From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[Elttharion]

This mod looks pretty interesting. I will probably try it out next weekend.

 

[ind33d]

Still the greatest ARPG ever made. I'm past due for another playthrough.

bro

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

This mod looks pretty interesting. I will probably try it out next weekend.

There's fog everywhere. Looks shit.

 

[Elttharion]

This mod looks pretty interesting. I will probably try it out next weekend.

There's fog everywhere. Looks shit.

Its definitely too much right now but the author is gatering feedback to fix bugs and improve the visuals. Its a new mod and he is still tweaking stuff.

 

[Puukko]

I beat modded SOTFS after a bit over 50 hours, this being the first time I did the DLC. The game felt longer than that and not necessarily in a good way. I did all bosses save for those two assholes past the snowfield. Mods in question were Seeker of Fire, a comparatively lite overhaul, and the new lighting and texture improvement mods that have come out just recently. More on that later.

I'll start with the best bits. I really appreciated the level design. Many areas were very mazelike, forcing me to stay on my toes. It really felt like a classic dungeon crawl almost. I had to consult a guide on several occasions, which even if a bit frustrating is preferable to the alternative of never getting stuck.

I also liked the enemy variety, compared to having a different flavor of undead knight for every day of the week. The experimentation this game does really does set it apart. Something I don't see brought up often is how From dropped armor upgrading which I think is a shame, here it added that extra bit of character building. I also actually had to switch out weapons sometimes! And use repair powder!

Now, the ugly. The movement and lock on systems here are an endless source of grief. I don't think I've ever played a melee combat focused game where I could lock on and swing my weapon to the side of a stationary enemy. I used a Helde spear for the vast majority of my playthrough and learned all the myriad ways it could miss. Combine this with a character who rivals a turtle in the reliability of his acceleration... I didn't come across those worst examples of hitboxes I've seen in videos, but there was a distinct lack of feedback in combat. In many occasions I couldn't tell I had been hit if I wasn't staring at my health bar.

The DLC left me largely mixed. They were pretty formulaic and had a predictable balance of cool bosses along with rehashed stuff. I'd probably rate them Iron > Ivory > Sunken in terms of quality.


Now, the mods. Seeker of Fire doesn't hold a candle to 3's overhauls but that may be an unfair comparison. My memory of this game was very very hazy and I never played this version before so a lot of the changes the mod made flew over my head, though I did like rings giving ADP by default. Made the early game feel less like ass. The boss changes didn't wow me, though there wss a particularly bad change in the DLC. Graverobbers & co were moved to a water area and one of them was replaced by the royal rat authority. It was so bad it made me question the devs' sanity until I found out the mod author actually changed the fight to be like this. Just awful.

I'll give the mod a 7/10 for a decent effort. May be worth trying for those looking for a fresh experience, but not the DS3 scenario where I'd always pick mods over vanilla.

The graphical overhauls worked pretty well and did wonders for the atmosphere. The game could even be a looker at points. There were some awkward weather transitions between areas, most noticeable in Drangleic castle. I had to use a torch often, with maybe a third of the areas requiring some or extensive torch use. I'm never going back to the gutter...

Overall, I'm glad I finally replayed the game after all these years, now I can finally write it off my list.

 

[cvv]

I didn't come across those worst examples of hitboxes I've seen in videos, but there was a distinct lack of feedback in combat. In many occasions I couldn't tell I had been hit if I wasn't staring at my health bar.

The DLC left me largely mixed. They were pretty formulaic

All the talk about DS2 having the worst hitboxes is just bandwagon haters and edgelords flapping their gums. In reality almost all the worst examples are in DS1 (Ceaseless, Gaping, Titanite Demons).

Also I've always thought the DLCs are some of the best, most inventive and fun content FS have ever put out but whatever.

 

[janior]

I didn't come across those worst examples of hitboxes I've seen in videos, but there was a distinct lack of feedback in combat. In many occasions I couldn't tell I had been hit if I wasn't staring at my health bar.

The DLC left me largely mixed. They were pretty formulaic

All the talk about DS2 having the worst hitboxes is just bandwagon haters and edgelords flapping their gums. In reality almost all the worst examples are in DS1 (Ceaseless, Gaping, Titanite Demons).

Also I've always thought the DLCs are some of the best, most inventive and fun content FS have ever put out but whatever.

too bad they backpedaled on all the level design from DS2 dlcs and in DS3 they made it super bland and basic

 

[cvv]

too bad they backpedaled on all the level design from DS2 dlcs and in DS3 they made it super bland and basic

DS2 brought so many great things to the formula - many viable builds, varied covenants, interesting, NG+, balanced PvP, powerstancing, great split damage and poise and invasion solutions etc. But it also brought one major fuck up - the linear world.

Guess what FS kept in DS3.

 

[Steezus]

I didn't come across those worst examples of hitboxes I've seen in videos, but there was a distinct lack of feedback in combat. In many occasions I couldn't tell I had been hit if I wasn't staring at my health bar.

The DLC left me largely mixed. They were pretty formulaic

All the talk about DS2 having the worst hitboxes is just bandwagon haters and edgelords flapping their gums. In reality almost all the worst examples are in DS1 (Ceaseless, Gaping, Titanite Demons).

Yeah, maybe don't OD on that DS2 cope.

Dark Souls 2 is on a completely different playing field when it comes to terrible hit boxes. DS1 sometimes gets a tad bit funky with a few big ass monsters and their huge hitboxes, while DS2 has a bunch of shit like the follow up R1 on a mace consistently missing the biggest monsters like The Rotten.

 

[RoSoDude]

I didn't come across those worst examples of hitboxes I've seen in videos, but there was a distinct lack of feedback in combat. In many occasions I couldn't tell I had been hit if I wasn't staring at my health bar.

The DLC left me largely mixed. They were pretty formulaic

All the talk about DS2 having the worst hitboxes is just bandwagon haters and edgelords flapping their gums. In reality almost all the worst examples are in DS1 (Ceaseless, Gaping, Titanite Demons).

Also I've always thought the DLCs are some of the best, most inventive and fun content FS have ever put out but whatever.

Most of the "DS2 bad hitboxes" clips that make the rounds are just wonky interactions with roll hyperarmor anyway. People roll way too early and get hit but the roll animation isn't interrupted. The hit stagger animation then plays after they've already gotten up from the roll so it feels like they got hit from the enemy hitting empty air behind them, even though it's actually just the visuals coming late for a hit that was already registered. This is particularly bad for grab attacks, because the player can get "teleported" into the grab after they already appear to be out of range because they were grabbed during roll hyperarmor. It's bad visual communication, not bad hitboxes. There are of course some of those in DS2 too, but they're not the main culprit.

There are more problems with player weapon hitboxes than anything else which can definitely be annoying, but the misses caused by attack targeting are another case of players not understanding the mechanics rather than the mechanics actually being broken. For example, roll attacks continue attacking forward into the same direction as the roll regardless of lock-on, and you are required to aim great sword attacks with your movement input regardless of lock-on. Notably, in one of Mauler's braindead DS2 critique videos, he cites the latter as an example of the targeting system not working, with numerous clips of him and his friend missing two-handed great sword light attacks where it's transparently their fault every time. The mechanic might be unintuitive, but it is consistent.



He does a similar rant later about backstabs "nawt whirking properely" because he doesn't understand that DS2 deliberately only grants a successful backstab if you land the stun punch before triggering a paired animation, to avoid the DS1 issue where enemies politely enter a T-pose for you to ram a sword up their ass so long as you approach them vaguely from the rear. The punch itself triggers so long as you're behind the enemy in a certain spot, and it doesn't matter if the enemy happens to turn around before the punch lands, just that they were in the right angle for the initial punch. In DS3 this is all done more fluidly with the paired animation starting only if the backstab attack itself lands, but it's the exact same idea with functionally identical gameplay implications.

Dark Souls 2 isn't perfect, but the most common criticisms are due to people being idiots and deliberately misunderstanding the game, often due to expectations from other titles in the series. Also, if you need more than 10 i-Frames (which you can get with just a few points into Adaptability), you are a scrub.

 

[Steezus]

Again and as usual, Dark Souls 2 cope reaches dangerous levels.

You can try handwaving "bad hitboxes" with "players are retarded" and act like only true DkS2 chads understand simple shit like directional attacks with greatswords, but all that doesn't make this go away:

 

[RoSoDude]

I watched the entire video at 0.5x speed because I love you (in just the same way Christ loves all of God's children), and I have to tell you that while there is some bullshit on display (Freja's laser, Stone Dragon's stomp, Mimic's bite are all notorious), so so many of these are just bad animations due to roll hyperarmor. Hence all the shots of the player seeming to get hit right after rolling by an attack hitting the air behind them. You've never seen the player get staggered directly out of a roll in Dark Souls 2, because FromSoft made the strange decision to make that impossible.

Every single Sir Alonne grab clip (in fact, most of the grab clips in the video, I won't defend the Mimic hitbox but most of the rest are fair) sees the player panic rolling at least a half second early, getting hit during the latter portion of the roll, a late stagger animation playing, followed by the "teleport" into the grab. Grabbed while they were way over there!!! So unfair!!!!!1 No, not really. If you wanted to argue that grabs should only count for hits to center mass and "glancing" hits should just do some damage, I would largely agree, but a bad grab rule + bad grab animation =/= bad hitbox. Moreover, it's still your fault if you panic roll towards a guy's sword when he's charging up for a stab.



You can find plenty of equally egregious examples in Dark Souls 3 (including grab teleports), take this "bad hitbox" compilation starting at 37:00. It's just a reality with all of these games. Dark Souls 2's issues are exaggerated due to the Agility system and some really poor choices about how to handle the visuals, but it's not drastically different.

 

[Child of Malkav]

I have a nice coolection of bad hitboxes from DkS1/2/3/BB/ER. There's something very wrong with their engine/system/whatever. The same problems you see in DkS2 exist in the other games as well. To a lesser extent but still, maybe they're aware of it and can't fix it or it happens rarely and doesn't justify the resources for fixing it. IDK.

 

[Silverfish]

Editing a compilation of bad hitboxes when you could just raise strength to 30 and equip a greatshield. Can't relate.

 

[Steezus]

I watched the entire video at 0.5x speed because I love you (in just the same way Christ loves all of God's children), and I have to tell you that while there is some bullshit on display (Freja's laser, Stone Dragon's stomp, Mimic's bite are all notorious), so so many of these are just bad animations due to roll hyperarmor. Hence all the shots of the player seeming to get hit right after rolling by an attack hitting the air behind them. You've never seen the player get staggered directly out of a roll in Dark Souls 2, because FromSoft made the strange decision to make that impossible.

Every single Sir Alonne grab clip (in fact, most of the grab clips in the video, I won't defend the Mimic hitbox but most of the rest are fair) sees the player panic rolling at least a half second early, getting hit during the latter portion of the roll, a late stagger animation playing, followed by the "teleport" into the grab. Grabbed while they were way over there!!! So unfair!!!!!1 No, not really. If you wanted to argue that grabs should only count for hits to center mass and "glancing" hits should just do some damage, I would largely agree, but a bad grab rule + bad grab animation =/= bad hitbox. Moreover, it's still your fault if you panic roll towards a guy's sword when he's charging up for a stab.



You can find plenty of equally egregious examples in Dark Souls 3 (including grab teleports), take this "bad hitbox" compilation starting at 37:00. It's just a reality with all of these games. Dark Souls 2's issues are exaggerated due to the Agility system and some really poor choices about how to handle the visuals, but it's not drastically different.

Lmao, Dark Souls 2 die hards are hilarious.

No, it's not a bad hitbox, the animation is just bad!

 

[Nathir]

> Posts 4 minute long video of people teleporting into grabs, swords going through people without hitting them, people getting hit from behind an enemy, insta attacks like the Heide knight where you don't see a hit etc...

"Adjusts glasses" Well, akshully, that's all working as intended, just roll half a second later!

 

[Steezus]

Also, all people who insist on going "bbbb-but all Souls games have bad hit boxes!"

Yes, they all do. But only in DkS2 are they this consistent. You can't make it through a single area without some bullshit. It's so bad that you learn to play around bad hitboxes and bad animations how you would learn to play around movesets in the other games.

 

[cvv]

Also, all people who insist on going "bbbb-but all Souls games have bad hit boxes!"

Yes, they all do.

See, that wasn't that hard.

Now stop digging.

 

[Steezus]

Also, all people who insist on going "bbbb-but all Souls games have bad hit boxes!"

Yes, they all do.

See, that wasn't that hard.

Now stop digging.

Dark Souls 2 die hards in their natural habitat. Rejecting reality.

 

[Figaro]

"Hitboxes linger for more than a second", "Working as intended". It's okay to like jank, but there's no need to act painfully obtuse.

 

[Silverfish]

To be fair, dodging reality is easy with 30 adaptability.

 

[Multidirectional]

Hmm I always assumed that bad hitbox meme was just due to how AGL works as I've never really noticed this problem and I was always rushing 100 AGL with every new character. But I guess it's not solely due to AGL that I avoided this issue, it's also because I'm just that good at the game.

 

[gabel]

Editing a compilation of bad hitboxes when you could just raise strength to 30 and equip a greatshield. Can't relate.

 

[cvv]

Editing a compilation of bad hitboxes when you could just raise strength to 30 and equip a greatshield. Can't relate.

Until you get to the DLCs and the first boss will gently pull your grorious shield aside and laugh in your face.

 

[Steezus]

Editing a compilation of bad hitboxes when you could just raise strength to 30 and equip a greatshield. Can't relate.

Until you get to the DLCs and the first boss will gently pull your grorious shield aside and laugh in your face.

And then you get to the second DLC where all three bosses have the most broken hitboxes are working as intended!