One of the things I like about the second one is that it rewards you better for exploration. In the first one a bit of exploration would net you an extra covenant and a mess of crystal lizards. In the second game it can net you several extra bosses, several hidden covenants, and a mess of toys that will make the game easier.
I don't think you are giving Dark Souls enough credit here. Return to Undead Asylum, Painted World, Gwyndolin and possibly even dark Anor Londo are all areas that require you to explore to find them, and they are far more rewarding than whatever secret areas DkS2 had.
Also, the order in which you do certain things affects the NPC's of the world in DkS, for example, the Rhea of Thoruland questline. There is nothing of the sort in DkS2. Nothing you really do will affect the NPC's in DkS2 apart from the basic stuff like them moving.
Dark souls nostalgia is killing me. If you want a story or balanced pvp play demons. If you want a toon that actually does what you tell him to play dark2. If you like both and want more play the first half of dks1. Suffer thru the second if you want to play the dlc, which actually has the only decent bosses. Thats it in a nutshell.
There is nothing in dks1 that comes close to dual pursuers, and lets not even talk about the darklurker dungeons. They are evil in the best way.
But keep dreaming people. And skip over dks2. In my opinion? you are missing out.
Its more a matter of patience and attention then difficulty in any of the games. These being less of a thing in all the flashy fast paced twitchy reaction games prevalent in AAA.
On the more indepth side, despite inexperience, you did go in with a plan and stuck to it, which is the major hurdle in creation. Dex is also probably the best layout for a newcomer to go with as well, for versatility (Strength has a bit of a steep curve til you can get it high enough for the real smashy weapons and get far enough in to get the Dragonrider bow for the pesky ranged bits).
As most people have said already, the difficulty of the game is greatly exaggerated by the people who talk about it. Secondarily, if you know how to approach it (ie slow, careful, patiently) you will be absolutely fine. The majority of deaths in the Souls series come from not being patient enough, or being greedy. Rarely is there a death that you cannot attribute to your own mistake.
What kind of disappointed me about Dark Souls 2 was the design of a lot of the levels/bosses. It seems in that game that whenever they wanted to make an area more difficult, FromSoft simply dumped more enemies into the area, and called it a day. That is downright lazy design. Now, I'm not saying all areas are like that, but there are many, and there are a hell of a lot more than were in Dark Souls 1.
Perfect example is the gauntlet of Syan guards you have to run to challenge Velstadt. If memory serves, there is 6 or 7 guards there, with the possibility of the extra enemies added by the bell ringing ghoul behind the stairs. This wouldn't be so bad, but the guards all aggro in pairs. This makes it totally impractical to fight them without taking damage. It isn't an elegant design.
The archers in Anor Londo from Dark Souls 1 (and I'm taking pre the patch that moved the left one to make it easier) was a beautiful piece of design. Only two enemies, and if you were smart, you could very easily get through the area without damage. If you weren't however, it would be the bane of your existence, but once you beat it, it was over. That section was succinct and got the point across, and then the game moved on.
Sorry for the ramble.
TL;DR If you are smart and patient, the Souls series isn't overly difficult. If you increase the difficulty artificially by rushing and not learning from your mistakes, then you are going to have a bad time.
Dont know. You seem to have been traumatized somehow by dark souls. I remember you stating the combat in amalur was superior
Like i said i never used a shield but i think there is a difference between greatshield and spear and normal shield and sword or strike weapon. The latter would be more mobile and better crowd control, allowing you to roll, parry and have sweeping strong attacks at your disposal. If you resort to cheesing every enemy into solo turtle sessions of course you wont enjoy it.
You liked bayonetta, right? Have you tried revengeance? You can spoil that by spamming the parry control. But why would you.
I was extremely disappointed by Dark Souls. The main reason why I died a lot in the beginning was because I thought, as a dex character, I had to roll for proper defense, but then I realized you can block just about everything with a light shield, I shouldn't be able to block those knight attacks for example. I played a dex character with a Iaito and light shield and fighting those initial enemies required the same strategy as fighting the last enemies, the game never changed from beginning to end. The problem with the shield controls is that you can't backpedal or strafe with a shield raised and not locked on, thus fighting multiple enemies at once is WAY harder than it should be. If you have your shield raised and press back on the left stick, your character turns around.
Every freaking other game in existence lets you backpedal and strafe with a shield up from Amalur to Dragon's Dogma to freaking MGS4. Amalur, while much more flashy and fast in combat, had better battle mechanics; Rogues couldn't block every attack because they're freaking Rogues. And Amalur had a stealth system even though it was pretty weak but it was there, Dark Souls had no stealth system in place (and that one ring doesn't count as giving Dark Souls stealth).
Bayonetta is my favorite last gen game due to the awesome dodge offset mechanic. You really can't spam parry in Bayonetta as you could only parry with a certain piece of equipment, I'm not sure if it was spammable due to barely using it (it seemed like you needed really good timing to use it). Revengeance, I just bought since it was on sale for $15 on PSN, but I didn't buy it right away as the game seemed too reliant on the parry from the demo, it should still be a blast to play (it is a Platinum game) but I probably won't get into the fighting mechanics like I did with Bayonetta.
As many others have said, the difficulty in DS2 (and all of the Souls games) really comes down to the approach the player takes and their mindset when they fail. If you approach the game in a patient and tactical manner, you'll do fine. If you actually use your failures as a learning process, you'll do fine. As the tagline of the series says, Prepare to Die. You're almost definitely going to die, so expect it and use it to better your next attempt.
The games are harder than most modern games and are definitely more punishing than most modern games but they're certainly not at the sort of legendary unassailable difficulty that some people attribute to them. The thing is, it appears to me that most people who talk about the difficulty as being at that incredible level are those who haven't even played the games.
Posting my true feelings on a game is trolling? Dark Souls was bad from a controls and RPG mechanics standpoint. Why is Dark Souls the only game that still relies on an archaic lock-on system? Why can't I backpedal and strafe with a shield up?
Souls isn't all that challenging for gamers who usually like hard games, what Souls needs to be commended for is that it helped a lot of normal gamers to discover / rediscover what's so fun in playing punishing / hard games. Before DS1 the game design dogma was that any penalty of death should be reduced to a minimum like Super Meat Boy.
Also one big difference between Souls and most games is the lack of easy mode, sure there are many ways to make the game easier (summons, over levelling etc) but that requires some effort and smarts from the player and not a menu toggle.
I think that the Souls games got the reputation because the average gamer today need to have his hand held through the game and can't learn on his own. They see death as bad design rather than their own fault. They will repeat the same mistake over and over again without ever stopping and thinking "wait, maybe I'm doing something wrong and should change my strategy".
The average gamer today lacks patience. They can't wait for a boss to show off his moveset. They will just run YOLO style and die and again and again.
As long as you have patience, a decent observation skill and the ability to learn, the Souls games are just medium difficulty. A 0 death run in 12 hours tops is easy as long as you don't rush. Just take your time.
It always bothered me that you get those rings for beating the game with no deaths/bonfires but doing it at lvl 1 gives you jack shit, I don't think speed runs get you a reward either.
As for the OP, yeah it's a lot easier than the first one. Even without the patches it was underwhelming, still though it's not a bad game. PVP is awful though...
Dark souls nostalgia is killing me. If you want a story or balanced pvp play demons. If you want a toon that actually does what you tell him to play dark2. If you like both and want more play the first half of dks1. Suffer thru the second if you want to play the dlc, which actually has the only decent bosses. Thats it in a nutshell.
There is nothing in dks1 that comes close to dual pursuers, and lets not even talk about the darklurker dungeons. They are evil in the best way.
But keep dreaming people. And skip over dks2. In my opinion? you are missing out.
I see your two Pursuers and raise you four Titanite Demons, Sens Fortress alone beats out both the Pursuers and Darklurker areas. I'll admit I died a few times in the Chasm of the Abyss but only because TWO STEPS FROM THE SPAWN YOU FALL DOWN A HOLE?!?!? SERIOUSLY!!? After I lit a torch I breezed through it, I laughed as I stun locked Havel, yawned as a breezed past the ghosts and King Jeremiahs, and stared confused at the Darklurker as it shot lasers all over the room. Gwyndolin was harder than just about anything in that game, and before you say it the Ancient Dragon doesn't count. Seriously that thing should get nominated for worst boss of the year, just cheap, lazy, instant death bullshit. It's funny too because if you hug the inside of his legs he doesn't even do the flying fire breath, turning him into a joke.
Anyone who has decent experience with video games in general won't find this particularly difficult. It's just don't rush in and learn the moveset of the enemies. Video games have just gotten easier in general, and games that expect the player to manage health/inventory/armor/etc are not common anymore, which is why a lot of new players find them difficult.
The thing with Souls games is that they're not hard at all (I might even go as far as to say games in general nowadays got too easy), it's simply challenging, and will most certainly not hold your hand. It's all about experimentation, pacing one self, learning from mistakes, and patience.
Demons Souls did this well. Dark Souls 2 did this better-ish. Dark Souls 2... surprisingly the worst at it.
I've played the series since Demons, so this is pretty subjective, but this new From Soft B team really didn't get the idea when it came to variety in the way to tackle situations. Let me get the obvious one out of the way:
-Casters completely outclass melee builds in Dks2. Casters get range, consumptions to re-fill their casts, high damage output right off the bat, and better scaling. Melee builds get none of that + insanely stupid fast weapon degradation. In Dks1 they were on par, where you could go melee only/magic only and do will "if you got good" as our oh so wonderful elitist community would say. Whereas here in Dks2 you have no risk magic spam destroying practically every boss over the low damage, low scaling, more risk than benefit melee only builds. I noticed this when fighting Darklurker w/both a melee build and a magic only build. Fight him with melee, he's single handedly the best boss fight in this game constantly always keeping you on your toes as you slowly eat away at his health even when he splits into two. Fight him with magic, the fight can last less than 15 seconds. Still don't believe me? DSP beat the game using only Lightning Spears..... DSP. Talk about balance, the game lacks all of it. It's nuts when you consider that Demons had far less cheeseable exploits and that was the first Souls game!
-Too much emphasis on mobs than on single tough enemies. This one bugged me the most playing, it's nothing but mobs and mobs and mobs and mobs, and they're not even aggressive. Hardly ever did I fight a single lone tough enemy. I would rather have taken on a headless Vengarl every hour than Syan Knights that repeat the same easy to parry/avoid combos that do little to no damage. And at times it's just plain tedious, looking at you path to Vestaldt in Undead Crypt...
-The expanded hitboxes.
I really hope the guy's behind the hitboxes get demoted...
-Bonfire, some time later... another bonfire. Some ti-bonfire. Som-bonfire?! To put it simply, the bonfire placements are way too forgiving. Not only that but there's hardly any need for shortcuts (if there were any in this game at all...). They could have easily have removed the stupid degradation, added some shortcuts and have less than 2 bonfires in an area. But no, since the level design in the game in general is pretty meh.
-Enemy despawning. Seriously, when was farming an issue in Dks1? The world itself already feels empty, making it easier only makes it seems like they didn't even try.
-Bosses just aren't interesting to warrant getting better. Literally just strafe to the right, hit when their combo is done... then there yah go, you win. Again, Darklurker is a good example of an interesting direction, mixing it up half way forcing you to change your tactics on the fly, but then there's almost never anything like him again AND HE'S ONLY AN OPTIONAL BOSS! It's all just quantity over quality, never have a I had an O&S moment of gratification other than Darklurker. And don't even get me started on Covetus, Ancient Dragon, and The Old Dragonslayer...
Overall yes, Dks2 isn't as hard as people say. I just also really wanted to point out how insanely inferior it is to it's predecessors in terms of design.
EDIT: Another personal gripe... how the hell From was I supposed to know a giant spider can shoot laser beams?! Webs I can understand, but nothing in his design hinted "yup... this guy's definitely got a plasma canon in his throat".
-Casters completely outclass melee builds in Dks2. Casters get range, consumptions to re-fill their casts, high damage output right off the bat, and better scaling. Melee builds get none of that + insanely stupid fast weapon degradation. In Dks1 they were on par, where you could go melee only/magic only and do will "if you got good" as our oh so wonderful elitist community would say. Whereas here in Dks2 you have no risk magic spam destroying practically every boss over the low damage, low scaling, more risk than benefit melee only builds. I noticed this when fighting Darklurker w/both a melee build and a magic only build. Fight him with melee, he's single handedly the best boss fight in this game constantly always keeping you on your toes as you slowly eat away at his health even when he splits into two. Fight him with magic, the fight can last less than 15 seconds. Still don't believe me? DSP beat the game using only Lightning Spears..... DSP. Talk about balance, the game lacks all of it. It's nuts when you consider that Demons had far less cheeseable exploits and that was the first Souls game!
-Too much emphasis on mobs than on single tough enemies. This one bugged me the most playing, it's nothing but mobs and mobs and mobs and mobs, and they're not even aggressive. Hardly ever did I fight a single lone tough enemy. I would rather have taken on a headless Vengarl every hour than Syan Knights that repeat the same easy to parry/avoid combos that do little to no damage. And at times it's just plain tedious, looking at you path to Vestaldt in Undead Crypt...
-The expanded hitboxes.
I really hope the guy's behind the hitboxes get demoted...
-Enemy despawning. Seriously, when was farming an issue in Dks1? The world itself already feels empty, making it easier only makes it seems like they didn't even try.
EDIT: Another personal gripe... how the hell From was I supposed to know a giant spider can shoot laser beams?! Webs I can understand, but nothing in his design hinted "yup... this guy's definitely got a plasma canon in his throat".
Actually the Magic-builds arent insanely overpowered, at least my faith-build isnt. Mainly because the AoE variants you get are very random, i.e. you could cast it and not hit anything, or cast it and hit everything, depending how many mobs there are around you etc. But when it comes to lightning spears? They can be dodged, just roll at the right moment and you hit nothing but air, granted thats more of a PvP thing, since only regular red phantoms in NG+ actually use rolls and other more advanced combinations. Also magic-use makes you stationary, so you rather dependant on phantoms for bosses because if you so much as try to cast a spell against guys like Velstadt, Looking Glass Knight or Pursuer you will get your ass handed to you, basicly you need bait. But yes the damage output is ridiculous since comparative builds require late-game bows or upgraded greatswords, but again you are dependant on having help alot and you arent really going to be able to take alot of hits, even if you were to use shield and full havels you are basicly a giant stationary spear-thrower who will get hit by everything.
As for the Mobs, yes there are too many instances where the game simply throws several at you in an effort to make the game harder, rather than making each enemy actually difficult on its own. But certain enemies just dont really work the same way, you cant expect every enemy to be a black knight from a logical point of view, but there are enemies like that in the game, Syan knights always have their shields raised unless you are within range for them to hit you, making taking them out at range more difficult, or rather time-consuming. Lion Knights are even worse in that regard because they have a shield which they will use and they are resistant to everything but physical damage, forcing you to get close, unless you have a halberd, greatsword or spear, you are well within range for them to hit you, although except for one instance you can fight them one on one. Manikins are another broken enemy there, mainly because they have both melee and range which can hurt alot and they always come on pairs.
As for the hit-boxes, i agree they are too large, though its not so much the hitboxes being too large but rather how auto-tracking alot of enemies are, its less obvious with alot of the small enemies, but Looking Glass Knight? He can track you up until a split second before his attack actually hits, meaning he rarely ever misses unless you time rolls perfectly. Velstadt has the same problem, though less so and Vendrick also does the whole auto-tracking. Its more obvious when it comes to the Mace/Greatsword Old Knights in Heide and the Dragonknight dudes in Dragon Aerie. However the hitboxes arent exactly "huge", its more a thing of lag, example i was never hit once by the blue sword stab from pursuer. There is a small window of difference between when you press a button and when it actually happens.
Enemy despawning is more a case of making the game less irritating, imagine you fight your way through 20 mobs, but then number 21 kills you over and over again, say 21 is the area boss. Do you want to have to go through every single mob of those 20 again and again ad nauseum, wasting time, energy and resources just to take another shot at the boss? Its not a anti-farming measure, its a measure to make the game be less of a dick if that spot you are stuck at is the area behind the 20 guys you can easily beat. Mainly because bonfire ascetics are a thing and you can farm everything relentlessly anyhow.
Freja..well the "thought" may have been that she has the Soul of Seath, hence gaining his dragon-breath, though for all intents and purposes you may as well consider it webs, but the game doesnt "slow you down" but just delivers a hit to the face. It would probably been better if that beam was green and applied instant poison, which would have been more fitting thematically for a giant two-headed spider, even if you take the lore into account that she just gained size, intelligence and the ability to actually spit poison in such a manner from Seath's soul.
That pretty much sums up DS games in a nutshell. I've noticed that it's literally the only game where I actually walk, not run everywhere. The point is to take it slow, take your time, figure out what to do and do it. It's not meant to, nor it should be made somehow remarkably hard if you actually have patience to play it right.
Rellik San said:
(about half of mine were attributed to the jumping controls... seriously, it's bullshit).
Settings>Game Options, find the thing that makes you jump when you press circle while sprinting instead of the L3.
Rellik San said:
I'd agree it's challenging and I don't consider myself a particularly good gamer or maybe it's the just the types of games I play gave me an advantage. But I really don't see why people should prepare to die.
It's just their slogan that they've come to accept. When the first Souls game launched, people didn't expect a level of difficulty where you'd actually have to pay attention and where it was relatively easy to die at any time. The previous two games were also...
Rellik San said:
My question is, what was your first Souls experience like and did you find the reputation to be unfounded or not?
..harder. A lot, at least according to my current experience. Now, yes, there is some portion of "I've played this game before and I know how it's meant to be played", but even when I learned Demon's or the first Dark Souls, a lot of bosses still presented a challenge. The only challenge DS2 puts before you is when you're fighting multiple opponents (and it's a lot bigger on that, especially on boss fights, than the previous games). Single target boss fights are remarkably easy, point and case, Lost Sinner is essentially a watered down version of Artorias. It's even one of the big bosses, being the final in that line (ie. holding a primal bonfire), so it really has no reason for being one of the easiest bosses, while being based on one of the hardest.
That said, you always have the option of making the game harder for yourself. You have the Champion's Covenant, which is basically a "Hard" difficulty setting. You can burn Ascetics and of course, as always, each playthrough is harder (although also a hell of a lot easier as knowing what to expect is usually a bigger deal than dealing with it)
Huh, that is rather strange in my opinion. The Gargoyle fight was the only fight that I didn't die to, I won first try. The trick to that fight is having a good shield and keeping all the Gargoyles in your line of sight. Always keep your shield up, luckily their attacks don't do jack against your stamina so its fairly easy to withstand a relentless frontal assault. I picked them off one by one when they do their jump attack, separating them one by one. Also when one of them does their fire breath, flank him and whack the every loving crap out of it. But really what it basically boils down to is a good shield and position...and some patience.
Most fights are really easy with a good 100% block shield. The only bossfight in the game I died multiple times on was the pursuer. Every other boss in the game died in the first or second try. In NG+ I oneshotted everything so far and died only once because of... yes.... jumping! ;D
One of the things I like about the second one is that it rewards you better for exploration. In the first one a bit of exploration would net you an extra covenant and a mess of crystal lizards. In the second game it can net you several extra bosses, several hidden covenants, and a mess of toys that will make the game easier.
I don't think you are giving Dark Souls enough credit here. Return to Undead Asylum, Painted World, Gwyndolin and possibly even dark Anor Londo are all areas that require you to explore to find them, and they are far more rewarding than whatever secret areas DkS2 had.
Also, the order in which you do certain things affects the NPC's of the world in DkS, for example, the Rhea of Thoruland questline. There is nothing of the sort in DkS2. Nothing you really do will affect the NPC's in DkS2 apart from the basic stuff like them moving.
I'll give you the Painted World and returning to the Asylum, but the other 2 aren't all that special. Dark Anor Londo in particular just takes out all the giants.
As for effecting the NPC's, I can think of 6 off the top of my head that you directly effect, namely Navlaan, Licia, Tark, Creighton, Pate, and Lucatiel.
Actually the Magic-builds arent insanely overpowered, at least my faith-build isnt. Mainly because the AoE variants you get are very random, i.e. you could cast it and not hit anything, or cast it and hit everything, depending how many mobs there are around you etc. But when it comes to lightning spears? They can be dodged, just roll at the right moment and you hit nothing but air, granted thats more of a PvP thing, since only regular red phantoms in NG+ actually use rolls and other more advanced combinations. Also magic-use makes you stationary, so you rather dependant on phantoms for bosses because if you so much as try to cast a spell against guys like Velstadt, Looking Glass Knight or Pursuer you will get your ass handed to you, basicly you need bait. But yes the damage output is ridiculous since comparative builds require late-game bows or upgraded greatswords, but again you are dependant on having help alot and you arent really going to be able to take alot of hits, even if you were to use shield and full havels you are basicly a giant stationary spear-thrower who will get hit by everything.
I don't mean the PVP (people are dumb anyways, I have yet to get hit by a spell because people think I'm PVE enemy expecting me to take a Great Resonant Sperm to the face and die. Too bad for them I know what rolling is), it's already pretty obvious players know nothing about a change in tactics. It's all enforced by magic's insane usefulness in PVE that makes it overpowered in PVE. The best example I found of this was when I was doing jolly co-op for Smelter Demon. The host with all his "skill" sat back and did great damage with magic while I did most of the leg work and went in like a man and never got hit... until the Smelter agro'd on him. The new magic gives people this mentality of "I'll just sit back to spam and win, and roll far enough away to repeat." because i'm not wrong, it does work very well! And I might as well end the story on a funny note to also prove my point... every player who sat back and sniped the Smelter who eventually agro'd him died, they were literally allergic to rolling. I was friking in awe that magic was that good that it would make people THAT stupid, and I think I wasted a good hour never getting Sunlight Medals because magic's OPness gets to peoples heads.
As for the Mobs, yes there are too many instances where the game simply throws several at you in an effort to make the game harder, rather than making each enemy actually difficult on its own. But certain enemies just dont really work the same way, you cant expect every enemy to be a black knight from a logical point of view, but there are enemies like that in the game, Syan knights always have their shields raised unless you are within range for them to hit you, making taking them out at range more difficult, or rather time-consuming. Lion Knights are even worse in that regard because they have a shield which they will use and they are resistant to everything but physical damage, forcing you to get close, unless you have a halberd, greatsword or spear, you are well within range for them to hit you, although except for one instance you can fight them one on one. Manikins are another broken enemy there, mainly because they have both melee and range which can hurt alot and they always come on pairs.
The only thing I can really say about this is that enemies were originally not supposed to be so abundant. You can go back and watch the original TGS gameplay premiere and they expressed how enemy encounters were few but incredibly difficult when faced. It seems like there were instances in the game where there were hints of that (ex. The Stone Knights before the Mirror Knight/the Heide Knights/Vengarl) but it all falls short when you see that they're EVERYWHERE and are either cheap or piss easy.
As for the hit-boxes, i agree they are too large, though its not so much the hitboxes being too large but rather how auto-tracking alot of enemies are, its less obvious with alot of the small enemies, but Looking Glass Knight? He can track you up until a split second before his attack actually hits, meaning he rarely ever misses unless you time rolls perfectly. Velstadt has the same problem, though less so and Vendrick also does the whole auto-tracking. Its more obvious when it comes to the Mace/Greatsword Old Knights in Heide and the Dragonknight dudes in Dragon Aerie. However the hitboxes arent exactly "huge", its more a thing of lag, example i was never hit once by the blue sword stab from pursuer. There is a small window of difference between when you press a button and when it actually happens.
Yeah I completely forgot to mention the tracking. The mace Drakekeeper being the best example of a legitimately unfair design, infinite tracking, infinite stamina, infinite combo, melee build destroyer. They could have just design more advance moves with less tracking for the enemies (just look at the Turtle Knights, they have no need for tracking since they have a counter attack when you're behind them) but no, just give them tracking to make the larger hitboxes much more obvious.
Enemy despawning is more a case of making the game less irritating, imagine you fight your way through 20 mobs, but then number 21 kills you over and over again, say 21 is the area boss. Do you want to have to go through every single mob of those 20 again and again ad nauseum, wasting time, energy and resources just to take another shot at the boss? Its not a anti-farming measure, its a measure to make the game be less of a dick if that spot you are stuck at is the area behind the 20 guys you can easily beat. Mainly because bonfire ascetics are a thing and you can farm everything relentlessly anyhow.
That's the thing, there wouldn't be need for enemy despawning if the game had some actual, well thought out, circular designed levels. Demons Souls Valley of Defilement is one of the most cryptic unforgiving and at times the most tedious areas in the Souls game BUT if you had the skill to conquer it you got rewarded with a shortcut and very little enemies to conserve your resources for the area boss. Dark Souls 2 has no such thing, it's tedium to the point where the game rewards/punishes you for tedium galore. Again look at the path to Velstadt, do you really expect players to sit back and kill all the Syan Knights 15 times?! Nope, I ran to the gate and hoped I didn't get stunned by the Syan Spears. I by force had to make my own shortcut because FromSoft couldn't.
Freja..well the "thought" may have been that she has the Soul of Seath, hence gaining his dragon-breath, though for all intents and purposes you may as well consider it webs, but the game doesnt "slow you down" but just delivers a hit to the face. It would probably been better if that beam was green and applied instant poison, which would have been more fitting thematically for a giant two-headed spider, even if you take the lore into account that she just gained size, intelligence and the ability to actually spit poison in such a manner from Seath's soul.
Agreed, it fits the lore and I did wonder for a bit why "Duke" was in his name. But it's best to consider the design team wasn't exactly well imaginative, just look at the path to Iron Keep and Iron Keep itself. I can only imagine how different the art design and direction of the game would have been if they didn't rely on Dks1 lore as a foundation for the world.
Those complaining about tracking and hit boxes. I am not saying youre wrong. You arent. But try getting your agi stat to at least 98 and you will start to roll through a lot of the attacks that you couldnt before.
It's just got a learning curve to it. Once you know what you're doing it's not too difficult. Some of the mechanics and statistics are kind of unique and take a while to get acclimated to. For one example, blocking in 99% of games is completely useless but it's practically a required skill in the Souls games. I had no idea what poise or attunement or anything meant the first time, the stats screen was like a labyrinthine mess.
Though in an age where most games are designed by committees to appeal to complete idiots, they are kind of difficult in relative terms. But compare it to nightmarishly difficult 8 bit era games like Ninja Gaiden and they suddenly look pretty average.
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