From Software Dark Souls 3

[Arnust]

The moment you get dropped onto Firelink Shrine in Dark Souls 1, you can fight 7(!) different Bosses from the get-go, all available on 5 different levels.

Though, to be fair, Dark Souls 1 had Master Key gift that you can choose for any class or it comes immediately with Thief class. However, that's one of the most amazing things about Dark Souls 1, which really disappoint me about the later games not having similar item or similar way to open the first half of the game like that.

I haven't played Demon's Souls, but based on that fact alone Dark Souls 1 is WAY more open and less linear than any of the later titles could ever offer.

Alright, let's do numbers too. In DS2, after the (skippable but at exchange of missing some items, yay) tutorial, you can go for... *drum roll* 4 bosses in two areas. And that's not counting speeding for Licia or the Branch of Yore, nor advancing further to the Bastille. If I did, you have *anther drum roll* 9 bosses in 6 areas. Nevermind how speeding through a specific thing for your build or other purposes isn't as braindead as just running around everywhere, as you choose where are you going to spend your Branches of Yore. Loot is less arbitrarily distributed, so Faith builds get to eat less shit, to name one. if you have a personal issue witha ny of the other areas, you can spend some 30 minutes to be able to go directly towards the Castle.

And later on, the game is still open by having big optional paths and areas. The post-Drangleic Castle stretch is a lot more open in SOTFS due to having all the DLCs avaleible at that point (albeit you could go to Shulva SUPER early just after the Rotten, and the Iron Key avaleible after beating Iron Keep.), then having the Frozen Flower to get to Loyce. Added to those three long paths, you have the main stretch. Then, the game will reopen a bit due to the use of the King's Ring, albeit for not much reason yet. After acquiring the Ashen Mist heart, you have yet another little batch of secrets and backtracking (Dragon memory, Alonne Memory, three Giant Memories), and then finally the end boss rush, which you could quite trivialize going between the King's Ring and the Kinship.

What I mean is that Dark Souls 2 will make you wonder: "Where do I go now?" very akin to DeS. DaS1, the question was more like "Will I go out of the path for some reason?"

Oh and handsome, the paths are mostly even as difficulty goes but still hard enough, so that doing ones doesn't necesarily mean steamrolling the others. In DS1 you're squinting to not get three-shot by the skeletons, pray to not get raped by the Ghosts and fighting Drakes is out of the question. Queelag "right from the get-go" is somethign I'd like you to do and show me. Or the Four Kings.

Ah, or are we talking about NG+? Aaare we now?

Btw, the reason why the Master Key is so good is because it allowed you to skip the entire Lower Burg - Blighttown stretch, which is arguably the shittiest (literally) part of the early game. Anyway.

 

[CptMace]

My, that might very well be true, I never skipped any of them so that might be the case.
The only lock I remember was the one after the Tower Knight, which requires one archdemon soul. But I guess there is another lock before the king ? If so, it doesn't say anything if they're already dead.

 

[Black Angel]

Alright, let's do numbers too. In DS2, after the (skippable but at exchange of missing some items, yay) tutorial, you can go for... *drum roll* 4 bosses in two areas. And that's not counting speeding for Licia or the Branch of Yore, nor advancing further to the Bastille. If I did, you have *anther drum roll* 9 bosses in 6 areas. Nevermind how speeding through a specific thing for your build or other purposes isn't as braindead as just running around everywhere, as you choose where are you going to spend your Branches of Yore. Loot is less arbitrarily distributed, so Faith builds get to eat less shit, to name one. if you have a personal issue witha ny of the other areas, you can spend some 30 minutes to be able to go directly towards the Castle.

Yeah, but to get to 9 bosses in 6 areas you have to rush to Melentia to get that Fragrant Branch of Yore. It's a matter of taste in the end, but I prefer getting the item from character creation screen and just roll with it. Not to mention the 4 out of 5 areas of DaS1 are interconnected, that I could literally walk through those areas without seeing a loading screen EVEN ONCE if I'm doing good.

And later on, the game is still open by having big optional paths and areas. The post-Drangleic Castle stretch is a lot more open in SOTFS due to having all the DLCs avaleible at that point (albeit you could go to Shulva SUPER early just after the Rotten, and the Iron Key avaleible after beating Iron Keep.), then having the Frozen Flower to get to Loyce. Added to those three long paths, you have the main stretch. Then, the game will reopen a bit due to the use of the King's Ring, albeit for not much reason yet. After acquiring the Ashen Mist heart, you have yet another little batch of secrets and backtracking (Dragon memory, Alonne Memory, three Giant Memories), and then finally the end boss rush, which you could quite trivialize going between the King's Ring and the Kinship.

See, this is where I would say they fucked up big time and missed the ONLY opportunity they have to make the game an actually worthy successor to Dark Souls 1 AND Demon's Souls at the same time

Incoming nit-picky rant

Spoiler

Remember I mentioned how absolutely bullshit that elevator going down the volcano from Earthen Peak to Iron Keep, and how lousy piles of rubble managed to LITERALLY block your path to Drangleic Castle, while Shrine of Winter conveniently sitting there on the side path? Another thing that disappoints me from the bunch of DaS2's fuck ups in terms of levels and world designs is the fucking Black Gulch. It's literally a straight, linear path with literally only 2 fucking branching path to the side, with fucking poison statues on the side of the linear path to emphasize that this game is where you'll die over and over again. Muh difficulty! Might as well scrap the entire area and make The Rotten the boss of The Gutter.

Do you see the connection between this 3 areas? They're all have connection to the DLCs. You go to the Brume Tower from the Iron Keep, you go to Shulva from the Black Gulch, and you go to Eleum Loyce from the Shrine of Winter. Out of these 3, only Shrine of Winter that's literally out of place, but since you already have Shrine of Winter in vanilla game long before they announced the DLCs, not to mention in the interview they said that Dark Souls 2 would not have any DLCs, that it will a 'full, one-time experience' (yeah right). You see where I'm going with this?

With all the pieces in place, I would assume that if this game would be a worthy successor to Dark Souls 1 and Demon's Souls, if

1. They replace the Black Gulch with Shulva, so Elana would guard the entrance to the Rotten rather than Sinh, so Sinh's role in this part is akin to that of Kalameet's (there was once a leaked info that would connect the Rotten with the Sunken King. After some googling, it appears to be red herring, but I see that this piece of information is better off true to connect the fact that you access Shulva from the Black Gulch after defeating the Rotten).
2. They place the Brume Tower somewhere between Earthen Peak and Iron Keep, so we can have an obvious, yet acceptable love-triangle where both Mytha and Nadalia were staring angrily at each other and fight to get the Old Iron King's affection. That way, the elevator going up can be justified with you ending up on the top of Brume Tower and you have to make your way down to the Iron Keep.
3. Get rid of that fucking rubble blocking your way to Drangleic Castle and place the Shrine of Winter somewhere in the vicinity of Drangleic Castle, or just place the Shrine of Winter in the main path, no need to place in the off path.

But nope. It's gotta be what it's gotta be. Everything has to be arranged so messily with one another, and we can't even get to see the levels we're going to visit except for Drangleic Castle and Heide's Tower of Flame from Majula, and Earthen Peak from Harvest Valley. Remember how you can literally see the other levels when you're literally somewhere else in Lordran? You don't get that feeling in Dark Souls 2. At least Dark Souls 3 brings back that feeling, despite of its linearity.

Oh and handsome, the paths are mostly even as difficulty goes but still hard enough, so that doing ones doesn't necesarily mean steamrolling the others. In DS1 you're squinting to not get three-shot by the skeletons, pray to not get raped by the Ghosts and fighting Drakes is out of the question. Queelag "right from the get-go" is somethign I'd like you to do and show me. Or the Four Kings.

......

Btw, the reason why the Master Key is so good is because it allowed you to skip the entire Lower Burg - Blighttown stretch, which is arguably the shittiest (literally) part of the early game. Anyway.

All I can say to this is, "Git gud."

 

[Jaedar]

Oh and handsome, the paths are mostly even as difficulty goes but still hard enough, so that doing ones doesn't necesarily mean steamrolling the others. In DS1 you're squinting to not get three-shot by the skeletons, pray to not get raped by the Ghosts and fighting Drakes is out of the question. Queelag "right from the get-go" is somethign I'd like you to do and show me. Or the Four Kings.

Doing quelaag almost right away is doable, she's not a very tough boss. Four kings is a different story, and I don't think I could do it with just the souls from Sif. Possibly doable by me if I grind some upgrade materials for a +15 weapon and do some exploration for rings that doesn't require killing bosses (like chloranthy and favor & protection).

Both are entirely doable by good players, since the entire game is beaten at SL1.

Btw, the reason why the Master Key is so good is because it allowed you to skip the entire Lower Burg - Blighttown stretch, which is arguably the shittiest (literally) part of the early game. Anyway.

First I think you are wrong, second, if you can get to Andre (this does require killing Taurus demon without master key), you can go into the basin and from there go to drake valley and then blightttown.

 

[Black Angel]

Doing quelaag almost right away is doable, she's not a very tough boss. Four kings is a different story, and I don't think I could do it with just the souls from Sif. Possibly doable by me if I grind some upgrade materials for a +15 weapon and do some exploration for rings that doesn't require killing bosses (like chloranthy and favor & protection).

Make that + souls gathered from clearing the Lower Undead Burg + Capra Demon since you need the Key to the Depths and access that place for the Large Ember and get +6 to +10 weapons.

Other than that, I'm not sure why Arnust included the Four Kings among the aforementioned 7 bosses you can attempt from the get-go in Dark Souls 1. They can't be attempted from the get-go because you have to kill Sif, which is part of the aforementioned 7 bosses.

 

[Jaedar]

Doing quelaag almost right away is doable, she's not a very tough boss. Four kings is a different story, and I don't think I could do it with just the souls from Sif. Possibly doable by me if I grind some upgrade materials for a +15 weapon and do some exploration for rings that doesn't require killing bosses (like chloranthy and favor & protection).

Make that + souls gathered from clearing the Lower Undead Burg + Capra Demon since you need the Key to the Depths and access that place for the Large Ember and get +6 to +10 weapons.

Other than that, I'm not sure why Arnust included the Four Kings among the aforementioned 7 bosses you can attempt from the get-go in Dark Souls 1. They can't be attempted from the get-go because you have to kill Sif, which is part of the aforementioned 7 bosses.

You don't have to kill capra though, iirc master key lets you skip that. Good point though, need the large ember.

 

[Black Angel]

You don't have to kill capra though, iirc master key lets you skip that. Good point though, need the large ember.

Err, no, you can't skip Capra Demon with the Master Key. The door to the Depths can't be opened with it, only with the key from Capra.

 

[CptMace]

You can skip the Depths, and therefore you can skip Capra Demon. You can also skip Taurus Demon.

 

[polo]

You don't have to kill capra though, iirc master key lets you skip that. Good point though, need the large ember.

Err, no, you can't skip Capra Demon with the Master Key. The door to the Depths can't be opened with it, only with the key from Capra.

With the master key you can go straight to queelag, its like 2 min from firelink shrine. Skipping depths and blighttown.

Just yesterday i started a new Ds1 run, after a long time, its still awesome, specially with the master key. Also im watching / hearing in background the new DS3 ENB run on twitch, and you can tell the difference straight from the beginin'. But damn, gameplay and combat pacing improved a lot. DS1 with some ds3 mechanics would be really good.

 

[Silva]

Ok, halt this shitstorm.

All 4 games before DS3 have some degree of openess and strategic decision-making. That's a fact. Demons, DS1, DS2 and BB (yeah, even BB) all allow you to pick different routes with distinct rewards more or less attractive depending on your build (and playing preferences). Now it seems to me DS3 lacks this kind of thing, at least on a "world layer". But it does seem to have this on a "level layer" Eg: in Undead Settlement you can opt to kill the Cursed Tree for the Transposing Kiln, or you can let this for later when you're better prepared. The same goes for the Fire Demon where Siegward helps you, you can kill it early for a fire gem, or wait for later. I don't know if this pattern repeats consistently through the game, though. Even if it does, it seems clear this aspect of the game is more shallow than the previous entries in the series. It's like the decision-making is reduced to "Should I face that enemy that's guarding this treasure, or should I git gud first?" which is something the early entries already had anyway.

So yeah, it's a big letdown.

 

[Silva]

It's the same in Bloodborne, so this may very well be how fromsoft makes all their games from now on.

Nope. In BB once you reach Cathedral Ward you always have 2 or 3 routes open to you at any point in the game.
Cathedral Ward: a) Amelia/Night Time b) Hemwick c) Old Yharnam
Night time: a) Forbidden Forest/Byrgenwerth/Red Sky b) Hemwick c) Old Yharnam d) Yahargul e) Church Workshop/Old Workshop/Backstreets f) Lecture Building g) Cainhurst h) Hunter Nightmare
etc.

it's not as open as DS1, but it's still worlds apart from DS3 in this respect.

 

[Seaking4]

DS3 is certainly the least open of the soul series games but it does have several branching paths (killing Emma, Cathedral of the Deep, Aldritch/Yhorm, Archdragon Peak, Consumed King's Garden) so it's not like it's just one straight line the entire game.

DS2 is actually impressively open at the beginning of the game but it never seems as open as Dark Souls 1 because the levels aren't interconnected. But Dark Souls 2 and 3 try to make up for the lack of interconnected levels by introducing more branching paths within the levels themselves.

 

[Jaedar]

Cathedral Ward: a) Amelia/Night Time b) Hemwick c) Old Yharnam
Night time: a) Forbidden Forest/Byrgenwerth/Red Sky b) Hemwick c) Old Yharnam d) Yahargul e) Church Workshop/Old Workshop/Backstreets f) Lecture Building g) Cainhurst h) Hunter Nightmare

This isn't strictly true, and you are counting some stuff twice, but you have half a point, BB has a lot more optional one off areas than DS3.

 

[Black Angel]

With the master key you can go straight to queelag, its like 2 min from firelink shrine. Skipping depths and blighttown.

Indeed. I'm merely replying to Jaedar like that considering he wants to grind to +15 weapon but to get to +6-+10 you need Large Ember from The Depths.

And yes, Dark Souls 3 is THE least open of all Soulsborne games. I don't understand why do we need an escort to go down from the High Wall to Undead Settlement. Should've just allow us to scale down the cliff from the Wall and have some options to go to either Undead Settlement or Farron Keep immediately.

I do appreciate, however, that you get to see the levels you're going to visit from far away. From the top of the High Wall, you can look down to see the place you meet Emma and fight the Dancer, and looking up you can see Lothric Castle and the Grand Archives. From the edge of the cliff after Vordt, you get to see Undead Settlement, Farron Keep, and Cathedral of the Deep, all laid out before you down there, and beyond all that is Irithyll. And then, visiting any of those place you can look back to the High Wall and even look at the other places you've been to or going to visit, one big place you can explore and clear. This is the feeling that's severely missing in Dark Souls 2 base game.

 

[Silva]

Yeah, it's nice looking the places you visited/will visit in the distance. Only in my 3rd or so playthough I noticed you can see pretty much every level from Lothric (even Anor Londo and Archdragon Peak!). Only the subterranean ones can't be seen (Cathacombs, etc).

But being fair to Dark Souls 2, it does have it in lesser degree. I remember you can see that early stone fortress with the big statues in the distance from Majula, and vice-versa.

 

[Nathir]

Imo DS3 was a good game, but it tried too hard to be like DS1. Too many items from previous games. Too many references and throwbacks. For example the dragon flying over you and burning the path. Or the gargoyles taking you to a different location. Or Siegward. Lame attempt at bringing back Siegmeyer. There's more but I don't feel like listing everything. Just make up your own stuff, don't try so hard to copy from 1. Too bad they didn't copy the amazing level layout though. Dark Souls 2 was more creative and fresh. It's clear they didn't really have many new ideas, and so I'm glad the series is finally over. The tone and the visuals were nice, as always. And there were some good designs.

However I also didn't like how every boss is a version of Artorias now. Sure, it was a cool fight. But what happened to gimmick bosses? In Ds1 and Demon Souls it wasn't just about dodging a 10-hit chain attack and countering with one hit, while the boss with infinite stamina starts another chain. Most bosses had a certain gimmick to them. It wasn't all about ''git gud'' twitch skills. Also a lot of people complained about combat in DS2, the insane tracking and long pressure from enemies. DS3 is even worse, and I don't see people complain about it. Probably because roll is godlike in this game and you can usually spam it with no remorse. There is also no adaptability stat.

 

[sullynathan]

you literally signed up for the codex to peddle a mainstream opinion

 

[Jasede]

That's probably an NLP-based bot who constructs forum posts based on some generated content using a generative CNN that's been trained on forum posts.

 

[Nathir]

you literally signed up for the codex to peddle a mainstream opinion

I apologize. Bye.

 

[Silva]

Don't mind Sully, he is 78 years-old. But he has good heart. In time you will love his Demons' Souls complaints.

 

[Elwro]

So, one of you guys suggested the Demon Prince fight in the Ruined City addon was nicely designed. What's good about it? So far (died twice, and finished the fight once while summoned) it seems to me that it clearly encourages coop, but each of the creatures involved uses fairly mundane fire-related attacks, maybe apart from the lasers or the pyro-discotheque from all the orbs the Prince can summon. Is there some second layer to this fight that I'm missing?

Also, no summon signs at level 100. Is this normal?

 

[Black Angel]

So, one of you guys suggested the Demon Prince fight in the Ruined City addon was nicely designed. What's good about it? So far (died twice, and finished the fight once while summoned) it seems to me that it clearly encourages coop, but each of the creatures involved uses fairly mundane fire-related attacks, maybe apart from the lasers or the pyro-discotheque from all the orbs the Prince can summon. Is there some second layer to this fight that I'm missing?

Having fought against this bosses so many times through co-op, I'd say he's viable solo. I'm not sure if this is true, but I'm vaguely remembering that using summons would trigger Demon from Below's aggressive mode earlier, so doing solo should keep him 'docile' long enough for you to deal with Demon in Pain first. Also, Demon Prince should not be a problem at all since the ultimate move, whether it's from DiP or DfB, is really easy to punish and easily telegraphed.

The one thing I didn't like about them is, they are yet another bosses whose movements discourage blocking playstyle just like any other 3's enemies and bosses, and Demon Prince taking reduced damage, becoming fucking bullet sponge.

 

[Jaedar]

I solod demon prince, and it wasn't even that hard. First phase you just dodge away when both are active, second phase is pretty standard dodge and punish fair (just gotta close distance fast when he starts conjuring mega orb)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Seaking4]

I was definitely annoyed with the whole 2nd phase boss fight gimmick by that point but I still think it's a good boss fight regardless. Killing the Demon in Pain first does make it easier though because that makes the Demon Prince use the laser beam attack and that's much easier to abuse for damage than the giant fire orb. I'd also stick to rolling because once you learn the attack pattern (all 3 use the same one barring some minor differences), it becomes very easy to avoid their attacks.

It's a fun fight to get summoned for too.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Brilliant: