why does this game rely so heavily on mobs?

[Devolver]

DS2 seems like it relies very heavily on mobs to make things difficult, instead of good enemy placement and design. It just seems like a lazy gimmick. It also makes it much harder to play a close-range melee build early on.

EDIT: The mobs aren't as bad as i thought, joining the company of champions covenant was my actual problem... would've been nice to know that earlier.

[MaximumEffort]

Play sorcerer or just learn to dodge = win

[Brandon]

How many whining threads are you gonna make? Just play the damn game. Once you've beat it, go write a proper steam review.

[Airk]

ok can you elaborate on specific instances?

there are comparable mobs in every souls game, period.
the MAIN difference between the mobs in this game and the others, is they arnt tethered and youre not invincible when interacting with objects.
ds3, most DEFINITLY has equally large mobs, but people just sprint past them all and push the door/pull the lever as the enemies all swing through them, then they spam roll away FTW.
the bone wheel pit in the catacombs. (the entire catacombs for that matter in ds1) the spartan blob things in both deS and ds1. painted world ds1./
anor londo painted guardians. thers like 15 of them jsut standing in a big empty rectangle.

take off your nostalgia goggles.
this game is absolutely comparable to the others in everyway, and brought many impriovements to the series.
youre probably stuck in the forest, fighting non hostile hollows with no souls and no loot.
wasting time.

whats good enemy placement? all the hollows that dangle on ledges in undead burg making 3-5 man ambushes? theres dangling hollows in ds2. and dangling shadows, and dangling verangis, and dangling phantoms.
its almost like it did everything ds1 did but with even more diversity, imagine that.

https://youtu.be/Cl_Pa6LZfq4

this is the generically first part of the game(there are other areas available, but this is appropriate first area) its intended to teach you to go slow and watch corners. JUST like undead burg in ds1.

hell its insanely easy to stir up a 12 strong skele army at the shrine in ds1.
gimme a break

the ambushes on the way to the church in ds3.... the grave of infinite spawning undeads... the maggot spreaders coupled with hollows, coupled with the dual wielders.... then the chruch boss its self is basically the same as the skele lords.

[Airk]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZrAmB2R4AE&feature=youtu.be
that ♥♥♥♥ is comical./
worth baring with the dsp quality ... i must pass literally 200 enemies in under 2 minutes.

[Brandon]

Dude the church area is the best one in DS3. That might actually be my favorite area of any DS game. The cemetery part is pretty annoying, but I just run through it.

[Milk]

Generally if you get mobbed in this game its because you ran too far ahead and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up. Use a bow or something to lure enemies away and fight them one at a time.

The only other times mobs are forces on you are specific trap areas, and, well they're traps.

You either are patient, or you die (or are just high level and slay everything but since we're talking about this, that is not the case).

[Airk]

Originally posted by Punymeyer:

Dude the church area is the best one in DS3. That might actually be my favorite area of any DS game. The cemetery part is pretty annoying, but I just run through it.

exactly. theres plenty of annoying mobs in any of the games, people jsut avoid them.

[Devolver]

Originally posted by Kek Floof:

Generally if you get mobbed in this game its because you ran too far ahead and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up. Use a bow or something to lure enemies away and fight them one at a time.

The only other times mobs are forces on you are specific trap areas, and, well they're traps.

You either are patient, or you die (or are just high level and slay everything but since we're talking about this, that is not the case).

I joined the company of champions covenant early game, not knowing what it did and made it way harder on myself. Fighting more than two enemies at a time pretty much got me killed in seconds. The multi-enemy/mob bosses are still annoying and disappointing.

[Milk]

Originally posted by Clubert:

Originally posted by Kek Floof:

Generally if you get mobbed in this game its because you ran too far ahead and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up. Use a bow or something to lure enemies away and fight them one at a time.

The only other times mobs are forces on you are specific trap areas, and, well they're traps.

You either are patient, or you die (or are just high level and slay everything but since we're talking about this, that is not the case).

The multi-enemy/mob bosses are still annoying and disappointing.

Yeah a lot of em feel like small mini-bosses.

[King Robert Baratheon]

You're a f*cking idiot and are just thinking of excuses to talk sh*t about dark souls 2. There are a ton of large mobs in Dark Souls 1 and Dark Souls 3. Oh you want examples? How about the dogs and thieves in lower undeadburg in dark souls 1? If you were to run from them like an idiot in the opposite direction you'd get ganked by those torch hollows guarding that lootable humanity (and we all know or should know how strong those torch hollows are if they do that running attack at you). I just figure that would be something you would do after reading your post. There's too many to list but a well known one is the large group of crystal hollow soldiers and archers at the entrance of the Duke's Archives. When buffed by the channeler the crystal hollow archers can kill you in 2-3 hits. In NG+ i'm betting they could one-shot you even without the buff. There are plenty of mobs in Dark Souls 1 that can kill idiots like you who don't carefully go through areas.

Then in dark souls 3 you have the mob before the Cathedral of the Deep. You know, those teleporting dogs, the endless maggot hollows. the cathedral grave wardens with their endless stamina and dual-wielded weapons that can bleed you in a few hits, the hollows that light themselves on fire and jump at you for a ton of damage, then the area with all the crossbow archers, the hollow slaves (enemies that look like Greirat), a Cathedral Evangelist, MORE cathedral grave wardens, a few normal looking hollows and one HUGE hollow wielding a halberd (or a great axe). I bet you would try to run past all that and get utterly destroyed.

[GregHouse!]

A lot of people like to think that Dark Souls 2 artificially tries to add difficulty to the game by placing more enemies at every encounter to challenge you. Everyone seems to complain about getting into group fights almost as if it rarely happened in Dark Souls 1. I don't really get it. Right from the start of the game after the tutorial, you head into undead burg. Here you fight 2 hollow warriors and Knights at the bottom of the stairs while someone else throws firebombs down at you. Once you go up the stairs, 2 more hollow warriors wait to ambush you. If that isn't a gank, I don't know what is.

There are instances when you have to fight at least 10-15 charging hollows at once with a spell caster buffing them, bunch of hollow Knights with a heavily armored boar in the same place, 3-4 fat hollows that throw giant boulders at you while you slowly traverse through a poison swamp, 2-3 giant cat minibosses, 6-7 giant skeletons in a closed dark space, etc. And this is all just from top of my head.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about these encounters. I appreciate a challenge in my PvE and these encounters grant just that. I just don't understand it though when they blame Dark Souls 2 for doing the same thing though.

[Devolver]

Originally posted by R'hllor, Lord of Light:

You're a f*cking idiot and are just thinking of excuses to talk sh*t about dark souls 2. There are a ton of large mobs in Dark Souls 1 and Dark Souls 3. Oh you want examples? How about the dogs and thieves in lower undeadburg in dark souls 1? If you were to run from them like an idiot in the opposite direction you'd get ganked by those torch hollows guarding that lootable humanity (and we all know or should know how strong those torch hollows are if they do that running attack at you). I just figure that would be something you would do after reading your post. There's too many to list but a well known one is the large group of crystal hollow soldiers and archers at the entrance of the Duke's Archives. When buffed by the channeler the crystal hollow archers can kill you in 2-3 hits. In NG+ i'm betting they could one-shot you even without the buff. There are plenty of mobs in Dark Souls 1 that can kill idiots like you who don't carefully go through areas.

Then in dark souls 3 you have the mob before the Cathedral of the Deep. You know, those teleporting dogs, the endless maggot hollows. the cathedral grave wardens with their endless stamina and dual-wielded weapons that can bleed you in a few hits, the hollows that light themselves on fire and jump at you for a ton of damage, then the area with all the crossbow archers, the hollow slaves (enemies that look like Greirat), a Cathedral Evangelist, MORE cathedral grave wardens, a few normal looking hollows and one HUGE hollow wielding a halberd (or a great axe). I bet you would try to run past all that and get utterly destroyed.

Very funny. I've played DS3 It took me one try to get through that mob, maybe don't go on a rediculous rage about how much of a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ idiot you think someone is for disliking one aspect of a game. sounding like some angry soyboy with a hardon for dark souls, taking a huge ♥♥♥♥ on anyone who might dare speak poorly of your favorite fapping material. You're a cancer.

[Devolver]

Originally posted by GregHouse007:

A lot of people like to think that Dark Souls 2 artificially tries to add difficulty to the game by placing more enemies at every encounter to challenge you. Everyone seems to complain about getting into group fights almost as if it rarely happened in Dark Souls 1. I don't really get it. Right from the start of the game after the tutorial, you head into undead burg. Here you fight 2 hollow warriors and Knights at the bottom of the stairs while someone else throws firebombs down at you. Once you go up the stairs, 2 more hollow warriors wait to ambush you. If that isn't a gank, I don't know what is.

There are instances when you have to fight at least 10-15 charging hollows at once with a spell caster buffing them, bunch of hollow Knights with a heavily armored boar in the same place, 3-4 fat hollows that throw giant boulders at you while you slowly traverse through a poison swamp, 2-3 giant cat minibosses, 6-7 giant skeletons in a closed dark space, etc. And this is all just from top of my head.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about these encounters. I appreciate a challenge in my PvE and these encounters grant just that. I just don't understand it though when they blame Dark Souls 2 for doing the same thing though.

The mobs in DS1 and DS3 for the most part are pretty easy to manage, since they can't spot you from across the map like the enemies in iron keep.

[GregHouse!]

Originally posted by Clubert:

Originally posted by GregHouse007:

A lot of people like to think that Dark Souls 2 artificially tries to add difficulty to the game by placing more enemies at every encounter to challenge you. Everyone seems to complain about getting into group fights almost as if it rarely happened in Dark Souls 1. I don't really get it. Right from the start of the game after the tutorial, you head into undead burg. Here you fight 2 hollow warriors and Knights at the bottom of the stairs while someone else throws firebombs down at you. Once you go up the stairs, 2 more hollow warriors wait to ambush you. If that isn't a gank, I don't know what is.

There are instances when you have to fight at least 10-15 charging hollows at once with a spell caster buffing them, bunch of hollow Knights with a heavily armored boar in the same place, 3-4 fat hollows that throw giant boulders at you while you slowly traverse through a poison swamp, 2-3 giant cat minibosses, 6-7 giant skeletons in a closed dark space, etc. And this is all just from top of my head.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about these encounters. I appreciate a challenge in my PvE and these encounters grant just that. I just don't understand it though when they blame Dark Souls 2 for doing the same thing though.

The mobs in DS1 and DS3 for the most part are pretty easy to manage, since they can't spot you from across the map like the enemies in iron keep.

Enemies spot you from further away when you are in the covenant of champions.

And I think it's an improvement. When I see a mob that I don't think I can handle on DS1, I just switch to a bow to aggro them on by one. I'm obviously exploiting the bad AI. Even though I relied on it, I'm glad this was fixed but people seem to be upset about it as if it made the game "cheap" for it or something. Same thing with enemies not letting you strafe with your shield up locking on to them looking for the backstab and being design to counter that like Heide knights.

[Solem]

You know, after playing trough this game many, many times I have finaly comes to understand that the mobs are not the problem, it is your approach.
When I began playing DS2, I too was complaining about bad or unfair enemy placements. Large ammounts of tough undead knights rushing trough doors, exploding suicide bombers coming out of nowhere, large ammounts of long range enemies sniping you from afar while you desperately try to fight a bigger, tougher enemy...

I cannot recall a single moment where I now still think that the challenge I am facing is unfair. Not even the miscreants that assaults you as you try to open the door to the shaded woods.

Dark Souls 2 is more difficult than both DS1 and DS3, but if you learn how to handle the gameplay and the challenge that the game is presenting to you, the mobs will no longer feel unfair and instead you will feel that the game respects you enough to be unafraid of pushing you to the limit. You will no longer need a cheese strat to get trough difficult parts and the ammount of possible builds you can now use is completely based on how experienced you are with the different playstyles.

So...
There are many difficult parts and it is easy to see where people find it "unfair", however learning to approach the challenge not only takes away the unfairness, but also makes it an enjoyable fight. Finding a way to overcome the challenge with your current limitations is a satisfying experience that can even be had multiple times as you change your build and the way you play.

Once you realise that circling around a pack of enemies while wielding a Greatsword is not going to help you as they split up and surround you instead, you need figure out where it went wrong and how you should have approached with said Greatsword. Perhaps you should have rushed head on to kill as many as you can before they have a chance to start retaliating? Perhaps you should lure them out and run past them to take a better position or limit the ammount you have to face at once? Or if you are in a situation where you have to fight them face to faces, maybe handling a Greatsword in this situation is just not for you?

In conclusion, you basicly just have to git gud.