lol True. But it also forces you to actively engage the pursuer when you can't run back a dozen yards to heal without stopping the fight. I understand the logic behind fromsoftware's decision in this instant
@@Willrobert92I don't think that was their intent, they simply placed him in a kill zone but didn't seem to anticipate the player backing away. This really just screams experimentation, they tried a new mechanic but didn't fully realize the draw backs or limits they had to account for.
@@ickyfist The name of the Pursuer enemies is directly translated as the "Spellbound" or "Cursebound" which is in reference to their curse to hunt down the Undead as a means to justify their own existence. Hence they pursue the undead relentlessly on account of their curse. Given that information it makes sense why a translator would choose to go with the name "Pursuer" as oppose to "Cursebound" as "Cursebound" is both confusing and extremely vague. "Pursuer" may have been a bit on the nose, but at least it is neither vague nor confusing. That and in regards to game design they were always intended to pursue the player. FromSoftware almost always add in an enemy or two into their games that they intend to have chase or hunt down the player throughout their journey. They however also tend to remove that aspect of them as they can never figure out a good way to implement it into their games without ruining the experience too much, or simply can't incorporate it before the release of the game. For Dark Souls (1) it was the Black Knights, for Elden Ring we have the Night Cavalry (which there is still dialogue of in game to hint at their original purpose as "hunters") and in Dark Souls 2 we had the "Pursuer" enemies. Their intent was to pursue and hunt the player, though they likely held a more active role during some stage of development than what we got in the final product(s).
My first experience with DS2 was through Scholar and never knew about the changes made from the base game. I just thought it was merely the Base Game with the DLC bundled with it.
That’s what forums told me before I bought any of them as my first game in the franchise 💀 „Best game for newcomers“… well not completely wrong. But I like learning how to run before walking it does make things easier in many games! Problem is… my best friend &Co. who LOVE all Souls-like (except DS2 but they’ve played it) almost get an aneurysm when they tried to help me and saw that I stopped locking-on since the 2nd area… made it to the scorpion lady like this, first roadblock. Because from what I can see while generally I think the new placement for the enemies in the first 2 zones after the Tutorial is flavourful and kinda smart, they did a mistake by incentivising New Players by not going to the area with big heavy knights, but instead the area with a lot of weaker faster enemies that immediately gang up on you… makes sense in every other games! But what I learned since then is that the bosses and PVP in Souls games absoluuutely play differently from what the normal enemies taught me… it’s not about, running away 24/7 to find a good spot to kill the enemies 1 on 1, if possible, or using a weapon like Flamberge that hits multiple enemies sideways so I can stun more than 1 at once, so I don’t get stunlocked from all directions myself… 💀 It’s about learning how to roll and focus 1 guy with a strong-hitting weapon… completely different. (Well apparently, at least that’s what it looks like and what everyone is trying to drill into me, but I have a feeling none of these people have tried anything but a longsword in all their lives either and that’s what their gameplay was each time… no magic ever or archer etc. super boring) So yeah I like the design on paper but, it’s gonna be a hard time getting used to locking-on… and getting people to shut up 💀 „Do it this one way and no other way reeeeeeee!“
Scholar had good changes like making dark places actually requiring torches, making rare sets easier to attain as well as the Forlorn. Wish they just did that and bundled the DLCs onto em.
You see, the problem is that while domo is doing a good job... he's not doing numbers His videos only get a fraction of views these lying shitheads get, so people will only end up still repeating these lies Only way I could see domo fixing it, is making a huge format video, and praying to algorithm...
Domo is no better than this guy. He proves that Scholar is the less stinky turd by repeatedly showing that Vanilla stinks more, then acts like that means it's actually chocolate. He denies the existence of good criticism towards DS2, because he debunked a couple of badly made videos.
@@Spellweaver5he's not denying good criticism. He's literally pointing out hypocritical and flat out lying about scholar. But if course you can't see that.
You are just really nostalgic and are viewing everything trough a "everything was better in the past" mindset. You keep saying that things were better in vanilla but DS2 had glaring issues that got fixed in scholar. I don't have any stakes in this but watching this video just makes me angry, this is not a honest video - just nitpicking area after area. Yes there are more enemies in most areas because they were dead as fuck in vanilla. Yes there are more ganks but if you actually play with a tactical mindeset you can advert most of them. Billion spiders? Heide knights? Use a torch, Heide knights don't aggro, Turtle Knights pull or stack - the 3rd bonfire in Forest of Giants for example is meant to be optional and challenging in comparison to the rest of the area - there is nothing crazy going on just need to use your brain playing and not just run in like in DS2 which was way too easy. Longer areas, more bonfires? Where is the problem? You are making it sound like it is a downside to have put some life into areas like Harvest Valley which was just barren in vanilla. Harvest Valley gank? Optional like most gank areas as you might have noticed - they are supposed to be an extra challenge. THEY ARE EXTRA. EXTRA. you get an extra scoop of ice cream but nah I'm not here to eat extra ice cream I just want vanilla. Could type a 3000 word essay about this video but it ain't worth the hassle. You clickbaited me, not going to happen next time
It would be nice if you actually fact checked any of the information in this video. Having an opinion is fine, but being misleading and just flat out wrong isn't.
yeah.. it's the problem with small channels. then people like this give everyone a bad rep because there are really good and underrated small channels.
@@zzodysseuszz I don't think you are doing yourself any favors. His criticism and the fact that he didn't realize it only helps to further aid his point on what essentially was a bad choice, given in the original you just had to walk in. Veteran players could end up thinking it just glitched. New players can completely miss it if they don't back track after lighting all the torches. They changed how it works, and it's such a odd change that I am not surprised if he thought it just got removed.
@@zzodysseuszzThe criticism I have with it is that it removed the cool surprise factor of the dragon immediately attacking you in the start of the area. Unfortunately, scholar screwed it up by making you light torches for no goddamn reason, removing the cool experience by making you have to unlock it by exploring the level.
@@zzodysseuszz Try to broaden your perspective, you are way too laser focused on SotFS is "good". First, this is in the original game, without the torches, they decided to change something that already existed with tedious steps that add nothing extra and call it a remix. We are not talking about the slab, if they felt it was "too easy" to get the slab they could have easily slapped a red phantom with overbloated stats and put it as a drop on the phantom without touching the dragon. It's not that hard, I am messing with Yapped Rune Bear for Elden Ring and adding and removing stuff is quite easy! Second, you are not debunking anything, it's a fact that in the original, you get this cool dragon waking up as you enter tru the door roaring at you, right on your face, and now? You might miss it, you might light some torches and STILL miss it, you might light the torches and come from behind and not even see properly what even happened with the dragon just falling apart. I don't know why they felt like they needed to have a Zelda puzzle on their game and much less why it was put there but sure? Not to mention it's a repeated gimmick all over. I mean if it was Zelda it'd probably way cooler, given the torches could even be on the roof and you just magical fire arrow at them, unlike... walk and activate a torch. The reason I know you can miss it is that I did, I lit all the torches, I back tracked, and when the dragon woke up, I just kept walking tru the door thinking he just triggered randomly, suddenly getting the key, and by the time I looked around he already given me the key, I was so baffled when I saw that they left the trigger point on the same place too, but you approaching it from behind can make you "oops, I kept walking so I avoided it without even realizing it". I didn't even make the connection with the torches 'cuz it felt glitchy, it felt weird that it would trigger in such a way where I had 0 visibility on it, and worse, he didn't even hit me cuz I just kept going back, only turning around when I hear him smashing himself against the doors behind me and getting the key. But if you are okay with such design choices, then you do you. Imagine if on Elden Ring they did the same with Malenia, but instead her boss door was now locked and you needed to find 4 scarlet buds scattered around to unlock it, on a game you had to re-buy. That's not good design, it's tedious. It'd make every new playtru all the more annoying, 'cuz it didn't add anything but waste more of your time. Oh wait, they sort of did, someone must really like torches in there 'cuz that's what they did in Ordina, just... better and worse! 'cuz somehow you are expected to A: Know that Sentry torches reveal the hidden assassins or B: Just run all over and brute force it, which is what the majority ended up doing, besides glitching jumping around the entrance to skip the whole place 'cuz peeps didn't feel like dealing with the whole place, at least until they patched it out. Again, this would be fine if it was done from the get go, and even then it's was clearly designed with the intention of showing you something as you enter, from the front, the remix throws that out the window for a questionable presentation that may not happen. Not gonna bother to reply anymore if all you can't help but feel like insulting others, and hardly try to understand others points throwing insults.
@@GahmehWoot you didn't hear the bones scraping on the ground, the bones joining together, or the roar but you heard it smash itself on the doorway. Your math ain't mathing.
So another creator just dropped a video showing how this video lacks research and contradicts itself and exagerates heavily to attempt to prove its points. After watching both, i now hate that i gave any time to this one.
@@t-universegamer7609 We can’t share links on YT, they get auto deleted unless you are the channel owner. Check Domo3000, he is the one disproving this heap. I can also verify, since I own both games and am working on a side by side comparison. Xander is outright lying and so many people are just nodding along without fact checking.
I just feel like there are so many things either in DS2 or specifically in scholar that are just frustrating, so the idea of placing MORE enemies and in worse spots just adds to the frustration. Like it frustrates me so much that you can get interrupted in boss fog gates since I just wanna run to the boss when I have to fight it more than once and it's a huge time waste having to kill all the enemies or kill them like 15 times, since they also can chase you way too far so you can't just run past and kill the last few enemies before the boss. I'm not sure how much scholar worsened the issue but I'm sure it didn't make it better, especially if you have to resort to killing everything 15 times :(
@@concerninghobbits5536 "I'm not sure how much scholar worsened the issue" To be fair the original version of the game was quite annoying in a few places too, Iron Keep wasn't any better. But almost all of the stone statues that block something for no reason were added in SotFS. The random Forlorn invaders too. The Heide knights and dragon in Heide's tower didn't exist so in the original you didn't have to fight an entire army to get to the dragonslayer. Imho the original just didn't feel like such a slog because most SotFS changes were seemingly just added to slow the player down at any cost.
@@SaHaRaSquad interesting, I gotta beat the second and third dlc then I plan to play the OG version and feel the difference myself. The Heide knights usually aren't TOO bad 'cause I know to fight the dragon first, but when I have killed dragonrider first it was pure torture especially slogging through all the knights only to get obliterated by the spear guy at the very end. Like if they put the spear guy first so I could get him out of the way and get used to him without having to fight everyone each attempt.
Pre-release interviews made it clear that the devs understood that people had thought DS2 was too easy and they were worried that trying to sell players a rerelease like this would be seen as a rip off, so they mentioned that there'd be a lot of new enemy placements and progression changes to make sure that even players who'd played a lot of DS2 felt it was a fresh experience. They... certainly succeeded... There sure were a lot more "gotcha!" moments in my first run of SoTFS last year. I hope whoever decided to put a mimic in a room so small you have to hug a wall after hitting it to not get grabbed by its (still unfixed in the updated version) broken hitboxes got a demotion. I bet they were the same person who put that dragon on the way to dark Ornstein even though its fire can clip through the ground there and reach you on the stairs. Probably were the person who thought putting a wall ghost in the middle of a ladder so you HAVE to take a hit when climbing it was okey-dokey too. SoTFS is so much better in some places and SO MUCH WORSE in about as many, it's a real shame.
also note: scholar has some of these decisions not for difficulty, but because of criticisms of false advertizing. Did they bring darkness into the game in an interesting and meaningful way? no, not really. But they did add it, so it checks off the list.
The coffin doesn't let you remake your character. It changes your gender, which was originally just placed there as a manual solution for players who had their genders changed by a bug. It just stuck around afterward.
Just a correction here, the number of Nashandra's curse orbs was NOT changed in SotFS. She always summoned four of them around the arena and the only way for her to summon less is if she is in a corner, so the orbs won't spawn in a wall or in the empty spaces around the arena.
@@zzodysseuszz Dude any and all criticism of DS2 lives rent free in your head, doesn’t it? He made one mistake in a video full of entirely valid criticism about how scholar messing with enemy placement hurts the experience of the game.
@@zzodysseuszz Well the only other thing I can pinpoint he got wrong is the dragon skeleton in Aldia’s place and did you seriously just say that there’s a wrong way to play a souls game? Jesus Christ if you really think there’s a ‘right way’ to play any of these games then you missed the point entirely. How about providing some examples of points he brought up that you think aren’t an issue, preferably in one comment. Also his complaints about Fragrant Branches of Yore are nitpicky, I agree, but I find them annoying and counterintuitive too
@@rigorm136 what lives rent free is the thousands of ds2 is bad videos on yt. its completely valid to nitpick when everybody and their grandma has made this video
Man the bit that annoys me the most in Scholar (even if it isn't the worst change) was removing the Heide knight in the forest. That entire arena was designed for him and it was such a cool little set piece having him sitting there surrounded by dead hollows. The shrine of amana changes are a close second though, legitimately what the fuck were they thinking.
Really bad video. Always doubt when someone says "I lost my footage", literally just record again. Full of missinformation, domo3000 has made some videos showing some of those missinformations.
Not to mention that in Scholar you have no reason to go for Gargoiles. In vanilla they guard a key to make a Sinner fight easier, but in Scholar they just give it to you.
@@sator2766For sure it's worth to grab magerold's as well. But it's also nice to kill them for earyl pancaking with dragon tooth as well. As that item is behind that boss until Dragon Aerie, or Old Knight Hammer in Drangleic Castle. It's genuinely my least favorite fight in the 2, but I just feel like I can't leave a boss unfinished in these games lol, good luck on your journeys fellow undead!
i’ve counted like 10+ things thatre just factually incorrect and i’ve only played this game once. how do you script an hour n half long video on a game you’ve played for years + still botch basic information
This guy lied about everything in the video. Not even joking. Look up Domo3000 he puts up side by side of Scholar and Vanilla videos of each area and how they nerfed the bosses.
@@MariellNeo Most parts are more difficult in vanilla, yes. Things like enemy aggro range and damage were NERFED in Scholar. Examples include Shrine of Amana, priestesses aggro range was nerfed from 40 to 30, Ancient Dragon's damage was nerfed by 40% in scholar! Obviously not the only changes, but some significant ones, for sure.
@@MariellNeo yes jeezus h. Christ I just went through sotfs and the all the areas are just so much smoother to get through. Vanilla is an irredeemable cluster fuck if you go right into Scholar after playing it. They also have a lot more NPC summons and shades and upgrade material access too.
The only thing that truly bothers me about sotfs is how they removed the guaranteed Heide Knight Sword at the beginning of the game. Damn was it an easy way to start the game. It's like if DS1 removed the drake sword
I thought it was a genuine comment until you mentioned Drake Sword as an easy start. As if a 2 handed unopgraded club wouldn't output it in damage whilst being a strike weapon. If you're into overly complicated methods of acquiring bad weapons, you could just grab the Grave Lord Sword within 10 minutes of gameplay. *That* is a good early game weapon.
@@EllaKarhu it's not about strength it's more killing a tough enemy and getting a cool weapon, it's like the Drake sword it's not too strong but cutting off a dragons tail and getting a cool weapon with a special strong attack was just awesome.
Around 9:30 I find it odd you showcase the only area in sotfs that has 2 turtle knights in close proximity in that area. Meanwhile in vanilla it is absolutely swarmed in turtle knights where you may frequently have to fight 2 or 3 at a time. Especially in that cramped dark area.
To be fair about the lighting thing like in the gutter, I'm pretty sure that's what they were *trying* to do, even in the base game. I recall hearing that they had to seriously scale back on the lighting partway into production, either because of development time/costs or just so that the game could function somewhat smoothly (pretty sure it's the latter, but don't quote me). I'm not really a fan of it either, but I can tell the timed torch mechanic wasn't just thrown in there for shits and giggles; they may not have been intending on limiting your combat options, but they definitely intended for you to interact with the game in that manner. Otherwise places like the gutter would have been lit up like new londo ruins regardless of the sense it made.
DS1's sunlight maggot, and Bloodborne's lantern were a good way to both have darkness and not limit combat options. DS1 also had a held torch with the skull lantern, but the sunlight maggot was by far the more desirable for that exact reason. It could well have been the intent to limit those options in The Gutter, but I didn't gel with it at all especially because Scholar gave you no other option like DS1 did.
@@thelegendofxanderI fail to see a problem here. Having the player make a choice between not being able to see and limiting their moveset in a dark area is not only fine, but also kind of cool and refreshing. It forces you to use a weapon in a way you usually wouldn't. Sure, it can annoy the player *a little*, but in my opinion the goal is not to make the player comfortable, but to add some diversity to the game. Btw, if one absolutely doesn't want to single-hand their weapon, they can just invest a couple stat points into intelligence and attunement, thereby enabling themselves to cast the illumination spell, whatever it's called. The area itself kind of sucks, but it's not any better in vanilla.
@@another-anonymous-usernameIndeed, I am a fan of the darkness change in the gutter, it forces you to make a choice between being able to use both hands of being able to see better and there are plenty of sconces everywhere so if you stock up on flame butterflies you can circumvent the problem that way. Really adds something to the level imo.
One thing I always find interesting about videos like these is that it’s very rare for someone to talk about DS2’s troubled development, which didn’t seem to plague the other games as much. This game ended up going through 3 directors iirc, with the final one being a team member that had worked on prior games (can’t remember if it was Shadow Tower or King’s Field) and you can see how some of the older level design philosophy shows up in DS2. You could argue that the director leaned on that design philosophy and that’s why the game is rough, but I think it’s also a result of the game being restarted during development. Even the game we got had a lot of content cut or edited most likely due to scheduling. Illusory Wall has a video showing off the scrapped version of the gutter and Zulie the Witch has videos covering changes made to characters between development and release. I wish Scholar had gone back and finished the missing content, but that would have required a lot of work and I doubt Bandai Namco wanted to pour more money into the project.
1:03:20 *Says it isn't really a Metroidvania. Proceeds to explain why it's basically a Metroivania* It's not just about keys, backtracking, interconnectedness, or defined levels. It's all of those added together. DS2 is a hub that leads to four levels and then a straight line for the second half. Any deeper exploration is artificial. It's more like Demon Souls. DS1 however is a sprawling world with 2 bells that can be tackled in multiple ways or outright ignored for a while as you complete half the late game (Pinwheel, New Londo, entrance to Demon Ruins). And areas like Blightown have multiple paths leading out to different areas. If you could explore Drangleic Castle from roughly the start of the game, and Aldia's Keep connected to Tseldora and the Castle, and The Gutter connected to both Rat levels and the Undead Crypt. Then DS2 would be getting close to DS1's style. I like Frozen Outskirts but I have no preconception of escaping. Going there feels like a cool survival mode. For me, the dlcs all fit a niche "favorite". Sunken Crown has my favorite level design in DS2, Iron Crown has the best bosses, and Ivory Crown is in the middle and feels the most similar to DS1. The problem is Sunken Crown's bosses aren't great, and each boss in Iron Crown comes with a caveat. Alonne's runback is awful and ruins the boss. Fume Knight is excellent but is most similar to a DS3 boss. You could start up a new character in DS3 and fight Gundyr instead of going through most of DS2 for one boss fight. Then Ivory Crown has my least favorite invasions. They're overpowered spammers that only want to waste time. I like adaptability because it's the player choosing between giving themselves the overpowered capability you have in other souls games over actual stats. It's an interesting trade off. I also like the torch mechanic in the darkness. The Gutter is one of my favorite levels because of it. SotFS is so much worse that Vanilla, but I can appreciate trying to bring back the darkness.
Honestly, I sometimes wish we could have Vanilla's enemy and statue placement combined with Scholar's changes to the levels, because there's a few that make the levels much more unique to interact with: in No-man's Wharf, there's many sconces to light up and a torch guy to accompany you, as well as a wooden bridge shortcut to activate, all of which doesn't seem to be in Vanilla (I played Vanilla after Scholar). The Sinner room being darkened encourages actually lighting it up (by going into the side-towers and lighting them). The mass of spiders on the way to Freya is actually afraid of your torch as well, but ONLY in Scholar. EDIT: at least, it didn't seem to work for me. I like interactions like this and sorely missed them in Vanilla. It makes the decision hard for me. On one hand, the beginning being an absolute spam fest in Scholar is awful in terms of the game's learning curve (I absolutely loathed DS2 at first and it was NOT my first rodeo with Fromsoftware) but on the other hand Scholar made a bunch of areas more interesting with these above interactions.
Sinner's room is dark in Vanilla as well and lighting the side-towers helps with the lockon the same way as it does in Scholar, literally nothing is different in that The spiders are indeed afraid of fire in Scholar, one of the very few changes that is good
@@jdrok5026 There are literally only a handful of changes that Scholar did that were good lmao, bffr The torch changes with the spiders? Good The change to No Man's Wharf with the shortcut? Good The slight upgrade in graphics? Good But watch this entire fucking video and tell me "oh they did so many more good things than bad things" 90+% of the things they changed is literally a downgrade
@@blinkachu5275If you’re ONLY going off this video and haven’t fact checked, you need to do yourself a favor and start verifying the information you have been fed. I own and play both versions and am working on a side by side comparison of them. Xander’s vid is RIFE with lies and misinformation.
Honestly, even if complaints feel nitpicky (and quite a few don't), a game filled with nitpicky complaints is enough to annoy a person even more than a couple of major complaints. Comments to specific parts of the video: - I did remember the statue at the beginning of the game existed when I played... but I regretted using my damn branch on it. - Having never played OG souls 2, what struck me in this video is how much more enemies there are in some areas. I got through okay-ish, but some areas definitely felt excessive if not unfair... and now it makes sense. - My headcanon is that someone at FROM was like "well the pursuer doesn't seem to actually pursue the player too much" and tossed like 10 of them throughout the game to make you REALLY feel pursued Great analysis, thank you for this! Even though I never played the OG souls 2, you've made me curious enough to maybe give it a shot sometime in the future. Also I don't know why but after watching everything I feel this weird urge to like, comment and subscribe...
In the original release the Heide Knights were supposed to fill a similar role that the Black Knights had in DS1, of a slightly harder enemy in some areas that have pretty good rewards when you kill them. They did fail in the "good loot" department tho. So when they relocated pretty much all of them to the Tower of Flames, they needed a new enemy to fill that role, and the Pursuer fit that category pretty well.
it's funny because in my recent and last playthrough for me the pursuser only spawned on three locations and I never felt pursued. When I played it the first time he spawned on two more locations I think. But the worst thing is that he does not respawn when he kills you or you went outside his aggro area. So he did not pursue me at all and I mostly forget about him everything else has more significant story impact and that stuff is already low.
Good video, except I completely disagree about the dark areas. The darkness and needing a torch were a huge deal in the preview marketing of DS2, they just failed at implementing it somehow. And now Scholar does fix this one part of the vision even if it ruins many others.
It wasnt that they failed to implement it. It was that Namco wanted the game on Xbox360 and ps3 that already was outdated consoles so they had to gimp it hard or those consoles would play the entire game like blight town in ds1 with constant huge frame drops.
You do make some very good points, and for the most part I do agree, though I will say the issue with lighting isn't all an unintended problem. The point of making it dark in say, the gutter, is to make it so it is harder to fight. Put you in a situation where you aren't performing at peak combat so that you can adapt. Maybe if you have been relying on a shield, try rolling, or if you have been using an unwieldly one handed weapon, switch to something more usable. that isn't a say I like the gutter, cause I don't, but sometimes it makes for a more interesting experience if your options are more limited. They don't want you to just walk through the gutter without a torch.
I *loved* DS2 at launch. Since it was the first one where I completed any challenge runs (such as no death / no bonfire), it really felt like *my* souls game more so than the first two, which I had played alongside my brother. When Scholar first dropped, it felt totally different since I knew every enemy and item placement in the game from memory. I couldn’t even play it at first. I’ve since gone back and played more DS2 post-scholar, but I’ll always miss the game as I knew it.
Another small thing vanilla has in its favour is the lack of colour grading. I think some areas look so much worse in Scholar because of the colour grading messing up the original look of what artists were going for as well as constantly messing with contrast levels, it just makes some areas look so much uglier even with the "enhanced" visuals.
"Unless you remember that this statue exists, later down the line which is very unlikely" Projects his terrible memory on others or thinks that rewarding players for backtracking when they remember something is bad design :^(
@@daveshif2514 where’s the lies? It’s interesting that the handful of real hardcore fanboys I’ve seen try to sneer and mock and rage over his criticism, never actually seem to be able to put their finger on any point where he ‘lies’ or says something that can be ‘debunked’
pro tip use a torch, got another one - lure out enemies one by one it works in nearly every major area. The real ganks are for extras. Lost Sinner is supposed to be extra dark, you get clear hints that you can light up the torches in the arena. Also DS3 didn't "learn from it", DS3 is just trying to emulate DS1. DS2 didn't miss the point, it was trying to reinvent the series - it was a bold move and resulted in a unique game.
His claim that Lost Sinner is dark in Scholar is just one of many outright lies. You can turn on the light in both versions and in Vanilla he had one of them turned on. In Scholar it's easier to turn the lights on as you only need to defeat the Ruin Sentinels to get the Bastille Key, but in Vanilla you also need to defeat the Gargoyles.
Idk, disagree. Overall, I prefer Scholar. The base game feels boring, empty, and dead. Scholars at least tried to make things interesting. They didn't do very well, but they tried, and I would rather have something over nothing. There are too many things to talk about, so I'll just pick one. I love that Pursuer ambushes you around the Bastile. It adds character to the monster. He is the Pursuer, he pursues, that's literally his name. The base game only does it once when he jumps you with the bird and cool, but he sure gave up easy kinda sucks at his job. In Scholar he feels real, the fact that he shows up in Bastile everywhere puts a little more tension exploring the area. Again, it could have been done better, but they had to work with what little they had from the base game. I understand why people don't like swarms of enemies, but DS2 enemies are so pathetically easy that I don't think it's ever an issue. I will say they overdo the swarms, but that's an issue with the base game as well. They do this because none of the enemies are threatening enough to stand alone. I also say it tests a different skill set than a solo fight that I still find enjoyable.
oddly enough, the swarms of enemies made co-op more enjoyable too. in other games it feels like just increased health and damage isn't enough to make fights interesting when your squad just ganks the hell out of everything. Bloodborne especially. I had less fun playing co-op than solo because every fight and area was clearly and meticulously designed with one player in mind, so having backup just made it kinda boring and easy. But when every fight is a gankfest? Then you have fun gang fights for days. Fighting the Ivory King and his burnt ivory knights with a team of summons and ivory knights of your own was awesome. Not the most intricately designed fight in the series, but certainly one of the most memorable to me for the sheer scale of it. The only fight that came close to that feeling of spectacle for me is Radahn in Elden Ring. Between that and the pvp, one could easily say multiplayer saved this game for sure.
I'm very surprised he didnt mention the 6-odd executioners on the way to the chariot boss fight. That run when I made it NG+ for the ring was absolute hell.
At this point I played so much Scholar due to my main way to play being on consoles that I just adapted to all the additional Scholar bullcrap. But when I played Vanilla a bit more than a year ago for a bit it was pretty amazing to see the dragon not being in Heides Tower of Flame but Vanilla DS2 felt really easy compared to Scholar which is saying a lot considering how not even Scholar is hard but only punishing. Also at 53:41 is that a music reference or jojo reference?
@@zzodysseuszz ...which is why it doesnt make sense. That dragon should have been slain by the dragonslayer. And its a pure misery to fight as you can be thrown off of the platform easily.
@@zzodysseuszzyou're really conflating a name for filler lore and excusing a VERY bad enemy placement. You wanna know why the dragon shouldn't be there? Because it's a literal copy-paste boss placed in an arena much smaller than the arena it was designed for. God help you if it does its breath attack to flood the arena with fire, you have to make it half way across the bridge to not get immolated and most likely die considering that this is a beginner area, people aren't gonna have a massive health pool to tank that.
@@zzodysseuszz the dragon is literally gatekeeping a boss named old dragonslayer. Just read it out loud and let that sink in. It does not make any sense.
Fun DS2 fact; the "Pursuer" name is an invention of the English translation team. In the original Japanese script his name is 呪縛者, which roughly translates to something like "the one who is bound by a spell" or ""The Curse-bound one". The Pursuer spam in Scholar is almost certainly the direct result of English fan complaints, along the lines of "His name is pursuer but how come he never pursues me?"
Because he doesn't know how to play the game and is only making and easy rage bait video to farm engagement because he knows that the average redditor that hates Dark Souls 2 doesn't know any better than to point out how much he gets wrong in this video.
Saying no to adaptability: yes Saying attacks need to be sped up so that stamina is an issue: ????? my brother how can you say that. stamina in the later games is insanely high compared to ds2. Ds2 plays like a strategy game compared to ds3 or elden ring
going from ds2 to bloodborne is insane with how different stamina costs are it's pretty insane granted bloodborne is meant to be more dodge based but still
I've only played Sholar and I'm still at an early stage of the game but my chief criticism is that it forces many-vs-one fights too often, with a combat system that really isn't suited to that. Lock-on + directional rolling + block/parry/backstab mechanics makes for great 1v1. Even using ranged weapons to pull enemies doesn't always work, but it does help. Maybe the intent is for the player to view locking on as an option only, but after DS1 it's pretty hard wired to virtually always use it.
apparently not locking on is intended for many encounters, but that is pretty bad because many weapons need lockon to hit. Without lockon I couldn't play with a spear e.g.
@@Soapy-chan you definitely can, it's how i do all my playthroughs, with good routing and stamina management you can get to most fog gates, you can even do this in iron keep, iron passage and memory of the old iron king.
Unfortunately for you, DS2 moves the Grand Lance from 3/4 of the way through the game into the first area, so I do not care about how good or bad any of the other changes are.
I have to agree. Initially he took me a while to get DS2 so by the time I did SOTFS was out so I went for it. Seemed like the smart move at the time. I HATED it. Years later, I hear see other videos like this one and I think to myself, maybe I should give the base game a shot. Maybe it's not that bad. So I waited and when I saw it for cheap on steam I got it and OH! boy.... not the same experience. It's still my lowest ranked soulsborne game but at least it's in the good game category now. If at least scholar actually gave the option of playing base game or scholar mode when stating a NG/NG+. That would actually very cool.
45:20 in Scholar you need to light the 4 torches and kill the 4 Forlorns that spawn, the dragon will attack and you get a key to a room Yes, it is stupid, I only discovered that years after platinum Scholar, same with the secret invaders in the Gutter and in the tutorial area, is a cool mechanic to trigger a event when you light all torches, but they could at least give some indication about it, the tutorial area have the fucking statue, so you won't light all the torches without the fragrant branch, and probably will forget the mechanic, in the gutter you probably will light part of the area, but is hard to light everything without actually going after the torches, and usually people won't do that unless they know there is a reward, or they are trying to make the map look better, and that sucks because the invader drop a really cool helmet that makes you immune to the curse status
@@zzodysseuszz I didn't play the first game, and I didn't feel any need to light the thing since aldia keep isn't dark, and I only discovered that rewards for lighting a area were a thing on the internet years after platinum the game, because in the area that they could teach the players about it they decided to put a statue blocking the way, so people who decided to light all the tutorial zone usually just forget about it when they reach the statue.
@@zzodysseuszz my complaint is that the game stopped the learning experience mid way with a statue ...and about the branch, at that point I already found another statue that looked more important than the one in the tutorial area, and when I did go back to the tutorial area eventually, I already forgot about trying to light everything, and I already got the impression that the you light stuff if the area is too dark(like in no man's wharf), so I just explored the cave.
@@zzodysseuszz Majula have like 5 paths for you to try, one blocked with a statue, one you need jump, one with the mechanism, and 2 you can go right away, isn't hard to just start exploring and just forget about the statue in the tutorial area, and even if you eventually remember, isn't hard to just forget about about lighting everything since the torch take your second hand, and usually people would like to have it available.
Fun fact there's the gank persuer fight in vanilla as well in new game plus. It's in the throne room where you find the ghost guy. it's to get the ring of blades +2 if remember correctly
"A critique of SotFS and why I don't like it. Comparing and contrasting Scholar with Vanilla. Let's figure this mess out, make up some bullshit, and jump to some conclusions as to why it doesn't work, and ignore any criticism in the comments. " FTFY
You didnt mention one of the most annoying changes in Scholar, namely the changes in item placement, especially Estus Flask Shards. The placement of Estus shards in Scholar is so much worse than vanilla. 2 behind FBoY statues, 1 in that really out of the way place in the gutter. It is way easier to miss shards in Scholar, which must be tough for new players actually trying to use Estus instead of just spamming lifegems.
You liked DS2 and played it a bunch yet you're hesitating on Pursuer. You liked DS2 and played it a bunch yet you think that coffin lets you remake your characters instead of just swapping genders. You liked DS2 and played it a bunch yet you struggle with ogres. You're bothered by the lost bastille knights being there but you're preferable to a Heide Knight being on the other side of the world??? Man, video essays used to be cool. Now people make them just to make them.
DS2 as a whole is riddled with flaws, he's made it pretty clear that even vanilla wasn't his favorite or anything but simply that it was just "good", not bad if you will. Then scholar messed up just enough to ruin it.
one thing i loved about DLC is the fresh level design of the main area. in sunken king, the puzzle-like moving block are pretty cool. and in the other 2, they found a way to make interesting backtrack either by activating the elevator system or removing the ice. if it wasnt for the gank, those would be amongs the best area in all souls game. also i kinda like the idea of forcing you to have a torch. it give you an incentive to change build
Hell yeah, finally some needed video essays about Best Souls 2. Saved to watch during my trip tomorrow morning, but a few minutes in and i think I'll love this!
the side paths of the dlcs, including the frozen outskirts, are explicitely intended as extra challenges for co-op players. hence the gravestone summon system, allowing people who didn't have the dlc to still get summoned in to help, and the extra npc summons to help offline players. Even played co-op they aren't great, but they're not nearly as bad as people make out when you engage with them as intended. complaining that they're too hard/too ganky/to ambushy solo when you're supposed to have extra players fighting alongside you and watching your back is like playing the main game without ever upgrading your weapons then complaining that you can't deal enough damage in the endgame.
I played Vanilla for years, obsessively, as I didn’t get a PS4. But watched a lot of Twitch streamers play Scholar. The differences were bad. Scholar looked bad. Finally, i confirmed this once I got a PS4. Your video is so close to my thoughts. The side by side video clips comparisons are wonderful. And delving into ng+ differences as well. Thank you for this video. I love Vanilla so much. I’ve been an ardent supporter of the game, but it’s such a screwed up thing that there’s 2 versions, with very few creators even acknowledging that fact. The two games are incredibly different, and it’s maddening that people talk about DS2 without bringing it up, and it’s treated like a monolith.
Vanilla pursuer fights include the raised platform in the forest, the main boss fight, the one after smelter, and the double fight in the castle throne room.
When I finished DS1 for the first time in 2020 I was so excited by how much I loved the game that I immediately bought dark souls 2 with the intention of continuing the series. SOTFS that is… I didn’t even consciously understand at first but I found myself getting FURIOUS playing ds2 and finding it infinitely more frustrating. Lost Bastile is where I gave up. Wish I had just gone with ds2 vanilla or even ds3 I’d like to add I didn’t give up because it was too hard. I was managing to beat areas and bosses fine. But the times I did die all felt so cheap when compared to ds1. I simply decided the anger was not worth it.
I decided to go for ds2 after ds3 (first fromsoft game I played) and omg... you could FEEL it was a totally different game. It was so excruciating slow compared to the one I had played before that took me weeks to get used to. And I still suck at this game. I tried to get through it because I seriously fell in love with the eerie atmosphere and lore but shrine of amana made me drop it. I just can't deal with all these mages
The dragon in Aldia only becomes alive in scholar when you light all 4 sconces in the area. But there isn't really any reason to go back down, once you light it all, so you might "activate" it and still miss it. It is kind of a neat "gotcha" moment, when you walked past the skeleton like 5 times and only then it actually becomes alive, but like you said, its so much more effective and memorable when it attacks you straight away Edit: I'm so glad someone finally agrees, that the DLC just has all the worst parts of what was going to become Scholar. I do agree that it has some really good bosses, but the amount of frustration everything else has, will never make me wanna replay the DLC ever again. I have replayed DS2 a bunch of times, but the DLC i will avoid like its the plague.
I saw a comment today that she spawns with 4 unless she's near a wall, but since she spawns in the middle of the arena and barely moves, I'm not sure. I'm a maths major so I hope I'm not THAT bad at counting haha
I feel it's important to have in mind that stuff like having extremely dark areas where torches were REQUIRED was part of pre-release footage and discussion. I believe the Pursuer was brought up in pre-release material as well and the reason he shows up more than in Vanilla is it sounded like he was going to constantly hound you more than the 2 or 3 extra times in Vanilla.
first of all: Dark Souls 2 Best Souls second of all: for someone who hated the game you have some solid points. the random ass statues are the absolute worst. but I actually enjoyed Scholar for the playthroughs I did with friends, and because I came back to it YEARS after beating the vanilla game so I didn't have the fresh comparison. pretty good video except that Dark Souls 2 Best Souls third of all: you're wrong + fight me + ds2 best souls + plat code vein with me fourth of all: ur cute
I liked SotFS but for a different reason: it's much faster to get a good build going in SotFS than in vanilla, which makes it better for repeat playthroughs. The Dull ember is much faster to get, and other cool weapons like the staff of wisdom are also available early on, and each persuers drops twinkling titanite which means your build can get that much stronger pretty quickly. Plus, if you make your way to the dlcs there's a bunch of upgrade materials there that would let you finish up your builds before your second lord soul That, and all the other changes I feel add to its replayability. You gotta tackle each area differently, use different moves / weapons / spells. Not once did I see you use the greatsword's two-handed rolling attack, which not only deals pierce damage (making it more effective against enemies weaker to it), but it has a long range and a thrust motion so it's perfect for clearing out enemies grouped in tight corridors. The two-handed running attack is alsp really good to stun groups of enemies by launching them up in the air, giving you more time to finish off a few of them. Many of those places you mentioned with enemies grouped together could have been cleared more easily with either a different weapon or using different moves. And as far as the torches go, it gives you more reason to experiment. I liked that it gave you a reason to have a torch, so that you have a choice to either rely on memory for repeat playthroughs, or rely on the torch and a weapon better fit for one-handed combat As for general gameplay, I always felt the game was more about giving the player a lot of different options. The majula merchant sells ranged consumables on top of infinite lifegems, the blacksmith offers arrows and a bow, so you pretty much always have a ranged option to methodically take down a few foes in an area before jumping in guns blazing. It adds a level of planning and strategy that I think is pretty neat, and makes ganks easier to deal with Also, as a side note: the torch repels all small spiders in SotFS, not just in the boss arena, making that general area much more maneagable
I understand that SotFS wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, I remember playing it on PS4 after finish vanilla and I honestly found it more entertaining and memorable for the changes, then again I felt DS2 was way better than DS3. I felt as though these complaints are just minor inconveniences rather than changes that ruined the experience. I do like your content style and humor. Good on ya!
First time i played SOFTS i reached McDuff and went straight to Iron Keep, but i got realy confused because the Dull Ember was not there. How im gonna infuse my weapons?? Took me some hours to realize that i got the ember in the moment that i reached the lost bastille...
My experience with DS2 and SotFS is very interesting. Essentially, I bought a used copy of the original DS2 from a gamestop when I was like 10 on the recommendation of the employee there. I don't know why he thought that was a good idea, but whatever. Long story short, I was a child, and was not great at games. I never killed a single boss, and I gave up. Fast forward to last year, and I get a random urge to just buckle down and beat the game. I proceed to buy the SotFS version on my computer. Because I literally never got past heide's tower or the woods, I got to go in without knowing most of the original game. I did enjoy myself overall, mostly due to the satisfaction of finally progressing a game that walled me so hard all those years ago. Maybe I'll have to go crack open my old ps3 copy and see if I have more fun there.
DS2 already had an issue with ganking being used as difficulty in the first place. The arena with the Heide Knight in the forest of fallen giants is a really early, and thus telling example, but there are many others which I will not list here because admittedly it's been a while since I've played and I can't list these examples by name off the top of my head, however some I _can_ think of would be the place right before the three sentinels (Not to mention... the sentinels themselves) or the walk up to the first iron bridge in huntsman's copse, or the path up to the chariot, where if you take one step too many you might step over an extra aggro trigger and bring the wrath of four bullshit enemies upon you (I'm remembering more and more as I write this comment and I hate it). Scholar of the First Sin only made an already existing issue even worse. I don't know how to explain it but... that didn't make it that much worse for me. It's like... I already suffered through Dark Souls 2 so Scholar didn't make me feel any worse for encountering morer of the same bullshit I disliked the original for. To me it just seems like you were able to tollerate it up to a limit and Scholar was just the straw that broke the camel's back, whereas my back was already broken so I couldn't give a shit.
1:19:02 You should definitely put this criticism in your DS3 critique video as well. I was really disappointed by DS3 because it wasn't Monster Hunter World.
I'm genuinely convinced that the reason why all of the new players that play DS2 end up hating it is because they play Scholar and they assume the game was always an unbalanced mess. Vanilla actually has a difficulty curve and it doesn't spam you with enemies at every corner.There are some improvements in Scholar, for sure, but most of the changes I think were for the worst and they dug a deeper hole for DS2. I can't blame anyone for wanting to play Scholar instead of vanilla, since it's advertised as the definitive version of the game, but it's very clear to me that Scholar was just an excuse to resell the game and make more money.
Not to mention that falconers animation As for the dragon skeleton, it triggers, I just don't know how I did it. And finally for the extreme enemy spam, I had to go through, kill every enemy until they stop spawning, and then fighting the boss.
I played SotFS before Vanilla but I did a 100% playthrough of both. Honestly, SotFS is the souls game that stands out the most in terms of psychological horror and making you feel like you're part of that world full of shit. The dread doesn't only come from the world sets but from the gameplay itself. It really makes you feel like you're the bearer of the curse. After every corner, you stop and think to yourself "Why am I here?" "Who am I?" Only true art can achieve that.
It's a crime that this comment was ignored for 4 weeks. I shared a similar experience. Every Dark souls had a different feeling distinct from the others. Bloodborne gave me a similar vibe to DS2 though. With less body horror of course
Imagine you just walk into the boar room in ds1 as a new player. You go "huh, thats a scary looking thing that will probably kill me. Better watch out for that guy" but as you're walking over to the right to avoid it there's just a second boar sitting there in the corner where you can't see it, and it murders you. Counterintuitive enemy placement and level design.
What I like about DS1, is that there's logic to the enemy placement and using the magician's misdirection. Like game makes you focus on 1 thing and you don't see the trap. In DS1 the game takes advantage of tunnel vision. But it is still manageable, it's usually just weak enemies that hide. I can think of quite a few instances that take advantage of this, but not one where you just die and have little to no opportunity to adapt and survive.
@@zzodysseuszz ok, name me some where theres seemingly no enemies only for them to drop or spawn etc. I know the slimes fit that description but they literally include a "tutorial" room before hand with 1 slime that drops over an item before the next with alot of them. Thr game primes you to look for this. And other instances you can instant kill them when they're still hiding. The end game tho is rushed, like they just placed a bunch of (now) 2-hit kill demons in a not smart level design. Tho the power creep does balance it out a bit now that they're weak fodder at that point. But yeah, still rushed.
@@zzodysseuszzsorry wtf and you saying? In what room do so many enemies drop from the ceiling that they block all exits and fill the room? Beat the game several times, can only think of maybe the room after the first boar but those are 1 hit hollows so they are no threat at all. Please list some examples, since you claim this happens so much more frequently than in DS2, the game notorious for unfair ganks. You can just say you prefer the DS2 PvP and don't care about the rest of the game, you don't have to pretend the rest of the game is fun
@@zzodysseuszz I also think I should clarify that I completely disagree with thr idea that Dark Souls is a 1v1 PvE game. I view Dark Souls as a Tactical Action RPG in the sense that positioning and whatnot is paramount. I don't view gank fights in of themselves as bad, it's how they're emplemented that matters. In Dark Souls, 3 seems to be the magic number. Excluding hollow encounters, most are in 3s or can be sub divided into mini encounters of 3 or less. The early pig encounter is just that. You can deal with every other enemy in nor more the 3 at a time while being safe from the pig which you can cheese with the item they give you or take it one 1v1. The enemy has their own holy trinity of unit types, that play into the PvE, and its really fun when you encounter these "ganks" because of that.
One thing I don’t see people talk about with Iron Keep is that the Alonne Knights have significantly increased aggro range. One can aggro onto you despite the fact you can’t see it, and one is on a really high platform and falls down to engage the player in combat. I can do iron keep easily in scholar now but my blind playthrough might be one of the most frustrating experiences I’ve had playing a video game. Edit: Another thing about Scholar is that nothing in the game works together. The physics, controls, enemies (and groups of them) and animations just don’t work together at all. It’s better in vanilla because the enemies were more thought about with the brokenness in mind. It’s very clear that Scholar didn’t think this they creating the dumbest level design in souls.
@@zzodysseuszz scholar fixed a couple of things and broke hundred in their stead. Most of the changes don't make sense and/or make the game a tedious mess rather than a challenging, but fun experience.
One change I didn't understand in SOFTS is that when you kill the mimic in brightstone cove you get the staff of wisdom, an S scaling int staff originally given to the player near end game in Dragon Aerie in vanilla. It was given near end game for a reason
Is scaling different in Dark Souls 2 than it is in other games? Elden Ring has a staff located in Caelid that is really easy to get to obtain as soon as you get Torrent, and it has S scaling in Int as well. The only caveat is that said staff can't be upgraded at all, and you end up finding way better staffs later on in the game.
@@the_furry_inside_your_walls639 Oh yeah the meteor staff. I thought that was strange/silly too honestly, but at least in Elden Ring Caelid is a really dangerous area if you head there early on, and it's in the middle of the poison swamp. The game disincentivizes players exploring there in the early game (if you didnt look at a guide) but rewards their persistance. In SOTFS that mimic isn't much of a secret and that camp he's at is not out of your way at all. As far as scaling works, it's practically the same in all games
@@MrGuypi Fair enough. It is true that you still have to go out of your way through dangerous mobs in Caelid to get the staff, but the scarlet rot swamp is actually a non issue with Torrent, you just have to be careful not to step into the rot for too long by yourself. There's also the Great Sword not far from the first site of grace in Caelid, but that one requires even more points in its required stats to use and is even more dangerous to obtain early on. Edit: Also forgot to mention that the meteorite staff gets outclassed by an upgraded Demihuman Queen's staff early on, and other staffs obtained later on in the game also outclass it. That being said, if you want to use gravity sorceries, the metoerite staff is a solid choice since its scaling especially effects gravity sorceries.
Finally I am vindicated. A lot of Scholar's changes felt massively dumb to me and I HATE the petrified statue progress blockers. 370 hours in DSII and 15 in SotFS, the numbers speak for themselves.
I've only known the scholar of the first sin version as Dark Souls 2. I just generally thought that it was set up to be cruel in general so finding out the tweaks compared to vanilla has me now considering it was set up to be evil instead.
Dark Souls 1 is a "metroid Vania" technically with just "this door opens from the other side", but really it is a focus on exploration, and "you got thing, these 3 doors are now opened to you", it is also kind of funny you call "DS2 Linear" when it is really the most non-linear outside of Demon Soul's and Elden Ring, and DS3 is the most linear. which can easily draw lines to Super Metroid. the "intended path" in Dark Souls 1 (I personally feel the master key as a starting gift was a mistake at least not without like beating the game once) has 3/4 major points of back tracking all of which that are not telegraphed to the player; only being avoided by going very specific routs, or having foreknowledge, require exploration, and the player remembering where they saw things, much like most Metroid games. heaven forbid the blind-playthrough player was bull-headed enough to get to PinWheel before the Lord Vessel, doubly so if they took either of the bonfires on the way there, or got to either bonfire in the Catacombs... - the Basement Key this door is not marked in any way, and the player could have run up against no less then 3 locked door that just said "Locked door" and that key only works on that one, and it is only by random chance the player might pick that door first. - most anything dealing with the Forest let alone the Covenant of Artorius (I die jumping into this pit underneath firelink, guess I better go all the way to the forest to fight a giant wolf in order to get a ring that allows me to survive going into that pit) - the golden fog-gates though the game directly shows you all 3 it doesn't help that 2 of those the player had to go very far out of their way in order to see in the first place. - the Birds nest and the Doll, I am not saying anyone could have figured it out, but that it doesn't feel that intuitive on reflection, and quite "video-gamey" - the DLC "quest-line" From Soft even put out a guide for how to access it after it first released (was this necessary I don't know, but they felt they should release it), and they basically made the DLC for Dark Souls 3 unmissable. The Light/Torch mechanic was supposed to be a selling point of the original game, and was one of the things the game was ridiculed for not leaning into more.
what besides "locked doors" and "exploration" is a "metroidvania"? -theme/setting: most every game called a metroidvania has a different theme. -art style: very few games called metroidvania have similar art style -Perspective: the metroid series itself, and many games called metroidvania have used different perspectives -it isn't "close enough" to metroid: then your argument is with potentially hundreds of games that have been put into the "genre" and the classification isn't even close to the try-hard gatekeeping of Rouge-Like. -even Nintendo initially called the Metroid series "Search Action Games" and they were the ones that called Symphony of the Night derisively a "Metroid Vania" because it "was a Castle Vania game that was 'copying' Metroid" and the term stuck as a Genre. the best argument for "why Dark Souls 1 isn't a metroidvania" is "because I said so" when metroidvania is a loosely defined genre with most similarities being gated progressing, and exploration. unless you are going to go through each game on say Steam tagged "MetroidVania" and then analyze whether or not they deserve the genre... the biggest push-back to "Dark Souls 1 is a MetroidVania" would come down to effectively in-grouping and out-grouping "why are you trying to put the thing I think is really special into this big category, it is special" even "Souls Like" has become anywhere from "it has a stamina system in combat" to "game is hard like DARK SOULS..." which is even more meaningless then "MetroidVania"
Thanks for reminding me that it was a good idea to skip DS2 as I just bought the DS trilogy for my Series X and am currently going through 3 after having finished 1 and was thinking of going back to 2 and doing that. Yeah I’m good lol I’ll just go to Elden Ring after finishing 3, hopefully in time for the Shadow of the Erdtree!
I have not watched this video yet, however, from own experience of sotfs vs base DS2? Base game is far superior. Sotfs is FAR too strong enemy dense. To an annoying degree.
Scholar feels like they listened to the “git gud” community too much. I say this as dark souls 2 being my favourite of the trilogy. I do have to say, I never had trouble with the pursuer fights, even the ganky ones. (Though I’ve never fought the one at the coffin as I didn’t see the need to change my characters genders at any point). Scholar felt like you were supposed to be well rounded instead of a specialist. My character walked around with dragon rider bow, basic staff (I started as sorcerer) and had a big unga bunga Greatsword/great shield and grand lance switch out. I had all three attack options and therefore could simply pick off opponents from a distance if it saw what I thought was an arena area coming up. The lost bastille first fight included, you can sit on the ledge and kill almost everyone down there with a bow if you just take a couple of minutes to get on the wall after shooting down the crossbowmen. The shrine of amana that everyone cries about, didn’t even die once 😂 I simply sat on the cliff above (to the right before you go down into the shrine, I think there is a sorceress there) and picked off everything I could from there with the bow, then continued to simply take everything out from a distance as I cleared the place. It seemed to me that jack of all trades was the way through. My dude … you can light up the sinner arena by using the butterfly thing that lights torches on the two side stairs before the arena … that’s just you not looking around, sprinting through the game my dude. I think a few of your complaints are caused by your play style and impatience, not by the game. This is pretty noticeable as many people in the comments seem to be pointing out the same thing. If other people didn’t have trouble with it but you did, maybe think about what they did differently to you instead of just claiming the game is bad because you couldn’t get into it. All I’m saying. I saw people pointing out you not bothering to dual wield but weighing yourself down with the second sword; valid criticism, the weight system is built to not carry unnecessary junk, that’s the same in all the games. I saw people pointing out you sprinting through areas; valid criticism, you missed details like lighting up the sinner arena but then put it in as a complaint? It was your own doing. 🤷🏼♂️ Peace. 🙏🏻 Edit; upon a review of your comments. Seems like most of your fanbase could take some advice from this comment. Use your grey matter. Don’t just sprint through areas. 🙏🏻
Pro tip: spear heide knights are actually super easy to cheese. They have an attack where they attack one side, then the other, then to a forwards jump attack. Just bait that out, and roll through the jump attack for an easy backstab. They're easier than the sword guys once you get used to it.
redditors seethe and cry constantly if you say anything about scholar being worse in any way shape or form. I played scholar first then vnilla. ds2 scholar was my fav fromsoft game after i beat it. played vanilla and that one has dethroned. I genuinely cannot grasp how people think scholar is better. I felt cheated I wasted so much damn time with scholar after playing vanilla the enemy placement in vanilla being better isn't just about gank fights but the logic of them, like the bastille soldiers just in forest of fallen giants for some reason?? aren't they supposed to be guarding prisoners I will say something I found odd in vanilla is the Alonne knight captains in drangleic castle. but after every other areas enemys made sense it made me wonder why they were here rather then why the devs placed them there
You also forgot that behind the statue in the tutorial is an Estus shard, why? Because I think when they remade the game they thought it was better to put them in the worst spots I hate going for the one shrine of Amana. I think when I replayed this game this year I forgot how bad enemy placement was and how weird some placements are the knight in front of the chest with the tiny platform I think made me quit playing because this was my first souls game
@manuelsanchez9649 @thelegendofxander I just started the video but why's the little platform a problem? I thought the simple solution was hit him then walk back over to the larger one. I played the first version before Scholar fyi and I'm realizing I ought to go back and play the original sometime soon just to see all the differences since it's been so long.
@@Professor-Badger I think the issue is that for newer players, like I was, it’s a lot harder for newer players trying to figure out how to both hit the guy, not die to his swing, and make it back across the path while trying to get used to the controls. Alongside that I think ds2 sotfs has a lot of just really mean enemy placement that isn’t present in ds1,3, bloodborne, and elden ring. I think my real biggest complaint with it is that if it was a modern or even demon/dark souls 1 the enemy would be placed standing in front of the chest and you would have a clear line to open the chest and get it with risk of dying to the guy rather then the gap if you booked it for the chest. Also I think gating a ring that helps newer players be behind an enemy that is way stronger then the slow clunky big boy knights is not a good idea in hindsight
@@zzodysseuszz No it’s not no other game places hordes of enemies in front of you for no reason, and the ones that do most of those enemies are worthless ds3 has the place with the dogs on the bridge but all of the hollows won’t attack you, ds1 has the skeleton hordes before pinwheel but you clearly have a guy to kill because you can hear his bell, bloodborne rarely has you fighting more then 3 guys at a time and if you do it’s the townsfolk who pose no threat to you even at level 1, and Eldenrings open world usually only has hordes of the nobles who again can’t do anything, I don’t think you understand my complaints either I hate the shrine of Amana because of the Etsus shard location not because of the magic guys or the fish people or the knights because their actually spaced out well expect for the circle area with all of them just chilling their but that’s a single spot out of the whole area so I give a pass
You make some good points, but overall DS2 scholar is only "worse" for more "hordes" and that is really bad if you playing with heavy weapons without a horizontal slash attack. There are some bad replacements, but there also some good ones. They are not that diferrent.
Jesus Christ dude, “it’s stupid that you can despawn the pursuer cuz what if you want to fight him?” You can cheese the despawn if fighting him with the rest of the mob is too difficult so you can make the fight easier. Plenty of the nitpicks in this video is just “I didn’t learn how to approach any of these new encounters”. You can make this game as hard or as easy as you want to, just by clearing out enemies from certain locations. And more importantly, learning how to pull enemies away from a larger encounter can be vital to some areas
I think the point is that just because it's harder doesn't make it fun. Good fun design would be the pursuer spawning after enough enemies are killed. Design it in a way where cheesing it isn't the only way you'd clear it on a first time. Quite literally artificial difficulty at its finest.
@@dalewilson2741 I can clear it even with the enemies there, but it’s up to you. My point is that the game conditions you into being cautious and mindful around engagements. A lot of places where people constantly complain about enemy placement, like Iron Keep, are places where the encounter is designed specifically to discourage a mindless run through the area. If it’s difficult, take your time and make it easier on yourself. There’s plenty of cover to block arrow fire IF you don’t try to rush over the bridge leading to the smelter demon. And there’s 4 enemies on the other side, so of course you’re going to get ganked if you try to just run past them instead of idk, drawing them onto the bridge where they can’t bring their numbers to bear. Instead of this constant bellyaching about enemy placement and adaptability and “bad game design”, people should actually learn what the engagements are trying to test and teach you every time. You have control in almost all of these engagements. There’s cover, there are bottlenecks, you have tools and mechanics that can bring every engagement into your favor, but NONE of these people who go out of their way to spend hours complaining over it ever try to learn WHY they’re having a bad time. Like I said, you can make this game as easy or as hard as you want it to be. It’s better to teach new players how the game works rather than just say “it’s bad and too hard and winge, winge, winge”.
@@dalewilson2741 actually, back to the pursuer specifically, it’s better to despawn him and fight your way over to the MacDuff bonfire, then use that as a staging ground to deal with him, that way you dont really have to worry about the crossbowmen on the wall, just the ones on the wooden towers, which you can knock down and bring into melee range to deal with. Also, the dogs can be dealt with from that direction before you even get to his spawn area, so you won’t have to worry about them, either. And that’s all without clearing the enemies out first.
Iron Passage will teach you how to pull one at a time like no other @__@ Fuck that place. It's one of three spots in the game that is actually hard in Scholar of the first sin. That one gank corridor on the way to Undead Chariot, Black Gulch, and Shrine of Amana are the only other places in the game that made me go, "this is kinda hard." But then I figured out you can shoot the oil pools with flame arrows to kill the dark beasts without aggroing them
The irony of a boss called THE PURSUER simply giving up and vanishing if you walk away always kills me
lol True. But it also forces you to actively engage the pursuer when you can't run back a dozen yards to heal without stopping the fight. I understand the logic behind fromsoftware's decision in this instant
He just like me frfr
@@Willrobert92I don't think that was their intent, they simply placed him in a kill zone but didn't seem to anticipate the player backing away.
This really just screams experimentation, they tried a new mechanic but didn't fully realize the draw backs or limits they had to account for.
That's just because it was a poor translation. In japanese his name means "cursed one". He was never really meant to pursue you.
@@ickyfist The name of the Pursuer enemies is directly translated as the "Spellbound" or "Cursebound" which is in reference to their curse to hunt down the Undead as a means to justify their own existence. Hence they pursue the undead relentlessly on account of their curse. Given that information it makes sense why a translator would choose to go with the name "Pursuer" as oppose to "Cursebound" as "Cursebound" is both confusing and extremely vague. "Pursuer" may have been a bit on the nose, but at least it is neither vague nor confusing.
That and in regards to game design they were always intended to pursue the player. FromSoftware almost always add in an enemy or two into their games that they intend to have chase or hunt down the player throughout their journey. They however also tend to remove that aspect of them as they can never figure out a good way to implement it into their games without ruining the experience too much, or simply can't incorporate it before the release of the game. For Dark Souls (1) it was the Black Knights, for Elden Ring we have the Night Cavalry (which there is still dialogue of in game to hint at their original purpose as "hunters") and in Dark Souls 2 we had the "Pursuer" enemies.
Their intent was to pursue and hunt the player, though they likely held a more active role during some stage of development than what we got in the final product(s).
My first experience with DS2 was through Scholar and never knew about the changes made from the base game. I just thought it was merely the Base Game with the DLC bundled with it.
Same😂😂
That’s what forums told me before I bought any of them as my first game in the franchise 💀 „Best game for newcomers“… well not completely wrong. But I like learning how to run before walking it does make things easier in many games!
Problem is… my best friend &Co. who LOVE all Souls-like (except DS2 but they’ve played it) almost get an aneurysm when they tried to help me and saw that I stopped locking-on since the 2nd area… made it to the scorpion lady like this, first roadblock. Because from what I can see while generally I think the new placement for the enemies in the first 2 zones after the Tutorial is flavourful and kinda smart, they did a mistake by incentivising New Players by not going to the area with big heavy knights, but instead the area with a lot of weaker faster enemies that immediately gang up on you… makes sense in every other games! But what I learned since then is that the bosses and PVP in Souls games absoluuutely play differently from what the normal enemies taught me… it’s not about, running away 24/7 to find a good spot to kill the enemies 1 on 1, if possible, or using a weapon like Flamberge that hits multiple enemies sideways so I can stun more than 1 at once, so I don’t get stunlocked from all directions myself… 💀 It’s about learning how to roll and focus 1 guy with a strong-hitting weapon… completely different. (Well apparently, at least that’s what it looks like and what everyone is trying to drill into me, but I have a feeling none of these people have tried anything but a longsword in all their lives either and that’s what their gameplay was each time… no magic ever or archer etc. super boring) So yeah I like the design on paper but, it’s gonna be a hard time getting used to locking-on… and getting people to shut up 💀 „Do it this one way and no other way reeeeeeee!“
That's true for the X360/PS3 version.
@@MajinObamaholy shit tldr
Scholar had good changes like making dark places actually requiring torches, making rare sets easier to attain as well as the Forlorn.
Wish they just did that and bundled the DLCs onto em.
Fights spiders doesn't use a torch proceeds to cry that he died
Domo3000 absolutely destroying you btw
You see, the problem is that while domo is doing a good job... he's not doing numbers
His videos only get a fraction of views these lying shitheads get, so people will only end up still repeating these lies
Only way I could see domo fixing it, is making a huge format video, and praying to algorithm...
@@spicydong317He’s new, give him a chance to cook. It will gain traction over time.
Domo is no better than this guy. He proves that Scholar is the less stinky turd by repeatedly showing that Vanilla stinks more, then acts like that means it's actually chocolate. He denies the existence of good criticism towards DS2, because he debunked a couple of badly made videos.
@@Spellweaver5 i don't see how, he's wrong cuz scholar is what, harder?
@@Spellweaver5he's not denying good criticism. He's literally pointing out hypocritical and flat out lying about scholar. But if course you can't see that.
You are just really nostalgic and are viewing everything trough a "everything was better in the past" mindset. You keep saying that things were better in vanilla but DS2 had glaring issues that got fixed in scholar. I don't have any stakes in this but watching this video just makes me angry, this is not a honest video - just nitpicking area after area. Yes there are more enemies in most areas because they were dead as fuck in vanilla. Yes there are more ganks but if you actually play with a tactical mindeset you can advert most of them. Billion spiders? Heide knights? Use a torch, Heide knights don't aggro, Turtle Knights pull or stack - the 3rd bonfire in Forest of Giants for example is meant to be optional and challenging in comparison to the rest of the area - there is nothing crazy going on just need to use your brain playing and not just run in like in DS2 which was way too easy. Longer areas, more bonfires? Where is the problem? You are making it sound like it is a downside to have put some life into areas like Harvest Valley which was just barren in vanilla. Harvest Valley gank? Optional like most gank areas as you might have noticed - they are supposed to be an extra challenge. THEY ARE EXTRA. EXTRA. you get an extra scoop of ice cream but nah I'm not here to eat extra ice cream I just want vanilla. Could type a 3000 word essay about this video but it ain't worth the hassle. You clickbaited me, not going to happen next time
It would be nice if you actually fact checked any of the information in this video. Having an opinion is fine, but being misleading and just flat out wrong isn't.
He is flat out lying.
I own and play both versions. Working on side by side comparisons myself. The amount of lies in his vid is astounding.
yeah.. it's the problem with small channels. then people like this give everyone a bad rep because there are really good and underrated small channels.
The bone dragon in Aldia's Keep does aggro in Scholar. You need to light the 4 torch pedestals.
@@zzodysseuszz I don't think you are doing yourself any favors. His criticism and the fact that he didn't realize it only helps to further aid his point on what essentially was a bad choice, given in the original you just had to walk in. Veteran players could end up thinking it just glitched. New players can completely miss it if they don't back track after lighting all the torches.
They changed how it works, and it's such a odd change that I am not surprised if he thought it just got removed.
@@zzodysseuszzThe criticism I have with it is that it removed the cool surprise factor of the dragon immediately attacking you in the start of the area. Unfortunately, scholar screwed it up by making you light torches for no goddamn reason, removing the cool experience by making you have to unlock it by exploring the level.
@@zzodysseuszz Try to broaden your perspective, you are way too laser focused on SotFS is "good". First, this is in the original game, without the torches, they decided to change something that already existed with tedious steps that add nothing extra and call it a remix. We are not talking about the slab, if they felt it was "too easy" to get the slab they could have easily slapped a red phantom with overbloated stats and put it as a drop on the phantom without touching the dragon. It's not that hard, I am messing with Yapped Rune Bear for Elden Ring and adding and removing stuff is quite easy!
Second, you are not debunking anything, it's a fact that in the original, you get this cool dragon waking up as you enter tru the door roaring at you, right on your face, and now? You might miss it, you might light some torches and STILL miss it, you might light the torches and come from behind and not even see properly what even happened with the dragon just falling apart. I don't know why they felt like they needed to have a Zelda puzzle on their game and much less why it was put there but sure? Not to mention it's a repeated gimmick all over. I mean if it was Zelda it'd probably way cooler, given the torches could even be on the roof and you just magical fire arrow at them, unlike... walk and activate a torch.
The reason I know you can miss it is that I did, I lit all the torches, I back tracked, and when the dragon woke up, I just kept walking tru the door thinking he just triggered randomly, suddenly getting the key, and by the time I looked around he already given me the key, I was so baffled when I saw that they left the trigger point on the same place too, but you approaching it from behind can make you "oops, I kept walking so I avoided it without even realizing it". I didn't even make the connection with the torches 'cuz it felt glitchy, it felt weird that it would trigger in such a way where I had 0 visibility on it, and worse, he didn't even hit me cuz I just kept going back, only turning around when I hear him smashing himself against the doors behind me and getting the key.
But if you are okay with such design choices, then you do you. Imagine if on Elden Ring they did the same with Malenia, but instead her boss door was now locked and you needed to find 4 scarlet buds scattered around to unlock it, on a game you had to re-buy. That's not good design, it's tedious. It'd make every new playtru all the more annoying, 'cuz it didn't add anything but waste more of your time.
Oh wait, they sort of did, someone must really like torches in there 'cuz that's what they did in Ordina, just... better and worse! 'cuz somehow you are expected to A: Know that Sentry torches reveal the hidden assassins or B: Just run all over and brute force it, which is what the majority ended up doing, besides glitching jumping around the entrance to skip the whole place 'cuz peeps didn't feel like dealing with the whole place, at least until they patched it out.
Again, this would be fine if it was done from the get go, and even then it's was clearly designed with the intention of showing you something as you enter, from the front, the remix throws that out the window for a questionable presentation that may not happen.
Not gonna bother to reply anymore if all you can't help but feel like insulting others, and hardly try to understand others points throwing insults.
@@GahmehWootmad cuz bad
@@GahmehWoot you didn't hear the bones scraping on the ground, the bones joining together, or the roar but you heard it smash itself on the doorway. Your math ain't mathing.
Part 2 of debunking lots of his false claims: ua-cam.com/video/567_58FWZJA/v-deo.htmlsi=Rq2xBuJkXyp6y8E6
So another creator just dropped a video showing how this video lacks research and contradicts itself and exagerates heavily to attempt to prove its points.
After watching both, i now hate that i gave any time to this one.
Link
@@t-universegamer7609Links fail to send. Just look up Domo3000, that's the youtuber. Has a cat profile picture.
@@t-universegamer7609the video creator is called Domo3000
@@t-universegamer7609 We can’t share links on YT, they get auto deleted unless you are the channel owner. Check Domo3000, he is the one disproving this heap. I can also verify, since I own both games and am working on a side by side comparison. Xander is outright lying and so many people are just nodding along without fact checking.
@@t-universegamer7609 ua-cam.com/video/5RvFxypLl8k/v-deo.html
I don’t understand the point of the enemy placements in SotFS. Perhaps there is nothing to understand.
It truly feels random. It’s so hard to enjoy the game when it just doesn’t feel good to play through levels and fight mediocre bosses
I just feel like there are so many things either in DS2 or specifically in scholar that are just frustrating, so the idea of placing MORE enemies and in worse spots just adds to the frustration. Like it frustrates me so much that you can get interrupted in boss fog gates since I just wanna run to the boss when I have to fight it more than once and it's a huge time waste having to kill all the enemies or kill them like 15 times, since they also can chase you way too far so you can't just run past and kill the last few enemies before the boss.
I'm not sure how much scholar worsened the issue but I'm sure it didn't make it better, especially if you have to resort to killing everything 15 times :(
@@concerninghobbits5536 "I'm not sure how much scholar worsened the issue"
To be fair the original version of the game was quite annoying in a few places too, Iron Keep wasn't any better. But almost all of the stone statues that block something for no reason were added in SotFS. The random Forlorn invaders too. The Heide knights and dragon in Heide's tower didn't exist so in the original you didn't have to fight an entire army to get to the dragonslayer. Imho the original just didn't feel like such a slog because most SotFS changes were seemingly just added to slow the player down at any cost.
@@SaHaRaSquad interesting, I gotta beat the second and third dlc then I plan to play the OG version and feel the difference myself. The Heide knights usually aren't TOO bad 'cause I know to fight the dragon first, but when I have killed dragonrider first it was pure torture especially slogging through all the knights only to get obliterated by the spear guy at the very end. Like if they put the spear guy first so I could get him out of the way and get used to him without having to fight everyone each attempt.
Pre-release interviews made it clear that the devs understood that people had thought DS2 was too easy and they were worried that trying to sell players a rerelease like this would be seen as a rip off, so they mentioned that there'd be a lot of new enemy placements and progression changes to make sure that even players who'd played a lot of DS2 felt it was a fresh experience.
They... certainly succeeded... There sure were a lot more "gotcha!" moments in my first run of SoTFS last year. I hope whoever decided to put a mimic in a room so small you have to hug a wall after hitting it to not get grabbed by its (still unfixed in the updated version) broken hitboxes got a demotion. I bet they were the same person who put that dragon on the way to dark Ornstein even though its fire can clip through the ground there and reach you on the stairs. Probably were the person who thought putting a wall ghost in the middle of a ladder so you HAVE to take a hit when climbing it was okey-dokey too.
SoTFS is so much better in some places and SO MUCH WORSE in about as many, it's a real shame.
also note: scholar has some of these decisions not for difficulty, but because of criticisms of false advertizing. Did they bring darkness into the game in an interesting and meaningful way? no, not really. But they did add it, so it checks off the list.
The coffin doesn't let you remake your character. It changes your gender, which was originally just placed there as a manual solution for players who had their genders changed by a bug. It just stuck around afterward.
HRT box
the trans community would love a coffin that could change your gender
So spreading misinformations is the new hobby of the "souls community" now?
spreading misinformations*
@@thekaelixchamber thanks!
@@vanilla.icescream np!
misinformation* would be correct actually
@@Gawentel i'm not a perfectionist but thanks for pointing it out
Just a correction here, the number of Nashandra's curse orbs was NOT changed in SotFS. She always summoned four of them around the arena and the only way for her to summon less is if she is in a corner, so the orbs won't spawn in a wall or in the empty spaces around the arena.
Could have been a glitch or something? She always spawns in the centre of the arena so there's no way to have an orb despawn in a wall. Hm.
@@zzodysseuszz Dude any and all criticism of DS2 lives rent free in your head, doesn’t it? He made one mistake in a video full of entirely valid criticism about how scholar messing with enemy placement hurts the experience of the game.
@@zzodysseuszz Well the only other thing I can pinpoint he got wrong is the dragon skeleton in Aldia’s place and did you seriously just say that there’s a wrong way to play a souls game? Jesus Christ if you really think there’s a ‘right way’ to play any of these games then you missed the point entirely. How about providing some examples of points he brought up that you think aren’t an issue, preferably in one comment. Also his complaints about Fragrant Branches of Yore are nitpicky, I agree, but I find them annoying and counterintuitive too
@@zzodysseuszzthe dark souls 2 defender has logged on
@@rigorm136 what lives rent free is the thousands of ds2 is bad videos on yt. its completely valid to nitpick when everybody and their grandma has made this video
Man the bit that annoys me the most in Scholar (even if it isn't the worst change) was removing the Heide knight in the forest.
That entire arena was designed for him and it was such a cool little set piece having him sitting there surrounded by dead hollows.
The shrine of amana changes are a close second though, legitimately what the fuck were they thinking.
In Shrine of Amana? Are you serious? They lowered the number of priestesses, and decreased their aggro range in Scholar.
Really bad video. Always doubt when someone says "I lost my footage", literally just record again. Full of missinformation, domo3000 has made some videos showing some of those missinformations.
Scholar is 100% better than DS2 but I like the thought
Not to mention that in Scholar you have no reason to go for Gargoiles. In vanilla they guard a key to make a Sinner fight easier, but in Scholar they just give it to you.
Then you'd miss out on covetous gold serpent ring + 2 by not fighting them ng+. That's fine and all but that is for sure a reason to fight them
@@Hahvayzthe issue is having to fight gargoyles on ng+, annoying af, getting the +1 version with magerold is way less of a hassle
@@sator2766For sure it's worth to grab magerold's as well. But it's also nice to kill them for earyl pancaking with dragon tooth as well. As that item is behind that boss until Dragon Aerie, or Old Knight Hammer in Drangleic Castle. It's genuinely my least favorite fight in the 2, but I just feel like I can't leave a boss unfinished in these games lol, good luck on your journeys fellow undead!
Southern band ritual ring for an extra attunement slot
Early dragontooth, which is a really good weapon
i’ve counted like 10+ things thatre just factually incorrect and i’ve only played this game once. how do you script an hour n half long video on a game you’ve played for years + still botch basic information
This guy lied about everything in the video. Not even joking. Look up Domo3000 he puts up side by side of Scholar and Vanilla videos of each area and how they nerfed the bosses.
I own and still play bother versions. The amount of misinformation in this video is astounding. It should be taken down.
So Vanilla DS2 is harder?
@@MariellNeo Most parts are more difficult in vanilla, yes. Things like enemy aggro range and damage were NERFED in Scholar. Examples include Shrine of Amana, priestesses aggro range was nerfed from 40 to 30, Ancient Dragon's damage was nerfed by 40% in scholar! Obviously not the only changes, but some significant ones, for sure.
@@MariellNeo yes jeezus h. Christ I just went through sotfs and the all the areas are just so much smoother to get through. Vanilla is an irredeemable cluster fuck if you go right into Scholar after playing it. They also have a lot more NPC summons and shades and upgrade material access too.
Get this comment to be a top comment so people can just check comments and not listen to this miss information BS
The only thing that truly bothers me about sotfs is how they removed the guaranteed Heide Knight Sword at the beginning of the game. Damn was it an easy way to start the game. It's like if DS1 removed the drake sword
Yes I always loved power stance wielding it with the fire long sword.
I got lucky and it dropped and its been carrying me through my first playthrough
I thought it was a genuine comment until you mentioned Drake Sword as an easy start. As if a 2 handed unopgraded club wouldn't output it in damage whilst being a strike weapon.
If you're into overly complicated methods of acquiring bad weapons, you could just grab the Grave Lord Sword within 10 minutes of gameplay. *That* is a good early game weapon.
@@EllaKarhu it's not about strength it's more killing a tough enemy and getting a cool weapon, it's like the Drake sword it's not too strong but cutting off a dragons tail and getting a cool weapon with a special strong attack was just awesome.
@@zzodysseuszz you haven't watched the video, have you?
Around 9:30 I find it odd you showcase the only area in sotfs that has 2 turtle knights in close proximity in that area. Meanwhile in vanilla it is absolutely swarmed in turtle knights where you may frequently have to fight 2 or 3 at a time. Especially in that cramped dark area.
To be fair about the lighting thing like in the gutter, I'm pretty sure that's what they were *trying* to do, even in the base game. I recall hearing that they had to seriously scale back on the lighting partway into production, either because of development time/costs or just so that the game could function somewhat smoothly (pretty sure it's the latter, but don't quote me). I'm not really a fan of it either, but I can tell the timed torch mechanic wasn't just thrown in there for shits and giggles; they may not have been intending on limiting your combat options, but they definitely intended for you to interact with the game in that manner. Otherwise places like the gutter would have been lit up like new londo ruins regardless of the sense it made.
DS1's sunlight maggot, and Bloodborne's lantern were a good way to both have darkness and not limit combat options. DS1 also had a held torch with the skull lantern, but the sunlight maggot was by far the more desirable for that exact reason. It could well have been the intent to limit those options in The Gutter, but I didn't gel with it at all especially because Scholar gave you no other option like DS1 did.
Torches are more focused in this game than the other dark souls. They replaced the other light sources with a resource.
@@thelegendofxander just light the sconces before fighting the mobs
@@thelegendofxanderI fail to see a problem here. Having the player make a choice between not being able to see and limiting their moveset in a dark area is not only fine, but also kind of cool and refreshing. It forces you to use a weapon in a way you usually wouldn't.
Sure, it can annoy the player *a little*, but in my opinion the goal is not to make the player comfortable, but to add some diversity to the game.
Btw, if one absolutely doesn't want to single-hand their weapon, they can just invest a couple stat points into intelligence and attunement, thereby enabling themselves to cast the illumination spell, whatever it's called.
The area itself kind of sucks, but it's not any better in vanilla.
@@another-anonymous-usernameIndeed, I am a fan of the darkness change in the gutter, it forces you to make a choice between being able to use both hands of being able to see better and there are plenty of sconces everywhere so if you stock up on flame butterflies you can circumvent the problem that way. Really adds something to the level imo.
One thing I always find interesting about videos like these is that it’s very rare for someone to talk about DS2’s troubled development, which didn’t seem to plague the other games as much. This game ended up going through 3 directors iirc, with the final one being a team member that had worked on prior games (can’t remember if it was Shadow Tower or King’s Field) and you can see how some of the older level design philosophy shows up in DS2. You could argue that the director leaned on that design philosophy and that’s why the game is rough, but I think it’s also a result of the game being restarted during development. Even the game we got had a lot of content cut or edited most likely due to scheduling. Illusory Wall has a video showing off the scrapped version of the gutter and Zulie the Witch has videos covering changes made to characters between development and release. I wish Scholar had gone back and finished the missing content, but that would have required a lot of work and I doubt Bandai Namco wanted to pour more money into the project.
1:03:20 *Says it isn't really a Metroidvania. Proceeds to explain why it's basically a Metroivania*
It's not just about keys, backtracking, interconnectedness, or defined levels. It's all of those added together. DS2 is a hub that leads to four levels and then a straight line for the second half. Any deeper exploration is artificial. It's more like Demon Souls. DS1 however is a sprawling world with 2 bells that can be tackled in multiple ways or outright ignored for a while as you complete half the late game (Pinwheel, New Londo, entrance to Demon Ruins). And areas like Blightown have multiple paths leading out to different areas. If you could explore Drangleic Castle from roughly the start of the game, and Aldia's Keep connected to Tseldora and the Castle, and The Gutter connected to both Rat levels and the Undead Crypt. Then DS2 would be getting close to DS1's style.
I like Frozen Outskirts but I have no preconception of escaping. Going there feels like a cool survival mode.
For me, the dlcs all fit a niche "favorite". Sunken Crown has my favorite level design in DS2, Iron Crown has the best bosses, and Ivory Crown is in the middle and feels the most similar to DS1. The problem is Sunken Crown's bosses aren't great, and each boss in Iron Crown comes with a caveat. Alonne's runback is awful and ruins the boss. Fume Knight is excellent but is most similar to a DS3 boss. You could start up a new character in DS3 and fight Gundyr instead of going through most of DS2 for one boss fight. Then Ivory Crown has my least favorite invasions. They're overpowered spammers that only want to waste time.
I like adaptability because it's the player choosing between giving themselves the overpowered capability you have in other souls games over actual stats. It's an interesting trade off. I also like the torch mechanic in the darkness. The Gutter is one of my favorite levels because of it. SotFS is so much worse that Vanilla, but I can appreciate trying to bring back the darkness.
Honestly, I sometimes wish we could have Vanilla's enemy and statue placement combined with Scholar's changes to the levels, because there's a few that make the levels much more unique to interact with: in No-man's Wharf, there's many sconces to light up and a torch guy to accompany you, as well as a wooden bridge shortcut to activate, all of which doesn't seem to be in Vanilla (I played Vanilla after Scholar). The Sinner room being darkened encourages actually lighting it up (by going into the side-towers and lighting them). The mass of spiders on the way to Freya is actually afraid of your torch as well, but ONLY in Scholar. EDIT: at least, it didn't seem to work for me. I like interactions like this and sorely missed them in Vanilla.
It makes the decision hard for me. On one hand, the beginning being an absolute spam fest in Scholar is awful in terms of the game's learning curve (I absolutely loathed DS2 at first and it was NOT my first rodeo with Fromsoftware) but on the other hand Scholar made a bunch of areas more interesting with these above interactions.
Sinner's room is dark in Vanilla as well and lighting the side-towers helps with the lockon the same way as it does in Scholar, literally nothing is different in that
The spiders are indeed afraid of fire in Scholar, one of the very few changes that is good
This right here is exactly what I want.
@blinkachu5275 scholar made more good changes than bad. Seriously only a couple of areas where more spammy
@@jdrok5026 There are literally only a handful of changes that Scholar did that were good lmao, bffr
The torch changes with the spiders? Good
The change to No Man's Wharf with the shortcut? Good
The slight upgrade in graphics? Good
But watch this entire fucking video and tell me "oh they did so many more good things than bad things"
90+% of the things they changed is literally a downgrade
@@blinkachu5275If you’re ONLY going off this video and haven’t fact checked, you need to do yourself a favor and start verifying the information you have been fed. I own and play both versions and am working on a side by side comparison of them. Xander’s vid is RIFE with lies and misinformation.
Honestly, even if complaints feel nitpicky (and quite a few don't), a game filled with nitpicky complaints is enough to annoy a person even more than a couple of major complaints.
Comments to specific parts of the video:
- I did remember the statue at the beginning of the game existed when I played... but I regretted using my damn branch on it.
- Having never played OG souls 2, what struck me in this video is how much more enemies there are in some areas. I got through okay-ish, but some areas definitely felt excessive if not unfair... and now it makes sense.
- My headcanon is that someone at FROM was like "well the pursuer doesn't seem to actually pursue the player too much" and tossed like 10 of them throughout the game to make you REALLY feel pursued
Great analysis, thank you for this! Even though I never played the OG souls 2, you've made me curious enough to maybe give it a shot sometime in the future.
Also I don't know why but after watching everything I feel this weird urge to like, comment and subscribe...
What a weirdly specific feeling that others are having……….
In the original release the Heide Knights were supposed to fill a similar role that the Black Knights had in DS1, of a slightly harder enemy in some areas that have pretty good rewards when you kill them. They did fail in the "good loot" department tho.
So when they relocated pretty much all of them to the Tower of Flames, they needed a new enemy to fill that role, and the Pursuer fit that category pretty well.
it's funny because in my recent and last playthrough for me the pursuser only spawned on three locations and I never felt pursued. When I played it the first time he spawned on two more locations I think. But the worst thing is that he does not respawn when he kills you or you went outside his aggro area. So he did not pursue me at all and I mostly forget about him everything else has more significant story impact and that stuff is already low.
@@zzodysseuszz of course the actually factual correct nitpicks are false. yeah sure.
@@zzodysseuszz says the one who doesn't know what they're talking about
Scholar is better objectively, all of these statements are contradictory lmao
If you light the oil lamps on either side of lost sinner the boss fight now is lit and you can lock onto him.
*her. Sorry xD
Good video, except I completely disagree about the dark areas. The darkness and needing a torch were a huge deal in the preview marketing of DS2, they just failed at implementing it somehow. And now Scholar does fix this one part of the vision even if it ruins many others.
It wasnt that they failed to implement it. It was that Namco wanted the game on Xbox360 and ps3 that already was outdated consoles so they had to gimp it hard or those consoles would play the entire game like blight town in ds1 with constant huge frame drops.
You do make some very good points, and for the most part I do agree, though I will say the issue with lighting isn't all an unintended problem. The point of making it dark in say, the gutter, is to make it so it is harder to fight. Put you in a situation where you aren't performing at peak combat so that you can adapt. Maybe if you have been relying on a shield, try rolling, or if you have been using an unwieldly one handed weapon, switch to something more usable.
that isn't a say I like the gutter, cause I don't, but sometimes it makes for a more interesting experience if your options are more limited. They don't want you to just walk through the gutter without a torch.
Did you ever subscribe to someone because they told you multiple times in the same video?
the stats show it actually works, that's why people do it lol
I dislike videos that tell me to like and subscribe, and if they do it more than once, I hit "do not recommend channel" and close out of the video.
Good practice I'd say @@Insomnolant1335
@@Insomnolant1335 FIRST TIME OIN THE INTERNET EH LUDDITE ???
@@SPAMLANWALKER the Internet is vast and large and filled with many peoples opinions and work. This user is simply expressing their taste. Fool.
In SOTF the lost Sinner fight there are torches you can light also
thats in vanilla
@@birbcultist the torches are in vanilla? There are torches outside of the boss room to the left and right respectively you can light it SOTFS also.
@@birbcultist there are chandeliers that you light in scholar
@@Ghorda9 ahh yea that may be what I’m thinking, I’ve only ever played SOTFS
I *loved* DS2 at launch. Since it was the first one where I completed any challenge runs (such as no death / no bonfire), it really felt like *my* souls game more so than the first two, which I had played alongside my brother. When Scholar first dropped, it felt totally different since I knew every enemy and item placement in the game from memory. I couldn’t even play it at first. I’ve since gone back and played more DS2 post-scholar, but I’ll always miss the game as I knew it.
Another small thing vanilla has in its favour is the lack of colour grading. I think some areas look so much worse in Scholar because of the colour grading messing up the original look of what artists were going for as well as constantly messing with contrast levels, it just makes some areas look so much uglier even with the "enhanced" visuals.
Huh?
I don't think you played either version with that statement
"Unless you remember that this statue exists, later down the line which is very unlikely"
Projects his terrible memory on others or thinks that rewarding players for backtracking when they remember something is bad design :^(
And acts as if backtracking didn't already exist in Vanilla
Giant Memories. Iron Key to open the door in front of Last Giant. Forgotten Key.
omg THE Domo3000! Spreading the SOTFS Gospel!
I fail to take your criticism seriously while you powerstance dual greatswords without ever swinging both
Exactly
yeaaaah bro lit just made a rage video the second he played the game, and decided to lie a bunch to add drama
@@daveshif2514You didn't actually watch the video, I take it?
@@daveshif2514 where’s the lies? It’s interesting that the handful of real hardcore fanboys I’ve seen try to sneer and mock and rage over his criticism, never actually seem to be able to put their finger on any point where he ‘lies’ or says something that can be ‘debunked’
watched it, played the game, beat it, idk what crack u smoke to think everything is some kind of conspiracy, but good job!@@JaitsuStudios
pro tip use a torch, got another one - lure out enemies one by one it works in nearly every major area. The real ganks are for extras. Lost Sinner is supposed to be extra dark, you get clear hints that you can light up the torches in the arena. Also DS3 didn't "learn from it", DS3 is just trying to emulate DS1. DS2 didn't miss the point, it was trying to reinvent the series - it was a bold move and resulted in a unique game.
His claim that Lost Sinner is dark in Scholar is just one of many outright lies. You can turn on the light in both versions and in Vanilla he had one of them turned on.
In Scholar it's easier to turn the lights on as you only need to defeat the Ruin Sentinels to get the Bastille Key, but in Vanilla you also need to defeat the Gargoyles.
Idk, disagree. Overall, I prefer Scholar.
The base game feels boring, empty, and dead. Scholars at least tried to make things interesting. They didn't do very well, but they tried, and I would rather have something over nothing.
There are too many things to talk about, so I'll just pick one. I love that Pursuer ambushes you around the Bastile. It adds character to the monster. He is the Pursuer, he pursues, that's literally his name. The base game only does it once when he jumps you with the bird and cool, but he sure gave up easy kinda sucks at his job. In Scholar he feels real, the fact that he shows up in Bastile everywhere puts a little more tension exploring the area. Again, it could have been done better, but they had to work with what little they had from the base game.
I understand why people don't like swarms of enemies, but DS2 enemies are so pathetically easy that I don't think it's ever an issue. I will say they overdo the swarms, but that's an issue with the base game as well. They do this because none of the enemies are threatening enough to stand alone. I also say it tests a different skill set than a solo fight that I still find enjoyable.
oddly enough, the swarms of enemies made co-op more enjoyable too. in other games it feels like just increased health and damage isn't enough to make fights interesting when your squad just ganks the hell out of everything. Bloodborne especially. I had less fun playing co-op than solo because every fight and area was clearly and meticulously designed with one player in mind, so having backup just made it kinda boring and easy.
But when every fight is a gankfest? Then you have fun gang fights for days. Fighting the Ivory King and his burnt ivory knights with a team of summons and ivory knights of your own was awesome. Not the most intricately designed fight in the series, but certainly one of the most memorable to me for the sheer scale of it. The only fight that came close to that feeling of spectacle for me is Radahn in Elden Ring.
Between that and the pvp, one could easily say multiplayer saved this game for sure.
I'm very surprised he didnt mention the 6-odd executioners on the way to the chariot boss fight. That run when I made it NG+ for the ring was absolute hell.
You can pull them one by one with a bow, which is an extremely valuable tactic in Scholar of the First Sin.
You can also just run right past them? I swear people that complain about Dark Souls 2 are intentionally gimping themselves.
At this point I played so much Scholar due to my main way to play being on consoles that I just adapted to all the additional Scholar bullcrap. But when I played Vanilla a bit more than a year ago for a bit it was pretty amazing to see the dragon not being in Heides Tower of Flame but Vanilla DS2 felt really easy compared to Scholar which is saying a lot considering how not even Scholar is hard but only punishing.
Also at 53:41 is that a music reference or jojo reference?
Song reference because in jojo it’s referencing the song
@@zzodysseuszz ...which is why it doesnt make sense. That dragon should have been slain by the dragonslayer. And its a pure misery to fight as you can be thrown off of the platform easily.
@@zzodysseuszz Because the dragon riders are so well known for riding dragons which is why every single Dragon Rider we see has no dragon near him.
@@zzodysseuszzyou're really conflating a name for filler lore and excusing a VERY bad enemy placement.
You wanna know why the dragon shouldn't be there? Because it's a literal copy-paste boss placed in an arena much smaller than the arena it was designed for. God help you if it does its breath attack to flood the arena with fire, you have to make it half way across the bridge to not get immolated and most likely die considering that this is a beginner area, people aren't gonna have a massive health pool to tank that.
@@zzodysseuszz the dragon is literally gatekeeping a boss named old dragonslayer. Just read it out loud and let that sink in. It does not make any sense.
Well you see, his name is The Pursuer, so that means he SHOULD be pursuing you!
(In the most random, copy paste way imaginable.)
yeesh, tough crowd, wonder where they hide though when ER is being discussed
Fun DS2 fact; the "Pursuer" name is an invention of the English translation team.
In the original Japanese script his name is 呪縛者, which roughly translates to something like "the one who is bound by a spell" or ""The Curse-bound one".
The Pursuer spam in Scholar is almost certainly the direct result of English fan complaints, along the lines of "His name is pursuer but how come he never pursues me?"
It triggers me that you use dual ugs 50% of the time but never dual wield them... whats the point?
because it's COOL??
@@thelegendofxanderuse both swords now!
Because he doesn't know how to play the game and is only making and easy rage bait video to farm engagement because he knows that the average redditor that hates Dark Souls 2 doesn't know any better than to point out how much he gets wrong in this video.
@@thelegendofxanderBecause you don’t actually know how to play the game. Probably don’t even have the stats for PS.
Saying no to adaptability: yes
Saying attacks need to be sped up so that stamina is an issue: ????? my brother how can you say that. stamina in the later games is insanely high compared to ds2. Ds2 plays like a strategy game compared to ds3 or elden ring
going from ds2 to bloodborne is insane with how different stamina costs are it's pretty insane
granted bloodborne is meant to be more dodge based but still
Flextile sentry turns into a gank fight in ng+ too so lost sinner is not only gank boss fight
It spawns 2 manakin assassins
Wasted so many effigies on that boss because I wanted to do Lucatiels quest but had already beaten that mf
I've only played Sholar and I'm still at an early stage of the game but my chief criticism is that it forces many-vs-one fights too often, with a combat system that really isn't suited to that. Lock-on + directional rolling + block/parry/backstab mechanics makes for great 1v1. Even using ranged weapons to pull enemies doesn't always work, but it does help. Maybe the intent is for the player to view locking on as an option only, but after DS1 it's pretty hard wired to virtually always use it.
you can run past most things if you have a plan.
apparently not locking on is intended for many encounters, but that is pretty bad because many weapons need lockon to hit. Without lockon I couldn't play with a spear e.g.
@@Ghorda9no you can't
@@Soapy-chan you definitely can, it's how i do all my playthroughs, with good routing and stamina management you can get to most fog gates, you can even do this in iron keep, iron passage and memory of the old iron king.
@@Soapy-chan many weapons you can hit with using the thumb stick to aim, bosses are even easier to hit because of how big they are.
Unfortunately for you, DS2 moves the Grand Lance from 3/4 of the way through the game into the first area, so I do not care about how good or bad any of the other changes are.
I have to agree. Initially he took me a while to get DS2 so by the time I did SOTFS was out so I went for it. Seemed like the smart move at the time. I HATED it.
Years later, I hear see other videos like this one and I think to myself, maybe I should give the base game a shot. Maybe it's not that bad. So I waited and when I saw it for cheap on steam I got it and OH! boy.... not the same experience. It's still my lowest ranked soulsborne game but at least it's in the good game category now.
If at least scholar actually gave the option of playing base game or scholar mode when stating a NG/NG+. That would actually very cool.
@@zzodysseuszz hooooo. someone is salty. 🤣
@@zzodysseuszz You may want to talk to a professional about that. It's not healthy.
@@zzodysseuszz Just stop. This is sad. I feel like I'm beating on a child.
Have the last word and go get help.
I gotta know. What's with the second guts sword/zwei in most of your clips? I didnt see you use a powerstance swing the entire video
Oh I'm making a video on that don't you worry. But also because it's cool
@@thelegendofxander yeah that's fair. Certainly looks better than 198 pounds of steel weighing down one side only
Is the "Good Game that was ruined" in the room with us?
To all "I hate Persuer and NPC's": Just parry and git gud. Thanks for listening.
45:20 in Scholar you need to light the 4 torches and kill the 4 Forlorns that spawn, the dragon will attack and you get a key to a room
Yes, it is stupid, I only discovered that years after platinum Scholar, same with the secret invaders in the Gutter and in the tutorial area, is a cool mechanic to trigger a event when you light all torches, but they could at least give some indication about it, the tutorial area have the fucking statue, so you won't light all the torches without the fragrant branch, and probably will forget the mechanic, in the gutter you probably will light part of the area, but is hard to light everything without actually going after the torches, and usually people won't do that unless they know there is a reward, or they are trying to make the map look better, and that sucks because the invader drop a really cool helmet that makes you immune to the curse status
@@zzodysseuszz I didn't play the first game, and I didn't feel any need to light the thing since aldia keep isn't dark, and I only discovered that rewards for lighting a area were a thing on the internet years after platinum the game, because in the area that they could teach the players about it they decided to put a statue blocking the way, so people who decided to light all the tutorial zone usually just forget about it when they reach the statue.
@@zzodysseuszz my complaint is that the game stopped the learning experience mid way with a statue
...and about the branch, at that point I already found another statue that looked more important than the one in the tutorial area, and when I did go back to the tutorial area eventually, I already forgot about trying to light everything, and I already got the impression that the you light stuff if the area is too dark(like in no man's wharf), so I just explored the cave.
@@zzodysseuszz Majula have like 5 paths for you to try, one blocked with a statue, one you need jump, one with the mechanism, and 2 you can go right away, isn't hard to just start exploring and just forget about the statue in the tutorial area, and even if you eventually remember, isn't hard to just forget about about lighting everything since the torch take your second hand, and usually people would like to have it available.
Fun fact there's the gank persuer fight in vanilla as well in new game plus. It's in the throne room where you find the ghost guy. it's to get the ring of blades +2 if remember correctly
"A critique of SotFS and why I don't like it. Comparing and contrasting Scholar with Vanilla. Let's figure this mess out, make up some bullshit, and jump to some conclusions as to why it doesn't work, and ignore any criticism in the comments. "
FTFY
You didnt mention one of the most annoying changes in Scholar, namely the changes in item placement, especially Estus Flask Shards. The placement of Estus shards in Scholar is so much worse than vanilla. 2 behind FBoY statues, 1 in that really out of the way place in the gutter. It is way easier to miss shards in Scholar, which must be tough for new players actually trying to use Estus instead of just spamming lifegems.
I liked d2 and scholar more after kingsfield but I may be Biased cuz it was my first dark souls game
You liked DS2 and played it a bunch yet you're hesitating on Pursuer.
You liked DS2 and played it a bunch yet you think that coffin lets you remake your characters instead of just swapping genders.
You liked DS2 and played it a bunch yet you struggle with ogres.
You're bothered by the lost bastille knights being there but you're preferable to a Heide Knight being on the other side of the world???
Man, video essays used to be cool. Now people make them just to make them.
For a video that's about how Scholar ruined the original design, you sure say "it sucks in both versions" very often.
And he’s still correct
@@ExpertContrarian he is correct in that a lot of level design sucks in both version of DS2, but it doesn't support his thesis.
@@Spellweaver5He enjoyed the game even though it’s “bad” and Scholar ruined his enjoyment of it. Still perfectly consistent
DS2 as a whole is riddled with flaws, he's made it pretty clear that even vanilla wasn't his favorite or anything but simply that it was just "good", not bad if you will. Then scholar messed up just enough to ruin it.
@@ExpertContrarian funny then, that the word "bad" isn't in the title, while the word "good" is.
one thing i loved about DLC is the fresh level design of the main area. in sunken king, the puzzle-like moving block are pretty cool. and in the other 2, they found a way to make interesting backtrack either by activating the elevator system or removing the ice. if it wasnt for the gank, those would be amongs the best area in all souls game.
also i kinda like the idea of forcing you to have a torch. it give you an incentive to change build
Hell yeah, finally some needed video essays about Best Souls 2. Saved to watch during my trip tomorrow morning, but a few minutes in and i think I'll love this!
I hope so! It was a long time in the making so I hope people enjoy it
The worst thing about Dark Souls games will always be all of the crying about ganks and runbacks, especially in relation to DS2.
the side paths of the dlcs, including the frozen outskirts, are explicitely intended as extra challenges for co-op players. hence the gravestone summon system, allowing people who didn't have the dlc to still get summoned in to help, and the extra npc summons to help offline players. Even played co-op they aren't great, but they're not nearly as bad as people make out when you engage with them as intended. complaining that they're too hard/too ganky/to ambushy solo when you're supposed to have extra players fighting alongside you and watching your back is like playing the main game without ever upgrading your weapons then complaining that you can't deal enough damage in the endgame.
SO YOUR SAYING THE DLC IS FOR CO OP ONLY ? GTFO MONRON
I played Vanilla for years, obsessively, as I didn’t get a PS4. But watched a lot of Twitch streamers play Scholar. The differences were bad. Scholar looked bad. Finally, i confirmed this once I got a PS4. Your video is so close to my thoughts. The side by side video clips comparisons are wonderful. And delving into ng+ differences as well. Thank you for this video. I love Vanilla so much. I’ve been an ardent supporter of the game, but it’s such a screwed up thing that there’s 2 versions, with very few creators even acknowledging that fact. The two games are incredibly different, and it’s maddening that people talk about DS2 without bringing it up, and it’s treated like a monolith.
Idk i still think scholar is better
Vanilla pursuer fights include the raised platform in the forest, the main boss fight, the one after smelter, and the double fight in the castle throne room.
When I finished DS1 for the first time in 2020 I was so excited by how much I loved the game that I immediately bought dark souls 2 with the intention of continuing the series. SOTFS that is… I didn’t even consciously understand at first but I found myself getting FURIOUS playing ds2 and finding it infinitely more frustrating. Lost Bastile is where I gave up. Wish I had just gone with ds2 vanilla or even ds3
I’d like to add I didn’t give up because it was too hard. I was managing to beat areas and bosses fine. But the times I did die all felt so cheap when compared to ds1. I simply decided the anger was not worth it.
The gameplay mechanics truly are frustrating to master especially right after playing dark souls 1
I decided to go for ds2 after ds3 (first fromsoft game I played) and omg... you could FEEL it was a totally different game. It was so excruciating slow compared to the one I had played before that took me weeks to get used to. And I still suck at this game. I tried to get through it because I seriously fell in love with the eerie atmosphere and lore but shrine of amana made me drop it. I just can't deal with all these mages
@@vivekkumarsingh926the 2% chance that attacks just don’t connect is a very hard mechanic to master
The dragon in Aldia only becomes alive in scholar when you light all 4 sconces in the area. But there isn't really any reason to go back down, once you light it all, so you might "activate" it and still miss it. It is kind of a neat "gotcha" moment, when you walked past the skeleton like 5 times and only then it actually becomes alive, but like you said, its so much more effective and memorable when it attacks you straight away
Edit:
I'm so glad someone finally agrees, that the DLC just has all the worst parts of what was going to become Scholar. I do agree that it has some really good bosses, but the amount of frustration everything else has, will never make me wanna replay the DLC ever again. I have replayed DS2 a bunch of times, but the DLC i will avoid like its the plague.
wait a minute I finished vanilla(1.06) few weeks ago but nashandra had 5 orbs how is this possible
I saw a comment today that she spawns with 4 unless she's near a wall, but since she spawns in the middle of the arena and barely moves, I'm not sure. I'm a maths major so I hope I'm not THAT bad at counting haha
I feel it's important to have in mind that stuff like having extremely dark areas where torches were REQUIRED was part of pre-release footage and discussion. I believe the Pursuer was brought up in pre-release material as well and the reason he shows up more than in Vanilla is it sounded like he was going to constantly hound you more than the 2 or 3 extra times in Vanilla.
first of all: Dark Souls 2 Best Souls
second of all: for someone who hated the game you have some solid points. the random ass statues are the absolute worst. but I actually enjoyed Scholar for the playthroughs I did with friends, and because I came back to it YEARS after beating the vanilla game so I didn't have the fresh comparison. pretty good video except that Dark Souls 2 Best Souls
third of all: you're wrong + fight me + ds2 best souls + plat code vein with me
fourth of all: ur cute
You can’t twist my arm into fighting 400 fucking bosses in co-op jupy you CAN’T
@@thelegendofxander bleh
I liked SotFS but for a different reason: it's much faster to get a good build going in SotFS than in vanilla, which makes it better for repeat playthroughs. The Dull ember is much faster to get, and other cool weapons like the staff of wisdom are also available early on, and each persuers drops twinkling titanite which means your build can get that much stronger pretty quickly. Plus, if you make your way to the dlcs there's a bunch of upgrade materials there that would let you finish up your builds before your second lord soul
That, and all the other changes I feel add to its replayability. You gotta tackle each area differently, use different moves / weapons / spells. Not once did I see you use the greatsword's two-handed rolling attack, which not only deals pierce damage (making it more effective against enemies weaker to it), but it has a long range and a thrust motion so it's perfect for clearing out enemies grouped in tight corridors. The two-handed running attack is alsp really good to stun groups of enemies by launching them up in the air, giving you more time to finish off a few of them.
Many of those places you mentioned with enemies grouped together could have been cleared more easily with either a different weapon or using different moves. And as far as the torches go, it gives you more reason to experiment. I liked that it gave you a reason to have a torch, so that you have a choice to either rely on memory for repeat playthroughs, or rely on the torch and a weapon better fit for one-handed combat
As for general gameplay, I always felt the game was more about giving the player a lot of different options. The majula merchant sells ranged consumables on top of infinite lifegems, the blacksmith offers arrows and a bow, so you pretty much always have a ranged option to methodically take down a few foes in an area before jumping in guns blazing. It adds a level of planning and strategy that I think is pretty neat, and makes ganks easier to deal with
Also, as a side note: the torch repels all small spiders in SotFS, not just in the boss arena, making that general area much more maneagable
You spread so much misinformation about Sotfs wtf
I understand that SotFS wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, I remember playing it on PS4 after finish vanilla and I honestly found it more entertaining and memorable for the changes, then again I felt DS2 was way better than DS3. I felt as though these complaints are just minor inconveniences rather than changes that ruined the experience. I do like your content style and humor. Good on ya!
First time i played SOFTS i reached McDuff and went straight to Iron Keep, but i got realy confused because the Dull Ember was not there. How im gonna infuse my weapons?? Took me some hours to realize that i got the ember in the moment that i reached the lost bastille...
My experience with DS2 and SotFS is very interesting. Essentially, I bought a used copy of the original DS2 from a gamestop when I was like 10 on the recommendation of the employee there. I don't know why he thought that was a good idea, but whatever. Long story short, I was a child, and was not great at games. I never killed a single boss, and I gave up. Fast forward to last year, and I get a random urge to just buckle down and beat the game. I proceed to buy the SotFS version on my computer. Because I literally never got past heide's tower or the woods, I got to go in without knowing most of the original game. I did enjoy myself overall, mostly due to the satisfaction of finally progressing a game that walled me so hard all those years ago. Maybe I'll have to go crack open my old ps3 copy and see if I have more fun there.
You lock on a lot and you miss a lot. Stop locking on so much. The game is much easier when you aren't locking on particularly with greatswords.
DS2 already had an issue with ganking being used as difficulty in the first place. The arena with the Heide Knight in the forest of fallen giants is a really early, and thus telling example, but there are many others which I will not list here because admittedly it's been a while since I've played and I can't list these examples by name off the top of my head, however some I _can_ think of would be the place right before the three sentinels (Not to mention... the sentinels themselves) or the walk up to the first iron bridge in huntsman's copse, or the path up to the chariot, where if you take one step too many you might step over an extra aggro trigger and bring the wrath of four bullshit enemies upon you (I'm remembering more and more as I write this comment and I hate it). Scholar of the First Sin only made an already existing issue even worse. I don't know how to explain it but... that didn't make it that much worse for me. It's like... I already suffered through Dark Souls 2 so Scholar didn't make me feel any worse for encountering morer of the same bullshit I disliked the original for. To me it just seems like you were able to tollerate it up to a limit and Scholar was just the straw that broke the camel's back, whereas my back was already broken so I couldn't give a shit.
"The people who do consider DS2 their favourite won't shut the fuck up about it"
-proceeds to whinge about DS2 for an hour and twenty minutes
1:19:02 You should definitely put this criticism in your DS3 critique video as well. I was really disappointed by DS3 because it wasn't Monster Hunter World.
I'm genuinely convinced that the reason why all of the new players that play DS2 end up hating it is because they play Scholar and they assume the game was always an unbalanced mess. Vanilla actually has a difficulty curve and it doesn't spam you with enemies at every corner.There are some improvements in Scholar, for sure, but most of the changes I think were for the worst and they dug a deeper hole for DS2.
I can't blame anyone for wanting to play Scholar instead of vanilla, since it's advertised as the definitive version of the game, but it's very clear to me that Scholar was just an excuse to resell the game and make more money.
Not to mention that falconers animation
As for the dragon skeleton, it triggers, I just don't know how I did it.
And finally for the extreme enemy spam, I had to go through, kill every enemy until they stop spawning, and then fighting the boss.
The dragon is triggered by lighting every torch and killing all the forlorn that spawn from them
@@666Kaca thank you
the youtuber press continue got me into dark souls again and i'm glad he did
I played SotFS before Vanilla but I did a 100% playthrough of both. Honestly, SotFS is the souls game that stands out the most in terms of psychological horror and making you feel like you're part of that world full of shit. The dread doesn't only come from the world sets but from the gameplay itself.
It really makes you feel like you're the bearer of the curse. After every corner, you stop and think to yourself "Why am I here?" "Who am I?"
Only true art can achieve that.
It's a crime that this comment was ignored for 4 weeks. I shared a similar experience. Every Dark souls had a different feeling distinct from the others. Bloodborne gave me a similar vibe to DS2 though. With less body horror of course
Imagine you just walk into the boar room in ds1 as a new player.
You go "huh, thats a scary looking thing that will probably kill me. Better watch out for that guy" but as you're walking over to the right to avoid it there's just a second boar sitting there in the corner where you can't see it, and it murders you. Counterintuitive enemy placement and level design.
That sounds like classic Dark Souls design. It's like a joke at the player's expense
What I like about DS1, is that there's logic to the enemy placement and using the magician's misdirection. Like game makes you focus on 1 thing and you don't see the trap. In DS1 the game takes advantage of tunnel vision. But it is still manageable, it's usually just weak enemies that hide. I can think of quite a few instances that take advantage of this, but not one where you just die and have little to no opportunity to adapt and survive.
@@zzodysseuszz ok, name me some where theres seemingly no enemies only for them to drop or spawn etc. I know the slimes fit that description but they literally include a "tutorial" room before hand with 1 slime that drops over an item before the next with alot of them. Thr game primes you to look for this. And other instances you can instant kill them when they're still hiding.
The end game tho is rushed, like they just placed a bunch of (now) 2-hit kill demons in a not smart level design. Tho the power creep does balance it out a bit now that they're weak fodder at that point. But yeah, still rushed.
@@zzodysseuszzsorry wtf and you saying? In what room do so many enemies drop from the ceiling that they block all exits and fill the room? Beat the game several times, can only think of maybe the room after the first boar but those are 1 hit hollows so they are no threat at all. Please list some examples, since you claim this happens so much more frequently than in DS2, the game notorious for unfair ganks. You can just say you prefer the DS2 PvP and don't care about the rest of the game, you don't have to pretend the rest of the game is fun
@@zzodysseuszz I also think I should clarify that I completely disagree with thr idea that Dark Souls is a 1v1 PvE game. I view Dark Souls as a Tactical Action RPG in the sense that positioning and whatnot is paramount. I don't view gank fights in of themselves as bad, it's how they're emplemented that matters. In Dark Souls, 3 seems to be the magic number. Excluding hollow encounters, most are in 3s or can be sub divided into mini encounters of 3 or less. The early pig encounter is just that. You can deal with every other enemy in nor more the 3 at a time while being safe from the pig which you can cheese with the item they give you or take it one 1v1. The enemy has their own holy trinity of unit types, that play into the PvE, and its really fun when you encounter these "ganks" because of that.
One thing I don’t see people talk about with Iron Keep is that the Alonne Knights have significantly increased aggro range. One can aggro onto you despite the fact you can’t see it, and one is on a really high platform and falls down to engage the player in combat.
I can do iron keep easily in scholar now but my blind playthrough might be one of the most frustrating experiences I’ve had playing a video game.
Edit: Another thing about Scholar is that nothing in the game works together. The physics, controls, enemies (and groups of them) and animations just don’t work together at all. It’s better in vanilla because the enemies were more thought about with the brokenness in mind. It’s very clear that Scholar didn’t think this they creating the dumbest level design in souls.
The OG DS2 was solid, Scholar sucks. Its like they wanted to make absolutely sure that every death wasn't actually fair but rather annoying.
@@zzodysseuszz scholar fixed a couple of things and broke hundred in their stead. Most of the changes don't make sense and/or make the game a tedious mess rather than a challenging, but fun experience.
One change I didn't understand in SOFTS is that when you kill the mimic in brightstone cove you get the staff of wisdom, an S scaling int staff originally given to the player near end game in Dragon Aerie in vanilla. It was given near end game for a reason
Is scaling different in Dark Souls 2 than it is in other games? Elden Ring has a staff located in Caelid that is really easy to get to obtain as soon as you get Torrent, and it has S scaling in Int as well. The only caveat is that said staff can't be upgraded at all, and you end up finding way better staffs later on in the game.
@@the_furry_inside_your_walls639 Oh yeah the meteor staff. I thought that was strange/silly too honestly, but at least in Elden Ring Caelid is a really dangerous area if you head there early on, and it's in the middle of the poison swamp. The game disincentivizes players exploring there in the early game (if you didnt look at a guide) but rewards their persistance. In SOTFS that mimic isn't much of a secret and that camp he's at is not out of your way at all. As far as scaling works, it's practically the same in all games
@@MrGuypi Fair enough. It is true that you still have to go out of your way through dangerous mobs in Caelid to get the staff, but the scarlet rot swamp is actually a non issue with Torrent, you just have to be careful not to step into the rot for too long by yourself. There's also the Great Sword not far from the first site of grace in Caelid, but that one requires even more points in its required stats to use and is even more dangerous to obtain early on.
Edit: Also forgot to mention that the meteorite staff gets outclassed by an upgraded Demihuman Queen's staff early on, and other staffs obtained later on in the game also outclass it. That being said, if you want to use gravity sorceries, the metoerite staff is a solid choice since its scaling especially effects gravity sorceries.
Finally I am vindicated. A lot of Scholar's changes felt massively dumb to me and I HATE the petrified statue progress blockers. 370 hours in DSII and 15 in SotFS, the numbers speak for themselves.
Yeah, when SOFTS came out and a lot of people were fawning over it, I didn't get why.
I've only known the scholar of the first sin version as Dark Souls 2. I just generally thought that it was set up to be cruel in general so finding out the tweaks compared to vanilla has me now considering it was set up to be evil instead.
well... the old ladys in the tree did say youd lose your souls
over
and
over
again >:D
Dark Souls 1 is a "metroid Vania" technically with just "this door opens from the other side", but really it is a focus on exploration, and "you got thing, these 3 doors are now opened to you", it is also kind of funny you call "DS2 Linear" when it is really the most non-linear outside of Demon Soul's and Elden Ring, and DS3 is the most linear. which can easily draw lines to Super Metroid.
the "intended path" in Dark Souls 1 (I personally feel the master key as a starting gift was a mistake at least not without like beating the game once) has 3/4 major points of back tracking all of which that are not telegraphed to the player; only being avoided by going very specific routs, or having foreknowledge, require exploration, and the player remembering where they saw things, much like most Metroid games.
heaven forbid the blind-playthrough player was bull-headed enough to get to PinWheel before the Lord Vessel, doubly so if they took either of the bonfires on the way there, or got to either bonfire in the Catacombs...
- the Basement Key this door is not marked in any way, and the player could have run up against no less then 3 locked door that just said "Locked door" and that key only works on that one, and it is only by random chance the player might pick that door first.
- most anything dealing with the Forest let alone the Covenant of Artorius (I die jumping into this pit underneath firelink, guess I better go all the way to the forest to fight a giant wolf in order to get a ring that allows me to survive going into that pit)
- the golden fog-gates though the game directly shows you all 3 it doesn't help that 2 of those the player had to go very far out of their way in order to see in the first place.
- the Birds nest and the Doll, I am not saying anyone could have figured it out, but that it doesn't feel that intuitive on reflection, and quite "video-gamey"
- the DLC "quest-line" From Soft even put out a guide for how to access it after it first released (was this necessary I don't know, but they felt they should release it), and they basically made the DLC for Dark Souls 3 unmissable.
The Light/Torch mechanic was supposed to be a selling point of the original game, and was one of the things the game was ridiculed for not leaning into more.
😂 ds isn't metrovania in any shape or form. By your example any game with locked doors is metrovania 😊
what besides "locked doors" and "exploration" is a "metroidvania"?
-theme/setting: most every game called a metroidvania has a different theme.
-art style: very few games called metroidvania have similar art style
-Perspective: the metroid series itself, and many games called metroidvania have used different perspectives
-it isn't "close enough" to metroid: then your argument is with potentially hundreds of games that have been put into the "genre" and the classification isn't even close to the try-hard gatekeeping of Rouge-Like.
-even Nintendo initially called the Metroid series "Search Action Games" and they were the ones that called Symphony of the Night derisively a "Metroid Vania" because it "was a Castle Vania game that was 'copying' Metroid" and the term stuck as a Genre.
the best argument for "why Dark Souls 1 isn't a metroidvania" is "because I said so" when metroidvania is a loosely defined genre with most similarities being gated progressing, and exploration. unless you are going to go through each game on say Steam tagged "MetroidVania" and then analyze whether or not they deserve the genre...
the biggest push-back to "Dark Souls 1 is a MetroidVania" would come down to effectively in-grouping and out-grouping "why are you trying to put the thing I think is really special into this big category, it is special"
even "Souls Like" has become anywhere from "it has a stamina system in combat" to "game is hard like DARK SOULS..." which is even more meaningless then "MetroidVania"
Thanks for reminding me that it was a good idea to skip DS2 as I just bought the DS trilogy for my Series X and am currently going through 3 after having finished 1 and was thinking of going back to 2 and doing that. Yeah I’m good lol I’ll just go to Elden Ring after finishing 3, hopefully in time for the Shadow of the Erdtree!
I have not watched this video yet, however, from own experience of sotfs vs base DS2? Base game is far superior. Sotfs is FAR too strong enemy dense. To an annoying degree.
Agree, Scholar is the hard mode
Scholar feels like they listened to the “git gud” community too much. I say this as dark souls 2 being my favourite of the trilogy.
I do have to say, I never had trouble with the pursuer fights, even the ganky ones. (Though I’ve never fought the one at the coffin as I didn’t see the need to change my characters genders at any point). Scholar felt like you were supposed to be well rounded instead of a specialist.
My character walked around with dragon rider bow, basic staff (I started as sorcerer) and had a big unga bunga Greatsword/great shield and grand lance switch out. I had all three attack options and therefore could simply pick off opponents from a distance if it saw what I thought was an arena area coming up. The lost bastille first fight included, you can sit on the ledge and kill almost everyone down there with a bow if you just take a couple of minutes to get on the wall after shooting down the crossbowmen.
The shrine of amana that everyone cries about, didn’t even die once 😂 I simply sat on the cliff above (to the right before you go down into the shrine, I think there is a sorceress there) and picked off everything I could from there with the bow, then continued to simply take everything out from a distance as I cleared the place. It seemed to me that jack of all trades was the way through.
My dude … you can light up the sinner arena by using the butterfly thing that lights torches on the two side stairs before the arena … that’s just you not looking around, sprinting through the game my dude. I think a few of your complaints are caused by your play style and impatience, not by the game. This is pretty noticeable as many people in the comments seem to be pointing out the same thing.
If other people didn’t have trouble with it but you did, maybe think about what they did differently to you instead of just claiming the game is bad because you couldn’t get into it. All I’m saying. I saw people pointing out you not bothering to dual wield but weighing yourself down with the second sword; valid criticism, the weight system is built to not carry unnecessary junk, that’s the same in all the games. I saw people pointing out you sprinting through areas; valid criticism, you missed details like lighting up the sinner arena but then put it in as a complaint? It was your own doing. 🤷🏼♂️
Peace. 🙏🏻
Edit; upon a review of your comments. Seems like most of your fanbase could take some advice from this comment. Use your grey matter. Don’t just sprint through areas. 🙏🏻
As someone who's only played Scholar, I can safely say I disagree with enemy placement being "annoying"
What do you think It is then, good or bad?
Your just here saying you disasgree
Pro tip: spear heide knights are actually super easy to cheese. They have an attack where they attack one side, then the other, then to a forwards jump attack. Just bait that out, and roll through the jump attack for an easy backstab. They're easier than the sword guys once you get used to it.
Scholar with the Company of Champions is the optimal experience.
in order to appreciate games like elden ring you need to see what they could have been like instead
Nah, it just makes the game into an artificially long slog.
redditors seethe and cry constantly if you say anything about scholar being worse in any way shape or form. I played scholar first then vnilla.
ds2 scholar was my fav fromsoft game after i beat it. played vanilla and that one has dethroned. I genuinely cannot grasp how people think scholar is better. I felt cheated I wasted so much damn time with scholar after playing vanilla
the enemy placement in vanilla being better isn't just about gank fights but the logic of them, like the bastille soldiers just in forest of fallen giants for some reason?? aren't they supposed to be guarding prisoners
I will say something I found odd in vanilla is the Alonne knight captains in drangleic castle. but after every other areas enemys made sense it made me wonder why they were here rather then why the devs placed them there
You also forgot that behind the statue in the tutorial is an Estus shard, why? Because I think when they remade the game they thought it was better to put them in the worst spots I hate going for the one shrine of Amana. I think when I replayed this game this year I forgot how bad enemy placement was and how weird some placements are the knight in front of the chest with the tiny platform I think made me quit playing because this was my first souls game
I feel very vindicated looking at a lot of the comments but the specific example of the tiny platform heide knight really gets me for some reason
@manuelsanchez9649 @thelegendofxander
I just started the video but why's the little platform a problem? I thought the simple solution was hit him then walk back over to the larger one.
I played the first version before Scholar fyi and I'm realizing I ought to go back and play the original sometime soon just to see all the differences since it's been so long.
Don't go for estus shards lifegems are best you can buy infinite from melentia after she moves to majula.
@@Professor-Badger I think the issue is that for newer players, like I was, it’s a lot harder for newer players trying to figure out how to both hit the guy, not die to his swing, and make it back across the path while trying to get used to the controls. Alongside that I think ds2 sotfs has a lot of just really mean enemy placement that isn’t present in ds1,3, bloodborne, and elden ring. I think my real biggest complaint with it is that if it was a modern or even demon/dark souls 1 the enemy would be placed standing in front of the chest and you would have a clear line to open the chest and get it with risk of dying to the guy rather then the gap if you booked it for the chest. Also I think gating a ring that helps newer players be behind an enemy that is way stronger then the slow clunky big boy knights is not a good idea in hindsight
@@zzodysseuszz No it’s not no other game places hordes of enemies in front of you for no reason, and the ones that do most of those enemies are worthless ds3 has the place with the dogs on the bridge but all of the hollows won’t attack you, ds1 has the skeleton hordes before pinwheel but you clearly have a guy to kill because you can hear his bell, bloodborne rarely has you fighting more then 3 guys at a time and if you do it’s the townsfolk who pose no threat to you even at level 1, and Eldenrings open world usually only has hordes of the nobles who again can’t do anything, I don’t think you understand my complaints either I hate the shrine of Amana because of the Etsus shard location not because of the magic guys or the fish people or the knights because their actually spaced out well expect for the circle area with all of them just chilling their but that’s a single spot out of the whole area so I give a pass
You make some good points, but overall DS2 scholar is only "worse" for more "hordes" and that is really bad if you playing with heavy weapons without a horizontal slash attack. There are some bad replacements, but there also some good ones. They are not that diferrent.
Jesus Christ dude, “it’s stupid that you can despawn the pursuer cuz what if you want to fight him?” You can cheese the despawn if fighting him with the rest of the mob is too difficult so you can make the fight easier. Plenty of the nitpicks in this video is just “I didn’t learn how to approach any of these new encounters”. You can make this game as hard or as easy as you want to, just by clearing out enemies from certain locations. And more importantly, learning how to pull enemies away from a larger encounter can be vital to some areas
okay but first time players or people who don't want to meta cheese and farm the same guys 15 times
I think the point is that just because it's harder doesn't make it fun. Good fun design would be the pursuer spawning after enough enemies are killed. Design it in a way where cheesing it isn't the only way you'd clear it on a first time.
Quite literally artificial difficulty at its finest.
@@dalewilson2741 I can clear it even with the enemies there, but it’s up to you. My point is that the game conditions you into being cautious and mindful around engagements. A lot of places where people constantly complain about enemy placement, like Iron Keep, are places where the encounter is designed specifically to discourage a mindless run through the area. If it’s difficult, take your time and make it easier on yourself. There’s plenty of cover to block arrow fire IF you don’t try to rush over the bridge leading to the smelter demon. And there’s 4 enemies on the other side, so of course you’re going to get ganked if you try to just run past them instead of idk, drawing them onto the bridge where they can’t bring their numbers to bear. Instead of this constant bellyaching about enemy placement and adaptability and “bad game design”, people should actually learn what the engagements are trying to test and teach you every time. You have control in almost all of these engagements. There’s cover, there are bottlenecks, you have tools and mechanics that can bring every engagement into your favor, but NONE of these people who go out of their way to spend hours complaining over it ever try to learn WHY they’re having a bad time. Like I said, you can make this game as easy or as hard as you want it to be. It’s better to teach new players how the game works rather than just say “it’s bad and too hard and winge, winge, winge”.
@@dalewilson2741 actually, back to the pursuer specifically, it’s better to despawn him and fight your way over to the MacDuff bonfire, then use that as a staging ground to deal with him, that way you dont really have to worry about the crossbowmen on the wall, just the ones on the wooden towers, which you can knock down and bring into melee range to deal with. Also, the dogs can be dealt with from that direction before you even get to his spawn area, so you won’t have to worry about them, either. And that’s all without clearing the enemies out first.
Iron Passage will teach you how to pull one at a time like no other @__@ Fuck that place. It's one of three spots in the game that is actually hard in Scholar of the first sin. That one gank corridor on the way to Undead Chariot, Black Gulch, and Shrine of Amana are the only other places in the game that made me go, "this is kinda hard."
But then I figured out you can shoot the oil pools with flame arrows to kill the dark beasts without aggroing them