@@soulstice94 Exactly. Just takes a long time, depending on RNG. Drop rates in both games are very bad for certain equipment, literally my only gripe with the games, actually.
"I lost the vanilla footage. But I *totally* compared them side by side. I didn't just play Scholar for footage and make stuff up. Pinky promise. Upon realizing my footage was lost I also couldn't be arsed to semi-speedrun vanilla to get to the relevant sections and get new footage. Time is money after all." ... how this kinda sounds to me, sorry to say. What I find most curious is how all these videos are so identical. I wonder where the ur-video is. Hater Prime, as it were. The one everybody else seems to copy as they play for their footage.
Geez, I figured you might only respawn the terrible duo, but you're right, Nashandra (and Aldia, who knows) probably becomes available again upon using an ascetic. Just inexcusable. Kinda sad we didn't get a mechanic like the bonfire ascetics in any other Souls game so far. Can be used in so many ways, it's wonderful.
Maybe the original hater video is Matthewmatosis' critique of Dark Souls 2. He also gets a ton of stuff incorrect/factually wrong, and it was before Scholar released. A lot of his talking points are parroted to this day.
Great video. Some afterthought. Exploding hollows actually make a lot of chain noises, so doesn't noticing them before fighting viverns you need to be deaf.
@@Domo3000 I played the game while listening to music on my phone and still couldn't NOT hear the chains every time they showed up. You don't have to listen for them, you WILL hear them whether you like it or not.
@thelegendofxander woke up and said: I love spreading missinformation. But seriously I believe hating on scholar at this point turn out to be a social thing or something, there is no way that nobody checked on this facts before you. Its like there is a global concensus without proof that Scholar is a bad game. I have seen people messing with others just because they consider DS2 SOTFS a good game, or their favourite rather than DS1 or DS3. Its amazing what youre doing.
Well, the established narrative was that DS2 = bad. So when a definitive edition comes out, it can't possible be an improvement, nah, it has to actually make it even worse to fit the narrative. KEKW, DS2 so bad, the definitive edition made it even worse lmao haha, B Team Fromsoft energy, please make DS1 2 now kthx. Kind of like that.
Gotta love when a youtuber makes a claim by backing it up with actual evidence and comparisons, and not just "I have thousands of subscribers, who needs evidence? My word is enough"
@@YEY0806 Unfortunately thats why this channel has a few thousand views and Xander's video has over one hundred thousand. Welcome to the post-truth world my dude!
I genuinely don't understand why people think vanilla is better , it just had so much more jank and weird things like enemies being able to kill you at a bonfire, spiders not fearing the torch ,etc. Scholar fixed so much jank that was in vanilla that these video essays always leave out.
Scholar of the First Sin made some changes that were bad, some that were good, and some that just exist. I don’t think it’s a superior way to experience the game, but not inherently inferior either. I don’t understand the divide in the DS2 community between Scholar and vanilla fans. They’re both valid ways to play the game to me.
@@Hewasnumber1 I don't understand the split either, but I would wager it has to do with the videos that have been misleading folks. I love both versions, still play both regularly. Feels like I have an extra Fromsoft game in my library.
@@Kamawan0 I think it's various factors. Maybe some people just stayed with whatever version they had. Can't blame Scholar players for not randomly buying another version or vanilla players for buying the "upgraded" one of the game they have already finished a million times. Add some online "discussion", like these videos, and maybe you get people who will die on these hills. I also think that liking vanilla but hating Scholar might be due to wanting to like it, maybe even liking DS2 actually, but admitting as much means you lose street cred with the cool kids. You know, the common Souls crowd watching videos where they expect the usual DS2 bashing and such. Domo's comment sections here also have some haters in denial for whatever reason. I mean what, are you going to spend a lot of money on the other version and invest dozens of hours of your life to "prove" UA-camr X wrong? It's not like they care, the video is old news, the damage is done. And maybe a lot of this discourse is not about good reasons, it's about hating for the sake of it and chasing trends, as it were.
Has anyone (the aweful and wrong Scholar haters) ever responded to these videos. It would be wise of them no to seeing as they'd be eviscerated, but my hopeful self would like to see them accept their ignorance and switch teams
Every time some SOTFS hater says how there are a thousand mobs ganking you while you're trying to fight a miniboss I just know that they ran around aggroing every single enemy without any care. This isn't how you play the game, or even how a new player might play the game at all. In a video i made a few days ago I pointed out how the only area to me that is genuinely worse in SOTFS is the Iron Keep because the Allone Knights genuinely aggro from too far away and there are way too much of them (plus 2 invaders in the same spot) but I think the rest of the game is fine really. I don't understand the Sotfs hate at all, this feels like people just reverberating opinions they read ln reddit or so. There are genuinely more spots that are much more unbearable in vanilla.
The strangest part to me is the amount of people who seem to encourage running away BECAUSE of the ganks. *Runs past everyone* *Alerts the whole area and gets ganked* "This place has too many ganks!" "I don't want to fight ganks, so I'll just run past them" Ending up in this disfuncional ouroboros of bad player habits that ends up getting blammed on the game's level design. I've always played by killing pretty much everything and picking foes off one by one and thats the mindset I had when playing DS2 for the first time, I ended up never really struggling with any ganks. I still think the game has too many required enemies at certain points, not because I fight all of them at once and its hard, but because I fight them one by one, and there's a lot of them... Which can get kinda tedious. Shout-out to no man's wharf on that front.
They keep grudges about people blatantly lying about a game to justify not liking it. Like if someone doesn't like a game because they prefer their games in first person instead of third person (perfectly valid) and they start working up a hate mob about the game's pay-to-win system favoring whales and making budget players miserable (there's literally no way to send more money after buying the game, and only one version on the market - every person who has previously or will ever play the game has the exact same access to the exact same items with the exact same stats). Not only does the cited issue have no relation to their actual issue with the game, it also has no relation to *anyone's* experience with the game PERIOD because they made the problem up.
@@saysallafirst off I'm pretty sure he's making a reference to Warhammer Fantasy dwarfs, who burnt down a town for accidentally shorting them a few coins in some trade deal one time. Second, slandering the reputation of a game through hypocrisy and double standards, showing complete intellectual dishonesty, is definitely grudge worthy.
Comment number 2. I just checked out the other video, weeks ago i left a comment explaining things like how Scholar updated the enemy AI to be less aggressive in groups. Seems like it got deleted. I even sugar coated it just incase the creator saw it in hopes that it would be taken seriously by those of a more arrogant demeanor. Something tells me that this guy doesn't actually care and 100 percent made their video for it's click bait nature. I now disgusted and even more disgruntled at Scholar haters.
@@zzodysseuszz I just looked up your channel. You do have some good videos combating common DS2 hate comments, but honestly you really are aggressive in your responses lol. It's fine to be passionate about defending DS2, but not every rebuttal warrants such adversarial responses.
There is so many things that you can genuinely criticize this game but to make things up is just so low and also pointless like what does he get from this.
My main criticisms would be that there should be better bosses and that the credits can be skipped, make it easier to farm covenant items. but besides that nothing much
unfortunately we live in a world where facts don't matter as much as fostering a pre-existing emotional bias. The human brain rewards you with dopamine whenever other people "confirm" your stance. That stance doesn't have to be based on facts. This translates to easy clicks.
@@YEY0806 What's wrong with the bosses? (I haven't played it yet, should be starting next week after uploading the DS1 playthrough). I haven't played dark souls, but I've played elden ring and sekiro; I haven't seen people say "dark souls 1 has bad bosses" but it honestly did. The lore was cool, and the set pieces were cool, but they all felt like absolute pushovers even for a first time playthrough. I think I prefer the "level" part to be a bit easier with more exploration etc... then a hard skill-check in the boss fight, but IMO it's the exact opposite. Blighttown? Cancerous, Quelagg? Stood directly in front of her and never got hit lmao. Ruins? Tough stuff with the ghosts/knights/lack of bonfires, 4 kings? stood in front of them and spammed attack, comfortably tanking hits. Sen's fortress? Definitely can be tough to get to the bonfire while trying to explore everything, Iron golem? May as well be a quick time event, seriously. No hate, I enjoyed the game, I was just surprised that no boss took more than a couple tries, and I've never heard anyone complain about DS1 bosses (but I've heard nothing but bad things about DS2 lmao)
@bartholomewpicca9899 I have the opposite opinion, I felt like the ivory king DLC was underwhelming compared to Sunken King since it has the least puzzle like design of the DLCS, just run around until you find the knights for the boss fight, whereas Sunken King has a unique aesthetic that hasn't been replicated in the other souls games, with more puzzle and trap elements that gives the DLC a "Temple Of Doom" and "Tomb Raider" vibe, of course I also like Sinh compared to ivory
FINALLY someone calling out Scholar haters, I’ve been waiting for this. 2:11 Just as a note; those are hollow infantry, not basic hollows. 5:48 Xander does realize that some of her orbs won’t spawn if she’s too close to the edge or the arena, right? Y’know, because it would be unfair if there were orbs floating where can’t reach them without ranged? Great video. Edit: I just went and checked Xander’s video and he paused the comments. Apparently he isn’t too happy about the comment section calling him out and there’s a few comments mentioning you specifically. Thanks for making videos like this, it opens the way for better/more accurate critiques in the future.
I watched the feebleking video, and because it lined up with stuff I had already heard, I believed it. But now that I’ve been watching your videos for a week or two, I’ve seen actual direct comparisons of the changes and had the changes put in a wider context. Now it feels easy to say that scholar actually was a good upgrade. And I really do appreciate that, and how your passion for the game shows in your videos. You’ve made me interested in picking the game up again.
your channel is great. i only played scholar, and i really enjoyed it. so its great to see you comparing the two versions, and showing that this whole thing of "omg ds2 was a masterpiece but scholar RUINED it", is just not true at all. like what is actually wrong with the soulslike community huh. why is it just full of all these souls "fans" just spreading lies and misinformation. this community is so rotten, and new players will take all these lies as facts because, surely a 1 hour analysis video about how scholar ruined ds2 with 1 million views and 500k likes could not possibly be made up lies right? i love from soft games but the community is full of mindless hollows, for whatever reason.
The thing is that over 90% of people that played both versions prefer the Scholar version, so those disingenuous UA-camrs know that they can make great clickbait videos by just making outright false claims to get more comments and views. And then people that don't know any better get trolled into buying the gankier Vanilla version with worse runbacks and falsely assume that Scholar must be even worse.
I also only played scholar and that was WAY after i watched a lot of videos on how scholar ruined DS2 and I honestly did not see it. I loved it and even got every achievement
@WolfBergMenace yeah, the funniest thing was that places like SOFA and FO weren't that hard. In the case of frigid Outskirts, the blizzard relents after a certain amount of time granting visibility, also I'm not sure but I think the reindeer don't spawn when that happens meaning that I only fought 5 which were all one on one. Lud and Zullen only taked one try since counter damage with duel rapiers is BUSTED!
@@YEY0806 I hate when people do this. Nobody knows what area you're talking about when you squish them into acronym that nobody uses. You must be the first person to ever abbreviate shrine of amana into SOFA. Took me a while to figure out what you were referring to. It doesn't take that long to write out the full name. Might as well abbreviate lud and zallen into L@Z.
1:35 Just to add this in case anybody thinks the opposite, IMO the heide knight when I was new to the game was way harder than the ogre. Hated Heide's tower
I would even argue that the Ogre is great for new players because if they do try to fight him they quickly learn that they can bait out attacks that they can easily punish, and that they can farm Souls with him. The Heide Knight with an unupgraded weapon and being completely new to the game is so much harder.
These videos are awesome. I only played ds2 a couple times but I'm definitely gonna be going back to it after seeing how much bs is spread about it. It's the craziest thing how hating on ds2 is this massive meme. P.S. it's a pretty big red pill moment when you find out people actually don't care about facts. Most people are just desperate to conform and fit in, even with something as simple as "my swingy swingy slash slash game better than your swingy swingy slash slash game"
the part about your P.S. that bothers me the most is that the people you're talking about, in my experience, are the quickest to boast about their own intelligence, or their knowledge relative to you. In every argument I can remember having with a DS2, or Scholar, hater, they cite their own knowledge about the game as the reason they should win the argument, without, you know, presenting said knowledge (or while just presenting wrong information that they've heard.) One even said he was both a play-tester for DS2, and a developer for a "similar game released at the time" (sure), at the time of DS2s release, and their channel was all youtube animation content.
@@bartholomewpicca9899 There was literally only one other game like that released at the time, the OG Lords of the Fallen (arguably the first soulslike). All things considered that seems very unlikely.
Another day, another scholar hater takedown. You are right Domo, they don’t care about facts, they just want that sweet UA-cam clickbait algorithm money. Keep up the good work!
When I first played DS2, it was on the PS3. While Scholar of the First Sin was released on the PS3, all it did was automatically include the three expansions, therefore everything else was still vanilla (likely due to performance reasons). I hated the hell out of that game. The hate and frustration was unmatched; I can't even begin to describe how much I despised DS2. It didn't help, either, that I had _just_ finished Dark Souls: I legit downloaded DS2 as soon as the credits finished in DS1. That was two years ago. I played and complete Scholar of the First Sin a few weeks ago on the PC, and I fucking _loved_ it, and that's partly because of the changes made in SotFS, I think. Sure, there were some bullshit moments here and there (same as any FromSoft game), but overall I found myself having one helluva time. All the DS2/SotFS haters are so disingenuous and braindead. Scholar of the First Sin is fucking GOAT'd; DS2 got its redemption from me bc of it.
This is actually super interesting. I didn't know any "Scholar" versions had vanilla DS2 in the game itself. I'd been looking for a physical version of vanilla base + vanilla DLC on disc to compare with the modern Scholar version. Is that what you're describing here?
Honestly DS2 SOTFS was not only my first souls game, it is also the only one I ever went back to in a genuine second playthrough, and the only one where I experimented with multiple build options for my first playthrough. For DS3, I had some phase where I wanted to try streaming for a bit and it seemed like a popular thing people play on streams at the time, so I started another playthrough that I quickly abandoned. DS1 I only bought very recently when the re-release version that's still fucking flawed (after removing the other version from steam so you can't buy it anymore and they can charge you more) happened to get a discount. While it had some interesting moments, it didn't have a single interesting boss since they only really started learning how to make bosses during DS2 and Bloodborne era. I feel no need to go back to that game but I still have the urge to play SOTFS again.
@@BygoneT domo has highlighted certain aspects in other videos, but generally the enemy ai was programmed to be more aggressive in groups and also the aggro range was further. There were enemy placements changed in scholar to make some encounters more fair and other balancing and tweaks made to make the bosses more fair like tuning their damage.
@@familiarisfelinus4087 I'm gonna have to replay og, iron keep feels much more aggressive now than before, so do other places, but I'd agree that in general some places got more manageable. I prefer og amana though. The feeling of bullet hell is great once you understand how to dodge them.
😂 Shitting on the ogres in forest, but praising the optional heide knight. The ogre is optional too, haven't fought it in 3 years. Ancient dragon was the bane of my existence in vanilla. Took me two weeks to beat. And he doesn't even include changes in the enemy placements from bonfire to Ancient. In Scholar, you have to fight 4-5 mandatory enemies with small enemies that even BOW TO YOU to signal their passive nature (if you fight fairly). In vanilla, this area was hell.
Bro the ogre argument is kinda silly, cause you can cheese him very easily by going to his tail... Maybe for a new player this wont be a thing, but like, search things on internet is a thing too, like havels armor on Nito in ds1
as someone who just played Scholar for the first time after DS1 and watched the Xander video it's so obvious that he ran through it without thinking and got frustrated when things weren't the exact same as vanilla. So many times - the royal swordsmen in the forest, the Lost Sinner light, the Dragon Aerie hollows, and ESPECIALLY the Tseldora spiders. it's so funny that he even realized they were scared of fire before the boss room and didn't think to try it elsewhere. As a newcomer to DS2, taking things slowly and using the ingame messages (intended game mechanic by the way) I felt like I was for the most part adequately prepared. "Try torch", "Be wary of trio", etc. And sometimes I had to change my equipment up if it was obvious my weapons weren't good for the area I was in. Some of the ganks were still egregious (the mages outside Ornifex, the pyromancer bells in Undead Crypt, Iron Keep, and Amana second bonfire are the worst examples) but he was way overdoing it. Anyway thanks for calling him out.
Disagree. DS2 is by far the most artificially challenging Souls. A Hallmark of that is the fact that navigating the path to the boss is much harder than the boss itself. And not because each individual enemy is tough, but just the sheer volume of them and how often they gank. Even if you take it slow, there are tons of situations where you're being attacked from all sides. I am greatly enjoying my time with DS2, but it's definitely the most artificially difficult Souls IMO.
Also nashandra DOES have more then one curse orb even in vanilla, i havent killed her in vanilla but when i fought her i very mich remeber like 3 on screen
Yeah that's because he was just grasping to come up with any reason to hate on Scholar so he just made that part up and pretended that he lost the footage. Here's a video that's older than Scholar so it's certainly Vanilla where you can see 15 seconds in that she spawns 4 curse balls as well: ua-cam.com/video/onYMt__CWfE/v-deo.htmlsi=0yUmLOrChtVr-Jme
@@Domo3000and then there’s the fact that in scholar you can just roll through em while in vanilla you have to attack them, which is much more annoying if you have a big heavy weapon.
Been binge watching your videos recently, especially the series about debunking the fake "soulstubers" with their bs ds2 vids, and i decided to subscribe. Your channel deserves more recognitions!
Heide's knights being literally everywhere but not at Heide's. Finding McDuff in like couple hours, and only unlocking his speciality after being through half of the game. Yeah, right, vanilla was sooo "intentional"
Ive been going off about this video for weeks on my friends who have decided to never try dark souls 2 due to it "not being fair." (Although, one said he stopped when he was killed by the invisible knights in shaded woods, and i wish they became visible earlier than they do)
Those invisible knights were a problem in Vanilla, but in Scholar you can distract them by hitting the face trees. They will drop their aggro and focus on the tree instead: ua-cam.com/video/r6UnM71suiU/v-deo.html
it's literally such a shame that people are getting swindled into cheating themselves out of one of the most unique experiences in the whole souls series.
I like the fact that DS2 gives you options to approach the level design in different ways and even cheese bosses. It is an experimental title that has so many wonderful ideas (for example the stance that is changing if you lock in, low vs full hp, in inventory), many of them being implemented in newer titles (flasks upgrades, leveling mediated by a npc). Not to mention that all the animations were made from scratch. Despite the fact that it has flaws, it definitely has its charm
Doing the work of a true Monarch! Your DS2 vanilla/DS2 SotFS comparisons give me sanity! Even your hitbox comparisons between DS1/DS2/DS3 have been fun to see. I'm not sure if you'd be down for it, and it'd certainly be a lot of effort, but also comparing ganks/ambushes between the games would be interesting
I've already been brainstorming which situations to compare. In DS1 you've got several times where you get ganked when you greedily pick up an item and enemies climb up from a ledge, which is similar to the sleeping hollows in the DS2 Forest. In DS3 Undead Settlement you've got the Flamberg Thrall where another one drops down behind you, which is similar to Huntsman's Copse where a Rogue drops down behind you. I would just need a list of a lot more ganks/ambushes in all three games and then compare how each game indicates danger and how they let you prevent these situations.
The ds2 hate train is so pointless... Without this game, bloodborne, ds3, sekiro, and even elden ring would not be nearly what they are today. Ds2 created the most diverse world in the series. It has issues, but everyone just glances over ds1 issues cause nostalgia, ds1 suffered rushed development just like ds2. Izalith being the most horrific contender, but honestly? I liked izalith, i loved its weird layout and environmental storytelling that was intended. I like much of ds2, even parts people didn't like, i liked them myself. I like the frigid outskirts for the unique placements of structures the challenge of napping through a huge wasteland, and it was optional, the kieran enemies were tough but genuinely fun to fight, and the lud and xallen boss fight was genuinely really cool, it was like aavas fight but even more hectic and challenging. Getting lost in that area was honestly really cool cause it had such a layer of mystery with the ice fog coating everything periodically.
I just finished playing DS1, currently editing the VODs down for a YT video; Next week I'm starting DS2 (Doing the whole trilogy blind), I have a lingering suspicion that DS2 will be very good, likely even preferable to DS1 for me. Based on what I've seen regarding mechanics, enemy placement etc... They made DS2 harder, and the classic "gitgudders" suddenly needed to actually expand their brain and "git gud" in slightly different ways, and in response they hate it. That's also precisely why I think Sekiro is a hard sell for so many; " I love super punishing games so long as I don't need to be punished for my lack of knowledge or mechanical ability" (OBVIOUSLY not all of the community, but undoubtedly some...) Regardless, I JUST watched the video you're responding to, and the commentary/editing felt weird to me, but I can't say one way or the other... YET >:D Thanks for spreading the truth! Excited to check it out myself!!
girl, I'm getting crazy de-ja-vu writing this. anyway, I hadn't watched the 'scholar bad' video, but I assumed it was true. I haven't watched this video to completion, because I haven't played dark souls 2 yet, and I want to, but clearly you're right. the talk about the ogre and heide knight made me a little closer to hollow. I know there's a little bit of division about the demon's souls remake and if it's really better, if you have anything to say about that, I'd watch it if I saw it. from my admittedly completely outside perspective, having only played dark souls 1 and a tiny amount of dark souls 3, I think I'd like dark souls 2, and I get the impression that some of dark souls 2 salt is just about people who had a bad time at launch because classic fromsoftware obfustication, and poor knowledge/incomplete wikis on the new game. but I'll just have to play it to find out
I have to say I really appreciate your videos!!! You have really opened my eyes to scholar and now Im really excited to play it after I finish up with ds3!!!
Remember to get 92 agility early game, 96 mid game and 100 or 105 late game. This removes the hitbox issues people complain about when they get hit mid roll.
@@Domo3000 Knowing this, and that not having enough stamina for a roll reduces your I-frames helps a lot, though I still try to get 99 Agility in the early-game, 20 ADP is just nice to look at.
Lies about announcements of making scholar harder. Lies about scholar being actually harder. Claims he was "pumped" scholar would be harder. Complains that scholar is allegedly harder.
Leaving a comment to help you on algorithms as always But seriously tho, i'm deeply disgusted by souls game content creator who made a false accusations to these games.
As someone who put a good chunk of time into both: Vanilla DS2 is lacking QOL when you compare it to scholar (especially with upgrade mats). Farming certain items was tough as some items just had lots of areas or bosses to get through first and a lot of them weren't even that useful by the time you got there. The runbacks are very long too, there's a few shortcuts that aren't in the original. Scholar improves on the original in most ways, balance is a bit better, but it's still a souls game so you know the balance will still be all over the place. Main thing I like from Scholar is the changed spawns offer loads of new item farming/looting opportunities without having to defeat certain bosses first or having to go to new game plus. This is especially nice for covenant items, certain weapons, certain armors, and upgrade mats as well as consumables. Early access to the agape ring is nice as well. A must if you plan to pvp or coop in certain brackets.
I remember the beginning quarter or third of my ds2 sotfs playthrough to be pretty miserable, so when I heard how there were just tons more enemies in sotfs I figured that was to blame. Am I learning that Vanilla was about the same?
No, you are learning that Vanilla had even more ganks, worse runbacks and more frustrating moments. Scholar addressed a lot of issues people had and is generally fairer and easier.
Havin the dark soul for SOTFS i can tell you the worse part of it is. Getting the needed sunlight medals in order to get all miracles, and the kills for bell keepers for all spells. The rest can be got via ng+2. Thats it.
Sunlight Medal farming is yet another plus for Scholar. You can just go to the first bonfire in Tseldora or the Shaded Woods Crossroads and farm the Falconers. In Vanilla they only showed up in NG+ Things Betwixt, so you always had to run further for less enemies.
@@Domo3000 still the drop rate is low evn with maximum item discovery and you have to join the championship covent in order to farm all of them for both sunlight and bellkeepers, or you can use bonfire astehics which has a minor boost to item discovery until ng+8 or 9. Either way it takes several days depending on how long you farm for per session.
@@genericyoutuber5533 ds 1 had the easiest if we are talking about achievements. Seeing how you need three runs and you can just loot all items needed to until the miracles/pyromanices needed. 3 i can agree on being a pain, atleast we can level luck!
@@maninthesnow4393 yeah it basically goes DS1>DS2>DS3 in terms of how hard the achievements are Elden Ring is pretty easy too imo, just takes a bit of grinding
I'm glad I didn't find videos like this that scared me away from playing ds2. Ds2 had to be one of the best first playthroughs of any game I've had in a long time. It's not my favorite but it is an amazing game and watching someone lie to people who haven't even played the game about how bad it is is disgusting.
My only problem with dark souls 2 is the control scheme; I'm on mouse and keyboard, so even LEARNING HOW TO NAVIGATE THE MENU was an uphill battle. It's not as bad as say, Monster Hunter Frontier's PC controls in the translation, but it's horrible enough that I would have to spend days learning new controls just to play it.
Great video. For the last point, however, I do not think they are asleep if you have destroyed any eggs. Obviously, this can be avoided but still something to point out.
It's almost like as if these DS2 haters secretly miss getting their asses torn up in vanilla and treat scholar as their coping mechanism for ruining their gank experience
I’ve gotten every achievement in both versions of the game, and I have to say you’re right on the money with your comments and claims. As a whole for any curious, scholar also just, feels, better to play. The enemy variety and enemy placement feels a lot smarter overall, while being less annoying.
I wonder what do you think about Matthewmatosis' Dark Souls 2 critique? I know it's a bit beyond the scope of what you've been covering, he made it before Scholar came out, but there are some things in the video that Scholar addressed and some that weren't because they were rooted in the foundation of the game.
@@janehrahan5116like him complaining that consumable healing items don't belong in a Souls game, and how bad it is that you get the Ring of Restoration so early. I don't see how that's a bad thing and it's like he never played Demon Souls and acts like this makes him an expert of what belongs in a Souls game. Towards the end of DS1 I used Humanities like faster Lifegems, but that's just more annoying as they are so rare.
"guys look at this footage of me plinking away at a mammoth knight with arrows LOL b-team bad design" repeat for like an hour and that's the whole video
@@Domo3000 Not only did he play Demon Souls he made an entire commentary on the game because he loves it so much and other than the healing the majority of his complaints in souls games after DS1 is that they aren't like DeS. He likes DS1's healing more because it's harder to cheese with but he also mainly plays as a knight without magic or projectiles.
@@janehrahan5116 I was thinking about stuff like the game arbitrarily telling you to go to places without saying why or controlling your character before you create them but those were his personal opinions and was probably thinking too hard about it. The best counter you could say about them is "that's just your opinion, man".
I confuse this guy with feeble king. This is the guy I watched a little while ago. I can't stand this wyvern and rupturig hollows part and stop the video. He complains same things over and over again and his gameplay is horrible. Agroing Wyvern and rupturig hollows at the same time is simply means death wish. He just plays badly. By the way Feeble King is horrible as well.
I feel like Scholar makes a lot of good changes and additions to vanilla. Stuff like a bunch of Drangleic Castle enemies being unpetrified because of you, the interloper, brings me back to creative fantasy books I used to read. Even feels like King's Field to me, it's great. Also when he said "there were no changes to any other bosses" my mind immediately thought of Ancient Dragon; does the dude not remember its damage?! It's still really high in SOTFS, but not one-shot tier like before.
I watched these videos from 3 to 1 and, wow, yeah seeing a side-by-side comparison is mind boggling. I've never played the original, I bought SotFS a few years ago and despite my griped with the game I've still played it for 238 hours. But every complaint I have with it would probably be doubled if I played the original now. Enemies are easier to approach in a smart way, bosses deal less damage, there are overall less enemies, and you have access to more options earlier in the game. I genuinely don't understand why people hate the SotFS edition so much for being *harder* when it is easier. It's probably because any complaints about the game being *easier* are easily ignored because it's closer to that balancing point of difficulty and ease of access.
Thank you for your videos. Dark Souls 2 has always been my favorite. Seeing Ds2 in a new light now. Yea some fights may be gank, but as you point out, there is strategy to every one. Ds2 GENUINELY made you think about the map your going in and way to circumnavigate, wether it be via torches lighting up the map makinfmg certain enemies cower, or explosions that bkew open walls for shortcuts. THAT is whats missing from modren souls, especially Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring. My main problem in souls was that i want to rush to the boss and level as quickly as humanly possible, which then in turn leads to the classic dark soul rage. Remembered this isnt made by Miyazaki so this self harmjng formula just doesnt work in this game. Replaying ds2 after watching and analyzing your criticisms, these videos brings a newfound joy on an already awesome game. These videos point out bothe the pros AND the cons in a light ive never seen. Actual demonstrations and repeat examples comparative to the others in series. Not just "ds2 bad, therefore ds2 bad" type arguments that been around for years. Thank you for that. Realizing now that Dark Souls 2 looks and plays like a classic RPG, much like the classic Zeldas, rather than your typical "soulsbourne" formula. I think in the coming years people will slowly realize this gem.
the heide knight was allways the equivalent to dark knights in dark souls for me, not having the oppurtunity to get a chance at grabbing his lighting sword def held me back in the remake
I think he must be mixing up the pate trap enemies that are being more aggressive when the trap activates in scholar, as a lot of the enemies from inside the building will rush out at once during that first event. It could be why he thinks there are more enemies, when really the enemy count could be the same they just swarm you giving the illusion there are more
1:08 Literally just ignore the ogre and move past it ! wtf is wrong with these people's brain ? , that ogre doesn't even follow you if you don't try to get close to it
I don't know why people need to hate so much, like you can have your own opinions but don't contradict yourself and definitely don't lie. I love all three dark souls games but the fans piss me off tbh because they're always arguing which one is best, again have your own opinions, but I think everyone just gets blinded by hate for the other, so that any of their arguments aren't productive. Can't we just get along guys all the games are great, and all of them have flaws 💀
Other M sent me. DaS2: SotFS is my favorite Souls game. Absolutely beautiful. I love Majula, the Rotten, the Shrine of Amana, the Dragon Aerie, the builds, bonfire ascetics, all of it. I only wish they hadn’t implemented Soul Memory because the Agape Ring doesn’t do it for me. I’m on break but I’ll be back to comment on the video itself. Big Ups! Edit: That Dragon Aerie section is peak absurdity. I have hundreds of hours in Scholar and I adore the Aerie and never once have I had to fight one of those exploding hollows while I fight a dragon. These goofballs go and disingenuously aggro everything, record it and say, “Look how awful the ganks are!” Gimme a break. That is not normal play nor is it a common, or even reasonable, experience.
5:23 Hi I just finished Dark Souls 2 just this week, actually quite liked it a lot, and while I agree with most of your videos and points, as a 4 vigor swordsman I absolutely got one shot by scholar last giant at max hollowed. Since it was very slow attacks I didn't mind too much, but being one shot is absolutely on the table. In fairness I had some pieces of the starting armor on because I just liked how it looked better than the swordsman set, maybe that had something to do with it?
When I didn't know about vanilla my main issue with Scholar critics is "How about lore, plot and several added locations, without them Dark Souls 2 would be a lot lesser"
This is a really good video honestly, you back up what you say with facts and it all comes together nicely. Now, does this change my opinion of personally finding this game to suck in lots of ways? No. But I don't think we need to stretch things (whether intentional or not) to make our opinions seem better lmao.
Thank you for defending such a beautiful and fun game this game i didn't play vanilla but i would have liked to and i think sotfs is just very misunderstood and got its bad reputation form disingenuous or spiteful people
Thank you for this video. I was considering buying the base dark souls 2 after all the people online saying how it was actually the better version, your video saved me from that. If i had to fight ancient dragon with those damage numbers that it has in base game i would have gone insane.
It's a relatively recent phenomenon where its cool to shit on dark souls 2.Before mauler made his big video everybody loved the game. I've been playing it since day 1 and it pisses me off that all these new players just shit on it because the internet convinced them. Then they make a video and the cycle continues. Also you can really tell who hasn't played the game or people who play it completely wrong. Lots of these videos showing how bad it is always have huge mobs behind them because they don't take them out earlier. It's not a game issue it's a you issue. Normies gonna norm I guess
This is a lie, people have been shitting on dark souls 2 since 2014. It obviously wasn't as one sided because a lot of players were still in their honeymoon phase but even back then there was tons of debates on whether or not the game was a step back from DS1 especially in terms of level design and the controversial new mechanics like ADP and Soul Memory. However it does look worse now because more and more new and better soulslike games like Lords of the Fallen, Nioh, Lies of P, Wukong etc come out and make DS2 look worse and worse by comparison every year.
I love your channel and the work you've done debunking shit tubers so far. I have so many ideas to create and compare. And ofc to also debunk. My parody video defending ds2 unfortunately didn't get much attention. Would you be up to do a colab?
I like scholar less. My reasons: imo hades knights are ruined, i liked them more when there were fewer of them but they dropped a guarantees and powerful weapon; less ganks, most of which i enjoyed; that one horse in drangleik castle surrounded by four greatbow archers, the challenge i particularly loved; and shrine of amana/the corridor to Velsstadt having less enemies. So again less ganks. Don't they hate ganks though? Guess we are not the same. The only thing I actively remember hating in vanilla and appreciate in the scholar is thr stairs to ancient dragon, that the guards aren't hunting me down on the runback.
P. S. Wasn't ancient dragon nerfed in one of the first patches of vanilla? If its scholar's merit I freakin forgive it for everything. To this day i don't know how to possibly kill the og dragon without that ring that protects my back by putting a cadaver on it. Malenia is less bs than that.
Dude you are doing such a good service by debunking all this ridiculous and nonfactual hate against DS2, especially Scholar of the First Sin. Keep it up! 👊
Og Ds2 is what everybody thinks ds2 is loool. I enjoy ds2, currently playing it rn, and while I haven't beat yet, my only real complaints so far, are the stupid ass stone statues, idc if there's lore reasons or whatever, I think they're dumb and shouldn't have been added. Some enemy placements are annoying, I can see why people would get upset, but mainly Shrine of Amana, and Iron Passage so far for me. And as much I as I don't like decreased health, I do think it makes sense in context of the game
as far as i've seen both versions look about the same, that is, gameplay wise. i don't think scholar is better than vanilla but i also don't think it ruins it either, if anything it adds even more replayability to the already most replayable souls game. also scholar just looks ways better the dynamic lighting is really nice looking.
yeah but facts are boring. "How scholar ruins lifes, starts wars and diseases" clickbait titles are way more entertaining for the "confirmation" bias crowd Sarcasm btw
When looking to an environmental narrative perspective, vanilla enemy placement was all over the place and that's one thing that motivated the changes other than just balancing: in a videogame like dark souls, especially DS2 where the lore is much more confused than any from software game, putting the wrong enemy in the wrong place (see the heide's knights scattered around Drangleic without any reason) is way worse than two or three ganks more in Scholar!
Tomorrow I'll upload a video detailing how Scholar improved lore accurate enemy placement, eg moving the Flexile Sentry from Shrine of Winter to Sinner's Rise
Many people mistake Scholar for having a higher quantity of enemies opposed to vanilla as the issue. The truth is that the enemy types, placements, and interactions with said enemies are what makes Scholar more frustrating for many players. For instance, in Pates trap, it's true that scholar has fewer enemies compared to vanilla. What you didn't show is that in Scholar, more enemies aggro once you activate the trap opposed to vanilla which keeps a majority of its enemies on the stairs, making the gank more difficult and irritating in scholar.
Yeah it's funny that a lot of the changes made (imo for the better) actually confused me at first 'cause when I played the original ds2 some areas and bosses I feared were only BECAUSE they were so hard in DS2. Like the dragons being asleep and Ancient Dragon usually one or two-shotting you. Imo, Scholar is just a more fun experience over all. I think the negative reputation that DS2 gets is because the original wasn't thought out as much. Not saying it's a bad experience, but there's definitely a lot of parts that make me question what the designers were thinking compared to Scholar that just made sense in a gameplay perspective.
Oh god, him complaining about the optional ogre and then praising the optional heide knight gave me an aneurysm, I don’t know how you do this
0:55 in case anyone want to have a laugh at his hypocrisy
I noticed that's what the other guy Domo assblasted said too.
@@Kamawan0 agreed, it was nice getting the sword early without having to farm. At least it's still possible to get it early
@@soulstice94 Exactly. Just takes a long time, depending on RNG. Drop rates in both games are very bad for certain equipment, literally my only gripe with the games, actually.
An optional ogre that you pretty much need to stand 1 meter from to even aggro. :V
He just want to take a bath in the river so dont bully the ogre.
One must imagine Domo3000 happy...
"I lost the vanilla footage. But I *totally* compared them side by side. I didn't just play Scholar for footage and make stuff up. Pinky promise. Upon realizing my footage was lost I also couldn't be arsed to semi-speedrun vanilla to get to the relevant sections and get new footage. Time is money after all."
... how this kinda sounds to me, sorry to say.
What I find most curious is how all these videos are so identical. I wonder where the ur-video is. Hater Prime, as it were. The one everybody else seems to copy as they play for their footage.
He lost his footage, and apparently also all his Bonfire Ascetics 😂
Geez, I figured you might only respawn the terrible duo, but you're right, Nashandra (and Aldia, who knows) probably becomes available again upon using an ascetic. Just inexcusable.
Kinda sad we didn't get a mechanic like the bonfire ascetics in any other Souls game so far. Can be used in so many ways, it's wonderful.
Maybe the original hater video is Matthewmatosis' critique of Dark Souls 2. He also gets a ton of stuff incorrect/factually wrong, and it was before Scholar released. A lot of his talking points are parroted to this day.
@@Domo3000 I guess he must have lost his save date too lol
@@Ashlevon Matt gets a pass IMO for actually releasing the critique in 2014 before all this information we have was publicly accessible.
Great video. Some afterthought. Exploding hollows actually make a lot of chain noises, so doesn't noticing them before fighting viverns you need to be deaf.
Listening to audio cues while playing the game? What are you, a non-casual?
@@Domo3000more like not having 1 intelligence
@@Domo3000
I played the game while listening to music on my phone and still couldn't NOT hear the chains every time they showed up.
You don't have to listen for them, you WILL hear them whether you like it or not.
@thelegendofxander woke up and said: I love spreading missinformation.
But seriously I believe hating on scholar at this point turn out to be a social thing or something, there is no way that nobody checked on this facts before you. Its like there is a global concensus without proof that Scholar is a bad game. I have seen people messing with others just because they consider DS2 SOTFS a good game, or their favourite rather than DS1 or DS3. Its amazing what youre doing.
It is 100% a popular trend to hate on it
Well, the established narrative was that DS2 = bad. So when a definitive edition comes out, it can't possible be an improvement, nah, it has to actually make it even worse to fit the narrative. KEKW, DS2 so bad, the definitive edition made it even worse lmao haha, B Team Fromsoft energy, please make DS1 2 now kthx. Kind of like that.
Domo is the definition of "yo check it" and then checking it. We praise our no-bs-policy master
Gotta love when a youtuber makes a claim by backing it up with actual evidence and comparisons, and not just "I have thousands of subscribers, who needs evidence? My word is enough"
@@YEY0806 Unfortunately thats why this channel has a few thousand views and Xander's video has over one hundred thousand. Welcome to the post-truth world my dude!
@@JoshDoVidsthe burden if proof is a lost concept today
I genuinely don't understand why people think vanilla is better , it just had so much more jank and weird things like enemies being able to kill you at a bonfire, spiders not fearing the torch ,etc. Scholar fixed so much jank that was in vanilla that these video essays always leave out.
I like both versions!
nostalgia maybe? I don't know
Scholar of the First Sin made some changes that were bad, some that were good, and some that just exist. I don’t think it’s a superior way to experience the game, but not inherently inferior either. I don’t understand the divide in the DS2 community between Scholar and vanilla fans. They’re both valid ways to play the game to me.
@@Hewasnumber1 I don't understand the split either, but I would wager it has to do with the videos that have been misleading folks. I love both versions, still play both regularly. Feels like I have an extra Fromsoft game in my library.
@@Kamawan0 I think it's various factors. Maybe some people just stayed with whatever version they had. Can't blame Scholar players for not randomly buying another version or vanilla players for buying the "upgraded" one of the game they have already finished a million times. Add some online "discussion", like these videos, and maybe you get people who will die on these hills.
I also think that liking vanilla but hating Scholar might be due to wanting to like it, maybe even liking DS2 actually, but admitting as much means you lose street cred with the cool kids. You know, the common Souls crowd watching videos where they expect the usual DS2 bashing and such. Domo's comment sections here also have some haters in denial for whatever reason.
I mean what, are you going to spend a lot of money on the other version and invest dozens of hours of your life to "prove" UA-camr X wrong? It's not like they care, the video is old news, the damage is done. And maybe a lot of this discourse is not about good reasons, it's about hating for the sake of it and chasing trends, as it were.
Has anyone (the aweful and wrong Scholar haters) ever responded to these videos. It would be wise of them no to seeing as they'd be eviscerated, but my hopeful self would like to see them accept their ignorance and switch teams
You have posted cringe, it was like reading a Chris Chan comment lmao
Bro why you wrote this like a redditor 😭
Every time some SOTFS hater says how there are a thousand mobs ganking you while you're trying to fight a miniboss I just know that they ran around aggroing every single enemy without any care. This isn't how you play the game, or even how a new player might play the game at all.
In a video i made a few days ago I pointed out how the only area to me that is genuinely worse in SOTFS is the Iron Keep because the Allone Knights genuinely aggro from too far away and there are way too much of them (plus 2 invaders in the same spot) but I think the rest of the game is fine really.
I don't understand the Sotfs hate at all, this feels like people just reverberating opinions they read ln reddit or so. There are genuinely more spots that are much more unbearable in vanilla.
The strangest part to me is the amount of people who seem to encourage running away BECAUSE of the ganks.
*Runs past everyone*
*Alerts the whole area and gets ganked*
"This place has too many ganks!"
"I don't want to fight ganks, so I'll just run past them"
Ending up in this disfuncional ouroboros of bad player habits that ends up getting blammed on the game's level design.
I've always played by killing pretty much everything and picking foes off one by one and thats the mindset I had when playing DS2 for the first time, I ended up never really struggling with any ganks.
I still think the game has too many required enemies at certain points, not because I fight all of them at once and its hard, but because I fight them one by one, and there's a lot of them... Which can get kinda tedious. Shout-out to no man's wharf on that front.
And yet these same people say DS3 is the best in the series, despite its own problems with enemy swarms. Make it make sense!
@@christopherdunn8767 ds3 doesnt really have that many enemy swarms tbh.
@@Celatrathe cathedral of the deep have some of the WORST and most DEVIOUS spawn for some ennemies tbh.
Domo doing the Lord's work. One more grudge struck from the book.
You keep grudges over people not liking a video game?
They keep grudges about people blatantly lying about a game to justify not liking it. Like if someone doesn't like a game because they prefer their games in first person instead of third person (perfectly valid) and they start working up a hate mob about the game's pay-to-win system favoring whales and making budget players miserable (there's literally no way to send more money after buying the game, and only one version on the market - every person who has previously or will ever play the game has the exact same access to the exact same items with the exact same stats).
Not only does the cited issue have no relation to their actual issue with the game, it also has no relation to *anyone's* experience with the game PERIOD because they made the problem up.
@@saysallafirst off I'm pretty sure he's making a reference to Warhammer Fantasy dwarfs, who burnt down a town for accidentally shorting them a few coins in some trade deal one time. Second, slandering the reputation of a game through hypocrisy and double standards, showing complete intellectual dishonesty, is definitely grudge worthy.
Comment number 2.
I just checked out the other video, weeks ago i left a comment explaining things like how Scholar updated the enemy AI to be less aggressive in groups. Seems like it got deleted. I even sugar coated it just incase the creator saw it in hopes that it would be taken seriously by those of a more arrogant demeanor.
Something tells me that this guy doesn't actually care and 100 percent made their video for it's click bait nature.
I now disgusted and even more disgruntled at Scholar haters.
they said they were "moderateing" the comments. not sure about that even if they seem wellmeaning.
And now the comments are paused
@@ghostoflazlo lmao 💀 even my comments stay up
@@masterowl123 bruuuuh 💀 even I don’t moderated my comments and my channel is hate central
@@zzodysseuszz I just looked up your channel. You do have some good videos combating common DS2 hate comments, but honestly you really are aggressive in your responses lol. It's fine to be passionate about defending DS2, but not every rebuttal warrants such adversarial responses.
There is so many things that you can genuinely criticize this game but to make things up is just so low and also pointless like what does he get from this.
My main criticisms would be that there should be better bosses and that the credits can be skipped, make it easier to farm covenant items. but besides that nothing much
unfortunately we live in a world where facts don't matter as much as fostering a pre-existing emotional bias. The human brain rewards you with dopamine whenever other people "confirm" your stance. That stance doesn't have to be based on facts. This translates to easy clicks.
Sunken City has always felt underwhelming to me, at least compared to the other DLCs. Other than that, loved the whole ride.
@@YEY0806 What's wrong with the bosses? (I haven't played it yet, should be starting next week after uploading the DS1 playthrough). I haven't played dark souls, but I've played elden ring and sekiro; I haven't seen people say "dark souls 1 has bad bosses" but it honestly did. The lore was cool, and the set pieces were cool, but they all felt like absolute pushovers even for a first time playthrough. I think I prefer the "level" part to be a bit easier with more exploration etc... then a hard skill-check in the boss fight, but IMO it's the exact opposite. Blighttown? Cancerous, Quelagg? Stood directly in front of her and never got hit lmao. Ruins? Tough stuff with the ghosts/knights/lack of bonfires, 4 kings? stood in front of them and spammed attack, comfortably tanking hits. Sen's fortress? Definitely can be tough to get to the bonfire while trying to explore everything, Iron golem? May as well be a quick time event, seriously.
No hate, I enjoyed the game, I was just surprised that no boss took more than a couple tries, and I've never heard anyone complain about DS1 bosses (but I've heard nothing but bad things about DS2 lmao)
@bartholomewpicca9899 I have the opposite opinion, I felt like the ivory king DLC was underwhelming compared to Sunken King since it has the least puzzle like design of the DLCS, just run around until you find the knights for the boss fight, whereas Sunken King has a unique aesthetic that hasn't been replicated in the other souls games, with more puzzle and trap elements that gives the DLC a "Temple Of Doom" and "Tomb Raider" vibe, of course I also like Sinh compared to ivory
FINALLY someone calling out Scholar haters, I’ve been waiting for this.
2:11 Just as a note; those are hollow infantry, not basic hollows.
5:48 Xander does realize that some of her orbs won’t spawn if she’s too close to the edge or the arena, right? Y’know, because it would be unfair if there were orbs floating where can’t reach them without ranged?
Great video.
Edit: I just went and checked Xander’s video and he paused the comments. Apparently he isn’t too happy about the comment section calling him out and there’s a few comments mentioning you specifically. Thanks for making videos like this, it opens the way for better/more accurate critiques in the future.
I watched the feebleking video, and because it lined up with stuff I had already heard, I believed it. But now that I’ve been watching your videos for a week or two, I’ve seen actual direct comparisons of the changes and had the changes put in a wider context. Now it feels easy to say that scholar actually was a good upgrade. And I really do appreciate that, and how your passion for the game shows in your videos. You’ve made me interested in picking the game up again.
Crown of the Domo King when?
Domo King’s Blessing
@@crewds all hitboxes in the game are visualized lmfao
your channel is great.
i only played scholar, and i really enjoyed it.
so its great to see you comparing the two versions, and showing that this whole thing of "omg ds2 was a masterpiece but scholar RUINED it", is just not true at all.
like what is actually wrong with the soulslike community huh.
why is it just full of all these souls "fans" just spreading lies and misinformation.
this community is so rotten, and new players will take all these lies as facts because, surely a 1 hour analysis video about how scholar ruined ds2 with 1 million views and 500k likes could not possibly be made up lies right?
i love from soft games but the community is full of mindless hollows, for whatever reason.
The thing is that over 90% of people that played both versions prefer the Scholar version, so those disingenuous UA-camrs know that they can make great clickbait videos by just making outright false claims to get more comments and views.
And then people that don't know any better get trolled into buying the gankier Vanilla version with worse runbacks and falsely assume that Scholar must be even worse.
I also only played scholar and that was WAY after i watched a lot of videos on how scholar ruined DS2 and I honestly did not see it. I loved it and even got every achievement
@WolfBergMenace yeah, the funniest thing was that places like SOFA and FO weren't that hard. In the case of frigid Outskirts, the blizzard relents after a certain amount of time granting visibility, also I'm not sure but I think the reindeer don't spawn when that happens meaning that I only fought 5 which were all one on one. Lud and Zullen only taked one try since counter damage with duel rapiers is BUSTED!
@@YEY0806 I hate when people do this. Nobody knows what area you're talking about when you squish them into acronym that nobody uses. You must be the first person to ever abbreviate shrine of amana into SOFA. Took me a while to figure out what you were referring to. It doesn't take that long to write out the full name. Might as well abbreviate lud and zallen into L@Z.
@Boc_theSeamster sorry, just did it for convenience sake
1:35 Just to add this in case anybody thinks the opposite, IMO the heide knight when I was new to the game was way harder than the ogre. Hated Heide's tower
I would even argue that the Ogre is great for new players because if they do try to fight him they quickly learn that they can bait out attacks that they can easily punish, and that they can farm Souls with him. The Heide Knight with an unupgraded weapon and being completely new to the game is so much harder.
These videos are awesome. I only played ds2 a couple times but I'm definitely gonna be going back to it after seeing how much bs is spread about it. It's the craziest thing how hating on ds2 is this massive meme.
P.S. it's a pretty big red pill moment when you find out people actually don't care about facts. Most people are just desperate to conform and fit in, even with something as simple as "my swingy swingy slash slash game better than your swingy swingy slash slash game"
the part about your P.S. that bothers me the most is that the people you're talking about, in my experience, are the quickest to boast about their own intelligence, or their knowledge relative to you. In every argument I can remember having with a DS2, or Scholar, hater, they cite their own knowledge about the game as the reason they should win the argument, without, you know, presenting said knowledge (or while just presenting wrong information that they've heard.) One even said he was both a play-tester for DS2, and a developer for a "similar game released at the time" (sure), at the time of DS2s release, and their channel was all youtube animation content.
@@bartholomewpicca9899 There was literally only one other game like that released at the time, the OG Lords of the Fallen (arguably the first soulslike). All things considered that seems very unlikely.
@@hb-robo Oh yeah, surely they were larping. And if they werent, why would that change anything?
Another day, another scholar hater takedown. You are right Domo, they don’t care about facts, they just want that sweet UA-cam clickbait algorithm money. Keep up the good work!
all the ds3 fanboys just soak it all up too
When I first played DS2, it was on the PS3. While Scholar of the First Sin was released on the PS3, all it did was automatically include the three expansions, therefore everything else was still vanilla (likely due to performance reasons).
I hated the hell out of that game. The hate and frustration was unmatched; I can't even begin to describe how much I despised DS2. It didn't help, either, that I had _just_ finished Dark Souls: I legit downloaded DS2 as soon as the credits finished in DS1.
That was two years ago.
I played and complete Scholar of the First Sin a few weeks ago on the PC, and I fucking _loved_ it, and that's partly because of the changes made in SotFS, I think. Sure, there were some bullshit moments here and there (same as any FromSoft game), but overall I found myself having one helluva time.
All the DS2/SotFS haters are so disingenuous and braindead. Scholar of the First Sin is fucking GOAT'd; DS2 got its redemption from me bc of it.
This is actually super interesting. I didn't know any "Scholar" versions had vanilla DS2 in the game itself. I'd been looking for a physical version of vanilla base + vanilla DLC on disc to compare with the modern Scholar version. Is that what you're describing here?
Honestly DS2 SOTFS was not only my first souls game, it is also the only one I ever went back to in a genuine second playthrough, and the only one where I experimented with multiple build options for my first playthrough. For DS3, I had some phase where I wanted to try streaming for a bit and it seemed like a popular thing people play on streams at the time, so I started another playthrough that I quickly abandoned. DS1 I only bought very recently when the re-release version that's still fucking flawed (after removing the other version from steam so you can't buy it anymore and they can charge you more) happened to get a discount. While it had some interesting moments, it didn't have a single interesting boss since they only really started learning how to make bosses during DS2 and Bloodborne era. I feel no need to go back to that game but I still have the urge to play SOTFS again.
What was bad about OG ds2?
@@BygoneT domo has highlighted certain aspects in other videos, but generally the enemy ai was programmed to be more aggressive in groups and also the aggro range was further. There were enemy placements changed in scholar to make some encounters more fair and other balancing and tweaks made to make the bosses more fair like tuning their damage.
@@familiarisfelinus4087 I'm gonna have to replay og, iron keep feels much more aggressive now than before, so do other places, but I'd agree that in general some places got more manageable. I prefer og amana though. The feeling of bullet hell is great once you understand how to dodge them.
😂
Shitting on the ogres in forest, but praising the optional heide knight.
The ogre is optional too, haven't fought it in 3 years.
Ancient dragon was the bane of my existence in vanilla. Took me two weeks to beat. And he doesn't even include changes in the enemy placements from bonfire to Ancient. In Scholar, you have to fight 4-5 mandatory enemies with small enemies that even BOW TO YOU to signal their passive nature (if you fight fairly).
In vanilla, this area was hell.
He does actually mention the changes to Dragon Shrine as one of the only good change in Scholar
Bro the ogre argument is kinda silly, cause you can cheese him very easily by going to his tail... Maybe for a new player this wont be a thing, but like, search things on internet is a thing too, like havels armor on Nito in ds1
DS 2 Slander will NOT be tolerated
as someone who just played Scholar for the first time after DS1 and watched the Xander video it's so obvious that he ran through it without thinking and got frustrated when things weren't the exact same as vanilla. So many times - the royal swordsmen in the forest, the Lost Sinner light, the Dragon Aerie hollows, and ESPECIALLY the Tseldora spiders. it's so funny that he even realized they were scared of fire before the boss room and didn't think to try it elsewhere. As a newcomer to DS2, taking things slowly and using the ingame messages (intended game mechanic by the way) I felt like I was for the most part adequately prepared. "Try torch", "Be wary of trio", etc. And sometimes I had to change my equipment up if it was obvious my weapons weren't good for the area I was in. Some of the ganks were still egregious (the mages outside Ornifex, the pyromancer bells in Undead Crypt, Iron Keep, and Amana second bonfire are the worst examples) but he was way overdoing it.
Anyway thanks for calling him out.
Dark souls 2 shows the people with REAL skill issues in souls series, holy shit, thanks domo
Nah, ds2 just has a different play style, that should be respected, or at least understood
Disagree. DS2 is by far the most artificially challenging Souls. A Hallmark of that is the fact that navigating the path to the boss is much harder than the boss itself. And not because each individual enemy is tough, but just the sheer volume of them and how often they gank. Even if you take it slow, there are tons of situations where you're being attacked from all sides.
I am greatly enjoying my time with DS2, but it's definitely the most artificially difficult Souls IMO.
i do miss the heide knight under the tree
Also nashandra DOES have more then one curse orb even in vanilla, i havent killed her in vanilla but when i fought her i very mich remeber like 3 on screen
Yeah that's because he was just grasping to come up with any reason to hate on Scholar so he just made that part up and pretended that he lost the footage.
Here's a video that's older than Scholar so it's certainly Vanilla where you can see 15 seconds in that she spawns 4 curse balls as well: ua-cam.com/video/onYMt__CWfE/v-deo.htmlsi=0yUmLOrChtVr-Jme
@@Domo3000and then there’s the fact that in scholar you can just roll through em while in vanilla you have to attack them, which is much more annoying if you have a big heavy weapon.
@@texandeerhunter7351
Epic gamer tip: One hand your weapon and just punch the orb, its what I did.
@@An_Entire_Lime yeah that’s about what I figured out as well. Still was a bit of a pain to hotswap, however.
@@texandeerhunter7351 unless I am remembering wrong I was able to roll through the orbs to destroy them on vanilla
Amazing content
I hope this video can be suggested to as many people as possible, to fix the blatant misinformation cause by that guy
Been binge watching your videos recently, especially the series about debunking the fake "soulstubers" with their bs ds2 vids, and i decided to subscribe.
Your channel deserves more recognitions!
Heide's knights being literally everywhere but not at Heide's.
Finding McDuff in like couple hours, and only unlocking his speciality after being through half of the game.
Yeah, right, vanilla was sooo "intentional"
Heide Knights lore wise are lost, wandering knights, it makes sense they are NOT at Heide.
ds2 hater hysteria has the common symptom of making shit up and gaslighting themselves
Ive been going off about this video for weeks on my friends who have decided to never try dark souls 2 due to it "not being fair." (Although, one said he stopped when he was killed by the invisible knights in shaded woods, and i wish they became visible earlier than they do)
Those invisible knights were a problem in Vanilla, but in Scholar you can distract them by hitting the face trees. They will drop their aggro and focus on the tree instead: ua-cam.com/video/r6UnM71suiU/v-deo.html
it's literally such a shame that people are getting swindled into cheating themselves out of one of the most unique experiences in the whole souls series.
The Legend of Xander disabled the comments on his video, what a piece of ***
Don't be mean. He must already be feeling sad after my videos.
I like the fact that DS2 gives you options to approach the level design in different ways and even cheese bosses. It is an experimental title that has so many wonderful ideas (for example the stance that is changing if you lock in, low vs full hp, in inventory), many of them being implemented in newer titles (flasks upgrades, leveling mediated by a npc). Not to mention that all the animations were made from scratch. Despite the fact that it has flaws, it definitely has its charm
share the video guys
Doing the work of a true Monarch!
Your DS2 vanilla/DS2 SotFS comparisons give me sanity!
Even your hitbox comparisons between DS1/DS2/DS3 have been fun to see. I'm not sure if you'd be down for it, and it'd certainly be a lot of effort, but also comparing ganks/ambushes between the games would be interesting
I've already been brainstorming which situations to compare.
In DS1 you've got several times where you get ganked when you greedily pick up an item and enemies climb up from a ledge, which is similar to the sleeping hollows in the DS2 Forest.
In DS3 Undead Settlement you've got the Flamberg Thrall where another one drops down behind you, which is similar to Huntsman's Copse where a Rogue drops down behind you.
I would just need a list of a lot more ganks/ambushes in all three games and then compare how each game indicates danger and how they let you prevent these situations.
I watched that guy's video and I could not believe what I was hearing. Thanks for the facts 👍
The ds2 hate train is so pointless...
Without this game, bloodborne, ds3, sekiro, and even elden ring would not be nearly what they are today. Ds2 created the most diverse world in the series. It has issues, but everyone just glances over ds1 issues cause nostalgia, ds1 suffered rushed development just like ds2. Izalith being the most horrific contender, but honestly? I liked izalith, i loved its weird layout and environmental storytelling that was intended. I like much of ds2, even parts people didn't like, i liked them myself. I like the frigid outskirts for the unique placements of structures the challenge of napping through a huge wasteland, and it was optional, the kieran enemies were tough but genuinely fun to fight, and the lud and xallen boss fight was genuinely really cool, it was like aavas fight but even more hectic and challenging. Getting lost in that area was honestly really cool cause it had such a layer of mystery with the ice fog coating everything periodically.
Velstadt's fog gate
Scholar: "ugh reusing the dragonrider again"
Original with _six_ Syan knights: 🙈🙈🙈
I just finished playing DS1, currently editing the VODs down for a YT video; Next week I'm starting DS2 (Doing the whole trilogy blind), I have a lingering suspicion that DS2 will be very good, likely even preferable to DS1 for me. Based on what I've seen regarding mechanics, enemy placement etc... They made DS2 harder, and the classic "gitgudders" suddenly needed to actually expand their brain and "git gud" in slightly different ways, and in response they hate it. That's also precisely why I think Sekiro is a hard sell for so many; " I love super punishing games so long as I don't need to be punished for my lack of knowledge or mechanical ability" (OBVIOUSLY not all of the community, but undoubtedly some...) Regardless, I JUST watched the video you're responding to, and the commentary/editing felt weird to me, but I can't say one way or the other... YET >:D
Thanks for spreading the truth! Excited to check it out myself!!
girl, I'm getting crazy de-ja-vu writing this.
anyway, I hadn't watched the 'scholar bad' video, but I assumed it was true. I haven't watched this video to completion, because I haven't played dark souls 2 yet, and I want to, but clearly you're right. the talk about the ogre and heide knight made me a little closer to hollow. I know there's a little bit of division about the demon's souls remake and if it's really better, if you have anything to say about that, I'd watch it if I saw it. from my admittedly completely outside perspective, having only played dark souls 1 and a tiny amount of dark souls 3, I think I'd like dark souls 2, and I get the impression that some of dark souls 2 salt is just about people who had a bad time at launch because classic fromsoftware obfustication, and poor knowledge/incomplete wikis on the new game. but I'll just have to play it to find out
I have to say I really appreciate your videos!!! You have really opened my eyes to scholar and now Im really excited to play it after I finish up with ds3!!!
Remember to get 92 agility early game, 96 mid game and 100 or 105 late game. This removes the hitbox issues people complain about when they get hit mid roll.
@@Domo3000 Knowing this, and that not having enough stamina for a roll reduces your I-frames helps a lot, though I still try to get 99 Agility in the early-game, 20 ADP is just nice to look at.
i thought i was crazy in thinking the last giant did less damage to me in SOTFS.
Lies about announcements of making scholar harder. Lies about scholar being actually harder. Claims he was "pumped" scholar would be harder. Complains that scholar is allegedly harder.
Leaving a comment to help you on algorithms as always
But seriously tho, i'm deeply disgusted by souls game content creator who made a false accusations to these games.
These videos give me life
As someone who put a good chunk of time into both:
Vanilla DS2 is lacking QOL when you compare it to scholar (especially with upgrade mats). Farming certain items was tough as some items just had lots of areas or bosses to get through first and a lot of them weren't even that useful by the time you got there. The runbacks are very long too, there's a few shortcuts that aren't in the original.
Scholar improves on the original in most ways, balance is a bit better, but it's still a souls game so you know the balance will still be all over the place.
Main thing I like from Scholar is the changed spawns offer loads of new item farming/looting opportunities without having to defeat certain bosses first or having to go to new game plus. This is especially nice for covenant items, certain weapons, certain armors, and upgrade mats as well as consumables. Early access to the agape ring is nice as well. A must if you plan to pvp or coop in certain brackets.
I remember the beginning quarter or third of my ds2 sotfs playthrough to be pretty miserable, so when I heard how there were just tons more enemies in sotfs I figured that was to blame. Am I learning that Vanilla was about the same?
No, you are learning that Vanilla had even more ganks, worse runbacks and more frustrating moments.
Scholar addressed a lot of issues people had and is generally fairer and easier.
Havin the dark soul for SOTFS i can tell you the worse part of it is. Getting the needed sunlight medals in order to get all miracles, and the kills for bell keepers for all spells. The rest can be got via ng+2. Thats it.
Sunlight Medal farming is yet another plus for Scholar.
You can just go to the first bonfire in Tseldora or the Shaded Woods Crossroads and farm the Falconers.
In Vanilla they only showed up in NG+ Things Betwixt, so you always had to run further for less enemies.
@@Domo3000 still the drop rate is low evn with maximum item discovery and you have to join the championship covent in order to farm all of them for both sunlight and bellkeepers, or you can use bonfire astehics which has a minor boost to item discovery until ng+8 or 9. Either way it takes several days depending on how long you farm for per session.
@@maninthesnow4393 to be fair, covenant farming in all three games is pretty bad 😂
DS3 took me forever!
@@genericyoutuber5533 ds 1 had the easiest if we are talking about achievements. Seeing how you need three runs and you can just loot all items needed to until the miracles/pyromanices needed. 3 i can agree on being a pain, atleast we can level luck!
@@maninthesnow4393 yeah it basically goes DS1>DS2>DS3 in terms of how hard the achievements are
Elden Ring is pretty easy too imo, just takes a bit of grinding
> Heide Knight in Forest of Fallen Giants: no issue :)
> Royal Swordsmen in Forest of Fallen Giants: unacceptable >:(
zero brain activity
Basically, he is admitting that he died to a royal swordsman 😂
9:07 This is such a strange thing to complain about.
I'm glad I didn't find videos like this that scared me away from playing ds2. Ds2 had to be one of the best first playthroughs of any game I've had in a long time. It's not my favorite but it is an amazing game and watching someone lie to people who haven't even played the game about how bad it is is disgusting.
My only problem with dark souls 2 is the control scheme; I'm on mouse and keyboard, so even LEARNING HOW TO NAVIGATE THE MENU was an uphill battle. It's not as bad as say, Monster Hunter Frontier's PC controls in the translation, but it's horrible enough that I would have to spend days learning new controls just to play it.
Using controller is generally better for all souls games I've found
@@VerkrKoS I only ever use keyboard + mouse because I'm used to it.
No, they don't
Great video.
For the last point, however, I do not think they are asleep if you have destroyed any eggs. Obviously, this can be avoided but still something to point out.
It's almost like as if these DS2 haters secretly miss getting their asses torn up in vanilla and treat scholar as their coping mechanism for ruining their gank experience
That and the pre patch mundane shadow dagger landing 2k+ crits, if I had to guess
lmao he paused the comments
true, wtf
He still has them paused XD
Excellent video, you're doing Gods work ❤
deepest lore
any ideas for a new profile picture for me? i wanna use something from DS2, but i havent decided yet! so many cool things to choose from.
3:23 the fact that most ds2 haters make a lot of false claims without knowing anything about the lore is mind blowing
amazing video + sub
It really surpised Me how immersed I am playing thru Dark Souls 2, despite all the negative comments it recieved.
Don't mess with fromsoft fans
They haven't played the fucking games
The Dragon Ball fans of videogames
I’ve gotten every achievement in both versions of the game, and I have to say you’re right on the money with your comments and claims. As a whole for any curious, scholar also just, feels, better to play. The enemy variety and enemy placement feels a lot smarter overall, while being less annoying.
I wonder what do you think about Matthewmatosis' Dark Souls 2 critique? I know it's a bit beyond the scope of what you've been covering, he made it before Scholar came out, but there are some things in the video that Scholar addressed and some that weren't because they were rooted in the foundation of the game.
Most of the things that "werent addressed" were wrong critiques to begin with, but id love domo to live video evidence why.
@@janehrahan5116like him complaining that consumable healing items don't belong in a Souls game, and how bad it is that you get the Ring of Restoration so early.
I don't see how that's a bad thing and it's like he never played Demon Souls and acts like this makes him an expert of what belongs in a Souls game.
Towards the end of DS1 I used Humanities like faster Lifegems, but that's just more annoying as they are so rare.
"guys look at this footage of me plinking away at a mammoth knight with arrows LOL b-team bad design" repeat for like an hour and that's the whole video
@@Domo3000 Not only did he play Demon Souls he made an entire commentary on the game because he loves it so much and other than the healing the majority of his complaints in souls games after DS1 is that they aren't like DeS. He likes DS1's healing more because it's harder to cheese with but he also mainly plays as a knight without magic or projectiles.
@@janehrahan5116 I was thinking about stuff like the game arbitrarily telling you to go to places without saying why or controlling your character before you create them but those were his personal opinions and was probably thinking too hard about it. The best counter you could say about them is "that's just your opinion, man".
I confuse this guy with feeble king. This is the guy I watched a little while ago. I can't stand this wyvern and rupturig hollows part and stop the video. He complains same things over and over again and his gameplay is horrible. Agroing Wyvern and rupturig hollows at the same time is simply means death wish. He just plays badly. By the way Feeble King is horrible as well.
@Domo300 - Do Scholar haters even care about facts at all?
Me- No they don't most of them anyway 😢
I feel like Scholar makes a lot of good changes and additions to vanilla. Stuff like a bunch of Drangleic Castle enemies being unpetrified because of you, the interloper, brings me back to creative fantasy books I used to read. Even feels like King's Field to me, it's great.
Also when he said "there were no changes to any other bosses" my mind immediately thought of Ancient Dragon; does the dude not remember its damage?! It's still really high in SOTFS, but not one-shot tier like before.
I watched these videos from 3 to 1 and, wow, yeah seeing a side-by-side comparison is mind boggling. I've never played the original, I bought SotFS a few years ago and despite my griped with the game I've still played it for 238 hours. But every complaint I have with it would probably be doubled if I played the original now. Enemies are easier to approach in a smart way, bosses deal less damage, there are overall less enemies, and you have access to more options earlier in the game.
I genuinely don't understand why people hate the SotFS edition so much for being *harder* when it is easier. It's probably because any complaints about the game being *easier* are easily ignored because it's closer to that balancing point of difficulty and ease of access.
Thank you for your videos. Dark Souls 2 has always been my favorite. Seeing Ds2 in a new light now. Yea some fights may be gank, but as you point out, there is strategy to every one. Ds2 GENUINELY made you think about the map your going in and way to circumnavigate, wether it be via torches lighting up the map makinfmg certain enemies cower, or explosions that bkew open walls for shortcuts. THAT is whats missing from modren souls, especially Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring.
My main problem in souls was that i want to rush to the boss and level as quickly as humanly possible, which then in turn leads to the classic dark soul rage. Remembered this isnt made by Miyazaki so this self harmjng formula just doesnt work in this game. Replaying ds2 after watching and analyzing your criticisms, these videos brings a newfound joy on an already awesome game.
These videos point out bothe the pros AND the cons in a light ive never seen. Actual demonstrations and repeat examples comparative to the others in series. Not just "ds2 bad, therefore ds2 bad" type arguments that been around for years. Thank you for that.
Realizing now that Dark Souls 2 looks and plays like a classic RPG, much like the classic Zeldas, rather than your typical "soulsbourne" formula. I think in the coming years people will slowly realize this gem.
The only problem i have with scholar is that it makes my collectors edition hardcover guide not particularly useful
the heide knight was allways the equivalent to dark knights in dark souls for me, not having the oppurtunity to get a chance at grabbing his lighting sword def held me back in the remake
You can get the sword you just have to kill the heide knights for it to drop its about a 1% chance at default like most equipment
I think he must be mixing up the pate trap enemies that are being more aggressive when the trap activates in scholar, as a lot of the enemies from inside the building will rush out at once during that first event. It could be why he thinks there are more enemies, when really the enemy count could be the same they just swarm you giving the illusion there are more
1:08 Literally just ignore the ogre and move past it ! wtf is wrong with these people's brain ? , that ogre doesn't even follow you if you don't try to get close to it
Keep cooking, man. Really good video.
"these are not some random knights from lost bastile" and the brave lad flies off xD I love it when this game does that.
I don't know why people need to hate so much, like you can have your own opinions but don't contradict yourself and definitely don't lie. I love all three dark souls games but the fans piss me off tbh because they're always arguing which one is best, again have your own opinions, but I think everyone just gets blinded by hate for the other, so that any of their arguments aren't productive. Can't we just get along guys all the games are great, and all of them have flaws 💀
Other M sent me. DaS2: SotFS is my favorite Souls game. Absolutely beautiful. I love Majula, the Rotten, the Shrine of Amana, the Dragon Aerie, the builds, bonfire ascetics, all of it. I only wish they hadn’t implemented Soul Memory because the Agape Ring doesn’t do it for me.
I’m on break but I’ll be back to comment on the video itself. Big Ups!
Edit: That Dragon Aerie section is peak absurdity. I have hundreds of hours in Scholar and I adore the Aerie and never once have I had to fight one of those exploding hollows while I fight a dragon. These goofballs go and disingenuously aggro everything, record it and say, “Look how awful the ganks are!” Gimme a break. That is not normal play nor is it a common, or even reasonable, experience.
5:23 Hi I just finished Dark Souls 2 just this week, actually quite liked it a lot, and while I agree with most of your videos and points, as a 4 vigor swordsman I absolutely got one shot by scholar last giant at max hollowed. Since it was very slow attacks I didn't mind too much, but being one shot is absolutely on the table. In fairness I had some pieces of the starting armor on because I just liked how it looked better than the swordsman set, maybe that had something to do with it?
People complaining bout DS2 prolly never tried Demon Souls back in PS3 xd
When I didn't know about vanilla my main issue with Scholar critics is "How about lore, plot and several added locations, without them Dark Souls 2 would be a lot lesser"
This is a really good video honestly, you back up what you say with facts and it all comes together nicely. Now, does this change my opinion of personally finding this game to suck in lots of ways? No. But I don't think we need to stretch things (whether intentional or not) to make our opinions seem better lmao.
Thank you for defending such a beautiful and fun game this game i didn't play vanilla but i would have liked to and i think sotfs is just very misunderstood and got its bad reputation form disingenuous or spiteful people
Domo is the best DS2 soldier and youtuber.
True
Thank you for this video.
I was considering buying the base dark souls 2 after all the people online saying how it was actually the better version, your video saved me from that.
If i had to fight ancient dragon with those damage numbers that it has in base game i would have gone insane.
Man, i am really glad i didn't watch this liar's video whenever it kept getting recommended to me.
It's a relatively recent phenomenon where its cool to shit on dark souls 2.Before mauler made his big video everybody loved the game. I've been playing it since day 1 and it pisses me off that all these new players just shit on it because the internet convinced them. Then they make a video and the cycle continues. Also you can really tell who hasn't played the game or people who play it completely wrong. Lots of these videos showing how bad it is always have huge mobs behind them because they don't take them out earlier. It's not a game issue it's a you issue. Normies gonna norm I guess
This is a lie, people have been shitting on dark souls 2 since 2014. It obviously wasn't as one sided because a lot of players were still in their honeymoon phase but even back then there was tons of debates on whether or not the game was a step back from DS1 especially in terms of level design and the controversial new mechanics like ADP and Soul Memory. However it does look worse now because more and more new and better soulslike games like Lords of the Fallen, Nioh, Lies of P, Wukong etc come out and make DS2 look worse and worse by comparison every year.
not true. i went in ds2 blind and it immediately felt more clunky and unfair than ds1
@@saysalla imagine saying that Lords of the Fallen is a better game than DS2 :))))))
I love your channel and the work you've done debunking shit tubers so far.
I have so many ideas to create and compare. And ofc to also debunk.
My parody video defending ds2 unfortunately didn't get much attention.
Would you be up to do a colab?
I see ds2 content creator debunking haters, I sub
I like scholar less. My reasons: imo hades knights are ruined, i liked them more when there were fewer of them but they dropped a guarantees and powerful weapon; less ganks, most of which i enjoyed; that one horse in drangleik castle surrounded by four greatbow archers, the challenge i particularly loved; and shrine of amana/the corridor to Velsstadt having less enemies. So again less ganks. Don't they hate ganks though? Guess we are not the same.
The only thing I actively remember hating in vanilla and appreciate in the scholar is thr stairs to ancient dragon, that the guards aren't hunting me down on the runback.
P. S. Wasn't ancient dragon nerfed in one of the first patches of vanilla? If its scholar's merit I freakin forgive it for everything. To this day i don't know how to possibly kill the og dragon without that ring that protects my back by putting a cadaver on it. Malenia is less bs than that.
Dude you are doing such a good service by debunking all this ridiculous and nonfactual hate against DS2, especially Scholar of the First Sin. Keep it up! 👊
I read the title without seeing the thumbnail and immediately thought this was going to be about anti-science people and stuff
How did i miss this one
Og Ds2 is what everybody thinks ds2 is loool. I enjoy ds2, currently playing it rn, and while I haven't beat yet, my only real complaints so far, are the stupid ass stone statues, idc if there's lore reasons or whatever, I think they're dumb and shouldn't have been added.
Some enemy placements are annoying, I can see why people would get upset, but mainly Shrine of Amana, and Iron Passage so far for me. And as much I as I don't like decreased health, I do think it makes sense in context of the game
Small brains only play one version
Galaxy brains play both versions and get two different experiences that are equally awesome
as far as i've seen both versions look about the same, that is, gameplay wise. i don't think scholar is better than vanilla but i also don't think it ruins it either, if anything it adds even more replayability to the already most replayable souls game. also scholar just looks ways better the dynamic lighting is really nice looking.
yeah but facts are boring. "How scholar ruins lifes, starts wars and diseases" clickbait titles are way more entertaining for the "confirmation" bias crowd
Sarcasm btw
When looking to an environmental narrative perspective, vanilla enemy placement was all over the place and that's one thing that motivated the changes other than just balancing: in a videogame like dark souls, especially DS2 where the lore is much more confused than any from software game, putting the wrong enemy in the wrong place (see the heide's knights scattered around Drangleic without any reason) is way worse than two or three ganks more in Scholar!
Tomorrow I'll upload a video detailing how Scholar improved lore accurate enemy placement, eg moving the Flexile Sentry from Shrine of Winter to Sinner's Rise
Why do people do this? For content? To make themselves look smart?
Many people mistake Scholar for having a higher quantity of enemies opposed to vanilla as the issue. The truth is that the enemy types, placements, and interactions with said enemies are what makes Scholar more frustrating for many players.
For instance, in Pates trap, it's true that scholar has fewer enemies compared to vanilla. What you didn't show is that in Scholar, more enemies aggro once you activate the trap opposed to vanilla which keeps a majority of its enemies on the stairs, making the gank more difficult and irritating in scholar.
Yeah it's funny that a lot of the changes made (imo for the better) actually confused me at first 'cause when I played the original ds2 some areas and bosses I feared were only BECAUSE they were so hard in DS2. Like the dragons being asleep and Ancient Dragon usually one or two-shotting you. Imo, Scholar is just a more fun experience over all. I think the negative reputation that DS2 gets is because the original wasn't thought out as much. Not saying it's a bad experience, but there's definitely a lot of parts that make me question what the designers were thinking compared to Scholar that just made sense in a gameplay perspective.
SOTFS is cool but I wish red tearstone the same in the original. It only working for melee builds is a shame