Dark Souls 2 - Level Design and Bosses
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- Опубліковано 29 гру 2015
- Part One of this Series - • Dark Souls 2 - Series ...
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This is the second of three videos I'm doing on Dark Souls 2. The first was on the strengths of the series and major changes brought by the sequel. This video is on level design and bosses in the base game. The third will be looking at the same things in the DLC areas.
I'm not really satisfied with the quality of this video. I think I should have summarized a lot of the levels in a quick section instead of committing so much time to a very barebones runthrough of them. I say in the video that many levels don't have much going on but it was still my mistake to make a whole video about them.
I guess it makes the series complete in terms of looking at most of the game, but I think this is the least interesting video I've done so far. Hopefully the next one is better.
Thanks for watching. Let me know what you think. - Ігри
![Dark Souls, but every enemy is MANUS - [Part 1]](/img/n.gif)
I'm quite convinced at this point that the small section of lava round the corner from the old iron king is the real boss of that area. I've taken far too many baths in it.
I've always said that the hole in the platform was the actual boss. It's far too easy to be hit into it, or accidentally walk into it.
@@EverDownward Most of the bosses attacks literally aim for that hole, i think From realized how easy the boss was without the hole and added it in.
He's easily one of the worst bosses in the series. What baffles me if that there's a huge open area just before that but they restrict the boss fight to that tiny space instead.
that hole is really easy to avoid, just dodge to the left or right and get as close as practical to the boss when waiting for an opening.
@@Robert399 It would've been 100% better if the boss fight started at the bottom of the stair case leading to the fog. Also, he already has a walking animation, so I have no idea why he takes a swim when you get too faraway from him. It just seems like a stupid way to prolong the fight.
Hey Joseph that bridge shortcut in No Mans Wharf.... i dont know what was up with that in the main game... i actually think they forgot about it lol, but in scholar of the first sin they added that shortcut in there.
I'm pretty sure it was already in the original game... but now I think I'll double check it.
+rungo it's not
I know.
so glad they fixed that in scholar, No man's warf is way more enjoyable now that it's there.
the shortcut in the base game is a gated door in a building where lucatiel's summon sign can be found. the bridge definitely would have felt like a 'fuck you' if it weren't for that lol
"Giant Lord has the same problem as the last giant" *I WONDER WHY*
Y'all gotta remember he doesn't stop to even try to give a shit about lore unless it's spoon-fed to him because god forbid people piece together things from context clues. Yes Joseph the lore and story is bare bones, that's the damn point, use your damn creative bits for once it's fun!
@@cameron-yo6zp he said he wouldnt talk about the story
@@PotassiumLover33 he also stated he thinks the story isn't fun unless it's being specifically spoon-fed to him because he doesn't like thinking about it and said he thinks DS doesn't have one at all for the sake of laziness when really he's lazy for not wanting to think about it
@@cameron-yo6zp when does he say that? Also make sure you arent confusing plot with lore because theres a difference.
@@PotassiumLover33 He said this in the original DS critique, I don't remember which episode, but I distinctly remember because I just binge watched them last night so I know what I heard. I don't have time to re-watch to figure out witch episode so go back and re-watch them yourself, he says specifically that he doesn't like lore that isn't explicitly spelled out for him
Bloodborne has illusionary walls but only in the chalice dungeons. And you hit them.
@rpok2 they are not
It's crazy how rare they are. In the nearly dozen playthroughs I've done, each one grinding through chalice Dungeons for gems, I've only ever found 1 maybe 2 illusory walls
@@TurboNemesis and they often don't feel like illusionary walls since they are outlined on those super rare occasions you encounter 'em.
@@TurboNemesis I think there are only one or two Illusory Walls in the entirety of the Story Chalices, so yeah, they're pretty damn rare.
I was fighting covetous demon and my one year old daughter, who was crawling around at my feet, started crying.
I bent down to picker her up and while that happened I got swallowed by the demon. I assumed this was an instant death so it was whatever.
Then he spit me out, I only took a little bit of damage but I was completely stripped of all my gear.
While holding a squirming 1 year old and bouncing her, I was able to equip a weapon and defeat the demon from him having 3/4ths of his health.
That fight is so easy you can do it with only a +4 broadsword while holding and comforting a small child.
You can beat a good chunk of the bosses without even touching the roll button even just strafing can make them whiff completely
@@johnny-yj7ku b-b-but bad hitboxes!!! 😭
Did you get your gear back when you killed him?
@charlottecorday8494 Yeah, it just dumps everything you had back into your inventory.
Lol if you legitimately lost all your equipment that would be insane. That would be a crazy mechanic
@@zawarudo8991What does the fact that you can just circle strafe every boss in the game have to do with the bad hit boxes? Yes the hit boxes are too big and linger. Yes the bosses are trivialized by not using the lock on and just casually walking around them. Two terrible designs flaws don’t negate each other lmao
It's crazy how stark the visual difference between the best and the worst areas. There's some beautiful areas like Majula, but also so many areas that feel like straight out of a PS2 game.
Dark Souls had this two. Anor Londo looks amazing for the time, meanwhile the crystal caves looks so bad.
@@ripred42 that place might be the worst level in the series. It seems unfinished.
@@ripred42 too*
@@vervth why would you do that
@@SpoonyBard88 it’s a good thing the worst area in the game is the shortest one lmao
"It's sort of funny that i rarely mind dying when i'm learning an area, but when i've cleared it out and learning a boss then i can get annoyed with having to re-clear long stretches of enemies again."
I personally don't consider this a fault of the player, but a fault of the game. Once you've mastered a section to reliably make it to the one you are currently learning, having to replay it stops being a challenge, it becomes padding. It provides the illusion of being hard, while in reality it's just inconvenient. The worst thing a game can do is waste the players time, which is why i will never understand how some people think this is good game design.
Thankfully ds2 is the only game in the series that purposly makes it near impossble to run through many areas
Exactly, it’s stupid to think that what a player wants to do is fight their way back once they’ve gotten to the boss. You should be able to run thru the level until there as the level means nothing to you anymore and you are not progressing when you’ve already done it all
@@twoshu8940 In that case, I'd say that DS3 improved on this, as there are even bosses with bonfires placed just before their arenas.
Statues of Marika answer thine prayer
I think you need to press the A button for illusory walls in DS2 because your weapons now have the survivability of, well, a Dark Souls 1 magic merchant whose wares have all been purchased.
I think it was done to make checking easier/faster. Weapons wouldn't be in danger as you van check by rolling in 1 but walking along the walls tapping A/X is less tedious than rolling into each waĺl. Also illusory walls were never really contextualized and I think they wanted to go for the classic 'you pressed a brick on the wall and it turned out to be a hidden door' feeling given the changed animation. I personally prefer DS2's way if illusory walls are nevessary but neither game actually teaches you that they exist so they all come with their little problems.
Can't be the reason since rolling was always an option too
@@CapraDaAlbaRegia it's one of these things that feels like King's Field team would do - you also had to spam buttons to unveil hidden doors in KF games.
I think something you missed is that Dark Souls 2 has one of the strangest mechanics I have ever seen in any video game. You complained about the buggy hit boxes and I am not going to sit here and say it's because they're never buggy at all but that being said what is actually happening more often than not, especially at the start of the game is the lack of invincibility frames during your rolls. That's because those frames are actually tied to the agility stat which is a baffling design decision. I personally hate it because you can never truly get a good grasp of how reliable the rolling is anymore and it makes you wonder if you got hit during a roll because of the buggy hit boxes or because the stat isn't high enough.
+ShintaiReviews
you're looking at agility with the wrong point of view. you're not going to be constantly increasing your agility unless the stat isn't high enough, so the iFrames don't really change unless you're specifically opting to make your dodging better - once youve found a desirable amount, you don't ever upgrade it again, especially with how the levelling system in dark souls 2 works.
what does happen is it means that characters that level big beefy defense tanks don't have the exact same dodging prowess that a naked rogue with the rolling ring has, because that would be retarded and not balanced at all.
Rosy Tickles You did absolutely nothing to convince me otherwise. I still think it's a terrible game mechanic.
it's not about convincing you, there are problems and solutions that every single mechanic brings, i'm just pointing out the fact that you haven't thought about it very hard. some are better for certain things and bad for others. the scaling s caters to hardcore veteran players who can excel at the game with low s while still maintaning the strength of agile players, and the static s are for players who are bad at adapting.
you don't need to take offense, 'not thinking about it very hard' is pretty tame in terms of insults, honestly i'd be more insulted that someone would assume that i had wasted any portion of my life 'thinking about something more definitively'
perhaps you're a little too opinionated and need to take a break from dark souls, i know what i said comes off as offensive but to call me an asshole over it is kinda petty and no offense but i can see how you glossed over a pretty simple idea now *****
unfortunately, the 'needless instability' isn't actually unpredicatble in a way. here's the thing: with no agility effecting your rolls, you have 8(?) s, from the beginning of the game, all the way to the end, no matter how much agility you have, as long as you can dodge using those eight s, you will dodge an ability, these frames will never change, and these frames are always consistent.
when you add any extra frames to that, it doesn't become *harder* to dodge, it becomes *easier*.... but the important thing is that those 8 initial s you began with will always be present... this means, that ANY inconsistincies with your dodging will be that if you've put more points into agi, you have a chance of dodging an attack that would have hit a lower agi build character. your argument is invald.
Rosy Tickles You make it seem as if I am obsessive over Dark Souls, I only ever beat the game once, I am not as hardcore into it like some people that play it endlessly.
I was honestly gonna say that I may have been a bit too harsh, but damn do you keep proving to be an asshole.
First off, it IS unpredictable because while it very obviously makes dodging easier, it still becomes hard to determine how much easier it makes it. Lets say you do start off with 8 s, how many points translates to how many amount of frames? Unless you look it up you're never going to know for sure and even then those numbers are too abstract to use in a practical sense in the game itself. That means you can't really figure out how well your dodge has improved unless you do it through trial and error and I don't see why I have to do that. There are also instances where the hit boxes are just sort of buggy but then the question rises, is it because of said hit boxes? Or was the stat not high enough? It gives the rolling a sense of unreliability. This wasn't an issue with the first game and Demon's Souls which had a set number of frames and just stuck to it.
Part of the problem is playing the other games first, expecting the rolls to behave in the same way and getting hit when you normally wouldn't. Honestly I really don't see how I am being unreasonable with my distaste of this mechanic.
Man, I absolutely love Majula. It's the place I want to go when I die. There's no home hub in a Dark Souls game that ever felt as homely, as welcoming, to me, as Majula.
EverDownward I agree. It's my favorite hub area in the souls series. I love the music, overall it just feels like somewhere I can rest in the game.
EverDownward The problem with that is I dont think any of the hubs should feel homely. You're attempting to forstall the inevitable decay of an already dying and decrepit world. You're the one last hope for the world to regain some semblance of hope, therefore, you should feel the loneliness of such a task. The few moments of respite you should be granted, I think, are bonfires. But I guess we all know they fucked that up too with the saturation of bonfires in the game. A homely hub lessens the atmosphere and makes it harder for you to totally engross yourself in the world.
I agree so much....Majula and hunters dream are my favorite
Agreed. Its the worst Souls game imo (still good) but it had the best home hub by far.
Souls games beforehand didn't have hubs that felt homely is because they weren't MEANT to.
32:40 that hit-box tho
Oof
"25 dollars for a few revamped enemies and a few visual tweaks" Here comes dark souls remastered, with less of the latter and none of the former.
@Thomas Grey Imagine defending a remaster that is essentially the base game with a simple fan-made fix installed, completely killed the online community of the game, introduces whole one new bonfire and... were there any quality of life improvements? And sells that for 40 dollars. Should I go on?
The remaster introduced me and others to the series, so even if the remaster isn't the best bang for your buck if you played the OG it's still a great option for new players especially with the performance and quality-of-life improvements - especially when it costs £12 during sales
@@OM-sp3wk The game already was that!
They released a broken version, and then they decided to charge to pretty much push a patch.
It's not that they sholdn't have remanstered it, it's that it should have been free to people who owned the original on PC/.
@Thomas Grey >revitalizes the online community
and then a month later the online community dies lol
@Thomas Grey Im looking from an invasion standpoint, because more people are co-oping since it pulled it players from ds3. even if the host doesnt have 3 buddies you will get dced
Obviously this is from a long time ago, but there's something interesting about Ruin Sentinels - you never have to fight all three at once. Even if all three are downstairs with you, one is always in a defensive "passive" posture while the other two attack. If you're paying attention and recognize their tells you never need to worry about avoiding all three because there's a delay between them going from "passive" to "active" and back again.
Thought that was a neat thing to pick up on.
Never noticed this, played lots of DkS2, but now I wonder if that influenced the later twin demons in the Ringed City, in my opinion the best boss of the series.
"It is unfair to criticise the sequel for something that the first game also does badly."
Well yeah it is really. They should have looked at the first game, asked themselves where it fell short and how they could improve it, as is generally the point of the sequel if you don't have a story that needs to be continued. Dark Souls doesn't. Dark Souls 2 has no excuse for still failing in areas Dark Souls 1 failed in - there was pretty much no improvement.
+Taylor Banks I should have clarified in the video that it's not fair to slam DaS2 for something that no one criticizes in DaS1. You're right that they should improve on shortcomings, but I think that the sequel gets a lot of negativity for things that the first game does just as poorly or even worse.
An example being that people think the sequel is a lot less fair than the first game, which simply isn't true as far as I'm concerned. But because the most prominent opinion on the game is that it's subpar, this assumption is continually stated as a fact.
+Joseph Anderson I beg to differ, playing through both of them again recently especially. Some areas in 2 just felt especially cheap...and some enemies. The large stone knights in Aldia's keep especially...as a normal dex build *can't* stagger them, every hit they land staggers the player and the one with the club does not relent (at least in SOTFS.) and leaves no real opening for attack with a short melee weapon except for when he's using the long overhand swing. It's worse still because he seems to infinitely track the player to a point where it's nigh impossible for him to miss unless the player rolls at the correct time...and after rolling away from his double overhand attack...which he will then often initiate immediately afterwards, many builds will be nearly out of stamina...
I'm not suggesting I didn't get past him but when I became frustrated enough I began cheesing him on the stairs (as many of his attacks aimed above me from here.) as I did more damage this wasn't as much of a requirement.
This is a running theme with many of the in-game enemies who will track the player even while mid swing despite the player having no such ability. The Silver Knights in the original DS I think were one of the earliest seen enemies in the game to show this ability but were slower and had a smaller reach than many of the enemies in 2. In my view what would make for a more furfilling game experience is if From Software actually developed decent ai for the NPCs.....instead of having them locked onto the player and cycling through X attack patterns until they're dead or the player is...if they made them intelligently attack, protect themselves and track the player...also while remaining aware of the environment as to avoid exploits and as to exploit the player. From my perspective ai has never been one of Dark soul's strong points...most of the ai in the first three souls games is as dumb as a brick....and even the player NPC's/Invaders while more intelligent can seem overtly thick at times....and are terrible at fighting NPC's as they don't properly track distance between opponent's and themselves.
For many Dark souls fans this may not seem like a problem but my background is a bit different. I love games like the Arma series and fantasy games like the Elder Scrolls
+7dayspking I'm sorry but when you said "The large stone knights in Aldia's Keep" I had to burst out laughing. DID YOU EVEN PLAY DARK SOULS 2!?
Tru**ty *atc*es He probably meant to say dragon shrine or whatever that area is called
No improvement? Is Soul Memory that terrible, or did everyone really miss starting up the game only to be one-shot by that one invader who stayed level 1?
New Londo Ruins actually contains a huge shortcut right after the very first two ghosts you meet, going from Firelink Shrine. You can fall down straight into the lower half of the area and skip half of it.
12:00 " If the arena was bigger and there were two of them.."
hahaha well do i have the boss for you!
one even has a bow!
Imo, it would have been better if the Dragonrider upon getting to half hp jumped off the arena and with a huge splash, revealed that his dragon mount was hiding underwater this whole time and the 2nd half of his hp is his dragon snapping and biting at you while he snipes with his bow while mounted. Would have given credence to the Dragonrider title.
@Sunbro Adresse Given how badly made the nameless king's dragon phase is...Its probably for the best there wasn't one for the dragon rider.
There actually is an event that happens when breaking too many eggs.
+Lavos YT Yep.
My brother: I'm crossing a shaky bridge with a weird camera. Does something happen here?
Me: A dragon comes in and destroys this bridge, but so long as you haven't destroyed all the eggs...
(A dragon lands on the bridge.)
My brother: Oh... I thought I was supposed to kill all the dragons in the area and break all the eggs.
Ifrit 13x From what I understand, anyone moving too slowly across the bridge will have it destroyed under them. However, the time you have to cross the bridge is shortened further with every egg you destroy, allowing for hilarious trolls in PvP.
the birdge is instantly destroyed if you destroy ALL the eggs in sotfs. as you destroy eggs the timer on it shortens from i think 20 minutes at the start. so if he took 20 minutes to get there...
The Dragons also get buffs depending on how many eggs you destroy, but that might just be in SotFS.
12:05
Scholar adds a fucking short cut in that exact spot. Thank fucking god because this has always been my least favorite area due it taking so long to get through and having no bonfire the whole way.
I really wished you went into a bit of detail on how idiotic (lore-wise) some levels in DS2 are. There are multiple walls blocking your path that even a child could climb over, such as at the start of bastille, and then the rocks on the path at the shrine of winter (you have to kill three great demons because you can't climb over knee-high rocks). There's a door that doesn't touch the ground on both sides (room with 7 statues). There are again doors that only open in one way, but are not solid. There's that bonfire in the lava area that requires a hip-high jump down to get to, and then you have to fight through a bell tower area because you can't climb back out of that pit. Most ceilings and walls are unadorned and boring, many rooms are straight-up blank cubes, and don't even have windows, but instead completely arbitrary traps. Who puts a corrosive poison pit into the stairways of their own castle?
+Kajetan Abt Once you go down that path it's hard to stop though. Like what are the NPCs in Dark Souls 1 even doing? What are the hollow undead hanging off the side of the railings in Undead Burg hoping to accomplish? How many months have they been hanging there waiting for you?
Why don't any of the major NPCs need food or water? Why can't you pull yourself up the broken stairs at the Undead Burg bonfire? Why are both elevators at Undead Parish locked at the top position and then automatically fix themselves when you step on them? Why does the dragon in Undead Burg care SO MUCH about YOU getting to the little bonfire shrine through the gate but doesn't care about all the undead parade already on the bridge?
Why can't you swim? Why didn't all the people who drowned in New Londo simply swim to safety when the city was flooded? If the water came so suddenly and violently that they couldn't, where did the water even come from, and where does it go once you've drained it? Who the hell put so much time into building Blighttown? Why does the elevator powered by the little dog work at all? What's powering all the traps in Sen's Fortress? Why don't the tiny planks of wood connecting Blighttown to New Londo break when something as heavy as you crosses them?
How did the giant horned demon statue get into the tiny room before Ornstein and Smough? Literally how, since he's too big to get through the door and it's clear he wasn't built inside of it. Same goes for the other one in the Undead Catacombs. What's Taurus Demon even doing at the top of that tower? How did the Stray Demon get into the basement in the Asylum? Why can't you pull yourself up the ruined stairs to get the rusted ring?
See what I mean? I could keep going. Why does pretending to be an egg compel a bird to carry you somewhere else? Where was the bird's nest in Asylum the first time you got there?
+Joseph Anderson I think that is not the same. You are looking for actual realism. I'm just looking for the room in front of me to *pretend* to make sense. I can suspend my disbelief for small details, such as "what do they eat?" because it really doesn't matter to the fantasy world that is Dark Souls. But Dark Souls established that the world isn't abstract like in Mario, but "fantasy realistic". Doors that are not touching the ground break with the internal rules that have been established.
Dark Souls 1 even had some details like that, such as the stairs in Anor Londo that were accommodating for giant sized enemies. Furthermore, it depends on what you break the rules with: Magical darkness or magical light are more flexible, because I don't have that in my real life, and I can accept that it works a bit differently. But I interact daily with doors, and I expect doors to behave like doors.
What I am trying to say: It is not about realism, it is about consistency. Mario can be more inconsistent and have randomly floating platforms. In Dark Souls, we expect basic architecture to make sense, because that has been established very strongly. In fact, DS1 did much better than par, and that's why we expect DS2 to not be a few orders of magnitude worse than the average video game. The game feels blatantly unfinished in parts.
+Joseph Anderson The Shrine of Winter point here is pretty glaring though. Why even design the level that way? Why even show the knee-high rubble in the first place? Amassing souls to get through is fine, but amassing souls to bypass something that isn't a true challenge is not. Why not end the path at the Shrine of Winter? Why put the shrine up a narrow path deviating from the main path? Having a pile of rubble in a broken archway guarded by an out-of-place flexile sentry makes absolutely no sense, regardless if you view it based on world logic or level design logic.
It's the same with the bonfire pit in Iron Keep. It makes no sense from a level design point of view. Having a big monster in a small room makes some sense in terms of level design, because you have limited space to fight a monster that up until this point you've had plenty of space to move around to dodge attacks and find openings. I agree with your point about the titanite demon not fitting through the door, but it never broke my suspense of disbelief as much as Shrine of Winter or Earthen Peak did in DaS2.
I took the evelator from the top of a windmill up to a volcano. That concerns me more then how a demon got into a chapel, to be perfectly honest with you.
I fully agree with you. The level design problems in DaS2 are really bad and made far worse by how easily they could have been avoided. The point I'm trying to make by "defending" it is that the first game gets a pass for doing the same thing. Both games should do it better, but it's always felt to me that DaS2 is the only one that gets penalized for it.
Some of these issues, like you point out with Shrine of Winter's placement, are baffling. To the point that it loops around and becomes really interesting. How did the final state of the level end up being like that? What was the thought process there?
+Kajetan Abt Ahhh, many of the areas in Dark souls one are equally cube like, there's little to no furniture or decoration throughout the *entire* game....there's almost no grass or flora except for small trees throughout the game. To attack 2 for it's Blandness it's outright hypocrisy, especially as it generally produces significantly more details environments than many in the original DS...and especially than the *later* areas in DS1.
There's also silly things blocking your path as well in 1.
A lot of the points Joseph made go well beyond merely realism, most of these are equally silly....with some examples being the literal equivalent of knee high blockages stopping your path. It's especially silly when you can climb up stairs but a smooth and *shallow* pathway between two broken bits of stairs isn't traversable.
Dark souls is a *very* gamey, game....the levels look like they are designed entirely to be played around in rather than to be logical or realistic in any fashion, hence the outright emptiness of the world...and the random structures over the entire map that don't appear to be designed nor prepared for use or living in...they literally serve no further purpose than for the player to traverse through them. See Dark souls for what it is.
There's nothing 'realistic' about Dark souls, not even the simulation of gravity (which tends not to work half the time.) Even the basic lores of player physics are often broken by the NPC's...in simpler terms the player and the NPCs don't play by the same rules (it's worse in DS2 admittedly.)
A lot of the basic architecture in the original DS doesn't make sense...and would be physically impossible in the real world as it is...
Dark souls 1 has from a logical standpoint (not a gameplay standpoint.) one of the least realistically designed worlds in modern gaming that I can think of....even games like God of War and DMC have a more realistic and grounded world design. Dark souls is comparable in 'realism' to the Zelda franchise...only remotely more logical and realistic than Mario.
DS1 doesn't feel "blatantly unfinished" in parts? Because Darkroot garden and basin is so fleshed out....because the Dukes Archives is put together so well....because Lost Izalith just looks amazing.....Kiln of the first flame isn't just a massive bland area of Ash/sand with a narrow bridge path leading to a large circular arena in the centre (that seemingly has no reason to be there.)...I mean if the lights were *on* in tomb of the Giants that'd look pretty damn unfinished as well. Valley of the Drakes? Such Detail!
Very few areas in the original look as if they had a lot of effort put into them visually. The few exceptions (Despite mainly being subpar.) in my view would be Firelink > Undead Burg and the Sewers/basement (the sewers are bland but they're sewers...how they connect with Undead Burg however is welcome.) oolacile Township...not amazing but at least there's some complexity to it, New Londo ruins looks *very* Gamey but I'll still give a point here. The large Cathedral in Anor Londo...the inside looks bland and lazily put together like a glorified Stone maze...that's not even really mazy (bar one room.) but from the outside it looks impressive and must have taken a long time to model. Ash lake is quite lacking in detail or anything but I actually liked the design of it and was downright stunned when I first stumbled upon it....That's about all I can say.
As for Iron keep, I'm still not sure to this very day how you actually get there...I mean in game...perhaps it's silently loaded?? How!?!?!?
Walking out into Majula for the first time was gorgeous. Fromsoft really knows how to make some great scenery.
Where's the depth and critical nuance that you brought to your first DS II video? This is almost exclusively descriptive and you rush through it like you made this particular instalment out of obligation more than anything else. I hate to sound ungrateful, cos I'm otherwise a big fan. I look forward to the DLC vid, though. Keep up the good work, just go a little deeper like you did for previous videos, cos those were a great watch.
+Jockney You don't sound ungrateful and you're absolutely correct. If you scroll up and read the description of this video you'll see that I have the same thoughts. I like the early part of this one but after I talk about Lost Bastille--around there, I think--there's less to say and I should have summarized a lot of it and then moved on. I should have spoken more in detail on ways that bland areas could have been made good like I did at Earthen Peak, but that runs the risk of getting into the dreaded **opinion** territory that usually causes trouble.
The script I wrote for the DLC has a lot more details on how things work. I can't promise it'll be way more interesting but, reading it back, it appears that way to me.
Well, thanks for the restrained response. It's refreshing to see a reply from a creator to constructive feedback (that, somewhat ironically, wasn't particularly substantive itself...) who doesn't immediately go on the defensive. Think you've had an unenviable task differentiating your critique from those already done by Matthewmatosis, Bunnyhop, MattLees, et al, but the results are surprisingly fresh so far: all the while juggling the responsibilities of a writing job and a baby, no less (!).
I completely disagree with the elevator being an unfair moment in DS1. In your other video, you mentioned that there are tons of bloodstains in the game and therefor this one should not be suspicious. Upon replaying the game, I failed to find any instance of random blood in the world. As for the bloodstain mechanic, there is a clear difference between the blood on the elevator and a player bloodstain. When considering that Sen's Fortress is a literal compilation of traps, I don't think determining the elevator is a trap is that much of a leap.
Yep, same goes for the mimic in the below room. Me thinks someone is trying to feel better about a scrubby death by trash talking the game.
pin09
The mimic is a bit more of a stretch in logic. It's obvious in retrospect, but I think a very small percentage of players were able to identify the mimic on their first playthrough, assuming it was blind. Also calling Joseph a scrub is pretty stupid. They guy's shown to be really knowledgeable. Even if I think he's wrong in this instance, he named it as one of the three or four unfair moments in the entirety of the game.
I didn't call him a scrub.
All good, I have a lot more issues with this video anyways XD
yeah elevator trap is a good representation of what this guy suffers mostly as a critic in all of his videos i made through: ranging from solid, reasonable criticism to a simply justifying his dislike/adoration of certain parts of games. He doesn't do that often, and at first it's hardly recognizable due to overall very thoughtful analysis. In that sense, i would say his videos have their own "GOTCHA" moments, but due to very small amount of them his critique is usually severe, but fair(outside of their bullshit moments like that elevator trap thing that seems to be clear/comprehensible for a considerable amount of game newcomers, but still not fair for dude in the video)
Kinda a late comment with this, but the first time I played dark souls 1, I figured out the mimic chest was probably a trap. By that point in the level, I had been dealing with all sorts of traps and I was super paranoid that those statues that are littered all over the place would attack me or something. When I saw the chest, I figured something was going to be wrong. I still died to it though, because I was curious to see how much damage it did.
After that, I was also super paranoid about the elevator. The moment I saw how bloody and odd it looked compared to other elevators, I decided something was wrong with it. After dealing with all the other traps, I decided it would probably keep going up until it smashed me against the ceiling or something. I was a bit worried since I wasn't sure if it was even the right way to go, and when I finally did get on it, I rolled out of it as soon as I could. The context of these two moments being inside sen's fortress after dealing with several devious traps before them, especially with how tense you are after finally making it past the swinging blades and the boulder, changes them a bit.
"it isn't fair to criticize the sequel for something the original game did badly too" What? You have that backwards. It's one thing to overlook a flaw the first time you see it, but a repeated mistake is a repeated mistake - much less justifiably to overlook. A sequel (vs the previous game) can be criticized for A) doing something worse than the first game & B) not fixing something that the first game did wrong and then repeating the mistake.
BTW - bloodgems are broken - you can easily buy more than you will ever need (with more than enough souls for levels, etc.), and they stack (two heals twice as fast as one) allowing for enough healing over time that you can get through most fights (boss or otherwise) with out even touching your estus flask.
Dude, I had to go back in the video and rehear that. This was one of the most idiotic thing I heard in my life. The sequel is ALWAYS ground to not make the same mistakes.
@@RexVergstrong I think his point was that it was unfair to criticize the sequel for something that the original wasn't criticized for.
@@christophersmith8848 Think so too.
The spike elevator in Sen's is heavily signaled, though. The bloodstains makes it obvious, and you have at that point already navigated through many traps. You will be expecting more. I already knew that was going to happen my first blind run.
Literally the one trap in Sen's Fortress that didn't get me because it was so obvious.
Am I the only one in the world who doesn’t really mind traps? Like, obviously it sucks to get one-shot instantly after you’ve come all that way just to get there, especially on your first playthrough, but I never really minded that elevator trap all that much.
I actually expected to get a shortcut or maybe a special item since games like Doom Eternal had kind of conditioned me into approaching things that way. I actually didn’t fall for it until my sixth or seventh time using the elevator because it was only after getting to the upper level that I noticed the extra height it went upwards before coming back down. So I hopped back on and died immediately. It was hilarious. I love getting thrown for a loop like that in games because it’s always just funny to me.
i fell for it, maybe im just dumb.
@@payayaa TBF I've platinumed DS1 several times, and though I know every inch of the game in and out, I still make tons of mistakes and fall into traps. :)
@@samuelviden7412 sorry if you took that as an insult, I guess I don't control expressions in english that much
I watched this video entirely, never realised how long it was! felt like 5 minutes lol good stuff
Another issue I have with the mimics of Dark Souls 2 is that because the game has four paths that the player can go through in relatively any order, it doesn't set up the first encounter with a mimic properly.
In Doors of Pharos it's haphazardly placed there and new players won't know it's coming at all. Experienced players who try to cheese in like in Dark Souls 1 will try and wail on it from behind before falling victim to the instant death bullshit.
There's another mimic on the path to the Old Iron Keep which also has no hints disclosing it's true nature and the only reason I didn't fall for it my first playthrough was because I accidentally hit it while attacking the other enemies.
in short, because there's multiple paths to take, the game doesn't balance itself too well or work to introduce new mechanics such as mimics in a spot that every player will go through at the same time. It kinda worked in Sen's Fortress (it need a better set up) because it was in a dungeon full of traps and had blood spread across it and was placed diagonally in the middle of the room instead of in a corner which implies that the mimic killed someone in that spot and decided to fall back asleep there. This encounter guarantees that players know that mimics exist and will likely spend the rest of the game checking chests just to make sure. Dark Souls 2 fails this by not treating each mimic encounter like it's your first or by not placing it in the first area with plenty of warning that it's coming.
You literally see silver locks on mimics that other chests don’t have. That’s the visual indication
@@monkeman5895 That's not nearly enough visual indication for any new comers who are playing Souls 2 first (which was a thing at the time). They have no way of knowing that mimics even exist until they get eaten by one.
@@servebotfrank4082 That’s literally the same for the other games. No one notices that their chains are different
Both DS1 and 2 have this problem, it's just when it occurs that's different. In DS1 it's in the game's second half, after you get the lordvessel. Since all of the new zones are unlocked at the same time they all roughly have the same difficulty, and the game sags as its difficulty curve reverses over time. In DS2 this is the first half before you open up Drangleic Castle, which from there it becomes more linear.
The lesson was probably that it's better to be more linear in the start and then open up over time, but DS3 just went for almost pure linearity. It did solve the balancing problem at least. For as much as people might complain about the long tunnel that is the DS3 game world, it's a very well balanced tunnel.
this vid makes me want to play this game again. DS1 is still my fav souls game
The areas being so dark that you need a torch is finally realized in Elden Ring!
The lantern ruins it again tho :(
@@807D14M0ND5 it's a lot worse than a torch and you have to manually equip it every time. so there's that atleast
@@807D14M0ND5 There are certain enemies that react to it as well.
@@comfybaguette I thought people complained that the torch is annoying because you have to lit the torch everytime you switch it
@@Technique2937 torch is automatically lit when you equip it
I actually liked fighting multiples in DS3 and Bloodborne. Shadows of Yharnam and Abyss Watchers are great fights, not my favorite, but still a lot more fun than I expected. When I played DS2 I absolutely hated fighting multiples. Same goes for DS1. I found them cheap and annoying. I've been thinking a lot since seeing these videos about why and I'm still not sure.
I think part of it is that Bloodborne taught me how to ditch my lock on and fight multiples a lot better than DS1 and 2 did. I learned that lesson in the first level with the burning beast party in the street. I tried pulling people one at a time and just kept getting wrecked until I finally decided to try using the whip on the threaded cane to destroy a patrolling group that joins the beast pyre and later luring a large amount of partygoers up a choke point. After that fighting multiples was a lot more comfortable for me.
Another problem has to do with movement speed. I originally thought the groups in DS2 were too tanky and this was my problem, but I can fight multiple Lothric knights and Pontiff knights with little issue. The fact that my movements aren't so clunky and sluggish helps quite a lot. The enemies in DS3 are faster but this doesn't bother me. I don't know. Something about how my character moves and how all the attacks feel is wrong. I honestly thought DS1 was snappier and DS2 was more sluggish. Going back to DS1 after my first playthrough of the sequel felt amazing.
xdearlifex Bloodborne and DS3 rewards aggressive play more so than DS1 and DS2 with increased emphasis on mobility and faster fights. Aggressive play being rewarded over the conservative play of DS1/2 makes group encounters FAR less agonising and enjoyable. As DS1's gameplay is excellently refined and balanced for the most part this issue is somewhat offset but DS2... The combination of bugged hitboxes, clunky gameplay and poorly planned enemy encounters makes group fights a chore devoid of the strategy that makes SoulsBorne games special.
I think i know why this is the case. DkS1 and DkS2 are designed for slower and more passive gameplay, thus by default making multi-boss battles a massive chore since the system isn't designed to fight them. However, Bloodborne and DkS3 emphasize aggressive offense which makes the fights more manageable since the player in those games is much quicker.
However, there is an elephant in the room regarding this. While DkS1 and DkS2 technically aren't designed to be fast paced, the options are available to play that way (light equip load, Dark Wood Grain Ring, high Agility builds, etc), while in Bloodborne and DkS3, it is literally impossible to play any other way other than the intended hyper offense to the point where shields, heavier armor, and many heavier weapons are redundant or just straight up useless. DkS1 and DkS2 sacrifice fluidity for variety while Bloodborne and DkS3 sacrifice variety for fluidity.
@Sunbro Adresse
Try to use a medium shield against any boss, or any shield including greatshields against any DLC boss: you can't without getting guard broken in seconds and stomped for trying. Hell, Irithyll's Pontiff Knights have ELEVEN hit combos that they can instantly just repeat, and no shield will even last halfway through that spammed combo.
@Sunbro Adresse
Lmao did you seriously attempt these or are talking out of your ass? Because blocking Friede's combo with anything but a greatshield is practically an instant guard break and even with a greatshield you won't have enough stamina to do much aside from maybe 1 swing of a weapon, which then results in Friede's next combo killing you because there's no down time for your stamina (not to mention the chip damage).
The only seriously difficult boss in the entirety of DkS3 that's even doable with defensive turtling with Nameless King and that's only with the Dragonslayer Greatshield which no one ever gets in favor of the axe.
Knowing this I think I’ll never play dark souls 2 lol
It's super annoying how the regular enemies are much harder than boss fights, especially when the game sends 4-5 enemies at you at once. A lot of it feels like BS artificial difficulty in Dark Souls 2.
Maria Yuri so true. Dark Souls 2 (especially Sotfs) has way too many 'FU melee build' moments. I'm doing a bow only run and the game is a lot more fun as a FPS.
dodge and hit - try to keep distance
Can't forget all of the gank bosses. I can just imagine in the board room "hey this boss isn't challenging enough, hey let's just put 2 more in the room with the other one".
@Linda Niemkiewicz
Yeah but those dont aggro you all at once with their wonky hitboxes and tracking
@abels121 But.... literally everyone hates those enemies, they get criticised quite a lot. What's your point?
I like how you switched from shield+sword from DS1 to double-handed sword here.
They seem to have changed a lot in SOTFS. I'll work my way backwards (adding other things as well.) Those large enemies in Aldia's keep now spam attacks without relent and seem to be much better at tracking the player than is seen in the video.
I've only lost once to the Mirror Knight personally but again he appears to be better at tracking me at least than it appears in this video (in the video you see him being locked into a single direction when swinging...in my game he tracks the player mid-swing.) they also have reduced the number of stone statues and replaced all of the Alonne Captains in Drangelic Castle with large stone knights instead (and reused of course the chariot boss.)
When I first played through DS2 I didn't really use Lifegems (I still don't really use them as I've never learned to, I only use them when out of combat for some reason I feel they heal too slowly to be usable in combat...at least that's my experience.) and I also wasn't aware of almost any of the contraptions (like burning the windmill or using the water in the Iron keep.) he's referred to here....from this perspective I can say it's definitely possible to beat both Mytha and the Smelter demon without using these contraptions and without using Life gems...in fact it's possible to beat all of the bosses in game doing so. I will admit I died many times to Mytha but mainly from being two hit (killed while healing.) before I learned you could burn the windmill on later playthroughs.
Dark souls does seem far more challenging overall than the original and I find many of the areas quite cheap (especially as I've consistently played on Dexterity/melee builds who use two handed weapons....no shield and enemies don't seem to stagger.) I've of course improve but found this game significantly more challenging than the original. I think it's especially frustrating how enemies track the player.....I think NPCs should *attempt* to track the player but shouldn't be *glued* to them.
Your videos are absolutely superb. Keep up with the good work.
this is awesome. its like replaying the games in fast forward when i watch your vids
I think people miss the point when it comes to the elevator in Sens. The point isn't that the blood on the elevator should tell the player it will kill them. The point is that the copious amount of blood (an unusual amount, the largest pool of blood the player ever sees in the game, designed to catch your eye and make you question how it got there), along with the fact that you need to be suspicious of everything in Sens (a literal house of a thousand traps), should inform you that there is reasonable CAUSE to believe it is dangerous. And this isn't like the drake at the bridge where you have no idea it will attack, how it will attack, and how you can avoid its danger (a BS gotcha moment), because the elevator visually telegraphs its movement patterns and behaves in a clear, predictable way. Furthermore, nothing is forcing you to get on the elevator in a hurry. You are given ample time to observe that movement pattern of its chains as you wish. You see it move up one floor, pause for a second, then move up about 1/4 of a floor and quickly descend. From this observation you can deduce the following: 1) one of these stops likely has a floor to get off on because this is the only way to progress, but it's unlikely the other does because the lift doesn't go high enough to accommodate two floors, and 2) because the elevator makes a clear stop at the first floor and gives you time to depart, but acts bizarrely when it ascends to its second stop and doesn't give the same opportunity to get off at a stop, that you should be on the lookout for a place to get off probably at the first stop.
So, lo and behold just as it telegraphed to the player by the movement of its chains, the elevator gives you the opportunity to get off at the right stop (and you know exactly how much time you have because it is telegraphed to the player, so you know to swivel the camera around, find the exit, and act fast. In fact, I recently noticed there are windows in the elevator shaft which act as hints as to which way you should be facing to get off the elevator), and the room you see is conspicuously empty and absent of enemies so the player has no reason to hesitate getting off the elevator. And because it is an elevator, even if there were some unseen threat that later revealed itself, the player is well aware how this elevator works: if there is danger in this room and they need to escape it, they can turn tail and ride the elevator back down, no problem. So there is no reason to hesitate. And once you get off at your stop as the game is telling you to, you can clearly see spikes on the ceiling of the elevator shaft so you have clear indication that you shouldn't get back on the elevator to ride it up to the next stop (you said in another comment that you can't see the spikes, but that is factually inaccurate as evidenced by this video: ua-cam.com/video/W9kJGAXFpWA/v-deo.htmlm16s). If you instead rush onto the elevator without carefully observing it as Sens has previously taught you to do, do not question the huge pool of blood on the floor on your way up (which, even if you think is a routine part of the environmental aesthetic, should at least put you on edge and make you wary), and refuse to get off at the stop even though the room is empty and devoid of danger, you get appropriately punished.
I agree the mimic is pretty unfair. The elevator is quite fair though. It foreshadows danger and gives you opportunity to escape it using the mechanics typically associated with that object. For instance, pressure plates can be visual discerned and you can see the place where the arrows will shoot from (they can be observed), and both the plates and the ensuing arrows can be avoided by walking on different parts of the floor (they can be avoided using the same traversal mechanics used with any other part of the floor). This is why I think the mimic sucks but the pressure plates and elevator don't: the mimic only barely foreshadows danger, and does not give opportunity for escape if you choose to interact with it the only way you ever have.
And even if you disagree and say the environmental hint of a giant pool of blood isn't enough to foreshadow danger, Sens Fortress clearly teaches you that you need to be slow and methodical in your exploration to survive. Not only does it teach you to be careful and observant, it gives you a clear indication of the elevator's patterns by the movement of its chains, so it clearly telegraphs a pattern so you can be on your toes for what comes next. AND for players who are on their toes, the elevator gives you the opportunity to escape its danger. Not ONLY that, this is the first elevator you see in Sens. The entire place is designed to make you distrust things you thought were safe/dependable. The trapfloors/pressure plates teach you that floors can be dangerous in Sens, and the mimic teaches you that chests can be dangerous in Sens. Now you see an elevator for the first time in Sens. The very least you should be is suspicious, because that is the lesson the game has taught you about Sens. If you are suspicious and act observantly as the game clearly tells you to be, the elevator gives a clear indication of its movement patterns, and visual indication of the punishment for failure. It's not enough information to know with 100% accuracy exactly what will happen (which is good, because a good trap shouldn't explain itself in pinpoint detail when you come across it so that avoiding it is trivial, but rather should hint towards its presence, hint toward an escape route, and give opportunity for smart players to avoid its danger) but all the pieces are in place.
Drake attack? BS. Mimic in Sens? Also BS. Elevator? Quite fair.
Additionally a bloodsplat on the ground means that someone recently died there. So the elevator one was extremely obvious. I think a large bloodsplat should have been right in front of the mimic. That would have been a good tell to introduce the first mimic.
I don't understand the argument that mimics are unfair.
The first mimic is placed slated, rather than even against a wall, so that the chain can be seen. For every mimic, their chain is made very visible so that the player may check beforehand. Also, the player has the choice to just attack a chest in question just once to see if it is a mimic without any penalty.
Look through the perspective of a new player who's not familiar with the game, that player won't know the chest is a mimic because the other chests that he/she opened up before didn't pose any threat at all, therefore they are comfortable to expect something good out of it. Once the player arrives at sen's fortress for the first time and enter that room with the chest (Your first mimic). Of course, they're going to open it and expect an item/reward after getting past the other traps. Obviously getting chewed to death by their first mimic. It can be unfair just because at first glance it looks like a regular chest. If there's a small detail like a pool of blood right near it, visually that can tell the player (if they notice it) that there's something off about it and may try to inspect it, even like you said attacking it to see what happens. Then boom the mimic shows its ugly form and teaches them that not every chest they encounter later on is safe.
Yeah the mimic argument saying it's not unfair only works if every player knows mimics are in the game and how they can be distinguished. *I* knew about it beforehand, so it was easy. You gotta put yourself in their place. Others don't have this information. They don't have the retrospect or hindsight that you or I have. They will absolutely have no reason to even consider checking for these differences to know *what* those differences are, until they fall prey to it.
If someone legitimately did inspect every chest while not knowing mimics were in the game or how to determine what mimic chest looks like, and found out on their own, congratulations, you hardly speak for the majority.
I posted this before, but:
One thing I'll defend is that the blood is not a CLEAR indicator of something being up, and to those who do notice, it doesn't exactly indicate what one should look out for. For all they know, it could be an enemy waiting at the top if they just run out willy nilly, causing them not to get off the elevator right away because they're reading the warning wrong, which actually causes them to fall for the trap that they otherwise woudn't have without the blood being there to manipulate their natural actions.
Because I think most people just get off elevators as soon as they see the platform to get off on. Though an elevator continuing to go up could also indicate a secret in these games, and one might think the dangerous enemy is at the top, not suspecting the trap to be the fact that the elevator doesn't stop.
Idk. There's many factors. I don't think this generic bloodstain is a very good warning. Maybe some holes, even small, poked into the elevator in the pattern of the spikes would give a better hint at *what* is causing the blood. But if you can see the spikes ahead of time, then it's not so bad.
This. Played ds1 for the first time recently and noticed it was a trap straight away from its bizzare movement
How is the spiked elevator unfair? Not only can you see the blood on the elevator but if you stop to look at it you can easily see the chains go further after they stop for a bit. My first playthrough I knew it would be some kind of trap due to the blood, and after looking at how the chains moved and the fact that there is no other way to progress I took it and quickly went out once I reached the top.
Additionally, breaking eggs does indeed anger the dragons, quoting from the wiki:
"Be wary of breaking the grayish white dragon eggs in this area. After breaking 3 eggs all guardian dragons get a power boost, at 7 eggs there will be a time limit for crossing the bridge later in the level to dragon shrine, before it get's destroyed and at 10 eggs or so the bridge is destroyed and you have no chance of crossing. If too many eggs are broken, simply rest at bonfire to reset."
+Joey Asagiri I've broken many eggs and never seen that happen. Weird. Maybe the dragons were already dead by then. Even so, that sort of change is boring and doesn't mean much. Would have been more fun with a lot of eggs in your path and tasking the player with finding new ways to bypass a lot of them to safely cross the bridge.
The elevator is unfair for reasons you just described. It's the only way to proceed. There's blood all over it but there's blood in many areas all over the game. If you get on and then get off, you can turn around to see that it still continues upward and the camera doesn't allow you to look up ahead of time. So if you get curious and try to see what's up there--since this is a place with many hidden extras--you get punished and killed with no way to really save yourself other than guessing what's going to happen.
It's exactly like the dragon attack--some people guessed correctly how to get through it without dying, or were lucky to trigger the encounter and then step off the bridge to find Solaire, but that doesn't change that it's a cheap death that's not reasonable for most people to avoid. For the record the spiked elevator didn't kill me either the first time, and it's only when I decided to see if there was anything up there after all in case my instincts were wrong that I died.
+Joseph Anderson At least those gotcha moments in Dark Souls 1 had some sort of warning sign. The one in Aldia's Keep is just bullshit, there's nothing there to show the player it's a trap. B-team initially had it in pre-downgrade graphics trailers.
I would like to make a counter argument towards the Dragon Bridge in DS1. I understand what you're trying to evaluate there, and it does make sense. But, I still remember the first time playing through that area, and my reaction to it. Knowing how Dark Souls had treated me up to that point, I knew it would be foolish to run out into an open area without caution. So, when I first came to that bridge, I knew something was off, it didn't continue with the theme of the rest of Undead Burg. Although I didn't take note of the burned ground, I still walked out with caution, waiting for *something* to happen.
Now, you tried to make an analysis on "where" and "how" the dragon would approach the bridge, which would determine how you would react. Your argument was that because you had little time to react, and no visual of the dragon, and because it would take too long to actually find him, you couldn't make an accurate decision to avoid dying to the fire.
Honestly, I think you over-analyzed this. When I slowly made my way out onto the bridge, and heard the dragon, my instinct, of course, was to run. Considering I didn't see anything in front of me, I could guess that the dragon was either approaching from the side, or behind. Either way, sprinting forward would've been the best option. Long story short, I managed to survive my first encounter on the bridge simply because of this. It's a quick process of elimination with the help of survival instincts; Hear danger from somewhere -> don't see the danger in front of you -> move where you KNOW there's no danger. I can't say for certain that this was the intention when they made this part of the game, but I still feel it works out fine.
You say fighting multiples is fun and that may be true but the camera controls don't imply that at all. If you want to fight unlocked effectively you pretty much have to use the claw grip.
I've played both games entirely without Lock-on since nearly day 1 (as I'm more familiar with the Elder Scrolls games.)....the exception being when I needed to cast magic.
7dayspking That's pretty weird though. Playing unlocked is super-awkward.
funcounting Awkward in what way? Many Hack'n Slash games are without lock-on...unfortunately Dark souls has taken many of it's features (as well as Lock-on.) from the casual mostly "combo breaker" type Hack'n Slash games...despite not having mechanics actually designed for such features....
7dayspking I'd bet that you get backstabbed a lot but you would probably deny it.
@@BlackfeatherLegion I mean, backstabbing isnt as big of a part of Ds2's meta as it was with Ds1
I loved majula more than firelink. Sure, it has fewer treasures , but the sunset lighting and the calm eery music really adds to the atmosphere. majula feels more like the eye of the storm than firelink like you described. But to each their own . Also DS2 was my first foray into the series so maybe I'm biased ☺️
Using the Guidance miracle spawns a developer message near the windmill that tells you to "try torch." Smelter Demon can be bypassed entirely, and there are water urns in the general area to boost your fire resistance; you can also use spells like Magic Barrier or Flash Sweat (everyone can use pyromancies), or use consumables like Red Burrs.
Looking Glass Knight can summon enemy players if they have their red sign down, waiting for a summon. Far more fun (and more difficult) than if he summons a bland, generic NPC helper. Doing co-op on LGK when he summons an enemy player is some of the most fun I've had in a Souls game and I wished they'd done that mechanic again in DS3.
It's worth noting that it's very heavily implied that the Ancient Dragon is just a construct made by Aldia. There's indications that the Emerald Herald may be a construct (or partial construct?) as well.
Giant Lord feels like Lost Giant because he IS the Lost Giant... just before you did timey-wimey stuff to go back and whip his ass back when. The Lost Giant freaks out and goes berserk when he sees you because you're the asshole that resulted in him being in that shape, locked away in that prison or whatever. No, it doesn't make sense. When has From Software ever made sense?
"Using the Guidance miracle spawns a developer message near the windmill that tells you to 'try torch.'"
Ah, yes, the highly-used and highly-prepared spell that every character has access to and a very clearly-worded direction to do something that is not at all bizarre and cannot be misconstrued in any way.
The point is it's in the game. Guidance has the lowest FTH requirement of any spell and most classes start with enough FTH to cast it, or very close to it. It's specifically put into the game to provide, well, Guidance for new players. It's basically an in-game hint systems.
"The point is it's in the game."
I really don't know what to say. This information is both irrelevant and useless.
"Guidance has the lowest FTH requirement of any spell and most classes start with enough FTH to cast it, or very close to it."
Stat requirements have nothing to do with this, but if you want to talk about them, then I think it's strange that you didn't mention attunement. If a non-caster is going to spend the levels to gain an attunement slot, they aren't going to choose to fill it with guidance. In addition, guidance needs to be purchased from a specific NPC, so I'd say it's even less likely to be considered.
"It's specifically put into the game to provide, well, Guidance for new players."
Yeah, and if you aren't a new player, then you aren't going to use it. If you are brand new to the entire franchise, and you have attunement slots, I really can't imagine you'd be inclined to use one of them to prepare guidance in place of any of the dozens of vastly more immediately obviously helpful ones.
The information isn't irrelevant and useless. It is a spell put in the game for the express purpose of providing additional hints if the player desires them. The spell description even states that it provides additional assistance and advice.
Almost everyone is going to have at least one spell slot because pyromancies do not require INT or FTH, only a spell slot. However, they DO scale with INT and FTH, meaning it's quite plausible that someone might invest into FTH to increase their Fire Attack and thus have enough FTH to learn Guidance, even if they didn't start with enough. Hexes are also arguably the best spells in the game and they also require FTH.
Lastly, spells can be changed at any time at any bonfire with no limit. If someone is having a difficult time in an area, why wouldn't they swap in Guidance and look for hints in the area that's giving them problems?
You're complaining about there being no indication that you should use a torch there, but there's an enemy clearly guarding that ledge AND there is a developer message that literally says "try torch" directly in front of the ledge that a tough enemy was guarding. It cannot possibly become more obvious than that - TRY TORCH!
It is irrelevant and useless because the mere existence of the spell does not justify nonexistent logic.
"Almost everyone"? No. This whole paragraph doesn't make any sense. If you aren't playing a caster, you don't have attunement slots. If you're using pyromancy because you have attunement slots despite not being a caster, you aren't leveling faith or intelligence because they don't augment pyromancies. If you only have one attunement slot because you're trying to augment your non-caster with pyromancies, you aren't using that one slot for guidance. If you are any of these examples, you aren't using hexes.
So in your unrealistically specific example wherein a player is struggling with an area in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with game mechanics or their individual skill, and their character is either a caster with redundant attunement slots, a non-caster inexplicably using pyromancy with redundant attunement slots, or a non-caster inexplicably with attunement slots, it should be obvious to switch out a spell for guidance and run around hoping that one of the dozens of messages laying around will reveal the secret non-combat, non-skill wall preventing them from progressing.
"...there's an enemy clearly guarding that ledge..."
It's been a while since I've played DS2, but I'm quite certain this is incorrect, as I recall there being three manikins in that area, none of which are particularly near the windmill. They also guard a bonfire, which is very blatantly apparent. Regardless, an enemy being near anything does not automatically draw my attention to anything, especially if there is nothing abnormal or notable about the area to begin with. There are enemies everywhere in Dark Souls, and I cannot think of a single one that is clearly "guarding" anything that wasn't just a glowing item which you know you can interact with.
"...AND there is a developer message that literally says 'try torch' directly in front of the ledge..."
Yes, we've covered how this is not helpful due to the fact that it can only be seen if you:
1. Are a caster
2. Have guidance
3. Have guidance prepared
4. Cast guidance
5. Ever read messages
6. Look in this area specifically and intentionally for a message to read
7. Are aware that this is a developer message and follow its vague instruction
"...that a tough enemy was guarding."
Manikins are not tough, and you fight dozens of them, usually (and also in this instance) in groups. There is nothing remarkable or thought-provoking about this mob.
"It cannot possibly become more obvious than that - TRY TORCH!"
This is the most eye-rolling use of hyperbole I've seen in quite a while. I think it would be ever so slightly more obvious that the windmill can be lit on fire if there was any visual or logical indication that it can be lit on fire, instead of needing to use a specific spell that no one uses and many, maybe even most, players cannot even equip to cast in the first place in order to have a chance of making a message appear telling you to "try torch," which is already vague by default.
The windmill is completely indefensible, and you acting like this extremely niche and obscure mechanic is not only sensible but the most obvious thing ever is preposterous. If burning the windmill did something innocuous or insignificant like opening a hidden door to generic minor loot, then this wouldn't be a big deal. The fact that it's tied to preventing you from taking constant poison damage and (as far as I recall) slowing movement in a boss fight while also healing the boss is ludicrous.
I have never used the guidance spell in my life, even on characters with attunement slots, because it's a waste. Developer messages do not have the space nor the specificity to adequately convey information relevant to my ability to play the game better, and, as far as I know, this is the only instance in the entire franchise where one is tied so directly to an environmental mechanic that cannot be figured out logically simply by looking at it. If the damn windmill was covered in oil and sheets and the torch was something that even made sense to be in the game, then it isn't a stretch to assume a player would put those pieces together. As it stands, it's a very clear error on the part of the developers.
The ogre on the metal door is avoidable if you "knock" on the door with your weapon and quickly move away.
I don't really get the elevator reset complaint... It's so easy to just send them back once you reach the top/bottom by rolling over the button and out the door. AFAIK, there isn't a single elevator in the series that doesn't allow you to do this. And not having the elevators reset adds a sense of consistency to the world. I would agree if you couldn't send them back to their starting positions but you can so I don't get the problem.
rjcripe I think its a problem for him mostly because waiting for elevators to go up or down is quite boring and sending them back up just sort of makes that permanence argument kind of obsolete. Like yeah, it's cool that they stay in the position and you manually have to send it back up to cut down on waiting, but sending it back up is no different than elevators resetting to a position based on where you are on the level, by itself
15:42 - I really have to disagree with this, I know it's intended to be a "Gotcha!" moment but, even in your own example you've included, you had to turn around and walk back in just so that you could be hit by it. It's pretty unbelievable that a majprity of players would be hit with this when you easily avoid it by just walking past it at a normal pace making it pretty uncomparable to the dragon bridge in DaS1.
So far I've really struggled to get in to Dark Souls 2. The combat feels really clunky and I made some questionable decisions building my character. I'm level 60 and still struggling to beat the Pursuer. When I was level 60 on Bloodborne I had almost beaten the game. I was having such a bad time that I immediately put it down and started up Dark Souls 3 and I could not believe how much better it was. I still plan on going back to Dark Souls 2 eventually, but I'm going to start from scratch with a whole new character.
Also it's impossible to fight the Flexile Sentry. Not because it's a hard fight but because I have no idea where it is. No Man's Wharf is too dark to see anything.
Bring a Pharos lockstone with you to No Man's Warf. It lights up the whole level so the low lighting will no longer be an issue.
No man's warf is lowkey one of my favourite areas. Also you can summon an NPC to fight the flexile sentry
@@theoddone887 Thanks. I'll try that on my next playthrough.
I'm with you. I want to love it but the movement and movesets of enemies stop me from doing so.
Git gud
Nah. Just the fact that you can roll in any direction when locked on makes the combat better.
I gotta say, I never felt the same with some of those Gotcha complaints about the first. I knew the game was known to be "the hardest game ever" and since I played a bit of demon souls at my friends house I took every new area as slowly as possible. I noticed the chest out of place and the bloodstains only sealed the deal that it was dangerous. I never fell for one again. The elevator was a lucky accident. I didn't even bother to pay attention and just walked off. But I will say I was too slow a second playthrough and got crushed...but didn't die somehow lol. My biggest issue between the two games is how dying felt. playing through the first game, all my deaths felt like my fault. I often laughed at myself for trying something stupid or getting caught off guard while in the middle of a dangerous area. During bosses, I was eager to return to them to give them another shot cause I knew I could eventually beat them. Oddly enough, death was....fun. When I died in ds2, on the other hand, I often felt cheated and rather than being eager to return to the boss, I would feel frustrated. I didn't have fun dying and instead of that eagerness to overcome a satisfying challenge, it felt like a grind where instead I was relieved upon successfully defeating a boss or area rather than satisfied. This did feel better in the DLC tho (haven't watched that yet and I'm eager to hear your thoughts on it) as fighting sinh was one of the most rewarding fights ever and I was always eager to jump in to give him another shot. But honestly the base game rarely felt that way and to me that is one of its biggest flaws. Death's rarely felt fair or fun but instead were frustrating.
Yes, i feel this so much. Playing through these games for the first time and im 100 hours into 2, only have one dlc left, and I don’t even think it was worth it. Im only continuing out of spite and quarantine boredom at this point.
The Majula music SLAPS it's so memorable
Oh, so it's not just me, I can see you yanking that camera back in place every few steps when running left or right. I could never get over it personally. The game still feels RAW as hell and is full of that janky ass shit.
Regarding the Gotcha bridge in DS1, I think that mainly serves as a callback to Demon's Souls, where you had to endure a series of two or three bridges (guarded by dragons, archers, and those goddamn dogs) within the span of a single small area that lead to a boss room.
I’m sure someone already answered this, but Bloodborne has illusory walls, but only in the Chalice Dungeons. You hit them.
There is another ambush 8:50 in the turtles room where is a door which leads to pursuer. If you climb the broken column hanging above the sea, some mobs will appear behind you on a risky place to fight
Also unlike other souls game I'm pretty sure that the levels and enemies were designed by various people and not the director himself, as far as I can tell Tanimura was merely overseeing the whole thing, I'm not sure he had a strong creative leaning of his own. If the end product is anything to go by, I'd say : nope.
Not sure if I’m in the minority here but I loved my first playthrough of DS2 SOTFS - it’s my favourite early-game section to restart. The Company of Champions is an excellent addition. I wish DS1 got a Scholar-type release. Are there any equivalent mods for it?
There isnt a mod for this sadly.
Great video, loved every minute of it, also just thrwing it out the dark souls 2 is my favorite dark souls game
I admit I'm impressed at how fast your delivery is, I'm not sure if I want you to slow down or not
12:14 It's actually possible to create a shortcut in No-Man's Wharf. Shortly before you make your way to the ship with the Bossfight, walk right instead of straight ahead on the wooden path that leads you to the ship. When you reach the end of this optional path, you are able to kick down a wooden plank, creating a bridge which leads much faster to the bonfire.
Naszur they added that for SOtFS edition which he didn't play. It isn't in the original game. Idk why they didn't have it in the original.
Seems like a No-Brainer to me to have anything like that in No-Man's Wharf or rather everywhere. If you've reached that part, you've proven you can get there, so they should spare you unnecessary amounts of time walking. But thank you for the info, should've know that.
Scholar added more torch mechanics (mostly to Gutter and a short secion of FoFG) and new shortcuts, and removed several of your problems like the snipers at Sinner's Rise and some of the more bullshit Drangleic Castle rooms. There are also things that you simply missed - the switches and the windmill in Earthen Peak actually do change a few things around (not just the boss room poison but several other areas). And some bosses have entirely new features in NG+ which change the dynamics considerably. Also, the added focus on coop is a huge part of the level and boss design.
I like seeing more detailed critique of the game (instead of "it's different from DS1, ergo, it sucks"), but making a video about the base game almost two years after release and ignoring an expansion (regardless of its price) that fixes a lot of your problems feels kind of pointless at this stage. I'd really like to see you analyzing the changes.
Scholar add more bulshit mechanics, the statue are just bad game design and if i remember correctly, scholar add more enemies. There are some fixes but i still think that Scholar in general is not really a good expansion. Hell, even some of the mechanics in the base game didn't fell right. Even of you play with gems+ no lock on the bulshit moment are a little bit to many. Some enemy are just annoying to fight (not difficult, just annoying), some areas are annoying, durability is annoying, some red invasion are annoying, some bosses are annoying
It sort of feels like you down played alot of the problems in this video/in dark souls 2. And I know dlc is the next vid but it bothers me that people even say dlc improves the overall quality of a game. I'm sure some people's first play through was with dlc, but I think its safe to say the majority had already had multiple playthroughs without. You can't get your first experience back. Opinions are already formed, and impressions already made.
I love Dark Souls 2. Come at me, bro!
I love these in-depth commentaries, and find myself agreeing with the majority of the points you're making. Keep working on your recording efforts, you'll find your voice eventually and it won't feel like you're reading a script anymore.
The bridge leading from Dragon Aerie to Dragon Shrine can be destroyed by a dragon if you stand on it for too long. The time needed for this to happen is reduced with every egg you destroy.
thats so interesting!!
The spiked elevator in Sen's Fortress is totally fair. It's uniquely bloodstained on the platform, and the whole thing wobbles ominously as you get to the top, signposting that something bad is about to happen if you stay on. I spotted it my first time
I had no idea what those pools of water near some Pharros locks actually did until now. That's crazy.
I know it's old but at 31:20, I actually saw this ogre from the distance and for some reason I aggro him from afar and got freaked out when he not only broke the whole wall, but also the next wall where I tried to hide. I think in the scholar of the first sin, this wall had a thin whole in it so you could see the ogre before opening the door. Also there were 3 in this corridor.
A big overlooked part of these games are the messages players leave for each other.
I understand your point about learning to fight multiples with a different fighting style, and it's a fair point. But I just can't stand Dark Souls 2's use of multiples. I can fight multiples, but it's so boring. It feels lame. Cheap. It's uncreative. To me it feels like they didn't know how to make the game difficult with duels, so they were like; "fuck it, add more enemies".
I'm the complete opposite. I adore fighting multiple enemies and humanoid enemies. I hate fighting larger than life enemies like DS1 throws at you so often. Also, I feel like there is not a single 1v1 encounter in DS1 that is any fun at all, whereas I found plenty of encounters in DS2, even 1v1's, to be very fun. To me it feels like with DS1 they didn't know how to do anything right *at all* and just made had the whole game built from shitty AI and bad hit registration.
I agree completely. It's a lot of waiting and dodging that isn't interesting bc it isn't consistent, you're just waiting for when their attacks don't sync up. For the other games you learn what the enemy or boss is doing and specifically respond to their patterns.
If you're really good you can beat them quickly, but in DS2 unless you're playing a build with a high power weapon it will just take awhile.
And this isn't just an issue with multiple, it's kind of an issue with the whole design. Take Ancient Dragon, once I learned his moves I beat him without taking a single hit. But it was a slog. You go to his head, bait an attack and run in to hit his foot.
If it's the slow aoe you run away, wait, run back, hit him. Rinse and repeat. Compare to Mydr where you can stay right up in front of him and keep hitting after every attack.
Is there anything harder than the twin pursuers, in the sense of being tedious more so than challenging, in the whole Souls series?
great video man, thanks a bunch
"Spidah" ..lmao!
great video dude!
the spiked elevator in sen's fortress clearly has blood on it to signal danger and the place is full of traps so you can understand something bad will happen there' and the mimic is positioned diaganally to the walls in the room unlike any other chest previously encountered in the game and again the place is full of traps so you should be suspicious of such a change to the chest position which might make you want to examine it closely and at this point you will probably notic te chinn on the side is diferent and the chest is breathing
I would really love to hear your opinion of Scholar of the First Sin with contrast to your opinions of the base game. I enjoyed playing Scholar despite multiple playthroughs of the original game and DLC because the differences are enough to feel new and warrant very different opinions on the level design.
Just leaving a comment for the algorithm. I'm going to write my opinion of DS2 in the next video.
Thanks for the content, very coherent and insightful.
I think they even reduced the amount Mytha heals in poison. I remember that health regen ticking being at least twice as fast.
I agree with how the combat is supposed to be handled, but even when I figured it out I enjoyed the game but a lot less fun that the Miyazaki titiles. Because it was less involved and less interesting to me.
I ended up switching to a greatsword so my single hits did a lot of damage and had a wide span, or I could quickly take out an enemy before the other could respond, which allowed me to stay up close with multiple enemies.
That made the game became significantly easier directly challenging multiples but a lot more tedious. You're just constantly moving from attacks from all directions and just waiting for your moments when they don't sync up or tanking damage.
I remember the moment in the DLC where there are all those invisible knights where you have to destroy their corpses to kill them. That was a neat mechanic. But walking into a room with 5 of them I just sighed. I took out all the corpses and them, but it was just a lot of time and I got bored.
Just the necessity to kill so many also wore me out. I am a fan of this game, don't get me wrong, but it feels so lacking compared to the others; there were never moments I was so elated and accomplished, just decent fun. I don't think I'll ever replay it.
Hey, Louie! What are we gonna do about dat undead spidah!? I mean, c'moooon!
Oh, the blocked path mentioned after the giants in the Gulch, it unlocks based off your "Soul Memory" which is just the total amount of your soul's earned.
Yeah that "gotcha moment" in the lost bastille after Ruin Sentinels got me big time my first play through. I couldn't manage to get my souls back and was super angry.
16:30
Also I love that Game of Thrones reference.
Servebotfrank I doubt that was a legit reference to Game of Thrones.
Do you know about the 5th of November thing
"there were fewer of these moments in dark souls 2".
I dunno, maybe it's the Scholar of the First Sin that's different, but when i played it there were so many "gotcha" moments, to the point it was impossible to avoid being ganked by swarms of enemy. And since the game didn't make a good enough point that the lock on is more trouble than not, i had a miserable time for the most part in this game than any other souls
Agreed. Also: I just feel like my character is glued to the ground in this game. I want to love it so badly. I like the atmosphere more than I like DS3's but the wooden movement just keeps it down.
@@807D14M0ND5 ALso, agreed. I want to like this game more...I've tried playing it 3 times, and may try again soon since it's been a year...but I feel the same way. The changes they made...some were good, some were...well, experimental and some didn't work period. Like the unlimited stamina certain enemies had, like they were whipping around giant foam noodles, it felt really unbalanced. The multiple enemy flanks and ambushes got old too, because I lived by lock-on in the first two games. I can do without it, but certain attacks lack precision when you do that. It's awkward to think that a mechanic in the first two games is pissed away for the second game. It does make it much harder with lock on. The atmosphere and some of the enemy encounters in DSII are great but I feel like it's lacking, like 80 percent of what it should've been.
32:12 I know it's only in Scholar of the First Sin, but the bridge in the Dragon aerie has a dragon that is designed to land on the bridge and destroy it before you can cross it. The dragon will not show up if you don't break any eggs in the area (although I think it will still show up if you're on the bridge for too long), and the more eggs you break the more likely it is that the dragon will appear; you can also break enough eggs that it is guaranteed the dragon will show up. This can be a problem as it forcibly halts progression and requires you to re-load the area by either fast traveling and coming back, or closing and opening the game. Just a note I thought I'd point out.
Every time I go through iron keep I hated the alonne knights b/c they can run light speed towards you and then instantly attack and deal decently high damage. On top of that, they can just keep repeating that attack that has practically no tell. I had a lot of trouble with iron keep until I killed smelter demon
You will hate the run up to the smelter demon rematch then lmao
Right now the upgrade cost 10$ so maybe you could try Scholar and give us your opinion on it? I really enjoyed it more than vanilla, and some areas have been improved.
+Lavos YT Also what you said about the No Man's Wharf shortcut is actually what they did in Scholar
+Lavos YT Buying Scholar outright on Steam today is showing as $20.89. Upgrading to it having already bought Dark Souls 2 + all DLC is $13.99.
That's such a ripoff to me but people seem interested in hearing about it. It's not about money either but the principle of things being priced well.
Joseph Anderson I agree that it was stupid on From's part, but I think the final product itself is great (or at least better than the original, though it's mostly subjective).
+Joseph Anderson Still, $13.99 is chump change considering how many hundreds of hours you might get out of it. A lot of the unfair/annoying parts you take issue with in the first video and in this one have been rectified in Scholar. It looks WAY better, and the enemy placement is completely different. There's a shortcut in No-Man's Wharf. Worth it, considering there are only 4 SoulsBorne games out there and it's the definitive version of one of them.
Jesus man get over it. Thats cheaper than a pizza. This notion of principle is misguided. Game development is a huge process and the companies deserve compensation. Look at all the game companies that go out of business or get shut down all the time. So stop being a tight ass and show your support, especially to a company like From, who have given us hundreds of hours of entertainment.
You didn't touch Covenants (a strength), Soul Memory (a weakness) or Adaptability (a ?).
I find it somewhat strange that you avoid talking about any type of online play.
that Guy Fawkes joke was amazing
I think they fixed that hippo door situation in sotfs cause you can see him through the door and he'll break through if you stand next to it (and I think if you attack him as well)
16:40 "It isn't fair to criticize the sequel for something the first game also does badly"
Bullshit, it's completely fair. A sequel comes after the original, and if the original did it badly, they should have realized it and not repeated the same mistake.
The original isn't/wasn't criticized for it though. That's the whole point of what I was saying there. Otherwise you're right--sequels should always aim to improve on what came before.
+Joseph Anderson 2 sequels late, but it should have been criticized for it then. If I had to guess, peoples love for the first game just overshadowed those parts, and it took being repeated for people to really notice the problem.
22:31 As a Brit, I appreciate the easy shoutout.
Scholar of the First Sin definitely isn't the objective best version I think that's just up to opinion.
It ruins the Pursuer by spamming clones of it everywhere (an abstraction of him pursuing you) and it generally worsens the enemy placement. Oh well, at least it added a proper shortcut for No-Man's Wharf.
You did a great job in taking a step back and looking at the game. I'm a huge fan of both dark souls 1 and 2. Yet I know that both games have their problems. I personally think that for everything that was done wrong in the second game, it's still a very great sequel. It took a lot of what I loved and just gave me more; more weapons, more bosses, more levels, more npcs. and things like being able to dual wield made it so I could have even more varied playthroughs than the first game.
Dark Souls II (with DLC) is my favorite of the series. You may now begin throwing rocks.
I don't think I really enjoyed _playing_ any part of this game, but the lore and the story and some of the characters are truly wonderful, which makes for a very strange experience. DS1 and DS3 feel very impersonal. Your player character is your avatar, and that's it. In DS2, the focus is on the individuals and the tragedy the curse has wrought upon them, which I felt was very engaging and interesting.
I only just found out you could break that door over the bonfire. Neat.
amazing video
No-Man's warf is the perfect example of how badly removing the lighting mechanic damaged the game:
I went through no mans in A LOT of deaths. A ton. And usually my dual wield scimitar was about to run out of durability before I got to the end.
My brother got through it no problem.
He's not that much better than me, he just was using a shield while I really wanted to get down the dual wield mechanic.
So why is no mans so much harder if you don't have a shield? Obviously the entire game is in many ways, but every single enemy in the wharf except the long armed guys becomes trivially easy when you've got a shield, to the point that it felt like it was punishing me for having two weapons.
And then it hit me. The WHOLE area is supposed to be dark. Like can't see far at all dark. You're supposed to be carrying a torch and risking the much more dangerous enemies (and the risk of explosion from the oil throwing enemies, which will cause you to blow up even after being hit if you pull out a torch), while actually being able to see where the hell you are, or trading off your vision for a much easier time with most enemies (other than the long armed dudes) as they all have huge issues with shields. A beginner likely would hobble through swapping between torch and shield and really learn the ins and outs of the mechanics while a pro would blast through the darkness dual wielding a sword. That's GREAT level design.
Suddenly the pharos lockstone that lights up the area doesn't seem like a total waste, but a way to finally use your shield and not be totally blind to all the ambushes (which would be actual ambushes) and wrecked by long armed men.
It's insane to me just how badly that area is harmed by the removal of the light mechanic (basically just an endurance test), and going back through the game with that thought in mind (how did they plan on using light in this area) changes everything. There's torch pyre's around the ENTIRE tutorial likely for the exact reason that you shouldn't be able to see, and to get you used to both 1. using your torch and 2. lighting pyres in important areas.
I think that the pyres were supposed to be like mini bonfires (oh thank god light), to help with the fact that bonfires are now much more linear, but wound up being a literally useless mechanic due to the removal of the lighting system.
+Eji1700
Few other thoughts on the video since there was so much there:
Skeleton lords are more fun/difficult for newer players who tend to not have optimized builds and might get to them quite early, in which case they essentially do have buffed HP.
You can kill the chariot another way (although that's more of an easter egg. You don't need to drop the gate though)
I cannot stress enough, again, that you really should look at a few of these levels with "what would happen if I actually cared about what I could and couldn't see, cared about torches, and cared about pyres to relight them". I think light was supposed to be a MAJOR focus of this game, and that that's why the DLC is better (they knew it wouldn't be so went back to more traditional souls design). I think that's the point of things like lost sinner (especially given you can lighten the room and the NG+ fight) and maybe even covetous demon(who i think can actually steal all your equipment...which is interesting).
I did get the windmill burning on my own, although more because "huh they want me to be right here" and again I think you're supposed to be intimately familiar with using your torch in this game. I did get the moment the windmill stopped what was going on, but only after the fact(windmills are a way to power machinery after all). Again i think this is something that should've been MUCH more obvious if you'd been using your torch a ton.
I really think "light and dark" was supposed to be a huge theme for the game. Iron king and his castle should've been one of the few bright places in the game. Instead the gutter is the only place where it's sorta kinda needed.
Looking glass knight can spawn PLAYER helpers to try and kill you. A gimmick that was misused, but very very cool. Boss fight invasions was a great idea.
Gotcha's- I think they exist simply to say "yes, the game will flat out kill you." I don't mind them as a....value thing. The mimic is shocking. The dragon is shocking. Capra is shocking. The ogre at the end of the game feels out of place and pretty annoying (i killed the fire guy no problem after the ruin sent's). Also I 100% KNEW the elevator was dangerous. Sens is FULL of deadly traps, and you see an elevator covered in blood. I was looking up before I even got on the damn thing.
So again....just imagine if you couldn't see? I think halfway through development they knew it would no longer be a thing, but there's so many area's and bosses who just fall flat because light was supposed to be a major mechanic, and it just isn't.
+Eji1700 I think you're correct. I thought about it a few times while playing but not for every area. I wonder how much different it would have been, and how much was gutted at the end when they realized the lighting couldn't work.
Might be worth looking into it.
The bleeding inflicting monsters are scared of the fire and run away if you carry a torch.
Tf are you talking about? NMW is dark as fuck. I always use a torch in that area.
Wait, wasn't Aldia only in the Scholar of the First Sin version?
As a boss, yes
As lore, no
the pursuer was my first taste at a boss that i was stuck on in the soul series as i started with dark souls 2 first. it's probably my favorite fight in the series to date, kind of sad that he dies to one cross bolt though ..
I use almost nothing but melee builds, and all you need for the Shrine of Amana is to beat the Old Dragonslayer. The Cleric's Parma you get right after makes the Shrine fun as hell as you ricochet glowing magic projectiles all over the place.
I wasn't as impressed with DS2 when it released as I was with DS1. But after playing Elden Ring and having another play through DS2, it still provides that core souls experience you're looking for, even more than Elden Ring. With the DLC packed into the game, its excellent.
I disagree with you on many levels, but the one that I felt the greatest need to comment on is actually the hellkite bridge. See, Dark Souls does some things in rather unconventional ways. While there are certainly moments in both games that I consider “cheap”, and you listed several of them, I only think that when they serve no purpose aside from adding to the death counter. Things like the enemies that attack you the instant you open a door in DS2 and the poison in the Mytha fight are basically just ways the game tries to “get” you. I agree, these are bad. I disagree that Hellkite is one of them.
In Dark Souls, death is a mechanic of its own. It is not exclusively a punishment but a tool that From uses to create the experience that they’re after. A forced death is not necessarily a moment of cheapness where the game just tries to laugh in your face as it attempts to live up to the “prepare to die” slogan; it can be used to create a carefully designed moment of tension or to some other effect. Hellkite and Seath are the two best examples of this in Dark Souls 1. Super Bunnyhop touched on this in his video on the level design throughout the series, but essentially, there are two important things to consider in the Hellkite example that set it apart. The first is that it comes very early in the game. The second is that it comes almost immediately after a boss. Also worth noting is that the player is likely to die immediately after having met Solaire - that’s not wholly relevant, though.
Anyway, the effect as a whole is an interesting one for the first-time player. They’ve just killed a boss and despite their (probably) very careful play, they manage to die, leaving a giant heap of souls sitting behind the gauntlet that is the Undead Burg. This creates a sense of frustration, but more importantly it creates an unbelievable amount of tension. The player is then tested on the knowledge they’ve acquired about the Undead Burg throughout their runs of it with the extra burden of knowing that a shitload of souls are on the line if they die. As a result the segment tests not only their knowledge of the area, but their ability to keep a level head when they know they could lose a ton of souls. This is an important skill to develop for the rest of the game, for what should be fairly obvious reasons - anyone playing through this for the first time is likely to die a lot, sometimes when carrying a lot of souls.
All of this creates a unique experience that wouldn’t be possible without a forced death. And it’s not even *technically* forced either - you can easily run through the area once you know what’s going on. I think that the scorch marks and bloodstains are more intended as a teaching moment than anything else, as the game uses similar telegraphs for things like the first mimic and the elevator in sen’s fortress. I think you’re supposed to notice the signs of the moment AFTER having died to it once, and then you know to watch out for environmental cues in the future.
Seath’s first encounter is a somewhat weaker example, but one worth noting nonetheless. In this case, the forced death (and it actually IS “forced” this time, something important to note, and really IMO only acceptable because it’s no longer close to the start of the game) is designed to piss you off and make you immediately start trying to figure out how to overcome the bastard’s invincibility, which the game then does an excellent job of allowing you to do after you break out of the prison Seath puts you in (which is another way that the game tries to make you hate the guy), assuming that you were thorough and you rescued Logan in Sen’s Fortress. It’s a beautiful moment of catharsis when you smash the crystal and the guy proceeds to go down without all that much of a fight - it’s one of the easier bosses in the game, and I think that was intentional, in order to show just how painfully weak he is without his precious crystal.
These two “forced” deaths have a purpose and they are important elements in crafting the experience that made Dark Souls 1 a masterpiece. I’m on the fence about the mimics, but I do think that the initial encounter is more justified in DS1 than it is in DS2 strictly based on the fact that it takes place in a building littered with traps left and right; the idea is that the player should be suspicious of literally *everything*, and the way the game places the chest with bloodstains around it (something that should now raise a red flag after the Hellkite encounter) makes the mimic far more telegraphed than the first one in 2 (or 3, for that matter, though 3’s is placed far more out of the way), and thus I consider it to be a good deal more acceptable. Whether it’s entirely acceptable or not, again, is something I’m on the fence with. It’s telegraphed decently and teaches the player to be suspicious of chests, but it doesn’t do much more than that and it doesn’t contribute to a designed experience the way Hellkite and Seath do. The drop in the undead asylum doesn’t actually kill you, it just throws you into a boss fight with less health than normal and forces you to react quickly - this is mitigated by the boss being nearly identical to the literal first boss in the entire game. I certainly wouldn’t call it a “gotcha” moment. If you do, then you absolutely must consider the guy who bursts through the door in Huntsman’s Copse to be a gotcha moment, as it’s essentially the same thing mechanically speaking.
I have other qualms with the video as a whole, but I’d rather not discuss them now. This comment is already a goddamn essay and I’d need to basically make a video of my own to address all of the points you made that I take issue with. Still I think it’s a good analysis video, though I would’ve liked to see you break down the minute-to-minute level design a bit more, as I feel that it’s atrocious enough to deserve it. Particularly in Iron Keep and Shrine of Amana. No idea how you can possibly consider those two areas passable. But that’s just my two cents. Although it’s more like 8 dollars at this point, lol.
Hey sorry to notify you 8 months later but I'd like to discuss your (and Super Bunnyhop's) interpretation of why the Hellkite bridge killing people forcefully is good design. I think it would be awesome if From had designed that bridge with those intentions in mind, to create a large amount of tension for a new player who knows all those souls are gone the next time he dies. But I just don't think that was their intention with the bridge. My reasoning is this: After the undead burg bonfire, almost every single fight afterwards contains multiple enemies. Now for more experienced players, the run from Undead Burg to the bridge is laughably easy, but for a new player they can easily make mistakes that could get them killed. Be it at the enemies just outside the bonfire room, the room with three enemies after the door, the three enemies right before the shortcut door, or all of the shield enemies in that tight corner with a crossbow one behind him (if they didn't kill him). I just think that for a new player, the odds of death at that point **even after** killing the boss is high enough that they would probably die, get very frustrated at the game, and impulsively regard the game as not good from that point onwards. It would **feel** unfair to them, since just getting through the area once without dying doesn't mean you can't die to it again. It's hard for me to believe that their intentions was to create a lot of tension, even though I would applaud them if it were.
All that being said, I've played through the game so many times now and never once have I ever died at that bridge moment. I also knew about the staircase however so maybe that's why (I've never actually run back to Solaire after the dragon burns me either, but I've also never died to the dragon so). Given my experiences I don't think it's very unfair at all, you should know what to expect from the obvious burn marks and, if online, you should see a ton of bloodstains.
I agree with most of your other points in the comment, though. The mimic, the Iron Keep and Amana qualms, other parts of the video that I don't understand how he could think.
As a guy who played DS2 first and is quite fond of it I gotta say that this is the most adequate critique of the game. Good job, my man, really good job.
I would also point out the differences in DX11 scholar version just for the sake of it in the order that they are relevant in the video (can't name all of them so I will just name encounters that you specifically mentioned as the different enemy placement can be relevant to the points made)
Heide knights are moved to heides tower of flame, they are passive when you first enter, will agro if attack and respawn if you rest at bonfire (1 is in a prison cell in Bastille before Sinner another is in the gutter, neither respawn but both have to be attacked for them to agro), they will get up and wander around the level after the dragonrider is killed and have fairly large agro range. A smaller guardian dragon is added before the dragonslayer bossfight (personally I would say this is also a gotcha moment as the dragon can be a pain to fight if you wake it up by going too far up the stairs while fighting an enemy and if you don't intend to use ranged attacks, but trivial if you just sprint to him as he is waking up)
In no mans ward there is a shortcut back to the first wooden platform exactly to where the pile of shit is
Lost Bastille has 4 optional Pursuer fights, a sound plays when he spawns, he rises out of the fog in the ground same as his post first encounter at his boss fight room in FotFG, all these encounters can be avoided by just running a little distance away, he despawns and won't reappear until you rest at a bonfire (he also appears at the gender changing coffin in the tutorial area [you now need a fragrant branch to even get to the last tutorial fog door], these are an addition to his vanilla encounters and not a replacement for them)
The sinners rise bonfire now only has 1 crossbowman, he is still annoying but if you just run to the ladder he can't hurt you
The run to the sinner now includes a non-boss Flexile sentry, the malformed things are in NG+ and beyond only
Since you show footage of the pre-LGK hallway I will mention it here, there are only the statues there now
Not that it would ever really be relevant but with the DX11 version if you have the item from the third DLC that lets you see invisible enemies then you can also see and lock on to the shaded enemies in shaded woods as if they were normal
Mimics in general have been moved around to be in different places but your point applies the same, just maybe at a different time depending on when a player encounters their first mimic
Small Evil Tent Town is now occupied by the falconer enemies that you would normally see at the start of a NG+ run in things betwix right after spawning
Iron Keep got a pretty hefty rework to the way enemies work, there are now 3 archers total before the Smelter boss fight (1 in the first room, 1 on the bridge, 1 on the elevated platform that you can reach if you go straight rather than take a right to cross the bridge, it is now much easier to clear with an all melee build with the only real annoying one being the one on the bridge before you lower one end of it) The knights themselves seem to have different agro mechanics to the rest of the game, as soon as you pass a certain thershold in the level all the knights assigned to that area proceed to path towards the player (the difference from norm here is that they will agro and start moving even if you are behind multiple walls) if the player stands his ground upon passing one of these invisible markers then the knights will trickle in 1 by 1 with usually around 10 seconds between each knight, if a player tries to just rush to the boss door or thinks they have killed all the knights without actually doing so they will end up being blindsided by as many as 4 knights.
The area past Smelter is mostly the same with the knights going back to far more traditional agro mechanics.
Grave of Saints is skippable with just the ring
If pulled all the way to the entrance of the cave the giants can be separated from each other (not entirely sure if this is a scholar only thing, don't think so but its worth mentioning anyway)
Shrine of winter (not a scholar change per se but relevant if you have all the DLCs) the 1 million SM/4 great souls option becomes more relevant if you have all the DLCs or scholar, since 2 of the DLC areas can be accessed after beating their respective paths (rotten and OIK) meaning that it's far easier for new players to accidentally skip one or more of the 4 great soul paths (from what I have seen and heard it's most common for people to accidentally skip Shaded woods->Freja as they have enough SM to just get to castle drangleic on their first trip to shrine of winter)
Castle Dragnleic, the armored elephants are moved closer to where you see emerald herald and are now skippable if you sprint far enough past them, there are multiple royal swordsmen with crossbows that serve as the obvious method for operating the soul powered golem things, pretty much all the enemies are fightable 1v1 by moving carefully but can easily turn into multi enemy encounters if a player walks too close to statues as they are fighting previous ones
The room right after the kings gate bonfire has had significant changes, there are far fewer of the stone statues that actually come alive and it is possible to only agro 1 ruin sentinel at a time if you move around the level carefully enough (one has to slowly walk up to a door without going too close to the opening, the ruin sentinel on the OTHER side of the room will agro, and the player can now fight that 1 sentinel at the start of the room, this method is somewhat tedious but entirely reliable and worth mentioning). There is also a shade summon at the end of the room whos sign is triggered by activating the right torch holding soul golem
The only case in which 2 stone statues activate at once with no means of avoiding it is if the player approaches the progression door in the sentinels room
The rooftop encounter with 3 allone captains is now 1 captain and 1 gargoyle who wakes up after the captain dies
The statue room with the golem now has more statues but none of them come alive there are 2 mannequins in the next room one of who must be lured over to the golem and killed to activate it
There is an executioners chariot in the big room afterwards he does not respawn, the same room has also had a rework with other enemies, right on top of the stairs where it braches to left and right is an Old Knight from heides with a bell he can be fought 1v1 with no issues provided the chariot is dead both of the upper areas have 1 old knight with a greatsword each, however if you go to one the other agroes as well, it is possible to kill one before the other reaches you. There are 2 chests, 1 is a mimic that's it for the enemies (non respawning chariot, non respawning mimic, 1 hammer old knight, 2 UGS old knights)
LGK hallway was mentioned before
LGK himself, it's worth mentioning that the player summoning mechanic was moved from a NG+ only feature to regular NG (If a player puts down a red soapstone sign anywhere in the castle, the LGK can summon that player instead of an NPC for the fight)
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Shrine of amana, the long tongue things in the water have yellow sprites hovering above them if the singing ladies are alive, too many of the archrdrakes and spell ladies have been moved around to list, but the feeling is the same, you will constantly have to either cheese with ranged attacks to pull archdrakes/snipe the spell ladies or you try to fight the archdrakes with melee only while getting magic shot at you
There is also a respawning dragonrider normal enemy on the bridge that leads to the door with the Kings soul and set (he despawns without needing to kill him at all if you kill Vendric)
The last hallway to Velstatd now has 3 potential hollows that can ring the bell 2 syan knights and 1 non respawning dragonrider, the Syans can be agroed without agroing the Dragonrider by just walking close enough but not too close
Aldias Keep you can now see the first Ogre through a window in the first double door, you can't see the one that does the exact same thing behind the third door.
Dragon aerie is now entirely skippable the ladder is down from the get go and the path you would normally take is blocked by a statue (you can clear the area in reverse if you don't have a branch, it has 7 or more crystal lizards)
Dragon Shrine also got a rework there are now humonoid enemies wearing the set you gain using the dragon torso and head stone wielding different weapons, the way they work is interesting and I will describe why in a second
There are now 3 mandatory 1v1 fights withe Drake Keeper giant enemies, a sword and shield one right after the bonfire, the giant mace bell thing one right after than and 1 UGS one guarding the door that leads to the giant staircase (no more spell caster enemies at all) the shield + hammer guy still guards the door to the egg and third dragon ring)
The gold dragon armor wearing normal sized enemies will do the "duel bow" gesture upon seeing the player, and will ignore you UNLESS you attack them or try to ignore the giant Drake Keepers. If a player does not use summons and just wants to clear the area then they will have to fight 3 Drake Keepers with 1 optional fight if they try to explore.
The stairs now have something like 10 of the gold armored normal sized dragon dudes, the last hallway to the dragon has 3 more. The stairs also have 1 patrolling non-respawning dragon guy who will agro the player, attempting to ignore him and rush to the dragon will agro everyone else but killing him does not. This area now enforces "honorable one on one" fights with the drake keepers with the punishment of being attack and chased by the smaller guys if you try to ignore the giants
It should also be mentioned that if the player breaks too many eggs then the eggs a timer is started, if the timer expires the flying guardian dragons will break the bride leading up to the dragon shrine, killing the player if they were on it at the time, it resets when the player dies/rests at a bonfire (I am fairly sure this was also in the base game)
Again this doesn't cover all the changes Scholar made, just the ones that would be relevant to the points you touched on in the game
Thanks for reading all the way through if anyone actually bothered.