^that just shows how inexperienced and clueless most of the team (particularly the new directors) really is. yes, the combat mechanics were improved, and the weapon upgrades were made better. that's about it, when it comes to improvements. the rest either stayed the same or got worse
Old Dragonslayer is not "a nice nostalgia moment". it would've been if the previous incarnation was in a game 10 years ago, not the direct prequel not even 3 years old. it's shitty copy paste, not "nice nostalgia"
Gargoyles have almost the exact same moveset and animations as the DaS1 ones (horizontal swipe, vertical slam, tail swipe, fire breath) with 1-2 new moves (an electric attack i saw once... maybe others but i did not see them). more != better (or different, for that matter)
Najka is a retread of "half naked chick half insect" (yes, like the asylum/firesage/stray demons were retreads of themselves and of the vanguard from DeS), but yeah the actual fight is different (but it doesn't help the feel of "they can't decide if they want to do something original or crappily reference the first 2 games")
Rat Authority is pretty much an ugly Sif but with an incredibly annoying, shitty, stupid hitbox
i don't know about others, i did not find any mob horde in the game particularly cheap or difficult. it's the absolutely abhorrent hitboxes that make them cheap. when you connect with something that has barely begun it's combat animation (by "barely begun" i mean "it's so early, the animation hasn't even started playing yet") and yet it damages you anyway, it's lazy, cheap and shit, not hard, challenging or interesting. when an enemy's attack connects and damages you even when you were a couple of meters outside of its range or even behind (talking PvE, not PvP here, just to be clear), it's lazy, cheap and shit, not hard, challenging or interesting. when there are bosses and mobs that can, for all intents and purposes, OHKO you, it's lazy, cheap and shit, not hard, challenging or interesting. this isn't DMC3 in DMD mode, the combat mechanics aren't built for this kind of cheap shit. and as the dude pointed out in his example in the Throne Watcher/Defender, it's not particularly difficult or interesting, just time consuming circling around and attacking once every minute. and throwing hordes of enemies with quite a bit of HP and damage, in front of a boss fog, is not interesting, just lazy (yes, the shitty UC pre-boss room)
you found the Magus... interesting? give me some of those drugs, please. Ancient Dragon? Vendrick? Giant Lord? Capra is crap lazy design because it has adds in small cramped room, but NG+ Flexile isn't even though it has the same problem, but worse because of the different poise mechanics (i.e. stunlock galore), adds having 10 times the health and damage of dogs and you're on a timer?! dude, come on... (but yeah, non-cheesing Darklurker is one of the best Souls bosses. a pity the Dark Chasm is one of the most idiotically designed areas in Souls)
EDIT: for those who missed since apparently he deleted it (?!), Vaati made valid observation: by changing the healing mechanics and making them more than DeS-level popamole, but animations taking forever, they pretty much removed the "exploration tension" from Souls and moved it completely to "combat tension"
EDIT: I think both me and
praetor agree that Dark Souls 2 was a downgrade as a whole. The disagreement seems to be the degree, with
praetor thinking Morrowind -> Oblivion while I think it's more like Fallout 1 -> Fallout 2. Fallout 2 was mechanically superior to the first but fell short in many storyline and lore areas. Calling it Morrowind -> Oblivion comparable bad is just stupid and reeks of nostalgia.
you really need to start paying attention when you read. i said, "in a way yes, but blah blah blah and blah so blah", that does not mean what you think i said. you're the stupid one here
So because he found one example of a badly balanced bonfire that's likely remnant from the Dark Environment that was going to be used but was instead scrapped due to beta testers complaining about it, it means the entire game was lazily designed?
That tree-log shortcut was the only example that comes to mind of a poorly placed shortcut. I do agree that there are too many bonfires though. There should only be half as many bonfires.
that was just one example to illustrate the point. do you honestly think he should've pointed out every occurrence of badly placed shortcuts (there are barely
any shortcuts in the game since the lazy designers took the easy way out and just put bonfires everywhere. why think of a cool level where you can unlock shortcuts if you explore a bit, or god forbid even shortcuts from a bonfire in a previous level!, when you can just spam bonfires in your face everywhere? it's at least the 5th time i repeat the same thing)
)
