From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[Murk]

Vageta's a legit bro.

I can see the rolling/iFrame thing going a few ways that work for me. The old system worked out well, but if they want to use a more visible way of determining it such as every X% load you lose an iframe or for certain points you lose 2 iFrames I could go with that as well. That lets you have multiple options while still keeping the current "scaling" system. The only thing that is mandatory for me, regardless of the system, is that you can tell what your iFrames are and in such a manner that doesn't require reverse engineering with slow-mo video in a contrived setting.

The current issues with iFrames isn't that it's too hard to play -- it's not, it's easier than DKs 1 at SL1 -- the problem is that it doesn't make sense. I know it's a cse of my iFrame buffer running out while I am in a hit-box but there is just no way to visually tell that, and if you can't make sense of the combat you do not know what to fix. One really important aspect of the "difficulty" (lol) of Dark Souls is knowing WHY you did something wrong and being given the information to fix it. It's definitely a learning experience and half of the fun is in realizing you can totally change what you're doing and succeed, and it's not just a question of leveling up or getting a +10 weapon (tho that does help). The game emphasizes player skill greatly as an action game should. The current problem is that none of that works. You have no idea why you got hit other than a vague idea that "guess my iFrames ran out".

This results in all kinds of wonky stuff like you clearing the attack animation, but getting hit anyway. Part of the problem exacerbating this could also be hitbox issues, but IMO that's like complaining about RNG -- it's out of my control so I can't do much. If they want to "Fix it" then sure, but rolling is in my control and it is very unreliable at low levels.

"But Mik, this game was made for leveling up -- it's not From's fault that you're a retard playing at SL1" -- sure, this is a fine complaint except it doe work, it just hits a wall for very silly reasons. If you argued that you cant put out enough damage, you can't soak up Smelter's fire aura damage, or something like that then sure; I'd bite. That's not the case tho, the game very much wants to encourage you to do challenge runs -- that's why there are covenants, rings, and items all for making the game harder. So why take the one clear "challenge" that is posed at the very beginning of character creation and then muck it up with sloppy and undecipherable mechanics?

 

[Shadenuat]

Just get your ADP to 20(22?) and forget about this shit.

 

[Murk]

All my real characters try for 100 agi, but above I'm talking about doing an SL 1 or base-level character.

Reading the last page of the iFrames counting Vageta did really makes the back-step and roll parry look fucking ridiculous. You basically stack parry and iframes in sequence; assuming his numbers are correct. They definitely have to fix that.

On the topic of white phantoms; how many of you cats like to put the white ring on and just fuck with summons?

 

[Murk]

So basically, there's no hope for good PvP other than remaking characters once your SM gets too high

It appears to plateau at 15mil (according to people testing it) so basically it kills low to mid level and after that range it's free game. Assuming people are sticking to the meta... tho there's no way to tell, so basically unless you trust in HONOR (no, the other honor) you'll potentially be facing down level 700s. Or something.

 

[aris]

So basically, there's no hope for good PvP other than remaking characters once your SM gets too high

It appears to plateau at 15mil (according to people testing it) so basically it kills low to mid level and after that range it's free game. Assuming people are sticking to the meta... tho there's no way to tell, so basically unless you trust in HONOR (no, the other honor) you'll potentially be facing down level 700s. Or something.

I think that sounds about right. There seem to be an exponential growth in required souls for each level as you reach about 210, so level 700 probably isn't possible to reach. I've reached level 240 on one of my character with about 10 mill soul memory now, but now I need more than 200 000 souls for each level. Around level 200 is also where I get the most invasions, so that seems to be the place where it's going on.

 

[Murk]

I wanna say that with silver ring + tseldora set you should be getting at least 150k souls per major boss (rotten for example; and that's not counting the two hard souls he/it will drop) but my guess is people will stop farming and probably spend that on silver talismans or orbs or something else.

 

[aris]

The theory on the ancient dragon is really interesting, and ties in well with the gigantic skeleton of an ancient dragon that suddenly starts to move as you enter aida's keep, probably a failed experiment to create the ancient dragon you see at the end. This really flew right by me.

 

[Zeriel]

So basically, there's no hope for good PvP other than remaking characters once your SM gets too high

It appears to plateau at 15mil (according to people testing it) so basically it kills low to mid level and after that range it's free game. Assuming people are sticking to the meta... tho there's no way to tell, so basically unless you trust in HONOR (no, the other honor) you'll potentially be facing down level 700s. Or something.

I think that sounds about right. There seem to be an exponential growth in required souls for each level as you reach about 210, so level 700 probably isn't possible to reach. I've reached level 240 on one of my character with about 10 mill soul memory now, but now I need more than 200 000 souls for each level. Around level 200 is also where I get the most invasions, so that seems to be the place where it's going on.

I've seen people with more than 1.2M souls just sitting in their inventory, so that's not very high at all.

 

[aris]

So basically, there's no hope for good PvP other than remaking characters once your SM gets too high

It appears to plateau at 15mil (according to people testing it) so basically it kills low to mid level and after that range it's free game. Assuming people are sticking to the meta... tho there's no way to tell, so basically unless you trust in HONOR (no, the other honor) you'll potentially be facing down level 700s. Or something.

I think that sounds about right. There seem to be an exponential growth in required souls for each level as you reach about 210, so level 700 probably isn't possible to reach. I've reached level 240 on one of my character with about 10 mill soul memory now, but now I need more than 200 000 souls for each level. Around level 200 is also where I get the most invasions, so that seems to be the place where it's going on.

I've seen people with more than 1.2M souls just sitting in their inventory, so that's not very high at all.

Well they might have been gaining them over many hours.

 

[Gozma]

I still dislike how a stat can change the amount of iframes in a roll without any visual change to the animation itself. I think a better way would've been to have stats (be it equip load or agility) affect the time it takes for the animation to finish, as well as the stamina cost (maybe that already happens, not sure). So someone with the stat investment/low equip load would have a much faster roll covering more distance, but with the same amount of iframes - which I think makes more sense for an "agile" character than just being lolimmune while rolling.

This would also be good because the timing you use to dodge the active frames of an attack would always be the same, so the somatic skill and muscle memory involved wouldn't jump around inconsistently depending on build and loadout, but what WOULD change is the slightly higher level tactical stuff like what punishes you get and risk/reward.

I think doing it that way with a focus on consistency and reliability would also let them design for smaller invincibility windows in general - half second invincibility windows feel incredibly sloppy.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

So basically, there's no hope for good PvP other than remaking characters once your SM gets too high

It appears to plateau at 15mil (according to people testing it) so basically it kills low to mid level and after that range it's free game. Assuming people are sticking to the meta... tho there's no way to tell, so basically unless you trust in HONOR (no, the other honor) you'll potentially be facing down level 700s. Or something.

I think that sounds about right. There seem to be an exponential growth in required souls for each level as you reach about 210, so level 700 probably isn't possible to reach. I've reached level 240 on one of my character with about 10 mill soul memory now, but now I need more than 200 000 souls for each level. Around level 200 is also where I get the most invasions, so that seems to be the place where it's going on.

I've seen people with more than 1.2M souls just sitting in their inventory, so that's not very high at all.

Well they might have been gaining them over many hours.

Nah, one just needs to know where to farm. Giant Lord or Dragon Aerie is a whole lot of souls pretty fast.

 

[Murk]

I was thinking about this the other day after fighting LG knight again and it dawned on me that the Shrine of Amana is, like, five times the goddamn size of Castle Drangleic. And under it. Like, the castle is built on top of some strange grotto or lake in a cave that is littered with ruins. I guess the King used it as refuge from his wife. He had a mancave. A literal. fucking. mancave.

Definitely an atmospheric level and looks plenty nice too. Damn shame you spend the majority of the time staring at the water, hoping to find a chest or avoid a ledge. Oops, too late.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

Huh. I've never really been big into pvp in past Souls games, but now that this one has forced it on me I've realised I kinda like it. Just it's broken because of soul memory. How ironic.

 

[aris]

fascinating theories that fail to address dks2's main flaw: why should I care?
i can spin a tale about how the codex is actually a representation of mankind's innermost desire for greatness among all the shit it produces, but without any context all that becomes is fanfiction, which is exactly those videos are. if i can take any liberties I like interpreting stories I think are deep I might as well tell the codex to go to hell and stick to the Gospel of John

in any case gauda you're a fucking idiot so why are you even bothering to try understanding words with more than two syllables, man? nothing against you, i just think you oughta learn how to crawl before you walk.

cheers

These are theories backed by plenty of evidence in the ingame item descriptions, lore and actual dialogue. Most of it is connecting various peaces of actual ingame facts, so there's a huge difference between that, and just imagining stuff out of nothing. For example, he gave hard evidence for what the little ones were, and the purpose of the singing in amana's shrine, which I hadn't understood up until the point, which is a nice little subtle detail actually.

And why so emotional? You suddenly started to get personal for no reason (and in the most butthurt and trite way possible, I might add, "learn to read words with more than two syllables *HUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRR*"). If you've decided that you don't care from the beginning, then of course you're not going to care. I care however, because I find it about as interesting as DS1's lore, fucking sue me if this offends you.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

I was thinking about this the other day after fighting LG knight again and it dawned on me that the Shrine of Amana is, like, five times the goddamn size of Castle Drangleic. And under it. Like, the castle is built on top of some strange grotto or lake in a cave that is littered with ruins. I guess the King used it as refuge from his wife. He had a mancave. A literal. fucking. mancave.

Definitely an atmospheric level and looks plenty nice too. Damn shame you spend the majority of the time staring at the water, hoping to find a chest or avoid a ledge. Oops, too late.

truly an apex of level design when you have to take into consideration screen-length soul arrow spitting statues and giant rats with skeleton beasts' moveset and modelled after that frog dude from x-men

oh no wait it isnt

fuck this game

I agree, it should use the same reskinned hollows and knights as DaS1 does for most of its levels. Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith stopped the hollow/knight reuse, which is obviously why they were so bad.

More hollows FROM pls.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I was thinking about this the other day after fighting LG knight again and it dawned on me that the Shrine of Amana is, like, five times the goddamn size of Castle Drangleic. And under it. Like, the castle is built on top of some strange grotto or lake in a cave that is littered with ruins. I guess the King used it as refuge from his wife. He had a mancave. A literal. fucking. mancave.

And let's not forget, he has a mancave inside his mancave (really, Vendrick's Soul and armor set are found in a locked hidden cave).

 

[Murk]

He had to protect his pokemins from his wife; she kept using his TMs and teaching the good moves to his fly/cut mules.

 

[Kanedias]

Also all of Vaati's theories have been out there for ages, so it's not like he creates them himself. I agree with most of them but I didn't watch his video on the story, only the ending one.

Anyways, I have been a bit busy.

Just fought a red phantom that teleported 3 meters and then backstabbed me, instakilling me (I have 2300 hp) midroll. It might have been due to lag, but is that even possible? To backstab while you are doing a dodge roll? Seemed fucking weird.

It could be this "technique". It's what people do to backstab you mid roll (or it could have just been really bad lag). Be careful of doing a single back roll against BS fishers because most try to do this.

 

[Shadenuat]

why so emotional?

Because you don't need a video to explain that DS2 story is just a more mudded and watered down story of DS1. But that's not a problem which I would have with the story or the video. My problem would be that video makes DS setting boring.

Vaati uses description of dull ember (just one crafting item from the game) to tell us that there always can be life, and the world of DS is cyclic because someone can always rekindle the flame. So no matter what you do, rekindle the fire or not, the world will continue to exist. Yet he then proceeds to say that ashes of first rekindler, an undead from DS1, are there in the game, thus making rekindling ending the "canon". Well, how can you say if DS world is cyclic and your choice doesn't matter if "dark" ending never happened?

We already knew that world of DS has a possibility of being cyclic, as you can either choose to burn and vanish and then let somebody else to try and prolongue the cycle, or just surrender to Dark/Grey or whatever. What's important is that DS1 gives you that choice. The game has balls to let you decide to either burn bright or to accept dark as a natural state of the universe, it has the balls to speculate that life may be nothing but a mistake. Vaati however says that cycle is what is natural, you know, there's always a Lighthouse, a-la Bioshock, and so you no longer have a heavy choice, since game makes it for you. For me that ruins the beauty of pristine and single state the world was in DS1, which was born from darkness and could either burn just a little more or die - like real fire does. The whole queen/manus shard just adds insult to injury, because if she's just a little part, that places player near just one "lighthouse", who knows how many times can you re-create the same play over and over again until it ceases to be a world, but becomes a franchise?

There's little interesting in a world of cycling light and dark. That is how our world is, simple physics and biology.

But let's follow flow of videos a bit more. I think first thing when people would roll their eyes is statement that everyone in DS2 is "lead by a desire". Solaire from DS1 was but a single character, yet he probably was lead by desire more than anyone in DS2. The speculation afterwards just points at a sign of poor writing - when you want to mess with player's head instead of providing answers. DS1 obfuscated things by providing you with hard facts and names, but holding back on chronology of events and the context. Just the movie in DS1 has enough hard facts to allow player intuitively understand what is happening. DS2? "You don't know". "You will never know". I got to admit game is very effective with that promise - most players indeed would not know what they did and why after killing final boss, or probably just won't care, which is even worse.

But that's the fallacy, no? Game can't be about desire yet also about not knowing what yours, or other characters desires are. Hence the NPCs forming their own Tristram, a scottish with huge sword who follows your for no reason or the emo chick, and the herald... well, perhaps not the herald, since unlike most characters she actually follows her purpose and moves around the world with the player in a coherent way. Although if we take into concideration the second video, battle with fate and Vendrick's theory, her actions start to make a lot less sense. But let's finish with "ending" video first.

The throne is the kiln? How? In DS1 to preserve whatever scraps of life are left Gwyn links himself with Kiln, keeping it long enough for Undead to make the choice. The bonfires and their keepers were integrated in that mythology. Simply put, game was about fire - that was the key element. So why are there bonfires in DS2? The keepers are not with them anymore, they giggle at you and drink tea in their hut. Herald is just one possible keeper and she doesn't seem to care for linking fires again. When you kill a keeper in DS1, the fire vanishes. Game can even fuck you up with a NPC doing so. If the theme of game changed, there is no reason to keep that saving system. Perhaps if torches were integrated in game more, maybe if Undead had to fire all torches between old fire keepers and bonfires to create something of a linking system; if darkness was really dark and preserving light around you would be important; if you had to basically repeat the steps of Gwyn because Vendrick didn't care for that... then yes, perhaps fire theme would have a meaning.

Otherwise you might replace all bonfires with little stone thrones for undead to rest upon. Would look stupid, but at least would make some sense as far as game concerned.

Barring the fact that thing which sustained life previously is not even alit, the second video about the story is still such a mess. While DS1 was self sustained, story of DS2 relies on it a lot, scrapping whatever it can yet still remaining orderless. What was the whole point of kingdom's backstory and giants if what ruined it eventually is the curse from first game? What is the story of the queen and her arrival, aside from a cursed picture and pointing fingers at Manus? She should have been an interesting character, but in game there's little to learn about her. Who were the Four Ones now? Why are they alive? Didn't Vendrick vanish them? If there are so many places undead were specifically sent to, what's up with fairly nonsensical level design and minor bosses, should't it be a challenge to reach those places? With story from video in mind, it becomes even harder to understand what levels in DS2 are supposed to represent, exept maybe for Lost Bastille.

Sadly Vaati's video then goes onto a path of explaining everything with "Fate". Worked for ancient greeks, but because DS2 makes us accept our fate, someone long ago battling it does not make me care about the plot more. And then I think it becomes a little bit ridiculous. Nashandra, a powerful boss apparently can't get the key because she's afraid of fireflies! It's women who sing? Wait, but what about Demon of Song? Wasn't it that creature who was obviously singing? Vendrick fled and created multiple barriers, and he waited for player to get his soul and his items... even if in game, you can't get them unless you killed his hollow shell... for it is written in fate. Why not make player feel the guiding hand of Vendrick as he travels around then, why not make him leave more gifts and clues?

After that story video I just want to enter Spoony-mode and barrage it with questions, but I think I already made the most important one multiple times: if a story is supposed to mean something, why not use the game to represent that? Like firekeepers, bonfires and Gwyn and kiln, and other things.

 

[Kanedias]

Vaati uses description of dull ember (just one crafting item from the game) to tell us that there always can be life, and the world of DS is cyclic because someone can always rekindle the flame. So no matter what you do, rekindle the fire or not, the world will continue to exist. Yet he then proceeds to say that ashes of first rekindler, and undead from DS1, are there in the game, thus making rekindling ending the "canon". Well, how can you say if DS world is cyclic and your choice doesn't matter if "dark" ending never happened?

This is what happens when Vaati takes what other people say and mixes them together. ENB was the first one to draw the comparison between the world and the description of the Dull Ember, and I agree with it very much. But the Sublime Bone Dust are not the ashes of the Chosen Undead we played. They could be, but there's no definitive evidence. It could be anyone. For example, Miyazaki has said that if Solaire survives fighting Gwyn, he'd link the fire. Also, countless time has passed since the events of Dark Souls 1, and several other people probably linked the fire during that time. The story is constructed in a way that both original endings could be canon, that's why the 2nd game is placed so far into the future.

We already knew that world of DS has a possibility of being cyclic, as you can either choose to burn and vanish and then let somebody else to try and prolongue the cycle, or just surrender to Dark/Grey or whatever. What's important is that DS1 gives you that choice. The game has balls to let you decide to either burn bright or to accept dark as a natural state of the universe, it has the balls to speculate that life may be nothing but a mistake. Vaati however says that cycle is what is natural, you know, there's always a Lighthouse, a-la Bioshock, and so you no longer have a heavy choice, since game makes it for you. For me that ruins the beauty of pristine and single state the world was in DS1, which was born from darkness and could either burn just a little more or die - like real fire does. The whole queen/manus shard just adds insult to injury, because if she's just a little part, that places player near just one "lighthouse", who knows how many times can you re-create the same play over and over again until it ceases to be a world, but becomes a franchise?

Well, the choice of Dark Lord or Link the Fire does matter, I don't care what Vaati says. For example I believe that Dark Souls 2 takes places during an Age of Dark, started by Vendrick himself. This is heavily implied by two things, Shalquoir compares you to how Vendrick was at the start, and then we learn via Chancellor Wellager that Vendrick vanquished the Old Ones long ago and "built a kingdom upon their Souls". In this age there are no Gods around (check the description of the Crescent Axe for further evidence), human kingdoms flourished and advanced, etc. It's the age of Man, like Kaathe said. I believe this is also why bonfires have no keepers, they are weaker (explaining the change in Estus mechanics) and some of them are destroyed (the Primal Bonfires).

The world is cyclical but every cycle isn't just a copy paste of the previous one. In fact Vendrick has ruled for an awfully long time, enough for the Old Ones to resurface again after he killed them, so it means he delayed the next cycle a great deal. There's room for change.

This game's ending is a non-choice but I believe the real choice lies in how you interpret it. This is just a personal theory of mine, but there's a nice duality since the Throne of Want is placed inside a structure that looks like a real-life Kiln. Do you interpret it as you burning and linking the fire? Or as you ruling? It's link the fire vs Dark Lord over again.

--

Added in an edit:

I think first thing when people would roll their eyes is statement that everyone in DS2 is "lead by a desire". Solaire from DS1 was but a single character, yet he probably was lead by desire more than anyone in DS2. The speculation afterwards just points at a sign of poor writing - when you want to mess with player's head instead of providing answers. DS1 obfuscated things by providing you with hard facts and names, but holding back on chronology of events and the context. Just the movie in DS1 has enough hard facts to allow player intuitively understand what is happening. DS2? "You don't know". "You will never know". I got to admit game is very effective with that promise - most players indeed would not know what they did and why after killing final boss, or probably just won't care, which is even worse.

The game draws a large connection between life and desire. Vaati simplifies this in his video, but I think the lack of desires in most NPCs are intended and connect with this theme. Life is about desire, and we have always known Undead hollow when they lose all their desires / will to go on. Undead that come to Drangleic start to forget what they wanted in the first place, why they came to the kingdom, they start going hollow. I believe Desire/Will is a theme, not a huge plot point, and it has been there since Dark Souls 1.

Remember the Soul of Manus?

Ancient Manus was clearly once human.
But he became the Father of the Abyss
after his humanity went wild, eternally
seeking his precious broken pendant.

It's the same thing. This theme has always been there. This game is just more explicit about it, and some people confuse that with it being some sort of "plot point" or something.

 

[Kanedias]

Making a new post because this has nothing to do with the other one.

Spider's Fang has two hidden moves. I wonder if other weapons get something like this.

This is the first one, if you have enough stats to power stance them, then you do an r1 with a fast weapon and follow it with an L2, the Spider's Fang does the Ricard's Rapier attack followed by a bugged (no pun intended) web shot instead of a parry. Note: the weapon must not be power stanced, but you do need the stats, for some reason.



The second one is simpler. When you two hand a weapon that's in your left hand, the moves are exactly the same as they would be if it were on your right hand, but the buttons are mirrored (for example, R2 becomes L2, etc). Thing is, when you do this with Spider Fang, the L2 is not the same attack as the usual R2, it's a different one that looks kind of like a Blacksteel Katana slash, and also shoots web.

 

[DragoFireheart]

The next Souls game needs 50 giant humanoid bosses with a giant weapon. We didn't get enough in this one.

 

[Random]

Well, the choice of Dark Lord or Link the Fire does matter, I don't care what Vaati says. For example I believe that Dark Souls 2 takes places during an Age of Dark, started by Vendrick himself. This is heavily implied by two things, Shalquoir compares you to how Vendrick was at the start, and then we learn via Chancellor Wellager that Vendrick vanquished the Old Ones long ago and "built a kingdom upon their Souls". In this age there are no Gods around (check the description of the Crescent Axe for further evidence), human kingdoms flourished and advanced, etc. It's the age of Man, like Kaathe said. I believe this is also why bonfires have no keepers, they are weaker (explaining the change in Estus mechanics) and some of them are destroyed (the Primal Bonfires).

I don't give a shit about the rest of your post, or the rest of this scrub-tier lore debate, but I gotta point out your logical inconsistencies in this section. If Dark Souls 2 is an Age of Dark, then wow does shit not change regardless of whether you link the fire or let it die out (because it clearly doesn't die out anyways if what you think is true, there's still bonfires!). The fact that there are flourishing human kingdoms is not indicative of anything, there were plenty of those in DS1 and it was the Age of Fire. The lack of Gods is also not proof of anything, we saw most of them were either dead or dying in DS1 and that has no bearing on whether the player links the fire or doesn't.

The world is cyclical but every cycle isn't just a copy paste of the previous one. In fact Vendrick has ruled for an awfully long time, enough for the Old Ones to resurface again after he killed them, so it means he delayed the next cycle a great deal. There's room for change.

Vendrick didn't delay the next cycle any more than Gwyn did. Did you forget how long it took for the Chosen Undead to show up and do shit in DS1? While the locations may change, while there may be new people around, the fundamental things are all the same. Superficial change is superficial change. What is the point if, as you claim, this is actually an Age of Dark and there is still bonfires, still the Darksign, still an incompetent King who failed to protect his kingdom, still a lone Undead running around and solving all these problems for said incompetent King, and still the giant monsters? If this is an Age of Dark, then it doesn't fucking matter what any undead chooses. Link the fire, don't link the fire, a big fancy kingdom still arises and big monsters still appear and the undead are still cursed and blah blah blah.

Regardless, the cyclical theme of DS2 is very derivative on DS1 and comes off as not having the balls to do something different. If there were only a handful of links to DS1 - like, say, finding a few signature items from the old era like the Old Leo Ring but not the Chloranthy Ring (why replace so many other rings but keep this one?), and some passing mentions of someone like Ciaran or Gwynevere who survived the big fuckup that was Lordran and undoubtedly had fascinating lives that would be cool to learn about - then those links would be far more interesting and valuable. Instead, we find the Sunlight Altar, we find fucking Havel himself (why), a piece of Manus is the final boss, giants are an enemy, the four Lord Souls are all back and apparently impervious to being burned in the Lordvessel (WTF), etc. etc. and it's just a big onanistic "DO YOU REMEMBER THIS? HUH?! REMEMBER IT?! HUH?!" that doesn't stop, there's no intrigue to it, and the fact that the theme is of cycles itself which means that the entire plot of DSII is recycled from the first game is bafflingly retarded.

I don't even care if DSII is objectively worse in the story and lore department, which I do believe, but the fact is: From actively chose not to do something different, but to just do the same shit again, and then try to justify it with their half-assed theme that fails to connect with the gameplay and the characters themselves. They wanted an indirect sequel, but then contrived the matter so that they got everything a direct sequel might have. If this was like Armored Core where they make a main game and then a direct sequel or two and move on to the next installment, it would be fine. But it's not Armored Core and that's not what they did. Even then, the Armored Core sequels don't contrive to reproduce the same game. You get different stories and different missions that have no real relation to the previous game outside the setting itself.

 

[praetor]

Well, the choice of Dark Lord or Link the Fire does matter, I don't care what Vaati says. For example I believe that Dark Souls 2 takes places during an Age of Dark, started by Vendrick himself. This is heavily implied by two things, Shalquoir compares you to how Vendrick was at the start, and then we learn via Chancellor Wellager that Vendrick vanquished the Old Ones long ago and "built a kingdom upon their Souls". In this age there are no Gods around (check the description of the Crescent Axe for further evidence), human kingdoms flourished and advanced, etc. It's the age of Man, like Kaathe said. I believe this is also why bonfires have no keepers, they are weaker (explaining the change in Estus mechanics) and some of them are destroyed (the Primal Bonfires).

while i agree with most of what you said, i'd like to point out a couple of things about the bolded part:
a) we know from DaS1 that one or more Ages of Dark happened in DaS1's history, when the world had it's fair share of Gods. thus Age of Dark <=/=> absence of Gods
b) from what we know of Gods, they were entities with really powerful souls, and since quite a few of those souls are still "active", it's quite safe to say that those same Gods are still there... which is kinda cool in a way 'cause that actually makes them more godlike than "simple entities with powerful souls". it's actually those very souls (the ones from the first flame) that are the "true" Gods, with the "reincarnations" only being avatars of the current age?

The game draws a large connection between life and desire. Vaati simplifies this in his video, but I think the lack of desires in most NPCs are intended and connect with this theme. Life is about desire, and we have always known Undead hollow when they lose all their desires / will to go on. Undead that come to Drangleic start to forget what they wanted in the first place, why they came to the kingdom, they start going hollow. I believe Desire/Will is a theme, not a huge plot point, and it has been there since Dark Souls 1.

i think this is one of the game's biggest flaws (story/setting/lore-wise), the way it presents the themes and lore. it's overly explicit when it doesn't need to ("the curse of life is the curse of want", the whole cyclic theme being hammered in by every fucking NPC in the game, as is the loss of memory etc), and needlessly cryptic when it doesn't need to (emerald bitch being the most notable example). DaS1 was quite simple and elegant in it's "crypticness", while DaS2 proves to be an immense clusterfuck:

a) if Nash is more powerful than Vendick, why not off him and take all the goodies? because he didn't have all that she wanted? but then he outlived his usefulness and he could (would!) only create more problems. that's some pretty "hollywood stupid eveil" from the main villain mastermind. appearances? but who cares? his guards? but then...
b) ...if his guards (and/or he himself) are more powerful than Nash, and the King Dick knew what she was up to, why not save us the trouble and just off her and not trap her near the Throne so that she can be able to cause shenanigans in a future when a chosen undead "accidentally" freed her? because she can curse? the Throne duo and Vel seem to be quite curse/dark resistant, they'd have killed her no problems.
c) but you need the giant kinship to access to throne and KV didn't have it! but his brother had the ashen mist heart/the ancient dragon who possessed it so that they could access the memories. the only thing that makes a bit of sense here is that the ASM is something the ancient derper has to pass on through his superpowers and ole Aldia managed to revive the sucker only after KV went to hollow out in the Crypt (but then that opens up a whole other can of worms and plotholes, so yeah...).
edit d) and wtf kind of great soul does Nash Bridges want from the First Flame? all the known ones are out in the open!

it's also pretty stupid in the "4 great ones" connection to DaS1, with the lolrandom and arbitrary selection of powerful souls. the Witch and Nito make sense, but Seath yes and 4Kings no? and then Gwyn being "one of the 4" when he was.. ugh, fuck them for forcing upon us this idiotic bullshit

 

[DragoFireheart]

a) if Nash is more powerful than Vendick, why not off him and take all the goodies?

So we have an excuse to fight the dozen or so giant-humanoids-with-a-big-weapon bosses.