lot's of those "environmental hazards" are just annoyingly stupid, retarded, cheap, boring and shit (yes, poison statues. one of the few if not only enemy i'd be glad if it stopped respawning... and it's one of the few if not the only that doesn't)
Honestly, I much prefer the poison statues as far as environmental hazards to the majority of Dark Souls 1 hazards, namely pitfalls
everywhere. Getting poisoned sucks, but it can be mossed/Estused/lifegemmed. Falling in Sens, Anor Londo, Tomb of the Giants, Crystal Cave, and elsewhere was a one-shot and a frequent given the spotty physics (thankfully patched up in DkS2).
i'm not sure what you mean by "were trolling"? there's much more "trolling" in DaS2 where to get some treasures you pretty much have to die, or homeward out. that's hardly an improvement,
Yeah, 40% was probably an exaggeration and I really don't think I had that great a point in regards to "troll treasure" in DkS1 (it really wasn't that common to find total jank in hard to reach places). And, yeah, those areas in the Dragon Aerie were bullshit.
the encounter design may be better (i neither agree nor disagree), but the level layouts (bar a few exceptions) aren't.
To me the layouts and enemy placements are much more clever than the majority of DkS1 levels. Things like the poison urns in Earthen Peak (and how you can lure enemies into breaking them), the traps that drop into the lava in Iron Keep (that can be used to great effect against enemies/invaders), the bells/generators in the Undead Crypt...they all add into making the levels have a lot more "play", more mechanical depth, to them.
Yeah, DkS1 had great places like the Painted World, Catacombs, and Duke's Archives. But it also had really (mechanically) uninspired places like Lower Burg, Demon Ruins, Anor Londo, Royal Woods, and Lost Izalith. Levels that may have looked cool, but were often nothing but collections of enemies in rooms/corridors. Or relied too heavily on annoying level design like forcing the player into fights on narrow walkways against projectile spammers with little room for lateral movement.
The Gutter is the same, if not worse (i'd say worse) than TotG. at least in DaS1 you had the light hat
The Gutter without a torch or Cast Light can be a little annoying, as some secrets will be difficult to discover and some enemies might get the jump on you, but it's possible to navigate without it. In TotG, without a light source, you have a very good chance of falling into any number of pits and light sources are not a thing necessarily available to every character in the way a torch is in DkS2.
i didn't really find the enemies in DaS2 any less susceptible to BS cheesing than in DeS or DaS1, it's just that the BS mechanics are a bit different.
They're far less susceptible. Anything besides fast-moving enemies (Thieves, Painting Guardians) could pretty easily be strafe-stabbed by a character with <25% equip burden. A modified roll-BS took care of practically anything else. Enemies in DkS2 are much better at turning to avoid backstabs, sometimes even bordering on cheesy turn-speed not available to the player.
they use feints? who does? i must have missed that.
Feints may be a poor terminology choice, but I've noticed enemies play around with their combos, sometimes delay in between swings or add an additional swing to the normal string. Easiest example to notice are the Old (sword and board) Knights in Heide's Tower and their 3-hit combo to which they sometimes append a fourth to catch players off guard. Drakekeepers and Black Dragon Knights in the Shrine are other good examples. I also could have sworn I saw Leydia Pyromancers and Leydia Witches cancel spells into dodges.
(especially in NG+ where almost everyone has thousands upon thousands of health)
Yeah, this is kind of unfortunate. Black phantom Onionbros at 4+ bonfire intensity are ludicrous, as are NG+ Chasm of the Abyss spirits.
Ancient Dragon, Vendrick, Giant Lord are plenty shit
I won't argue with this. Those are garbage fights, fortunately two of them are optional and the other is easily cheesed.
but Old Iron King, Rat Authority
Didn't have as much a problem with these two, however.
Rat Authority is a little annoying if he spams the headbutt move, which has a crazy hitbox and copious active frames. But I feel that's more of a systemic issue than anything else, that mistakes in hit-detection would be unnoticeable with DkS1 level of i-frames on dodging. Other than that, he's okay because he's a later game boss and every sort of build should probably have a way (or more) to deal with his minions quickly and efficiently.
I actually like Old Iron King a lot. Yes, he's a typical "BIGHUGE" boss that goes for style over substance and relies too much on highly telegraphed attacks with monumental recovery times...but I don't think that design is terrible in Souls games which have a lot less mechanical depth than something like DMC/NG/Bayonetta. It's disappointing to fight something like Jooby and the Virtues when you have a character that can dodge-offset, jump-cancel, cross up with her Air Trick equivalent, and has outstanding air game. Not so much when you're a d00d who can swing a sword (albeit a big one in many cases).
Plus, he's viable for all sorts of builds, including melee. He's no Storm King or Moonlight Butterfly that laughs heartily at melee users. And I kind of like the subtle use of terrain and the way it interacts with his attacks. You have to be a little careful with your dodging.
(NG Flexile, Dragonrider(s), Dragonslayer, Demon of Song, Magus, Covetous, Skellie lords [with the most hilarious music... half of it sounds like a christmas jingle], Guardian dragon).
I found a lot of these to be much more interesting designs than the majority of DkS1 bosses. Yes, a lot of them were easy, but I'm not certain what the devs could reasonably do to make an entire game full of bosses that challenged Souls vets. Things like the Sentry's boss room filling with water, the zombies you can "feed" Covetous, Guardian Dragon using the cage to perch, the Skellies surprising players who try to kill them quickly in sequence, and such added interesting rubs to boss fights.
Dragonrider was kind of lame, but he suffers more from first boss syndrome rather than anything else. He's there to teach new players to maneuver (and to pay attention the the level, what with the switches to expand the battle arena).
Magus, yeah, a little shitty, but remember that DkS1 had three fights with the Asylum Demon, one of which would enforce mandatory fall damage on non-Int builds.
yes, BS fishing is not a valid tactic anymore, but there's plenty of other bullshit that took its place. plus, as you pointed out in a previous post of yours, it's way too lethal.
Thing is, lethality can be toned down in patches, and there exist strong counters* to most high-tier strategies in the current PvP meta. Dark Souls 1 had entire swathes of weapons/spells completely unusable because of how much roll-bsing annihilated them and/or how they could not handle weapons with good pokes (spears and thrusting swords) and there was really nothing they could do to fix them. DkS2 seems a lot more "open", at least for now, and I think the extra emphasis on stamina management (due to slowed regen) as well as the presence of windup cancels will make for a more interesting PvP experience, if properly managed/developed, than DkS1 ever had a chance of being.
*Rebel's Greatshield really destroys casters. Tanking 5-orb Affinity and GRS with stamina left over to slap the Hexbro around with a greatsword. Shadow Dagger backstab fishers are pretty much stymied by Jester's Chest/Gower's Ring/Ironclad Chest. Shields with decent magic/dark reduction are great against Resonant Weapon buffers. Armor actually matters this time around and can improve survivability.
However, Bat Staff + Dark Fog is dumb, especially given that Blue/Red phantoms can't use healing items and Santier's Spear could probably stand to get a serious nerf. There is definitely some dumb shit that could stand to be fixed.
Soul Memory is utter shit as well. Love fighting level 828 HavelHexers at SL150. Love even more that said HavelHexer could troll me hard by invading then suiciding to boost my SM by about 600K.
then twinklie/boner stuff requires insane amounts of it to upgrade to +5, you cannot buy infinite (or even decent) amounts, you can farm but a) enemies stop respawning, b) you have to use bonfire ascetics (that you will also farm!) so the farming becomes more and more time consuming and boring. and then the drop rates are as retarded, if not more so, than in DaS1/DeS, but now the enemies stop respawning... not to mention they gave random drops to one-off black phantoms! (just a few examples of the idiocy that permeates the design of this game)
Leveling at the Emerald Herald is retarded and the farming in this game is relatively outrageous. Sadly, farming seems to be Big in Japan™, so we're unlikely to see ludicrous drop rates go the way of the dodo. Kind of ridiculous that in a thorough playthrough, without farming, you'll scarcely have enough twinkly or bones to upgrade more than one or two weapons to max. Would have been nice if they'd have rewarded Covenant PvP with upgrade materials a la Bell Keepers. Imagine if winning dragon-duels rewarded the winner with a dragon bone upgrade material, punishing the guilty gave a twinkly, etc. A lot more fun than farming Memories or Dragon Aerie.
). even at 16 min stat it's a pretty solid hitter with the twinblade combos (and the occasional roflcopter)
