Focusing so much on multi-enemy encounters was a good decision because it tests the players enemy management...

Sounds like you want multi enemy fights to be completely braindead but that defeats the entire purpose which is having to pay careful attention to 2 independently acting AI, your spacing and the environment along with using more of your tools than just your weaponfu or whatever gay shit you come up with.

Regular sized group enemies are fine, I just hated fighting multiple giant enemies at once

Thats Dark Souls 1 church encounter, you arent forced into that in 2

Their theme is fucking great, though, and I enjoy the challenge.

Lost bastille is specially guilty of this if you don't want to get raped by the enemies infinite poise though

I don't want them to be braindead, I want to have the tools to fight multiple enemies. Big sweeping weapons, easier movement, a ranged weapon that doesn't fuck with me for trying to use it. Those things would be useful and welcome, but they either didn't exist or had to be built towards.
Also, cut the bullshit, AI is not independently acting, they're often doing the same shit and are just clumped together, forcing you to provoke the same opening from both of them. They barely split up once they're next to each other so that point is moot. You might be thinking Darklurker, but no, I'm thinking Skeleton Lords, where back in the Network Test where Resistance existed. I killed all the lords in like fifteen seconds, and I had to throw myself against 20 skeletons and several bonewheels. I still won thanks to me pumping literally nothing but Resistance (defense was damage threshold, I took around 1 hp per hit) but jesus christ, I did NOT have the tools for it, and the AI certainly wasn't smart enough to be engaging.

lol no, for a start you can literally send crowds flying with the greatsword but also the best tactic after opening the door isnt to back away its to rush in and use the open arena with the staircase. Sounds like you got too used to dodge into r1 spam from DeS and DS that you couldnt see any other viable approaches even though theyre clear

>bridge leads to a door
>game has many royal swordsmen behind that door
>can't backpedal a bit and throw firebombs/pepper them with arrows/shields up
It's like you don't know how to videogames.

You have big sweeping weapons, movement is easy but commitment heavy so you actually have to think about how you move, the game showers you with titanites so youll always have a bunch of weapons and items on hand, and really you want even easier ranged attacks? If AI clumps up you separate them, they act independently remember? For bigger guys you can literally just get in range bait out an attack and use that opening for your own advantage, most arenas have shit like stairs pillars and other clutter to split enemies apart too. Youre parroting matthewmatosis, stop.

>you have sweeping weapons
Yes let me equip this +0 zweihander on my dexint build for all the multi-enemy slashing I need
>movement is easy
You can barely move at all, the fuck are you smoking? Deadzones, expensive rolls, speed (both waking AND turning) and stamina regen based on equipment load, slow rolls, iframes being stat investment, what about all of this is easy? I'm this close to writing you off as fucking with me.
>separate enemies
Why would I want to get all the enemies to spread out away from my +0 zwei swing
>you're parroting mattymasatosiosissy
You are fucking with me. I want to actually discuss video games and nobody else genuinely does. Typical. Burn in hell.

>enemy management in a combat system entirely balanced for 1 on 1 encounters
brilliant

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>Yes let me equip this +0 zweihander on my dexint build for all the multi-enemy slashing I need
So youre rolling an int build and still complaining when you have aoe attacks and shit like soul greatsword? Not to mention easy respecing if youre dissatisfied with your build, and with the amount of titanites the game throws at you, youre guaranteed to have some on hand. Fuck off lol
>Deadzones, expensive rolls, speed (both waking AND turning) and stamina regen based on equipment load, slow rolls, iframes being stat investment, what about all of this is easy?
You can and will max out iframes at the start of the game, are you serious with this shit? But anyway you dont need to waste stamina to space yourself away from most enemies, or even roll much, you can casually jog around them with an unlocked camera for christ sake. What do you want, cancels and jumps? No point to even having groups in that case

Is leveling END only a good challenge run for DaS1?

I will probably stop leveling once my stamina stops going up, ie SL40

I wonder what you soulsbabbys would think of God Hands crowd fights

Ok I will. It was a great decision for many other reasons on top of that and enemy management has a lot factoring into it that plays very strongly off of the main tenets of the series combat.

Speak for yourself, they're one of the more enjoyable fights for me

epic meme

DaS2 is the best souls because the double edged rusted sword is the best weapon in the series

I'm sorry that's the red iron twinblade

>in a combat system balanced entirely 1 on 1 encounters
>Every Souls game has multiple parts where you fight crowds of enemied

Dark souls 1 sucks because 50% of the game is in narrow hallways that block horizontal swinging.
It's fucking terrible and makes half of the weapons nonviable

Base movement doesn't cost stamina, holding guard only slows it's recovery, and these things only add more to what makes said encounters more interesting since you have to actually weigh up which you want to focus on based on how the fight progresses. I got halfway through this before reading ahead and what I was going to say was already said but I will insist that based on how the game is actually designed every build, no matter what, has countless options for different situations if you care to look, especially group fights, and this meme about the games not being suited for multiple enemies because it gets harder is as ridiculous as it was when Demon's Souls released.

>Game has area of effect attacks for every weapon
>Hurr too many enemies I can't deal with that it's impossible game wasn't DESIGNED that way because of the toggle lock on feature that you can still play the game normally without!!!

>multiple aoe tools built in to the base character's kit, rapid evasion options available, usually giant wide open levels to better space your opponents, entire game is originally made with the beat em up horde of enemy schtick in mind UNLIKE souls 2 which borrows a combat system from 2 prior games which were not made with fighting armies in mind
>comparing that shit to stunlockfest-reduced damage-if-your-tiny-ass-swing-range-hits-more-than-one enemy-tiny-corridors-where-your-weapon-bounces-off -hit-but-the-horde-of-enemies-charging-you-dont-have-weapon-bounce-0-crowd-control-having-ass souls games
must be physically painful having such a tiny brain rattling around in that skull

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I didn't even see this one either. Hilarious.

and how do you fight multiple enemies? you bait them into coming at you one at a time because you have no other recourse because the player isnt given tools to handle more than one attack coming their way retards
>they think waiting for 2 enemies to coincidentally end their attack animations at the same time so they can safely run in for a swing every 5 minutes is gameplay balanced for multiple enemies

>multiple aoe tools built in to the base character's kit
All cost very limited resources and cannot be used willy nilly
>rapid evasion
Literally worse than Dark Souls rolling at actually putting distance between you and enemies, the only thing you have is the backflip which covers a very short distance, side dodges are gimped by the soft lock and duck dodges are useless when surrounded
>giant open levels
That make it easier for enemies to surround you

Also the softlock which I mentioned before literally locking your camera to 1 enemy, the tank controls that completely destroy mobility, the lack of good knockdown tools without counter hits which themselves require defensive play, the complete lack of ANY kind of sweeping attacks and more. You have to abuse roulette wheel to switch target ffs. And yet still its balanced well for crowd control and all those elements make it FUN and CHALLENGING to fight crowds, rather than being detrimental.

Nah, it turns every encounter into a clusterfuck where you just have to hit and run everything.

Or you learn the range and speed of your weapons and use your oftentimes ridiculous level of walkspeed, the strongest and only tool you actually require, to circle and outspace them and strike as many times as your positioning achieves, paying attention to how each enemy acts to extend or stay safe. It's a bit more involving than "dodge attack, swing till 10% stamina or kill" and means the area and where everyone is relative to you matters far more for the fight, but of course level design is only the series' most signature defining aspect so that's not to be emphasized at all.

Now lets examine DS2 for fun
>Items with aoe damage that can be used by any build
>ranged, sweeping and AOE spells that can be used by most builds
>free running that lets you run circles around groups with no danger involved
>very powerful iframe rolls that cover a long distance but can also be used to roll into enemies
>parries and backstabs both with tons of iframes (and downright broken in 1v1 encounters hmmm)
>weapons with near 360 sweeping attacks, long poke weapons, weapons with good running attacks, ranged weapons very quick hit and run weapons
>environments almost always have clutter that can be used to split up enemies
>complete freedom or camera movement and manual lock on
>hyperarmor

But nah its not balanced for crowd fights

>Started playing Scholars after playing regular DS3 for 200+ hours
>Now has even more enemies and you have a literal dragon right in front of the fucking dragonslayer boss room

I love DS2 but I lost a bit of motivations playing it again

Agreed. The bigger issue was almost all the main game bosses are straight awful. Not even mediocre just pitiful forgettable garbage. Almost all of the great soul bosses felt like they weren't so it was just a surprise to get the soul after.

It sucks though. Unless its a fighting game or some shit obviously. But to be that way for a 3d game means the player is inherently clunky or unable to handle swinging at one enemy and managing what the others will do.