From Software The Dark Souls Discussion Thread

[Suicidal]

Plus, the marketing. There were ads on TV about how you need to git gud. Anyone who actually knows a bit about games knows that bullet hell shmups, arcade fighting games, many turn-based strategy games, lots of puzzle games, and, of course, pure action games like Devil May Cry are most definitely more difficult - they simply aren't advertised as such. Dark Souls is just a normal (at the time above-average) difficulty game with no difficulty select and a relatively harsh (at the time) death penalty; we'd have laughed into our cups about it during NES days!

(Note: not saying it is easy.)

Yeah, Namco Bandai took advantage of that, and pushed From to add more bullshit in the later games to sell more copies. Everything unfair, tedious and cheesy about DS2? Well, you can blame the hype for that.

I'm curious, which elements/areas/enemies of DS2 are considered unfair and cheesy? I finished the game a few days ago. The only things that were legitimately frustrating to me were the water area after the castle (because of narrow underwater passages you had to use a torch to see and the caster mobs which shot homing spells at you from across the map), the undead crypt (particularly, the graveyard area with the bells that spawn mobs every time you or anyone else strikes them) and the blizzard area in the winter DLC and the boss that came after, which was not only extremely irritating but also boring, because the boss was the same boss you fought before except now there's two of them. Everything else I was fine with.

Also, Jasede, what you say makes a lot of sense. I completely missed the whole initial hype of the game so I had no idea if there even were advertisements for it. Just yesterday I had a discussion with my friend about the effects of marketing on people who cannot think for themselves and how hyping up certain aspects of the product in an ad can cause people to associate those aspects with your product only, even though there may be other products that do these things better.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Well, you have the tunnel of corrosive bugs in shrine of amana, the ice hedgehogs in Ivory King, Elana's bullshit boss summoning, the lava chests in Iron Keep, Iron Keep in general (its like a shooting gallery, and they move surprisingly fast), huntsman copse (oh hey, let's have unarmored guys with way too much poise that deal an absurd amount of damage! That'll be fun. And necromancer fuckers standing on a platform that exists solely to fuck with you), Earthen peak (boring area overall. Also poison), Iron Passage, Cave of the Dead, and those mace guys in Dragon Aerie who don't. stop. swinging.

Oh, and the old iron king fight is trash. Like the bed of chaos its just a big dumb boss that you fight from the waist up, who has slow, boring attacks that occasionally knocks you into the lava pits that are strategically placed to get you killed in one hit. At least you actually fight him, so he's better than Bed of Chaos I guess.

The enemy NPCs also feel like they have way too much health and do things a human couldn't. Like, I could have sworn I've seen those greatsword phantoms cancel their animation mid swing to either dodge or do another type of attack multiple times, not to mention have way too much stamina.

Oh, and whenever you fight the ivory king, you have to fight his posse of black knights and wait for your white knights to stop being useless and seal the portals like they're supposed to, while the game's weird aggro system has the black knights ignore them even though they are right in front of them and chase you around. Not that the white knights deal any damage to begin with, because for some reason every NPC in the DLCs is armed with a wet noodle.
At least the Ivory King himself is pretty cool. Weird helmet, but neat fight though.

Unfair might not be quite the right word, but's its still tedious. Tedium is not difficulty.
Fume Knight is difficult. Ivory King pre-fight is tedious, because you have to go do errands before you can fight the actual boss. Who is difficult, so he'll probably kill you if you aren't careful. Meaning that you have to do the errands again.
That tunnel of bugs in amana is also tedious, because you have to deal with them unless you want broken gear before you fight the boss. Who's crap.

 

[Jasede]

I have recently played DS2 (and 3) and found neither game unfair. However! I did not feel invested enough to do the DLC's (allegedly the best part of DS2) so I cannot say whether those are. The necromancers, unarmored guys, iron keep, earthen peak, mace guys caused me no problems. (That doesn't mean they were fair or unfair; just that if they were I didn't notice. Certainly none of the 'Hey I have infinite Stamina!' DS3 bosses!)

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I have recently played DS2 (and 3) and found neither game unfair. However! I did not feel invested enough to do the DLC's (allegedly the best part of DS2) so I cannot say whether those are. The necromancers, unarmored guys, iron keep, earthen peak, mace guys caused me no problems. (That doesn't mean they were fair or unfair; just that if they were I didn't notice. Certainly none of the 'Hey I have infinite Stamina!' DS3 bosses!)

The necromancer isn't hard to deal with per se, but its rather cheap that he's placed on a platform you have to jump to in order to melee him.
Like, why is he even there? How did he get there? He's not athletic looking, so how did he make that jump? Its obvious that he's placed there to mess with you.
Like that alonne knight on the walkway in Iron Keep. How did he get there, and why is he there? Does he stand there all day waiting for someone to ambush? Is that a job in the DS2 universe?

DS1 also had some similar stupid shit like the archers in Anor Londo or the bridge hangers, but there it kind of makes sense, as you can see how they got there. In order for that alonne knight to get there he would have to go up the ladder, across the walkway, up the other ladder, and proceed to drop down through a series a beams without falling. That's...extremely convoluted.

 

[Jasede]

Well, what about Anor Londo and the archers? What reason do they have to stand there, and why are their bows trained at you? It might be a bit contrived but one could think of them as deathless sentinels, doomed to do their job until they fade into dust.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Already edited my post to include them, and yeah that's also pretty dumb. I think Miyazaki or someone even admitted that he went a bit too far there. There is a logical path to them at least, and at least its a clear guard / sniper role other than "oooh I'm gonna spook this bitch"

Don't get me wrong, I do like DS2, but there is some nonsense there. There was also nonsense in DS1, but it didn't feel quite as frequent or aggravating as in 2.

 

[Suicidal]

Well, you have the tunnel of corrosive bugs in shrine of amana, the ice hedgehogs in Ivory King, Elana's bullshit boss summoning, the lava chests in Iron Keep, Iron Keep in general (its like a shooting gallery, and they move surprisingly fast), huntsman copse (oh hey, let's have unarmored guys with way too much poise that deal an absurd amount of damage! That'll be fun. And necromancer fuckers standing on a platform that exists solely to fuck with you), Earthen peak (boring area overall. Also poison), Iron Passage, Cave of the Dead, and those mace guys in Dragon Aerie who don't. stop. swinging.

Oh, and the old iron king fight is trash. Like the bed of chaos its just a big dumb boss that you fight from the waist up, who has slow, boring attacks that occasionally knocks you into the lava pits that are strategically placed to get you killed in one hit. At least you actually fight him, so he's better than Bed of Chaos I guess.

The enemy NPCs also feel like they have way too much health and do things a human couldn't. Like, I could have sworn I've seen those greatsword phantoms cancel their animation mid swing to either dodge or do another type of attack multiple times, not to mention have way too much stamina.

Oh, and whenever you fight the ivory king, you have to fight his posse of black knights and wait for your white knights to stop being useless and seal the portals like they're supposed to, while the game's weird aggro system has the black knights ignore them even though they are right in front of them and chase you around. Not that the white knights deal any damage to begin with, because for some reason every NPC in the DLCs is armed with a wet noodle.
At least the Ivory King himself is pretty cool. Weird helmet, but neat fight though.

Unfair might not be quite the right word, but's its still tedious. Tedium is not difficulty.
Fume Knight is difficult. Ivory King pre-fight is tedious, because you have to go do errands before you can fight the actual boss. Who is difficult, so he'll probably kill you if you aren't careful. Meaning that you have to do the errands again.
That tunnel of bugs in amana is also tedious, because you have to deal with them unless you want broken gear before you fight the boss. Who's crap.

Dunno man, a lot of the things you said are trivial if you carry a ranged weapon. I was melee-focused in both games but carried a bow in DS1 and a crossbow in DS2 to snipe stuff you couldn't otherwise reach (and abuse the braindead AI in DS1, that was funny) + having these weapons went with the theme of my characters (I was going for a middle-eastern desert warrior in DS1 and a heavily armored crusader in DS2).

Some of the dungeons and areas being shit are another matter entirely. I also disliked many areas in both DS1 and DS2, especially ones with lots of enemies, because fighting trash mobs in DS is usually tedious and uniteresting.

As for the Ivory King boss, I liked the entire thing, including the fight with the knights before the boss, because it actually felt like I was part of an epic battle. So far it's my favorite moment in the entire series. Fighting several enemies at the same time in Dark Souls sucks ass and is very inconvenient, but having allied knights running around and distracting the enemies made it manageable.

You say that those things are tedious ant not difficult, but the entire series seems to be built on tedium. The tedium of having the run through half a level if you die at the boss. The tedium of having to fight the same enemies over and over because they keep respawning. The tedium of wrestling with the lock-on camera every time more than one enemy shows up on your screen. I wouldn't attribute this to Dark Souls 2 alone.

 

[Teut Busnet]

I have recently played DS2 (and 3) and found neither game unfair. However! I did not feel invested enough to do the DLC's (allegedly the best part of DS2) so I cannot say whether those are. The necromancers, unarmored guys, iron keep, earthen peak, mace guys caused me no problems. (That doesn't mean they were fair or unfair; just that if they were I didn't notice. Certainly none of the 'Hey I have infinite Stamina!' DS3 bosses!)

The only 'unfair' places in DS2 I can remember were the 2 enemies that brake through doors without warning - lump guy in the woods area (but he doesn't do much damage, so you'll have to be very unlucky to die to him) and the oger in the castle before the drake in the big cage. The rest is just annoying, like enemies with endless poise - get's worse in the DLC, IIRC - or the water area with the mages + hammer guys + monster combos.

DS might have more unfair places, with the drake bridge, the first mimic and maybe patches turning the bridge in the catacombs. You also can get stuck in areas that might be tough to get out of if you've used up all your resources like upper blightown.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Oh god I remember the surprise ogre in Aldia's Keep. That is some real bullshit. I don't think there's even a warning like the first door, and it doesn't even make sense in terms of the level's architecture.

 

[Teut Busnet]

It is really dumb - even dumber they didn't decide to change it in SotfS. I think lots of people complained about it - rightfully so, it's just annoying.

Even more so if you hadn't found the hidden bonfire and now you'll need to do the whole castle again.

 

[janior]

Suicidal kill yourself, thanks

 

[deuxhero]

I have recently played DS2 (and 3) and found neither game unfair. However! I did not feel invested enough to do the DLC's (allegedly the best part of DS2) so I cannot say whether those are. The necromancers, unarmored guys, iron keep, earthen peak, mace guys caused me no problems. (That doesn't mean they were fair or unfair; just that if they were I didn't notice. Certainly none of the 'Hey I have infinite Stamina!' DS3 bosses!)

The only 'unfair' places in DS2 I can remember were the 2 enemies that brake through doors without warning - lump guy in the woods area (but he doesn't do much damage, so you'll have to be very unlucky to die to him) and the oger in the castle before the drake in the big cage. The rest is just annoying, like enemies with endless poise - get's worse in the DLC, IIRC - or the water area with the mages + hammer guys + monster combos.

DS might have more unfair places, with the drake bridge, the first mimic and maybe patches turning the bridge in the catacombs. You also can get stuck in areas that might be tough to get out of if you've used up all your resources like upper blightown.

The inside windmill area was pretty bullshit. One of the few places I resorted to abusing the ability to permakill enemies because it's such a resource hog to kill some of the poison spaming enemies it's less painful to just kill them a bunch of times and heal poison at a bonfire so you don't have to worry about using all your moss just for them every attempt.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

What's most interesting is Vendrick actually suggests 'hollow' is the true nature of man when you obtain 2, and then 3 DLC crowns.

That much was obvious to me ever since DS1, as it is much more blatantly stated throughout the game (opening cinematic showing hollows born of the dark, darkwraiths being humans fighing their nature - hollowing, by chasing humanity, whole dialogue with Kaathe)

 

[Grimlorn]

I can't remember if it was ever stated but it was heavily implied that hollowing wasn't the way to go in DS1 because you lose your mind and consciousness and would attack everything on sight. All the NPCs you talk to all sound like they are going insane. Some do hollow and just attack you later in the game. It was implied that many of the former human enemies had hollowed and this is why they attack you on sight. NPCs you talk to all want souls because somehow having souls allows them to keep their humanity and consciousness. You use the item humanity to specifically reverse your hollowing.

I don't think it was ever implied that hollowing was the true essence of humanity except by Kaathe, but you didn't trust him anyways.

It was only in DS3 that these concepts seem to be thrown out. Now you have conscious hollows walking around and conversing with you and trying to tell you that hollow is the true essence of humanity. It doesn't really make any sense.

If they wanted to say that there was no way to keep the Age of Fire going indefinitely they should have been a bit more consistent. Hell a game taking place in the Age of Dark would have been fine. Perhaps around the time a new fire comes along and creates chaos within whatever hierarchy was established within the age of dark.

 

[Silva]

Huh, didn't the Darkwraiths attack other undead exactly to collect humanity (and souls) and avoid hollowing? If so, that means there were non-hollowed undead since DS1 - the Darkwraiths. Sure, later they got drunk with humanity and went mad anyway, as Kaathe implies when he says "All them failed me" referreing to Four Kings, Darkwraiths, Oolacile, etc. But I always had the impression the Darkwraits knew what they were doing when attacking us.

Is this is true, then DS3 didn't invent anything, it just continued from what was already hinted.

 

[Black Angel]

The one thing that kept bothering me about this whole Undead, Darksign, and Hollowing business is, does it happen when the flames starts to fade for the first time (per the prophecy of "Soon the flames will fade, and only Dark will remain."), or does it happen after Gwyn linked the fire (and thus, unnaturally prolonged the Age of Fire)?

 

[Silva]

There are theories supporting both. Some say hollowing only happened as a result of Gwyn maliciously using humanity to link the fire. Others say there is no evidence that he actually did anything of the sort and hollowing is a natural consequence of the fading of the flame.

I'm with the later myself.

 

[Black Angel]

Well, there's one kind of an evidence: The Rite of Kindling. It uses humanity to power-up the Estus by 'feeding' the bonfires with humanity, and considering the only ones who were seeking it at the time were the Way of White, it makes me wonder why these followers of Gwyn is seeking this Rite to be 'granted magnificent power'.

Edit: I had to elaborate further, but this is purely theoretical. What if Gwyn had a knowledge on more 'advanced' version of the Rite of Kindling? Which he used when he linked the First Flame? What if, with that advanced Rite, he caused the First Flame to 'feed' on humanity randomly from a living human across the world, causing them to be branded with the Darksign and turning them into Undead?

 

[Teut Busnet]

Did you know that buffed up NG Artorias can one-shot a healthy, 30 Vitality (1100 HP) char in fully upgraded Elite-Knight Armor with his far away jumping attack?

I know now and am surprised.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Did you know that buffed up NG Artorias can one-shot a healthy, 30 Vitality (1100 HP) char in fully upgraded Elite-Knight Armor with his far away jumping attack?

I know now and am surprised.

Yeah, his buff gives him a disgusting amount of damage.
Which is why they give you the option of knocking him out of it. Unlike in DS2 where if the boss is buffing himself it not only cannot be stopped but the boss also gets increased defenses as well.
Because fuck good design, Am I right? Like, are they really expecting us to not take advantage of the boss buffing himself mid fight? That should be the time to deal the most amount of damage.

 

[Seaking4]

Dark Souls 3 gave me the itch to replay DS1 so I started up a new game and went with pyromancy for a change. I never knew that you could meet one of the daughters of Chaos in Blighttown if you play as a pyromancer. I've done so many playthroughs (up to Anor Londo) and I never found her before. Can't believe I'm still finding new things in this game. The pre-lordvessel stuff is just so damn good. The fact that you can tackle the Four Kings whenever you want in the game is such a nice touch too. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be to pull off either. I'm guessing that New Londo is tuned so that players that stumble in there early don't get destroyed. I thought getting past the Hydra (fuck paying 20000 souls to open the door) and then killing Sif to be just as hard. Although I was at a much lower level.

The Hydra fight is still disappointing. Once you get close the Hydra can't hit you but getting the last head takes so long unless you just pull out a bow and finish it off.

I also finished off the post-Anor Londo content with another one of my characters. Still meh but I had forgotten that 80% of the challenge in Demon Ruins/Lost Izalith is not going blind because of the lava. I'm still seeing that orange glow everywhere.

 

[Hyperion]

Yeah, his buff gives him a disgusting amount of damage.
Which is why they give you the option of knocking him out of it. Unlike in DS2 where if the boss is buffing himself it not only cannot be stopped but the boss also gets increased defenses as well.
Because fuck good design, Am I right? Like, are they really expecting us to not take advantage of the boss buffing himself mid fight? That should be the time to deal the most amount of damage.

Iudex Gundyr is the perfect example of why the DS2 method is better for bossfights. Fucking guy has not one, but TWO longwinded animations that you can abuse for damage. You can empty your entire stamina bar R1 spamming at the start of the fight for 25 - 30% of his life. When he becomes a DragonBro, you can empty another entire stamina bar of R1's into him. Or throw 3 of those Firebombs you got behind the Spear and Crossbow Hollows right before him. Or flat out kill him if you took the Black Firebombs as your gift, which all Speed Runners do.

Imagine if this was the case for Smelter Demon, who has THREE pauses from self-buffing? If you could do full damage to him, it would be like fighting a boss with 50% less HP. Totally bogus. What if instead they went with a boss instabuffing himself, before skewering your undead ass to counter this cheap tactic? Fuckin' nerdrage and tears for days. And rightfully so.

 

[Silva]

Dark Souls 3 gave me the itch to replay DS1 so I started up a new game and went with pyromancy for a change. I never knew that you could meet one of the daughters of Chaos in Blighttown if you play as a pyromancer. I've done so many playthroughs (up to Anor Londo) and I never found her before. Can't believe I'm still finding new things in this game.

The pyromancer "quest for Izalith" in both DS1 and DS3 are among the most satisfying threads for me. I had the luck to start out DS1 with a pyro and got immediately hooked by Quelana and her mentoring. Imagine my surprise when DS3 also portrayed lost Izalith and it's trove of pyromancies and artifacts, and the lore that accompanied it. I kid you not, when that old crow-pyromancer told me in Firelink that "with the lands transitioning nearby, Lost Izalith could be around", I had a huge boner.

 

[Elwro]

 

[Elwro]

Did you know that buffed up NG Artorias can one-shot a healthy, 30 Vitality (1100 HP) char in fully upgraded Elite-Knight Armor with his far away jumping attack?

I know now and am surprised.

I think mastering Artorias is a fun challenge. A really memorable boss, if a bit absurd with the somersaults.