Discussion Why I Think Dark Souls 2 is a Bad Game

[Ethanicus]

Yep, unpopular opinion coming through...

I personally cannot stand playing this game, and it's not because I don't like difficult games; I love a challenge. It's all the glaring game design issues that I feel it gets a free pass on because of it's "hard game" status. I was playing with my friends, and 95% of the times we died were just "what?" moments. Parts that didn't feel like a fair "aw crap, my fault" loss, but an unexplained rule change.

I'm referring to things like invisible holes hidden in shadows, the fact that swinging any weapon takes at least three seconds, and totally inconsistent controls. Half my deaths were me hitting jump and the character deciding to take a suicidal roll of a cliff instead.

The fighting feels slow and unfair (unbalanced isn't the issue, it's unfair), like moments when I hit the enemy -- which usually stuns them -- only to have them repeatedly stab me to death instead. That kind of rule change doesn't make it feel hard, it makes it feel like the game cheated the player. Fair difficulty would be that it was a difficult challenge and I screwed up, but this game seems to try and make you lose. Like throwing a brick at your head from behind and telling you to catch it.

If I sound salty, I can assure you that's not my reason for writing all of this. I just feel like this game gets away with a lot of crap due to the marketing of being really hard. It's my opinion that the "difficulty" sprouts from (intentional?) design flaws and makes it a very frustrating experience. If anyone has any other thoughts on this I'd love to hear.

 

[RichHopefulComposer]

I haven't played DS2, but I thought it was widely regarded as the obvious worst one in the series.
That said, I from the little I've played of them (most of Demon's Souls, and a bit of DS1 and DS3), I generally love the souls games, because I think basically everything about them is fantastic. Some really amazing worlds they build in these games. Great atmosphere, art, music, sound, and mostly the gameplay, too.

That said, there were a few enemies in DS3 that had me scratching my head....a lot of the enemies transformed into giant shadow monster things with attack ranges of like 30 meters. And they had weird spots you could stand like right on top of them where their hurtboxes wouldn't harm you, even though their animations were huge attacks that should've taken out everything around them. I wasn't a huge fan of things like that - encounters like that felt like they'd be impossible to beat without dying once or twice (or ten times) to learn what works and what doesn't against them. Didn't feel especially skilled when I killed those things, more like that I learned a few tricks only applicable to DS3 only. I don't really remember anything in Demon's Souls like this - all the enemies I remember in that game were definitely tough, but it was always clear to me what their hurtboxes were, and what I had to do to get close enough to attack. Felt more like a test of reflexes and tactics than some of the stuff in DS3, which felt more like experimentation and memorization. Also some stuff in DS3 (and probably Demon's Souls too, it's been so long) where yeah, I thought attacks I was landing would stagger an opponent, only for them to wind up a huge attack through my flurry and kill me with one ridiculous attack.

All in all, I think the DS games are fair and a ton of fun. There are a few things in them that make me go "what, really?", though, and that's never fun. These sorts of games should have extremely obvious telegraphed attacks and rules for when an enemy will be stunned to feel as fair as possible. That'll make the games "easier," yeah, but for the right reasons. Make the enemies faster or more clever to make up for it to keep the danger high. Still one of the best series out there, in my opinion. =)

 

[Niels]

Dark souls 2 was the weakest of the series,mostly because it felt pretty unpolished compared to 1 and I believe it had a pretty troublesome development.

Currently playing through the DLC's of dark souls 3 it's really close behind dark souls 1 as best in series for me.

I believe all dark souls games are flawed, but one of the most important games of the last 2 generations. (just look at all the games that are inspired by dark souls/demon's souls)

 

[Ethanicus]

Well tell me, what do you enjoy about it? Do you think I'm right when I say it gets away with some crappy stuff under the "hard" mantra?

I mean I play things like DOOM and if I lose it feels like I deserved to. It's still hard but I feel more like "Wow, I got my butt kicked" rather than "What the heck?"

 

[Niels]

Well tell me, what do you enjoy about it? Do you think I'm right when I say it gets away with some crappy stuff under the "hard" mantra?

I mean I play things like DOOM and if I lose it feels like I deserved to. It's still hard but I feel more like "Wow, I got my butt kicked" rather than "What the heck?"

well like I said in my reply, dark souls as game is flawed, and I believe it gets away with a lot of flaws because of its "hardcore reputation".

On the other hand IMO it's a much more important game than other "more polished" games that people forget about 6 months after their releases.

The thing that makes dark souls so good is the fact that it sticks to it's own rules, so that WHEN you die it's mostly due to not being carefull/prepared enough.
Also the risk/reward factor is almost perfectly balanced which gives you such a rush when you finaly killed a boss that you died on before. (only games that gave me this feeling before darks souls were ninja gaiden:black and raid bosses in WoW).

 

[Roa]

@Ethanicus What rule changes? Also what weapon are you using and what stats do you have? It sounds like you are using 2 handed that you just barely qualify for.

Dark souls 2 was the weakest of the series,mostly because it felt pretty unpolished compared to 1 and I believe it had a pretty troublesome development.

Currently playing through the DLC's of dark souls 3 it's really close behind dark souls 1 as best in series for me.

I believe all dark souls games are flawed, but one of the most important games of the last 2 generations. (just look at all the games that are inspired by dark souls/demon's souls)

WWhhhhaaa??

Souls 2 the weakest? 3 on the heels of 1? Are we playing the same game mate?

3 is without a doubt, almost objectively the worst in the franchise. There are so many ing problems with it, I can barely begin to name .

• Armor can't be upgrade
• Buffs are
• Debuffs from armor are even worse
• sharp is always best damage rate vs elements
• Invading is super god aweful and stacked, where infinite summon from host is possible, seed of giants, estus recovery time during invasions, so many minute details I cant even be bothered to list it again. I the bed in a a mega thread on the steam forums.
• You cant even class build because armor is so linear, and item pickups occur in linear fashion and take too long to get them. A very stark contrast to souls 1 or 2 (replays are completely pointless)
  
• Poise is outright broken and 2 stage rolling with fixed I-frames. Just try to play fat.
• This one is more of a personal feeling, but I thought the enemies were kinda bland. The entire first 4 major areas in the game are hollow civilians and a hand full of knights
• Lots of recycled move sets.

These are just very wide sweeping issues, some of them apparently addressed with recent patches, but it came too late for my experience of the game.

Souls 2 was largely a straight upgrade in most regards

 

[Niels]

like I said, all dark souls games have their problems

problems with dark souls 2:
- poor graphics due to a last minute change to the lighting system
- mostly uninteresting bosses (too many dudes in armor)
- different areas felt more like stages instead of a connected world ( harvest valley to ironkeep?)
- enemies stop respawning after a while

I know poise is broken (turned off), and there are other issues, but I really enjoy playing dark souls 3

 

[Lumenflower]

I've played all the Souls games many times over and I always struggle to put them in order of preference. I think at the moment I'm inclined to say DS3 is my favourite, if only for the bossfights. Slave Knight Gael in particular... oh man! I think he's easily my favourite boss of the entire series, up there with Fume Knight, Manus and Artorias. I recently started a new playthrough of DS1 and admittedly found it quite tedious. It may be because I've played it so many times that I know every area like the back of my hand, and I don't have that same sense of discovery that I have with DS2 & 3; but there are some areas in DS1 that I truly hate. Duke's Archives, anyone?
I think there is a way people look at DS1 through rose-tinted glasses. Objectively, it had a lot of problems and DS2 did improve upon many of these: weapon degradation became much more of something to consider, rather than some idle stat that would have you trekking back to Andre every ten-or-so deaths, breaking the momentum; also you could consume all your souls without having to re-open the inventory each time. DS2 experimented a lot more with the environments - you had statues that would spit poison, doors that could only be opened by killing an enemy nearby, buttons that you had to shoot with a bow and special doors you could only open with a Pharros Lockstone. Think of the Lost Sinner - you could either fight her in the dark, or search around for a special key and turn the lights on. It really did have a lot of thought behind it, and yeah - some of it didn't work - but DS2 shouldn't be singled out as the only game in which this is the case. Those invisible pathways in the Crystal Cavern for example, and don't even mention the Bed of Chaos.

 

[Roa]

like I said, all dark souls games have their problems

problems with dark souls 2:
- poor graphics due to a last minute change to the lighting system
- mostly uninteresting bosses (too many dudes in armor)
- different areas felt more like stages instead of a connected world ( harvest valley to ironkeep?)
- enemies stop respawning after a while

I know poise is broken (turned off), and there are other issues, but I really enjoy playing dark souls 3

All games have issues, my comment was mostly about the unpolished bit making it the worst.

The last minute ditch on lighting, more "video gamey" level design are fair points to be sure, but all of those are completely superficial. Enemies re spawning was a response for new/bad players to eventually be able to chisel through stuff and not wreck their soul memory (arguably another bad thing.) This can be remedied with bonfire ascetics anyways. None of that actually effects the games feel though.

You know what does?

• Armor being static and almost a constant and direct linear defense to weight ratio no matter what it is, with no chance of upgrade, and the only deviation coming from the 3-4 complete sets in the game that grant resistance(Not even enough to save you one blow usually, so ultimately pointless.) I almost swear to god they didn't fill in, design, nor balance stat sheets. They just gave the armor a hard coded algorithm for their weight and defense to always be ratio proportionate. Character building and play styles suffer greatly over this. There is no balance of motion and how many hits you can take vs your weapon style. Nobody asked for this.
  
• Level design and item placement is 100% linear, there is no early farms, no branching paths, no alternative ways to get somewhere, not nearly as many "optional" bosses. Its just one long trek, and it completely destroys the pacing, the character building aspects are completely choked, hopes of sequence braking. Its just not there.
• Because FromSoft didn't hates invaders enough, you have the whole deal with red phantoms which makes them so infrequent, they might as well not be in the game at all. You can cheese, abuse,. and completely cheat invaders in game so easily. Invaders needed MORE incentive to invade, not less again! I always read these ing babies "its my game and they are ruining the experience, I just want to play online with friends." like, you dont get to cheery pick the parts you want out of an experience at the expense of others. You play online. You make it easier. Invaders are a risk you just have to deal with. Its part of the game. Dont want it? Man up and play off line and take the challenge alone, stop letting your friends and randoms carry your weight. These whiners literally killed Invaders, and its only now that the new players left and the devoted fans stayed that they start fixing it.

All that stuff is directly taking from huge parts of the experience, even upsetting other systems that rely on them. You can not like song demon or looking glass knight all you want, but ultimately, they dont remove value from the game. Thats by far my biggest problem with Souls 3.

Well tell me, what do you enjoy about it? Do you think I'm right when I say it gets away with some crappy stuff under the "hard" mantra?

I mean I play things like DOOM and if I lose it feels like I deserved to. It's still hard but I feel more like "Wow, I got my butt kicked" rather than "What the heck?"

Its not really as hard as you think. It just takes practice and approaching with new ideas and making full use of whats given to you. Dark souls is very much a game where every mistake is something you can learn from. You'll pickup on effective tactics, moves from enemies, moves of the weapons you have. When its appropriate to use buffs and items. Eventually you'll get to a point of running the game and only dying once or twice per play through. I think the only time I've ever thought of something to be completely unfair in the Souls series is Capra demon, but Capra demon can go himself....and the box he lives in.

Also, enemies will only be stunned if you break their poise (usually larger weapons), it can land you a few extra hits but dont rely on it happening all the time. Dont try to just DPS race them all the time. You wont win like that as the game goes on. Know when to dodge and block. You can dodge anytime with low stamina penalty and you get periods of time in that dodge where you are 100% invincible(what people call I-Frames). The lighter you are, the more I-frames you get.

 

[Carnivius]

I've only played Demon's Souls (which was a freebie on PS Plus) and Bloodborne (which I bought in a sale to do co-op with a friend before we found out how annoyingly stupid it is to even set that up) and to be honest I can't stand them. I like me some third-person hack n slash but these games suck all the fun out of it and far too slow, sluggish, tedious and just plain dull to me and are graphically as boring and drab as the gameplay. I wouldn't even mind the difficulty so much if the games mechanics themselves were fun but they just don't work for me at all and feels like a total chore. Bloodborne's the only PS4 game I've bought digitally that I wish I could get a refund on. I really just do not understand all the hype and praise laid on these games at all.

 

[Dark]

This is probably a stupid reason for hating on it but my main problem with DS2 (as a fan of 2-handing weapons with no shield and low-medium armor) is the immense lack of rolling i-frames at base ADP levels.
Also the somewhat lame bosses.

My favorite game in the series is 3 and the lack of the original poise system isn't THAT much of a problem once you get proper roll timings down and know what weapon moves have what amount of hyper armor and stuff. Then again I always seem to be tossed around like a limp toy by that ******* Astora Greatsword no matter what I do

 

[Niels]

I picked up the broadsword in the first real area in the main game after the intro (ds3) and I'm still using it in the ringed city as my main weapon
All while my inventory is filled with cool boss weapons which are too slow or unwieldy for my taste...
Design flaw?

 

[Dark]

I picked up the broadsword in the first real area in the main game after the intro (ds3) and I'm still using it in the ringed city as my main weapon
All while my inventory is filled with cool boss weapons which are too slow or unwieldy for my taste...
Design flaw?

Yeah, that's one true issue with the game... A lot of the cool and unique boss weapons don't actually seem that good compared to some normal weapons of the same class. Because they can't be buffed, are often crappy split damage, or are just all gimmick and no damage.
Although really it also depends a lot on how it fits your playstyle, and there are some that can really kick butt when used right but they are still often kind of situational.
The DLC does add some really good boss weapons and boss-esque weapons (some seem like they should be boss weapons but aren't).

 

[Toni]

Dark Souls 2 being the worst souls game is actually a commonly held wrong belief.
Have fun.

 

[11clock]

I've only played Demon's Souls (which was a freebie on PS Plus) and Bloodborne (which I bought in a sale to do co-op with a friend before we found out how annoyingly stupid it is to even set that up) and to be honest I can't stand them. I like me some third-person hack n slash but these games suck all the fun out of it and far too slow, sluggish, tedious and just plain dull to me and are graphically as boring and drab as the gameplay. I wouldn't even mind the difficulty so much if the games mechanics themselves were fun but they just don't work for me at all and feels like a total chore. Bloodborne's the only PS4 game I've bought digitally that I wish I could get a refund on. I really just do not understand all the hype and praise laid on these games at all.

People explaining Dark Souls as slow and melancholic (in addition to difficulty) is part of why I haven't bothered with this series. Monster Hunter was this way and I absolutely could not stand it as a result. I hate melee swings taking like 3 seconds each to execute with no way to cancel out of them, with the actual impacts not feeling strong at all (the monsters don't seem to even flinch). It just feels incredibly clunky and I prefer a combat system like in Strider.

 

[Niels]

dark souls 3 upped the speed a lot compared to 1 and 2! but not being a button bashing hack and slasher is what gives dark souls it's strength

 

[Lumenflower]

@Niels I would say that like any weapon, boss weapons are useful to specific builds. In what I found to be by far my easiest run of DS3 (a FTH/STR build) I mained Wolnir's Holy Sword. My current run in DS2 uses the Crypt Blacksword (though this can be buffed). I've heard good things about Farron Greatsword. Moonlight Greatsword is always a must for an INT build. Gundyr's Halberd is very good. It all depends on the build and the playstyle. No weapon is truly useless.

 

[Ethanicus]

It mostly irks me that there are things, like what I stated, that in ANY other game would be considered an error or fault, but this game uses them as selling points. Someone said there are bullet hell games that claim low fps from bullet count as a feature. As a game dev -- whose job it is to make my game run smoothly, intuitively, and efficiently -- I find it annoying that people get away with stuff like that just due to notoriety. If I sound jealous that's not my intent, just two cents.

 

[Niels]

It mostly irks me that there are things, like what I stated, that in ANY other game would be considered an error or fault, but this game uses them as selling points. Someone said there are bullet hell games that claim low fps from bullet count as a feature. As a game dev -- whose job it is to make my game run smoothly, intuitively, and efficiently -- I find it annoying that people get away with stuff like that just due to notoriety. If I sound jealous that's not my intent, just two cents.

I understand your point, it's just that sometimes games do 1 thing so well (like the combat in dark souls) that people forgive/forget the other things the game doesn't do so well...

For example, the witcher 3 gets a LOT of praise (and I love the game), but if you would put it's combat mechanics in dark souls, it would make dark souls a game terrible..
on the other hand if you put the character models and (lack of) facial animations from dark souls in the witcher 3, it would make that game terrible..

no game is perfect, and especially us as indie devs should know that it's better to do one thing REALLY well and focus the game on that mechanic, than trying to cover everything in 1 game...
Trying to do so is the reason why we have so many mediocre open world, survival, crafting, zombiehunting, multiplayer games

 

[Yal]

Kinda want to chime in, but everything kinda has been said already... so I'll say it again and not have to think about what points to make
jk lol

Dark Souls 1...

• Has one of the most obtuse weapon upgrade systems ever AND doesn't take weapon upgrades into account for online matchmaking, making twinking easy and making you have to collect a bazillion upgrade materials and find different blacksmiths all over the place
• Starts out without fast-travel (though at least the highly interconnected world design doesn't make that TOO bad)
• Ties too many bonuses to the same stat (stamina, equip load etc) so everyone has a reason to boost that, making EVERYONE run around in heavy armor, limiting playstyle variation
  
• Has a higher focus on stats than its sequels, making sequence-breaking very hard because you're doing single digits damage to enemies and they can twoshot you.

Dark Souls 3...

• Feels downright punishing most of the time; most crystal lizards are there solely to lure you into a trap (all the way from the one near the transforming dude at High Wall of Lothric to the two near the gargoyles in the Grand Archives) and a lot of item orbs are as well, and on top of that they almost always contain crap so it feels like taking risks isn't worth it.
• Unlocking items is now a two-step procedure: first you need to find an NPC selling them, then you need to find other items unlocking stuff for them. You only get rubbish stuff for saving them and most of the item-unlock scrolls/tomes/coals/ashes/whatever are so easy to miss you can't find them without a guide. And once you DO find those items you still need to pay to get the spells and items. This is the same mentality applied to DLCs but from an in-universe perspective, and it just ruins the sense of reward you'd normally get when finding a new shopkeeper AND the sense of reward you'd get from finding some new spells.
• The calculations for damage makes armor feel useless (there's a high bonus for having ANYTHING in an armor slot), although this has been improved in patches; but elemental weapons still feel much weaker than indicated because they go through two flat reductions on top of going through two defense values.
• The game is disgustingly linear, and thus playing it again makes it feel exactly the same as last time.
• Invasions target co-op parties so noob friends starting out gets wrecked and can't progress while invaders get ganked by groups of competent players most of the time. You can't even get the "summon help when invaded" covenant until AFTER you get through the first area you can get invaded in, and chances are a lot of people already give up at that point.
• Everything in Firelink Shrine looks the same and it took me over 120 hours before I stopped getting lost in it.
• Lots of stuff is fanservice you won't understand if you didn't play DS1, and some areas are straight-out copypasted.

The general theme of DS3 seems to be "make people disappointed". It's in the loot, the NPC interactions, the worldbuilding, even in the gameplay mechanics.


Dark Souls 2...

• Is more colorful and varied in its level design, compared to DS3's constant gray/brown that makes all areas blend together visually.
• Lets you take on four different paths in more or less any order you want (you can go to spidertown early if you buy Melentia's fragrant branch, having enough HP to survive the fall damage or buying the Silvercat Ring from Shaloquir lets you go to The Gutter early, beating one of the first areas you can access opens up the path to Iron Keep) so there's a lot of replay value; but you still get funneled through the 'intended' path by items or NPCs found along each path (Fragrant Branches in chests after every Old Nameless One, Gilligan showing up once you beat Earthen Peak, ...).
• Has an incredible amount of optional stuff, you can even bypass the seal on the final area with your own might if you accumulate enough Soul Memory so you can skip out on ALL bosses if you want to.
• Lets you get a lot of different weapons and magic early on, especially if you go down all the four paths as early as possible.
• Lets you refight bosses using Bonfire Ascetics so you can get all their stuff on a single NG run with no need to have to redo all the tedious bits again
• Makes covenant rewards purchaseable from a non-killable NPC at the end of a NG++ run so you can 100% the game without having to reach max rank in a dozen covenants.
• Lets you (temporarily) revive dead NPCs for a fee, making it impossible to completely screw up the game.
• Has a dual wield system that lets you combine any two weapons, unlike DS3 which expects you to always have a shield in the offhand.

The only bad thing with DS2 is how the soul memory system stops you from playing with a friend unless you make a completely new character and constantly synchronize, and how the ADP stat's influence on your iframes is impossible to actually notice, other than that I don't really have any complaints.