"I play with no armor. Why do enemies hit so hard?" "My weapon has only thrust attacts. Why are crowds of enemies impossible?" "I run past every enemy. Why are there suddenly so many enemies behind me?"
the funny thing is, he was using an Estok, the one very iconic characteristic this weapon has in every souls game is that it has a horizontal swipe for the R2 attack and this moron never use it.
@@schmietwechdeschiet4340I absolutely understand that you're being ironic here but there is a degree of truth to that. A lot of Souls players appreciate the simplicity of DS1. One of my major gripes with Elden Ring is that a simple light attack is barely worth it in most circumstances since Ashes of War, Jump Attacks and Charged Heavy Attacks are all so strong with just a little investment. Light Attacks are mostly relegated to Winged Sword Insignia builds and even then a lot of the time there's an Ash of War that will benefit from or stack it better anyways.
At no point in ds2 have I encountered half the issues mauler had. Heck I played ds2 after watching his series for the first time years ago. I walked away feeling it was a good game, flawed in a few aspects but far from this unplayable horribly designed mess that everyone likes to paint the game as.
your videos convinced me to finish the trilogy with ds2 before moving onto elden ring and i swear to god i have not experienced a single time i got ganked and it didnt feel like my fault
DS2 has flaws, but this guy Mauler exagerated a lot. The flaws of DS2 are desing choices and gameplay choices, and some enemies placement, but that's it, take some advices like leveling ADP and go with a slow pace because there are many enemies, it's not a problem if you fight them one by one but a mistake can get you a pretty hard time to recover from it.
there are few areas where you are forced to clean room methodicaly but otherwise you can still run past most of areas if you know layout and ai behavior
@@tobigomez3069also the blunt resistance and slash resistance of some enemies is ridiculous. like the pigs in majula being complete tanks for swords but go down in a couple swings to the mace
To be fair this breakdown is nitpicky and lots of moments rely on prior extensive knowledge. Most people playing through the game may not pick up on these mechanics or even have the resources to use them in the case of torches. ESID stands for "Every Situation is Different" a lot of people can easily miss out on questlines through these games or not know about certain things. People playing through DS1 may not know how to remove curses so they end up dropping the game, people could also not notice water increasing fire defense and lowering lightning defense in DS2 unless they are staring at their stat menu or are very attentive. Many people don't know you can get summoned to fight players in the Looking Glass Knight bossfight. 15:13 it's VERY unlikely that someone is going to activate the blade, memories how long it stays up and then trigger the enemy for the blade to hit. What's more likely is the player goes in and stays stuck on the side with the turtle man OR they run away but if they activate it again the turtleman will then cross. ESID again.. 14:58 most people don't know the trees' moaning attracts the enemies or would even bother hitting the trees. 15:50 most players aren't going to parry the Pursuer for the ballista.15:55 those bombs are inconsistent, I've sometimes been hit despite being against the wall so for unlucky players they will learn to NOT use it. 16:40 most people don't use bows let alone fire arrows. 17:03 the player also got hit here lmao which would teach people to stay away from the barrels instead of using them. 14:16 Lock on wasn't even addressed here. While the video was educational and many points makes the game easier it's very unlikely that most players especially newer ones will utilize them without guides or being told (prior knowledge). Heck I didn't even know about adaptability improving I-frames and speeding up consumables until I was on NG+4 on the original game but I found out about most of the other stuff in the video on my own that the UA-camr tried teaching. I don't think someone will find out literally all of these on their own so complaints or frustrations will occur. The prowler example is amazing for pointing out ESID. Mauler sees multiple enemies and tries to disengage to funnel them but they hard chase him into the next room. Domo3000 was probably already aware of how the Ai works on the stairs and showed how different the encounter was. The archers were also significantly closer to Mauler due to the circumstances they aren't "far away". The irony of this statement 5:31. 19:07 out of all my runs and all the people I've seen play through this game almost no one uses an alluring skull. The only time I remember using them was in DS1 you can make the first metal boar stay in the nearby environmental fires for an easy win.
@@nadaburner Yeah, different people will have different experiences or reactions to events, will figure out different strategies and game play mechanics, etc. I believe this series breaking down the game is more honest than mauler's. None of the dark souls games hold the player's hand. That's one of the things being illustrated, that there is an overlap of style and mechanics, both good and bad and there are some differences as well. I don't see how you are making a good argument against this creator's series or for Mauler. Everyone's taste is different (ETID). That's fine. There is a difference between ETID and claiming something is "objectively bad", which i think Domo does a great job of illustrating.
@@borislugosi54 From what I've seen Mauler's series was based off his personal experience that also compiled clips from other people's runs which I think is still honest since it's using multiple people's experience to showcase his points. While Mauler has a problem of exaggerating his points, Domo nitpicks and disregards other people's experience which I also don't find honest. If you want to attack my arguments address them individually and counter them. Generalizing them all and scoffing them off under the pretense of not understanding doesn't add much to the conversation. I've played the game about a dozen times and have helped/invaded hundreds of people or seen their playthroughs so I bring up experiences many people went through. If you think my or the countless other players' experiences don't matter or is a good argument against this creator explain why. If you genuinely don't understand I can try to explain them more thoroughly and in a simpler way. ETID is worth bringing up because everyone's taste is different. DS2 has a noticeably large amount of people who dislike it and Mauler tries to explain how the game feels to him while also bringing up both objective and subjective points (his main problem is claiming objective issues). DS2 like the other games has its fair share of flaws and Domo tries to clear up misconceptions but is at the same time disregarding user experience. DS2 has interactive things like fog walls, levers, ladders clearly designed to force engagements due to being obstructed or interrupted. This probably doesn't feel good to most people who want to skip through an engagement they already did or just don't want to deal with. You can't just tell someone to not feel a certain way with the same product when they have their own preference and a different experience. Both content creators also have issues of nitpicking but I think they both do a good enough job showing what they want to help their argument.
@@borislugosi54 Not sure if my reply was shadow realmed so sorry for the 2nd ping if it does pop up. From what I've seen Mauler's series was based off his personal experience that also compiled clips from other people's runs which I think is still honest since it's using multiple people's experience to showcase his points. While Mauler has a problem of exaggerating his points, Domo nitpicks and disregards other people's experience which I also don't find honest despite being usually "technically correct" (Domo also made mistakes). If you want to attack my arguments address them individually and counter them. Generalizing them all and scoffing them off under the pretense of not understanding doesn't add much to the conversation. I've played the game about a dozen times and have helped/invaded hundreds of people or seen their playthroughs so I bring up experiences many people went through. If you think my or the countless other players' experiences don't matter or is a good argument against this creator explain why. If you genuinely don't understand I can try to explain them more thoroughly and in a simpler way. ETID is worth bringing up because everyone's taste is different. DS2 has a noticeably large amount of people who dislike it and Mauler tries to explain how the game feels to him while also bringing up both objective and subjective points (his main problem is claiming objective issues for subjective ones). DS2 like the other games has its fair share of flaws and Domo tries to clear up misconceptions but is at the same time disregarding user experience. DS2 has interactive things like fog walls, levers, ladders clearly designed to force engagements due to being obstructed or interrupted. This probably doesn't feel good to most people who want to skip through an engagement they already did or just don't want to deal with. You can't just tell someone to not feel a certain way with the same product when they have their own preference and a different experience. Both content creators also have issues of nitpicking but I think they both do a good enough job showing what they want to help their argument. It'd be nice if they acknowledged the point the other person was trying to make and then explain their side cordially but both content creators seem petty. EDIT: Look at Malenia for example. Waterfowl dance is technically avoidable and I can do it very consistently but countless people see it as a run ender and have difficulty with it 2 years later. I'm not going to ignore user experience and say it's a perfectly balanced move since in actual practice it does not feel good to deal with for most people.
I didn't attack your argument nor is there an issue with me not understanding what you said. I can read and comprehend sentences. My original comment was short and to the point. My follow up comment to you was polite enough and also to the point. I've played multiple playthroughs of both DS2 and SOTFS and engaged in multiplayer and very well know the frustration associated with the series. Not saying Mauler doesn't have some valid criticisms but he is doing something along a 9 hour breakdown on the game. It's fair to expect he would have some familiarity with the game and not be showcasing his experience as if it's his first playthrough. Being surprised by enemies and dying is the norm. Learning ways to adapt and figure something out is the norm. Pointing out Domo is more familiar with the game than Mauler isn't a great argument because Mauler isn't trying to figure out the game or more often disingenuously showcasing how SOTFS is unfair and bad whilst ignoring the commonalities within the series. Domo is debunking the "objectively bad" statement not an individual's experience. That being said, he does cross into the personal experience of the game by highlighting actual mechanics and strategies. Hence, why i said this series is educational and entertaining. You want to debate about the individual videos, talk to the creators.
13:47 in 10 years of dark souls 2 i was NEVER be able to aggro so many enemies in iron keep, i didn't know it was possible, Mauler is such a genius, he is too smart for everyone else.
Seriously after seeing so many clips from here I also wonder what the hell is Mauler doing, it's like studied all the location of the enemies and decide to lure every single of them.
It's both. He's meticulously crafting terrible encounters that straight up do not happen in regular gameplay to make up bad faith arguments. It boggles my mind how he uploaded 10 hours of him being really bad at the game and people who never played it ate it up.
@@dreamz1417i've never played ds2 but im assuming he thinks that the enemies in this game should have "leashes" like the other games and they don't? it's very obvious either way though he's just running through the level grabbing every enemy then complaining that they follow him. it is definitely an issue of his mindset not the game
@@B1esky in the previous video I've showed him complaining about the broken AI dropping aggro for no reason, which happened when he lured enemies outside of their leash range.
@@Domo3000 that's hilarious! i hope the game continues to be as absolutely annoying to him as possible in that case, and i'll make sure to go back and watch the earlier videos to get everything clear about his visibly wrong opinions ;p
Mauler: just runs through areas without even trying to utilize the environment Also Mauler: being able to kill enemies in environmental traps is very very rare Dunning Kruger
I have ADHD and watching Mauler play genuinely makes me feel better about my lack of awareness because what is he DOING I'm not a fan of the first part of the Iron keep in Scholar but it gets a lot more fun in the second part and it screams in your face to utilize the environment like COME ON With every clip in this video I get more flabbergasted with the amount of ganks he sets up for himself
@@DourFlowercause mauler showed in his video of healing items, running around, getting behind enemies has the same function. So please tell me you’re not one of these ds2 defenders they know everything, when they know nothing.
i didnt think there was actually a person who woke up all the sleeping hollows and then complained about getting ganked. i thought people just did that to slander ds2
Dark Souls 2 and Morrowind are games with a strangely unifying feature. Whatever good faith criticisms for the game exist, there's a certain subset of bad faith ones that are... evocative, to what happened. Your mind palace puts on a dramatic reenactment immediately. For Morrowind, there are certain complaints that you hear, and then your brain sees a vision of a character with no skill in daggers trying to butter knife that mudcrab with 0 fatigue. You know the one. Maybe it even happened to you. It happened to me the first time I played. Much the same, there are times when I see the series of events in Dark Souls 2 that lead to a particular complaint. I see a vision of a level 1 character picking a fight with the hippo in the river of the opening area of Forest of Fallen Giants, dying repeatedly, then being unable to complete the first area with half health and 1 estus. I hear the cry of a player that has tried to run past everything, and died at the fog wall. I feel the frustration of someone who refuses to use a single ranged option smashing their face into a formation for hours. I taste the bitterness of someone who has taken the fact that you can despawn enemies to mean you are supposed to despawn everything for your boss runs, instead of that being an olive branch the game gives struggling players, which is almost always paired with annoyance at the ease of bosses, because the entire point is that you're not entitled to a full tank for most bosses in DS2, and they are overlevelled from killing everything 11 times. And I feel sorrow for people married to "the build" (Naked Gatsu being the gold star of this) instead of understanding that the game has a level of expectation that you are going to build an experience out of what you find works out of the dozens upon dozens of kinds of options you have, and hurling themselves at things "the build" isn't good at. Who don't realize what the game is trying to tell them with 3 weapon slots per arm, and durability working the way it does.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 I’ve slowly gone insane dealing with these kinds of people for years. It’s a merry-go-round of lunacy where no one complaining about the game has had the foresight to question their methods or try a different approach. I could write essays (and I have before) on just how many solutions there are to these peoples complaints and why they’re purely player error and not the games fault.
@aprinnyonbreak1290 It's funny you posted this, because on EFAP, one of the guests (Theo) was complaining about the difficulty of the ER DLC, and the crux of his complaint was that the game wanted him to summon Spirits and change his play style, and he didn't want to do that and no one on the panel called him for that. Dark Souls, Elden Ring, Bloodborne, and Demon's Souls (presumably, haven't played it) necessitate adaptability from the player. Use a shield if you need to, change your weapon from a Greatsword to a Longsword, equip a different armor set, change your rings/talismans, whatever. You have to be adaptable. PatStaresAt blitzed the DLC because he altered his equipment as he had to.
@@OKMBVideosit's so funny because Bloodborne forces you to not use shields and dodge and be aggressive. Sekiro forces you to not dodge and learn to parry. Like these weirdos want the same game just reskinned without any evolving of play style.
@@cgijokerman5787 parrying in sekiro is very different from parrying in a souls game but its implemented so well it feels really good to spam sparry a boss into death.
because its him trying to "prove" his point yet to anyone who has actually played ds2 we all can tell he put himself into that situation. but he just wants to put that video out there for new players showing a lack of context and not showing his own errors to get people to not play ds2.
@@Zapdos7471the biggest scrubs are not people who are new to souls, it's people who beat one or two games in the series and everything should be handed to them on a silver platter because they Got Good
highfleet "you fight 1v3 every time, get used to it" zomg so great ds2: you basically never have to fight more than 2 enemies at once if you do it right often 1 by 1. "omg bad design"
I can't understand people who play these games as if they hate playing these games. How difficult does it have to be to run through an area until you realize that running through the area is the problem?
I also feel like we can see their approach to playing this game in their builds: Tseldora Set Rapier R1 spam or naked Greatsword R1 spam It's like they just googled OP builds instead of immersing themselves in the world by experimenting around with different weapons and armor. Like sure, naked Greatsword is great for advanced players that already know the game, but new players shouldn't use the slowest weapon class without heavy armor for some poise. It's like they did the most superficial playthrough just to get it done. It is so much more interesting if you try to find a weapon that's fun to use instead of just looking up which has the highest DPS, and it's so much more fun to experiment around with all the moves rather than just spamming R1 all the time.
@@Domo3000talking about movesets and such. Maybe you know for a good ultrags with a good magic infusion for a spellblade with good horizontals. I was thinking about the Zwei but i don't remember another one right now.
@@ZirixStrarstriderDragon Knight UGS is pretty solid, too. Also, Ivory King's UGS is incredibly strong, although I don't think you can infuse this one?
@@ZirixStrarstrider Black Dragon GS is extremly rare drop from nonrespawning enemy but yeah its great weapon if your str-dex stats sucks . it has longest reach i think, can be easily paired with ultr gs
Does this Mauler guy really complain about having to choose which enemy to prioritize, while in the background having the theme playing for none other than the Abyss Watchers? That boss where you famously have to juggle three enemies with different threat levels and prioritize a different one depending on the situation? A skill he so painfully clearly lacks? He's really a joke that writes itself...
@@crimsoncowboy2703HBomberguy's video was far worse and made such BS arguments that seemed more focused on belittling Matthewmatosis than trying to make solid arguments in defense of DS2.
@@HeroSword_PHbomberguy was mostly him stating that he personally prefers something. MauLer made up issue after issue to try to prove that hbomberguy's feelings are objectively wrong.
@@HeroSword_Pthat’s because those are the things hb personally did or didn’t like. Of course they’re hyper specific, his video is about how DS made him _feel_
@@Domo3000 Matt: Explains that tracking is a bit overturned, using turtle knight as an example of an enemy spinning as though they are on a record player. H bomber: removes audio and shows clip with text saying he's trying to backstab cheese the enemy. I'm sorry, but that wasn't a video about how he feels, that was an attack on Matt's analysis and malicious rewriting his statements. If you're gonna call out Mauler, be honest and do not defend Harris for the crap he did, that is sleazy.
Not too boast, but i ran thru outskirts with the broken ladle, alone, ran from building to building, killed the ponies and beat the 2 kitties. Still by far not my favourite area, but no one has an excuse anymore in my eyes.
@@Domo3000 For the first time, the sun betrays you. Blasphemy. All kidding aside, I was genuinely surprised that following the direction of the sun wasn't the answer in Frigid Outskirts. It would've made so much sense and been a brilliant idea otherwise
I don't get how you can try to run through areas so consistently and yet never able to do it. I think the biggest problem with the Souls games is how easy it is to run past everything. It's definitely a little bit harder in 2 (which I appreciate) but man how can you even do this? I guess he's just literally lying and purposefully aggroing as many enemies as possible. I cannot explain how he gets this many enemies playing normally and still not able to get through.
The problem is they don't consider running past enemies to be a skill, so they expect it to be easy immediately, and get upset when it isn't. And because they don't consider it a skill, they resist learning and experimenting. They just want to be done with playing through the area and move on, even if they don't understand it. I genuinely don't get what people like that play souls games for, it's like all they want is a boss rush handed to them I also agree that i wish it was harder to run past enemies. I was sad Elden Ring doubled down on it being easy, but at least we got stakes of marika so we had less boring, easy, time wasting runbacks
It also very amazing that he could agro so many enemies, which I never ever did in my whole normal play through. Even the forest of fallen giants "gank squat" he called? I thought every sane people would know they will wake up and try to kill them one by one while they sleeping? I seriously don't know how, unless he purposely did that. Even the iron keep in the clip, I still dk how the hell a normal people able to agro two turtle soldier at once, iirc they are so far away.
@@deepseapenguin yeah even on my first playthrough I basically methodically went up to each downed body and attack them knowing they would get up because well hollows are basically zombies in DS2 so I used the double tap logic
if running past every enemy in a level is considered a 'gank squad'..... then yeah, by DS2 hater metric, every single level in every souls game is a gank
"Dude, when the first villager in Yharnham ambushes you, the first thing anyone would think to do is jump off the bridge and rush to town square, a perfectly normal assumption. But guess what, this is Bloodborne, so now you're fighting a gank squad."
I came to DS1 late. DS2 had ads on TV that I will never forget. I felt so validated. It owned so much getting to talk to my best friend after a new DS2 trailer dropped. I miss that feeling terribly.
- refuses to engage with the game on the most fundamental level - doesn't fight enemies in order to artificially create an overwhelming force of enemies - uses little to no damage mitigation - complains about damage being too high - complains about doing too little damage while also not obtaining damage boosting items - calls game dogshit - does not elaborate further I can't believe the dark souls 2 misinformation has gotten this bad. Basically the entire game is telling you to slow down and pay attention, but no body has the attention span to ACTUALLY do what the game is TELLING YOU TO DO!!!
There's another comparison in an old VaatiVidya video where he makes a joke skit about two types of Dark Souls players. Mauler is player number 2 that blindly runs into a room, dies as a result and yells "Artificial difficulty! Trial and error gameplay! Unavoidable death! This game is too hard!"
It's a bit fascinating how SO MANY of these situations are the game just "my dude, bring ONE ranged option, I'm begging you!" but A CeRtAiN SeCtIoN oF tHe PlAyEr BaSe have this idea that melee only is the "correct" way to play so it never crosses their mind. And like, the games have been telling you to range it since Demon's Souls, you can cheese like 4 bosses in that game if you have a single bow, 5 if the bow's actually good
It's also amazing that people don't realize that they gave you a third weapon slot so you can have a bow always on hand, and you get the quiver on your back to show that you have a bow equipped. Also DS2 buffed the absolute hell out of bows and crossbows where you can actually do a full bow or crossbow run with little to no issue.
Bows are also completely usable for utility without the stats, since it only just massively reduces damage which isn't a problem if you're trying to use a bow to destroy the environment And if you're doing Melee you are going to have the stats, it is a alternate weapon the game gives you as a ranged option for STR/DEX I don't use bows because I prefer magic and I'm lazy but I know I have them as a option, I just don't bother personally But I'm not about to genuinely shit on the game when my problem could have been solved with just one ranged option
@@Soleihere the stats aren't even an issue as you get the Light Crossbow in the Forest, which every class except the Sorcerer (who does not need it) can just use without any stat investment
It's honestly so weird how people start with a vibe and try in vain to justify it regardless of reality. The dude has a lizard brain - he wishes he could spam his way through the game like he did for DS3.
Agreed. After stumbling upon domo’s channel a while back, I decided to watch Mathewmatosis’ video, Hbomberguy’s video, and as much as I could of Mauler’s series of videos. This was my take away from it all. 1. Mathewmatosis I think was a bit off on aspects of DS2, but his video is a critique and is focusing more on criticizing than praising (he does say that he found Dark Souls 2 to be a pretty good game though). More importantly, I never got the impression that he’s trying to convince his viewers that they can’t like DS2 or DS2 is a bad game. He expresses his criticisms and disappointment. I played Dark Souls 2 at launch, but never found it disappointing because even though I had played Demon Souls and Dark Souls 1 around the time of their respective releases, I didn’t have much in the way of expectations aside from obvious fundamental things like stamina-based combat. Lastly, after watching more of Mathewmatosis’ content, he seems to be a pretty critical person even with games he enjoys (e.g. his Metal Gear Solid reviews, Legend of Zelda reviews). 2. Hbomberguy’s video seems to me at least to not be entirely serious, but it largely focuses on trying to disprove Mathewmatosis’ opinions on Dark Souls 2. Honestly, even as a fan of Dark Souls 2, Hbomberguy’s video is kind of cringe. He seems more concerned with disproving Mathewmatosis, even if it means misrepresentation rather than just trying to offer a different set of opinions on Dark Souls 2. Again, I don’t think Mathewmatosis was right about everything in his Dark Souls 2 video, but I don’t get the impression that he was deliberately trying to misrepresent Dark Souls 2. 3. To me, Mauler’s videos were awful because he’s so focused on trying to dismantle and disprove Hbomberguy, that he’s willing to (and actively did) misrepresent Dark Souls 2 in order to do so. Like in a “you can say you enjoy it that’s fine, but no one is allowed to call Dark Souls 2 a *good* game because it’s objectively bad, so is Hbomberguy’s video, and here’s my video series with poorly constructed arguments made in bad faith accompanied by out-of-context clips to support them.” Like Dark Souls 2 (or any other game). Dislike Dark Souls 2 (or any other game). Just don’t deliberately misrepresent a game in order craft and push a narrative. P.S. I recently wanted to re-buy the Dark Souls trilogy on PC for the sake of convenience. I not only purchased Best Souls 2: Scholar of the Best Souls edition, but the original Best Souls 2 along with its DLCs so I can enjoy both versions of Best Souls 2.
@@CrticallyBASED Thank you for the in-depth analysis. Thanks for saying what a lot of us think. On that note and adressing your p.s.: I don't personally think DS2 is the best Souls game. And that's coming from a guy who loves them all like their children, It's hard to choose from the pack. Although if I had to choose my favourite, I'd categorize them like this. Bloodborne: Best immersive singleplayer experience (depending on the day, my favourite one) DS1: Best world design/progression (my first one, sometimes switches places with BB) Sekiro: Best action game (Best platinum trophy also, sometimes fights with DS1 and Bloodborne just because it can, FS speciality is clearly new IPs) Elden Ring: Best exploration, and the complexity and attention to detail it has will be talked about for decades (One of my favourites too, I love half of the stuff they did with the combat, feels like Sekiro, the other half with circling swipes and AoEs galore which some don't have proper differentiating visuals, felt very targeted towards summoners, wasn't particularly fun. It's greatest strenght is for sure the exploration.) DS2: Best QoL and Combat for non action-gamers (some of us think the slow pace of 2 is actually something good since you don't need to react to 110ms animation tells 70ms attacks like in ER) DS3: Best bosses of the og trilogy (replayed the shit out of it and got burned out) DS2 I feel got a bad rap because people were not patient enough with it, and it's the game that most punishes rushing. That game's combat and enemy placement encourages even more than usual the "slow down and pay attention" part of these games. I feel like now it's somewhat of a lost art. Ever since Sekiro they've been making everything faster and faster and maybe they didn't worry too much about fun with that sometimes. Who knows what going down further on that road would bring. King's Field games are also slow as hell and have interesting combat. Maybe the day they revive them as they did Armored Core we'll get a true iteration on Dark Souls 2 specifically. We can only hope. Cheers guy, thanks for being based 😂
@CrticallyBASED To be fair, the reason why Mauler was so harsh on DS2 is mainly because Hbombers video was praising little of what the community actually saw was good, and instead went with topics that were recognized as step backwards or just neutral topics. An example were the life gems, the issue with grass in Demons souls was that you could farm it and trivialize most encounters by having a crap ton of healing. DS2 broke this by not just having a similar item to heal, but made it a cheap, unlimited shop item, that you could warp to at any bonfire. Harris's double standard here is an example of Mauler having to go into detail on why the healing between DS1&2 are night and day and explain that DS2 life gems are broken, because it was a bad game decision that was overly praised. If Harris focused more on legitimate features to cover such as power stancing or NG+ content, we'd have a drastically different tone from Mauler.
@@CrticallyBASED 1. I don't remember Mat saying he likes Dark Souls 2, maybe he did and I just don't remember it. I did get the impression that he was trying to show how DS2 is a bad game or at the very least how it failed to understand the design of the previous games. 2. Mostly agreed. 3. You are the one who is misrepresenting Mauler. His arguments weren't poorly constructed or made in bad faith and the clips were very much in context. I would really like to hear examples of where he supposedly did these things.
And it's not even easily missable You're basically told "hey go find these knights", the ice melts so you're encouraged to go back and explore, AND before the boss fight you can notice the empty chairs so naturally you think you should go find more knights Even I figured this out and I consider myself to be really dense even when a solution is in front of my face
In my personal experience, my knights went and fought some enemies while I was still severely outnumbered and usually getting chased by 2 strong knights at a time.
Btw, a technique I noted that Mauler does, and a lot of people does as well, is quoting people in order to respond It, sometimes even out of context, on an argument. I always felt that kind of condescending and treating the other like less Intelligent, specially when Mauler puts the things he disagrees with as red wrong. Maybe is a me thing, but I felt that kind of annoying, even with arguments I would agree with otherwise.
I can only agree. He will often pause a video mid argument, argue with the incomplete argument, and when he un-pauses, he just ignores how the remainder of the sentence changes the argument.
Noticed it too. They never actually address your real points. Just be petulantly pedantic about your wording or misrepresent your actual point. I don't fully blame mauler for being shite at ds2 sotfs when the game doesn't do a good job of explaining itself. However, I DO blame him for doing all the research for ds1 yet doing nothing for ds2 sotfs. Extremely hypocritical.
Have you guys actually watched his DS2 response series? The whole point of the quotes is that he goes through Hbomberguy's entire video line by line, addressing literally everything he says, specifically so that nothing will be out of context. There are a lot of problems with that series, chief among them being the length, but you have to actually watch them if you're going to fairly criticize them. Making stuff up about Mauler will just make people less likely to listen to your legitimate criticisms.
@@Ithyldr Domo3000's videos have shown mauler's quotes and dismantled them, exposing the hypocrisy. And matthewmatosis and mauler have had a pretty bad impact on ds2 sotfs and fromsoft as a whole since fromsoft never learnt a thing from ds2 sotfs and thus never improved the later entries.
@@siyzerix I won't deny that Mauler says stuff that's easily disprovable. Hypocrisy is the wrong word, but I get where you are going with it. My issue is that these comments accuse him of using incomplete and out of context quotes of Hbomberguy, which is blatantly false. You can criticize Mauler for a lot of stuff, but if you lie about him, it damages your credibility and the credibility of everyone on your side. You should be better than that. Regarding the impact of matthewmatosis and Mauler on DS2 SotFS and Fromsoft, I have to disagree with you. Matthewmatosis brought up a lot of very valid criticism which Domo even explains contributed to a lot of the improvements made to SotFS, in ""Dark Souls 2 Critique" compared to Scholar". Mauler's series didn't come out until 2018 and has less than 2 million views on its last video. It couldn't have been influential to SotFS and DS3, and Elden Ring has leaned more towards DS2 than any other souls game.
The fact that Mauler says that whole "clearly the developers were incompetent and couldn't think of anything interesting to do with the AI, so they just spammed enemies" bit while specifically showing several of the most unique encounters in the game, all with completely custom AI behaviours, almost makes it seem like parody.
Yeah it's so great how he's never thinking "I'm getting spammed, I should probably pay more attention and think about this encounter" and instead just accuses the developers to be stupid. It's like claiming that mathematicians are stupid for drawing random nonsensical symbols all day.
Also just broadly, while SotFS has some enemy spam and annoying chain pulls, that isn't because the developers were bad. It's because SotFS is effectively a challenge-run version of DS2. The only problem with that is that it's not optional (unless you buy the game twice), and starting out a unique game like DS2 with a challenge run can be a grueling experience. I think some parts of it make people mad enough that they don't bother looking more closely at things that could help them. DS2's the only Dark Souls game I think should have a difficulty select option (ie. the choice between SotFS and the original enemy placement) for this reason, and I think that if it did, it would be far better regarded.
@@lorscarbonferrite6964that’s bullshit, not as in your wrong, but as in from doing that is such a dick move. Scholar is very much marketed as the “remaster” or “the polished” ds2, meaning I have personally seen many people jump into it, get jumped by like 7 dudes, and die, getting frustrated and never trying it again.
Scholar is actually the easier version with less enemy spam, less unfair moments, easier runbacks and lots of small improvements like spiders being afraid of the torch. Here's a summary of a few improvements: ua-cam.com/video/a_hLFNVB5jk/v-deo.html But I've got a lot more videos that cover the differences.
You wanna know something soooo funny? When I was a kid I didn't really get the *concept* that a game could be designed badly. I thought that if a game was too difficult or an objective was conveyed poorly or a boss was bullshit that in every case it MUST be something I was doing wrong. I had to be *introduced* to the concept that sometimes a game is just designed poorly! Which is why I absolutely HATE when people throw that accusation around willy nilly instead of just admitting, "Well, maybe this game isn't for me." Or "Well, maybe I just suck at these kinds of games."
After more than 3k hours in this game, this is the first time that i notice how many many many hits that the game throws at you on how to deal with enemies. I used some, like the ones in Brume, or the ballista at the beginning, but there is so much love put into this game. That is why is my favorite of the trilogy. And now, i'm gonna do another spellsword, if you excuse me.
In DS2 that weapon isn't all that bad. It starts with 80 damage, which is 30 more than the Dagger you find in the tutorial has, and only 10 less than the Foot Soldier Sword these hollows can drop. In fact, it's actually a viable weapon as it is fast and uses basically no stamina. Same for the Broken Thief Sword, which is a viable alternative to the Dagger, especially early on as it does a bit more damage. In the other Souls games the Broken weapons are just useless as they have basically no damage, but in DS2 they are valid alternatives for specific cases. In SL1 playthroughs I like to powerstance the two Broken Straight Swords that you find here. Uses very little stamina for the L2 and has good stagger potential.
@@Domo3000 i can agree with a lot of what you say but the broken thief sword does not compare to the dagger by any measure. It gets 1.0x counter damage where the dagger gets 1.5x, which is critical for bypassing enemy defense early on and results in massive damage once you start stacking ring of blades/flynn's ring The dagger also has FAR better critical attacks, by a multiple of like 4 The only advantage i could think of at all on the weapon was that it does slightly more poise damage, but not only was i not able to find a situation where that mattered, you often don't want to stagger enemies with the dagger anyway because you want the counter damage The only thing the broken thief sword has going for it is the fast moveset, but you find the dagger within 20 seconds of finishing character creation and it's one of the best weapons in the game
i finish DS2 Soft with Fire Long Sword and Craft Smith hamer, i love longsword because its has both Slash for Forgor i group up enemy and Thrust for Small area and Corridor
@@frazfrazfrazfraz dude DS2 has Durability mechanic like Kings Field and Shadow Tower at early game i can fill my Weapon Slot with 2 Broken Sword and a Dagger so NO panic open inventory, and when i level up i can ditch it all with Normal weapon,you can have 3 Slot full at any time of game and be medium to light weight
Yeah I also like how they repeatedly state that the Souls games aren't meant for group encounters, even though DS1 was basically just group enemy encounters from Firelink Shrine, through Undead Burg, through The Depths, through Blighttown, and well basically all throughout the game.
@@mistersandman3446 Ironically, the DS2 did the DS3 better. Would you like to run trough all locations without bonfire teleportation? Maybe have a locked on a location estus ammount? And also DS2 did the best decisions, those bonfire aescetic (probably wrong written) and a power stance :D Kieran and Lotrek wielding paired weapons? Hah, can't even power stance em!
@@Happy_Sailor639Buddy. I don't want to be condenseding but DS3 have a liniar design... So giving it no tp, or locking estus in a area is a redundant idea regardless. I'm not saying it's not because of ds2 but still. This change was comming regardless. It's like looking at a bread and a cookie and say "Oh look! A smaller bread!". Like, yeah no. The intention was different in both cases and both taste differently. One didn't borrowed from the other. And don't take me for a ds2 hater. I like this game... A little at least. There are things which ds2 made right. And then there are things like soul memory, i-frames tucked to adp, inconsistent area designs, enemy movement which looks like they are on a puppet strings and way more thing which are frustrating as f*** and made me uninstall this game for the end of time.
@@sirith9157 1) Soul memory was a way Tanimura wanted to prevent the end-game areas players invading the ones who just started the game. Still, he didn't fix the low requirement weapons to not be transfered to SL1, but this issue exist onwards. 2) ADP is a good thing, as a game designer, I see that as way to split the classes and make shields more useful, since in DS1, DS3, ER if you have less then 70% weight, you can pretty much just roll trough everything, which renders shields and armor pretty much useless. 3) It is depending on looks or a gameplay plan. On a gameplay they are the best in series, they have lots of interesting game situations and mechanics, unlike MIYAZAKI POISONOUS SWAMP, which really looks like a reuse of same concept. 4) Really subjective, or a bit biased :D Don't get me wrong but if you compare it to DS1 it's 1000% worse for me. I got really frustrated with how characters move, even in remastered, it felt MUCH more slower than DS2, but it was slightly better on inputs, ngl. I'm not even going to compare to later installments, they did it better, yet, DS2 jump is still the best. (Not comparing to ER, it works waaaaay more different than in DS series) I also forgot how Tanimura added Seed of a Tree of Giants, and made NG+ more interesting, by adding some effects and spicing up some locations. The latter is kinda subjective, but it's more interesting for me like that, instead of just adding some more useless rings :D
It's so funny that this guy plays and complains like Darksyde Phil, but somehow this guy gets taken seriously, while DSP gets made fun of. Because people love to hate ds2.
Its always these mfs who use no armor and just run past everything because they think it makes them look pro and then they cry and blame it on everything except themselves when they die
Do you think the No Armor Greatsword build is so popular with streamers and critics because they use it as an Appeal to Authority by dressing up as pros that do a No Hit run?
No armor great sword is popular because it's a logical outcome, everyone loves a giant sword but when it turns out it makes you fat roll then you remove all the equipment.
@@thechugg4372 or you could just do what I do and level up more than strength and vigor. Never could understand casual playthroughs where people just completely ditch armor.
Also its gotta be a testament to DS2's immersive design when it comes to encounters that I never even knew about this even after 300+ hours of the game 19:35
man every time i read about people saying this game throws like 5 enemies at a time made me wonder if we played the same game, but judging by this video it seems that they all just run around like idiots and get mad that the enemies caught up with them, for people that praise the combat a lot they sure love to skip it edit: i never used alluring skulls before, i should give it a try next time i play it
People are bad at Dark souls games because they play them in very bizarre ways. The Souls games are about paying attention, being patient and learning the environment, enemy movesets and locations. Sure Dark Souls 2 Scholar of the First Sin is definitely really hard the first playthrough, but once you're familiar with the game mechanics it's a good game. I'm so tired of people just saying DS2 is bad because they changed things and how some mechanics work. The only unforgivable mechanics are the soul memory which ruins summoning human players. But really DS2 is probably the game with the most options for tackling a tough area, boss or scenario. DS2 is so generous with upgrade materials, items and npc summons.
>literally one of the most badass boss concepts on the entire series, a king and his loyal soldiers fighting a losing battle against an old evil in hopes to contain it, you fight the king and his soldiers after their corruption, alongside 4 knights who are willing to die at your side freeing their king. "Wow, 5 enemies against me, the more the merrier right?"
ok but DS2 was my first Fromsoft experience and this boss legit made me drop the whole game. Didn't realize it was DLC and found the entire encounter lame and bullshit. Picked up DS1 like 5 years later lol
I mean, I don't play dark souls for lore. I play for the knacks, that's why if I pick one of the From software games, the one that I like the most is Sekiro cuz is quick as f*ck. DS2 is a bit slow for me getting fun outta of it, but I play it sometimes when I wanna have play a strategic game but without much strategy.
Nah you're wrong, the inconvenient and unpopular truth is Dark Souls 2 is the only game in the franchise to consistently demand the players respect. In every souls game before and after DaS2 there are little to no counter measures against sprinting past everything.
@@roguetwice469 The only inconvenient truth is that the idea of running towards a boss while ignoring enemies in a game that's praised for being hardcore is inherently retarded.
They might dislike it because dark souls 1 doesnt punishes you for being fast,unlike dark souls 2 even if you are fast the enemies comes to you faster and one by one but in dark souls 2 if you even a bit fast they are ganking you
It’s absurd how many Souls players I see attempt to run through an entire area because they don’t want to fight the weak enemies and then complain that they get jumped. Like even in Dark Souls 1, where you don’t really get punished for doing such, it’s still a bizarre way to play a video game. Like they just want to be finished with the area boss and move on? Why play an rpg in the first place?
Because of this kind of people 80% of Elden Ring DLC is full of fucking easy to traverse areas with few brain dead enemies and one decent enemy every kilometer. Very good video.
And also because Souls games need a certain quantity of Streamer Moments they absolutely butchered the boss design to compensate. No more skilled players reading telegraphs and playing intelligently. Die 17 times until you memorize all the defense methods exactly, or google a build that lets you oneshot them instead of fighting them
As much as i love seeing new players starting a ds2 playthrough, i always find myself rqther frustrated when someone goes "SO MUCH ENEMY SPAM" and yet the footage shows that they are not only rushing through a area but deliberately aggroing every single damn enemy POSSIBLE In that regard mauler must be pro at getting "ganked"
I really appreciate your demonstrations of environmental awareness in this video, I've played a lot of DS2 but these segments are full of "wait, you can do that?" moments
3:14 the irony of MauLer complaining about the lack of interesting AI behaviour while standing in a room with prob one of the most unique AI interactions with the world in the Dark Souls series xDDD
Doing the god's work I see. This man has made it his life's mission to fucking report on Mauler's dogshit video which was six years ago. This is the level of pettyness I aspire to have.
As well as how great the level design is, pretty much every level in the game has a gimmick that the player must learn to use to their advantage, which ties into fostering good habits like item usage (use those bloody things sitting in your inventory), patience and exploring every part of the level to get good loot.
I'm starting to think DS2's biggest design issue is that it accidentally bought into all the early Dark Souls "hardcore" hype and actually creating a game where you need to do something other than two hand a greatsword naked and spam the dodge button.
But I never played dark souls like that. I liked playing as a basic knight with a regular sword and a regular shield, and Dark Sould 2 punishes that as well.
@@josephbulkin9222 There are areas that are tricky for melee only yeah, but there's plenty of options, even ones that are perfectly in character for a knight, they used to use bows to after all.
@@josephbulkin9222 DS2 gives you significantly more souls than the other games. I've often finished my first ng cycle 20-30 levels higher than in ds3 or elden ring. Also, there are some ranged weapons like crossbows that almost all chars can wield with starting atts. Won't necessarily do good damage, but if you want to use them as a distraction or to aggro enemies, they're more than fine.
Play with enough skill and game knowledge to create the scenario - then forget all of it during the fight and post recording voice-over. (Make sure you don't include the minutes of you kiting all the enemies into place for the video of this purportedly objective anlysis)
The whole idea of "ganks" is based on the misguided belief that Dark Souls' combat is built for 1v1 engagements. I think this is wrong on a fundamental level, particularly for Dark Souls 2 which had several intentional design changes to enemy, environment, and encounter design to make group combat the most fair and tactically interesting it's been in any FromSoftware game to date. Fighting multiple enemies simultaneously in the original Dark Souls was a death sentence since they attacked you with the same aggression as they would in a 1v1 fight. If you're surrounded by two or more enemies, it's very easy to get stunlocked into a corner and staggered to death by relentless hits, as enemies can harmlessly attack through one another. In a 1v1 fight you can block, dodge, or parry to create openings for counterattack, but when two or more enemies are attacking together, their attacks will layer together and leave no openings for counterattack. The only real counterplay is poise tanking with heavy armor or hitting them first to stagger/kill them before they can swarm you. This didn't stop the level designers from populating areas with enemies close to one another, because doing so was still entirely necessary to keep combat fresh and challenging. If the levels were composed of a sequence of 1v1 fights, players would thoughtlessly parry and backstab them all individually (this is what every player does to get through Kiln of the First Flame if they're not just running past everything). With ambushes and areas patrolled by multiple foes, the player must stay on their toes as they explore a level and take decisive action to dispatch groups before they are overwhelmed by them. So if the original Dark Souls had plenty of group encounters, why is Dark Souls 2 singled out for "ganks"? The main difference is how the games handle enemy aggression (you could also say "skill issue", but I'll get to where I think the scrub mentality comes from). In DS1, it is common to find two or more enemies positioned in a way that allows the player to pull them away for individual combat by stepping into their aggro radius or using ranged attacks. Their allies only a few feet away will stand there idly while the player engages in a 1v1 fight. The number of encounter like this (e.g. Undead Burg shield guys, Anor Londo Sentinels, Anor Londo Silver Knights) where two or more enemies guard a treasure or pathway but allow the player to pull them individually points to this being a deliberate style of encounter design, with the intended challenge being for players to learn how to aggro enemies and then defeat them without aggroing their nearby allies. Dark Souls also has some encounters where enemies aggro together (e.g. Undead Parish hollow rave party, Blighttown ghouls, New Londo Ruins ghosts) where the intention is for players to either rush in and dispatch enemies before they are surrounded, or funnel them into corridors so they can be managed more effectively (this is essentially still 1v1 combat but with a time pressure). Dark Souls 2 has only a few encounters that resemble the former type, but even the latter type appears only in a heavily modified form. Group aggro triggers are the norm in DS2 with a long leash radius to limit abusable cheese tactics, and players are expected to use crowd control tactics to deal with enemies, as their greater numbers and generally increased hardiness makes it more difficult to dispatch them strictly in sequence. Dark Souls 2 gives the players many more tactical options for dealing with group encounters than in previous games. There are more ways to use your environment against enemies, ranging from barricades which they must walk around or bash through to explosive barrels they can be baited into hitting and hazardous traps which can be used against them. Arenas are more wide open than before, allowing the player to maneuver around enemies and make greater use of sweeping attacks without hitting walls. Perhaps most importantly, enemy AI behavior is adjusted to make group combat more feasible than before. Enemies have a "group aggression" parameter which determines how much they attempt to surround and attack the player vs. backing off to let their allies step in and attack. As opposed to the relentless attack layering in the earlier games, enemies in DS2 will leave openings for the player to weave in counterattacks and stay on the move to avoid getting swarmed. Playing with an unlocked camera grants additional mobility and opportunities for aimed strikes against opponents while keeping them all in view. Players who learned these skills early in the Forest of the Fallen Giants would go on to enjoy the rich and gratifying group encounters in the rest of the game. Meanwhile, players who noped out when they saw multiple enemies grouping up and retreated to use ranged attacks and leash cheese tactics concluded that Dark Souls 2 was a gankfest with "artificial difficulty", and as a result never leveled up their tactics. If you watch Matthewmatosis' oft-cited Dark Souls 2 critique, you will see him doing just that -- he never fights without lock on, he only counterattacks when both enemies are at the end of an attack animation, and he backs up to shoot groups with ranged attacks whenever possible. I have to assume that most of these players had PTSD from getting mobbed in the prior Souls games, so they never got brave and learned to face groups head on. Even as someone who used a lot of bow and arrow cheese to make it through Dark Souls 1 the first time, I unconsciously picked up on the fact that fighting groups in DS2 is more inherently fair than it ever had been in DS1, and so I never even bothered to pick up a bow until I needed it to shoot switches in Shulva. P.S. my second favorite level in any Souls game is SotFS Shrine of Amana, and my favorite is Blighttown
Difficulty debate got very boring for me, but is very interesting looking back at DS2 and seeing these kind of things. I suppose some debates will never change.
In hindsight, it's really surprising that you're the first (that I know of) to go over his videos like this, like this is basically infinite free content!
i finally understand why this is the peak of dark souls games, its an immersive sim, a dungeon crawler, a turn based game, a coop game AND a souls game
I was never a hater of ds2 since I don't interact with the fandom. To me it was just very challenging but I enjoyed it. Had no idea of these mechanics. This reignited my desire to play again
This is what happens when we let poorly skilled players control the narrative just because they have enough spare time to craft hours-long video essays 😂. I'm beginning to think the early Souls adopters told everyone to "get good" for a reason.
They've done their hardest to make "git gud" sound like a meme response and therefore not an argument, but that won't stop us from telling them to get good anyways. Beyond a certain point it's really all there is left to say. Elden Ring has mountains of proof of this with how so many players refuse to use its many mechanics to beat the game. At some point all there is left to do then is to just improve yourself and get better at the game but even that they refuse to do. It's easier to whine and pretend it's the game's fault that they can't adapt and overcome the smallest obstacles.
@MintyLime703 I know what you mean, being invaded in older Souls games felt like a death sentence, in Elden being invaded is to be inconvenienced by a shmuck who think he's gonna win because he has Rivers of Blood
3 місяці тому+5
But it was the early souls adopters that hated ds2 the most…..
There's no way that he's SO bad and just runs and waves everyone up then complains, he has to be doing this on purpose for views, that Forest of Fallen Giants clip is insane
Thank you for all the informative videos! I just beat DS2 last week and have great fun, sure it gets challenging at times but it's a fun game and there always some solution to problems and i never felt there was any actual wall i had to climb over to beat the game, it's honestly a qiuet nice and helpful game which even allows you to clear out areas if they are too hard and you're struggling. This whole enemy spam thing it just seem to me that either they completely learned to use the dodge and i-frames as a crutch to get through this games, hence the criticism also for not being able to get i-frames opening chests, go up ladders or other ways to try and circumvent enemies. Or they are just plain dishonest because they have to know what game they are engaging with.
This is an excellent deconstruction of the more baseless critiques of this game. having gone back and replayed the game myself recently, I never felt like the enemies in my way were spammed or overwhelming.
Your videos made me try scholar after only playing vanilla and while it's still not my favorite fromsoft game, it was a mostly enjoyable experience so thank you
Happy to see I'm not the only one walking carefully throught levels and using almost everything at my disposal to ease my journey (low dex crossbow to aggro 1 mob, using terrain against my enemies by running back when required, the list goes on, your imagination is the limit) It feels like a real time puzzle that has to be solved Ds2 forever
If he can't kill something in 3 Greatsword swings or 7 Rapier stabs, he absolutely loses control. "I've been invaded in a location where there's many enemies that i don't kill?! My god, this definitely didn't happen in Blighttown, Oolacile Township & Farron Keep x 2." (To be fair all Dark Souls games are actually really good at separating enemy locations from invader locations, some just aren't like the aforementioned ones.) Also lol @ 13:05 "...other than that you run, you slash, you repeat." He sums up the way he WANTS to play without realizing it and makes it a complaint. Only melee, only rushing in, you can't make this stuff up. Wow, i don't think i've ever seen the Pursuer get knocked down like that. It's been over 10 years, holy moly.
some dark souls players think, that if they managed to beat any souls game once, they are good at it. they refuse to learn and adapt further, thinking the series should offer the same repeating challenges. and when they get their butts kicked, they feel dumb, but their egos doesn't allow them to blame themselves for fail. that's where frustration comes from. dark souls 2 has significant amount of interactive level design, and as you have shown in the video, it is important to utilize it. sure, you can speedrun past some areas, like undead crypt, but if you fail, blame yourself for being bad at speedrunning.
@hoyteternal I learned from a friend that there isn't much in dark souls 2 you can't run past. I got through both sections of iron keep by just running through everything and then doubling back before the fog gate and then entering the gate
@hoyteternal also for the sake of the bit dude I beat the game 7 times and got every achievement and it's still my least favorite fromsoft gsme and I've played kingsfield 1jp
Thank you for all the analysis and recreation of the encounters. It's so tiring to see how bias people are against this game - sometimes, it feels straight up religious. "Children of Miyazaki, what do we do when entering a new level?" "We ignore and run through it like a blind moose through a burning forest and aggro all the enemies on our way!" "Excellent. Now, what do we do when all those enemies catch us?" "We go to the internet and whine about this game being unfair and spamming ambushes!"
The Dark souls games, and especially ds2, are games that encourage the player to move slowly. From the slow combat, the slow movement, to the enemy placements. The game is trying to encourage a play style where the player moves through areas slowly and methodically, observing the environment and learning from it, dealing with each problem as it comes. If the player doesn’t have the patience for that then they’re punished
Doing an SL1 run in DS2 recently has made me appreciate a lot of the good design aspects of DS2. The combination of equipment that modifies your stats, Rings that do so, and the ability to Spice down the stat requirements on Spells makes even a Level 1 character suprisingly versatile. But it has also absolutely exposed some of the weaknesses it has. Iron Keep, while not all bad, does absolutely throw a ton of enemies between you and Smelter Demon. A +10 Mace, the best weapon you can have for Iron Keep at that point, hits the Knights with a deceptively short ranged Light Attack and 1 shots the Captains with a backstab. Carrying a Light Crossbow to draw enemy aggro or pick them off from afar helps too, but it still takes a good 5 minutes to get to Smelter Demon. That doesn't sound like a ton of time but if you're running to Smelter Demon after an unsuccessful attempt that sucks. And all of the enemies in Iron Keep kill you in 2 hits at SL1. You can farm them out so they no longer respawn but it'll still take a lot of time to do that. At least it's an option, I guess.
The iron keep stairs jump can skip most of the courtyard and ditch anyone following you. I think the enemy placement there assumes you’ll do it on run backs to Smelter.
@@Zapdos7471I don't think the expectation should be to do a risky jump on run backs to a boss where your bloodstain is, so I doubt it's the intended way. The jump is likely there for people that want to do it and rewards you for doing it with a shorter runback. But I'd say it's still riskier than just fighting your way there.
I'm about to make my way through your whole series of responses, but I wanna give you a MASSIVE round of applause for being one of the few dudes with the patience to deconstruct Mauler's DS2 videos. A lot of people would just look at the running time for those vids and either give up or be like, "Well he talks for a 1/3rd of day total, so he MUST be right".
bro after playing elden ring i simply cannot fathom playing ds2 and being exasperated at how "hard" it is. ds2 is still my favorite game but its not because of any spectacular difficulty.
I still wonder who suffers more, us having to watch Mauler's abysmal gameplay or Domo for having to debunk so much wrong information XD As always keep up the good work Domo, over 300 hours in scholar and you are still providing me information even I wasn't aware of :]
Not fighting enemies is usually a tactic for when you know a place you intend to rush into, and can do it. Not fighting enemies is NOT usually a tactic for just wanting to aimlessly wander an area with no direction. Also, if you have a hard time fighting groups, maybe stop using your finest tuxedo and a rapier, and alter your tactics and weapons for the occasion? Miyazaki would absolutely scoff at players who hit their head against a brick wall, rather than try and use the offered pickaxe, dynamite, or window to bypass said wall. Dark Souls 2 (SotFS) remains Best Souls 2.
"Lemme run backwards without looking, right into an unfair ambush" 😂😂 Bro, I did that so much when I first discovered these games, it was rough. It looks like we're watching a DSP TIHYDP.
"I play with no armor. Why do enemies hit so hard?"
"My weapon has only thrust attacts. Why are crowds of enemies impossible?"
"I run past every enemy. Why are there suddenly so many enemies behind me?"
How are these people not self aware?
the funny thing is, he was using an Estok, the one very iconic characteristic this weapon has in every souls game is that it has a horizontal swipe for the R2 attack and this moron never use it.
@@jakeislavic3024yeah but utilizing R2, backstep R1 or jumping attacks is for casuals. Real Souls Veterans only spam R1
@@Domo3000 thats why many people don't play nioh because too many buttons and combos and stances. No, souls veterans only want lightattacks and roll!
@@schmietwechdeschiet4340I absolutely understand that you're being ironic here but there is a degree of truth to that. A lot of Souls players appreciate the simplicity of DS1. One of my major gripes with Elden Ring is that a simple light attack is barely worth it in most circumstances since Ashes of War, Jump Attacks and Charged Heavy Attacks are all so strong with just a little investment. Light Attacks are mostly relegated to Winged Sword Insignia builds and even then a lot of the time there's an Ash of War that will benefit from or stack it better anyways.
My man has a glass cannon build, yet didn't even bother to kill a single enemy. Maybe he is int-99
I think he leveled ADP only. Because having to time heals & dodges is too difficult 😆
It's easy to find spam when your definition thereof is "more than one enemy on screen".
Asking these people to do more than circle strafe backstab one lethargic enemy is like asking a dog to do vector calculus
Just one enemy "Not worth fighting, I wanna 'splore!"
More than one enemy "Wow look they think more enemies equals difficulty, horrible design"
@@chromasus9983You talking about a person who complains when enemies he ran through follow him, and also when they dont follow him
The fact that I saw the thumbnail and knew exactly what it referred to...
At no point in ds2 have I encountered half the issues mauler had. Heck I played ds2 after watching his series for the first time years ago. I walked away feeling it was a good game, flawed in a few aspects but far from this unplayable horribly designed mess that everyone likes to paint the game as.
your videos convinced me to finish the trilogy with ds2 before moving onto elden ring and i swear to god i have not experienced a single time i got ganked and it didnt feel like my fault
DS2 has flaws, but this guy Mauler exagerated a lot. The flaws of DS2 are desing choices and gameplay choices, and some enemies placement, but that's it, take some advices like leveling ADP and go with a slow pace because there are many enemies, it's not a problem if you fight them one by one but a mistake can get you a pretty hard time to recover from it.
there are few areas where you are forced to clean room methodicaly but otherwise you can still run past most of areas if you know layout and ai behavior
Did you play DS2 or DS2 SotFS version?, because the latter is the one where u get ganked 24/7 and most boss runbacks are filled with garbage
@@anstorner i played scholar lol
@@tobigomez3069also the blunt resistance and slash resistance of some enemies is ridiculous. like the pigs in majula being complete tanks for swords but go down in a couple swings to the mace
Love the actual breakdown of DS2 mechanics while simultaneously deconstructing Mauler as a player and a reviewer. Educational and entertaining
To be fair this breakdown is nitpicky and lots of moments rely on prior extensive knowledge. Most people playing through the game may not pick up on these mechanics or even have the resources to use them in the case of torches.
ESID stands for "Every Situation is Different" a lot of people can easily miss out on questlines through these games or not know about certain things. People playing through DS1 may not know how to remove curses so they end up dropping the game, people could also not notice water increasing fire defense and lowering lightning defense in DS2 unless they are staring at their stat menu or are very attentive. Many people don't know you can get summoned to fight players in the Looking Glass Knight bossfight.
15:13 it's VERY unlikely that someone is going to activate the blade, memories how long it stays up and then trigger the enemy for the blade to hit. What's more likely is the player goes in and stays stuck on the side with the turtle man OR they run away but if they activate it again the turtleman will then cross.
ESID again.. 14:58 most people don't know the trees' moaning attracts the enemies or would even bother hitting the trees. 15:50 most players aren't going to parry the Pursuer for the ballista.15:55 those bombs are inconsistent, I've sometimes been hit despite being against the wall so for unlucky players they will learn to NOT use it. 16:40 most people don't use bows let alone fire arrows. 17:03 the player also got hit here lmao which would teach people to stay away from the barrels instead of using them.
14:16 Lock on wasn't even addressed here.
While the video was educational and many points makes the game easier it's very unlikely that most players especially newer ones will utilize them without guides or being told (prior knowledge). Heck I didn't even know about adaptability improving I-frames and speeding up consumables until I was on NG+4 on the original game but I found out about most of the other stuff in the video on my own that the UA-camr tried teaching. I don't think someone will find out literally all of these on their own so complaints or frustrations will occur.
The prowler example is amazing for pointing out ESID. Mauler sees multiple enemies and tries to disengage to funnel them but they hard chase him into the next room. Domo3000 was probably already aware of how the Ai works on the stairs and showed how different the encounter was. The archers were also significantly closer to Mauler due to the circumstances they aren't "far away". The irony of this statement 5:31. 19:07 out of all my runs and all the people I've seen play through this game almost no one uses an alluring skull. The only time I remember using them was in DS1 you can make the first metal boar stay in the nearby environmental fires for an easy win.
@@nadaburner Yeah, different people will have different experiences or reactions to events, will figure out different strategies and game play mechanics, etc. I believe this series breaking down the game is more honest than mauler's. None of the dark souls games hold the player's hand. That's one of the things being illustrated, that there is an overlap of style and mechanics, both good and bad and there are some differences as well. I don't see how you are making a good argument against this creator's series or for Mauler. Everyone's taste is different (ETID). That's fine. There is a difference between ETID and claiming something is "objectively bad", which i think Domo does a great job of illustrating.
@@borislugosi54 From what I've seen Mauler's series was based off his personal experience that also compiled clips from other people's runs which I think is still honest since it's using multiple people's experience to showcase his points.
While Mauler has a problem of exaggerating his points, Domo nitpicks and disregards other people's experience which I also don't find honest.
If you want to attack my arguments address them individually and counter them. Generalizing them all and scoffing them off under the pretense of not understanding doesn't add much to the conversation. I've played the game about a dozen times and have helped/invaded hundreds of people or seen their playthroughs so I bring up experiences many people went through. If you think my or the countless other players' experiences don't matter or is a good argument against this creator explain why. If you genuinely don't understand I can try to explain them more thoroughly and in a simpler way.
ETID is worth bringing up because everyone's taste is different. DS2 has a noticeably large amount of people who dislike it and Mauler tries to explain how the game feels to him while also bringing up both objective and subjective points (his main problem is claiming objective issues). DS2 like the other games has its fair share of flaws and Domo tries to clear up misconceptions but is at the same time disregarding user experience. DS2 has interactive things like fog walls, levers, ladders clearly designed to force engagements due to being obstructed or interrupted. This probably doesn't feel good to most people who want to skip through an engagement they already did or just don't want to deal with. You can't just tell someone to not feel a certain way with the same product when they have their own preference and a different experience. Both content creators also have issues of nitpicking but I think they both do a good enough job showing what they want to help their argument.
@@borislugosi54 Not sure if my reply was shadow realmed so sorry for the 2nd ping if it does pop up.
From what I've seen Mauler's series was based off his personal experience that also compiled clips from other people's runs which I think is still honest since it's using multiple people's experience to showcase his points.
While Mauler has a problem of exaggerating his points, Domo nitpicks and disregards other people's experience which I also don't find honest despite being usually "technically correct" (Domo also made mistakes).
If you want to attack my arguments address them individually and counter them. Generalizing them all and scoffing them off under the pretense of not understanding doesn't add much to the conversation. I've played the game about a dozen times and have helped/invaded hundreds of people or seen their playthroughs so I bring up experiences many people went through. If you think my or the countless other players' experiences don't matter or is a good argument against this creator explain why. If you genuinely don't understand I can try to explain them more thoroughly and in a simpler way.
ETID is worth bringing up because everyone's taste is different. DS2 has a noticeably large amount of people who dislike it and Mauler tries to explain how the game feels to him while also bringing up both objective and subjective points (his main problem is claiming objective issues for subjective ones). DS2 like the other games has its fair share of flaws and Domo tries to clear up misconceptions but is at the same time disregarding user experience. DS2 has interactive things like fog walls, levers, ladders clearly designed to force engagements due to being obstructed or interrupted. This probably doesn't feel good to most people who want to skip through an engagement they already did or just don't want to deal with. You can't just tell someone to not feel a certain way with the same product when they have their own preference and a different experience. Both content creators also have issues of nitpicking but I think they both do a good enough job showing what they want to help their argument. It'd be nice if they acknowledged the point the other person was trying to make and then explain their side cordially but both content creators seem petty.
EDIT: Look at Malenia for example. Waterfowl dance is technically avoidable and I can do it very consistently but countless people see it as a run ender and have difficulty with it 2 years later. I'm not going to ignore user experience and say it's a perfectly balanced move since in actual practice it does not feel good to deal with for most people.
I didn't attack your argument nor is there an issue with me not understanding what you said. I can read and comprehend sentences. My original comment was short and to the point. My follow up comment to you was polite enough and also to the point. I've played multiple playthroughs of both DS2 and SOTFS and engaged in multiplayer and very well know the frustration associated with the series. Not saying Mauler doesn't have some valid criticisms but he is doing something along a 9 hour breakdown on the game. It's fair to expect he would have some familiarity with the game and not be showcasing his experience as if it's his first playthrough. Being surprised by enemies and dying is the norm. Learning ways to adapt and figure something out is the norm. Pointing out Domo is more familiar with the game than Mauler isn't a great argument because Mauler isn't trying to figure out the game or more often disingenuously showcasing how SOTFS is unfair and bad whilst ignoring the commonalities within the series. Domo is debunking the "objectively bad" statement not an individual's experience. That being said, he does cross into the personal experience of the game by highlighting actual mechanics and strategies. Hence, why i said this series is educational and entertaining. You want to debate about the individual videos, talk to the creators.
I think “use your environment” to mauler means “see where the walls are and not walk into them”
It's absolute cringe the way most of the community flocked to worship this guy.
@@Kaptain_Torrent_Who woulda thunk, the longman was unironically bad.
13:47 in 10 years of dark souls 2 i was NEVER be able to aggro so many enemies in iron keep, i didn't know it was possible, Mauler is such a genius, he is too smart for everyone else.
Seriously after seeing so many clips from here I also wonder what the hell is Mauler doing, it's like studied all the location of the enemies and decide to lure every single of them.
@@deepseapenguin cuz he too smart for us, that guy is different, is a genius, we can't understand how brilliant is that guy.
f mauler.
I have aggod that many enemies but it was calculated and a part of my plan
The best strategy is luring one by one with a bow or spell
@@Rtplb you don't need to, just use their line of sight and be careful
We've gone from proving "Mauler's criticism is in bad faith" to proving "Mauler is bad at Dark Souls" and its glorious
Both are probably true
It's both. He's meticulously crafting terrible encounters that straight up do not happen in regular gameplay to make up bad faith arguments.
It boggles my mind how he uploaded 10 hours of him being really bad at the game and people who never played it ate it up.
@@dreamz1417i've never played ds2 but im assuming he thinks that the enemies in this game should have "leashes" like the other games and they don't? it's very obvious either way though he's just running through the level grabbing every enemy then complaining that they follow him. it is definitely an issue of his mindset not the game
@@B1esky in the previous video I've showed him complaining about the broken AI dropping aggro for no reason, which happened when he lured enemies outside of their leash range.
@@Domo3000 that's hilarious! i hope the game continues to be as absolutely annoying to him as possible in that case, and i'll make sure to go back and watch the earlier videos to get everything clear about his visibly wrong opinions ;p
Mauler: just runs through areas without even trying to utilize the environment
Also Mauler: being able to kill enemies in environmental traps is very very rare
Dunning Kruger
I have ADHD and watching Mauler play genuinely makes me feel better about my lack of awareness because what is he DOING
I'm not a fan of the first part of the Iron keep in Scholar but it gets a lot more fun in the second part and it screams in your face to utilize the environment like COME ON
With every clip in this video I get more flabbergasted with the amount of ganks he sets up for himself
Very very rare, i dont think he understand that a door is a choke point
@@DourFloweryou talking about og poster?
@@DourFlowercause mauler showed in his video of healing items, running around, getting behind enemies has the same function. So please tell me you’re not one of these ds2 defenders they know everything, when they know nothing.
@@darthcopper7341 what
DS2's strongest soldier strikes again.
Weakest DS2 fan
The cook has returned with another grilled Mauler
People who are this bad at DS2 would NOT survive any old school dungeon RPG lol
From Soft its Old Company try Kings Field bruhh
Old school rpgs look fun but the difficulty is what keeps me from playing them lol
Yeah it’s not. Play any teenage mutant ninja turtles games it’s different.
The CoD lobby of Dark Souls
Yeah, as an avid CRPG player, I enjoyed DkS2 a lot, even more than 3 and 1 because it reminded me of old games like Baldur's Gate and TES Daggerfall
i didnt think there was actually a person who woke up all the sleeping hollows and then complained about getting ganked. i thought people just did that to slander ds2
Dark Souls 2 and Morrowind are games with a strangely unifying feature. Whatever good faith criticisms for the game exist, there's a certain subset of bad faith ones that are... evocative, to what happened. Your mind palace puts on a dramatic reenactment immediately.
For Morrowind, there are certain complaints that you hear, and then your brain sees a vision of a character with no skill in daggers trying to butter knife that mudcrab with 0 fatigue. You know the one. Maybe it even happened to you. It happened to me the first time I played.
Much the same, there are times when I see the series of events in Dark Souls 2 that lead to a particular complaint.
I see a vision of a level 1 character picking a fight with the hippo in the river of the opening area of Forest of Fallen Giants, dying repeatedly, then being unable to complete the first area with half health and 1 estus.
I hear the cry of a player that has tried to run past everything, and died at the fog wall.
I feel the frustration of someone who refuses to use a single ranged option smashing their face into a formation for hours.
I taste the bitterness of someone who has taken the fact that you can despawn enemies to mean you are supposed to despawn everything for your boss runs, instead of that being an olive branch the game gives struggling players, which is almost always paired with annoyance at the ease of bosses, because the entire point is that you're not entitled to a full tank for most bosses in DS2, and they are overlevelled from killing everything 11 times.
And I feel sorrow for people married to "the build" (Naked Gatsu being the gold star of this) instead of understanding that the game has a level of expectation that you are going to build an experience out of what you find works out of the dozens upon dozens of kinds of options you have, and hurling themselves at things "the build" isn't good at. Who don't realize what the game is trying to tell them with 3 weapon slots per arm, and durability working the way it does.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 I’ve slowly gone insane dealing with these kinds of people for years. It’s a merry-go-round of lunacy where no one complaining about the game has had the foresight to question their methods or try a different approach. I could write essays (and I have before) on just how many solutions there are to these peoples complaints and why they’re purely player error and not the games fault.
@aprinnyonbreak1290 It's funny you posted this, because on EFAP, one of the guests (Theo) was complaining about the difficulty of the ER DLC, and the crux of his complaint was that the game wanted him to summon Spirits and change his play style, and he didn't want to do that and no one on the panel called him for that.
Dark Souls, Elden Ring, Bloodborne, and Demon's Souls (presumably, haven't played it) necessitate adaptability from the player. Use a shield if you need to, change your weapon from a Greatsword to a Longsword, equip a different armor set, change your rings/talismans, whatever. You have to be adaptable. PatStaresAt blitzed the DLC because he altered his equipment as he had to.
@@OKMBVideosit's so funny because Bloodborne forces you to not use shields and dodge and be aggressive. Sekiro forces you to not dodge and learn to parry. Like these weirdos want the same game just reskinned without any evolving of play style.
@@cgijokerman5787 parrying in sekiro is very different from parrying in a souls game but its implemented so well it feels really good to spam sparry a boss into death.
Why is it that every time he talks about getting ganked he never kills anything. It's just him running around cornering himself and sometimes missing.
because its him trying to "prove" his point yet to anyone who has actually played ds2 we all can tell he put himself into that situation. but he just wants to put that video out there for new players showing a lack of context and not showing his own errors to get people to not play ds2.
Pure and simple skill issue on Mauler's part. Multiple enemies in a souls game is not an issue, it's how you approach dispatching them
Not even a skill issue, it’s pure hubris that makes people this wrong think they’re experts.
@@Zapdos7471the biggest scrubs are not people who are new to souls, it's people who beat one or two games in the series and everything should be handed to them on a silver platter because they Got Good
highfleet "you fight 1v3 every time, get used to it" zomg so great
ds2: you basically never have to fight more than 2 enemies at once if you do it right often 1 by 1. "omg bad design"
Your Mycen avi makes the comment even better.
@@EinSilverRose nice to see some mycen enjoyers in the chat !
I can't understand people who play these games as if they hate playing these games. How difficult does it have to be to run through an area until you realize that running through the area is the problem?
I also feel like we can see their approach to playing this game in their builds: Tseldora Set Rapier R1 spam or naked Greatsword R1 spam
It's like they just googled OP builds instead of immersing themselves in the world by experimenting around with different weapons and armor.
Like sure, naked Greatsword is great for advanced players that already know the game, but new players shouldn't use the slowest weapon class without heavy armor for some poise.
It's like they did the most superficial playthrough just to get it done.
It is so much more interesting if you try to find a weapon that's fun to use instead of just looking up which has the highest DPS, and it's so much more fun to experiment around with all the moves rather than just spamming R1 all the time.
@@Domo3000talking about movesets and such. Maybe you know for a good ultrags with a good magic infusion for a spellblade with good horizontals. I was thinking about the Zwei but i don't remember another one right now.
@@ZirixStrarstriderDragon Knight UGS is pretty solid, too. Also, Ivory King's UGS is incredibly strong, although I don't think you can infuse this one?
@@kaschey6145 I was thinking on the Black Dragon GS and the Drakewing, those are good candidates.
Also, i think you can infuse them.
@@ZirixStrarstrider Black Dragon GS is extremly rare drop from nonrespawning enemy but yeah its great weapon if your str-dex stats sucks . it has longest reach i think, can be easily paired with ultr gs
Does this Mauler guy really complain about having to choose which enemy to prioritize, while in the background having the theme playing for none other than the Abyss Watchers? That boss where you famously have to juggle three enemies with different threat levels and prioritize a different one depending on the situation? A skill he so painfully clearly lacks?
He's really a joke that writes itself...
he just hates hbomberguy and really wanted to "counter" his video for some reason that's why its full of disingenuous bullshit
@@crimsoncowboy2703HBomberguy's video was far worse and made such BS arguments that seemed more focused on belittling Matthewmatosis than trying to make solid arguments in defense of DS2.
@@HeroSword_PHbomberguy was mostly him stating that he personally prefers something.
MauLer made up issue after issue to try to prove that hbomberguy's feelings are objectively wrong.
@@HeroSword_Pthat’s because those are the things hb personally did or didn’t like. Of course they’re hyper specific, his video is about how DS made him _feel_
@@Domo3000
Matt: Explains that tracking is a bit overturned, using turtle knight as an example of an enemy spinning as though they are on a record player.
H bomber: removes audio and shows clip with text saying he's trying to backstab cheese the enemy.
I'm sorry, but that wasn't a video about how he feels, that was an attack on Matt's analysis and malicious rewriting his statements.
If you're gonna call out Mauler, be honest and do not defend Harris for the crap he did, that is sleazy.
domo is the only person on earth standing up for the frigid outskirts
Not too boast, but i ran thru outskirts with the broken ladle, alone, ran from building to building, killed the ponies and beat the 2 kitties.
Still by far not my favourite area, but no one has an excuse anymore in my eyes.
@@ta_________________________4_K the problem is I don’t know how to run straight to the boss. I always get lost for literal minutes at a time
@@unleashedbread6146keep the sun to your right and run straight ahead
@@Domo3000 For the first time, the sun betrays you. Blasphemy.
All kidding aside, I was genuinely surprised that following the direction of the sun wasn't the answer in Frigid Outskirts. It would've made so much sense and been a brilliant idea otherwise
Hey! Ill have you know i think its the coolest area in the game, no pun intended
I don't get how you can try to run through areas so consistently and yet never able to do it. I think the biggest problem with the Souls games is how easy it is to run past everything. It's definitely a little bit harder in 2 (which I appreciate) but man how can you even do this? I guess he's just literally lying and purposefully aggroing as many enemies as possible. I cannot explain how he gets this many enemies playing normally and still not able to get through.
The problem is they don't consider running past enemies to be a skill, so they expect it to be easy immediately, and get upset when it isn't. And because they don't consider it a skill, they resist learning and experimenting. They just want to be done with playing through the area and move on, even if they don't understand it. I genuinely don't get what people like that play souls games for, it's like all they want is a boss rush handed to them
I also agree that i wish it was harder to run past enemies. I was sad Elden Ring doubled down on it being easy, but at least we got stakes of marika so we had less boring, easy, time wasting runbacks
It also very amazing that he could agro so many enemies, which I never ever did in my whole normal play through. Even the forest of fallen giants "gank squat" he called? I thought every sane people would know they will wake up and try to kill them one by one while they sleeping?
I seriously don't know how, unless he purposely did that. Even the iron keep in the clip, I still dk how the hell a normal people able to agro two turtle soldier at once, iirc they are so far away.
@@deepseapenguin yeah even on my first playthrough I basically methodically went up to each downed body and attack them knowing they would get up because well hollows are basically zombies in DS2 so I used the double tap logic
if running past every enemy in a level is considered a 'gank squad'..... then yeah, by DS2 hater metric, every single level in every souls game is a gank
Remember, if Ornstein and Smough appeared in DS2, they would be considered as gank fight.
"Dude, when the first villager in Yharnham ambushes you, the first thing anyone would think to do is jump off the bridge and rush to town square, a perfectly normal assumption. But guess what, this is Bloodborne, so now you're fighting a gank squad."
I came to DS1 late. DS2 had ads on TV that I will never forget. I felt so validated. It owned so much getting to talk to my best friend after a new DS2 trailer dropped.
I miss that feeling terribly.
- refuses to engage with the game on the most fundamental level
- doesn't fight enemies in order to artificially create an overwhelming force of enemies
- uses little to no damage mitigation
- complains about damage being too high
- complains about doing too little damage while also not obtaining damage boosting items
- calls game dogshit
- does not elaborate further
I can't believe the dark souls 2 misinformation has gotten this bad. Basically the entire game is telling you to slow down and pay attention, but no body has the attention span to ACTUALLY do what the game is TELLING YOU TO DO!!!
This Mauler dude is the DS equivalent of that meme where the guy puts a stick in the wheel of his bike.
There's another comparison in an old VaatiVidya video where he makes a joke skit about two types of Dark Souls players. Mauler is player number 2 that blindly runs into a room, dies as a result and yells "Artificial difficulty! Trial and error gameplay! Unavoidable death! This game is too hard!"
lol
Words cant describe how much I appreciate this channel
It's a bit fascinating how SO MANY of these situations are the game just "my dude, bring ONE ranged option, I'm begging you!" but A CeRtAiN SeCtIoN oF tHe PlAyEr BaSe have this idea that melee only is the "correct" way to play so it never crosses their mind. And like, the games have been telling you to range it since Demon's Souls, you can cheese like 4 bosses in that game if you have a single bow, 5 if the bow's actually good
It's also amazing that people don't realize that they gave you a third weapon slot so you can have a bow always on hand, and you get the quiver on your back to show that you have a bow equipped. Also DS2 buffed the absolute hell out of bows and crossbows where you can actually do a full bow or crossbow run with little to no issue.
@@TheGreatAssby Crossbows in particular are suprisingly powerful given how... not great they were before. They're pretty solid
Melee only, no shields, no summons, no items. Otherwise you're "playing the game wrong" and "didn't really beat it."
Bows are also completely usable for utility without the stats, since it only just massively reduces damage which isn't a problem if you're trying to use a bow to destroy the environment
And if you're doing Melee you are going to have the stats, it is a alternate weapon the game gives you as a ranged option for STR/DEX
I don't use bows because I prefer magic and I'm lazy but I know I have them as a option, I just don't bother personally
But I'm not about to genuinely shit on the game when my problem could have been solved with just one ranged option
@@Soleihere the stats aren't even an issue as you get the Light Crossbow in the Forest, which every class except the Sorcerer (who does not need it) can just use without any stat investment
11:17 "always so bloody cathartic". the way he said that just makes it look even more like hes extremely biased against the game, which he clearly is.
did that guy even play the game himself or did he watch that dumbass play it and made his video based on that?
It's honestly so weird how people start with a vibe and try in vain to justify it regardless of reality. The dude has a lizard brain - he wishes he could spam his way through the game like he did for DS3.
Would you go as far as saying he's ... objectively biased against it?
(I would)
@@propyro85 i would indeed
this mauler fellow is quite dishonest.
Agreed. After stumbling upon domo’s channel a while back, I decided to watch Mathewmatosis’ video, Hbomberguy’s video, and as much as I could of Mauler’s series of videos. This was my take away from it all.
1. Mathewmatosis I think was a bit off on aspects of DS2, but his video is a critique and is focusing more on criticizing than praising (he does say that he found Dark Souls 2 to be a pretty good game though). More importantly, I never got the impression that he’s trying to convince his viewers that they can’t like DS2 or DS2 is a bad game. He expresses his criticisms and disappointment. I played Dark Souls 2 at launch, but never found it disappointing because even though I had played Demon Souls and Dark Souls 1 around the time of their respective releases, I didn’t have much in the way of expectations aside from obvious fundamental things like stamina-based combat. Lastly, after watching more of Mathewmatosis’ content, he seems to be a pretty critical person even with games he enjoys (e.g. his Metal Gear Solid reviews, Legend of Zelda reviews).
2. Hbomberguy’s video seems to me at least to not be entirely serious, but it largely focuses on trying to disprove Mathewmatosis’ opinions on Dark Souls 2. Honestly, even as a fan of Dark Souls 2, Hbomberguy’s video is kind of cringe. He seems more concerned with disproving Mathewmatosis, even if it means misrepresentation rather than just trying to offer a different set of opinions on Dark Souls 2. Again, I don’t think Mathewmatosis was right about everything in his Dark Souls 2 video, but I don’t get the impression that he was deliberately trying to misrepresent Dark Souls 2.
3. To me, Mauler’s videos were awful because he’s so focused on trying to dismantle and disprove Hbomberguy, that he’s willing to (and actively did) misrepresent Dark Souls 2 in order to do so. Like in a “you can say you enjoy it that’s fine, but no one is allowed to call Dark Souls 2 a *good* game because it’s objectively bad, so is Hbomberguy’s video, and here’s my video series with poorly constructed arguments made in bad faith accompanied by out-of-context clips to support them.”
Like Dark Souls 2 (or any other game). Dislike Dark Souls 2 (or any other game). Just don’t deliberately misrepresent a game in order craft and push a narrative.
P.S. I recently wanted to re-buy the Dark Souls trilogy on PC for the sake of convenience. I not only purchased Best Souls 2: Scholar of the Best Souls edition, but the original Best Souls 2 along with its DLCs so I can enjoy both versions of Best Souls 2.
that p.s. is crazy@@CrticallyBASED
@@CrticallyBASED Thank you for the in-depth analysis. Thanks for saying what a lot of us think. On that note and adressing your p.s.: I don't personally think DS2 is the best Souls game. And that's coming from a guy who loves them all like their children, It's hard to choose from the pack.
Although if I had to choose my favourite, I'd categorize them like this.
Bloodborne: Best immersive singleplayer experience (depending on the day, my favourite one)
DS1: Best world design/progression (my first one, sometimes switches places with BB)
Sekiro: Best action game (Best platinum trophy also, sometimes fights with DS1 and Bloodborne just because it can, FS speciality is clearly new IPs)
Elden Ring: Best exploration, and the complexity and attention to detail it has will be talked about for decades (One of my favourites too, I love half of the stuff they did with the combat, feels like Sekiro, the other half with circling swipes and AoEs galore which some don't have proper differentiating visuals, felt very targeted towards summoners, wasn't particularly fun. It's greatest strenght is for sure the exploration.)
DS2: Best QoL and Combat for non action-gamers (some of us think the slow pace of 2 is actually something good since you don't need to react to 110ms animation tells 70ms attacks like in ER)
DS3: Best bosses of the og trilogy (replayed the shit out of it and got burned out)
DS2 I feel got a bad rap because people were not patient enough with it, and it's the game that most punishes rushing. That game's combat and enemy placement encourages even more than usual the "slow down and pay attention" part of these games. I feel like now it's somewhat of a lost art. Ever since Sekiro they've been making everything faster and faster and maybe they didn't worry too much about fun with that sometimes.
Who knows what going down further on that road would bring. King's Field games are also slow as hell and have interesting combat. Maybe the day they revive them as they did Armored Core we'll get a true iteration on Dark Souls 2 specifically. We can only hope. Cheers guy, thanks for being based 😂
@CrticallyBASED To be fair, the reason why Mauler was so harsh on DS2 is mainly because Hbombers video was praising little of what the community actually saw was good, and instead went with topics that were recognized as step backwards or just neutral topics.
An example were the life gems, the issue with grass in Demons souls was that you could farm it and trivialize most encounters by having a crap ton of healing. DS2 broke this by not just having a similar item to heal, but made it a cheap, unlimited shop item, that you could warp to at any bonfire.
Harris's double standard here is an example of Mauler having to go into detail on why the healing between DS1&2 are night and day and explain that DS2 life gems are broken, because it was a bad game decision that was overly praised.
If Harris focused more on legitimate features to cover such as power stancing or NG+ content, we'd have a drastically different tone from Mauler.
@@CrticallyBASED 1. I don't remember Mat saying he likes Dark Souls 2, maybe he did and I just don't remember it. I did get the impression that he was trying to show how DS2 is a bad game or at the very least how it failed to understand the design of the previous games.
2. Mostly agreed.
3. You are the one who is misrepresenting Mauler. His arguments weren't poorly constructed or made in bad faith and the clips were very much in context. I would really like to hear examples of where he supposedly did these things.
when you finish this series you should merge all of them into a single video as a compilation
the clip at 5:53 is so braindead it infuriates me. YOU ARE GIVEN ALLIES, OF COURSE THE GAME WILL SPAWN MORE ENEMIES, THIS IS BASIC GAME DESIGN
And it's not even easily missable
You're basically told "hey go find these knights", the ice melts so you're encouraged to go back and explore, AND before the boss fight you can notice the empty chairs so naturally you think you should go find more knights
Even I figured this out and I consider myself to be really dense even when a solution is in front of my face
In my personal experience, my knights went and fought some enemies while I was still severely outnumbered and usually getting chased by 2 strong knights at a time.
Btw, a technique I noted that Mauler does, and a lot of people does as well, is quoting people in order to respond It, sometimes even out of context, on an argument.
I always felt that kind of condescending and treating the other like less Intelligent, specially when Mauler puts the things he disagrees with as red wrong.
Maybe is a me thing, but I felt that kind of annoying, even with arguments I would agree with otherwise.
I can only agree. He will often pause a video mid argument, argue with the incomplete argument, and when he un-pauses, he just ignores how the remainder of the sentence changes the argument.
Noticed it too. They never actually address your real points. Just be petulantly pedantic about your wording or misrepresent your actual point.
I don't fully blame mauler for being shite at ds2 sotfs when the game doesn't do a good job of explaining itself. However, I DO blame him for doing all the research for ds1 yet doing nothing for ds2 sotfs. Extremely hypocritical.
Have you guys actually watched his DS2 response series? The whole point of the quotes is that he goes through Hbomberguy's entire video line by line, addressing literally everything he says, specifically so that nothing will be out of context.
There are a lot of problems with that series, chief among them being the length, but you have to actually watch them if you're going to fairly criticize them. Making stuff up about Mauler will just make people less likely to listen to your legitimate criticisms.
@@Ithyldr Domo3000's videos have shown mauler's quotes and dismantled them, exposing the hypocrisy.
And matthewmatosis and mauler have had a pretty bad impact on ds2 sotfs and fromsoft as a whole since fromsoft never learnt a thing from ds2 sotfs and thus never improved the later entries.
@@siyzerix I won't deny that Mauler says stuff that's easily disprovable. Hypocrisy is the wrong word, but I get where you are going with it.
My issue is that these comments accuse him of using incomplete and out of context quotes of Hbomberguy, which is blatantly false. You can criticize Mauler for a lot of stuff, but if you lie about him, it damages your credibility and the credibility of everyone on your side. You should be better than that.
Regarding the impact of matthewmatosis and Mauler on DS2 SotFS and Fromsoft, I have to disagree with you. Matthewmatosis brought up a lot of very valid criticism which Domo even explains contributed to a lot of the improvements made to SotFS, in ""Dark Souls 2 Critique" compared to Scholar". Mauler's series didn't come out until 2018 and has less than 2 million views on its last video. It couldn't have been influential to SotFS and DS3, and Elden Ring has leaned more towards DS2 than any other souls game.
The fact that Mauler says that whole "clearly the developers were incompetent and couldn't think of anything interesting to do with the AI, so they just spammed enemies" bit while specifically showing several of the most unique encounters in the game, all with completely custom AI behaviours, almost makes it seem like parody.
Yeah it's so great how he's never thinking "I'm getting spammed, I should probably pay more attention and think about this encounter" and instead just accuses the developers to be stupid.
It's like claiming that mathematicians are stupid for drawing random nonsensical symbols all day.
Also just broadly, while SotFS has some enemy spam and annoying chain pulls, that isn't because the developers were bad. It's because SotFS is effectively a challenge-run version of DS2. The only problem with that is that it's not optional (unless you buy the game twice), and starting out a unique game like DS2 with a challenge run can be a grueling experience. I think some parts of it make people mad enough that they don't bother looking more closely at things that could help them. DS2's the only Dark Souls game I think should have a difficulty select option (ie. the choice between SotFS and the original enemy placement) for this reason, and I think that if it did, it would be far better regarded.
@@lorscarbonferrite6964that’s bullshit, not as in your wrong, but as in from doing that is such a dick move. Scholar is very much marketed as the “remaster” or “the polished” ds2, meaning I have personally seen many people jump into it, get jumped by like 7 dudes, and die, getting frustrated and never trying it again.
Scholar is actually the easier version with less enemy spam, less unfair moments, easier runbacks and lots of small improvements like spiders being afraid of the torch.
Here's a summary of a few improvements: ua-cam.com/video/a_hLFNVB5jk/v-deo.html
But I've got a lot more videos that cover the differences.
You wanna know something soooo funny? When I was a kid I didn't really get the *concept* that a game could be designed badly. I thought that if a game was too difficult or an objective was conveyed poorly or a boss was bullshit that in every case it MUST be something I was doing wrong. I had to be *introduced* to the concept that sometimes a game is just designed poorly!
Which is why I absolutely HATE when people throw that accusation around willy nilly instead of just admitting, "Well, maybe this game isn't for me." Or "Well, maybe I just suck at these kinds of games."
After more than 3k hours in this game, this is the first time that i notice how many many many hits that the game throws at you on how to deal with enemies. I used some, like the ones in Brume, or the ballista at the beginning, but there is so much love put into this game. That is why is my favorite of the trilogy. And now, i'm gonna do another spellsword, if you excuse me.
22:58 the cheek of Mauler to talk about incompetency while his Mate is using a BROKEN FUCKING STRAIGHT SWORD!!!
In DS2 that weapon isn't all that bad.
It starts with 80 damage, which is 30 more than the Dagger you find in the tutorial has, and only 10 less than the Foot Soldier Sword these hollows can drop.
In fact, it's actually a viable weapon as it is fast and uses basically no stamina. Same for the Broken Thief Sword, which is a viable alternative to the Dagger, especially early on as it does a bit more damage.
In the other Souls games the Broken weapons are just useless as they have basically no damage, but in DS2 they are valid alternatives for specific cases.
In SL1 playthroughs I like to powerstance the two Broken Straight Swords that you find here. Uses very little stamina for the L2 and has good stagger potential.
That mate of his can just be a ZeroLenny fan
@@Domo3000 i can agree with a lot of what you say but the broken thief sword does not compare to the dagger by any measure. It gets 1.0x counter damage where the dagger gets 1.5x, which is critical for bypassing enemy defense early on and results in massive damage once you start stacking ring of blades/flynn's ring
The dagger also has FAR better critical attacks, by a multiple of like 4
The only advantage i could think of at all on the weapon was that it does slightly more poise damage, but not only was i not able to find a situation where that mattered, you often don't want to stagger enemies with the dagger anyway because you want the counter damage
The only thing the broken thief sword has going for it is the fast moveset, but you find the dagger within 20 seconds of finishing character creation and it's one of the best weapons in the game
i finish DS2 Soft with Fire Long Sword and Craft Smith hamer, i love longsword because its has both Slash for Forgor i group up enemy and Thrust for Small area and Corridor
@@frazfrazfrazfraz dude DS2 has Durability mechanic like Kings Field and Shadow Tower at early game i can fill my Weapon Slot with 2 Broken Sword and a Dagger so NO panic open inventory, and when i level up i can ditch it all with Normal weapon,you can have 3 Slot full at any time of game and be medium to light weight
I don't understand how Ds2 is accused of gang encounter spam meanwhile all the souls games are about dealing with multiple enemies carefully
Yeah I also like how they repeatedly state that the Souls games aren't meant for group encounters, even though DS1 was basically just group enemy encounters from Firelink Shrine, through Undead Burg, through The Depths, through Blighttown, and well basically all throughout the game.
@@Domo3000 Because DkS3 shines in solo encounters, and the biggest DkS2 haters started on 3
@@mistersandman3446 Ironically, the DS2 did the DS3 better. Would you like to run trough all locations without bonfire teleportation? Maybe have a locked on a location estus ammount? And also DS2 did the best decisions, those bonfire aescetic (probably wrong written) and a power stance :D
Kieran and Lotrek wielding paired weapons? Hah, can't even power stance em!
@@Happy_Sailor639Buddy. I don't want to be condenseding but DS3 have a liniar design... So giving it no tp, or locking estus in a area is a redundant idea regardless. I'm not saying it's not because of ds2 but still. This change was comming regardless. It's like looking at a bread and a cookie and say "Oh look! A smaller bread!". Like, yeah no. The intention was different in both cases and both taste differently. One didn't borrowed from the other.
And don't take me for a ds2 hater. I like this game... A little at least. There are things which ds2 made right.
And then there are things like soul memory, i-frames tucked to adp, inconsistent area designs, enemy movement which looks like they are on a puppet strings and way more thing which are frustrating as f*** and made me uninstall this game for the end of time.
@@sirith9157 1) Soul memory was a way Tanimura wanted to prevent the end-game areas players invading the ones who just started the game. Still, he didn't fix the low requirement weapons to not be transfered to SL1, but this issue exist onwards.
2) ADP is a good thing, as a game designer, I see that as way to split the classes and make shields more useful, since in DS1, DS3, ER if you have less then 70% weight, you can pretty much just roll trough everything, which renders shields and armor pretty much useless.
3) It is depending on looks or a gameplay plan. On a gameplay they are the best in series, they have lots of interesting game situations and mechanics, unlike MIYAZAKI POISONOUS SWAMP, which really looks like a reuse of same concept.
4) Really subjective, or a bit biased :D Don't get me wrong but if you compare it to DS1 it's 1000% worse for me. I got really frustrated with how characters move, even in remastered, it felt MUCH more slower than DS2, but it was slightly better on inputs, ngl. I'm not even going to compare to later installments, they did it better, yet, DS2 jump is still the best. (Not comparing to ER, it works waaaaay more different than in DS series)
I also forgot how Tanimura added Seed of a Tree of Giants, and made NG+ more interesting, by adding some effects and spicing up some locations. The latter is kinda subjective, but it's more interesting for me like that, instead of just adding some more useless rings :D
It's so funny that this guy plays and complains like Darksyde Phil, but somehow this guy gets taken seriously, while DSP gets made fun of. Because people love to hate ds2.
Babe get off Elden Ring, Domo posted
Domo uploaded, therefore joy ahead
@@Swuh try domo but, hole
@@FancyDan Domosexual
Tfw maidenless
You're showing me more and more reasons to love dark souls 2.
Its always these mfs who use no armor and just run past everything because they think it makes them look pro and then they cry and blame it on everything except themselves when they die
Do you think the No Armor Greatsword build is so popular with streamers and critics because they use it as an Appeal to Authority by dressing up as pros that do a No Hit run?
No armor great sword is popular because it's a logical outcome, everyone loves a giant sword but when it turns out it makes you fat roll then you remove all the equipment.
@@thechugg4372 or you could just do what I do and level up more than strength and vigor. Never could understand casual playthroughs where people just completely ditch armor.
can't understand that people play differently than you?
the line about editing is so funny, he's just directly admitting that he can manipulate anything to seem how he wants it to
Also its gotta be a testament to DS2's immersive design when it comes to encounters that I never even knew about this even after 300+ hours of the game 19:35
man every time i read about people saying this game throws like 5 enemies at a time made me wonder if we played the same game, but judging by this video it seems that they all just run around like idiots and get mad that the enemies caught up with them, for people that praise the combat a lot they sure love to skip it
edit: i never used alluring skulls before, i should give it a try next time i play it
People are bad at Dark souls games because they play them in very bizarre ways. The Souls games are about paying attention, being patient and learning the environment, enemy movesets and locations. Sure Dark Souls 2 Scholar of the First Sin is definitely really hard the first playthrough, but once you're familiar with the game mechanics it's a good game. I'm so tired of people just saying DS2 is bad because they changed things and how some mechanics work. The only unforgivable mechanics are the soul memory which ruins summoning human players. But really DS2 is probably the game with the most options for tackling a tough area, boss or scenario. DS2 is so generous with upgrade materials, items and npc summons.
>literally one of the most badass boss concepts on the entire series, a king and his loyal soldiers fighting a losing battle against an old evil in hopes to contain it, you fight the king and his soldiers after their corruption, alongside 4 knights who are willing to die at your side freeing their king.
"Wow, 5 enemies against me, the more the merrier right?"
ok but DS2 was my first Fromsoft experience and this boss legit made me drop the whole game. Didn't realize it was DLC and found the entire encounter lame and bullshit. Picked up DS1 like 5 years later lol
I mean, I don't play dark souls for lore. I play for the knacks, that's why if I pick one of the From software games, the one that I like the most is Sekiro cuz is quick as f*ck. DS2 is a bit slow for me getting fun outta of it, but I play it sometimes when I wanna have play a strategic game but without much strategy.
Begging DS2 haters to understand that this is Dark Souls, not Sonic. The solution is not just to run through everything.
Sometimes people just want to be done with an area, fighting every single enemy in an area after your first time becomes extremely tedious.
Nah you're wrong, the inconvenient and unpopular truth is Dark Souls 2 is the only game in the franchise to consistently demand the players respect. In every souls game before and after DaS2 there are little to no counter measures against sprinting past everything.
@@roguetwice469 The only inconvenient truth is that the idea of running towards a boss while ignoring enemies in a game that's praised for being hardcore is inherently retarded.
They might dislike it because dark souls 1 doesnt punishes you for being fast,unlike dark souls 2 even if you are fast the enemies comes to you faster and one by one but in dark souls 2 if you even a bit fast they are ganking you
@@panikadamddam6871 honestly you actually can run thru ds2. I do it all the time but, you have to know which way to do go like every souls game.
It’s absurd how many Souls players I see attempt to run through an entire area because they don’t want to fight the weak enemies and then complain that they get jumped. Like even in Dark Souls 1, where you don’t really get punished for doing such, it’s still a bizarre way to play a video game. Like they just want to be finished with the area boss and move on? Why play an rpg in the first place?
They want to play a bossrush game. Which is basically what From gave them with the Shadow of the erdtree dlc
@@markmartin2819 and then they complained that the bosses were too hard
I mean it can be a great way to just pick up some nice loot and stuff, but if you dont know the area you should expect to die
I've played through dark souls 2 like 10 times and I never knew you could break the wraith summoning statues in the undead crypt. That is awesome.
Because of this kind of people 80% of Elden Ring DLC is full of fucking easy to traverse areas with few brain dead enemies and one decent enemy every kilometer. Very good video.
And people are still whining about it being hard.
And also because Souls games need a certain quantity of Streamer Moments they absolutely butchered the boss design to compensate. No more skilled players reading telegraphs and playing intelligently. Die 17 times until you memorize all the defense methods exactly, or google a build that lets you oneshot them instead of fighting them
As much as i love seeing new players starting a ds2 playthrough, i always find myself rqther frustrated when someone goes "SO MUCH ENEMY SPAM" and yet the footage shows that they are not only rushing through a area but deliberately aggroing every single damn enemy POSSIBLE
In that regard mauler must be pro at getting "ganked"
I really appreciate your demonstrations of environmental awareness in this video, I've played a lot of DS2 but these segments are full of "wait, you can do that?" moments
3:14 the irony of MauLer complaining about the lack of interesting AI behaviour while standing in a room with prob one of the most unique AI interactions with the world in the Dark Souls series xDDD
I've def put more time into Ds2 than any other & that's saying something over the course of 10+ yrs. Love it!
because it has the best replayability for sure
Thanks for pointing out the Brume Tower predator phantom gank. That part always screwed me over and now I have a better understanding on how it works
Doing the god's work I see. This man has made it his life's mission to fucking report on Mauler's dogshit video which was six years ago. This is the level of pettyness I aspire to have.
Damn mauler really just accidentally showed us how cool and unique ds2 enemy ai is
As well as how great the level design is, pretty much every level in the game has a gimmick that the player must learn to use to their advantage, which ties into fostering good habits like item usage (use those bloody things sitting in your inventory), patience and exploring every part of the level to get good loot.
WhinGer really should get himself checked for brain worms... I'm worried for the guy.
Mauler, are the spambushes in this room with us right now?
This mf (mauler) is the classical wow hunter player that pulls every single mob in the raid and then fucking complains when the raid wipes
I'm starting to think DS2's biggest design issue is that it accidentally bought into all the early Dark Souls "hardcore" hype and actually creating a game where you need to do something other than two hand a greatsword naked and spam the dodge button.
But I never played dark souls like that.
I liked playing as a basic knight with a regular sword and a regular shield, and Dark Sould 2 punishes that as well.
@@josephbulkin9222 There are areas that are tricky for melee only yeah, but there's plenty of options, even ones that are perfectly in character for a knight, they used to use bows to after all.
@@thebigdork8030 But bows need dexterity, and you start with such low stats, that you can't afford to level anything but the essentials.
@@josephbulkin9222 DS2 gives you significantly more souls than the other games. I've often finished my first ng cycle 20-30 levels higher than in ds3 or elden ring. Also, there are some ranged weapons like crossbows that almost all chars can wield with starting atts. Won't necessarily do good damage, but if you want to use them as a distraction or to aggro enemies, they're more than fine.
bro has waged war against those mauler videos lol
I swear, sometimes I see such a huge amount of enemies in Mauler's clips that I wonder how is it even possible to group so many mobs together.
Play with enough skill and game knowledge to create the scenario - then forget all of it during the fight and post recording voice-over.
(Make sure you don't include the minutes of you kiting all the enemies into place for the video of this purportedly objective anlysis)
The whole idea of "ganks" is based on the misguided belief that Dark Souls' combat is built for 1v1 engagements. I think this is wrong on a fundamental level, particularly for Dark Souls 2 which had several intentional design changes to enemy, environment, and encounter design to make group combat the most fair and tactically interesting it's been in any FromSoftware game to date.
Fighting multiple enemies simultaneously in the original Dark Souls was a death sentence since they attacked you with the same aggression as they would in a 1v1 fight. If you're surrounded by two or more enemies, it's very easy to get stunlocked into a corner and staggered to death by relentless hits, as enemies can harmlessly attack through one another. In a 1v1 fight you can block, dodge, or parry to create openings for counterattack, but when two or more enemies are attacking together, their attacks will layer together and leave no openings for counterattack. The only real counterplay is poise tanking with heavy armor or hitting them first to stagger/kill them before they can swarm you. This didn't stop the level designers from populating areas with enemies close to one another, because doing so was still entirely necessary to keep combat fresh and challenging. If the levels were composed of a sequence of 1v1 fights, players would thoughtlessly parry and backstab them all individually (this is what every player does to get through Kiln of the First Flame if they're not just running past everything). With ambushes and areas patrolled by multiple foes, the player must stay on their toes as they explore a level and take decisive action to dispatch groups before they are overwhelmed by them.
So if the original Dark Souls had plenty of group encounters, why is Dark Souls 2 singled out for "ganks"? The main difference is how the games handle enemy aggression (you could also say "skill issue", but I'll get to where I think the scrub mentality comes from). In DS1, it is common to find two or more enemies positioned in a way that allows the player to pull them away for individual combat by stepping into their aggro radius or using ranged attacks. Their allies only a few feet away will stand there idly while the player engages in a 1v1 fight. The number of encounter like this (e.g. Undead Burg shield guys, Anor Londo Sentinels, Anor Londo Silver Knights) where two or more enemies guard a treasure or pathway but allow the player to pull them individually points to this being a deliberate style of encounter design, with the intended challenge being for players to learn how to aggro enemies and then defeat them without aggroing their nearby allies. Dark Souls also has some encounters where enemies aggro together (e.g. Undead Parish hollow rave party, Blighttown ghouls, New Londo Ruins ghosts) where the intention is for players to either rush in and dispatch enemies before they are surrounded, or funnel them into corridors so they can be managed more effectively (this is essentially still 1v1 combat but with a time pressure). Dark Souls 2 has only a few encounters that resemble the former type, but even the latter type appears only in a heavily modified form. Group aggro triggers are the norm in DS2 with a long leash radius to limit abusable cheese tactics, and players are expected to use crowd control tactics to deal with enemies, as their greater numbers and generally increased hardiness makes it more difficult to dispatch them strictly in sequence.
Dark Souls 2 gives the players many more tactical options for dealing with group encounters than in previous games. There are more ways to use your environment against enemies, ranging from barricades which they must walk around or bash through to explosive barrels they can be baited into hitting and hazardous traps which can be used against them. Arenas are more wide open than before, allowing the player to maneuver around enemies and make greater use of sweeping attacks without hitting walls. Perhaps most importantly, enemy AI behavior is adjusted to make group combat more feasible than before. Enemies have a "group aggression" parameter which determines how much they attempt to surround and attack the player vs. backing off to let their allies step in and attack. As opposed to the relentless attack layering in the earlier games, enemies in DS2 will leave openings for the player to weave in counterattacks and stay on the move to avoid getting swarmed. Playing with an unlocked camera grants additional mobility and opportunities for aimed strikes against opponents while keeping them all in view.
Players who learned these skills early in the Forest of the Fallen Giants would go on to enjoy the rich and gratifying group encounters in the rest of the game. Meanwhile, players who noped out when they saw multiple enemies grouping up and retreated to use ranged attacks and leash cheese tactics concluded that Dark Souls 2 was a gankfest with "artificial difficulty", and as a result never leveled up their tactics. If you watch Matthewmatosis' oft-cited Dark Souls 2 critique, you will see him doing just that -- he never fights without lock on, he only counterattacks when both enemies are at the end of an attack animation, and he backs up to shoot groups with ranged attacks whenever possible. I have to assume that most of these players had PTSD from getting mobbed in the prior Souls games, so they never got brave and learned to face groups head on. Even as someone who used a lot of bow and arrow cheese to make it through Dark Souls 1 the first time, I unconsciously picked up on the fact that fighting groups in DS2 is more inherently fair than it ever had been in DS1, and so I never even bothered to pick up a bow until I needed it to shoot switches in Shulva.
P.S. my second favorite level in any Souls game is SotFS Shrine of Amana, and my favorite is Blighttown
I'll have to go through this game sometime with this in mind, seems like a lot of fun
That mauler guy just plays like video game journalist
Difficulty debate got very boring for me, but is very interesting looking back at DS2 and seeing these kind of things. I suppose some debates will never change.
Elden Ring DLC difficulty discussion be like
Until the next game and then people talk about it all over again! Yay!
"and i also like how it feels to be hunted by a groupof predators" chiill bro💀💀
It's funny, really, how all of MauLer's arguments are founded on the premise that his experiences are universal, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Hurts watch that IGN mauler gameplay
IGN would play better, and make you an encouraging guide to get through the game while they were at it.
@@chromasus9983 still hurts watching that mauler gameplay xD
In hindsight, it's really surprising that you're the first (that I know of) to go over his videos like this, like this is basically infinite free content!
not that i had made videos, because i dont have a pc, but i never heard of Mauler before Domo.
i finally understand why this is the peak of dark souls games, its an immersive sim, a dungeon crawler, a turn based game, a coop game AND a souls game
first video i've seen & I'm already loving this channel
watch more videos, Domo videos r amazing.
I was never a hater of ds2 since I don't interact with the fandom. To me it was just very challenging but I enjoyed it. Had no idea of these mechanics. This reignited my desire to play again
This video made me realize how truly special DS2 really is.
17:23 Wow, that's some nuclear grade poison
DS2 poison does not joke around
@@Domo3000then you stack toxic on top of it
@@anirbannandi8263 Huh? there is Toxic in DS2?
@@irpanfauzi1160 yeah, brother
@@irpanfauzi1160 Mytha's Bent Blade applies both Toxic and Poison, which just melts bosses if you get both to trigger
Thank God, we're finally going to dismantle all the absurd DS2 myths. I will make a video of my own, trust me.
Make one for ADP and soul memory 🙂
This is what happens when we let poorly skilled players control the narrative just because they have enough spare time to craft hours-long video essays 😂. I'm beginning to think the early Souls adopters told everyone to "get good" for a reason.
They've done their hardest to make "git gud" sound like a meme response and therefore not an argument, but that won't stop us from telling them to get good anyways. Beyond a certain point it's really all there is left to say. Elden Ring has mountains of proof of this with how so many players refuse to use its many mechanics to beat the game. At some point all there is left to do then is to just improve yourself and get better at the game but even that they refuse to do. It's easier to whine and pretend it's the game's fault that they can't adapt and overcome the smallest obstacles.
thats why gatekeeping is a good thing
@@MintyLime703 fo real at that point just dont play the game if you dont like it
@MintyLime703
I know what you mean, being invaded in older Souls games felt like a death sentence, in Elden being invaded is to be inconvenienced by a shmuck who think he's gonna win because he has Rivers of Blood
But it was the early souls adopters that hated ds2 the most…..
There's no way that he's SO bad and just runs and waves everyone up then complains, he has to be doing this on purpose for views, that Forest of Fallen Giants clip is insane
Thank you for all the informative videos!
I just beat DS2 last week and have great fun, sure it gets challenging at times but it's a fun game and there always some solution to problems and i never felt there was any actual wall i had to climb over to beat the game, it's honestly a qiuet nice and helpful game which even allows you to clear out areas if they are too hard and you're struggling.
This whole enemy spam thing it just seem to me that either they completely learned to use the dodge and i-frames as a crutch to get through this games, hence the criticism also for not being able to get i-frames opening chests, go up ladders or other ways to try and circumvent enemies. Or they are just plain dishonest because they have to know what game they are engaging with.
11:50 was brutal and i loved every second of it
Lol MauLer debunked by MauLer
that was definitely the funniest clip of all xD
I am amongst brothers here. Fellow DS2 GODS. It brings a tear to my eye to have the thunderous roar of slander quiet down for once.
"Please stop spamming me!"
*proceeds to aggro every single enemy in the area*
This is an excellent deconstruction of the more baseless critiques of this game. having gone back and replayed the game myself recently, I never felt like the enemies in my way were spammed or overwhelming.
Mauler plays DS2 like a gaming journalist
Your videos made me try scholar after only playing vanilla and while it's still not my favorite fromsoft game, it was a mostly enjoyable experience so thank you
Happy to see I'm not the only one walking carefully throught levels and using almost everything at my disposal to ease my journey (low dex crossbow to aggro 1 mob, using terrain against my enemies by running back when required, the list goes on, your imagination is the limit)
It feels like a real time puzzle that has to be solved
Ds2 forever
If he can't kill something in 3 Greatsword swings or 7 Rapier stabs, he absolutely loses control.
"I've been invaded in a location where there's many enemies that i don't kill?! My god, this definitely didn't happen in Blighttown, Oolacile Township & Farron Keep x 2." (To be fair all Dark Souls games are actually really good at separating enemy locations from invader locations, some just aren't like the aforementioned ones.)
Also lol @ 13:05 "...other than that you run, you slash, you repeat." He sums up the way he WANTS to play without realizing it and makes it a complaint. Only melee, only rushing in, you can't make this stuff up.
Wow, i don't think i've ever seen the Pursuer get knocked down like that.
It's been over 10 years, holy moly.
Troglodyte way without any self-awareness. That's most of the community right there.
some dark souls players think, that if they managed to beat any souls game once, they are good at it. they refuse to learn and adapt further, thinking the series should offer the same repeating challenges. and when they get their butts kicked, they feel dumb, but their egos doesn't allow them to blame themselves for fail. that's where frustration comes from. dark souls 2 has significant amount of interactive level design, and as you have shown in the video, it is important to utilize it. sure, you can speedrun past some areas, like undead crypt, but if you fail, blame yourself for being bad at speedrunning.
"duDe, i beAtEd thE gAmE (once), ik tHe gAmE aNd dS2 is sH1t, 3vEn mY brO MauleR sAid so, so iT mUsT bE tRuE"
@hoyteternal I learned from a friend that there isn't much in dark souls 2 you can't run past. I got through both sections of iron keep by just running through everything and then doubling back before the fog gate and then entering the gate
@hoyteternal also for the sake of the bit dude I beat the game 7 times and got every achievement and it's still my least favorite fromsoft gsme and I've played kingsfield 1jp
Thank you for all the analysis and recreation of the encounters. It's so tiring to see how bias people are against this game - sometimes, it feels straight up religious.
"Children of Miyazaki, what do we do when entering a new level?"
"We ignore and run through it like a blind moose through a burning forest and aggro all the enemies on our way!"
"Excellent. Now, what do we do when all those enemies catch us?"
"We go to the internet and whine about this game being unfair and spamming ambushes!"
The Dark souls games, and especially ds2, are games that encourage the player to move slowly. From the slow combat, the slow movement, to the enemy placements. The game is trying to encourage a play style where the player moves through areas slowly and methodically, observing the environment and learning from it, dealing with each problem as it comes. If the player doesn’t have the patience for that then they’re punished
Doing an SL1 run in DS2 recently has made me appreciate a lot of the good design aspects of DS2. The combination of equipment that modifies your stats, Rings that do so, and the ability to Spice down the stat requirements on Spells makes even a Level 1 character suprisingly versatile.
But it has also absolutely exposed some of the weaknesses it has. Iron Keep, while not all bad, does absolutely throw a ton of enemies between you and Smelter Demon. A +10 Mace, the best weapon you can have for Iron Keep at that point, hits the Knights with a deceptively short ranged Light Attack and 1 shots the Captains with a backstab.
Carrying a Light Crossbow to draw enemy aggro or pick them off from afar helps too, but it still takes a good 5 minutes to get to Smelter Demon. That doesn't sound like a ton of time but if you're running to Smelter Demon after an unsuccessful attempt that sucks. And all of the enemies in Iron Keep kill you in 2 hits at SL1.
You can farm them out so they no longer respawn but it'll still take a lot of time to do that. At least it's an option, I guess.
The iron keep stairs jump can skip most of the courtyard and ditch anyone following you. I think the enemy placement there assumes you’ll do it on run backs to Smelter.
@@Zapdos7471I don't think the expectation should be to do a risky jump on run backs to a boss where your bloodstain is, so I doubt it's the intended way. The jump is likely there for people that want to do it and rewards you for doing it with a shorter runback. But I'd say it's still riskier than just fighting your way there.
I'm about to make my way through your whole series of responses, but I wanna give you a MASSIVE round of applause for being one of the few dudes with the patience to deconstruct Mauler's DS2 videos. A lot of people would just look at the running time for those vids and either give up or be like, "Well he talks for a 1/3rd of day total, so he MUST be right".
not a great day to be a MaLder fan, can’t wait for them to show up to defend their guy so that they don’t have to develop opinions for themselves
Every time i see someone complain about Dark Souls II i love it more
i love the way you tear him apart.
bro after playing elden ring i simply cannot fathom playing ds2 and being exasperated at how "hard" it is. ds2 is still my favorite game but its not because of any spectacular difficulty.
I still wonder who suffers more, us having to watch Mauler's abysmal gameplay or Domo for having to debunk so much wrong information XD
As always keep up the good work Domo, over 300 hours in scholar and you are still providing me information even I wasn't aware of :]
Not fighting enemies is usually a tactic for when you know a place you intend to rush into, and can do it.
Not fighting enemies is NOT usually a tactic for just wanting to aimlessly wander an area with no direction.
Also, if you have a hard time fighting groups, maybe stop using your finest tuxedo and a rapier, and alter your tactics and weapons for the occasion? Miyazaki would absolutely scoff at players who hit their head against a brick wall, rather than try and use the offered pickaxe, dynamite, or window to bypass said wall.
Dark Souls 2 (SotFS) remains Best Souls 2.
Best Souls 2 Brother
was sent this playlist, 10 minutes into the first video and i can alrdy tell these are gonna be real good..
"Lemme run backwards without looking, right into an unfair ambush" 😂😂
Bro, I did that so much when I first discovered these games, it was rough.
It looks like we're watching a DSP TIHYDP.
Something I hate about games is when environmental hazards don't affect enemies. DS2 does the complete opposite. Forever best Souls.
You know you're in for a *not very biased* view when Mauler is only capable of criticising things he dislikes. Truly the pinacle of intellectualism.