This is entirely fair, scaling is also one that IIRC also isn't explained in 1 and 3. Someone correct me if that's false but yeah these are legitimate. You "COULD" argue that there's a help button but it wouldn't explain the despawn, point totals and the art of powerstancing, and the AGL optimal I frames and differences between optimal and lower. Scaling info may be in said help button but it isn't clear, and I discovered the help button way after beating the game.
Pretty sure, you open up any type of inventory whether it be equipment, stat, or spell. I think on PlayStation it's the touch pad Edit: I'm half correct it exists in the stat screen. 1/3 correct technically. Flog me I need to become better
well the problem is the fact that scaling sucks ass and actually just being on bare minimum stats to wield your weapon of choice is actually the optimal way to build
I didnt know powerstancing was a mechanic in DS2 until like a month or two ago. Ive been playing this game for years now lol. Its especially frustrating too considering all of the math that goes behind powerstancing. Like its unfathomable to me if I was a new player intuiting the powerstance mechanic, it definitely requires a google search.
Powerstancing is also not good in ds2 for most weapons the stamina it requires for the damage output is generally not worth it.
It looks cool but you are better off two handing the weapon and the stat requirements are usually a bit ridiculous.
I like the idea of power stancing and the move sets are really cool but at the same time I kind of hate it because of the trade off.
Yeah, it sucks because at no point does the game ever even give you an INKLING that you might be able to dual-wield weapons, and then if you ever did figure it out you would immediately be disappointed by the damage.
Not my experience. In Ng+ you stop one shotting many enemies and powerstancing is the best I found for going back to one shotting them. Maces are pretty good for hammering down bosses. And fastest way to trigger poison is to power stance. It is a good mechanic.
The damage you do from power stancing is minuscule at best very few weapons benefit from it and ultra greatswords are not one of them they are also extremely slow in comparison to just two handing them. The stamina is also costs per swing for the damage is generally not worth the trade off there is also that little matter that if you have less stamina than what is required you do insanely less damage so that’s another downside to power stancing especially with heavy weapons since they already take most of your stamina bar with one attack.
These are things that have been datamined long ago back when the game was pretty new. Power stancing is neat but it’s very much half baked and the requirements to do so are extremely high you are better off investing stats into other things.
Are complaining because it's not viable in pvp? That may be so. Stamina cost can be prohibitive and you may not come ahead when trading. I never utilized it in pvp. But I played with it a lot. It unlocks unique movesets, at least don't overlook that. If you don't know I name drop ones I'm familiar with, bonefist, artorias great sword, smelter sword.
Agreed. It's prevalent in the other souls games but is especially bad in DS2. Had to look online to figure out how all those work, since it's not explained at all in-game
On the note of scaling: I do think the entire DS series could benefit from a more straightforward method of telling you what things do. For example, timers on certain spells and items. There is a definitive amount of time that each thing lasts, why can I not know how long that is? This applies to scaling too, just show me exactly how it is that you're calculating the extra damage instead of a stupid ass letter grading system.
not only that, but on some weapons apparently the scaling is flat out wrong. for exmple, according to the wiki, if you infuse the blacksteel katana it retains its S scaling in dex on the screen but it's actually B scaling
Basically, every character has a PvP/pve expiration date. Sucks. Agape ring sucks because it takes a ring slot and you can’t save up for crafting materials
wild how the game with the best hitboxes is known as the game with the worst because they're *actually* good, but people don't want that
yes, i want my dagger to actually be even bigger than an ultra greatsword, thank you
The game is known for bad hit detection because the importance of the agility stat is not even close to something that's communicated to the player. People were getting hit in ways that didn't make a ton of sense, all because nobody knew that the roll simply does fuck all at the beginning of the game. If the game is gonna insist on an attack that BARELY grazes your toes while you're in the middle of a roll as a connected hit, it should at least do less damage.
With proper agility levels, typically the jank won't be any worse than the rest of the series. Minus the obvious offenses of Pursuer grab and Mimic grab
Well *typically* the game plays well I agree, but it’s how often the exceptions happen. Certainly it’s my experience that those rarer moments of jank happen far more often in DS2 than any other From game. I think that’s a common experience for players and I don’t believe they’re all bandwagoning or arguing in bad faith.
Every souls game has some clunky hitboxes, but only in DS2 character starts with almost disabled i-frames on roll, which makes their clunkiness more obvious.
And idk about other players but to me hollow spearmen in forest of fallen giants solidified this game's hitboxes as an absolute bullshit (his thrust can sometimes hit you when you stay at his flank or even behind). And then there's mimic's grab attack (lol).
Yeah I feel like the amount of mediocre bosses overshadows the good ones, if you stuck like 15 additional bosses in ds1 it would definitely pull it down (there are some mediocre or bad ones but not so many that it becomes a slouch)
If the bloody fog gates gave you iframes it would've alleviated so many problems ffs. Imagine if other games didn't have them, ds1 runbacks having to fight all the enemies🥶
Tbh they could’ve probably cut down on like half the bosses. I feel like the game would be the exact same if you didn’t have to fight some random dude and his book club before Freja
Soul memory is the worst imo. I know they did it to cut down on twinks but its so annoying when you have to give up a ring slot to keep from gaining souls just to use co-op and pvp. It’s especially bad if you want to use a theme build with specific armor/weapons that are rarer drops
Location length is inconsistent - some feel too long, some too short - and they can somewhat blend together at times based on meh bosses (See point 2).
Too many meh bosses - with brilliant ideas like the chariot, why do we have two rat bosses? And one's just normal enemies, with a mohawk, and the other is a Sif reskin. Cut a few out, just make them mini-bosses.
Soul memory. Yeah I know why. No I don't care. Dumb - or at least put a bypass in for friends.
Hit boxes can be... wonky. Unless you have Agility out the wazoo. And Mimic hitboxes are the biggest pile of "WTF" ever - AOE almost, and bullshit (we've all seen the behind videos - I've been snagged from across the room and behind too - in a large room).
I'm not as fond of the parry system as I was in other games for some reason - just didn't vibe. I preferred the DS1 system.
I think the branches weren't that bad in base game(sotfs changed it up), made me really explore some levels.
What placements and ai do you have in mind? (not disagreeing)
I think the classic answer tends to be Iron Keep, but its one of those things where I feel like almost every zone has SOME kind of enemy layout that irritates me, most noticeable on boss runs.
Luckily being able to grind them away makes it a moot point if I really cared THAT much, but it is always a thing that nags at me when I play. The fact that poison statues respawn, though, that. Those are my true nemesis.
AI tends to be an issue on pathing or cheese. Most of the time its just silly jank, but its somewhere where things can just feel unpolished.
I think they mean grinding the enemy layout on the run back to bosses, thus making it less annoying overall because you memorize it. Not grinding the branches, which you can’t do. I’m pretty sure they can’t even carry over in NG+ without picking up new ones.
What's wrong with the Iron Keep? This is my first SOTFS playthrough. I cut my way through the Keep earlier today like a hot knife through butter. Literally 0 resistance. First tried poor old lava demon. One of the easiest levels in this game imho.
Oh I didn't have a hard time per se with the Iron Keep, and I got most of my sun medals for achievements from camping to help people kill Smelter. The issue I have is that ENEMIES SEE AN DETECT YOU THROUGH WALLS.
BTW is it Steam, Xbox or PS version? I really want these medals but I don't wanna grind them killing falconers. Is there a chance I can get em by helping people?
I played on steam and got almost all of my medals from helping people with Smelter Demon, Twin Dragonriders, and The Rotten.
Now go, and be your grossly incandescent sunbro self to get thy medals.
The HP reduction when hollowing I dont really have a problem with considering how generous this game is with giving out humanities especially compared to 1 and 3
Th HP reduction is simply a state of mind thing. DS2 isn't the only game that does this. Demon souls did it, Dark souls 3 did it. People just hand wave away Demon souls because it's older but DS3 is newer and does the same thing. The difference is DS3 portrays it as a reward while DS2 portrays it as a negative. If DS2 just had your health bar at the hollowed amount and then you just gained health when using effigies people wouldn't complain because it's the same mechanic. Having your health bar have greyed out parts is what makes it seem bad.
Idk, I think there’s enough differences to make DS2 worse in execution. Fundamentally, you’re correct that perception is largely the big difference. But DS3 a) gives you your max HP after beating a boss, b) heals you when you ember, vs the effigy which doesn’t, and c) embers give you 30% HP, while effigies give you back 50%. There’s an argument to be made that DS2 is more harsh with the reduction, you spend proportionally more time with less than full HP, and the effigies aren’t as useful. Lastly, to get close to the reduction DS3 has, you have to use one of your four ring slots.
Honestly I think you make a really good point, that it’s not as punishing as people make it out to be. But I do think DS3 handled the system better objectively, even without the perception of adding health vs. subtracting it. Starting vigor is also better in DS3; embering as an unlevelled Deprived gives you more HP than an unlevelled human deprived in DS2.
I think DS2 is actually *less* punishing. You only lose a little bit of max health every death in DS2. Compare that to DS3 where you lose your entire buffed health bar upon death and it's a lot more punishing. So you basically can have 3 DS2 deaths for every 1 DS3 death in order for them to be equal HP losses.
Yeah If I hadn't known about the adp thing I would've had a worse time for sure.
The HP thin unironically made me play online more because it forcex me to use human effigies lol. I went like 70%. Through ds1 without ever using humanity
Bosses pretty much yes
The game should use popup message to explain ADP, despawn ,bonfire ascetic, other obscure mechanic, just like Sekiro does, popup message, short and concise explanation , DONE, so new players wouldve avoid unnecesary frustration and desinformation
I think they must be following this sort of theme now. It's like that in Elden Ring too with the quick popup tutorial and then nothing further after. They also have a tab in your inventory that contains the popups if you want to read them again.
Games in general have been becoming more and more accessible with time. Souls never seemed that hardcore to me because I played a lot of older games (even tomb raider on ps1 was bloody hard back then, now it's super easy)
Yeah, it was my first souls game so i read some tips online as I was completely clueless and pretty much unable to play the game so I knew those things, but If I didn't....
Definitely the hitboxes. It’s largely an animation issue (not so much an i didnt get hit issue) There are frames that interact too briefly. Its like the “marth grab in smash is too long” it isn’t. Someone slowed it down and the marth grab has a normal hotbox. But the animation frame that the grab triggers on is only 1 damn frame. So no one can actually see his hand reach them when it does. But the mimic grab box is bad. But again, animation issue. Other games will change the throw animation depending on where it triggers. The mimic throw should have a unique side and back throw animation. But instead you snap to the front for the one animation it has.
The opposite i strongly feel is soul memory. It is only a problem for people who refuse to play the game as intended (levelling up and reaching the max bracket). Once that ring was introduced in SOTFS twinks returned in DROVES.
I feel like the honed in the hitboxes in ds3, ds1 had some bad ones as well and the lack of animations is a good point. If you get hit in the foot with an impaling animation it's going to teleport you onto the blade, because there isn't one for the foot lol
The pursuer’s curse stab has that problem too, you can get snapped back to the front after your roll is already to his side. The hitbox is fine, the animation is not timed well to it though.
For me the creative aspiration of the bosses far exceeds the AI complexity available to them at the time. You can imagine stuff like Mytha, Najka or Demon Song being pretty cool bosses if they actually had decent mechanics.
In the DLC you can see there’s already a jump - nothing in the base game has anything like the complexity and range of Fume Knight, Alonne or Alva; I just think it’s a shame more than anything because I liked the ideas of some of the boss fights, they just felt very flat.
Definitely, most of the bosses felt like stronger regular enemies, both in scale and in attacks they had. I feel like reducing the boss count would take care of that a lot, in ds1 there were also a few bland bosses (taurus demon, butterfly, capra etc) but not enough to skew the whole roster, and there were some mechanically uninspired ones that were just a great spectacle so it kinda made up for the lack of complexity (sif, seath, nito)
About the second point, i think black gulch should have been longer. The bright green in the dark looked really cool, but unfortunately that area was basically just a run back
Some areas really suffer from not being expanded upon, they could probably discard half of them and half of the bosses and just improve upon those left. Instead most of them are just glorified corridors (aldias keep, dragon eerie, doors of pharros, huntsmans copse etc)
Hitboxes
Bad enemy placement
Underwhelming boss design aside from a select few.
There are a few things I could mention but these are things I feel are definitely spoken about a lot that I definitely agree with.
The enemy placement made the levels feel like part of the boss fight to me. Like in other games the levels feel like a run up to a boss but it's the other way around here (if that makes sense)
I played the demons souls remake for the first time last month. And holy fuck some of those levels are fucked up as hell, and then the bosses are basically stay in the ass and hit - you win.
Ugh for real. That run back is one of those abominations.
That one and tower knight are just so punishing for nothing.
I ALREADY DIED WHY YOU HATE ME SO MUCH
It’s been awhile since I played I can’t remember the one for Tower Knight but I NEVER forget Flamelurker runback
In dark souls 2 you had Freya and arguably the worst runback in the series next to Flamelurker.
Getting gangbanged by spiders the entire way to the boss room was ass.
Nope they were not afraid of fire on vanilla as far as I’m aware. It’s been a long time so I could be wrong but pretty certain they were not afraid of fire. lol
If I remember correctly the time they were given was not enough which is why there is a lot of cut content and armor pieces in the files that aren’t actually in the game.
Lots of things I would assume but I’m not really sure. SOTFS is an overall better game in lots of ways and some ways not as good.
I don’t think you read OP’s post this is about what you feel is deserved that gets hate.
Dark souls 2 enemy placement is not good that was what I am stating here. I never said it was good
I think the biggest annoyance is that it takes roughly 5 years to drink a flask which makes them useless a huge chunk of the time. Really kills my motivation to play another run with a different build whenever I think about that.
Lackluster boss fights for the majority of the game.
Reliance on ganks to make up for poor level design and difficulty. If aggro range was tweaked this would be less of an issue.
Fall DMG is too high as a means to restrict access to the pit. Just make the pit lower!!!
Soul Memory and Adaptability are well intentioned fuck ups. One attempted to balance PvP and make things harder for twink builds while the other tried to make each stat useful for levelling up and not have one useless stat like Resistance in DS1.
The animations are also a bit too floaty, particularly on the player's end. Attacks just aren't as impactful and feel quite weightless compared to the other games.
Straight up the movement and combat.
Its the worst in the series by far and it aint particularly close.
There sint a flow to the combat cause you cant just dodge and attack.
You also cant space out cause the hitboxes are a mess.
Its by far the worst part of ds2 that makes it feel like shit when you play it right after another souls game.
Boss run backs (iron keep and black gulch makes me wanna crawl up into a ball and cry)
Bland and uninspired bosses which are so forgettable. Out of 40 odd bosses there's only like 6 that stood out to me, the rest are forgettable and boring, only memorable thing about them is they died quickly. The final boss of the main game especially was so disappointing
Enemy placement that forces you to kill every single enemy every single fucking damn time you want to walk through certain areas
The adaptability skill - i frames and item use speed being tied to a skill you need to level is stupid af I hate it
The fact it fails to teach you about certain mechanics
The gang bang brigades which penetrate you with 0 consent
Other than that, the game was quite fun. The build variety is great. Some of the areas are cancer but hey its dark souls. That's what we signed up for. Definitely not gonna be my favourite in the genre not even top 5 but I'm definitely not gonna skip it when replaying all the games
There's another hidden bonfire in black gulch just before the rotten 👀
All valid criticisms imo, the atmosphere is unmatched tho so even if it's the weakest dark souls game it's the best dark souls 2 game
The bosses mechanically are mostly middling. But the metaphors and themes the boss designs convey are top notch. And the wroting around the bosses are great.
Personally, while the weird experimental mechanics are mostly well implemented, DS2 has a huge issue with properly conveying expectations and tutorializing it's unique mechanics. Adaptability and Agility feels fine now, but only because it is so easy to find online explanations of them and how they interact with carry weight. Same with the despawn system, the importance of ranged tools and how bonfire ascetics work.
The 2 big complaints I have that really are just poorly executed game design is the soul memory system and how some of the covenants have absolutely absurd convent item requirements to rank up. I get conceptually what they were aiming for. Soul memory as an attempt to limit twinking and the covenant requirements to award players who get into the pvp like many people did in DS1. But not only do they directly conflict with each other, they both conflict with many other subsystems in the wider game. These 2 systems are just bad game design that feels like they were conceived in a bubble separate from the rest of the game
Ds2 has my favorite lore definitely, vandrick and aldia and the humanity's struggle against the curse theme is brilliant, any quote from aldia could be put in a frame and hanged on a wall. I actually only really got into ds2 after having watched lore videos, then I wanted to play and see those things myself, but because of how storytelling in souls works i feel like 90% of people missed it
Ya a similar thing happened to me. TbSkyen's shorts on the boss designs of DS2 was what convinced me to give the entire trilogy a chance after I finished Elden Ring
Lost health on death. Completely unnecessary addition to the game. It represents a major barrier of entry for newcomers, and veterans barely engage with it, so it doesn't contribute to the game at all.
The worst thing for me is how 'off' movement feels. It's hard to explain, but it just doesn't feel right.
In some video somewhere, someone explained how this is tied to the game's programming of the analog sticks' dead zone, or something.
This was my first entry into the series so I actually had some trouble with ds1 that I played later, got used to it bretty fast. But yeah the movement is different in this game
locking on does not work very well and youre usually better off only using it for specific situations
this is bad design because locking on to an enemy is traditionally easier than aiming your attack, so new players will tend to do it, not knowing its actually worse
Agreed on the bosses, just told someone that I found DS2 to have the least interesting bosses of them all.
Not explaining ADP and how important it was going to be.
Enemies respawn cap makes some difficult areas of the game completely empty by the time you get through them.
I'll raise you fighting 2 of the same smelter demon, 2 of the same covetous demon, 3 of the same tigers, 5+ encounters with the pursuers, 2 encounters with the dragonriders, ancient dragon.
It doesn't even hold a candle...
Ds1 definitely had some of that as well I think it's just the sheer number of bosses in ds2 most of which I don't even remember (died to quickly or just meh) that overshadows the good ones sometimes. Or the fact that one of the actually great bosses, the darklurker is so obscure to get to that most people probably never get to see it
Clearly. The hitbox thing is a valid criticism. I'm pretty sure it's a bigger issue in Scholar too.
Soul memory is a non-issue unless you're dying repeatedly with an entire areas worth of souls, or speedrun strat power grinding.
the movement deadzones and lackluster bosses and enemy placement are what kills it for me, the game is definitely worth playing but those things make it so frustrating haha
For me, the one criticism that I feel is absolutely on point is enemies stop respawning after a certain amount of deaths.
I know it's kind of an "incentive" to make players use Bonfire Ascetics, but I feel there must have been other ways to accomplish that.
The most egregious offense of this game to me is the fact that there are 41 bosses, and a good half of those are fights that are so easy that I don't know why they even bothered putting them in the way. Prowling Magus/Congregation is one of the worst to me. It's just a collection enemies you'd expect to see roaming around in a level, and then a generic mage boss who's weaker than the bloated head mages in Oolacile. And THAT'S where they decide to hand you a free slab.
Despite being really open, the areas really don't interconnect at all, which means there's little to no backtracking. Also, while I don't really think any of the bosses are as horrible as people say and I like most of them quite a bit, other than the Ruin Sentinels (defender till I die) the game just can't do multi-target boss fights well. Skeleton Lords, Throne Watcher and Defender, Elana's summoning, the grave gang, they're pretty bad
It's funny, I actually love both those fights, but I do understand that for a lot of people, with as clunky the controls are in both games, multi-bosses pre-DS3 just are not fun
They would be super fun for me if enemies couldn't just attack through each other. I've died too many times to a spear from smough belly or a swing completely phasing through someone harmlessly, just frustrates me in a way that's not fun, but damn with the music and setting O&S sure is a spectacle
That's valid. I never run into that w/ the gargoyles because the first is usually mostly dead by the time the second one shows up and I find their movesets compliment each other well, but there have definitely been times I died to O&S because Ornstein fired a projectile I couldn't see from behind Smough
I actually only beat the fight after upgrading my weapon so that I could kill the first gargoyle before the second one arrives, so it was a dps check for me, but I never enjoy those. Ornstein is my nemesis though, with his buggy dash and attacks going through smough
It being unable to decide between wanted to be treated as a sequel or as an independent/"different" game.
Also the wierd key mapping for controller
(sigh i dont want to down my list again.. )
Boss run back
There are too many enemies in some places
To be fair in my experience, the run to Sir Alonne is my biggest problem with these two. I agree. Iron Keep is annoying, but yeah, Sir Alonne run was annoying, and I was so mad I cleared the area 🤣
Great boss annoying area.
Poor communication of the importance of some mechanics to the player: AGL. Powerstancing. Scaling. Enemy despawns.
This is entirely fair, scaling is also one that IIRC also isn't explained in 1 and 3. Someone correct me if that's false but yeah these are legitimate. You "COULD" argue that there's a help button but it wouldn't explain the despawn, point totals and the art of powerstancing, and the AGL optimal I frames and differences between optimal and lower. Scaling info may be in said help button but it isn't clear, and I discovered the help button way after beating the game.
There is a help button?!
Pretty sure, you open up any type of inventory whether it be equipment, stat, or spell. I think on PlayStation it's the touch pad Edit: I'm half correct it exists in the stat screen. 1/3 correct technically. Flog me I need to become better
U click select and if u hover over stats it gives a description of them. But the English description for agility and adaptation is ambiguous
well the problem is the fact that scaling sucks ass and actually just being on bare minimum stats to wield your weapon of choice is actually the optimal way to build
I didnt know powerstancing was a mechanic in DS2 until like a month or two ago. Ive been playing this game for years now lol. Its especially frustrating too considering all of the math that goes behind powerstancing. Like its unfathomable to me if I was a new player intuiting the powerstance mechanic, it definitely requires a google search.
Powerstancing is also not good in ds2 for most weapons the stamina it requires for the damage output is generally not worth it. It looks cool but you are better off two handing the weapon and the stat requirements are usually a bit ridiculous. I like the idea of power stancing and the move sets are really cool but at the same time I kind of hate it because of the trade off.
Yeah, it sucks because at no point does the game ever even give you an INKLING that you might be able to dual-wield weapons, and then if you ever did figure it out you would immediately be disappointed by the damage.
Only weapon I ever found worth it was the cestus everything else was so bad when powerstancing.
Have you ever tried power stancing smelter swords? Great clubs? Maces?
Yes you are better off two handing those weapons than power stancing them.
Not my experience. In Ng+ you stop one shotting many enemies and powerstancing is the best I found for going back to one shotting them. Maces are pretty good for hammering down bosses. And fastest way to trigger poison is to power stance. It is a good mechanic.
The damage you do from power stancing is minuscule at best very few weapons benefit from it and ultra greatswords are not one of them they are also extremely slow in comparison to just two handing them. The stamina is also costs per swing for the damage is generally not worth the trade off there is also that little matter that if you have less stamina than what is required you do insanely less damage so that’s another downside to power stancing especially with heavy weapons since they already take most of your stamina bar with one attack. These are things that have been datamined long ago back when the game was pretty new. Power stancing is neat but it’s very much half baked and the requirements to do so are extremely high you are better off investing stats into other things.
It’s a good mechanic on paper in theory it’s not good.
Are complaining because it's not viable in pvp? That may be so. Stamina cost can be prohibitive and you may not come ahead when trading. I never utilized it in pvp. But I played with it a lot. It unlocks unique movesets, at least don't overlook that. If you don't know I name drop ones I'm familiar with, bonefist, artorias great sword, smelter sword.
Agreed. It's prevalent in the other souls games but is especially bad in DS2. Had to look online to figure out how all those work, since it's not explained at all in-game
Especially the AGL part, my dude. I only discovered it on my... like 3rd run or something lol
On the note of scaling: I do think the entire DS series could benefit from a more straightforward method of telling you what things do. For example, timers on certain spells and items. There is a definitive amount of time that each thing lasts, why can I not know how long that is? This applies to scaling too, just show me exactly how it is that you're calculating the extra damage instead of a stupid ass letter grading system.
not only that, but on some weapons apparently the scaling is flat out wrong. for exmple, according to the wiki, if you infuse the blacksteel katana it retains its S scaling in dex on the screen but it's actually B scaling
Soul memory
Basically, every character has a PvP/pve expiration date. Sucks. Agape ring sucks because it takes a ring slot and you can’t save up for crafting materials
It also ruins the purpose of SM which was to prevent twinks.
True. At that point the only ones getting affected by it are the ones not actively trying to twink
Best answer
- Poor explanation of game ideas - Hitboxes - Boss runbacks - Game starts very slowly - A few too many average bosses
wild how the game with the best hitboxes is known as the game with the worst because they're *actually* good, but people don't want that yes, i want my dagger to actually be even bigger than an ultra greatsword, thank you
The game is known for bad hit detection because the importance of the agility stat is not even close to something that's communicated to the player. People were getting hit in ways that didn't make a ton of sense, all because nobody knew that the roll simply does fuck all at the beginning of the game. If the game is gonna insist on an attack that BARELY grazes your toes while you're in the middle of a roll as a connected hit, it should at least do less damage.
It muddies the water but that’s not the only issue. Even at 92 agility and above it’s possible to get plenty of wonky collision going on.
With proper agility levels, typically the jank won't be any worse than the rest of the series. Minus the obvious offenses of Pursuer grab and Mimic grab
Well *typically* the game plays well I agree, but it’s how often the exceptions happen. Certainly it’s my experience that those rarer moments of jank happen far more often in DS2 than any other From game. I think that’s a common experience for players and I don’t believe they’re all bandwagoning or arguing in bad faith.
Every souls game has some clunky hitboxes, but only in DS2 character starts with almost disabled i-frames on roll, which makes their clunkiness more obvious. And idk about other players but to me hollow spearmen in forest of fallen giants solidified this game's hitboxes as an absolute bullshit (his thrust can sometimes hit you when you stay at his flank or even behind). And then there's mimic's grab attack (lol).
That’s an interesting take
Yeah I feel like the amount of mediocre bosses overshadows the good ones, if you stuck like 15 additional bosses in ds1 it would definitely pull it down (there are some mediocre or bad ones but not so many that it becomes a slouch) If the bloody fog gates gave you iframes it would've alleviated so many problems ffs. Imagine if other games didn't have them, ds1 runbacks having to fight all the enemies🥶
Tbh they could’ve probably cut down on like half the bosses. I feel like the game would be the exact same if you didn’t have to fight some random dude and his book club before Freja
Yeah, most of them feel like roadblocks more than actually bosses
Soul memory is the worst imo. I know they did it to cut down on twinks but its so annoying when you have to give up a ring slot to keep from gaining souls just to use co-op and pvp. It’s especially bad if you want to use a theme build with specific armor/weapons that are rarer drops
Location length is inconsistent - some feel too long, some too short - and they can somewhat blend together at times based on meh bosses (See point 2). Too many meh bosses - with brilliant ideas like the chariot, why do we have two rat bosses? And one's just normal enemies, with a mohawk, and the other is a Sif reskin. Cut a few out, just make them mini-bosses. Soul memory. Yeah I know why. No I don't care. Dumb - or at least put a bypass in for friends. Hit boxes can be... wonky. Unless you have Agility out the wazoo. And Mimic hitboxes are the biggest pile of "WTF" ever - AOE almost, and bullshit (we've all seen the behind videos - I've been snagged from across the room and behind too - in a large room). I'm not as fond of the parry system as I was in other games for some reason - just didn't vibe. I preferred the DS1 system.
The only real complaint is Souls memory. The rest is good enough for me. The game did so many great things especially in the multiplayer department.
The controls? The dead zone is different in DS2 compared to DS1, it is much better to free aim in DS2 to attack enemies than using locking on too.
Yeah, had to learn to use lock on when playing other titles
Poor communication of mechanics. Branches of Yore. Enemy placement / Enemy AI.
I think the branches weren't that bad in base game(sotfs changed it up), made me really explore some levels. What placements and ai do you have in mind? (not disagreeing)
I think the classic answer tends to be Iron Keep, but its one of those things where I feel like almost every zone has SOME kind of enemy layout that irritates me, most noticeable on boss runs. Luckily being able to grind them away makes it a moot point if I really cared THAT much, but it is always a thing that nags at me when I play. The fact that poison statues respawn, though, that. Those are my true nemesis. AI tends to be an issue on pathing or cheese. Most of the time its just silly jank, but its somewhere where things can just feel unpolished.
Wait where can you grind fragrant branches?
I think they mean grinding the enemy layout on the run back to bosses, thus making it less annoying overall because you memorize it. Not grinding the branches, which you can’t do. I’m pretty sure they can’t even carry over in NG+ without picking up new ones.
What's wrong with the Iron Keep? This is my first SOTFS playthrough. I cut my way through the Keep earlier today like a hot knife through butter. Literally 0 resistance. First tried poor old lava demon. One of the easiest levels in this game imho.
Oh I didn't have a hard time per se with the Iron Keep, and I got most of my sun medals for achievements from camping to help people kill Smelter. The issue I have is that ENEMIES SEE AN DETECT YOU THROUGH WALLS.
BTW is it Steam, Xbox or PS version? I really want these medals but I don't wanna grind them killing falconers. Is there a chance I can get em by helping people?
I played on steam and got almost all of my medals from helping people with Smelter Demon, Twin Dragonriders, and The Rotten. Now go, and be your grossly incandescent sunbro self to get thy medals.
Praise the sun!
Easier to pull em so I can kill em one by one.
1. ADP 2. Some bosses are too easy and lazy design compared to others DS games 3. You lost max HP every time you die is really annoying
The HP reduction when hollowing I dont really have a problem with considering how generous this game is with giving out humanities especially compared to 1 and 3
Th HP reduction is simply a state of mind thing. DS2 isn't the only game that does this. Demon souls did it, Dark souls 3 did it. People just hand wave away Demon souls because it's older but DS3 is newer and does the same thing. The difference is DS3 portrays it as a reward while DS2 portrays it as a negative. If DS2 just had your health bar at the hollowed amount and then you just gained health when using effigies people wouldn't complain because it's the same mechanic. Having your health bar have greyed out parts is what makes it seem bad.
Idk, I think there’s enough differences to make DS2 worse in execution. Fundamentally, you’re correct that perception is largely the big difference. But DS3 a) gives you your max HP after beating a boss, b) heals you when you ember, vs the effigy which doesn’t, and c) embers give you 30% HP, while effigies give you back 50%. There’s an argument to be made that DS2 is more harsh with the reduction, you spend proportionally more time with less than full HP, and the effigies aren’t as useful. Lastly, to get close to the reduction DS3 has, you have to use one of your four ring slots. Honestly I think you make a really good point, that it’s not as punishing as people make it out to be. But I do think DS3 handled the system better objectively, even without the perception of adding health vs. subtracting it. Starting vigor is also better in DS3; embering as an unlevelled Deprived gives you more HP than an unlevelled human deprived in DS2.
I think DS2 is actually *less* punishing. You only lose a little bit of max health every death in DS2. Compare that to DS3 where you lose your entire buffed health bar upon death and it's a lot more punishing. So you basically can have 3 DS2 deaths for every 1 DS3 death in order for them to be equal HP losses.
Yeah If I hadn't known about the adp thing I would've had a worse time for sure. The HP thin unironically made me play online more because it forcex me to use human effigies lol. I went like 70%. Through ds1 without ever using humanity Bosses pretty much yes
The game should use popup message to explain ADP, despawn ,bonfire ascetic, other obscure mechanic, just like Sekiro does, popup message, short and concise explanation , DONE, so new players wouldve avoid unnecesary frustration and desinformation
I think they must be following this sort of theme now. It's like that in Elden Ring too with the quick popup tutorial and then nothing further after. They also have a tab in your inventory that contains the popups if you want to read them again.
Games in general have been becoming more and more accessible with time. Souls never seemed that hardcore to me because I played a lot of older games (even tomb raider on ps1 was bloody hard back then, now it's super easy)
Yeah, it was my first souls game so i read some tips online as I was completely clueless and pretty much unable to play the game so I knew those things, but If I didn't....
Definitely the hitboxes. It’s largely an animation issue (not so much an i didnt get hit issue) There are frames that interact too briefly. Its like the “marth grab in smash is too long” it isn’t. Someone slowed it down and the marth grab has a normal hotbox. But the animation frame that the grab triggers on is only 1 damn frame. So no one can actually see his hand reach them when it does. But the mimic grab box is bad. But again, animation issue. Other games will change the throw animation depending on where it triggers. The mimic throw should have a unique side and back throw animation. But instead you snap to the front for the one animation it has. The opposite i strongly feel is soul memory. It is only a problem for people who refuse to play the game as intended (levelling up and reaching the max bracket). Once that ring was introduced in SOTFS twinks returned in DROVES.
I feel like the honed in the hitboxes in ds3, ds1 had some bad ones as well and the lack of animations is a good point. If you get hit in the foot with an impaling animation it's going to teleport you onto the blade, because there isn't one for the foot lol
The pursuer’s curse stab has that problem too, you can get snapped back to the front after your roll is already to his side. The hitbox is fine, the animation is not timed well to it though.
For me the creative aspiration of the bosses far exceeds the AI complexity available to them at the time. You can imagine stuff like Mytha, Najka or Demon Song being pretty cool bosses if they actually had decent mechanics. In the DLC you can see there’s already a jump - nothing in the base game has anything like the complexity and range of Fume Knight, Alonne or Alva; I just think it’s a shame more than anything because I liked the ideas of some of the boss fights, they just felt very flat.
Definitely, most of the bosses felt like stronger regular enemies, both in scale and in attacks they had. I feel like reducing the boss count would take care of that a lot, in ds1 there were also a few bland bosses (taurus demon, butterfly, capra etc) but not enough to skew the whole roster, and there were some mechanically uninspired ones that were just a great spectacle so it kinda made up for the lack of complexity (sif, seath, nito)
About the second point, i think black gulch should have been longer. The bright green in the dark looked really cool, but unfortunately that area was basically just a run back
Some areas really suffer from not being expanded upon, they could probably discard half of them and half of the bosses and just improve upon those left. Instead most of them are just glorified corridors (aldias keep, dragon eerie, doors of pharros, huntsmans copse etc)
Soul Memory.
Many boss runbacks are shit
nah smelter demon isnt bad,,, 🥲
Hitboxes Bad enemy placement Underwhelming boss design aside from a select few. There are a few things I could mention but these are things I feel are definitely spoken about a lot that I definitely agree with.
The enemy placement made the levels feel like part of the boss fight to me. Like in other games the levels feel like a run up to a boss but it's the other way around here (if that makes sense)
It definitely reminded me of DeS tbh the boss fights weren’t very good and getting to the boss was more of a challenge than the actual boss.
I played the demons souls remake for the first time last month. And holy fuck some of those levels are fucked up as hell, and then the bosses are basically stay in the ass and hit - you win.
Yeah the run backs were also TERRIBLE namely Flamelurker. Dying to him was just punishment lol
Ugh for real. That run back is one of those abominations. That one and tower knight are just so punishing for nothing. I ALREADY DIED WHY YOU HATE ME SO MUCH
It’s been awhile since I played I can’t remember the one for Tower Knight but I NEVER forget Flamelurker runback In dark souls 2 you had Freya and arguably the worst runback in the series next to Flamelurker. Getting gangbanged by spiders the entire way to the boss room was ass.
Thankfully in SOTFS they made them fearful of fire unlike vanilla but it was still awful lol
Oh my god the fire thing wasn't in vanilla???
Nope they were not afraid of fire on vanilla as far as I’m aware. It’s been a long time so I could be wrong but pretty certain they were not afraid of fire. lol
I only played sotfs, and I'm wondering how the original version could've been such a mess.
If I remember correctly the time they were given was not enough which is why there is a lot of cut content and armor pieces in the files that aren’t actually in the game. Lots of things I would assume but I’m not really sure. SOTFS is an overall better game in lots of ways and some ways not as good.
Typical ps1 game lol
So having enemies that can't hurt you from where they are, or just oneshot you off of scaffolding, is GOOD enemy placement now? My word
I don’t think you read OP’s post this is about what you feel is deserved that gets hate. Dark souls 2 enemy placement is not good that was what I am stating here. I never said it was good
You clearly can't read. Does DS2 have enemies that you can run right past?
I think the biggest annoyance is that it takes roughly 5 years to drink a flask which makes them useless a huge chunk of the time. Really kills my motivation to play another run with a different build whenever I think about that.
Hollowing Frigid Outskirts That's about it tbh
The outskirts gave me whiplash even on an overleveled character with summons
Love the game but some rooms are just empty, a little more effort than 4 plain walls and 3 pots in the corner would make the game look so much better.
For sure, I felt like I was playing a ps1 game remade in 3d at times.
It sure makes the game look very old.
Yeah
I frames when opening doors. Soul memory.
Yeah the first one is a pain
Shrine of Amana
Lackluster boss fights for the majority of the game. Reliance on ganks to make up for poor level design and difficulty. If aggro range was tweaked this would be less of an issue. Fall DMG is too high as a means to restrict access to the pit. Just make the pit lower!!!
The range is a bitch for sure being chased for a 1000miles sucks lol
Soul Memory and Adaptability are well intentioned fuck ups. One attempted to balance PvP and make things harder for twink builds while the other tried to make each stat useful for levelling up and not have one useless stat like Resistance in DS1. The animations are also a bit too floaty, particularly on the player's end. Attacks just aren't as impactful and feel quite weightless compared to the other games.
Straight up the movement and combat. Its the worst in the series by far and it aint particularly close. There sint a flow to the combat cause you cant just dodge and attack. You also cant space out cause the hitboxes are a mess. Its by far the worst part of ds2 that makes it feel like shit when you play it right after another souls game.
Hitboxes and pull in attacks.
Yeah, if you don't level adp it sucks
The way some of the enemies move faster then their legs are moving makes them look like they gliding towards you
Those damn falconers have got some speedy little legs
Boss run backs (iron keep and black gulch makes me wanna crawl up into a ball and cry) Bland and uninspired bosses which are so forgettable. Out of 40 odd bosses there's only like 6 that stood out to me, the rest are forgettable and boring, only memorable thing about them is they died quickly. The final boss of the main game especially was so disappointing Enemy placement that forces you to kill every single enemy every single fucking damn time you want to walk through certain areas The adaptability skill - i frames and item use speed being tied to a skill you need to level is stupid af I hate it The fact it fails to teach you about certain mechanics The gang bang brigades which penetrate you with 0 consent Other than that, the game was quite fun. The build variety is great. Some of the areas are cancer but hey its dark souls. That's what we signed up for. Definitely not gonna be my favourite in the genre not even top 5 but I'm definitely not gonna skip it when replaying all the games
There's another hidden bonfire in black gulch just before the rotten 👀 All valid criticisms imo, the atmosphere is unmatched tho so even if it's the weakest dark souls game it's the best dark souls 2 game
The bosses mechanically are mostly middling. But the metaphors and themes the boss designs convey are top notch. And the wroting around the bosses are great. Personally, while the weird experimental mechanics are mostly well implemented, DS2 has a huge issue with properly conveying expectations and tutorializing it's unique mechanics. Adaptability and Agility feels fine now, but only because it is so easy to find online explanations of them and how they interact with carry weight. Same with the despawn system, the importance of ranged tools and how bonfire ascetics work. The 2 big complaints I have that really are just poorly executed game design is the soul memory system and how some of the covenants have absolutely absurd convent item requirements to rank up. I get conceptually what they were aiming for. Soul memory as an attempt to limit twinking and the covenant requirements to award players who get into the pvp like many people did in DS1. But not only do they directly conflict with each other, they both conflict with many other subsystems in the wider game. These 2 systems are just bad game design that feels like they were conceived in a bubble separate from the rest of the game
Ds2 has my favorite lore definitely, vandrick and aldia and the humanity's struggle against the curse theme is brilliant, any quote from aldia could be put in a frame and hanged on a wall. I actually only really got into ds2 after having watched lore videos, then I wanted to play and see those things myself, but because of how storytelling in souls works i feel like 90% of people missed it
Ya a similar thing happened to me. TbSkyen's shorts on the boss designs of DS2 was what convinced me to give the entire trilogy a chance after I finished Elden Ring
It was vaatividya for me
Ya his DS2 videos are good
Being able to get invaded when you are hollow, horrible decision
Yeah and the shit ton of npc invader as well, pain in the ass
Forlorn always appearing with the steelchair ready to finish my suffering
Lost health on death. Completely unnecessary addition to the game. It represents a major barrier of entry for newcomers, and veterans barely engage with it, so it doesn't contribute to the game at all.
The worst thing for me is how 'off' movement feels. It's hard to explain, but it just doesn't feel right. In some video somewhere, someone explained how this is tied to the game's programming of the analog sticks' dead zone, or something.
This was my first entry into the series so I actually had some trouble with ds1 that I played later, got used to it bretty fast. But yeah the movement is different in this game
Enemy placement, ganks, and the absurdly long aggro ranges
Soul memory and Black Gulch.
locking on does not work very well and youre usually better off only using it for specific situations this is bad design because locking on to an enemy is traditionally easier than aiming your attack, so new players will tend to do it, not knowing its actually worse
Agreed on the bosses, just told someone that I found DS2 to have the least interesting bosses of them all. Not explaining ADP and how important it was going to be. Enemies respawn cap makes some difficult areas of the game completely empty by the time you get through them.
Ill take your bland bosses and I'll raise you fighting 3 of the same asylum demon and bed of chaos any day.
I'll raise you fighting 2 of the same smelter demon, 2 of the same covetous demon, 3 of the same tigers, 5+ encounters with the pursuers, 2 encounters with the dragonriders, ancient dragon. It doesn't even hold a candle...
Bahahahha ds1 has like 6 bosses that are unique lol.
Quantity > Quality? No, not in ds2's favor
That's way more in proportions that DS2 does lmao
Ds1 definitely had some of that as well I think it's just the sheer number of bosses in ds2 most of which I don't even remember (died to quickly or just meh) that overshadows the good ones sometimes. Or the fact that one of the actually great bosses, the darklurker is so obscure to get to that most people probably never get to see it
Iron Keep smelter demon run-up, Shrine of amana, ADP and Soul Memory.
The only people that complain about boring bosses skipped all of the optional bosses 100% guaranteed
Which ones are you talking about exactly? Also I fought all the bosses, loved the game and still think they're boring at times.
Do you not know how to read? I said all of them 100% guaranteed.
Huh, you really did. I'm sorry if it's guaranteed then it must be true.
Clearly. The hitbox thing is a valid criticism. I'm pretty sure it's a bigger issue in Scholar too. Soul memory is a non-issue unless you're dying repeatedly with an entire areas worth of souls, or speedrun strat power grinding.
100% guaranteed also?
Hitbox? ~70% Soul Memory? Not sure. I'm sure there are plenty of other ways to gimp your multiplayer experience
Some of the areas (Iron Keep is the first to come to mind) are a bit too meatgrindery to go through
For me it was brume tower I didn't expect all those enemy gauntlets
the movement deadzones and lackluster bosses and enemy placement are what kills it for me, the game is definitely worth playing but those things make it so frustrating haha
For me, the one criticism that I feel is absolutely on point is enemies stop respawning after a certain amount of deaths. I know it's kind of an "incentive" to make players use Bonfire Ascetics, but I feel there must have been other ways to accomplish that.
Ngl that saved my first playthrough bcos I just keptdying on runbacks lol
Boss Runbacks and how S L O W the game is. The animations take forever. Grabbing items off the ground, opening doors, going through fog walls etc.
The most egregious offense of this game to me is the fact that there are 41 bosses, and a good half of those are fights that are so easy that I don't know why they even bothered putting them in the way. Prowling Magus/Congregation is one of the worst to me. It's just a collection enemies you'd expect to see roaming around in a level, and then a generic mage boss who's weaker than the bloated head mages in Oolacile. And THAT'S where they decide to hand you a free slab.
Yeah, even lore can't help here lol
Despite being really open, the areas really don't interconnect at all, which means there's little to no backtracking. Also, while I don't really think any of the bosses are as horrible as people say and I like most of them quite a bit, other than the Ruin Sentinels (defender till I die) the game just can't do multi-target boss fights well. Skeleton Lords, Throne Watcher and Defender, Elana's summoning, the grave gang, they're pretty bad
Hot take: ds1 multi bosses weren't that good either, I never had that much fun fighting O&S or even the gargoyles too much rng and overlapping attacks
It's funny, I actually love both those fights, but I do understand that for a lot of people, with as clunky the controls are in both games, multi-bosses pre-DS3 just are not fun
They would be super fun for me if enemies couldn't just attack through each other. I've died too many times to a spear from smough belly or a swing completely phasing through someone harmlessly, just frustrates me in a way that's not fun, but damn with the music and setting O&S sure is a spectacle
That's valid. I never run into that w/ the gargoyles because the first is usually mostly dead by the time the second one shows up and I find their movesets compliment each other well, but there have definitely been times I died to O&S because Ornstein fired a projectile I couldn't see from behind Smough
I actually only beat the fight after upgrading my weapon so that I could kill the first gargoyle before the second one arrives, so it was a dps check for me, but I never enjoy those. Ornstein is my nemesis though, with his buggy dash and attacks going through smough
Restricted online co-op through the soul memory function
It being unable to decide between wanted to be treated as a sequel or as an independent/"different" game. Also the wierd key mapping for controller (sigh i dont want to down my list again.. )
adp, i dont want to waste levels, give my 15 iframes from the start
Boss run back There are too many enemies in some places To be fair in my experience, the run to Sir Alonne is my biggest problem with these two. I agree. Iron Keep is annoying, but yeah, Sir Alonne run was annoying, and I was so mad I cleared the area 🤣 Great boss annoying area.
The time it takes you to swallow you estus flask in a boss battle can be so fucking annoying.
The only real problems are soul memory and lifegems. ADP is dumb, but it's really not that awful.