[diplo]

I'm trying to think of human-scale knight types in Demon's that don't react after you've hit them a few times with a powerful weapon and can't come up with anything. Same for Dark Souls. But the problem is one of visual language (why is a knight that's the same size of me made of adamantium? (part of the problem with the undead knights from earlier on in the DLC)), uninteresting contextual level design (you fight them in vacuous box rooms or hallways surrounding square structures), and simple lazy enemy design (we're not going to come up with interesting behavior, combinations, or placement; we're just going to give you a standard humanoid enemy that switches between single-handed and two-handed wielding and has a billion poise).

[UtilityFrog]

Yeah, those knight enemies were very irritating. From memory, with my +10 mace and 30 strength, it usually took at least 4 one-handed hits to stun them, and it's a very short stun at that. They also don't react in any way to bouncing off your shield, which makes it hard to impossible to find a safe opportunity to strike. Most of my kills against them were by backstabs.

[diplo]

[mauve]

yeah the pve enemy design is lazy as fuck this time around. whole lotta humanoids. supposed to be tough? okay infinite poise or a shield that doesn't care about anything you do even while it's attacking.

the end of the brightstone path, where you're fighting the horde of spiders from every direction, is probably one of the most actually interesting areas in the game.

edit: also after doing low level arena stuff for awhile i now understand why people are saying katanas are really good. it doesn't show as much on my high level char due to more available strategies, but i didn't realize they both buffed the damage _and_ left the 150(!) counter damage on several katanas... trading is essentially not a viable strategy and that shuts a lot of character types down.
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twit

[Talbain]

Silver Knights in Dark Souls 1 could be stunned but my general experience with them is that they also had a billion poise. They do have a stun animation from hitting your shield though. There were knights in Demon's Souls that were the same way, if I recall. The no shield reaction is more damning to me than an enemy with a ton of poise.

That all said, it's been a long time since I've used a shield in Dark Souls 2. It doesn't seem like the game was designed for it. Rolling is just an exceptionally better option.
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[diplo]

Analogos and I chatted about DS2 for a bit today.

[diplo]

[Talbain]

I actually feel like "don't get hit" is actually kind of the opposite mantra Dark Souls 2 takes. There are a ton of healing items throughout the game such that getting hit almost seems perfectly fine (later in the game, casting infinite spells also seems like something the game inherently accepts given the fact that you can buy spell use recovery items). I would say the game attempts to teach the player to figure out recovery and thus when healing items can be used. There are very few enemies that kill you outright, and a lot that knock you down 100% of the time and thus you spend a lot of time on the ground. But being on the ground for as long as you are after those hits gives you a lot of time to think about what happened when you were hit. Similarly, it gives you a chance to recover, heal, and maybe even take another hit (if you have the health) in the process. I would say the game expects you to get hit and gives you a ton of healing options to essentially opt out of Estus being the only recovery method.

As for the narrative argument for Silver Knights and their relative size, I don't see them as being significantly larger than the player, and the fact that you can backstab them seems more proof of that than anything that they are humanoid-type enemies. Also, I'm not saying that they definitely have more or less poise, just that I don't feel the difference is significant while fighting them.

I agree that shields should feel more significant than they actually do, but that's my problem with them; they don't feel like they were supposed to be in the game. So many of them are bad, seemingly intentionally, that it's hard for me to figure out why they would do that unless their intent was to encourage the player to not use them at all.
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[analogos]

what I'm trying to figure out is: if Souls' challenges can be so frequently characterized by affecting a sense of difficulty until they suddenly just don't (i know what to expect now / i get the pattern / i have this piece of equipment / i've gotten to soul level X) how do you iterate upon that in a way that could even begin to possibly register for an experienced player? when i try to entertain the premise and mindset of some of these criticisms of souls' mechanics i feel like the only conclusion i can really come to is that the frictions derived from combat are too ephemeral to be that interesting beyond early playthroughs anyway, so it's hard for me to hold attempts at more X-TREME variants of this against it when it's working within the constraints of these design philosophies in this engine to begin with.

someone just tell me what a Good souls enemy/boss/whatever is and why, and then tell me why it's still good after i aggro circlestrafe backstab it 1,000,000 times in my sleep.

---

why is an enemy (or even an entire specific location denoted by presence of said enemy) designed more around performing as an ambient irritant than another thing to comfortably kill and be rid of necessarily a bad thing? i wonder if its being paid dlc makes feeling inclined to rush through it especially frustrating.

---

"you can tell something's strong because it's big" seems like a pretty restrictive aesthetic rule.

---

there is a much higher on average frequency of shields in DS2 that are in the 90-95% damage reduction range, which is a pretty significant change from the previous two games. you have to make it a decent ways into the game before you can sit comfortably behind a shield without specializing in heavier equipment and/or AGI/ADP (which is also a big change to defensive dynamics). you don't need a shield to perform guard break, and playstyles designed around expectation of blocking are only more susceptible to being guard broken themselves. dual wielding and increased granularity of weight classes both encourage abandoning shields outright.

[mauve]

tbh the real problem with ds2's combat is that it is _too_ codified, it's almost afraid of going outside of certain boundaries, which is why you have zillion poise knights instead of more creative/oddball enemies that were in previous games. rather than comparing to silver knights, where are the demon imps from the same area? is anything actually like the old painting guardians? who can forget mini-phalanx? or the harpies? etc.

There's nothing like, say, Storm King, or Gaping Dragon, or Four Kings, or whathaveyou. Even Gwyn required more of a strategy adjustment than basically any boss in DS2. I don't think _difficulty_ should really be the goal of the pve game but keeping you switching it up so you can't settle down too easily on any random pattern. DS2's bosses fall into three categories: Three hits and then OPENING, one big hit you have to evade, and whole bunch of dudes/adds. Freja is probably my favorite boss because there's a lot keeping you on your toes without feeling like you have to just wait for an opening to do something.

ds2 seems to have a bit of a "lol this game is hard" fetish going on there but it seems to be a very specific kind of hard it's going for, one that I think simplifies the overall pve game.

as far as shields go, while small/mid shields are worse, greatshields got a massive buff this time around because they no longer weigh 300 pounds. it is entirely viable to make a pvp-worthy build out of one
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twit

[Talbain]

I definitely agree that enemy variety needs work in Dark Souls 2. No where is this more true, I think, than in Lost Bastille and Iron Keep.

At the same time, because the entire game feels more like levels than a connected area, I think the sameness of enemies was less forgivable. It's a Mega Man-like feature. Those games always have a lot of repeating enemies but when structured as levels it's generally more acceptable because the disconnection is more distinct. Plus obvious theming tends to be forgiven when the world is structured in such a manner.
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[diplo]

[UtilityFrog]

I don't really mind that the game starts out with shields in the 75% to 95% phys reduction range. These shields are still perfectly viable for the early game. I think it was maybe a bit too easy to get a decent to excellent shield early in DS1. Having to make do with a viable but sub-optimal 90% shield for awhile makes the moment when you get a 100% shield quite satisfying.

I think my biggest problem with DS2 is the feel of combat and of character control in general. I did a playthrough of Demons Souls last week and I was struck by how good it felt to just move around and fight enemies. Everything felt crisp and precise. Enemy animations corresponded with the effect their actions were having on my character and vise-a-versa.

DS2 by contrast feels muddy, sluggish, sloppy and, worst of all, inconsistent and difficult/impossible to read. There's nothing inherently wrong with a heavier/slower pace in a Souls game, after all DS1 was generally slower than Demons Souls and still worked very well. But DS2 isn't just heavier and slower. It often feels unresponsive, especially in combat. I think a big part of this is the lack of enemy reaction to being hit, and the lack of reaction of some enemies to hitting your shield. The Drakeblood knights are the worst example of this, but I think it's a problem that extends throughout the whole game. In the worst case your character can be halfway through an attack animation, and even doing damage to an enemy, and the enemy will bust out an extremely fast attack on you, doing damage to you with no possible chance of you avoiding it.

There's also the audio delay bugs (on PS3 anyway, don't know if these are on other platforms). Having combat sound effects not sync up correctly with animations does a lot to damage the feel of combat and make it feel far less solid and predictable.

Rolling is also something that feels far less reliable in DS2 than the previous games. This seems to be related to both lack of i-frames and wonky weapon hitboxes, but whatever the cause, I seem to get hit far more while rolling in DS2 than the previous games.

[UtilityFrog]

Another thing I wanted to gripe about in DS2's design is the increased emphasis on consumables. I'm talking mainly about healing and spell recovery items.

In my opinion, one of the best design improvements moving from Demon's Souls to Dark Souls was the removal of healing grasses and the removal of MP and MP recovery items. This not only removed a potential source of frustration on the players side, that being the possibility of running out of HP or MP recovery items and having to grind up more, but it also made balancing the game a far easier job for the developers. Limiting healing uses and spell uses per bonfire gives the developers a far better idea of how many spell/healing charges a player is likely to have at any given point of the game.

DS2 throws the purity and conciseness of this design out, and I've no idea why. The developers now have no idea how much healing a player is likely to have at any given point. And the introduction of spell use recovery items is particularly baffling to me. It directly and completely undoes the core design benefit of having limited spell uses.

Can anyone think of any way that these changes in DS2 are an improvement over DS1? Because I can't think of any way that they're an improvement.

[Talbain]

[misadventurous]

[Felix]

all of that, and the one time I played sorc in Dark I was doing more melee damage with magic weapon estoc in the early game (and subsequently enchanted estoc in the mid game since you can get the chunks and the ember in darkroot fairly easily before Sen's unlike every other top-level buff) than I ever did with my pure melee guys, and while it was my third time through I never really felt like I had to be that stingy with casts

so, y'know, if you want to talk about sorcs being overpowered previously, sure, but I'm not really seeing an argument in favor of more consumables

I should go back to my DeS replay in the autumn, I only made it through 1-1, 3-1, and 4-1. it stays light out too late for me to play dark games on the projector in summer other than on weekends.

diplo's pretty much put me off playing the DLC at this point (and I wasn't too excited about it to begin with) but I'm curious about Bloodborne as most of the DkS2 engine changes that weren't particularly well-realized in DkS2 seem to have been done in its service...

[diplo]

[analogos]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Talbain]

[mauve]

i am not reading all of this just yet but i have to say now that i gave up on low level varangian invader, llewelyn armor + gyrm helmet is some sexy viking king shit right there, especially if you got the beard to match
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twit

[UtilityFrog]

[Talbain]

And feeling "good" is entirely an anecdotal complaint that only goes as far as other people agreeing with you. I thought Dark Souls 2 felt fine and have long thought that more things should be tied to stats, including things like weapon damage (which partially exists in all of the Souls series). The reason I find these complaints off the mark is entirely because of the fact that I feel like stats should have a much greater effect on the game than they do, and Dark Souls 2 establishes that. It establishes that stats matter on a fundamental level and that they affect the play experience. I honestly would prefer if stats determined weapon damage, rather than Maces being the best because they have the right typing for the entirety of the game. Or slashing weapons in the previous two games. I like feeling like character progression isn't based on the equipment I'm wearing but on the character I'm building (and that building a character is something the player controls). Armor, to me, has always felt entirely cosmetic and I hate the fact that how effective you are in the game is strongly tied to what you're wearing. It limits theming characters and I want to be able to theme my characters. Every time I make a character I decide how I want the character to represent themselves, and I attempt to build towards that idea. And in Dark Souls 2 you are much more free to do that than in the previous two entries.

It's a fundamental issue to me: why is it that barely meeting the requirements for a weapon allows you to hurt an enemy with it at its full strength? Why is it not a slow progression to get to a point where the strength of the character is what's making the difference, instead of the strength of the weapon? I feel like if the player wants to hit like a truck, that they can feel free to simply up Strength to 99 at the expense of all other stats and do so, but having to deal with significant downsides as a result of that decision. But instead, the player is met with weapons that actually determine more than just moveset. I'm not opposed to weapon swing speed being slower without more dexterity, or that casting speed is tied down in such a manner; these decisions seem logical. I want stats that feel like they have a sense of progression and weight to them, and Dark Souls 2 provides this intimately.

edit: Also, what I think you mean when you say you want a roll that feels good is that you want a very effective roll with no strings attached. Dark Souls 2 doesn't offer that initially to the extent you want, and thus you think the system is flawed, despite it offering that, but with strings attached.
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[misadventurous]

[Talbain]

How is mechanical skill less important if you start off needing more mechanical skill than in the past games?

Also, I'm not trying to be dismissive, I just don't know how to address a person saying that a game doesn't feel good. I can't say much more than I disagree because it's a statement that doesn't lend itself to discussion. It would be like asking a person what they want for dinner and them telling you they want something that tastes good.
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[UtilityFrog]

[Talbain]

I definitely agree that there's a qualitative difference, and while I agree that there's a fine line, I don't think Dark Souls 2 crosses over it egregiously, just more than what a lot of people were expecting based on the past two games. That said, I like that it's trying to do something interesting with stats and would honestly prefer if stats were a more noticeable part of the game (not just rolls, but animation speed as well - though this already happens pretty significantly for spells - probably a big reason why I like spells a lot in Dark Souls 2, aside from simply having more variety). And they always have been, but only to a point of soft caps and hard caps, where the only discussion seems to be around whether or not the stat is "useful" past a certain cap. I would like for a person who wants a gigantic health bar to be able to get that if they wanted to just invest points in that. Or an agility player to be tremendously difficult to hit but folds like paper and doesn't hit you terribly hard either (thus giving weapons with wider hitboxes more importance against agility players, and forcing players to think about how their stats affect their style, as well as decisions about weapon options to cover a wider variety of playstyles). It gives room for more experimentation with builds rather than looking towards caps that are arbitrarily defined by the developers. This does require that weapons themselves are not the arbitrators of damage, but it balances out in that players then have to make decisions about whether it's speed or power that will ultimately see them through, in PvP or PvE. Right now it feels like you can easily get the best of both worlds, where weapon tiers are very straightforward because damage + moveset greatly simplifies the equation (rather than stats + moveset, which have much greater variance from player to player).

Granted, all of the above is dependent upon 1) no Soul Memory and 2) Much like Dark Souls 1, an agreement on a comfortable Soul Level for builds. Soul Memory is a real problem.

I really dislike poise. There are a lot of enemies in Dark Souls 2 that have it and I don't like that. You're spot on with that.

As for rolls and armor? I don't think defense should be determined by armor and I think roll speed should be stat-based. It seems silly enough as it is that you can fast roll in heavy armor as long as you aren't over a certain threshold, which makes me wish they would just abandon the pretense entirely. Armor should be cosmetic.

I don't feel like the Souls series has ever had a roll with predictable effects. I think what people want is a roll with a higher base amount of iframes. Which I don't personally feel is necessary, but there are a lot of people that definitely want the 13 iframe roll back (standard fast roll in Dark Souls 1). You start off with an 8-10 iframe roll, which is a fat roll in Dark Souls 1.
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[Zodar]

in my mind, the silver knights having tremendous poise and relatively fast attacks was to thwart the two most common low-level strategies (stunlocking, waiting for enemies to bounce off your shield) and force you to learn how to parry (while giving you a prime environment to practice). the moveset and body language of the knights is really easy to read, and once you master their timing you suddenly have a new skill you can use to fight black knights (a menacing early-game bonus enemy) and even the final boss (who has a strong narrative connection to the silver knights). it all ties together.
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stong

[Oh God Spiders No]

Agility determines i-frames and item usage speed
Your roll distance is determined by your encumbrance percentage, which can be improved by removing equipment or investing in vitality.
Seems like there's some confusion about that here.

[mauve]

fyi a stat that affected the roll distance separate from equipment load would be absolutely devastating in pvp. currently if you're <=40%, even with base agility, you can roll twice and can't be backstabbed. if you have 110 agility, that's <=60%. and it's solely because of the amount of distance you get when rolling. (rolling twice actually is the safest way to get the hell away from someone!)

agi is a pretty poorly thought out stat though. in ds2 your roll has a window where you can get hit but do not stun(aside from knockback/down attacks), which is strangely lacking in feedback so it's hard to even understand why you're taking damage but apparently not being stunned. agility simply replaces parts of this window with more invincibility. there is no feedback, or game explanation, or anything really. It is, effectively, "the stat that makes your rolls not suck" but there is nothing to even hint that this is the case, so it is highly unlikely you will figure out what the stat even does without extensive testing or just looking it up. it also takes away from the core mechanics, since for literally every other action in the game only stamina and stamina recovery matter.

part of my problem with this conversation is i don't really care too much about pve balance, i'm mostly focused on the pvp game. and dark souls 1's pvp game is absolutely terrible. most weapons simply are not usable because they're too slow to start up, so they're easy parry bait. poise is so strong, even post-dwgr nerf, that you can't use anything other than quick attacks because people will literally run through your attack and backstab you. (if you go back to the ds1 threads here shortly after release, you will find me trying the pvp out and getting really, really frustrated at poise. dwgr nerf alleviated a lot of this but not enough to make it as enjoyable as demon's was.) which is sorta why ds2 making multiplayer a pain in the ass to actually do is frustrating to me, because its mechanics are leagues above ds1's in basically every conceivable way.

pve-wise, ds2 suffers from repetitive enemy design, too much reliance on heavy poise enforcing hit and run tactics, too many combat situations that are just "let's just throw more guys in here, that'll make it harder!", and too many wonky hitboxes especially on vertical strikes. the i-frames problem wouldn't be as big of a deal if you didn't get hit after you cleared the space an attack is actually hitting, but you still get hit. makes what used to be a positioning game into one of timing only. memories of fighting smelter on my first playthrough and his vertical smash killing me when I visibly wasn't even under the damned sword.
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twit

[diplo]

[Talbain]

[mauve]

Soul memory would honestly be perfectly fine if from set a sane maximum level in the 200-250 range instead of 828. Nobody wants to deal with that shit, which means nobody can agree on what the 'cap' should be. (I actually disagree with the SL150 'meta', run into much more interesting/varied builds at the 200 range as you can more effectively do more than one thing at a build there. 150 encourages 'do only one thing but do it extremely well', I feel.)

Also they could probably stand to make early game invasions a _little_ less painful to do. Having done them I can understand why they're gated: 90% of the people I invaded were wearing the Drangleic armor set and didn't have a clue what to do. The blues that got summoned to help were also fairly close to useless. As stated you can't really even get invading items unless you are heavily optimized anyway, so.

edit: unrelated to criticism... people seem to be hearing whispers in their game. happened to me yesterday in shrine of amana, had to make sure i wasn't just hearing things...
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twit

[scratchmonkey]

[mauve]

FWIW in the old Huntsman's Copse beta invaders had reduced health, like they did in Demon's. This didn't stick around and I think it's probably for the best in the late game that it didn't.

I think it would have been interesting if there were more graduated levels of invaders? Similar to the small white sign soapstone you'd have like a half-orb or something, where you invade with reduced health and stamina, or as a specific build you can't change or something.
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twit

[mauve]

future dlc spoilers but fuck it it's cool
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twit

[diplo]

[Talbain]

[Guillotine]

I want to say that western games never had a tradition of solid melee though?

[sarsamis]

3D action games with better hit detection than Dark Souls 2:

Demon Souls
Dark Souls

^ That's the main reason I get annoyed when people are so apologetic of this in Dark Souls 2. I was talking to someone the other day who was trying to be apologetic of the PC version's double attack animation speeds because "well, From never intended their games to be on PC..." Then why the fuck did they release it as a product?

[misadventurous]