All posts by DracoHandsome

PC player here. First character is nearly entirely melee with some basic Pyromancy support. I've just cleared all four Old Ones, and so far Dark Souls II has been incredibly easy compared to the original, other than my initial struggling with mapping the keyboard and bypassing the mouse click lag. And of course now and again I stumble and fall off a cliff or something but that happens in every 3D game I try to play with a keyboard so. The only bosses that give me much trouble are the ones that are optional (makes sense, right?) The Pursuer in Smelter Demon's arena can't be reached with phantoms summoned, and the Belfry Gargoyles are difficult because I have the splendid choice of fighting them without a phantom (offline) or getting to them with two other players trying to kill me (online). And also because I only get one phantom and there are up to five of them at a time depending how bad I'm doing. But other than those optional areas, this game is no sweat. I should probably play a class I have less experience with and see how it goes. 
Here's a list of what I suspect to be causing Dark Souls II to be so damn easy: - 90% of the locations in this game take place in broad daylight with clear vision for miles. If there's a place that isn't lit so well, you can whip out your torch, which provides far more light than the Skull Lantern or Sunlight Maggot ever did at the meager cost of making you roll instead of block (which you should generally always do anyway.) Gutter, Shmutter. - Bonfires are far more frequent than in the original. - Lifestones are as common as rocks. I picked up so many in the first couple areas that I thought they had replaced the Estus Flask. They're slow to heal, yes, but you get so many you can pop one in between enemy groups and it's like they never attacked you. - A great deal of enemies, ESPECIALLY bosses, are extremely slow and telegraph their attacks too much. They are also too similar to Dark Souls 1 enemies and bosses, so we veterans have absolutely no trouble adapting to them. Even with the nerfed rolling and the lag it's easy to avoid Old Iron King's or The Rotten's big dumb moron swings. - Modifying weapons only costs 2,000 souls and one special rock. You continue to upgrade it with the incredibly common regular Titanite and can switch it at any time, as long as you have the needed rock. - Dyna & Tillo can trade you an infinite number of upgrade items (right up to Titanite Slabs) just by spamming the Small White Sign Soapstone, so with a little luck you can get your favorite weapon to +10 with your desired element less than 5 minutes after picking it up. Doing this took FOREVER in Dark Souls 1. - You can repair everything that breaks, such as the Don't Lose Your Crap Rings. I would love that change, except that these repairs are really really cheap. The cost should be some ten times as much as they are now (e.g. from 6,000 to 60,000 for the Ring of Soul Protection.) - If your equipment doesn't break, it repairs fully if you sit at a bonfire - for no cost. The original had you spending little bits of souls here and there, thus slowing down your grinding and encouraging more cautious use of your special weapons. - Enemies stop spawning when killed enough times (seems to be pseudo-random from 10~20.) Not only does this make most areas really easy once you die enough times, but it doubles as a frustration if you're trying to get certain items or if you're buttering up the Rat King in the otherwise-quite-well-defended Doors of Pharros. - Invasions from other players seem to be incredibly rare for reasons I don't understand. 
In particular, the Executioner Chariot is a HUGE disappointment. He looked quite awesome in the trailer. I was hoping he would have a longer level and would effectively be chasing / harassing you through it constantly with a direct confrontation at the level's conclusion (see Pikmin 2's Waterwraith.) Instead I got a dumb merry-go-round and ducked around corners until I could get the stupid horse to break its face on the gate. Then I ran around it in circles beating it with a stick. The only time I died was because the first time I entered the fog gate I turned right, where there is no floor. The chatroom told me that Black Gulch was going to be Hell and that I was going to be there for a while. I was done with it no more than 30 minutes later, and it would have been 10~20 but I put a summon sign down first so I could trial the (super easy) boss risk-free. I love most of the changes made to the system, and especially the enhanced user interface, but it's FAR too bright for Dark Souls, and is definitely way way way easier.