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John Murdoch posted:In DS1, realizing that at some point you're gonna have to run across the bridge being firebombed even though you know there's hollows immediately on the other side ready to ambush you is a rite of passage and I think is meant to teach you to try to stay on the aggressive. Meanwhile, it feels like there's a number of spots in 2 where if you try to be aggressive in the same way suddenly like six enemies speed in from nowhere and immediately punish you for it. It's not always a super noticeable thing but I think it's what bugs me about 2's design and probably feeds the (otherwise kinda inaccurate) "they just copy and pasted enemies everywhere" complaints. Yeah, I generally agree with hbomb's assessment that DS2 chose to focus on testing different skills than those tested by DS1, primarily with much more of an emphasis on crowd control, spacing, and finding advantageous spaces to fight, as opposed to DS1 favouring aggression and generally dealing with enemies close to the point they're placed on the map. This is really apparent with the number of "gank squad" bosses (Chariot, Skeleton Lords, the rats, the church, the duo dragonriders...) that tend to get particularly maligned in the community. Honestly, even before I'd seen Hbomb's vid, I loved all those bosses. The only one I thought was a bit poo poo was the royal rat authority, but its by no means worse than DS1's capra demon. This also makes all 3 games unique, each taking a different aspect of the souls formula and pushing it to the forefront - DS1's the neutral position, DS2 is careful and favours slower & strategic play, DS3 is quick and reactive and actively punishes slow play. It means all 3 are still worth playing for their own reasons, none of them quite supplant what the others are doing. That still holds true when you add Demon's and Bloodborne to the list too Random thought - I wonder if the decision to make enemies have a maximum respawn limit in DS2 was because they knew they were making a game that leant itself to slower, more considered combat, which would have made struggling boss runs awful without a mechanic to allievate them. It doesn't always work (I've just been fighting the Smelter Demon in SotFS and the trek back each time I died really drags), but it helps
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Sep 26, 2021 20:46
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Raylax posted:Yeah, I generally agree with hbomb's assessment that DS2 chose to focus on testing different skills than those tested by DS1, primarily with much more of an emphasis on crowd control, spacing, and finding advantageous spaces to fight, as opposed to DS1 favouring aggression and generally dealing with enemies close to the point they're placed on the map. This is really apparent with the number of "gank squad" bosses (Chariot, Skeleton Lords, the rats, the church, the duo dragonriders...) that tend to get particularly maligned in the community. Honestly, even before I'd seen Hbomb's vid, I loved all those bosses. The only one I thought was a bit poo poo was the royal rat authority, but its by no means worse than DS1's capra demon. Really, the only "gank" boss anyone ever complains about being bad because of the adds is the Royal Rat Authority. I don't think I've ever seen anyone hate on the Chariot (I'd call it a puzzles boss though) or the Skeleton Lords. The dual Dragonriders get dumped on for being a copy+paste or part of the "dudes in armor thing" people claim DS2 has an overwhelming number of. The Magus and Congregation is... well it's an insult to the existence of the boss bar. But the only time I saw them used as part of a "ugh gank squad" complaint was that original MatthewMetosis video, and I think everyone agreed it was a flimsy complaint because obviously you just need to cut a path to the annoying targets to kill first and the only way you'd have any trouble with them is if you somehow missed that you can change lockon targets or just.... not lock on? Raylax posted:This also makes all 3 games unique, each taking a different aspect of the souls formula and pushing it to the forefront - DS1's the neutral position, DS2 is careful and favours slower & strategic play, DS3 is quick and reactive and actively punishes slow play. It means all 3 are still worth playing for their own reasons, none of them quite supplant what the others are doing. That still holds true when you add Demon's and Bloodborne to the list too You can be pretty fast and reckless in DS2, but it's like 3 in that there are more enemies that punish you for being... I guess "sloppy" or just "lazy." Early 2 still has a fair share of sleepy enemies who will let you drift casually behind them for a backstab like in 1, but those start going away by the time you get to the middle of the game. Scholar mixed it up some and distributed some more challenging enemies everywhere, but 3 had it pretty much immediately. Your basic undead in 3 can be pretty nasty but you don't have to walk too far before you hit the Lothric Knights and really have to pay attention. I'd agree the despawning mechanic is primarily there for boss runs. I don't know if it was considered necessary as a pacing mechanism specifically for 2 like you're suggesting, but boss runs were always a complaint in Demon's Souls and DS1. A lot of the big change ups in 2 were the team trying to address every complaint everyone had with the series so far. And then like a lot of other tweaks they made, they also threw a couple other "fixes" at it like just planting bonfires a short trot from some bosses and not others so idk what was up with that.
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Sep 26, 2021 21:20
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Raylax posted:Yeah, I generally agree with hbomb's assessment that DS2 chose to focus on testing different skills than those tested by DS1, primarily with much more of an emphasis on crowd control, spacing, and finding advantageous spaces to fight, as opposed to DS1 favouring aggression and generally dealing with enemies close to the point they're placed on the map. This is really apparent with the number of "gank squad" bosses (Chariot, Skeleton Lords, the rats, the church, the duo dragonriders...) that tend to get particularly maligned in the community. Honestly, even before I'd seen Hbomb's vid, I loved all those bosses. The only one I thought was a bit poo poo was the royal rat authority, but its by no means worse than DS1's capra demon. To be clear, I like all of the fights you mentioned as well. To me the distinction is down to how much freedom the player has to approach things as they like. There's a difference between an open-ended gang of enemies (something like, I dunno, the boat in Hangman's Wharf) you can more or less handle as you like vs. specific encounters that are so strict that you basically must approach them in one single way. And if that way involves pulling them really far out of their usual configuration, then nah, I'm just gonna call that a poo poo encounter. I make comparisons to MMOs a lot with DS2 already but that sort of pull-heavy nonsense is not something I'm looking for.
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Sep 27, 2021 07:16
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Pulling and kiting in a souls game is really loving annoying and not a skill I want to test, personally
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Sep 27, 2021 07:37
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I like it. I have to have to employ way more spacial awareness in DS2 than in basically any other entry, and I often have to do it on the fly - I'm often scanning around for ranged attackers and potential safe fighting spots while being pursued, and also being careful not to end up with even more attention from enemies I haven't yet aggroed. And if there isn't a safe spot, I have to approach combat differently - get an attack in & move because if I just sit there tapping R1 I'm going to get eviscerated. Or maybe I should ignore the guy with the sword entirely and go after the ranged attackers first, and then deal with swordy once they're dispatched. I feel like I'm coming up with my own solutions to scenarios rather than just doing what the game is obviously telegraphing me to do. Which, I dunno, feels pretty Dark Souls to me. DS1 requires you to learn enemy attack timings but its otherwise pretty brainless - run to enemy, block/dodge/parry attack, counterattack and hopefully stunlock them to death, win. There's a few points where you have to properly consider spacing (the horde of undead before the gargoyles, especially if the cleric's just buffed them all; the crystal hollows in the archives backed up by their longbow mates, etc) but for most part you engage everything 1v1 and don't really have to think about where you're fighting them. They've already been set up to be fought in an optimal configuration. Not that that's bad, but I don't think DS2 needed to just do more of what DS1 did. DS1 already did it perfectly well.
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Sep 27, 2021 10:19
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I feel like at this point we're talking past each other. The scenarios you're describing are not the ones I'm complaining about. Also the idea that DS1's encounters don't test spacial awareness and you can fight everything exactly where it stands is just  . Like 80% of Undead Burg alone is encounters where that is blatantly not true. (Which is coincidentally also why I laugh when people freak out because 2 forced them to fight multiple enemies at once!!!  )
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Sep 27, 2021 18:57
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I'd really like to see how some of you play the game, I imagine you are magic mains. About the only thing in Burg that I'd kite out at all is the Black Night and Havel
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Sep 27, 2021 19:14
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John Murdoch posted:I feel like at this point we're talking past each other. The scenarios you're describing are not the ones I'm complaining about. I've beat this drum many times before, but the big difference is that in the other games it very rarely makes you might multiple big poise boys you can't CC with some regular non-ultra heavy R1s whereas that's DS2's favourite trick
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Sep 27, 2021 19:19
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I can't think of anything you need to kite in ds2 except the whip guys right before the chariot fight and the loving ice hedgehogs in eleum loyce. And neither of those are half as ridiculous as say, the 8 capra demons in demon ruins. Or the clams before seathe.
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Sep 28, 2021 08:13
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It heavily depends on your ability to one-hit/pancake/stunlock lesser foes. Some builds you can stand in the doorways and laugh as one Royal Soldier after another conga lines into your wall of death; others, you have to be way more careful. That's just for the Bastille example, but there's tons of other situations where you'll be able to deal with this specific challenge easily with a slow, hard-hitting weapon (and you might still get in trouble if there's one more enemy than you have stamina for).
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Sep 28, 2021 08:17
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One of the more annoying yet unassuming mobs I hate in Bastille is the gang of three exploding hollows camping in a narrow hall somewhere in the general direction of Straid. If you've come there relatively early, any of them explode and you're looking at 50% of your health getting knocked off if not more, and if I'm remembering right they get some janky i-frames or hyper armor once they're in the middle of their stage dive. Conceivably you could run in and YOLO them, but it's also a pretty long trek from the nearest bonfire and immediately preceding them is a giant room full of nothing so.... The thing about slow, heavy hitting weapons is well, they're slow. In ideal conditions they clown on all sorts of stuff, but the second something sneaks through your attack window you're hosed. GodFish posted:I can't think of anything you need to kite in ds2 except the whip guys right before the chariot fight and the loving ice hedgehogs in eleum loyce. And neither of those are half as ridiculous as say, the 8 capra demons in demon ruins. Or the clams before seathe. Technically you don't have to kite the BDSM boys, if you're really, really exact with your movement you can aggro exactly one at a time and knock them all out in that little canyon pass. I managed to do it in original 2, once. The hedgehogs I wouldn't even call my method kiting, I basically treat them the same as bonewheels. Dodge to one side, let them peel out, then run in and smack 'em. John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Sep 28, 2021 |
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Sep 28, 2021 23:50
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...And then walk slightly too close, get stunlocked by their passive spine damage long enough for them to turn around and shred my face off, then back off to heal and do it properly this time.
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Sep 29, 2021 00:25
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John Murdoch posted:Technically you don't have to kite the BDSM boys, if you're really, really exact with your movement you can aggro exactly one at a time and knock them all out in that little canyon pass. I managed to do it in original 2, once. Do people generally have an issue with using bow and arrow (other than gimmick runs, obviously)? Like, you can snipe those dudes from the end of the canyon and fight them one at a time, without having to move. Is not wanting to run into mob ambushes with a giant lump of metal wrong?
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Sep 29, 2021 03:15
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Well, sniping mobs from a distance with a bow is pretty tedious and boring gameplay. That's my main complaint. Usually the first time I go through a zone I do that kind of stuff, but then it's like gently caress it, ya know.
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Sep 29, 2021 03:32
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I can and will snipe everything I possibly can in Shrine of Amana to save myself a headache. Everywhere else I'll unleash my beatstick.
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Sep 29, 2021 05:25
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SHISHKABOB posted:Well, sniping mobs from a distance with a bow is pretty tedious and boring gameplay. That's my main complaint. Usually the first time I go through a zone I do that kind of stuff, but then it's like gently caress it, ya know. Every single melee build should have a bow or crossbow as a secondary, in all Souls games. I've used the heavy crossbow this whole run and its so nice being able to kite out people when you need to or take out troublesome suicide bombers or whatever safely from a distance.
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Sep 29, 2021 11:44
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Sniping isn't gameplay though, it's bypassing the gameplay. You're paying and time/boredom tax to not have to make tactical decisions or have your dexterity tested, and likely why none of the Miyazaki games past DeS put you in situations which require the use of a bow the same way any of the worst offenders in DS2 do
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Sep 29, 2021 12:12
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multijoe posted:Sniping isn't gameplay though, it's bypassing the gameplay. You're paying and time/boredom tax to not have to make tactical decisions or have your dexterity tested, and likely why none of the Miyazaki games past DeS put you in situations which require the use of a bow the same way any of the worst offenders in DS2 do  Thought exercise: Imagine playing through the games 100% using only a bow. This assumes you're a normal person btw and not using a Sega Activator or whatever.
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Sep 29, 2021 12:21
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Using a bow is a tactical decision
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Sep 29, 2021 12:21
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Simply Simon posted:Using a bow is a tactical decision Sniping, specifically, is a strategic one. You're trading engaging with the game's core melee systems for a close to zero risk trivialisation of the encounter. And honestly if that's how you want to play the game that's fine, I'm not saying 'you cheated yourself etc etc' but it sucks in DS2 puts you in situations where its so heavily incentivised, in every other game I've never felt the encounter design expected me to cheese the fight to progress
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Sep 29, 2021 12:31
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multijoe posted:Sniping, specifically, is a strategic one. You're trading engaging with the game's core melee systems for a close to zero risk trivialisation of the encounter. And honestly if that's how you want to play the game that's fine, I'm not saying 'you cheated yourself etc etc' but it sucks in DS2 puts you in situations where its so heavily incentivised, in every other game I've never felt the encounter design expected me to cheese the fight to progress
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Sep 29, 2021 12:41
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Simply Simon posted:That's entirely a you thing, though. I would put it that way: Dark Souls 2 expects you to use your full set of options, including ranged weapons. And I think that encouragement is a good thing. Ranged is a completely undynamic experience in Souls games though, it's finding a place you can safely snipe from and plinking away and at most having to step inside to avoid a counter projectile ever now and then, there's nothing else to it. As an example, the salamander hell pit in forest of fallen giants would just be unambiguously better if you could plausibly take it in melee without having to deal with some if the most hideously broken creature design in the series history. As it is the game is just punishing you for trying to make a fight out of it when it wants you to just break the encounter from above yourself with poison arrows, that's not a challenging experience or exciting experience in any respect No Dignity fucked around with this message at 13:34 on Sep 29, 2021 |
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Sep 29, 2021 12:54
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Yeah if they want me to snipe in these games they should make it fun and not take 1 million years to kill anything
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Sep 29, 2021 12:57
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I always use a Bow. Sometimes I use a wave or a jump for joy. Depends on the invader really.
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Sep 29, 2021 13:00
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People acting like I'm breaking some kinda honor system by using the bow, I'd like to know how you engage literally every enemy in the entire franchise
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Sep 29, 2021 13:10
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codo27 posted:People acting like I'm breaking some kinda honor system by using the bow, I'd like to know how you engage literally every enemy in the entire franchise
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Sep 29, 2021 13:21
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codo27 posted:People acting like I'm breaking some kinda honor system by using the bow, I'd like to know how you engage literally every enemy in the entire franchise No seriously, you do you. All I'm saying is that it's a playstyle that is a fundamental departure from the rest of the gameplay and there's a reason it isn't quasi-mandatory in any game after DS2
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Sep 29, 2021 13:34
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That's my main gripe with Shrine of Amana, that it's easy but boring with a bow, and unfun ganktown with melee weapons. *takes one step to the right* Ok, now I have two mages pelting me with fuckoff misslies, better dodge! *takes two steps to the left* *drowns*
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Sep 29, 2021 13:36
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Have I told you that I am bad at playing Dark Souls?
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Sep 29, 2021 13:37
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You know what a good example of how to incentivize the player to use a bow is? The Harald knights in Ringed City. They’re always dicey to fight up close but if you just lock on to them and shoot them in the darkness orb thing, it shuts them down. Like an actual weakness they have as opposed to just shooting the guy to get him off the ridiculously unfavorable ground you would otherwise have to approach him on.
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Sep 29, 2021 13:40
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Ha ha or the rotted greatwood, widely regarded as the worst boss in the game
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Sep 29, 2021 15:04
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Control Volume posted:Ha ha or the rotted greatwood, widely regarded as the worst boss in the game
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Sep 29, 2021 15:11
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Its a good thing bows actually do more than trivial damage in ds2, as opposed to 1.
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Sep 29, 2021 16:39
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multijoe posted:Sniping isn't gameplay though, it's bypassing the gameplay. You're paying and time/boredom tax to not have to make tactical decisions or have your dexterity tested, and likely why none of the Miyazaki games past DeS put you in situations which require the use of a bow the same way any of the worst offenders in DS2 do If it's in the game then it's gameplay.
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Sep 29, 2021 17:33
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People use bows in Dark Souls? Crazy.
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Sep 29, 2021 19:51
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I've beaten Dark Souls (and DS2) with only a bow. It was tedious but fun in its own way.
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Sep 29, 2021 20:25
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The Berzerker posted:I've beaten Dark Souls (and DS2) with only a bow. It was tedious but fun in its own way. oof no arrows? Yeah I bet that was tedious
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Sep 29, 2021 20:26
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skasion posted:You know what a good example of how to incentivize the player to use a bow is? The Harald knights in Ringed City. They’re always dicey to fight up close but if you just lock on to them and shoot them in the darkness orb thing, it shuts them down. Like an actual weakness they have as opposed to just shooting the guy to get him off the ridiculously unfavorable ground you would otherwise have to approach him on. Nah, just plunge attack 'em. And by plunge attack them, I mean miss twice because they moved under the bridge weird, eat a hit from the second one because there's always at least two, then finally get it right the third time. And then you walk forward and three more spawn.  (In all seriousness, I don't mind them in a vacuum. Also despite their bulk they actually can be staggered, too. Good enemy just a bit poorly used imo.)
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Sep 29, 2021 21:06
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Hot take: the harald knight stairway of doom is poo poo. Like, it's bad.
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Sep 30, 2021 00:51
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It’s not completely terrible because if you don’t deal with it before you talk to Shira’s door, they’ll all just walk up behind you during the convo and wallop you. Good joke From The only other good thing about it is that you can run right past it
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Sep 30, 2021 00:57
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