Why don't people think Dark Souls III is terrible?

[Blyatypus]

I got back into playing both dark souls II and dark souls III, I still think the second one is fun, but I cannot keep playing the third one. The third one is sooo boring. I don't see why so many people like this game. It's not strategic; it is mostly spamming r1's and rolling without much weightedness in each action. The maps are so bland and monotone with almost every view consisting of stone gray/blue walls. There is barely any green in this game, that DS1 did include. This other reviewer said in more detail of what I think:

"
No, DS3 is in fact terrible. I always explain this, because most people don't really percieve what made ds2 pvp felt so good, apart from the unbalanced numbers on some weapons (buff katanas cough).

It did nothing better from DS2. Except Story-BSO-cynematography.. all of it now is AAA game. Great. Well, all this is worth on its own, it's a souls game after all, this part for casuals is really enjoyable.

But well, the combat mechanics are not enjoyable. The same formula at ds2 made posible wider gameplay options, but, why?

The secret is cooldowns. This is not a moba, but at dark souls 2, every action had weight on it. A start up animation, active atack frames and then a recover animation before rolling or doing another action.

But that's not all, that cooldown to recover and initiate a next action could be shortened for some combinations, like run-roll r1 attacks followed by r2 attacks, which were done faster.

Then, animation canceling allowed a lot of posibilities, for quicker rolls with almost the double stamina consumption, r1+quick roll between rolls.

Backsteps were awsome, it enriched a lot the gameplay posibilities.

And last, stamina consumption, which was well calibrated. Deploying stamina bar in negative made you recover slower, exposing yourself to harm.

PvE was designed with Rythm. The player had to read his surroundings and react accordingly. Great bosses and really ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ones. But there was a lot of variety. Most of them as optional.

DS III has focused on PvE, to keep it fast paced, they've made npcs go full aggro with non stop combos, with a tricky timing: if you get out of one combo and keep rolling, that extra roll will trigger the IA and it will do another combo instantly, catching that roll as punishment for "spaming rolls". This happens with ALL NPCS, specially noticeable with Lothric knights.

PvE enemies follow different laws or rules than the player. They don't have stamina management, same poise, and worst of all, their stuns last shorter, it's just less than a second, it's enought to allow fast weapons to keep chaining r1s, but it's not enought to chain two or three hits with some weapon categories.

This have a huge impact on the game. Straight sword makes the game "easy mode", while going heavy makes it kinda hardcore. DPS output of low weight weapons is really high while heavy weapons require a lot of stat investment and consume too much stamina and their AR are pretty low. Some fast weapons (Astora s sword) with 127 initial AR is over some UGS!

You can stunlock bosses with r1 spams, like farron's watchers. If you try anything else, it will be a nightmare because of their movement/range/damage advantage. If you try this stupid method of r1 spamming, it turns to be EZ mode.


This means the design is really poor.

It's so fast paced and chaotic they had to made rolls ridiculously OP to make the overall design work.

Therefore its foundations are ♥♥♥♥ed up.
DS3 is the opposite of everything that made DS2 pvp good.
Left hand weapon with full moves.
Stamina
Poise
Roll stamina consumption
Cooldowns
Animation cancelling
Backstep
Weapon variety
Armour variety with distinct effects
Viable dragon form
All kind of builds viable at any point
Dual wielding
Poison builds
"

TLDR:
So seriously, how do you guys seriously like this game? R1 R1 roll roll R1 R1 roll roll.
PVP: R1 R1 Roll, NOW THEIR TURN, NOW MY TURN, R1 R1, Roll, THEIR TURN.
PVE: R1 R1 ROLLLLLLL till they outta combos.
Want some variety? Don't do it! Straight swords are ftw, and there's not really anything else you should choose.
Are you already colorblind? Great! I am not! And you and I wouldn't tell a difference if we switched spots!
Also, if you guys say that my logic is flawed because I should try other stuff than R1 and rolling, I KNOW THAT, I DO OTHER STUFF, but like the META is R1 and roll. Sure you'll be like 10% more effective if you mix it up, but dat iz eeet.

I'm going back to Dark souls 2 and 1 now. Leave your opinions.

P.S. I am letting off steam. I like DS3 more than many other RPGs out there, but still the steam is fuming...

[Taco Cat]

Messaggio originale di TroyAP:

Messaggio originale di IceEyes:

Somebody got ♥♥♥♥♥♥ at pvp by a dark sword.

I was actually the one who would use a dark sword and invade people all the time at the swamp =[ It makes it boring for us too, the predators.
#PredatorFeelsLikeAVictim #FeelsBadMan

Use the Lucerne instead, very fun but only good for 1v1s, so you gotta seperate them.

[AxiomExotic]

and ds1 wasnt just spamming rb and rolling? i think you are a bit out of touch my friend

[Laati]

Messaggio originale di TroyAP:

Messaggio originale di Leoscar:

So basically you're taking the review of someone else, who probably barely played since not capable of defeating the edgy watchers, a boss that's only hard if you are a beginner, while ridiculously easy for any average DKS3 player, and using this to state the obvious flaws we all already know?

I don't think any of the bosses are really hard except for Nameless King, and I don't think that other user I quoted thought either games were THAT difficult. And yup, I am captain obvious, sir.

Even the demon princes, freide, midir, and gael?

[inosk0pedjfk]

Messaggio originale di TroyAP:

Messaggio originale di Top Ramen Hob Goblin™️🍜:

The real question is: how can anyone think dks2 is good outside of the pvp improvement over dks1

Outside of the pvp: the world is vastly different in each region that puts a different spice periodically as you visually see something different. The PVE combat seems to need more control. For example, if you spam r1, it will punish you, but if you time your attacks, it will reward you. Also, for the scholar of the first sin, the DLC's are really good! I, and many others, think that is because Tanimura had full control of the DLC's (while during the base game he was in charge halfway through). Also, the game has a lot of replayability and each ng+ changes a bit.

I did like DS3, but I cannot get myself to play it again.

Lol. The level design is aweful. There is nothing to look at other than the waves of mobs. The only thing that punishes you in 2? More mobs. The only thing different in each area? Even mroe mobs!. Seriously the enemy design is also awful. Attack sets are bland and aren't different other than hippos and few others. The only thing that made them "challenging" was the sheer number of them. Sure, you can't R1 spam but only because you will be swarmed if you do so

[RedShirt]

Messaggio originale di TroyAP:

Bla bla bla...

Because it isnt.

[Blyatypus]

Messaggio originale di AxiomExotic:

and ds1 wasnt just spamming rb and rolling? i think you are a bit out of touch my friend

Well when I played DS1 all I did was spam R1 because I was a noob, but I didn't realize this whole time I've been doing it right!

[Raszak]

Interesting post. Im gonna leave my opinion:
Sadly i started to play ds1 when the online was almost dead, so i have only played the ds1 online in end-game. In ds1 was all facused in pve, the scenaries are awesome, the story, the npcs, the enemies were all so inmersive. But the pvp... As i said i have only played in end-game, facing people with weird builds. Almost everyone with heavy armour and a greatsword or magic ♥♥♥♥.

In ds2 i feel like all the enemies and bosses do ridiculously high damage in pve, but i have only played a few hours to it, so maybe is too soon to say... The pvp i have experimented in ds2 is so funny, so dynamic, idk, it has... something special.


Ds3... In all my hours in pve (are not much, ik) i've never had a hard fight against a boss, i killed all of them in the second try, some of them even in the first, i feel its pve is borning, thats why its being hard to me to finish It, its just borning. My first 27 hours in ds1 were amazing, all the bosses were hard, the first 3 bosses broke my ass a lot, until i catched the rithm of the game. In the other hand the pvp in ds3 (at least in my sl) its... Chaothic. Everytime i invade a guy there are at least other 2 phantoms fighting each other, and when i get summoned as friendly phantom, we get invaded by a lot of dark phantoms and a free-for-all begins.its kinda funny to be honest. Third, in ds3 the heavy armours are just useless, because of the stability (the same for shields), i can undertand that devs did that to prevent people to become walking tanks, but cmon, this is just ridiculous. In pvp evryone using stright swords and rolling like wheels, i want some variety.


I apologize for the grammar/phrase structures if they are wrong, english is not my mathern language

[Blyatypus]

Messaggio originale di MrRa:

Interesting post. Im gonna leave my opinion:
Sadly i started to play ds1 when the online was almost dead, so i have only played the ds1 online in end-game. In ds1 was all facused in pve, the scenaries are awesome, the story, the npcs, the enemies were all so inmersive. But the pvp... As i said i have only played in end-game, facing people with weird builds. Almost everyone with heavy armour and a greatsword or magic ♥♥♥♥.

In ds2 i feel like all the enemies and bosses do ridiculously high damage in pve, but i have only played a few hours to it, so maybe is too soon to say... The pvp i have experimented in ds2 is so funny, so dynamic, idk, it has... something special.


Ds3... In all my hours in pve (are not much, ik) i've never had a hard fight against a boss, i killed all of them in the second try, some of them even in the first, i fell its pve is borning, thats why its being hard to me to finish It, its just borning. My first 27 hours in ds1 were amazing, all the bosses were hard, the first 3 bosses broke my ass a lot, until i catched the rithm of the game. In the other hand the pvp in ds3 (at least in my sl) its... Chaothic. Everytime i invade a guy there are at least other 2 phantoms fighting each other, and when i get summoned as friendly phantom, we get invaded by a lot of dark phantoms and a free-for-all begins.its kinda funny to be honest. Third, in ds3 the heavy armours are just useless, because of the stability (the same for shields), i can undertand that devs did that to prevent people to bwcome walking tanks, but cmon, this is just ridiculous. In pvp evryone using stright swords and rolling like wheels, i want some variety.


I apologize for the grammar/phrase structures if they are wrong, english is not my mathern language

Thanks for saying that and I totally agree! I am having trouble beating DS3 the second time because of how repititive it seems.

Also, yeah the pvp is pretty chaotic, which is actually funny a lot of times and enjoyable because of the randomness that happens. I enjoy invading or being invaded in DK3 for the silly things that happen, and I like the pvp in DK2 for the actual combat.

In DK1, I didn't really do much pvping, more hiding from invaders as I was too noobish at that time (and I guess because when I picked back up the game, players weren't as active so seeing others was kind of rare).

[leg]

I felt the opposite. DS2 was really slow and RPGish, which some people liked, but I just wanted to rush through it. I finished it in like 20 hrs. DS3 was one I mastered and learned just about everything you can do, 100+ hrs. DS1 was still amazing but I spent well over 40 hrs my first time finding how to play through it. Even the rolls/timings on that first experimental engine are much more accurate than DS2 which was kind of a slow clunky joke where hitboxes make no sense. On DS2 you'd be better off just leveling or being patient because everything is 'slow motion' and the engine is just kinda clunky.

There's plenty of content in DS2 but I found it lacks so many other things. The mapping is totally different for one, it's almost like they just took the original and said 'let's make something just completely fantasy and made up which has no style at all'. The story with the giants coming to fight the humans was just plain stupid, you can tell in terms of the Korean team working on it it pretty much goes DS1->DS3 and they only put like 2 giants in DS3 and a few small DS2 things because they knew it was dumb and not that important. You can tell this with the mapping, the way the engine plays/feels, etc.. DS2 seemed like a new engine entirely.

For invaders and summons net code on DS2 is probably broken .. ex. you have to restart to see summon symbols or "be added to invasion list" based on how it works; it never reloaded properly or it's broken at this point. This probably led to even more problems since people weren't being invaded and it wasn't working at all even with all the patches. I would only hop into DS2 if a friend wants to co-op or something like that and even there its system is hopelessly broken to 'summon a friend' compared to DS1/DS3.

Even DS1 with DSFix would probably get you more connections in general in terms of summons, invaders, other players, etc.. and the mapping is top notch even if the render and stuff is older. DS1 remastered should bring players to the game by upgrading all of that and revitalizing all the good mapping in DS1 with actual players. DS2 however is just a lost cause.. different engine and porting it or remastering it has all probably been done as much as possible, and it's still pretty much the worst of the series. Pursuer? More like 12 yr old's generic boss with too much armor that shows up randomly making no sense or serving no purpose at all. Maybe it's worth a run through but it gave me the worst experience and starting with DS2 would probably put a bad impression out. I don't think that team who mainly made DS2 has the expertise that made DS1/DS3 so popular.

[Sharrock]

DS2 was a laughable joke when it came to PVE, the bosses alone were a joke. So much filler

[juicy]

Messaggio originale di Sharrock:

DS2 was a laughable joke when it came to PVE, the bosses alone were a joke. So much filler

Crown DLC absolutely destroys ds3 entirely. Both ringed city and ashes of ariandel were a complete joke level design-wise nor did they mean anything to the actual lore except tidbits about the ringed city.

[🎃MaximusBlastalot🎃]

The only good thing about DS were having good hats/dragon form astheticaly, blue flame, and power attack.

Also "heavy weapons are bad in gen and the best weapons are primarily curved swords/straight swords" applies to literaly every souls game.It has nothing to do with "dps" and everthing to do I frames, animation locks, and to a degree flexible blocking/parrying.Even in the dead angle fest that is ds 1 they are still "not optimal" to say the least.Dosent help that half of them usualy have R1s that are almost identical to the R2s.

[Raszak]

Messaggio originale di MaximusBlastalot:

The only good thing about DS were having good hats/dragon form astheticaly, blue flame, and power attack.

Also "heavy weapons are bad in gen and the best weapons are primarily curved swords/straight swords" applies to literaly every souls game.It has nothing to do with "dps" and everthing to do I frames, animation locks, and to a degree flexible blocking/parrying.Even in the dead angle fest that is ds 1 they are still "not optimal" to say the least.Dosent help that half of them usualy have R1s that are almost identical to the R2s.

Straight swords are not broken in ds1 just because they cant do stun-lock, a guy with a zwihander in ds1 laughs in the face of the guy with the longsword just before smashing him with the R2. In ds3 a guy with a longsword is a pain in the ass

[Meat Man (Alfons)]

Why do people still factor PvP as a thing for a good or bad Dark Souls game, grow up.

I don't get where you got the 'strategic' idea from, Dark Souls has never been strategic in the slightest, maybe in DS2 since the games i n t r i c a t e level design is to throw way too many enemies on you, making that you need to firebomb cheese a lot of things. Dark Souls has always been rather simple, when think of it. DS2's 'depth' is all from unintentional design. and in DS1, it is the same as in DS3 where you play better- by playing with less. Roll and light attack, is the way to go in DS1 too. Cautiously, maybe. Not strategically.

Most enemies are infact designed to rollcatch, not all, but a lot of them. Pontiff Sulyvahnn is a good example, or Midir. And 'all kinds of builds' are viable is a lie in DS2, or somewhat, but not that anything is the best. Just look around! Everyone is using rapiers or katanas, please.

I agree a bit on that attacks come with little punishability, but that only applies to light weapons like rapiers or straightswords.

How much did you use PvP tech in DS2 PvE anyways? I found that it didnt work or even need most of the time. Go backwards- strike twice, roll. Repeat.

You're right about some things, but... do you really play Dark Souls for that? When you put it at a boring retroperspect, Dark Souls 'weakpoint' is gameplay. Sure, its tight and well woven, but not balanced. Nioh or other Souls-ish games does the gameplay miles better, but isnt Dark Souls' strong part its atmosphere, lore and all that? In my opinion, DS2 was very lacklustre in terms of that, I just didnt find myself interested in any of it. While DS1 and DS3 did very well. To each to their own.

[Alpine [rus]]

Messaggio originale di SG | Airplane01:

Also, AAA nowadays seems means lootboxes, microtransactions, DLC that lasts you 5 minutes for $14.99, etc.

Just read it - and imagined this thing.

"Breaking news! All games of Dark Souls series will get lootboxes from next patch.
Each lootbox can contain:
One of 30 SIMPLE instant deaths of your character. With little sounds and poor visual effects.
Or
One of 15 RARE instant deaths of your character. With loud sound effects and beautifull glowing CGI
Or
One of 4 EPIC, hand-created and absolutely apocalyptic instant deaths of your character, with loud cutscenes, dialogues and NPC reactions...

By the way, what else could you expect from Dark Souls's lootboxes?"