Why so many ambushes

[Golly!]

I'm asking this coming from Dark Souls 1, there seem to be way too many moments where I walk into an area and tons of generic Hollow Soldiers just come pouring out of every orephus, then proceed to overwhelm me until I die. I don't understand why there would be this much almost unfairness when DS1 is tough but fair. Eventually I just got gud at DS1 during my first playthrough and managed to beat it, but I can't get past the sentinals in DS2.

[Maffeketel]

Ambushes have been a part of the series since Dark Souls 1. The best way to deal with them is to take every area slowly and be on your guard at all times. Carefully walk into suspicious rooms instead of rushing in and try to take on the enemy one at a time whenever possible.

As for the Ruin sentintels ; When you first enter the boss room, it's very important that you try to kill Ruin Sentintel Yahim on the platform as Ruin Sentintel Ricce and Alessia will inmediately attack as soon as you drop down to the floor. Once you have defeated Yahim, try to bait Alessia and Ricce into commiting to an attack at the same time. This might seem hard at first but it's actually pretty easy once you get used to their moveset. Just keep your distance to avoid their spinning attack.

Hope this helped! :)

[myoptic]

The gank squads in DS2 are tough but fair - but you do have to learn to manage them. The skills set is not quite the same as what you knew from DS1.

If you are fighting the sentinels, you passed waht is most likely the worst gank squad in the game.

The sentinels are a gank squad boss, but you can manage. Kill the first sentinel on the platform where you fall, take the other two down below. Use a shield but don't turtle.

Pilgrim Belclaire makes a huge difference. Maybe practice a few times on your own and then spend an effigie and summon her.

[MaximumEffort]

DS2 is know to be a 'gank fest'.

[Draco4472]

Originally posted by sjrekis:

DS2 is know to be a 'gank fest'.

None of that compares to the horror of Orstein and Smought from DS1...

[Meri]

Yeah the game seems to love throwing some cheap encounters in your face. Its really frustrating in the beginning but you get used to it and get better at handling it. Follow the advice Maffeketel gave you above for the Sentinels. I usually roll in front, to their left for most of their attacks.This fight favors patience even more than other bosses imo so don't rush and attack once or twice when you can, depending on your weapon. Trying to sneak in another attack is what got me killed the most personally,

I also found the experience I got from this fight made me much better at the game overall after I managed to beat them. (Boss fight I died most to xD)

[Dusk of Oolacile]

Same as DS1. Just as you leave Firelink for Undead Burg, you're attacked by 8 (!!!) hollows at once. Lower Undead Burg, before Capra demon, thieves, dogs... Catacombs, skeletonfest. New Londo, up to 20 ghosts at the same time. (Ever approached Ingward in the intended manner?) Anor Londo, crystal hollows everywhere. What about Blighttown, with all the burárums running at you right as you enter?

DS1 has all the same ♥♥♥♥, only people don't talk about it because of ermahgerd Miyazaki, ermahgerd DS1...

[Mr. Bones]

Originally posted by Draco4472:

Originally posted by sjrekis:

DS2 is know to be a 'gank fest'.

None of that compares to the horror of Orstein and Smought from DS1...

O&S are a good gank boss, because they are polar opposites, Ornstein is fast, but dies quicker than Smough.
Smough is slow and deals a lot of damage.
DkS2's gank bosses are overall worse and lazily designed. Can someone tell me one gank boss from DkS 2 that they actually enjoyed enough to be called good.

[TrueArchery]

Originally posted by Mr. Bones:

Originally posted by Draco4472:

None of that compares to the horror of Orstein and Smought from DS1...

O&S are a good gank boss, because they are polar opposites, Ornstein is fast, but dies quicker than Smough.
Smough is slow and deals a lot of damage.
DkS2's gank bosses are overall worse and lazily designed. Can someone tell me one gank boss from DkS 2 that they actually enjoyed enough to be called good.

Easy.

Looking Glass Knight. Summons spice it up.
Throne Duo. Pretty enjoyable, theyre not aggressive, but one is faster, one is tankier. They've a buff phase when they're half dead. They revive each other if you suck too hard.
Lud and Zallen, even though it was copied. It's just the area that's so annoying.
Elana. The pigs are cute, too.

[Scaredy Cat]

Originally posted by TrueArchery:

Originally posted by Mr. Bones:

O&S are a good gank boss, because they are polar opposites, Ornstein is fast, but dies quicker than Smough.
Smough is slow and deals a lot of damage.
DkS2's gank bosses are overall worse and lazily designed. Can someone tell me one gank boss from DkS 2 that they actually enjoyed enough to be called good.

Easy.

Looking Glass Knight. Summons spice it up.
Throne Duo. Pretty enjoyable, theyre not aggressive, but one is faster, one is tankier. They've a buff phase when they're half dead. They revive each other if you suck too hard.
Lud and Zallen, even though it was copied. It's just the area that's so annoying.
Elana. The pigs are cute, too.

You forgot one, the og havel alva and pharis ganksquad. Hooray for fighting 3 cheating npcs at once.

[Yal]

I guess all the ambushes are there to promote a certain playstyle, forcing players to get used to thinking on their feet and always expect something to happen. On my first playthrough, I had to play N64 music in the background to calm down and literally got jumpscared by some ambushes :P It feels really rewarding once you've memorized all the ambushes and can take out the enemies as they pop up, though... it goes from a horror game to a railslasher.

[Meri]

Originally posted by Dusk of Oolacile:

Same as DS1. Just as you leave Firelink for Undead Burg, you're attacked by 8 (!!!) hollows at once. Lower Undead Burg, before Capra demon, thieves, dogs... Catacombs, skeletonfest. New Londo, up to 20 ghosts at the same time. (Ever approached Ingward in the intended manner?) Anor Londo, crystal hollows everywhere. What about Blighttown, with all the burárums running at you right as you enter?

DS1 has all the same ♥♥♥♥, only people don't talk about it because of ermahgerd Miyazaki, ermahgerd DS1...

I guess I might have played another game cause I don't recall 8 hollows ganking you when you leave Firelink Shrine for Burg. The only 'ganks' I can think of are the single hollows that waits behind the wooden stuff but even them are slow af and you have quite a lot of time to react. But I'm guessing you're talking about the ones that hangs from the ledges? Still those are very easily disposed of when you know this will happen. At 8 at once seems like a gross exaggeration. Same thing for the Lower burg. (Though seriously I dislike that area).

As for New Londo, never encountered 20 ghosts at once. I'm usually pretty cautious (paranoid) when I visit a new area so I don't tend to run into that situation often. What I remembered though , is some sort of trap room iirc where 7-8 ghosts are around you. The fact that they could go though walls wasn't fun either. But yet I stil went through it without much issue after knowing what I was about to encounter.

The difference imo about DS is that they are less frequent and aren't frustrating for a long time. In ds2 you can know about them but tackling them isn't always easy or fun.

Still, nothing feels cheaper and less frustrating as the Archers of Anor Londo.

Sometimes it feels like whoever designed the fight for Capra Demon had a big inflence on the design of ds2

[Golly!]

Thank you for all the hints [and sorry for causing an argument, I didn't mean to!] That area is still too difficult for me, so I went off to some other levels like the Gutter, and Heide's tower, maybe once I can improve myself more, that area won't be so bad.

[Mr. Bones]

Originally posted by TrueArchery:

Originally posted by Mr. Bones:

O&S are a good gank boss, because they are polar opposites, Ornstein is fast, but dies quicker than Smough.
Smough is slow and deals a lot of damage.
DkS2's gank bosses are overall worse and lazily designed. Can someone tell me one gank boss from DkS 2 that they actually enjoyed enough to be called good.

Easy.

Looking Glass Knight. Summons spice it up.
Throne Duo. Pretty enjoyable, theyre not aggressive, but one is faster, one is tankier. They've a buff phase when they're half dead. They revive each other if you suck too hard.
Lud and Zallen, even though it was copied. It's just the area that's so annoying.
Elana. The pigs are cute, too.

Versus:
Lud and Zallen are horrible. At least by me.
Royal Rat Authority
Ruin sentinels
NPC Squad
Royal Rat Vanguard
Prowling Magus and the Congregation

Throne Defender and Throne Watcher are a good gank boss. I'll give you that. Too bad they're at the end of the game so you have to go through most of the ♥♥♥♥ above to get to it. B Team tries too hard to recreate O&S.

[Kayneth]

Can't believe that no one mentioned the Darklurker thus far. :v

I quite enjoy both Ruin Sentinels and Darklurker. The two are based off essentially the same design principles.

You have to fight just one at first and get used to the highly telegraphed movesets (colour-coded in the case of the Darklurker). Then try facing off against two of the same simultaneously.

[Flytrap]

You said it yourself "Ds1 is tough but fair". Yea that doesn't apply to this, dark souls II was rushed, and thus its tough, without being fair, and ambushes are not the only unfair things in this game