From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[Damned Registrations]

Since there's nothing random about the combat, every single time is a good place to start. I'd probably add in 'without being injured' (unless that is part of your playstyle for some reason) since starting a boss fight with 2 estus instead of 8 is a pretty major handicap caused purely by a lack of skill. But no, you want to start every fight in peak condition as though you just breezed through the whole game perfectly to get there. Fell off a ledge and died? Clearly not YOUR fault, you should just reload and lose nothing. Got your ass beaten black and blue? Clearly not YOUR fault, just reload until you get by without a scratch and then save again. Walked into a trap? Clearly not YOUR fault, the designers only made clues for other people, not ones that you could notice. Better reload and negate the trap with your foreknowledge without paying any price at all.

 

[Jasede]

I think you sound a little hostile! Though I agree with you-

Stages are a test of skill. Part of the boss fight is getting there, believe it or not. The game was designed taking the stage portions into account. Challenge yourself to improve enough that you get to a boss with full estus every time. Then, as you get even better, eventually you won't even need to use the flask at all. Later, you'll not even get hit anymore.

That's why people play these arcade games: the constant sense of overcoming a challenge and becoming more skilled every time you try it again.

If you pick up a random arcade game- like Bubble Bobble, a pinball machine or Metal Slug or Street Fighter or any of them you'll notice that each time you play you learn a little more, get a little further. It's this feeling of overcoming a challenge that made sure the arcade never died in Japan- and it still lives on in arcade-like video games.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

At that point these minor enemies can be dealt with in seconds - or simply by running past them since you have already mastered how to approach and dodge them. Asking to skip them is a bit much.

If they're easy to dodge then asking to skip them is perfectly reasonable becuse they're just a waste of time. Same way it's a waste of time to run through areas you've already been through, so the game lets you teleport between bonfires once you get the lordvessel.
If the level's good then sure, keep it, but if it's not then there's no reason not to just put a bonfire in front of the boss. All the long runs to get from the bonfire to Ornstein and Smough or Bed of Chaos do is waste your time. You could remove the enemies entirely and it'd play exactly the same, since all you do is run in a straight line. You could play that shit with your eyes closed, it's completely unnecessary. In cases like those they should just put the checkpoint in front of the boss fog like with the x-3 bosses in Demon's Souls, or Gwyndolin.

 

[Jasede]

But they're not easy to dodge in general.
They only become so once you're good enough.

I do agree with the Bed of Chaos and possibly S/O runs, though.

 

[Castanova]

Ugh, this conversation again? Listen, failure is always uncomfortable. If your penalty for failing a boss fight is that it just deposits you right at boss' door for another go round, then there is effectively no penalty. Sure, no one wants to repeat the same content over and over with no variation. How about actually put some effort into the game so you don't die, then?

 

[Damned Registrations]

S/O runs are only trivial if you're running in solo. If you're trying to bring Solaire in, that room is actually a major pain in the ass. I've seen him get killed before even getting to the boss. And I've certainly been clipped by the giants or an arrow on more than one occasion.

Bed of Chaos is just a poorly done area. The lava flats are retarded and the statues are way too simple for such a lategame enemy, especially when they're just spammed out in the open. They should have put in some pyromancers or gargoyles or those lightning demons. I've seen UMS maps on Starcraft with more clever enemy placement. It was almost certainly rushed.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

But they're not easy to dodge in general.
They only become so once you're good enough.

Yeah, the good levels can stay. I'm fine with replaying them, especially since most of them have shortcuts or something so you can get back to the boss quickly anyway. I mainly just want to complain about the boring ones. If Bed of Chaos kills me in some bullshit way I'm already annoyed, having to go through a two minute run which doesn't even have enemies (except one titanite demon who starts facing the other direction so he can't even see you until you're past him) doesn't help. They may as well just make the loading screen take two minutes and respawn me in front of the fog, it's not like it'd be any more boring. That run is already at max boredom, it can't get any worse.

 

[Declinator]

Since there's nothing random about the combat, every single time is a good place to start. I'd probably add in 'without being injured' (unless that is part of your playstyle for some reason) since starting a boss fight with 2 estus instead of 8 is a pretty major handicap caused purely by a lack of skill. But no, you want to start every fight in peak condition as though you just breezed through the whole game perfectly to get there. Fell off a ledge and died? Clearly not YOUR fault, you should just reload and lose nothing. Got your ass beaten black and blue? Clearly not YOUR fault, just reload until you get by without a scratch and then save again. Walked into a trap? Clearly not YOUR fault, the designers only made clues for other people, not ones that you could notice. Better reload and negate the trap with your foreknowledge without paying any price at all.

What is this "fault" business all about? Of course dying in this game is my faullt and I never said otherwise. And I didn't say that I wanted to "start every fight in peak condition" but simply that I'd rather be able to fight, die, and increase my skills against the tougher enemies without having to fight against the weak enemies (who do not even manage to harm me) every time I do die. Now I guess this enhances your experience but to me it is just a chore.

Better reload and negate the trap with your foreknowledge without paying any price at all.

Well, at the moment the price is just having to get to the trap - with my foreknowledge - from the beginning of the level. It's not that big a price, is it? I would think that chore-like quality of the price (con) vs the tension you get from knowing that you have to pay the price (pro) is the deciding factor here and to me the boredom of the chore weighs more.

 

[Jasede]

I do feel like that's a problem with Bed of Chaos and the path to S&O and the level design in Lost Izalith more than a problem of not being able to checkpoint. I'd rather they "fix" this by making the stage portion better and making sure a boss like Bed of Chaos never slips past playtesting again.

 

[Random]

Everyone who thinks that Dark Souls is unfair or should have less penalty for failure is full of shit and can go play other games, this gameplay model has worked perfectly since Demon's Souls and it's fucking fun if you aren't a pussy little bitch about video games.

 

[Average Manatee]

I do feel like that's a problem with Bed of Chaos and the path to S&O and the level design in Lost Izalith more than a problem of not being able to checkpoint. I'd rather they "fix" this by making the stage portion better and making sure a boss like Bed of Chaos never slips past playtesting again.

What's wrong with the path to S&O? Run past silver knights up the stairs, run down stairs, run past bigger knights to boss.

 

[Jasede]

You can do that, but I think a lot of people use the other bonfire and have to use the elevator to get to the fight, which can take a while. Good catch though.

 

[Random]

Actually, PvP in Lost Izalith is a lot of fun if you have the fog ring. See, if you position yourself correctly, you can make it so that you're standing right beside the lava, which is a flowing texture - which means your camouflage becomes a hell of a lot more effective. I've had people literally walk right past me on their valiant quest to find me. Sure, it's only effective if you're right next to the lava and you can't move around, but if you want to annoy the shit out of the invader just throw down carvings whenever they're not in view. Oh, and be careful not to fall into the lava, since odds are you won't have the orange charred ring equipped if you have the fog ring on.

The cloak spell won't do because it's only a temporary effect. The ring of fog is the only way to exploit the lava of Lost Izalith.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Actually, PvP in Lost Izalith is a lot of fun if you have the fog ring. See, if you position yourself correctly, you can make it so that you're standing right beside the lava, which is a flowing texture - which means your camouflage becomes a hell of a lot more effective. I've had people literally walk right past me on their valiant quest to find me. Sure, it's only effective if you're right next to the lava and you can't move around, but if you want to annoy the shit out of the invader just throw down carvings whenever they're not in view. Oh, and be careful not to fall into the lava, since odds are you won't have the orange charred ring equipped if you have the fog ring on.

The cloak spell won't do because it's only a temporary effect. The ring of fog is the only way to exploit the lava of Lost Izalith.

Course, this fails because almost no one invades LI.

 

[Random]

Actually, PvP in Lost Izalith is a lot of fun if you have the fog ring. See, if you position yourself correctly, you can make it so that you're standing right beside the lava, which is a flowing texture - which means your camouflage becomes a hell of a lot more effective. I've had people literally walk right past me on their valiant quest to find me. Sure, it's only effective if you're right next to the lava and you can't move around, but if you want to annoy the shit out of the invader just throw down carvings whenever they're not in view. Oh, and be careful not to fall into the lava, since odds are you won't have the orange charred ring equipped if you have the fog ring on.

The cloak spell won't do because it's only a temporary effect. The ring of fog is the only way to exploit the lava of Lost Izalith.

Course, this fails because almost no one invades LI.

Sad truth.

I forgot to mention, usually invaders will run around all over the lava trying to find you, and as long as they're taking damage their health bar is visible to you. So you can just watch them run around endlessly like morons. It's pretty great.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Sad truth.

I forgot to mention, usually invaders will run around all over the lava trying to find you, and as long as they're taking damage their health bar is visible to you. So you can just watch them run around endlessly like morons. It's pretty great.

I usually just run to the boss entrance and wait near it. If I see someone play on the lava I don't waste my time chasing them.

 

[Random]

I usually just run to the boss entrance and wait near it. If I see someone play on the lava I don't waste my time chasing them.

Bah, you're no fun. Variety is the spice of life!

 

[DragoFireheart]

I usually just run to the boss entrance and wait near it. If I see someone play on the lava I don't waste my time chasing them.

Bah, you're no fun. Variety is the spice of life!

I wore Giant-Moms when it worked and used a Moonlight Greatsword.

I am a VERY boring person.

 

[Random]

I usually just run to the boss entrance and wait near it. If I see someone play on the lava I don't waste my time chasing them.

Bah, you're no fun. Variety is the spice of life!

I wore Giant-Moms when it worked and used a Moonlight Greatsword.

I am a VERY boring person.

Pffft, Moonlight Greatsword. Next you're going to tell me that you had more than starting dexterity.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Pffft, Moonlight Greatsword. Next you're going to tell me that you had more than starting dexterity.

No, I usually did 16str/10dex.

 

[Random]

No, I usually did 16str/10dex.

Then you are officially not a faggot. Congratulations.

 

[DragoFireheart]

No, I usually did 16str/10dex.

Then you are officially not a faggot. Congratulations.

But sometimes I would make a 40Dex character and use BSS w/ CMW.

Now am I a faggot?

 

[Random]

No, I usually did 16str/10dex.

Then you are officially not a faggot. Congratulations.

But sometimes I would make a 40Dex character and use BSS w/ CMW.

Now am I a faggot?

You are a second degree faggot for doing that, but it's not quite as faggoty as making a Dex/Faith character who uses Darkmoon Blade. That's just gay.

 

[DragoFireheart]

You are a second degree faggot for doing that, but it's not quite as faggoty as making a Dex/Faith character who uses Darkmoon Blade. That's just gay.

I tried that once but dex/faith is too fucking boring. I always do Dex/Int, straight Int, or maybe str/int.

Now, jumping off the ledge in Darkwood to hide by the hydra, casting Chameleon to blend in, and then waiting while Forest gankers look for you is fucking hilarious. I've gotten lots of fun hate mail for that.

 

[Machocruz]

Ninja Gaiden is much harder than Dark Souls, and it has saves before every boss. But most of the bosses in DS are wimps and it's only because of the gauntlet you have to run to get to them do they feel like an ordeal. I'd rather have pumped up bosses with save points than wimps after a gauntlet, but I'm fine with DS for the most part. Now the orignal release of DMC3 was a fucking pain. Harder bosses, forced encounters, time eating mandatory puzzles, trash enemies require more time to kill, backtracking, and no boss checkpoints.


Comparing Dark Souls, or modern action games in general, to arcade and NES games is not apt imo. Modern games have longer 'levels,' and bosses with larger health pools. It takes longer to get to a boss, to fight the boss, and the games are overall longer. Playing a level in Golden Axe, beating up some mooks in forced encounters, getting to the boss, dying, starting the level over, getting to the boss again is a smaller investment of time than it is for the same sequence (minus forced fights) in parts of Dark Souls.

To Dark Souls' credit, it was much less tedious than Demon's Souls, which starts you at the beginning of a zone every time you die, and has harder bosses. False King and the road to get to him is pushing the boundaries of good taste.