SoftS.

>>4078042
I would treat SotFS as a remix/master quest. Variant of the main game intended for those who beat it already.

The DLC is widely considered the best(or only good, or least bad) part of DS2. The main draw for SOTFS is that it better integrates the DLC into the game instead of just dropping your warp items from the start and then you go do it. If you don't care about that, OG has much less obnoxious enemy placement and you will generally see less people online.
>>4078063
You can feel like that all you want that's not what it is. It's the directors cut, the definitive edition, it's what they want people to play instead of the original.

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>>4078065
It's a juiced up next gen console re-release with a mixed bag of changes. In practice it's as much as a definitive edition as Dark Souls: Remastered, the one they want you to buy. And they delisted the original for that one.
It's not very convincing to say "They want you to play (buy) that one" when, of course they want you to pay for the version bundled with DLCs that has bigger online features, they'd love for everyone to buy the same game again.
Either way, the original is what most people played, what made people fans of the game in the first place. If you want to understand what they liked or disliked about it you're better off playing that. It puts you in a much better position to evaluate SotFS changes yourself.

The changes themselves are more important than if it comes bundled with the DLC, if it has 1080p 60fps, etc features of typical these definitive editions. If it had the same online features, graphics and performance, while keeping all the gameplay changes (Like Pokemon versions, I suppose) you couldn't really call it definitive, just different.
In the case of taking their word regardless, the marketing blurb itself tells you that it is a 'brand new experience and challenge' and that 'hardened players will have to forget everything they thought they knew'. Brand new compared to what? Forget what if I haven't played the original? It's clear that besides being a next gen port, it changes things up MEANT for people who played the original.

>>4078077
>It's a juiced up next gen console re-release
Except it was the same console generation. Shit it was released 1 year later.

SotFS really does feel like some kind of Mario romhack at parts. It is not the slow, deliberate dark souls experience you might be expecting if you're just coming off 1. It is often deliberately overwhelming because it was designed for veteran players who had beat the game half a dozen times already. If they had an option at character creation to play with the old encounter design, I would have zero complaints. It's a great bundle. That they didn't do that is puzzling. Maybe it wasn't possible with online functionality. DS2 has a reputation for being chock full of unfair bullshit and I really think it has to do with Scholar being the version most people play these days.

>>4078091
It had that reputation already, but sotfs did make it worse

>>4078135
>>4078091
DSII had an achievements called "Welcome to Dark Souls" for your first death. It was coming off of the period where the Internet convinced everyone DS was this insanely hardcore trve gamer experience (it was never that, it was just a properly challenging game that happened to come out during a period where the market was saturated with 0 challenge games), and perhaps because of the abject development hell DS2 went through they decided to lean into the whole "this game is so hard omg" thing deliberately.

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>>4078042

play softs, pump adp until your agi is a decent level so you have good iframes for doding. around 20-25 adp and you will have similar frames to dark souls 1

>>4078196
10 adp worked fine for me

>>4078196
In hindsight, ADP would have probably been better received if they'd just added i-frames to the stat screen. When you're leveling anything else you get some straightforward numeric feedback of how it benefits you, but with ADP you have to go online and look it up.
Then again, it probably would have also been good if they hadn't nerfed every other defensive option in the game so people were more comfortable playing with shittier rolls. Armor and poise were nerfed, shields were nerfed, even repositioning was nerfed by adding tracking to so many attacks. It's like they couldn't decide on anything about how the game should be played except that everything about it should be HARDer than the original.

>>4078042
I suppose i prefer the softs. However, I went in blind and thought, why not a pure sorcery build for a change? And every fucking thing, especially bosses are very, very resistant to sorceries. I got my asshole caved in more in the dlcs than any other area. Those three douchebag boss mercenaries still live in my nightmares.

>>4078042
Scholar with vanilla graphics mod is true neutral.

I'm playing DS2 (scholar) for the first time without having played any souls game prior, is it normal that I've died almost a hundred times before I got to the first boss?

>>4078477
no, unless you're completely unfamiliar with these types of games. DS2 is filled with cheap bullshit so deaths will be plentiful regardless

>>4078478
Damn so I just fucking suck.
It took me 10 hours of playtime to reach the last giant and then kill him.

>>4078482
What's your loadout? What have you been leveling?

>>4078482
>10 hours to reach the last giant
Are you part of a covenant? Because enemies despawn in DS2 so there's no way that's true unless you're part of the Covenant of Champions which makes everything harder.

>>4078617
He could be trying to tard run to the boss instead of picking the goons. It happens quite a lot with people who started by early games or saw YOHTUBAHS playing often

>>4078602
Default warrior armor and straight sword.
>>4078617
I'm part of the one with the guy near the tower in majula
>>4078673
I tried doing that at first but I kept dying so I tried fighting them and also kept dying until I managed to get to the boss.

>>4079151
Just keep killing everything you encounter and it won't take nearly as long for each boss. Also make sure to actually spend your souls to level up. If you want to really cheat the game and make it piss easy, every time you go back and level up just use any remaining souls on healing items. You will max out your stash and be functionally invincible.

>>4079160
Yeah I know, the learning curve at the beginning is steep but it's getting easier.

>>4079205
A tip to make the early and mid game much easier: Use a strike weapon. Hammers and clubs or whatever do a ton more damage to armored enemies than slash weapons.

>>4079208
>>4079205
Or resin infused rapiers. They ignore most of the armor and the elemental damage added slaps. Specially if you have like 10/15 points in Faith or Int

>>4079151
There some items near the Giant's Fort that helps a lot early game. Like the Drangleic Armor and Shield before the Pursuer boss fight (upper section of the tower, you unlock it with a key you get from the Last Giant), the shield has a 100% phys res, so if you are struggling with dodges, it will be a good clutch, I completed DS2 with a Mouse and KB by relying on it.
There is also the flaming longsword in the lower section, I think you can see the area by looking south from the bonfire where you met the hag merchant. It's one of the most realiable weapons early game, good dual damage, low stamina cost, can stun most enemies in two hits.
The only downside is the reach and that it will bounce a lot in tight corridors
DS2 was also my first souls game, and I spent an entire night fighting the Last Giant (Didn't knew about summons), it takes a while for you to get used to the gameplay style, but once it clicks, it clicks.

Never played the original before today. Booted it up just to see if the differences are actually that great. Only got to see FoFG and HToF, but as far as enemy placement goes, I did notice an improvement. Not a huge one, but at least in this regard I would call it a slightly better game than SotFS.

>>4079904
The further you go the more blatant it is.

>>4079904
Someone could say SOTFS is dense with varied encounters meant to test your mettle. I say the original is more immersive in comparison.

>>4080174
How so?

>>4080174
More like test your patience.
Dark Souls doesn't have deep combat, not mechanically and not strategically. The solution to the game spamming you with enemies is usually to either whittle them down from a distance or bait them out one by one, which is just an exercise in tedium.

>>4078042
Not an RPG, because player skill 100% matters more than character skill.

>>4080316
>The solution
A solution

>>4080321
The other solutions, aside from summoning a guy to split the enemies between you, are just as tedious while also being riskier. Like kiting the mob until they give you an opening where you get a couple hits in before rolling away to kite some more. Or do you have another suggestion on how to make the fights more engaging?

>>4080317
You know there are RPGs where spamming random bullshit doesnt work?

>>4080349
Not really, no. In a real RPG, an optimized character should be able to resolve issues without a specialized strategy.>>4080339

>>4080355
>a real RPG is grinding to infinity stats and one shotting everything

>>4080364
Not necessarily, but a real RPG should be systems dependant.

>>4080364
Real RPGs have never been tried.

>>4080317
>>4080355
Wdym? Pick an Oldschool TRPG like PF1 or DND 3.5e or even AD&D, even it you pick the most optimal race+class+slots combo, nothing can save you if your party is dumb and keeps charging the enemy instead of talking strategy, this idea is so retarded it hurts.

>>4080339
Making use of available environmental effects, like friendly fire or pits, for quick mitigation.
Finding out who pops up first and from where. There are plenty of occasions where you're given the first few shots, which lowers the threat level significantly.
Using a weapon better suited for handling groups, spin-to-win with a halberd, for example. If you're allergic to multiple weapons like me, there's an item whose entire point is pulling the attention of chaff away from you, which causes them to clump up in one spot for easy pickings with damn near anything. If a consumable is too expensive, it also comes as a sorcery in yearn.
>kiting the mob until they give you an opening where you get a couple hits in
Learning how to actually read and predict your enemy, or enemies in this case. There are plenty of openings beyond their missing a swing, if you know where they are. In any case, kindergarten level is seeing what looks like an opening, then getting hit while mashing R1.
There are, in fact, very few reasons to take on a mob. They usually don't drop anything worth the time, and there are very few doors that require you handle a group before opening them. The primary reason to do so is to ensure the area is safe for exploration, which eventually becomes unnecessary.

tl;dr - if you engage with ALL the mechanics, rather than exclusively kite and spank, the game is much faster and more enjoyable.

It can also help to turn off the targeting computer, to avoid potential tunnel vision.

>>4080630
>If you're allergic to multiple weapons like me
IMO carrying multiple weapons elevates the game. Even just dagger and sword, or sword and spear, or two handed weapon paired with sword & shield setup.

>>4080630
>Finding out who pops up first and from where. There are plenty of occasions where you're given the first few shots, which lowers the threat level significantly.
This is just the "bait them out one by one" strat I already mentioned but rephrased to sound more positive.
>Learning how to actually read and predict your enemy, or enemies in this case. There are plenty of openings beyond their missing a swing,
And this is just an elaboration on the "kite and wait for an opening" strat.

>Using a weapon better suited for handling groups, spin-to-win with a halberd, for example.
>there's an item whose entire point is pulling the attention of chaff away from you, which causes them to clump up in one spot for easy pickings with damn near anything.
These two suggestions are more consistently actionable. Admittedly I forget about alluring skull 99% of the time, but that item is one of the few with any potential for that "strategic depth" was talking about, if only the rest of the game allowed you to use it for anything more interesting than pulling the enemies away from you for a while.
>Making use of available environmental effects, like friendly fire or pits, for quick mitigation.
It's very rare that you can subject an enemy to either friendly fire or to falling in pits, otherwise I would agree with you because this again would contribute to the kind of strategic depth I was talking about.

>>4080712
It's rephrased to sound more positive, because it IS more positive.
I'll apologize if my condensed explanation was less than perfect, but target prioritization and taking the fight to the enemy is proactive, while "kite and wait" is reactive. The former allows you to jump in hard and fast to control the flow of the fight, while the latter prioritizes survival in what is presumably an uncertain situation. They're similar in that they both involve some degree of consideration for what's happening, and likely some movement to create an advantage, but the approach and resulting combat flow is plenty different.

I know I can sound stupid or crazy for saying how wildly different the styles are when, at the end of the day, it just looks and sounds like side-to-side movement vs. backpedaling, but it does become the difference between seeing the code, and simply shooting the agent point-blank.

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Ah shit here we go again

>>4078091
The old encounter design was the overwhelming version, that's back when they didn't have very good triggers for enemy aggro so you'd just get ganked all the time. SotFS added actual thought to those aspects and resulted in way less ganks and far more fair encounters if you actually approached it methodically like you're supposed to in DS1 and DeS.

>>4080880
What is this bizarre cope DS2fags have about their game where they can't even agree which one does the thing miraculously correctly and which one is le shiggy bad design?

>>4080889
I think it's more telling that you believe it's weird for people to have different opinions personally. Isn't that a lot better than seeing everyone parrot opinions out of fear of not being perceived as genuine like you do for DS1?

>>4080679
For me , it's the sword and staff. Throw a buckler for slower enemies + pursuer ganks and you are golden

>>4080880
SOTFS "ganks" only let two enemies attack the player at a time while the rest back off. Meanwhile vanilla it's a fucking blender if you're retarded enough to get yourself surrounded in the first place

>>4080563
Just like how real communism was never practiced huh

>>4081649
Congratulations, anon. You understood the reference. You beat the game.

>>4078042
SOFTS for sure
I have a soft spot for DS2, I honestly like it better than DS3 in retrospect

>>4082426
What makes you like it? Serious question, has the worst movement out of the entire trilogy.

>>4080741
An encounter where you can apply prioritization to completely skip over the need for kiting is probably not the kind encounter I'm talking about. But the focus on the "kite and wait" part of my post is getting to be misleading.
Whether the enemies come at you all at once or one by one doesn't make much of a difference. In either case the combat remains shallow, floaty, and generally nowhere near as compelling as it would have to be to justify the amounts of enemies that DS2 spams in every other level.
DS1's combat isn't any deeper but it does feel better. It game also does a far better job of pacing itself, keeps the enemy numbers to a reasonable amount, doesn't overuse random ambushes, and has much better level design overall, even with the flubs in the second half.
>>4082426
Same. They're not that different in quality but I would put 3 over 3 by a bit.
I give DS2 a lot of shit but at least there's some things it does better than the rest of the trilogy. Off the top of my head: covenants, character building, openness of the early game, arguably story and characters.
DS3 meanwhile is only good at only one thing and it's the bosses. The level design is as bad as DS2's, the world is linear and boring as fuck with the least freedom to get your desired build up and running, the enemies are annoying and spastic.

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>>4082575

nta but dark souls 2 feels like a proper souls game. IDK how to describe it, while 3 is a great game it feels like a bloodborne transfusion into dark souls. DS2 feels like the last homage to demon souls

>>4078042
There is no such thing as "the original Dark Souls 2". It hadn't been finished, otherwise we would've had time travels and young bear seek seek lest.
Instead there was the first release remake ("time travel" theme had been repurposed into "fading memory" theme).
And there is SotFS, which is, basically, a mod for the remake of the unnreleased game.
Original release version has proper colors and more or less proper lights - so you can see it is actually a sunset time, which is made to further show the "fading memory" theme.
SotFS has more enemies, more appropriate placements, but also many new enemies, placed a-la knights from the first dark souls. It for some reason has much brighter lights and a green color filter in some locations, but it can be fixed with reshade.
I'd recommend SotFS (with reshade) as none of editions are the original, while SotFS has better atmosphere.

>>4082901
That'a because it is, in fact, Demon Souls 2 with Dark Souls being, in fact, represented only through "Gwyn and co's souls had been reborn as semi-random bosses" and other small whatnots. Feel of the game, its themes, its atmosphere - all is much closer to Demon Souls. I actually think, that it had been named DaS 2 instead of DeS 2 or even a standalone entry only because Dark Souls got so popular - just like with that one Zelda game (Majora's Mask iirc).

>>4082932
People definitely like it without the Dark Souls name and with spazzy floppy anime ninja combat and bosses; that's what Elden Ring is.

>>4082901
>while 3 is a great game
It's fine, just like DS2 is fine, but nowhere close to great. Its levels are mostly mediocre and it's at odds with itself by trying to be both Dark Souls and Bloodborne at the same time.
It's more combat-heavy than Dark Souls, but instead of adopting the fluid and expansive movesets of Bloodborne's trick weapons to make combat more fun, it regresses to the boring and limited ones from Dark Souls.
It's got more build variety than Bloodborne, but instead of giving you the open-ended early game of DS1 and DS2 to let you get your build up and running quickly, it keeps the mostly linear progression of Bloodborne.

>>4083218
While dark souls games have open maps with non linear progression they never truly execute that perfectly like metroidvanias do, i feel like they shouldve been strictly linear when thats what they already are anyways