From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[Zed Duke of Banville]

To be fair, the castle levels of every Dark Souls are total snorefests. If I had to rank them, I'd say Drangleic Castle > Anor Londo > Lothric Castle, but they're all C tier or below.

Demon's Souls, by contrast, begins with the first section of Boletarian Palace, which serves as an excellent introduction to the game (and the entire Souls series), and the remaining three levels all have their strong points.

 

[ADL]

One of the worst areas in the game. Looking Glass boss was neat though.

It was even better before they gutted the lighting system. Feels bad man.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

One of the worst areas in the game. Looking Glass boss was neat though.

It was even better before they gutted the lighting system. Feels bad man.

Oh wow that is a huge difference. The demo looked amazing.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Fucking consoles can we get that shit now that we have the power to run it on PC?

 

[ADL]

Fucking consoles can we get that shit now that we have the power to run it on PC?

They didn't bother to put it back in when Scholar of the First Sin came out, so you're stuck waiting for the mod supposedly releasing next year. Check out his twitter, it's not just some ENB bullshit.

 

[Wunderbar]

God bless pc gaming.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Master race confirmed. A bit too blurry for my tastes though, i hope for customization options.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

I'd say Drangleic Castle > Anor Londo > Lothric Castle

wtf are you talking about, Anor Londo castle is amazing, and what exactly you mean by "Lothric Castle"? It contains three very different locations at least of which Grand Archives is the best.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I thought Drangleic Castle was ok. The acid pit in the middle was a bit dumb, and its really short with not much to see, but there are worst areas.

 

[RoSoDude]

I only played SotFS

It needs to be said: SOTFS does more wrong than right and the only reason people praise it is because they played DS2 at launch, hated a few areas like Shrine of Amana prepatch, then replayed through DS2 through SOTFS and thought SOTFS is what made the positive changes to the game : it did not, patches fixed areas like amana, SOTFS has nothing to do with it.

SOTFS completely botched the Iron Keep and added random changes like trying very hard to make the worse areas of the game like Heide more interesting but rather than interesting the changes just make the areas a slog. Heide was uninteresting before but you quickly ran through and forgot about it. Now there's a gauntlet of idiocy added on top of the groups of giant armor dudes that aggro when you defeat the main area boss and there's a drake guarding not-ornstein which has no interesting moves but a ton of hp.

It's supposedly a little of a graphic upgrade but I barely notice it too.

Fuck that. Post-patch Shrine of Amana in release DS2 was a complete joke, they absolutely gutted the casters. SotFS gave the level teeth again, and I'd put it among the best in any Souls game.

The glut of Alonne Knights in SotFS Iron Keep is absolutely great. Killing enemeis one at a time like DS1 is so bland, I love that DS2 levels actually have pressure from group encounters. Heide Knights waking up are kinda interesting in that they change the challenge of exploring the level depending on when you kill the boss, that's neat. Drake before Ornstein 2 is a fun timing puzzle to get to the dragon; it not being a tough fight on its own merits is not a big deal.

I'd say Drangleic Castle > Anor Londo > Lothric Castle

wtf are you talking about, Anor Londo castle is amazing, and what exactly you mean by "Lothric Castle"? It contains three very different locations at least of which Grand Archives is the best.

Anor Londo is the start of the decline of Dark Souls' levels. It's mostly just long stretches of walking with very little in the way of interesting challenge. Gargoyle reprise is cool I guess; I liked the painting guardian walkway section but it favors ranged way too much; Sentinels are extremely boring to fight; Bat Wing Demons are a pain in the ass; Silver Knight Archer segment is bogus; inside of the castle is some boxy rooms with boring fights against Silver Knights. Bland encounter design, no meaningful navigational challenge or environmental hazards (outside of thin walkways), no meaningful exploration. Lame through and through.

When I say Lothric Castle I mean everything from Dancer up to Dragonslayer Armor. It's the worst castle level by far, just a long hallway with a sequence of enemies to fight in a row, then the stupid nonsense with the dragon bridge. Grand Archives is a different level, and I'd agree it's probably the best one in all of Dark Souls 3.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

The only problem with Drake in Heide is that if you do it after killing Dragon Rider it becomes a bit of chore as you have to kill the heide knights every time you fuck up because the gits will follow you onto the platform.
Otherwise its fine.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Anor Londo is the start of the decline of Dark Souls' levels. It's mostly just long stretches of walking with very little in the way of interesting challenge

I'm sorry, but you are wrong. Also are you talking now about the level as a whole or about the castle-inside?

Grand Archives is a different level, and I'd agree it's probably the best one in all of Dark Souls 3.

For me it is the best.

 

[Lutte]

Fuck that. Post-patch Shrine of Amana in release DS2 was a complete joke, they absolutely gutted the casters. SotFS gave the level teeth again, and I'd put it among the best in any Souls game.
.

I actually do love amana but prepatch, release day was a little too much. It's now playable rushing into melee while aggroing multiple enemies rather than picking things at a distance.

It's really something though to see someone who said
>I only played SotFS

To speak with such a level of great confidence about things they haven't experienced.

The glut of Alonne Knights in SotFS Iron Keep is absolutely great. Killing enemeis one at a time like DS1 is so bland, I love that DS2 levels actually have pressure from group encounters.

Vanilla DS2 iron keep was fine and it was in no way "one at a time DS1 like encounters". What SOTFS changed most is that aggro range is such when you enter the room before smelter you pretty much aggro every single thing in existence in there and that is absolute trash.

Also I don't get where this idea that DS1 didn't have group encounters came from. Both detractors to DS2 and fanboys make it seem like there's a gulf in group encounters between the two games. Did we play the same DS1? The one with the shitton of ghosts hitting you through walls? the one with wheeled skeleton rooms? the first half of the game is very well designed and has a careful balance between mobbing you up and leaving some room for you depending on the level design and environmental risks. DS2 has an elevated amount of group encounters but nowhere near as much as people make it seem to be.
And DS2 has plenty of those one on one affairs. Some are real boring slogs too, like Dragon Aerie, which is only saved up by how magnificent the level visuals are. Or those rooms before spidey boss.

Heide Knights waking up are kinda interesting in that they change the challenge of exploring the level depending on when you kill the boss, that's neat. Drake before Ornstein 2 is a fun timing puzzle to get to the dragon; it not being a tough fight on its own merits is not a big deal.

The big deal is that it's an uninteresting area with or without those changes, and those changes only make traversing a crappy area slower. I love DS2 but Heide is the sort of garbage the game could use to lose altogether and nothing of value would be lost. It doesn't even have boss encounters worth keeping - there's a better version of dragonrider in Drangleic, accompanied with the archer, and the world didn't need that nonsensical ornstein encounter.
If you're going to do a change to the area, rather than making traversal slower, I would just cut it out of the game altogether. Heide is not salvageable material.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, I really hate the aggro range in SotFS Iron keep. Its really annoying and just forces you to kill everything, thus inflating your Soul Memory.
Original Iron keep was better.

Heide is pretty I will give it that. As an actual stage though its a linear level with irritating enemies and instant death pits. Its no different from Black Gulch.

 

[RoSoDude]

I actually do love amana but prepatch, release day was a little too much. It's now playable rushing into melee while aggroing multiple enemies rather than picking things at a distance.

It's really something though to see someone who said
>I only played SotFS

To speak with such a level of great confidence about things they haven't experienced.

I can say with confidence that the removal of homing on the casters is lame, and I'm glad homing was brought back in SotFS. The placements are remixed, but the core challenge is there.

Vanilla DS2 iron keep was fine and it was in no way "one at a time DS1 like encounters". What SOTFS changed most is that aggro range is such when you enter the room before smelter you pretty much aggro every single thing in existence in there and that is absolute trash.

Also I don't get where this idea that DS1 didn't have group encounters came from. Both detractors to DS2 and fanboys make it seem like there's a gulf in group encounters between the two games. Did we play the same DS1? The one with the shitton of ghosts hitting you through walls? the one with wheeled skeleton rooms? the first half of the game is very well designed and has a careful balance between mobbing you up and leaving some room for you depending on the level design and environmental risks. DS2 has an elevated amount of group encounters but nowhere near as much as people make it seem to be.
And DS2 has plenty of those one on one affairs. Some are real boring slogs too, like Dragon Aerie, which is only saved up by how magnificent the level visuals are. Or those rooms before spidey boss.

The aggro range is awesome. This is my point. When enemies aggro all at once, it creates pressure to deal with them quickly, rather than taking them one by one... or in pairs, or what have you. I wasn't trying to imply that Dark Souls 1 encounters were all 1v1 (there are plenty of group fights, I'm aware), but rather that the typical dynamic is observing an enemy or cluster of enemies, engaging them, and then moving on. SotFS Iron Keep forces you to manage the entire room all at once and I find it extremely enjoyable, precisely because of the aspects you're bitching about. I find it pretty easy to say I'd prefer how it is in SotFS for that reason.

DS2's group encounters are notable because they're the main course, while in DS1 they were an occasional part of the encounter design. Many DS1 levels are best approached by baiting enemies out with simplistic aggro range behavior and then taking them out in sequence. There are certainly exceptions, particularly moments where the player is ambushed, but even these are typically best approached by rushing the nearest enemy down as fast as possible to avoid getting swarmed, because taking on multiple New Londo ghosts at once is simply not viable. The right answer to New Londo is to play whack a mole with the ghosts as soon as they appear, or run like hell. The right answer to wheel skeletons is to get out of dodge and kill whichever one is closest. A lot of DS1 group fights are a melee guy + an archer guy anyway, which is a good layered threat but doesn't have the same emphasis on positioning as multiple melee opponents (which do show up in DS1 but not nearly as much). Enemies in DS2 have more gaps in their movesets and the arenas are much wider, creating more opportunities for the player to weave in counterattacks. To go along with this, enemies are scripted to aggro in pairs, or at longer ranges, or in response to certain conditions, all with the purpose of forcing more direct engagement with groups over pull cheesing. You'll never hear me argue that DS1 was (or should be) all about 1v1, but there's a clear shift in priorities towards more elaborate group encounters in DS2, both in quality and quantity.[/QUOTE]

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Summoned some dudes, killed The Mirror Knight (still scary boss), when this shitgame will be OVER??

...what do you mean by 4 DLCs?

 

[NJClaw]

Summoned some dudes, killed The Mirror Knight (still scary boss), when this shitgame will be OVER??

...what do you mean by 4 DLCs?

If you ignore the bullshit of the "challenge corridors", DS2 DLCs are better than half of Dark Souls 1.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Summoned some dudes, killed The Mirror Knight (still scary boss), when this shitgame will be OVER??

...what do you mean by 4 DLCs?

You still have Shrine of Amana, Undead Crypt (short level, I don't think its too bad) Aldia's Keep (again, pretty short, just a corridor), Dragon Aerie (laughably short in Scholar. You can skip most of it unlike the original, and the dragon knights won't aggro unless you're a pussy), Memory of a Giant (shitty) and finally Nashandra.
Other than Shrine of Amana, you can beat those in a few minutes unless you explore.

 

[Strange Fellow]

I completed them for the first time a few weeks ago and can confirm that the DLCs are ace. That's coming from someone who could barely force himself to reach the credits in the main game (although Shrine of Amana is also ace).

I actually enjoyed the Ivory King the most. Just something about it having a sense of location that the other two didn't have. Turned out to be a very positive surprise, too, since my impression had been that people generally consider it the least good out of the three.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

What is the best sequence for DLCs?

 

[Strange Fellow]

What is the best sequence for DLCs?

I was recommended order of release, aka Sunken -> Old Iron -> Ivory, and that was good, but I honestly don't think it matters. They're all self-contained and roughly equal in difficulty.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I completed them for the first time a few weeks ago and can confirm that the DLCs are ace. That's coming from someone who could barely force himself to reach the credits in the main game (although Shrine of Amana is also ace).

I actually enjoyed the Ivory King the most. Just something about it having a sense of location that the other two didn't have. Turned out to be a very positive surprise, too, since my impression had been that people generally consider it the least good out of the three.

Ivory king is pretty cool and the final boss fight is nice.
Only problems are the Sanics (which are basically wheel skeletons, but they hurt you if you attack them for some retarded reason) and the Frozen Wastes (which is optional, but there's a really good sword at the end if you beat the boss)

 

[praetor]

all the Kruno Crowns are great DLCs and i think which is the greatest is just a matter of preference. i personally think the Sunken Kruno is the best 'cause of the atmosphere and the way they set up the dragon fight, Old Iron Kruno has the best boss(es) so it's maybe the best to leave for last, Ivory Kruno is probably the most "balanced", everything is really good, with nothing being outstandingly great... except for some NPC invasions. speaking of which, i don't think the DLCs get enough credit for doing NPC invasions by far the best in the series. cuntish at times, like Kruno, but still awesome, so unlike Kruno

oh, and Kruno is a fag

 

[Lyric Suite]

Summoned some dudes, killed The Mirror Knight (still scary boss), when this shitgame will be OVER??

...what do you mean by 4 DLCs?

DLCs are much better than the base game. Classic DS1 style level design and encounters all around.

Except for the one with the fucking horses lmao. Then again that was designed for co-op maybe i shouldn't have tried to go solo.

 

[Silverfish]

What is the best sequence for DLCs?

Iron is the worst. Knock that out asap. Sunken is good overall, but the bosses are underwhelming and the level design isn't up to the aesthetic, which is dope. Ivory is the best, save it for last and savor that shit.