My DS2 Critiques

Here are some things I dislike about DS2 & SotFS:

Vanilla DS2:

- Level design inconsistencies (visual distance from Majula to Heide's Tower compared to distance traveled/earthen peak to iron keep/Aldia's > dragon aerie)
- Agility for iframes. I don't mind that dodging is harder at a base level, but many hitboxes seem to be designed around a higher iframe dodge, making some hits taken look way off.
- Backstab/parry changes. I understand the intent to handle PVP better (and admittedly I am not really a PVPer), but the act of punching someone in the back INTO a backstab or knocking someone down and THEN counter attacking them just feel weird to me.
- The intro? (could be from a completely different game and would make about as much sense. Also, until character creation, your character is assumed male)
- The intro hags (they were VERY forward in informing the player that this was A HARD GAME. YOU WILL DIE A LOT HAHAHAHAHAAH. there's even a death counter in Majula)
- The NPC 'questlines' (mash 'Talk' to return them to Majula and then get more stuff from them)
- Some of the jankiest NPC animations i've ever seen (Heide Knights & Falconers)
- Lifegems (sure i abuse the heck out of em, but the game is BALANCED that way)
- Attacking the direction you're holding w/ greatweapons (added a toggle in DS3, that's fine)
- The grind to get to Darklurker (my favorite boss in the game)
- Specifically removing speedrun tactic things (i can understand it, but it makes it far less fun to run the game. ~2 seconds of vulnerability when interacting with objects/fog walls and inability to save & quit. ironically, DS2 had some of the most gamebreaking bugs in the form of binoboosting and parrywalking.)
- Soul memory (i don't even PVP and i'll bring this one up)
- Durability (i've never liked durability, but DS2 takes it up a notch especially with DLCs where your weapons break faster)
- Gank Squad (calling this one out separately, because yeah. UPDATED: Flower Skirt is best fashion, tho)
- Nerfing all the equipment that was good in DS1 (RTSR, Cloranthy, Fap, Havel's ring) in fact specifically nerfing in general with a focus on balancing PVP which ruins the item in pve
- Absolutely obliterating Miracles & Hexes post-launch :(
- Descerating my beloved black knight weapons w/ faith requirements & fire damage (pretty much only i care about this)
- The npc gravestone mechanic (i'm actually ok with this mechanically, but it makes no sense and contradicts their 'OMG THIS GAME IS HARD' philosophy)
- Bosses that are only difficult due to smaller minions that do the same or more dps (Freja, Rats, Executioner's Chariot, Skeleton Lords, Prowling Magus, Elana)
- Bloated leveling system that causes stats to have even less of an immediate felt effect (all of the other Soulsborne games use the exact same or very close to the same leveling formula, which gives each individual level more worth overall)
- Ragdoll physics removed (;___;)
- Fall damage (while potentially more realistic, it mechanically differs from the rest of the souls game, and I feel is less fun overall. I understand them using it as a progression gate for the Majula well, at least, even though you can go down pretty early w/ the Cat Ring [granted it's a ~12k purchase])
- The path to Drangleic being blocked by a pile of stones that the player must kill 4 powerful beings to bypass (lul)

SOTFS Specific Gripes:

- Scholar of the First Sin throwing away a large portion of knowledge I'd already invested in vanilla DS2 (item locations, mainly, and yes this is my own opinion and personal gripe. the intended effect, i believe, was to recreate that exploration factor, but it mostly ended up annoying for me. Items: DLC keys, Dull Ember, Estus Flask Shards, Sublime Bone Dust

- Making the game more linear by adding more petrified enemies blocking paths (._.)

- Heide Knights. The repositioning of them actually goes against the initial design. (Tanimura quotes: "They are the Knights of a lost kingdom, they have nowhere to return to and lack the presence of mind to do anything but wander the world." Moving them all to Heide, you remove these 'random' encounters, such as the very first one in Forest of the Fallen Giants. This was a near & dear to my heart experience, as it was somewhat of a 'red eyed knight' in Boletaria moment, or Black Knight in Undead parish moment.)

- Ability to skip Dragon Aerie Peak immediately. (part of me takes this personally, as speedrunners had developed a way to skip the area with a tricky jump. this being patched just seemed like them saying 'if you're gonna skip our content, then here have an intended skip.')


Despite these things, I still like Dark Souls II a whole lot. There are a TON of things that they have made better, and I could make a list just like this one for those, but people are always questioning why I dislike it. I could make lists of things I dislike from the other Soulsborne games as well, they'd just be shorter, honestly.

From the translated Design Works interview, we learn a lot about DS2's development, including it being completely reworked midway through the project. Tanimura did an amazing job restructuring the game, and it's a miracle we got what we did with DS2, but it certainly weakened the game in spots that are hard to ignore. If you're interested in reading the interview, you can start here:

http://peterbarnard1984.tumblr.com/post/113163062955/dark-souls-2-design-works-translation

<3 you all