DARK SOULS 2

Now that the ashes has settled, can we all agree that Dark Souls 2 isn't really a bad overall game and it did things better like weapon variety, powerstancing, fashion souls, no roll spam, no R1 spam, no estus chugging, just to name a few?

it's not a bad game
but the only thing it did better than the other soulsborne games, is the amount of content and actual NG+
everything else was worse

Invasions were best in 2

Invasion in 3 is a pile of fucking putrid shit

I love the game, the time I spent in Shulva was amazing, but they fucked the parry and the falchion's moveset

aside from that everything is great

There are a thousand issues with the game but my biggest one is how lifeless and disconnected all the areas feel. You just run through one after the other, never really looking back or circling around to anything and it all comes and goes without ever leaving a lasting impression.

Out of the three games it was the one that got fucked over the hardest by Namco, considering half of the actual plot was in the DLCs and they had to scrap the game 6 months out from launch because they wouldn't let them develop the game for PS4 and Xbone despite it being in fucking 2014. It could have been so much more

It was meant to but engine and hardware limitations really fucked over the game and made it feel like shit.

Best game in the series, Sup Forums is just wrong about everything, as always. I've played this game for over 300 hours and still occasionally return to fuck around. I got fed up with both DS1 and 3 at the 100 hour mark and probably won't even get the last DLC.

Brain damaged people who easily can ignore such things as 'level design' and 'consistency':
>"DaS2 is the greatest souls game"

People with taste buds:
>"DaS2 is a steaming pile of shit"

It's the best of the three Dark Souls games.

>it could have been so much more
also true of DaS1, tons of cut content

I know, but Dark Souls 2 was even more cucked hence why I said 'out of the three'. So was 3 but we don't know the extent yet, so in terms of which is the most 'complete' it's 3 > 1 > 2.

It's shit.

it loses a lot of points for one of the worst game launches ive seen

Which is the reason why every fanboy only talks about how great the journey up to Anor Londo and in the DLC areas was. The game went downhill reall fast after you've acquired the lord vessel.

>all these years and people still makes these threads every day


Jesus.

Vendrick is the greatest character in the series.

It's the only Souls game that I enjoy replaying, DS1 becomes really shitty after you get the lordvessel and I don't find replay DS3 enjoyable at all.

Bait flavored post, but accurate. You can't just say "it's a good game just not as good as the others" when the thing is fundamentally flawed in so many ways AND lacks level design.

Hollow Knight was a better Souls game than DS2 and that shit was a metroidvania.

I wasn't crazy on it when it first came out. Biggest one was hit reg, I remember getting impaled by the pursuer from miles away or when I was behind him, and other enemies doing similar stuff too. Thankfully Scholar fixed most of that.

On replays I still have issues, namely soul memory and how many bullshit mechanics there are. When they were designing it, it's like the team heard that DeS and DaS were hard, and tried to capture that feeling with things like the poison spitting statues, lots of spellcaster enemies in hard to reach areas, and curse everywhere. They aren't really hard, you can take your time with Black Gulch or get a bow for all the casters in Shrine, they just end up being annoying.

Been playing it blind for months now. I enjoy it. I've been running a Fire Longsword for pretty much the entire game in two handed stance and it's worked well but I'm sure there's way better weapons I have no idea about. I just got the Ashen Mist Heart, went into the two trees and got the Giant Souls, and then ran around for about an hour with no idea what to do. I'll find something eventually.

no

If you want to know what to do next, don't read these spoilers.

You need to find a specific Giant tree that takes you to the Memory of Jeigh where you kill the Giant Lord and get the Giant's Kinship, which makes the final boss spawn in the Throne of Want below Drangleic Castle. There's also the DLC if you've got that.

Scholar is the best Souls game

It's a meme to hate it at this point. All people bitch about is how they couldn't git gud, and it's not an hyperbole. Been years and still clinge at 2 or 3 asinine, personal experience objections to diss it to justify themselves.

Pitiful. It's one of the best videogames ever crafted in one of the best sagas ever crafted.

The level design (especially around enemy placement) is criticized a lot. I can think of a few decent areas and enemy placements if I try, but that's about it. There's a big list of other shortcomings I've come up with over the years, but a lack of exciting enemy encounters is a bigger one.

With that said, what was the best level design in the series? I really can't say since so much of what sticks with me is just the sight/sound of the levels (Valley of Defilement in Demon's Souls, Tower of Latria). I thought Undead Parish was pretty exciting the first time through, and I enjoyed that mob of buffed enemies that jump you not long before the gargoyle boss. These games are best when you're not just walking into aggro range over and over again.

invasion didn't even happen in 2. No full red orb and people on focusing on arena and duel shit meant that being invaded was rare as fuck.
I had 2 invasions in my first play through on the release week.

>30 min of gameplay
>every sword of mine breaks

no, its cancer

Bellfry towers were a lot of fun with a bro, chunks as a reward were just amazing. 2v2 with some coordination is fun to experiment with.

Sometimes I see complaints like Where you realize a lot of people pirated 1.0 and never bought it

SotFS may be the best Dark Souls today

>armchair game designers think they know shit about level design

invasions were rare, but not that rare. only 2 invasions, especially on release is either utter bullshit or something on your end. I was playing it a couple of months before the 'return or drangleic' reddit shit and I got invaded at least 4 times.

I said blind but I've looked up what to to once or twice, like after getting all four Great Souls and running in circles for a while. So I will read your spoiler. Wait, so I'm almost done? I have like, over 100 hours so I'm definitely not complaining, just didn't think I was that close. Last boss is Vendrick, right? And yeah I got SotFS so gonna definitely do DLCs. Thanks, btw.

In base games only, I'd say that the best levels are Tower of Latria, Duke's Archives, Forest of Fallen Giants, Nightmare of Mensis and Grand Archives. With DLC it's Duke's Archives still (AotA areas weren't bad they were just ok, the bosses and encounters were the best part), Shulva in it's entirety, Research Hall and Painted World. I'd have to say overall I really like Shulva the most, it's got the best mix of everything and really showed what Tanimura could do when he didn't get 6 months to turn another guys abortion into something slightly more palatable.

I'm a sucker for the Archives style levels, I find the aesthetic meh but the designs are almost always GOAT.

you know it took them like two years to fix the durability glitch, right?

You fucking faggots always brag about 'n-no chugging', when in the game you can actually use fucking gems and even moves during the usage. Maybe you should consider killing yourself. Also, you can chug just as well on any boss battle in the game, and it's not even hard, just takes 10 minutes of practice.

Works on my machine ;)

It's a pvp thing retard.

Gems heal slowly and you can punish the host for doing it unlike DS3 you can fill your health bar fast with a chug and the animation has fucking hyperarmor.

The Gutter is the best vanilla area in terms of quantity of content, don't pretend all areas are like this.
Post Black Gultch to show us some other """"great""" areas

Do the dlcs. Kill Vendrick then go into thr throne of want. You have to kill Vendrick first to make another boss spawn.

Lifegems heal slow as fuk, also noone forces you to use them

Nah last boss is Vendrick's wife who is part of Manus after we BTFO him in the first game that has gained it's own conscious and is trying to reignite the spread of the Abyss. Vendrick himself is optional and the more Giant Souls you have the more you can damage him. He starts off taking fuck all damage until you have like 4 where he has a lot but it's manageable and with 5 he becomes a cakewalk. Vendrick's wife is behind that door you need Vendrick's ring to open back near the beginning of Drangleic Castle just before the room with all the Ruin Sentinels. And there's a secret last boss you can trigger after her if you've beaten Vendrick as well, but the shit he says doesn't make any sense unless you've done the DLCs first. And to start the DLCs you need to find the keys which are hidden in some tricky locations, except the one for DLC 3 which was just lying on the fucking ground in Drangleic Castle.

>pvp fags

Gotcha. I just assumed that I couldn't even access the DLC areas until finishing the base game. Is that not true?

You can enter tem anytime you want aslong as you have the keys

I think overall it really is kind of shit. It has some few good additions gameplay and mechanic wise, but there are some additions which I think negatively impact the overall experience.

using lifegems during a duel/invasion/any PvP is a surefire way to get yourself fucked. You can easily be punished for using one, if your opponent inst a complete retard, and the amount of health is restores on at high levels laughable, provided you actually levelled VIT. and if you didn't, the punishment for using a lifegem would probably kill you.

Though I do agree lifegems shouldn't get in unlimited supply, you get like 20 +20 fucking estus at one point, not to mention any spell-based heals you learn, so its not like it makes that big of a difference anyway.

Complicated doesn't mean good. Gutter is a parody of Blighttown. Blight followed a very hard throughline of going to the bottom in a spiral, which seemed logical, since people built the whole town on a wall and them fled upwards as it got flooded with poisonous spiders and shit. Gutter is just confusing and dumb, it has a hole into even deeper depths in a far corner and the village doesn't even have a straight road to that place. Why the fuck is it built in this confusing manner? How was it built without light at this exact elevation? In other words, it's a shitty video game level with no resemblance of reality in it.

Nah you just need to have the keys and got to the DLC start areas. For the first DLC the key is hidden behind an ancient door in the hole in Majula that you need a key from the two Giants hiding in Black Gulch drop to open, and the DLC itself starts at the fountain in the room behind where you killed The Rotten. The second DLC key is in Forest of Fallen Giants in that room with all the salamanders next to The Last Giant, and the start is at the fountain in the room after Old Iron King. Third DLC key is lying on the ground in Drangleic Castle, you cannot possibly miss it. The DLC starts at the fountain in Shrine of Winter. Have fun, they're a lot better than the main game and tougher too.

>no R1 spam
Wasn't PVP basically whoever stunlocks first wins?

>keys in hidden location
Wait, do you mean the keys to access the DLC areas (that are just next the Primal Bonfires), or ones you need to proceed further? Because the keys to enter these areas, I got them added to my inventory as soon as I talked to the firekeepers at the beginning of the game.

What the hell, this is weird. Is it because I got the PC version?

How do I kill the reviving enemies in the DLC area after the old iron king? I just beat the game yesterday with out realizing it was the last boss.

>Struggle and kick my way into the fucking Throne of Want
>My bros are there to help me
>Nashandra is a pushover, kill her, reclaim the throne
>Get sealed in there forever
>"Well that was an underwhelming ending"
>Realize I got to do the DLCs
>Finally find the entrance to the Old Iron King
>Aldia suddenly appears
>Expains to me finally more of wtf is going on
>Realize I haven't accomplished shit yet
>And that was just the half of the complete game
>To become a true sovereign I must recover the 3 crowns and take the one at Vendrick's hollowed self
>There IS a cure for the curse, but it's really really fucking hard
>By the skin of your teeth do what no one ever will

Holy shit this game is the longest by far.

And easily the one I like the most

All manner of terrible things have been cast into the Gutter in Majula, forming a settlement of filth and chaos.1

Some of the more determined souls exiled to the Gutter sought to scale the walls of the forsaken place and walk the earth once again, but failed, and wasted away mired in misery and resentment.2

That's odd, SotFS on PC is meant ot have the keys hidden. The original release gave them to you at the beginning but in SotFS on PC, PS4 and Xbone they were meant to actually be hidden. Disregard that location stuff then, you can jump into them as soon as you want then.

>Location

> Added to inventory after buying the DLC.
> In Scholar of the First Sin, the key is located on a skeleton in the pit with the Flame Lizards in the Forest of the Fallen Giants.


Well, this is weird. I do have SotFS, but I assume they mean "in NG+ with SotFS"

>I got them added to my inventory as soon as I talked to the firekeepers at the beginning of the game.
That only happens if you are playing the base game + DLCs, not in the SOTFS version.

Good.

Invaders needs a check up before trying to pull their assholery onto others players, hell invaders should also be affected by the mobs, I'm sick tired of having to go out of my way just to get rid of some asshole who thinks invading is fun.

Fuck invaders

I hate the asshole invaders that kill you well you're still fighting enemies in the area

Yeah, cool. Blighttown was built against a big stone wall as a foundation. How did those scrawny Hollow motherfuckers take all those long poles, climb them and build their shanty houses in the middle of nothing?

They shouldn't appear in your inventory in SotFS on PC at all. Guess your game glitched or something and you got lucky.

is sotfs the keys are hidden. In the original you get the keys after buying the dlc

I'm not the guy you were talking to in the first place btw, I jumped in the conversation when I saw you mentioning the keys are hidden.

I haven't found the time to finish DS2 recently but I was doing the Memories of the Giants.

I visited 2 out of 3 of the DLC areas after doing the respective primal bonfires, but I just walked towards the first bonfire of the DLC areas then teleported away.

So, the logical order is to do the Giants Memories, then Nashandra, then the DLCs?

I dont like the limited move sets, the spear is just poke poke poke, DS3 had a lot more variety.

you've obviously never invaded and killed someone before. it's fucked up but it's an adrenaline rush. i love invading and being invaded now.

Well... that's the only kind of invaders there is the others are fightclub kind of shit and I have no problem with that

You should try invading some time. It's really fun. It's basically the whole selling point of Souls and the only unique thing the series has going for it. If you don't like multiplayer then you honestly should be playing another game or at the very least offline. There are dozens of better JRPGs and action games out there if all you are interested in is a single player experience.

Oh shit so that's what those fountains are for. I had no idea. Gotcha, thanks. I'll go get those keys then. I think I already got the Old Iron key. And I don't remember finding a key on the ground in Drangleic castle. I may just be that retarded.

Woops, my bad. I have the "Crown of X" dlcs, but not the SotFS version it seems (It would have shown in my library)

>SotFS is 25 bucks (on Steam) even if you already own DS2
God fuck damn it.

I always leave the DLCs until I've done everything BUT Nashandra purely because I like finishing a playthrough on the credits, but if you want Nashandra to be even remotely challenging then you can do her first. It's really up to you, it doesn't affect too much so just do whatever you feel like you wanna do. Some of the base game stuff will feel underwhelming after the DLC though.

Just don't invade in the Sunken Kingdom, it's a waste of everyone's time.

Git gud or burn effigies in bonfires

If you got vanilla + DLCs you already got them
If you bought SotFS you have to find them
Scholar is the definitive version

I remember one is on the fire lizards pit, you have to jump down there and find it

if already own the game + dlc dont bother with sotfs

The key is a flower or something if ir remember correctly, just in the middle of a room with no enemies.

>weapon variety, powerstancing, fashion souls, no roll spam, no R1 spam, no estus chugging

I'll take a mechanically inferior Souls game that actually has good world design, level design, atmosphere and enemy placement over the former every single time. DeS has tons of issues but I still enjoyed it more than DaS2 (which I played after DaS2) because it pulled me into the world in a far more captivating way... but yeah enjoy your power stances or whatever.

>jump down

Got it.
I got DS2 because it was on sale so I thought why the fuck not, but I didn't read the small-case lines in the store page that says "hey there's an updated version for 64 bits here"

Ivory King key is in Drangleic Castle in the room right after the stone soldiers and ruin sentinels. it's just sitting in plain sight. Sunken King key is in the Majula pit, easiest way to get there is to buy the longest ladder you can from gilligan, take it all the way down, then climb up the ladder right next to you. The key is past a Forgotten Key door so you'll need that as well.

Well I did with Cat's Ring

Is there still an online community in the base DS2? I think it's dead.

I cant go embered on road of sacrifices because I know exactly where, who, and how I'm getting invaded, is always the same 5 assholes that makes you go aganist them and the mobs, is fucking annoying.

>inb4 play offline

Then you have your answer, I have to cripple my own gaming experience just to not get bothered by some assholes

For a series that bosses are a gigantic part of, it falls flat in it's bosses.

The game looks horrendous, and the combat is floaty and feels weak.

6/10 game on it's own. 4/10 when compared to other games in the series. Yea it added Powerstancing and yea there was alot of build variety, but when you don't fucking enjoy the combat whats the point of either?

If you can get it cheap sotfs is better and having enemy placement changed also is a nice touch

Dont forget to do the pilgrims of the dark, 3 weird areas and a boss fight.

>Almost every enemy in DS2 can drop a piece of their armor, you can cosplay as pretty much any enemy you want
>DS3 can't even be bothered to have recolored armor pieces drop

Fuck me I want that sleek gold/black/blue Cathedral Knight set so bad.

DS3 should've had the sheer amount of armor selections and enemy variety DS2 had. I can tolerate the pruning of weapons since a lot of them were given a fair bit of the depth.

Also was anyone else thoroughly disappointed that there wasn't an entire second half to follow the fight with the Twin Princes? I was under the impression that there was still another half of the game afterr Lothric Castle much like how Drangleic Castle felt like a midpoint.

>Just 3 ugly corridors
>npc ganks
>and best boss in the game.

I got invaded a few times (sadly, because I'm a terrible PvPer) and I definitely see player ghosts in bonfires and the likes.
Looking at the stats: 916 players playing SOTFS right now, 234 playing DS2. That's very few...

I put it on my wishlist now, but I forget to check my emails too often I'll most likely miss the sale... I wish Steam would just give us a notification for it.
I heard about the new enemy placement.

> rare weapons and armor sets drops from npc invaders
>bland environments
>floaty movement
>uninteresting npcs and questlines
>bad enemy design especially bosses

The only thing it did right was the sheer volume of weapons even though most of them are shit you had a shit load of variety and magic aren't shit like it is in 3

"Floaty and weak" means a shit
It has so much content that has more awesome bosses than the other games, it's the ratio that is disproportionate

Because so much fucking content

It's a 9/11 game and your poop.

But it doesn't. A few of the DLC bosses and Mirror Knight are the only good ones.

DS3 alone has better ones and it has half the fucking bosses.

And the combat being floaty and weak is indeed fucking important, since that's the whole game right there.

Quantity does not make up for Quality, and this game clearly shows

2 has the best pvp but is ruined by SM.

If 2 had been delayed and released when 3 did it would have been god tier

>I don't find replay DS3 enjoyable at all.
This. The worst part about DS3 is the fact that From forces you to play through the game thrice when it has next to no replayability. Fuck this shit.

I played on release as well and only got invaded by other players twice maybe

Only 900 on sotfs? Whenever i play there are summon signs almost everywhere and i was invading/cooping with people pretty much everwhere throughout my playthrough

I have no issues with Mirror Knight aside from Benhart being completely retarded and just tanking all his hits even if I was using the red eye ring (or whatever ring makes you draw aggro)

I would have soloed him easily but I wanted to continue Bennie's storyline.

Dark Souls 3 had a lot of stuff cut from it like 1 and 2, they just hid it better. Yhorm was the most disappointing thing imo, in the reveal trailer he was just referred to as the Lord of the Profaned Capital and he was the most enigmatic Lord of Cinder with the shot ending on him and giving him way more focus than the others and in-game he's the least relevant with a tiny, clearly unfinished area. Not to mention in the pre release footage we saw that originally you fought Wolnir in Yhorm's arena, which would imply he was a mid boss of sorts for the area and you'd continue on downwards. It was probably connected to the Smouldering Lake at some point since both SL and TPC are both implied to have been Eleum Loyce at different times and the Profaned Flame is implied to be an Abyss tainted Chaos Flame, but the connecting area was cut at some point so both just feel weird and unfinished. Yhorm fought the Chaos demons on the front line himself at one point, so perhaps that huge fucking expanse of nothing in Smouldering Lake was where we'd fight Yhorm in the original build since instead of sitting around doing nothing like in the final game he'd returned to finish what he started after being resurrected, hence the Demon King hiding in a little room there. Also explains who piled up the like 50 dead Stray Demons in his arena. And the Kiln in 3 was originally going to be an actual level, hence the weird warping thing there where we start off miles away looking at it then just teleport to it. This was cut and is being implemented in The Ringed City however. And the Painted World was probably also going to be in the game but go cut too.

>ruined by SM.
This is the biggest meme right after DS2 being bad. Had you actually played DS2 and tried to understand the game mechanics, you would have known that Sm is the best thing to happen to DS pvp, because it makes twinking impossible, since you can't play through the game at low soul level, get powerful weapons and armor, upgrade them fully and then invade low level noobs.

yea now you just get to agape ring as fast as you can and wear it the whole time