From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[Halfling Rodeo]

- DS2 nerfing practically all of the "fun" items that let you make super high damage builds in DS1 through lots of damage multipliers was a bad thing. Red Tearstone ring in DS1: 50% damage increase, DS2: 20%. Especially the magic boosting equipment in DS2 is really just pathetic and a waste of time to obtain. Rings in DS1 increased your damage by 25% or spell duration by 50%, in DS2 its like 5% and 20%.

20% is still a huge damage boost and more ring slots does mean they need toning down.

A lot of your complaints I see but I would argue it's about self regulation and some of them enable interesting gameplay in themselves. I personally don't try to min/max and abuse every mechanic to get broken ASAP so I don't have a problem with having a sack full of life gems I never touch. On the other hand, I did appreciate them when I was doing a no bonfire run and couldn't replace my flasks. It opened up a non-estus play through and gave you more options. So while I agree with most of what you're saying I've always thought more options in a souls game is good as long as the game doesn't get lazy because of them. Having to plan a path and know when it was okay to die and get my flasks back vs using my limited healing supplies was a cool way to play a souls game and it's not possible in any other souls game the same way.

 

[Average Manatee]

20% is still a huge damage boost and more ring slots does mean they need toning down.

For needing to stay <30% health its pretty bad. If it was 20% damage boost for free or almost free it'd be good, that's what the free damage no-penalty DS1 rings give.

And they definitely didn't hand out these "now that you can wear 4 rings all rings must be weak" nerfs evenly. Like how Stone Ring is absurdly overpowered for adding poise damage to any quick weapon, allowing them to stagger things like the biggest two hander you can find. Which reminds me, poise is also semi-broken. Not as broken as DS3 but its still broken and there's no excuse for breaking a perfectly good system like DS1 had.

There's also a problem that a lot of this "advanced" equipment barely gets used, since as previously mentioned you level up so fast and there's practically no reason to replay NG+. Finishing your first game in DS1 left you with a lot of stuff to still do, character growth to obtain, time to play around with your neat end game tricks. In DS2 this doesn't really exist. So even if those late game rings that improve damage by 5% were buffed they'd still be pretty boring and meaningless.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

20% is still a huge damage boost and more ring slots does mean they need toning down.

For needing to stay <30% health its pretty bad. If it was 20% damage boost for free or almost free it'd be good, that's what the free damage no-penalty DS1 rings give.

And they definitely didn't hand out these "now that you can wear 4 rings all rings must be weak" nerfs evenly. Like how Stone Ring is absurdly overpowered for adding poise damage to any quick weapon, allowing them to stagger things like the biggest two hander you can find. Which reminds me, poise is also semi-broken. Not as broken as DS3 but its still broken and there's no excuse for breaking a perfectly good system like DS1 had.

There's also a problem that a lot of this "advanced" equipment barely gets used, since as previously mentioned you level up so fast and there's practically no reason to replay NG+. Finishing your first game in DS1 left you with a lot of stuff to still do, character growth to obtain, time to play around with your neat end game tricks. In DS2 this doesn't really exist. So even if those late game rings that improve damage by 5% were buffed they'd still be pretty boring and meaningless.

20% damage buff is still huge life reduced or not. And you say yourself you get way more health in Dark souls 2 due to extra levels and game length so it's not the same 30% life as it was in DaS1

Souls games are full of broken shit. Dark souls 1's flip ring in full havels was left unpatched for months if I recall. Poise has always been a problem and always will be. Being able to ignore an attack staggering you or having your opponent do it is inheritantly broken.

DaS2 is the only game with a justified NG+ in the series. Everything else is the same with bigger numbers. Only 2 changes the game in a meaningful way. You have a very strange way of looking at the game if you think extra enemies and remixed enemy locations isn't worth replaying but "I can equip a different sword and repeat an identical quest" is.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Soul spear melts most of Dark souls 1 and you can beat a lot of bosses without them closing the distance.

This. I loved playing a mage in DkS1. Once you get Dark Bead it's over. 1 shot or at most 2 shots on any boss (exception Manus I think). The shotgun of Soulsborne.

 

[Multidirectional]

Healing always seemed more op in DS1 to me. 20 instant healing estus flasks, come on. Yes you can have a ton of lifegems in DS2 but I've died plenty of times while trying to heal myself with them during fight. And I only find it easy to gather 99 of the weakest lifegems, these things heal pretty damn slow.

Adaptability is no doubt shit for players who are doing first run completely blind but to me it's never been an issue. I happened to know about it before starting the game so whatever, I just raise AGL to 100 by the time I'm done with Forest of Fallen Giants. You do get a lot more levels per playthrough compared to DS1 anyway, so pumping some stat in the beginning that gives me better dodge and faster item use does not make me sad at all.

Then there's all the bitching about Soul Memory that I never understood. I never cared about the thing, not a shred of autism regarding it was exercised in any of my playthroughs and at no point I ever came close to going "boy this Soul Memory thing really fucked me over, game would surely be better without it!". I always got plenty of multiplayer action and most of it was a fun experience. Love them Bell bros.

 

[Silverfish]

No, don't do it it's a trap, noooo.....

Uh oh, @Silverfish got caught arguing with a half-brain.

Sad Christmas.

You never go arguing with a full retard bro.

I won't go that far. I disagreed with a lot of what he said, but I can't deny the popularity and influence of critique videos like Mauler's or Matthewmatosis' and it's pretty clear that that's where a lot of his points came from.

Dark souls 1 can have 20 estus, healing miracles and humanity.

And healing on hit if you've got the butcher's knife or server. A sufficiently determined player could turn Dark Souls into a Diablo 3 barbarian run.

 

[Average Manatee]

20% damage buff is still huge life reduced or not. And you say yourself you get way more health in Dark souls 2 due to extra levels and game length so it's not the same 30% life as it was in DaS1

30% life is the point where most bosses will be able to one shot you in either game, having more health in DS2 doesn't matter since bosses will generally deal more damage too. 20% damage buff is pretty small considering this, intentionally staying that low on life is basically a challenge run while in DS1 it was a legitimate strategy.

Being able to ignore an attack staggering you or having your opponent do it is inheritantly broken.

Not at all. Do you also think that iFrames are inherently broken? Personally I'd prefer a game designed to not use iFrames but that'd require good hitboxes and a lot of different decisions in monster design.

DaS2 is the only game with a justified NG+ in the series. Everything else is the same with bigger numbers. Only 2 changes the game in a meaningful way. You have a very strange way of looking at the game if you think extra enemies and remixed enemy locations isn't worth replaying but "I can equip a different sword and repeat an identical quest" is.

NG+ in DS1 is the point where you can start combining advanced weapons and abilities for Cool Stuff™. In DS2 you could do that 30 levels before you finished the game. DS2 also lets you just use bonfire ascetics to get all the NG+ stuff so there's not much reason to actually do a full replay.

Healing always seemed more op in DS1 to me. 20 instant healing estus flasks, come on. Yes you can have a ton of lifegems but I've died plenty of times while trying to heal myself with them during fight. And I only find it easy to gather 99 of the weakest lifegems, these things heal pretty damn slow.

20 flasks is a bit much but 99 lifegems is like... enough to carry you for the whole game without needing to revisit the merchant. It's not really about the in-battle healing, its about how there's no pressure to master dealing with areas since scraping by every fight with 95% of your health gone is no big deal (obviously you'll need to buy a lot more than 99 in that case but I'm exaggerating the point).

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

30% life is the point where most bosses will be able to one shot you in either game, having more health in DS2 doesn't matter since bosses will generally deal more damage too. 20% damage buff is pretty small considering this, intentionally staying that low on life is basically a challenge run while in DS1 it was a legitimate strategy.

Considering how much damage you do in both games I think it's a fair comparison. So many 1 shot builds rely on the ring it had it coming. It's 50% of the ring slots it was before and about as effective as a slot is worth in comparison

Not at all. Do you also think that iFrames are inherently broken? Personally I'd prefer a game designed to not use iFrames but that'd require good hitboxes and a lot of different decisions in monster design.

I hate games which 'randomly' have enemies not stagger or in PvP where you hit someone and they ignore you to whack you with a huge weapon. I don't think it's fair and I don't enjoy it. I would like to see Soulslikes not rely on iframes as much as they do. I don't like the solution to every problem be rolling through it. It's lazy and looks dumb.

NG+ in DS1 is the point where you can start combining advanced weapons and abilities for Cool Stuff™. In DS2 you could do that 30 levels before you finished the game. DS2 also lets you just use bonfire ascetics to get all the NG+ stuff so there's not much reason to actually do a full replay.

Could you elaborate? I can't think of a single thing you can do in a souls game that requires high stats the way you're talking. There's no way to combo weapon attacks, there's no way to combo spells. It's just bigger numbers and power stance in DaS2.

 

[Max Damage]

20 estus in DS1 is definitely overkill, especially combined with poise from heavy armor, but 99 lifegems is even worse since you don't have to wait long until you can reach that, estus and lifegems healing over time is arguably even stronger than instant heal.

 

[Average Manatee]

Could you elaborate? I can't think of a single thing you can do in a souls game that requires high stats the way you're talking. There's no way to combo weapon attacks, there's no way to combo spells. It's just bigger numbers and power stance in DaS2.

Fair enough, it's mostly just extra damage stacking weapon enchants on already busted strong weapons. But DS1 is also a lot more replayable in general since its just less drawn out while a lot of bad DS2 areas just drag on. Maybe they knew that most people would only want to replay a small fraction of DS2 areas and that's why they implemented bonfire ascetics.

 

[Nathir]

After 2 pages of sperging out about mechanics nobody even said the reason why DS2 sucks compared to others in the series. Most of the enemy designs suck and the bosses are extremely forgettable. The levels are also incredibly bland with boring textures and narrow, ugly corridors and hallways weirdly connecting to each other.

From Demon Souls onwards the most important thing in these games is atmosphere and immersion, where DS2 completely shits the bed.

Do the wonky hitboxes and ADP and whatever else really matter, when you are playing what is fundamentally the same game from DES to ER? No, you just get used to each games special mechanics.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

From Demon Souls onwards the most important thing in these games is atmosphere and immersion, where DS2 completely shits the bed.

Laughs in Majula.

 

[Max Damage]

Majula and Old Iron King's Crown are my favorite hub and DLC in the whole series, but most of everything else is mid like I said before, unfortunately.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Developers think that they know better than their players about balance and meta

Most players demonstrably don't know about jack shit about good game design or balance

Dark Souls 2 is awful

Case in point

try moving forward and slightly to the left. Either you will go forward only, or your character will "snap" to moving 45 degrees to the left

I think you're imagining things

especially because DS2 has a lot of segments that require jumping at specific angles

What?
Other than the pit in majula, DS2 has no more obligatory platforming segments than DS1

Then you have the early regen ring and unlimited life gems utterly ruining the health balance

Another case in point

The greater variety of healing options is objective gameplay incline
Along with the new Humanity/HP loss system, enemy despawning and the mechanical difference between estus and lifegems
DS2 actually has tangible, even long-term, consequences for poor resource management and poor performance
Unlike DS1 and 3, which only pretend to have resource management
Even your complain about farmable lifegem is ultimately irrelevant - by the time they get easy to acquire, the player is far enough into the game that needing to farm them would be a chore (ever played BloodBorne?)
What most matters here is the beggining of the game and at that point they're limited and not cheap
Also you're deluded if you think the Ring of Restoration breaks the game

the awful branches of yore which have some branches behind others, so if you do them in the wrong order you permanently miss out on things

Wtf are you talking about
Even in SotFS you can get enough branches in a NG cycle to unpetrify everything in the game world
Same thing applies to Pharros Lockstones

Also, can you explain exactly why locking up content depending on the player's choices (specially if they're poor ones) is a bad thing?
Specially on a game with a NG+ feature?

the horrible bosses with woeful hit registration

I believe those were patched fairly quickly after launch

fighting you in tight rooms where you can't move very much

There's nothing wrong with this

SOTFS is even worse because the number of enemies has been arbitrarily quadrupled for "difficulty"

Well you're being arbitrary when you say quadrupled - since it's false

Adaptability is a small issue in a vast ocean of horrendous game design choices.

Like?
You haven't pointed out any so far...

 

[DJOGamer PT]

The levels are also incredibly bland with boring textures and narrow, ugly corridors and hallways weirdly connecting to each other.

>got filtered by Shrine of Amana

Git

 

[cvv]

corridors and hallways weirdly connecting to each other.

Interconnectedness is bad now?

 

[Nathir]

The levels are also incredibly bland with boring textures and narrow, ugly corridors and hallways weirdly connecting to each other.

>got filtered by Shrine of Amana

Git

What the fuck? How does this relate to anything?

 

[Nathir]

corridors and hallways weirdly connecting to each other.

Interconnectedness is bad now?

That's not the point... I don't know how to explain... but ever since Demon Souls when you walk through the levels... there is always a sense of realism. In the way that places are real and rooms have purpose and you can tell why it's built the way it is etc. In Dark Souls2 there is none of that. Just compare Anor Londo to Drangleic castle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY1dSMd1h8o Just.. look at that. The textures, the empty rooms, the way it connects. Like, you're walking upwards outside on a staircase with no scaffolding, you enter a single room (the one with masks) only to exit and again walk upstairs on the outside. Nothing looks like it was made by someone for someone. And pretty much most levels are like that. Things just exist. To be fair, the DLCs are a lot better with this. Add in the Korean MMO creature designs, and you get one hell of an ugly game. The sexy pyromancer ladies, who I think are a fan favourite design, would never fly in a Miyazaki game.

 

[Child of Malkav]

That's not the point... I don't know how to explain... but ever since Demon Souls when you walk through the levels... there is always a sense of realism. In the way that places are real and rooms have purpose and you can tell why it's built the way it is etc. In Dark Souls2 there is none of that. Just compare Anor Londo to Drangleic castle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY1dSMd1h8o Just.. look at that. The textures, the empty rooms, the way it connects. Like, you're walking upwards outside on a staircase with no scaffolding, you enter a single room (the one with masks) only to exit and again walk upstairs on the outside. Nothing looks like it was made by someone for someone. And pretty much most levels are like that. Things just exist.

Wasn't some lore description saying that Vendrick built the castle for Nashandra? Maybe after he discovered what she was and what her intentions were? If that was the case then it would make sense as the castle isn't built for anyone to live there but it's built to be some kind of elaborate trap and gauntlet. We know he left a series of traps and tests for Nashandra in case she came after him and the castle may be one of them. Followed by the shrine of Amana, the crypt and Veldstadt, Aldia mansion, Dragon Aerie and ancient dragon, the memory of giants and giant lord and the throne defenders. The twin pursuer fight in the main throne room. The castle is not for living in it. It's a series of tests. It's also why she asks you to find and kill Vendrick: because she can't.

 

[Nathir]

That's not the point... I don't know how to explain... but ever since Demon Souls when you walk through the levels... there is always a sense of realism. In the way that places are real and rooms have purpose and you can tell why it's built the way it is etc. In Dark Souls2 there is none of that. Just compare Anor Londo to Drangleic castle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY1dSMd1h8o Just.. look at that. The textures, the empty rooms, the way it connects. Like, you're walking upwards outside on a staircase with no scaffolding, you enter a single room (the one with masks) only to exit and again walk upstairs on the outside. Nothing looks like it was made by someone for someone. And pretty much most levels are like that. Things just exist.

Wasn't some lore description saying that Vendrick built the castle for Nashandra? Maybe after he discovered what she was and what her intentions were? If that was the case then it would make sense as the castle isn't built for anyone to live there but it's built to be some kind of elaborate trap and gauntlet. We know he left a series of traps and tests for Nashandra in case she came after him and the castle may be one of them. Followed by the shrine of Amana, the crypt and Veldstadt, Aldia mansion, Dragon Aerie and ancient dragon, the memory of giants and giant lord and the throne defenders. The twin pursuer fight in the main throne room. The castle is not for living in it. It's a series of tests. It's also why she asks you to find and kill Vendrick: because she can't.

I don't know, I think you are just overthinking stuff. Drangleic castle being built specifically as some kind of Sen's Fortress seems very farfetched. Even then, look at Sen's fortress, then look at Drangleic castle... And it's not just drangleic castle, pretty much the whole game is weird like that.

 

[Zlaja]

I have seen countless videos of a boss thrusting, the character diving past it, then teleporting to the end of the blade. The pursuer is particularly bad for this

I've seen plenty of videos of a player whining about not getting hit, when in fact he did get hit, but the animation for ending on the tip of the blade doesn't trigger instantly (as it should). The game suffers from delayed animations when your char gets impaled.

 

[Nathir]

mediocrepoet why the copium rating? I don't get it.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I don't know, I think you are just overthinking stuff.

Souls "lore" in a nutshell.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Drangleic castle being built specifically as some kind of Sen's Fortress seems very farfetched.

Except it's not. Drangleic castle may only be the beginning of such a gauntlet. Traps, key items needed to progress, bosses and Nashandra just wainting around for a competent candidiate to unfuck the situation. Only to make an appearance immediately after you defeat the throne defenders. You need the king's ring (after going through the castle, Mirror Knight, Amana, Dragonriders, Demon of Song, the crypt, killing Veldstadt), going to the Aldia mansion and fighting the experiments, getting the key (from the dead dragon after lighting 4 sconces each protected by an invader), going to Dragon area to get ashen mist after dueling or massacring the dragon knights, going through the memories and giant lord to get the giant kinship so that after killing the throne defenders the golems would respond to you or whoever has the kinship. Holy shit level of hoops you have to jump through. Looks like a plan to me. Sen's fortress is baby mode compared to this.
Golems that respond to the kinship are also found in Eleum Loyce (as well as one of the crowns) suggesting trade or some kind of diplomatic relations between each of these kingodms. The eye of the priestess from Eleum Loyce can be used in shaded woods to see the invisble enemies. The crowns together provide a blessing to the wielder, not a cure but a temporary treatment to the curse by stoppping the hollowing process based on experiments conducted by Aldia. Probably the starting point of the legend of the kingdom and renown of the land for finding a way to fight the curse which resulted in the place becoming a beacon for other undead. Vendrick didn't want Nashandra getting any of this, the crown, his soul (which btw is behind a locked door guarded by a dragonrider and opens afet you fight and kill Vendrick and you are in human form and killing Vendrick even in his hollowed state in difficult and you need 5 giant souls to reduce his defences enough which means that in his prime Nashandra couldn't do anything aginst him), the ring and in the end, the throne.

 

[Silva]

Bro, stop. Nathir has a point in that the series world design was more grounded in DeS and DS1 and became less so in DS2 and 3.

Denying that only paints you as a fanboy.