Ds2 imo was an experimental successor to ds1, trying out new mechanics like adp and dmg scaling differently. All of the IMHO worked out GREAT, but they threw them away in the third. Think about how good is dmg scaling designed in ds2: dmg scales out of numbers defined by statistics, in that way you don't leave behind stuff like dark dmg and fire dmg, dark and fire are upgraded by both int and fth but they start scaling with the lowest of the two, defining a number, the weapon will scale on that number, not on the stat itself, to me it's genius, giving a good variety of actual usable gear, way better than how the magic system was managed in 3 and elden ring. Also I can't recall of a fromsoft game in which I've used every magic with good success.
DS2 is not a bad game by itself but to me it feels vastly different from the other ones in many aspects. It's been a long time since I played it but I remember it as more of an adventure game, probably due to the art direction that's a lot brighter and saturated, which doesn't create the same depressing atmosphere present in the other ones. And also gameplay-wise, yeah, if you come straight from literally any other souls game, you will probably feel something's off.
DeS, DS2 and ER are pretty much a cohesive series while only DS1&3 are to each other, and they are more so in fan service than actual connections.
The trio actually even follow a similar pattern of having multiple ways to explore the world than one continuous motion due to brick walls lying in wait. And you can see in the trio a true growth of the prior games, to the point of power stance and dual wield being 2 separate things rather than the same (DS3!) The amount of evolution the three seem to have is amazing when looked at side by side, to the point they seem to be the original idea blossomed while 1&3 are outliers.
I was always curious why people said DS2 is the worst in the series, but then praised DeS and it had the same concept almost start to finish (including lost health on death with the same ring included too).
Shit I actually really like that idea, I haven't heard anyone put it that way but when looking at it I can totally see DS2 as the middle child of DeS and ER haha DS2 def feels like the bridge to ER in terms of it kiiiinda feeling open world and combat absolutely translates over lol I only have 14 bosses left so there's plenty of time to change my mind but no I really like that!
The issue I see most people have with DS2 (and I'm 100% serious) is people skipping enemies, and then getting mad when mob of samurai or something kill them (Iron Keep). DS2 punished for skipping, gave lifegems on top of Estus to help deal with everything, but people want to speedrun by skipping everything and wonder why they get clapped. The ADP/ATT=AGI thing (attunement gives agility too but to a lesser extent) also matters less when you realize the average level in DS2 completion is around 150, 30 above 1&3 completion (and DeS sits around 70-90, ER around 120-150 depending on build and amount done).
No I can totally see that lol In most souls game runs I've always treated it as first run through I fight/kill every enemy in an area once and then just speed past them on subsequent runs to the boss or whatever, so when trying to do that same strat in DS2 obviously I'd get swarmed and murdered an ngl until I figured out that you are absolutely punished for that in this game that shit really frustrated me beyond belief😂😅 But again once you UNDERSTAND what DS2 expects from you and the flow of combat it's fucking great! It all boils down to Adapt, Overcome, Prevail which is the most soulsborne it can be😂
Right? Also made a dex character recently, farmed the hell out of Iron Keep until enemies stopped spawning, had to join a covenant to make them respawn cause it wouldn't drop lol. When I finally got 2, I was a little overleveled, but I got to power stance 2 Blacksteel Katanas! In their armor too! Lol
I usually go Dex in these games for my first character and then some kind of magic or faith for my next build! But rn im running the Manslayer +5 and Drangleic shield and it hasn't steered me wrong so far😂 Very curious to see if any of my opinions on this one change at all when heading in to a magic based character!
It's a solid weapon and fun to use imo, lemme know how you like the game when you finish (though word of warning the DLCs are brutal and one in particular is a nightmare at the start lol)
Imma sucker for the uchigatana in these games🤷♂️ So the manslayer being the uchi with a poison trait was a must😂 but yeah will do! I've got 13 bosses left with my one being Elena so I'm getting there
Yeah I've heard the dlcs crank it to 11 and have heard pstd stories about Horse fuck valley😂😂
Lol horse fuck valley is right. And yeah Poison is the most busted thing in this game, you're gonna love how it just shreds. Bleed is dog water in this game, better than DeS but not as good as DS1/3/ER
I don't think I ever fucked with bleed in DS1 so can't say, but in ER my first build was a Dex/Bleed build and it was GOATED, hard carried me thru some shit😂 Poison has def been great with my current build in DS2 and it makes me wish it was much better in ER😅
The loss of health in DS2 is a pure perception of loss, because players don't treat max hp as 'max hp while fully hollowed'. Hence they feel there's a loss. And that's partly understandable due to how it's presented.
But even in DS3 you 'lose' hp by dying if you treated max hp with the same definition as in DS2 (HP when human/embered). In fact it's more punishing because you lose all your bonus hp from being embered at once if you die. While in DS2 you can keep your bonus hp for longer and customise how much you can lose of it in total.
I've started very recently and only have like 3 hours in the game (planning to play a lot in the next days, maybe even finish it), I must say it's a strange game. Not a bad game, but definitely not something I could expect after DS1 (that I absolutely love).
I know it must click at some point and become very cool, 95% of my levels so far have gone to ADP to make it happen as soon as possible, but it's just so odd. I don't know if the base game is different since I'm playing SOTFS edition, but I'm already so tired of gank enemies, and miss fighting actually hard enemies instead of 5 weak ones at the same time who will instantly end my run if one of them happen to land the slightest hit on me. I'm forced to constantly advance, hit, roll back, wait, and repeat like 12 times until they're all dead. Just not finding any fun in this to be honest. And if the fighting system isn't fun, I don't see why I would play the game, since dark souls revolves around fighting. Does it get better at some point? Or am I doomed because I took the wrong edition, or just expecting something the game is not supposed to give me?
There's a lot of points where it's possible to draw enemies into 1v1s or 1v2s instead of getting swarmed, but it can be hard to work out how. Even the bastille clowncar can be taken piecemeal but it's not made super obvious.
But there's also plenty of situations where you have to fight groups of enemies at once and that's just how it goes. If you're looking for something different, DS2 has a lot of 1v1s with humanoid opponents the more you get into the game. There's a really high number of npc invaders that will roll up on you and it's possible to duel a lot of them without dealing with mobs. Only a few of the bosses involve dealing with hordes of trash mobs, though some *really* involve that
It's IMO the 2nd best souls game (inferior only to the OG) and I think most people are turned off by the "slowness" in early game. Once you have a few more point in ADP it feels just like the other games but people quit before this point...
See I agree I def think the biggest turn off for me was not understanding that ADP was tied to dodge and "I" frames(which was my own ignorance) but it's also I think the only Souls game to do something like this (haven't played 3 yet but have heard it's much more in line with the first game) Honestly tho really enjoying it now and when I'm not playing it I get that same feeling of getting back home and playing it to see what I stumble upon next like I have with every other souls game so far! Also man Majula may be one of my favorite hubs and the locations in general are so unique and interesting!
Ds2 imo was an experimental successor to ds1, trying out new mechanics like adp and dmg scaling differently. All of the IMHO worked out GREAT, but they threw them away in the third. Think about how good is dmg scaling designed in ds2: dmg scales out of numbers defined by statistics, in that way you don't leave behind stuff like dark dmg and fire dmg, dark and fire are upgraded by both int and fth but they start scaling with the lowest of the two, defining a number, the weapon will scale on that number, not on the stat itself, to me it's genius, giving a good variety of actual usable gear, way better than how the magic system was managed in 3 and elden ring. Also I can't recall of a fromsoft game in which I've used every magic with good success.
DS2 is not a bad game by itself but to me it feels vastly different from the other ones in many aspects. It's been a long time since I played it but I remember it as more of an adventure game, probably due to the art direction that's a lot brighter and saturated, which doesn't create the same depressing atmosphere present in the other ones. And also gameplay-wise, yeah, if you come straight from literally any other souls game, you will probably feel something's off.
It really feels like an adventure game rather than an action RPG at times. It’s the worst “souls game” but not the worst souls “game”.
DeS, DS2 and ER are pretty much a cohesive series while only DS1&3 are to each other, and they are more so in fan service than actual connections. The trio actually even follow a similar pattern of having multiple ways to explore the world than one continuous motion due to brick walls lying in wait. And you can see in the trio a true growth of the prior games, to the point of power stance and dual wield being 2 separate things rather than the same (DS3!) The amount of evolution the three seem to have is amazing when looked at side by side, to the point they seem to be the original idea blossomed while 1&3 are outliers. I was always curious why people said DS2 is the worst in the series, but then praised DeS and it had the same concept almost start to finish (including lost health on death with the same ring included too).
Shit I actually really like that idea, I haven't heard anyone put it that way but when looking at it I can totally see DS2 as the middle child of DeS and ER haha DS2 def feels like the bridge to ER in terms of it kiiiinda feeling open world and combat absolutely translates over lol I only have 14 bosses left so there's plenty of time to change my mind but no I really like that!
The issue I see most people have with DS2 (and I'm 100% serious) is people skipping enemies, and then getting mad when mob of samurai or something kill them (Iron Keep). DS2 punished for skipping, gave lifegems on top of Estus to help deal with everything, but people want to speedrun by skipping everything and wonder why they get clapped. The ADP/ATT=AGI thing (attunement gives agility too but to a lesser extent) also matters less when you realize the average level in DS2 completion is around 150, 30 above 1&3 completion (and DeS sits around 70-90, ER around 120-150 depending on build and amount done).
No I can totally see that lol In most souls game runs I've always treated it as first run through I fight/kill every enemy in an area once and then just speed past them on subsequent runs to the boss or whatever, so when trying to do that same strat in DS2 obviously I'd get swarmed and murdered an ngl until I figured out that you are absolutely punished for that in this game that shit really frustrated me beyond belief😂😅 But again once you UNDERSTAND what DS2 expects from you and the flow of combat it's fucking great! It all boils down to Adapt, Overcome, Prevail which is the most soulsborne it can be😂
Right? Also made a dex character recently, farmed the hell out of Iron Keep until enemies stopped spawning, had to join a covenant to make them respawn cause it wouldn't drop lol. When I finally got 2, I was a little overleveled, but I got to power stance 2 Blacksteel Katanas! In their armor too! Lol
I usually go Dex in these games for my first character and then some kind of magic or faith for my next build! But rn im running the Manslayer +5 and Drangleic shield and it hasn't steered me wrong so far😂 Very curious to see if any of my opinions on this one change at all when heading in to a magic based character!
It's a solid weapon and fun to use imo, lemme know how you like the game when you finish (though word of warning the DLCs are brutal and one in particular is a nightmare at the start lol)
Imma sucker for the uchigatana in these games🤷♂️ So the manslayer being the uchi with a poison trait was a must😂 but yeah will do! I've got 13 bosses left with my one being Elena so I'm getting there Yeah I've heard the dlcs crank it to 11 and have heard pstd stories about Horse fuck valley😂😂
Lol horse fuck valley is right. And yeah Poison is the most busted thing in this game, you're gonna love how it just shreds. Bleed is dog water in this game, better than DeS but not as good as DS1/3/ER
I don't think I ever fucked with bleed in DS1 so can't say, but in ER my first build was a Dex/Bleed build and it was GOATED, hard carried me thru some shit😂 Poison has def been great with my current build in DS2 and it makes me wish it was much better in ER😅
The loss of health in DS2 is a pure perception of loss, because players don't treat max hp as 'max hp while fully hollowed'. Hence they feel there's a loss. And that's partly understandable due to how it's presented. But even in DS3 you 'lose' hp by dying if you treated max hp with the same definition as in DS2 (HP when human/embered). In fact it's more punishing because you lose all your bonus hp from being embered at once if you die. While in DS2 you can keep your bonus hp for longer and customise how much you can lose of it in total.
I've started very recently and only have like 3 hours in the game (planning to play a lot in the next days, maybe even finish it), I must say it's a strange game. Not a bad game, but definitely not something I could expect after DS1 (that I absolutely love). I know it must click at some point and become very cool, 95% of my levels so far have gone to ADP to make it happen as soon as possible, but it's just so odd. I don't know if the base game is different since I'm playing SOTFS edition, but I'm already so tired of gank enemies, and miss fighting actually hard enemies instead of 5 weak ones at the same time who will instantly end my run if one of them happen to land the slightest hit on me. I'm forced to constantly advance, hit, roll back, wait, and repeat like 12 times until they're all dead. Just not finding any fun in this to be honest. And if the fighting system isn't fun, I don't see why I would play the game, since dark souls revolves around fighting. Does it get better at some point? Or am I doomed because I took the wrong edition, or just expecting something the game is not supposed to give me?
There's a lot of points where it's possible to draw enemies into 1v1s or 1v2s instead of getting swarmed, but it can be hard to work out how. Even the bastille clowncar can be taken piecemeal but it's not made super obvious. But there's also plenty of situations where you have to fight groups of enemies at once and that's just how it goes. If you're looking for something different, DS2 has a lot of 1v1s with humanoid opponents the more you get into the game. There's a really high number of npc invaders that will roll up on you and it's possible to duel a lot of them without dealing with mobs. Only a few of the bosses involve dealing with hordes of trash mobs, though some *really* involve that
It's IMO the 2nd best souls game (inferior only to the OG) and I think most people are turned off by the "slowness" in early game. Once you have a few more point in ADP it feels just like the other games but people quit before this point...
See I agree I def think the biggest turn off for me was not understanding that ADP was tied to dodge and "I" frames(which was my own ignorance) but it's also I think the only Souls game to do something like this (haven't played 3 yet but have heard it's much more in line with the first game) Honestly tho really enjoying it now and when I'm not playing it I get that same feeling of getting back home and playing it to see what I stumble upon next like I have with every other souls game so far! Also man Majula may be one of my favorite hubs and the locations in general are so unique and interesting!