From Software Bloodborne. Discuss or die!

[DragoFireheart]

The way I see it, it's like this.

THE SCALE OF SHITTY GAMES

Left = better quality, right = worse quality.

EDIT: Needed to adjust it a bit.

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen - Chrono Trigger - Fallout 1 ------ Dark Souls 1 - Demon's Souls -(Predicting Bloodborne will be here)- Dark Souls 2 ------Fallout: New Vegas--------Deus Ex: Human Revolution---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Arcanum--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Skyrim---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Oblivion------------------------------------Fallout 3--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Dragon Age 2---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Dragon Age: Inqusition

 

[Machocruz]

Weird scale. I'm sure the placement of Jap games before Fallout 1 is going to cause butthurt, even though in terms of technical quality it's not that controversial. Dark Arisen is more polished than everything except CT, and is more advanced than that game.

I think if it were not for the backlash against Capcom in general, Dark Arisen would enjoy the same acclaim as Dark Souls.

 

[Phage]

Someone on the last page asked why anyone would be hype for the game. Well, basically, Dark Souls 1 is, in this point in time, my favorite game. I still have a big backlog of classics to play, so that could change of course. I played it very early 2012 on console and was blown away by the atmosphere, challenge, world design, enemy design, etc. While a lot of people flung some very sharp insults at DS2, I still thought it was a fine game, just not as good as the original in any meaningful regard. I played Demon's Souls for the first time last September, and was thoroughly impressed by it. While it didn't capture the spark for that Dark Souls did, I still thought it was sublime title for the most part. I have a strong feeling that whichever Souls game a person plays first is the one they will connect with.

Anyway, that aside, there is a lot of evidence to support that Bloodborne is going to be of similar quality to DeS and DaS. I think the Edge magazine 'review' was what put me over the top - while anyone can write a hype piece, there were specific things they mentioned that piqued my interest. Namely:

- "if you are one of the players who thought dark souls 2 was too easy, you are to blame for bloodborne being so difficult" "Bloodborne is miyazaki's brutal riposte to the fanbase who thinks they have seen it all"
- They were 40 hours in with "no end in sight"
- Quality of transforming weapons with depth over huge quantity of shit weapons
- Interconnected world that also utilizes a separate dream hub

There's also a lot of cool random stuff they mentioned, like how there's now a stat that scales bullets and usable projectiles. You can pump that to keep your items relevant throughout the game if you wish


Of course, codex babbies jump to crazy conclusions. The gun staggers aren't going to trivialize the game - if anything, they appear to work like parries did. We've seen that if you just randomly fire your gun, it only does a small amount of damage - you need to time it to get the stagger. We do in fact know the weapon/armor/character system, a cursory look for this information would provide anything you would reasonably want from a game that's 2 weeks away from launch.


Anyway, turns out that random shithole countries like Dubai released the game super early from their warehouses, and of course, some of their stores have no shame and are already selling it. While they won't have any online features, we now have to deal with being extra cautious of actual spoilers.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Phage I'm still going to wait a week or two to see how well this game does. More so since I would have to buy a PS4 and if the game does not do well it would be foolish to spend all the money for a crap game.

 

[Phage]

Phage I'm still going to wait a week or two to see how well this game does. More so since I would have to buy a PS4 and if the game does not do well it would be foolish to spend all the money for a crap game.

You can watch the phage stream on release!

Actually I have a feeling that everyone who really cares about the game won't want to see it at launch

 

[Phage]

DragoFireheart I would like to clarify that I'm not advocating that everyone blindly run out and buy a PS4/bloodborne before launch. I'm well aware that I took a risk. I've noticed that my DS2 experience was elevated quite a bit by playing it at its immediate launch - nobody knows wtf they're doing and there's a shitton of awesome online activity at that point, so I'm presuming bloodborne will be similar in that regard.

My post was mostly just explaining why I'm excited for the game, and why I don't really understand the extreme naysayers.

 

[Makabb]

If there is a game that is worth it's Bloodborne.

 

[DragoFireheart]

DragoFireheart I would like to clarify that I'm not advocating that everyone blindly run out and buy a PS4/bloodborne before launch. I'm well aware that I took a risk. I've noticed that my DS2 experience was elevated quite a bit by playing it at its immediate launch - nobody knows wtf they're doing and there's a shitton of awesome online activity at that point, so I'm presuming bloodborne will be similar in that regard.

My post was mostly just explaining why I'm excited for the game, and why I don't really understand the extreme naysayers.

Even so waiting a week won't kill it as long as I abandon all Bloodborne topics when it comes out.

Which I won't because I'll be spoiling all the twink/meta stuff so if I do play I'll have an upper hand to be a douche. I remember when DkS2 came out I abused the shit out of flighty hexes.


EDIT: Ok so GameFAQs theory nuts have already started.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/693331-dark-souls-ii/71381127

Spoiler

You were right all along, I couldn't resist spoiling some Bloodborne info and there it was the new Nexus, Firelink Shrine, Majula, is called the Hunter's Dream. That just screams Gwyndolin.

In Dark Souls 2 we see an unknown deity labeled on the Engraved Ring called Quella, God of Dreams. Quella has a similar story to Gwyndolin, and actually I'm almost certain they are the same person. Quella is a girls name, actually meaning feminine. Quel is the word for dream and illusion, which Gwyndolin was famous for.

Now in DS2 we are put into some trance in the intro clip by some type of moon magic, where we see a blood moon, we are dragged into an alternate dimension or reality or back in time, I don't know, but the ruins that our character walks through reconstruct in the reflection of the water, and when we jump in we wake up unharmed in some new area. Only explanation I can come up with is an illusion.

Next in the intro clip we walk up to a strange tree, many will have no idea of what I'm talking about here but this tree shows up everywhere on the map. The Drakeblood knights use it, Vendrick uses it, and the Blue Sentinels use it. It is none other than the talking tree of Dream World mentioned in the allegory of Quella. A young boy alone and afraid, until he was comforted by a goddess, this goddess transformed into a tree to offer him protection. If that tree is the Dream World tree could it be that Drangleic is just a illusion.

Bloodborne has been referenced to beasts and ware wolves, who are commonly associated with the moon. The Dream world safe haven just starts to make me think that Gwyndolin does have some connection. Haven't seen much on Bloodborne but it does seem strange. We will have to see if there is a special tree in that game.

 

[Alfons]

EDIT: Ok so GameFAQs theory nuts have already started.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/693331-dark-souls-ii/71381127

Spoiler

You were right all along, I couldn't resist spoiling some Bloodborne info and there it was the new Nexus, Firelink Shrine, Majula, is called the Hunter's Dream. That just screams Gwyndolin.

In Dark Souls 2 we see an unknown deity labeled on the Engraved Ring called Quella, God of Dreams. Quella has a similar story to Gwyndolin, and actually I'm almost certain they are the same person. Quella is a girls name, actually meaning feminine. Quel is the word for dream and illusion, which Gwyndolin was famous for.

Now in DS2 we are put into some trance in the intro clip by some type of moon magic, where we see a blood moon, we are dragged into an alternate dimension or reality or back in time, I don't know, but the ruins that our character walks through reconstruct in the reflection of the water, and when we jump in we wake up unharmed in some new area. Only explanation I can come up with is an illusion.

Next in the intro clip we walk up to a strange tree, many will have no idea of what I'm talking about here but this tree shows up everywhere on the map. The Drakeblood knights use it, Vendrick uses it, and the Blue Sentinels use it. It is none other than the talking tree of Dream World mentioned in the allegory of Quella. A young boy alone and afraid, until he was comforted by a goddess, this goddess transformed into a tree to offer him protection. If that tree is the Dream World tree could it be that Drangleic is just a illusion.

Bloodborne has been referenced to beasts and ware wolves, who are commonly associated with the moon. The Dream world safe haven just starts to make me think that Gwyndolin does have some connection. Haven't seen much on Bloodborne but it does seem strange. We will have to see if there is a special tree in that game.

Those wacky Souls theorists.

 

[Zep Zepo]

Shit quality but i really dig that horror vibe also that flamming hammer

No time to watch....may brolapse later

Zep--

 

[Makabb]

I was always using large shield in souls...... so idk how will i defend in this.

 

[DragoFireheart]

I was always using large shield in souls...... so idk how will i defend in this.

I guess that makes the game offensive to you.

 

[Makabb]

Launch trailer





Man after watching this it might be better than soul series, dat art, dat music.

 

[Phage]

Unsurprisingly, doubters getting blown the fuck out left and right with every passing day.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Unsurprisingly, doubters getting blown the fuck out left and right with every passing day.

I guess a lot of people got upset about the lies in regards to the Dark Souls 2 beta (I didn't give two fucks, just glad they fixed backstabs).

Also why there was a lot of animosity towards the B-Team. I personally feel like the DLC redeemed them, but I'm still being a responsible consumer and waiting.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Got my pre-order in today. Now I just need to buy a PS4.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

The main difference is the combos. You can seamlessly continue a combo when transforming your weapon.

Fair enough, but I really don't see how that is going to open up enough new techniques to keep another 30+ hour game with the same simplistic mechanics interesting.

Comboing enemies in Souls games isn't all that interesting most of the time; you just mash attacks to keep the enemy stunlocked until you kill it or are forced to disengage due to low stamina or another enemy entering the fray.

There's not a lot of depth a la Devil May Cry or Bayonetta, where there's a lot more to performing combos. Many attacks with high-hitstun launch or fling enemies away, which forces the player to plan ahead a bit. Aerial juggling requires the player to not only pay attention to other enemies that might attack, but to maintain height through different attacks, movement techniques, or animation cancels. Other foes can be handled by chargeable passive techniques (well, as "passive" as a wreath of summoned swords or an explosive transformation flux can be), or by seamlessly canceling combos into a dodge/parry to negate opposing attacks and continue the combo.

All I can really imagine from Bloodborne are occasions in which you lead into a combo with one form of a weapon that's easier to hit with or deals more poise damage and switch mid-combo to the second form that has higher DPS. Not really all that interesting. And I doubt From is eager to introduce enemies with lots of hyper-armor frames that can only be broken in specific ways or foes with the ability to cancel out of hitstun after the raucous disapproval the latter met with in DkS2 (personally, I lied it; the AI needs all the help it can get, fair or not).

As a whole I'm disappointed that Bloodborne looks like just another Souls game with some minor tweaks. When it was first announced, I was hoping that a more "action-oriented" Souls game would do something to really shake up the formula.

Perhaps include jumping and climbing, to add air-game in combat and far more verticality to the level design. The former mostly speaks for itself and the latter would be a perfect fit for a Victorian Gothic setting; Castevania Souls, yes please.

Maybe they were going to ditch the character systems of the Souls games that, while adequate, held back content design; everything was pretty much designed to be conquered by some SL1, terribly-equipped, lowest-common-denominator character.

Or maybe they were going to jettison Invasions/Duels. Having to balance every single piece of the game around adversarial multiplayer is a dreadfully heavy albatross around the neck of the development team. Freed from that obligation, we could have seen a Souls game entirely focused on PvE content, with plenty of crowd-control, combos, defensive techniques, and what have you that would be great fun in asymmetric player-versus-computer scenarios but a broken trainwreck in player-on-player combat.

Just disaapointing to me. So much design space that could be explored in a Souls-like framework, but Bloodborne looks like nothing but a slam dunk.

I can't speak for anyone else, but all I ever wanted out of DkS 2 is the same core mechanics and design with different maps, weapons, enemies etc. something that in my opinion DkS2 didn't deliver. Well it did, but everything except the UI was worse.

I'm honestly curious as to how it didn't satisfy your needs. In my eyes, DkS2 (at least as far as the core mechanics go) is straight up superior to it's predecessors. It controls better, the character systems are better, weapons/magic/items include basically everything from DkS1 plus a bunch of new additions and clever tweaks to returning favorites. PvP is leagues better, at least for all but the highest tiers of gameplay, with far superior balance; no longer are >60% of attacks easily countered by roll/poise backstabs and thus utterly worthless to use against any opponent with a modicum of skill.

Usually it's content (world/level/enemy/boss/story design) that irks people about DkS2, a lot of the gripes I can understand (even if many of them apply just as much to DeS/DkS1).

Luckily there was an easy way to check what it was, I played DkS1 and found it to be vastly superior but much less enjoyable.

Interestingly enough, I replayed DkS1 after a few playthroughs of DkS2 to try and understand a lot of the fan backlash, and found it lacking in so many areas. I can somewhat understand that DkS1 puts up a better, and more memorable first-playthrough experience (even if one played DkS2 first; aesthetics and powerful gimmicks go a long way), but the level of vitriol directed towards DkS2 from the faithful of the first game comes off as straight up silly most of the time.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

The gun staggers aren't going to trivialize the game - if anything, they appear to work like parries did. We've seen that if you just randomly fire your gun, it only does a small amount of damage - you need to time it to get the stagger.

It's still likely to be a broken mess, regardless of whether or not it trivializes the game. In that respect, it's a lot like backstabs, DkS1 shields/poise, or powerful projectile magic (hello DkS2 pre-patches). All of the Souls games were relatively robust in that these broken things, and numerous others, didn't ruin the overall experience, but still stood out as flaws.

My problem with this in Bloodborne is that an already shitty mechanic in the Souls games, parries/ripostes, is basically becoming even worse. It's devolution of design. Parries were extremely unintuitive, arbitrarily relevant, terribly imbalanced, and really not much fun. Bullet parries only exacerbate a lot of these problems. Now there's even less visual indication of the proper timing and the risk in parrying is even lower (though ripostes still do outrageous damage).

I call it like I see it, and this just looks dumb. Doubly so in PvP.

 

[Phage]

The gun staggers aren't going to trivialize the game - if anything, they appear to work like parries did. We've seen that if you just randomly fire your gun, it only does a small amount of damage - you need to time it to get the stagger.

It's still likely to be a broken mess, regardless of whether or not it trivializes the game. In that respect, it's a lot like backstabs, DkS1 shields/poise, or powerful projectile magic (hello DkS2 pre-patches). All of the Souls games were relatively robust in that these broken things, and numerous others, didn't ruin the overall experience, but still stood out as flaws.

My problem with this in Bloodborne is that an already shitty mechanic in the Souls games, parries/ripostes, is basically becoming even worse. It's devolution of design. Parries were extremely unintuitive, arbitrarily relevant, terribly imbalanced, and really not much fun. Bullet parries only exacerbate a lot of these problems. Now there's even less visual indication of the proper timing and the risk in parrying is even lower (though ripostes still do outrageous damage).

I call it like I see it, and this just looks dumb. Doubly so in PvP.

That's the problem here. You think that parries are bad to begin with. I disagree entirely with your criticisms of them - with the exception that the monastary dagger parry window in unpatched DS2 was stupid. Parrys are a great design mechanic. High risk, high reward that encourages skill. If you fail, you take the full blunt of the attack. If you succeed, you do a bunch of damage. Funny that you mention DMC and Bayonetta when those games have parries as the crux of their design for high level play (DMC3 and Bayo in particular)

You also have no knowledge whether or not bullet staggers will actually exacerbate these perceived, subjective "problems". If anything, the bullets fix some of the issues. Actually, I don't know what your problems with parries really are, you just rattled off a bunch of buzzwords.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Wait, why are parries bad outside of nonsense like banana-spinning jester trolls of ye olde patches?

 

[Phage]

Wait, why are parries bad outside of nonsense like banana-spinning jester trolls of ye olde patches?

because stream of subjective buzzwords, obviously.

 

[Alfons]

Fair enough, but I really don't see how that is going to open up enough new techniques to keep another 30+ hour game with the same simplistic mechanics interesting.

I just want more of the same, so for me, that's just a bonus. I don't want the series to change I want it to keep improving its formula and making small mechanical tweaks is the best way to go.

Controls better

You have a dedicated jump button, not that it matters since the actual jumping mechanic is just as awful as DkS1. The change to equip burden and the change to the stats makes everything less precise. To this day, I'm not sure if Agility did anything or if it was just placebo, combined with he lack of hard breakpoints when it comes to equip burden and you have yourself an inferior movement system.

Include basically everything from DkS1

The skins, in terms of function all Items are incredibly different and by different I mean worse. That is due to the fact that scaling if just shit, a problem which was in the original DkS1 but was somewhat fixed by PTDE. Another contributing factor is the fucked up defenses, A mace that has 300 attack does 400-500 damage to an armor-clad giant, a greatsword that has 450 attack does around 200-300, what the fuck?

PvP is leagues better, at least for all but the highest tiers of gameplay, with far superior balance; no longer are >60% of attacks easily countered by roll/poise backstabs and thus utterly worthless to use against any opponent with a modicum of skill.

Maybe so, now it's all about those one or two attacks and your fucked. Most fights consist of two guys never engaging or missing all the fucking time since heavy weapon tracking is completely fucked.

Interestingly enough, I replayed DkS1 after a few playthroughs of DkS2 to try and understand a lot of the fan backlash, and found it lacking in so many areas. I can somewhat understand that DkS1 puts up a better, and more memorable first-playthrough experience (even if one played DkS2 first; aesthetics and powerful gimmicks go a long way), but the level of vitriol directed towards DkS2 from the faithful of the first game comes off as straight up silly most of the time.

This is very simple, it's a matter of standards. You aren't particularly interested in bloodborne since you don't think it brings any significant improvements to a flawed formula. I wanted DkS2 to make a few tweaks to a great formula. It made the cardinal sin of sequels that everyone expects out of sequels, it was worse in every way that matters. The biggest problem with DkS2 is its name.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

Lol you clearly dont know what are you talking about.
Agility a placebo? Please play with character with 85 agility and than with one with 110 agility. Lack of hard breakpoints for equipburden? What the fuck is 70% burden? Flynns ring for low vitality builds? Nigger until 1.06 there were flipping havelsmoms in DaS1. DWGR was fucking retarded. Also free movement with lock on in DaS2> rolling in just 4 directions in DaS1.

Heavy weapons have shit tracking in DaS2? You just went full retarded. DaS1 was for dexfags in pvp heavy weapons were fucking dog shit you couldnt hit anyone decent unless you fuck around with zweihander and deadangels.At least in DaS2 you can manually aim heavy weapons with lock on and change the direction of your attack in the middle of your swip.

Shit like parrying while two-handing, dual wielding and powerstance, backsteps with i-frames, animation canceling,bigger variety of spells, soul vessels, lack of useless shit like resistance...How is that worse in every way that matter ?

 

[Alfons]

Lol you clearly dont know what are you talking about.
Agility a placebo? Please play with character with 85 agility and than with one with 110 agility.

"I'm not sure if Agility did anything or if it was just placebo." Goddamn. You know that you are replying to a dumb fuck when you are responding by quoting the post he is responding to.

Lack of hard breakpoints for equipburden? What the fuck is 70% burden?

Oh right, 70% how the fuck did I forget? Probably because anything below or above it still changes movement speed and roll distance.

Nigger until 1.06 there were flipping havelsmoms in DaS1. DWGR was fucking retarded.

So fucking what? Didn't DkS PTDE come before DkS2? Is the point of this statement to say that both games have retarded shit on release? That might be alright. What's not alright is having mechanical problems that were fixed or never even existed in the final version of the previous game.

At least in DaS2 you HAVE TO manually aim heavy weapons with lock on and change the direction of your attack in the middle of your swing.

There, fixed that for you. If you don't manually aim, even in pve, you fucking miss. Why? Because heavy weapons have shit tracking.

Shit like parrying while two-handing, dual wielding and power stance, back steps with iframes, animation canceling,bigger variety of spells, soul vessels, lack of useless shit like resistance...How is that worse in every way that matter ?

Two handed parry- Nice edition.
Dual wielding and power stance- I find both useless, but it is vastly superior to the first game.
Backsteps with iframes- Which resulted in the retarded backstep parry.
Bigger variety of spells- No. Few new spells that are duplicated to all forms of magic by reskinning.
Soul vessels- Probably a nice edition.
Lack of useless shit like resistance- Calling this an improvement or at least a significant one is a stretch.
How is it worse? Simple, you are ignoring all the shitty changes. For fuck's sake, you are even ignoring the other complaints I have in that single fucking post. You can argue anything to be great if you cherrypick what to focus on.
Imagine me and you are in a bar.
You nudge me and say:"Look at the blonde to the right. She has huge tits"
I look at her, then look at you like you're a retard and say:"Are you fucking blind? She's a fucking whale. She probably weighs 400 lbs."
But you still take her home and fuck her. What's that blonde's name you might ask? her name is Dark Souls 2.

 

[Makabb]

Instead of miracles and spells in this we get guns? or spells are still in ?