From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[Funposter]

Do you hear yourself? You sound like a fanatic. DS1 areas were designed for people to fucking die in.
Not to mention, what you say is absolutely patently false. Everyone plays at a different skill level. There is no way to guarantee success with X number of estuses for everyone, nor could it ever be in a design, or it would only fit 10-20% people's playstyle, and others would be disappointed. It's insane to think what you think from a QA point of view.

Since you claim a hypothesis, I can disprove it with one example. I for one never had enough estuses in DS1, so I simply put a couple of points into Faith and memorized a couple of heals. This way I had enough. DS1 allowed healing outside of estus and DS2 allowed healing ouside of estus, just didn't require you to dump a couple of points into Faith for that.

What I mean is that, as stated, there are no instances where the player takes damage without it being their fault. Obviously the player has the ability to kindle bonfires, but this is still a limited resource. You can slot in Heal spells, but those are, a. slow to cast and, b. another limited resource like Estus. They also require attunement slots which could potentially be used for something more useful such as offensive miracles or pyromancies. So even if the player is using Heal spells to make the game more forgiving, they are having to sacrifice something else - it's a game of resource management and decision-making. Lifegems on the other hand are only limited in the sense that you can't stack them into the triple digits. A player could theoretically brute force their way through an area while making so many mistakes that they should have died ten times over. They require no decisions to be made.

Does it mean lifegems allow you not to ever die? Again, absolute nonsense. It allows some minor leeway, but people die in DS2 all the time, meaning lifegems are only useful in a situation where you ran out of estus, but need to press on to the bonfire. If you're super careful, and you have a ton of saved gems, then you can MAYBE make it. It doesn't break PVP, it doesn't allow you to cheese bosses, it breaks literally zero mechanics.

"people die all the time" is hardly a rebuttal to the ruination of a near-perfectly balanced system. People die in Morrowind, a game where you can make potions that turn you into a God. People die in fucking Kirby games. Lifegems allow the player to easily heal off all wounds as long as they're not in a combat situation and have the patience for it.

It's not a game that makes it a rule of explaining mechanics, so what happens there is fair. Also, in a game that laughs into your face when you die 30 times to a boss... to maybe randomly die to a mob in one place, am I to somehow believe it's a tragedy? You can't sell it to me even if you make a video of yourself crying.

You seem to have this bizarre idea that these games are about being über-hardcore and totally BRVTAL. You appear to have been the victim of a marketing campaign that started with the original Dark Souls, and only became more pronounced with Dark Souls 2 when even the games themselves began referencing it.[/quote]

Bester, you are spending too much effort talking to trolls and children.

"anyone who disagrees with me is trolling" is a pretty dogshit attitude

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

A player could theoretically brute force their way through an area while making so many mistakes that they should have died ten times over.

"Theoretically" is the operative word.
How about this thought: areas in DS2 are perfectly balanced for the player to use just his estuses and the gemstones found on enemies in said area. Bam, it's perfectly balanced now because I said so, just like you said about DS1.

they should have died ten times over

No, because if they didn't die, it means they should've have died, because we're now in a perfectly balanced system.
If they saved their gemstones from many areas, they're now free to use them in this one area just this once.
Balanced to perfection.

I'm using your own retarded logic against you and now you're fucked.

 

[Funposter]

would you describe Demon's Souls grass system in the same terms you are using to defend Dark Souls 2?

 

[Silverfish]

Grass was even easier to farm, so it was probably worse, actually.

 

[Fishy]

There are very few instances in Dark Souls or Demon's Souls where the player will take damage without it being their fault, as long as they're observant.

No-hit runs, SL1 (well not 1, technically) runs, no death runs, no bonfire runs and nodeat/no bonfire runs are a thing in DS2. As amazing as it may sound, practice/experience makes a difference, but that's not something you find out from a single run.

And even if you're talking first time only, I call bullshit. Top of my head in DS1: the respawning skeletons, the skeleton wheels, the Abyss without the ring, Havel, the deep water between you and the Hydra, the Anor Londo Archery Club, the bridge drake, the basilisks, mimics, the entire Sen's fucking Fortress... DS1 is choke full of "ha ha" bullshit moments designed to be easily overcome after you know about them. DS2 is no different, although it gets some extra unintentional ones such as the infamous Ogre grab hitbox, but again, you learn it and adapt, the next times are your fault.

I'm a bit flabbergasted at your comment on the 3 Ruin Sentinels earlier too. Well, yes, one of them in a big empty room would be boring. The 3 of them with the small ledge actually make it an interesting fight. Are you complaining that O&S got lumped together? It's another case where a single one would have been boring, but both together change the dynamic and make it interesting. There are only so many ways to get the player out of their comfort zone, and multiple foes is a valid one imho, as is the arena design. Capra in DS1 wouldn't even be mentioned as a boss if it weren't for the cupboard you have to fight him in and the doggos. While Capra is badly tuned due to 1) the typical FromSoft camera and 2) being so potentially early in the game that it gives a bad taste in the mouth to some new players, there's nothing wrong with the idea. And same for the Gargoyles. Did you want a copy/paste of the DS1 fight? Why? Plus it's an optional area players are likely to drop and come back later with big stats. That fight is a big DPS race, if you come there undergeared, well yeah, you won't make it. But it's the only one in its genre, not sure what's wrong with a fight that gets out of control if you don't push on the offense. It's something different. Oh, by the way, those Gargoyles in DS1: I guess one would have been boring so they just threw 2 of them?

I won't defend the toxic rats and the oversized rat-dog though. That's part of the just awful bits. Sure it can easily be overcome with a good bow/magic/consumables or just being good, but it's just shittily made. Had the main rat-dog fight been a big more prolonged, and the small toxic rats coming in one at a time at fixed intervals, that may have been interesting, but as it? It's just shit.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Anor Londo Archery Club

I want a band with this name

 

[Funposter]

Grass was even easier to farm, so it was probably worse, actually.

Yes.

There are very few instances in Dark Souls or Demon's Souls where the player will take damage without it being their fault, as long as they're observant.

No-hit runs, SL1 (well not 1, technically) runs, no death runs, no bonfire runs and nodeat/no bonfire runs are a thing in DS2. As amazing as it may sound, practice/experience makes a difference, but that's not something you find out from a single run.

Yep, and the no-hit Dark Souls 2 run nearly made Otzdarva commit self-harm (playing Dark Souls 2 in and of itself, not withstanding).

And even if you're talking first time only, I call bullshit. Top of my head in DS1: the respawning skeletons, the skeleton wheels, the Abyss without the ring, Havel, the deep water between you and the Hydra, the Anor Londo Archery Club, the bridge drake, the basilisks, mimics, the entire Sen's fucking Fortress... DS1 is choke full of "ha ha" bullshit moments designed to be easily overcome after you know about them. DS2 is no different, although it gets some extra unintentional ones such as the infamous Ogre grab hitbox, but again, you learn it and adapt, the next times are your fault.

We'll go through them one-by-one since I sort of agree with some, and others not so much. Respawning skeletons are at least not far from Firelink, and the Necromancer is in the same room as the Catacombs' first bonfire. There's also a clear progression in dealing with them, from standard skellies in graveyard -> first two respawning skellies on the stairs -> respawning skellies down in the room before the necromancer. The game also clearly communicates in the description of the Divine Ember that you should use a Divine weapon for "undead hunting", although it's obviously possible for the player to enter the Catacombs before fighting the Butterfly and indeed they can skip that boss entirely. Skeleton Wheels are terrifying but you're also likely to only aggro the first early on, which lets you observe the behaviour and the ones in the Catacombs are easy to dodge. I would agree that the Skeleton Wheels in the Painted World are bullshit, especially since the player can encounter them there before ever visiting the Catacombs where they are clearly intended to encounter them first. Abyss is a non-issue since Ingward provides the dialogue telling you to seek Artorias upon first speaking to him, stating that the Abyss is "no place for mortals". Havel I would say is only an issue if you encounter him by sequence breaking with the Master Key, and the animations etc. scream "do not get hit by this". Also an optional encounter guarding a good item, so eh. Hydra deep water is definitely awful and should have been more clearly communicated to the player. It's a bit more visually obvious in Ash Lake, but even there it's pretty bad.

Anor Londo archers are difficult, but it's not like the player isn't given ample time to observe them and the effects of their arrows. I'd say the worst part about dealing with them is actually when you get up in their faces, and sometimes the Silver Knights just keep firing their Greatbows instead of engaging you in melee. Definitely a hard encounter that people struggle with, but it's not unheard of for people to clear it on their first try. Mimics are kind of weird because they have all of these tells (the breathing, the chain) and the one in Sen's Fortress is also placed unlike pretty much any other chest in the world, since it's not backing up to a wall. I'd argue that careful observation would let a player realise something is wrong, especially since you're in a house of traps but I'm not that committed to the argument. Bridge Drake is clearly communicated with its intro and all of the charred corpses and shit, but I also think this is a case of the developer's expecting people to have played Demon's Souls and rely on their experience from that game somewhat. Sen's Fortress on its own is actually awesome, and is probably my favourite zone in the entire game. I love the way that it introduces pressure plates in a way that gives you plenty of room to dodge, only to then up the ante by placing them in tighter areas, or changing the angles from which the arrow traps fire. It's the same with the swinging axes - you get a normal walkway with a melee enemy, then one with a mage enemy (thankfully the axes can block his spells for you), then a super tight walkway, with it all culminating in a narrow walkway with a mage firing spells from an angle that provides you with no cover. I actually think the whole zone is a masterpiece of video game design in this regard.

I'm a bit flabbergasted at your comment on the 3 Ruin Sentinels earlier too. Well, yes, one of them in a big empty room would be boring. The 3 of them with the small ledge actually make it an interesting fight. Are you complaining that O&S got lumped together? It's another case where a single one would have been boring, but both together change the dynamic and make it interesting. There are only so many ways to get the player out of their comfort zone, and multiple foes is a valid one imho, as is the arena design. Capra in DS1 wouldn't even be mentioned as a boss if it weren't for the cupboard you have to fight him in and the doggos. While Capra is badly tuned due to 1) the typical FromSoft camera and 2) being so potentially early in the game that it gives a bad taste in the mouth to some new players, there's nothing wrong with the idea. And same for the Gargoyles. Did you want a copy/paste of the DS1 fight? Why? Plus it's an optional area players are likely to drop and come back later with big stats. That fight is a big DPS race, if you come there undergeared, well yeah, you won't make it. But it's the only one in its genre, not sure what's wrong with a fight that gets out of control if you don't push on the offense. It's something different. Oh, by the way, those Gargoyles in DS1: I guess one would have been boring so they just threw 2 of them?

I should clarify that my problem with the Ruin Sentinels isn't necessarily that you fight three enemies in a boss encounter. It's more that it's endemic of the DS2 boss design philosophy - big humanoid with weapon, and throw in extra enemies to make it extra TUFF. I don't mind the arena design, and as I recall the second Sentinel jumping up was pretty predictable in regards to its timing, right? I guess I just find it weird that you fight a trio boss before ever fighting a duo. Capra is arguably the low point of Dark Souls amazing first half, although I do like the design in theory and the feeling of panic it's meant to instill. The same with is done with Taurus to an extent - you got to fight the Asylum Demon in a big open room, but then they throw Taurus at you and you can really only approach it with a single axis of movement.

Gargoyles I don't want a copy and paste of the DS1 fight, I'd rather that it simply weren't in the game. It was just re-using ideas/assets from the first game but in a worse way. Gargoyles in Dark Souls are two things. They're, a. a reference to the Maneaters from Demon's Souls and, b. preparation for a much more serious duo fight later on. They also work well because you start off only fighting one, and then the second drops when you get the original to half health, but fights with a complementary moveset (the fire breath) which helps to ensure that the player doesn't just get stunlocked into oblivion. It also means that you have time to become accustomed to the moveset of the first before the fight is mixed up.

I won't defend the toxic rats and the oversized rat-dog though. That's part of the just awful bits. Sure it can easily be overcome with a good bow/magic/consumables or just being good, but it's just shittily made. Had the main rat-dog fight been a big more prolonged, and the small toxic rats coming in one at a time at fixed intervals, that may have been interesting, but as it? It's just shit.

Royal Rat Authority is particularly offensive not just because of the bad design, but because like the Gargoyles fight, it's just reusing a moveset and basically a model/skeleton from the first game. It's also just kind of...there, without any explanation. I agree that if the adds were introduced as the fight went on, it would be far less offensive, since it would provide depth to the fight instead of the current version, which you either win in the first 3 seconds by killing all of the rats, or lose because you didn't kill all of the rats.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Reading this I'm less and less sure of actually spending money on it instead of pirating

 

[NJClaw]

Reading this I'm less and less sure of actually spending money on it instead of pirating

It goes on sale for less than 10€ at least twice a year. Despite its flaws, it's an amazing game, far better than 95% of the other shit you might play otherwise.

 

[d1r]

Reading this I'm less and less sure of actually spending money on it instead of pirating

It goes on sale for less than 10€ at least twice a year. Despite its flaws, it's an amazing game, far better than 95% of the other shit you might play otherwise.

And it's still the best Dark Souls when it comes to combat. Dual wielding weapons was fucking great.

 

[Funposter]

Reading this I'm less and less sure of actually spending money on it instead of pirating

Even as some who vehemently dislikes the game, I would recommend playing it in the same way I would recommend people play vanilla Oblivion. The only way to understand the butthurt is to experience it yourself.

And it's still the best Dark Souls when it comes to combat. Dual wielding weapons was fucking great.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Anor Londo Archery Club

I want a band with this name

It would be a smash hit, but watch for the eventual falling out.

 

[praetor]

The amount of bosses that can be described as "humanoid with a big weapon" is well documented,

oh god... we have another internet memer here who doesn't understand shit

ask the average person what are the best boss fights in the series, you'll get "humanoid with a big weapon" 99,99% of the time. break it down by game, you'll still get "humanoid with a big weapon" 99,9% of the time

ask the average person what the worst bosses in the series are, and you'll get 99,9% of the time either "gimmick bosses" or "huge monstruos bosses" (as the game mechanics of the Souls series don't really work all that well with either of those)

so what this idiotic arguments boils down to "i think it's bad that the vast majority of the bosses fall into the category that is on average liked the most by players and works the best given the mechanics of the game"

it's "funny" that you don't even understand how monumentally idiotic your argument is.

the proper one is: it has too many (boring) bosses in the vanilla part of the game

as was the team's proclivity to making boss fights more difficult by adding a tonne of mooks. Design for Freya not that much fun? Add a million shitty spiders. Ruin Sentinels not that interesting? Fight three of them. Hey, what if you got to fight six of the gargoyles from Dark Souls 1 with no respect paid to the actual dynamics of that fight? Remember when you got to fight a giant rat version of Sif that had adds which inflicted toxic, and that you couldn't realistically kill all of before they or the boss reached you? That was fun.

this is just stupid. you understand the gargoyle fight is a different fight and not a remake? is that really that hard a concept to grasp? would you rather they lazily copypasted completely that boss fight instead of altering it more as a "tribute" and making the dynamics different to an existing boss fight in the series? are you seriously that dumb?

both the Sentinels and Freya have mitigation strategies that require the littlest of thought and some trade offs. that you're too dumb to notice is your problem not with the design of the boss. they're both actually examples of good, if unspectacular, design, lol

Remember when the soul arrows in Shrine of Amana homed in on you to a ridiculous degree?

yes, and they got nerfed because of dumb whiners like yourself

Remember all of the encounters in Drangleic Castle and the Dragon Aerie where they are clearly designed for the player to lure the enemy into a doorway which they cannot fit through, and just fire spells or arrows at them?

i don't, but then again i don't play like a little bitch

Remember the guy with the crossbow who shot you at the Saltfort bonfire?

yes. patched. your point?

Remember the shortcut you can kick down to a previous bonfire in Huntsman's Copse, which sits directly next to another bonfire.

yeah. so? it's a very minor annoyance at worst and you're making it sound as if it's a huge design flaw

Remember when Lifegems ruined the airtight healing economy from Dark Souls 1, and were a step back to Demon's Souls easily exploitable Grass system?

nigga what?! have you noticed how incredibly slower healing is in DS2 compared to the others? have you even fucking noticed that your health goes down as you die repeatedly? have you even noticed that in DS1 it's trivial to get to 20 flasks, not to mention the alacrity with which the PC chugs the mountain dew, making the tactical consideration for healing nearly non-existent? have you noticed that humanity is farmable to 99 and restores your health in full?

Relating back to the thing about adds in the Royal Rat Authority fight, there's also instances where the player is forced into a death or taking high damage without any warning or way to prevent it - that one Ogre in Aldia's Keep who breaks through the wall is probably the most notorious example.

oh... you mean kinda like the player is forced to die in DS1 to progress the game? is that a "notorious example"?

What build variety exists in DkS2 that didn't in the original, apart from hexes?

about a fucking bazillion more viable weapon types, new weapon types, hybrid weapons, actually functional fucking spells that can be used, more varied spells that aren't just "plinks" of various colours and sizes and so on and so forth

I'm aware that some more interesting rings and equipment were added in the DLC, but I also never played them because I never touched the game again after the launch period. I also don't think that DLC is enough to save the game, because you still need to suffer through the abysmal base game to reach them. I'm not saying that Dark Souls 2 is terrible on the level of Big Rigs or something, but it's solidly a 4/10 video game. I managed to finish it, so I guess I'd call it endurable trash. On the same level as Front Mission: Evolved or Armored Core 2: Another Age, but better than Final Fantasy XIII.

holy fucking shit! wow... just wow. this paragraph here is so fucking stupid it sapped away my will to type. i mean.. "i play gaym on riliz, ya no geyz, and shitz daamb, so i ripeeet de meemz fo ya gaayz koz i don pley de geym".

you have somehow manage to unlock the achievement: dumber than Perkel. congratulations

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

you have somehow manage to unlock the achievement: dumber than Perkel. congratulations

Holy shit, lol!

 

[Funposter]

OK, I'll continue getting baited into stupid arguments.

oh god... we have another internet memer here who doesn't understand shit

ask the average person what are the best boss fights in the series, you'll get "humanoid with a big weapon" 99,99% of the time. break it down by game, you'll still get "humanoid with a big weapon" 99,9% of the time

ask the average person what the worst bosses in the series are, and you'll get 99,9% of the time either "gimmick bosses" or "huge monstruos bosses" (as the game mechanics of the Souls series don't really work all that well with either of those)

so what this idiotic arguments boils down to "i think it's bad that the vast majority of the bosses fall into the category that is on average liked the most by players and works the best given the mechanics of the game"

it's "funny" that you don't even understand how monumentally idiotic your argument is.

the proper one is: it has too many (boring) bosses in the vanilla part of the game

You are right that often the best bosses in the game are "humanoid with a big weapon". This is because a traditional tactic in action games is to build up to a confrontation with a character that resembles the player and is able to utilize a similar skillset. A classic example would be Vergil in Devil May Cry 3, as well as his repeating incarnation as Nelo Angelo in the original. You also have things like Dark Link in Zelda 2 and OoT, Lehto in The Witcher 2, the Doppleganger from Castlevania etc. Dark Souls 2 then (and 3 is also guilty of this) can in some ways be understood as "too much of a good thing". When this concept is repeated so often, it stops being special and the impact is lost. Demon's Souls has a lot of "gimmick" bosses which are probably better understood as being like something from a Zelda game, more than the Souls series. Out of 17 bosses in that game, including Vanguard, there's probably three that hold up to the standard of later games in terms of being a somewhat difficult boss where you need to roll around a lot and dodge attacks - Old King Allant, Maneaters and Flamelurker. Of these three, only one is a "humanoid with a big weapon" and of the remaining 14, only the Penetrator and Old Hero fit that description in the sense we're describing, although you could include the Tower Knight if you wanted but his scale is knocked up an extra notch.

The point here is that it's a difference in design philosophy and what you enjoy about these games. Those "gimmick bosses" to me are more interesting than a repeated set of boss encounters against the same kind of boss, over and over again. You're being asked to solve a problem instead of just being asked to hit the roll button at the right time, swing your weapon 2-3 times to punish, and repeat until the boss is killed. The boss arenas are also allowed to be more interesting, since they aren't designed solely with the intention of being combat arenas. I find fights like Fool's Idol, Maneaters, Maiden Astrea and the Armor Spider to be more memorable than anything in Dark Souls 2 because they provide a varied experience. It's also why Old King Allant remains firmly entrenched in my mind, because that 1v1 matchup acts as the culmination of a journey. Some of this design philosophy extended into the original Dark Souls, but it had been pretty much entirely lost by the time of its expansion. Dark Souls has the Moonlight Butterfly, Gwyndolin, Ceaseless Discharge, arguably the Centipede Demon (chopping off the head and getting the charred ring early opens up the entire arena), arguably Taurus due to the nature of the boss area (locking off an axis of movement) and the unholy God of all gimmick bosses, Bed of Chaos. A lot of people probably do dislike these bosses. You can't rush through the Butterfly because the fight happens according to its timer and not your own, Gwyndolin makes you run down a hallway, you can just make Ceaseless jump off a cliff etc. Dark Souls has bad implementation of its "gimmick bosses" but I think anyone who has played Demon's Souls would recognize their value. They're interesting and memorable.

this is just stupid. you understand the gargoyle fight is a different fight and not a remake? is that really that hard a concept to grasp? would you rather they lazily copypasted completely that boss fight instead of altering it more as a "tribute" and making the dynamics different to an existing boss fight in the series? are you seriously that dumb?

both the Sentinels and Freya have mitigation strategies that require the littlest of thought and some trade offs. that you're too dumb to notice is your problem not with the design of the boss. they're both actually examples of good, if unspectacular, design, lol

Are you too stupid to understand that I am criticizing the inclusion and re-use of the Gargoyles in the first place, and not advocating for a literal port of the Dark Souls 1 fight? It's a denigration of laziness. I've already addressed my problem with the Ruin Sentinels so won't bother going over it again, endemic of design philosophy, not bad in isolation, yadda yadda. That the Spiders in the Freja fight are scared of torchlight and that you can also kill them all off to restart the timer on their spawn and by yourself some time doesn't somehow save the boss fight. You seem to be making the mistake of assuming that I don't understand the game, and that this is somehow essential to my dislike of it. The problem with torchlight in the Freja is partially that the torch itself was a near-useless item in the original version of the game due to the downgraded lighting engine, so very few players would ever bother to carry one. Freja also has the problem of shooting a laser beam as one of her attacks, something which isn't exactly telegraphed by either the animation or her design since she's just a spider. Compare to the AoE fire blast attack that the Armor Spider in Demon's Souls uses, and you can see the difference in how much thought was put into it.

yes, and they got nerfed because of dumb whiners like yourself

It certainly wasn't me that was "whining" about them at the time. I just put the game down and didn't play it again due to how disappointing it was.

i don't, but then again i don't play like a little bitch

There seems to be a recurring trend in this thread of people claiming to be hardcore gamers that are too hardcore to notice obvious design flaws that thousands of players have taken advantage of. Did you fall for the marketing campaign, too?

yes. patched. your point?

My point is that I played the game at launch and it displayed a complete lack of vision on the part of the development team.

yeah. so? it's a very minor annoyance at worst and you're making it sound as if it's a huge design flaw

Again, see above. These issues in isolation may not amount to much, but when you play a game that is full of confusing or idiotic decisions like these, it starts to add up.

nigga what?! have you noticed how incredibly slower healing is in DS2 compared to the others? have you even fucking noticed that your health goes down as you die repeatedly? have you even noticed that in DS1 it's trivial to get to 20 flasks, not to mention the alacrity with which the PC chugs the mountain dew, making the tactical consideration for healing nearly non-existent? have you noticed that humanity is farmable to 99 and restores your health in full?

I wouldn't describe getting 20 Estus as "trivial" since it requires the player to make it to the bottom of the catacombs and either, a. climb back out or, b. warp back out, meaning they already have the Lordvessel and have made it to the end portion of the game. This funnily enough coincides with the worst part of the game being the later portion after Anor Londo. I'd agree that 20 is too much, and that even 15 was probably too lenient. Since the player can use Humanity to restore their health and also had healing miracles, I'd say that all non-Firekeeper bonfires should have been limited to 5 until the Rite was unlocked, at which point they could kindle them up to 10, but that would realistically conflict with some of the more useful bonfires that players want to kindle due to the open world nature of their useful locations (Parish, bottom of Blighttown, second Anor Londo bonfire thanks to the quick route to OnS).

Humanity farming is a thing, but the reward:time spent ratio is arguably not worth it. The best place for farming it (the Depths) doesn't even guarantee one Humanity per run with max item discovery iirc, compared to just being able to buy Lifegems for 300 souls in DS2. Usually players would only resort to it if they were really stuck of more likely, to have stacks of Humanity for PvP.

oh... you mean kinda like the player is forced to die in DS1 to progress the game? is that a "notorious example"?

Yes, it is. The first Seeth encounter is arguably the game's biggest sin apart from the Bed of Chaos.

holy fucking shit! wow... just wow. this paragraph here is so fucking stupid it sapped away my will to type. i mean.. "i play gaym on riliz, ya no geyz, and shitz daamb, so i ripeeet de meemz fo ya gaayz koz i don pley de geym".

you have somehow manage to unlock the achievement: dumber than Perkel. congratulations

You appear to be quite upset.

 

[Lutte]

Dumber than perkel is almost true, but there's a requirement for the achievement: the ability to have unwavering faith in conmen like Christ Roberts

 

[Verylittlefishes]

"humanoid with a big weapon"

well, my Fair M'Lady is technically too one of them!

 

[Funposter]

"humanoid with a big weapon"

well, my Fair M'Lady is technically too one of them!

she's at least sort of interesting because of the design and moveset but ultimately she does end up playing like every other boss which is too bad.

 

[Alphard]

at the end i sold my gpu before completing the game. it was the third attempt at it. after the first dlc in shulva (?) i started the second one but the too many bullshit moments and sadistic ( not smart like in ds1) enemy placements made me lose interest.
after playing almost all of the game i still rank it below DS3.
so my ranking would be :
DaS>>>>Sekiro>Ds3>DS2

 

[Verylittlefishes]

wow, this is literally the ad from Tinkoff Bank I've received today.

You think Dark Souls is HARD?
How about LIFE IN RUSSIA?
We can make it a little bit easier - click here... [and take some loan, I suppose]

Spoiler

 

[praetor]

You seem to be making the mistake of assuming that I don't understand the game

i'm not assuming anything. it has become pretty self evident that you're so dumb you even switched the numbers in your signature

 

[Lutte]

 

[Strange Fellow]

Replaying this, with the aim of finally getting to see these DLCs that everybody's raving about. Is there a particular order they should be done in that produces the best experience? Order of release, maybe?

If not, I'm going ahead with the one I have unlocked, which is the one you access from the Shrine of Winter. I don't even know where I picked up the key for it, but I have it. It's real annoying, too, since I apparently could've accessed that DLC ages ago. I thought I would have to speak with Vendrick in order to unlock them, which is what that talking glob of whatever that explodes out of bonfires seemed to indicate. But no, turns out they're accessed by simply finding keys scattered around the gameworld, and the two that I haven't got yet happen to be located in the only two areas I've intentionally skipped over this playthrough, because I remembered that in the original game they offered much bullshit for little gain. Not so any more, I guess.

 

[Fishy]

I'd go with order of release yeah, Sunken King (Shulva) -> Iron King (Brume Tower) -> Ivory King (Frozen Eleum Loyce). I feel like the Ivory King boss fight makes for a cool cinematic finish to the game. That said, they can be done in any order, they're independent from each other, so it's really up to taste or luck (like if you found the keys or not, the one you found is pretty much unmissable, the other two are more obscure).

 

[Perkel]

Replaying this, with the aim of finally getting to see these DLCs that everybody's raving about. Is there a particular order they should be done in that produces the best experience? Order of release, maybe?

DLCS are great because they are better than main campaign by a mile. Not that they are top tier DS experience. DS2 main campaign was just subpar compared to rest of franchize. When it comes to DLC 1st game DLC is the best