From innovative and immersive RPG experiences like Demon's Souls and Dark Souls the series got worse because of pandering to normies and the fanbase:
>no more interesting gimmick boss fights, in DS3 especially and they all blend together, there is zero difference between Pontiff, Dancer, Watchers etc. other than superficial elements
>streamlining convenience for normies like Bonfire teleporting, respecing stats
>game is more linear because people unironically bitched about going to Catacombs first or ending up in Ash Lake before Lordvessel
>pandering to PvP faggots ruins PvE by removing traditional Poise, making all tank builds completely invalid, 99% builds in PvE require fast rolling to be playable
>enemies are designed with player meta in mind, every boss and most regular enemies have some tricky attacks with weird timing to throw off people who just roll, they have super fast frenzy attacks, seem to have infinite stamina etc. to the point where with most regular enemies you could just double or triple their HP and they could easily be a DS1 boss fight
>DS2 cheap difficulty and shitty placement is a result of playerbase bitching to devs who mentioned streamlining things
>series suffer from MORE MORE MORE syndrome, where first DS1 and DeS were much more grounded, DS3 is on the level of a fucking shonen anime with bosses that have movesets that would put Dragon Ball to shame
>the combat more and more is about roll-punish mechanics and less about overcoming dangers
I could list more but honestly i feel like Souls games have been both blessing and a curse. They re-introduced love for difficult games made with passion but at the same time they became so big (easily the most influential franchise of 2010s) that they suffered from their own success. The sequels are flanderized, pandering to shitty fanbase who wants epic roll spamfest and "honorable PvP" where you do retarded minmax builds with mismatching outfits.
Was there ever a series that suffered more because of it's own fans and the hype it generated?
what the fuck are you talking about souls games pander to the same audience every release to the degree where that fanbase has developed a complex where they autistically attack rpg's that are not soulslike
series was ruined when they called the pc version "prepare to die" and pc gamers bragged about how hard it was
making shit up
Based. FUCK NUSOULS.
Not really.
There is a big divide between people who like Dark Souls 1 and Demon Souls and people who prefer DS3 and Bloodborne.
There are also DS2fags but they have either brain damage or are faggots like hfaggotguy.
Are you that nigga that just found matthewmatosis , joseph anderson and shit channels like those "smart tards" and start spitting "look at me am very smart" on every thread of a popular game....?
nahhhh u can be that same dude
>no more interesting gimmick boss fights, in DS3 especially
DaS3 had way more gimmicky boss fights compared to Bloodbore, Dark Shit 2 and Dark Souls.
>>game is more linear because
Bloodborne did it first.
>>Poise
Was never good.
Others are legit criticisms but everything wrong with the series started with Dark Souls 2 and Bloodborne. Dark Souls 3 was only results of that wrong direction. So stop being a fag and blame Bloodborne and Dark Souls 2 like a real man instead of ONLY blaming Dark Souls 3.
i don't know anything about the community as i am not into PvP but dark souls 3 is the most fun game in series for me and the bonfire teleporting was one of the reason
but i agree with build variety and other minor points
Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat.
The post is clearly blaming everything that came after DS1, which is when the series started pandering to normies and stopped being innovative because Namco wanted to cash in on the explosive success.
You're absolutely right OP. There is no doubt. The Souls fanbase is probably one of the worst in existence.
>the series got worse because of pandering to normies and the fanbase:
not reading the rest, you are wrong.
>DaS3 had way more gimmicky boss fights compared to Bloodbore, Dark Shit 2 and Dark Souls.
Gimmicky not only means "do X to awesome". It also means variety. Every boss outside of gimmicky ones like Wolnir and Deacons (which are the only gimmicky fights in all of DS3 other than maybe Wyvern) is the same basic combat check, aka "roll, look for window, punish" spamfest.
>Bloodborne did it first.
And it is also to blame, but so is DS3. It was supposed to fix shit people hated in 2 but it barely did.
>Was never good.
It was good. Literally the only reason you would ever complain about it if you are a PvP faggot who bitched on Souls forums and imageboards every time you encountered a guy in Havel or Giant's armor in DS1.
Being able to be staggered by anything bigger than a dagger in DS3 even if wearing full plate is completely retarded. Hyper Armor is obvious PvP trade pandering.
>It was good
No it wasn't. I played Demon's Souls first so I never needed poise. Opinions may differ tho.
>games get more streamlined with every installment
>fanbase grows in size, setting that new lowered barrier as their expectation
>eventually the amount of fans drawn in by the new stuff vastly outnumbers the original core base
>the hordes of mouthbreathers snuff out all criticism of the more popular titles through sheer numbers alone
This tends to happen to any long running series.
Also If Elden Ring has the Sekiro >MUH STORY forced exposition dumps I'm going to kill myself
If Elden Ring is another BB/DaS3 clone then I am going to kill myself. Sekiro's exposition dumps weren't as annoying as entire gameplay of others.
No poise in DeS, and probably even in DS1 would be fine, because of different pace of the game, however removal of it in DS3 is absolute retardation.
There is NEVER EVER a reason to wear a heavy armor in this game. It's pure fashion souls. The only requirement you ever need is a piece in every slot for SOME protection and being under 70% weight.
With how fast enemies attack and how many moves they have, when i pick a tanky knight i want to be able to take a hit or two without flinching, you know?
DaS3 never had good armor absorbtion system as much as DeS or DaS. That's why. Heavy armor is still semi useless in DeS tho still.
>>no more interesting gimmick boss fights, in DS3 especially and they all blend together, there is zero difference between Pontiff, Dancer, Watchers etc. other than superficial elements
now you'll tell me the gimmick boss fights are bad, like tree, wyvern, witch
>streamlining convenience for normies like Bonfire teleporting, respecing stats
valid complaint, starting with teleporting in das2 and 3 sucks
>>game is more linear because people unironically bitched about going to Catacombs first or ending up in Ash Lake before Lordvessel
dunno if that's a feedback issue or not, could well be
>pandering to PvP faggots ruins PvE by removing traditional Poise, making all tank builds completely invalid, 99% builds in PvE require fast rolling to be playable
poise builds are really good in the current iteration of the game, so much so that people who played later legitimately say that great swords are the strongest way to play
the rest of your points feel pretty valid, they probably could have put some more thought into certain aspects to make it harder without just making enemies attack more often in das3, or spamming enemies in das2
Poise in DS1 is good because it's the only way to beat Nito without having a fucking stroke.
poise exists it's just stupid and only applies to super armour based attacks on heavy weapons
>however removal of it in DS3 is absolute retardation.
what are you talking about he attacks so slowly
unless you mean the skeletons in which case you a divine weapon nigga
this except BB was great as an action spin off
What the fuck are you talking about user? Nito is babby shit to beat no matter what.
>Bait his AOE and run away so it kills all the mobs near him
>Hit Nito
>Dodge any gravelord sword attacks from the ground
>Rinse and repeat when the mobs respawn
Who do I blame for the skyrim-tier nu-Demon's Souls UI?
Sekiro was much much better.
>rotted greatwood
>crystal witch
>ancient wyvern
>deacons of the deep
>wolnir (though you can treat it as a nongimmick and it is harder)
>yhorm
>DLC has PvP boss
and OP said abyss watchers isn't but the fact that in phase 1 they fight each other is interesting
>alt f4s out of arena
do dexfags really
"prepare to die" is indefensible desu. anyone who's played the games knows they're not difficult for the sake of difficulty, but they simply call for focus
sekiro is trash
Demon's Souls and Sekiro has least R*ddit following behind them. Therefore they are based.
Bloodborne is trash.
pcope
>Proto DaS3
You roll less in Bloodborne but they are same games. Bloodborne is trash and it's everything wrong with the series.
Everything after DS1 was shit because the went for a quantity approach with DS2 which backfired and caused them to rebound hard on linearity and speed, which turned the series into boring action shit. Still a better series than pretty much every other AAA shit coming out. But they've been making virtually the same game with a new coat of paint and watering it down since DeS.
I know people here talk about the direction FromSoft games take, but i want to touch on how Dark Souls influenced the other games in all the wrong ways. Instead of inspiring them to think outside the box, all games try to superficially imitate them.
They seem to be obssessed with Boss Rush, heavy hidden lore, they even contextualize deah/respawn in their story, there is huge emphasis on bosses with their names being announced, epic choir music blasting from subwoofers and after defeat, you get some big message like "YOU DEFEATED" or "PREY SLAUGHTERED".
Same thing is done from fanbase, many games now are obsessing over "lore analysis videos", meme builds and memes videos, stream death compilation, speedrun/challenge runs etc.
Is it just me that finds this cancerous?
you mean DS3 is a bootleg BB
BB actually puts effort into weapon movesets so they synergize with quickstep creating its fast and visceral combat. Rollsouls 3 is pure namco retardation
>Is it just me that finds this cancerous?
Probably. I am fine with whatever youtubers does but you nailed how fanbase thinks.
Bloodborne isn't really that different and doesn't even have any real combat synergy to it unlike Sekiro. Many prosthetics and combat arts flow way better than anything in BB. Animations are just ''whatever'' anyways.
kek as neat as Blasphemous's art was I found all of this annoying cancer in it
it does enough to separate itself from the rest of the series to the point where coming back to ds3 felt like a downgrade. Sekiro is gimmicky trash with a rhythm game combat that will be promptly forgotten forever after based elden ring releases