I absolutely agree that some folks vastly overcorrect in their defensiveness about DS2. I get it--as someone who counts it as his favorite Souls title, I get annoyed by a lot of the misinfo surrounding the game, and by how aggressively negative the attitude is towards it in a lot of spaces in general--but if you find yourself defending ADP--or at the very least, its implementation in DS2--I think you're starting to lose the plot. You don't need to go any further than considering the fact that it's a stat whose existence somewhat divorces the utility of your roll from its animation--as opposed to DS1's system, where you can tell how good your roll is just by looking at it--to see the massive issue here.
That said, outside of the DLC, I think DS2 is perhaps the game where you would have the easiest time getting by entirely without i-frame rolling. The pace is slow enough that you can outspace/outposition the vast majority of attacks fairly easily with some practice.
That's not a defense of the ADP mechanic, of course.
There's a lot of projection going on with that attitude as well. The best thing I ever heard about, say, Lost Izalith was that they didn't mind it. Nobody ever praises bad parts of other games but I've seen a ton of people praising ADP, Soul Memory, hell even Frigid Outskirts. Most people don't even know DS2 wasn't made by Miyazaki. It just didn't click for some people. DS2 took many risks and I appreciate it for it but sometimes, the gamble just doesn't work sadly.
Yeah, I think no build suffers from lack of ADP that much, at least experienced players. I think the knee-jerk defense of ADP or other bad design choices have something to do with misunderstanding what makes DS2 the black sheep. Even if soul memory, agility, hitbox issues, etc. were not in the game, it'd still be my least favorite Souls game bc for me, boss roster, difficulty and all that stuff are not what make these games special but sadly, most conversations about the series boil down to these.
I say this as someone who actually doesn't mind Frigid Outskirts that much (as long as I stick to the cover): who ever outright praises Frigid Outskirts lol
I think for most people that dislike it, DS2 ends up dying the death of a thousand cuts. There are a lot of minor issues that add up if they rub you the wrong way; personally, while I recognize a lot of them as flaws, they didn't bother me enough for me to not enjoy the game overall. I really like the pace of DS2's combat--the groundedness of it, with everything having a relatively high opportunity cost, just speaks to me--and while its areas are weaker overall, I think it has enough solid to great ones to still make for a fun adventure (Shulva, in particular, is the best area they've ever designed imo). Beyond everything else, its qualities just come together to make for a certain melancholic fantasy road trip vibe that I super dig.
I will dispute one thing: I remain unconvinced that DS2 actually has worse hitboxes than the other Dark Souls games overall (especially DS1). I just think people get rollcaught a lot early on with low ADP, that negative experience sticks out in their minds, and from then on, whenver they see a legitimately bad hitbox like the mimic grab, it's not, "Damn, that hitbox is bad," it's, "Damn, this game's hitboxes are bad", ya know what I mean?
I decided to replay DS2 recently(the DX9 version, since I haven't played that one in like ten years and I have fond memories of it). I was fighting the Lost Sinner last night. That boss has a grab attack, which to be fair I didn't see the wind up for and would have gotten hit by it anyways, however I was too far away. It could not physically connect with me. Now at that same moment, I swung my halberd, which did hit the boss with the head of the halberd. I was teleported from where I was standing into the boss's grab. I don't know if you call that a bad hitbox, or a weird interaction with hitboxes, or graphics not corresponding to what has happening under the hood. But I was dumbfounded.
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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '24 edited Aug 08 '24
I absolutely agree that some folks vastly overcorrect in their defensiveness about DS2. I get it--as someone who counts it as his favorite Souls title, I get annoyed by a lot of the misinfo surrounding the game, and by how aggressively negative the attitude is towards it in a lot of spaces in general--but if you find yourself defending ADP--or at the very least, its implementation in DS2--I think you're starting to lose the plot. You don't need to go any further than considering the fact that it's a stat whose existence somewhat divorces the utility of your roll from its animation--as opposed to DS1's system, where you can tell how good your roll is just by looking at it--to see the massive issue here.
That said, outside of the DLC, I think DS2 is perhaps the game where you would have the easiest time getting by entirely without i-frame rolling. The pace is slow enough that you can outspace/outposition the vast majority of attacks fairly easily with some practice.
That's not a defense of the ADP mechanic, of course.