DS2 level design is all about using your enviroment to better deal with the enemies in each area like the Iron Keep contraptions, the poison vases in Earthen Peak or the Balistas and Exploding Barrels in Forest of Fallen Giants, which made it very rewarding for me on my first playthrough when I took things slow and really looked at how I had to approach each encounter. This is why a good amount (not all) of DS2 haters were simply too impatient or unable to understand the intentions the game set out for you to clear levels.
The truth of the matter is that both games have ambushes (it's literally one of the words in the message system) but all those infamously bad DS2 critiques make one massive blunder: They tried playing DS2 the exact same way they played DS1, by running past all the enemies. In DS1, enemies lose aggro sooner than a new player would assume and you can even quit out to reload them to their initial positions. DS2 explicitly goes out of its way to prevent running past all enemies to reach the boss. Fog walls, switches and chests only have i-frames very late into the animation, there are way more enemies in general. Another thing is that they probably read everywhere that DS2 is the worst Souls game and they didn't want to fight every enemy, just get the area over with. Not memorizing the enemy locations and ambushes + trying to play like another game (one that they actually know) does that to a MF. Is having to fight a bunch of enemies every time you wanna fight a boss annoying and dumb? You bet! Are the "DS2 critiques" (and I mean the really bad ones) full of overblown whining armchair game designers misunderstanding developer intent and possibly even setting up gank scenarios to make the game look worse? Absolutely. HBomberguy didn't die for our sins. He's a fanboy and a mental gymnast, the same way Mauler and Feeble King are haters with severe skill issues.
running past enemies is just as valid as killing everything, but the game is actually designed with that in mind this time to make it a challenge. To me running past things is DS2 is actually more enjoyable than running past things in DS1 for this reason
Yup. It's objectively worse than any ambush in ds2, for the simple fact that you literally cannot see it coming. Every ambush that people complain about in ds2, can be discovered way before they attack, if you're paying enough attention. But not the thieves in ds1 xD
The Tomb of Giants where the Skeletons protect that fucking Ember for the blacksmith is definitely a Spambush if you drop into it. Take your time people! Don't run in headfirst unless you're me and you do it because funny
I find it funny because the Divine Ember is kind of useless at that point in the game, since you'll reach the boss the next 30 minutes and upgrading it will take far more than you'll get out of it.
Ds2 feels more like they tried to make a kings field game in 3rd person. DS3 took lots of inspiration from bloodborne. Bloodborne was the breaking point from old kings field style gameplay and level design to what would become modern fromsoft, which is pretty good, mind you, but is a fair bit removed from demons souls and kings field. I do wonder if fromsoftware will ever try to make a modern kings field. Armored core is much easier to adapt because it was always 3rd person, fast paced and more arcadey, while kings field is more like a first person dungeon crawler, which is a genre people aren't very much used to nowadays.
It's funny, I was told ds2 was bad ds2 shit over and over before playing it.. I wasn't spoiled anything from ds2 I don't think.. I played ds3 first and all my lore questions to my friend about it were "that's a ds1 reference" because he didn't want to spoil ds1.. but also he bought me ds3 to be my first souls game sooo yeah not the brightest sharpest tool in the shed! but anyways I played ds3, I went and 100%'d and got all achievements too.. then ds1 and realized ds1 was just not fun for me.. I didn't like any of the levels and only a handful of bosses. I didn't like anything ds1 did unique to it at all and found it very annoying, the second half hte game was especially painful because FINALLY I can teleport!.. oh its because the game is shit now so they feel bad.. ok.. I still got all achievements out of spite and maybe some sort of masochism I have no idea. I can't force myself to play this game after O&S anymore even. Then dark souls 2.. duel wielding? something I had wanted from when I first played ds3, Dark Sorcery?? and it's a whole spellclass? it was awesome from the get-go.. I came to absolutely adore dark souls 2 and honestly, Kind of hate that ds1 comes first because I really do NOT like dark souls 1 at all. I love dark souls 2 and it's become one of my favorite games of all time. I have gotten all achievements on Scholar and Vanilla ds2 I love it that much. Peak game. peak weapons and every little area has its own small gimmick of some kind, maybe not ALL but most have a little thing that makes them unique, and many rare enemies that show up only a few times. the enemy variety felt leaps and bounds more then the other 2 games. I just love it and the whole atmosphere of ds2 is very soothing to me in a way only a few games I've ever played make me feel. minecraft perhaps? it brought back that old sense of wonder and mystery.. this dead world where from the start I know what comes after, how the world ends. and how the world formed.. yet all this history is here forgotten even by the sequel. it sits here and there really is only my character to walk through it before it all falls apart and is reborn anew. something about it just.. it just hit right in a way ds1 and 3 didn't for me
I have the most playtime in ds2. Ds 1 was my first game of the series. All the "reference s" in ds 3 for me.felt like a nostalgia bait. I can't play ds 3 again because I am still angry at the final boss and how it butchered the atmosphere of the finale in ds1. Ds2 was so different from ds 1, that people hated it. But to be fair, it still has positive reviews, I would say narrow minded people hated ds 2
@@floppyslot you're right with lore and gameplay taking alot from ds2.. but the whole world of ds3 is just "remember ds1?" in a way that I didn't feel with ds2. the whole world, level and bosses felt all new and fresh.. so much of ds1, literally anor londo for one is straight from ds1.. hey look darkroot garden! swamp now, stuff like that. black knights? yep still around. all of that sort of thing. what probably didn't help is that every lore question i gave my friend he just told me what other game it was from rather then any sort of real explanation until I played ds1 and 2.. he's good friend and all but playing ds3 first was probably a huge reason I don't like ds1
I kind of played all Dark Souls games like I was solid snake/batman and had to fight with everything I had. This made DS2 way easier for me, as I was prepared for the worst at any scenario.
I think a lot of people go into DS2 already with the presumption that it's "bad" compared to DS1 and they lower their skill level because they don't think the game deserves the respect to be played properly. I watched another youtuber's playthrough of it where he complained constantly about the game and I got curious, went ahead and compared his DS2 footage to his first playthrough of DS1. He plays DS1 way slower, with a shield raised and tries to pull enemies from their groups way more often but when playing DS2, it's like his brain shuts down and sprints into every fight, doesn't even attempt to dodge incoming attacks. While part of it can be caused from getting tilted, it's still really bizarre seeing this phenomenon in action, it's like players unconsciously choose to forget all the lessons they've learned in DS1 and then say DS2 is objectively worse while having encounters very similarly structured to DS1.
Des / DS1 and DS2 are a lot more similar to eachother then anything that came afterwards, a lot of focus is on the run to the boss rather then the boss itself being the main challenge of the area. DS2 is a great game and is in no way inferior to any previous or after, I blame the edgy youtubers back in 2014 that were angry because it wasn't DS1: 2 (They didn't play King's Field or DeS and still consider themselves some sort of Fromsoftware mouthpieces)
while I agree that DS2 hate is a little overdone, and DS1 has it's fair share of BS, there is a lot of stuff that is just objectively worse. The losing max HP on death, limited enemy spawns, the directional rolling thing where you have to turn first, I-Frames being affected by your stats, DLC Bossruns, HITBOXES, Boss encounters that felt uninspired/boring/tedious were more common than the other two. I might sound negative, but i quite liked DS2, it's just that the other two games (for the most part) knew why difficulty can be fun, and DS2 just threw shit at you, and was less polished.
@@Nivin_Frostgazeweird to think of those as "objectively worse". the hp loss is just adding more stakes to death, it's no different than the bloodstain mechanic. and if it's bad, demon's souls is unarguably "worse" on that regard, same with gauntlets before a boss. the hitbox claim is blatantly untrue, check domo3000's video on hitboxes. and idk i like ADP i feel like it keeps rollspamming in check, it can still be done if you wish but it's something that has to be built towards, it helps that most attacks in the game are easily strafable.
I’m not a ds2 hater but enemy spam is a prominent problem in the game. The problem is that they are made that way that you can’t really outsmart them, run past or deal one by one. It’s not just many enemy bad, bcuz ds2 bad. Firstly, dodge i-frames having a different logic and dependent on adp makes it tough to run past and dodge consistently. Secondly, doors and fogwalls don’t have i-frames which was the main reason why ganks were manageable, you had a room to breathe and safely escape. Thirdly, there is a weird AI quirk in ds2 that for some reason you can’t bait enemies one by one. I can’t explain why or how, but no matter how precisely I move towards a group of standing enemies, I can never bait only one, they all jump at the same time fourthly, ds1 at it’s first half almost always tried to place groups of enemies in more tactical ways, making encounters more memorable like kicking doors down, making few variants of enemies, showing off buffing abilities or environmental hazard. I said first half because second half of ds1 has the same problems as ds2. Nobody ever defends second half of ds1 because it’s not good and I don’t think ds2’s ganks should be glossed over either I am not hating ds2, nor do I try to close my eyes on actual problems, it’s not a “special child” it’s a part of a prestigious family and must be held by same standards. I said what I don’t like in this game and gave my (hopefully) constructive criticism because I think this game deserves to be judged fairly. Ganks in ds2 are bad, second half of ds1 is bad but the games themselves are good, stop trying to nitpick either of them and make your own conclusions based on the game
You can do every runback in DS2 without getting hit at the fog wall and not killing any enemies, you just need better timing with your sprinting and better maneuvering . The only doors that are inconsistent are Smelter Demon because of the Alonne Captain at the end and Velstadt where you HAVE TO kill the dragonrider guarding it once. As for adaptability, you can get the agility required for 11 i-frames (same as DS1) with only a few levels of adaptability and you can also get a bunch of agility from attunement and I believe most players like to play with at least 1-2 spells unless they are doing a pure STR or DEX build.
@ tbh these fogwalls are just the most prominent offenders. Most fogwalls have enemies that can sometimes stun you from entering which is annoying enough to bring up. And it’s not just the fogwalls, it’s also the doors, chests and other animations that gave us I-frames. I like fighting enemies, what I don’t like is having a constant nuisance on my way to the boss without any way of circumventing them or needing an elaborate plan to get there quickly I know that you can get enough I-frames, the problem is that i-frames on dodges have different timings which just absolutely go against my muscle memory. Even if you have the same I-frames, your dodges are still different and having inconsistency in I-frames is what makes it especially frustrating to tune my dodging for this game. I don’t even remember if they start up earlier or later than other games but I can definitely tell that ds2 dodges are just slightly off even with the same I-frames and decent hitboxes
i just wanted to make a reasonable response to your comment here,hope you don't mind. (btw im considering your comment about not being able to outsmart enemies as point 3) the fist point is just one i don't get, adp is fine and useful for a lot more then i frames and the stat investment to get it up to snuff is manageable to me. the second point is really funny because i see it as the game telling you that you shouldn't be trying to run past enemies. i also don't know how your playing the other games so differently to me that you need door i-frames to deal with ganks. the third point is you just not knowing how ds2 enemy AI works. you can pick them off one by one, you either need to be fast and kill them before there friends can join the fight or use ranged options to single out one from the group. although this is hit or miss, some of the guys do just chain aggro, but i find that this is usually just in pares of enemies. the forth point is wired cus you forgot to talk about DS2.(lol) but ds2 also has a lot of tactical enemy placement, so i don't get your point.
@ I kinda feel we won’t get anywhere near to agreement because it seems we just have different preferences but I’ll respond and probably leave after 1) adp is a personal preference, I don’t like and I think many will agree that it’s kinda arbitrary and it should’ve been a strict amount of I-frames to not mess up timings. We can already control it with weight and rings, a separate stat is unnecessary. You kinda miss the point that the dodges themselves are different, the i-frames just kick in on a different timing and it kinda makes it harder to dodge when my brain is wired to standards that were utilised in 3 other games of the same lineage. I might be wrong but it’s like I-frames start at the beginning of the rolling and not at it’s middle 2) I like fighting enemies once or twice. I don’t like going through the same pack of shitheads that guard the boss arena 15 times in a row to despawn them. Enemy spam is as bad and uninspired like the second half of ds1, that’s the problem. There are good exceptions like invaders with interesting AI or enemies that try to do unique hijinks but I’d rather have a consistently good quality of enemies. I need i-frames for doors as a choice if I want to skip the encounter, dark souls was made to challenge you into finding solutions, not make you bash your head against a wall. Without I-frames on doors and fogwalls it became a slog 3) I kinda like how enemies kinda try to stay as a group sometimes and it would’ve been a cool idea but it’s execution is not really good. They don’t have a watcher AI, they don’t care if there’s 5 already, they all pile you up, it would’ve been fine once or twice as a challenge but it’s kinda almost the whole game. It’s another preference thing but I think many agree that shrine of amana is not a good place. Luring one by one should be an option, not an obligation, not everyone likes spending few minutes on each enemy for the next half an hour because you’re hollowed and can’t pass through normally 4) yeah, my bad I don’ think we’ll continue this discussion because it’s mostly preferences. I don’t criticise your preferences, I criticise what I see as poor decisions and/or executions that ds2 makes. It’s not as objective as I would’ve liked but that’s my human factor. Have a great day and thanks for sharing your opinion
That is the point of the video showing that if u dont pay attention, like in all of the games, u will get ganked, but people only say it's a ds2 problem
And they completely ignore the fact that aggro works much different in 2 ao you can't take your time with enemies doing 1v1's like the first game, hence where the ganking comes from, but glazers gonna glaze I guess.
Is this an actual argument? Half of those locations were optional, and only a fool would run into them deliberately like that. Several more requires drawing enemies together to have them all in one place.
thats the gag. thats what every ds2 hater does lmao. Its actually impressive how they draw together such armies without using their weapon when dissing ds2.
Eh, I've never heard anyone talk about tomb of the giants favorably, or Blighttown or Lost Izalith as a matter of fact. As far as I know it's pretty universally agreed those areas suck, along with most of DS1's second half. Not to play devil's advocate but I think the reason DS2 is more hated on is that it has way more "cancerous" areas when you factor in the dlc's. Base game DS2 is pretty manageable though.
The difference is that DS1 offers several options to deal with multiple enemies that are either not present or crippled in DS2. For example, in DS1 you have more than one estus flask so you can heal if you aren't skilled enough and take damage. DS2 gives you crippled movement, no s on your rolls and underpowered weapons so situations that are easy to deal with in DS1 are significantly more obnoxious in DS2.
Well, to be fair to DS1, DS2 wasn’t rushed, Lost Izalith may be absolute garbage, but it’s the devs doing the best with what they had, DS2 was simply taking a risk that didn’t work out, one Fromsoftware learned from. Edit: this is why you do your research before posting stuff like this.
The difference is: In DS1 you choose to go into the obvious swarm of enemies. But in DS2 you NEED to kill every single enemy in a crowded area slowly either because you need to pass or the game forces you to figth an ambush when youre in a closed room.
Dude, do u have eyes? Do you know that this is satire to how people write reviews on ds2? Can u understand that people like the game that is unfairly judged and hanted on by people who fundamentally dont understand how darksouls work?
Well no shit if you run around not killing anything the game punishes you and the enemies will corner you. Ds2 just naturally corners you with bullshit spawns, two fucking mammoths dude, a truckload of spiders, invisible ponies, skeleton boss that breaks off into twenty thousand skeletons. Let's be adults here, we all love the game because it has the feeling of a fromsoft game, but each of their games have their own problems, to deny that is just dumb.
In my opinion DS feels more balanced to me at least is because you have lots of ways to deal with it( not saying DS2 doesn’t.) But the thing I feel is that the AI in DS2 waits for u to get back up and then flattens u while DS1 the enemies attacks were easier to dodge
So what you're saying is that the game series that is known for it's difficulty, is somehow worse when the difficulty comes from the better, less-braindead AI of ds2?
bro is intentionally gathering all enemies into one area then idling for them to kill him LMAO. not to mention the first clip in the undead burg is literally in front of a bonfire, so even if you die from the bomb-throwing hollows while on the bridge, you can retry and learn from your mistake, where as in ds2 you got enemy spam in pretty much every single room, for miles on end until you get to the next bonfire. literally just compare the entire trek from the first bonfire of the forest of the giants till the 2nd bonfire, then compare the first bonfire of undead burg till the 2nd bonfire, but now repeat that same spam in ds2 for the entire game while in ds1 the only enemy "spam" are the braindead low hp hollows that can be 1 shot (not to mention ds2 LOVES to spam archers and ranged enemies to pummel you from a distance in inopportune areas while having melee enemies block your path or ambush you).
Bro its satire on how people play and review ds2? U are falling for the bate? U proved that u are this guy that they are talking about bro, u are an actual npc and a clown 🤡
You see Mauler(whose voice you hear in the first part of the video) did the same thing in DS2 and presented it as a ds2 issue when if can clearly be replicated in every soul game. And the second persons voice is feeble king who made similar points when the very same things can be said about ds1.
You know why ds 1 spamming wasn't that hard or noticeable? Because of the i frames using levers, doors and fog gates. Ds 2 removed it and made people either kill anyone around them to progress, or be clever, bait and time everything. And I love this in ds 2
Stop running in enemy territory and expect to come out Scott free..You always have time to assess the situation and ganking only happens when you let it certain areas you can always run past if you know the way its all about learning and getting good.
@GUYFROMEldos He never even implied that he was running through the areas, just that DS2 amplified all of DS1's flaws and he is 100% correct on that. Some of these ganks are so lazy that the AI will NOT acknowledge you existing until you've actually gone into position. There's no immersion in this type of design philosophy, only the fact that the game wants you to die and doesn't know what to do when you're smarter than its bullshit. Case and point, the guillotine bit in Iron Keep. Why does the knight wait until you're in the tunnel to actually do something?
@@OopsAllGodskins Did you even look at the footage of some of these critique videos? Look at them playing areas like Shrine of Amana, Iron Keep, or Lost Bastille, the ludicrous number of enemies they pull is unbelievable, when all they needed to do was not overextend or ignore enemies expecting everyone to ignore them back, they refuse to even kill enemies who are right in front of them. Not to mention that there are many similar instances of ambush AI in the other games, like enemies hiding behind corners and only aggroing the instant youre in front of them, or some of the painting guardians in Anor Londo, they won't even bother helping their dying friends that are barely halfway across the room
@chaoskiller6084 That will get them killed, yeah, you can't ignore enemies and expect to not get killed for it. You're absolutely right. I only tend to give Dark Souls 2 the most shit for its enemy density and AI solely because it seems to be the game with the most defense for it, and I genuinely don't know why THIS game gets a pass but the others get rightfully critizied. That's what irks the most, and hell, there are current issues with games as recent as ER that do the exact same tired formula of just lazily slapping an imp around the corner and calling that an encounter. These reused, uninspired encounters/gank setups are very, very boring after the first few times they're done. DS2 is guilty of this, and so are the other games. TLDR: Very annoying when git gud and patience are the excuses given for Dark Souls 2 spamming the 'enemy around the corner' cliche, when the issue isn't skill-related, it's just boring to deal with.
@@OopsAllGodskins Honestly, I'm inclined to agree on the front that souls players often employ double standards to the games, but not that it's only DS2 that has this problem, all games are victims of these arguments and defences by their most avid fans, and it just isn't healthy in a civil or fair discussion of these games
First 0:21: Fucking asked for it. NO EXCUSES Second 0:33 to 0:50: Lost Izalith moment(Shitty area. Gotta admit) Third(Whole entire video): Refuses to attack anyone Now... How about you include DS2 clips in these for comparision, uh? Just wait for the DS2 simps now(Agora é só espera a bosetakkkkkkkk)
Unlike these other souls players, I am consistent...
I hate all of these games
so real...
Based
They all deserve to be equally hate-love 🥰
DMC Chad? NInja Gaiden God?
DS2 level design is all about using your enviroment to better deal with the enemies in each area like the Iron Keep contraptions, the poison vases in Earthen Peak or the Balistas and Exploding Barrels in Forest of Fallen Giants, which made it very rewarding for me on my first playthrough when I took things slow and really looked at how I had to approach each encounter.
This is why a good amount (not all) of DS2 haters were simply too impatient or unable to understand the intentions the game set out for you to clear levels.
well said
Yeah, ds2 is a strategy game. I found ringed city and Old Hunters a tad more unfair due to enemy spam.
The truth of the matter is that both games have ambushes (it's literally one of the words in the message system) but all those infamously bad DS2 critiques make one massive blunder: They tried playing DS2 the exact same way they played DS1, by running past all the enemies.
In DS1, enemies lose aggro sooner than a new player would assume and you can even quit out to reload them to their initial positions. DS2 explicitly goes out of its way to prevent running past all enemies to reach the boss. Fog walls, switches and chests only have i-frames very late into the animation, there are way more enemies in general.
Another thing is that they probably read everywhere that DS2 is the worst Souls game and they didn't want to fight every enemy, just get the area over with. Not memorizing the enemy locations and ambushes + trying to play like another game (one that they actually know) does that to a MF.
Is having to fight a bunch of enemies every time you wanna fight a boss annoying and dumb? You bet! Are the "DS2 critiques" (and I mean the really bad ones) full of overblown whining armchair game designers misunderstanding developer intent and possibly even setting up gank scenarios to make the game look worse? Absolutely.
HBomberguy didn't die for our sins. He's a fanboy and a mental gymnast, the same way Mauler and Feeble King are haters with severe skill issues.
running past enemies is just as valid as killing everything, but the game is actually designed with that in mind this time to make it a challenge. To me running past things is DS2 is actually more enjoyable than running past things in DS1 for this reason
clearly it's your fault for not dealing with each enemy in ds1
clearly it's game's fault for having more than 1 enemy alive at a time in ds2
Clearly
Naturally
The hollow thieves before the capra demon are a way worst spambush than any other encounter in ds2
Yup. It's objectively worse than any ambush in ds2, for the simple fact that you literally cannot see it coming.
Every ambush that people complain about in ds2, can be discovered way before they attack, if you're paying enough attention. But not the thieves in ds1 xD
No
It's fun on a normal NG, but doing it Sl1 on NG+ made the bossrun one of the hardest in the game.
@@PointlessProductionStudio it's easier and faster to go the back way past the female merchant instead
When the fight before Capra Demon is somehow worse than Capra Demon:
Nothing to see here, seems completely fair to me. Your fault for not playing the game the correct way, otherwise it musta been the wind.
The Tomb of Giants where the Skeletons protect that fucking Ember for the blacksmith is definitely a Spambush if you drop into it. Take your time people! Don't run in headfirst unless you're me and you do it because funny
I mean. Kinda like with iron keep in ds 2. Take your time and it's easy
I find it funny because the Divine Ember is kind of useless at that point in the game, since you'll reach the boss the next 30 minutes and upgrading it will take far more than you'll get out of it.
@@PointlessProductionStudio divine infusion is necessary if you're a faith build and you want a weapon that scales
@@rigorm136 Fair enough! I rarely do faith stuff, so I only knew it as the anti skellie weapon
True ,both are peak
True
You can find yourself surrounded by 6 million enemies in either game
Ds2 feels more like they tried to make a kings field game in 3rd person. DS3 took lots of inspiration from bloodborne. Bloodborne was the breaking point from old kings field style gameplay and level design to what would become modern fromsoft, which is pretty good, mind you, but is a fair bit removed from demons souls and kings field.
I do wonder if fromsoftware will ever try to make a modern kings field. Armored core is much easier to adapt because it was always 3rd person, fast paced and more arcadey, while kings field is more like a first person dungeon crawler, which is a genre people aren't very much used to nowadays.
Oh no, the pantheon music XD
I still have ptsd from radient soul warrior 🤣🤣
This needs to be shown to every ds 2 hater.
Dark Souls 2 might have a few rough edges here and there but ain't nothing in that game quite compares to "five bonewheels in a lightless sewer"
Except, you can easily go around them. Can't say that about DS2.
It's funny, I was told ds2 was bad ds2 shit over and over before playing it.. I wasn't spoiled anything from ds2 I don't think..
I played ds3 first and all my lore questions to my friend about it were "that's a ds1 reference" because he didn't want to spoil ds1.. but also he bought me ds3 to be my first souls game sooo yeah not the brightest sharpest tool in the shed! but anyways I played ds3, I went and 100%'d and got all achievements too.. then ds1 and realized ds1 was just not fun for me.. I didn't like any of the levels and only a handful of bosses. I didn't like anything ds1 did unique to it at all and found it very annoying, the second half hte game was especially painful because FINALLY I can teleport!.. oh its because the game is shit now so they feel bad.. ok.. I still got all achievements out of spite and maybe some sort of masochism I have no idea. I can't force myself to play this game after O&S anymore even.
Then dark souls 2.. duel wielding? something I had wanted from when I first played ds3, Dark Sorcery?? and it's a whole spellclass? it was awesome from the get-go.. I came to absolutely adore dark souls 2 and honestly, Kind of hate that ds1 comes first because I really do NOT like dark souls 1 at all. I love dark souls 2 and it's become one of my favorite games of all time. I have gotten all achievements on Scholar and Vanilla ds2 I love it that much. Peak game. peak weapons and every little area has its own small gimmick of some kind, maybe not ALL but most have a little thing that makes them unique, and many rare enemies that show up only a few times. the enemy variety felt leaps and bounds more then the other 2 games. I just love it and the whole atmosphere of ds2 is very soothing to me in a way only a few games I've ever played make me feel. minecraft perhaps? it brought back that old sense of wonder and mystery.. this dead world where from the start I know what comes after, how the world ends. and how the world formed.. yet all this history is here forgotten even by the sequel. it sits here and there really is only my character to walk through it before it all falls apart and is reborn anew. something about it just.. it just hit right in a way ds1 and 3 didn't for me
This is a great comment and I think you nailed the atmosphere of DS2. To be fair though DS3 is also full of DS2 references and plot mechanics.
I have the most playtime in ds2. Ds 1 was my first game of the series. All the "reference s" in ds 3 for me.felt like a nostalgia bait. I can't play ds 3 again because I am still angry at the final boss and how it butchered the atmosphere of the finale in ds1. Ds2 was so different from ds 1, that people hated it. But to be fair, it still has positive reviews, I would say narrow minded people hated ds 2
@@floppyslot you're right with lore and gameplay taking alot from ds2.. but the whole world of ds3 is just "remember ds1?" in a way that I didn't feel with ds2. the whole world, level and bosses felt all new and fresh.. so much of ds1, literally anor londo for one is straight from ds1.. hey look darkroot garden! swamp now, stuff like that. black knights? yep still around. all of that sort of thing. what probably didn't help is that every lore question i gave my friend he just told me what other game it was from rather then any sort of real explanation until I played ds1 and 2.. he's good friend and all but playing ds3 first was probably a huge reason I don't like ds1
I kind of played all Dark Souls games like I was solid snake/batman and had to fight with everything I had. This made DS2 way easier for me, as I was prepared for the worst at any scenario.
Same story here. I finished ds1, told a veteran I was looking forward to ds2 and the veteran kept badmouthing ds2 that it made me even more intrigued.
The Dark Souls 2 hater cries out in pain as he backstabs you.
I think a lot of people go into DS2 already with the presumption that it's "bad" compared to DS1 and they lower their skill level because they don't think the game deserves the respect to be played properly. I watched another youtuber's playthrough of it where he complained constantly about the game and I got curious, went ahead and compared his DS2 footage to his first playthrough of DS1. He plays DS1 way slower, with a shield raised and tries to pull enemies from their groups way more often but when playing DS2, it's like his brain shuts down and sprints into every fight, doesn't even attempt to dodge incoming attacks. While part of it can be caused from getting tilted, it's still really bizarre seeing this phenomenon in action, it's like players unconsciously choose to forget all the lessons they've learned in DS1 and then say DS2 is objectively worse while having encounters very similarly structured to DS1.
For a very short moment, I forgot those were common talking points about DS2 (goldfish brain saw DS1 footage) and I lived in a better world.
mauLer has never played ds1
bro this video is fucking peak
Remember, every game in the dark souls series is great in its own way, but ds2 is the best one. ;]
The archdragon peak in DS2 is my favourite for that 😂😂
Des / DS1 and DS2 are a lot more similar to eachother then anything that came afterwards, a lot of focus is on the run to the boss rather then the boss itself being the main challenge of the area.
DS2 is a great game and is in no way inferior to any previous or after, I blame the edgy youtubers back in 2014 that were angry because it wasn't DS1: 2 (They didn't play King's Field or DeS and still consider themselves some sort of Fromsoftware mouthpieces)
Well said
while I agree that DS2 hate is a little overdone, and DS1 has it's fair share of BS, there is a lot of stuff that is just objectively worse. The losing max HP on death, limited enemy spawns, the directional rolling thing where you have to turn first, I-Frames being affected by your stats, DLC Bossruns, HITBOXES, Boss encounters that felt uninspired/boring/tedious were more common than the other two.
I might sound negative, but i quite liked DS2, it's just that the other two games (for the most part) knew why difficulty can be fun, and DS2 just threw shit at you, and was less polished.
@@Nivin_Frostgazeweird to think of those as "objectively worse".
the hp loss is just adding more stakes to death, it's no different than the bloodstain mechanic. and if it's bad, demon's souls is unarguably "worse" on that regard, same with gauntlets before a boss.
the hitbox claim is blatantly untrue, check domo3000's video on hitboxes.
and idk i like ADP i feel like it keeps rollspamming in check, it can still be done if you wish but it's something that has to be built towards, it helps that most attacks in the game are easily strafable.
I’m not a ds2 hater but enemy spam is a prominent problem in the game. The problem is that they are made that way that you can’t really outsmart them, run past or deal one by one. It’s not just many enemy bad, bcuz ds2 bad.
Firstly, dodge i-frames having a different logic and dependent on adp makes it tough to run past and dodge consistently.
Secondly, doors and fogwalls don’t have i-frames which was the main reason why ganks were manageable, you had a room to breathe and safely escape.
Thirdly, there is a weird AI quirk in ds2 that for some reason you can’t bait enemies one by one. I can’t explain why or how, but no matter how precisely I move towards a group of standing enemies, I can never bait only one, they all jump at the same time
fourthly, ds1 at it’s first half almost always tried to place groups of enemies in more tactical ways, making encounters more memorable like kicking doors down, making few variants of enemies, showing off buffing abilities or environmental hazard. I said first half because second half of ds1 has the same problems as ds2. Nobody ever defends second half of ds1 because it’s not good and I don’t think ds2’s ganks should be glossed over either
I am not hating ds2, nor do I try to close my eyes on actual problems, it’s not a “special child” it’s a part of a prestigious family and must be held by same standards. I said what I don’t like in this game and gave my (hopefully) constructive criticism because I think this game deserves to be judged fairly. Ganks in ds2 are bad, second half of ds1 is bad but the games themselves are good, stop trying to nitpick either of them and make your own conclusions based on the game
You can do every runback in DS2 without getting hit at the fog wall and not killing any enemies, you just need better timing with your sprinting and better maneuvering . The only doors that are inconsistent are Smelter Demon because of the Alonne Captain at the end and Velstadt where you HAVE TO kill the dragonrider guarding it once.
As for adaptability, you can get the agility required for 11 i-frames (same as DS1) with only a few levels of adaptability and you can also get a bunch of agility from attunement and I believe most players like to play with at least 1-2 spells unless they are doing a pure STR or DEX build.
@
tbh these fogwalls are just the most prominent offenders. Most fogwalls have enemies that can sometimes stun you from entering which is annoying enough to bring up. And it’s not just the fogwalls, it’s also the doors, chests and other animations that gave us I-frames. I like fighting enemies, what I don’t like is having a constant nuisance on my way to the boss without any way of circumventing them or needing an elaborate plan to get there quickly
I know that you can get enough I-frames, the problem is that i-frames on dodges have different timings which just absolutely go against my muscle memory. Even if you have the same I-frames, your dodges are still different and having inconsistency in I-frames is what makes it especially frustrating to tune my dodging for this game. I don’t even remember if they start up earlier or later than other games but I can definitely tell that ds2 dodges are just slightly off even with the same I-frames and decent hitboxes
i just wanted to make a reasonable response to your comment here,hope you don't mind. (btw im considering your comment about not being able to outsmart enemies as point 3)
the fist point is just one i don't get, adp is fine and useful for a lot more then i frames and the stat investment to get it up to snuff is manageable to me.
the second point is really funny because i see it as the game telling you that you shouldn't be trying to run past enemies. i also don't know how your playing the other games so differently to me that you need door i-frames to deal with ganks.
the third point is you just not knowing how ds2 enemy AI works. you can pick them off one by one, you either need to be fast and kill them before there friends can join the fight or use ranged options to single out one from the group. although this is hit or miss, some of the guys do just chain aggro, but i find that this is usually just in pares of enemies.
the forth point is wired cus you forgot to talk about DS2.(lol) but ds2 also has a lot of tactical enemy placement, so i don't get your point.
@@Jorg13 ive never killed any enemies in the velstadt runback lol i even did it again today you can easily run past everything
@
I kinda feel we won’t get anywhere near to agreement because it seems we just have different preferences but I’ll respond and probably leave after
1) adp is a personal preference, I don’t like and I think many will agree that it’s kinda arbitrary and it should’ve been a strict amount of I-frames to not mess up timings. We can already control it with weight and rings, a separate stat is unnecessary. You kinda miss the point that the dodges themselves are different, the i-frames just kick in on a different timing and it kinda makes it harder to dodge when my brain is wired to standards that were utilised in 3 other games of the same lineage. I might be wrong but it’s like I-frames start at the beginning of the rolling and not at it’s middle
2) I like fighting enemies once or twice. I don’t like going through the same pack of shitheads that guard the boss arena 15 times in a row to despawn them. Enemy spam is as bad and uninspired like the second half of ds1, that’s the problem. There are good exceptions like invaders with interesting AI or enemies that try to do unique hijinks but I’d rather have a consistently good quality of enemies. I need i-frames for doors as a choice if I want to skip the encounter, dark souls was made to challenge you into finding solutions, not make you bash your head against a wall. Without I-frames on doors and fogwalls it became a slog
3) I kinda like how enemies kinda try to stay as a group sometimes and it would’ve been a cool idea but it’s execution is not really good. They don’t have a watcher AI, they don’t care if there’s 5 already, they all pile you up, it would’ve been fine once or twice as a challenge but it’s kinda almost the whole game. It’s another preference thing but I think many agree that shrine of amana is not a good place. Luring one by one should be an option, not an obligation, not everyone likes spending few minutes on each enemy for the next half an hour because you’re hollowed and can’t pass through normally
4) yeah, my bad
I don’ think we’ll continue this discussion because it’s mostly preferences. I don’t criticise your preferences, I criticise what I see as poor decisions and/or executions that ds2 makes. It’s not as objective as I would’ve liked but that’s my human factor. Have a great day and thanks for sharing your opinion
Thanks you Souls critics, idk what is fair anymore.
Music itself is 6 mil out of 271K, mostly from starvation and typhus.
It DS1 this mostly occurs when you rush through areas
The same in ds2
That is the point of the video showing that if u dont pay attention, like in all of the games, u will get ganked, but people only say it's a ds2 problem
And they completely ignore the fact that aggro works much different in 2 ao you can't take your time with enemies doing 1v1's like the first game, hence where the ganking comes from, but glazers gonna glaze I guess.
@@liammoynagh6971 yes you can very easily thats just a skill issue
Peak design
Ds2 no es malo, cada darksouls tiene mejores cosas que los otros
3 isn't a lot of enemies yk
Is this an actual argument? Half of those locations were optional, and only a fool would run into them deliberately like that. Several more requires drawing enemies together to have them all in one place.
thats the gag. thats what every ds2 hater does lmao. Its actually impressive how they draw together such armies without using their weapon when dissing ds2.
dark souls 1 is peak🤷♂️
Stop playing mid souls and focus on ForsPEAKen
"Reddit Souls"
both are nothing compared to lords of the fallen
Based ahead
Eh, I've never heard anyone talk about tomb of the giants favorably, or Blighttown or Lost Izalith as a matter of fact. As far as I know it's pretty universally agreed those areas suck, along with most of DS1's second half. Not to play devil's advocate but I think the reason DS2 is more hated on is that it has way more "cancerous" areas when you factor in the dlc's. Base game DS2 is pretty manageable though.
Mabey if DS2 wasnt a bad game then it wouldnt get hate.
The difference is that DS1 offers several options to deal with multiple enemies that are either not present or crippled in DS2. For example, in DS1 you have more than one estus flask so you can heal if you aren't skilled enough and take damage. DS2 gives you crippled movement, no s on your rolls and underpowered weapons so situations that are easy to deal with in DS1 are significantly more obnoxious in DS2.
Well, to be fair to DS1, DS2 wasn’t rushed, Lost Izalith may be absolute garbage, but it’s the devs doing the best with what they had, DS2 was simply taking a risk that didn’t work out, one Fromsoftware learned from.
Edit: this is why you do your research before posting stuff like this.
The difference is:
In DS1 you choose to go into the obvious swarm of enemies.
But in DS2 you NEED to kill every single enemy in a crowded area slowly either because you need to pass or the game forces you to figth an ambush when youre in a closed room.
Nice try, but unless you go out of your way to create situation shown, no enemies will gank you all at once like they do in ds2
ds2 fans will never stop coping it seems.
Dude, do u have eyes? Do you know that this is satire to how people write reviews on ds2? Can u understand that people like the game that is unfairly judged and hanted on by people who fundamentally dont understand how darksouls work?
@@Classysassy12are those people in the room with us now?
@@CrimsonGuy69 DS2 fans cant stop winning
@@CrimsonGuy69I'm one of those people
Well no shit if you run around not killing anything the game punishes you and the enemies will corner you. Ds2 just naturally corners you with bullshit spawns, two fucking mammoths dude, a truckload of spiders, invisible ponies, skeleton boss that breaks off into twenty thousand skeletons. Let's be adults here, we all love the game because it has the feeling of a fromsoft game, but each of their games have their own problems, to deny that is just dumb.
In my opinion DS feels more balanced to me at least is because you have lots of ways to deal with it( not saying DS2 doesn’t.) But the thing I feel is that the AI in DS2 waits for u to get back up and then flattens u while DS1 the enemies attacks were easier to dodge
For me it was the other way around lol
So what you're saying is that the game series that is known for it's difficulty, is somehow worse when the difficulty comes from the better, less-braindead AI of ds2?
Thus is true yes but ds2 telegraphs the ganks, so if u go slow they turn out to be less deadly then ds1 ganks
For me dealing with gangs is a lot more satisfying in ds1. Except izalith enemies I skip through them all the time
bro is intentionally gathering all enemies into one area then idling for them to kill him LMAO. not to mention the first clip in the undead burg is literally in front of a bonfire, so even if you die from the bomb-throwing hollows while on the bridge, you can retry and learn from your mistake, where as in ds2 you got enemy spam in pretty much every single room, for miles on end until you get to the next bonfire. literally just compare the entire trek from the first bonfire of the forest of the giants till the 2nd bonfire, then compare the first bonfire of undead burg till the 2nd bonfire, but now repeat that same spam in ds2 for the entire game while in ds1 the only enemy "spam" are the braindead low hp hollows that can be 1 shot (not to mention ds2 LOVES to spam archers and ranged enemies to pummel you from a distance in inopportune areas while having melee enemies block your path or ambush you).
All I'm hearing is a lot of yapping from a ds 2 hater
Bro its satire on how people play and review ds2? U are falling for the bate? U proved that u are this guy that they are talking about bro, u are an actual npc and a clown 🤡
You see Mauler(whose voice you hear in the first part of the video) did the same thing in DS2 and presented it as a ds2 issue when if can clearly be replicated in every soul game. And the second persons voice is feeble king who made similar points when the very same things can be said about ds1.
You missed the point
both mauler and feeble king(who's voices you can hear) did the same thing for d2 xd
I won't defend the Lost Isolith spam. But the rest you can pull some and not all unlike DS2.
You know why ds 1 spamming wasn't that hard or noticeable? Because of the i frames using levers, doors and fog gates. Ds 2 removed it and made people either kill anyone around them to progress, or be clever, bait and time everything. And I love this in ds 2
Same thing in DS2, have you even played it?
@@chatgptenjoyer Yeah, youre able to pull all 10 enemies at the same time when you enter every other room in the level. Its fun
They took the worst things from Ds1 and amplified them 1000 times in Ds2 lol. Good one, Fromslop!!!
Stop running in enemy territory and expect to come out Scott free..You always have time to assess the situation and ganking only happens when you let it certain areas you can always run past if you know the way its all about learning and getting good.
@GUYFROMEldos He never even implied that he was running through the areas, just that DS2 amplified all of DS1's flaws and he is 100% correct on that. Some of these ganks are so lazy that the AI will NOT acknowledge you existing until you've actually gone into position. There's no immersion in this type of design philosophy, only the fact that the game wants you to die and doesn't know what to do when you're smarter than its bullshit. Case and point, the guillotine bit in Iron Keep. Why does the knight wait until you're in the tunnel to actually do something?
@@OopsAllGodskins Did you even look at the footage of some of these critique videos? Look at them playing areas like Shrine of Amana, Iron Keep, or Lost Bastille, the ludicrous number of enemies they pull is unbelievable, when all they needed to do was not overextend or ignore enemies expecting everyone to ignore them back, they refuse to even kill enemies who are right in front of them. Not to mention that there are many similar instances of ambush AI in the other games, like enemies hiding behind corners and only aggroing the instant youre in front of them, or some of the painting guardians in Anor Londo, they won't even bother helping their dying friends that are barely halfway across the room
@chaoskiller6084 That will get them killed, yeah, you can't ignore enemies and expect to not get killed for it. You're absolutely right. I only tend to give Dark Souls 2 the most shit for its enemy density and AI solely because it seems to be the game with the most defense for it, and I genuinely don't know why THIS game gets a pass but the others get rightfully critizied. That's what irks the most, and hell, there are current issues with games as recent as ER that do the exact same tired formula of just lazily slapping an imp around the corner and calling that an encounter. These reused, uninspired encounters/gank setups are very, very boring after the first few times they're done. DS2 is guilty of this, and so are the other games.
TLDR: Very annoying when git gud and patience are the excuses given for Dark Souls 2 spamming the 'enemy around the corner' cliche, when the issue isn't skill-related, it's just boring to deal with.
@@OopsAllGodskins Honestly, I'm inclined to agree on the front that souls players often employ double standards to the games, but not that it's only DS2 that has this problem, all games are victims of these arguments and defences by their most avid fans, and it just isn't healthy in a civil or fair discussion of these games
First 0:21: Fucking asked for it. NO EXCUSES
Second 0:33 to 0:50: Lost Izalith moment(Shitty area. Gotta admit)
Third(Whole entire video): Refuses to attack anyone
Now... How about you include DS2 clips in these for comparision, uh?
Just wait for the DS2 simps now(Agora é só espera a bosetakkkkkkkk)
We're still doing this? Still pretending this is a good game?