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Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin |OT| Your weapons are weak, old man

MoxManiac

Member
It's more about the grab animation that makes it jarring. I'd LOVE to see Dark Souls 3 completely do away with grabs, backstabs, and ripostes. Getting locked into animations, or locking your enemies into animations is always off-putting to me, and I know I'm not alone in that.

All I can think of are the Dark Souls 2 giant trolls, and how they swipe the air, then you get teleported into their hands for a snack.
 
I don't think anyone should not play DS2. But if you enjoy DS2 and haven't played DS1 and/or DeS and can play the previous titles, you owe it to yourself to check them all out.

As for Scholar of the First Sin, I hope to jump in pretty soon. I own DS2 on PC but the upgrade price is a bit much for me. Hopefully a month or so down the line, I can experience the DLC.
 
It's obviously a bug. Are you saying that grab attacks are designed to make your character disappear from one location and reappear in another location without a smooth animation transition?

Give me a break.

Any attack in any game that forces you into a canned animation has to move your character into that animation from wherever it "catches" you. Sometimes that looks awkward, such in the case as when the "grab" is triggered by a sword attack that hits your character when they're not dead center on it. It looks strange but there's no way to 'fix' it.

I'm not going to argue that DS2 doesn't sometimes have some weird hitbox issues in general, but that's been the case with ALL Souls games.
 

Neoweee

Member
Bloodborne feels like every boss is a giant Flamelurker or Manus.

I strongly disagree. I completely and utterly steamrolled BB boss fights. Most on the first try, and nearly all without having to bother learning what they actually do. There's only two (both optional) that make me actually consider what they're doing and what their movesets are. As long as you have enough HP, they can't really kill you because you get 20 of the healing item, and how much you heal for scales with your max HP.

All I can think of are the Dark Souls 2 giant trolls, and how they swipe the air, then you get teleported into their hands for a snack.

Yeah, those enemies are horrible. It's a combination of it being grab, and it being an insta-kill. Just complete BS.
 

Sanctuary

Member
Glad I checked this thread. I wasn't even going to consider getting the game for the third time, especially since initially there wasn't anything about a discount on PC outside of rumors. $20 makes it worth considering now, even if it's still my third favorite Souls game (It's better than Bloodborne).

Bloodborne feels like every boss is a giant Flamelurker or Manus.

This is exactly what it's like.
 
You can disagree if you want, that's cool, but to me letting DkS2 be your first impression of the series is akin to playing Sonic 4 and thinking "I don't get the hype Classic Sonic sucks too" when a series of (flawed) masterpieces is sitting right in front of you.

My friend started out his Souls experience playing Dark Souls 2 and really really enjoyed it and tried playing both Demons Souls and Dark Souls 1 and couldn't actually stick with either.
 
Any attack in any game that forces you into a canned animation has to move your character into that animation from wherever it "catches" you. Sometimes that looks awkward, such in the case as when the "grab" is triggered by a sword attack that hits your character when they're not dead center on it. It looks strange but there's no way to 'fix' it.

And yet no game in recent memory has animations that look as bad as Dark Soul's 2's. It doesn't look strange, it looks completely broken.

tumblr_n5ccnzhvTv1ro156wo2_r1_400.gif


Bloodborne has plenty of grab animations, and none of them look like shit. Saying "there's no way to make this not look like shit" is a total cop out and quite frankly, both unacceptable and a completely ridiculous answer.

In the example above, it could be fixed by, i don't know, making the attack miss unless the character is under the mouth when he chomps? Crazy idea, right. Or, it could start to transition the body to the front through a smooth animation at the point the collission is encountered and apply the damage later, instead of at the moment of committing the damage.
 

Neoweee

Member
One thing that is under-appreciated is that Dark Souls 2 has, by far, the best tutorial, and likely the best difficult curve as well. All three of the possible "first" bosses are among the easiest, which is highly unusual for the series.
 

dreamlock

The hero Los Santos deserves
I don't think anyone should not play DS2. But if you enjoy DS2 and haven't played DS1 and/or DeS and can play the previous titles, you owe it to yourself to check them all out.

As for Scholar of the First Sin, I hope to jump in pretty soon. I own DS2 on PC but the upgrade price is a bit much for me. Hopefully a month or so down the line, I can experience the DLC.

I'm currently going backwards in the series. I did a full playthrough of Bloodborne this weekend and intend to spend the next in DS2: SOTFS before starting up a new DS1 run later in April. Ultimately ending with DeS in May for nostalgia's sake.

Kind of just going with the Souls-flow atm. I love these games.

EDIT: Oh yeah, for new players to the Soul series I'd definitely recommend DS2 over any of the others(even DS1). Bloodborne's tutorial was pretty much non-existent and I read about a lot of folks who ragequitted even at the first boss. This just wouldn't happen in DS2.
 

Krappadizzle

Gold Member
Any attack in any game that forces you into a canned animation has to move your character into that animation from wherever it "catches" you. Sometimes that looks awkward, such in the case as when the "grab" is triggered by a sword attack that hits your character when they're not dead center on it. It looks strange but there's no way to 'fix' it.

I'm not going to argue that DS2 doesn't sometimes have some weird hitbox issues in general, but that's been the case with ALL Souls games.

You seriously think there is no way to "fix-it"? What year do you live in? Especially for a re-release I'd hope these issues are ironed out. People aren't picking on them to be dicks. There are many fans of Souls games that never had this issue in the previous "ALL Souls games". Why are you defending it?
 

Sanctuary

Member
And yet no game in recent memory has animations that look as bad as Dark Soul's 2's. It doesn't look strange, it looks completely broken.

tumblr_n5ccnzhvTv1ro156wo2_r1_400.gif


Bloodborne has plenty of grab animations, and none of them look like shit. Saying "there's no way to make this not look like shit" is a total cop out and quite frankly, both unacceptable and a completely ridiculous answer.

In the example above, it could be fixed by, i don't know, making the attack not do damage unless the character is under the mouth when he chomps? Crazy idea, right

Blood-Starved Beast grab says hi. You cannot dodge it if you're in melee range. You have to actually be dodging before it even initiates. I guess you aren't actually talking so much about mechanics as you are how it actually looks on screen, but Bloodborne has the worst hitbox issues so far of the four Souls games. Considering how bad they were in Dark Souls 2, that's saying a lot.
 

Vire

Member
In terms of difficulty how would everyone rate the series from hardest to easiest now that Bloodborne has been out for a little bit?
 
It would have been really awesome if they included DkS in this package to. Give it a little DSFix love and bundle it with SoTFS that way people can have the whole experience on their new consoles sans DeS of course.

I got the season pass for PC but by the time all they were all released I didn't even play them. Arethey are going to remix the enemies in the DLC as well or just the main game?
 

Htown

STOP SHITTING ON MY MOTHER'S HEADSTONE
I'm going to be buying this, because I'm one of that small group of people for whom this isn't an awful deal.

since I haven't bought any of the DLC i mean
 

Krappadizzle

Gold Member
Blood-Starved Beast grab says hi. You cannot dodge it if you're in melee range. You have to actually be dodging before it even initiates.

You mean it's intentional teleport grab? It's absolutely telegraphed and easy as hell to dodge. When you see the right arm up, dash forward and to the left of the BSB, puts you right behind her for easy hits, every single time.
 
In terms of difficulty how would everyone rate the series from hardest to easiest now that Bloodborne has been out for a little bit?

From most to least difficult, Demon's > Dark 1 = Bloodborne >>> Dark 2.

Blood-Starved Beast grab says hi. You cannot dodge it if you're in melee range. You have to actually be dodging before it even initiates. I guess you aren't actually talking so much about mechanics as you are how it actually looks on screen, but Bloodborne has the worst hitbox issues so far of the four Souls games. Considering how bad they were in Dark Souls 2, that's saying a lot.

I've experienced 0 hitbox issues in Bloodborne with 80 hours played.
 
I see people are still coming in DS2 threads to posts gifs and comparisons about how bad it is compared to DS1. Move on with your lives...
 
Blood-Starved Beast grab says hi. You cannot dodge it if you're in melee range. You have to actually be dodging before it even initiates.

And yet it doesn't look like shit when you get hit by it. He still grabs you at the moment your body contacts his arm, and the animation transitions smoothly into one where you're being grabbed. It doesn't just teleport you a few hundred pixels away into his arm.
 

Sami+

Member
All I can think of are the Dark Souls 2 giant trolls, and how they swipe the air, then you get teleported into their hands for a snack.

I literally just gave up fighting these guys fairly. After many, many attempts at taking them on in melee combat (90% of which end with an extremely cheap grab that shouldn't have hit me) I just didn't care anymore and started using poison arrows.

Come to think of it I can understand why magic users like the game so much, since its biggest flaws are mostly absent with that playstyle. Plus all of PvP is magic Havel soooo

Either way as an all melee all the time player with Demon's, Dark, and BB (Meat Cleaver, Zweihander, and Ludwig's are my weapons of choice) shit like this and the skinny hammer bros was the worst
 

Vire

Member
From most to least difficult, Demon's > Dark 1 = Bloodborne >>> Dark 2.

Sounds about right, the thing about Demon's is that I don't think it's actually that hard by comparison to the others, it was just most people's first introduction to this style of game.
 
I see people are still coming in DS2 threads to posts gifs and comparisons about how bad it is compared to DS1. Move on with your lives...

Actually, no. If you check page 2, I simply asked "does this update include patches to fix the hitboxes". That's a perfectly legitimate question.

Then a bunch of people started saying it wasn't a bug, it was working as intended, and the hitboxes were actually too good instead of too bad.

I like Dark Souls 2. I'm going to buy this. But I haven't played since vanilla dark souls 2 with none of the big patches, so I just want to know if the hitbox issues have been fixed.
 

Krappadizzle

Gold Member
Sounds about right, the thing about Demon's is that I don't think it's actually that hard by comparison to the others, it was just most people's first introduction to this style of game.

Just pick it up. You'll enjoy it if you like BB/DS1. It's not perfect, but those games aren't either.
 

def sim

Member
I find Bloodborne to be the easiest souls game so far, but I'm only about to wrap it up so I can't definitively say that. I'll find out for sure when I get more time to spend on it.
 
You seriously think there is no way to "fix-it"? What year do you live in? Especially for a re-release I'd hope these issues are ironed out. People aren't picking on them to be dicks. There are many fans of Souls games that never had this issue in the previous "ALL Souls games". Why are you defending it?

I'm not defending "it", I'm saying all Souls games have these "issues".
 

Sanctuary

Member
In terms of difficulty how would everyone rate the series from hardest to easiest now that Bloodborne has been out for a little bit?

Dark Souls 2 (until it's not) > Dark > Demon's > Bloodborne from easiest to hardest.
Alternatively: Dark > Demon's > Dark Souls 2 (until it's not) > Bloodborne.

Dark Souls 2 has a ridiculous initial difficulty if you're actually used to playing Demon's and the first Dark Souls due to crappy hitboxes and a lack of early i-frames. It's easier in other respects though. If nothing else, it's the least consistent of the series as far as difficulty. It's all over the map, especially when you consider the DLC.
 
Actually, no. If you check page 2, I simply asked "does this update include patches to fix the hitboxes". That's a perfectly legitimate question.

Then a bunch of people started saying it wasn't a bug, it was working as intended, and the hitboxes were actually too good instead of too bad.

I like Dark Souls 2. I'm going to buy this. But I haven't played since vanilla dark souls 2 with none of the big patches, so I just want to know if the hitbox issues have been fixed.

Just kind of irritating seeing it in every single DS2 related thread. Not you in particular but downgrade talk, how ugly it is, b team bs...etc.

I see people coming into DS2 threads and haven't read it and still comment.

I did read it.
 

Vire

Member
I find Bloodborne to be the easiest souls game so far, but I'm only about to wrap it up so I can't definitively say that. I'll find out for sure when I get more time to spend on it.

Bloodborne is strange, I find it to be the hardest of the bunch up until the fourth boss. Then after the fourth boss, it's the easiest Souls game yet.
 
Sounds about right, the thing about Demon's is that I don't think it's actually that hard by comparison to the others, it was just most people's first introduction to this style of game.

None of them are hard for me anymore since I've played them dozens of times each (except Bloodborne of course), but I think Demon's is the hardest simply because of the level design. Some of the areas have very long distances you have to cover before getting a shortcut. 5-2 comes to mind. Dark Souls 2 on the other hand is especially easy with its liberal bonfire placement and trivial bosses. I can reliably do a no-death run in under 5 hours without rushing.
 

Neoweee

Member
In terms of difficulty how would everyone rate the series from hardest to easiest now that Bloodborne has been out for a little bit?


They're all pretty close, overall, with give and take. I died the most in Dark Souls 2, but it is also a much much longer game. Bosses in BB were the easiest, but I think some of the late-game areas, non-Boss, are some of the hardest. I think Dark Souls 1 has some huge difficult spikes. I think Demon's Souls has the, on average, hardest bosses, but is the shortest game. Dark Souls 2's defensive abilities are nerfed in the early game, and if you're used to DS or DkS, it can be super punishing.
 
Just kind of irritating seeing it in every single DS2 related thread. Not you in particular but downgrade talk, how ugly it is, b team bs...etc.

Discounting the issue entirely is just as bad, wouldn't you say? I mean look at that screenshot with the mimic, and you have people saying "there's no way to fix it, that's just how animations are supposed to work". That's a pretty lame response :-/
 

Sanctuary

Member
Bloodborne is strange, I find it to be the hardest of the bunch up until the fourth boss. Then after the fourth boss, it's the easiest Souls game yet.

I would definitely agree that the first three bosses are annoyingly difficult, but more because of RNG or camera issues than anything else. Other bosses can be stupid too, but you won't actually die to them as much, if at all upon repeated visits.

Dark Souls 2's defensive abilities are nerfed in the early game, and if you're used to DS or DkS, it can be super punishing.

Yeah
 

Vire

Member
So basically, no one agrees on the the difficulty rankings haha.

I guess that means From Software did their job.
 

dreamlock

The hero Los Santos deserves
In terms of difficulty how would everyone rate the series from hardest to easiest now that Bloodborne has been out for a little bit?

DeS -> DS1 -> DS2 -> BB

But DS2's spot may change for me depending on how the DLC bosses are. Some are supposedly more difficult than vanilla.

I felt too often like it was way too easy to avoid stuff in BB. It wasn't hard once you understood how it worked and could dodge effectively. Combat is slower in DS2 and it's often fatal if you dodge too early or in the wrong direction. I could often save myself pretty easily despite tons of mistakes in BB, even in NG+.

If I go back to DeS today I'll probably roflstomp it, but back when I played for the first time it was really, really hard which is why I still rank it as the hardest in the series.
 

def sim

Member
Bloodborne is strange, I find it to be the hardest of the bunch up until the fourth boss. Then after the fourth boss, it's the easiest Souls game yet.

For me, only the Vicar has been interesting. The speed and invincibility of the dash trivializes practically every boss. I enjoy Bloodborne far more for the exploration than the combat.
 

Zocano

Member
I see people are still coming in DS2 threads to posts gifs and comparisons about how bad it is compared to DS1. Move on with your lives...

I get sad everytime. It's a problem but it's not game breaking and doesn't happen nearly as often as these people seem to say or think. I've played a ton ton ton of the game and the only one that's really consistently present with over head swings from smelter and pursuer.

edit: just because I can,
Demons > Blood > Dark 2 > Dark
 
DeS -> DS1 -> DS2 -> BB

But DS2's spot may change for me depending on how the DLC bosses are. Some are supposedly more difficult than vanilla.

I felt too often like it was way too easy to avoid stuff in BB. It wasn't hard once you understood how it worked and could dodge effectively. Combat is slower in DS2 and it's often fatal if you dodge too early or in the wrong direction. I could often save myself pretty easily despite tons of mistakes in BB, even in NG+.

If I go back to DeS today I'll probably roflstomp it, but back when I played for the first time it was really, really hard which is why I still rank it as the hardest in the series.

In order of release. I wonder how much it is us just getting better at this style of game. I know when I first played dark souls something just felt absolutely impossible and 500 hours later I could clear everything pretty easily. I think dark souls 2 was challenging but with all those skills already attained it was never gonna match the challenge I had with my first experience of Souls. I honestly can't even rank them myself.
 

Sami+

Member
From most to least difficult, Demon's > Dark 1 = Bloodborne >>> Dark 2.



I've experienced 0 hitbox issues in Bloodborne with 80 hours played.

Tbh I had a way harder time with Dark Souls II than I did any of the others because of the bullshit it threw at you like Shrine of Amana and Pursuer's grabs.

For me it was something like:

DkS2 (because of bullshit) > DkS > BB > DeS

Though honestly the latter through are around the same level anyway so it doesn't matter much.
 

Krappadizzle

Gold Member
Do you have all those gifs bookmarked just in case another ds2 thread pops up? Just curious.

Why don't you dig through my post history and see how little animosity I have for DS2. I liked the game, I just hated certain aspects. And those gifs are easily found by googling DS2 Hitboxes. Not really hard tough guy.
 

Neoweee

Member
So basically, no one agrees on the the difficulty rankings haha.

I guess that means From Software did their job.

They're all hard game, and deeply subjective due to people having literally hundreds of hours of experience as they move on to different games in the series. Different play styles matter, too.

I'm kind of alone in thinking most of BB's bosses are a joke, I guess, but healing scaling with max HP is completely breaking, IMO.
 

Vire

Member
In order of release. I wonder how much it is us just getting better at this style of game. I know when I first played dark souls something just felt absolutely impossible and 500 hours later I could clear everything pretty easily. I think dark souls 2 was challenging but with all those skills already attained it was never gonna match the challenge I had with my first experience of Souls. I honestly can't even rank them myself.

This is a good point. It would have been interesting to see if Bloodborne was the first to come out, I have a feeling the lists would look pretty different.
 
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