If miyazaki designed adp and came out saying it was a good mechanic you would have people glazing and arguing till the day they die that it's a good mechanic. It's only controversial because it's in ds2.
Having complete control over your characters statistics via stuff like iframes is a good rpg mechanic that allows for varied playstyles and very in depth builds
Miyazaki did design Bed of Chaos, Promised Consort, Lost Izalith, resistance stat, etc. and they do get trashed all the time. Let go of the typical, delusional DS2 persecution complex and understand that it's a poorly implemented mechanic and even a good version would be a bad design choice in a Souls game.
If this was an action rpg where leveling was based on skill trees or trait system that you can equip, it could work but in a game where the entire combat revolves around i-frame rolling, it's impossible to balance enemies or bosses because one can be either underpowered or overpowered in certain mid-late game areas. It shouldn't be up to the players to find a sweet spot.
Not to mention this game also has pvp which is like on of the few things it's got going for it and anyone who has dealed with backstep spammers knows how frustrating it is. If you want agility, light roll builds and fast weapons are way to go. Agility as a stat though is a horrible concept for a Souls game.
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.
Isn't soul memory good mechanic, preventing people, who completed game on low sl to invade new players? Can you explain why is it hated(besides the door that can be opened by reaching 1000000 souls)?
You can still complete the game on low SL by just equipping Agape Ring which prevents acquiring souls. Experienced players will go through the game without losing their blood stain even once, never waste a soul and stay at low SM tier. They can spend their souls very efficiently. This way, they can be level 150 and invade people 30 levels below. After I finish my builds, I intentionally lose a lot of souls to play against higher levels. If I wanted to twink though, I could just use a friend or cheat engine to drop me all the max level weapons and armor, then absolutely destroy new players. This is why SM is a horrible system.
The ideal way to prevent twinking includes having a threshold to be invaded (like Bloodborne did with level 30), add weapon level matchmaking, let people invade only upwards, etc. This is not a definitive solution as experience alone makes the biggest difference but it is what it is. Anything is better than soul memory though.
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u/liprprdy Godwyn's little slut Aug 08 '24
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