Hey duders, I was just going through some of @rorie 's archived Dark Souls playing (over at http://www.twitch.tv/frailgesture/videos) and was also thinking about how Dark Souls 2 will have new enemies to defy Dark Souls players' expectations (like how the Turtle Knight will crush backstabbers, or enemies can now dodge backstab). It got me thinking about some other fun ways to troll players that are going into Dark Souls 2 fresh. Here are some of my ideas, let's hear yours!

- bonfire mimic that just lights you on fire and one shots you if you tried to use it like a regular bonfire

- archers/crossbowmen who fires at you at a regular frequency but will randomly do a quick melee stab at you (if you're in melee range) with his dagger immediately after his shots to counter players who try to time their attacks in between shots

- a pvp covenant where you get to disguise your invasion as a friendly summon sign in another player's game (so instead of recruiting for help, the invadee, unbeknownst to them, openly invites someone to invade them while being really close to them)

- placing an item in a distant platform that *seems* like you could do a running jump to reach to, but is actually impossible to reach

- enemies filled with explosive powder such that if the player uses a short ranged/melee pyro spell, the enemy detonates and deals massive fire damage to the player and knocks the player back

- having an enemy placed conveniently next to a ledge where if the player tries to kick him off, the enemy will grab the player's leg to use their momentum and throw them off instead (apparently the kick may have been replaced by a shoulder charge :( http://darksouls2wiki.wikispaces.com/Combat)

I like these. Making players have to attack every bonfire before they light it just seems like such a jerk thing for them to make you do. Make people feel relieved and then bam. The light at the end of the tunnel might just be another monster. ha. That's beautiful.

I'd like to see a PVP invasion where the goal would be something other than kill the opposing character. Such as dousing bonfires that have been kindled. You could even make it to where the invader starts the dousing process and then the invaded player has time to stop it from happening. But it gives the invader a way to get the invaded player to come to them instead of the other way around.

Those are the only two examples given that are fair. The other ones are not the sort of thing that makes Dark Souls great. In fact, they are the opposite.

Not quite sure where this mentality came from that the game is about trolling or how it would be fun it is to "troll" new players, like we're all in some sort of fraternity and it's time to haze the new guys.

It's weird because when Demons Souls was out everyone just wanted everyone else to play it and see how cool it is. No one said there was a "proper way" to play the game or how doing something in a particular fashion was cheap and not what the game was all about. Demons Souls was about skill and cleverness. I personally think mimic chests were a poor addition to the game. In a world where you're already at a high disadvantage cheap shots aren't fun in the slightest.

It's getting hard to be a fan of these games when the community surrounding them, and I don't mean the thread creator here, is starting to become almost obnoxious in establishing a ridiculous code by which Dark Souls players should abide.

Sorry for the rant.

Most of these read like something that comes from, and I don't mean to offend, someone who hasn't spent a lot of time with Dark Souls.

Placing an item in a distant platform that *seems* like you could do a running jump to reach to, but is actually impossible to reach

This would go against everything the first game set up, and would just be a shitty thing in general. The thing with the items in Dark Souls that are out of the way are laid out so you will see them the first time through an area, and either send you on a quest to get it, or make people come back for it later. Having an item specifically made to jerk with you, then killing you without a single reward would just be un-fun.

Same goes for the explosive enemies; it locks people into playstyles. I suppose you could make the case that these already exist to some degree in DaS1, but there are always ways around. I have a friend who finished it dagger only, another who did it with two-handed zwei more than once, there are options. Having enemies designed specifically to fuck over anyone who doesn't play according to that specific playstyle makes no sense, and simply wouldn't fit/be fun.

I think it's good that From is changing up the formula in this game when it would've been so easy to stick to known quantity, but I'm sure a lot of people will dislike them for doing so. They still need to maintain the core of Dark Souls and most of these just sound like something that would piss you off, not because you think it's hard or you did something wrong, but because they would be bullshit to play against. (sorta like the ghosts and how they always attack from inside the walls, that shit's just annoying and not fun to fight)

When I saw the enemy with the shell on it's back backstabbing was the last thing that came to mind and I didn't know he would fall on you. I have yet to something that "defy" player expectation. People are just stupid.

There were most definitely people like that around during the Demon's Souls days.

Btw, you can actually tell if a chest is a mimic without actually hitting it, so they do in fact reward cleverness and perceptiveness.

Yeah I know some of these don't even make sense. I was really just watching rorie play and going "Oh you know what would be awful? If...". So these are by no mean coming from a place of design or lore, I'm just being silly :)

It's pretty subtle though, the most obvious one is the chain on the side but most people didn't figure that out until they'd put a lot of hours into the game. The mimic isn't as bad because it isn't an insta-kill, which the supposed bonfire would be according to OP

Only 1 in 10 copies of Dark Souls II at retail will have a disc in it. The others will be filled with sand a mysterious white powder.

I saw a funny one during an E3 stage show where the player tried to cross a bridge to go to a castle surrounded by wyverns and the bridge just broke and killed the player.

Some of these seem to miss the point of Dark Souls. DS (I'm playing it for the first time, and I just got to Anor Londo) is fair. It's a bitch and it loves to punish you for your mistakes, but IT IS FAIR. Placing items in unreachable places just to kill the player seems pointless. It's as though they have decided that making a game harder simply means making it more frustrating for the player. I think things like bonfire mimics are great, that's something I can learn to deal with and once again meets the criteria of tough but fair. Another complaint I've heard floating around is that the backstab is no longer a locked animation and can be broken by other enemies. I still think/ hope that DS2 will be good though, there just aren't many games out there like the souls series that have such a distinct feel and style.

This is the first I've heard of them replacing the kick. Come onnnnnn, From Software. That kick made the game. But seriously, a kick is a thousand times better than a shoulder jab or whatever.

I agree completely. They should focus on sharpening the wonkier parts of gameplay and combat instead of jumping on the "haha this game is really hard, huh?" bandwagon.

The difficulty should be fair. Things like the turtle knight aren't "trolling," it seems pretty obvious that an enemy with a giant shield on his back would be immune to backstabs, and falling backwards isn't like some crazy unfair trolling enemy movement...it's just a natural reaction that the character will have to learn through experience about different enemies.

Players should still be able to succeed through careful analysis and preparation. Even the mimics in the last game were visually different to normal chests. Yeah it got you the first time cause you didn't know - and that was cheap. Can't think of anything else in the game that was really unfair. Keep that shit out.

@psylah: Oh no, sticky white stuff has returned!

Yes! You expressed in words exactly what I couldn't.

you are one sadistic motherfucker

Yeah, both of those things aren't necessarily "trollish" as much as they mess with the player to get them to be even more cautious. Rigging some fake bonfires means that players will even question the one thing that they regarded as safe, and having enemies that can toss you off the cliff if you just try to knock them off punishes players for arrogantly believing that they can just cheese every enemy near an edge. They're two examples that actually fit with the "train the player to be more cautious and aware" theme of Dark Souls.

I like this one.

I never knew about the chain thing while I played the game. If you look at the chest for a few seconds you'll see the top actually open a bit and close as the Mimic inside breathes. It's not something you'd notice if you just run up to it, but if you stop and look at it it's pretty obvious.

I think the Mimic is exactly what Dark Souls is. It punishes people who rush and rewards those who properly examine the situation. Another great example of that is the bloody lift in Sen's Fortress that leads to a spike roof. When you die to it the first time you realize why it was bloody.

The core design philosophy of the Souls series has always appeared (to me) to be 'hard, but fair'. While I do want to see more ways to interact with other players as an aggressor that actually involves more than just basic PvP, I'm not sure those ideas are really in line with what makes these games interesting. With that said, here's a few basic ideas I've been thinking of that might allow for an interesting change of pace:

• A section of magic focussed much more on illusionary properties. The Oolicile magic you could get in Dark Souls was a good start, but I'd like more creative ways to deceive players or lure players with non-lethal spells, both as the host and the invader. An example would be briefly creating a body double that would run in the designated direction, and 'die' from any amount of damage, or a version of Karmic Justice (if you took sustained damage in a short span of time it automatically created a damaging blast around you) that is much more sensitive to damage but simply knocks people back instead of hurting them, like a less expected Force.
• A complete redesign of Gravelording, which involves actively invading a world as a phantom that has no weapons but instead is temporarily converted to a more ethereal, faster and weaker form that can buff enemies and debuff the host and his allies. Since his entire goal is to stop the host indirectly, he is awarded when the host dies from any source but the host is rewarded if they manage to successfully kill the Gravelord or reach the boss room (whereas with normal invaders if you enter the boss room the phantom is simply kicked).
• I'd like them to completely turn their NPC conventions on their head. The guy who looks and acts like Lautrec/Yurt should end up being an incredibly helpful and relatable character if you give him the benefit of the doubt and try to help him, while the Solaire/Biorr of the group should end up being a misguided zealot madman. It was nice to see Patches again but a third time with all the exact same characteristics would be a little tired.

Maybe I shouldn't have used the word "troll", but I find it interesting that the designer created an enemy like the turtle knight as a big specific F you to all the speed running backstabbers from dark souls.

And these are all just one trick ponies really, like the mimics. For the bonfire mimic, once you've studied the animation or memorized the locations, you'll never fall for it twice. For the guys throwing you off cliff, you're just never going to kick/shoulder charge a second time. For the enemies that detonate when you use fire magic, just use melee or other sources of damage after that first time that he blows up on you using fire magic.

If the start screen says "Press Start" but the player presses any other button they automatically lose half their souls.

Like their real life ones?

There is a fine line between punishing and challenging and I feel Dark Souls walks that line. Troll the player to much and it can be aggravating. I do like some of your ideas, though. The mimic bonfire would be a real great gotcha, in my opinion.

They wanted new ways for a game to troll the player. There never was the requirement that it would make sense. But if you want to continue the self inflicted cruelty, take the souls from all saved games.

that's the cruelest motherfuckin shit i've ever seen.

put it in the game.

I don't know, you guys are acting like Dark Souls is tough but fair. If that's true, why do you have to fight against the jump mechanics? That's not the players fault if they're trying to leap from ledge to ledge and end up rolling. That's a shitty design decision and not fair. I've played some of the game myself and that jump mechanic is a joke. After watching Rorie try to jump that ledge in the last stream he did really got me to rethink the tough but fair thing. It's one thing not having air control after you jump. That's fine because it mimics real life and you just need to aim your jumps better. But having a hard time just to get the character to jump instead of roll is not right.

I hope they fix that in the second one.

You actually don't really jump in the game. There are literally only a couple of spots where you need to jump and all of those spots are very tricky jumps. None are required to beat the game. The jump that Rorie was trying to make is tricky, but I make it now without even thinking. It's just an issue of getting used to the controls.

If you have issues with the jumping mechanic then you'll have a lot of problems with the Parry and Riposte mechanic that literally only lasts a few frames (depending on what you're using to parry). You add on to that the fact that most weapons and enemies have a different Parry window and you're in for a world of hurt. Mastering the invincibility roll has even fewer frames and is almost required for PVP and dodging Wrath of the Gods. None of that is required to beat the game.