>>3918593
Fuck all of these games, they're overrated ass

>>3918593
it had something, was it sovl as they called it in here? No, I don't think so, it was some other substance, viscous I would say, every corner, every bizarre enemy placement and strange decision in the combat got it. I will never forget you Dark Souls II.

The next game was worse but for some reason the fanbase decided to direct all their hate towards this one.

>>3918593
I enjoy the good old vanilla version more.

>>3918593
shouldnt play scholar first
thats the problem everyone has
they play the goofy romhack version of the game first, instead of the real one. scholar was for after youd already beat the base game a dozen times.
but from, in their infinite wisdom, decided to make the original version pretty much unobtainable
so everyone just plays the purposefully frustrating and linear shit version and then makes 14hr video essays seething about it

>>3918895
scholar has its purposes
once you figure where everything is, you can very rapidly get a build together
its just truly terrible on a first blind playthrough tho. all the parts that wouldve been "oh cool the pursuer is actually pursuing me now" just turn into "REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE GAME SUX REEEE"

>>3918593
let me guess, you didn't level up ADP and therefore your rolls sucked ass.

>>3918870
next game removed the cancerous ADP crap from this game and became playable because of it

>>3918908
3s PvP was even worse of a rollfest than 1
2 was literally the peak of DS PvP
took a couple patches RIP mundane santiers spam that shit was so stupidly fucked lol but by the end there they had a rly engaging PvP game for, i think, the only time ever. so many different build could be made usable. and they nearly all looked cool too. it was great.
ppl screech about soul meme-ory, but not only did they change it pretty drastically very early on, it also didnt fucking matter, since you had the arenas to get unlimited matches no matter what even like 8yrs after the game came out, on the PS3 version, you could get matches
and thats not even getting into the cool shit they tried like the rat covenant. if only the ppl slopping out soulslikes now had the balls to make a literal covenant based around trolling unsuspecting retards

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it's a well proven fact whoever hates this game is a raging homo

>>3919367
my theory is DS1 newfags, who hadnt played DeS which, admittedly, was the vast majority due to DeS being a PS3 exclusive, played DS2 and couldnt into the more esoteric/demonsouls-y changes. everything that was at least semi-familiar to DeS players, was a point of unadulterated REEEEEEEE for the DS1 player. they just wanted DS1 again which is literally all 3 is so idk why theyre still always bitching lol. where a DeS player had learned to possibly brace for an entire world/setting change between games, the DS1 player wanted a continuous timeline/story. they didnt get that all, so they were big mad. cue the 36hr schizoessays

its funny too because 2 has, imo, some of the more interesting lore implications in the series. esp in regards to the actual curse and how it works. it just doesnt have nearly as much of the
>ZOMG look its the ring that turned gwyndolin into a faggot SOIIII
blatant fanservice nonsense that 3 had, so normalfags tuned out.

>>3919380
>DS1 again which is literally all 3 is
Just looking at the lore..?

The DS1 style of interconnected world design was abandoned, and I never gave any follow ups a pass for that sinful decision.

>>3918908
>>3918907
Lmao.
How dare an action RPG demand you raise a stat to get better at something.

DS2 is profoundly ugly and has a handful of memorably bad enemies, though nothing quite as obnoxious as DS3s dogs now that i really think about it

scholar is easily the superior version btw

>>3918593
filtered, it was great

>>3919388
the thing that confuses me:
did no one lvl attunement? for anything? on any character? you dont have to lvl ADP at all if you dont want to plus ATN gives spell slots, extra spell uses, and quicker cast time/item use, in addition to AGL. iirc the breakpoint is like low/mid 90s AGL where youre like a standard DS1 midroll. youre gonna get more than that incidentally, just from trying to fit one forbidden sun or a sacred oath. any kind of caster will have +100 AGL without even thinking about it

i just dont get the complaining about having to raise a stat to get better in an ARPG
is it that its a derived stat? its not like there were none of those of the utmost importance in DS1 encumbrance being the big one
and why SHOULD every character be able to roll exactly the same anyways? was it rly a better system having it ENTIRELY based on some arbitrary percentile of you max encumbrance?

>>3918897
I played Scholar first and loved it, what's supposed to be bad about it?

>>3919426
I think the issue was it wasn't really explained in the game what it does. You had to read guides/wikis or have someone tell you.

>>3919427
its a LOT more linear, unless you know when/where to use your branches of yore which you wont, your first go
also a lot of the changes that would really mess with your head? theyre just gonna be the normal. youre not gonna realize it was calling back to and/or subverting anything. basically, to appreciate the contrast.

but imo its mostly the first part. the original game was almost hilariously open ended. you could go quite a ways in pretty much any direction without getting cockblocked. meanwhile, scholar was retarded with its branch of yore statue spam. theres so many prank ones that dont lead to anything. on a first go you might just waste em and end up getting railroaded onto the one specific path thats still open to you. it was much harder to get into that situation in the original

my "fix" has always been to combine scholar AND the first game, as well as both of their NG+s. maybe have an additional CoC type covenant thing where you can opt into playing the scholar version right away
essentially
>OG NG (for NG)
>OG NG+ (for NG+)
>SotFS NG (for NG++)
>SotFS NG+ (for NG+++)
etc
or even better, some kind of mix and match, so each go around of an area has slightly different enemy placements from both versions
basically, itd just be a way to expand the already rly good NG+ that 2 had, but also still allow for the OG version to exist.

>>3919436
pretty sure you could just press select in the menu to read what all the stats do, just like the first game. at any rate, vague mechanics/wiki autism certainly isnt unique to 2 lol. its all of em

but its like i was saying. ppl wanted 1 again. they played 2, it was intentionally made as a slower, more deliberate game, and 1 fans lost it because they couldnt just ninjaflip as a SL1 twink or whatever which in fact may or may not have been a reason why they made the stat at all: to curb twinking but thats also kinda rarted cuz then wtf was soul meme-ory for? idfk lol this game had like 3 directors in 2yrs lmfao im surprised it even happened. instead you needed to actually spec into being agile now. and that was it. the line in the sand

>>3919443
>theres so many prank ones that dont lead to anything. on a first go you might just waste em and end up getting railroaded onto the one specific path thats still open to you.
Oh, I ran into that but it wasn't that bad, I ended up getting enough of them eventually.

>>3919449
and they ARE around, in higher quantities too, to remedy that situation. so after youve played, youll know, "oh shit i can get the kot ring and blahblah", or, "dont use one in things betwixt, its pointless", etc. but you wont know that the first time. and it seems most ppl get strung along that same path their first go as a result.
the OG was not like that. closer to demon souls, where you could go pretty far in any "direction" before ever hitting a major boss, or getting cockblocked. if anything, i could see ppl complaining it was too vague on where to go. i just personally disagree lol. i thought that was the best part

>>3919436
You're right, "Adaptability" doesn't really signal "better dodge" that well, and since "resistance" was near worthless in DS1, many weren't that trusting. It could have been clearer.

>>3919388
>>3919426
Its not about "raising a stat to get better," its that ADP is directly tied to your I-frames. Roll animations are dependant on equipment load, but you can have different amounts of I-frames on roll based on a stat. It makes some goofy shit happen where you'll be mid-roll and take damage.

Pretty sure I know what long video essays some of you are mocking, and I'm guessing you haven't actually watched them to understand the criticism. Theres a million other problems with DS2 as well.

>>3919749
Iframes are not a human right. You are not entitled to not take damage because you're rolling. Have you tried physically avoiding the attack?

>>3918921
>PVP
Who fucking cares about the garbage PVP in these single player games? The invasion system existed to gank you, that was the only thing it was there for.

>>3919388
how I can tell that DS2 was you first one.

DS2 requires leveling multiple stats to get your rolls to be good. Every other Souls game only needed one stat to be leveled

>>3919960
>Have you tried physically avoiding the attack?

and how do you do that in Souls games? By rolling

>>3920099
thats why 2 was GOAT. there was an attempt to make it something other than just rolling or backstabbing or ganking low lvl retards in undead burg or whatever

there was an invasion covenant, an arguably even more active anti-invasion covenant, and both respective covenants had 3 arenas you could just go battle in constantly, so you didnt even need to invade if you wanted to PvP. additionally, there was the rat covenant for the lulz, 2 bell tower covenants for ACTUAL 3-on-1 gank shenanigans and to make farming chunks not gay, then sunbros, which was also pretty active due to the rly gud rewards. hell, even the offline covenant, the darklurker one, was more interesting that what most covenants in the series ever did

so thats why one would care. its the one where they actually tried to make it engaging. it wasnt just about invading, or getting """ganked""" by one person

>>3920133
Get a load of this literal baby. Gotta fuck around on the ground to get anything done, because he's incapable of walking to avoid shit.
Ducking under shit is in this game, and this motherfucker don't even know.

>>3920207
>Ducking under shit is in this game

but how often to enemies do horizonal swipes? AND there is no duck button

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>>3918593
Having Played both versions, DS1, DeS, a bit of 3 and even less of Elden Meme, i can safely say that its definitely not as bad as the internet claims it is if not the best entry.

The only factual faults of the game are are the following:
>Soul Memory
Straight up bad. Im not even a PVP sweatlord but having such an odd way to counter twinking only made PVP and to an extend COOP worse. Im all in for maxed characters so it feels pretty bad when you enter a tier where you fight against the same type of players over and over or struggle to do some COOP or hell, considering to stop getting souls altogether.
>Weak bosses
To be more specific im talking about total health. Most bosses even after NG are simply melting away no matter what you build so these fights feel kinda void because of it. Im not asking for them to have 23973297 phases and be Artorias clones, i wish they were simply more tanky to compensate.
>Enemy aggro
Its not the Iron Keep or Shrine of Amana to blame, but rather the insane aggro their enemies have. Iron Keep is the worst offender since these fuckers can scan you from a mile away and dash towards you so you get swarmed if you take a single step wrong. If these two areas had enemies be way less aggressive or keen eyed they wouldnt be as dreadful to go through.

Everything else is very good. The build variety is insanely big, the setting and theming is pretty on point, combat has the right amount of speed and weight on it, the replayability is hyuge due to all the changes and additions in NG+ and beyond. Sure i wish they didnt downgrade the graphics any but SotFS kinda sorta fixes that so everything's not as washed out as it originally was.

>>3920424
I felt the bosses had reasonable amounts of health. Depends on PC stats and weapons, I guess, but in my experience more health would have made fights drag on too much.

>>3920209
Not horizontal. Diagonal.

Certain actions, like raising a shield to block, cause you to lower your head a tiny bit. Yes, this does affect your hitbox, and yes, this tiny bit can be enough to avoid attacks. Most often this is done accidentally, and during specific attacks with weapons.
It's easiest to do this against Vendrik, but even Pursuer has a few. In general: if an attack is diagonal and there's a part that raises above your head, there's a part where lowering your head can make a difference.

Unless the devs decided to huff glue that day, saying the hurtbox didn't need to match the animation at all, and also it needed to linger for 3 days. THIS is what makes this game so infuriating.

>>3920497
The issue is that DS2 bosses have unique gimmicks that you dont really see most of the time because they go down so easily.
>Flexile Sentry arena is flooding
>Covetous demon can be distracted with the hollows as bait
>Mirror Knight's summons
>Scorpioness' Najka's borrowing underground
There's a lot more too but since most of them go down relatively quickly you dont get to interact with it much if any at all.

>>3918593
the only part about this game i truly hate is soul memory(I enjoy summons and pvp), aside from that i really like it

>>3920560
I dunno if you're joking or on some minmax shit. Ignored.

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>gimme humanity
>endure awful runback
>beat dark lurker
>here lass, you'll slaying in PvP with this hex
>but it will raise soul memory and forever fuck your PvP tier anyway
thank you dark souls 2

>>3919380
nah DS2 is hot garbage made by team B because miyazaki was too busy at the time making bloodborne. Most of the retard decisions in 2 were removed from the series

one of the Dak Souls 2 trolls/defenders got so BTFO that they made >>3920492

>>3921068
imagine getting so butthurted you need to make your own thread to get called retard there too

>>3921534
DS2 defenders are a special kind of stupid

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Ds2 has TERRIBLE level layout and the game tries to gank you with irritating encounters/ambushes all the time. WTF even was that pirate level? Game also had laggy controls and odd timing for rolls, DS3 improved upon this unwieldy turd of a game in so many ways its not even funny, DS2 is unpopular for a reason.

>>3921661
i love the surprise troll they hid in the original version... You open a door and BANG no warning, no nothing a troll explode the door you are opening and kills you. Next time you go back the door is not there anymore just proving they wanted to fuck you over.

Of course everyone in this thread is arguing that DS2 is the best game in the series. This board is just a contest to be as contrarian as possible.

>>3921732
it's one idiot that is saying that it's the best and everyone else is like "you are wrong"

>>3921727
>just proving they wanted to fuck you over.
like the bullshit with one of the boss soul merchants