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Gaf, why is Dark Souls 2 so bad?

mstevens

Member
I must be doing something wrong if everyone is making it sound so easy. I will get one alone for a split second and the other two are right on my ass.

Is it easier without the npcs? They don't do jack shit
 
I must be doing something wrong if everyone is making it sound so easy. I will get one alone for a split second and the other two are right on my ass.

Is it easier without the npcs? They don't do jack shit

Doing it with NPCs raise their attacks and defense, you can do it in reverse lure the heavy guy on lower terrain and kill him doing backstabs or attak him on his side, the bow guy wont try to chase you on lower terrain and que fast guy wont try to fight you there.

You can also poison them if you are fast enough
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
One thing I'm finding quite annoying now that I'm some way into the game is that aggroing a single enemy in an area, away from all others, will often auto-aggro all of them (or at least a large group) anyway, even though the others should really have no idea I'm even there. So if you try to be "smart" about getting through an area, only killing the enemies you (seemingly) really need to in order to get through (which is often tempting if it's your fifth run through or something), you'll often find yourself swarmed by something like 10 enemies. I don't remember that happening in DkS1? There you could carefully aggro just the enemies you wanted to kill, and avoid the others, but that doesn't seem to be a valid tactic here.

The bosses are disappointing thus far as well. They've really just been slightly larger enemies, sort of, none of the huge crazy demons from DkS1 (or BB, or even really DeS). Just doesn't seem like the same effort has gone into them. Ok, The Last Giant was sort of big I suppose, but rather unimaginatively designed. Just a big rock dude with a hole where his face should be.

And the controls feels slightly off. Not bad, just not quite right. And as others have complained about, the magnetic lock-on swivel enemies do to face you is quite annoying.

And level design, yeeeah, it's been pretty meh so far. Fine, I suppose, but meh.

But with all that said, I'm having fun so far. A lot of fun, actually. This is still Souls, just not quite the amazing Souls of yore. Hopefully DkS3 will be a true return to form.
 

muggen76

Member
I for one loved Bloodborne, but i think it lacked so much good stuff that Dark Souls have.
I finnished main story in Bloodborne and have not touched it since.

I have spent countless hours on Darksouls 1 and 2 on PS3 and just last week i started playing Dark Souls 2 again on PS4. And after soo many hours of it in the past, i still love the game.
 

Trace

Banned
I for one loved Bloodborne, but i think it lacked so much good stuff that Dark Souls have.
I finnished main story in Bloodborne and have not touched it since.

I have spent countless hours on Darksouls 1 and 2 on PS3 and just last week i started playing Dark Souls 2 again on PS4. And after soo many hours of it in the past, i still love the game.

Have you played the DLC for Bloodborne? I find it really adds a lot of variety the original was missing, especially in terms of weapons.
 
One thing I'm finding quite annoying now that I'm some way into the game is that aggroing a single enemy in an area, away from all others, will often auto-aggro all of them (or at least a large group) anyway, even though the others should really have no idea I'm even there. So if you try to be "smart" about getting through an area, only killing the enemies you (seemingly) really need to in order to get through (which is often tempting if it's your fifth run through or something), you'll often find yourself swarmed by something like 10 enemies. I don't remember that happening in DkS1? There you could carefully aggro just the enemies you wanted to kill, and avoid the others, but that doesn't seem to be a valid tactic here.

The bosses are disappointing thus far as well. They've really just been slightly larger enemies, sort of, none of the huge crazy demons from DkS1 (or BB, or even really DeS). Just doesn't seem like the same effort has gone into them. Ok, The Last Giant was sort of big I suppose, but rather unimaginatively designed. Just a big rock dude with a hole where his face should be.

And the controls feels slightly off. Not bad, just not quite right. And as others have complained about, the magnetic lock-on swivel enemies do to face you is quite annoying.

And level design, yeeeah, it's been pretty meh so far. Fine, I suppose, but meh.

But with all that said, I'm having fun so far. A lot of fun, actually. This is still Souls, just not quite the amazing Souls of yore. Hopefully DkS3 will be a true return to form.

People keep claiming this thing about 10 enemies at once and I'm wondering if it's a trolling meme at this point. I think about the entire game and I can't recall a single moment where it happens. Sure, 2-4 enemies are common in semi-scripted ambushes, but that is hardly unique for DS2.

So, I guess I'm calling this out now. Give me a concrete example of where this happens or stop parroting this bullshit. For fun, I can provide one example. In the parish cathedral, second floor... In DS1!
 

NEO0MJ

Member
And those three bosses were literally taken from Demon souls

I'm still surprised that they also share the attack pattern and animation.

What's funny is that they were also going to recycle the final boss of Demons and have you fight him before the four kings but ran out of time/money.
 
I found Iron Keep to be a nightmare in SotFS. I'm playing a pure spellcaster and I lost a majority of my spells by the time I clear the way to Smelter. There's just too much going on there and just running to the boss isn't really working.

What's funny is that they were also going to recycle the final boss of Demons and have you fight him before the four kings but ran out of time/money.

Fake!Allant is awesome and I would have loved to fight him again (minus the soul sucking feature)
 
I found Iron Keep to be a nightmare in SotFS. I'm playing a pure spellcaster and I lost a majority of my spells by the time I clear the way to Smelter. There's just too much going on there and just running to the boss isn't really working.



Fake!Allant is awesome and I would have loved to fight him again (minus the soul sucking feature)

You can summon help, or you can use herbs to restore your spellcasts before the boss. The tools are absolutely there.
 

Breads

Banned
I found Iron Keep to be a nightmare in SotFS. I'm playing a pure spellcaster and I lost a majority of my spells by the time I clear the way to Smelter. There's just too much going on there and just running to the boss isn't really working.



Fake!Allant is awesome and I would have loved to fight him again (minus the soul sucking feature)

Buff a regular club and use that to make your way through. It eats right though Alonne enemies.
 
Completely forgot about herbs, I'll try that. I'll see if I can use a club effectively as well. (been awhile since I jumped on that run)
 
There is at least one a month. It's a very divisive game.

I have said it before but if you value character build veriety, amount of game and PvP over everything else then you will probably love the game. However that doesn't mean peoples complaints aren't legitimate. I replayed most of ds1 recently just to confirm my issues were with ds2 alone and I wasn't just misremembering ds1 and I feel it is a much stronger game in things like character control, combat, enemy placement, level design, story and boss design. I feel ds1 takes a huge drop in quality after O&S though and will happily replay up to and including this fight. I have no real desire to play ds2 again.

So you say you don't understand the complaints but is that really true or do those things just not bother you? Because there is a difference.
Apologies for the late response.

I don't understand the complaints because I genuinely don't agree with them. I personally enjoyed playing through Dark Souls II just as much as the first game. It has quite a few differences in a lot of aspects but I didn't find them weaker than the first I guess, merely different. The combat, voice acting, art design, and multiplayer aspects were all top notch as far as I'm concerned.

I just clearly have a different opinion regarding the game to some people which is why I can't understand the complaints but each to their own, I'm just surprised by how much it divides people. :)
 

_Legacy_

Member
I loved everything about Dark Souls 2, enjoyed the combat and difficulty.I guess it's not for everyone but I certainly wouldn't say it's bad, it's not. It's just not to your liking
 

muggen76

Member
Have you played the DLC for Bloodborne? I find it really adds a lot of variety the original was missing, especially in terms of weapons.

I have not, but intend to do it at some point. Would you say it would be best to start over or continue on NG+ where i am on my save ?
 

muggen76

Member
I found Iron Keep to be a nightmare in SotFS. I'm playing a pure spellcaster and I lost a majority of my spells by the time I clear the way to Smelter. There's just too much going on there and just running to the boss isn't really working.



Fake!Allant is awesome and I would have loved to fight him again (minus the soul sucking feature)

Yeah they sure made that area harder. Good place to co-op!
 

JayBabay

Member
Without reading the other posts I'm going to give my thoughts on the game.. Some quick backstory:

Bought Demons Souls after Gamespot gave it Game of the Year. Pleasantly enjoyed it but I didn't beat it, I played through to like world 5-1. Bought Dark souls later on PS3, accidentally attacked the first blacksmith and didn't feel like replaying so I stopped that. In comes Bloodborne and I played all the way through that and loved it. Went back to Demons Souls and finished it. Bought Dark Souls on PC and played through it all the way this time in 60fps and HD mod. Then finally bought Dark Souls 2 during Black Friday and started playing it a little over a week ago. My impressions:

Started the game Playing full sword and board, played about 4 hours in and realized the encounters between bonfires felt more tedious and the enemies sometimes overwhelming. Not all the time, but enough that it seemed that where you would normally memorize a path back to a certain point through learning enemies move sets and encounters wasn't enough when you had 5 other enemies ganging up on you that you couldn't secure a full estus always. As in, things wouldn't always go as expected even though you knew what to expect. It's not exactly the name of the game after 3 previous treks through similar titles. Especially the annoyance of hard to reach archers or mages while dealing with numerous other enemies along the way. So, I respcced a sorcerer to have some ranged and quickly grabbed a shield and have been using the Fire Lonsword paired with a shield since. I just finished Earthen Peak and I think the flow of the game has been a lot better. I like the variety of areas but I feel like instead of traps and smart AI encounters, there's a cheapness (cliche, I know) to some of the fights that makes me rely on ranged battle often enough. It's enough that I wouldn't want to deal with having to do all those fights between boss deaths without having magic or ranged damage to make it quicker getting back to the boss gate.

There was an area very early on that looked like Anor Lando, I forget the name but it had a dragon and the boss was the
Dragon Rider
. Getting back to the boss felt like a drag with large hard hitting enemies. Half of which easy to dodge, the other half being easier to just blast with Soul Arrows. Even though it was an easy boss, taking 20 minutes to get back to him if you died was annoying.
 

BigDes

Member
Without reading the other posts I'm going to give my thoughts on the game.. Some quick backstory:

Bought Demons Souls after Gamespot gave it Game of the Year. Pleasantly enjoyed it but I didn't beat it, I played through to like world 5-1. Bought Dark souls later on PS3, accidentally attacked the first blacksmith and didn't feel like replaying so I stopped that. In comes Bloodborne and I played all the way through that and loved it. Went back to Demons Souls and finished it. Bought Dark Souls on PC and played through it all the way this time in 60fps and HD mod. Then finally bought Dark Souls 2 during Black Friday and started playing it a little over a week ago. My impressions:

Started the game Playing full sword and board, played about 4 hours in and realized the encounters between bonfires felt more tedious and the enemies sometimes overwhelming. Not all the time, but enough that it seemed that where you would normally memorize a path back to a certain point through learning enemies move sets and encounters wasn't enough when you had 5 other enemies ganging up on you that you couldn't secure a full estus always. As in, things wouldn't always go as expected even though you knew what to expect. It's not exactly the name of the game after 3 previous treks through similar titles. Especially the annoyance of hard to reach archers or mages while dealing with numerous other enemies along the way. So, I respcced a sorcerer to have some ranged and quickly grabbed a shield and have been using the Fire Lonsword paired with a shield since. I just finished Earthen Peak and I think the flow of the game has been a lot better. I like the variety of areas but I feel like instead of traps and smart AI encounters, there's a cheapness (cliche, I know) to some of the fights that makes me rely on ranged battle often enough. It's enough that I wouldn't want to deal with having to do all those fights between boss deaths without having magic or ranged damage to make it quicker getting back to the boss gate.

There was an area very easy on that looked like Anor Lando, I forget the name but it had a dragon and the boss was the
Dragon Rider
. Getting back to the boss felt like a drag with large hard hitting enemies. Half of which easy to dodge, the other half being easier to just blast with Soul Arrows. Even though it was an easy boss, taking 20 minutes to get back to him if you died was annoying.

In Dark Souls 2, blunt weapons are your friend.

Those hard hitting enemies in Heide's tower (the area with the dragonrider boss) go down super fast to a club or a mace. Due to the preponderance of large armored enemies in DS2 I would always advise a first time player to at least have a blunt weapon as a go to secondary weapon.
 

Vindicator

Member
Some distant animations look really stupid, like guys in fotfg running around like crazy with a totally static upper body, felt so off...
 
Oh, that was fake? A shame.

No, that unused Dark Souls boss wasn't fake (although I'm not sure I'd say he shares much in common with the False King aside from using his voice clips). KZXcellent probably meant that
the False King was a fake Allant.
 

NEO0MJ

Member
No, that unused Dark Souls boss wasn't fake (although I'm not sure I'd say he shares much in common with the False King aside from using his voice clips). KZXcellent probably meant that
the False King was a fake Allant.

Ohhh. Well, I doubt anyone thinks of real Allant as the final boss :p
 
Some distant animations look really stupid, like guys in fotfg running around like crazy with a totally static upper body, felt so off...

One of the _actual_ problems with SotFS is that the running animation for the falconers is literally broken. Instead they shuffle around at twice the speed.

The fact that this is never brought up in DS2 bashing threads is another clue that most people never made it past FoFG or never played the game at all and are just reusing tired cliches.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
Unrelated to what this thread is really about, but this happened to me yesterday, thought it was pretty funny:

Bradley of the Old Guard is summoned and promptly vanquishes himself through a heroic plunge of glory!

Thanks, Bradley, awesome job there.

People keep claiming this thing about 10 enemies at once and I'm wondering if it's a trolling meme at this point. I think about the entire game and I can't recall a single moment where it happens. Sure, 2-4 enemies are common in semi-scripted ambushes, but that is hardly unique for DS2.

So, I guess I'm calling this out now. Give me a concrete example of where this happens or stop parroting this bullshit. For fun, I can provide one example. In the parish cathedral, second floor... In DS1!

Right on the big stone stairs in No Man's Wharf. If you don't kill all of the enemies on the lower level before going up, ALL of them (or at least all the ones closest to the stairs) will come running as soon as you aggro an enemy you cannot avoid. They don't give a shit about you when you run past them, but then they'll come running once their buddy telepathically summons them. Ok, it probably isn't 10 of them, but you'll at least be fighting like 6-7 guys there.

So Bloodborne was my first souls. I've beaten it 4 times. Love it. The sheer experience of playing through it is why I play video games. Beyond epic.

Recently beat Ds2 Sotfs. Still have a few things to wrap up and will do ng+. Love it. Not as much as Bloodborne. Combat felt floaty and using magic is a joke. However, mixing magic, shields and blasting i-frames. Learning each weapons nuances and movements. Deep stuff, and very fun.

I am working through Dark Souls now, I am in the Undead Parish. I can tell based on level design,Undead Burg was better than almost all Ds2 levels in terms of design and atmosphere, weight of character movements and how movement feels that Ds2 is different that this and BB.

I bought demons on sale recently and tried it for maybe five minutes. Not going to touch it until after Ds is beaten. Felt good though, and looked a lot better than I expected.

But seriously. It's damn good. They all are. Don't be nitpicky and enjoy the experience.

So you're literally playing the games in reverse order, lol. No real problem with that though, I suppose. I almost did too. I played DkS1 first, then DeS, then BB, and now I'm playing DkS2. Going from DkS to DeS took some getting used to, as DkS refined many systems, but it was perfectly fine after a little while. Same with going from BB to DkS2 (which is obviously a much bigger difference in combat style).
 

Despera

Banned
There was an area very early on that looked like Anor Lando, I forget the name but it had a dragon and the boss was the
Dragon Rider
. Getting back to the boss felt like a drag with large hard hitting enemies. Half of which easy to dodge, the other half being easier to just blast with Soul Arrows. Even though it was an easy boss, taking 20 minutes to get back to him if you died was annoying.
You could always run directly to the boss. It would take a minute or two tops.

That's of course if you even manage to die to that boss. I personally don't know anyone who didn't beat him first try.
 
Right on the big stone stairs in No Man's Wharf. If you don't kill all of the enemies on the lower level before going up, ALL of them (or at least all the ones closest to the stairs) will come running as soon as you aggro an enemy you cannot avoid. They don't give a shit about you when you run past them, but then they'll come running once their buddy telepathically summons them. Ok, it probably isn't 10 of them, but you'll at least be fighting like 6-7 guys there.

But that is a scripted ambush, with four normals and one bigger guy IIRC. If you don't clear the archer on the walkway and/or move on up the stairs you can trigger more mobs (big guy up top or the dogs roaming the side area).

I wonder if people would be bothered as much if enemies actually called for help.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
But that is a scripted ambush, with four normals and one bigger guy IIRC. If you don't clear the archer on the walkway and/or move on up the stairs you can trigger more mobs (big guy up top or the dogs roaming the side area).

I wonder if people would be bothered as much if enemies actually called for help.

Actually, that would make me dislike it less, because then it would be believable. Now it just magically happens, as though the enemies are telepathic. As far as I can recall that doesn't happen in any of the other games, so it feels off when it suddenly does here. Like the system is cheating a bit by not allowing you to be sneaky.
 
But that is a scripted ambush, with four normals and one bigger guy IIRC. If you don't clear the archer on the walkway and/or move on up the stairs you can trigger more mobs (big guy up top or the dogs roaming the side area).

I wonder if people would be bothered as much if enemies actually called for help.

When people say 10 guys attack you they are of course exaggerating. However it is crazy common to be attacked by 3-6 guys throughout the game. In ds1 it was mostly possible to take everything on 1v1 with the odd ambush and gank squad scattered throughout the game. However they are so frequent in ds2 they are both expected and frustrating because I don't find them fun or challenging. You just backpeddle and funnel them into a line. The fun of learning a moveset and dodging / attacking at the time is lost.

It makes the combat feel very very different and some like it, others don't.

I had an hour free last night so I fired ds2 back up on ps4 just to test a few things. First thing I did was start a new char and did a cleric. Starts you with a mace, no shield and 1 less strength needed to wield it one handed efficiently. That's kind of dumb. So I two hand it. Then I blast through the tute area and go to the fofg. First area you get attacked pretty quickly by multiple enemies (this is before the sleeping enemies you can wake one by one). So I'm attacked by 3-4 guys. Dodging at this point sucks as I have 4 adaptability. Blocking sucks because I have no shield. Circle strafing and parrying sucks because of multiple enemies and parrying is a lot harder now. So basically I back pedle and hit. It teaches new players nothing and is really damn boring gameplay wise. Compair it to undead burg and it is hugely lacking.

Next I loaded my main and took him to NG+ to see the new enemy layout. Spawn into the starter area and get immediately attacked by 2-3 guys. Wasn't hard but I can feel the arbitrary difficulty kicking in all ready. The whole make it harder by throwing more enemies at you approach. I carry on. Go to the first time you encounter the persuer. Kill him. Drop down the ladder. Ok its the room with the balistas. I know I fall in front of this and trigger a gank squad. It's was 3-5 enemies the first time. This time it was 5 of the normal dudes plus I think 3 red NPC invader spirits...... In a small corridor with no room to move.... With no real warning. With a bunch of light armoured enemies who can poise through my attacks somehow. Its only in NG+ luckily but it just made me remember how often I found the game more frustrating than fun. I never found the game difficult just often cheap and frustrating.

Also I was immediately reminded of how annoying I find the dead zone issue and floaty movement. Run forwards and move the stick 10 or so degrees in either direction and you character does not react at all. I remember falling to my death a few times when I first started this game due to that. It's crazy how it even exists when Ds1 and BB had perfectly precise movement.
 
Best illustration as to why DS2 is inferior is the first hour of the game, and it's also why so many people give up on it early without pressing on to see "all the GOAT bosses later on" like fans of the game like to remind everyone about.

You have a fairly standard introductory area in a narrow valley that leads to the starting hub town. No nearly-impossible-to-defeat boss standing in your way but not every game needs to be identical.

Once you get to town, you get your first bonfire. If you decide to go to Heide's Tower, you travel through several stretches of vacant winding staircase and empty sewers (very little in the way of bodies, scrapped weapons, broken bricks, and all the other stuff that makes the world seem lived in), until you hit your first enemy since the intro area. Kill this ONE enemy, hang a right, and you've found yourself a second bonfire. There's actually another bonfire within viewing distance not far from here (up the stairs in the first large tower, the one with three large Knights in the circular room) and you only have a few more enemies to kill to get there. Compare this to No Man's Wharf (one of the better areas in the game) where you have to make your way through numerous enemies and have to open up various shortcuts before you're rewarded with another checkpoint. It's bad level design and enemy placement, pure and simple. If the game can't nail something as simple as "position a bonfire to reward your progress without being too close to the previous one" then how on earth can I be expected to push through the rest of the content?

The forest is marginally better, although it still suffers from the emptiness problem. The first section (after walking down yet another vacant, pristine stone staircase) is a wide, empty river with a few enemies wandering around. The forest is just... a forest. Most areas in the game lack the sense of why you're going there, what's happening there now, how the areas connect, and how the area relates to your overall quest.

And that's the thing: the game lacks the attention to detail and worldbuilding that was present in the other Souls games. Even BB nails it, but DS2 feels empty and paint-by-numbers in comparison. The level design is painfully simplistic and only feels remotely Souls-ish due to the art style. The movement and dodging issue wasn't as noticeable to me as it seems to be for others, but I did get annoyed by the magical spin-on-your-feet 360* tracking that the enemies had.

It will be acknowledged as the Zelda II of the series as time goes on. Not an awful game, but way too many shortcomings to be considered a worthy sequel in an otherwise legendary franchise.
 

NBtoaster

Member
Once you get to town, you get your first bonfire. If you decide to go to Heide's Tower, you travel through several stretches of vacant winding staircase and empty sewers (very little in the way of bodies, scrapped weapons, broken bricks, and all the other stuff that makes the world seem lived in), until you hit your first enemy since the intro area. Kill this ONE enemy, hang a right, and you've found yourself a second bonfire. There's actually another bonfire within viewing distance not far from here (up the stairs in the first large tower, the one with three large Knights in the circular room) and you only have a few more enemies to kill to get there.

No there isn't. You have to defeat the boss to get another bonfire. And the first bonfire is placed appropriately otherwise you have to run from Majula when you die.
 
Dark souls 2 does suck because it was made by the original producer, he went to make Bloodborne
Demons Souls and Dark Souls 1 both are top tier games

Dark Souls 3 should be good as the producer has returned
 

HGH

Banned
I actually liked the Gank Squad... I was a sorcerer and I had to use a bunch of clever tricks to beat them all by myself without summons.
I found Iron Keep to be a nightmare in SotFS. I'm playing a pure spellcaster and I lost a majority of my spells by the time I clear the way to Smelter. There's just too much going on there and just running to the boss isn't really working.
Don't you have a magic mace +5 to swing around? There's a Magic Mace nicely placed in Huntsman's Copse.
Ohhh. Well, I doubt anyone thinks of real Allant as the final boss :p
Curiously I've seen some people think like this when mentioning Souls series final bosses.
 

Manu

Member
Yeah, something about DS2's areas definitely got lost in translation based on their concept art.

I mean, look at this stuff:

Dark-Souls-2-Art_3.jpg


SWKvnvy.jpg


tumblr_mmiqabTmwM1spf355o1_1280.jpg

Nothing in the game comes even close to capturing this feel.
 

Breads

Banned
Yeah, something about DS2's areas definitely got lost in translation based on their concept art.

I mean, look at this stuff:



Nothing in the game comes even close to capturing this feel.
Not lost in translation so much as what we have now is a cobbled together version of two disparite game designs that was the product of a semi troubled development history.

Also to the above Miyazaki produced/supervised DS2 (while directing BB during that time) but he Directed DeS, DS1, and BB. Not excusing it. Out of all the series I feel DS2 has the most flaws.

I just think it's replayability/ pvp qualities outweighs the problems people complain about who's only intentions are the one and done playthroughs which is why I sometimes drop in to defend it.
 
No there isn't. You have to defeat the boss to get another bonfire. And the first bonfire is placed appropriately otherwise you have to run from Majula when you die.
It's true, you do have to beat a 2nd boss in order to get that next bonfire. But that boss is a quick stroll from the first bonfire in Heide's Tower area, which is a quick stroll from the starting town.

You're missing my point if you think that's good level design. You're missing my point if you think that's how other Souls games are arranged. Having two bonfires in such close proximity is bad enough, but getting (what is potentially) your second bonfire after defeating ONE ENEMY is kinda pathetic.

Look below:


You're looking at 80% of the map. Even though some parts are obscured by the buildings, you can approximate where the boss is, where the other bonfire is, and where that NPC lady is (NPCs used to be rare in other Souls games). This is the view you get just as you exit the sewers. Turn your camera slightly to the left and you see the drawbridge to the Cathedral of Blue. This area looks big, but anyone who has played the game knows that it is not.

The only part you don't see are the underground tunnels leading to No Man's Wharf which are only accessible after you've beaten the area's boss iirc.

Compare that to Dark Soul's first area, Undead Burg. You walk up a narrow stairway and must fight through a group of enemies (certainly an upgrade compared to the vacant, no-enemies sewers between Majula and Heide's):


Once you go through the tunnel, you come out into this area (thus far, we still haven't caught a vista of the whole area like you get right away in Heide's Tower):


Through the fog to the left is the "normal" path but there's also another area behind those barrels on the right. There are several items and several ambushes along the way, and the player still hasn't hit their first bonfire. Even if you ignore the barrels (since it loops back to this area anyway), you have to get through several enemies to proceed. Something else to note is that the areas in Dark Souls are full of barrels, discarded armor, broken walls (leading to secret areas), and all sort of decay. That's not how most levels in DS2 are arranged.

Heck, before you reach your first bonfire in Undead Burg, you get stomped by this:

https://youtu.be/hXSdMHk3Gug?t=6m47s

You can watch the video for an extra few minutes to see the battle to get to the first bonfire. It's definitely a different experience compared to the one zero enemies between Majula and your first bonfire. That is just one example as to why Souls fans thought DS2 was such a step down. And I'm not saying that as if to imply "lol anyone who likes DS2 is a fool and isn't a true Souls fan". Just the opposite: the fans of DS2 seem to have a hard time accepting that other Souls fans didn't like it, which usually ends up filling these threads with bad examples on both sides as to why the game is "bad" or "good". It's just a disappointing game in certain impossible-to-ignore respects, and those of us who couldn't overlook the flaws had a bad time with the game. It's fine if fans of the games weren't bothered by those flaws, but let's not pretend DS2 is the same or similar compared to other Souls gams.

Compare that rundown in Undead Burg to this video of DS2. I skipped ahead so that you don't need to watch the sewers, since there are no enemies and nothing of any consequence whatsoever that the player encounters on their way to Heide's Tower:

https://youtu.be/hA4Oo-WtvH4?t=3m8s

(The player proves me wrong -- you don't even need to beat the first enemy in order to reach the bonfire....)

It's also worth nothing just how small Heide's Tower is. It looks big, but it is full of empty expanses and has very few side-paths and secret areas. The forest leading to the Last Giant is similar: very linear pathways create an area that looks big but is actually smaller than you'd expect.
 
Compare this to No Man's Wharf (one of the better areas in the game) where you have to make your way through numerous enemies and have to open up various shortcuts before you're rewarded with another checkpoint. It's bad level design and enemy placement, pure and simple.

I personally think No Man's Wharf is one of the worst zones in the game.

There's so much 'cheap' stuff in NMW it's ridiculous. First it's 'dark'. Very dark. Meaning you don't see what mobs are ahead of you, and even lighting torches doesn't do enough. The whole Pharos contraption is barely enough.

Second, literally there isn't a single area/encounter that doesn't quickly become 'more than you bargained for'. You think it's going to be a 1, maybe 2 mob fight, and before you know it, you have 5 mobs in your face, 3 of which magically showed up behind you. Whether it's the vikings in the water hanging onto the edge of the dock, or some other random ambush, or nightcrawler thing about ready to break out of a wall, every fight in NMW feels cheap. It's literally like going through a Haunted House where every corner has a 'suprise.' Combine that with fire arrow archers and black tar lobbers, it's a meatgrinder level that arguably comes 'too early' in the game.
 

sear

Banned
I personally think No Man's Wharf is one of the worst zones in the game.

There's so much 'cheap' stuff in NMW it's ridiculous. First it's 'dark'. Very dark. Meaning you don't see what mobs are ahead of you, and even lighting torches doesn't do enough. The whole Pharos contraption is barely enough.

Second, literally there isn't a single area/encounter that doesn't quickly become 'more than you bargained for'. You think it's going to be a 1, maybe 2 mob fight, and before you know it, you have 5 mobs in your face, 3 of which magically showed up behind you. Whether it's the vikings in the water hanging onto the edge of the dock, or some other random ambush, or nightcrawler thing about ready to break out of a wall, every fight in NMW feels cheap. It's literally like going through a Haunted House where every corner has a 'suprise.' Combine that with fire arrow archers and black tar lobbers, it's a meatgrinder level that arguably comes 'too early' in the game.
It can definitely be "hard for the sake of being hard" like most areas in Dark Souls 2, but I still enjoyed it a lot. There are a lot of secret paths and optional areas, good visual design, challenging-but-fair enemies, and IMO the groups of enemies are usually a variety of different types, which I find interesting.

I can totally see why someone would hate the area, mind you. When I'm playing a Souls game, I have this internal "Demons' Souls-O-Meter" which is a completely accurate and scientific way by which I gauge how much an area is like a Demons' Souls area (okay, it is completely subjective of course). It's based on factors that remind me of Demons' Souls, that's all. This DS-O-Meter was going wild in areas like Blighttown in DS, Nightmare Frontier in BB, and -- you guessed it! -- No Man's Whaff in DS2.

Compare the Wharf to, for instance, the forest which has those idiotic Rusty Pillbug soldiers and No Man's Wharf is way better.
 

zma1013

Member
Did anyone even notice this stuff until after they tried mapping the collision data? The only egregious example I think anyone noticed was the Iron Keep elevator, which, let's be fair, was bad, but it's pretty obvious something got cut and they didn't have a lot of time to fix it.

Not trying to troll, genuinely curious.

I noticed immediately after getting off the pirate ship that if you look up you can actually see the stairs of the next area floating above you in the sky like the next area would be sitting overtop of the ship.

Also noticed that Heide's tower looks like it's a mile away and you run like 100 yards through a sewer and you are there.

Then yeah the Iron Keep is the most noticeable.

The entirety of that dragon area is sitting on top of the area you just went through yet you see none of it outside of the area.

There's noticeable stuff like this all around if you're even just casually looking and have any sort of spacial awareness or memory.

Basically every place was just designed in a vacuum and they just stapled them together with no regard to how any of it fit and it showed.
 
Did anyone even notice this stuff until after they tried mapping the collision data? The only egregious example I think anyone noticed was the Iron Keep elevator, which, let's be fair, was bad, but it's pretty obvious something got cut and they didn't have a lot of time to fix it.

Not trying to troll, genuinely curious.

Yeah its pretty obvious throughout. Ds1 and bloodborne both felt like one consistent world that was interconnected. They also had this great design where you would unlock shortcuts back to the same bonfire / lamp because the levels twisted around them selves. This was pretty much entirely absent in ds2 and instead you had secret bonfire to find instead.

They would have been better of not calling it a souls game and having it set in some sort of purgatory where the world was made up of the strongest lingering souls memories. Then the design would at least make some sort of sense.
 
I'm not sure. I didn't feel compelled to complete it. Maybe gave it 10-12 hours then just fell out of it.

BB on the other hand I grinded 50+ to completion and then went onto some NG+.
DS1 completed.
Demon's completed.

Something was off, but I can't put my finger on it.
 
Yeah its pretty obvious throughout. Ds1 and bloodborne both felt like one consistent world that was interconnected. They also had this great design where you would unlock shortcuts back to the same bonfire / lamp because the levels twisted around them selves. This was pretty much entirely absent in ds2 and instead you had secret bonfire to find instead.

They would have been better of not calling it a souls game and having it set in some sort of purgatory where the world was made up of the strongest lingering souls memories. Then the design would at least make some sort of sense.
Ironically, in Bloodborne that's
pretty much how the world is explained, what with the various Nightmare realms woven into the fabric of the real world.

And yet somehow BB still managed to be interconnected.
 
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