Child of Malkav
Erudite
Shouldn't you go and play Roll Slop 3: Fan Service edition or something and by doing that you stop polluting this space?
-
Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.
"This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.
From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™
- Thread starter felipepepe
- Start date
Odoryuk
Educated
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2024
- Messages
- 608
I can leave your echochamber if I spoil your vibes
Child of Malkav
Erudite
Vibes my ass. Address the list of features I mentioned in that above post if you have anything interesting to say. Back and forth ilike this s stupid. But you're in your element I guess.
Hell Swarm
Learned
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2023
- Messages
- 2,144
You sound like a zoomer. No one is interested in an echo chamber, it's just your opinion is literally retarded. Dark souls 3 throws a shit load of non-estus healing items at you, it's just less honest about it. Humanity/embers, blessings, mushrooms, beer, it goes on and on.
Max Damage
Savant
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2017
- Messages
- 748
Ember is slow and once per unembered attempt, blessings/mushrooms/siegbraus are limited as shit. I'm at Archives right now, I have 3 blessings and siegbraus, that's all you get by the late game unless you use cheats. This isn't even a fraction of banked healing compared to all lifegems/charms you can get in DS2 just by playing.
Silverfish
Arbiter
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2019
- Messages
- 3,928
Short version is that DS2 is extremely creative, but janky. DS3 is impressively polished, but uninspired and restrictive.
That's the phase I like the most actually. Fighting different player archetypes felt like a nice way to cap the series. The second phase, where he turns into Gwyn (complete with theme song), was the worst shit ever.
You're not spoiling any vibes, you're just parroting "common wisdom" ("everybody knows" DS2 bad and DS3 grate), that in reality only lives on reddit and in stremer chats.
DS3 is like a prettily done up whore that's dumb as a pile of bricks and riddled with diseases under the hood. DS2 is like a witty, smart, based gamer girl that's a blast to be around once you know her but is 6/10 tops and wears silly glasses.
I guess you chose your match.
It all blends together for me. I just thought it was a shit boss, all phases.
Hell Swarm
Learned
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2023
- Messages
- 2,144
Soul of cinder really shines at SL1. It's a completely different fight when he needs to be done perfect. You really appreciate his various forms and what each means. Except Pyro form, you just run away like a pussy until that's over. Fuck pyro form.
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2012
- Messages
- 3,160
I replayed DS3 in March and I don't even remember the area. I still remember the Wharf and the Gutter from playing 8 years ago.
EDIT: The top area of the second DLC? Pfffff.
Yes, specifically the art.
Ringed City and Irithyl were the only places I overly liked the look of in DS3. I don't find any of it particularly memorable otherwise, whether from an awe inspiring standpoint, or even a frustration one.
DS2 is significantly better and is my favorite of the Dark Souls series.
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2012
- Messages
- 3,160
It's somewhat distinct than dark souls, but the trope of fighting around falling buildings was overdone to death in the x360 spectacle brawlers: Bayonetta did it, and so did DMC, Ninja Gaiden, Ninja Blade...
The path is very linear and the illusion of choice is broken on a second or third run. You have two detours to the building on the right before the fall, and the house full of shadows. Neither are specially interesting. The swamp at the bottom was mid af.
The path is very linear and the illusion of choice is broken on a second or third run. You have two detours to the building on the right before the fall, and the house full of shadows. Neither are specially interesting. The swamp at the bottom was mid af.
Hated Bayonetta, only played first DMC, got bored of Ninja Gaiden, don't even know what Ninja Blade is...
Yeah I guess if you play a lot of cinematic action games, you've probably watched a lot of cutscene spectacles. If you mostly play RPGs and a few action RPGs, it's more noteworthy. I dunno... play more RPGs and less arcade trash?
Silverfish
Arbiter
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2019
- Messages
- 3,928
Nice try, but DMC and NG are role playing games since you're playing the roles of Dante and Ryu.
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2015
- Messages
- 13,110
Poison swamp? Second look at DS3 DLC?Well, I suppose it does have elements of both in it.
Poison swamp? Second look at DS3 DLC?Well, I suppose it does have elements of both in it.
You didn't play The Ringed City?
It's on sale now if you don't have it.
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2015
- Messages
- 13,110
I've never played any DLC for any of the Souls games. Still waiting on the 6th archstone for Demon's Souls.You didn't play The Ringed City?
It's on sale now if you don't have it.
Oh ok. Seems like a reasonable endeavour.I've never played any DLC for any of the Souls games. Still waiting on the 6th archstone for Demon's Souls.You didn't play The Ringed City?
It's on sale now if you don't have it.
You're (seriously) missing the best content out of each of them though.
SomeGuyWithAnOpinion
Educated
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2021
- Messages
- 514
Ignore the morons in this thread, the ACTUAL reason people don't like DS2 is because every aspect of it is either clunky or not well realised, despite it having some good ideas behind it.
ADP is a good idea on paper, but in practice it essentially becomes a mandatory roll stat. With the animations not changing between levels to a noticeable degree, having low ADP essentially results in your rolls LOOKING like they should work, when they in fact don't (I can't remember off the top of my head, but I think low ADP literally has 1 iframe). Rolls that would previously work in DS1 now don't because of the shortened iframes. Given the already questionable hitboxes of the Dark Souls series, this compounds into a frustrating mess of confusion after getting hit where you're not quite sure if your ADP was too low, or the game just flat out broke.
Light management and torches was supposed to be a good idea too, but the game is so bright there's literally no reason to ever carry a torch. SotFS somewhat fixed this by adding some genuinely dark areas, however the mechanics essentially become "light sconce, put torch away". When there's no enemies nearby, this mechanic is pointless, when there are enemies nearby, this mechanic is tedious and annoying. The Torch being on a timer is supposed to add resource management, but generally the timers are really high to the point where you don't have to worry. If you end up playing badly through a section and DO run out of time, you're doubly fucked because now you won't be able to see, so have fun farming The Gutter to find more.
Lockstones and Fragrant Branches are also a good idea on paper, since more resource expenditure can be really interesting. Unfortunately, half the lockstones are completely useless trolls, or are MP focused (like dimming the lights in a dungeon, which can actually HURT you in singleplayer), and you won't know which one does what, and since you can't reload a previous save due to the design of the bonfire system, a limited resource is now wasted because you got unlucky. Fragrant Branches aren't as bad, almost all of them always lead to something good, however there is one fragrant branch that leads to another fragrant branch, and there's only enough branches in the game to unlock every statue, meaning if you do them in the wrong order you will be locked out of one of them through no fault of your own. Again, good idea, horrendous implementation.
Lifegems are a nice alternative to estus, giving slower life regeneration that's designed to be used outside of combat. And yet they provide more mobility during use than the estus and a faster animation (for some reason), and can be farmed or bought in infinite quantities, resulting in you being able to carry 99 of them at any given time. This was supposed to augment the healing system in an interesting way, and instead just ends up completely undermining it, to the point where you should be able to heal through every fight. The regen ring is also findable very early, meaning that healing between fights is trivial and any sort of long-term health management goes completely out the window. One of the best aspects of DS1 was how limited estus was, making long runs (like the first trip through Undead Burg past the Taurus Demon) extremely challenging for first-timers because few mistakes were permitted. Humanity somewhat undermines this and is farmable infinitely, but outside of the DLC still remains relatively rare for most of the game. In DS2 you can buy lifegems in infinite quantities after completing the first area. DS3 is probably the best here, as it's healing is inherently limited and can't be augmented with farming at all, since Ember only works once per life, leaving you with Estus and the occasional Divine Blessing for healing, which gives much of the same feeling of tension as your mistakes matter as much as they do in DS1.
DS2 also has a lot of design which I believe actively trolls the player, in a really bad way. There are many instant-death pits that look barely different from the normal terrain (especially in the dark, The Gutter is notorious for this), bosses crammed into absolutely tiny rooms to make them as annoying to fight as possible, "spambushes" where otherwise normal looking rooms have upwards of 10-15 regular enemies crammed into them, which all attack you at once (often from behind), floors that give way to lava, killing you instantly, and numerous other traps like doors that lock behind you. DS1 obviously had these too, but most were limited to Sens Fortress (which was inherently designed as a trap-laden labyrinth), and were generally rare outside of that location. Probably the most egregious sin of DS2's design is hiding the main blacksmith behind a semi-secret area that's easy to miss, which just completely fucks over new players entirely.
DS2 had the potential to be significantly better than DS1, as it tried a lot of new ideas and made genuine attempts to improve the gameplay in interesting ways, like making Pyromancy actually scale with player stats rather than being based on how wealthy you are. and trying to undermine the roll-supremacy in DS1. It's actual implementation, however, was extremely poorly done, and while SotFS fixed some things, it also made a lot of things significantly worse. It was supposed to be an interesting twist on the DS formula, and instead it's a trolly mess where barely anything works how it should and is an absolute chore to play.
I can see why people like DS3. It took some of the better aspects of DS2 and refined them (power stancing became dual-wield weapons, pyromancy scales based on faith and int, respeccing from items instead became linked to an NPC, etc), while also being smooth as butter to play and not filled with bullshit to the same degree as DS2. I can also see why people consider it extremely boring, as it's basically peak Dark Souls mobility and combat at the expense of everything else - poise is gone, as is pretty much any interesting niche-build, it might as well be a boss rush game (the bosses ARE very very good, though).
The TL;DR is, don't play DS2. It's not worth it. If you want an interesting game with lots of build diversity that doesn't hold your hand without being total bullshit, play DS1. If you want a fun Soulslike with really good combat and smooth gameplay, play DS3. Just don't ever play DS2 for any reason, other than completionism or to explore it from a game-analysis perspective.
ADP is a good idea on paper, but in practice it essentially becomes a mandatory roll stat. With the animations not changing between levels to a noticeable degree, having low ADP essentially results in your rolls LOOKING like they should work, when they in fact don't (I can't remember off the top of my head, but I think low ADP literally has 1 iframe). Rolls that would previously work in DS1 now don't because of the shortened iframes. Given the already questionable hitboxes of the Dark Souls series, this compounds into a frustrating mess of confusion after getting hit where you're not quite sure if your ADP was too low, or the game just flat out broke.
Light management and torches was supposed to be a good idea too, but the game is so bright there's literally no reason to ever carry a torch. SotFS somewhat fixed this by adding some genuinely dark areas, however the mechanics essentially become "light sconce, put torch away". When there's no enemies nearby, this mechanic is pointless, when there are enemies nearby, this mechanic is tedious and annoying. The Torch being on a timer is supposed to add resource management, but generally the timers are really high to the point where you don't have to worry. If you end up playing badly through a section and DO run out of time, you're doubly fucked because now you won't be able to see, so have fun farming The Gutter to find more.
Lockstones and Fragrant Branches are also a good idea on paper, since more resource expenditure can be really interesting. Unfortunately, half the lockstones are completely useless trolls, or are MP focused (like dimming the lights in a dungeon, which can actually HURT you in singleplayer), and you won't know which one does what, and since you can't reload a previous save due to the design of the bonfire system, a limited resource is now wasted because you got unlucky. Fragrant Branches aren't as bad, almost all of them always lead to something good, however there is one fragrant branch that leads to another fragrant branch, and there's only enough branches in the game to unlock every statue, meaning if you do them in the wrong order you will be locked out of one of them through no fault of your own. Again, good idea, horrendous implementation.
Lifegems are a nice alternative to estus, giving slower life regeneration that's designed to be used outside of combat. And yet they provide more mobility during use than the estus and a faster animation (for some reason), and can be farmed or bought in infinite quantities, resulting in you being able to carry 99 of them at any given time. This was supposed to augment the healing system in an interesting way, and instead just ends up completely undermining it, to the point where you should be able to heal through every fight. The regen ring is also findable very early, meaning that healing between fights is trivial and any sort of long-term health management goes completely out the window. One of the best aspects of DS1 was how limited estus was, making long runs (like the first trip through Undead Burg past the Taurus Demon) extremely challenging for first-timers because few mistakes were permitted. Humanity somewhat undermines this and is farmable infinitely, but outside of the DLC still remains relatively rare for most of the game. In DS2 you can buy lifegems in infinite quantities after completing the first area. DS3 is probably the best here, as it's healing is inherently limited and can't be augmented with farming at all, since Ember only works once per life, leaving you with Estus and the occasional Divine Blessing for healing, which gives much of the same feeling of tension as your mistakes matter as much as they do in DS1.
DS2 also has a lot of design which I believe actively trolls the player, in a really bad way. There are many instant-death pits that look barely different from the normal terrain (especially in the dark, The Gutter is notorious for this), bosses crammed into absolutely tiny rooms to make them as annoying to fight as possible, "spambushes" where otherwise normal looking rooms have upwards of 10-15 regular enemies crammed into them, which all attack you at once (often from behind), floors that give way to lava, killing you instantly, and numerous other traps like doors that lock behind you. DS1 obviously had these too, but most were limited to Sens Fortress (which was inherently designed as a trap-laden labyrinth), and were generally rare outside of that location. Probably the most egregious sin of DS2's design is hiding the main blacksmith behind a semi-secret area that's easy to miss, which just completely fucks over new players entirely.
DS2 had the potential to be significantly better than DS1, as it tried a lot of new ideas and made genuine attempts to improve the gameplay in interesting ways, like making Pyromancy actually scale with player stats rather than being based on how wealthy you are. and trying to undermine the roll-supremacy in DS1. It's actual implementation, however, was extremely poorly done, and while SotFS fixed some things, it also made a lot of things significantly worse. It was supposed to be an interesting twist on the DS formula, and instead it's a trolly mess where barely anything works how it should and is an absolute chore to play.
I can see why people like DS3. It took some of the better aspects of DS2 and refined them (power stancing became dual-wield weapons, pyromancy scales based on faith and int, respeccing from items instead became linked to an NPC, etc), while also being smooth as butter to play and not filled with bullshit to the same degree as DS2. I can also see why people consider it extremely boring, as it's basically peak Dark Souls mobility and combat at the expense of everything else - poise is gone, as is pretty much any interesting niche-build, it might as well be a boss rush game (the bosses ARE very very good, though).
The TL;DR is, don't play DS2. It's not worth it. If you want an interesting game with lots of build diversity that doesn't hold your hand without being total bullshit, play DS1. If you want a fun Soulslike with really good combat and smooth gameplay, play DS3. Just don't ever play DS2 for any reason, other than completionism or to explore it from a game-analysis perspective.
Last edited:
ferratilis
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2019
- Messages
- 2,904
I'm playing this again, but dealing with awful deadzones is not easy after so many hours of Elden Ring. Since Durazno's fix can get you softbanned (or so I heard), Steam Input comes to the rescue. I found a preset that makes controls as snappy as those in more modern From titles, and it won't get you banned. Just sharing for anyone who might be interested. This is the preset I'm using:
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2018
- Messages
- 4,241
I will never understand you people. Do you actually like playing games, or is playing games merely a chore you have to get through in preparation for the orgasmic joy of ticking off items on a checklist?
SomeGuyWithAnOpinion
Educated
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2021
- Messages
- 514
Sorry, WHAT?
You think getting cucked by a game is good design?
My argument has NOTHING to do with mindlessly completing checklists and everything to do with the game actively punishing you for playing it in the wrong order - an order it never specifies, so it's purely down to luck. This isn't some mindless Uncharted fanboy upset because they couldn't find 100% of collectibles in their mindless open world game. This is a resource-based system in a videogame, one that's designed to incentivise finding certain items, prioritising one player choice over another. If you don't understand the problems that dominant strategies cause for game design then I really don't know what to say, you clearly don't understand videogames.
If you're trying to argue that "well you can't find EVERYTHING in one playthrough so it's not a problem", no. This isn't your typical extra NG+ content, or your typical "different playthroughs resulting in different outcomes" immersion nonesense. This is literally just the game fucking random people over for no reason because it's badly designed.
I swear, the lengths people will go to in order to defend DS2 are absolutely insane... Surely people are mature enough to realise they can enjoy a game even if it's bad? Like, it's not a personal insult if DS2 turns out to be badly designed. Stop taking everything so personally.
By the way, don't think I didn't notice you didn't address any of my points. It's almost like you can't actually find any genuine fault, so you simply resort to insults. Pathetic.
The reason your opinion on DS2 is ultimately retarded is I could write the same wall-o-text for DS1 too. Or DeS. Or Elden Ring. Or any game, really.
No game is flawless. DS1 is a legend, one of the most celebrated games ever, despite having THE worst level in all gaming (and another one that's almost as bad) and some of the worst bosses in the genre. Plus a ton of other flaws like terrible UI, broken magic, netcode, stunlocking and chain-backstabbing, boring NG+.
Your mention of "clunky" is telling. I'm starting to see this being said this about DS1 too now, on Steam and Reddit by shallow smoothbrain newfags who started with Elden Ring and now are going back to the older games and crying about clunkiness.
So yes, I actually agree with you - the REAL reason people don't like DS2 and love DS3 is clunkiness/smoothness. I.e. shit that's utterly shallow and superficial.
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2018
- Messages
- 4,241
Any post containing the word clunky can be safely ignored. It is simply a term retards use when they're too stupid to articulate why they don't like something, which, if they had, would invariably be "it feels different from the thing I am used to". But, retards being retards, they don't stop to think about why they don't like it, and certainly not whether the "clunkiness" might actually serve a purpose.
As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.