From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[sullynathan]

For real, tell me one area in DS3 with a top notch level design. Can't thing of one. Everything is so average. DLC is great but it's so damn short.

I've shared this over 100 times now. The best areas in Souls 2 are mostly in the DLC, while DS3 has great areas within the main game. The locations within DS3 main game are also better than the best ones in DS2. That's final.
DARK SOULS III

• Cathedral of the Deep
• Profaned Capital + Irithyll Dungeon
• Grand Archives
• Anor Londo
• Lothric Castle

DARK SOULS II: Scholar of the First Sin

• No-Man's Wharf
• Huntsmans Copse
• Iron Keep
• Drangleic Castle
• Dragon Shrine
• Brume Tower
• Frozen Eleum Loyce

 

[Hyperion]

Road of Sacrifices and Farron Keep were probably among the best for what they set out for in creating a nice cat and mouse game among the host and invader. Rat Covenant was probably better in that regard since it reversed the roles and made the person trying to progress through the game the "invader."

DS3's level design would have been inherently better if they didn't give you bonfire warping (and bonfires in abundance) from the start.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Like, the level design is not as satisfying but I'd be fucked if it' not better than most of DS3.

you're fucked because it isn't

For real, tell me one area in DS3 with a top notch level design. Can't think of one. Everything is so average. DLC is great but it's so damn short.

With the exception of Brume Tower and Shulva Dark Souls 2 has no memorable or good areas. They are either forgettable or annoying at best. (amana, harvest valley) Double so for the bosses. Not even invasions save them, with the exception of catacombs because you can troll with the bells.

DS3 has carthus and archdragon peak for invasions at least.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

For real, tell me one area in DS3 with a top notch level design. Can't thing of one. Everything is so average. DLC is great but it's so damn short.

I've shared this over 100 times now. The best areas in Souls 2 are mostly in the DLC, while DS3 has great areas within the main game. The locations within DS3 main game are also better than the best ones in DS2. That's final.
DARK SOULS III

• Cathedral of the Deep
• Profaned Capital + Irithyll Dungeon
• Grand Archives
• Anor Londo
• Lothric Castle

DARK SOULS II: Scholar of the First Sin

• No-Man's Wharf
• Huntsmans Copse
• Iron Keep
• Drangleic Castle
• Dragon Shrine
• Brume Tower
• Frozen Eleum Loyce

Yeah, Profaned Capital is my favourite area along with Shulva. But fuck it's so short and so little takes place in areas like that ruined tower with the bonfire.

Nu-male's wharf is completely ruined by the spammy enemies, I just rush through every time.

 

[cvv]

The Archives and Irithyll Dungeon are above average in DS3. The latter is prolly the only one on par with the sequels. The Cathedral and Castle are stupid empty shit full of pointless. Anor Londo is a lazy rip off passed off as a fan service. Profaned Capital, for real? It's not even a thing.

 

[sullynathan]

I like No mans wharf from what I remembered. I didn't play most of SOTFS with a guide so when I reached No mans wharf, it showed a lot of the new things that Souls 2 was bringing to the table. From the new shades that can help you through an area, to the use of a torch to light certain places up and the bombs. It also had that old man that would only sell things to you if you had enough intelligence.
It also served as an endurance test for me with the large amount of enemies and managing them. There were lots of secrets that I didn't even know were there until I revisited the area. I also like how it was the 2nd entrance to Lost bastille.

The Archives and Irithyll Dungeon are above average in DS3. The latter is prolly the only one on par with the sequels. The Cathedral and Castle are stupid empty shit full of pointless. Anor Londo is a lazy rip off passed off as a fan service. Profaned Capital, for real? It's not even a thing.

All the areas I mentioned are some of the best areas in the entire series. The cathedral of the deep is great, run through it again. You'll be surprised as to how many parts of it are actually optional and how many shortcuts there are to numerous parts of the cathedral. Dark Souls 3 at its best is the series at its best, plus the cathedral is one of the best places for PVP.

Anor Londo is short but it is the pvp area, they also fixed the archers so . The secret underground area with sulvhans beasts is one of the most difficult areas in souls 3.

Profaned capital is one of the most captivating place in the series. Especially when you go underground of the dungeon to come into this sprawling sunk city, its like one of those areas in Souls 2 DLC, Brume tower I think. Its perfect as to how it perfectly loops back into Irithyll dungeon. To say the truth, I didn't like Irithyll at first. The annoying enemy that takes your health away is a bitch to deal with in the first play through, and I remember stumbling on the profaned capital by mistake because I was trying to run away from those enemies. I was low on estus so I just kept pushing forward and luckily enough I found a bonfire. That gave me the Dark Souls 1 blighttown feeling again. By the third playthrough, I realized it was one one of the best designed areas in the game, but I rarely did pvp in that place.

What are you talking about? Lothric Castle is one of the best designed areas in the game with one of the best bosses in the game. IIRC, it's the only late game area you can access from very early on which breaks some of the linearity of souls 3 by giving access to untended graves and consumed kings garden in the early game. It would have been even better if FROM patched souls 3 and allowed you to continue to the Grand Archives after beating Lothric Castle even if you didn't beat the other Lords of Cinder.

 

[Perkel]

Shit, I'm loving this game 10 times more than DS3. They fucked up a few things compared to DS1 but it's nowhere close to the disaster people are talking about

When people talk about fuckups they don't mean DS2 is utter garbage. DS2 despite its flaws is still really good game. Just not DS1 or DS3 good.

DS2 was screwed from the start because Miiyazaki wasn't involved in it. Any missteps they took were instantly lambasted by his ejaculatory weeb fanbois that attributed the errors to Miyazaki's absence instead of acknowledging DS1 was far from perfect. But most of them didn't actually play Demon's Souls so their opinion is mostly null...

I don't know if you live in alternate reality but before DS2 was released everyone expected it to be amazing. DS2 opinion changed after people tried it. So DS2 opinion is product of post mortem and not hype machine fueled on "muh not muhyazaki game = bad game"
DLC on other hand is praised by same people and everyone (after few months of shit balancing) agrees that it fixed DS1 combat and introduced few features that were good.

I still remember how fucking awesome first announcement trailer for DS2 was:

 

[nomask7]

Shit, I'm loving this game 10 times more than DS3. They fucked up a few things compared to DS1 but it's nowhere close to the disaster people are talking about (tho I'm playing SotfS, vanilla was probably much more broken).

Like, the level design is not as satisfying but I'd be fucked if it' not better than most of DS3. I'm about half-way through but most areas I've been through I've enjoyed more than anything from DS3. The amount of secrets, details, little things is so joyful. Playing those two games back to back just highlights how dull, soulless, by the numbers DS3 is. Weird thing is the mobs and bosses of DS2 are a joke compared to DS3 (only the Ruin Sentinels beat the living shit out of me, I've schrecked all the rest in 2 attempts at most) but some areas are still no fucking joke (Earthen Peak put grey hair on my head).

Did you play while having Company of Champions as your covenant? That's the hard mode in the game, making monsters do more damage.

Also, I agree with much of what you say about DS2 vs DS3. DS3 feels more like a wannabe Bloodborne sequel than a proper Souls game in terms of its level design and much of its art style, which give a darker and more realistic vibe at the cost of memorability. To me DS2 is the last true Souls game.

As for people "not liking it". I once did a poll about DS1 vs DS2, and those games did about as well in the poll:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/dark-souls-ii-poll.97592/

This was before SotFS, and I didn't mention the DLC so I expect people mostly voted based on the quality of the base game. At any rate, only 17% voted that DS2 was "significantly worse than DS1". It's just a nostalgic loudmouthed minority, especially when you consider that 11% said DS2 is better than DS1.

Again, I recommend playing through vanilla DS2. I haven't done a poll about that topic but I doubt many people would prefer SotFS.

 

[sullynathan]

oh yeah, fuck no mask for ignoring you dirty whore.

 

[Perkel]

For real, tell me one area in DS3 with a top notch level design. Can't think of one. Everything is so average. DLC is great but it's so damn short.

All of them ? Each of them has purpose and represents something and is closely connected to lore and moreover mobs are placed in non random way. All of those points have problems in DS2 which looks like string of random levels with usually nonsensical connections between those levels with mobs that usually feel like sometimes devs just gave up and placed mobs randomly (doubly so in SOTFS).

I mean take for example Undead Settlement which many people claim is one of the worst areas of DS3.
There are two separate ways you can do that level there are 2 bosses and 1 miniboss (from which none is essential to progress !), you can join moud covenant here (which is hidden), explore few optional areas (like fire demon area, sewers, bigger house with pyromancer npc and few nook and cranies here and there (locked room with estus soup, graves protected by giant arrows, start of the bridge with another joinable NPC). U.Settlement itself is connected srongly to lore as here you first time see effects of cathedra of the deep and their preachers and how they fucked up this village. This is also place where deacons took people and few them to aldrich and it is probably home to Anri and Horace as they were part of group of children who were taken by deacons and fed to aldrich.

And that is pretty much how every area in DS3 is designed.

Now compare it to ton of DS2 levels in which you basically follow straight path and kill enemies and ... nothing else. No lore explanation, no separate routes or big optional areas (inside of level not different level alltogether).

That being said not all areas of DS2 are bad. I personally love Shrine of Amana. Naturally i don't count here DLC as we talk about vanilla. For vanilla game hey clearly gone fore more = better. Due to that game is longer but i feel that they could cut 1/4 of those levels and DS2 would be better game.

 

[nomask7]

Now compare it to ton of DS2 levels in which you basically follow straight path and kill enemies and ... nothing else.

And that happens to be what Dark Souls as a series used to be about. The more the devs diverge from that tight and elegant and memorable design, the further they end up from what made Dark Souls the game that it was.

Your criticism regarding lore and world coherence is probably valid up to a point. In the case of lore as such, you're probably over-estimating its importance in setting the mood. Sen's Fortress made a bigger impression on me due to the lore, Anor Londo involved too much hiking and didn't particularly impress me for that reason. Other than that, I'm not sure I even paid attention to lore, trying to take too much of it seriously feels kind of like trying to take Tolkien seriously, strictly for the nerds.

As for world coherence, since that's mostly a question of lore, it's safe to say you're imagining most of the supposed coherence in the original Dark Souls. For example, when I finally got through Sen's Fortress, it's connected to fuck anything. You didn't find that lame as fuck? Because it is lame as fuck that there's this fortress that is supposed to shield Anor Londo from mortal access, but then you just fly to Anor Londo. Come on, that's not the awesome world building and connectivity that the codex meme is talking about.

 

[Perkel]

As for world coherence, since that's mostly a question of lore, it's safe to say you're imagining most of the supposed coherence in the original Dark Souls. For example, when I finally got through Sen's Fortress, it's connected to fuck anything. You didn't find that lame as fuck?
.

No because i have pair of eyes and saw that road to Anor Londo was walled off , reason probably because they didn't want you to waste time hiking unrelated areas and get to the point (or they run out of budget).

I like your use of Sen's Fortress to point out illogicality because it really points out the design differences between those two. You see DS2 has similar Sen's Fortress aka that windmill. You go up then you take at top of it elevator up and you end up in castle at top of sea of molten lava ? What ?

In DS1 you have walled up road and you are taken by those demon's up, while in DS2 you somehow magically teleport to some different realm. I mean if this was DS3 you could explain it via world converge but DS2 doesn't even try to explain that which is clear indication that those two was strung together because either they fucked up developement or someone was retarded.

I mean it could be literally fixed simply by taking elevator down instead and using some cave jpeg instead of sky.

As for rest about DS formula being those linear levels without tie to lore i don't agree. In DS1 and DeS almost every area was connected to lore and had reason to be there. So your position that this is somehow standard for DS doesn't hold.

I do agree that you don't need to make every area tie to lore completely though. I do agree that concept of "journey" is in itself alone interesting. Problem is that you need to fill that journey then with really awesome areas like Shrine of Amana and since you actually don't need to care about lore then you go crazy with areas.

 

[nomask7]

No because i have pair of eyes and saw that road to Anor Londo was walled off , reason probably because they didn't want you to waste time hiking unrelated areas and get to the point (or they run out of budget).

I like your use of Sen's Fortress to point out illogicality because it really points out the design differences between those two. You see DS2 has similar Sen's Fortress aka that windmill. You go up then you take at top of it elevator up and you end up in castle at top of sea of molten lava ? What ?

In DS1 you have walled up road and you are taken by those demon's up, while in DS2 you somehow magically teleport to some different realm. I mean if this was DS3 you could explain it via world converge but DS2 doesn't even try to explain that which is clear indication that those two was strung together because either they fucked up developement or someone was retarded.

I mean it could be literally fixed simply by taking elevator down instead and using some cave jpeg instead of sky.

As for rest about DS formula being those linear levels without tie to lore i don't agree. In DS1 and DeS almost every area was connected to lore and had reason to be there. So your position that this is somehow standard for DS doesn't hold.

I do agree that you don't need to make every area tie to lore completely though. I do agree that concept of "journey" is in itself alone interesting. Problem is that you need to fill that journey then with really awesome areas like Shrine of Amana and since you actually don't need to care about lore then you go crazy with areas.

What I meant is that you accept this disconnect between Sen's Fortress and Anor Londo because of the lore and because the relationship remains logical - but it is still nothing more than a disconnect, and a very lame one at that because to me being grabbed and flown to a place is about the lamest thing there is in video games.

If I knew the game better I could probably give you more examples, like, I don't know, why is one castle (Undead Burg) right beside another castle (Sen's Fortress), but the point is you can explain everything but that doesn't make it special, doesn't make the inter-connectedness feel like anything more than what it is: a group of levels connected together. I mean it doesn't, at least doesn't for me, make the game world feel like one open-world level. Regardless of the lore, I just perceive it as a group of mostly pretty linear levels.

I'm not saying the Souls formula doesn't involve lore and coherence, what I'm saying is that I, as a player, don't care about lore or coherence nearly as much as I simply care about the levels as such. And despite what you say about the levels of DS2, I think many of them succeed expertly at being memorable and some also succeed at being challenging at the same time (vanilla Lower Brightstone Cove, and vanilla Shrine of Amana, and No Man's Wharf, for example).

 

[Multidirectional]

PS - oh, the only big drawback so far is the lack of PvP. Understandable I guess, 3 years from launch. Been invaded twice in 30 hours, getting the sunbro co-op means waiting for ages, there are no blue sentinels, no dragon signs. The only PvP fun I've had was in the Doors of Pharros when I kept being summoned as a grey spirit by the Rat covenant people (checked the Wiki for that, couldn't help it).

Last I played I had fuckload of pvp, can't believe it's that much emptier now. Invasions don't happen too often because no infinite use red orb in this game I guess. For pvp you wanna go with Bellbros or Bloodbros. Bellbros summon you automatically when you have their ring equipped and give you upgrade materials for wins (also Estus refill), got a fuckload of them that way. Most of the time you will get Titanite Chunks, but occasionally you can get a Slab, Twinkling Titanite or Petrified Dragon Bone (rarest in game). For Bloodbros you gotta go to a special place and fight in arenas, you get cracked red eye orbs for wins. I didn't get invaded that often either, most of the invasions i fought in were initiated by me.
Another good way to pvp is the bridge at the Iron Keep, that's the gathering spot. Try looking for red signs there or placing yours.
I really love DSII pvp, much more fun than DS. After this game I couldn't get into DSIII. Really tried to like the "demo" version but just couldn't get hooked on it so ended up not buying it at all. From what I hear pvp is a lot worse than DSII as well so probably a good decision.

When people talk about fuckups they don't mean DS2 is utter garbage. DS2 despite its flaws is still really good game. Just not DS1 or DS3 good.

I'm pretty sure I've seen you calling it "shit" many times here.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

PS - oh, the only big drawback so far is the lack of PvP. Understandable I guess, 3 years from launch. Been invaded twice in 30 hours, getting the sunbro co-op means waiting for ages, there are no blue sentinels, no dragon signs. The only PvP fun I've had was in the Doors of Pharros when I kept being summoned as a grey spirit by the Rat covenant people (checked the Wiki for that, couldn't help it).

Last I played I had fuckload of PVP, can't believe it's that much more empty now. Invasions don't happen too often because no infinite use red orb in this game I guess. For PVP you wanna go with Bellbros or Bloodbros. Bellbros summon you automatically when you have their ring equipped and give you upgrade materials for wins, got a fuckload of them that way. Most of the time you will get Titanite chunks, but occasionally you can get a slab, Twinkling Titanite or Petrified Dragon Bone (rarest in game). For Bloodbros you gotta go to the special place and fight in arenas, you get cracked red eye orbs for wins. I didn't get invaded that often either, most of the invasions i fought in were initiated by me.
Another good way to pvp is the bridge at the Iron Keep, that's the gathering spot. Try looking for red signs there or placing yours. I really love DSII pvp, much more fun than DS. After this game I couldn't get into DSIII. Tried to like the "demo" version but just couldn't get hooked on it so ended up not buying it at all. From what I hear pvp is a lot worse than DSII as well so probably a good decision.

Invasions are broken as fuck in DS3. On paper they are even more broken in DS2 but the inability to rollspam and have instant estus chugs make them far better.

 

[Perkel]

I'm pretty sure I've seen you calling it "shit" many times here.

If i want to call something actual bad game i would say that this is actually really bad fucking game. I always criticized level design in DS2 but never story, combat(i had few issues at release) or other stuff as those are usually good. And when it is due i actually praise stuff like shitload of weapons in DS2 or quality of DLCs and levels which i actually liked (like mentioned by me already 10 times shrine of amana)

 

[cvv]

Guise if anyone's still playing and you have a spare Silverblack Sickle I'd be MUCH fucking obliged. Them wardens do NOT want to drop it and I don't wanna spend the rest of my life farming them.

 

[Rolk's Drifter]

cvv I know I have at least one.. but the char is ~20/25 million SM. I'll take a look tomorrow to see if any others have one but it's pretty unlikely.

 

[Rolk's Drifter]

cvv Update: Got one on a 2.8 million char. So if the wiki's summon ranges are correct.. should be do able when you hit 1.5 million. Also if you're still looking for sunlight medals I don't mind asceticing a few bonfires.

 

[cvv]

Guise I finished basic NG with SM just under 3,5 mil, is it too much? There are still the DLCs and I definitelly plan NG+, maybe NG++. Without Agape the soul rewards would surely rocket me into SM stratosphere. Thing is I don't have to level anymore but there's still so much to buy, things to spend souls on. I accidentally pissed off an NPC and found out it costs over 100k souls to appease him. So souls are always nice to have. Should I have to be super careful from now on?

Btw Rolk's Drifter you got a mail.

 

[Hyperion]

I wouldn't worry about it. You're going to be in the same bracket until you hit 5 million. And honestly, your soul memory is still low when you look at the tiers.

36 3,000,000 - 4,999,999
37 5,000,000 - 6,999,999
38 7,000,000 - 8,999,999
39 9,000,000 - 11,999,999
40 12,000,000 - 14,999,999
41 15,000,000 - 19,999,999
42 20,000,000 - 29,999,999
43 30,000,000 - 44,999,999
44 45,000,000 - 999,999,999

That's your tier, plus the ones remaining, copied from the wiki. You're fine. If you use your Small White Soapstone with the name Engraved Ring you can be summoned by someone with as little as 1.4 mil SM.

You need to worry when you hit 12 - 15 mil if you're an avid PvP'er.

 

[praetor]

and even if you're an avid PvPer you can always just do it in the arena where it's SL-based. SM is only important for the IK bridge PvP crowd (and they're mostly in the 3-5mil tier, iirc)

 

[cvv]

I love the DLC bosses btw. Such an ginormous incline from the base game. ALL base game bosses except the Ruin Sentinels (and maybe the Ancient Dragon but that fight is more tedious than difficult) are a complete joke, I've never needed more than 2 attempts at any of them and I'm the pope of average players. The only strategy I've ever used was - get a shield, wait for their extremelly slow attacks to whiff, wail on them. And I haven't even used a good shield, just a basic bitch Royal Kite +6.

But Aava? Man, this boss is designed to completely shred the buttholes of shielded up, low AGL turtles. Could NOT beat him to save my life, his attacks have insane hitboxes and you can't roll through them without a good agility. So I respecced to an exact opposite build - lightweight, high-AGL, two-handed Rapier +10 wielding ninja and pushed her shit in on the first try with half my Estus left. Great design. Too bad there are only like 6 or 7 soul vessels in the base game so you can't really respec every time you face a hard boss.

EDIT: Btw I was shocked how little difference in damage received is between a fully upgraded Vengarl's armor set and a basic bitch unupgraded Wanderer set I used on my respecced build. I was shitting myself Aava will one shot me in such a light armor but I could barely notice any difference. Does physical defense on armor really matter so little in this game? (I know that physical and magical DEF on shields matter a lot but armor seems a bit pointless).

 

[Multidirectional]

Yeah I prefer to go light armor in DSII to get faster stamina regen and longer roll distance. Keep my weight under 40% or even 30% most of the time. Any time I tried to equip a fully upgraded heavy armor set just for special occasions I found myself dying more, not less. My favorite armor is Llewellyn. Has a great balance between defenses and weight and looks cool as shit to boot. It's without helmet, which I like.
Another thing about this game is it's great for shieldless run. I made a shieldless char on my second run and haven't picked up a shield ever since. Two handed longsword is fucking amazing for early to mid game. And I could never play through DS without shield, just to point out what a casul I am.

 

[nomask7]

I love the DLC bosses btw. Such an ginormous incline from the base game. ALL base game bosses except the Ruin Sentinels (and maybe the Ancient Dragon but that fight is more tedious than difficult) are a complete joke, I've never needed more than 2 attempts at any of them and I'm the pope of average players. The only strategy I've ever used was - get a shield, wait for their extremelly slow attacks to whiff, wail on them. And I haven't even used a good shield, just a basic bitch Royal Kite +6.

But Aava? Man, this boss is designed to completely shred the buttholes of shielded up, low AGL turtles. Could NOT beat him to save my life, his attacks have insane hitboxes and you can't roll through them without a good agility. So I respecced to an exact opposite build - lightweight, high-AGL, two-handed Rapier +10 wielding ninja and pushed her shit in on the first try with half my Estus left. Great design. Too bad there are only like 6 or 7 soul vessels in the base game so you can't really respec every time you face a hard boss.

EDIT: Btw I was shocked how little difference in damage received is between a fully upgraded Vengarl's armor set and a basic bitch unupgraded Wanderer set I used on my respecced build. I was shitting myself Aava will one shot me in such a light armor but I could barely notice any difference. Does physical defense on armor really matter so little in this game? (I know that physical and magical DEF on shields matter a lot but armor seems a bit pointless).

1) There is no turtling in this game, since there's very limited stamina and blocking hits drains it fast. You need footwork, you can't just stand there and block everything.

2) If you can beat a boss only by footwork and blocking, then it's a boss that works. If you can't beat a boss like that, then it is a boss that is broken.

3) Stamina management is easier when you're a no-shield roller. Rolling is the popamole way of playing these games, as you should have noticed after you respecced and won with ease.

As for the value of armor, I'm not sure, I haven't tested, but I have tested in Bloodborne. You sometimes hear that the game is "fashion-borne", presumably because different attire looks relatively meaningless as pure numbers. I tested them though and the difference can be remarkable, and I realised that the numbers are probably percentages, not raw numbers.

Still, that is a game where everyone can juggle around attire, so perhaps they needed to make armor matter less in DS2, to keep balance. Or maybe they want to encourage people to play in that faggy rolling fashion by making it just flat-out the better choice by far, I'm not sure.