The template for every bit of fantasy you ever seen or heard of has a disembodied spirit build an entire empire in the middle of a volcanic hellhole and a giant fortress on top of a supervolcano. Yes if you took logic into it this would be impossible due to the heat of the volcano killing everyone working around it or the toxicity of the air. Nobody cares though, seriously nobody not a single person except maybe some Gankerermin here or there.
> The template for every bit of fantasy you ever seen or heard of has a disembodied spirit build an entire empire in the middle of a volcanic hellhole and a giant fortress on top of a supervolcano.
Wtf are you talking about homie
Whether they knew or not is irrelevant.
They built there because it was good land, a thing that's almost always a thing around volcanoes because of volcanic soil, on top of good sea access.
No the, best cope I've seen is the "time is distorted" argument. and your character actually traveled to the mountain that's extremely far away and your character does this multiple times like on the way to drangleic castle.
I think that's the actual intended cope by the game designers for being too moronic to design a coherent world like DS1. For example, when you go to heide tower of flame, you can clearly see it from Majula (very far away). Then you move through a 200 meter tunnel and you're there
But that's the best cope, you round a corner multiple times and the whole environment and weather system is different. Even in the cinematic it's established that your character is demented.
Honestly it's cope but it's cope that provides a valid explanation. The primary issue is that there isn't some kind of transition animation that implies some kind of unreliable narrator angle, and instead is just geographically mappable space. If you entered a tunnel and suddenly it was just grey void of melting, distorted goop, and when you came out of it you were in a completely different area, that'd completely make sense.
Honestly even unintentionally it was the must ludokino experience ever. Of course you'd have to have gone in completely blind and with no expectations which most ds1 babbies didn't
I went in pretty blind. I got into Souls late. I beat Demon's Souls when Dark Souls 2 was already out. Then played some Dark Souls, got filtered by O&S because I was absolutely trash, then went on to beat Bloodborne before going back to beat Dark Souls.
By the time I played DS2, The Ringed City DLC for 3 was already out. All I knew about it was that it had a bit of a bad reputation, but I loved going through Dark Souls blind so wanted to do the same with 2.
I was just... disappointed by it. It felt like I was playing a cheap Chinese knockoff of a souls game, especially with the control scheme and just the graphics in general.
I remember riding up that elevator for the first time and stopping to call my friend, who was a huge Souls fan and had already platinumed the 5 Soulsborne games. I had to call just to vent about how stupid it was to me. By the time I got to the 100-foot long STRAIGHT tunnel that you walked in with the castle in the distance on one side and then exited with the castle on the other side (and it suddenly pouring rain,) I just kind of accepted that even though I didn't have any expectations for DS2 other than it be as fun as Demon's and Dark Souls, I was still let down by it.
I got the platinum trophy for that game so I'd never feel any kind of need to go back and replay it. It's not the worst game I've ever played by a long shot, and there were some times in the actual moment I had fun with it, but it's my least favorite game in the series, hands-down.
11 months ago
Anonymous
Honestly that "bad reputation" already affected your expectations. Not to say they're not completely valid since the game is a mess but there was something magical about experiencing DS2 in 2014 that just cemented its place in my heart.
11 months ago
Anonymous
I mean maybe it did, but I did my best to actively give it a try. The 'bad reputations' I knew of it was mostly just seeing threads about people complaining about it on v, without really looking into why because I knew I'd want to play it one day. So I was definitely taking the 'bad reputation' with a grain of salt before I even started.
I really tried to like it. The 4 ring slots was a great change, and I loved power-stancing. I always like going STR, and realizing I had enough to wield two ultra greatswords was great.
I always have a few good things to say about it. The fact that rolling in poison coated you with it was a great touch. Rings and power-stancing were good changes. Some of the areas were gorgeous, like the Shrine of Amana. Being able to beat the Pursuer early was actually great, I stumbled into him and beat him on my first trip in the area. And I liked them bringing in the Giants, even if it ultimately didn't go anywhere.
But just so much about it was lackluster to me when I was playing it. The controls felt odd, due to the 8-way roll and that you couldn't turn as well during your attacks. The branches of yore just felt completely pointless. The places you could see from Majula were very clearly just flat .pngs. The game loved to flood areas with enemies, with a couple of the bosses just being "here's a group of pretty much normal enemies." The bonfire placements could be really weird, like being able to almost see one bonfire from another. Having the ability to warp from the beginning made the world feel less connected: Majula felt like the center of a starfish. You could go down any of the paths you wanted, but it was effectively just 1 path and when you got to the end you just had to warp out. Being able to permanently kill any enemy by killing them 10 times meant you could brute force your way through an area without getting better.
11 months ago
Anonymous
I despawned the frickers before the Chariot boss I had enough of getting raped on the bridge but in hindsight the game shouldnt have a pussy mechanic like that.
Bonfire aesthetics were a good idea tho
11 months ago
Anonymous
I feel like I got really lucky on Chariot boss and didn't have to do the boss run a lot, but I remember the area being a pretty big pain.
I was waiting at a bonfire near a tower and got killed by an archer that aggroed after I rested. So I respawned, killed him, and since I was waiting for a friend just kept respawning and killing him to farm a teensy bit of souls and for petty vengeance.
Then he stopped showing up, and that's when I learned you could despawn them forever.
It really does feel like it goes against the whole thing of the series of "if you rest, it resets the area." And at least you could reset them if you really wanted to.
11 months ago
Anonymous
I think it gets a lot of flak because it was trying to live up to the Souls series. If it was a standalone game without any expectations, I think it wouldn't have gotten nearly as much criticism as it did. But I know personally my criticism comes from me having wanted to like it so much, and feeling so let down.
I've heard from a lot of people that have DS2 as their favorite that it was also their first Souls game. And particularly if it was your first one, I could see it having a magic that other games didn't. Despite all the criticism, I still think it's a better game than plenty out there. In a series with 5 games, ONE of them had to be the weakest entry (in my opinion at least.) But that doesn't mean it's completely devoid of anything good in it.
Like I said, I tried to go in blind. To love it like I loved Demon's Souls and Dark Souls and Bloodborne. It just never clicked with me. I had some fun playing it, but when I sit and actually think about all the issues I had that added up to it, it kills any joy I had towards it. But I'm glad people enjoy it. It's definitely one of those games that just wasn't for me, but could be good for other people.
11 months ago
Anonymous
It's an unwritten fact that when people go out of their way to shit on DS2, they still acknowledge that it's better than 99% of games out there
11 months ago
Anonymous
I played DeS first on a jailbroken ps3 back when it didn't have a western release so can't say it was my first experience but I was so dogshit at it that DS2 might as well have been my first game. That said the level design being shit never clicked with me because that's exactly the same way DeS operated (minus the deranged level transitions obviously).
DS1 is pretty much the only souls game that had that loop around design.
11 months ago
Anonymous
I technically played and beat Demon's Souls, then played Dark Souls up to O&S, then stopped for a while before playing and beating Bloodborne, then going back to beat Dark Souls. And then went on to beat 2 and 3.
Demon's definitely felt like a hub, no doubt about it. I mean you couldn't even get from one area to another without warping to the Nexus: no way at all to walk from Boletaria to the Tower of Latria.
But then Dark Souls came out and the level design was amazing. I still remember going through the Undead Burg to find that elevator and being amazed it led back to Firelink. And then realizing Firelink led to New Londo after that. All the shortcuts and ways the map actually felt like a world for the most part was such a good touch.
That's part of why going to 2 was kind of jarring. They had already figured out map and level design in 1, I thought. And then they just completely forgot about it in 2 and 3.
I don't see why not. What's with the apprehension though?
There was a vulnerability in the online that if you were playing someone could make your system run arbitrary code. I don't know if it got fixed yet, but that's probably what they're talking about.
11 months ago
Anonymous
>There was a vulnerability in the online that if you were playing someone could make your system run arbitrary code. I don't know if it got fixed yet, but that's probably what they're talking about.
nobody ever got hacked by that
it was a nothingburger
11 months ago
Anonymous
>I don't know if it got fixed yet, but that's probably what they're talking about.
It's already fixed months ago, it's all good m8. Don't expect to play in PTDE version though, because they scrapped the online there unfortunately.
>Entire game is literally threaded from the earliest npc to the last dialogue physically possibly attainable that hollowing is happening to everybody, and in the process their memories are fading into nothingness >Most transitions between stages are extremely short and accessible by foot when you are crossing the lengths between minor and major civilizations >Numerous entities in certain areas are parked precisely where they should be, but certain human enemies like the Heide Knights (who have obviously hollowed) are scattered all over the place
It makes sense that the distance traveled could easily be from the perspective of an unreliable narrator who thinks it's only been a short walk between one castle and an underground city since the memories of the trip wouldn't be anything worth remembering. All it needed, as I said, is some kind of visual to express that, and suddenly all of the pieces line up. People have been b***hing about this single elevator almost a full decade.
>People have been b***hing about this single elevator almost a full decade.
and the Heide elevator
and the Aldia to Aerie elevator
and the Bastille docks elevator
and the...
I love DS2 but while I agree thats the dev intention to a degree, that's still a fricking copout. They just couldnt figure out how to replicate DS1 world design
11 months ago
Anonymous
They had to cut corners because the game was being designed as some crazy open world thing before cutting back the scale
11 months ago
Anonymous
Explains why Elden Ring is basically the same story-wise. DS2 was meant to be Elden Ring.
11 months ago
Anonymous
i felt it while playing it
the areas in the second half of the game were definitely made by b team
>What if we followed up a game that's notorious for its interconnected world with consistent spatial relations between areas with a game where you get amnesia every time you walk through a door but don't include anything to actually suggest this
Bold decision
>f you entered a tunnel and suddenly it was just grey void of melting, distorted goop, and when you came out of it you were in a completely different area, that'd completely make sense.
This is the same idea I always wished they'd implement in a Dark Souls 2 remake
For the millionth time yes. The world of dark souls 2 is way too big and every level is far apart from each other. It would be fricking boring if you have to walk for 30 minutes in between each level. They also were limited by the current gen consoles at the time.
It's not that the world is too big (fully fleshed it probably wouldn't have been any bigger than ER, judging by the in-game maps), it's that almost all of the overworld areas don't stand in any relation to each other and seem to exist in their own separate bubble.
Stand atop Drangleic Castle, one of the highest and farthest placed away locations, and you won't see any glowing Iron Keep volcano/caldera/whatever, Dragon Aerie pillars, Majula or even just the giant aqueduct you just passed anywhere.
Instead you get a bunch of frickhuge mountains in the distance that weren't visible from any of the coastal locations.
>best cope I've seen is the "time is distorted" argument
Amazing that ds3 pulled this bullshit to mask the fact that From was cutting corners and not properly connecting different areas, and yet everyone loved it, "deepest lore" "muh the flame fades".
It's okay when ds3 does x thing, but it's not okay when ds2 does the same stuff.
>It's okay when ds3 does x thing, but it's not okay when ds2 does the same stuff.
Yes that's how it works when one thing sucks worse than the other. Dragon Age 2 got blasted for the amount of asset reuse it has meanwhile no one had a problem with it in Origins because it was a better game.
The thing that always puts me off of this copout fricking answer is that the timey wimey shit only ever happens in level transitions. If they wanted to sell this as an idea they should have had you mid level all the sudden be in different places every now and then. Like you open a door in a castle and the next room is a cave and after you turn a corner in the cave there is a snowy forest etc.
The way they did it in game just seems lazy. And there are only like 2 places you see this occur. Possibly on the way to drangleic and from the windmill to the bowser castle. An elevator from the top of the windmill doesn't even make sense. Like if you take the volcano away it doesn't even make sense to have an elevator going up into the sky from a building.
Bro, your Drangleic Castle that literally doesn't have a single fricking room that makes any logical sense except for the entrance hall and throne room?
Anon I went to sleep and woke up and thread isn't dead so I am responding. Drangleic castle is almost entirely made up of rooms from kings field castles and dungeons. The mask room, the jail cell area the weird throne room. The copy-paste enemies that don't belong. It is an internally consistent design for a castle from fromsoft. The kf series doesn't have the timey wimey shit going on either so if they thought it worked there then I refuse to believe they meant it to be timey wimey this time and it wasn't instead them slapping in some tried and tested level design like they do with poison swamps every game.
Interesting, but it doesn't stop it from being a complete mess. That stuff might fly in King's Field, but Demon's and Dark Souls already demonstrated that FromSoft knew how to make castle and dungeon areas which were both fun to play and logically designed. The only area of the castle that looks okay is the hallway that leads to the Mirror Knight fight. Everything else is just bizarre.
DS2 is about loss of memory, identity loss and becoming progressively the shadow of yourself. It's not that farfetched to have a long journey without the long moments nothing really happened and representing only the intense memories.
It's not a bad excuse even if it is an excuse nonetheless.
So the original plan was that after Earthen Peak, you'd head down a tunnel into a volcanic mountain, and take an elevator up to Iron Keep in the caldera. The concept art for Earthen Peak even features the mountain in the background (pic related).
However, the level designers got confused and put the elevator inside the windmill instead, because Dark Souls II's development was a fricking mess.
The original plan was to not have it connect to a fricking volcano in the first place.
Instead you were going to use the windmills to blow away poisonous fumes in Harvest Valley to proceed towards Undead Crypt.
There's even an elaborate stair well model in the old map files that probably acted as entrance.
>you were going to use the windmills to blow away poisonous fumes
Reminds me of that green party woman politician from the green party who visited a wind power plant while no wind was blowing and went >"Can't we use electricity to power those wind turbines?"
https://exxpress.at/wie-sinnvoll-gruene-wollte-windraeder-mit-strom-antreiben-berichtet-fpoe-bundesrat/
Also, if you look closely, you'll notice that your cape and cloth pieces along with the rags in the environment still move away from the windmill in the final game due to this.
It's fricking astonishing that DaS2 contrarians are incapable of letting this one single thing go. It's like the fact that it exists is an insult to them personally.
i never cared about this. i assumed the poison was sulfur or sulfuric, and it was a mining area before the kings wife took it over obviously. you also go deep enough into the windmill to assume it leads into something similar to this. the keep is more like a sea of fire than a mountaintop iirc so it should be less elevated
the real bs ds2 map design are the tunnels between heides tower and no mans wharf. underwater(?) airtight tunnels with water running through them simultaneously but you morons are hung up on a elevator. not even counting lost izalith not somehow burning through the tree
>i assumed the poison was sulfur or sulfuric
this isnt the problem >and it was a mining area before the kings wife took it over obviously
also not the problem >you also go deep enough into the windmill to assume it leads into something similar to this
this is the problem. because you can clearly see behind the giant windmill and there's nothing fricking there. people think its moronic because its almost like the game thinks YOURE moronic and won't notice because you have the memory of a goldfish and won't recall shit you saw 10 minutes ago.
There's never been a better time >Dark Souls Remastered servers are up again but you should play PTDE >Dark Souls 2's lighting engine has been rewritten by a fan mod, looks better than DS3 and arguably Elden Ring >Champion's Ashes for Dark Souls 3, the best Souls mod, got updated like last month
>>Dark Souls 2's lighting engine has been rewritten by a fan mod, looks better than DS3 and arguably Elden Ring
You're not talking about Flames of Old, are you?
>Anon is probably talking about that mod that makes the game look like Dark Souls 3, aka colorless and plastic
://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeSmoizF7fY
This video is old, though. The mod was released in mid-May as an alpha with none of the visual side done, and that video was made a week later. There's even comparisons the mod page comparing the muddy, gray alpha version with how it looked like 2 weeks later, so they're at least aware of this:
https://imgsli.com/MTgzMjA5
https://imgsli.com/MTgzMjA4
https://imgsli.com/MTgzMjEw
I didn't try it until the 0.7 update that started to fix some of this stuff. It has some issues, but it's good.
>>Dark Souls 2's lighting engine has been rewritten by a fan mod, looks better than DS3 and arguably Elden Ring
You're not talking about Flames of Old, are you?
No, it's called DS2 Lighting Engine. Flames of Old will probably never come out, it's been like 5 years.
>Has to use map editor to try and deflect
And even then, you don't go into Lost Izalith thinking that you SHOULD see Ash Lake from there. Nobody does. You would only realize that they're supposed to be on the same plane in the map editor itself.
The fricking elevator should very, clearly, obviously be there. You're asshurt. You're wasting your life being a contrarian.
>Has to use map editor to try and deflect
And even then, you don't go into Lost Izalith thinking that you SHOULD see Ash Lake from there. Nobody does. You would only realize that they're supposed to be on the same plane in the map editor itself.
The fricking elevator should very, clearly, obviously be there. You're asshurt. You're wasting your life being a contrarian.
Ash lake is almost a different dimension in canon.
The trees are basically holding up reality, like a plate on top of a turtle kind of thing. It's literally the only area in the game that has no actual implication in the map from any other point.
The volcano from windmill shitfrickland is just some shithole you end up in because lol xd le silly.
Everytime someone points this out, people go like „b-b-but it’s on purpose“
homie, there’s light shining through the sky with a big swamp on top
Doesn't count 2tard
>Has to use map editor to try and deflect
And even then, you don't go into Lost Izalith thinking that you SHOULD see Ash Lake from there. Nobody does. You would only realize that they're supposed to be on the same plane in the map editor itself.
The fricking elevator should very, clearly, obviously be there. You're asshurt. You're wasting your life being a contrarian.
Let's imagine Ash Lake was ACTUALLY deeper than Demon Ruins/Izalith for two seconds:
You'd have to go down the Great Hollow 2-3 times longer.
You can get to Ash Lake before you get fast travel.
New players who, dedicated to exploring, manage to get to the bottom, would have to trek back up a Great Hollow that is by itself longer than the Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith.
How do you keep it from bricking a stubborn new player's playthrough?
How do you make it worth it to go down all that way for an area that is, ultimately, optional?
What the frick would you even put in the Great Hollow to even make it that long? A fricking Seeker Camp?
The Great Hollow was that short for a reason. The Earthen Peak elevator was a complete oversight.
It literally doesn't matter anyways too.
It's a fricking massive primal limbo with trees that hold up all of reality, massive trees that hold the entirety of the known world. The world is held up by these trees. I still stand by this place not abiding by the same laws as the overworld, even if Nito's lair is on the "ceiling", nito's lair is the closest thing to the underworld in dark souls.
The earthen peak is literally just a normal place. Plus another anon just showed this is not even the biggest offender.
The trek down the Great Hollow feels much longer than it actually is thanks to the ACTUAL convolute environment with its countless branches you have to carefully travel down and various other design choices like the canopy in the middle that blocks your view.
You don't really question the size of the tree due to the time you spend in it, unlike all those nondescript corridors and elevators that are ACKTSHUALEE hundreds of miles long and your character has amnesia and is also an unreliable narrator and also lost his map and also is moronic and also is in a magical dream world where weird noneuclid geometry and time/space frickery only manifest themselves in corridors and elevators and also your ghey and I have to justify my purchase gitgud.
>Play Dark Souls 2 >Equip torch >Light torch >Every bit of water potentially snuffs out the torch, even some enemies can snuff out your torch >Play Elden Ring >Equip torch >Light torch >Walk under Waterfall >Torch still perfectly lit
What happen?
Be nice, it's all DS2gays have >shit gameplay >shit level design >shit world design >shit encounter design >shit enemy designs >shit boss designs >shit animations >shit graphics >b-but... powerstancing! you take less fire damage and more lightning damage when wet! NG+ has actual items! there's hidden moths throughout the world that give you nothing for killing them!
If I want to enjoy any of DS2's good features, I can simply enjoy them in a game that's actually good.
Cool attention to detail they could have used literally anywhere else but a torch.
Maybe spend it on actually geometrically accurate maps.
Torches were not just there for show. You could make levels significantly more easy or in some cases more dangerous if you light up the braziers in a level. There was actual smart use of torches in a level. They were not just for show. Light in general was useful to have.
Anon did you play a completely different version of DaS2 from everyone else? The pre-downgrade build maybe? Because torches were fricking useless most of the time in the actual game because almost no area was properly dark.
bit of water potentially snuffs out the torch, even some enemies can snuff out your torch
This literally never happened to me.
Maybe because the torch is useless 99% of the time in DaS2.
Then you're full of shit. Like No-Mans Wharf, that one crypt and many more use torches and light in general.
Anon did you play a completely different version of DaS2 from everyone else? The pre-downgrade build maybe? Because torches were fricking useless most of the time in the actual game because almost no area was properly dark.
I mean its not pitch black but the light certainly helps, also there are monsters in No Man's Wharf that are easier to beat with light. Then there are things like this
I'm sure this moment would have been great in the pre-downgrade build, but alas they ruined the lighting effects so it could release on PS3.
The fact of the matter is that the torch serves little to no practical purpose, so these moments are very easy to miss.
I did a power stance build the whole game and I don't recall ever having to switch out a weapon for a torch. The game is simply not "dark" at any point, except maybe The Gutter but it's been a while since I played.
11 months ago
Anonymous
You ran through the gutter and memorized all the places there without using a single torch to light up the braziers there? No way. Unless you fiddled with the Gamma settings.
11 months ago
Anonymous
Not him, but I’d usually go through a level once completely dark and then run through it again lighting braziers. The Gutter is a pain with less light, but the adjacent areas can be seen in any lighting if you’re willing to slow down and check thoroughly.
If an area is unexplored there will typically be items laying around and their lights stick out pretty well
11 months ago
Anonymous
Unlike Elden Ring, nothing in the gutter is designed to frick with your memorization other than just being mildly dim. Some catacombs in Elden Ring have identical rooms with identical enemy placements, or fake corpses to frick with you if you killed enemies in a previous identical room. Nothing in the gutter repeats itself, so it's trivial to remember where you've been even without torches.
11 months ago
Anonymous
I think I can actually draw the Gutter purely from memory, it's not confusing at all
If you could turn on the lights it would look incredibly small
I said it never happened to me, I didn't say it wasn't possible. The torch is useless which is why I never noticed the interaction.
These games are not about muh heckin emergent gameplay anyways, the fact that DaS2 has a tiny detail like that doesn't make up for its massive shortcomings in many other areas.
The torch continuity is broken by 2. It gives it to you on a timer and encourages the player to use it in certain situations like the Gutter or NMW. The rest of the series provides as an infinite light source "weapon". It goes out in 2 because it's a navigation tool determining level difficulty. It doesn't go out in the others because it's a barely useful utility item in a video game.
If you're going to b***h about realism let's start with the part where you can throw lightning and shoot crystals out of a wooden stick.
My point is that there's a good reason for it to extinguish in 2 because it effects your ability to traverse.
The other games don't require use of the torch at all. As a design choice I can understand having a preference but as an element of realism there's really no argument.
Okay, and? Dark Souls 3 doesn't need a torch because it isn't designed for a torch, like Demon's Souls was designed to use the crystal lantern, Dark Souls was designed to use the skull lantern in Tomb of the Giants, or Dark Souls 2 was designed to use torches before it was butchered. DS3's terrible lighting system is probably a direct reaction to Dark Souls 2, where Fromsoft wanted to avoid replicating that colossal frick-up at all costs. So the game is not designed with darkness, or a torch, in mind.
As much as I think DS2 sucks and could have been an amazing game if they spent enough time on it...I just never cared about that. It's a fantasy land adventure time bullshit. Going up an elevator to a land that doesn't exist/floats is so far down on my list of 'what the frick' that it literally didn't even register in my brain that it was impossible.
The issue with DS2's design is that it feels like a Western developer tried to rip off Dark Souls' success without understanding the game. But it was FromSoft themselves.
Everyone knows about DS1's "elegant" design, but even its ugliest level and its enemies have a distinct, undeniable character. The ogres in Blighttown are a little generic, but they have slow, sweeping animations and a bellowing roar. The ghouls are basically more aggressive hollows, but have a faster, scarier running animation. They have a unique death animation, too. They're also deliberately placed to swarm the player - either 2-3 at a time or more slowly (in the 2nd section of Blighttown). Even though the ghouls and ogres are both technically undead, they're unique enemies specifically designed to complement the level. Despite looking like shit, Blighttown itself is visually complex. It overlooks the swamp, but more importantly its embedded into the foundation of the burg and its sewer system. The level and the enemies all complement each other, in terms of both mechanics and aesthetic, and every single enemy in Blighttown only appear in Blighttown.
Then you have the Gutter and Black Gulch. What are the enemies? Hollows with swords, hollows with torches, giant undead dogs, some copy-pasted mushroom-bugs from Harvest Valley - and Black Gulch has the tar leeches, worms, and two giants. Every enemy in the Gutter is generic and has nothing to do with the level. Black Gulch's leeches and worms are okay, but they're underutilized and don't complement the level design at all beyond the tar pits being able to be burned by the player's torch. Why the giants are even in Black Gulch is a complete fricking mystery, as are both Black Gulch and the Gutter themselves. The Gutter is supposed to be the "dumping grounds" of Drangleic, but virtually every indication of that was removed from the game, and it's basically just an empty black void that exists for the sake of the torch gimmick.
>Every enemy in the Gutter is generic and has nothing to do with the level > Hollows with swords, hollows with torches, giant undead dogs > The Gutter is supposed to be the "dumping grounds" of Drangleic
you've answered yourself
If anything DS1 Blighttown has random enemies. The "plague" isn't particularly well explained in the lore, nor how it relates to undeath
I don't remember who said it but somebody mentions that everyone throws their unwanted shit down that hole, including dead bodies. Of course the dead don't stay dead so now there's a bunch of hollows in a pit
>Every enemy in the Gutter is generic and has nothing to do with the level > Hollows with swords, hollows with torches, giant undead dogs > The Gutter is supposed to be the "dumping grounds" of Drangleic
you've answered yourself
If anything DS1 Blighttown has random enemies. The "plague" isn't particularly well explained in the lore, nor how it relates to undeath
The issue is that there are much better ways to execute that concept. In fact, it's been executed better (once again by FromSoft themselves) in Demon's Souls.
The Valley of Defilement is the dumping ground of Boletaria, where its human detritus accumulates. The depraved ones, like the infested ghouls in Blighttown, have animalistic animations unlike other humanoids. They're so far removed from salvation that their faces have been twisted into mockeries of the plague masks that were once worn there. And like the infested ghouls, they swarm the player in a cramped environment where their footing can shift or collapse. It's clearly a habitable place, but it's a confusing mass of decaying wood. There's a clear connection between the enemy design and the level design. Both are designed to be vaguely civilized while being far gone from the world which cast them off. That's without even mentioning the plague babies.
As for the Gutter, the original concept for the level was much clearer than what we got in the final game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_YcEvpAafE In both the concept art and early development, the Gutter was a settlement with habitable buildings, like the Valley of Defilement. It was originally supposed to connect to Drangleic's sewer system, constructed by the Gyrm, which would have given it a clearer purpose than >Uh, I guess not-Nito lives here
But even that could have been executed better. Imagine if upon dropping into the Gutter and lighting the first bonfire, you lit your torch and realized you were surrounded by mounds of broken bodies discarded into Majula's sinkhole. Imagine peering into the darkness and seeing a corpse or some other trash falling from above and disappearing from view - before hearing a distant thud. Imagine if the giant dogs existed because they'd been feeding off the discarded corpses. Etc.
The Gutter we got sucked ass. It could have been so much better.
Those areas are literally "polished" pre-alpha maps that they haphazardly slapped together after they had to retool the entire game.
There are multiple tunnels, walkways and stuff in the Shaded Woods map that went completely unused and locked away by assets in front of them.
True. I wish I didn't delete my folder with memes from the 2011 release. Gone, like tears in rain. >reading interview questions like this
You can really tell who put the soul in dark souls
>out of bounds thing you're not supposed to see as opposed to normal areas
insert that zoomer meme of look what they have to do to mimic a fraction of our power
The game fricks with distance all the time. You can see Shaded Woods from Majula and they're like 30x farther than you walk. Same for Heide's Tower of Flame: It's shown off in the distance, but you walk through a 30m long cavern and you're there. You cannot see Dragon Aerie from Aldia's Keep's courtyard, but end up teleporting there.
According to the map, the distances are vast and pretty much every tunnel is glorified time/distance skip. That or just hackjob planning :^)
>You cannot see Dragon Aerie from Aldia's Keep's courtyard,
You actually DO see the stone pillars in the back but also Drangleic Castle right next to it AND, on top of that, none of that shit when looking around when standing at the highest place in Drangleic Castle.
The game is shortening the walking distance from the start of the tunnel to the end of it, and even giving you a big obvious visual indicator that it's doing so by showing you the castle sticking out very obviously over the hill. And it's not a unique example, this is used all over the game.
I suppose the reason it sticks out to you is because they made it so clear that it was impossible for people who were somehow oblivious to this effect until this point to miss it.
The docks elevator is still the worst to me since not only made it not a single lick of sense, you were even able to see the corridor floating above you at release.
Correct me i I'm wrong but isn't the prevaling theory that the entirety of Drangleic is basically a simulation of the real Drangleic (which has already crumbled to dust in present day, as the small ruins on the lake the Bearer of the Curse arrives at in the opening is all that's left of the kingdom) created by the Emerald Herald, where real people get lured into as some convoluted means of finding a solution to what caused the kingdom to fall in the first place.
From the Aged Feather:
>ANaged bird feather. >Return to last bonfire rested at. >Can be used repeatedly. >"The child of the dragon, sequestered away from the world, imagined a world of boundless possibilities from the mere sight of a feather."
You get this item from the Emerald Herald, who later mentions she was created by men through artificial means (implied to be connected to the Dragons). When the BOTC enters Drangleic in the opening he arrives at the ruins on the lake then a whirlpool opens up in the lake and he jumps inside, then ends up in what is literally a space between time and space (Litearlly called "Things Betwixt) and finds a hole in a wall leading to Majula, having obviously crossed into another world, not simply gone to another kingdom somewhere else in the world, because Drangleic is already gone, nothing remains of it in the present day. It's just a legend people in other parts of the world talk about. The fricking firekeepers in the opening talk about Dragnleic in past tense.
The implication here is that the Herald willed a distorted recreation of Dragnleic back into existence, after the kingdom had already crumbled to dust as she failed her created duty to fix everything. It explains why nothing makes fricking sense not even geographically, you are literally inside a fricked up dream recreation of a kingdom that doesn't even exist anymore.
Interesting interpretation, but if it was obvious there wouldn't be so much confusion about it to this day. The game does a very poor job at conveying this shit, even for a Souls game.
Okay then where the frick was pressent-day Nashandra? Presumably she had won and then what? Did she just frick off or die or something? Or did Shanalotte somehow bait her into the dream-Drangleic too? That's the only hole in this theory. I dont think she'd just have died after real-Drang faded away.
All they needed to do was put some kind of portal behind the snake lady
A mirror maybe, since she liked watching big iron dick demon idk
They could even reuse the mirror knight shield model so vaati could make 3-4 videos about it
Where's my check mihackzaki
I thought it was neato seeing different parts of each World throughout each section in Demon's Souls, usually, with the exception of places like World 4 where you're descending underground and not progressing horizontally outdoors.
The PC release of Dark Souls was a mistake.
item description of iron key >Key to the iron door in the Iron Keep. >The Old Iron King's Castle sunk into a lake of fire, weighed down by the castle's iron, and the burden of the king's conceit.
>Key to the iron door in the Iron Keep. >door is actually in Forest of Fallen Giants >unironically write "Over the ages, the iron was stripped from the castle by the opportunistic passers-by. The iron door, too, must be somewhere, far away." in the description >you could've written that someone stole the key to the door and lost it in Iron Keep but nah, this is Dark Souls 2 - someone somehow for some reason stole the fricking heavy iron door instead and left the key in the Keep
I was in a ds group on Facebook a while back and someone posted this with the trans flag as a backdrop in honor of pride or something and genuinely thought it wasn’t hilarious
B(ased) team wins again. In their game a magic coffin is the only way you can switch. The hint is subtle but clear.
Meanwhile, in DS3 you can play a male character and all you need is a simple ring and some clothes of the opposite gender and boom your a woman. The game even let's you have their animations.
except the gender swap coffin is completely useless because you can't recustomize your character so there's a 99% chance he won't look remotely appealing to you because he will just carry over the absolute values from the opposite gender sliders
>you can't recustomize your character so there's a 99% chance he won't look remotely appealing to you
Just like in real life when a person ''changes'' a gender, is it not?
>B(ased) team wins again. In their game a magic coffin is the only way you can switch. The hint is subtle but clear.
Laughed out loud, anon, this is a good one.
I got about 8 minutes in, seems to just be endless complaining about stuff he didn't like in DS1 as a pre-emptive cope. Guy doesn't have the insight or obsessive autism to justify this level of aimless rambling, learn some brevity.
It is in the other games. They give you a playable area that is consistent with what you see. In DS2 they transport you to a different country by going up an elevator.
You posted a rat so I'll ask you.
Why are trans types so obsessed with rats as pets? I've heard it's them transposing their own views on being living lab rats onto, well, lab rats. Is there any validity in that?
no
you see the sky
you see the lack of a huge volcano
you very clearly see the top of the tower and it does not have a huge shaft leading upwards
there is no magic barrier
there are no worlds colliding
the game is just rushed and unfinished
demonsgay dont spin the last archstone being cut as a benefit to the game
dark1 gays wont defend bed of chaos or izalith as a misunderstood masterpiece
Same. Tbh I've kind of been underwhelmed by all the snow areas in the Souls games. They've never felt right. Something tells me that Northern Limits would have been different but I could easily be wrong.
I really wish we got to see it in the full game. The Mountaintops of the Giants in Elden Ring does not spark joy like the Northern Limits would probably have.
I swear I hear electric guitars in that music. Ngl that just adds to the kino factor for me. You're right anon, very dope trailer. Music goes hard, wish it had a full release.
The game is supposed to convey a loss of memory and time
Every area you traverse is actually located far away from each others, you're travelling an entire continent for frick sake
But due to your continuous loss of memory due to your hollowing, you can't grasp the flow of time properly which is why you can't seem to remember the more calm treks from kingdom to kingdom
I don't know a single meta thing about any souls games. I just used a magic bandit axe and shield with good armor. The shopkeeper sells infinite gems is the unbalanced thing.
There is a mod called Seeker of Fire which makes the game way darker, but it has problems:
1. just like every modder out there, this one as well HAD to make changes to gameplay
2. meaning, it has different item placement, which is not even that big of a deal compared to other two
3. also every ring ads ADP
4. and some bosses are faster for absolutely no reason
Maybe it's a (me) problem, because I'm a DS2 SOTFS fanboy and see it as a perfect game, but I just don't understand why can't mods work on shadows / graphics only and leave the gameplay as it is.
It should have been a royal cart going down or something, not a fricking elevator going up, all DS2 has going is the great atmosphere yet it still fricks it up with shit like that
Filtered, DS2 plays better than any other Souls game. It's the only one with animations that feel appropriate to being a knight in armor, especially the rolling.
There is a mod called Seeker of Fire which makes the game way darker, but it has problems:
1. just like every modder out there, this one as well HAD to make changes to gameplay
2. meaning, it has different item placement, which is not even that big of a deal compared to other two
3. also every ring ads ADP
4. and some bosses are faster for absolutely no reason
Maybe it's a (me) problem, because I'm a DS2 SOTFS fanboy and see it as a perfect game, but I just don't understand why can't mods work on shadows / graphics only and leave the gameplay as it is.
The only mod I've seen rebalance the game for the better is Champion's Ashes for DS3. I still can't believe the Flames of Old guy turned it into a mod that makes gameplay changes.
I love DaS1, DaS2, DaS3, and Sekiro.
and I'm going to love DeS and Bloodborne, whenever they are on PC one day, or can be emulated perfectly.
I will also love AC6.
I love DaS1, DaS2, DaS3, and Sekiro.
and I'm going to love DeS after I play it today.
and I'm going to love Bloodborne, whenever it's on PC one day, or can be emulated perfectly.
I will also love AC6.
>Criticize DS2 in any way shape or form
BUT 3 THREE IS SHIT TOO LOOK AT THREE DARK SOULS THREE IS SHIT IT'S SHIT DARK SOULS THREE SUCKS THREE THREE THREE THREE WHAT ABOUT THREE STOP TALKING ABOUT THE PROBLEMS IN TWO TALK ABOUT THREE THREE THREE DARK SOULS THREE
Every fricking time
*builds right next to volcano*
What did they mean by this?
The template for every bit of fantasy you ever seen or heard of has a disembodied spirit build an entire empire in the middle of a volcanic hellhole and a giant fortress on top of a supervolcano. Yes if you took logic into it this would be impossible due to the heat of the volcano killing everyone working around it or the toxicity of the air. Nobody cares though, seriously nobody not a single person except maybe some Gankerermin here or there.
Anon is was just a shitpost don't have a cow.
the eagles built it
> The template for every bit of fantasy you ever seen or heard of has a disembodied spirit build an entire empire in the middle of a volcanic hellhole and a giant fortress on top of a supervolcano.
Wtf are you talking about homie
you have to be 18 to post here
>*builds right next to volcano*
American education...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompei
>anon makes a post adversarially agreeing with me
What did anon mean by this? Did anon country's education not teach him reading comprehension?
>dumbass american still doesn't get it
Volcano = Good place to make a house even if there are risks
>Volcano = Good place to make a house even if there are ri-AAIIIIIIIIEEEEE
He TANKED that.
yeah shame nothing else kills people
only volcanoes
But that's wrong. What's the matter with you?
BILLIONS MUST DIE
Typical condescending moron
The people of Pompei didn't know it was a volcano until it went off
It was thought to be an ordinary mountain
Whether they knew or not is irrelevant.
They built there because it was good land, a thing that's almost always a thing around volcanoes because of volcanic soil, on top of good sea access.
Can you actually see a volcano in windmill fartgas land?
No the, best cope I've seen is the "time is distorted" argument. and your character actually traveled to the mountain that's extremely far away and your character does this multiple times like on the way to drangleic castle.
I think that's the actual intended cope by the game designers for being too moronic to design a coherent world like DS1. For example, when you go to heide tower of flame, you can clearly see it from Majula (very far away). Then you move through a 200 meter tunnel and you're there
DS1 had the same problem with Ash Lake though
No? It was underground
Why was it not dark like Tomb of the Giants then?
read nausicaa to find out why
This doesn’t make sense, New Londo is more like this and is darker than Ash Lake. Same with Shrine of Amana in 2 and the sunken city.
But that's the best cope, you round a corner multiple times and the whole environment and weather system is different. Even in the cinematic it's established that your character is demented.
Honestly it's cope but it's cope that provides a valid explanation. The primary issue is that there isn't some kind of transition animation that implies some kind of unreliable narrator angle, and instead is just geographically mappable space. If you entered a tunnel and suddenly it was just grey void of melting, distorted goop, and when you came out of it you were in a completely different area, that'd completely make sense.
>valid explanation
It absolutely isn't. It's pulled straight from their ass to defend terrible level design l.
Honestly even unintentionally it was the must ludokino experience ever. Of course you'd have to have gone in completely blind and with no expectations which most ds1 babbies didn't
I went in pretty blind. I got into Souls late. I beat Demon's Souls when Dark Souls 2 was already out. Then played some Dark Souls, got filtered by O&S because I was absolutely trash, then went on to beat Bloodborne before going back to beat Dark Souls.
By the time I played DS2, The Ringed City DLC for 3 was already out. All I knew about it was that it had a bit of a bad reputation, but I loved going through Dark Souls blind so wanted to do the same with 2.
I was just... disappointed by it. It felt like I was playing a cheap Chinese knockoff of a souls game, especially with the control scheme and just the graphics in general.
I remember riding up that elevator for the first time and stopping to call my friend, who was a huge Souls fan and had already platinumed the 5 Soulsborne games. I had to call just to vent about how stupid it was to me. By the time I got to the 100-foot long STRAIGHT tunnel that you walked in with the castle in the distance on one side and then exited with the castle on the other side (and it suddenly pouring rain,) I just kind of accepted that even though I didn't have any expectations for DS2 other than it be as fun as Demon's and Dark Souls, I was still let down by it.
I got the platinum trophy for that game so I'd never feel any kind of need to go back and replay it. It's not the worst game I've ever played by a long shot, and there were some times in the actual moment I had fun with it, but it's my least favorite game in the series, hands-down.
Honestly that "bad reputation" already affected your expectations. Not to say they're not completely valid since the game is a mess but there was something magical about experiencing DS2 in 2014 that just cemented its place in my heart.
I mean maybe it did, but I did my best to actively give it a try. The 'bad reputations' I knew of it was mostly just seeing threads about people complaining about it on v, without really looking into why because I knew I'd want to play it one day. So I was definitely taking the 'bad reputation' with a grain of salt before I even started.
I really tried to like it. The 4 ring slots was a great change, and I loved power-stancing. I always like going STR, and realizing I had enough to wield two ultra greatswords was great.
I always have a few good things to say about it. The fact that rolling in poison coated you with it was a great touch. Rings and power-stancing were good changes. Some of the areas were gorgeous, like the Shrine of Amana. Being able to beat the Pursuer early was actually great, I stumbled into him and beat him on my first trip in the area. And I liked them bringing in the Giants, even if it ultimately didn't go anywhere.
But just so much about it was lackluster to me when I was playing it. The controls felt odd, due to the 8-way roll and that you couldn't turn as well during your attacks. The branches of yore just felt completely pointless. The places you could see from Majula were very clearly just flat .pngs. The game loved to flood areas with enemies, with a couple of the bosses just being "here's a group of pretty much normal enemies." The bonfire placements could be really weird, like being able to almost see one bonfire from another. Having the ability to warp from the beginning made the world feel less connected: Majula felt like the center of a starfish. You could go down any of the paths you wanted, but it was effectively just 1 path and when you got to the end you just had to warp out. Being able to permanently kill any enemy by killing them 10 times meant you could brute force your way through an area without getting better.
I despawned the frickers before the Chariot boss I had enough of getting raped on the bridge but in hindsight the game shouldnt have a pussy mechanic like that.
Bonfire aesthetics were a good idea tho
I feel like I got really lucky on Chariot boss and didn't have to do the boss run a lot, but I remember the area being a pretty big pain.
I was waiting at a bonfire near a tower and got killed by an archer that aggroed after I rested. So I respawned, killed him, and since I was waiting for a friend just kept respawning and killing him to farm a teensy bit of souls and for petty vengeance.
Then he stopped showing up, and that's when I learned you could despawn them forever.
It really does feel like it goes against the whole thing of the series of "if you rest, it resets the area." And at least you could reset them if you really wanted to.
I think it gets a lot of flak because it was trying to live up to the Souls series. If it was a standalone game without any expectations, I think it wouldn't have gotten nearly as much criticism as it did. But I know personally my criticism comes from me having wanted to like it so much, and feeling so let down.
I've heard from a lot of people that have DS2 as their favorite that it was also their first Souls game. And particularly if it was your first one, I could see it having a magic that other games didn't. Despite all the criticism, I still think it's a better game than plenty out there. In a series with 5 games, ONE of them had to be the weakest entry (in my opinion at least.) But that doesn't mean it's completely devoid of anything good in it.
Like I said, I tried to go in blind. To love it like I loved Demon's Souls and Dark Souls and Bloodborne. It just never clicked with me. I had some fun playing it, but when I sit and actually think about all the issues I had that added up to it, it kills any joy I had towards it. But I'm glad people enjoy it. It's definitely one of those games that just wasn't for me, but could be good for other people.
It's an unwritten fact that when people go out of their way to shit on DS2, they still acknowledge that it's better than 99% of games out there
I played DeS first on a jailbroken ps3 back when it didn't have a western release so can't say it was my first experience but I was so dogshit at it that DS2 might as well have been my first game. That said the level design being shit never clicked with me because that's exactly the same way DeS operated (minus the deranged level transitions obviously).
DS1 is pretty much the only souls game that had that loop around design.
I technically played and beat Demon's Souls, then played Dark Souls up to O&S, then stopped for a while before playing and beating Bloodborne, then going back to beat Dark Souls. And then went on to beat 2 and 3.
Demon's definitely felt like a hub, no doubt about it. I mean you couldn't even get from one area to another without warping to the Nexus: no way at all to walk from Boletaria to the Tower of Latria.
But then Dark Souls came out and the level design was amazing. I still remember going through the Undead Burg to find that elevator and being amazed it led back to Firelink. And then realizing Firelink led to New Londo after that. All the shortcuts and ways the map actually felt like a world for the most part was such a good touch.
That's part of why going to 2 was kind of jarring. They had already figured out map and level design in 1, I thought. And then they just completely forgot about it in 2 and 3.
There was a vulnerability in the online that if you were playing someone could make your system run arbitrary code. I don't know if it got fixed yet, but that's probably what they're talking about.
>There was a vulnerability in the online that if you were playing someone could make your system run arbitrary code. I don't know if it got fixed yet, but that's probably what they're talking about.
nobody ever got hacked by that
it was a nothingburger
>I don't know if it got fixed yet, but that's probably what they're talking about.
It's already fixed months ago, it's all good m8. Don't expect to play in PTDE version though, because they scrapped the online there unfortunately.
>Entire game is literally threaded from the earliest npc to the last dialogue physically possibly attainable that hollowing is happening to everybody, and in the process their memories are fading into nothingness
>Most transitions between stages are extremely short and accessible by foot when you are crossing the lengths between minor and major civilizations
>Numerous entities in certain areas are parked precisely where they should be, but certain human enemies like the Heide Knights (who have obviously hollowed) are scattered all over the place
It makes sense that the distance traveled could easily be from the perspective of an unreliable narrator who thinks it's only been a short walk between one castle and an underground city since the memories of the trip wouldn't be anything worth remembering. All it needed, as I said, is some kind of visual to express that, and suddenly all of the pieces line up. People have been b***hing about this single elevator almost a full decade.
>People have been b***hing about this single elevator almost a full decade.
and the Heide elevator
and the Aldia to Aerie elevator
and the Bastille docks elevator
and the...
I love DS2 but while I agree thats the dev intention to a degree, that's still a fricking copout. They just couldnt figure out how to replicate DS1 world design
They had to cut corners because the game was being designed as some crazy open world thing before cutting back the scale
Explains why Elden Ring is basically the same story-wise. DS2 was meant to be Elden Ring.
i felt it while playing it
the areas in the second half of the game were definitely made by b team
>What if we followed up a game that's notorious for its interconnected world with consistent spatial relations between areas with a game where you get amnesia every time you walk through a door but don't include anything to actually suggest this
Bold decision
>what if followed up a game with level select with metroidvania shit
Frick off.
>f you entered a tunnel and suddenly it was just grey void of melting, distorted goop, and when you came out of it you were in a completely different area, that'd completely make sense.
This is the same idea I always wished they'd implement in a Dark Souls 2 remake
Just use your fricking fog doors and turn them into fog corridors - that shit had no real lore reason to be there outside of DeS, anyway.
For the millionth time yes. The world of dark souls 2 is way too big and every level is far apart from each other. It would be fricking boring if you have to walk for 30 minutes in between each level. They also were limited by the current gen consoles at the time.
It's not that the world is too big (fully fleshed it probably wouldn't have been any bigger than ER, judging by the in-game maps), it's that almost all of the overworld areas don't stand in any relation to each other and seem to exist in their own separate bubble.
Stand atop Drangleic Castle, one of the highest and farthest placed away locations, and you won't see any glowing Iron Keep volcano/caldera/whatever, Dragon Aerie pillars, Majula or even just the giant aqueduct you just passed anywhere.
Instead you get a bunch of frickhuge mountains in the distance that weren't visible from any of the coastal locations.
>fully fleshed it probably wouldn't have been any bigger than ER
You have a mount in that game, anon.
You were once supposed to have one in DS2, too.
>best cope I've seen is the "time is distorted" argument
Amazing that ds3 pulled this bullshit to mask the fact that From was cutting corners and not properly connecting different areas, and yet everyone loved it, "deepest lore" "muh the flame fades".
It's okay when ds3 does x thing, but it's not okay when ds2 does the same stuff.
>It's okay when ds3 does x thing, but it's not okay when ds2 does the same stuff.
Yes that's how it works when one thing sucks worse than the other. Dragon Age 2 got blasted for the amount of asset reuse it has meanwhile no one had a problem with it in Origins because it was a better game.
>Make a system so great you rename the game to include "Origin" in its title.
>Never use it again in the series
Why?
The thing that always puts me off of this copout fricking answer is that the timey wimey shit only ever happens in level transitions. If they wanted to sell this as an idea they should have had you mid level all the sudden be in different places every now and then. Like you open a door in a castle and the next room is a cave and after you turn a corner in the cave there is a snowy forest etc.
The way they did it in game just seems lazy. And there are only like 2 places you see this occur. Possibly on the way to drangleic and from the windmill to the bowser castle. An elevator from the top of the windmill doesn't even make sense. Like if you take the volcano away it doesn't even make sense to have an elevator going up into the sky from a building.
Bro, your Drangleic Castle that literally doesn't have a single fricking room that makes any logical sense except for the entrance hall and throne room?
Anon I went to sleep and woke up and thread isn't dead so I am responding. Drangleic castle is almost entirely made up of rooms from kings field castles and dungeons. The mask room, the jail cell area the weird throne room. The copy-paste enemies that don't belong. It is an internally consistent design for a castle from fromsoft. The kf series doesn't have the timey wimey shit going on either so if they thought it worked there then I refuse to believe they meant it to be timey wimey this time and it wasn't instead them slapping in some tried and tested level design like they do with poison swamps every game.
Interesting, but it doesn't stop it from being a complete mess. That stuff might fly in King's Field, but Demon's and Dark Souls already demonstrated that FromSoft knew how to make castle and dungeon areas which were both fun to play and logically designed. The only area of the castle that looks okay is the hallway that leads to the Mirror Knight fight. Everything else is just bizarre.
DS2 is about loss of memory, identity loss and becoming progressively the shadow of yourself. It's not that farfetched to have a long journey without the long moments nothing really happened and representing only the intense memories.
It's not a bad excuse even if it is an excuse nonetheless.
Yes this the answer but they forgot to have you go down a bit before taking the elevator. That’s all they needed to do really.
No
In fact, there's a snow-covered mountain instead in the back on the fast travel image.
So the original plan was that after Earthen Peak, you'd head down a tunnel into a volcanic mountain, and take an elevator up to Iron Keep in the caldera. The concept art for Earthen Peak even features the mountain in the background (pic related).
However, the level designers got confused and put the elevator inside the windmill instead, because Dark Souls II's development was a fricking mess.
is this an image for pants?
It's the Fast Travel icon for Earthen Peak. The full sized concept art was never released.
ants in tiny little pants
The original plan was to not have it connect to a fricking volcano in the first place.
Instead you were going to use the windmills to blow away poisonous fumes in Harvest Valley to proceed towards Undead Crypt.
There's even an elaborate stair well model in the old map files that probably acted as entrance.
>you were going to use the windmills to blow away poisonous fumes
Reminds me of that green party woman politician from the green party who visited a wind power plant while no wind was blowing and went
>"Can't we use electricity to power those wind turbines?"
https://exxpress.at/wie-sinnvoll-gruene-wollte-windraeder-mit-strom-antreiben-berichtet-fpoe-bundesrat/
Also, if you look closely, you'll notice that your cape and cloth pieces along with the rags in the environment still move away from the windmill in the final game due to this.
>that stepwell
Kino. I'm still made about the DS2 we didn't get.
The concept art for Earthen Peak had it at the coast and in lush mountains.
DS2 has some of the best concept art in gaming
They should have just called it dragon souls
yes
Nah, most of it is pretty generic Photoshop stuff and then you also have things like this that are mostly omitted from official artbooks.
cool looking oblivion armor
Oblivion movie, with Tom Cruise?
It's fricking astonishing that DaS2 contrarians are incapable of letting this one single thing go. It's like the fact that it exists is an insult to them personally.
i never cared about this. i assumed the poison was sulfur or sulfuric, and it was a mining area before the kings wife took it over obviously. you also go deep enough into the windmill to assume it leads into something similar to this. the keep is more like a sea of fire than a mountaintop iirc so it should be less elevated
the real bs ds2 map design are the tunnels between heides tower and no mans wharf. underwater(?) airtight tunnels with water running through them simultaneously but you morons are hung up on a elevator. not even counting lost izalith not somehow burning through the tree
>i assumed the poison was sulfur or sulfuric
this isnt the problem
>and it was a mining area before the kings wife took it over obviously
also not the problem
>you also go deep enough into the windmill to assume it leads into something similar to this
this is the problem. because you can clearly see behind the giant windmill and there's nothing fricking there. people think its moronic because its almost like the game thinks YOURE moronic and won't notice because you have the memory of a goldfish and won't recall shit you saw 10 minutes ago.
time is convoluted
Still looks better than das2 forest of fallen giants
>Game from the Next Generation looks better than the one from the Previous
HOLY. FRICK.
I mean yeah. Ds3 looks far more better than Ds2.
It looks worse. Where's the shadows and lighting? And it has tons of pop-in. It also runs like shit.
DS3 has this crazy "shimmer" aliasing effect going on that drives me fricking insane. Everything looks wet. Meanwhile
look pretty good, but I know that probably doesn't count because it's a mod. I'm sure you can mod DS3 too, though.
remember when this was a big deal in Dark Souls 2 but in DS3 it was hailed as a masterpiece with no flaws by e-celebs.
NO DS3 IS A MASTERPIECE NO NOOO NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
There. Mystery solved
but mt. Gelmir was my favorite area
Is it safe to play Dark Souls on PC yet?
I don't see why not. What's with the apprehension though?
There's never been a better time
>Dark Souls Remastered servers are up again but you should play PTDE
>Dark Souls 2's lighting engine has been rewritten by a fan mod, looks better than DS3 and arguably Elden Ring
>Champion's Ashes for Dark Souls 3, the best Souls mod, got updated like last month
>>Dark Souls 2's lighting engine has been rewritten by a fan mod, looks better than DS3 and arguably Elden Ring
You're not talking about Flames of Old, are you?
Anon is probably talking about that mod that makes the game look like Dark Souls 3, aka colorless and plastic:
>Anon is probably talking about that mod that makes the game look like Dark Souls 3, aka colorless and plastic
://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeSmoizF7fY
This video is old, though. The mod was released in mid-May as an alpha with none of the visual side done, and that video was made a week later. There's even comparisons the mod page comparing the muddy, gray alpha version with how it looked like 2 weeks later, so they're at least aware of this:
https://imgsli.com/MTgzMjA5
https://imgsli.com/MTgzMjA4
https://imgsli.com/MTgzMjEw
I didn't try it until the 0.7 update that started to fix some of this stuff. It has some issues, but it's good.
No, it's called DS2 Lighting Engine. Flames of Old will probably never come out, it's been like 5 years.
I loaded this up with an old save and it looks completely different from this video. Took some screenshots.
Heide has seemingly been changed a lot. It's kind of dark though.
DS2 has always looked better than DS3
Doesn't count 2tard
>Has to use map editor to try and deflect
And even then, you don't go into Lost Izalith thinking that you SHOULD see Ash Lake from there. Nobody does. You would only realize that they're supposed to be on the same plane in the map editor itself.
The fricking elevator should very, clearly, obviously be there. You're asshurt. You're wasting your life being a contrarian.
Ash lake is almost a different dimension in canon.
The trees are basically holding up reality, like a plate on top of a turtle kind of thing. It's literally the only area in the game that has no actual implication in the map from any other point.
The volcano from windmill shitfrickland is just some shithole you end up in because lol xd le silly.
You can see the canopies and "ceiling" from TotG.
It's fricking badass that Nito's realm is there.
It's pretty fitting for the embodyment of death.
What the frick that’s so cool. How have I never noticed this in game and how come no YouTuber ever mentioned this
I'll fricking kill you if this post isn't ironic
Everytime someone points this out, people go like „b-b-but it’s on purpose“
homie, there’s light shining through the sky with a big swamp on top
You’re all just a bunch of fricking hypocrites
Let's imagine Ash Lake was ACTUALLY deeper than Demon Ruins/Izalith for two seconds:
You'd have to go down the Great Hollow 2-3 times longer.
You can get to Ash Lake before you get fast travel.
New players who, dedicated to exploring, manage to get to the bottom, would have to trek back up a Great Hollow that is by itself longer than the Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith.
How do you keep it from bricking a stubborn new player's playthrough?
How do you make it worth it to go down all that way for an area that is, ultimately, optional?
What the frick would you even put in the Great Hollow to even make it that long? A fricking Seeker Camp?
The Great Hollow was that short for a reason. The Earthen Peak elevator was a complete oversight.
It literally doesn't matter anyways too.
It's a fricking massive primal limbo with trees that hold up all of reality, massive trees that hold the entirety of the known world. The world is held up by these trees. I still stand by this place not abiding by the same laws as the overworld, even if Nito's lair is on the "ceiling", nito's lair is the closest thing to the underworld in dark souls.
The earthen peak is literally just a normal place. Plus another anon just showed this is not even the biggest offender.
The trek down the Great Hollow feels much longer than it actually is thanks to the ACTUAL convolute environment with its countless branches you have to carefully travel down and various other design choices like the canopy in the middle that blocks your view.
You don't really question the size of the tree due to the time you spend in it, unlike all those nondescript corridors and elevators that are ACKTSHUALEE hundreds of miles long and your character has amnesia and is also an unreliable narrator and also lost his map and also is moronic and also is in a magical dream world where weird noneuclid geometry and time/space frickery only manifest themselves in corridors and elevators and also your ghey and I have to justify my purchase gitgud.
i dont get it
DaS2gays attacking other games because they can't defend DaS2 directly.
Very common strategy for fanboys on Ganker.
>castle near lava = bad
>area below the lake = good
>hot lava cave that leads to snowy city = even better
At least its not Demon's Sharts
what is this even supposed to prove?
i think what he is trying to show is that demons souls and dark souls 1 didnt have free roll while locked on, only rolling in cardinal directions
Ah so he's just a fricking shitter.
Figured as much from the video but thanks for confirming.
Heh? What the frick is this guy doing? Like just attack regularly maybe?
Is that DSP's playthrough?
holy shit I never noticed that
I'm thinking it's over
>Play Dark Souls 2
>Equip torch
>Light torch
>Every bit of water potentially snuffs out the torch, even some enemies can snuff out your torch
>Play Elden Ring
>Equip torch
>Light torch
>Walk under Waterfall
>Torch still perfectly lit
What happen?
white phosphorus torches
White phosphorus torches would still go out and then ignite if you walk out of the waterfall.
time is convoluted
That's the power of the kindling maiden baybee
Cool attention to detail they could have used literally anywhere else but a torch.
Maybe spend it on actually geometrically accurate maps.
Be nice, it's all DS2gays have
>shit gameplay
>shit level design
>shit world design
>shit encounter design
>shit enemy designs
>shit boss designs
>shit animations
>shit graphics
>b-but... powerstancing! you take less fire damage and more lightning damage when wet! NG+ has actual items! there's hidden moths throughout the world that give you nothing for killing them!
If I want to enjoy any of DS2's good features, I can simply enjoy them in a game that's actually good.
Torches were not just there for show. You could make levels significantly more easy or in some cases more dangerous if you light up the braziers in a level. There was actual smart use of torches in a level. They were not just for show. Light in general was useful to have.
Anon did you play a completely different version of DaS2 from everyone else? The pre-downgrade build maybe? Because torches were fricking useless most of the time in the actual game because almost no area was properly dark.
bit of water potentially snuffs out the torch, even some enemies can snuff out your torch
This literally never happened to me.
Maybe because the torch is useless 99% of the time in DaS2.
Then you're full of shit. Like No-Mans Wharf, that one crypt and many more use torches and light in general.
>into the dark
>everything is clearly visible
This video is moronic. Pure roleplay.
Even Bloodborne has areas that are actually dark.
I mean its not pitch black but the light certainly helps, also there are monsters in No Man's Wharf that are easier to beat with light. Then there are things like this
I'm sure this moment would have been great in the pre-downgrade build, but alas they ruined the lighting effects so it could release on PS3.
The fact of the matter is that the torch serves little to no practical purpose, so these moments are very easy to miss.
I did a power stance build the whole game and I don't recall ever having to switch out a weapon for a torch. The game is simply not "dark" at any point, except maybe The Gutter but it's been a while since I played.
You ran through the gutter and memorized all the places there without using a single torch to light up the braziers there? No way. Unless you fiddled with the Gamma settings.
Not him, but I’d usually go through a level once completely dark and then run through it again lighting braziers. The Gutter is a pain with less light, but the adjacent areas can be seen in any lighting if you’re willing to slow down and check thoroughly.
If an area is unexplored there will typically be items laying around and their lights stick out pretty well
Unlike Elden Ring, nothing in the gutter is designed to frick with your memorization other than just being mildly dim. Some catacombs in Elden Ring have identical rooms with identical enemy placements, or fake corpses to frick with you if you killed enemies in a previous identical room. Nothing in the gutter repeats itself, so it's trivial to remember where you've been even without torches.
I think I can actually draw the Gutter purely from memory, it's not confusing at all
If you could turn on the lights it would look incredibly small
Pls ignore this evidence or just call it a "mod", as usual.
DOESNT COUNT LALALALALALALALALALALALA DOESNT COUNT DOESNT COUNT
I said it never happened to me, I didn't say it wasn't possible. The torch is useless which is why I never noticed the interaction.
These games are not about muh heckin emergent gameplay anyways, the fact that DaS2 has a tiny detail like that doesn't make up for its massive shortcomings in many other areas.
The torch continuity is broken by 2. It gives it to you on a timer and encourages the player to use it in certain situations like the Gutter or NMW. The rest of the series provides as an infinite light source "weapon". It goes out in 2 because it's a navigation tool determining level difficulty. It doesn't go out in the others because it's a barely useful utility item in a video game.
If you're going to b***h about realism let's start with the part where you can throw lightning and shoot crystals out of a wooden stick.
>In which game is torch the bestest and most useful
is not the question here, anon.
My point is that there's a good reason for it to extinguish in 2 because it effects your ability to traverse.
The other games don't require use of the torch at all. As a design choice I can understand having a preference but as an element of realism there's really no argument.
Okay, and? Dark Souls 3 doesn't need a torch because it isn't designed for a torch, like Demon's Souls was designed to use the crystal lantern, Dark Souls was designed to use the skull lantern in Tomb of the Giants, or Dark Souls 2 was designed to use torches before it was butchered. DS3's terrible lighting system is probably a direct reaction to Dark Souls 2, where Fromsoft wanted to avoid replicating that colossal frick-up at all costs. So the game is not designed with darkness, or a torch, in mind.
As much as I think DS2 sucks and could have been an amazing game if they spent enough time on it...I just never cared about that. It's a fantasy land adventure time bullshit. Going up an elevator to a land that doesn't exist/floats is so far down on my list of 'what the frick' that it literally didn't even register in my brain that it was impossible.
The issue with DS2's design is that it feels like a Western developer tried to rip off Dark Souls' success without understanding the game. But it was FromSoft themselves.
Everyone knows about DS1's "elegant" design, but even its ugliest level and its enemies have a distinct, undeniable character. The ogres in Blighttown are a little generic, but they have slow, sweeping animations and a bellowing roar. The ghouls are basically more aggressive hollows, but have a faster, scarier running animation. They have a unique death animation, too. They're also deliberately placed to swarm the player - either 2-3 at a time or more slowly (in the 2nd section of Blighttown). Even though the ghouls and ogres are both technically undead, they're unique enemies specifically designed to complement the level. Despite looking like shit, Blighttown itself is visually complex. It overlooks the swamp, but more importantly its embedded into the foundation of the burg and its sewer system. The level and the enemies all complement each other, in terms of both mechanics and aesthetic, and every single enemy in Blighttown only appear in Blighttown.
Then you have the Gutter and Black Gulch. What are the enemies? Hollows with swords, hollows with torches, giant undead dogs, some copy-pasted mushroom-bugs from Harvest Valley - and Black Gulch has the tar leeches, worms, and two giants. Every enemy in the Gutter is generic and has nothing to do with the level. Black Gulch's leeches and worms are okay, but they're underutilized and don't complement the level design at all beyond the tar pits being able to be burned by the player's torch. Why the giants are even in Black Gulch is a complete fricking mystery, as are both Black Gulch and the Gutter themselves. The Gutter is supposed to be the "dumping grounds" of Drangleic, but virtually every indication of that was removed from the game, and it's basically just an empty black void that exists for the sake of the torch gimmick.
>Every enemy in the Gutter is generic and has nothing to do with the level
> Hollows with swords, hollows with torches, giant undead dogs
> The Gutter is supposed to be the "dumping grounds" of Drangleic
you've answered yourself
If anything DS1 Blighttown has random enemies. The "plague" isn't particularly well explained in the lore, nor how it relates to undeath
I don't remember who said it but somebody mentions that everyone throws their unwanted shit down that hole, including dead bodies. Of course the dead don't stay dead so now there's a bunch of hollows in a pit
The issue is that there are much better ways to execute that concept. In fact, it's been executed better (once again by FromSoft themselves) in Demon's Souls.
The Valley of Defilement is the dumping ground of Boletaria, where its human detritus accumulates. The depraved ones, like the infested ghouls in Blighttown, have animalistic animations unlike other humanoids. They're so far removed from salvation that their faces have been twisted into mockeries of the plague masks that were once worn there. And like the infested ghouls, they swarm the player in a cramped environment where their footing can shift or collapse. It's clearly a habitable place, but it's a confusing mass of decaying wood. There's a clear connection between the enemy design and the level design. Both are designed to be vaguely civilized while being far gone from the world which cast them off. That's without even mentioning the plague babies.
As for the Gutter, the original concept for the level was much clearer than what we got in the final game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_YcEvpAafE In both the concept art and early development, the Gutter was a settlement with habitable buildings, like the Valley of Defilement. It was originally supposed to connect to Drangleic's sewer system, constructed by the Gyrm, which would have given it a clearer purpose than
>Uh, I guess not-Nito lives here
But even that could have been executed better. Imagine if upon dropping into the Gutter and lighting the first bonfire, you lit your torch and realized you were surrounded by mounds of broken bodies discarded into Majula's sinkhole. Imagine peering into the darkness and seeing a corpse or some other trash falling from above and disappearing from view - before hearing a distant thud. Imagine if the giant dogs existed because they'd been feeding off the discarded corpses. Etc.
The Gutter we got sucked ass. It could have been so much better.
This one always stuck out more to me.
Just what the hell were they thinking when they designed these areas?
Something along the lines of
>Jesus frick how are we supposed to cobble this shit into a finished product in such a short time?
Those areas are literally "polished" pre-alpha maps that they haphazardly slapped together after they had to retool the entire game.
There are multiple tunnels, walkways and stuff in the Shaded Woods map that went completely unused and locked away by assets in front of them.
They weren't. Executives looked at dark souls sales numbers and almost had heart attacks, then commanded their peons to capitalized immediately.
DARK SOULS 1 IS SO FRICKING KIIINOOOO
HOLY SHIT
True. I wish I didn't delete my folder with memes from the 2011 release. Gone, like tears in rain.
>reading interview questions like this
You can really tell who put the soul in dark souls
>out of bounds thing you're not supposed to see as opposed to normal areas
insert that zoomer meme of look what they have to do to mimic a fraction of our power
>"you're not supposed to see it"
>it's in plain sight
Having binoculars in item instead of equipment slot triggers me on a whole different level.
bump
Zoomer this zoomer that why dont you zoom on down to a club and talk to some b***hes homie
The game fricks with distance all the time. You can see Shaded Woods from Majula and they're like 30x farther than you walk. Same for Heide's Tower of Flame: It's shown off in the distance, but you walk through a 30m long cavern and you're there. You cannot see Dragon Aerie from Aldia's Keep's courtyard, but end up teleporting there.
According to the map, the distances are vast and pretty much every tunnel is glorified time/distance skip. That or just hackjob planning :^)
>You cannot see Dragon Aerie from Aldia's Keep's courtyard,
You actually DO see the stone pillars in the back but also Drangleic Castle right next to it AND, on top of that, none of that shit when looking around when standing at the highest place in Drangleic Castle.
The game is shortening the walking distance from the start of the tunnel to the end of it, and even giving you a big obvious visual indicator that it's doing so by showing you the castle sticking out very obviously over the hill. And it's not a unique example, this is used all over the game.
I suppose the reason it sticks out to you is because they made it so clear that it was impossible for people who were somehow oblivious to this effect until this point to miss it.
The docks elevator is still the worst to me since not only made it not a single lick of sense, you were even able to see the corridor floating above you at release.
I like Dark Souls 2 story the most. Shame 3 was a complete utter fricking MEMBERBERRY joke.
>Shame 3 was a complete utter fricking MEMBERBERRY joke.
You mean an actual, proper sequel.
>Make an entire area revolving around a kingdom that fell to Chaos
>Don't have any actual demons show up.
What the frick were they thinking?
DS2 is still soulful, despite the flaws
In fact, the flaws make it more soulful. No one cares about DS3 because it was a forgettable and bland experience that played it too safely.
True as that. DS2 tried something new at last in terms of lore, combat and gameplay.
DS3 is literally "Plin Plon Plon part.2 - There's a red Artorias in the ashen desert that's LITERALLY YOU!!1!"
Correct me i I'm wrong but isn't the prevaling theory that the entirety of Drangleic is basically a simulation of the real Drangleic (which has already crumbled to dust in present day, as the small ruins on the lake the Bearer of the Curse arrives at in the opening is all that's left of the kingdom) created by the Emerald Herald, where real people get lured into as some convoluted means of finding a solution to what caused the kingdom to fall in the first place.
From the Aged Feather:
>ANaged bird feather.
>Return to last bonfire rested at.
>Can be used repeatedly.
>"The child of the dragon, sequestered away from the world, imagined a world of boundless possibilities from the mere sight of a feather."
You get this item from the Emerald Herald, who later mentions she was created by men through artificial means (implied to be connected to the Dragons). When the BOTC enters Drangleic in the opening he arrives at the ruins on the lake then a whirlpool opens up in the lake and he jumps inside, then ends up in what is literally a space between time and space (Litearlly called "Things Betwixt) and finds a hole in a wall leading to Majula, having obviously crossed into another world, not simply gone to another kingdom somewhere else in the world, because Drangleic is already gone, nothing remains of it in the present day. It's just a legend people in other parts of the world talk about. The fricking firekeepers in the opening talk about Dragnleic in past tense.
The implication here is that the Herald willed a distorted recreation of Dragnleic back into existence, after the kingdom had already crumbled to dust as she failed her created duty to fix everything. It explains why nothing makes fricking sense not even geographically, you are literally inside a fricked up dream recreation of a kingdom that doesn't even exist anymore.
Interesting interpretation, but if it was obvious there wouldn't be so much confusion about it to this day. The game does a very poor job at conveying this shit, even for a Souls game.
Okay then where the frick was pressent-day Nashandra? Presumably she had won and then what? Did she just frick off or die or something? Or did Shanalotte somehow bait her into the dream-Drangleic too? That's the only hole in this theory. I dont think she'd just have died after real-Drang faded away.
ITT Jealously
You've gotta be moronic if you interpreted the elevator literally
I wouldn't want to live in a chink built high building ever.
Those dudes have 2 words with the same meaning.
high and tall
and then it crumbles like a fricking dust anyway
Damn, China looks like THAT?!
All they needed to do was put some kind of portal behind the snake lady
A mirror maybe, since she liked watching big iron dick demon idk
They could even reuse the mirror knight shield model so vaati could make 3-4 videos about it
Where's my check mihackzaki
I thought it was neato seeing different parts of each World throughout each section in Demon's Souls, usually, with the exception of places like World 4 where you're descending underground and not progressing horizontally outdoors.
The PC release of Dark Souls was a mistake.
>twink maneaters
What did the artist mean by this?
mmm leechmonger feet
that would be wrong again
iron keep is supposed to be underground
the elevator goes upwards
moron
Show me a single underground volcano
Every volcano goes underground.
That's not what I said
>iron keep is supposed to be underground
factually untrue
item description of iron key
>Key to the iron door in the Iron Keep.
>The Old Iron King's Castle sunk into a lake of fire, weighed down by the castle's iron, and the burden of the king's conceit.
>Key to the iron door in the Iron Keep.
>door is actually in Forest of Fallen Giants
>unironically write "Over the ages, the iron was stripped from the castle by the opportunistic passers-by. The iron door, too, must be somewhere, far away." in the description
>you could've written that someone stole the key to the door and lost it in Iron Keep but nah, this is Dark Souls 2 - someone somehow for some reason stole the fricking heavy iron door instead and left the key in the Keep
What did they mean by this?
Buddhist souls
Is 92 AGI enough?
Fricking lava castle and fricking B-team, I tell you.
comical to an embarrassing degree
I was in a ds group on Facebook a while back and someone posted this with the trans flag as a backdrop in honor of pride or something and genuinely thought it wasn’t hilarious
B(ased) team wins again. In their game a magic coffin is the only way you can switch. The hint is subtle but clear.
Meanwhile, in DS3 you can play a male character and all you need is a simple ring and some clothes of the opposite gender and boom your a woman. The game even let's you have their animations.
Your response DS3issies?
except the gender swap coffin is completely useless because you can't recustomize your character so there's a 99% chance he won't look remotely appealing to you because he will just carry over the absolute values from the opposite gender sliders
>you can't recustomize your character so there's a 99% chance he won't look remotely appealing to you
Just like in real life when a person ''changes'' a gender, is it not?
>B(ased) team wins again. In their game a magic coffin is the only way you can switch. The hint is subtle but clear.
Laughed out loud, anon, this is a good one.
DS2 has never recovered from him
I can't believe that you're still shilling your yt channel.
Not even DSP is that desperate.
It never recovered from being released. It as a game is it's own worst enemy. Everyone else recognizing it is just par for the course.
Same with Mario, but Mario games are loved.
A lot of shit he was saying was stuff Ganker was already saying at the time.
It did
I got about 8 minutes in, seems to just be endless complaining about stuff he didn't like in DS1 as a pre-emptive cope. Guy doesn't have the insight or obsessive autism to justify this level of aimless rambling, learn some brevity.
>seems to just be endless complaining about stuff he didn't like in DS1 as a pre-emptive cope
your assumption is wrong
THE ACTUAL SCALE OF THE GAME AND THE SUPPOSED SCALE OF THE WORLD IS NOT 1:1 YOU FRICKING moronS
It is in the other games. They give you a playable area that is consistent with what you see. In DS2 they transport you to a different country by going up an elevator.
You posted a rat so I'll ask you.
Why are trans types so obsessed with rats as pets? I've heard it's them transposing their own views on being living lab rats onto, well, lab rats. Is there any validity in that?
Rats are one of the few animals vulnerable to schizophrenia, so trans types feel kinship with them
The elevator just needed to go down instead of up. It was so simple.
You wouldn't get it
If the elevator was so bad, then why do people talk about a piece of art a whole 20 years later?
who the frick cares it's all makebelieve obscure dogshit anyway
>hear about king vendrick
>get hyped to fight him
>finally get to him
>he's a aimless shell wandering in circles
very well done, B-Team.
You can fight him though. It's a whole meme about collecting enough bear anuses and taking down the big boss. You even get a cool hat.
i've not even played the game, so I can't comment on the subjective experience, but picrel?
no
you see the sky
you see the lack of a huge volcano
you very clearly see the top of the tower and it does not have a huge shaft leading upwards
there is no magic barrier
there are no worlds colliding
the game is just rushed and unfinished
demonsgay dont spin the last archstone being cut as a benefit to the game
dark1 gays wont defend bed of chaos or izalith as a misunderstood masterpiece
dark 2 gays are just fricking deranged fanboys
What was supposed to be in the broken Archstone area?
This, apparently.
That's pretty cool. It's definitely the inspiration for elyum Loyce and probably ds3 snow dlc. I'm bummed it's not playable in the base game.
Same. Tbh I've kind of been underwhelmed by all the snow areas in the Souls games. They've never felt right. Something tells me that Northern Limits would have been different but I could easily be wrong.
snow area with tons of were-beast like enemies
I really wish we got to see it in the full game. The Mountaintops of the Giants in Elden Ring does not spark joy like the Northern Limits would probably have.
Why are you posting drawings of it and not screenshots from the game? Surely if that's how it actually is then you could just take a picture of it.
DS1 vs DS2 should be a case study of modern tribalism at this point.
It's DS2 vs Everything because it did everything so great apparently despite not being used as a blueprint for anything
Still a dope trailer.
I swear I hear electric guitars in that music. Ngl that just adds to the kino factor for me. You're right anon, very dope trailer. Music goes hard, wish it had a full release.
ALL THEY HAD TO DO WAS MAKE THE ELEVATOR GO DOWN
THAT'S IT
HOW CAN THEY BE SO FRICKING moronic??????????
but wouldn't you be wondering why they'd build a castle underground? clearly they made the better choice
The game is supposed to convey a loss of memory and time
Every area you traverse is actually located far away from each others, you're travelling an entire continent for frick sake
But due to your continuous loss of memory due to your hollowing, you can't grasp the flow of time properly which is why you can't seem to remember the more calm treks from kingdom to kingdom
>you're travelling an entire continent for frick sake
no you don't
No, because that's not how that works.
shit now i wanna replay scholar..
I did and it was super boring when you can just have 200 heals on hand at all times
i'll just not level hp
>said anon before rushing meta equipment for n-th time
I don't know a single meta thing about any souls games. I just used a magic bandit axe and shield with good armor. The shopkeeper sells infinite gems is the unbalanced thing.
It's the most replayable game ever
Tuning your own difficulty and making fun? No you can only do that in every other Dark Souls but not 2, sorry.
To this day, 30 000 Soul Memory run(s) was/were my fav challenge run(s) in any Souls game.
This still doesn't even work because the elevator does directly into the volcano area, it doesn't move horizontally
"No!"
Apologize for what? There is no mountain behind the windmill and the elevator goes down.
All they had to do was make the elevator go down and change de skybox.
That's how I always seen it too.
This is not depicted in-game.
>Games released in hardware from 20 years ago can't depict art as its meant to be depicted
shoking.
This doesn't even make sense because why would these 2 kingdoms even be near each others?
You know 2 won simply due to the fact we have DAILY DS2 threads and we have DS1 and 3 threads maybe once a month. B team won, 2chads won, it's over.
true. all the best souls games produce infinite seething just by existing. dark souls 2? ludo. sekiro? ludo. elden ring AKA dark souls 2.2? ludo.
DS2 good
I keep hearing that there's a mod for DS2 that makes it look like the preview footage, but I've yet to see any video / screenshots of it
Sounds too good to be true
Anon posted that one
although it's not perfect.
There is also another mod that is stuck in development hell, name's Flames of Old.
There is a mod called Seeker of Fire which makes the game way darker, but it has problems:
1. just like every modder out there, this one as well HAD to make changes to gameplay
2. meaning, it has different item placement, which is not even that big of a deal compared to other two
3. also every ring ads ADP
4. and some bosses are faster for absolutely no reason
Maybe it's a (me) problem, because I'm a DS2 SOTFS fanboy and see it as a perfect game, but I just don't understand why can't mods work on shadows / graphics only and leave the gameplay as it is.
Good news
It should have been a royal cart going down or something, not a fricking elevator going up, all DS2 has going is the great atmosphere yet it still fricks it up with shit like that
dark souls 2 plays and sounds like dogshit
Filtered, DS2 plays better than any other Souls game. It's the only one with animations that feel appropriate to being a knight in armor, especially the rolling.
This looks okay, but I have to know...
The ugly ceiling is still there, but you can't see it. Disappointing.
Iron Keep is fricking RED
The only mod I've seen rebalance the game for the better is Champion's Ashes for DS3. I still can't believe the Flames of Old guy turned it into a mod that makes gameplay changes.
DS2 has SOVL in all the wrong places
I love DaS1, DaS2, DaS3, and Sekiro.
and I'm going to love DeS and Bloodborne, whenever they are on PC one day, or can be emulated perfectly.
I will also love AC6.
I love DaS1, DaS2, DaS3, and Sekiro.
and I'm going to love DeS after I play it today.
and I'm going to love Bloodborne, whenever it's on PC one day, or can be emulated perfectly.
I will also love AC6.
you can play bloodborne on pc with ps now
I don't own a console, and I want to play the game at a minimum of constant 60 fps
I don't think you need the console just an account, but not sure about 60 fps
This still makes zero sense considering the skyline for Iron Keep is miles of desolate lava flow. Nice try, gay.
>Criticize DS2 in any way shape or form
BUT 3 THREE IS SHIT TOO LOOK AT THREE DARK SOULS THREE IS SHIT IT'S SHIT DARK SOULS THREE SUCKS THREE THREE THREE THREE WHAT ABOUT THREE STOP TALKING ABOUT THE PROBLEMS IN TWO TALK ABOUT THREE THREE THREE DARK SOULS THREE
Every fricking time
the biggest tragedy of DS2 is its rewritten story
I believe they called it "Dark souls II obligatory shitposting thread"
Perhaps you're familiar.
No, how could you be
But one day, you will stand shitposting with decrepit anons
Without really knowing why…