Dark Souls 3

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What optional routes, I can't remember any. See how forgettable the game is?

I'm willing to refute this if you can give specific examples.

If we were talking PvP, yeah.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting but what about the Road of Sacrifice? You can choose which you want to do first - the Cathedral or Shitcreek Bog.

Not OP, but I imagine Lost Izalith will be mentioned.
I'll admit I'm not a fan of Lava Zone and Boner Zone. Spooky Zone gets on my nerves but it's more annoying than anything else.

I don't get the hate for Lost Izalith apart from the Bed of Chaos.

It's mostly the layout, it's spiraling and blocks off what would be short cuts in order to make the area feel longer/bigger than it actually is.

That and the Dragon asses at launch had such awkward aggro radius you pretty much had to run through most of it and hope you didn't die to their shockwaves on top of the fact they had 1 to 2 bonfires where spawning in would aggro some immediately.

Are you dumb? The most obvious one is the alternate route to Blighttown if you have the master key.
Some other alternate routes are past Havel tower to the forest, you can skip Taurus demon and never kill him, just go straight through the forest to Gargoyles - or another is the ladder from the hydra to the later part of the forest instead of paying 20k for the key.

There are countless alternate routes hidden throughout Dark Souls 1.

Also, you can decide the order you do bosses in almost entirely. For example the first boss in a playthrough can be Taurus demon, Capra demon, Gargoyles, Moonlight Butterfly, Sif, Quelaag or Pinwheel.

I said alternate routes not dead ends. The cathedral is a dead end, and does not lead to later parts of the game that another alternate route would lead to.

dark souls 3 is all around "pretty good" and does have what i consider some of my favorite bosses in the series

it aint perfect either, but too much hype doomed it to suffer from that, but it doesn't have as many areas that are a slog to get through like 2, and actually, i'd say it all moves pretty smoothly save for one optional zone that sucks major dick

Spiral level design is completely fine, it's what you put in it (or lack of) that can make it boring. Take Forbidden Woods in Bloodborne. It's level design is a massive spiral but it's so big with tons of short cuts, secret paths and even has a full blown size village in it. It's level design is pure mastery. Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith is just boring to navigate through with gauntlets of enemies that were so abundant in DS2.

I'd say DAS3 is better than 2 worse than 1.
Mechanically it's better than DeS, but DeS had much better area design.

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being better than 2 isn't a tall hurdle, 2 had lots of good ideas for wacky build-making shit, but its level design and enemy layout was fucking horrible making it just a chore to play at times

DS2 level design if fucking weird at times. While a lot of them are just straight corridors with groups of tough enemies, you do get the odd few that have that great DS formula, though they tend to be short (No Mans Warf and Earthen Peak come to mind). But then you have Brume Tower and Shulva that make no sense thematically. I mean those places don't feel like proper places, they just come across as wacky warehouses. Eleum Loyce has amazing level design specfically the outside areas but going inside the castle yet again doesn't make any sense, just empty corridors with nothing to look at.

I will say this about DS2. It has my favourite dragon in the entire series, Sihn. That is what Acient Wyvern should have been, not that gigantic gimmick boss fight we got in Archdragon Peak.

Forest of the Giants or whatever, the first area in DS2 was the best level in the entire game. It was so disappointing to go from that areas good level design to the absolute linear shit the rest of the game was.

DS3 level design is pretty good, but the world design itself is not because it's another linear world and not metroidvania style like DS1. Also, this is ruined even more with the quick travel unlocked right in the beginning. Defeats the purpose of shortcuts, since you will most likely never return to older areas.

It was just so damn amazing in DS1 how you had to run everywhere, but you could drastically shorten the distance by unlocking shortcuts between areas.

I thought aesthetically Heide's tower was probably the best area in any souls game.

enemy placement was the biggest offender for me, they completely missed how group-fighting should work, so you'd encounter ganksquads of the same enemy types who'd bee-line at you. so they'd all start clipping into each other and become a big hitbox that the only strategy to really use against them was kiting

bloodborne had group combat figured out, if you were fighting 3-5 enemies, they would each be wielding a different weapons and moving at a different speed and have a different threat level so the palyer could engage accordingly

Well, what I mean by spiraling is that it's artificial spiraling; they literally put dead ends in places that should be routes to force you to go around and make the area seem bigger than it actually is. Since it had very little things in it to begin with it just becomes a chore to navigate even in the second half of lost izalith there's like maybe 3-4 of those fat demon mobs while the rest of it was "Oh broken rocks block this way, guess I gotta go around. Oh more roots here, gotta go around."

Anor Londo was probably the best area aesthetically in DS1, doesn't mean anyone actually liked the giant knights everywhere

At least the customization is still fun. Dark souls is a playable dress up game, and I'm okay with that.

It's not great. The level design is better than 2, but they make going through them a chore. "Ambushes" happen all the time, where enemies will pop up behind you to fuck your ass. This could be alright a few times, but when it happens constantly it's just lazy and predictable. They still throw groups of enemies at you all the time. A lot of the enemies are annoying to deal with too. It's like they wanted to give them no weaknesses other than their dumbass AI. A lot of them are fast, and strong, and aggressive, and have tons of stamina, and high poise. It gets really tedious dealing with this shit after awhile. They still have really fucked up tracking too. Not as bad as in 2 where everything was spinning like record players, but it does get cheap at times. Anything besides a quality build is pretty shitty. The pacing of the boss fights is all fucked, because they have two phases now. The first phase is usually a complete joke where is is almost impossible to die, then the second phase sends them into hypercunt mode. It's just not the fun overall to me.

Thanks for the input folks. Looks like I'll give it a miss.

Demon Ruins a big open space with copy pasted Taurus Demons (an enemy the player has already fought). A narrower space with copypasted capra demons (an enemy the player has already fought) I know you can drop down to skip them which is the only saving grace. Copy pasted statues A dead end with a shit ember. A Boss which is a palette swap.

Lost Izalith a big open space with a million bullshit shockwave spamming enemies a twin humnity and two divine blessings plus more copypasted statues then a shit puzzle boss. Also the most bullshit prowling demon in the game.

Blightown sub 30 frame rate drops are you kidding me? Really this is a technical issue and I didn't hate this area though in every subsequent playthrough I have skipped most of it with the master key.

Duke's Archives awful loading buffer zone 3 floors with rotating stairs which mostly leads to dead ends, lol, supposed to lose fight. Obnoxiously large spiral staircase with a few cells that you are expected to go down up and down and up again if you want to free logan and get the fire keper soul. In every subsequent playthrough I use the Duke's Archive skip to bypass this tedious shit area.

literally not worth beating the rest of the game for, because next is usually DA, which is equally as shitty

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Dark Souls 3 is easily the best in the franchise.

The only thing I disagree is The Prowling Demon as that is literally one of the easiest/ cheesiest demons you can dispatch, its only problem but also good is that it's the only one that respawns, and I say that's both good and bad for reasons being even though it's right next to a bonfire to run to the Bed of Chaos so it's annoying as shit, it at least also drops two demon titanite every time so it makes upgrading Quelaag's furysword bearable.

Everything else is pretty much on point, god I hated Lost Izalith

If that were the case, why is it being compared to Super Casualvania IV and not fucking Rondo of Blood?

RoB has too much of a weeb vibe to it.

I kept getting pushed off by that tanky SoB and they have so much poise and the bridge is so narrow and the tail hitbox is frustrating. Maybe the joke is on me for refusing to just cheese with magic.

It's compared to SCIV because only retards think it's good or at all similar to the first game.

Rondo of Blood is super mediocre. The only high point of is non-linear structure, that also was in Castlevania 3.
Why it is so overrated I don't know. Most other 16 bit castlevanias have better controls, environments and bosses. I can understand contenders like Bloodlines or Adventure Rebirth, but Rondo is nowhere near those.

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Upgrade a wooden club to +10 with 40 strength. It has a S scaling and destroys everything.

Honestly they're weak to fire and lightning so a few good hits with a good enough weapon should be more than enough. I farmed them as Melee faith and used Either the fury sword or a zweihander with lightning. It also helps to dodge opposite his tail to not get knocked off

No dancer in Dark Souls 3 thread?! Let's fix that.

fan art quality of dancer still has a way to go

Is that fag who thinks DaSII is the best of the franchise here? I wanna laugh at him again.

How the fuck didn't anyone /thread this?Well I'm doing it
/thread

It's certainly the third best

I almost finished with my 4th playthrough.
That said getting pretty tired of it.

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Well Demon Ruins and Izalith were unfinished because Namco forced them to release before the game was fully finished. That's why Bed of Chaos was so shit too. They made a public apology for Bed of Chaos even.

Blighttown had no fps issues on PC version, also Duke's Archives was fucking great fuck you.

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I know they were "unfinished" however that isn't an excuse it's a reason and if that is the reason they should have been scrapped for not being release worthy,

No fps issues on PC? how aout a 30 FPS lock? That's a pretty big FPS issue. No dsfix's uncapping of the framerate isn't playable because the physics break.

Duke's archives is a tedious exercise in backtracking after a big fuck you in the form of an unwinnable boss fight.

You are a fromdrone apologist.

That really wasn't what I was implying, maybe try reading my post next time?
I'm just saying that discussing this is pointless since it's a matter of opinion, I just voiced my opinion there buddy
By your logic, I could claim that NMS has over 100 hours of content because I beat the main campaign 12.5 times, or something retarded like that

I actually didn't mind the unwinnable Seathe fight when I realized I could run back out of the fog door.

If you have no idea what's going on it's a great way to panic, run out, look for other options before realizing "Oh, I'm supposed to lose this one" Put on the ring of sacrifice and run back in

fuck your logic

Problem solved.

Mind Flayers were easy. Also what copy paste boss? The butterflies?

Moon light butterflies, yes
Mind flayers were easy, but the game didn't need one more monster graboid with no context other than seath did it.

Don't forget about how all of Seathe's crystal attacks cause enormous frame rate drops.

No, when you see a boss in dark souls you are excited because it's a fight, engaging in combat is fun and something the player seeks to do. So no you don't see a boss and then try to run away you go and fight it only to then get sealed in a room with seathe spamming AOE crystals which shit up the frame rate can curse and kill you. The only time the player should see "YOU DIED" is when they made a mistake. So for the developers to force the player to lose to continue the game is a big fuck you.

I don't care if I kept my souls or humanity because I used a ring of sacrifice, the experiences I have are what I value in a game. And the devs saying "fuck you" is not an experience I want in any game.

Also the tedious backtracking through the overly large library is something you conveniently ignored, that is what the developers intended you to do and it's shit.

You get excited because it's a fight yeah, but if that fight becomes one that constantly regenerates while hitting him you look for a way to stop that. I ended up actually running out panicking because I couldn't interact or hit anything that'd stop that massive amount of regen he did and then proceeded to look for levers and shit before realizing that in order to progress why not try dying to him?

It's shitty but there was a thought process I had.

Probably because crystal weapons do that. The enemies in Dukes Archives are easy as fuck to dodge but deal a large amount of damage. It's fair if you ask me.

Or just catch the sorc in a stunlock. Or better yet actually use ranged weapons. The game rewards you for getting gud and adapting to situations, not relying on methods for the entirety of the game.

What said. Ring of Sacrifice. Though for a first time playthrough it's pretty shit. The game does allow you to leave through the fog gate though and if you assume that you're going to get your shit fucked you would probably take some preventative measures when you realized the fuckers HP wasn't dropping. It doesn't excuse the design though and if the game just made it so you lost nothing on death it would be a solid fix.

He's also very easy to kill. Death isn't really that great of a boss all around though so fair enough.

I found that fun honestly. Just look at the falling sparkles and use your prism stones. You don't need to be a genious to figure out that you shouldn't have to lay them down every single footstep. Unless you went for the Blue Slab in which case yes that was tedious and shit.

This is a bad thing? Reused assets are fine if used sparingly. If it makes sense lore wise and isn't overdone to much I don't see the problem. A staple of game design is allowing you to fight enemies that were earlier bosses to show you how far you've come. The butterflies are completely optional anyway and don't even drop much loot, why are you complaining about that?

The only portion of the game where I think they reuse the enemy's to much is the Asylum Demon. Thankfully their just buffer bosses. Nothing much and by the second time you fight them you should have their pattern down. The biggest complaint I have for them is that they're needless padding. But the padding is only a few minutes so I don't see it as a fundamental flaw.

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It would be unfair if they had shitty attacks that were difficult to evade. They're literally crystal versions of the first enemies you fight in the game. You should know how to deal with those attacks regardless. You should also consider that by this point it's likely that they're doing around the same comparative damage to your health bar as the older undeads were. This time they just have a buff. Admittedly I would have preferred they were glass cannons and then added even more. Or maybe done the opposite and make them deal even more damage but make their health the same and reduce the amount. Either way they're not perfect enemies but their serviceable.

It's called breaking your comfort zone normalfag. Instead of relying on shit you're used to why don't you try actually expanding what you know and getting fucking gud.

The Sorcerer can be dealt with melee anyway. Just do what I said and get it in a stun lock and stop being a bitch. It's actually less advisable to use ranged on the first one because you're a sitting duck for the archers.

Gwyn was shit save the music and setting thanks to parry spamming and path finding abuse thanks to the pillars. Gameplay wise he's pretty broke for completely different reasons then what you're referring to. Stop moving goalposts.

I think it's the worst of the three, but every opinion that needed to be said has probably already been said at this point.

Wew, this fucking triggers me

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No, you're just fucking retarded and are making shit up. I have never said 30 fps is acceptable. But at least its stable 30, it doesn't drop below 30 in blighttown or anywhere on the PC version dumbfuck.
Also there is no backtracking required at all in Duke's Archives. You do realize the revolving staircase part is a different place than the rooms before first Seath fight? You do understand that, right? Where is this backtracking you speak of?

Oh look, another retard. Where did I say you can't criticize it because it was not a finished area? Well? When did I say that? Pretty sure at no point. Looks like you're just as mentally retarded as the other guy.

the mages buff the other mobs retard, they don't do a ton of dmg if you prevent them from casting the buff

[citation required]
You don't need to ever use ranged or spells in the entire game.

Just walk out of the room or use a ring of sacrifice

It was a pretty cool area

Are you stupid? The first Seath encounter counts as a boss to you? What am I saying. Yes, you are stupid.

Poise was objectively one of the best game mechanics in any Fromsoft game, if not the best. Not having it in DS2 and DS3 largely ruins those games.

You might as well play dynasty warriors.

There's blind fanboyism and then there's retardation

The more artsy ones are good. The lewd ones almost all look straight out of DA.
If anything, the bird somehow has the most porn.

Poor Yuria doesn't get any love. :(

All of that crow porn is probably /monster/'s fault.

reminder that 2 is the best game mechanically

It's the worst?

nah nigga
it's the only one where everything works and is balanced
i'm perfectly ready to accept that it had a terrible plot and forgettable characters, but mechanically, it is by far the best

Elaborate more on your "mechanics" argument, before the anti-DaS 2 autists flood the thread.

I'm already here, but really am interested, what can possibly be good in DS2, apart from stances?

it's just the fact that everything is balanced the best, and it has the most fun weapons
almost everything is viable in both pve and pvp, and the covenants are all varied and they work well, and ng+ actually contributes to the experience
it's a lot of little things that add up to it, it's not really just one thing that's BAM definitely the best single thing in the series

Sounds like you are retarded. Yep, that's it.
With a poise system you need to pay more attention retard. You need to pay attention to what kind of armor the enemy is wearing to know if you will be able to stun them or not.

You are legitimately a fucking mongoloid if you think it's fine that a bare fisted punch or a dagger in DS2 and DS3 can stunlock someone in heavy armor.

Are you implying it's not true? Because it is true. Blighttown on the PC version was at stable 30 fps with no drop.

You're still wrong to say its mechanically the best. It has fucking terrible physics, controls and movement. Your character looks and seems floaty unlike in DS1 where it looks like you have actual weight. The animations in DS2 are garbage, just hideous. They got rid of all the beautiful animations such as when you get knocked into the air and spin around, and replaced it with flying through the air in an arc in a static position.

I really liked it myself inspite of real glaring flaws, like it taking the Lords of the Fallen route of having heavy weaponry and armor being a deathtrap than a playstyle, the weapon arts feeling a bit baked and the level design feeling a bit too linear for my tastes but the bosses, fights and movesets are my favorites. Can't talk about pvp because pirated.

except they have more health, meaning it's a longer fight, and the longer a fight is in dark souls, the more times you can mess up just once and have to start completely over. The only time that happens in a better game is with falling down pits usually, and doing so isn't really always the game's fault, because the player will have made the movement up onto the cliff in the first place. OoT had better mechanics as far as jumping goes; just have me sprint towards a ledge and I'll fly off it. In fact, OoT's systems with dark souls' world and customization ability would probably be great.
Anyway
ranged combat is souless and completely unfun. I know how to do it
Also why is every fromcuck given the idea that if you don't like thing you must be bad at it. It's like calling someone out for not being able to eat correctly when they call your food shit; it's shit and it's shitty, just accept that
That was my point, gwyn is a fucking nothing man; you can be any build and beat the shit out of him easy. Why isn't he the comfort zone breaker? Also, I'm pretty sure at no point in the game if you use ranged battle there is a place that breaks you out of that comfort zone. Even capra boss has a ledge where you can just spam soul arrows from as long as you roll three times and kill the dogs.

did I hurt your feelings?

cool opinions
here's mine
you wear butter shoes in demon's and dark souls

dark souls 3 is a piece of shit, how are you enjoying those dropped frames, lack of poise and DLC- oh wait

DaS 2 was the best of the series, its what DeS (which is still better than 3 and 1) would have been if From had more time and budget back then when they still were a 3rd rate niche developer nobody gave 2 shits about, DeS retains the spirit of Kings Field, anything afterwards is just trying to leech of the success that was DeS, i dont think they even remember KF anymore.

DaS 1 was good but it was seriously lacking in a few areas and the PC port was a fucking disaster, however, from that disaster from learned the value of the PC market.

Oh there you are. I was wondering when you would come in here. Nice to know you've back peddled from 2 being the best to just the "best" mechanically. I'de refute you if I gave enough of a shit.

Friend you do realize that the only reason you go to defeat the four great souls in Dark Souls 2 is because there are some rocks blocking the way to the castle, right?
Rocks that any physically capable human being can climb over with ease.

Yeah sure, the video linked shows the philosophy of enemy mechanics of DS2.

gitgud Not my fault if you don't like battles based on focus attrition. After you die by Seath for the first time you're essentially set anyway. Anything past that is easy as fuck.

Also
lol

Then don't faggot. If you're going to ignore the 4 other times I told you then listen this time. Get the fucker in a stunlock and kill him before he warps, stop bitching. Ranged against those fuckers isn't even ideal most of the time. Jesus fuck.

I never said that. But if you're to shit to get an enemy in a stunlock then you're obviously shit at it. If you're not then you wouldn't be whining to me about it.

So you want him to break your comfort zone but you don't want to change how you fight. Pick one. You can't have both. He's weak to Occult weaponry. If he wasn't broke due to the parry spam then he'd be an easy fight otherwise for faith builds.

he said it, is he in with the cool kids now?
wow what a great idea, it's like I never tried that ever and he totally doesn't also shoot at me from a distance while also having ads come around from the sides since he's a huge bait enemy
I'd rather the game not use a poor excuse to up the difficulty and actually just find an inventive way to change things up than, "This area requires ranged battle, I hope you didn't build for close combat."
If it's going to happen, it may as well be a boss instead of a whole shitty area; the final boss forcing you to fight him man to man instead of at a distance would be great icing on the cake for how much of a cake walk the sorc and lightning paladin builds go.
So everyone else would have a hard time, sorc would get the worst time, and faith build paladin bro would have an okay time.
I don't want both, I want the game to have a difficulty that doesn't come from fucking over the player; Devil May Cry 4 throws like 6 enemies at you in a closed area at once and if you're good you can keep up with all of them easy, and your sword doesn't clang on a fucking wall every time you're near one. In dark souls you'll have 6 enemies thrown at you in a small room and if you decided to use a weapon with a wide sweep, sorry you lost the fight, you'll hit the wall every three seconds.
The thing that really gets me is people will defend the piss out of the bad parts of the game and not defend the okay parts, like the customization, the fun stuff you can do, and how you can make a power house easily and just have fun being your own black knight. Instead it's always, "no, this game can't be liked in any small scale, you gotta love it all, even the bad parts, or you're bad at the game."

yeah bitch it's the best GAME because it has the best GAMEPLAY

this is stupid, the only from game that feels anything like Castlevania is BB. Hell it's also the only game with a whip that's not total shite.

greatshields are as mighty as always though, so strength builds have that advantage.

Learn to aggro better. Kill them then kill the summoner. I shouldn't have to spell it out for you.

I already mentioned the crystal undeads aren't the best enemy game design wise. But you're exagerating how difficult they are. They're extremely easy to backstab, counterattack, parry and if you're not shit you'll also buff your weapons as well. Here's a hint. They're weak to Lightning and Thrust weapons. Maybe try using some Gold Pine resin or getting gud with a spear or the Demon's Spear which is both Thrust and Lightning and scales well with both strength and dex.

No it doesn't. I've beaten the game dozens of times with weapons like the Halberd, Claymore and Great Scythe and have never had an issue in the Archives. The only part you're bitching about is the entrance. The rest of the area is extremely easy.

So now you want a boss to rapidly change the play style than the actual area. Assuming that's what you're saying then it would be even worse game design as it would bait and switch you unfairly in an area you couldn't retreat from. This is why people hated the Bed of Chaos.

I think you're just biased against sorcerer. I'm not a fan of playing int builds myself but several bosses demand up front battle like OnS. I won't say they're great classes though. better for PvP maybe.

Nearly every bioss in the game is weak to something be it devine/occult, magic. fire, lightning, Blunt or sharp. That's why you vary your arsenal for NG+ mods to get an edge. Did you even play the game?

You're not even trying anymore.

I've mentioned several flaws and problems with the game. The portion you're referring to though isn't as inherently flawed as you're making it out to be. It's just a difficulty bump with enemies that deal and take a lot of damage. Fucking aggro the enemies appropriately and take them out individually instead of sprinting in to the area like a moron and you're fine. Git fucking gud.

Keep posting.

you can keep being delusional, but you're just lying to yourself.

Here's your reply.