretty much the same in this regard in their middle and late portions, but I really dug how ripe Undead Burg/Parish was with optional non-boss challenges (black knights, Havel, titanite demon, hydra, even though I consider the latter two crap fights) one might want to return to much later. DS2´s ogres and heide knights don´t quite cut it. Maybe the SotFS will change this, considering the added dragon to Heide´s or DLC-like invader in FoFG using soul greatsword and shit, but that´s yet to be proven since there may be other factors that balance it out somehow.

 

[LivingOne]

Voted slightly worse. Because of the problems with world design/atmosphere/art(seriously it was full of ups and downs. Mirror knight was cool but smelter was close to mmo trash)and while it did improve the combat system I wasn't fully satisfied with the encounters. It's not because it relies on groups of enemies(like many say) but rather because said groups too often required just pulling back to pull them one by one. The dlcs were much better at this(as well as with the other three issues)and I found them as enjoyable as the best content in Das1 and better than everything Des had(except the challange routes but whatevs).

btw

http://peterbarnard1984.tumblr.com/post/113163062955/dark-souls-2-design-works-translation

A pretty intresting interview. I recommend reading it(more than once, he hasn't finished translating it yet).

Some tidbits:

Tanimura: Yes, this game actually went through quite a troubled development process. Due to a number of factors we were actually forced to re-think the entire game midway into development.[...]It was at that point that I took on my current role, [...]This meant everything from deciding new roles for characters to finding ways to slot locations into the world map. This unusual development cycle faced us with an entirely different set of problems and looking back on the project as a whole it was at times, arduous. Although I’m confident that none of this will be felt by the players and I’m completely satisfied with the final product.

There were the partially completed designs which needed to be modified to fit into the reworked game and the new designs created after the revision.[...]It is worth noting however that this doesn’t apply to the dlc as it was created completely from scratch and we didn’t begin work on it until we had completed the entirety of the main game.

Even without taking into account what people found in the game files it was pretty obvious (copse and fotfg were obviously connected ,doors of pharros likely belonged to the pit's areas, etc.) but it's nice to have a confirmation.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

Thats one fucking great interview. He also confirms that dlc were not cut from the game but made from the scratch. Fucking wow. To create such a good content in around 6 fucking months is insane. Beta team my ass. If only DS 2 did not have such a troubled development process

 

[Talby]

I wonder what they've got the B team working on now, then? Other than the updated version of DkS2.

 

[Akratus]

All of you who say: "It's more of the same." should be shot.

 

[DragoFireheart]

All of you who say: "It's more of the same." should be shot.

come at me bro

 

[Akratus]

bang

 

[DragoFireheart]

I'm still here bring it on bro

 

[Rolk's Drifter]

LivingOne That's a really interesting article, thank you. Da2 definitely felt rushed/incomplete to me. Still enjoy it though and it's leagues above all the crap that passes for games these days.

The sequence breaking discussion is interesting to me because it's something I really love but I'm not sure why. The best I can come up with is that when it comes to overcoming challenges, there are two approaches. Either you overcome the problem or you can go around the problem. Kind of like an army can either become better fighters than it's opponent or it could invent better weapons/armour. That's probably a bullshit example but either way I think sequence breaking is like a test or an opportunity for people to 'go around' a problem. Which might sound dumb given we are talking about games where the focus should be on overcoming challenges but I still really enjoy it. There's something deeply satisfying about doing something in a way nobody else has done. Maybe it has something to do with being a 'better explorer' than other people, I dunno.

 

[praetor]

PvE: DLCs are best Souls, vanilla game is worst Souls (i can wipe my ass with better mechanics if everything else, i.e. the context in which those mechanics are used, is worse). PvP: best

 

[Perkel]

Actually you can see well that DS2 was patched up from different parts.

This is especially visible because ton of locations either completely don't have any fucking sense (iron keep being literally on top of winmill which is already high building)

There are other places like when you end shaded woods with naaja fight. When you get past those two towers it is essentially pertrussion in dirt which looks like something from PS2 era which points that this was probably done because there was something else there, same with past winter shrine road tunnel.


Imo i prefer DeS1 design of whole differerent worlds because it doesn't need to pull cat out of nothing to achieve different style of level. Also bonfire galore in both DS1 and especially in DS2 completely disregarded any achievement you make.

In DeS1 bonfires where things you teleport to to start a level and from that point you had to beat whole "level" or you didn't make any progress. Shortcuts you unlocked actually helped you in this so they were something more than shortcut to different part of world from DS1 (which still was imo good).

In DS1 you had bonfires from which you could literally in minute or two start again boss fight and in DS2 you have literally bonfires before boss battles or way to them so easy that you can just skip bonfires.

Warping alone made huge difference how game is played. In DeS1 since you had to beat level to progress you had to clench your balls and move on and you knew that there was no additional bonfires ahead so you sometimes had to choose explore more or go to boss. Because one misstep and you had to start level from beggining.
DS1 made it more shitty but because there was no warping mechanic from get go some locations like Depths or blightown were tense precisely because you couldn't just warp away from those places to restock or upgrade your gear you had to more or less beat it in one go.
DS2 bonfires and warping is just plain retarded. Every location have like 2-3 bonfires almost next to each other.
Lower earthen peak is a joke where next bonfire literally is just after one poison pool and one switch and way to that windmill is literally 3 different locations which all take less that few minutes to beat (poison area, pots and 3 hammerers) then joke boss and voila next bonfire.

There is ton other shit design that was dumbed down.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

There is ton other shit design that was dumbed down.

Could you elaborate?

I hate with passion DeS bonfire system. Fuck beating 4-2 every time you died on your way to Old Hero.

 

[Perkel]

There is ton other shit design that was dumbed down.

Could you elaborate?

I hate with passion DeS bonfire system. Fuck beating 4-2 every time you died on your way to Old Hero.

For one in DS2 they removed completely other types of stones. So now you only have shards large chunks and slabs of titanite. In earlier games if you wanted to have different than normal weapon you had to find a way to farm those things. In DS2 what is even mory shitty is that you can buy unlimited amout of shards chunks large and Slabs which were very very rare now are dropped by mobs. With some farming you can now get your whole arsenal to +10 in no time. So exploration was critical for your gear.

Rings of life protection. Do i need to say anything else ? For mare 3k souls you essentially play game where you don't need to fear death and you don't need to recover anything. This is especially hurting late game where 3k is nothing and you have like 2-3 of those rings.

Difficulty. It is clear that DS2 is easier game than both DS1 and especially DeS. And i am not talking here from veteran player case of point. In both of those games there are clear places where they devide men from children in therm of skill. In DS2 hard bosses are mostly at very end game but even then they don't give you even half of what for example S&O delivered.
Take for example gargoyle fight in DS1 and DS2. In DS2 you are fighting even 3-4 of them at the same time and they are joke in DS1 without sunbro they aren't that easy at that point of game. Now compare DS2 to maneater fight and this is whole other level where you don't have space to fight and still you need to fight two of them at the same time.
Looking Glass knight was complete joke. At that point in game when dude comes out from his shield i could kill him before he even starts to swing anything in his hand.

Level design i already mentioned. You are exploring safe places where you can see clearly where is enemy and you have ton of space to play games.

Chasing. In both DS1 and DS2 they limited severly how much enemies can chase you. In both of those games this essentially created shit design where for example both ruin sentinels and stone soldiers in castle after whoping few metters from their possition they are going back. And it is not technical deficulty due to lol consoles as archdukes in shrines of amana heppily will chase you a lot if you try to snipethem from afar.
New version of game which will come in april will fix this and enemies will chase you forever which will be improvement from even DeS

 

[DragoFireheart]

For one in DS2 they removed completely other types of stones. So now you only have shards large chunks and slabs of titanite. In earlier games if you wanted to have different than normal weapon you had to find a way to farm those things. In DS2 what is even mory shitty is that you can buy unlimited amout of shards chunks large and Slabs which were very very rare now are dropped by mobs. With some farming you can now get your whole arsenal to +10 in no time. So exploration was critical for your gear.

You generally could not make weapons +10 until near the end of the game or if you Bellbro a lot. Also, being able to buy upgrade materials is better than killing Darkwraiths/Black Knights for hours on end for chunks/slabs. Finally, the stones for infusing were rare enough for some types (try to make a magic weapon pre-Drangleic castle, good luck finding a Faintstone) that the change was a worth while one.

Rings of life protection. Do i need to say anything else ? For mare 3k souls you essentially play game where you don't need to fear death and you don't need to recover anything. This is especially hurting late game where 3k is nothing and you have like 2-3 of those rings.

Dark Souls 1 also had those rings, though there was no point since you could farm endlessly to get the souls back.

Difficulty. It is clear that DS2 is easier game than both DS1 and especially DeS. And i am not talking here from veteran player case of point. In both of those games there are clear places where they devide men from children in therm of skill. In DS2 hard bosses are mostly at very end game but even then they don't give you even half of what for example S&O delivered.
Take for example gargoyle fight in DS1 and DS2. In DS2 you are fighting even 3-4 of them at the same time and they are joke in DS1 without sunbro they aren't that easy at that point of game. Now compare DS2 to maneater fight and this is whole other level where you don't have space to fight and still you need to fight two of them at the same time.
Looking Glass knight was complete joke. At that point in game when dude comes out from his shield i could kill him before he even starts to swing anything in his hand.

If you want to talk about joke boss fights then I think you meant DeS, not Dark Souls 2.



Humor aside, only Flamelurker and Maneaters were hard in Demon's Souls. Everything else was a joke.

Level design i already mentioned. You are exploring safe places where you can see clearly where is enemy and you have ton of space to play games.

Dark Souls 2 had the weakest level design, I agree.

Chasing. In both DS1 and DS2 they limited severly how much enemies can chase you. In both of those games this essentially created shit design where for example both ruin sentinels and stone soldiers in castle after whoping few metters from their possition they are going back. And it is not technical deficulty due to lol consoles as archdukes in shrines of amana heppily will chase you a lot if you try to snipethem from afar.
New version of game which will come in april will fix this and enemies will chase you forever which will be improvement from even DeS

What's the point of this? All of them limit chasing.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

There is ton other shit design that was dumbed down.

Could you elaborate?

I hate with passion DeS bonfire system. Fuck beating 4-2 every time you died on your way to Old Hero.

For one in DS2 they removed completely other types of stones. So now you only have shards large chunks and slabs of titanite. In earlier games if you wanted to have different than normal weapon you had to find a way to farm those things. In DS2 what is even mory shitty is that you can buy unlimited amout of shards chunks large and Slabs which were very very rare now are dropped by mobs. With some farming you can now get your whole arsenal to +10 in no time. So exploration was critical for your gear.

Rings of life protection. Do i need to say anything else ? For mare 3k souls you essentially play game where you don't need to fear death and you don't need to recover anything. This is especially hurting late game where 3k is nothing and you have like 2-3 of those rings.

Difficulty. It is clear that DS2 is easier game than both DS1 and especially DeS. And i am not talking here from veteran player case of point. In both of those games there are clear places where they devide men from children in therm of skill. In DS2 hard bosses are mostly at very end game but even then they don't give you even half of what for example S&O delivered.
Take for example gargoyle fight in DS1 and DS2. In DS2 you are fighting even 3-4 of them at the same time and they are joke in DS1 without sunbro they aren't that easy at that point of game. Now compare DS2 to maneater fight and this is whole other level where you don't have space to fight and still you need to fight two of them at the same time.
Looking Glass knight was complete joke. At that point in game when dude comes out from his shield i could kill him before he even starts to swing anything in his hand.

Level design i already mentioned. You are exploring safe places where you can see clearly where is enemy and you have ton of space to play games.

Chasing. In both DS1 and DS2 they limited severly how much enemies can chase you. In both of those games this essentially created shit design where for example both ruin sentinels and stone soldiers in castle after whoping few metters from their possition they are going back. And it is not technical deficulty due to lol consoles as archdukes in shrines of amana heppily will chase you a lot if you try to snipethem from afar.
New version of game which will come in april will fix this and enemies will chase you forever which will be improvement from even DeS

1. Exploration was critical in DeS? Lol you farmed darkmoonstone in 4-1,4-2, dragonstone in 2-1,2-2 etc. and honestly fuck farming pure bladestone, fuck it hard with bunch of big black cocks.
Also colorless demons soul. That shit was fucking retarded

2. Agreed. Scrub ring for scrubs

3. Difficulty in DeS comes from cheap shit like skeletons with katanas one shotting you in Souls form or grouping those big trolls in 5-1/5-2 on small islands. DeS is such a cheap piece of shit its not even fun. Lets put black phantoms in tight coridors on your way to fight old monk. Have fun sniping them every time.
Overall Bosses were joke and black phantoms were cheating as much as maldron in DaS2 dlcs.
The only difficulty with maneaters was to kill them before they get stuck under the bridge and drake sword in DaS1 makes gargoyle fight trivial.

4. DaS2 level design was disapointing but areas from dlcs are easily the best shit you can find in Souls games.

5. Ruins sentinels in castle drangleic could easily get stuck in tight corridors and since their main weapon are huge swings with their golf sticks it could be easily abused to lure them on staircase etc. For example enemies chasing you in DeS lead to easily abused exploits in 1-1 where you can force Old King Doran to drop from ledges to his death. Same thing with red eye knights.

 

[Perkel]

You generally could not make weapons +10 until near the end of the game or if you Bellbro a lot. Also, being able to buy upgrade materials is better than killing Darkwraiths/Black Knights for hours on end for chunks/slabs. Finally, the stones for infusing were rare enough for some types (try to make a magic weapon pre-Drangleic castle, good luck finding a Faintstone) that the change was a worth while one.
Dark Souls 1 also had those rings, though there was no point since you could farm endlessly to get the souls back.
If you want to talk about joke boss fights then I think you meant DeS, not Dark Souls 2.
Humor aside, only Flamelurker and Maneaters were hard in Demon's Souls. Everything else was a joke.
Dark Souls 2 had the weakest level design, I agree.
What's the point of this? All of them limit chasing.

You see buying everything at one point is imo good way to make game longer as OCD is some players will surely get them.

Problem is when you have it in NG instead of NG+. DS2 literally looks like this for most of people: Kill dragon rider get to huntsman corpse kill skeleton lords, kill covetus, kill that snake bitch kill old king. then pursuer and voila
you have now ability to buy infinite large titanite chunks and shards and farming door of pharos for chunks is easy as hell
for every weapon.

DS1 also wasn't that much different but you get to buy large ones late sens fortress for whole 7500 where cheaper was at anor londo which is like 60-70% of the game.

In other words you specialized in some weapons for most of game where in DS2 case you basically can stop exploring after old king and start farming souls and chunks. Well done you have weapons for NG+ where you got past like 20% of the game.

This is also why several differnt stones in DeS and DS were so important. Because even if you had those large ones you still had to find for infusions.

Those rings in DS1 were completely useless as you could find like handful of them and if i remember right you could buy them much much later into game where at that point souls are not really that hard to get nor humanity.

All of them limit chasing but DS2 is straight up radicolous sometimes where in same freaking room enemies won't chase you. At least designer saw that problem and now they will chase you forever along with trying to kill you when you fight boss.

3. Difficulty in DeS comes from cheap shit like skeletons with katanas one shotting you in Souls form or grouping those big trolls in 5-1/5-2 on small islands. DeS is such a cheap piece of shit its not even fun. Lets put black phantoms in tight coridors on your way to fight old monk. Have fun sniping them every time.
Overall Bosses were joke and black phantoms were cheating as much as maldron in DaS2 dlcs.

Imo difference in design and def came from level design not enemy design. Most of the time you fight in DeS not just with enemy but with terrain. This is especially visible in Storms area where you fight skeletons on clifs.

As of boss design yeah those two are legit hard but don't forget WTF bosses which which DeS included in game like monk where you had to basically PvP with living player or that "immortal" chick that could only be killed when you took care of her master above.

I still remember cursing and wishing everyone death as i constantly had to fight with overpowered (for me back then) players (monk fight). For replayability both are shit now as you know the answer for chick and there are like few players trying to kill you in monk fight.

DS1 also had few good bosses but DS2 falls simply flat on that front and they are all basically lock on and go left/right hitting occasionally untile they are dead.

 

[DragoFireheart]

and farming door of pharos for chunks is easy as hell

What

 

[nomask7]

New version of game which will come in april will fix this and enemies will chase you forever which will be improvement from even DeS

Do you have a link to this info? I was waiting for this new version with some amount of excitement but enemies that chase you forever belong in crap like Oblivion, not the Souls games.

edit: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/scholar-of-the-first-sin-makes-dark-souls-2-harder/1100-6425107/

Here it's said that zombies or some zombies chase you down "basically forever", but the passage seems kind of ambiguous. I wouldn't assume based on it that all monsters chase you forever. At least I hope that's not the case.

 

[Perkel]

I hope it is the case. It would lead finally to stopping cheasing tactics. Also not only enemies chase you "forever" but also they move and patrol like that one hollow soldier in whole game (wrf)
DeS1 was so much better compared to DS1and2. In DeS1 they had range but that range was much longer than in DS1/2

It also changes meta gameplay.