#tbh i think i wasted time last time bc in my current playthrough it feels like i made so much progress

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picked up disco elysium again and started over. kim kitsuragi has the patience of a saint

[6ad6ro]

time-travelling-bee2

replied to your post

“dark souls an analysis of every game in the dark souls series by a big...”

Honestly, I feel a bit of your points are off. The first, exceedingly minor thing, is that you seem to be confusing "smurfs" and "twinks." If you were to ban all smurfs, then noone could make a new playthrough Well, first of all, I don’t feel Dark Souls 1 is that cheap. You never gave any examples other than O&S (which are clearly supposed to be taken on with a summon, you even get Solaire if you’re offline), though I can easily imagine Capra and their dogs as one. Maybe even Nito, because of the skeletons (though this is more of a stretch, and then wouldn’t you also have to throw in DS3’s Curse-Rotted Greatwood? That’s even worse, since it’s mostly invulnerable) Next, the healing. Sure, you couldn’t grind for estus flasks, but you didn’t need to. You got them for free. I honestly found it a major annoyance moving from DS1 to 2 that I HAD to grind, since you only had 1 to start with. And even if 20 estus flasks every bonfire wasn’t enough, you actually COULD grind for healing items in the form of humanity from rats (or skeleton babies). Besides, in DS2, enemies stop respawning, so you can’t REALLY grind at all. As for DS2, while you might just call me another one of “those elitists who hate DS2 for making it easier,” a lot of my gripes are actually changes making it harder. Like how every enemy has ungodly tracking, how your health decreases every time you die (and you can’t even see your current health, only the maximum), the ability to be invaded while hollow, the general lack of stat points at sl1 despite the highest number of stats, what feels (to me) like abnormally high stat requirements for weapons, insane fall damage, etc. Also, Soul Memory. Made me constantly afraid to do anything but level up, because it’s all permanent. Can’t buy consumables, those won’t last. Can’t buy arrows or bolts, those won’t last. Can’t upgrade weapons, “What If I don’t like it?” And if you die, and lose all your souls? You’re fucked. Because every soul you get counts, even the ones that aren’t doing anything to help you. And you know who tend to be the ones who can spend souls the most efficiently, get the most bang for their buck?The ones who have it all planned out beforehand.The ones who are skilled. The smurfs. Newbies, at the same power level, will have a much higher memory, due to wasting money from dieing, upgrading useless weapons, and grinding for items/consumables they need to progress.But smurf/twink invaders can grind for free, infinitely, with the right ring and cov.                             I will agree that Dark Souls 1 is twink hell, but I still feel that Dark Souls 3’s system is the best, since it looks at upgrade level as well as actual level. Sure, there’s still rings, but those are generally balanced out by the numerous boons hosts have (more health, increased estus (even if the twink has max estus), summons/way of blue, giant’s seed). It’s less an ant versus an elephant, more an ant versus a cat. But the ant can summon infinite elephants(by pasword)

TLDR - prob to be expected, but i disagreed with a lot (but not all) of your counterpoints. most of your issues with ds2, while valid, seem to stem from you not knowing about “company of champions”, causing you to make things needlessly hard on yourself. i think the term “twink” is a kinda gross term so i don't use it. also tiny warning i’m in a bad mood rn lol, so v srry if i came off a bit harsh! ironically i just got done uninstalling ds2 ps4 bc it’s pure shit and i’ve had enough (hence the “bad mood”). oh and even tho you’re kinda criticizing me, ty for reading what i wrote and responding? anyways i’m gonna put my full reply under a cut bc it’s gonna be super long srry.

so “twink” is sorta homophobic, or at least it’s origins. i’m not gonna use a slur from within the gay community, that was already mildly gross, that was then appropriated by shitty edgelord gamer culture “bc homophobia is funny”, to label a very bad aspect of games. it’s a bit trashy no matter how you look at it. so i say “smurf”, esp considering the terms are pretty interchangeable. there is no real “correct” term bc it’s slang and opinions are divided across the net. but at least smurf came first. from starcraft pros who used “papasmurf” (and other variants) as their alt and would grief new players by pretending to be new and bad. but then halfway through the match they’d switch gears completely and just stomp all over them to get a negative reaction.. what makes a smurf (or whatever you wanna call it) a smurf is the intent of griefing and never intending for it to be a fair fight, not just that they happen to be better than the other player. it’s the intent to bully and make the other person mad. smurfing is premeditated. and really fucking pathetic. so anyways... souls 1. uhh i... did give other examples besides o&s? do you mean just examples of bad bosses? bc sure i can list a bunch. i swear i mentioned gargoyles. but also fucking 4 kings. capra, sure. nito kinda rly sucks. wolf is way too harsh. gwyn is actually really awful too, but he’s last boss so i give him a pass. also, tho i’m cool with it, people really hate bed. the rest of the bosses aren’t nearly as cheap, but they’re still usually way harder than bosses in any of the other games save a few examples. imo “the show isn’t worth the price of admission”. and the run to the fights themselves were usually unreasonably tough/long. so about the summoning. you know the game. you played it a ton and learned through countless mistakes, or you researched it a ton online (watched letsplays maybe). average people? they don’t do that. most people expect single player games to explain themselves within the game to a point. so a lot of people didn’t/won’t have access to solaire. or understand summoning. i would say most people won’t have humanity at that point having died so much. you, and many other souls fans, can fail to realize how unique and specific your situation is that allowed you to now consider stuff like this as fair or balanced or obvious, when in reality it’s totally cheap and grueling and incomprehensible.. i’ll elaborate on this aspect more later, but there is a common issue with people who love and defend souls that they have... very little self awareness in regards to this game? a lack of empathy for how others would handle the same situations. sorry i’m not saying this is you for certain i’m just... making an assumption based on the huge amount of people who defend souls, ds1 especially. but my point is, most people? solo o&s. with a really low level bc they died so much. and they just quit. bc it’s super hard even WITH solaire and a high level. bc it’s a horrible place for that fight. two of the hardest individual bosses at the same time plus a super boss after you beat one. awful. why are they harder than p much all bosses that come after them? why are they there? it’s a big stupid badly designed brick wall that murders fun for most people. umm wait but greatwood is so moderate (comparatively). you played ds3 right? greatwood gets stunned by every weakpoint break. it’s weak points might trick you once but you figure it out quickly bc it’s pretty visually obvious. mobs are comparatively simple and he kills his own mobs. he’s a big slow dumb idiot and his mobs stop half way into his fight. actually you know what? sure. tree kinda sucks too. i could see people having issues easily. but the health and damage are so low that, when combined with how r1-spam-friendly and forgiving ds3 is, it’s just not the same. i see your comparison to gravelord but imo tree is insanely easier. kinda like how the gargoyles fight in ds2 was so much easier than the one in ds1 even tho there were way more actual gargoyles in 2? bc the fight itself was inherently less dangerous in every way even though visually/thematically it was similar. again, most of your opinions on how to mitigate difficulty in ds1 actually come from super non-obvious stuff. do you know how many people never kindle their bonfires even once? or knew humanity healed you? that aside, you know what’s better than even 20 estus? 10 estus and 99 inexpensive lifegems you can just replace as much as you want. that sell from an impossible to miss npc. and ftr, 20 estus (if you even had that bc most don't), STILL isn’t enough usually. considering the insane damage bosses and normal enemies give. you have normalized souls levels of difficulty and forgotten what even 16 bit era games are like. you could have unlimited estus and still die in any souls easily, new player or not. oh uhh lastly you know enemies DO actually have unlimited respawn in ds2 right? it’s optional. you just join “company of champions” and enemies unlimited respawn. making the regular respawn limit simply make the game WAY easier by letting you grind enemies away “forever”. great for grinding souls, items, and not worrying about killing off all your potential souls while clearing an area for the boss run. or just getting rid of particularly bullshit spawns. but tbh again i don’t blame you for not knowing, seeing how souls makes all their games artificially way more difficult by doing stuff like this lol. in a way, this alone may be imo the BEST argument you have against my opinion that ds2 was much easier than ds1. i’m really glad you brought up this design flaw like i’m sure what you experienced happened to a lot of others at least on some level. i’d only call you one of “those elitists who hate DS2 for making it easier” if that’s what you are. bc most ds1 fans? souls fans in general? are like that. elitist. pretentious. insanely competitive. if you didn’t like the other changes to ds2 bc it was different than 1 and that’s what you were used to, then that’s super fair! i recently saw someone find ds3 way harder than 2 bc the action was different. it’s fair. but you remember. you know your fanbase. you know all the message boards replying to valid questions with “git gud” and “it’s really not hard at all” etc. you may not be one of those people, but at least be aware of the souls fanbase? there’s a GOOD reason it’s starting to get criticized so often. sort of an aside but still related... if i remember correctly in ds2 miya (he was still involved) was considering putting in difficulty settings until the fanbase lost their shit. that’s another confusing things that ds1 fans did that confused me. didn’t they get that company of champions was the obvious way to bring back souls 1 difficulty? tho it was a bit obtuse for sure. the “normal/easy/hard” difficulties woulda been objectively better for everyone. uhh your specific complaints abut ds2 tho... no you’re right about most of them like even if you don’t realize a few can be mitigated? like being invaded while hollow well people can just go offline completely. do sl1 stats rly matter other than to very specific sl1 runs? it’s valid, but will never come up as an issue for 99% of people. you level up v fast in ds2, to the point i’d say you get two levels per 1 in ds1? leveling up late game in ds1 is so tough compared to 2. soul memory was great bc it murdered smurfing. if i remember correctly ds1 and des had a bunch of hidden shit that acted like soul memory anyhow? it wasn’t until bb and ds3 that that kind of stuff had less of an impact, which of course brought back the smurfs in ds3. i hate to say it but soul memory should ONLY be an issue to less hardcore or newer players if they wanna keep co-oping with each other? it seems like you might have been super worried about pvp stuff or other advanced things... which tbh is REALLY not for the average person. lack of pvp made nothing "harder” exactly. again, plz remember my whole analysis was geared towards newer players wanting to give souls a try? predominantly pve-specific stuff. aw man you weren’t leveling up weapons (or gear) in 2? weren’t buying arrows or healing items? i mean it really wasn’t that expensive... i guess i could see ds2 being rly hard with such a handicap. i’m still super confident that ds1 without upgrades is way harder than ds2 (i know from experience tbh), but nonetheless that sounds rough. try and look at the mistakes you made with your ds2 playthrough and apply that same exact stuff to someone else with ds1. all i can really say to that is souls once again failed by design. THIS kind of stuff is why i criticize the parts of the series that i do. you seem to know so much about the series, but yet you still make huge seemingly basic mistakes. don’t you see the big issue here? i forgot to bring up the constant health loss at death. yeah, it sucks. it does. i’m glad that was removed in 3 (wasnt it? lol). BUT! human effigies were a hell of a lot more plentiful than humanity was. they were  easier to understand and manage as well? built-up humanity loss was a much harsher punishment than the slow loss of max health until you used one of your (comparatively) plentiful effigies in 2. um again smurfs aren't just experienced players starting a new char. that’s just an alt. or a new game. unless they intend to grief people and play unfairly they aren’t smurfs or anything like that. in all my ds2 play i only rarely ran into people who were way way out of my skill range (due to soul memory), but i can kinda see why you’d be unhappy? then again, compared to ds1 there’s not much comparison since there was like not much to stop the real smurfy stuff. you at LEAST had soul memory to protect you a little bit. also people not knowing about company of champions aside...  even tho i wasted a ton of souls through death or buying consumables or lvling up items in my first ds2 run... and never used company of champions until endgame (when souls are fairly negligible)... i still wound up beyond “over-leveled” by the vanilla endgame? don’t get me wrong, ds2 is flawed and i think it needs co-op through the entire thing to be really great. i think i mentioned demons was a better game solo? but i still think ds2 is worlds more accessible than ds1. yeah ds3 handles invasion better than ds1. agree. but ds3 is so so popular still and ds1... well it’s still played but it’s different. ds3′s awful smurf problem being better than ds1′s in comparison? doesn’t remove ds3′s issue in general. i am by no means “great” at souls, but i have crazy experience under my belt. i can outplay most smurfs. i usually do to a significant level. but when i hit a smurf invader 25 times and they don’t need to heal yet... and then they finally hit me once and i lose 2/3 my health... all your arguments fall apart. it’s definitely NOT a fair fight in any way regardless of the “advantages” i have as the host when a havel cosplayer wanders into my starting zones. and then a nameless king. and then just a completely naked smurf named “the hulk” that is totally naked besides a pyromancy flame that it punches with. that i can barely damage and still wrecks me hard per punch. they’re basically cheating. but just to be clear this is not an issue if you aren’t trying to do a co-op playthrough with a friend tho. two low levels can’t take on a smurf no matter how skilled they are. so either you annoyingly work around it, or one of you brings in their high level char. which of course causes any invading smurf to suicide the moment they see the high level. every. single. time. bc they’re all pathetic bullies. THIS is the problem. and the devs had a million ways to keep this from happening. but they either like it bc miya will always be a sick sadist, or they just don’t care too much. honestly the first areas or two should just have an option to be locked out of invasions while still being able to co-op... p much the ONLY people who enjoy it are smurfs. sure, i could technically go online and find a high lvl friend (if i had one) to stop an annoying invader. but don’t you see how absurd that is? having to run to message boards or something bc another user is literally keeping you from playing the game? that’s a horrible solution to a shitty problem. it’d be like i had a family picnic, and some idiot rolled up in a bulldozer and plowed right into our table and just sat there. your solution is like saying “oh whatever nbd just call the cops its fine”. well no it’s not fine. bc our day was ruined and we had to call the cops. people who are doing co-op playthroughs don’t give a SHIT about artificial competition, they just want to team against the ai and have a good time. smurf invaders ruin that. devs made multiplayer in souls confusing and absurd enough already like we didn’t need more issues? it’s just too bad bc souls co-op, when it works, is some of the best pve co-op in any game? but souls devs are so obsessed with this artificial difficulty and vague bullshit they let it ruin all the fun. it’s just horrible design. objectively bad. i love ds3 but this part is v disappointing.