This is why DkS2 is such a mess

Dark souls 2 is a great game but it is kind of pile of randomly assorted locals, characters and bosses. Here's the director explaining how that happened: http://tmblr.co/Z0o7ao1fP2qwh

Due to a number of factors we were actually forced to re-think the entire game midway into development. We really had to go back to the drawing board and think once more about what a Dark Souls game should be. [...]

We had to decide what to do with the designs and maps that had been created up to that point. Ideally we’d start again from scratch but of course we were under time constraints so instead we had to figure out how to repurpose the designs in our newly reimagined game. This meant everything from deciding new roles for characters to finding ways to slot locations into the world map.

might 'incoherent' be better than 'such a mess' in the title?

I like to think of the DS2 world more like a dream, or an alternate dimension, than an actual physical world like Lordran. I didn't have near as many hangups as the majority when it came to 2. It's interesting to hear how that happened I guess, but I tend to get whatever I want from games, instead of relying on the developer's intentions. I loved my time with it and I'm going to buy the re-release.

Very interesting interview, but I don't think we can point to any particular incoherent/messy bit as evidence of that rethinking. The one example the developers give---the original intention for Lucatiel to have a sidekick, who was repurposed as the Bell Keeper covenant dude---didn't result in anything that seems incoherent to me. The things that do seem incoherent in the final game---such as taking the elevator up from Earthen Peak to Iron Keep---could have been like that from the beginning for all we know. Given that he is "confident that none of this will be felt by the players", I wonder whether he's actually talking about any of the things that seem incoherent in the final product.

I always liked thinking about it as different moments in time throughout the land's history/timeline, like this world that had become so shattered that linear time no longer existed, just linked moments. I would imagine that I was crossing some threshold into a different time, and it never felt jarring or messy, at least to me. I felt it made sense too with how the weather/time of day was always frozen in different areas. I never really got into the lore so that probably makes no sense, but it was a really enjoyable way of looking at it.

As someone who has finished only Dark Souls II, that elevator is the only part that jumps out at me as being "a mess". Pretty much everything else about the game's design, mechanics, and levels made pretty good sense to me, although I'll admit that its world isn't anywhere near as well designed as the interconnected world of Dark Souls.

I love that game.

@pyrodactyl: Well, if nothing else, this bodes well for Bloodborne despite naysayers of that game. Y'know unless they rethink their whole development plan starting right now.

By the way, I fucking love Dark Souls 2, but this is really interesting and also disappointing.

I don't know if I would call Dark Souls 2 a mess, more like really jumpy. Also some credit should go to some of the bad translations in game. Unlike the first one a lot of writing that's cryptic wasn't meant to be or just flat out has wrong information. You can easily find more info by searching for it.

Ugh I like dark souls 2 but wish it felt more like the first!

Dark Souls 2 was an great game, it wasn't as good as Dark Souls 1 but I do not agree whatsoever that it was "...such a mess".

I really liked Dark Souls 2. Yeah, it's not quite the original, but it was still my GotY for 2014. I had so much damn fun playing that game. The only real complaints are the story and the level design not meshing as well as the first... oh, and not being able to stop your soul level from advancing until very recently, but I'll be damned if it didn't make a few improvements and was a blast.

I'm probably overreacting to the '...such a mess' comment, so I'll just say thanks for the link to the interview.

You're not thinking broadly enough. ''the original intention for Lucatiel to have a sidekick, who was repurposed as the Bell Keeper covenant dude'' meant those 2 characters were barely characters in the final game. Those mid development changes made sure almost all characters in DkS2 are shallow and aimless compared to the dynamic and driven characters of DkS. Same goes for the stitched together locals everywhere in that game.

@believer258: the pirate cove of no man's warf is under sea level, the progression from the town to the spider boss makes no sense at all, almost all characters in the game are boring shop keepers that don't have any goal or drive of their own, etc etc etc...

That's interesting but I still think Dark Souls 2 is the better Souls game. It's a series that I value above all how well it plays and it's way ahead of the others in that respect.

I agree that the level transitions sometimes didn't make sense. But I only see this error in retrospect, it isn't really that noticeable during the game.

when it comes to characters; well, I never really saw them as vital or even important. Like the rest of the game, the characters are only defined by the lore created for them. There is no actual character development or progression. So I don't really care if there wasn't a small dude next to Lucatiel the 4 times you encounter her in the game.

Because I read this, I went back and finished it again since I was almost done on the PC version. And in my opinion, the only thing I like better about the first Dark Souls was the boss encounters. However, everything else and Dark Souls 2 I enjoy more.

Doesn't seem like the interview explained the weird hitboxes or the enemy's ability to do a 360 spin in order to hit you, making it needlessly difficult to dodge/block them?

I beg to differ ... DKS2 is A OK and nothing wrong with it ... I thinks the "fans " are in the wrong m but you know opinions...asses every one has etc.

All these people not realizing that the elevator between Earthen Peak and Iron Keep was moving sideways, not up and down. Trip on that for a second.

I think people just had ridiculously high expectations after the first one... people expected an even greater successor to an already fantastic game, so by having a game that just fell a little bit short they felt let down.

In my own personal opinion, Dark Souls II is a great game, doesn't quite hit the highs of Dark Souls but still mixes up the gameplay to still be fun and some of the areas in the game do look fucking incredible.