Lets have a serious discussion on why DS2 and DS3 dropped the ball on the series

Lets have a serious discussion on why DS2 and DS3 dropped the ball on the series

Not necessarily saying they were bad but they just couldn't hold a candle anywhere near Demon Souls or Dark Souls.

We don't need to discuss it. We already know why: because they were worked on heavily by someone other than Miyazaki.

Miyazaki was the director of the third one

Because nostalgiafags can't see the flaws of DeS and DaS.

He's credited as co-director alongside Isamu Okano and Yui Tanimura (also a co-director of DaS2). If you look at the development timeline of these games, there's no way Miyazaki was directing both Bloodborne (and its DLC) and DaS3 simultaneously.

Because they are unnecessary cash-in sequels.

One was rushed as fuck and the other was scrapped half way through development and then shoddily put back together from scraps.
Basically the usual publisher jewery fucked it over.

DaS1 was an accident.

He was the lead director while Isamu and Yui were co-directors.

It was an improvement over DS2 but still felt unmemorable considering it was forgotten in less than a month

I'd need to replay DS2 to form my opinions again, I haven't touched it since the last DLC came out, but a core problem of DS3 comes to its combat: It tried to merge the slower, more methodical combat of Dark Souls 1 with the faster, aggressive style of Bloodborne. What we got was a system where the enemies were quick and flailed around like your average BB enemy, while the player's movement was incredibly slow. The general axing to poise paired with this also gave way to a problem talked about near release, that being how good straight swords were: They caused stagger with most light attacks, like BB, and since enemies were so fast the most effective strategy was to get one of these, and just R1 your way to victory.
There are more problems with the level design, level progression, and other personal taste things, but this to me was the most notable flaw.
I honestly think I might prefer DS2 at this point

DaS2 in its' original form would have been on par with DeS/DaS
unfortunately it was gutted shortly before release and had to be hastily rebuilt to meet the deadline entire mechanics and the lighting engine were scrapped and the plot was rewritten

DaS3 was built to pander to series stalwarts but missed what fans had liked in the previous games e.g. interconnected levels, well designed enemies, tough but fair boss fights,

DaS2 managed to have a taste of the original plan with the DLCs notably Ivory king feeling like cut content due to the story points

DaS3's DLC meanwhile while enjoyable falls short (no pun intended) due to it's meager length and only one decent bossfight

don't even get me started on the multiplayer

>One was rushed as fuck

DS3 is the least unfinished souls

To be fair, we still have one more piece of DS3 DLC.
It'll probably be mediocre

Did Ariandel even add anything to the story?

>exploring DAS open world
>finding all the routes secrets and hidden passages
>rolls take more stamina and are slower so dodging actually requires a bit of skill

>DAS3
>uhh the world is a hallway with a couple branching paths and it's basically teleport everywhere instead of actually having to think about what path and route you want to take
>also gankers

Just saying The Old Hunters was made by Japan Studio, not FROM.

I'd like to remain optimistic but it's been complete radio silence from Bamco and From so they'll probably push out the DLC maybe 1-2 balance patches if they really mess something up, then it's off to the pasture for DaS3
No it added nothing
worth noting that this was confirmed by Miyazaki himself before the DLC even came out

>lead director

How the fuck would you know? Did you work on the game? Can you quantify his involvement in it?

Are you really going to take at face-value his credit as director despite the fact that 1) He's currently co-president and can credit himself however he wants and 2) Crediting him as director is important as a marketing ploy and for the game to succeed.

It's plain as fucking day judging by the quality (albeit subjective) of DaS2 and DaS3 that these games do not have genuine souls "feel" that DeS, DaS and BB have. The mere existence of DaS2 should be obvious enough that anyone other than Miyazaki and his specific collaborators cannot faithfully reproduce a "souls" game. It's like trying to ask a random person to reproduce the works of a particular musician or a painter.

>DaS1fags always conveniently ignore that post-anor londo content is some of the worst in the series
I would take the entirety of DaS2 and DaS3 over the last parts of DaS.

Bloodborne is the best game in the series by far.

dumb frogposter

If it wasn't called Dark Souls 2 I wouldn't be mad. People who were expecting something similiar to DeS and DaS got burned. People who love DaS2 don't like the other entries nearly as much.

3 has the best bosses in Souls though. And 2's DLC feels very disconnected, 1's was MUCH more plot relevant.

Also, what do you mean by the rewritten plot? What's your source on that?

Bamco roped Miyazaki into producing both sequels for a contract when he didn't give half a damn about Souls anymore. Miyazaki's best games occur when he's free to concentrate his latest inspiration into a new and fresh IP.

Gankers have been present in literally every entry
that being said the sheer number of safety nets a host has access to makes invading more a test of patience than a proper supplement to PvE

I was under the impression that DeS and BB (w/DLC) was a collaboration between FROM and Japan Studio. Mind posting your source?

The only genuinely shit parts of DS1 are the Demon Runes and Lost Izalith. The Duke's Archives and Tomb of the Giants feel like your average DS2 areas, to be frank, the latter at least having a neat gimmick.

can i play ds3 with keyboard and mouse only? wanted to try the series but heard that ds1 is terrible with it.

Currently playing through DS2 for the first time right now and I can see what Sup Forums was talking about when it came out. It feels like it was made by people who had no idea what made Dark Souls good, and just fell for the "lel so hard game, prepare to die! xD" meme. Every encounter in DS1 felt incredibly fair, as if a lot of thought and testing went into them. DS2 feels like the devs just said "everyone expects the game to be hard so just have the player fight three enemies at once while at least two snipers shoot at them from balconies" every twenty feet.

Yes. I finished it with K+M. You have to practice rolling though.

To me one of the best things about the first one was the way everything connected together.

In the second one, even at the beginning in the Forest of Giants you look into the distance and its just crappy forest textures, a generic backdrop.

In the first one, most of the stuff you saw in the distance you could travel to, before Anor Londo anyway. Even then, most of the stuff you could get to.

It made the game a whole lot more immersive.

Haven't played 3 yet.

>what do you mean by the rewritten plot?
Aldia and EH were probably meant to have a much larger roll since Aldia was the focus of Scholar and there was a bunch of unused Herald assets

the Giant memories make no sense and were likely meant to be straight up time travel but From couldn't make it work in time creating the Giant Lord paradox among others

2 is a lot easier though. The focus in multiple enemies is one of the design choices made by the B team that no one got. If you play 2 like 1 it becomes a lot harder, when it's not.

DS2 drops the ball due to the soul memory shit that made PVP ass. It also created a stupid restrictions between tiers. If a user wasn't good, he'd lose souls way more often but his soul memory is going through the roof. Good players die less and have way higher level and their soul level is low.

DS3 drops the ball in raw balance. Heavy armor is fucking pointless because the damage reduction between light and heavy armor is indistinguishable because enemies and players did so much damage.

DS3 also drops the ball because magic was and still is to an extent fucking useless and easy to avoid. The good magic builds are all extremely cookie cutter and you're pretty much guaranteed to run the same clothes, rings and spells because only a certain number are actually good.

I got Dark Souls 1 for free from Xbox Live's Games of the Month

I was able to beat the
>Bell Gargoyles
>The Hydra
>Capra Demon
>The Weird vagina dragon in the depths
>Gravelord Nito

I can't even make it to Blight Town though

My question is
Where the fuck do you get good weapons?
I was using the Zyvihander (bigass sword from the graveyard) then I used the big black sword you get from The Catacombs, Gravelord Sword? I tried using the Black Knight Sword but that shit doesn't work too good for me
Also, Dex or STR?

yes I don't know how people can defend DS2, I played it recently and it was a really piece of shit, especially the bosses, at least DS3 got that right

In Iron Keep I thought the smelter demon was WAY harder than the old iron king

I think we all did. The hardest thing about OIK is that little hole in the center of the arena.

But user, those are the good weapons

>started with DeS, BB, DaS2, DaS3
Has an appreciation for the series as a whole but still has favorites.

>started with DaS
Shits on literally everything that is different in any game and genuinely believes that any of them are bad games with the likes of DNF and NMS.

I wonder why.

>Gravelord Nito

Did you honestly go to Tomb of the Giants before you went to Blight Town?
You're doing it all wrong

>Gravelord Nito
You probably mean Pinwheel, you can't access Nito until way later.

>What is Bloodborne

I can't form a truthful opinion because I've only watched gameplay of 2 and 3. I've only played DaS. I think DS2 scrapped the connection between all the areas. Granted I'm fine with using my headcanon that the pc travels long distances between zones and not up straight up to a lava lake. Not a fan that enemies disappear after a while either.

Though I am sort of glad DS2 brought quick travel through the bonfire, DS3 feels like it ruined the sense of traveling with it. Maybe because you START OUT using the bonfire to fast travel... Also not quite a fan of how linear DS3 is. I wish it branched out more and connected to more areas.

Don't play these games as an RPG, play them as action games. If you learn the timings of enemy attacks and how to dodge correctly (keep your weight low-enough so that you can fast-roll), you are literally invincible. DEX if you're new and make sure to upgrade DEX specific weapons.

I started with DaS and 3 is my favourite. I used to love the first one, but I love the faster combat of 3, and the fashion. And the bosses, and the weapons.

Now whenever I try to go back to DaS, I just can't enjoy it anymore it seems. It's like I defeat O&S, get one of the lord souls and just lose all will to keep playing it.

Dark Souls 3 has some interesting branches, but nothing as connected as 1 or with a central hub like Majula.

Personally I liked it, since now in 3 there's proper distance between areas, instead of everything being too close like in 1 or 2

DeS and DS1 feel like they're original, made with no other games in mind, they didn't feel like they need to recreate anything from a previous title or whatever.

DS2 and DS3 feel like they had a checklist of what a Souls game is and they just went and filled it.

Although I loved the metaphorical experience of DS2 but I'm not sure whether it was actually there or if I was so stoned I imagined stuff. I don't care though because the experience was amazing.

DaS is full of DeS references tho

Why would the second DLC be miraculously better than the first? They're sold for the same prize, why would one be better than the other by any noticeable margin? No sense in that.

2 was such a mess they had to fix it post release, I respect them for trying new ideas but that doesn't mean you can't call them out for not implementing them properly
I dislike how they made changes to optimize pvp over pve, since pvp is only around as long as there's a fanbase with online connection whereas pve exists as long as you can boot the game up

3 was bretty gud, I think what drags the game down is the constant absurdly high aggression and damage from every single enemy which makes for good moment-to-moment gameplay but when you step back and think about replaying the game as a whole the pacing just blurs together without any real highs or lows
The pvp isn't great because of the changes they made to poise and such for the sake of the moment-to-moment pve experience, but I think this is for the better; pvp was never meant to be a top tier competitive experience, it's ultimately optional content that shouldn't compromise the rest of the game for existing

Then again it seems there's not much FROM can be consistent with, so I guess you never know.

I said it would probably be mediocre.

3 was how you do a direct sequel to souls but still not that great because souls shouldn't have direct sequels.
DaS2 was bad as a sequel and on its own.

Nah I'm just putting my opinion out there. Sorry it's worded badly like that.

It's all good, mang.

>why would one be better than the other by any noticeable margin
Ashes of Ariandel took a heavy focus on pvp content with the arena, now it's out of the picture in terms of development time

>implying DS II & III did anything to fix those flaws

That's a valid point actually, I didn't even think about it since I don't do much pvp. I forgot the arena came with the dlc.

3 just has too many callbacks to the first game instead of being its own experience. still pretty great, and the bosses are definitely the highlight.

2 is decent at times...and other times it feels like a chinese ripoff of dark souls that misses the point of the series entirely.

...

You got me thinking about this now, what would you say is the point of the series?

The only pvp I do nowadays is the 6 man brawl, it can be quite fun and hectic at times

Not him, but the "point" as I take it is to be a moody, atmospheric dungeon crawler with real time, skill based combat and looping, metroidvania-esq level design. Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and even Bloodborne fit this bill.

There's literally nothing wrong with DS2 if you just assume that the player character occasionally blacks out and forgets what they were doing or where they are

I can take that. I can also see how das2 doesn't fit the bill in this case, I hate using this term but the areas just feel too game-ish and not immersive. It feels more like separate levels than a well thought-out connected world.

How does this help?

it explains everything

I'm not that user, but I think that question is going to have a completely different answer depending on who you ask.
I've heard people say the point of these games was the difficulty, or the exploration, or creating different characters, or the multiplayer experience, or boss fights/combat, or just being able to appreciate the atmosphere.
I don't think any of those are right or wrong necessarily (except for the difficulty one), but depending on what you're expecting, you're going to prefer one or two games in the series over the others.
That's due to the fact that each one usually ends up doing very well in one or two areas but fucks up a lot in others.
I don't think there's a game in the series that actually does every aspect of things well.
But here I am anyways, still playing all five religiously.

Interesting interpretation that actually does fit in with the game's take on hollowing, at least. I like it.

What is the appeal to the Dark Souls series anyway? Played DeS, loved it to death. Just spent all day playing DaS. I'm at Londo whatever it's called and this game has been the same design and enemy placement since the start of the game, its just different skins for the dungeons that are all lackluster. Is there something here that I'm over looking or is this just DeS but bland and trying to make enjoying more dangerous than the AI (which seems to be the same, if not more stupid than DeS).

Which Londo?

Could be the exploration

In this thread we list things Dark Souls 2 did that were far better than Dark Souls 3. I'll start:


>Chugging Estus immobilizes you, and the heal isn't instantaneous meaning trying to chug while someone is sticking close to you will result in death

>Stamina regeneration is tied to weight, so a character at 10% burden will recover their bar faster than a character at 70% burden, giving an advantage and a reason to make a low burden character

>Poise exists and armor provides relevant, but not overpowering damage reduction, giving an advantage and a reason to make a high burden character

>Phantoms and Dark Spirits cannot chug estus, spirits can only heal via spell useage which is slow. This makes fighting outnumbered even without mob assistance possible since any damage you do sticks.

>Can only perform four rolls before running out of stamina

>Can only perform 5 attacks of a rapier or straight sword before running out of stamina

>Parrying has longer recovery frames and consumes more stamina, making parry fishing riskier and makes parrying require higher skill

>Power stance allowing for unique combinations of dual wielding and unlocking an alternative moveset for weapons

>Being able to use the full moveset of a weapon in your off-hand including running, rolling, backstepping, etc. attacks rather than just being able to do a basic R1 swing and blocking with the weapon as it is in Ds3 (lmao who would ever want to weapon block)

>Non-linear first half of the game allows you to rush straight to the areas of the game that contain the items for your build

>Fun PvP covenants that were unique

>Bell Tower covenant providing two unique optional areas to PvP for Titanite Chunks, Slabs, and Twinkling, making farming for upgrades fun

>Bonfire ascetics to replay bosses you like and or gain items from NG+ and beyond without grinding through the whole game again

They both got shifted between directors while in development, meaning that there wasn't enough space for a single vision to get developed.

Ultimately with SotFS I feel that Dark Souls 2 ended up above where Dark Souls 3 fell--the best points of DS3 were better than DS2 but as a whole, DS2 is trying to be more of its own thing than DS3's insistence on fellating DS1 to the point that none of its lore is satisfying.

DS3 has very little original content.

Souls vet here, this is my take on things as someone who has obsessively played the shit out of DeS and DaS1 since their respective launches on PS3.

Concepts:

>New Firelink Shrine (DaS3) == The Nexus (DeS)
The resemblance is fucking stunning if you've ever played DeS. Lord Thrones are in the exact same alignment that the archstones are, surrounding where you spawn in, with multiple levels of height within the area accessible by curved staircases.

>Lothric Castle (DaS3) == Boletaria Castle (DeS)
You start the game here, and the climax of the game is here (fighting twin princes/false king allant).

>Karla (DaS3) == Yuria the Witch (DeS)
Karla teaches forbidden hex magic/miracles/pyromancies that channel the power and rage of the abyss, Yuria the Witch teaches forbidden magic that channel the power and rage of demon souls.

> Stormruler (DaS3) == Storm Ruler (DeS)
Used to take down mighty foes with a legendary sword found in the corresponding boss arenas. Yhorm and the Storm King are basically the same type of "puzzle boss" until you find the sword.

Mechanics:

> FP (DaS3) == MP (DeS)
Literally the same exact shit.

> Rolling
Functions the same exact way as DeS, because med rolling was buffed so fucking hard that the difference between fast roling and med rolling is so small that staying right under the fat roll minimum is required for every build.

Case-in-point, DaS3 is super fucking stale for veterans who have been with the series since DeS in 2009/2010. It's literally because the game is around 50% recycled DaS content, 30% recycled DeS content, 10% recycled bloodborne content, and 10% original content.

That's....an interesting concept actually. It would explain why we can reach extremely far areas in such a short stretch of spacing or time, and it'd fit with the concept of hollowing. However, I would honestly have preferred something like that be concrete, rather than a fun fan theory.

Now see, that's sort of what I was getting to; you can't really use missing the point of the series as an objective argument since the point of the series is subjective and varies from person to person.

Anor Londo or something. I just rang the bells and beat the Iron Golem. I'm really trying to pay attention but there's not much story as far as I can tell.

The exploration is part of what I don't like. These places connect but their design seems to make no sense or have any reason to why they connect. The only reason it seems to have changed is to lengthen playtime by having the player travel up and down areas and the way they connect is just so sudden. Most areas are optional but there's no way to know without a guide, it's like a thick spider web that makes me wish the dungeons stayed like DeS.

A lot of those aren't better. 3 is a much faster game, so they couldn't stick with the slower mechanics of 2.

It makes sense for the game to be remixing content from earlier because it is supposed to be the last in the series, but you're right, there's not a ton of new stuff. And to be honest, I liked the hints at new things (Irithyll before it turns out it's Anor Londo, The Deep) better than the callbacks to old things.

For what it's worth, I liked the Irithyll Dungeon from a gameplay perspective even though it was deliberately recalling the Tower of Latria, because it felt like something they were learning and iterating on instead of just trying to stick these weird, awkward connections in there.

What exactly do you mean by "different skins for the dungeons"?
If you mean that the early levels have a similar feel, then yeah, they're intended to feel like they're cohesively connected. And to give them some credit, they actually are connected in a way that does make sense, at least to me.
Some people enjoy the fact that it feels like a natural progression, but if you prefer the highly varied but linear style of levels that Demon's Souls had, then yeah it isn't like that at all.
Still, none of the levels in Dark Souls have identical layouts or paths to follow, and there's at least some variation in enemies as you move through each one.
I enjoy the worlds in both games, regardless.
I don't know what you mean by enemy placement, I never felt there was any difference in that between Demon's and Dark Souls.

It's pretty close to canon given that you can actually see a number of locations from Majula and the distances you travel on foot don't match up with the distance you can see.

Dark Souls 2 has a lot of long passageways that people like to fill with messages because there's not a whole lot interesting going on, and you could sort of make the argument that these passages are meant to be much longer, it's just that it would be way boring if we were actually covering that distance in-game.

Again, just a fan theory, but DS2 is supposed to be trekking all over this vast land instead of DS1's compact kingdom or DS3's "everything converged whoops".

>DaS3 missed what fans had liked in the previous games,well designed enemies, tough but fair boss fights


nigga wat
DaS3 has the best bosses ever seen in a Souls games

50% of DaS1 bosses were trash, 80% os DaS2 bosses were trash, but only 10-20% of DaS3 bosses are trash.

>Gravelord Nito
>without killing O&S first

nigga wat

Maybe if you haven't played Bloodborne then you can be impressed by 3's bosses just because they're fast, but they're really not great and they're all quite easy. The end game has about three bosses that are tough enough to be fun, but there's nothing that really challenges. Dark Souls 3's rolls make everything boring since you just spam then until it's your turn to attack, when you spam R1.

Does DS2 ever get more varied environments? In DS1 you had ruined castle, forest, sewer and shanty town in the first half of the game. So far in DS2 it's been ruined castle, ruined castle and then ruined castle.

Nobody would be happy if the sense of scale in DS2 was as enormous as the distances traveled.

Though I don't really give a fuck. I liked exploring my way through DS2, and it always feels like an expedition when I go down each path. DS1 feels like climbing my way through the same massive castle, but finding easier routes through old passages. DS3 feels like I'm in some odd crossroads. None of them are the same and none should be treated as the same.

>Dark "Gimmick" Souls 3 bosses
>Not shit

When it comes to comparing bosses between the games though, DS2 is different in the way it metes out its bosses. It's really liberal with giving bosses their own title cards, when the other games would treat them as a miniboss like the Armored Boar or the Outrider Knights or something.

I mean it seems like they designed the dungeon before they decided what setting it was. I may just have to give it a second playthrough because I've had this feeling of being lost literally the whole time, and I feel like the enemy placement in DaS is meant to try to catch you off guard as soon as you come in the room. DeS had it too but DaS does it way too much, to me it just became incredibly stale because I know to go into a room, roll backward because there's a enemy by the door, then fight. I do have to admit the character progression is a bit better in DaS but not having any direction of where to go next is a bit frustrating. I hit a dead end that didn't help me get closer to ringing a bell and it further put me into a feeling of being completely lost.

that's because DaS1 3rd act drops the ball more than any other souls game.
Retards complain about Das3, but Das3 is consistently good till the end.

>Non-linear first half of the game allows you to rush straight to the areas of the game that contain the items for your build
This is my favorite part of Demon's Souls, and also why Dark Souls 2 is my favorite Souls game to play PvE and PvP.

Bloodborne also has it's fair share of trash bosses, and as well designed as they are, the difficulty is ramped up by giving them huge health pools

No way, someone literally took my post from like a week ago and copy-pasta'd it.

Waow.

It's truth though.

>muh exclusivity

dont think so kiddo

I definitely agree that II has a lot of nice mechanics in it that the other games are missing. That being said, I will never like going through the game as I think the majority of levels, PvE combat, and bosses are very uninteresting and very tedious. I've heard people say they enjoy the levels in II, but I have to say that I really dislike nearly all of the early-to-mid levels in the game.
I was never a fan of the slow, nearly brain-dead PvE in the first Dark Souls either, and I'll never understand why they decided to slow things down even further.

Bloodborne's mandatory bosses are quite easy, though still well designed, but there's a ton of optional content that's the most challenging in the series, especially if you include the DLC, which I think has the best bosses in the series hands down. Dark Souls 3's optional "tough" content is just one boss and he's not that tough.

>Bloodborne
>Best bosses

Nigger what

Bloodborne's mechanics and boss design makes for the best fights in the series without a doubt.

DaS>BB>DaS III>DeS>DaS II

Dark Souls II is the oddball of the whole series in tone and atmosphere. Feels the least like a souls game. And don't even get me started on SotFS's asinine enemy placement choices.

>hurrr lots of enemies will make it so hard lul PREAPERE 2 DIE xD

Isn't DeS a five-way linear path?