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sinner might not be literally wearing armor but I don't think sinner(and absolutely not looking glass knight, who is just an armored guy with a gimmick that doesn't normally matter(also like lost sinner)) is meaningfully distinct from the ds2 armored dudes category.
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Oct 18, 2019 12:53
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skasion posted:There’s four really good bosses in DS2, ironically all big armor dudes, Velstadt, Raime, Alonne, and Ivory. Any one of those guys could slot right into any other game in the series and not be embarrassed (well, maybe not Ivory with his goofy add portals). Every other boss is ok at best though (the best of the rest is probably Smelter, another big armor dude, or just maybe Sentinels, three big armor dudes), with many that are very forgettable, and that sucks because there’s a LOT of bosses in the game. As with most things in DS2 they were too ambitious for their resources. You could halve the number of bosses in the game and no one would miss them Elana, Sinh, and Aava are all pretty good in the DLC, too. I like Pursuer, Lost Sinner, Looking Glass Knight, and Throne Defender & Throne Watcher a lot, too. Granted, that is a lot of humanoids with weapons, and I always figured that was largely because it was easier for the team to design a challenging-but-fun humanoid boss than an inhuman one. There are quite a lot of inhuman ones or sorta-humanoid ones that don't follow what I'd call a "duel" format (In addition to Sinh and Aava, I'd label the complete list of that as: The Last Giant, Belfry Gargoyles, Skeleton Lords, Executioner's Chariot, Covetous Demon, Mytha, Old Iron King, Scorpioness Najka, both the ratbro bosses, Magus & Congregation, Duke's Dear Freja, The Rotten, Demon of Song, Guardian Dragon, Ancient Dragon, Giant Lord, Nashandra, Aldia, Darklurker, Aava 2 + Aava 3.) There's a couple that are sorta hybrids of "humanoid with a weapon you duel" and "weird thing" in my mind (Vendrik and Flexile Sentry). The main issue to me is that most of the bosses aren't nearly as memorable as the best ones and tend to blend together as a constant white noise hum of big, dumb, and easy. Except for Magus & Congregation, which is just on a "why even?" level for me. There's nothing that's quite such a low point in DS2 as Bed of Chaos, but there's a lot more bosses on the Pinwheel level of "well that looked interesting but it just died so fast" level.
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Oct 18, 2019 13:05
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YF-23 posted:and encounters designed to overwhelm you moreso than challenge you. Like, it's chill if you just don't like that kind of encounter design as much as DS1's "okay everything is positioned for you to fight 1v1" or DS3's "the early game lets you fight 1v1, then you are expected to straight shot run from meaningful enemy to meaningful enemy," or Bloodborne's "DS3, but done good," or Sekiro's "it's actually a rhythm game," or whatever else, but maaaan. I've seen so many complaints that amount to "dark souls 2 isn't challenging because it kills you by overwhelming you with enemies instead of killing you in the manner i personally prefer." To me, Gargoyles in DS1 sucks because it's a boring slow plodding fight that has you fight one easily telegraphed dude, gives you a minute of "it's about to get fun" when the second gargoyle comes down, then it's back to the DS1 school of Puzzle Fighting where you're not really in danger unless you get cocky. DS2's Gargoyles fight made me fearful; the game taught me, with the doorway to the Sentinels, that fighting multiple enemies here is just about patience. Then, when fighting the Sentinels, it had me run around more agile than before, but still had me play patient. The rooftop where you ring the bell was a little more hectic, what with the five-ish enemies running around and the invader all tryna kill me at once, but it still felt like I could apply the lessons from the last two encounters and I'd be fine. I'd relaxed to the style of what I thought multiple enemy fights were going to be, and then it's Gargoyles. You try and play patient? More gargoyles come, you die. You try to go fast? More gargoyles come, you die. You try to do anything other than a desperate panic towards survival, narrowly scraping underneath two boss's crossed halberds while two more guys fly in the air and a fifth blasts fire at you? You die. It made me feel like the onus wasn't just on me doing The Dull Pattern, but it was on me to get desperate. And like, now, I rarely die to that fight, because it's solvable, but it's still a phenomenal battle and sequence of encounters that does what other Souls games don't: it teaches you hope, because you start to get confident in how to fight This Kinda Thing, then it tears the hope away. gently caress, DS2 is built exactly how I want a Souls game to play. Luckily for everyone, my bad opinions aren't really shared with anyone at From, so y'all aren't likely to have to play this kinda game again, but maaaaaan.
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Oct 18, 2019 13:11
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Just gonna throw this out there, but the actual problem with the gargoyles from DS1 is that it's just the Maneater fight from DeS.
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Oct 18, 2019 14:10
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Maneater is way harder than DS1 Gargoyles, as it should be given their relative locations in the game. The individual enemies are more threatening, they mix periods of extreme aggression with periods where they just gently caress off to space, the second one has a full healthbar, the runback and the general atmosphere of the fight is much scarier and the arena is more hostile than even the DS2 gargoyle arena let alone the church roof in DS1. God drat Latria kicks rear end. I’m getting chills just thingken of maneaters DS1 is just a therapeutic stomp version of the maneaters to butter up DeS veterans basically.
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Oct 18, 2019 14:47
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Whalley posted:see I see this criticism constantly put forwards about DS2 Almost every criticism leveled against DS2 - encounter design, too many armored dudes, dime turn enemy tracking - are basically bullshit "Well... I don't like it!' stuff rather than actual things and like you said that's fine if that's not your bag (except enemy tracking because literally every From game after does the same thing and people love Bloodborne) but people act like it's an objective failing of the game every time. Souls does stupid things to peoples opinions. Fully granted that ADP and Soul Memory were abysmal failures in formula experimentation. Orv fucked around with this message at 14:56 on Oct 18, 2019 |
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Oct 18, 2019 14:51
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Gay Rat Wedding posted:Scholar made it a lot worse after they decided the best way to improve the area was to just slam ctrl-V a million times on the alonne knights This is true! Iron Keep is one of those areas that got just so much worse in SotFS (the million knights, them spotting you from across the map and doing the silly run, and the removal of the ember making it so exploration was pointless and you wasted your time). That said even the knights aren't really "overwhelming", since there never really is a spot when they attack you en masse instead of being a long chain of the same guy with no breaks inbetween. Hbomb's video was really weird and backwards and it felt like a complicated psyop to make people hate DS2 more lmao.
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Oct 18, 2019 15:12
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skasion posted:Maneater is way harder than DS1 Gargoyles, as it should be given their relative locations in the game. The individual enemies are more threatening, they mix periods of extreme aggression with periods where they just gently caress off to space, the second one has a full healthbar, the runback and the general atmosphere of the fight is much scarier and the arena is more hostile than even the DS2 gargoyle arena let alone the church roof in DS1. God drat Latria kicks rear end. I’m getting chills just thingken of maneaters All of this is true, and I definitely considered mentioning some of it when I posted. I mostly just figured that the important part was to draw the connection, not analyze the various ways they aren't identical. Unlike Stray Demon and Demon Firesage, which are identical bosses (except for the different boss model and arena shape, I guess.)
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Oct 18, 2019 15:15
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Orv posted:Almost every criticism leveled against DS2 - encounter design, too many armored dudes, dime turn enemy tracking - are basically bullshit "Well... I don't like it!' stuff rather than actual things and like you said that's fine if that's not your bag (except enemy tracking because literally every From game after does the same thing and people love Bloodborne) but people act like it's an objective failing of the game every time. Souls does stupid things to peoples opinions. Eh, I think it's a fair enough criticism to say that DSII has more large open areas with numerous enemies as opposed to DSI's more varied map design. II has so many more wider hallways and larger, open areas that it's very easy to just learn a playstyle that works for you, autopilot through an encounter not have to worry about environmental factors very often. I like DSII and think it has great art direction and world design, but in terms of level design I don't remember fighting against geography or having to carefully consider my movement very much.
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Oct 18, 2019 15:24
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Calico Heart posted:Eh, I think it's a fair enough criticism to say that DSII has more large open areas with numerous enemies as opposed to DSI's more varied map design. And! it's one that implies all of Dark Souls 2 is built like the Darkroot Garden/Basin or the Ash Lake or the base of Blight Town! As if No Man's Wharf, or the Earthen Peak, or the gutter, or Black Gulch, or a good half of the Iron Keep, or most of Drangleic Castle, or most of the Dragon Aerie, or honestly more than half the game doesn't count, because it's not That Bullshit Unfun Area of Anor Londo where you don't even get to approach half the encounters, because the enemies kill themselves running to you or you get knocked off by a ranged attack. Wungus fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Oct 18, 2019 |
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Oct 18, 2019 15:44
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Re-read what I posted. The point I'm making is "less varied environments coupled with similar enemies leads to a stagnant and unchallenging playstyle". When I play DSII if I enter an area I've completely forgotten about and can't remember the layout of, I don't feel like I have to be any more cautious or change up how I approach the game at all. Darkroot Garden had plenty of narrower pathways, edges to be wary of and the enemies are built around ambushes/coming out of nowhere (bush people spring up from the ground, tree snakes that surprise you, stone people who slowly come back to life, gank squad in the forest and spinning cat things). Ash Lake is more a story area and no one spends a long time there. Blight Town is a giant area sure, but it's not meant to be "an area where you fight some dudes" - it's meant to be a large, hostile area that slows you down to get destroyed. You need to plan your route out to avoid enemies and have items ready to negate poison and then think about the fatties with rocks and Bad Bugs. There are loads of great areas in DSII - you gave some good examples! But even some of the ones you noted I don't ever remember feeling like I had to be aware of the map layout or geography at all. Even some of the gimmicky and different areas like Earthern Peak and the Shrouded Woods seem to have their hazards designed to be [i]just[/i[ short enough to not actually need to be thought about and just dashed through. The area you have to actually be careful traversing the most (outside of DLC) was Shrine of Amana - which was a cool change of pace even if it was a bit frustrating.
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Oct 18, 2019 16:12
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I dont think it's right that dks2 gets the reputation as the game that tries to overwhelm you with numbers when dks1 and dks3 are both just as guilty. The real difference is that enemies in dks2 are quicker and more aggressive, and there's less option to tediously pull each encounter 1 by 1. This is also the case for dks3, but somehow this point only ever gets brought up with dks2.
Rubellavator fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Oct 18, 2019 |
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Oct 18, 2019 16:33
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Dark Souls 2 throws way more enemies at you at once then 1 and 3. Not every area in those games is the runnup to the cathedral. No Man's Wharf is the best (worst?) example of this.
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Oct 18, 2019 16:36
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punk rebel ecks posted:Dark Souls 2 throws way more enemies at you at once then 1 and 3. Not every area in those games is the runnup to the cathedral. I kinda like the wharf though - kinda. I love how Combat heavy it is and how it feels like you’re infiltrating this place you’re not supposed to be, but in-world I don’t know if that’s intentional as they are just a punch of hollow pirates and some monsters for some reason
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Oct 18, 2019 16:40
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dark souls 2: here are five guys waiting for you in a room dark souls 3: here's a guy who if he hits you will stunlock you for his entire fifteen move combo
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Oct 18, 2019 16:40
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I always preferred 2's focus on managing groups of enemies over the other games focus on smaller groups and single combat. A lot of people say it's a negative but it's always been one of my favorite parts.
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Oct 18, 2019 16:41
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punk rebel ecks posted:Dark Souls 2 throws way more enemies at you at once then 1 and 3. Not every area in those games is the runnup to the cathedral. Like people just forget about New Londo or Darkroot Garden or the DLC areas or even Undead Burg or Painted Ariamis or the Graveyard or the Catacombs or The Tomb of the Giants or Blighttown
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Oct 18, 2019 16:43
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punk rebel ecks posted:Dark Souls 2 throws way more enemies at you at once then 1 and 3. Not every area in those games is the runnup to the cathedral. DS3 throws groups of enemies at you all the time.
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Oct 18, 2019 16:49
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Rubellavator posted:Like people just forget about New Londo or Darkroot Garden or the DLC areas or even Undead Burg or Painted Ariamis or the Graveyard or the Catacombs or The Tomb of the Giants or Blighttown I don't recall mobs of enemies attacking me in these areas. Except the Catacombs which was very annoying. To be fair there were parts in Painted Ariamis and New Londo, but they were just that, segments.
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Oct 18, 2019 16:55
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Playing through remastered recently I actually really enjoyed New Londo and Blight Town. Weird as I usually just loving dash through those areas as quickly as I can.
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Oct 18, 2019 16:57
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Calico Heart posted:I kinda like the wharf though - kinda. I love how Combat heavy it is and how it feels like you’re infiltrating this place you’re not supposed to be, but in-world I don’t know if that’s intentional as they are just a punch of hollow pirates and some monsters for some reason The wharf has probably the best sense of place of any zone in the base game. It’s a dark, hidden, ramshackle port settlement in a sea cave full of undead Vikings. It doesn’t really make any sense if you think about it, but that doesn’t matter because it’s well presented. Right from the start you’re shown the whole zone, it’s right there in front of you, but you have to take a circuitous route through it, heading up and down stairs, passing through houses, lighting torches and eventually the big lamp, opening the gate, kicking down the shortcut bridge: all this is to reinforce the idea that you are figuring things out, progressing through the area. The pirates, hollows, and dogs aren’t exactly thrilling enemies, but they’re challenging enough for low level characters and the designers do a good job placing them in interesting ways. It’s not just a mob of dudes, it’s a mixture of single enemies, ranged enemies, tougher enemies with support, stealth kill opportunities, traps/ambushes. Eventually you work your way to a ruined, abandoned, darker section of the town inhabited by freaky monsters, but if you press on you can summon the ship and get out. Which is flooding for no reason and to no effect other than to make it slightly harder to fight the two lizardmen with their asses stapled together who live in the ship’s hold and maybe eventually kill you if you’re really slow, but otherwise you can just sail the boat off to wherever no problem. So it kind of goes off the rails conceptually a bit at the end there but if every zone was as deep as the Wharf, people wouldn’t complain about the DS2 map nearly as much.
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Oct 18, 2019 16:58
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punk rebel ecks posted:"Dark Souls 2 has better bosses because most of them are humanoid. Beast and other type of bosses suck. Think about it, Dark Souls 1's non-humanoid bosses almost all suck. Including Siff since he was only good due to lore." Holy hell this hbombs guy sucks. I'm never going to watch one of his videos after reading this but he sounds so loving far up his own rear end as an "influencer" that he's completely forgotten what it's like to be a normal human being playing these games. Nobody knows anything about lore the first time they play these games and Sif is loving awesome and memorable and a fun fight. It's a giant dog with a sword in her mouth, which should be stupid but the game plays it completely straight and pulls it off perfectly
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Oct 18, 2019 19:10
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feelix posted:Holy hell this hbombs guy sucks. I'm never going to watch one of his videos after reading this but he sounds so loving far up his own rear end as an "influencer"
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Oct 18, 2019 19:25
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Amppelix posted:lmao "Sif [or any other boss for that matter] is only good due to lore" is a statement that only a person that is way too immersed in the Souls community and completely lost touch with actually playing the games could make. Lore is not important to playing the games. It's important to keeping us talking about them and thinking about them 10 years later.
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Oct 18, 2019 19:45
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feelix posted:"Sif [or any other boss for that matter] is only good due to lore" is a statement that only a person that is way too immersed in the Souls community and completely lost touch with actually playing the games could make. Lore is not important to playing the games. It's important to keeping us talking about them and thinking about them 10 years later. lmao
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Oct 18, 2019 19:47
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Well gently caress me for trying to have a discussion on a discussion forum, this is coolposting zone now
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Oct 18, 2019 19:51
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"I haven't and will never watch this guy, but here's my opinion on him based on a single sentence by a third party" is a great way to start a constructive discussion, sure
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Oct 18, 2019 20:00
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feelix posted:"Sif [or any other boss for that matter] is only good due to lore" is a statement that only a person that is way too immersed in the Souls community and completely lost touch with actually playing the games could make. Lore is not important to playing the games. It's important to keeping us talking about them and thinking about them 10 years later. Lore is 100% important to playing the game. If the game was boring I wouldn't play it regardless of how good its gameplay was.
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Oct 18, 2019 20:39
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Here's the video in question FWIW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRTfcMeqhig
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Oct 18, 2019 20:52
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I really like hbomberguy, mainly his non-game content like the climate denial and woke brands videos, but he sometimes has some extremely myopic takes that tend to overfocus on some specific quality he’s deemed the Most Important Thing and doesn’t look at things very holistically. it’s fine to focus on comparing something against a very specific thesis, but you can’t always use that one comparison to judge the quality of the whole thing
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Oct 18, 2019 21:08
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Hbomb is only good for Donkey Kong Trans Rights
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Oct 18, 2019 21:09
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I like hbomb AND DS2 but his DS2 defence video really really sucks Also lol the lore is important to the game and sure plenty of folks pick up on none of it the first time through but plenty of others do
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Oct 18, 2019 21:12
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Hbomberguy's Fallout 3 video was great. I'll give him that.Calico Heart posted:I like hbomb AND DS2 but his DS2 defence video really really sucks The point is that Sif is still a good fight even taking the lore out.
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Oct 18, 2019 21:16
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The scholar version of Dragon Shrine with the honorable duels against the giant drakekeepers is better than Anor Londo, as is the scholar version of Drangleic Castle with all the enemies and minibosses from previous areas spread throughout it. Dark souls 2 was a great game, but scholar of the first sin is what puts it squarely at the top of the list for me.
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Oct 19, 2019 00:04
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feelix posted:"Sif [or any other boss for that matter] is only good due to lore" is a statement that only a person that is way too immersed in the Souls community and completely lost touch with actually playing the games could make. Lore is not important to playing the games. It's important to keeping us talking about them and thinking about them 10 years later. If it makes you feel better, hbomb doesn't actually say that. He says that Artorias is far and away the ideal souls fight and strongest of the DS1 bosses, which is also in line with the general consensus of DS1. The only namedrop Sif gets is mentioning that you can beat her to challenge the Four Kings before you lay the Lordvessel.
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Oct 19, 2019 01:21
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Bogart posted:Hbomb is only good for Donkey Kong Trans Rights  punk rebel ecks posted:Hbomberguy's Fallout 3 video was great. I'll give him that.
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Oct 19, 2019 02:18
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All the DS2 talk as of late reminded me that I haven’t played vanilla DS2 yet, I only played Scholar. Last night I started a playthrough of vanilla and so far it really seems like DS2 easy mode. Fewer enemies, things in different places, etc. It’s got that same general feel of scholar though so I’m feeling right at home. Personally scholar is my favorite souls game and this basically feels like playing a remix of it. If you’ve played scholar but not vanilla, try it out!
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Oct 20, 2019 15:33
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DS2 and FO3 are great and hbomb is a bastard man
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Oct 20, 2019 15:42
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RBA Starblade posted:DS2 and FO3 are great and hbomb is a bastard man
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Oct 20, 2019 21:15
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It was okay for the time. Only New Vegas showed that you can have that fun exploration and also good story.
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Oct 21, 2019 14:24
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