In defense of Dark Souls 2

[CaptainMarvelous]

snip

You either haven't spent enough time with the game or your are winging it with your points above.

Throne duo revival adds a layer of complexity to the battle. You can't focus on one and then let loose on the second. O&S had the opposite dynamic as the second regained all health anyways. I think it is pretty obvious which is the more interesting mechanic.

I'd take O&S, because:

1. The bosses actually feel like they were designed.
2. I don't feel the battle is needlessly extended by having to tip-toe around the two.

I don't accept this "you have to kill them at the same time" as an mechanic that justifies a fight that boils down to a waiting game unless you've summoned allies for it.

The Gargoyles have the same thing going that they did in DkS1. Once one falls under 50% health another joins the battle. And with the numbers in DkS2 it becomes critical that you pick your shots and finish off one before inviting more to the party. In NG+ this is perhaps the best battle in the game. 4kings is similar in the sense that the clock is ticking before the next shows up. But again, which is more interesting?

Having to juggle enemies is not a new mechanic. It's not interesting to add more enemies to the fray continuously. What makes the battle any better on NG+? I did it on NG+ and I thought it was just as boring.

Nashandra's purple pillars curse you. They can be broken by rolling through just right. Something I have not seen in other boss fights.

...

So what? It's one attack.

Overall the bosses are diverse and interesting. DkS1 bosses were meh at best. (again, until the DLC. Artorias is da man!)

Gonna have to try harder than that to convince me.

Oh i know better than trying to convince you. I write for the random readers that might take your drizzle at face value and i pretty much made my point.

I have no problem with you liking DkS1. Just listing the bosses as a reason is very hard for my brain to process. They were weak sauce.

Hold up, are you really citing Throne Watcher and Defender as being more interesting due to juggling?

Alright then, counter question: Ornstein and Smough, which do you kill first? Whichever you beat, the other gets their powers and their health restored. Is it easier to fight Orn with a butt-drop or Smough with lightning? Rather than "oop, that guy has low health, best switch to the other" it's "OK, I have to avoid that one so I can kill this guy first otherwise I'll waste Estus since the other one gets all his health back", it requires a decision. Watcher and Defender just requires you to avoid finishing one off until you've done the other one.

And the gargoyles? Y'know why it worked in Dark Souls 1? It was the second real boss and it came out of nowhere. That second spawning one was even a surprise. Dark Souls 2 version is the same exact fight with the 4 Kings pattern of spawning over time not damage. It's not similar, it's identical.

While we're on the subject of bosses, I generally felt the ones in Dark Souls were consistent and made sense (i.e. the demons are all from Izalith, meant to be imitations of life, hellkites and drakes are like impersonations of dragons because true dragons are different, etc) while in Dark Souls 2 they seem to have little rhyme or reason, save the ones who are clearly meant to be Dark Soul 1 tributes. I mean, between covetous demon and demon of song, what's the deal with demons in Drangeleic?

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

I'm currently replaying Dark Souls and running through Dark Souls 2 NGP for the DLC, and my opinion of which is better is going back and forth like a see-saw.

The one thing that I'm 100% certain of is that DS1 is a far more coherent game than DK2, and note that coherent does not strictly mean better designed. By coherent I mean that the game's areas fit together as part of a whole, and since Dark Souls relies on telling it's story through the environment, this means the story is fairly coherent too. The inverse is true of DS2; the levels feel disjointed, and thus the story feels vague and incoherent.

With that said, I'm pretty sure DS2 doesn't have any areas as hysterically poorly designed as Demon Ruins/Lost Izalith.

I dunno, The Gutter? It's a complete rip off of Blighttown but without the lighting effects that were vital to making it an interesting area in their planning stages. Hell, the existence of TORCHES is poor design since it's no longer even useful.

 

[joest01]

snip

You either haven't spent enough time with the game or your are winging it with your points above.

Throne duo revival adds a layer of complexity to the battle. You can't focus on one and then let loose on the second. O&S had the opposite dynamic as the second regained all health anyways. I think it is pretty obvious which is the more interesting mechanic.

I'd take O&S, because:

1. The bosses actually feel like they were designed.
2. I don't feel the battle is needlessly extended by having to tip-toe around the two.

I don't accept this "you have to kill them at the same time" as an mechanic that justifies a fight that boils down to a waiting game unless you've summoned allies for it.

The Gargoyles have the same thing going that they did in DkS1. Once one falls under 50% health another joins the battle. And with the numbers in DkS2 it becomes critical that you pick your shots and finish off one before inviting more to the party. In NG+ this is perhaps the best battle in the game. 4kings is similar in the sense that the clock is ticking before the next shows up. But again, which is more interesting?

Having to juggle enemies is not a new mechanic. It's not interesting to add more enemies to the fray continuously. What makes the battle any better on NG+? I did it on NG+ and I thought it was just as boring.

Nashandra's purple pillars curse you. They can be broken by rolling through just right. Something I have not seen in other boss fights.

...

So what? It's one attack.

Overall the bosses are diverse and interesting. DkS1 bosses were meh at best. (again, until the DLC. Artorias is da man!)

Gonna have to try harder than that to convince me.

Oh i know better than trying to convince you. I write for the random readers that might take your drizzle at face value and i pretty much made my point.

I have no problem with you liking DkS1. Just listing the bosses as a reason is very hard for my brain to process. They were weak sauce.

Hold up, are you really citing Throne Watcher and Defender as being more interesting due to juggling?

Alright then, counter question: Ornstein and Smough, which do you kill first? Whichever you beat, the other gets their powers and their health restored. Is it easier to fight Orn with a butt-drop or Smough with lightning? Rather than "oop, that guy has low health, best switch to the other" it's "OK, I have to avoid that one so I can kill this guy first otherwise I'll waste Estus since the other one gets all his health back", it requires a decision. Watcher and Defender just requires you to avoid finishing one off until you've done the other one.

And the gargoyles? Y'know why it worked in Dark Souls 1? It was the second real boss and it came out of nowhere. That second spawning one was even a surprise. Dark Souls 2 version is the same exact fight with the 4 Kings pattern of spawning over time not damage. It's not similar, it's identical.

While we're on the subject of bosses, I generally felt the ones in Dark Souls were consistent and made sense (i.e. the demons are all from Izalith, meant to be imitations of life, hellkites and drakes are like impersonations of dragons because true dragons are different, etc) while in Dark Souls 2 they seem to have little rhyme or reason, save the ones who are clearly meant to be Dark Soul 1 tributes. I mean, between covetous demon and demon of song, what's the deal with demons in Drangeleic?

I am not going to argue O&S was a good boss battle. it was the only one in DkS1 that deserves that title though. But yes, the throne duo is a better battle. Camera, movement, and I would still argue the revival mechanic, are improved. But yes, that you can opt to do smough first in NG+ is an interesting twist. I guess you actually have to to get some of the gear (I seem to remember even wearing his baggy pants occasionally, they werent bad)

And no, the gargoyles spawn based on damage. I beat them in DkS1 quickly every time. I cannot say that about NG+ in DkS2. It forced me to be much more surgical in how I need to focus and finish off before getting swarmed. Now, the stupid wannabe pvp on the way there? If you want to pick at the game. That's a good place to start.

The only intersting dragon in DkS1 was in the DLC. And in terms of lore they actually play a more important role this time as far as I can tell.

 

[Riotguards]

There is no artificial difficulty outside of the Ancient Dragon. Secondly, putting more ambushes is completely fine as its far easier to make a maneuverable build now, and you can move a lot more free anywho.

i never said anything about ambushes being bad, ambushes which take you by surprise are far more interesting than a stack of the same monster placed willy nilly in a hallway, take for example the walkway to King vendrick, you have a hallway filled with no more than 8 (or more) syan knights or 4 - 8 blue ghosts, that's not what i would call fun, i call it a blatant attempt at trying to make it harder than interesting

i'm not sure what you meant by "maneuverable build", are you referring to the increased I-frames of agility or simply faster weapons, if the former then in all honesty it just messes up what the souls games had going for them before

the latter however was already implemented, if you wanted a heavy weapon but mobility, you'd rock a favour ring and no armour, etc, etc

And the walkway to the Lost Sinner location!? Its like the easiest part of the whole game. Unless you play as an encumbered spell caster who thinks Vigor and shields are for pussies, that area is piss easy for practically every type of build one could imagine. Your saying shit like that when Dark Souls 1 had the god damn Anor Londo archers. Fuck, its possible to beat that area just by jogging through it.

this was my bad, when i said undead asylum i was referring to undead Purgatory, the walkway that is filled with 4 hard hitting wardens whom in NG+ turn into red phantoms (no poise break retardation)

Thirdly, AI is FAR improved over the previous games. Dark Souls 1, the enemy would slowly turn and stay still while you walk around them and backstab. AI had no aggression and no care for personal safety outside of the spear-men in Undead Burg.

Fuck, you could kill 90% of the enemies in Kiln of the first flame by positioning one of the gaps between them and you. The AI was INCREDIBLY stupid in Dark Souls 1. Shit, one of my friends beat the Undead Burg boss first try because the very first thing he did in the fight was backpedal off the wall.

well our experiences differ greatly, i felt the game had some decent AI, much more fleshed out than the barebones AI of most of the monsters in DK2 for exmaple how many mobs can parry you? because i've been parried a few times in DK1 but DK2 i've yet to face any mobs that did anything more than a one two and a signature move

and that very thing about the kilm, its a problem with all souls games however its harder in DK2 because all the mobs have extreme amounts of tracking, none of them can work on their own aiming without the amount of lock on they have (some mobs spin so much that i'm inclined to think they have roller skates on)

this "record" movement makes it very hard to make mobs use their lunge attacks or what not so that they fall off a cliff

plus the taurus demon? there's a ladder as soon as you enter which you can use to do a lunging attack, him falling off the ledge is just a piece of cake you can eat (the dragon rider however can be cheesed so easily to fall off his platform, the record being around 10 seconds)

And the AI never spins in circles in Dark Souls 2. That is a lie.

what game have you been playing, the game i played the amount of tracking makes it virtually impossible to do anything without them spinning around

And what do you mean artificial difficulty in enemy placements? An ambush you could have seen coming because its a corpse surrounded by trees your running after has them come from all directions? Having ambushes doesn't make a game poorly designed. Being unable to adapt your strategy, like every other player learns to, makes you poorly designed.

your confusing the word enemy placement as ambush, when i say enemy placement i say it as in a normal encounter with light weight enemies (hollow soldiers) you'd have 1 - 3 monsters (and a archer or two) in DK1, in DK2 a normal encounter (using Lost Bastille) there's a room of heavy hitting soldiers who will swarm you as soon as you enter, that's at least a minimal of 5 longsword warriors swinging away, your only strategy is to cheese them

there's more i could add but i'd rather rebut than put forth more arguments

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

Hold up, are you really citing Throne Watcher and Defender as being more interesting due to juggling?

Alright then, counter question: Ornstein and Smough, which do you kill first? Whichever you beat, the other gets their powers and their health restored. Is it easier to fight Orn with a butt-drop or Smough with lightning? Rather than "oop, that guy has low health, best switch to the other" it's "OK, I have to avoid that one so I can kill this guy first otherwise I'll waste Estus since the other one gets all his health back", it requires a decision. Watcher and Defender just requires you to avoid finishing one off until you've done the other one.

And the gargoyles? Y'know why it worked in Dark Souls 1? It was the second real boss and it came out of nowhere. That second spawning one was even a surprise. Dark Souls 2 version is the same exact fight with the 4 Kings pattern of spawning over time not damage. It's not similar, it's identical.

While we're on the subject of bosses, I generally felt the ones in Dark Souls were consistent and made sense (i.e. the demons are all from Izalith, meant to be imitations of life, hellkites and drakes are like impersonations of dragons because true dragons are different, etc) while in Dark Souls 2 they seem to have little rhyme or reason, save the ones who are clearly meant to be Dark Soul 1 tributes. I mean, between covetous demon and demon of song, what's the deal with demons in Drangeleic?

I am not going to argue O&S was a good boss battle. it was the only one in DkS1 that deserves that title though. But yes, the throne duo is a better battle. Camera, movement, and I would still argue the revival mechanic, are improved. But yes, that you can opt to do smough first in NG+ is an interesting twist. I guess you actually have to to get some of the gear (I seem to remember even wearing his baggy pants occasionally, they werent bad)

And no, the gargoyles spawn based on damage. I beat them in DkS1 quickly every time. I cannot say that about NG+ in DkS2. It forced me to be much more surgical in how I need to focus and finish off before getting swarmed. Now, the stupid wannabe pvp on the way there? If you want to pick at the game. That's a good place to start.

The only intersting dragon in DkS1 was in the DLC. And in terms of lore they actually play a more important role this time as far as I can tell.

See, I find that interesting because I can't see the purpose of them in Lore terms in DkS2. Aside the Ancient Dragon who

Spoiler

I think we all assume is not really a dragon since he has a giant soul

I can't think of any who fit the bill, at least in the Dark Souls 'outside the cycle' Dragon, they have drakes and things aplenty and they seem very symbolic but this is only my interpretation, I'd be very interested to hear yours (it's always interesting when someone has a different opinion and they can express it well)

Though while we're talking about Dark Souls bosses, I'd argue that Seath is a good one. Just because in his first appearance he is unbeatable. And that's pretty cool, yeah it railroads you, but as a concept it defies the point of Dark Souls. Until that fight, every death you had was at least somewhat your fault. But with Seath? You can't plan a way to beat him, you can't maximize beforehand. Hell, first playthrough you don't even know that it's coming, that is an awesome way to handle a boss. His second one is less interesting (although I did like how all the cursed statues of other players was enough to let you know what was coming, a feature I didn't see all that much of in DkS2). Aside from Looking Glass and the... I've forgotten his name, the one in the Abyss,... I didn't feel like the bosses did anything with the mechanics. Taurus was about the drops, Belfry Gargoyles was about multi-tasking, Moonlight Butterfly was about dodging lasers until it landed, even Capra Demon (who I feel was done badly) was fighting a badass dude in a cramped space. While there were a few bosses like this (Old Sinner and the lights, Dragonrider and the platforms) I didn't feel like the game engaged me as much on bosses. I couldn't see what it was meant to be testing about my understandings except "how well I save lightning bolts"

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

And the gargoyles? Y'know why it worked in Dark Souls 1? It was the second real boss and it came out of nowhere. That second spawning one was even a surprise. Dark Souls 2 version is the same exact fight with the 4 Kings pattern of spawning over time not damage. It's not similar, it's identical.

You're quite incorrect about this. The gargoyles in both Dark Souls 1 and 2 spawn based on damage dealt. In Dark Souls 1 when you take the first gargoyle down to half health a second gargoyle comes to his aid. It's basically the same in Dark Souls 2. Each time you take down 50% of a gargoyle's health another gargoyle joins the fight. You can actually predict exactly when another gargoyle will show up based on the boss health bar at the bottom of the screen as a new gargoyle shows up at roughly 90% health, 70%, 50% and 30%.

It's not based on time like the 4 Kings in Dark Souls 1, which could be beaten by killing only 2 kings if you dealt damage fast enough. The reason this distinction is important is because knowing that every time you take down 50% of a gargoyle's health another will come means that you need to focus fire down damaged gargoyles to make sure you aren't overrun. Tactically it means that you can't just attack gargoyles willy nilly because then you'll be fighting a giant group of lightly damaged enemies and rather need to move around in a precise manner that puts you in attack position to fight a single gargoyle while at the same time tracking all the other gargoyles and keeping them in your line of sight. It's an interesting boss fight.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

And the gargoyles? Y'know why it worked in Dark Souls 1? It was the second real boss and it came out of nowhere. That second spawning one was even a surprise. Dark Souls 2 version is the same exact fight with the 4 Kings pattern of spawning over time not damage. It's not similar, it's identical.

You're quite incorrect about this. The gargoyles in both Dark Souls 1 and 2 spawn based on damage dealt. In Dark Souls 1 when you take the first gargoyle down to half health a second gargoyle comes to his aid. It's basically the same in Dark Souls 2. Each time you take down 50% of a gargoyle's health another gargoyle joins the fight. You can actually predict exactly when another gargoyle will show up based on the boss health bar at the bottom of the screen as a new gargoyle shows up at roughly 90% health, 70%, 50% and 30%.

It's not based on time like the 4 Kings in Dark Souls 1, which could be beaten by killing only 2 kings if you dealt damage fast enough. The reason this distinction is important is because knowing that every time you take down 50% of a gargoyle's health another will come means that you need to focus fire down damaged gargoyles to make sure you aren't overrun. Tactically it means that you can't just attack gargoyles willy nilly because then you'll be fighting a giant group of lightly damaged enemies and rather need to move around in a precise manner that puts you in attack position to fight a single gargoyle while at the same time tracking all the other gargoyles and keeping them in your line of sight. It's an interesting boss fight.

I appreciate the correction,
I was only going on my own experiences. However, I disagree on it being interesting, it's just systematic. I didn't notice it was due to damage purely because it came at almost clockwork times based on how much damage I did. Ignoring the fact the moveset is awfully similar, this doesn't speak fantastically for the fight. Of course, everyone has their own opinion, but I just felt it was one of the more boring tributes (Old Dragonslayer was interesting Lorewise enough to justify being another human-esque 'duel' type fight) and while not my least favourite was one of the lower rank ones.

 

[Norithics]

This subject makes me a little sad. I wanted Dark Souls 2 to be great, and I had some fun with it, but there are just some very basic problems with it that marred the experience for me.

1. The Atmosphere
DkS2 just hit it far too infrequently for me. I'm not asking for Demon's Souls; that's a creepy, melancholy, chills-up-my-spine standard that even Dark Souls couldn't manage to equal, for all of the original's flaws. But even Dark Souls managed to make its themes coherent. If I'm in a jail, I want to feel that dingy despondence. If I'm in a fight with a giant metal man, I want to feel its weight bearing down on me. DkS did away with a lot of the dark world-is-your-prison aesthetic of DeS but did so wholeheartedly, growing a kingdom out of it and making it feel wondrous in a cynical, bitter way. DkS2 just seems to try to play somewhere between the two and never feels like it hits its stride. There are the elements of things from previous games, but they're too similar or too uninspired to feel engaging. Every time I tried to get into something it was either not fleshed out enough (which is saying something for a Souls game) or it gave answers too quickly, too readily, and with too much finality.

2. The Hitboxes
This ruined so many otherwise good moments for me. The Souls franchise has never had perfect hitbox tracking (as illustrated by the birth of what my boyfriend dubbed "Gravelord Magneto"), but those moments always felt few and far between. In DkS2 it's just ever-present and problematic. A hard game has to be fair, and once it stops being fair, it's hard for no reason- making your victory not over the game, but the system. And once your victory feels like luck, you can't feel good about it anymore. And finally...

3. The Narrative
Demon's Souls tells you that you have a very important role to fill, and on your adventure you slowly begin to wonder if that's a lie.
Dark Souls tells you that you have a very important role to fill, and on your adventure you slowly begin to wonder if that's a lie. Twice.
Dark Souls 2 tells you repeatedly to your face that there's no point to any of what you're doing. But you should still probably do it. Or something. If you want.

It killed it for me. I wanted to love it so badly. I wanted to still be playing it now, but I couldn't. There's not enough there.

 

[Ross Zevenhuizen]

Soul Memory does have its uses. You can't take a base or otherwise really low leveled character, give them all +10 gear, and go seal clubbing in new areas anymore, not unless you cheat anyway.

Now, I wouldn't quite say that.

With a friend and a few leftover characters you can create a horrifying item trade slip-n'-slide that bypasses soul memory completely and drops as many items of whatever power and upgrade level you could possibly desire right at the dazzling feet, of... well...

Twinkletoes. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t4HI6_0Cro]

 

[Riotguards]

Except the Lost Bastille has a shit ton of ways you can break up that miniture horde of swordsman. And the reason they decided to start putting larger groups was because in Dark Souls 1, there is almost no enemy which is dangerous by itself except for bosses.

i don't know about you but DK1 had a fair share of difficulty with mobs, i died a good few times when going to the capra demon (curse you ninja things), i can name a few enemy which were dangerous on their own

Headless Titanite Demons, good chunk of health and damage, no easy way to attack them because they did sweeping attacks

Balder knights, well mainly the parry ones for obvious reasons

Black knights, obviously

Hydra's, oh god they're firing laser water

Havel the friggin badass, havel smash, havel pummel!

and many many more

Secondly, you cant ***** about having to cheese those swordsman while telling me how to cheese an easy boss in Dark Souls 1. Seriously, that boss is incredibly slow and easy to dodge, why cheese him. And using him being easy as an excuse has nothing to do with my statement. His AI was so bad that he never attacked my friend once, he just backpedaled off the edge of the wall at the very start of the fight.

i wouldn't mind it if you talked to me a bit more civil, we're fans not enemies


cheesing random foot soldiers vs a boss?, big difference, plus i only used that as it was one of the extremes early on, there's plenty of other locations which have zerg placement (overwhelmingly strong monsters) like the prison were straid is being kept

well i guess you could say the dragonrider "borrowed" the AI script because its very easy to lure the dragonrider to his death

Thirdly, the main reason they made more group battles was because people kept asking for them. Dark Souls 1, 95% of your encounters was either one person, or two to three people who have no defensive abilities, so it was rarely difficult outside of the shit hitbox enemies like the doges or when they pulled the fucking Anno Londo archers. The only time it was ever difficult in Dark Souls 1 was when they threw a huge amount of enemies at you, which happens more often in Dark Souls 1 then Dark Souls 2 mind you, as theres an example in nearly every area of the game.

i'm sorry but i can't take your word on that, you'll have to provide evidence that people even asked for that, secondly the amount of enemies they threw at you in DK1 was a lot more thought out than DK2, were you would face strong hitting low health enemies with backup archers (crystal library) in DK1, in DK2 you face many enemies with little consideration between balance, for example shrine of amana you'll be put up against monsters that will inflict bleed (lower stamina and slow) within range of the tracking magic and archdukes also protected by that tracking magic (let me just say, its the worst area in my opinion)

Fourthly, what no poise break? Having beaten NG+, I've never found a single NPC red phantom I couldn't poise break in one or two hits, and its how I killed most of them. The real issue with them is their infinite stamina, which makes hitting their never ending invul frame roll spam a nightmare.

i'm perfectly fine if a monster has a huge amount of poise, my problem is having 3 red phantoms who tank through your attacks and essentially rape you, the only way i got past that area was to use magic, they literally 3 shot me if given the chance

 

[Riotguards]

Havel was a mini boss. Hydras were a mini-boss. To call those things regular enemies is cheating. Same with the headless titanite demons, who were ironically the only enemy that really had Dark Souls 2's super tracking.

Baldur Knights were challenging? Why were the parry ones harder? They had worse shields and were worse at combat then the non parry ones. Did you actually attack them when they were in their really obvious parry stance!?

i don't seem to understand how you equate mob as one definition of mini-boss / normal monster / boss, everything that doesn't have a health bar is not a boss and everything that is not a red / blue phantom is not a mini boss, you had big monsters or small monsters but generally they are all hostile to you

Baldur knights, never said they were hard, i said they were dangerous, unlike DK2 mobs which generally stuck with either range / melee / magic, balder knights had parries which could catch you off guard

Black Knights were really easy enemies, who just had high stats. They were not supposed to be fought early on, and were jokes later on. Its why they never blocked your way. They are not a good example.

Secondly, that ninja ambush has about 12 guys, including the awful dogs who have terrible hit boxs. That was a horrible section.

well funny because the ambush is only verses 12 guys if you just run, you face 3 at the first ambush, 2 dogs that run at you and then a few more ninjas

Thirdly, cheesing an enemy verse cheesing a boss. Exactly the same thing. In fact, cheesing a boss is far worse then cheesing an enemy, since your ruining one of the enjoyable parts of the game.

i didn't cheese it in my playthrough but i've done it on purpose the second time and its reeeeeally easy to do, just bait and wait, unlike the capra demon whom you could "cheese" but only by accident, so yeah DK2 has a completely upgraded version of cheesing bosses

And what do you mean? Straid was guarded by extremely low health enemies that came one to three at a time. If you let them dive on you, you fought them incorrectly, and died for it.

its not the fact that they are easy (except they're not, NG+ they can do serious damage on you) its the fact that from have forsaken logic, npc's shouldn't be a place where they can die because of the player having to face AoE monsters and buying their respawn does not solve the problem

Fourthly, Shrine of Amana? There was one scene where it threw more then 3 enemies at you. It had barely any tracking mages. Just kill them. They got low health, and theres rarely more then one. Unless you mean the last part, where you have huge amounts of cover...in fact, I beat that area without killing the chicks because I had tons of cover anyway.

i'm just gonna put this down

an area designed to be a killing zone by having you walk aruond getting shot at by tracking mages whom are guarded by semi hidden monsters (that inflict bleed) or knights is not my definition of fun, it felt more tedious than fun

Fifthly, as I said, I've never heard of a red phantom NPC who has even decent poise.

go to the place i stated, you cannot in anyway stagger those monsters, they are poise beasts and i want that poise

[/quote]
I killed all of them, and the most heavy armoured got stunned from three hits of a short sword, which while quite a lot, you shouldn't be using such a weak weapon unless your prepared to deal with harder enemies.[/quote]

not sure if you actually know what section i'm talking about, but i was rocking a heavy weapon at the time i tried it (i think it was MLGS because i had crystal spear), if a greatsword can't stagger them when it staggers many others then we must be playing different area's / difficulty

Any decent to high damaging weapon will stun them one or two hits. In fact, those npcs I found easier to kill then the actual knights blocking the door. They had very little poise considering you shouldn't be using a dagger by this point anyway.

there's only one knight blocking the entrance to undead purgatory and he's rocking the reeve's shield and greatsword (this npc seems very common...)

And what do you mean "A lot more thought out" Dark Souls 2 has about three scenes where it throws a hoard at you. With it, they all will come from one direction. In Dark Souls 1, they'd spontaniously appear from all angles, or you'd have to fight medium health (crystal hollows got some damn decent health for my 15+ Katana to deal with) enemies while also dodging four archers aiming from behind you while also dealing with a mage that buffed the hollows damage to unreasonably high levels.

And Dark Souls 1 would constantly do it too.

your problem is that you charge ahead, charging ahead because you don't know there's trouble or an ambush is going to make any situation more harder, hell the slugs are the bane of all those who charge recklessly

i never died because i was overwhelmed unlike DK2

 

[Riotguards]

A little off-topic but since this is a Dark Souls 2 thread:

Company of Champions Covenant: Does it also affect matchmaking in PvP? (PS3)

When I was SL 30 (around 30,000 Soul Memory) in Heide's, I was invaded.
The invader was dual wielding Ultra Greatsword/ Butcher's Knife (Power Stance I think). He also used a Greatbow.
I hit him a few times (he wasn't actually very good) but it just scratched him. Then he OHKO'd me with his sword after knocking my stamina down to zero with one blocked hit.

A little later, still at Heide's, I was confronted by an invader with a Spotted Whip, on which he had used the invisible weapon spell (Bellbro lvl 2 reward). I was summarily poisoned and killed.

Later at Huntsman's Copse, I was invaded by someone wearing the Smelter Demon armor and dual wielding Pyromancy's Flame. He spammed Toxic Mist (at least 6 casts) at me until I was completely surrounded and decimated. I did managed to hit him once, but it didn't even register on his health bar - my 100 or so dmg was too insignificant. This is also the only time I was forced to lose souls (about 4,000) as I was on my way to the bloodstain. So it's not like I've been wasting Souls and having it count against my Soul Memory.

So am I just unlucky, or is PvP affected by the Company of Champions covenant? Anyone know?


For context, my previous game, I had a 75% - 80% PvP win rate and was a lvl 3 Bellbro. Mundane/ Hex build ftw...

as far as champions covenant it does not increase the range that people can invade, there's a slight difference between SL 30 and soul memory, SL is just total amount of stats added while soul memory is the total amount of souls you've collected, you cannot lose soul memory only add to it (even if you die with all the souls and lose the bloodstain)


if what you say is true, you more than likely facing people who've hacked their games, there is no way that a person can possibly invade you while wearing smelter demon, spotted whip or duel weilding ultra's

i suspect your facing hackers or your soul memory is a lot higher than what you think

 

[Riotguards]

It'd have to be hackers, because I noted my Soul Memory specifically (yes, I know how it works). This is not my first playthrough (it's my 6th I think).

But thanks for answering the question. It seems I am unlucky about facing "hackers" I guess.

yeah i wasn't quite sure if you knew, SL30 with a 30k exp seemed rather cheap (from what i remembered)

surprisingly DK2 is super easy to hack, if you know your way around a particularly easy to use hack program, read a FAQ on how to do the hacking, you just go offline, do the hacks and you can pretty much get any items in the game

stats i'm not sure about, i've not touched them because i'm not a cheater (although i gave myself way over 500 great hero souls, using 180 at a time lol)