Crimsonclaw111
Member
Don't forget Bed of Chaos. Lmao so bad.
Yeah, I mean they are a toned down version of the maneaters in terms of damage and health, but their AI is way, way better (i.e. they don't fly away for no reason), and you can't just heal through all the damage since they attack faster (and Estus is limited), so it's quite understandable that a beginner would have trouble with them.
Compartmentalized level structure makes replays a blast, and the sheer variety on display in the game mechanics and viable load outs makes ds2 the most fun game in the series from a pure mechanical sense. Not to mention the ng+ structure is by far the best in the series, leading to endless new escapades the deeper into the rabbit role you get.
Also, the level aesthetics variety is unmatched in any of the other games. Especially disappointing is ds3 in this regard, but that's for another topic.
They have a less brutal moveset though ):
Maneater charges and magic blasts are real.
The thing I'm not a fan of hearing is when people start throwing around the term b team. I myself have done it but try not to anymore because saying that a development team is lesser than other is pretty insulting or at least not giving enough credit when credit is due. Even if it's true than a different development team made a game in a series no reason to call them a b team when they put probably just as much effort as the other team. Even if some consider a game not as good its not because the development team isn't as good as the other.
Yeah but Maneaters leave you a lot of room to breathe. I just herb'ed my way through all my encounters with them. Even at SL1 the charge doesn't insta kill you so you can just heal right back up and carry on haha
Well I can tell you that nothing else was grabbing my attention when I was walking through Lost Izalith, or when I got stomped by a wave of respawning skeletons in Tomb of Giants. Or when Seath got a free kill on me (how was that my fault?). Or when I got surrounded by buffed ghouls on the way to the Gargoyles, or when I got flung off a bridge when one of the lightning drakes did a quick 180 spin in the Valley of Drakes. Or when I got knocked off of the top of Anor Londo when I got hit with great arrows on a pencil thin walkway.
I could go on but I'm hoping you get the point. At this stage it's making me look like I have an agenda against the first game which is absolutely untrue.
The thing I'm not a fan of hearing is when people start throwing around the term b team. I myself have done it but try not to anymore because saying that a development team is lesser than other is pretty insulting or at least not giving enough credit when credit is due. Even if it's true than a different development team made a game in a series no reason to call them a b team when they put probably just as much effort as the other team. Even if some consider a game not as good its not because the development team isn't as good as the other.
It is ridiculous. If anything it's not the team's fault that the initial director left the project and they effectively started over under serious time pressure, having to use assets already created, with an engine that never ran at an acceptable frame rate on console until they changed the lighting at the last second.
Basically the team that finished dark souls 2 got a raw deal in multiple ways and viewed through the lens of "this was a brutal development cycle" it's actually a miracle it's as good as it is (to which ymmv but as I've said I'm quite fond of it, gripes aside.)
The notable jump in quality for the dlc bears this out, I believe.
but will ask aren't you suppose to die the first time you meet seath? my memory of that is foggy but I believe that's suppose to happen.
I think that's the main thing I dislike about the B-team talk, aside from being insulting: it mixes up differences in approach with actual inferiority. To me, DS2 is a wonderful combination of refinements, subversions, and flaws. It was such an interesting experience going through it after being so immersed in DS1.
Shame we're in this pre-DS3 phase where people are rushing through the games. The Ivory King DLC is probably my favorite of the bunch. So good.
Based on what people have said earlier about the import thread, I'm looking forward to seeing how the OT for the Western release goes. It could be a beautiful, beautiful thing...or we could get a combination of constant DS2 shitting, and importers doing that thing some Game of Thrones book readers do in the show thread.
Yep. It also just doesn't acknowledge that there's a not insignificant group of people who adore DS2 - for them, invoking the "B-team" thing is meaningless. Miyazaki recently mentioned in an interview that you saw the preferences of a different director in DS2, which particularly manifested itself in terms of things like world design. It didn't have the interconnectedness, for example, that Miyazaki loves.
People acting like the DS2 team censored some panties, smh.
You are, but it's pretty dumb because there's no warning and no way to avoid it. The only thing they give you is that you can just walk right back out of the fog wall, although you probably won't know you can do that because you can't anywhere else in the game.
I have to say, considering the stuff this game apparently went through during development, I'm impressed with what Tanimura managed to come up with with the dev team after Shibuya left the project.
Also, the fact that people, including me, were so disappointed with it really only tells you how good the original Dark Souls was.
I rather quite like that because it messes with what you know and sometimes will be exceptions that can be good or bad (be of chaos for example)
I myself don't know too much about the development cycle of the game at first but overall they did a good job with all the obstacles. One point I heard that half the game was done but got scraped because different directors or something.
BB doesn't have much either and DaS3 actually has less interconnections between areas than DaS2 so I'm not entirely sure about that.
From one interview with Tanimura, I think he said that they stopped halfway through development to rethink pretty much the entire game, and ended up having to re-purpose existing assets to fit what they were changing, including entire areas.One point I heard that half the game was done but got scraped because different directors or something.
This is true...the main gripe with DaS2 world layout is that none of it makes sense geographically. BB and DaS3 both feel more like actual worlds despite the lack of initial path choices/overlapping of DaS, than Das2 does to me though.
Like I said I'm up to Harvest Valley and I wanted to ask, I'm doing a Dex/fth build and was wondering what armor sets I should be after at this point. I've been wearing Heide armor for like 10-15 hours now lol, and I prefer medium armor with good agility.
In Undead Burg those are all super weak enemies, not crazy samurai. The whole point of the forest area is that you have to defeat those enemies without triggering more, they give you tons of space to do so. Ghosts die in two hits. And what about the Dukes achieves?For those that think Dark Souls 2 is so much worse when it comes to gang fights.... do you remember Undead Burgh is DS1? Walking up the staircase and having... what? 5-6 enemies on your shit? How bout we go a little further into that area... at no point are any less than 3 enemies aggro'd on you at any given time. The forest area is one giant trap when it comes to gang aggro and don't even get me started on Dukes Archive. How about the ghost house in New Londo Ruins or the multiple "surprise" moments in Tomb of the Giants?
It really isn't so much different in Dark Souls 2.
This is true...the main gripe with DaS2 world layout is that none of it makes sense geographically. BB and DaS3 both feel more like actual worlds despite the lack of initial path choices/overlapping of DaS, than Das2 does to me though.
In Undead Burg those are all super weak enemies, not crazy samurai. The whole point of the forest area is that you have to defeat those enemies without triggering more, they give you tons of space to do so. Ghosts die in two hits. And what about the Dukes achieves?
And that part in the Tomb of the Giants is supposed to be a trap, where the ember is? It's not a whole level.
Everything about DS2 is worse.
In Undead Burg those are all super weak enemies, not crazy samurai. The whole point of the forest area is that you have to defeat those enemies without triggering more, they give you tons of space to do so. Ghosts die in two hits. And what about the Dukes achieves?
And that part in the Tomb of the Giants is supposed to be a trap, where the ember is? It's not a whole level.
Everything about DS2 is worse.
There's always a way to avoid aggroing too many enemies at once in DaS2, just like there was in DaS1. It's not worse, you're just not putting any effort into solving the situations you're faced with.
No no, it's still worse. Stronger enemies that are meant to be fought 1 on 1 and less space to fight them. Way worse if you can't do it as a knight.There's always a way to avoid aggroing too many enemies at once in DaS2, just like there was in DaS1. It's not worse, you're just not putting any effort into solving the situations you're faced with.
Everybody always says that Dark Souls 2's world doesn't make any physical sense, but to me the only truly glaring instance was how you can see Majula, maybe about a half-mile away, from Heide's Tower, but the walkway you take to get there is a casual little jaunt of maybe a couple hundred feet, at best.
Even the Iron Keep, which seems to be everyone's go-to example, doesn't seem that odd to me if you just imagine Earth Peak to be part of the "ascent" and Iron Keep to be a fortress built in/on the crater of a (previously dormant) volcano, or something similar.
It'd be nice if you could see some hint of Iron Keep from Harvest Valley or Earthen Peak, but setting Iron Keep in the crater or "crown" of the volcano means it'd be almost completely hidden from view to anything at a lower elevation.
I suppose Huntsman's Copse feels a little strange, but it's more thematic than geographic. A quick stroll between Copse and Majula switches the sky back and forth between clear and sunny and dark and foreboding.
Except the entire Lost Bastille/ tower areas. Where a stream of those guys comes out of a door no matter what you do, the first boss is the same enemy 3 times, the optional boss is the same enemy SIX times, getting the key requires you to just try over and over and over again because it's impossible not to aggro a pack of dogs (while going down a ladder, even) and there's a bonfire within a group's aggro range. What on earth happened with that area?
No no, it's still worse. Stronger enemies that are meant to be fought 1 on 1 and less space to fight them. Way worse if you can't do it as a knight.
If I recall, there actually is one in the bonfire warp art.I don't see a mountain right near that big windmill, neither!
It's OP and completely unnecessary for most fights. But, for the truly hard fights like Darklurker and the DLC bosses, it doesn't make them completely trivial, just more manageable really. That's why there's so few of the items in the whole game and they're so expensive. Overall, I think it's pretty balanced.Damage taken/2 and damage output*2 for 2 minutes sounds completely OP, the game must be pretty easy with those. You should be able to finish most fights within 2 minutes with a damage output that massive.
I think No Man's Wharf, the Lost Bastille, the Iron Keep (+ Belfry Sol) and Shrine of Amana look really good, too.Also, while on my current replay, alternating between Majula and Heide's had me wondering if those were the first areas that they worked on, or if they were the last. Because it seriously looks like those two areas are the most ambitious compared to practically every other area in the game in terms of aesthetics. Even though Heide's reuses the same mosaic, it doesn't matter because of how great it looks on PC. It's also a pretty small map too, but it looks so good. Until the DLC, only the outside of the Aerie comes close to matching it.
B-b-but Ring of the Living... Best ring...Just skip the Frigid Outskirts.
As someone who will defend Dark Souls 2 fiercely...I've killed the king already, but it's just the Blue Smelter Demon and the Frigid Outskirts left. The Iron Passage is a pain but I just kept going back in and killing the enemies until they no longer respawned, I'm not a fan of the area though as it feels very funneled.
Good question.As opposed to what? I'm really curious what your argument is here. Enemies in Forest of Giants are too complex? At what point are the regular, minion type enemies more difficult to handle in Dark Souls 2 as opposed to Dark Souls 1?
LOL, that's funny. It's like these people forgot how easy most bosses are in the whole series. Especially the non-optional bosses in, say, Bloodborne.Last time I checked the import thread, someone started suggesting the bosses had to be done by the B-Team because there was no way Miyazaki would allow them to be so easy. I'd say the outlook looks pretty grim for the OT.
People acting like the DS2 team censored some panties, smh.
HahahahahaNashandra's got smaller boobs than Gwynevere, this game is a disgrace. Fucking PC culture and SJWs ruining it for everyone!
But... The "crazy samurai" died in two hits too and that's without using a big-ass greatsword or whatever, just a normal weapon like a mace or katana... Ghosts actually typically took more hits depending on my build, their hitboxes and movement were way worse, and the crystal hollows in Duke's Archives took way more than two hits too, I had to constantly fish for backstabs and parries 'cause they have crazy good defense and can totally swarm you.In Undead Burg those are all super weak enemies, not crazy samurai. The whole point of the forest area is that you have to defeat those enemies without triggering more, they give you tons of space to do so. Ghosts die in two hits. And what about the Dukes achieves?
Actually... for one thing, you can funnel them through the door so it's not like you need to fight six guys surrounding you. And for another thing, if you need to return there to fight the boss, you can skip them if you open the door-to-nowhere shortcut.Except the entire Lost Bastille/ tower areas. Where a stream of those guys comes out of a door no matter what you do
If I recall, there actually is one in the bonfire warp art.
Checked, yep.
Guess it got removed at some point, and they just never changed the art.
They also just left the name as "Earthen Peak" despite there not really being a big peak nearby.
No no, it's still worse. Stronger enemies that are meant to be fought 1 on 1 and less space to fight them. Way worse if you can't do it as a knight.
(Wait, I'm doing it again... aggh.)
Aye. I have been starting to use the ignore feature of a forum for the first time in my life. xDAfter every Dark Souls 2 thread: "Okay, I really should stop wasting my time making the same arguments over and over again. From now on, I shan't argue the merits of Dark Souls 2 anymore."
The very next day:
"goddamit neogaf, here we go again..."
Every single one of those mofos get aggroed at once (plus that dancing channeller the first time around):
It's the biggest gank squad in the series.
After every Dark Souls 2 thread: "Okay, I really should stop wasting my time making the same arguments over and over again. From now on, I shan't argue the merits of Dark Souls 2 anymore."
The very next day:
"goddamit neogaf, here we go again..."
And super easy to destroy since you can force them to run through a narrow hallway in almost single file. There's not really any comparing the gank squads in Dark Souls to Dark Souls 2. They're simply everywhere in the second game.
The conflicting reports of SotFS regarding even more of them is what has prevented me from bothering with it too. Some say there's less, while most say there's even more than before.
Actually... for one thing, you can funnel them through the door so it's not like you need to fight six guys surrounding you. And for another thing, if you need to return there to fight the boss, you can skip them if you open the door-to-nowhere shortcut.
Dude, that's not true at all.And which are these? Because the samurai die in two shots with basically every weapon, unless you flat out kill them instantly.
It's funny, after years of "gank squad" criticisms of DS2 I finally went back and played DS1 again for the umpteenth time, making special note of the scenarios that pit multiple attackers at you at once and...well, it's the entire game.
-Undead Burg has 5 major encounters and they are all with 3+ enemies, all aggroing at the same time. Lower Burg is specifically setup to have you face no less than 3 enemies (with counter attacks!) and a dog at every encounter.
-Darkroot is generally 2+ tree ents at once, though generally it's 3 or more. Even the crystal golems come at you 2 at a time usually. The section where you fight the NPC player lookalikes is always 2 or 3 at a time, all with varied movesets. And at the bottom of the Basin, there's the part when they throw 7 or 8 of the stingray creatures at you.
-Anor Londo will throw two giants at you at once unless you fiddle with their aggro range.
-Painted world is generally 3+ bloated hollows, with ranged and melee attacks. They'll also throw 2 or 3 of the tough crows at you at once. Oh, and 2 or 3 wheelie skellingtons.
-Catacombs is always 2 or 3 skellingtons that also revive and/or shoot arrows at you. Plus wheelies.
- Tomb of Giants has entire rooms with 3 or 4 giant skeletons plus the room with 6 pinwheels (and baby skellingtons).
- Depths has rooms with 2 dogs plus hollows plus cleaver monsters. And rooms with 4 or 5 rats (possibly with a channeler to power them up) plus slimes.
-Blighttown is riddled with 3 ghoul encounters, 2+ bloated ghoul encounters, and fights against 2 or 3 firebreathing dogs at the bottom of ladders. Plus Toxin spitting wood men at a distance. At the bottom, there's the sections with 2 or 3 bloated ghouls plus constant fly nuisances. Through a poison bog.
- Duke's has usually 2 or 3 crystal skeletons with a channeler constantly firing bolts at you. At the bottom of the jail, there's the section where you fight 8 horrors at once. And 2 or 3 snake men.
- Sen's is pretty reserved. But it's more about traps.
- Sunken Londo is all ghosts all the time, with their ability to phase through floors and walls and their god-awful attack hit boxes. Not to mention the one room with the screamer that has, like, 5 ghosts attack at once.
So yeah, it's literally the entire game. That's Dark Souls. I don't agree with people who say that DS's combat breaks down when fighting multiple enemies; it doesn't, it just changes the balance of what you need to pay attention to. Instead of just reading attacks and dodging and backstabbing, you have to control space, be aware of your surroundings and use the collision boxes of enemies to keep them in line so they don't sequence break your guard (or stun lock you to death). It negates (or at least lessens) the ability for the ALMIGHTY FAST ROLL to defeat any and all encounters without thought. With multiple enemies, you have to actually think and control space.
The fighting mechanics don't break down with multiple opponents, they shine by breaking down the monotony of just dodge roll and attack.
Dude, that's not true at all.
Except that every ambush with simian numbers in ds2 also funnels them really hard, and makes them fragile, and in cases where there is no funnel, significantly less aggressive.
I think that might be it for me. Everything from the backstabs to the attacks to the rolls feel unresponsive compared to DeS/DaS/BB.
Like I said I'm up to Harvest Valley and I wanted to ask, I'm doing a Dex/fth build and was wondering what armor sets I should be after at this point. I've been wearing Heide armor for like 10-15 hours now lol, and I prefer medium armor with good agility.
So yeah, it's literally the entire game..
Great post! I'm bookmarking this for future linking/quoting use, if you don't mind. I'll nitpick and say that you can generally fight forest NPCs one at the time but you need to very carefully draw out their aggro and never move around too much (go in too deep) when fighting one 'cause you'll certainly draw the aggro of the other.It's funny, after years of "gank squad" criticisms of DS2 I finally went back and played DS1 again for the umpteenth time, making special note of the scenarios that pit multiple attackers at you at once and...well, it's the entire game.
-Undead Burg has 5 major encounters and they are all with 3+ enemies, all aggroing at the same time. Lower Burg is specifically setup to have you face no less than 3 enemies (with counter attacks!) and a dog at every encounter.
-Darkroot is generally 2+ tree ents at once, though generally it's 3 or more. Even the crystal golems come at you 2 at a time usually. The section where you fight the NPC player lookalikes is always 2 or 3 at a time, all with varied movesets. And at the bottom of the Basin, there's the part when they throw 7 or 8 of the stingray creatures at you.
-Anor Londo will throw two giants at you at once unless you fiddle with their aggro range.
-Painted world is generally 3+ bloated hollows, with ranged and melee attacks. They'll also throw 2 or 3 of the tough crows at you at once. Oh, and 2 or 3 wheelie skellingtons.
-Catacombs is always 2 or 3 skellingtons that also revive and/or shoot arrows at you. Plus wheelies.
- Tomb of Giants has entire rooms with 3 or 4 giant skeletons plus the room with 6 pinwheels (and baby skellingtons).
- Depths has rooms with 2 dogs plus hollows plus cleaver monsters. And rooms with 4 or 5 rats (possibly with a channeler to power them up) plus slimes.
-Blighttown is riddled with 3 ghoul encounters, 2+ bloated ghoul encounters, and fights against 2 or 3 firebreathing dogs at the bottom of ladders. Plus Toxin spitting wood men at a distance. At the bottom, there's the sections with 2 or 3 bloated ghouls plus constant fly nuisances. Through a poison bog.
- Duke's has usually 2 or 3 crystal skeletons with a channeler constantly firing bolts at you. At the bottom of the jail, there's the section where you fight 8 horrors at once. And 2 or 3 snake men.
- Sen's is pretty reserved. But it's more about traps.
- Sunken Londo is all ghosts all the time, with their ability to phase through floors and walls and their god-awful attack hit boxes. Not to mention the one room with the screamer that has, like, 5 ghosts attack at once.
So yeah, it's literally the entire game. That's Dark Souls. I don't agree with people who say that DS's combat breaks down when fighting multiple enemies; it doesn't, it just changes the balance of what you need to pay attention to. Instead of just reading attacks and dodging and backstabbing, you have to control space, be aware of your surroundings and use the collision boxes of enemies to keep them in line so they don't sequence break your guard (or stun lock you to death). It negates (or at least lessens) the ability for the ALMIGHTY FAST ROLL to defeat any and all encounters without thought. With multiple enemies, you have to actually think and control space.
The fighting mechanics don't break down with multiple opponents, they shine by breaking down the monotony of just dodge roll and attack.
I didn't realize the game only had that many encounters.
Great post! I'm bookmarking this for future linking/quoting use, if you don't mind. I'll nitpick and say that you can generally fight forest NPCs one at the time but you need to very carefully draw out their aggro and never move around too much (go in too deep) when fighting one 'cause you'll certainly draw the aggro of the other.
I'll add:
- Multiple Capra Demons before the bonfire in Demon Ruins. Can be lured one by one somewhat, but usually it's two by two.
- The clams before Seath. Again, can be carefully lured with a bow, but typically you'll aggro at least two, if not three, at the same time. And these assholes have poise, tons of HP/defense, weird hitboxes, and grab attacks, the whole trifecta of Souls annoyance!
- Darkroot Garden before the Butterfly, that ambush with at least two tree-things and one stone guardian.
- Royal Woods frequently has several pitchfork/scissor wielders, and often mixed with those golem guardians (who have tons of HP and defense too and AOE attacks).
- Oolacile Township has several encounters with multiple Bloated Heads, often with a sorcerer casting strong dark magic from afar while you try to fight the melee attackers.
- The humanity-stealing ghosts in the Chasm of the Abyss are always in groups.
I'm sure I'm forgetting some. But of course these don't count, because reasons!
Every area? What about Ash Lake? Pffft you know nothing! Have you even played the game?It's "literally" the entire game in that: every area has multi enemy encounters. Every area. Not every encounter, but every area. The entire game.
Oh yeah I forgot about that tree, lol.Well, the hydra has like 7 heads so I'll allow it, even though he regularly kills himself when I go through there somehow, but that's just good game design. Also, if the tree counts, I'm pretty sure curse frogs ambush you.
Isn't that in the Great Hollow? I recall only one big mushroom in that small tree in Ash Lake, along with some basilisks. Not that it matters, haha.Also, you face multiple mushroom people at once.
Well, the hydra has like 7 heads so I'll allow it, even though he regularly kills himself when I go through there somehow, but that's just good game design. Also, if the tree counts, I'm pretty sure curse frogs ambush you.
Oh yeah I forgot about that tree, lol.
Isn't that in the Great Hollow? I recall only one big mushroom in that small tree in Ash Lake, along with some basilisks. Not that it matters, haha.
Going off a similar note, I am hearing the phrase "the real Dark Souls 2" or "the sequel we should have gotten" about Dark Souls 3. And I'm hearing it a looot. And while I get where it's coming from, I find it equally dismissive and inflammatory towards the Dark Souls 2 team.
I'm not rushing through it though, I've pretty much done everything and explored all the DLC apart from the Frigid Outskirts. I've been playing for over 100 hours currently, this is my original play through.
BB doesn't have much either and DaS3 actually has about as many interconnections between areas as DaS2 so I'm not entirely sure about that.
Haha, guy didn't even read the OP and just brought his axe to grind.
Oh yeah I forgot about that tree, lol.
What is your avatar from, btw?
Isn't that in the Great Hollow? I recall only one big mushroom in that small tree in Ash Lake, along with some basilisks. Not that it matters, haha.