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Gaf, why is Dark Souls 2 so bad?

ZangBa

Member
There's already a gif of it but two things:

1) Chalice dungeon boss only so most people have not experienced it.
2) The attack is less of a hitbox issue and more of a "ridiculous fast, full screen move with crazy tracking"

I'd consider it a hitbox issue if I was hit by thin air, which is what will happen if you dodge to the opposite side of the fist. Plesioth would be proud.
 

Deadstar

Member
Why is it bad?

The enemy designs are not very interesting. The world is not connected in a believable way. There are too many humanoid bosses. (On the plus side you do fight Jabba at one point.) The world and environments are not as interesting as in Dark Souls. There are no giant bosses like in Dark Souls. (Bonus points, there are elephant enemies.)

So all in all it just isn't that interesting. I beat it and there are parts that I liked a lot but it's easily the worst souls game. I would probably rank them like this.

Demon's Souls / Dark Souls > Bloodborne > Dark Souls 2

I can't decide which game I like more, Demon's or Dark. I'd probably lean Demon's but it's close.
 

105.Will

Member
I will politely disagree with you

reremake_by_aloo81-d7d2zxq.gif
I usally judge how good a friend is by how they react to this gif. It's absolutely beautiful.
 

Mutagenic

Permanent Junior Member
It's the one game in the series where I feel I'm simply going through the motions, but it's still a pretty decent game.
 

Hypron

Member
How about pig hitboxes, I heard those were handcrafted by the great Miyazaki-sama himself

Or the Pthumerian Descendant who throws boomerangs through walls.

All Souls games have a few attacks with bullshit hitboxes, but the vast majority range from good to great. DS2 is no different in this regard.

People who don't raise their adaptability have to deal with very few invincibility frames which means it's a lot harder to dodge without getting hit. On the other hand after increasing the stat it feels very much like the rest of the series. It's probably what leads to some of the complaints - although it's not that hitboxes are worse it's just that the game is less lenient at low adp.
 

Solrac

Member
- really poor map connection or no connection at all.

- bad art design ( compared to others )

- no memorable bosses ( sir alonne is the only one )

- hit box completely broken

+ really length game

+ best ng+ of soul saga

+ best pvp
 

orborborb

Member
Bloodborne has so little interaction between the combat mechanics and the level design and character build that I find it pretty dull compared to Dark Souls II. Despite the clearly better sound design, animation, and storytelling, Bloodborne also fails to make me care nearly as much about reaching new areas, finding secrets, etc.
 

Dresden

Member
going through SOTFS convinced me that all the bad press about hitboxes stemmed more from lack of information about agility in the early days. Not that it was ever a good idea to tie i-frames to a stat whose benefits are difficult to discern, but anyway that aside, it really isn't too bad.
 

Tiops

Member
It's hard to adapt to its gameplay after playing Bloodborne. Just understand that it's a slower game. Raise your ADP to make things less frustrating, and lower your level design and enemy design expectations.

It's a good game, just don't play it expecting a game of the same quality of the other Souls games.
 

Dmonzy

Member
It's not a bad game, but the artificial difficulty gained from just throwing in groups of enemies is certainly a common complaint. The hitboxes, disjoint world, majority humanoid bosses, and unnecessary branches of yore blocking progress all contribute to a less fun souls game for me.
 

Hollow

Member
The biggest problem in DS2 is the enemy tracking. It's hard to out maneuver an enemy when they're constantly spinning to face you, even when they're attacking. Makes dodging more difficult than it should be. This issue still wasn't fixed in SotFS and is actually probably worse since they increased the enemies agro range. It can make getting swamped by enemies pretty standard fair unless you cheese magic/bow for the entire run.

DS2 is a poorly designed game that can still be fun but coming from any of the other Souls titles to it can be really frustrating.
 

Manu

Member
Matthewmathosis' video is really good, but I'm getting a bit tired of seeing it posted every single time as if it was the be-all and end-all of DS2.
 

T_Exige

Member
Because, the zones (mostly boring) and how they are connected make no sense.

More mobs = worst way to make a game harder.

Demon and Dark Souls destroy this game on almost all points.
Bloodborne is back on track and shows how it should be made!
 

Nerokis

Member
Terrible hitboxes
Terrible bossfights (main game)
Terrible mechanics like ADP and soul memory

most other aspects are an upgrade from past series iterations, but those three negatives far outweigh any of the positive additions imo. If they just fixed the hitboxes so the game plays like Dark Souls 1 or Bloodborne I would place it much higher. They must have been drunk for ADP and soul memory, otherwise I'm not sure how anyone with a brain could want those mechanics to ruin the game.

Soul Memory is pretty hard to justify, yeah. ADP, though...as much as I first hated it, and I'm glad it's gone in DS3, I grew to understand it. Dodging is a huge mechanic, and throughout development, I'm sure there was a constant question of how powerful it should be. I don't entirely blame the developers for deciding dodging shouldn't initially be as powerful as it was in the original game. When you think about it, it makes sense for certain characters to be inherently better at dodging than others, and for players to have to make a choice as to how effective they want it to be. It actually makes sense for several reasons.

It was a decision that pulled Dark Souls in a different direction, and subverted expectations in a jarring way. I'm curious to see how people would have reacted if the baseline dodge was still pretty good, so putting points into ADP would pretty quickly make dodging noticeably more powerful, as opposed to merely "as good."
 

cireza

Member
If playing only offline, Dark Souls II was perfectly fine on PS3 or 360. However, the newer version makes pretty much everything worse for the offline gamer.
 

Akuun

Looking for meaning in GAF
The biggest problem in DS2 is the enemy tracking. It's hard to out maneuver an enemy when they're constantly spinning to face you, even when they're attacking.
I think this is one of the bigger problems with the game, yes. I noticed myself consciously delaying my rolls much more than normal if I saw an enemy tracking me during an attack animation while not actually swinging.
 

finley83

Banned
165 hours in DS1 for PC, absolutely loved it and will probably replay every few years. By contrast, I fucking hate DS2. Everything about it, from the music to the world layout to the floaty controls, is completely mediocre and disappointing. I gave up after about 24 hours and never want to play it again.

I don't get the people who say it's not DS1 but still a good game. I think it's an unequivocally bad game.
 
Calling out Dark Souls II for having tons of humanoid bosses while praising Bloodborne which has tons of hairy white screaming beasts with flailing attacks...

I like Bloodborne, but ultimately the Old Gods theme and the very, very light RPG elements made me go back to DS2. The stats matter (specifically seen with adaptability) but you can still make it through with skill. Bloodborne depends too much on reacting with parries.

Also, going back to Dark Souls after both of these is a bit bittersweet. Sure, it's ultimately the better game but there's SO much quality-of-life stuff added later on which makes it feel very clunky at times.
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
Please give me all the humaniod enemies and bosses. Usually its much more fun to fight them.
 

AU Tiger

Member
IMO, DS2 wasn't a BAD game, it was just not as good as DS1 (by quite a large margin).

The sprawling world felt a lot bigger than that in DS1 but also more confusing and a lot of tedious backtracking between bonfires.

Bosses were boring and uninspired and probably the worst aspect of the game for me was the confusing parry mechanics and no i-frames when riposting or backstabbing. Made mob fights WAY harder.

These hitboxes were a crime.


Good hitboxes are absolutely integral to this series. Good enemy placement as and good bonfire design are incredibly important as well. Not to mention absolutely baffling design decisions like adaptability. Your character drinks estus like a person perpetually stuck in slow motion unless you invest in ADP.

Those are the game glitching out. I've been hit by all of those tons of times and avoided them even more times and never seen anything like these.

On the other hand, I've been hit by more hitbox glitches than I can remember in DS1.

Ornstein in particular has an unusually generous AOE range on his dash and swipe attack that I've hit by numerous times despite being behind him nowhere near his spear.
 

impact

Banned
Calling out Dark Souls II for having tons of humanoid bosses while praising Bloodborne which has tons of hairy white screaming beasts with flailing attacks...

I like Bloodborne, but ultimately the Old Gods theme and the very, very light RPG elements made me go back to DS2. The stats matter (specifically seen with adaptability) but you can still make it through with skill. Bloodborne depends too much on reacting with parries.

on the contrast, I'm terrible at parrying in all the games and I never had an issue with BB

It's funny how to defend DS2's terrible hitboxes people have to try and mention one or two mobs from the other games with funky hitboxes. While ignoring that every enemy in DS2 has these shit hitboxes. #stayfree
 

Zombine

Banned
It's the The Dark Knight Rises of Souls games. Good movie with some problems, and not as much heart in it as the one before it.
 

Cyrano

Member
It's a slower, different game. Bloodborne is probably closer to a straight-up character action game like DMC or Revengeance than it is to the Souls series. The combat speed is a big part of that (along with the extraordinary number of iframes you have when dodging).

The Souls series require some contemplation and a willingness to actively slow things down; at least on a first playthrough.
 

KiteGr

Member
Dark Souls 2 made many improvements and many mistakes.

  • The graphics are better that Dark Souls 1, although a bit moody even for Souls game standarts.
  • The atmosphere is SHIT. The worst in all souls games. There are a couple of areas near the end and in the DLC that are interesting, but the rest is just shit. The levels came right out of video game land! There is even a castle in lava with humanoid turtles as enemies!
  • There are some inprovements in balancing. For example, now Faith and Inteligence is a viable build, and there are less useless stats.
  • The story is bad! It shits all over the one left from DS1. They should had gone with a new Universe like they did with Demon's Souls to Dark Souls transition.
  • There are lots of new covenants to fit the tastes of all players.
  • Some horrible mechanics where introduced. Like having the enemies stop re-spawning if you kill them enough times. How you'll have to turn every bonfire to NG+ individually. How your Soul level is calculated by the souls you've collected, and not by your level. Ect... Many of them SHOULD have been removed via patch!
  • The game is also Gigantic. The biggest map of all souls games, without adding the DLCs.
  • There are also certain changes in the engine that threw off many Dark souls veterans.

If you are comming from Bloodborne, you should know that BB was much more aggressive than the other soul games.
You should always approach carefully, with your shield risen and avoid fighting more than one enemy at a time. The slow attacks means that you should be more methodical, taking a couple of hits at opportune times, unless you feel you can stun-lock an enemy till the end. Cheesing the enemy from a distance with bows and spells is also an options, but mostly for the weak-hearted as it's less fun.
 

Nerokis

Member
going through SOTFS convinced me that all the bad press about hitboxes stemmed more from lack of information about agility in the early days. Not that it was ever a good idea to tie i-frames to a stat whose benefits are difficult to discern, but anyway that aside, it really isn't too bad.

Yeah, I feel there is some legitimate grievance there, but GIF culture and this being a weird sequel to a beloved game exaggerated it big time.
 
Dark Souls II Scholar of The First Sin may not be as carefully and masterfully crafted as DSI but I like it just as much. It's an ambitious mess sometimes but when it hits, it hits hard! The first half of the game can be slow...The second half is better than DS1's.
The DLC content is on par with anything the previous Souls games have to offer.

SotfS is my perfect game right now – it almost feels personal. It's a bit like loving Bowie's Diamond Dogs when everybody else prefers Ziggy Stardust!
 

MayMay

Banned
165 hours in DS1 for PC, absolutely loved it and will probably replay every few years. By contrast, I fucking hate DS2. Everything about it, from the music to the world layout to the floaty controls, is completely mediocre and disappointing. I gave up after about 24 hours and never want to play it again.

I don't get the people who say it's not DS1 but still a good game. I think it's an unequivocally bad game.

Oh man.. I totally forgot about the music. No memorable tracks except maybe the track that plays during the credits. And maybe 1-2 tracks that got added in the DLCs
Sir Alonne theme is actually really good

Calling out Dark Souls II for having tons of humanoid bosses while praising Bloodborne which has tons of hairy white screaming beasts with flailing attacks...

I like Bloodborne, but ultimately the Old Gods theme and the very, very light RPG elements made me go back to DS2. The stats matter (specifically seen with adaptability) but you can still make it through with skill. Bloodborne depends too much on reacting with parries.

Hmm.. I barely ever parried in Bloodborne actually. The only time I parried was in the beginning while I was learning how to do it properly. Bloodborne doesnt depend on it any more than Dark Souls does imo.
 

w0s

Member
I loved it. I beat them in this order bloodborne>ds1>ds2

I'm not even sure I like ds1 better than ds2. At least not the SotfS version. I liked in DS1 how things wrapped around more and there wasn't the central hub but overall I feel like DS2 had more better areas overall. I dunno though I'm not hyperbolic and am easier on games then most so maybe it was just the mood I was in.

The funniest part to me is everyone said DS1 was the hardest of the 3 and honestly I found bloodborne harder. Then again I still contend the first one you play is the hardest because you need to learn how the game wants you to be patient and learn how iframes work.
 

Mman235

Member
Nah, they still fucked me up in SOTFS. :(

Maybe I just got gud, but it seemed like there were multiple times when I would have been grabbed before but wasn't, and the one time I was grabbed was when I did something wrong. Like someone else said the biggest problem is how deadly grabs are in DS2; I've been caught in BS grabs multiple times in the other games but they do barely more damage than normal attacks so it doesn't matter much, whereas it sticks out much more when you get insta-killed every time a grab sucks you in.

The changes they made for the PS4/XB1 version basically make it Scholar of the First Romhack as far as I'm concerned. The changes they made in that version just make no sense to me.

For the first half of the game I'd agree that a lot of the changes are somewhat arbitrary (though I'm about 50/50 on them so I can't really say it makes it worse either overall), but the second half is far better; a lot of the more bullshit stuff is toned down, enemy numbers are lowered and there's actually much less need to cheese than before.

Edit:
Yeah, you can see in the gif when the player is being dealt counter damage. Kind of late and pretty far away. Imagine if that was a grab attack.

AhJxJEt.gif

Lol yeah it's looking at this gif in this thread that I've just noticed the player getting winged by a bullshit hitbox at the start.
 

ike_

Member
"thats your fault for not having your ADP at 73 by the time you hit Iron Keep" [/ds2apologist]

It did kind of feel like they overcompensated for the Resistance stat from Dark Souls 1 that was basically worthless until you soft capped everything else. In this game if you don't know how important ADP is you will probably rage.
 
on the contrast, I'm terrible at parrying in all the games and I never had an issue with BB

It's funny how to defend DS2's terrible hitboxes people have to try and mention one or two mobs from the other games with funky hitboxes. While ignoring that every enemy in DS2 has these shit hitboxes. #stayfree

I never said anything about the hitboxes. I said that Cleric Beast, Amelia, BSB, Paarl, The One, Laurence and Ludwig (and possibly more I forgot, maybe some in the chalice dungeons) have many similarities in style.
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
on the contrast, I'm terrible at parrying in all the games and I never had an issue with BB

It's funny how to defend DS2's terrible hitboxes people have to try and mention one or two mobs from the other games with funky hitboxes. While ignoring that every enemy in DS2 has these shit hitboxes. #stayfree

Never had real hitbox problems even on SL1 outside of the few obvious ones (like the Ogre's grab attack).
 
"YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO RUSH IN"


*5 enemies ambush with one foot step forward*

This is so true and has me scratching my head. I've played demons souls, dark souls and bloodborne and something just seems off with dark souls 2. I just started playing it and just got to the Forest of Fallen Giants and it's just weird how they detect you from a mile away and just swarm you. I stopped playing last night. I want to play it cause I like the dream like atmosphere of the game and like any other souls game I want to explore the world but it just feels off to me

I'm playing Scholars edition on the ps4
 
I'm currently playing through it for the first time myself. It's not the best Souls game but it's far from being bad.

Just stick with it OP, you'll get the hang of it. And yeah if you are fighting 10 enemies at the same time then clearly you've done something wrong. I'm assuming that you are talking about that first area in the
forest
, if that's the case then the trick is to be patient and lure them one by one.
 
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